Some Positives About Street Fighter 4
Tuesday, February 24, 2009 at 3:05AM Yeah there's a lot of problems in SF4, but there are some good things too.
I don't know how effective Gouken is, but his design is interesting. No dragon punch, but a super and ultra dragon punch. A high counter and low counter that act somewhat like a dragon punch, but worse because he has to guess high or low and it loses to the "breaking glass" moves, like Cammy's cannon spike. The ex counter doesn't require you to guess high or low though. I beat Cammy's ultra once with an ex counter, but got hit the second time I tried. Not sure what's up with that. Also, using the counter drains your life and slowly refills it, like using a focus attack. This is an advantage for the most part, because it means your ultra guage is even more full than usual. Because his ultra is guaranteed off a normal throw (and easy), it's basically a throw super...that doubles as the occasional dragon punch super if you really need it. Ironic that landing it is so easy that it's a better "throw super" than Zangief's, at least for me.
It's painful dealing with Zangief's bad-feeling jump, as if he is a flea of some sort, and not having his hop move. And not having his low fierce from Alpha 2 and 3. But his SPD is good, with jab having ridiculously long range (great!) but low damage. SPD startup time is 2 frames, which is bad for any other Street Fighter but buff in SF4 because other throws are so slow. Opponent trying link combos on you? Mash out a jab SPD and force them to have perfect timing. Lariat is also amazing, as it always is in just about every version of Street Fighter. I could be completely wrong about this, but Zangief seems strong against Rufus and Crimson Viper (see below), but against most characters, I feel like I only win when they make mistakes. I hear he is considered very strong, but I'm not sure how you'd beat a good Ryu or Sagat. There must be a million videos on that though.
My friend plays Crimson Viper, who seems like Crimson Eddie from Guilty Gear. Eddie can invite hell (the ground spike thing), frc (cancel), instant air dash slash. The effect is you get hit from below, then a split second later, hit from above. C.Viper can do the same thing with that ground punch thing that makes dust fly up from across the screen, cancelled into a super jump then into her air flame kick thing. If you do it right, this stuff hits very fast, indeed. She can also do a bunch of bullshit crossups with that air flame kick that beat out even dragon punches if she does it right (goes behind the dragon punch and hits it usually). Not to mention her slidey punch, short, slidey punch frame trap. If you do almost anything, you get hit by short into slidey punch. I think that's how it goes, I don't know exactly. I found that picking Zangief and doing lariat negates her entire bullshit crossup game, which is fine with me.
After the initial shock of how amazingly terrible Vega is, I kind of like him in a Dan sort of way. Winning with him seems like some kind of joke to humiliate the opponent. His roll is absurdly slow ("hey guys, I'm going to duck down and start rolling, what do you think of that?"). His wall dive is also an april fools joke, moving so slow and being so vulnerable as to as to inspire actual laughter from my opponents. A terrible flip kick and seemingly bad ultra round out his moves. That said, at least he has a decent slide, good pokes, and his good jump fierce and jump strong. On the one hand, it's sad to see him in this pathetic state, but on the other, I have to admit I had fun trying to scrape out wins with him against an onslaught of focus cancel combos and links and so forth. I don't even know a combo with Vega.
Bison's safe scissor kick seems dirty somehow. I'm always up for abusing a safe attack though so doing it all day is great. You do have to low jab, low jab, low jab, low short, scissor kick to play him though (or stick a low forward in there). I can do it somewhat ok. His slide is good, his scissor kick is good, his headstomp is pretty good. Too bad his psycho crusher is worse than even the greatly toned down version in Super Turbo. Also too bad that I can't seem to do his ultra without accidentally teleporting half the time. What's up with that? His ex scissor kick going through fireballs seems like overkill. It's not like fireballs are as powerful as in SF2 series, and he didn't need it there. His stand medium kick is a decent poke and his stand roundhouse is a great poke even though it's angled up (boo). Luckily, it has a totally wonky hitbox that allows hit to hit as if the graphics for it were straight out, instead of angled up.
I don't know what's up with Rose's links. Either I can't do them or her combos from Alpha 2 don't work anymore, I don't know. She seems ok. Her low strong is no longer the terror it used to be in Alpha 2, but her new semi-broken abuse is her Ultra. It slices, it dices, it makes toast. It hits jumping opponents, attacking opponents, throwing opponents, ultraing opponents. It's everything you could ever ask for in a move. Too bad I get qcf x 2 + PP instead of PPP half the time, which wastes my super meter and gets me killed because the super doesn't have a practically half screen hitbox like the Ultra. Remember kids, you always have an ultra in Street Fighter 4, so you might as well have one that hits anything on the screen, cleanly.
