Fighting with lag

Fighting with lag

Due to the nature of where I live, it's very difficult for me to find matches to play locally. As a result, in-game lag is something that I just have to learn to deal with when I'm playing. If you're able to find lcaol games, or even online games that are fast and efficient, then you have a luxury that I don't. So, I can either complain about the lag, quit playing, or learn to cope with it.

• What does lag entail?


• What does lag enable you to do?


• What does lag prevent you from doing?

Is lag a big deal?

Lag is caused for a number of reasons, none of which really matter for the purposes of what I'm writing about. The key thing is that it slows down the speed at which you can input commands to the game, and the speed at which you can react to your opponent. Many players that are used to playing locally find that it renders the game unplayable, because they are used to entering their inputs at a certain speed and have trouble adapting to a slower tempo.

Although I don't disagree with the frustration that players better than I experience, I think that there is still a game to be played when lag is a factor. When I say game, I mean it in the sense that there is still strategy to be put into use, and there is still an ability for someone to win the game and minimize the amount of luck that has a factor in the outcome.

Using lag to your advantage

I believe that lag can be used to your benefit. In my own experience, I've found that I'm able to get away with more full combo strings than normal. This is typically bceause the opponent has attempted to break me out of the combo where they would normally be able to, without lag, but in this instance, they have input their command too late. With lag, you also have to be thinking that much further ahead than your opponent, since there is even less reaction time available to you then normally (the longer the lag, the earlier you have to input your command to have it actually reach the other machine and execute in time).

What does this really come down to? Good yomi.

Yomi is the key ingredient to playing in a laggy environment. If you have trained your opponent well enough, you should barely need to use any reaction time late in the game - you should already have a very strong idea of what your opponent is going to do next, and thus you react accordingly. Part of using yomi effectively is making good guesses. The more you guess correctly, the more predictable your opponent will become, as they start to fear you reading them. You can see that there is obviously a snowball effect here, and ultimately we're aiming to dominate our opponent's mind. Once we have succeeded at that, the rest becomes easy.

Cheating

Lag will also make it more difficult for someone on the defense to break into your attack pattern. When you have the offence, it is generally easier to continue through to the end of the string than it is to break in with the opponent's attack. This puts the power into the hands of the attacker, since they get the choice of whether or not they will complete the string or break it off into a throw (etc.).

In addition to simply following your strings through to completion, you'll notice that with more lag, you will be less likely to get hit at the end of your sequence, as the opponent has to understand when they need to enter their own inputs given the lag, and are less likely to do this successfully. Learning how to speed up or delay your inputs while playing in lag is a valuable skill indeed - it can be applied to games that don't have any lag at all.

Lastly, you can cheat out of your frames of disadvantage. Because of the point above, you will often be able to score cheap strikes following a situation where you should have been at a disadvantage, simply because your opponent didn't input at the appropriate time. See if you notice that your opponent's response is slightly delayed after you follow through with particular strings, and then abuse those delays that you notice.

Lag as a style

In addition to adapting and reacting to the lag, it is important to learn how to use this as a strength. Lag is just one more avenue in which deviations of your rhythm come into play. Lag forces you to slow down and speed up your movements, and adjust to the pitch of the environment within which you're fighting. If all the characters are moving more slowly, you, as a player controller them, are going to have to act more slowly as well.

Good players will, over time, gain the ability to adapt as needed and adjust their inputs accordingly - certainly a valuable skill, However, there is a disadvantage here as well - they have been trained themselves adjust your inputs based on what you see on the screen. If I now start to stutter my inputs and make my flow more jerky, your eyes are going to tell you that the game is in lag mode, and slow your inputs.

By simulating a laggy game, you can throw off your opponent's timing

Successfully throwing off your opponent's timing will mean that you control the flow of the game, and the rate at which it can be played. Being in control is a good thing - it makes it easier to adapt to the pace of the match, and easier to apply pressure and yomi to your opponent.

At its finest, you will be able to play with a choppy style that visually puts forth the illusion of lag to your opponent, and confuses their attempts to respond and counter-hit. I have had many legitimate complaints about lag during games I've played, but I have also had complaints when the game, at least on my end, was very very smooth. I like to believe that this is due to the style of rhythm that I am presenting to the opponent, and forcing them to adapt to.

Playing within the confines of lag is like any other aspect of the game - it takes some adaption and understanding in order to deal with it. It will never be as pure as a game without lag, which is to say that it will never be as close to the best game that you can ideally train yourself to play. However, it's well worth your time to practice training in this kind of environment - a good deal of your fights online will be laggy.

