Why not make Super the tournament Standard?

[Nyoronoru]

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

I’m just going to quote this for emphasis.

I especially like the fourth section. “Just do it” is a huge motto for a lot of defensive options when you feel offensive pressure. It hasn’t changed just because it has an offense-flavor to it. This applies to Super too. Look at Rufus’s dive kick or Roll Kick, aren’t those moves the epitome of “just do it?”. Comparing Yun, Yang and Fei with the “just do it” characters from Super, I really feel like that feeling has not changed at all, despite the tier list changes.

HNIC Mike is also right about panic mode. The top three in AE are really good, but I don’t think they hurt the game as much as certain posters would have you believe. Fei, the S-tier god of destruction has been C+V’d into AE and he wasn’t winning tournaments in Super and he isn’t winning them now because his moves are not as safe as a lot of people believe them to be. People report far less trouble with Yang because his dive kick isn’t too hard to see coming and his offense has to be very well calculated because of potentially unsafe rekka strings(and not as damaging as Fei’s). Which leaves us with Yun…

So this thread kind of boils down to, does YUN break AE to the point that Super is the better game? Tournament and casual-wise? If so I would much rather accept a minor nerf to Yun and a complete acceptance of the currently balanced game than to stop all gears in motion and go back to Super. I also personally think that C.Viper destroys middle and lower tier far far worse than Yun does due to her high damage and safer approach moves, but I guess that’s another topic? And Viper hasn’t changed at all from Super to AE, so I guess the “just do it” mentality for her still exists for her safe-on-block thunder knuckles, frame-advantage burn kicks and great variable reversal game.

tl;dr I think far less has changed with the release in AE than people would like to believe and/or complain about. Most characters are still doing the same gameplan they’ve been doing for a long time. Most characters still have the exact same bad and good match ups. AE is not some incredibly different beast that you don’t recognize anymore. I think over time we’re still discovering things that could have just as easily been applied in Super as AE.

[Veserius]

Fei, the S-tier god of destruction has been C+V’d into AE and he wasn’t winning tournaments in Super and he isn’t winning them now because his moves are not as safe as a lot of people believe them to be.

How many top Fei players are there? Now how many of those players are American?

Evans won Stunfest last year. Starnab won that tournament in Italy against Gamerbee only a month ago. Starnab also won teams at stunfest last year. Mago keeps losing to Daigo over here, but who doesn’t? Inthul got 2nd at a major four months ago, and lost to Wolfkrone who has been easily the best performing player this Evo Season.

Fei puts up results, but the issue is that his best representatives for the most part are European or Mago and we don’t see those matches at all basically.

I don’t see how Fei isn’t winning.

[Nyoronoru]

How many top Fei players are there? Now how many of those players are American?

Evans won Stunfest last year. Starnab won that tournament in Italy against Gamerbee only a month ago. Starnab also won teams at stunfest last year. Mago keeps losing to Daigo over here, but who doesn’t? Inthul got 2nd at a major four months ago, and lost to Wolfkrone who has been easily the best performing player this Evo Season.

Fei puts up results, but the issue is that his best representatives for the most part are European or Mago and we don’t see those matches at all basically.

I don’t see how Fei isn’t winning.

I think he is winning, but I don’t think he’s dominating. Even the best players of Fei seem to run into walls in tournaments. DMG Inthul has to claw his way to victory in every tournament I see him in. It just doesn’t feel like this “Top Tier Domination” that I see with certain other characters just completely running trains on other chars to the point where they can’t fight back like with Rufus, Viper and Akuma in Super and AE.

In America, Fei seems to have even more trouble because his problem matches against popular characters like Balrog and Akuma are more prominent.

[xekrn]

HNIC Mike is also right about panic mode. The top three in AE are really good, but I don’t think they hurt the game as much as certain posters would have you believe. Fei, the S-tier god of destruction has been C+V’d into AE and he wasn’t winning tournaments in Super and he isn’t winning them now because his moves are not as safe as a lot of people believe them to be. People report far less trouble with Yang because his dive kick isn’t too hard to see coming and his offense has to be very well calculated because of potentially unsafe rekka strings(and not as damaging as Fei’s). Which leaves us with Yun…

Hehe, this is basically the summery of this thread:

People with long time AE experience such as Azrael think the top 3 are ruining the game. This is based on what is happening in the Japanese SSF4 scene where AE has been there for 6+ months.

