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)
"... while watching episodes of Fraiser."
Seriously?
You've just lost all credibility in my eyes Davey.
I'll also add i really agree about the character selection . I'm a heavy ryu user and ranekd I pretty much play him all the time so its no deal for me. I do love it when I instalty choose ryu to have my oppenent pick akuma with no idea how to really use him well enough to win . Player games let each other see but ranked should be secret .
I completely agree with you on the unlocking character thing. I don't play a fighting game to unlock characters or to get secret content. I play a fighting game to freaking fight! I just unlocked all the characters except for seth and called it a day. No way i'm going to sit through beating the game with every character when I could be battling it out online.
Response by Sirlin: Yeah same here. I'm still looking for an MMO gold farmer to hire to unlock Seth for me. What a tedious waste of time to gain access to the base game. Tedious wastes of time to unlock non-essential content like backgrounds, artwork, costumes is fine though.
This isn't a critique but a call for clarification: How exactly would you define a "casual friendly" fighting game? I agree that if I handed the controller to a newcomer and verbally described how to do an ultra, they probably would have trouble (this is probably true for any SF game with super movies). Is that the line? Is a game no longer casual friendly if its advanced techniques require practice?
On the other hand, if I didn't mention ultras and just let them button mash with another newcomer they would both probably have fun. I don't think I would say this qualifies as being casual friendly though, since they're hardly scratching the surface of the game. Where then, is the line?
Response by Sirlin: I would call it casual friendly if there were no execution barriers that aren't needed. For example, strong+fwd to do a focus attack is not any sort of violation of "casual friendly." That's fine. Though doing special move, focus cancel, then cancel again(!), then another attack is one more cancel than should be necessary. I personally find it too difficult and strange that two cancels are required. Playing rose and having to pump qcf x 2 over and over and over so I can press PPP at the right moment is just a lot of gynastics that weren't needed to make other fighting games good, so it's a strange thing to include. Stranger still is overlapping commands like PPP and PP for ultra and super. It would be more casual friendly to find a way that these commands don't overlap at all, so a slight execution error still preserves the player's intent. It's a case of introducing a barrier kind of accidentally where there shouldn't be one. Same with Bison's teleport command overlapping the way people naturally do his ultra command. Adding new link combos that weren't needed to make previous games good is also not casual friendly. At the very least, there could be a buffer so you can enter the next normal move a few frames early if they want these links. I think more links leads to a worse game, but that's unrelated to casual/not casual.
In short, don't step on the toes of the beginner when it's just as possible to not step on them.
Sirlin how could you possibly imply that the game is NOT casual friendly when in fact IT IS. Have one casual and long time pro player play HD Remix/SF2/Alpha/3S, then have those same two play IV. HD Remix what will happen is this:
1.Pro Crosses up into Dizzy Combo /Raped.
2.Pro spams fireballs casual can't deal with it.
3. Pro loop throws the hell out of Casual.
Now in IV, you rarely see this whole cross up annoyance into Dizzy Combo ending the match in what 10 seconds? In IV you rarely see Fireball spams because there are ways to avoid it without being caught in the second one.In IV there are no annoying cheap loop throws.
Yes the game it self does have TONS of Depth but fact is fact it's easy to get into and harder to master. Of course you just delve into Links and Cancels requiring tons of work and what not but those are not necessary for casual play now are they? Why would casuals even be concerned with all those things in the first place?
And I'm sure Mr pro Sirlin, Casuals do in fact have the throw problem thus two button throws eliminate this no? No matter what anyone says theres no one game with one button throws(being the same button as an attack) that 100% guarantees that you wouldn't accidentally have an attack rather than throw come out. Of course you could always MAP Throw to one button no?
Your Kara bug statement is valid, if it is intended to stay all characters should have a specific or decent Kara throw.
Button Configs? Um? Really was that just a rant?Your telling me people aren't smart enough to adapt?
As for everything else I didn't address them because you seem to be stuck on whether your argument is about this being Casual friendly or being hardcore. Your link and cancel discussion seems about hardcore stuff, but you go into talking about how reviews are saying its easy to play.
Response by Sirlin: Please stop suggesting that anyone map a SEVENTH button to throw. Six buttons is quite enough already and mapping a 7th would be worse than either SF2 style or SF3 style throws. It's also infeasible on 6 button sticks like mine, and I wouldn't consider doing it even if I had a 7th button. Very bad idea.
