EA UFC 3 SOLID’S STRIKING GUIDE
EDIT: here is a video with some defensive tips... it can be a suplement to the read below.
<iframe width="854" height="480" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wuHmn-ql124" frameborder="0" gesture="media" allow="encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Hello, fellas. I’m Solid_Altair, aka Altair_Snake, aka Yves, one of the Game Changers for EA UFC 3. I had the privilege of playing a pre-beta version of the game and tried to keep myself updated (on a theoretical level) about the improvements that have been made since then, by constantly pestering the devs about it. :P Even so, I’m likely outdated on some details and/or have wrong impressions on what the theory can mean on practice. Therefore, take the following with a couple grains of salt.
I assume you’ve read GPD’s breakdown. If you haven’t, then please read it first, as it’s more valuable than this one. Here I intend to unravel more of a tips and tricks kind of guide, the sort of thing that might speed your skill progression as you “git gud” in the first few hours with the game. I’ll try to cut to chase and make this post relatively short, which I failed, btw. Sorry.
If you don’t wanna go through the whole thing, then I hope the little rock-paper-scissors thing shortly below will be of use to you. Cheers.
Rules of Engagement
Let’s start with what I like to call Engagement, when you act expecting that the opponent act about the same time as you. In the more formal terms of GPD’s breakdown: when neither fighter has a sizeable frame advantage. Here is a rock-paper-scissors kind of chain that you might have inferred from GPD’s text, or would likely figure out after playing a few matches:
Ducking > Upper > Side Slip > Hook > Mixed Slips > Leg Kick > Straight > Ducking …
Now, I’ll try to explain the logic of this chain.
Ducking
This is an action many people are likely to underestimate at first. Players who use their realistic knowledge of MMA to learn EA UFC 3 will evolve quickly, but this is a specific case where they might take longer to adapt. I remember MartialMind (MuayThaiStriker) struggled a little bit with this very early in the event. Folks will likely throw straights and hooks a lot, while throwing few uppers; simply because that’s what we often see in real fights. And the slightly unusual new input for the upper (trust me: it’s actually comfortable) might further discourage new players from throwing enough of them. Therefore duck to slip their straight or horizontal attacks, then punish their whiff with a big punch of your own.
Yet another reason to duck is that it mitigates the damage of attacks taken to the body, from any direction. Another factor, that couldn’t make it in GPD’s breakdown in full detail, is that when you mitigate damage to the body, by using a lean, you also don’t take the hit stun. In fight game terminology, this is known as super armor. You might have guessed that this will put you in an excellent situation to punch the opponent in the face, real hard, as he is recovering from throwing a body roundhouse, for instance. And if the roundhouse had been thrown to the head, the ducking will actually duck it, allowing you to counter even harder. So, ducking now acts as an “Option Select” (a way to counter both options of a mix up) against those pesky old body-head roundhouse mix ups. Duck FTW!
Upper
After reading the section above, you probably guessed what is the big deal with uppers. Ducking is very versatile. Uppers are the counter to it. Therefore, use a healthy amount of uppers; lest you get eaten alive by brawlers who keep advancing while slip-countering your every move. And as a compensation to the versatility of ducking, it concedes more vulnerability than the slips in the other directions, so if you get caught ducking into an upper, it’s worse than side leaning into a hook, for instance.
Some strikes other than the actual uppercut punches can be used to catch ducking opponents, too. Furthermore, some body strikes are redirected to the head, if the opponent ducks. Just make sure you incorporate enough of upward attacks in your repertoire, to discourage the adversary from ducking too often.
Side Slips
This one is simple. Dude is throwing uppers like crazy, so that you don’t duck. Side slip the fool and punch him into oblivion.
Hooks
Enemy trying to make a fool out of you, with his side slips. Hook him out of his mind. You can also catch him with a head roundhouse, which is much more fun; but also much harder to set up, since the roundhouse is slower. And if you get intercepted while throwing, you’re royally screwed. Therefore, hooks are very important as a relatively low risk form of Engagement against side slips.
