Plinking / Tsuji-Style: KARA BUFFER Inputs for Easier Links and More!

Classic Fighting Games Street Fighter IV
161

That’s ironic, because I had typed out a long-winded explanation of kara-canceling before deleting it because I figured you already knew. So I’ll tackle this one:

Kara-canceling is a layer of input-correction that was programmed in to Street Fighter to make special moves easier to perform. It’s called KARA-cancel because it involves canceling the start-up frames of one move into a completely different move. Since you only get the start-up of the initial move before going to the next, that first move is ‘empty,’ hence ‘kara.’

This was implemented because when you go for a special such as a hadoken, you sometimes end up inputting things like this:

:d: :df: :p: :r:

instead of this:

:qcf: :p:

By allowing the first few frames of normals to be cancelled into specials, your :df: :p: (crouching punch) gets canceled (usually so fast you don’t even notice) and you get a fireball instead.

I believe that such canceling was programmed only to work with two different categories of attacks. So a normal can’t kara-cancel into another normal while it’s okay for it to cancel into a special. In 3S, the common application was normal-> throw, and in CVS2 it was roll-> special

162

I assume you meant MP~LP? If so, it’s actually the second MP that wasn’t supposed to be there - that’s a bonus attack, not an empty one.

The important mechanics behind these links:
-When two buttons are pressed at almost the same time, the game gives you a simultaneous button press anyway by repeating the first input.
-When two buttons are pressed simultaneously, the stronger attack takes priority.

What would happen if the game simply had a window for multi-button moves, and didn’t magically repeat inputs when your timing’s off? Then you wouldn’t get that second c.MK or whatever that makes your links easier. It wouldn’t effect kara moves, though.

The important mechanics behind kara cancels:
-Normal moves can be canceled during their start-up.
-Certain properties of the normal moves, like forward movement, can be kept even after canceling.

What would happen if normal moves couldn’t be canceled during their early start-up? Kara cancels wouldn’t work anymore, even if you did your throw 1 frame after the normal. However, it wouldn’t have any effect on the linking technique.

They are different gameplay mechanics. Besides, it seems silly to me to use a Japanese term when Japanese players apparently aren’t even using that term.

163

I see what you mean now. In other words, when you do a kara throw like HP~LP+LK, it’s supposed to be detected as HP (one frame later) LP+LK, and not HP (one frame later) HP+LP+LK?

SF4 is the first game I’ve been able to do a kara throw in (I didn’t understand how to do it while playing 3rd Strike), so I thought that the first input repeating itself is supposed to be part and parcel of a kara throw, or kara anything.

Then again, I didn’t know what a cross-up was until SF2HDR. :confused: Thanks for shedding light on that. :smiley:

If the kara cancel only works with two different categories of attacks, I guess that must mean SF4 considers special moves and EX special moves to be two different categories since often times if you enter, say, QCF LP~MP, it comes out as an EX rather than a normal fireball.

164

Who is that in your avatar?

Going to try this out tonight.

165

This concept has been applied to extend Akuma’s Demon to Jab SPD range. Click here.

http://forums.shoryuken.com/showthread.php?t=186916

166

Just want to stress that this is not a glitch in the game, but rather an exploit of what would be considered a very reasonable implementation of the input system.

And indeed, it’s easy to get chains instead of links if you want to, say, do cr.lp, cr.lp, cr.hp xx special with Ryu. You have to deliberately delay your hp~lp input after the second lp to ensure you don’t get a chain. Or, hmm, maybe if you use hp~mp, you won’t have that problem?

I’m still not really understanding how the demon input is interpreted to get the TWO LPs needed for the demon, though. I thought LP~anything does not get you two LPs, but rather one LP and one “anything”?

EDIT: What’s the Akuma loop? I can’t get LP or cr.LP to link with standing HK at all. Those two can combo? Anyone have a vid?

167

This has obviously been confirmed by many sources now, but I wanted to throw my hat in the ring: after reading this I went to try Ryu’s final Hard trial again and started nailing the c.hp link in the j.hp, c.mp,c.hpxxEX Tatsu=>EX Shoryu=>FADC=>Ultra sequence almost every time. It made putting the rest of the pieces together alot easier.

Thanks so much for noticing this – I can’t wait to integrate it into the rest of my (shitty) game.

Any reason why it only works about 9/10 times? This percentage is getting thrown around alot and seems accurate to my experience.

168

It counts as two LP’s because the computer recognizes it as LP being pressed twice. It’s a different purpose as the Tsuji-link, but for the same reason.

LP~MP registers as LP~LP+MP.

169

Not ACTUALLY 9/10 times…just no one wants to say they get it 100% of the time when they still fuck it up once and a while.

170

ok so you know how sometimes you see fuerte ex run through like a jillion hits? Well does this trick work with hitting 2 kicks fk+mk then lk? Maybe it allows for the move to cancel into the move again on like the first frame…ala armor cancel to ultra?

171

If you see him run through more than 2 hits, it is an armor cancel. You can armor cancel the run to another run. A couple of the japanese guys like tetsu and torowa use this in actual matches which is amazing to me. I’ve seen tetsu run through bison low short and then both hits of the scissors, then go straight into fierce loop after absorbing all 3 hits.

172

Actually its not armor cancelling, Elf is the only character in the game that has 2 hit armor on his EX dash, its designed because he is very open during his dash and and ex hadouken can halt his entire game plan. They made it 2 hits to allow for him to still use his only real starter for his moves with worry of fireball punishing.

