this occurs on Supercade and GGPO too. But the real rape comes when I play SNK games.
XBL tag is Naeras. I’ll probably be busy a lot of the time the next two weeks (exams), but I’ll always be up for a game if I’m on, even though I suspect I’ll be bodied. Feedback is appreciated, by the way. =)
Connection might actually less of a problem, as I live in Scandinavia, also known as “internets from heaven”-land(s).
Can’t hitconfirm off c.MK yet, no. I can do it semi-reliably off other moves, however, and I’ve still spent less time in 3S training than SF4 training.
The point is, I can practice it outside of training mode as well, because I can actually do the motions. The rest is just reactions and practice, unless I’ve misunderstood how that works.
I went from 3S to SF4 then back to 3S. 3S was a great game to start with – old school art style, a smaller and unique cast, the awesome parries that seemed so out of reach at the time. I had a lot of fun with it.
Then I picked up SF4, since I figured the online competition would be more consistent in the most recent SF title (which it was). The resources for new players to SF4 are far more readily available compared to new 3S players, meaning I found more tutorials that explained different aspects of the game (spacing, practicing execution, etc) compared to 3S. FADC combos taught me how to break combos and execution into pieces, before putting it all back together again and executing it successfully. Links, too, are far more present in SF4 which is great practice and conceptualization for a new player on how the combo system works. Let’s not forget SF4 has corner crossup compared to 3S. SF4 taught me how to deal with relentless crossups. 3S didn’t.
I played SF4 for awhile. It really cemented my fundamentals, giving me more opportunity to watch, learn and actively observe what was happening in the matches with less interference from the faster play speed of 3S or parries. But eventually, after I improved, I returned to 3S.
And I have yet to go back to SF4, because 3S fucking rocks. Time spent practicing in 3S is just more exciting when you bring it out to the actual field. Yeah, cool, FADC into ultra. Not nearly as satisfying to land as l.fw -> ex tatsu -> ex hado -> shinkuu -> ex hado/s.rh/hado. You simply feel so much more involved in 3S, especially with parries. Practicing a certain parry setup over and over again is not only actual fun a lot of the time in training mode, but then when you bust that out in game? Son. You’re on top of the world.
Naeras: good stuff, I enjoyed reading your opening post. Ignore a lot of the crap other people have been talking in this thread (and it is crap), my experience was similar to yours, and some of my friends would say the same too. Glad you’re enjoying 3S and I hope that continues.
Guess I may aswell ask here since it is an active topic: I’m looking for a (reasonably) experienced 3s player who is willing to destroy me/give me tips by playing matches with me. I *really *want to learn this game because everything about it just screams fun to me, but when I play against random strangers with 3sOE and get fucked and I have no idea what I’m doing it’s just…dishearthening. Especially considering I’m a pretty fucking good Gen player in SF4 and Alpha. I feel like I miss something fundamental in this game, and playing 1 or two matches against a random person who clearly knows how to parry and his combos is not going to help fix that. I intend to play Oro as the character and his unique style appeals to me the most atm. I live in Yurop (The Netherlands).
Kind of funny, this thread inspired me yesterday to pick the game up again and I played a oro mirror against some guy and I had no life left as he did the big ass orb super art…without actually thinking about it at the moment I just…parried the entire damn thing and right there and then I got hype as fuck (I still lost though lol) and it even more rekindled my interest in this game, doesn’t hurt that there will be another patch so that’s cool too.
PSN = indico
I’d suggest playinh SF3S on PC due to the fact that communication between players there is far easier, faster and more accessible than that on PSN. Or if you find a PSN player you can arrange both to play the game on PC.
I am not a pro by any means, but 1 year playing the game online has helped me a lot. even if I lose I understand at least why I lost.
Regarding the OP, it was the opposite with me. Started with 3S, tried SF4 for a few months when it was released, then went back to 3S and Alpha. the appeal SF4 had did not work for me who was used to old school fighters. New school fighters like GG, BB and MB did not appeal to me either.
