The KOF Battle Journal

[solidshark]

My time back in the U.S. playing the U.S. players was fun, but without the main stick I've always used, I see how handicapped and reliant I am without it. Even Kim combos I'd been practicing on for weeks barely came out; need to practice on multiple sticks, maybe even pads, just in case.

[Great_Dark_Hero]

I finally picked up Vice. And, boy is she a fun character to play.
Trying to develop some knowledge based information here. I was at the Boss Program building on the military installation close to Mainz-Kastel and Wiesbaden. I was practicing with Vice and suddenly a soldier about my age saw me playing and said "I just bought this game over the holidays! Can play I play with for a bit?" I confirmed and we both went to versus mode. I just got done playing Vice as a point character. Vice can easily cause a lot of trouble because most of special move allow her to build meter (whiffing her command grab will allow to get some meter too).
I decided to play her on more defensive terms. Patiently. My opponent (who seems to REALLY like KOFXI) was playing a Athena, Ryo, and EX Iori team. A strong looking team indeed. Whenever he made changes, he would switch out between Ryo, to King, to Mai, to Beni, and then back to Ryo again.
I had Vice and Mai on my team the whole time while changing my anchors between Claw Iori, Kim, EX Kyo, and Yuri overtime between the matches.
He was well aware of how to play this game but he did not use any complex HD combos (he told he'd rather use them when he has a least three meters or more. He also says that HD combos are easier with stock meters which may be true in some cases). The soldier's defense and basic offense was pretty good. He seemed to have some really good reactions too. (He was playing on a traditional PS3 pad). 
He resorted to using Athena's Psycho Reflector every time I got too close... I try to plan my attacks accordingly with Vice... Use the Splash special moves punish poorly timed projectiles. He never did get past Mai but he is still apparently good at this game because he was always up to something - he kept moving around. His Ryo played a lot more aggressively as well. He also got me more than a few times with EX Iori's BnB (d.B, d.A, Rekka's). I notice that the soldier also resorted to using st.B and instead of st.C because st.B on EX Iori hits low and cancels easily into his command moves.
I learned to play more defensively with Vice and conserve as much meter as possible. Resort to hit confirming and punishes. I try to remain patient when I play Vice. Just wait for the opponent to mess up or get too reckless. When I play Vice as a point character, I would normally use meter for a two bar HD combo, CD or knockdown into EX Sleeve, or to punish with a EX DM. The rest of the meter is stored for Mai because she benefits well off of it.

The truth is, every character benefits off of meter and give them momentum. Provides the player with the ability to make a comeback as well if they are forced on the defensive.
I did ask the soldier if he had a PSN or not because he is stationed in Europe. Unfortunately, he only has an Xbox and he seems to be more of a Virtua Fighter and Tekken player. Had a lot of fun... managed to condition myself a little and familiarize myself with Vice.

[solidshark]

First time in a while I've played XIII solid for a week, not missing a day; already noticing improvements in my playing style, even getting longer winstreaks against decent players. Will go for a full month of KOF everyday to see how much better things get.

[AirLancer]

Attended 2 meet ups with about 10-12 of Okinawa's fighting game players, hosted by xero15 (who has a sick Spider-Man team in Marvel) at his (soon to not be) place.

Of course, it was my obligation to bring along my copy of KOFXIII with me. The general consensus around the room was that they were all interested in the game, but none of them had really gotten into it and at most had only tried playing it for a few days. As I was explaining a lot of mechanics and demonstrating HD combos with several characters (Robert, Terry, Ryo, Takuma, Daimon, Kula and a little bit of Athena among others) several of them had expressed the feeling that had a person like me been around earlier, that they probably would've gotten into the game. Xero15 himself expressed an interest in playing Kula, and I was trying to recommend characters based around what his preferred playstyle was. Hopefully, I can set their desire to play KOF in stone before I leave the island in March, but my ability to do this is hampered due to the current liberty restrictions on military members in Okinawa, as well as really only having xero15 as the touchstone to get in touch with the other players.

