Doesn’t matter how great an unplayable game is, it’s still unplayable.
What I think Vega players need to realize is that it isn’t OBVIOUS when you reach a desync all the time. You may not actually even be aware that it happened. What happens is what you see on your screen isn’t what they see on their screen. Has your opponent ever looked like they suddenly started playing stupid? Or like they just gave up and just start sitting there and letting you kill them or anything like that? The game doesn’t necessarily disconnect and sometimes the only way you can tell anything happened is by really noticing that your opponent is starting to play differently and, most likely, not as intelligently as they previously were.
Of course, if you have the headset on, you can always talk to your opponent to make sure things are matching. These days, whenever I play Vega, I can almost ALWAYS confirm with my opponent that we are seeing something different. It’s quite annoying.
- James
Yeah I notice a lot of desynch when I’m up against Vegas users. It’s so difficult to try and get competitive when you can’t even play a decent match! Freakin disconnects! ARGH!
Understood.
(I am not sure if you agree with this but this is the POV I am coming from.)
*** I am glad the game came out in the sense that it simulated excitement within the SF again about the CPS2 genre type SF game.**
However, I am not sure if it was worth it. It has subtly split a small but solid community in two to groups. Those who will continue to play it and those who will not. I think everybody sees the potential the game has. However, many feel it is incomplete, unpolished, and in need of a “patch.” However, I am not counting on a patch, until there is a actually patch released.
Many player I speak with or have on my MSN, play it a bit right now b/c it is going to be an EVO game. However, other than that, they are over it.
Please don’t think I am attacking Sirlin (He did a gret job considering he we Dependant on so many OTHER ppl) … If we could have cloned Sirlin 
so we had two people with his overall enthusiasm working on the game. I think we would have had a very clean product that could be the new standard.
Unfortunately, I get the feeling he was spread to thin and Back Bone did not give HDR the resources it needed to be a clean fully functional game. And therefor should not have been released. *Yet I am glad it simulated excitement within the SF again about the CPS2 genre type SF game… (See Above). 
… LOL
^^ I agree with that opinion. Remix has split the community into 2 groups. But honestly, even without the buggy online play, some ST fans would still dislike the game cuz of the rebalanced changes. It’s not the art, or the music, but the gameplay changes that have caused this split. This was inevitable, cuz not everybody would agree with every, single rebalanced change.
Personally I love Remix, with or without a patch. Anything that brings interest and resources back to the SF2 games (not SF4), is worth it in my book. I still love classic ST, but Remix is the new ST for me. I don’t see any problems with EVO and other tourneys adopting it as the new standard.
I have a very love/hate relationship with HDR. Much as I usually enjoy it, I frequently find myself aching to hop onto GGPO instead. I lose more on GGPO (much, much more), but I definitely feel like it’s running more solidly.
I guarantee there will be a patch at some point. Hell, Fatal Fury Special on XBLA got a patch.
I think the important questions are how soon the patch will come, and whether they will do anything to Akuma or just fix bugs.
Hey the gameplay is awesome, don’t get me wrong. I think some of the changes are wonky and I think some go too far and others don’t go far enough, but I’m sure nobody would agree 100% with anyone else’s balancing effort, and for the most part I think it’s quite well done. The problem is that too many things in the game surrounding the gameplay are retarded. The online play is especially stupid; people disconnect all the time in player match, ranked matches are either good players with bad connections or bad players with good connections, some color choices are unusable, an entire character is basically unusable, and you often don’t even know how much health you have left. Offline play is better, but people have noticed problems like an occasional inability to rapid fire shorts and jabs, and in any case very few people play offline in the first place. Too many glitches + unenjoyable online experience + nobody available to play offline = I’m back to playing GGPO.
^^ Damn dude… I have wanted to + rep SO many of your posts lately. But I already rep’d when I could. I can’t do anymore. But I would again for this post. Its the thought that counts!
In terms of re-balance, I agree that not every body will agree 100%. So, in general ppl just need to deal with it. And to be honest, it just needs a bit of some fine tuning. Nothing REALLY breaks the game.
But it is the overall game play engine and net code that is needs the attention. If those issues were fixed, I think the games shelf life will be extended and many more players would find an affinity with the game.
Fatboy and I chatted about this a bit last night. Here’s my thoughts:
Like UltraDavid, my only big gripe with the game is the astounding number of bugs and problems surrounding the gameplay. The disconnects and power bar glitches are obviously the biggest problems. But all the other things like sounding dropping out, not being able to exit a room at any time, etc. are also annoying. It also really saddens me that the net-code isn’t as solid as GGPO, when there’s no good reason it couldn’t have been. And yeah, offline has bugs too. And I’m sure it’ll take a long time to figure out what those are since most people rarely play offline.
But as much as those things annoy me currently, I’m not too worried. I’m sure it’ll get patched. It’s too high profile and way to buggy to not get patched. My only concern is whether the patch will really fix all the major problems well. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
As far as the gameplay goes, I think it’s 99% fine with the exception of Akuma. I don’t agree with all the changes. I would’ve removed honda’s stored Ochio and maybe left his stored super. I wouldn’t have nerfed sim’s super hitbox as much. I would’ve nerfed throw loops differently, etc. But all in all, I think Sirlin achieved precisely what he set out to do. Besides Akuma, the rest of the cast really does feel closely balanced to me. I think that’s a solid victory for him, despite any of our nit-picks.
