I can't figure out this game and I could use some pointers.

Here's an idea of how bad I am:

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Let me clarify with this: I am not a high-level player at anything. I can't "go to the lab" like everyone here and figure stuff out. If it's not expressly stated somewhere, I have no way of knowing it. This is my struggle with trying to learn any fighting game. I was hoping to get good enough to play at UFGT9 but 1) that's never going to happen and 2) who knows if Final Showdown will even be held anyway.​

 

Hey I'm no pro, but you need to at least evade more. When you think they're going to attack hit 8 or 2 (up or down) really quick like, to side step out of the way, then hit them on the side.

Look for the sega final showdown tutorials if you haven't already. Also watch the dandyj tutorial , and the focus attack L.A. akira interview (google is your enemy)..

Also, one of those dudes is the North American VF champ, lol. You can't expect to be beating guys like that while you're starting out.

Go to the gamer tag thread for your console>region and add everybodys gamer tags in there. Play room matches against friends from this site for friendlier competition. That Sara was a cheap ass bitch harsh.. people on here looking for room matches would play more honorably. They have reps to keep

 

When trying to learn Virtua Fighter, the most important thing to realize is that it's a game about making choices. This is because every option in VF can be beaten.

The choices and options can be divided into two obvious categories:

Offense and Defense.

Before you can even think about what options you have in these situations, you must first have a basic idea how to recognise these situations. This is where 'frame advantage' comes into play. Frame advantage sounds fancy, but it's actually quite a easy concept to grasp.

Picture two people doing a sprinting match, they're both equally fast. They both start at the same time and therefore will finish at the same time. This situation is similar to being at '0 frame advantage': you have no advantage or disadvantage. In this situation in VF, if you, for example have two Sarah players execute the same move, they will both hit at the same time.

Now, imagine that running competition again, but this time, one of the two runners starts ahead of the other. If they're equally fast, the one ahead will win. The situation for the runner that starts ahead is equal to being at 'positive frame advantage', while the situation for the poor fellow that starts behind is 'negative frame advantage' or 'frame disadvantage'. So if two Sarah players do the same move again, but one is at +2 (which automatically means the other is at -2), the one at +2 will win.

Now, what does this mean?

Being at an advantage means you have the offense, this is because your opponent has to respect the fact that if you both use equally fast attacks (the speed of attacks is indicated in 'frames'), the attack of the one at advantage will win.

So, automatically, being at disadvantage means you will have to defend!

Generally, and this can also be found in pretty much all the good tutorials on VF, you can easily recognise these situations by remembering these guidelines.

If you attack and you hit the opponent-> you are at advantage, you have the offense
If you attack and your attack is guarded-> you are at disadvantage, you have to defend.
If you guard/evade and you are succesful-> you are at advantage, you have the offense
If you guard/evade and you get hit-> you are at disadvantage, you have to defend.

Now, there's a ton of exceptions to this (first and foremost the jab, which every character has), but it's a good way to start. It's mostly about grasping the concept of when to attack and defend. And yes, this situation changes constantly, which is why VF will only become a faster game as you get better.

So now that you know (or have a way of learning) how to recognise when it's your offensive/defensive turn, the next question is: how do I attack/defend effectively? This is where making choices comes in.

Since every option in VF, whether it's defensive or offensive, can be beaten, the first thing to find out is how to beat certain options. I'll keep it basic here, there are, again, a lot of exceptions to what I'm about to say, but it's fun (and often frustrating too) to find out about these on your own.

The basic formula for what beats what in VF is as follows:

Attacks beat Throws
Throws beat Guard
Guard beats Attacks

Adding to this is the basic high-mid-low formula VF uses to class attacks.

High Attacks are guarded high, but can be ducked.
Mid Attacks are guarded high, these will hit ducking opponents
Low Attacks are guarded low, these will hit standing opponents.

High Attacks usually have great properties, which are balanced out by the fact that both types of guarding defend against these attacks.