Some characters I'm pretty unhappy with, but at least some are fun. I really wish I could play a version without wonky jumps, way too floaty air recoveries, way too long knock downs, and the general "stuck in jello" feel that runs through the game. That would let the good parts shine more...
Reader Comments (102)
there should be more than one super, one ultra. that really sucks and of all people Akuma should have another super,ultra move its hard enough tryna pull of the ragin demon. and easy enough jumpin over it everytime. are they going to have i downloadable moves?
Remember kids, you always have an ultra in Street Fighter 4, so you might as well have one that hits anything on the screen, cleanly.
Block much?
Hi Sirlin, I just discovered your blog here. How relieved I am that I'm not the only one with multiple gripes about SF4, including its wrong kind of complexity. I remember SF2 as a great martial arts simulator, in spite of its Japanese-weird weird stuff, like that bit where "that Ryu guy" throws a blue light orb out of his bare hands. There was a time when that was weird to all of us. But that SF2 game had a great variety of attacks: six attacks per vertical state with a primary speed vs power tradeoff, plus subtler variations in attack area, duration, and priority. Everything you needed to know was presented visibly. Nowadays we call this "visible gameplay mechanics", and it is good game design.
SF4 has the heads-up display from a battlemech game: there's gauges and numbers and such all over the screen, with no indication what each does. If we wanted to add time-dependent resources to SF2's spatial resources, that's awesome, but make it fatigue or anger or smugness or overconfidence, and subtly animate it in the character's movement & facial expressions, not some abstract gauge far from the players' focal point: the two characters in the middle of the screen.
It has always bothered me that no one uses the basic attacks anymore except as a prelude. The whole game nowadays revolves around spamming magical attacks. And don't get me started on women who fight in high heels, or little girls who fight at all.
Since I've pooped on everything, I'll detail how *I* would fix Street Fighter, so others can poop on me. It's only fair, right? (Besides, I don't want to be Random Internet Whiner #5,874.)
Defense has been the weak point of fighting games. "Blocking" means a single, non-animated still shot, in most every fighting game I've ever seen. In actual martial arts, freezing in a covered-up state like that is obviously bad. In reality defense has just as much variety as offense: hard vs soft blocks, dodges & weaves, ripostes, "slipped" attacks, and the various implications that blocking with one limb vs a different limb has on one's counter-attacking options. (For example, blocking a round kick with your shin, Muay Thai-style, reduces your ability to dash in for a counter attack. Blocking same kick with your arm and you'll be slower to come off the impact.)
Tap one of the six buttons early in the block-stun, or even just slightly before, to effect a particular kind of block, parry, evade, sidestep, etc. Let's say, as a general rule, tapping the same button as the incoming attack produces, on average, the best result. The worse of a mis-match, the less time for counterattacking -- including none, or even beginning to lose one's balance for the very worst mismatches (Jab vs Roundhouse, for example).
The animations alone would make SF matches a heck of a lot more interesting visually. (Ultra combo animations remind me of the uber-long Final Fantasy 7 aeon summons. They're only cool the first few dozen times.)
I'm interested in your take on this.
-R
Response by Sirlin: Your idea sounds hard to play. Also, I don't really consider it bad that defense is totally unrealistic in fighting games. Realistic usually = bad gameplay. Holding back to block is simple and works. shrug. I mean, maybe some totally new defense system the genre has never seen can work, but it's hard to picture it.
At least learn how to play the game properly before manhandling it with these "positive reviews", people might actually listen to this and never try the game. (then again this could be marketing strategy for HDR)
Response by Sirlin: I don't understand these complaints that I'm not allowed to give impressions of things on my own personal website. For the record I have not claimed that anything I said constitutes s "review." By your logic, you should be upset at every post on the internet on just about every subject. How dare someone post some first impressions of something on gamefaqs, or whatever.
> Your idea sounds hard to play.
qcf x2 + PPP is hard to play. Timing a single-button tap is not, and predicting the opponent, as opposed to dexterity tests, is a good thing, yes?
If you mean it's hard to play for fighting veterans accustomed to memorizing a handful of multi-hit combos for both damage-dealing as well as, when blocked, push-away and space management, then yes, it'll be hard to play, at first, for them. They may not even like it, which is why it's important for SF to do this, not a no-name new game.
> Holding back to block is simple and works.
I didn't toss that out. I added to it.
> maybe some totally new defense system the genre has never seen can work, but it's hard to picture it.
Well, this is a game design blog, isn't it? So let's design. :)
> Also, I don't really consider it bad that defense is totally unrealistic in fighting games. Realistic usually = bad gameplay.
Unthinking inclusion of anything is bad game design. This doesn't mean we can dismiss out-of-hand drawing from realism.
