Street Fighter 4 Ultra Combos
Friday, February 27, 2009 at 12:13PM Lots of people have asked me why the Ultras in Street Fighter 4 work they way they do. I have no inside information on this, nor have I even seen what the designers might have said, but I have a pretty good guess. After walking you through that, we can then ask if we would include such a mechanic in a new, ideal fighting game. I actually don't know the answer, but I can explain the issues.
When I first saw the ultra system a long time ago, I though it was a terrible, terrible idea. My reason was that the last thing casual players wanted was a SECOND super meter. I mean this isn't Guilty Gear, it's supposed to be simple and elegant, and a new super meter in addition to the old one (which has four divisions and multiple uses) is going to be a confusing mess. I think it turns out there was more to the issue than I thought back then, so let's look at all the issues together and see if the overall effect is good or bad.
But first, let's explore how I imagine ultras came to be what they are in this cartoonized, fictional line of thought:
"How can we get casual players interested in this game? There's lots of ways of course, but one way would be really flash super attacks. Yes, that's a natural answer because we already have had super attacks in lots of other Street Fighter games, and now that we can use 3D animation, camera movement, and effects, we'll be able to make these look even better than ever. So far, this sounds great."
"But wait, how often do people really land super moves? Maybe not quite enough. Think of the spectators, they'd probably like to see these flashy supers a lot. We want to make sure that even beginners see these cool supers, so they can't be some rare trickshot that's impractical in a real match. One problem is that we have this idea about multiple uses for your super meter. You can use it to do a super move, to do ex moves (powered up versions of special moves), or to do ex cancels (like roman cancels in guilty gear, where you do a special move, then cancel it instantly so you can do another move in a combo). Anyway, there is some strategy in managing your meter, and we like that, but it also means that supers will be LESS frequent. Some players will use ex specials constantly, for example, and while that might be a valid strategic choice, it's ruining our initiative to show off the cool supers."
"How about...a SECOND super meter? The main super meter works how we said above, with three different uses. But this new meter could only involve supers...a new kind of super that we'll call ultra. The ultras will be the visual showcase of the game, with camera movements and elaborate canned animations between attacker and victim. We need to make sure everyone gets to use these ultras though. If your opponent overwhelms you, you don't even get a chance to build up the standard kind of super meter. But what if this ultra meter filled up when you GET HIT? Everyone gets hit!"
"In tuning this idea for the ultra, there was somewhat of a conflict. On the one hand, we really want you to fill up that ultra meter fairly fast. If we only gave you the ultra when you have 1% life, for example, it would be too rare to see it happen. But if we give it to you when you still have 50% life, it's just way too powerful of a tool to have. So instead of just an on/off thing, where you either have/don't have the ultra...let's give it to people at 50% life, but keep the damage low. As they get hit more, their ultra meter keeps filling up so that when they do get really low, like 5% life, then the ultra does tons of damage...maybe 50%!"
"This is also gives everyone a comeback mechanism, so even if you're losing, you're still in the game."
"Finally, we want the ultras to be kind of special in that you don't just short kick, short kick, ultra all the time. So we shouldn't let you cancel moves into them. They'll be stand-alone attacks. But hmm...it sure is fun to combo into them anyway, so how about you can juggle into them, throw into them, and things like that to make sure they frequent enough."
That's the line of thinking I imagine lead to the ultra system. I'm not trying to be positive or negative about it with that description, just trying to explain why it probably is how it is. So what do I actually think about it? One factor is my original objection that a second super meter is inelegant and something that exactly no one asked for. I thought Casual Joe would scoff at it or be confused. What I greatly underestimated is how good these ultras would look.
Ultras: Production Values in Action
The production values on the ultras are incredible, and in my opinion are the best looking things in the entire game. The animations are great, solid, powerful-feeling. The effects are great. Some of the game's animation makes me cringe and Blanka's entire character model makes me want to cry, but these ultras really are amazingly good looking across the board. While I predicted Casual Joe would not be down with even more super meters (each with different mechanics...) it seems that Casual Joe's actual reaction is "wow these look incredible!" That also spills over into "this game looks incredible" and gives it an aura that makes Casual Joe completely willing to overlook lots of problems, even art problems, that might stick out.
