Are Ultra/Super Inputs Supposed to be So Asinine?

[Prankman]

Seriously, the double quarter circles and double 360s required for some moves are just obscene, and I can never seem to get even Cammy's Ultras to go off without doing two or three EX-Cannon Spikes first and wasting my meter. Why are some of the inputs so asininely difficult to pull off?

[Apathy]

USF4 is honestly a scrubby game. It's very dumbed down and tailored to low entry players. It just takes a moderate amount of execution. Bare minimums for most characters. People have been doing Guile's zig zag for 21 years. It's not hard to do, it's timing and getitng used to it. As far as backwards SRK, I don't see the problem. It's no different than doing the move on P2 side. Execution errors happen, but you should be able to execute the move properly most of the time.

What you want to do is have the instant gratification and that's not what fighting games are. You can't put no time or effort into them and expect to be able to pull off wins. If you can't do your basic moves properly you shouldn't even be online right now. You're trying to learn matchup stuff when you don't even have basic fundamentals. It's a slow gradual process if you don't have previous fighting game experience. Smash isn't a fighter and Skullgirls is scrubby trash with barely any execution requirements.

[Prankman]

Originally posted by Benoit's Ghost:

USF4 is honestly a scrubby game. It's very dumbed down and tailored to low entry players. It just takes a moderate amount of execution. Bare minimums for most characters. People have been doing Guile's zig zag for 21 years. It's not hard to do, it's timing and getitng used to it. As far as backwards SRK, I don't see the problem. It's no different than doing the move on P2 side. Execution errors happen, but you should be able to execute the move properly most of the time.

What you want to do is have the instant gratification and that's not what fighting games are. You can't put no time or effort into them and expect to be able to pull off wins. If you can't do your basic moves properly you shouldn't even be online right now. You're trying to learn matchup stuff when you don't even have basic fundamentals. It's a slow gradual process if you don't have previous fighting game experience. Smash isn't a fighter and Skullgirls is scrubby trash with barely any execution requirements.

I'm not asking for instant gratification and wins, I'm asking for the ability to practice the part of the game that matters instead of dealing with such a massive inclline for the learning curve. I should be learning how to use my moves correctly, how to position my character, how to counter specific characters and how to react well. The focus is very much not on the controls. It is not the crazy inputs that make the games interesting, or even make them appealing as major spectator e-sports. If that were true, then Smash Bros wouldn't have a single person watching and wouldn't have professional level tournies. And like it or not, it is considered at least a sub-genre of the fighting game genre.

Smash, Tekken, and Persona 4 Arena were all at EVO this past year. It's clear that people enjoy a variety of different fighting games, but what is also clear is that the complexity of their controls is not a major draw, and it is not a standard that all fighting games have to be held to to be competitive. It is not "scrubby" for Skullgirls to offer leniency in its move-list, because the thousands of people that watch the tournaments do not care one way or the other how the moves are done on the controller, they care about how they're used in the game proper. And I think that there should be a higher emphasis on the latter overall in the genre than the former.

The different input styles have their place in the genre to be sure, and many characters like M. Bison benefit from having unique set-ups, but far too often are the controls used simply to create an artificial gate into the character or into the game in general rather than to offer variety, improve the character's playstyle or make them unique.

[majik]

With the time you used to write all of these wall of texts, you could have practiced your execution instead. I can understand your point, overly complicated inputs can hinder from playing fighting games fully, but you also have to understand that it's also partly why people play them, otherwise we'd all play Farmville and whine on every other game's forums that the controls are too hard. That's also why there are different fighting games with less emphasis on the execution; to satisfy everybody.

Also it's not because games have more lenient controls that you shouldn't take time to practice. In games like Smash, Skullgirls or Persona, to use your examples, you may not have to train your execution as much, but at some point you'll have to practice your setups, your matchups, your combos, or do some research on frames and hitboxes, unless you're playing them casually. If you don't even want to hit the lab for working on your execution in SF4, I can only assume that you basically never went to training mode in Smash or Skullgirls either, and in the end, you're probably barely "playing" these games.

In any case, the game is not going to bend to your needs, so if you don't want to practice, you should just go back to play something else, or maybe wait for SFV.

[rezen1337]

Having come from UMvC3, to BB, to Skullgirls, and finally to USF4 (with a hefty background in Melee), I feel pretty confident in saying that SF's commands are simply more precise to get down, with UMvC3 and Skullgirls being the easiest.

The act of inputing the command itself isn't too bad, but timing it all properly together is probably causing you trouble, especially if you feel at home in SG. All these games have their own nuanced timings and feel, you'll just have to adapt. SF takes way more patience and precision than most other fighters, as far as I'm aware.

