Juicebox is learning VF5FS (Day 3)

Quite a few exciting things are happening in North American VF! One of them, to me, is Juicebox learning VF!

I am loving this because I like watching Juicebox learn new fighting games and it is an opportunity for the community to come together and help him out! And this community has always loved doing that!

More than any community I have been a part of for any game (and I have been a part of so many), our Virtua Fighter community has always been the most like a martial arts community where everyone loves to go for long sessions and just get better and help others get good.

Anyways, today was the third day (I believe) of Juicebox playing VF5FS and he’s picking up a lot of things and he has his own approach to learning games and it is fun watching. It is exciting watching a lot of North America’s best come in to help him!

Check it out and feel free to post your own thoughts or suggestions here. I will probably post my tips for juicebox based on his many hour training today here!

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/827004480

 

OK someone needs to tell JuiceBot, if he plans on being COMP & use other characters then don't use AK OK!

Fucking Akira needs a warning sign saying: This isn't SF & he isn't Ryu you wannabe Otakus.

Best case scenario OK: be like DumbNutz AK/ @Rodnutz using the most OP character in the entire game yet Whines about his move list being weak... while using GB like it's a DE OK. Yet still can't punish a sweep with the knee, what half his life in VF yet still not even a decent JP level AK OK WTH!?

Worst case scenario OK: 20+ yrs has passed you realized AK wasn't for you & should have picked Lau as main & can still do subs, owns everyone in the game & get's bored while waiting for VF6.

Tell me if I'd missed something OK

Keep the Hate don't Discriminate.

 

Who? What? Why?

 

In general, I agree with you. But I believe that Juicebox is the type of player that will be fine playing Akira this early.

However, some points that I think are important to know when playing Akira as your learning character:

* Akira’s staple mid is his dashing elbow (and super dashing elbow). It’s a little different from most of the roster having a vanilla elbow which the game is built around. The challenge with this is that it might take you awhile longer to realize that VF’s design has a lot of “vanilla moves,” moves that follow very closely to similar rules across the roster.

* Extending the last point, we talk a lot about Jabs (High and Low), Elbows, Throws when we talk about fundamental VF play. This is because these moves are almost identical across the whole roster and follow the same rules but also because they are the true building blocks of this game. The first skill barrier in a local scene between people learning and an advanced player is the advanced player can defeat less strong opponents with only these moves.

* Because of Akira’s design, stronger opponents will definitely be using option selects against him (and they should use those in general) and so... When learning him and playing strong opponents, you might feel that the +5 situation for Akira is useless until you learn how to beat fuzzy guard (delay guard break) and evade-option-selects (throw). This is tricky to teach a beginner because the point is not to go hunting after the option selects and making these responses your bread and butter, but to force the opponent to play Akira’s +5 situation normally but with more nuance.

* That said, +8 (high advantage) situation is still one of the most important things to get used to in VF and the general advice everyone is giving Juicebox still stands. When you are at high advantage, force the guessing game between attack (usually mid) and throw and without hesitation because your opponent must guess correctly (and even if they guess correctly, their reward is usually small unless they went for the hard counter and increased their risk dramatically).

Anyways, I think Juicebox will be fine with Akira ^_^

 

It definitely might seem weird, but last night I jumped into Adam Yuki’s twitch stream and saw the Parsec matches and man... as long as we are keeping the pings in check (which means keeping the matchups limited to acceptable pings...) the matches are very close to offline and it was exciting to watch players from the western half of North America playing high quality matches. Last night I watched my boy Dark Nova Void from Everett, Washington fight well against Blackstar (which is Georgia I thought!), Shidosha, Bbountyhunter, Shonuff (outside our region but they had decent connection), and more! It was so much fun to watch and chat VF with everyone—I miss chatting VF with Adam!

Parsec has at least allowed regions to play VF online and in a legit way and I’m so happy for that. My matches with NorCal players might not be annually anymore, they might be weekly!

 

Note for Juicebox: Yep, forcing the 2 choices (defend against attack or defend against throw)

Hi Juicebox,

So a lot of people have been talking to you about how in VF, you are to force guessing games. I pretty much went into detail about it two messages ago, but it’s the core fundamental and flow of Virtua Fighter. It is also the primary skill barrier in VF.

