Please Nerf Cold Shoulder Knock Back

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62

You might have a point here, and it’s probably a bit unfair to pick on the SF bit, but I have a bit of a frustration with SF (particularly SFV) of late for having a lot of very elaborate and flashy-looking moves that are ultimately weak and seldom useful in any kind of non-combo situation. I tend to give tatsu as an example of this in SF games in general, but I think moves that make characters fly around the screen and yet do nothing particularly powerful are a bit too commonplace in SFV in particular. This is also, incidentally, a thing I think KI has in its favor: KI has a lot of dirt, but it’s often in the form of a lot of high-power specials that actually get to the point, and are possibly even understated in appearance. (Wind kick was an obvious example of this.)

Back on-topic: I know there’s something to be said for disentangling the quirks of various individual tools under different circumstances, and more basically just for the experience of “leveling up” by learning the definite answers to low-level dirt – indeed we mightn’t see so many threads like this one if people saw value in these things – but I’m also acutely aware of the tendency for deep emergent structure and interactions to arise from simple rules and constraints, and on the other hand (maybe paradoxically) for murkier and more complex ground rules to cloud, smear, and even unravel much of that deep structure. In the case of “quasi-unsafe” moves, I think they’re generally a bit much: people already struggle to develop and balance their options in the (very rich) interaction that follows a blocked safe advancing move. Throw in the notion of a false punish opportunity to consider and I think the clarity of the ground rules gets smeared too much, to where the deeper gambits of the safe-on-block situation are less likely to emerge.

I might also add that quasi-unsafeness might be slightly more interesting in SF games where the pressure tends to be shorter and less of a focus than it is in KI.

But also, this is just my wishy-washy musings, and I can see where you’re coming from. Also, hidden away in my argument might be a bunch of pearl-clutching about fighting game education: if you complicate the basic moves then less seasoned players are less likely to understand the interactions, and therefore more likely to complain about not getting the rewards they think they’re entitled to. That’s not an irrelevant argument, but games shouldn’t be shaped entirely by the needs of the subset of players who complain about everything rather than learning and improving.

Sure. I guess I see KI footsies as being aware of how your (and your opponent’s) character’s options vary at different ranges (where there’s a range at which you generally play a game like SFV, KI characters tend to have a spectrum of hot and cold spots spanning from point blank to full screen) and predictions about which ranges your opponent will occupy within the unreactable window of time from now, rather than being about a concerted effort to create or maintain given spacings. I guess that still means having “meaty cold shoulder” on the table as a predicted outcome to a predicted spacing, but I guess I’m also going to make a similar argument out of this to the one I made above: that the gambit space for a given neutral positioning is rich enough without this kind of option there too. I don’t think always-safe cold shoulder would make Glacius less interesting to me at midscreen, at least.

Oh, I don’t intend to say that I think all the tons of unbreakable damage or anything like that was fine, or that I think there isn’t any powerful stuff left in season 3. That said, I think there has been stuff that I thought was totally fine (I made noise about unreactable jumping slash going at the start of season 3 for example, but I’m sure there have been more) which has disappeared not because it was degenerately powerful, but because of, as best as I could tell, some wishy-washy arguments about “fairness” that I disagreed with.

I know. I’m technically proposing a buff to Glacius: make it impossible for medium shoulder to be punished by light normals. I thought this was apparent.

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I think it’s at its worst in SFV in particular, where the game takes an incredibly strict “my turn, your turn” style of gameplay because the defender has literally no meterless options to contest anything when they are -2. In fact, even when you have meter, the risk of EX DP (available for some characters only) is very very rarely worth it, considering the low damage of DPs and the absolutely soul-crushing result of having it blocked (350 damage, 600 stun, likely pushed to the corner where you lose the round), so we might as well just say it doesn’t really exist. So basically, if you block something that is -2, you should check with a jab like 95% of the time, and there just isn’t any interesting interaction here. The best that happens is sometimes you don’t check with jab and you walk up and throw, or you try to do a 25 frame overhead or something and hope they don’t fuzzy jab. Not particularly great.

In past SF games, though, I find that it does enhance neutral a fair bit. Moves like SF4 Yun’s light shoulder are interesting to use in neutral because of the push back; he is minus, and some lucky characters can situationally punish, but for the most part he is safe and will whiff punish your next button if you try to get too frisky. But because he is minus, he can’t get too frisky. It’s just a different way of making a move usable in neutral, which adds some nice variety.

