Practical combo videos

[Hobojim]

Hello everybody!

So I've recently become unemployed and have a bunch of free time, and I'm quite new to this game and was thinking about ways to improve my execution while increasing my knowledge of the game and characters. Because I'm new to the game and am therefore really bad at it, I can't really provide much to the community by way of good advice or fancy combo videos. What I AM decent at in this game, however, is coming up with practical combos in a systematic and organized way.

I've been running an idea through my head, and wanted to know if people thought it would be worthwhile. I'd like to make a series of videos showcasing the practical (read: easy enough to do for a beginner) combos for characters in the game. A while back, I made one for Andy, but it didn't really turn out as well as I'd like. The organization of the video is probably how I'll keep them, but the editing and sound are likely going to change, including voice-over commentary rather than interstitial comment scenes.

A lot of combo videos and gameplay footage do show off a lot of practical combos, but it might be useful for beginners to have a localized place to have all of these videos. I also keep statistics on all of the combos and can highlight which combos make the most efficient use of both meters.

So, good idea? Terrible idea? Waste of time and I should be ashamed of coming up with it? I'd like some feedback from people, if possible, and will answer any questions here.

Thanks!

[BodyOrgan]

Practical is such an interesting notion. I understand the intent behind it, but what's practical for one isn't for another. Try to teach my girlfriend Kula's cr.B, cr.B, st.B into DP required nearly two hours just to get it to an inconsistent occurrence, and that's just a BnB. Regardless the concept of "practical" combos has been around a while, and you can actually look up practical combos for various characters via youtube.

It would really be nice to have a detailed explanation of why a combo is practical other than simply saying it's easy. To give an example of what I'm talking about. When using EX Kyo's up kicks in a combo it can launch an opponent putting them in a juggle state in which you can follow up with rekka's. The start of the rekka's must be timed however which makes this combo harder for beginners or difficult in high lag situations. Depending on the combo used an EX up kick won't launch the opponent as high allowing you to rekka immediately after thus making the combo easier at the expense of meter (the increased damage output is usually negligible, so the only reason to do it would be so you don't drop it). This goes the other way too... depending on the combo the EX up kick will launch the opponent even higher than just up kick. I'll edit later to give a combo transcript of what I'm talking about.

[Hobojim]

Practical, in the context of what I'm talking about, means videos that aim to be simple enough that a moderate beginner can perform consistently and not wasteful in the usage of meter. I plan to add notes to the combos relaying difficulties that are likely to arise when learning the combo, and things that I run into causing problems. I think this would help a beginner to "get" the combo, and barring that, diagnose any issues they might have along the way.

I agree that there are youtube videos currently out there for "practical" combos with many characters, and I looked for many of them whenever I picked up a new character. They aren't always so easy to find, and many of them are from arcade days or someone pointing a cell phone at a screen and hitting the record button. For the lesser-used characters it becomes much harder in general.

The main thing is I'm not sure if there are many new players for the game, making the videos kind of useless. It still might be a good reference for some people, and having an analysis on which combos might make best use of meter could be a useful, or at least interesting, topic.

[desmond_kof]

Do it. I would like to see how it turns out and to see if it helps any beginners.

-desmond

[Hobojim]

Okay, footage is done for Kyo '95 and Shen, but I've got a pretty bad cold so I'm waiting on that to go away before recording audio. I'll probably get started on Maxima in the meantime, because he was super hype in the SCR side-tournament and some people might want to know some of his basic combo tools.

Anyone have any requests or suggestions on which characters should be done first? I'm mostly leaning away from Karate Iori Kim, what with them being ubiquitous and most people already know the basics with them.

[Swamp]

Someone has already done so w/ 98, but not w/ all of the characters (I'm loving his cheezy effects in the match vid portion). You can always improve on it w/ commentary and such.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nx1NaRp8ArM

[Hobojim]

Someone has already done so w/ 98, but not w/ all of the characters (I'm loving his cheezy effects in the match vid portion). You can always improve on it w/ commentary and such.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nx1NaRp8ArM

Poor Shingo, always getting beat up on...

I don't even own 98, though. I'm trying to do these for KoFXIII.

[Swamp]

SHINGO KIIIIIICKUU!

Juicebox made a few vids, but they're WAY too long (ranging from 30-90 mins).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RM4CcmBBV4o&list=PLZbBoZgd9o1ms5j1wwll80oTRtUTdwAnA

Are you trying to add commentary? I think the best route would be to do a KoF XIII ver. of the 98 vids (cheesy explosions included). It's short, sweet, and entertaining and each vid could be a few minutes long.

[Hobojim]

Yeah, commentary is the plan, but we'll see how grating people find my voice after the first one. I'll upload the first attempt here in a couple of days, probably sometime this weekend, to see what the general consensus is. Think of it as a rough draft of sorts.

I'll probably stay away from fancy effects for the first go, in part because I'm new to the video making process, but also because I'm trying to make informative and no-nonsense videos. We'll see how it goes over. I'm not averse to adding a bit of style to the videos at some point, though.

[The Good Loser]

This guy did a lot of vids for 2002 UM

Example: https://youtu.be/1xiNXYDJmcQ

I find them very neat and well made with their slo-mo additions.

[Swamp]

That's a great approach! The slowdown gives the viewer the chance to re-watch the combo AND get the inputs down.

*I think that's vanilla '02

[Hobojim]

That IS an interesting approach. The way I had been going about it is just to put the inputs in the upper portion of the screen. Lots of testing to do.

On a side-note, I don't know that I'm happy with the way that the audio commentary is going with the videos I'm working on. It does get information in there that I really think should be discussed, but my mic set-up is somewhat lacking. I'll fiddle with it and try to get an example video for you guys to compare with my previous text-only video in the near future, see which method works better.

[Hobojim]

Okay, I got a new mic so I'll be putting together an Andy comparison vid so people can tell me which style they prefer, whether it be all text and edited together or minor editing and voiced over. It should be done sometime this week/weekend, depending on how long it takes to edit together.

[The Good Loser]

Looking forward to it ^.~

[Hobojim]

Okay, here's my attempt at a voice commentated video tutorial. I re-did the Andy tutorial that I made a long time ago in order to get a comparison from you guys.

Which video style do you think is better for this kind of video? I'm still not sold on my voice, and my mic isn't professional or anything but much better than it was before.