Shldrm Flow Chart

There is nothing ambiguous about option selects especially in VF. Ambiguity implies vagueness, that something is indistinct. Option selects are anything but, they are easily recognized to apply to very specific situations in fighting games. They cover specific multiple outcomes simultaneously.

An ETTEG isn't ambiguous at all. Let's say that you evade towards your opponent's back, and input neutral, forward, and down directional throw escapes. You are specifically looking to beat linear attacks, half circulars that can be evaded towards your opponent's back, and three throw directions (neutral, forward, and down). Everything is extremely specific. There is nothing vague whatsoever.

By the way, throw directional escapes are an option select. If they weren't then you'd have to escape each throw by it's actual command. So instead of escaping Wolf's giant swing with f+p+g you'd have to escape it with hcf+p+g which would make escaping throws prohibitively difficult.

Wrong. You know exactly what the outcome will be. You might not know what your opponent is going to input, but once he commits to his inputs, and you've committed to yours, there is nothing vague occurring whatsoever. The second the inputs are completed you can pause the match and know exactly what will happen.

If your opponent throws out a linear attack, you will evade it. If your opponent throws out a half circular and you evade in the correct direction, you'll evade it, if not you'll get hit. If your opponent throws using a direction that you escaped, then you'll escape it, if not then you'll get thrown. If they use a delayed attack or a full circular or a special throw (like Kage's uf+p+g) then you will lose.

There is nothing vague going on. Every input in the game is extremely specific down to the very frame. Just boot up your VF disc and turn on the input feature in a replay.

On a side note, in VF option selects are really limited which is why the system is so amazing. Usually when you see option select someone is talking about Street Fighter. In Street Fighter option selects are usually overwhelming and often 100% effective.

Look at the safe jump in Super Turbo. If I jump at my opponent with safe timing then no matter what they do I will always win. If they perform a reversal attack then I land safely. If they block, I connect against them and can press an advantage from a block string. If they attack without reversal timing then I can get a free massive damage combo. There is nothing that the person who getting safe jumped against can do in that situation to come out on top.

Lastly, in my post above where I first mentioned safe jumps and negative edge command throws....I also said that they were terms from ST yet everyone is discussing them as if they were VF terms. Safe jumps and negative edge command throws have nothing to do with VF and that was pretty clear in my post though it seems no one effectively read it.

This was a frequently used option select in VF4, VF4:EVO, or VF4:FT for Wolf.

You'd do the shoulder launcher, b,f+p+k, or the launcher knee in VF4/VF4:FT, then a jab, then b+p which would slam your opponent to the floor.

After the slam your opponent could do one of two things, either exact recovery, or remain on the ground.

If your opponent failed to use exact recovery then a pounce, or heavy down attack (u+p) was guaranteed. But if your opponent did use exact recovery then your pounce would land far too late and you'd be open to a counter attack for quite some time. However if you use ub+p to execute your heavy down attack then the input would cover both outcomes simultaneously.

If you hit ub+p and your opponent stayed down then you'd get a successful heavy down attack. If your opponent used exact recovery and you input ub+p then you'd simply jump back. I'll see if there are any VF4 videos that show Wolf doing either in YouTube and edit this post tomorrow.

 

Empnova, I'm not saying or even implying that option selects aren't specific in what they're doing or that the person doing it has no clue to what's going on, or that option selects are vague etc etc as this is irrelevant.

Option select does not mean "this covers a lot of options" since there is a lot of things that covers a lot of options but are NOT option selects. Option select (how many times must this be said) means that you will get two (or more) distinctly different outcomes with one input (or one series of inputs) on what happens on screen.

Throw directional throw escapes are not option selects, because if you break a Giant Swing or just a simple throw you get the same result: Your character does a throw break. I can't even fathom how you came to the conclusion that you would have to break every throw with it's entire command if it wasn't an option select, when the reason you can escape throws with a single direction input is extremely obvious: Sega programmed each individual throw to be broken with a single direction input.

When I said "you don't know what will happen" I meant that you don't know whether you will get a succesful evade or a failed evade with throw escapes until the opponent acts. This is why the word "ambiguous" fits because you're doing one input but it's up to what happens in the game what the actual outcome will be, if you got a succesful evade or maybe broke that throw, two distinctly different outcomes stemming from that one input (or to be more correct, that one series of inputs). However the use of the word seems to be unnecessary since it (obvious by this thread) seems to cause confusion rather than clarity.


To summarize: ETEG is NOT an option select because of that fact that it covers a lot of options, it's an option select because doing ETEG will result in two different outcomes depending on what the opponent does.

That's it. Option select isn't a crazier or more specific concept then that.

 

Ask me and I'll show you with Sarah.

 

Baffled by the flood of elaborate comments on the definition of just one single, (and I may add) rather unproductive term, I'm still undecided into which direction I want to branch off with the flow chart and whether it's even a task feasible to still drive forward.

I'm inclined to add a column called "Breaking Stagger" to the diagram (to be inserted after "1st| Your Attack" but before "2nd| Your Reaction," which could become a helpful device in streamlining the experience or possible outcomes. Branching off from it are the two routes "Opp. Recovers High (standing)" and "Opp. Recovers Low (crouching)." Only then would the options of possible responses to the opponent's actions follow; for it seems to me the current state of the diagram isn't really able to capture the situation appropriately; it remains vague, too confuse.

Whether that's a better approach still remains to be seen. I can only hope that the new diagram gets more accessible and conclusive.