If you think button config doesn't matter, you have never been to a gathering of any sort. We know from the last 20 years of gatherings and tournaments that when button config is one way, it takes seconds to set. When it's the other way, it causes confusion and slows things down. Multiply this by all the players who rotate in and out of a game station with all their various different sticks and controllers over the course of a tournament or play session and it's a real issue. Interesting that you don't even debate that one way is better, you just call "whining" which is, in itself, whining.
The most interesting thing you said is that strong projectiles aren't casual friendly. Projectiles being strong leads to positioning being important and controlling space being important. Weaker projectiles that you can avoid in any of a hundred ways, a very large playfield, and knockdowns being weaker (reversals easy, two timings to get up, easier to stay out of the corner) all contribute to less emphasis on controlling space and positioning. In other words, they make the game shallower.
I've always believed and hoped that it's a false dichotomy between depths and casual friendliness. It would be sad indeed if it turns out that the deeper way to do things (projectiles are strong) is inherently casual friendly. By the way, I obviously totally disagree with your assertion that weaker projectiles make the game deeper.
Man, I love HD Remix, and when I started reading this I was with you at first.
I definitely agree that the character selection is a step backwards. Not game breaking, but definitely annoying, especially when you can see a character selection screen work so well in HDR.
Button config? Okay, I can appreciate some thought went into making this as best as possible in HD Remix, but no biggie here.
Net code? Well, I don't know what code is tuned in what way, but honestly man both games seem either pretty good or pretty horrible. I guess your point is you worked hard to "clean up" a crummy connection, but uh... we're going to just have to agree to disagree on this one. Again, I've had awful matches and good matches in both games, and not a lot of "in-between", but that's just me.
2 button throws? Unlocks? Okay, we get it--if you had designed the game you would have preferred X/Y/Z, but this is just a disagreement in design, and I think from most responses here it's clear that this is simply a matter of preference. This type of argument seems a little petty when compared your first points, which seemed to start out as some very reasonable observations that I think everyone could agree on.
And, again, after this you continue pointing out details like linking, 3-button-ultras, ex-cancels, etc, as if to make an argument that the game is obviously not user friendly... I think this is where you took things a bit too far.
Don't forget that these 10/10 reviews aren't coming down from some ivory tower--most folks would tend to agree with the newb-friendliness, and "good network play" that the game has been praised with. To bash all of that and then only have these ticky-tacky claims really makes you come off as petty or maybe even disgruntled, which I think is really unfortunate given the amount of effort you've put into it, and the good will it's earned you thus far.
Response by Sirlin: Wait, what?? You are saying we'll have to agree to disagree that adding some unknown amount of input delay to an online fighting game when lag happens? I don't see how anyone could take that stance. GGPO has definitively shown that keep input delay constant and near zero is the best way. There are thousands and thousands of posts about this in petitions to Capcom.
I have to agree with this post even though you come off as pretty arrogant. As a note, I think that is generally my problem with your articles in general. It's too bad because I would like to read your stuff more.
Response by Sirlin: Would it be less arrogant if I didn't say the jumps feel wonky and the air recover is slow? I said what I think, what do you want from me...
Thank You for posting this. You said everything I wanted to say, but couldn't find the words.
"Anyway, 2 button throws solve a non-problem that no one has ever actually had."
Then you might as well say "hadoukens should be a 1 button move, doing a quarter-circle and pressing punch just makes it more complicated".
I'm sure there's a reason why they decided to use LP+LK. It requires more skill? The old throw commands (foward+HP) coincides with some chars movesets? e.g. Ryu has both forward+HP and a forward+MP already used for other things. The reason is capcoms and I can safely assume it's purely design based.
"2 button throws actually introduce the problem of kara-throws, a bug from SF3 that we now have again in SF4."
It's a bug that they later realised works and adds a new depth. Wasn't cancelling also a bug in sf2? Wasn't infinities a bug in xmen vs. sf? I know infinites isnt something they included in later games but it became very popular.
However, I agree that this game isn't very casual-friendly. Learning the basics is, but not high-level play. My beginner friends just cringe at the input command for shoryuken->cancel->dash->ultra.
Overall, I think Capcom did a very good job at designing the game. They have given the controls, animations and the fighting system every bit of thought they had. I believe this is the best and most balanced sf yet.
