Moral vs Abare Play

Responding after getting hit I think is a whole lot harder than responding after a block. When I blocked a move I was typically expecting something to come my way. When I just get smacked in the face I typically had no intention of getting hit. . . I never intend on getting it, so it's harder for me to react to.

This effect is amplified at small disadvantage/advantage since if I don't react quickly the moment is already past and we're back at even steven again. I think this is also a skill that differentiates top level play from intermediate.

 

Re: VF Philosophy

Thank you for chiming in with some really helpful info about Lion that I did not know. I wasn't thinking that I was going to get move-specific tips from this thread but that's just the icing on the cake.

Thanks for the props guys but I thank you more for taking the time out to write and share your views.
I have to admit that I had a secondary (ulterior) motive in mind when I made this thread. First motive was the one I stated in the original post but my secondary motive was to motivate.

I'm not a motivational speaker and I don't have the skills, knowledge or experience to motivate anyone except for players on my level (intermediate) and beginners.
But I was looking forward to others chiming in and helping me to reach some of the players who I had in mind when I created this thread.

I'm not going to name drop right now, I just wanted the players who had almost "given up" on "dealing" with abare or "dealing" with players who did not play the way that they thought VF should be played, to have a sort of paradigm shift.

This thread has had the ripple effect that I wanted it to have with most players who I was hoping to reach except for one or two. I'm certain that for some it must be a bitter pill to swallow that an elitist mindset does not automatically make a good player. You can't just talk the talk. In order to be good at this game (and most fighting games), you have to work on your yomi. Not just go into Dojo, play Quest, learn move properties, etc.
You also have to learn the art of reading an opponent in order to outthink them, outwit them and outfight them.

That last part can be hard for even the most talented of players sometimes. I remember watching an interview of Kyasao after he fought 100 opponents and when they asked him who were your toughest opponents he replied that inexperienced opponents were harder to read than experienced opponents. So basically, in a nutshell, noobs gave Kyasao more problems than the opponents who knew what they were doing.

It takes more than just hand dexterity, good reflexes, knowledge of frames and good execution of combos to beat an opponent who's hard to read. It takes being a step ahead and learning his habits, flow and rhythm. This is where even top level players can have a hard time dealing with an opponent. Not being able to properly read your opponent can sometimes make or break a fight. Maybe not always but, imho, yomi counts for 50% or more in competitive fighting games.

You can be a great player and still get your ass kicked by not-so-great players just because they can read you better than you can read them.
I know how annoying it can be to lose to an opponent who is not as skilled as you are or who hasn't been playing for nearly as long as you have. Here, I'll share an embarrassing story with you guys:
One time we had a party down in Miami, it was a bunch of college kids from FIU. There were drinks, food, video games all that good stuff. Well, somebody put VF5 for the PS3 on one of the TV's and that night I lost to a guy who had just been introduced to VF that same day. It pissed me off really bad back then cuz my yomi was so off that I couldn't figure out how this guy beat me. He was a cocky s.o.b. too, lol.
Anyway, moral of the story is that player made better choices than I did during the fight. My yomi sucked back then and even if it was a bit better it was hard to read a guy who was discovering new moves as he went along. He had figured out a few moves and used them well. He was playing with Sarah and was applying her sabaki, sweeps, mids and lows at just the right time. You could say that he got lucky but he just had better yomi. It was a one-and-done, winner stays on type of session and he knocked me off. I was pissed then but now in retrospect it makes me laugh and it was a good lesson.

 

maybe you don't know the brad matchup well enough. This guy was trying to grab and do his "shosho" stuff a lot, really the only way to deal with that is to mash ppp, because trying to defend against brads offense is a freaking nightmare.

 

Hahahahaha!

 

Fucking hilarious Akai you faggot! You're mother should have flushed you down the toilet when she had the chance.

..............was that what you wanted?

True, once you get hit I think it's imperative not only to recognize you got hit but if you got countered. I think being able to see those flashes plays a huge part in being able to successfully be defensive. After you some moves MC you I imagine you have less defensive options. While playing at Game Over Channel, I noticed that some of the people who tried playing had really badass reaction times for being new. I wonder if that comes from just quality game time in general.

If FS drops I'm definitely going to put in some "training" time simply so I can react better. I think my general hypos are pretty strong but you can come up with a plan, but if you can't react to implement it in time you're kind of fudged. Quality defense however makes an immediate implication less urgent I think. I tend to get ahead of myself, then I get smacked in the face because the other player plays in the moment. While I try to set up a response on their part.

 

Responding to getting hit is the hardest thing for me to learn in VF. It doesn't matter how much VF I play I just can't react to getting hit in time to defend.

I am literally the bitch of /.

It makes the game impossibly hard and frustrating for me to play.