The gameplay does have some glitches too: Boxer’s negative edge TAP problems, Guile’s super motion problems, various SPD motions not working unless you go to neutral, can’t cancel into Sim’s super, etc. And I agree with Fatboy on this. If they would’ve had more Sirlins on the project, these quirks probably could’ve been found and fixed. Still, I don’t think these weird properties break the game. All SF games have weird issues, and we’ve always dealt with them. Hell, ST itself has a bunch and remix actually fixed a couple of those. So, while it would be nice if remix had no weird gameplay properties, I don’t think it wrecks the game or anything.
So in summary, I think the gameplay is great but I loathe all the bugs surrounding it. If they can patch that stuff up, I think we’ll end up with a really solid game.
Back to the Vega bug…
I did some testing today.
Over a total of 40 games, only one set (of 10 games) was buggy and eventually disconnected.
There’s still more testing to do, but here are my early observations:
On a Good Connection
No fake or normal wall dives / no super used - no problems.
Some normal wall dives / no fake wall dives / no super used - no problems.
Some normal and fake wall dives / no super used - no problems.
All of the above / super used - no problems.
Conclusion: On a good connection, I could not get the session to disconnect, even after doing 16 consecutive fake wall dives (at my peril).
On a Decent or Slightly Lagging Connection
No fake or normal wall dives / no super used - no problems.
Some normal wall dives / no fake wall dives / no super used - no problems.
Some normal and fake wall dives / no super used - immediate problems. After just three fake wall dives, I noticed the game start to hiccup. Frame skipping was evident. After I defeated my opponent, the next round started and I proceeded to do fake wall dives. Soon, my opponent could be seen doing standing forward kicks, randomly. At times, it seemed like he was “hooked up” again, but it didn’t last long. After the buggy match, connection was lost. Sometimes, I would get the connection lost notification and be taken directly to the character select screen.
The super seems to cause no problems.
Conclusion: As the OP suspected, fake wall dives on even a slightly lagging connection *seem * to cause desynchronization.
These conclusions are in no way 100% validation of the hypothesis, but we can point to fake wall dives as one possible contributor to the problem.
I did not observe the effect of losing one’s claw during a match; however, on a good connection that didn’t seem to cause the problem.
LOL… Fair enough…
How LAGGY is slight laggy. Have any idea what ping range that represents?
To fatboy, UltraDavid, and SweetJohnnyV:
Sorry, I just need to get this off my chest. My feelings about the changes in the game are no secret, Sirlin already knows full well that I’m not pleased with most of the balance tweaks, so me complaining about this isn’t anything new to him.
While I absolutely agree 100% that no one could make changes that the public would be 100% happy with, my main beef was with the philosophy behind all of the changes for HD Remix. I just think Sirlin approached it from a very different way than I think it should have been. Some characters were tweaked from a SUPER microcosm-styled analysis, while other characters were tweaked from a super high-level macrocosm-style analysis. I think EVERYONE should have been adjusted at a microcosmic level, as opposed to implementing “major” changes like making Hawk’s Dive safe but not knock-down.
Those kind of tweaks are risky, and their effects aren’t well known enough, and their effects end up snowballing to a point where a character cannot be balanced with 15 years of knowledge anymore. I mean, I bring up Cammy all the time because I main her, so she’s the easiest example I can give. The Cannon Drill was made safer, but that ended up making her seem “Easy Mode” like Tokido said about the game. So that change resulted in a slightly nerfed Cannon Spike and a slightly nerfed Jump Strong and a slightly nerfed Short Cannon Drill priority. Rather than make it so that you have to nerf things about Cammy that ARE known, why not pull back the Drill’s change a bit so those nerfs need not be applied? And then try to improve her in other areas outside JUST the Cannon Drill. The Cannon Drill change just isn’t enough to make her competitive, especially when it results in the NEED to nerf the things that were good about her before.
This is just what happens when you make changes for characters you do not main, which is why I think Sirlin should have consulted others more on how to tweak very specific things. Look at Honda, who got tweaked hit boxes for Jumping Short to beat Sweeps, and Bison, who got Jabs to beat Honda Headbutts and Devil’s Reverses specifically to escape corner Fireball traps, and you can see the kind of different changes one can make when they KNOW the character well. Even the things designed to FIGHT them were specific. Give Dhalsim an up flame to prevent Vega from flying around. Make Zangief’s Low Fierce have a better hit box to fight Vega. These are characters Sirlin knows, so he can make changes like that.
So similar changes should have been made to characters like Cammy. Make her Low Forward have 2 or 3 frames better recovery so she can actually play a ground game more effectively. Improve the hitbox on the Standing Roundhouse a bit so it can actually be USED as a poke. Improve one of Zangief’s Jumping Attacks so that, for maybe only two or three frames total, it has the ability to beat Blanka’s Standing Strong and Dhalsim’s Standing Jabs and Ryu Standing Forwards when used as anti-airs against him, since he dies to those moves pathetically. Give Fei Long ONE move that actually can beat Dee Jay’s Low Forward. Very specific things like that.
