[QUOTE="starfox15"]

I'm not shooting into the screen, I'm not racing a vehicle, my character isn't solving a puzzle. My character is kicking the stuffing out of a another person or group of people in a contained 2D/3D environment. It's a fighting game.

LordAndrew

I'm playing the role of a tennis competitor who is the Princess of the Mushroom Kingdom. Therefore, Mario Tennis is an RPG.

Don't quite work, does it?

[QUOTE="R0cky_Racc00n"]

So, because Smash has the option of more than one player it can't be competitive with 1v1? Try playing a 4 player match and then a 1v1 in Smash. The strategies are completely different and the truely more skilled person will win. The beautiful thing about Smash that other fighting game fanatics can't seem to grasp is that you can either play it competively of casually. Because it has an option for casual play and, other fighting fans deem it as completely casual. Also, I really believe because of the characters themselves other fighting game fans don't like Smash. The characters are cute and not original in the Smash universe coming from other Nintendo games.

DarkCatalyst

[QUOTE="ShenlongBo"][QUOTE="DarkCatalyst"] That balance between flashy combos and payoff combos has always been there. Look at that Momochi vs Daigo video you posted - Momochi didn't have to go with LK Tatsumaki, EX Shouryuu, EXFC into LP Shakunetsu, and he burned a ton of meter doing it (for less or equal damage and more risk than if he'd just done the HP Shouryuu and walked away). He was just showing off, probably to grind Daigo's gears even worse.

The damage penalty is no anomaly in the context of other fighting games. If you want to see a stiff penalty, check out Guilty Gear. Combos stop doing damage ENTIRELY in that game.

DarkCatalyst

That is intentional, though. Street Fighter has always been about fighting smart before fighting hard. If you want to piss away your entire meter on a stylish combo with no real payoff, just to show your opponent you can execute pretty much any combo you want, that's your right. The psychological edge gained by the "WTF did he just hit me with" factor will probably get you all the mileage you need out of it anyway. Smart, methodical play is what it's still about at the end of the day, and that's exactly how it should be.

Then, I'm really just conjecturing, as I'll admit a change like I'm suggestiong could potentially backfire and throw all the balancing nuances out the window. I'm not all that concerned about it though. SF as a series still kicks ass, all the way up to SFIV.

[QUOTE="ShenlongBo"]

As an example of what I just stated above, Cammy's second Hard Trial:

Jump Fierce Kick
Light Kick
Medium Punch
Crouching Medium Kick
Heavy Spiral Arrow
Spin Drive Smasher (Super)

This is already a semi-complicated combo as it is, but it is made infuriating/pointless because of the timing between the Light Kick to Medium Punch, and the Medium Punch to c.MK.

Now, it's not that you have to possess lightning fast hands for this, oh no. That would be much easier. No, for this, you have to push MP at the ***exact*** right moment after the LK. I mean like, there is ONE frame out of the whole SIXTY where your MP will connect. One frame too soon, you get nothing. One frame too late, it gets blocked.

And the c.MK after the s.MP is probably worse. Again, you have to input this on ONE specific frame, and as far as linking moves goes, it is a LONG wait after the s.MP.

Mind you, this combo would be plenty hard to do with even a 2-3 frame margin, especially in an actual match. Why Capcom decided to put a vice on the inputs is beyond me.

Articuno76

[QUOTE="ShenlongBo"]

[QUOTE="DarkCatalyst"]Why disconcerting?DarkCatalyst

As an example of what I just stated above, Cammy's second Hard Trial:

Jump Fierce Kick
Light Kick
Medium Punch
Crouching Medium Kick
Heavy Spiral Arrow
Spin Drive Smasher (Super)

This is already a semi-complicated combo as it is, but it is made infuriating/pointless because of the timing between the Light Kick to Medium Punch, and the Medium Punch to c.MK.

Now, it's not that you have to possess lightning fast hands for this, oh no. That would be much easier. No, for this, you have to push MP at the ***exact*** right moment after the LK. I mean like, there is ONE frame out of the whole SIXTY where your MP will connect. One frame too soon, you get nothing. One frame too late, it gets blocked.

And the c.MK after the s.MP is probably worse. Again, you have to input this on ONE specific frame, and as far as linking moves goes, it is a LONG wait after the s.MP.

Mind you, this combo would be plenty hard to do with even a 2-3 frame margin, especially in an actual match. Why Capcom decided to put a vice on the inputs is beyond me.

I should have responded to this topic earlier, I apologize for not doing so.

To the OP:

I'm with you all the way, execution is not essential to fighting game depth unless you consider the execution itself an inherently worthy part of the game's gameplay. I completely agree with how you feel about move inputs in fighters, it annoys me to no end that you have to go through such a boring and restrictive process in order to get to the parts of a game which are actually fun.


Now, if you actually enjoy learning move inputs then this will be a non issue to you, in fact I respect the fact that many people find it fun to pull off difficult inputs and find joy in pulling off seemingly impossible combinations of moves. However I see no reason to force people who do not enjoy this aspect of fighters to do this in order to get to the meat of the game proper, this is simply a turn off to many people who would otherwise enjoy the game immensely but cannot because they cannot perform certain moves or understand the state of mind of an opponent who wishes to perform those moves (the latter is frankly just as important if you want to really enjoy Street Fighter).

Now many people have already stated that for whatever reason Street Fighter can not be played properly unless the move inputs are the way they are, EO mode was brought up as well in order to demonstrate this. I'll try to establish that this is not the case with a simple thought exercise. Let's say that the input requirements in order to perform a move (for this example the move will be a shoryuken) are basically equivalent to a short 'charge up' before the move actually starts and Ryu/Ken/Gouki etc. are committed to dragon punching the sky. This aspect of the technique is essential for the game to play as it does because it forces to player to begin inputting the move as soon as they see their opponent jump in, which requires you to be in a state of mind where you can start the input/charge as soon as you opponent starts an action you want to beat out, or possibly before then in anticipation of what they might do. The other essential component of input buffering is that you can chose to not follow through with the attack if it turns out that it wouldn't have been safe to execute, though you may still be vulnerable until you are able to block again (if the input position wouldn't let you block).

