Monthly Archives: February 2010

Understanding Combo Videos, Part 2

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Lately a lot of people have been asking me how i know certain things or how i can explain the way certain things work when everybody else seems to be guessing. Honestly it’s pretty simple. It comes down to a matter of confidence.

Not too long ago, i was hanging out at a restaurant with two friends, when one of them brought up a mystery concerning Seth in SF4. He couldn’t figure out why he was randomly getting reversal EX Shoryuken while attempting Yoga Teleport using a single button configured as LP+MP+HP. I told him i’d been running into the same problem and that based on what i’d seen, i believed that certain 3P/3K specials couldn’t be executed using negative edge. We tested it when we got home and it turned out i was right; and he was astonished.

Why, though? I know i’m not any smarter than him. Asking yourself the right question is already half the battle won, so why didn’t he finish the job?

Here it is: The only reason i was able to solve it is because i had more relevant facts than he did. In other words, even though my focus had been on different goals, i tested each obstacle in my path more thoroughly than he had – which led me to more bits and pieces of info to draw from when that same question was presented to me.

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CV Spotlight: Dark Chaotix’s KoFXII Mini CMV

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CX staff member Dark Chaotix lays out over four minutes of much-needed King of Fighters XII combo system exploration. Despite the game being available since July, we’ve seen shockingly few quality combo videos dedicated to it.

The King of Fighters XII – Mini CMV: Sekka Edition

Even not knowing much about the game, those Andy combos starting at 2:27 look incredibly stylish! The Mature segment at 1:16 followed by the Kim segment at 1:47 were both awesome as well, and even Benimaru got fresh towards the end. Clearly the game’s Critical Counter system provides ample opportunities for creative, flashy combos and it’s nice to get a real glimpse of what’s possible within the engine.

The editing is nice and clean too, although the pace does seem somewhat slow at times. Still, it was pretty sweet how Elisabeth’s stance animation led into her CC starter at 0:45.

Street Fighter Footsies Handbook, Chapter 10

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It takes more than a technically sound gameplan to stay ahead of the field and win consistently. No matter how dominant or reliable your tactics may be, they can still be neutralized by an opponent who sees them coming. Therefore the last missing piece of the strategic puzzle is misdirection – or as some players call it, randomness.

Element 31: A few times per round, do something completely meaningless yet relatively safe for no reason other than to distract your opponent. For instance if your character has a poke which dominates a certain matchup, skilled players will try to make it whiff as they advance to close the gap. Avoid falling into the trap of abusing your best move at every opportunity. Pick out a few key moments and randomly whiff a jab instead of pressing the obvious button. You won’t believe how often this tricks opponents into walking right into your low fierces.

Element 32: Another way to escape predictable scripts and flowcharts is by mixing up your timing; by skipping beats rather than pressing different buttons. Walk into c.MK range but don’t press it right away. Hang around that distance for a second to lure your opponent into a false sense of security, then tag them once they get restless. The next time you claim that spot, they won’t expect you to attack right away.

Element 33: Every now and then – especially when an opponent presumes you’ll become ultra defensive – simply throw caution to the wind and go on an offensive tear. In addition to some seriously nasty mixups, you’ll need the element of surprise to pull this off, which means grasping a good sense of match flow before you flip the switch.

Element 34: Is anything less effective on paper than wakeup c.LP? That’s why it wreaks havoc on cautious players’ plans; used sparingly, of course.

Element 35: Just do lots of weird, confusing things! When the tide of battle has turned against you and nothing seems to be going your way, try repeatedly stomping the ground at mid-range. If it breaks your opponent’s rhythm and makes them question themselves even for a split second, it could buy you the opening you need.

It’s virtually impossible to hide all of your patterns from observant players. No matter how clever and unpredictable you think you are, someone out there will succeed in identifying and exploiting your habits. You must find ways to mask your thoughts, in order to protect your most potent tactics from being turned against you.

Whatever strategy you adopt in any given matchup, mix it up with a little freestyle creativity to throw your opponent off the trail. Resist the urge to coast on autopilot. Force yourself to try something new every round. It doesn’t need to be unsafe, it doesn’t need to be complicated, but it does have to be unexpected.

Classic Combo Challenge 01 Solutions

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It’s been nearly three months since Classic Combo Challenge 01: Ryu was posted and it seems unlikely that we’ll see any more responses anytime soon. A lot of people have been asking for a solution video, so i finally decided to compile one.

Challenge: In any SF2 series game, combo two of Ryu’s c.HK sweeps without dizzying the opponent inbetween. SF2 Series Titles: SF2WW, SF2CE, SF2HF, SSF2, SSF2T, HSF2, STHDR

The general solution is nullify the knockdown property of Ryu’s c.HK by setting up a simultaneous impact with one of his projectiles. The secondary obstacle is dealing with its rather lengthy recovery period.

SF2HF The most direct answer is to use a high flyer like Bison or Vega to chase down Ryu’s LP Hadoken, then set up a three-way collision between Ryu’s sweep, his fireball, and an opponent’s light attack. The fireball prevents the sweep from knocking down and Bison’s s.LK interrupts Ryu’s recovery so he can sweep again while Bison reels from Hadoken hit stun. This solution also works in SF2CE.

SSF2 Vega’s CPS2 wall dive arcs cover much greater horizontal distance than CPS1 versions. He can still set up a solution in CE and HF, but with a smaller margin of error. For whatever reason, SSF2 splits the combo counter into two parts, stating two numbers which add up to five hits for a four-hit combo.

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Eighty-Two Dollars and Thirty-Six Cents

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That’s how much ad revenue this project generated from August 31st, 2009 to December 31st, 2009. That works out to something like five bucks a week. That is to say it would, if i hadn’t already spent twice that amount on hosting bills, domain fees, and shipping costs. Honestly i can’t say i’m surprised because i never expected this to work, but i did try my best and ended up putting in way more time than i could’ve imagined.

The list of obstacles is pretty long: everyone seems to have adblockers now, everyone’s leeching content wherever they can find it, and there’s nothing to leverage because apparently everyone considers video game material less valuable than camcorder footage of cats falling off chairs. Even within our own community, all these “news” sites have popped up to capitalize on SF4’s popularity by consolidating all website traffic (by stealing visitors from true content-producers).

Writing a good article takes all day. Creating a video takes much longer. Copy/pasting an excerpt and a link takes 20 minutes. I don’t want to take that route. If anyone has any solutions, please speak up because right now these issues seem insurmountable.

For a while i thought u2b partnership would be the answer, but they’re frustratingly unresponsive and dealing with them is proving to be a complete waste of time. My combo videos get embedded everywhere but less than 5% of viewers ever find their way back to Sonic Hurricane, and less than 1/5 of 1% bother subscribing to my channel.

Obviously i could fix this by disabling syndication so that everyone would be forced to link out to my videos (how i link out to CV Spotlights) instead of embedding them on-site. That would probably double ratings, comments, and subscriptions, but i’m sure the view count would take a huge hit. I don’t have infinite time or resources so it has to be one or the other. The problem here is, youtube offers zero guidance about which approach they want taken. So far i’ve gone with embedding for view count because at least that keeps discussion alive within our community on SRK, instead of all getting sucked into the u2b trap.

Please don’t get this twisted. This isn’t about finding a shortcut to make money. I’ve been running this website for eight years and never once tried to make a dime off it until last summer. This is about sustainability.

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