[Apathy]

I don't mean to be rude, but... You know what, screw it. If you can't do the basic moves you don't need to be learning matchups and other stuff. Like at all. It's basic fundamentals. You're complaining about reverse DPs and 360s/720s and I made the pretezel for Raging Storm to play Geese when I was a literal child. I'm from a game where this is a character's BnB:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjbBbHVwSh0

Come back when you're playing a game that requires dash cancels and superjump cancels for an infinite. Then you can complain about execution.

I know what you're thinking or about to say. What's that have to do with this game? Well if you can't even do basic moves you're not going to get down a good chunk of the roster's combos. Here's Sakura's BnB: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBtrwh6Gvzs

You need 1 frame links for that. You're not going to be able to do that reliably with Smash's level of non-execution even in a game with this much input leniancy.

For the record the main reason why you can't do inputs properly in a matchup is you have zero muscle memory. You build that by: you guessed it; the training mode. The reason people practice ♥♥♥♥, and even the basic fundamentals, is to build muscle memory so the liklihood of a dropped combo or execution error is lessened. If you can't do a SRK on P2 side in practice mode with no pressure at all, how are you going to hit one reliably when it matters? IE when it could win you the match and you clutch it out. Without the basic fundamentals you won't have that.

Right now you're the equaiviliant of Daniel at the beginning of the Karate Kid when he's still a scrub getting bodied by Cobra Kai, except you skipped training with Miyagi and went straight to the tourney. Then they got you a body bag and swept the leg. That's your online experience in a nutshell and it's always going to be like that because you don't 80s training montage.

[Prankman]

Originally posted by rezen:

Having come from UMvC3, to BB, to Skullgirls, and finally to USF4 (with a hefty background in Melee), I feel pretty confident in saying that SF's commands are simply more precise to get down, with UMvC3 and Skullgirls being the easiest.

The act of inputing the command itself isn't too bad, but timing it all properly together is probably causing you trouble, especially if you feel at home in SG. All these games have their own nuanced timings and feel, you'll just have to adapt. SF takes way more patience and precision than most other fighters, as far as I'm aware.

I can definitely say that I prefer Skullgirls' canceling to the combo linking in Street Fighter. The way moves flow into eachother there just feels more... natural, I guess would be the word.

Originally posted by Benoit's Ghost:

I don't mean to be rude, but... You know what, screw it. If you can't do the basic moves you don't need to be learning matchups and other stuff. Like at all. It's basic fundamentals. You're complaining about reverse DPs and 360s/720s and I made the pretezel for Raging Storm to play Geese when I was a literal child. I'm from a game where this is a character's BnB:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjbBbHVwSh0

Come back when you're playing a game that requires dash cancels and superjump cancels for an infinite. Then you can complain about execution.

I know what you're thinking or about to say. What's that have to do with this game? Well if you can't even do basic moves you're not going to get down a good chunk of the roster's combos. Here's Sakura's BnB: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBtrwh6Gvzs

You need 1 frame links for that. You're not going to be able to do that reliably with Smash's level of non-execution even in a game with this much input leniancy.

For the record the main reason why you can't do inputs properly in a matchup is you have zero muscle memory. You build that by: you guessed it; the training mode. The reason people practice ♥♥♥♥, and even the basic fundamentals, is to build muscle memory so the liklihood of a dropped combo or execution error is lessened. If you can't do a SRK on P2 side in practice mode with no pressure at all, how are you going to hit one reliably when it matters? IE when it could win you the match and you clutch it out. Without the basic fundamentals you won't have that.

Right now you're the equaiviliant of Daniel at the beginning of the Karate Kid when he's still a scrub getting bodied by Cobra Kai, except you skipped training with Miyagi and went straight to the tourney. Then they got you a body bag and swept the leg. That's your online experience in a nutshell and it's always going to be like that because you don't 80s training montage.

You're sort of proving my point, Benoit. If the absurd level of dedication required to do even basic combo chains in Street Fighter 4 is an example of one of the easier games to play, then its no wonder that the fighting game scene is beginning to die. Nobody has the time or the willingness to put into it anymore. New blood is never going to come in if there's such a massive artifical difficulty gate there.

I love the strategic elements and the fighting itself, but it is of my opinion that a video game should never rely on making its controls deliberately more difficult than they need to be. It's a fake way of balancing the game. The only skill that I should be concerned about in a fighting game is how to use my character's kit effectively, not how to press the buttons. The actual act of performing a move shouldn't ever be much more complex than "press button to do the thing". Needing such microscopic timing windows for linking and characters like Vega having such unnecessarily difficult controls is just silly to me.