Response by Sirlin: I don't even know where to start with all that, but kara throws add zero depth. They are an execution barrier between you and a longer throw range. Just give the character a longer throw range to begin with if that's intended.
Great article, Sirlin! I agree with many of your points, especially those regarding dexterity and the lack of quality control in certain areas. I especially liked how you presented counter-arguments for some of your points (this is something that I do often).
In some ways, SF4 has put all of the other SF games (that I play) in perspective. It has also helped me to see things in these games that I didn't notice before.
The best piece of advice I could possibly give you, Sirlin, would be to learn the basics of and play El Fuerte.
To anyone who is used to SF gameplay, he takes a bit to get used to as he is so different from the traditional inputs of most (all?) other characters. You seem to want simpler cancels, more mental game than dexterity execution, and more rock-paper-scissors gameplay as opposed to jab links into jab links into focus cancels into larger combos.
El Fuerte has the stuff you ask for. All of it. Except for one infinite (which frankly no "casual" player would care/need to learn anyway), his execution leans heavily to the simple side. His dash move (a setup) can be canceled with a single button. His gameplay is about the mixup, hitting with overheads to draw your opponent into a high block and then using a "land-on-their-head" grab when you think they've been led properly (more of that RPS style). They can avoid both by jumping at the right time, to which you can respond by canceling your dash (just light punch, nothing fancy) and using his command air-grab (dragon-punch movement + kick) to drop them. Playing him is akin to playing 20 games of Rock/Paper/Scissors against the same person repeatedly... a huge strategic mindgame, in both the El Fuerte sense and the sense of literally playing a bunch of rounds of R/P/S.
It seems like the sort of gameplay you are looking for is there, but that you just haven't found it. It's what seems to me like one of the best aspects of SF4, that one can opt for the highly technical and dexterity-based play of timing links and combos, or the "every hit is a round of R/P/S" gameplay.
Also, I don't understand why you'd NOT want a separate input for throw instead of a punch move. I'm not suggesting a 7th button on your fight pad, but LP+LK really isn't even hard for the most casual grandmother on earth, and while you might be fine with letting the game determine which move you use, it seems utterly insane to me to NOT want to differentiate a throw from pretty much anything else. As others have mentioned, you get a punishable "whiff", don't end up accidentally doing something unintended (sure, no one's really complaining about getting a throw, but reducing "accidental" gameplay is still a good thing, whether the accident results in a positive or a negative outcome... if you mess up either in the mindgame or the execution you the game shouldn't treat it like you did something right).
Also, as a disclaimer (please don't let this discount my opinion, you did rail on ad homenim in some other comments), I have never been big on fighters, and this is the first Street Fighter game I have ever actually owned and I absolutely love it. I occasionally played the older ones, usually at a friend's place for only a game or two at a time, and while there was obviously strategy that existed, it felt like the technical elements posed too much of a barrier to entry for me to bother buying it and learning it ala that "1p training" requirement that you say shouldn't be as present. But maybe it was just an intimidation factor of jumping in with 0 knowledge against people who had been playing it for a few months at least.
I picked up SF4 after playing it once or twice, watched some youtube clips of arcade release tourneys in japan to find out some more, played it a couple more times, and was hooked. Bought the game, spent an hour or two (for the sake of more consistency, not so much basic execution... that's not a hard concept in the least) learning to do the basic quarter-circles in either direction and a "dragon-punch" input, played the Arcade with enough characters to unlock everyone (I do agree that spending too much time on UNLOCKABLES is a negative... though it did give me a good reason to run through all the characters... see who I liked and who I didn't... a better method to me would be to leave the unlockables but make an easily-accessible "cheat code" that does it for you if you don't want to waste the time, akin to the "unlock all songs" codes in guitar hero/rock band [incidentally, another set of games I like but don't want to sit there learning to play in anything above medium level] ). I ended up on El Fuerte because he seemed both highly entertaining and competitive without being incredibly techincal.
In that respect, I'd say you're at least somewhat off on the "not casual friendly" comment. Sure, the hardcore bracket is totally inaccessible to casuals, that's half the point of that level gameplay being hardcore. I think part of the problem may be that you're treating dexterity-moves like link combos as an "essential" for being competitive... it might be essential against higher level opponents, but between two casual scrubs I doubt either of them is going to even try to execute it or bemoan the fact that they can't. If someone wants to learn the basics of gameplay, and then jump in and have some fun despite some possible losses, they completely can. That's practically the definition of casual. If someone wants to compete at a much higher level of gameplay, they can spend the hours in 1p training that are required to time their links properly. The only "casuals" that I could see being put off by SF4's gameplay are ones who only have hardcore players as friends and don't like getting beat, or who turn out to be so bad they can barely even throw a hadoken after hours of practice... though these seem like they'd be a minority. ...Though maybe I'm just the crazy outlier, having almost never played fighting games, yet liking this one enough to try and practice to graduate to that "hardcore" (though probably never tournament) level.
