The Fighting Game Noob Thread: From Scrub to Master

Why would you love to play me? Hope that's a compliment!

I do the normal spamming because it's Hugo and I don't want him in my space and I get it from watching say, Infiltration:

http://youtu.be/ZtAQt5_xQyA

http://youtu.be/2drSFjHHSjU

But maybe I'm not doing it right like him. Thanks for the advice. :)

As for the lack of punishes, it was mostly nerves and doubts in my own skills.

I would love to play almost anybody, I don't have any chun players to play with. You have to stop doubting if you can do the punished or long combos. That way you learn to do then in real matches, not just training mode. Sure you will fail most of the times in the beginning, but if you don't start trying in matches, you will never learn.

For a great and interesting chun, watch Valmaster, not just infiltration,
 
General XRD tip, if you're new to Guilty Gear, it's generally recommended you stay away from matches with other players for a while. I asked a lot of good GG players going into +R back in the day, and they told me this too.

Grind out training mode with your preferred character / fight CPU (its randomized blocking patterns forces you to readjust your pressure) / do the tutorial and missions (helps with some important character specific matchup stuff).

AND WATCH MATCH VIDS OF YOUR PREFERRED CHARACTER.

Taking mad Ls in the beginning doesn't make for a good use of your time generally, and imprints bad habits when you don't know what you're doing.
I've done all of this before going online. I just got to the point where I was bored of playing against the CPU. I finished Ky/Sin's trials, watched tutorials of how to play them, finished the trials, hours of training mode, watched videos of Sin/Ky players (mostly JPN players tbh). I do find myself really lost with Sin because I'm not sure where I should be taking my special/strings when I have an opportunity to use them.
With Sin, you seem to be trying to zoon them out, Sin is more of rush down character despite his reach, you should only be backing off when you need to find space to eat. You want to always be within poke(Sin's poke) distance from them.

You're not using food meter cancels for mixups when they block one of your special moves, I know it may seem gimmicky, but it works, mostly safe, build the opponent's risk meter and even if blocked does a lot of chip damage, you won't get far with Sin without using them.

Conversion is a huge part of Xrd, especially for characters like Sin who may have difficulty opening people up but can dish out huge damage once he does. You got a lot of clean hits in the video which you didn't follow up with anything.

Against most characters, it's never good idea to start charging that spear attack when they're outside the attack range.

Generally, you're not mobile enough, which makes you an easy target for the opponent to set up on or position himself at an advantageous position. Mix between jumping double jumping back/forward, air/ground back dashing and try to bait out stuff by dashing forward on the ground and canceling the dash with FD. Don't stay still, waiting for the opponent to do something and try to react to it, try to be as active as possible.
Vs Potemkin I was definitely trying to keep him out 2S/Beak. Unfamiliarity with the cast and their specials definitely plays a part into why I got hit by every normal/special Potemkin has lol. I only had like, two proper hit confirms in those matches and both of them got bursted immediately :/, such a buzzkill.

And yea I still have a problem with movement in this game, especially since you can't really buffer dashes. It still feels really awkward to do still.
Isn't this a thread for beginners, why are people playing GGXrd?! D:

Learning the game is hard as balls.
im sayin
It looks cool af! But yeah, it's stupid.

KOF and SF is hard as hell too,
SF is at least a lot slower so you've got a lot more time to think about your actions. XRD goes 0-100 real quick.
 
Super excited to find this thread. 2016 is the year, damnit! I've got my first stick coming to me in a few days. SFIV (then V in January) will be the game.

Playing Ryu for now.
Steam: jarreph josile
PSN: JobenNC
 
I've seen a lot of people who hates playing against Decapre and Mike Ross even saying she's top tier back in Capcom Cup in USF4. The truth is DECAPRE IS FREE. She is the weakest out of the Ultra characters and everything she does can be punished. I haven't found anything info on this other than playing matches online.


Her Air Scramble Heavy Break on start up can be beaten by any normal except CL.HK on cross up with no strict timing and can be thrown for some stupid reason. Since Decapre is technically in the air, you can get a counter hit light DP into Ultra 1 with Ryu.

