A Few Things About Street Fighter 4
Saturday, February 21, 2009 at 10:24PM Street Fighter 4 is finally here, with several perfect 100/100 reviews. Here's a few things I noticed about the game.
In ranked matches, you can see the opponent's name before the match and kick them or reject the challenge. This allows you to cherry pick who you fight and negates the entire purpose of a ranked match.
In ranked matches (well, all matches) there is no double blind character select. This means the optimum strategy is often to wait until the opponent chooses first so you can counter-pick. This is a very annoying situation.
When lag inevitably happens in an online fighting game, there are different ways to handle it. Some SF4 matches I played had large input delay, maybe as high as 15 frames. This is the time between your button press and seeing the effect happen. Adding input delay is really the worst way to handle lag. GGPO's amazing netcode shows that avoiding input delay and hiding lag in other ways is the way to go. That technology has been readily available for years, so it's disappointing to feel input delay in an online match.
The button config screen is "the wrong way." The right way is for the screen to list functions, then you press the buttons you want to assign. The wrong way is to list buttons, then you scroll through lists of functions to assign. The reason that one way is right and the other way is wrong is pretty clear when you watch people try to configure buttons. I've had to watch what must be thousands of people do this over the years in all the tournaments I've helped run (not to mention local gatherings). When the config screen says "Jab" and requires you to press the button you want, you just press the upper left button on your stick (or whatever button on your gamepad). This is a one-step process. But if the screen lists "X" and then requires you to scroll through functions until you find jab, it requires a two step process. You have to know which button on your controller is labeled "X." When this screen is the right way, no one has to know if the upper left button happens to be X or A or B or whatever else.
If you think this is negligible, you have never seen people set buttons. The wrong way turns what should be a 3 second task into a fairly confusing affair. Yes I know the wrong way allows you to have lots of functions in your list, but this can be done the right way also.
On to gameplay issues. The jumps have strange acceleration to them. While that's subjective, look at Zangief's jump that seems to have the acceleration of a flea. (Incidentally, why does his splash not stay out the whole time in the air?). Also, getting hit out of the air is extremely floaty, which means it takes unusually long to get back to a state where you can actually move again. This "moving in jello" feel is reinforced by many throws that have dead time at the end when it seems like you should be able to move (see Vega's for example).
The size of the stages is extremely large relative to the size of the characters. This helps runaway tactics.
Optimizing for the 1% rather than the 99% case. There's two examples, the first is tech recover (quick get up from a knock down). 99% of the time, I want to get up fast, but this is the action that requires button presses. Why not admit that getting up fast is the intent and make it default, unless the player holds down some buttons to get up slow? That's how it works for Robo-Ky in Guilty Gear, by the way. Incidentally, don't the two kinds of get up timing only lessen the importance of knockdown by allowing you mess up the attacker's timing a bit? Like the decision to have large stages, this seems not to favor offense.
Next is the 2-button throw, a bad idea in fighting games with 2D gameplay. 3D Fighting games are different beasts, so they are excused here, but note that even Dead or Alive offers a macro to turn its 2 button throw into a 1 button throw...and maps that macro to a face button by default. Anyway, 2 button throws solve a non-problem that no one has ever actually had. That's the problem of accidentally throwing and being sad about it. Street Fighter 2, Guilty Gear series, and Street Fighter Alpha 2 all demonstrated that 1 button throws work just fine and don't actually create any problems. Adding a second button press just adds complexity where it's not necessary, and helps nothing. (Edit: it does add a throw whiff which could be a good thing, but simpler is still better...)
Other non-problems we might solve in 2D fighting games would be to make blocking 1 button and jumping 1 button (each are traditionally zero buttons). We certainly could add those button presses, but it would make more sense to reduce the button presses to as few as possible: zero to jump, zero to block, and one to throw.
It's especially unfortunate that Cammy's hooligan throw requires a 2-button throw in the middle to complete it. Why exactly is this necessary, rather than one button?
2 button throws actually introduce the problem of kara-throws, a bug from SF3 that we now have again in SF4. This is when you cancel a forward moving attack a frame or two into it with a throw command in order to greatly extend your throw range. Do the designers want a long throw range or do they not? If they don't kara throws shouldn't be in the game. If they do, then base throw ranges should be extended for all players, not just the ones who input a difficult command.
