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)
i've seen the link indicator on SRK a couple of days ago. it really helps enhance someone links although you need to train on it nevertheless. bad or good... i'm not sure. 2D fighting games have always been a mix of dexterity, timing and strategy (which could actually be vision, decisions, execution=timing and luck/deception) you can't take one off otherwise the game is rubbish. a couple of commenters pointed to that already but you don't agree. in addition it kind of reshuffles the hierarchy if moves and combos stayed the same top players would be bored.
i find the other things you said correct (floatiness, controller setup, dc etc.). thanks
Response by Sirlin: In ST, top players do not keep playing the game because of difficult combos. They play the game because it's interesting to play.
One thing I can say from experience with Honda in SF4. At least Honda-Cammy and Honda-Fei aren't 9-1 fights. Honda and Akuma were the two characters I felt you could have done better on. (This is why I told you to leave budget for a patch, though I know now with the crap you had that was impossible).
I can see what you're saying about how you think the funfactor is down for them, but I do think they are viable chars. Fei does have an infinite vs Abel though.
Response by Sirlin: there's no way Cammy vs. Honda is 9-1 in HD Remix. All the changes help cammy and hurt honda. You just don't understand the match. Akuma is an oversight though, and "saving money for a patch" has nothing to do with how it works. In SF4, yeah it's true those matches are problably closer because everything is kind of watered down. Positioning doesn't matter as much, there's more ways out of everything.
what a nice article, at last, a person that doesnt fear to tell what he thinks about the game, i agree with you in almost all of your points except in the 2 buttons throw, imo i feel that adds another level of strategy in the game (btw, im a hardcore GG player), of course the kara throws is (maybe) an undesired effect of this desing, but if its implemented well, can lead to some creative gameplay (like in BlazBlue http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=um8LXkWBptA#t=0m41s)
SF4 is fun, and its a really solid fighter, i enjoy my time with it, but i agree that its not much friendly with the casuals and new comers like capcom said, a few friends of mine that dont play competitievly are having some problems with the game
Quick response to these.
-Cherry pick ranked matches: totally agree - and you can see the top on the ladder right now are bots/cheaters. I don't classify it as a mistake though, it's a scope decision - which is more important, the integrity of the ladder, or the availability of playing/avoiding certain people? If it were my decision, I'd say integrity of the ladder, and let every ranked match be blind.
One of the best ranked match features I saw was in Supreme Commander. You just press a button 'play ranked match', and the server sets you to looking for a ranked match. It will find two people looking for a ranked match and pair them together - no 'creators' and 'joiners' that we see here. Of course RTS is a different ball game, as latency is a lot less important, but it was nice.
-Lag - I don't know what to say here, I am THRILLED with SF4's netcode. I've played about 500 SF4 matches, and at least double that many SFHD matches, and I put SF4 way ahead. I never experienced any input delay with it, and I'm sure I'd notice.
-Button config - yes, for gods sake why did they do this? Configuring buttons should be opening the menu, tapping in order "lp mp hp lk mk hk (3p 3k) exit", no directions involved or anything. There's no reason to slow it down this significantly.
-Jumps - can't comment, I like the way it plays, but it is different. No right/wrong.
-Same regarding size. I don't think runaway is significantly broken to warrant this as a problem.
-1% vs 99% - First is the teching. I disagree that you're almost always going to want to tech recover. If you do, then meaties can be perfectly timed on you. If you don't, then they have to prepare themselves for timing #2. This is not an issue with folks like Dic, because he can say 'ok he's not recovering' and do a perfect meaty anyways, but for Akuma and other projectile chars, by not teching you can simply avoid a meaty projectile. I think the VF series handled wakeups the best - you can tech in one of three directions with very slight timing differences, or not tech (and be open to extra hits if they predict this), but then get up at your own pace in one of four directions. I loved this system.
Second point regarding 2-button throw... I think the main focus was for a throw whiff. Accidental throws may not be undesired for the player, but for the game it might be. If I jump at the opponent and press HP, then I should be doing a punch, I shouldn't be surprised that I got a throw out of the deal just because the planets were aligned in my favor regarding my opponent's jump timing. Similar for mistiming a throw in ST and getting a punch.. which might hit. You guessed wrong, and you inputted wrong, so you win the exchange - that's not right imo.
