My skill at the game is irrelevant as to whether i can perceive it's problems.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;397551My skill at the game is irrelevant as to whether i can perceive it's problems.

Sure if your issue was with art and sound.  But since your primary argument is the game sucks, because you suck at it.  Then your argument is baseless.

Soul Calibur is frickin' awesome. I played the hell out of it on my Dreamcast about a million years ago, and I think I played #3 on the PS2 (maybe X-Box? Its been awhile). LOVED that game. Oddly enough, it is the ONLY fighting game I ever liked - I think it was the weapons that did it for me.

Then came along Soul Calibur 4 and they buggered it up.

Partly because of this thread I had a long giggly conversation with my room mate last night about Street Fighter.

I used to play SF2 all the time, as it was just about the only arcade game in walking distance of my house.  Vega would eat all my damn quarters (stupid fence of immunity! Fucker) but I on the off chance I got past him with a buck or so left i could usually take Bison in one/two tries.

So one day I walk through an arcade and there is this Street Fighter 2 Alpha, Turbo and I say: What the heck? I used to be pretty good at this game.

I haven't played Street Fighter since.  I think it was the Turbo. See: That game played so fast that I'm convinced that no one actually PLAYS it. They plunk a quarter in and immedeately execute some combo based on an understanding of their character's moves and what the computer controlled character is likely to do a the start of the fight.  If they get lucky they execute their combo before the computer and win the fight, but there is no time to react to anything.

Seriously, I've never seen a game that played at literal light speed before.  I may have had a seizure.

This, naturally, led to conversations about X-men vs Capcom... or whichever one it was that had some 200 characters to chose from. So many that the selection screen was a virtual sphere. Neat, right? Only... you had some ten seconds to actually make your pick, which is no where NEAR long enough to actually find anyone you want.  Game was fun enough, I suppose, but the ladder like levels to the fight got tiresome.

'Wait? Oh.. we're fighting in the SKY now... okay.  Shit, I just got knocked down through the floor... Huh. There is another floor down here? Oh nevermind, I just jumped back up to the previous floor.... man these levels would look pretty if I actually had time to... I dunno... LOOK at them.'

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;397551My skill at the game is irrelevant as to whether i can perceive it's problems.

While certain mos of your claims are personal (i.e. the game is 'too hard') and perception based, the only problem you have that is baseless is the balance issues. Especially as you have trouble beating the CPU at the game shows me you do not really know how to use the characters well. I've been playing Capcom fighters ever since Street Fighter 2 hit the arcades, of which there have been over 40 released. Super Street Fighter 4 is one of the most balanced fighting games Capcom has ever released if not one of the most balanced released by anyone (which probably goes to the final version of VF4 IMHO).

That's really the only issue I have with you initial post. The game is balanced, learn to play your characters better. If you have it for PS3, I'd be happy to teach you some of the basics of advanced play.

Quote from: cranewingsI fucking hate that game. The physics irritate me. The first time I  kicked someone in the air, landed, and then did a dragon punch through  there body without scoring a hit made me want to quit.    

Have you ever played a Street Fighter game before? There are no physics in the game, only mechanics. Only specific moves from specific characters can juggle, that's the way it's always been. Ken's EX Shoryuken and Ultra Shoryuken are both juggle capable though, try those. Only the Marvel (and Tatsunoko) games have had universal juggles.

Your argument is predicated on a strawman. This may be the most balanced iteration of sf, but it is still unbalanced. Compare someone like Hakan or Dan to Sagat, Ryu, Bison or Balrog. some of the characters are just light years better than the rest. I'm genuinely amazed you don't see that.

Sure you can win with any character, using any controller, but that isn't the point. The amount of effort and hassle it is to play this game on the default controller compared to the lack of knowledge the game provides about the principles used to play it is huge. The default controller puts the average prospective player at a considerable disadvantage; can they overcome that? Of course. But the learning curve is so steep that in my opinion it's completelyunreasonable. My real problem is that said complexity is unnecessary.

