I know what double tapping is, as well as the piano key technique. It’s normally something you see Chun users do with her kicks, Blanka’s electricity, or Honda’s Hundred Hands slap, but fair enough, it can close a gap in frame input, and can help in tricky juggle combos where you are inputting specials left and right with unusual timings.
I’m also willing to bet there are technical reasons to using this input method over holding the button.
I also understand how the buffer window works. Street Fighter 4 for example, if I remember correctly, has a ~20 frame buffer input window where the motions made on the controller and buttons are stored in the game’s memory, and should the game receive a set of commands within the 20 frame window that correspond to a special move input, and the character is in a neutral game where the animation can be executed, the game will then move the character into the special animation.
I’m not trying to be a jerk or anything by the way, just letting you know it’s not my first rodeo.
You would be surprised with fightstick playing. Happens to me now and again as well, I’ll get a heavy linker when I meant to go for a medium. May not be as common on pad, but for fightstick, it happens, but you can’t exclusively make a case for one and not the other so you have to make the argument hand in hand for both methods of execution. I think that’s why pad users are somewhat peeved about the new input shortcuts for heavy and medium combo breakers, but again, the argument has to go hand in hand.
I’m still more prone to believe a casual player is more given to mashing, which is why this is such a common occurrence. I think at this point it’s sort of an agree to disagree thing, where I see Shadow Jago is a character defined by an increase in control and finesse. I can believe to some small degree that the double tap was chosen because it’s more prone to error, but not for the reason you gave. I’m not saying you’re wrong, I just believe there was a different design philosophy behind that decision, should this scenario of a purposeful design flaw be true. It very well could be, as Keits put it in the most recent stream, character weaknesses aren’t a shortsighted gap in a character’s design but are rather intentional, and obstacles you have to learn to overcome.
I guess by that logic, if you are more prone to error with double tap, at that point it lays down the point where you may have to improve you handling and control. It also becomes a question of how easy it is to make a mistaken input for an intentional one, at which point the conversation has come full circle.
I’ve never seen double tapping as a vital tool in KI. I know you made mention of it in the example with Aganos’ autodouble timing, but I kind feel like that’s more of a timing issue than an execution one.
My final thought on the matter though and then I’ll see myself out, I really don’t want to have to relearn a number of muscle memory patterns just to continue playing Shadow Jago. I understand he’s not the easiest to control, but I don’t really want him to get re-worked simply because some people find him hard to control when it seems like a little restraint and just an extra little bit of finesse can really help make him easier to use.
I also don’t think people abuse surge moves simply because they lack the execution to avoid double tapping, but because the surge moves are so much more advantageous than the non-surged counterparts, Shadow Jago beginners or casuals may be under the impression there is no need to use anything other than the surged moves. So it’s not just an execution thing, there’s also the psychology of individual players, and most people who know what they are doing with him will know when to use what move and which version of it. I don’t think it’s mostly because he’s an accident prone character.
Sorry for the wall of text again.