(Also, abstract gauges are lazy design. Everything they attach to may be fine, but a heads-up display should be the last resort of presenting information to the player. )
I'm watching the fighting genre go the way of the space shoot-em-up. These games increase their gameplay depth to keep the genre fresh, but if it the depth has no grounding in reality, it's just obtuse "video gamey" stuff. It makes no sense to the general population.
Street Fighter used to be about martial arts: shotokan karate, capoeira, greco-roman wrestling, sumo wrestling, muay thai, ninjitsu (loosely), Western boxing, lerdrit (loosely), etc.
Now, Street Fighter isn't about anything.
-R
Response by Sirlin: This all goes over my head. I don't understand why making something realistic should be a goal at all, or why you would consider realistic automatically better. I feel I'm on safe ground when I say a game should be made to have the best gameplay it can, first. While some coincidence might cause it to be realistic in some manner, chances are that most parts won't be when you're trying maximize depth/fun. Street Fighter in particular is today and always was, about the clever overlapping of rectangles. And that's been very successful. Perhaps a realistic game could also be fun, but I'd hope it would be fun BECAUSE it's fun, not because it's real (who cares about real?)
> This all goes over my head. I don't understand why making something realistic should be a goal at all, or why you would consider realistic automatically better.
Then I'll wrap it up in this post and call it a day. First, I say "more realistic" or "informed by realism", not "should be realism". There's a lot of rungs on the ladder between here and True Realism, and I only advocate stepping up a rung or two, not climbing the whole ladder.
Second, designing a great ruleset is only part of a game designer's job. Giving names and comparative analogies to the various rules & resources is another, important part. For example, the board game Monopoly's ruleset works just as well if you paint the game as buying and upgrading magical artifacts that happen to work well in threes. The designer instead chose a real estate metaphor because of the economic conditions in the country at the time -- he wanted to give his players a sense of control over the world when they had none -- and he needed to name the gameplay rule that rewarded buying three adjacent properties. (Why 3? Cause the gameplay said so.) Rather than calling the threesome a "triple" or "combo" or even some made-up word, he looks across the business world and finds the concepts of monopolies and cartels.
Ultra moves, EX moves, etc., don't have real-world analogues anymore than Alpha's "ism"s system. They're just made-up stuff, sometimes without even a proper name. ("Isms" make no sense in the real world: maybe in warfare you can take only so much equipment with you to battle, but martial arts?? "Leaving behind two 'isms'" makes no sense.) Sure, this stuff deepens gameplay, but deepening gameplay is like skinning a cat -- there's a lot of ways to do it, and some ways are better than others. A re-thinking of how defense is handled, by looking at how it works in the real world and dovetailing off that, can not only deepen gameplay but also do so in a way that makes real-world sense.
This is why I think Capcom was lazy with the game design aspect at this very fundamental level, and sent SF4 off into magical fairyland instead of making something that normal people would be interested in.
In the Street Fighter series, I never really had interest in playing Vega; and, with SFIV, I was planning to play with Cammy, Fei Long, and the shotos/ansatsuken. I decided to mess around with Gief and Vega and actually took a liking to Vega and due to the fact this was my first time playing him and now he's my main. I greatly agree though that at times he's prettty trash and takes A LOT of work to win with, but I wonder if his older iterations had cosmic heel. I think that his main game revolves around whiffing cosmic heel into pokes, throws, tick throws and if cosmic heel does connect: cr.mp hit reset (it has a fast reset time, unlike with cr.lp in which the amount of time the opponent is floating is laughable, and cr.hp just doesn't have fast enough recovery), tick/throw, EX Wall dive into Drop, or block/jump anticipating a reversal or some huge command grab. To note, I'm not that great of a player in fighting games let alone "know" how to play Vega. Also, I don't know much about you as a professional, but I think I recall from someone that you mained Vega. I don't know much on how he's supposed to be played or the best way to be played, but I'm as to curious on what you think of his cosmic heel? I personally love it. But I agree with the other bad things about him. The wall dive isn't as fast as I've seen in videos of him in other fighters and is easily stuffed by almost anyone as well as whiffing a Drop only to get a blocked claw slash with guaranteed reversal by the opponent, the roll is most certainly trash unless you some how luckily/stupidly caught a guy doing a focus attack with it, his combos (or lack thereof) aren't damaging and the good links that you learn in Hard Trial are hard to consistently pull off (j.hp > cr.mk > st.lk > st.lk >cr.mp and then follow it up with whatever laughable move other than a Light Roll or Cosmic heel), and in general is just sad to see how the only guy in this iteration of Street Fighter with a "weapon" is basically bottom tier. You also say that at least he has "good" pokes (now this is where I'm uncertain as I'm an inexperienced player in general with an even more inexperienced Vega and I'm assuming you to know a lot about him so I could be wrong) but I seem to eat sweeps when I poke with cr.lp or cr.mp at times (and no, not against Guile's "second" sweep). As in, if a guy pokes with two low shorts with a shoto and it's clear that I could poke in a safe low jab, I magically get sweeped. Offline. It also seems that a lot of my cr.mk and st.mk's get beat out and the only "great" normal I could think of is his st.hk. I could be wrong though and be "improperly" using him so I doubt I have any legitimacy what so ever in my statement about pokes. Moving on, yeah, the flip kick isn't as sexy as it used to be. Most of the time when I use it, it trades off with a lot of jump ins. Why did I fall in love with this narcissistic yet disadvantaged character, is beyond me other than one point, he's fun still.
