Mizuumi

Just as a general FYI, the Mizuumi hub has gotten an overhaul and is currently in great shape.

My entire experience with IaMP, and lately other games, has been based around my years spent with Mizuumi. I'm glad to see it changing, improving, and expanding. I highly recommend checking it out of if you're into netplay and/or poverty, and certainly for IaMP.

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- Copyright © Xenozip.

Situational

The answer to every IaMP related question is: "Depends."

The reason is because there are quite a lot of situational variables to take into consideration for any given scenario, so it's impossible for any given answer to be right all the time. It's just one of those qualities of IaMP that is both rather frustrating and yet can also be endearing in retrospect.

For example, in most fighting games you could say: "If the opponent jumps at you, do c.HP or DP as an anti-air." and it would apply in almost all situations where the opponent jumps at you. It's a good general rule of thumb. Sometimes this even leads to players not jumping at all unless it's after a knockdown, because there's never a right time to jump except on okizeme.

But in IaMP you can't say that you should always anti-air the same way in every situation, it depends on many different things. Lots of things can effect your method of anti-air:
- If the opponent has no bullets in front of him and has used up both airdashes, either a bullet or melee anti-air works fine.
- If the opponent has bullets in front of him and no airdashes you can anti-air with bullets.
- If the opponent has both airdashes saved up and no bullets in front of them you can use a melee anti-air at the right distance.
- If the opponent has both airdashes saved up and bullets in front of them you your options are to use bullets to force them to use their airdash and negate their bullets, or to attempt to dash under them to graze their bullets and force them to airdash toward you.

You would also think that you should always go for a tech-trap setup in order to capitalize against a bad air tech. Or to never air tech against a good tech-trap setup. But even these have conditions. You might not want to go for the tech-trap setup if it would cost too much spirit, self draining you as a result, especially if you know your opponent respects the risk of air teching and you assume that the opponent will not tech. Some characters would also shy away from trying to tech-trap Youmu, Yukari, and Remilia due to those character's unique properties. Likewise, you may choose to air tech and risk taking extra damage in order to deny your opponent bomb stocks, because you won't be landing on the ground so you can prevent them from regaining any bombs they used. You also avoid having to deal with a meaty okizeme rushdown that would put you back into the corner.

I myself am guilty of getting hit by the same thing in the same situation repeatedly, without realizing it or fixing it. Though in my defense I think I'm like most players -- I need time to think about it before I can adjust my game. So don't worry, if you find yourself getting repeatedly lamed by something or other, you're not alone.

If you find yourself beating your head against the proverbial brick wall, you may want to take a moment to consider what all your options are and if you've fully explored each one. What do you think would be a good word to describe; trying the same thing over and over, expecting different results?

And if you do find an answer, and then that same answer fails the next time, just remember that situations can change frequently in IaMP.

- Bellreisa says: "There's never an always in IaMP."

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- Copyright © Xenozip.

The Brick Wall

Being that this blog was meant as a personal journal, I feel I should probably make a personal post about the game. The blog is old enough now, I think.

I've likened the learning curve in IaMP to that of a brick wall for years now. I've continued to feel that way even to this day. To elaborate: each brick represents a bad habit or unlearned "function" that you'll beat your head against until you break it. These "bad" habits may come to us naturally/intuitively or be formed from other games. And these "functions" are usually the things that apply to IaMP's game-flow that we may not automatically consider or recognize, but they tend to bite us on the ass.

Simple things like: Attacking first doesn't always win, height superiority has it's advantages and disadvantages, not beating bullets with melee or visa versa, moving backwards can be stronger than moving forwards, using cover for advantage, and how the mixup and pressure games actually work. They sound simple, but if you don't "get it" it can be a real chore to learn it during a round or even multiple sets of games.

Some bricks are harder to break than others. And, all that head-banging is bound to cause some headaches. Indeed, rage and frustration is really rampant in the IaMP scene once you get to a certain skill level and continue to move upwards. This is generally caused by getting repeatedly hurt by something, realizing that something is wrong, and not understanding/recognizing what's wrong or how to correct it. That's when the head-banging begins.

