A complete exposé on counter breakers: why they work, why they don't, and what you can do

Please enlighten me as to “the way it was before”. You keep saying this, but I keep not understanding it.

The lockout X delayed? Definitely better when it wasn’t. Hopefully a fix comes.

Can’t break startup of manuals? Was always in the game. Maybe it shouldn’t be this way, but the work involved to change it would make the game unstable right now, and nobody wants the game to break. They added it to juggles, but I explain why it’s easy to interpret this as a positive change for the offense, not a “let’s make combo breakers better” change.

The only real thing that’s different is the “break during hitstop” change. That affects a few key things, like Thunder’s stop, Cinder’s recapture, etc. And counter breakers are still “first class citizens” over combo breakers here, as long as you’re willing to beat them to the punch and not just counter break halfway through the move. Is this change really that big of a deal to you? I can understand preferring it the way it was (because it’s muscle memory now, and that’s kind of annoying to change)… but do you think this prevents you from engaging in certain KI mind games? Would you rather have unbreakables in the game due to feral cancel/instinct cancel manuals? I know you hate unbreakables a lot. What do you want the devs to do here?

That was only on manuals. For all other breaker attempts in the game (which, by S1 players standards, should be “almost all of them” because I keep hearing “we didn’t break the manual, instead we tried to break the linker”), they didn’t converge; you had to be strictly earlier than the defense’s attempt to break. So I actually don’t really think this is true. DH wanted you to be earlier than the breaker, not 5 frames after and have it still count, for all combo elements except manuals, which for all we know was a bug that we just grew accustomed to over time.

Trust me, I know.

I would rather have all the information in one place for inquiring minds, though.

Also, it’s entirely possible to “prefer the way it was before” but still play/adjust to the change. I played 5 versions of SF4, largely preferring certain things in older versions, but also liking some new changes they brought in. You enjoy SFV, so you’re going to go through this same thing in a few months. Not every change they make to the game you’ll love, but you’ll just have to play through it and understand why the change was made (in this case, to remove unbreakables that were the scourge of professional play in S2).

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Counterbreakers have always had to come before Combo Breakers in every case except manuals. Manuals now follow the rule in S3 instead of being the exception. You are free to dislike any change, of course. What I take issue with is players telling other players that a system isn’t functioning because it changed a little. The spread of misinformation has proven toxic in the past and remains so here.

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[quote=“Infilament, post:21, topic:11208”]
Is this change really that big of a deal to you? I can understand preferring it the way it was (because it’s muscle memory now, and that’s kind of annoying to change)… but do you think this prevents you from engaging in certain KI mind games?[/quote]

Well, most people are unhappy with the new system so, yes, I’d say it’s a pretty big deal.

In my opinion the “read” is that you’re going to break the manual, not that you’re going to break the manual on frame 0. If you break on frame 0, and I counter-break on frame 5, in my opinion the “read” was correct. The counter-break should work in this case.

Straw man.

Find a better solution.

Yes, I know. I did a lot of adjusting from S1 → S2 and throughout S2 between Wulf and Riptor.

But when you change a core mechanic that nobody had complaints about you’re going to alienate a lot of players.

I’m not even speaking for myself at this point. I don’t feel strongly about any of these things, but I see the community up in arms about this particular issue and I’ve seen a lot of people stop playing. Do with that what you will.

No different to me than trying to reversal but being 2 frames late, and getting hit. Or, in 3rd Strike, trying to parry Chun cr.MK 2 frames late and instead getting hit by super. Both of these (reversals and parry) have a similar active window to counter breakers (around 3-5 frames).

Can you explain the difference to me? That’s an honest question. Maybe there is a difference I don’t understand. Why should counter breaking manuals (and ONLY manuals, not autos/linkers/etc) allow the action late? If counter breaking is unreasonably strict, should we apply this extra lenience also to autos and linkers?

What? It’s not a straw man at all.

With the old system, unbreakables were possible (a bad outcome). With the new system, counter breaking late on manuals is now a fail state (depending on who you ask, a bad outcome). If you say I prefer the old system, then that also means you didn’t mind the unbreakables that much, compared to this new behavior. I find that puzzling.

I’m not sure there is a better solution. I certainly can’t think of one, and the devs can’t seem to either. Do you have any ideas?

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I understand what you mean. This is how I look at it though. If I pressed the button at the wrong time, then I pressed the wrong button. I feel like our biggest issue is honestly with the animation delay (which a fix is being worked on).

I don’t care whichever way we have this rule, but just for argument’s sake, at what frame difference would a counter-breaker beat a break? As in, what’s the maximum difference?

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I don’t think these people are intentionally spreading misinformation. They’re doing their best to outline what they think is bad about the changes without having all the information.

I’d argue your mocking and critical responses to these people on streams at major events is much more toxic and won’t ultimately lead to informing them.

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I think I’ve got the explanation. If you can’t counter break on the start-up of a manual, then there needs to be some lenience the other way. That’s my best guess for what Paul means.

There is lenience, though. There is a buffer that applies your break input on the first frame possible if you do it too early, and there is a large window after you counter break where all break attempts get caught (this window will be further standardized in June, as I talk about in my top post).

We’re not trying to counter break into a 1 or 2 frame window here (which WOULD be too strict, for sure). All we’re saying is the window has now shifted a bit so that the concept of “beat him to the break” is adhered to. The window is still super huge and very lenient, just slightly adjusted.