Making Street Fighter so hard to control without hours of practice does nothing but turn otherwise enthusiastic players away. Not everybody has the time to dedicate to learning this crap, and if they ever want to play against a human being, then they're forced to. It's like forcing a kid to learn how to play baseball professionally before being allowed to play it at all.

It's great that you could perform these moves back when you were a kid. That's where these sorts of inputs should have stayed; in the past. They're antiquated and obsolete with far superior controllers existing now than back then. Nonsense like Vega's Bloody High Claw should have been left behind along with the quarter munching. I'm not arguing against precision overall, but the amount of precision required to perform even basic actions is uncalled for. I don't much care how much "skill" it requires, because I don't count pushing the buttons to be true skill. The real skill of a video game is how you use your tools, not being able to operate them at all.

Even Gradius changed its formula up and simplified things when it moved to the home console from arcade, because Konami realized that nobody would put up with the bullcrap difficulty of things like Gradius III Arcade anymore. It's time for Street Fighter to grow up and do the same.

[majik]

Yet you still find the time to write these huge answers to prove your casual point of view, if you'd have dedicated the exact same amount of time in training mode, you could do ultra combos in your sleep.
The game is not going to change because one newcomer wants it to change. To use your metaphor, if a kid wants to play football but can't stand playing with teammates, then he just doesn't play football, he plays something else.
Yes the game is not like Skullgirls. Because it's not Skullgirls. If I want to kill zombies and have crafting in Street Fighter, should I make a topic about how it should have it ? Should I tell my mom about it ?
Casual players like you don't realise that execution is just one small part of the learning process of fighting games, and even if SFV had only one-button press specials, you would still play it for a month or 2 before giving up, making other excuses because you keep getting owned ("X character is too strong, people keep spamming X move, I keep getting thrown", etc), because you have 0 knowledge of matchups, setups, spacing, okizeme, frame advantage and so on, stuff you learn by grinding hours researching and practicing.
Street fighter and FG in general have survived this far and have grown in what they are thanks to its community, thanks to people who actually "had the time or the willingness to put into" the game, not people like you. If you don't even want to invest time in fighting games, why should they invest time to listen to your trivial opinion ? If you have that much time to complain about a video game, you should have more than enough to practice ultra input motions, motions SF fans have been doing for 20 years.

[Prankman]

Originally posted by Goumajinken:

Yet you still find the time to write these huge answers to prove your casual point of view, if you'd have dedicated the exact same amount of time in training mode, you could do ultra combos in your sleep.
The game is not going to change because one newcomer wants it to change. To use your metaphor, if a kid wants to play football but can't stand playing with teammates, then he just doesn't play football, he plays something else.
Yes the game is not like Skullgirls. Because it's not Skullgirls. If I want to kill zombies and have crafting in Street Fighter, should I make a topic about how it should have it ? Should I tell my mom about it ?
Casual players like you don't realise that execution is just one small part of the learning process of fighting games, and even if SFV had only one-button press specials, you would still play it for a month or 2 before giving up, making other excuses because you keep getting owned ("X character is too strong, people keep spamming X move, I keep getting thrown", etc), because you have 0 knowledge of matchups, setups, spacing, okizeme, frame advantage and so on, stuff you learn by grinding hours researching and practicing.
Street fighter and FG in general have survived this far and have grown in what they are thanks to its community, thanks to people who actually "had the time or the willingness to put into" the game, not people like you. If you don't even want to invest time in fighting games, why should they invest time to listen to your trivial opinion ? If you have that much time to complain about a video game, you should have more than enough to practice ultra input motions, motions SF fans have been doing for 20 years.

I don't understand the "spending that much time whining/complaining" argument. It takes me like, five minutes to type this up. Nowhere near the amount of time needed to practice in these games.

I have 37 hours in Ultra Street Fighter IV. If I have literally more than a full day's worth of time invested in a video game and still don't even have the basic controls down, then that's the fault of the game, not the player. No video game should take that long to get into it. That's exactly what I'm talking about when I say that the game is too punishing for newbies. The complex inputs matter very little on a professional level, as it just becomes muscle memory, so why is it there in the first place? This isn't a real life sport where the physical limitations make sense and are just as much part of the sport as anything else, it's a video game where we can directly control how easy or difficult a move is. So why deliberately implement more handicaps than are needed? It makes no sense to me.

