I have three questions ^~^

First question, in a fight between two 18 year olds who would win if one has trained in hand to hand combat for 15 years (martial arts master) and the other is a natural fighter (never trained but fights on pure instinct). Given that their "stats" are the same (agi, str, defense, reaction time, height, weight, stam, ect.) and there is no location advantage (both do not know their surroundings)

The other do you feels is most important in a fight (fighting styles, reaction time, agi, stam, str, defense, thinking speed, ect.) your answer doesn't need to be one thing and it doesn't have to be one of these.

Last one is a follow up question to the last one. If you could specialize in any "stat" which would you specialize in? explanations aren't need but you can if you want.

for the first question, easily the one whose trained.  Martial Arts are, well, it's in the name, "arts".  being good at one is really complicated.  It's probably easier to think of it as an artist drawing something.  some people are naturally more skilled at drawing than others, but if you have someone whose trained in drawing most of their life then they'd almost certainly draw the better picture.  there's simply too much to it for someone to know it all instinctively. Now, if one was trained formally (like, in a dojo or something) and the other never had formal training, but had experience (like, they just got in a lot of fights growing up), you've got a whole different question.  I can try to answer that one too (ask if you're interested) but this post is going to be long enough as it is .

Hmm...interesting...  I don't think "fighting style" is all that important assuming skill is equal.  all fighting styles have their strengths and weaknesses, and a good fighter knows how to compensate for the weaknesses of his/her style with its strengths.  the other stuff you listed is all important (though I'd personally think of "stamina" and "defense" as one thing, "endurance"), I'd say the most important thing would be "thinking speed" when defined as "the ability to predict your opponent's moves".  If you can put your opponent into an unwinnable situation by understanding how they fight, that immediately wins over any gap in your other stats.

for your last one, I'd chose to specialize in that prediction ability, not only because I think it's the most important, but because I really, really suck at it...  technique I've got (well, at least more than the average person).  speed, strength, stamina, yep.  I've even got quasi-decent fighting instinct, which helps compensate for my lack of predictive ability pretty well, but it's like I said for question #1, knowledge beats instinct every time.  If someone can predict my moves and I can't predict theirs, I'm screwed.

PS: just out of interest I'm going to put my background in combat here, and I'm curious about you guys so hopefully I'm not the only one who does this .  I've trained in hand-to-hand combat for almost half my life.  I'm a second degree black belt in tae-kwon-do and a blue belt in jujitsu.  I've also got about a year to a year-and-a-half experience in parkour (the martial art of running away), but not a lot of formal training, and about half a year training in HEMA (split between the german longsword and rapier).

My answer are

1. I don't think you can really decide because if both people are evenly matched and the only difference between them is experience I would think it would come down to how they think and how flexible they are in situations. Given the fact that the one with no experience isn't very focused on stances and fighting "properly" I would think that he would have an advantage in that right (given that the experienced fighter is loyal to the basics and what he's learned)

2. I thought fighting styles are kind of important but not the most. Some fighting styles have an advantage over others but at the same time people can change the way they fight. (given they have the ability to...which I feel like not many people can do) I think the most important thing (not sure if you've guessed it xD) is flexibility to new situations.

3. I wouldn't want a specialty but that's only because I like being well rounded. (hints why I'm going for a 50/50 build in your games xD)

Also, Noma, I put stamina and defense separate just so if someone valued one over the other they'd have the option.

As for my experience I have pretty close to none xD I didn't do kendo for very long because my parents didn't feel like spending anymore money on it. I never did martial arts. but I got scholarship from my french teacher for fencing so I've been learning to use a foil for the past two months I think o.o. Other than that I'm self taught in everything fighting related xD. Idk if you can count that as real or not though but meh *shrugs*. I do want to get into Naginata and Battodo eventually though along with learning to use a Kusarigama.

My answers are

1. I am naturally talented with blades and guns as I am a born fighter...however, I have faced many who are a lot more skilled than I am, thus making them win as I cannot handle the sword quite as well as I haven't proper trained my muscles. So on the info that you gave me, the one who had trained would undoubtedly win as he has both skill and endurance. Life just isn't an anime.

2. It's very hard to say as all of these are critical to ones survival, however the one that I try to use most is strength and agility even though we should never underestimate stamina. As I am only 5'7", 140lb (all muscle), and have a very athletic tone, it is quite easy to get around some of my taller friends when we fight.

