Street Fighter 4: Who does it really appeal to?

[JACK-2]

I guess it was just my experiences on SRK with the SF3 hate. I have no problem with any of the new cast in SF4, but I feel that the character selection wasn't really meticulous. I would have preferred a small but very well thought out cast imo.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Aug 15, 2014 15:35:25 GMT -5 JACK-2 said:

I guess it was just my experiences on SRK with the SF3 hate. I have no problem with any of the new cast in SF4, but I feel that the character selection wasn't really meticulous. I would have preferred a small but very well thought out cast imo.

Yea, I don't mind a decent sized cast, but these large casts just get silly especially with all of the hitbox issues and bugs, it just leads to more matchups that need to be learned. The reason the casts are so large is because casual fans want them, they want all of the characters. This is of course expensive and time consuming, but Capcom does it to draw in more people, especially if they can add characters cheaply by porting over stuff and cloning.

This is where these games are going.

The SF3 hate might have come from the onslaught of 09'ers that were flooding in and being know it alls and the like. It must have driven you nuts with all of the morons. Who got on your nerves in particular?

[JACK-2]

SF3 was always criticized, but the 09ers right of passage was to use Sf3 as a whipping boy to prop up their terribad game. Alot of them used viscants critique of SF3 [While not understanding it.] in order to sound "smart".

I don't mind people criticizing games, but alot of it was done to fit in.

Yeah, a small cast are usually better. Too many characters tend bog down the metagame and the balance.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Aug 15, 2014 15:59:13 GMT -5 JACK-2 said:

SF3 was always criticized, but the 09ers right of passage was to use Sf3 as a whipping boy to prop up their terribad game. Alot of them used viscants critique of SF3 [While not understanding it.] in order to sound "smart".

I don't mind people criticizing games, but alot of it was done to fit in.

Yeah, a small cast are usually better. Too many characters tend bog down the metagame and the balance.

Well there's nothing with intelligent and useful criticism. I always welcome and appreciate that. There were things about SF3 that could have been improved like the balance for instance. Some people didn't like the weakened zoning either. It is still a better game fundamentally to SF4 though.

You always have people who never play something jumping on the bandwagon or criticizing it to sound smart. The SF4 fanboys defend it vehemently against any criticism even now.

[JACK-2]

Yeah, the zoning in Sf3 was watered down and so were projectiles in general. The balance isn't as bad as most people think, everyone gets play at least in japan. But, the bandwagon around SF was seemingly made some of the criticism more nonsensical and agenda ridden.

Mix up in SF4 is terrible, btw. What's up with the Autocorrect crap.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Aug 15, 2014 16:17:49 GMT -5 JACK-2 said:

Yeah, the zoning in Sf3 was watered down and so were projectiles in general. The balance isn't as bad as most people think, everyone gets play at least in japan. But, the bandwagon around SF was seemingly made some of the criticism more nonsensical and agenda ridden.

Mix up in SF4 is terrible, btw. What's up with the Autocorrect crap.

People do get play but there is quite a bit of a gap between the weakest and the strongest characters. That said it had a great footsie game and parrying gave it a different playstyle (that some loved or hated).

The mixup in SF4 is awful because the options are so limited and crouch teching covers lows and throws at the same time, leaving you no choice but to rely on frame traps. The large amount of concessions to bad players make it so people don't have to think as much on defense. Block stun is low and so is pushback so people can feel free to mash. Pressuring somebody on defense in SF4 is more aggravating than in any other fighter I've played. I like a balance between defense and offense like in Kof, but braindead offense and defense is poor design. You work really hard to pressure them and to land damage only to get blown up by braindead gameplay.

[JACK-2]

Aug 15, 2014 16:27:10 GMT -5 The Big Daddy C-Master said:

People do get play but there is quite a bit of a gap between the weakest and the strongest characters. That said it had a great footsie game and parrying gave it a different playstyle (that some loved or hated).

That's debatable.

Third Strike has a huge upper tier to top tier list. Upper Tiers: Ryu, Oro, Yang, Urien, Dudley, and Akuma. Top Tiers are: Yun, Chun, Ken and Makoto. That's 10 good characters out of 19 playable characters. So, most characters are viable.

Aug 15, 2014 16:27:10 GMT -5 The Big Daddy C-Master said:

The mixup in SF4 is awful because the options are so limited and crouch teching covers lows and throws at the same time, leaving you no choice but to rely on frame traps. The large amount of concessions to bad players make it so people don't have to think as much on defense. Block stun is low and so is pushback so people can feel free to mash. Pressuring somebody on defense in SF4 is more aggravating than in any other fighter I've played. I like a balance between defense and offense like in Kof, but braindead offense and defense is poor design. You work really hard to pressure them and to land damage only to get blown up by braindead gameplay.

That sounds pretty bad tbh.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Aug 15, 2014 16:41:55 GMT -5 JACK-2 said:

Aug 15, 2014 16:27:10 GMT -5 The Big Daddy C-Master said:

People do get play but there is quite a bit of a gap between the weakest and the strongest characters. That said it had a great footsie game and parrying gave it a different playstyle (that some loved or hated).

That's debatable.

Third Strike has a huge upper tier to top tier list. Upper Tiers: Ryu, Oro, Yang, Urien, Dudley, and Akuma. Top Tiers are: Yun, Chun, Ken and Makoto. That's 10 good characters out of 19 playable characters. So, most characters are viable.

Aug 15, 2014 16:27:10 GMT -5 The Big Daddy C-Master said:

The mixup in SF4 is awful because the options are so limited and crouch teching covers lows and throws at the same time, leaving you no choice but to rely on frame traps. The large amount of concessions to bad players make it so people don't have to think as much on defense. Block stun is low and so is pushback so people can feel free to mash. Pressuring somebody on defense in SF4 is more aggravating than in any other fighter I've played. I like a balance between defense and offense like in Kof, but braindead offense and defense is poor design. You work really hard to pressure them and to land damage only to get blown up by braindead gameplay.

That sounds pretty bad tbh.