too long; didn't read: Vega is kinda horrid but fun and I hear you main him (sorry to not have watch a lot of your vids). Any tips in salvaging him?
Ugh... I randomly teleport sometimes when doing Bison's Ultra, too.
Seems like Ron Newcomb wants to turn SF into Virtua Fighter, or at least take one or two steps in that direction as to not accidentally create a hyperbole. Even then, that game isn't completely realistic as to retain the depth of gameplay mechanics (low juggles, "single arm blocks" with one buttons [although there's ETEG, character specific counters, offensive movement, etc.], Kage's moveset and move properites, the speed of certain characters change in stances such as Lei Fei and Shun Di, OTG combos, any anything else "unrealistic" I could think of)
I'm no game designer nor know much about balancing or making a great game; but whatever, I'll give my grain of salt of what I think SFIV needs to happen. At first, I didn't notice the "jello" and I still don't feel it, I guess I'm just adaptable, but did feel later that the speed of the game needed to be turned up a notch. Ultras don't mind me but the overall speed/pace of the game is slow. Unteched wake up, walk speed, dash speed (other than Sakura, Fei Long, and Cammy of who I could think of that have decent dashes), recovery after throws, and maybe jumping (it felt fine to me, I guess I'm strange) were starting to feel some what sluggish.
So the problem is pace:
My solution would be, regardless if it IS a bad one, to give an option of speed setting, a la the old Speed 1 2 3 4 5. Or known as "Normal and Turbo". I believe that this could quicken the gameplay without really changing anything else. With tournament play, people could set the default to a standard "faster" setting while those that preferred the "old" slow gameplay could still play that. I doubt this would be a problem, but the only group I see that wouldn't like that would be the people that have been playing SFIV since last year that are maybe more or less accoustomed to it and would perhaps want the old speed for tournies. But since they're a group that I assume that are easily adaptable to these kinds of changes, they wouldn't mind at all and actually welcome the new speed settings. To add to this, just fix the jump speed and acceleration to make Sirlin happy and reduce the unnecessary recovery time after certain moves like Vega's grab and his blocked wall dive claw.
-Add speed options, reduce recovery times on moves that don't really need it.
The next issue is Focus Attacks. Neutral Focus attacks are fine and the fact you could use it as a feint by dashing out or as a pseudo parry and whatever else it could be used for. What kinda bothers be is the fact that as you said in the other article, tried to become a Roman Cancel and that it needed to have been a different command and left the person in a neutral state. I agree to this, and maybe have an idea to fix this.
So the problem is Focus Attacks and being a wonky version of the Roman Cancel:
Starting with normal Focus cancel, I believe that this action should be able to be stopped/cancelled/return to a neutral state by releasing either of the two buttons. So for example, one would start focus charging with MP+MK, but decides to cancel it into a neutral state by letting go of MP while still holding on MK. If he let go of both buttons, he would have done whatever charged level Focus Attack. This also means he could have returned into a neutral state by letting go of MK but still holding on to MP. So one could buffer the next move they wanted that might include either an MP or MK, unless it's a move that could be negative edged. This overall, allows the person to cancel a focus charge into a neutral state and gives the option to do anything, even do another focus charge/attack.
