Explanation of Option Selects in MKX by UltraDavid

[juicepouch]

Goro OS please

 

[Gesture Required Ahead]

I kinda just like the fact that UltraDavid looks like he's into MKX.

 

[qspec]

I don't play Goro, and so I don't know what is all that useful, but he does have a tick throw like in the video.

D3 > DBF3

D3 on hit, and you'll get the throw on block. You have to wait a few frames before inputting the DBF3 so you miss the "on-hit" window (just like in the video). Timing may be a little bit tight (I got it successfully 1 out of 7, but I only tried those 7 times in a chain with zero practice... so probably doable).

Other than that, does he really need OS? His frame data says that everything he does almost is 0 on block!

 

[villainous monk]

This is gold. I was experimenting with Kano this morning and stumbled upon the same thing. Totally forgetting about OS's. I tried jnp 1,b2,b3 db1. In theory it should come out as jump in 1 back 2 back 3 then the input of eye laser followed by his b2,b1,2+4 meter burn. But my eye laser always canceled out. I came up with a similar input of db1-2 and out popped the eye laser.

I qouted your whole post becsue its that important and to the OP... Thank you. This MK is the most technical MK game ever. Love it!!

That string is a bit problematic and honestly shouldn't work to OS into laser on hit. But it does .

First I'll explain why it shouldn't work and maybe clarify a bit what ultradavid said.

The idea behind the special on hit or continue string on block is that the special needs to "use" the button (in this case 1, in davids example 3) which continues the string: b2, 3, 1+3 in ultradavids example.
Well, you might say: Hey, db1 uses 1 which is in 1+3, so it should work.
Yeah that's true, but the problem is if you input b2, 3, db1+3 you get the up eye beam instead of the regular one, cause the button priority messes with you (seems like in this string db3 has priority over db1)
It's still possible.
You basically need to "piano" 1,3.

As of now your input should be this:
b2, 3, db1~3 whereas I use ~ to indicate that the buttons need to be pressed in rapid succession.

This will sadly only leave you with the eye beam on both block and hit.
Now you add the "cancel input", telling MKX to forget prior buffered directional inputs, a down input is enough but more is also ok.
b2, 3, [db]1~3, [d]
with the brackets I am trying to visualize what's happening, basically the later bracket input makes MKX forget about the input in the first one.

The trick is to 1~3 fast enough so the game recognizes it as 1+3 on block, and to time the down input at the end so that it hits the extended block cancel window but not the hit cancel window.



I kinda wrote a big entry, not solely to answer the question, but to maybe clarify stuff for ppl who needed it. So if you don't need all this info read the TLDR and be happy
If something's wrong tell me and I'll correct it.


TLDR:
b2, 3, db1~3 (in quick succession) , d


Video cause why not

On the side: I bet some peoples input problems are related to MKX forgetting buffered directional inputs if other directions follow. I noticed that myself when trying to cancel into moves like Kotals sun ray close or far range.

 

[Asodimazze]

I really really really hope this gets patched soon. Option selects might ruin the game, making unsafe choices safe is not exactly a good thing. Risks are an important part of the game...NRS please do something.

 

[SPY]

I really really really hope this gets patched soon. Option selects might ruin the game, making unsafe choices safe is not exactly a good thing. Risks are an important part of the game...NRS please do something.

I'm sorry, but it sounds more like: "I don't understand and don't want to understand how this works, but probably, better players now will have more advantage over me.... So, NRS - remove this feature entirely, so I will feel comfortable until something similar will be found or another cheap character wins a major."

 

[Asodimazze]

I'm sorry, but it sounds more like: "I don't understand and don't want to understand how this works, but probably, better players now will have more advantage over me.... So, NRS - remove this feature entirely, so I will feel comfortable until something similar will be found or another cheap character wins a major."

? Congratulations for the dumb post, but I'm perfectly capable of doing any option select, and I know how it works.

Contrarily of what you wrote, there is almost zero skill in doing this...push a few more buttons than usual, exploit them the most and you are doing ok.

I prefer a game where the most important aspect is thinking, outsmarting the opponent and take the right risks at the right time.
There is no point in giving the characters safe and unsafe moves if you can use this exploit and turn every mistake in something safe or better...this is not how the game was meant to be played and it should get fixed asap.

 

[SPY]

? Congratulations for the dumb post, but I'm perfectly capable of doing any option select, and I know how it works.

Contrarily of what you wrote, there is almost zero skill in doing this...push a few more buttons than usual, exploit them the most and you are doing ok.

I prefer a game where the most important aspect is thinking, outsmarting the opponent and take the right risks at the right time.
There is no point in giving the characters safe and unsafe moves if you can use this exploit and turn every mistake in something safe or better...this is not how the game was meant to be played and it should get fixed asap.

OS were in multiple games and don't distract from gameplay or reduce skill requirements. No one, besides devs, knows how game should played. Asking for fix for new tech without educated and scientific analysis you are no more than other some knee jerk buff\nerf demander.

