Street Fighter 4: Who does it really appeal to?

[gurpwnder]

After playing many other fighting games, a lot of questions started popping up in my head about Street Fighter 4's system mechanics and who they really appeal to.

As we are well aware, several concessions were made for the new players, such as input shortcuts and an extremely extended reversal window. 
However, do these mechanics really help new players out? Are these really the changes that really needed to be made to make SF4 accessible?

Let's take a look at some of SF4's mechanics from a newbie perspective.

The very basics: Street Fighter 4 does not really explain its combo mechanics to anybody. How is a new player supposed to know that chained normals cannot be special cancelled, and that they need to link should they wish to extend a combo from a chained jab? Hell, SF4 doesn't really even explain how to even cancel a normal into a special move. Now good luck explaining an FADC into Ultra with Ryu to a beginner. "Oh, just hit forward, do a hadoken motion, hold medium punch and medium kick, double tap forward, release medium punch and medium kick, quickly perform two quarter circles forward (and the second one MUST end in forward or else you get an ex SRK) and hit all 3 punches simultaneously. Oh, and all of this must be done in rapid succession. Enjoy." Furthermore, it doesn't explain which normals are cancellable VS others, or much of anything really.

The juggle system: We may know how SF4's juggle system works after studying it for so long, but how do you explain to a newcomer that Sakura and Gouken can combo normals after their EX launchers, but Ryu cannot do the same? Why can Cammy CS FADC CS, but Dan cannot KRK FADC KRK? We understand these things, but we can't just say 'oh it's arbitrary to a newbie'. In games like Tekken, Mortal Kombat and Soul Calibur, it's much more intuitive. Does your limb make contact with their body? Good, you hit them. In SF, if Dan does a KRK FADC forward and neutral jumps, how do you explain that his jump MP and HP hit the opponent while jump LP, LK, MK and HK go right through them?

Fundamentals: I realize that SF is a prediction heavy game and is very footsie based and I commend that, but the concessions made for new players are crutches that will handicap them in any other fighting game they play. Wakeup SRK will get them nowhere in 3rd strike, where a meaty will hit Ryu out of an HP SRK or can get parried and punished. Input shortcuts that they may rely on in SF4 won't help them should they transition to KOF, which demands cleaner inputs. SF4 lets you mash SRK between blockstrings, meaning that you automatically block without even needing to commit to blocking. In 3rd strike or Tekken, if you let go of back, you no longer guard, so prepare to eat shit.

Execution barriers: Perhaps this deserves its own topic, but I'm not a fan of these either. Why must Zangief's ultra be a 720 motion? Why are ultra double motions? I thought double motions were made so that you could easily cancel hadoken to shinku hadoken in SSF2:T. Why not something easier like Ryu's U1 being QCF HP+HK and U2 being QCB HP + HK? When I saw Skullgirl's command lists, they looked MUCH more intuitive. Cerebella's grabs are just special command notations with LP + LK (the grab notation). Kind of weird that in SF (and most other fighters), grapplers don't often use the grab notation unless defending from a grab attempt. Cerebella's super command grab is just 360 + LP + LK, that's as hard as it gets.


What about from a high level perspective?

High level play: Option selects and the like are arguably most prevalent in SF4. Being able to safe jump option select VS backdash or SRK, etc is essentially stripping many mixups away from the game. It's like you're playing rock - paper - scissors and you pick rock and prevent your opponent from picking rock or paper. High level techniques in other games usually involve movement techniques like wavedashing, snakedashing, korean wavedashing, etc.

Down + Back: SF4's defense is pretty one-dimensional in my opinion since an overwhelming majority of offense comes from lows and special mids. Overheads are usually telegraphed with a long startup,  so players can usually feel comfortable holding down + back until they see an overhead. In KOF, both lows and mids are well represented with KOF allowing players to hop and assault with quicker aerials. In Tekken / Soul Calibur, highs are generally safe, but duckable and punishable. Mids are usually very rewarding, but are generally punishable on block and lows are peppered in to make sure your opponent doesn't keep holding back to block, but are launch punishable.



I know a lot of what I said seems biased against SF4, but the reason I'm pretty upset is that SF4 gets almost ALL the attention, while almost no other fighting game gets nearly the amount of love. I wonder why.

Anyways, feel free to call me out on any nonsense I may have posted, I don't mind. 
Thanks for reading my rant.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Aug 5, 2014 19:30:27 GMT -5 gurpwnder said:

After playing many other fighting games, a lot of questions started popping up in my head about Street Fighter 4's system mechanics and who they really appeal to.

As we are well aware, several concessions were made for the new players, such as input shortcuts and an extremely extended reversal window. 
However, do these mechanics really help new players out? Are these really the changes that really needed to be made to make SF4 accessible?

Great rant and post all around.  I'll add my own perspective into this.

I feel that the developers tried to take the lazy way out when they designed this game.  They wanted to find the "shortcut" way to  make the game more accessible instead of trying to explain fundamentals and how the game works.  Most casuals have no idea how to dive in and don't visit forums or have experienced friends.  So they don't know where to start.  Even if someone gets "good", if they start out from this game, they'll be hurt in the long run because they were given a crutch that was never taken away instead of being walked through at first where they crawl and then run.

Aug 5, 2014 19:30:27 GMT -5 gurpwnder said:

Let's take a look at some of SF4's mechanics from a newbie perspective.

