SUPER Street Fighter 4

[Pikachu]

They've got some videos of new ultras (I'm not just talking about the recently released trailer) for the characters, as well as the Ultras for the new characters.

I'll get the scary one out of the way: I think Juri has a Genei-Jin Ultra, but the video was short, and what comes of it is... well... the CC's in Capcom Fighting Jam did suck for the most part, so we'll have to see how this goes.

Chun has Kikosho. Since I'm going to assume fireball Ultras have to have some juggle, this is the good news for Chun that I expected.

Sagat has Tiger Cannon, so I guess he can be like Ryu. The video that spoiled it showed him using FADC Tiger Uppercut to land it. The only way I see that this will be more useful than his old Ultra is if the new Ultra has a fast startup... otherwise, they just seem to be the same, minus the fact that Cannon can go through fireballs. Then again, I think only two people on this planet have shown the capacity to use Ryu's Metsu Hadoken to win fireball wars, so we'll see whether this is even significant.

Dan has a Ryo's super fireball. I guess he can be like Ryu too.

Sakura's new Ultra is her MvC2 upward fireball super. It's aimed perfectly at an angle which she kicks you up in her EX hurricane kick. I guess she can be like Ryu, too... though that is her goal in life. (She may or may not need a penis?)

Akuma has a hitting Ultra, which is modeled after his upward spinning hurricane kick super. I call FADC uppercut opening, though it looks fast, so if he can juggle it after a hurricane kick, I'm going to laugh, and then cry.

Blanka has the crazy electricity move for his Ultra (forgot the name). It seems to cover the entire span of the stage's floor, and an area directly above him. I sigh to think what kind of turtle this can make him, because the startup looks quite fast.

I think Boxer has a 720 grab. I dunno what to think of that.

Rose has Ouroboros. Thx Strider.

Guile has Sonic Hurricane. I heard that it grounds people on air hit, but I haven't seen this yet. This is good news.

Rufus' new Ultra is a super-spinning first move that has whoa vacuum. Without knowing potential openings, I can't have an opinion on it.

El Fuerte has a low(?) hitting Ultra... or it's another throw.

Gief seems to have an aerial 720. I dunno how it works precisely, because it doesn't seem like it's a straightforward air throw.

Abel has a dashing grab that does similar damage to his existing Ultra. I guess that's cool, but he has plenty of ways to hit his existing Ultra.

Seth has some upward hitting tornado Ultra. He gets into Voldo's humping stance and shoots wind out his dick. www.youtube.com/user/LordAborigineSF4#p/u/14/GxZdqBmCb8U

Gouken has a super fireball. Even Ryu's master wants to be like Ryu.

Cammy has a hooligan combo ultra.

Viper's Ultra looks pretty worthless compared to her existing one. She has to do it in the air, and it comes down as a dive kick. The move itself looks cool, but looks have never made a good super/ultra.

Ryu has Shinsho. Duh.

Ken has Shippu, but more flaming and hurricane kick like. I hope he can juggle with it.

Some other characters have some Ultras, but they were shown as just plain hits - no setups, nothing.

[Pikachu]

www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTpVXkrk8wk

Not quite SSF4, but it's the grand finals round, in one of the Kansai qualifiers for the Japanese Nationals. Good games, and there's a sick Chun player.

[buhwhyen]

I had a random thought. How are they really gonna make Dudley work? In 3rd strike he was pure aggro, with extremely limited zoning capabilities, low walk speed, and no real defense to speak of - which was okay because you had parry to fill in any lack of defensive options. And honestly, if you take away his ability to cancel/link everything into super, they're really remaking the way he has to do damage, potentially reworking how he plays overall. I seriously doubt they'd even consider keeping stupid cr.rh juggles, and I also doubt they'd make him *too* similar to how Boxer plays, and I know they're not gonna keep all the random character specific juggles off EX machine gun punches.

I'm really curious specifically on how they plan to make him deal damage. Previously the only option for damage outside of supers that were practical, and useful were EX machine gun punch, and his cr.rh into "dash" punch combos. Other than that an abusive 22F overhead, random hits off stupid whiffs and command normals that moved you slightly forward, or silly cr.rh juggles (lol - corner x7, 3-4 midscreen, cr.rh against chun-li). Honestly, the only special move that has potential to be a "combo" starter (even including EX moves) is machine gun punch. Combo'ing into super/ultra should be pretty easy (I think), but I'm more concerned with his general damage output without supers/ultra. I saw some chain combos (cr. short, strong, fierce) in the most? recent SSF4 trailer, but overall they didn't showcase anything other than that chain and straight ultras, which looked unimpressive.