[Prankman]

Originally posted by Rust:

Originally posted by Prankman:

I have 37 hours in Ultra Street Fighter IV. If I have literally more than a full day's worth of time invested in a video game and still don't even have the basic controls down, then that's the fault of the game, not the player.

I'm sorry but no.
I've never heard of anyone having the same trouble you have.
SFIV was my first fighting gamer EVER, and yet i was able to do motion char specials from the beggining, on keyboard...
I'ts not the game's fault if someone can't get it that easy. I feel like you exaggerating a lot, normal motion are not even near as hard as you propose.
Most of the comments above are too long for me to want to read them, so this might have been mentioned already but, could it be that you have some sort of input issue because of connection (if it happens in online matches)?
Could it be your gamepad?
Maybe you are trying to do them too fast.
Because honestly i can't believe you are having such a bad time with that.

It's worth noting that I consider combo linking to be a basic control. The fact that so much work is required just to begin a basic combo chain with punches and kicks is totally stupid to me.

If you've never heard if anybody having the same trouble as me, then you've clearly never asked a single person who's not keen on fighting games exactly why they aren't keen on fighting games. Everybody I've spoken to about it has narrowed it down to the controls being too hard, and then we just play Smash or something else where we can just play it out of the box.

Video games should be fun, not a career choice.

I also find it funny that apparently I'm the lazy one for whining and not practicing pointless frame links for years, but five short paragraphs is "too much work" to read through. Give me a break.

[majik]

Exactly, in 5 full minutes of practice, you could have got one ultra motion perfectly, if you add all of your responses' typing time plus the time it took to think them through, you could do all the motions you were referring to by now. It's called laziness. In your 37 hours of playing, have you even hit the training mode once and stayed there practicing for more than 5 minutes ? Doubtful.
"No video game should take that long to get into". Once again, it's your own perspective. I play simulation games, and people who play this type of games are looking for the learning process, same goes for demanding platformers, strategy games, etc. Fighting games are the same. Any Candy crush player could hold the same argument regarding any of the games you're playing; for that same player, the games you play are too hard, why can't they be as simple as the games he or she plays ?
By not willing to dedicate time to FGs, you're missing more than half of what they are, it's not just a problem of execution, and chances are you're barely even scratching what Skullgirls or Smash have to offer, and your opinion about them as a whole is null. The game won't change because of your casual needs (not until SFV at least), by not accepting it, you're just wasting your precious time. Go back to play something else.

[TerrfiyingTaiya]

I'm going avoid the in this thread, and I'll give a pretty easy an honest answer as to why the controls are the way they are: Tradition. Street Fighter has, save for a few experimental titles and certain mechanics, controlled about the same since SF2, and people like it that way. Why change what Capcom or the fans don't view as broken?
Now, do I think the supers (as well as other things) could have better/more optimized inputs? Yeah, definitely (and I'm not the only person who thinks that, as there are a lot of newer fighters that are coming out with much more simplified control schemes). However, that's not going to change in USFIV, probably wont change in SFV or any iteration afterwards for a while so either learn them, don't use them, or play somthing else.

That all said, I suggest you take a look at Skullgirls (still has a large execution barrier, but it's less like a castle wall than others), NRS fighters (MK9, MKX, Injustice) or Rising Thunder, as the execution barriers are a lot smaller. You'll still need to practice, but (especially with NRS fighters and Rising Thunder) you wont have to spend as much time in the practice modes before you're doing cool stuff.

[riceNketchup]

As I said, Rising Thunder is what you are looking for. The game mechanics are very easy, but still fun.

[Prankman]

Originally posted by Goumajinken:

Exactly, in 5 full minutes of practice, you could have got one ultra motion perfectly, if you add all of your responses' typing time plus the time it took to think them through, you could do all the motions you were referring to by now. It's called laziness. In your 37 hours of playing, have you even hit the training mode once and stayed there practicing for more than 5 minutes ? Doubtful.
"No video game should take that long to get into". Once again, it's your own perspective. I play simulation games, and people who play this type of games are looking for the learning process, same goes for demanding platformers, strategy games, etc. Fighting games are the same. Any Candy crush player could hold the same argument regarding any of the games you're playing; for that same player, the games you play are too hard, why can't they be as simple as the games he or she plays ?
By not willing to dedicate time to FGs, you're missing more than half of what they are, it's not just a problem of execution, and chances are you're barely even scratching what Skullgirls, Smash have to offer, and your opinion about them as a whole is null. The game won't change because of your casual needs (not until SFV at least), by not accepting it, you're just wasting your precious time. Go back to play something else.