The very basics: Street Fighter 4 does not really explain its combo mechanics to anybody. How is a new player supposed to know that chained normals cannot be special cancelled, and that they need to link should they wish to extend a combo from a chained jab? Hell, SF4 doesn't really even explain how to even cancel a normal into a special move. Now good luck explaining an FADC into Ultra with Ryu to a beginner. "Oh, just hit forward, do a hadoken motion, hold medium punch and medium kick, double tap forward, release medium punch and medium kick, quickly perform two quarter circles forward (and the second one MUST end in forward or else you get an ex SRK) and hit all 3 punches simultaneously. Oh, and all of this must be done in rapid succession. Enjoy." Furthermore, it doesn't explain which normals are cancellable VS others, or much of anything really.

This is one of my biggest complaints about this game.  Other fighting games including Kof (which people complain about being too hard) actually give you a tutorial mode to help you through the basics, even Skullgirls did the same.  Now I would like these kinds of tutorials to be expanded on in the future the way Virtua Fighter did theirs, but at least they tried to walk you through.

Another problem with SF4 is that the execution is just too arbitrary.  They give you extremely generous shortcuts, but at the same time they have a million one frame links and won't let you do a special cancel chain without linking it. What purpose does this serve?  It's too inconsistent.

Aug 5, 2014 19:30:27 GMT -5 gurpwnder said:

The juggle system: We may know how SF4's juggle system works after studying it for so long, but how do you explain to a newcomer that Sakura and Gouken can combo normals after their EX launchers, but Ryu cannot do the same? Why can Cammy CS FADC CS, but Dan cannot KRK FADC KRK? We understand these things, but we can't just say 'oh it's arbitrary to a newbie'. In games like Tekken, Mortal Kombat and Soul Calibur, it's much more intuitive. Does your limb make contact with their body? Good, you hit them. In SF, if Dan does a KRK FADC forward and neutral jumps, how do you explain that his jump MP and HP hit the opponent while jump LP, LK, MK and HK go right through them?

Not to mention that the game almost seems random with the juggles, and on top of that many characters have glitches where they fall out of things and you also have WAY too many character specific combos which serve no purpose but to make something more tedious than it needs to be.

Aug 5, 2014 19:30:27 GMT -5 gurpwnder said:

Fundamentals: I realize that SF is a prediction heavy game and is very footsie based and I commend that, but the concessions made for new players are crutches that will handicap them in any other fighting game they play. Wakeup SRK will get them nowhere in 3rd strike, where a meaty will hit Ryu out of an HP SRK or can get parried and punished. Input shortcuts that they may rely on in SF4 won't help them should they transition to KOF, which demands cleaner inputs. SF4 lets you mash SRK between blockstrings, meaning that you automatically block without even needing to commit to blocking. In 3rd strike or Tekken, if you let go of back, you no longer guard, so prepare to eat shit.

SF4 has a lot of handicaps that harm players in the long run.  Ultras make it so you can make a braindead comeback with no meter management.  Focus attacks hurt the footsie and neutral game.  Option selects allow a lot of braindead play.  Invincible backdashes allow people to be reckless in neutral etc.

DP's being invincible would be fine if the risk was sufficient.  In old games if you whiffed 1 or 2 dp's you were dead.  In this game you can whiff well over 3 dp's and still make a comeback.  This is because bad players don't like being blown up for bad play and the high scaling ensures they will avoid just that.

In Kof you have Dp's work like this.  Light dp's are either not invincible or only upper body invincible but they are fast (not 3 frames fast mind you).  Heavy Dp's are full body invincible and much slower and easier to safejump and have a long recovery.  There is no FADC bailout.  If you screw up, you will eat damage, which is exactly what should happen if you play poorly.

SF does what no other SF did and allowed you to make reversals safe, which screwed up gameplay severely.  The game also highly rewards mashing as well.  Mashed reversals, mashed jabs or crouch teching.  It doesn't reward well timed inputs and even pro players mash which is just bad.

Aug 5, 2014 19:30:27 GMT -5 gurpwnder said:

Execution barriers: Perhaps this deserves its own topic, but I'm not a fan of these either. Why must Zangief's ultra be a 720 motion? Why are ultra double motions? I thought double motions were made so that you could easily cancel hadoken to shinku hadoken in SSF2:T. Why not something easier like Ryu's U1 being QCF HP+HK and U2 being QCB HP + HK? When I saw Skullgirl's command lists, they looked MUCH more intuitive. Cerebella's grabs are just special command notations with LP + LK (the grab notation). Kind of weird that in SF (and most other fighters), grapplers don't often use the grab notation unless defending from a grab attempt. Cerebella's super command grab is just 360 + LP + LK, that's as hard as it gets.

Well in SF I think the execution barrier is overall quite low.  You can DP by using two different crouching buttons, which along with the large reversal window and the low blockstun allows MANY reversals that you wouldn't be able to do otherwise.  Command grabs are far easier to do without jumping.  That said you do have an arbitrary execution barrier as I mentioned before.  You have the very strict linking system which requires you to hit links in an incredibly precise time.  Due to the low damage output of the game you often have to hit multiple 1f links, only to miss one and eat a mashed Ultra.  What compounds this problem is that the different consoles have different amounts of lag so a different setup can ruin your day.

Aug 5, 2014 19:30:27 GMT -5 gurpwnder said:

What about from a high level perspective?