IMO, you must first isolate a single brick among the wall of other bricks and then forcibly break it by grinding it out. If you're not careful and attempt to break too many foundation bricks at once then the whole wall might come crashing down on you. I know it sounds like a silly analogy, but it's actually very real and has happened to others (we've witnessed it first-hand numerous times). If you allow yourself to get too frustrated while banging your head against the whole wall all at once it'll probably end up being much too overwhelming. You'll crack before any brick even starts to. You can't expect to pick it up and be automatically good at it or level up very rapidly. All you can really hope to do is be patient and observant.

The best players in the IRC channel have been around for years, and they were trash at the game when they first started (we have recorded evidence of this). It took a long long time to get good, and the same applies to everyone else.

Know what? I think that's a good thing. A very good thing. If you consider the opposite, it'd be quite a great tragedy to have some newb pick up a game and then suddenly be playing as well as the top 3 players outside of Japan. That would suggest the game has very little to offer in terms of skill development and depth. But I say IaMP holds a vast amount of areas that we can develop and is indeed quite deep. And the same should hold true for any good game, I think.

Unfortunately though, the scene tends to be cruel to newcomers at times. When first starting out; there can seem like such an enormous gap between yourself and the best players around. Which can be even more menacing if you happen to also pick the worst character in the game.

Indeed, this was my experience. I first started playing with Hong Meirin, the inarguably bottom tier character -- and my first real opponent was Bellreisa, one of the top 3 players outside of Japan who is probably very capable of doing well in tournaments in Japan. And that kind of noob hazing is actually a bit common in the scene, I wasn't the first or the last to get demolished on a debut.

Fortunately, I'm the type that gets hungry to level up after a beating. Sure, I freaked out then, but my rage only fueled my interest and desire to learn. I thought to myself, if I could receive that much of a beating with my years of fighting game experience under my belt; then it stands to reason that the game must have a lot to learn in it, and I wanted to learn it, even if that meant more beatings.

Though, I can safely say that at the time I was in great danger of quitting because I was very stubbornly attached to Hong Meirin. Had I actually stuck with her exclusively, I think I can safely say I'd have quit long ago. It's not necessarily the character's fault or the game's fault per se. Actually, one of the fundamental things that I believe in regards to IaMP is experiencing a variety of characters. Had I stuck to just her, I probably wouldn't have learned anything. Be it due to a very narrow perspective of the game, or just due to my overall incompatibility with the character itself. It wasn't until I really tried experiencing other characters that I was able to learn more about the game, and able to realize that I actually like other characters more and at the same time realize I didn't actually like Hong Meirin at all. And that's when the brick breaking process actually really began for me.

Some of us in the scene have also noticed other "narrow perspectives" and some pattern habits that can be associated with other characters. A common one that often arises is the trends we see prevalent among the Youmu players, such as reliance on naked air attacks and tactless brute force. Further leading me to believe that character variety is a window out of this form of tunnel vision.

To put things in a little perspective, let us examine this Alice flowchart made by Bellreisa (click thumbnail for larger view). This flowchart isn't a joke, like the SF4 Ken flowcharts you see floating around the 'net. No, this is actually very much what goes on in the mind of Bellreisa while he's playing Alice, and probably other Alice players like TMN and such. The thing is, that at each junction, you need to know what all the optimal available options are to you. If you don't, guess what, that's a brick that's going to hit you when you ram face first into it. In order to fill out that chart in your head and put it all into muscle memory, that's a lot of bricks you gotta run into and break along the way before you feel competent and in control of each situation.

Fortunately not every character is as complicated as Alice. It's possible that she is the most technical and complicated character in the game. But, it should give you some idea of what you'd be looking to accomplish if you were to pick up the game years after it's initial release, main Alice, and stick with Alice exclusively while playing against players with years more of experience. It's going to be a long and windy road. It's only slightly less windy and less full of potholes if you pick another character, and IMO you can make the ride smoother by choosing to learn with multiple characters rather than maining just one character exclusively.