People with like 2-3 weeks AE experience don’t think it’s the truth unless they see it themselves, meanwhile they keep calling others who hold different opinions either “panic mode” or straight “scrub”.

I guess there’s just no point of keeping this discussion going in a forum where the majority just don’t have much AE experience until like 2012.

[HNIC_Mike]

Hehe, this is basically the summery of this thread:

People with long time AE experience such as Azrael think the top 3 are ruining the game. This is based on what is happening in the Japanese SSF4 scene where AE has been there for 6+ months.

People with like 2-3 weeks AE experience don’t think it’s the truth unless they see it themselves, meanwhile they keep calling others who hold different opinions either “panic mode” or straight “scrub”.

I guess there’s just no point of keeping this discussion going in a forum where the majority just don’t have much AE experience until like 2012.

the thing about that is that azrael and whatever few jp players that have something to say, cant speak for everyone in that region.

for the most part, the people that like the game just play, and you never hear their opinions quoted. the people that dont like it are obviously more outspoken, and yes it does send the masses into panic mode

I don’t see how Fei isn’t winning.

outside of mago, the best players dont play him. he dosent have that cheapness factor that attracts top players. its like whats the point in playing him if you cant just turn off your brain until you have to fight equal competition. theres other characters more suited to carrying you to the top level in a tourney

[Mr.X]

I think he is winning, but I don’t think he’s dominating. Even the best players of Fei seem to run into walls in tournaments. DMG Inthul has to claw his way to victory in every tournament I see him in. It just doesn’t feel like this “Top Tier Domination” that I see with certain other characters just completely running trains on other chars to the point where they can’t fight back like with Rufus, Viper and Akuma in Super and AE.

In America, Fei seems to have even more trouble because his problem matches against popular characters like Balrog and Akuma are more prominent.

I lol’d at Akuma being prominent in America. There’s like 2-3 Fei Long players in the entire US (I’m counting Arturo here), and there’s like 3-4 Akuma players.

[Hyun_Sai]

outside of mago, the best players dont play him. he dosent have that cheapness factor that attracts top players. its like whats the point in playing him if you cant just turn off your brain until you have to fight equal competition. theres other characters more suited to carrying you to the top level in a tourney

What characters do you think have this “cheapness” besides Yun ?

When we look in Japan, Yang is not more popular than Fei among the Top players. We basically have Mago and Fuudo with Fei, Nemo and Acqua with Yang.

[Sabin]

I lol’d at Akuma being prominent in America. There’s like 2-3 Fei Long players in the entire US (I’m counting Arturo here), and there’s like 3-4 Akuma players.

do not count me, my fei isnt good. lol

[xekrn]

for the most part, the people that like the game just play, and you never hear their opinions quoted. the people that dont like it are obviously more outspoken, and yes it does send the masses into panic mode

LOL “people just play” because they don’t have much choice. I mean outside SF4/AE, can you even find any good 2d fighting games in the arcade these days? And of course you don’t hear much about their opinions, first you don’t live in Japan or browse Japanese forum, second most of them have already joined the twin army (just look at the arcade ranking thread).

[Chun_Pai]

Ono pretty much said in reply to one of my tweets that they have changes/patches in mind for AE on consoles. I think they see some of the problems AE brought for certain characters and matchups.

At the same time I’d like AE to have a year or more of time in the oven before any changes are made. See how many twins win majors before next evo. I just think they need to be a higher risk character - a lot of their options at any given time are win-win for them, much moreso than any other SSF4 character.

[HNIC_Mike]

LOL “people just play” because they don’t have much choice. I mean outside SF4/AE, can you even find any good 2d fighting games in the arcade these days? And of course you don’t hear much about their opinions, first you don’t live in Japan or browse Japanese forum, second most of them have already joined the twin army (just look at the arcade ranking thread).

dude, people always have a choice. if you genuinely dislike AE as a whole, you can always not play it

the point im making is that there will be people here in the us and there in japan that want to bitch about things they dont like. but the negative comments will always be the ones to get more attention

its kinda like headline news in that regard

What characters do you think have this “cheapness” besides Yun ?

