The Street Fighter series boasts (arguably) the best set of fundamental character designs in fighting games. Shotos, Guile, Zangief, Dhalsim, Vega, Honda, Bison and on and on ... these are some of the most iconic video game archetypes ever created. Whenever you throw a bunch of characters into a competitive game, they naturally find themselves ranked into tiered categories. Conventional wisdom is to try to balance them out so that you end up with the smallest possible gaps between tiers, with as many characters in possible in the top two tiers. That's cool for a debut game featuring a cast of all-new characters, but when it comes to Street Fighter, i don't buy it.
We already know which characters are the most dynamic and the most fun to play against. We know which characters are easy to use and which ones require the most technical proficiency. We know which ones provoke critical gameplay issues whenever they end up in top tier. Nobody has ever made the claim that any Street Fighter game would be better if Vega was better. He's just an exploitative, one-dimensional powerhouse that belongs in mid tier. Same is true for Dhalsim and Honda, actually.
Certain basic character designs in the Street Fighter landscape are brilliantly unique, but extremely dangerous if you let them gain too much ground. Wasn't Vega one of the soft-banned characters in Japan? It's an awesome character design that everyone enjoys beating but everyone HATES losing to. See it's not even that bad when you lose to Ryu because for 90% of that cast, that probably means they got outsmarted at some point. But Honda and Vega can beat someone without taking risks and without ever feeling like "this has to work or i'm dead."
What are considered the best Street Fighter tournament games? The ones that hold up under pressure are: HF, ST, A2, A3, CvS2, 3S, MvC2.
They tend to be the most dynamic ones, right? Games where the attrition characters dominate aren't remembered so fondly. That's basically Vega, Dhalsim, Honda, and sometimes Sagat. The only time anyone has ever talked about a valiant effort by a Dhalsim player is when Jason Cole beat Valle in that A2 tournament, and that's obviously because Sim wasn't considered top tier in that game. When have you ever heard anyone say anything positive about A3 Dhalsim? Those characters belong in lower middle tier, where someone can get really far by pouring a ton of skill into them, but where they won't ruin the experience for everyone else.
Guile is perfect in ST because he's in middle tier somewhere. Kurahashi is a hero for winning SBO with Guile because everyone knows how badly he would get fucked up for one lapse in judgement. But imagine if Guile was as good as he is in WW or CE. He'd get no respect at all, just like Tokido got barely any respect this year at Evo.
If i got to magically alter the ST tier structure, i would take Vega out of top tier and i would keep Honda out of top tier. Dhalsim is debatable only because he's such a technical character with so few easy damage opportunities that only a small handful of players know how to get any real mileage out of him. But of course he has potential for being extemely detrimental to fun as proven by his early A3 dominance.
My ideal tiering for ST would be:
1st: Shoto, Balrog, non-CE Bison, Chun Li, Gief or T.Hawk
2nd: Dhalsim, Sagat, Guile or DeeJay, another Shoto
3rd: Honda, Vega, T.Hawk or Gief, DeeJay or Guile
4th: Blanka, Fei, Cammy
(in no particular order within each tier)
No prejudice against Blanka, Fei, or Cammy, but i just don't think they're built well enough to have enough answers for the various situations that come up during gameplay. The easy way to make them top tier would be to give them some broken frustrating bullshit, and i don't think it's worth it. Though if jchensor or JumpsuitJesse have a couple of good ideas to make them interesting middle-tier characters, that would be great.
Since Sirlin resides in NorCal, which is one of the OG capitols of SF skill, i'm sure he's surrounded by people who tell him to change this and that on a daily basis. He probably doesn't need a noob like me saying the same things, so it's probably best to avoid adding more fuel to the fire. I'm sure some of you guys were thinking, "Why doesn't he just email this to Sirlin?" so that's my answer. But i thought this might turn into a fun discussion so please share your ideal tier list if you've got one.
Preferred Hypothetical ST Tiers
Re: Preferred Hypothetical ST Tiers
I have to disagree with some of your statements: there's nothing fundamentally broken about any character design. It all comes down to the speciic implementation of that character and every other character in the game in question, as well as the overall mechanics. Look at Chun and Wolvie from MvC1 to MvC2, Yun or Chun from 3s to CvS2 to CFJ (haaa), or Bison from CE to ST to XSF/MSF/MvC2, where he's garbage! Yun is a good example - removing Genei Jin (as well as engine changes like whiffing for easy quick meter) hurt him badly in CvS2, whereas in CFJ you don't even notice it's gone. Vega would be pretty bad in MvC2 because the game doesn't cater to non-trijump rushdown or non-projectile-based runaway very well. If they gave him a rose to throw, he'd be imaginarily better; if they took his CvS2 incarnation and changed around some of his normals to have bigger startup and more recovery in CvS2+1, he'd be worse.
