Think, Don't Mash! Part 4: The Other Elephant: When to Press Buttons

So far, we’ve talked about the merits of starting with a simple plan, adding to it over time, and forming that plan in the first place. There is another big thing I’ve glossed over up until now: executing on the plan. Previously, I talked about when to press buttons in a very general sense. For example, I said I used Chun’s st.HP to control the ground. But what does that mean? How do you use that button to control space? We need to delve into this more deeply. There are situations where you should press buttons and situations where you definitely SHOULD NOT press buttons. Let’s talk about them.

You can broadly break down a fighting game match into one of two states. You are either in a neutral state (often referred to as the “neutral game”), or it’s somebody’s turn. What does this mean?

Fighting games have turns, sort of like this best-selling board game. Also, the existence of this product as a human creation is making me question our value as a species.

The neutral game is when both players are jockeying for position and control, and neither player has a clear advantage. This is hard to define in a positive sense, so I think it’s a lot easier to first define what it means to be “somebody’s turn.” After we figure that out, we can just say that the neutral game is any time when it’s not somebody’s turn. Let’s look at an easy example: when Ryu has knocked down Ken. In Street Fighter V, for most knockdowns, the Ken player can choose one of a few timings for when their character gets up off the ground (usually referred to as “wake-up”). Regardless, it’s the Ryu player’s turn. They are free to act. They can adjust their positioning or make the Ken player block something as they wake up. This is a situation anyone can easily recognize as being Ryu’s turn. It temporarily being Ryu’s turn is part of the reward of earning the knockdown.

In the example of knocking someone down, it’s easy to recognize it’s one player’s turn. What a lot of people miss when they’re first starting out is there are lots of other situations where it’s someone’s turn. Broadly speaking, when there is a situation where a player can act before their opponent can act, it’s their turn. There’s usually an element of rock-paper-scissors to this where the defending player has some kind of high risk option to beat the attacker. In our example of Ryu knocking down Ken, the Ken player could do his EX dragon punch which has invincibility. If the Ryu player is within range and doing anything other than blocking, they will be hit and the situation flip-flops; it is now the Ken player’s turn. While the defending player will have different options, the guessing game is heavily weighted in the favor of the attacker.

Nutty players will go to that fiery option in the middle a lot to try and steal turns.

It gets trickier in turn-based situations that are a little less obvious to the newer player. For example, if I’m playing Chun-li and my opponent blocks my st.HP, for a brief but meaningful moment, it’s my opponent’s turn, as they will be free to act again ever so slightly before I can. You might now be (reasonably) wondering, “How am I supposed to know that?!” Also, looping back to the beginning, I mentioned the neutral game, i.e., any time when it’s not one player’s turn. What do you when both players are on even footing? Learning to recognize when you’re in a turn-based situation or a neutral situation and act accordingly is the goal for part four of the series.