There are five major positions and of those, three have minor positions, making for a total of eight basic positions, ignoring the left/right variations available on Side Control and Half Mount.

In addition to the eight basics, we have Rubber Guard (Offense/Defense), Back Mount (One/Both Hooks, Body Triangle), Sprawl Position (Offense/Defense), Back Side Control (L/R, Offense/Defense), and Up/Down (Far/Near).

That makes 13 positions, not including any that could possibly erupt from having Judo and Signatures from the other 78 fighters added in.

We know how to move from position to position by the Transitions, what we can do in each of these positions, and how to end the fight from each one. This is a basic toolbox for the entirety of MMA, and all of the fighters in UFC 09. But, what is the inherent advantage granted to the Offense tagged positions that aren’t available to the Defense positions, and better yet, how do we know when it’s best to get into a brawl from a position?

For this, we can dig into the game’s ground game a little more by talking about what transitions are and how to survive the ground, and get back up, or go offensive if we need to.

One of the first things you’ll notice if you ever turn the Stamina bar on is that Stamina regenerates faster during ground fights because the fighters stop moving more often, but there’s more potential for graying the bar out because the strikes aren’t avoided as easily. For instance, it can actually work to a tired ground fighter’s advantage to go for a last-ditch takedown and end up in a potentially bad spot to rest a little and then continue the fight.

So, how do we work with this? The fighter in the Offensive/Top position has the advantage of being able to completely decimate his opponent’s stamina and give himself a great head start on the knockout. He also can control when the fight stands back up, (LSB/L3 from an Offensive/Top position.

The fighter in the Defensive/Bottom position loses control of the fight (Usually—Rubber Guard is an exception) and will usually get worn out faster from trying to get up, but controls whether or not the Offensive fighter has the opportunity to stand up and get back to standing. They also have some control over the progress of the fight from there through Reversals and their own Transitions. Look at Hua’s available transitions in the Demo, he has a Signature transition to an Offensive position from almost every single position.

The fighter in Defensive also has the advantage of controlling stamina gain through the Grapple Block. Holding RS to Left or Right stops the fight from progressing much further along the pyramid. As long as the fighter holds that down, his stamina will regenerate, though it takes a little stamina (Represented by Yellow on the stamina bar) to hold the block. It does not repair the Grey damage, but it does repair the yellow damage quicker than the offensive fighter.
Note also that any transition attempt stops both fighter’s stamina, and deducts the stamina from the acting fighter, then waits about .5 seconds, then goes again.

What we can use this for is in a fight like Hua v. Liddell is using Liddell’s defenses in an offensive way. It is possible to hold Hua down after getting on top of him, and wearing him down to where Chuck can submit him, or at least win a nice unanimous for using Hua like a mop.

Anyway, back to where we were, using the transitions wisely is NOT spamming them like you would punches. Knowing when and how to act is much more effective on the ground than wildly spinning RS around until something works.
Transitions are, again, performed by cardinal and ordinal turns. A Cardinal (90’) turn (N->E or W, or S->E or W), performs a minor transition, while an Ordinal (135’) turn, NE->W, NW->E, SE ->W, or SW->E, performs a major transition. If you need help with these, you can use a pencil to trace out the compass on your controller around your RS until you learn it. PS3 owners will have to find an alternate solution (Sorry, no Sixaxxis around to mess with!)

What each movement of the stick represents is the motion of the fighter’s lower or upper body to the next position. I.E. if you’re actually going to move from Open Guard Down Offensive to Open Guard Up Offensive, you have to push your shoulders up and back, pulling past their hands and freeing your upper body (Any Minor), or to move to Side Control Right from Open Guard Up Offensive, you have to move your entire lower up and over their legs to Side Control Right, represented by the SW->E OR NE->W Major transitions. (For the NE one, think of starting the motion to break guard as starting in the shoulders and then moving the hips.)

It’s worth noting that most of the Signature transitions (RB+Transition) are usually full body motions, just to keep the analogy up.

Now, knowing that, what’s best when? One of the first rules: NEVER transition when you’re rocked. KO’s are rather prevalent from here. Your best bets is to get out of that situation however possible after you survive the Rocked status first, then QUICKLY get out of the position you’re in. The most common situation for this is Mount (Defense), in which case use a NE->W or NW-> E transition to get to the Back Mount position, or SE->W SW->E to drag him back down to defense.
Second rule: Never talk about fight clu… I mean, don’t bother with fist fighting when you’re on Defense. This is a great way to get yourself rocked. The force from the Offense positions in the game compared to the Defense positions is great because physically, the punches and strikes from Defense are coming at a cost because the fighter can’t use the ground to build force into the strike, while for the most part, the Offensive guy can.

Worry about your transitions. The game, for the most part, prevents the use of a Transition Reversal flick and a punch at the same time. Exceptions abound, but for the most part, you can’t punch and block a transition at the same time, much like you can’t punch and block a takedown at the same time unless you’re really fast.
Now, what you’ll want to do is know your fighter’s move set. One of the dangers of being on the ground in the Liddell/Hua fight is that Hua can take Liddell’s advantage away at any time by any of his signature transitions, most of which are minors. The following applies for most options on the ground, based on assumptions and outside knowledge:

Jiu Jitsu has the most ground options available, end of story. It is purely a ground art, and two jiu jitsu fighters on the ground will lead to some pretty intense jostling for position.

Wrestling is balanced. There are takedowns and options on the ground from certain positions, but for the most part, they’re great at choosing where the fight happens, ala Rampage Jackson.

Judo will probably have the most takedown options, but not as much for being on the ground. This means stopping the fight and resting and then getting back up, essentially making for using the takedown as a tactical choice for preserving stamina, and stopping a beating.

Knowing what your fighter has in his toolbox is great because you know when you can get out of situations using a specific move. Combine this with your stats, and it makes sense as to why Liddell’s Takedown and Ground Grapple defense can be used as an offensive stat by putting Liddell into a situation where he can use his better Striking skills.

