3s Logic: Path to Escape Randomness

[Arcas V]

We all hear the occasional "You're random" but how many people actually know what it means?
This thread is for all the people that don't realize, 3s is fought with the mind. For all the people that mash shit out with out even paying attention to you're oppent, and don't realize why it doesen't work offline. This is for all the people that dont realize offline play conquers randomness... on a second thought, it murders randomness.

Good players have a reason for every move they do. There is no luck, there is only chance. Random players, on the other hand, attack with no thought and use luck to get inconsistant wins wich only takes them so far offline. To trully play this game with logic, you need to think about why moves work, and when they work. Also, you must adapt to you're oppenents fighting style, everyone is affected by moves differently... learning you're oppent is the the key.

Input/debate/discussion/questions on this is welcome. My goal is to encourage more people to play this game at a higher level and to realize this game has alot more depth offline.

ps. I'm not claiming to be anything more than decent (if that at times) but I do play to get better and relize the amount of depth in this game.

[Oo 3s masta oO]

Well with the amount of depth with in sf there is also alot of depth to the mind. When playing 3s you have to look at more than whats just going on in the screen. YOu have to look at more of whats going on in the actual fight. If your opponent is rushing you down. Why is he rushing you down. Or what attacks does he use to leave you open. or what you do to make yourself open to those attacks. Or with parrying the same thing. Why is he parrying, what is it he is parrying and how often is he parrying. No matter what the situation you can always get out of it with some thought.

In order to be a good 3s player or gamer in general it takes a smart and strong mind. Your mind always has to be sharp and keen to whats going on at that point in time. Remember that while your fighting your opponent will think of something to counter your move. for example person a jumps alot, person b does srk all day hoping that they land but person a has wised up and changed up his jump patterns but person b is still srking with out connecting. You see where im going with this??

The mind is what allows 3s players to really see whats going on. not only on what is going on the screen at that point in time. Just because some one jumps doesnt mean its always wise to try to Anti air him. he could be setting you up HOPING that you AA him then what. There are so many things you need to take in to account while playing this game. Thats my logic. hope it helps

laterz

[Arcas V]

Very nice input. I think that will help alot of people understand the game more... It helped me a bit too, lol.

Bring the knowledge! :party:

[DaliPower]

he pretty much summed it up.....i like to watch when my opponent parries so i can syke him out and throw...for example when ryu does is special kick they usually try to down parry....

[Figcoinc]

Coming from a person who is trying to conquer randomness, you have to remember that randomness isn't just offensive. It's defensive too. Why did he block instead of parrying when he parried all the other times. Why did he dash or why is he walking away/toward you.

When is it time to turtle and when is it time to parry it down.

That is my input on that. I'm just a learner in this game but I believe I've come a long way. Also, NEVER NEVER believe you understand it all. There's always something to learn and something to work on. You might be great when you play 100 people but why did that 101 person beast you? What in their game did they do to interfere.

Also never give up on the practice. Live is great for practice but the truth is spoken offline. Unfortantly the best some of us can do is online for whatever reasons. Just because you win a match doesn't mean your learned something. Nor does it mean that since you lost means you were unskillful or random.

To truly understand randomness you have to observe the big picture. Know your boundries and try to surpass them. Know when you get random and WHY you get that way. Try not to just change the behavior but why you have to change it.

I'm random, I admit it. Though I'm doing my best to overcome it. I know my weaknesses and now I'm taking steps to work on it.

Then you'll see why a bad player is bad. You'll see why someone is doing a certain tactic and what you need to do to overcome and anticipate the next move.



Though always remember when your in your pursuit to get better......have fun.

Sometimes people forget that.

[eiSH]

3S isn't only about logic. 3S is an artform. My hero SEXTARO is called random, but he wins FFA matches all the time. So that kind of play does work offline. Don't downplay a certain style of play just because it's not similar to yours. You guys will get to the point where all your standard play will be read by people better than you, the only way from then on is do something nobody will regularly do, and this is what you people call random.

I'm in no way saying being completely random is great, but some randomness sure as hell is advantageous in the right moments.

