"Plinking" if other fighting games

Newbie Saikyo Dojo
1

I’m having a lot of troubles with links in games like KoF and Yatagarasu. I’m training double tapping as much as I can, but while it’s a great technique for getting specials out, for links I feel it’s not that amazing, plus my hand dexterity for this technique sucks.

I’m wondering what would happen if I mapped the same button (C in KoF and hard punch in Yatagarasu, in my case) twice and hit them both with a plink technique. Would the games count that as the same input but a frame apart? Trying this out in kof the input display shows them as being pressed at the same time, so I’m not sure it works. Is this on a per game basis and related to how they handle inputs?

Thanks in advance.

2

Which KOF are you playing? XIII has a button hold input, but from my understanding that only applies to special cancels, super cancels etc, not for links. Plinking is something that is inherent to SFIV engine because of how it buffers and creates a hierarchy of inputs. I cant say for Yatagarasu because I haven’t gotten to play it yet, but I’m pretty certain you just have to hit your links cleanly for that and other games; double tapping is the only thing to ease that up. I think BlazBlue’s button hold will actually rapid fire inputs including on links, but that again is specific to that game.

3

Yes it’s XIII (both characters I’m interested in learning have 1 frame links…) and 2000UM. I have a lot of trouble double tapping the top row of the stick reliably. I didn’t know about the button hold thing, maybe that will help.

The thing is, with plinking, I am hitting one of the buttons 1-2 frames later. So I wonder why it doesn’t work, since it’s a mechanical input like double tapping too (a poor comparison would be that you’re doubletapping two side by side buttons).

The thing that was peculiar to SFIV’s system was that plinking with a lower strength normal would get you 2 inputs of the stronger one (ie: lp+mp would give you 2 mp inputs). In my case, I’m theorizing plinking with two buttons mapped the same (ie: hp+hp with a plinkinng technique).

I hope most of this made sense lol.

4

Just grind through your weaknesses.

5

I see where you’re going. It may not work given how the input buffer works in that game, if you’re getting a simultaneous input you should probably slow down your technique and see if that helps.

I don’t think the button hold works on links given how juicebox explains it here:

for double tapping techniques check this thread

All in all, you pretty much have to learn to time the links.

6

Yeah, button holding works only for specials and supers in KOF, not normals. It’s still the best thing ever, provided your left hand execution is clean enough.
Also, outside of a few select characters, linking into normals aren’t very important in KOF, at least not in KOF13. Getting the first hit after activating HD mode is the only really important situation I can think of, but if you’re struggling with basic combos you probably shouldn’t be focusing on HD combos regardless =V

edit: I read your second post again. Which characters are you talking about?

As for binding C to two buttons: I have no idea. Is that even possible to do? Usually you can only bind one button to one input type, unless we’re talking about macros.

7

Probably Takuma for one of them. He has a one frame link combo thats worth while.

8

It’s Takuma and Shen (cr.B, cr.C).

For Yatagarasu it’s Jyuzu’s s.lp, cr.hp. Not sure if it’s a 1-framer but I can’t get it consistently.

In fact combos in KoF are really hard. Even comboing out of hops is difficult for me, it seems normals have very little hitstun. Even basic strings like daimon’s s.A, s.A, s.B I can’t get out consistently.

So I was hoping for a technique to get these out more reliably since I used plinking for everything in SFIV.

9

You need to land the jump-ins fairly deep to be able to combo off them in KOF, unless it’s an attack with exceptionally high hitstun like Kyo j.d+C. You’re probably just doing the jumping attack too early. The hard part really just is landing the first hit, outside of HD combos I think most characters have fairly easy combos (easier than most SF4-BnBs, in fact, though a lot of people disagree with me on this).

