Here's a rundown from the Cross Counter team detailing this episode.
Gootecks and 5 Star are back to discuss 3rd Strike history. Were you one of the 50 that watched Denjin Video? Wonder how it came about? Gootecks is actually good at a game!? Stay tuned!
Submitted by Rafael2487.
Just thinking out loud here...
If 3S players are gdlk, with no easy mode shortcuts and having had to learn hard mechanics and all that, how come gootecks isn't tearing it up in SF4?
Could it be that having one go-to option to use in almost any situation (the parry) makes you somehow less good at certain fundamental skills, like footsies, safe jump setups and situational escapes?
Can't wait to watch this later tonight. Loving the 3S content guys, please keep it coming (this is from an "09er"). And I'd love more stories about Frank. Sounds like a true legend - there's very often someone who mentored and inspired the people who would later become more famous (e.g., Tomo in SoCal SF2, Eddy Lee at CF, and countless examples in sports and the arts). It's always awesome to hear about that and to see the pioneers get their due when today's most famous players discuss the guys that kicked their asses early on and gave them something to aspire to.
@2 it could be a number of things, maybe gootecks hates sf4 or maybe he feels putting all that time into 3s and then having to learn a new game was too much. But then theres players like combofiend and justin wong (just a few), who can pick up games very fast and place in tournaments...
@2 I'd say you're right, they are different skills to be good at the different games. I think what most players of 3s like gootecks problems with transistioning to SF4 is that they actually dont have a love for it. If you are not enjoying the game, the likeiness is that you wont have a motivation to become good at the game and keep coming back wont be there, unlike 3s which he does seem to enjoy where he was rubbish however stuck to it to get better.
The parry system is harder than most grant it for, lets pretend a LK attack is 3 frames, you'd anticipate the tap for that timing, however if they choose a hk which is actually 5 frames, you'd end up stepping forward before the hk hits eating up unnessacry damage. The whole game is alot more attacking based whilst SF4 seems more cautious and tactical.
I remember years ago while I was in 10th grade when I've seen Denjin Video. The first one I seen was the CvS2 ranbats featuring Amir, Combofiend, Sanchez, and Dirty Cole. And then the 3rd Strike ones with 5 Star, Gootecks, Victorly, and also Amir. Ahh... good times...
@#2
he explains it in the video in case you havent watched it before commenting.
First the flow of the game(his example of when predicting someone wake up option, watch vid).
him not having an exciting character for him as urien did in 3s(everyone knows balrog in general is a boring character to play and fight against, and playing urien can be pretty fun with his options and damage)
Him almost feeling like he had to switch over to the new game cause of how 3s kinda died when they returned from japan when sf4 released.
Nothing really about difficulty playing either game or whatever, if the motivation aint there how can you push yourself to get better?
Btw parry is not the one go-to option for almost everything. Knowing how to block is just as important if not more. Footsies is still a large part of 3s. And its because sf4 had lenient reversal timing that safe jumps setup became over glorified.
Also sf4 backdashes are pretty powerful compared to parries(which in turn made option selecting near mandatory)Parries require high and low(normally) and right and left guesses( when it comes to cross unders/overs) and doesnt stop grabs.
Sf4 backdashes can beat high, low, grabs and focus absorb back dashes to help eliminate guesses. its not hard to see which mechanic can be viewed as the goto option around here.
3S and SF4 certainly take a different mix of skills, but I don't think they're different enough to explain the "3S players not dominating SF4" situation. I think what other posters said about not loving SF4 is much closer to the truth. And that doesn't even have to be because SF4 is a "worse" game. Imagine pouring 5-10 years of your life into a game - it was YOUR GAME, your hobby, one of your top passions in life - from, say, age 18-25 and then SF4 drops. You're already either a god or at least very good at 3S, you've spent years of your life playing, traveling for the game, learning every single detail about every character... and then if you want to continue in the scene, you have to start all over with a game that feels and plays very different, has different characters, different players competing... I get the feeling that hardcore 3S dedication for five years was enough for a lot of those players, and I totally understand that.