For instance, though Hua can drag Liddell anywhere he wants him to be, Liddell can use his defenses to pick when he gets moved, provided the player is fast enough to stop transitions. He can then get on top with a good reversal and land himself in a Mount Up position rather quickly, and end the fight from there.

Going into release, the obvious thing will be to know the limitations of your styles. Where your ground style lacks, what tricks you’ve picked up in Career mode, and how well you can employ your strengths in the best situations possible.

With release in two weeks, there’s been a lot of talk about who’s putting themselves into the game for Career mode using CAF. Self-imaging for games has been a bit of a shallow hobby of mine, ever since the first time I played Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 with its Create-A-Skater mode. It was shoddy, kind of inaccurate, but I spent hours trying to get myself to be fully into the game. The next-gen brings a lot more customization into create-a-player, and with UFC 09’s Create-a-Fighter, I thought I’d offer a few creative tips on the CAF process for bringing yourself into the Career mode.
This guide is (obviously) incomplete, because I can’t see what options in particular are available for CAF. But, you can follow along for any game with a create-a-player mode.

What you’ll need for this guide:
-Uncluttered room, or solid colored wall
-Digital Camera
-Tri-pod, shelf, or friend that’s also doing a self-based CAF.
-Photoshop or another image-manipulation program

First things first, in order to know what you are, you’ll want to have a pretty good indication of what’s there. Character designers use either the scanning process that was used for UFC 09, or a character design sheet like these examples:
ArmorBlog’s Coffee Shop Design Sheet:
http://armorblog.com/wp-content/uplo...cter_sheet.jpg
Mattegroup’s “Soldier” Design Sheet: http://www.mattegroup.com/jaser/i/pi...er_sheet_b.jpg
Drawallday.net’s Character Design Shard: http://www.drawallday.net/Gallery/Ch...sign_Shard.jpg

They show the characters from multiple directions and in multiple actions, as well as any details. Obviously, we won’t need much of that detail, but something more like the drawallday.net example, where we see one character in multiple angles and some close ups in action. We’re going to use the camera and Photoshop to create a similar sheet for you.

To start with, you’ll need to find a mostly uncluttered room, preferably with a blank wall. This is so that you can see your outline clearly enough to where it makes sense. Obviously, contrast your skin tone. Avoid browns and wood paneling, this can give you a really awkward idea of what you look like, as can mirrors and the like.

My pictures for this, available in my photo albums here are not great examples, but I’m at school, so cut me a break! They do, however, get across the next couple of steps. One thing you’ll notice in them is that I’m wearing a pair of Tapout shorts and wearing handwraps. Being dressed similarly to how your character appears in the game is helpful to making a good rendition, because you can modify sliders in the game to adjust it to the right level.
An immediate note in this game is about the weight. As of right now, it appears that weightclass will not affect anything in CAF creation, but for the purposes of design, I know most of us will be shaving a few inches off the gut for this one, so for all pictures, tighten your stomach up. This gives a flatter appearance and can help get the exacts down a little better.

What you’ll want to do now is set your camera up far enough away from your solid wall so that you can see your entire body, and have enough room to turn. Mark this point. Have the camera as level as possible, and DO NOT MOVE IT AFTER THIS POINT. You’ll want all of your photos at the same distance and angle so you can get good similarity in the pictures (I.E. shoulders all at the same level and such).

This is easiest if your camera has a time function, usually represented by a circle with a line coming from the center. One press will usually delay the picture by about 10 seconds. Experiment to find it.

Set your camera’s timer, and stand on your marked spot looking directly at the top of the camera, or at the same point. The ideal is that you are looking at the camera head on with your head parallel to the floor so that you can get a good, level picture of your face (More on this later). It also will help arrange your front correctly against all other views, so pectoral height, torso shape, arm length, shoulder width, everything that makes your basic outline up.

Now, you’ll want to set your timer again and turn 45’ to the LEFT, to yield a front 1/4th view. This will help you line up the shoulders and head in the game, as well as assist in getting your facial profile right.

Set the timer again, and turn another 45’ to the left so that you are in profile, (right shoulder facing the camera) and get the picture. This helps again with facial and torso profile. It will also help you adjust your arm and calf size correctly in the game. This is one of the hardest parts of CAF design to get right, because it can create some really funny misproportions.

Timer again, and take another 45’ turn to reach 3/4th profile. This helps get arm shape right, as well as neck size and height.

One more timer, take one last turn to put your back entirely towards the camera. This is a shot to help get your back profile, torso height and shoulder width right. These are easier to get correct from the back because the pectorals are always tied to a separate slider than the shoulder length, even though they affect each other. This will keep you from making your top half a bodybuilder and your bottom half looking like a string bean.

Now, you’ll want to do one more important step, which is catch yourself in a fighting stance. You can look up a basic boxing stance online, or use whatever you know. At this point, I’m assuming the characters will stand like this at some point in the CAF process, so having these pictures is great for design purposes so you can make fine-tuned changes to your fighter, as many errors don’t become obvious until the character is being active in the game. I.E. My self-CAF in Smackdown v Raw 2009 had a lot of clipping issues because I hadn’t gotten the arm proportions right. I didn’t notice this until I started doing flying things in the game. Just threw it off enough to where it was weird.

The last thing you’ll want to do is repeat this process, but with close-ups of your face. DO NOT SMILE. CAF programs use a blank face for a reason: all the face muscles are relaxed and easy to adjust that way. Plus, the face is always the hardest part to get entirely correct. Part of this is that we have a different image in our heads of how our face looks than what we actually look like. Believe it or not, if you go off this image, you’ll look strange, and it will ruin the CAF.

After you have all of these taken, you’ll want to open up your favorite image manipulation program, and crop the pictures down so that you just have you on them. You want to keep them as rectangles with yourself in the center.

After that, you’ll want to arrange them from left to right in the order that you took them, with standing normally on top, and fighting stance in the middle, and face below. The face will be a little weird to line up, but bear with it and get it as lined up as possible.

It’s key that you have the ability to use layers for this, because you can bump the pictures with the “layer move” key to get them lined up just right.

Congratulations! You now have a character design sheet for yourself! Now, what exactly do you do with it?