So as far as your offense goes, what you should look for as a beginner is your character's elbow-class attack (usually 6p), a mid-class launcher that you can use to do damage when you have large advantage (more on this in a little bit), a move with a bit more range you can use while spacing and some moves that you like for whatever reason (it's gotta stay fun). Besides this you need your throws to beat your opponent's guard and evades. Throws cover the function that lows fulfill better than lows do at this point, namely to beat standing guard. Since lows generally don't deal a lot of damage and give up advantage when they hit, throws are just a better choice to use at this point.

I mentioned the function of throws here, which is to beat a standing guard and evades, this leads me to finally explaining the choice-making.

Here you are, at advantage, it's your turn to launch your offense! Hell Yes!

You've already attacked a lot before, using your favorite attacks. Sadly, your opponent has been guarding and evading pretty much all of them. Now it's VF time! Reading your opponent's mind, you use a throw and put him down on the floor! He gets back up, uses a mid rising kick, which you guard! Now, remembering what worked earlier, you throw him again! It worked! The situation repeats, you guard his mid rising kick again, but this time, something inside you tells you he won't guard anymore, since he's just lost about half his lifebar. You unleash you favorite attack! IT HITS! Victory is yours.

It's a silly story, but I hope you get the picture.

For defense, the choices you have to make are the exact opposite, you have to read how your opponent is going to want to break your defense, meaning you have to predict what kind of offensive option the opponent is going use.

If you predict your opponent is going to use an attack, you can choose to use guard to block it. If you think the opponent is going to throw, you can use an attack to go through the throw and do some damage on your own. But if you attack, you will lose to the opponent's attacks.

Now, I'm sure you'll have seen a ton of exceptions to all these things I've described, but that's the beauty: There's just so many ways to respond to these situations and so many options that beat a multitude of the opponent's options, there's just whole lot to discover. I haven't even gone into evading yet, but this is explained in, for example, the tutorials posted above, so that should be fine.

It's quite a lot that I wrote here and things won't go as planned right away.

What I always liked to do when learning a new character in whatever fighting game I played, was to just fight the CPU for a while and get myself a little set of moves I was comfortable with. If you do just that, while also forcing yourself to think about what I wrote here, I'm sure things will work out just fine. The CPU has a way of reading inputs (it always feels like that), but if you just focus on why something you do worked or didn't work and adjust to that after a while, next time you go online you'll be able to grow into a stronger player a lot faster.

I was gonna give some actual comments to your playstyle too, but I don't feel like writing anymore, sorry

Good luck!

 

Hey If you want you can add me, a group of us usually hold casual rooms every thursday and saturday ranging from all skill levels we just have fun. A good place to get a feel for a character instead of fighting in ranked all the time.

GT Eureka s3v3n

 

Tough words. My sara is spammy though, just started messing with her shes basically day one.


I kept flip kicking you because I could(I guess that does make me a dick?). Like I told you in xbl you have a habit of just throwing stuff out. I honestly don't have anything to add, there is great advice in here. And of course hit me up if you want to play some matches and we can go more in-depth with it.

 

I'd recommend not to toss out attacks if you're not near your opponent, it also ends up taking a lot of the surprise out of your game, because you tend to use the same attacks you threw out once they get closer too. If you get in the habit of throwing out attacks whether they're near or far, a lot of players will just end up waiting for you to whiff moves, then punish them.

Also, never hurts to learn a few combos, especially max damage ones.

 

Wanted to add something else, sure in VF you can practice and memorize moves, but the game is really more about adjusting based on how your opponent acts.

Here's one really basic example: the first question you've got to ask is, am I playing an offensive opponent, or a defensive opponent? If they're very offensive (otherwise known as abare), maybe it's better to sidestep and attack, or wait for them to whiff a move. If they're defensive and blocking, you'll want to throw them more, or use more low attacks and guard breaks.

A lot of people practice a lot in the dojo and get pretty good, but the best players are the ones who adjust the quickest to their opponent's play style. Every move and habit in this game has an answer, and success comes from switching up your approach to answer appropriately.

