Street Fighter 4 Balance Tweaks

Azza

Just thinking about balance in SF IV and generally its quite good, but not perfect, just thinking how I would attempt to balance it. Looking at specific characters.

Abel: Not sure on this guy, don't have experience but he needs help againt Gief.

Akuma: Seems pretty good as is. Maybe get rid of his super raging demon and replace it a fireball super that can be setup.

Balrog: Generally seems quite good.

Blanka: Needs to have at least one more set up for his ultra.

Cammy: Not sure on her as I haven't seen her much. Her Spin Kuncle and Holligan throw seem very poor. I'd probably speed up her Spin Kuncle to make it harder to punish and give her a mix up option for her holligan launch so she can throw out a kick in it rather than just slide or throw/airthrow. I have that kick is counterable but not as easy as regular hooligan slide.

Chun Li: Ultra with better damage and improved health.

C.Viper: Not sure. Probably bring her health to average

Dhalsim: Seems good as is, maybe a slight health boost. Reduce priority of round house knee, but increase anti-air prioirty of back+mp force him to choose the correct one to stuff certain jump ins.

Dan: Give him his Reverse Raging Demon (Otoko Michi) and Premium Sign projectile and alot more taunts.

E. Honda: general damage output nerf. Light punch torpedo (with slightly reduced range) and ex.torpedo should go threw fireballs.

El Furete: Health brought up to normal.

Fei-Long: No idea.

Gen: Better damage output buff and health buff.

Gouken: No idea.

Guile: General damage buff plus better ultra set ups.

Ken: Not sure.

M.Bison: One other reasonable setup for his ultra and an improved priority with his hell attack versus Ryu's jumping mp and Rufus Jumping hard kick. Should be a case of whoever throws out the attack first should have priority. I'd also give him some random stuff like fake slide and give his skull driver attack the ability to cross over. Maybe give him a short jump to help in the Guile match up. Also give him his cape at the start of the first round. He needs also a Tuesday quote when he wins.

Rose: Maybe an offensive ultra setup. Better priority on her Soul Throw.

Rufus: Looks pretty good as is. Might go for a slight reduction in health (maybe 50 points)

Ryu: Remove dragons punchs ability to juggle opponets off the ground. Even with FADC it should not set up super or ultra from a ground hit, although any jump in's hit by DP should still set up all Ryu's current stuff. Add a frame or two of added start up time to dragon punch to make reversals harder.

Sagat: Health reduced to average, damage output nerfed to a more reasonable level on everything bar his tiger uppercut. Remove high kick juggle ability. Ultra and super damage slightly nerfed in damage output.

Sakura: Not sure. Needs buffs somewhere.

Seth: Ultra does not go full screen only 2/3rds.

Vega: Speed up his wall dive and rolling crystal flash. Better priority on his Scarlet Terror to help him on wakeup. Should not loose super metre if he misses his super (should only loose one bar at most). His mask and claw should not be knocked off as easy. At least one reasonable set up for his ultra.

Zangief: Health reduced by 100 points to 1100. Slight damage output nerf.
Slight damage nerf to super. 2 or 3 additional frames of start up time added to ultra. Lariat should be totally immune to Seths Ultra, pretty much all Zangief crouch moves should have priority over Seths stretch punch. Green hand should have slightly easier timings to absorb fireballs. Reduced negative frames on his green hand. Lariat adds a small bit to his dizzy meter.


Well what you guys think.

Doctor DooM

If they buffed Sakura's health, I think I would main her.

If you buff the weak ones AND nerf the strong ones, do you not run the risk of just swapping the current problems?

Azza

You run that risk no matter what you do. If you want to leave Sagat the same you would to give some pretty strong buff to everyone.

Sakura health is 950 just 50 below the norm and the same Cammy's and Rose's. Don't think health is the issue with her. Think her fireball game is really weak and her Shoryuken is terrible anti air.

Retr0gamer

I think anyone with a command throw should be given equal priority to stop match ups like abel and gief being so bad.

Otherwise a decent list but maybe there's a bit too much buffing to a certain psycho power using character.