Urien is definitely a solid upper tier. I always thought Makoto was a bit behind the big 3. From what I've seen, you definitely see a lot of the big 3, along with Akuma, Dudley, Makoto, Ryu, and Urien.

The top 3 are top by a solid good margin, there are other playable characters, but say Ken compared to Sean is a very large gap.

Tech is discovered over time but I wonder how people would see the game if it was still "mainstream" and was getting a lot of play. I'd like to see the current balance over a large sample size.

[JACK-2]

It's been debated whether there is a big 3 or a big 4 with Makoto around that area, alternating between Dudley and Urien.

Sean is bottom tier, he's worst than twelve. But, if you want viable bottom tiers, watch YSB or Hayao Hugo vs Ken. It's not as big as a gap as most people think. Only Gaps that are really Really hard are Twelve and Remy vs Top tiers.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Aug 15, 2014 16:53:34 GMT -5 JACK-2 said:

It's been debated whether there is a big 3 or a big 4 with Makoto around that area, alternating between Dudley and Urien.

Sean is bottom tier, he's worst than twelve. But, if you want viable bottom tiers, watch YSB or Hayao Hugo vs Ken. It's not as big as a gap as most people think. Only Gaps that are really Really hard are Twelve and Remy vs Top tiers.

Makoto is probably considered a bit out of it since she's a higher gamble character and isn't as consistent as say Chun Li who is always strong and has a overwhelming amount of good matchups.

[JACK-2]

Aug 15, 2014 17:06:42 GMT -5 The Big Daddy C-Master said:

Makoto is probably considered a bit out of it since she's a higher gamble character and isn't as consistent as say Chun Li who is always strong and has a overwhelming amount of good matchups.

Chun has better pokes and a very consistent super art [Houyouku sen] which she can hit confirm from her op pokes.

How's option select in SF4? I've heard a weird complaint that the game boils down to a flow chart.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Aug 15, 2014 17:09:21 GMT -5 JACK-2 said:

Aug 15, 2014 17:06:42 GMT -5 The Big Daddy C-Master said:

Makoto is probably considered a bit out of it since she's a higher gamble character and isn't as consistent as say Chun Li who is always strong and has a overwhelming amount of good matchups.

Chun has better pokes and a very consistent super art [Houyouku sen] which she can hit confirm from her op pokes.

How's option select in SF4? I've heard a weird complaint that the game boils down to a flow chart.

Pretty much and b+hp being so good too.

Option selects are insane in this game because of the huge input window and leniency. This allows for a long input storage window.

Crouch teching is such an option select. You can block throws and lows at the same time, which makes pressure very weak. You can get around 2 mixup options so you are left with slow overheads and jumps which are easily beaten. This makes the defense very linear.

In terms of offense you have the characters who used a lot of wakeup options to snuff out the opponents defense since the defensive options were so silly. This was toned down with DWU. The problem is the game is now more defensive and slow. More timeouts than ever.

[gurpwnder]

Aug 15, 2014 2:38:09 GMT -5 The Big Daddy C-Master said:

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.

Yeah. When you break it down like we have, I REALLY wonder why SF4 is constantly getting ridiculous support, while communities like Tekken, Soul Calibur and KOF are dying - especially when you consider the mess that USF4 is.

Is nostalgia really THAT influential? (It must be, considering Nintendo's still alive). Are people unwilling to try different games? People say things like 'Tekken has a huge legacy curve, you'll never win a tournament if you're start now'. What kind of a shitty, defeatist attitude is that? If you pick up ANY fighting game, people who have established fighting game fundamentals will mop the floor with you regardless. If you endure the beatings and learn from them, you'll eventually become a good player too, no matter what game. You can get used to KOF's 'execution barriers' if you'd give it a chance. You can get used to Tekken's ins and outs if you give it a chance.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Aug 15, 2014 23:32:22 GMT -5 gurpwnder said:

Aug 15, 2014 2:38:09 GMT -5 The Big Daddy C-Master said:

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.

Yeah. When you break it down like we have, I REALLY wonder why SF4 is constantly getting ridiculous support, while communities like Tekken, Soul Calibur and KOF are dying - especially when you consider the mess that USF4 is.

Is nostalgia really THAT influential? (It must be, considering Nintendo's still alive). Are people unwilling to try different games? People say things like 'Tekken has a huge legacy curve, you'll never win a tournament if you're start now'. What kind of a shitty, defeatist attitude is that? If you pick up ANY fighting game, people who have established fighting game fundamentals will mop the floor with you regardless. If you endure the beatings and learn from them, you'll eventually become a good player too, no matter what game. You can get used to KOF's 'execution barriers' if you'd give it a chance. You can get used to Tekken's ins and outs if you give it a chance.

Like I said before, SF sells because it's SF. There are a variety of other factors, but at the end of the day it's SF. It has the most established and active community and people will continue to play it no matter what. I've seen people on SRK outright say that Ultra is bad and has a lot of issues but there was no reason complaining about it because they were just going to buy it anyway and everyone knows they will.

These people just don't care about quality. They want to be a part of the large community. They like the characters and how recognizable they are. They want to be able to jump on at any time and play against random people.

I mean Mortal Kombat is casual, but it doesn't have the SF audience. It also has easier controls and "badass characters" that aren't anime. It still doesn't beat SF out.

Other games have great online netcode far better than SF4.

Other games have much more helpful communities and all the people who stay around and play SF4 because "everything else is dead" could make those scenes alive but they don't want to leave their comfort zone. They can't be bothered to add people and have quality matches because they want to be able to just play randoms all day.


It's a sad state we're in, but Cpacom could very well lose it's strong foothold. With their games declining in quality and the expanding quality of other fighters plus much better support and better PC releases, Capcom will have to work harder. Not to mention they're already losing money. They can't rely on fanboyism and nostalgia forever.


SF has the legacy of older games behind it that people know. Other fighters have their best games of the past, but SF was just such a big part of the boom in people's memories so they stick around too, even if they realize the new game has a ton of issues.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

The fanboys are really going crazy now.

A good friend of mine received an angry letter from an 09'er. Talk about fanboyism, you can't even disagree with these guys.