And again, just try learning El Fuerte. Given some of your complaints, he might turn out to be your cup of tea. He really does fulfill nearly all those gameplay elements you say are so lacking. Also, I advise you change his voice to japanese, because he sounds like an annoying chipmunk if you don't.
My issue with this entire post is that you come of a little too arrogant. HD Remix was mediocre at best. The remix improvements didn't really add much to the title, as it still feels rigid and old. SFIV is not perfect, by any means. The kara throws, links, and difficult combos were added so that there was something for the "elite" players to strive for. The unlocks are there because they should be. Companies should not be catering to the 5% market share that makes up the hardcore crowd, if you don't like to unlock things buy a different game. This game is a nice book end for what is for all intensive purposes a dead genre. 2D fighting games have felt dated for 5 years at least, the Guilty Gears series is "ok", but not on the level that Street Fighter was in its hay day. What needs to happen is Capcom needs to retire the series, and make a solid attempt at competing with Namco and Sega in the 3D fighter market.
One note about the kicking of players as well...
There are players that are not playing to compete, they play ranked games to gain points. This is not fun for the vast majority of players. I have fought numerous Blankas that do nothing but hold down turbo fiece and charge for the whole round... people that this should be kicked. Its stupid and destroys the fun in the game.
Personally I think this article was written as a pot shot against Sapcom after your experience with HD remix. I know you were primarily working with backbone on it, but I doubt that Capcom was too receptive of you changing what is considered to be a classic.
And one final note, this is personal opinion, but 3s and the entire SFIII series were bad games. This is why no one but the hardcore remembers them. I have many friends that didn't even realize there was a SFIII.
Response by Sirlin: So I'm wondering if you realize that you are full of ad hominem reasoning. You called HD Remix "mediocre." This is important to the points made here how? Does this somehow change the jump physics in SF, the unlockable characters, the many new link combos, etc, etc? It's a way for you to attack the person saying the message rather than the message itself.
When you claim that I am "taking a pot shot against capcom" that is also ignoring the actual things I said and making my OWN comments out to be some kind of ad hominem attack, which they aren't. Consider the possibility that I have no secret motivation here, that I played a Street Fighter game and simply gave my comments on it. Further, your claim that Capcom "was not too happy with my changing a classic" is one of the most absurd things claimed in the whole thread. It's their game, you don't think they have some say over whether there's an entirely new remix mode or not? First, realize how insane you sound saying that and second, realize how irrelevant that point is to SF4's ranked mode letting you kick opponents, and qcf x 2 + PPP being similar to qcf x 2 + PP, or whatever.
Your post is ridiculous and you need to learn the difference between ad hominem attacks and actual arguments.
"Excellent points. It's amazing to see people's stance that everything is preference, nothing is better or worse than anything else. That idea is a real insult to people like you and Derek Daniels who did an A-quality job on tuning God of War."
Sorry if I worded my comment poorly, but just to clarify, when I said "fellow SF player and God of War combat designer," the "fellow" only referred to the SF player part and not to the GoW combat designer part. Although I am a game designer, I did not work on God of War and wouldn't like to steal any credit from the amazing folks who did.
Secondly, since we're on the topic, I like to point out a few things in the SF series that always irked me.
1) Teleport commands. I never did understand why teleports required PPP/KKK (three button presses). It's a lot easier if it required just one button press and the strength of the button determined the distance/location of the teleport.
2) TAP command. I think the move is a great idea on paper (can charge infinitely, removes a set of options while charging), but the implementation is awkward to say the least. Having the player hold down two or three buttons, while still functioning regularly with the remaining fingers, is just an unnecessarily difficult execution barrier. And doing this on a gamepad, especially for a game that doesn't allow you to map Px3 or Kx3 like HDR, you can totally forget about it. Yes, there are some ways around it... but if the player has to figure out a workable control scheme, then there is something wrong with the controls to start with. I'm not sure what's a good solution to TAP and you did the best with what was given. The best solution I can think of is giving it a qcb+P/K command, which would cause Boxer to start "charging" the move and he would release the TAP when you press P/K again. That way, the player doesn't need to awkwardly hold down multiple buttons and it still does its job... if you're charging with kick, you can't use kicks at all as it would only release the TAP. This solution causes some other minor problems, but that's a story for another time.
