Ladies and gentlemen, this is the most oldschool thing you’ll see today. For a period of time during the SF2 era, Jeff “LAAkuma” Schaefer was the best player in the country. He remained a top tournament player until he retired, sometime before SFA3 was released. In these videos, he presents some ideas for improving the next Street Fighter game.
Ideas for the Next SF Game, Part 1 | Part 2 by LAAkuma
It’s very interesting to watch, if only to see which features an oldschool player values in a fighting game. Some of these ideas probably wouldn’t help the game’s popularity at all, but he’s clearly more concerned about competitive quality than mainstream success.
LAAkuma also recorded a bonus video where he goes over what it takes to become a top player, appropriately entitled: How To Be the Best Player
He talks about the psychological advantages of learning specific counters inside-out, so that you can play without focusing on who’s holding the other controller. He makes some solid points, and it’s definitely worth the time to hear him out.
Not sure I agree with everything he says about what makes a good game…
There’s more than one way to design a good game. The only stuff he said that stands out as sketchy is the proximity rule for charging meter and his ideas for juggle limits.
I agree with the principle of eliminating runaway meter-building, but it’s a lot tougher to implement. With proximity limits, people can still backward tigerknee air Hurricane Kick from close range for meter, or air Hurricane Kick over your head for meter. Or knock you down and whiff a bunch of stuff right next to you. Plus it’s not like backing yourself into the corner to whiff air moves is currently completely without penalty.
His juggle limit idea just plain won’t work. HDR has that same concept and just look at Sagat. In fact, the SF4 examples he brings up aren’t even that bad, because if you’re doing three or four moves before the ultra, then the ultra damage is reduced appropriately.
I definitely agree with his overall philosophy that there needs to be a difference between “big mistakes” and “little mistakes.” When you have supers/ultras that do 50% damage, you can dominate a round, then die because you whiffed low strong. That’s a little lopsided.
But it seems like his main goal is to widen the gap between player skill levels, which is a valid objective if you’re trying to create a long-lasting competitive game like Hyper Fighting, for example. I mean, that skill level separation exists in Chess and Go, right? That’s a big part of the reason why those games are so widely respected. So i guess he thinks that creating a rock-solid competitive game will eventually translate into mainstream acceptance.
However, it’s obvious that SF4’s popular success is due to taking the poker/checkers approach of narrowing the gaps between skill levels, rather than the chess/go approach of widening them. Maybe if fighting games were already a well-known and respected competitive activity (televised on ESPN, etc.) then we could get away with making things more sophisticated for the sake of rewarding skill. But we’re not even close yet.
It’s still cool to listen to LAAkuma’s thought process on the subject though.
I hope it’s cool if I get on my own little soapbox on top of Mr. Schaeffer’s soapbox…critiquing his critique, so to speak.
The thing about little mistakes/big mistakes is a complaint a lot of people have had about SF4 (Ultras), and of course, many other SF games (3s guess-parries) ( – Jeff’s comparison to the VS. series actually makes the most sense on this issue; the little mistake converted to big damage is certainly a staple of the VS. series, with infinites, snapback juggles, unblockables. So, if he’s coming from the Super Turbo/A2 mindset (were CCs not as scary as combo movies make them seem?), then yeah, players shouldn’t be (easily!) able to take half your life off a mistake – of course, it’s arguable how “little” these mistakes are; you know you have to change how you play against 3s SA2 Makoto, SFIV Sagat when they have meter.
-Flattening out the super damage is silly, to me, though; Zangief players earn their damage, I can’t see a super from a grappling character doing the same damage as a fireball character – even if its comparable to each character’s Fierce, that’s still not a big enough of a gap for me, based on the playstyle differences. …Also, I play grapplers.
-the proximity meter thing, yeah that’s hard to implement, and characters like 3s Yun can get a knock down, finish building meter with 2 low strongs, then super. SF4 at the moment has no whiff-normal meter building, but most specials build meter when whiffed. Also, believe it or not, in SF3, all fireball specials build zero meter on whiff. weird, i know. but I’m fine with blocked/hit normals and specials building meter the way it is in SF4, no need to call it a “morale booster bar.” I’m also not that big a fan of block meters, I feel that simplicity in design is SF’s biggest strength above any other fighting game franchise, and the fewer meters, the better. I respect Arcana Heart and BlazBlue/GG, but many times I just want to jump into a game and see my health and supers.
-not sure what he’s talking about with the jab->strong->fierce xx super. He sounds like he’s describing XvSF/MvC there, and that isn’t even a great option, damage wise, but I think emphasis on execution is always fine, that’s always going to be a part of fighting games. There’s a lot of tough links in SF4, it’s a lot more link oriented than SF3, for sure.