A recent example would be something that happened in my matches with Nas, where he Aegis Tackle'd then partition headbutt over -which you see in high level play, but he timed the f.Forward awkwardly and I missed the parries on many occassions. So would it have been better for him to time it to be an exact guard breaker and get parried? Or randomly time it off so I couldn't parry =P 'Cause logically the percentage is better that it would work more efficiently if the guard break occured.

My bad Nas, I know this kind of post doesn't belong in this thread, I'm just thinking objectively and sticking up for the voiceless.

[HunterSFL]

3S isn't only about logic. 3S is an artform. etc

And now, to provide an alternate point of view, I will respectfully, but completely disagree. 3S is all about logic. Let me start with a concept that I've thought about a lot: The natural evolution of a fighting game (specifically, 3S).

At one point in my 3S career I was watching a match video of high level play and I started thinking about the things I do that I wasn't seeing in the videos, and conversely, the things they do, that I did not. I said to myself, "well if they don't do it, it must not be good. And the stuff they do, must be good." But then I stopped for a second and thought to myself, "wait, how do I know that?" The answer is the natural evolution of a fighting game.

Consider this. Let's say there is a little isolated "world" of 3S players, their only competition is amongst their group. Now, let's say one player plays Ken and another plays Chun. Now, these players are just learning how to play the game, so they're learning as they go. The Ken player obviously sees the strength of c.HK and uses it often as a poke. Eventually, the Chun player discovers that she can punish the blocked sweep with a super. Now, the Ken player realizes that his c.HK is not safe against Chun, and starts phasing it out of his game (atleast in the Chun matchup). His gameplay has evolved.

However, this evolution isn't restricted just to individual moves and matchups, it encompasses entire sytyles and habits. Your only competition might be a friend who has no concept of anti-airing. I guarantee you, you will develop a style heavily uses jump-ins. But then what happens? Your friend is forced to learn to anti-air to survive. Now your jump in game is no longer successful, and you will adjust it accordingly. This is how gameplay naturally evolves into high level play. This is the reason why to get better you absolutely must play people better then you. And in fact, in this regard, playing people significantly worse then you, can actually harm your game by lulling you into forming bad habits.

This evolution happens to every player to some degree. They're going to find things that work in their circle of competition, and if their circle doesn't find an answer, they're going to keep on abusing it, no matter what that is: jump ins, a specific move, throws, it could be anything.

So what's my point to all this? Online play is the way it is for exactly this reason. Certain things just downright work better on XBL, especially when you're talking about the scrub population. This is why there are so many fireball/hurricane spamming Akumas, etc. The shit works on the majority of the scrubs, so the people doing it never have a need to evolve. Eventually, they play someone good, but there are so few of us good players, they don't care enough to evolve. They're content simply beating up on the newbs.

The bottom line is, there are two types of random. Unsafe, (aka bad, aka stupid) random, and Safe (aka good, aka smart) random.

Unsafe random is what the newbies on XBL do because they have no need to evolve. Shit like shoryu spamming, or using unsafe moves, or wakeup supers, etc. This kind of random is shit. Against a good player, you will just get punished all day. Eventually, you will get lucky and the majority of your random shit will work all at once, and you'll steal a round and maybe a game, but never a match. This kind of randomness is much too inconsistant to win a match.

Safe random is what you look up to Eish. Aka Sextaro. Sure he plays hella random, but watch carefully. Does he do much that's downright unsafe? Even his wakeup supers he does in a safe way. If you notice, he usually does them when he's backed into the corner, and he does a HK Abare. If the opponent stands and blocks he'll sail way across the screen and probably recover before they can punish. If they jump (which they usually do, fearing the karakusa), they get hit, and knocked into the juggle part of the super.

Look at it this way, if Sex did things that were truly unsafe, he'd get punished all day by people like Vic, 5star, Pyro, etc. I can't recall many instances in match videos where I've seen him just whiff something stupid and get punished for it. Makoto just doesn't have anything like that to begin with if you play her right.

So when you think more about "smart" random, really this is just a nickname for mixups. You're just doing different things that have a good risk vs reward ratio for you. And that's what 3S is all about.