Another similar bug is the chain combo cancel bug. As an example, consider Sakura. Low short does cancel into special moves. But if you rapid fire the low short (do it 2 or 3 times quickly each one cancels the last) then you CANNOT cancel the last hit into a special. I'm not saying this is a problem at all, necessarily. This restriction is there for good reason: to prevent the game from degenerating into low short -> big damage stuff. It would make more sense to give players a reason to start combos with bigger moves sometimes. Guilty Gear does a great job of this by reducing your entire combo's damage by 20% for each low short. (Hey Guilty Gear players, I know I'm simplifying there.)
Ok so what's the problem, sounds good that you can't do low short, low short, special move, right? But you can do it. If you make the last short a link rather than a chain (do it slowly, but not so slow that it doesn't combo) then you can cancel it into a special move. So really, you can get around this restriction if only you have high dexterity skills. Now, this is also true in ST and SF HD Remix, but that's not so much intent as what we were stuck with. For an entirely new game, I'm surprised to see this still there. I'm even more surprised to see combos that use this in the challenge mode, meaning the developers know about it and accept that low short is really this powerful. SF4 Sakura, for example, can low short, (link), low short, ex shoryken, ultra. She can do a lot more than that, but you get the idea.
This issue of rapid fire moves using a bug to cancel into specials is actually minor compared to the next topic though, a topic that will dominate much of the game: link combos in general. The game is filled with difficult 1-frame links. These are moves that just barely combo into each other with 1/60th of a second timing. In high level play, players will master these and they become common. So Sakura doing low jab, (link), low fierce, short helicopter kick, (link) low short, ex shoryuken, ultra for 50% will be common. One friend of mine already does this combo in real matches after only 2 days of playing, as well as other scarily damaging combos off low short that involve hard links.
Other examples, Ryu can now link low short, low jab, low forward. He can also link low strong, low strong, low roundhouse. Linking is the name of the game, which actually makes the game closer to CvS2 than to 3s or ST. The effect of all these links is to hide the actual game behind an impenetrable wall of execution. If you practice (ie, develop 1p skills unrelated to strategy and unrelated to interaction with the opponent) then you gain access to the real game, a game of high damage off small hits, but only for the dexterous.
Of course some level of this is inherent in just about every fighting game. It's a question of how far to turn the knob towards 1p activities and away from strategy. Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo has dexterity requirements of course, but winning tournaments while using zero or very few link combos is entirely possible. That simply isn't the main focus of the game. The existence of many, many new links in SF4 shifts the focus toward that though.
Next up, we have ultras. All I'll really say here is that in real matches I find myself having to pump qcf x 2 over and over looking for the right moment to do the ultra. When I find that moment, I have to complete the qcf x 2 command with PPP. Let's hope I don't press PP in those moments, because that command gives me a super, which is an entirely different move. I'm not sure what qcf x 2 + PPP is doing in a "casual friendly game" in the first place.
Then there's focus canceling. The idea of paying half your meter to cancel a move is taken from Guilty Gear where it was called roman canceling. It's a wonderful mechanic in Guilty Gear, by the way. The command in that game is press any three buttons--I use PPP. This is actually pretty natural because when using a joystick, your right hand's natural resting position is on those PPP buttons usually. In SF4, the roman cancel command is medium punch + medium kick, then tap forward, forward. This is really awkward and a whole lot of inputs for one decision (the decision to roman cancel). I wish I could map this command to PPP or something, rather than having to do button presses AND double taps. There's many combos involving this that you'll need to be able to do to be competitive, so I'm not sure why this ended up requiring so many extraneous inputs.
When I read about the 100/100 scores, I see again and again how "simple and elegant" the game is. Two super meters, a 3-tier focus attack system, and all the complications above seem to fly in the face of that. Even more though, I hear how "casual friendly" it is. This is deeply mysterious and I'm not sure why this so often claimed. Not every game has to be casual friendly, so it would seem more honest to just explain how casual unfriendly all these things are. Qcf x 2 +PPP all the time, extra button presses to throw, extra button presses to roman cancel, and many, many extremely difficult link combos work in concert to create that impenetrable wall of execution between you and the actual game (the interaction between you and your opponent). I wish we could get rid of all this stuff and focus more on the gameplay itself.
Edit: I forgot to mention two more things. First, the unlocks. I'm very surprised to see basic functionality of the multiplayer game--the characters--locked behind tedious 1p tasks. I had to pay a tax of fighting the computer on easiest for long time just to get the core features of the game. (I did this picture-in-picture while watching episodes of Frasier.) I'm fully aware that casual players love unlocks, and that's why non-essential content like costumes, movies, icons, and titles are all perfectly fine to give as rewards for playing 1p content. But the *characters*? This steps on the toes of those wanting to play the multiplayer game by making our first experience with the game a very boring one. I wanted to hire a MMO gold farmer to do this for me.