High level play: Option selects and the like are arguably most prevalent in SF4. Being able to safe jump option select VS backdash or SRK, etc is essentially stripping many mixups away from the game. It's like you're playing rock - paper - scissors and you pick rock and prevent your opponent from picking rock or paper. High level techniques in other games usually involve movement techniques like wavedashing, snakedashing, korean wavedashing, etc.

This was something that Juicebox was talking about.  SF4 is simply too linear, and the amount of ways to conquer multiple options makes the game simply even more linear.

The reason you have so many option selects because you have such a large input storage window which allows you to conquer multiple situations.

For instance crouch teching allows you to defend multiple situations at once which little effort.  If you can't throw and you can't jump, you have no choice but to rely on frame traps, unless you have a great overhead and those don't lead into anything in this game.  Jumps are floaty and the game has so much leniency that you end up playing in a very repetitive way after a certain point.

Aug 5, 2014 19:30:27 GMT -5 gurpwnder said:

Down + Back: SF4's defense is pretty one-dimensional in my opinion since an overwhelming majority of offense comes from lows and special mids. Overheads are usually telegraphed with a long startup,  so players can usually feel comfortable holding down + back until they see an overhead. In KOF, both lows and mids are well represented with KOF allowing players to hop and assault with quicker aerials. In Tekken / Soul Calibur, highs are generally safe, but duckable and punishable. Mids are usually very rewarding, but are generally punishable on block and lows are peppered in to make sure your opponent doesn't keep holding back to block, but are launch punishable.

The mixup game is weak in SF4 as well as the zoning.  I think a large reason for this is because bad players don't like having to deal with pressure or making mistakes and being blown up, so the mixup game is tame.  It often just devolves into jab+jab+throw and jab+jab+ frame trap.

Basically.

Throws>blocking
Tech>throws
Frametrap>tech
Reversals>techs and grabs but lose to blocking.  Backdashing is basically a reversal.

That is really it.  The game is simply too tied to the character instead of the player.  In Kof you win or lose based on your gameplay and how you manage your opponent and pressure.  In SF you are tied to play the game based on your character.  Akuma will always be far better in multiple situations than Dan, Zangief has to play a certain way as does Dhalsim, etc.

The linearity of the game can work when the mechanics are honest and sound like they were in older games, but they simply aren't in SF4.

Aug 5, 2014 19:30:27 GMT -5 gurpwnder said:

I know a lot of what I said seems biased against SF4, but the reason I'm pretty upset is that SF4 gets almost ALL the attention, while almost no other fighting game gets nearly the amount of love. I wonder why.

You're fine and your assessment was sound.  The problem is the masses go to whatever is popular and SF has the name so everyone goes to it.  Even with the current bad netcode and all the other issues they criticize other games for popping up in their game, they'll still play it and even admit to playing it.

Educating people is the best way to solve this and I think that's what we should do.

Aug 5, 2014 19:30:27 GMT -5 gurpwnder said:

Anyways, feel free to call me out on any nonsense I may have posted, I don't mind. 
Thanks for reading my rant.

Thanks for posting.  I always welcome intelligent members and posts and this is definitely that.

[gurpwnder]

Thanks for your insight. I've remembered a couple of other quirks.

SF's damage output is fairly low, so whiffing a dragon punch will at MOST cost you about 50% of your life if your opponent burns MANY resources. Meterless, most punishes are 30% of your life if optimized. In Tekken, if even a jab gets ducked and you get launched, say goodbye to a good 40% of your life and some possibly more due to oki and rage. KOF13, assuming the opponent has full meters can let you straight up 100% a character. Also, the fact that even JABS are punishable in Tekken should say something.

Also, many games would be crucified if they had nearly the number of glitches that USF4 has. The update has tonnes of oddities. Evil Ryu became a very weird character. He's the only character who can special cancel a chained normal (Cl.LK), but cannot cancel a LP by any means in USF4. Apparently, even if you push LP once, the 'chained' version of E.Ryu's LP comes out, so it cannot be cancelled ever. The new characters have 1 bar launchers to Ultra, so they can combo into Ultras super easily, while chars like Honda still struggle. Tonnes of oddites both from a technical standpoint and design standpoint.

I'm also not a fan of the buffer system. Why are only specials / anything higher bufferable? Let's forget about throws for a second. If something is -3 and leaves the opponent in your face, Ryu players can happily jiggle the joystick and get an SRK punish because they can buffer them. Dan players at best can hope for a just frame Cl.LK if they want to punish the same thing, they get NO help from the system here.

A balance quirk I also noticed was also the amount of bullshit the game has. Let's look at 2 vortex characters by design, Abel and Gouki. Both rely on looping offense that leads from knockdown to knockdown. However, Gouki has many safe, multi-use tools while Abel's tools are all VERY specific and are all punishable if your hard read is wrong.

If you Falling Sky as Abel and the opponent doesn't jump, free punish. If the opponent jumps / backdashes away from your command grab, you eat shit. If you wheel kick in anticipation of an opponent jumping / backdashing away and they stand and block instead, you're getting owned. Abel's entire rekka 'mixup' is negated by simply mashing on DP.

Gouki on the other hand gets an air fireball that limits the opponent's options on wakeup, is safe and leads to more free pressure. His demon flip is something Abel wishes he had, since demon flip dive kick is completely safe, chips, I believe it can cross up and leads to a full combo on hit and isn't too telegraphed because Gouki can use his 3 other demon flip to mix them up. The demon flip grab often goes unpunished because the opponent fears the divekick, so they can't react to the whiff of the demon flip throw.

