Street Fighter 4 is the latest in a long line of fighting games I cannot get.  It's so damn frusterating how impenetrable this genre is.  I'd like to think I'm pretty good at games in general, certainly good enough for a series as universally loved as Street Fighter.  I keep thinking I'll eventually "crack the code" and understand how these games work, but it never happens.  The trial mode, as Jeff pointed out, does nothing different from the ubiquitous (and worthless) practice mode.  Further raising the barrier to entry is the required special controllers that cost $50+.  If Capcom implemented some sort of micromanaging tutorial that lasted an hour and taught you how moves actually work in context, I would be all over that.  I can't really practice against a human side-by-side because no one I know cares about fighting games.  Did anyone learn how this genre works without an arcade or a friend to play against?

The two big problems for me are, like you say, context and actually having a controller that plays well. I've got a friend on LIVE who's helping me with what attacks to use when but something in game would have been better than that.

I know man, its  such a drag. Friggin fighting game elitists and there SF... XD

I agree with ya.  I want to excel so I am getting a stick that is still not here, so I am not hopping online yet.  It is just a hardcore game, plain and simple.

I never really played a SF before 4. It took me a while to get used to and I had to read the instruction manual and play in practice mode to practice moves. I do feel like it has clicked now and I'm hooked. Try not to give up because this game is awesome. It'd probably help to look online for SF theory to get an idea of when you should do what. 

I don't understand you people, seriously.

I've played a lot of fighting games, but I've never invested myself in any; especially 2D games.

I mean, I've played a bit of Street Fighter and I own two different copies of II but I've never made it far past beating Easy Mode.

Hell, I'm even playing with the regular 360 controller and I'm doing great.

You don't need a stick to play Street Fighter, and you don't need to be great at fighting games to jump in and do well.

Stop worrying about beating other people and just have fun.

Keep training and trying out different characters, eventually you'll find a fighting style that clicks with you.

It's all in the mind son. It's all in the mind.

Am I the only one who is still enjoying themself when they get beat? I've played 180 matches online and won 30% of them. I've made notable improvements but still get my ass kicked. I don't care, it's a fun video game, a competitive game and you're constantly learning from it the more you play.

The learning curve is what makes SF fun, and while I agree Seth is an absolute joke, I really enjoy playing online -- even if the opponent is notably better than me.

I certainly don't feel shut out.

I have around a 30% win rate as well, and I have a blast.  It's just a fun flashy game to play.  I'll never be a member of the fighting game elite, but this is a damned fun game.  I actually played my first 100 ranked matches exclusively as Dan.  I felt good about any match where I could super taunt, and usually started each match with several air taunts, which was silly and fun.

Yeah, I don't mind getting beat. Sure it's kinda infuriating losing to cheap Ken/Akumas, but it's no skin off my nose. The game is sublime.

This is my first Street Fighter and the first fighting game I have enjoyed this much, I love it so much. The aracde mode is annoying (seth), but online  I am having no trouble at all, I don't know if it is good matchmaking or that I am starting to get good but i have won a good chunk of matches, played about 60 and won 65% last time I check. Great Game!!

Unless Bloody Roar comes back, ill never again play a fighting game, except boxing.

"Unless Bloody Roar comes back, ill never again play a fighting game, except boxing.
"

"This is my first Street Fighter and the first fighting game I have enjoyed this much, I love it so much. The aracde mode is annoying (seth), but online  I am having no trouble at all, I don't know if it is good matchmaking or that I am starting to get good but i have won a good chunk of matches, played about 60 and won 65% last time I check. Great Game!!