Mixed Slips
By now you probably appreciate how much the horizontal vs vertical mix up matters in EA UFC 3. IMO, it matters more than high and low, which makes me very happy. Now, why am I hereby treating mixed slips as being (slightly) better than mixed punches? The answer is something that’s often ignored when comparing offense and defense: slipping is faster than punching. That means that slips are more versatile, as you can viably use them when in (relatively small) frame disadvantage. They allow you to turn a bad situation into a powerful counter, whereas punching requires a good or neutral set up, unless you wanna take a big risk of being intercepted, which is normally a big “no no”. Slips are also cheaper on your stamina, making them good for trying to bait the enemy into action, whereas doing this by whiffing punches will hurt your stamina quite a bit.
Leg Kicks
If mixed slips are slightly better than mixed punches, then frame advantage doesn’t mean all that much, right? … Well, not exactly. If you can space and time them very well, leg kicks are an excellent counter to slips, an Option Select against leans in any direction; much like ducking is an OS against body-head roundhouse mix ups. However, I do not say “spacing and timing very well” lightly. Using leg kicks well requires a lot of skill, because they have a low stopping power and much can go wrong.
When using leg kicks to counter slips, they may fail because of spacing or timing: (a) the opponent gets too close and crowds the leg kick, making it go to the body, in which case his lean can super armor the kick… and you dead; and (b) you time the leg kick a bit too late, allowing the opponent to start a punch off of his slip and only hitting him with the kick after the 1st 20% of his punch’s execution, meaning your kick won’t stop the punch and you’ll trade, which is usually bad for your nose.
There are however, other universal counters to slips. Upward attacks to the body that get redirected to the head are OS vs slips, too, but they are usually also somehow hard to space and time, like the leg kick. “OSing” slips certainly pays off, doesn’t come cheap.
Straight
What if the opponent uses a mix up leg kicks and head roundhouses? Will he actually easily force you to try to block low. Of course not! Whenever the enemy is trying to use some fancy stuff to OS your defensive options, simply go on the offensive with the best option for stopping him in his tracks. The straight has plenty of speed and stopping power. The jab has a bit less stopping power and damage, but a bit more speed. I recommend usually going with the straight, unless you wanna follow up with a specific combo off of the jab.
Duck (again)…
So, your opponent is using the straight to dart in and disrupt all your fancy and creative mix ups? Just duck and counter him… and we complete the Engagement rock-paper-scissors chain.
Pressure
Low Strikes
“What about body strikes?!” You ask. Upper vs Horizontal is the new big mix up in town, but hi lo is still alive… to a proper degree, this time.
The reason the body strikes weren’t mentioned in the engagement section is that they are a bad engagement option. But if you don’t expect the opponent to slip or strike, like, when you have enough of a frame advantage to intimidate your enemy and you expect him to hesitate to lean, then break his ribs. All the fancy talk above might seem like body strikes don’t have much room in the game, but to illustrate how this is not the case, especially among beginners, what I have to say is this: “you turn off for a second, you eat a body kick.” It’s that simple. If you hesitate and try to just hug high block and back off, you might as well apply for a liver transplant. And if the opponent is close, he’ll have the improved option of ripping your heart with his bare hands, for a couple of body punches are a bit less risky than a body kick and deal more damage.
And if you’re going for a leg kick game plan, you can kick the legs in pressure situations where you’d normally kick the body. This shall add up to the cases of when you use leg kicks with the intention of countering slips.
Yet another detail about low attacks, one that makes them not as powerful as they may seem, is that they are negative on (normal) hit. So, guy is holding high block, you kick his body, now HE has the frame advantage. So basically, you do the “cheap strike”, the one that’s hard to defend against, but then “it’s his turn.” You don’t get to loop the pressure forever until he blocks low. And the frame disadvantage of the body attacks is generally more severe than that of leg kicks. It’s good to keep this in mind. If you end up close after landing a body roundhouse, this is actually pretty bad, as the opponent will easily be able to do the same thing to you, or worse. On the other hand, after eating enough leg kicks, the opponent will suffer bigger and bigger hit stuns from them, even to a point that makes the kicks positive on hit, allowing the kicker to perpetuate pressure.
