Worry over SFIV stealing our player base

[skankin_garbage]

I do player matches if someone wants to 1v1, but I prefer ranked to a room of players where you have to wait if you lose.

Well there’s your problem - good players don’t play on ranked! (very often)

[jchensor]

Well, it might be because you probably got it down in about 10 minutes, as opposed to the 10 hours it will take me to master it

Heh. Could be. I saw people do it in match videos, and pretty much almost got it the very first time I tried, just getting an EX DP instead of the Ultra.

I just find it really annoying that I have to DASH out of my cancel. To me that feels like bad design. It makes your decision that much harder to express to the game. To me that’s not something interesting. The decision to actually FADC is interesting, but in say 95% of cases, the decision about whether you actually feel confident enough to pull an FADC off is not interesting. If you don’t have the mechanics to FADC consistently then you juts find yourself thinking “Well damn, that would be a great idea if I actually had the dexterity to pull it off.” If I want to FA or dash after my cancel, I will FA or dash all on my own. I’ve almost never seen anyone use an FADC to actually land the hit with the FA anyways, so I don’t see the point in it going into an FA. Make it easier on everyone and have the cancel go straight to neutral standing position instead of an FA.

A lot of people have expressed this, but I think people seem to miss that Dashes add a “forced” delay to it. If you could Focus Cancel into nothing, wow, that would be REALLY buff. Wake-up Uppercut into nothing? If the opponent blocks it, you are at a frame advantage and can now attack. Zangief Green Hand into neutral state? Holy crap.

See, it’s not just for Combos. It applies to other areas of the game. You HAVE to put in something to delay the move. If it were just a plain 'ol Roman Cancel, in a game where movement is so restricted (as compared to Guilty Gear), it would be VERY powerful.

I didn’t claim that SF4 is worse execution wise than MVC2 or CVS2 (or 3s Urien). I am so far disliking SF4 about equally to those games, for the same reasons.

Right, that wasn’t my point. My point was that these horrible mechanics exist in every game, but no one has ever complained as loudly about those as they have about FADCs. I mean, when Roll Cancels got introduced to the game, everyone who played CvS2 just learned them. It was weird.

Its also hard enough that I, someone who has been playing street fighter games for many years, still can’t do them consistently in matches.

I need to make an FADC FAQ or a Training Video or something. I honestly think people are making it way more complex than it should be. I’m worried people who are trying to learn it aren’t focusing (ha, no pun intended) on the right areas. Maybe I’ll write something up and have some people on the Forum be guinea pigs and see if it helps.

Maybe I’ll get them down soon, but regardless, what about someone new to the series? Someone who’s trying to get down the DP motion to begin with, and then they have to do something that amounts to performing a DP while simultaneously hopping on one foot and singing the alphabet song backwards. Why?

That’s any game, though. That happens in every Fighting Game known to man. You can make the same comparison with walk-up SPDs.

Roll-cancelling, Paint the Fence, Sho-sho-sho, etc. is the major reason that I never really got into CvS2 more.

Admittedly, Roll-Canceling is why I quit.

I think that one big difference is that in most of these newer fighting games it feels like you *have *to learn a lot of fancy combos since basic stuff just doesn’t work as well.

Yeah, I think the key words are “feels like”. Because a lot of people say that, but it’s really not true at all. I mean, let’s really sit down and think about this. Who can use FADCs well?

1. Sagat
2. Ryu

Those are the ones where it helps the most, IMO, because they get all of their Ultra to connect and there are not normal ways to land it easily for them. Next tier:

3. Ken
4. Cammy

Helps Ken, but much harder to land the full damage version. Cammy’s doesn’t land the FULL Ultra, but still does a good amount of damage. And Cammy may be one of the only characters where she almost needs it to be competitive, because she really kinda sucks. Next:

5. Rufus

He can get his whole Ultra to connect as well, but he has like 3 other VERY viable ways to land the same damn Ultra that are 8 gabazillion times easier (Jump Roundhouse anti-air -> Ultra; Galatic Tornado -> Ultra in the corner, Stand Short into Stand Roundhouse Chain Combo into Ultra ANYWHERE). So if you don’t learn FADCs, your Rufus game won’t be suffering at all.

6. Fei Long
7. Akuma

They can do it and get Juggles for extra damage, but never into damaging Ultras. So it’s… helpful, I guess, but if you skip it, you won’t lose ANY sleep over it at all.

And honestly? That’s it! No one else can use it to the point where it is vital in their game. It’s useful here and there, but you can not bother learning it and still win without problem at all with everyone else. So if you hate FADCs so much and think they are complex, there are 18 more characters you can use and ignore FADCs completely. That’s what people who ahte Roll Canceling do: pick K-Groove. That’s what people who hate Magneto’s Infinite do: pick a team with no Magneto. And so on and so forth.

