[Xrd] News & (Theoretical) Gameplay Discussion

[greatfernman]

 "Destroy fuzzies" is confusing.  I wonder if he's saying "destroy with fuzzies" regarding her j.D FDC. 

The american definition of fuzzy guard is different from the japanese definition.

When ogawa uses the word fuzzy, he was referring to fuzzy defense aka OS defense (eg fuzzy throw, fuzzy jump, etc). Presumably I-no disregards defensive OSes even midscreen is what he was saying.

[Coffeeling]

Ogawa live.

I'll glue myself to the screen now.

[Uncivilized Elk]

And that's a real nice story, but you still haven't shown any proof as to why Ogawa is playing wrong.

 

"Proof"?

This is a forum. Outside of just playing exactly like Ogawa (not gonna happen) but altering the playstyle to fit what he described, he's not going to be finding "proof" (the word you're looking for btw is evidence).

On the last page he posted why he thought he was playing wrong, that was the backup he used for his claim. That's pretty much all you can do to discuss strengths of playstyles. I'm completely ignorant of Zato-1 so I have nothing to offer, but he definitely provided some statements to back up his claims and those have not been addressed as far as I can see with a legitimate response outside of "Ogawa is really good tho"..

[Coffeeling]

Speaking of "Ogawa is pretty good tho", I want to buy altar construction supplies. That Eddie control is absolutely unreal. <3_<3

[TeeJay]

The american definition of fuzzy guard is different from the japanese definition.

When ogawa uses the word fuzzy, he was referring to fuzzy defense aka OS defense (eg fuzzy throw, fuzzy jump, etc). Presumably I-no disregards defensive OSes even midscreen is what he was saying.

That's what I assumed he meant. You have to block her honestly which looks scary from the FAB vs Hasegawa exhibition-- well at least Pot. 

[Amadeus46Art]

Ogawa's played Reload, Slash, AC, and Xrd, won numerous SBO tournaments, and literally had to stop playing because people would not play against him in arcades. His win rate is over 90% and even with his (apparent) scarce amount of playtime compared to others, he's still reached 15th dan.

Look, obviously Ogawa is a great player. You'd have to be an enormous idiot to think otherwise. But making the claim "he's playing Zato wrong" is still a HUGE claim. Especially in a game like Guilty Gear where every character has a multitude of different styles to be played in; there's rarely one optimal archetype for a character to always be played like.

That's what I want to see. Evidence, match footage, points where you can say "Ogawa did this wrong, and that's why I think he needs to alter the way he plays." Because right now you're making a claim that the best Zato player, period, doesn't know how to play Zato. His 90% win rate is because other players don't know the matchup or whatever.

And you've never even played Xrd! Yet you know "how" Zato should be played in this revision? You have more insight and experience than the best Zato player in the world? You can't expect me to believe that.

That doesn't make sense. Make it make sense. That's why Zidane was asking for Ogawa videos; he wanted you to prove your point. You haven't done anything other than state it so far.

[stickystaines]

What happens when you RC a move that touches another characters super armour (Hammerfall). Seems like it wouldn't really count as the character being in hitstun, so logically you should be able to YRC assuming you can YRC on active frames.

[SuperJ]

Considering that j.D adds 8 frames of landing recovery, even when FDC'd, it's not as strong as a mixup as you would think, though it leads to unreactable overheads.

 

this is true for XX but is it confirmed for xrd? see one example. i have only seen j.D recovery disappear when i-no connects a move on the exact frame before landing in XX

[D.R.F.]

So trishula can be used so you can dodge projectiles on oki then yrc > punish. Just saw FAB do it on stream, and I hadn't really thought of that. ThAts pretty cool

[greatfernman]

 

this is true for XX but is it confirmed for xrd? see one example. i have only seen j.D recovery disappear when i-no connects a move on the exact frame before landing in XX

http://mayjunkie.web.fc2.com/ino_flame.txt

according to kedako and ruu's data i-no j.D is still 8f landing recovery.