And the last thing I should have mentioned here is that despite all these many problems, there is fun to be had in the game...
Reader Comments (275)
First of all, great article. I'd like to respond to a few points though.
Button config:
You said the button config is the wrong way, but I think the button config is used most of the time to look which buttons are mapped to which action, instead of changing the button config(which only few people do and in most cases not very often). So when you look at it in that perspective, it's actually the right way. If you want to know how to jab, you'll immediately see the corresponding button, instead of checking all buttons to find the action you're looking for.
Jumping:
I agree with the jumping feeling strange, but I can imagine why they chose to have it this way. Since SF introduced air blocking and air recovery, it always seemed you where in benefit by jumping a whole lot. While I'm by no means a pro-player, this tactic worked against pretty much every casual SF player. In SF4 I felt much more vulnerable in the air compared to the last SF games, so I couldn't rely on those cheap tactics.
Ultras:
The PPP/KKK input is absolutely horrible. Most people play with their standard joypads, pretty much forcing them to map PPP/KKK to one button(pressing two face buttons and a L/R button is just painful), making them sometimes easier to pull of than supers. Why didn't they use PP/KK for the ultras and the two PK combinations for the supers? Of course, you got the focus move, but it could be pulled off by pressing L&R.
Now I even prefered the MvsC2 style of pulling off ultra's, by simply pressing L and R together. It feels just as cheap, but the MvsC2 style is at least truly casual friendly.
Which brings me to my last point: the VS series(including their latest Tatsunoko installment with their genius casual wii mote only control) always seemed much more accessible to casual games. Still it failed to reach a big audience, what SF4 ironically does manage to accomplish.
However, what SF4 does manage to do is forcing everybody to start more or less with a clean sheet. If you were a trained SF3 player, you could probably kick the crap out of every average skilled CvS2 player, even if you never played that game before. In SF4 I had a much harder time the first time I played it against a few casual players who trained for a few days.
SFIV definitely doesn't deserve these perfect scores it's been getting. I'd give it a 7/10 or so. Aside from what you've already pointed out, I would just like to vent my own frustration over something as simple as the roster. How many times does Capcom need to give us Street Fighter II? Sure, there are some Alpha characters and some new characters, but other than T.Hawk and Dee Jay, we're basically given the same cast for the eighth time if I remember correctly. T.Hawk and Dee Jay are even in the rumour mill as possible DLC. Give me a break!
It's just like when Capcom made Mega Man 9. Even though Mega Man 5 is the best in the series, Mega Man 2 is considered the "classic" Mega Man, because for many people it was their first exposure to that type of game. MM2 is a good game, but it's not a great game. Capcom released MM9 to cater to the fans of MM2, completely ignoring the fans of other games in the series, since MM2 was where the money was.
It's the same with this game. SFII is the classic Street Fighter. Even though other SF games had magnificent gameplay mechanics and characters, they never had the initial impact that SFII did. Hence, Capcom decided to take what already exists, clean it up, and sell it again. That's not what I want. I don't need Capcom to stroke my nostalgia. I need Capcom to give me a great game with fresh ideas and innovative gameplay. This new SF doesn't have any of those things from what I've seen. It's a good game, but it's no where near great.
What you just described about links would just be another way of adding depth they both do. Only difference is your thinking more strategical thinking of situations before hand. I could just as easily say the links are so damn hard your more likely to be vulnerable attempting it.
As far as reviews go there are an amazing amount of BS reviews out their look at GTA IV, Halo 3, Gears 2.None of these are in any way perfection but reviewers love feeding into hype and jumping on the bandwagon. You could predict the average score a game will get if the you know the hype.
And Fireballs. It's not as if having ST style fireballs couldn't work, I just think the way they've toned it down is much better for everyone in general. Not going to the uselessness of 3S Fireballs, but they work just fine in IV, allowing you to set up traps or use them defensively without being ridiculously vulnerable or invincible.