In older games, it doesn’t. For example, after all these years of playing ST, I can finally pull off stuff like Ryu’s crossup kick, cr.mp, cr.mk xx super at least half the time. While it’s cool and rewarding to learn something fancy like that, I also really appreciate that I’ve never felt like I had to learn that to be competitive. With the newer games, that seems to be less the case.

Again, I don’t agree. Ryu can do Jab DP linked into Super Fireball. I see a ton of match videos where Sagat just Fireballs people to death. And on and on. I honestly think most people are exaggerating the effectiveness of FADCs, and I guess what I’m confused at is why people make such a big deal out of FADCs in particular? Again, like I said in another thread on the SFIV forums, I think it’s largely because the game acknowledges them and has challenges that force you to learn them. I mean, they forced me to learn Fireball into level 2 Focus Attack in the corners, but I’ve never seen ANYONE use that in a real match. Those Trial Modes are just that: Trial Modes.

I dunno. Sorry if I seem a bit exasperated, but I really am shocked at how much people like to focus on FADCs as something that’s too hard that must be learned to be competitive.

• James

[skankin_garbage]

Actually, high level Abel players use FADCs.

What especially bothers me in this game that I don’t see anyone talking about is that moves are just…so, so, so unsafe. You’re pretty much guaranteed a counterattack if you block a sweep, and if you block a medium attack, you can stuff pretty much any further attempts at pressure as long as you have faster normals. Street Fighter 3 did this to an extent, but I didn’t think they went overboard with it. In SF4, if anything you do is blocked except a light attack, you can kiss your rushdown (or your match) goodbye.

Even worse is that some things can combo are not safe on block. That doesn’t sound weird, but think about it: How much (more) would Fei Long suck in ST if you could hit him between every blocked Rekka? To be honest, blocked Rekka strings are all he has going for him! It’s just WEIRD that things like Abel’s Rekkas can combo, but there is enough free time to be hit in between every single one if they’re blocked. I do think there should be punishments to spamming Rekkas, but at least give him his two chances to hi/low you before you kill him! Or at least make the first hit safe! Sweet christ.

[System_1]

I’m glad a thread like this exists somewhere on this site because every thread that is critical of SF4 gets closed on the main forum.

[jchensor]

Actually, high level Abel players use FADCs.

Good call, forgot about him. Was only thinking about the Uppercut FADCs.

Even worse is that some things can combo are not safe on block.

Yeah, I’m not exactly sure why they decided to implement the system they did, since it’s never been this way ever before. But moves do LESS Block Stun than they do Hit Stun. For the MOST part, in all SFs, the length of Hit Stun was equivalent to the length of Block Stun… so if something Comboed when hitting, it comboed when blocked. But in SFIV, Hit Stun is longer than Block Stun, so there are a TON of things you can sneak attacks in the middle of that would normally have Comboed if they got hit.

I’m not a fan of that mechanic, though it adds an interesting spin on the game that DOES make it different. Just not sure why they did it that way.

• James

[EA_Megaman]

Well there’s your problem - good players don’t play on ranked! (very often)

Ya, agreed. I haven’t stepped foot in a ranked match since I got my 100 wins. I’d much rather play in a room with 2-3 other good people and watch what they do. That’s honestly probably the main reason I haven’t been playing SF4.

I’m glad a thread like this exists somewhere on this site because every thread that is critical of SF4 gets closed on the main forum.

Really? That’s sort of hard to believe on this site. Is it because there’s already one thread discussing it? Does the conversation in the thread stay insightful and respectful? My guess is that the mods have a good reason for closing the threads…

[System_1]

A lot of people have expressed this, but I think people seem to miss that Dashes add a “forced” delay to it. If you could Focus Cancel into nothing, wow, that would be REALLY buff. Wake-up Uppercut into nothing? If the opponent blocks it, you are at a frame advantage and can now attack. Zangief Green Hand into neutral state? Holy crap.

See, it’s not just for Combos. It applies to other areas of the game. You HAVE to put in something to delay the move. If it were just a plain 'ol Roman Cancel, in a game where movement is so restricted (as compared to Guilty Gear), it would be VERY powerful.

Oh yeah, I absolutely agree. You could have a 10-frame “cancel” animation play when you do a cancel or something. Otherwise… shit would be off the hook. I just don’t see why it has to be dependent on the player.

I’m not at home so I’ll have more to say later tonight, just wanted to get that bit out there.

[margalis]

The online of SFIV has been awful for me, searches take forever and often every person who shows up in a search appears with zero bars. I will continue playing mostly HDR in part because I’m an old man who fears change, in part because I think HDR is genuinely the better game and in part because even if I wanted to play IV online I can’t.

