Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition

[Lulekani]

@DARKNIGHTSPIDEY

Reaction times exist.

What Do You mean ?

@DARKNIGHTSPIDEY

Again, it’s a skill. Which can be thrown off by the stress of fighting another person, where you need to act as quickly and efficiently as possible.

So is driving a car with a Wrench instead of a Steering Wheel… they are many flaws in this world that can be overcome with skill but just because its possible to negate a flaw with practice doesn’t mean its not a flaw anymore… in this case… the flaw is Overlapping inputs. Hell when my Right Bumper Busted I had to play with one less button… thats a skill but that doesn’t mean theres nothing wrong with my controller. Its the same thing with playing online with Noticeable Lag… that also takes skill… should the players who can’t adjust to the lag “Just Deal With It” ?

@DARKNIGHTSPIDEY

Having powerful special moves with harder inputs purposefully put into them is counter intuitive if they just end up allowing for easier inputs anyway. The whole point of a SPD is that it’s a huge, unblockable move that also does a ton of damage. To compensate for that, it has a 360 motion prerequisite in order to use it. If it were DD+P, then the move would be way too strong. The Zangief players become way more obnoxious and powerful, which leads to the community complaining, which then leads to NERFS, making the huge move even less interesting or fun that when it had the original motion.

Its my understanding that the whole point of These difficult inputs is just to prevent players from doing them instantly… which I understand. What I don’t understand is why they need to be Difficult ?

Zangief’s SPD is a good example of this… the problem with this move is the motion can cause you to jump unintentionally… The Spinning motion actually isn’t that difficult… until you factor in exactly how fast it needs to be done to prevent Zangief from Jumping… Skullgirls also has SPD motion for two Characters, Filia and Cerebella, the difference is the creators factored in the upward motions and so for those two Characters Specifically doing over and over again wouldn’t make them jump… I don’t know they did it but it works.

Its not like Gamers don’t know how to do 360s… Ten years of QTEs has essentially prepared most of us for 360 inputs… the problem with Street Fighter is they just didn’t think about these things…

Its a similar situation with Charge Moves… the whole point of passive charging is to prevent you from being able to use specific specials moves rapidly and to prevent them from being used after specific normals…

Killer Instinct just uses a cool down Mechanic and I think it works really well.

But the interesting one is Geiger from Fantasy Strike.

- YouTube

As far as I can tell, Geiger’s mechanic works pretty much identical to Guile’s, the two differences being you don’t need to hold down two buttons to charge the move and more importantly, you get a visual indicator of when the special move is ready.

Unless if I missed something you can do the exact same thing for Guile and literally have no effect on his power level… well… I mean… he’l be able to Flash Kick from Standing normals but you can do that already… its just really ■■■■■■■ Difficult.

And there you have it… two examples of Powerfull moves being more accessible without touching their Power… BTW… in Street Fighter V… SPD isn’t all that powerfull, its 5 Frames on startup and each one is weighted by its reach and knockdown advantage… which is the case for every other character with a Command Throw… and they don’t have 360 Motions.

@DARKNIGHTSPIDEY

I think we’re done here.

If you knew you weren’t planning on Being Open Minded then why didn’t you just say this sooner ? Is it because you like me… it is isn’t it ?

[BigBadAndy]

@Lulekani

So is driving a car with a Wrench instead of a Steering Wheel… they are many flaws in this world that can be overcome with skill but just because its possible to negate a flaw with practice doesn’t mean its not a flaw anymore…

Quoted for truth.

[swordman09]

@DARKNIGHTSPIDEY

Guile Flash Kick with no charge.

[STORM179]

And it’s no coincidence that the character is extremely annoying/difficult to deal with in pressure or knockdown.

[DARKNIGHTSPIDEY]

@DARKNIGHTSPIDEY

A game where everything that was intended to have inputs are now 1-button commands would be HORRIBLE.

@DARKNIGHTSPIDEY

Fulgore DP’s on reaction. EVERY TIME. Guile Flash Kick with no charge. EVERY TIME.

I waz talking about 1-button commands, something that Cinder lacks with his Flash Kick. Sure it’s down-up, but it’s not instant like it being one button, and it’s not even that fast (or fully invincible IIRC). Even his reversal is hard to do in the heat of things.

[swordman09]

@DARKNIGHTSPIDEY

I waz talking about 1-button commands

Technically 2 buttons but still

[BigBadAndy]

It’s all about design choices. My issue with making “input execution difficulty” an element of game balance is that the hardcore just practice until it’s no longer an issue so they can abuse the move. So it is “unbalanced” at high level. Then it’s an entry barrier and an added element that prevents people from exploring the true depth of the games. It also confuses people into thinking that “being good” at fighting games is about sitting around doing one frame combos.