Like all pursuits, there are lots of Do’s and Do Not’s. And in VF, there are LOTS OF DO NOT’S that you kind of pickup on as you play (and this might be why the game has often been less approachable—Monster Hunter was like that too in the west until Monster Hunter Worlds made so many quality of life changes so people didn’t feel those do not’s so harshly).

But... The most important Do is to pressure your opponent into frame advantage and force choices on them. More specifically, it’s make use of every high advantage situation to force your opponent to deal with either your attack (usually mid) or your throw.

The magic number is +8 and you see it so much in the training menu with the frame display on. You get it with a lot of Major Counter (interrupt) off of poke, like your jabs.

You will see +8 a lot and +5 a lot. In +5 your opponent has a lot of option selects and in +8 they really are forced down to 2 choices with very restricted option selects.

Akira’s +8 is truly scary because of his Guard Break. Where the opponent could try to settle with Guard-Throw-Escape a lot, the guard break really makes the opponent want to consider weird options at Akira’s +8.

Anyways, I’m getting ahead of myself... it does become a deeper rabbit hole when we go into the option selects and the venn diagrams of options we use to corner the opponent in these guessing games.... the important part is to get used to attacking or throwing on +8 quickly and without hesitation because the rest really does follow.

SOME TIPS ON CONFIRMING:
* For Counter Hit you have heard about the yellow flash for MC. There are more cues than that!
1) Yellow Flash is a confirmation.

2) SOUND IS A CUE! Notice the difference sound on MC. Visual indicators came to VF in VF4. In VF3, we used sound. Sound is still a cue.

3) You can fairly reliably see a MC coming because you can see if your opponent is doing an attack animation while your attack is happening. Likewise, if you are whiff punishing in other fighting games, well, mC (minor counter) is not a far leap from that

That said, from watching you play other games, I believe that these tips on confirming will really help you. Sometimes you don’t need to confirm the result, you can sometimes see what builds up to the result ^_^

 

SOME TIDBITS FROM WATCHING (this list may get updated as I revisit your session):

* BACKDASHING WHILE SIDETURNED: One time I saw your opponent evade you and you backdashed and they got a side crumple on you and I could hear your irritation with the situation. Getting irritated is correct, lol, but in case you don’t know what led up to that situation I will explain it to you:

— VF, like a lot of Sega competitive games is forward biased. Another way to think of that is it likes to punish things like backdash (anti-backward you could say).

— When you are sideturned, backdash usually preserves your sideturned state—so moves that crumple on side-hit will still crumple you usually.

— Backdash is still a good movement option in VF, it just has lots of drawbacks built in like getting staggered when hit by a sidekick and as you now know, preserving sideturned status.

* ON LEARNING STRINGS: You commented this while training. My advice on strings is that strings are not very important to learn in VF until you run into the ones that might actually have a mixup. There are some patterns.... like a low attack is likely to be on the 3rd or 4th hit of a string... And some characters are more about strings than others (you played against Eileen and El Blaze and a lot of their mixups come from strings).

I do think that for the efficiency of learning, it’s better to focus on key moves because VF is traditionally a 1-2 attacks at a time game, and in your matches just mark in your notes what strings bothered you and then put it in the lab for the next day to learn.

That said.... stances are worth labwork in anticipation of a matchup. If you know you are going to fight against Sarah, then you definitely want to learn her flamingo stance.

If you want to shortcut string learning, just identify where lows and low/mid mixups are—there aren’t that many but those are the more important things to know.

I get by too easily just low punching against high strings and then learning which ones not to do that, after the fact.

 

Yeah... OK. Always bring up the #s @Chanchai why don't you describe what it's like to use AK mentally? Better yet, @BlackGeneral what's it like to use AK w/o the #s & how did @Tricky's little encouragement talk go, was it that level up that was way over overdue?

Since everyone here loves #s so much. Here's 2 OK, @_Denkai_ & GT, who are the strongest Switch Nation Players & Top Tiers in NA but neither of these 2 DumbAss would ever use AK as a main & in a serous match OK.