"Bulls**t, dumb f**k. Contrary to the dumb f**king utter bulls**t suggestion a stupid-ass s**t stain on the FGC like you would naturally be wont to spout, SF4 did not "hurt the genre" at ALL. Aside from the fact that fighters are hands down THE greatest genre of game and one single game can't to jack s**t to sully it's magnificent name, SF4 is an amazing game that brought a s**t ton of people into the fighting game fold that are still here today. It's done more good genre than most any other game in the entire genre's history. furthermore, your suggestion that it's mechanics were "watered down" or that its input system was "garbage" are all nothing but loads of utter f**king idiotic and blatantly untrue bulls**t=fact. FACT of the matter is that SF4, especially in Ultra, is an incredibly deep, nuanced fighter whose mechanics are eons more complex than any other fighter a tasteless f**ktard like you would hold in high regard, and there isn't a damn thing wrong with its input system. Dips**ts like you spout such utter f**king bulls**t only because you dumb f**ks can't grow acclimated to the amazing systems there in in the first place.

Shut the f**k up and educate yourself before you spout such inane bulls**t again. Failing that, just go f**k your slutty-ass b***h mother, contract her MANY stds, and die you pathetic piece of s**t; do us all a favor.

I'll now take my permanent leave of this s**t page/account/never check messages/channel comments so whatever undoubtedly utter f**king idiotic bulls**t you or anyone sends my way will NEVER reach me. Deal, dumb f**k; this is our last contact. you and your utter f**king idiotic and blatantly untrue bulls**t lose, I and the facts I state win. Another fact for your sorry, stupid-ass tasteless b***hass."

[gurpwnder]

Aug 15, 2014 16:53:34 GMT -5 JACK-2 said:

But, if you want viable bottom tiers, watch YSB or Hayao Hugo vs Ken. It's not as big as a gap as most people think. Only Gaps that are really Really hard are Twelve and Remy vs Top tiers.

I think the reason Hugo is successful is because he's a grappler, which means huge punishes off a parry, the ability to punish many things with a 2f command grab, and the ability to blow up parries with the command grabs. Sort of like how Astaroth was still good in Soul Calibur 2 after 2G was discovered, because he could still command grab you for about a good third of your life.

One thing I'll give SF4 is that the gap between the best and worst isn't nearly as bad as SF3. I feel that Dan can beat Yun, and that the matchup is probably 4:6 Yun's favour. Hell, I feel that Dan can beat anybody in the game and hardly ever feel at a disadvantage at the character select screen (screw Blanka, though).

I only play Sean in 3rd Strike, and I don't think he has a chance VS anyone in the higher tiers. His mixups are multilayered, his normals are pretty good, his supers are all very good, but he doesn't have nearly as much to work with as everyone else. Cl.HK is probably one of the best normals in the entire game, but he can't get anything off it if he has no specials that can combo off it (Cl.HK xx Dragon Smash is character specific).

[gurpwnder]

Aug 16, 2014 6:10:35 GMT -5 The Big Daddy C-Master said:

The fanboys are really going crazy now.

A good friend of mine received an angry letter from an 09'er. Talk about fanboyism, you can't even disagree with these guys.

"Bulls**t, dumb f**k. Contrary to the dumb f**king utter bulls**t suggestion a stupid-ass s**t stain on the FGC like you would naturally be wont to spout, SF4 did not "hurt the genre" at ALL. Aside from the fact that fighters are hands down THE greatest genre of game and one single game can't to jack s**t to sully it's magnificent name, SF4 is an amazing game that brought a s**t ton of people into the fighting game fold that are still here today. It's done more good genre than most any other game in the entire genre's history. furthermore, your suggestion that it's mechanics were "watered down" or that its input system was "garbage" are all nothing but loads of utter f**king idiotic and blatantly untrue bulls**t=fact. FACT of the matter is that SF4, especially in Ultra, is an incredibly deep, nuanced fighter whose mechanics are eons more complex than any other fighter a tasteless f**ktard like you would hold in high regard, and there isn't a damn thing wrong with its input system. Dips**ts like you spout such utter f**king bulls**t only because you dumb f**ks can't grow acclimated to the amazing systems there in in the first place.

Shut the f**k up and educate yourself before you spout such inane bulls**t again. Failing that, just go f**k your slutty-ass b***h mother, contract her MANY stds, and die you pathetic piece of s**t; do us all a favor.

I'll now take my permanent leave of this s**t page/account/never check messages/channel comments so whatever undoubtedly utter f**king idiotic bulls**t you or anyone sends my way will NEVER reach me. Deal, dumb f**k; this is our last contact. you and your utter f**king idiotic and blatantly untrue bulls**t lose, I and the facts I state win. Another fact for your sorry, stupid-ass tasteless b***hass."

Typical from a fanboy, but that happens for everything. You say you're not 100% happy with Sony, MS or Nintendo, and you'll get a zillion angry replies (and a few people who agree).

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Sadly it isn't even just games. It's anything where people have strong feelings from comics to religion and money. People just can't look at things objectively and will attack others all while saything they're the most understanding people of all. It's sad.

Aug 16, 2014 10:48:38 GMT -5 gurpwnder said:

Aug 15, 2014 16:53:34 GMT -5 JACK-2 said:

But, if you want viable bottom tiers, watch YSB or Hayao Hugo vs Ken. It's not as big as a gap as most people think. Only Gaps that are really Really hard are Twelve and Remy vs Top tiers.

I think the reason Hugo is successful is because he's a grappler, which means huge punishes off a parry, the ability to punish many things with a 2f command grab, and the ability to blow up parries with the command grabs. Sort of like how Astaroth was still good in Soul Calibur 2 after 2G was discovered, because he could still command grab you for about a good third of your life.

One thing I'll give SF4 is that the gap between the best and worst isn't nearly as bad as SF3. I feel that Dan can beat Yun, and that the matchup is probably 4:6 Yun's favour. Hell, I feel that Dan can beat anybody in the game and hardly ever feel at a disadvantage at the character select screen (screw Blanka, though).

