SSF2T HD Remix, Part 7: Balrog
This article is reprinted with permission from Capcom Unity.
Balrog is generally considered to be tied for the best character in Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo (ST). Pretty much everyone ranks Balrog and Dhalsim as top, with some Americans adding in Old Sagat, some Japanese adding in Vega, and a few people claiming Chun Li. But there’s not much debate about Balrog (or Dhalsim) being top.
The knee-jerk reaction is to nerf, nerf, nerf (that’s internet-speak for “reducing the power level” of something). I said in my first article that we would leave the top characters top, so it’s been quite a test of willpower to follow my own advice and avoid bringing down the hammer on Balrog.
Before you read the actual nerfs, I’d like you to consider what might have happened. By far the most common suggestion for Balrog was to reduce his overall damage by about 20%. Almost everyone who said anything about Balrog said this. But reducing the overall damage of a character by 20% is mostly just another way of making him 20% worse, and does nothing to remove the tactics we’d like to tone down. So the good news for Balrog players is that he still does a whole lot of damage and is not a 20% worse Balrog.
Throw Loops
After Balrog’s headbutt hold, he can do a mixup where he either walks under the opponent (to get on the other side) or not walk under and say on the same side. He can threaten to do a low roundhouse from either side, resulting in a knockdown. This part is fine. He can also do a low forward or low strong and then attempt another throw, resulting in a loop. This part is too abuseable.
As with Ken, it was a tough decision, but I think it’s more fun if Balrog gets to keep his mixup, yet loses the power of a repeatable loop. His low strong, throw, low strong, throw sequence could be done from literally so far away that some characters cannot counter throw. The change is that Balrog’s throw range is now shorter, and the first hit of the hold does less damage. The walk-under tricks still work, as do the throw tricks after whiffing a short dashing punch, but if you want to attempt a throw loop, you a) have to be close enough that your opponent might counterthrow and b) deal less damage when you successfully do it. Balrog’s relentless offense is so good that a slightly worse throw game should leave him plenty powerful.
Safe Attack, Safe Attack
Another problem with Balrog is this sequence: low rushing punch, then jab headbutt. The low rushing punch is fast, damaging, must be blocked low, and is safe on block. The command for the move leaves him charged to immediately do a Buffalo Headbutt. So not only can you not hit back the low rushing punch on block, but if you even try, you will probably get hit by the headbutt (it’s an invulnerable startup move, somewhat like a Dragon Punch). If you block the headbutt, it too is safe on block. And to make matters worse, he gets a huge amount of super meter for doing that sequence. And to make matters worse than that, he has the best super move in the game. Something has to give!
I thought for a very long time about removing the ability to charge for a headbutt right after a low rushing punch (or some method of making sure you couldn’t do those two moves right in a row). In the end, I have to say that the fun-factor of that sequence is good, and the problem is the safe-on-block jab headbutt. This feeling was corroborated when I asked multiple-time tournament champion and Balrog player Graham Wolfe what the most abuseable Balrog thing is. His answer, “Safe jab headbutt…and Daigo said so too.” (Note to Daigo: If you never really said that, I hold Graham Wolfe responsible!).
The jab headbutt now has more recovery and can be hit back on block. To keep things in line, the strong headbutt also has worse recovery (and can now go through fireballs), but the fierce headbutt is not changed. All three headbutts also generate less super meter, and the less powerful versions of the turnaround punch also generate less super meter. Note that all the rushing punches generate just as much super meter as ever though.
Super
I think about Balrog’s super a lot. It sits there taunting me, daring me to tone it down when I know that the rookie mistake would be to tone Balrog down too much. If I wake up with cold sweats about this in the middle of the night one more time, maybe I’ll tone down the damage, but for now, it’s as powerful as ever. The only two nerfs to it are: a) smaller super meter gains from turn punch and headbutt mean he can’t get his super as fast and b) the first hit of the super is now possible to Dragon Punch. If someone is going to do the best super in the game at you—and you know it’s coming—you should at least be able to Dragon Punch it.
Turn Around Punch
To be consistent with the rest of the game, this move can now be performed by pressing and releasing just two punches or two kicks, rather than three. We certainly don’t want to allow Balrog to access fierce and roundhouse while he charges turn punches though, so we’re working on a few possible solutions. I don’t want to go into it because it’s still in progress, but the bottom line is that pad players can use two buttons, the old three-button method will still work, and trying to do tricky stuff with the new two-button command won’t get you much, if anything.
