there is one gleam of truth to those posts though - footsies in SF4 are nothing like ST/3s/CVS2 footsies. that shouldn’t be controversial. when everyone in the game has molasses walk speed and walk up throw is not a threat, you don’t have the same bait/whiff punish game as traditional SF. what SF4 commentators usually call footsies is both players whiffing safe pokes to establish and control space. to me that is zoning with normals, it isn’t footsies.
I agree with this. Actually in terms of footsies I think FA serves the exact same function as parry does in 3s. Against a Chun or Ken, it’s not uncommon to see good players walk into low forward range, immediately low parry, and block if nothing happened. Exact same concept as walking into poke range, focusing, and getting out of it quickly if they don’t give you anything to punish. mechanically they have some differences and they serve different functions in other parts of the game but in the midrange they seem quite similar.
That’s true, but boost combos are risky now since they leave you so negative on block. Most don’t do them unless they know it’s going to hit. Vega is still a lot better just based on no focus attack though.
Actually, randomly sticking out moves is exactly what footsies (is? are? not sure) considering you can’t always read your opponents mind. Again, you don’t need to use focus attacks if you know how to whiff punish. Focus attacks also lose half the time to normals buffered into another move, so I don’t know where you were going with that one. If someone focus’s right in my face, I’m not going to press buttons unless he has a habit of trying to go for LV3. Unsafe moves are often times the answer to one of the opponents main tools. For example, I use Yang’s fst.hp against Ryu’s who like to cr.mk mindlessly because it usually goes over its hitbox, but its frame data is 9/4/19 meaning it is random focus bait. It is however an otherwise safe move if spaced correctly but…that’s it you guessed right, punishable by focus attacks. MANY characters have slow moves that are very useful, but they get shutdown by focus attacks.
Again, I actually like focus attacks, they add uniqueness to the game. My statement was just saying they change the way traditional footsies are played. LV1 CH crumple is the only thing I think absolutely needs to go.
randomly sticking out pokes until your opponent walks into it is your idea of footsies? because you can’t make reads? no one says you have to be psychic, but knowing what your opponent is going for and leading them to believe theres an opening is precisely the point. that’s why high level players are where they’re at and their footsies are so impressive, versus the spam-random-button expo newer players like to imagine is a good ground game.
as for pokes cancelled into moves being punishing focus, once again, it depends on distance and knowing your opponent’s options. at max distances, certain pokes cancelled into moves are beat out by the focus.
in short, you’re controlling the space in front of you, similar to old school valle throwing out jabs that had no chance of hitting just to give the illusion of threat and control immediate space. your random normals aren’t footsies, just claiming the immediate space in front of your character and hoping someone walks into your limb.
the thing with sf xt is that without the focus you end up with more people just jumping in trying to guess out your heavy buttons. so while a character like vega may gain some of his natural poking ability, he also loses the ability to focus back dash a jump in and maintain his spacing. if you notice many of the characters with strong traditional heavy buttons and fast walk speeds in SF4 are also lacking in button anti airs or chargeless invincible moves. they do all have really good backdashes or focus back dashes tho. chun bison and vega for example
so vega might be better in sfxt, but youd have to look at the whole game to understand why. id say it has more to do with converting those pokes into real damage than it does with the pokes themselves. he also isnt getting killed by knockdown mix ups like he is in this game.
cross tekken does place a heavier emphasis on the neutral game, but that is everything that happens at neutral, including dealing with the bazillion jump ins. its isnt all just hardcore old school ground games like most of that games player base would tell you
I guess I could’ve worded that better, that was my fault. I didn’t mean just randomly sticking out normals whenever you have the chance is footsies, I meant that reading your opponent correctly only happens like 30-40% of the time, so the rest of that time is going to be randomly sticking out normals in an educated, risk/reward manner.
