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@philosophyfighter
Commentary Practice
I’ve started doing commentary at monthlies here in Montréal, and i don’t think I’m very good, so i’ve taken on recording myself over matches i haven’t seen for practice. All the uploads are raw first takes. Please share your thoughts and criticism!
Thank you
I’m back :)
After taking a break for the blog, im going to be back (at a slow pace). I’m going to be uploading practice commentary vids, and i hope to finish the ‘player styles, series too. Thanks !
Player styles: The in or out player
Before we start, style makes reference to personality and preference. Great players can play very well out of style. This is a tool to help us understand the mentality of players.
This archetype, which was inspired around the concept of the boxer archetype who prefers to be all the way out or all the way in, might be the most one of the most common player style. The reason for that is simple: this style is based on opportunism and a maximization of the risk reward based on the situation.These players will hang out of range, and pester with long range options until, they find a way in (be it a punish, a jump in, a read on their opponent’s state of mind, or whatever else), where they’ll seek to go for heavy damage. On knockdown, they’ll either go back to the safer long range neutral, or go for mixups. Usually these are complex, high percentage setups. The reason for that being that these players do not enjoy risk. They want control. These players tend to avoid the dangerous mid range, since that is a very high risk area for both players. The best examples of this style at the highest level of USF4 right now are Infiltration and Ryan Hart. Infil decapre messes about with teleport cancels from long range until he finds a way in. His akuma pesters with air fireballs and goes for damage and votex when the opponent either over extends or lets him in. Ryan hart plays his shotos and sagat in this manner as well.
Hope you enjoy, let me know your thoughts,
Have a good one
Love your character overviews! I'm sure everyone is asking you to analyze their main characters and I'm no different. I would love to see your analysis of Cody and his game design. Thanks!
I haven’t been doing too many character rundowns, since i’ve been critical of their relevance. I don’t think ill do a full breakdown until i’m done the player style series. The thing about cody, is that he’s got amazing pressure. Nothing really fancy, but good block strings, frame traps, and solid footsies (especially for advancing). He’s very well rounded, he even has a projectile. The main issue with cody is his lack of good defensive options. If i had to label the character i’d say he’s a fundamentally based, in-your-face pressure character
Player styles part 1: a paradigm shift
In boxing, as the craft evolved, fans and analysts needed to find terms to describe the actions of the sweet science. At first these terms were prescriptive (straight puncher, hooker etc.), partially due to the more simple strategies of the time, but also due to the young nature of the discourse. As it evolved, archetypes such as out-fighter, pressure fighter, counterpuncher and boxer-puncher emerged. These archetypes aren’t prescriptive; they don’t say that an out-fighter needs to jab from the outside, but rather these spawn from the observation that certain fighters that want to avoid risk tend to jab on the outside a lot. As such they are descriptive notions, and they are mostly used to help us understand the mechanics of the process a certain boxer might go through, not the exact moves they use to make that happen per se. This means that, as long as a fighter shows a general risk averse, movement centric approach they could be described as an out-fighter, regardless of what specific punches or steps they use. Getting hung up on techniques causes confusion, since both the out-fighter, the pressure fighter, and the counterpuncher could be ‘jabbing from the outside’, but all of them would have a different goal in mind with that same technique.
In the context of fighting games, i feel like we, myself included, place much more thought to the play style of a specific character than that of the player. For example, while Ryu is generally considered a balanced character, but in the hands of Alex Valle he’s a pressure monster. This is because, much like individual techniques in boxing, characters are only tools. Of course, the counterpuncher usually needs to have a good set of counter punches, just like a player looking to zone needs a solid set of space controlling options, but these tools could mean something entirely different to another person. This isn’t to say that certain tools (and by extension, characters) aren’t better suited to certain strategies, but it is undeniable that almost every tool has multiple applications, and can thus be thought of and used in different ways.
I believe that, as good as talk around the tools and optimal strategies of individual characters, i feel that we are lacking in language to describe individual play style preferences and tendencies. We all know these exist, and even allude to them, but hopefully in this series ill be able to propose some terms that can eloquently define broad player types.
Cheers!
I don’t know if anyone has ever coined/used this term I made up. It’s basically a power creep, but it applies to players ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_creep ). Instead of cards/equipment in a game gradually getting better, it’s players keep getting better. A youtuber uploaded a video...
100% Agreed
In the processes of teaching USF4 to someone that has never played fighting game! Its a very interesting process to me. I'm really focusing on fundamentals (basic mixups, spacing, defense, footsies), and by the end of the sessions my friend had figured out tick throws on his own! I think explaining the abstract of sf can really help sort out the surplus of info new players are hit with.
I agree that the execution barrier in fighting games is quite high (often unnecessarily so), but I believe there’s a bigger problem which is that fighting games are through their design frustrating to learn because it’s difficult to see real accomplishment and improvement through play.
Take an FPS, for example. Even if you don’t do well, you’re likely to still rack up a few kills. In a MOBA, even if you’ve had a bad game you can still help your squad win a teamfight. But fighting games are 1v1, and when playing someone of sufficiently higher skill, you can play a long set and it’s unlikely you could take as much as a round from them unless they let you. Sure, them winning at 20% is better than them winning at 80%, but it still feels like the same loss overall, and it can be very demoralizing since there is little if any “yeah I lost, but at least I did [cool thing X] before it was done.” You just lost. Over and over and over again.
(Note that Smash Bros. is somewhat exempt as multiplayer play and items can help alleviate this. You might play all night and not come close to winning, but you won’t remember your losses, you’ll remember that Final Smash that got you 3 KOs.)
