I’m making this thread as a discussion place for general in-game tactical evolution. Whether you’re playing a one-off online or a tournament set in another state, everyone has a gameplan that they’re trying to carry out. The plan may be as simple as “I must win,” and sometimes as complex as “I have to perform this particular series of actions to exploit a particular reaction from my opponent, react in a particular fashion and take as much damage as possible for now.”
Now, this isn’t talking about a “bag of tricks” that players employ. What I want to discuss here is the different battle plans people roll into matches with, how they feel about those plans, whether they’re successful and what happens when things go awry. I want to discuss options as well. Do you use all your options? Do you try to take away your opponent’s options? I also want to talk about what happens when tactics clash; if someone is banking on a certain move or strategy and their opponent has successfully guarded or stuffed that strategy, should the first player try again? Should they keep that option on the table and keep their opponent honest? Should the second player continue to respect the now-exposed strategy of the first player? Should they force a counterattack on the first player’s option so much that they can regard the strategy as “dismissed”?
I want this discussion to go beyond having a “well, there’s no way they’ll do that again…” feeling without delving into the King of Iron Theory tournament. Let’s talk about the real way players approach situations. I’m really interested to hear what people have to say, even if it involves strategies that wouldn’t hold up in a long set but would win you a tournament match or even strategies for online warriors. Everything is fair game.
Tekken Tag 2 is about match-ups and rage/health management. Arguably all fighting games are about match-ups, but in Tekken characters have a much larger number of moves, making this a lot more difficult. While characters like Mishimas might only use a handful of moves, characters like Lei, Ling, and Chreddy will use much more. The first step in being effective in this game is learning different match-ups. To be honest, it’s a daunting task considering the roster size. Even T6 vets don’t know all the match-ups yet. Fortunately the net code is good enough for people to get the experience they need…if they’re willing to put in the time and effort.
I’ve noticed a lot of people spamming tag assault. I understand the strategy behind doing a TA early round so you don’t have to worry about losing health, but I think that if a TA doesn’t do at least 100+ damage then it’s not worth it at the start of the round. If you’re opponent tag crashes out, then that’s great. If you can get a wall carry and kill them before they tag, great. Keep on spamming those TAs. If they don’t Tag Crash in, you take a huge risk going against a raged secondary character.
I also notice a lot of people using weak, non fatal TAs and essentially stripping their off screen character of red life. Then losing the round. They could’ve use a Tag buffer for the same damage, taken red life, and not lost any health. I think I see people use Tag buffers maybe 1 in 40 matches in Quick Session and 1 in 25 matches in ranked? Again, spamming TA is great when you’re doing 100+ damage, and your opponent spams tag crash…but for 80-90ish damage? Not worth it.
I think the longer you play tekken the more you realise that the vast majority of moves have some gaping hole in them that make them low reward or risky to use. Good players realise this and limit their movelist to 5~8 moves and then use the rest as filler in their combos, punishing moves, as pokes or at the wall. If your character has to use a wider array of moves to be viable I think it means your character is not that strong.
@yannick. generally you want to force your opponent into a situation where their choices are vastly limited; this is the hallmark of a pro player. For example RIP forces his opponent into a situation where they have to choose when his law ducks in front of his opponent. He can either ws2 launch them for combo or slide for a meaty low damage. It’s essentially a 50/50 situation where you have to stand block or crouch block. Forcing your opponent into a situation where they have to choose puts you in a position of control and power.
Too much variables. You need to find a move that enforces a very simple situation where the opponent only has about 3 options max, and within those limits you can start conditioning him.
And even then, like everything else, it comes down to messy yomi business. So take what you can get, by learning the weaknesses of them moves themselves and learning to space better. That way you’ll need to do less outguessing and more automatic punishing.