Doctor DooM

Azza wrote: »

You run that risk no matter what you do. If you want to leave Sagat the same you would to give some pretty strong buff to everyone.

Sakura health is 950 just 50 below the norm and the same Cammy's and Rose's. Don't think health is the issue with her. Think her fireball game is really weak and her Shoryuken is terrible anti air.

I don't really play a standard shoto game with Sakura, I definitely don't use her SRK as Air defence. It's a nice move for combos (and the ex can go through fireballs, can really mess up a sleepy shoto player).

I would sort out a stronger fireball for her. And help out poor Guile

Azza

There not really buffs for Bison but more something to make him even more fun

He only really needs a more reliable way of setup his ultra. The rest are more just for ****s and giggles and would hardly effect balance at all. The short jump would help him alot against Guile though, Bison needs help in that match up.

A-Trak

Azza wrote: »

E. Honda: general damage output nerf. Light punch torpedo (with slightly reduced range) and ex.torpedo should go threw fireballs.

I'd happily take a damage decrease for the above two buffs. Both light and ex torpedo's should travel past all fireballs, (and normals either above or below one of Sagats high or low tiger.)

Also an ultra setup would be very welcome, currently zero other than a full FA.

Edit: Oh and Ochio equal priority to both Zangeifs SP and Abels TT, as Retrogamer points out. Would make Zangief match ups twitchier.

Doctor DooM

'Geif is the one I want to see nerfed the most. Some of the crap I see gief players pulling off just annoys me. 1 frame Ultra me arse.

Azza

An ultra setup or 2 for Honda sounds reasonable. Maybe a slight nerf from 1100 to 1050 in health. He seems pretty good tough against non fireball characters, just has issues with fireball characters like always .

Retr0gamer

Guile needs another special move that will give him the option of a rush down game or even a surprise offense to catch people off gaurd. As it stands the only real way of playing him is defensively.

I was really surprised when I saw Hondas Ex torpedos didn't go through fireballs. They just seem completely useless otherwise and would really help against fireball players. Even the lp torpedo would help massively from HD Remix.

CodeMonkey

You will never get a perfect balance with so many characters. Change one thing in a character and it'll open him/her to being too good versus some other character or too weak vs some characters or strategies or fight styles. I like that there are bad match ups. If you want perfect balance then have 25 identical characters.

randomchild

Screw the rest of it sagat needs more ultra set ups, perhaps off of an ex tiger knee....:D

L31mr0d

Yeah Akumas super is pointless, even though it's easier to land in a lot of instances, there's no way the damage it does is worth 4 bars. Any of this supers from Third Strike would be better.

DarkTalant

give boxers headbut full invincibility on start-up, make all levels of TAP -2 on block, because at the moment there's no point in going higher than level 1 and -30 on HIT is just plain stupid, and give his focus attack slightly better range.

Azza

Won't boxer but totally immune to cross up and all type of pressure on wake up with that?

Jazzy

akumas ultra seem a little silly

DarkTalant

not really, it already has upper body invincibility so it won't help against crossups much more than it already does, the main reason not to use it on wake-up is if they block it you're wide open for punishment.

Azza

Silly good or Silly bad?

I think there is a few garunteed ways of landing it. But its tricky, probably just as well considering its only marginally less powerfull than Giefs ultra.

Dreddybajs

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I think anyone with a command throw should be given equal priority to stop match ups like abel and gief being so bad.

Otherwise a decent list but maybe there's a bit too much buffing to a certain psycho power using character.

What? Abel's command throw beats Gief's, that has nothing to do with why Abel loses that matchup.

Making gief's ultra 3-4 frames would make it basically impossible to land as a standing 720 is incredibly difficult. If you want to nerf it, a damage decrease makes a lot more sense.

Azza

Thats the idea. If you increase the frame to 3 or 4 just like his SPD he can still get it out during missed timed block strings. He could still punish meaty attacks with it. He could still punish whiffed moves albeit with difficulty. It would be difficult to land but thats only fair. At the moment he can land way it too easy.