The game doesn't need it to be an effective fighting game. A good fighting game is about the players and their decisions in trying to outwith each other. What SF has become is an exercise in overcoming a wall of execution and not actual interaction. Now YMMV and you may well like that, especially if you have a lot of experience with sf. For those that don't and remember it from the days of the ps1/arcades and just having fun without taking it further it's a completely different game, and one that makes no effort to be inclusive of such players. That's the real mistake capcom made.

I also play on the 360. Frankly i wish they didn't have the silly ranking/point system. But I think that about most games.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;397678Your argument is predicated on a strawman. This may be the most balanced  iteration of sf, but it is still unbalanced. Compare someone like Hakan  or Dan to Sagat, Ryu, Bison or Balrog. some of the characters are just  light years better than the rest. I'm genuinely amazed you don't see  that.

Sure you can win with any character, using any controller, but that  isn't the point. The amount of effort and hassle it is to play this game  on the default controller compared to the lack of knowledge the game  provides about the principles used to play it is huge. The default  controller puts the average prospective player at a considerable  disadvantage; can they overcome that? Of course. But the learning curve  is so steep that in my opinion it's completelyunreasonable. My real  problem is that said complexity is unnecessary.

The game doesn't need it to be an effective fighting game. A good  fighting game is about the players and their decisions in trying to  outwith each other. What SF has become is an exercise in overcoming a  wall of execution and not actual interaction. Now YMMV and you may well  like that, especially if you have a lot of experience with sf. For those  that don't and remember it from the days of the ps1/arcades and just  having fun without taking it further it's a completely different game,  and one that makes no effort to be inclusive of such players.

My argument was that it's one of the best balanced fighting games EVER. This is a difficult point to argue as there is no empirical way to state it. I'm sure my experience with the game (as a hardcore follower of the series for 20+ years now and former tournament player) would win out in court. I'll try anyway...

Controller vs. Joysticks? 2 of the top 8 players at EVO this year were pad players (Controller) and the top SSF2 HD Remix player was a pad player.

As for character balance: Justin Wong is the highest paid professional Street Fighter player in the world. He plays Ryu on a stick. He didn't even finish in the top 8 at EVO this year because an unknown Taiwanese player (GamerBee) took him out of the Losers Bracket using Adon (considered by most, before this event, to be the WORST character in the game). His first loss was to a Pad playing Zangief (Vangief).

If you're one of the theory followers (Yes, there is Super Street Fighter 4 Game Theory), and like those tier lists that change every time someone get's really good with a character on the bottom. The most consistently followed tier list is as follows:

A:Guile, Abel, Chun-Li, Dictator, E. Honda, Boxer, Rose, Blanka
B:Ryu, Dhalsim, Claw, Ken, Rufus, C. Viper, Akuma, Fei Long,  Cammy,  Gouken, El Fuerte, Cody, Sagat, Ibuki, Zangief, Seth, Guy, Adon
C:Sakura, Dudley, Juri, Dee Jay, Hakan, Makoto, Dan, T. Hawk, Gen

Dictator is Bison, Boxer is Balrog, Claw is Vega (changed due to the international naming conventions of the characters). This list was created by top Japanese players Mago and Nemo based on their own experiences and discussions with other top players after the most recent EVO tournament. Their tiers are based on the number of (their opinion) bad matchups a character has vs. all the other characters in the game. If you follow tier lists you'll notice no S-rank (reserved for significantly overpowered characters compared to the rest of the game) nor D-F class characters (Super Smash Brothers Brawl even has a G-rank.). I consider tiers to be bullshit, but many hold them in high regard. Still this is a empirical as it gets when it comes to considering certain characters 'light years' ahead of others.


