HugS (not a landlord)

I’ve shared this before, but every time it shows up it’s worth sharing again. Fighting Games are just like this. This is overloading the Mental Stack. Obviously your actions are limited in Fighting Games, so you have to feint by creative means. Crouching for half a second, changing directions of walking for half a second, whiffing LPs, etc. You’d be surprised at the very subtle things people react to in milliseconds. One of my favorite examples is something Mike Ross used to do in SFIV with Honda. Instead of just doing a raw Headbutt at opponents to attack, he would take advantage of the Special Move button window and make Honda walk forward for just the tiniest fraction of a second before Headbutting. People relax when they see Honda walk forward. They assume he’s lost his charge, so they’re baited into walking or approaching or lowering their defense. So the Headbutt would come out and catch people by surprise. But all it took was that tiny millisecond of walking forward, and it was enough of a feint to get people to subconsciously react to. Another example: if you want to walk up and Throw someone in the middle of Neutral because you got them scared to press buttons, even the slightest crouch for half a second in the middle of walking forward can cause the opponent to be convinced you’re going to attack instead of Throw (esp. in SF6 where crMK DRC is such a threat), making them less likely to Tech the Throw. So like GSP talks about here, feinting is very important. Making your opponent overly stimulated by subtle cues can make them less likely to react to your actual angle of attack.