If its left that easy to land then a drastic reduction in damage is required.

Dreddybajs

A perfectly timed meaty beats SPD so I don't see how that'd work.

edit: Also there are very few whiffed moves you could realistically punish with a 720 that you have to jump or buffer.

bush

The only character i feel strongly about nerfing is sagat. Take off some of his health and his damage. Get rid of rh kick that juggles into ultra. When he hits someone in the air with his ultra it should not get all the hits. When he trades with uppercut he should not be able to get an ultra off it. Same with ryu on that last one.

Azza

An ex.spd beats a perfectly timed meaty attack and a perfectly timed meaty attack is probably hard than landing Giefs ultra.

I also agree with Bush on Ryu and Sagat, its absolute bull they can recover from a trade and land an ultra/super.

Dreddybajs

EX SPD only beats meaties because of invincibility, not because of startup frames, and ultra doesn't have invincibility, so nope.

Azza

Yeah well we are talking about making changes so then give the Ultra hit invunrability for a few frame to beat out meaty attack. So yup.

Dreddybajs

Also EX SPD is 4 startup frames, twice as slow as any of the normal SPDs. :pac:

There's a reason why EX SPD is barely used - it completely sucks. You're suggesting turning the ultra into it essentially, it's just a horrible idea imo. I think you have it bad as a Bison main that relies on linked strings, which means you're vulnerable to the ultra - it's annoying but destroying Gief's ultra isn't contributing positively to balance overall imo. There are so few situations where it could be used if it were 4 frames that it'd become less frequently seen than Fei Long's.

Azza

Giefs ex.spd has its uses. You can stuff headstomps with it.

Another annoying thing about Giefs Ultra is he never has to worry about damage scaling its always a full strength ultra as he doesn't have to set up. Everyone else needs an ultra setup and only gets 80% damage. Its simply too good as it is. Its the biggest comeback mechanic in the game. Its the most damage ultra in the game yet one of the most commonly landed. I could just imagine if Akuma had a 1 frame ultra!

How about a 2 frame ultra?. You can still mash it out during block strings just like regular spd. But at least yout opponent will have a chance to escape if he's standing upright and not doing anything.

Dreddybajs

The damage scaling being a reason why I said to reduce the damage. Also afaik damage scaling is still in effect after a focus crumple, so it isn't true that Gief never deals with it regarding his ultra (though it's not exactly a common method of landing the ultra). Also, as the level of play increases, it becomes less and less commonly landed - empty jumpin mixups are one of the few ways to do it and increasing the startup frames removes that option entirely due to backdashing, meaning you'd almost never see ultras landed at high level play if it were more than one frame.

Azza

Not true, at high level his spd can be landed fairly frequenlty, so I can't see why he wouldn't land an Ultra at the same start up time.

Dreddybajs

Because very few players can do an unbuffered standing 720 in SF4 - I think I've heard of one occasion when it was done, at a tournament where a guy did it fullscreen distance just to show off.

A-Trak

*Prays for a Azza v Dreddy final tomorrow*

It'll be like a Steven Segal film!

Dreddybajs

Nah, he can beat me pretty easily. :pac:

animaX

Azza wrote: »

Akuma: Maybe get rid of his super raging demon and replace it a fireball super that can be setup.

+1. I play akuma in third strike but this is the reason I don't use him in SF4. He would be great with a messatsu hadoken

FoamyMushroom

Im agreed on the Akuma Ultra... If he had a fireball ultra like he did in 3rd Strike, I'd be flying along..
There's not many set ups for his ultra other than, Focus attack then Ultra, but there's a risk of hitting with a light punch or so and also there's the fact that when Akuma does his Ultra after a focus it does 465 damage points, his normal ultra which takes 596 points at the max without focus...
then there's the way of tricking the Opponent to jump over a fireball then ultra, but its not 100% thrust worthy...

He needs a new Ultra... Fireball ftw

Azza

Akuma can get the Ultra a few ways, like a predicted Devils revserse landing and to punish moves with long recovery times on block or whiff. But still its tricky. but overall Akuma is a fairly solid character.

