How Far Can Eddy Get with Just One Button

The Tekken side of Twitch is experiencing a real blast from the past right now. Have any of you played Tekken 3 with friends? I guess any Tekken would do here, but if you did, and one of your friends picked Eddy, you know what I'm talking about.

JimMashima has recently set up a never-ending stream where only one thing happens, Eddy presses 3, thereby affectionately renamed to 3ddy by the viewers. You could call it a bot, but that might be too ambitious, since it's literally just nothing but a script that spams 3 and an occasional down input to avoid softlocks on rematch.

Despite the simplicity, it's rather fascinating to watch due to how people respond to 3ddy. There are knowing snipers now and then, who either farm the ranked points or offer their own spam as competition.

There are genuine beginners who can't comprehend the flurry of attacks that his new 3 string is made out of. It's kind of like how your friend might have thought that they're stuck in an infinite combo because they didn't know they could duck under jabs.

Even players who seemingly should know better at their rank tend to have some difficulty with 3ddy's 3 pronged approach strategy of: off3ns3, strik3, and pr3ssur3. There's even a guide on how to defeat specifically 3ddy.

Seeing people struggle with this does highlight some problems that players face, however. Players typically have issues dealing with the approach. They don't know how to respond to someone moving forward while also attacking, so they end up eating a lot of counter hits.

Tekken is somewhat unique in this. While almost every fighting game has some sort of approach oriented special moves, Tekken just has normal strings that dish out attacks while moving the player forward. Even if you can roughly tell the distance and hitboxes, any thoughtless attempt at a counterpoke will likely be met with a counter-hit launch.

While some players figure out the more nuanced gaps in the string, others tend to go for a more universal approach of armor moves, heat bursts, and rage arts. All totally correct answers, even if not necessarily perfect. In rare occasions, you will even see people utilize sidesteps or low/high crushing.

Another huge issue is patience. People simply don't want to block. When they do try, they usually notice a very slow and telegraphed low attack that leads to a launch punish. Even when they do, players at these ranks often can't capitalize on their correct choices because they don't know how to convert it into a combo.

And what ranks are those, you might be asking? Well, orange. 3ddy has been kinda stuck there after reaching those ranks, and sits at a relatively low winrate ever since. Despite his S+ goal-oriented stat, it turns out that most people do understand how to beat him after some point.

In a way, it's an actual learning experience, and it's genuinely nice to see when people struggle against the spam at first, but then adapt and make a clean sweep.

Unfortunately, you can't rely on everyone rooting for the underdog. Hence, the chat is often filled with pretty hateful people who throw insults at people playing against 3ddy, with reasons ranging from not adapting, to adapting, but doing it in a way they don't like, or with a character they hate.

Rage Art seems to be especially hates, because god forbid new players make a correct choice of utilizing Rage Art armor against a string spam.

Nevertheless, it's still cool to see, and you can check out the channel by following this link.