I love how Theory Fighter says he doesn't agree with the balance changes made in Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, but he respects the logic behind them, cuz most fighting game pundits just go "this change ruined Street Fighter" or "Street Fighter would be good again if they brought this back" like the meta is only good when they specifically enjoy it
@@livanbardhis point is still valid, maybe not to Super Turbo HD Remix. Granted you could argue that since it says REMIX, changes should be expected. It's a remix after all, not a pure release. Especially since people could really like those changes.
The ironic part is that the hadoken is actually really good outside of street fighter. Most VS games Ryu is in make it massive and hard to avoid, while smash bros make all versions great for pressure because they devour shields. Even RPGs and cards games use it as a strong projectile that often one shots weaker enemies.
Not really though, most protagonists nowadays are made for you to have easy and accessible (but not overwhelming) mid-screen pressure and decent neutral for you to get started (Ragna, Sol, Shun'ei, Shiki, etc) , the 'jack of all trades' role is relegated to the rival
@@notimeforcreativenamesjust3034 As far as I can tell Jimmy says he's really good now. And I've seen a few clips demonstrating his new strengths in a pretty strong light. To say he's ass is pretty far fetched. On another note, I don't think Ryu is necessarily bad at zoning. I just don't think zoning someone out the entire game is really that valuable. And really that doesn't mean he's not well-rounded. He can zone against someone like Geif. Being well-rounded doesn't mean you can effectively adapt any one certain playstyle. It just means your character is capable of effectively utilizing many different styles. So just because he gets outzoned by Guile, doesn't mean he can't effectively zone out someone like Gief or Mika. Because someone like Kage doesn't get his fireball to zone as effectively which means he may be forced in unfavorable situations
It'd great to see Dan get a fake super hadoken; animation and effects included. it'd be a powerful tool (like three times less recovery frames than his actual super), while keeping his meme nature.
Have him warm it up, and do everything like normal. Then, he rolls and gives a thumbs up with full body intangible. If you come in contact with him, knockdown, and he gets the meter back.
I 100% agree with you. Ryu without a strong Hadouken is basically just slower Ken.
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I’m surprised Ryu hasn’t gotten back the false fireball. Especially since Arc Sys also has their own version via Gunflame and GunFlame Feint. a 214P or a 236K input would be great for SF
Yeah no, Gunflame Feint's existence, despite objectively being a weaker projectile on a much more rushdown character, is fascinating, and in my opinion frequently showed its usefulness, limited usefulness of Gunflame be damned.
I think that an easy way to balance fireballs and zoning in general without making them terrible comes down to making movement better. I'm not talking about making every fighting game an anime fighter with air-dashing and double jumps (although those do help quite a lot) because many KOF games still have strong projectiles and zoning, but the myriad of different jump arcs and the ability to roll keeps them from being overwhelming without giving every character some way to just literally ignore all zoning.
Parries are great for this too, when they work on projectiles.(which ArcSys was too forward to give to Baiken in Strive). Like in 3rd Strike, they can nullify projectiles but they don't get you any closer to the opponent. And, if a parry leaves you at 0 upon using it on a projectile, it maintains fair risk-reward.
@@s_factor_sam The problem with that is that in 3rd Strike, parrying attacks gets you a good chunk of meter, so if the opponent is just throwing out projectiles, you can just easily parry them and build meter very quickly in a game where many characters become very scary when they have meter. It's why you don't see fireball wars very often and why 3rd Strike is overall a more aggressive game.
This is a good point. E. Honda's Neutral Jumping Fierce in Super Turbo allows him to slightly "steer" himself to the left or right while in the air. This is really useful since it is difficult for him to jump over fireballs. So imagine instead of giving him the ability to headbutt through a fireball, you went a route where you allowed him to steer a bit farther. Anything that helps you go over or under fireballs, while not giving you something that directly beats it, can preserve strong projectiles. Another option that might help for the non fireball characters in Super Turbo to get in would be to reduce the pushback from blocking a projectile; just on those characters who need it. The pushback is pretty extreme, and one of the reasons why zoning is so powerful.
Zoner main here, I love fireballs, antiairs, and midrange pokes more than any other type of move. Ryu's fireball feeling gross to use turns me off from using him.
SF4 was in a pretty good spot I think. The fireballs themselves weren't as good as they were in ST, but they were better than any other SF game AND the anti-airs in that game were incredibly punishing to make up the difference. And if I remember correctly you could almost do a proper fireball trap with ryu if you got them with a meaty one during oki.
Think the problem is that some of these characters have been changed so much that the dev teams don't even know whose been buffed or nerfed over the years.
@@StylishGaz lol pretty sure ryus H srk normal damage 180 & 200 on counter hit in SF4 and SF5 H srk is 130 normal and 150 counter hit. not to mention you can light srk into super/Ultra or Mid srk FADC ultra for anti air.... you can't get shit... landing 4 CH H SRk's already does 800
7:24 there was actually some tech designed around this oddity. People learned how to do the hadoken with one hand. That way, they would look like they were going for a fake hadoken, but actually do the move with one hand as some extra mind games. Tl:dr people faked a fake input with a real input.
Now that I remember it, I've witnessed that in matches I've watched, and it never clicked that was what was being done. edit: This is going back years. I thought they were just being cocky doing hadoukens like that! 😲
Also suggest Leon Massey and Gekkosquirrel as they do pretty great content about fighting games, mentality and even some game design topics that are universal but have a bit grounding in fighting games!
@clxxd999 legit…..what are these examples of low hanging fruit? To me low hanging fruit would be mentioning other content creators to make you feel better about this channel…that’s op is giving to me
@True Metal _What's "actual fighting game content" consists of? Talking about the obvious actions ryu does or doesn't do? Cuz that's what this youtuber said in this vid.
As someone who plays GGST, and not a lot of SF, an interesting parallel is how Sol has fake gunflame. However due to gunflame being mostly used as a way to reset pressure when spaced out than as a zoning tool, the fake gunflame serves to be another layer on his pressure game. And this possibility seems very interesting to me, because depending on how capcom changes the hadoken a fake fireball could be a very interesting tool that functions as another layer in both his pressure and zoning which would reinforce ryu's identity as an all-rounder.
@@harryvpn1462 Also didn't it have a hitbox in acr, it could probably be used as a funny disrespect option to flex on your opponent as you kill them with gunflame feint
@@arcfieri5965 yeah it does have a very small hitbox that does a little dmg, it allows for bm strategies like gunflame feint rc wthrow and comboing into it to kill, but thats all really unviable lol
Funny enough some of the Fatal Fury games have Feints like Fake Fireballs, but the execution is a bit different Taking Garou: Mark of the Wolves as an example, basically a character had 2 feints. What moves are feinted is character specific, but one's with 6AC and one's on 2AC Most Feints were extremely fast on recovery to my knowledge (yes, correct me if i'm wrong, on all of this), so they ended up being a safe way to end pressure strings, and a way to combo from a heavy normal to another normal, making the combo game more flexible. But I feel that rushdown application kinda overshadows using it as an actual feint, since a lot of the feints you see the most are the ones that are best at pressure & combos. Marco's DP Feint and Terry's Burn Knuckle A feint for example. And when some of the better characters make their way in, it's utterly nasty, thanks to Brakes, other tech they might have, and of course feints. I only recall hearing Freeman (a bottom 3 char) primarily used his feints as a strategy, but that's probably because he couldn't use them for his rushdown as well Not to mention, some feints were for Supers... in a game where every Super has a superflash. Marco feinting his Super Fireball doesn't work as well if the Super Fireball itself has a superflash. And sometimes there's more case by case bases, like Rock's Reppuuken feint, when Reppuuken is a pretty average fireball at best, nowhere near on the same level as what Marco or Kain use I would like to see this come back tho, but idk how i'd balance it outside of making feints just a character specific thing
The ironic thing is that if they wanted a quicker more aggressive game they should have played alpha 3 and 3rd strike a lot more. This isn't a new thing they've been doing this since 1998 and before
While anti-fireball moves *are* part of the problem, I wouldn't want them to go anywhere. It's an incredibly frustrating experience when your only options in any situation are "jump" and "block". The thing is, in Street Fighter 5 there are plenty of successful fireball characters, particularly Guile and Luke, but others are just as adequate. The problem is that Ryu relies too much on them for his midrange game since he lacks any other neutral options. All that being said, if I were to be designing street fighter 6, I'd operate with these tenants to "Bring back the hadouken" 1. Meterless anti-fireball moves shouldn't lead to offense by themselves. They should take space and present risk, never knockdown or start combos. 2. Ryu needs every kind of fireball. He needs a slow-moving fireball you can chase for offense and setplay, a fast one you can zone with, and a reliable mid-speed fireball with faster start-up and recovery. If we're being extra saucy, give him an anti-air fireball. The hadouken is ryu's signature move, he needs to to be able to do everything a linear fireball can do. 3. Ryu needs to have tools outside of his hadoken he can use in neutral. If the opponent has meter and is looking for a fireball, you need to have the option to not give it to them.
Saying anti fireball/zoning tools is kinda vague, the issue is specifically reaction EX and supers that lead to knockdowns/pressure. The whole point of throwing fireballs, or any sort of long term zoning strategy is to force options that you can potentially bait and punish, hard counters make this impractical. Why would anyone make a risky approach when they could just wait until they have enough meter to shutdown fireball play? The way games like SF4 balanced this was with meterless reversals, if zoning fails you can take a risk to escape and spend meter to make it safe, but SFV decided to take them away. So what we're left with is rushdown characters that can deny zoning, but zoners that can't reliably deny pressure. Give Ryu all the neutral tools you want, you could even give him a meterless shakunetsu or denjin, it won't change the fact that the system heavily incentivizes and rewards rushdown. I understand that it's frustrating to get zoned out, and walking forward and neutral jumping isn't anyone's idea of a fun time, but then, neither is being forced to block and then getting stunned because you guessed wrong. If zoning has hard counters, so should pressure. Either that or reintroduce chip kills and other mechanics that reward zoning.
@@hijster479 The thing is, you *have* options in SF5 when getting rushed down. Lots of them. You have V-Reversal, which is safe on block and can be done out of blockstun. You have V-Shift, which can get you out of frame trap situations and punish your opponent by pushing them back to zoning range, or by punishing forward advancing moves. You've got an invincible reversal, wakeup backdash, Delay tech, a three frame jab and just plain old blocking. The problem with Ryu isn't his fireball in SF5. If it was then Guile would be in the pits with him, but he's not. The problem is that his neutral hinges on the fireball, where Guile's does not. You talk about "wait until you have meter to shutdown fireball play", well that's the thing: Now they're waiting on a fireball. If you then proceed to not throw a fireball then you could take a lot of space for free, or jump on them, or dash on them. A fireball is a strong tool, but it shouldn't be your only tool. If you read a fireball by mentally being ready to react to it, you should be rewarded.