And there def won't be any reverse screw blow shenanigans. Sad Panda.

[Pikachu]

That's the million dollar question for all the 3S characters I think. They were designed under such a different system from other SF's that they pique my curiosity the most in terms of how they turn out.

I saw the trailers, too. They all look unimpressive, but I hardly think that's a useful way to tell.

I think Dudley will play the most differently from any of the other 3S incarnations. The way I see it, he's reduced to two options: having very damaging pokes, or needing some sort of jabs/shorts into a special. With the way damage scales in SF4, I highly doubt they'd allow c.RH juggles to do that much damage (although it may be an avenue for netting tons of stun, and hence more damage). Dudley can't 50/50 people in the corner with a super payoff that often, either. Hell, just not having super as often will change the way most 3S characters function.

I'm gonna bet that they'll give Dudley some stupid new BnB's that we'll all figure out Day 1. They gotta give him something to rival Boxer's popularity.

Ibuki is really focused on her target combos, according to the developers. They mentioned in an interview that she can mix things up according to her target combos in addition to her fast movement and specials. My guess from their tone is that she can be expected to have a higher damage output than 3S.

Of the three, I expect Makoto to be quite similar. Even if her super was threatening, the threat didn't come up as often as the other higher tiers in 3S. She was at her nastiest in the middle of her command grab mixups, so the most important part of her game is intact. Damage scaling won't hurt her as badly since most combos she has are just 3 hits. Since she'll probably deal above average damage, her general concept might end up like SF4 Ken: find openings for a simple, but damaging and high stun combo... not many openings, but not needing tons, either. No real reliance on Super or Ultra (outside of the flowchart variations of Ken).

If anything, I want to seriously pick up Makoto if she retains some 3S fidelity - if I can adapt well enough to her movement. There are a lot of potentially compatible skills I picked up from Dictator, but I look forward to having a character with higher damage payoff. That said, Makoto might also suffer in an environment where spazzing is easier and far more rewarding. Mashed reversal DP, Clothesline, and Circular grabs (read: 360/720's) are going to be the bane of careless Makotos everywhere.

[buhwhyen]

Well. I specifically mention Dudley because of all the the 3rd strike characters, he relies the most on constantly landing supers. Even Ken, who also relies on landing supers, has air EX hurricane kick shenanigans and double srk stupidity. Chun-Li had a retarded kara throw and a decent set of normals to zone with and good whiffable normals to build meter. Dudley had...a good mix up game, and no real zoning capability or damage without supers/abuseable juggles. I think his backdash punch (he slides back and forward and punches you, no homo) will be really annoying when scrubs just spam it, but honestly without a super to constantly cancel off it on hit, the damage will suck or be too good for a regular special move.

My main worry is how they're going to approach redoing his play style. For Boxer they kinda just shifted the focus of his play away from spamming special moves and interspersing specials with a few good normals, to more of a dynamic? charge character that didn't rely on always using charge to move around the screen. They gave him a retarded c.lp and kept most of his good normals from ST, most of his dash punches are still really good, TAP has good functionality (more like a function against certain characters), and a combo-able super/ultra that's stupid easy to land made him pretty high tier overall. But Boxer always relied on getting that first hit, or making the opponent block something then relentlessly spamming shit till he died. Dudley didn't have that level of aggro to begin with. Dudley never had ANY good/reliable ways to get the opponent to block so he could rush in and continue pressure, nor did he have any amount of frame advantage after a lot of his strings that led to super. Actually, he relied a lot on random CH from a distance to move in - only in certain matchups, most notably against Chun-Li. CH s.rh against Chun-Li, you constantly spammed s.rh and you were actually able to constantly input an EX machine gun punch option select so that if the s.rh hit, you would combo into an EX machine gun punch combo. Other than that, you mainly either walked/jumped at your opponent naked (with parry protection...but none of that for SF4), or tried for random c.rh hits that would give you a small/mediocre damage combo that gave knockdown (much more important).

I think what I've been trying to say is, I don't know how Dudley even potentially fits into this game. He was originally a Boxer clone (replacement?) for 3rd Strike, kinda like Remi was for Guile (lol Remi was a useless character). I think I would actually play Dudley if he played similarly to how he did in 3rd Strike, but...I think he'll either end up really gimmicky, or super scrubtastic wet dream shit (maybe more so than flow chart Ken? I pray not).


