Let me guess you play Guile? Sounds like your saying rushdown characters or offensive characters should have less options. Its a decent mix of good zoners and rushdown types in 4 now so, maybe you don’t like the fact that the game rewards you less for your defense (though the advantage is still given to the defender unless its viper or seth) I LOVE the fact that the game rewards offensive actions more. Cause face it some characters don’t have a choice but to go in. Super sounds like your game where it was super defensive and you could win by just hanging back and throwing projectiles. And I mean by default aren’t zoners SUPPOSED to suck or at least not be as strong at point blank range? thats why you stay away and poke and throw projectiles son cause its advantageous for your character to do so. Plus focusing against guile isn’t even a good idea unless its to build a little ultra meter from fullscreen. This is sf4 bro. Its dumbed down in general from st and 3s. I hate ultra combos. I hate having to constantlly bait dps or reversals, but its part of the game.
So, the threat of a reversal makes you afraid to attack… and this is, somehow, exclusive to SF4?
Reversals in every game serve as a threat. That’s what they do. Every game has reversals that can potentially turn the tide.
Hell, SF4 has more anti-reversal technology than any other game I can think of. If you’re scared of reversals it’s because you don’t know how to attack in SF4. That’s all there is to this.
EDIT- [media=youtube]J1Tbmi5mluU[/media]
Just some shit I had come up with some months back. Completely safe pressure, into a cross-up/unblockable situation, wherein I can be hit by zero reversals, unless Fei has U2. Some characters cannot do anything at all about it.
Since I had taken the time to develop some tech, I have zero fear of attacking in that situation. Again, Knowledge solves so many of the issues in SF4.
however, this is the only game where they can take the majority of your health in one hit.
to answer the OP, it’s not so much that sf4 is a bad game competetively (it’s average), but it’s a bad game in general. The music and menus are bad, they passed up a great chance to get the modes and menus out of the 90’s. (hey lets have arcade mode in a game that 3% of people play in the arcade) the character art and models are just ugly as balls. It’s boring to play and watch.
I’d much rather have a fun/broken game than a jabfest.
Whats wrong with Street Fighter 4? The fact that it gets patched every single time a few people cry about someone being too “good”. Back in the old days, we didn’t run into this issue. You played the game, and you enjoyed it. Pretty hard to master a game, when its constantly changed due to mass amounts of tears.
All the things you say were ALREADY addressed in previous comments in this very thread. Do you need me to quote the exact responses for you?
SF4 is the only game where a reversal can take most of your life? That must be a joke.
In SF4, off of a reversal, most characters damage potential tops out at around 45%. In the most likely scenarios, the damage potential is even lower. Uppercut, FADC -> Ultra ranges from around 35-40% for the most part. It’s a decent chunk of health, but wholly avoidable, and easy to bait.
In plenty of other games, damage potential off of a reversal is comparable, or much larger, with various levels of risk.
Example I play CvS2. Let’s say I’m fighting against Bison. If he has bar, which he usually will, every time I attempt to attack him, every time I attempt to anti-air him, every time I attempt to tech a throw, he has the option of pressing 2 buttons, and erasing 60-80% of my health. Not JUST in reversal situations.
SF4 is completely tame, compared to that. It has relatively few, completely controlled scenarios, that do significantly less damage than in other games.
Not saying that makes it good or bad… just you guys are crying about the Boogie Man on this point.
Don’t listen to Tataki, he wants every game to be an anime fighter.
Um… sorry for not reading every post in this silly thread?
Save yourself the trouble of digging up responses. I know when I’m just right, and this is one of those times. The notion that you cannot attack safely in SF4 is a notion born of ignorance. If you know your options, and know the game system, you know you can attack SUPER safely, in almost every situation.
As somebody that has PERSONALLY developed loads of technology specifically to deal with idiots who reversal or back dash, instead of blocking, I know I’m right, and I’m not terribly interested in the opinions of some players with dubious credentials, spewing off nonsense like it’s fact.
Thanks though.
SF4 wouldn’t be bad if it focused more on actual SF characters. i loved watching daigo vs. valle & choi pre-AE!
it’s just that dumb mixup characters that don’t fit into SF end up being some of the most successful, and SF4 does not do mixup well. tl;dr - offense based on constant pressure is the most interesting because it gives you the most useful options, and okizeme is boring unless it’s a game like guilty gear that offers lots of options for dealing with it (which SF4 really doesn’t)
…SF4 Akuma would be a non-competitive character if it was not possible to do this.
Good for you!
Stay ignorant, as you have already proven in other posts.
I like whatever that is done well, regardless of style.
GG MB AH etc. are anime FGs done well.
ST is an example of a SF done well, despite having its known share of problems. HF is probably at the same situation.