[Arcas V]

^Word! Thats the truth in so many ways, very nicely put.
snip
I'm actually glad you wrote this, becuase I don't believe thats random. I said that every move has a reason, so if a good player purposely miss timed an expected move to purposely throw the other persons timing of, is that random? I dont believe so. However, when I did the move in you're example, it was just inconsistant (keyword) luck. If I did it on purpose, it would be chance.... this all has to do with adapting to you're oppenent. Another example would be where I do a move that looks like a mistake but it actually throws off my opponent and tricks them into letting their gaurd up (rockman knows what I'm talking about :D).

But my point is, I'm sure the guy you speak of has a reason for every move he does wich is based on his oppenents. And I think alot of people miss use the the word "random" to be honest.

ps. This thread is turning into everything I wanted it to be :D. Thanks for all the response, keep it up.... Oh and discussion/debate is welcome too, just keep it clean.

[Hell Murder]

This evolution happens to every player to some degree. They're going to find things that work in their circle of competition, and if their circle doesn't find an answer, they're going to keep on abusing it, no matter what that is: jump ins, a specific move, throws, it could be anything.

Well said. That's why it's good to have a wide circle of competition. So if you just play XBL the only tactics you will use are things you have become accustomed to on XBL. Thats why in order to be good all around you need more then one source of competition.

[HunterSFL]

Well said. That's why it's good to have a wide circle of competition. So if you just play XBL the only tactics you will use are things you have become accustomed to on XBL. Thats why in order to be good all around you need more then one source of competition.

Agreed. This is also why if you're smart, match videos can be very helpful. I've learned a lot just by watching match videos and thinking about them. To me, it takes two things to improve your game. First, you have to know what you need to add/alter/remove from your game to make it better. Like I said, this can come from personal experience by playing, or by watching other people play. Second, you have to be conscious and aware of how you play and what you're doing, enough to the point that you recognize that it needs to be changed. In other words, you need to be able to recognize your bad habits, or even habits/tactics that could be improved on by addition. In this way, you can fix your gameplay for the better without needing to play good competition.

What I mean by that is that you can form good habits without them being evolved naturally from logic and experience. But you have to consciously add it to your game. You might not be able to even use these good habits until you play someone good, but at least you know on the inside your gameplay is better.

Like for example, you might learn by watching a video that Ken's c.HK is punishable on block by Chun SA2. So you consciously form the habit of not using c.HK against Chun when she has meter. So here, you've taught yourself a good habit without having to eat a dozen of Chun's supers. However, the next Chun you play might not even know they could punish a c.HK with a super, but the bottom line is, you're not giving them a chance to. So even though the person wouldn't have been good enough to improve you game (in that specific area), your gameplay is still better because eventually you will play a Chun who would punish it, and now they can't because you formed good habits.

[eiSH]

First postHoly shit that was a lot of reading -_-; Leave it to HunterSFL to go into super details =P

So what I got out of it was 'smart random = mixup'; but TeK gets called for abusing tactics that work on people, and I get called random for... Well, you know my style -_-; If any of you guys were to talk to Rage about my gameplay, he'd tell you what I do, and what I could possibly do after every whiff. And I throw him a couple monkey wrenches here and there, but my base gameplay remains the same each and every time we play.

So :arazz: 3S Masta, I'm not random, I'm mixing it up :sweat:

[exodus]

i'd hardly say that supering after recovering in hopes of hitting your opponent (because XBL timing sucks) is an acceptable form of 'random'...

[SaBrE]

parries automatically give the game plenty of randomness.

yeah im sure every parry ever done was on purpose. /sarcasm i get hella accidental parries when im going for something else, then it works in my favor. a lot of my parries are intentional, but there are plenty that are accidental, and that happens with everyone. its like you are doing an option select without even meaning to...

randomness is in every game. some boils down to the players gameplay, some boils down to the game engine. 3s is very consistent, except for parries.

[Troyboy's Back!]

SEXTARO is far from Random I'm sure thats just a joke with him and the FFA guys. But Makoto can be a bitch when used randomly.