[jchensor]

Oh yeah, I absolutely agree. You could have a 10-frame “cancel” animation play when you do a cancel or something. Otherwise… shit would be off the hook. I just don’t see why it has to be dependent on the player.

I’m not at home so I’ll have more to say later tonight, just wanted to get that bit out there.

Just to give you some more food for thought, mechajesus…

The problem with the cancel animation is that, now, Focus Attack Cancels become completely useless. So I’m Gief and I do Green Hand. I know you can punish me because you Blocked, so I perform a Focus Attack Cancel. But now I have delay frames, which means you can punish me anyhow.

So the opposite effect occurs: now Focus Attack Cancels become ONLY useful in Combos, making them even MORE just a Combo Tool than an actual game mechanic.

So the reason why I like the Dash method is that it enforces a “delay” for Combos, and in regular gameplay, it forces you into a mind game if you Dash Forward or a match reset if you Dash Backwards. And these are situations which are already familiar to you because they are the same situations that occur when you just normally Dash Forward or Dash Backwards. So instead of creating a huge new sub-game with Focus Attack Canceling, you’ve just allowed people to move from a Special Move and branch into a sub-game we are all already familiar with and are all already playing. And then it just happens to also be useful for a select few Combos.

I’ve long believed that you should just be able to cancel a move with the Dash Code and bypass the Focus Attack part. So do DP then tap Forward twice and you get the Dash Cancel automatically. That would solve the problem of having too complex a motion for FADC combos. The only downside to that is, with how easy it is to register Dash motions in this game, I’ll bet it would happen a LOT by accident. And would probably end up giving people something new to complain about. Hahahaha. So yeah, I’m not 100% sure what a good way to fix this whole thing is.

And sorry for turning this thread into an SFIV discussion. Wrong Thread, wrong Forum, I know. 1000 apologies.

• James

[SweetJohnnyV]

I dunno. Sorry if I seem a bit exasperated, but I really am shocked at how much people like to focus on FADCs as something that’s too hard that must be learned to be competitive.

Honestly, I haven’t noticed that many people point out FADCs in particular. A lot of the talk I’ve seen is about learning the really tough link combos. My biggest personal beef, execution-wise, is the overlapped commands of Super/Ultra and the way I often get the wrong special move(s) to come out in combos due to the “helpful” leniency of the input system.

I hear ya though. I don’t think this game requires as much training mode tedium as some of the games in the series. And I do appreciate that. Still, it’s a bit more than I’d like.

Also, I agree that combos not being safe on block seems lame.

EDIT:

I’ve long believed that you should just be able to cancel a move with the Dash Code and bypass the Focus Attack part…The only downside to that is, with how easy it is to register Dash motions in this game, I’ll bet it would happen a LOT by accident.

I’ve also thought that. If it was to easy to do accidentally, perhaps a triple tap to cancel would’ve worked? Or press forward + MP + MK is focus cancel dash forward, MP + MK is focus cancel neutral, and back + MP + MK is focus cancel dash back. I dunno. I’m sure it could’ve been made easier in some reasonable way.

[System_1]

Just to give you some more food for thought, mechajesus…

The problem with the cancel animation is that, now, Focus Attack Cancels become completely useless. So I’m Gief and I do Green Hand. I know you can punish me because you Blocked, so I perform a Focus Attack Cancel. But now I have delay frames, which means you can punish me anyhow.

So the opposite effect occurs: now Focus Attack Cancels become ONLY useful in Combos, making them even MORE just a Combo Tool than an actual game mechanic.

So the reason why I like the Dash method is that it enforces a “delay” for Combos, and in regular gameplay, it forces you into a mind game if you Dash Forward or a match reset if you Dash Backwards. And these are situations which are already familiar to you because they are the same situations that occur when you just normally Dash Forward or Dash Backwards. So instead of creating a huge new sub-game with Focus Attack Canceling, you’ve just allowed people to move from a Special Move and branch into a sub-game we are all already familiar with and are all already playing. And then it just happens to also be useful for a select few Combos.

I’ve long believed that you should just be able to cancel a move with the Dash Code and bypass the Focus Attack part. So do DP then tap Forward twice and you get the Dash Cancel automatically. That would solve the problem of having too complex a motion for FADC combos. The only downside to that is, with how easy it is to register Dash motions in this game, I’ll bet it would happen a LOT by accident. And would probably end up giving people something new to complain about. Hahahaha. So yeah, I’m not 100% sure what a good way to fix this whole thing is.

And sorry for turning this thread into an SFIV discussion. Wrong Thread, wrong Forum, I know. 1000 apologies.

• James

That is a really good point that I hadn’t thought of.

I’m trying to wrap my head around a compromise solution right now, one that makes it easier but still can offer you the protection that an FA provides. I also really like your compromise solution. I like the idea of being able to dash forward or back out to cancel. I would also say maybe you leave in the MP+MK cancel to FA to provide a few extra mindgames to play with.