He is free to dislike the fact that the window has moved, but the devs give good reasons for it, reasons that make sense both philosophically about the concept of breaking, and actually have meaningful gameplay consequences (the removal of some unbreakable combos). So it seems very strange to me that “many people in the community” are willing to quit the game over this change. It doesn’t seem something that is possible to hate so vehemently that you quit the game over it. If you’re armed with knowledge about exactly what has changed, it … doesn’t seem like a particularly difficult adjustment to make, even if you prefer it the old way. In SFIV, they often changed the inputs for certain special moves (Gouken counter, T.Hawk condor dive) and super/ultra (Viper’s super, several different ultras). To me, this seems similar to that. Annoying at first because I have to retrain my brain to do different combo inputs and reactions, but eventually, meh… I’ll get used to it, even if I liked the old motion better. It just doesn’t seem like something worth hating that much you know?

It’s actually extremely difficult to counter break the startup of most manuals, because manuals have fast startup and your fingers have to move on the controller. Most of the time your counter break inputs will come after the manual has started anyway (exceptions to this are juggle combos with huge startup moves, like Tremor). It’s not so hard that catching the buffer and counter breaking first frame is unrealistic, but it’s hard enough that I don’t think people who are breaking on frame 2 of the startup will ever get caught, even if the game allows you to try breaking during the startup. Hopefully that last paragraph makes sense.

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Thanks for enlightening, at the very least. I understand situation now, and can see the justification. I had no problem with the system before, and that’s still true with the way it is now.

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This was a suggestion cupcake had.
Make it so that the opponent can’t break your combo until your move hits
Just like you have to wait to counter break until your move hits.

Idk or not whether this would help the situation where some things become uncounterbreakable such as trying to break after spinals shadow skull linker or that issue Tj has had with his tremors for awhile now

This is how juggles worked in Season 2.

This allows the defending player to input mistimed Breaker attempts and NOT get locked out, meaning they do not get punished for doing this.

This is one suggestion, but you are basically invalidating timing lockouts altogether when you do this.

The question to ask is… do you want your opponent to get timing locked out because they got tricked by a manual? This is, I would think, a good thing for the offense, right? This is part of what makes breaking manuals hard; you think they’re going to do an auto or a linker, and sometimes you lock out because of the manual’s delay.

Taking this out of the game sounds like a negative change for the offensive player.

Ew. Please no. I feel like this would deter me from doing manuals at all. I rely a lot on getting people to mistime a break when I go for manuals, and getting rid of the mistimed lockout would be extremely detrimental to offense.

Solid points. Like I said I wasn’t sure whether it would help the situation where some characters can’t cb at all. I didn’t have to use juggles in s2 and still really don’t have to use them now so idk the mechanics of that part of the system.

I think the most important part of this discussion is that the “problem” is actually very complicated and there is no easy solution.

Counter breaking the startup of manuals is both difficult to execute, difficult to program, AND won’t really solve most of the issues anyway.

Not allowing any break attempts on the startup of manuals is a huge nerf to their utility. It might make counter breaks more reliable, but it will force you to use counter breaks a lot more often, as opposed to playing the combo game and accepting a lot of lockouts due to the difficulty of manual breaks. I know a lot of people in the community don’t like to be forced to counter break to stop someone breaking, and this change would skew the game towards that more.

It’s a hard problem and not solved at all by some people saying “keits plz” when their opponent gets timing locked out and you tried to counter break after.

It’s my hope that this thread and the discussion that follows will help bring some perspective to some of the players who are not enjoying the game right now. Probably also because the mentality of “counter breakers not working” is now extending to some completely legitimate misses on counter break attempts and people are getting mad for no reason. It sometimes seems like any missed counter breaker, including wildly and very obviously wrong ones, are the game’s fault now. I’m trying to stop the full-speed train of hate a bit.

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The problem is that players are learning the truth, and then still suggesting that counterbreakers are “broken” or not functioning properly. Learning the truth and then spreading misinformation anyway is still doing it intentionally. Suggesting that you think the old way is better is one thing, but saying the new version is broken/wrong is another.

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Infil really should just be given a job or paid in some way by IG/MS. Great stuff!

I think you’ve done a great job explaining. As far as breaking manuals goes I do think a few characters are at a bit of a disadvantage as their manuals aren’t as hard to break as others. I.e. Tj for example always felt more reactable than say aria. Some characters I’ll never try to break a manual unless I have to or the person is simply coming into a pattern. Others I’ve been able to break on reaction

We have to stack that (very fair) point up against:

  • People saying hyperbolic things on the internet; some of them “quit” a game two dozen times a year or so
  • We’re in a new age, devoid of self awareness. Easier to blame the game and cry “broke” on the internet than to self-evaluate, seek knowledge and put in the time to make the adjustments.

@llPaulBll - I wish you weren’t being so dismissive. Infil is appealing to you politely for ideas. I think a lot of folks here, myself included, think you’re bright and would love to hear what you have to say - should you be interested in actually engaging the debate.

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Sure, but these people are also doing more damage to the game than they probably realize, especially when a person saying this type of thing is a higher profile streamer or personality in our community. And this is not calling out any specific person, because it applies to many people.

I’m all for being yourself on stream or twitter, not censoring your thoughts, etc. Just because you are a top player doesn’t mean you need to neuter your personality and toe the company line. But it also means things you say affect lots of people, including people you don’t realize are watching your actions. Maybe a new player clicked on Killer Instinct that day because a friend showed him, and all he sees are angry people saying they want to quit the game. If that’s your schtick, not everybody is always in on the joke, and eventually it gets tiresome even for those who are. It probably should not be your main schtick.

I just want people to be aware of how the things they say affect others. Maybe the community would be a little less negative that way. You can disagree with a change in a way that doesn’t do damage to the hobby you love.

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