Why not make Super the tournament Standard?

[Infil]

I both agree and disagree with some of the stuff you say, Azrael.

When you saw one player rushdown/dominate the other, it was because he really got inside the other guy’s head.

This is mostly a matchup-specific thing… the same matchups where this was true in SF4, it’s true in Super and again true in AE. Conversely, there are matchups where this is not true in Vanilla (Rufus vs Vega, eg) and the trend has continued in subsequent games.

Starting with the damage adjustments made in Super and then continuing on with the AE adjustments, the game has made a shift from calculated offense to a more free offense. Attacks have become safer…

The only real “safe” characters new to AE or Super are, IMO, Yun, Yang, and Fei, and maaaaybe Ibuki (EDIT - also Adon I suppose). Pretty much all of the other characters that were added must take huge risks to get in on virtually safe defensive options, and their specials are unsafe on block or their jumps are floaty and easy to see (Guy, Dudley, Cody Hakan, etc fit this mold in some way). They must run their offense in smart ways… both in Super and in AE.

I think the main reason people can “just do it” in AE is because Yun, Yang, and Fei are hard to option-select against. Ryu was hard to option-select against, and in many matches in SF4 vanilla, “just do it” was viable for him too! You knew that your character would trade DP and get ultra a lot of the time, and your opponent, if he pressed any button in the air on a knockdown, would get blown up. Of course, eventually, people stopped doing that to Ryu and I suspect people will stop doing that to Yun and company once they realize people love to press buttons (that they can’t FADC). Fei and Yang are particularly hard to pin down, though, I will agree. That doesn’t mean you can’t do it, though. It just means you have to run (what you’ve called) “calculated offense” instead of “free offense” on these characters.

It’s not just about the twins. Things like the nerf to Rose’s U2 startup and even Honda’s headbutt nerf…whereas before these were defensive options you had to respect, now we have the opportunity to just try and attack. Why not? We may get a trade, or even flat-out beat it. “Just do it.”

I don’t know how you can say “just do it” applies only to offense, when “just do it” was THE motto for Rose players in Super when they got knocked down or anyone was near to them. Have U2? Just do it. Have a headbutt charged? Just do it. Who cares? It’s hard (maybe impossible) to punish and you’ll probably only get hit for a bit of damage anyway. Why think when you can just do it? This isn’t new to AE, imo.

For people who disliked the “defensive” nature of the series up until now, they may welcome the more offense-oriented AE with open arms. This is all largely personal preference. But where people who didn’t like the game before maybe have warmed to it, those who did are left feeling out in the cold.

I understand that you can’t always pick the matchups you play, and you’ll be seeing lots of twins and Fei, but… the “old game” that you like is still there. You can still have Sagat vs Ryu fireball wars, you can still play Guile vs Dudley and watch as Dudley helplessly throws his face into Guile’s fists for a while… it’s all still there, even if it’s not always the main attraction now.

---

Not that this applies to Azrael, but just in general… I’ve been an apologist for the SF4 series for a while now, some of you may recognize my name from discussions and defense of the game from 2009. I had to defend a lot of stuff that was stupid, because I thought SF4 was a good base and had potential to be fun. A lot of people hated the high-damage ultras and trades and the dominance of Sagat/Akuma and all that… now that AE comes out, though, I’m hearing a lot of these same people go back and say vanilla was the best game. This really surprises me, because it’s like they’ve forgotten their own arguments about why they didn’t like the first game.

I think it really shows that you’ll never please people, and the grass will always be greener on the other side. Maybe in two years we’ll say “man, AE was such a better game than this trash I’m playing now”. But frankly, I’m starting to not care… I’m going to enjoy the game that we have for what it is, and not always pretend I’d be happier with some future version of the game which will magically fix everything, or go back to wanting it to be like the “good old days” when everyone was whining about OTHER dumb shit they’ve somehow forgotten.

AE is fine.

[nyarlathotep]

Starting with the damage adjustments made in Super and then continuing on with the AE adjustments, the game has made a shift from calculated offense to a more free offense. Attacks have become safer, mistakes aren’t punished nearly as severely, and defensive options have been made worse or weaker. On the CEO stream, Sabin said that the name of the game in AE is “Just do it. Just throw it out there and see what happens.” I kind of agree with this statement. And the twins (and to some degree Fei Long) are sort of an embodiment of this playstyle.