It's just sad how honest characters like Dan, Abel, etc can be completely be replaced by more bullshit versions of them (Gouki for both, LOL). In my opinion, SF4's honest characters (I haven't played Ultra) are limited to Dan, Abel, Makoto, Fei Long, Cody, Guy and perhaps a couple of others.

A good chunk of SF4's problems may come from the fact that invincibility > throws, attacks, guard (because FADC), jumps, less invincible moves, etc. A character like Makoto has to deal with a lot more crap than Ryu because she doesn't have an SRK that the opponent has to fear. When a character with an SRK is knocked down, the attacker is often scared to pressure right away because of the huge reversal window and benefits that many invincible reversals have.

Part of SF4's problems could also stem from this being the internet generation. Everybody thinks vanilla Sagat or AE Yun were the stuff of nightmares and demand immediate patches, but they have yet to face characters like CVS2 Sakura / Sagat, Melee Fox / Falco, 3S Chun, etc. Not many players are willing to be challenged anymore, they just want to win and bend the game to their will. They don't realize that losing is arguably more important than winning. When you win, you did well and it's not on you to change. When you lose, you're forced to analyze your mistakes, your opponent and think of new strategies and improve yourself as a player.

Thanks for reading and analyzing my rant.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Aug 5, 2014 23:48:42 GMT -5 gurpwnder said:

Thanks for your insight. I've remembered a couple of other quirks.

SF's damage output is fairly low, so whiffing a dragon punch will at MOST cost you about 50% of your life if your opponent burns MANY resources. Meterless, most punishes are 30% of your life if optimized. In Tekken, if even a jab gets ducked and you get launched, say goodbye to a good 40% of your life and some possibly more due to oki and rage. KOF13, assuming the opponent has full meters can let you straight up 100% a character. Also, the fact that even JABS are punishable in Tekken should say something.

Not only do you have to spend a lot of resources, you also have to have extremely precise inputs to punish bad play, whereas a person can mash a mindless ultra and eat up 50% of your health or more. With red focus it's even easier to land it.

This game just rewards bad play in too many areas.

Aug 5, 2014 23:48:42 GMT -5 gurpwnder said:

Also, many games would be crucified if they had nearly the number of glitches that USF4 has. The update has tonnes of oddities. Evil Ryu became a very weird character. He's the only character who can special cancel a chained normal (Cl.LK), but cannot cancel a LP by any means in USF4. Apparently, even if you push LP once, the 'chained' version of E.Ryu's LP comes out, so it cannot be cancelled ever. The new characters have 1 bar launchers to Ultra, so they can combo into Ultras super easily, while chars like Honda still struggle. Tonnes of oddites both from a technical standpoint and design standpoint.  

SF4 doesn't get crucified because it's SF.  The fanboys follow it religiously and any attempt to bring in facts to an argument and they just fanboy out.

For instance people like to complain about Kof's netcode, when the Steam version has really good netcode, and is FAR better than any version of SF that is out now.  I'd argue it was better than AE 2012 on PC by a solid margin too.  But the USF netcode is just horrible.  Full of lag spikes and disconnects that weren't there before, yet people still play it.

USF has a ton of glitches that people don't even mention often, but if this was another game they'd be all over it.

The characters also have a bunch of weird hitbox hurtbox issues and unlisted changes.  I could go on for days.

Aug 5, 2014 23:48:42 GMT -5 gurpwnder said:

I'm also not a fan of the buffer system. Why are only specials / anything higher bufferable? Let's forget about throws for a second. If something is -3 and leaves the opponent in your face, Ryu players can happily jiggle the joystick and get an SRK punish because they can buffer them. Dan players at best can hope for a just frame Cl.LK if they want to punish the same thing, they get NO help from the system here.

Even if they are negative 2 they can just dp and catch you on your next attack.  Ryu's heavy dp on counterhit does 200 damage for a brainless and mashed reversal, while you'd have to do a 1f link with several characters to get that off of a jab.  Then you have to learn plinking to be consistent online and especially on different versions.

Aug 5, 2014 23:48:42 GMT -5 gurpwnder said:

A balance quirk I also noticed was also the amount of bullshit the game has. Let's look at 2 vortex characters by design, Abel and Gouki. Both rely on looping offense that leads from knockdown to knockdown. However, Gouki has many safe, multi-use tools while Abel's tools are all VERY specific and are all punishable if your hard read is wrong.

If you Falling Sky as Abel and the opponent doesn't jump, free punish. If the opponent jumps / backdashes away from your command grab, you eat shit. If you wheel kick in anticipation of an opponent jumping / backdashing away and they stand and block instead, you're getting owned. Abel's entire rekka 'mixup' is negated by simply mashing on DP.

The funny part is Akuma players are saying that Akuma isn't worth playing anymore.  They're the whiniest players I've ever seen. Akuma was already a really good shoto (really op) in Vanilla before vortex was discovered, the vortex just made him even more unbearable.  They did tone him down though but he'll always be good.  Which is why I hate health balancing.  Making characters good or bad on purpose and then "balancing" it by giving them lower health is nonsense.  The health gap isn't even as large as it was in older games.  Just 5-10% in most cases.

Aug 5, 2014 23:48:42 GMT -5 gurpwnder said:

Gouki on the other hand gets an air fireball that limits the opponent's options on wakeup, is safe and leads to more free pressure. His demon flip is something Abel wishes he had, since demon flip dive kick is completely safe, chips, I believe it can cross up and leads to a full combo on hit and isn't too telegraphed because Gouki can use his 3 other demon flip to mix them up. The demon flip grab often goes unpunished because the opponent fears the divekick, so they can't react to the whiff of the demon flip throw.