This is an incredible video that really breaks down VF's system, and really help you understand which types of moves are best to use in certain situations. It's almost 3 hours of material, but it's really worth it if you're trying to improve your game:

 

Great stuff, Krye. I've been playing for a while and learned the slow way and seeing everything written out like that is pure gold.

 

I don't mean to come off as unappreciative but that entire piece of text didn't say anything I didn't already know unfortunately. I do want to address this...

I won't and here's why: "I can't 'go to the lab' like everyone here and figure stuff out."

I can't go and look back at a match and say "This is where I screwed up." I lack that ability. However, if someone goes "This was bad because x, y, z." Then I go "Oh!" and stuff clicks.

My experience with trying to learn any fighting game was that all the game specific sites are basically math books with loads of math problems but no answers or instruction. Does that analogy kind of work?

Can I evade in the tutorial mode? No problem. In game? Can't get it even once. I always get hit and then I'm pretty sure it's a counter-hit so I'm even more screwed. I can't find instruction on how to evade properly and how evasion works in general.

"Starting out?" I've been playing VF5FS since it hit XBLA and this is the skill level I've managed to get to in those seven months.

No, it doesn't make you a dick. It's exactly what you should be doing. There's no such thing as cheap. If it works and I can't figure out how to beat it, why would you stop doing it?

The flip kick is supposed to be super bad on block, right? Minus to the tenth power or something like that but I don't know how to punish in this game. At all. I can't figure it out to save my life. If I try to attack I get evaded and then I'm fucked again. You have no idea how happy I was the one time I managed to get that reversal in though. =P

I've already watched it several times and it hasn't really helped me. I'm sure it makes sense to people who are already familiar with VF or other fighters but it's basically worthless to someone who's relatively new and can't pick-up on his own.

 

Yes, I dont know the frame data but it leaves you at a huge disadvantage on block. When you got that reversal i said "nice!" I understand you're frustrated as you want to get good at this game hell just a few days ago I thought about quitting I was so frustrated. But you just gotta stick with it. You're only a 9th dan and have 200 something games. You haven't even scratched the surface! Heed whats been said in here and just practice. Another thing you weren't do that's been mentioned is comboing as often as you could. Check out the top 10 move thread and the combo thread and practice in the dojo a bit but like someone said the real experience comes from playing someone else. Just don't become frustrated if you lose to someone with more experience, save the replay and see where you made mistakes and where you could have punished so the next time you see it you'll shut that shit down. You keep at it things will start to stick.

I like your attitude, hit me up when you want to play.


Here's a great video by Chibiaya, a player on here on how to properly use the dojo

 

Yes you can. You do not lack the ability. You lack the practice and experience. The only reason you "can't" is because you keep telling yourself you can't. The only limits that exist on you are the ones you've imposed upon yourself. So either you can and don't know how or you don't want to.

Virtua Fighter's replay option give you the option to look at different displays while the match is going on so you can use the Command display(the scroll) or Input display(the virtual joystick and buttons) to see what you did or what your opponent did. So you can actually go in and see exactly what happened both visually and physically. From there you can go into Free training and record and replay those situations and figure out what you could have done differently. You will have to actually record those situations on a dummy with the Record commands option, you can't transfer the replay data into training mode.

7 months is not a long time to playing any fighting game. How much time, in hours, do you think you've put in? Even if you are putting were putting in 8 hours a day of practice there are still lots of situations you haven't experienced.

Ah see you can figure stuff out. You've already figured out that flip kick can and should be punished on block or whiff. Now you need to go into training mode and figure out how to do that, try to figure out more way than one. The tutorial videos will explain exactly how do to that but if you turn on Detailed stats in the Display setting you will find out the flip kick is -26~-27. You can record the computer doing a flip kick with the Record commands function. Then practice punishing it, Akira has a ton of possible punishes 666P is a simple one that will work at range as well as up close but you should be looking for a combo starter to punish flip kick - something that will do more damage than the flip kick would have done on counter hit.