As for how they felt about the game, they really seemed to enjoy it. The thing that seemed to stick out for a lot of them was the executional requirement. Foundational skills like c.B hitconfirms (which I myself had plenty of trouble with when I started playing due to the speed of it) and even things like hopping were things I was explaining. How unfortunate I had forgotten to mention the "How to play KOF" video on YouTube.  

Unrelated to KOF but when we popped in Persona, I three-peated one of the enthusiasts of the game who I believe goes by the name of Black, despite my relative lack of experience with the game. Oh Yukiko, chuck them fans at Chie's head. My playstyle was described as "incredibly annoying, but it works."

I hope that we can manage to have another meet up before I PCS. I'm hoping my one playing partner (who mains King, Kyo, Saiki, and Mr. Karate) can come if there's another meet up so I can demonstrate how a match flows, maybe even capture some gameplay on Xero15's streaming equipment.

[solidshark]

After a busy week of missing KOF, fighting IDVerna was exactly the motivation I needed to get back into the game. I was rusty as hell, and he showed me why CafeID-style is so effective. I even managed to get a win in a FT10. It's been a while since getting my ass kicked was that fun; it sure does get you motivated to get back into a game.

[DCLam]

June 2012: Summer time was nearing so I told myself I was gonna spend this vacation break picking up an entirely new type of game that I’ve never tried before. I spent my whole life playing easy casual games like adventure games, fps shooting games, typical average games of the sort, but nothing too competitive before. I’ve always stayed away from fighting games because they seemed too hard and intimidating so I decided to finally give fighting games a shot. I was on a budget so I searched around the market and came across KOF XIII for a cheap price since it was on sale out of all the other fighting games out there. After about a week of sticking with it I thought the game just wasn’t for me so I completely threw it away and told myself I wasn’t gonna deal with playing this game anymore especially on a pad and getting my DS3 all bloodied up. Maybe I just have sensitive fingers or something but my thumbs would blister up after about 5-10 min of playing and I just wasn’t gonna have it anymore.

July 2012: Then came EVO 2012 and when I saw the grand finals between MadKOF and Bala, I thought that was the hypest shit I’ve ever saw in my entire gaming life and couldn’t get enough of it so I watched the match again for another good 10 or so times, especially the part when MadKOF perfected Bala and Bala made a stun combo comeback the second round with Takuma (That’s also the reason why I wanted to pick up Takuma so bad!). It couldn’t get any better than that just seeing both players trading blows back and forth! After that day I told myself I was gonna give KOF another try and started saving up for a fight stick.

September 2012: I wasn’t gonna start playing just yet till I got a stick first cuz I told myself I was never going back to that horrid experience I had with the frustrating pad. So instead, I spent the whole month of September, researching and reading up on basic fighting game terms and looking up guides/vids off forums to get a better understanding of how to play this game properly especially since I coming from no fighting game background at all.

October 2012: I’ve never owned a fight stick before in my life so I decided to head up to STA to see whats good and try out the sticks there that they had on their cabinets. I’ve never been there before so I was like hey why not knock out some games and might as well meet some of the guys there. Aside from getting my ass whooped by some of the top players, I at least got a chance to play some of the bigger names of NorCal there while I was at it. They were really helpful and informative about the game plus really showed me what competitive gaming was all about.

November 2012: Then came around mid-November I finally saved up enough for a brand new fight stick just in time for school semester end in which I could finally start getting into this game seriously again.

January 2013: Played in my first local KOF tournament ever and placed 3rd overall! I wouldn’t say it wasn’t much since the tournament was specifically for rookies only and that there were only 6 participants, but it still got me pretty hyped up for this game even more! I wouldn’t have gotten this far if I hadn’t had met and played some really helpful people (online and offline) along the way though.

