How good are top online players compared to the best japanese players?

Why you gotta do me like that? : (

 

I think it was in a relation to being The (VF)Peoples Champ.

Maybe he should've said the Paul Wall of VF?

 

Good post.

I completely understand this philosophy of practicing parry/sabaki timing and various movement techs, plus experimenting with unique setups, etc. during certain situations in a competitive match at the risk of sacrificing some wins. In fact, I already do this often in most ranked matches I play along with casual room/player matches.

Kruza

 

Now this I can co-sign. Special Sparring in VF 5:FS is amazing. In fact when I got the game I set the AI to max difficulty and threw my Pai at it. She has now almost cleared the whole thing. They are BRUTAL. But like you said they have a certain style and way to each one that marks them out from each other even if they are the same character.

Like a Kage I fought who specialised in a particular move where he spins towards you with an elbow strike I think (sorry I don't know the move). Initially this caused me huge problems because it's fast and got right in my face. But he wasn't just spamming that, he mixed it up as well but was clearly building his offense around that attack. It was quite fascinating actually. You knew it was coming but it was never predictable the way he would mix it in. So not only did I generally improve my fighting but I also learned to defend against this type of attack.

I fought an Eileen who was specialising in a mix up between the throw where she jumps on your shoulders and hits you in the face, giggling and her low attacks that end with her giggling on the floor. If she missed the throw on the jump she would go straight into the low attacks. She mixed this tactic in with everything. It was a nightmare and great for training.

I won't go back online until I clear the rest of the special sparring stages. They are getting easier which is a good sign.

 

The mixup you're reffering to with eileen is her zenk catch throw 236P+K, P+G and her zenk sweeps 236P+K, 2KK hit K. There is no mixup here, ducking beats both options.

 

Yeah I got there in the end thanks . Duck and punish. But ever after I twigged and got the ducking down she still caught me with it often because of the way she was blending it in as part of her all out offence. I've never fought an Eileen like that, just endless nonstop barrage but that was definitely her signature attack.

 

One thing I do remember on this site, was what the Japanese themselves thought of online vanilla VF5. They said it wasn't perfect, but that it was pretty good.

 

Maybe his answer to you was truthful and maybe you caught him off guard and your win was legit...

Everyone can be beat....

I admire top JP players too, But there are also top VF players who do not hail from Japan, that are equally formidable.

 

Whenever I learn a few new combos, or learn some new uses of one Lei Fei's stances, I go back to the Special Sparring Sessions to try things out. The AI will let you know right away how plausible the new stuff will be against (most) online players. In general if you can get the new stuff off against everybody in Special Sparring, you will probably get it off against the average player online. The reverse is not always true. There are things that I could get off on a online-warrior, and was punished for it by somebody in the VF-Academy(special sparring) LOL

 

Nah, no way that was off guard. Screen freeze from the Super and he was clearly walking backwards to guard.

I'm not saying we give up on challenging better players. I'm saying a few wins against a good player does not necessarily put you on their level. I got a win in casuals against Myke recently, but there's no way I'd put myself near his level of skill. I've won upsets in tournaments against some high level Street Fighter players in Australia, but I can recognise that they're much better players than me.

I don't care about where a guy is from. If he's better, he's better. I'll still aim to kick his arse but I have to be realistic about it.

 

Agreed, a few wins does not put you at the skill set of the very top players. And casual play is not tournament play. BUT......... I think the guy that started this thread was wondering how do the top players online rank against top players in JP.

He may or may not know that some of the top players online are(or were) top players in JP.

and that there are several monster VF players online that are not from JP and IMO could win in a tournament scenario.

I used a few of my lucky wins (in casuals) to make the case that anyone can be beat. But let me put it another way....

In tournaments (as I'm sure you know) you don't play the same person over and over, so it really doesn't matter whether you can defeat them consistently. Depending on the tournament rules you may only have to face that top player ONCE. All you need to do to take his title is defeat him ONCE. Maybe it is the case that in general he has more skills than you, and over multiple matches would beat you on average. But in the tournament , you only have to beat him ONCE (in most cases).

And here's the deal.

Everybody, I mean everybody makes mistakes, guesses wrong, drops a combo, and feels the pressure in a tournament situation (including are awesome top JP players) If you win under those conditions you are no less of a champion.

Win the match starts if you are facing someone you've never faced, both of you will be a little anxious (maybe even nervous) Mistakes will be made, Yomi will come up short, and the winner will be the one with the most good karma/luck on that day.

