Flow charts for noobs.

Anyone remember when Street fighter 4 first came out and there were these flow chart kens and sagats? It was frustrating for the pros but it allowed noobs to enter the game easily. When they started losing they began to adapt and 3 years later their numbers have reduced.

Flow charts help ease the pain of analysis paralysis that often grips VF newbies. If you had the misfortune of reading a guide before playing you will be left wondering WTF are you supposed to do since you have so many options.
Half the time advanced techniques are teased in the very first sentence of a beginner move. I am trying to interest a friend of mine and he finds it hard to even start the match, pressing buttons scares him so i just tell him to 2p all day.

Why is this of any importance?
With VF5 fs on the horizon there would clearly be interested newbies and returning fans like me. If we hope to grow the scene or retain their interest we equally have to train them in the most simplistic method even at the cost of creating massive clones.
Skill acquisition - Anyone who ever played a musical instrument know how much drills you have to do before you get proficient enough to execute your own ideas or to to even get inspiration to be creative.
This article inspired this rant.

Yeah the game will feature an in depth training mode and yeah you dont like to spoon feed people but the VF community needs to grow so we don't have to petition for new games for the rest of our lives.
Its just something to keep in mind when contributing tutorials for the future.'I hope i was comprehensible.

 

Basically



It is aimed at beginners who want to have a platform they can build from. It starts of as auto pilot but after time an familiarity they can grow more branches on their flow charts.

Lets not forget hit checking is not something everyone can just do. Even the VF4e tutorials had recommend rankings for each tutorial so you are at least more familiar with the system.

Look at the black book combos, half of them have special cases and characters they work on. This is simply too much info for a beginner. How about this is a launcher and her are some universal combos (albeit low damaging). Once interest can be generated in the player they will them selves seek to improve.

You cannot assume nothing is learnt. That is simply wrong. Look at my link on skill acquisition. Think how you learnt to form sentences or how you learnt to dance. You did what you were shown and told with no explanation (just like going to church) then slowly you found your own reasons and motivations.

PS why is my spell checker American English lol.

 

There are Jacky and Jeffry flowcharts in the gallery, similar to the original SF4 'Flowchart Ken' joke.

 

It seems that the right side of the brain is where creativity mostly comes from and it's also the best at doing things we didn't drill in our head before. When we train for something and become more competent, it gradually shifts to the left brain and then continues to develop there... In which case we gain a more firm control but we lose creativity.
(Free source for anyone interested.)

It would also explain why people tend to eventually reach a "plateau" where they no longer improve(left brain). When they take a break and come back later, they have to re-learn a few things for a while(partial shift to right brain), and in the process they become better than they were before they took their break. (Until it shifts back to left brain.)
But it doesn't have much to do with the topic here.

Sorry I didn't have more to contribute.

 

I am anti brain sided-ness. I think its an excuse used by lazy people. Hard work makes you ingenious which is nothing short of creative just less elegant.

 

Flowcharts might be a good way to explain how VF works, but not in the typical 2D fighter way.
Not only do we have many more different attacks in 3D fighters, but VF tends to offer a lot of counters to counters...

Very basic example : Pai's K+G leaves her back turned.
She has frame disadvantage if it's blocked, so most of her attacks will lose against the opponent's attack. Blocking is the best choice here, especially since she can't evade while backturned.
If the opponent expects you to block, he can throw you.
If you expect a throw, instead of blocking you can low sweep, 2P or 2P+K because those attacks go under throws, but they carry the risk of being interrupted by a mid attack (or 2P).

If you block -> risk of being thrown.
If you attack -> risk of getting counter hit, but potential of good rewards.

It's probably nothing like what you would expect from a 2D flowchart, but it's the kind of thing that goes on in VF. You try to guess and counter what the other player will do.

If K+G hits, Pai has way more options, but the opponent does too. The opponent's options if K+G hit are G, 2G, evade, 2P, sabaki, reversal, and probably a few others that I can't think of.
Pai has good tools to counter these options and the risk/reward tends to be in her favor. You just need to calculate the risks according to the situation and decide your next move based on that.

If I understand well, it's how you're supposed to play with most or all characters in VF.


There are also constant binary "flowcharts" going on.
-Is the opponent's back near a wall? Yes->try to force him there.
-Is the opponent distanced? Yes->Use a ranged poke to minimize risks or try to catch him with a low attack for greater chances of dealing actual non-blocked damage or rush into close-range and throw/force a close range mixup.
-You are on the ground. Is the opponent in range for a rising attack? No->Don't use a rising attack.