@@kevingriffith6011 My point isn't that there aren't any defensive options, it's that the risk reward is completely different. Fireball punishes effectively shutdown zoning in a lot of situations. This is what I mean by a hard counter, you basically admitted that it's better to do something other than zone when EX is an option. IMO, Blocking, Delay tech, V-Shift and even V-Reversal are soft counters. Only the latter two even get you back to neutral, both of them cost resource, deal no damage, and one of them wasn't even in the game for most of its life. None of these options really punish pressure. Worst case scenario the agressor loses some white life and a little space, they're hardly a reason to give up pressure. I'm not necessarily saying this is bad in a vacuum, but i feel like this kind of design philosophy should apply to all playstyles or none. Meterless reversals and even certain command grabs added risk to running pressure. Something like DP Fadc Ultra can win the game if it works, but SFV has almost nothing like this. The most recent patch even removed EX reversals for some characters, it really seems like Capcom doesn't want players to have to second guess their pressure. All I'm saying is that zoning should get the same treatment, players shouldn't have to second guess their fireballs, but moves that are hard coded to beat projectiles make this difficult.
@@hijster479 You keep acting like the fireball is the only possible way you can zone, which is patently false for characters with good neutral, which in SF5 ryu doesn't have. The problem is that if a singular move defines your kit then the weaknesses of that move are going to be amplified, because no one move should be without an effective answer on read. My examples *are* hard counters to specific moves, but soft counters to pressure because pressure is not a single move but a collection of moves working together to form a fighting game concept. If you want an answer to anti-fireball moves, it should start by expanding your gameplan beyond the fireball.
@@kevingriffith6011 I completely agree with everything you said, except one point. Using an EX/super with projectile invul generally isn't read, good players can do so on reaction, I know because I've done it myself. I'm not saying Fireballs shouldn't have counters, that's why I specified in my first comment. And I'm all for different kinds of zoning, but Zoning in Street fighter has always been, and still is primarily focused on fireballs And Ryu is supposed to be the poster boy. Even your op specifically mentioned new fireballs. What other neutral tools would you give him? Dhalsim normals? Karin/Seths ability to convert pokes to knockdowns? A fullscreen Command Grab? I feel like nerfing anti-fireball tools or giving more options to get back to neutral is a simpler solution without changing the game too much.
This comment made me think about Sharon in Fighting Ex Layer, she has a Revolver that is limited to 6 bullets. I can't remember if she only had those 6 bullets through the entire match or for each round.
I know the vid is specifically about fireballs, but broadly about Ryu being good, people played him in V because he was Ryu, and they overcame his terrible normals by using him as an in-fighting bully with throw loops, easy confirms with good damage, and jab anti-airs, but the balance patches decided, "Nope! How dare you find a way to make this mess functional?!"
The coolest thing I think would be to let Ryu charge the hadouken by holding the button and let him cancel it by pressing kick, similar to SF5 Poison's whip stance. A charged hadouken could also reduce the recovery of the move, making it harder to punish. This could add *tons* of nuance to the fireball as both a pressure and zoning tool. You could fake the hadoken while zoning, do hadoken-cancel tick throw mixups at close range, get setplay by charging a hadoken on a downed opponent... I could see a lot of potential there.
@@KingCuba because at the end of the day having a fireball doesn't make the character easier to play, it actually makes it harder if you're not completely specialized into zoning
Man I'd be so down for a TF take on HD Remix. I read sirlin's articles multiple times (they low-key act as character primers for their ST incarnation) and he's very good at convincing you his rationale is rock solid and well tested, then I asked most people I know and trust about fighting game stuff and I mostly got "lmao horizontal flash kick are you insane", and other observations on how the new kits in practice are often wack. Sirlin also talked at length, on a reddit thread, about how reticent the ST community was towards the game, going as far as heavily downplaying SnakeEyez winning with Zangief because he wasn't old blood enough and HDR doesn't count. Plus, you still have people harping on how supposedly tournament legal Akuma was, in fact, completely broken as a dunk towards Sirlin when he's the first to acknowledge it's because of an unintended interaction they couldn't get fixed in time. I'd like an informed take by a good ST content creator about this whole thing, if sirlin is actually a misunderstood genius mobbed by a grouchy community, or if he vastly overrated the quality of his changes
Sirlin almost certainly overrated the quality of his changes lol. He's incredibly defensive when anyone says anything that can be perceived as negative, and I have most often see him being boldly wrong about games he doesn't even play, so my natural instinct is to not trust him
Horizontal Flash Kick was one of the balanced tools that didn’t break the game lol. Most people remember HDR as the game that broke E Honda. Personally I do like the game.
@@NeoBoneGirl Sirlin is a better game designer than he is a communicator, so I don’t blame people for disliking him as a person. That said, he genuinely does know what he’s talking about when it comes to games IMO.
@@meathir4921 I think he’s kind of a hack who people listen to because he’s old blood, especially when he was ripping off Guilty Gear characters and making them lamer in Fantasy Strike
@@NeoBoneGirl I think that’s extremely pessimistic when the whole of Fantasy Strike is characters based off of common FG characters? I think Fantasy Strike succeeds in what it sets out to do.
I think you make a good point here, but something worth considering is how your point might function across different skill levels. When many people start out, the fireball seems insurmountable, they struggle to even jump over it. Then, learning about their options for dealing with it helps them learn about reactions and managing meter, and other options their character might have. But you are right that in general, at the top level of a lot of games, zoning is not as much of an identity as it used to be.
Fireballs are cheap. It's good if there is a way to counter them otherwise you have those super boring almost bug exploit like fights where Sagat just goes Tiger Tiger Tiger crouch-kick Tiger Tiger Tiger crouch-kick for the entire fight.
I agree with all these points. And I also absolutely loved HD Remix. It’s such a fun game. The tournaments were hype. I really think it needed a 100% faithful old school graphics mode though. I think the updated look turned a lot of people off, even if some aspects of it were done really well.
Don't forget the remixed music! I for one didn't feel it was better than just the original arcade version. HD Remix was made with good intentions but it is simply not played and I don't feel it ever really caught on.
I wish we had an HDR with balance patches and slightly less wild changes. I was absolutely in love with the art and animations and the ideas of the changes back in the day and I liked the idea of all of the fine tuning settings in the options for balancing the game like turning stored inputs on or off. That was really cool stuff that is really rare to see in fighting games. But in the long run I think HDR only succeeded in reviving interest in ST and making people appreciate it more for the masterpiece it really is.
HDR was genius, it needs some more balancing but it's the best version so far. Add USF2's grab canceling and maybe add an Ultra meter or something to add a new, more modern dynamic. Kinda weird Ultra Street Fighter 2 didn't add Ultras like Super Street Fighter added Supers 🤔
Check out a version of ST someone is working on called "New Legacy." It uses less extreme balance changes to really fix some of the bad matchups without changing much else. He is constantly making changes based on feedback and it is in a really good spot. It also has new colors to choose from for each character, and this guy actually created a playable and balanced version of Akuma... something no one else has accomplished with ST. I really hope it catches on since it is the best overall version of ST out there.
To me one of the issues with Hadokens in SFV is that some characters can legitimately be full screen and just absorb the fireball for some gain (Bison, Nash, Ryu). It’s one thing to have to react act close range but it’s another when no matter where you are you can still get a punish for them using an option that should be safe from that range.
That's the point, you're supposed to have characters that counter Zoners. Everyone is supposed to have weaknesses and bad matchups. But one can hardly complain about zoners in sf5 when all of them are top tier except for maybe rose
Then... ermmm, don't use fireballs from full screen? Or use a weak version so you can catch up with said fireball and punish them for doing that? Being able to use a fireball doesn't mean that using it would be a smart move, just as much as if SF2 zangief is at footsies range you cannot use a fireball since he can punish you with double lariat and Vega can do the same if he is full screen away from you but not if he is closer, matchup is a factor
While I do agree with most of your points about how zoning could stand to be better by giving them ways to bait anti-projectile options, I don't think Ryu is the best vessel for this, as while his hadoken is iconic, it was very centralizing on his kit. You yourself said that Ryu was supposed to serve as an introduction to all forms of play, but the changes you propose seem to want to return him to being a zoner? I can see thinking his hadoukens are undertuned in modern SF games, and I even see the beauty of a game like ST, but I dunno if I want Ryu to have this type of tool, although I'd love it on guile or Sagat, for example
Yeah that's entirely fair enough. I could see it on a character like Sagat, i think regardless of who it ends up on I view it as an interesting way in which they could make zoning a bit more potent.
Honestly to me it makes more sense for the protagonist of the franchise and also stoic karate man to have a more fundamentals-focused gameplay as opposed to being geared towards zoning
I don't have a lot of input on the specifics of this video (I've never been a Ryu player and only been into fighting games the last 5 years), so I'll just stick to saying that I love the way your break things down and explain them, and ESPECIALLY how you make a clear distinction between "this is how I feel, but that doesn't make the devs or anyone else wrong." It's clear how much love and respect you have for the genre because even when you're critical, you're still open, honest, self-aware, and respectful of devs and other players.
that fei long change only reminds me of this twitch comment i saw that read: sirlin dropped some fei long combo and a dude i was sitting next to yelled "YOU FIXED THAT DAWG IT DOESNT WORK ANYMORE"
I completely agree with this. FG devs' tendency to pander to the preference for explosive in-fighting as well as bending the knee to complaints against Zoning and Turtling have ruined most modern FGs for me. In doing so, they taint core donations of the genre (such as the fireball game and Strike-Block-Throw triangle) and take away/reduce freedom of playstyle choice by making unpopular and defensive playstyles less viable or outright penalized/prevented. Sadly, like you say, this tendency isn't going away anytime soon. Not when the average attention span is a measly 7-12 seconds and people often call defensive out-boxers like Mayweather "cowards". As long as the prevailing sentiment is that anything besides offensive in-fighting is "boring", this genre will never regain some of those factors that made fighting games great for more types of players than JUST those who prefer offense. Which is why, even though I've played fighting games for 20 years, I've mostly stopped playing then and am now finding that my defense-oriented skillset is rewarded much more in MOBAs, Battle Royales, and PvE games like Monster Hunter and Souls-likes instead.
I think it'sless complicated than that, it's just an appeal to casuals, as usual, to try and broaden the demographics in detriment of the core fanbase...
@@mrZavior Or zoners are just salty that they have to use more than 2 braincells and gameplay doesn't revolve around fireball -> anti-air, that other players have to play too and not just block or jump. Seeing zoners getting punished for throwing braindead fireballs never gets old. The reason why it is called freaking fighting game not a side-scroller shooter.