- Bellreisa says: "I'm busy".

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- Copyright © Xenozip.

Commentated Matches

Bellreisa has been commentating match videos for the Japanese tournament series called "Bullet Action" and putting them on youtube. You can see the playlists for the videos here:

- Bullet Action 3 w/Commentary
- Bullet Action the 5th Commentary

I strongly recommend watching these videos regardless of your interest level with the game. It's not only entertaining, but they can also help give some insight into what's actually happening during a match.

Bellreisa mentions when a player has done something they shouldn't have, or missed an opportunity to do something they should have. Not only that, he also mentions why the players sometimes intentionally don't do certain things. I feel it can be rather educating to those who would otherwise overlook the things that he mentions.

Hearing his commentary makes me wish all tournament matches were commentated on in a similar fashion. It also makes me realize parts of why the Japanese regularly do match commentary. Which also makes me sad that I can't understand Japanese commentary.

At any rate, props to Bellreisa for doing so. I feel it was a good thing for him to do, and I feel he did a great job.

- Bellreisa says: "Bad bomb!".

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- Copyright © Xenozip.

Drip drip

Hehe, don't ask.

- Copyright © Xenozip.

Baiting and Provoking

In all Fighters there's many ways to set up traps using the archetypical hook-line-sinker to bait the opponent into a trap or trick. Due to the movement system in IaMP there tends to be instances that are somewhat more common due to seemingly intuitive reactions for many situations. A particularly common occurrence among newer players is to pass through bullets by forward dashing and then highjumping into an airborne opponent, such as in the above image. The route of this movement is outlined with the yellow arrow. Perhaps because using D6 then pushing 9 will transition you from a dash into a highjump very seamlessly, we sometimes do this without thinking.

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However, the bait was Yukari herself, floating around in the air where she appears vulnerable. The trap occurs once Yukari air dash cancels her bullets and uses height, range, and speed to her advantage. The result of this exchange is often like what you see in the above image, with Yukari at a height and range advantage. Here, Yukari is free to flop Youmu right in the face, causing a counterhit ground bounce which leads to a massively damaging combo. The speed advantage Yukari has comes from the fact that she is able to attack immediately after the airdash startup ends, whereas Youmu can't attack until first passing through all the bullets, which doesn't happen until some time after Yukari has already started to attack.

Though, this certainly isn't limited to just Yukari, many characters have bullets that they can cancel in the air very quickly, such as; Reimu, Marisa, Sakuya, and Patchouli.


It's also all too tempting to try and do a graze attack in a lot of situations. But graze attacks are often laggy, either on startup or recovery. Therefor, we can attempt to take advantage of this by provoking our opponent into doing it when we want them to like in the above image, then punishing it.



Since we have two airdashes, we can not only avoid these attacks but also punish them. The Sakuya player in the above image first used an air backdash to avoid Patchouli's D3B anti-air, then after the attack had whiffed Sakuya used the second airdash to kick Patchouli in the face, as seen above.

Not all baiting occurs in the air, though. I'm not really sure where the bad habit of jumping at your opponent comes from -- within ourselves -- but it's rather intrinsic to the Fighting game genre in general to try it, even when we know it will probably fail. In IaMP it's a bit easier to goad the opponent into doing such a thing, partly because anti-airs in IaMP aren't quite as consistent and guaranteed as they are in other games (like CvS2 lol), and also partly because of the way grazing works.


Firing off some bullets on the ground that recover quickly, then covering the nearby horizontal area with ground melee, allows us to set up yet another trap. Our opponent knows that we can cover the ground with some large attacks before they can move close enough to attack, so it can be rather enticing to try and jump over them and hit from above.