Not to mention Akuma has very high mobility, does great damage for easy execution, has amazing escape options, and can control the entire pace of the match. He always plays the game the way he wants and you have to go by his pacing.  That's the issue with SF's limited design.  You're forced to play  matchups a certain way.

Aug 5, 2014 23:48:42 GMT -5 gurpwnder said:

It's just sad how honest characters like Dan, Abel, etc can be completely be replaced by more bullshit versions of them (Gouki for both, LOL). In my opinion, SF4's honest characters (I haven't played Ultra) are limited to Dan, Abel, Makoto, Fei Long, Cody, Guy and perhaps a couple of others.

I don't like to get "too" much into honesty or difficulty because it tends to be people bragging about their characters being the best.  People complain about Makoto's command grab into ultra for instance and she's always good.  Guile is linear but people complain about his projectile, or people complain about Dankick.  Evil Ryu is really linear but people will now complain about him because of the bandwagon hype.


I think they just need to give you more options.  No need to worry about "honesty" in Kof XIII since all characters have options to deal with everything.  Even if some characters are better, the gaps aren't that large.

Aug 5, 2014 23:48:42 GMT -5 gurpwnder said:

A good chunk of SF4's problems may come from the fact that invincibility > throws, attacks, guard (because FADC), jumps, less invincible moves, etc. A character like Makoto has to deal with a lot more crap than Ryu because she doesn't have an SRK that the opponent has to fear. When a character with an SRK is knocked down, the attacker is often scared to pressure right away because of the huge reversal window and benefits that many invincible reversals have.

Makoto has worse defensive options but a much scarier mixup game.  That said I do think that the universal mechanics greatly skew in some character's favor over others.  Rose's backdash, dp's, fadc, braindead ultras with Rufus, divekicks being too good against the weak anti airs in the game, etc.

The universal mechanics in Kof benefit everyone, hence why the game is so balanced.

Aug 5, 2014 23:48:42 GMT -5 gurpwnder said:

Part of SF4's problems could also stem from this being the internet generation. Everybody thinks vanilla Sagat or AE Yun were the stuff of nightmares and demand immediate patches, but they have yet to face characters like CVS2 Sakura / Sagat, Melee Fox / Falco, 3S Chun, etc. Not many players are willing to be challenged anymore, they just want to win and bend the game to their will. They don't realize that losing is arguably more important than winning. When you win, you did well and it's not on you to change. When you lose, you're forced to analyze your mistakes, your opponent and think of new strategies and improve yourself as a player.

I agree.  The top tiers in SF are pussy cats compared to the top tiers in past games.  That said the matchups still feel lame because of the way it's fought out.  They weaken all of the characters every version so it's boring.  Not saying OP braindead characters are good either though.

You're right about instant gratification.  That affects modern games in general.  Stuff is so casual now.

Aug 5, 2014 23:48:42 GMT -5 gurpwnder said:

Thanks for reading and analyzing my rant.

You're welcome, that will be $1,000,000,000.



You paying with credit or debit?

[gurpwnder]

I guess that's the main advantage KOF has over SF: every character is equipped with the necessary tools to deal with most scenarios / mixups they're put into. Guard cancel blowback attack, forward and backward rolls are (at surface level, I don't know too much in-depth about KOF13) excellent universal tools that ensure that nobody is put into bullshit scenarios.

BTW, have you read Mike Z's fighting game design philosophies? I tend to agree with many of them.
If you haven't, you can read 'em here (somebody posted a summary a few posts underneath the main video)
testyourmight.com/threads/how-to-make-fighting-games-by-mike-z-a-lot-of-features-i-hope-are-in-mkx.44036/

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Kof has the universal mechanics which gives every character a myriad of defensive and offensive options which definitely help matchups. The other thing that Kof has is that every character "plays their game". Mai and Elizabeth are *never* prevented from playing their game even if they aren't top tier. They can still pressure and play offense and defense without being ruined at character select screen.

In SF4 many characters simply can't execute their game plan effectively (Dan or DeeJay), or they lose very badly in certain situations because of archetype differences. Rushdown loses to grapplers, grapplers loses to zoners, everyone loses to Yun (j/k). In Kof this isn't an issue either. Even in a harder matchup your options are still there and you can always deal significant damage if you manage your resources properly making it about the player and not the character. Their tools are all sound.

Aug 6, 2014 19:54:48 GMT -5 gurpwnder said:

I guess that's the main advantage KOF has over SF: every character is equipped with the necessary tools to deal with most scenarios / mixups they're put into. Guard cancel blowback attack, forward and backward rolls are (at surface level, I don't know too much in-depth about KOF13) excellent universal tools that ensure that nobody is put into bullshit scenarios.

BTW, have you read Mike Z's fighting game design philosophies? I tend to agree with many of them.
If you haven't, you can read 'em here (somebody posted a summary a few posts underneath the main video)
testyourmight.com/threads/how-to-make-fighting-games-by-mike-z-a-lot-of-features-i-hope-are-in-mkx.44036/

Here is a list someone made. I agree with a lot of it, but there are a few things I'd beg to differ on.

"Interesting presentation so far, thanks for sharing.

Idea's I liked- (I'll keep a list as I go through)

tap-to-set vs scroll-and-choose for control settings: It's something so obvious yet so many devs miss it. Just embarassing.

delay-to-pause- another good idea. You have to hold pause for half a second in versus mode in order to pause. Makes accidental pauses almost non-existent.