New/novice players shouldn’t necessarily have a level(er) playing field against veterans, but they should be able to feel a sense of accomplishment, even in a loss. However, I don’t know how fighting games would do this, as the systems that cause this frustration are inherent to the genre. Sadly, I’m not sure it’s something that can be solved.
I totaly see what you mean @perilousprinny, but i think that is the rarity of meaningful acheivement intrinsically tied to hard games, and i think that fighting games are intrinsically hard. I think the most devs can to is take out unnessesary dificulty. It definatly takes a specific personality, but the fact that it is hard to win, makes it worth it. I think perhaps the best way to make people feel more accomplished is to create ways better for them to play people of similar skill levels.
In the shortest explanation, they’re too hard. Every fighting game has different controls from each other and even characters within the same game have different controls for special attacks. Characters tend to have 20-40 moves and by just looking at them, the player has no idea how to do 1/3 or...
Great peice! I am of the opinion that the execution in fighting games is needlessly high. I see no intrinsic reward in landing a BnB requireing a 1 frame link. If that's your thing cool, but in my honest opinion that precise timeing is more apt for a rhythm game. The real draws of fighting games in my eyes are contol (movement, responsiveness of attacks), mind games, and overcoming hardship. I truly believe that control can be retained to a highly satisfactory degree while reducing execution barriers. For example, it would be very interesting to have a game built around sf style target combos, with certain buttons being pokes only, and others being chainable, following some sort of general rules. By giving the players a large variety of possible target combos based on regular normals, the player would still have many ways to decide what is optimal (knockdown, corner carry, special cancel) . This way the player could relate to the move in a similar fashion (this button= this move) unlike the mk dial a combo, which i feel take away control from the player.
I'm also all in favor of a special move button. In my opinion, snk 4 button layout is satisfactory for variety of attacks, and with a 5th special button i think that should be a more manageable template for novices to get into fighting games. I do applaud arc sys games for going with a more streamlined control scheme in P4A, and i hope this idea grows in fighting games
I'm so hype for this costume. Finally a rose costume i can be not ashamed of playing
This post is an the analysis of the Super Street Fighter IV game balance. We start from the Shoryuken.com community tier list for the 2012 Arcade Edition of the game, a table that depicts the most probable outcome of a fight between two characters.
We analyze it using statistical methods and...
So, i don't completely agree with this, but i find the frame data part quite interesting. I don't think it should be used for tiers though, as it can't be comprehensive enough to cover the complex neutral game (how low profile or low crush moves affect the neutral for example). I do think however they the data can be used to create fun coefficients of pressure potential, ability to mixup and so on.
From a philosophical point of view, Guile is probably my favorite character for how simple and elegant the idea behind him is. He is a zoning character with a particularly strong keepaway game. He has the least special moves of any character in the Street Fighter series as it stands, but...
Here's a slight revision to what is, in my opinion, one of my best breakdowns.
Have a good weekend everyone !
OMG, Blanka.....
My jaw is screwed to the floor
(source eventhubs)
Fei Long is a well balanced pressure character. Being inspired by Bruce Lee, he captures the great martial artist’s flair as demonstrated in his movies while adding a mandatory dose of Street Fighter flashiness. Fei Long will do best with his opponent in the corner, where he can really apply...
Really old post. Not my best work but at least with these edits it makes a bit more sense.
Yang is an offensive character specializing in movement and space control. This means that Yang can control a match like few other characters in the game. In this piece, we will look an extra quick look at Yang gameplan, strengths and weaknesses to see what makes him so unique.
Strengths...
Here’s a slight but healthy update to this character’s breakdown. I changed some oh-so-important adjectives and added some basic info regarding offensive tools (pressure, and resets).
If you want more info on the character’s specifics make sure to hit up the SKR forums to find the frame date, mixups and setups you need!
Suggested Deejay changes
Deejay is the comparatively quite bad in USF4. Its a fairly balanced game so he's still playable, but here are my suggestions/ramblings for the character.
So Deejay seems to be a poking character with some decent zoning options and decent offense from jump mixups. I feel that the mixup game is good as it is, and i like the extra hitstun from the down lk. I just don't think that the game needs another mixup/vortex character. I think that the character has developed into more of a poking/footsie and zoning with mixups on the side to help with some matchups, which is a good archetype for the game especially as a charge character. Like a Ken to Guile's Ryu.
So with that in mind here are my suggestions:
- far st mk: damage 40/70
More damage at max range on a good poke
- change far st HP to back HP /cl st HP now activates at all ranges
- decrease damage to 80
Give that counter hit juggle a chance to be used. Plus the player would have charge to capitalize on it actually working. It would also make for a more reliable anti-air. Also the character would gain some frame traps with it, but they wouldn't be that crazy since its only 8f on startup.
- cl st HP hit box, first hit box expanded forwards, second hit box expanded downwards
Increase the utility of a not so useful normal
- cr mp 3 active frame instead of 2
- decrease startup to 5f
better, faster poke
-increase air slasher damage to 70
- increase recovery by 3 frames
Since the character is really lacking in ways to deal damage, this move would help a great deal
- Add armor break to first hit of rolling sobat, restore lower body invincibility
If bison can have a -1 move that goes overlows and breaks focus, i think deejay should get this
Perhaps these buff are too much, but i think they would make for a much more fun to play character.
So, I’ve realized that my articles have been getting less and less intro friendly, as I’ve been getting more lazy, so here is a list of definitions for terms used to describe gameplay in fighting games. I’ll try to keep it as up to date possible.
Active Frames: the frame in the animation of a…
Just thought I’d add to this super helpful post with This link
Up your knowledge guys
Thanks for posting! I've updated the lexicon, with info for cancels, links, knockdown, vortex, lows and overheads :)