Don't just watch, participate, copy what the person is doing in the video.

As for a piece of advice...be more patient. You just stand there and throw out moves heedless of your opponents choices. Higher level players will punish you for whiffing moves in front or over them. Think about your choices and why you are making them.

 

I don't know about the rest of you, but when I was in college taking high level math, the books had no answers. We looked at the problem, tried to apply the proper formula to reach the conclusion that logically we should have had. Then we'd go to class the next day and ask the teacher for help/advice depending on what we had already discovered on our own.

If we asked the teacher a question without trying the problem beforehand, he would refuse to help us.

You should be doing the same. You clearly already know the "system" of the game (you've demonstrated that you know things can be punished at certain frames). Now you have to "go to the lab" and try it out.

You know that the flip kick is punishable because it's -27 frames? Go into the lab and try to punish it with moves that are within 27 frames (damn near all of them). Try to figure out on your own what works and what doesn't, then come back to the site and ask specific questions (what's the best punisher for X situation with Y frames of advantage, for instance). It'll be a lot easier to answer your questions and help you out if you gave a specific reason/question.

As for evading: the video that has been posted in this thread has a specific section on it that explains, in detail, what evade is and how to properly use it. Watch that, go to the lab and try to imitate it, if you are still confused about it, then ask questions.

Being a beginner to a fighting game is very difficult. A bit of direction and hand-holding is expected. There are top level players that visit this site and STILL have questions about certain things. It's going to happen. Yet, if you keep telling yourself "I can't figure it out", then you won't. Keep at it and keep trying, we are all here to help.

 

Did someone give you a vague description of math and then you figured it out all on your own? 2+2, 3x3, 5y=40, etc? Or did you get instruction from somewhere?

No, I heard it on the Evo stream because RIP, the Tekken player, kept using it despite it being so unsafe. But it kept working, so why not keep using it? And it led to the biggest upset at the event.

In seven months, I couldn't figure out a single one. I don't see how "turning on stats" is going to help alleviate that.

But you had a formula! I don't even have that and I can't seem to find one.

 

That video that's been posted is your "formula". What about the video, or anything that we've explained to you in this thread is confusing. Please, we really do want to help, but you have to give us more than "I just don't get it".

 

That's just it though: "I just don't get it."

I must have made hundreds of mistakes in those two videos: I don't know what a single one was. I don't understand what I did wrong, why it was wrong, or what I could've done instead.

"Just practice" means I'll continue playing like I do and continue to cement bad habits for the coming months because I'll never have anyone point out my mistakes. I've been practicing for seven months already and I'm not one bit better than I was in June.

 

incoming massive wall of text

I think this is an important question to ask newer players but I think it can be forgotten because those of us that do understand it utilize it so naturally.

grap3fruitman, do you understand how the input buffer works in this game? It's very different from every other fighter out there, as far as I know, in that at a basic level it allows you to perform every move available to you as a frame-perfect reversal (beginning the move on the first frame possible). This is why frames and such things simply matter more in VF than other titles, as there's less "wiggle room" and contextual situations compared to other games (especially 2D, which is full of contextual frame data, e.g. jump-in attacks).

I'll write up how the input buffer works if you have not read or been told about it before. It's not very complicated, but it is quite technical.

Akai, is there already a piece on the input buffer written for the wiki? Is the wiki already all written out, or is there more work to be done? I'd like to offer my writing services if there are still topics to be covered.

grap3fruitman, as far as your gameplay goes, there are countless ways to improve, but the biggest problem I felt I saw was a lack of playing consciously (Imma bold this just 'cause it's so important) and a lack of guarding. Throwing moves out from a distance (sometimes multiple times, sometimes the same move[!]), not hit checking, attacking as soon as you recover from being knocked down every fucking time, usually attacking when evaded, throwing from disadvantage, literally guarding only a couple of times each match - and I mean in a three out of five round game you would only guard a few times, usually attacking whenever you could - all of these things point towards a need to play more consciously.