This vid is 2 years old but what I’m about to say is still relevant to today. The biggest problem with Ryu is that his moveset has remained rather tame, meanwhile the new characters have gotten trickier and trickier. Ryu is base. He has to be, he’s the simple fighter, the eternal challenger, lone wolf. He can’t have projectile that hangs around and can be detonated like JP. He can’t have a sliding tackle or full screen attack that can change directions like blanka or a wall jump like Rashid. Even guile, the guy with least super moves can throw a string of sonic booms. Ryu isn’t tricky enough for street fighter. Even Ken got his dragon lash. The other side of the coin is that everyone has either played or played against a version of Ryu, so everyone has Ryu tech. There aren’t as many surprises coming from him. It’s hard to make Ryu a top character again because to do so would mean giving him a moveset outside of what is Ryu. The best Ryu imo was evil Ryu in sf4. And that character proved the only way to make Ryu a true top tier was to make him into a different character with a better moveset.
A fun idea to try out in SFVI would be to give Ryu a V-Skill with the MP+MK buttons, which would be the feint. However, it wouldn't just be used purely as a feint: it would be an actual attack with a short-ranged hitbox and the ability to delete the enemy projectiles it touches, like Karin's V-Skills. Additionally, each time Ryu does a feint, he'd store up to, let's say, 3 charges which would enhance his fireballs to be faster, do a bit more damage and have better frame data to mimic that of his old SFII fireballs. EDIT Now that we know what Ryu has in SF6, Hasho-Geki seems like a different good alternative though it still isn't quite like the feint. Plus MP+MK is reserved for parrying. Still, Ryu could get a Feint attack by pressing 2 Punch buttons.
The SF2 fake fireball technique would work in the arcades because they would react to you doing the fireball motion and hitting a button as a sound cue for their anti-fireball tech.
Luke's sandblast is disgusting and it genuinely makes me worried about the future of fireballs in SF6. I highly doubt they'll ever go back to oldschool fireballs. They'll probably double down on the modern approach and make all fireballs slowly move closer and closer to how sandblast functions. It's a pretty clear pattern, from old SF games to SF4 to SFV and now with the addition of sandblast. It seems to be the end goal. I hope it doesn't happen though.
What's fucked up about sandblast? I barely ever saw Luke gameplay, but the near hitscan fireball does look weird. Is the recovery low enough to DP people jumping on reaction rather than prediction like a shoto?
@@cloudropis Similiar to what he said in the video about the modern version of Ryu's fireball but x10 worse. It's a glorified poke. You can't walk and block it like a normal fireball because it's unreactable, you can't neutral jump it like a normal fireball, you can't use anti-fireball moves against it, and generally the counter-play to it isn't the same. It's very annoying to play against and it doesn't have an atom of the naunce that a traditional fireball has. It's very basic, very simple, very bare-bones, and anyone can use it effectively.
Yea I kind of hate sandblast and Luke in general, but I accept it as how one character works. But I agree I worry they make it more universal which I personally not enjoy as much
@@cloudropis OP is wrong. Sandblast is good. but its not some overpowered fireball like OP is making it out as: 1) Yes Sandblast's movement speed is the fastest projectile in the game but all its other stats are horrible. It doesn't go fullscreen(not even the ex-version), the recovery is the worst in the game for a "shoto" and the startup is reactable (around 18 frames even more telegraphed by his massive forearms). While yes, his light punch sandblast's startup is unreactable, the range is very short and even in that range u aint gonna react to any of Ryu's hadouken. 2) Due to the poor recovery, sandblast is always negative on block unless you spend meter, meaning Luke can't use the standard fireball traps and u can get in closer after blocking each one than when you block Ryu's 3)Yes, while you can't use anti-fireball tools on it, I don't see that as an issue. If characters like Balrog,Bison,Ken can invalidate key parts of certain characters tools....why can't luke for them? And the usual walk and block or neutral jump tactic on basic zoners still applies to him 4) Also it does less damage than the usual fireball nor is the pushback on block that amazing. Basically, sandblast is less of a keep-away tool and more of a tool to force opponents to make mistakes in the midrange trying to force themselves on him(allowing more whiff punishes). Its also why he loses to fireball zoners like Rose or Sagat in a fireball war as they can stay in his deadzones and fire away while his fireballs cant hit them unless he gets closer (and even then his is too slow in startup to keep it going for long) And no, I'm not a Luke main nor do I have him as a pocket
Been having a blast catching up on your videos today. I am not the biggest fighting game guy, but I have always appreciated the community and skill that goes into the genre. I always loved getting together with friends to catch EVO.
As a sagat player in SFV i cannot even count on two hands how many matchups my character is completely incapable of zoning because of one ex, or even a normal special move. Having a fake fireball to bait these options would make a world of difference even if the matchup still wasnt in my favor.
I think it's only fair for every character to have anti zoning tools. For every tool or mechanic in the game, there has to be counterplay. You should have to think about your options just as much as the opponent has to.
@@raptorate2872 "For every tool or mechanic in the game, there has to be counterplay." That much is true. But what's the counterplay to anti-fireball moves? Not using fireballs? That's not much of a "counter". Faked fireballs would serve that role pretty nicely.
@@Copperhell144 counterplay to anti fireball moves is simple, you bait just like you would a dp. Your outcry about anti zoning tools is the same vein as grapplers who gotta deal with invincible DPs. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. Countering a mechanic that is meant to counter something means essentially you want to cover up weaknesses of the original move which is never good for game health and balance. Tldr what you saying is , that move doesn't allow me to zone so I must get something to beat it. The move exists precisely to shut down fireballs and it's working as intended. You are not supposed to just spam fireball from full screen away the whole round, should come with risk. "Countering a counter doesn't mean you have more options, it just means you're undermining the original counter by covering up the weaknesses of the original move." In mathematics, it would mean you are essentially cancelling the mechanics out, not adding anything to the game
@@raptorate2872 This doesn't change my question. You "bait" the opponent, but with what? How in the hell does a person get baited into using an anti-zoning move? Most anti-zoning options are usable on reaction without issue, you can't "bait" those the same way you would an anti-grab DP which CANNOT be used on reaction and needs to be used preemptively, so the comparison falls flat. You know what would be really good for baiting them, though? Fireball fakes! And so we're back to square 1... The whole paragraph on countering counters is just nonsense. Grapplers have grabs. DP's (throw invincible ones at least) counter grabs. Baiting counters DP's. But also gives up your turn/attempt at a grab. The game has depth because of this string of counters. Changing all DP's to be safe on block and unpunishable on whiff so that baiting no longer works (since DP's are "a counter" and baiting is "a counter to a counter (DP's)") would not end up adding anything to the game. The whole problem with SF5 anti-zone options is that they don't have counters, beyond "never use fireballs".
@@Copperhell144 you bait by inputting sequences that look like you gonna fireball like how all the good boys do it. Ever wonder why pros throw out random buttons in neutral ? It's to see opponents reaction. Then you have conditioning your opponent to do what you want them do. There are many ways to bait things out, git gud I guess is all I can say. Anti fireball moves are there for a reason and if they are reacting then you'll have to force them to do something else. Fireball is not the only tool that your character has. Pretty sure if you open command list , you know the thing with all the moves, yeah use that, is really helpful. Should solve half your issues and please stop pretending like anti fireball is the main problem for Zoners when especially in the current iteration of SF, Zoners are top tier except for rose. Especially when anti zoning options are far and in between and not every matchup has access to it.
As a man who tried to play Street Fighter before converting to Tekken, zoning is literally the reason I left the game. The game isn't fun when you're being zoned, it's a tedious game of micro movements or big commitments depending on your character. While I agree Ryu's hadouken is iconic, I don't think it should be as strong as it was in the past. I think mix-ups are more the way to go, and this fake fireball idea is pretty neat. Another one that I like a lot is when fireballs have different speeds depending on which button you use, which makes them worse for frame trapping, but makes jumping them predictively more risky, since you might just land on it.
HDR was the best sf game for me. I missed the boat on super turbo but HDR felt like a fair all around game to me and wasn't over the top with bells and whistles like later games are.
Ryu should get his meterless shakunetsus back. The extra bit of flexibility it gave him in combos (either to knockdown or reset standing with extra stun) was very unique to classic Ryu. I know Capcom wanted to advance his story and they decided "fire = evil" but it's one of his oldest signature moves and really makes him stand-out. Denjin is cool, but it's effectively quite different to having 6 different hadoukens ready at all times.
If good zoning is a part of ST's identity, let it be a part of ST's identity I don't want every game to be the same Honestly I also would want Capcom to explore different ways to do zoning, because as tons of other games have shown, zoning can be much more than just relentlessly chucking projectiles from fullscreen
I sure don't miss the days of Ryu being good at *everything* - poster boy or not, that's not a playstyle, that's bad balance. And as amazing as ST can be, a well balanced game it is NOT. I am however huge fan of the fake fireball. It's been used to fix this issue before and it can be again.
I made a similar video about hit stun on jump-ins a while back. The risk/reward on landing a peak height jump-in has changed drastically in newer games.
@@TheoryFighter Yeah, sometimes hitting an anti-air nets you like 50 damage with Nash or something in SFV, and slightly mistiming means eating 250 damage from a max height jump-in.
I whole heartedly agree, projectiles are ass in modern games. It's what I miss... Even in MvC3, they nerfed them in ultimate... and I talk about it all the time, fireballs need to be powerful again, they are pretty much useless now.
I wouldn’t say there were a massive nerfs in UMvC3 to zoning. Zoning strategies were prevalent, especially when paired with Dr. Doom assist, in ultimate. While they may be weaker, I personally believe the nerfs came from zoning characters like Jean having having their normals nerfed, not really their projectiles. I could be wrong as I mostly played rush down characters so I’m not as familiar with all the changes to zoners.
@@otterdonnelly9959 Morridoom was after they stopped patching, and chris G found that shit out... I assure you if they continued to patch it would have been on the chopping block. but I said they were nerfed, not that they were gone completely. again I was talking vanilla to ultimate, and even phoenix, she's the best example, because her firebgalls were most effective in the air, but nope, they limited the amount of air actions in ultimate.
Too bad our Ryu got really Nerfed on Marvel vs Capcom 2 and Ultimate marvel vs capcom 3 glad he shines on Marvel vs capcom clash of superheroes when he can transforms into Ken and Akuma
Ryu is still really great in SFV, but fireballs are almost a death sentence. Especially if you do them on wake up, you just get annihilated. I almost never use Hadoukens anymore unless I'm far enough away where a mistake won't cost me too much.
