LCD Opens Up About Everything (Survey Feedback)

Because most players aren’t thinking about specific frame timing when they try to counter break. They’re just thinking about the action “break.” They’re not thinking about “break at frame 10.”

I thought that was clear.

If they’re total guesses most of the time, that means that they will either go through or result in lockouts more often than doubles. Following this logic, it makes the most sense for it to be difficult to counterbreak on manuals because they’re far more likely to be successful.

do u get those numbers from the frame data in game??? because in-game frame data says lights are 13-14 frames while mediums are 20-22 while heavies are around 30. i still find it hard to believe anyone can read recognize and then break a light autodouble , i cant and when i run into people that break lights if i switch to heavies they get locked out all the time.

I disagree.

The reason I had brought everything else up was to illustrate that the counter breaker game works like this for every element, not just one or two. I’m happy to isolate all my examples to one specific part of a combo if it will help steer the conversation, knowing that it extends by deduction to all the rest.

Okay, so you don’t have a problem with being 1 frame late on TJ’s tremor and the counter breaker failing then? It’s only for manuals that have a very small total duration, under the reaction limit? Everything else is okay in your books?

Yes, but if they’re thinking “just counter break”, then if they do it as soon as possible there’s no problem.

There used to be a problem where “as soon as possible” was unjustifiably hard. That is now fixed so that “as soon as possible” can now be during the manual’s startup and it’ll trigger 1st frame of hitstop. I personally don’t buy that it is too difficult to break at some point before the 1st available frame. KI players do much more timing-strict and difficult inputs than this just to play the game. It does require a small bit of practice in training mode, though, which some people may or may not be willing to give.

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I got them from Bastfree’s frame data, which he mined by stepping through frame counts and looking at breakable windows. I don’t always trust the in-game frame data (especially for auto-doubles, which are often wildly wrong).

I can verify tonight that these numbers are correct, if you want. But I trust bastfree’s science.

Right, because most people guess. They get overloaded by how difficult it is and they don’t bother to try. Also, it is very easy to flinch and react to the wrong thing, especially when you are trying to separate 3 or 4 different stimuli (lights from mediums from heavies from resets from whatever else).

It is possible if you are looking very specifically for it. And if you are looking so closely for light autos, then you can force them to fail at other parts of the breaker game, which is why not all pro players have 100% break success. But we need to separate “not possible” from “not a good idea” or “very hard so sometimes you still guess anyway”.

hmm… ok , i guess that makes some sense. i personally think its a bad idea to try to break lights on reaction. personally i am always ready to break mediums and heavies and guess break lights based on my opponents habits. i guess it kind of like breaking heavy manuals on reaction , its technically possible but in reality no one does it because its not practical

I think this is what most players do, even our best players. Occasionally they will look specifically for a light auto-double, see it, and break on reaction, but a lot of the time they won’t be looking for it and it will either slip by them or they will lock out. So I don’t think it’s something you can do all the time. It’s also very mentally draining to try and react to that all the time, so if you play 10 games in a row by the end it’s even harder than at the start.

Most heavy manuals are under the reaction limit, since they start up in about 8-10 frames and you can only break on the hitstop (so it would be, like… 5 or 6 more frames?). So we’re talking about a 13-16 frame reaction or so. There are some exceptions though… two-hit normals are basically like auto-doubles, so they don’t really count, and there are a very select few heavy normals that have huge startup (like, say… Hisako’s stand HK) which might be situationally reactable.

Anyway, I don’t want to derail this thread too much about reaction times, since that’s not really at the crux of the counter breaker discussion.

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Guys, a favor.
please connect also at EVO if you’re going, and have the discussion there too. Maybe try things out together by demonstrating stuff on a spare Xbox if it helps your case. Please don’t tell anyone to go play SFV or something because I do like watching Paul and others compete at KI. Please let cooler heads prevail this time and not like in 8bit chat. Would really like to see ppl clear the air rather than ignoring each other and things boil over again. Have fun at EVO and may the best player win.

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That’s the answer I was looking for. Even if I don’t agree with it, at least you gave a reason.

This thread has derailed itself significantly. I’m glad the devs read it though and I was able to get my point across.

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I wouldn’t hold my breath for a “resolution” as such. At its core, this is simply a fundamental disagreement about what’s “fair” for the counter break system. Paul thinks that manuals (generally non-reactable pieces of the combo) should have additional leniency on catching break attempts. Many of the rest of us disagree, and believe that the “counters must precede the break” philosophy along with the 5-frame buffer is consistent and fair. If I have mischaracterized your position Paul, please feel free to correct me.

