Justin Wong on being an online warrior and how to break bad habits - Step Up Your Game column

Hey online warriors. He's right.

holy sh1t. offline, people gotta think twice as hard when jumping than online.

online, you get away with so much sh1t if their character is reaction based.

but the online is great for match up experience, like learning the options and flow chart etc.

goes hand in hand.

Now I hope I can see him online.

I'll only play old ass fighters on GGPO online.

But current gen console fighters? Hell no.

That is why 90% of the people you face online play Ryu, Akuma, Cammy, Seth, Sakura, Zangief or Sagat. They can get away with so much more random sh*t then a character like Makoto, Cody, Rose, Dhalsim, Vega, Balrog, Gen, or Juri.

That isn't to say that the characters who can get away with random sh*t don't require thought, or that they are just better than others just that their invincible moves, safe on block specials, really good reversals, or jump attacks allow them to get away with some stuff that works better online than offline. How often have you seen a 1500PP Zangief who doesn't understand the concept of footsies and just does Jumping heavy punch constantly and mashes out lariat on every knockdown even if you safe jump and mashes SPD during any combo.

Or a 2000PP Ryu player whose entire gameplan is "Mash LP DP during any pressure if that is blocked mash HP DP whiile recovering from LP DP / being punished. Walk backwards - fireball - walk backwards fireball - walk backwards fireball. And if they get too close to the corner YOLO HK TATSU/Air Tatsu. Only get that high because they at least have the consistency on their inputs for c.MP - sweep punish and have a couple good knockdown setups but no actual footsies/mindgames/reads."

It's sad but true. That said I have mad respect for the Giefs and Ryu's who don't abuse lag/randomness and try and play just how they'd play offline in a tournament and still manage to do very well. Giefs who walk you into the corner and whiff punish with s.MP or properly read your moves for a jump in timing and know the maximum range on their LP SPD or Green Hands to space them properly.

@6 Hit the nail on the head.

gotta hate a 50/50 wake-up guess online........ (-_- )

I wonder if the disparaging online is a US-centric thing because of their poor internet? Do the Japanese think online is inferior?

Can someone explain why you have to guess on wakeup less offline??

@10 take me with a grain of salt but the few times i have gotten to fight offline and fight against a c viper/el fuerte. It was a lot easier to see things and react to them offline. I mean the game offline felt like slowmo to me compare to playing it online. Plus it feels just so much better too. I really need to find someone local to play with. Also the few times i played offline my game just seem to way better. I am not sure why but after the first time playing offline my style got more solid and steady. Still ass tho.

He's completely right, I tend to do alpha counter a lot online on sfxt, even when it seems like the worst time to do one.

@10 Left right mixups have a smaller margin of error for properly blocking in time due to lag (How many times have you gotten hit by a crossup and gone "but I was blocking crossup!" because you blocked crossup before you got hit but your input didn't register until after you got hit. Or you got reversaled because your super tightly timed safe jump was 1F off. Or you got hit when you tried to focus dash through a fireball.)

Then you have stuff like on THEIR wakeup, they are free to churn butter/mash DP repeatedly as fast as they can but since it's online you have no way of knowing if they are panicing like you would if they were next to you or even across from you in an arcade cabinet facing away.

as A person who plays local and online I'll tell you that online has many advantages because of the slight lag in some online matches I find that my reactions offline actually increased along with execution because you get to the point that if the lag is off badly you have to be able to input a combo through muscle memory alone sense the visual cues are off. but one thing justin pointed out is very true. I play Guy and online makes Guy players think they can elbow all they want without repercussion. try that offline and you will be reversaled all day. the man speaks the truth, I started going to locals got rid of my bad habits and now I'm one of the few A ranked Guy users on xbox live and PC. Gamer TAG: KuroiYuurei

I'd also like to add I found PC in MOST cases to have little to no lag at all and if you have the right build is an excellent alternative.

Dem shotos gotta mash dat dp. I do the footsies and stuff regularly but when I get a little flustered I just go Ken and use nothing but cr. mk,
dp, throws, and ultra. Quite funny to win that way.

