Narutimate hustle and flow: from opener to endgame

Okay, I'm going to talk about the structure of a match of Narutimate Accel or Hero. Now the discussion and the elements I'm talking about are applicable for any fighting game, but the article will be centered on a match of Accel or NH.

For reference, we're going to be talking about a match between myself and Dragonthorn below:



Part 1: Before the match even starts

Before the match starts, lots of things are going through a player's head. Character selection is a very important part of the process, and choosing the right character determines what kind of opening move they will perform. I'm going to write a whole article on the topic of character selection, so I'll leave it at that. NH/NA players usually have more than one character that they use, so they'll have a character that they'll use for certain situations. Some only have one character for use and use only that character for any situation; instead of changing character, they change playstyle (or just go ahead and overpower the opponent with superior technical ability.)

In this match, Dragonthorn and I preferred to do a classic PTS Lee - PTS Sasuke matchup. Now in theory PTS Lee trumps PTS Sasuke in all aspects; but Dragonthorn had played many (more superior) PTS Lees before, and was accustomed to the chains and fighting style. In previous matchups against PTS Sasuke, I decided on using PTS Lee as a counter. I'm not that high level a player so I don't kawarimi his chains that easy, making pressure through pokes and ground chains a problem for me. To compensate, I chose to use a character with a significant poke and ground game advantage.

Part 2: Opener

Like in chess, the opening sequence of moves is a determinant of the eventual flow of the game. Now ask yourself: what is the first thing you do once the match starts? I guarantee that you will get different answers based on the character used, the predominant style in the community or the player's own fighting style. Let's go through a number of possibilities.

A quick attack is warranted to players that have the ranged attacks fast enough to get an opponent on the fly. PTS Gaara, Gai and TS Naruto are examples. Some wheel out an instant jutsu to try to get some good damage early on. Some even wheel out an ougi, but ever since ougi startups slowed down in NA (from NH3, where instant ougi from Itachi was possible) this hasn't been used that often.

Jumping is an effective way to gauge the opponent's first moves while not getting hit yourself. In the Philippines, players tend to do this along with shuriken to play defensively first and get in an attack later. In this matchup, given that taijutsu takes a lot of spacing and maneuvering to do, we do this strategy.

Rushing forward aggressively is an opener used by chakra denial characters and Yondaime. This is dangerous considering a knj or blocked attack can leave your character open.

X-dashing is unsafe and generally not recommended. X-dash startups can be read, and x-dash on block is very dangerous, even on shuriken cancelled 'safe' x-dashes.

Changing planes is a defensive opener used to counter opponents that quick attack once the match starts (like TS Naruto.)

Part 3: Midgame

Welcome to the meat of the match, the midgame. Midgame depends on attack flow and again on the characters involved. Since both the characters in this match are taijutsu based, they both have the same aim in the match.

As PTS Lee, I tried to "jump into" Dragonthorn's poke-eable range using jump shuriken, which is relatively safe if timed right. Once in range, I would poke to start a combo. If the poke connects, block or not, I have the advantage unless DT decides to kawarimi. Dragonthorn is doing the same, although he has less changes to do damage due to the fact that he doesn't have a guard breaking attack other than an easy to knj throw and a very slow down circle move. Instead of just jumping in, he reacts to my moves (hence his usage of mindgames like the chidori trap) in order to get an advantage where I would slip up.

At the same time, in the air, we're doing the same thing. We both use aerial attacks to catch our opponent off balance and attack from there.

While all of this is happening, I'm trying to run around and try to "push" Dragonthorn towards the wall in order to do a wall slam into Konoha Reppu. This is the bread and butter of Lee's damage making abilities, other than his solid taijutsu. I don't do Lee's string with the slam because it takes more hits (and more chances to knj) and I know that Dragonthorn can knj it.

Dragonthorn's trying to prevent this by jumping, catching me through aerial hawks and by restricting my lateral ground movement (by using caltrops, as you can see at around 70 seconds game time.)

Part 4: Endgame

Now this goes on up until 15 seconds game time. At this time, I'm in a minor health advantage, and I can do one of three things: 1) turtle up and finish the match on time out 2) be aggressive and use Lee's damage output to finish things immediately, 3) or do something funky like an ougi.

Endgame is one of the most important phases of a match. In a Narutimate match, chakra is everything in Endgame. Chakra determines how many jutsus you have left, if you can do an awakening, and how many kawarimis you have left (thus determining how many strings you can ideally escape from.)

Had Dragonthorn's chakra been extremely low or at a disadvantage to me, I would go aggressive and finish the match as I would be in a better overall position to cause more damage. Had I been in the chakra disadvantage I could go both ways: I could fight it out, or decide to turtle and charge some chakra. because a life advantage means nothing to a chakra disadvantage. (This time, DT would have been the aggressive one, trying to maximize his damage output.)

If I knew my opponent was trying to finish me by ougi, my strategy would be to deny chakra and do something like an aggressive approach. The more my opponent kawarimis, the more chakra he would lose, and if that chakra goes down the reversal ougi level (usually level 2 or 3) ougi is out as far as endgame options go.

