Killian on the old days of Street Fighter 2 - when throwing was a dark art and people thought combos could be blocked

Wow, I actually knew a couple people that used to think throws were the most disrespectful thing ever. Gotta admit I never knew it was a widespread thing, I just thought those dudes were uptight wackos, haha.

Growing up my friends and I always said throwing was cheap. As we got older that wasn't the case, but I think that's just because we were mad scrubs back in the day lol.

If people are sitting back and blocking everything, just throw them. True. I hate when I play someone that refuses to throw. Certain people also get very angry when they get thrown and say it's a noobs tactic. Idiots.

LOL I remember those days - I remember playing World Warrior back in the day with my cousin when I was 9-10. He would throw me all the time, and I got pissed and started crying lol

I always loved the throw. I highly abused it to the fullest, if that's possible. Chun Li st.mp x2, throw was fun too. It made guile and chun li very fun for me, esp air throws too.

normal throw is not a problem command grabs are the lame stuff imo I hate unblockable type moves in general unless its a setup in marvel or something

Throwing is part of the game. But there is players out there that is all they do. In ssf4 the window is small to teck it and there is still lag involved when playing online. You can see this when pros press the buttons repeatedly. When playing online Ranked they should have set it up so if one of you starts lagging the match is over. I was playing online the other day and the first round I cleaned the floor with this guy and as soon as the next round started lllaaaggg!! and his whole game play was poke throw and you cant do nothing so I left and message me saying I rage quit hahahahaha. The game is still based on combo play. You dont go into training mode to learn how to throw. just my to cents not that its worth anything

lol unblockable type moves that have a greater potential of escape then marvel's lemme get this free damage lol.

Anyways i barely played SF when i was younger and now one of my XBL-friends hates my defense and will throw me like 3-4 times a round. I know thats horrible but i dont know its my kryptonite.

Command throws should be unblockable though. If Zangeif grabs you, you are not blocking it. If T. Hawk grabs you by the head, you are gettin face planted. They're behemoths, you're not supposed to be that close in the first place.

^ Command throws can be broken in Marvel

Unless you mean the fact that you can combo your ass off after one.

Throws are fair games now since you can tech them. Lagging online do mess you up, but it's online, you know what you're going into.

Date: August 1995
Location : Local Arcade in Brooklyn
Victim: My jaw
Exhibit A: Super street fighter 2 turbo
Exhibit B: T hawk
verdict: Guilty for reasons of spamming 360s for hours

@1
Yeah, I didn't think that mentality was so wide spread either.

@azik21 If you're gonna make command grabs blockable then people like Zangief and T Hawk have to hit _much_ harder

Well this is interesting. Never thought this existed. Whenever I get thrown I just blame myself for not seeing it coming and doing a tech, same when I throw someone. This is why the auto-tech and ultimate defense assist gems in SFxT are bullcrap.

Growing up, I generally agreed that throws were cheap. But really, SF2 throws wouldn't have been considered so bad if they didn't take so much life away. Good thing Capcom eventually implemented techs in ST, but the culture/code had already been in effect for a few years at that point.

That's not to say I never threw when the situation really called for it. I remember when MK3 was still in the arcades, I was in a close match with this turtler when we were both low on life, him having a slight lead. It got to the point where he was just trying to time me out and held on to the block button. So I hit the run button, stopped right in front of him and threw him to win the match. Man he was pissed! His friend even had to calm him down. I had to stifle myself from laughing out of satisfaction.

Wait normal throws are fine but command throws aren't. I hope most of you know throw breaking wasn't always around. I'm really having trouble thinking of a fighting game where a grappler was the best and was totally overused and abused. Potempkin is probably the most dominant grappler I remember immediately, but he also had those unblockables to combos which didn't involve grabs and wasn't winning everything. Maybe I'm missing something...

The reason people hated throwing in SF2 was because you would lose almost half your life in one throw. I think with ST is when you could start teching throws or throw softening if I am correct.

@Freyzii But you couldn't tech throws back then. I don't think you could tech throws until Super or ST. Also, throws were pretty much built-in option selects. If they were throwable than you threw them, but if they weren't (in the air, hit/block, too far) then you just did a normal attack. There was no such thing as a throw whiff animation so you couldn't be punished for it.

That said, I never thought throws were cheap. They are absolutely critical to any fighting game, otherwise people would just block all the time. It's like playing rock-paper-scissors without scissors, and suddenly paper is godlike.

Cannot believe people think throws are cheap, its 2012 people, they should know by now how to tech them or atleast avoid most situations etc

Although i only played SF2 when ST came out, when i was a kid, we thought Zangief and T.Hawk were the most OP piece of sh.... ever. Haha how wrong were we! I can see why they thought throws were broken playing WW a couple years back, due to the insane damage and the unability to throw tech etc.

If a game has certain mechanics that you hate, it's probably best to not play this game (e.g. SFxT, etc.).