I'll specifically point out Gouken's ultra as looking and feeling terrific. The shin shoryuken has always been a good concept for a move that feels powerful, but Gouken's version...with 3D camera movement, huge hit pause on each hit (power!), and great animation...made the concept of the shin shoryuken come alive in a way we've never seen until now. A+ on that, if you ask me. Incidentally, he can combo it every time (easily) off a throw, so you're sure to see it often.
So if we ask "did ultras accomplish their mission?" (or at least the mission I'm guessing existed on this project), I have to say the answer is yes. They make the game much more exciting to spectators, they draw in casual players, and they contribute to that aura of good graphics that helps people overlook other graphical problems. But what about the effect on gameplay?
Ultras: Gameplay Effects
The most obvious effect on gameplay is that ultras offer a comeback factor. I still can't figure out why the concept of slippery slope is so hard for some people to understand (they intentionally try to misunderstand it, I think). I wrote an article about that here. The short version is that most fighting games are slippery slope neutral in that the scoring (your health meter) is not related to your ability to score. I mean this in general terms, so ignore edge cases like block damage (if you have only a sliver of life left, you can no longer do the move "block", yes I know that.) But whether you have 100% life or 5% life in most fighting games, your moveset is the same. You still have jump roundhouse and throw, and so on. There would be slippery slope if the more you got hit, the more disabled your character became, as in Bushido Blade.
Street Fighter 4 adds the opposite concept, which I called perpetual comeback in that article. It's really called negative feedback, but that term sounds..."negative" (it's not, it's just a counterpoint to positive feedback) and also people mix up those terms all the time. Anyway, SF4 adds a comeback factor. There are some who are against this in general, and who say a "real" game punishes your mistakes (and therefore a "real" game has slippery slope!). This is where I point out that your mistakes are punished in a game with neutral slope because a mistake means your score goes down (your health bar). It's just that your score going down doesn't make it less likely for you to win by reducing your ability to attack, which would lead to first hits being way too important.
So neutral slope is good, I think, but what about this comeback force? Can it also be good? This is a very delicate question because it depends so much on specifics. I think a game having a mild comeback force is usually fine, though when it becomes too strong, it throws things way out of whack. Another thing to consider is how easily you can make a comeback anyway, naturally, without extra forces (like ultra combos) stepping in. Here are some rules of thumb: if defense is really strong in a game, comebacks are hard. If offense is really strong in a game, comebacks are more possible.
Imagine a game where offense is, for the most part, really good. In this game, throws have instant startup. Even if the opponent breaks a throw, they still take damage. If you just sit there (trying to sit on a lead), you are open to throws. Also in this game, knockdowns are powerful. You can't vary the time you get up, so that makes crossups more powerful. It's also hard to reversal attack (a bad way to design things, but just go with it for now), so attacking a rising opponent is good. Stages are fairly small so you can't run away. Finally, hit point totals in general are actually really low, so even when you're behind, you aren't THAT behind. You can always go on the offense because, well, offense is strong.
Now imagine a different game where it's much harder to naturally make a comeback. Hit point totals are higher in general so that means when you're behind, you're actually further behind than in the first example game. Throws are weak with 3 frame startup (or worse, 5 frame startup for Ochio throw). Throws can be escaped for zero damage. The playfield is really big, so running away is more possible. Knockdowns are weaker (meaning offense is weaker) because reversal attacks are incredibly easy and varying your getup time helps a bit to weaken crossups. (Well sort of...). Anyway, all those things point to the power of offense lowering and the power of defense increasing, relative to the first example game. This second game (SF4) needs some comeback mechanism, that's for sure.
Ultras do provide that. I think ultras have an unintended negative effect though: the ends of rounds were supposed to become more exciting, but instead they sometimes become more boring. One of my friends who played me the other day remarked that it was frustrating to him that some rounds he would beat me down, but then toward the end, he had to play very carefully and conservatively. He just gave me a 50% damage ultra that I could randomly throw out as desperation at who-knows-what time, so he had to switch playstyles to a more boring one, basically.
Another situation that occurred in a match against him was when I had him at just under 50% life. I was Rose and just got my ultra. I thought about how if I use it soon, I could hit him (which is easy, it's like perfect anti air and beats just about everything), but I would not kill him. So maybe I will hit him a few more times, then do the ultra for the win. But then I thought, wait, what if he hits ME a few more times instead? That will actually power up my ultra enough that it will kill him outright! While it sounds better to hit him than to get hit on purpose, it did feel like the next few hits hardly mattered. (Epilogue: I got hit a few times, I ultra'd, I won.)