The definition of "top tier", and tiers in general, tries to take player skill out of the equation and just looks at character balance. Generally this also means that the higher-tier characters can be used more easily by players of lesser skill, but that doesn't affect the tiers (or shouldn't). If Zangief was as good in ST as he is in, say, SFEX (sssh) or A3, then you'd hate fighting against him in ST as well. Everybody welcomes a chance to fight Sabretooth or Ken in MvC2, even though the same people would punch player 2 in the face if they pick that character just one more time in XSF/3s. Magneto and Storm have remained top tier because of the way they mesh with the engine of the games they're in, and how the glaring advantages they have continually aren't 'fixed', whereas Vs-series Wolvie and Chun finally got what they deserved in MvC2 (some say too much nerfing, and I agree, but I digress). However, even if their character design were left alone from MvC1, the addition of assists and snapouts, the changes to how Flying Screen works, and the introduction of Cable and Sentinel would have removed them from the top tier anyway.
As I see it, one can never prevent a game from having tiers if it has more than 2 characters who are different in any way. Some move, strategy, tactic, oversight, or glitch will always end up better more often than something else, for some reason. However, the more pronounced the tiers (that is, the bigger the gap between top tier and bottom tier, or between god tier and everyone else), the less character variety one will see as a result, and the more 'frustrating' some matchups will become, which I think is your real problem. (For instance, hating fighting Char X because of the way they're made allows them to win easily in anyone's hands versus hating fighting *my friend's* Char X because he counters everything I do perfectly due to player skill.) I think even you would agree that the ideal tiering for any game would be one in which every character has a fighting chance against every other one, even if some matches will end up slightly lopsided. If you compare, say, A3 or MvC2 with Guilty Gear Accent Core or ST (without Akuma and O.Sagat), the tiers in the latter games are more evenly balanced, and it takes a better player who is more versed in the intricacies of those games to be able to differentiate between what is top tier and what is mid or bottom (if you disagree about game choices, fine, the point stands). Then there are game mechanics to think about, such as everyone being able to do crazy damage with CCs in A2, which evens things up somewhat.
If you stick 3s Chun in ST (including everything she has in 3s, just for argument's sake, but letting her get meter like ST characters) she'd probably be top tier, but it wouldn't be any fun to fight against her anymore. I think what you're asking for is more that the characters who are at a significant disadvantage (due to implementation or game mechanics) be helped, those with braindead-easy tactics or stupid patterns be nerfed, and bugs to be fixed, which makes sense. However, I don't think aiming for one character to be top tier and another to be bottom tier is a good idea. I'd take this list more as a "who needs improvement in order to even out the tiers".
Yeah, I have nothing better to do.
Mike Z
The definition of "top tier", and tiers in general, tries to take player skill out of the equation and just looks at character balance. Generally this also means that the higher-tier characters can be used more easily by players of lesser skill, but that doesn't affect the tiers (or shouldn't). If Zangief was as good in ST as he is in, say, SFEX (sssh) or A3, then you'd hate fighting against him in ST as well. Everybody welcomes a chance to fight Sabretooth or Ken in MvC2, even though the same people would punch player 2 in the face if they pick that character just one more time in XSF/3s. Magneto and Storm have remained top tier because of the way they mesh with the engine of the games they're in, and how the glaring advantages they have continually aren't 'fixed', whereas Vs-series Wolvie and Chun finally got what they deserved in MvC2 (some say too much nerfing, and I agree, but I digress). However, even if their character design were left alone from MvC1, the addition of assists and snapouts, the changes to how Flying Screen works, and the introduction of Cable and Sentinel would have removed them from the top tier anyway.
