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Ultra Street Fighter IV

JLM

By JLM
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joeplus

joeplus

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Haha yeah. I mean there was a tiny it of lag but I have no possible idea how I "cheated". Maybe he's just trollin' hard.

GGs briefly to all earlier, had to run off but I'm sure I'll be back on later!

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Nate Dogg III

Nate Dogg III

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Decapre update: you can jump cancel EX ground pound. Makes that move a bit more worthwhile.

I will be writing all day tomorrow and probably won't get to play this game for ages so you all might as well know: Rolento's cr.MK x HP rekka is not a true blockstring, and not even the first rekka is safe on block. LP is -3, MP -6, HP -9, and I've been using HP all day because the light version has rubbish range and can whiff. I have been getting away with murder all day.

Also that E3 tournament is being streamed on capcomfighters and runs from 7-8pm uk time on Thursday and I don't think I want to do it anymore. Terrifying.

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ah

ah

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Decapre update: you can jump cancel EX ground pound. Makes that move a bit more worthwhile.

I will be writing all day tomorrow and probably won't get to play this game for ages so you all might as well know: Rolento's cr.MK x HP rekka is not a true blockstring, and not even the first rekka is safe on block. LP is -3, MP -6, HP -9, and I've been using HP all day because the light version has rubbish range and can whiff. I have been getting away with murder all day.

Also that E3 tournament is being streamed on capcomfighters and runs from 7-8pm uk time on Thursday and I don't think I want to do it anymore. Terrifying.

Can I offer a spot of advice? Switch to Rufus. He can EX messiah after a target combo now (character specific).

He can also do these things (don't worry though, they're very character specific - the second one for example only works on five characters*):

*Balrog, Cammy, Rose, Dhalsim, Deejay. Yup, basically every character Rufus struggles against.

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ah

ah

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The other interesting/exciting/scary thing I learned while cooking dinner is that Zangief has a kara RFC, that is to say he can cancel far standing short on whiff into RFC for an instant crumple, no combo required, no focus charging required. He just does it any time he has three bars and makes you whiff an uppercut, and then he ultras you. For 501 damage.

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ah

ah

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I really think some of the changes highlight a specific direction they want to move the game in as opposed to just balancing the game that was already there, which is really interesting - they've talked a good game about this being the fan feedback patch, fixing things players disliked about their characters, but I feel like they've also done a deliberate job of changing the structure of the match quite significantly. It's like they heard all the complaining about unblockables, rushdown, weak characters etc., and then thought about that in comparison with all the reasons people said they hated SFxT (slow, boring, no wakeup pressure etc) and tried to figure out where these mixed messages were actually coming from and what a better game might look like.

So now we have this game which lets you get big damage from playing footsies better than your opponent (whether you're Akuma or Zangief or Vega!), which insists on an intelligent and flexible approach to meter management and expects you to make hard choices about how to use your meter, and which adjusts the balance of risk and reward to make most of the best options either more costly in meter or more punishable if you mess up (the best example is DP FADC being -5 on block: you have to choose to risk getting punished, backdash to safety but no extra damage if you hit, or spend 3 bars to make it safe - but there are a bunch of others. For one other example, EX messiah is better on hit but all enders are now punishable on block). They're all quite subtle changes but a lot of them are pointing in the same direction: footsies, reads and meter management are intended to be more important in USF4 than they were in SSF4. Of course whether it plays out that way in the long term is another question, but the intention seems pretty clear. Hopefully it works out.

I mean, I don't want to give them too much credit (this is the same team who decided Hugo's cutscenes were going to be about potatoes, after all), but still. It's really interesting.

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Nate Dogg III

Nate Dogg III

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Ha, I just wrote a line about the potato thing. So godlike. "Mother! I'll become the big potato!"

I think you're right. Dunno if it's just day-one syndrome but the game already seems slower, more deliberate, more cautious, and I won some entire rounds by just playing footsies. Red Focus means meter is even more important. It's real Street Fighter.

