Introduction

The purpose of this article is twofold. First, I would like to share whatever information I have about option selects in general and which option selects you need to know for high level SFV. Second, by explaining my understanding so thoroughly, I hope to be corrected on certain points and learn something from community feedback. If you are a seasoned player, and only care about looking at useful option selects in the game as it exists, skip straight to the “Big Option Select” section.

What is an option select?

An option select (OS) occurs when a player inputs a single command or sequence of commands and her character performs different actions based on the game state at a certain point in time.

The most common OS across all fighting games is what I’m going to call a cancel OS. This is also known as a buffer OS, though it has many names since it is so common. A cancel OS is when a player inputs a command that is cancelable into another command, but the first command will only cancel on hit or block. So we would say the player is OSing command A into command B. Example: “OSing jab into sweep” This is very useful because the player can input a move that is unsafe on block (command B) that will only come out if the first move (command A), which is usually much safer, makes contact with an opponent. This technique is performed when when the player is just outside the range at which the cancelable attack will connect. By doing this, the second unsafe command will not come out if the opponent is blocking because the opponent will not be moving forward into the range at which the first command will make contact. In some games, one can cancel even on whiff (aka twitch cancelling) in which case this OS is not possible.Some people might say this is simply buffering a move just in case and is not a real OS. But the cancel OS fits every conventional definition of an OS that I’ve ever heard, not just the one given above. The following video is what I’m talking about:

The most common type of cancel OS is cancelling a normal into an unsafe special. In SF4, one of the most prominent examples of this was Zangief doing standing light kick cancel into a green hand or ex green hand (st.lk xx 623+lp or st. lk xx 623+pp). This was extremely strong since gief could even confirm the ex green hand hitting and get a red focus confirm for massive damage and stun, corner carry, and a strong mixup opportunity. In SFV, every character can do something similar with varying degrees of effectiveness depending both on the range and safety of the normal and the payoff of the buffered move. For example, Ken can buffer cr. mp into mk tatsumaki (cr.mp xx 234 + mk) and if the tatsu hits, Ken has more than enough time to see it hit and combo (hit confirm) into a super.

Now that we fully understand the normal cancel OS, we can understand OS mechanics more generally. An option select occurs when a player executes an illegal action (whiff cancelling cr.mk) that will result in a legal action (cancelling on hit or block) when there is a trigger (the opponent extending their hurtbox toward you). In the video above, the illegal action is whiff cancelling the mk, the legal action is cancelling into spiral arrow on hit, and the trigger is the opponent moving into range of the poke.

There are many other kinds of option selects that work for various reasons across many games. The most infamous of which is the crouch tech option select in SF4. The strength of this OS created an entire metagame in SF4 involving frame traps to beat crouch tech, late teching avoid those frame traps, OSs or intentional delays to beat the late tech, and so on and so forth. Frame traps are still a strong tactic in SFV, but they don’t necessarily have to be frame-perfect set ups since grab and jab are both not as good defensive options as they were in SF4. Grab is slower and counterhittable, whereas jab can be crush countered, has a lower priority than heavier buttons, and leads to far fewer combos.

This is a good explanation of the crouch tech OS. The whole video is a good OS primer, and a lot of the OSs shown here work in SFV. I really suggest you make sure to understand crouch tech OS before moving on, because a lot of fundamental design decisions behind SFV were a reaction to this OS and the type of OS-based play it encouraged. If you understand how crouch tech worked, why the developers didn’t want it to stay in SFV, and how they actually eliminated it, you understand a pretty big chunk of SFV’s core mechanics.

Before moving on, I want to distinguish true OSs from “pseudo-OSs”. A pseudo-OS (pOS) looks and feels like an OS in the sense that you are executing the same series of joystick motions and button presses and getting a different result based on what the opponent does. However, pOSs don’t check the two actions you want at the same time. They check for one, and then the other a frame (or 3 or 4….) later.

The best example of a pOS is safejumps. It seems like you are OSing a jump attack with block. In reality, you are doing a jump attack, and THEN holding downback. These are sequential events, and the game isn’t picking the best option for you based on the game state at a particular instant. This is why we categorize safejumps based on the the speed of reversal they beat (4f. vs. 5f). The speed of the reversal is essentially the amount of time after your jump attack would hit the opponent after which you would be eligible to block. This number is calculated by adding the number of frames after the opponent wakes up that your attack hits and then adding 3, since it takes you at least 3 frames to recover from a jump attack. This is why there is no such thing as a 3f safejump. You need at least 1 frame for your jump attack’s active frames to overlap with your opponent’s first wakeup frame, so the fastest safejump is 1+3 frames. There are safejump setups that beat 3f reversals, but these only work because the jumping normal is placed at a distance where the reversal will not hit on the first active frame. Thus, such setups whiff if the opponent is not blocking. In a true OS, you don’t do one option, wait 4 frames, and then do the other option, the game would decide for you instantaneously based on the game state. In a safejump setup that OSs with a special if the opponent tries to escape, you are doing a jump attack, and then OSing block with just holding back, and then OSing blocking and your special. That is doing an action followed by two different actions. The whole point of a true OS is to do one motion and have the game instantly decide for you, not wait to check what you and your opponent do a few frames later.