As for keeping it simpler with 1-button throws... yes it would be simliar, but that's not always better. This is seen by extremes (we could put 'attack' on one button and let the game decide which attack would be smartest), so the question becomes how much should be 'option select' and how much choice? I'm fine by making throws more choice.
Kara throws, I don't see a problem with them. They add a small increase on execution which is the tradeoff, and they don't allow any significant exploits. They can stay in my book.
-Link/Chain combo / Difficult links / Difficult cancels - Yes these are all obstacles that must be tackled before engaging in high level play - but this is nothing new, and not immediately a bad thing. Every game has difficulties that must be tackled before moving onto the next level. What kind of game would it be where every hit automatically triggers the highest damage combo that could go off that hit? It'd be a fun game still I'm sure, but the fact that these mindgames are only available to the 'serious' players is pretty standard practice. I agree it's frustrating to have to learn all these hit-confirm links and execute them well, but it's also frustrating to learn how to kara cancel Flash kick from c.lk, or punish ken's jab SRK with Dic's s.rh, or buffer dblpalm every time to get the max damage off Akira's 46p, or friggin genei-jin combos (moot since I didn't like SF3, but you see my point I'm sure).
The extemeity of this seems to be a design decision again - there is no definitive 'right/wrong' here, but I agree with you on this case.
Response by Sirlin: I just keep wondering if there is no right or wrong, would this apply to me if I made a fighting game? Could include blanka's awful 3D model (hey there's no right or wrong), some new terrible jump physics (they are new, and there's no right or wrong), clunky mechanics (there are no wrong mechanics, it's all preference), and so on? I don't mean it rhetorically, I have have actually been wondering about this. It seems that obvious flaws are written off as preference, and yet I think if I made a game with 1/10 these flaws, it would RIPPED TO SHREDS and hated by all. What's the secret?
Forgive me if I'm wrong, but can't you set throw to a button in the menus? I like the idea of a mappable one-button throw, with the option of just using two buttons. I like what throw whiffs do for the game. The downside is that you only have 2 spare buttons after mapping the 6 main commands, so you lose out on a button. Right now I have my spare buttons mapped to PPP and KKK to avoid bothering with that super/ultra nonsense.
Right now I'm playing on an SE Fightstick with the parts swapped out. I've really seen what you mean by the menu being frustrating, especially given the horrifying button layout of the fightstick. The buttons on the fightstick are arranged to (360 version):
X-Y-RB-LB
A-B-RT-LT
In most fighting games (SF included!) this maps to:
LP-MP-HK-HP
LK-MK-na-na
It's annoying as hell to have to look down and think, "OK, which button is HP supposed to be again?" Also when navigating the menus often you have to use LB to go one page left and RB to go one page right, for example when scrolling through the screens with all your titles. However, for some god forsaken reason, RB is to the LEFT of LB, so you have to hit the right-side button to go left and the left-side button to go right. What?
This is a minor complaint, but I find that quite often I have "escaped" getting hit by supers and ultras because of the ridiculously long "SUPER MOVE" animation that the game uses. I can recall several times, say in Ryu v Ryu matches, where I've been in the process of inputting my own fireball when my opponent uses his ultra fireball. In ST, for example, I would have gotten the fireball out and been creamed by my opponent's super fireball. However, in SF4 it seems like quite often the animation causes me to lose whatever special move I was inputting, so I am free to block after the animation is over. I've also had several opponents admit to me post-match that they had the same thing occur and were free to block my ultra because of it. If I had been just a split second longer in inputting the move my opponent would have gotten his fireball out before my super animation, and then I would have gotten my hits in. Furthermore the recovery on Ryu's is insanely long, enough that the opponent can travel almost the entire screen and hit me before I recover, so if they're free to jump it because of the animation I will get punished for guessing correctly. (!) I've resorted to just using ultras in guaranteed situations; with Ryu's I either make my opponent land on it or FADC a jab SRK into it.
I also agree with you on the FADC / Roman cancel business. I don't understand why it has to cancel specifically into a focus attack. Pro players will dash out in only a handfull of frames anyways, so why not just make it a cancel into the normal standing position with a few frames of recovery from using it? If the player wants to cancel into a focus attack, they can cancel and then hit the buttons again for a focus attack.
Response by Sirlin: No, no on setting a 1-button throw in button config. As has been said before, it's playing a 7 button game is even WORSE, and I didn't think anyone would even consider it. Six buttons is quite enough, and my stick doesn't even have a 7th button on the face anyway.