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IgTerminals

IgTerminals

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I played 2.5 hours of Ranked last night.

I've never done that before in a single session. It was thoroughly enjoyable. The Decapres! So many Decapres!

Got absolutely brutalised by Darthminions Bison. Again. That happens usually once a Ranked session.

Everything about this game seems so much better.

Cept Flash Explosion. That's actually worse in every respect save one: it starts up 1 frame faster. Less damage, less invincibility, still no autocorrect and no link.

W is lovely though. Also bought the Frame Data app. It's actually pretty good.

Ultra!

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ah

ah

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Fei Long will still be strong as hell, Spuckuk!

Ha, I just wrote a line about the potato thing. So godlike. "Mother! I'll become the big potato!"

I think you're right. Dunno if it's just day-one syndrome but the game already seems slower, more deliberate, more cautious, and I won some entire rounds by just playing footsies. Red Focus means meter is even more important. It's real Street Fighter.

I think the pace will pick back up again when people get more accustomed to it, because one of the things you'll always want to do is make your opponent think faster than they're comfortable thinking. But what will hopefully still be different is that there is more to think about, and the punishment for poor decisions or lazy spacing will be bigger. In theory it brings it closer to the high-stakes feeling of SF2 in terms of damage and risk while hopefully mitigating the ridiculous power of some of the guessing-game mixups. That's what I think they're aiming for, at least.

I think you can still play rushdown (I will obviously be trying!), it's just that by doing so in most cases you're exposing yourself to slightly more risk, or you're burning up meter resources that mean you won't be able to get a massive damage, or at least your mixup isn't as dumb once you get your first opening. But yes, I think it's intended to be more deliberate and you're supposed to be more aware that if you mess up your mixup or get a bit lazy with your approach then Vega or Zangief could take 500 of your life just like that, from a lot of different situations.

Or maybe I'm just under-rested and over-excited. We did play a lot of street fighter yesterday!

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IgTerminals

IgTerminals

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Oh! Oh! Beat a fairly competent Dudley by RedFocussing an entire MGB combo, then U1!

Red Focus is a lovely, lovely thing.

Twice I Red Focussed then back dashed after absorbing the first hit. Muscle memory wastes three bars of metre.

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JLM

JLM

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Really enjoying ultra so far. Played almost continuously for 48 hours at SFO House #1 and am now waiting on Alistarr's arrival to continue this ridiculous Streetfighting binge. It is an absolute joy to be able to sit in training mode whilst waiting for opponents. It's nice that SFIV finally has many of the features we've come to expect from modern fighting games and it feels brand new to me as a result. Been trying out everything on the change list, but I've still been surprised by stuff in matches, whether it's old things not working, new things working or new inputs messing me up. With Rose I've wasted many a bar doing the wrong input for Ultra 2, which is ironic when that change was implemented precisely to stop Rose players wasting a bar when trying to do Ultra 2. I'm used to it now though and it is so, so great that it doesn't overlap with her other special moves any more. Excellent decision to change that. Oh, and yesterday a Dudley player hit me with an EX MGB combo into the corner and then juggled with overhead for the splat. Had to use edition select to load up 2012 Dudley to make sure that this wasn't possible before as I couldn't believe that I'd never seen it if it was. Turns out it is new, and I reckon it is one of the most satisfying things to do in the game. Made a point of picking Dudley straight after that and landed it on the next ranked opponent.

One of my SFO pals has gone back to Gouken (who is just the best in this version) after dabbling with Oni for a while in AE 2012. It has turned out to be an excellent choice so far as he has been absolutely ruining all the day 1 Hugos. He even had his first ever rage quit against a Hugo who had still failed to hit him with only 35 seconds left on the clock. I can see why Desora thinks Hugo players should pay half price in the arcades as that match up is just a mess. He's also in the habit of jumping at Hugo early and doing air tatsu in his face. This will either break the armour on standing fierce, score a silly amount of chip or hit them because it's a fuzzy guard situation and they essentially have to block five overheads in succession. Once he's done that he retires to full screen and throws about 50 fireballs, pausing only to EX tatsu the inevitable jump/desperation EX lariat. That match up is 20-0 guys.