But this isn't an uncounterable action. As we see in the case of Yukari, we can jump back and attack from far away which takes advantage of range. We can HJ8 and attack from above which takes advantage of height, since HJ8 moves vertically higher and faster than an opponent's diagonal jump does. We can also anti-air with a ground normal provided we have a good one. And we can use a graze attack or special move with graze frames, such as Yukari's 623B.

The correct action the opponent should take is not to fall for these obvious traps in the first place. But rather, taking evasive actions and then setting up their own array of bullet cover is really ideal, as outlined in my Moving Backwards to Win post.

So what we end up with is a game of actions, counter actions, and countering counter-actions. Thus, nothing we do is really just free and simple, but rather we have to work for our rewards.

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- Copyright © Xenozip.

Reversals, Gaps, and D

Reversals have been around the Fighting game genre for ages, but they often come with their own set of rules or quirks depending on the game. Generally, it's the act of performing a special/super move when getting up off the ground (after being knocked down), known as "wakeup" reversals.

First, in quite a few games when you perform a successful wakeup reversal the HUD will notify you with a "reversal" message, and this doesn't occur in IaMP at all, so in some cases it's hard to know if you did it right or not. Second, IaMP does indeed have it's own set of quirks regarding wakeup grazing, backwards reversals, and frame "Suki" which means frame "gap".

The 1F Suki;



In IaMP there's a special mechanic called Suki (or Gap) that refers to a situation where a bullet move connects 1F (one frame) after blockstun, hitstun, or wakeup invulnerability ends. The easiest and most common example of this would be to use a bullet on a knocked down opponent just as they get up, such as Patchouli's f.2B bubble move as seen above.

If you simply hold D and a direction in this situation you won't graze the bullet. You will either be hit by the bullet or block it, depending on if you were holding a backwards direction or not (1, 4, or 7). The reason is because holding D and a direction will not trigger an instantaneous dash/highjump movement, but instead there's 1F before the action begins. I like to refer to this as a "wakeup dash" attempt, which I refer to independently of a "Reversal-Graze" attempt.



For dashing and highjumping, IaMP treats a reversal input different from a held input. It is technically possible to graze a bullet on wakeup using the D button, however this requires you to push the D button -- or to push a direction while holding the D button -- on the exact one single frame before you're hit, known as a Just-Frame. Doing this would be considered a Reversal-Graze since it requires "reversal timing".

Directional Input Reversals and Cancels;

As outlined above, the D button requires a 1F timing to use as a reversal, however there is another input method to perform a graze and that's with a double-tap. Such as dashing with 6-6, or backdashing with 4-4, or highjumping with 2 then 8 or 1 then 7, and so on.

This method of input is a lot more lenient in regards to reversals, among other things. Using this method, IaMP will allow you to input the last part of the input a few frames earlier than is necessary and it will still perform the action on the first possible frame. In other words, unlike the D button, this method doesn't require 1F timing. Instead there's a larger window for when you can push the button that will result in success.

The rundown in laymen's terms: If you just hold D and a direction you will not graze, you'll get hit. If you tap D at the right time it requires a 1F (perfect timing) input. And if you double tap your directions there's a 5F input buffer window, resulting in a "reversal graze".



But this doesn't apply only to reversals, this also applies to bullet cancels. For example, using D to cancel Remilia's 236C into a highjump on the very first frame that the move is cancellable, you must once again input the D button on the exact right frame in order to cancel "as soon as possible". In other words, you can't input the D button any time before the move is cancelable, you can only input D on the same frame that it's cancelable or any time after that frame. But using your down-then-up input method, such as 2 then 7, the timing again becomes more lenient. It's actually 5F (five frame) input window, if you're wondering. That means if you tap down then push upwards four frames before the cancel window it will cancel into a highjump on the fifth frame (the first cancelable frame).

Indeed, upon inspecting many Japanese matches and examining their inputs with an input viewer, the majority of the best Japanese players (AKA. the "top players") use directional taps to cancel bullets and for Reversal-Graze, but they use the D button for pretty much every other kind of movement. In other words, they only use directional taps for HJC and Reversal-Graze, and D for everything else.