So, basically you want people to make the same game over and over again. You have no idea what you are talking about.
Response by Sirlin: So basically you think that nothing can be better or worse than any other thing. All things are equal, new is always better, you have no idea what you're talking about.
"It seems that obvious flaws are written off as preference, and yet I think if I made a game with 1/10 these flaws, it would RIPPED TO SHREDS and hated by all. What's the secret?"
Your terms 'clunky' and 'terrible' are subjective - and subjective to the point that there's contention on both sides for why/why not. It's not something like SSBB Tripping that is universally hated, it's something there's arguments on both sides for, and if you ask me, it doesn't take anything away from gameplay - its just a style to get used to.
Regarding a game that doesn't get ripped to shreds... objective point of view I guess? For any game, there's a group that LOVES it, and a group that HATES it. Which one makes more noise? I say who cares? I like HDR a lot - my biggest complaints are the myraid of bugs that make it difficult to really sit down and play - nearly everyone's rating on my friends list is '0', desynchs and disconnects are not uncommon, lifebar glitch, and a few gameplay issues - Akuma has some wacky stuff that I can't ignore and have been discussed to staggering detail on both sides that I don't want to revisit, Zangief's bugged 'easy spd' input motions, and Balrogs TAP charging shenanigans. Major? No, but its enough to make it more frustrating to play than alternatives.
Response by Sirlin: Er, I'm still looking for an answer though. You seem to only reinforce my point. Everything is subjective, nothing is better than anything else? Can I throw together a random set of variables to determine jump timings, a random collection of mechanics (even ones with lots of extra button presses that could easily be removed) and then everyone would say "well it's just preference, this game is as good as any other game." By this logic, DOA is just as good as SF4. Street Fighter Alpha1 is also just as good. This goes against my intuition. I think it really is possible to say that some things are better than other things. Also, as I said before, if I made a game with 1/10th these problems, I think everyone would rip it to shreds and not give it a free pass. So again, what is the secret?
Lots of bandwagoning here to hate SFIV and pick it apart. To be honest, much of this not too different from the usual "any Street Fighter that isn't Super Turbo isn't Street Fighter, Capcom screws it up again" complaining.
However, about the "causal friendly" business - is it really so hard for people to grasp the idea that "accessible" does not equal "shallow"? Focus Attack is more accessible than Parry for example, because it's easy to see that holding down MP+MK performs a special attack, you get an on-screen reaction to know you did it right, and the timing to absorb a move is wide enough that beginners can quickly use it with confidence. But FA's then offer more levels of depth FOR WHEN PEOPLE GET BETTER. People hear "causal friendly" and then appear to assume that in order to be such, a game must be shallow and remain shallow. But this betrays the bias that hardcore gamers have towards viewing the perceived casual audience as "people who are too stupid to play real games".
It's true that some people who are terrible at games have complained that SFIV is too hard for them. But for every one of those, I've seen five more people who feel SFIV is a breath of fresh air and actually gives them a fair chance to learn it without being an obsessed fighting fanatic ready to memorize hundreds of move strings from Tekken or deal with Guilty Gear's layers of subsystems. Shockingly, these people do realize that expert level mechanics exist in SFIV for experts and they're not scared away by this fact; their poor brains are not confuddled by the idea that games can have deeply hidden professional mechanics.
Response by Sirlin: That's correct that casual friendly doesn't mean shallow. That's a strawman argument because no one was claiming otherwise. It's entirely possible to have a casual friendly game that is deep. You can simplify button inputs and mechanics without losing depth. That is exactly what I'm saying, so I'm not sure what you're disagreeing with. As for your friends, I guess they are simply unaware of all the difficult stuff they'd need to do to be competitive--stuff that doesn't add strategic depth, just 1p training mode time.
"Can I throw together a random set of variables to determine jump timings, a random collection of mechanics (even ones with lots of extra button presses that could easily be removed) and then everyone would say "well it's just preference, this game is as good as any other game." "
It depends how the game played. Certainly you don't think the SF4 jump timings were put together randomly - they were made to be a part of a much larger, well-concieved system. If it exists within that system and works well, and another style of jumps exists within its system and works well, that's when it's down to preference. If everyone in this game had VF2 style jumps (and nothing else changed), then that would be bad. It's easy to see what would change with the game, so I won't delve into it, but the point is that jumps wouldn't work with the rest of the game's mechanics. In SF4 they do (or at least seem to, given the relatively short lifespan of the game so far). Your complaints about the jumps are more about style than gameplay, and in that it's subjective.