A New Fighting Game: Ultras good or Bad?
So I've been wondering, if we were to make a new fighting game, the ideal one, would we include something like ultra combos? It seems the market has spoken on the issue of complexity of two meters versus awesomeness of these supers. Awesomeness won. Now imagine all the extra hype, press, casual interest, and spectator interest our theoretical new fighting game would get from ultras....(at lot, right?) and compare it to the extra sales and interest we'd get from making sure the ends of rounds between experts aren't boring because they don't need to shift to cautious mode as much. Even if we did improve gameplay by avoiding cautious ends-of-rounds, it doesn't sound like a very good bullet point on the box, does it?
And even more to the point, it seems that when looking at this purely from a gameplay angle, it's a better solution to make comebacks more possible in a natural way by making offense good. Games with good offense have proven to be fun over the years, while games that allow defense to win are boring to play and watch. (And note that even games with lots of offense like GGXX and ST have defense too, it's just that attacking is good.)
So from a gameplay standpoint on our new theoretical fighting game, we might be better of with no ultra system at all, but better offense (and fewer hit points, perhaps). Even if we had a game that allowed comebacks naturally...would we STILL want the ultras anyway? Again, the idea that you get hit to fill up a special kind of super meter means that you will always be able to do that super before dying. It's a way to ensure that spectators and casual players get excited at awesome super animations that happen all the time, so is it really worth it to lose out on those benefits even *if* you believed that gameplay suffers? That's the scary thought I wrestle with. I'm not against comebacks, but when the mechanism to facilitate them is extreme enough to introduce some ill effects, and when it's possible to allow comebacks anyway with overall shifts in the design, I just don't know. It's a collision between trying to make the best gameplay possible and trying to make a game popular and get noticed. Maybe a good solution (for the theoretical game, not for SF4) would be to have one super meter and that supers are amazing looking, but we simply accept that they don't happen quite as often as in SF4. I leave it as an open question.
Reader Comments (87)
I think that fighting games should be targeted towards the casual player. For specific things: If there's ways of satisfying both casual and hardcore players, then that is great! If there has to be a compromise, casual players take precedence 100% of the time. This is because hardcore players can adjust by playing around it, and casual players adjust by buying another game instead
Sirlin,
How do you feel about SNK fighters? Most KOF and Fatal Fury games have desperation supers, but they are also largely offensively aggressive. In that sense one could say they're not needed, but at the same time, SNK games have held up pretty well. Also, I don't think I've ever read a detailed commentary from you about what you think about SNK's fighter series. Perhaps you should share your thoughts with us some time. I'd be interested to know. I'll probably disagree with you some, but meh. I'm OK with peaceably disagreeing.
There are a few ideas i see here i agree with in regard to Ultras.
I'm still caught up in the joy of this game at the moment and the external factor of getting real good games against good close friends who i cannot play in person due to the responsibilities that come with age is essentially the icing on the cake to i game i am having a lot of fun with.
However at times i have felt "punished" by Ultras as by playing better or outsmarting an opponent in certain situations rewards them with a comeback mechanic, for some reason though this initial feeling i had is changing into one in which i welcome the added tension the threat of an ultra brings......plus at the moment i am enjoying that extra mind-game that is playing out where i am waiting to bait the Ultra...and opponent is choosing whether to use it.
The situation i enjoy most however is when both players have either kind of bars and there is the threat of punishing a missed ultra/super with a successful one......I was worried that if i ran into a player who also wants to bait the move then the game becomes too cautious, but at the moment i have found when running into a player with the same idea (baiting the move from me as i intend from them) then the extra threat that comes when you slowly whittle down someones energy can make them use the ultra out of desperation.
At the moment i am enjoying when these "last ditch" situations occur.
While a theoretical fighting game might not need a revenge meter, it does need ultra combos. The wow factor is too huge to ignore, and the feeling of empowerment you get when you're being outplayed but you know you still have one ace up your sleeve (if only you psych them out and land it) is wonderful. I would rather see these great cinematic moments often than not at all, which is how often most characters use their Super moves.
