Mhhh, maybe we should start working on posting some actual combos for you guys to try out rather than depending on the trials. It’ll definitely help to know how to do them, but it’s really important to keep it simple and do the most damage you can get.
Game is brutal for me. The speed this game requires you to get your inputs in is beyond fast. Yet you can’t go too fast, or it won’t work either. It wants perfection for you. Somewhere between the need for perfection is the fight between you and your opponent. It almost seems secondary to dealing with this games stringent requirements.
If the trials are an example of what I need to do to be good at this game~ I honestly cannot recommend this game unless you’re willing to not play any other fighting game for some time because it’s all you’re going to have to know to get any better at it.
I don’t have that good execution, and all the problems you new guys are running into, I recognize. But believe me when I say ‘it gets better’. KOF execution really isn’t that hard. It is mostly ‘weird’. For the longest time, I had trouble hitting light chains like cr.B into cr.A consistently. Once I could finally do it, I wondered why I ever found it difficult.
So yeah. a lot of KOF execution just requires you to adapt. Due to the input lag on all normal moves, you also often feel like you need to press buttons earlier than you’d expect.
That being said, yes, your inputs need to be pretty precise. But this isn’t hard, SF4 just made you lazy! Once you get it back into your system that, yes, a dragon punch motion really is a dragon punch motion, and a half circle backward really really is a half circle back, and not a half-assed quarter circle backward, things become easy. Just make sure to take note of your hands when doing these motions, and aren’t using shortcuts.
And yeah, KOFXIII is a bit more difficult than older KOF’s, simply because you need to be consistent for a longer time, because combos are longer. Focus on shorter combos. It’s like Reiki-Kito said, The Trial combos are 1. not optimalized 2. not BnB’s. They are specifically made to be difficult, not to be useful. This doesn’t mean there are no useful combos in there, but some of them, even the simple ones, are completely useless.
If you want to find combos, check out the KOFXIII wiki on the shoryuken wiki. This wiki is currently in the process of being updated from arcade to console, but for most characters, combos listed should definitely work.
Almost all the execution difficulty in SF4 and MVC3 is in button press timing, whereas almost all the execution difficulty in KOF13 is in joystick motions. Pick your poison.
Probably a good idea, before people get really discouraged.
The BnBs seem to be dispersed in parts across the trials. A lot of the time I find myself combining the basic hit-confirm stuff from the earlier trials with the endings of the later trials.
I think you’ll find that if you slow down your button inputs, you’ll be able to do the combos better. You don’t need to press the buttons very fast, for example, in doing something like c.b,c.b,s.b.
What I’m having the most trouble with is the timing of certain cancels, like Takuma’s s.c,f.b xx db,f+D. The combo is just way too hard for me. Since it’s pretty much a requirement to learn for Takuma I’m probably going to have to stop learning him.
This is something I’m beginning to realize in the game. Joystick motions have to be accurate, but you have to delay your button press. You can’t just, do move, then move, then move~ you have to delay it slightly. It’s almost odd because you can’t depend, visually on what’s happening on screen, yet at the same time it’s not : Dial-A-Combo!
It’s not Blazblue. It’s not SF4. It’s not even King of Fighter 98. Everything is fast, but delayed~ and I think it’s done that way so you actually have time with your right hand to process all this shit.
Your joystick inputs have to be fast, your button presses do not.
It’s not a broken system, it’s just something of a shock to realize that you have to be slow, to be fast.
Since you have prior experience I can’t see anything being specifically difficult.
Just like every other game it has it’s own quirks and specifics as far as inputs and timing. They’re pretty simple though and once you play for a bit the system feels very fluid and fun.
As far as the huge combos, not too many are actually incredibly hard that are worth their damage. The really long ones sometimes don’t add a tremendous amount of damage and are considerably harder to perform. So you just start with solid combos that you can consistently pull off and if you end up being really into the game, you’ll learn those more difficult and more rewarding combos.
I just started practicing Takuma so I know how you feel. I’ve been putting some time in, but not much in terms of result. Don’t give up though! Lets see who can get it down first; I bet you y’ll get it before me!
You can put in the f.B before the s.C hit and it’ll come out, so you can start charging downback really early.
Trust me, I buffer the f+B really fast, but either nothing comes out or qcf+D
I’m messing around with it, you seem to need to cancel out of f+B late instead of early.
sounds like you guys are mashing or you don’t actually realize when you are pressing things. take your time and try multiple timings. certainly before you just decide you can’t play a certain character. that’s silly.
i mash like crazy with certain things because its easy and sometimes works. but when I actually want to learn I try to change my timing and just focus on doing it clean. seeing the cpu do the combos also can show you any timing weirdness. I also suggest just going into practice and trying stuff out because itll make you more comfortable with the characters moves in any/all contexts.
I’ve actually started to get it some what consistently, but only from the s.c,f.b chain. I can’t get it yet when I’m trying to combo off a hop attack. The key is to starting holding down back as soon as possible after you press f.b and press forward+D slightly after f.B hits, but not right when it hits, or too late. It has to be perfect every time or it won’t combo. It’s really hard, but once you start getting it you’ll start to get it more and more. The hardest part will be landing this in a real match 
I found this on Dream Cancel. It should help you out.
"It’s hard to get the timing, but after roughly 30min of training i can do it consistently, the key is to do
incredibly fast (the commande move
is buffed when the
animation is still on the screen) to charge
as soon as possible and at the very end of the animation of the
cancel it by a
So if you will learn it do
and try some charges timing from short to the longest (i release
nearly when the
hits)."
I quit CVS2 because I couldn’t be bothered to learn roll-canceling!
Thanks for all the replies to the thread, guys. I think I’ll be skipping this game after all. It doesn’t seem like a good game to play secondary. It just seems like the game requires more time put into it than I’m ready to give it.
That, and I heard that the netcode wasn’t up to snuff.
Your rekkas better be on point.
I find basic chains like c.LP, c.LP, s.LP to be far, far harder than long combos with like 5 specials and a super in, with some incredibly small execution windows. Also, jump-ins are tricky to get right (i.e. connecting the j. to the s.) Apparently this is an intentional thing, which makes me feel slightly less crap. Trying to think about HD just gives me a headache now. It’s like V-Ism for me; I activate it and just think “Uh… Uh…Fuck”.
A lot of it is just getting my head around the basics and the terminology. Like right now I can cough up the terms “cancellable” and “chain cancellable” but I have to stop and think for a sec to remember the difference, and even then I’m not sure if “chain cancellable” means only in chains, or in chains as well as into specials and/or supers. Doing additional layers of shit in a combo really gives me a headache. FADC basically put me off SF4 but I have no problem with parrying supers, even air parrying them, in SF3.