[STORM179]

Yeah, but there’s a difference between saying a game shouldn’t have 1 frame links and shoryu inputs, and saying that Guile’s flash kicks and booms should be QCF’s or single buttons and just be nerfed as compensation. I’m all for ease of use in a title, but not to the point where you’re eliminating meaningful character differences (again, in an already very homogenized cast) and variety.

I think much more sensible balancing acts are possible than what much of this conversation has been. KI’s CAM is one example, DBFZ’s auto-combos and various macros are another. Making everything 1 button press isn’t some panacea though I don’t think - Rising Thunder had a lot of underlying complexities that a casual probably wouldn’t grasp either.

[Lulekani]

Does any body find it confusing in KI that Special Moves Properties Change when using them as Openers, Linkers and Enders ?

[DurtyDee810]

I think that is BS. For most intermediate fighting players, DP motion is as simple as a QCF motion. It literally isn’t hard to execute at a mid to high level of play

[BigBadAndy]

These discussions always flatten out into simple extremes. Usually the most interesting discussion is already over by the third or fourth post.

I actually have Super SFIV on 3DS and it allows you to assign special moves to the touch pad for 1 button use. It makes it a completely doffferent game. I actually don’t have any problem with charge inputs for street fighter. I think if you want to suddenly make the fifth, sixth or tenth game in a series have radically altered inputs you are going to upset the fan base. But I also remember hoping and praying that my flash kick would come out playing on a SNES pad because hundreds of hours later I could never get the execution over 80% reliable. The tension over “have I held back long enough” to throw a sonic boom has lost its appeal to me. And yet you look at a high level Guile mirror and it’s still 90% sonic booms.

As an owner of half a dozen fight sticks right now (and dozens over the last 20 years) I guess I should argue that this is a “feature,” but to me it’s just a needless frustration that’s keeping a mass of people from recognizing the more interesting complexities of the genre because more or less the guy that can actually pull off moves is going to beat his friends in any sort of casual setting.

Edit: I am really interested in seeing where people can take the genre if they don’t get locked into what’s been done before. I thought Rising Thunder was really promising so I was sad when it got cancelled. I like the idea behind fantasy strike even if I can’t really say I like the game.

Just as a complete digression, remember when Legend of Zelda went 3D and Miyamoto announces that there wouldn’t be a jump button? That jumping would instead be automatic if you ran off a ledge? People lost their mind talking about no skill games and how today’s gamers were lazy and needed everything handed to them yada yada yada. Then the game released and it was awesome, challenging and fun. And no one cares about the arcane, unintuitive and unnecessary “skill” of being able to successfully time a ledge jump. I feel like a lot of these discussions are the same.

[Dayv0]

The discussion kinda flew away from SF to “complexity in FGs”, but my two cents:

Either if the game is super complex(Anime fighter with tons of different mechanics, full of unorthdox characters who bend the rules), or super simple(1 button=1 special), FGs will always have people who will refuse to learn.

Blocking, anti airing, respect frame data, meter management, optimal punishes… People commited to play FGs have to develop these skills(and more!) in order to evaluate any given situation to offer the best possible answer for that situation.

Even the simplest game ever will have negative/positive moves that people will let go unpunished/try to challenge when they shouldn’t. Even the simplest game ever will have jumps, and people who will not challenge jumps with anti airs.

FGs are HARD. There are tons of stuff running around when playing, and I’m not even considering execution or reflexes. All these areas are hard to deal at the same time.

It’s easy to anti air a jump IF you only have to do that? It is!
It’s easy to block a reactable low/high IF you only have to do that? It is!
It’s easy to do all the previous, while also looking for teching throws, or finding an opening into your opponent defense? It’s not!

DBZF made a good work being “easy” to play, allowing mashers to get some flashy combos while mashing a single button. The reality for those people is that they got OBLITERATED by any regular FG player who knows when to block, uses meaty attacks, and use optimal punishes. The game dropped 80% of their launch players(in steam) since release, and who could blame them. Those people who are not commited to FGs don’t have(or want) the mentality you need to improve in a FG. Once they saw that there is nothing they can do against seasoned players, most of them flew away.

My point: You could make FGs inputs easier to do, simple, but there is still stuff under the surface that must be trained, and you can’t learn it and start using it after a tutorial, no matter how good it was

[STORM179]

@Dayv0

The game dropped 80% of their launch players(in steam) since release, and who could blame them.

Mark Twain has a funny quote about there being “lies, damned lies, and statistics” that I think probably applies here. I’ve seen people bandy about the Steam player drop-off, but I’d be wary of assigning either cause or particular import to the figure. Most games (of all genres) experience similar drop-offs after launch, so assigning “getting bodied” as the primary cause to declining numbers for FG’s is imprecise at best. I’m 100% sure that getting bodied causes drop-off, but there’s not really any good way to separate that out from what would be the normal attrition for another game.