I guess where all my arguments came from is where you constantly claimed this and that was a problem. There are some problems like bugs. But a lot of these things don't really need to be fixed.As aforesaid you are right that they could be BETTER but I don't see them as bad either. The things I don't believe are problems:
Button Config
Ultra Motion
2 Button Throws(Kara bug yes)
Focus Motion
Everything else with Jumps,Unlocks,Links, Rage mode(Wrong 3D fighter...) I can agree do need fine tweaking though.Then again you could be more right than I know about seeing as they let you make HD Remix.
For the next post please discuss what was done well with Street Fighter 4 and what you would like to see incorporated in to future games (not strictly future street fighters.)
Thanks!
I don't mind the throwing being 2 buttons, and having 2 button throws doesn't neccessarily have to mean that kara throws exist. They certainly don't in EX3, and has it been proven that they exist in SF4? Though I do have a problem with Zangief in ST. If I want to do a low fierce, I can't do it without throwing the opponent (unless I combo into it, or perform it as a meaty but I shouldn't have to do it in a combo or meaty just to have access to that move). Throw 2 button throw solves this. though air throws should still be 1 button especially for command throws like cammy's hooligan throw.
Links I again don't mind, but I'm from EX, though 1 frame links is a bit of a hurdle for what is supposed to be an easily accessable game. Should be more like 2-3 frame links like in EX.
Sirlin, thanks for your reply to my comment.
I feel that I failed to convey the point I was trying to make. I wholly agree with your point on kara-throws and links not adding depth to the game. Design wise they hurt the game more than help it. I have yet to play Street Fighter 4, so I was going by my experience with 3S, where links are not required.
However, I feel that timing for combos has always been pretty strict in the Street Fighter series, which is part of its identity, to me. I came from Guilty Gear to 3S and had to actually start timing when I made my inputs in order for it to combo. From my point of view there is not much difference between cancels and links, since I need to learn timing for both of them. I would say it's the same to new players.
Guilty Gear allows mashing out combos, because of how it handles buffer input. Whether this would be a nice way to make Street Fighter more accessible, I don't know. Guilty Gear offsets the mashable 'gattling' normal attack combos by having really strict frames for Free Roman Canceling moves, which are generally required for the big damage combos. These kind of strict timing requirements greatly hamper accessibility, in my opinion.
The point I was trying to get across with the Naruto game example is that the game has enough depth to allow for quite advanced play, which is pretty easily accessible, but still fails to draw in casual players. They do not want to invest time into learning simple combos which include roman cancels. The roman cancels vastly expand the combo possibilities within the game - which only uses two attack buttons - as any move that floats an opponent can be roman canceled, at the simple push of one button. To me, this seems like the most accessible way to introduce the concept of combos which include roman canceling, but there are many players who don't (want to) pick up on this game mechanic. It is not required to win at high level play, but does help to clutch wins.
Ultra commands could possibly be simplified like they are in MvC2, cutting down on the motions, by making it a single qcf+PPP (qcb+PPP or even just PPP, for example) and made standard to all characters. This would require modifying some moves like teleports, of course. You could also make it a qcf + 2 button move (qcf+HP+HK?) so that people don't accidentally do an EX move.
Sorry for the earlier confusion...I'm really interested what you think of my comment this time.
Good feedback. While I love SF4. I agree with the annoyances.
Well I'm shocked, stunned, and amazed all at once. If you wanna keep track of where this blog gets discussed it's on digg (and in my top gaming related stories on my rss feed none the less).
What I'm stunned/amazed/shocked about is that DIGG of all places seems to be responding to your blog in the most civil and understanding manner of all the sites I've seen: http://digg.com/gaming_news/HD_Remix_Designer_Takes_Issue_With_Street_Fighter_IV?OTC-ig .
I agree with the Focus Cancel and how much of the super meter it takes, cant believe so much effort for a cancel. Also another thing I find is that this game is so bloody slow, I remember in Street fighter hd remix I could do certain combos with dhalsim, but I cant do that with him in this game, such as overhead drill kick, then two duck medium kicks. Oh well I just need to get used to this game I guess.
And I get annoyed sometimes when I try to do someones ultra but they end up doing an EX special move. Ive kinda figured out how to get round this problem.. after you've executed someones ultra, let go of the last movement button then press 3 puches eg M Bison - back for two seconds, forward, back, forward, quickly let go of the forward button then quickly press 3 punches. Also the qcf x 2 people - let go of the last movement button then press 3 punches or kicks eg C viper, El fuerte, Dhalsim etc.
SCOTLAND_GOD on the PS3.