I doubt this is true. You’re just biased, but instead of just coming out and saying you’re biased, you’re acting like there is some huge intellectual or logical reason you dislike SFIV. I mean does anyone really stop playing a game based on a logical choice, or just the fact they don’t have fun with it and it doesn’t fit their preference for whatever reason. I personally hate MK9, I don’t like it. I couldn’t begin to debate real hardcore MK players as to why I hate it. I just don’t like it. I don’t have fun with it. I can accept that from my end. However on these forums, it’s annoying that people like you can’t seem to come to terms with your bias. HAV made brilliant points, he totally debunked anything you said.
You want to know when you try to intellectualize a biased preferences? you start to nitpick, poke holes, and generally try to find something wrong with it. I mean people who like SFIV like it, people who hate it, hate it. We don’t have to be developers to figure this out, we just need to be human. I hate Melty Blood, you could sit me down and show me how to play it, and honestly I probably still wouldn’t like it. I don’t find the game fun, but this doesn’t mean that I should go on Melty Blood forums trying to convince people it’s a bad game. Good and bad games are subjective. It seems like you want SFIV to be something it’s not, which is just unfair to the game.
HAV I don’t see your points. People say that it’s hard to maintain pressure in SF4 and you show a video where you can do safe pressure off of one setup (jabs to sweep) using **one character **(in an outdated version of the game)? Pretty strict requirements, wouldn’t you say? What happens when they block your jabs? Compare that to CvS2, where a lot of characters can apply sustained pressure in a number of ways when they are close to their opponent, and you’ll agree that it’s a lot harder to apply and maintain pressure in SF4. I’m not seeing “If you know your options, and know the game system, you know you can attack SUPER safely, in almost every situation.” at all.
I’m not saying I buy the reversal argument. But the crummy reach and hit properties in normals, plus the slow-ass walk speeds and limited dash properties make it a lot harder to play offense in this game than in more fun games.
@Branh I wouldn’t be so quick to assume bad faith. Things are fun and not fun to people for reasons that can, believe it or not, be logical.
Sure, maybe if were talking hypotheticals. But I find it hard to believe that people are playing and enjoying games just because it's the most well designed game in existence. People are just going to like what they like. You can try to poke holes in a game, but people generally like what they like. I know a load of people who absolutely love SVC Chaos, I personally think the game is garbage. Yes, I can probably find a logical reason not to play it, and I know tons that is wrong with the game. The reason I don't play SVC Chaos is because I simply don't enjoy it. The only way you're going to logically cut down a game is if the game has several bad design choices.
Does SSFIV have a lot of bad design choices? Yes. But I don’t think there are nearly enough to deem the game horrible or unplayable. As a matter of fact it has very few bad design choices. I mean to take a position of intellectualism when dicussing games really means you only play games that don’t suffer from bad design choices. Blaze Blu has tons of design choice. As did Alpha 2, as did Guilty Gear (the entire series), and did CVS2, Alpha 3, and most certainly ST had a lot of bad design choices.
All in all, what is going to keep you playing a game is if the game fits your preferences. If you want to rushdown like a mad man, only learn offense and pressure, then SFIV probably isn’t going to be your cut of tea. Though I argue that SFIV does greatly benefit rushdown seeing as guys like Seth, C.Viper, Rufus, and Abel are consistently placing high in tournaments. Defensive characters like Guile, Ryu, Sagat, Chun-Li, Balrog, and E. Honda only have a handful of practitioners. You’re more likely to see a breakout unknown Viper or Abel player get top 8 at Evo before you see a new and unknown Chun-Li or E.Honda player do the same.
Basically complaints about not being able to mount offense in SFIV come from complaints from people who want to rushdown with no respect. There are enough games that reward mindless rushdown, MVC3 being the latest. Rushdown in SSFIV is methodical, and yeah you do need to read up and study things. Again, if you want to be in someone’s face pressuring with no punishment or retaliation, SFIV isn’t that type of game. But it has never claimed to be that type of game. It never tried to be a MB or Guilty Gear replacement, so to judge it on those basis is pretty damn retarded.
BTW, CVS2 is about as turtly as they come. This was a common criticism of the game. I personally loved it, but rushdown is just as risky in that game (probably even more so) as it is in SFIV
I showed one set-up in one situation, because I didn’t want to bog the thread down with technical stuff. I have plenty more.
I showed AE Yang, because I took the video from my YouTube, and I played Yang in AE. I have similar stuff with Abel from Super, since that’s who I played. I don’t play 2012, so I don’t have up-to-date stuff, though the particular set-up I showed more than likely still works just fine in 2012.
About “what happens if they block my jabs”, well that set-up, if done properly, is an unblockable, but if I fuck up, and they block it, I get Low Jab-> Stand Jab, which leaves me at like +4 on block, at point blank. I can tick into EX Command Grab, or do a Cl. Strong as an attempt to land a Counter Hit, or catch them in pre-jump. It’s actually a REALLY strong up-close mix-up, that is heavily in my favor. That particular set-up, works off of the combo into sweep, but also off of a normal throw. So if I land a normal throw, I can go into an unblockable set-up, that leads back into itself, leaves me at zero risk to be hit, and punishes every possible attempt at escape. If that’s not “safe” offense, I don’t know what is.