I'm alternating between Rose and Poison and am struggling a little with new character blues. You have to suck up a lot of losses against terrible players when learning a new character, and with this being a new game as well there are plenty of terrible players about. My poor Poison has lost to some of the worst flowchart shoto players ever. Deary me. Still, it's a learning experience and I've still won many more than I've lost with her so far. My main issue is that I have always been and possibly always will be shit at rekkas. I'm generally pretty good about not mashing things, but something about rekkas makes me flail like an idiot and drop them for no good reason. This will be the version where I knuckle down and practise is though as I will need it for both Poison and Yang.

Some of the other SFO headz have been racing to number 1 on the BP leaderboards with their characters because it's a rare opportunity to be there, especially with the headstart on Japan. Ghost, Brylarke and Broodoo from SFO all got there with Honda, Cammy and Juri respectively. Been loving watching Ghost tear through all-comers on ranked. That EX hands buff means that he has lovely new combos but also a more generous link from EX hands into jab, making it easier to land in the wilds of online. He hit some poor guy with four reps of cr. jab xx EX hands into fierce hands into standing roundhouse, then he read their jump and hit them with the stop sign for the dizzy. Brutal stuff. He already had 40 hit hands combos in AE2012, but with these changes he's hitting them every single match. So much slapping. We also spent quite a lot of time in the lab learning to punish these -5 DP FADC dashes, and a nice easy answer for Honda is to do reversal Ochio throw. He can obviously do jab into hands instead as a punish, but a reversal grab is nice and reliable, particularly online.

Had a lot of fun with Cody in training so far. Normal xx knife pick up - > stabby stabby stabby is the best buff ever. That Desk combo with multiple knife drops and pick ups made me very aroused indeed. Adon is a lot of fun in this version too. I like his new corner juggles, his b'n'bs are easier to do and he has lovely new combos as well. They've nerfed the stuff I hated about him and buffed him in fun and interesting ways. Nicely done. T. Hawk is the best too, obviously. Only had a brief dabble with Chun so far, but I think she is much much stronger in this version and will start featuring in tournaments again at last. Evil Ryu's health buff is really noticeable when you fight against him. He's going to be a problem I feel. Fought a couple of good Seths and I don't think he's been nerfed out of existence as some claim. He is weaker and you might have to think a bit and *gasp* play some Streetfighter to win, but a lot of his mix ups remain intact and he still has a crazy array of options in almost any situation.

Fei Long is indeed still really good, but I am still loving his stubby little ST style rekkas. I dislike him but I don't mind if he's a strong character, I just thought that an essentially safe half screen poke that leads to a corner carry and a knockdown was one of the dumbest things in the game. He doesn't have that now but he still has almost everything else. Good Fei players will still whiff punish all kinds of stuff with rekkas regardless, it's just that it won't be so dominant and brainless any more.

