General wake up mind games

Newbie Saikyo Dojo
1

Something that I’ve always seen in top player videos is that after a knockdown, the aggressor will walk up/dash and try to press the advantage with meaty jabs, shorts, overheads, sweeps, etc. Against characters with reversal dp’s and the like, this would seem like its suicide.

I understand there’s the rock-scissors-paper guessing game on wake up that block/dp beaks meaty attacks, throw beats block, dp/tech/jump beats throw, and so on. I figure the most common answer I get will be bait the reversal dp, block, and punish. Then mix it up with throws once they’re afraid of reversal dp, and then stick out a meaty when they catch on and try to tech.

What I would like to know is what’s the thought process that goes into someone who just goes for meaty attack who hasn’t conditioned the other player to fear throwing out reversal dp’s? Maybe I just don’t see the mind games involved but I see top players doing this all the time. Is it just because it’s two top players who are waging mind game wars, and this is something that would never work on someone online who doesn’t even understand/know the concept of mind games?

Feel free to open the discussion to beyond just my own question as well.

2

If you’ve conditioned your opponent to be afraid of doing reversal dp, there would be no point in doing meaty because he will just block it (what else will he do if he can’t reversal dp?). When your opponent is afraid to do reversal dp, you want to go for throw.

The meaty is part of the conditioning. Is that meaty really a meaty, or is it going to whiff early and recover fast enough to walk up throw or punish my reversal?

And of course there are some games/situations where reversal dp is unreliable (like alpha 2) and you can go for meaty all the time.

3

Almost everything in SF has some kind of counter. But everyone knows: you have to do stuff to win. So people do moves that can be countered and take the risks into account.

You said that attacking a knocked down character with a reversal DP is “suicide”, but think about the trade-off. Lets say you attempt a mixup and get hit. Sure, now you took some damage and got knocked down. You aren’t dead. You might be dead if they have two meters in an ultra, but you have to factor that in when you attack.

On the other hand, if you just wait for a quick second before attacking, you can bait them for huge damage. Its all about risk/reward. Getting into any kind of habits with SRKs is really suicide

4

Hate saying this but unless its a projectile meaties are pretty fucking useless in Street Fighter 4 imo, reversals are too easy to pull off. Best to bait the reversal and punish(do this by waiting next to a knockdown opponent while blocking); Another wake up mind game is a meaty crossup after knocking your opponent down, usually the reversal move will not hit in the correct direction but sometimes it does. Take all risks into account and learn how to predict your opponent based on habits you’ve been seeing while playing him/her. Anything else need to be added? Meaties are extremely dangerous in Super Turbo and HDR but not exactly life threatening in SF:4 which game are you asking this question for?

Im suprised but these are actually good questions thought it was going to be dumb stuff like how to pull of a hadouken or some shit.

5

Insightful posts, thanks guys. To expand on what Sleazoid and Mariodood were saying, tell me if what I’m thinking is on the mark. If you go for the meaty and you land it, great. If they keep letting you hit them with meaties, even better. If instead you get hit with a reversal dp, you take some damage but now you know this guy likes using reversal dp’s. Feint a meaty next and punish accordingly and then mix up between meaties, feint meaties, and throws once they’re scared to throw reversal dp’s. Of course, don’t get predictable with the meaties because then that’s when you’re just asking for a dp, especially when the other player has ultra and two stocks. But then you can try to bait the dp xx fadc xx whatever, and punish. Sleazoid is that what you meant by using the meaty to condition the other player?

Couple other questions. Why are meaties good in alpha 2 and ST? I’m assuming it has to do with reversal timing inferred from BullDancer’s post.