If you look at Makoto, I think she'll translate pretty well into the SF4 engine. She was typically characterized by a long fast dash and a throw/low attack mix up, with a minimal number of hits per combo. Which I think wouldn't be too difficult to make work with SF4 balance, just has to be less damaging than Zangief 360s, maybe comparable to Honda 360 damage? Though Honda damage in general is pretty high. Though to be honest, her main strength was more in the potential follow ups, rather than the damage per combo. The damage from a single command grab combo wasn't that ridiculous (not Chun-Li super damage). It was the fact that the follow up "hayate" (I think that's how you spell it) combo left you point blank with enough frame advantage to make the situation ambiguous and give barely enough time for another mix up (which is what Josh referred to as being a mashable time for 360s, srks, and supers). As long as her normals aren't amazing for zoning, I don't see too much problem getting her to fit in SSF4 as long as they make the frame advantage "reasonable" after her combos.


Ibuki...I think actually translates pretty well into the SF4 engine too...Her playstyle was always a bit off for 3rd Strike to be honest. Her supers sucked. They just...sucked. It was more of an EX bar, rather than a super bar almost all the time. Which in terms of SF4, is a good thing. From reading the SF4 developer blog/interview I think the developers thought similarly to this. They focused mainly on getting her target combo (which was really the only thing that was good about her in 3rd Strike) to be balanced. The thing that worried me was the mention of frame advantage mid target combo, and possibly being able to mix up mid combo, rather than doing the full target combo. It makes me think that she might turn out to play like a mix of c.Viper and Iori++, which I'll probably end up LOL'ing about a bunch later when the game is released. My big question about Ibuki currently is: if they intend on keeping her kunai special in the game (her air fireball, essentially), is it going to keep more to the 3rd strike style or newer SF4 style of affecting jump momentum. I guess I'm wondering how much space you can control and how much frame advantage you can get from a super jumped air fireball with such huge variations in jumping height/distance with a pixy character that really wants to get up in your face. I doubt it'll be a huge problem, but its still something in the back of my mind that I worry about.


I said it a long time ago when the the SF4 engine was first released, but there are a lot of similarities to the 3rd strike engine. However, the way a lot of 3rd strike characters played, relied mainly on using supers for damage (constantly/lots of supers - except Chun-Li or Hugo...hahaha...Hugo, who relied on a small number of supers to win). In terms of 3rd strike characters porting to SF4...I think if they picked the right characters, ones that relied more on EX moves rather than supers to do damage and generally function, they might translate into the SF4 system pretty well. Granted, this includes NONE of the top tier characters in 3rd Strike, unless you include Makoto in the top tier (borderline case...arguments for both sides). The top 6 (arguably):
-Yun/Chun-Li, Ken/Dudley/Makoto, Urien

In any case, ALL of those characters, except Makoto, depended on supers to do appreciable damage (Genei-Jin is a super for this argument, not a normal damnit). No character in SF4 depends on ultra/super for damage, though a lot of Sagat's ultra combos basically do Chun-Li 3rd Strike damage. But more importantly, he has other good options for dealing damage outside of his ultra combos. I think that's probably the most important thing for characters to have (non-reliance on supers for damage) in SF4.

Actually..do ANY of the SF4 characters really even use their supers? (not referring to ultras) I know Daigo uses Ryu's, but really him and maybe 1 or 2 other Ryu players even try to do this. Boxer maybe? But I don't think I've seen this more than once or twice. I know Akuma's super has less activation time (harder to escape) than his Ultra...but I still never see people use it.

[Pikachu]

Dhalsim uses Super the most out of any character. Boxer kinda depends, because EX dash punches are still useful for running through pokes and fireballs. If I get to Super with Dictator, I either am winning, or haven't had a chance to press too many buttons during the second round (bad).

Dictator's second Ultra looks really eh. It doesn't look like there are a lot of setups to lead into that. But for some reason, just as I am ready to abandon him, I see an uptick in Dictator popularity in Japan. They do everything I've been trying to do for the past year, just better.

[Pikachu]

I think here's as good of a place as any to continue a footsie discussion. There are a couple of things that have hindered my own development in footsies, or even basic aspects of fighters. I'm gonna try my best to be brutally honest, mainly about myself, but just in case, I hope no one gets uncomfortable or offended.

1. CvS2 - The characters in the high tiers have such ridiculous buttons that they can overcome ignorance. Sure, there are still plenty of insights a player can get from it, but for me, they masked a lot of things I needed to learn. If anyone just catalogs my character selection at any length for most GAMES, this will be true.

