The Fighting Game Noob Thread: From Scrub to Master

Cindi Mayweather said:
Tonight I went from 600 PP to 149 PP.. That may seem like nothing but I spent months building that up. I'm beyond frustrated and angry right now.

On the last fight, I didn't even bother. When I dropped my Kikosho punish, something I had dropped all night, and is easy as fuck, and something I can't do tonight apparently, I just put the controller down and didn't both pressing another button the rest of the round.

I started playing at 6 pm and I only one won fight.

I know I have a long way to go, but tonight it felt like I haven't improved a bit. It was extremely deflating, mentally, to lose to people I think I'm better than. It made me not even want to bother.
Click to expand...
Think of fighting games as lifting. It's all good when you're hitting all your sets and breaking records (getting some perfects or major comebacks), but if you go too far you lose strength and the DOMS (consecutive losses) start kicking in. At that point it's good to take a nice day's break so you can mull on what you've learned (good and bad). Twenty or thirty losses in a row isn't good for someone at intermediate levels or below. It just kills the enthusiasm. I know from experience.
 
SolarPowered said:
Think of fighting games as lifting. It's all good when you're hitting all your sets and breaking records (getting some perfects or major comebacks), but if you go too far you lose strength and the DOMS (consecutive losses) start kicking in. At that point it's good to take a nice day's break so you can mull on what you've learned (good and bad). Twenty or thirty losses in a row isn't good for someone at intermediate levels or below. It just kills the enthusiasm. I know from experience.
Click to expand...
I always think about taking a break, but other thoughts like "I don't wanna stop playing yet" or "I'll win the next match for sure" come up too. Recently I've made a rule for myself that if I lose 5 or more matches in a row I do end up taking a break and playing later though.
 
SolarPowered said:
Think of fighting games as lifting. It's all good when you're hitting all your sets and breaking records (getting some perfects or major comebacks), but if you go too far you lose strength and the DOMS (consecutive losses) start kicking in. At that point it's good to take a nice day's break so you can mull on what you've learned (good and bad). Twenty or thirty losses in a row isn't good for someone at intermediate levels or below. It just kills the enthusiasm. I know from experience.
Click to expand...

Huh?

That's Tuesday.

What games have YOU been playing?

vu6ywjl.jpg
 
Huh never saw this thread before. Getting SFV next month and haven't played a fighter since MK9 (and the last before that was Tekken 3) although I do play Smash occasionally so I guess that counts (although it feels different to me than a typical fighter). At least I hopefully won't be completely alone when it comes to skill levels with other players. Although even when I got MK9 I spent ages and ages with it and didn't improve much and I ended up just getting pissed off with Scorpion spammers, hopefully I'll do better than that this time.
 
Rean said:
I always think about taking a break, but other thoughts like "I don't wanna stop playing yet" or "I'll win the next match for sure" come up too. Recently I've made a rule for myself that if I lose 5 or more matches in a row I do end up taking a break and playing later though.
Click to expand...

Yeah same. Sometimes it's just you wanna keep playing until finish on a win streak.
 
Osu 16 Bit said:
which aspects do you need help in?


In MKX movement is strong and normals have such good reach playing reactionary, defensive footsies is difficult. It's more about preemptively getting your stuff out there to blow them up for going in before you see anything, like throwing out a long range normal if you anticipate them running in. I can help if you're more specific.
Click to expand...

Hey 16 Bit, L8 reply I know but to be more specific, I have problems with getting out of pressured situations and defense in general. For instance, all a player needs to do to stop my attempts at offense is to down 1 or down 4 me and that's it (I either A: shut down and the momentum is in my opponent's favor or B: try to backdash out of pressure only to get caught with another down 1/4).

I know I personally have to learn the strings and set-ups so that I can block correctly, yet it's the small interrupts that throw me off my game. The sad thing is I "main" Sub-zero and his specialty is controlling space (To go into even more detail, Unbreakable. I see so much potential in this variation despite the hate and I feel like if I can become strong in this one, then Grandmaster should be the logical go-to).

P.S. You're the man. Really appreciate you helping out new players who are trying to learn how to play the game more competitively. On-line only does so much and it can be intimidating asking someone better than you for advice, believe me I've tried and it seems like most ppl take the sink-or-swim mentality and/or are simply out for themselves (at least on the westcoast). Thank you. If you've subscribed tp this thread or the MK thread I would love to pick your brain for tips and whatnot.
 
