i agree whole-heartedly. SF 4's "latency" (not exactly the correct terminology; we're talking about a buffer which holds back a certain amount of frames, and it is not the same buffer as the one which holds special move inputs... lotsa buffers, heh)--
--SF 4 actually had 3.4 frames of buffered input delay on PC and XBOX 360, and 4.1 on PS3.
if you play a few hours of SF 5 then switch without taking a break to SF 4 it will literally feel like you just started living in fast-foward movement.
Right now I gotta go do laundry but later I'll post about why SF V's fundamental game play is so different from SF 4's and I want to do it because it actually has extremely little to do with SF 5's 6.4 frames of buffered input delay (although that is definitely one of the reasons why).
for now, a TL;DR:
...essentially SF 5 has twice the delay on buffered input in the game engine which means that although the frame data for the characters is the same, i.e. a 3-frame jab is a 3-frame jab in both SF4 and in SF5, the actual mechanical movement and responsiveness between what is happening on-screen and what was inputted by the players is, in SF 5, literally "twice as slow" as it was in SF4, indeed also as in any other 2D fighters.
Ryu's jump has the same amount of total frames in sf4 and in sf5, but in sf5 it is twice as hard to effectively Anti-Air Ryu's jump than it used to be SF 4 (or any other current 2D fighter).
You're seeing ryu jumping and you input your anti-air move/etc, and it gets stuffed or something else happens because you didn't do it early enough to compensate for the doubled amount of buffered input delay.
Additionally, since in SF 5 they removed invincibility frames from back-dashes in order to make the game more "aggressive" (SF: Third Strike was like this as well) and, furthermore because you cannot "back out" of a special move by spending EX-meter and FADC'ing out of it like in SF 4: the result is that in SF 5 your defensive options are reduced to:
- Blocking
- Anti-Airing perfectly, but if you fuck it up the jump-in combo will do 40% DMG
- Some other misc. action that falls into either of the two camps above
The idealistic hope was that SF 5 would promote "a man's game" where if you do a Shoryuken you better be sure it's good, because you won't be able to spend meter to FADC out of it if opponent blocks it, and the same reasoning applies to returning backdashes to how they were in SF: 3rd Strike (no invincibility frames).
Lastly, for now, for honestly reasons I can't even coherently put into sentences (even playing devil's advocate here for CAPCOM), they designed all of SF 5's normals and special moves (most of them, large majority) to leave the attacker in "plus frames", which means that for example:
Ryu can dash up to your face, in SF 5, and do two consecutive standing MP's, you block them, and guess what? you cannot punish him; if attack or something after the 2nd st. MP, ryu is plus and he can block, counter-attack, etc.
Throw him., you say? No my friend, they also made a radically different from SF 4 approach to "push-back", i.e. in SF 5 when characters attack and opponent blocks BOTH characters will be pushed away although obviously the attacker is the one who is pushed back the most.
So that is why, in a nutshell, any SF 5 you will see:
- A LOT OF JUMPING (the reward outweighs the risk disproportionately)
- Characters who are "on their turn", i.e. Bison, for example, doing like 4 block-strings in a row and the other player blocking and waiting to tech the inevitable throw... he cannot backdash out of Bison's pressure (using Bison as an example, applies universally), and he cannoy mash SRK during Bison's strings because...
They removed invincibility frames from "reversal attacks", i.e. "Shoryuken"-type special moves, except when they are "EX", so you have to spend meter.
This is a first for Street Fighter, no other street fighter has featured so little ways to defend or to manipulate the flow of the attacking player and/or adjust your own; there are simply too few options.
Reading this you may think, on the surface, that it does indeed sound like they were "right" decisions, i.e. no backdashing on wake-up every time (although obviously in SF 4 you could anticipate that and punish them for doing it), and you can't just "mash reversal" because a simple JAB will stuff it.
it's a c ompletely different game... and I didn't even touch on the changes done to the throw systems and the new "Priority System" for normals in SF5, which is in my hubmle opinion the single biggest mistake.
(Priority System is complicated but basically = SF 5 crush-counters)
Crush-counters are absolute cancer because they have irrevocably warped traditional neutral play and "footsies" and whiff-punishment.
All that said it's still fun... but it's also the first SF i've ever stopped playing for months and months at a time without missing it.