Does sf6 lack play style variance?

[my butt is erect]

Are all traditional fighters so flowcharty? Am I missing some nuance? Can you sense someone's play style by watching them play? Or is optimal play insanely alike between players?

Everything seems to be the same drive rush combo, same almost everything. The same couple confirming pokes into the same 2 combos, then deciding to chain super into it or not. And don't forget standing awkwardly waiting to reaction super. Of course, look at SF2 and it's definitely not a lot better there as you watch someone throw 6 fireballs in a row.

Coming from smash ultimate originally, the lack of air control in this really stands out. There is no ability to dance around airborne, and play air footsies let's say. In the air your movement decisions are set in stone and can't really be mixed up the same way. In the air, smash bros has much more mind game, spacing and footsies to use for personal play style variance. Basically there seem to be not many choices or canvases to paint on in air.

But ok, obviously this is more of a ground game. So do people play different from each other here? Kind of... The game does have a pretty crazy amount of normals. I'm not sure it really matters as far as play style though because a lot of them seem basically just for stringing in combos than using in neutral in unique ways.

The better I get the more each match feels like I'm watching the same thing happen. Of course in some amount this is true in any competition. But obviously it's more or less depending on the game.

As usual I still feel a need to say I'm no pro at this game. I have three characters in platinum and understand basics, and have watched an ok amount of tournament play. Smash I am much better at.

[Danny DeVito with a Gun]

I’ve seen the “no play style variance” in so many different fighting games and I always thought it was a weak argument. I saw it thrown around in SFV, Smash 4 and Ultimate, Strive, Tekken 7, MK11, etc. I don’t even like most of these games but I can see there’s play style variety. As your knowledge of a game increases and watch more high level play, you’ll notice the differences between two players and how they play the same character

Players will optimize their characters and know what the best routes are, that’s inevitable in literally every FG. With more online guides and frame data being freely available, it’s easier to get to that point compared to a decade ago and beyond. That isn’t the same as everyone playing the exact same way. Play styles even differ by region, which is why tier lists vary across regions too. Tokido and Daigo have different Kens from Angry Bird. nobody plays Luke and Blanka like Mena does

[Peddie]

Whenever people talk about "Does everyone play the same" I think it really just amounts to "I just mentally tune out whenever an opponent fights in a way I don't like so it all just blurs together after a while"

That said, most anime fighters have air dashes, go check out Guilty Gear and such.

[Pickles]

The main problem imo is 2MK into drive rush. That needs to be nuked from the game. It's literally the only thing 90% of ryus, kens, juris etc. do in master rank.

If your character doesn't have a good 2mk DR link they are automatically low tier.

[Cat on Mars]

Originally posted by Danny DeVito with a Gun:

I’ve seen the “no play style variance” in so many different fighting games and I always thought it was a weak argument. I saw it thrown around in SFV, Smash 4 and Ultimate, Strive, Tekken 7, MK11, etc.

I don't want to write a blog about WHY, but this argument was more true for SFV than SF6. Risk/Reward was more black and white and deviating from it basically meant you instant lost against decent players.

[midnightgreen20]

I think the issue you're having is that SF6 is fairly limited in terms of what options you have to beat X. And a lot of those usually fall into the category of preempting what your opponent is doing. You feel like you're forced to make a decision at every moment because hesitation leads to them putting on their jetpacks and flying right in front of your face.

[X]

SFV was complained about constantly for lack of combo routes. Some games are better than others but there will always be optimal routes.

[2Nami]

"Coming from Smash Ultimate" LOL

[HelgenX]

Just play 3rd Strike, you will learn what fighting games are all about. Play Guilty Gear XX for anime style, play SF2 for classic goodness, X-Men vs Street Fighter for broken marvel goodness. Sorry, I'm old.

[my butt is erect]

Im a fan of sf2, even though I never got decent at it. I wouldn't deny it has some ancient issues though. Still I love old games for their pioneering. I did notice a lot of people saying I should try 3rd strike, after I point out similar things I did here. I should probably check it out but I do want to find a current fighting game I really love. I like sf6 but I probably don't love it.

^^Nami could respond to the actual point and consider each game may have problems and upsides. There are things about Smash that are similar, concepts it shares, and ways it's different. Smash's air game is more varied and interesting, and leaves tons of room for improvisation and on the spot counterplay. There is no reason to refuse all comparison of concepts between games.

Anyway it's pretty obvious some games have a lot more space for artistic touch than others... not sure why it's so hard to discuss this very obvious thing sometimes.

