SF4 Session @ Versis this Thursday

I had an awesome time last night!

First off, thanks to SSP (TsunamiKen) for the kind words earlier. It is much appreciated and I hope you always feel welcome in this community and that it keeps providing you with fun and progressive competition :slight_smile: We missed you last night, you also bring about a fun enthusiasm, and I hope you are well!

Kendrik, totally understandable and you gotta do what you gotta do :wink: I’ll admit we sort of tease a little bit about betting one which day you’ll show up, but we mean it with just a teasing respect. I really look forward to meeting you, but don’t feel too pressured, when the time comes it comes! And as usual, it should be a fun day :slight_smile:

On to last night… Thanks to the following players for attending:

  • MetalxHealthx
  • Yangsing
  • Bumperfront
  • Derick
  • Raishinken
  • Full Metal Ross
  • Fat Bear (Sam Y)
  • Rayblade X
  • Sam B
  • Bobby

Main games of the evening were SF4 and VF5. There was an MvC2 demo session between Sam Y, Ross, and Jetay I think. Fun stuff! Also, the Multicade got quite a bit of ST: Grandmaster Challenge action throughout the night. Mainly from SF4 players waiting in line or taking a small break.

I had a good time playing some Version B VF5 with Raishinken and Yangsing. Also enjoyed analyzing some of Raishinken’s replays from his WCG matches! I wish VF5’s replays had the features of VF4’s and Evo’s replays (slow motion, etc…). Jetay saw me restart to the beginning of the match often.

Sam Y/Sam B/Yangsing SF4 arena was fun to watch too! Well, it was really a practice session, but I enjoyed watching! Sam Y even landed 6 hits of “that one El Fuerte combo” (the one that might be able to go to infinite) on Sam B.

Everyone knows how much I love playing VF5… I had an awesome time last night in the two sessions of VF that we had :slight_smile: I think it was the sharpest I have played in two years (from when I went down to California twice that year, playing days of VF5).
As usual, Ray and I are so back and forth it’s nuts when it’s my Lion vs his Vanessa. He solidly wins the first 3, I win the next 3, we streak back and forth. Fun stuff!

And we keep throwing more characters and Yangsing (and Raishinken in the future) to hopefully help build some experience and confidence against other characters. I had fun watching Yangsing fight it out against Ray’s Eileen. Yangsing’s Kage vs. my Jeffry were some of the most fun matches this week for me and it was quite even, I think Simon won most of those matches before 4:30am (by 5:00am he was dead tired and I think I streaked on his mental fatigue).

Metal, it was great to finally meet you! We didn’t chat much, but I wanted to let you enjoy more of the SFIV action, and it seems like you did! Though I have too much fun doing Sagat’s EX-Tiger Upper --> Ultra, as Sam Y says, “you (Chanchai) need to use a better combo.” Despite the easy execution, its requirements are too situation specific (you either need to be anti-airing cleanly or nailing every hit of the ex upper) and there are generally better options. First thing that comes to mind is Tiger Upper --> focus-cancel dash --> f+HK --> Ultra. Harder to do, but works just about every time you could want it to (just don’t do it in the deep corner). Another good thing that Sam pointed out to me is doing an ultra if you land an ex-tiger-blast on a cornered opponent. The reason I don’t do any of these is because I have not put the time, effort, and will power into it–I’ve been lazy and that’s not good. That said, you’re very solid and I hope you got to fight with Ray’s Gen too! It’s nice to have another Gen player!

Bumperfront, glad to see you got an SF4 stick! Though I know you still can’t wait until you get your tourney stick! Always fun chatting and always fun playing, man! After a week of having the arcade stick at home, I think it’ll feel quite natural, or at least natural enough :slight_smile:

Finally… Sam B. asked me a very good question and it’s one I really want to answer (in the Northwest VF thread) when I have more time:

“Don’t you think throws are too powerful in VF?” (and I think he’s more implying VF5 than anything else, but I’ll talk about all of VF).

It’s a great question that I have heard quite a bit from non VF players. Again, I’ll post about it in the VF thread eventually. But my short answer:

“Throws aren’t too powerful in VF. But they are strong and the way they are implemented is probably the biggest difference between VF and almost all other fighting games. VF throws have weaknesses that they do not have in other fighting games and how many throws a character has and how many worthwhile throws they have are important factors in the character balance of the game. I think they are what make VF matches happen the way that they do (sounds silly without explanation).”