I wouldn’t say attacks have become safer in general in AE in fact quite the opposite- I started off maining Rog in super and the nerf to headbutt is just one counter example to this argument. Against just decent players in Super this move never let you turtle, since the startup was so slow it could be safe jumped with ease.
In AE however this move is so ludicrously unsafe that you cannot use it in any situation where it’s not a ender to a hit confirm combo. Whereas is super you had more mixup potential and could be more aggressive with Rog in AE if you miss a headbutt just go make yourself a coffee while Rog recovers and your opponent performs their punish combo of choice. Alot of attacking options seem to have been taken away from existing characters in AE - this is just one example.

This is what seems just so ridiculous to me - that the new characters (and Fei) seem to to be able to spam out safe or nearly safe specials all day with a huge risk / reward in their favour while the returning cast from super had a lot of good and safe attacking options nerfed or removed. With most of the returning cast you now have to think harder before throwing out a random special since most moves lead to big punishment if you don’t hit confirm.

I just don’t understand why a handful of characters are given a bunch of low risk spammable specials and every option under the sun while others are weakened massively and have options removed. I’m not a conspiracy theorist but maybe there is something in capcom wanting to promote their upcoming titles by making these characters deliberately overpowered?

[Killer_Jigglypuff]

If they really wanted to promote 3s they’d have buffed Chun, Dudley, and Ibuki a bunch too.

[woodenTEETH]

I wouldn’t say attacks have become safer in general in AE in fact quite the opposite- I started off maining Rog in super and the nerf to headbutt is just one counter example to this argument. Against just decent players in Super this move never let you turtle, since the startup was so slow it could be safe jumped with ease.
In AE however this move is so ludicrously unsafe that you cannot use it in any situation where it’s not a ender to a hit confirm combo.

I can’t think of a better term for SF4 (any version) Balrog than ludicrously safe.

[HNIC_Mike]

If they really wanted to promote 3s they’d have buffed Chun, Dudley, and Ibuki a bunch too.

yeah, im getting tired of that shitty argument too

[toddler316]

Why the fuck would you fuck one game to promote a 10 year old remake?

[Vulcan_Hades]

I don’t get it. Why doesn’t NRS just nerf the Twins and Fei Long in a patch / hotfix so that everyone stops complaining?

Oh right, it’s a capcom game. Sorry guys… good luck with that.

[Hecatom]

I’d say banning Yun Yang for future tournament would be a better solution. I mean if you can ban Akuma from ST / HDR tournaments then I can’t see why not.

IMO these 2 characters are NOT designed for competitive game play. The reason they get designed this way is solely because Capcom wants to sell more copy of SF33 and SFxT, it’s a way of for profit company marketing.

scrubquotes worthy

[Good_Game_Player]

They’re just designed too well for the game they were put in.

Hahaha, SF4 exposed.

What does it say about a game when well-designed characters are the best in the game simply by virtue of being well-designed?

[Bman]

The only real “safe” characters new to AE or Super are, IMO, Yun, Yang, and Fei, and maaaaybe Ibuki (EDIT - also Adon I suppose). Pretty much all of the other characters that were added must take huge risks to get in on virtually safe defensive options, and their specials are unsafe on block or their jumps are floaty and easy to see (Guy, Dudley, Cody Hakan, etc fit this mold in some way). They must run their offense in smart ways… both in Super and in AE.

Anyone with a dive kick, or a dive kick-esque move has relatively safe offense, but safe offense isn’t the only issue with the game. Vortex characters are absolutely retarded, especially when we see shit like PJS Latif killing people because he mashed out a burn kick and got momentum. Or Abel players winning because they mashed out an EX TT and then guessed right in his grinder of a vortex where the odds are massively stacked in his favor for 500 fucking damage. There’s hardly any skill in ‘derp is he gonna hit me right left high low, or grab,’ guessing games. The vortex is absolutely about as braindead as fighting games get and this game has characters completely designed around that. The issue here is that SF4 is suppose to be SF2’s successor and that game was all about the subtlety of footsies and zoning. SF4 AE is not, well to be fair while footsies are less important than they are in SF2 they are still very important, but zoning is almost extinct from the game. AE is literally just a dumber version of SF4. I still find it fun, but not when I get killed off one knock down because I guessed wrong 2 or three times.

A lot of people hated the high-damage ultras and trades and the dominance of Sagat/Akuma and all that… now that AE comes out, though, I’m hearing a lot of these same people go back and say vanilla was the best game. This really surprises me, because it’s like they’ve forgotten their own arguments about why they didn’t like the first game.

A lot of the same people are contradicting them-selves years later? Do you keep files on each member at SRK and what there grievances are about each iteration of SF4? Is that how you know that these same ‘people’ are saying contradictory shit years later? Nah, you don’t and your just assuming that the same people are contradicting themselves because you’ve heard two opposing opinions on the same website. Also, human beings are not computer programs, their opinions are subject to change based on their understanding and current perspective on the game.