I think there are some very high level non JP players that would not only fairly compete with top JP players, but in at least a couple instances that I can think of dominate top JP players.

Remember I've lost more VF matches than most ppl on this forum have played. And I know how to rank my losses. I know exactly what it feels to lose to a top player vs an intermediate player, or even a scrub ( I've lost, and do lose to all levels of players). I've lost to top non JP players and to one or two top JP players. The loss has the same intensity in both cases. That's why I'm convinced that top online non JP players could definitely hang (if not prevail) in JP.

 

Yeah that's it exactly. That's why I've gone back there again. I learned some good new stuff but I need to burn it into muscle memory and practice doing it under stress to make sure I can do it when I need to. And if the stuff is not feasible they WILL let you know. The only thing is you can't really train them or confuse them like you can a human player so pulling off any shenanigans is tough because they will just shut you down. But that's what you want in training.

Yeah they are are tough alright. I've been going through on four rounds on maximum difficulty and the first time I encounter some of those guys they beat the living crap out of me so hard a part of me wants to just quit the game forever. But after a while you start to maintain and then it's so awesome when you finally beat them. They're great sparring partners.

 

I disagree on the Special Sparring AI being a good "training" partner.

This is just my experience with it, however, if you set it to anything other than Very Hard, it's useless. It'll go into stances and then do nothing (I've had Hard AI Vanessa tackle me then just.....stare at me before getting up and letting me punch her in the face...). It won't react properly to disadvantage/advantage situations. Etc etc etc.

If you set it to Very Hard, it has moments of input reading. I can get it in a -5 situation and have it react perfectly to counter me. Most humans can't do that. Heck, you can even bait it into abare by use the K~G cancel in certain situations.

The AI in this game is good, but by no means should it be used to guage a certain techniques effectiveness vs another human. You can't Yomi the AI, you can't condition it to do certain things, you can't mindfuck it. And that's half the battle against another human.

 

BrodiMAN, we're at different levels. You are a accomplished VF fighter. You are not in the intermediate camp. You're more in the advanced - to - expert group. For your level of play I agree Sparring mode probably doesn't do you any good.

I know for a fact that noobs, to intermediate players will not only find Sparring Sessions challenging, but enjoyable. Also, I'm not ashamed of my intermediate status , and I will say, I've got about 3000 matches online in ranked, and in general, the special sparring partners give me more of a challenge, more diversity, and more fun than the average online-warrior (that's my personal experience)

Of course, I don't play players who are much more advanced than me, because I'm enjoying the game at the level I play it, and I'm not even trying to move to advanced, expert level. I don't want VF to become work. Too much frame counting, who-has-the-advantage-when, to-abare-or-not-to-abare takes the fun out of the game at my level.

Keep in mind not everyone aspires to an advanced or expert level player. Some of us play VF casually, or at an intermediate level, and with non professional or non tournament goals in mind. Some of us play the game just for FUN. And VF is usually FUN if you can beat your peers half the time. LOL! The Special Sparring Sessions (on very hard) offers real VF competition. Now, maybe its not Grand Master VF Competition but its legitimate VF play.

And if I'm being truly honest. Many of the AI's that I spar with in the sparring mode, are actually better (and I mean better by a lot) than many of the "AVERAGE Online-Warriors" I fight against in Ranked mode.

I highly recommend Sparring Mode for those of us mere VF mortals who haven't reached GOD status yet.

 

Agreed, in all but one point namely,. "why human opposition is so precious"

It could be me. It probably is. But in so many instances I prefer playing against AI's, especially the new ones in VF5FS. Its probably just my personal set of experiences, but I find most human opposition to fall at two extremes either the person is so much beyond any skill level that I desire to reach and obliterates me, or the person poses no real challenge/diversity. Especially in online ranked on PSN. First the average player is going for the win, they tend to find a few winning combos and that's all you get over and over until you break their habit and then they fold. ON the other hand the advanced players spare you no quarter and its over before you know it. Maybe its all in my mind, but the AI in the special sparring sessions, just seem to have more variety too me. I look forward to what new thing I'm going to see and I've fought them many many times ( I don't have a number) because in Sega's infinite wisdom they don't keep statistics in Single Player

So my online (against the precious human opposition) experience is either dull and un eventful or I get pulverized and never saw what hit me. From my vantage point Online play is greatly overrated. Sure there are the occasional really good rooms I stumble across every now and again. VS mode is a different story. There the human opposition is precious and the FUN element is there.