18 minutes in... still can't figure out how to use the presentation tech,...uuuuggghhh

Option to have stages automatically random select between rematches- a feature Injustice needs badly.

Match replays- definitely a must-have nowadays

Use GGPO- this netcode is proven, and really good. At this point it might as well be an industry standard.

"If you're game is going to be a broken pile of junk when people find out about it eventually, it's always a broken pile of junk even before they know about it." - argument against not including data like frame data and hitbox display. This is good, I remember the Tekken creator said they wanted to keep frame data a secret just to keep players from supposedly "exploiting" it by knowing too much.

Hitboxes while in hit-stun should be the same as standing-idle hitboxes to prevent dumb whiffs. YES!!!! (F*-ing Batgirl...)

Unblockable's shouldn't be still unblockable if the opponent is in blockstun (Great idea. This would have prevented Cyrax's dumb resets!)

Do not allow more than 1 thing to hit a character per frame (this would also prevent alot of broken resets, particularly high/low unblockables)

Allow jumping character's hitbox to go slightly below the floor when they do a jumping attack so it is not impossible to do a jump attack on low hitbox characters (would prevent Mileenas and Sonya's D4's from becoming ridiculously hard to jump-punch on)

Always allow sloppy-DP motions. One solution he says is to put in a hard limit where only one extra motion is allowed. Still allows for sloppy inputs, however players have a work-around to give them more precision.

"Automatically getting hit more, as a penalty for getting hit alot, is stupid"- this is a good indictment of Street Fighter 4's stun system.

And my FAVORITES:

"NEVER REQUIRE THE PLAYER TO HIT THREE BUTTONS AT THE SAME TIME FOR ANYTHING EVER."

"THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO REASON TO MAKE A CHARACTER USE A HALF-CIRCLE MOTION FOR AN ATTACK."

"DOUBLE QUARTER CIRCLE IS NOT NECESSARY, STAHP."

SOMEONE FINALLY SAID IT. THANK YOU!!!"

[gurpwnder]

Yeah, that's the list. What do you disagree with?

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Aug 6, 2014 21:05:54 GMT -5 gurpwnder said:

Yeah, that's the list. What do you disagree with?

I don't necessarily agree with no 2x qcf's or half circles. Those inputs aren't even that bad, they aren't like pretzel motions or anything of the sort. I think this goes more into people just being coddled by new inputs.

There is no total right or wrong answer for inputs, there should just be a reasonable balance between risk and reward between inputs and what you get out of them. What people don't realize is that inputs weren't meant to be arbitrary (at least not in most cases), they were there to balance risk and reward.

Guile has to charge his specials because his recovery on his Sonic Boom would be too good if it wasn't a charge. 1 button shoryukens and spinning pile drivers would be broken, and the only way to "balance" them in that case would be to severely weaken them- which takes away what made the move special in the first place. Combos take more inputs than a single move because the reward is higher.

So where should we draw the line? Well inputs should never be there just for the sake of "being hard", they should flow but take a reasonable amount of risk and reward for the move. You also shouldn't have broken stuff in a game and then disguise it by making it "hard to do".

Those are bad examples of how to implement execution and are just as bad as the awful shortcuts and huge windows. Don't like either approach.

[gurpwnder]

Aug 6, 2014 21:21:00 GMT -5 The Big Daddy C-Master said:

Aug 6, 2014 21:05:54 GMT -5 gurpwnder said:

Yeah, that's the list. What do you disagree with?

I don't necessarily agree with no 2x qcf's or half circles. Those inputs aren't even that bad, they aren't like pretzel motions or anything of the sort. I think this goes more into people just being coddled by new inputs.

Here's the question, though. Look at CVS2 Ken for example. His crazy kick is HCF + K. It could just as easily by QCF + K. What's lost in the transition? What purpose does a half circle have in a genre where quarter circles are the norm? If you make a HCF motion, you cannot have a QCF motion in the same moveset anyways because the motions overlap. So that's probably why Mike is saying that half circles have no place anymore. I agree, the motions are very similar anyways, one doesn't really allow you to do anything that the other doesn't.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

You can have a half circle and a qcf in the same moveset. Ryu's hadoken and shakunetsu hadoken were the qcf and hcf for a very long time. The best part was even if a person made an error, you still got the fireball.

On that same note, why not make Zangief's command grab f+p? There's no reason it couldn't be. Well when you have a fast, unblockable attack that does huge damage it should take some effort to do. If you could just throw out high powered moves with one button press they would be mindless and overpowered.

Ryu's red fireball did more stun and damage than his normal fireball and also knocked down, so it took a bit more effort to do. Half circles aren't even that hard to do honestly. I could see some people complaining about a pretzel motions, but the guy who said no more half circles probably just had bad execution. Only on a hitbox controller would half circles take some practice.

SF's half circles already allow you to input it without the diagonals if I'm not mistaken, so I'm not sure which modern games he plays that require him to use a lot of half circles. I know Marvel doesn't have the input leniency like Sf but there is no linking, and the execution isn't that high. Kof has qcf+hcb type motions and that's it. Those are arguably better than 2qcf since you can just roll the entire motion without hitting neutral.

Half circles never bothered me.

[gurpwnder]

The guy who said that half circles are necessary (along with the entire list of points you quoted) is none other than Mike Z, creator of Skullgirls. He actually DID remove the 360 + p motion for command grabs and changed it to QCF + throw notation (LP + LK).

