Hiya!

I know it’s been roughly a month since Capcom released Street Fighter 6 but I’m still playing it because I’m having such a good time with it. I do like getting on Ranked and Casual matches now and then but, as I’m not an online warrior, I mainly stick to the game’s single player experience. For a fighting game, Street Fighter 6 is still pretty solid if you’re just playing all by your lonesome. I’m almost done maxing out my character in World Tour mode and I’m still busy unlocking all of the available gallery items in Fighting Ground’s Arcade mode. I’m also been putting some time in the trials and I’ve completed a good chunk of them already.

This sadly leaves out Battle Hub, Street Fighter 6’s space age arcade experience. I’ve dabbled here a bit as most of the daily and weekly challenges Capcom has been doling out revolves around either winning 3 matches from the arcade machines in the Battle Hub. However, I’ve mostly avoided entering here as, in all honestly, there doesn’t feel like there’s a whole lot to do here! The Battle Hub is filled with people but I still feel rather lonely because it can feel a little sterile.

This is where I come in. I do have a few suggestions Capcom can implement into Street Fighter 6’s Battle Hub to spice things up. In fact, I have 5 suggestions off the top of my head right now!

#1 Have the Avatars speak using speech bubbles as standard

Whenever I enter the Battle Hub, I can’t help but be reminded of another game which also has you controlling an avatar and socializing with others. That game is PlayStation Home. I guess some of my suggestions will come from my experience from playing that. Even though PlayStation Home launched more than a decade ago, there was one simple feature which made chatting with other a much more intuitive experience. That would be putting chat bubbles on top of your avatar instead of having to read what everyone is saying in the chat window.

To be fair, it does seem like the Battle Hub already implemented this but I can’t figure out how to make it work! So, it’s there but it’s not the standard way of chatting with other players. It feels so counterintuitive as you wouldn’t have to search for the name of the person who you’re chatting with, especially if he or she is right in front of you! Like in PlayStation Home, Capcom could also implement customizing the color of your chat bubble and maybe even make it possible to use different kinds of fonts to personalize them. However, the first thing they should change is how the chat works and make the chat bubbles standard.

#2 Make club rooms available in the Battle Hub

Once again, I’m diving into my experience from PlayStation Home for this suggestion. You know how you can create clubs in the Battle Hub? Well, what’s a club without a clubhouse? While it’s nice to have a place to hang out in like the Battle Hub, Capcom kind of overlooked the fact some people want a little privacy! Once again, PlayStation Home did do this already as each person had their own private apartment and they could invite other players into the domicile. PlayStation Home also made it possible so you can decorate it with all sorts of furniture to really personalize the space.

The weird thing is Capcom already did something similar in Street Fighter V. If you’re like me, you might have forgotten all about the Dojo stages. It was a free update and players were given the freedom to purchase all sorts of items to customize the area to make it their own. The problem is it was just a stage and not something you could really explore. Well, imagine if Capcom implemented Dojos for clubs and made it so club members could run around the area and add their own stuff to it!

Unfortunately, this seems like a big ask as Capcom would have to devote some time to program these spaces as well as set aside server space for each club. That could be a problem and, if the club rooms would wreck Capcom’s almost perfect online code. On the other hand, I can see them implementing this as it would give them an excuse to sell more bells and whistles to decorate these club rooms! More items means more Fighter Coins to sell!

#3 Allow co-op for the Retro Games

One section of the Battle Hub which always seems kind of sad are the Retro Games area and the Extreme Battle machines. I guess the novelty for the Extreme Battles aren’t really clicking for the most devoted players as, while they can be fun, most people are still enjoying the regular Street Fighter 6 experience at the moment.

However, I am rather disappointed with the Retro Games area as it’s something I expected to be full of people all the time. The idea of a rotating selection of old Capcom games was very enticing. I could play old games like Final Fight and Street Fighter Alpha 2, which are really good 2-player games.