[SuperJ]

whoopsies bolded for clarification

[DeathArcana]

What happens when you RC a move that touches another characters super armour (Hammerfall). Seems like it wouldn't really count as the character being in hitstun, so logically you should be able to YRC assuming you can YRC on active frames.

YRC

About 3 mins in

http://youtu.be/ocFBgZz8278

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[greatfernman]

whoopsies bolded for clarification

oh my bad i probably shouldve looked at the link.

[Coffeeling]

Ogawa's played Reload, Slash, AC, and Xrd, won numerous SBO tournaments, and literally had to stop playing because people would not play against him in arcades. His win rate is over 90% and even with his (apparent) scarce amount of playtime compared to others, he's still reached 15th dan.

Look, obviously Ogawa is a great player. You'd have to be an enormous idiot to think otherwise. But making the claim "he's playing Zato wrong" is still a HUGE claim. Especially in a game like Guilty Gear where every character has a multitude of different styles to be played in; there's rarely one optimal archetype for a character to always be played like.

That's what I want to see. Evidence, match footage, points where you can say "Ogawa did this wrong, and that's why I think he needs to alter the way he plays." Because right now you're making a claim that the best Zato player, period, doesn't know how to play Zato. His 90% win rate is because other players don't know the matchup or whatever.

And you've never even played Xrd! Yet you know "how" Zato should be played in this revision? You have more insight and experience than the best Zato player in the world? You can't expect me to believe that.

That doesn't make sense. Make it make sense. That's why Zidane was asking for Ogawa videos; he wanted you to prove your point. You haven't done anything other than state it so far.

 

Manners <3, thanks for that. Much nicer to answer "That claim is kinda outrageous, examples please" than "plz show video where ogawa sucks" or "ogawa, so you're wrong".

 

That ogawa relies on Eddie a bit too much is just a feeling built up over watching Zato matches, where the Eddie-heavy style just feels kind of... frail, I guess? Like, it's built up over tons of small snippets of Zato trying to assert control with Eddie and suffering for it, where a button would've been really good. This is Xrd only, mind you. Invincible -P- and more horizontal Mawaru do a ton of work in AC. Watching ogawa's matches from today, an example of the kind of situation that bothers me can be found at:

http://www.twitch.tv/joniosan/b/571955704 1:14:08 - 1:14:21.

These kinds of exchanges just feel highly troublesome. The sequence just before 1:15:00 also highlights just how much more stable asserting control with buttons and getting the summon off that way feels. And immediately #R shadow does what #Rshadow does best, takes over the game and Ky is in the corner, dead.

 

The start of the second round is also a good contrast - far Slash asserts control immediately and solidly. String into drill, puddle summon. Ky punishes, but Eddie doesn't go into penalty and Ogawa can quickly capitalize with pressure.

[Pichy]

Amadeous: You're wrong about Ogawa. He's not 15th dan. Turns out he's 17th now.

[Amadeus46Art]

See, I can somewhat understand why Ogawa prefers to use little eddie rather than buttons. In general it's safer, since being wrong about sending little eddie out usually only ends with having to play defensively for a bit, while being wrong about a button can be disastrous. It's this kind of risk-reward decision making that I think is what is going on.

In addition, remember that Zato's buttons aren't as strong as they once were. His j.K is nowhere the hitbox it was in Reload, being closer to his slash variation. His flight mode is slower than it once was, making it more at risk and controlling less space. His other amazing buttons such as 6P, 2H, or 6H are all slow and can be destroyed on whiff without little eddie threatening the opponent.

Obviously this isn't saying "only ever rely on little eddie", as like you said, his specials and the YRC system work in a way to make getting him out riskier than in previous versions; hence the new drill summon mechanic. But I think this highlights what I was saying: how every character in GG can be played in multiple ways.

Ogawa's play isn't perfect, and yes situations will come up where his decision making wasn't right. But, ultimately, he's the best there is right now.