Given these properties, adding an initial, cancelable charge section to the start of a special move would be adequate to preserve all of the startup aspects which are important to gameplay (down/forward+[various combinations of punches] , where returning to neutral without releasing all punches wouldn't do the move, would work nicely for the shoryuken). As long as you couldn't store the charge I don't see why this wouldn't be a viable input option. If you want to preserve everything the 623 input currently does then pull off a HD remix and keep the original input as well.

I'll have more to say on this topic later, I hope to see well reasoned responses when I return.

Ectomy

I'll reserve judgment on that until I go through it a couple more times. But I must say this: so long as I can easily pull off special moves with one hand (left or right) using a joystick, I won't budge on my feeling that the sequence down, forward, punch is not asking too much from players. Hell, I was able to link jabs into specials with one hand (I'll make a vid of this if nobody believes me) doing some of the Normal Trials in SFIV's Challenge Mode. And, not to make anyone feel bad, but my 7-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son can throw hadokens consistently (I can vid this too, if necessary). It's really not that hard, guys. I mean, for real...

Anyway, before I get too pumped up, I will admit that it seems like the timing for combos has been cinched up way tighter than it needs to be in SFIV. I thought my arms were going to go numb trying to finish Guile's Trials (hey neat, that rhymes...), which I never did. This is especially true when you think about the fact that for a lot of moves you have to hit two or more buttons simultaneously. So while I contend that Street Fighter, as a whole, is neither "too complicated" or "could benefit from being massively overhauled," I agree that there is a point where things are too damned hard for their own good (David Sirlin does too, as he "simplified" a few of the needlessly difficult inputs from Super Turbo for HD Remix). I just happen to think that point comes way after mere Shoryukens.

EDIT: Lots of sleeplessness makes lots of typos which makes lots of editings. Boo.

Why disconcerting?DarkCatalyst

[QUOTE="DarkCatalyst"][QUOTE="Metamania"]

When you're talking about focus attacks and dash canceling, I've seen people use that to their advantage. I saw, in a match that involved Daigo, in which he uses a quick shoryuken before dash canceling the move and turning it into his ultra. The results is punishing, but very rewarding!

Metamania

Street Fighter has always been a series that I pick up every now-and-then determined to try my hardest, have a good time, and love it. I always go in with a great attitude, and yet time and time again, I leave disappointed. I just recently rented Street Fighter 4, thrilled by how awesome it looked and excited for some intense, lightning-fast matches. Several hours later, I was so depressed from losing for like the 50th time in a row that I never wanted to look at it again. To clarify, I am neither bad at games in general, nor am I a sore loser. I don't mind someone beating me in a game when I feel like its a fair fight. In every single Street Fighter game I've ever played, however, I've absolutely hated the control style. The whole system of making specific motions with the joystick seems finicky and easy to screw up, to the extent where the character doesn't do what you want them to do even if you know the input. It drives me crazy when I'm actually TRYING to spam hadoukens like a newb, and I can't even succeed at that, because one quarter-turn-forward-button worked and another did something completely different. I enjoy playing fighters on a higher level than mere button mashing, making it only more infuriating when you THINK you know what you're doing and the characters act randomly anyways. I can accept that I am "Bad at the game", but the issue is that I never feel like I'm learning from my mistakes or getting better, based on how random the game feels. I can't figure out what input does what moves, because they seem to almost keep changing, right in the middle of fights. All I can do is think, "Boy, it'd be really nice to use this move right now", knowing it won't happen. Sometimes I wonder if everyone in the entire world except me innately knows how to control Street Fighter characters. Personally, however, I don't see why the whole control scheme of wild joystick-twists and strange button combination ever got popular. Games like Smash Bros proved that having every single move in a game only require one single button and one single direction can work, and can still be deep and involved. I feel that Street Fighter could very well have similar controls, and would be funner for it. I could actually tell my character what I want him to do, and he'd do exactly that. But in all seriousness, my goal is not to hate. Quite the opposite, as I've mentioned that I really want to love Street Fighter games. They... just don't love me back.SouthpawHare

The blanket assessment that controls in all games should, in the name of "good design," be as simple as possible is short-sighted and ambiguous. For one, Street Fighter's controls are, arguably, as simple as they can be in order for that game to work the way it's supposed to. Any simpler, and the game does not improve, it gets worse. And second, the notion of "simple enough" is entirely subjective, so the only way you could be satisfied is if the controls met your standards, even if it meant the rest of the fighting game community, by and large, rejected the new "simplified," (but allegedly "better by design") scheme. That has already happened, by the way. Two letters. E and O.

Street Fighter is precisely as "complicated" or "simple" as it is because that's what it is supposed to be. I don't know how to make this any clearer. How about analogies? In baseball, we don't limit the types and speeds of pitches a pitcher may use in given situations in order to "simplify" the game, because if we did, we'd take out a key element of the game. As a more tactile example, we don't ask that fields be reduced in size so that batters don't have to be as precise and well-practiced to score home runs either. Again, that would deteriorate an entire element of the game. It is the way it is because it's supposed to be that way, and "simplifying" it wouldn't make it "better" in any objective, measurable sense, even though it might make things more interesting for those who can't cope with the game's core design.

Giving examples of games that have very simple control designs and also happen to be kickass games does not suffice as evidence that all games would be better if they had "simple" controls. If anything, that's a logical oversimplification that, again, is categorically short-sighted.