I think the fake fireball was a good idea but they should've done it by making it a low kick to trigger and if the fake completes the animation it becomes an autoblock with cancel priority. Keep the frames exactly the same so it becomes a real mind game rather than just a fake quick startup that leads into nothing. It'd still punishable with throws, you get a chip and the priority of them being in a blocking position, which is detrimental when you are playing an aggressive game (because why else would you be throwing fake hands rather than a real fireball? because you want to apply pressure and get them to move forward, that leads into your next move.) I think whiffing the input after you've thrown a fake fireball shouldn't have been as heavily punished. It just makes something that could be a niche move in someone's repertoire of zoning and mind games into an absurd, non existent tech to the point of why even bother programming it into the game. It's kind if you turned Dan into a move rather than a character, but without the punchline. It's got me wondering if there's some super, ultra mega hard to counter thing that the devs found with fake fireball while balance testing that they were too scared to not gate behind a finger breaking move of pressing start rather than, you know, a button you actually use in the game. Like start?!? FFS the only use for that button is choosing a specific colour scheme like fuscia or tartan for your Akuma on the character select screen for intimidation purposes. I have an example of a fakeout using tech that was not intended as a fakeout but actually WORKS like they wanted this fake fireball to work, I just had to think a little differently than what a move was intended for to make this routine work. I dub it the "Tepid Demon Punish" I use this fakeout to good effect to eek out an extra win or 2 in tournaments when I've found myself in a bracket playing above my weight class, when my opponent has my number and is a stronger player than me. It makes the guys I regularly game against for fun sweat bullets too. The better your opponent knows you and knows the counter to the shin goku satsu, the more likely this is to work as a mind game. In alpha 3 turbo I main Akuma. I'll choose the shin goku satsu by default as my super. Pretty standard Akuma play, pressure into a corner, don't give them a second, always on the attack, build meter and shin goku them to death. I'll mix it up with zoning air fireballs etc. but pretty standard play. Honestly, shin goku is one of the weaker supers, it's just hidden behind a glamour of flashy nonsense graphics and the startup is a basic grab with a distance on a character that you don't expect to be a grappler. Experienced players know this and know the counter is to jump it without attacking, because if a single pixel of a non super/ aism/vsim whatever touches the grab then it's instant 1000 deaths. Before I shin goku I slap the cabinet with my palm and knee making a loud bang. I'm using pavlov's training on my opponent on what will come next. I then rattle off the inptus like normal. After ive lost a few rounds and between rounds I'll smack talk and take the opponents attention off the screen. Instead of choosing shin goku I'll choose messatsu gou shouryuu. At the right time during the match I slap the cabinet and pretend to input the shin goku satsu but then actually do his normal across screen teleport. (always tap LP to sell the fakeout) Before the teleport finishes I lazily start the anti air messatsu gou shouryuu. The punish of doing the teleport and with a side eye to my opponent, following up the fake shin goku while slowly punching in the inputs for the anti air super to take the last 1/4 of their life meter is orgasmic. It's like "you chose to jump over my teleport, you chose to not attack and now I'm taking the last of your life bar with a super while you are a few pixels off the ground. You literally COULD be slapping any attack button right now to mess me up but you are choosing NOT to. The startup to the teleport and the super isn't even the same. What were you thinking?" The beauty then is when you DO take shin goku as your super but never use it and you repeatedly teleport and punish because they still treat the teleport like it is a shin goku. Throw in a shin goku every once in a while and announce verbally that you are doing it when you do to see them furiously slap attacks and be punished just to really mess them up.
I'm so glad you mentioned Ryu as the main character which brings to my next point..... Street Fighter 6 should have all New Characters period. I literally don't want see nobody returning from 5. Ryu and Ken joined by all New Characters and new Story! Sincerely,
The most interesting/fun version of Ryu is without a doubt 3s Ryu, zoning was garbage in that game, but his ex fireballs were great, that was it as far as fireballs, the character was absolutely wicked nonetheless.
I feel like HD Remix (which I adore and think is a great game) may have put a bad stink on fake fireball because it can be used for stuff that it's not even remotely supposed to be used for, the most infamous example being that if Ryu is close enough to sweep he can sweep into fake fireball, recover very plus, and get a basically inescapable grab setup, if I remember the tech correctly.
In Fantasy Strike (made by the same guy as HD Remix), the Ryu counterpart Grave has a much slower, larger fireball that dissipates after a moment done by holding down the button. It can serve a similar purpose to fake fireballs, making it much more difficult to punish like a normal one while not really accomplishing anything if the opponent *doesn't* try to go for a normal fireball reaction.
Just give him a red or anti air fireball, if sakura can throw one upwards, ryucould too Or just give him electric fireballs with better stun as default
I'd love to see a follow-up to this, because a lot of your points about Ryu being good at all ranges I feel applies to Luke currently, especially given that he's the poster boy of sf6.
I may be in the minority but I prefer this editing style over the last few videos. It's way less busy and distracting. It allows me to focus on your words and what's being said, rather than having to try and keep up with what's happening on screen.
I don’t think Capcom *needs* to make Ryu have good fireballs. After all, in 3S he is a decent character, and 3S is a game where fireballs aren’t even good as glorified pokes, god forbid as a fullscreen option.
Just make an energy bar or whatever, where using fireballs or certain abilities drain it so you can't just spam it. Lorewise, it makes sense as well, the character is literally shooting out energy. Or put a cooldown, or something.
@@The_Meev I used to think the sprites looked cheap like a cellphone game but blown up. I prefer chunky pixels usually but even still this doesnt look half bad.
It's too bad Tatsunoko vs. Capcom never took off as much as it could have. Ryu's fireball on that game is legitimately absolutely godlike. It has just an OBSCENE amount of hitstun. It's so damned good.
your new SF fire ball criticisms applies to SFV easily but im not sure if the same can be said for SF4, fireballs were the entire neutral of some characters in that game (guile obv, gouken as well) and they were good characters!
Theory you always put out the best videos. Question: if a fake fireball is not in the future for modern fighters, what do you feel about increasing the reward on hit / block for fireballs? In ST and Alpha, fireballs have huge push back on block and really great frames as you mentioned. You had mentioned characters and system being able to deal with fireballs as the third reason to their weakened presence but do you think increasing some of those previous buffs in an environment where navigating them is easier would be a compromise? I'm wondering how good fireballs can be if they maintained the same level of risk for the user but increased their effectiveness in a game like SFV, or would that just increased the perceived "randomness". Either way, I'm always stoked when you make videos so please keep making em! Also still waiting on that spotify playlist with the songs you use for your vids :)
I love this video. I've been thinking for a long time how much I hate how fireballs have been nerfed more and more and might be the reason I've been obsessed with playing Super Turbo for the last couple of years. And I dont even play shotos anymore, I play Fei Long now.
Something about claiming Ryu's projectiles being obscenely strong and then showing someone simply not blocking an ultra common setup is kinda hilarious. Like yeah they were pretty good but it's the least of your problems with competent players. Ryu doesn't need a fake fireball in ST because his recovery time after throwing is already great. Old Ryu's is even better at the cost of not having a super and can't tech throws. Claiming Fei had issues is kinda weird since he had an amazing dp and chicken wing, and chicken wing combos into strong punch which goes right back into chicken wing for a stun combo. Most of the time countering fireballs in ST with /any/ character is simply playing neutral and kicking their hands when they try, denying them that strength and space. I'm glad a lot of other people are enjoying a video tangentially surrounded by ST, but a lot of the info in this video is kinda bad tbh.
I love how Theory Fighter says he doesn't agree with the balance changes made in Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, but he respects the logic behind them, cuz most fighting game pundits just go "this change ruined Street Fighter" or "Street Fighter would be good again if they brought this back" like the meta is only good when they specifically enjoy it
Fully agree
get good
😊
Disagree, what's the point of releasing a nostalgia game and change stuff people liked? Remix ain't a release meant to be an eSport
@@livanbardhis point is still valid, maybe not to Super Turbo HD Remix.
Granted you could argue that since it says REMIX, changes should be expected. It's a remix after all, not a pure release. Especially since people could really like those changes.
The ironic part is that the hadoken is actually really good outside of street fighter. Most VS games Ryu is in make it massive and hard to avoid, while smash bros make all versions great for pressure because they devour shields. Even RPGs and cards games use it as a strong projectile that often one shots weaker enemies.
MegaMan X makes it an instakill for every thing 😭
Hadouken is a cultural icon.
PlP😊😊😊😊
It wishes it was a Kamehameha wave
In earlier editions of Street Fighter II damage was partially randomized, a single hadouken could take nearly 20% of their lifebar
3:47 From the perspective of Ryu being the franchise's poster boy, it does make sense for him to be well rounded in each game's core mechanics.
Hes ass in 5 though even after the last update
Not really though, most protagonists nowadays are made for you to have easy and accessible (but not overwhelming) mid-screen pressure and decent neutral for you to get started (Ragna, Sol, Shun'ei, Shiki, etc) , the 'jack of all trades' role is relegated to the rival
@@notimeforcreativenamesjust3034 As far as I can tell Jimmy says he's really good now. And I've seen a few clips demonstrating his new strengths in a pretty strong light. To say he's ass is pretty far fetched.
On another note, I don't think Ryu is necessarily bad at zoning. I just don't think zoning someone out the entire game is really that valuable. And really that doesn't mean he's not well-rounded. He can zone against someone like Geif. Being well-rounded doesn't mean you can effectively adapt any one certain playstyle. It just means your character is capable of effectively utilizing many different styles. So just because he gets outzoned by Guile, doesn't mean he can't effectively zone out someone like Gief or Mika. Because someone like Kage doesn't get his fireball to zone as effectively which means he may be forced in unfavorable situations
games hes not tho
@@notimeforcreativenamesjust3034 what game you playin bro
It'd great to see Dan get a fake super hadoken; animation and effects included. it'd be a powerful tool (like three times less recovery frames than his actual super), while keeping his meme nature.
I second this.
Have him warm it up, and do everything like normal. Then, he rolls and gives a thumbs up with full body intangible. If you come in contact with him, knockdown, and he gets the meter back.
@@PrecludeLP Ship it
Have it so that the fake for Dan is actually a stronger version of the normal fireball that travels fullscreen.
What's "it'd" & does it go with the context being said???
*it'll
I 100% agree with you. Ryu without a strong Hadouken is basically just slower Ken.
I’m surprised Ryu hasn’t gotten back the false fireball. Especially since Arc Sys also has their own version via Gunflame and GunFlame Feint. a 214P or a 236K input would be great for SF
Also, Haohmaru has a fake whirlwind and Guile doesn't have a fake Boom but can do a similar thing with one of his normals
@@monchete9934 stand mp or throw both look like boom startup
Yeah no, Gunflame Feint's existence, despite objectively being a weaker projectile on a much more rushdown character, is fascinating, and in my opinion frequently showed its usefulness, limited usefulness of Gunflame be damned.
Been waiting on the return of the fake hadouken forever in modern SF games.
@@trembling3674 character pretends to shoot fireball
Kinda made me think about Hyde's fireball for some reason. I liked the different follow ups he has.
Much preferred that as it forces both players to think without putting one of them at an extreme disadvantage.
I think that an easy way to balance fireballs and zoning in general without making them terrible comes down to making movement better. I'm not talking about making every fighting game an anime fighter with air-dashing and double jumps (although those do help quite a lot) because many KOF games still have strong projectiles and zoning, but the myriad of different jump arcs and the ability to roll keeps them from being overwhelming without giving every character some way to just literally ignore all zoning.
Parries are great for this too, when they work on projectiles.(which ArcSys was too forward to give to Baiken in Strive).
Like in 3rd Strike, they can nullify projectiles but they don't get you any closer to the opponent. And, if a parry leaves you at 0 upon using it on a projectile, it maintains fair risk-reward.