@BigBadAndy

The tension over “have I held back long enough” to throw a sonic boom has lost its appeal to me.

Yeah, I get that. I just think that all things being equal I’d prefer simply adding a visual cue to indicate charge as opposed to making it a hadouken for all intents and purposes. The game has enough hadoukens with virtually the same properties, you know? I’d personally like devs to think of interesting ways to lower the skill floor without having to flatten unique interactions and properties and such. KI was able to do it because the core of the game to a large extent exists within the unique parameters of the two-way interaction, but applying it in different contexts definitely results in games that feel quite different from their current iterations.

You said 1-button SF4 feels like a completely different game. Was it in a good way or a bad way?

@BigBadAndy

Just as a complete digression, remember when Legend of Zelda…

I actually remember people being pretty happy about the auto-jump feature, even well before release. EGM liked it in their run-through, said it felt good, and it felt like that was the end of that as far as I knew. Zelda was never a platformer anyway, so removing the frustration from tight jumps always struck me as a good call. If you were to do the same to Mario I think it’d be a different discussion though.

[Lulekani]

@DurtyDee810

I think that is BS. For most intermediate fighting players, DP motion is as simple as a QCF motion. It literally isn’t hard to execute at a mid to high level of play.

And yet you still see Raw jump ins in High Level Play… not many… but it does happen on occassion. If it was easy it would be more consistent. If it was easy then the defending player wouldn’t allow jump ins because thats a mix up waiting to happen…it would be an unnecessary risk.

Granted this was before Arcade Edition so Anti-Air Lights were still particularly effective. I haven’t seen much of High Level Play in Arcade Efition yet so maybe people are DP more often now… I’l be keeping an eye those jump ins.

@Dayv0
And thats an excuse do nothing ?

Street Fighter isn’t a Free give away at the Fair or some sort of public invitation where anyone can participate…its a Product… a product with costumers… and the mark of a good product is its ability to meet the costumers needs to their satisfaction… BECAUSE THEY PAID FOR IT. As it is right now Street Fighter is game designed for the 10 percent (event that is abit too generous) of the people who payed for it and the concerns of any else is irrelevant.

Unless they paid more for the game than everybody else then This is Bull ■■■■.

Now its pretty clear that pro players don’t care about casual players or players who are trying to get better at the game… so why should those players care about the concerns of pro players ?

Now that being said if those players want complex and high execution Inputs then they can have them, hell bring back One Frame Links… I don’t care what those players want their DP Input to be anymore than I care what button they choose to use to jump or shoot or parry in any other game… their controls is their preference.

All I’m saying is everybody who hasn’t subscribed to whatever logic went into those inputs should be extended the same courtesy, an alternate set of controls, a courtesy you get in every other game both competitive and casual… anyone who disagrees is just a selfish apathetic ■■■ hole (which isn’t new, this is the internet after all).

[FallibleJoker14]

@Lulekani

Now its pretty clear that pro players don’t care about casual players or players who are trying to get better at the game… so why should those players care about the concerns of pro players ?

Sorry for butting in the conversation but I really don’t like this generalization of pro players as some selfish clique. Although you have your bad apples of course, there are a good amount of pros and good players willing to help lower players reach them and one day contest them. These pros are just like us, they are players, some gain too much of an ego but others are chill people. Personal experience has told me not to believe in this generalization and be open to pro players. Won’t talk anymore but I think I got my point out.

/endrant

[BigBadAndy]

@STORM179

Yeah, I get that. I just think that all things being equal I’d prefer simply adding a visual cue to indicate charge as opposed to making it a hadouken for all intents and purposes

Yeah, somewhere along the way I didn’t really pick up that part of the discussion. I don’t disagree. I’d prefer they make the move b-f or put an indicator on it. Having to teach people fighting games I can tell you that in my experience handing a controller to a noob they will actually prefer charge moves to QC moves. I don’t think making every character use the same moveset really helps SF.

Again, there are lots of valid design choices. People are feel to prefer one or the other. I’m not sure why so many folks are getting emotional about the discussion here.

@Dayv0

Either if the game is super complex(Anime fighter with tons of different mechanics, full of unorthdox characters who bend the rules), or super simple(1 button=1 special), FGs will always have people who will refuse to learn.

This is, of course, true. I have played Fantasy Strike for about an hour against the CPU and I kept hitting the wrong buttons - in a game designed to simplify execution. And then I more or less quit because I wasn’t really having much fun.