This game is different from ST in that there are very universal answers to a lot of situations, and it gets to a point where you're pressing different buttons to give your opponent something different to look at. Otherwise, you pick certain pokes because they link into a hit confirm for your super, and that's really it.

2. Communication - It's rare that anyone ever talks about this shit, including us. Seriously, our focus is combo-tastic, or on specific situations. In terms of big picture generalities, we garner little discussion. It's nice to know that X move comes out in Y frames, but then there are a lot of other factors to take into consideration besides speed and priority, that for me, I never thought about. My suspicion, however, is that there are some blind spots for me that everyone notices, but no one has ever really told me about. Probably because I usually get pissed or to protect my feelings, or both, which I appreciate, but at this point, I no longer really care.

And no, "Josh, stop mashing Grand Viper," does not count.

3. Adaptation - I do this really slowly, because I have stupid assumptions about opponents I don't know. Usually, I figure someone will switch things up when they won't, because they actually just don't know how. I lose so many matches because I figure people will stop taking certain risks after a while, and then am caught off guard when they keep at it. It'll be like me thinking, "He won't Messiah Kick at this range, because that's risky, and I've shown him this because I've punished it, so I'll stick something out... now!" And I'll get hit with Messiah Kick FADC Ultra and lose.

This has been a real stumbling block for me in SF4 because I've had to completely recalibrate how I choose to inflict mind games on someone. There's a lot of crap that I pick up from in videos that are not gonna work against someone who: A) doesn't know what actually happened to them, and B) hasn't been hit with enough damage to learn, which is an unfortunate choice in picking Dictator.

And on a tangent, my reactions suck.

4. Does anyone ever think about new shit? - I sometimes wonder if you guys are just reacting to what I do, and then formulating a strategy, or proactively trying something new and strange (and I'm not seeing it). I know Brian has proactively tried a range of stuff, but a lot of the results are more obvious. This particular question delves into the subtler adjustments, instead of the more dramatic progression our group has gone through (like first learning to RC, then FRC, or picking up A-Groove, parrying/JDing, etc).

5. Predictability - WTF am I doing all the time? I know I have tendencies and am aware of some (most?) of them. There still have to be blind spots, because I'm not nearly a good enough player to have gotten rid of them, or even be aware of all the stuff that I get taken advantage for.

This one is touchy. Either I get offended (which I won't... I'm often mad at my own stupidity and execution more than anything else), or everyone else loses their edge once I learn how to not lose.

Reality, I think, is somewhere in-between. Or we just haven't thought to even speak up about it on this level. For all of us, who started out together, the answers we used to give were much easier. Execute better. Block more. Grand Viper less (or was that just me?). Now, the answers aren't so simple, but we do still get wins over one another. How and why? That's a subject we don't touch, and I think over the years, it's gotten to be a big detriment.

As a last point, I have plenty of thoughts about how I play against everyone, and I just am never sure if people wanna hear it. Probably the same for you guys, but hey, I do actually wanna hear it, on my end now, because I've hit a huge wall that I can't climb over without hearing the ugly truth.

[buhwhyen]

EDIT: Broke up a lot of the paragraphs, hopefully makes it easier to read. Holy fuck this thing is long (no homo).
*****

Wow, holy fuck. The character count limit is stupidly generous. This post is like 4.5 pages long (single spaced), that practically (actually can be) a research length paper. There's 41,000 characters remaining, wowowow. I'll be impressed if someone reads it all. Part of it is just me thinking aloud while reflecting on how I got started on fighters and that sorta junk.
*****

Somehow a post about footsies -> overarching problems with improving. Nice. This post probably is going to contain stuff not everyone wants to hear...so if you're one of those people who are contented with what you currently believe to be true about your own gaming prowess/senses/ability, you can stop reading now - in fact, you probably should.
*****

I don't think there is a single category that can easily describe everyone, in terms of how they have/are/aren't/will continue to improve at games. I don't think this even applies solely footsies, or even fighting games to be perfectly honest. This is something that I've thought about quite a bit about everyone's gaming ability, and gaming sense - this includes myself, as well.

I tend to think pretty critically about things, and am particularly harsh towards myself when it comes to criticizing mistakes. This, actually, is probably the reason why I've been seeing so much improvement overall in how well I play games in general now a days.

I think a lot of the "walls" people hit when they're trying to reach the next level, so to speak, aren't actually problems with physical execution or other physical limitations (high enough APM, inability to paint the fence/roll cancel consistently, etc). The biggest reason that I see in people is actually the way that people think about improving at games in general; the stereotyped answers and responses that have become catch all phrases when they have nothing specific to be say.