@Warlike – (“without actually thinking about it at the moment I just…parried the entire damn thing and right there and then I got hype as fuck”)
I know that feel, bro! Check out the end of one of my matches a few months ago:
I too am a new 3S player, and in fact a new fighting game player in general. This is basically THE GAME that I play – nothing else comes close anymore to the excitement of good 3S matches! Always looking for new sparring partners to learn with. I’d love to have a few matches with you to test out the latency.
My PSN is therealjester. Add me and shoot me a message when you get around to it (and I’ll try and do the same for you). I’m not a very good player but I am learning every day.
edit: “Duralath” is a really good PSN 3S player. I spoke to him once via messages, asked him what his best tip was, and he actually busted out a keyboard and sent me a handful of messages that really really helped develop my game and conceptualize SF much more soundly (things like “reason out your own actions, not your opponents” and “SF is a game of controlling space” etc etc).
Lol yeah when it happened I was like ‘‘am I a fighting game god? What is this sorcery I judt did…awesoYOU LOSE’’.
Alright I’ll add you. I’m absolutely horrible though. As good as I may be in SF4 and alpha 3, many of the skills that make me good in those games just don’t transfer well in 3s. I suppose that is ultimately what makes it such a divisive game within the community: it plays totally different yet rewards skill like no other SF game before or after it imo.
In SF4 the momentum of the match is artificially determined a lot of the time by mechanics that are rewarded to players for *taking damage *like Ultra’s. Hell even though I play Gen (regarded by most people as one of the hardest chars executionwise) he has herpherp in the form of his super(s) which are braindead as fuck lol. In 3s the momentum can change in the blink of an eye due to parries I feel, but it always requires yomi/skill.
Hey if you quick roll in corner in 3S you’d get crossed up easily. It’s pretty annoying when facing against Yun or Yang, the dive kick characters.
As AE evolves its becoming ridiculously technical. To play at a high level you need to master difficult option selects, otherwise the other person will just escape your setups / option select you to death. Also the 1 frame links require you to plink to get any sort of consistency which is also a very difficult technique. There are also safe jumps that require frame perfect setups in order to be real safe jumps.
Add the technicality and the 40ish matchup specific stuff you HAVE to learn or you’ll just lose certain matchups, and AE becomes a monster to learn.
I’d say 3s is more about learning to play without such a hard technical barrier to overcome first.
sf4 and sf3 are completely different animals. 3s has slightly harder execution than the other when it comes to just using simple bnb’s and some shortcuts are character dependent and there’s no p-linking. sf4 has easier inputs and they are universal as far as i know but it can get cumbersome at times because you accidentally get a super or srk when you don’t want to because the system is too lenient.
3s has some gnarly hard combos in it but sf4 has some of the most retarded FADC combos you can think of where if it wasn’t for the lenient execution you’d probably only land them half the time. do a special, FADC, ultra. there are so many inputs in such a little amount of time that it really makes you think why they stuck with this. when you practice it becomes easy and you no longer think about it but when i tried to get my friends to get serious with sf4 they stopped at the FADC shit because it frustrated them. try guile’s flashkick, FADC, ultra2. yeah, stupid hard and stupid shit damage that i wonder why people even bother.
as far as the basics, i feel like you can be more creative in 3s as where in sf4 it’s very by the book. you’re forced to play a certain way and that’s that. nothing wrong with that as some people prefer it but in 3s playing by the book is repetitive and parry bait. you have to mix it up a lot. an analogy i like to use is 3s is like poker because there’s so much risk in being offensive and defensive. it’s always suspenseful and you never know what kinda crazy shit is gonna happen. sometimes you wonder if the opponent just got lucky or is really in your head and already knows what you’re most likely going to do.