The only reason I want to make a distinction between an OS and a pOS is for the purpose of figuring out which OSs should be taken out of the game and how. From a competitive standpoint, there is no real difference since you are still doing the same inputs to get different results based on the opponent’s actions.

Why Option Selects are Bad

The main problem with option selects is that they upset fundamental game balance by messing with the rock paper scissors (RPS) dynamic that exists in all fighting games. The holy trinity of normal attack, block, throw comprise the main RPS system in SF, and of many other fighting games. Blocking beats attacking because the attacker will eventually get pushed out of range due to pushback. Throwing beats blocking because throws are unblockable. Attacking beats throws because the payoff for attacks, especially with counter hits, is much greater than throws, which dissuades a defender from throwing in response to an attack.

The crouch tech OS essentially allows the defender to choose both rock and paper at the same time (attack and throw). This makes reading which option the opponent is going to choose at that given moment less important.

Rock paper scissors is a random game by definition, so why would we not want to make this aspect of fighting games less important in order to focus on other aspects of the game like spacing and reactions?

There are 2 reasons for this. The first is that the RPS system is absolutely essential for breaking stalemates in all fighting games. If both sides are playing optimally and reacting to everything that is reactable, how is anybody supposed to get any damage in? How is the match supposed to move forward? The answer is to include situations that are unreactable. Thus, the RPS system provides a way to intelligently respond to these situations by providing a clear set of options to choose from when you cannot react. Not only are those options clear, but they are balanced because any given option can be beaten by another one. This “fair anti-stalemate” idea is the same reason MOBAs have scaling death timers and neutral objectives.

The second reason the RPS system is valuable is because it provides well-defined, frequent opportunities to read your opponent. The line between insightful reads and wild guesses is as subtle and blurry as that between genius and madness. There are two key factors that differentiate interesting, complex RPS situations from stupid, random chance: iteration and variation. These situations occur multiple times per round, meaning that you can use the information of what your opponent did in the past to inform your decision (iteration). By variation, I mean that these decisions don’t occur in a vacuum. Time left, the health of each character, position on the screen, available resources, potential damage output of each character from each option, etc. are all factors that can make each RPS scenario different. Variation allows for sophisticated strategy based on the mathematical payoff of each option in highly specific situations as well as rich mindgames based on one’s perception of the opponents mind-state and evaluation of the given options. The best example to illustrate how skill can emerge from variation and iteration is poker. If WSOP tables played only one hand, it would be too random (no iteration). If the community cards and the size of the pot were the same every hand, the game would be boring (not enough variation).

TL;DR RPS systems are good because they break stalemates and allow for very complex strategy from very simple situations. Option selects break RPS systems by allowing players to pick multiple options at once. Thus, option selects are bad.

Why You Can’t Get Rid of Option Selects

Let’s look at the cancel OS. If option selects are bad, we should want to get rid of all of them, including the cancel OS. A lot of fighting game players will scream bloody murder at me for suggesting this. The cancel OS is a fundamental part of how the footsie game in SF is balanced. This is exactly why Ryu’s cr.mk xx hadouken is a true blockstring at far fewer ranges in SFV than in SF4. Laura specifically cannot cancel into her command grab on hit or block. F.A.N.G cannot cancel the second hit of his two hit moves. Capcom went out of their way to balance around the strength of this OS, yet they left it in the game. Why?

Let’s examine how you would remove the cancel OS. The OS works because you can cancel on hit and block, but not on whiff. So you would simply have to allow players to cancel normals on whiff to fix this. Welcome to a world in which Ryu can instantly uppercut you if you jump over a sweep attempt and Mika can fling herself right next to you with cr. hp and cancel into command grab. The point is, nobody would have to commit to any option in neutral and there would be a lot more broken nonsense than there is now.

The developers are consciously disallowing one option (whiff cancelling) and allowing another option in the same situation (cancel on hit or block) in order to avoid the catastrophic consequences of allowing the first option in that situation. This results in the cancel OS, and because they understand that it is a necessary result of their cancel system, they choose to balance around it. This is an example of an acceptable OS. I’m not going to call it a “good” OS because if the game could magically peer into a players mind and check if they are reacting to or predicting an outstretched limb versus just buffering at a safe range, the OS probably wouldn’t exist. We can try to keep players honest by carefully shortening or lengthening cancel windows. Ultimately, it’s never truly possible to get a good enough reaction check on buffering in footsies, so we live with the cancel OS and never question its place in the game.

This is the key of what makes an OS bad or acceptable. An acceptable OS is a built-in priority system between two specific options. For the cancel OS, it is a compromise between disallowing whiff cancelling and allowing cancelling on contact.

TL;DR OSs will always exist because a game designer must make decisions about what a player can and can’t do in certain situations, especially at the intersection of two distinct game mechanics or simultaneous inputs.

Which OSs Should Be Fixed and Why?

Crouch tech worked like this: the illegal option was throwing from crouch, the legal option was crouching light kick, and the trigger was being thrown. Making throws untechable from a crouching position would make offensive throws too good because the defender would have to first stand up and then tech a throw, making throws much harder to react to. Allowing throws from a crouching position would make defensive throws too good because throws were 3 frames in SF4, AND throws beat attacks when they become active on the same frame.

SFV fixed this by doing several things: throws became 5f startup, were allowed from crouch, had their range shortened in general, and were made eligible to be counter hit. Throws are still techable from a crouching position for the same reason they were in SF4, but since throws are slower and riskier, they are not as attractive as a defensive option. This means allowing throws from crouch is not too good, and thus the problem is fixed.

So we have looked at an OS that we cannot remove without breaking the game (cancel OS), and another OS that we had to fix (crouch tech). What’s the difference?

In order to fix crouch teching, throws had to be nerfed entirely. This is like nerfing Paper. There had to be drastic system-wide changes to nerf hits and blocks to keep up, and there were. For hits, there is much more pushback, there are fewer far-range pokes, and light moves don’t lead into as many specials. Blocks received one major nerf: Grey damage from normals. Blocking is also more dangerous overall since offense in SFV is generally scarier than it was in SF4.

Changing the RPS system is one of the most fundamental ways you can change the way a game”feels”. There is a good reason they didn’t try to fix crouch tech between any version of SF4. The switch to an entirely new game system in SFV was the right time to do it. Before we attempt to remove or fix an OS, we need to make sure of two things. First, the OS should not dramatically alter the RPS system, since doing so will have massive consequences beyond the specific OS we are trying to fix. Second, we need to make sure the OS is a true OS and not a pOS, since pOSs are series of actions and thus are much harder to address by changing the way the game reads your inputs.

The Big Option Selects (so far) in SFV and Which Ones We Can/Should Fix

1) Crush Counter OS cancels (Example)

Perhaps the best version of this is Ken’s s. hk OS into V-skill. Ken can just poke with hk and if it hits or is blocked nothing happens, but if it crush counters, he will get a v-skill run and he can easily confirm into mk tatsu into ex DP or super. I think this is an acceptable OS because it gives the player a nice reward for using a slow button in footsies. All crush counters are heavies, so they will always be among a character’s slower buttons. Thus, these buttons that you are trying to use in footsies are your hardest buttons to whiff punish with, your easiest buttons to be jumped over, and the easiest buttons for your opponent to crush counter themselves. This OS rewards that huge risk with huge reward and still requires a reasonable amount of execution since the player has to time the cancel in a narrow window: early enough that the cancel will come out on crush, but late enough that it will not be in the normal’s typical cancelable frames. Moreover, changing this OS would involve changing the hitstop on crush counters which wouldn’t make them feel as devastating, or allow legitimate visual hit confirms.

2) V-Reversal OS Cancel (Example)

This is basically the same as a crush counter OS cancel, except you use the opponent’s V-reversal animation in place of the crush counter animation. For example, with Alex, I do a meaty f+hp and do a late cancel into V trigger. If the move hits or is blocked, the cancel doesn’t come out since I am intentionally doing the cancel after the f+hp’s cancellable frames. If the opponent V-reversals, however, the cancel will come out. The V-trigger freeze gives me enough time to visually confirm what is happening, and I can easily parry the V-reversal for a massive punish. If I don’t have V-trigger or don’t want to spend it, the OS can be done with a command grab instead of a V-trigger cancel so long as the normal used is special cancelable. I use st. mp late cancel lp/ex powerbomb for this purpose. The example video shows a version of this OS done with a jumping normal rather than a standing one. This is an acceptable OS since it adds a layer of execution to the game while retaining many weaknesses. The opponent can beat such a setup with a reversal or by simply changing the timing of their V-reversals to force the attacker to vary her cancel timing. Since it can be beating with timing, it does not mess with the fundamental RPS system.

3) Late Tech (Example)

This is a very basic pOS. It gets blown up by shimmies which are super common and powerful anyway. Nothing to fix here.

4) Negative Edge Late Tech (Example)

Think of this like an EX late tech. it’s better than a late tech in that it techs throws while beating meaties AND gets the opponent off you with V-reversal if they decide to attack. You are paying 1 stock of V-meter to get the third option in the V-reversal. It is a true OS and not a pOS since you are using negative edge for the V-reversal so you wont accidentally get a heavy normal. This could be removed very easily by simply disallowing V-reversal on negative edge, but I’m not so sure doing so would be a good idea. This provides a nice universal defensive option that is sorely needed for those characters that lack a meterless invincible reversal. It still carries its own unique risks as well since it can be beaten by shimmies just like a normal late tech. It also loses to any number of V-reversal baits, the most simple of which is a jab followed by a throw. V-reversals have pretty slow startup in general, so the opponent will typically have enough time to recover from a jab and then throw immediately to beat V-reversal. Finally, it also loses to anti-V-reversal OSs such as the V-reversal OS cancel and a simple late cancel (technique 7 further down this list).

5) Jumpback Tech (Example)

This is a big one. It was due to a lot of misinformed reactions to this that I decided to write this piece in the first place. At first glance, it looks pretty busted. It beats meaties, throws, and doing nothing. Upon closer inspection though, you realize it is a pOS. You are blocking, then jumping, next OSing j.lk with a throw tech, and finally OSing blocking on the ground with doing nothing in the air. In order to fix this, Capcom would have to allow throws out of jumping frames to prevent the j.lk throw tech OS. Welcome to a world of unthrowable throws, thus making command grab characters even weaker. Besides, since it is a pOS, there are a number of different actions so there are a number of different counters. You can do a move that hits the opponent on their 3rd or 4th wakeup frame rather doing than a true meaty. You could also just block, and react to the jumpback with a move that will hit them out of their jumpback quickly (personally, I do this all the time with Rashid’s eagle kicks). If you really understand how this technique works however, you can counter with your own pOS. You can block for a couple of frames, and then do the special move that will beat their jumpback. This will beat reversal and the jumpback tech. Not to mention, doing this in or near a corner is pretty suicidal.

EDIT:

So I was (kind of) wrong about this one. Capcom did patch this out and they did it by simply disallowing techs from an upback position for a certain number of frames. That said, I stand by the sentiment that the pOS nature of the technique did not necessarily break the game and demand a patch. The fix actually makes reactive defense even harder. In a situation where you block a move that is plus, a common defense is to start holding upback and then try to react to the grab. The window of time you have to react to that grab is shortened by same number of frames as the OS fix.

6) Special Move Tech OS (Example)

This is very similar to the jumpack tech. It doesn’t need to be fixed since it is a pOS and has many of the same counters as the jumpack tech and more.

7) Ken Hitstop Cancel OS (Example)

This is stupid. It’s easy to get rid of without affecting the game too. All you have to do is make ken’s cancellable window on the same on hit or block, like EVERY OTHER CHARACTER. I realize this OS might be due to hitstop and not the cancel window, but even if it is, the fix is still to make Ken’s hitstop properties the same as everyone else’s. I think the reason this exists is because the developers wanted to give good Ken players a chance to react to st. hp on hit or block into run even with the input lag, and this was their solution. It’s very hard to confirm such a thing, but it is possible, and it would not be possible without the same property that enable this OS. I don’t think Ken players would even notice the difference if they weren’t abusing this OS anyway. Even though it is specific to Ken, I am including this on the list since it is a classic case of an OS that is both damaging to the game, and easily fixable.

8) Late Cancel (Example)

Other characters can do similar stuff. Nothing needs to be fixed here since it is a pOS that takes advantage of simple attack cancel properties. Ryu cannot cancel his st. mp into parry, and Alex cannot cancel st. mp into cr. hp.A version of this kind of cancel can be used to chase Dhalsim teleports as well.

If people bring more important option selects to my attention that should be added, I will do that. Of the 7 I listed, I only suggest one character specific OS be patched. Changing any of the others would involve changing the game in a massive way. While this isn’t an OS specifically, I would like to end this section by mentioning that I think they should remove the 2 frames of throw invincibility that are granted to everyone on wakeup. I understand this is an overall system mechanic; however, not only have I not heard a good reason from anyone as to why it exists, but it automatically makes any wakeup OS also beat meaty throws. I think that messes with the RPS system pretty badly and hurts command grab characters arbitrarily.

Conclusion

I hope this article was informative. I certainly learned a thing or two writing it. Option selects can never be removed entirely, and it was a primary purpose of this article to formalize ideas on which option selects should actually be patched, which shouldn’t, and how to beat the ones that exist. Happy hunting.