What are these catch all answers? Namely:
-X (move/ability) is overpowered/imbalanced/unfair/cheap/lame/gay.
-He got lucky (obviously not referring to getting laid), I can't believe I lost to that newb/noob/n00b/fag/scrub.
-I lost because his character is better/my character is low tier.
-I lost because he plays too much.
-My partner sucked (not cock... or maybe cock), so we lost.
-Etc.

The point of listing out a bunch of "typical" stereotyped answers is to just point out a common theme, rather than going through them point by point. All of these answers are doing the same thing, deflecting the blame away from the person losing and avoiding the real underlying problem, themselves.

I know that I've done this a lot in the past, and still find myself doing it still. Deflecting blame away from yourself is pretty natural for a lot of people who feel confident in their own ability (doesn't only apply to games).

Though, at some point you have to stop blaming X or Y for losing and start looking at things more critically and stop trying to make yourself feel better. This isn't to say that some games aren't lost purely because you couldn't pull off a reversal super when you were about to get chipped to death, but rather that you should focus less on SPECIFIC moments, and more on your overall gameplay and what led to you getting put in those positions in the first place.

A common example of this is easier to explain in terms of RTS games, in this case Starcraft.

A lot of times people will realize in the middle of the game that they have a lot of money laying around (when they shouldn't). They will think, "wow, I have 1000 minerals, I should have macro'ed better" and they go on playing. But they will continue to have the same problem, and they will continue to think, "I need to macro better, I need to play faster" but they'll always think purely in the present, never about what happened in the past 5-10 minutes that lead to their money getting that high. Was it because they forgot to build a round of units? Was it because they didn't start upgrading something? Was it because they didn't build enough gateways/factories/hatcheries to keep their money low?

The real answer is what COULD have been done BEFORE that moment when they had 1000 minerals, to prevent their money from getting that high in the first place. It's true that APM can directly affect your ability to keep your money low by being able to build units and do something else at the same time, however, people often find an easy answer (I need to macro better) and dismiss their problem as that, and hence stop looking for other potential problems/reasons for their problems. As a result, most of the time they're left unable to improve their macro, and never get any better at the game, regardless of how many hours they play.

I know there's a lot of people out there that play SF4 way way way more than I do, and yet I'll just kill them with almost only sweeps, because they refuse to block. But time spent does not equal getting better, contrary to common belief.

The way you spend your time playing can often determine whether or not you get better, stay the same, or even get worse at X game. How can you get worse? You can get into stupid habits (I know we all have dumb habits), you get angry and quit when you lose (it happens to all of us), or you start to think something about the game is true (that isn't actually true - something is unfair/unbalanced).

So far everything I've said has been pretty vague, but I think it's important to have the right mindset when you're really trying to get better at something. Honestly, if you sit there and mash buttons all day, you're probably not going to get much better than you already are. This isn't to say that playing "casually" is bad. If you're content with playing games for fun and not caring if you win or lose, great. But I don't know why you're reading this. Casual gamers are typically classified as casual because they don't have any real motivation to improve at games - they play for fun (more deflecting, but whatever).

I know some of us are content with the way that we play games, thinking that we're so 1337, or some shit like that. And that because we're 1337, we should automatically be fucking top tier (not true) at everything we pick up and play. Though to be truly critical, we suck donkey shit covered chocoCOCK at Left 4 Dead 2. If you think otherwise, you just aren't being honest with yourself.

But it's okay that we're not amazing 1337 at FPS games, because we mostly play FPS games because they're entertaining and easy to put together when we have 3 or 4 people. No one (I think?) wants to play Counter Strike 1.6 competitively or any other FPS for that matter. But really, the point here is to try not to delude yourself into thinking we're better than we actually are. It's just not a good habit to have.

For those of us who do want to improve at X game, you have to think less of what is wrong/lame/overpowered that your opponent is doing, and more of what you can do to snap the nerd's neck (not literally, though it would probably benefit society). It took me ~1000 words just to get all the way to be more critical about what you're doing and less about what everyone else is. Butt. Fuck.
*****

My personal stuff.

When I first started playing fighters (with the intent of getting better), I was playing CVS2. I think this was both a curse and a blessing, when I look back on things. On one hand, CVS2 is very execution heavy. It really does require that your execution doesn't suck ass to combo consistently/properly, so it really forced me to sit in training mode and learn how to combo, link, kara cancel, etc. But on the other hand...probably 90% of the characters worth playing had ridiculous priority normals, like Josh was saying, that really covered up the need to learn the basics (distancing, zoning, footsies, etc). So while I love the game overall, I really wish it WASN'T the first game that I played seriously.

