Wait, what? I mean, I definitely agree that Capcom attempted to serve too many masters, designing a game system/advertising concept around ostensibly drawing new players into a community while squandering the all important launch window in service to the niche with a product that was basically an bare bones ‘arcade’ release. That said, I haven’t really heard much on balance problems. Is this a common complaint? If anything, sfv seems ridiculously balanced across most levels of play given a) Capcom’s track record with first games in new series and b) the ‘platform’ nature of the game and its expected continual expansion. From what I understand, the input delay was actually an intentional attempt to normalize the online/offline input experience. Perhaps I am giving too much credit here, but I took it as yet another fragment of the ‘make the transition into local scenes easy’ aspect of the design as compared to, say, sf4 where you basically needed a different set of timings for online and offline play.
Alex is cool. Getting knocked down as Alex is not as cool. I wish he had more going for him after powerbomb than ‘hope the opponent mashes jab into a boot to the face/elbow’.
Street Fighter V is still king of competitive fightmans, isn’t it? Like, do people interested in fightmans as a genre care about other games at the moment?
he doesn’t even have a single mediocre wake up option. he loses to everything in every scenario. I mean, who designs these characters? I’m at a complete loss as to what to do as this character
like, I lose to people who do exactly what I expect them to do in every scenario, because half the cast in this game has zero defensive options. doesn’t help that every god damn time I beat someone after a long losing streak they rage quit. it’s just the same shit all day every day.
you play a matchup like alex chun and it’s like the designers didn’t even try. there is literally not a single theoretical situation in this matchup where alex has even a slight edge. and you know what? I’ll take that every day over the pointless matches I usually play, now that I’m once again stuck in the shit tier elo where every match is just people backing themselves into the corner for 50 seconds and then alternating between tatsu/something like a tatsu and neutral jumping into a throw that I will never tech because for some reason I am physically incapable of teching throws in any situation ever.
It is more difficult to play the characters with no wakeup reversal options, especially against random ranked people in 120% don’t give a fuck mode. They are all still viable. Nash also has no real wakeup options, arguably the best character in the game. One of the things that’s helped me recently is focusing more on trying to get a better feel for the delayed/fast/backroll get-up options. I still lose all the time, but am making some headway. Made it up to 2000 and back down to 1200-1500 a couple times. You can’t get pushed to the corner, the corner is death in this game of SOPLUS normals and weak reversals. Chun’s gotta burn meter to get invincible, herself. Meter management bigger thing in this game. This game straight up does not want you to play defensive, you won’t win.
Alex’s bigger more frustrating shortcoming, in my opinion, is his real lame anti air game; also I think in general command grabs should startup faster than normal throws, but that’s a deeper issue. Stomp should hit air opponents, that would be a worthwhile buff. You gotta get a hard read real early or hope their buttons lose to s.LP, which many do not. Once the flow chart Ryu or endlessly crossing-up Nash realizes this the matches get more annoying but are not free. Pretty hard to set up any kind of mixup ground game if you can’t control the air, which is still possible to do with well timed air-to-air lights.
It’s neat how quickly Alex’s options and situations have been broken down with a lot of eyes focused directly on him at launch. In a way, all of this information so quickly has led to me thinking of him a lot like I did abel (ie: in a very numbersy way). +2 is what he gets for ‘free’ (mp, cr.lp, lp, ex stomp) and leads to easy frame traps for both 3 and 4 frame jabs. +3 or better is harder to get (mp chop, dash up after any knee, blocked f+hp or c.hkxxv-trigger) but removes any jab mash out option if you want to throw in the power bomb. Dash up after ex chop is something dumb like +7 to do whatever with . . .if they don’t backroll, and even then still presents the threat of cc hk or step forward a tick bomb. Power bomb basically ends your turn, but gives the option for a free safe elbow or unsafe dash in if you smell fear.
Blocking forever definitely feels like something that Alex has to deal with, but that seems to be how grapplers are in this game. I’m interested to see how better players leverage his v-trigger state. I’ve basically only been using it as a combo extender, but the ability to shore up his defense/generate atypical punish situations with the parry along with his high damage certainly seems good? Speaking of atypical, gotta get better at holding onto charge when not just sitting around holding onto charge.
the anti-air thing is lame because so many characters, Alex included, can really only effectively anti-air with a jab, which is like – why wouldn’t you jump in against that? the risk reward is far in the jumper’s favor. you read it they take 50 damage and reset to neutral. you block the jump in you’re at a stronger disadvantage than that, never mind if they actually hit it.
Low fierce in this game is 3 different moves with down-back, down and down-towards all changing the move slightly letting him deal with different jump angles.
in an attempt to help learn my character of choice, I went to twitch to look for random Alex streamers. I found some ~4k lp chinese dude, who promptly lost 700 lp over the course of my viewing. now obviously this means nothing, but I found it amusing anyway.
The only thing that the smart money seems to agree on is that Chun is good and Gief and FANG are the worst, but tell that to SnakeEyez and SonicFox. Pretty strong evidence that the tier list is noticeably compressed and everyone can and will continue winning. Alex doesn’t seem to shake any of that up or refuse to fit in.
I think FANG is for sure the worst and most boring design in the game, but I don’t know anything, and that doesn’t mean he can’t be effective.
I’m actually having some trouble against Alex, playing as Dhalsim. Slash elbow seems safe on block (at least, I haven’t figured out a way to punish it), so he can close the gap any time he wants for free, and sometimes catch me throwing out a limb. I’ve started to play more in the air as a result - using dhalsim’s v-skill and back instant air TP - which at least protects me from the air stomp. But yeah, I still haven’t found a way to expose his weaknesses, mainly just relying on random openings. Any tips?
elbow is not technically safe, but I think you can space lk elbow to be safe. anything above light is very punishable. you can also beat out the elbow with a lot of stuff if you get a hard read, particularly if you go low. I have no experience in the matchup, but if you’re having a lot of problems with elbow I’d start sliding and see how that works out.
this game is so brutal man. I just lost four matches in a row where every round I lost either the opponent had literally zero visible health, or I lost because I dropped one combo by hitting the wrong strength punch. fuck me.
