Old School Habits, New School Game

Newbie Saikyo Dojo
#1

Played various SF2’s on arcade and SNES/Genesis from '92-whenever the alphas came along. I first heard about SF4 a year ago then, couldn’t resist picking Super up about week ago and can’t believe what has happened to the series.

Its really fun to be able to still pull off a lot of the same 2 in 1s with Ryu and Guile as always, but all this super/ultra and EX/cancel shit is completely new. I know I know, I sound ridiculous…and old. FUCK.

Anyway, I’ve read quite a bit of the basic forum stuff and haven’t come across a similar topic so…

Can someone help me get my SF shit together once again? Any advice or pointers (for someone with old school experience and habits) would be awesome. I can’t be the only SF2 guy to come out of the wood work with SF4…

My main’s are Ryu and Guile and my style can best be described as offensively opportunistic. Any and all suggestions are appreciated.

#2

Spend some time in the trials of your character(s) of choice.
You’ll get an idea of what kinds of combos are performed as well as how to combo into your supers or ultras.

Be patient. You’re going to lose. Nothing will change that without putting more time into getting SSF4’s fundamentals down.
Be aware that the combo referred to as “old skool” (jump in heavy kick to sweep) doesn’t work near as much as it used to in 92.
Have fun with the game. Taking it too seriously leads to Caim-itus.

#3

I’m in a sort of similar boat. It just takes time to become aware of things. You’ll eat a hell of a lot of ultras until you start to remember to constantly look at the other person’s meter and expect it any time it’s available. EX moves and supers are pretty straightforward, I think you can ignore EX cancels for a while. You’ll notice that ultras are pretty much the stupidest thing ever invented and their existence almost ruins the game. But not quite.

#4

Blasphemy.
Ultras have added a sense of urgency to the game, forcing players to rethink their offensive strategy when their battered opponent has an ultra readied.
It also allows for some pretty epic turnarounds and makes matches more fun to watch.
Besides, nearly every single ultra is SUPER punishable, requiring skill to land them consistently and as much skill to properly defend against/evade them.
Unless you can nail an ultra out of a combo (Sakura’s EX spinkick to angled ultra2 comes to mind) chances are you’ll need your opponent to have a HUGE lapse in judgement for it to hit.

Ugh. People complaining about integrated game mechanics… expecting the game to be the same 20 years later… failure to evolve, etc.

#5

Hey, like I said, I still like the game. But comboable ultras are nowhere near uncommon, so often a jab equal half your life bar. Beyond that, the meter is just a reward for sucking. It allows for some pretty epic tournarounds because landing one hit negates an entire round of getting your ass kicked. Ultras are the blue shells of street fighter.

#6

No hard feelings, chum.
But turnarounds keep the game exciting.

Besides, the “blue shell” thing works two-fold. If you’re a skilled player who has been trapped in the corner or eating mashed SRKs due to lag spikes in online play, an Ultra is your way of saying "Back the fuck up and keep this sporting."
Never said comboable ultras were uncommon. Just that someone actually has to get into a combo to guarantee an ultra will hit, typically that is.
If your defense is solid, there’s no worries.

#7

Back when I was a kid you had to, I dunno, come back on your own instead of getting a reward for getting your ass beat. If you call that exciting so be it. So many rounds between Justin and Daigo at Season’s Beatings 4 were decided on Justin missing a one-frame link with Fei, and Daigo DPing into Ultra, lol, that wasn’t exciting.

Posting in this thread to tell the new guy that almost nothing you know about SF2 will help you in SF4. If you have very solid fundamentals that’s great, but you’ll need to adapt them severely to SSFIV’s very unique engine.

#8

Sup. I’m old school as well. Lots of old heads on this forum.
Since you know SF2 well, you’re on the right track. SF4 is SF2 at its core. The game can be played like SF2, if you choose. However, you’ll be at a severe disadvantage.