Of the new characters, I find Elena that most awkward to fight against so far. I can never quite tell when she's in throw range and her movement and similar looking special moves are all hard to react to at this early stage. Thankfully one of our SFO mans is working on her as his new main, so I'll get the hang of it soon I'm sure. He posted a video to the SFO Facebook group featuring a ridiculous four bar Elena combo, and the exact same combo ended up in Desk's next video. Desk is a thief! Rolento is going to be annoying as all hell and has frankly disgusting corner reset shenanigans, but nobody I've faced is using him well just yet. Soon, though, soon I will truly despise that man. There is a massive army of Poisons and Decapres, but again none of them are very good yet. Learning to punish all of Decapre's wildly unsafe stuff already, and thankfully we already have a committed Decapre player so we can learn what she's about. Willo from SFO has been landing lots of grimy day one nonsense against the unsuspecting XBL masses. I think he still has a 100% record on Psycho stream mix ups. I've also had to teach him how to use "leaving stuff on the screen" ultras. He's not used one before and he is not used to the wild and whacky stuff people will do in response to their activation when in so many situations you should just block. I call it trying to be a hero, and conversely our shorthand for coaching someone to be patient and wait out/block something like Rose's orbs is "don't be a hero!" It's got to the point where it's replaced move names now. I activated Rose U2 against an Abel player, counted a couple of seconds in my head and then said "EX try and be a hero?" and he promptly did EX wheel kick before I could finish the sentence. Will kept activating Psycho stream, going rabid and getting hit by their desperate attempts to escape, but now we have taught him the ways of the scumbag ultra. I think Decapre as a character might end up getting figured out quite early and won't end up being very strong, but I absolutely adore Psycho stream. The slow, menacing pace of it and the sheer length of time it spends on screen are both wonderful. Love it. Yet to fight a decent Hugo so far. I fought the guy who was the number 1 ranked Hugo at the end of day 2 and he didn't seem any more clued up than the rest of them. He has lots of fun stuff and is a more useful character than he's been given credit for so far, but he also surely sets the new record for number of outright horror match ups.

I'm getting used to doing delayed wake up now, but I'm yet to use red focus in a match aside from a few cheeky crumple combos. I've still lost because of others using delayed wake up more than it's helped me win so far, but either way I'm being reminded that it's there and that it is a powerful option. DP FADC -5, as mentioned earlier, is something that has warranted to some lab work. -5 is a decent punish window, but the timing on the punish will feel different depending on which move you've blocked. It's easy to make the mistake of blocking, seeing the dash and then inputting your move, but what you really want to do is input your punish the very moment your block stun ends, and doing that consistently takes practise.

Going to stop now, but I will probably have thousands upon thousands of words' worth of more things to say about this particular video game soon.

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Spuck

Spuck

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The biggest problem with Adon has always seemed to be the character specific and situational nature of his combos. Even then half of them don't land on crossup. Be nice if this was fixed now.

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Fitzcarraldo

Fitzcarraldo

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One of my SFO pals has gone back to Gouken (who is just the best in this version) after dabbling with Oni for a while in AE 2012. It has turned out to be an excellent choice so far as he has been absolutely ruining all the day 1 Hugos. He even had his first ever rage quit against a Hugo who had still failed to hit him with only 35 seconds left on the clock. I can see why Desora thinks Hugo players should pay half price in the arcades as that match up is just a mess. He's also in the habit of jumping at Hugo early and doing air tatsu in his face. This will either break the armour on standing fierce, score a silly amount of chip or hit them because it's a fuzzy guard situation and they essentially have to block five overheads in succession. Once he's done that he retires to full screen and throws about 50 fireballs, pausing only to EX tatsu the inevitable jump/desperation EX lariat. That match up is 20-0 guys.

You are not wrong. After this afternoon playing a few, I think I'd rather fight a million Sagat or Dhalsim players than a single Gouken.

I'm getting a shameful amount of joy from Hugo's Meat Squasher at the moment. Everybody gets caught with it after a cr.lp in the corner.

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JLM

JLM

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The extra hit stun on cr. jab allows him to do cr. jab - > cr. mk, and they've buffed the horizontal range on lk uppercut, so if you're not sure about the close mk - > cr. jab because of push back you can do a confirm using jabs and still get a medium kick xx special ender. Also he has really nice and easy meterless corner juggles using combos where only the second hit of lk uppercut connects and then you have free juggle points to use afterwards. Give him a try, he's really fun. Still an insufferable prick, but a lot of fun.

Oh, and I take back some of what I said about Love me tender with Poison. The EX one is invaluable in certain match ups even if it's not an overhead. Although she has a strong fireball game that I am very much in love with, she does get completely outgunned in plasma wars by some characters. Running a long set against one of our SFO Oni players showed me the value of holding onto an EX bar and punishing fireballs with LMT. It does a really nice chunk of damage and it's an additional threat she desperately needs when a character like Oni or Gouken is matching or outclassing her in a projectile war.

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