I'm going to challenge, though, the idea that 3S players haven't done well at SF4. I mean, maybe I just don't know enough, but it seems to me that every top 3S player who has played SF4 with even close to the dedication he played 3S has done very well. People give gootecks crap, but he got like 25th at Evo 2009. That's pretty damn good. Kai also did very well at Evo 2009 with El Fuerte. Daigo has done very well at both, Tokido was a 3S god who has done just fine and he even lost to JR Rodriguez at Evo 2010 in an SF4 Akuma mirror. Nuki did very well in SF4 for a while, and MOV beat Mago at Godsgarden with probably 1/20th of his SF4 experience. Soooooo yeah, I think your original premise is off the mark.
@2 Thank you! For phucks sake someone gets it. 3S is a great game but when people like Gootecks say in 3S it wouldn't do this or in 3S it would be better I feel like it's just an excuse. What Gootecks is doing here is reliving his childhood and his discovery of the Fighting game scene. His nostalgia is keeping him from liking anything new. If 3S is so tough to learn then SSFIVAE2012dildowarrior should be cake but as @2 said he just has no concept of footsies, safe jump setups, and mixups that don't involve Aegis Reflector. I love you Gooooootecks but there is more than one SF game out there.
@9 I agree a great deal with you. I'm just tired of the SSF4 haters bitching about a game they aren't old enough to remember playing.
@5 I concur as well on that 3S is a rushdown heavy game which caters to twitch happy gamers. Same thing with MVC2 and MVC3. Everyone was bent outta shape about how slow it was and said it was all about turtling yet Capcom had to slow down character's like Magneto for it not to be broken just like MVC2.
@6 It was a broken game but that wasn't why it flopped. It was because when SF3 came out no one from SF2 was in it at all and with the large change in mechanics it turned old fans off and repelled new fans with the high learning curve. As MVC2 demonstrates people like broken games. And the fighting game scene almost died because of over saturation. Back in the 90's fighting games were the FPS of the day and just like today people are getting tired of it so when old faithful SSF2T turned into SF3 people finally had no reason to go back. Which is why CoD is the same game every year.
@8 The backdash is not a great option for certain characters , just look at Gief, Hakan, or Juri even. And while the parry system is a bit more difficult if you are good at blocking you can time when to parry and time when to block. And you can do that with anything whereas the FA only absorbs one hit making it a risky move if you get caught by a character with a 3 frame jab.
@10... I really don't think that's it at all. Gootecks, like many devoted 3S players, prefers 3S, just as many ST players didn't like 3S that much and just as I'm sure will be the case with some SF4 players when SF5 or even SFXT comes out. Is there something wrong with that? You act like gootecks is utter ass at SF4. As I said before, the guy did plenty well for himself in SF4 while also doing a bunch of amazing community stuff, too, and got a bit burned out on the game and he ended up giving even more to the events/content side of things and has made a massive contribution to the FGC in that area. Maybe I'm being trolled, but I know people actually believe this. I'm not defending gootecks for his sake because I'm sure he doesn't give a furiffjg, I just hate seeing unfounded negativity directed towards a guy whom we are very lucky to have doing his thing IMO, a guy who is very valuable to the whole Capcom scene and who is a damn fine player, too. If anything, you should be impressed that he's done so much as a player and "media figure" for SF4 if you think he's that stuck on 3S.
@8,9
Thank you very much for those replies.
Yes I do agree motivation could really have a lot to do with it. Like you said there are some players like combofiend or justin wong who are just 'naturals' and can easily pick up a new game and be good with it. Gootecks could well be the sort of person who has to put in a bit more effort to get good. Heck I'm the same way too, and sometimes that makes me a bit shy to try out new games so I can totally understand if that's his mentality.
