Video: 3S a beginner's guide

Classic Fighting Games Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike
#1

This post was originally made in the 3S for XBL forum, where we get a lot of novice players, moreso since 3S became backward compatible on Xbox360;

Ok. About a month ago I completed an absolute beginner’s introductory video to Third Strike. The specific focus was to highlight risky gameplay and to show how badly that gameplay would fair against a competent opponent. I play new players often and I see this to be the single biggest failing amongst newcomers.

I’ve been sitting on the video for a long time, with the intention of adding post effects, fades and so on. To cut a long story short, this hasn’t happened. I wasn’t able to find the time or the tools to polish the video to my satisfaction, so I’m just going to release it ‘as is’ and leave fancy video editing for anything I produce in the future.

The video is somewhat raw, but the content should be helpful to new players in learning the basic. There are no character specific sections, just the fundamentals. If you could find the time to post any feedback, it may be useful if I ever choose to add further videos of a similar vein.

Xen_3S_beginners_guide.avi

#2

Not bad man (just watched it without audio, will watch it with audio later). One thing I’d say to put in is DO NOT JUMP OUT OF THE CORNER. This is something every beginner does as soon as he’s backed up into a corner. Beginners jump too much anyway but jumping out of corners at soon as they’re backed up into them is a habit that’s best killed off ASAP.

Some of those punishment combos aren’t really practical. Chun-Li’s, for example. And Oro’s doesn’t really need a meter (it’s a bit expensive, no?). Also, you should have used another character for the parrying Denjin example, Twelve can just walk under it and it would be better for a beginner to do that than parry :stuck_out_tongue:

Liked the section on punishment. Another thing beginners tend to do is go for a throw when the other player is wide open rather than max damage combo. Maybe you could have listed the unsafe moves for each charcter, the ones it’s best to stay away from? Spiral DDT, Yang’s roll kick, Chun’s down/towards + FK, etc.

That’s just me being picky though. Good stuff XEN. Are you looking for feedback to change stuff with this video or just so you know what to look out for in future vids?

#3

Cheers man :tup:

I’ve pretty much had enough of working with this video. Correcting some things (mostly so that I can add post effects) would mean re-capturing all of the game footage. That’s not something I’d like to endure all over again :lol:

I’ve learned a lot putting this together and I’m sure any feedback will be useful if I ever get the itch to do an ‘intermediate’ follow up.

Thanks again.

#4

I’d say its just as amateur to use blanket statements like that.

Anyway, I think its kind of silly to show examples for every character, especially when some of them aren’t realistic. Who uses sa1 Yun? or sa1 Yang?

#5

Maybe it is pherai but it’s one thing I’ve noticed a lot of beginners do, just randomly jump out of the corner as soon as they get backed up there. Any advice to ‘beginners’ is going to be blanket and generalising by its very nature, how else do you plan to go about general advice? By sitting each beginner down individually and going through what he or she does wrong?

Sheesh.

#6

Eh, I don’t know about that man. Maybe if your advice was “NEVER USE STUNGUN HEADBUTT” that is acceptable, but there are several characters where jumping out of the corner works just fine (Akuma, Ken, Twelve, Chun). No one is ever going to go back to you once you’re better and say “Yeah, Stungun headbutt is actually decent, you just have to be careful with it” but they will say that about jumping out of the corner.

#7

Perhaps but again, my example was generally speaking. You could break down individual characters, individual examples, individual circumstances (what character is your opponent using? Which super? Does he have meter for EX moves?) but for the sake of keeping a tutorial short and concise, you have to generalise somewhat. And until the player is good enough to parry anti-airs, I think learning to block while in the corner (as XEN illustrates with his example of Q in the video) is a more valuable skill to learn while getting to grips with the basics than blindly jumping out of the corner straight away is.

Going back to the Q example in XEN’s video, what if the beginner tried to jump out of the corner? Metallic sphere, tackle, Aegis reflect, GGPO. You could argue that the beginner would parry the metallic sphere but then we’d get into an argument over what a ‘beginner’ is actually capable of doing in the heat of a fight. Sure, a beginner could eventually experiment and discover his own ways of escaping corner traps but I still think it’s a bad habit that needs to be toned down, certainly going by a lot of new players I’ve seen try and tackle 3rd Strike.

Anyway, I’m not looking to spam up XEN’s thread with a side argument, it was just something I noticed beginners do a lot having tried to teach various people to play 3rd Strike. Maybe I’m right, maybe I’m wrong but XEN asked for opinions and I gave mine.

Peace.

#8

But you are arguing against the point that its NEVER a good idea, which I NEVER said. I’m not saying it’s not a bad idea from time to time, but its really just mixup shit. If you think your opponent is going to go for a throw, jumping out is a good idea. Beginners may do it all the time, regardless of what they think is going to happen, but that doesn’t suddenly make it your worst option in any situation.

#9

Karakusa, Fierce Punch, hayate linked to SA1 is a HARD punish :confused:?

#10

Genei Jin and Yang SA3 punishment are way, way outside the scope of this video.

Execution-wise? No. Same reason I’m not showing monster Oro combos for punishment, or dash partitioned unblockables with Urien. This video is aimed at beginners. Whilst it’s mainly showing which moves are unsafe and shouldn’t be spammed, I was also keeping an eye on punishments that would be relatively feasible for newer players. Everything I’ve shown should be easy enough for a determined beginner to practice and incorporate into his or her game.

Makoto SA2 punishment has some back to front execution and would have required an extensive explanation.

Thanks for all the feedback. Keep it coming. :tup:

#11

I think the video is more than adequate for beginners.

If someone develops their skill to the point that they think about what you guys are debating about, I’m sure they’ll know what steps to take.

#12

I’d actually say that for someone just starting the game, I would put how to punish and what to punish with as something to be learned as early as possible. Punishing is essential in playing the game well. Parrying, footsies, and even mixups aren’t as important as knowing how to punish correctly. I think this video addresses that to the right degree. Even though some combos aren’t what they should be, it doesn’t matter to much.

#13

not bad, but it ended a bit abruptly, but you could make it the start of a much longer tutorial.

I would say teach counter poking next, and then go deeper into risk versus reward to help people understand the different rock paper scissors concepts. Things like, it’s risky to do wakeup srks against Ken or Chun li because blocking usually makes more sense but it is less risky to do wakeup srks against Dudley because blocking isn’t safe against him.