Ultra Street Fighter IV

[ah]

 

[TheShend]

On 26/09/2016 at 10:11, sith said:

I accidentally mastered a one frame link. Hawk's crouch MK after standing jabs to make it combo. I didn't know it was a one frame link, I just did it so much I got used to the timing.

 

Also, I play this everynight after work now that I live in Tokyo.There is a grandmaster ranked Sagat whose a regular at my local arcade. I've gotten close but I can't beat the fucker.

 

You don't say. Room for a small one at your gaff? Eh? Eh?!

 

*seething jealously*

[sith]

On 12/2/2016 at 07:47, TheShend said:

 

You don't say. Room for a small one at your gaff? Eh? Eh?!

 

*seething jealously*

 

Haha, there is always room for you mate! And anyone else from this wonderful thread.

 

Happy Christmas fightmans.

[mogawoods]

I started playing this last night, my first Street Fighter since 2 on the SNES, and I have virtually no idea what the hell I'm doing. Even utterly basic stuff like how to block and how to throw I had to google after failing to understand the command list ('ahhhhh, I'm supposed press them at the same time!' etc). I even had to google how to accept a continue because I just kept making the timer speed up.

 

So. I am dreadful. I can't even complete arcade on medium. It starts off easy but I reach a stage where I get stomped (currently by Rose). It feels like the AI gets tougher as the arcade goes on, which is weird. I thought the AI difficulty would be identical in each fight. Maybe I'm imagining it.

 

I'm utterly baffled by the Super/Ultra combo thing as well. I have to choose from a list of three at the start so I've been choosing the third one but I don't know how to pull it off once my bar is full.

 

So yeah, I'm a noob but I'm liking it. Should I just jump into online and get my ass handed to me? Best way to learn, I guess.

[ah]

What platform? I will play with you if you're on PC.

 

Each character has two ultra combos which have different input commands. You can choose one or the other before the game, or you can pick the third option which makes them both available to you, but they do less damage than if you'd chosen one. It'sa choice between whether you want lots of tools available during the fight, or you want fewer tools but your tools do more damage. There's usually a consensus for each character on what they should pick, depending on who they're fighting, but as a general rule you can get away with picking the first option as your default.

 

There's a command list for each character if you pause during a game.

 

If you've got a favourite character or two then tell us and we'll give you a quick primer on the most important stuff to get you started :-)

[mogawoods]

28 minutes ago, alistarr said:

What platform? I will play with you if you're on PC.

 

Each character has two ultra combos which have different input commands. You can choose one or the other before the game, or you can pick the third option which makes them both available to you, but they do less damage than if you'd chosen one. It'sa choice between whether you want lots of tools available during the fight, or you want fewer tools but your tools do more damage. There's usually a consensus for each character on what they should pick, depending on who they're fighting, but as a general rule you can get away with picking the first option as your default.

 

There's a command list for each character if you pause during a game.

 

If you've got a favourite character or two then tell us and we'll give you a quick primer on the most important stuff to get you started :-)

 

Thanks! Unfortunately I'm on PS4 (was eight quid on PSN versus twenty-odd quid on PC - I'm cheap!).

 

I don't have any favourite characters yet. I vaguely remember a few from the 90s - Ryo, Blanka, Vega, Chun-Li, M Bison etc. That's it. Don't know any of their moves or advantages/disadvantages.

 

I'm trying to learn the basics with Ryo. Can pull off the Hadoken most of the time and that spinny spinny air kick, but uppercut punch thing I only ever manage by accident

 

I'm not finding the command list particularly helpful, to be honest. It'd be better if it was a little more descriptive maybe. 'Press both [this button] and [this button] simultaneously' or whatever so I don't have to google stuff. 'Tatsumaki Senpukyaku (spinny spinny kick thing)' would be handier than just 'Tatsumaki Senpukyaku' - there've been times when I've thought I've got the hang of a move from the command list, only to realise it was a different move that I was accidentally doing. I'm really struggling to do a Shoryuken - right, diagonally down, right on the strick then punch. Tried it so many times but nothing seems to be happening. But then I coud barely do a Hadoken at first so I guess it's all about practice.

 

Oh, I did one of the guide things that teaches you each character's moveset. Was going ok until stage 7 where I had to do crouching punch, crouching punch, crouching kick or something, and I couldn't get it to register all of them, just the first one. I googled it and read a post about how you have to time each successive move to the accurace of 2/60 frames of a second or something, which seems ... wildly impossible to do consistently and on purpose. Who knows? Educate me!

 

And yeah, Rose is still destroying me. Five or so matches in a row were fairly easy, then Rose appeared.