Then again that might be too confusing for new players… But I’d still prefer that system, screw the newbies

[pennylane]

That is a really good point that I hadn’t thought of.

I’m trying to wrap my head around a compromise solution right now, one that makes it easier but still can offer you the protection that an FA provides. I also really like your compromise solution. I like the idea of being able to dash forward or back out to cancel. I would also say maybe you leave in the MP+MK cancel to FA to provide a few extra mindgames to play with.

Then again that might be too confusing for new players… But I’d still prefer that system, screw the newbies

How about just hold the joystick in the direction you want to dash in while pressing mp + mk? One less input and you don’t have to worry about tapping.

EDIT: Err, SweetJohnnyV already said that. Move along folks. Nothing to see here.

[VirtuaFighterFour]

The online of SFIV has been awful for me, searches take forever and often every person who shows up in a search appears with zero bars. I will continue playing mostly HDR in part because I’m an old man who fears change, in part because I think HDR is genuinely the better game and in part because even if I wanted to play IV online I can’t.

All true. But HDR has the HUD die out after a handful of matches. The PS3 version barely stays connected and drops you from the PSN often. And the XBL version has the same start color problems as well and the problem where if you hold buttons after the character select screen the game often drops.

Once HDR gets patched I doubt I’ll play SFIV online unless they rehaul the online component.

Until then, back to VF5 and MGO.

[EA_Megaman]

My biggest personal beef, execution-wise, is the overlapped commands of Super/Ultra and the way I often get the wrong special move(s) to come out in combos due to the “helpful” leniency of the input system.

Also if you are used to using the piano method (on multiple buttons, reversal headbutt or SRK for example) to do specials sometimes you end up with an EX move.

Granted it still hits, but there are times where I would have liked to save that meter. Argh…

[System_1]

Street Fighter 4’s link system is mentioned briefly in IGN’s recent BlazBlue preview.

An Extensive Look at BlazBlue - IGN

Fortunately, BlazBlue has been designed to be more beginner-friendly than Guilty Gear and combos seemed very easy to string together and execute. While Street Fighter IV, for example, requires precise command inputs, BlazBlue is much more forgiving.

Now look at this quote from a recent Arc System Works interview.

Dodging, Striking, Winning: The Arc System Works Interview

We’re not even sure it’s possible for two people in different countries to physically manipulate the controls in a way that would give 60th-of-a-second precision. The gameplay in Guilty Gear 2, for example, was designed with some amount of lag in mind.

In the fastest 2D fighters, there are moves that take only one to three frames to complete. Played online, quick action like that will produce different results on each player’s screen. In Guilty Gear 2, the fastest attacks take at least 13 frames to land, which is enough time to ensure both players see the same result.

It seems that Arc knows what Capcom doesn’t: that small timing windows do not facilitate a good online experience. Since online is the new arcade, this has to be taken into consideration before anything else.

[brian]

It seems that Arc knows what Capcom doesn’t: that small timing windows do not facilitate a good online experience. Since online is the new arcade, this has to be taken into consideration before anything else.

QFT

I’m on the verge of selling Street Fighter 4 and looking for something actually fun to do.

[skankin_garbage]

Like playing STHD

[System_1]

I started a thread in the SF4 group and one of the responses was really interesting.

http://forums.shoryuken.com/showthread.php?t=179827

Well, most of the link combos are strictly unintentional if you ask me – especially the 1 framers.

Capcom purposely made it so you can’t cancel out of chains, and a lot of the links are 1 or 2 framers, so that leads me to think that they were really really trying to simplify the combo system, but it ended up backfiring on them when people starting linking jabs into fierces. I dunno if it’s because there’s a lot of hitstun on everything or what.

I mean, Ono went on for ages about making this game open to new players, so I doubt he would’ve purposely added this shit in (and if he did, I don’t know what he was thinking). Once people discovered all this stuff in the arcade, I figure they knew they’d have to add in similar stuff for the console characters.

Games are almost never designed to be link-heavy, they usually just end up that way. The Vampire Savior games, Last Blade, JoJo, Garou, etc.

I don’t have anything to add to this. I just thought it was an intriguing possibility.

[Eggo]

Well there’s your problem - good players don’t play on ranked! (very often)

Lies. I’ve played plenty of good players on ranked, since that’s the majority of my matches. There was just a drought this past week when I seemed to keep getting scrubs. Normally, I have a 3/1 win/loss ratio. This week, it was 30/1. That’s been corrected of late when I ran into DGV, le0n0wski, and Lopakas Mom Can. The competition is still out there. Either that or they’re slowly coming back to HDR.

[skankin_garbage]

I admit that good players DO play on Ranked, but a much higher volume of good players play Player Matches.