Tool-Assisted Combo Videos?

Current Fighting Games Fighting Game Discussion
41

Interesting thread. I don’t really check SRK anymore, but this thread was brought to my attention. I know this is a forum and it’s great that you’re discussing this topic, however, I disagree with pointing fingers at someone or dropping names before you can PROVE 100% that they are in fact doing what you’ve claimed.

From someone that has spoken to lezard, and talked to him quite frequently (at least while he was still releasing combo videos on CV), I know the man is a hard working fella. If he says he didn’t use a cheat I’d believe him. However, for some that’s not good enough - and if it makes you feel happy … test it out theoretically. I just want to remind you of a few important points to keep in mind.

  1. Just because you can’t do something, doesn’t mean it’s not possible. Even when there are certain ‘laws to a gaming engine’ they can be altered by bugs that are often known to experts or even creators of the game (duh.)

  2. The people who you accuse of stuff are human like the rest of us, and they have feelings. I know you guys don’t intentionally mean to do this, but in essence you are taking a HUGE shit on Lezard’s work, which he worked quite hard to accomplish. I know you guys aren’t doing this on purpose, but for uninformed people that read this thread, they’ll say ‘omg lezard’s a cheater… i knew those long brilliant combos were impossible’ or something like that. I know how he feels, because this has happened time and time again when people have questioned my motives with CV, a site I’ve spent countless hours on, and made many sacrifices both emotional, personal, and financial to get it where it is today. So keep this in mind.

  3. This could be pretty damn discouraging IF he did want to release anything in the future. Say bye bye to potential MSH or even MvC2 vids from him.

  4. Why does this thread remind me so much of cliche movies like Finding Forrester or Amadeus?

If you haven’t seen either hit up movies.yahoo.com and read about them and maybe you’ll understand what I’m getting at.

For the lazy folk. Here’s a ‘lazy’ link to Amadeus: http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hv&cf=info&id=1800362940

Hell I’m no combo expert, and I admint that. But, whatever the outcome of this thread turns out to be, I stand by Lezard 100%, and respect his work up to date.

Signed,

-The guy that just likes to watch combo videos.

42

No worries, BlazeD. No one is trying to take a shit on anyone else. This is just something that I do with Maj all the time: discuss Combos we’ve seen in Combo Videos, and ponder how to do them. This is just the first time we’ve publicly done it in a Forum Thread. It’s common practice for all Combo Makers to see shit they’ve never seen before and go, “Holy crap, how did he do that?” or go “Damn, wish I’d’ve thought of that!”

That’s essentially what I’m doing here. I’m stating that the ST stuff (and only the ST stuff, I’d like to emphasize) from Lezard’s Combo Video are hard-core “WTF?” combos. They raise eyebrows. There will be no denying that. If you can do Sonic Boom into Super Razor Kick with nary a move in between, you are going to raise eyebrows. It’s never been done in a Combo Video ever, and never been seen before in a game that has been beaten to death by people like TZW. Sonic Boom into walk up Razor Kick implies that the game engine allows for Guile to throw Sonic Booms and Razor Kick would-be jumpers Ryu-style, but that it’s just not consistently humanly possible so Guile is not broken as a versus character.

I think Lezard’s work is terrific. I’ve directly complimented him before on his XvSF work. I love his MSH videos as well and I love that he makes them… there aren’t enough MSH videos out there and he fills an awesome void. His Gem Combos are terrific stuff, particularly the things he does with that Reality Gem. :slight_smile: I get a very big kick out of those. Anyone reading this thread, understand that Lezard is NOT a cheater, nor is he “not legitimate”. No one here is trying to claim that. He’s deinitely one of the best Combo Video performers out there and has a lot dedication to pull off some crazy-ass shit. And it’s beautiful to watch.

If anything, my only theory is that maybe Lezard was playing on an altered version of ST that had shorter charge time than normal and he, himself, was unaware of that. By all my experiments, there is no humanly way possible to do Sonic Boom into Super, or Sonic Boom into linked Razor Kick while walking. If bugs were taken advantage of for those Combos, more power to him… but again, as I said earlier, as the Combo Video fanatics that we all are, we would just like to know what those bugs are. It certainly would open up a whole new world to Combo Videos for ST.