For "Roman Cancels" as I dub now EX Cancels, it could retain the same buttons press or gain new button presses similar to GG(although when I play GG, I like using the "Bird Talons" button press due to the fact I play a bit of VF and that my ring finger isn't as sexy as my thumb so it gets tired more easily, so no top row F/RCs). Maybe perhaps it could just use any combination of 2 Punches and 1 Kick as well as any combination of 2 Kicks and 1 Punch as to give flexibility, hopefully, to players so they wouldn't have a strange hand position if they next action they take is in conflict with the MP+MK hand position. I personally don't mind the MP+MK; but, to make it perhaps "more accessible" and convient, I think that the idea of any 2 combinations of either punch or kick and 1 button of the other command would make it much more convient without conflicting with grabs, taunts, other commands. If people don't screw up a two button press Grab, I doubt people won't screw up a 3 button command that is of their own discretion of executing. There goes the idea of executing the cancel in a combo. As for the actual properties, I'd say that it should leave the player once again in a neutral state. From there, he has the option of focus attacking, do normals, throws, specials, supers, ex, ultra, dash forward/back, jump, the works. This makes it easier to do cancels and gives more options and encourages people to actually burn that two ex bars. I find this easier than linking two low jabs into low strong, buffer a shoryuken, and in time buffer a forward dash then shoryuken, and do a combo that isn't that much worth it in my opinion unless you have an ultra stocked in that would only be damaged scaled, although technically the ultra was performed off a confirmed safe move.
-Focus Attacks are cancelled into neutral state by releasing either of the two command buttons used. Allows more options.
-EX Focus Attack/Dash Cancels are now just EX Cancels. Flexible 3 Button command that returns user into neutral state. Allow for more options and encourages the person to use it more due to these new options. Burning of two EX Bars are more rewarding.
Another gripe of mine is the huge stages. While the stages may have some character and the designers I assumed wanted big stages to show off their work, I believe could have created equally as awesome stages in a small spaces. Nothing beats an Akuma that turtles that you've finally cornered after lord knows how long only for him to teleport out of there and repeat. Or that you've cornered someone with Vega through tremendous work only to do execute a wall dive to your back wall and the opponent just dashes forward a lot to the point you never reach the wall and land back on the stupid ground. The only plus I could think of is that it rewards defensive Guile players.
So the problem is stage space:
My solution is to just make it smaller : |
In general, Ultras don't bother me in the aspect of animation length. Though, there are exceptions. In terms of damage without scaling, I believe that the ones that do 50% or more damage needs to be down toned a bit.
So the problem is Ultra animation lengths and damage:
My solution, make the Ultras have a uniform zoom in period. Ryu's Metsu Hadouken and Vega's Bloody High Claw have relatively decent zoom in periods and the move themselves don't last that long. The only way of just shortening these are just make them quicker and I suppose anti-climatic. It's just that I don't like watching Guile take his time on the zoom in, do a double flash, THEN do another zoom in and does one hit that takes as much time as the double flash, then have his recovery time after the move as well as the slow, untechable wake up. As I reiterate, Ryu's Metsu, Ken's incomplete Shinryuken, Vega's BHC, Balrog's Ultra, and even Gen's Ultra aren't that long. I believe that certain ultra's that are essentially super moves with an extend scene + "awesome" finisher need to be sped up. I think they could do this without making it look unnatural or in fast forward. Sure, it seems climatic if you're thinking that you might have a chance you might survive that last hit that most of the time one won't but it's just dreadfully dull when you already were practically KO with the first hit and one has to sit through this self-indulgent baulderdash. At least with Cammy's, she doesn't follow through with her "Finish" when she KO's the person with the spiral arrow part. I think that's another thing they need to do, make it like Ken's SA3 in Third Strike and not do the finishing blow if the opponent isn't KO'd by the last hit that confirms into the finishing climatic sequence.
In regards to damage, all I say is just set everyone's Ultra damage (unscaled) to in between 27.5% and 33%. It's a good chunk, but one that shouldn't cost the receiver a match when he has 60% health. Although people may say it's unsafe and when easily read, it's punishable; but, that kind of damage to punish isn't any where near the damage one would have received if they read wrong as well as not all whiffed ultras are punished the same way.
-Speed up some of the animation/zooming sequences. If person is KO'd before the hit that confirms into finish sequence, the finisher wouldn't come out even if the person is hit by that confirming hit. Maybe make the animations uniform in length even if it means redoing them.
-Tone down the damage to help give a person a comeback but not a better advantage than the person in lead.
The last one is something of preference rather than something that needs to be fixed that is being universal overheads. Though I may sound like a heathen, but my first SF and Fighting game that I personally owned and got into was Street Fighter Anniversary Collection for the PS2. I'm techincally a "young" guy in the fightings scene and obviously got in late but I'm come a long way and I don't plan on platforming in ability. So my nostalgia in a way is SFIII Third Strike and I loved the concept that everyone had a universal overhead that goes over lows and hits crouched opponents without having to resort into a jump in that is easy for the opponent to react to. I would love to see it in SFIV even if the command has to be some weird form such as down, down Strong as it was in Second Impact. It's just frustrating at times in SFIV when certain characters don't have overheads like other characters especially when a lot of their command normals look like overheads but just don't have those properties of one. I wouldn't know how the ST people that want to play SFIV more like ST would respond to such a command. I mean, there are already a lot of features in this game that make it NOT ST, how could UOH ruin that "ST experience".
