A little help.

Hi everyone!

I'm relatively new to the VF series and have developed some bad habits! I've been playing for about three weeks now ( coming from Tekken and SF ) and know just about all of Eileen's combos thanks to YouTube. In Training Mode, I can pull them off with ease. Same with Arcade...but I can't do them for the life of me in Online play.

Since I can't do the nicer combos, the bad habits I've formed are the command list BnB combos. I use them like they're a fashion statement! What can I do to get out of this little stump? I know lots of other moves that are a lot better and more damaging other than PPP2KK and 6PP2K...it's like my brain goes on auto pilot! I know I'm a better player than this, even though this is my first VF. Never had this problem with T or SF.

Another question I have is: Do I "evade" too much? Since I for into the higher ranks, everyone I play seems to find this out real fast. I evade 80% of the time instead of blocking. So by round 2 all they use is circular attacks or grabs. Is evading a lot not a good idea online? Because literally, they stop using normals and go for spamming fast circulars that I obviously can't evade, and have little time to block. If I block, they grab.

And my last question; what's the deal with Brad and Jean? In 50 matches last night, I fought them a total of 39 times. Why are they so popular? Brad I can deal with, but I can't figure out Jean. His attacks are just too strong and too fast. No matter what I do his attacks hit and cancels even just regular P's and elbows. Evading is a no-no as well, since it seems like every combo of his has a circular in it. Embarrassing, but a 7th Kyu murdered me the other day with Jean. Is he an easy character like Alissa in Tekken?

Guess that's it. Thanks everyone.

 

You should play versus the CPU more often. In training mode or arcade mode as you want.
Like that you will understand that PPP2KK or 6PP2K is not a combo even if the first hit is not blocked.

Human player tend to forget to press guard so you can think it's a true combo. And the training mode/command list doesn't show you that

If you think you evade to much, the question is why you like to evade ? You should try to duck sometimes. Duck avoid throw and will avoid some full circular move too.

But the good thing with VF is when you figure out what your opponent will do next. If your opponent want to punish your bad habit then punish him afterward because you know he know your habits. Abuse evade if you want just to setup a trap at the second round which will give you the momentum.

Ask you this question. What i can do to punish throw with my character ? What i can do tou punish full circular with my character. After that learn, train and try to do the max damage possible from your punish

Jean is hard to beat. If you can play several times versus the same guy, you will start to figure out. I remember i played versus a good Jean. Each time he beat me he was switching with Jack. I was doing well versus his Jacky but the Jean was too good. But more i was playing, less i was scare of him. At the end of the session i was more confident about the versus Jean.

 

I recommend you use Jean for a while. I used him and now I can see all his attacks coming a mile away when I fight him. He is not hard to read and react to, it just sounds like you don't have enough experience fighting him yet.

 

You're probably right. I played a few more so far tonight and still no dice. Just seems like every button on a controller/stick is an instant 5 hit barrage of attacks that link with the other buttons in an endless combo.

Guess I'm going to have to go on a date to the training lab with him. I hate the thought of learning his ins and outs just to stand a chance against a 7th Kyu. As much as I see people flaming Taka, I've yet to have a problem with him. No. I get the jitters when I go against a 14ft tall emo Vincent Valentine that refers to himself in the third person as a child.

 

If your opponent is constantly trying to throw you, you can simply attack them out of it, or try a fuzzy guard to duck under the throw.

For circulars it helps to know if they are mid or high. For high circulars you can simply duck under them then punish the opponent when they are in recovery. For mid circulars guard is in all likelyhood your best option - As a general rule, if you guard a mid circular, you will be at a frame advantage.

For canned attack strings you need to analyse them a bit. Generally you will be at a good frame advantage if you can block all of a canned string - This is the trade off for the fact that most of the time you will not be able to interrupt your opponent if they execute the string with the fastest timing. Have a look at the hit levels in the string whether you need to guard standing or crouching so you can defend the entire string. If there are high attacks in the string then it may be possible to use low punch to beat this.

For a lot of strings if you are hit with the first attack of the string, it doesn't guarantee that all the other attacks will also hit, so you can switch to guarding once the first attack hits you.

 

@Cope25 Welcome to the game! I'm rather new to fighting human beings, too, but I've picked up a lot since the game came out. One thing that I can tell you about Virtua Fighter is that every action has a counter-action that can defeat it, and so there's nothing ~inherently~ wrong with evading too much; you only know that you're doing anything 'too much' when your opponent reads you and is able to punish you consistently for it. In that case, consider that you've trained your opponent to underestimate you and take advantage of that, as has already been said: start using strikes (a launcher would be something to try) when you would normally evade if your opponent is consistently trying to throw you, or, if they're using full-circulars, block or duck them and punish afterward, since blocked circulars tend to leave the opponent at a pretty bad disadvantage.