-Learn how and when to use Supers, Ultras, Focus Attacks, Cancels, EX’s and THROWS. Times have changed. Many people will throw as much as punch. Be aware of that and learn how to tech throws.

-Don’t jump too much. It will lose you matches. Learn when jumps work best for you and when they’re safe.

-Learn the juggle system. You don’t have to be an expert, but know enough for you to take advantage of it. (i.e. Ryu’s lp Dragon punch on a jumping opponent can be combo’d into Ultra 1 for big damage.)

-If you’re serious about learning the game, you’ll need a good controller. Fightpad or Fightstick; research them and make your choice.

-Like others have said, the trials will help you learn the moves as well as the physics of the game.

-Give yourself time. You won’t learn all this stuff overnight. And even when you do, there’s always more to learn.

#9

Dudes thanks for the input and yeah the trials are a blast and make it really easy to get into the game, and practice mode… wish they would have had that 15 years ago.

Controller: My stick should be here friday, I can’t wait as a lot of this stuff just begs to be played arcade style and is a lot harder without imo.

Throws: I actually felt like they got kinda fucked in 4. Throw used to be a great punish for me and now not so much. Still getting the hang of teching out of throws although it seems to be a 3rd or 4th option for most people in my limited experience.

Supers/Ultras: Still not sure how to max this stuff out. DP’ing someone out of a jump attack into Ultra or Super came pretty easy. Canceling a DP into Super on dime? Yeah not so much.

EX Cancel/Cancel: I get that EX moves take 2 button presses and do more damage/cost a bar/have other properties. Not sure of the best way to max this out either. Haven’t figured out how to make Ryu’s cancel work for me, yet. Haven’t even really checked out the other characters or even figured out what their cancels are. Are there different ones besides the dash cancel Ryu does?

Right now I’m a mostly s/c.HP DP/Hado punish kind of guy because thats what I know how to do. Thanks again for all the replies, I hope to expand and ‘evolve’ because thats what we do right?

btw learning matchups for 18 new characters is freakin AWESOME

#10

Learning hitconfirm combos and links should be high on your list of things to learn because they will help you maximize your damage when you have an opening or a punish opportunity. Everything else carries over or is just a slight variation on stuff you already know.

#11

You can EX cancel a lot of normals and special attacks. You do this by hitting the focus attack just after the attack connects. It costs two bars of ex meter to EX cancel. You use this mostly for one of three reasons. To opt out of an attack and make it safe. Ryu wakes up with mp dp, EX cancels right after the first hit and cancels the focus attack by dashing backwards, putting him safely out of reach of most punishes. To juggle or link into ultra. Ryu wakes up with dp, it hits and he cancels, dashes forward and juggles with ultra 1. Or for mixups. Ryu does a block string ending in haduken, EX cancels and dashes forward to throw.

His EX moves don’t really do much more damage, but they do have useful properties. His EX dp is invincible for 16 frames…pretty much as long as it can hit for. About the only use it has is as a get out of jail card. Nothing will beat or trade with it. It’ll always win, unless they’re invincible, too. EX fireball recovers 5 frames faster than a normal fireball and put them into juggle state. So, you can zone with it from just a bit closer and still get off your dp to anti-air. Juggle state allows you to combo to ultra off of it. Easy in the corner, but midscreen you have to EX cancel the fireball or be right next to them when the fireball hits. EX tatsu is his most damaging special, but not really. By itself it does the most dmg, but in most combos it doesn’t scale well. It’s biggest use is that it can juggle. Land it with your opponent cornered and you can juggle into ultra. Can also use it after you land dp xx EX cancel, and don’t have ultra yet.
Use Ryu’s super mostly to punish. It comes out very quickly and travels fast across the screen, allowing you to punish a lot of attacks you normally couldn’t. Dash punches from Rog. Almost any sweep. Blanka ball, whether you block or are hit. It’s very good as a reversal.

As Kelter said, the links are important, too. They’ll add a lot more damage and allow you to hit confirm off a crouching jab, in those situations where you are unsure you can punish, or are pressuring your opponent.