So my wish list is Universal Overheads and Taunts that do 1 point of damage and have horrible start up:
That's pretty much it.
Otherwise on other aspects such as online, I believe other people had it on the ball as if they're Billy Mays. I hope my input has some worth to it and could give others ideas. Thanks again for your time Sirlin!
Hey Sirlin,
Any word on why lobbies weren't in console SF4? Is it really because of lag issues (implied on all the forum discussions I've seen) or was it something that was cut due to time constraints and might show up in DLC later on?
Good article. You're fast to pile on the criticism simply because you're experienced and smart enough to be able to accurately do so. Keep it up!
I got SF4 solely because I had a blast with the SF2 versions back in the early 90s from some years (until I switched to the massively superior VF2 and VF3). I think the graphics are overall excellent, and online capabilities are obviously much better than not having them. I'm generally satisfied with the game, but I dearly miss improved gameplay! If anything, it feels like there's less depth. Guess you can't have it all..?
Back to VF5 I go (now there's some deep shizzat...)
Vega is indeed hilariously bad - I would love to see your rebalancing in terms of simplifying inputs on certain things as well as adjusting things that are hilariously bad or ridiculously good.
Personally I think Sagat does too much damage and has too much health - he's like Zangief but faster, fireballs, and more range.
Re focus cancelling, I think one reason for it being as-is might be to prevent people cancelling into block. That'd allow a sort of "block-confirm" to take the first hit off many incoming attacks safely, though I'm in two minds about that.
Have to admit, I grinned today when I was playing a Guile mirror match and my opponent ex cancelled a blocked flash kick to throw me!
Response by Sirlin: Ex cancelling a blocked attack then throwing is a pretty standard thing, actually. Anyway, I was just as skeptical as you about allowing unsafe things to be cancelled into a block, but it worked out fine in Guilty Gear. It would be even more restricted if it existed in SF4 because you can only ex cancel things during very specific windows, as opposed to GGXX where you can RC pretty much anything.
Yeah, I'm not surprised it's common above the level of play I'm seeing - I'm a disabled UK gamer and in the short term grabbing what I can get in the way of ranked online matches at a tolerable ping is still upping the level of opposition I can play significantly. On the upside that means I'm currently having lots of fun getting to learn a load at once.
Definitely with you over the GGPO thing, it's far more tolerant of variations in latency as well. The warps're fugly, but at least you don't have to change the pace of your reactions!
I'm wondering whether the ex cancel window's enough for it to affect a fireball war with Ryu - I guess I'll find out the hard way one of these days. For all I know they special cased that one anyway. It'd sure be a useful addition to the bag of tricks given how aggressively I'm playing Guile half the time though.
Coming mainly from SF3 and a little bit of SF2, SF4 mechanics just doesn't feel fluid. I can't agree more with you on the jumps. Combos seem as fast if not faster than 3rd Strike, but the jumps feel so much slower. On top of that, input timing is all jacked up. Overall, I think SF4 is a good attempt for a new generation. I'm pretty sure Capcom will come out with revisions of this game. I mean, it took Capcom three attempts to get SF3 right, and several for SF2 right. Let's just all wait for the next installment of SF4. I really hope they fix the sluggish jumping.
I'll say right about now that though you do raise some interesting points, I found the jumps, much like those of in TvC were entirely natural and the game didn't have a quasi 'This doesn't work in 3D' jello feeling I was expecting from a modernized industrially mainstream SF sequel. Or prequel as I've affectionately begun calling it likelier, as its between ST and 3S in both mechanics and story.
The design philosophy behind this game does indeed differ heavily from the one you're likely used to, but though you prove your point decently, I don't believe any particular school of views is exempt from having feasable opposing views. The ultra mechanic is; Yes, apt and quick to draw in people because it looks awesome, and I've met tons of casuals able to do it.
The whole idea of the ultra being a casually dumbfounded execution is that it gives new players the idea this is a game where you learn to understand things; It isn't hard to get an ultra off in this game as it leaves you such a loose threshold to get the command right. (I cannot lv 2 or 3 super in Alpha 1 consistently and I am pretty good; In this I have never missed an ultra)
Its just fiddly; You should remember there are two distinct types of difficulty. There is out of the box difficulty, where you are took off guard by something you have relatively juvenile experience towards, and then there is narrow, tricky difficulty such as hard links. Eg bullet hell in a shooter would be the later as you see it coming by its hard to organize; figuring out a puzzle in Zelda or looking at the back of mgs1 to figure out a codec number for a character is the second.