@ Jihadjoe - I'm the same way. It takes me FOREVER to get good at a game, lol. It's a big part of why I felt completely alienated with Tekken 6 - it wasn't THAT different from Tekken 5, but I'd put in so many man-hours to play my main, only to have a lot of her stuff changed. even smaller system changes like the bound system, rage, etc... That was probably a large part of why I stopped playing, it wasn't as enjoyable for me, to an extent.
I've kinda' found a temporary "home" in SSFIV for the last couple years, but it's been tough (I do love the game though!). Thankfully, I think SFxT and TTT2 are going to be my best bets soon.
Sometimes, there's just no substitute for the game you actually WANT to play. I'm impressed he put in the amount of time he did with SF4 considering he doesn't really like it (and MvC3 to that extent). I spent a couple months with MvC3 and eventually quit, and SF3 lasted for about two weeks for me.
@Jihadjoe
Why is it hard to adjust? Because SF4 from a game mechanics standpoint is about as for away you can get from SF3. SF2 is more similar to SF3 than SF4 is. SF3 is a game that favors offense while SF4 is a game that favors defense much more heavily. Think about how many options you have in SF4 that help out defense that don't exist in SF3 or extremely hard to do. Reversal window being huge, backdash being invincible frames 1-8, focus backdash, FADC so reversals are not a committal to risk, big stages, huge invincibility windows on dp's and ex dp's, lack of aerial resets. All of these things are basically not present in SF3 so anyone who played SF3 and is really good at it would have a terrible time adjusting.
Parrying is a good option and an important option, but not the most important. The most important skill in SF3 is knowing how to block by far. Watch any high level 3s video, particularly one with a Chun-li player and tell me that there is no footsies and no fundamentals. Chun-Li is all about fundamentals, 1 combo, 1 very good option select, and 1 extremely good kara-throw. The person who beats the Chun has to have even better fundamentals than the Chun player.
@13 No I don't think Gootecks is ass at SF4 and yes he has given the community more than we could ever ask for in terms of entertainment and content. But he is also above the standard troll as well.We are lucky and he is valuable but he also has a soapbox with which to complain at length his gripes and pleasures and when he does the whole one is better than the other thing it divides the community as well as fan flame wars. Instead of going the this is better than that route he should be talking about what we are here the strengths and weaknesses about each game. That way things are more fact based than opinion based.
3s is more of a player game than a character game such as sf4. If you are playing against Amir's Chun Li, it is completely different from Justin Wong's Chun Li, even if it looks similar from a spectator's point of view. Compare this to Balrog vs Chun in SF4. Every single high level match of Balrog vs Chun in SF4 will be Chun turtling via throwing fireballs and Balrog Turtling via doing nothing, regardless of the players.
There's a reason why it was possible for Gootecks to have an hour long podcast with Pyrolee about Yun in 3rd Strike during its height of popularity compared to learning Rufus in five minutes by watching Ricky Ortiz or Justin Wong. 3rd strike was that deep.
They said my name! Now I'm famous! :P
Wow there's a lot of 3s/sf4 talk going in here. Just play whatever sf game is fun for you. Obviously Gootecks had a ton of fun with 3s than he did with sf4 so he's gonna say things that might sound like he's dissing sf4. That's just his own personal opinion and I doubt there's anything anyone can do or say that can change that.
I've been playing SF since '92, but only seriously since SF4.
My problem is the reverse of Gootecks. Any tips on how I can improve in 3s? Not even like in a match, but stuff I could grind on in Training to break my SF4 habits. For example, I find myself mashing due to being used to easy reversals, etc.
I live in SoCal and would love to go to one of these revival tournaments. Hope it really takes off.
@22
Spend a couple of days doing nothing but sitting in the training room and practicing individual inputs such that 3s recognises all of them. The input leniency in sf4 really spoiled me as well, so i went and practiced all the motions over and over again until i could do them all from both sides at least 50 times in a row, making sure that my srk input was always f,d,df as opposed to df,d,df or any other shortcut that i might have ended up using in sf4. (Same with double qcf inputs). After doing that, not only did my play in sf3 improve, after going back to sf4 after a week, my usual input errors had completely vanished.