@@s_factor_sam The problem with that is that in 3rd Strike, parrying attacks gets you a good chunk of meter, so if the opponent is just throwing out projectiles, you can just easily parry them and build meter very quickly in a game where many characters become very scary when they have meter. It's why you don't see fireball wars very often and why 3rd Strike is overall a more aggressive game.
This is a good point. E. Honda's Neutral Jumping Fierce in Super Turbo allows him to slightly "steer" himself to the left or right while in the air. This is really useful since it is difficult for him to jump over fireballs. So imagine instead of giving him the ability to headbutt through a fireball, you went a route where you allowed him to steer a bit farther. Anything that helps you go over or under fireballs, while not giving you something that directly beats it, can preserve strong projectiles. Another option that might help for the non fireball characters in Super Turbo to get in would be to reduce the pushback from blocking a projectile; just on those characters who need it. The pushback is pretty extreme, and one of the reasons why zoning is so powerful.
That approach (rolling specifically) greatly improved my Zangief game in Alpha 2.
@@s_factor_samIf Baiken parried projectiles she basically kills all setplay currently in the game
Zoner main here, I love fireballs, antiairs, and midrange pokes more than any other type of move. Ryu's fireball feeling gross to use turns me off from using him.
when they buffed VT1 in SFV it was very fun to use hadoken again though.
You're why they nerfed the fireball.
Hi grappler main here
*Stares in piledriver*
I just taught my 10 yr old nephew how to perform a fire ball....then we started a fire ball tug of war. Love those!
Grapper main here. I hate you and once I get close to you I will grab you to dead.
SF4 was in a pretty good spot I think. The fireballs themselves weren't as good as they were in ST, but they were better than any other SF game AND the anti-airs in that game were incredibly punishing to make up the difference. And if I remember correctly you could almost do a proper fireball trap with ryu if you got them with a meaty one during oki.
Eh, a lot of characters in SF4 had one bar punishes or Ultras that meant they focus them.
Think the problem is that some of these characters have been changed so much that the dev teams don't even know whose been buffed or nerfed over the years.
Antiairs were pretty mediocre in 4, SFV has punishing antiairs.
@@StylishGaz lol pretty sure ryus H srk normal damage 180 & 200 on counter hit in SF4 and SF5 H srk is 130 normal and 150 counter hit.
not to mention you can light srk into super/Ultra or Mid srk FADC ultra for anti air.... you can't get shit... landing 4 CH H SRk's already does 800
@@itsjustavi everything traded in sf4 but trading was the point, because then you got a free juggle to ultra afterwards for eleventy billion damage.
7:24 there was actually some tech designed around this oddity. People learned how to do the hadoken with one hand. That way, they would look like they were going for a fake hadoken, but actually do the move with one hand as some extra mind games.
Tl:dr people faked a fake input with a real input.
lmao, that's just wacky as fuck
Now that I remember it, I've witnessed that in matches I've watched, and it never clicked that was what was being done. edit: This is going back years. I thought they were just being cocky doing hadoukens like that! 😲
@@The_Conundrum_Crew
Hahaha
You are quite literally one of the very few guys who makes ACTUAL Fighting Game content without resorting to low hanging fruit. Cheers.
Also suggest Leon Massey and Gekkosquirrel as they do pretty great content about fighting games, mentality and even some game design topics that are universal but have a bit grounding in fighting games!
@clxxd999 legit…..what are these examples of low hanging fruit? To me low hanging fruit would be mentioning other content creators to make you feel better about this channel…that’s op is giving to me
@True Metal _What's "actual fighting game content" consists of? Talking about the obvious actions ryu does or doesn't do? Cuz that's what this youtuber said in this vid.
@@scro910 low hanging fruit is “content that OP doesn’t like”
@clxxd999 it's clickbait stuff like "OMG THOSE KOF XIII TRIALS ARE BEATING ME UP" with a picture of Jwong doing a pog face.
As someone who plays GGST, and not a lot of SF, an interesting parallel is how Sol has fake gunflame. However due to gunflame being mostly used as a way to reset pressure when spaced out than as a zoning tool, the fake gunflame serves to be another layer on his pressure game. And this possibility seems very interesting to me, because depending on how capcom changes the hadoken a fake fireball could be a very interesting tool that functions as another layer in both his pressure and zoning which would reinforce ryu's identity as an all-rounder.
Although gunflame feint in an interesting move it has never been an actual usefull move in any game
@@harryvpn1462 it has uses as a frame kill for Oki in xrd. Like it's not a great use but it's still a use.
@@arcfieri5965 you are right but its literally just to help meaty with gf after 6p 6h ender
@@harryvpn1462 Also didn't it have a hitbox in acr, it could probably be used as a funny disrespect option to flex on your opponent as you kill them with gunflame feint
@@arcfieri5965 yeah it does have a very small hitbox that does a little dmg, it allows for bm strategies like gunflame feint rc wthrow and comboing into it to kill, but thats all really unviable lol
Funny enough some of the Fatal Fury games have Feints like Fake Fireballs, but the execution is a bit different
Taking Garou: Mark of the Wolves as an example, basically a character had 2 feints.
What moves are feinted is character specific, but one's with 6AC and one's on 2AC
Most Feints were extremely fast on recovery to my knowledge (yes, correct me if i'm wrong, on all of this), so they ended up being a safe way to end pressure strings, and a way to combo from a heavy normal to another normal, making the combo game more flexible.
But I feel that rushdown application kinda overshadows using it as an actual feint, since a lot of the feints you see the most are the ones that are best at pressure & combos. Marco's DP Feint and Terry's Burn Knuckle A feint for example. And when some of the better characters make their way in, it's utterly nasty, thanks to Brakes, other tech they might have, and of course feints. I only recall hearing Freeman (a bottom 3 char) primarily used his feints as a strategy, but that's probably because he couldn't use them for his rushdown as well
Not to mention, some feints were for Supers... in a game where every Super has a superflash. Marco feinting his Super Fireball doesn't work as well if the Super Fireball itself has a superflash.
And sometimes there's more case by case bases, like Rock's Reppuuken feint, when Reppuuken is a pretty average fireball at best, nowhere near on the same level as what Marco or Kain use
I would like to see this come back tho, but idk how i'd balance it outside of making feints just a character specific thing
Sol has a feint gun flame in a lot of the guilty gear titles, and weirdly it has a hit box sometimes
I wish I could like this video 10x. I actually suggested his VS2 be a fake fireball in SFV. The other parry type move he got is redundant.
The ironic thing is that if they wanted a quicker more aggressive game they should have played alpha 3 and 3rd strike a lot more. This isn't a new thing they've been doing this since 1998 and before
While anti-fireball moves *are* part of the problem, I wouldn't want them to go anywhere. It's an incredibly frustrating experience when your only options in any situation are "jump" and "block". The thing is, in Street Fighter 5 there are plenty of successful fireball characters, particularly Guile and Luke, but others are just as adequate. The problem is that Ryu relies too much on them for his midrange game since he lacks any other neutral options.
All that being said, if I were to be designing street fighter 6, I'd operate with these tenants to "Bring back the hadouken"
1. Meterless anti-fireball moves shouldn't lead to offense by themselves. They should take space and present risk, never knockdown or start combos.
2. Ryu needs every kind of fireball. He needs a slow-moving fireball you can chase for offense and setplay, a fast one you can zone with, and a reliable mid-speed fireball with faster start-up and recovery. If we're being extra saucy, give him an anti-air fireball. The hadouken is ryu's signature move, he needs to to be able to do everything a linear fireball can do.
3. Ryu needs to have tools outside of his hadoken he can use in neutral. If the opponent has meter and is looking for a fireball, you need to have the option to not give it to them.
Saying anti fireball/zoning tools is kinda vague, the issue is specifically reaction EX and supers that lead to knockdowns/pressure. The whole point of throwing fireballs, or any sort of long term zoning strategy is to force options that you can potentially bait and punish, hard counters make this impractical. Why would anyone make a risky approach when they could just wait until they have enough meter to shutdown fireball play?
The way games like SF4 balanced this was with meterless reversals, if zoning fails you can take a risk to escape and spend meter to make it safe, but SFV decided to take them away. So what we're left with is rushdown characters that can deny zoning, but zoners that can't reliably deny pressure. Give Ryu all the neutral tools you want, you could even give him a meterless shakunetsu or denjin, it won't change the fact that the system heavily incentivizes and rewards rushdown.
I understand that it's frustrating to get zoned out, and walking forward and neutral jumping isn't anyone's idea of a fun time, but then, neither is being forced to block and then getting stunned because you guessed wrong. If zoning has hard counters, so should pressure. Either that or reintroduce chip kills and other mechanics that reward zoning.
@@hijster479 The thing is, you *have* options in SF5 when getting rushed down. Lots of them. You have V-Reversal, which is safe on block and can be done out of blockstun. You have V-Shift, which can get you out of frame trap situations and punish your opponent by pushing them back to zoning range, or by punishing forward advancing moves. You've got an invincible reversal, wakeup backdash, Delay tech, a three frame jab and just plain old blocking.
The problem with Ryu isn't his fireball in SF5. If it was then Guile would be in the pits with him, but he's not. The problem is that his neutral hinges on the fireball, where Guile's does not. You talk about "wait until you have meter to shutdown fireball play", well that's the thing: Now they're waiting on a fireball. If you then proceed to not throw a fireball then you could take a lot of space for free, or jump on them, or dash on them. A fireball is a strong tool, but it shouldn't be your only tool. If you read a fireball by mentally being ready to react to it, you should be rewarded.
@@kevingriffith6011 My point isn't that there aren't any defensive options, it's that the risk reward is completely different. Fireball punishes effectively shutdown zoning in a lot of situations. This is what I mean by a hard counter, you basically admitted that it's better to do something other than zone when EX is an option.
IMO, Blocking, Delay tech, V-Shift and even V-Reversal are soft counters. Only the latter two even get you back to neutral, both of them cost resource, deal no damage, and one of them wasn't even in the game for most of its life. None of these options really punish pressure. Worst case scenario the agressor loses some white life and a little space, they're hardly a reason to give up pressure. I'm not necessarily saying this is bad in a vacuum, but i feel like this kind of design philosophy should apply to all playstyles or none.
Meterless reversals and even certain command grabs added risk to running pressure. Something like DP Fadc Ultra can win the game if it works, but SFV has almost nothing like this. The most recent patch even removed EX reversals for some characters, it really seems like Capcom doesn't want players to have to second guess their pressure. All I'm saying is that zoning should get the same treatment, players shouldn't have to second guess their fireballs, but moves that are hard coded to beat projectiles make this difficult.
@@hijster479 You keep acting like the fireball is the only possible way you can zone, which is patently false for characters with good neutral, which in SF5 ryu doesn't have.
The problem is that if a singular move defines your kit then the weaknesses of that move are going to be amplified, because no one move should be without an effective answer on read. My examples *are* hard counters to specific moves, but soft counters to pressure because pressure is not a single move but a collection of moves working together to form a fighting game concept. If you want an answer to anti-fireball moves, it should start by expanding your gameplan beyond the fireball.