L31mr0d

Azza wrote: »

but overall Akuma is a fairly solid character.

I think the problem with Akumas Ultra is that it doesn't change the game like a lot of other players Ultra will. With most of the other characters as soon as they get an Ultra the game changes and a lot of the opponents options are locked down, forcing them to expect a link into the Ultra.

This isn't the case with Akuma, if the opponent knows when an Ultra will land it's easy to not make those mistakes, and they know, outside of focus crumple, there's no way for Akuma to go on the offensive and set it up.

I think the Ultra should stay the same though, but the super should be changed and buffed, like AnimaX said, to be more like his SFIII:TS messatsu hadoken

Kirby

I know what you are saying.....but it seems that every high level match I watch, Akuma's Ultra comes out. Sometimes it hits, somtimes it doesn't but the top guys know how to get it in. Obviously, its no ryu, sagat or rufus ultra, but its better than most man.

L31mr0d

Kirby wrote: »

Obviously, its no ryu, sagat or rufus ultra, but its better than most man.

Better how? In options to land it? I don't think the options for landing it are anywhere near as varied as the majority of other characters. That being said, I don't think they should change anything about the Ultra, it does enough damage that it should be hard to land. I just think throwing in a projectile super would make Akuma matches a lot more interesting.

Dreddybajs

Kirby wrote: »

Obviously, its no ryu, sagat or rufus ultra, but its better than most man.

Really disagree with this, I think it's nowhere near one of the best ultras.

Kirby

Okay, some of you guys need some reading comprehension classes.

Kirby wrote: »

IObviously, its no ryu, sagat or rufus ultra, but its better than most man.

I never said it was the best, I said its above average....which it is. Okay, he cant combo into it....but loads of other characters cant either. And akuma's ultra does excellent damage. If you watch evo you can see the good akuma's score with it. Yes, its hard to land in that you cant just jab like balrog and hit confirm all your crap....but I think it does so much damage that its fair. People dont see it alot at our level, but some of the setups for it by the pros are very clever.

FoamyMushroom

Kirby wrote: »

I know what you are saying.....but it seems that every high level match I watch, Akuma's Ultra comes out. Sometimes it hits, somtimes it doesn't but the top guys know how to get it in

But if you noticed aswell, the majority of top players that use Akuma (Momochi) for Example doesnt rely on his Ultra at all, he use's it if he knows he hit against a focus.. which is hard to determin imo.. But Been a Akuma player I dont rely on his ultra that much at all, maybe once or twice when I know I will hit ill do it hands down..

But again to tweaking Akuma, If he had a fireball ultra or so. It would make his FACD alot more worth it other than doing a fierce fireball imo

cherryghost

give azza a pad with only half the buttons, that'll balance things out nicely :pac:

Leprekaun

Azza wrote: »

Just thinking about balance in SF IV and generally its quite good, but not perfect, just thinking how I would attempt to balance it. Looking at specific characters.

Abel: Not sure on this guy, don't have experience but he needs help againt Gief.

Akuma: Seems pretty good as is. Maybe get rid of his super raging demon and replace it a fireball super that can be setup.

Balrog: Generally seems quite good.

Blanka: Needs to have at least one more set up for his ultra.

Cammy: Not sure on her as I haven't seen her much. Her Spin Kuncle and Holligan throw seem very poor. I'd probably speed up her Spin Kuncle to make it harder to punish and give her a mix up option for her holligan launch so she can throw out a kick in it rather than just slide or throw/airthrow. I have that kick is counterable but not as easy as regular hooligan slide.

Chun Li: Ultra with better damage and improved health.

C.Viper: Not sure. Probably bring her health to average

Dhalsim: Seems good as is, maybe a slight health boost. Reduce priority of round house knee, but increase anti-air prioirty of back+mp force him to choose the correct one to stuff certain jump ins.

Dan: Give him his Reverse Raging Demon (Otoko Michi) and Premium Sign projectile and alot more taunts.