[Dances_with_Ninjas]

I play Gen, and if I’m having serious problems for winning mediocre Yun players (in the end I usually win, but…), I can’t imagine the day I fight a good one.

It’s SF4. Mediocre anything can win. I got most of the charge characters enough BP for the achievement using 2 or 3 moves (a special for damage, an autopilot footsie normal like Bison’s s.RH, and an anti-air normal if the footsie button didn’t already take care of that).

[pootnannies]

I don’t know how you can say “just do it” applies only to offense, when “just do it” was THE motto for Rose players in Super when they got knocked down or anyone was near to them. Have U2? Just do it. Have a headbutt charged? Just do it. Who cares? It’s hard (maybe impossible) to punish and you’ll probably only get hit for a bit of damage anyway. Why think when you can just do it? This isn’t new to AE, imo.

that’s something people don’t seem to realize too often here. what’s dumb about offense can be dumb with defense. personally i don’t think there’s anything wrong with defensive play but if it leads to braindead shit and boring matches then what’s so great about it? the same can be said about rushdown. just watch yun and rufus put dive kick pressure and hit confirm into a combo for a while and you’ll start to yawn.

Anyone with a dive kick, or a dive kick-esque move has relatively safe offense, but safe offense isn’t the only issue with the game. Vortex characters are absolutely retarded, especially when we see shit like PJS Latif killing people because he mashed out a burn kick and got momentum. Or Abel players winning because they mashed out an EX TT and then guessed right in his grinder of a vortex where the odds are massively stacked in his favor for 500 fucking damage. There’s hardly any skill in ‘derp is he gonna hit me right left high low, or grab,’ guessing games. The vortex is absolutely about as braindead as fighting games get and this game has characters completely designed around that. The issue here is that SF4 is suppose to be SF2’s successor and that game was all about the subtlety of footsies and zoning. SF4 AE is not, well to be fair while footsies are less important than they are in SF2 they are still very important, but zoning is almost extinct from the game. AE is literally just a dumber version of SF4. I still find it fun, but not when I get killed off one knock down because I guessed wrong 2 or three times.

sf2 is basically the same thing but with throw loops. major difference was that sf2 was a much faster paced game so you can’t react as fast and stuff like “footsies” and reversals were fun unlike in the sf4 series. it had much better hitboxes and less trades and you didn’t have to jump in/cross-up after every knockdown because reversals were risky.
however, you can get killed off after just one knock down in sf2 so i don’t know why you’re complaining about that.

[Infil]

A lot of the same people are contradicting them-selves years later? Do you keep files on each member at SRK and what there grievances are about each iteration of SF4? Is that how you know that these same ‘people’ are saying contradictory shit years later? Nah, you don’t and your just assuming that the same people are contradicting themselves because you’ve heard two opposing opinions on the same website. Also, human beings are not fucking computer programs, their opinions are subject to change based on their understanding and current perspective on the game.

It’s actually not that hard to remember a few usernames. I don’t have a spreadsheet of username -> opinion, but I remember several of the handles of the people who participated in the discussion 2 years ago. I also talk to people in my own local community.

Also, yes, you’re allowed to change your opinion on the game. Which is why I’m not overly worried when people hate on AE. If they were able to come to grips with vanilla SF4’s dumb stuff and say “hey maybe it wasn’t so bad”, they might do the same for AE in 6 months to a year. But my suspicion is that they just haven’t played vanilla for 16 months, so the memories of what was good/bad about the game have been dulled.

It’s possible they may just hate AE forever… that used to bug me, but it doesn’t anymore. Typically people who hate a game want some paragon of perfection in the fighting game genre (“if only these 16 things were fixed, the game would be great!”), but no game will ever be like that. My goal is to focus on what is good and fun in the games we do have.

[BemaniAK]

It’s a matter of hosting tournies and seeing how they turn out.
If Yun and Fei are the only one’s winning 9/10 tournies, people might start going back to Super.

Theory Fighter isn’t a good method for coming to a consensus on this sort of thing.

[Bman]

sf2 is basically the same thing but with throw loops. major difference was that sf2 was a much faster paced game so you can’t react as fast and stuff like “footsies” and reversals were fun unlike in the sf4 series. it had much better hitboxes and less trades and you didn’t have to jump in/cross-up after every knockdown because reversals were risky.
however, you can get killed off after just one knock down in sf2 so i don’t know why you’re complaining about that.