[Epic]

Yeah he showed up at Mikado today and spent a few hours bodying people left and right. 17th Dan with 1100 games played. Sigh.

[mynus]

That said, Ogawa was talking about a bunch of stuff that we don't have fully translated, and some of the advantages that I-No has in that matchup aren't even as good in Xrd (she can dive over his stuff, but doesn't get to combo off of starter dives anymore, for example), so it's probably not matchup bias.  "Destroy fuzzies" is confusing.  I wonder if he's saying "destroy with fuzzies" regarding her j.D FDC.  Considering that j.D adds 8 frames of landing recovery, even when FDC'd, it's not as strong as a mixup as you would think, though it leads to unreactable overheads.  It's just super high risk to feint into a low, and since 2S isn't a low anymore, most situations where you'd jump cancel into j.D FDC for the instant overheads are situations where you can't go into lows anyway (off of 5K or c.S).  

 

How is J.D FDC risky in any way?

 

First off, the data Ruu compiled is by no means 100%, since I asked him about it personally last weekend when he was in Connecticut. Landing recovery only applies if I-no makes no contact with the opponent after the FDC. If not, it would be impossible to combo after j.D FDC > j.S > C.S (which we seen done all the time; w/o landing recovery). It is basically an instant overhead off of C.S and a strong 3rd/4th overhead off of hover dash. The low threat off of hover dash is still there as well as well as throw. j.D by itself is already safe because of jump cancel, as you can always hit confirm and jc backwards > j.H > S.dive in corner to 1) be safe 2) continue combo 3) auto-baits bursts. 

 

Honestly, if Burst was mapped only to H+D, and I-no had a realistic threat of j.D FDC even with Burst stocked; she might well be in S tier rank due to her KD setplay + guessing game + pressure options being that much stronger at any time. Unfortunately, players like U-zen (who uses it all of the time) and OSCA (who just started to implement it into his game) have Bursted by accident almost every time they have tried to do it with Burst stocked. 

 

So, off of C.S she has 1) j.D FDC overhead, 2)STBT which is a low + YRC high/low, 3) frame trap into 2k, 4) go low into 2D, 5) Note YRC continue pressure/punish escape attempts. 

 

In AC the only way to combo off of j.D FDC was to 1) OD, 2) S.dive (13 frames landing recovery on dive overruled j.D recovery), 3) VCL/HCL FRC. in Xrd this is no longer the case.

 

As for Ogawa's assessment, as GreatFernman said he is referring to fuzzy defensive options: fuzzy jump/throw/guard getting shut-down by VCL YRC. You have to block/guess honestly against I-no because of this option and reversal attempts are out of the question, so she forces you to have to respect on wakeup everytime. BS'ing VLC is also impossible since it is projectile-type. He goes on to say that her air-to-air game is superb now that she can force KD anywhere on screen with HCL followup > oki, which lends its hand/complements her already stellar setplay game off of multiple situations. There is no character bias here, this is an actual objective assessment.

 

1 more thing: 

In AC I-no had plenty of even matchups as well as favorable ones (Dizzy, Sol, Pot, Zappa). Her only truly bad matchups were against (Jam, Faust, May, Venom, Axl). 

[Sym_]

 

http://www.twitch.tv/joniosan/b/571955704 1:14:08 - 1:14:21.

These kinds of exchanges just feel highly troublesome. The sequence just before 1:15:00 also highlights just how much more stable asserting control with buttons and getting the summon off that way feels. And immediately #R shadow does what #Rshadow does best, takes over the game and Ky is in the corner, dead.

 

The start of the second round is also a good contrast - far Slash asserts control immediately and solidly. String into drill, puddle summon. Ky punishes, but Eddie doesn't go into penalty and Ogawa can quickly capitalize with pressure.