Also, I’ll have to find the post but I remember reading that in SF4, any reversal with 3 frames of start up can’t be safe jumped because of the 2 landing frames where you can’t block if you do an air attack. Tell me if I’m thinking correctly. On characters like ryu and akuma, if you want to do a meaty jump in, it’d have to a meaty cross up. If the other player knows how to time an auto-corrected dp, then you know to not do it or do an empty cross up and punish next time. If the dp doesn’t auto-correct, awesome. And for characters like boxer who don’t have a cross up, you could go for the risky ambiguous cross up or just keep it simple and stick to the ground meaties. Sound right to you guys?

6

Yep reversal timing used to be 1/60th of a second. People had to make shit up called the piano method(useless in SF4 dont worry about it) in order to extend it 6/60th of a second. Also boxer does not need a crossup his rushdown game is outrageous. Stick to baiting reversals and punishing or go for the OCCASIONAL meaty.

7

Another reason that meaty attacks are weakened in SF4 is because of the ability to combo out of reversals (via FADC).

In older games, getting hit by a reversal is bad but its only a small chunk of your lifebar. In SF4, it could be 60% of your total health. The risk/reward is just not equalized.

8

Just use a different strategy against non-shoto characters. Against characters such as Abel and Vega you can pile on a little more riskier pressure as oppose to shoto’s with better or simply a reversal peroid. But this by no means you still can’t do the same risky pressure against shoto characters, it’s just more well… riskier. Also you wont see higher level players mashing jabs or reversals whenever their opponent is close. It’s just playing smarter.

Also with overheads and c.rh/sweeps it’s just a matter of conditioning your opponent. If you see they are blocking low a lot you would use more overheads. Eventually they will see that you are punishing them when they block low so you are now conditioning them to block high. This is were you change your strategy and use more sweeps. Now you put them in a position of guessing which way of blocking is the most effective. Mix in throws, retreats/dashing back, cross ups, assist and you are now bringing more options into your arsenal. This is essentially the “mind game” and mix ups.

Experience more then anything. Playing and knowing the game very well. And your own personal play style. Some players use a very safe play style. Some take more risk. It also depends on how your opponent plays as well. One strategy might work very effectively on one player and fail on another. You should be able to adapt quickly. This once again just comes down to experience.

9

Thanks again guys, this is really starting to become clear. I think i might be over thinking things and playing mental masturbation but hear me out.

I understand that the successful knockdown grants the aggressor a free mix up and the onus is on the player who got knocked down to guess correctly. From a defensive stand point, it sounds like the “safest” option when recovering from a knockdown is to block and tech; the riskiest option is dp. From a offensive standpoint, dancing outside of dp range and waiting to punish/meaty fireball seems to be the safest; meaties seem to be the riskiest. Throwing out anything else for either attacker or defender is somewhere in between the risk spectrum.

So it sounds like the safest option for both players is to wait to see what the other will do but if both players do that, then neither player is at an advantage/disadvantage. Since both players played it safe, the aggressor lost the mix up opportunity. This implies that going for the wake up mix-up is not completely free since doing anything else has some level of risk, but always just waiting to punish when a smart player will just wait to see what you do first means you keep giving up damage and mind game opportunities.

So if we want to maximize our risk/reward, does this mean that wake up mix-ups boil down to dancing around waiting for the other player to make a mistake most of the time, and every now and then sticking out an attack or throw to keep the other player guessing? Of course, player styles and game scenarios like being low on life or having super/ultra available add variability. Am I thinking waaay too deep about this?

10

Another reason why meaties are better in games like ST is because in that game a lot of characters have moves with a relatively high amount of active frames. Doing certain moves very meaty (i.e. they will wakeup into your attack on it’s last hitting frames) can create situations where you have a huge frame advantage where you can mix them up in several ways or do combo’s normally not possible. Doesn’t seem like SF4 has a lot of good meaties with loads of active frames.

Also, with a very tight reversal window like in ST doing a reversal after you block a meaty cr.short has different timing than after blocking a meaty st.mp for example because they give different amount of blockstun. With a wide reversal window those small differences don’t really matter.

Also factor in that you can’t get thrown right after waking up in ST so a lot of people will gladly block a meaty and figure you what to do after that based on what meaty you just did.