-on dashing for meter, that also seems really hard to balance; some characters might have to dash more, or use more meter; it’s also harder to eyeball something like that, like EX moves in SF3; I think they got it right in SF4 by showing how many EX moves you could use (but not the one bar, flat cost thing)
-the tech throw thing is definitely an older-school mindset, O.s-kill didn’t want throw-softening in ST, if I recall correctly. My problem is with what happens when two people go for a throw; it shouldn’t be randomly decided (or near-randomly decided, as I don’t think people perceive a throw coming in 1 or 2 frames). The throw-softening certainly helped this issue in ST, but you still had one player coming out on top, damage-wise. I like how SF3, CvS, SF4 have it – except SF4 is too damn slow with throw mechanics in general, for my tastes. You have so much damn time to think after a throw or throw tech – CvS2 seems to be the shortest.
-Maj already hit the juggle rule problem on the head, once you arbitrarily pick a juggle limit, then you have weird situations like in SF3, where some characters can juggle more easily, so some moves add more to the juggle counter…makes it harder to follow the game’s logic.
-the frames where you’re invincible to throws already exists, some games have longer times than others, though. I think this, along with quick-standing/rolling, depends on the game’s overall playing speed. To me, throws in SF3 and 4 already slow the game down a bit too much, if there was no way to quick stand, it would be pretty awful, whereas I don’t really notice it in the SF2/alpha series. While I’m on that, I don’t notice the lack of dash in SF2 due to its speed, but I do feel it in Alpha 3.
People have already pointed out that some of his ideas have been implemented in other games, so I’m not gonna go there, but it is kind of nice to see someone whose mindset is kind of a blast-from-the-past… which I don’t mean derogatorily at all; I respect the fighting game players of the 90s a ton…and I imagine he’s encouraging this kind of discussion amongst players, as he’s not looking to propose “Street Fighter: LA Akuma Ver.”
So, that’s my way-more-than-two-cents.
I don’t get why he’s complaining about timing vs jab-strong-fierce into special. Many of the big combos in SF4 depend on 1F and 2F links, and I don’t think (aside from target combos) there are any characters who can do J-S-F without linking at least once.
Even then, mashing a bunch of jabs is bound to reduce combo damage overall, in that sense there is already a reward for skilled players who can confirm off of a minimal number of hits.
I’m not sure I agree about not being able to tech throws either. Rather than rewarding skill, this would lead to a situation that rewards luck (i.e. whichever player’s throw comes out when they both try to throw at the same time).
The idea about giving throw vs combo even weight is pretty good, but what I think he’d really like is to remove the crouch tech option select. As it is, being able to block and tech at the same time is a bit too good, and you can tell this is true in that strategies have actually evolved to catch the crouch tech via a frame-trap. Of course, having such frame traps could also be grounds to say that everything is fine as is.
I also like his take on offense and defense. Instead of penalizing people for being defensive via a guard break bar, reward people who go on the offense with faster meter building. A good defensive player is free to defend, or “lame it out” as much as he can, but eventually the offense players is granted more and more options that guarding against all of them becomes very hard. IMO this is already largely how SF4 works, if they would just get rid of shoryu shortcuts, i.e the “mash” option. Punishing a missed link or blockstring should at least require recognition of the miss, and well-timed, deliberate action on the defending players part, not an “automatic punish” button c/o mashing DP or SPD.
onreload: Shaefer’s not coming from an ST/A2 mindset. He didn’t like supers in ST and he hated customs in A2. He’s coming from an HF standpoint.
A lot of what you’re saying makes sense from the “supers are a fundamental part of SF” paradigm, but that’s not the only possible way of thinking.
“You have to change how you play against 3s SA2 Makoto, SFIV Sagat when they have meter.”
Oldschool players would say: Why should i have to change my play style just because my opponent got meter? He should learn how to play the game instead of relying on supers to bail him out.
Same thing with your objection regarding Zangief. He was playable in HF too.
I guess the coolest part of this is, like you said, to see how an old-schooler feels a ‘perfect’ SF game would be.
He definitely has legit points, but I personally feel some points are far off.
As it is, combos aren’t just a piece of cake to learn. Sure, if you have godlike execution, then it is, but if you do, you would probably master almost any combo, regardless of difficulty. Even now, in SSF4, those who are pro and have great execution clearly master stuff the casuals can’t. An easy example is Ryu’s standing f.HP -> c.HP/c.MP -> Tatsu/shoryuken. It has some variation, but I presume you get it. This combo (I guess link is the right term here?) isn’t all that easy, and most Ryu players will maybe get that in 1 out of 10 tries. Someone like Daigo gets it like 999 out of a 1000 or something. Something that might seem small like this, all contributes, and in the end skill definitely matters. Since I’m no old-school player, I can’t say if skill matters less than the old days, but I do kinda feel he thinks anyone can beast away with Ryu or whatever character of choice.
The whole too much damage on supers, I agree. Instead, in SSF4, it should just be ultra combos that need a big damage nerf. Supers are tougher to gain, and with FAC and EX moves, sometimes you won’t even have super. Ultra, however, you will have every round. And if not, well, your victory was never even in danger. With some ultras doing 500 dmg or more, which is half of the HP of most of the cast, turning the tide of battle can sometimes be too easy, and control of the battle shifts in a matter of seconds. This, ultimately, makes for exciting gameplay, but perhaps this is on behalf of skills being the winning factor.
