Daigo talking about SF history on his stream with Jiyuna translating. Cool to listen to
https://www.twitch.tv/daigothebeastv
A summary of his talk which basically consisted of numerous examples of public perception of the game, balances & nerfs for characters, and what not for every update. I didn't list all of the characters that he mentioned were buffed and nerfed, and the numerous examples of tools/moves that were added for lots of characters. He related these updates that he lived through as a competitive player since 1992 to SFV's season 2 update.
SF2
-popular
SF2 Dash/CE
-Even more popular than SF2, most popular fg of all time
-4 new characters added
-specials were made unique
-able to mirror match now
-Balance became better
-sped up
SF2 Turbo/hyper fighting
-Top tiers were nerfed (guile, bison, etc) and so players became pissed
-Chun given fireball, Ryu/Ken air tatsu, etc...
-gameplay sped up
-still super popular as speed increased
SF2 Super/New Challengers
-cammy, fei, hawk, dj added
-reversals/combos/first attack notifications added
-graphics, music, etc... changed
-new moves were added like flame fireball/shakunetsu
-some moves that were great were nerfed so weaker chars now able to fight better
-really great gameplay, but was not popular. Daigo personally thinks this is probably the best version of the series when it comes to just gameplay and that is the game that should be popular, but reality is that it wasn't.
-reason it was not popular was due to it being slower than past iteration (same speed as dash now, slower than turbo)
-some fun stuff was nerfed for characters which gave off the feeling of a mild game
SF2 2X/Super Turbo
-speed choices added, sped up
-super and gauge added
-every character got a new move
-Akumer added which brought players to the game even though nobody played him as he was OP
-able to bring players back to SF2 even though not as polished as super
Vampire
-Not popular at all which dissapointed Daigo
-Capcom's next fighting game, much anticipated especially by Daigo
-New systems
-great graphics
-chain combos origin
-morrigan, demitri, Rikuo strongest characters
Vampire Hunter
-Most popular of Vampire games
-Most talent involved in development
-pyron, lei lei (hsien ko), donovan, Huitzel added
-Demitri nerfed, Morrigan&Rikuo buffed
-sasquatch and bishamon buffed
-Any normal person thought what the hell is wrong with you buffing characters that are already strong?
-new characters that were added were able to fight top tiers
-Victor became weakest fg character of all time even though he seems normally great because everyone else was a monster.
-weak characters were interesting
-busted game, but very popular
-left you the most frustrated, but also gave you big highs
Vampire Saviour
-Hunter players largely left the scene
-players leaving contributed to game never taking off
-Hunter players and Savior players divided as Hunter players weren't satisfied with Savior
-savior players were a new generation that love the game and continue to play
Zero3/Alpha 3
-Daigo not interested in first two alphas
-Alpha 3 was really popular
-At the time he thought Alpha 2 was garbage, but looking back he can see why Alpha 2 was good
-After national tournament Alpha 3 popularity kind of went down
-However, after V Gouki showed up on TV (daigo used v gouki and the national tournament was shown on TV), popularity increased
-reason being that original/custom combos were discovered for a large portion of players who left before
-game kind of became goofy, but it was still popular
He basically just looked back through all these revisions and observed trends. It has nothing to do with what game he would prefer, but rather what games the public largely favored or gravitated towards. From his observation it seems that balance has nothing to do with popularity. Games were largely more popular when games were sped up and largely became less popular when games felt like they were slowed down. Giving new moves or tools to characters were largely a great way to keep players happy, though not as big of a deal as speed. What is fun is not letting the players feel like their characters were gimped and often times players lost motivation to play after their characters were nerfed. He thinks that if characters need to get nerfed, they should be compensated by giving them a new move/tool so they can feel like there is a light at the end of the tunnel. He thinks that when balancing a game it's important to remember that what's fun to players is what should be considered first, not balance. That's not to say that it can't be both fun and balanced, just that making the players feel like their characters are fun should the priority. And through his observations, fun largely comes from letting players feel their characters are strong or have great tools.
He also talked a little bit about Guilty Gear and Capcom Fighting Jam too. He noted that CFJ isn't really a good game, but he really liked it because he found Urien to be super fun and that kept him playing the game.