i think sf4 is reaching it’s end as far as it’s evolution and i think 3s is still evolving. sf4 seems harder to me because of all the damn matchups and option selects that you HAVE to use! it’s ridiculous with every situation because you don’t have much of a choice on what to do, there’s only one or two choices that work, period. you have to memorize all of those for each character etc…
one thing that 3s has over sf4 imo, is it’s so much flashier and fun just to watch.
tldr: they both have easy and hard shit. i don’t think one is necessarily harder than the other.
he’s an awesome character but he is absolutely balls when it comes to chun li. she will murder your every poke and it’s best to take to the skies when dealing with that bitch.
while I agree with this, even then I still think that 3S and SF4 will not help that much with learning fundamentals. the former due to the disorientating parry system and the latter due to the focus attacks. these gimmicks are rather unique to each game. So being a beginner in SF3 or SF4 means a beginner with some fundamentals instead of a total beginner to both 3S and SF4 and FG.
SF3 has meaties that work, after teaching my lil brother SF3. He wondered why that wasn’t working or even in the game in 4.
Now he handles lots of stuff on his own I never managed in Urien charge tackle partitioning for juggles. Wants to be a parry mid 720 Hugo beast next even.
We never had to worry about option Selects in 3 all too much with limited exposure to better players or knowledge of the youtube Japan matches, fine details, but that seems like what 4 will eventually all be. SGGK but only for a few people, with the highest damage moves in Ultras sometimes.
Hyperbole in there sure. Going back to the original topic, there’s tons of fun SF stuff to do and you’ll take good and maybe bad things from both.
Agreed. I think the best games for beginners to the SF series are either SF2 Champion Edition or Hyper Fighting. I feel like those two games are the best places to learn fundamentals because it’s just raw fighting without really any system mechanics to get in the way.
if you can’t learn SF fundamentals from SF4 (focus attacks) 3s (parry) and I assume CvS2 (all sorts of fun system mechanics) I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that fundamentals is a useless term or you guys mean “it won’t help you be better at SF2.”
I played someVampire Savior games with a 3k SF4 player. I am not even good at that game, playing it for half a year. yet I am even worse at SF4, never surpassing 1000 pp. he beats me there for fun. he started the game (VS) for a few weeks, using Anakaris, a character I have big trouble against. yet I dominated him in most matches. so no, SF4 at least will not help you at all at fundamentals. hence SF4 is not the best place to start. Btw I suck at SF2 too.
every game has different mechanics, sure, but some games help more than others, SNK games especially.
Really interesting thread IMO… I’ve had some of these thoughts myself. There are many points I’d like to respond to, but I don’t have an hour (probably a blessing for us all), so I’ll mention the main thoughts I’d already had in this area and hit the highlights of the thread…
-to me, 3S feels more dramatically “more natural” than SF4. This is different from “easier,” but it is certainly a relevant idea. Several of the thoughts below fall under this heading of 3S feeling more natural to me, but one big part of it that I can’t exactly pinpoint (and I have talked to other people who seem to be getting at the same thing, but none of us are exactly sure what’s going on) I suspect has something to do with 3S featuring 2D animated sprites and SF4 having 3D models. Perhaps it’s possible to implement 3D models while retaining a natural feel, but all I can say is that the spacing and the interactions of the hitboxes just don’t feel crisp to me. 3S feels extremely crisp. So does ST/HDR (I noticed this when I first started playing HDR after a heavy dose of SF4… "Oh shit, THIS is what I remember fighting games feeling like…). In 3S, the interactions of the characters and the hitboxes and the move priorities relating to me pressing the buttons just makes sense on an almost physical level - the physics make sense. In SF4, even though I have developed precise spacing and know on some level how the moves will interact, the physics don’t feel as good for some reason, and the game feels less predictable, somehow. Again this could be more due to the hitboxes or something about the frame data… I just know that, subjectively, it’s a very real experience when I compare playing these games. Another contributing factor is…
-trading… SF4 seems to have a lot of trading. Moves in general, other than of course the many invincible SRK type moves/ultras, don’t seem to have as much “priority” as a rule than attacks in 3S and SF2. This makes me more tentative to attack and generally adds to the “challenge” of SF4 in my experience.
