I remember when I started doing my undergrad in Computer Science, I was a sight-typist, and would use only the first two fingers and thumb of each hand. In spite of this, I could bang the keys pretty hard, and hit a fairly respectable WPM rate, even amongst my fellow computer science nerds.
In spite of my typing speed, I eventually decided it was ridiculous that I needed to lock my eyes to the keyboard when I was typing, and that it was time to learn how to type properly. I downloaded Mavis Beacon, and I played that stupid racing game (where your car goes faster the better you type) until my fingers were sore and I was shouting in frustration because I kept hitting the damn semi-colon. I'd been typing the same way since I was about 6. I'd developed a lot of bad habits, and it took a long time to break most of them.
A lot of the time, I would be talking to my friends on MSN, and making a real effort to type correctly. Roughly 70 times a message, I would be tempted to go back to my old way of typing, and blast out the message and the speed I knew I was capable of. But I didn't, because I knew that if I did, I would be cheating the learning curve and would continue to maintain those bad habits.
The real question is: What the hell does this have to do with VF5? A lot it turns out. I started playing the game about three months ago. I read through the forums and moveslist at VFDC, and I saw mention of things like TEG, fuzzy guarding, etc. and mostly ignored them. I'm too much of a beginner to pursue advanced concepts like that. This was a fair approach, I think. You need to learn to walk before you can run. As I progressed though, I never returned to those tutorials, and learned my own bad habits. As I've already mentioned once before, evading is my big crutch.
Learning to properly defend, fuzzy, and apply throw escapes, is analogous to me learning how to type correctly. In the past two days, there have been countless matches where I've wanted to do nothing more than evade. Instead, I attempt to stand my ground, and I either get thrown, or combo'd across the screen. I'm an 8th dan in ranked, which isn't great, but it's not bad either. Last night I was losing to people ranked 1st dan. They weren't playing great, I was just out of my element. I desperately wanted to revert to my old ways and just start evading around the ring and pummeling them so that I could heal my hurt ego. But what's more important? Healing my ego, or learning to play the way I really want to? The answer for me is obvious. Maybe for you it will be different.
The moral here is that as discouraging as it can be to try and learn something new, have patience with yourself, and remind yourself that it's natural that you are going to have to re-learn how to beat the people that in the past you would have defeated with ease. Remind yourself that if it didn't require effort, it probably wouldn't be worth it. More details as I continue to progress (or stagnate indefinitely).
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Learning to play defensively
I've been very fortunate lately to get help from some excellent players. Both Chief Flash and KaminariOyaji have been giving me advice that has been very valuable. I've come to the conclusion that while my offense is reasonably strong (though far from fantastic), my defense is very weak.
The first problem that I've identified is that I rely on evading far too often. Ridiculously so. Playing Kaminari last night, he noticed that I was evading barely a quarter of his moves, and spending most of the time doing failed evades. I've been able to get away with this against weaker players, as they will typically do fast linear moves that execute before they have time to track my failed evade, but as I climb up the ranking ladder, the better players are identifying this and capitalizing on my weakness.
Delayed attacks, throws, and circular strikes are all excellent ways to punish this kind of playing. Typically, by overwhelming my opponents with offense, I'm able to get away with a weak defense, and by evading in this manner, I've been able to reset the advantage back to my side and start my offense again. It makes for a nice long continuous string of attacks that weaker players have a lot of trouble breaking through. However, now that I'm having this weakness exposed by better players, it's making it all the more obvious how poor my defensive skills are.
Chief Flash has been very generous in answering my slew of questions related to timing, fuzzy guarding, evading, throw escapes, and every other aspect of defense that you can think about. This has all been very helpful, but the real challenge now begins, as I have to start putting the theory into practice. This is damn hard. On the squash court, it's always understood that you have to take time to drill in a new technique before you can actually put it to use in your games. Virtua Fighter is no different, as I find myself shouting at the top of my lungs at my TV "STOP EVADING YOU MORON", but without any change in gameplay (I typically evade immediately after I shout this, creating an infinite loop and tearing the fabric of space-time). As you can imagine, this process if extremely frustrating.