Block-Busting
Another pressure option against enemies who hesitate to slip and don’t have the time to attack you first is to piece their block apart. There are plenty of details in GPD’s guide about this. One thing I’d like to add is that quite often it is better to attack their body, unless they have very good reason not to slip. So, as a rule of thumb: for regular pressure, attack the body; for when they’re hurt in the head, head hunt through their block, hoping they’ll screw up the direction of the eventual lean, or get rekt before they try one.
Some good block-busting combos are: 1-2-3-6; 2-3-6-3; and 1-2-lead roundhouse to the head. Not everybody shall have these combos, though; so make sure to check the best options your fighter has. These 4 hit combos might be enough to completely bust the block on the last hit (though I could be remembering it wrong). And that kick combo is likely to go through the block quite a lot, enough to send a hurt opponent to the mat. I’ve used them quite effectively during the event, to finish off rocked people.
Defense
Head Movement
Above you’ve probably already realized that being predictable with high block is bad idea. Normally, you should try to not concede much frame advantage, especially from up close. And if the disadvantage is small enough, you should normally try to slip, because, as you may remember, leans might super armor body strikes, making your odds better than they seem. You should normally only try to block, if you have very good reason to not slip.
High Block
These good reasons not to slip would mean that you’re in an abnormal situation, like the opponent is going through the trouble and risk of using many anti-slip attacks, or you’re hurt, rocked or gassed and you don’t want to risk leaning into a hit and going to sleep. These are actually good situations to block high, to postpone the risk of a slip until it’s no longer so risky… and maybe the opponent will mess up his chase and you won’t even need to slip at all before you recover.
Lunges
When it comes to lunges I am particularly ignorant about which set ups work well for them, especially because they have changed considerably, since the event. The side ones might be a very important to to counter teeps. And the back ones will hopefully work well when you have only a small frame disadvantage and you’re already a bit far from the opponent. One exciting detail I might add, which I think that couldn’t make into GPD’s write-up… and I even forgot to remind him of… is that the back steps (at least the big ones) adapt to the strike the opponent is throwing. So, if the guy is throwing a body kick and you back step, your fighter scooches back, butt first. It’s really awesome, because it’s not guaranteed to work. Even with this special modified circumstantial back step, if you end up still in range, you still eat the strike. One of my favorite moments during the event was when MartialMind feinted a body kick, I did the scooching back step as a reaction to hit; then, during my recovery of the step, he hit me with an actual body kick. Epicness!
Punishing
It should go without saying that you should punish whiffs, especially the ones caused by your slips. Optimizing them is gonna be a intricate endeavor, because it will involve not only the damage of the slowest and most powerful attack you can land guaranteed, but also which location of the target’s body is currently more vulnerable at the time you hit him and how close to the peak of vulnerability it is, to make it worth it or not the trade with a high base damage. Well, that was a mouthful… Short version is, punish whiffs hard, not just with girly straight punches, like ZombieRommel was doing early at the event. :P
However, some whiffs purely based on range you might have to punish with a straight punch, in order to reach the opponent in time (before he can block). And the high unsafe strikes on block usually only give you time to punish with a straight (or just with jab if your dude is slow). Furthermore, these high unsafe moves, like the head roundhouse are actually safe if the defender is on kicking range after he blocks, because an advancing attack would be slower than a standing one, unable to catch the kicker in time. This is a fine detail. A final mention is that the body roundhouse is very unsafe, conceding a curved punch guaranteed, on punching range, or an advancing straight punch from farther out.
It is also important to frequently follow up with pressure after the punishment. For instance, you can outside slip, throw a lead hook to punish the whiff and follow up with a rear body roundhouse as pressure, because the victim will hardly risk leaning, after taking a big punishment in the head. Not everybody has this combo, though; but everybody should have a jab and body kick, which could serve a similar purpose.