Street Fighter online is the best i could ever get. I have tons of newest games (AC3,Batman,Skyrim,Saintsrow,Farcry3,Crysis2,Borderlands2,Sleeping dogs and many many more...), but they all get boring after 10 minutes, but i have to say Max Payne 3 was the only PC offline game which was not boring. But SF online never gets boring at all. It was always like a dream to compete with others all over the world in a leaderboard (and not only with the friends sitting right next to you in your room). I started playing SFIV on the PC Platform as soon it was released here in Germany. Then SSFIVArcade (PC and PS3), and now of course SFxT. In Oct 2012 i also did buy my own Playstation 3 to play SFxT. But i have to say, SFxT on Playstation 3 runs very bad compared to my PC version. Systemlags occurs beside network lags, it means PS3 is underpowered to run SFxT smoothly. Therefore, i hardly switch on my PS3 to play SFxT there. Of course not to forget, here in Germany we have a 50Hz with max 50FPS PS3, which means, a game like SFxT which natively runs in 60 FPS is running with only 50 FPS, as a side effect, playing with someone from US or JP i do only have max 12 inputs per secong compared to the max 15 inputs/s from US/JP. To create a competitive environment worldwide, i think Playstation 4 should render all games in FULL HD with 60 FPS regardless of the region, only with this we can bind the gameplay/gameflow on FPS, everything else may tend to run async, like we can see it on SFxT teleportings etc, of course good netcode is also required.
I have a lot of fun playing SFIV/SSFIV/SFxT on the PC platform online, currently being active on SFxT PC, i do upload my current playerdata, so others can compare it with their own achievements. So if you like, you may have a look at
http://www.zeeshan.de/street_fighter_...
My current achievement in the leaderboard is right here:
http://www.zeeshan.de/street_fighter_...
Wanna have a fight ? See ya online.

@ 14

You are right.

PC can be very FTW

...Even notorious Zeeshan....

@16 thinks so.

Only thing with some TOURNEY players is they get stuck in the game they do well in and refuse to learn the new ones at times.

I don't see how people can complain about online tactics like wake-up ultras. Because when someone does it online, it's abusing the system but Ricky Ortiz does it with Rufus in a tournament and it's "well played". Or mashing DP. Or random Gief/Cammy/Seths. I've played people play online and met them in real life, they play the exact same.

@10 Lmao yeah that's pretty much how it goes......

"I been playing a lot of Super Street Fighter 4 Arcade Edition v2012 and Street Fighter X Tekken v2013 online recently and its been really fun."

Betta get back in dat VF lab, son.

@19

Some TOURNEY players like to hold themselves in a "class by themself" And SOME of them are, but we are all only human and making the best guess based on experience.

Salty guy says "random ultra" better player says "nice read" or "well played"

Look at Wolfkrone, online warrior to this day also success in tourney AND willing to embrace NEW games.

Unlike other not-as-flexible tourney players that hold on to older games/glory.

To further clarify the best guess thing - many times the difference in player skill is how well they are at avoiding situations where they have to guess in the 1st place, but no one can avoid it at all times.

Dieminion's(a GOOD pro/tourney player) play style illustrates this perfectly, whether you watch his past AE games or his skillful new SFxT adaptation.

@22
"Nice read" HA! Nice read on that random wakeup ultra for no reason other then just because. You guys inflate everything people do as skill it's hilarious. I've seen numerous occasions where commentators will point out "great reads" when they arnt reads at all. Difference between an online warrior and someone who isn't is respect level. Online warriors won't respect your game and are much more dangerous then any tournament player because the tournament player will respect your options and be able to be mind gamed.

I try not to do things like that but at the same time there is no close tourney scene in my area. So sometimes I just say f it and churn that butter or mash dp cause why not it's online. I did do "online" like things in tournaments before but I only try and do it at two major points in a match. The very start to try and trick the person to think "oh he's that guy." and at those do or die moments.
The Ibuki thing is weird cause EVERY Ibuki I have face always goes for the kunai.

