What Strategies Do You Implement in Fighting Games?

This video reminds me that there are hardly any current generation fighting games.

My strategy is what I call a defensive offense.

To explain, I make an effort to take the initiative and control the flow of a match. I attack with normals, specials, and combos. Depending on the game, cross-ups are also really nice moves to direct the way the match continues from mid to close range and wake-up. All the while, I keep in mind that certain points of any character's offense in a balanced game has holes to allow for comebacks and I do what I can to minimize those moments of weakness.

Sometimes, I turtle to observe my opponent's offense when unprovoked.

What do you do?

Button-Mashing is the only strategy that I know of :P

Turtle, always believed best offense is defense

When turtling stops working pure offense.

When both stop working time to pick the cheap character and spam troll

Not many good people online ever.

always works.

I put as many projectiles onto the screen if I can. If not, a cautions rushdown until I get a good read and then I try to go ham.

It's always about unpredictability for me. I try to switch between an offense and defense when I feel my opponent least expects it. I also apply frame traps likewise.

Usually, however, I try to apply pressure constantly in the beginning to see what my opponent does. If he ends up struggling to keep up a defense I'll keep apply pressure until I feel like he'll panic. then I just play it safe and let the opponent hang himself.

@i_return: I love it when someone is trying to buttonmash against me in Tekken :D Against any descent players that shit is impossible.

Well, I punch, and sometimes I kick. Then, maybe, I'll block sometimes too.

Well, I never played Dead and Alive in my whole life. My friend was a long time player of Dead and Alive 5. He and I had a match up, and guess who won? I did. He knew all the combos and how to pull them off, to put it bluntly, he was a pro at this. But even then, button mashing my way through it, I won. See? you need skills to even button mash.

Button Mashing
sometimes defensive offensive

@i_return: Next time play first to 10 against him and see how that goes, if you beat him with your buttonmashing tactics even then he just can't be a pro;) See?

WhaEVA! I won that's all tha matters. puff

This, and projectile/special move spam

@SovietsUnited: (cough) noob tactic

Especially useful in Virtua Fighter

For any of you fighting game enthusiasts:

The Fighting Game Primer

I like Zoning... I'm not good at it but its my go to strategy so naturally I'l go for Teleporting Characters or someone extremely fast on their feet. Its important to make use of every inch of the enviroment. I find Virtual Fighter is the Best game for doing this offensively but Dead or Alive does it better Defensively (my specialty).

Lately I've been Experimenting with Grappling.... I'm even worse at that.

@BranKetra: That's a very complicated question with a number of complicated answers. Obviously it depends heavily on the game and characters being used. My main fighting games these days are SF4 and Tekken Tag 2. In SF4, my main characters are Ken and Juri. With Ken, I'm very poke heavy and I stay out of the air as much as possible. I play pretty aggresively, and tick the other guy's health down slowly using combo fireballs. I'll also FADC a slow fireballl from a distance from time to time so I can follow it in and turn the impact into a combo. I keep high and low attacks and I throw in Ken's axe kick to mix in some mid, or I fake the axe and throw instead. I'm also very big on Kara throws with Ken as he has pretty good distance and it's easy to pull off. This is an old vid and my play has evolved since them but some of the core strategy is still the same:

With Juri, I'm crazy aggressive. I'll hammer and use her speed and airial moves to try to keep the other guy on his toes. She is crazy fast and her diving kicks in the air are nuts. If I lose distance, I use her counters off of ranged attacks to close and I start all over again. As soon as my Ultra is charged then I try to set up her EX dive kick to bounce the opponent off the stage wall and combo into the ultra.

For Tekken I've been using Jun kamaza or her style clones since Tekken 2 and Ling since Tekken 3, and both in Tekken Tag. With Ling it's all about movement and aggression. She's another crazy fast character and her maneuverability is crazy. I move in close and use her low stance to dodge attacks, when counter to juggle. This was -crazy- effective in Tekken 3 because that stance dodges mid attacks too, but they nerfed it a bit for later Tekkens so she could be hit by some mid attacks. Also, her back turn was a crazy effective dodge that invariably left you behind an attacking opponent for a side or back throw. If they end up behind you, Ling's backwards attacks are brutally fast and effective. She has a backwards roll to a juggle kick that -again- dodges all but low attacks but again was nerfed later a bit because this was crazy imbalanced.