@@kevingriffith6011 I completely agree with everything you said, except one point. Using an EX/super with projectile invul generally isn't read, good players can do so on reaction, I know because I've done it myself.
I'm not saying Fireballs shouldn't have counters, that's why I specified in my first comment. And I'm all for different kinds of zoning, but Zoning in Street fighter has always been, and still is primarily focused on fireballs And Ryu is supposed to be the poster boy. Even your op specifically mentioned new fireballs. What other neutral tools would you give him? Dhalsim normals? Karin/Seths ability to convert pokes to knockdowns? A fullscreen Command Grab? I feel like nerfing anti-fireball tools or giving more options to get back to neutral is a simpler solution without changing the game too much.
Watching this after playing SF6 makes me feel like Capcom watched this video to make him in 6
EX hadouken should just be a gun, quick startup and recovery, instant travel time, but it's limited to 7 bullets
They gave that to Luke
This comment made me think about Sharon in Fighting Ex Layer, she has a Revolver that is limited to 6 bullets. I can't remember if she only had those 6 bullets through the entire match or for each round.
Fortnite Ryu
Sounds like Happy Chaos
I know the vid is specifically about fireballs, but broadly about Ryu being good, people played him in V because he was Ryu, and they overcame his terrible normals by using him as an in-fighting bully with throw loops, easy confirms with good damage, and jab anti-airs, but the balance patches decided, "Nope! How dare you find a way to make this mess functional?!"
The coolest thing I think would be to let Ryu charge the hadouken by holding the button and let him cancel it by pressing kick, similar to SF5 Poison's whip stance. A charged hadouken could also reduce the recovery of the move, making it harder to punish. This could add *tons* of nuance to the fireball as both a pressure and zoning tool. You could fake the hadoken while zoning, do hadoken-cancel tick throw mixups at close range, get setplay by charging a hadoken on a downed opponent... I could see a lot of potential there.
I wonder why this has never happened. I know E Ryu could charge his Super (UA 1?) to get more damage and such, but that was it.
@@KingCuba
There was VT1 in SFV. The only part of this description in which he couldn’t do that was cancel it.
@@slimballs9650 Yeah. I do think the cancel part is the most important in it, but he absolutely can do this in SF5.
Gouken could kinda do this, maybe its about time ryu surpassed his master
@@KingCuba because at the end of the day having a fireball doesn't make the character easier to play, it actually makes it harder if you're not completely specialized into zoning
Man I'd be so down for a TF take on HD Remix. I read sirlin's articles multiple times (they low-key act as character primers for their ST incarnation) and he's very good at convincing you his rationale is rock solid and well tested, then I asked most people I know and trust about fighting game stuff and I mostly got "lmao horizontal flash kick are you insane", and other observations on how the new kits in practice are often wack. Sirlin also talked at length, on a reddit thread, about how reticent the ST community was towards the game, going as far as heavily downplaying SnakeEyez winning with Zangief because he wasn't old blood enough and HDR doesn't count. Plus, you still have people harping on how supposedly tournament legal Akuma was, in fact, completely broken as a dunk towards Sirlin when he's the first to acknowledge it's because of an unintended interaction they couldn't get fixed in time.
I'd like an informed take by a good ST content creator about this whole thing, if sirlin is actually a misunderstood genius mobbed by a grouchy community, or if he vastly overrated the quality of his changes
Sirlin almost certainly overrated the quality of his changes lol. He's incredibly defensive when anyone says anything that can be perceived as negative, and I have most often see him being boldly wrong about games he doesn't even play, so my natural instinct is to not trust him
Horizontal Flash Kick was one of the balanced tools that didn’t break the game lol. Most people remember HDR as the game that broke E Honda. Personally I do like the game.
@@NeoBoneGirl Sirlin is a better game designer than he is a communicator, so I don’t blame people for disliking him as a person. That said, he genuinely does know what he’s talking about when it comes to games IMO.
@@meathir4921 I think he’s kind of a hack who people listen to because he’s old blood, especially when he was ripping off Guilty Gear characters and making them lamer in Fantasy Strike
@@NeoBoneGirl I think that’s extremely pessimistic when the whole of Fantasy Strike is characters based off of common FG characters? I think Fantasy Strike succeeds in what it sets out to do.
I think you make a good point here, but something worth considering is how your point might function across different skill levels. When many people start out, the fireball seems insurmountable, they struggle to even jump over it. Then, learning about their options for dealing with it helps them learn about reactions and managing meter, and other options their character might have. But you are right that in general, at the top level of a lot of games, zoning is not as much of an identity as it used to be.
Fireballs are cheap. It's good if there is a way to counter them otherwise you have those super boring almost bug exploit like fights where Sagat just goes Tiger Tiger Tiger crouch-kick Tiger Tiger Tiger crouch-kick for the entire fight.
I agree with all these points. And I also absolutely loved HD Remix. It’s such a fun game. The tournaments were hype. I really think it needed a 100% faithful old school graphics mode though. I think the updated look turned a lot of people off, even if some aspects of it were done really well.
Don't forget the remixed music! I for one didn't feel it was better than just the original arcade version. HD Remix was made with good intentions but it is simply not played and I don't feel it ever really caught on.
It was hideous 🖼 👾
HD remix was probably the most clean looking SF.
HD Remix already had the ability to switch all of that though
@@d0k0night hd remixes music was hot garbage
I wish we had an HDR with balance patches and slightly less wild changes. I was absolutely in love with the art and animations and the ideas of the changes back in the day and I liked the idea of all of the fine tuning settings in the options for balancing the game like turning stored inputs on or off. That was really cool stuff that is really rare to see in fighting games. But in the long run I think HDR only succeeded in reviving interest in ST and making people appreciate it more for the masterpiece it really is.
HDR was genius, it needs some more balancing but it's the best version so far. Add USF2's grab canceling and maybe add an Ultra meter or something to add a new, more modern dynamic. Kinda weird Ultra Street Fighter 2 didn't add Ultras like Super Street Fighter added Supers 🤔
Check out a version of ST someone is working on called "New Legacy." It uses less extreme balance changes to really fix some of the bad matchups without changing much else. He is constantly making changes based on feedback and it is in a really good spot. It also has new colors to choose from for each character, and this guy actually created a playable and balanced version of Akuma... something no one else has accomplished with ST. I really hope it catches on since it is the best overall version of ST out there.
The art and animation is disgusting
@@christoferprestipino7433 It grew on me.
@@Vulpas really, those clownish proportions and jankyb animation grew on you? Ok.
Then there's Third Strike which attempted deprioritize the projectile
Which is why it's the best
@@raptorate2872 I'd say Alpha 2, but to each their own.
To me one of the issues with Hadokens in SFV is that some characters can legitimately be full screen and just absorb the fireball for some gain (Bison, Nash, Ryu). It’s one thing to have to react act close range but it’s another when no matter where you are you can still get a punish for them using an option that should be safe from that range.
That's the point, you're supposed to have characters that counter Zoners. Everyone is supposed to have weaknesses and bad matchups. But one can hardly complain about zoners in sf5 when all of them are top tier except for maybe rose
If you're being reliably punished then I don't think you know what "should" actually means lol
Then... ermmm, don't use fireballs from full screen? Or use a weak version so you can catch up with said fireball and punish them for doing that? Being able to use a fireball doesn't mean that using it would be a smart move, just as much as if SF2 zangief is at footsies range you cannot use a fireball since he can punish you with double lariat and Vega can do the same if he is full screen away from you but not if he is closer, matchup is a factor
HD Remix fake fireball was so fun! I'm so glad you brought it up.
HDR is so underrated, and isn't properly ported anywhere modern.
While I do agree with most of your points about how zoning could stand to be better by giving them ways to bait anti-projectile options, I don't think Ryu is the best vessel for this, as while his hadoken is iconic, it was very centralizing on his kit. You yourself said that Ryu was supposed to serve as an introduction to all forms of play, but the changes you propose seem to want to return him to being a zoner? I can see thinking his hadoukens are undertuned in modern SF games, and I even see the beauty of a game like ST, but I dunno if I want Ryu to have this type of tool, although I'd love it on guile or Sagat, for example
Yeah that's entirely fair enough. I could see it on a character like Sagat, i think regardless of who it ends up on I view it as an interesting way in which they could make zoning a bit more potent.
Honestly to me it makes more sense for the protagonist of the franchise and also stoic karate man to have a more fundamentals-focused gameplay as opposed to being geared towards zoning
@@Sorrelhas is there really anything more fundamental than a fireball trap though?
@@a1337turtle Fireball frametraps are so fundamental I've never heard of them until he mentioned it in this video
How can ryu be an introduction to all forms of gameplay, including zoning, if he can't zone?
I don't have a lot of input on the specifics of this video (I've never been a Ryu player and only been into fighting games the last 5 years), so I'll just stick to saying that I love the way your break things down and explain them, and ESPECIALLY how you make a clear distinction between "this is how I feel, but that doesn't make the devs or anyone else wrong." It's clear how much love and respect you have for the genre because even when you're critical, you're still open, honest, self-aware, and respectful of devs and other players.
that fei long change only reminds me of this twitch comment i saw that read:
sirlin dropped some fei long combo and a dude i was sitting next to yelled "YOU FIXED THAT DAWG IT DOESNT WORK ANYMORE"
I completely agree with this.
FG devs' tendency to pander to the preference for explosive in-fighting as well as bending the knee to complaints against Zoning and Turtling have ruined most modern FGs for me.
In doing so, they taint core donations of the genre (such as the fireball game and Strike-Block-Throw triangle) and take away/reduce freedom of playstyle choice by making unpopular and defensive playstyles less viable or outright penalized/prevented.
Sadly, like you say, this tendency isn't going away anytime soon. Not when the average attention span is a measly 7-12 seconds and people often call defensive out-boxers like Mayweather "cowards".
As long as the prevailing sentiment is that anything besides offensive in-fighting is "boring", this genre will never regain some of those factors that made fighting games great for more types of players than JUST those who prefer offense.
Which is why, even though I've played fighting games for 20 years, I've mostly stopped playing then and am now finding that my defense-oriented skillset is rewarded much more in MOBAs, Battle Royales, and PvE games like Monster Hunter and Souls-likes instead.
I think it'sless complicated than that, it's just an appeal to casuals, as usual, to try and broaden the demographics in detriment of the core fanbase...
@@mrZavior Or zoners are just salty that they have to use more than 2 braincells and gameplay doesn't revolve around fireball -> anti-air, that other players have to play too and not just block or jump. Seeing zoners getting punished for throwing braindead fireballs never gets old. The reason why it is called freaking fighting game not a side-scroller shooter.