Backwards Reversals;

To demonstrate the concept of what happens when you get up facing the wrong way, let's look at a video:



High quality youtube version: Reversal Graze (1F Graze) from behind

As we see in the above video, another peculiar quirk occurs with reversals which I call "Backwards Reversals". This happens when you are knocked down and the opponent ends up on the other side of you or "behind" you. Thus, when getting up off the ground your character is facing the "wrong way", meaning away from the opponent.

In this situation a couple of peculiarities occur. First, reversals are done by inputting the directional buttons the way that your character is facing, and not "toward" the opponent. Second, reversals turn you around automatically to face your opponent, including Reversal-Grazes.



To use an example we will say that Marisa is knocked down, and then uses a ground tech roll forward and ends up on the other side of the opponent. Now, in order to do a reversal uppercut (623A) you would think that you'd need to push the first direction toward the opponent, so in the above image that would be Right (towards Reimu). But this is not the case for IaMP. As outlined above, you instead need to push the direction you were facing when you were knocked down, so like in the above image you would push Left first (away from Reimu). It kind of feels like you're inputting the DP motion "backwards", but in reality you're always inputting it "forwards" relative to the direction you're facing and not relative to the opponent's position.

You'll know if you did it right because Marisa will perform the Miasma Sweep uppercut toward the opponent once she gets up off the ground, but failing it will result in either no attack or possibly her 214A broom ride move instead of the Miasma Sweep.

Now, this also applies to Reversal-Grazing as we saw in the video posted above. When you double tap the direction, it's not relative to where the opponent is, but rather it's dependent on what direction you were facing in the first place. So after crossing the opponent, while you're facing the "wrong way", double tapping toward the opponent results in a backdash instead of a forward dash.

One last peculiarity that occurs with this is Highjumping. Normally you are able to Reversal-Graze with a highjump either forwards or backwards. But after crossing the opponent up and performing a Reversal-Highjump you will always either jump vertically or towards the opponent. Both HJ7 and HJ9 result in you jumping toward the opponent rather than away, regardless of how you input it.

Seems odd indeed, but this is actually very beneficial. The reason is because it prevents crossup shenanigans from countering reversals. You see, in other games if the opponent were to use an airdash or two airdashes to cross over your fallen body, with the intention of screwing up your reversal inputs, this would actually succeed because inputs are relative to their position. In IaMP though, you need not worry about that because the Reversal inputs don't change when your opponent changes sides at all. Attack reversals also won't point away from the opponent when you succeed, but rather the only time such a reversal ends up going the wrong way is when the attack begins and the opponent crosses you up after the attack has already started.

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- Copyright © Xenozip.

IaMP Tutorial Video

High quality version: Immaterial and Missing Power Tutorial

So, here we have it. A collaboration between Bellreisa and I, with assistance from Mauve. Bellreisa was in charge of the narration and video production, while I was in charge of the video editing and direction, and all three of us were responsible for recording the material and for general collaboration. The video should be self explanatory, so I'll talk about things surrounding the video instead.

The concept of a narrated demonstration tutorial was something I've been wanting to do for the longest time. I don't even really recall exactly how long ago it was, but it was when I first saw the Street Fighter 3, Third Strike Anniversary Edition DVD that included a video tutorial with both verbal and written explanations, oh so long ago. You can see a sample segment of the tutorial regarding Gouki here.

Later, I bumped into David Sirlin's Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo tutorial which was a representation of exactly what I had in mind; a video that demonstrated a concept both verbally and visually, and then showed it to you again visually but in slow motion and with graphical visual aid. You can see a sample segment of the tutorial regarding beginner techniques here.

Then even later I stumbled on Buktooth's Capcom versus SNK 2 video "tutorials" which were really simply just a recording of him explaining different character's core gameplay to some one else in the room. Sounds simple enough, however when I think about it I realize this is exactly what an ideal kind of tutorial would be; the act of explaining something to some one as though you were talking to them in person (just minus the actual interaction). You should be able to see a sample segment of this stuff regarding K-groove Rock here and part 2 here.

