Street Fighter 5: 8 Improvements Capcom Must Make
Round 2, time to come out fists swinging, Capcom.
Street Fighter V is the most popular fighting game in the world right now. On December 3rd, the final stop in Capcom Cup 2016, the premier global Street Fighter tournament comes to Anaheim, CA.
Having qualified from events across the globe, 32 top finalists will all compete in one spot. The grand prize? A $320,000+ cash payout, with the winner getting to design a new costume for their character.
That's all fine and dandy for the dedicated players, but what about those who aren't so dedicated?
SFV has a lot of meat to its gameplay, yet it's continually saddled with a lacking single player experience, weak online servers (especially at launch) and tutorials that fail to teach a whole lot about the game, ensuring it fails to strike with an audience beyond the diehards.
To say Capcom hasn't been trying to fix these problems would be a lie - new weekly targets, a solo story mode and improvements to server quality have mostly been felt. Plans to support the game into 2020, however, feel a little lofty, unless the company can make some big, crowd-pleasing changes.
It's still possible for Capcom to win back their bigger audiences, and with the Pro Tour winding down, it's the perfect time to take another look and make a few big changes.
Fighters ready? Round 1...
8. Allowing Rage-Quitting
Street Fighter at a competitive level can be compared to high-speed chess, or Rock Paper Scissors at 60 throws per second. Nothing is more satisfying than mentally outplaying your opponent, reaching a satisfying 2-0 smackdown victo-
"Connection with opponent was lost. [40002]"
And just like that, it was all for nothing.
Once somebody quits, both players effectively leave as if nothing happened. No reward for the winner, and the loser keeps their "win streak".
Street Fighter V didn't even launch with rage quit handling, which was an incredibly stupid omission. Now, the game attempts to penalize constant quitters, but it's still faulty, with people complaining of getting strikes for no reason, and chronic quitters still getting through the cracks.
Capcom needs to tighten it down, simplify their methods, and simply reward a win to the remaining player over the quitter. This way, somebody quitting the match will just feel like an embarrassing tantrum, instead of a stolen victory.