Rose is probably an unfair example here, as she has an amazing Ultra move that's much better than her reversals, like Dictator in ST. Against Ken, for instance, he could already stick out a dragon punch, so the match doesn't change that much.
I'm going to have to say that I feel that ultra combo implimentation is a mixed bag. When I first began playing SF4, I thought ultras looked powerful, and overall added to the game. I still feel that their execution in the game itself is beautiful. Aesthetically, they are very pleasing/satisfying.
My problem with them, however, is that in the end - ultra combos only support defensive playstyles, In my opinion.
Playing on X-Box Live, in ranked matches, it's become a chore for me to switch up my game. In previous Street Fighter incarnations, if I took off half your life at the beginning of the match, I would go for the kill and press the advantage. In Street Fighter 4, I find that if I press the attack if I gain the early advantage - Is quite painful.
The opponent can throw the ultra out randomly and even the game up. I suppose that's not a "bad" thing per se, and I suppose you can say it was my fault for being careless and eating the ultra. But I think it's kind of frustrating. Suddenly we're even, when he's used one move, and I've been dominating the whole match.
It encourages, I think, of taking an early lead then turtling, depending on the opponent. Like Sirlin said, Rose's ultra is downright scary. Ken's Ultra can beat most things, and new players tend to randomly throw them out! That makes things kind of difficult when trying to predict them (it isn't usually a problem though since these players are easy to bait into reversal dragon punches).
In the end, I think that Ultra combos were somewhat unnecessary. What if those ultras were rolled into the super meter, and Fighters' super meters dished out that much damage? So I agree with Sirlin for the most part.
And just going back to the Ultras looking superb, I feel I have to address this about the graphics. I disagree with Sirlin on the appearance of the game. I can understand how he feels about the 'jello' and wonky jumps, but I don't feel that with the game. And yes, Blanka does look pretty terrible, I agree - but when the game nails the graphics, it really nails them. The ultras for example, and a few other fighters. I think Gouken, Akuma, Cammy, and a few others look absolutely amazing. I feel that when the graphics are working, they really nail the artstyle, feel, etc. And I think the graphics are working more than they fail.
I like the concept of the ultra, as you can build a "super" meter while executing judgment as to using EX versions of special moves, or build up for supers. Sometimes you need a fireball that will cancel out someone else's and do damage, allowing you to set yourself up for something better.
Ultras are a bit strong, and could be toned down, imho. 50% is a bit much for a fully-powered revenge meter. 40% would work I think for the most part. It should also depend on the character - Zangief has a hard enough time against fireballs, at least give him that hulking 50% damage.
If that doesn't happen, I would love to have the moveset fixes from HD Remix at the very least. The 'Gief grab, Cammy hooligan, Fei Long kicks, etc. The simplification didn't mess up anything, and I finally had fun jumping around with Fei Long. If the simplification is put in, you could probably change the Ultras to just 2 buttons. Seeing that if you mess up with the motion, you pull off an EX move anyhow, it wouldn't change much.
Sirlin, if you have any pull in capcom after the fantastic job you did with HD Remix, please get them to fix up the moveset!
"it's kind of a bad idea to do this "with ultra" and "without ultras" game. It splits the community and makes it confusing what the "real" game is. For a party game or something, that's fine. But for a competitive game like Street Fighter that is intended to have a community that all plays the same game, it's iffy."
Look at the Arena system in World of Warcraft, which is every bit as competitive as any fighting game. Despite the constant balance tweaks and multiple ways you can customize your characer, hardcore players always know what they're up against. They know what each class/spec is capable of. The best players in the world are able to quickly adapt to any 'surprises' during the course of an Arena match and do what it takes to win.
"Furthermore, it's not so clear that customization is "moving forward" rather than moving backwards. There is something to be said for knowing exactly what you're up against (Zangief, for example) rather than a collection of who-knows-what."
It wouldn't be some completely open-ended engine like MUGEN. There would have to be a fairly strict framework in place similar to the talent trees in WoW. If your 'class' is E. Honda, you could spend 'talent points' on old standing fierce, but you'd lose something in return. You could choose to drop Ochio in favor of steerable jab slaps or you could drop your super bar in return for a flat damage boost. You couldn't just give every character a fireball and dragon punch.
