Agree but I think this isn’t what he’s trying to say.
In some matches we sometimes have the feeling something is going on. Your opponent feels cheap somehow. Maybe nothing is going on but you have the feeling it is even if you don’t know what.
What I believe he’s trying to say by saying “he didn’t notice” is “he didn’t feel I was being cheap, the match went fine and he even won some matches”.
Yep - and for the record, out of a dozen or so matches, two counters were OS’d, and zero throw-techs 
And I’d be amiss not to mention that it was definitely GGs - @IronFlame has a no-nonsense Cinder!
I had this feeling just yesterday. I fought an opponent that used a combo-breaker every chance he got. When I wisened up to his methods, I would use a counter-breaker, only to have him not combo-break, or he’d get locked out but I wouldn’t get the advantage of the counter-breaker. It was a lose-lose situation and a win-win for him. I can’t even begin to tell you how frustrating that was. Even worse, I was actually changing up my attacks and mixups, etc. to make myself harder to read, and he still managed to always break, even on the non-reactable light attacks.
It’s fights like these where I genuinely wonder if they’re using a bot or hack of some kind that can read your inputs behind the scenes at faster-than-human speeds and reacts appropriately. Giving them an easy win. Have any of you ever encountered this kind of phenomenon?
Yes.
But it happens pretty in-frequently.
I have never had 1 person do it every time we play, so im sure it is just luck.
Really, ‘cause I see this kind of thing happen at least once a week… :’(
Sorry man - nothing but love for you - but OS is not at all similar to a bot that plays KI perfectly. I get what you’re saying but that’s a tough comparison to swallow.
Funny you should mention this - I had an encounter with what I am almost positive was a bot - but I caught on to it not because they felt cheap, but because they were acting bizarre. I captured it on DVR and I’m going to post it to my YT. Fun fact - after my encounter with this suspected bot (in gold rank, 2/3), after the first match my game crashed and I was credited with a loss, which is significant because that NEVER happens on my console.
Would love to see this!
I plan to have that and several other videos posted in the next few days - I’ll be sure to link that one to this thread!
I’ve seen some bots on Max’s channel in other FGs that would only attack you if you attacked them, because they always reacted to what you would do, which of course made them hard to beat, since you had to fight them to beat them. However, if you stood still, they would stand still. So, if you ever think you’re fighting a bot, that might be 1 method to try to flush them out. 
Anyways, sorry for being off topic… 
Yes, many times!
I know they changed the breaker system making frame 1 breakers hard to counter but I swear sometimes the em fifer is reading my mind.
On the other hand sometimes you just lose to yourself.
I’m currently playing a lot of Aganos and people must think his cr. HK is an overhead because EVERYONE stands when I use it on their wakeup. I once won an entire match by just spamming it and I’m sure the guy on the other end must’ve thought I was cheating. When some people finally gets it I sometimes throw a short rock (rolls on the ground and hits low) before using cr. HK and people fall for it again! Come on, these are two low moves, why would you stand on wakeup?
KI is full of these things, mind games supported by the mechanics or animations. I remember when they where showing Aganos for the first time and Keits did show the cr. HK, making sure to emphasize it hits low. The impression I got from him is that he KNEW the animation for this normal would mess with people’s minds and lo and behold, it does.
Getting back on topic, this is why I don’t worry about OSes in KI. The game has so much going on that it doesn’t seem to rely on them very often (if ever).
I think it’s impossible to remove OS’s as so many people have alluded to. And sometimes an OS isn’t the best solution you could have an OS that stops two of your opponents attacks but on block is negative and punishable so there’s still that mind game there for you and your opponent.
I’m surprised this topic didn’t come to light when CAM was released before they fixed the CAM OS’s.
Probably what happened is that people didn’t understand what they are. The conversation was going on between people that already understood what OSes where and why CAM had them so it was more like a mechanics design conversation. Whoever didn’t understand OSes just stood away from the thread.
While this may be true, they can still be used to limit your options considerably. For example, if my only option is to block, that can put me into block-stun leaving me ripe for a much faster follow-up attack. In addition, an OS is basically a free mixup, because the opponent will always try to counter for that OS that they see, not both. Even if they see the other side of the OS, they’ll then be looking for a way to counter that and not necessarily the other. Even if the opponent wises up to both, there’s still a 50/50 split on which OS is going to come out, based on what they themselves do, and I guarantee most players won’t figure that out, at least not until it’s too late.
Many situations precipitate where block is the only option, and few of them have to do with OS. Sometimes you just gotta block mayne.
So the situation you’ve described amounts to a 50/50 guess - which one again exists in the game outside of OS.
I never said they weren’t good. People would not use them if this were the case. You don’t have to explain how they work, save your time and effort ;-). My point is they’re not the end all be all. An OS doesn’t give you a free win. And I assure you Kiets and crew have a strong understanding of most of the discovered OS’s in the game and when/if there comes to be an OS that dominates a certain matchup they make adjustments to balance accordingly.
I daresay anyone who’s ever put a significant amount of time into KI has had this experience. You’re right - it’s incredibly frustrating. But ultimately, it boils down to sometimes, the opponent just has an annoyingly strong read on you.
In my experience, I’ll tend to lose the first match where this happens (or perhaps eke it out if their neutral/pressure isn’t very good), and then absolutely blow them out for the remainder of the set. The problem with relying on a godlike breaker game to carry you is that, end of the day, a lot of what you wind up breaking really just comes down to being a good guesser, and guessing is rarely (if ever) a long-term viable strategy in KI. The offense simply has too many options, and the punishment for being wrong is too punishing.