I only play Sean in 3rd Strike, and I don't think he has a chance VS anyone in the higher tiers. His mixups are multilayered, his normals are pretty good, his supers are all very good, but he doesn't have nearly as much to work with as everyone else. Cl.HK is probably one of the best normals in the entire game, but he can't get anything off it if he has no specials that can combo off it (Cl.HK xx Dragon Smash is character specific).

Yea SF4 definitely has the balance in its favor, it did water all the characters down along the way but that's another issue. The match spread in SF4 is tighter, that said people are scared to give anything beyond a 6-4 in SF4 anyways for some reason unless it's T. Hawk vs Blanka or something.

[gurpwnder]

Aug 16, 2014 11:05:16 GMT -5 The Big Daddy C-Master said:

Sadly it isn't even just games. It's anything where people have strong feelings from comics to religion and money. People just can't look at things objectively and will attack others all while saything they're the most understanding people of all. It's sad.

Aug 16, 2014 10:48:38 GMT -5 gurpwnder said:

Yea SF4 definitely has the balance in its favor, it did water all the characters down along the way but that's another issue. The match spread in SF4 is tighter, that said people are scared to give anything beyond a 6-4 in SF4 anyways for some reason unless it's T. Hawk vs Blanka or something.

I don't think there are that many 7-3's in the game, though I play Dan exclusively and I feel that he only has one 3-7 matchup VS Blanka. I've heard about Blanka - Hawk, and apparently Guile - Bison got improved in Ultra. What else is there, really?

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Aug 16, 2014 11:49:10 GMT -5 gurpwnder said:

Aug 16, 2014 11:05:16 GMT -5 The Big Daddy C-Master said:

Sadly it isn't even just games. It's anything where people have strong feelings from comics to religion and money. People just can't look at things objectively and will attack others all while saything they're the most understanding people of all. It's sad.

Yea SF4 definitely has the balance in its favor, it did water all the characters down along the way but that's another issue. The match spread in SF4 is tighter, that said people are scared to give anything beyond a 6-4 in SF4 anyways for some reason unless it's T. Hawk vs Blanka or something.

I don't think there are that many 7-3's in the game, though I play Dan exclusively and I feel that he only has one 3-7 matchup VS Blanka. I've heard about Blanka - Hawk, and apparently Guile - Bison got improved in Ultra. What else is there, really?

Those were considered 8-2's, things like Makoto vs Dhalsim and such.

I think there were more 7-3's simply due to the nature of the game, and characters shutting down other characters. A rushdown character vs a grappler will likely look like a 7-3 as does Dhalsim vs Zangief or a matchup with a heavy zoner vs a grappler due tot heir natural tools.

[JACK-2]

Aug 16, 2014 10:48:38 GMT -5 gurpwnder said:

I think the reason Hugo is successful is because he's a grappler, which means huge punishes off a parry, the ability to punish many things with a 2f command grab, and the ability to blow up parries with the command grabs. Sort of like how Astaroth was still good in Soul Calibur 2 after 2G was discovered, because he could still command grab you for about a good third of your life.

I'm not sure if that's the case because Alex a grappler is the sixth worst character in the game according to Arturo. But, I've yet to see low tier domination featuring him. I think it's because Hugo has faster Command grab with range and all his super arts are viable versus Alexs with one: Hyperbomb.

Aug 16, 2014 10:48:38 GMT -5 gurpwnder said:

One thing I'll give SF4 is that the gap between the best and worst isn't nearly as bad as SF3. I feel that Dan can beat Yun, and that the matchup is probably 4:6 Yun's favour. Hell, I feel that Dan can beat anybody in the game and hardly ever feel at a disadvantage at the character select screen (screw Blanka, though).

I only play Sean in 3rd Strike, and I don't think he has a chance VS anyone in the higher tiers. His mixups are multilayered, his normals are pretty good, his supers are all very good, but he doesn't have nearly as much to work with as everyone else. Cl.HK is probably one of the best normals in the entire game, but he can't get anything off it if he has no specials that can combo off it (Cl.HK xx Dragon Smash is character specific).

My cousin played sean for years. Third strike is not only the worst version of sean. He's also the worst character in the game, worst than twelve. A japanese player named sean p uses him and supposedly won a tourney. But, that's hearsay and even then I don't think he's viable. He's hurricane kick for example when parried is punished as if he was standing lol. Very slow shoryu and his sean tackle can't go through projectiles anymore. He was really good in SF3, though.

I think some bottom tier characters are viable: Q and Hugo. But, it's very hard, same with twelve. Like I said, I've seen it and I can post videos if you guys like.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Aug 16, 2014 13:58:15 GMT -5 JACK-2 said:

Aug 16, 2014 10:48:38 GMT -5 gurpwnder said:

I think the reason Hugo is successful is because he's a grappler, which means huge punishes off a parry, the ability to punish many things with a 2f command grab, and the ability to blow up parries with the command grabs. Sort of like how Astaroth was still good in Soul Calibur 2 after 2G was discovered, because he could still command grab you for about a good third of your life.

I'm not sure if that's the case because Alex a grappler is the sixth worst character in the game according to Arturo. But, I've yet to see low tier domination featuring him. I think it's because Hugo has faster Command grab with range and all his super arts are viable versus Alexs with one: Hyperbomb.

Aug 16, 2014 10:48:38 GMT -5 gurpwnder said:

One thing I'll give SF4 is that the gap between the best and worst isn't nearly as bad as SF3. I feel that Dan can beat Yun, and that the matchup is probably 4:6 Yun's favour. Hell, I feel that Dan can beat anybody in the game and hardly ever feel at a disadvantage at the character select screen (screw Blanka, though).

I only play Sean in 3rd Strike, and I don't think he has a chance VS anyone in the higher tiers. His mixups are multilayered, his normals are pretty good, his supers are all very good, but he doesn't have nearly as much to work with as everyone else. Cl.HK is probably one of the best normals in the entire game, but he can't get anything off it if he has no specials that can combo off it (Cl.HK xx Dragon Smash is character specific).