11

Try to break your habits of meaties and wake up cross/jump ins if the opponent has 2 meters and a SRK like move, instead try to bait it with either back dash or teleport accordingly, then punish hard. Make them learn that with 2 meter you are not free, make them step away from their comfy and safe zone of playing. If the character has weak wake up game, use some deep jump ins and cross ups, mix it up with empty jump to throw (works well against some gouken players), fient jabs and short to bait sweep, then sweep their legs and start the wake up mind game.

In wake up situation, you must try to dominate according to your prespective character. For example I use seth, a character with shit load of options (some situational, but regardless), I could use dive kick to SPD or SRK mindgame if blocked, combo if on hit, dash to EX SPD/ EX SRK mind game, Crouching shorts/ Instant headstomps mind game, sonic boom to teleport mix ups, dive kick to Instant head stomps, sonic boom to wall jump to…etc.

In wake ups, limit the opponent options: Meaties and cross ups, as well as character specific mind games and preasure strings, and reversal baiting is what will make you gain the upper hand in wake up, but most importantly is personal experiences. Nothing tops that.

12

I know that it is Akuma specific but, the vortex thread might be able to shine some light on the whole wake up mix up mind game.

http://www.shoryuken.com/showthread.php?t=212818

It’s my personal opinion that true meaties aren’t the best option for an oki situation, especially against the shotos. As someone else mentioned above, using a meaty to wiff and bait a response that can then be punished is about all the mileage you are going to get out of them.

As someone (loltima maybe?) in the vortex thread mentioned: There isn’t any one safe option to go for during a mix up. If there was then, it wouldn’t be a mix up you would just do the same safe option every time. The real value of the mix up is getting inside your opponents head and destroying their game plan. By mixing up your options even in a situation that may not be safe for you, you can create high damage/stun/whatever situations for yourself and completely mindfuck the other guy.

13

I am getting the feeling that people in this thread are starting to misinterpret what exactly a “meatie” attack is.

14

You can safely empty jump 3-frame reversals to bait them. Crossups are not safe, you can get hit by a properly timed DP input.

Far from useless, I use it to link Chun’s super after S.FP. I suspect other supers can be linked in the same manner. The same method can be used to buffer inputs for Honda’s C.LP to FP HHS (altough with different intentions, it’s still the same as the piano method). [note: piano method = tapping all 3 buttons in quick succession, as if on a piano]

Unless you’re within DP range, doing a DP is a stupid idea for your opponent, and only slightly less stupid if they have meter. They can’t FADC it if it whiffs. And if you were carefully observing and testing your opponent in the beginning of the round, you’ll have an idea if they’ll go for it. A lot of players will always go for it so in general I would suggest you play it safe. One strategy c_nul once posted is to avoid knocking down Ryu and instead go for combos that don’t end in knockdown but put you just within footsies range, to deny them even a chance to DP FADC. This is what I usually do and follow it up with ground pressure, overall it works better for me.

As mentioned previously, reversals in SF4 are powerful because a) you can FADC into big damage as opposed to just getting the opponent off you and b) you can FADC to make it safe. 90% of shotos will DP FADC on wakeup if you stand next to them. They don’t expect it to hit, but it’s their safest bet if they want to avoid your mixups at all costs. Factor this into your game and find out ways to bait it. Not related to wakeup pressure, but you can FA most non reversal DPs (this is useful if you think sagat is going for kara upper FADC for instance).

A few more tips:

-Hide your intentions. Don’t make it obvious what you’re going to do. I’ve played against players who telegraph their intent to throw and tweet when they’re about to do a meaty. You can either do the same pattern no matter what (walk back and forth then meaty, walk back and forth then throw) or mix things up (whiff a bunch of low shorts just before they wake up, then walk back. Next time do the same but throw, etc)

-Know when to stop. SF4 is ridiculous in that you can put say, sagat in an okizeme loop for 75% of his health, and if he lands a single uppercut he can totally reverse the game. This sucks etc but in the meantime you have to deal with it, so if you have the lead you need to evaluate if pressuring your opponent is a good idea. Know that when you have the lead they have to come to you so you don’t have to worry about beating their zone again.