As I see it, one can never prevent a game from having tiers if it has more than 2 characters who are different in any way. Some move, strategy, tactic, oversight, or glitch will always end up better more often than something else, for some reason. However, the more pronounced the tiers (that is, the bigger the gap between top tier and bottom tier, or between god tier and everyone else), the less character variety one will see as a result, and the more 'frustrating' some matchups will become, which I think is your real problem. (For instance, hating fighting Char X because of the way they're made allows them to win easily in anyone's hands versus hating fighting *my friend's* Char X because he counters everything I do perfectly due to player skill.) I think even you would agree that the ideal tiering for any game would be one in which every character has a fighting chance against every other one, even if some matches will end up slightly lopsided. If you compare, say, A3 or MvC2 with Guilty Gear Accent Core or ST (without Akuma and O.Sagat), the tiers in the latter games are more evenly balanced, and it takes a better player who is more versed in the intricacies of those games to be able to differentiate between what is top tier and what is mid or bottom (if you disagree about game choices, fine, the point stands). Then there are game mechanics to think about, such as everyone being able to do crazy damage with CCs in A2, which evens things up somewhat.
If you stick 3s Chun in ST (including everything she has in 3s, just for argument's sake, but letting her get meter like ST characters) she'd probably be top tier, but it wouldn't be any fun to fight against her anymore. I think what you're asking for is more that the characters who are at a significant disadvantage (due to implementation or game mechanics) be helped, those with braindead-easy tactics or stupid patterns be nerfed, and bugs to be fixed, which makes sense. However, I don't think aiming for one character to be top tier and another to be bottom tier is a good idea. I'd take this list more as a "who needs improvement in order to even out the tiers".
Yeah, I have nothing better to do.
Mike Z
Re: Preferred Hypothetical ST Tiers
I agree with this. I get tired of looking at how people feel about tiers and what tiers actually mean to them.Mike Z wrote:The definition of "top tier", and tiers in general, tries to take player skill out of the equation and just looks at character balance. Generally this also means that the higher-tier characters can be used more easily by players of lesser skill, but that doesn't affect the tiers (or shouldn't).
But to me, tiers are literally a representation of a matchup chart. When you total the score of a full chart, you can put the characters in ranking classes, and that's what tiers are. A character is top tier when they have good/favorable matchups enough that their total score is higher than the rest of the cast.
And matchups, to me, is exactly like a handicap. The same kind of handicap you often see at the character select screen on consoles. When there's a matchup that is unbalanced, like let's say 3:7, that doesn't mean the character that it's unfavorable for will automatically lose. It just means they are fighting with a handicap, and have to work that much harder to win. I know full well about handicaps and how they can be likened to matchups. Being that I tend to play at least four characters in even game that I play, I get to personally experience what favorable and unfavorable matchups can be like. I also tend to play with a very wide range of player skill levels from outright casual scrub to cream of the crop.
Personally I think people get confused when they see things like Yun's Gen'ei Jin and they start to assume that's the one reason as to why he's top tier. It's like players believe that the character is unbalanced due to one move, and becomes universally strong against everyone, and this is somehow equal to character "strength". This is like saying things along the lines of "I'm physically stronger than you, so I'd win in a fight", which to me is ridiculous because that's leaving out a lot of other factors.
When people talk about rebalancing they often talk about nerfing the high tier's "xx" move or buffing the lower tiers "xx" moves, and this just irritates me. To me, this is not the proper way to rebalance a game at all. When you do stuff like that, it effects the character universally. ALL their matchups become effected by these universal changes. Instead, I believe matchups should be considered individually and adjusted based on knowing exactly why the matchups were unbalanced in the first place.
A perfect example I can think of actually occurs in GGXX:#R and Akatsuki Blitzkampf. It's painfully obvious that Eddie and Mycale are top tier in their respective games, because they really have nearly zero bad matchups. But the important thing is that they both actually have one very bad matchup each, and it's to a lower tier character. Eddie's bad matchup is Anji, and Anji had ridiculously bad matchups across the board. Likewise with Mycale, her bad matchup is Anonym, and Anonym also has stupidly bad matchups across the board.
In Mycale's case, I really get the impression that the designers knew about the Mycale-vs-Anon match and decided to try and fix it the "wrong way". This was to buff Mycale's moves and nerf Anonym's moves over and over again with each patch they released. As a result, Mycale became overly strong in practically every single one of her matchups except Anonym, and Anonym became overly weak in all her matchups except Mycale. And I can imagine that this is probably a lot like what happened to Eddie.
If you look at the rebalancing they did to GG in Slash you can see Eddie dropped in tiers by quite a lot, and Anji rose to the top. What they should have done, instead of butchering the respective characters, is just fix the underlying mechanics of why that particular matchup was bad. And yes I do consider Anji's ascent to the top a "butchering" of sorts. They took everything about what made Anji interesting and pissed all over it. They made him ridiculously simplistic and homogenized, he became less of a technical stylistic and trap character and more of a "push button, receive bacon" character, a dumbed down version so to speak.