When the game releases, keep this sheet open on a laptop, and you’ll be able to look at it against the image on the game screen to help fine-tune your CAF’s looks so that you create yourself as realistically as possible! I.E. you can use the picture to make sure that your eyes are shaped the same on your CAF as yours, the cauliflower ear matches, and all that sort of thing.

Now, what about greater questions, those deep burning ones, like “How do I take my knowledge of an art like Aikido, and transfer that into the game?” or “How do I represent a ‘good chin’ with my stats?”

A great way to approach these questions is to look again to the Attributes and Skills. Each does represent particular thing I won’t go into here, cause I already did. (Statistics Breakdown Article) However, now is the time to talk about what specific real-world styles mesh with the 6 presented in the game, and ways to think about representing them in the game.

I’m referencing these in extremely simple, generalized ways. Also, I’m assuming that if you’re looking to represent a single art, you’ll focus on either your standup or ground game, not both.

Boxing
This is the mysterious one of the Striking styles, because we haven’t seen it. However, one can guess from promo material we’re dealing with midrange strikers here.

“Dirty” boxing: A subset of boxing using semi-illegal tactics and close up striking to win knockouts. Clinch Striking Offense and Standing Striking Offense are good for recreating this, as well as a decent Strength.

Tai Chi: These guys may seem to move slow, but every fiber of their bodies are primed to explode at any second. Speed and Strength are the high points here, along with Standing Striking pair also being high.

Muay Thai
Close up, personal, and a lot of long range techniques to close distance make up the Muay Thai toolbox. Arts that are represented here are great at keeping themselves in the distance of their choosing.

Hapkido: A Korean striking art that uses kicking and punching effectively against opponents at both probing and clinch ranges. Takedown and Clinch Offense are high, as well as Submission stats.

Krav Magna: Israeli special forces self defense system, usually ends with an opponent incapacitated, in handcuffs or deceased. Extreme focus is placed on all Offensive Striking and Takedown stats. Defenses focus on Clinch, Takedown, Ground Grapple and Submission.

Kickboxing
With Kickboxing, we’ve already seen that Kenpo Karate can be recreated ala Chuck Liddell, but so can the following arts:

Savate: Meaning “Old Boot”, Savate focuses on powerful, momentum driven kicks with the tip of the feet. High Speed and Standing Striking Kicks are representative of this style, as well as a good all around defense.

Tae Kwon Do: Obviously, this doesn’t work that well in MMA, but, you never know what from this flying kick style can be useful. Speed and Cardio are hallmarks here, as well as Standing Kicks Offense and Defense.


Jiu Jitsu
The Gracie Family started a huge thing with Jiu Jitsu, spawning hundreds of variations around the world, wherever their students settled. It’s also hard to say which specific art is used for the Jiu Jitsu in the game until we see it.
10th Planet: Speedy, based on Rubber Guard. You’ll want Rua’s “Jiujitsu 3” for the Rubber Guard, as well as focusing on Speed, the Submission Pair, and Ground Grapple Offense.

RGDA: A lot slower, more thoughtful about its positioning than 10th Planet. High Cardio, Submission Defense, Ground Grapple Defense and Clinch Grapple Defense. Their Submission pair should be high.

Judo
Again with the mystery, we’ll have to see what specifically this entails, but, you should be able to get Aikido out of the Judo subset.

Aikido: Art I’ve heard it be called “Fat man jiu-jitsu” before, but straight up about submitting opponents. Combine a high Speed and general Defense with a high Takedown and Submission Offense to recreate this art.

Wrestling
The old styles of the Greeks and Romans made for the ring and testing strength.

Greco-Roman: Different from Freestyle in the more rigid rules. Straight Takedown goodness with Ground Grappling cover, and Cardio to back it up.

Freestyle: Same as Greco-Roman, but more open ended. Ground Grappling Offense added with Submission Offense and Defense more than Takedown strengths.

“Hybrid” Arts:
These are arts that didn’t seem to really fit one, but I thought might be interesting ideas to chew over.

USMC Combative System: (Muay Thai/Judo) Forgive me if I got the name wrong, but you can beat me over the head later if its’ not right. But, this style focuses on taking down opponents permanently with elbows and throws that plant them into the ground. Focus on a high Strength, as well as all Striking Offenses and Takedown Defenses.

Sanshou Boxing: (Kickboxing/Judo) This art focuses on catching kicks and the like, and (usually) stops at the Takedown. Cung Le uses this style. Recreating a Sanshou Fighter requires a high Speed, as well as Takedown Offense. Standing Kicks Offense would also likely be a benefit to a Sanshou-lookalike.

Brawling: (Boxing/Wrestling) Not really a martial art, but more of the bar brawler variety. Think Wolverine in the first X-Men movie for this one. High Strength and all Offenses put through the roof without any defense to think of.

Amateur MMA: (Muay Thai/Jiu Jitsu) Sort of the granddaddy of all, a generalized grab bag of useful techniques that can be taught anywhere in America. I call this one only on noticing that there’s no Amateur with any real specialty. Keep the skills generally even and there you go.

So, get ready to create, and I’ll see you all, personally, in the Octagon.

Here's a breakdown of the Stats used in UFC Undisputed 2009, and how they affect your fighter in the Octagon


Stats are broken into two major categories, Attributes and Skills. Attributes represent the fighter's physical attributes and Skills represent their trained attributes. You also have an "Overall" rating that reflects your fighter's overall quality. All stats are marked on a 1-100 scale, with the highest in the demo being Chuck Liddell's 92 Clinch Grapple Defense. I'm making an educated guess on these numbers because my screen is really blurry on yellows and whites. If someone has it and a clearer screen, a better read of the numbers would be appreciated.

Defense Window: This is a concept that is beginning to be discussed here and around the net. It seems that there is a breif window of time that you can enter a command during an animation, much like a normal fighting game, that allows you to "queue" attacks or transitions. It seems that during a takedown animation, you can queue up a transition or transition defense if you're fast enough, and it's easier with Rua. Naturally, the downside to this is that UFC09 doesn't have many of these moments.

