Can someone teach me how to COUNTER

[Madbury]

Simple really as per title. Fighting games. Can someone explain countering to me and how to do it. How does one learn how to counter. At the moment I'm just blocking everything, how do I make the step to countering, do I look for openings in certain combos?

I mean to actually do this goes against my instincts to just block everything. Which is tricky to overcome.

HELP!

[Saurian]

What game are you talking about man? There is no set counter system for every beat em up.

A loose rule would be that a retaliation after a blocked attack will connect but there are other factors, the most basic gameplay system of a beat em up is rock/paper/scissors - you need to learn what beats what and this is different game to game.

\/ Or try THIS! \/

[Resonance]

Universal Videogame Counter:Pull the other guys joystick out of the port and hit him over the head with it.

[Tom Salter]

If it's KoF, then you just need to land a hit when the opponent is pulling off a special move for a registered "counter".

For the Naruto games, whack L/R just after getting hit for a counter.

For VF4e, there's a gazillion choices you can make. You can reverse throws, sidestep then twat, catch their punch etc...

It totally depends on the game.

[Saurian]

All moves in beat em ups have properties assigned for example on SF3: (some ways it can go)

Ryu VS Ken, Ken is crouch/blocking -

Ryu throws a hard sweep, Ken blocks it - the sweep's retract animation is longer than Ken's guard delay so you can immediately counter with a hard sweep yourself which will count as Counter because Ryu is still in the middle of the sweep move.

Or. Ryu throws the hard sweep, Ken anticipates and throws a medium which cancels Ryu's hard sweep as the frames are shorter - this is also a counter, as Ryu is attempting a move.

There are too many possibilites, you need to go into training mode and explore the system of what you are playing as it's impossible to give someone a crash course like this because once you fully understand what beats what - you throw something like the SF3 parry system at it and it changes everything.

Keep building your technique in layers, dont LOOK for openings for your combos - this doesnt work. The way to beat people on beat em ups is to make openings by learning how people think or if you are playing against CPU, it's behaviors.

The CPU falls for stupid **** on every game, people also fall for stupid **** - because they are people. The way you control your opponent at a basic level is to make him/her expect moves and then do something completely different. Fireball/Dragon keep out techniques are the most basic skruBB techniques for keeping an opponent under control, but the possibilities for clever manipulation are endless.

[Tom Salter]

OK, there's a general one, and I know Trevor's been playing KoF98 recently, so here goes with my "Guide to Countering"(tm).

In KoF98, you've got loads of options. It begins with your choice of Advanced or Extra mode, and I'll go through these two first.

Advanced: By pressing A+B(I'm talking AES version here) you do a roll. Say Terry is doing a Power Wave at you, you can roll past it, and throw him before his animation has finished, therefore countering his attack. Requires pretty decent timing though. However, if Terry is doing a Power Slam (41236K) into Rising Tackle (623P) then you're ****ed, as Rising Tackle has a couple of invincible frames at the start, so your throw/strike won't hit, but he'll hit you. So, each player has plenty of options. So generally, Advanced mode is quite risky, as you can often fall foul of the opponent if he's clever when you try to counter.

Extra mode then. Press A+B and you do a sidestep, and from that, you can do a counter-punch/kick. Hardly the most witty of attacks, but it allows you to pull of a skanky hit to keep the opponent at bay. You've got hardly anything in the way of choice either, you've got that one hit, and that's it. It's reliable, as it hardly fails, but allows you nothing in the way of flexibility. Plus, you can't travel as easily around the stage as you can with advanced, and a good player can easily keep you away.

Invincible frames: You'll find that many moves have a couple of these. Think of shoto Dragon Punches from the early SF2 games, on the way up you were invincible. KoF98 takes this further, by giving loads of moves a couple of invincible frames. For example, Kyo's 236P has one right at the start of his attack, so you can counter really well if you time it right. Iori's 'dragon punch' also has some, and it's up to the player to work out just when to do it, and find out the moves that do it.

You can also counter many throws, although I'm not quite sure how at the moment, as I just ram multiple buttons and hope as soon as a throw is connecting. Good luck with that one !>_<

[Madbury]

OK, so sticking to 98 for a while lets say I'm Kyo and I'm playing against Andy,

What you're saying is if Andy Launches a fireball at me 236A (I think) then I can effectively move through that by doing Kyo's 236P move at the right time as the first couple of frames are invincible. Obviously this isn't a good tactic in this case, because Andy only has a few recovery frames from the fireball and by the time it has reached me he'll be ready to follow up with something else!

I think I'm getting the idea.

Saur one thing that perplexes me is the range of the attacks. Generally the weaker attacks although they have priority have a much shorter range, so presumably I need to be up close and personal to get my counters to work. This is something I'm pants at too. At the moment, I like to use a bunch of ranged attacks and keep a big distance from my opponent. Presumably I need to get in close somehow and then use those all important recovery frames to create an opening, using either a weak punch or kick.

The main way I'm getting pwnd by the cpu at the moment with my current tactics is getting stuck in a corner and then being thrashed with a relentless series of specials. Thats why I'm asking about countering.

[Tom Salter]

What you're saying is if Andy Launches a fireball at me 236A (I think) then I can effectively move through that by doing Kyo's 236P move at the right time as the first couple of frames are invincible.

Aye, that's right. And you don't need to worry about him countering, you should be OK as Kyo's fire-thing will hit him. And you can move that fire-thing into another hit by pressing 214P (iirc) and it'll launch another fire-hit at him. If somehow he does manage to get away from that first hit, you'll catch him off-guard with the second one. However, you'll have to be very lucky to get through with the first hit, Kyo's 236P is a tricky little blighter to time right. It's usually luck more than anything with that move.

And yeah, if cornered, take advantage of these invincible frames to get out there quickly. Or throw lots of small punches/kicks to keep them at bay, and carry on the pwnage. You shouldn't get cornered much after that.

[Madbury]

Ok, so a good tactic with Kyo if I'm cornerd would be to put in a couple of high priority taps and then use his invincible frames to make some space.

I think in my earlier post I was getting Andys moves from RB2 confused with 98, however the principle is sound.

I'm going to try some of this tonight and see if I can at least get some counters going. At the moment KOF98 is pwning me on the second round. I've got some mates over on Friday, one of whom used to be pretty good at fighters, so I'll get some practice in then.

[Magnakai]

Just a quick note: I found that Garou: MOTW is really good at getting you used to jumping in there scrapping, rather than throwing projectiles. The Just Defend system means that fireballs and other ranged attacks just help you rather than hinder you, plus they're often very slow. It's similar to the Parry system in SF3 in concept, but is far easier to pull off and probably a bit cheesy if you get good enough. Anyway, give it a shot if you want.
After playing Garou I can't stand fireball battles. They make me wanna 44PUNCH44PUNCH44PUNCH someone. But you can't. Cause only Terry can do that.

[John Beaulieu]

http://media.shoryuken.com/srk-daigo.zip

watch, learn, try to emulate

[Oh! My Car!]

sorry, I just came back to this thread to watch that video again.

DOPE!

[Tom Salter]

Or, you pick Dudley, and do a HCB + P.

Cross-Countarrr!

Repeat until won ;p

[TheShend]

Cross Counter is all very well and good. but yo ass is pimped with teh HUGO

It's unreal XD

[Oh! My Car!]

well, Hugo always used to beat me in Final Fight, the big fat wrassler