An ultra isn't narrow or arduous, it is just different and makes them step back for a second. They often are facinated by the very marginal and weak technical barrier being broken by their effort, and can ultra at will.
Next, the whole idea of a focus attack is giving both newcomers and old players something new, alien and unseen to adapt to. I have to accuse you of being jaded by glasses being a veteran SF player has put on you all these years; I'm told I'm very fast at learning SF, youngun here, and I'm catching up to people playing for 15 years. But!
It took me a few days to be ahead of many people just because I was great at focus trickery in this game particularly, yet a whole half year to understand the differences between links, cancels, chains. I'm not attempting to fib; Its the truth. Focus is hard to get used to; but its uses are no more plain than seeing lariats have middle startup, high duration, or exactly how reversal works.
SF is, from birth to death, a game for people willing to learn its properties. You can try and make it more casual friendly; but you are still unlikely to bring a new player closer with the strategic undertones with something like HD Remix as SF, at high level, is more weird and tricky than it is narrow and arduos.
Assuming you can do at least that, focus is just there to make it so everyone has something new to learn; In a way that it doesn't eclipse spacing ala parry did and yet still takes creativity.
I often feel I am cheating if I beat a person of Neoempire who's been playing for decades and can outspace me, just because I, unlike them, have a stronger grip of focus - in particular I favor tier 2 FA - and FADC. This makes it a more mixed up, understandable game for all sorts of determined people.
Honestly if I didn't have this year behind me of playing the game properly; Hand me a pad or stick, tell me about focus cancels, and I'd probably understand its use instinctively alot easier than crossups, overheads, how to beat a lariat, or that I'm meant to break crouching with overheads and throws, unlike in VF where mids beat crouching and throws don't.
Or that I'm meant to speed up for hitconfirm cancels, slow down for links, speed up for chains. God, SF is a total headfuck for a casual no matter how simple you make it, you know that?
I'm not attempting to deprive you of a right for your opinion, you can say what you please. But I hope you can accept an opposing view.
I do entirely agree about the retardedly tight links though; Challenge mode goes some length to alleviate this bullshit, but doesn't totally quarantine it.
Response by Sirlin: I hope that when I make obviously bad design decisions like making an ultra command closely overlap with a super command so that miss-pressing by just a fraction of a second gives the wrong move, I will have status-quo apologists like you to defend me. I further hope that when I choose jump physics that are very strange and wrong-feeling (not just different from SF2, but also ggxx, sf alpha, cvs series, darkstalkers series, etc, etc) that I'll have some apologists saying that any possible values of jump physics are all equally viable...or at least that my particular homogeneous and flea-like choices are great.
What I'm not sure about is how to get these kinds of apologists on my side. I would be ripped to shreds if I made a game with needlessly tricking inputs, overlapping inputs, strange jumps, etc. What's the secret to doing all that and getting people to defend it rather than be upset?
I'm not defending it out of being blind, I'm defending it because I have a genuine opinion the jumps feel very much like a 2D fighting games jumps to me, and do not impact my playing experience at all; and that the ultra problem isn't so prominent.
Rather than being arrogant and disregarding my reasoning entirely as just me being blind, can't you accept a differing view from your own? I tried being nice, but honestly you just given me a flat out disguised tl;dr and shown a stroke of assertivity that insinuates I dare not look such gratuitious nobility like you in the eye and speak like an equal. Unless you genuinly do want to have them on your side for viral marketting schemes, I can only assume your response to me was rhetorically sarcastic and therefore an arrogant, trashy rebutal.
That was a poorly executed retort and you know it. Your opinions are not unfortunately fact. I would not prefer this game much more if the commands didn't overlap; I would have not noticed the jumping physics if you didn't even point them out. Zangief feels like a flea when he takes himself off of the ground; to you, okay? Granted Hugo is the only other heavyweight I had the chance to really learn the links and take serious for a little while, but I sure am not feeling like Zangiefs jumping physics are problematic to me.
As for overlapping commands; Do you know you cannot actually cancel an ultra attack from a normal or special properly unless you fadc or link the crap? You should if you are not utter shit at this, want to link your super from a confirm; something you *cannot do* with an ultra. You flat out simply cannot.
You will always get an ultra and not an ex or super if you have the loosest sense of timing, comparable to doing a hadoken, not even a mid difficulty link. Thats right; as I said before and you *completely* ignored me concerning, doing a three button command in this game is far, far fucking looser than in Alpha 1 and 2.
Why not have srks be something easier too then? What if I told you I've missed cmk into srk links very rarely when my hand has been tired yet not missed 3 punch ultras, and having the command be not be srk would alleviate that?
Would you ignore the post, edit it, say I'm lying or not give me a down to earth and deserving response, instead feeding the whole context blanket sarcasm instead of actively refuting someone respectfully? Probably.
