At this point, @TheKeits, I think it might be a good to release an official text stream explaining how counter breakers work, including the 5 frame buffers and the like.
I know it sounds unnecessary and stupid since the people who actually read and study things already know that they work, but it would at least put the facts out there in a clear format so that people can fully understand.
You don’t have to, but I know I would appreciate it. 
I have always been frustrated by the “almost got him” counter-breaker failure. But I am frustrated by all kinds of things when I lose. At this point, people just need to understand the reality. I’m converted on this issue because I can’t really think of a way to change anything. So here is the reality:
Counter breakers cannot be input after breakers. They have to come first. Love it, hate it, whatever. That’s the way it has always been. I’m not even sure if it would be possible to make it otherwise. I know it feels bad when you hear “lockout” then “whong” (that’s my counter breaker noise). But that’s too bad. Hit it earlier. If it’s your TV, too bad. If you are old and slow like me, too bad. If you just don’t like the way counter breakers work, too bad (don’t use them).
Whatever you think has changed hasn’t. This is something that has just gone crazy for S3. I spent too long trying to sort it out, when in reality nothing has changed outside of manuals and juggles. 99.9% of people missing counter breakers are not missing them during manuals and juggles. @Infilament’s post already walks through the facts as well as can possibly be done. It’s useless to try to have a conversation when people refuse to actually look at the facts.
So, if you want to debate point 1. above, that’s fine. But people need to stop pretending that this is new for S3. It isn’t. It just isn’t, no matter how much you feel it is. Also, don’t lose a ■■■■■■■ match by blowing a counter breaker then immediately run to the forums to say “I hate counter breakers in S3!!!” We have run through this a zillion times already. Calling the guy who breaks you a scrub and cataloguing your brilliance doesn’t change anything. The guy beat you because you played the game worse than him. If you don’t like the game that’s fine. But you aren’t making correct reads and executing godlike gameplay if you are dropping counter breakers all over the place and getting punished for it. You are failing. And then running to the forums and asking the game to be changed to retroactively fit your view that you should have won that last match. That’s the definition of “scrub” behavior.
@BigBadAndy, please, are you asking people about being realistic about their skill? About that they are not perfect reaction/execution machines, and they can fail? Are you asking for some common sense?
[quote=“BigBadAndy, post:43, topic:15866, full:true”]The guy beat you because you played the game worse than him.
[/quote]
So mashing out lockouts is skill these days, noted.
Reducing the key factor ot a lose to a single factor(not landing properly a CB or being broken by a guess break) is cherry picking. You are ignoring:
-Neutral
-Defense
-Unbreakable damage
Among other stuff. If you are better in these areas than your opponent, he can break you every time, if you don’t get opened, win the neutral, and land hits on him, you will eventually win.
You are not making the good choices in terms of breaking/counter breaking. Nothing more, nothing else
So mashing out lockouts is skill these days, noted.
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Again, you’re implying that screwing up a counterbreaker is somehow more skillful than screwing up a breaker?
It’s a legit tactic if he can count on his scrubby opponent to bail him out with late counter breakers. If you bring a knife to a gunfight you are going to be murdered by someone regardless of how awesome you are with your knife. If you want to play some game other than KI then exit the menu and load up something else.
And when did we start talking about skill? I thought we were talking about winning the game. I have been around for a long time. Throwing has been called a cheap no skill tactic for 20+ years. When throw tech was introduced to fix throwing, people called that scrubby too. The problem with discussing “skillful” play is that it leads nowhere and solves nothing. If you want to talk about your supreme skill level, go buy yourself a crown and wear it around. You won’t be the first (or last) guy to sit in the losers seat claiming that he is a better player than the guy who just beat him.
As for current KI, stop hitting counter breaker if it isn’t working for you. Problem solved.
I have a notion I’d like to share regarding this -
The common complaint is essentially “mashing guessbreak beats skilled play too often,” right?
Mash breaking, insofar as I understand, only works on autos, and gets locked out against manuals and linkers. So, the mash breakers have to rely on their opponent starting a combo with an auto instead of another option (lest they get timing locked out the gate). Next, consider they must “guess” the strength - and this is where I imagine a lot of the frustration comes, as people more often complain about “guess breaking” than “mashing break”. This is actually quite an easy guess to make, if you’re paying attention to their opener (and can distinguish strengths) - I imagine it’s quite common for a player with even slightly sloppy inputs to negative edge an auto off of an opener with relative frequency. So, the first time they hit you, break the strength of their opener. Did they negative edge the auto? If yes, keep at it until they adjust. If no, adjust your breaking strat or lose. If an opponent is unaware that they are negative edging autos, they are gonna get taken for a ride that they unwittingly bought the ticket for.
I think it’s easy to discredit a random opponent, but not so much to analyze our own play and flaws therein.
I honestly wouldn’t be surprised to find many that have serious issues with “constant guess breaking” are habitual negative-edge-auto-doublers.
Or I’m totally wrong, that’s possible too. Just something to think about.