@A_dub
Biggest thing is commit yourself to blocking when you wake-up and only parry things that have to be parried (Meaty Aegis to get out of the unblockable) or when you know 100% what move you're opponent is going to do. Second is learn how to 2-in-1/buffer properly. The stuff in SF4 is bs because of input leniency and the cancel window is freaking huge. For example, if you want to do crouch mk xx shoryu do forward, down+mk, down forward +punch like that. Learn to piano to make links to super easier. Don't let your opponent get away with empty jumping for free. Parry attempts while in the air disable trip-guard so at least sweep him. Make sure that if you're trying to test a hit confirm you set the dummy to random guard and really are able to hit confirm.
thanks.
@Sweecide
I have always used a diff version of shoryuken, one that I learned as a kid in SF2 arcades, it's hard to break the habit - b/c as a kid on the American style sticks, it was basically just sliding the stick in a Z motion b/t D and F. so I don't end the motion at DF, but usually will have inputed DF. Always worked in SF4, but now my SRKs work only like 80% in 3s. I will try my best to end my motions in DF.
Question: Currently, I end my SRK motions at the F position. It is easy for me to input another QCF to cancel into an SA (e.g., Ken's Shippu). If I end my SRK at the DF position, can I still SA cancel by using only one QCF input. If not, then do you just end instead at F, or input an extra QCF.
@Darkyellow
All very helpful. I'm Ok with most hit-confirms. The ones that give me trouble are Supering after connecting with a normal (e.g., Ken's st. forward or st. RH or universal overhead). In these instances, I'm guessing I have to get the timing down or do it visually after a hit, but the 30fps make timing seem even more strict.
Question: I have not found away to train for parrying except for fireballs. That is easy. But recording the character doing normals and then trying to parry them seems to be such a huge jump up in difficulty. Is this normal? If not, what am I doing wrong.
If the core of the game is parrying, then I would assume that playing against the CPU is counterproductive since you can't learn to "read" non-human opponents, and will pick up bad habits.
It is harder, but when you're parrying normals you're usually not doing it as a pure reaction. Parrying normals is more making a read or using option selects. It also is much harder because normals come out at varying speeds and there isn't a blue/yellow/red orb flying across the screen at you to tell you that you should parry it. There are a couple of things that you should actually learn to red-parry since they make life for certain characters.
If you want to super cancel shoryuken to a super, if you do forward, down, down/forward, forward + punch you will still get a shoryuken so you should do it that way.
The inputs are definitely a big factor, and there are many other differences in the two games' systems. Mix-ups are more important for the whole cast in SF3. The combo system is very different. In SF4 the vast majority if not all of the characters can do a fairly lengthy combo starting with a jab or a short and culminating in a special move, like cr. jab, cr. jab, cr. strong into a special move. Combos aren't really like that in SF3 from what I've gathered. Most combos seem to be either cr. jabs/shorts hit confirmed into super, target combos, or simply a medium or heavy normal attack into a special move/super. Juggling seems to be more important in 3S... Meter and supers especially are extremely important, but of course you have to gauge meter differently than in SF4. I'm only just realizing how very different the stun system in 3S is.
I agree about parrying normals. There's nothing to "practice" about the physical act of parrying normals or really parrying anything other than some common multi-hit attacks to get those rhythms down because the way parrying functions in an actual match, unless you're parrying a pointless fireball thrown from across the screen, is all about mind games/prediction/patterns/being psychic, not so much about being able to input the parry. The only way to learn that is by going for it. I suppose you could have a dummy do a random normal every few seconds. You'd get used to the pattern but that's not entirely bad as you're just working on the timing of when to parry relative to him pressing the button and perhaps reacting to slower normals.
I thought Gootecks was always good at 3rd Strike WTF¿!