SF4 and SSF4 are the biggest throwbacks in Street Fighter history, the mechanics are almost exactly the same as Super Street Fighter 2 (which predates the Playstation 1 by about 5 years which launched with Street Fighter Alpha and Street Fighter: the Movie: the Game). Other fighting games have just gotten easier to play (IMHO, catering to the lowest common denominator) and use softer mechanics (like universal juggles, dial-a-combos and one-button specials) which is certainly fun but generally throw actual skill based play out for maximum appeal. SSF4, although a slight increase in mechanics from SSFII (Ultra Combos, EX and Focus Attacks), is a drastic simplification from SF3, Alpha and the 'vs.' series. Street Fighter 4 is one of the few fighters left that is about both strategy AND execution. At the high levels of play, it's a chess match: Baiting, zone control, pressure, tactics and ability all come in to play to decide who's the winner.

There's few things more exciting then winning a match because your opponent missed a game winning move and you got to punish him for it.

But I concede, SSF4 was not made for casual players. It was meticulously balanced and crafted for the hardcore Street Fighter fan first. The problem is, when SF2 hit the arcades you didn't have players with 20+ years of Street Fighter playing experience on the other side of the cabinet. There's no bigger learning curve than SSFII, but the competition is much steeper.

My main is Dan BTW. I kill people with Dan.

QuoteMy argument was that it's one of the best balanced fighting games EVER.

It isn't, and more importantly it isn't balanced in itself which is the real issue. I'm not interested in comparisons. This game isn't balanced enough. All the eveidence is right there when i go online and see the same two characters and their broken moves over and over and over. That tells me all i need to know about a game with 35 characters to choose from. Once in a blu emoon you might fight against Honda or Gen.

QuoteThis is a difficult point to argue as there is no empirical way to state it. I'm sure my experience with the game (as a hardcore follower of the series for 20+ years now and former tournament player) would win out in court. I'll try anyway...

How delightfully arrogant.

QuoteController vs. Joysticks? 2 of the top 8 players at EVO this year were pad players (Controller) and the top SSF2 HD Remix player was a pad player.

Firstly there are lots of pads, not just the 360 pad which is utterly useless for this game. Secondly 2 out of 8? So roughly 25% of the top players used a pad.

I didn't say it wasn't possible to play on the pad either; you've missed the point. I said it was colossally difficult to do so: players are given an unreasonably and unnecessarily high barrier of entry. The point isn't that it's impossible, but that, in the context of a video game (unlike these silly pro people i don't get paid to play video games, nor do i get a free tournament stick as a reward - to get one of those i'd have to pay £100. That's not going to happen), this is too much. It's simply too much, and Capcom should have known better. This is not, to quote David Sirlin, a casual game. Unfortunately capcom didn't make that clear. Even then there's still no reason for it's complexity other than to cater for a hardcore of players.

QuoteAs for character balance: Justin Wong is the highest paid professional Street Fighter player in the world.

I am so sick of hearing about these people. They are spoilt brats who are not playing the same game. FFS these people will stop their matches to change the background! That, imo, is cheating. But then so are half the things they do - and they get away with it because capcom have aqcuiesced to allow things like crossups, instant air jaguar kicks, teleports, etc, to be part of the game. That has got to rank among the dumbest design decisions in a game yet. Dhalsim (whom i play) needs the instant teleport to be competitive, so why not convert the move to work that way, perhaps as an EX version? No, instead you have to wrestle with an extremely awkward input (the horrible tiger knee input). Another example of the game's awkwardness is his BnB combo: st.m.k into yoga flame. Now even the game doesn't tell you the move has to be b.mk, but that cancelling into the flame is so timing specific that it's just needlessly difficult. try as i might, i cannot do it at all. All they needed to do was reverse the direction of the input for yoga flame and problem solved.

QuoteHe plays Ryu on a stick. He didn't even finish in the top 8 at EVO this year because an unknown Taiwanese player (GamerBee) took him out of the Losers Bracket using Adon (considered by most, before this event, to be the WORST character in the game).