And before we get going, my stat breakdown on what they mean is purely conjecture based on playing the demo a lot so far.

Attributes

Strength: Liddell 69, Rua 57

Measure of a fighter's physical strength. This seems to represent the "Raw Damage" for those of you who are into theorycraft.

Speed: Liddell 60, Rua 57

Measure of a fighter's physical speed. How fast the fighter is on their feet, striking and grappling. I believe this is the base number for determining the command window for grappling and counters.

Cardio: Liddell 58, Rua 48

The fighter's cardiovascular endurance. This is how the game figures your fighter's stamina and how much you can do before becoming Gassed. I believe this also may have an effect on the frequency of flash KO's, combined with strength, based on how much Rua seems to get laid out in the game.

Skills

Standing Strike Offense/Defense: Liddell 82/80, Rua 57/50
Standing Kicks Offense/Defense: Liddell 72/85, Rua 82/70

How good the fighter is at punches/elbows (Strikes) and kicks/knees. Boxers benefit from high Strike, Kickboxers from high Kicks and Muay Thai from a balance, probably with more kick though. This seems to have offense represent outgoing and defense representing the blocking mitigation that the Q&A's talk about.

Clinch Striking Offense/Defense: Liddell 61/80, Rua 81/70

The strength of the fighter in the standing clinch. The game doesn't seem to really differentiate between single collar, thai clinch and body clinch. Straight up though, this is their striking strength with the clinch-specific action list. It's worth noting that Rua has a distinct advantage in this one.

Clinch Grapple Offense/Defense: Liddell 58/92, Rua 78/59

Using and defending against grapples in the clinch. This probably determines the timing window for entering grapple counters and defends in the clinch.

Takedown Offense/Defense: Liddell 53/88, Rua 63/50

Using the takedown attacks to drop opponents. Probably affects the entry period for knee counters (LB/L1+Kick, must match leg on single leg takedowns).

Ground Grapple Offense/Defense: Liddell 51/59, Rua 80/81

This is an important stat in the game, probably influencing the use of the Transition System and how easy it is to get the command to enter in time, as well as your defense window.

Submission Offense/Defense: Liddell 44/72, Rua 85/69

How good your fighter is at defending and attacking. In theory, this could effect how many rotations/bashes there are between each of the three steps of a submission animation (Position->Lock->Tap), and how many it takes to stop the submission for the defender.


So there you have it, a summary of the various stats and their possible effects on the game. Enjoy, discuss and think.

Chuck Liddell offers a great introduction to UFC 2009: Undisputed with his 'Reverse Wrestling' skillset and lots of interesting ways in and out of situations.

The first thing I’ll note is that there is a gigantic list of “Common Moves” in the Action List and Combo List that I won’t go into here. What I’m highlighting in this preview is the (UFC)/Red skills that are either specific to a fighter or their style. Without more of each style, I can’t tell you what’s unique to a specific style. A signature move for a fighter is prefixed with “SIGNATURE” in the game and represents a special move for that fighter only.

One of the first things to realize is that at this point, there are at least 3 unwittingly confirmed variations of each individual striking style, as evidenced by the Combo List, which lists Liddell as “Kickboxing 3” and Rua as “Muay Thai 3”. What’s cool is that assuming that Boxing also has at least three variations, so there is a total of at least 9 striking disciplines represented in the game, with bunches of variations as revealed in the latest Gamespy preview, you can assumedly grab different techniques through training in Career mode. (Here)

So, below, I’m highlighting Chuck Liddell’s Red skills, along with what Style think governs that particular move.

KEY (360/PS3)
High: LB/L1
Low: LT/L2
Click L/R: LSC/L3 RSC/R3 (Press in the Left or Right Stick)
(Action): Only works when a specific action type happens, I.E. (Takedown), (Counter Hit), ect.
{R/L}: Option of using a right or a left strike
->, <-, ^, v : Direction to move the stick.
{^/v} : Option of using different stick motion
Minor: Minor Transition Motion (90’). Written as UR (Up to right), DL (Down to Left), ect.
Major: Major Transition Motion (135’). Written as DRL (Down & Right to Left), ULR (Up & Right to Left).

Liddell (Kickboxing 3):
Both Standing: Probing Range
Strikes
Spinning Back Fist: High + {L/R} Punch (Kickboxing)
Takedown Intercept Knee: (Takedown) High + {L/R} Kick (Wrestling)

Transition
Left Single Collar Tie Grab: High + RS-> (Kickboxing)

Both Standing: Striking
Strikes
Superman Punch: High + {L/R} Punch (Kickboxing)
Left Head Kick: High + {L/R} Kick (Kickboxing)
Takedown Intercept Knee: (Takedown) High + {L/R} Kick (Wrestling)

Transition
Left Single Collar Tie Grab: High + RS-> (Kickboxing)

Both Standing: ClinchStrikes
Takedown Intercept Knee: (Takedown) High + {L/R} Kick (Wrestling)

Transition
Left Single Collar Tie Grab: High + RS-> (Kickboxing)

Single Collar Tie, Left (Offense)
Right Uppercut: High + Right Punch (Kickboxing)

Single Collar Tie, Right (Offense)
Left Uppercut: High + Left Punch (Kickboxing)

Double Underhook Offense
Takedown
Trip to Half Guard Left: High + RS-> (Wrestling)
Pick Up Slam to Open Guard: High + RS<- (Wrestling)
Drop to Side Control Left (^) or Right (v): High + RS{^/v} (Wrestling)

Over/Under Hook Left/Right
Takedown
Takedown to Open Guard Down: High + RS {^/v/->/<-} (Wrestling)

Open Guard Offense
Strikes
Hammerfist: High + {L/R} Punch (Kickboxing)

Transition (Open Guard Down)
SIGNATURE Major Transition to Open Guard Full Posture Offense: High + RS {UL/UR/DL/DR} (Wrestling)

Open Guard Defense Down
Submission
Guillotine Choke: Click R (Wrestling)

Half Guard Left/Right Offense
Transition
SIGNATURE Major Transition to Mount (Offense): High + RS {UL/UR/DL/DR} (Wrestling)