I have PLENTY of those set-ups, such as:
[media=youtube]4LhoS9w8zeY[/media]
Super safe pressure. I don’t get much if they just block, but it still leaves me in great position to continue offense. Covers every single option of my opponent, without putting myself at any risk whatsoever.
[media=youtube]qtzO6XDC-x4[/media]
Safe pressure, leading, in very worst case, into me being point blank, at +4 which is way in my favor. Best case, I get free raw Ultra, all off of a VERY common set-up. The actual OS, can be used against other characters without even needing the FADC set-up (it’s necessary against Rog, to take away his back charge). So off of any hard knockdown, I can use this on Sakura, Makoto (though I will lose to EX Grab here), Cody (loses to EX Upper, beats everything else clean), and I think somebody I’m forgetting.
[media=youtube]V9C-loakSmU[/media]
Super safe pressure. Mind you, Close Strong, links into Low Forward for big combos. Nothing Rose can do here, but block.
[media=youtube]tEcqGr2hVvs[/media]
One little choreographed display of very common set-ups. Basically shows how to attack Viper as Yang , without much risk. This is all very safe offense. Viper has the option of doing EX Seismo Feint for one bar. So she CAN get out, but it’s offense that sets up an option tree where I win something like 6/7 options.
This is all stuff I personally came up, over the course of the 6 months that AE was out on console. This is just my personal work, with one character. And this is only a small fraction. I could go on, and on, and on. Safe offense is in the game, if you decide to actually learn how the game works.
Honestly, I feel like SF4 has more safe offensive pressure than CvS2 does. Obviously, I feel like CvS2 is still a much better game, but there are tons and tons of safe offensive set-ups in SF4. This notion that you’re just gonna get reversaled out of everything is only true if you haven’t decided to learn how to attack in SF4. You want to talk about painful reversals, what about K-Groove reversal supers? HUGE damage, often safe, and only uses the very bar that’s gonna run out anyway, so it’s basically free. THAT shit was stupid… but we dealt with it. Random reversal K-Groove super, to me, happened just as much, if not more than DP-> FADC -> Ultra, and DEFINITELY more than just reversal Ultra.
I mean… come on guys.
I don’t disagree with what you said HAV, but it is tangential to the discussion. Here’s the post I think tataki was talking about
I was talking about going on the offensive from the neutral game, where the situation you’re talking about revolves around the bottleneck of getting that hard knockdown. Sure, you can have safe offense in sf4 if you get that hard knockdown, no arguments there. You didn’t have to get a hard knockdown in cvs to apply pressure, stemming largely from the faster walk speeds, greater mobility options, larger blockstun and of course, the guard bar.
And here I thought I shut down this silly thread with one post.
OK, so the problem with the post that you quoted is that it completely glosses over the mid range game, and simply states that you “wait for a knockdown so you can run absurdly overpowered set plays”. There is a rewarding footsie-based game that just got completely marginalized and ignored with half a sentence worth of commentary.
Yeah, the slower walk speed makes it so that the footsie game at mid-range is more deliberate, but it’s definitely still there. I agree, the game could definitely stand to be a little faster, but to suggest that because it isn’t, mid-range footsies almost don’t exist, is definitely a stretch.
Now, as for the contention that you cannot apply safe pressure until you get a knockdown… that is true in every game. I can’t think of too many situations in any game, in which you can apply pressure to your opponent, without fear of retribution, if they are in a standing neutral position. Sure, some games lay on the offensive options to the point that defense stands little chance (ie. MvC3). Personally, I think those games suck. I think there needs to be a balance. I think SF4 has that balance. Yeah, your offense has to be a little smarter than the defense, but because defense in SF4 is so basic, it’s almost universal… it’s easier to develop your offense to account for it. I don’t think you can say offense needing to be smarter than defense is a knock to the game’s design.
You bring up CvS2 as this game that allows for safe pressure without needing a knockdown. I don’t remember that shit. I remember CvS2 being the game with the BEST mid-range normals ever. It was extremely hard to apply any real pressure, without running into some great poke. The game was played almost entirely at mid range. Yeah, running and RC added satisfying elements to the mid-range footsie game that made it more interesting than average SF footsies, but at the end of the day, the GREAT buttons most characters had still killed outright pressure more often than not.