Everyone things usability is common sense but it does, in fact, require lots of user research. Still, I think it's relatively safe to say that Capcom chose the wrong way to approach button configuration. Why companies still get those little usability tidbits wrong after years and years is still a mystery to me.
@Murfo and many others...
You can use a "press button to assign" scheme and still make it darned easy for users to see what buttons are already configured. This particular issue is what I like to call a usability no-brainer. In interface design, the shortest line to the destination that still preserves the other needs of the userbase is generally the right one.
Anyone who thinks Sirlin is wrong on the button config can, frankly, sit on a tack. You don't know jack about humane interface design and usability. There's not a lot of latitude on this particular issue. Sometimes bad design is just bad design.
>> Response by Sirlin: I don't follow what you're trying to say. If you mean that Guilty Gear is hard to play, yes it is for a wide variety of reasons unrelated to roman cancelling. But it really is easier to enter one command (any 3 buttons to RC) than it is to enter a command AND then immediately dash. I don't see how you could think that adding an extra dash to do a roman cancel trims any fat (it adds fat) so I must be misunderstanding you.
If you RC and don't press anything afterwards, you're not going to chain together more hits. The same goes for SF4; you don't *have* to dash forward to cancel the special at all, you'll just sit there in focus stance. Dashing is only for chaining combos.
The assumption that you have to EX focus and then dash forward in SF4 is analogous to RCing and any number of advanced follow-ups in GG. Meter canceling for comboing is still a two-step process in both games. When I say that SF4 has trimmed the fat compared to GG, I'm saying that dashing after a cancel in SF4 is far less complicated than dashing, IAD, SJ, etc. after an RC in GG.
Response by Sirlin: I'm still not understanding you. The purpose of focus canceling in SF4 is to hit them afterwards with another move. I am assuming this move is not a focus attack in like 99% of cases. Compare these steps:
Guilty Gear: 1) attack, 2) RC, 3) attack
SF4: 1) attack, 2) focus cancel, 3) dash, 4) attack
It's 3 steps in GGXX compared to 4 steps in SF4. And just to clarify even more, after an RC in guilty gear, at least for every character I've ever played in the game, the next thing to do is a MOVE, not a jump or a dash or something. I bet you can find an edge case but if I play Chipp or something, my RC will be followed by a MOVE every single time, unless I did RC just to block. So I'm sticking to my story that it's a 3 step process in one game and 4 step in the other.
>> I'm still not understanding you. The purpose of focus canceling in SF4 is to hit them afterwards with another move. I am assuming this move is not a focus attack in like 99% of cases.
Focus canceling can be used as a means of mixup or avoiding punishment, just like RCs in GG. If an opponent blocks a special, you can simply do the focus to punish them for trying to punish you. Otherwise, you can more safely backdash after focusing to create some distance. The input for the cancel itself is still one action; the difference is that SF4's version doesn't leave you in a comfortable neutral stance like GG does.
>> It's 3 steps in GGXX compared to 4 steps in SF4. And just to clarify even more, after an RC in guilty gear, at least for every character I've ever played in the game, the next thing to do is a MOVE, not a jump or a dash or something. I bet you can find an edge case but if I play Chipp or something, my RC will be followed by a MOVE every single time, unless I did RC just to block. So I'm sticking to my story that it's a 3 step process in one game and 4 step in the other.
It's true that you can chain combos in GG without moving after an RC, and the efficacy/need is contingent on which character you use. However, the greater deal of canceled combos will need to be aided by dashing to keep up your momentum or get your opponent in the air.
Robo Ky's FRC point on his 5H, for example, requires you to dash forward to gain momentum. A popular one is to 5H(FRC) > dash > 5H(FRC) then raise them into an air combo. I play Order Sol myself, and I can't think of one RC/FRC combo I use where I don't have to at least move in a bit to carry the combo. Otherwise I just get in a few more hits that barely makes it worth the 25-50 tension.
To get a combo-ing game going in GG that's analogous to SF4, you need to dash after your cancels.
Response by Sirlin: Unfortunately, I don't think we're getting anywhere on this. Your example of focus attacking back someone else's focus attack so out-of-bounds of the entire discussion here. We're only talking about roman cancels, so that's not just doing a random focus attack. That means you did a special, you cancelled it, and obviously you want to hit them again. Also, I think you're really clouding the issue with your Guilty Gear example. For other readers out there, it's still no excuse to have an extra dash required after a cancel. Dragon punch, RC, Dragon punch is a lot easier in GGXX due to the simple command for RC, no matter how you slice it. You can dash if you want after an RC in GGXX and in a really huge number of cases, you don't. But in SF4, you cannot deal ANY damage from your follow up attack unless you dash. You must dash, it's just a tax you have to pay. I gave up playing Ken because comboing into ultra with that dash cancel stuff is too much work.