"

I feel like I've been saying this since the game came out, but I absolutely LOVE everything about the game.  I love the look, I love watching people fight, I love the idea of a complex tutorial, I love the characters, and everything about it...except the craptacular controls.  There is NO reason you should have to do quarter circle+anything with so many buttons on the controller and so few moves per character.  This is a game made for an arcade stick, and without it the movements are just awkward.  For example, why the hell can't I hold the R trigger and press the light+medium punch buttons to do a shoryuken?  There is no reason I should have to fumble around with complicated controls when they could easily allow you to modify the way special moves are pulled off.  The only reason for this that I can figure out is to add an illusion of extra depth to the game, forcing people to practice over and over, just to get used to the control scheme and put you at the point you would be at if the controls were any good in the first place.  I absolutely hate that aspect of the game and unfortunately, it's too much of a hurdle for me to get past.

I don't mind getting beat initially, just like I didn't mind getting rocked playing Soul Calibur because there was a novelty and freshness to the game that replaces the entertainment you get from playing with skill.  The novelty wears off after a few hours, then the frustration sets in, then (like Brad with GTA or something) I get pissed and say "fuck it".

"I feel like I've been saying this since the game came out, but I absolutely LOVE everything about the game.  I love the look, I love watching people fight, I love the idea of a complex tutorial, I love the characters, and everything about it...except the craptacular controls.  There is NO reason you should have to do quarter circle+anything with so many buttons on the controller and so few moves per character.  This is a game made for an arcade stick, and without it the movements are just awkward.  For example, why the hell can't I hold the R trigger and press the light+medium punch buttons to do a shoryuken?  There is no reason I should have to fumble around with complicated controls when they could easily allow you to modify the way special moves are pulled off.  The only reason for this that I can figure out is to add an illusion of extra depth to the game, forcing people to practice over and over, just to get used to the control scheme and put you at the point you would be at if the controls were any good in the first place.  I absolutely hate that aspect of the game and unfortunately, it's too much of a hurdle for me to get past.
"

"Shadow said:

"I feel like I've been saying this since the game came out, but I absolutely LOVE everything about the game.  I love the look, I love watching people fight, I love the idea of a complex tutorial, I love the characters, and everything about it...except the craptacular controls.  There is NO reason you should have to do quarter circle+anything with so many buttons on the controller and so few moves per character.  This is a game made for an arcade stick, and without it the movements are just awkward.  For example, why the hell can't I hold the R trigger and press the light+medium punch buttons to do a shoryuken?  There is no reason I should have to fumble around with complicated controls when they could easily allow you to modify the way special moves are pulled off.  The only reason for this that I can figure out is to add an illusion of extra depth to the game, forcing people to practice over and over, just to get used to the control scheme and put you at the point you would be at if the controls were any good in the first place.  I absolutely hate that aspect of the game and unfortunately, it's too much of a hurdle for me to get past.
"

Dude, what the hell? I don't mean to sound like a total dickhole here, but if you're not prepared to do the proper input commands, you should just get Capcom vs SNK EO for the GameCube and quit fighting games altogether.
Having the special moves at your disposal by a button press removes all skill from the game, cause people would just spam special moves and randomly win.
"

"that's what they do anyway once they learn how to do them so what's the difference?
"

"Shadow said:

"that's what they do anyway once they learn how to do them so what's the difference?
"

No, a bad player constantly spams and that's easy to counter.
Having to actually input moves does everything from open a player for attack while he's doing it, to exploiting someone fucking up the move or just plain setting up combos. Having the special moves that easily available breaks the game Capcom vs SNK EO is living proof of that.
"

EO had what you are proposing and it took all the fun out of the game. You pushed a direction on the other analogue stick to do the moves.
I'm sorry, but taking away button commands for special moves in a fighting game is like letting a car accelerate and brake by itself in a driving game. Or having instant autoaim in a shooter without having to aim in the direction of the enemies. It would take out absolutely all skill in the game.

Imagine if there was a button for the Hadoken. The other player would be able to spam that move in succession so fast that you wouldn't be able to jump between fireballs to get up close to the spammer and kick his ass.

I know what you mean, when you play games like this you just end up button mashing. Thats what I usually end up doing, but I dont know about you.