 

Thought I'd come back to this thread with something else. I quite like this thread since I tend to be more of a theory fighter.

This is not so much about moral/abare, but slightly related.

Sometimes, the best option you have is the most dangerous, because it's the most obvious one to take.

At decent advantage, good options would generally be to go for a throw, mid, or launcher. Against this, a lot of opponents might fuzzy guard or ETEG as a good option. Interestingly enough, because of that tendency of my opponents, low circular suddenly becomes a good option to beat both their fuzzy guard and ETEG. If my opponent keeps trying the same supposed best option every time, my same low circular beats him out every time, even though low circular by itself is usually a horrible option, being unsafe on guard, having low damage output and a lot of time leaving you at disadvantage even on hit.

However, if I'm going to low circular every time I'm at an advantage, my opponent's best option suddenly becomes an abare jump attack, which is absolutely crazy. Who has the balls to take to the air when he's at disadvantage, risking that huge counter hit launch? Funny how the worst option can suddenly become the best one provided you have a good read on your opponent.

I think this is one reason why good players occasionally get beat by weaker ones. The good player pulled what he thought was his best option out, while the weaker player, not knowing better, pulled out a terrible move that just so happened to lose to everything.... except the move his opponent just did.

On that note, sometimes, I get really stubborn in my games. If I'm trying out a move or tactic which keeps on failing, I get tunnel visioned into trying it again and again until I finally get it right, even if it costs me the match. Might be one of those macho testosterone things. You think your move should be working, and you become blind to what your opponent is actually countering you with, even though it would be really obvious if you were watching someone else play the match. I know I've lost to a good number of weaker players that way, and I've done it in tournaments as well. On the other hand, I also suspect I've beaten some players who were much better than me that way too.

About responding to getting hit, you guys are right about that. You never intend on getting hit, so it's hard to react quickly. I usually manage to hold Guard on reaction to the first hit. However, that means I eat lots of counter hit jab -> throw setups.

 

Low circulars are a great option if your opponent is using ETEG. You're pretty much guaranteed to hit them. Low circular will also hit after fuzzy if your person can't duck fast enough to stop them. There is enough time to block low after fuzzy.

Jump kick is not the best option to beat a low circular.

If your opponent stops the low circular with , you are usually screwed. In many cases your person should get a free launcher.

 

"Like everyone else, you want to learn the way to win... but never to accept the way to lose. To accept defeat, to learn to die is to be liberated from it."
"... you must free your ambitious mind and learn the art of dying."

 

I recently started playing VF again and currently the only human I have to play with is a guy who in DOA circles is known as SCRUBCITY & DEATHWALKSALONE (just throwing that out there for any DOA players...he's pretty infamous in that circle). He admits he doesn't know jack about VF so he does what he can from DOA in VF which is massive use of spacing, poking and punishing. It's Abare play in it's purest form and it's a friggin' bitch to fight against.

The first time we played, I had been only playing the computer in quest mode at the toughest arcade and being fairly successful. I learned lots of Goh tactics for so called "moral" play (which, btw, that's ALL Goh has...I mean, what kind of pressure can I throw out there when even my jab is slower than most everyone else who possess pppk combos?) and realized it did me no good at all. I ate knuckles and boots for 25 straight matches, frustrated at the fact that I had spent all that time learning dodges, counters, etc. only to find that none of it meant shit.

Fast forward a bit and now it's 50/50 between us and frequently comes to down to a psyche out to get the last 1/50th of energy still left on both of us...one tiny jab is all it takes for either of us to win and all we're doing is trying to get the other person to make a mistake...I frequently lose on those situations, but it made me realize something:

Abare is just a style. It's not like he's hacked the game to give Brad more moves or more speed. He's just messing with my head really good and I don't know Goh well enough, nor DEATH's tactics, to be consistantly effective. My goal with Goh is that at some point, no one will want to attack me, even if they're really good at mind games and being random and poking and spacing or even better at 'Moral' play. This has just been one step towards that invincibility. I even learned to develop some 'Goh Pressure' in the process as well, so even playing this guy who doesn't even know how the evade system works in VF (he NEVER evades ANYTHING) has made me a better player. Abare forces the inner strength and determination to come out of a player. It breaks you down and when it does, you build yourself back up, leaving out the parts that made you weak enough to be broken in the first place. Eventually, after being broken many times, you'll be made out of steel, sharp as a sword and breathe fire.

Really cool discussion and totally fit in with my experiences the past couple of days. Now, if someone can point me to some more Goh pressure strategies so that I'm not always reacting and forcing my opponent who spams speedy moves to react instead, that'd be awesome....

 

Check out the Goh thread to get information on him.

 

Damn that is some inspirational post. I'm now gonna go work on PPPK and never evading anything, thanks alot!