Are there any 1-frame links that are required, not in the “It adds a bit of damage to an already decent combo,” but actually required to play a character successfully; to an end that not having said 1-frame link ingrained into your muscles means failure at playing the character?
Perhaps there are, I haven’t become intimate with every character, but I know that the several I’ve played don’t require them at all. Is it advantageous to be able to link a c. lp > c. mp for my Guile play? Absolutely, but alternatively, since I’m not comfortable with my own ability to do so consistently, I frequently ignore the option. Has it ever cost me the entire match? Not even close, not even on the “Wow that was really close” matches would it have mattered.
The general, run of the mill bread and butter combo’s though? Those don’t require absurd timing in the least, they’re extremely lenient in most cases.
To some extent it sounds like several people are asking, essentially, to have a keyboard that auto-inputs these commands for them, a button for your ultra, your super, your sonic boom, your flash kick, so that the only actual skill involved in the game is using them at the proper times with the entire focus of the game on the mind-games. Perhaps that would be fun, but to say that execution is not a skill is false. From the jist of your posts, Muken, that’s basically what you’d prefer to be playing. Where execution played no part. So long as there as gameplay to be proficient at, people will attempt to excel at it in order to gain the upper hand. Execution, or really, more accurately, reaction-time (since that’s all execution is) is key to the game. To say that people who excel at execution shouldn’t have an advantage over someone who can play superior mind-games is just as flimsy and unfounded as saying the opposite.
Executing complex combos, one frame links, and being able to do so consistently is a skill: it is an action that not everyone can do successfully, it requires practice, in fact it fits every definition of the word skill in accordance to Merriam Webster.
One wouldn’t be correct to say, “I am more skilled at you at Street Fighter 4 because I can execute a difficult combo under actual gameplay pressure on command.” however, since it’s only part of the game. Are they better at pushing out those combo’s than you? If that’s the case, yeah, they are. But that doesn’t by default make them a better player entirely nor should they try to boast such a claim.
Furthermore, exactly how many people in this thread right now even play, as previously put, “The best of the best”? I’m kind of baffled at how many people are concerned that bad players aren’t getting better because of “ridiculous timing requirements” of this game; bad players aren’t getting better because they don’t have the quality of character that makes you a good player. I’ll never, ever be excellent at this game, at most I’d shoot for not sucking, anything above not sucking I’d be pleased with, and I’m pretty far from that as it stands now.
The very, very bottom ring of players that I play don’t lose because of execution, it’s straight up lack of knowledge of the game or the inability to adapt to their opponents playstyle, predictable patterns and excessive whiffing.
If you’re at a level of play where winning the match hinders on your ability to capitalize on 1-frame links, you’re playing a lagless environment with top competition: at that point, you’ll absolutely be able to regularly hit 1-frame links.