What's your angle?

Awesome thread.

What I look for in my opponent during the course of the match.

-How many times he or she likes to sidestep(What direction as well)-
-How they respond to a stagger state-
-Tech rolling or getting up habits-
-What's my opponent favorite setup or move(Like Plague's CH 3P+K setups fucking brutal)-
-TE's are they good at it-

Looking into those is what setups my offense. I've been playing the game a lot offline with my homie OlSkwel and trying to ironed out bad habits in Dojo mode.

 

Lol this is an issue with long answers. But I know I cant think too much when Im playing, its all instincts. Im gonna write some things I pay attention to when Im playing someone I havent played before.

In optimal case I'd propably pressurize my opponent so they dont have much chance in playing 'their own game' and do something that leads to either whiffpunish or throw.

But when playing against someone new:

- does my opponent play aggressively or passively, how long does he hesitate after getting initiative? I usually poke them with something like DE to see what happens. Does he know my character or does he not? Hesitation usually shows this.

- What do they do after I blocked their attacks that put them into disadvantage? Whats their default defense?

- Does he have specific pattern in offense or defense?

- When does he throw? Straight away as punish or does he use a setup like a jab?

I guess those are the most generic aspects of my opponents play I pay attention to. Then come the specific blockstrings and patterns. etc.

 

I appreciate all your answers guys... glad to see the thread finally getting back on track. Keep'em coming!

And again the questions in the original post are NOT real questions for people to answer. Feel free to answer them if you want, but they are just present to kind of help people along if they are unsure or stuck.

Leonard... I really liked what you have to say. I agree that if you can't condition your opponent even if it's for 1 or 2 matches the game gets boring real fast because obviously the person is not thinking. They are just on autopilot I think.

 

I have strong personal feelings about 'conditioning'. I think most people look into it too much and are fixated about it.
Not reacting to what you are doing is NOT always the sign of them being mindless apes.

Personally I think that there are 3 types of players.
1.) mindless, they dont react to what you are doing and just do their own thing. Punish that thing.
2.) fast learners, they realize what you are trying to do and condition them with and beat you by thinking one step ahead.
3.) slow learners, these you can condition because they react to what you are doing slowly enough, one step at a time. You can stay that one step ahead of them.

Personally Ive found that most players belong to types 1 and 2. Therefore conditioning as a strategy is not really that useful. You can do it if opponent is susceptible to it, but more often than not they are not. I have found that with players of category 2 its best if you try to be unpredictable rather than try to condition them.

 

Really loving this insight Manji. Honestly I never catoregized conditioning in this way.

 

I think that true conditioning comes into play more often when you play long "sessions" versus the same people. Some people refuse to be conditioned like Manji said, but that's generally because they remain focused on what's happening.

Most people however land in the mindless category especially after a certain amount of games are played. It's not that they are slow learners, it's just that their brain just accepts whatever pre-existing condition it's in (winning/losing mindset) shuts off and everything goes autopilot. Personally I believe that my best games against anyone will be played in the 1st ten before attention spans begin to dip. This is judging from my own personal tendencies more than anything else.

One reason why I made shakedown is to reflect this kind of gameplay to be honest.

 

personally
i check my opponents foot postion to determine best evade direction to avoid half circulars

watch for what throws my opponents use often and anticipate them using multiple throw escapes.
watch the ring position of my opponent and mines.
increase my low guard to 85% when low on health.
watch how my opponent handles nitaku do they abare or prefer to evade.
do they tech because that makes it 10x easier for me to win a rd
will they take the guaranteed hit or use a throw when im disadvantage.
do they freeze up seeing lei stances or immediately back off resetting the situation or take a chance with attacking.

From my personal standpoint i havent been focused enough but i do recognize some of my bad habits. Kamais tolded me the other day after pk recovery ch after guaranteed hit situation i always evade. i need to fix that emphasizing guarding and fuzzying more.

I shouldn't tech roll so much watched a replay the other day and saw like 30 techrolls.I need to emphasizes and realize there are other options gotta mix it up. on a side note holding or inputting buttons early during tech will make ur opponent next move track u oh man vf4 basics recovery rule.

I havent been trusting my own flow charts and offense .lately its been on autopilot making things predictable. i been to focused on the defend and punish game

need to emphasisize using down attacks if u set ur opponent to just stay on the ground take the 10 pts dont give them the ch 20 something rising k due to fail oki traps.

I know theres more flaws in my game anyone care to share through ur experiences.

 

Numbers all I have to say is whenever you take initiative your win percentage against me goes from 30% to 50% or over. You have to play more paper rock scissors instead of just rock.

Also realize, that rudimentary tactics like pp throw, or 2K from that crane stance should be thrown in now and again. Oh and hella important for you cancel your evades man. I'm not going to lie theres a 3 second beat to your play. I don't know if it's just against me because if I was playing Jeff its almost like it's timed for when I'd normally delay knee you lol

 

yeah but there not static states they change throughout the course of play.
There may be other ommited categories also.
One example, lazy players that know what is happening and flat out refuse to change. Example keep getting sweeped and refuse to block low. These are the worst types to play against in my opinion, lazy players with half assed intentions.