Even though I don't play or take sf iv ae seriously anymore I cannot wait to see this tourney specifically for daigo. He's the only one who plays a character that doesn't revolve around that boring played out vortex bs plus his spacing and reads are so damn good

Sorry wrong thread lol

@24
Well, a lot of the times, wake-up ultra is a viable reaction (mostly in offline play -- particularly when you can hear buttons) to obvious aggressive play, meaty overhead attempts, etc. People can get mad at me for using an ultra on wake-up, but if I have it and you're going to be a retard and do obvious sh*t then I will react accordingly and punish. To some, it will look random, but I feel like you're underestimating player skill by a bit and how big of a difference offline play is. And about that tidbit on how online warriors are more dangerous... Maybe if it was single elimination. Otherwise, the whole point of the article is that online players tend to be unable to adapt, fall into lag tactics as a crutch, and are in general pretty gimmicky players (in comparison). The tournament player is definitely more of a threat. So in the way that ranked matches are structured and if you're a score-whore, going for the win with scrubby sh*t will work more than it will in a set in an offline setting. I feel like you're inflating scrub tactics for mind games here.

Justin should do an article on playing characters that don't encourage you into playing with bad habits.

Sometimes being random is actually good. If you utilize different options or do different things than others do that use your char, it puts the other dude in distress because they don't know how to fight you. I fought a dude on SF X TKN online, and I got downright flustered and owned because his Jin X Ryu team was so "out there" that I didn't even know what to do. Especially his Ryu. I barely beat that once, and I NEVER beat his Jin, and even then, he only used 1 char at a time. Never switched. I was downright confused...

Now in tourney play, that type of shenanigans kind of fade, but I believe if you go too flowchart, you're actually making it harder on yourself because others can see what you want to do coming.

I'm tired of seeing the same ryu tactics over and over, what gets me really mad is that they sometimes win and think they are all good -_-

Isn't everything he's saying mostly obvious? I guess this is geared toward beginners but it seems pretty self-evident.

@28
I think gouken is quite an honest no bs character. Having played offline against anyone decent but i definitely feel more confident to play mind games and use general features in the game.

Shoutouts existent from eddierogers

@24

At the end of the day, the point is that the online warrior is rarely doing things because he isn't "respecting your options." He is just doing what he thinks he should be doing, regardless of the situation, like autopilot. These are the types that will mash ultra in blockstrings hoping for a drop, wake up reversal every time, empty jump into ultra lol, etc.

I will say though that the term "online warrior" is used too loosely. In my opinion, at least on xbox live, most people that average over 2000pp know what they are doing. 3000pp or more and they are good players. People just swear that people online arent that great. Online players are most likely weakest in terms of long sets that require adaptation. But they can be just as strong as any tourney player otherwise.

Online can get pretty sketchy at times. With a yellow connection, even ridiculous things like Ryu's Tatsu can be hard to block on reaction. Just a few days ago I got blown up by a 600PP Ryu who would just jump backwards then randomly tatsu from midscreen -- press any button and you get counterhit, but then on hit or block you have to guess what buttons he's mashing on.

Canada cup, number 1 ibuki player on xbox live enters, gets perfected twice in a row...that said a lot.

#22 ur right.

But actually trying to punish someone with an ultra because u think they will do the same thing again is just not a good decision maker most of the time, because its a high risk move.

U have no idea if the player actually wants bait out a high risk move so they can punish u. But it also tells the opponent that you are willing to throw an high risk move for the highest punish if they get careless, so it forces them to play on a safer play style.

Safer play = less options to advance. More so if u start to get on the wreckless side of play, only opens up to many more ways to attack, because u can keep your opponent blocking, but make the wrong read using a high risk move/high reward move, and u'll get punished hard.

Learn ur characters stregnth in their moves, only then u can truly put on the pressure, but at the same time be somewhat safe.

But i get what u are trying to say.

This is why they say playing fighting games is like a game chess.