if you admit that you aren’t playing to win, and just playing for fun - why are you complaining about how boring a playstyle is in here? why are you even posting in here?
this forum is to help bring awareness to new players about misconeceptions around topics such as: boring and lame play styles, not preventing them because its no fun to play against as a casual player
I’ve got no problem with turtling (as you can tell from my sig). I find there is a right time to turtle and a right time to rush down. In ST, you have certain characters who turtle (Guile, Honda) because that is what is effective for them, but the game is still balanced because offense and pressure is still viable. IV is so hugely skewed to defense that every character turtles and I get frustrated that there is no variation in the guys I play online. I can deal with turtling, because there are usually stable strategies against turtles, but what would Ken do against a turtling Ryu? AFAIK, Ken cannot win a fireball battle, so he has to get close (this has been true forever), but since the game does not reward offense, the Ken player is at a disadvantage.
I don’t hate turtling. I hate unbalanced games. That’s why I don’t play MvC, it’s the opposite problem in that it’s all offense.
Branh’s post is anything BUT pointless.
This is a forum for answering questions newbies might or do have, from the simplest “how i does haduken???” to more metaphysical stuff like “why do people turtle?” This forum should not be simply a refuse heap where trolls pick on fools.
As people have pointed out, the instant-gratification YouTube/XBL/PSN culture has really cheapened discourse revolving around fighting games, but we’re not gonna make that any better by throwing this forum to the wolves. We need more posts like Branh’s to more clearly explain the philosophical roots and subtleties of the things you see top players doing or not doing, because if we don’t explain ourselves clearly to people coming from outside, we’re going to be buried by dumbass comments from people who are quicker to hit the “Post Reply” button.
There ARE a lot of newbies and scrubs on this board that won’t really get it, and yes, we’ve seen plenty of them, but for those elite few who DO have the philosophical mindset to get it, these kinds of posts might just be what flicks the switch in their mind to turn on revelation.
Fuck the haters. Branh, you did good. Best thread on this board in a long time.
And now, my own response to the topic at hand:
People who complain about runaway/hardcore turtling either have never fought good runaway/turtling, don’t know how to break (or at least get competitively close to breaking) good runaway/turtling, or both. It’s hard for me to make this concise and objective, so I’ll just illustrate it from my perspective.
I play Bison. An extremely boring Bison, and damn proud of it. My playstyle revolves far less around closing the gap to LK Scissors people to death (although I do my fair share of scissoring) and more to floating in and out of stand MK/stand HK range trying to footsie people to death. If I get a good knockdown, I’m not gonna be a total dumbass and run away immediately (particularly not if I don’t have the life lead), but I’m not gonna throw caution to the wind jumping all over/humping people’s corpses when I can just as well take maybe 1-2 reps of c. LK xx LK Scissors, back off and bait, and if they don’t do anything, just walk back to poking range and watch what they do. This is my default mode of play, unless I’ve figured out very quickly that my opponent and/or their character cannot handle me teabagging them (hi Vega), I’m gonna take it easy and take it slow. Lots of stutter-stepping, lots of whiffed c. MK, the odd max-range blocked scissors if I know they’re committed to sitting still. And if I get the life lead, I’m gonna keep my distance. I’m not gonna run full screen because that’s just stupid (more on that below), but assuming my life lead is big enough, I’m not gonna risk walking into a roundhouse just for the tactile satisfaction of ripping them up at close range. I took my risk to get the life lead and my victory is (however temporarily) assured, I am under no obligation to take any further risk unless/until I lose that life lead. Why? Because it’s much more life/meter efficient to hang back and let that poor fool make mistakes jumping/walking into my roundhouse to make my life lead that much bigger; that way if he finally corners me, I have a safety buffer to facilitate taking riskier action to escape a bad situation and affect a more significant reversal of initiative (read: “who’s cornered NOW, motherfucker?”).
But make no mistake, I am not a total dumbass. Getting the life lead doesn’t mean you run for full screen, because here’s something that escapes too many people – what specifically is involved in smart turtling/runaway varies vastly from matchup to matchup. If I get the life lead on Sagat, I’m not gonna Devil Reverse away to the opposite corner, because (a) that gives him license to throw Tiger Shots that I have to dodge at no risk to him and significant risk to my life lead, and (b) if he’s any kind of Sagat player he will kara uppercut/Tiger Cannon me for my lack of respect for the Emperor. It’s just smarter from a risk-reward ratio to stay inside, be mindful of j. MP/Tiger Uppercut hazards and try and kill him on the inside with roundhouses, scissor combos, and Psycho Crusher.