 

im busy inputting throw escapes in that sense giving away those 3 seconds knowingly that eteg loses to delayed attacks. canceling evades guard defends against delays. i got too much respect for my opponent throwing game.

 

Doing an empty evade (No TEs or other inputs) is valid in certain cases.

 

How is that different from my category 1? The end result is the same

 

Optional reading
In total I've probably only played 5000 games of VF in my life (in VF5b/c), 3000 of which were all against the AI (in negative lag conditions); completing Quest mode on both VF5b and VF5c with Akira.

In recent months I've upped the difficulty to very hard when playing the AI and finding my ability to compete at that level getting much easier, but am aware that this is only improving my basics.

The remaining 2000 games are probably split evenly between playing local games against my own level and some live gold matches from the two & a bit months free, when I bought a 360 in July of last year.

From all those matches, I probably learnt most from playing live, seeing how others exploited my failings or adapted when I exploited theirs; giving me a good sense of what I needed to improve.

Sadly live also screwed up my basics; when I went back to offline or AI, my timing was shot to pieces and was getting beaten very easily; live seems a little bit like bullet time and probably results in too many 'Meaty' combos(as described in Myke's VF4 Reducing your disadvantage section) due to a couple of lag frames; and maybe the answer to this old thread How's this combo possible

On topic

When playing the first game, first round in any situation, I usually start with a buffered fast attack; whether safe or not on block, and varied by the opponents character choice and the hunch I've made about the opponents skills.

Sometimes the move might be as simple a punch / or bigger slower moves or even defensive attack like a buffered back dash, double palm/shoulder ram/ single palm or OM .

My simple idea to winning from Sport; are that “You have to score to win the game”; and “it is easier to stay in front, than catch up”.

If on the first attack I gain success, then I'm under less pressure while gauging my opponent, while I try to workout just how skilled they are. If I am unsuccessful, then I have time in recovery to assess if any other attacks options would have worked, or if passive/defense was a better strategy as I'm out of my depth; all helping to build a picture of who I am playing and how I might cause damage.

Knowing who I am playing (by style and ability) is probably the thing I want to know at the earliest opportunity in any session(whether against the AI, local or online).

In football if a team like Barcelona are playing a team like Chelsea, they might adopt different personnel and tactics, than say against Arsenal, Liverpool, Manu United or Accrington Stanley.

I do have a bad autopilot habbits; like buffering a double plam out of techroll or crouch, or going for Akira's hit throw too often or reversal, but my main weakness is that I mess up an input on attack; or fail to cleanly enter an evade; evade in the wrong direction,

I know I'm too slow/inaccurate with TE, TEG, ETEG and regularly get counterhit or thrown for my trouble.
My spacing is improving, but I'm well aware that Akira works best at close range, while I like rushing opponents from distance were it is safe.

 

yes the end result is the same but the intention is different. The difference being the play style is intentional i.e stubborn/ignorant. Nvm anyways, bored lunchtime posts never come across well..

 

So manji you think you can't condition type 2? Ur wrong.

Unlike 95% of fighting games VF5 give you a multiple choice question with about 2 to 3 correct answers out of 5. No matter how good you are ANYBODY can be conditioned. it may be for a split second but IT can happen. Its up to you to take full advantage of that oppontunity when it presents itself.

 

JCBlack begs to differ.

 

Yeah, I think that guy is like 10 steps ahead of all of us.

 

When I played, I would typically just want to be flashy I guess. I would tend to get turned off IMMEDIATELY, if my opponent isn't paying attention though, even if I was still playing matches with them in a session.

Often times, I'll run the smallest subtle setup there is, just to see if my opponent is willing to paying attention and not sleeping at the wheel.

The most fun I had with VF was active problem solving.

My opponent would give me a problem, and I'd try to solve it, and vice versa. I'd try not to use the same solution to the problem, and would think of creative solutions. Listen though, if I were to use the same exact throw or strike on you, look at what led up to that point and see that it wasn't done the same way each time. If me and my opponent are both coming up with creative solutions, I'd play you forever, even if I didn't win a single match.

I always asked myself though, you can win, but does that mean you're even strong at VF? Yo, winning at VF doesn't = being strong at VF. The stronger player can get beat alot too. There's many players that have the ability to straight up win, all the time, but aren't very good at VF, they're just good at exploiting something someone knows nothing about.

What do you do when someone knows the solutions to the problems you give them? Some people can't even handle that shit. Some people keep little secrets to themselves, or don't even let a player know how to handle what you gave them, so they can remain on top of them. I used to make it my business to tell someone the solution to my tactics, just so I'd understand my own stuff even more, so I could come up with some more solutions.

There's players that are still better than you at VF even if you murder them in the game with some bullshit. They'd probably have better results than you on a broader scale with variety in competition.

 

The Realeast shit i ever heard in this thread. I told Konjou that same shit. People keep secret in hope to explioit it on you to keep the upper hand.