Ryu's an exception because both motions gave you a hadoken with relatively similar frames.

Sure, half circles may not be DIFFICULT, but why do they need to exist when quarter circles do the same job more conveniently?

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Aug 7, 2014 17:20:43 GMT -5 gurpwnder said:

The guy who said that half circles are necessary (along with the entire list of points you quoted) is none other than Mike Z, creator of Skullgirls. He actually DID remove the 360 + p motion for command grabs and changed it to QCF + throw notation (LP + LK).

Ryu's an exception because both motions gave you a hadoken with relatively similar frames.

Sure, half circles may not be DIFFICULT, but why do they need to exist when quarter circles do the same job more conveniently?

Well I know Cerebella's throw is hcf +up+ throw, but throws in SG function a lot differently than in SF.

Kof doesn't use 360's but they do use half circles or half circles +f. These throws are 1f or have armor on startup. There's a reason moves like that are half circles and not quarter circles.


By that same argument, let's look at Geese's Pretzel motion. It was notorious for being "difficult" but the reward was the raging storm. This was a Desperation Move (super) that was one of the most damaging in the game (if not the most), was fully invincible, surrounded his entire body, and came out extremely quick. It is a fantastic move, so the reward of using it went to the people who mastered it.


Even for pro players who can do a 360 with almost as much ease as a fireball it will always take them longer to do 360 +p vs qcf +p, this means they have to consider their strategies at that given time. This all adds a layer of depth. If you made everything one button like that SF mobile game you'd have to weaken everything out or it would be broken.


I don't understand the difference with Ryu. QCF gives you a fireball, and HCF gives you a better fireball that does more damage and stun, but is slower.

Also, what games are even using half circles nowadays? SF allows you to do a sloppy job of inputting them (you can skip diagonals or even the back button). Kof has them and people call that hard and it isn't even that hard and there's even some leniency there. Not sure why half circles are a big deal.

One frame links are a much bigger problem than half circles, because no matter how much you practice you stand a large chance of missing due to it being beyond human reaction time.

[gurpwnder]

We're arguing different things now.

I agree with you that half circles aren't actually difficult to perform, and they don't really bother me (hell, in CVS2 it actually helps me, because I can hit confirm into Ken's super using Cr.LK, Cr.LP, QCF+LK, QCF+LP to chain into Shoryureppa). It's just that the motion doesn't really DO anything because it's too close to the quarter circle motion.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Aug 8, 2014 18:58:21 GMT -5 gurpwnder said:

We're arguing different things now.

I agree with you that half circles aren't actually difficult to perform, and they don't really bother me (hell, in CVS2 it actually helps me, because I can hit confirm into Ken's super using Cr.LK, Cr.LP, QCF+LK, QCF+LP to chain into Shoryureppa). It's just that the motion doesn't really DO anything because it's too close to the quarter circle motion.

The dp motion is closer to the quarter circle motion than the half circle IMO. I find 360's to feel more contrived than half circles. It just requires a bit more effort to do for a move that generally has better properties.

Half circle attacks in Kof are Kyo's run grab for instance. Very powerful low invulerable move that he dashes forward to do. You just have to use it in certain situations because the motion takes a bit longer. It does make a bit of a difference but with practice you'll be fine.

[JACK-2]

This game is just boring, I dunno how else to put it. After playing CVS2 and 3s [The later flawed, but dynamic]. I don't get the hype for this game.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Aug 13, 2014 3:06:42 GMT -5 JACK-2 said:

This game is just boring, I dunno how else to put it. After playing CVS2 and 3s [The later flawed, but dynamic]. I don't get the hype for this game.

So you just find it outright boring? How do you feel about the mechanics overall?

[JACK-2]

Auto correct DP is all I have to say.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Aug 13, 2014 15:00:12 GMT -5 JACK-2 said:

Auto correct DP is all I have to say.

So you don't like the fact that you can deal with crossups so easily without thinking? I also hate when other things auto correct when you don't want them to, like when you teleport right back into the corner. So annyoying.

[JACK-2]

You've guys played it far more in-depth than me. I dropped very early based on gut feeling and just distaste. Soory if I don't have anything in-depth to add.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Aug 13, 2014 20:27:53 GMT -5 JACK-2 said:

You've guys played it far more in-depth than me. I dropped very early based on gut feeling and just distaste. Soory if I don't have anything in-depth to add.

Well when you say it bores you, what sticks out the most?

[JACK-2]

It felt like they were trying too hard to cash in on nostalgaia. One of my biggest complaints were the over focus on the SF2 cast. It was only after fan outcry they put SF3 characters. The game felt too safe, I remember arguing this here against whoelse? on this site.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Aug 13, 2014 23:46:52 GMT -5 JACK-2 said:

It felt like they were trying too hard to cash in on nostalgaia. One of my biggest complaints were the over focus on the SF2 cast. It was only after fan outcry they put SF3 characters. The game felt too safe, I remember arguing this here against whoelse? on this site.

The over emphasis on the SF2 cast was to cash in as much as possible. They didn't want to have another 3s where people didn't pick it up because nobody knew the characters.

The cast is really huge now though.

[JACK-2]

What's funny is those same obscure SF3 characters made a comeback and even beat some SF2 characters in polls [Dudley beating cammy and Capcom ignoring it by making Cammy the winner.].