I don't appreciate being told what I did and did not do in my video games, given that I was able to get into Skullgirls more easily specifically because it had a tutorial that didn't suck complete ass. I've also played Training Mode in Street Fighter for several hours already. Guess what? I still can't get the timing down consistently, because its far too punishing. I tried to do the Ultra Trials for Cammy and couldn't get past the 12th one because the combo link timing is so asininely precise, and I can barely do the full quarter circle motion for the Cannon Spike in the time it takes me to do one of her normals.

It takes me half a second to even do a quarter circle once, so how anybody manages them as quickly as I've seen them done is far beyond me, and it's also far beyond my willingness to learn the game. I don't feel like breaking my hands trying to learn, if I wanted a physical challenge I would go outside and kick a ball, not play a video game.

Originally posted by xCROOKEDx:

I'm going avoid the in this thread, and I'll give a pretty easy an honest answer as to why the controls are the way they are: Tradition. Street Fighter has, save for a few experimental titles and certain mechanics, controlled about the same since SF2, and people like it that way. Why change what Capcom or the fans don't view as broken?
Now, do I think the supers (as well as other things) could have better/more optimized inputs? Yeah, definitely (and I'm not the only person who thinks that, as there are a lot of newer fighters that are coming out with much more simplified control schemes). However, that's not going to change in USFIV, probably wont change in SFV or any iteration afterwards for a while so either learn them, don't use them, or play somthing else.

That all said, I suggest you take a look at Skullgirls (still has a large execution barrier, but it's less like a castle wall than others), NRS fighters (MK9, MKX, Injustice) or Rising Thunder, as the execution barriers are a lot smaller. You'll still need to practice, but (especially with NRS fighters and Rising Thunder) you wont have to spend as much time in the practice modes before you're doing cool stuff. :Haruka_Emoticon:

Yeah, I actually played Skullgirls before USF4, and it sort of took my aback when my friend (who's really into fighting games and trying to ease me into the genre) introduced me to it. He told me Street Fighter taught good fundamentals, which I guess I incorrectly assumed would mean it would be complex. It just seems so odd to me that so much time needs to be dedicated to playing offline training to be able to play an inherently multiplayer game.

I might also give Rising Thunder a shot, as it keeps coming up and looks interesting enough.

I also apologize if I am coming off as too defensive, I don't much like being told to "git gud" when my entire frustration is that "gitting gud" is such a massive hurdle that it's preventing me from actually enjoying the game. Again, I love the spacing, the mind games, the strategies between match-ups and how the flow of battle goes, I just wish I could get to the interesting bits faster and skip the massive brick wall that, in my honest opinion, is unnecessary and only serves to drive away people who would otherwise be very capable at the game on a technical level, but can't/don't want to deal with the controls.

[majik]

And I don't appreciate people who want to be successful in someting without dedicating time to it, whatever it is, let alone wanting things that have been around for 20 years to change when you are as clueless as you are. You've got all the answers you need plenty of times in this thread already, do whatever you want with them.

[Prankman]

Originally posted by Goumajinken:

And I don't appreciate people who want to be successful in someting without dedicating time to it, whatever it is, let alone wanting things that have been around for 20 years to change when you are as clueless as you are. You've got all the answers you need plenty of times in this thread already, do whatever you want with them.

Why does something being old grant it immunity to criticism?

Originally posted by Rust:

Originally posted by Prankman:

It's worth noting that I consider combo linking to be a basic control. The fact that so much work is required just to begin a basic combo chain with punches and kicks is totally stupid to me.

If you've never heard if anybody having the same trouble as me, then you've clearly never asked a single person who's not keen on fighting games exactly why they aren't keen on fighting games. Everybody I've spoken to about it has narrowed it down to the controls being too hard, and then we just play Smash or something else where we can just play it out of the box.

Video games should be fun, not a career choice.

I also find it funny that apparently I'm the lazy one for whining and not practicing pointless frame links for years, but five short paragraphs is "too much work" to read through. Give me a break.

You know what? fine, you need years of practice to do links? Well, sorry man but you suck.
This game requires practice, in your particular case, an awful lot of practice, don't like it? don't play it.
But you are right in one thing, games are suppoused to be fun. The thing is, this game IS fun, for normal people at least, that can get into combos in less than "years".
have a nice day

Funny how apparently "normal" people can do these combos so easily, even though a majority of people I've seen can't, think the controls are too hard, and move on to easier, and better, games. And don't throw the "years" stuff back at me when everybody else is telling me that the game takes that amount of time to get into. I'm only parroting that information. I've heard pro-level players even admit that Akuma takes a year or so to use well.