Being consistent with punishments is one of the basic skills in fight games and certainly applies to real fights, too. Don’t miss the opportunities. Make the enemy think twice before using the big guns against you.
Playing it Safe and Fighting from Outside
As much as it may sound like a bit much at first, all the stuff above might be distilled into a few set of decisions. Horizontal vs vertical; high vs low; and a couple of Option Selects. It may seem like an opponent who insists on high risk actions can easily force you into such a fight. During the event that was pretty much the case, because a bunch of the anti-slip actions weren’t working properly, yet. Horizontal vs vertical pretty much dominated, as once the guy was close, it was hard to OS him with leg kicks. Remember: with the new movement system, once you get close it’s easy to keep close, even if you keep striking and slipping.
However there are a few details still unmentioned that might bring some hope to a safer and more technical style of striking.
Punch n’ Slip
GPD mentioned that the strikes have different recoveries. Besides the full recovery, until you can lunge or use another strike (not as a combo), there is the (usually shorter) recovery until you can block; and the one which for the basic punches is very short: the time it takes to slip. You can punch and slip off of it very quickly. Now this is one area where I have only theoretical updates. But it seems that unless your head movement sucks and the opponent is very fast, you can slip a slip counter, if you had missed only a basic punch. This changes things a lot.
Let’s think about the risk and reward of punches vs slips. In the engagement section, I had suggested that the slips get the better deal, but it might not be so clear-cut once the players “git gud” enough to use the fancy stuff I’m mentioning now. I punch, you slip. Let’s say it’s a 50/50. I win, I hit you. That’s it. You win, we go into another 50/50 to see if you really get a reward. By this logic, punching first has the advantage, but only if you forsake the temptation to keep comboing off of it to apply pressure after the initial hit. You could try to “Hit Confirm” it (follow up as a reaction, according to the result of the first action), but I don’t know how hard that would be. Even without Hit Confiming, by using this lower risk tactic of punching, you turn the table on aggressive slipping, which shall be one of the main forms of aggression in the game.
Now, picture using the Punch n’ Slip while you’re retreating, an even more defensive option. And you don’t need to do it only with straight punches. You can also do it well with a hook, preferably a lead one, because it’s a bit faster… you know, what irl they call the check hook. So, you walk back, use a lead hook, in case the opponent is advancing with side slips; then you slip right after it, just in case the guy was actually ducking. If your read on the check hook was right, you deal the damage, cause the hit stun and prevent the guy from advancing during this hit stun, allowing you to actually create distance between you two. If you were wrong with the hook, you still get a chance to slip his counter and strike again. Not a bad business and quite safe.
Once your opponent also realizes this is a good business, he’ll probably respect frame advantage a bit more, which means that he will use advancing slips less. And if he is not constantly in your face, that opens the doors for you to use some fine spacing techniques against him, like leg kicks, teeps and more frequently actually trying to beat him to the punch, with a straight (which would totally suck if the enemy is slipping frequently). This mutual deterrence is what shall allow for more dancing to happen, moving back and forth (actually moving sideways and changing the angle gradually to back and forth), trying to bait whiffs so you can punish them, or coaxing the opponent to kick when you can blitz him with a straight to the face. This lower risk fine spacing gameplay is where I expect the skill gaps to really shine – not necessarily using only low risk stuff, because any form of predictability ends up being dangerous; but actually mixing high risk and low risk actions… that’s where I hope the money will be.
Dancing is also a great set up for head kicks. If your opponent is a bad dancer, he deserves to kiss your feet in shame. If he keeps using the same pattern of back and forth before finally advancing to engage, you can time your head kick when he is still far away, using its awesome reach to compensate for its slower speed and actually catch him while he is trying to punch you… or better yet, kick you. This is a common source of Knock Outs and I hope you’ll perform many of them.
Sorry it didn’t end up being as short as I thought. Thank you for reading. And I hope to enjoy the beta with you. I’ll be glad to answer questions and critiques.
EDIT: here is a video with some defensive tips... it can be a suplement to the read below.