So I apologize if I sounded like I was dumping on anyone. It was never my intention. If I’ve hurt anyone’s feelings, I apologize profusely, and will proceed to stop posting in this thread, unless my input is directly requested.

  • James
43

If Lezard really performed those combos manually, on default speed, without any macros, in one take, without rapidfire, without any emulator or recording tools, without using anything that would give him an edge over doing combos in the arcade …
Then there’s nothing to worry about. He can look at this whole thread as one giant compliment.

All he needs to do is explain how he did the combos that all of us experienced video makers think should be (more than likely) humanly impossible.

Please don’t act like this is some huge crime being committed against Lezard. It’s just the way this community works and it happens every time someone new shows up. You have to earn your respect. Once you do, it’s yours.

Take this scenario: Some new kid nobody has heard of shows up and does combos that aren’t seen in even TZW videos. Not only that, but he does two obscenely difficult Balrog combos in one continuous clip.

Now which is the more reasonable reaction: Doubt or blind acceptance?

Edit: I agree with James here in that nobody is doubting Lezard’s creativity. His combo videos rock. The only thing under suspicion here is the execution. If he did use some emulator tricks or cheats, the right thing to do would be to share that info so that we as a community learn/understand more. If he did everything by hand the old-fashioned way, then he’s still got some explaining to do. But you’ve all seen the fucking novels i write on my website to clarify every combo video i make. It shouldn’t be any surprise to anyone that i value explanations.

44

SPEAKING of tool-assisted combovideos …

KYSG 3rd strike RYU COMBOVIDEO COMING SOON !

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The URL is quite logical.

http://www.combovideos.com

I’ve seen that in a TZW vid, but the scenario was slightly different. He did a meaty Sonic Boom , then linked the super. I think that theoretically Lezard’s combo might be possible if you combine the delayed Sonic Boom method with the slow-down of the game caused by fireballs…but I’m not 100% sure yet. Haven’t tested exactly how many extra frames you get from fireball slowdown.

The second combo isn’t too terribly hard (not easy, though). The first one though, I’ve never seen before in ST. I’ve seen it in CE or HF (don’t remember which), but not in ST.

I’d believe that. Strange random things happen in Street Fighter. When I was fooling around, trying to find stuff for Volume I, somehow I actually did [Sonic Boom, Sonic Boom] for a two-hit combo. I only charged once, but two came out.
:confused::confused::confused:
Unfortunately I didn’t have it on tape, and I could never get it again, but it did happen that once. (This was for WW on the Saturn version of Capcom Generations 5.)

Charge down/back, neutral for one frame, towards for one frame, then start charging back again and start counting frames. Throw the Sonic Boom at the last possible second (so that you’ve charged as long as possible before throwing it), continuing to count frames until Guile recovers from his Sonic Boom. I got 38 frames when I tested it.

However, I didn’t think to put it on Turbo 1 as I should have, and I didn’t take into account that in Lezard’s vid, Gief is getting hit by another Sonic Boom at that point, so the slow-down probably allows him enough time to charge the Flash Kick.

Ten frames.

BlazeD - as I said before, I give huge props to Lezard. I’m not saying that he did use cheats; I’m saying that I don’t understand how that combo works, and I’m trying to figure it out. It would be helpful if he provided a clear explanation of how he did the combos so that we don’t have to speculate. His explanation on CV wasn’t very detailed at all.

But just so that it’s clear, Lezard get huge props from me because:

  1. he made combos which I do understand, and I am amazed by them
  2. he made combos which I don’t understand

:tup:

46

NKI: Sorry to nitpick so much, but when you say that the delayed Sonic Boom method gives 10 extra charge frames, how did you actually count that? Did you actually count the number of frames necessary to do a follow-up Sonic Boom using the delayed method vs the standard method? Or did you just count the maximum number of frames that you can hold DB before pushing P and still get the first Sonic Boom?

47

The latter.

After initially tapping towards, see how long you can hold D/B, hit punch, and still get a Sonic Boom. It comes out to be 10 frames.