My cousin played sean for years. Third strike is not only the worst version of sean. He's also the worst character in the game, worst than twelve. A japanese player named sean p uses him and supposedly won a tourney. But, that's hearsay and even then I don't think he's viable. He's hurricane kick for example when parried is punished as if he was standing lol. Very slow shoryu and his sean tackle can't go through projectiles anymore. He was really good in SF3, though.

I think some bottom tier characters are viable: Q and Hugo. But, it's very hard, same with twelve. Like I said, I've seen it and I can post videos if you guys like.

I always considered Alex a hybrid grappler like Abel.

Sean was much better in 2nd impact was he not? I th ink other characters can fill more specialist roles without being as good as the top, even MvC2 had people use niche characters well in certain situations.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

An article on Street Fighter 4's Bugs:

shoryuken.com/2014/08/16/developer-commentary-derek-omni-daniels-and-mike-zaimont-discuss-street-fighter-ivs-bugs/

"The Ultra Street Fighter IV bug list is intimidating. A massive compilation of notes spanning multiple forum posts with contributions from countless players, the list showcases the wide range of oddities that plague the title and have affected Street Fighter IV for at least several iterations. From small errors, such as a special move giving the wrong amount of meter on block, to round-changing glitches like Seth’s EX Tandem Engine causing the game to believe the opposing character is permanently in the air if it hit an airborne opponent not in a juggle state, every character is affected.

The list has exasperated some players, and left others unfazed. However, it has spawned questions such as “How do these problems happen?” and “Can X glitch even be fixed?”

To find out the answers to these questions–and dig a little deeper into what is going on inside Street Fighter IV–I decided to talk to a couple people who have intimate knowledge of the game development process: Activision’s Derek “Omni” Daniels, combat designer for God of War 1 and 2, and Lab Zero Games’ Mike Zaimont, who is the lead designer on Skullgirls. Both men had some good insight into what happened and is still playing out within Ultra Street Fighter IV.

Editor’s note: Both men wanted to make it clear that their opinions and comments are their own and in no way represent the companies they work for or the products they create.

Paul Dziuba: Looking at the list of bugs, etc. in Street Fighter IV, what is your first reaction as a player? As a developer?

Derek Daniels: That there is a lot! Not only that, but the community has done a ton of work putting this whole thing together.

Mike Zaimont: As a fighting game player (not an Ultra SF4 player), my reaction is “this is quite a lot of severe, gameplay-detrimental bugs.” Which is cynical, I’m sure, but also true. Some of that is also because of how many people are closely scrutinizing the game, but I’m comparing it to games where the playerbase has had ten-plus years to examine every nook and cranny.

As a developer, my first reaction was three things:

One, how many of those bugs were caused by leaving things which should be automated up to manual input instead? (Meter gain on block, counterhit damage, etc.)

Two, how many of those things were caused by strange engine design? It should not be possible to specify a cancel window longer than the state’s animation is, for example.

And three, how many of those bugs could have been caught by a Steam beta or a more consistent testing process? I go through all the frames of a new character looking at the hitboxes before we ship them for real, just scrolling through their list at around five frames per second looking for obvious problems. I make sure all their normals chain properly and can cancel properly, etc. It’s easy, it doesn’t take long, and at the very least Poison and Hugo and a bunch of the random chaining problems could have been found relatively quickly with some easy process like this as a final casual check.
(I’m sure Capcom has a large and dedicated testing department, but I have no knowledge of what their compliance process is.)

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Mike Zaimont.

PD: Although the list of inconsistencies and glitches was compiled in the last few months, some of the issues have been present for many iterations of the game. Had you noticed abnormalities in Street Fighter IV previously?

DD: I grew up playing fighting games in the arcade. We didn’t have access to training mode or frame data or anything like that. You simply learned the feeling of what things you could and couldn’t punish. So for me, my head is full of weird exceptions based on wrong assumptions. When I sit down and look at all the bugs and stuff, I see a lot of bugs that fall into similar buckets. Like, “Oh – seems like some guy forgot to set this flag” type of thing.

MZ: Gotta be honest, I haven’t played SF4 more than five times since Super came out. I did notice things like moves whiffing because their hitboxes were tied to the animations even back in vanilla, like Gief cross-up splash to cr. jab vs. crouching Rufus would just miss, which was odd to me given that even the more accurate hitboxes in Third Strike don’t follow the character much in hitstun or blockstun. (It’s not incredibly surprising though, given that it’s much easier for the developers to do it that way with 3-d models – add boxes once, done). I know the bugs the community pointed out, and the ones that happen in matches, but that’s it.

PD: A lot of the abnormalities people have found in Ultra are incorrect values, such as a move granting more or less meter on block than average. How does this happen, in technical terms? In layman’s terms?

DD: The easy answer to most of Ultra’s weirdness is that Dimps didn’t work on the game. For those that don’t know – Dimps worked on Street Fighter IV all the way from, ‘vanilla’ to AE 2012. I honestly don’t know why Dimps wasn’t involved with Ultra but Capcom used a different developer this time around.

I’m not even suggesting they did a bad job or anything – I think they did a really good job but they didn’t have the experience of working on four previous versions. Before I submit any game I have a giant list of items I double if not triple check. I’m sure Dimps has something similar but this new company didn’t.

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Derek Daniels.

When you see bugs like, “X character’s dragon punch command can’t take advantage of the shortcut commands,” that’s just a “Oh yeah, they didn’t even think about double checking all of those” type of situation.

Plus, another common instance I see is that gaining meter is never as simple as some Excel file that you just fill out. There is always a complicated formula with values hidden everywhere: sometimes in the character’s file, sometimes in the general file and sometimes hardcoded for whatever reason that probably fixed a previous bug. Even if you are familiar with all those hidden places, it’s very easy for mistakes to get through. It’s super easy to set a value to 10 and expect 10 only to find out there is some hidden 1.5 multiplier that has turned your 10 into a 15.

MZ: Technical terms and layman’s terms are both the same – the value is entered specifically per move, by a person, rather than having one place that just says “on block generate X% of meter” or “on counter hit do X% more damage,” and the only part that changes per move being the actual damage value. It’s even separately manually typed-in values for standing hit, crouching hit, stand block, crouch block, etc.

