SSF2T is still a diffcult arcade game

[benderx]

I have been playing with SSFT2 recently I consider this game harder than other street fighter games from the past or present. I have not played SSF2THDR (maybe someday) yet. I did notice how Capcom likes to put a high difficulty (medium 4 Arcade), which is a hard game to play against a cpu. The CPU tends to Attack more and block often. I try to block and beat the CPU even with a super combo still a hard game for me. Maybe I do somewhat suck at it. So I do feel cheated for capcom default settings. Imagine if I kept playing the game 10 or 15 times (with quarters) with the same CPU beating ass. You think the CPU would let you win, but no. I have always heard Japanese games difficulty are easier to the U.S. version. I have played all the other street fighter games out there, which are more fun and balance. I do remember SSF2T on the home console being more easier to beat. People have said the original street fighter was hard to beat, but I have beaten it multiple of times (easy button smasher). I have recently purchased SSf4 and seems pretty good, but needs more stages and new bonus stages. Maybe a documentary of SSF4 development would be nice. I hope they include something new in DLC area soon.

[Assman]

SSF2T's difficulty is ridiculous. They generally dumbed down the difficulty in any home ports, and HD Remix is actually noticeably easier as well, though still not "easy" by any stretch. It is by far the most frustrating AI in a Street Fighter game, for sure.

[nickfil]

SSF2T's difficulty is ridiculous. They generally dumbed down the difficulty in any home ports, and HD Remix is actually noticeably easier as well, though still not "easy" by any stretch. It is by far the most frustrating AI in a Street Fighter game, for sure.

yeah. holy shit is it hard. I have to crank it down to the easiest setting to just get past the second challenger.

[Mod_Man_Extreme]

Super Turbo is easy, Hyper is the rapist.

[hashiriya1]

I still haven't beaten the original Street Fighter. That is a tough mofo to beat....because of its crap ass controls.

[septimus]

I just thought it was me. It seemed the AI would do just the right move at the right time to cancel out everything I threw at it. I think SNK's boss (Kouryu ) fights bring out this style of AI too.

Soul Calibur III has a similar AI style. It however was slammed by SC fans and Namco definitely didn't try it again. I'm betting those who complained about Soul Calibur III's AI never played SSF2T

[Niode]

I just thought it was me. It seemed the AI would do just the right move at the right time to cancel out everything I threw at it. I think SNK's boss (Kouryu ) fights bring out this style of AI too.

That's because it does. It essentially cheats. It reads your inputs and does whatever it can do to counter. Simply, the only way to win the computer is by cheating in return with cross ups (I know they're not cheating, but to the computer they are), most of the time the computer doesn't read these too well. This will give you the opening you require to spam combos. If you can do re-dizzy combos then you'll have no trouble, of course if you can get the initial cross up in.

Of course you just pick Ryu/Ken and hadouken/shoryuken yourself silly and hope to get lucky. That would be cheap though wouldn't it?

[Flake]

That's because it does. It essentially cheats. It reads your inputs and does whatever it can do to counter. Simply, the only way to win the computer is by cheating in return with cross ups (I know they're not cheating, but to the computer they are), most of the time the computer doesn't read these too well. This will give you the opening you require to spam combos. If you can do re-dizzy combos then you'll have no trouble, of course if you can get the initial cross up in.

You know, I've played SF for about two decades now. I have about twenty iterations of the game at home and am rarely beaten unless I play on-line...

...so I'm kind of embaressed to ask but what is a cross-up?

[septimus]

...so I'm kind of embaressed to ask but what is a cross-up?

cross-ups.jpg (139.12 KiB) Viewed 1510 times

[Niode]

That's because it does. It essentially cheats. It reads your inputs and does whatever it can do to counter. Simply, the only way to win the computer is by cheating in return with cross ups (I know they're not cheating, but to the computer they are), most of the time the computer doesn't read these too well. This will give you the opening you require to spam combos. If you can do re-dizzy combos then you'll have no trouble, of course if you can get the initial cross up in.

You know, I've played SF for about two decades now. I have about twenty iterations of the game at home and am rarely beaten unless I play on-line...

...so I'm kind of embaressed to ask but what is a cross-up?

Septimus' diagram is a very good example of a cross up, but I'll explain. A cross up is any move that requires your opponent to hold the opposite direction to block than what he would normally do. So in the above example, if Ken wanted to block that move normally (as in not a cross-up or X-up for short) he would hold away as in the right direction on the dpad/stick. However, if it is a cross up, he would need to hold towards as in the left direction on the dpad/stick.

Because, and this is where it gets a bit more confusing, the hitbox system that SF uses sees X-ups as attacks from the rear of your opponent. Think of it like you jumping over your opponent, your opponent turns around and you're still attacking his front. X-ups confuse this system into making attacks connect before the opponent turns around.

They're not unblockable though, which is why it's not cheating. You simply do what is described above and hold the opposite direction than what you would normally do to block. However, if you can make one connect (as in the CPU blocks instead of shoryuken counter or similar) the computer will never block it correctly, it simply isn't written into it's subroutine. So you have a window for an unblockable redizzy combo. Matches come down to whether or not you get the x-up before you get trounced . When it's simplified like this it takes a lot of the guess work out of the game and the CPU becomes manageable. It's still hard though.

You just have to assume that no AI is perfect (it can't be, and until singularity, will never be, some may argue that singularity is still imperfect due to it's nature but I'm not going to get into a discussion on AI in a Street Fighter thread). Find out a tactic that is illogical (like X-ups) and then abuse the fuck out of it. Even the very hardest of cheating AIs can be beaten.

Video game AI can be quite easily described as a flowchart. That's essentially all it is. Even the most advanced of advanced life-like AI is a glorified flow-chart, it just has many more branches. Depicting behaviours that are life-like, and displaying mistakes, that's what makes it life-like. I find it fun, finding these planned mistakes and make them repeat them over and over. Laughing as I mock it's pathetic subroutines.