In KI it’s possible that the interactions around blocking point blank -3 are interesting enough to be sustainable (but only for some characters), because of DP, backdash, jab/throw, etc, and I understand where you’re coming from that making this interaction less transparent might muddy it a bit, especially for intermediate players and especially because KI is a fast-paced game where you don’t have long to make your muddy decision. But in the end I’m not sure why we can’t have some moves that are point blank minus, and some moves that are “punishable but safe” because of spacing. KI being such a variety game, it kind of makes sense to have both depending on the character.

Your points about it being a complicated interaction for newcomers are worth noting though, yes. Although, because spacing concerns will always be present in any game, maybe it’s an interesting way for them to learn about spacing? “This move is -5 but you can’t punish because you’re out of range, except in the corner where range is not a concern, or unless you’re Wulf and you have a very fast horizontal move” is a long sentence but maybe one worth teaching, I dunno.

One of my favorite moves in KI is Tusk’s st.HP because it has a lot of this spacing stuff built in. Use it up close and it’s a guaranteed -5 punish every time, but use it at range and it’s kinda Cold Shoulder-y and I think that’s neat.

Yeah, I remember the discussion about jumping slash in particular. To be honest, I think it’s just a matter of taste… Wulf lost unreactable mixup (although it still hits people), and in return got better movement with dive kick and run. The biggest nerf he received was instinct damage/feral cancel timer, which I think we can agree was probably too extreme for the game, so if we are taking that part of his toolkit out no matter what, in the end we just have two different flavors of Wulf… one with strong mid-range because of unreactable mixup, and one that has strong mid-range because he still has Overpower but now he can get to mid-range more easily. Maybe in a game with zoners like Gargos and mage Eyedol, they decided the latter would be better? I don’t think either is “incorrect” per se, just a preference thing. Although I do think using the movement tools to get to mid-range requires a bit more finesse than being at mid-range and giving overhead/low a go, which is maybe where a lot of the complaints from Wulf players come from, heh.

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64

rooster drill isn’t even good. he’s a decent player, but Dosent manual or can’t and all he does are these set ups ur talking about. lol.

2 stars Bi tch!!! lolz. but seriously. no more nerfs, cause the pointing fingers will never end :blush:

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I agree with you about making spectacular moves useless. I think it has a negative impact on transitioning people into the competetive scene. When they do these flashy unsafe things with their friends and the game looks awesome, then they see “pros” playing and it’s footsies people say “what is this snoozefest” instead of getting hooked into the game. I think Marvel is the opposite of this, and that’s one of the reasons it has a big FGC following. It looks like insanity all the time.

KI sort of threads the needle. The specials are more effective, although potentially less flashy, but so much KI hype comes from the breaker/counter breaker game that you can see these things replacing say, ex spinning cyclone. Which is one of the reasons I would love to see the game do more to incentivize counterbreaking st higher level…

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I also like Tusk’s Standing/Crouching HP because it’s a nice little ■■■■■ you and everyone who shares a zip code with you. Give me 20% of your health bar and your lunch money. and your dad’s respect.” kind of move.
It’s just so fun to bop people with :blush:

On topic:
I’d be okay with Cold Shoulder being more easily punishable, but as others have said I don’t think it’s really necessary. We may have one of the most open devs with one of the most frequent update schedules in the FGC, but that doesn’t mean IG should solve all of our problems for us. Eventually if we want spending money we need to stop asking our parents and go get a job.

I’m not disparaging the frequent patches (they’re probably the only reason I’m still here). I’m just noting that buffs/nerfs aren’t the only solution to dealing with “problem” characters.

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Roosterdrill’s overall skill level aside, whether or not someone routinely manuals is an awful metric for assessing skill. I rarely manual outside of silly-long hitstun moves like recap air-ORZ; one of the very nice things about KI is that there are multiple avenues to viably get your damage. If you have other ways to discourage breaking (or are just that good in neutral), manuals aren’t especially important.

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68

ya, I know lol. manuals get your opponent guessing. short combos for knock downs and gamble again while keeping pressure and momentum.
while I agree with your statement as a whole, I was specifically referring to glays damage on a lock out and manuals mixed with a few quick combos and cross ups can be very potent. actually, that’s how you play your hisako? is it not?

the games been out three years and to say manuals aren’t a metric of skill is just silly. especially when we can all break galacius autos on reaction. but I appreciate the helpful insight and perspectives of dealing damage.

