I'm pretty sure you did.... is this you changing your mind ?
Considering some of the stuff I wrote on the subject predates us ever talking in this thread. I'd say no.
In any case, my stance has always been that:
-There will always be execution required for high level stuff.
-Basic stuff should have the execution be easier
-Special move inputs still have a place in fighting games
The fundamental difference that we're arguing about is basically the last point. You'd rather not deal with quarter circles and stuff, and I believe they're a fundamental part of what makes fighting games what they are.
And making inputs difficult is going to solve the problem of Reversal being to weak or too strong ?
I'm not here to argue balance... I'm here to argue Execution has got nothing to do with Balance... MK/Injustices Issues have nothing to do with Execution..... if theres something wrong with the reversal mechanic then fix the mechanic... its that simple.
Because a special move input (and not just 1 or 2 buttons together), means that whoever needs to do it has to think and consider what to do. If someone's flustered, they shouldn't be able to simply mash out a reversal.
I should clarify that one of those 6 buttons would be The Fireball Button.... and before you start about losing one of your Six Normals I'd like to point that you don't need 6 of them MK did just fine with 3.... DoA is Awesome with just 2.... I'd also like to point out that the six button set up is already complicated.... complaining about adding one more is kind of a moot point.
History has shown how a Street Fighter style game with less than the 6 buttons doesn't really work as well, just look at how nobody looks fondly on CvS1. Whenever they do this, what seems to lose out the most are the medium normals, arguably the most important set of normals in Street Fighter. These are core footsie normals such as Ryu and Chun Li's low forward, Rose' low strong, Cammy's standing forward, etc.
Yet you cant just add these back in and take other normals out. In the best Street Fighter (and Street Fighter based games) just about every normal has a purpose in the neutral game and you are forced to learn how to use almost all of them (certainly more than you could map into just 2, 3 or even 4 buttons).
Yes we really do want a Balanced Game.... if Seth or anyone says other wise even in context then they are more than welcome to remove the Akuma and Old Sagat ban and see exactly how much they enjoy an Unbalanced Game..... those of us with who have common sennse will take the balanced game.... and feel free to look your nose down on us when we do. Thats what I have to say about "you don't really want a balanced game".... because thats just a stupid thing to say.
Old Sagat was never banned. The "soft ban" applied only to a select few arcades in Japan, yet major tournaments still allowed him.
And it doesn't matter anyway, ST's meta is good enough and the match ups interesting enough that even O. Sagat doesn't just dominate and he has his own set of counter picks (just like everyone else in the cast).
Moving on.... its true that most attempts at balancing the game end up sacrificing variety..... so should we leave the game unbalanced ? This is exactly the type of attitude I'm talking about.... its just an excuse for developers to be lazy and for competitors to forever have an advantage.
Sirlin wrote several Articles about what went down when he designed SFHDR.... Your answers lie in there.
"And then I had the honor and burden of improving upon what I consider the very best Street Fighter game ever: Super Turbo. Many people said it's impossible to improve upon the polished gem of ST and there were lots of obstacles to even getting this new gameplay in the game. Dozens and dozens of times people told me I couldn't do it, wasn't allowed to do it, and other discouraging things. Wayne Gretzky said, "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take," so I took my shot."
I don't know how Remix turned out but atleast he had the balls to try instead of making excuses.
Remix was meh. Sirlin's had on for yomi meant that moves were tuned way too much for yomi in favor of pure positional advantage.
3. If the reason you play Fighting Games is for execution then you have point and I wouldn't dare try to argue against it..... but thats not why I play fighting games so yes I dismiss the entire concept of execution. But obviously the technology to make that possible just isn't there.... anyway theres more to execution than just what motions you use.... my specific problem with Execution is the leniency of those motions..... so even though
something like
or
is fine but if you have a less than 8 frames to do it then we are right back to square one.... pretty sure Capcom did that just to troll people who asked them to lower the execution barrier just like they did when they added the "Link Before you cancel into Super" rule in Street Fighter IV.
Then you might as well just quite fighting games because execution will always be part of the genre, no matter how easy you make things.
4. Okay then let me modify the analogy.... the sprinklers don't go off randomly... they go off every 60 Seconds..... does that suddenly make it less stupid ? I really wana know your answer.