<iframe width="854" height="480" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wuHmn-ql124" frameborder="0" gesture="media" allow="encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Hello, fellas. I’m Solid_Altair, aka Altair_Snake, aka Yves, one of the Game Changers for EA UFC 3. I had the privilege of playing a pre-beta version of the game and tried to keep myself updated (on a theoretical level) about the improvements that have been made since then, by constantly pestering the devs about it. :P Even so, I’m likely outdated on some details and/or have wrong impressions on what the theory can mean on practice. Therefore, take the following with a couple grains of salt.
I assume you’ve read GPD’s breakdown. If you haven’t, then please read it first, as it’s more valuable than this one. Here I intend to unravel more of a tips and tricks kind of guide, the sort of thing that might speed your skill progression as you “git gud” in the first few hours with the game. I’ll try to cut to chase and make this post relatively short, which I failed, btw. Sorry.
If you don’t wanna go through the whole thing, then I hope the little rock-paper-scissors thing shortly below will be of use to you. Cheers.
Rules of Engagement
Let’s start with what I like to call Engagement, when you act expecting that the opponent act about the same time as you. In the more formal terms of GPD’s breakdown: when neither fighter has a sizeable frame advantage. Here is a rock-paper-scissors kind of chain that you might have inferred from GPD’s text, or would likely figure out after playing a few matches:
Ducking > Upper > Side Slip > Hook > Mixed Slips > Leg Kick > Straight > Ducking …
Now, I’ll try to explain the logic of this chain.
Ducking
This is an action many people are likely to underestimate at first. Players who use their realistic knowledge of MMA to learn EA UFC 3 will evolve quickly, but this is a specific case where they might take longer to adapt. I remember MartialMind (MuayThaiStriker) struggled a little bit with this very early in the event. Folks will likely throw straights and hooks a lot, while throwing few uppers; simply because that’s what we often see in real fights. And the slightly unusual new input for the upper (trust me: it’s actually comfortable) might further discourage new players from throwing enough of them. Therefore duck to slip their straight or horizontal attacks, then punish their whiff with a big punch of your own.
Yet another reason to duck is that it mitigates the damage of attacks taken to the body, from any direction. Another factor, that couldn’t make it in GPD’s breakdown in full detail, is that when you mitigate damage to the body, by using a lean, you also don’t take the hit stun. In fight game terminology, this is known as super armor. You might have guessed that this will put you in an excellent situation to punch the opponent in the face, real hard, as he is recovering from throwing a body roundhouse, for instance. And if the roundhouse had been thrown to the head, the ducking will actually duck it, allowing you to counter even harder. So, ducking now acts as an “Option Select” (a way to counter both options of a mix up) against those pesky old body-head roundhouse mix ups. Duck FTW!
Upper
After reading the section above, you probably guessed what is the big deal with uppers. Ducking is very versatile. Uppers are the counter to it. Therefore, use a healthy amount of uppers; lest you get eaten alive by brawlers who keep advancing while slip-countering your every move. And as a compensation to the versatility of ducking, it concedes more vulnerability than the slips in the other directions, so if you get caught ducking into an upper, it’s worse than side leaning into a hook, for instance.
Some strikes other than the actual uppercut punches can be used to catch ducking opponents, too. Furthermore, some body strikes are redirected to the head, if the opponent ducks. Just make sure you incorporate enough of upward attacks in your repertoire, to discourage the adversary from ducking too often.
Side Slips
This one is simple. Dude is throwing uppers like crazy, so that you don’t duck. Side slip the fool and punch him into oblivion.
Hooks
Enemy trying to make a fool out of you, with his side slips. Hook him out of his mind. You can also catch him with a head roundhouse, which is much more fun; but also much harder to set up, since the roundhouse is slower. And if you get intercepted while throwing, you’re royally screwed. Therefore, hooks are very important as a relatively low risk form of Engagement against side slips.
