Human Reaction Times and Fighting Games, or Why Blocking Isn’t Always Easy | Hacker News Reader

Human Reaction Times and Fighting Games, or Why Blocking Isn’t Always Easy

shoryuken.com

35 pointsDLay8 comments

Here's a particularly famous example of an effective use of blocking in a fighting game tournament: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EA5RlZoHDds

Some quick play by play explanation. This is the final round of the match which is currently tied, whoever wins the round wins the match. The 1st player (Daigo, using the character "Ken") has almost no health left as the round is nearing the end (less than 30 seconds remaining). The 2nd player (Justin Wong, playing "Chun-Li") then initiates a powerful combo sequence which should be a guaranteed game winner, but Daigo blocks every single one of the dozen plus hits perfectly then retaliates with a game wining comeback.

In this instance, parrying chub-li's super is an exercise in replaying accurately a complete pattern (akin to a rhythm game) Although difficult it has nothing to do with reaction.

The reaction to the super's startup is the potentially interesting part, however it is quite clear that it's something that Daigo was quite prepared to react to given the situation. And the initial parry requires forward movement of the stick, which is a fast twitch movement.

Justin was also counting on Daigo being able to react; he was convinced almost certainly that Daigo would block and see his life depleted by the super's damage on block. What Justin was not prepared to was Daigo's parry.

> then initiates a powerful combo sequence which should be a guaranteed game winner, but Daigo blocks every single one of the dozen plus hits perfectly then retaliates with a game wining comeback.

He actually ~ parries ~ the hits which require frame perfect block inputs on EVERY hitframe (IIRC). Which makes his feat even more impressive. 30 or so frame perfect inputs in the heat of the moment ... amazing ..

If you look really closely, you see Daigo (Ken) shuffling backwars/forwards, he was waiting for it, he expected it ;)

Not frame perfect. It was somewhere around 5 to 10 frames.

I know that 5-frames is perfect blocking from GG / Blazblue. I forget the exact number of frames for Street Fighter 3 Alpha.

However, unlike other games, it isn't a "perfect block". A parry in Street Fighter 3 Alpha requires you to guess high/low correctly, and THEN press forward instead of back.

Which means a single mistake would have most certainly doomed the Ken player.

FYI: "Frame Perfect" has a very specific meaning in fighting game terms: it means 1/60th of a second. 5/60th is actually very manageable with practice. Tournament-level players can pull off 1/60th of a second timing fairly regularly, but even 5/60ths seem to be out of reach of the casual player.

I play Blazblue, where the majority of combos are 5/60ths of a second precise.

Maybe this is pedantic, but it's not quite that simple. If Daigo (Ken) had blocked any hit from Justin's (Chun-Li) super, he would have lost his remaining health (via "chip damage", which you take even while blocking) and hence the round.

I'm not an expert on the subject so I won't attempt my own explanation. There's a nice article here that I think does a good job of explaining what makes Daigo's performance here so incredible:

http://www.gatheryourparty.com/2013/03/12/more-than-mashing-...

See also the "Can Daigo do the full parry again? Daigo Umehara vs. Justin Wong *2014" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nC2D6sOrbg

This was actually "parrying" rather than blocking (a fun part of SF3), but you're otherwise correct.

Using the FCG reaction speed test, I have a reaction time of about 30 frames; thats pretty terrible compared to the average 16 frames.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com