Certainly, all of these were huge influences for me in different ways. With these things combined I had become somewhat obsessed with the idea, so I was certainly poking around and fishing for opportunities to give it a shot myself. Finally, around December 28th of 2007, a couple days before my birthday, the concept of an audio+video narrated tutorial for Immaterial and Missing Power started to spring to life over a late night IRC chat conversation.

Quite a jump from late December '07 to early May '08, roughly four months plus one week, but there was a lot of deadspace in between dates where we just talked about the video rather than did anything. Or times when one of us was procrastinating and just doing other things. In reality the video didn't take nearly that long. I was able to complete about 3 whole sections of the video per single day once we had all the material recorded, and worked on it on separate days. The only section that took one whole day on it's own was the first section, because I needed to appropriate the footage that you see in the intro and outro, and also create the ghetto button input screens and other such panels. I also spent a few days deciding on a format and whatnot where I didn't work on the video at all, but rather I just toyed around with static sample junk in Premiere.

Now, just to clarify, when I say that Bellreisa was the Producer and I was the Director, I mean it quite literally. I decided back when we first talked about it that Bellreisa would have full creative control over the script for the narration, and also control over what visual content would be used to demonstrate what was being said. The only creative control I had was over the concept design of the presentation itself, and whatever I was able to do with video editing in Premiere. So in a way you could say that it is really his video, and all I did was encourage the idea and then presented the content that was given to me.

Anyway, that's the brunt of the backstory on the video. No need to get into further nitty gritty details or anything. In future posts I'll try to get back to talking about the game itself.

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- Copyright © Xenozip.

Reading Yomi

Yomi is a Japanese word that literally translates to "read" or "reading". So the title of this post sorta means "Reading Reads". This will be a followup post to my previous post regarding Frames and Numbers.

What it refers to in Fighting Games is essentially the act of predicting (reading) the opponent based on educated guesses and weighted values. In some Fighting situations, there are some things that are simply too fast to react to, and in those cases you must use anticipation in order to take advantage of a situation. So, we must make assumptions about what will happen, done in advance. The difference between a reaction and an anticipation is simple; a reaction is done after you've already seen what is happening and "know", while an anticipation is done before you know what is going to happen and "assume" (or guess). Reactions can only fail if your execution fails or your reaction is slow, while anticipation can fail if you guess wrong.

There are different facets to Yomi which is referred to as Yomi layers, and there's three of these layers (or "levels"). If we label these layers as Layer-A, Layer-B, and Layer-C, then we can say that A < B < C < A (like math, A is less than B, and so on). While two layers of equal value nullify or cancel each other out, so A versus A = neutral.

In a way, it's a lot like the classic game of Rock, Paper, Scissors (shortened to "RPS"), since R < P < S < R, just like above. But with Fighting Yomi there's some weighted values behind each one which makes it more complicated than a simple random guessing game, because some correct guesses are more rewarding than others, or some incorrect guesses are more damaging than others. To explain how this works in Fighters, and why it's lopsided in Fighters, I'll refer to my previous example of Alice 66B against Suika and what happens after it's blocked. Now, in this situation there's a bunch of different things each player can do, and each of them is categorized as a Yomi layer. These are the things that can occur for each player after Suika blocks an Alice 66B:

- Suika layer C is to do the least risky thing, to guard by blocking standing/croching.
- Suika layer B is to perform a risky defensive action, to jump back and airguard.
- Suika layer A is to do something completely random, like 6B or 66b.

- Alice layer C is to take the correct action, which is back off and do 2A.
- Alice layer B is to perform a risky reset, which would be to do 6B or 66B again.
- Alice layer A is to perform something totally random, like an instant air j.C or sword-doll special move.

Again, neither player can react to what the other will do after blocking Alice 66B, since the following actions will be too fast to react to, the players must assume what will come next and perform their action on anticipation. And we know the formula is A > B > C > A. Indeed, the formula holds true in this situation as well.