In this matchup, I had a chakra disadvantage, but (I thought) it was enough to kawarimi enough strings to win the game. I was also wary of the fact that DT had more or less full chakra and a chance for either a reversal ougi or to chip the hell out of me with Chidori on block, so I chose to be aggressive. I managed to catch PTS Sasuke in a string that slammed him to the wall, and I ended the game with okizeme. Match over.

That's only one dimension of a Narutimate Match. Characters with keepaway or chakra denial strategies can have very different match structures. Once I get good matches with those I'll post an example to show you all. But till then, have a blast.

Learning to Fight: Your Brain and Fighting Games

So you've decided to play a new fighting game and you're learning the ropes. How do you get to learn to play these kids of games?

The piece I wrote below applies not only to fighting games, but to many other genres of games. There's a lot of technical stuff in here so get ready. I'll try to make it as simple as possible.

Learning those moves: Muscle Memory

So you've started out your fighting game career: you have your character chosen and you're starting out by playing a few matches. It's time to start learning those moves. Practice takes a lot of repetition; in the Narutimate games, this includes timing for KnJ and techs. In other combo based games, it's the timing and order of attacks in a combo that matter.

For techs and KnJ, muscle memory is what matters a lot. Ever saw a shuriken thrown at you and you block instinctively, effectively knjing to the other side? Or have you ever instinctively knjed at the very first hit of a counterattack, as if you had expected that counterattack to come? That comes from muscle memory. You had experienced that hundreds if not thousands of times, and your brain has stored the information.

On the other hand, you learn combos or setups partly due to procedural memory learning, especially when learning combos, which are composed of the initial setup, the followup and possible finishers. Soon you will be able to do this unconsciously, by instinct. Example: when the Passion Setup for Itachi was discovered, people started doing this setup really fast when there was a possibility for an x-dash exploit. It was instinctual, it was hard to predict, and it made Tsukuyomi more dangerous.

There are three phases of learning a procedure, said some guy named Fitts in 1954.

Cognitive Phase - here is you start to learn what a sequence of steps in a pattern are composed of. Some people do this by breaking down the procedure into components and trying to link them together. This can include a long combo in a fighting game, a sequence of moves in the Narutimate series, or a hard section in a rhythm game. Here, just study the move and practice each section at a time.

Associative Phase - in this phase, you repeat the above actions over and over until you get it down pat and it becomes second nature. You gain this in fighting games by encountering the same situation again and again. In a BnB combo, you get to do this all the time since that combo is your bread and butter.

Autonomous Phase - here is where you perfect the sequence you just learned. You start doing the sequence with less thought, and you can concentrate more on other things, like alternative strategies or mixups. And if you learn those, the greater the capacity of the game for mixups, the larger the procedural "tree" becomes. How do you get this? Just lots of experience.

Like learning normal memories, muscle memory has both a short term and long term component. You can use this knowledge to help improve your game (I will be talking about how short term muscle memory can make you do mind games in a later article.) The more you practice a given task, the more you learn.

Memory Encoding

Memory is imprinted into our brains by encoding. In the Narutimate games, we encode muscle memory through various stimuli.

Visual Stimuli - for example, seeing a sequence of moves and knowing exactly what kind of string they are performing.

Acoustic Stimuli - when teching, I time my techs by listening to the sound of the tech hit and pressing X by the rhythm. as the action gets more familiar, anticipating the tech just by the sound.

Tactile Stimuli - thanks to the Dualshock controllers, Narutimate players use tactile encoding to learn tech timing. One anecdote I can share was in an earlier tournament, one player wanted to switch controllers because the available controller had no vibrating function. It turned out that he timed his techs by noticing the timing of the moves.

How to Improve?

So, armed with this information, what can you do to improve your game?

The Superstar effect - some have shown in studies that, in a competition, when there is a super good badass performer in the competition, his mere presence causes the other competitors to underperform, as if the outcome was predetermined. This bodes even worse with veteran players. Against a player with a skill set way higher than their own, veterans break their composure and tend to overthink things to much, to the detriment of their game.

We know, it's not fun to get pwned by people whose skill is much higher than yours. But to overcome it, you can: 1) start off by playing people of your skill level then work your way up, or 2) forget the star status of your enemy and focus.

I personally advocate playing "superstar" players to gain their strategies and use those against them. But why does the superstar effect work in the first place?

Stress - part of it is due to stress. Once stress takes over, you tend to double think things. Your capacity to learn or execute learned actions decreases. This is what is known in competitive games as choking. So calm down before starting that match, ok?

Alcohol - alcohol screws with long and short term memory. It changes the structure of the brain. Alcohol also leads to thiamine deficiency, which can lead to disturbances in the nervous system.

Sleep - it's well known that sleep improves memory formation, as it is a major period in the formation of memories. So maybe those 24 hour nonstop sessions weren't so nifty after all. Also, sleep deprivation impairs memory as well. So sleep well.