-Chanchai

I had fun last night guys, I def needed another break from all this school haha. Everybody seems to be getting good, and hopefully everyone had a good time playing me as I did everyone else. Sf4 is lots of fun. really enjoy that game. Plus it was fun to finally play some Seth versus everyone, people can’t sleep on him that guy is an evil monster.

Jeffery throws taking half life ftl. Too bad SF4 throws only take so little damage. Should be a bit more imo. Not SF2 level but still more.

I lost 50 bucks because of you Kendrick…jk

Man. That sucks. I’m the resident joke/cause for betting… and I haven’t even made it out yet.

Just imagine how bad it’ll be when people see how crappy I am due to lack of practice. :sweat:

can’t you “quick get up” when you land from most of kimbo’s throws so you don’t take as much damage?

Ross: thanks for answering my questions and always being helpful in SF4. I know you were just “trying stuff out” with your Seth when fighting me, but gosh, Seth can be really frustrating and evil hehehe. Was really glad you could make it and surprisingly nice to see you without the beard :slight_smile:

Kendrik: Don’t worry at all man. We’re just teasing. Again, I’m really looking forward to meeting you but no sweat at all–in due time :slight_smile: Priorities are priorities and you’re still an active community member.

Yangsing: Jeffry’s most damaging throws are actually around 35% health (he has a back throw, and i think a back low throw, that’s about 40% though). However, the setup that was damaging you for nearly half-life was his K+G (the big off-balance kick, functionally similar to Pai’s K+G) counter-hitting you into a side-turned position and sort of forcing you to guess whether I’ll go in for the throw or the combo. If you ate the throw, the combined damage seemed to be a little over 40% life. The most damaging thing Jeffry was doing were the knee MC (Major Counter aka Counter-Hit) combos.

Another setup that was doing lots of damage were crumple (like landing the hell-stab) --> low throw. This setup landed quite a bit on you and did a lot of damage. Escaping low-throws when crumpled is a VF4 habit that needs to be put into your game. Just one of the small details you missed out on in your absence from VF over the years hehe.

Tip: If you ever get crumpled against an opponent with low throws (Jeffry, Wolf, Aoi, Vanessa, Pai, Goh), always perform a low-throw escape. Only one low-throw escape can be entered though (so you cannot do multiple low-throw escape).

Against Jeffry, your options are:

  • DOWN+P+K+G (face grab)
  • DOWN-FORWARD+P+K+G (splash mountaint)
  • FORWARD+P+K+G (knees to the face)

Also, if you ever get forced into a crouch position by a hit, it’s wise to quickly buffer in a low-throw escape as well. With Jeffry it’s almost anything that hits from above and doesn’t knock you down.

When escaping low throws (out of either force-crouch stun, or because your crouching low attack got blocked), you should do Low-Throw-Escape-Guard (LTE-G) which is simply quickly entering the low-throw escape, and then letting go of Punch and Kick quickly (and thus still holding Guard) so that you’ll do a standing block if your opponent does a mid attack.

Tajiri: Quick-Rise and Tech-Roll when thrown only applies to certain throws. In the case of Jeffry, it’s his b+P+G which is his weakest throw (sadly, I do it too much from sloppy inputs or being used to playing other characters). However, whenever you are on the ground, don’t forget that mashing inputs to get up fast works well and you can get up almost as fast as a tech-option actually (you just have to be really good at controlled mashing).

-Chanchai

Worry? Nah, man. I realize I’m not well known, so this wouldn’t be obvious, but I make jokes all the time at my expense to continue the laughs for everyone else. I’m good for the jests, and I’m very much looking forward to getting out there.

Especially if I can learn about playing VF5 better (considering I’m pretty noobish… especially with my lack of practice in recent times). Seems like you have quite the understanding of the game, so that’s pretty awesome.

So far as I know, this week may actually be plausible (don’t think I have any papers or tests on Friday). Finally.

Sorry I didn’t make it out, I was messing with a PS3 I picked up and didn’t feel very hot so I took the day off. I will def be out thursday armed with some input latency testing stuff. I like to get technical and ppl saying something is wrong with my stick really got me thinking about how to test it out and see what the difference between mine and the others really is. At home, I get 0.66 ms input latency on it as I am able to test using a program under windows. Gonna try to find something similar for xb3 or ps3 and figure this whole thing out. It’s how I do.

That’s very cool man :slight_smile:

In all honesty, I’m not sure what was making it “tricky” using the T5 stick that night. A delay between stick and buttons was one theory. Part of me is wondering if it has to do with simultaneous presses, but I doubt it. My first impression was that maybe the input directions for left or right was just narrower than I expected.