For the technical, if you wanted to make this extensible, it makes the most sense to specify a base in one place—like “50% more damage on any counterhit”—and then for each move have an override if you need one, otherwise leave it blank and the base would be applied. But the override should be percentage if the basis is a percentage, not a raw value! That way, if you changed the move’s damage later, it would still be the correct override (“do 100% more damage on counterhit” is still correct if you change the move’s damage from 25 to 50) rather than a now-wrong raw value.

In short, it’s probably slightly easier on the programmers to set it up the way they did, but it leaves room for a LOT more errors. Anywhere you can avoid leaving room for human error, you should avoid it. It’s also MUCH harder on designers: designers had to enter all those extra numbers, and some other poor sap had to check them at least once before they shipped. Aggregated, that’s a lot of wasted time.

The same goes for duplicating moves. If a few moves are essentially the same move, like s.Jab/chained s.Jab/Feng Shui s.Jab/Genei Jin s.Jab, they should make use of as much of the same data as possible. Have the different character states (s.Jab, chained s.Jab) reference the same animation, hitbox, and damage data, and only differ in what their cancel lists or other generic properties are. That way you don’t have to update two or three sets of hitboxes (or forget to update them!) every time you change one move. I’m not sure this is possible in the SF4 engine, though.

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Also, enforcing game-wide rules in the engine itself. If moves that cost meter can’t build meter, then tagging a move as having a super meter cost should mean that it can’t build you any meter on hit or block by default, and then have an override that a designer must enable if there is supposed to be some move that breaks this rule. Assume mistakes will be made and design the engine to handle them gracefully. It should not be possible for a designer to copy/paste the values for a regular Tiger Knee into the EX Knee and suddenly have it build meter, for example. The engine should prevent that because it’s easy to enforce, even if the designer mistakenly gives one of the hits some meter gain.

Then there are some things that just make me scratch my head, like the ability to specify a cancel window longer than the state/animation is; that shouldn’t even be a possible thing in your engine! Again, account for human error.

(And things like having a “can cross-up” flag…man…that eliminates so much organic evolution of the game, it hurts.)

PD: From a development aspect, how are issues like these created during production of a game?

DD: We do know that Dimps didn’t work on Ultra but what we don’t know is how much communication the new studio had with Dimps. Did they just get the source code dumped on them? Did they even get all of the source code? Were they able to call up a programmer who had to hard code some Zangief reaction just to make Rose’s Super work or whatever?

The guys working on this had to be ramped up on something that they didn’t create. Not only that but games spend most of their life being a bug=filled mess. It isn’t until they get ready to ship do you start locking down bugs. Reality is that no game is ever bug free, you just try to ship with as few of bugs as possible. And it’s not always black and white to fix bugs either. Sometimes fixing one causes repercussions on something you weren’t even thinking about.

MZ: From what I’ve seen on a few projects, they come from “feature creep,” or not designing to minimize the probability of errors. For example, they probably started with damage/chip/hitstop/hitstun/blockstun per move. So they had a spreadsheet (or whatever) with the various spots for values to be entered. Then, later they wanted to add crouching damage, counterhit damage, block meter gain, etc. and for each of those the programmer just said “OK, I added the field to the sheets, designers can use it this way, go!” Then, after some testing they wanted to change the properties of light attacks that were chained into, so rather than make it an engine feature with safeguards they simply duplicated entire attacks and changed small properties because it was faster to do and there was a time crunch.

I’d bet nobody stood back and really thought about how each thing was going to be used, because it would be more work up front to do that. They did the minimal work to add the feature that was requested so it was done as quickly as possible, even if they knew it would be more work later. No fault there, often the most important thing is just to get it done at that point, so you say to yourself, “I’ll go back and fix it later.”

But you never do. You NEVER do. There is always more work to be done, and the gold master date always comes too soon. So I’ve learned it’s better to set it up properly at first, think about some use cases and how to avoid possible errors later on, and take a little bit longer now to save yourself massive headaches later. Sometimes all it takes is saying to the group, “What if on our third sequel we end up wanting to go back and change this for every move for every character?”

PD: Many of these oddities predate Ultra Street Fighter IV. Why are these issues only being addressed in the community now?

DD: The community is just more mature these days. It’s like reading on NeoGAF when people complain about 720p/1080p or 30fps vs. 60 fps. Consumers just weren’t as educated as they are now. We knew the SNES version of HF felt better than the Sega version of CE but we couldn’t put it into words like people can today. Plus with the advent of the internet it’s easier to crowdsource all of these bugs. Before a player may have found one or two but they were found in a vacuum so to speak. Now everyone is sharing Google documents and getting lots of people to contribute.

MZ: They’re certainly not only being mentioned now, like I said people have talked about the various hitbox issues, and things like EX Messiah Kick LK building meter, since the beginning.

Part of it is the community-created tool, Ono, which allows people to go in and see the minutiae of how the actual game is set up. This lets the community find errors a lot more precisely than trying a hundred things in training mode.

Part of it is also the number of players scrutinizing the game, and the fact that fighting games encourage that sort of attention to detail.

A big thing, though, is the general sense among players that the Ultra update was — I guess I should be nice — let’s go with “of inferior quality compared to the previous updates to SF4.” :^) They did have an extremely long time relative to the changes and the content that was added, so it is moderately odd that what shipped has so many problems. I think the community expected more for their money and their patience, and to see an update with this many NEW problems is surprising, to say the least. So those problems are receiving attention proportional to this general…discomfort. (I mean come on, how does the team forget to add a training mode option for Delayed Wake Up, a new feature that your PR department talks about all the time? Sorry, but really now.)

UltraTitleSmall

PD: Taking a look at the list, how long do you think it would take to fix these problems? Are there any problems that could pose a complex solution?