Wow, dude you just cheered my day up. I been playing street fighter off and on since 2 but never been a top player. I go to tournaments from time to time and I like to think to a casual player I a generally good at the game.
Got HDremix to sharpen my skills some before 4 (by the way great game you can see the love). Anyway I am having a hard time learning some of the focus cancel combos. I can complete them but it is really hard to get them in those clutch times. I was starting to get down. Damn, I suck at this street fighter and it is for the casuals.
Great post.
Edited by Sirlin: Maybe I'll just delete ad hominem attacks. You're free to post them in my forums though, if that's what you feel passes for contributing.
Thank You for calling out what most feel as the truth. Something I been saying since I first played the game. Also the reason I didn't buy it. The game to me is just SF EX 4. The character have the same floatiness. Which must be due to the graphic. Thanks
I agree with the 2 button throw... Everybody is saying is O.K but they haven't take into consideration lag.
with 2 button throw anyone who is not living in japan or the US knows that if someone is walking straight ahead with the intentions of doing a throw the Dragon Punch won't come out. Ryu will stay there doing nothing.
at least in ST if lag is in play, there can't be a throw nor the dp.
LAG: Less than 2 bars.
Stop being jealous. Your game is not as good as this
Response by Sirlin: Way to miss the point entirely.
Hi Sirlin,
I guess I'm sort of a "casual" player, I don't count frames or any of that crap-- I mainly focus on strategy, although I wipe the floor with actual casual players. SF4 impressions; what's up with these jumps? Floaty with an strange arch. Why does everyone jump the same? I totally agree with the poster who said the characters fee homogenized. I think 3D was a bad move. A good chunk of the models are downright UGLY (Guile, Blanka, Honda) or have musculature so bizarre (Ryu's calf is almost as big as his thigh, and good lord Abel) it looks terrible. (Although, It's nice to see a game that isn't saturated with bump mapping and specular lighting, for once) Instead of playing like a 2D fighter, it plays like a mix of 2D and 3D, most of the twitch factor feels severely diminished. I find myself wondering why I don't just go and play Tekken instead. I certainly wouldn't play this over any 2D SF game. All in all it feels like a giant jump backwards. Oh well, back to CvS1, MvC2 and SFCE. I only hope Capcom sees some value in making future 2D fighters, although from these early sales reports, I severely doubt it.
About this
http://lowfierce.blogspot.com/2006/06/why-some-games-feel-better-than-others.html
Assuming 60 frames/sec is the right way to interpret the jumping frame data (and my internal clock says it is, since the alternative seems to be 1.5s jumps, which sure as hell aren't happening), every character in SFIV other than Dhalsim actually falls pretty much within those criteria. Chun-Li has the longest of the other characters at what should be 0.75s (4+41), Gief's is a little shorter counting the long start-up (6+37), and Gen's the shortest. (4+30/0.57s). Most characters are 4+36 (0.67s) or one or two frames less.
That doesn't rule out things like jump homogeneity, acceleration, arc, or distance, but it's an interesting observation anyways. Turbo 3's seem to be way faster than the norm.
Response by Sirlin: Actually, I believe the frame data is given at 30fps while the game runs at 60fps. So a if something is listed as 10 frames in the data, really you should double that and call it 20 frames because that's what it is in 60fps. We could think in terms of 30fps and not bother doubling, but it's better to think in terms of 60fps because that is how often inputs are checked in a fighting game, so it is the basic unit of time.
Also, I'm not sure if you're doing this or what you meant exactly, but I'm not saying the ideal jump in a platform game that everyone accepts is necessarily the same as for a fighting game. I mean, maybe that's true, I don't know. I'm just saying it's at least valid to say that some choices of jump timing are better than others, meaning more people accept them as "feels right." It would be kind of surprising (but really neat) if it ended up being the same timing in different genres though.
Well at least SF4 online works. PS3 online for HD Remix is a joke. It's not even playable and you can describe it as "buggy" as best. And since you were involved with the design of remix, I guess stones shoul dbe thrown your way as well eh?
Response by Sirlin: a) that is neither here nor there and b) I am not a programmer so why are you directing this at me?