Mixed Slips
By now you probably appreciate how much the horizontal vs vertical mix up matters in EA UFC 3. IMO, it matters more than high and low, which makes me very happy. Now, why am I hereby treating mixed slips as being (slightly) better than mixed punches? The answer is something that’s often ignored when comparing offense and defense: slipping is faster than punching. That means that slips are more versatile, as you can viably use them when in (relatively small) frame disadvantage. They allow you to turn a bad situation into a powerful counter, whereas punching requires a good or neutral set up, unless you wanna take a big risk of being intercepted, which is normally a big “no no”. Slips are also cheaper on your stamina, making them good for trying to bait the enemy into action, whereas doing this by whiffing punches will hurt your stamina quite a bit.
Leg Kicks
If mixed slips are slightly better than mixed punches, then frame advantage doesn’t mean all that much, right? … Well, not exactly. If you can space and time them very well, leg kicks are an excellent counter to slips, an Option Select against leans in any direction; much like ducking is an OS against body-head roundhouse mix ups. However, I do not say “spacing and timing very well” lightly. Using leg kicks well requires a lot of skill, because they have a low stopping power and much can go wrong.
When using leg kicks to counter slips, they may fail because of spacing or timing: (a) the opponent gets too close and crowds the leg kick, making it go to the body, in which case his lean can super armor the kick… and you dead; and (b) you time the leg kick a bit too late, allowing the opponent to start a punch off of his slip and only hitting him with the kick after the 1st 20% of his punch’s execution, meaning your kick won’t stop the punch and you’ll trade, which is usually bad for your nose.
There are however, other universal counters to slips. Upward attacks to the body that get redirected to the head are OS vs slips, too, but they are usually also somehow hard to space and time, like the leg kick. “OSing” slips certainly pays off, doesn’t come cheap.
Straight
What if the opponent uses a mix up leg kicks and head roundhouses? Will he actually easily force you to try to block low. Of course not! Whenever the enemy is trying to use some fancy stuff to OS your defensive options, simply go on the offensive with the best option for stopping him in his tracks. The straight has plenty of speed and stopping power. The jab has a bit less stopping power and damage, but a bit more speed. I recommend usually going with the straight, unless you wanna follow up with a specific combo off of the jab.
Duck (again)…
So, your opponent is using the straight to dart in and disrupt all your fancy and creative mix ups? Just duck and counter him… and we complete the Engagement rock-paper-scissors chain.
Pressure
Low Strikes
“What about body strikes?!” You ask. Upper vs Horizontal is the new big mix up in town, but hi lo is still alive… to a proper degree, this time.
The reason the body strikes weren’t mentioned in the engagement section is that they are a bad engagement option. But if you don’t expect the opponent to slip or strike, like, when you have enough of a frame advantage to intimidate your enemy and you expect him to hesitate to lean, then break his ribs. All the fancy talk above might seem like body strikes don’t have much room in the game, but to illustrate how this is not the case, especially among beginners, what I have to say is this: “you turn off for a second, you eat a body kick.” It’s that simple. If you hesitate and try to just hug high block and back off, you might as well apply for a liver transplant. And if the opponent is close, he’ll have the improved option of ripping your heart with his bare hands, for a couple of body punches are a bit less risky than a body kick and deal more damage.
And if you’re going for a leg kick game plan, you can kick the legs in pressure situations where you’d normally kick the body. This shall add up to the cases of when you use leg kicks with the intention of countering slips.
Yet another detail about low attacks, one that makes them not as powerful as they may seem, is that they are negative on (normal) hit. So, guy is holding high block, you kick his body, now HE has the frame advantage. So basically, you do the “cheap strike”, the one that’s hard to defend against, but then “it’s his turn.” You don’t get to loop the pressure forever until he blocks low. And the frame disadvantage of the body attacks is generally more severe than that of leg kicks. It’s good to keep this in mind. If you end up close after landing a body roundhouse, this is actually pretty bad, as the opponent will easily be able to do the same thing to you, or worse. On the other hand, after eating enough leg kicks, the opponent will suffer bigger and bigger hit stuns from them, even to a point that makes the kicks positive on hit, allowing the kicker to perpetuate pressure.
