TNL Fighting Game Debate Club

[StriderKyo]

I see more jumpers in SF4 than I've ever seen in the other one-on-one fighters. That shit even exists in high-level play. The biggest jump-risk factor hands down has to be Alpha 3. If you jumped in on a V-ism character prepare to get caught in an infinite combo thus ending the match just by deciding to jump in.

This just isn't true. There are a ton of ways to punish jumps, ie. FADCing out of almost everybody's anti-air into a super/ultra. Eating a 40-45% combo off a jump is more than enough.

[Razor Ramon]

Alot of jumping doesn't exist in high level play unless the character you are playing against has poor anti air, which isn't too common in SSF4. Maybe less in A3, I don't know too much about that game, but there is WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY more jumping in Cvs2, and more jumping in ST, and in A2/1.

The only one I'll give you is CvS2 and that's because short jumps exist in that game. That reason alone makes jumping way safer than any other game. From my personal experience in the short time I played that game at tournament-level I've rarely ever seen anyone who isn't Yun, Cammy or Blanka do normal jumps. Even Blanka and Cammy were more short jumps than anything else.

This just isn't true. There are a ton of ways to punish jumps, ie. FADCing out of almost everybody's anti-air into a super/ultra. Eating a 40-45% combo off a jump is more than enough.

They may punish your jump but it doesn't carry the risk of losing 100% of your life because you decided to jump like in A3. Jump in against a V-Cody and lemme know how that works out for ya.

[StriderKyo]

They may punish your jump but it doesn't carry the risk of losing 100% of your life because you decided to jump like in A3.

Soo...why is this bad?

[Razor Ramon]

I never said it was a bad thing. I just don't jump in A3. I jump all day in SSF4 and barely get hit with anything worth crying about if I'm not playing against Sagat, Ryu, Ken, Gouken, Adon, or Balrog.

[Anthony]

This just isn't true. There are a ton of ways to punish jumps, ie. FADCing out of almost every anti-air into a super/ultra. Eating a 40-45% combo off a jump is more than enough.

Honestly, so many of the complaints you guys have sound like a bunch of "in my day" grumpy old man stuff. This game is fast, it's fun, and it's extremely well balanced and varied, which is the exact reason why it's taken off like no SF game since 1993. Nothing is game breaking or out of whack. Like, even if Abel's super does make him top tier, it doesn't matter because there are like 7 other guys in that tier with him and even they don't win every tournament, the tiers aren't absolute. I mean hell , I just posted a video of a guy taking out Daigo with Rose in the finals of a major tournament. In other words, these complaints you guys have all apply far less to this game than the stuff you're propping up instead.

Luffy beat diago with rose because he had never played against a rose ever. Then, diago read her frame data, and proceeded to DESTROY him in the winners finals.

I didn't play ST "in my day", my first serious SF game was SF4. And I never said I didn't like SSF4, I just said the throw system sucks (and the offense in general). SSF4 is very well balanced for a SF game, but "fast" is not a word I would use for it. I would go with, slow, and somewhat fun.

It took off because it was very very accessible to the new crowd of people. It is not just accessible in the way that DOA is either, they emphasized many of the mindgames that go on with older SF games, and made them easier to do. This is fantastic, opened the pool for many people to enjoy fighting games for the same reasons most of us grumply old men used to enjoy them, while lowering the entry barrier for playing. The problem is, many of these changes do a great job of opening people up to mid level play, and a terrible job of keeping the game fresh at high level.

That 7f throw break window is really good for most players, it is forgiving enough that they can use their rudimentary timing skills to actually break a throw (10f throw break if they are standing!!!). Now, players are worried about seeing throws, breaking throws, so it is really evolving the mindgame for both mid-level players. Let's say the throw window was much smaller, new people would be unable to break throws with even a fraction of the time when they knew it was coming. They would start to feel it was cheap, the mindgame wouldn't evolve (everyone would throw alot), and the game would grow stale to these players. Clearly, for these players capcom made a great decision to bring to them this aspect of the game (expecting throws) into their thought process.

But let's look at the other side of the coin. A person with reasonably good timing knows there are 4 spots he can throw tech at to beat throw attempts. Doing his throw tech very late often means he will beat out something like 80% of throw attempts, with very little risk. You effectively took this mindgame OUT of my game. I don't even think, and it is very hard and dangerous for my opponent to counter this. Most other things people complain about are similar to this, where the buffer that allows newer players to really play the game, takes out those aspects for veterans.