I wasn’t feeling the problems much with movement at all. What I was having trouble with, for some reason, was fireballs. It was almost like I wasn’t able to input the right or left direction when pressing the corresponding attack button.

It could be that the directions are just different (for example, on Sam Y’s stick, the diagonals have different angles of input than most other sticks and so that in itself is an adjustment–yours might have wider diagonals and narrower basic directions).

That said, there’s nothing like good ol’ testing to help figure out what’s going on. Scientific method ftw!

-Chanchai

Yeah I was thinking that this stick is very finicky with the directions, it likes to see very clean input and the gate also has to be having some effect. As far as multiple presses, I can press all 8 buttons at once and they all register fine on my pc. I wonder if the PS3 handles it differently. I would think not, since its HID standard enough to work it should be fine.

I think it boils down to directionals somehow. Either way I am happy to go along with it and find out a ton of stuff about sticks and input along the way.

Only a few more weeks until SF4 PC!! I will totally be having a party on that one so I guess I should throw that out there. If the PC release date is really July 7th then that’ll be the day I guess but I have a feeling it might get released early so I’ll figure something out and set a date regardless and it’ll be ON.

YOGAAAAA

is their some sf4 this thursday(tommorow)?

Might not make it 2marrow, got no cash… such is life.

I haven’t been out there in a while, will try to make it tomorrow.

Is Friday ordinarily too good for business, or any thought about shifting to then? I have next week off so I should be there then.

Hey Slade!

First off, I’m always open for discussing new times for the fight night deal and what not. I wish we could do Friday nights, but I don’t know if I can make a practical decision for Friday nights… As to why Fridays don’t work as well here are a few reasons:

One of the reasons is the one you mentioned, Fridays are too good of a day for us to do that deal and it would undercut some business and might cause traffic issues. But that’s not the only reason.

We wouldn’t be able to be as accommodating to the fighting game group on Fridays as we are on Thursdays. I should make it clear that Fight Night players are totally welcome to take up a few other available stations as long as they get two people on it and it’s available.

On busy Friday nights, we would have to force the fight night group to take a lower priority than some of the other customers who are paying full price. We might even ask, beyond some time, that the group makes way for others completely for a little while (an hour or so). So we don’t think we could be as accommodating if it was a busy Friday Night.

Also, every other Friday night we have All-Night Lock-Ins which go all night at a price of $15 per customer. We would have to extend that rate to the fight night people as well, so they would be paying in addition to the Fight Night deal if it was a Lock-In night.

That said, I always try to keep myself open minded and Fridays were always traditionally a special night for gaming whether it was at Tilt, “the Art-House,” or Preppy’s up in Seattle.

-Chanchai

There should definitely be some action today :slight_smile:

Really looking forward to tonight as always!

I’m gonna try to make it tonite if peter goes

I also did a vid update from the last tourny if anyone cares. finals files were corrupt so i couldnt get it on.

Another great Fight Night with high attendance and a lot of fighting going on!

I’ll post another summary of my take later on, for now… bedtime.

-Chanchai

hella good matches last night.

special props to phongsac, sam y, nick, bbh, and ray.

:3

props (in no order):

sam y: good $1 money match, your rufus has leveled up well.

phongsac: your vega is scary, you’ve got a tight punish game.

ray: thanks for helping with my cammy.

nick: thanks for showing me some stuff with goh, hopefully that will strengthen my vf game

bbh: hella awesome grand master challenge matches, your dictator is ruthless.

Thanks to the following players for making last night’s Fight Night an awesome one!

  • Xeris (and his two companions, sorry I forgot their names, but I was glad they came)
  • Tsunamiken
  • Bumperfront
  • Yangsing
  • Hien
  • Fat Bear
  • MetalxHealthx (also thanks to your lady friend too!)
  • BBH
  • Derek
  • Alix
  • Billy
  • Ninjetik
  • Peter
  • Rayblade X
  • Mackinzie
  • Tajiri
  • Bobby

It was a great Fight Night and at one point we had SF4 running on 4 screens (3 competitive, 1 casual). Xeris brought his Soul Calibur IV game and I really enjoyed fighting his Voldo (wish I was good enough to give you a true challenge man). Lots of good ST action on the multicade with “Ohhhh’s and Ahhhh’s” to boot! And some sweet VF5 matches too!

This one went until 5am!!!

That said, the next two fight nights will not be able to go too late (if you guys can form a trustworthy poker group, they can probably go very late actually), but I hope everyone keeps the next two Fight Nights strong!

(I will be in London and Thailand the next couple of weeks spending time with my wonderful wife!)

Thanks all! And keep on fighting!

-Chanchai