Block-Busting
Another pressure option against enemies who hesitate to slip and don’t have the time to attack you first is to piece their block apart. There are plenty of details in GPD’s guide about this. One thing I’d like to add is that quite often it is better to attack their body, unless they have very good reason not to slip. So, as a rule of thumb: for regular pressure, attack the body; for when they’re hurt in the head, head hunt through their block, hoping they’ll screw up the direction of the eventual lean, or get rekt before they try one.
Some good block-busting combos are: 1-2-3-6; 2-3-6-3; and 1-2-lead roundhouse to the head. Not everybody shall have these combos, though; so make sure to check the best options your fighter has. These 4 hit combos might be enough to completely bust the block on the last hit (though I could be remembering it wrong). And that kick combo is likely to go through the block quite a lot, enough to send a hurt opponent to the mat. I’ve used them quite effectively during the event, to finish off rocked people.
Defense
Head Movement
Above you’ve probably already realized that being predictable with high block is bad idea. Normally, you should try to not concede much frame advantage, especially from up close. And if the disadvantage is small enough, you should normally try to slip, because, as you may remember, leans might super armor body strikes, making your odds better than they seem. You should normally only try to block, if you have very good reason to not slip.
High Block
These good reasons not to slip would mean that you’re in an abnormal situation, like the opponent is going through the trouble and risk of using many anti-slip attacks, or you’re hurt, rocked or gassed and you don’t want to risk leaning into a hit and going to sleep. These are actually good situations to block high, to postpone the risk of a slip until it’s no longer so risky… and maybe the opponent will mess up his chase and you won’t even need to slip at all before you recover.
Lunges
When it comes to lunges I am particularly ignorant about which set ups work well for them, especially because they have changed considerably, since the event. The side ones might be a very important to to counter teeps. And the back ones will hopefully work well when you have only a small frame disadvantage and you’re already a bit far from the opponent. One exciting detail I might add, which I think that couldn’t make into GPD’s write-up… and I even forgot to remind him of… is that the back steps (at least the big ones) adapt to the strike the opponent is throwing. So, if the guy is throwing a body kick and you back step, your fighter scooches back, butt first. It’s really awesome, because it’s not guaranteed to work. Even with this special modified circumstantial back step, if you end up still in range, you still eat the strike. One of my favorite moments during the event was when MartialMind feinted a body kick, I did the scooching back step as a reaction to hit; then, during my recovery of the step, he hit me with an actual body kick. Epicness!
Punishing
It should go without saying that you should punish whiffs, especially the ones caused by your slips. Optimizing them is gonna be a intricate endeavor, because it will involve not only the damage of the slowest and most powerful attack you can land guaranteed, but also which location of the target’s body is currently more vulnerable at the time you hit him and how close to the peak of vulnerability it is, to make it worth it or not the trade with a high base damage. Well, that was a mouthful… Short version is, punish whiffs hard, not just with girly straight punches, like ZombieRommel was doing early at the event. :P
However, some whiffs purely based on range you might have to punish with a straight punch, in order to reach the opponent in time (before he can block). And the high unsafe strikes on block usually only give you time to punish with a straight (or just with jab if your dude is slow). Furthermore, these high unsafe moves, like the head roundhouse are actually safe if the defender is on kicking range after he blocks, because an advancing attack would be slower than a standing one, unable to catch the kicker in time. This is a fine detail. A final mention is that the body roundhouse is very unsafe, conceding a curved punch guaranteed, on punching range, or an advancing straight punch from farther out.
It is also important to frequently follow up with pressure after the punishment. For instance, you can outside slip, throw a lead hook to punish the whiff and follow up with a rear body roundhouse as pressure, because the victim will hardly risk leaning, after taking a big punishment in the head. Not everybody has this combo, though; but everybody should have a jab and body kick, which could serve a similar purpose.
Being consistent with punishments is one of the basic skills in fight games and certainly applies to real fights, too. Don’t miss the opportunities. Make the enemy think twice before using the big guns against you.