Except players don't have control over this. Execution is basically Striker A and Striker B taking the same shot, but one of them getting it off because they practiced more.
Theres a very very very obvious concept that you just seem to be refusing to grasp on purpose.... I'm going to try this one more time.
Lets use
Street Fighter 4 as an Example.
"Another similar bug is the chain combo cancel bug. As an example, consider Sakura. Low short does cancel into special moves. But if you rapid fire the low short (do it 2 or 3 times quickly each one cancels the last) then you CANNOT cancel the last hit into a special. I'm not saying this is a problem at all, necessarily. This restriction is there for good reason: to prevent the game from degenerating into low short -> big damage stuff. It would make more sense to give players a reason to start combos with bigger moves sometimes. Guilty Gear does a great job of this by reducing your entire combo's damage by 20% for each low short. (Hey Guilty Gear players, I know I'm simplifying there.)
Ok so what's the problem, sounds good that you can't do low short, low short, special move, right? But you can do it. If you make the last short a link rather than a chain (do it slowly, but not so slow that it doesn't combo) then you can cancel it into a special move. So really, you can get around this restriction if only you have high dexterity skills. Now, this is also true in ST and SF HD Remix, but that's not so much intent as what we were stuck with. For an entirely new game, I'm surprised to see this still there. I'm even more surprised to see combos that use this in the challenge mode, meaning the developers know about it and accept that low short is really this powerful. SF4 Sakura, for example, can low short, (link), low short, ex shoryken, ultra. She can do a lot more than that, but you get the idea."
You have absolutely no reason not to do this.... for all intensive purpose this portion of Street Fighter is SOLVED. The only people who are still going to use difficult combos to get their damage is people who can't link into supers.... they are stuck using slower unsafer moves to open combos with so they can get the same damage. This also circles back to why you don't need six buttons.... people are bypassing them anyway.
That's a problem with the IV's overall design and issues than it is with Street Fighter.
First up, none of the combos in challenge mode are meant to be practical. The stuff there was mostly figured out to be impractical BS within a week of the community getting the game.
SFIV lights being strong was a result of some of the inherrent problems with that version of the game's system. From Focus Attacks neutralizing strong mid and long range pokes, to the most important one, the plinking glitch that allowed for supposed impractical 1 frame link combos to be done consistently.
The thing is Street Fighter has had extended combos from lights before, these were just impractical combos that you'd only see used in some fancy combo video that was never meant to practical use.
I'd also like to point that you said ealier that you had problems regarding using execution to balance things out.... perhaps I can go to bed and you can argue with yourself... you already have what you need: two opposing statements.
See, the problem here is that you're dividing everything into 2 extremes, when that definitely isn't the case. Especially when we have games that don't use execution for balance but still use the other aspects of special move inputs to provide for a varied moveset.
I'm sorry but what you're describing just isn't very competitive... infact it doesn't even make sense. The fact that you knocked someone down IS your advantage... what you want is another advantage on top of the one you alread have..... thats exactly the very thing thats going to turn DoA into MKX when you give them no options after being downed.... I'd also like to point out the wake up kicks aren't even that powerfull anyway, you can shut both of them down by using a down attack. And you sure as hell aren't going to weaken them by changing their inputs to increase their chances of failure.
Knockdown only becomes advantageous when you get initiative from it, either from positional advantage, or by limiting your opponents options out of it. A good part of why people liked oki and stuff like Force Techs, is because of this. Without this, the knockdowns risk becoming situations where the attacker just stops and waits to react to the knocked down opponent, which robs them of the initiative.
Your P4 examples are flimsy.... if the reversals are too strong then fix them... changing their inputs means only the people with Better dexterity can always do them.... the reason this scenario is solved is because the mechanic solved.... changing the input isn't going to change how long its going to take to solve it. It's alreadt solved by anybody who can do it.... you just alienated a bunch of players for litrally no reason.
Already mentioned this above. By making it two buttons, it makes it easier for people to just mash out. There's no consideration of the mental resources, the presence of mind needed to input a command on knockdown to get a reversal out in time.
This is the exact same criticism that has been leveled at the P4A series ever since the beginning. And you can't just weaken the reversals either, because what makes being able to mash reversals a bad idea is what makes reversals work as reversals in the first place.