You don’t have to outsmart anyone when you’ve got 100% execution and 0ms reaction times (even if they were the same as ‘the best players speeds’ like you said then they’d still be faster than the average joe and have the same outcome). You can’t bait a computer or engage it in mindgames, since it has no mind, it’ll just react to the triggers it has been programmed to respond to, and kick your ass, no matter how hard you try to sugar-coat or disguise them.
Fair points people, I don’t take that as a flame. I’ve only just got into SF4 after a long time not playing any games so I don’t really understand much about the mechnisms at all. I just wonder about how important the human spirit of spontinaiity and unpredictability is when squaring up against computers. It could be important one day, when Skynet takes over, for instance.
I think this is a good example of where the oft used chess analogy falls apart. Chess is much more abstract than SF, requiring almost no physical abilities, while there SF skill is still heavily dependent on reaction and execution.
I agree. The chess analogy just doesn’t work. Any resemblance seen between the two should be entirely regarded as a phantasm. Chess requires no real time reaction. In amateur games one can even take as long as one likes on a turn to contemplate a move. I really think that this whole analogy is a desire of those who play fighting games to have their game looked upon as highly strategic and thought provoking. That would be nice, but anyone who honestly believes that is deluding themselves. SF is quite far from being a game of strategy, let alone one which resembles, even to the slightest degree, the immense strategic complexities that are found in Chess. Yes, there are some elements of strategy to be found in SF, but I would argue that they are nigh nonexistent. Street Fighter is really more of a tactical game, whereas chess uses both tactics and strategy.
The closest game I can think of that isn’t a fighting game is billiards, as it requires some strategy and dexterity. Even that analogy falters though, as billiards is a turn based game, which fundamentally makes it extremely different from SF. That’s only the first of that analogy’s failings, and I believe the others are obvious enough (fighting by knocking balls in holes vs. fighting by hitting buttons).
TL;DR version: SF isn’t like chess, goddamn it.
It is pointless to play AIs unless you’re really bored. One does not truly get to practice concepts like mixups, as the computer does not fall for them because it does not have to guess. “Harder” AIs merely react more often to the player’s inputs, and they react more harshly. Beating AIs usually revolves around finding an anti-AI tactic, which is generally some move or series of moves that the computer doesn’t know how to counter, and then abusing it mercilessly. The computer will never adapt to the tactic though, unlike a human player.
One AI that was notoriously difficult was the one in Mortal Kombat II. It was a standard issue input reading AI, and it was absolutely unrelenting. It didn’t play with any kind of caution, and would directly walk at the player and punish any reaction. If the player did not react, the AI would just throw. Hell, the AI preferred to throw in nearly all situations, as throws in that game beat damn near everything. I’ve even been thrown out of Raiden’s torpedo attack. The AI, however, was quite easy to beat despite this, because it fell for one stupid trick. I remember game magazines calling it the “neck kick”, and it was just a simple cross up kick. One jumped over the AI, and held the opposite direction and pressed kick, resulting in the player’s character turning in midair and kicking the AI in the back of the head. It could repeated over and over until the AI was defeated. Jax was a difficult opponent because this tactic didn’t work on him because he had an air throw, but against everyone else it was practically air tight. Nearly all AIs can be defeated in a similar manner.
Like everyone here has said, since a computer is not susceptible to mindgames, it just becomes a reactio and executionn-based game. The computer would have input reading, and one-frame reactions with perfect execution.
Play Mortal Kombat 2 on the hardest difficulty. Enjoy your button scan induced frustration.
i’m pretty sure you could code a ti-83 to beat daigo