If both players are on Layer-A, then random garbage tends to happen such as both players CH'ing each other or whiffing each other, and other such nonsense. The only reason this wouldn't result in "neutrality" is the difference between characters.



If the Alice player moves on to Layer-B, expecting the Suika to remain on Layer-A, then Suika outright loses for mashing buttons and gets an Alice Boot to the face as seen above. On the flipside, if Suika moves on to Layer-B while Alice remains at Layer-A, then Suika will be rewarded with a successful firepunch/bomb or even a jumping kick.

If both players are on Layer-B then the situation results in a neutralization, since Suika avoids Alice's follow up attacks, but doesn't really gain much in the process either.



If the Alice player moves on to Layer-C, expecting Suika to be on Layer-B, then Alice will be rewarded with the 2A countering Suika's backwards jump by either hitting it or chipping away at Suika's spirit bar for a guard crush, as seen above. On the flipside again, if Suika moves to Layer-C expecting Alice to be on Layer-B then Suika is rewarded with a correct block, which is in Suika's favor since Alice loses control over the situation and gains nothing.

But, here's the kicker. What happens when Layer-A and Layer-C collide? Well, that's what I like to call Negative Yomi (totally arbitrary name). As in the formula before, Layer-A wins. Even though Layer-C should have been the best choice for both players, it still loses outright to the random "stupidity" on Layer-A. These are the exchanges where good players on Layer-C are often left baffled and question "Why would you do that, don't you know what could happen?" to their opponent.



To break it down, if Alice moves up to Layer-C, expecting Suika to be either on Layer-B or Layer-C, Alice will get hit by the random nonsense spewed out by Suika Layer-A like Suika 6B or 66B, since her 2A loses to Suika 6B and 66B as seen above. And on the flipside, if Suika is on Layer-C and blocks, then Alice is rewarded with a bullet lockdown into guard crush. Technically, neither player should still be on Layer-A since it's the least rewarding, and most risky, of the three layers. But alas, because it technically works, it can't be counted out entirely. It can be used to force the opponent to recalculate and readjust to the different Layers.

When you use all three options equally then you would in theory become unpredictable, and therefor unreadable. However, that also means that you're taking rather large risks that gain low rewards in the process, while the other player is not. And you would be doing this all just for the sake of throwing your opponent's game off. This is why you most often see Layer-C being the most used in tournament play, since it's the least risky and allows you to evaluate what Layer level your opponent is on.

With the above scenario, if the Alice player is on Layer-C all the time, they they are rewarded quite a bit for successful counters to Layer-B and are not harmed when the opponent chooses Layer-C as well. Now, the Alice does indeed get hit with random crap from Suika's Layer-A, but the payoff isn't nearly as good for Suika Layer-A>Layer-C as it is for Alice Layer-C>Layer-B. So even if you go through the trouble of using all three Layers, at the end of the day the payoff for Layer-C, when used consistently, ends up being better and stronger than the payoff of Layer-A. This is why many good players get frustrated when they bump into novice players relying on things somewhere between Layer-A and Layer-B. It forces them to "level down" their game to Layer-B and/or play even more aggressively than they'd like to.

Finally, you can't really classify all this as a Mixup, since a Mixup is defined by one player having absolute initiative and the other player being forced to defend against it. This also isn't a Mind-Game since again you don't have full initiative, and you're not technically forcing the opponent to do anything. This may be labeled as a Metagame since it relates to tactics and strategy, and is certainly preemptive. But for the most part, the Fighting Game community just labels it as "Yomi". And refers to bad Yomi as either "RPS" or "Mashing" because RPS is commonly seen as just random guessing.

In closing, I would like to say "anything truly predictable can be countered". However, reaction and execution time can get in the way of this. It's both the game's rules and the player abilities that determine what is and what's not rewarding/reliable per scenario.

