"Hey! Let's do this for real." Concept/Discovery/Match-up Videos

Classic Fighting Games Ultra Street Fighter IV
921

@eternal I’m hoping I can pick your brain here for a second. I’m sitting here trying to look over some Frame-Data but I’m coming up a little short on the technical aspect and I’m hoping you can help. I’m trying to figure out the FADC Advanatage/Disadvantage on Codys move set. So the most direct question is; given all the available Frame-Data numbers is it possible to calculate FADC data as well? or do you need something more…?

So I’ll present to you an example.

Cody - LP Criminal Upper. It’s Knockdown on hit and (-4) On Block. I heard that if you FADC Forward that Cody is at (-1). I’m reading all the Frame Data trying to figure out how to calculate these numbers but I believe I’m missing some kind of information since I’m not coming up with anything that seems close to what people are concluding it to.

All I can seem to calculate is the On Block Advantage and I’m not 100% sure I’m even doing that right, but I seem to come to the right numbers. I’m going off the USF4 Bible. My process is to add Start-Up/Active frames which is 30F and then subtract the Recovery Frames (22) to give me a total of 8F. The Bible says they add 1F for start up and I, to my knowledge, there is 3F of Hit-Stun. So I then take 8F minus that 4F and come up with 4. Which is Cody’s On Block Advantage.

I did these calculations across every Criminal Upper and came up with the proper numbers. Now, I can’t for the life of me figure out how to calculate any FADC numbers. I feel like I’m being dumb and over looking something… but there might be some kind of voodoo that isn’t public knowledge that I may be missing.

My process so far is to take the start up of 13F, adding 1F for the first active frame, then since the FADC cancels everything after that I then add Codys total dash frames being 18F, totaling 32F. I honestly don’t know what to do from there…

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Any help from anyone. Thanks in advance.

922

@Tenchi‌
The reason you add 1F to moves is because players get confused about startup otherwise.

Cody’s crHP for exampleis 7/3/16, the total frame count isn’t 26F, it’s 25F. Because the 3F is the ALL of the active frames. However 7F is all of the startup frames overlapping with the 1st active frame. People get confused if it’s 6/3/16 (since technically it’s 6F startup, 3F active, 16F recover) because then they can’t punish -6F on block moves since it’s still not active till 7F. So it was changed to list it that way.

Now, on to other stuff.

With moves like criminal upper you can’t just add up all of the active frames because it’s a multihit move. You calculate hit/blockstun based on the time from the last hit until recovered. Whenever an attack is blocked/hit it overrides the previous attack’s hit/blockstun. It doesn’t add to it. Thus the blockstun you need to be calculating is based on the frame advantage vs the time since the final tornado hit.

In conclusion: The way you were calculating FADC was faulty because you didn’t take into consideration the fact it’s a multihit move :stuck_out_tongue:

Also a FADC doesn’t occur instantly, you have to add in the frames for the focus cancel itself. It’s not just 18F because that’s ONLY the dash. If you do crHP - EX FADC you’ll find you’re -4F on block even though crHP has 18F of blockstun.

923

This two are the worst, I still get so much trouble to deal with it.
USF4 didn’t bring nothing about it… :frowning:

924

My biggest gripe has always been that Cody is billed as a frame trap character but because throws are 3 frames, you generally will get shorted or thrown out of his main frame trap moves. If cl.HP activated a bit further out, maybe it’d help? But it still doesn’t prevent cr.LK mashing. Then there’s the fact characters who aren’t built around frame traps like Cody, do the job better with the same button. (Cammy and Sakura being the biggest offenders with their cl.HP. Sakura’s cl.HP being a 3f normal for some reason.)

925

The reason Cody gets billed as frame trap character is that is the area he is best at. That is only comparing Cody’s options TO HIMSELF. I mean, overall his frame trap game gives him probably the largest (or 2nd largest behind Dudley) bonus when he lands a counterhit but other than getting counterhits he isn’t really doing anything when he frame traps. His throws are all average damage, he has no real threat behind the buttons to make you flinch. He can’t overhead combo you (Makoto/Dudley/Ibuki). He doesn’t have a chip tool that keeps pressure going (Yun, Yang, Dudley, Ibuki, Rufus, Sakura, Dan, Guy). He doesn’t have the ability to make your moves whiff with safe/fast mobility tools (that sometimes also beat stand/crouch tech) (Cammy, Yun, Yang, Rufus, Guy, Dudley, Sakura, Dan, Ibuki, Fei). He doesn’t bring the threat of a command throw (Abel, Yun, Fei, Makoto, Yang) or strong throw setups (Rufus, Sakura, Cammy, Fei, Yun, Makoto, Abel, Dudley)

Recently I’ve basically realized that there is literally no reason anyone should be playing Cody over EITHER Dudley or Evil Ryu. If you play those 2 characters you will do better in every match than Cody would with a similar gameplan. Dudley coves every anti-zoning match better, most dive kick matches and some footsie matches and frame traps better and has better wake up and more damage. Evil Ryu covers the matchups where you need to zone (Grapplers) better than Cody, has better footsies, does more damage and has better wakeup.

I can’t think of one matchup that you wouldn’t do better with either of those 2. TBH You could probably JUST play Dudley and only use Evil Ryu for Zangief and you’d do better. Or JUST play Evil Ryu and use Dudley for Sagat/Gouken and you’d do better.

I know it’s a bit pessimistic but It’s how I’ve felt alot lately. I think Cody has a lot of good stuff but he just doesn’t stack up to other characters in his category. Every other character oriented around frame traps/high damage/footsies does more damage / frame traps better/ and has more mobility than him. Cody is just too “average”

926

Agree with everything, except that he isn’t even average any more. I think every character you’ve listed there except Dan does better than Cody in this game, which kind of makes him below average by default!