You can get killed in one knockdown, but you’re completely forgetting the fact that offense isn’t nearly as safe and landing the knockdown is far more difficult. So, it’s far more balanced. And you’re definitely not getting knockdowns by doing stupid shit like mashing out a reversal. Not that throw loops can’t be stupid too, cause they are.

It’s possible they may just hate AE forever… that used to bug me, but it doesn’t anymore. Typically people who hate a game want some paragon of perfection in the fighting game genre (“if only these 16 things were fixed, the game would be great!”), but no game will ever be like that. My goal is to focus on what is good and fun in the games we do have.

Yeah that’s true. Still, I feel we need to make problems known though.

[PaperKoi]

I can honestly say that I am /for once/ happy to be enough of a newbie to fighting games in general that this is mostly over my head. I agree with Bman, that problems should be known in hopes of balanced game play. I also agree with the “alternative” general opinion I’m seeing which goes something like “let’s play it, have fun, get better”.

For people who want to be competitive this makes me laugh:
[media=youtube]sGh4ZU4H5Hk[/media]

For people who just want to have fun… I would say play whatever accomplishes that. It’s all about getting where you’re going, regardless of if that’s winning or “just enjoying”.

Now, I have a question, as I don’t know how this scene (fighting games) works: Do you think newbies who would otherwise get into this scene are turned away by arguments like this? This discussion in particular seems so polarizing that I could see where some people would just get confused and give up. Or are those the kinds of people who would have scrubbed out anyway?

[azproc]

Now, I have a question, as I don’t know how this scene (fighting games) works: Do you think newbies who would otherwise get into this scene are turned away by arguments like this? This discussion in particular seems so polarizing that I could see where some people would just get confused and give up. Or are those the kinds of people who would have scrubbed out anyway?

No. Because most people won’t get to Sanford’s level for it to actually matter.
When they do, they’ve already invested enough time to figure out if it’s worth switching to a top tier, and they’d cease to be a newbie.

For newbies who want to be competitive and have fun… pick who you like - if you’re playing for top 8 at EVO or another major, you’re not likely to make it there unless you train with either a mentality for or against this to begin with; hence it’d cease to be an issue. You will have picked on point of view and ran with it.

[woodenTEETH]

Now, I have a question, as I don’t know how this scene (fighting games) works: Do you think newbies who would otherwise get into this scene are turned away by arguments like this? This discussion in particular seems so polarizing that I could see where some people would just get confused and give up. Or are those the kinds of people who would have scrubbed out anyway?

Is what you are considering to be confusing something like this?

Issue 1: People are criticizing AE for potentially having a small number of S-Tier characters.

Issue 2: Competitive players feel no shame when using top tier characters.

In my opinion, Issue 1 comes into conflict with Issue 2 when a competitive player cannot adapt to or utilize the playstyle that makes the S-tier characters S-tier.

…

[HNIC_Mike]

I can honestly say that I am /for once/ happy to be enough of a newbie to fighting games in general that this is mostly over my head. I agree with Bman, that problems should be known in hopes of balanced game play. I also agree with the “alternative” general opinion I’m seeing which goes something like “let’s play it, have fun, get better”.

For people who want to be competitive this makes me laugh:

For people who just want to have fun… I would say play whatever accomplishes that. It’s all about getting where you’re going, regardless of if that’s winning or “just enjoying”.

Now, I have a question, as I don’t know how this scene (fighting games) works: Do you think newbies who would otherwise get into this scene are turned away by arguments like this? This discussion in particular seems so polarizing that I could see where some people would just get confused and give up. Or are those the kinds of people who would have scrubbed out anyway?

yeah, it probrablly does turn some newer people away. but only because they dont usually understand that players win matches, not characters. there will be exceptions to that, like extremely shitty characters or matchups, but for the most part it boils down to the player controlling the character

i know that i for one hated the idea of things not being balanced when i came around in vanilla. mostly due to my fps background. OPed guns piss me off. you can be more skilled than the guy shooting at you in most fpses, but it wont matter much because a few bullets will kill you anyway

but it isnt the same in fighters. a top player in most cases will find a way to win no matter what tier their character is, if the opponent isnt at their level of skill.

[PaperKoi]

When I said that the discussion seems polarizing enough to make people confused or give up I was talking about the natural tendency for people to think the way HNIC Mike referred to: People are saying this game is unbalanced. Unbalanced = broken. Why play something broken?

I understand the notion that a person who is running for a top spot will have the mental toughtness not to get turned away by balance issues (perceived or actual). I’m wondering more about the guy who would never be interested in training with that goal in mind. It’s minutia I guess…