For Jun or her move-alikes, I close and start combos. She has a series of attacks that chain into one another so she can keep attacking in a smooth continuous flow. Technically, you can actually do a "never ending combo" with her attack string but there are windows for the opponent to interrupt so even though she never stops moving it's not a real combo. I stay in close and look for the uppercut juggle, and as soon as my opponent looks like they are going to try to seize an opening them I start with the counter moves.

-Byshop

Uhm... Just watched the Video.... Can someone explain to me What the **** just happened at 08:55 - 09:40

I don't know what they were playing but it sure as hell wasn't Street Fighter. :o

@Lulu_Lulu: It's "Rainbow Edition". It is a hacked version of Street Fighter 2 Championship Edition that people made to the actual boards in the cabinets.

http://bootleggames.wikia.com/wiki/Street_Fighter_II:_Rainbow_Edition

-Byshop

My strategy in tekken consist first and foremost of full on attacks, up in your face constantly poking highs lows, mids just to test out the opponents, maybe even some grabs in there as well if the timing is right. Then i might change over to another tactic, after some good low attacks forcing the opponent to duck then using some heavyer lanchers which are a higher risk but also a higher reward. There are so many tactics and different aproaches, different players and characters etc.. kinda hard to put my finger on it when it comes to tactics in tekken.Important to adapt to the other players playstyle as well in many situations.

My main playstyle though is and allways has been to play offensive, im strong on counters and low parrys in tekken so that kinda works as defence for me, im generally weaker than id like to admitt at blocking, in some situations like some of Nina's strings ending in a launcher or hwoarang's infinty kicks, those are hard to block and to find openings to for me:/

A whole lot to learn in tekken, thats for sure, to completly master one character in tekken is allmost like playing one whole game alone. It can take years and even then you have a far way to go to up your skills in the IRON FIST TOURNAMENT! Can't wait for Tekken 7 on the Ps4. It will be the best tekken game ever made, evolved into perfection after 20 years of tekken game making from Namco's side.

In the meanwhile i might be getting Dead or Alive 5 just to test it out for fun. Looks like a good fighter. I was descent at it before in the first ones. These days im just f... around with Tekken Revolution playing it just for the fun of it, best free game i have ever played, that and warframe.

@Byshop

Street Fighter is an already tense game... I would litetally cry if something like that happened to me. Just like I use to back in the day with Mortal Kombat and my Brother...

@ojmstr: in doa it's possible hence why many in fighting scene consider it a joke

Although doa5 brought some changes, Its easier to spam in that game and win

@Lulu_Lulu: Every character is modified in some crazy ways. You can do Tatsus in the air with Ken and Ryu, most characters now have fireballs and you can spam them till they fill the screen, etc. They had this at a Red Robin near my house for a little while when I was growing up, but now I have it on my arcade cabinet (along with SFIV).

-Byshop

@Byshop

I can only imagine what a Hacked Akuma would be like.

@Lulu_Lulu: Actually a lot of the weird things they added in Rainbow Edition eventually showed up in the real game. Air tatsus, fireballs for characters like Chun Li, air fireballs (with Akuma), etc.

-Byshop

@Byshop

I remember a few of those, I never landed and Air Tatsu on an opponent, CPU or otherwise.... I gave up on Street Fighter when I couldn't complete Sakura's Challenge Thingamabobs.

@Lulu_Lulu: SFIV in all its incarnations is a very, very solid fighter. It's not too combo or juggle heavy, and high level strategic gameplay is a pure joy to watch.

-Byshop

Block and eventually die. Hasn't failed me yet.

@notorious1234na: I also consider doa as joke as a player in the fighting scene. I have allways considered Doa as the idiotic younger brother of VF since it came out:) no offence doa players. When that is said, it's still a descent fighting game and it's one of the most viewer friendly fighting games out there.