-speed… 3S has a good bit of it… SF4, not so much. Walk speed is slow. Aside from literally three or four characters’, forward dashes suck ass. And…
-damage… in 3S, the top half of the cast can dish out some HURT when the opponent fucks up or when you make a good read, especially with meter. Vanilla SF4 had damage, but these days only a few characters with a lot of meter, if that (I’m talking Gief with full Ultra or Seth with full super meter) can expect to take a chunk of life at a moment’s notice. Does this make 3S harder or easier? I’m sure there are people who have been crushed by Chun or Akuma or Ken in seven seconds and are overwhelmed, but to me, 3S feels better because…
-in 3S, you are powerful. You are fast, you can do damage (if you don’t pick low tier), and if you make a good read, you can counter almost anything your opponent does with one of your heaviest-hitting moves/combos.
-On the flip side, SF4 actually requires more patience, IMO, than SF4… as others have said, it’s getting pretty tedious, and since it’s pretty hard to do a lot of damage and stun without a ton of meter, it’s very difficult to win consistently without a lot of patience, no matter what character you play. I realized playing 3S that I wasn’t playing SF4 nearly as lame as I should. SF4 is like a war of attrition - getting occasional pokes for meh damage, the occasional throw, and then the knockdown or focus attack crumple to really seal the deal. 3S is explosive, and I prefer that. Personal preference, I suppose.
-Totally agree about way too many characters in SF4… it’s only fun to learn match-ups to a point, in my opinion, and there simply aren’t enough great players in any region of the world (perhaps even including Tokyo) for it to be remotely reasonable to master all of the match-ups. I’d say the ideal number of characters in a fighting game is between ten and twenty, twenty-five tops… I’d be more than happy playing a game with just five characters (say, a shoto, a pixie, a grappler, a melee character, etc.) if they are well designed. Forty is a turn-off for me… I barely played the first release of Super for a while because I just didn’t care about many of the new characters… oh yay, Adon, he has fast pokes, a fast horizontal move, and an uppercut. And a really annoying voice. And yay, T Hawk… a shitty version of Gief. Zzzzzzzz…
-Completely disagree about execution being harder in SF4, though… There are hard combos in the game, yeah, and some characters require you to be great at linking if you ever want to reach a high level, but I’ve had to spend very little time in training room in SF4, and I’ve messed around with enough characters to know that holds generally true for me. I find pulling off short short super in 3S in an actual match to be much, much harder than anything required to reach a high level of success with most of SF4’s cast. And then there’s stuff like no autoblock and the much smaller reversal windows and you really have to be aware of what your hands are doing in 3S…
-Some of this is definitely preference… I can imagine 3S being too fast paced for plenty of people, and the parry system making every situation more overwhelming with its many possibilities, but as many have said, I feel like 3S more than anything puts the game in my hands and in the hands of my opponent, whereas SF4 is like playing underwater and encourages a lot more tedious match-up knowledge.
This and also its fun so it may be “easier” to learn in that sense
i have to agree with you. space control in both those games is weird and a little “flawed” if you will. sf3 has high mobility and has a much greater emphasis in footsies than sf4. however, sf4 has a much greater emphasis in zoning especially with fireballs and it’s weak mobility options. zoning with footsies is best with ryu for instance because his walk speed is decent, his low forward is amazing and cancels into fireball which can be FADCd into more damage. 3s low forwards can be hit confirmed into big damage and the walk and dash speeds are a lot faster. the fundamentals are there for both games but they are weaker than say the sf2 series especially for anti-airs. because of parries and focus, sf4 and sf3 are less dependent on certain fundamentals but it makes for a refreshing new experience and in some cases just more fun than the sf2 series, IMO.