Was Guile always a "cheap" character to play with?

Classic Fighting Games Ultra Street Fighter IV
1

I’ve played Guile since SF2. Yeah, yeah, I know everyone says it. And obviously some people are lying who hopped on the Bandwagon, and it obviously shouldn’t matter.
But, I remember using him back in the day and everyone was either just on Ryu and Ken. Of course there were a lot of Balrogs and Sagats, but for the most part they were legit. I remember people usually giving it to you if you beat them with Guile, saying “Oh he’s hard to use, nice job” or whatever it was at the time.

I used him in Vanilla SF4, and no one used him at all, besides all the other die hard Guile fans, and you guys are awesome. But I remember him being horrible, and barely seeing a Guile online, or rarely at a tourney or if I ever played with friends or meeting new people.

Now in SSF4, all I see is people bitching about Ryu and Ken, but I see that another name is thrown into this heap of pee-pee riding, and his name is Guile.

Why is that? Yeah he is good. But is it just because people lose or have trouble or just hate playing that character over and over again? Online, of course there are Ryu and Ken, and I don’t complain. I think they are cool like everyone else. I never hate. But I honestly don’t run into Guile online that much. I probably fight maybe 10 a week? And I play probably around 8 hours a day. Let’s just say I barely ever see:
Dan, Makoto, Hakan, and T.Hawk.
Once in a blue moon I will see these characters, but not as much as Ryu and Ken, or as much as every body else.

I usually don’t give a shit. But I get messages that sometime make me wonder about humanity. I only turtle against Ryu, I usually can’t turtle against anyone else. SO that shouldn’t be it.

Anyway, so give me some opinions. Let’s be adults, and civil please.:karate:

2

People tend to want to blame anyone other than themselves for their loss. Guile is a frustrating character to fight if you don’t know how to deal with him, and he’s good in general in this game… So it just falls together.

3

You say “SF2” but fail to specify which version, which, combined with your insistence that you’re an “OG” player, leads me to believe that you’re lying.

Guile is irritating to lose to because he plays defensively. Losing because you made mistakes and had them punished, as opposed to losing to someone to keeps you locked down, is more frustrating for most people.

Punishing mistakes/playing defense = cheap.(and frustrating, because they really lost to their own mistakes.)

having a solid offense = not cheap.

in their minds at least.

4

Viscant made a post that touched on this (can’t remember the thread). Basically, if Guile is better than Ryu, the game tends to not be as fun because the G man is a pure defensive/turtle type with a swiss-army-knife move-set.

Guile’s character design is actually almost perfect, that’s why he’s not needed a new special and also the reason why capcom finds it difficult to balance him (his placement fluctuates massively between games i.e. WW he was top, but in vanilla 4 he sucked hard). When he gets a damage buff/nerf here or there it makes quite a big difference, which is what happened from vanilla to super. Granted, the rest of the cast got nerfed but Guile himself only got a few, not that noticable and minor buffs.

Anyways, point is his actual character design is not cheap. It’s just getting beat by a turtle is not fun.

5

Lan_Di is right, many people think playing an offensive game is “less cheap” than playing a defensive game, especially if they are the one generating the offence, and failing to beat the defensive player who used their approach against them creates frustration and anger.

Think of it as if it is a Mario platformer game, and you keep dying because you jumped at the wrong time. You get frustrated if you die over and over again, and fail to understand that the problem was you all along, thus you blame the world for being cheap.

6

It was hyperfighting. I didn’t think it would matter it was all the same era.
Well I don’t care anwyay.
But yes. I believe you have a point.

7

I rarely get any pms because of playing Guile.I do get very often hatemails because of playing Blanka though.
Ppl always like to complain what they can’t beat.

8

Blanka’s different though. I don’t think I’ve ever lost to a Blanka online and felt that I was outplayed. He either abused his throw game because of lag or I didn’t know the match-up at the time to punish his mindless balling. Guile isn’t really cheap because you have to play smart and punish your opponents for every attempt they make to get past your defense. To get past his defense requires ingenuity and a little luck that’s all.

9

Defensive turtling isn’t cheap, I do it with balrog to mix my game up. Does that make balrog any "cheap"er that guile?
Best offense is a good defense right?

When I play guile vs thawk I just block and flashkick the condor dive.
Is it cheap? Hell no, if they spam c.dives its fair game to turtle and punish.

10

Cheap only for people who don’t respect the zoning game. You’d think after getting Short FK’d like five times in a row they’d stop jumping…

11

Guile’s far from cheap. I don’t use him much anymore in Super, but I did for awhile and understood that he’s best played defensively. He also can be used well offensively. Anyway, last night I was losing a few matches to a good Guile player, and while I was irked at having to chase his ass and falling for the air throw, I had to remember that I played the same when I used him.

People bitch about anything; that’s how online gaming goes.

12

Yeah. I honestly see it as almost just a playstyle. Turtleling, that is. I mean I use it sparingly, like to switch it up every now and than like the Boxer player stated above.

13

80% of the time when I play and beat someone, they kick me from their lobby if I try to fight them again.

14

Post this thread in the guile forum and of course you’ll get support from your fellow guile mains, but I’d like to see what types of responses this same thread would illicit, were it to be posted in any of the other character specific forums.

As for my opinion, there’s no such thing as cheap. Guile operates with in the confines of the rules of the game. As someone stated earlier, people just need some justification for their loss. After all, everyone is a street fighter god, and you being guile, must have used cheap tactics to win. It couldn’t possibly be that you’ve outplayed them…

15

good point. good point indeed.

16

Everyone who says guile is cheap can go to hell, I’ve kicked ass with him online in vanilla and Ill keep kicking ass in super.

17

How can a character with only 2 specials, no solid way to deal with cross ups, no GTFO me move, no teleport, no easy combo-into-ultra move , don’t have a kara throw to abuse, walk up throws are not safe like many other characters online. How can he be cheap?? Guile is one of the few characters that relies heavily on his normals. If a person can’t deal with the onscreen boom then it’s really his own fault.

18

It’s not like Blanka’s throw is any better than anyone else’s throw… if you lose to Blanka’s throw, then you’d lose to anybody who has a throw. All the properties are the same.

Not to mention all of Blanka’s specials except electricity are unsafe and if you let Blanka get in on you to let him do electricity, then you’re probably playing the matchup wrong.

19

Yes, playing with Guile has always been considered cheap. Back in the eve of SF2WW, he was pretty much the only character people used seriously. When I first started playing WW back in 1991 or 1992, Guile was the most commonly picked character. He was the first character where people learned how to do his special moves.

Anyway, things have changed a lot since then, and Guile isn’t the unbreakable turtle machine he use to be. In many cases, people just hate turtle tactics. Even semi high level players complain about turtle strats. It’s pretty common for newer players to complain about them, since most newer players play for flash and never play to win.

20

The way i see it, we didnt design the character, we use his potential as much as we can. Its NOT beneficial to go on the overly offensive with Guile…AT ALL! Offensive Guiles are either having fun, playing Casually, or dont know how to Zone.

Any Serious Guile Player whos trying to win competitively , will only go offensive after he’s Zoned out his opponent and has him scared to Jump.

And this is when the cheap comments come in, when players feel that they cant do anything. Its not that hard to get in on a Guile thats only spamming booms and FK.