Side Control Left Offense
Strikes
Left Hammerfist: High + Left Punch (Kickboxing)
Strong Knee to Body: High + {L/R} Kick (Kickboxing)

Transition
SIGNATURE Major Transition to Mount (Offense): High + RS {UL/UR/DL/DR} (Wrestling)

Side Control Right Offense
Strikes
Right Hammerfist: High + Right Punch (Kickboxing)
Strong Knee to Body: High +{L/R} Kick (Kickboxing)

Transition
SIGNATURE Major Transition to Mount (Offense): High + RS {UL/UR/DL/DR} (Wrestling)

Mount Defense:
Transition
SIGNATURE Major Transition to Open Guard Offense: High + RS {UL/UR/DL/DR} (Wrestling)

North South Offense
Transition
SIGNATURE Major Transition to Mount Offensive: High + RS {UL/UR/DL/DR} (Wrestling)

North South Defense:
Transition
SIGNATURE Major Transition to Sprawl Defensive: High + RS {UL/UR/DL/DR} (Wrestling)

Back Mount: Both Hooks Offense/Defense
No Special Moves

Sprawl Position: Offense
Transition
SIGNATURE Major Transition to Side Control Left Offense: High + RS {UL/UR/DL/DR} (Wrestling)

Sprawl Position: Defense
Transition
SIGNATURE Major Transition to Open Guard Offense: High + RS {UL/UR/DL/DR} (Wrestling)

Back Side Control Left/Right Offense
Striking
Strong Knee to Body: High + {L/R} Kick (Kickboxing)

Back Side Control Defense
Transition
SIGNATURE Major Transition to Open Guard Offense: High + RS {UL/UR/DL/DR} (Wrestling)

Up Down Far Defense
Takedown
Stand up to Shoot to Double Leg Takedown: RS->, Then LOW+RS->



COMBO SPECIALS
These are all specific strike combos in each range, determined by the Fighter’s Styles. Enter them just like a normal fighting game. There is another common list, probably tied to style, in the Combo List as well. These also tend to activate Commentary from the announcers.

Probing Range
Step, then L {Punch/Kick}, R {Punch/Kick}
Step, then L {Punch/Kick}, LT + R {Punch/Kick}

Striking Range
L Punch, High + R Kick
R Punch, High + L Kick
R Kick, LS->+L Kick
Low+R Kick, Low+R Kick, Low+R Kick
Low+R Kick, LS->Low+R Kick
Low+R Kick, High+ R Kick
High+L Kick, (Must Hit) R Kick
High+ R Kick, (Must Hit) L Punch
High+R Kick, (Must Hit) L Kick

The remaining combos are based on a sort of formula, representing mirroring a 1,2 Punch combo at different heights. You can enter LOW at any point in these to move the punch down to the body. No matter what you do, you have to alternate the buttons, meaning if you go Right in the first part, you have to go Left in the second one. (I.E. R Punch, L Punch, not R Punch, R Punch)

Step then {R/L} Punch, {R/L} Punch

I’m gonna let you all in on a little secret I’ve picked up: The marker’s probably the least important part of a player. Check this out: given an equal playing field on all levels, a team with better equipment has the same chance of winning as a rental team, it’s all in how the equipment is used, how the team works together and how willing that team is to go over the top and try risky things to get the job down. So, for this article, we’re foregoing any discussion on how to improve your team’s armament. Yes, liking your marker and it being in good repair are important, but often, you can get around all that with having a little confidence.
Confidence in relation to paintball comes in three forms: Self confidence, Command confidence and Team confidence (Chemistry). These three work together in order to form how willing and ready a player is on field. Improving these three, especially as a group, is the key to overcoming obstacles on and off the field.
Self confidence, we’ve heard this for years, haven’t we? Its what makes people tick, caused bullying in elementary and middle school and what people decide to do. Having low self confidence is bad, having a high sense of self confidence is great, though a double edged sword. Overconfidence becomes an ego, and that gets in people’s way. This base kind of confidence is particularly important on the personal level in relation to following commands.
Helping your players achieve self confidence is one of the extra roles of the commander. You must advocate and appeal to your player’s minds and assist in pushing them beyond their own expectations. When a player has low self confidence in their skills or equipment, it can drag them out of the sport. That’s not good, because we need teammates and targets. Your players need to be egged on and pushed to the limit in order to succeed.
How to do this? Simple. Use “please” and “thank-you” to begin with. I believe we’ve discussed this before, but when a team first starts out, the magic words go a long way to making the players more confident and willing because they are doing a favor for a friend. When you’ve moved beyond that point, it’s time to start thinking about how each player ticks. When you find something that gives a particular player a rush, like if a player likes the charge command, go for it. Make sure you call it for them once or twice an outing. When it goes right, they’ll be brimming with confidence, and if it doesn’t, well, they’ll be telling a good story on the ride back. Either way, appealing to this player has given them a value in their mind as part of a team. This helps bring them up and makes them stronger players.
This example also ties into Command confidence, or the confidence a player has in their commander’s actions and decisions in relation to the team. Making good choices and choices the players had a hand in raises this. Doing dumb things makes this falter. You aren’t a commander to abuse power, you’re a commander to improve the power you’ve taken control of. If you don’t think about what you’re doing, you’ll get a mad team and kicked out of your job. You have to, again, appeal to the players and help them see things your way, even if they don’t necessarily like it.
Start by not shoving things down their throat. Again, “please” and “thank you”s go a long way. You can bark orders later when they trust you. Any time that a major decision for the team comes up, talk with them about it and see how things are. They’ll thank you for it later when the choice is made.
Finally, team confidence. This is the trust between your teammates. It’s how willing they are to take a shot for each other. This is the brotherhood of war. This sounds a lot like chemistry, doesn’t it? Well, there’s a step between this and chemistry and confidence. Chemistry is the ability to think and react to the team, while confidence is the ability to trust and obey.
Sounds the same? Consider that a team with good chemistry can react quickly and effectively to each other, but they may not actually let the other members of the team make their moves if they don’t trust them to do so. That doesn’t work out too well, does it? By the same token, a confident team may allow each other to make moves, but if they aren’t good with each other, the moves may not even happen because they trust that they won’t have to do anything, that the other people have it covered when they really don’t.
How do you work with these different parts? Well, I’ll say it again, take it off the field. However, confidence doesn’t have to be gained in paintball alone. In fact, drilling can help, but it makes it seem like less of a game and more of a job. We don’t want that. We want our team to have a blast every time. That’s where service events come in handy.
Take your team, and find an organization. Have your team donate time and effort to that organization together. This breeds self confidence. Take this self confidence and build it into confidence in you, the commander. Then, take that, and have the team trust each other. When the team trusts, it succeeds.
Your team benefits from spending off-field time together. Take this time, and don’t focus it like they’re training to be a better team, but take it and make them better people. Paintballers are individualists by nature, it’s a curse of the sport. As the commander, you must take these individuals and temper them into a strong, unified force. When your players are better people, being an individual becomes more important, and playing to this is the key to granting your team confidence.