Compare that with Gief, where if I get the life lead on him, I’m gonna run like a little flying bitch – to an extent. Obviously I can only run so far before I get close to cornering myself and have to therefore resume normal footsies to bait a knockdown and a safe escape back to midscreen, but there’s no fucking way I’m gonna sit on his corpse and guess between SPD and lariat when if he guesses wrong, he’s not gonna lose TOO much life (unless I have Ultra, which may be a bad sign for my prospects if he’s knocked that much life off me already), and if he guesses right, he gets a VERY scary mixup that Bison can’t handle well at all (especially in the corner). The whole point of that matchup is to avoid that goddamn mixup by any means necessary, and that means discretion IS valor in Bison vs. Gief.
Another example where runaway is only good in moderation – Chun-Li. Chun-Li is basically Guile Lite to Bison, her footsies are almost as obnoxious as Guile’s in exchange for being slightly easier to kill. She owns Bison in the air, most of her (properly spaced) jumping attacks are very hard to anti-air, and she shields her ground offense well with LP Kikoken. I generally need to be sitting on an EX stock at all times for the use of EX Knee Press/Psycho Crusher to get past her Kikoken and get into attack range on her, but sometimes I’m out of charge and need to back off and build some meter. I can do that by spamming Devil Reverse, but in exchange for the time I’m in the air doing my “huh, WHOO” game, Chun gets a free look to do something that owns Bison hard – walking forward. I have to sacrifice a significant amount of positioning to get that little bit of meter for EX, and even if I have the life lead, it’s a very dangerous proposition to let a skilled Chun-Li walk you even a little bit closer to the corner. This matchup is won or lost by some of the most unforgiving footsies in the game (second only to Guile for Bison, IMO), and that minor-sounding sacrifice is nothing to scoff at. (In vanilla SF4 I also couldn’t Devil Reverse after she got Ultra because she could Hosenka it, but thankfully that’s less of a problem since most Chuns pick Kikosho against Bison now for the full juggle).
tl;dr people try to distill runaway to rushdown-deficient bitches compensating for something while vastly underestimating the rather severe risk-reward calculations involved in many matchups. This is kind of understandable, in that it’s something that doesn’t really dawn on you until you actually try to seriously play and win many of these matchups at the tournament level.
Also, fuck Guile. I both hate and respect that big-haired motherfucker. But I will play his little platformer game and one day I will win, because that’s what it means to be a true tyrant.
ITT: People who try to demean turtles because they can’t beat them. Y’all disgust me. 
'Cept for Ben and the few others who have shown that it’s a legit strategy and sometimes harder than blind offense.
Now riddle me this, people who are against turtles: what do you propose that these turtles do against offense? Fight fire with fire? You can’t really do that with certain characters. It’s best to fight fire with water.
That statement should tell that Dander doesn’t know much about the SF scene. Turtling is almost a respected art in Japan. Haha
After actually sitting down and thinking about why I become frustrated, I came up with the following:
Regarding the playstyle that Ben was describing, I usually can’t help but feel contempt for this sort of play when it “feels” like only some characters can get away with such play. I know this comes down to characters and people’s playstyles. Not all Bisons play that way and the ones that do are generally very good at it because it seems like they are playing him like he was **meant **to be played. Exploiting the awesome priority on specifically his kicks is essentially a great plan.
Personally, I never settled on a character because nobody really “clicked” with me so I was content just learn a few things here and there with everybody and was fine whoopin’ up on the other scrubs like myself. It’s the deep understanding of a character’s moves (especially normals) that I feel I lack and leads to hate from me. Part of it is jealousy because I wish I knew a character that well, the other part is not knowing how to handle it. (Which as you can imagine is doubly frustrating without knowing a lot of the tools with the character I’m using)
All in all it comes down to me needing more practice both in general and with a specific character I can focus on, and between your posts and Branh’s I feel like I have gained a new appreciation for the “Turtle” playstyle. I even had my normal matches today and didn’t get frustrated at all when losing since I was trying to read patterns and trying different approaches and actually **felt ** like I was learning for once instead of simply condemning the player.
Just want to say “thanks” to you and Branh since I believe it’s posts like both of yours that represent the real community intended to be found here and help to open newbie eyes like my own. I guess now begins my journey to find a “main”… 
Oh my god this post is trolling me like crazy. This is the worst post i’ve ever seen.
do you by any chance play BARLOG?
I dont like turtles, I kick them out of my room if I come across them.
Some of the assumptions going around in this thread are crazy
Never assume any character is has to rush you down. I’ve seen people turtle with the most rushdown friendly characters and still win. and at the end of the match thats what matter.
NEVER EVER ASSUME TURTLES TURTLE BECAUSE THEY CAN’T RUSH DOWN.
Some of the best Rushdown players in SF are also some of the best turtles. I’ve seen people play rushdown and win all day pre tournament and then one the tournament starts play turtle characters/teams all day. They could have won the tournament playing rushdown, but they chose to turtle. Either way at the end of they day they were still the best player their.
