Video analysis/guides (Shoutbox discussion)

We were talking about learning/teaching VF, guides and such.
I said that the system page is nice and stuff like that is useful, but it's not enough. You need to glue it all together somehow, and guides rarely teach that properly.
Example:

It's not 100% true because in fighting games, rules like these are meant to be broken, but it's still very important to understand how to play the game "properly".

Another such thing is mind games. When asked to explain mind games, people put on a wizard hat and a fake beard and begin sharing the legendary tales of those mystical high level players performing magic beyond the listener's comprehension.
It's wrong. It's not that difficult to understand. It should be easy enough to give proper examples of canned mixups at the very least, explain why and how they work and people should be able to add 2+2 on their own from there.




Anyway, eventually I said it would be awesome if someone could analyze matches to explain the game to newbies, and someone (Sorry, I forgot who it was) talked about Day9, who actually is doing pretty much the same thing, although at a higher level.




Here is what I could salvage from the shoutbox:

Feck: frame data would make sense as you can show when a move is punsihable etc.
Feck: not sure if you need the button inputs though, as you'll be explaining what's going on anyway
Plume: I didn't know who Day9 is until just now...looks like he's doing pretty much what I talked about, nice.
Shidosha: It wouldn't be impossible. Maybe if popularity increases...
AnimalStaccato: popularity will increase. It's not something you want to miss the boat on by waiting too long and missing new starters who start and give up
Seidon: It's hard to be very analytical with fighting games because a lot of what going on happens so quickly. By the time you get close to explaining something you've missed 6 other things
Seidon: You'd have to play a replay back in slowmo or constantly stop and start
erdraug: well it should be a native english speaker so a bunch of european players are out
Seidon: Maybe if you just pre selected a bunch of clips showing really good decisions or a series of interesting events

erdraug: so are the welsh and scottish i guess
Seidon: I'm Scottish so my accent is a no go
Plume: Constantly pause would make sense I think. Just talking while the match goes on would not allow much depth...
Feck: my accent is worse than Seidons
erdraug: canada's off too maybe, should be some "acceptable" accent, that's an awful thing to say, i feel like a dirty marketing exec for thinking that way
Seidon: Pausing would get tiresome becaue things happen so soon one after the other
erdraug: but like Boris said, should not let the opportunity pass by missing the initial popularity wave
Plume: *pause* Here I'm forced in a struggle situation. I break the struggle and then instead of blocking, I punch, because..." *unpause*
DriftPlusPlus: I like seidon's take. sequence of clips showing the flow of a match
Seidon: I think having a few pre selected clips would be a good idea to explain how the game is worked.
AnimalStaccato: well you'd just try to cover a certain number of things per episode? and look for the best examples of them
Plume: Maybe clips and whole matches both have benefits and would both be good. Complete matches could be better to explain mind games... maybe.
Plume: Though sadly I believe mind games work better on the span of 5-10 matches...
AnimalStaccato: again...you would see good examples of mindgames in some matches
erdraug: note: could be combined with the weekly ranking matches initiative you guys were talking about

AnimalStaccato: if you talked over a high level match im sure there would be good examples of just about nething
AnimalStaccato: you could pause befoer each one, explain what people are about to see etc
Feck: I don't se how pausing would be a problem, just will take time
Plume: Eh I'll agree with you Animal, so nevermind what I said.
AnimalStaccato: well i think it would be easier for a noob, as a teaching tool because they dont have to concentrate on 2 things at once. they listen, and then they observe
erdraug: true that, the match could be introduced a bit, then run
erdraug: ...but this wil require editing, that's hard


It could be great if someone who can record matches would at least provide that if they cannot analyze the game themselves.
The purpose of all that at first would be to teach new players the flow of the game and how to think, but it could very well later evolve into something more high level like what Day9 appears to be doing.
I just think it should not be technical stuff. There is already information about how to fuzzy, ETEG and all that. It's not what this thread is about.

I'm in no position to do any of this myself, but since the idea was not completely ignored, I was hoping that the discussion could continue here and someone or a group of people would put all this into motion.

 

Guys i have always wanted to request match footage analysis but i fear i would be demanding too much from someone else's time.
In 2009-2010 Gootecks and Mike ross took replay data and analyzed matches with the input stream displayed. The would explain what some one was thinking and what could have been done even when they were sub-optimally successfull. Exposing the mind games made it more fun to watch.
They even showed moves and combos that were dropped in separate footage just give a full presentation.

Tournament videos as well as User submitted videos were used for these but they stopped after a month or 2.

 

Maximilian does a series of match analysis vids for MVC3. Not quite as in depth as what you're talking about, but interesting.

I'd love to see more of this kind of thing in the VF community. There is a frightening lack of support videos about VF online that I've seen. Especially when compared to other fighting games.