In closing, Balrog remains incredibly powerful. His throw game is a bit weaker, but his throw tricks are still intact. His ability to generate super is a little worse, but the power of his super is still intact. His general ability to rush you down is also intact, as is his high damage, so I expect him to remain near the top.
–Sirlin
March 17th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
If the Fei Long changes are not next, I will be severely disappointed.
….Also saying again I will be disappointed if I don’t get to buy STHD on PC, Steam preferrably.
March 17th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
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March 17th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
Capcom spent a lot of resources on this game obviously, since it had to scrap everything and start again.
to recover from all those extra costs they could market the game on Steam and gain access to a lot of gaming consumers.
Capcom already has games on Steam, please add this one too :<
March 18th, 2008 at 12:13 am
It’s not *quite* as simple as just marketing it on Steam… they have to get the game to work on a wide variety of PC hardware (depending on if this game uses a new renderer or not), operating systems (unless they’re suicidal and go Vista-only), input devices (Note to game developers: not all of us use the 360 controller! Let us customize the controls on our gamepad of choice!), and monitor resolutions/aspect ratios (5:4, 4:3, 16:10, 16:9, and all the resolutions under each aspect ratio).
But I agree, this better come out on PC. :P
March 18th, 2008 at 2:55 am
Man this is sounding so good. I was just thinking your doing all this work on this game and it is looking great. How bad arse would it be to remix other games? Here is to hoping. I know as if you don’t have enough on your plate right now. Good news about throw loops. I can’t wait to see the changes to Mr. Long Limbs and Edmond….make me cry….Honda. These ST changes are like crack. I see a new pic or a new blog and I am all over it. Mr. Sirlin I just watched the 1up interview and the look on your face when Dan..AKA…SHOE MASTER, spilled the beans was priceless. Im sure you guys had some words after the interview. The good news is we got some Awsome info. Thanks for all the hard work.
March 18th, 2008 at 7:24 am
“If the Fei Long changes are not next, I will be severely disappointed.”
Someone who thinks like me it seems. Though in a way I’d like to see the Akuma changes more, but I assume those will be last; since surely we don’t need people saying “but how will x-character be able to deal with x-thing” when not all of the new tricks have been revealed.
March 18th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
@PoisonDagger: i agree. i can only hope that after releasing on PS3/XBOX they will work on a PC port and release it in autumn or something :)
March 19th, 2008 at 9:55 am
kind of sucks to see all the changes made to balrog are all nerfs. I knew he was getting nerfed a bit, but was hoping he would get something new to do as well. Anyways great work on the project. Really looking forward to being able to play this.
March 20th, 2008 at 8:17 am
About the Balrog super. I’ve only watched competitive video on youtube so that hardly makes me an expert, but I was wondering if you could not have the move suseptable to low knockdowns from close range on start up. It seems to me that when players use his super it is because A) Chipping the last of the cornered opponents health down, or, B) Combo’d. Most of the time it’s A.
I’m not saying have everyone’s low knock down be able to do it, just why not the faster ones? Slides are slow start up so that means top tier like Dhalsim or Vega or even Bison would not be able to stop it. However lower teir characters like Cammy, T-Hawk, and Fie Long would be able to at close range. I think this would keep Balrogs super powerful, bring up the lower tiers a notch, and even him out with the other top tiers. I also think that it would make it so you would have to use his super in more clever ways.
Again I am not expert. Never claimed to be, just offering an idea.
March 21st, 2008 at 8:36 am
Cammy, Hawk and Fei have a DP… so they can already counter the revised super.
March 21st, 2008 at 10:55 pm
“kind of sucks to see all the changes made to balrog are all nerfs. I knew he was getting nerfed a bit, but was hoping he would get something new to do as well.”
Isn’t the strong headbutt being able to pass through fireballs a slight buff? Or will that not make a difference?
March 22nd, 2008 at 1:02 am
Very interesting choices. Despite being an avid SF fan, I’m not familiar with tiers and all the different technical details. I just watch a lot of match videos for entertainment and play the games, so this is very informative for me.