Success in a fighing game shouldn't boil down to (as it often does) picking a 'high tier' character and memorizing the match-ups. I don't think throwing a wrench in the works and making people think more dynamically is going to hurt anything. If regular patching and character customization means less Sagats and more T. Hawks, I'm all for it.
Nobody gets it right the first time around. Even the mighty ST had massive balance problems before you came in and fixed some of them with HD Remix. I would rather play a constantly evolving fighter with regular balance patches than a fighter with strictly defined character tiers. That, more than anything else, is why I lost interest in fighting games over a decade ago.
In the end, SF4 is just SF2 with more bells and whistles. I think it's time to do something different.
Another idea would be that players share ONE METER that is super and ultra meter at the same time!
The meter behaves like a scale and is in a neutral central positon at the start of the game. If the left player is punishing the right one heavily, the meter grows from left to right and if it reaches 3/4 of rightmost maximum, left player can do a finishing move. There should also be (weaker) ultras/revenges that can be done at any time costing 1/3 meter. So the loosing player can only ultra-attack as long as he's not totally destroyed or try to come back with some successful "normal" moves to earn himself the right to do an ultra (= 1/3 meter).
Both players must do all they can to keep the other player away from the 1/3 respectively the 3/4-marker.
This could really become an interesting panic-poker.
Another idea is not really use them as ZOMGSUPERKILLS that can make you have a ridiculous comeback, but reduce damage caused by the supers and make them more comboable.
The major problem I see with the ultra system is that it is unbalanced from character to character. Playing as Sagat, I can combo a jump kick, into a low kick, into a tiger knee and finish with tiger destruction, almost everytime(my bread and butter, if you will). In practice I have a hard time doing guile's/ vega's ultra combo two times in a row, against a training dummy, haven't even bothered trying to combo them to anything yet, but I've seen cpu's do it, so I know its possible. I am by no means an expert at this game, so maybe pulling these moves off comes easier for some than others, but at my current skill level, with my friends at their current skill level, I just don't see how either of these characters can stand a chance against chacter's like sagat. Even further more, the conventional charge characters arent much better (e honda, balrog) when it comes to consistantly pulling off their ultras when you want to. For me, to be competitive with my friends, this has made more than half the playlist unplayable.
To even more casual players than myself:
( been playing off and on throughout their existance, never owned one until sf2hdr, arcades always seemed to do the trick, and they don't exist anymore so...)
All of these moves are alien, including the basic moves. You will never teach a casual player how to play a fighting game like street fighter. Never. So, I really hope the development teams thought process is different from what you set out for them, because they were waaaaay off the mark... If they wanted to make a casual friendly fighting game it would have to be like smash brothers, where special moves are relagated to one button plus one directional push, that's it, and most of the casuals still wouldn't play it. That's just the way it is. Don't believe me? Try teaching someone who's never played before how to do a hadoken or sonic boom. For what it is worth, casuals do find the pictures to be pretty.
In any case, my 2 cents: I think its the balance that is the problem, if every character could do there ultra moves as easily as everyone else than when a winner and loser are decided it will be more about who was able to better time the use of the ultra and less about who was using the better character (although Im sure these kinds of arguements would still happen)
And as for the pace of the end match being slowed because experts are wary of the ultra , I think a possible solution would be to have the bar constantly drain to 49% once it hits max. This would cause 1 of three things to happen 1. people would start using it much earlier, effectively making it weaker 2. Waiting for some one to do their ultra wouldn't happen, because waiting to use it would effectively hurt the user. 3. People would get their ass kicked spending too much time looking at their meters.
Also, in the same round, if you're meter hits max and starts draining, it won't stop draining, even as it regenerates as you take more damage( naturally it would have to drain at smaller increments than it re-fills for this to make any sense) but, this added draining feature, would act as a way to punish the player who is playing slow, rather than have the ultra seem like an unintended punishment for kicking your opponents ass.
Hmmm... I find it so... interesting that someone in your position would be against two button throws. I don't think they're there just to make things needlessly complicated. I think they're they're (At least this is why I put them in my projects) 1: To make sure someone who wants to throw is committing to the throw and 2: To make sure someone who wants to throw gets the throw.
