I’ve always been more into the patient, punishing game, and my footsies with Ryu are probably the thing that I spend the most lab time on. It’s supposed to be the mark of a good player, so I try to focus on it along with combos, punishment, technology, zoning strategies…
But at a local yesterday, I got blown up by El Fuerte in winners’ finals, 3-0. It kind of bashed me in the face to get killed off so easily. Then, today, I got into a lobby with a pretty good Akuma and got my ass handed to me once more. I thought I had Akuma matchup experience, but the guy I play with is more patient-- he plays more like 3S Ryu than SF4 Akuma. This was my first time facing the vortex, and out of like, 8 games, I won zero.
So, I have to ask-- how do I -force- footsies out of my opponent? How do I stuff the shenanigans? Do I just stomp on all of their options one by one? Do I just make the right guess time after time? I want to take control of the matchup, but it feels like getting into a fistfight with a tidal wave…
It’s hard to play footsies with someone who doesn’t understand the concept to begin with. One of the biggest mistakes people make (in my opinion) when playing street fighter is to assume that all opponents can be played the same way for a win. If you only play good players, you’ll understand that game and how to play footsies, how to counter advanced tactics e.t.c.; but you’re in for a surprise when you play a masher for the first time, since none of the better players will mash, simply because there is an easy answer to that (stop blockstring, wait, punish) which you haven’t yet had a reason to learn, if you haven’t played “bad” players before. In other words; in order to reach a high level in street fighter, you also need to understand how to stop lesser tactics; tactics which become obsolete when the other player knows how to counter them. THAT’s when the game becomes more advanced, and that’s when you start playing footsies.
If you have trouble with Akumas vortex, or how to deal with an El Fuerte, that simply means you don’t fully know your options yet. Yes, it is hard to escape the vortex of both of those characters, but it becomes significantly easier once you know your options. Go to training mode and go through all of their attacks; find which of your answers are the most efficient to the most number of attacks. Until you do that, they won’t have a reason to play footsies with you (why would they?)
You can’t just say “I’ve been learning footsies” and expect to progress evenly. Footsies changes in every matchup, and so what you should be focusing on is matchup knowledge rather than just footsies. El Fuerte reduces the game to a 50/50 guessing game if he knocks you down, and everything he does will be centered around getting that knock down. You can’t force him to start trying to play footsies with you all game long, that doesn’t work with what HE wants to do. It’s going to be a different match compared to playing another Ryu or something.
Akuma has a ton of options, and therefore he can be played differently by different people. But generally they are all going to be looking for the knock down to start that mixup. So the idea is to just not get knocked down. How does Akuma knock you down? Throws and sweeps. So these are going to change the way you play, as you know thats what he is looking for. Your footsies are going to be keeping him out of throw range and counter poking his sweep. El Fuerte doesn’t fall into this, He has way more ways to get his knock down and start his mixups eg Splash, run slide etc. So your going to want to be looking out for these things and maybe incorporate different normals that can tag splashes out of the air etc.
I kind of word diarrhea’d all over this, but my point is that footsies isn’t something you can just apply in the same way to every match.
Footsies against El Fuerte? There’s your mistake, man. That stupid character just runs around the screen making chicken noises, lol. I abandon all Street Fighter logic when I face that character. But yeah, just keep practising. Its no secret that Ryu is harder to master in this game.
I think this is the biggest thing stopping people from levelling up their game quicker to be honest, you really can’t watch good players
and learn the best way to play against lesser opponents, because they will always be playing at such a high level that the things that
may bother others don’t phase them in the slightest, so it would be stupid for their opponents to use them on them…
Is there any type of shortcut to figuring out which moves can be punished? Obviously there are ones that are blatantly obvious, but I’m curious if
there’s anything to look out for on the more questionable ones, or is it just a case of spending ages in training mode and reading frame data?
Why did I laugh so hard at the chicken noises comment
You could always mash uppercut to see if they can block it in time or not lol.
I think for the most part, normals are safe. There are exceptions, mostly on HP and HK things. Some sweeps are punishable if spaced terribly. Some cr HPs are super negative on block if they look like an anti air. A lot of st cl HPs are punishable, usually ones that are special cancelable.
Most of the time when you first start learning a matchup, you focus on specials attacks that are punishable. They are usually much easier to recognize and react to and also accompanied with an audio cue when executed.
There is no shortcuts and you do have to end up look at some frame data, but a great cove of info available on all special moves by any character that can be punished will be posted in the matchup thread of your main. Of course some chars are unlisted so you go look it up. I don’t suggest you try to memorize it. I would say have that info available to you easily, and when you play a certain char/player you start having trouble with, take a glance at it and make a mental note of it in your head.
When you watch Daigo play, take a look at the frame data for things he’s punishing on Block. I guarantee he is maximising his damage and getting full combos off of things that are -4 or worse.
There is no shortcut and to be a strong player you will most likely have to learn some frame data, however I suggest you play a matchup extensively before you go into training mode so you know what to look for when punishing things in match.