Transition from SC5

Hello everyone im coming from SC5 and i cant understand the fighting method of virtua :S, I mean in SC5 I use yoshi and i love to play in a VERY agressive straight forward way with risky mixups and dominating my opponent on the ground, but here on virtua i dont have any idea how to do that :S, once my oponent is on the ground i feel more focused on the wake up mixup he can do between K and 2K than on my own offensive options, i feel i cant do anything :S
Thanks for your time

 

Very basically: if sou use some strong jumping attack and time it properly, you will
1) go over 2K of your opponent
2) clash with K of your opponent, but win the tie/tie situation due to stronger move

the timing is damn tricky, but it can be done and it is superefective

 

yeah but i cant force a error with my mixup because the big invencibility window that my opponent has, the jump attack is VERY risky too a small error performing the move and BAM launcher and -1/2 health bar, not to mention that a K well placed for my opponent would hit me too :S

 

If you're coming from SC5 and are new to Virtua, a good place to start would be the Tutorial, and the License Challenges. There will be plenty of time to employ your "aggressive risky mixups and dominating" after you've got the basics of the gameplay down.

Question: Have you been in ranked mode yet?

 

i have done the tutorial a few times and have done all the command training of all charecters, i wouldnt post my question if not...
and yes i have been in ranked like 5-6 hours and still dont get used to the game besaids, i have played in license challenge a lot
PD: It looks like you think that im another noob loving to complain about the game without even look the tutorial... and no, im not that kind of guy

 

It it not that bad, it is all about timing and little yomi
Also,jumping attack does not necessary mean . If you play Lion for example, is fast, ful circular and somehow safe on block, so the risk is damn minimal.
There are attack more or less like this available for every character in the game.
Also, you actually CAN force an error. Baiting rising kick into punishment (from jumping attack, or from backdash / long range attack) is one way how to force error. Other is once your opponent will learn to not kick but just stand up and block, you will throw him or knock him down with low attack. Lion is especially good in this kind of fighting.

VF is designed in such way you can answer to everything your opponent pulls out and rising kicks are not exception. It is not about "it can not be done" or "it is damn risky," it is more about "know how to do it"

ofc it will not. If you clash with his rising kick, your move will win due to higher dmg, so you will be 110 % safe.

 

thanks all for the replys and advices im going to try them all because as i said the transition between virtua and calibur okizeme is HUGE xD
I maybe try goh for his grounded throws and see how he works, i watched videos of high level play yesterday trying to solve my doubts and no xD, I ended more confused.
Im gonna try those "tricks", thanks again
btw i never say it cant be done, i know there is always something you can do but the thing is that i didnt have any idea xD that is why i asked here, not to complain (virtua is amazing)

 

I haven't played SC5 but there no dominating them on the ground in VF. What you do have is okizeme. Which is the mind games you can play as your opponant is getting up. A very basic example is as follows:

Stand in range of rising kick>anticipate rising kick,back dash>rising kick whiffs>punish,optimally with a launcher

You can use k cancel (not every character has this) to bait whiff or you jump back and then follow that with a lunging move or wait to see what they do after jumping and choose an option. If they decided to mash a string then you get a free launcher.

VF is all mindgames and it IS possible to play fast and aggressive with risky mix ups but it's not SC5.

It's half circ actually, just looks full circ.

 

Thx for noting, never realize it can be evaded.
...
So much for the fact my sparring partner I was playing with from VF2 till VF5 times was maining Lion

 

I feel your pain, spent 2-3 years mastering SC4 then went to SC5. Not happy with the introduction of super moves in SC5 and not liking Tekken I figured I would give VF5 a look.

Keep losing to what I can only describe as scrub tactics or what at least feel like scrub tactics. Having someone break a majority of your combos with a crouching punch then slide into a combo that stuns or a grab over and over again ends up making me want to smash my pad over their head.

Then you've got the evade game that seems to work wonders for everyone who does it against you yet when you try it, it feels less effective and the risk feels like it outweighs the reward.

I've actually stopped playing it for now as it was beginning to annoy me that much. Decided to main Akira and its like where the hell are my counters to step? Feels like he has a single move to counter step that isn't that effective.

Maybe I'll come back to it when the 'i'll do whatever it takes to win' attitude of many ranked players can be avoided by finding player matches/rooms on a consistent basis.

 

I think people usually say that Akira is very linear, so his best option against evaders is to use delayed attacks.
Everyone else should have more circular and half-circular attacks, so there is less need to delay attacks.

Against 2P scrubs who interrupt all your strings, you kinda have no choice but to play a very basic and extremely boring and unsatisfying game... They usually don't respect frames, so if you have a quick mid attack, you can spam that one move for quite a while because it will probably CH them 6-10 times before they start blocking. After that they will use a good attack string on you, and if you block it successfully, you hit them with your quick mid attack 10 times again.

 

/ are awesome half circular mids covering both front/back with awesome properties.
Akiras circular game may not be as good as what Lion have, but it is still damn frightening.

 

Your frustrations are outlining some of the strong differences in the flow between the games. I'm not a SCV player though, so I can't comment on Soul Calibur's flow but I'll at least post my impression.

In Virtua Fighter, you pretty much first need to learn how to poke and deal with poking. This game is pretty much turn-based and the initiative (the right and advantage to attack) is exchanged every 1-2 moves. Remember, One-to-Two Moves!

Technically, a combo is something that cannot be broken (and this is true in VF and Soul Calibur).

That said, what might be happening is that you're trying to pressure your opponents with strings or sequences of attacks--and that works in almost all fighting games, but in VF--that sort of pressure is never guaranteed pressure and strings are vulnerable to low punch in general.

Where many fighters give you tools to make pressuring your opponent easier, Virtua Fighter gives everyone options to deal with all situations in the game. What this means is, there's always an answer for a situation and this exists because defense in this game is strong. Offense is very important in VF, but mindgames actually happen on even the basic poke level.

How to improve, and to understand what your opponent is doing: In VF, your safest pressure is in your single safe attacks or small parts of strings. If you get too aggressive, you will be vulnerable. VF is a turn-based game, and you'll have to learn when it is your turn to attack in this game. VF is also, like other fighters, a game with strong combos--but you have to learn how to setup those combos. Strings and attack sequences are not combos.

Here are common beginner playstyles and how to beat them.

Level 1: String Masher
String mashers can vary from players who are really good at other fighters (especially soul calibur even) to new players to VF entirely. Bottom line is they found the attack strings in the game and rely on them heavily. The problem is, strings in VF are limited in how they pressure opponents and almost all strings have enough high attacks for an opponent to low punch.

Typical way to beat a Level 1 String Masher is to low punch their attack strings and watch what they do next:

* If they block right away, they probably understand the VF flow but just don't know many moves yet. In this case, play a bit more conservatively with safe pokes and maybe a few combos that initiate from counter hit. If you get a sense that they are blocking at least 3 out of 4 times in the first round, you can start applying throws to them when you anticipate the block. However, the blocker is rare among these types.

* If they keep attacking even though you low punched them, you have struck gold--proceed to do a launcher when you interrupt them with a low punch (when you get a yellow flash). On normal hits, keep it safe and poke. If they start blocking, start to show a bit more respect and throw if they don't stop blocking.

Level 2: Low Punch Masher
This type of player is the guy who found out that low punch can be really strong, and so either out of frustration or because he really believes it, he tends to just sit on the ground mashing low punch hoping he runs into the weakest form of Level 1: String Masher. Level 2 really doesn't do anything else except mash low punch. He is actually very easy to deal with, and because we are talking about beginners here, I will cover the conventional way to beat this guy (there are hard-counter ways, but only relying on that will get you killed at higher levels of play, conventional play will allow you to survive later on).

* If you are at sidekick or just barely elbow range, you can try to hit him with either of those attacks, but the timing takes awhile for beginners to get used to. It's good to practice this. It's also better to master the next approach.

* Learn to "block & attack" and this leads to VF's most basic flowchart/mindgame. Get yourself in position to block your opponent's low punch (one way is to crouch dash forward and guard quick enough to get the block, this will be a valuable technique for you in the future).

* Once you block the low punch, before you recover, input your elbow class attack (6P for most characters, 3P+K for wolf, 66P for Akira).

* The mindgames start here, and here's how that works:
- If your elbow class attack hits your opponent with a yellow flash (counter hit) do another elbow class attack or low punch, and you'll keep beating him if he keeps attacking (if he doesn't block). If you are very confident he'll keep trying to attack into your advantage, then you can do a launcher if you interrupt him with a low punch.
- If your elbow class attack does a normal hit against your opponent, do a low punch. If the low punch hits, do an elbow class attack again.
- If he blocks you after you block his low punch, he's no mere masher. You should (must) defend. Your elbow class attack is safe when it is blocked though, but you must defend right away. That said, when your opponent has proven he will block after getting his low punch block, you now have the option of throwing him after you block the low punch. This is generally the first mindgame of VF.

