Would lowering fireball distance of Shotos break the character ?

[HomongUS]

Yall know how oppressive the fireballs are in this game. It's a genuine question I've had since a clip of SF4 or SF5(Couldn't tell) got in my recommend feed. It'd give other characters without fireball a bit more breathing room and other character that revolve around projectile (like guile) a bit more uniqueness without changing the design.

[Sixtyfivekills]

Sakura has a fireball like that, it goes far but not full screen.

[Peddie]

I dunno, compared to some of the older ones, particularly Super Turbo, fireballs are pretty mild in this game. There fireballs cause chip damage always, and if you block them you'll get knocked back a distance roughly equal to your own character's width. This means trying to approach someone spamming a fireball becomes quite a chore. On top of that the shoto boys can just cancel their 2HKs into specials meaning they effectively make their sweeps safe on block by just chucking out a fireball if it happens. And then there's just Old Sagat's fireball game...

At least here you can just parry and advance with little ill effect if your timing is on point. And it's considerably easier to parry here than it was in Street Fighter III, where one of the chief complaints at the time WAS that parrying made zoning a much less powerful strat and there you only had ten frames to do it. (And there was a system in place to ensure you wouldn't parry if you just tapped forward rapidly)

So in the grand scheme of things I don't see any real reason to limit the range of hadouken. A full screen projectile is far from the main reason why they're so omnipresent. And they've been far more oppressive than they are in this game.

[Danny DeVito with a Gun]

I don’t think fireballs are very oppressive as zoning tools in this game. Perfect parry alone prevents that. They’re stronger imo to what they were in SFV but SF4 fireballs were definitely stronger

As for your idea, I don’t think every character with a fireball would be hurt by the change but quite a few of them would. Ryu, Guile, and Akuma’s zoning capabilities would be significantly worse and I don’t see how making them just straight up worse makes things more interesting for everyone else. Perfect parry already limits zoning, adding the perfect parry OS that Luke and Terry already have to deal with to other characters doesn’t sound like a good idea to me

[Mickey]

yeah lets make all shotos dan lol

the reality is that fireballs are quite bad in sf6

[r1ver]

Fireballs aren't hard to deal with in SF6 (except for Mai's stupid fan and throw loop)

[HomongUS]

Originally posted by Danny DeVito with a Gun:

I don’t think fireballs are very oppressive as zoning tools in this game. Perfect parry alone prevents that. They’re stronger imo to what they were in SFV but SF4 fireballs were definitely stronger

Situation kinda changes as the opponent closes in on burnout or if the character requires some kind of stock mechanics to be viable.

[HomongUS]

Originally posted by r1ver:

Fireballs aren't hard to deal with in SF6 (except for Mai's stupid fan and throw loop)

Mai's fan setup are pretty cancer. Similar to Ed's corner throw into Pyscho flicker without it being situational and not to mention her anti-air coverage.

[Wormerine]

I have to join others in saying that I don’t think fireballs are particularly oppressive. Forward-pushing nature of SF makes it actual quite hard to keep players at bay.

At least the way I use fireballs, shortening their distance wouldn’t make much difference (of course depending how much of shortening one does). I find Ryus fireballs to be most effective within jump range, while throwing them from a fair is mostly a waste of time (aside from edge cases)

[Danny DeVito with a Gun]

Originally posted by HomongUS:

Originally posted by Danny DeVito with a Gun:

I don’t think fireballs are very oppressive as zoning tools in this game. Perfect parry alone prevents that. They’re stronger imo to what they were in SFV but SF4 fireballs were definitely stronger

Situation kinda changes as the opponent closes in on burnout or if the character requires some kind of stock mechanics to be viable.

Meter management is one of the most important skills you could have in this game. Someone throwing fireballs from far away isn’t gonna be melting your drive gauge. If they’re only doing chip damage for a certain section of the round, that still doesn’t sound very oppressive to me. Enough mistakes had to be made to get to that point

[X]

Be careful mentioning meter management around here. Last time it got mentioned it was like people were hearing a foreign language as if it's not one of the most important skills you could have. Especially when trying to climb the mmr mountain.

[X]

Originally posted by HomongUS:

Originally posted by Danny DeVito with a Gun:

I don’t think fireballs are very oppressive as zoning tools in this game. Perfect parry alone prevents that. They’re stronger imo to what they were in SFV but SF4 fireballs were definitely stronger

Situation kinda changes as the opponent closes in on burnout or if the character requires some kind of stock mechanics to be viable.

That's exactly the situation where you break character balance. Other non fireball charaters can put you in the same loop in their own unique ways, scissor kicks, Honda headbutts, Blanka balls etc.

[HomongUS]

Originally posted by Wormerine:

I have to join others in saying that I don’t think fireballs are particularly oppressive. Forward-pushing nature of SF makes it actual quite hard to keep players at bay.

At least the way I use fireballs, shortening their distance wouldn’t make much difference (of course depending how much of shortening one does). I find Ryus fireballs to be most effective within jump range, while throwing them from a fair is mostly a waste of time (aside from edge cases)

Yes, that's exactly my point though. Each fireball has their effective range so the extra miles to apply it fulls screen seems supplemental.

Originally posted by Danny DeVito with a Gun:

I
As for your idea, I don’t think every character with a fireball would be hurt by the change but quite a few of them would. Ryu, Guile, and Akuma’s zoning capabilities would be significantly worse and I don’t see how making them just straight up worse makes things more interesting for everyone else. Perfect parry already limits zoning, adding the perfect parry OS that Luke and Terry already have to deal with to other characters doesn’t sound like a good idea to me

Originally posted by Danny DeVito with a Gun:

Originally posted by HomongUS:

Situation kinda changes as the opponent closes in on burnout or if the character requires some kind of stock mechanics to be viable.