 

[TAS_DASH]

I just hope they didn't do this on purpose. It seems way too convenient that option-selects pop up now that every 2d fighter has them. Option-selects are exploits of programming. In street fighter the reason that option selects happen is because of the rapid fire attacks.

Ryu's classic block string d lk, d lp, d lk well on block it rapid fires, but there is also a system in street fighter that says a stronger button takes priority, so people input d lk, d lp, d lk + d hk. If the block the string the auto block string comes out because it follows the games auto block string mechanic. If they back dash the auto block string then the d hk comes because now the auto block string is broken and the harder (d hk) takes priority and in Street fighter sweeps beat back dashes.

Capcom is not doing this on purpose. They existed in third strike, but red parries countered them, so they weren't used. This is also why in SF X T the auto combo existed. If you went for an option select and the blocked it expect to lose half life or more, even in Vanilla. Capcom is obviously not liking them or else they would not have gone through the trouble of addressing them in SF X T, because obviously they mitigate skill. As technical as Street fighter is, this and unblockables set ups in 4 are stains in its reputation.

This is one of the reasons i respect Chris G. Unless his mindset has changed, he refuses to use option selects and plinking yet is still very successful. I just hope they patch this out. This is already a dial up combo 2d fighter so now we letting the program choose the right option on top. Maybe I'm too old school, but this is completely unnecessary and does more harm than good, imo. I say patch them out if possible. Let's let skill decide who wins, not derp.

PS I don't mean this in a disrespectful way to anyone's skill or integrity. If you considering entering tournaments I highly recommend using these or you will be at an extremely unfair disadvantage because as you see... people are going to be using them.

 

[qspec]

I'm sorry, but it sounds more like: "I don't understand and don't want to understand how this works, but probably, better players now will have more advantage over me.... So, NRS - remove this feature entirely, so I will feel comfortable until something similar will be found or another cheap character wins a major."

Don't be that guy...

Just because someone disagrees with a mechanic doesn't mean that they are good, bad, or anywhere in between. There are a lot of valid reasons to dislike OS in fighters, and I am about to argue that there are zero actual reasons to keep them in. For the record, the trend has been to do away with OSs (for many of the reasons I'm about to enumerate). MikeZ is very vocal about them and has done his best to remove them from his game. Xrd is patching out their blitz shield OS. P4AU and BB have only a handful of OS. The only game that is still popular that has OS at its core is SFIV which is an unintentional (I hope) result of their input priority system.

Why OS are dumb:
1) They don't add anything. The skill requirement on most OS is as little as "hit another button". So there is no meaningful skill increase. The differences between me and SonicFox are many... but his and my ability to hit an extra input are identical. There's simply no skill in it, simply an extra knowledge burden.

2) Knowledge burden. You are either doing it correctly (the OS) or incorrectly (normal inputs). So since there is a clear right and a wrong way to do things... why not just normalize one way or the other.

3) Normalization and balance... if a string is crazy unsafe then it was probably designed for high risk/reward gameplay or combo fodder... OS do away with that. Not to mention that it whacks out balance. If D'vorah's F22 can be made to be safe on block... why not alter it's recovery to be safe on block? OSs are an 'under-the-hood' way to effectively change frame data... which is very likely not dev intent.

Is it possible to do entirely away with OS? Maybe not. But the way MKX is looking right now is that virtually every string and special can be OS which is completely unacceptable.

 

[corsis]

I just hope they didn't do this on purpose. It seems way too convenient that option-selects pop up now that every 2d fighter has them. Option-selects are exploits of programming. In street fighter the reason that option selects happen is because of the rapid fire attacks.

Ryu's classic block string d lk, d lp, d lk well on block it rapid fires, but there is also a system in street fighter that says a stronger button takes priority, so people input d lk, d lp, d lk + d hk. If the block the string the auto block string comes out because it follows the games auto block string mechanic. If they back dash the auto block string then the d hk comes because now the auto block string is broken and the harder (d hk) takes priority and in Street fighter sweeps beat back dashes.

Capcom is not doing this on purpose. They existed in third strike, but red parries countered them, so they weren't used. This is also why in SF X T the auto combo existed. If you went for an option select and the blocked it expect to lose half life or more, even in Vanilla. Capcom is obviously not liking them or else they would not have gone through the trouble of addressing them in SF X T, because obviously they mitigate skill. As technical as Street fighter is, this and unblockables set ups in 4 are stains in its reputation.

This is one of the reasons i respect Chris G. Unless his mindset has changed, he refuses to use option selects and plinking yet is still very successful. I just hope they patch this out. This is already a dial up combo 2d fighter so now we letting the program choose the right option on top. Maybe I'm too old school, but this is completely unnecessary and does more harm than good, imo. I say patch them out if possible. Let's let skill decide who wins, not derp.

option selects were very widely used in 3rd strike (parry buffering and sggk) and some of them are exactly the same as they are in sf4 now (dudley f. mk into super/ultra os and jump os's being an example)

 

[WakeUp DP]

Can anyone give me a "for dummies" explanation of how to perform Subz OS's? Pls..

I just cant seem to get it right.