Playing it Safe and Fighting from Outside
As much as it may sound like a bit much at first, all the stuff above might be distilled into a few set of decisions. Horizontal vs vertical; high vs low; and a couple of Option Selects. It may seem like an opponent who insists on high risk actions can easily force you into such a fight. During the event that was pretty much the case, because a bunch of the anti-slip actions weren’t working properly, yet. Horizontal vs vertical pretty much dominated, as once the guy was close, it was hard to OS him with leg kicks. Remember: with the new movement system, once you get close it’s easy to keep close, even if you keep striking and slipping.
However there are a few details still unmentioned that might bring some hope to a safer and more technical style of striking.
Punch n’ Slip
GPD mentioned that the strikes have different recoveries. Besides the full recovery, until you can lunge or use another strike (not as a combo), there is the (usually shorter) recovery until you can block; and the one which for the basic punches is very short: the time it takes to slip. You can punch and slip off of it very quickly. Now this is one area where I have only theoretical updates. But it seems that unless your head movement sucks and the opponent is very fast, you can slip a slip counter, if you had missed only a basic punch. This changes things a lot.
Let’s think about the risk and reward of punches vs slips. In the engagement section, I had suggested that the slips get the better deal, but it might not be so clear-cut once the players “git gud” enough to use the fancy stuff I’m mentioning now. I punch, you slip. Let’s say it’s a 50/50. I win, I hit you. That’s it. You win, we go into another 50/50 to see if you really get a reward. By this logic, punching first has the advantage, but only if you forsake the temptation to keep comboing off of it to apply pressure after the initial hit. You could try to “Hit Confirm” it (follow up as a reaction, according to the result of the first action), but I don’t know how hard that would be. Even without Hit Confiming, by using this lower risk tactic of punching, you turn the table on aggressive slipping, which shall be one of the main forms of aggression in the game.
Now, picture using the Punch n’ Slip while you’re retreating, an even more defensive option. And you don’t need to do it only with straight punches. You can also do it well with a hook, preferably a lead one, because it’s a bit faster… you know, what irl they call the check hook. So, you walk back, use a lead hook, in case the opponent is advancing with side slips; then you slip right after it, just in case the guy was actually ducking. If your read on the check hook was right, you deal the damage, cause the hit stun and prevent the guy from advancing during this hit stun, allowing you to actually create distance between you two. If you were wrong with the hook, you still get a chance to slip his counter and strike again. Not a bad business and quite safe.
Once your opponent also realizes this is a good business, he’ll probably respect frame advantage a bit more, which means that he will use advancing slips less. And if he is not constantly in your face, that opens the doors for you to use some fine spacing techniques against him, like leg kicks, teeps and more frequently actually trying to beat him to the punch, with a straight (which would totally suck if the enemy is slipping frequently). This mutual deterrence is what shall allow for more dancing to happen, moving back and forth (actually moving sideways and changing the angle gradually to back and forth), trying to bait whiffs so you can punish them, or coaxing the opponent to kick when you can blitz him with a straight to the face. This lower risk fine spacing gameplay is where I expect the skill gaps to really shine – not necessarily using only low risk stuff, because any form of predictability ends up being dangerous; but actually mixing high risk and low risk actions… that’s where I hope the money will be.
Dancing is also a great set up for head kicks. If your opponent is a bad dancer, he deserves to kiss your feet in shame. If he keeps using the same pattern of back and forth before finally advancing to engage, you can time your head kick when he is still far away, using its awesome reach to compensate for its slower speed and actually catch him while he is trying to punch you… or better yet, kick you. This is a common source of Knock Outs and I hope you’ll perform many of them.
Sorry it didn’t end up being as short as I thought. Thank you for reading. And I hope to enjoy the beta with you. I’ll be glad to answer questions and critiques.
Everything what has been announced sound great. If this game will suck (or i dont receive a code) which i dont think i will feel like a 12 year old again and will cry in my room until ufc4 . It seems that dreams can come true regarding realistic fighting games.
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