Some strange stuff regarding MK9's buffer system

[Enkindu]

I'm sure you've all been in the middle of a kombo and went to input your special move, but got a completely different buttons move to come out. So I was messing around with buffering, and I discovered this. Try this for yourself to understand exactly what I'm saying.

With Ermac, his Lift slam is D B 1, and his fireball is D B 2.

If you start a combo with 1 2 but hold down 2 after you've pressed it, then input D B, you will get Ermacs Lift in the kombo.

If you start a kombo with 1 but hold down 1 after you've pressed it, 2, then input D B, you will get Ermacs fireball in the kombo.

You never need to release the button you're holding to get the opposite button's special move to come out. Pretty interesting since you're holding a button down that isn't the right button for the move you want, and you also aren't required to press that button for the special move either. Essentially, you're pressing two buttons but getting 3 different attacks.

There has to be more to this. I haven't experimented much, but I really thought this was an interesting twist to negative edge.

You can basically make your combos execute flawlessly if you encorporate this into your kombos.

 

[DrDogg]

I'm having more problems with the strict timing on some of the combos (mainly when it comes to dash cancels)... not so much linking the special moves. However, I do think this could help in a few combos I was having difficulty with. Nice find.

 

[PsychoShot]

I was kind of having the same trouble with one of Noob's combos. One of his bread-n-butters is Back+FP, BP, FP, BK xx Shadow Slide, and sometimes, the Shadow Slide doesn't come out. I know it's probably because I'm not inputing or buffering it correctly, but it may be because I'm buffing it at the wrong time.

 

[PANDA]

yes, i agree the buffering system is weird.
Can be confusing and frustrating at time if you're trying to get a combo down and the buffering system keeps messing with your timing.

 

[NuSix3]

I'm sure you've all been in the middle of a kombo and went to input your special move, but got a completely different buttons move to come out. So I was messing around with buffering, and I discovered this. Try this for yourself to understand exactly what I'm saying.

With Ermac, his Lift slam is D B 1, and his fireball is D B 2.

If you start a combo with 1 2 but hold down 2 after you've pressed it, then input D B, you will get Ermacs Lift in the kombo.

If you start a kombo with 1 but hold down 1 after you've pressed it, 2, then input D B, you will get Ermacs fireball in the kombo.

You never need to release the button you're holding to get the opposite button's special move to come out. Pretty interesting since you're holding a button down that isn't the right button for the move you want, and you also aren't required to press that button for the special move either. Essentially, you're pressing two buttons but getting 3 different attacks.

There has to be more to this. I haven't experimented much, but I really thought this was an interesting twist to negative edge.

You can basically make your combos execute flawlessly if you encorporate this into your kombos.

Okay, I think I understand what is happening here. You don't need to hold down any buttons.

Apparently in order to execute a special attack after a combo all you have to do is buffer the directions into your combo AT THE SAME TIME you press the button needed to execute the special you want to set off. This guarantees that whatever normal attack your button is bound to will come out before the special.

For example, try doing Ermac's 1 punch followed by force lift by only hitting the 1 button once. The notation would look like: 1~d,b. I found the timing pretty easy to pull off. As a result, Ermac will hit with his normal 1 attack and follow up with Force Lift without ever needing to hit the 1 button a second time to execute the special. The same can be done for his projectile attack using the 2 button.

Try doing Ermac's 1,2 combo followed by the d,b command (1,2~d,b) and Ermac will do the 1,2 punch immediately followed by Air Blast.

I did the same thing with Raiden earlier by inputting 1,2,1,2~d,f which added his Static Shock attack after all four hits from the normal combo.

I tried again with Mileena and had difficulty doing the same thing with 1,1,2~sai, 1,1,2~neck bite and 2,3,4~roll; but it can be done if the timing is perfect. I was easily able to do the single button commands though, for example, 1~sai (b,f+1) could be done by hitting 1~b,f and 2~neck bite (b,f+2) could be done by inputting 2~b,f.