I think a lot of my problems can be traced back to the fact that I started playing CVS2, and frankly, because I only played CVS2 and GGXX for the longest time. I never really played 3rd Strike or ST for a long time, and by that point I had developed a lot of bad habits.

Most of which were just feeble attempts to cover up my shitty footsies game. I really just never understood how to position my character properly on the screen and or maintain distances/spacing. It took a really long time before I got to a mediocre level of zoning, and footsies (which is actually only recently with HDR and SF4).

Another thing that probably really cramped my flow (and probably other people's as well) is that we really only played each other. We hardly got to play other people, so as things started to get repititious, we just started choosing other characters, grooves, etc, to keep things more fresh.

Realistically, sticking to one, two, or a small number of characters really helps when you're trying to improve. Comfort with a character in different situations really helps you to see things that you otherwise wouldn't see. For example, if you're playing Ryu vs Ken. And you notice that your jab DP gets beat clean by Ken's j.rh at some distance, you might normally try to use another move to anti air, or you might give up on anti airing all together and block, or you might try to respond with your own j.rh. But something that I noticed after playing a lot of Ryu, was that his dash was pretty good. So I thought maybe I can just dash under it, and get a free combo (which actually does work, distance dependent).

The more you play a single character, the more familiar you become with the small nuances, rather than using general thought processes to come up with answers. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it really doesn't make a difference, but you don't know till you try it. (This dash technique actually works against Bison's headstomp followup, even with Sagat's shitty dash)
*****

(Previous section continued, but more relevant to other people)

As much as I think the games we played to start off didn't really help garner good basics, I think that the main reason our skill levels? became stratified (lol complicated words) was more because of our personalities...

Some of us don't practice, some of us give up easily, some of us are obsessive (but not quite OCD). I fall more into the obsessive category. I'll sit around in training mode till I can do a combo, pain the fence, etc because I just want to be able to do that stuff. I know not everyone has/had that level of determination, on some level I think some of us thought that it should come naturally as you play more, and they shouldn't have to work to get better. I know that I'm the type to try a lot of random shit to deal with a problem I have in game, assuming the typical responses don't work (generally referring to fighters and beating out random high priority stuff).

I think that I'm mostly? alone in this sense. I guess it was around the time when we were "trying" to get better at GGXX:AC that I started to realize that mostly everyone wasn't willing to really do any amount of work/research by themselves, but rather relying on other people to give them answers about how to play, how to beat X, how to <insert whatever>.

I guess it was around this point where I stopped trying to give people advice on how they might improve (I doubt more than 2 people will read this far, so it doesn't really matter what I write), and just came to terms with needing to be more self-sufficient when it came to getting better at games.

Do you really need to be proactive about trying new stuff? No...probably not, but unless you watch what other people do (via youtube), or have someone (who doesn't suck) to talk to/tell you what to do, you're probably going to keep losing to the same dumb shit over and over again.

As I look back, it was a bit silly of me to think that playing SF4 on PSN was a waste of time (fucking hindsight is 20/20). Sure I play 99.9% scrubs, but being able to try a range of stuff, and getting used to playing against retards really does help your overall game play because you can try to do stuff like just zone the shit out of everyone with fireballs, or kill them just with footsies, and there's an endless supply of them. You don't have to spend money, interact with them in person, or deal with them raging out and breaking the machine (like you would at an arcade). It's a great resource to try out specific shit, and just practice stuff that you might not feel comfortable trying against someone decent/good.
*****

Communication

I actually entirely agree with Josh on this. We don't talk a lot about our game play issues. I realized how little we talked about this kinda big overarching theme/picture stuff when Alvin asked us to pick apart his play in GGXX:AC, and we were all kind of...awkward about saying stuff. In all honesty, I think this was partly because we didn't want to hurt his feelings and largely because we didn't have a lot to say about how he could change it because we didn't have an amazing understanding of it either.

I think overall, there's been a lot of stuff (habits/etc we noticed, but never said) that's been lost to time because we didn't want to hurt feeling, step on toes, or what not (I've forgotten just about everything specific). Also giving less specific, more general game play advice isn't as easy as it sounds. Well, giving good advice isn't.

Our focus was largely on "once you get an opening, here's how you violate him and do the most damage (no homo...can that ever be interpreted as not gay?)." The focus was...understandable, we didn't really need to focus on our general game play because we were mostly playing from our intuition and knowledge of the other person's tendencies, rather than what was actually happening in game.