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Frames and Numbers

I've talked about Advantage in the past, but I know a lot of players look at frame data and just go "huh, numbers, wha?". And even if they somewhat understand what a + or - in a chart means, they really don't do the math on it or care about specifics. Now, I can relate to this because math hurts my head, I hate mathematics outside of geometry (which is the only form of math that I love) for the most part. Be that as it may, I want to look at some numbers and talk about how they effect the game.



First, we're going to look at Alice's 6B or 66B, as seen above, both moves actually have the same data. And here are the stats:

Startup: 9F
Active: 3F
Block Advantage: +1F

First, what this means is that if the opponent blocks this attack (which we call the Boot), Alice will recover one frame before the opponent. So if both the opponent and Alice jump after that move is blocked, Alice leaves the ground first, by one frame. It also means if Alice were to immediately do it again after the first one, an opponent would need a move with 8F startup just to trade with it, and 7F startup in order to beat it. And this is assuming they both did it as soon as possible.

In my opinion, data isn't really hard to look at when looking at neutrality (rather than advantage/disadvantage). For example, If a move is +0 on block and the next move has 9F startup, then the opponent needs at least 9F to trade -- since that's frame for frame -- and 8F to beat it.

Now I know people sometimes wonder what any of that has to do with actual playing. And really, not many people (or possibly no one) actually thinks of those numbers while they are hitting buttons and playing. But it is something to think about before and after a game.

Here's why. If we look at Suika's move list, we can see the fastest move she has is an 8F startup move, and that's her 2B kick. That means the best Suika can do against Alice 66B followed immediately by Alice 6B is to trade with it, since Suika has no faster moves it's impossible to beat it. However, the Boot isn't even Alice's fastest move, Alice also has 2B which is 8F startup and 5B which is 7F startup, meaning they're faster than the Boot. So, what that means is Suika really has no hope of beating Alice's 5B or 2B after blocking a 66B. Suika's only real options are to jump away, or risk using either a 236B Firepunch or Bomb. In the case of both the Firepunch and Bomb, these moves have recovery time so they are baitable and therefor can be punished on block/whiff if Suika guesses wrong.



And that's pretty much all there is to it. People sometimes get confused by this sort of thing because of random variables like execution and lag/latency. Occasionally a Suika player might just stick out a 2B there and it might actually work because the Alice screwed up, but this is why knowing the data is important to some people. When we "look at the facts" by reading the data, the fact is, Suika can't stop Alice's 5B or 2B after blocking Alice's 66B, and can only hope to trade with a well timed 6B after a 66B. Knowing that all this is fact, and not fiction or theory, can help both players. It can help the Alice player understand that, while a character like Hong can certainly stop this situation using a 5F move (Hong's 5A), a Suika player simply can not, and if Suika gets away with it, it means the Alice player's execution isn't as it could/should be. Likewise, it also lets Suika players know not to mindlessly attempt things that shouldn't/don't work.

Analyzing frames also let's us discover things like the correct way to escape Boot Rush in general. It also helps unravel the mysteries of why Youmu can escape tech traps when the rest of the cast can't, and why Yukari can escape aerial blockstrings when the rest of the cast can't -- it all comes down to frames and hitboxes.

But, So What;

Well, I will say that you don't actually need to look at frames, memorize them, or even understand how any of it works to be a good player. In fact, all of that information can be learned through trial and error experience. You don't need to know that none of Suika's moves are fast enough or not from looking at the data, not when you can experiment with each move in-game and discover that through gaming experience.

But as I pointed out before, there are random variables that effects us. Execution issues, and netplay lag/latency can sometimes create chaotic results. And rather than grinding until you have "proven" it through manual means, you could just look at the raw data, do a little math, and prove it at a glance. And there are some people who are stubborn or perhaps not so observant as to even notice this situation.

To quote Buktooth: "Match experience can replace knowing data, but knowing data can often let you come to conclusions that would otherwise require match experience.

In plainer English, being up on your knowledge helps you adapt to unknown situations faster".

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