[HunterSFL]

Holy shit that was a lot of reading -_-; Leave it to HunterSFL to go into super details =P

So what I got out of it was 'smart random = mixup'; but TeK gets called for abusing tactics that work on people, and I get called random for... Well, you know my style -_-; If any of you guys were to talk to Rage about my gameplay, he'd tell you what I do, and what I could possibly do after every whiff. And I throw him a couple monkey wrenches here and there, but my base gameplay remains the same each and every time we play.

So :arazz: 3S Masta, I'm not random, I'm mixing it up :sweat:

You don't even realize but your gameplay is not as random as you think. Your style of rushdown is to just do things one after another with no breaks inbetween. It's ironic because (I assume) you do that to give you opponent no breathing room, and therefore make you stronger, but in reality, it actually makes your game weaker. The very fact that I know you're going to throw out a move after every single one ends makes you not random. Have you ever thought about that? Sure the moves themselves are being mixed up, but the speed at which they come is the same, so they're easier to predict.

The reason this is so bad in 3S is because of parries. All the moves you're doing in your poke/block strings you aren't hit confirming. So if I know if a move is coming and I guess a parry high or low, in the worst case I guess wrong and you get one measly hit. But if I guess right you're gonna eat a beeft combo. And I have about a 50/50 chance to guess right, so do the math.

This is different if you're playing someone like Ken or Chun where you can hit confirm after c.MP or c.MK, because then the risk vs reward isn't as good for me to guess parry. And in fact it's even worse when you play Dudley because most of the pokes you use hit high, so it's less guessing.

Also, I just wanna add, some of your "random" is bad random, like random supers, or just unsafe moves in general. Might wanna think about it more.

[Arcas V]

My definition of random- Doing moves that are not based on you're current oppenent's playstyle.

So if you do a move with out paying attention to you're oppent, that move is random. However, any move that is done, based on you're oppenents patterns/style is logical and alot more consistant.

What do you guys thinK?

ps. I think I need to study psychology(sp?) to completly understand this game -_-

[Captain Ryu]

Random is exactly what it is, random. Basically doing shit with no actual gameplan and relying on luck to land your hit's. Pressing mad buttons for no reason at all the wronge time's and shit. Some random is good though and some just does'nt work.

[DaliPower]

My definition of random- Doing moves that are not based on you're current oppenent's playstyle.

So if you do a move with out paying attention to you're oppent, that move is random. However, any move that is done, based on you're oppenents patterns/style is logical and alot more consistant.

What do you guys thinK?

ps. I think I need to study psychology(sp?) to completly understand this game -_-
and you need a PHD to play virtua fighter

[Oo 3s masta oO]

Holy shit that was a lot of reading -_-; Leave it to HunterSFL to go into super details =P

So what I got out of it was 'smart random = mixup'; but TeK gets called for abusing tactics that work on people, and I get called random for... Well, you know my style -_-; If any of you guys were to talk to Rage about my gameplay, he'd tell you what I do, and what I could possibly do after every whiff. And I throw him a couple monkey wrenches here and there, but my base gameplay remains the same each and every time we play.

So :arazz: 3S Masta, I'm not random, I'm mixing it up :sweat:

No your still random -_-

[Arcas V]

Holy shit that was a lot of reading -_-; Leave it to HunterSFL to go into super details =P

So what I got out of it was 'smart random = mixup'; but TeK gets called for abusing tactics that work on people, and I get called random for... Well, you know my style -_-; If any of you guys were to talk to Rage about my gameplay, he'd tell you what I do, and what I could possibly do after every whiff. And I throw him a couple monkey wrenches here and there, but my base gameplay remains the same each and every time we play.

So :arazz: 3S Masta, I'm not random, I'm mixing it up :sweat:
Well it depends... "smart random" isnt smart if it doesent work -_- and you have to take lag in consideration.

Not callin you out since I've only played you once and you won lol. But I don't want people to think random moves are ok.

[Arcas V]

:wonder: Did anyone new to the game bother to read any of this? lol

[Oo 3s masta oO]

lol
i mean there is alot of useful info

[Gilgam3sh]

Hehe, I surely read it. But when you feel you have little to add to a conversation you sit and listen ^^ Thanks for tips tho :tup:

[Arcas V]

Oh I see, I guess everyone else felt that way too. Glad we could help.