DD: This is where things get tricky. While players have learned more about game development compared to 10+ years ago, most of them now fall into the group of knowing enough, only enough, to be dangerous. In all honesty, fixing any bug with a game this mature (five years?) is a complex situation. Look at some things that seem innocent, like fixing Rufus’s EX Messiah to not miss on crouching opponents – their fix for Ultra made it so that now Rufus can juggle opponents out of the air. Whether or not that was intention or accidental, I’m not sure. But it just shows that changing anything is like playing with fire.

While some fixes are probably safe – there is some move of Elena’s where the opponent can’t delay wakeup against, yeah, that should be safe to fix – it’s some of the other stuff that will have domino effects that no one is even thinking about. Especially if they are situational / character specifics. A bad example would be, “Oh man, Zangief has a hard time with the Blanka matchup, let’s change his green hand so it punishes blocked Blanka ball.” That sounds awesome until you realize green hand is now so fast / goes so far it punishes all kinds of things that were not intended in other match ups.

Other bugs are just crazy! Like side-specific bugs (left corner vs right corner) – a version of that bug has been in almost every version of Street Fighter that I can think of, including vastly different engines! CvS2 2nd player could cross up when 1p couldn’t. The fact that some variation of this bug has cropped up in multiple games, multiple engines, multiple developers points that some things are really hard to solve.

The length of time is even harder to say. Some of the bugs seem like actual typos / not thought of situations. Those should be easier to fix. Especially for the characters that are new to Ultra. However, looking at even Vanilla SF4 so many of the mechanics / systems had tons of character-specific exceptions. DP FADC into full Ultra juggle…except for Sagat when done in the corner. Tons of things that simply didn’t make sense. Assuming this new developer doesn’t have direct access to Dimps or even Seth Killian to explain why things were done, they are probably guessing on a few things. Why the hell is Chun’s techable window for forward throw 1F longer than normal? Is that a legit bug or was that some obscure balance thing they did? Who knows. Should they even fix it? That’s a whole other debate.

MZ: I’d be interested to have someone like Error1 go and stream fixing all the listed scripting bugs using Ono! (Aside from the ones that require changing code, of course, like the music not turning off at Volume 0.) Then we’d get a real estimate.

The vast majority of the errors are simple fixes, though. I’ll probably get reamed for saying this, but whatever.

Some are extremely easy, like meter gain / chip damage / counterhit damage / active frame marked as counterhit / startup frame not marked as counterhit / wrong counterhit frame advantage / wrong invincibility window / things building meter on block / things having the wrong hit reaction in some cases or not being hard knockdown / wrong throw tech window / etc. I bet all those combined are under one working day for a single person to fix, at most. Boring work, heh.

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Fixing Ken’s plink-air-hurricane / Makoto’s plink Tsurugi is also easy, as is Evil Ryu’s s.LP always being the chained version and his chained s.LK being cancellable, Rolento being able to do reversal or jc’d Supers, removing the height restriction on Cannon Strike from Hooligan Combo, or Cody’s U2 dust breaking counters.

Editing hitboxes/hurtboxes and duplicating boxes between moves is also easy, if tedious, though it depends on your editor’s ability to copy/paste. So all the chained/FengShui/GeneiJin things are not that hard, there are just a lot of them.

I assume it is easy to edit the cancel window on moves, so fixing all those bugs where linking still gives you the chained version etc shouldn’t be that bad. I don’t know how it works with animations that vary their timing, if you have to special-case it or what, but the ones where the move is always played at the same speed are small fixes.

Adding and removing vulnerable boxes before/after active frames is just a matter of someone doing that. Adding specific vulnerable boxes where it says moves “have no hurtboxes designated” is more work but is also a subjective decision, perhaps they think the animation-provided boxes are okay. I’d honestly skip those listings, since the character can be hit, or do them on a case-by-case basis.

Poison falling out of Gouken’s EX Tatsu and things like that take a bit more work to test and fix, but it’s just adjusting boxes until it works. :^)

Some things require more subjective judgment, like Cody U2 being punishable on air hit or Cammy U2 being negative on hit, but if they decided to fix them those are also short.

The small remainder, like Guile’s turn around script, Gen’s U2 from prejump, Rose’s U2 orbs being different sometimes, Sagat’s Ultra missing, Seth’s Tanden Engine counting ground attacks as juggles, Chun’s s.Fierce xx RH SBK being different, etc. are the things that would require investigation and real work.

The weird graphical effects bugs, left-right corner inconsistencies, and other things that require code changes are harder to fix, and impossible for the community to change. Not allowing characters to wrongly pass through each other, for example, is a solved problem and should have been fixed as a general engine change many versions ago. A hacky version of continuous collision will more than suffice. (Skullgirls does it! If I wrote it, it can’t be that hard.) And really, someone should have taken a few days and found the root cause of unblockables and just gotten rid of them as a whole, DWU or not. You’re a programmer, without you there is no game! It can certainly be done.

So I guess the tl;dr is – the majority of the work is pretty easy to do, there is just a lot of it. If I were assigned to this and asked to provide an ETA to my superiors, I’d estimate a week, ten days tops, to clear 99% of it with designers’ approval on the iffy parts.

Elena's Ultra 2 - Healing

PD: Competitive players have dealt with weird hitboxes, wacky damage and other assorted problems in their games since Street Fighter II. How does this list compare, at face value, with some of those problems? Should competitors even be worrying?

DD: This all goes back to people knowing more than they did before. In all honesty they shouldn’t worry, but now that people have seen behind the curtain, so to speak, they are going to. Looking at the list and seeing as much tourney footage that has been streamed so far – I haven’t really seen any huge impact. Maybe a weird hitbox here or there – but Alpha 3 had way stranger hitboxes and people love that game.

MZ: No and yes.

On the one hand, eh. Some stuff is busted, but some stuff has been busted since the beginning and people still played it. There is something wrong with every game people play, and sometimes those things are what make the game fun. Players will deal with the way the game works, as they have in every other game. If something is advantageous they’ll abuse it, and if it’s detrimental they’ll avoid it. For example, moves only build the “wrong” meter on counterhit if you assume there is a “right” amount of meter to build – if you just assume it’s supposed to be different per move or random, then it’s fine! Classify all bugs as “tech,” problem solved. If the game is fun for you then any problems can be glossed over.