When we look in Japan, Yang is not more popular than Fei among the Top players. We basically have Mago and Fuudo with Fei, Nemo and Acqua with Yang.

now that you bring it up, there arent many characters like that left in AE. mostly just yun and yang now. i think you are selling the top yang players short by the way

[Azrael]

[FONT=Helvetica]That is not a true casual player. What you’re describing is a person who wishes to enter the competitive arena but hasn’t come to grips with the effort that goes along with it.[/FONT]

[FONT=Helvetica][/FONT]
[FONT=Helvetica]Yeah, that’s a type of player I call “competitive casual”. A bit more involved than your average casual player, but can’t quite commit to the tournament lifestyle. A player such as myself. I think that this is a particularly important group, because even if they don’t go hardcore, they still support the community where a casual player is more likely to drop off.[/FONT]

The Captain America example doesn’t work for you. If so many people are interested in playing Captain America, for the sake of him being Captain America, then Capcom can balance him like Yun. He can be the strongest character and people won’t care about nerfing Cable to hell because there is no Cable movie.

Rather than trying to buff characters who we feel would be popular with the casual crowd, why not make a game where most characters are useable? I felt Super did a pretty good job of this.

I don’t see why you can’t easily do this in AE. Just like Super.

Maybe. As has been said multiple times, the final verdict has yet to come in for AE.

People with long time AE experience such as Azrael think the top 3 are ruining the game. This is based on what is happening in the Japanese SSF4 scene where AE has been there for 6+ months.

I’m more concerned with AE as a whole. It’s hard to ignore the top 3 of course, but I’m not thinking “Oh noes, the twins + Fei are too strong! Ban them!”

the thing about that is that azrael and whatever few jp players that have something to say, cant speak for everyone in that region.

for the most part, the people that like the game just play, and you never hear their opinions quoted. the people that dont like it are obviously more outspoken, and yes it does send the masses into panic mode

outside of mago, the best players dont play him. he dosent have that cheapness factor that attracts top players. its like whats the point in playing him if you cant just turn off your brain until you have to fight equal competition. theres other characters more suited to carrying you to the top level in a tourney

You guys are familiar with top Japanese players, and that’s a specific slice of the player population. There are A LOT of players out there who are decent. They may not be at the top of the rankings, and you will never hear about them, but they are good players who can hold their own.

The day I made this thread, I’d stopped by a random arcade in Tokyo and was playing against some random guys. Guys you will never hear of, guys who won’t make an impact on the tournament scene, but solid players nonetheless. Everyone was going back and forth trading matches, and then a Yang player came along and just started destroying everyone. The Yang wasn’t a top player, just another random joe like the rest of us. Where people were having fun before, now they were getting frustrated. One player gave up and just watched the others try and take down Yang. Another pulled out a different IC card and tried to fight fire with fire by using Fei. It’s hard to describe, but the entire atmosphere just kinda turned sour.

“Stay salty” you may say, but it was a feeling I never really experienced with SF4 Sagat or Akuma, or even online/console outings with any other character in Super. I’ve been at the arcade when someone like RF or Uryo showed up and started beasting - in those cases people could understand losing to a high-level player. Not losing to a guy on your level but who is just using a better character.

I’ve talked to random players in arcades and read up on message boards and what not, and there’s this weird sense of “they fucked it up” with AE. Yes, people are going to complain no matter what. People complained about SF4 Sagat and whatever BS that was in Super (Abel U2 anyone?) but this time it feels different. My apologies for not being able to explain it properly.

We fighting game fans have put up with a lot of BS in games in the past. We dealt with it because we didn’t have a choice. If it was 2004 and you were still complaining about Sagat’s priority on c.fierce or Chun hit confirm c.mk into SAII…well, just shut up and deal with it, or don’t play. Those were the only options. Now we actually do have options, and all I really wanted to do was explore the possibility.