Btw i hate the word spamming in a fighting game, if someone is spamming the shit out of you and you lose it's all on you buddy;)

See what i wrote earlyer about Whoarang's infinity kicks, alot of people would call that spamming and make that as an excuse because they lost. They never admitt that it's their defence that it might be something wrong with and not the spamming "noob" who just beat the living crap out of you. Hahaha :D That is the truth, the salty truth.

It depends on the fighting game and skill required games like VF and Doa *regardless of what you think of doa its a great fighter and if you go into it cocky epically online a good player will pwn you so hard youll want to trade the game in*, tekken, sf, guilty gear, and blazblue. While button mashing will only get you so far each of these are great fighting games but each can not be viewed the same technically. I would include smash but it requires less setup than these.

I like the offense. I typically play an aggressive style putting pressure on my opponent and punishing them with heavy attacks.

@Byshop

Yeah but its Balance is Global, not Localized. That plus its got a Slippery Slope, which I really dislike. If any of that makes sense.

Destroying the kick/attack/punch button is the only trick i know if enemy is closer to me .. :P

@ojmstr: well in DOA most people just spam strikes or holds (counters) and imo certain HOLDs still do a crap ton of damage ergo easy to win. More importantly though, all it takes is 1 throw to shave off 40% of your health meaning yeah a large percent of victory is due to chance since the slightest mistake yields uber punishment. Rock, Paper, Scissors at its finest and that is all casuals will ever see. That is how DOA is hard but that cheese is a copout. Even the developers admitted this seeing how DOA4 vastly different from DOA5.

@Notorious1234NA

Rock, Paper, Scissors is not a game of Chance.... I mean it is at 1st, but after that its a game of prediction and Patterns, its a game of learning..... Its a Metagame.

Thats the appeal of DoA5.... Its more about learning from your opponent, the simplicity of its controls are actually its strength. you spend less time and energy struggling with the controls and more effort and concentration into predicting enemy patterns and reevaluating your own, after all, Rock Paper Scissors wouldn't nearly be as effective if you could only play your hand after doing a back flip. Only a moron will get beaten by the same strategy in DoA5, if your opponent relies on throws then use strikes, if they rely on strikes then use Holds, if they rely on Holds then use throws. Since the game is highly dependent on "chance" then it can never be completely mastered, its only limited by its participants adaptability.

I just press random buttons and hope for the best.

It is nice to see so many users here are enthusiastic about fighting games. For PlayStation 4 owners, Dead or Alive 5: Last Round will be available in February, next year, so the PS4 is finally adding another title to this genre.

Edit: DoA5: LR is also coming to the Xbox One. In addition, the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 will be receiving this title, but the new generation needs fighting games more.

@BranKetra

The Genre may have dwindled but it will never die....

Its The Adventure, Survival Horror games that are in dire need but most importantly, we need Metroidvania... Alot of it.

@Lulu_Lulu: but because of the way the game is designed, many abuse the strikes with the fastest frames expecting to counter hit stun when one attempts a hold.

Youtube any match, and you will easily see a persons pattern in the 1st 2 or 3 matches. Then the rest of the matches are reduced to counter hit stun because of strikes interrupting holds and both players keep alternating between the 3 fastest strikes. DOA5 was only made harder because the time window to do your holds were shorten considerably. In other fighters, you could arguably play the same way. For instance, in Soul Calibur 4 (**** V), you could just parry every single attack but the key difference is this. All I would do is immobilize the enemy then sneak in 1-2 hits or grab. No big deal. If I fail, I'm not punished at all and only get hit 1-2 times. In DOA5 kiss 30-40% of you health goodbye. Make that 70% if u include a powerblow combined with the guaranteed stun. Granted, the senior player will typically cancel the stun and block not risking the 70% combo. That right there is the problem with DOA5. Most are not senior and many play DOA5 like DOA4. The gaming mechanics force you to play in a conservative way and not explore other options. In DOA5 I could do the same but the risk is far greater than the reward and most players end up playing safe leading to often predictable matches. Combine that with online lag and you will see why majority of players don't even bother with throws. Now in high level play there are some differences, but for the majority no.