[ah]

Look up vesperarcade on youtube, he did videos of all the combo trials with his hands in the shot so you can see the button timing. The timing for linking one attack after another isn't really that bad once you understand the general idea, and very often the same kind of timing will apply for lots of different combos across various characters. Try to only press each button once at first, then you'll know if the second button was too early because the attack won't come out. If it's too late, it will come out but the dummy will block it.

 

We call it "tatsu" for short, by the way :-) but it's quite common to call things "upkicks" or "fireball" or whatever and people will get what you mean.

 

Shoryuken is actually: Forward > Down > Diagonally down-forward > Punch button. The diagrams are definitely confusing sometimes. Also, there is a "shortcut" you can do for that motion which is to start in down-forward position, then move to straight down and back to down-forward. Because of how the game reads inputs it will count the down-forward at the start in place of the forward you needed when you press the punch button (basically, any time you press an attack button the game checks the directions you pressed in the moment before and if it finds useful inputs in among the mess it will use them. But if this is confusion, ignore it for now!)

[mogawoods]

17 minutes ago, alistarr said:

Look up vesperarcade on youtube, he did videos of all the combo trials with his hands in the shot so you can see the button timing. The timing for linking one attack after another isn't really that bad once you understand the general idea, and very often the same kind of timing will apply for lots of different combos across various characters. Try to only press each button once at first, then you'll know if the second button was too early because the attack won't come out. If it's too late, it will come out but the dummy will block it.

 

We call it "tatsu" for short, by the way :-) but it's quite common to call things "upkicks" or "fireball" or whatever and people will get what you mean.

 

Shoryuken is actually: Forward > Down > Diagonally down-forward > Punch button. The diagrams are definitely confusing sometimes. Also, there is a "shortcut" you can do for that motion which is to start in down-forward position, then move to straight down and back to down-forward. Because of how the game reads inputs it will count the down-forward at the start in place of the forward you needed when you press the punch button (basically, any time you press an attack button the game checks the directions you pressed in the moment before and if it finds useful inputs in among the mess it will use them. But if this is confusion, ignore it for now!)

 

Awesome, just followed your shoryuken instructions and it worked first time! The icon in the command list looks nothing like what you're supposed to do - Capcom should get you to write the command list next time.

 

Gonna give the linking attacks a miss for now, I think. I do love that there's so much depth and mechanics to discover - just a bit overwhelming when you're starting out.

[mogawoods]

What the hell is the deal with this Rose fight though? I selected Medium so I expected every fight to be of the same difficulty but it feels like the first bunch of fights are fairly easy then you hit some kind of AI spike? Am I imagining it or is this their way of trying to make arcade mode challenging? Like, if Rose had been my first fight, would she have been easy? Really hope not.

 

Ryo's special combos seem really shit too. I have to work up four bars for it and then Rose can just block it and lose barely any health, whereas she just needs two bars (I think?) for her insane electro combo thing which I can't seem to block (it all happens within the cutscene?). Weird.

[ah]

Good idea - you will improve and get better at the game without bothering with the complicated stuff until you feel like you want to do so. With Ryu I would say you could comfortably practice and improve even by only ever using the following options:

 

Crouching medium kick (cr.mk)

Hadoken (fireball)

cr.mk xx fireball (easy combo which is almost always safe even if they block it, just immediately do fireball input after pressing the kick button)

Shoryuken (dragon punch or "dp")

Throw (and the same input to break a throw when your opponent attempts one)

Crouching block (hold down-back)

 

Crouching medium kick when they're near enough, and do the combo if you feel like it. Fireball when they're far away, then stop fireballs when you feel they're about to jump over one and wait to dragon punch as they come down towards you, then when they're scared walk up and throw or do your cr.mk again.Block when you want. Pretty much everything else is just details. Seriously, read that again and practice it and you will get better fast as you learn how opponents respond. You'll still lose plenty of course!

 

When you're happy with that, which won't take long, you can move onto the most fun thing in the whole game by introducing an occasionally crouching heavy kick (cr.hk or "sweep"). When your opponent is used to you walking up to then or standing in range to do cr.mk, walk there then step back a tiny fraction. If they do their own button to try and poke you away, they will miss because you stepped out of range, and you can do your longer cr.hk to hit the useless move they threw out and knock them down. This is called "whiff punishing" and it doesn't matter how fancy a 100 hit combo you learn, it will never feel as good as when you bait your opponent like this and hit them with the punishment.

 

There is a fun video on youtube where gootecks and mike ross teach Japanese pro wrestler Kenny omega how to play Ryu in SFV using just cr.mk and sweep, or something like that, and he does win ranked matches by the end. Too many people get caught up in the complicated stuff too early, I think, because it's what they see most obviously in the opponents who beat them. But the only reason the opponent got to do anything fancy is because they already used this less flashy stuff to get in the right place first.