Also, almost no one uses the term EX cancel. Looking around the rest of the forum, you’ll see it refered to as FADC(Focus Attack Dash Cancel). It’s the same thing.

#12

In SF2 you didn’t need to combo to win. It was all positioning. In SF4, you need to know all the practical combos for your character in order to win.

This game is also more jumpy than SF2. Jumping backwards in SF2 was imo not worth it, and i feel you are much better off in SF2 fighting for the corner even if you have a health deficit depending on the clock. I will say that jumping backwards to reset the pace to a neutral position is something you can do in SF4. As for jumping too much, I would say that SF4 is definitely more jump-in friendly. I think I’m the minority in this discussion in that you should jump a lot if you want. If you get knocked down, there are so many ways to escape pressure, compared to very few if any in SF2. Basically in SF2, if you jumped in and you earned yourself to get in close, it’s a gamble situation both people may not want to be in because of throws, so a lot of guys tend to just use what they earned to push you to the corner.

I don’t know how far in SF2 you’ve been in, but they have a thing in SF4 called ultras. This completely changed SF for the worse imo ever since ST. Luckily, in SF4, you don’t gain meter by whiffing normal moves and specials like before which made SF defensive. The pace changes when people have meter though.

#13

By hit confirm you guys mean just sticking a jab in front of a punish to decide whether to carry on with it…right? If thats what you mean that makes sense and I’ll work it in.

I’ve been finding myself just storing the meter for Super instead of doing EX shit, FADC being the exception and I can’t even claim to really “get” the tactic aside from the totally obvious. Is that normal strategy or is it telegraphing the Super too much to hold onto my bar? Thanks for the expanded EX explanation Dannkk.

Last, I’ve seen a couple negatives about Supers/Ultras… hasn’t really bothered me too much and as a player of SNK games as well I remember the desperation moves being pretty handy. But YES I do find myself eating a high number of supers/ultras at this point for a couple reasons; the biggest being I don’t even recognize HALF of the cast so learning their animations is well…its gonna be a while :slight_smile:

#14

Not to start an arguement but I prefer ultras to supers in ST or SF3. They’re much harder to combo in to(for most characters) so it takes more work and set up to hit them and most ways will severly scale the damage of the ultra. When the threat of a super powerful move is too high(such as in SF3) the game devolves to both players dancing around trying to get 1 hit so they can super cancel it.

Again, not to start an arguement just IMO ultras are superior to supers.

#15

ST has hit confirms…

#16

Pretty much. Also, hit confirms and links go hand in hand.

That’s your call. I will say that EX moves can offer a big advantage at the right moment. Some can start a juggle, some have invincibility frames, some are very fast, some do crazy damage and some have any combination of those attributes.

FADC is probably the concept I had the most trouble with. Not only do you have to plan to use it before performing the move you’re gonna cancel, you also have to know how you’ll be following it up (throw, block string, ultra, etc.)…not to mention the dexterity required to perform a successful one. I’ve had numerous FADC’s backfire on me because I didn’t have a follow-up planned out or my execution was too slow.

It might be telegraphing if you’re not doing EX moves at all. In your opponent’s situation, I’d *expect *to be supered on my first mistake once I see that meter fill.

#17

Well yeah with the Ultra you just have to take enough damage, the Super bar definitely takes more “earning” to get filled up so I see your point. It also frees you up to do cancels,EX moves. I’ll play some more with that in mind.

#18

You can also “earn” towards your Ultra meter by absorbing a hit with FADC. Forgot to mention that.

#19

I don’t know if telegraphing is the right term for saving up meter for super. Generally the supers in SF4 eliminate certain options (good as anti airs or reversals), and those options they eliminate are widely known.

#20

Generally I like Ultras but it is pretty annoying playing as Dhalsim when you’re at about half health and you’ve whittled a T.Hawk player to a tiny amount then he lands a random jump-in Ultra 1 - dead… ._.