I’m sure there’s one thing nobody really thinks about in paintball: critical thinking. That annoying thing from High School where they had you sit and discuss and figure out what the hell’s going on in a very cryptic, misleading or strange set of events. Your answers there were based on prior knowledge and your ability to put the pieces together.
Cryptic, misleading and strange? Sounds like paintball to me. At any given point in an engagement, how much do we really know about what’s going on? How much do we know about the equipment the other team is carrying and how that changes things? How do we know what the other team is going to do? These are answered through the use of two of the most important command skills: Research and Synthesis.
Easily put, research is the act of finding information about a given topic and sorting it for use later. For paintball, this definition changes. Here, Research becomes the act of using and practicing with different equipment and talking to other players in order to form an idea of how that person plays and how players with the same kind of equipment will play. Research is the base way of improving a teams’ Knowledge.
Synthesis, the active version of Research, is the act of taking a given set of information and drawing conclusions and new knowledge from that information. With paintball, that stays the same. You’re going to take what you know and put it together in order to find out exactly what is going on and what you can do about it.
Research, compared to Synthesis, is a very easy act to engage in. Hanging around marker-specific forums and reading on those markers that you’ve never seen before is a quick way to research them and gain field knowledge. Field knowledge of something means that if you see it on the field, you can identify it and know what it is, not the specifics. Continued research leads to active knowledge, from which you’ve used or seen a given thing so many times you can identify it with no trouble or just from sound, and know how the thing works in a given situation. User’s knowledge is when the person can actively use the equipment and learns the item from the user’s perspective. Finally, full knowledge comes from using the product as a “Main” and the act of upkeep and use over time. This knowledge usually will bring the item or tactic to its full potential (This is how Autococker owners are able to ‘time’ their cockers and Tippmann owners can overclock their marker’s cyclone feeds.)
With research, the goal is to form a broad base of knowledge about everything you can encounter on the field. Let’s take, for example, going to a scenario game for the first time. Research begins by learning the scenario’s specifics in terms of special rules and units, prices, if you can BYOP or not, where the place is and stuff like that. This is the equivalent of field knowledge. The next step, active knowledge, means that you begin, through whatever means, learning the ins and outs of a specific field, like who the owner is, where the bases are located on the field, where the camping is compared to the rest of the field, the chain of command and who the major teams coming to that scenario are. User’s knowledge, with the example of the scenario game, means that you’ve met and spoke with a few players that have been there before, or are camping with those people immediately preceding the game. Finally, Owner’s Knowledge will stem from participation in the game and use of the field over the course of time. That, is how research develops Knowledge.
Knowledge carries a specific on field benefit, that of identification. An advanced knowledge of tactics leads to the ability to identify the enemy’s tactic. An advanced knowledge of the equipment gives you, if you care for eliminating firepower first, a hit list of sorts on who being out will make your life on the field easier. Knowledge of the field leads to finding bunkers and hiding spots that aren’t obvious. Knowledge of all of this generally leads to a distinct advantage on the field.
Synthesis on the other hand, can take the Knowledge advantage and blow it out of the water. Synthesis leads to Strategy because of the fact that you draw from the knowledge that you have and draw ideas and themes from that to create a tactic to take advantage of a given situation.
This skill, however, is something that is learned and practiced under fire. There is a post floating around right now that discusses my own skills and background and players were asked to synthesize the information into a field-profile of myself and how this works. Let’s discuss this.
A field profile of someone is the basics. Their Callsign, approximate age, Position, used marker, approximate time playing, notes on how they move on the field, off-field occupation and specialized training.
For myself, the Field Profile looks something like this:

Gramps, 19
Command/Broadsword
Tippmann A5RP (Remote and Progressive Barrel), Tippman M98FRT (Flatline/Response Trigger)
1.5 Years of Experience
Back player, is timid and hangs back.
Writer/Fry Cook
Leadership Training at Drury University, Brief Army ROTC Experience