March 25th, 2008 at 11:52 am
VERY well done
i disagree with making the 1st hit of his super dragon punch friendly (arent shotos good enough?) and seems a little biased towards other non shotos. i say leave it how it is orginally. enough is done already, dont wanna over do it
solution to the TAP problem, i recommend HP or HK MUST be held down and then your choice of one of the other two remaining buttons (ex. HP+MP works, HP+LP works, LP+MP nosir…) this will keep his half screen standing fierce to tap from turning into an ugly full ranged lockdown, shameless spam for meter, and from just being ridiculous.
i trust you tho sirlin, you really know your shit. and i know you got OGs makin sure you dont mess nothin up. lol
btw have you guys considered tech throw system of some kind?
March 26th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
I think that this is going to be one of the best fighting games ever again lol. It would be cool to have the backgrounds from (SF2 SF2T SF2C) with different colors. I like the turbo version of the backgrounds. this is just a thought.
March 26th, 2008 at 10:24 pm
I think the nerfs to balrog might be a little overdone, despite being relatively small.
March 27th, 2008 at 9:17 am
I guess only time will tell if it is in fact, overdone. But just wanted to say thanks for keeping us in the loop and doing a great job Sirlin! BTW, I live in the new building right next to yours now.
March 27th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
for the issue with having two buttons held for moves like the TAP, i believe that one way to solve it would be to add a function that (for example) checks the state of all of a player’s punch buttons at a given time, and as long as any two of them are held down, the third one’s input could be withheld from whatever part of the program is used to detect special move inputs (e.g. by overriding the button’s state in software so that the rest of the program sees it as also being held down)
i’m aware that this solution is obvious and that you and your production team have most likely already considered it early on and noticed some problems with it, but i ask that you please bear with me as i try to propose a way to alleviate (or at least reduce) those problems and hopefully salvage this method:
one very obvious issue with this input-hiding method is that it could easily mess you up when you’re trying to button mash or perfom a piano motion for a reversal, but i believe that this particular problem could possibly be resolved by having the function also keep track, on its own, of how long the button pair is held; this could be done for example by comparing how long any two buttons in a row have been held, and assuming that the button with the shortest (if 2 punches or 2 kicks are currently pressed) or second-shortest (if all 3 punches/kicks are currently pressed) time held down is when the pair/trio being held should be considered by the game as input for a 3-button-hold move
once the function has established when this move input has actually started, it can delay the third-button-ignoring effect for an arbitrary amount of time afterward, let’s say 4 frames; i feel that adding this extra factor would resolve some more issues with this method, and have a few benefits of its own:
- delaying the ignoring effect slightly will (hopefully) prevent this function from stepping on your toes when you try to reversal by pianoing
- as far as i recall, there aren’t any characters in the game with both button-mashing moves and 3-button-press/3-button-hold moves, so by just using the function at all only when a player is using zangief/boxer/hawk/anyone else in this group i missed, this would be a non-issue for all the other characters
- allowing the user to (attempt to) get off a move with the third button right when he starts charging the other two would only make a very (i believe) marginal difference to gameplay, since as far as i know every 3-button-holding move in the game demands at least a full second of holding before said move will come out
- because the player is technically already able to make these same sorts of attempted moves because of the game’s use of kara canceling, replacing the 4 frames from my example earlier with the actual window of kara canceling time that the arcade version allows would (as far as i can tell) eliminate the potential for this method to mess up the game’s arcade faithfulness through changing the input window available to the player
- in addition to the two notes above, because 3-button-press moves (zangief’s lariat or hawk’s dive, for example) enter their starting animations right when the first two button presses are registered, any attempted moves with the third button are already rendered unable to come out, so they would not need any extra accomodation by this method
please inform me if i’ve made any fact-checking messups here or if my wording for explaining this sucks too bad, best regards
March 28th, 2008 at 2:50 am
pdk: From a computer science perspective, that’s a really bad solution. Xboxes and PS3s are really, really fast, you don’t need to create a global function that always maps 2 buttons to 3 buttons… you really can do a case by case, character by character resolution without causing any real problems, and more importantly, doing it that way prevents you from causing any inintended issues when someones just mashing buttons during times when 3-button and charge moves aren’t legal. It’s never a good idea to arbitrarily “hide” inputs like that… a good I/O system just needs to hand off everything as is to the current function controlling the game state, and then if some particular move needs to impossible during that game state, you fix it in the state function, not by modifying your I/O to be less accurate/reliable.