Becoming familiar with execution and muscle memory

When it comes to basic execution in fighting games, it isn't simply a matter of being able to do a thing correctly. It's about being able to sync a thought of "I want to do something" with a physical action, and get exactly what you want when you want it. Being able to do a DP from a neutral position is one thing, but lots of people when new to fighting games have trouble doing reverse DPs even if they can do a regular DP from both sides. I was one of those people and it was a really odd problem.

This is because mentally, let's say they are on P1 side, they already have muscle memory that forward is right, backwards is left, and to do a dp you hit towards your opponent, down, downforward. But reverse dps mindfuck people sometimes because it's going in the opposite way that your muscles are expecting to go. Being able to isolate the DP motion away from "towards the opponent" on both sides clears up

What does this have to do with Melee? Fucking Fox's short hop window is 3 frames. I have to press and release the Y button during his 3f prejump window. If this was on a stick, this would be free. In Virtua Fighter, I've got good consistency on Akira's knee and you have to hit K+G(release G after 1 frame), so clearly this kind of execution is not alien to me. However, being able to consistently do that on stick, and consistently doing it on Gamecube controller is different, because the GC buttons are more 'sticky' than sanwas. It honestly feels like a tighter timing than 3f because of the button.

Three frame short-hop windows are an absolute cunt in Melee, and I am determined to git gud at it. So, I downloaded the 20XX hack pack, and started exploring exactly what I'm doing wrong.

So, I decide to isolate the input. I do some short hops until I can get a feel for it and do it consistently. 5 Short hops in a row. Sweet. I can do this. I then attempt short hop nair and OH LOOK ITS A FULL HOP FAJWOIQENGSKLUHQOIWB

Why is this? I paid more attention to my inputs, and I found that I wasn't doing a clean short hop input prior to the nair input. This sounds like a "well yeah genius that's fucking obvious" moment, but it sortof isn't. In my mind, "short hop nair" was the decision I made. Not "short hop" followed by "nair", but "short hop nair". If I wanted to get good at short hop nairs, I'd clearly have to grind short hop nair itself until I can get good at it... However I came up with another way.

I could isolate the input for short hop, and end my muscle memory for it as soon as I release the button, giving me enough time to get an isolated A-button press directly after. Essentially instead of doing "Short hop nair" I was doing "Short hop" followed by "Nair", and this already increased my success rate of short hop nairs.

Execution is an interesting thing. A lot of people like to say that there is no depth that comes from execution, and things being hard for the sake of hard is dumb... but I think that difficult execution has more of an ability to help you learn more about how your body itself functions, or even how the game system on a basic level functions in some aspects(ie FRC windows in guilty gear in combos and pressure strings, and waiting for hitstop to end before doing a special with an FRC window to get it more consistently).

Execution doesn't have to be mindless grinding - It should be a learning process. Execute smarter, not harder.

Prepping reactions on defense

I learned something today playing Daichi in Guilty Gear Xrd.

I was playing Sol, he was playing Zato. I don't remember winning one match but I had a great time playing a good Zato player. I managed to block a few unblockables because I BELIEVED, but mostly I ate them and ate safejump->guard switch overhead or safejump->low mixups. I still need some more time to adjust to the matchup, or return to Venom because apparently Venom does good vs Zato.

Daichi's defense was almost scarily good in our set, I could not get him with run up 2K or run up Riot Throw as a mixup on his wakeup, since he would jump out of the riot throw and block the low. He would correctly mash 2P or jump out of out of every 2P-> tick Riot Throw attempt. I could not get a proper mixup on him that wasn't a knockdown Gunflame YRC->low airdash j.SD or empty jump 2K. I was getting mindfucked, how did he avoid all my mixups? Are his reads just THAT good? Well, apparently not.

I did kinda cheat since I straight up asked him, but he did say something that was pretty telling - he was reacting. Obviously, he wasn't reacting to 2K or Riot throw itself, that's impossible. Therefore he was reacting to the action I was doing directly beforehand. When I was going for a run up 2K/Riot throw, I would always wait at an overly generous distance on his wakeup to avoid reversal throw mash, then run up. He could hold upback after reacting to my run startup and be safe. I don't know what part of my 2P he was reacting to, but I'm gonna assume he was reacting to the 2P hit itself.

Once I realised this, it means I'd have to adapt my offense to his reactionary defense - If I do that fimble low/throw setup to him that he upbacks against, I would then run up 5K 2H him - if he forgets to FD I get a combo, if he does FD I get a jump cancel or gatling into 2D. I would also dash up 2P slight delay 2K 2D and it would counter hit him. I probably should have attempted CH 2D xx Gunflame RC combos, or attempted more 2P 6P but I was a little paranoid that I would get jabbed out of 6P's 9f startup, which I think did happen a couple times.

It was only after I adapted to how he was reacting, and exploiting his reactions, was I able to condition him to sit down and eat some riot throws.

Lesson learned: One way to get better defense is to learn to react to your opponents mixup setups, since a pre-comitted read can get you good defensive reward. If you want good offense vs players with defense based on this, pay attention to what your opponent is reacting to and capitalise on their expectation with a pre-prepped counter.

Edit: I should not be paranoid of being counter hit out of 2P 6P since there is a 3f gap in there, and Zato's 2P is 6f. I could even delay the 6P and still probably counter hit Zato. Damn.

New fighting game related blog

Since I play/talk about/think about fighting games all the time, I'm gonna catalogue my writings/findings/journey.

This is the first post that no-one will read so it's just for me to write down some shit.

1. Skullgirls things

This is my primary game, due to lively online scene and GGPO netcode. I'm gonna try go through the characters I play and write down everything I know about them, from basic bnbs to resets to pressure and neutral game. Will post things to Skullheart when compete.

2. 3S things

3S has a sleeper scene that needs some coaxing out - but there's no shortage of poeple who actually want to play 3S. It gets numbers at majors (somehow????) so it should be able to get numbers at locals. It would be good to do solid breakdowns of the game, since there is a REALLY SERIOUS LACK of 3S write-ups. For some reason the most thorough write up for 3S on the SRK wiki is for fucking Ibuki... if we could get writeups for tournament relevant characters that would be great.

3. Other offline games SF4, Xrd, UMVC3, everything that I can not be fucked playing Offline due to lag and have to play at home will get less coverage since I have less opportunities to play it.

4. General fighting game things Going over fighting game mentality, risk/reward evaluations, and match analysis will be important. These aspects are very rarely touched over by fight game literature.

5. Random fg related musings and notes

6. Event synopsis for travel, or whatever. Lots of people do these and like these. Would be fun.