But I guess the design choice, to me, comes down to what problem your trying to solve. The problem I would like to solve is that I think a lot of people walk away from fighting games without really understanding the nature of the game they are walking away from. I always liked fighting games but I was never even remotely competetive until KI’s combination of terrific online and relatively simple execution helped me get past my frustration (and lack of interest) at trying to learn hard to execute combos to build high damage. This not only helped me with execution it helped me see past execution to the broader nature of fighting games. I appreciate them a lot more as a player, a spectator and a fan now because I was able to really get involved in KI. So I’d like to give other people that opportunity. And I think arcane controller inputs are a barrier to that.

Again, there are lots of ways to skin a cat. Based on the absolute meltdown people had when they thought MvCi was ditching DP inputs I just don’t think SFV needs a new control scheme. These controls are part of the game. Vega certainly hasn’t torn up the world since getting QC motions…

I’m rambling (again) but I’d like to see new games do new things. I don’t think there needs to be a fighting game bible declaring that any slightly forward moving vertical anti-air that leaves the ground must be performed doing Motions.

[Dayv0]

@Lulekani

And yet you still see Raw jump ins in High Level Play… not many… but it does happen on occassion

Your mistake is thinking that this is a execution problem, instead of a mind fatige problem

In every FG, even the simplest one, you are making tons of choices every second.

In just one second, SFV round one, Guile vs Zangief:
-Guile jumps away trying to put some distance between him and Zangief
-Zangief just walked away, trying to just see what Guile does. He notices Guile likes to jump instead of walking
-Guile notices Zangief did nothing, so it’s a catious player. He may have to think twice everything he does

In one single second, both players are playing with new info. Sometimes, with this info overload, we take bad choices. I’m not talking about blocking instead of teching a throw. I’m talking about not punishing unsafe moves, using a throw instead a more damaging punish, not antiaring in a situation where you had time and tools to do so

My point is that EVERYONE can make bad choices. Pro players have the mindset and preparation to commit less mistakes, but they will commit them sometimes.

And it’s not a matter of execution, but info overload/stress

@STORM179

I’ve seen people bandy about the Steam player drop-off, but I’d be wary of assigning either cause or particular import to the figure. Most games (of all genres) experience similar drop-offs after launch, so assigning “getting bodied” as the primary cause to declining numbers for FG’s is imprecise at best. I’m 100% sure that getting bodied causes drop-off, but there’s not really any good way to separate that out from what would be the normal attrition for another game.

Of course, my bad, I didn’t pretend to suggest that the dropoff is all people tired to get bodied. Of course all games experience this. I was just pointing that some people just get tired about losing and just drop the game(any game, not FGs exclusively).

[BigBadAndy]

@STORM179

You said 1-button SF4 feels like a completely different game. Was it in a good way or a bad way?

Yeah, I never answered this. Interestingly, I played Guile and enjoyed walking forward and then doing flashkicks the way the cpu has always done. It was good in the sense that I was playing the CPU and it evened the playing field. But I couldn’t tell you it was better as a competitive fighter because I never played another living soul on that version of SF. And there were lots of other issues with the 3DS as a fighting controller that made it a less preferred method of play.

[Lulekani]

@FallibleJoker14

Sorry for butting in the conversation but I really don’t like this generalization of pro players as some selfish clique.

I don’t like it either but thats the case.

@FallibleJoker14

Although you have your bad apples of course, there are a good amount of pros and good players willing to help lower players reach them and one day contest them.

I don’t deny that… but execution is one thing you can’t teach to someone… especially if they’ve peaked. Say you want to teach someone to do one frame links… what are you gonna tell them everytime they ■■■■■ up… “No… you need to press the button sooner… Not like that… you did it too soon, Faster… Slower… Faster… Slower… Faster.”

I appreciate the tutorials and guides people make but the reason I’m here whining about it is because having the knowledge to play the and having the physical ability to play the game are two completely different things… particularly if the physical side of things exists for no reasons than just to frustrate players.

@Dayv0

Your mistake is thinking that this is a execution problem, instead of a mind fatige problem.

LoL… And ? that just reinforces my point… if it was so easy you should be able to do in your sleep. If you need to be Hopped Up on 8 Litres of Energy Drinks to consistently Dragon Punch someone out of air then you have a problem… you can ignore it… make excuses for it… pretend it was a one time thing but its just going to keep happening… “Its part of the Game.” People will say… if I had coin everytime I heard that phrase.

@Dayv0

stress

Let me ask you this… is executing a difficult input Stressful ?

[Sasuke99I]

@Lulekani

Let me ask you this… is executing a difficult input Stressful ?

No. Executing any move in reaction while in a high stress scenario such as a scenario is difficult. I can anti-air with dps %100 in training mode. Real matches? It’s much harder. It isn’t the input that is hard. It is just knowing I should do it with all the other factors in the game such as spacing.