Being able to play defensively as well as offensively is obviously extremely important. As I'm humbly discovering, pure offense will only take you so far. It was while playing Kaminari last night that he gave me the best theoretical advice I've ever received (Flash has been pumping me with the best technical advice). This advice was as follows: When you play defensively, and are able to prevent your opponent from breaking through, you start to break down their mental toughness. The less damage they are able to do, the more they will start to revert to their basic line of play, and their basic game. This is where you start to see a lot of 2P, evades (me), and other basics of the game coming into play. This is the point where you can start to learn how they will react in a given situation, and adjust your gameplay as is warranted.
Maybe this doesn't sound like much, but this was the piece of information that pulled everything together for me. It was all so clear now. Of course that is what will happen, but why had I never thought about it that way? In this manner, your defense can become your best offense, much like I'd been relying on my strong offense as my best defense. It's cliche, but it's all about that yin-yang.
So, how am I putting this idea into practice? Poorly. Haw haw haw. But seriously, the first step is to pick one move that I use a lot, and really really REALLY focus hard on doing the correct defensive technique after that. For me, this is Brad's PPK string.
I like PPK with Brad because it's generally free damage, and it has a small amount of frame disadvantage on hit. This string is two quick highs, followed up with a low kick. The two highs start with Brad's jab, which is 12 frames, and the low kick is almost never blocked. Additionally, you can go into Brad's movement from PP, which means that most people prefer to block high after the first two punches, fearing the mid-game mix-up that Brad can go into from his stances.
After the kick in this string hits, Brad is at -5 disadvantage. This means that I have enough time to fuzzy guard, without the added complexity of needing a crouch dash (which becomes necessary at -6).
So, how has all of this been going? Well, I'm still getting frustrated, but I'm slowly getting there. Playing UKDiddy today (great Akira!), I managed to start training myself to shout less, and actually fuzzy after this string connects. This opened the door for me to block his response, and then respond with one of my own. I can still reset the situation and begin my offense again, but this time I'm doing it with effective blocking, rather than evading haphazardly.
I've got one other secret weapon for improvement, and I will impart that now. The secret is... I ask for advice after every match. Different players will always see different aspects of your game that they notice and learn to take advantage of.
Sometimes you get responses from people that sucks: "Win more games".
Sometimes you get advice that is accurate, but not very helpful: "Use better yomi". This is fair, better yomi will always help, but it's not a very easy item to put into practice.
More often than not, you'll get very helpful advice: "Don't evade so much", "Fuzzy guard more often", and "Learn to play defensively, MORON" (that last one if my own advice to myself).
Don't be afraid to swallow your pride, regardless of how well your opponent played, and send them a "GGs, thanks. Any advice?". Sometimes it can be hard hearing about your own flaws, but it's the only way to continue improving. Listen to the advice, use Dojo, then Quest mode, then Player games, and lastly Ranked games, to put the advice into practice.
The first problem that I've identified is that I rely on evading far too often. Ridiculously so. Playing Kaminari last night, he noticed that I was evading barely a quarter of his moves, and spending most of the time doing failed evades. I've been able to get away with this against weaker players, as they will typically do fast linear moves that execute before they have time to track my failed evade, but as I climb up the ranking ladder, the better players are identifying this and capitalizing on my weakness.
Delayed attacks, throws, and circular strikes are all excellent ways to punish this kind of playing. Typically, by overwhelming my opponents with offense, I'm able to get away with a weak defense, and by evading in this manner, I've been able to reset the advantage back to my side and start my offense again. It makes for a nice long continuous string of attacks that weaker players have a lot of trouble breaking through. However, now that I'm having this weakness exposed by better players, it's making it all the more obvious how poor my defensive skills are.
Chief Flash has been very generous in answering my slew of questions related to timing, fuzzy guarding, evading, throw escapes, and every other aspect of defense that you can think about. This has all been very helpful, but the real challenge now begins, as I have to start putting the theory into practice. This is damn hard. On the squash court, it's always understood that you have to take time to drill in a new technique before you can actually put it to use in your games. Virtua Fighter is no different, as I find myself shouting at the top of my lungs at my TV "STOP EVADING YOU MORON", but without any change in gameplay (I typically evade immediately after I shout this, creating an infinite loop and tearing the fabric of space-time). As you can imagine, this process if extremely frustrating.
