Free Step Dodge

Haaaaw! I got it!

People always need an excuse and blame the opponent for something, even if it's a legitimate tactic. Obviously it's difficult for those people to admit that they have been outplayed.

Spacing and Turtling has been a concept within a fighting genre for years. It will never disappear. Spacing is the general term for avoiding situations and fighting back upon mistakes. Turtling is a concept where you space and play defensive on reads (Guile and M.Bison for example), players need to deal with that.

I see nothing wrong with spacing. Spacing and zoning is actually my preferred play styles.

Spacing/zoning can be very effective when used properly. Personally I think it can be quite annoying to deal with a spacer/zoner, but I won't complain about it since everyone has their own playstyle and it's part of every fighting game.

I prefer an agressive playstyle myself and like to stay on offense and try to not give my opponent a chance to back away or start their own offense. This is one of the reasons why I like Rig - a purely offensive character - so much.

Like you said, everyone does have their own playstyles. My least favorite is the turtling one because it takes so long to open the opponent up. That's why I dread fighting most Akira players, because they have heavy defense and will hurt you BADLY if they catch your mistakes.

The way I play, I watch the opponent first and keep a distance, and the moment they make a mistake, I bait them and rush them down to apply pressure. If this method doesn't work, then I'll back off and revert to playing defensively until I find a proper opening.

Sounds more like an effective combination of spacing in neutral, waiting until you can punish their mistake and then become more offensive once you have the edge over your opponent.

This is a style commonly seen in high level play, if I'm not mistaken.

It is? That's a relief....I've always felt like I was using a tactic that wouldn't get me very far at first. But after playing Ihajin yesterday in some sets, I noticed his style was similar to mine, except his was obviously more advanced. He waited patiently and knew when to step back and just wait for an opening, which I thought was really resourceful and intelligent.

I'd say patience is one of the keys to victory. If you wait until your opponent makes a move first, you'll also analyze how they respond in certain situations. Like, for example, if you back away, will they run at you (which may indicate a rushdown/offensive style of play) or will they stay at a distance as well (which may indicate a defensive style of play)?

I couldn't agree more. It's interesting seeing your opponents first move that will show their playstyle, especially if you and your opponent play the same way. I also notice that the battles between two players who play nearly the same seem longer and more drawn out, because they may both be backing up, or they go back and forth trading close range blows if they are offensive.

Whiff punishment in certain cases can cause a negative feedback to the player using it as well. You could throw or toss out a slow move and the opponent who whiffed will either manage to strike back or block due to quicker recovery moves. There is a flaw within these as you cannot be patient forever.

An important factor, (again) is that patience is key element if you are on the health lead or deciding factor on how the match plays out. The problem with players dealing with people who space is because they've never been in a situation on how/learning to deal with it.

You cannot play patient forever if your opponent has majority of the health lead unless the opponent will likely screw up, but since it's on the opponent's favor, the one who's on the dying lead can end up screwing up more than the opponent because you can overthink the scenario and protecting your lifebar at the same time.

So if they cannot learn how to deal with it, that's on them. However, don't let that get to anyone's head either. The notion within every fighting game. "If you have the health lead, the promises of lady luck is higher on your side." If you have the health lead, good. Keep it that way. If you don't, well feel free to be patient.

@DestructionBomb I don't really use the defense scenario if I don't have a life lead. If my life bar decreased to a certain amount, then that's when I'll become more rush down oriented. If I have the lead, I just wait for the opponent to make a move, since I don't want to risk losing any health

I think spacing is great and intelligent thing to do. Zoning+keeping certain distance has initial flaws and that's having a health lead. That gap will soon close and then stuff happens when your opponent has the health lead and thus your opponent is examining you on your offense now, rather than your spacing because he has the health lead.

I just use Mila's best whiff punishing/spacing moves. Like I said I wait for people to make mistakes.

There's nothing wrong with that. You're just making good use of all of Mila's spacing tools. But you know... salty people are salty.