 

Sorry for the wall of text, this is my favourite videogame and I hope you have fun with it :-)

[joffocakes]

If you're having trouble in Arcade Mode then you can try just crouch-blocking by holding down-back and waiting for the opponent to make a mistake. Rose can only damage you with "chip" damage (from you blocking her special moves) or by throwing you when in that position.  Be aware that jumping attacks have to be blocked standing (some characters also have Overhead attacks you have to stand block but Rose does not).

 

So, crouch and block the opponent's attack. Some of their moves will have a long recovery animation and they will be vulnerable at that time. Block and sweep is a decent, if a little slow and lacking in damage, method of punishing an opponent when you don't yet have a wee combo down yet.

 

It'll also help you get a feel for which of your opponent's moves are punishable after block. (Crouching hard kick/Sweep is punishable too, though; if you block a Sweep from Ryu you can Sweep him right back).

 

The other important thing to learn is to "anti-air" a jumping opponent. Ryu has a very powerful anti-air in his Shoryuken as it is invincible for a short time as it starts up and it starts up fast. Until you can do that on command just rely on his crouching hard punch instead. You'll swat the opponent out of the air and do a decent wee chunk of damage.

 

I'm glad you're enjoying it! It's The Best Game.

 

[ah]

If you were in the middle of doing something when she goes into the little cutscene before her ultra combo, you probably won't have time to finish your thing and go back to blocking before she hits you. If you are doing nothing when the little cutscene starts, hold back and you will block the attack.

 

The AI is very variable but there's usually a cheap way to beat any fight. Zangief for example can pretty much just mash all three punch buttons forever and he will eventually spin his way to victory in every fight. Try something different to what you're doing and you'll get there.

[mogawoods]

Good stuff, I'll practice those basics, then. I've been spamming sweeping way too much, it seems. Will try more crouching medium kicks instead.

[mogawoods]

@alistarr @joffocakes Followed both of you guys' advice on crouch blocking (then into fireball) and a couple crouch kicks and sweeps and defeated Rose 2-0. Onwards!

[joffocakes]

God I love Street Fighter.

[Nick R]

3 hours ago, ann coulter said:

Oh, I did one of the guide things that teaches you each character's moveset. Was going ok until stage 7 where I had to do crouching punch, crouching punch, crouching kick or something, and I couldn't get it to register all of them, just the first one. I googled it and read a post about how you have to time each successive move to the accurace of 2/60 frames of a second or something, which seems ... wildly impossible to do consistently and on purpose. Who knows? Educate me!

 

Beyond the first few, which are just a way to check that you can pull off the main specials and Ultras, the Trials aren't much a guide or tutorial of any sort. I made that mistake when I first started, assuming they were meant to teach me the basics of how to play, and getting frustrated when I couldn't manage what they were asking. But they don't tell you anything about where you're going wrong (there's nothing about the difference between links, chains and cancels for example), so you're better off going on Youtube to learn stuff that's actually practical.

 

There is stuff you can learn from attempting the later ones, even if you can't execute the full combo it asks for. But it's still more a test than a tutorial: I don't think I've ever done more than about 13 of them with any character!"

 

Here is a post I made a couple of years ago when I started getting to grips with the game - I'd recommend watching some of the BeyondTechnical tutorial videos I linked to in that post:

 

 

 

[mogawoods]

Thanks @Nick R, reading now.

 

Just completed arcade mode on Medium with Ryo, so - progress!

[mogawoods]

The online appears to be terrible, sadly. A constant 'Now searching', then 'Joining session', then 'Unable to join session. Search again?' loop. This is with the settings on 'Any' for everything.

 

One of the main misgivings about SFV is the awful online/servers, I know, but isn't IV supposed to be better?

 

Edit: and then when I do get a game, I'm up against someone in a higher league with thousands of points who obliterates me (don't remember the game making any attempt to explain what PP and BP are either). By round two I'm panicking and button mashing. With dozens of other games in the backlog, I'm starting to think this is going to require waaaay more commitment than I'm able to give it. That didn't take long, did it?

[ah]

There's possibly something wrong if you're getting that many errors on joining - restrictive NAT settings maybe? Try creating and endless battle and let someone else join you, if you can't find anything wrong with your network connection.

 

PP is your player ranking and the one that matters, really. BP shows how many wins you have with each specific character, so it can give you a sense of whether your opponent is well practised with the character they picked or is trying out something new.

 

The game has been around for eight years so most of the people still playing will k ow how to play already, and of course in any game you're most likely to get matched with the people who are most likely to be online playing, which means the people who play all the time and therefore know what's what. But if it was in the sale you'll run into other newcomers soon enough.