In Melty Blood, I know I can counter-pick against Nero by using Mech.Hisui because that matchup is simply stupidly bad for Nero. I also know that when I play as Aoko my worst matchup is definitely going to be Warakia. Now, I really feel that both Aoko and Mech are fairly well balanced with the rest of the cast. I consider them both roughly mid-tier. But when it comes to these really unbalanced matches for them both, I feel that the respective characters shouldn't get modified in extreme ways, or at least not in ways that would have an effect with the entire rest of the cast. For example, buffing Aoko and nerfing Warakia would have a profoundly bad effect on the game because Aoko would probably ascend to the top tier, while Warakia who is already low tier would drop even further. Instead, I think it should be examined why that particular matchup is bad and make specific adjustments to compensate. Likewise with Nero and Mech.
Personally, I think that Melty Blood is special in this case, in that the designers have done certain things that are extremely clever as far as rebalancing goes, perhaps even unknowningly.
In the case of Aoko, she has a tall standing hitbox, but once she enters a blocking state she becomes much smaller. Kind of obscure factoid when you look at it like that, but it's actually very important. The reason is because this effects the way fuzzyguard mixups (ahoge) work on her. If you were to do a deep jump-in, then immediate do another rising attack (like a rejump or doublejump) this could hit characters who are attempting to block low but are still caught in standing blockstun (so they are still in standing block animation and their hitbox is tall). But in the case of Aoko she becomes short anyway, so certain fuzzyguard mixups don't work on her because the attacks fail. The interesting thing about this is that only a few characters even have viable/useful fuzzyguard mixups so this only effects those characters. What they could (and probably did) do was adjust her standing block animation so that she was the exact specific height for some character's fuzzyguard to become invalid. And this does actually effect one of Aoko's more important bad matchups.
Additionally, they have done other similar things with obscure hitboxes with other characters like the way characters fall during a juggle state or the way characters get off the ground when teching. They've also done things like adjust defense ratings during different points in the character's life gauge, and they also adjusted quite a few damage proration modifiers.
Ideally, I would hope that a game company would aim to rebalance the tiers by adjusting one specific matchup at a time. So if one character had a matchup that was 2:8 and another that was 6:4 I would hope that they would try and get the first one closer to 5:5 without effecting the second one negatively, or effecting the character's other matchups in general.
Also, one of the worst fucking things you can do to a character is butcher them by removing things. If something is overpowered then I really think weakening something is far more preferable than strait up removing it. This includes changing the functionality of moves as well. A good example I can think of is a command throw: making the command throw blockable doesn't just nerf the move, it also changes the way the move is used. Nothing is more annoying than to have a the core way a character is played changed. I'd rather have a new character by splitting the character into two.
PS. Re: Cammy; fuck you, Cammy rocks! :p
Looks like Jolly Ranchers & Baskin's Sherbet.
Re: Preferred Hypothetical ST Tiers
#R Eddie was nigh untouchable. #R Anji was bottom 3. They tried to make Eddie worse and Anji better across the board, and they did a great job of that. I would argue that a great character with a bad matchup doesn't need fixing for that match, but a terrible character with one good matchup needs looking after. I'm more in the camp of "improve everybody you can".
The other part of this whole thing is that it seems what we're really trying to do is eliminate characters or design choices that are simply "bad", in whatever sense of the word you take it. For example, Q in 3s has a lot going against him, but one of his major weaknesses is the complete lack of any cancellable normal move that must be blocked or parried low (in fact, the only thing he can super you off of that's low is his EX low dash punch). This universally makes it easier for the rest of the cast to fight him, since you take only minor damage by defending high if you expect an attack, whereas he completely loses the ability to super you from it. To me, this is an example of a bad choice that could be pretty easily fixed. MvC2 has a lot of bad characters, and by that I don't mean ones that can't compete with top tiers, I mean characters like Thanos, Bison, and Jin which are at a disadvantage no matter who they fight against, generally because of one glaring weakness (for example, Thanos has no airthrow).
Getting back to ST, perhaps it would be more useful to list what you think should be fixed about the characters who seem to "deserve" to be high tier in your list, Maj. So Zangief needs to be better, okay, how? More damage is an easy one, but not a fix I would actually make. How about allowing the Banishing Flat to leave you at advantage? Let him to do standing 720s? Take a cue from THawk and eliminate the whiff animation for an SPD? Perhaps of more concern is the characters who are not top tier already and remain bottom in your list. Cammy only has a few good matches (Dhalsim, someone will correct me I'm sure), what could be done to even it out? What could be done to add a dash of CvS2 to Blanka?