 

So because Ogawa's raw shadow summon gets punished once in a match he is playing the character wrong? Even though in the very same round he later does the "correct" summon(which gets punished) as you would label it? He took a risk, it didn't work out but he had a burst. He used it, got the shadow back and ended up taking the round convincingly. Ogawa knows to change up the shadow summoning, even the best Zato players will get their shadow summoning punished from time to time. You then point to the start of the second round and state this is the "correct" way to play simply because he throws out a f.S, even though again the shadow gets punished. Your justification for this is due to the shadow not being penalized,  but had the Ky player not dropped his combo Zato would be in trouble. That Ky combo started with 5hs which means good damage and Ky running oki on Zato who has no wakeup options. 

 

You're really reaching with this bold claim. 

[sren]

guess Ogawa kinda playin' the most complete Zatou out there doesn't mean there might b no room for improvement.  One thing that seems different about the scene over there is that no matter win or loss players seem to still play attention to the gameplay n try to tweak stuff out accordingly.  as opposed to "I won - case closed, no need to change nothin'" or "I lost - gotta hold dat L n lab it out"

 

as far as can remember problems on havin' Eddie as base in neutral come from matches between Karinchu vs Ogawa, in which Zatou seems strugglin' over all.  And when havin' Eddie ready to apply pressure whenever gettin' past swords probably could favor Zatou a bit more than takin' the risk of havin' Eddie hit by swords n havin' to go full defense.  Considerin' how much of the screen swords control n how often Eddie gets taken out, as an alternative matchup approach.

 

 http://www.twitch.tv/joniosan/b/571955704?t=79m dat Fab vs Ogawa match tho, still kinda convinced ppl complainin' about the game r more like Microsoft/NRS agents tryin' to turn CDJr into the FGs undisputed world champion or so... 

[DaiAndOh]

Mynus, somehow part of my takeaway from that nice post was how sad +R Venom can be for me ;_;

Ah anyway, the first person to beat Ogawa on the twitch archive is none other than FAB. Very close match! About 1H19M in the archive!

[ElvenShadow]

From my personal experiences fighting Zato in Xrd, I think his greatest approach involves guarding little Eddie well with smart drill spacing and screen position and also abusing the ground puddle move where he hides (sorry I dunno the name off the top of my head) and then YRCing it to instantly recover and is in an advantageous position, is key.  Also, smart positioning of the "summon spots" that are new to Xrd that allow Zato to summon little Eddie from that fixed point is also key.  Using it to protect Zato from assaults, or to sandwich the opponent and force him into a situation where he is forced to block and suck up either classic Zato ground string pressure and mixups or the nightmare that is being in the air when little Eddie is bellow you in this game. 

 

Relying on little Eddie as the main tool of assault is still viable because main Zato can compliment that with the go underground move and then simply use little Eddie as a form of bait.  The opponent focused on killing little Eddie but then Zato can YRC out of it and put himself in a very advantageous position, and that's assuming the opponent even manages to take little Eddie out.  I've honestly noticed that using that go underground move with YRC is REALLY good. 

 

As for Ogawa, I only have played him once in Xrd and it was last weekend and he beat me.  I honestly think he knows what he is doing quite well and that making claims that he doesn't know how to play his character properly seems a little.... uninformed.  You have to realize that only a handful of matches get recorded and people who are judging players online are only basing those judgements on like 5% (and that is a high estimate) or less, of how many matches these players have actually played.  I could understand making claims like that if you played at the same arcade as him often and observed many of his matches regularly and also had experience fighting against him (and this applies to anyone for that matter) but it just seems a little... hasty (?) to make such a bold claim based off of such little to go on. 

 

But what do I know about Zato, I'm just some Faust player.

[Coffeeling]

Would people be less angry if I went and edited the sorry post that started this all to say "suboptimally"? Because that was in the end the point. But bleh.

Open season on Coffeelings, feuer frei.

[Anne]

Nobody really seems that angry, they just seem to be trying to inform you.

[Coffeeling]

I guess certain phrasings in the vein of "ogawa doesn't know how to play" hurt more than I thought. Ah, fuck. Went and edited the original, preserving the original idiocy in strikethrough. I started the stupidity with my own flippant use of language, might as well stop it.