There was a time when I kinda wanted to start recording our matches on VHS or something just to re-watch them later, but I was honestly a bit scared of how scrubby I would look and I just avoided it by not doing it. But there is a lot to learn by watching your own matches, because you think differently in game, compared to watching as an observer.

Not necessarily that we should do this now, but I guess it's just one of those things on a list that could be done if we really got serious about improving. Though I think that we just need to play a larger range of people, more than anything (rofl more deflecting. Probably would only help if we played more than...1-2 people in a sitting, otherwise I think we more or less know how we play each other already).
*****

Adaptation (stuff is kinda randomly ordered here)

This is kind of an awkward topic because I think it has a lot to do with reading your opponent "properly," which is stupidly vague. Being able to analyze someone's play style and rhythm requires a lot more long term memory recollection than you'd probably think. I think it's something that just comes along with having extra brain power to really commit to actively looking for patterns while still playing the game.

In really archaic terms, as a group, we suck at adapting. I think Jon is the only one that really adapts well to stuff. I know that I suffer from a lot of bad "readings" on my opponents. I'll constantly think as if they had brains, assume they would expect me to not do the same the all round every round, etc.

But...scrubs will be scrubs. I've found that against 90% of people online, you SHOULD keep doing the same lame shit over and over till they prove they can beat it. Not beat it once, but beat it at least twice (not beating cock). Because once they beat it twice, they'll continue to try to beat it (this sounds really gay), which is when you can go to counter it and they should be dead by this point. If they're not, they typically just spazz the fuck out and don't bother trying to read/predict them.

I've actually found myself adapting more (again only recently). I've kind of been wondering why...as I thought about it more and more. I think it's largely due to the fact that I'm not really consciously thinking about what my normal game play is, if that makes sense.

I mostly think of this in terms of RTS and Starcraft, but typically in a match up, you have a general idea of how you're going to play it out. This is because you have match up knowledge and a general game plan of how you're going to approach the match. The more familiar you become with what you do normally (walking back and forth, throwing pokes at X distance, maintaining a certain distance, etc), the more brain power you have to actively look for things to react to (things that cause you to alter/change your normal play). Or conversely, people can just act extremely passively while they look for openings, or in this case watch/look for patterns or habits to exploit.
*****

To end this epic long rant...I think that in terms of reacting to things, such as dragon punching jump ins on reaction, is something that I've mostly lost the ability to do.

I used to rely so much on my reactions in CVS2 that I really never used many normals for anti air, I'd much more often anti air with dragon punches. Which...back then, when I could do that, was fine. But now after I took a pretty long break from fighters, I find that my reactions are really bad. I can't seem to react to things that I know that I should be able to. And frankly, since I'm a lot older than when I first started (I started when I was...15? Shit...that's like 8 years), my reactions can only get worse. And during that year long break, I lost a lot in terms of my execution, which is also regrettable.

As a result, I've come to think about my execution a lot. Particularly how it can fluxuate between good, bad, and somewhere in between. I've come to think there's a certain level of execution that you will always retain, and it's kind of like an average execution level. If you practice a lot, your execution improves, but if you stop playing for an extended period of time, it obviously decreases. If you don't play for hella days, your execution sucks initially, but after a few games, it returns to roughly a playable level (the "average" level).

I think most people can relate to this. We've all gone through period of inactivity, had points in time when our execution was better or worse, but overall our execution hasn't changed too much from what it was years ago. Obviously as you get better, there is potential for your average level to increase along with the upper end.

[Pikachu]

Yeah, huge catharsis of shit to get off our chest, since gaming takes a big dump on you.

A lot of this comes down to self-honesty, and I've heard everyone from Day9 in Starcraft to... well, every good fighter say that. I like Brian's example of L4D2, too. We don't play versus not because versus is gay, or whatever excuse there is. Yes, playing against strangers and hearing them rant is kinda annoying, but we're just not cut out for it as a group of four.

Although I have a "legitimate reason" for being worthless in FPS', the end result is the same. Whether it's because I don't think I need to practice or it's because I will puke buckets if I play all day, I simply won't, and I am therefore not entitled to certain degrees of success. Whatever teamwork I get with my friends in L4D2, learned gamer instincts, and luck is all I have and all I can contribute. Period.