I have been trying to armor cancel the dash into his ultra for the longest… hard as hell, its probably easier to do abel, rog, or giefs than Elf… if its even possible, which i dont think it is, cause that video on youtube that shows the armor cancelling with Abel, Rog, and Gief doesnt show Fuerte. So im thinking that fuerte doesnt have armor cancelling >Ultra like they do. But with 2 hit armor you could just as easily EX run (absorb 2 hits)> lp stop, Ultra

But on that subject and the multiple button input subject, LK+MK+HK would come out as HK and therefore since he is in run animation he would do the slide rather than armor cancel to Ultra.

Thats just my observations, but my original reply was saying, no its not armor cancelling, I also tried to to Fierce Red Hadou from akuma and see if I could armor cancel into another run, but alas its not possible… from my days of trying. I tried to Cancel but always what came out was the splash or the HP throw, since he has a move with every button from his run, that is what will take priority over any cancelling attempt.

Fuerte cannot armor cancel

173

Did you even read the post entirely? He said he absorbed a short and then 2 additional hits. That’s 3 hits meaning the armor would not prevent him from being knocked down by the scissors.

Is it just qcf+pp, lp, qcf+pp, lp into RSF or does it go qcf+pp, qcf+pp? Like do you have to put the stop run input and then do another ex habanero or do they chain into each other? I don’t play elf unless it’s drunk casuals so it’d be cool to know.

174

He says that but almost all videos of Tetsu are pretty blurry and what he might have thought was a cr.short>scissor kick, might have been cr.short> st.forward, the closest thing i have found was a far cr.mk> short.scissor in which the scissor missed the first hit and the second hit got absorbed and he did a standing fierce then back dashed. It was against a dictator player named EXE.

and I have watched any and every video that i can find of him, cause I wanted to pick up Fuerte, but i have watched about 7 vids of him and never has he armor cancelled, tetsu isnt an easy guy to find videos of. Fuerte cant armor cancel because any button input will do one of his moves.

and trust me i have tried for hours to see if i might be able to somehow EX run>stop>EX run to get through 3 hits, he stops just enough to get hit. also I tried EX run> lk(back dash)>EX run still gets hit. But he can do EX run>splash where the start up of the splash is invincible so the 3rd hit goes past him. but no armor cancelling for Elf, if he had a free button that did nothin out of his run then yes, but his normal moves out of the run take priority over anything else.

175

after practicing this for 15 minutes, i was able to hit the stupid gen links consistently,

thanks for the discovery and sharing the info

176

I’m having a really hard time doing this.

How is the mp~anything done? Do i roll my fingers from mp to lk or lp? With inputs on in training it just shows the single inputs, how fast does this have to be? I watched the vid posted earlier and i’m still really struggling with rolling the buttons.

Sorry to sound real stupid, but I’m new to these kinda controls besides mashing the shit out of buttons. :confused:

177

its about the same speed as a standard kara throw

this should help if you are having trouble [media=youtube]9We8ZsutK_c[/media]

dont worry, its not a stupid question

178

Regarding the naming of this technique:

Plinking is a cute name. Tsuji is a smart guy (kirbysim too). You can call this technique, whatever you want, I’m not trying to stop anyone. Someone has to step up to make a little sense of things sometimes though, so I’m just going to take the initiative here.

These names however, don’t hold up. They are more, nicknames. The beauty of the nomenclature that has generally been imposed on these games is that they are meaningful and descriptive.

A Kara Renda cancel is exactly what it sounds like. And you know what a Kara Renda cancel is because of the terms Kara, and Renda. A Jump Install is what it sounds like. Hell, a cancel is what it sounds like.

So if we breakdown the mechanic behind plinking, I think what find is a [Reverse-] Kara Buffer. You’ve buffered a move, it’s a kara, but it’s different than other kara’s in that it is actually activated by doing a move after the kara instead of before. So unless someone can show me better, that’s what I’m propogating.

In my opinion:
plinking is to kara buffer as claw/finger slide is to tridash.
tsuji is to kara buffer as ROM is to “infinite” (triangulation, tridash infinite, whatever).

My main gripe with the mass adoption of the term “plinking”, is that plinking implies “piano” + “link”. Now, you don’t really piano per se, but the problem is that it implies some form of linking which is not always the case. This phenomenon occurs as a result of leniency on attacks, and a link is a secondary effect.

Case in point, plink a series that does not actually link but has a 1 frame gap. Instead of a link, you get a fail-safe counter-hit option. Similarly, other applications like the Tsujinrai Raging Demon mean that this obviously doesn’t apply to just links (though I agree plinking is a good term for what you do with your hands, or how you did a combo “I plinked that short forward link”)

In summation, what we have, is a Kara Buffer. Call it what you want… Plink your kara buffers, Tsuji your counter hit setups, Tsujinrai Demon that shit… but remember what’s going on behind the name. It might lead to interesting new things! :tup:

super-late edit: I also really like “Buffered Kara”, because you actually do the buffer first… but either way fits.

179

Ive seen it in person, in video and done with zangief multiple times, so lets put your argument away for a second and try to come up with a plausible answer to why it happens

180

Thats gief not Fuerte, which is who im talking about
Fuerte cant armor cancel
Gief, Rog, and Abel can

Armor cancelling happens because when the armor hit occurs it causes a hiccup in the animation, just enough for a quick input. Since Ultras cause another hiccup in animation thats why those are the only ones allowed to come out, supers obviously cant because its an ex. As for the Fuerte thing, his run has 6 options to come out of his run, and any button press activates 1 of those options which in turn takes priority over anything, because he doesnt get the same form of a hiccup during his armor. And any multiple button press will result in splash, splash throw, running high kick, or slide. But since Abel’s armor is on his rekka his rekka accepts aditional input, but only after it hits not before, and armor cancelling happens before another input can continue the rekka