It's better to not play than to make up some arbitrary rules (e.g. throws are not allowed).

ahh the arcades, nothing like playing for a quarter when you were a kid and had a 5$ allowance.

*LOL* Aww, those were the days. I remember those times, too. Since everything in the game could be blocked, back in the day at the arcade (and even on SNES), throws were always by accident, and the opponent got a free hit/throw.

When I went off to college in '95, it was similar, except I started playing people whom did throw. I was still the "best" in my dorm, and when I recognized people wanted throw and used the "it's in the game" argument, I just switched up my tactics. They got even more frustrated because it then became difficult for them to throw me. Even now, I don't throw unless I have to, and if I know someone is a throw-fiend, I make it hard for them to do so. I'd rather not throw to win, unless someone is doing nothing but turtling..and I mean nothing. But I've gotten used to it and am easily able of switching up to counter their throws in some way.

good ol' days, totally remembered i was the only kid who knew this tactics and pissed off a lot of teenagers and adults in every arcade hub i go to, almost got stabbed from it too lol

Throws in SF2 were so damn damaging, and worse, they couldn't be teched. Man, I used to get so pissed when someone would tick-throw me. "HEY! THAT'S F**KING CHEAP!!!!!" lol. Those were the days.

Come to think of it, on the rare occasion I play my friends who haven't touched an SF game since 2, they get pissed off when I throw them. I love this game.

I remember down here in Miami Florida during Hurricae "Andrew" back in 1991 or so how all we did was play SF2 at the local "Sedano's" Latino supermarket. Not only was throwing not permitted, it was considering cheating. Just like lag switching "now a days"..

@LK
Which would you rather play?

1. A game with few things you love and few things you hate?

2. A game with a lot of things you love and a lot of things you hate?

I dont see how they got that playing Guile meant throws had to be used. it should have just meant that Guile should be removed.

When ST dropped I figured it was finally time to let loose with throwing. I always argued that grabs were part of the game in Hyper and Champ Ed. (I never had that attitude for WW) which was met with mixed responses. But with ST's tech system, I figured nobody could argue against throwing as they could be softened. I thought it was a fascinating mechanic when it was released. I love how it also buffed up 'hold' throws significantly and how it gave those characters a new angle to how they could be used.

Cut a long story short, people were still pissy at how casually I used throws in my game because few people could wrap their heads (at the time) around the concept of throw techs. I ended up teaching a large amount of people the new mechanic and we were able to finally agree among a large group of players that throwing was a legitimate strategy and shouldn't be regarded as 'cheap.' Newcomers (who were ignorant to teching) or old schoolers (who again, hadn't taken the time to understand techs) still bitched though.

I didn't get into SF3, but it was pleasing to see the old anti-throwing mentality was absent there. Fast forward to IV and throwing is as accepted as much as a crouching forward and if you feel otherwise, you're an idiot.

On the subject of throws one thing that I find interesting is how the leniency of airgrabs has changed over the years. Landing Guile's backbreaker for example in SF2 was very tricky but immensely rewarding (it did serious damage) whereas now air throws (consider Hakan, Guile, Chun, Vega, Fuerte, Cammy, etc) have this strange vacuum effect from a large distance away making them much easier to land. They do less damage and can't be teched though. Landing Guile's backbreaker (f+hk) in SF2 made players wince - it was like an aerial SPD in terms of damage dealt :D

I used to work at the Playstation Store in a mall called the Metreon in downtown San Francisco, and while the guys there were damn good at CvS 2 (and later 3rd strike), throwing was a big no-no. Their reasoning was that in CvS 2, throws did a ton of damage for almost no effort. What with overheads and short-jumps, I didn't think it was a big deal and just learned to play using other tactics.

7 years later, turns out they weren't the first ones to feel that way...

@26

Neither, I play games that I don't constantly feel the need to complain about on internet forums.

SWAG SWAG LIKE CAILIOU! god damn dude just thinking of those days is funny as hell.

reading this brings back some memories lol

NO THROWS OR SHOULDER KICKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I dont like throws either. In online play they are garbage. I mean im pretty good with teching, but then i have a laggy match, and i can do whatever i want, mash the buttons and whatnot, but its impossible to tech. And a lot of people apparently learned to abuse that (like so many other things) and just throw me all day. Command And about Command Grabs. 3 frame command grabs make sense to me sure, but 0 frame command grabs are too fast in my opionion

"It's not cheap if it's in the game."

- My hometown crew and me, '93

"Landing Guile's backbreaker (f+hk) in SF2 made players wince - it was like an aerial SPD in terms of damage dealt :D"

Yep, and the whole screen shook and everthing. You 'felt' that throw when it came out.

Aaaah, those nostalgic "That's cheap!" lines... good times.

Yeah, a lot of people I knew didn't like throws and for a few of our local house tournaments (SNES SFII) they were banned. But the tournaments were mostly always at my house and I got rid of that sh!t because all people did was block all day. I can't believe people actually wanted to play like that.