@Notorious1234NA

I never play online so I wouldn't know... Plus I bought Dead or Alive for the Express purpose of not having to deal with Frames and Vulnerability moves and all that nonsense from Street Fighter...

I do know one thing though... Powerblows are avoidable....all you have to do is interupt the person from setting up the Powerblow, naturally its impossible to juggle someone long enough or high enough to keep them in the air to charge a decent powerblow, this leaves the attacker with one option, they would have to to Hit you with a Critical Burst (the easiest way to do this is to nail 3 different critical strikes in a row) all you have to do is hold one of these three Critial Strikes and your home free..... The only prerequisite is to memorize the point of contact for each persons Critial Strike move. The critical strikes don't vary that much from character to character, they usually try to end the 3rd one with a middle height Punch or Kick... Sarah Bryant always does hers with a mid kick. She'l never Critical Burst me ever again ! :p haha

I'm still confused about the Holds.... If the Hold window is too Short then shouldn't that make holding the Attacks of Quick Strikes Much easier ? I only struggled with Slower opponents like Akira and Brad Wong since they can delay their attacks and combos, its amazing how quickly they can beat me by being slower. But I counter this by just delaying my Hold aswell. Which is painfully difficult against Akira.

Oh and Walls... I almost completely forgot about Walls... Man I hate those things, I actually Prefer Ring Outs than to get pummeled to death pressed up against a wall. in pretty much any Fighting Game Walls are a Death Sentence. Ironically the game that has this the worst is Dead Or Alive 5 with Tekken as a Close 2nd. Atleast Tekken didn't have riduculous Stage Hazards.... All though when Speaking About Stage Hazards Specifically no game has it worst than Injustice.

@Lulu_Lulu:

Online =/= offline. Completely different strategies largely due to the elimination of lag. Lag is a big deal online and makes the impossible possible or vice versa. In a game like DOA5 where frames are everything yeah different strategies involved as a -11 move may not get punished by +11 move. Because of lag, I may be -11 after my opponent blocks, but he will be forced to do a +8/9 strike because of input delay. However, +10 is usually your fastest strike meaning due to lag or added frames my opponent is immobilized unless he performs the riskier counter HOLD which will also lag. The actual game doesn't factor in lag into frame data but it still exists. This alone will rule out plenty mix ups or create new ones that wont work offline. In a nutshell this is the bane of most fighting games. I may consider myself a beast in Soul Calibur 4 online, but guarantee if I went offline I'd get my arse kicked due to the different frame rates,counters, combos, and frame traps . The more a game focuses on RPS, the more lag becomes a problem.

When I said HOLD window is short I meant that there is a shorter window during which the hold could be triggered by an attack. Meaning even if you guessed right, but off by idk 5 frames you'll get hit.

For example:

Play online vs a Helena spammer who knows this stuff. Faced with pppppppppppppppppppppppp, you are more inclined to block since the HOLD will most likely delay. If you play offline counter away, but online players have to constantly adjust to the delayed inputs courtesy of P2P. If you were baited by the spammer who then switches to a HOLD, offline players would attempt a throw, but not online. More than likely throw commands wont register in time aka get punished. That's right your basic -5 throw gets delayed a couple frames and then you get punished after the Helena player resumes with +10 strikes. That strategy is considered high level play online. Oh yes we know we are really abusing the game and not playing it as intended. As a result, 1/3 of the triangle is gone. Winner of online matches usually understands frame rates, frame traps, frame advantage, frame disadvantage. Subconsciously we all learn this in our head, but the game is completely different when you are aware of numerous possibilities available and can predict certain outcomes swiftly.

@Notorious1234NA

Well the Solution is obvious... Play offline :). I doubt Tecmo is going to fix that anytime soon.

i just go straight forward head-on, no special moves or combos or blocking.

@crimsonbrute: that"s exactly what i use to do.

I go for mixture of light & heavy attacks in fighting games (don't mind using special attacks. But not to the point of relying on them to victory).

Kill the enemy before he kills me worked for me...

I've been looking for THIS for so long.... Here's a taste: