Yomi Innate or Nurtured?

So Slide and I have gentleman's arguments about Yomi and we decided to open it up to the forum to get some more opinions on the matter. We both think we're right and are entitled to our position so this isn't really to see who's right, it's just a nice discussion.

My position: Yomi is something that you learn over time and is trainable. How you train it is not my point, my point only is that it is learned over time based on how you think about the game. You don't just sit down at the game as a noob and have awesome yomi.

Slide position: Yomi is something everyone already has, man
everyone can play rock paper scissors right?
youre not training anything (taken from our IM convo with his permission)

So what does everyone else think? Try to keep flaming down because i'm sure this is going to spark some fire.

 

The way I see it is, the skills that separate players is how strong your correct choices are, how strong your punishment for incorrect choices are, how well you can minimize punishment for incorrect choices, and lastly, how fast you can recognize the situations where choices can be made.

Yomi itself is something everyone already has, it's innate, but that's not to say that it can't be changed or conditioned, because it can change. It's just like your personality.

 

I'd say it's innate and natured. I think everyone has it to some degree. The better players can make use of it to greater effect. The more they know about the VF System and the moves, the more space they could have in their active thinking capacity to ascertain what the opponent is doing in X number of situations.

So, brain power remaining equal, as basics become ingrained, the potential for yomi increases.

 

The brain hand handle 7+/-2 chunks of data at any given moment in your short term memory, so the bigger you can make those chunks the more stuff you can deal with. Like if you can deal with P/2P/6P CH/NH to Throw/mid as one big chunk that's 12 separate things you just condensed into 1 single chunk. Formally in psych terms what differentiates a novice from an expert is that the expert can think in bigger chunks than the novice can hence is able to deal with more things at the same time.

Saying something is innate imply that you can't get better at it. Saying it's trainable means that you can get better at it. There is a base level you start at but you can get better at it. Improvement means you in one form or another are nurturing the skill.

 

An expert may be able to think in bigger chunks than a novice, but HOW an expert and a novice deals with the actual data is something different entirely.

I can teach someone my differences between right and wrong, and teach someone what can from Yes, and what can come from No, but I can't teach them how to actually make that choice. I can just tell them that the choices are there, and they can learn that the choices are there, and train with those choices... but making those choices, that's still something different altogether.

 

I personally believe that yomi can be nurtured but in order
to make use of good yomi you need good execution. My 2 cents.

 

that requires them to be able to actually first realize that the choice is there then be able to make the choice in time or else the situation would have passed and hence no longer valid.

The only way to get better at that situation I mention above is through practice in recognition and reaction to situations. You said it yourself in your first post that people change in their ability to do this hence you get better with it over time.

 

My 2 Cents: my old signature about Yomi said: Yomi? Your Kidding Right? If you can Read a persons mind then nobody should ever defeat you. I guess Yomi must mean limited mind reading powers cause there a 3 to 1 chance to escape something if VF's based on Paper,Rock,Scissors OR GUESS WRONG (Reading one's mind does not involve guessing. With that being mentioned VF5 is after all about knowing whats coming instead of guessing.)

On that note i believe its natured.Im Saying that because your going to keep doing whats works until someone stops you from doing it. By then you you'll use plan b(If you have one.) enough to condition your opponent so that Plan A become useful again. I remember plague saying that Online gives the opponent 3 choices oppose to one offline during a Tech Roll to setup or stop your opponent and it bugged me out about the options.

 

Yomi is nurtured, and always wells from experience. Knowing exactly what is going on in given situation (requirement: know your opponents character as well as your own) and then calmly looking at opponents patterns and then predicting them and his timing.

You can also make educated guesses about opponents defense and offense if you know your opponent is well-versed in advanced techniques. (predicting a beginners moves is nearly impossible until you observe their patterns)

My 10 cents.

 

Well most things have been said already but here's my 2 cents.
First of all I think it's much much easier learning a new player VF if he has had some sort of fighting experience prior, whether it's tekken, 3s or what not - it helps. Learning to play fighting games in general is pretty much cumulative in that regard.

On the other hand, Yomi can pretty much be seen in some regards as pattern recognition. And this is something that people can be differently good at from the get go when playing a game, any game, as well as solving puzzles etc. Some people who lack in this department will probably never be able to be very good (although you can try to overcompensate in different areas). Pattern recognition doesn't mean much though if you don't have the tools (execution, know how to punish it) to capitalize on what you actually see.

The truth is of course that it's both innate and natured.

 

Here's a question to make it more interesting. Is Yomi more important while being offensive or defensive?