Being able to play defensively as well as offensively is obviously extremely important. As I'm humbly discovering, pure offense will only take you so far. It was while playing Kaminari last night that he gave me the best theoretical advice I've ever received (Flash has been pumping me with the best technical advice). This advice was as follows: When you play defensively, and are able to prevent your opponent from breaking through, you start to break down their mental toughness. The less damage they are able to do, the more they will start to revert to their basic line of play, and their basic game. This is where you start to see a lot of 2P, evades (me), and other basics of the game coming into play. This is the point where you can start to learn how they will react in a given situation, and adjust your gameplay as is warranted.
Maybe this doesn't sound like much, but this was the piece of information that pulled everything together for me. It was all so clear now. Of course that is what will happen, but why had I never thought about it that way? In this manner, your defense can become your best offense, much like I'd been relying on my strong offense as my best defense. It's cliche, but it's all about that yin-yang.
So, how am I putting this idea into practice? Poorly. Haw haw haw. But seriously, the first step is to pick one move that I use a lot, and really really REALLY focus hard on doing the correct defensive technique after that. For me, this is Brad's PPK string.
I like PPK with Brad because it's generally free damage, and it has a small amount of frame disadvantage on hit. This string is two quick highs, followed up with a low kick. The two highs start with Brad's jab, which is 12 frames, and the low kick is almost never blocked. Additionally, you can go into Brad's movement from PP, which means that most people prefer to block high after the first two punches, fearing the mid-game mix-up that Brad can go into from his stances.
After the kick in this string hits, Brad is at -5 disadvantage. This means that I have enough time to fuzzy guard, without the added complexity of needing a crouch dash (which becomes necessary at -6).
So, how has all of this been going? Well, I'm still getting frustrated, but I'm slowly getting there. Playing UKDiddy today (great Akira!), I managed to start training myself to shout less, and actually fuzzy after this string connects. This opened the door for me to block his response, and then respond with one of my own. I can still reset the situation and begin my offense again, but this time I'm doing it with effective blocking, rather than evading haphazardly.
I've got one other secret weapon for improvement, and I will impart that now. The secret is... I ask for advice after every match. Different players will always see different aspects of your game that they notice and learn to take advantage of.
Sometimes you get responses from people that sucks: "Win more games".
Sometimes you get advice that is accurate, but not very helpful: "Use better yomi". This is fair, better yomi will always help, but it's not a very easy item to put into practice.
More often than not, you'll get very helpful advice: "Don't evade so much", "Fuzzy guard more often", and "Learn to play defensively, MORON" (that last one if my own advice to myself).
Don't be afraid to swallow your pride, regardless of how well your opponent played, and send them a "GGs, thanks. Any advice?". Sometimes it can be hard hearing about your own flaws, but it's the only way to continue improving. Listen to the advice, use Dojo, then Quest mode, then Player games, and lastly Ranked games, to put the advice into practice.
Friday, August 22, 2008
First post (ish)
Okay. This is the inaugural first post of this blog, after, obviously, the intro post. Since this is the first post, it makes sense that I would dedicate this to a significant aspect of Brad that I have learned as I have practiced. I should dedicate this to one move of Brad's that I use in every match, regardless of the skill level of the opponent, the way I'm playing, or anything else. So, let's do that.
The move? 2P. That's right. Ducking punch. I can already hear people screaming "Spammer" and "Scrub" at their computer monitors as they read this. That's fine. If you want to continue to improve, the first thing you need to do is ignore those people. 2P is an important move. There's a reason it always shows up in every characters top 10 moves list. Let's start to get into how this move is useful for Brad.
Let's look at three areas this move is good at.
Lastly, as I said initially, don't let people convince you that 2P is only for scrubs. Play the game to win, not to be stylish. If your opponent has trouble dealing with ducking jabs, that's his problem, not yours. Every time you get sent a message after you've won that says something like this:
Treat it as a compliment to your ability to win. That's great that the opponent prefers to play people that aren't boring, but we're here to win, not to be flashy.
Okay, it's out of the way. I won't mention 2P after this, except incidentally. Now it's time to start getting specific to Brad.