I guess it was too much to ask of a Street Fighter title to be the one to make the genre approachable. This is no more approachable than any other SF or fighting game to date. It's Street Fighter 2... 2... If that's your cup of tea, then woohoo. However, even as someone who enjoyed SF2 back in the dizzy and really, really liked SF3.3, this game has had me on the brink of throwing controllers. Which is mad rare. R-Type doesn't do that to me. Then again, so did SF2. So i guess this controller-throwing level of maddening abstraction is just par for the course by now.

If SF4 was to bring in new gamers, it should have been more up front about how abstract the game actually is. There's this misconception out there that wailing on the buttons and watching the flashing lights is what's fun for beginners, but that's selling beginners short. Beginners want to get good like anyone else. As it is, SF4 makes no concessions. Even on medium, playing a complex character (such as a charge char) through the arcade mode is a bitch and a half, with opponents dropping supers and ultras on you like there's no tomorrow while you're still trying to wrap your head around what even makes that bar go up in the first place, much less what charging in one direction means, or trying to hit all three(!) punch buttons at the same time at the end of a double quarter circle forward. Reading the manual, they apparently think this shit is second nature to everyone, and the complete joke of a "tutorial" (which isn't really, it just lists moves for you to do as a kind of qualification) doesn't make much of an effort to teaching a newbie either.

Anyone telling you SF4 is the game to reinvigorate the genre and get new players excited underestimate how bloody hard it is to slam your head into this abstract wall of rules, hitboxes, cancels and attack priorities. Things that should be intuitive make no such sense in action, as a fireball first counters another, but then suddenly doesn't. There's a reason, but it's not really explained anywhere.

One of my favorite things about SSF2THDR was the "how to play" screen, being completely up front about how the game is really about controlling screen space. It changed how i looked at SF2. SF4 assumes we know this. We don't. And so we get smacked around. Until we play against our girlfriends. In which case we do the smacking around. And feel like a douche for it.

Personally, it's hard to say i'm disappointed, because i'm having a blast playing Ryu as always, the game looks and sounds great, controls disturbingly well on the 360 pad, and the online play is solid. But going away from Ryu to a character i don't know, like Guile, makes me really understand that fish-out-of-water feel new players must get. That is one complex ass character to get into, and if you don't know how to carry out his super, you're being denied a huge, huge part of the gameplay.

Frankly, i'd be comfy with an option to play without the supers and ultras altogether. Even the EX moves. They add another layer of, frankly, bullshit, to gameplay that at its purest works just fine.

This is a great fighting game if you know how it works. But going back to a simpler yet more abstract past for your core game design does not equate to creating a gateway drug. I'm happy with my purchase. But Capcom could have gone a lot further.

"RandomHero666 said:

"Unless Bloody Roar comes back, ill never again play a fighting game, except boxing.
"

FURRY! :P
"

I never got into these type of fighting games, Super Smash Bros (While it is a little more action-y and not a true fighting game) always seemed so much easier to grasp the concept of but that's just my taste, I just don't hate or love these type of games

No. I feel shut out from buying a fightstick though. Can't find one anywhere that isn't ridiculously priced.

yeah, those are sold out everywhere. just gotta wait for the prices to return to normal.

I agree, i have the mechanics down like combos and special moves, but its about knowing when to implement them into the fight, what strategy to have.

Look the game has been out since what Wednesday?

The number of people complaining about it being hard is ridiculous, look, learn how to do the moves, then learn when to use certain moves at certain times.

Give it time people, Rome wasn't built in a day, but Street Fighter fans have been playing relatively the same game for a decade now.  Your going to have to learn how to deal with frustration if you want to deal the kind of damage a good street fighter player does.

Can you shoot a fireball everytime without messing up?

If no, go to training mode and learn how to pull a fireball off everytime without fail.

"Look the game has been out since what Wednesday?