-Properly evaluate your opponent. Underestimating or overestimating your oppoent can lead to headaches and DP FADC ultras. If you’re not sure what your opponent will do, don’t risk it. Only take risks when it won’t cost you the game (and when there are more rounds/sets later on for you to exploit the knowledge learned via taking risks). If I want to see my opponent’s favorite wakeup (block, backdash, dp) I’ll test him on round 1 when eating a DP won’t send me home.

15

Strictly speaking, I understand a meaty to be an attack that you do such that the last active frame hits the 1st frame after full recovery from a knockdown. I may have been using it more generally to mean any attack that hits around the time of full recovery, not necessarily on the 1st frame. I really wasn’t sure what other word to use.

I think I get wake up mix-ups now and that I’ve just been really over thinking things. I would always try to think of the safest mind game I could think of but would end up doing nothing because I would always keep thinking of the possible counters. I realize now that everything has a counter and therefore everything carries a risk, but at least scoring a knockdown gives you the advantage of setting up a scenario of your choosing and the other player has to guess correctly. The more you can analyze your player’s tendencies, the more you can frustrate your opponent and make them play your game, the more their defensive game plan breaks down. Thanks zippo, those vortex videos actually really helped. I actually might try to try out akuma now haha.

Thanks everybody, I finally get it haha

16

Doing a move meaty is timing and/or spacing a move to hit late in it’s active frames. It’s not restricted to a wakeup scenario.

17

While I’ve used the methods mentioned here (good stuff0, I’ve been confused about jump-ins on wake-up. I’m a Viper player, and when I watch pro videos it seems like most all of the time on wake-up they jump in with a hk. Whenever I do this I always seem to eat a reversal, so I’ve stuck with the block/punish route. How do the best Viper players get away with this while doing it over half the time?

18

The great viper players safe jump it, or their opponent is guessing they might throw out an air flame kick.

19

well, because i’m bored i’ll post up a general er… faq on waking up, that is what options the waking opponent has and what options the attacker has to beat those options:

first the waking persons options:

(note, not all of these options are standard, but depending on the matchup and the level of mind games involved, they will all get used)

1.reversal ultra
2.block
3.reversal invincible move that isnt an ultra.
4.backdash (this has invincibility frames, but the option to beat it is different than the option for beating “hitting invincible reversals” or invincible moves that actually hit.
5. poke with a jab or medium
6.jump back/straight up
7.crouch tech
8. stand tech

so this will be based on chuns waking game… its a pretty standard wakeup game unlike someone such as goukis or giefs.

here are her general options:

  1. meaty throw
    2.block
  2. meaty crouching short (rarely used)
    4.DELAYED crouching short (i pretty much use these almost exclusively versus the meaty versions)
    5-6. chun only option (wont get into this since she is the only one that has them.( but they are her D/f+hk and her short hasan shu)
  3. matchup specific shit (like versus rog or dictator, chun can use a meaty cr.lp and that leaves few options for either character, which makes them easier to anticipate)

so heres what beats what from the getting persons perspective:

jump beats delayed crouching shorts and meaty throws, but loses to meaty crouching shorts.
reversal ultra beats meaty throws and meaty crouching shorts but loses to delayed crouching shorts.
backdash beats meaty throws but loses to both versions of crouching shorts if they get option selected with sweep.
block beats meaty shorts but loses to meaty throws, block can still be thrown after the shorts are blocked though… blocking on wakeup is not the hottest idea in 4, but still needs to be done at times.
waking jab/short beats delayed shorts but loses to meaty shorts and meaty throws
reversal invincible move (but not ultra) beats meaty shorts, delayed shorts, meaty throws, but loses to block unless reversal is fadc’d.
crouch tech beats meaty throws but loses to meaty shorts unless tech is delayed.
stand tech beats meaty throw but loses to meaty shorts and delayed shorts.