3. I have never taken any sword classes or anything like that, the only martial art that I have taken is HapKido and I reached a green belt...not very high (I did it for one year when I was 9). However, taking the knowledge that I learned and combined it with stuff I study on my own I've created my own style of martial arts which, in technical sense, means I'm a natural and a talented fighter. For the blade, I have practiced in "stick" wars with my friends since I was 5 and have gotten a pretty darn good handle with the sword as I was always up against people 2-3 years older than me (they had puberty strength and I didn't at the time I'm stalking about). Guns I just practice with airsoft so that's all hard work...To summarize my "life past" and the point of all this, with everything that I have experienced, I would go with a mix of strength and agility (it's just who I am, I can't decide one )


Goodness this post sounds so prideful...Not meant in that way just letting y'all know

Fulger, you really should look into training Kendo or HEMA or something (I'd recommend HEMA, since Kendo is a sport fighting style, but either works). as someone who recently got into it, fighting that way feels so...wrong... the way I naturally imagined sword-fighting isn't HEMA at all. that being said, it really works lol. The only time I landed a hit on the guy teaching me (only about a year or two older than me, but with five years experience in HEMA) was when I was fighting him 2-on-1 with another member of the club, and even that was hard

Yeah I typically use a one handed sword or I dual wield.

that's not exactly what I was referring to.  Dual wielding is rare in HEMA, but it happens, and one-handed sword fighting certainly is a thing, I'm talking about how you fight with those swords.  I mean, seriously

who fights like this?!  but it really does work if you're good at it

Those stances look like the fundamentals top one handed sword fighting stances o.o but that's just what I've seen from years of anime and watching sword sparring videos xD (just so you know by stance I more mean if you were to take a picture before and after each attack)

well, if you watch sparring videos you've probably seen them. some anime do use real stances (Saber from Fate/UBW tends to stay in a decent Vom Tag or Neben, for example), but I don't usually see these stances all that often. Maybe Ochs, but they always have it way too low, with the blade by the face instead of above the head, so it's practically useless

Edit--looking at the pic I sent, they have the Ochs really weird too... I'm used to seeing it closer to the body and above the head, maybe it's a different style?

Regarding Kyoya's question~

First of all, it's in a virtual environment, right? If so, it's fair for me to say that past experience doesn't matter if there is no pain because you could easily eat the attacks and strike back as well. I mean, sure, depending on how realistic the game is, it's not even guaranteed that you can break/fracture bones, so a lot of the jabs and grapples that a lot of martial arts rely on won't be very effective at stopping the opponent (unless they just want distance by throwing them around). It also depends on the stats of the players as well, but I won't go into much detail if I don't have to.

If there is pain and bone breaking...well, that's a completely different scenario.

most martial arts sparring (at least for sports martial arts) is done with a lot of padding as protection, so pain is practically nonexistent.  and if you try to just wail in an attempt to compensate for a lack of skill, hoping to hit your opponent more than he/she hits you, well, I think that'll be the new style of button-mashing in a virtual world. annoying to moderately skilled players but pointless against people who really know what they're doing in a fight.  in that situation I probably wouldn't jab, but grapples and throws would probably be very effective.  throws aren't usually used to create distance, rather to put you opponent in a disadvantageous position.  If I manage to throw someone flailing at me on the ground, they won't be able to effectively attack until they get up again, leaving them completely open.  you could also do a minor grapple to turn the tide fairly easily too (stand just out of range, wait for a punch, then grab your opponent's wrist.  step to the outside of their body while pushing the wrist to the inside and you can close distance while preventing them from being able to punch at you.  after that, you're basically behind them with one hand completely open, and if you keep control of your opponent's hand they'll have a hard time turning back around to attack you again.)

that's just a couple of examples, but I really don't think the lack of pain will change how you fight all that much in a virtual world. though, again, I am basically just saying that the way of fighting I'm fairly proficient in will be the best way to fight in fulldive VR, so feel free to take everything with a grain of salt.

Well, I did say that, with no pain, martial arts would be rendered useless as the opponent won't flail about because of pain. They should be able to keep a calm head and, depending on the amount of fighting the inexperienced has actually done in the game, will be able to fight back.

Actually, you know what? There are too many variables, so there's no point in arguing about this xD

yeah, I guess you're right. honestly, I was hoping to have any kind of conversation, lol. the forums have been pretty dead lately.

They have. But, seriously, if we did end up debating over this, there would be no winners as there are way too many variables to consider. However, I am still up for a good debate if you really want to engage in this activity.

Why are we even doing this?!

no, I'm w/ you Leriko, it'd just end up going nowhere

and because we're bored lordfulger

We're just bored and wanting to bring some life back into this dusty place. On a side note, anyone here seen the Overwatch animated shorts? They're all a piece of art. Even if you aren't interested in the game, I recommend that you watch them if you already haven't.

I've seen some clips (mostly pieces of fight scenes), are they really that good?

I personally think the animated shorts are good for how short they are.

Yeah they are freakin amazing...they should make some movies!

Movies would be too much with the amount of characters in the game, so it would be best if they kept it to animated shorts that focus on one or two characters at a time.

If they made a full overwatch movie with ALL characters, or most at least, i'd kickstart the shit out of it lol

Well, if the movie was focused on one giant battle or two, it'd be fine to have all characters. I'd like to see something like that as it will show me how the characters canonically communicate with each other xD