The number of people complaining about it being hard is ridiculous, look, learn how to do the moves, then learn when to use certain moves at certain times.

Give it time people, Rome wasn't built in a day, but Street Fighter fans have been playing relatively the same game for a decade now.  Your going to have to learn how to deal with frustration if you want to deal the kind of damage a good street fighter player does.

Can you shoot a fireball everytime without messing up?

If no, go to training mode and learn how to pull a fireball off everytime without fail.
"

Spam Hadouken! It always works... not really.

I agree. There is just something about Street Fighter 4 that i can't wrap my head around. Normally, i catch on to a game after only a few hours of playing it, but SF4 is just beyond me apparently. I keep waiting for that light bulb above my head to appear. To have a "Ahh, yeah. THAT is what i've been doing wrong" moment, and finally start understanding what i have to do in order to start being successful... It just won't happen though.

I think the biggest problem with SF4 (for me anyways) is not having like skilled players to fight against. I get online, and people just mop the floor with me in the span of 10 seconds, and there is no way for me to learn from that. When i lose that quick, and it's all a blur, there is nothing i can come away from that match with. No knowledge that will allow me to improve... When you are playing with similar skilled people, you are always improving together. Little by little. Until next thing you know, you are both extremely good.

I just can't find any noobs to play with at all. Everyone that lives around me hates fighting games. So i'm just left with either fighting against the CPU, or fighting against super hardcore Street Fighter players online that treat me like a small speed-bump.

To me it's kind of like this.  A quarter circle is not a hard movement to do. A quarter circle with a punch at the end is not a hard movement to do.  SF4, however, assumes we all know what a quarter circle feels like to perform. This is not a move common to gaming anymore. It's not hard to ride a bike, but we've all had to learn how.

Yeah, we've been playing "this game" for close to two decades, but a lot of people haven't. By "a lot" i mean "most". SF4 really, really should have had a proper tutorial mode. Really. And i don't mean for every character. I mean teach a newbie how to use Ryu. Have a Ryu-only tutorial explaining the basics of the game, what a special move is, what a super is, what an ultra is, the difference (tactically) between a hard punch and a light one. Throw them a bone. Teach a man Ryu, and he will know the basics involved with using E.Honda or Chun-Li.

Complaints about SF4's accessibility are completely appropriate. This is a simple game compared to how utterly convoluted the genre has become, but that doesn't mean it's anywhere near intuitive, and some very simple measures could have been taken by Capcom to alleviate this. We're talking bread and butter basics here, not mastery. The game simply telling you that move X is hard to pull off (but please, try, you can do it) is miles better than the game telling you to simply perform move X (because you shold be able to you pussy).

still have no confidence in getting the beat the game on Hardest achievement 

dont waste time or money on Dumb fighting games. Problem Solved.

Yup i'm taking this back tomorrow when  I pick up Killzone. This was totally not a game made for me. I just want to get into a game and have  some fun. not play on easiest and have to redo the seth fight 7+ times to get the win.
I'll stick with marvel vs. capcom 2.

"EO had what you are proposing and it took all the fun out of the game. You pushed a direction on the other analogue stick to do the moves.
I'm sorry, but taking away button commands for special moves in a fighting game is like letting a car accelerate and brake by itself in a driving game. Or having instant autoaim in a shooter without having to aim in the direction of the enemies. It would take out absolutely all skill in the game.

Imagine if there was a button for the Hadoken. The other player would be able to spam that move in succession so fast that you wouldn't be able to jump between fireballs to get up close to the spammer and kick his ass.
"

"thabigred said:

"Look the game has been out since what Wednesday?

The number of people complaining about it being hard is ridiculous, look, learn how to do the moves, then learn when to use certain moves at certain times.

Give it time people, Rome wasn't built in a day, but Street Fighter fans have been playing relatively the same game for a decade now.  Your going to have to learn how to deal with frustration if you want to deal the kind of damage a good street fighter player does.