 

[TAS_DASH]

option selects were very widely used in 3rd strike (parry buffering and sggk) and some of them are exactly the same as they are in sf4 now (dudley f. mk into super/ultra os and jump os's being an example)

I know, but my point is they weren't as bad they are in SF4. I'm not talking about buffering special moves into attack. Where on connect or block it executes on whiff it does not. That's in every fighting game. I talking about the 2 inputs input but the the computer is tricked to choose the right option ones like i described above. This is what MKX has. IMO, If the computer is choosing for you, it requires less skill on the user. You are safe and free from punish because the move you chose to input only comes out if you hit not if they block. IMO, that takes away from the fight., and I hope they patch that YOLO style out. As I said a lot of SF X T was Capcom's attempt to mitigate the effectiveness of option selects. They still exist, but it's not worth the half life or more if they block. This is one of the reasons why a lot of pros respect the fundamentals of SF X T despite its lack of popularity. The community got its panties in a ruffle over the dlc, but pros still respected the return to fundamentals and options to avoid the derp. I reiterate, this is all my opinion.

 

[Scoot Magee]

Inputting a directional input after buffering a move cancels out the buffered move in mk9 and injustice as well. I didn't know of the option select though.

 

[zFROGMAN]

Friends and I have been testing this OS and it seems to me it just promotes mashing :/

 

[TheGlow]

Any way this is related to not being able to spam 2 into a move?
For instance with Ermac, I want 222, b,f+2. With the lag online, I spam the 2's and then stop once I see the 3rd animation start. It seems I can never ever get the b,f+2 to ever connect. If I calmly count out 3 and then wait the 2 weeks for the moves to come out, then it will come out.

 

[Colares]

Any way this is related to not being able to spam 2 into a move?
For instance with Ermac, I want 222, b,f+2. With the lag online, I spam the 2's and then stop once I see the 3rd animation start. It seems I can never ever get the b,f+2 to ever connect. If I calmly count out 3 and then wait the 2 weeks for the moves to come out, then it will come out.

It seems like your case is a mix of lag and not hitting the cancel window, some strings you have to commit even the special follow up.
Go to practice and try doing it.

 

[SGX]

Yeah, I have a bigger issue with newer commands not overriding older commands like other fighters do. An example of this would be say: I have a string that's 222, but I want to do 22, b,f+1. Say I'm trying to punish, so I'm mashing 2 during blockstun. Even if I definitely hit b,f+1 within the cancel window, it'll still give me 222.

 

[Frostbarrier]

Wait ... so my execution is not bad after all? ... I was awesome all along ... I knew there was some science behind all these combo drops

 

[Absinthesize]

im on hte fence on this being a good thing.

mainly because in skilled hands it gets read of the need to read your opponent. you have a fall back...if they block you win/are at neutral if you hit you win.

so where is the skill? besides pressing more buttons of course. ill investigate into learning this probably. on the offchance its intended.

id love it if we coudl get NRS attention on this somehow, just have them tell us if it was intended or not, and if not if they intend to fix it or not. all i want.

 

[Slymind]

The game uses dial up for strings, which means commitment, choosing the best moment to go all out, by being able to cancel your sequence, wouldn't OSs make things too low risk and reduce the importance of precision and being careful?

 

[Chaosphere]

I don't like the idea of option selects but if I have to learn it I have to learn it.

 

[villainous monk]

I still think it's wise to learn it. Gone are the good ole days of 2D fighters and what we knew then. Miss those days truly. Even though today is a wide arrange of things we have to learn and overcome. We don't have to use it but we should understand it. MK has always been a button masher and auto combo game. Nothing wrong with that at all. So today its a bit more technical. Again nothing wrong with that but it is annoying and can easy turn into a exploit IF you choose NOT to learn to understand it and overcome it when it happens to you.

I'm still struggling with Kano's b2,b3,db1. Os or not. It's for me to understand the 5 W's about it and to overcome it and learn. With the knowledge of OS in this game or not.

 

[GrammatonKlerik]

As a programmer I can attest with near certainty that this is a hack/exploit of the games parsing engine; nothing more. It makes no logical sense that devs would put time and effort into tweaking frame data and balancing characters with risk/reward strings just so that an extra directional input will essentially cause the game to make the optimal decision for you. It's an undocumented exploit of the game that raises the barrier to entry for new players which will lead to eventual attrition of the player base -- a very bad thing. This needs to be patched out, plain and simple. Doesn't Ed Boon have a twitter account? If so, perhaps a tweet to this vid would be beneficial to get eyes on it.

 

[xInfra Deadx]

As a programmer I can attest with near certainty that this is a hack/exploit of the games parsing engine; nothing more. It makes no logical sense that devs would put time and effort into tweaking frame data and balancing characters with risk/reward strings just so that an extra directional input will essentially cause the game to make the optimal decision for you. It's an undocumented exploit of the game that raises the barrier to entry for new players which will lead to eventual attrition of the player base -- a very bad thing. This needs to be patched out, plain and simple. Doesn't Ed Boon have a twitter account? If so, perhaps a tweet to this vid would be beneficial to get eyes on it.

It's been confirmed by Paulo that these will be patched out soon.