48

Sorry for the double post, but…

Has anyone ever heard of a bug in WW called the “512 Special”? I was reading t-akiba’s site, and he said that in WW, there is a 1-in-512 chance that if you simply tap a button, the character will do a special move, and he has a chart of exactly what move each character will do for punch and for kick. He also said that there’s something called the “512 guard” where you have the same chance (1-in-512) of blocking a move, even if you’re not holding back. He also said that this appears to be intentionally programmed (though he doesn’t say how he came to that conclusion).

This could very well explain what happened here:

If there’s some here who knows Japanese, please read over this and make sure I didn’t mistranslate anything:
http://games.t-akiba.net/sf2/bug.html#2bug

49

Good find NKI it sounds interesting, im suprised he thinks it was put in there intentionally, why would they do that for?

50

If it was SF2:WW, that’s somewhat reasonable. I mean back then nobody really knew how to do special moves consistently or what they looked like or any of that stuff. So maybe the programmers wanted to throw in a few hints to get people curious.

cool shit randomly happening = more quarters in the machine

Would you mind testing it out the other way? (Or describe what method you are using to test it so i could test it myself?)

The reason i ask is because the test you did wouldn’t be good enough in CvS2/CFJ. You pretty much get that same number of execution leeway frames in CFJ, but Guile’s charge is reset as soon as you hit the P button. So really you get no extra charge time out of the delayed method.

51

Nicholai,

It has been common knowledge that in WW special moves would ‘randomly’ come out. I never knew it was 1 in 512 but the number makes sense. My personal guess as to why is that it was for versus mode play and to help people figure out what all the special moves where. So if you were playing honda or whatever and decided to never mash on punches and one time you get hundred hand slap you might be inclined to think, ‘oh…how did i do that?!’ and start looking for special move commands.

Derek

52

ah good explaination omni, although i dont think it was necesary since all the WW machines i had even seen had a moveslist on them.

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sr_matanza_2101@hotmail.com

He’s barely ever on nowadays BTW.

54

:frowning: Damnit…

55

Today my friend was playing ST, and he said he was guile and he did a sonic boom, then he went to jump + kick and he said a flashkick came out right after the boom, and he didnt even
know about this thread so he isnt making it up, so im 100% sure that combos that Lezard does are legit.
Also i have spoken to Lezad alot on AIM, and i know he spends ALOT of times doing the combos he does, any combo idea you give him he will be able to do because he is very determined and very skilled and wont ever quit trying the combo until he does it.
I know you guys aint meant to be trying to say he cheats but i think it would have been better for private discussion than have it posted here, like blazed said because it gives uninformed people an idea that lezard is a cheater, and i know for a fact that it is putting him off doing combos because he tries so hard to do what he does, and if people think that he is cheating its pointless for him to continue making combovids.

56

Stop nuthugging. Ive seen in some combos, A sonic boom being thrown right after another. And it seems like Lezard could have some how manipulated the game or something, or had a chart about that 512 thing.

57

That whole line of reasoning is pretty weak. We need a little more solid evidence/explanation than that. At the very least you would have had to post some video clip of your friend doing it. I heard Sheng Long is a secret character in HF. That doesn’t make it true.

First and foremost, this thread is not about Lezard. It’s about a bunch of questions about the future of combo video making that obviously a lot of people care about. The Lezard issue is just a random example/tangent.

Second, if the dude cares so much then why hasn’t he posted here yet? Either he’s not around anymore (in which case he’s oblivious to this thread) or he doesn’t have any interest in voicing his side (in which case it doesn’t matter to him what we say).

Third, Lezard is obviously a creative dude. If he was so damn concerned about whether people thought he was cheating, i’m sure he could come up with a way of proving that he wasn’t. Or at least he could try.

Again, you’re assuming that this topic is personal about Lezard. It is not. He did some stuff in his vids that we haven’t seen before. Some of you might be content with just watching it and saying “cool!” But there are a few of us who want to know how the new stuff was done. We especially want to know whether it’s a clever trick or whether it’s executed using some programmable tool.

If you haven’t noticed, that’s how this whole community works. Someone finds something new and shares it with everyone else. He gets respect for having found it. Then someone else comes along and improves on it. That progression is a hell of a lot harder if people start being all secretive about their techniques. That’s what this whole thread is about.