That really proves nothing. It's just anecdotal. Adon is also not considered to be the worst character in the game at all. These people that win with unexpected characters do so because of that fact. Not because of the strengths of the characters themselves. Furthermore it may well be the winner was just the better player. It doesn't change the fact that Ryu is still a better character: he simply is. That doesn't mean that Adon can't ever beat him because it doesn't work that way.

QuoteHis first loss was to a Pad playing Zangief (Vangief).

well perhaps he's a shit player then. perhaps he's not as great as he thinks he is. I really don't care about these people, they aren't playing the game i am and their experience is so completely removed as to be irrelevant. People keep banging on about these people and i'm tired of any discussion about streetfighter dominated by them. They are like godwin's law.

QuoteSF4 and SSF4 are the biggest throwbacks in Street Fighter history, the mechanics are almost exactly the same as Super Street Fighter 2 (which predates the Playstation 1 by about 5 years which launched with Street Fighter Alpha and Street Fighter: the Movie: the Game).

Which is a major part of the problem. Capcom should have been more innovative and taken time to streamline the mechanics, not import broken nonsense from 20 years ago. For a fighting game it's surprisingly schizoid: the game wants you to fight your opponent then gives him (9 times out of 10) access to endless projectiles spammed all day long (inmany cases). How is that fun? Half the time now I just quit, I've got better things to do than watch someone mash qcf+p with ryu all day long. Either that or you have charge characters who are designed to turtle to a similar effect. It's a bizarre way to design a fight game.

QuoteOther fighting games have just gotten easier to play (IMHO, catering to the lowest common denominator)

I was waiting for this. You've made the cardinal mistake of equating shallow and superficial gameplay with simplicity. That is just nonsense. A fighting game needs to be simple so that the two players have nothing getting in the way of trying to outwit each other. Hiding behind a wall of input not only prvents this but it reduces the game to a tiny series of options and repetitive gameplay. that's capcom's biggest mistake (again).

QuoteAt the high levels of play, it's a chess match: Baiting, zone control, pressure, tactics and ability all come in to play to decide who's the winner.

A chess match with very very few pieces per player.

But I concede, SSF4 was not made for casual players. It was meticulously balanced and crafted for the hardcore Street Fighter fan first.

And that is where capcom failed, miserably. They could have had the best of both worlds. Instead for the casual player to get the most out of the game (which isn't the same as being competitive either) they have to trawl through some of the most unfriendly, arrogant, websites i've ever had the misfortune of travelling to and dealing with utter cunts to try and prise their geek secrets from them.

it's just a game.

I'm trying to remember an arcade fighter... it came out of nowhere to compete against the street fighters and mortal combats and teh like...

anyway in the sequel it was possible, at the start of the match, for a skilled player to get 80+ hit combo juggle sequences down, especially against less skilled players.

I have never seen a 'third' machine and, in fact, can't remember the name of the game itself its been so long.

Killer Instinct?

Yeah. I looked it up after I posted.

I have a fairly clear memory of the second game. Being a fan I was playing the game and this dude walks up and wants to fight me. No problem, says I, though I should warn you I just discovered this game today.

Cool, sayth he. I have something to show you then. And he plunks his quarter in.

Cue 88 hit combo from B.Orchid.

Cue me walking away.

Welcome to fighting games.

The only fighting game i was ever naturally good at was streetfighter vs capcom because i could beat the arcade game, including cyber akuma. In your face Apocalypse!

I should think the game design is obviously, fundamentally, flawed if a fight can be ended on the very first move... every time.

As I recall, the 88 hit combo took both your life bars.. killer instinct didn't have actual rounds but normally there was a break after someone lost their first bar.

as i recall that was Instinct's big gimmick. I don't think it had much more going for it.

There were some great fighters back in the day, but really the sun seems to have set on that genre. Though it's good to see Mortal Kombat returning (with hopefully a decent online) even though it won't get past the censors given how brutal it appears to be!