This vid is 2 years old but what I’m about to say is still relevant to today. The biggest problem with Ryu is that his moveset has remained rather tame, meanwhile the new characters have gotten trickier and trickier. Ryu is base. He has to be, he’s the simple fighter, the eternal challenger, lone wolf. He can’t have projectile that hangs around and can be detonated like JP. He can’t have a sliding tackle or full screen attack that can change directions like blanka or a wall jump like Rashid. Even guile, the guy with least super moves can throw a string of sonic booms. Ryu isn’t tricky enough for street fighter. Even Ken got his dragon lash. The other side of the coin is that everyone has either played or played against a version of Ryu, so everyone has Ryu tech. There aren’t as many surprises coming from him. It’s hard to make Ryu a top character again because to do so would mean giving him a moveset outside of what is Ryu. The best Ryu imo was evil Ryu in sf4. And that character proved the only way to make Ryu a true top tier was to make him into a different character with a better moveset.
"That input is wild" is unintentionally hilarious.
A fun idea to try out in SFVI would be to give Ryu a V-Skill with the MP+MK buttons, which would be the feint. However, it wouldn't just be used purely as a feint: it would be an actual attack with a short-ranged hitbox and the ability to delete the enemy projectiles it touches, like Karin's V-Skills.
Additionally, each time Ryu does a feint, he'd store up to, let's say, 3 charges which would enhance his fireballs to be faster, do a bit more damage and have better frame data to mimic that of his old SFII fireballs.
EDIT
Now that we know what Ryu has in SF6, Hasho-Geki seems like a different good alternative though it still isn't quite like the feint. Plus MP+MK is reserved for parrying.
Still, Ryu could get a Feint attack by pressing 2 Punch buttons.
Holy shit they did it
The SF2 fake fireball technique would work in the arcades because they would react to you doing the fireball motion and hitting a button as a sound cue for their anti-fireball tech.
Luke's sandblast is disgusting and it genuinely makes me worried about the future of fireballs in SF6.
I highly doubt they'll ever go back to oldschool fireballs.
They'll probably double down on the modern approach and make all fireballs slowly move closer and closer to how sandblast functions. It's a pretty clear pattern, from old SF games to SF4 to SFV and now with the addition of sandblast. It seems to be the end goal.
I hope it doesn't happen though.
What's fucked up about sandblast? I barely ever saw Luke gameplay, but the near hitscan fireball does look weird. Is the recovery low enough to DP people jumping on reaction rather than prediction like a shoto?
@@cloudropis Similiar to what he said in the video about the modern version of Ryu's fireball but x10 worse.
It's a glorified poke. You can't walk and block it like a normal fireball because it's unreactable, you can't neutral jump it like a normal fireball, you can't use anti-fireball moves against it, and generally the counter-play to it isn't the same. It's very annoying to play against and it doesn't have an atom of the naunce that a traditional fireball has.
It's very basic, very simple, very bare-bones, and anyone can use it effectively.
@@Ghanemq8 its an NRS fireball, except that you cant duck it i hear, unlike NRS fireballs
Yea I kind of hate sandblast and Luke in general, but I accept it as how one character works. But I agree I worry they make it more universal which I personally not enjoy as much
@@cloudropis OP is wrong. Sandblast is good. but its not some overpowered fireball like OP is making it out as:
1) Yes Sandblast's movement speed is the fastest projectile in the game but all its other stats are horrible. It doesn't go fullscreen(not even the ex-version), the recovery is the worst in the game for a "shoto" and the startup is reactable (around 18 frames even more telegraphed by his massive forearms). While yes, his light punch sandblast's startup is unreactable, the range is very short and even in that range u aint gonna react to any of Ryu's hadouken.
2) Due to the poor recovery, sandblast is always negative on block unless you spend meter, meaning Luke can't use the standard fireball traps and u can get in closer after blocking each one than when you block Ryu's
3)Yes, while you can't use anti-fireball tools on it, I don't see that as an issue. If characters like Balrog,Bison,Ken can invalidate key parts of certain characters tools....why can't luke for them? And the usual walk and block or neutral jump tactic on basic zoners still applies to him
4) Also it does less damage than the usual fireball nor is the pushback on block that amazing.
Basically, sandblast is less of a keep-away tool and more of a tool to force opponents to make mistakes in the midrange trying to force themselves on him(allowing more whiff punishes). Its also why he loses to fireball zoners like Rose or Sagat in a fireball war as they can stay in his deadzones and fire away while his fireballs cant hit them unless he gets closer (and even then his is too slow in startup to keep it going for long)
And no, I'm not a Luke main nor do I have him as a pocket
Glad to see a return to your classic editing style. Great video!
A link to the Super turbo HDR article in the description would be nice
Been having a blast catching up on your videos today. I am not the biggest fighting game guy, but I have always appreciated the community and skill that goes into the genre. I always loved getting together with friends to catch EVO.
As a sagat player in SFV i cannot even count on two hands how many matchups my character is completely incapable of zoning because of one ex, or even a normal special move.
Having a fake fireball to bait these options would make a world of difference even if the matchup still wasnt in my favor.
I think it's only fair for every character to have anti zoning tools. For every tool or mechanic in the game, there has to be counterplay. You should have to think about your options just as much as the opponent has to.
@@raptorate2872 "For every tool or mechanic in the game, there has to be counterplay." That much is true. But what's the counterplay to anti-fireball moves? Not using fireballs? That's not much of a "counter". Faked fireballs would serve that role pretty nicely.
@@Copperhell144 counterplay to anti fireball moves is simple, you bait just like you would a dp. Your outcry about anti zoning tools is the same vein as grapplers who gotta deal with invincible DPs. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. Countering a mechanic that is meant to counter something means essentially you want to cover up weaknesses of the original move which is never good for game health and balance. Tldr what you saying is , that move doesn't allow me to zone so I must get something to beat it. The move exists precisely to shut down fireballs and it's working as intended. You are not supposed to just spam fireball from full screen away the whole round, should come with risk. "Countering a counter doesn't mean you have more options, it just means you're undermining the original counter by covering up the weaknesses of the original move." In mathematics, it would mean you are essentially cancelling the mechanics out, not adding anything to the game
@@raptorate2872 This doesn't change my question. You "bait" the opponent, but with what? How in the hell does a person get baited into using an anti-zoning move? Most anti-zoning options are usable on reaction without issue, you can't "bait" those the same way you would an anti-grab DP which CANNOT be used on reaction and needs to be used preemptively, so the comparison falls flat. You know what would be really good for baiting them, though? Fireball fakes! And so we're back to square 1...
The whole paragraph on countering counters is just nonsense. Grapplers have grabs. DP's (throw invincible ones at least) counter grabs. Baiting counters DP's. But also gives up your turn/attempt at a grab. The game has depth because of this string of counters. Changing all DP's to be safe on block and unpunishable on whiff so that baiting no longer works (since DP's are "a counter" and baiting is "a counter to a counter (DP's)") would not end up adding anything to the game. The whole problem with SF5 anti-zone options is that they don't have counters, beyond "never use fireballs".
@@Copperhell144 you bait by inputting sequences that look like you gonna fireball like how all the good boys do it. Ever wonder why pros throw out random buttons in neutral ? It's to see opponents reaction. Then you have conditioning your opponent to do what you want them do. There are many ways to bait things out, git gud I guess is all I can say. Anti fireball moves are there for a reason and if they are reacting then you'll have to force them to do something else. Fireball is not the only tool that your character has. Pretty sure if you open command list , you know the thing with all the moves, yeah use that, is really helpful. Should solve half your issues and please stop pretending like anti fireball is the main problem for Zoners when especially in the current iteration of SF, Zoners are top tier except for rose. Especially when anti zoning options are far and in between and not every matchup has access to it.
On Japanese candy cabs the start button is always convenient for player one but not so convenient for player two
As a man who tried to play Street Fighter before converting to Tekken, zoning is literally the reason I left the game. The game isn't fun when you're being zoned, it's a tedious game of micro movements or big commitments depending on your character. While I agree Ryu's hadouken is iconic, I don't think it should be as strong as it was in the past. I think mix-ups are more the way to go, and this fake fireball idea is pretty neat. Another one that I like a lot is when fireballs have different speeds depending on which button you use, which makes them worse for frame trapping, but makes jumping them predictively more risky, since you might just land on it.
There's a reason ST still has a die hard following to this day
Nothing like it since... I'm still a huge fan and it is as hype to watch matches as ever.
HDR was the best sf game for me. I missed the boat on super turbo but HDR felt like a fair all around game to me and wasn't over the top with bells and whistles like later games are.
Ryu should get his meterless shakunetsus back. The extra bit of flexibility it gave him in combos (either to knockdown or reset standing with extra stun) was very unique to classic Ryu. I know Capcom wanted to advance his story and they decided "fire = evil" but it's one of his oldest signature moves and really makes him stand-out. Denjin is cool, but it's effectively quite different to having 6 different hadoukens ready at all times.
If good zoning is a part of ST's identity, let it be a part of ST's identity
I don't want every game to be the same
Honestly I also would want Capcom to explore different ways to do zoning, because as tons of other games have shown, zoning can be much more than just relentlessly chucking projectiles from fullscreen
If you like the idea behind fake fireballs. Check out Roy in Punch Planet. A character based around that concept.
I sure don't miss the days of Ryu being good at *everything* - poster boy or not, that's not a playstyle, that's bad balance. And as amazing as ST can be, a well balanced game it is NOT.
I am however huge fan of the fake fireball. It's been used to fix this issue before and it can be again.
Thank you. ST "balance" claims is *heavily* overrated
I’ve said for so long that Ryu needed his fake fireball back and people said I was crazy
I made a similar video about hit stun on jump-ins a while back.
The risk/reward on landing a peak height jump-in has changed drastically in newer games.
Yeah I think if I had to pin point a trend I'm not a fan of in modern SF, hitstun on jump-ins would be it.
@@TheoryFighter Yeah, sometimes hitting an anti-air nets you like 50 damage with Nash or something in SFV, and slightly mistiming means eating 250 damage from a max height jump-in.
I whole heartedly agree, projectiles are ass in modern games. It's what I miss... Even in MvC3, they nerfed them in ultimate... and I talk about it all the time, fireballs need to be powerful again, they are pretty much useless now.
I’m curious how much they nerfed him from mvc3 to umvc3
I wouldn’t say there were a massive nerfs in UMvC3 to zoning. Zoning strategies were prevalent, especially when paired with Dr. Doom assist, in ultimate. While they may be weaker, I personally believe the nerfs came from zoning characters like Jean having having their normals nerfed, not really their projectiles. I could be wrong as I mostly played rush down characters so I’m not as familiar with all the changes to zoners.
Did you forget MorriDoom, Ammy Cold Star, Dorm, Phoenix and Strange Bolts are all in that game? Even log trap was pretty good.
@@t-virus7098 the Denjin input alone is bad a nerf, which is sad. As is Swiss cheese for Wolvie.
@@otterdonnelly9959 Morridoom was after they stopped patching, and chris G found that shit out... I assure you if they continued to patch it would have been on the chopping block. but I said they were nerfed, not that they were gone completely. again I was talking vanilla to ultimate, and even phoenix, she's the best example, because her firebgalls were most effective in the air, but nope, they limited the amount of air actions in ultimate.