Mike Z
The other part of this whole thing is that it seems what we're really trying to do is eliminate characters or design choices that are simply "bad", in whatever sense of the word you take it. For example, Q in 3s has a lot going against him, but one of his major weaknesses is the complete lack of any cancellable normal move that must be blocked or parried low (in fact, the only thing he can super you off of that's low is his EX low dash punch). This universally makes it easier for the rest of the cast to fight him, since you take only minor damage by defending high if you expect an attack, whereas he completely loses the ability to super you from it. To me, this is an example of a bad choice that could be pretty easily fixed. MvC2 has a lot of bad characters, and by that I don't mean ones that can't compete with top tiers, I mean characters like Thanos, Bison, and Jin which are at a disadvantage no matter who they fight against, generally because of one glaring weakness (for example, Thanos has no airthrow).
Getting back to ST, perhaps it would be more useful to list what you think should be fixed about the characters who seem to "deserve" to be high tier in your list, Maj. So Zangief needs to be better, okay, how? More damage is an easy one, but not a fix I would actually make. How about allowing the Banishing Flat to leave you at advantage? Let him to do standing 720s? Take a cue from THawk and eliminate the whiff animation for an SPD? Perhaps of more concern is the characters who are not top tier already and remain bottom in your list. Cammy only has a few good matches (Dhalsim, someone will correct me I'm sure), what could be done to even it out? What could be done to add a dash of CvS2 to Blanka?
Mike Z
Re: Preferred Hypothetical ST Tiers
I disagree on a smaller scale, but then I do concede to the fact this method can also turn out well.Mike Z wrote:#R Eddie was nigh untouchable. #R Anji was bottom 3. They tried to make Eddie worse and Anji better across the board, and they did a great job of that. I would argue that a great character with a bad matchup doesn't need fixing for that match, but a terrible character with one good matchup needs looking after. I'm more in the camp of "improve everybody you can".
Personally I don't think weak characters should be buffed up until everyone is at the same level (and stupidly buff). But I also don't think characters should be nerfed until they are the same level either. I feel the characters should be finely tuned so that each matchup is as close to 5:5 as possible without modifying too much about the style or flow of the characters, and to me that means minor adjustments on both ends to get them close to even.
After playing a lot of V.Sion in Melty Blood and speaking with Sp00ky in regards to V.Sion, I have a certain level of understanding for her strengths and weaknesses. We both feel that she is the exact "middle of the road" type of character, not overly strong or overly weak in any respect. However, I feel this is not only relative to the cast, but she genuinely feels like a well rounded character. If V.Sion was the one and only character in Melty Blood, I would feel that she doesn't have anything that is particularly bullshit. And that may be an odd concept for some people, since without other characters how can you gauge strength. But to me it's just how the character itself functions. There are just some characters that are wack in and of themselves. In a mirror match with one of these characters I can easily say "wow that move is bullshit", and the counter-argument may be "but we all have it" just doesn't sit well with me. V.Sion on the other hand has to work for most of what she does. She can make you hurt, but she has to work hard. She can defend herself, but she doesn't have anything in particular that she can just toss out, everything she has is specific and situational. And she can play the midrange, but it's not to the point where she can easily dominate or be easily eluded either.
Games like GG:AC, HnK, and MvC2 don't interest me much. I could analyze all day as to why, and I'm sure it's not just for one reason. Still, I also don't think it's a coincidence that I don't enjoy the balance in those games either. But then I should point out that just because I don't enjoy them doesn't mean they aren't good. Plenty of people love those games for different reasons. But for me, I think buffing up characters so that everyone is stupidly powerful is obnoxious.
For Yun, Gen'ei Jin was something that made him universally strong against most of the cast, with only like one or two real exceptions. Many Yun players attempt to fully exploit it by running and building meter specifically so that they only ever fight in GJ mode. This is totally exploiting a character strength while ignoring the entire rest of the game. Buffing up the rest of the cast in a similar fashion so that everyone was on Yun's level would make me hate the game so much more. Because then the game is reduced to just exploiting your characters primary strengths to bash the other character's face in. It goes along the lines of why I hate slugfest-type games; they aren't dynamic to me, you're just mashing the win button.