Regarding the multiple button presses, I think I made my point well about why 2-button throws have their advantages - the only other baddies are ultras + FADC. In these cases I'll agree with you, theres no reason PP shouldn't work instead of PPP, and why mp+mk (hold) f f (release) should be expected as a key component of LOTS of combos.
"By this logic, DOA is just as good as SF4. Street Fighter Alpha1 is also just as good. This goes against my intuition. I think it really is possible to say that some things are better than other things. Also, as I said before, if I made a game with 1/10th these problems, I think everyone would rip it to shreds and not give it a free pass. So again, what is the secret?"
1/10 which problems? Only a couple of your complaints are real problems, and none I would classify as serious issues. I would classify the ranked ladder being completely broken and 3-4 characters which do not function as designed (gief+thawk's 360/super motion, Akuma's stuff, and Vega's desynchs) as serious issues. Sure it's called out on these issues, as it deserves to be. I don't think SF4 is given a free pass, and even if it currently is, it takes more than a week of console play for most people to get impatient with its problems.
Response by Sirlin: I like that you can actually respond like a normal person. And I'm sorry to hard on it, but I still don't really have an answer to my question. Look at the timing on God of War's moves. The startup, hitscan, recovery of moves. The cancel times. The jump acceleration and velocity. I think these are all expertly designed to have a great feel. Another way of saying it is I think the designers did a wonderful job of tuning all that. If I take a random game in that same genre, perhaps the movie license beat-em-up Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon that no one played, I think it really is fair to say that the second game has worse timings than the first. It's just shoddily crafted. It's not that God of War timings are the only valid ones, but there do exist many, many bad-feeling choices. So isn't it POSSIBLE to point to a game and say "this collection of choices just doesn't add up?" In SF2 it does. In God of War, it does. Even in Guilty Gear it mostly does, but that game is only for a super hardcore audience, so I factor that in. In Soul Calibur 1, the choices all added up too. But isn't is possible to critique something and say "these timings don't add up?"
If you read the responses, it's not even that people mostly say "the timing choices do add up." It's that they say "it's all subjective." As if critique is impossible. Nothing is better than anything. God of War really isn't tuned well, those designers didn't do a good job, you'd say. They just did *a* job. Any other job they might have theoretically done is "just as good" because it's all preference? If this is the case, we can't even have a discussion about game design, really. If people want to shift the argument to "I think these jump timings feel wonderful" then fine, but it's way extreme to claim that nothing can ever be criticized because it's all subjective.
Agree with most of your article, won't bother retreading all of the earlier posts.
On the topic of simplifying controls/combo input, i'd like to call to the stand the Tekken series, which i had been a long-time tournament player of until about 2-3 years ago (whenever DR came out in arcades).
The most successful and beloved of the Tekken games continues to be Tag after all these years (i don't have a survey on hand to back that up, but i'd bet on it), a game which had a decent amount of mindgames, mixups, and a par level for technical execution that wasn't unattainable by any means, but was certainly going to require a sizable investment of practice time. The game went on to live a long and fantastic life-span competitively.
By the time T5 and its subsequent 5.1 patch and DR came out, the mindgames and mixups of Tag (minus the 2-character part obviously) were all still intact. In fact, there were far more mixups and mindgames as the movelists kept expanding. What did change though, was the increasing ease of juggles/combos. Many canned strings could be applied liberally to launches of varying heights, and because it was always so easy to execute these juggles, all that started to matter WAS juggles.
For as long as i've played i don't consider myself a 'top player' whatsoever, but the game had reached the point where i could pick any character i wanted, enter training, and learn a staple juggle or 2 for any character within 10 minutes. It doesn't mean i'd be an expert on said character whatsoever, but i could frequently compete. imo, this had led to the decreased interest in competitive tekken not just for me, but for many of the other tournament staple players i knew who simply stopped caring.
i recognize the SF series and the TK series are very different titles that play wildly different even if they share the same goal. The main thing i'm trying to call attention to here is that lowering the bar for technical timing of juggles/combos/links has made Tekken a less interesting game, imo obviously.
There's gotta be a middle ground somewhere between ridiculously hard CVS2 execution and overly easy T5DR / T6 execution, and although i think SF4 leans more towards the CVS2 end of that spectrum, i also sincerely worry for any fighter now that would take the Tekken path.
Response by Sirlin: Sorry to bring ST as an example again. I wish I had lots more examples because there are lots of good games, it's just so appropriate here. You do not even really need hard combos to win at ST. Hard combos exist, and they do happen in tournaments, but there are many tournament matches that don't involve them at all. And yet the game has remained interesting all this time. Isn't your proof simply showing that Tekken was too shallow? It's not like ST's lack of emphasis on combos means you can easily win tournaments. There is A LOT to learn and be good at, it's just that juggle combos aren't on the list, really. Again, I wish I could list other games that demonstrate this too, maybe other commenters can.
"As if critique is impossible. Nothing is better than anything. God of War really isn't tuned well, those designers didn't do a good job, you'd say. They just did *a* job. Any other job they might have theoretically done is "just as good" because it's all preference? If this is the case, we can't even have a discussion about game design, really. If people want to shift the argument to "I think these jump timings feel wonderful" then fine, but it's way extreme to claim that nothing can ever be criticized because it's all subjective."
I'm not sure if this is my comments or others' you're pointing to, but in either case:
I'll admit I'm unarmed for this one because I haven't read the 6 pages of your responses to other peoples comments - but in your original post, the issue with the jumps wasn't very substantial. If it's goofy looking and feels clunky, that's one thing, and someone else could say 'nah its fine' and neither of you would be any more or less wrong because those are subjective statements.
If I say 'quake 3's jumps feel sluggish compared to 1+2 because there's a significant delay before you leave the ground, and you have no control over your air trajectory", that's something that impacts gameplay, and it impacts it in a calculated and significant way.
In SF4 we know that Ryu takes 4 frames to leave the ground from when you press 'up', and its 36 frames until he lands. Is this too much? Too little? Are his motions during this jump to extreme, too jerky, too cartoonish, too slow? I know compared to ST that it looks like these guys are experiencing double the normal gravity, and have to jump super hard to account for this - but I just don't understand why that's classified as 'bad'. There are certainly changes I could make to the jumps that would bring them into 'bad' - if it took 20 frames to startup, or if he hung at the apex of his jump for an extra 15 frames. But these are quantifiably bad - we can see the impacts this has on gameplay, and the gameplay changes it would require from migrating SF vets. I don't see these in the SF4 changes. (again if you've listed them in responses to someone else, it's entirely possible that I missed them).
Response by Sirlin: Don't bother reading the pages of comments here and on other sites. Just accept that "it's subjective, there is no right or wrong" is given far more often than "but the jumps and floaty air recovery feel fine to me." Those are very different statements, I'm sure you realize. The first one negates any possibility of critique and even seems opposed to the craft of game design itself.
I once saw a study, don't have it anymore, that compared jumps in platform games. There are many different kind of jumps in different platform games, of course. I'll go ahead and make the controversial(??) claim that some don't feel right. The study found that all the games that had jumps most people liked had almost exactly the same hangtime. I think it was 0.7 seconds, I forget, sorry if that figure is misremembered. Likewise, it's not that ST has the only valid jumps. But ST, SF Alpha series, and CvS series all center around the same kind of jumps--and each one has quite a variety of jumps for different characters. So it's not even one single jump we're talking about, but a way of handling jumps in all three of those series that just feels right. Those games tend to choose one set of variables for a big heavy guy like Zangief, a different set for a normal guy like Ryu, a different set for long range jump like Chun Li. It's not just ST, and it's not even just those three series of games, either. Like the magic number in platforming games, there seems to be a way of making jumps that feels intuitively right. In SF4, Chun Li having such small horizontal distance, Ryu having such high vertical distance (and shallow horizontal), and Zangief having such high vertical acceleration all strike me as wrong.
If you want to say "but they strike me as right," well ok fine. But that is NOT the most common thing said. The most common thing said is "there is no right or wrong." I think it's very unfair that many say I am "just being subjective" (ok, the whole field of game design is subjective...) as if that means nothing can be said at all. If there really is something to the idea of some jumps feeling right (and God of War tuning feeling right) then I'm at least attempting to put my finger on it, and that is more useful to the field of game design than the dismissive comments like "there is no right or wrong and Sirlin's comments are unprofessional" or whatever nonsense.