Too bad our Ryu got really Nerfed on Marvel vs Capcom 2 and Ultimate marvel vs capcom 3 glad he shines on Marvel vs capcom clash of superheroes when he can transforms into Ken and Akuma
He's also a top tier in TvC. Easily the best he's ever been in a versus game.
Ryu is still really great in SFV, but fireballs are almost a death sentence. Especially if you do them on wake up, you just get annihilated. I almost never use Hadoukens anymore unless I'm far enough away where a mistake won't cost me too much.
Does this also apply to Ken and Sakura?
Speaking of archetypes, I've also seen grapplers get worse over time, or is that just me?
Good thing they added the Hashogeki in 6.
I think the fake fireball was a good idea but they should've done it by making it a low kick to trigger and if the fake completes the animation it becomes an autoblock with cancel priority. Keep the frames exactly the same so it becomes a real mind game rather than just a fake quick startup that leads into nothing.
It'd still punishable with throws, you get a chip and the priority of them being in a blocking position, which is detrimental when you are playing an aggressive game (because why else would you be throwing fake hands rather than a real fireball? because you want to apply pressure and get them to move forward, that leads into your next move.) I think whiffing the input after you've thrown a fake fireball shouldn't have been as heavily punished. It just makes something that could be a niche move in someone's repertoire of zoning and mind games into an absurd, non existent tech to the point of why even bother programming it into the game. It's kind if you turned Dan into a move rather than a character, but without the punchline.
It's got me wondering if there's some super, ultra mega hard to counter thing that the devs found with fake fireball while balance testing that they were too scared to not gate behind a finger breaking move of pressing start rather than, you know, a button you actually use in the game. Like start?!? FFS the only use for that button is choosing a specific colour scheme like fuscia or tartan for your Akuma on the character select screen for intimidation purposes.
I have an example of a fakeout using tech that was not intended as a fakeout but actually WORKS like they wanted this fake fireball to work, I just had to think a little differently than what a move was intended for to make this routine work.
I dub it the "Tepid Demon Punish"
I use this fakeout to good effect to eek out an extra win or 2 in tournaments when I've found myself in a bracket playing above my weight class, when my opponent has my number and is a stronger player than me. It makes the guys I regularly game against for fun sweat bullets too. The better your opponent knows you and knows the counter to the shin goku satsu, the more likely this is to work as a mind game.
In alpha 3 turbo I main Akuma. I'll choose the shin goku satsu by default as my super. Pretty standard Akuma play, pressure into a corner, don't give them a second, always on the attack, build meter and shin goku them to death. I'll mix it up with zoning air fireballs etc. but pretty standard play.
Honestly, shin goku is one of the weaker supers, it's just hidden behind a glamour of flashy nonsense graphics and the startup is a basic grab with a distance on a character that you don't expect to be a grappler. Experienced players know this and know the counter is to jump it without attacking, because if a single pixel of a non super/ aism/vsim whatever touches the grab then it's instant 1000 deaths.
Before I shin goku I slap the cabinet with my palm and knee making a loud bang. I'm using pavlov's training on my opponent on what will come next. I then rattle off the inptus like normal.
After ive lost a few rounds and between rounds I'll smack talk and take the opponents attention off the screen. Instead of choosing shin goku I'll choose messatsu gou shouryuu.
At the right time during the match I slap the cabinet and pretend to input the shin goku satsu but then actually do his normal across screen teleport. (always tap LP to sell the fakeout)
Before the teleport finishes I lazily start the anti air messatsu gou shouryuu.
The punish of doing the teleport and with a side eye to my opponent, following up the fake shin goku while slowly punching in the inputs for the anti air super to take the last 1/4 of their life meter is orgasmic.
It's like "you chose to jump over my teleport, you chose to not attack and now I'm taking the last of your life bar with a super while you are a few pixels off the ground. You literally COULD be slapping any attack button right now to mess me up but you are choosing NOT to. The startup to the teleport and the super isn't even the same. What were you thinking?"
The beauty then is when you DO take shin goku as your super but never use it and you repeatedly teleport and punish because they still treat the teleport like it is a shin goku. Throw in a shin goku every once in a while and announce verbally that you are doing it when you do to see them furiously slap attacks and be punished just to really mess them up.
Games like Mark of Wolves and Real Bout Fatal Fury were great with fake moves for pressure or baiting attacks out
I'm so glad you mentioned Ryu as the main character which brings to my next point.....
Street Fighter 6 should have all New Characters period. I literally don't want see nobody returning from 5. Ryu and Ken joined by all New Characters and new Story!
Sincerely,
The most interesting/fun version of Ryu is without a doubt 3s Ryu, zoning was garbage in that game, but his ex fireballs were great, that was it as far as fireballs, the character was absolutely wicked nonetheless.
I feel like HD Remix (which I adore and think is a great game) may have put a bad stink on fake fireball because it can be used for stuff that it's not even remotely supposed to be used for, the most infamous example being that if Ryu is close enough to sweep he can sweep into fake fireball, recover very plus, and get a basically inescapable grab setup, if I remember the tech correctly.
A great video! And in SF6 I think they agreed with you as you can use light hashogeki to bait fireball counters and then counter yourself.
also this guy has failed to realize Crapcoms Development Policy for their Street Fighter Games is to take 1 step forward then 10 steps back....
Ryu’s additions and recent buffs in 6 make his fireballs much stronger.
Very funny that this video comes out right after a balance patch that actually buffs Ryu's hadouken.
In Fantasy Strike (made by the same guy as HD Remix), the Ryu counterpart Grave has a much slower, larger fireball that dissipates after a moment done by holding down the button. It can serve a similar purpose to fake fireballs, making it much more difficult to punish like a normal one while not really accomplishing anything if the opponent *doesn't* try to go for a normal fireball reaction.
Just give him a red or anti air fireball, if sakura can throw one upwards, ryucould too
Or just give him electric fireballs with better stun as default
What do I miss from SF2 in the new releases?
Shoryuken being fully-invincible all the way up.
I'd love to see a follow-up to this, because a lot of your points about Ryu being good at all ranges I feel applies to Luke currently, especially given that he's the poster boy of sf6.
*wakes up at night*
How do I fix fireballs?
I may be in the minority but I prefer this editing style over the last few videos. It's way less busy and distracting. It allows me to focus on your words and what's being said, rather than having to try and keep up with what's happening on screen.
I've said it since s1 of sfv Ryu needs the fake fireball in this game
I don’t think Capcom *needs* to make Ryu have good fireballs. After all, in 3S he is a decent character, and 3S is a game where fireballs aren’t even good as glorified pokes, god forbid as a fullscreen option.
Just make an energy bar or whatever, where using fireballs or certain abilities drain it so you can't just spam it. Lorewise, it makes sense as well, the character is literally shooting out energy. Or put a cooldown, or something.
lore wise the hadouken is a flying punch. if ryu can punch, he can throw one. he doesnt need a stamina bar
HD Remix should be the SFII standard.
On a sidenote, its been a LONG time since ive seen HD Remix and it looks alot better to me now (visually) than it did at release.
I still think the backgrounds are way too saturated
@@The_Meev I used to think the sprites looked cheap like a cellphone game but blown up. I prefer chunky pixels usually but even still this doesnt look half bad.
@@BNGamesYT It probably used to look bad because most footage from back when HDR was relevant was recorded on shitty mid-2000s cameras.
Did he ever comment on sf6 ryu? Now I really want a follow up
at least deejay has a feign fireball now
Streetfighter needs an energy bar for all special moves
English isn't my first language, so correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't it be "Capcom _Needs_ to Fix Ryu?"
i agree
thats his bread and butter.his hadokens
he should have plenty of them
It's too bad Tatsunoko vs. Capcom never took off as much as it could have. Ryu's fireball on that game is legitimately absolutely godlike. It has just an OBSCENE amount of hitstun. It's so damned good.
Fake fireball is so good that sol badguy still has in guilty gear
your new SF fire ball criticisms applies to SFV easily but im not sure if the same can be said for SF4, fireballs were the entire neutral of some characters in that game (guile obv, gouken as well) and they were good characters!
Ryu is very iconic but has been so iconic it’s now stale as almost every single fighting game has a Ryu
Theory you always put out the best videos. Question: if a fake fireball is not in the future for modern fighters, what do you feel about increasing the reward on hit / block for fireballs? In ST and Alpha, fireballs have huge push back on block and really great frames as you mentioned. You had mentioned characters and system being able to deal with fireballs as the third reason to their weakened presence but do you think increasing some of those previous buffs in an environment where navigating them is easier would be a compromise? I'm wondering how good fireballs can be if they maintained the same level of risk for the user but increased their effectiveness in a game like SFV, or would that just increased the perceived "randomness".
Either way, I'm always stoked when you make videos so please keep making em! Also still waiting on that spotify playlist with the songs you use for your vids :)
I can tell this man uploaded without any sleep. Kudos to you man; love your content! (the title need"s" a fix ;))
I love this video.
I've been thinking for a long time how much I hate how fireballs have been nerfed more and more and might be the reason I've been obsessed with playing Super Turbo for the last couple of years.
And I dont even play shotos anymore, I play Fei Long now.
"And I dont even play shotos anymore, I play Fei Long now."
A man of culture I see.
but fei long is justa shoto with range issues!
Ryu been on a descent since sweep to fireball was removed.
Ryu in M.U.G.E.N who made by PotS should be a simple example of how to fix Ryu from Street Fighter imo
I love HD Remix. It's way better than the rebalance done in USF2. And the soundtrack was top nosh
I didn't even know Ryu had a fireball feint in SFA 2.
So characters like Falke, Akuma, Cammy, Oro, etc get fake jump, air altering mechanics, yet Ryu can’t get a fake fireball. 👎🏾👎🏾👎🏾
Fake fireballs were a thing during the 90's, they were a huge part of my tool set back in the days of Fatal Fury, what happened?
0:20 FGC today:
Throws prevent turtling
Zoning prevents wild boars
XD
And I am fine with this, FYI
Funny I see this in my recommendation when I was writing up characters with fireball feints… that are STANCES
Something about claiming Ryu's projectiles being obscenely strong and then showing someone simply not blocking an ultra common setup is kinda hilarious. Like yeah they were pretty good but it's the least of your problems with competent players. Ryu doesn't need a fake fireball in ST because his recovery time after throwing is already great. Old Ryu's is even better at the cost of not having a super and can't tech throws.
Claiming Fei had issues is kinda weird since he had an amazing dp and chicken wing, and chicken wing combos into strong punch which goes right back into chicken wing for a stun combo.
Most of the time countering fireballs in ST with /any/ character is simply playing neutral and kicking their hands when they try, denying them that strength and space.
I'm glad a lot of other people are enjoying a video tangentially surrounded by ST, but a lot of the info in this video is kinda bad tbh.