[Peddie]

I feel like that comparison is kind of apples and oranges because by its very nature Smash is designed around big air time (everyone has at minimum a double jump for goodness sake), add to that factors like weight class and damage percentages influencing how far a character flies after a hit, there's just so many more chaos factors at play that mean you'll hardly ever do the same combo the same way twice.

That is not Street Fighter, Street Fighter is very grounded and methodical. You'll never see Lily flying further after eating a Shoryuken than Zangief because she's probably only a quarter of his weight. If you've figured out a combo you'll be able to do it with the same inputs at the same time most of the time, that's the nature of the beast, as it has been that way for 25+ years. So it almost sounds like more to me that you somewhat begrudge a traditional fighting game, for being a traditional fighting game.

[my butt is erect]

There is no reason to refuse to compare apples and oranges. They have related attributes whose differences can be discussed. I can compare a cat and elephant if I want to. There would be likenesses and differences. This is not some weird planet where you can't discuss similarities and differences between things that are only a moderately similar. That's what comparing things is... talking about how they're alike or different... I simply wrote an example of how one piece of sf6 doesn't leave much space for personal flavor and the other does in its version of that same space. That is highly related to the topic's question.

Yeah....the games are pretty different. And Im not gonna act like they aren't, because I didn't say anything like that.

If you look closely your recent response sort of doesn't have anything to do with the actual topic and question I'm asking which is if sf6's mechanics/etc leave a significant lack of canvas to paint on or not.

First post kinda just seemed like passive insult so I didn't think it was worth responding to that.

[Peddie]

Sure you can compare apples and oranges, or cats and elephants, or even airplanes and dogs, or oceans and sweaters, that still doesn't make them meaningful or productive comparisons to make.

You're free to lament the "lack of canvas" to paint on in SF6's airgame, but SF has never been a big air game, it's not an anime fighter like Guilty Gear or Melty Blood where you can keep your opponent in the air for prolonged periods of time. Instead your jump is a big and important commitment to make. That is by design, not by lack of vision.

I will however not budge on my assessment that your sentiment that everyone plays the comes from a lack of understanding, or even a lack of desire to understand rather than there being an objective truth to it. I can go against five different Ken players and find differences in their approach in all of them. Even if they all go for the same combo routes (they rarely do) you'll still find them making different choices in how often they commit to a DI, some are very careful about their drive gauge management while others will gladly burn themselves out at the drop of a hat. After getting knocked down some will respect the risk of the throw and try to tech it, others will just without hesitation EX Shoryuken frame 1 on wake-up every, single, time. And yet others will stick to the trusty jab spam.

If you think the only means of expressing yourself is in combos, that's a mistake on your end. Like several others have said, every single fighting game will have optimised combos that most anyone serious about the game will learn. And even then you'll still see differences in how players will choose to go for them. Some people severely fear the burnout so they'll instead opt for less drive gauge intensive combos while others figure that burnout is a problem for their future selves and will go for the highest damage option available to them even if it might put them at a disadvantage for the rest of the round. Similarly about whether or not they'll convert into a super depending or not they want to conserve that meter for the next round.

At the end of the day you're expressing yourself in a fight, even in the neutral. But even the largest canvas can seem small if you're making the broadest strokes with a comically large brush.

[Spooky7.62]

Originally posted by Pickles:

The main problem imo is 2MK into drive rush. That needs to be nuked from the game. It's literally the only thing 90% of ryus, kens, juris etc. do in master rank.

If your character doesn't have a good 2mk DR link they are automatically low tier.

Kimberly

[el niu]

you are right. all these games are so homogenized and preplanned, so that casuals can be handholded throughout. there are many flaws that the game has, the lack of hitbox uniqueness in each characters normals like they used to have in super turbo, they fact that they all interact with the system the same way for the same purpose, and the fact that the best options in the game, are always gravitating towards some universal mechanic.

street fighter 6 is all about meter management, it's a tug of war between whose person uses better it's resources... and that's it. there's nothing else (at non-casual levels) at why you should search for player individuality in a game like this.

the system is more important than the characters. some characters need to be toned off in some parts of their toolkit, in order to compensate what the core mechanics of the game are giving to them for free, otherwise these characters' specific win condition, gets blurred between all of them, making the roster a big scale of greys.

[Gleap]

You will understand the differences in play better as you get better. at 3 characters in platinum you have barely scratched the surface of the game so of course nuanced distinctions escape you. If its interesting to you get better so you can understand them, if it isn't move to another fighting game.