Ono pretty much said in reply to one of my tweets that they have changes/patches in mind for AE on consoles. I think they see some of the problems AE brought for certain characters and matchups.

Don’t believe Trollono.

I think a knee-jerk patch to AE would be harder than for MvC3 because there’s the arcade version to worry about. No matter what changes were made to the console version, the arcade loyalists would just stick to AE.

BUT if we fans continued to speak up and demand it from Capcom them maybe. Honestly, I kind of feel that games should be patched regularly. Both Tekken and VF get patched very regularly and I believe that to be something that’s good for the overall lifespan of those games.

[Killer_Jigglypuff]

Weren’t the arcade boards of AE made more patch-able than the original SF4 boards? Or did I just imagine that?

[xekrn]

I’m more concerned with AE as a whole. It’s hard to ignore the top 3 of course, but I’m not thinking “Oh noes, the twins + Fei are too strong! Ban them!”

I don’t agree with this.

Most of the characters / play-styles in AE are still competitive, in their own group however. For example as we all know Dhalsim and Honda got nerfed hard but how much does the change affect their games? In CEO Mike Ross still managed to get into top 3 with “nothing but nerfs” Honda. In NCR FChamp still managed to stand up against Daigo’s Ryu, until Daigo changed to Yun. Then the matches afterwards were just pure joke.

IMO most of the characters in AE are more like Honda in SF4. He’s not bad and his game was solid. But when it came to SF4 tournaments where shotos were left and right he just became useless. Same thing is happening in AE. Outside the top 3 I can’t see there’s any problem. When the top 3 are in then it is just a clusterfuck, then you will just see competitive / pro players drop their mains here and there as if their old mains were all shit tiers.

[Nyoronoru]

So your support for the switch back to Super is a “general feel” and an inability for your local arcade population to beat a Yang player you’ve never seen before?

I must say I do remember the days in Vanilla when a random joe would pick Sagat and run complete trains on people, racking up 40+ win streaks. Or when a friend of mine comes by with Zangief in AE and gets 20 wins in a row, while people watch on the sidelines helplessly in both scenarios and then bitch on forums later. I never liked that feel either, but you don’t hear me making calls to switch games(almost as head-scratching as telling people to stop playing Vanilla and go back to Third Strike). Take your concern to Capcom instead if you feel like the game is unfairly imbalanced (just like from Vanilla to Super). God knows there’s enough playtesters in this forum that have connections to Capcom development.

For your casual player, there is no real difference between SF4, Super and AE. All of them can pick whatever character they like the most and hit buttons. For a “competitive casual”, I suggest you invest a bit more time into how to beat certain popular characters that are also strong. It’s never been easier than now to devise counter strategies to top tier, or to come to the realization that the character you picked has bad matchups with the strongest fighters. Most of the bad matchups in this game haven’t changed from Super to AE, so I’m pretty sure most people who have been playing this game for at least half a year know which characters their main loses to and why. This also applies to matchups with the newest fighters.

[Schiff]

I’m winning much more with Gen now and I face more Gen online. This is enough to enjoy AE more… Yes, there are a lot on Yun but this just means I can learn the matchup more quickly

[kerano1]

Sadly the twins are in that sweet spot of obviously being better than the rest but not to the point were everyone is convinced they should be banned.
Yun beating the shit out of Sim with no effort hurts deep down My char got worse but I still don’t quite want to go back to Super, hopefully things work out or they add loads more overpowered characters so there’s at least a bit of variety at the top

[EcKo_Zero_Cool]

well it in nice to see people come up with new ways of playing ae since it is a new game, so i myself would prefer everyone forget about super and move on. i think its better seing a yun match then a guile one to be honest. thats just my opinion dont hate.

[HFX]

its リアル立ち回り(real footsies) time

lol

[woodenTEETH]

I’ve talked to random players in arcades and read up on message boards and what not, and there’s this weird sense of “they fucked it up” with AE. Yes, people are going to complain no matter what. People complained about SF4 Sagat and whatever BS that was in Super (Abel U2 anyone?) but this time it feels different. My apologies for not being able to explain it properly.

Thinking “I can’t believe that is safe” while playing a match will kill the game.