Everybody knows that Street Fighter IV has a few balance issues, and that characters like Seth and Sagat may be taking the piss just a little bit when it comes to how beefed up they are. Capcom has admitted as much, saying they perhaps turned out a "little" stronger than anticipated. You think?
"Yes, Seth and perhaps Sagat might have turned out a little bit stronger than we expected," admits the arcade version's assistant producer, Ryota Niitsuma.
Despite this, Nittsuma believes that they're not quite as uber as people are making them out to be: "A good player of another character can always beat a good Sagat player or a good Seth player. I don’t think it’s too out of proportion, but we do acknowledge that they turned out a bit more powerful than we expected."
Capcom has acknowledged Seth's considerable strength before, but it's always nice to see a studio take its lumps when necessary. What about you? Do you think the stories about Seth and Sagat are greatly exaggerated, or do they need a good nerfing?
Jim Sterling serves as reviews editor for Destructoid.com, head of the Podtoid podcast, and produces a number of news stories, original features, one-of-a-kind videos. With his passionate argumentative style, controversial opinions, harsh delivery, and dedication to brutal honesty Sterling is a name that you can't help but recognize.
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Aditionally, the top 10 ranked players? they all use Seth.
that makes no sense at all.
It's called PRACTICING
Sagat's a beast, but he's not so much of a monster that they need to do a whole lot to "fix" him. Honestly, a bigger issue is that a lot of the cast isn't actually as good as they ought to be. Just look at what they did to Vega!
This is the current tier ranking for SFIV: http://www.eventhubs.com/guides/2008/oct/17/street-fighter-4-tiers-character-rankings/
I don't know where they got that Seth thing. According to that chart, he's only ranked B. Sagat is powerful (rank S) but he isn't dominating the entire cast, and a Dhalsim player beat a Sagat player for the finals in a nationwide Japanese tournament a few months ago. All they really need to do is bump up the lower characters to further balance the game (maybe a few of the remix changes are in order?).
You Just Don't Know.
I can't wait for StreetFighter:4 Hyper-Champion Edition Turbo HD Remix Edition Edition
It's awfully frustrating. He's so overpowered.
It makes all the sense in the world. I've seen so many videos in different fighting games where a character I thought was borderline shit can do damage against the more popular and slightly stronger characters.
But of course, it takes SKILL and strategy.
Sagat was known to be a little OP, but now Seth? Well, I guess if you can re-enact CPU Seth, you'll do work on people.
If I were to nerf Sagat, I'd nerf:
--EX tiger shot damage
--Standing roundhouse damage
--His throw damage, if they do more than everyone else's
--Initial Tiger uppercut damage, that is, the damage done when he does it in early frames. Air/tip damage can stay the same
Maybe:
--Life from 1,100 to 1,050
Anything else I actually wouldn't. Sagat is a very slow character, and harder to use than you think. In the U.S., Balrog, Rufus, and Ryu tends to be more represented.
In Japan, they just suck it down and don't complain as much. Take nerf talk with a grain of salt. All they're doing is admitting he's the best character, which no one disputes.
A little touching up, maybe... Patch.
Hey RAB, I think it's called SFIV Rush. :(
no it still makes no sense. if a good ryu player could always beat a good sagat player, then that would mean sagat isn't overpowered, and there wouldn't be a problem. i understand what he was trying to say, he just failed to say it properly.
No, that's not true at all. There's a reason a lot of fighting game developers turn to the tourney scene for advice when fine-tuning their games; they -don't- know that much about the game in the end. The tourney players are the ones who know how to find all the little broken combos and things that make a character top-tier, because more often then not they're unintended by the developers. When Capcom shipped this game, I'm sure they thought the game was balanced. Turns out, it wasn't.
@Cadtalfryn: Just because you've been playing the series longer doesn't necessarily mean you've going to be a better player. If you're losing to a n00b Sagat you're doing something wrong, and rather than sit and cry "this character is cheap" you should be re-thinking the way you play the game.
@RAB: In Blazblue, Tager can chew off over 75% of your health in one combo. He's still considered the worst character in the game. It's not necessarily how much damage you can do, but how reliably you can do the damage.
The real problem is among casual play Sagat really is OP. I mean if you have two guys who just kind of know what they're doing Sagat's really hard to beat.
These guys aren't making this stuff up. They're saying this stuff because this is stuff that the top players, the players that actually have a voice, are saying. I'm not very familiar with the Seth matchup with many characters but I know that it's been basically established in the serious Street Fighter scene that if you are playing against a competent Seth and you're using a character with no Fireball and less than 40% health, and that Seth has super, ultra and at least 1 pixel of life, then you're done. You might as well walk away from the game because even if you have full meter there's no winning. You're done.
There's never been a situation like that in any Street Fighter game so this kind of thing is a really big deal.
If anything, some characters in 3rd Strike are unbalanced as shit.
I think because everyone else is mostly balanced, most of Sagat and Seth's problem are bigger than they can be.
What? It was a surprise? The game was tested wasn't it? Surely they would have clearly seen it was a little borked.
No, because skill doesn't always translate 1:1 into performance.
Sagat may be the "best" character but he's not "overpowered". If Sagat and Seth are so good, why do the Japanese and American champions play Dhalsim and Rufus, respectively? Daigo switched to Ken in 3rd Strike, but he's sticking to Ryu in IV.
An overpowered character is one everybody ends up using in matches that matter, like Chun Li/Yun/Ken in 3rd Strike. A broken character is someone that consistently destroys everybody else, like Akuma in Super Turbo. Neither of these types exist in SFIV.
If anything, the lower tiers may use some work. Nobody ever uses Gen.
I agree on the lower tiers needing work(Gen, Vega(Claw)), as well as introducing about 4 characters like ones from 3rd Strike(Dudley, Makoto, Elena, and Ibuki).