 

@Chanchai and @kungfusmurf I see both your points.

Juicebox,

I personally believe you are doing great with Akira and with your resume of playing KOF and hard execution I think you will do just fine. I do suggest that taking up a second character is not a bad approach either. Akira is a little weird having to do 1f knee for launch punishing sweeps and other fundamentals of the game. I'm pretty sure you know Shinku started with Akira but he also learned Eileen shortly after as well at the same time. I think having access to an easy launch punishable mids, simple 6p elbow, standing full circular attacks will help develop you more potentially. Plus you being KOF player I believe learning to characters at the same time is fine I mean KOF is 3 on 3 learning multiple characters shouldn't hinder your growth. With your interest in learning Jean, Vanessa, Jeffery and Lion as well, I recommend you picking one of these characters and learning both at the same time. Just so you don't have to do the Akira mentality game all the time and I believe I heard Shinku say once he played Eileen and came back to Akira he said Akira felt easier to play. Another thing I recommend all new players to do is after you find who you want to play, you should go through and do command training for all characters in the game to familiarize themselves with the moves. (If you haven't already) Also I'm glad you enjoyed matches on the stream Chanchai wish I did better but that what's keeps me playing. You should definitely join in and if you get a server going it will definitely be awesome because you are one of the few Lion players and you really know the game a lot so you would be able to help Juice out a lot.

 

WAY TOO MANY ACRONYMS.............. EENNGGRRRISH PPPRRREEAASSEE!!!!

First, shut up Smurf! I think he is doing fine and will be fine as he learns the game. No doubt he will hit a roadblock when he gets to higher level players like GT, Denkai, etc, however that's just how they say, par the course, with Akira because once you learn how to break through that ceiling... well, the skies the limit. Plus he has people like me, you and BG to help him break through. We didn't have that kind of help.

And I can too punish sweeps..... I do so all the time in my dreams.

 

VFDC didn't tag me... odd.

There are things I'd like to tell Juicebox about what CAN happen if he continues to play him, but I don't want to color his impression of the game and how it should be played. However, there is a very solid beginner tutorial that he should look up here if he feels a bit lost. I think it'll help him solidify AK general gameplan.

 

Appreciate the tips so far, everyone.

I chose Akira to start not for any gameplay reason, I just really enjoy the Bajiquan martial art in general (In Tekken my favorite characters were Julia and Leo).

Coming from KOF I was expecting an execution challenge. This game's version of that is tied up in how quickly you make decisions and predict the next moment, and buffering something like 666P requires good situational awareness, something a beginner isn't going to have. I do want to play Akira but I understand that with any 3D fighter you need to get through the burn-in period before being able to be consistently skillful. So I will undoubtedly be jumping around different characters to get a feel for the game, and I'll probably end up back on Akira since he's my favorite by a mile.

 

@Rodnutz, everything you said just... 本当バカみたい

@Juicebox_FGC, may the AK KNEE be with you & say hi to 2040 OK.

 

Oh I'd almost forgot. Hey @BlackGeneral, how's that burning-in period going for AK it's been like 10 years & counting? Leveled up yet, oh well there's always the next 10 years right?

 

Getting close to 10... and so is that wall.
At least I'm young...ish?

 

Hey mods, can you get this train back on its tracks? これはアキラのショーじゃない.

 

@Myke, look here Aussie Beef. How's that AK of yours doing? What's your main again KA? But supposedly doesn't he sucks in FS but you do better with him than the most OP character in the game, how so Bro?

@Juicebox_FGC, look here Juicebot. VF is mentally draining as it is & you want to

FACT, there's no quarter-assing it with AK. I'm not saying you shouldn't use AK but if you are don't brother using other characters. When you do & you'll realized you have preference to a different character due to personality efficiency & going back just doesn't work. You don't realize it until you try to push & really HARD too but the CAP just won't allow it. @jimi Claymore, how's the AK training going?

Lastly even Ryan Hart use KA over AK in FT & he wasn't even a Fan-Boy.