Whenever you go against Decapre and is Air Scramble Break happy, Just press any normal and it will win including her light and medium because they also have recovery.
 
tl;dr The above is very much a... highly specific anecdote, but hopefully I got some points across in how to look for what really resonates with you in a character. And for what it's worth, although quite irrelevant: I'm looking to toy around with Birdie and F.A.N.G alongside Dhalsim in Street Fighter V based on these preferences.

I think I can't really handle dextrous characters either, where you need maybe to input a number of quick moves consecutively (timing or whatnot) or the execution itself is hard. As I was reading your post, I thought you might like F.A.N.G. So at least you kind of know what you want to the point that someone else could guess. I usually really dislike feint/confusing characters though, so no way I'd pick them.

Tina (DOA5) just fit nicely. A kind of balanced grappler I guess? I tended to suck against aggressive fast characters though. My short time with Sarah (VF) was fun, but ultimately that game is super complex that I just couldn't properly invest into it. And I had easier wins using Mileena in MKX than even using Tina in DOA, but I didn't really like MKX's gameplay.

The only nagging aesthetic for me nowadays is using a female main. I used to be fine with males, like Sub Zero in MK. But in MKX I just didn't care for him. A small female pool turns me off certain fighters now.
 
Resisting the urge to jump-in on an opponent in SF is like the hardest task ever in a video game for me, holy shit. I'm trying to stop doing it lol physically hurts

Watch the first episode of Beta Adventures linked in the SF resource in the op. That should help.

I would love to play almost anybody, I don't have any chun players to play with. You have to stop doubting if you can do the punished or long combos. That way you learn to do then in real matches, not just training mode. Sure you will fail most of the times in the beginning, but if you don't start trying in matches, you will never learn.

For a great and interesting chun, watch Valmaster, not just infiltration,

I watch Valmaster, Vivi, Mitsuri, and Infiltration. I prefer Vivi the most.

Also I struggle with punishes because I'm new and don't know how to fully punish yet. Sometimes I'll see a great opportunity and not know how to take it. But that will come in time. As for combos, I'm just now learning some. I've been focusing exclusively on fundamentals with no combos. But now I'm at a point where I should learn combos. It's why I'm placing so much emphasis on training right now.
 
I think I can't really handle dextrous characters either, where you need maybe to input a number of quick moves consecutively (timing or whatnot) or the execution itself is hard. As I was reading your post, I thought you might like F.A.N.G. So at least you kind of know what you want to the point that someone else could guess. I usually really dislike feint/confusing characters though, so no way I'd pick them.

Tina (DOA5) just fit nicely. A kind of balanced grappler I guess? I tended to suck against aggressive fast characters though. My short time with Sarah (VF) was fun, but ultimately that game is super complex that I just couldn't properly invest into it. And I had easier wins using Mileena in MKX than even using Tina in DOA, but I didn't really like MKX's gameplay.

The only nagging aesthetic for me nowadays is using a female main. I used to be fine with males, like Sub Zero in MK. But in MKX I just didn't care for him. A small female pool turns me off certain fighters now.
Can't comment on 5 since I've only played DOA 2 and 4 extensively, but depending on how much they changed them up since then, Bayman / Leon might be a suitable secondary character if you're looking for one. Bit more options in the counter department than Tina if memory serves, but they also possess more grabs than your average character (with good damage off of them to boot) without being sluggish like Bass. I didn't think Virtua Fighter 5 was too complex either - felt more immediately intuitive to me than most 3D fighters - but I've only played the vanilla version (on a semi-casual level) back when it first came out on Xbox 360; someone else can certainly discuss the overall complexity and combat landscape in greater detail with the newer revisions it received, never mind explaining which of the grab-happy characters (Aoi, Goh, Vanessa, El Blaze, Wolf, Jeffrey, etc.) in that game are a decent entry point.
 
Looking for a mentor in Xrd, or people to learn with. I'm not completely new to the game, but I've been stuck at just past scrub level for a while.

Game: Xrd
Character: Venom
Sub characters: Ky, Sol
Steam: Deps
PS4: YoungDeps
Region: Midwest(Ohio)
 
Isn't this a thread for beginners, why are people playing GGXrd?! D:

Learning the game is hard as balls.

Excluding oldies like Breaker's Revenge, Battle Fantasia is also beginner friendly, considering this is an Arcsys game. No half circles, charge or 360 motions. No double jump or jump cancelling either. Only the final boss in arcade mode is too difficult for beginners, even on very easy.
It is just the style and lore that may put some players off. The opposite of Arcana Heart really.
 
Awesome thread! Thanks!

I'm a low-intermediate player. I used to play SF4 pretty regularly, but with V coming out I've kind of lost my will to practice. That said, I'd love to get some games in and get my head back into fighting game mode since V will be upon us soon. In Ultra, I play Yang pretty well and I play another 2/3rds of the cast poorly. I practice Abel, Hugo, Dictator, and Ibuki quite a bit as well. I'd love to play Honda and Chun, but my pianos are garbage. I will main Dictator in V and then Urien when he's released.

I also recently picked Xrd up on Steam and would love to have people to play in that -- though I'm a long ways away from being even remotely competent. I really like Ramlethal, but it's my understanding that she's not so great after the 1.1 patch. My other pick would be Elphelt. I need to explore the cast more regardless!

I'm very competent execution-wise, but I definitely need to work on my neutral, patience, and decision making across the board no matter what game it is.

If anyone would like to play, my steam is http://steamcommunity.com/id/markwaters/ -- I hope links are OK.

In SF4, I'd be happy to play anyone as a specific character for mutual matchup knowledge exp, or just for fun. In Xrd, I need all the help I can get. T_T

Edit: TL;DR:
Region: Chicago, USA (Midwest)
Games: USF4, Xrd
Characters (SF4): Yang, Abel, Hugo, Dictator, Ibuki, sometimes Evil Ryu, and mostly anyone except Viper, Fuerte and Hakan.
Characters (Xrd): Ramlethal? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Steam: http://steamcommunity.com/id/markwaters/
 
Watch the first episode of Beta Adventures linked in the SF resource in the op. That should help.



I watch Valmaster, Vivi, Mitsuri, and Infiltration. I prefer Vivi the most.

Also I struggle with punishes because I'm new and don't know how to fully punish yet. Sometimes I'll see a great opportunity and not know how to take it. But that will come in time. As for combos, I'm just now learning some. I've been focusing exclusively on fundamentals with no combos. But now I'm at a point where I should learn combos. It's why I'm placing so much emphasis on training right now.

If in doubt, just sweep :) especially with chun and her range
 
From the OP:



No one has volunteered to mentor someone yet.
I think this is an excellent idea and just the kind of thing that the FGC needs. It is really tough starting out as a netplay warrior.

On that note, I'm a pretty decent BlazBlue player and would be more than willing to mentor anyone who is interested in becoming a pretty decent BlazBlue player. I live on the east coast, although I'll be in Japan (Tokyo) for the next few months at least. I play almost exclusively as Litchi but I play the game enough to be useful to people playing as other characters.
Time to buckle down and learn Ragnah in BB. I wish I bought Guilty Gear instead TBH.
The next BlazBlue revision (Central Fiction) is a lot of fun and maybe the best version of the game yet, so it's not like you've made a bad choice by picking up BB.

The most general advice I can give for BB, and perhaps airdashers in general, is to forget about being optimal, at least at first. You should focus your energy on getting some kind of confirm off of everything; it is far better to get 2.5k with air knockdown and mediocre carry than to get 700 and a reset. You can't really get into the mindgames if you're dealing so little damage that you need to land ten times as many hits as your opponent to win.
 
I usually abuse certain things if my opponent doesn't react if you can tech to save your life I'll grab you the whole round. SFV Ken feels like 3s Ken in terms of mobility I feel right at home now, SF4 Ken was stiff in comparison like I couldn't play tootsies like this in sf4 http://youtu.be/6OE3eVYXq-4


Nah I was just teasing him it's all good, smash folks are bros.
ha! I think i fought you during the beta! At least i remember that name. Looking forward to the Ken army taking over the world!

So ready for SFV!!!
 
I need a Footsies trainer in either SF3 3rd strike or SF4. hopefully east coast.

Game: 3rd strike, sf4
Character: Guy/Q/Ryu
Sub characters: E.Ryu/Oro
Steam: mesmerman
PS3: RockTurtle
Region: East Coast(S.E. , Florida)
 
GG fucks with me because my region is actually good and I said fuck that shit. They can all see me in DOA.
Who am I kidding they'll never play it. :E
 
Looking for PC people to play Xrd. I'm in the midwest, have been playing almost 3 whole weeks. Steam

Also play SFIV which I'm okay at. Not great or terrible. I just play shotos now because they're the most useful for improving and I don't feel like practicing anyone else with SFV so close.
 
I think this is an excellent idea and just the kind of thing that the FGC needs. It is really tough starting out as a netplay warrior.

On that note, I'm a pretty decent BlazBlue player and would be more than willing to mentor anyone who is interested in becoming a pretty decent BlazBlue player. I live on the east coast, although I'll be in Japan (Tokyo) for the next few months at least. I play almost exclusively as Litchi but I play the game enough to be useful to people playing as other characters.

The next BlazBlue revision (Central Fiction) is a lot of fun and maybe the best version of the game yet, so it's not like you've made a bad choice by picking up BB.

The most general advice I can give for BB, and perhaps airdashers in general, is to forget about being optimal, at least at first. You should focus your energy on getting some kind of confirm off of everything; it is far better to get 2.5k with air knockdown and mediocre carry than to get 700 and a reset. You can't really get into the mindgames if you're dealing so little damage that you need to land ten times as many hits as your opponent to win.

I'd love a BlazBlue mentor.

I have no idea what I'm doing and I'm just now getting to grips.

Had my first online match earlier.

https://youtu.be/PJpQO3W1eqU?t=7m19s

If in doubt, just sweep :) especially with chun and her range

Good advice. :)
 
I made an analysis from the first match of this video. I put the timestamps in the desciption too so you can jump to any of the moments I commented on. I'm using Juri btw.


0:10 Not much going on. I think we're just observing each other here.
0:11 I'm assuming he takes note of my passiveness here, and decides to throw fireballs
0:13 I jump over the second fireball and attempt to counter him since I'm within his sweep range. He tries to jump in and punish, but I recover in time
0:14 Since I blocked his jump in he still continues to apply pressure. Due to my passiveness so far he goes for a tick throw and lands it. On my wake up he goes for another jump in and continues pushing me back into the corner.
0:20 I think I was trying to whiff punish any low forwards or sweeps here, but nothing happens.
0:26 I get hit by some fireballs here trying to counter and I find myself in the corner because of it. He takes initiative and moves closer. He attempts to jump in again, but I stop him with a neutral jump MK.
0:28 I dash up as he's landing here, (This is probably the most offensive thing I've done so far) and get a tick throw on him switching sides and putting him near the corner instead. I take advantage of the hard knockdown and throw a meaty fireball.
0:32 The pushback of the fireball gives more me room to store another fireball. He tries to jump in on my again, and I anti air and dash in once more. This time he catches me with jabs as he lands, but I end up pushing him into the corner again regardless.
0:36 I'm still within sweep range so I just decide to block. He goes for a FA in hopes that I tried to poke him with something and it whiffs. Since I wasn't sure if it would reach me or not I backed up instead of punishing it.

0:37 Look familiar? We're doing the exact same situation from the start of the round. I go back to being passive and he retaliates a fireball. However, this time I try to throw an ex low fireball and end up getting hit because of it. I take advantage of the pushback and move in again. He goes for yet another jump in and it whiffs. I think I could've punished it, but I thought I would've blocked it instead of it whiffing that close.

0:41 Both of our moves whiff here so I try for a st. LK. This is the first time I challenged him in his sweep range in a big way, but I don't into pinwheel for move damage for some reason. Afterwards we continue to move around a bit until I suddenly throw out an MK pinwheel. I guess I was trying to punish a fireball that never came. He punishes with low forward into ex fireball to get himself out of the corner and goes for a tick throw. He goes for another jump in pn my wake up and misses and I end up getting a throw on him.I take advantage of the hard knockdown and go into U1. I try to go for a st. HK here in case he was trying to throw a fireball again, but this time he throws it a bit later. He jumps in again and for some reason I try to hit him with j. MK instead of j. MP and we both whiff. As we land he pushes me back with a block string so we're mid screen again.I throw an low ex fireball again and cross myself up dashing forward and I lose the round because of it.

Round 2

1:13 This time he dashes up and I neutral jump for some reason. He backs up a bit and throws a hadoken which I absorb with a FA.
1:16 Right here I divekick to make sure I avoid the fireball, but I think he could've sweeped me from that range. Instead he continues throwing fireballs and dashing forward. I decide to store fireballs here, but I end up getting hit because of it. He also changes up his rhythm with fireballs and my neutral jump causes me to keep knocked down and pushed closer to the corner
1:28 I move in closer and attempt to pinwheel again, but I used the light one for some reason and I get hit once again. Another jump in and block string pushes me futher into the corner.
1:35 We're in a similar situation again and this time I throw a low ex fireball and it catches him as he presses something
1:37 This might be the first time I actually jump in on him the whole game and I got for another tick throw. Everytime I've been within his sweep range or forward range I usually block in case he does one of those moves. The whole game when I've been in that area he usually threw out a cr. LP or a cr. MK so I was caught off guard a bit here when he actually did it.
1:47 I anti air him and try to dash under to cross him up, but we end up trading. He tries to go for another focus and I actually punish it with an ex fireball. Shortly afterwards I anti air and dash under again and block instead of pressing anything.
2:09 I jump in again and an could've pushed him, but I froze up and did light pinwheel for some reason and I got punished for it.

Thoughts on how I played: I was pretty passive in this game. Neutral jumping and countering were the main reasons I kept getting hit, but hadokens so I should do them less. I rarely go for counter should probably think about when and where I should use it more. My neutral jump timing needs some work as well. Against shotos I tend not to jump in as much because I could get dp'd and after playing online so much people expect you to jump in and divekick a lot with Juri so I don't do it that often. Punishing whiffed moves is something I need to work on as well. There were a lot of moments in that match were I could've, but I hesitated too much and missed out on damage. I have to anti air more as well. He jumped in on me so many times and while I did start to anti air with cr. MP in the second round I didn't do it that much to discourage him from jumping in one me. Jumping towards Ryu would've helped me a lot in that match too the lack of dps in general should've clued me in on that he's either not that good at doing them or that my lack of jump ins caused him to not think about doing an uppercut. I have to get better at learning who I'm fighting against and adjusting accordingly and not being so passive as a character who can apply pressure so heavily.

Thoughts on DunpealD's Ryu: I think he played that match pretty well. Once he saw that I wasn't jumping in and getting hit by fireballs he didn't really have stop what he was doing. He did tend to jump in a bit frequently so I should take note of that and be ready to anti air. I also should've challenged with my own low forward since he wasn't really using his unless it was in a combo or block string. He used cr. LP when he was applying pressure or defending himself a lot, but I couldn't seem to find anything faster so I just blocked if I could. Also when I was suddenly be on offense it looked like he was caught off guard which is understandable considering how passive I was. Another thing I should try to utilize is baiting his FA. When he did those two FAs I wasn't trying to press anything and I did manage to punish one of them later in the match, so being around that range seems like a good area to bait those kinds of moves. However I think I'm still within sweep range so I have to be cautious regardless.
 
Hardest thing about xrd is lots of players have been playing guilty gear for a decade plus, so if you're playing against them, you're gonna get wrecked until you get decent and that takes a while against a ten year head start.
 
Not at important at all. You could become great at Tekken just playing Tekken.

In my opinion playing other games to learn fundamentals or even playing other characters you don't like just for fundamentals is a waste of time. It's over complicating things and I don't know of many who achieved success that went down that path. Just do your thing and you'll figure it out if you have the passion and ability.

There's a million examples of people who play their first and only game and become great.

Very important. Unless your love for Tekken is so high that you don't have to motivate yourself, its really easy to get complacent in your main game or run into plateaus sooner because after awhile, there's not much beyond your flaws to really push you to learn.

Like I say in my videos every time I learn a new game and jump back to Tekken my skills get even better. I went from being a decent scrub in SCIV to being a competent player in TTT2 because in between those games I had T6, MK9, SCV, and VF5 and each of those games taught me concepts that I could apply to my game in Tekken. Playing SF recent has had me reach back into my Soul Calibur skill set with playing within a set range. I think its almost necessary to play other games if you want to even think about improving tbh.

Thanks for your answer, guys. Seems like we have two contrary opinions, but I guess that's fine. Mike, your videos is what got me interested in the first place and they're the reason I asked this question^^

If there's a community I guess motivating myself for a game will be possible. I plan on trying out SFV next year, but I'm still not 100% sure. It would be great if I can benefit from both games and improve simultaneously.
 
Awesome. I'd like to play Kage or Eileen.
a kage player was in grand finals at canada cup this year and an eileen player won NYGX this year, so there's some recent footage of strong western kage/eileen!

you should absolutely read this:
http://virtuafighter.com/threads/starting-out-with-eileen-1.19182/
and this:
http://virtuafighter.com/threads/starting-out-with-eileen-2.19413/
for eileen

unfortunately theres no similar guide for kage but i know a lot about kage and can write something up for you later!
 
So far I'm liking Kokonoe, Jin, Taokaka, and Celise (?).

You can play all four of them maybe tonight and you can tell which direction I can head in. How's that?


Heh. For some reason I keep hearing the One Punch Man theme in my head imagining Q goin into the lab with you. Q is awesome at these and you should learn a lot. Just be ready for that Makoto when she goes in. Then he becomes Saitama...
 
i'm writing a kage masterpost :D might be a while and i gotta double check some stuff but it should be comprehensive.
 
im a scrub in sf4. I'm down to play people once in awhile.

steamid: ragingnight (i believe). I'm down to play a few games right now

edit
I'll play you cindi if you are down. I think I'm around your level give or take.
 
Got myself a arcade stick for christmas and trying to make the transition from pad, hooboy i suck at this.
Having troulbe with DP motions half circles and 360 motions. Like i have no idea how to even do the 360.

Also on Blazblue how do you do the backwards half circle forward motion on a stick? I just jump backwards
 
Got myself a arcade stick for christmas and trying to make the transition from pad, hooboy i suck at this.
Having troulbe with DP motions half circles and 360 motions. Like i have no idea how to even do the 360.

Also on Blazblue how do you do the backwards half circle forward motion on a stick? I just jump backwards

Stop at back, you are over extending the motion
 
Hey GG players,

How's Slayer? I've been following that YouTube Crash Course using Sol but he starting to bore me a bit and Slayer looks pretty cool. (I get a Darkstalkers vibe from him.) I'm a total scrub at this game and I've been wanting to get back into 2D fighters.

Here's my info:

Games: DoA:LR, GG Xrd (barely getting into), and SFV when it drops.
Characters: DoA: Rachel GG: Sol
Sub characters: DoA: Momiji and Rig (Need lots of practice with both of them) GG: None yet.
PSN: GhostNtheMirror
Region: US West Coast (Southern California)

In need of practice for both games so feel free to add me.
 
Slayer is fun, but lacking in xrd (in my opinion). He requires good reads, and requires some balls to play well. He has some bad match ups, and comes off a bit too honest when compared to the other bullshit in the game.
 
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