You bring up good points about SFxT’s neutral game favoring jump-ins more, and it is true focus attacks help characters with mediocre aa normals out. Vega will definitely get much better if the universal vortex nerfs in USF4 are true.
this is like the definition of zoning. I don’t know why the term zoning seems to have been simplified to “throw fireballs at each other and uppercut if they jump” but you can zone with normals. when you establish the space in front of you with attacks that have no intention or ability to actually hit, you are zoning.
footsies is an altogether different beast. whiff punish beats poke, poke beats walk forward, walk forward beats waiting so you can whiff punish. to me this is the core of what footsies has always meant and if you can’t play that game you are really not playing footsies. I think SF4 has a very limited footsie game because of how slow walk speed is and how easy defense is. if you’re not deathly afraid of walk up throw because you can just crouch tech it easily, why would you play defensive footsies to begin with? as a consequence, the offensive player has nothing to punish. it’s a combo of slow walk, easy to tech throws, and really good up close defensive options. this is why SF4 lacks a traditional footsie game for the most part.
It needs other changes to compensate. Vortex isn’t so strong because it’s bullshit, it’s strong because it’s one of the few ways to get good damage now. If you remove vortex and ambiguous jump ins good offense will become hard to come by.
I suggest buffed walk speed for every character, make throws tech window shorter, and make crouch tech force stand tech.
You talk like you absorb the fireball and get no damage. Ryu’s hadouken is SEVENTY damage. LOL, try to absorb 3 fireballs in a row and see what happens. Try to absorb a shakunetsu if you can do it. You talk like you can absorb every fireball in the game, when every EX fireball breaks focus.
I can get down with that for the most part…except did you see how daigo baited snake eyes into whiffing the second hit of green hand, then punished with sweep? that was a calculated distance, followed by fireball to bait a reaction, which was punished accordingly.
similarly, xian had tokido afraid to push any buttons due to a great combination of space and use of normals to beat whatever akuma threw out.
there are a ton of other examples of high level players demonstrating footsies in sfiv, so I wouldn’t exactly say it’s lacking a traditional footsie game. I still see lots of walk back, wait for crouch tech, punish and control of specific space to give the illusion it’s safe to throw out a move, when in reality, the move they think is safe and optimal is the move you would love to see…and in the end, isn’t that the definition of footsies?
james chen has always said that adon’s st.rh should be a fireball, which just goes to show how footsies and zoning (fireball or not) bleed into eachother.
how should these vortex nerfs look like? variable wake up timing to eliminate the whole knockdown and safejump mix ups? or nerfing the tools to enable this loop of hard knockdowns, i.e. throws, sweep, certain specials, etc.?
1: Infiltration only utterly dominates footsies when he uses Akuma, which I feel has a lot to do with how fast his walk speed is. Akuma’s walkspeed makes people fear walk up throw, so they start throwing out normals, which Akuma can walk back fast enough to whiff punish.
Vortex is bullshit which I think most of can agree on, however it is a good to point out that this is one of the only ways to get good damage in this game. I like how Capcom is so far handling changing the game to make things more damaging, or giving characters more opportunities to land the damage without making continuous high reward low risk guesses. I used to be against having both ultras, but now that I think about it, (with a 100-200 damage nerf and maybe less invincibility) it will help every character do more damage outside of mixups.
Yup I play SF4. I also play a bunch of ST and 3s, and some CVS2 whenever I can. CVS2 it’s hard to find competition though.
Please don’t respond unless you have content to address. If you’ve played the old games and SF4 the flow of the games is pretty apparent. Non-controversial stuff, and also the expected result. When you have a R/P/S setup and you kill one of those options the game breaks. in SF4’s case walk up throw is not a real threat. if I nerf Scissors so that it no longer beats Paper, why would anyone ever choose Rock?
When I criticize SF4 neutral game I do it because I think SF4 would be a better game with those changes and now is the prime time to suggest and discuss them while they’re working on the next version. From all accounts vortex is gonna get nerfed and either the neutral game has to change or we’re going to be playing a very defensive game.
Yeah that’s definitely true. I wouldn’t go so far as to say SF4 doesn’t have a footsies game, just that it’s harder to find. Those are good examples you listed, and I found myself thinking the same thing during the Xian vs Tokido match. Xian was counterpoking everything and had Tokido afraid to hit anything as a consequence.
Another good example of footsies in SF4 happened at Evo with PR Rog in top 8. that sick thing he was doing where he’d focus to bait out tech throw and then punish huge after the throw whiff. then once you have them afraid to tech you just throw them. very solid.
But you dind’t explain why. Please explain why it would be retarded when it would remove a lot of unblockable crap.
Besides you are confusing footsies with spacing. Itazan is a master of turtling and spacing, and no spamming sMP in the same position for 20 seconds is not playing footsies.