It's not a big deal to have every SF2 returning character, but they made it seem like SF3 is what killed Sf. Then you had the whole anti-3s bandwagon that SF4 fanboys hopped on. I got tired of it.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Which polls were they? Were they polling on favorites from a small sample? Cammy is definitely top 5 in SF popularity/recognition.

SF3 didn't kill SF, it did have a hard time in the arcades for a while. Usually fanboys jump on the 3s bandwagon without playing it to sound "hip".

They want to make money. You'll see Scorpion and Sub in every MK too. It's why SF has a HUGE cast proabably the largest non versus 2d fighting cast. Fan appeal even though it adds more matchups.

[JACK-2]

It's a long time ago, but it was the character poll for who you wanted to see next. Dudley won the poll, but Capcom simply ignored him and moved on to the next poll. That's around the time I started to dislike Capcom.

Ryu and Ken will always be there and that's fine. But, the whole "SF2 cast is back!" hype was annoying, where did they really go? I try to forget about this game, because thinking about it back then is really annoying. Especially, that debate I got with Whoesle in this forum.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Aug 14, 2014 7:39:12 GMT -5 JACK-2 said:

It's a long time ago, but it was the character poll for who you wanted to see next. Dudley won the poll, but Capcom simply ignored him and moved on to the next poll. That's around the time I started to dislike Capcom.

Ryu and Ken will always be there and that's fine. But, the whole "SF2 cast is back!" hype was annoying, where did they really go? I try to forget about this game, because thinking about it back then is really annoying. Especially, that debate I got with Whoesle in this forum.

Well Dudley being wanted doesn't mean Cammy wasn't wanted. That said Dudley is one of the most popular 3s characters along with Ibuki, Makoto, and Yun/Yang.

I'd say pretty much all of the SF2 cast is more liked/recognizable except for maybe T. Hawk or something. Then again I could have done without Blanka.

[gurpwnder]

I think perhaps the weirdest thing about SF (3 and 4 for sure) is that characters' hurtboxes shift when they're hit, meaning that you actually have to keep tabs on who you're hitting and whether they're crouching or not. So many combo videos have crouching Honda as a dummy because of his recoil animation actually allowing for EXCLUSIVE combos on him. Whereas characters like Juri recoil so much when hit, that Dan's Cl.HK ~ Cl.MP link is character AND stance (standing VS crouching) specific.

I'd like them to tone that down enough so that the character getting hurt doesn't need to have their hurtboxes changed. Character specific nonsense is a pet-peeve of mine.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Aug 14, 2014 22:34:41 GMT -5 gurpwnder said:

I think perhaps the weirdest thing about SF (3 and 4 for sure) is that characters' hurtboxes shift when they're hit, meaning that you actually have to keep tabs on who you're hitting and whether they're crouching or not. So many combo videos have crouching Honda as a dummy because of his recoil animation actually allowing for EXCLUSIVE combos on him. Whereas characters like Juri recoil so much when hit, that Dan's Cl.HK ~ Cl.MP link is character AND stance (standing VS crouching) specific.

I'd like them to tone that down enough so that the character getting hurt doesn't need to have their hurtboxes changed. Character specific nonsense is a pet-peeve of mine.

I absolutely agree, it is particularly egregious in SF4 where I'm imagining the 2d-3d mechanics causes a lot of collision issues which leads to weird things like unblockables, proximity guard, etc. All this crap is not only sloppy but it creates artificial "depth" by forcing you to learn a ton of setups and combos that are exclusive in such a huge cast. In Kof you get to focus on what matters, hit confirming and combos. You do have to be quick on hit confirms in Kof, but your combos will work on the cast. Larger characters are simply large targets and that's it. They created difficulty in the right way.

[JACK-2]

Aug 14, 2014 14:07:10 GMT -5 The Big Daddy C-Master said:

Well Dudley being wanted doesn't mean Cammy wasn't wanted. That said Dudley is one of the most popular 3s characters along with Ibuki, Makoto, and Yun/Yang.

I'd say pretty much all of the SF2 cast is more liked/recognizable except for maybe T. Hawk or something. Then again I could have done without Blanka.

It's not that she wasn't wanted, rater they made it seem like SF3 wasn't gonna be there or shouldn't with all the SF3 bashing. Yet, at the end of day many of the characters made it. I just got tired of all the SF3 bashing when SF4 came along too.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Aug 15, 2014 15:15:51 GMT -5 JACK-2 said:

Aug 14, 2014 14:07:10 GMT -5 The Big Daddy C-Master said:

Well Dudley being wanted doesn't mean Cammy wasn't wanted. That said Dudley is one of the most popular 3s characters along with Ibuki, Makoto, and Yun/Yang.

I'd say pretty much all of the SF2 cast is more liked/recognizable except for maybe T. Hawk or something. Then again I could have done without Blanka.

It's not that she wasn't wanted, rater they made it seem like SF3 wasn't gonna be there or shouldn't with all the SF3 bashing. Yet, at the end of day many of the characters made it. I just got tired of all the SF3 bashing when SF4 came along too.

Well I don't agree with that. Some characters in SF3 were definitely popular. I wish they would have had Urien, they gave his moves to Seth. I'd say that the more popular SF3 characters are cooler than most SF4 characters. Juri and Viper are pretty cool IMO. Abel is OK too. Hakan is original at least. Rufus is bleh.

I don't recall a ton of Sf3 bashing outside of a few groups. I always heard more fanboys of it honestly. The biggest fanboys of it never played it though lol.