If the game were made with very analytical and minor tweaks, addressing very specific things, and it still turned out flawed, I’d still be less frustrated with the changes. But when you change big things in ways that produce completely unknown results, it just becomes a crap shoot at that point.
Anyhow, sorry. Back to Vega…
Those are good findings, BeautifulViolence, but we really do need some numbers. What were you qualifying as good pings and what were you qualifying as bad pings? Even so, I think it’s pretty safe to assume that Fake Wall Dives are a large source of the problem, since as I said earlier, I see Desyncs almost EVERY time I play Vega, and I Fake Wall Dive all day long. I think around 50% of my moves ARE Fake Wall Dives when I use Vega. 
The weirdest thing about it, though, is that… I’m trying to figure out, from a programmer’s standpoint, what on earth would cause such a thing. I would blame the wall, but regular Wall Dives DO NOT cause Desync… only fakes. Otherwise I would ask people to test Chun Li and try to bounce off the wall all day. What is it about the fake, in particular, that causes desyncs?
But I’m DEATHLY curious now. I HAVE to go play the game sans fakes and see if it improves my desync problem. Since I desync almost 100% of the time with Vega, I think I’d actually be a good candidate for a test subject.
- James
Oh please don not get me wrong! I am not saying the game is better than ST. Its not (IMHO) , ST will always be the definitive SF game for me. I stated all along that I don’t agree with many of the game play changes. The list of bad changes I can name and their ripple effect is a mile long.
I think I have stated several times the game falls apart on high levels of game play. Many ppl felt {only} minor changes where needed. It didn’t need anything as drastic as what was done. ST needed maybe a 2-3% tweak.
But what is, is. The game is out. The changes have been made.
When I wrote “Ppl just need to deal with the changes” I was including myself. I HATE some of the changes. But they are there. I was speaking to several Pro’s and they said Sirlin did ask their opinion, but ultimately didn’t like what they had to say. There was a lot of input form the top players in the scene. But he did what he did, for his own reasons.
But if I had to pick and choose, I think the little glitches and oversites, from poor programing ruin the game more than the re-balance issues. The rebalance changes have happened, and if I want to play a game played by many ppl right now I have to accept them (doesn’t mean I like them). However, the issues of crashing, moves not working, and constant de-syncing should not even exist in a game the was primary created for an on-line audience.
That ruins it for me more than anything.
I know, it’s a very subjective measurement. Since I only played 1v1 matches, there’s no telling what the ping was. There’s no good way to measure this.
A “good” connection would be one where there is no slowdown at any point in the match and frames aren’t perceptibly dropped.
A “slightly lagging” connection would show a slowdown at the beginning of the match and frames dropped (resulting in minor rollback).
At the other end of the spectrum, a “bad connection” is one where there’s a perceptible pause at the beginning of the match, many frames are dropped, characters possibly “warping”, and multiple rollbacks.
jchensor: I, too, wonder what in the code would cause such a thing. I’m a business/systems analyst (or was, before I lost my job) and I often have to dig into actual code and figure out what’s going on. Of course, I don’t have access to the code, but I could speculate…
Logically, it would seem like a simple thing to implement: copy the code for the normal claw dive, but instead of claws coming out or being able to throw, when the user hits the kick button, they should just drop (nearly) straight down, at close to the normal rate of “gravity”. Perhaps the fact that they altered basic physical movement rules (how fast Vega comes down) is the issue. I read that Sirlin changed this several times. Maybe the movement (that is, the positioning variables) is too complicated for a bad connection to handle, thus causing the desync.
Just a bunch of uninformed guesses on my part! Anyway, I still love this game. Revolutionary for me.
Just a comment on the side-conversation…
As I said, I love the game because I have virtually nothing to compare it to, so I wouldn’t know if a hitbox was moved here or an invincibility frame was added there.
Here’s a question related to the changes: Now, two months after the game has been released, do you think a “balance patch” (not bug fix) would be appropriate?
First, we have vanilla, then we have super turbo, now we have HDR…do you think people have gotten used to the new “rebalanced” game? Is it too late to address things like Akuma’s so-called brokenness or Cammy’s ineffectiveness?
I’m curious as to what you veterans think.
i dont remember you explaining how it falls apart at high level play. any examples?
The game has its issues, but it’s great fun for those who have a more casual relationship with it.
I don’t think it pleases the hardcore community, although I wonder if any one thing can ever please a hardcore community. But I think it will expand the reach of street fighter and along with SF4, raise its profile. More players can only be a good thing for the future health of the franchise.
I know this post doesn’t mean much without proof, but I heard in the Capcom-Unity forums that it was noted that a patch IS being worked on. Sorry, I didn’t look into the exact thread, but I heard it was in the ‘Ask Capcom’ forum if anyone wants to investigate. Sorry, not me, not today - I just got an HDTV so I could care less for the next 24 hours!
This desync happen on PS3, 360, or both?