NateDog said:
Huh never saw this thread before. Getting SFV next month and haven't played a fighter since MK9 (and the last before that was Tekken 3) although I do play Smash occasionally so I guess that counts (although it feels different to me than a typical fighter). At least I hopefully won't be completely alone when it comes to skill levels with other players. Although even when I got MK9 I spent ages and ages with it and didn't improve much and I ended up just getting pissed off with Scorpion spammers, hopefully I'll do better than that this time.
Click to expand...

Same except the Scorpion bit, they all became too predictable, speaking from someone who was low ranked (at least that's how I considered myself, no more than a scrub lord).

I mean, I would hope that playing over 4k matches in that game (mostly as Kitana) would have something to do with anticipating what the spamming Scorpions would do :p I had just started college so I had A LOT of free time when I was doing my GEs.

MKX on the other hand....I probably have less than 30 matches on there. I was so excited for it but just dropped it because I was heavily into Bloodborne at the time and I never came back to it.

Now I'm playing Dead or Alive plus Guilty Gear, and Street Fighter V will get added as soon as that's out.
 
Cindi Mayweather said:
Tonight I went from 600 PP to 149 PP.. That may seem like nothing but I spent months building that up. I'm beyond frustrated and angry right now.

On the last fight, I didn't even bother. When I dropped my Kikosho punish, something I had dropped all night, and is easy as fuck, and something I can't do tonight apparently, I just put the controller down and didn't both pressing another button the rest of the round.

I started playing at 6 pm and I only one won fight.

I know I have a long way to go, but tonight it felt like I haven't improved a bit. It was extremely deflating, mentally, to lose to people I think I'm better than. It made me not even want to bother.
Click to expand...
We all have days like these, it sucks i know :/
 
NoctisVsStar said:
For people trying to learn street fighter do not jump so much and don't be afraid to press forward and get hit.
Click to expand...

I respectfully disagree with the second part. While I don't want to tell people to play scared you certainly should be afraid of getting hit. One hit can easily lead to 40 % life gone IF you play a character with normal 1000 health. Telling new players not to be afraid could lead them to just start doing random unsafe things.

You have to be mindful of what happens if that risky dp misses or that wake up ultra misses or what can happen if I just walk into his personal space. In SFV this is going to be even worse with crush counters and high damage out put
 
I echo the sentiment of not being too hung up on BP/PP for a variety of reasons.

Personally, I've practically never truly bothered with it. I've given it a spin during the vanilla and Super SFIV days until I hit 3000, but Endless matches have been a much better source for improvement for me. At least in Street Fighter IV, the Ranked environment simply isn't well suited for reflecting on your wrongdoings or your enemy's weaknesses because a) its matchmaking is junk at this point of the game's lifetime, b) a lot of players tend to play... 'incorrectly' in their quest to grind for points by using cheese as a crutch and c) there's a distinct chance that people won't rematch you even if you win only once with the lack of a "best of 3" structure. Granted, this type of experience is largely anecdotal, but it's something I've noticed on other novice streams as well and then there's the mental issue of the total points tally acting more as a demotivator (including when someone with a high total joins) or a distraction, affecting your gameplay as a result.

In Endless Matches on the other hand, the average player has been more receptive of playing longer sets and (albeit anecdotal again) this has contributed a lot to refining my playstyle. There's more legroom for being analytical (of yourself and your opponent) and adapting to one another, trying out different strategies to see what works when, which tightened up my general approach. Being in a comfort zone against x or y character has been helpful too, since it allowed me balance out the psychological aspect of any given match-up noticeably faster than I would in Ranked with that numerical monkey off my back and especially after having faced a competent player, taught me valuable lessons that I could carry over against anyone. Your mileage may vary, however.

tl;dr - Ranked matches aren't healthy training grounds if you're still experiencing growing pains in my opinion and you'll be better off not having random numbers in a flawed (and limited) system carry any kind of weight.
 
Cindi Mayweather said:
Make a thread for the tournament today and link it in this thread. I'll make a Neogaf FG Noob twitch channel we can stream from.
Click to expand...

Let see how the tournaments work.

But ill put it up by 1est/10pst

8 Person Tourny. Thought there was an option for 16. Hmmm maybe an open lobby is the best ?
 
Femto. said:
Same except the Scorpion bit, they all became too predictable, speaking from someone who was low ranked (at least that's how I considered myself, no more than a scrub lord).

I mean, I would hope that playing over 4k matches in that game (mostly as Kitana) would have something to do with anticipating what the spamming Scorpions would do :p I had just started college so I had A LOT of free time when I was doing my GEs.