Overall SF4 is awesome at what it did, so I think it really was the most important fighting game since SF2. It brought fighting games to a whole new group of people, that is something, I am just not one of the ones it was aimed it, and that's ok with me.

Edit for Ramon: Well you play abel, he is one of the 5 characters or so in the game that can really make an offense happen. Beyond that though, if your opponent is good, why are you jumping all day? He is probably sitting there doing nothing, and then you are taking pointless damage.

[Razor Ramon]

I jump to taunt.

[Razor Ramon]

And I'm TERRIBLE at SF4 but I will blame it on a shit d-pad. I still can't find an adapter for my PS2 pad without lag. No good imo.

[StriderKyo]

Luffy beat diago with rose because he had never played against a rose ever. Then, diago read her frame data, and proceeded to DESTROY him in the winners finals.

I didn't play ST "in my day", my first serious SF game was SF4. And I never said I didn't like SSF4, I just said the throw system sucks (and the offense in general). SSF4 is very well balanced for a SF game, but "fast" is not a word I would use for it. I would go with, slow, and somewhat fun.

It took off because it was very very accessible to the new crowd of people. It is not just accessible in the way that DOA is either, they emphasized many of the mindgames that go on with older SF games, and made them easier to do. This is fantastic, opened the pool for many people to enjoy fighting games for the same reasons most of us grumply old men used to enjoy them, while lowering the entry barrier for playing. The problem is, many of these changes do a great job of opening people up to mid level play, and a terrible job of keeping the game fresh at high level.

That 7f throw break window is really good for most players, it is forgiving enough that they can use their rudimentary timing skills to actually break a throw (10f throw break if they are standing!!!). Now, players are worried about seeing throws, breaking throws, so it is really evolving the mindgame for both mid-level players. Let's say the throw window was much smaller, new people would be unable to break throws with even a fraction of the time when they knew it was coming. They would start to feel it was cheap, the mindgame wouldn't evolve (everyone would throw alot), and the game would grow stale to these players. Clearly, for these players capcom made a great decision to bring to them this aspect of the game (expecting throws) into their thought process.

But let's look at the other side of the coin. A person with reasonably good timing knows there are 4 spots he can throw tech at to beat throw attempts. Doing his throw tech very late often means he will beat out something like 80% of throw attempts, with very little risk. You effectively took this mindgame OUT of my game. I don't even think, and it is very hard and dangerous for my opponent to counter this. Most other things people complain about are similar to this, where the buffer that allows newer players to really play the game, takes out those aspects for veterans.

Overall SF4 is awesome at what it did, so I think it really was the most important fighting game since SF2. It brought fighting games to a whole new group of people, that is something, I am just not one of the ones it was aimed it, and that's ok with me.

Edit for Ramon: Well you play abel, he is one of the 5 characters or so in the game that can really make an offense happen. Beyond that though, if your opponent is good, why are you jumping all day? He is probably sitting there doing nothing, and then you are taking pointless damage.

Gah, I deleted that rant just to avoid going down this road. The thing is, despite softening it up for people with mere human reflexes and coordination (of which I am assuredly one), there are clear delineations of talent among the players out there. It's obvious that there's enough meat in there for the top players to come up with all kinds of stuff, and enough difficulty in execution that things are far from automatic. The better player is generally going to win in this game, and that's all you can ask for in this regard. I think they did a really good job of opening it up to both ends of the spectrum, with shortcuts on one end and normal links and dash cancelling on the other.

[Anthony]

Gah, I deleted that rant just to avoid going down this road. The thing is, despite softening it up for people with mere human reflexes and coordination (of which I am assuredly one), there are clear delineations of talent among the players out there. It's obvious that there's enough meat in there for the top players to come up with all kinds of stuff, and enough difficulty in execution that things are far from automatic. The better player is generally going to win in this game, and that's all you can ask for in this regard. I think they did a really good job of opening it up to both ends of the spectrum, with shortcuts on one end and normal links and dash cancelling on the other.

It's not a difficultly of motion, it's a lack of thought. The "better" player will win, but if you take out many aspects of the game, it sure isn't as fun getting that win. If the whole game was fireball/jump/stand there mindgames, I would still likely beat out 95% of people, but it would be more fun with all the other mindgames thrown in. And it has little to do with reflexes and coordination, eventually you learn to preform motions to the speed of the game, like a good musician playing music perfectly on time to a certain bpm for a certain song. It is not natural talent, just a practiced skill, like almost everything else in this genre.

[Razor Ramon]

All this talk makes me want to fire up Marvel 2. Anyone down? You can choose my team.