Back on the wagon

So, it was a great trip while it lasted, but I've put Fallout 3 back in its case, and returned it to the game graveyard with the other diversions I've had in between bouts of Virtua Fighter. That means a few things. One, I popped VF5 back in my 360, and started learning the humility that comes from a two-month break from the game and realizing that you've accumulated six metric ass-loads of rust. Two, now that I'm back on the virtuous path, I'll be blogging again, so come back and check out the site to see if there's anything new up.

The last comment I had was a request on how to improve your flow with Brad when fighting, and that seems like a good place to start. Remember, keep the comments coming. Even if it takes me two months to get to it, I'm always eager for new ideas to write about. Chances are that you've come up against things that I haven't yet really thought too heavily about, and the best ideas evolve from a shared focus.

Here's what I want to talk about:

• What is flow?


• How can you begin learning decent flow?


• Evolving flow throughout the match


• How do you prevent yourself from having your flow interupted, and how do you recover from this?


• Disguising your flow and your rhythm

So what is it?

Before we can start talking about flow, we need to understand what it is. Most people in the game use flow to talk about the ability of a player to string together a series of attacks in a manner that makes it difficult for the opponent to interrupt. Due to the nature of Virtua Fighter's fighting system, it is impossible to put together an endless stream of attacks that will never provide your opponent a chance to respond. This would be a pretty lame game if it was possible.

While it may be difficult to put together an endless stream, many good players are able to string together attacks in ways that lure you into thinking you've got an opportunity to break them out of their flow, only to trick you and earn themselves a counter-hit. This counter-hit then resets their frame advantage and allows them to continue onwards.

Flow is a concept related very closely to rhythm. As I mentioned before, good fighting rhythm can make it very difficult for your opponent to understand and deal with your flow, and frustrate their attempts to block effectively.

Where do I start?

Good flow starts with a strong understanding of the basics. The first thing you need to know before you start is the moves of your character that string together well.

For Brad players, PP, PPK, and 6P are all excellent starting points. During player matches, make a point of just trying to string together PP, 6P, and 6P, PK. Don't rush it, and don't force it. Brad's PP is -5 on hit or guard, so if the opponent has the awareness to attack right after succesfully blocking, you will get counterhit out of your follow-up. How are we going to deal with that? Easy - you're going to establish a base-line of expectation. Brad's PPK is a good string, and there is not room for the opponent to interrupt the string until the end. After eating enough of these attacks, your opponent is going to start to holding block in anticipation of the third kick, and now you've set the stage for the next step of your flow.

Now that your opponent is trained to block the last kick in the string, you are ready to evolve your flow, and start mixing in PP, 6P. Generally speaking, you have a broken flow here - your opponent can interrupt your string by jabbing you after the first two punches. The key element is that you have trained them to understand that they are unsafe attempting to make this move, because they will get counter-hit by the expected kick in the sequence. Now that you've trained them to block low, your 6P elbow will stagger them, and you have effectively reset sequence. From a staggered elbow, you can again shift into PPK or PP, 6P again.

Evolving flow throughout the match

In squash, there is a mantra that the player must build the rally. What this means is that you cannot serve the ball in and then start attacking your opponent aggressively. You need to set the tone for the rally by playing safe shots, and gradually and continuously apply pressure as the rally goes on. What you're looking to do is to create opportunities to hit a winning shot, rather than forcing the winning shot.

My own experience is that Virtua Fighter is a very similar beast, and flow operates in the same manner. Whenever I start fighting an opponent that I am not familiar with, I always start off by setting out the base-line expectation. The safest string to start with for Brad, in my experience, is either 6P (not really a string, but it's safe and quick), and PPK. Until I've hit them with this move a few times, there's no reason to anticipate that they will be willing to continue blocking while I use tricks like PP, 6P.

In a VF5 match, you want to build the opportunity to punish your opponent. This is what good flow is about. You're looking to continue using safe moves to force your opponent into feeling like the only option they have is to block - if everytime they try and counter-attack my PP, they get counter-hit by the kick at the end, they are going to feel like they simply must block. Once you've gotten them thinking this way, you have now created an opportunity for you to punish them with either a throw or a strong mid-hit.

Beginning players will often make the mistake of trying to start out too complicated and tricky, and trying to mix their flow up too soon. Always start off simple, with a base-line expectation that your opponent needs to learn. Once they've adapted, then, and only then, is it appropriate to start changing things up.

How do you prevent yourself from having your flow interupted, and how do you recover from this?

This is the other problem that new players often find themselves in. Once their flow gets interrupted, they are caught offguard and have difficulty re-establishing themselves. This is typically when you will see a player's safety game come into play. What I mean by that is this: Every player has a certain set of moves that they feel safe using. These moves may or may not actually be safe, but what is important is that to the player, they are perceived to be safe.

For me, 2P and evading are safety moves. For other players, it may be simply turtling up, or standing jab, or any number of other things. Falling into a safety game can be okay, but the largest danger here is that you can quickly become robotic relying on this survival instinct. Your main goal once knocked out of your flow should be to break any flow that your opponent may have initiated (either by blocking or counter-hitting them out of their own flow), and re-initiate your own.