Starcraft is another hurdle ATM. I find I suck ass at clicking. No matter what I've read on how to macro or micro, my brain can't wrap itself around all of that multi-tasking because I haven't practiced enough. Granted, after being mildly aware of what this game has to offer, and then trying it out, I've at least improved my old APM of like, 15 to a consistent 90. Not that it's really great, but at least it is a step in the right direction. Still, I can't say I am entitled to win the majority of games I'll play online.

I think of all the people, I had the biggest sense of misplaced entitlement. I figured that if I could exploit X trick, Y situations, with Z top tier, I could get a magical shortcut for success. Unfortunately, that's a mentality not solved by playing more or having better execution. That's a straight character flaw that I've had to grow out of. The funny thing is that now that I realized my own weakness as a person, I am playing better than ever, even when I'm rusty.

That's a tough flaw to point out without sounding like a real asshole. Like, how do you say to your friend, "Cut that shit out, dude, don't think you're always supposed to win because you do unblockables."? I mean, even with Alvin, when we were advising him, there was still a degree of objectivity because the stuff was SO basic. If you block an uppercut and just punish with a throw in GG rather than some demented launch or combo into setup, your damage output will be small. There are numbers to support it. But then convincing Alvin to actually put in more practice time and changing his assumptions about the game? Much harder to do, especially because when we all started playing fighters, he had the most experience.

But this only matters if you aim for the win, which I freely admit to aiming for. I don't think anyone can get to higher levels without some aspiration of trying.

[Duragar]

EDIT: Sorry to interrupt the serious discussion. It should have occurred to me that this page was for the betterment of SF4 playing ability rather than random tidbits of SF4 info, but oh well.

====
Oh look, another new character.

www.talkxbox.com/article3751.html

YES homo. Hard Ghey homo.

[Pikachu]

Yeah, Hakan. I know. I feel like barfing thinking of him.

LATE Edit - I'm gonna learn to play him to annoy people if I can.

[Pikachu]

www.youtube.com/user/LordAborigineSF4#p/a

The usual channel I go to on Youtube for SF4 videos. God's Garden 2 tournament is up, which features a lot of high level matches, but the tone for the entire event is pretty low key. Lots of stuff to laugh at and the crowd reaction is hilarious because it's filled with good players.

As a side thought - certain crowd reactions are good for learning fighters, be they at a tournament or on video. When I was first learning to play Guilty Gear, there would be moments where I'd hear someone say, "Whoa!" and not know why. Trying to figure that out (besides the more obvious moments when someone pulls off a dazzling combo) helped me learn a few random tricks here and there. Not everyone who watches matches will realize the subtleties going on, but in this set of videos, they're all pros who react loudly and hilariously, even to stuff that scrubs think is "boring".

[buhwhyen]

The title of the post says it all. Oh. My. God.

www.shoryuken.com/content.php?r=489-Unblockable-Ultras-in-your-Street-Fighter-4

[Pikachu]

Yeah, the past week has seen a spike in players coming up with a billion setups for this. I dunno how I feel about this for now, because I am not sure I've seen it surface in matches yet... YET being the key word. Although there are ways out of them, I'm not sure these are the kinds of mind-games Capcom had in mind for SF in the first place. Some characters have to backdash and eat the fireball on wakeup to not get hit by the Ultra, while others can teleport and avoid it. I don't wanna use the word "balance" to talk about this, but I certainly think this is waaaaay too asymmetric for characters in terms of the set of characters that can escape as well as the characters that have access to this as an option.

Fortunately, SSF4 is fixable via patch (and it is confirmed that SSF4 inherited this mess). The devs at Capcom left themselves with enough room to tweak for balance, and I'm confident they'll address this if it gets out of hand.

[Pikachu]

Few things I've read about final builds that I think are kinda nifty, to varying degrees:

Akuma can apparently close Fierce, teleport, and cancel the teleport into Ultra 2 (Roflcopter Ultra).

Improvement on Abel's sweep, and his normals, and Sky Fall for anti-air. Could be cool.

Makoto can link 3(!) standing strongs into Hayate on fat characters. Her wall Ultra can adjust the angle of descent so she doesn't have to be selective about where she is on the screen to combo it.

Dudley can link two uppercuts w/o FADC.

Honda headbutt goes over Low Tigers.

Chun's df + lk can juggle opponents now. Supposed to have better hit box. Df + lk into Kikosho?

Bison is supposed to have a better Psycho Crusher. That's it. I give up.

Guile's normals are supposed to be better overall to make him more like the Guile we're all used to. Lower charge time on Sonic Boom as well. Damage increase overall.

Gief's Lariat is confirmed to whiff after the second spin. Punish away!

Messiah Kick has damage nerfed. Thank God (irony?)