On the other hand, wtf. People paid money for this, they deserve a polished update. Capcom had what, a year and a half? That’s not a year and a half of work, even with porting the SFxT characters and Decapre. My apologies to the dev team, but it is not. I personally expected a higher level of quality from it, as a package. (Not more content, but they may as well have not even added button config on character select, for example, since this version doesn’t save tournaments any time.) Plus, if this is a game where people will be winning money playing it, and some of that money even comes from the company that created the game, then it is a little weird to let people play a product that is this buggy in essentially random ways.

From my end – like I always say, if you enjoy it, play it! But while you’re playing it, consider whether you think it is in the community’s best interest to reward this level of workmanship with money and adulation, and what accepting this now might mean for SF5 later."

[JACK-2]

Aug 16, 2014 14:08:08 GMT -5 The Big Daddy C-Master said:

I always considered Alex a hybrid grappler like Abel.

Sean was much better in 2nd impact was he not? I th ink other characters can fill more specialist roles without being as good as the top, even MvC2 had people use niche characters well in certain situations.

He was better, his Sean tackle could go through projectiles and his uppercut was quicker. Minus Oro and Urien, everyone was nerfed in Third Strike. Ibuki was upper God tier lol.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Aug 16, 2014 14:26:40 GMT -5 JACK-2 said:

Aug 16, 2014 14:08:08 GMT -5 The Big Daddy C-Master said:

I always considered Alex a hybrid grappler like Abel.

Sean was much better in 2nd impact was he not? I th ink other characters can fill more specialist roles without being as good as the top, even MvC2 had people use niche characters well in certain situations.

He was better, his Sean tackle could go through projectiles and his uppercut was quicker. Minus Oro and Urien, everyone was nerfed in Third Strike. Ibuki was upper God tier lol.

That's Capcom, "balancing" games by nerfing everything.

[gurpwnder]

Aug 16, 2014 13:58:15 GMT -5 JACK-2 said:

Aug 16, 2014 10:48:38 GMT -5 gurpwnder said:

I'm not sure if that's the case because Alex a grappler is the sixth worst character in the game according to Arturo. But, I've yet to see low tier domination featuring him. I think it's because Hugo has faster Command grab with range and all his super arts are viable versus Alexs with one: Hyperbomb.

Aug 16, 2014 10:48:38 GMT -5 gurpwnder said:

My cousin played sean for years. Third strike is not only the worst version of sean. He's also the worst character in the game, worst than twelve. A japanese player named sean p uses him and supposedly won a tourney. But, that's hearsay and even then I don't think he's viable. He's hurricane kick for example when parried is punished as if he was standing lol. Very slow shoryu and his sean tackle can't go through projectiles anymore. He was really good in SF3, though.

I think some bottom tier characters are viable: Q and Hugo. But, it's very hard, same with twelve. Like I said, I've seen it and I can post videos if you guys like.

Alex doesn't really excel at anything. Hugo has the best series of command grabs in the game and is fairly unique compared to the rest of the roster, since he's the only pure grappler.

Alex is pretty much a poor man's Makoto. She's more mobile, her damage output is considerably higher, her tools have more utility, and her stun output is probably better than Alex's. Her command grab starts up at the same speed as Alex's (7f), and leads to considerably more than anything Alex's command grabs ever could. It grants her a combo, corner carry, leaves her next to the opponent after the combo and does more damage / stun than a powerbomb.

Sean's pretty funny actually. You're actually punishable ON HIT if you hit your opponent with a tornado kick and they're standing. You're -3, so they can super you or grab you for free. If you hit a crouching opponent, you're at 0 I think.

[JACK-2]

Yes, I remember the discussion on whether Makoto is a grappler or not. Her forward dash is probably the best in the game and her command grab based on what it can lead to is better than Alexes power bomb.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Aug 16, 2014 14:48:24 GMT -5 gurpwnder said:

Aug 16, 2014 13:58:15 GMT -5 JACK-2 said:

I'm not sure if that's the case because Alex a grappler is the sixth worst character in the game according to Arturo. But, I've yet to see low tier domination featuring him. I think it's because Hugo has faster Command grab with range and all his super arts are viable versus Alexs with one: Hyperbomb.My cousin played sean for years. Third strike is not only the worst version of sean. He's also the worst character in the game, worst than twelve. A japanese player named sean p uses him and supposedly won a tourney. But, that's hearsay and even then I don't think he's viable. He's hurricane kick for example when parried is punished as if he was standing lol. Very slow shoryu and his sean tackle can't go through projectiles anymore. He was really good in SF3, though.

I think some bottom tier characters are viable: Q and Hugo. But, it's very hard, same with twelve. Like I said, I've seen it and I can post videos if you guys like.

Alex doesn't really excel at anything. Hugo has the best series of command grabs in the game and is fairly unique compared to the rest of the roster, since he's the only pure grappler.

Alex is pretty much a poor man's Makoto. She's more mobile, her damage output is considerably higher, her tools have more utility, and her stun output is probably better than Alex's. Her command grab starts up at the same speed as Alex's (7f), and leads to considerably more than anything Alex's command grabs ever could. It grants her a combo, corner carry, leaves her next to the opponent after the combo and does more damage / stun than a powerbomb.

Sean's pretty funny actually. You're actually punishable ON HIT if you hit your opponent with a tornado kick and they're standing. You're -3, so they can super you or grab you for free. If you hit a crouching opponent, you're at 0 I think.

Makoto also has a crazy fast dash while being a smaller vertical target as well.

[gurpwnder]

Aug 16, 2014 14:59:13 GMT -5 The Big Daddy C-Master said:

Aug 16, 2014 14:48:24 GMT -5 gurpwnder said:

Makoto also has a crazy fast dash while being a smaller vertical target as well.

100% combos too.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Aug 16, 2014 15:18:58 GMT -5 gurpwnder said:

Aug 16, 2014 14:59:13 GMT -5 The Big Daddy C-Master said:

Makoto also has a crazy fast dash while being a smaller vertical target as well.

100% combos too.

Not to mention some sick resets.