Category Archives: Strategy

Five Milestones that Change Everything

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Thinking back on how i learned to play Street Fighter, it was definitely a long progression from reading the Sega Genesis SF2: Special Champion Edition manual to writing footsies articles for a revitalized community. However, certain breakthrough moments immediately spring to mind.

The first milestone is obvious: learning how to do special moves. This is the wall everyone has to climb over in order to get into the fighting game playground. It’s harsh to expect newcomers to learn so much before they can enjoy the genre, but that’s just the way things are. You may as well not be playing Street Fighter until you make it past this point. I still remember the first special move i learned to execute consistently (Psycho Crusher) and the last remaining special move i dared to attempt (Spinning Piledriver) after weeks of practice with other characters.

The second milestone is learning how to defend yourself against basic attacks. Matches simply can not become strategic while “jump kick, trip” is considered an unbeatable loop. Until you’re able to block high and low as needed at will, offensive momentum is unbreakable. Once you feel comfortable with blocking, the next invincible tactic is “low short, throw” and so the next hurdle is learning how to escape and reverse throws. Then it’s on to crossups, mixups, etc.

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Theory Fighter

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Being part of the fighting game community and having internet access, it happens to all of us from time to time. We all get sucked into heated forum arguments about which character is superior in head-to-head battle.

Instead of playing the matchup in real time for twenty minutes, we sit around debating every possible move and its flowchart of counters for hours. This bizarre turn-based text RPG version of Street Fighter is such a common activity that we’ve coined a name for it: Theory Fighter.

The whole idea behind it is that breaking down the risks and rewards of each action helps both sides understand the matchup better. Furthermore, it highlights a character’s problem areas and directs the community’s attention toward finding new solutions. Lastly, it helps us develop a more nuanced and sophisticated tier structure.

However, the curse of theory fighter is that it almost always devolves into trite internet arguments. Both sides quickly forget they share a collective goal, common courtesy goes out the window, and everyone tries to win at all costs.

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Where Do Combo Videos Fit In?

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Last month, i said that combo videos and combos in general comprise a relatively small piece of the complete fighting game puzzle. How exactly do they factor into the overall picture?

Tactically speaking, executing a combo is a lot like finishing a traditional three-point play in basketball. As a reward for driving past a perimiter defender and baiting an interior defensive mistake, the player is granted an additional free throw after the made basket. The two primary components of free throw shooting are technical ability and maintaining composure.

Can free throws decide games? Absolutely. Does anyone consider free throws a core strategic aspect of the game? No. They serve a clear purpose, but there’s much more to the game on a fundamental level: spacing, timing, footwork, adaptation, defense, etc.

In fighting games, landing a combo involves recognizing an opportunity, evaluating damage options, having the technical ability to perform the combo, and maintaining enough composure to pull it off under pressure. Anyone who drops a combo during tournament play should absolutely be penalized for failing to complete a simple task that they can ice ninety-nine times out of a hundred in practice. That’s a perfectly valid part of the game.

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Suggested Reading, Vol. 3

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It’s that time again. Let’s see what players have been writing lately around the fighting game community. Expect one of these round-ups roughly every three months from here on out.

leverage (and clutch) in street fighter at nothingxs.net

Being able to hold and maintain the momentum of a fight allows you to create higher leverage situations. A player who is on defense in a high leverage situation — in other words, he has a very low amount of life remaining, or is at risk of losing a large amount of it — is mentally forced to decide whether to make riskier decisions knowing that making a mistake results in losing the most important resource you have (life) …

 
Eyeballing Your Opponent at Being a Scrub

One deceptively simple question that I’ve yet to find an answer to is: where do you look at on the screen during a match?

 
What to Practice in Training Mode at Juiced Up

Hit-confirming, if you didn’t know, is the ability to turn a sequence of attacks into a combo on reaction. The simplest example is with Ken’s cr.LK, cr.LP string. If this string is blocked, Ken is safe and can go for throw mixups, overheads, or defensive play. But if it hits, Ken can go into a HP Shoryuken. The basic skill here is seeing and recognizing that the two light attacks connected or were blocked.

 
Once again, if you find these articles insightful and informative, leave them a polite comment to show your appreciation or better yet ask a question to further the discussion.

Tournament Pre-Match Scouting

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With Evo2k10 less than a week away, many of you are rushing to get that last bit of practice before heading out to Vegas. First of all, good luck to all of you in reaching your personal goals for the tournament. Second, i have one last piece of advice.

As a spectator, practice analyzing your upcoming opponents’ play styles and learn to identify their habits. The fact is, everyone attending a tournament automatically does this. Everyone tries to scout ahead by peeking at the bracket and watching potential opponents square off.

The question is, how good are you at it? Do you know what to look for? Can you spot specific weaknesses? Are you searching for concrete opportunities to capitalize on? Details like these are what you need to give yourself an edge with only moments to prepare your strategy.

Focusing on dropped combos and chaotic flukes won’t help you. The noisiest moments of a match are often the least tactically significant. If you see someone repeatedly failing to anti-air jump-ins, it’s certainly a weakness worth testing – but don’t depend on it. Chances are they’ll have caught onto such a glaring problem and made a mental note to correct it. It’s better to find a subtle flaw that’s gone unpunished, and therefore unnoticed.

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