A bit back on topic - most OS’s are not unstoppable, or even particularly strong against someone who is blocking on wakeup. A lot of the ones used to catch backdashes and jump outs, for instance, are very shadow counterable. Others are negative on block, meaning if you’re willing to just sit there and block, it will now be your turn. As with everything, pay attention to the patterns your opponent is using and counter those - the existence of option selects does not suddenly invalidate that philosophy.
Oh all the time, the people I play on here are skilled enough where they know option selects and use them to their advantage.
At the time of playing, no. However, I’m willing to bet if I went back and watched the replay footage with inputs on, I’m willing to bet I would see something at play. Since we a LOT of matches though, and that’s a LOT of match footage to replay and watch, I’d rather take your word for it, or watch a youtube video or two to see if I could find it that way. I went into those matches knowing about one of them though, but from your playstyle, it didn’t seem like you were using it, otherwise I wouldn’t have caught you on wakeup with LK Fireflash as often as I did (the counter would have caught it).
No offense, but this is one of the worst analogies for this topic of conversation. Not because of a drug reference, but because of how far off the severity of the situation has been exaggerated. I don’t know how much of the opponent’s offense you think is being shut down, but it’s not like casual players will ever come to the level of trying to understand the deeper advantages of frame traps, ambiguous setups, and OS tech anyway, and burdening them to learn such concepts at the early stages of approaching the game will most likely turn them away from the game fearing an excessive level of complexity they couldn’t master. I mean, you and @MrxFlutterShy seem to have such a fear of these OSs without even realizing just how minor in the grand scheme of things they are to KI, imagine how someone just now approaching KI, or fighting games in general, would be intimidated to try and learn something like that. It’s like learning to sprint before you learn to crawl at that point.
There’s more than one reason OSs are left entirely to player discovery rather than being fed to you, and since it’s worked for the most part for the FGC for years now, I would say it should stay that way for now. While you may disagree with the “blissful ignorance” approach, trying to make everyone aware of everything only places burden on some people.
OSs aren’t some piece of tech that kills all player offense options, but a tool to elevate your game. IG without a doubt has removed the worst offenders in this department, and will continue to do so. You guys keep drawing hypothetical scenarios of abuse, but a lot of informed players keep drawing examples of actual use in game which are far from the exaggerated doomsday scenarios. They often can show you how to use them, but often don’t tell you how they are beaten, and they can be. But rather than focusing on the actual use, their drawbacks, and where they fit in gameplay, there are several so far who would rather focus on these unproven situations of potential abuse rather than the actual demonstrated use and counter to these situations. To me, for this argument anyway, dwelling on hypotheticals seems to be contributing to a mass undue paranoia at this point, one that is greatly misplaced.[quote=“TrustfulWhale, post:139, topic:8777”]
Removing all OS from fighting games is impossible. They are like character tier placements; always present and not directly engineered to be there no matter what you do.
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Fighting games have been around a long time with a lot of similar mechanics running through each. If it were possible to eliminate OS tech from the game, I’m pretty sure someone would have found a way by now, but since they haven’t, I’d say @TrustfulWhale is pretty much on target with this statement.
Appreciate the honesty of the exact numbers you provided, and glad you think my Cinder is “hot stuff.” I’m just a Gold tier trying to pretend he’s a Killer though.
Yeah, the RZR Inflitration bot is fun to watch. So far Max has encountered it twice by my count, once during the beta, and once more during the Week of… series. I think the title of the episode is “Rage Quit with Honor.”[quote=“GalacticGeek, post:153, topic:8777”]
While this may be true, they can still be used to limit your options considerably.
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The term “considerably” I would say is up for debate. Maybe one or two options are covered, but considerably would sort of imply that the defensive player is practically shut down, which is hardly the case.
No, a hard knockdown is basically a free mixup. The OS is basically the mixup you choose out of your bag of tricks, of course you could choose to put a wall behind them and surprise them with Raining Rocks, or any number of things, but OSs themselves aren’t free opportunities, they are the offense you get to mount for earning that hard knockdown, you earn them just like any other offense you can use.
Truth. I’ve watched one “former FGC” player turned youtuber who thinks every situation should be met with a reversal of some kind, usually a 360 spinning piledriver on wakeup or at the end of a block string, and he loses frequently. Sometimes you just need to block.
If you seriously think tiers don’t exist then it’s no wonder you’re not fully understanding this OS business either. It seems that you also don’t understand what tiers even are based on your post.
They are in every fighting game whether you like it or not, and are there by virtue of the fact that more than one unique character is playable.
You’re right that characters don’t win the fight, assuming the game is somewhat balanced. Tiers dictate which characters tools are better than others, and where they stand in comparison to each other in a vacuum. This means that when you see a tier list it’s assumed that the players involved are of identical skill, which is of course impossible.
No two players are going to be of identical skill; we’re humans, there are many factors going into our gameplay.
Not all tier lists are accurate, sure, but the tiers themselves, whatever they may be, ARE real and exist in every game as soon as there’s more than Kung Fu Man to pick from.
My example regarding OS is that they are also intrinsic to the game as a result of other unavoidable factors coming together, like tiers.
Now, Geek, I’m not trying to come across as a jerk here, but I have to set things straight on this subject.
The thing about tiers that gets me is the whole 5-5, 7-3, etc. nonsense. All that is to me is playing a set of 10 matches to see how 1 character performs against another. However, it will ALWAYS be different from player to player, because it’s the player that makes the difference. Sure, you can find some commonality with tiers due to statistics if you have enough data, but that’s all it will ever be. It’ll never be precise or necessarily true.