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Strategy The Importance of Walking Forward (Neutral Game Discussion)

The Importance of Walking Forward

Take this scenario: You’re by yourself on the street waiting for someone, while checking the TYM forums on your phone. You then look down to your left and see a person staring right at you, about 20 feet away. He steadily walks toward you, with a faster pace. Now at this point he’s a good 2 feet away from you and yells “hey man, long time no see!” Surprised, you have no idea who this person is. You then realize he is referring to the friend behind you, who has just returned.




Terrible scenario, I know. however, what made the following scenario so tense? As humans, our natural reaction when someone (or something) directly approaches us is fear. This fear usually depends on how close the person approaches your personal space, and the time it takes to do so.




So what does this have to do with fighting games?

When playing fighting game, this same reaction generally occurs (sort of…). If you face an opponent, and he keeps walking towards you, at some point you’re going to have the urge to react. Also, depending on how long a player walks forward can pressure a reaction. A top player will not let you walk in free.

Or will they? (I’ll get to that)


(NOTE: Gif is sped up a little due to "gifyoutube")

This is where the basic fundamentals of footsies comes into play: “The importance of walking forward.” It may come off as a simple concept, but there are a good number of people who have no idea how this works, or struggle to do this (I still do as well). To some, it’s an easy concept but hard to explain;to others it may take a while to practice. It also varies from game to game since each game has it's own unique movement.

What exactly is occurring during the neutral game? (Theory)
When in the neutral game, both players are battling for space and trying to get into the position that adheres to their character’s strengths (or player’s strengths) the most. When you breach a player’s comfort zone, a player will react to prevent any disadvantage when in neutral. Walking forward puts pressure on an opponent and takes them out of their comfort zone.

Universally, the three most natural reactions occur if you were to continually walk towards your opponent are as follows:

1) Throw out a normal (the most common)


2) Throw out a projectile/special (second most common)


3) Jump forward/Neutral Jump (least attempted)


Of course there are others (teleports, jump back etc.), but these are the most common in the majority of matches you would face. By knowing these natural reactions, and depending on the match up, you then use your character to counter such reactions or bait situations.

Example: You walk forward. Your opponent attacks. You walk back just when your opponent attacks and whiff punish.


Example:
You walk forward. Opponent shoots a fireball. You jump over the fireball and punish.

Example: You opponent is playing defensive. You walk forward. The moment you anticipate an attack you counter with a fireball. (Commonly done by Daigo)

Why does this work?
As said before, the longer you walk forward, and closer you approach your opponent, the more likely your opponent is to hit a button. In addition, a huge part of playing footsies is baiting your opponent. Walking forward is the easiest way to do this, since you are no longer blocking and pressuring your opponent to make a move.

Walking forward in any fighting game does takes a lot of practice depending on the game and the matchup, due to the fear of taking damage. Don't fret if it takes a while to get used to. It's not something you can perfect, and always something you can improve on by experience.

If you never have tried this before, give it a shot against an offline (preferably offline) opponent. Walk forward and see how much you can advance before they press something when in neutral. It takes practice, but learning how to inch your way forward, or taking a bold walk forward can pay off in huge dividends if used correctly.



When does this work best?
Walking forward works well against defensive/turtle play styles. A defensive/turtle playstyle involves walking back and staying just outside jump range for an easier anti-air or preemptive punish on a dash in. Walking forward is usually done to pressure the defensive opponent to react, then punishing the reaction.

A player doesn’t have to play a turtle style as well. Through classical conditioning, you can condition your opponent to play more defensive as well. This usually occurs if you land consecutive combos, fireballs, counterpokes, and/or whiff punishes. Players also tend to play defensively in high pressure situations (end of a match/money match/eve grand finals) which is where effective use of walking forward shines.

You would generally want to walk forward and close space if you know your opponent is respecting you too much/giving you too much space to work with.

What if my opponent keeps walking back?
Hypothetically speaking, if your opponent keeps walking back, and you keep walking forward they will eventually walk themselves in the corner, thus limiting their movement and options. Usually, the more an opponent tries to create a certain amount of space between a character, the further they are pushed back into the corner. If you have your opponent in the corner, you want to keep them there as long as possible (try not to put yourself in the corner though).

Are there other uses of walking forward?
Another important part of walking forward is getting more mileage on your attacks. Throwing out an attack is nice, but to make sure it lands, you want to take a brief step forward to increase the distance even further. At times, when it comes to punishes, if a normal is too short to reach, you may be able to walk forward and input it the punish instead.

Walk up...throw?
As you saw in the previous gif Daigo walked a full marathon across the screen and threw his opponent. How did that work, and why did the Ibuki player not do anything to prevent this?

This is where conditioning comes in. If you can condition your opponent to play defensive and respect your space, the more room you will have to walk and move around in neutral.

One tactic Daigo tends to do is to shoot point black fireballs at an opponent. He does this by sometimes taking a brief walk forward (to bait a reaction) then fires. At some point the opponent may feel tempted to jump, and this is what Daigo wants. He shoots enough fireballs in neutral to condition the opponent to try to punish it.

If the opponent jumps, Daigo usually spaces himself at a position to be able to DP the jump in or anti-air using normals.
So now the opponent is being hit by fireballs and consistently anti-aired consecutively, conditioning them to respect Daigo's space.