3) Piano-method. Not exactly a big problem, but in the same veins as roll canceling or kara throwing, it rewards the player who presses more buttons. Also, it's impossible to perform on a gamepad, so a player gains an artificial advantage simply by playing on a joystick. The thing is... if you design for a casual audience, then you MUST design for the gamepad as the joystick in itself is hardcore. HDR created alternate commands like lp+lk for lariats, while SF4 has the left shoulder buttons automatically mapped to Px3 and Kx3... these are great solutions for gamepad players.
4) Guile's super command. By far, the second worse command in 2d fighting games, underneath Geese's pretzel command and excluding Primal Rage. I loved the HDR command (charge db, tiger knee) and it's exactly how I would've changed it. Not sure why you didn't do the same thing for Claw... did it overlap with his flip kick too much or was it because he needs to control where he jumps? I'm disappointed to see the old command return in SF4, even though it's a hundred times easier to pull off than in previous games. My problem isn't the difficulty to execute it, it's just a clunky motion.
And before anyone misconstrues my criticisms/nit-pickings as either my hatred for the series or my inability to play the game... don't. I personally think fighting games would be a lot better when the emphasis is put on strategic thinking rather than physical execution, not to mention that this would open up the audience and we wouldn't have to read about fighting games as a dying genre in every mainstream press review.
Semantics aside, Smash Bros. has been the most successful game to break this wall between casuals and hardcore... and a lot has to do with the fact that you can do special moves with one button. There's a reason why all the casuals online only play Ryu, Ken, and Akuma... they are the easiest in execution. You see a much more diverse pool with Smash Bros. casuals since execution is simple throughout.
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Response by Sirlin: Oh you didn't work on God of War, I misread you before. I think you know this, but just to be super clear, there are no 3 button commands required in HD Remix, including teleport and TAP. To make a new fighting game, the best way to handle the TAP command is probably to eliminate it completely. Regarding piano inputs, I secretly find them fun, but I don't dispute your points about them. Regarding Guile's super command in HD Remix, glad you like it. Regarding Vega's super command in HD Remix, it's same as ST because Vega needs to be able to do it off both walls and it's too wonky to make it Guile's motion one way and...(??) the other way. Furthermore, the command is already easier than most people realize. Charge db, df, ub will work. (Yes, that's all that's required.) I'm pretty sure SF4 vega's ultra is db, df, db, uf at the minimum. I could be wrong on that but I think you cannot do a 3 input command like HD Remix, only a 4 input command.
"I think you know this, but just to be super clear, there are no 3 button commands required in HD Remix, including teleport and TAP. To make a new fighting game, the best way to handle the TAP command is probably to eliminate it completely."
Yes, I know there aren't 3 button inputs in HDR. I was referring to the series in general and not HDR specifically. As for TAP, not sure if you meant remove the command completely (like changing it to something I suggested) or removing the move completely. I do think the move has a good premise behind it and there aren't any other moves like it, so it's definitely a stay in my book.
And I actually didn't know Claw's super could be performed by db,df,ub. I find that Claw is one of the many characters in ST/HDR who could perform well without a super, so I find myself not using it in most matches. But thanks, I learned something new today.
Personally I'm finding SF4 to be infuriating. After playing the wonderfully pollished HD remix, I unlock Fei long and find that not only has his wheel kick gone back to being the retarded qcf, UF + p motion, but it now doesn't even have the same basic function of being a soft ranged air counter. Also, use of invulnerability on high damage moves. What the hell. I don't know how many times now I've had to look at ultra start up animations where my characters limbs are sticking through the other characters head/torse/etc and the their ultra thus trumps me. Being able to do an ultra should not mean you can beat any move in the game. it's bad enough half the characters can juggle into them.
If I wanted a game that had 1 button throws, less reliance on small damaging combos, and played like ST, I'd play ST.
If I dont wanna play ST, ill play SF4 thanks.
Oh and even casual players can do qcfx2 ppp. Its not like their handicapped or anything.
Interesting article here's just some thoughts.