With two button throws, you don't have to worry about throwing on accident, worrying about releasing forward if you want a close hard attack, not getting your move because someone threw out an attack that moved them forward and thus making you throw when you don't want to, etc. etc.
With all such practical elements to the two button throw, I am not sure how a developer like yourself could be against it.
I don't think two button throws is what creates kara throws... the game systems do. If you don't classify throws as a special move, then games that allow kara throws (because they allow that extra split second to "complete" a special move) will lose them.
I don't know.. I think every FG should consider two button throws for accuracy. I don't see why 2D and 3D would need to be different in those regards. In both cases, we just want throws to come out.
Response by Sirlin: My objection is that it adds another button press while solving a non-problem. Thinking back to all the times I accidentally threw someone in SF2, I have to say it's around zero. When I'm close to someone and want to combo, I do a combo. (Neutral standing fierce, dragon punch works fine.) I just can't accept this "throwing accidentally" thing because it doesn't happen in matches I've played, at least. I've actually never heard this complaint from anyone playing SF2, SF Alpha2, or Guilty Gear. It only seems to be a complaint by people who ponder the concept of playing these games, rather than anything real like playing them. shrug.
Too lazy to do the actual computations, but could it be that if one player can win through one ultra his oppenent can as well (at least assuming that both players have same hp and ultra does half the lost hp as damage)? That would at least give an interesting perspective on its impact in 'close' fights.
If one of the players has to use it to catch up from a big disadvantage (like his oppenent having >50% health) he doesn't have that damaging tool anymore so the previously leading player now still has an advantage in form of this now maybe 'instant-killing-attack'.
So over the fight the effects of ultra change, which makes it beautiful from a designer's point of view.
I find your example on Rose somewhat biased. First it's not actually a bad thing, it's an interesting option if in some situations it might be an effective tactic to let yourself fall and try to land some comeback-move just before you lose. This is still rather something a player will avoid because it's risky (if you get hit more than you wanted you can lose, it's hard to control). Also hitting your opponent is still the better option, getting hit adds around 50% (simplifying assumption from above) of the lost health on your ultra damage, hitting the opponent 100%. Also your Ultra may whiff for some reason and then obviously it's better if you hit your opponent instead of being hit.
A lot of the things in your article are valid but I don't think the main motivation was to make the game look better 'even if it suffers gameplay-wise'. I think ultra moves are a powerful comeback-technique, but not to the point where losing on purpose is an effective choice. I'm with the people who see an extra layer of strategy in this one-shot-per-round-strike.
Response by Sirlin: I found your post biassed, and I don't think your main motivation was to discuss ultras. Ok not really, but do you see how annoying it is when someone throws weasel words at you like that when you're trying to discuss actual issues?
I've seen several posts that dictate that Ultra's are fair because if you get hit by one you just got one of your own or if your opponent whiffs his you simply use yours for the win. Is anybody other than me annoyed that that means that every round of SFIV ends with an Ultra?
"My objection is that it adds another button press while solving a non-problem. "
But the very problem you are stating "the extra button press" is a non-problem.
As a matter of fact, aren't double button presses just as easy if not easier than directions+buttons? Isn't this why people are having so much fun with the ridiculous Zangief lariat in SF4?
Only now I can hold forward and use my strong attacks for better positioning without having to worry about a throw.
You seem to object because you don't deem it a huge problem, but you're not really making it clear why two button throws (or a throw button in general) are a problem. With the old school method, it's harder to implement throw whiffs, it's harder for a player to grasp some of the particulars of throwing (namely, whne a character is vulnerable, when they're not, etc. etc. etc.) because you have this other move that can come out to make it more complex, rather than just a throw whiff.
And even worse, you get the dreaded option select, where someone can go for a throw, but if they fail to position themselves correctly, they can still get an attack out.
I hated option selecting when it came to parries, and I don't like it when it comes to throwing. I think if a player decides to throw, they should commit and that should be it. This allows me to do a ton of other things within the game.
Currently, in SF, when I block a Sagat jump in and think my friend is going to go for a throw, I jump. Might not be the best decision. I'm not expert/pro, but at least I'm not getting tagged out of the air because the game gave him another attack because I was not in throw range.
While there are certain fun strats you can have with the old-school method (in GG, doesn't Ky get an overhead if you miss a throw?) I still think that the thrower should be committed to the throw.