Response to: "Response by Sirlin: Sorry to bring ST as an example again. I wish I had lots more examples because there are lots of good games, it's just so appropriate here. You do not even really need hard combos to win at ST. Hard combos exist, and they do happen in tournaments, but there are many tournament matches that don't involve them at all. And yet the game has remained interesting all this time. Isn't your proof simply showing that Tekken was too shallow? It's not like ST's lack of emphasis on combos means you can easily win tournaments. There is A LOT to learn and be good at, it's just that juggle combos aren't on the list, really. Again, I wish I could list other games that demonstrate this too, maybe other commenters can."
Well, i disagree strongly on Tekken Tag being a shallow game whatsoever, and i think many a serious player will agree with me there. Execution of difficult juggles wasn't an auto-win for tag players either, and lots of it wasn't required to compete seriously. Learning the basics of the system and the spacing and timing of your moves, much like ST, determined the majority of how good you were.
i'm also not knocking ST's approach to comboing at all, in fact i think it works wonderfully. But it's also a game that was designed in a different age, a precursor to what has happened to fighters since. The reason you may be having a hard time finding another example besides ST / HDRemix is that there really is no such example. There's a reason we were all willing to snap up HDRemix upon release, and it's because the super turbo system remained fun, for lots of reasons that you have previously talked about. The same can't be said for fighting games of comparable complexity, you know all the old MK's, the Time Killers, etc.
The fact that super turbo is still fun to play and that the inputs and system are simple (if not necessarily easy) doesn't mean that all fighters have to take that approach. And sometimes, like in the transition of Tekken Tag -> T5+, following that logic of reducing the technical difficulty made the game worse for competition.
i agree that SF4 is a member of the more technical execution based fighting games, and i agree that it would be better off with some streamlining. But i also feel that there is a happy medium in there somewhere, and not all fighters must be reduced to Super Turbo level simplicity to be fun.
Response by Sirlin: I think you misread my intent there a bit. I wasn't trying to make any claim at all about Tekken Tag being deep or not or fun or not or anything like that. I'm saying that if you thought that you were basically done with the newer Tekken after learning juggle combos for 10 minutes, then that implies to me one of these (or something in between): 1) the actually has tons more to it, is extremely skill testing of non-combo skills, and you couldn't actually play on a competitive level without tons of dedication or 2) you were totally right in the first place and there really was nothing much more to the newer tekken than juggle combos. I'm not actually trying to judge Tekken, I just see no other ways to interpret your statement.
Well, the claim "the jumps are too XXX" is not subjective, but the supporting "they don't feel right" is. I don't see anything the SF4 jumps take away from the game. Could I be wrong? Of course. Could you be wrong? Of course. It would help your case though if you could describe a gameplay scenario in which these jumps cause a problem.
I think the above paragraph comes across like a condescending skeptic, but I don't know how to change that tone... just assume my intentions are sincere.
Response by Sirlin: Ok, I accept your sincere tone. I don't think I accept your premise though. It's possible for something to feel completely wrong and not be bad for gameplay. We could tune the jumps to be so wrong that even you would readily say it, then balance the game around it, creating a fair experience that feels totally wrong.
One gameplay thing I find very awkward is how the opponent is knocked down soooooo long when not quick recovering that it's actually (unintentionally) hard to cross them up. Yeah you can learn the timing, but it's just so much longer than any knockdown I've ever seen that it's strange. I can jump over the opponent, then jump over them again by the time they get up. It's so long as to actually interfere with crossup timing. Again, I know you can just learn that timing. But you can learn any timing, so it seems best to choose one that feels reasonable, rather than one that's longer than any other game's knockdown, ever.
Also, just for argument's sake for the moment, pretend that you agree the jumps "feel weird" in SF4. That they are too high vertically, too shallow horizontally, acceleration values are strange, whatever. If you can't pretend that, then imagine some completely new game with jumps that you really do feel are incredibly strange. Next, imagine these jumps and the floaty air-hit recovery allow certain combos to exist. Further assume that these combos are important, that some characters rely on them to win. That's an incredible stretch, but stay with me. Now you can make a sequel to this game. I am saying that a good approach would be 1) fix the jumps to feel intuitive, then 2) balance the game based on the consequences. I'm saying a bad approach would be 1) balance the game as-is because these jumps/floaty air-recovery have "positive gameplay effects" and 2) leave the wonky stuff as is. Remember that this example isn't even necessarily SF4, just a theoretical game with values set in a way you think are totally wrong.
