Moreover, I began playing other games casually and I can say for certain that accessibility is definitely something a lot of players take for granted. I like Super Turbo because it’s a simple game to get into for the most part with a bit of random flavor to it to make things “interesting.” But after playing Hyper Fighting I realized how good a cleaner game could be as well as how completely different I had to approach match ups. I don’t really play characters that really benefit from supers in most cases, but it was more how the game worked and how different damage was done over the course of a match.

I then played Karnov and Street Fighter Alpha 1 with Final Showdown/SaishuKessen recently. Those are games where insanity can often prevail, mostly with Alpha 1. It made me sort of see the point Schaeffer had made about ST and Alpha 2… but at the same time it’s like there’s definitely an appeal to what’s going on there. Something I feel that can be lost if you subdue it in the manner that Shaeffer suggests. I don’t think I could hang/stick around if games were as difficult as these recent games I’ve tried are. With all I fully understand, I still can see deficiencies that just come from a lack of skill and a lot of it is stuff I know would take me a huge amount of time to bridge the gap on.

I don’t think life is long enough for me to play every release and every fighting game if I know I’ll be making that investment. He’s kind of proposing what seems to be the “One Ring” of fighting games and it kind of scares me to look in that direction now lol.

I dunno about #5. IMO raw ultras are hard enough to land as they are, and if the other player is fast enough to react to a whiffed jab or short with ultra, they ought to get that reward.

Since you do agree with LAAkuma on the use of supers and ultras, then maybe reducing damage on the super/ultra should be enough to make them less of an “imbalanced punish”. In a way, this promotes use of a super/ultra as more of a very good special that you start with, rather than a big damage move you want to combo into.

I think a reduced-damage version of Chun’s super is close to what he had in mind. It’s very fast, can punish just about everything, and (most of the time) is something you start, rather than end with. (if you ever do get around to charging it lol)

Changing backdash invincibility or FADC takes away a universal tool and could easily lead to greater imbalance between characters I think universal tools are important in keeping the maximum number of characters viable while allowing variety. SF4 is pretty good in this regard.

If I could change something, I’d probably do two things:

– reduce the reversal window, so that it’s more difficult to mash. Not to 1 frame, since that makes it unnecessarily difficult to do a reversal even when you intend to do one; 2 or 3 frames maybe. You could also disallow shortcuts for reversal moves, making them even more difficult to mash.

– Reduce ultra damage. IMO Supers should be more damaging than ultras, because Ultra meter builds naturally, while super meter has to be worked for. Ultras should still do enough damage that they’re worth using as combo enders though.

… And that’s it. I don’t really mind crouch teching, since it forces the attacker to use frame traps occasionally if they want to beat a good defense, and removes 50/50 guessing. I think that adds variety to the game.

His ideas for free meter generation probably need tweaking, but the concept of only generating meeting through correct offensive play is sound. As is his statement that turtling is a valid option and should not be punished, so long as all characters have the ability to open up that defence if they’re smart, which bascially means overheads and throws. A simple, low damage, non-comboable overhead for each member of the cast isn’t such a bad idea as it keeps the person on defence on their toes.

I disagree with having untechable throws, I think it makes the game more fair and increases your ability to intelligently defend. You also obviously need a level of throw immunity on wake-up as otherwise it’s completely abusable if you don’t have an invicible reversal. I don’t have any issues with the SF4 throw system, except for crouch teching.

I don’t see the logic behind having to use an EX bar to dash, it doesn’t seem that valuable in a game paced like SF4. Maybe in far more offensive, quick games where it’s hard to react to, but I’ve never seen a match where I’ve thought that a dash or two has made the win. Definitely remove invicibility on back-dashes though.

Hi ideas on supers are great. It should be the invincibility, low start-up frames and/or cancelability of a super that is it’s appeal, not massive damage. If everyone has a useful super they can cancel into from a special then you’re going to get pretty good damage from the super anyway. Maybe make the damage scaling from a super scale less so it’s still useful as a combo ender. You could probably get away with just a 1 super 4 ex bar like now if it was done that way rather than 3 super bars.

I don’t agree with the juggle limit, damage scaling takes care of that and it would just generally make the game less interesting.

To be honest I think if you just take SF4 and make the following changes the game would be perfect:

1. Reversal moves can’t be FADCed. You either commit or you don’t.
2. You can’t reversal Ultra/Super on wake-up, so that the person who worked for the knockdown can start an offense without too much risk.
3. Remove invulnerability on backdashes. Dashes should be for position not for escaping damage.
4. Remove crouch teching. You either block or you tech.
5. Allow a few frames of animation to still occur during an Ultra freeze, so if you whiff a jab or a short you don’t eat an unbalanced punish. I guess 5 could cover the issue of 2 as well, that the guessing game on wake-up results in the attacker losing 50% life for trying to start an offense. If the passing animation was enough to let you land from a meaty jump attack or recover from a low meaty or a throw whiff then 2 wouldn’t be needed.
6. Alternately, make your revenge meter increase your damage/stun output from all moves by something along the lines of 15%/30% for level 1/level 2 revenge meter. That way you can’t have a massive clutch comeback but your comeback potential is increased. Especially as you could build better offensive momentum with the other changes above.
7. Take away auto block so you can’t mash, if you’re not holding block for each attack of a string then you get hit. Coupled with the above rules this means you can’t mash during block strings or you’ll get hit, but if you mash during hit strings you’ll punish an opponents mistake if they miss a link, but as the attack will come out as a reveral you can’t fadc it, meaning that if the attacker baits it they get a proper punish and if the masher connects they don’t get to go into an Ultra. It’s kind of a hard one to deal with as folk will still mash out Ultras. If 6 was in place instead of the current Ultra system it wouldn’t be an issue.

Just my 2c

Next SF Follow-Up A | Follow-Up B by LAAkuma

I’m kinda sad to see that he got baited into responding directly to internet haterade, but he seems to be handling it pretty well overall.

God, with SF2, or anything that old school for me, learning about it is so damn hard; nobody put every crunched number online for every iteration of the game, and picking them all up now, it’s hard to remember which is which, or how each one feels, etc. (I did love SFII Turbo on SNES, but that’s a whole ‘nother story.)

Well, Zangief did win HDR at Evo2k10, and that had pretty much nothing to do with his super. And Kuni did get 3rd place in ST back in Evo2k4.

So what if it’s hard to get around projectiles? That’s just part of what oldschool means. Fireballs used to be good back in the day. And as far as pokes are concerned, SF2 series Gief had some of the best pokes in the game. His sweep is hella good.

It’s better to make his supers weak and strengthen his fundamentals, rather than nerfing his pokes and giving him massive super damage so the entire match hinges on getting lucky once.

Yes. His lariat is very strong in that game.

Very true, but unless a game has easier ways to get around good projectiles and pokes, that puts grapplers way further down. I didn’t play HF as much as ST or later Street Fighter games, but I don’t remember feeling very confident approaching an opponent. Was HF one of Gief’s best outings, SF2-wise? I really would have no idea. I just see O.Sagat from ST in my Gief-mind, like a post-traumatic stress flashback.

I disagree. Grab supers are fundamentally strong as fuck. They beat everything except invincibility. They beat blocking, they beat attacking, they beat throws. In older games, they even beat jumping. The only thing hard about landing them is the 720 commands that some of them use.