This is also why I have nitpicks with games like Arcana Heart and such. It's as though they were aiming to make each character a total douche with a bunch of bullshit moves and strengths. Rather than balancing the characters, they just made everyone a total douche. Now the fights aren't much about technical strategy or movement or spacing or anything that resembles anything that I enjoy in fighting games. No, to me Arcana is reduced to "who is the bigger douche". You dash in and spam your characters best attack until you land a hit, slugfest, and then lol-loop for minimum half life and often more.
And it's hard to ignore the fact that a lot of people hate Chun in general. Sure there's an amount of skill that needs to be put into Chun in order to win with her, but players feel like all Chun is doing is mashing on the win button, either fighting against her or playing as her. To me, when a character has that amount of strength it becomes not fun to play, and when the whole cast has that amount of strength it becomes ridiculous. It's really really hard to fight as or against Chun and not think "wow this character is bullshit". Whether that's a good thing or not is in the eye of the beholder, I suppose.
But personally, I look at HnK and I just shake my head.
See I have to disagree with this as well.Mike Z wrote:The other part of this whole thing is that it seems what we're really trying to do is eliminate characters or design choices that are simply "bad", in whatever sense of the word you take it. For example, Q in 3s has a lot going against him, but one of his major weaknesses is the complete lack of any cancellable normal move that must be blocked or parried low (in fact, the only thing he can super you off of that's low is his EX low dash punch). This universally makes it easier for the rest of the cast to fight him, since you take only minor damage by defending high if you expect an attack, whereas he completely loses the ability to super you from it. To me, this is an example of a bad choice that could be pretty easily fixed. MvC2 has a lot of bad characters, and by that I don't mean ones that can't compete with top tiers, I mean characters like Thanos, Bison, and Jin which are at a disadvantage no matter who they fight against, generally because of one glaring weakness (for example, Thanos has no airthrow).
I wouldn't want the cast totally homogenized just because a certain type of action is deemed powerful. Just because a character doesn't have an airthrow doesn't mean that they really need to have one in order to be on par. The ability to cancel low foward is of course very strong for Chun, and can be viewed as a weakness for characters that don't have it. But there's more to it that just that. Chun's low forward hit box is ridiculously good in the first place, but then what's more is the cancel ability is absurd because the window for hit confirmation is so huge. Additionally, the damage output she gets from SA.2 is just crazy.
It can be argued that Elena, Ibuki, and Makoto don't have cancelable low forwards and therefor also suffer for it. But first I really absolutely would not want them to. And second I don't think Makoto is really in the "suffering" boat considering all her other strengths. I believe Elena is a perfect example for this exact situation. Elena really is basically almost exactly like Chun. In other words, Elena is basically Chun-Lite. And we could very easily say that she suffers as a character due to not having that low forward cancel.
However, this is not something that I would want Elena to have. If Elena had that same low forward cancel then I would say that she would be even significantly stronger than Chun for a lot of reasons. Instead I would want them to improve on some of the character's specific strengths and weakness that are unique to that character. While Elena doesn't have a low forward cancel, she does have very interesting overheads and unique special moves. Another thing that separates her from Chun is her uppercut. So rather than homogenizing Elena to make her Chun-v.2, I would want them to improve on Elena's unique features that make her different from Chun, and that would mean improving her overheads and DP and such. The things that makes Elena different from Chun are the things that make her enjoyable to play in the first place, IMO. Makoto also doesn't have a low forward cancel with SA.2. But it's easy to see that Makoto has other strengths that compensate for this at put her almost on par with the top tier (if not on the same level, depending who you ask).
But this is assuming I would want to buff everyone up to equal levels in the first place. Which, I wouldn't. I feel Makoto is a prime example of why, too.
Looks like Jolly Ranchers & Baskin's Sherbet.
Re: Preferred Hypothetical ST Tiers
I didn't mean a good low move, a long-ranged low move, or a fast low move - I meant a move that makes holding straight Back dangerous. Makoto has cancellable low Short, and it makes her game that much more complete. So does Elena. Q doesn't have cancellable low anything-at-all, was my point. It eliminates that aspect of his game, and while I'm not against that (i.e. not everyone has a command grab, etc, is fine with me), it turns out to be important in this instance. :^) As for Thanos not having an airthrow, I'm not saying everyone should, but in MvC2 you can just hold up-back and there's literally nothing Thanos can do except chip you (poorly, at that) or tag someone better in, so again it becomes important in that instance. Anakaris doesn't have a way to throw crouching characters, but he has trijumps and an overhead, so that position isn't completely safe against him, whereas up-back + assist = win against Thanos. (Not actually a free win, due to suki cancel properties where he can hit you low if he's good, but if you have half a brain you can figure out when to stop jumping back and attack him instead, you know what I mean.)