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But they’re not. Someone could have amazing combo execution skills but still be terrible at the game because they suck at neutral or have terrible defense. Heck i pretty much stopped using manuals all together after the potential damage combo breaker change since getting broken isn’t a big deal anymore and I’d rather get more damage.

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71

ya. I can see that perspective. the whole patience is a virtue thing. but on the other hand not being broken at all,allows for your more damage mentality. As a galacius player they can afford that even more, since a broken combo even early on can yield 30% damage. so I feel ya. but that not a general rule across the cast. it be a bigger deal for omen or cinder.

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This is a forum dude, what else do you expect? You came to the wrong place if you don’t want to read.

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73

this man speaking the truth :slight_smile: @BiyemAssi237 you should listen lol

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It may sound weird coming from #1 Glacius hater but he has some big low points you can exploit:

1.Jump over him on wakeup, his puddle uppercut will whiff in most cases and his anti air normal sucks.

2.Meaty him with low normal: invincible puddle punch will knock you out only and combo starter puddle punch will get stuffed, so it is worth trade.

3.If you are not close on him, jump a lot, keep yourself airborne. He has wack air options, no recapture or flipout. He will hit you but at least you will get knocked out without getting your butt destroyed for 60% damage.

4.With Instinct activated, when he moves in puddle during his puddle punch, crossup version has sparkles of Ice above the puddle, while non crossup version does not, and startup of this move lasts for around a second at any distance, so you can react and punish with heavy normal fairly easy. You just need to stay calm.

5.If he starts his throw loops in corner, may God have mercy upon your soul.

6.Tbag after every win, he deserves it.

Generally against Glacius you gotta accept that you will get hit by his bullcrap, but you can decide how hard.

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75

-shrug- Depends. I manual after recaptures and air counters (the silly hitstun moves I mentioned earlier), but rarely do so within a combo otherwise. I play almost exclusively with AD’s, and rely on delayed linker/AD timings and people’s fear of breaking to keep my combos safe (and resets to keep their mental stacks “full”). I’m pretty indifferent to being broken for the most part - I’m confident enough in my neutral that I trust I’ll get the next hit too. I don’t often play for short combos and knockdown, preferring generally to go for extended combos and higher damage. My ability to manual is pretty moderate to poor with most of my secondaries.

Yes, we can break combos on reaction, but do we? Do we do it accurately, particularly when the chips are on the line or someone’s throwing in weird timings for them? Manuals prove that you can link, but is linking actually a metric of skill? I’ve beaten many, many players that have better overall execution than me, because execution is just a means to an end. A player who uses no manuals but knows when to counter break is a 1000x more dangerous than a player who is able to put together clean one-chances into oki. Manuals and one-chances have their place and are certainly skills, but they aren’t good proxies for answering the overall question of how good someone is.

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Then, in your opinion how would you answer that? The overall question of how good someone is, that is.

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End of the day it only comes down to two questions for me: does this person win (and can they beat the best or other really good players?), and do they do it consistently?

The exact methodology by which they achieve that colors my assessment, but ultimately, the only thing the game keeps track of is W’s. If someone consistently never lost against the best players out there without ever manualing, breaking, or blocking, then they’d still be a great player, even if their game has holes.

Less cut and dry, the things I personally look at to tell me if a player is “good” mostly revolve around adaptation and thought. If a player is adapting to the match around him (as opposed to flow-charting or “just doing stuff”), then I am likely to think the player is good. Muscle memory-ing a bunch of good strings or pressure options can get you really far, in this and in other FG’s, but it is that leap to actual thought and analysis (of your opponent and of the match around you) that distinguishes people who are merely good from those who are great.

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This is probably the most important part of getting good at any game (it’s actually probably the most important factor in shaping human civilization, thinking about it). You can come up with a strategy that seems foolproof, or find a tool that seems unbeatable. But if someone finds something better, or finds away around your tactics, do you keep doing the same thing?

Being able to make adjustments on the fly is very important for surviving high level play. Sometimes the answer is a high skill piece of crazy tech, others it’s a simple B&B element that’s missing. What’s important isn’t doing the trickiest thing, it’s doing the right thing at the right time, and learning when to change with the times.

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79

I mean, I’d rather fight 100 Fulgores with 1 chance into oki, even if I get hit like 90% of the time, than a Mira who knows how to counter break. At least with the first player, I’ll survive past one wrong decision.

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80

Then you fight Nicky and he pretty much does both XD

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81

how can one “know how to counter break”? educated guess, ya. but “knowing”, no. sorry that Dosent exist.