 

Master is already doing this stuff for DOA5, maybe we should ask him to do one for FS as well lol

 

I believe you are looking for something like this:
http://www.elive.pro/watch/ix4zU3ELkWMH

It's in french though..

 

Yeah that's pretty close! Good use of pseudo-pause, and the analysis is very close to what would be needed.
On the other hand I agree with those who were saying that it should be someone "without an accent", so either US or UK, but I find him understandable...

I like their casting style, what they say is pretty good, but it's not really in depth. There are no pauses and very little explanations.
"Now Wolf slammed Vanessa at the wall, this is going to be a combo that really hurts..."
"Wow, it was disgusting. Wolf is really scary at the wall." ... It's just normal casting. They're GOOD casters though, but I'd like something more analytical and explanatory.

Side note, I can't forgive them for saying "nitakou". Come on, don't they know French and Japanese mostly use the same pronounciation?!?

 

Two games i really hate :shudders:

 

It's pronunciation. You have pronounced it incorrectly.

 

It's not my fault that the English language makes no sense!

 

Yes it is.

 

Arturo Sanchez does thos type of thing for SF4 matches, his last one was over an hour long.

 

I could not find his vids with a quick google search...
...But at this point I'm ready to give up. Nobody seems interested in taking this project.
Besides, I suppose it's not the end of the world. It could help, but when FS is launched there will be a lot of people just starting, so they will be able to learn at their own pace at least.

What I don't like is that VF is not flashy, and when you don't understand the mind games and other subtleties, VF appears shallow and boring...
...And the system pages are not great at communicating what's actually fun about the game.

 

That is one thing I'm definitely noticing when it comes to this game.

Newish people like me are directed to system pages. Odds are if we've played any fighter before we know what frame advantage is, we know that we have to take advantage of this

This won't help us play the game. It will help, maybe in bits, but it doesn't contribute to a broad understanding. And that's what one needs to do well. And to teach this, you cannot just refer people to system pages. That's only one method, a method that only works for a specific type of person. It reminds me of when I was trying to learn the scout motto in cub scouts as a kid and the mother of another kid there was trying to teach me the same way she taught her kid- via cued recall exercises. For example, she would mention a letter and ask what word that letter was in. That was too specific. That would imply that I essentially had the whole thing in unconscious memory already when I was trying to get the information there to begin with.

Directing people to all this specific information and system pages is the exact same. People need to understand how things generally work before they get into those specifics.

To provide a metaphor for this, it's much easier to peel an onion from the outside in than the inside out. People learning aren't experts, we need to pull away each layer and learn from it. A lot of people here are thinking with an expert's mind. You really need to look with a beginner's mind. Whether or not this move is x class and is 14 frames doesn't quite matter before a learner like me knows how to use it. I don't have to know anything about Akira's elbow strikes specifically to know that they are fast damaging, and high priority, because I've seen them used. Then I'll go to specific use and then frames.

 

Well I suppose the easiest way to look at this with a beginners mind would be to ask beginners.

So, beginners, what would you like to see in an FS tutorial video. What would you like to learn about?

 

When I was relearning VF from almost nothing at all, I wanted a match analysis that explains the choices made by one of the players.
If there was a specific reason to evade at this moment, fuzzy at that moment, using this string variation, jab there, back dash here, low sweep there...
I think not everything can be explained in a satisfying manner because not everything has a specific purpose, but it still may be worth a try.

Basically something that goes down to basic stuff.
It also wouldn't hurt to explain why OM here and why DM there. I'm pretty sure I didn't pay much attention to that when I first started because I was scared away by frames.

Following a jab or two with a bnb air combo might be an example worth of an explanation, since a jab on a jumping opponent gives you a whole combo...

 

Dude that was pretty much exactly what I wanted to talk about in the vid. You just pick some good examples of things and explain why they did it. Although that's basically the yomi aspect. Other good examples would be of things like fuzzy guard in which you could talk about it and get the viewers familiar with the concept and how it works etc.

Stuff like this needs to happen within VFDC and I don't think it would be very hard to do. Heck, I'd even be happy to do the voiceover for it.

 

It should be great if you did voice overs!

I'm wondering about videos. I think what Kingo meant with his link on the first page was that French commentators were taking Japanese matches and commentating over that.
I don't know how well most people can understand what really goes on in those matches. L_A and others of similar level might understand better than most.

Top level matches might also not be the best or only way to go, because you don't fight top level opponents the same way you fight low level opponents.



And another example of things worth noting, again when I was relearning everything, I watched a FS video with a Pai player and noticed that he was using a lot of 3K as a ranged poke. At range, Pai can also use 6K+G, 66K+G, 66K(P), but these 3 options are higher risk/reward options, so 3K(P) should always be the most solid choice.