Q: Is anyone for/against reducing lockout time if a combo-breaker doesn’t immediately happen? There are times where I’ll see someone counter-break and then almost a full second later, it seems I get caught by it anyways thinking it’s already over and/or when attempting to counter-attack/punish the counter-breaker itself (usually with a throw)…
Don’t punish it with a throw. The recovery window in whiffed CBs is quite large, you have plenty of time to do any heavy button xx shadow opener, or at least heavy button xx opener if you have no meter. The possibility of accidentally getting caught by it when trying to punish shouldn’t be happening.
Not doing a throw is obvious, but sometimes I swear I’m getting punished for regular attacks too (1 input instead of 2, like with a throw) and it still acts like I was combo-breaking!
I suppose my own fingers are betraying me in this case, but it never “feels” like it in the moment.
If anything, I think the counter breaker “catch window” should be longer, not shorter.
I mean, we can argue about a frame one way or another. The problem is that there is no adjustment that is going to make the window universally beloved - “too long” is anytime it catches me and “too short” is anytime I don’t catch you with it. In the heat of the moment, seconds can feel like ages and a minute can go by like a second. It’s always a good idea to watch the replay instead of relying on your memory for what happened. I find that I remember the sequence of events pretty well, but the relative time and the relative damage from different things is often filtered out in a memory.
The overwhelming amount of evidence suggests that indeed counter breakers are working as intended.
The problem for a lot of people I think is this “robbed” feeling that happens because someone locks out on first-frame before it’s even possible to humanly react to the move. You had the right read but because you can’t input your manual or double while also hitting counter breaker at the same time you get punished. The aggressor who has the correct read doesn’t expect to have to input in the counter breaker until a few frames later usually until after frame 5 which is the buffer window.
Here is a frame step screenshot of casuals with paulb. Hes hitting heavy breaker here while I knew he would break air throw but because I can’t input counter breaker fast enough before frame 1 I don’t get anything. So at this point it wasn’t enough that I had the read he would break but then also I now need to have a read on the frame he will try and break too which sounds a little much which in turn just discourages the use of counter breakers overall…well at least for me.
You guys know me, I do not counter break…EVER especially in tournament! So this robbed feeling doesn’t apply to me as often but I sure hope they can find a way to ease it for players.
Two words.
Training…mode.
Thanks to the 5 frame buffer, there is a bit of leniency with counter breaking on the first frame. And because of the catch window on the counter, it should catch the opponent breaking for the duration of whatever move they were trying to break (besides moves with super long hit stop, like TJ’s tremor). All it takes is a little practice in the training mode. It is a little tricky, I’ll admit it, but it is very doable.
But it is, of course, up to you whether you think it’s worth it. You have the facts, and that’s enough for me 
I’m retired, I don’t need to learn how to counter break. 
Good to know. 
I mean… you’re basically saying “I can’t press two buttons within 5 frames of each other.”
And I don’t really believe you, I’m afraid.
You’re fully capable if you want to be. If you can’t do it now, it will take you 1 minute of practice in training mode.
For some of Orchid’s juggles, instead of throwing to bait the lockout (pressing two buttons before sliding over to MP+MK), you could just press a jab, which is the same startup and will be counter breakable at the same time as throw would be. This input will be easier on your hands and will give you the same success rate on the counter breaker.
For those juggles that aren’t this way (ie, you must air throw), use LP + LK to throw and MP + LK for the counter break. This means you can keep your thumb rooted on LK and basically do a standard double-tap motion to get the inputs incredibly fast (I imagine you are practiced in double-tapping techniques).
For controller players, the input is even easier because of rotating the right stick from light breaker (ie, throw) to medium breaker immediately. It’s like throwing a hadouken with your right hand.
You can say “well, I shouldn’t have to do these things!” and, well… I dunno man, fighting games are routinely about doing hard things with good timing. KI players constantly talk about how there is no execution in the game… well, here’s some (easy) execution for you, I guess.
At some point, you will have to finally accept that you could have done it with correct timing, but didn’t. And for all the complaints about the design directions of the KI engine (whether valid or not), this particular mistake comes down to you, as a player. Some people might not agree with the rules, but you know the rules, so you must practice until you can abide by them.
It’s frustrating to miss execution, I understand, but I can’t let people get away with saying “it’s not physically possible” just because you missed it one time. If everybody gave up on SF4’s one frame links (considerably harder execution than what we’re talking about now) when they dropped it in the clutch, we wouldn’t even have tournaments. And I’m sure lots of SF4 players disagreed with the designers and wished their main BnB combos weren’t all one frame links.
The KI community is too soft.
Tsumuji loops, FFF combos, SJC ultras, getting level 2 focus charge mid-combo…SF4 had so much hard stuff to learn. Probably not the most sound design choice, but it was so satisfying when you could do it.
I think I’ve said this before, but I really wish someone from outside KI would come in and shake things up. Not to speak ill of our top players but…I really think it wouldn’t take long for players outside this community to rise to the top if they decided this was gonna be their game. I think someone like sonicfox would really show people how nasty KI can be when you play scientifically. People need to put more effort into breaking the game, abusing it, smashing it to pieces and picking through the guts to see what they find.