I think this might be a bug rather than a convenience measure.

 

[rikana]

To be honest. I'm not a big fan of the buffering system. I'm getting a hold of it, but I never liked buffering timings. I rather get my inputs pretty much dead on but I know that's not going to happen at all anymore. That's going to mess with everyone.

 

[WolF]

So i'm aint crazy ..

I noticed something really weird .. dunno if this is intended or not but it's freaking annoying and usefull when you know this..

Basically you can do a special move by pressing A B Y X before the half circle forward or backward or whatever... AS LONG it touch the opponent and it will do the special move..

Let's try to explain this:

With Night Wolf you do X THEN half-circle forward. It will automaticly do the HATCHET special move. (Make sure to hit the opponent with the first hit X )

OR

You can do half-circle forward then X and it will do the HATCHET special move.

Another example: X,Y,Y,X, half-circle forward = Combo then hatchet move automaticly ...

Then you can try X,Y,Y, half-circle forward X = Combo then hatchet move ....

You CAN'T use this with enchanced move .. meaning X+RT won't work .. only half-circle forward X+RT will ...

This is somehow usefull but can screw up you're combo as well .. Let's say you do X,Y,Y,X,HCF (HATCHET), X, HCF X+RT (Enchanced Hatchet), X,Y,HCF+Y+RT (Enchanced Grab)

Well in the middle of this combo when you try to use the Enchanced Special move for the second hatchet sometime it register as a normal hatchet since you can press X before the half-circle .. so it skip the RT press .... same with the second enchanced.. sometime it end up doing the reflection special ..

It's already a pain in the ass with the 360 d-pad .. now this ..

It must be a bug .. or it's the weirdest system ever..

 

[Rabid Justice]

This was also in the demo with Mileena’s air sai. Hit back +fp, forward and the sai would come out after the punch. It did the same in mkvsdc.

 

[THTB]

It's not buffering. It's negative edge.

Negative edge is when you release a button during the directional inputs to get a special. The issue with MK9 is that the negative edge window is set way too high. It's way too easy to get an unintended special.

On the other hand, the extreme negative edge has its uses. JK-teleport combos are much, much easier when negative edge is utilized, and some cancels become a little easier.

 

[NuSix3]

It's not buffering. It's negative edge.

Negative edge is when you release a button during the directional inputs to get a special. The issue with MK9 is that the negative edge window is set way too high. It's way too easy to get an unintended special.

On the other hand, the extreme negative edge has its uses. JK-teleport combos are much, much easier when negative edge is utilized, and some cancels become a little easier.

Yeah, it's a bit mash friendly in my opinion. Got me by Shao Khan with Raiden though....

 

[BATFIM]

yup, i noticed the buggy buffering too.

 

[rikana]

I doubt NR will do anything about the window frames of buffering and negative edge. I really wish they would make it tighter though. Being able to do technical stuff should reward a player but now these technical inputs are accessed by a wide audience through big-framed buffer systems. I thought instant fireballs would take me long to master but the moment I picked up my controller, I already performed it as if it was nothing.

 

[Eshi]

Inputting a special after an attack string only to get the wrong one from the screwed up negative edge system is easily my least favorite thing about this game.

 

[stickystaines]

The thing is that it is supposed to make things easier, but all it helps with is to get wrong moves out. I don't get why it is hard to cancel a move into a special as soon as the attack hits, but the negative edge buffer is stupidly long - it's worse than SF4. They really need to do something about this imo.

 

[OmegaDL50]

Yeah I was throwing Smoke's projectile by accident trying to do a two in one teleport punch. with his 3, d1,2 combo chain.