Most people bash turtle because they assume they can do it when in reality they can’t, they’ve never actually tried they just assume it really easy. Turtling takes patience which alot of people don’t have. Alot of new players that grivitate towards rushdown character do it because they like to attack, which is true, but what that also covers up is that many of them can’t not attack. They can’t stay 3/4 of a screen away for 20 seconds when they have a lead and are not actually choosing to lose “honorably” rather than play safe and winning. They are actually losing to their inability to control themselves from moving towards their opponent.
If i can rushdown and turtle at equal levels and i know you can’t fight turtle, guess how i’m going to play you. Not that this is a tournament or anything but it generally helps you win if you don’t openly tell the person you’re playing what you can’t beat and what frustrates you.
Like you said, it’s not tournament play. I may be misguided, but I always thought that being open with “friends” about what you are good at and aren’t good at and asking for help was how you learn to get better… sure you might also learn by getting your face beat in 90 million times, but why take the road with more frustration when you’re playing for fun?
Now if you’re talking about playing random people (such as online), then yea most people don’t lead a fight with telling their opponent what their weakness is.
There a difference between trying to get better and crying. But if you were playing me and crying about what you don’t like i’d use it against you 100% of the time. But even if you were just stating what you need work agaisnt i’d still use it against you at least 50% of the time. Unless by playing for fun you specifically mean playing with no intention of getting better.
Ex. i taught my GF at the time how to play Soul Calibur and SF she was much better at SC but her guessing or reading on mixups was really bad once she was on the ground the match was over so sometimes i’d play her only fishing for a knockdown and beat her just off her inability to get back up until she learned how to block.
The point is you should have someone beating the weaknesses out of you if at all possible even in friendly matches, even to the point of intentionally making you play against things you don’t like to force you to learn how to deal with those situations. The only way your friends should stop making you deal with problem situations you don’t like is if you both agree you don’t want to get any better.
Playing at home with friends and family with the rule that things i don’t like shouldn’t be used is EXACTLY how scrubs are born. They then go on to try to hold other people to those rules who have absolutely no reason to go by them and thats where threads like this come from. (not this thread but the situation that lead to this thread being made)
I actually agree with you 100%. My only point is that while still forcing them to face the things they aren’t good at you can still be explaining why some things are working and why some things aren’t which is much more helpful for newer players than silent domination over and over even when they’re asking you what they’re doing wrong. (which happens to me sometimes)
P.S. By “fun” I only mean casual playing and not tournament situations as I wouldn’t expect this type of help from true competitors during a tournament.
I do it to piss off the other player a lot of the time. If I’m confident in fighting the other player up close, I’ll surprise them when they do so, If I don’t think I can handle an up close encounter I’ll just keep them out. Not to mention, I’m a guile player so turtling is about 75% of my game anyway.
It’s because it’s the easiest general assumption to make. Also I really only refer to people I know that play like that. I don’t play new people too often, but instead have been playing the same three groups (AI, Regency, Denjin) for a loooooooooooooooooooooong time now and kinda only focus on them when I’m speaking of other players in general.
Turtles are gay and defending them makes you gay by association. :crybaby::crybaby:
And by gay you mean
??
I’m going to post in this thread one last time to clear a point. I use turtling when neccesarry.
I was about to win a match for an upload, and I really wanted this win. Last round, last match I had 1/2 health, bison player has 1/4th, he just threw me in the corner. Time clock just clicked 39. Now, I could have easily pressed on the attack, but I didn’t. I crouched there, just waiting. He did an EX headstomp, and I knew it would be completely safe to throw a fireball. He threw out random kicks some more and then did one more headstomp. Time clock at 30. He throws out random ultra, I jump and kick him, round over. My patience won the match.
*There’s some really good posts in here. However I noticed no one has brought up another reason why people use run away tactics/“turtling”. Personally (as far as SF4 is concerned) I’m neither great at offensive pressure or defensive/runaway tactics. I’m also equally mediocre at footsies. Turtling and playing keepaway for me at the start of a match gives me good time to evaluate the type of player I’m facing. By stepping back and seeing what my opponent does it allows me to take note at some of his tendencies such as his opening move and how he decides to move in closer to me or back off, It gives me a good first impression of exactly how much my opponent knows. Then using that educated guess on how I can proceed to play them and approach them.
While yeah playing a solid turtle is a bit frustrating I find that it’s usually my own fault that I lost. Playing against a player who’s good at it can be maddening but the trick is to keep your patience. The moment your patience leaves you and you do something hasty is the moment you have a mental collapse which is what a player like that feeds on. Mistakes and frustration of the other player. *
Big surprise, all the west coast players consider turtling ungentlemanly, unskillful, and a poor tactic overall.
Maybe if you guys would worry about what wins matches, no jk…