While I admit that getting at throw when you wanted an attack is not a game breaking issue that comes up often, I don't know why we'd want someone in the middle of a heated match to have to return the stick to neutral to get a close fierce when we have another option that maintains more freedom for the player.
Save all that other weirdness for Smash Brothers. It's things like that that render the game unplayable to me.
Response by Sirlin: This is a problem for like, Chun Li and no one else. Her medium punch shouldn't be able to throw, only her fierce punch. Besides that though, you're not exactly poking people with Bison's punches, it's totally ineffective. Same with Ken's fierce or strong or whatever. These moves don't really overlap with pressure poking, so there's not really a problem. And I find direction + button far more intuitive. One button really is easier to press than two buttons.
You have a couple things factually wrong. It's not necessarily easier for a beginner to understand when he can throw with a 2 button system because it's possible (even common?) to get a whiff standing at point blank range. Jump roundhouse, throw. Jab, throw. If you do it too fast, the opponent was not throwable, but he was in range and you get a confusing throw whiff. Also, while I fully support things being easy for beginners, this point is just overboard. Somehow we're accepting the game has 1-frame links and overlapping inputs of supers and ultas and so on, but people maybe can't figure out that toward + fierce = throw, like it has for 20 years? I'm not worried about educating new players there.
Next, jumping when you expect to be thrown is not really a valid tactic. Your jump has several startup frames (like around 4) and you ARE throwable during those. So it's a bad move. A better move is to do your own throw or do a reversal attack.
"A better move is to do your own throw or do a reversal attack."
What happens when the character you are playing doesn't have a good reversal attack, like Dictator (in ST, besides the super), basically Sirlin Sir, you are saying that I should do my own throw to either escape the throw or win the throw (since it's random), the thing is, if you try to throw just one pixel outside your throw range Bison sticks out some punch that moves his blue hitbox towards the opponent, so if the opponent also miscalculated the distance and inputed his thow 1 frame after yours, you are going to get thrown out of your punch animation. Throw whiff animations solve this.
Not to mention that some normal throw ranges are greater for some characters than for others, so it's not that easy for some characters to escape throws.
I might be wrong in all of this, but I'd like some enlightment as how this does not pose a problem.
"This is a problem for like, Chun Li and no one else. Her medium punch shouldn't be able to throw, only her fierce punch. Besides that though, you're not exactly poking people with Bison's punches, it's totally ineffective. Same with Ken's fierce or strong or whatever. These moves don't really overlap with pressure poking, so there's not really a problem. And I find direction + button far more intuitive. One button really is easier to press than two buttons."
Well, for one, I'm speaking in a more general sense instead of just certain street fighter games, which I guess is out of context in this conversation (since we're talking about SF4). While one button is easier to press than two, I think the difficulty of pressing two buttons is being a tad overstated. I think the trade-off (no optioning, getting a throw when you want to throw and nothing else, the possibility to work in a non-intrusive throw whiff system) is far in favor of two button throws.
"You have a couple things factually wrong. It's not necessarily easier for a beginner to understand when he can throw with a 2 button system because it's possible (even common?) to get a whiff standing at point blank range. Jump roundhouse, throw. Jab, throw. If you do it too fast, the opponent was not throwable, but he was in range and you get a confusing throw whiff."
Ah, but the beginner sees the throw whiff and they know, even if it's confusing at first, that they couldn't throw because they saw the throw fail. In a reverse of the whole "two buttons being harder than one" deal, I am on the verge of overstating how much of a difference this makes. But there isn't any confusion of not only the throw not coming out, but a completely different attack than intended coming out.
"Also, while I fully support things being easy for beginners, this point is just overboard. Somehow we're accepting the game has 1-frame links and overlapping inputs of supers and ultas and so on, but people maybe can't figure out that toward + fierce = throw, like it has for 20 years? I'm not worried about educating new players there."
It's not overboard. It's just one example. With a command throw, it's easier for people to get a feel for the throw system. Not just being able to do a throw (which isn't hard) but to actually get a solid view of when a throw will whiff from the get go. Small difference, but it's there.
"Next, jumping when you expect to be thrown is not really a valid tactic. Your jump has several startup frames (like around 4) and you ARE throwable during those. So it's a bad move. A better move is to do your own throw or do a reversal attack."