As for the links… well, Takuma kind of needs that fireball - cr.A-link, so that one is one you’ve just got to grind out. It’s hard.
cr.B - cr.C with Shen, on the other hand, is a lot less important than you’d think. Having a meterless low starter is great, but it’s not very reliable because it has to be done point blank iirc, and Shen doesn’t really need the high-low-mixup to open people up. Juicebox explains both how Shen works and how KOF offense in general works in this video.

edit: man, now I want to play KOF13. Have you got the game on Steam? I haven’t played it in six months and can’t do HD combos, so just add me (tag: SandBager) if you want to be harassed by Benimaru hop D. =V

10

That Daimon link is legit hard too if it’s the one I’m thinking of. Welcome to grown up games. Watch the way Juicebox double taps by the way, that may help.

11

While we’re on the KOF subjetc (derailing my own thread), can you explain to me why command chains are piss easy (like s.c, f.b) where I can press the f.b even before s.c is done but on the daimon chain of s.a, s.a, s.b I have to “link” the button inputs?

Cuz, seriously, not even being able to chain normals puts me below scrub level.

Edit: shit, so that daimon thing is also a link? Movement is already daunting in this fucking game, converting hits into real damage is nuts. What are the characters that have the easiest execution in the entire game that you gentleman could recommend?

I’m keeping shen. Takuma is kinda meh for and as much as I like Daimon’s design I’m horrible with him and I face King a lot which feels like an impossible matchup.

I’m from brazil unfortunately. My competition for any game that isn’t street fighter is like 3-4 people.

12

I was going to say you were kind of muddling your terms of link and chain there for a second, but I think you get it now. I’m surprised by the lack of people. Latin America generally loves KOF.

Shen is a good starting character, best to place him on anchor. Terry is pretty easy too, but kind of peaks on damage early. His HDs can be daunting for some people, but really you can play him without the HD and just use drive cancel combos. He feels like a mix of rush down Ryu with some Guile normals. I’d suggest learning Kyo and one of the Ioris because their gameplay is intrinsically KOF.

13

I was curious myself, so I decided to test it just now. You can chain and link Daimon’s s.A into s.B / c.B. So it’s fairly easy to do s.A, s.B, DP+B, which, again can be drive canceled into either DP+A or his super for good damage.
His DP+B grab doesn’t really reach if you do s.A, s.A, s.B though, so if you want to combo from three lights you’ve got to learn a seriously difficult combo (s.A, s.A, s.B, command roll, cancelled early into hcb,f+p). Two lights is enough usually though, and he’s not really based around combos, more around controlling space conditioning people to block so that you can command grab them.

Also, if you want easy execution, pick Billy.
…actually. Just pick Billy regardless. He’s all normals (seriously, you hardly even need his specials), and a great character to demonstrate how to control the neutral game and convert it into pressure, which you can then convert into damage. I mean, his BnB is close.C - f.A or c.B, c.B, s.B, f.A which is okay damage and puts him back at his sweetspot.

Other characters that are simple to use, and are great for learning the game with, include Shen, Daimon, Andy, Benimaru, Claw Iori and Ralf. All these characters are mostly based around their good normals, their basic combos are pretty simple, and you need to learn how to take advantage of the system mechanics to be good with them. Several others are also good, of course.

Tutorials are on Juicebox’ channel. There’s a lot of good info on very many characters there, and he’s good at explaining things.

14

cl.A cl.A s.B is hard? I’m pretty sure XIII Daimon’s cl.A chains into itself, and then it’s a pretty lenient link into s.B. I’m terrible at doing links but I can do s.A s.A s.B xx hcb~f+P consistently.

15

Wait, hcb, f+P reaches after s.A, s.A, s.B? I thought you needed to input a command roll and cancel that to hcb, f+P for that combo to work.
If that’s the case, then the combo is a lot less hard than I thought.

16

You need to do the roll. Funnily enough that’s the easy part for me. It’s the cancels/links beforehand that really suck and I can’t understand or seem to get the timing down. I’m not playing daimon anymore though. Hopefuly in the future.

Also couldn’t stick with billy and his annoying ass sounds jesus. I’m playing whatever (usually king and doing fireballs for life)/takuma/shen. Gonna stick to that for couple weeks trying to get movement down (I still miss input the jump I want at the exact time I want), a half decent shen and working on hitconfirms (helps that the command chains for takuma and shen are the same).