Let’s be clear: SF4 was already bad enough in this regard. The slow walkspeeds in that game are my #1 complaint with it. But in SFxT it got even worse by virtue of the introduction of a bunch of new characters who walk unbelievably slow. What are Capcom/Dimps thinking here? Look at footage of older games…
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You walk fucking fast. Combined with small stages and non-dogshit throws (SFxTs two other major problems, also problems with SF4 to a lesser degree) this served to make the footsie game fast-paced and exciting. You had to hit buttons because not doing so would leave you quickly walk-up-thrown and tossed into the corner. Your capacity to play footsies is also improved by walking faster; the ability to quickly move in and out of range of pokes rewards skill and requires players have extremely good spacing and reading abilities.
The counterargument that “well, some characters need to walk slower than others because they’re stronger when they get close” is a fair point, but I’d firstly argue that the discrepancy between the fastest and slowest walking characters is way too big, and more importantly, even if differences in walk speed are fine (and obviously they are), the walk speeds are across the board way, way too slow. You could increase everyone’s walk speed by 30% and retain character differences while vastly improving the game, and it’s worth noting that even the fastest walking characters would still only be approaching the crazy speeds of the fastest characters in the Alpha games.
Another argument is “well, we have all these extra movement options now so walking doesn’t need to be as good” which is a total nonsense argument. For one thing dashes in SFxT absolutely suck compared to dashes in other games, but more importantly walking fulfills a completely different purpose to other movement options.. The beauty of walking is that it’s so analogue; you can walk a step, two step, three steps and then do whatever you want. This cannot be replicated by other movement options. When you dash, you always dash the same distance. It’s the ability to make very fine, precise movements that makes walking such a complex and powerful tool.
To anyone who immediately thinks something like “you want to make walk jabs even better?”: Please don’t make the mistake of thinking about how these changes would affect the game in a vacuum. Obviously other changes would be required to account for how faster walking would change the game.
I think this change, combined with better throws and smaller stages, could actually go a long way to fixing what people see as the biggest problem with SFxT right now: the timer. As UltraDavid has observed, the timer itself isn’t the problem, it’s a bunch of other gameplay factors that are causing it to be a problem. When you can’t force the opponent to hit buttons becase you walk so slow it takes forever to make your way into a range where your mixups are actually threatening, when you can’t threaten walking back to make a poke whiff because you walk back so slow that nobody will ever be fooled by that, when your throws are so shitty that walkup throw is essentially a non-factor…blocking is going to be really, really good. And blocking a lot means time outs. I’m sure older players know how badly sitting there and blocking for 30 seconds would get you blown up in older games…in SFxT it’s a viable strategy. That shows a problem with the game, not the timer.
So the takeaway from this is please harass Capcom about this issue since I really believe it’s the #1 problem holding this game back.