I obviously come down on the latter point. Counter breakers in all other situations in the game must be input before the break they are trying to catch. It makes sense to me that manual counter breaks must also follow this rule, and given the 5-frame buffer we are now allowed, I do not believe this requirement to be unreasonable.

In S1 and S2 you also got punished for making the correct read and executing on it poorly. If I perform a heavy linker and counter, but you lock out early because you were mashing light break, then I would have gotten punished even in S1 even though my read was correct.

It makes little sense to me to try and isolate individual components of the breaker game and decry them as flawed, as if there do not exist other parts of the breaker game that also follow these rules. If your opponent messed up in S1 on a break and you countered after he got locked out, you also got punished. This is not some wholly separate argument or somehow irrelevant point - it forms the foundation of how the break/counter break game behaves throughout KI.

I actually agree that the requirement at the beginning of S3 was onerous and poorly implemented - the window was unrealistically tight to get manual counter breaks to come out first frame. That issue has been addressed, however, and I have no problems with the rules of counter breaking manuals conforming to the same rules as the rest of the breaker system.

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Huh… People are complaining but this is the most civil and fact based discussion of the counterbreaker change that I’ve seen.

My own personal view is that counter breaking is a read and it’s really aggravating to make the correct read and miss it due to timing in the context of KI’s combo system where you have 10+ frames to break. It seems like you should have a similar window to counter break. But you don’t. Okay. I have zero sympathy for the idea that you should get leeway in manuals but not auto doubles. It’s the same - I hit a heavy to bait you, and I have to wait for the move to show up on screen and then I counter but you break (or even worse lock out) immediately before and I lose. It feels bad. But those are the rules. I see no compelling reason why manuals are different just because the window might be smaller.

But the larger point is, why is this change worth so much fussing over? It seems to me like people are just saying “do it my way or I’m leaving” card instead of saying “well I don’t think that’s the right thing but I’m going to adapt to it.”

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No complaint from me, just an encouragement to also continue the good conversation at EVO perhaps face to face in the same fashion as is being show here. Maybe grab a controller to demonstrate things if needed, but don’t leave the boards thinking everything is settled. I am just afraid that once a larger group joins the conversation at EVO we might end up back at square one. Maybe over-communication helps our cause.

I’m pretty good at breaking lights and sometimes ppl woudn’t believe me. Unless the animation is too similar to mediums (which confuses me like Kan Ras or Cinders) they are quite visible. Of course they are fast but if you expect them (like the first choice of the combo) you can just focus on the character movement “speed” while performing this. I broke them most because of this but if I want to be sure I tend to watch the “visual animation” to confirm. If I add that the breaking time gets longer and might fail with the attemp because I was too late (specially online).

When ppl breaks a manual light I really think they are guessing most of the time. You can see that they will usually go for breaking manual light and medium (specially when they are in their danger bar 70% break my light manuals), while heavies are easy to see in most cases. I’m tired of being broken with wulf on light manuals (standing and crouch) and the input for CB hardly works for that. I must risk with CB after a juggle for “guess breakers” but what if they are actually expecting to see the manual and not breaking at frame 1? The only way I can CB at frame 1 is just going for CB after the juggle with no previous input. To be sure I mean.

Haven’t tried the buffer though, I still have to work that out…

eg: lets say I did running uppercut ender with wulf and want to go with a flip out manual and counter breaker. So…I should input c.LK while holding MP and MK at the same time and then letting go? I hope someone can help me with this. Because for what I practiced ppl will break at the first frames and I can´t get my cb right with light manuals even though my read was right and my timing was as fast as possible (I’m talking about online, couldn’t try it in offline vs matches)

I mash all three buttons at the same time when I want a first frame break - has always worked for me, including in S3.

And people aren’t really reaction breaking your lights. Light manual is just a very common manual, especially when ppl are low on life.

"Hey, lets see whats been going on in this thread for the past couple of da-"

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What do you mean by the three buttons? XD

I went to the lab to have and idea of when to counterbreak the flip out but it was really hard to get the CB fast enough IF they are just breaking in the first frames. But in the 10th frame, it was just perfect (I mean, they have time to react to the actual manual).

By the way, since most ppl tend to break my light and medium manuals I just use heavies now (depending on the player of course, heh).

If I mean to counter on a light manual, I will do my manual with LP+MP+MK and just let the game sort out the details. I find this works quite well.

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Lol…I know the feeling. I read the thread looking to see what was up, and found there was so many walls of text you could make a maze out of it…in fact I think you guys have. I know I’m completely lost.

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