Meter management is one of the most important skills you could have in this game. Someone throwing fireballs from far away isn’t gonna be melting your drive gauge. If they’re only doing chip damage for a certain section of the round, that still doesn’t sound very oppressive to me. Enough mistakes had to be made to get to that point

Seems to be warping the subject into all projectile characters. Mentioned specifically "Shotos" btw. Luke already does this so can't really tell why you're bringing him up.
I'll state my question again for you guys.
"If they only bring value in certain situation, would it kill the character shoto arch type if they lower fire ball travel distance?"

[Agoraphobic Meep]

Originally posted by Danny DeVito with a Gun:

I
As for your idea, I don’t think every character with a fireball would be hurt by the change but quite a few of them would. Ryu, Guile, and Akuma’s zoning capabilities would be significantly worse and I don’t see how making them just straight up worse makes things more interesting for everyone else. Perfect parry already limits zoning, adding the perfect parry OS that Luke and Terry already have to deal with to other characters doesn’t sound like a good idea to me

Originally posted by Danny DeVito with a Gun:

Meter management is one of the most important skills you could have in this game. Someone throwing fireballs from far away isn’t gonna be melting your drive gauge. If they’re only doing chip damage for a certain section of the round, that still doesn’t sound very oppressive to me. Enough mistakes had to be made to get to that point

Seems to be warping the subject into all projectile characters. Mentioned specifically "Shotos" btw. Luke already does this so can't really tell why you're bringing him up.
I'll state my question again for you guys.
"If they only bring value in certain situation, would it kill the character shoto arch type if they lower fire ball travel distance?"

It wouldn't change anything about them, but like...why? For what purpose would you nerf specifically this aspect of shotos lol. Their fireballs already aren't strong, and you only ever throw fireballs past midscreen for ♥♥♥♥♥ and giggles or to keep resource/install focused characters from getting those for free. Changing their range changes nothing about their effectiveness or their identity with those characters, it's always been how X character can capitalize on their fireball that makes their fireball game unique, not the fireball itself.

[Lysamus]

As far as giving characters without fireballs more uniqueness, I don't feel characters without projectiles lack for uniqueness. Many of them have their own game plans that create a different play experience for their player and their opponent. A Zangief and Cammy play nothing like each other, despite neither having projectiles. Even within the same game plan template, there are notable distinctions (Cammy and Kimberly are both projectile-less pressure characters, but they aren't clones of one another).

Likewise, committed zoners such as Guile, JP and Dhalsim feel distinct from shotos. Guile and Shotos might access the same layer 1 game-plan (throw fireball then punish jump in) but even in that space, there's important distinctions (Guile recovers from sonic boom faster then shotos recover from fireball, giving him more consistent access to that layer one strat)

[Danny DeVito with a Gun]

Originally posted by HomongUS:

Originally posted by Wormerine:

I have to join others in saying that I don’t think fireballs are particularly oppressive. Forward-pushing nature of SF makes it actual quite hard to keep players at bay.

At least the way I use fireballs, shortening their distance wouldn’t make much difference (of course depending how much of shortening one does). I find Ryus fireballs to be most effective within jump range, while throwing them from a fair is mostly a waste of time (aside from edge cases)

Yes, that's exactly my point though. Each fireball has their effective range so the extra miles to apply it fulls screen seems supplemental.

Originally posted by Danny DeVito with a Gun:

I
As for your idea, I don’t think every character with a fireball would be hurt by the change but quite a few of them would. Ryu, Guile, and Akuma’s zoning capabilities would be significantly worse and I don’t see how making them just straight up worse makes things more interesting for everyone else. Perfect parry already limits zoning, adding the perfect parry OS that Luke and Terry already have to deal with to other characters doesn’t sound like a good idea to me

Originally posted by Danny DeVito with a Gun:

Meter management is one of the most important skills you could have in this game. Someone throwing fireballs from far away isn’t gonna be melting your drive gauge. If they’re only doing chip damage for a certain section of the round, that still doesn’t sound very oppressive to me. Enough mistakes had to be made to get to that point

Seems to be warping the subject into all projectile characters. Mentioned specifically "Shotos" btw. Luke already does this so can't really tell why you're bringing him up.
I'll state my question again for you guys.
"If they only bring value in certain situation, would it kill the character shoto arch type if they lower fire ball travel distance?"

What exactly are you expecting if this change were actually implemented? If it’s to make shoto fireballs more manageable, it wouldn’t do much for that because the further away a fireball is from the user, the less effective it is. If it’s to make fireballs feel more unique, there are way more effective ways of doing that that are already in the game. Startup/recovery frames, travel speeds, how you input the fireball, juggles, all the shoto fireballs already function very differently from each other. Luke’s fireball is already nothing like the other shotos and that’s not just because it doesn’t reach fullscreen. Making them not reach fullscreen wouldn’t make Guile’s sonic boom feel more unique, it already is plenty different from the shoto fireball

To answer your question, no I guess it wouldn’t kill the archetype. But it’s a dumb change that doesn’t solve anything you suggested in your original post. Shotos that previously had something like this idea didn’t use their fireball for zoning anyway. If you’re saying they should redesign the shotos around this change, then you’re veering into the territory of making them a new character. Ryu’s supposed to have a solid but standard fireball for zoning that’s more notable than the other shotos, how would this change actually make him feel unique?