In general many changes seem to have benefit casual gamers who probably can do most of the special motions,
normal attacks, throws, and maybe even command moves. "2 in 1" combos are still simple enough yet anything more advanced than that such as link combos and FADC combos are made specifically hard on more advanced players. The execution barrier is created to try to level the playing field. This includes the floaty jumps and slow wake up which makes it easier for beginners to counter/react to, the latter being so that there's lots of time to position and execute a cross up.
The 1 or 2 button throw is simplicity vs intention I suppose, it doesn't seem too fair in ST when for example Chun Li is walking and poking with standing strong and then when delayed just right gets the throw. I agree with simplifying the throw command with Cammy but it seems the design wanted the jab+short input to universally represent throws.
Link combos will probably become important to higher level of play but in the extra damage has to be worked for and marginally better as scaling that starts to happen after the 2nd or 3rd hit. It feels like the links and focus cancels are in place to appease the hardcore crowd but assume that casual players will not use those features. A lot of the time simply landing the Ultra itself will do about 50% damage so the link combo will be extra work rather than just waiting for the right opportunity to execute the ultra not in a combo. The design seems pretty clear that they don't want easy combos into Ultra although that seems strange since the Ultra meter is supposed to be an equalizer as it fills up as you're about to lose (unless you actively try to build it).
As for using PPP for ultras, you mention that its more natural for roman cancels yet not ultras? It seems simple enough if you look at it as 1 punch for normal, 2 for EX, and 3 for ultra.
Lastly I think the most casual friendly mechanic is the ease of special move/ultra inputs the margin for error seems to be larger and there are plenty of shortcuts for moves (down-forward, down-forward + punch - dragon punches). A lot of gaming media has praised it based on the initial layers of the game, which a lot of ways feel like ST; the difficult links, FADC combos, karas, loops, super jump cancels, and feints are there for people looking for more and since they're powerful they're harder to execute.
I didn't realize how disappointed i was with Street Fighter IV till I read this. Your edit on how bored you were unlocking the characters is what I felt the most. Playing EVERY character to unlock just the versus mode was so boring, it was a chore and no fun. I played through the game like 25 times on easiest and wished i could just be playing my friends instead.
2 buttons for a throw? what happened to beign close and pressing fierce?
I agree with everything you said.
This game is still fun in ways, but it's a step backwards for something that should have been awesome.
I'm LOL-ing at the influx of newer (probably young or otherwise uneducated) gamers who do not understand how to construct a proper argument.
Anyhow, I'm actually in favor of the short+jab throw command and was dreading the possibility of Capcom bringing back the direction+fierce/roundhouse for the same reason already stated hundreds of times in these comments; albiet this is probably my own bias because 3s was the first street fighter I played seriously (so yes, I'm capable of doing or at least understanding how to teach myself to do unnecessarily complex commands). But then again, couldn't your penchant for direction+button for a throw be your own bias mmm? My opinion of the amount of 10/10! reviews is basically reflected by what GEL (from page 1 of this article's comments) said; your average reviewer is, for the most part, not amongst those in the know (especially for the somewhat esoteric genre of serious fighters) and more often than not, are just reiterators of company claims, especially for big titles. I'm pretty impartial on the notion of unlockable characters. Yes, it is annoying because it detracts from the meat of the game. But the majority of people who buy sf4 will never take their game to that level, and I can see why Capcom did this purely to add some sort of replay value for those players that aspire for unlockables. I have a myriad of friends who've purchased the game who I'm aware will never go that extra step (unless they have some sort of miraculous epiphany like that every serious fighting gamer experiences, generally in their teens), but unlocking characters makes them feel somewhat accomplished. Even though 3s and melee are my fighters of choice, I do agree it is a bit of a bummer to know that difficult links may become the standard at high level play, but I'm hoping that the damage scaling will offset the importance of learning them.
My bad, I'm rambling now. Really late here, and I just had to post my own opinion. It's sad how many people attack you personally as if you were butthurt that sf4 is much bigger than hdremix. Kind of makes me depressed at the level of intelligence of the average gamer when I read so many arguments that hold so little water.
Let's not forget the unforgiving boss! I play a lot of fighting games, but the medium seth is almost impossible unless u spam with zangief.( I'm not even good with zangief) The games ok. OK, when we talk about accessible honestly look at MK vs DC. I got a bunch of friends together and they all felt the same way.