Well, that's why you're better at Street Fighter than me. Although how to avoid a throw wasn't really the focal point, there. The point was that I think being able to option instead of commit doesn't make anything better, whereas with a solid throw whiff system, you open up a solid meta game.
And while throwing with toward + a button is a tad more intuitive (although I don't feel the inclusion of an extra button really kills it too much), I find having to go back to neutral to get a close fierce if the opponent isn't in hit or block stun to be far less intuitive than having to hit two buttons.
Response by Sirlin: This is getting old. 1 button is easier to press than 2. You agree with this. The downsides are all imaginary and you don't agree with that. Option selecting mostly doesn't even happen, fyi, and even if it did, stronger throws make a better game than weaker throws. I guess we are done here. I just disagree with you and we're not getting anywhere.
"Response by Sirlin: Someone told me it was PS3 only and 2-button throws, so I didn't follow it since."
So <B>BlazBlue</B> going to be on the 360 too now, interested yet? Having personally played an early release copy of the game about a year ago, it seems at least equal to guilty gear in depth (if not slightly lacking in character options). 2 button throws do end up greatly reducing the frequency of throws but they also seemed to make them a viable rush down option for characters that lacked a command grab (since in guilty gear normal grabs were generally more useful as an anti-rush tool and a turtle breaker and getting your hardslash on a wiffed throw could be extremely bad for some characters). I think that because of the addition of a strong wakeup system removing 1-button throws was good. It means that now you're allowed to rush someone as the get up without being thrown every time assuming they wakeup incorrectly. If they left 1 button throws then I think you would be too safe after being knocked down because even if they guessed your roll right you would still have a high chance of grabbing them anyway (assuming that 1 button grabs are 0 frames).
Response by Sirlin: The number of frames of startup a throw has is unrelated to whether it is performed with 1 or 2 buttons. I think instant throws make for a better game, but that has nothing to do with them being 1 button. (CvS2 has 1 button throws that are not instant, for reference.) A good example game where instant throws are fine is Guilty Gear. I don't understand what your complaints are there, they worked fine. Getting hard slash is usually a bad idea when you want a throw, so it kind of serves the function of a throw whiff without being so boring and terrible. Guilty Gear ALSO shows that 1 button throws are fine and good (in addition to showing that instant throws are fine and good). So I'm not sure what you're getting at.
BlazBlue was announced for japanese 360, not US 360 btw. Am I interested yet? I'm just afraid that anyone who has chosen to have 2 button throws and chosen to have non-instant throws in a 2D fighting game has probably gone off the rails in other areas too. So my interest in that game is a lot lower than I would have expected, considering it's from the makers of Guilty Gear. I guess there's always HD Remix to play, shrug. And Guilty Gear, for that matter. Weak throws are weak.
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Sorry... I guess I didn't articulate well. It's not that I don't think instant throws are fine in guilty gear but in blazblue (because of a strong wakeup system) they would make getting knocked down too safe. If Blazblue had the same grab system as guilty gear and someone was rushing you while you're getting up you could either roll at them and get a free grab or wait, tech and get a free grab. Even if you somehow didn't get the grab you would still probably not be at disadvantage unless you also somehow completely missed with your strong attack. In guilty gear this isn't a problem because you know where and when they will get up every time so it's completely your fault if you get grabbed by a character who is waking up.
I never played CvS2 so I don't know how they did a 1 button grab with startup frames so I can't really comment on if it would work in a guilty gear like game or not. My current understanding is that in guilty gear it checks to see if you can grab before the hardslash starts so adding startup frames would slow hardslash attacks. I suppose it could check for the first X frames of a hardslash to see if you can grab but then I'm not sure what it would do if the hardslash moved the character during those frames.
"This is getting old. 1 button is easier to press than 2. You agree with this. The downsides are all imaginary and you don't agree with that. Option selecting mostly doesn't even happen, fyi, and even if it did, stronger throws make a better game than weaker throws. I guess we are done here. I just disagree with you and we're not getting anywhere."
Well, some of your views are blatantly subjective and the neutral req for close hard attacks being annoying and not necessary is hardly imaginary. But it is true that this particular discussion has run it's course.
What's that phrase... "Agree to disagree" or something?