[media=youtube]eMgG9lCMnBk[/media]
Obviously, that match represents an extreme case (and I was standing right there, for that match, and it’s still one of my favorite CvS2 matches ever), but it’s an extreme case that can only exist because of the strength of defense in CvS2. Let’s not pretend that CvS2 was this utopia for sheer aggression. Throughout it’s tournament life, it was considered THE defensive game. It definitely allowed for offense, and some of the best players were players that had the most intelligent offenses (Buktooth, Combofiend, BAS), but a lot of the best players were lame as fuck (Justin, Steve H, HaK, Ricky, etc.). I was a particularly offensive player in CvS2 (though a lot of people wouldn’t even agree with that, since my Hibiki was SUPER lame a lot of the time), and even I know the game wasn’t really built around promoting offense.
As for the point about SF4 stifling creativity in offense… I agree with that also, to a certain extent. On one level, once you learn how everything operates, it opens up a huge realm of opportunity in your offense. Using your knowledge to come up with some dirty set-up is really fulfilling in SF4, at least for me. There’s a load of room for creativity. Once you’ve come up with shit that is good enough, though, there is very little reason to ever deviate from it. So on one hand, it opens up loads of room for creativity, and on the other hand, it closes it back down. Still, even once you’ve come up with great shit, if you’re playing against a smart player that understands the nature of what makes your set-up so good, they’ll come up with the answer for the set-up, which will force you to be more creative. I think, once again, what the real issue is here is that once you come up with a great set-up, it takes a knowledgeable, patient player to crack the set-up, which forces your own evolution and creativity… and those players good enough to force the creativity to rise are few and far between. There are some set-ups I have, that I was able to run against 95% of my opponents for months… years… without them ever wising up. Conversely, I was able to beat loads of other players, that probably XCOPY’d their set-ups from one of the more creative players, by just blocking their set-ups, or otherwise foiling their plans, and that’s all it took, because they lacked the real understanding of the nature of their tactics to begin with. THAT is frustrating… but that’s not the game itself; that’s the player base.
The footsie-based mid-range game in SF4 is glossed over because it is present in every other street fighter game ever, for the most part. What does SF4 do better in the mid-range game than any other SF game?
I don’t know why, but you’re getting hung up on the notion of absolute “safe pressure.” You may be right on the narrow point of SF4 having more absolute “safe pressure” than other games, but I wasn’t making that point. I was just saying that maintaining offensive pressure and momentum is harder in SF4 than cvs2, everything else is putting words in my mouth. Are you really arguing that SF4 is a more offensive game that CvS2? I know you know your shit, but I absolutely disagree with that statement. CvS2 has a great balance of offense and defense, and was never as turtley as its detractors would have you believe. I believe that CvS2 is as close to a 50-50 balance between offense and defense as we’ve ever seen in a fighting game.
I actually never weighed in on the topic of this thread, and only wanted to see a good discussion of the merits. For my 2 cents, I think SF4 is a bad series, mainly because it has no merits to distinguish itself from what has come before. It was the first capcom-made game with modern graphics, online play, and a decent marketing push since SF2 probably. From a gameplay standpoint, did it advance the genre in any meaningful way?
People are still complaining about reversals being too good? What? I can maybe, maybe see that side of the argument with Seth or anyone with a 2 frame grab. But with Seth it’s more an issue with him being a little too good of a character and the grapplers aren’t supposed to be rushed down and pressured a bunch anyways. If you’re still complaining about uppercuts, then your a joke, give up playing this game please. (Counter ultra’s are legit really stupid though, but I’ll get to that in a second.)
If you want to complain about uppercuts go play super turbo where double lp derppercuts are a completely legit tactic (not hating I love that game and run that shit all day with Ryu). Also, you can piano your reversals in that game, so the window to reversal was essentially 3 baring human error. 5 frame window IS too much I agree, but honestly it’s hardly something to complain about considering good players would probably be hitting reversals almost as much if the reversal window was 1 or 2 frames.
SF4 has had an incredible run and definitely is a really good fighting game. I think especially in it’s earliest years fundamentals really dominated, it was a very good game. Reversals where a problem for a very short time and then non-idiots figured out set ups and pressure strings which countered them. Now, the game has devolved some starting with Akuma’s vortex and ending with Viper’s and Seth’s. Honestly, I think SF4 is in it’s lowest form in 2012. If anything reversals are too weak and oki is far too strong. But problems like this have existed in even the supposedly great fighting games. Think Balrog or Vega in super turbo, which those two have some of the most braindead throw mix ups in FG history. Or Urien underpblockables set ups, and makoto’s death in two coin flips. Stupid shit exists in FG’s, don’t like it? Don’t play.
Personally I love the game but there are a few things that really annoy me…
The game seems to favour the defender massively, what should be an advantagous position instead
often turns into a massive risk i.e opponent mashing D.P when you’re trying to apply pressure or in
the middle of a link hoping you drop it. And of course the best way to counter this is to block, which
just leads the game into a greater defensive focus.
I’m not saying I prefer games to be really offensive like Marvel, I just like some kind of balance.