927

unfortunately I agree. Dudley and E.Ryu excel in everything Cody either could do or should do as well as them in either category. Still a fun character, but he has to work twice as hard because his tools are sub par or lacking where characters like Dudley and E.Ryu either have or cover with something else.

928

Yea, I guess you can say he’s average, but I believe he can be viable. Maybe I’m the only one that thinks that or maybe I’m naïve but I feel like he can do well in tournaments.

929

The thing that makes him viable in tournaments and/or sets is that he only has a couple of really bad matchups. Like you meet a Yun or Cammy or Rufus or Abel or Akuma it’s going to be a tough match. You might struggle if you meet a Dhalsim, Chun or Guile too though perhaps not as much as those MUs his momentum can help win him a match, especially Dhalsim due to Sim’s poor wakeup. Otherwise he is either going even or just slightly losing his MUs.

Because of this he is able to stand on his ground and if you’re skilled enough as a player it’s possible to overcome these matchups by simply being a stronger player (see: Momochi, he’s done a lot better with Ken/Juri than he ever did with Cody but even with Cody he was able to make top 8/16 pretty damn consistently just because he is SUCH a good player)

Even with Cody’s really bad MUs like Yun/Rufus/Cammy you can win on momentum, and the matchups still aren’t as bad as some of characters like Dhalsim or Honda’s bad matchups. Being a momentum character can carry you pretty far in tournaments too, if you are making the right reads you can quickly end rounds before the opponent has time to adjust. A slower paced character the opponent might have time to pull them selves together.

930

Cody’s hella viable in tournament. As Eternal pointed out, have to be a strong player to make up the other half Cody lacks/excels in. He still needs help obviously but it’s not like he doesn’t have the tools needed to fend off most of the cast. The problem is that if you don’t get started in most of your bad matchups, you generally lose. If you get started but make wrong reads, it’s dragging out a match that could be over. It’s also giving the other player a chance to turn things against you.

931

The major problem with Cody is that his bad matchups are some popular characters like Cammy.

932

Surely if Cody requires you to be a strong player to make up for his issues, you’re still going to run into trouble when you come up against equally strong players later in the tournament? Although it might sometimes seem like a positive that he can steamroll opponents when he gets going, the reverse is also true. To me that indicates a high level of variance in what can happen in any given matchup, which is something you really don’t want in a tournament character, especially if its short sets and 2 losses and out. If you’re relying on reads you need longer sets, or a sequence of opponents you have experience against. Momochi did well with placing with Cody, but you would think he got through early rounds based on his skill advantage over opponents, and then in the later rounds he’d generally be facing players he’d played before and could leverage reads etc. to a higher degree.

Another issue with the bad matchups, IMO at least, is that generally the gameplan required to beat Cody is so straightforward that even mid-level players will be able to execute it consistently. On the flipside, I think there is definitely still a broad lack of understanding of how Cody functions, so you might be able to skate through some matches based on opponent’s lack of familiarity with the character. Ultimately though, finishing matches quickly isn’t going to help much in the long run - it’s consistency that matters, and I still think it’s all too easy for Cody to end up in situations which he can’t fight his way out of. Eternal said it in another post - he rarely finds himself in the position of being able to dominate a match.

933

He is also rarely in a position he lacks an option. He may not dominate an opponents gameplan but he has a tool to at least potentially MANAGE it. As Seth Killian said “Cody has ways to fight this, just not really ways to dominate it” that was his exact statement during the Momochi/Infiltration matchup at NCR. Cody has a tool to difuse almost any situation and stop it. It’s just he can’t do much else BUT stop it. He can’t turn that tool into an advantage he just stops the opponents option. Jump back LP/LK for dive kicks is a great example. Cody isn’t gaining anything. He maybe does 40 or 50 damage but he puts himself closer to the corner. That particular dive kick was managed but he didn’t really do anything to prevent the next one or set himself up to be in a position where he can use his strengths after stopping the dive kick. All he did was stop 1 dive kick and that’s it.

934

Yeah, he has options… but having options in this game isn’t enough, especially if using them doesn’t improve your situation, or just exchanges one bad situation for another!

I would also disagree that he is ‘rarely in a position he lacks an option’. I think there are plenty of characters that can put him in a position where all of his options except blocking are weak… and that just opens him up even more to being thrown, or caught with a high/low mixup because the opponent doesn’t fear the reversal. And why should they? It’s also a major issue that in so many situations his best option would be EX Zonk, but as we all know it’s just not going to be available a lot of the time.

Obviously it’s possible for Cody to win a tournament, but is that really saying anything? Any character could under the right circumstances - character representation, pathway through the bracket and so on. I think the fact that Momochi has all but dropped him says everything.

935

Kelvin believes Cody is one of Hugo’s best matchups

936

I agree with him… but then we’ve already had the Hugo debate!

937

I actually wanted to ask him why because I don’t agree. I think it’s even if anything. Hugo gets a bit of an advantage once he knocks Cody down but Cody can literally keep Hugo at bay.

938

They added BJ Unchained tierlist to this post.

939

in the unfavorable piece, I think E.Ryu/sim/Abel/viper are even. Yun is another I with hugo where Cody can keep up until he gets knocked down. He doesn’t outright lose, but you are losing if you get knocked down.

I’m kinda eh on Yang. I don’t think it’s unfavorable but Yang can play footsies and doesn’t rely on his divekick as much. He can walk cody down though.

I really don’t like how these are being done though because it’s all just showing numbers and no thorough explanation for their reasonings of why it’s good/even/bad. It’s kinda why I liked when Fchamp did a stream on the Marvel 3 tiers explaining why he thought everyone was where they were.

940

You’re going to get knocked down in the majority of matches though, it’s just not feasible to avoid that. Same goes with Hugo.