From this, people nailed quite a few of my habits and such. Due to the command position, they discerned my treatment of Daggers (Letting them get the glory and still demanding respect from them), my actual playstyle, how being a Writer and a Fry Cook play into paintball and further on.
How did this work? I don’t know how their particular thought processes went, which is something that changes from player to player, but I can estimate this is what each thing signaled:
Callsign: This determines how a player is referred to on the field by his teammates. Often, this has to do with some kind of experience or event that happened on or off the field that gave the player this nickname. For me, the nickname is derived, hopefully, from my sluggish on-field movement and weak physical attributes.
Age: Age determines the maximum years of experience as well as a relative estimate of a player’s maturity. The older the player, the more mature that player should be. Maturity relates to Command habits as well as how well the player takes order. It’s not a rule, but the younger a player is, the less they tend to listen to orders. Usually, a person can garner command of players within two to three years of their own age. This also gives a view of how that person’s team is aged and skilled.
Position/BMF: Player’s position helps determine their most prominent on-field habits and responsibilities. The Positions are used for other SpecOps members, while a Back/Mid/Front designation can be used for non-SpecOps members. From this alone, you can predict where a player will be and how they will choose their bunkers. Hammer/Broadsword/Javelin (Back) Players will choose more solid and higher things to shoot from. Ambush/Sabre (Mid) players pick medium sized bunkers with some protection on level ground usually while Dagger/Halberd (Front) Players tend to be up close and personal with the enemy.
Marker Used: Markers are purchased, usually for their applicability to a person’s play style. You can assume that the upgrades are not for show usually. Watching for particular upgrades like Flatline and Apex barrels can give a hint as to what the player will be doing. Hearing and seeing things like Halo B’s can give off a direct hint to a front or mid player.
Years of Experience: The years of experience that a player has is roughly equivalent to a level in a role-playing game. I say roughly because it’s not an exact estimate because a player with 1 year of experience can be highly advanced compared to other people with the same amount of experience. Thus, it’s not a good indicator of play skill, but of the knowledge that player has. Generally, the longer the person’s been into the sport, the more knowledge a player has. Thus, you can use the years of experience to guess at how much they know, about how many different markers they’ve used (Remember: a marker lasts about two to three years, less if the player does tourneys a lot)and how long they’ve used their gear. Simple, and effective.
On-Field Notes: this is self explanatory. Notes on how the player moves and acts on the field. The notes can also include treatment of different positions and BMF for Command Units. Also what can come into play here is specific gear that the player has beyond their marker like an improved Hopper or Vest.
Civilian Occupation: Two big things here: The amount of paint that the player has and convertible skills that the player can draw from on field from the real world. Examples of occupations with major Paintball advantages include Military Personnel (Conditioning and Tactics), Firemen (Conditioning and Endurance), Police Officers (Conditioning and Charisma), Civic Leaders (Charisma and Delegation), Any job requiring substantial physical strength (Conditioning and Endurance), Managers (Leadership and Charisma) and Technology jobs (Critical Thinking and Leadership). The occupations that pay more, such as a Lawyer, will be able to throw more paint because they have more money available to them. Jobs with less funds available like a Student or a Sales Associate, will have less paint and therefore more effective with it. Second, players can draw on skills from their civilian job on the field to give them an advantage. It isn’t really a conscious thing, but it does happen. People, drawing off my named occupations of Writer and Fry Cook, spoke about the ability to give and receive orders as well as create different ideas to accomplish a goal. Also, the ability to interact favorably with different people. Being a fry cook also gives the advantage of being able to get dirty and not minding it. How do you use this with younger players that don’t have jobs though? Simple. You look at their parent or guardian’s job and substitute it for them.
Specialized Training: This is mostly tied to the Occupation, but does have some extra things attached. Specialized training is anything that relates directly to paintball from the civilian world. I.E. Leadership training, a position of Leadership on a team that has been held for a while, that sort of thing. Also things like having a Firearms License, martial arts training and such come into this section. Martial arts is something that people generally don’t think about giving a paintball advantage, but it improves a person’s endurance and agility rapidly, as well as their confidence and stress management on the field. It is a BIG advantage that you should know if your players have.

Now, obviously, you won’t know all of these things about all the opposing players. That’s all right, you don’t have to unless there’s specific ones that are getting on your nerves. As the commander, you’re concerned about the other commander(s). Nail down their information in this order: Callsign (Gotta know who you’re shooting, yeah?), Experience, Occupation and Marker are the four top priorities. They play in the most to how they’ll be handling things. These four grant you the base knowledge to think about an opponent’s possible thought process and tactics. Paintball in a team v. team format, essentially comes down to the two commanders battling it out in a fight of Luck and Skill, so having a basic knowledge of your opponent can really help out.
How do you use this? Well, that is an exercise best left for the reader, but here are some guidelines to help you think through everything:
1.) Always look at things with an open mind. The littlest thing in a person’s field profile can give them the biggest advantage.
2.) Don’t get hung up on a particular advantage someone has. Having Military Training or the best marker doesn’t meant that the person can necessarily use it. (though in the case of the former, for their sake, you’d better hope they can.)
3.) Watch the person and their team. The Team has to act as a unit, even though there is a head. The team is just as much a part of the team as the commander, and that is how the commander “Sees” the field is through their players.
4.) Watch for where a person’s profile opens to a weakness. If a Front player is particularly young, they’ll be jumpy and will be an easy target for Post shooting. If a back player is older, then its’ almost safe to assume they won’t be doing any dives or sudden charges forward.
5.) Mind the Callsign. Callsigns, like my own, can be particularly misleading, especially if they are tied to an inside joke.

Having a command of both Strategy and Knowledge leads to a very effective, strong team due to the fact that they are able to predict and identify the opponent’s movements and skills. This pair is perhaps one of the most powerful pairs because of its versatility and advantages given to the team. However, remember that power carries responsibility. This pair is responsible for breaking up teams because it can become a contest of who knows more and feels they should be in command due to that. This argument is very hard to smooth over. A lot of times, it comes with the loss of a teammate because they don’t want to be a part of a team that can’t do anything or they feel it doesn’t work well or the rest of the team is stupid. This is something that the team as a whole should address, and work with to figure out.

Actually, before I let you start on this one, I've got somewhat of a question for all of you. Seems that the number of posts actually discussing what's been said in the articles have been dropping off. I don't know if this is because we're swinging at the 10th article or something, or if its because what I'm saying has become a kind of law handed down or just automatically accepted as some kind of truth or people are just like "Shut the **** up, Gramps!"

I'm curious, how many of you are reading this and thinking about what I'm saying, are you accepting what I'm saying without question or are you just admiring the writing and not absorbing the information (This represents a failure on my end--one that as a writer I need to fix)? Do any of you actually use what's going on or am I just preaching to a choir filled with people that are too nice to say anything to stop me?


Teams need help with how fast and how well they work. Its part of being a team. We’ll always talk about why little league teams do this and that, and how that works for a group of teenagers playing paintball. Well, those things the little league team does are the Speed and Chemistry pair: The ability to work together and work quickly.
Speed and Chemistry are two very difficult things to work on for a team. Mostly because the team is required to get off the field and hang around other places. Speed generally results from the Commander’s own ability while Chemistry results from the team’s off-field actions. It’s hard to get the two to coincide. In fact, nearly impossible on the field.
Chemistry can be worked on in the field, but it requires the team to be on the same side and have something like Player A saving Player B’s skin. And that keep happening all day. This comes from good chemistry, not while developing. Regrettably, you have to start somewhere.
So, what is a commander to do? Simple: Get the hell off the field.
Now, I’m not saying stay off. You’re going to play paintball. And this is all going to factor in at some point. Commanders are supposed to know something beyond the regular “Marker, Position, Tendencies” and delve into each teammate’s personality and abilities. Go past that even. What each one likes and doesn’t like. Does said Player A prefer cheese over pepperoni pizza? Does this Player have a girlfriend? Does he even care for one? What kind of car does he drive?
Then, go for each player. Find out everything you can. After all, you’re going to hold these guys playtime in your hands. You may as well know something about them. This is the first benefit of good chemistry: Loyalty. Your team will be willing to follow you if you care enough to know about them and what they’re up to and how they are that day beyond how they’re playing. A commander is valuable on the field as a leader, and off the field as a friend.
Now, take all of this weird knowledge and find somewhere that’s not even remotely paintball related and go for it. Does your team generally like cars? Go spend a weekend at the Car Show instead of on the field. Does your team have a flair for exotic Chinese cuisine from shady hole-in-the-wall local places? Drop by there after you get off the field. Happen to enjoy video games? Call your team up and hang out for an afternoon playing the games. See a movie that you think your team would like? Invite them to meet you when you go and see it. By some weird twist of fate your team happens to be poet warriors? I kid you not that Poetry is a window to the soul, and Poetry Jams happen to be a good laugh (Not to mention a good way to pick up chicks).
Its’ that simple. A team that is already friends has an easier time of working together on the field and has a higher chance of making risky moves to help save a teammate. The goal here is to create a shade of a phenomenon called the “Brotherhood of War”. This is the often-imitated-but-never-quite-correct element in many war movies that cause certain characters to go and do bizarre things to help their buddies. A team that has even a remote connection to this can do things never heard of before. Three to One odds tend to mean nothing to teams with this.
This sort of thing means that teams are friendly. Especially a team that is good at talking. Communication can help thwart even the fastest markers with little to no problem. The direct benefit of Chemistry on the field is a habit of being downright chatty with the other teammates. That means important information is passed between players quickly and helps make decisions instantly easy and good for the situation.
Now, what about the commands that you’re giving to these brothers of yours? You find yourself in the position that you need to make sure that regardless of anything that is going on around them and that they can figure out what you mean and what you want. Not to mention the commands have to be clear enough they can get other teams and walk-on players to understand and go along with the commands.
A command makes up the first half of a team’s Speed. The actual physical speed that the order is completed in tends to depend on the players on the receiving end and can change what happens as a direct result of the command. That can be worked on with Drilling (We’ll talk about this in a later article).
Your commands consist of two parts. The first being Objective, and the second being Directive. The Objective part of the order is what you want, or where you want the teammates or what you want them shooting at. Think Nouns. Directives are how they get there and what they do. Like, going around a particular bunker or capturing an objective (Note that the action is capturing.). Think Verbs.
Let’s look at a command that you’ve probably given hundreds of times to your team: “Capture the Flag.” Objective: the Flag. Directive: Capture. Simple order. But we generally don’t give orders like that at the beginning of the game and let it go. That tends to lead to really bad situations for us and that hurts Chemistry.
We tend to give orders something like this:
“Broadsword, go around the left side and lay down cover fire while our Daggers spearhead* the flagbase and go after the flag. Myself and the Sabers and Hammer will lay forward cover fire behind the daggers and flank them. Then we’ll let the Ambush pick off the stragglers.” (*Spearhead means a direct frontal assault on an enemy position)
Okay, mouthful. A huge one. Let’s break that down by position.

Broadsword:

• "Flank on the Left Side" O: Left Side D: Flank
• "Lay Down Cover Fire on the Flag" O: Flag D: Cover Fire

Dagger:

• “Spearhead the Flag base” O: Flag base D: Spearhead
• “Capture the Flag” O: Flag D: Capture

Saber, Hammer:

• “Cover the Front” O: Front D: Cover Fire
• “Flank from Right Side” O: Right Side D: Flank

Ambush:

• “Eliminate anyone that Runs or is left.” O: Players D: Eliminate

There’s something wrong with that order though. It’s good, and can result in quite a quick capture, if your team can understand it. The sentences are all tied together and long and confusing. This doesn’t help a player at all because they won’t remember what their goal is. Then it doesn’t matter how good of a plan it is. If you notice, the command used two really bad things for walk-on players: One, it used position names, which aren’t widely known (Yet), and Two, there’s a lot of fluff or jargon there. Simply put, the order doesn’t make it past other SpecOps members and then just your team members if they don’t bother to translate for other Brigade members. What needs to happen is give the players simpler commands that don’t sound so hard. Seriously, what if I assigned you something in a class that sounded like that? You’d be pretty upset with me too.
The order works better for all involved as follows (I’m using names this time):
“Tenacious and Private, I want you to get the flag. Sarge, attack from the creek. Me, Whip and Cub will back up Tenacious and Private. Tabbie, hit the ones that try to run.”
Easy and much more translatable for the rest of the team and the walk-on players nearby. Exactly who is doing what, where and how. Given an order like that, a team can make a much more effective attack because they can remember what they’re doing and not be bogged down in separating their orders out from everyone else’s. What can improve this even more is turning towards specific members as you say the order. Then the walk-ons are clued into that person’s job and can tag along more effectively.
Want in on a secret? When your players see the walk-ons following them, it causes a surge of Confidence. They’ll be really ready to do anything with some backup. That also means there’s a greater chance of success which helps improve Confidence and Chemistry even more. Your plan succeeds and your team sees that they did it working as a team. That is amazing improvement right there. And that helps insanely with the team’s abilities and improvements.