so basically once you know all of that your wake up game will be very well rounded.

me personally, my go to options for dealig damage to a waking opponent is mostly delayed shorts mixed up with blocking and then the occasional throw.

i only start to do the other things when i see that my opponent has something non standard in there repertoire, like, jumping on wakeup… unfortunately most opponents arent smart enough to do that.

when i’m waking up, my go to option is ex sbk cause it hits on both sides of me and people get flustered when playing chun and jump at her on wakeup cause they are desperate to mount an offense… so the first thing i do is to make sure that i NEVER get knocked down when i have no meter… once i do have meter i can takle more risks offensively since i know that my waking defense is shored up.

once people get wise to the fact that it isnt smart to jump at chun on knock down if if she has meter (unless they have a dive kick) they will either attempt a newb version of a safe jump (which i will just wakeup and throw all day)
or they will attack me on the ground which is the much smarter option, generally if they attack me on the ground i will mix up between wakeup jab,ex sbk,block or backdash. if i’m feeling really scrubby or just too pressured in general and i get knocked down with no meter, i will sometimes wakeup with my ultra cause if i’m down a shitload of health i figure WHY NOT… FFS. (RARELY WORKS, is bad to do in general)

hope that helps some folks :tup:

oh shit… i left out the best part… the actual mindgames:

generally speaking most players will mix up 3 different moves on there wakeup… now against MOST players… the move that they choose to do is based on there emotional state:

scared or not scared at all will sometimes be a block other times a reversal, rarely will it be something unorthodox though.
confident will usually be a block, but will be a reversal if the attacker just came off of a long winded string… particularly if the attacker came off of a long winded attack that leaves the waking opponent far, meaning the attacker has to dash forward 2-3 times in order to get close… in those positions most attackers including myself will go for the “obvious low” to try and keep that momentum they just got… so this is why reversals are seen so much here.

however some players will have different responses, its just what i posted is generally the normal behavior at intermediate levels… however even the pros can get caught off guard by acting in a predictable way.

generally i see whether or not my opponent is confident or scared by how they move there character/press buttons right before the knockdown (pressing lots of buttons frantically signals panic or fear):

if they are moving forward alot, then that means an attacking mindset… which means that i might want to expect a reversal out of them (they’ve been pressing lot of buttons so they will want to keep that up)

if they are moving backwards alot that signals fear depending on what just happened:
if i just hit them with a big combo or punish and they start walking backwards, i can smell the fear.

i could go on and on about this but suffice it to say its nowhere near an exact science, and is in fact still guessing… imho though it makes my guesses probably 10-20% mor correct if i can read my opponents psychology PLUS know what they generally like to do on wakeup… its like an elaborate equation that i dont really think about in game, but most certainly use, if my opponent is predictable enough to let me.

oh yeah… some people react the exact opposite as what i stated above… but thats easily readable as well once you figure it out.

when i cant figure someon out or just when i knock them down and i’m confused as to what to do… then generally speaking i will throw a meaty kikoken which i know is safe to reversals based on my distance… i generally only go for the wakeup games once i think i have a read on my opponent…

also just to keep this complete, i’m not saying that once i have a red that i can always attack the opponent… a psychological read only lasts a couple of seconds… if i dont take advantage of it, then the match gets reset.

-dime

20

Damn, good read Dime. Much appreciated. I think what I meant to say delayed short every time I said meaty short, so thanks for the clarification. What I found most interesting was how you made a point of separating the wake up options as the logistics from reading you opponent as the mind games. As subtle the difference may be, what you said definitely opened up a new method of analyzing matches for me, for serious. I never thought to examine the psychology of the way a player controls a character and how it translates to what they are thinking, the way you put it. Now to build up some experience.