E. Honda: general damage output nerf. Light punch torpedo (with slightly reduced range) and ex.torpedo should go threw fireballs.

El Furete: Health brought up to normal.

Fei-Long: No idea.

Gen: Better damage output buff and health buff.

Gouken: No idea.

Guile: General damage buff plus better ultra set ups.

Ken: Not sure.

M.Bison: One other reasonable setup for his ultra and an improved priority with his hell attack versus Ryu's jumping mp and Rufus Jumping hard kick. Should be a case of whoever throws out the attack first should have priority. I'd also give him some random stuff like fake slide and give his skull driver attack the ability to cross over. Maybe give him a short jump to help in the Guile match up. Also give him his cape at the start of the first round. He needs also a Tuesday quote when he wins.

Rose: Maybe an offensive ultra setup. Better priority on her Soul Throw.

Rufus: Looks pretty good as is. Might go for a slight reduction in health (maybe 50 points)

Ryu: Remove dragons punchs ability to juggle opponets off the ground. Even with FADC it should not set up super or ultra from a ground hit, although any jump in's hit by DP should still set up all Ryu's current stuff. Add a frame or two of added start up time to dragon punch to make reversals harder.

Sagat: Health reduced to average, damage output nerfed to a more reasonable level on everything bar his tiger uppercut. Remove high kick juggle ability. Ultra and super damage slightly nerfed in damage output.

Sakura: Not sure. Needs buffs somewhere.

Seth: Ultra does not go full screen only 2/3rds.

Vega: Speed up his wall dive and rolling crystal flash. Better priority on his Scarlet Terror to help him on wakeup. Should not loose super metre if he misses his super (should only loose one bar at most). His mask and claw should not be knocked off as easy. At least one reasonable set up for his ultra.

Zangief: Health reduced by 100 points to 1100. Slight damage output nerf.
Slight damage nerf to super. 2 or 3 additional frames of start up time added to ultra. Lariat should be totally immune to Seths Ultra, pretty much all Zangief crouch moves should have priority over Seths stretch punch. Green hand should have slightly easier timings to absorb fireballs. Reduced negative frames on his green hand. Lariat adds a small bit to his dizzy meter.


Well what you guys think.

I think Ken is ok compared to Ryu. Ken can combo in his ultra like Ryu, just needs a bit more concentration to FADC on the 2nd hit of the Fierce DP.

I think Fei's flying kick (forgot its name but its the one that can go over projectiles and it triple hits) should be made quicker. Also they need to make his ultra link better because considering he has very limited combos, they need him to deal more damage.

Dreddybajs

They had to slow Fei's chicken wing down to get rid of his infinite.

Leprekaun

Oh really? I haven't updated my game actually so now its even slower :O

Azza

Hey at the same time as slowings Fei's Chicken Wing they gave it some invincibility frames to help it get over fireballs. Its priority is very good.

Kirby

Exactly. Slower out the gate, but its alot better on startup with extra invincibility.

Honestly, I think Fei is a good character with only 2 real issues. His shocking ultra makes him low tier. If he had a decent ultra and a new command grab type move, he would be very useful.

Kirby

see guys? ShadyK got akumas ultra out no problem against justin wongs rufus in the finals. Took like 70% too.

And then Sanfords Akuma got an ultra in against Eduardo's Honda too.....TWICE.

Then Sanford got Justin wong with an ultra too in the next match. These are the best guys in the world....and are getting caught by it. Anyway, my point is made

Dreddybajs

That Honda could've just jumped to avoid it though...

blag

Kirby wrote: »

see guys? ShadyK got akumas ultra out no problem against justin wongs rufus in the finals. Took like 70% too.

And then Sanfords Akuma got an ultra in against Eduardo's Honda too.....TWICE.

Then Sanford got Justin wong with an ultra too in the next match. These are the best guys in the world....and are getting caught by it. Anyway, my point is made

Sanford landing the Ultra between the messiah hits was awesome.His execution is fantastic.

Dreddybajs

Yeah, top Marvel players can't be beaten for execution really - most players couldn't hope to play Cammy that way I feel. Sanford owns