58

Never heard of that 512 thing… Pretty intresting.

59

How Program Pads Work:

In a nutshell, you can input one command at a time, or do it manually then improve or add things separately after you?ve done it. Well, at least that is how mine and Joo?s work.

A more detailed explanation of how they work ? If I wanted to program one input at a time, I would

[LIST]
[]Press the menu button, assign what button I want to use
[]Input the command I want to do, for example D+LK (with mag in marvel2).
[]Input the number of counts it will do it for. Now, here is what I?m confused about, because I don?t know how much one count is, my guess is that every count equals one frame.
[]I would program the next action [/LIST]
There are two parts to every action. Example with Mag in MvC2 ?

Action #001 = D+LK-001,
Action #002 =Pause (I didn?t input any commands, just the number of counts it would hold it for)-008,
Action#003 = D-001,
Action #004 = U-001.

Another way to do it is by inputting everything yourself and telling the pad to record every command and how long you hold it for, so for instance if I wanted to do an AHVB with Cable, I would simply do it on the pad, and the pad would record everything I do, including the mashing (if I do it?[inside joke]). Then if I want to fix the number of counts that from where I did UF to where I pressed PP, I would go back into the menu to edit the commands and whatnot and go into the assigned place and edit the count. The way I know is by looking at the number of the action and the input. For this example it?s simple since AHVB isn?t that many commands and it?s within the first 10 commands. Anyways, I would go up to the part where I would not press anything because to do an AHVB or anything else tigerknee?d you have to wait at least 3 counts before you can do anything. So let?s say that the number for the time after I pressed UF is 7 ? this would mean that cable was pretty high up in the air when he did the AHVB. To make it so that he does the AHVB closer to the ground I would change that number to 3 or something that is lower than 7. Then, when I do it again (since it was recorded) it would do the AHVB closer to the ground.

That?s pretty much how programming something on a pad works. There are other things it has like Turbo, Auto, Hold Turbo, and Hold. You can also choose how fast you want something to be pressed, it has a vertical bar and each bar means how fast you want something pressed, I?m not sure how fast it pressed every button but I think Joo told me it was 60 times a second. So if I wanted to see how many hits Tron Bonne?s drill hits for I would raise the bar to the highest point and set HK to be rapid fire, so then I would do QCF+HK and hold HK and it would mash to 31 hits.
Another thing about the program pad is that it can loop commands, meaning that if I wanted to do an infinite such as [Storm?s SJ, ADDF > HK] I would program it once and then loop it so it would repeat it till I stopped it, (that would dizzy around 50-55 hits).
That?s pretty much how it works; the rest is up to the person who is doing things on it. If you wanted to see how much Spiral?s grab does while she is powered up, you would manually press F+HP to grab then as soon as you see her grab tell the pad to loop LP,LK, that is a way to get the maximum number of hits out of things that you can mash, (this doesn?t apply to random things like Hail Storm) Another example is Sentinels? Plasma Sword ? if tell the pad to loop LP,LK after you activate the super it will mash it to the maximum which is 38 hits (without hitting the guy beforehand).

My opinion on the subject of using macro?s for combo videos/resets/bugs/other stuff is ? Execution doesn?t mean anything, using such a device would mean that you have to think of something new, if the new thing is hard to do (like Shuma ? Mag way of doing the 2 character bug) then the pad helps a lot. Finding new ideas or getting things to work that would never be expected to otherwise. A program pad really helps for finding new things, and usually those things are hard to do, bugs are a really good example. Some bugs are hard to do but the rewards for getting them are really good.

On the ?breaking the dizziness barrier? ? in marvel it?s completely possible to do without game shark, in other games, I?m not so sure. But I think that it doesn?t matter if you take it off, it just leaves the person who is doing the combo more time to do something really crazy without suddenly ending the combo.

?Well that?s how a program pad works.

Ps. It was very hard to learn how to use a pad that is all Japanese without anyone helping, hehe. If anyone can read Japanese, there is something left that I can?t understand.

60

Great!!! Now I know how to use the Program Pad when you let me borrow it!!