The move? 2P. That's right. Ducking punch. I can already hear people screaming "Spammer" and "Scrub" at their computer monitors as they read this. That's fine. If you want to continue to improve, the first thing you need to do is ignore those people. 2P is an important move. There's a reason it always shows up in every characters top 10 moves list. Let's start to get into how this move is useful for Brad.
Let's look at three areas this move is good at.
- Maintaining Momentum
- Defense and rhythm
- Placeholder
Brad excels in a few areas. He can keep the momentum up at a very rapid pace, and force the opponent to constantly make awkward decisions. He can overwhelm the opponent's focus, mentally, by constantly switching back and forth between stances. Unlike Lei Fei, who needs to commit to one of his many stances, do a move sequence, and then move into his next (ignore the fact for now that Lei can also switch manually back and forth - this is slow and tangential to what I'm talking baout) stance very quickly. Just when the opponent thinks that you've switched into a stance and there is a window of delay, POW. You nail them with a head crumple from Brad's Slipping Left and deftly remove a third of their life bar.
Where does 2P fit into all of this? Part of establishing and maintaining good momentum is disguising from your opponent the places where they can interupt your rhythm. Every character has these places, and the better opponents know where these windows are, and punish accordingly. 2P provides a way to break these windows apart, and make them even smaller.
Maintain your advantage and the pressure on the opponent by sticking in a 2P and keeping your advantage before carrying on with more shenanigans. Lead the opponent to believe that they've got an opening to hit you, counter-hit them with your 2P, and then go back into your offense now that you've recaptured the momentum.
One of the things that has always struck me about fighting games is that everyone plays to a certain rhythm. One of the key things I've found has helped me to beat people is to understand their rhythm, and figure out how to break them out of it. Sometimes this just means playing slower (honestly. Some people HATE playing a slower game, and will start to get reckless). Sometimes this means playing fast and in their face. Sometimes this means doing odd things. 2P is an excellent way to break an opponent out of their rhythm, and reset the flow and pace of the round.
This does not mean that you should throw out 2P constantly, nor that you use it without thinking about it. Always attempt to play intelligently. If you've noticed that the opponent often uses their PPP string, wait until you have blocked those three punches, and then throw out your 2P. Reset their rhythm, and throw them off balance. Sometimes it's worth doing this just to see how the opponent deals with the move. Did they block after you hit them? Did they attack again? (if so, next time, try throwing out 2P, followed by 2P). Don't treat 2P as a mindless attack to spam. Treat it as a way of looking into the mind of your opponent.
The last use of 2P is as a placeholder. When you don't know what you should do, but you have the advantage, throw out a 2P. One of the styles of dance (locking) that I practice has a technique called pacing. This is essentially your basic movement, and is what you do when you're not sure what to do. It's essentially movement for the sake of movement. Use 2P in this manner. Again, any locker that did nothing but pace all night would be boring to watch, and would get schooled by someone with skill. The same is the case with 2P. Use it intelligently, and let it be a way of showing your opponent that even though you don't yet know how you want to respond to that delayed rising kick you just blocked, you're still going to get some guaranteed damage from them.
Lastly, as I said initially, don't let people convince you that 2P is only for scrubs. Play the game to win, not to be stylish. If your opponent has trouble dealing with ducking jabs, that's his problem, not yours. Every time you get sent a message after you've won that says something like this:
Wow, 2P spam. I prefer playing people that aren't boring
Treat it as a compliment to your ability to win. That's great that the opponent prefers to play people that aren't boring, but we're here to win, not to be flashy.
Okay, it's out of the way. I won't mention 2P after this, except incidentally. Now it's time to start getting specific to Brad.
The start of the big time player
Alright. I've loved playing Virtua Fighter for a long time, and have always appreciate the ridiculous amount of depth that the game provides for a player to delve into. Fighting games have always been my favorite type of video game for precisely this reason - the decision tree is rich, and the gameplay is dynamic. Micro-management isn't necessary, as it is in real time strategy games, and you can play a game and be finished in under a minute.
But enough about why I choose to play. What is this blog? This blog has manifested as a result of a few things. Firstly, I love Virtua Fighter 5, and have a deep desire to continue improving. Part of the learning process for me is sharing and teaching. I don't consider myself excellent at the game, but I do believe that everyone who has learned something can then in turn pass that knowledge along. By teaching (in this case, by writing about it in a blog), I am able to learn that piece of information a second time. Blogging gives me a way to articulate and breakdown what I've learned into manageable chunks that I can go back and review if I like.
