Skip to content

Countering Moves

Countering a move is done by pressing the Block button (LT on gamepads, C on keyboards) as close as possible to a sweet spot during the move. Said sweet spot differs from move to move: picture your wrestler being forced into grappling, grabbed before a body slam or being up high before being slammed down in a powerbomb – there are many opportunities to counter!

Successful Countering

Energy Test

Counters require Energy to be performed. If your wrestler has too little Energy left, the counter will fail. The amount of Energy needed depends on the counter spot of the corresponding move, and some counters require more or less Energy depending on the weight difference between the involved wrestlers.

Success Test

If the Energy Test passes, the counter undergoes another test to determine whether or not it is successful. The key ingredient is the Success Chance that is calculated as follows (as per version 0.14.20):

\(\small{P(\text{Success}) = \frac{2}{100} + \frac{73}{100} \cdot P(\text{Timing}) \cdot P(\text{Mashing}) \cdot P(\text{Skill}) \cdot P(\text{Momentum}) \cdot P(\text{Dizzy}) \cdot P(\text{AI})}\)

where

  • \(P(\text{Timing}) = e^{-32t^2}\) is the Timing Bias for the difference \(t\) between button press time and the sweet spot time. The closer you press to the sweet spot, the closer \(t\) will be to zero and the Timing Bias to one, i.e., canceled out. For AI players, at every opportunity to counter, \(t\) is drawn at random from a normal distribution with standard deviation 0.2.
  • \(P(Mashing) = \left(\frac{9}{10}\right)^{m-1}\) is the Mashing Bias for the number of times \(m \geq 1\) that you have mashed the Block button. The more you mash the button, the worse your chance gets. The number \(m\) is incremented every time you press block if it has been less than 1/4 second since the last time. If you wait 1/4 seconds between to presses, \(m\) is reset back to 1.
  • \(P(Skill) = \frac{3}{4}+\frac{1}{4}S\) is the Skill Bias, where \(S \in [0,1]\) is your wrestler's skill.
  • \(P(\text{Momentum}) = \frac{1}{2} + \frac{1}{2} \min\{M_\text{you} / \left(M_\text{opponent}+\frac{1}{8}\right),1\}\) is the Momentum Bias, where \(M_\text{you} \in [0,1]\) is your wrestler's momentum and \(M_\text{opponent} \in [0,1]\)​ is your opponent's momentum. The greater your momentum is in relation to your opponent's momentum, the better this bias. If there is no opponent, then \(M_\text{opponent} := \frac{1}{2}\).
  • \(P(Dizzy) = \begin{cases}\frac{3}{4} &\text{if dizzy}\\1 &\text{otherwise}\end{cases}\) is the bias applied by being dizzy.
  • \(P(AI)\) is the AI Bias. For human players, this is always 1. For AI players, this is the value of the Counters slider from the AI Settings.

Following the above, any move has at least a 2% chance of succeeding even if everything goes wrong. Conversely, even if everything goes perfect, the highest possible chance to counter is 75%.

Keep in mind that the Success Chance is still only a chance! The game will roll a random value between 0 and 1, and the success test passes if the rolled value is smaller than \(P(Success)\). In other words, intuitively, the higher the Success Chance, the more likely it is that the counter succeeds, but it is still not guaranteed. On the other hand, a counter may succeed even if the chances are slim.