This is when walk up grab comes into play. If the opponent is conditioned to look for a fireball, this delays their reaction to other aspects (In this case, walk up grab). Daigo will at times jostle in neutral, realize the opponent is respecting him too much and walk up throw. Most opponents would have enough time to react to this in normal circumstances, but because they are so focused on the fireball, their reactions are delayed, resulting in the grab.

The same phenomena can occur with counter-hit normals as well, not just throws.

Should I know this?
Knowing the importance of walking forward is good to know to pressure an opponent, or walk them to the corner. Depending on the matchup and the character, it may vary how important this concept is. However, your knowledge and patience of walking forward can be the difference between making top 8 or winning a major.

How can I could I add to this to my game?
Honestly, it's up to you. When it comes to neutral game concepts, you have to get creative when it comes to getting your opponent to press a button. I think this gif of rational jim vs. pimpimjim sums up some of that creativity quite well:



These are my thoughts on the subject, what about yours? Also, excuse the typos, I was half asleep while typing this. I'll be sure to edit this a bit more tomorrow.
 
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Footsies Based Gifs:

Rational Jim with the Walk up Throw

Rational Jim walking PPJ in to the corner

BioHazard walking KDZ into the corner

Perfect Legend walk forward to bait the DP on Sonic Fox

DJT with the walk forward lift

DJT with a sick walk forward bait
 
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M.D.

Spammer. Crouch walk hater.
Nice sum-up about that.

However whenever I tried it 90% of the people used option 3 (jumpin) and when I tried to anti-air with standing 1 or uppercut, i'd still get hit and 60% comboed.

But that's just me sucking at the game, so it's probably ok.
 
The possibilities and importance of this differs per game. In general the easier it is to react and block moves(or whether they are blockable on reaction at all), the more powerful walking forward is.

I feel like a lot of people do this wrong because they just do it because they see better players do it but they don't know why. Imo it's all about conditioning the opponent.
 

zaf

professor
I actually do not think this is a common sense thing or common knowledge. I mean while playing a fighter and you approach your opponent, regardless of how you make them react to something I feel that a lot of people are not truly understanding what exactly just happened. Why their opponent did "X" because of what they did and how to continuously condition.
There are a lot of aspects of fighting games that a lot of people have a hard time to visualize or conceptualize.
There are a lot of basics of even MK9 that some people I have spoken to lately only discovered as of late or by the time the game's life died down a bit.

I think guides like this can definitely help people on this site, especially for the players who have only started to play competitively with MK9 or IGAU.
I can see similar guides and even counter-poke guides really helping the site.

Also, with your first analogy of the person walking by you in the street. I think this is one of the best ways to explain why people hold block. It is just straight up fear. A lot of players give their opponent waaaaay to much respect, especially when there is no reason to be giving it in the first place.
 

BRUTALITY

Banned
Or you were online. In which case, it's not your fault.
sure it is, blame online all you like but one can consitantly anti air with a slight adjustment. i frequently switch between the two. its just familiarity. its far from the ideal format but it only takes a little effort. of course i am discounting real in game lag spikes with shitty players.
 

Eddy Wang

Skarlet scientist
I'm really good at playing Neutral Game, problem is, the characters i pick not always have the best defensive options.

Anyway, looking forward to MKX, as it looks like the game has a lot of basic mechanics that can be taken into the most technical aspect of the game, as far as it looks, MKX is currently very rewarding to fundamentalists and patient players, exactly the way i like.
 

THTB

Arez | Booya | Riu48 - Rest Easy, Friends
sure it is, blame online all you like but one can consitantly anti air with a slight adjustment. i frequently switch between the two. its just familiarity. its far from the ideal format but it only takes a little effort. of course i am discounting real in game lag spikes with shitty players.
It's not that easy if you play a character with an 11f jab lol, or live in an area with internet whose ping tops out at around 45ms...or even worse, a combo of both.

My reactions aren't the best, but I'm not geezer status lol. MK9 and Injustice have online that throw anti-airs out the window if your internet isn't some of the best you can find in the states.
 

BRUTALITY

Banned
It's not that easy if you play a character with an 11f jab lol, or live in an area with internet whose ping tops out at around 45ms...or even worse, a combo of both.

My reactions aren't the best, but I'm not geezer status lol. MK9 and Injustice have online that throw anti-airs out the window if your internet isn't some of the best you can find in the states.
bro youre talking to an australian. i know about the internet struggle. i still think its not so bad. is it a serious competitive environment? hell no. but the adjustment can be made.
 

RyuKazuya

Jesus is my Lord and Savior!
amaying post bro.
This also explains a lot of tekken pressure options like the Wavedash.
you can wavedash at your opponent and he wont do shit ^^ .
man mishima strategy.
 

RunwayMafia

Shoot them. Shoot them all.
Yes! I love threads that discuss footsies tactics that no one ever talks about.

I find most people either neutral jumping or jumping back when I walk toward them. For example, in Ultra, I will constantly throw out standing light punches with Poison and the opponent always thinks its a fireball coming out and voila, anti air central.

I've seen glasssword do this with Raven and punish dash ins.