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Well, fighting games do offer high crush/low crush options, where hurtboxes (the vulnerable portion of your character) are shifted higher or lower, to make a mo

Well, fighting games do offer high crush/low crush options, where hurtboxes (the vulnerable portion of your character) are shifted higher or lower, to make a move suited to cleanly beat either approaches from the air or sweeps. Beneficial properties like this can be balanced by a number of things -- speed, recovery time, damage, range, for a few examples! I realise you may already be familiar, but I figured it'd be worth expanding a little for other readers.

dragontamer 5y ago
High / Low options are rarely the option people think about at the high level. That's just a simple mixup (worst case scenario, you're forced to guess in case you can't react in time). What he was talking about is the DP, the "Dragon Punch", also known as Shoryuken, that Ryu / Ken are famous for in Street Fighter. The mindgame is that Shoryuken is 100% invincible: no matter what your opponent is doing, the Shoryuken / Dragon Punch will have infinite "priority" so to speak, it punches through all of your opponent's options because your hurtbox completely disappears during the move. That's right, your hurtbox is not merely "shifted", its gone. You're fully invincible. Of course, for balancing purposes, the Shoryuken has high-cooldown and high-periods of counter-hit status. Which means that although the Shoryuken "beats" all other attacks in the game, it also loses to a simple block into counter-hit. ------- So the mind game becomes one of timing. You approach the opponent, making them _THINK_ you're about to throw out an attack. They dragon-punch in response to your movement. But instead of attacking, you just block, and bam. You beat a player who spams dragon punch. Because of this extremely heavy "Dragon Punch wins vs all attacks" mindgame, there's a rich strategy / dance involved called footsies where the two players try to get each other to push the attack button first (especially if in a mirror match, Ryu vs Ryu or Ken vs Ken). The 2nd one to attack wins, because of the strange property of invincibility. ---- As far as Fighting Games go, the "Shoryuken" / Dragon punch is most similar to this "hard counter" found in RTS games. Shoryuken "hard counters" all other attacks in the game. While "simply holding the blocking button" consistently beats Shoryuken. Its a hard counter, always going to win if and only if you know exactly what the opponent will do. Because these options require understanding your opponent's mindset (when / timing of their use of Dragon Punches and/or blocking), they lead to incredibly fun mindgames.
- matttb 5y ago
  High/low crush is different than high/low options. He's talking about things like Street Fighter's Rose s.HK going over attacks that hit low or sliding attacks that duck under attacks that hit high. Also people cannot SRK/DP on reaction to all attacks or the game would be completely broken so saying '2nd to attack wins' is a bit odd since it's only in the situation where both players use an invincible move.
- LegitShady 5y ago
  I would argue that it's a bit different in RTS games because there are different unit types you can bring into a single battle. In StarCraft 2 if your opponent builds one unit there's another unit that hard counters it but you rarely bring just one kind of unit into battle last the very early game. Early zerglings are countered by marines are countered by hellions are countered by roaches are countered by marauders are countered by flying mutalisks are countered by marines again...etc etc. If you bring marines and marauders and some hellons with healing medivacs it becomes about numbers and engagement positions. Sometimes you have no chance of winning but you have a chance of getting an economical trade that will put you in a better position in the future - without the trade the next fight your opponent might have too many units for you to win. I guess it depends on what game you're playing but in RTS there's the fight you're in, the economy, production,upgrades, as well as the overall balance of the current game that all can change the way the game is going.
  - dragontamer 5y ago
    StarCraft 2 doesn't seem to have hard counters aside from Immortals from earlier builds. (Zerglings beat Immortals. Immortals beat Roaches), back when the 10 dmg cap vs shields was a thing. You have to play red alert to really know what the author is talking about. 50 riflemen probably loses to one flametank in command and conquer. Even the Immortal doesn't stand up to such odds and/or resource advantage. The flame tank isn't a capital ship either (not a battlecruiser or a mammoth tank in C&C world), it's just an anti-infantry tank that is highly effective at it's role. That is, I'm pretty sure 50 Roaches beat one Immortal. And that's the closest thing to a hard counter I've seen from the StarCraft world.

dragontamer 5y ago

High / Low options are rarely the option people think about at the high level. That's just a simple mixup (worst case scenario, you're forced to guess in case you can't react in time). What he was talking about is the DP, the "Dragon Punch", also known as Shoryuken, that Ryu / Ken are famous for in Street Fighter. The mindgame is that Shoryuken is 100% invincible: no matter what your opponent is doing, the Shoryuken / Dragon Punch will have infinite "priority" so to speak, it punches through all of your opponent's options because your hurtbox completely disappears during the move. That's right, your hurtbox is not merely "shifted", its gone. You're fully invincible. Of course, for balancing purposes, the Shoryuken has high-cooldown and high-periods of counter-hit status. Which means that although the Shoryuken "beats" all other attacks in the game, it also loses to a simple block into counter-hit. ------- So the mind game becomes one of timing. You approach the opponent, making them _THINK_ you're about to throw out an attack. They dragon-punch in response to your movement. But instead of attacking, you just block, and bam. You beat a player who spams dragon punch. Because of this extremely heavy "Dragon Punch wins vs all attacks" mindgame, there's a rich strategy / dance involved called footsies where the two players try to get each other to push the attack button first (especially if in a mirror match, Ryu vs Ryu or Ken vs Ken). The 2nd one to attack wins, because of the strange property of invincibility. ---- As far as Fighting Games go, the "Shoryuken" / Dragon punch is most similar to this "hard counter" found in RTS games. Shoryuken "hard counters" all other attacks in the game. While "simply holding the blocking button" consistently beats Shoryuken. Its a hard counter, always going to win if and only if you know exactly what the opponent will do. Because these options require understanding your opponent's mindset (when / timing of their use of Dragon Punches and/or blocking), they lead to incredibly fun mindgames.

matttb 5y ago
High/low crush is different than high/low options. He's talking about things like Street Fighter's Rose s.HK going over attacks that hit low or sliding attacks that duck under attacks that hit high. Also people cannot SRK/DP on reaction to all attacks or the game would be completely broken so saying '2nd to attack wins' is a bit odd since it's only in the situation where both players use an invincible move.
LegitShady 5y ago
I would argue that it's a bit different in RTS games because there are different unit types you can bring into a single battle. In StarCraft 2 if your opponent builds one unit there's another unit that hard counters it but you rarely bring just one kind of unit into battle last the very early game. Early zerglings are countered by marines are countered by hellions are countered by roaches are countered by marauders are countered by flying mutalisks are countered by marines again...etc etc. If you bring marines and marauders and some hellons with healing medivacs it becomes about numbers and engagement positions. Sometimes you have no chance of winning but you have a chance of getting an economical trade that will put you in a better position in the future - without the trade the next fight your opponent might have too many units for you to win. I guess it depends on what game you're playing but in RTS there's the fight you're in, the economy, production,upgrades, as well as the overall balance of the current game that all can change the way the game is going.
- dragontamer 5y ago
  StarCraft 2 doesn't seem to have hard counters aside from Immortals from earlier builds. (Zerglings beat Immortals. Immortals beat Roaches), back when the 10 dmg cap vs shields was a thing. You have to play red alert to really know what the author is talking about. 50 riflemen probably loses to one flametank in command and conquer. Even the Immortal doesn't stand up to such odds and/or resource advantage. The flame tank isn't a capital ship either (not a battlecruiser or a mammoth tank in C&C world), it's just an anti-infantry tank that is highly effective at it's role. That is, I'm pretty sure 50 Roaches beat one Immortal. And that's the closest thing to a hard counter I've seen from the StarCraft world.