 

My advice for online play is as follows:

 

- play with a friend who can chat and offer advice/banter

- if and only if that's not possible, play "endless battle" with a two player lobby so you get to play the same person a few times in a row

- if and only if nobody is joining your lobby, try ranked matches and after each match reflect on a thing that helped kill you and decide what you will do the next time you see that situation

 

Ranked matches are really only good for getting to play a wide variety of opponents and learn how to fight different characters. For learning the basics you'll fare much better if your opponent doesn't change after every single match.

 

[Nick R]

The Steam version of USIV has apparently gone kaput - no logos, just a blank black screen on startup. I just tested it, and I get the same thing. Apparently it's happening at the same time as SFV server maintenance.

 

http://shoryuken.com/2017/01/27/steam-users-reporting-inability-to-play-ultra-street-fighter-iv/

 

Incidentally, a week or so ago I found that Youtube uploading wasn't working; it wouldn't even load the initial replay playthrough, just showed a "not available at this time" message. Though that might not be a widespread issue: it's the first time I've tried a Youtube upload since upgrading to Windows 10, and I have an ancient ATI graphics card which doesn't even have official Windows 10 drivers.

[joffocakes]

That's weird; Street Fighter IV was already just peer-to-peer as well, wasn't it?

 

I've never really gotten that YouTube upload feature to work with Street Fighter IV, on Xbox 360 or PC. I just gave up on it entirely.

[Qazimod]

Gah, the whole reason I got a Steam version was for future-proofing (obviously before I knew about the PS4 release).

 

I wonder if it affects all versions? Maybe you could get the disc copy (which is just AE with an Ultra code) and not update it...  

[Escape]

7 hours ago, Nick R said:

The Steam version of USIV

 

Unwelcome Street Impostor 5?

[Qazimod]

Ultra Street IV - like a really limited town-planning sim.

[Escape]

MC Hammer for S-tier.

[JLM]

. Still playing this all the time. I just can't quit it.

 

Here is a good old fashioned Tomas-ing from my PSN adventures. I played like an idiot in round 2 because I was so pleased about round one. Have left round two included for the finish though.

 

 

Also have some casual tournament fun to report:

 

Attended the monthly retro gaming event in Leeds this weekend. Entered MKXL having never played it before in my life. I try and play every fighting game released but just do not get on with NRS games. Fiend that I am though, I still watch plenty of MKXL top 8s to keep an eye on the state of the game. Also, despite not being a fan of the NRS games to play, I do love a lot of the character builds in the recent games despite not liking the game they're in very much. For this event I picked Picked Swarm Queen D'Vorah because I love the pressure she has with the swarm of bugs on people's wake up. In the first match I found out how to throw a projectile and how to summon the bugs. Then figured out a low string and a high string. Good old mystery game tech saw me through to grand finals. Mostly block, see if you can see anything that looks glaringly punishable, then just find some day one strategies that fellow people who don't play this particular game will not be able to handle.  Sadly had to fight against an SFO man who actually does play the game in grand finals and took a sound thrashing. Still lots of fun though.

 

I also entered SF Alpha 3. Picked old faithful Rose, made sure my anti-airs/air to airs were clean and just picked everyone apart with fundamentals. We had to play on PS2 pads so I had no hope of doing anything good. Just kept it simple and played basic Streetfighter and ended up taking it. Won this nice stash of SF goods:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ah]

Grab attempt whiffs; grab attempt whiffs; grab attempt whiffs...........dash ultra. I respect it.

[JLM]

In my defense, two of the SPDs were failed punish attempts on the teleport and axe kick. Gief would have caught the axe kick but sadly Tomas could not reach. I cannot excuse the excessive jumping though; that was just post-perfect hype in action.

[ah]

 

Nine minute compilation of the very best tricks from the very best online SF4 players. If I had to pick one bit to highlight, it would be the Vega thing at about 5:10 which I've never seen before in any form and which is just delightfully dirty. I had to rewind about four times.

 

[JLM]

What a magical game. Love that it has that clip from PIE Chin's Cody in there at 36 seconds-ish. The stand fierce - > wait - > stand fierce at the point in the combo where EVERYONE would grab reset is genuinely my favourite frame trap out of every game of SFIV I've ever watched. Still makes me grunt involuntarily every time I see it. At the SFO monthly tournament for February I entered Super turbo, USFIV and didn't enter SFV. Felt good man. Really looking forward to the USF4 Revival tournament at Hypespotting and will practise hard for it, by which I mean continue to play this game at least every other day as I usually do anyway.

 

Also playing loads of PS4 online. Got to 3500PP in ranked so other 4000pp folks in endless will play sets with me and had some really good games in amongst the ranked madness. Also fought a Gouken player in ranked who had the fairly common habit of focus attacking every time he got anti-aired. To counter this I started doing raw soul spiral after each anti-air. He did not approve: