[0:03] welcome back to actionpedia the show
[0:05] where we look at terminology from the
[0:07] gaming world and explain their meaning
[0:10] history and relevance today in this
[0:12] episode we're once again entering the
[0:14] world of fighting games and looking at
[0:15] one of the most fundamental and most
[0:18] complex concepts in the genre the tense
[0:20] moment where both players approach each
[0:22] other and try to figure out how to land
[0:24] a clean hit footsies but first a quick
[0:28] disclaimer this should serve as a
[0:30] satisfactory introduction to footsies
[0:32] and why it's so important to the
[0:33] fighting game genre if you want to get
[0:35] down and dirty pick apart frame data and
[0:37] build flow charts there are plenty of
[0:39] resources online for that that's not
[0:41] what this is about with that out of the
[0:42] way we hope you enjoy our take on the
[0:45] history of footsies
[0:47] first we're going to have to make sure
[0:48] that we're all on the same page of one
[0:51] of fighting games core concepts the
[0:52] neutral game in fighting games the flow
[0:55] of the match is constantly changing
[0:57] sometimes one player has an advantage
[0:59] over their opponent other times neither
[1:01] player has the upper hand this ambiguous
[1:04] state where neither player has the edge
[1:06] is called the neutral game typically
[1:08] players will be a bit farther apart
[1:10] shooting projectiles fainting
[1:12] engagements and jockeying for position
[1:14] as soon as one player makes a mistake
[1:16] they throw out a laggy move on block
[1:18] they whiff something at a bad range or
[1:20] they mess up their movement then we
[1:22] shift into the punish game punishes are
[1:24] making your opponent pay for any
[1:26] mistakes they make a punish can be
[1:28] anything from a single jab to a full
[1:30] combo
[1:32] the objective of pretty much every
[1:33] fighting game is to catch your opponent
[1:35] slipping and punish them as hard as you
[1:37] can
[1:40] so how does one win the neutral game for
[1:42] that we're going to talk about footsies
[1:45] footsies is a term that originated in
[1:47] arcades in the mid-1990s and was used
[1:50] for games like street fighter fatal fury
[1:52] king of fighters and many others in
[1:55] essence footsies is the mid-range
[1:57] neutral game where players are close
[1:59] enough to threaten their opponent's
[2:00] space with normals like punches and
[2:02] kicks but not too close that attacks are
[2:04] actually hitting it's sort of like a
[2:06] dance where each player is testing the
[2:09] waters until the temperature feels just
[2:11] right and they can comfortably jump in
[2:13] infill defines footsies in his fighting
[2:15] game glossary as quote a complicated
[2:18] often nebulous term that refers to the
[2:21] battle for controlling the space in
[2:22] front of you often by using good pokes
[2:25] in essence you are trying to get to a
[2:27] range you like while trying to deny your
[2:29] opponent getting to a range that they
[2:31] like how you do this varies wildly based
[2:33] on the game but it often involves using
[2:35] strong crouching kick attacks to pester
[2:38] your opponent as they are trying to walk
[2:40] around this dance of playing mind games
[2:42] with your feet is the source of the
[2:44] term's name
[2:53] so yeah full disclosure footsies is not
[2:57] an easy thing to nail down but there are
[2:59] certain aspects that we can isolate to
[3:01] make it easier to understand this
[3:03] definition we found on quora sums up
[3:06] footsies pretty nicely footsies is used
[3:08] one to predict where the opponent's hurt
[3:10] boxes are going to be at a given time
[3:13] and control that area with your hitboxes
[3:15] two footsies is used to make your
[3:17] location difficult to predict so the
[3:19] opponent will not be able to do number
[3:21] one to you theoretically that all sounds
[3:24] pretty easy so let's put these concepts
[3:26] into context by looking at street
[3:28] fighter 2 turbo
[3:29] in street fighter 2 turbo low kicks were
[3:32] essential to keeping your opponent
[3:33] honest in their decision making want to
[3:35] walk forward if you're not ready to
[3:37] block you'll eat a kick to the shins
[3:39] want to throw out a move if your hurt
[3:41] box extends too far forward you'll eat a
[3:43] kick to the shins want to shoot a
[3:44] projectile my kick has a faster startup
[3:47] and it's pointed right at your dumb
[3:49] little shins
[3:51] [Music]
[3:52] by being able to throw out a low kick
[3:54] into the space in front of you your
[3:56] opponent has to respect and move around
[3:58] that space to do this you need to know
[4:01] what options are available to you and
[4:04] what options are available to your
[4:05] opponent let's say we've got a match
[4:07] between two ken players since both
[4:09] players are playing the same character
[4:11] it's easy to know what you can and can't
[4:13] do your low kick has the same range as
[4:16] their low kit your hadouken has the same
[4:18] frame data as their hadoken so playing
[4:20] footsies in this kind of setting is
[4:22] simple you know that if they jump at an
[4:24] unsafe angle you can punish with an
[4:26] anti-air or shoryuk but where ftse
[4:28] starts to become more complex is when
[4:30] two players are playing different
[4:32] characters if you are playing ken and
[4:34] your opponent is playing del sim
[4:36] suddenly you have to account for the
[4:38] long range of his stretchy limbs on the
[4:40] flip side if they're playing zangief you
[4:43] can no longer just block when your
[4:45] opponent approaches because you might
[4:46] get grabbed and eat some serious damage
[4:49] suddenly every matchup requires a new
[4:51] set of knowledge and a new game plan of
[4:54] how to play footsies but footsies is
[4:56] more than just knowing options and
[4:58] responding like a robot although there
[5:00] are certain interactions which can be
[5:01] quote unquote played perfectly on paper
[5:04] any fighting game player worth their
[5:06] salt will tell you that there are a lot
[5:08] of situations where you're just not 100
[5:10] sure of what's coming next which brings
[5:13] us to our final core concept the mix-up
[5:16] mix-ups epitomize the mental side of
[5:18] fighting games this is where you take
[5:20] all of your knowledge of the game and
[5:21] combine it with your knowledge of the
[5:23] person next to you it's deception it's
[5:25] confusion it's sun tzu's art of war well
[5:29] not really but it is the art of
[5:31] conditioning a person to expect one
[5:33] thing and catching them off guard by
[5:34] doing something else in the context of
[5:36] footsies mix-ups are how you expose
[5:39] openings are you noticing that every
[5:40] time you throw out a low kick your
[5:42] opponent neutral jumps maybe this time
[5:44] you can approach make it look like
[5:45] you're going to low kick and dp to catch
[5:47] them in the air got a knock down
[5:49] condition them to block by throwing out
[5:51] jabs as they get up and then mix them up
[5:53] by grabbing instead anything to keep
[5:55] your opponent guessing mix-ups are
[5:57] essential to conditioning your opponent
[5:59] to think one thing and then exposing
[6:01] them by doing something else can't
[6:03] really spam the specials anymore but
[6:04] he's got extra range bruh
[6:08] the pressure oh my god yo the pressure
[6:12] the depth of learning and understanding
[6:14] match-ups in fighting games is why
[6:16] they've survived for so long and as
[6:18] players began to master older simpler
[6:21] fighting games developers wanted to make
[6:23] it harder for them to solve their games
[6:25] towards the end of the 1990s and into
[6:27] the early 2000s some fighting games
[6:30] began pushing players to be more
[6:31] aggressive in an effort to speed up
[6:33] gameplay and make things more exciting
[6:36] one game that is a perfect example of
[6:38] this is guilty gear one of the goals of
[6:41] its creator daisuke ishiwatari was to
[6:44] create a more aggressive action-packed
[6:46] game in guilty gear x the tension gauge
[6:49] was introduced which rewarded players
[6:51] for choosing aggressive options like
[6:54] throwing out attacks and walking forward
[6:56] over defensive options like back dashing
[6:58] and blocking the incentive to be more
[7:00] aggressive fundamentally change the risk
[7:02] reward of playing footsies as now you
[7:04] could go in hard eat a couple of hits
[7:07] and be rewarded with meter to make your
[7:09] next combo hit harder the primary
[7:11] objective was no longer to avoid getting
[7:13] hit at all costs on top of this for
[7:16] players and spectators alike
[7:17] rushdown-centric gameplay can be much
[7:20] more exciting than watching two shoto's
[7:22] low-kicking at each other for an entire
[7:24] round while not really a mainstream game
[7:26] at the time guilty gear is an example of
[7:29] games moving away from slow meticulous
[7:31] gameplay in favor of offense and
[7:34] aggression and this idea of overwhelming
[7:37] opponents with brute force is best
[7:39] illustrated by our next title
[7:42] marvel vs capcom 2
[7:45] new age of heroes
[7:50] marvel vs capcom 2 is a game which plays
[7:53] very differently than most traditional
[7:55] fighting games there are a number of
[7:57] reasons for this but one of the most
[7:58] notable is the introduction of
[8:00] directional air dashes in most
[8:02] traditional fighting games jumping is a
[8:04] big commitment if you jump in place you
[8:06] will land in the same place you started
[8:08] if you jump forward you can't alter your
[8:11] trajectory
[8:12] so if you get red you'll be eating an
[8:14] anti-air for breakfast while marvel vs
[8:16] capcom 2 wasn't the first game to have
[8:18] air dashes in it games like dark
[8:20] stalkers had it back in 1994 mvc 2
[8:23] popularized it like no other now jumping
[8:26] wasn't necessarily a dangerous
[8:27] commitment but rather a fundamental part
[8:30] of how some characters worked take storm
[8:32] for example storm is an eight-way air
[8:34] dasher this means that after a jump she
[8:37] can air dash in any of the eight
[8:39] directions you can hold the joystick so
[8:40] rather than a jump being a 100
[8:42] commitment storm can jump and then throw
[8:45] in a mix-up will she do a regular
[8:46] jumping attack jump into a backwards air
[8:48] dash to stay safe a triangle jump to try
[8:51] and cast you off guard with an overhead
[8:53] air dashes open up a lot of
[8:54] possibilities and complicated the game
[8:56] of footsies like no other now an
[8:59] opponent who is in the air has several
[9:01] options and mix-ups to choose from and
[9:03] simply throwing out ashore you when you
[9:04] see them jump won't cut it anymore there
[9:07] are those who lamented its fast pace and
[9:10] offense first gameplay jokes about
[9:12] quote-unquote marvel footsies being
[9:14] mashing jab until something lands or
[9:16] marvel players getting washed in any
[9:18] other fighting games aside mvc 2 is an
[9:20] example of a game which fundamentally
[9:22] changed the way that footsies is played
[9:25] [Music]
[9:30] today oh my god
[9:34] oh my god
[9:37] this trend towards complication was only
[9:39] getting started in the early 2000s as
[9:41] anime fighters began to get more popular
[9:43] mostly for their high speed and
[9:44] notorious difficulty titles like
[9:46] blazblue and guilty gear xrd epitomized
[9:49] speed and aggression on top of that
[9:51] roster sizes skyrocketed across the
[9:53] board with games like ultra street
[9:55] fighter 4 having 44 playable characters
[9:58] tekken 7 having 54 some of whom will
[10:01] have nearly 200 unique moves and smash
[10:03] ultimate having 89 characters that's a
[10:06] lot of matchups to learn but not all
[10:08] games want to be harder or faster or
[10:10] more complicated than whatever came out
[10:12] before it and one game at the forefront
[10:15] of making games simple again is an indie
[10:17] game aptly named footsies the game's
[10:20] description says quote footsies retains
[10:22] the fundamental feeling of the fighting
[10:24] game genre where spacing hit confirms
[10:27] and with punishes are key to achieving
[10:29] victory
[10:30] oh come on i got the i hit the load
[10:34] forward i held forward there there's no
[10:36] air dashing no projectiles no 69 hit
[10:39] combos just two players with the same
[10:41] options and clearly defined rules of how
[10:43] to beat the other person alright spammer
[10:48] me versus spammer alright look spammer
[11:00] all right i see why he's called spammer
[11:02] in order to win in footsies you have to
[11:04] be really good at footsies controlling
[11:06] your own space with hitboxes punishing
[11:08] your opponent for overextending and
[11:10] knowing how to hit confirm are
[11:12] fundamental aspects of all fighting
[11:14] games and ftse strips away all of the
[11:16] excess to give a lesson in fighting game
[11:18] fundamentals
[11:26] and some of the big names in the genre
[11:28] have tried to revert back to a simpler
[11:30] formula as well street fighter 5 and
[11:32] guilty gear strive are two examples of
[11:34] games which are a little bit easier than
[11:37] their predecessors
[11:39] regardless of what fighting game you're
[11:41] playing footsies is gonna be a part of
[11:43] it colin north describes it best in his
[11:45] article for gigi noob where he says
[11:48] quote the concept of footsies is so huge
[11:51] that you can't really pin it down in a
[11:53] specific way it encompasses all of the
[11:55] important fighting game ideas spacing
[11:58] baiting zoning with punishes corner
[12:01] pressure the list goes on and on your
[12:03] understanding of footsies will only grow
[12:05] as you continue to learn and master
[12:07] various aspects of fighting games and if
[12:10] all of this sounds overwhelming then one
[12:12] thing you should take away from this
[12:13] video is that the core of fighting games
[12:15] boils down to one thing and one thing
[12:17] only who amongst your friends is the
[12:20] best at kicking shins
[12:25] this video is made possible thanks to
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