Therein lies the rub, though. These are games meant for co-op and Capcom only made it so you can play solo. That seems like a colossal missed opportunity, doesn’t it? I understand I can play Final Fight all by myself and take on the entire Mad Gear gang, but wouldn’t be more fun if I could partner up with someone else? Same thing with the retro Street Fighter games. I can go through the entire arcade mode but I would also like to play against someone else. Once again, this might seem harder to implement as it might overload the servers with players from all over the world trying to connect to Capcom’s servers not to play Street Fighter 6 but to compete in Street Fighter Alpha 2 matches. Still, I think most fans would appreciate playing these co-op games online as long as it doesn’t cause problems with Street Fighter 6’s beautiful online responsiveness.

#4 An option to “normalize” Avatar Battles

One of the most unique features of the Battle Hub are the Avatar Battles. Here, you can send the Avatar you’ve created for World Tour mode and carefully curated with specific special moves to face off against the other Avatars of other players. It can be a whole lot of fun to see which mix of special moves crazily mesh well together. This does lead to some builds coming off as too strong, for sure. However, the biggest thing causing the severe imbalance are the characters with higher levels, basically people like me who have grinded away at World Tour mode, to have too much, health, leading to some really dragging matches. Not only that, some gear you acquire during World Tour mode can lead to some disgusting buffs, like regenerating life or powered up strikes when you get to a certain life amount. This makes it virtually impossible for a low level Avatar, despite being controlled by the best player in the world, to beat an overpowered scrub with 3 life bars, regenerating life and defense buffs, such as myself.

While this suggestion doesn’t benefit me in the least, I would like it if Capcom made it an option to “normalize” the Avatar Battles. This would entail giving everyone the same amount of health and turning off any buffs from all the equipped gear. It could be an option you can turn on or a setting in the online options menu you can tick. The gamers who’ve grinded World Tour mode would still have the advantage as they would have more special moves to pick from as you’d have to go through the campaign to learn each Street Fighter characters moves. Heck, while they’re at it, Capcom can organize online tournaments using the “normalized” Avatar Battles, giving players something to strive for in the future!

#5 Revamp the Social Interaction sections of the Battle Hub

Remember when I talked about how the Retro Games section and the Extreme Battle arcade cabinets are not being used in the Battle Hub? Well, that has nothing on the DJ Booth, Picture Booths and the Stage areas! I fully understand why no one’s using them, though! It’s because they aren’t a whole lot of fun! The central stage shows off the old Street Fighter 6 ads we’ve all seen prior to the release of the game. The DJ Booth is just the same looping beat and, yes, you can add some flair by inserting bloops and bleeps. It’s still very, very, very boring! The Picture Booth section has been the same old thing ever since the game launched as well! I mean, it was fine when the game first launched but now they’re just sad areas devoid of any life!

All of these sections of the Battle Hub can easily be improved on. For the Picture Booth, Capcom can just change the booth design once in a while. If there’s a special event like EVO, make the Picture Booth EVO themed, for example. For the DJ Booth, they can add more tracks rather than the same old boring beat loop they currently have. Heck, mix in some classic Street Fighter tunes or other songs from other Capcom fighting games like This is the True Love We’re Making from Capcom vs. SNK 2 or the Clock Tower background song from Marvel vs. Capcom 2.

The best change Capcom could make would involve the Stage area. Instead of showing the same Street Fighter 6 ads, why not stream high quality Street Fighter 6 matches? They already keep a record of various matches in their servers. Why not randomly stream some of them on the big screen? I don’t think it would hurt their bandwidth all that much since players can already request to view their and other player’s replays on demand. It’ll give something interesting to watch and it might help their gameplay as well.

BONUS: Sell Street Fighter centric outfits

Can I just say most of the clothing you can put on your Avatar sucks? I did my best to make my Avatar look cool but she should look better! I know designing cool looking outfits is not a primary concern, although it should be because Capcom could sell more clothing if they actually looked nice. However, what I really would want is for my Avatar to be able to cosplay as some of the Street Fighter characters. I mean, why should Kenny and Chuli have all the fun?

I mean, who wouldn’t want to dress up their female Avatar in Cammy’s new spandex jogging pants and sports bra? Tell me you weren’t thinking it!

Byee!

What other improvements would you want to see in Street Fighter 6’s Battle Hub? Let me know in the comments section below!