There is a big, big difference between individual character tweaks and a wholesale gameplay engine change.

This is pretty interesting as a concept but in practice would not only be beyond the scope of the game to implement, it also wouldn’t actually help against a safe-jump jab.

You can whiff while rising, but the whole thing about safe-jumping is that you recover right away after your jump-in, so if someone was whiffing you could hit them instantly. At the best, both characters would be recovering at the same time and you could race to do a special move on the ground, or try and throw each other, or something?

I guess it would also be weird to perform a fancy and difficult input to perform a specialized “nothing.”

Overall safe-jumping is not a problem in general (VERY difficult when you consider that not only do the characters have different jump speeds and arcs, different opponent characters also get up from knock-downs at different speeds), it was just particularly soul-crushing with T. Hawk who could kill you outright at almost any time (pretty impressive for one of the worst characters in the game!).

Similarly Hawk’s DP can 1) hit Guile’s feet a little bit 2) pass through a sonic booms and hit Guile during recovery.

The dive is also NOT so slow that Guile can flashkick after throwing a sonic boom at all. Guile can challenge Hawk’s dive with some normal moves (like standing jab), but these are far from safe and work depending on the height from which Hawk does the dive. Also if they fail Guile is in deep trouble.

Overall Guile and Honda are still tough fights for Hawk (these are the nature of the characters), but he has chances and can still be devastating with a few clever choices.

Against Guile, I dunno, his diving eagle is too slow
to get Guile cause GUile could quickly flash kick
even after throwing a recent sonic boom. a good Guile
is untouchable against T.Hawk. unless the jab rising hawks could quickly ans safely pass through sonic booms (kinda like Honda’s sumo splash).

I understand that there are some limitations to the scope of any video game project however, reading this statement made me see an area for improvement:

Seth Killian wrote: “Safe jump jab -> low jab -> button-up command throw -> repeat.”

why not reward the fallen player who correctly anticipates a “safe jump”? what if there was a throw invulnerable move (like a dragon punch) that did no damage but had a quicker recovery than a dragon punch. This would take the Rock, Paper, Scissors element to the next level and add to the mind game.

just to explain the concept, lets call this move “rising whiff” (just humor me so i can try and make my point). Imagine a fallen player. If he correctly guesses (and times) that his opponent will safe jump than he does this move, “rising whiff.”

If the rising player is correct : then the safe jump fails the characters miss each other and the rising player has recovered and can then attack his opponent.

If the rising player is wrong (or if the move is mistimed) : Imagine if instead of a safe jump the player in the air does a regular jumping roundhouse kick, or fierce, then the player trying to get up is punished!

as far as project scope is concerned….implementing such a move is a lot of work (what would a rising whiff even look like?) Street Fighter is embraced by the world and over the years it has evolved. The fact that some opponents can time a safe jump, this technique is like a ripple. The changes that you are undertaking in some respects come into contact with this ripple. However, the suggestion I mention at least gives the rising player some options and may further enhance the Rock, Paper, Scissors element ….or not. Maybe a “rising whiff” move that had a quick recovery would result in punishing the player who has worked so hard to get in. I wish I had the means to test such a theory (I envy you Seth Killian). On the other hand, it’s no easy feat making changes that will please the legion of Street Fighter fans. Im glad I don’t have your job =]

It’s some comfort to know that, even if it was never in a released Street Fighter game, T. Hawk was unquestionably #1 for a brief, shining moment…