Really good thread.
Footsies has always meant these things to me:
- Poking at your most effective range, and being aware if the opposing character has any normals that stop your best pokes at that range, and knowledge on how to deal with them or what options you have that beat it cleanly and safely.
- Making Your opponent whiff by moving deceptively in and out of their best poke range, and subsequently punishing them by reacting to the whiff.
- Penetrating their defense when you have trained them to wait and proceed to apply pressure.
Footsies start to become like the Katamari Damacy of fighting game terminology however when you start having to compromise the traditional definition by adding the intricacies and nuiances of each fighting game in question (Parry in 3s or Focus in SFIV for instance, hopkicks/divekicks, and supers and their applications in general). For this reason when one looks at Maj’s discertation of “footsies” for instance he goes to great lengths to provide plenty of general and specific examples of the term in practice across a variety of games. Undoubtedly the term has to be extended and or changed slightly depending on the game and matchup, but I believe that if you keep in mind the above considerations along with the original three rules I posted, then one should remain with a clear understanding of the word at all times.
As a matter of example, some matchups in Street Fighter IV have a diminished focus on traditional footsies. Characters like Cody for example simply lack the footspeed to make significant threats to certain characters as far as causing whiffs is concerned. However, focus can still be used to counter some of their more longwinded pokes, which can still train them to be more careful about poking and may in turn shift the opponent’s behavior towards baiting, which you can take advantage of by pressing the offense. Such an example is very unlike definition #2 but still adheres to definition #1, and therefore it is an example of a specific kind of footsie option available in SSFIV.
Edit: If anyone would like to correct me on my above discertation, please feel free to do so. The result will invariably be better than the uninspired one line bash posts that litter this thread thus far.
Its not for you to acknowledge. Its just a video game.
How is smash not a fighting game if it has fighting in it and its a game?
This thread COULD have been interesting and informative for newbies like me, but people had to fuck it up by talking about Smash.
Good lord, I’ve never seen a topic with such power to ruin discussions.
Well, the UFC games have fighting in them, thats all the game is, and I dont consider them fighting games. I consider it a sports simulation.
Nah.
That sums it up pretty well to me.
youre an idiot and so is any person that woujld ever think that way
hey guys call of dtuy has death match mode its just like quake and ut right
Characters have different normal reach, different walk speed, different dash speed.
iirc Call of Duty has fighting in it. I’m pretty sure it’s also a game. I guess that makes it a fighting game!
There are a lot of smart asses in this thread, but I agree with the OP very much. The term is not self explanatory, and I’ve seen it explained as several different things over the years by people claiming to be authorities in the matter. I feel sorry for new players in this regard, because of the recurring “learn fundamentals” mantra, that leads to “learn footsies”, that then leads to 5 different people arguing about what they think footsies are (in the context of SRK), and the new players having to make sense of that mess.
Footsies is very subjective and fluctuating term and most people who use it incorrectly just don’t know what it is. Big deal.
Vortex has been abused though, but no one new plays MvC2 anyway so w/e.
That’s what I was trying to understand in my post. I got that from the original post, but the title of the thread says “The word has become so abstract and meaningless” which made me think I was missing something, or he was trying to say the term is covered by something else, etc.
I use “Ground Game” or “Ground Work”.
Haha, this thread reminds me of when we used to reference “make it rain.” A friend would get frustrated and go into a five minute rant on why it wasn’t rain and the whole phrase was stupid.
I love the modhammer. Various infractions issued.
People, let’s not let Dumb get in the way of the fact that there are awesome and incredibly talented people on SRK. Go piss on each other someplace else. If people are going to be dumb about Smash, I have an excellent “Thread Derailing” bonus infraction they’re welcome to have. Just let me or a mod know instead of taking it into your own hands. :tup:
Maybe we can’t all be Viscant (no homo, but – probably the most able to express himself out of the OG crew), but people can grow and learn a lot more effectively when we don’t have jackasses ruining FGD. Let the mods help get rid of the jackasses instead of trying to outshout them yourself.
/tangent
So you admit that more than four characters can win tournaments, but think only four can win some imaginary one on one version of the game? And you’re mad when people agree with you?
Why do I get the feeling you’re very bad at marvel?
I have to agree on a couple points
the phrase footsies is about as useful as sand in your sandwich
it hasnt been a useful word. there are more direct terms when it comes to dealing with what you’re attempting to discuss using a broad word like footsies.
spacing, punishing, reactions, movement
just get rid of shitty terms all together
footsies is useless so is metagame so are yomi layers. the only time ive ever discussed layers of yomi was as a joke.
i dont even know what “vortex” is or implies regarding street fighter and im pretty happy about that