In VF, you have to build up your attacks (and respect your opponent's turn to attack)
Virtua Fighter is a game where you have to build up your attacks from advantages. It is a game that is best learned fighting toe-to-toe, but spacing really exists in this game but at some point, your opponents won't open themselves very much to attack--so it may require precision offense & defense to crack them.

Many other fighters are built on taking long turns of safe pressure strings and a series of attack until I just can't do that safely anymore, so then it becomes my opponent's turn and he does the same. Basically something like:
Me: Pressure pressure pressure pressure, oh I can't pressure anymore... Opponent's turn: pressure pressure pressure, oh, he can't pressure anymore.... repeat until someone makes a mistake or the defender was able to hard guess and beat a vulnerable part of the pressure.

Virtua Fighter does not operate like this very much. Virtua Fighter is pretty strict about: "When I succeed (hit or block), I get to attack. When I fail (I got hit, I got blocked, or I whiffed), I better defend right away." and you take turns with that. The game gets really good with its own unique flow, but the reason people keep talking about mindgames in the VF system is because you're making decisions roughly every 1-2 attacks--not after long series of pressure.

The only way I apply long pressure on my opponent in VF, is if I outguess him those 4+ moves in a row. Not always easy to do, but very rewarding.

Hope this helps give a better sense of SC5 vs. VF, imo, it's a topic worth going over again and again though.

 

On Evades
It is easy to misuse evades in Virtua Fighter because they are designed differently (since VF4) from other 3d fighters.

In VF, the evades are mainly designed to be a defensive maneuver. We can discuss Offensive Move later, but it's designed to be an advanced maneuver technique--but that's all I'll say about OM here.

What do I mean by "designed to be a defensive maneuver?"

Notice how you get crappy evade if you perform the evade when the opponent doesn't do anything. And then notice how the good evade happens when the opponent is already in the middle of execution.

The implication here, at least at the general level, is that evades should be done when you are at a disadvantage--they should be buffered before your character recovers (ie. Frame Trapped).

You should not try to evade someone prematurely, you should not do it on mere guessing and timing.

When someone blocks your attack, you'll be at a disadvantage most of the time, and it is likely that they will quickly attack you right away. You can evade at this time, because your evade will happen later (you are at disadvantage, your actions will happen a few frames later than your opponent's if both of you buffer your next action right away) and will likely happen while your opponent's attack is executing.

I low Punch
--> Opponent Blocks (so if we both attacked right away, my attack will start 5 frames later than his)
--> He buffers f+P elbow right away (before his blockstun ends)
--> I know that my attack will lose to his elbow, so I buffer an evade (while my low punch is recovering).
--> 5 frames into his attack, my character recovers and evades, he is in the middle of his attack when I evade, his attack is not circular and not hitting in my evade direction, so my evade succeeds.

This is how the normal evade system works. Later you'll find ways to frame trap yourself to increase the chance that an evade will work, but you really shouldn't use evades in this game "just because." You should clearly have a goal in mind when using them, and they should only be done when they'll actually work. They are also more like KOF evades than anything, they are not Namco sidesteps.

 

Caseh & Spartan_Rambo:

I'm a long time SC player (Alpha Pat mod on 8wr), but VF was actually the first 3D game I seriously learned the system of. Some general tips to address your issues...

Caseh:

Throw. Throwing beats step, so that's something to bear in mind. Also, if you're getting 2P'd out of stuff, just learn to make solid frame traps. Also, unlike SC, evades in VF only work if started during the animation of an opponents attack. That is, if you are at +2, and buffer an evade, your evade will fail automatically, and the opponent's attack will connect with your side-step. Conversely, if you are at -2, and the opponent attacks immediately, your buffered evade will succeed, and you can launch a counter attack appropriate to the recovery of their move.

Spartan_Rambo:
Also, consider that vs. some characters, you can actually just jump right over them, and land behind them for a back turned mix up. This doesn't work vs. all rising attacks (some characters are fully circular in certain knockdown positions, covering 360 degrees). However, some rising attacks are linear, or semi-circular, allowing you to evade them altogether, and launch a counter attack from behind. Generally, however (I also play Yoshi), you're just going to have to come to grips with the fact that with fewer attacks hitting grounded in this game, Oki functions very differently.