Many people who play GGAC say that even the bottom tier characters are "good", instead of some good and some bad characters, and I think this is what game designers should strive for. Not necessarily meaning that everyone can kill you with 2 or 3 good combos, but that characters don't feel utterly helpless in a lot of situations. One or two is fine, and makes characters individual, like Eddie is terrible at breaking out of pressure but that's on purpose. I'm not saying homogenize the cast, but it feels like Q or ST Zangief start with a disadvantage against other characters, and even when they are on the proper side of pressure or okizeme or whatnot, it's still not that great an advantage.
I also look at HnK and shake my head, after I get done laughing at Toki. However, very few games actually end up like HnK, and AC is a different matter. I also agree about Arcana, and to some extent MvC2 - if a bunch of characters can kill you given proper circumstances, then they only differ in however they have to set up the circumstances.
Anyone with suggestions about ST? Heh. I remember talking to Sirlin about this, actually, and he said he just wanted to fix the 'few glaring' things that could be fixed, like making flashkick supers and Fei's chicken wing less difficult to execute, or Honda's and Blanka's supers not being so bad.
Mike Z
Mike Z
Many people who play GGAC say that even the bottom tier characters are "good", instead of some good and some bad characters, and I think this is what game designers should strive for. Not necessarily meaning that everyone can kill you with 2 or 3 good combos, but that characters don't feel utterly helpless in a lot of situations. One or two is fine, and makes characters individual, like Eddie is terrible at breaking out of pressure but that's on purpose. I'm not saying homogenize the cast, but it feels like Q or ST Zangief start with a disadvantage against other characters, and even when they are on the proper side of pressure or okizeme or whatnot, it's still not that great an advantage.
I also look at HnK and shake my head, after I get done laughing at Toki. However, very few games actually end up like HnK, and AC is a different matter. I also agree about Arcana, and to some extent MvC2 - if a bunch of characters can kill you given proper circumstances, then they only differ in however they have to set up the circumstances.
Anyone with suggestions about ST? Heh. I remember talking to Sirlin about this, actually, and he said he just wanted to fix the 'few glaring' things that could be fixed, like making flashkick supers and Fei's chicken wing less difficult to execute, or Honda's and Blanka's supers not being so bad.
Mike Z
Mike Z
Re: Preferred Hypothetical ST Tiers
You're right that universal gameplay mechanics can trump fundamental character properties. We need look no further than Marvel to see that. Almost every single base advantage possessed by Street Fighter characters gets wiped clean. I mean, Ryu, Guile, and Bison represent completely different play styles in every proper Street Fighter game, but you put them in Marvel and suddenly they look like three of the same character. All this tells you is that there's a heavy line drawn between core SF games and Marvel games. You can talk about character adaptation between various core SF games, or between various Marvel games, but you can't make comparisons across the line.
You mentioned Yun as an example, but i would never consider him a fundamentally strong character. If anything, he's a fundamentally annoying character: divekicks, fast normals with good range, command grab into his choice of knockdown which results in more wakeup games, and random safe QCF+LP, all with relatively tame damage output. He certainly has many advantages in 3S, but it really is Genei Jin that puts him over the top. He wouldn't even be a factor in CFJ if it wasn't for absurd launcher combos unavailable to the rest of the cast. In other words, he needs a gimmick to win. But any character can be boosted to top tier given an overpowered gimmick. Giving ST Akuma's air fireball to Cammy would probably put her in top tier as well.
On the other hand, Dhalsim, Vega, Guile, and Sagat are some of the strongest fundamental character designs in the core SF games. Dhalsim and Vega are pretty much the only SF characters without bad matchups across the board. In A3, Dhalsim loses to VC's and nothing else. Not even Rolento is a true counter-character to Sim. Dhalsim simply controls too much of the playing field, plus he can avoid almost anything with drills and slides, plus he has a projectile. Vega has an absurd combination of range and speed. Guile has the best projectile in whatever game he's in plus he has a solid set of normals. Old school Sagat has awesome projectiles while new school Sagat has awesome normals. These characters are buff, pure and simple. In my opinion, upper middle tier is the best place for them cuz they should be respected in tournaments but they shouldn't dominate either. They don't need any extra help.
