More random threads from me because…why the fuck not!!!
So talking to Mandel and Mickey and others, we were talking about how each person has a specific strength to themselves when it comes to playing SFIV.
Mandel has good ass footsies, and can like see when his opponent is going to whiff and react accordingly
Mickey has good execution, and can punish you with those hard hitting combos.
I have momentum (goofy I know), but for the most part when I get going, it’s very hard to stop me let alone get momentum back from me…I also have good clutch too (countless 10 point moments in tournaments lol).
So how about everyone else? What strength do you feel you have when it comes to SFIV?
I pull out random demons as clutch, I kill my momentum by backing off once I get a knockdown and go defensive. I need to work on offense when it comes to block stings and not eating a mashed out SRK. Also some mixup work would be good. Frank is right, you can’t sit on your ultra to hope someone fucks up, but I clutch alot of rounds whether it be cMK buffer demon, ex tatsu demon, demon flip palm demon, fb-> tsuji demon, blocked focus dash up demon, empty cross-up demon, (more to come I’m working on 3-4 more) or just catch someone in a focus for a beastly combo. So I guess I’ll still move my clutch meter down. What I really need to work on is momentum.
That’s not what I was really meaning by strength…It’s not character specific.
Case in point, Mandel has good footsies with Chun, Bison, Abel, Ken, Ryu, Seth who ever the hell else he’s played with because in general Mandel has a strong concept of footsies.
Mickey can do buff/technical combos with Ryu, Akuma, Gen, Sagat, and I think Sakura too? But Mickey had very good execution from the CvS2 days as well.
For me. In SFIV it’s hard to stop me when I get going with Bison (and hopefully with Viper in the future). Same for Virtua Fighter 5, once my Eileen got going, with all the mixups and shit she had, it was very difficult to get me off you (literally, she had that grab where she jumps on you) My Taki from SC2 was the same way. For clutch. In Marvel…I really feel I play my best when I have Tron by herself (dumb I know), but she has gotten me a lot of comebacks, and I’ve had that happen a lot in SFIV (ask mandel about how mad he’d get during the pools for the Gameworks Fight Club tournament :lol:)
Another strength that I have is like this ability to know when to do shit especially like when it wouldn’t be logical to do. This is more apparent in marvel than anything else. Perfect example is me vs Kenny when he did lightning storm, and I just knew that Cable was going to slide in and hit her clean out of it at a certain moment, and sure enough I was right.
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happens at 9:13, 9:10 is a good place to start, and yes that was an epic ass set.
Me, I’m kinda like Frank in the whole momentum thing. Playing Magneto for so long can do that to you. I like to try and control the match from the start to make you play MY game, so if I get an opening, I’m gonna jump on that for real. Of course, if you’re lockin’ me down, I’m not going anywhere ahaha
i’m a lot like this too, although not so much in SFIV as in other games. most of it is more yomi/mixup related than having good pressure. it’s not uncommon for me to get perfects in 3s with makoto without using her super and just straight up doing 50/50s into 50/50s between grab and dash punch and winning each one. i wish i had video of that though, actually
In SF4, I happen to hit people with ultras when they thought they were safe.
I play and try to use each normal and special so the fullest extent.
Other than that I’m not sure if I’ve got anything too special going on.
I happen to be getting better at the game though.
I have thought long and hard about this since we talked about it Frank, I’d have to say Gamesense is mine. I didn’t notice it until I was starting to block peoples entire set of combos of both overhead and low pokes until after I saw them do it twice. Involving that allows me to punish them based on good timing on when to execute.
Shit, I should just play Guile now that I re-read that.
Great post Frank, I really like this idea. There has been so much that I learned from evo that I’ve never really got to post, and I felt like the topic of strengths and weaknesses was one of the most important things that I realized over the weekend.
I’ll first say that a player’s strength doesn’t become apparent until you’ve TRULY DEFINED your play style. I see a lot of players that don’t yet have this. Now this isn’t a BAD thing, however it’s very difficult to begin to realize WHERE the strength is if you don’t even have a concrete basis to go off of. In this phase of play, your more or less still tweaking out basics and fundamentals (combo’s and execution, character mixups and over all strategy, gimmicks and tricks, etc.).** At this point the player is learning the CHARACTER, NOT himself as a player.**
Finding your own play style is a monumental task. After talking with Graham Wolfe, I realized that the reason why a lot of US players don’t make their OWN play style, is because of the fact that they try to emulate heavily what they see by top players in match videos. The simple fact remains, a copy can never replace the original because the original adapts and innovates while the copy mimics without knowing why. The fine line is that I would encourage everyone to make their OWN play style, even if it has major weaknesses.
Conversely, players who actually do have a strong play style to call their own, will HAVE strengths and weaknesses. By focusing on your strength during matches, you’ll gear yourself towards playing towards your COMFORT zone. I’ll also say that these strengths are VERY different among player to player and sometimes need to go into a bit more detail to TRULY be seen…for instance:
Pablo: I’ve played Pablo many times and as he stated, he kinda just doesn’t give a fuck during matches. Now…for lack of a better word I would call this strength “fearless.” But why is this a strength? Pablo isn’t scared of getting hit, and therefore is INCREDIBLY DIFFICULT TO CONDITION. Baiting him out almost doesn’t work since he doesn’t CARE what he gets hit by…you can believe that because of his fearless play style, conditioning him is nearly impossible. Instead he conditions YOU to play in a specific way.
Basically, you gotta figure out your own play style before you figure out your strengths and weaknesses. These certain aspects take a bit of soul searching in that you really gotta ask yourself HOW you can focus on your strengths in game as well…more on that later
I’d like to think my strength would be: Adaptability.
By not having any specific goal (aside from winning the round) to accomplish, i.e. a new tactic/combo/mind game/etc., I can adjust my style to counter/compliment my opponent’s. And having nothing in particular in mind leaves potential for me to think of something on the fly, i.e. throwing out a move that I haven’t done the entire fight to throw off any sense of predictability from my end.
*"Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way round or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.
Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless - like water. Now you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup, you put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle, you put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend."* - Bruce Lee
you both might have to challenge jacob for that one hahah
my strength… hmmmm… being able to hop on after 1 or 2 games and be almost as good as if i were playing a week straight. i just need warm ups and ill be good to go. but adversly, if i gt no warm up i play like shit.
I like to try and control the match from the start to make you play MY game, so if I get an opening, I’m gonna jump on that for real. Of course, if you’re lockin’ me down, I’m not going anywhere ahaha