@Both of you:

I understand there are frustrations in transitioning to an unfamiliar game, but as a player who has extensively played both series, I will say that VF is hands down the better game. The system takes time to adapt to, and is very unlike Namco games (in spite of superficial similarities). However, if you manage to adapt, I promise you both that you will find the pursuit very rewarding, and enjoy hours and hours of fun.

VF balance >>>>>>>>>>>>> SC balance.

 

Chanchai, that post was a wonderful masterpiece. I was going to respond to several of the more technical complaints but there is nothing for me add. Post of the year, and it should be required reading on VFDC.

I started playing VF before I started playing Soul Calibur. But I have been play both for a long time SC2 and VF4(vanilla). I would sum up the basic philosophical differences as...

Soul Calibur = I have to kill my opponent.
Virtua Fighter = I have to stop my opponent from killing me.

When I play someone who is much better than me at Soul Calibur I feel like I never have an opportunity to try. It's one long string of punishment and I die at the end, having never had control of my character.

When I play someone who is much better than I am at Virtua Fighter I feel like nothing works. I try and try but my opponent seems to have perfect defense and everything I do opens me up for punishment.

But the difference is with VF I feel that I am the one in control, even when I am losing. If only I could make better decisions, I could win and I can feel it, even against the highest opponents. With Soul Calibur a losing match is a constant struggle just to regain control of the character; it's like one long trap.

It seems to me like SpartanRambo is upset over not being able to put people in that continuous trap. As Chanchai said the defense in VF is so strong that both players have at least 4 or 5 options even when one of them is laying flat on his back. Its a far cry from the tech-trap in Soul Calibur. But that is why I like VF. I guess it takes all types to make the world go round.

 

THANKS to all of you i think this post would be great in new starter section because many of VF players come from SC or tekken and those games are a completely jokes in terms of risk reward is like im astaroth and: look at THAT!!!!!! a wall!!! yessss, and i have a bar...PUM PUM PUM wall PUM wall -160 of health bar astaroth wins perfect!!! and im not saying it cannot be evaded what i mean is that the throws can be used as pokes without restriction because if they duck is mixup time. and as you guys say the strings can be long as hell. and certain starters can be done without ANY restriction ejem ejem alpha 1B.
The thing i try to say is virtua is far better than other 3D fighting with perfect risk reward but the biggest problem with the game is the flow of the fight, it fells "slow" for a noob, not being slow at all and thing like okizeme feels weird here and the transition maybe is more difficult than for a new starter, is like you say use the frame traps wisely, use pokes instead of launchers, respect the oponent turn...etc etc etc virtua is not a starters fest where you see your charecter bouncing and flying like a combo movie, for example in SC i have lost agains the typical mitsu noob mashing 4B and 236B mixed with 2K and thats something that bothers me sooooo much, so if you are looking the forum and takin a look to this post i can say that this is a honest fighting game, no more launchers spamming no more throws as pokes no more metter (lol) etc

 

Maybe you are starting out with a character that is too difficult. There used to be list somewhere on the site that rated the characters according to their difficulty. Akira, for instance, is designed to be a more difficult character who gives a feeling of accomplishment to players who master him. On the hand the character that I use, Pai, is designed to be an easier character who is more suitable for beginners.

However, it has been my experience that there is enough depth in VF that it takes years to master ANY character in VF. So if you pick a so-called easier character, you still are not going to be rage-stomping people who put in more time.

 

I will say that VF is a very fast game, but in a different way from the other fighters.

It feels slow as you are starting out, the game gets much faster the better both players are. Well, it can be fast for the strong guy blowing over the new guy like a freight-train, but at high level play it gets faster.

Trust me, the sooner you get into the flow, the more experience you get with the game, THE MORE OPTIONS open up. In addition to the basic toolbox (High Punch, Low Punch, Elbow, Throw, Low Poke, Mid-range attack), you will probably use a different toolbox depending on your opponent.

The exchanges will be very fast once both players understand whose turn it is and especially when they figure out how to steal turns. The spacing game will usually get a bit tighter too, with razor thin-margins (at least offline ).

VF's not a slow game, unless you're just looking at one half of the field (the guy attacking). Taken as a whole, when you consider how many decisions are being made over time, you'll see VF is fast and better players respond right away.