The reason I think the first approach is better is that the balance can be fixed either way, so you might as well go with the solid feel. It's kind of painful going through all this isn't it? That's what happens when we disagree on a premise, it requires taking several steps back. You still could claim that SF4 physics are perfectly fine. But I'm saying you can't claim that no one can even make a statement about whether it's fine and I'm also saying that making such a statement does not even require there to be negative gameplay consequences (though there may be those anyway).
Part of the problem is that HD remix was so keen and directly serviced players that it makes me very hesitant to purchase IV for $60 + more for DLC.
After reading what I wrote here I prb won't either. Seriously, after getting a game that streamlined the exp for us, how can I go back to nonsense from before? Easier SPDs, button configs, online matching, has been nothing but amazing. C'mon now, does capcom expect its 20 somethings who have careers and busy life to get IV when they're making us play to unlock characters and buy costumes? Compare this type of service to changing Guile's girly voice b/c it just sucked so bad.
Sirlin, you shouldn't have spoiled us w/ all this nonsense like thinking about our internet matches, redoing the endings, redoing the music, recrafting the moves b/c now we expect some of this out of Capcom. How rude of you to show them up and inc. or expectations
I didn't really know who you were until some folks from SRK in Seattle mentioned to me I was playing you. I enjoyed what you did in balancing HDR greatly. I'm primarily a 3rd Strike player so what you did to the game made it fun for me... That said, I agree with all your points except the 2 button throws & Kara throws. Being from a 3rd Strike background, I personally enjoy the way it was made. My biggest worry about SF4 was that there would not be anything mechanic-wise like 3rd Strike, which to me is the most fluid Street Fighter gameplay IMO. I think Ken got nerfed from his previous versions so I enjoy having a Kara throw since now some of his knock downs.. I personally would have liked if what you said is implemented as an update. The ideal Street Fighter for me would have been if they had just added the SF4 characters into the 3rd Strike system & balanced them the way you did it on HDR.. That would be an awesome fighter, but probably not as enjoyable for the casual gamer..
I agree with about 80% of this article. I disagree that having single button throws is more simple; as you cannot simply dictate when you want to throw or not. There is nothing more frustrating than moving for a grab, but you punch instead, blocked and countered. Additionally, I think that this game is casual friendly because you can play Ken and learn to spam shoryuken and still pull a 1k+ Battle Point average. I also am disapointed by the tier intensity in this game; when I play a ranked game, pick Abel and watch someone pick Sagat, then I might as well come back in a minute or two. In TS, I played Q, another low tier character; but I could consistently do well against Ken and Chun-Li players. I miss TS where complex charging and long charge timers never existed and where Parrying and Cross Counter! was fun.
"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."
LOL, Ironic you would be saying that considering HDR does a piss poor job at using GGPO netcode. Constant rollbacks with slowdowns that almost make the game unplayable. Way to go Sirlin, Way to go.
The lenient commands on special seem to do more harm than good for me at the moment. As do the increased charge times (no more jump in cross up mp flash kick unless I do the lp mp link). And reversal windows are HUGE.
HDR spoiled me with lobbies larger than 2 people and the double blind ranked matches.
All things aside, SF4 is a lot of fun.
As far as games without huge 1p input barriers go... I like Soul Calibur (1) a lot in this regard. Once you've learned a character's moveset well.. it's just you versus your opponent in a tactical battle. I'm really sad that the Soul Calibur team (version 2, 3 and 4)started adding "just frame" inputs that require you to hit a button on a precise 1-frame window.
lolsirlin wrote:
"LOL, Ironic you would be saying that considering HDR does a piss poor job at using GGPO netcode. Constant rollbacks with slowdowns that almost make the game unplayable. Way to go Sirlin, Way to go."
Eh? Would you prefer the old input lag method instead? Because that would *absolutely* make the game unplayable.
Fix your network settings, play matches with ***LOW*** ping, and for god sakes, don't play while torrenting something or whatever. I have almost no lag related problems playing HDR online at all, so I don't see what you're complaining about.
~Z