 

[Fenixy]

with quan chi you can do b3,1+2 ,trance(bf3) like this -> b3,1+2,3,bf works also.
i don't think its very bad mechanic, its just need time to adapt to it, its very easy to 2,1,3,bf with smoke for mixup, rather then 2,1,bf3.
But when doing combos with dashes , and character doing all other things, it's kinda pissing off

 

[Aaron Brooks]

It would seem that the negative edge and input buffering are both extremely loose. The buffering I think is fine, but the negative edge is a pain. I've already started holding buttons down in strings/combos so that I don't get accidental negative edge moves. I imagine this technique would be pretty difficult for pad players.

Seems like something they could patch pretty easily?

 

[Gamin_Guru]

This was frustrating me yesterday playing as Ermac intending on Lift only for the dumb projectile to come out. Thanks for clearing it up.

 

[THTB]

It can be frustrating but once you get used to it, it's not much of a problem. I actually barely accidentally do it now.

 

[MKF30]

Okay, I think I understand what is happening here. You don't need to hold down any buttons.

Apparently in order to execute a special attack after a combo all you have to do is buffer the directions into your combo AT THE SAME TIME you press the button needed to execute the special you want to set off. This guarantees that whatever normal attack your button is bound to will come out before the special.

For example, try doing Ermac's 1 punch followed by force lift by only hitting the 1 button once. The notation would look like: 1~d,b. I found the timing pretty easy to pull off. As a result, Ermac will hit with his normal 1 attack and follow up with Force Lift without ever needing to hit the 1 button a second time to execute the special. The same can be done for his projectile attack using the 2 button.

Try doing Ermac's 1,2 combo followed by the d,b command (1,2~d,b) and Ermac will do the 1,2 punch immediately followed by Air Blast.

I did the same thing with Raiden earlier by inputting 1,2,1,2~d,f which added his Static Shock attack after all four hits from the normal combo.

I tried again with Mileena and had difficulty doing the same thing with 1,1,2~sai, 1,1,2~neck bite and 2,3,4~roll; but it can be done if the timing is perfect. I was easily able to do the single button commands though, for example, 1~sai (b,f+1) could be done by hitting 1~b,f and 2~neck bite (b,f+2) could be done by inputting 2~b,f.

I think this might be a bug rather than a convenience measure.

Was actually going to say something similar to this....

Practicing Ermac combos past few days, same issue was happening to me and I've noticed more success of not so much holding BP before the buffer into TKS motion, but rather hitting the BP lighter and doing the direction almost ahead of time for the TKS and it seems to work a lot more, now I've noticed if I kind of mash the combo the fireball comes out more often then not...

I wouldn't mind them fixing the buffering system in the future or tweaking it but it's not necessary. Just something people have to get used to.

 

[mhtdtr]

with sindel you can launch j.k and do an air fireball with all the buttons, fp, bp, fk and bk when it supposed to be only with fp and fk

 

[DamianWayne]

I registered [just] to talk about this, thinking that I had found an input glitch. Doofing around with Jax in training, I realized that you can combo strings like 1,2~QCF for automatic links into specials.

You experts here were pointing out that you can use it like a traditional negative edge with holding buttons down and such, but I found it really interesting that so long as the last button pressed is the same button used for the special, you can go right into the special far after releasing the button. NuSix noted this better than I could have, I see.

Are there possibly some intentional uses for this, such as easier frame links? For example, Sub-Zero can 3~QCF for an auto freeze any time he lands that kick.

Still, kind of annoying in the flow of longer combos. Reminiscent of SF4's horrible "shortcuts," a bit.

 

[vaillant085]

this negative edge/buffering system is useless. the input in this game isint hard, you dont need shotcuts. get rid of it PERIOD. IM tired of having the wrong special move come out in my combos.

 

[Porkchopexpress]

How many inputs can be buffered at the same time ?

 

[grandabx]

why should anyone take this game seriously if they are not taking care of sloppy game mechanics? "getting used to it" is a lame excuse. If this issue isn't fixed by the time of evo, they'll only have themselves to blame for the inevitable videos shown where someone lost a big match because of the stupid negative edge windows. take that mess COMPLETELY out! it's not needed.