I'm 52526262423434235% sure if I've had more trouble with shoryukens than the 3 punch shit; its the same matter of getting used to it, and you are so jaded by your experience with ST you think its a work of elegant simplicity and it is the status quo, no one new could surely find a 'dragon punch' harder than something not in Super Turbo, like pressing two buttons together to do a standing command!
Wake up damnit. The design decisions are not bad, just simply different.
Read my last post properly; SF is not a work of casual simplicity and you won't help anyone out by pretending it is. That isn't the only backing to the point I have, the reasoning is more convincing in the post you skimmed.
If you don't want to read, just don't, instead of insulting me. (Yes, I consider ignoring a whole post like that and pretending your views still hold water before you even listened to a counteractive an insult, one thrown at me before the one you will surely pretense out as 'hypocrisy' in this post.)
Response by Sirlin: Pick rose, try to do her ultra. If you have full super and slightly miss by pressing PP instead of PPP, you get a super. That's what I'm referring to with overlapping commands. Not sure what you went on about regarding super cancels as that's unrelated to my point.
Is there such a thing as jump physics that feel right and ones that don't? If you say there is no such thing, you have condemned the entire field of design. There is no way to advance the craft if you accept everything as "just preference." If I say the character development in the summer blockbuster Independence Day is worse than some other movie, do you write that off as "just preference?" Maybe we can't even compare how much character development one movie has to another, and there can be no books about it, no study of it. But there can.
Likewise, there can be a study of jumps that feel right. Derek Daniels wrote about such a study in 1p platform games and found there was in fact lots of similarity between the games that are looked up to as "feeling right" when it comes to jump timings. I think it was 0.7 seconds to apex, I forget. The point is that it really is possible to make a statement that some jumps feel better than others. Luckily Derek thinks this way too, and took that approach to his design of God of War. It's actually quite insulting to him if you are implying that really he could have chosen any old values for that jump and it would have come out feeling just as good.
Look at Zangief specifically. Very high initial velocity and high downward acceleration. Compare that to any big guy in like any game. Zangief in alpha series, sf2 series, cvs series, versus series. Or Potemkin in guilty gear. Or victor in Darkstalkers. Etc, etc. If you plotted a graph with the jump values of all those guys, you'd see SF4 zangief as a far outlier. That isn't to say new = bad automatically, but there really is such a thing as jumping with a big guy and having it feel right. That is why all these dozens of other big guys in other games have clustered around certain values. It's not random that they are similar and it's not lazy design either. It's because it feels right.
You think I'm being dismissive of your comments and you the one who is dismissive. You have dismissed the field of design itself by saying this is all just subjective so everyone's right, there can be study of this, no best practices, etc. I'm just glad that someone who believed that "a good feeling jump" can be studied is the person who designed God of War.
Wow, don't know why he's posting here, but...
Just because you don't drop PPP or KKK ultras does not mean that everyone else doesn't. I don't believe you don't drop ultras, but even if you are, the fact that other people do drop them means there is a real problem. DPs have a huge HUGE HUGE input window now so I don't see how you can drop a DP but not drop PPP or KKK. I won't claim something ridiculous like "I don't drop DPs" because I definitely do, but compared to say GGAC and later (where the fireball command overwrites the DP command) I drop vastly fewer. I drop far fewer DPs compared to ST as well, where the inputs are smaller. Occasionally I'll drop one, that goes without saying, but it's more often that I don't do an ultra with PPP or KKK and instead do a super.
The idea that you have overlapping commands is just overall bad. An additional motion, or perhaps just requiring even PP or KK would make things much easier.
PS: The input buffer is pretty strict. If you hit one button before the others, it's very likely you'll get the move that corresponds to that button. Go to training mode and hit all three buttons simultaneously with input display on - when I do it, I often see "short, KKK" in the input display. Other SF4 players I play with exhibit similar tendencies.
Lastly: Watch your language - if you came into my website all guns blazing, swearing for no reason other than to be a jerk, I would delete your post and probably ban your IP. Sirlin is clearly a much nicer guy than I am.
Oh, and I guess Sirlin could be a little nicer about calling someone out as being a 'status-quo apologist' too, but that doesn't make retaliating any more right.
Hello there! Thx for your visit!! Sorry for my lateness!! I like this article. I will bookmark this blog. I think your criticizes of Focus Canceling are off. The simplicity of combining Focus Attacks with cancels into one mechanic leads to a more elegant system then if they were two separate moves. The more complicated motion is a shame, but well worth the trade-off. I like this blog.
wadonxrum981
There is a great difference between knowing and understanding: you can know a lot about something and not really understand it