There's a large hurdle that new players have to overcome, and that is this: When you are knocked out of your flow, it was a flow that you had been evolving towards. Once you've been knocked out of that, you need to start back at the basics, and return back up to that spot. Again, perhaps a squash analogy will help (for the 0.34 squash players reading this blog). When we are building rallies in squash, we are typically trying to continually and gradually apply pressure to the opponent. However, there is always a point where the opponent will be able to hit a good return that now forces us back onto the defensive. When this occurs, a bad player will foolish try to attack, and usually either hit an error (and lose the rally), or set his opponent up to make a winning shot. A good player will return to hitting safe shots until he is once again able to build the rally to the point where he can confidently make attacking shots.

Be the good squash player when you are playing VF5, and understand that having your flow broken means you need to return to your basic game and begin building up from there. If you get knocked out of your flow, accept that fact, and return to your basics of PP, 6P, and PPK (by the way, there are plenty of other excellent ways for Brad to start his basic flow, I just use those three as easy examples that can be applied by anyone new to Brad).

Disguising your flow and your rhythm

Once you've developed the ability to establish and maintain flow throughout the match, you will eventually reach a point where you realize that even if you are mixing things up to an extent, your opponent is able to block most of your moves and accurately find the break point to counter-hit. At this point, you need to evolve further, and start disguising your rhythm. I have covered this to some extent before on a previous blog entry related to charge moves here. However, you don't need to rely on charge moves to mix up your rhythm. Here's an example:

You've succesfully trained your opponent to block low after he sees the first two punches in Brad's PPK string. You're now ready to move on to a different string set, and you switch into using PP, 6P. For a while, it's working great, but then they start to try and jab you out of the elbow. No problem, you returned to using PPK, and gained some more free hits. However, after a point, your opponent is going to start to block low in anticipation of the low kick, and when he doesn't see it, switch to a mid-guard to block the elbow. At this point, there are a number of ways you can evolve further. You can start throwing instead of using an elbow, which will punish your opponent to switching into a mid-guard. This presents the opponent with two choices (called a nitaku situation in Virtua Fighter forums): they can guess blocking high or low and potentially be hit with an elbow or a throw, depending on whether or not they guessed correctly. You can do more than just this though, and if you really want to be simple, you can just delay the elbow a little bit longer. You're not actually changing the string, you're just introducing some delay to force your opponent into second-guessing themselves. This will play out like this:

Old flow:

1. You enter PP


2. Your opponent guards low, then when he doesn't see the kick, shifts to mid-guard


3. You enter 6P, and your opponent successfully guards


4. You are now back to the starting point, and have a slight frame disadvantage. Guard and look for a place to break your opponent's flow, and then restart with basics

New hotness:

1. You enter PP


2. Your opponent guards low, then when he doesn't see the kick, shifts to mid-guard


3. You wait a little, then enter 6P


4. Your opponent, not seeing the elbow when he's become used to expecting it, tries to start their own attack, but is then counter-hit by your elbow


5. You are now back to the starting point, but have a frame advantage against your opponent. You can now explore any of Brad's standard combo options from starting from 6P, or, delay further and start over with PP, etc.

You can see how, over time, you will gain the ability to start, stop, and reset your flow in a myriad of ways without your opponent being able to figure out when it is safe to counter-hit, and when they need to block.

An important side-note: The lower the skill level of your opponent, the longer it takes to train them to react a certain way. Using PPK as an example, I will continue to use this move until I notice they start blocking it effectively. After the first time they block the last kick in the sequence, I usually try it out again, just to convince myself that it wasn't just a lucky block, and that the opponent has indeed figure out how to stop taking damage from this move. Remember, if it isn't broke, don't fix it - As long as something remains effective, keep using it.

Finally, I've indicated that a good mix-up string to use with Brad is PP, 6P. There's one catch here, and that is that Brad is able to enter his stance options from PP (ducking, slipping left, slipping right, etc.). What this means is that if you hit PP and then 6, you will enter into his ducking stance, rather than getting the elbow you were hoping for. Your two options to avoid this are to either delay just long enough such that the window to enter a stance passes, and then hit 6P, or, use guard to clear your buffer window. In this last case, the correct input sequence would be PP, G, 6P. Hitting guard will clear out Brad's ability to stance shift, and allow you to enter the elbow without the danger of going into ducking.

Okay, so, I'm back, and it felt really good getting back on the 'box last night and getting the chance to play some old friends. Keep checking back, please please please leave comments about things you'd like me to write about, and don't hesitate to challenge me if you see me online (just don't take offense if I have to decline - Wife > Virtua Fighter 5).