Ironically, despite whiffing moves from too far away too often, you're good at whiff punishing and have a decent grasp of how good back dashing can be, and I think it would be easy for you to implement back dash-evades with a little practice, which will make your back dashes even more powerful when you aren't looking to attack out of them immediately. I do worry that you back dash so much because you don't know how to guard.

You might say this:

But I don't believe it. You might have read that information before, and you might even know it academically, but you're not playing it. That's why Krye posted the information in the first place. Tell me, have you read this thread?

Getting knocked down is a huge problem for you right now, because you tend to do the same thing afterwards every time; teching in-place and then attacking, and that's not considering all your options, nor is it a very good option in its own right. First, you have more options as you hit the ground, instead of always teching in-place, which is actually one of the worse ways to get up imo because it forces you to get up standing while having to deal with your opponent's okizeme (meaning you can't crouch throws immediately, though you can attack through them), and you aren't taking any tactical advantage tech rolling might offer you, as a way to get away from the edge of the ring or to force your opponent in that direction. You also might still be vulnerable to light down attacks if the opponent is close enough with the right advantage. Tech rolling is similar to teching in-place but allows you to move the fight axis and you can get up crouching or standing immediately. Your opponent will be unable to do any down attacks as well. There are other, more technical dangers from tech rolling, but the players you are playing will not be implementing these techniques. You could also allow yourself to stay on the ground longer and decide what to do from there. You offer the opponent the chance at a light down attack with this option, among other attacks that hit low enough if the opponent has enough advantage, but you can now get up with a mid or low rising attack, which will both leave you at advantage if they hit, or you can roll to the foreground or background or roll backwards. From any roll you can choose to allow yourself to just stand up, or you can do a mid or low rising attack. Beware of attacking from a backroll, as if blocked it is punishable at -16 or so, and be aware that you can be CH while trying a rising attack if the opponent begins their down attack first (you can't down attack someone once they start their rising attack, which is why you see people whiff midkicks over a knocked down body and then get hit in the face with a rising attack). Personally I find tech rolling to be my favorite ukemi choice as it avoids down attack damage, though I have to deal with whatever okizeme my opponent wants to throw at me. Others prefer staying down and back rolling for relative safety, and some like staying down and attacking with rising attacks, which will put you at -6 if blocked. -6 isn't necessarily a bad thing when the other option was to let your opponent have enough advantage to do anything they wanted.

However you get up after being knocked down, consider yourself at negative infinity advantage with the ability to block. Try getting up and just blocking (plus looking and reacting) as your go-to post-recovery choice for entire games at a time to practice getting into the habit, because it's a good one.

Here's a few notes I took (more like examples) from the first video:
First of all, you need to guard when you're not doing anything else.
3:00 Two high guard breaks, and a throw. These all beat high guard, but Sarah is low guarding this whole time, and either you don't know the answer to low guard or you're not paying attention. Btw, are you not guarding after these things whiff..? Because it looks like you aren't, and I don't understand why.
3:25 wtf
6:52 Sarah hits with KK, it's -3 on hit, you attack late and get CH. You go "Come on~!" and sound nonplussed with getting hit while trying to attack, even though you didn't attack as soon as you could (it wasn't lag's fault, I heard the button!). This makes me think you don't understand the buffer system. Do you think you should not have gotten hit here, or were you just upset at the choice you made? Can you tell that you didn't attack immediately? Because I didn't need the frame data to know that much.

bah no more writing
I just want to know why you attack after your previous attack was blocked so often
That's the real problem.


Also find/make an offline scene, you just need someone to sit down and explain this shit in person. Have you checked out Match Making?

 

Upon initial viewing I though it was cheap ass, but I had to change it to harsh when I thought about it. All's fair in love and VF, I guess, and it's not like I've never spammed anything .. ahem 2kk..

I'm not the original poster, but am on the receiving end of that flipkick just as often, and feel for him.