Playing with a Friend - it's almost a standard answer in fighting games that playing with a friend beats playing with a CPU. But there is actual scientific evidence for this. A couple of dudes in MIT compared the spatial response times and threat and challenge appraisals when playing against a computer, a stranger, and a friend. The study found that playing against a friend had the best data. So who you play with matters as much as how.

So to all the competitive gamers out there, make friends with your fellow colleagues. Because if you tend to make enemies of everyone, no one will play with you. Heh.

References:

Wikipedia articles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_memory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procedural_memory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_encoding


Madigan, Jamie. (2010) Zerg Rushed by a Tiger? Just give up.
http://www.gladwell.com/2000/2000_08_21_a_choking.htm
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/pres.15.4.381

NA3: what went wrong?

For another view on NA3's place (or non-place) in competitive gaming, American Narutimate player Forte has this to say:

Breaking Down NA3

With the PS2 dead in the eyes of many developers, CC2 either had to stick with the Accel PS2 format, or make a move to either the PS3 or the PSP. In the end, it did both: Narutimate Storm was the spiritual successor of the game series on the PS3 and Narutimate Accel 3 made its way to the PSP. Everyone's hopes were up as new characters and gameplay were on their way. 4 player support? No more annoying assists? The possibility of online battles? It all looked promising.

What went wrong?

After some play testing among the community it was evident that this was a revamp of the existing system, and although it was fun, it was not geared to be played in a competitive manner. How so? In my opinion, here are the reasons why:

1. 4 player balancing removed the 2 player game

Let's face it, mechanics that were valid with two players become invalid when you can potentially have three characters surrounding your ass. Dashing out of chains makes it easier to get out of a situation where your opponent and his teammate are wailing on you with hits, but at the same time it makes the majority of chains and infinites worthless, upsetting a precarious state of balance that had previously been achieved with the knj/tech system. Getting interrupted by 2+ characters in performing moves is no longer a problem because jutsu have a more invulnerable startup. On the other hand, it screws the balance of jutsu in 2p play. With 4p, knj-ing 2+ characters takes a lot of chakra, and taking 3 people out in a 3 v 1 takes a long time had the old system stuck. CC2's solution? Increase damage output and make a system where chakra can serve as a trump card. The problem with that? Well, see below.

2. the awakening system partially invalidates the chakra system

Before, awakenings were activated on a set of conditions that were mostly fit towards the character's fighting style. It took a while to activate them through taunt (making the player revolve around a playstyle where you can get an opportunity to activate) or took some time to get through combo (making the player orient his or her playstyle at getting jutsu or combos that do the necessary damage.) Now, awakenings are triggered after taking or dishing out a set amount of damage, has no startup time and gives you free chakra (full!) at little to no cost (before, activating an awakening could cost you all your chakra or a good chunk of your own life.) The standardized activation system retards the diversity of fighting styles, making you play the same way for characters that aren't supposed to be played the same way. And what of this free chakra and chakra denial characters? It renders chakra denial next to useless with a few exceptions.

3. ridiculous imbalances

For one thing, POISON. The increased frequency where you could activate awakenings makes poison more of a problem. And some characters have heal status on top of that! Imagine fighting Oro/Kabuto. You unleash damage on Kabuto, activating his awakening where he gets heal AND poison for every time he touches you. Now Kabuto goes all aggressive, taking you down with perpetual poison, while healing himself. If you somehow manage to survive, you're back to zero. If you manage to inflict enough damage again, you're facing the possibility where Kabuto can reactivate his awakening and heal all the damage you caused him (while causing poison damage to you!) There's also 4 Tail Naruto. Jutsu damage on block exceeds ougi damage. (And remember, awakenings give you max chakra.) And for some characters...

4. jutsu spam for the win

As I said before, jutsu are invincible to shuriken on startup. Now shuriken were important in that they were a source of interrupting the opponent at whatever he was going to do, making post-knj a little safer (and inventing the whole post knj retaliation mindgame.) And now? Well, you don't have to worry about that, since you can pull out jutsu whenever you have the opportunity. That's because shuriken cancels aren't that useful in this game. Running out of chakra isn't that much of a deal, since awakening gives it to you for free. Some characters have really good jutsu that can be spammed over and over again post knj or whenever you want.

5. nitpicks
- they removed time out wins! Playing to a time out win was a huge part of a NA/NH player's endgame, and a significant part of a defensive playstyle. It also offered a win opportunity for characters with severe character disadvantages, given that NA/NH was a character based game. Now if you run out of time, the game considers it a draw. It oversimplifies the defensive game by taking out that opportunity.
- nothing is ever set in stone. Chains don't work on walls, some moves don't work all the time, everything feels like a huge black box that you can't definitively decipher and analyze.
- pressure on block doesn't matter anymore. Alpha counters and dashing out of chains removes that threat.

All in all, NA3 turned out to be a very different game. Although innovation worked to the NA/NH series' benefit in the past, this time it took a whole step backward. In creating a fun 4 player game, NA3 turned into a dismal 2 player competitive game (although still a fun game.) Only time will tell if CC2 decides to go back to the beaten path or go forward and continue to overhaul a system that frankly needs little to no tweaking at all.