February 2013: Now that it’s almost the end to yet another month of my fighting game career and journey to getting good at this game, I wouldn’t say I progressed as much or as fast as I would like to but I’m happy to say that I’ll be continuing on to sticking with this game for however long it takes to get good. Although it’s still frustrating to see why it’s so hard to get good at KOF but to see the skill it takes play this challenging game is why it’s so rewarding to me.

[AirLancer]

I'm sure we all know the limits of online but the butthurt here is strong.

[SuperVehicle001]

This is like a confessional booth... lol any way here I go.

I got lit up at a local casual. I feel like I walked into a brick wall of skilled players. As I posted about in another thread, KC has a small but super competitive and highly skilled KoFXIII scene.

No disrespect to the guys who I played though. Maybe I'm having my first "salty experience" lol! I really do respect these guys and their skills. I feel like the new kid trying to sit at the cool table haha!

I know I am going to lose, and lose a lot. I want to learn and get better. I feel like these loses didn't teach me anything. I don't know what to work on. I kind of felt like a few players where tired of having me call next honestly... like I was so low skill I wasn't worth their time.

"Work on your composure". What does it mean? What is composed? What does it look like? How do I know when I am playing "composed". "Composure" is such a broad term I don't know what to fix and work on.

Over all it's a great group of guys and I'm trying not to get depressed and fizzle out like some do.

Trying to stay focused and motivated, but damn it's hard.

[AirLancer]

Competed in Civil War V.

Came in 5th place with my Robert/Kula/Kim team, losing both times to a North Carolina player who goes by PacStrife.

Knocked DJ Huoshen out of the tournament along the way.

Once again, my lack of playtime really showed. Still, PacStrife, who had defeated me, said that my Robert was very good. Speaking of which, one player also noted that he'd seen me do things with Robert that he'd never seen before, and that he'd likely seen Robert's EX ranbu more times than ever before, hahaha.

[SuperVehicle001]

I'm gaining more confidence. I still get bopped but I don't have a knot in my stomach when I call next. Getting good tips on diagnosing my problems. A lot is coming down to jitters while playing. Lots of unnecessary button pressing while I'm under pressure. Losing and learning.

After I lost a set to a really good player (no one knocked him off the stick for 3 hours) he explained that I was falling for his K' meaty set up. Pressing a button means I get hit. Then the next set he crossed me up with Iori, a lot. I could tell he it was his way of teaching me to stop the cross up. Eventually I managed to defend against his cross-up. All he did was smile and say "Good". Sometimes subtle teaching is the best.

I'll be entering my first local tournament this Saturday.

[AirLancer]

Competed in ECT V.

Ran into ChrisG in winners and losers during my pool. I did not get out of my pool.

Went 2-2 in total.

Got in a lot of good matches against quite a few players, including DreamCancel's own Malik. Damn that Athena is tricky...

I just wish I could play more often, I feel that'll always be my biggest weakness.

[Ryujin]

Got to meet a lot of great people this weekend at UFGT9. Ended up going 2-2, getting wins on GLB and EFOcutioner, losing to Samson (K' double OCV) and suiname. The losses were rough but it helps to lose to great players to really understand what needs improvement.

To help others, two self-criticisms I could include are getting out of the corner and getting jumpins down pat. As much as you'd like to think you have good defense, getting mixed up in the corner is inevitable after 4 or 5 of them. When using the meter to roll or CD means staying alive or not getting one-shotted from HD, do it. And for jumpins, doing that one j.2c or CD just a little bit too early and missing the low hitbox means you could eat a trip guard or throw, so don't underestimate time in practice mode to get those clean.

[Great_Dark_Hero]

Shout outs to all those who were present for UFGT9!

Buddies and I were mostly watching the stream here in Europe, while conducting our own KOFXIII ranbats session as well.

[desmond_kof]

At UFGT9 I found out that I need to play better under pressure, heighten my awareness during playing, strengthen my match-up knowledge and go for HD combos more often while becoming more economical meter and damage wise.

[desmond_kof]

Great Dark Hero, that post does not belong here. This thread is only for journal entries only.