What I really want to emphasize is that we all have bad habits, and the way that we recognize them is by getting our asses kicked because of them. There's no 'right' way to play the game -- developing your style is a creative endeavor -- but there are safer ways to play that will result in your being less exploitable by your opponent, and a big part of that is to not become predictable. If your opponent doesn't seem to be able to see through your evades and you're able to use them consistently to get a big advantage on them, by all means, exploit that weakness -- exploit ~their~ bad habit, which is a huge part of reading your opponent and playing the game -- but, yes, if you're getting punished for your over-reliance on evades the way that you say that you are, it could be said that you use them a bit too much and should consider catching your opponent off-guard with other defensive or counter-offensive strategies, of which there are a variety to choose from and for you to master over time.

I'm far from being a high-level player, but, if you'd like some particulars, PM me, or maybe we could play some non-competitive matches on the PSN if you're on the Playstation to demonstrate some techniques for one-another.

Good luck!

-David

 

Hi again. Just thought I'd update this since the original post. I've greatly improved my Eileen's game since then. I can do most of the advanced strings with about a 70%ish accuracy. I'm on a controller, so I feel the quarter circle moves are kinda' a weak spot for me.

I still use a lot of evades in my game, usually to go for a throw or a launcher depending on what the opponent is doing at the time of the evade. Right now, not seeing too many problems with Jean anymore. I did a little training with him like was recommended, and now have a pretty even match with those players. Of course that's for the lower ranks like Dan and Kyu; haven't seen too many in my rank or above yet.

Now my problems seem to stem from "tracking" from evading a string. Namely from Brad players. I've become paranoid a little from evading and still being hit that I instantly guard, which is pointless in a way because I evaded their attack to punish them, not defend. If I wanted to remain on the defensive I would have just sat tight until their batteries ran out on their turbo controller tied to P.

One other thing that I have to ask is Lion's down attack. Wtf is up with that? He knocked me down and I got hit three times by it before ( I guess ) he felt sorry for ms or something. I tried to roll, tried a normal stand, and tried a wake-up attack. All three of his down attacks hit me. Not the 3P ones, but his 8P. I've never seen that before, but the guy can do it as soon as he knocks me down. He's done it on numerous occasions now from our matches. I've tried everything to get out of it.

Anyways, that's it for now. Thanks everyone.

 

Hey I just noticed you're using eileen and see you're newish to posting on the site. I have a bunch of information on how to play with her and breaking down her movelist at my blog http://tricky-eileen.blogspot.com/. I most recently have gone over just what it means for you to be playing as eileen and the general tactics you'll need to be using. There is also a ton of more in depth analysis of her individual moves and in what situations you might want to use them in.

Check it out as I think a lot of your questions here will be answered.

 

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> Now my problems seem to stem from "tracking" from evading a string. </div></div>
In VF, if you evade the first attack of your opponent's string, and then input a button or direction, the rest of the string will track you. If you evade and do nothing however, the rest of the string will not track you and the opponent will continue attacking in an off-axis direction. If it's a long string of attacks you may even end up behind the opponent which is even more advantageous.

If your opponent is using a lot of rapid-fire strings, you may have to get used to not attacking immediately after the evade, simply because once you input your attack, the rest of the attacks in the opponent's string will track and may interrupt you. Especially for a style fast hitting string, it's likely that you can be interrupted if you try to attack straight away.

Not too sure what is happening regarding the down attacks. You should be able to rapidly press & (plus up, down or back if you want to roll) to get up quickly before the down attack hits. If you get hit with a slam attack or bounce off a wall you may not be able to get up in time, but you definitely shouldn't be able to get hit multiple times while you are on the ground. Down attacks can also be guarded as long as you get up from the ground in time, so even if you rapidly press just & (and then hold guard when you stand up) you can defend the attack.

 

@ Tricky, I have your blog on one of my eight pages for my iPhone. Lol I look at it often! I also have checked out your videos on YouTube. Between you and ichimoken (a Japanese Eileen player I assume) I've learned a lot so far. Thanks for all your input!

@ Drunkencat- thanks for that! I have always wondered why some strings hit me and others didn't when I evaded. I just figured it helped "balanced" the evade mechanic or I got hit with a half circle and wasn't paying attention for the indicator thing.

And for getting hit three times by a down attack, it happened again tonight. Different guy this time. What I've noticed is they'll do the double sweep move, stand right next to me, and get it going. The guy I fought tonight only got it off twice, not three times like the other guy I was mainly talking about. I'm pretty confident that he could have got the third if I wasn't for a slight lag in our inputs. I won thankfully, but he used Sarah and her damn legs carried me from on end of the caged arena to the other in all three rounds.

But thanks for all the tips and input. I just have to get use to a new fighting game than what I'm use to.