With that said, I personally like the idea of being able to do comebacks and clutch victories. How great would a fighting game be if the match is already decided when one guy got the first 3 hits and is now sitting on a life lead? The comeback tools don’t need to be no-brainers or be godlike moves, as some are atm in SSF4, but if you don’t have these kind of tools, I’ll bet it would make for boring gameplay that might not cater to anyone but the ‘real pros’. Which, somehow, seems like his plan. Or not?
I’m slightly confused. He mentions how the newer games are way too easy, so I’m guessing this game is supposedly harder to learn or to master. Some of his ideas does lean towards this, but he closes off with saying how the learning curve isn’t steep, that this game should have broad appeal and easier to learn that the games today. Somehow, I can’t really see how this should be. If the game is tougher to learn, and skill and execution are at the highest priority, then how should the broad and generel playerbase be able to learn it easier than for instance SSF4? I mean, in SSF4, not every player out there has completed all trials. Even though this hardly proves anything, it does say that you can’t just sit down in an afternoon and just master any combo and execution and skill means little in this game.
So overall, not being neither pro nor old school, I’d probably not buy his game right away, knowing what I know about SSF4 and the other fighters I have played in my time. But I definitely can’t deny his got some valid points in between.
So, sorry for the wall of text with few to no real wise words to share. xD
Doctorcow: It’s a misconception that throw/counterthrow results were all about luck in ST. Most of it had to do with manipulating ranges instead.
Anyway i agree that simultaneous throws should cause techs instead of randomly rewarding one player, but beyond that i don’t think there’s anything wrong with suggesting that throws shouldn’t be escapable.
Tama: I think he’s being a little naive about how difficult he’s making his game. Apparently he feels that if you eliminate all the easy-mode comeback options like ultras, supers, high-damage combos, etc. then everyone will be forced to learn fundamentals. And once you’re on track to learning fundamentals, the learning curve becomes a lot clearer because you don’t get caught up in flashy gimmicks.
But as someone with incredibly solid fundamentals who learned them 15 years ago, he’s totally underestimating how difficult those fundamentals can be to learn.
I don’t know, maybe he’s right – but if it was up to me, i would definitely be hesitant to throw new players into that fire. The ones who made it to the other side would come out strong, but i feel like you’d lose the majority of them along the way.
I think you’re right. However, I do feel ignoring the flashy gimmicks or whatever when learning the fundamentals have a downside as well. Since they’re in the game, ignoring them in your fundamentals study of a game would be hurtful, since you won’t incorporate it in your fundamental gameplan. Sure, you might learn it later, but I guess people learn differently.
Unescapable throws? I dunno about that really. Crouch tech should go imo. If you see a throw coming, you should be able to tech it. Not just OS it with crouch tech. I mean, as it is, I personally feel command grabs are horrible. High damage, too much ranged compared to throws, and you can’t block or tech it. There are ways to counter it, of course, but if everyone had the equivalent of command grabs… Dunno about that. xD
He may be coming from the HF mindset, but by having supers in his conceptual game, then they obviously serve some kind of function, and you would have to play differently when the opponent is sitting on meter, regardless of if they’re a total round-changer or not. Even if you don’t have Makoto’s super or Sagat’s vanilla Ultra, no player wants to eat a super – but of course, this isn’t to say that if your opponent has meter, you should be afraid to do anything except run away. You’re still zoning the way you always are, you don’t want to eat a Shoryuken, but for meter’s sake, you need to be even more cautious.
My objection regarding Zangief is only about the damage from supers, we already know SPDs do big fat damage, but it’s much harder to land a grab super than a fireball one. I am fine with it being an uphill battle for grapplers, which is why there are very few Kuni-types around, but the payoff once you get up that hill should be worth the hassle, otherwise everyone is going to pick Ryu.
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.
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.
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.
“Was HF one of Gief’s best outings, SF2-wise?”
Yes. His lariat is very strong in that game.
Maj: I guess you’re right, especially if the whole concept-game here is less about supers…and yeah I miss his SF2 sweep, it has never been that good ever since.
Rufus:That’s why I asked, I think I read some (really good) GameFAQ that said HF Zangief had lower-body invincibility on KKK Lariat for its whole duration or something? Certainly a better poke-beater than the hop headbutt…right?
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.)
Looks like there’s a couple more now:
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.
Some of his ideas are excellent. I would really enjoy a ‘classic mode’ where all supers, Ultras and Ex moves were removed.
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
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)
I honestly don’t think the SF4 system needs very big changes.
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.
I don’t know, a while back I’d have probably agreed with him whole heartedly… but clearly there are some things about SFIV or even games like CVS2 which I think he’s referencing that don’t really seem so void of skill to me.
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.