Shotos, Chun Li, and Bison are solid fundamental character designs, though Bison is definitely the least stable of the three. No matter what, they have enough tools to make their presence known but they're usually not the defining obstacle of the game. It's true, there are some exceptions - Bison is definitely the "Cable" of Champion Edition and Chun Li is the "Cable" of A2 and 3S, but generally they add depth to a game without causing too much trouble. Ryu is the definition of solid, Chun has a complete arsenal, and Bison can get around well without crossing the line like Vega does.
Gief, Blanka, Cammy, Balrog, and T.Hawk are relatively weak fundamental character designs. None of them are complete characters. None of them had a solid set of normal moves at the outset. Basically, you make them strong by assigning absurd priority and frame advantage to their normals. ST Balrog is the only exception because the game itself was tight enough to make his offense scary, but even that is partly due to him having the second-best super in the game and the best uppercut move in the game. Gief's defining characteristics are not impressive: long-range one-frame command grab that resets the match, the ability to pass through fireballs (very slowly), immunity to crossups, and a decent sweep. In the end it all comes down to the quality of his normal moves. If they're great, like they were in A3, then he's a contender. Otherwise he needs really good SPD ticks (A2 and SFEX) to stay out of bottom tier. Nobody even knows how to make T.Hawk strong.
Of course things change from game to game, but these trends are prevalent throughout the entire series. It'll come as a surprise if Gief is good in STHD or SFIV, but nobody will be surprised if the usual suspects kick everyone else in the head.
You mentioned Yun as an example, but i would never consider him a fundamentally strong character. If anything, he's a fundamentally annoying character: divekicks, fast normals with good range, command grab into his choice of knockdown which results in more wakeup games, and random safe QCF+LP, all with relatively tame damage output. He certainly has many advantages in 3S, but it really is Genei Jin that puts him over the top. He wouldn't even be a factor in CFJ if it wasn't for absurd launcher combos unavailable to the rest of the cast. In other words, he needs a gimmick to win. But any character can be boosted to top tier given an overpowered gimmick. Giving ST Akuma's air fireball to Cammy would probably put her in top tier as well.
On the other hand, Dhalsim, Vega, Guile, and Sagat are some of the strongest fundamental character designs in the core SF games. Dhalsim and Vega are pretty much the only SF characters without bad matchups across the board. In A3, Dhalsim loses to VC's and nothing else. Not even Rolento is a true counter-character to Sim. Dhalsim simply controls too much of the playing field, plus he can avoid almost anything with drills and slides, plus he has a projectile. Vega has an absurd combination of range and speed. Guile has the best projectile in whatever game he's in plus he has a solid set of normals. Old school Sagat has awesome projectiles while new school Sagat has awesome normals. These characters are buff, pure and simple. In my opinion, upper middle tier is the best place for them cuz they should be respected in tournaments but they shouldn't dominate either. They don't need any extra help.
Shotos, Chun Li, and Bison are solid fundamental character designs, though Bison is definitely the least stable of the three. No matter what, they have enough tools to make their presence known but they're usually not the defining obstacle of the game. It's true, there are some exceptions - Bison is definitely the "Cable" of Champion Edition and Chun Li is the "Cable" of A2 and 3S, but generally they add depth to a game without causing too much trouble. Ryu is the definition of solid, Chun has a complete arsenal, and Bison can get around well without crossing the line like Vega does.
Gief, Blanka, Cammy, Balrog, and T.Hawk are relatively weak fundamental character designs. None of them are complete characters. None of them had a solid set of normal moves at the outset. Basically, you make them strong by assigning absurd priority and frame advantage to their normals. ST Balrog is the only exception because the game itself was tight enough to make his offense scary, but even that is partly due to him having the second-best super in the game and the best uppercut move in the game. Gief's defining characteristics are not impressive: long-range one-frame command grab that resets the match, the ability to pass through fireballs (very slowly), immunity to crossups, and a decent sweep. In the end it all comes down to the quality of his normal moves. If they're great, like they were in A3, then he's a contender. Otherwise he needs really good SPD ticks (A2 and SFEX) to stay out of bottom tier. Nobody even knows how to make T.Hawk strong.
Of course things change from game to game, but these trends are prevalent throughout the entire series. It'll come as a surprise if Gief is good in STHD or SFIV, but nobody will be surprised if the usual suspects kick everyone else in the head.