Can you shoot a fireball everytime without messing up?

If no, go to training mode and learn how to pull a fireball off everytime without fail.
"

Thank you, the amount of bitching from this new breed of gamers who've been raised on steady diets of Tekken, Smash Bros and DOA understandably will find the transition jarring, but as I said in another thread where a poster was complaining about not having mastered the game after 20 hours I pointed out that I've played this game for close to two decades and still have no confidence in getting the beat the game on Hardest achievement and do often get beat online.

The game needs some serious investment in it to get really good at, but is infinitely more accessible than stuff like Street Fighter 3, Guilty Gear or Garou.
Some will hack it, some will not and I won't be suprised if in a little while there will be quite alot of copies of the game exchanged at Gamestop.
I don't mean to sound mean, but good riddance then.
"

"TeflonBilly said:

still have no confidence in getting the beat the game on Hardest achievement 

It's actually not that hard, just set the rounds to one.
"

Yea, pick up a controller, and fight, the more you lose the more you learn the is no secret code there is no way to play it, its a game and while some people do take this game seriously, its a fun game that is really accessible, you can't expect capcom to ake a game that teahces you how to play street, it's such a robust fighting game that you learn to play it your way, b playing online and against people you can see how they play. I used to play very aggresivly but from going online i learned to play differently, just play and have fun stop worrying about it being for elitists.

I haven't gotten to consistently play the game until yesterday.  We've had it at our apartment since release, but I haven't really been there (and when I was, I was playing through F.E.A.R. 2).  We got it at work last night, so I started refreshing myself with the game.  It's cool, and I think that the four new characters all play very good and vital roles in the game.  After playing for a while, I finally unlocked Akuma and Gouken at the house (only got Cammy and Fei Long left to beat the game with for Seth).  I'm kind of saddened and disappointed with how many Ryu/Ken-styled characters are in the game.

"Alex_Murphy said:

"TeflonBilly said:

still have no confidence in getting the beat the game on Hardest achievement 

It's actually not that hard, just set the rounds to one.
"

You're right. I put it to one round and just cheaped my way through it with Ken and got both the Hardest and No Continues achievements.
Yay, 60 points!
"

No. I' haven't played SF seriously again since Street Fighter 2 until HDR came out.. Then I couldn't put that down.  It prepared me for IV IMO...  My friend hasn't played since SF2 days either and he loves IV more than he thought he would.  Different generations maybe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0cFs5mHQC4&feature=related
probley will help even thou its for SF2 but beleive me the core fighting is pretty much the same, and some advice for the new players is to keep practicing and observe the techniques other players use, SF is a pretty hard game to get into at this point but once you do get into it it becomes really rewarding, good luck

I must be better at this game than I thought, cause I found the Trials remarkably handy! They even teach how to cancel from one move to the next, which is something I've NEVER known how to do (or even known what it means). So far, my most hated part of this game is Seth. Bloody Seth.

"I agree. There is just something about Street Fighter 4 that i can't wrap my head around. Normally, i catch on to a game after only a few hours of playing it, but SF4 is just beyond me apparently. I keep waiting for that light bulb above my head to appear. To have a "Ahh, yeah. THAT is what i've been doing wrong" moment, and finally start understanding what i have to do in order to start being successful... It just won't happen though.I think the biggest problem with SF4 (for me anyways) is not having like skilled players to fight against. I get online, and people just mop the floor with me in the span of 10 seconds, and there is no way for me to learn from that. When i lose that quick, and it's all a blur, there is nothing i can come away from that match with. No knowledge that will allow me to improve... When you are playing with similar skilled people, you are always improving together. Little by little. Until next thing you know, you are both extremely good.I just can't find any noobs to play with at all. Everyone that lives around me hates fighting games. So i'm just left with either fighting against the CPU, or fighting against super hardcore Street Fighter players online that treat me like a small speed-bump."