 

Its slighty more than 'just' pattern recognition imo. Its also predicting opponent ability to adapt to your own moves, and his choices. This could be called baiting, but there isnt much practical difference. As an example, if I hit akiras /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/d_.gif/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/f.gif/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/p.gif~/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/p.gif into block against my friend Chief Gutti. He is playing wolf and has figured out I can do and will do fuzzy guard often. So he thinks step ahead and next time tries a lowthrow. However, I predict this, and instead do the biggest hitting non-low move I can possibly do, like a standing double palm. You can predict all of this happening at some point, without ever actually going thru the patterns, such as me getting lowthrown. This is thinking ahead and predicting opponents choices also. I know my opponents options (low throw), and I know my own options (fuzzy guard) that lead to this, so all of this wells from experience. However, yomi is also predicting when exactly my opponent will change his pattern, and for that I have no formula.
Thats the mystic part ^^

Yomi can manifest itself in many simple ways, such as hitlevels, attacking with either mid or low attacks in okizeme and predicting what level opponent blocks, therefore connecting most of the attacks and resetting the situation to guessing game again.

tbh when I was younger, I thought too much ahead and assumed too much of my opponent, therefore often defeating myself in the process.

Later on I have tried to measure how many repeats do I need to do until opponent adapts and defends correctly. There are some who adapt after 1 repeat, and some that eat it all night long. /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif

ps. Maybe Im again thinking too much about all this ^^

 

Well what your refering to is just adapting to what your opponent
is doing as Myke said more or less. You get better at determining
what players do with more experience in play. No matter how
original you may think your "style" is a highly experienced
player probably has dealt with your style before. When I say
style I mean your set of gaming tendencies for example:

Does he tend to 2P as small disadvantage

Does he evade a lot at small disadvantage

After crouch dash backwards does he tend to immediately
mid/boxstep or delay attack.

Does he backdash at all or prefer to block?

At small advantage does he elbow?

At small advantage does he delay?

Generally most people have patterns, yomi is the ability to
see these quickly. Often this doesn't occur until at least
the 2nd round; however people with good recognition can find
these patterns right away.

That's why when I play the likes of Konjou, Denkai, or Jerky
(basically highly experienced VF players) I know that I probably have 3 games max, before I have to reanalyze what I'm doing or
get systematically crushed.

Like I know these are things I do that gets me into a lot of
trouble:

Back dashing once I get up
2P at small disadvantage
Delaying lots of my attacks (IE delay knee)
Crouch defense after an enemy successfully evades my attack.
Leading with a single jab.

Now alone these things aren't horrible but someone that can
identify these things early on will seem to be reading my mind.
Like say when I play PompeyFraz:

He will do some elbow class attack, jab<Throw.
If you stop jab he'll jab elbow, 2p at small disadvantage
Rising he will almost always double palm or block high.
Generally never rolls sideways

Not to pick on Pompey but there's other Akiras out there
that do the exact same thing that I can pinpoint just from
experience and notice right away.

 

I think this question is nearly impossible to answer. It seems easy, and it seems obvious. But there is no way to seperate the blank slate from the written tablet. We are all constantly growing and evolving as fighters, and absorbing more and more of other charactars strategies and styles as we go. Yomi is pointless when you are starting, b/c you know niether your nor your opponents moves or best combo choices. As you get better you grow in your own abilities, and then as you become more experienced you grow in your ability to recognize what opponent using charactar X will want to do. Then as you grow even better you learn how to best punish what.

 

haha, wtf has yomi got to do with combos?!

 

You are a fucking moron. You don't need Yomi in VF5. You just need to establish 2 ingredients.

1) Is your opponent competent or a noob?
2) It doesn't matter what he is... just HATE his spamming ass and PWN him.

You guys are idiots thinking about Yomi this and Yomi that... If you have time to think about Yomi then think about this and ask yourself one question.

Why do I suck so bad?

 

buwahahahaa PWNED

erm, i mean, please play nicely! Do unto others! Keep on topic!

 

I'm saying, "having" yomi is innate, "being good at" yomi, is nurtured.

Thanks for clarifying, the RPS comment was made based on the rules already being known.

I agree with that part about my ability to read and adapt has improved since the day I started playing. However, my decision making was always there, it's just now I'm more quickly aware that I have the choice.

It's just like if you teach a kid about drugs. You can tell them and explain to them what happens when they do it, and what happens when they say no. You can also explain to them various ways that it can be presented to them, and many different forms of pressure to convince them. That's all you can do, it's their decision alone to say Yes or No, when the choice arises. The only thing you'd have is influence, or conditioning, it's still their decision and choice.

You can nurture their choice, but them actually having the choice is something they've always had.

You can improve your yomi, even change it, but yomi was already there.

We all have the ability to read, even if some can't or don't, or even choice not to. You can also improve it, and make it better.
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You know what? I think I've lost my point, and I'm not making much sense anymore. So I should probably just let the issue marinate.

 

The HATE is STRONG with this one! /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/mad.gif

He embraces the DARKNESS side! /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/cool.gif