The impetus for this blog comes from Konjou Akira and Leonard McCoy's excellent blogs for Akira and Goh, respectively. When I first started playing VF 5 three months ago, I cruised through the forums of VFDC, looking for good Brad advice. There's definitely some excellent analysis available out there of his various moves, his advantages, disadvantages, what to do in certain situations, but there is something that I feel is missing. The human element.
I like learning from stories. I like understanding along with the person that is writing. Somehow, it helps me plug in a little bit more than I would if I only read through a set of moveslists that I've got sorted based on the advantage in frames that I have when a move is guarded (don't underestimate the usefulness of this though. More on that later).
It wasn't until I started playing Goh that I came across Leonard McCoy's blog, and then by searching for more blog's, Konjou Akira's. It was with great dismay that I saw in these blogs a lot of information that would have helped greatly early on, as I first trying to gain an understanding of the basic concepts like advantage and disadvantage.
Anyhow, my goal is to do the same thing for Brad. The forums at VFDC these days are slowing down, as Soul Calibur 4 has been released, and VF5R is now out in arcades in Japan, but I'm still as interested as ever in improving my Brad game, and I will continue to learn in spite of all that. This blog will detail the things that I learn as I continue to progress, and it will point out the common pitfalls that I have made in the hopes that anyone starting out new with Brad can read about them and avoid making the same mistakes that I have.
What this blog is NOT. This blog is NOT an attempt by me to present myself as an exceptional Virtua Fighter player, because... I'm not. This blog isn't an attempt by me to supercede anyone else's knowledge, nor to contradict the wealth of information that is already out there. If you see something that you disagree with, then write me a comment and let me know - the more I can learn using this blog, the better. After all, this is just one more tool to help me in my quest to continue to develop and grow.
But enough about why I choose to play. What is this blog? This blog has manifested as a result of a few things. Firstly, I love Virtua Fighter 5, and have a deep desire to continue improving. Part of the learning process for me is sharing and teaching. I don't consider myself excellent at the game, but I do believe that everyone who has learned something can then in turn pass that knowledge along. By teaching (in this case, by writing about it in a blog), I am able to learn that piece of information a second time. Blogging gives me a way to articulate and breakdown what I've learned into manageable chunks that I can go back and review if I like.
The impetus for this blog comes from Konjou Akira and Leonard McCoy's excellent blogs for Akira and Goh, respectively. When I first started playing VF 5 three months ago, I cruised through the forums of VFDC, looking for good Brad advice. There's definitely some excellent analysis available out there of his various moves, his advantages, disadvantages, what to do in certain situations, but there is something that I feel is missing. The human element.
I like learning from stories. I like understanding along with the person that is writing. Somehow, it helps me plug in a little bit more than I would if I only read through a set of moveslists that I've got sorted based on the advantage in frames that I have when a move is guarded (don't underestimate the usefulness of this though. More on that later).
It wasn't until I started playing Goh that I came across Leonard McCoy's blog, and then by searching for more blog's, Konjou Akira's. It was with great dismay that I saw in these blogs a lot of information that would have helped greatly early on, as I first trying to gain an understanding of the basic concepts like advantage and disadvantage.
Anyhow, my goal is to do the same thing for Brad. The forums at VFDC these days are slowing down, as Soul Calibur 4 has been released, and VF5R is now out in arcades in Japan, but I'm still as interested as ever in improving my Brad game, and I will continue to learn in spite of all that. This blog will detail the things that I learn as I continue to progress, and it will point out the common pitfalls that I have made in the hopes that anyone starting out new with Brad can read about them and avoid making the same mistakes that I have.
What this blog is NOT. This blog is NOT an attempt by me to present myself as an exceptional Virtua Fighter player, because... I'm not. This blog isn't an attempt by me to supercede anyone else's knowledge, nor to contradict the wealth of information that is already out there. If you see something that you disagree with, then write me a comment and let me know - the more I can learn using this blog, the better. After all, this is just one more tool to help me in my quest to continue to develop and grow.
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