MKX on the other hand....I probably have less than 30 matches on there. I was so excited for it but just dropped it because I was heavily into Bloodborne at the time and I never came back to it.

Now I'm playing Dead or Alive plus Guilty Gear, and Street Fighter V will get added as soon as that's out.
Click to expand...
Yeah I usually stick around and figure it out in most games when players do that (FIFA for example), but I also just get pissed off and bored of having to play a different way to beat people that are that obsessed with winning ugly so I gave up pretty early on. I've had bad experiences with fighting games online although I know a lot more people now that play them so I can sometimes avoid a need to play randoms now (although most are in the US and I'm not so time differences mean I can't be bothered waiting so I just go get beaten by randoms).
 
Cindi Mayweather said:
Tonight I went from 600 PP to 149 PP.. That may seem like nothing but I spent months building that up. I'm beyond frustrated and angry right now.

On the last fight, I didn't even bother. When I dropped my Kikosho punish, something I had dropped all night, and is easy as fuck, and something I can't do tonight apparently, I just put the controller down and didn't both pressing another button the rest of the round.

I started playing at 6 pm and I only one won fight.

I know I have a long way to go, but tonight it felt like I haven't improved a bit. It was extremely deflating, mentally, to lose to people I think I'm better than. It made me not even want to bother.
Click to expand...


I feel exactly the same way. I had a really bad game yesterday.

What I do is take a break for a day and play other games. I go back the next day.
 
CountBlackule said:
How am I supposed to play footsies with a character that teleports through normals? I know Slayer isn't the best character in the game, but why can he just teleport through normals then throw me for trying? What am I supposed to do against a character that spends half his time not actually on the screen?
Click to expand...
Think of it like a counter. If you attack when he dashes, you lose. If you wait until he dashes, you win. Good Slayer players won't spam the dash, just like you don't spam counters. You need to teach a spammer why it's bad, though.

Cindi Mayweather said:
Tonight I went from 600 PP to 149 PP.. That may seem like nothing but I spent months building that up. I'm beyond frustrated and angry right now.

On the last fight, I didn't even bother. When I dropped my Kikosho punish, something I had dropped all night, and is easy as fuck, and something I can't do tonight apparently, I just put the controller down and didn't both pressing another button the rest of the round.

I started playing at 6 pm and I only one won fight.

I know I have a long way to go, but tonight it felt like I haven't improved a bit. It was extremely deflating, mentally, to lose to people I think I'm better than. It made me not even want to bother.
Click to expand...
We all have those days. :)
 
Cindi Mayweather said:
Huh?

That's Tuesday.

What games have YOU been playing?

vu6ywjl.jpg
Click to expand...

I applaud your attitude. I can say I have lost 1~2k in a single session, although a lot of drinking and stubbornness were involved.

Eventually, you may look at losing streaks a little differently. You have complete control over when to say "okay, I'm gonna take a breather from this" to prevent the burn out feeling from sinking in.
 
Ahjumbie said:
I respectfully disagree with the second part. While I don't want to tell people to play scared you certainly should be afraid of getting hit. One hit can easily lead to 40 % life gone IF you play a character with normal 1000 health. Telling new players not to be afraid could lead them to just start doing random unsafe things.

You have to be mindful of what happens if that risky dp misses or that wake up ultra misses or what can happen if I just walk into his personal space. In SFV this is going to be even worse with crush counters and high damage out put
Click to expand...

The thing is you can tell when a person plays scared, just by them holding back the entire match, hell some put themselves in the corner for me. Getting hit with a fireball or two isn't going to kill you. I'm not advocating jumping and eating a DP but you gotta push forward and get in their grill. Taking dmg is part of the game but you gotta go in smartly, I just feel playing scared is a disservice but maybe I'm the wrong person to offer advice since I've been playing SF since I was diapers.

For instance: this match I had all he did was back himself into the corner and rarely came forward
http://youtu.be/K9_dQsl6YCU
 
CountBlackule said:
as Guile?
Click to expand...

Yeah he has the fastest projectile recovery and if they are backdash happy just OS.

I don't see a lot of Elena players on PC but when I do they are Rank A in the tens when playing as Decapre and they all follow the similar pattern of trying to do mix ups and do jump ins or cross ups with their tiny hurbox. Also they are crap without meter.
 
weepy said:
Hey 16 Bit, L8 reply I know but to be more specific, I have problems with getting out of pressured situations and defense in general. For instance, all a player needs to do to stop my attempts at offense is to down 1 or down 4 me and that's it (I either A: shut down and the momentum is in my opponent's favor or B: try to backdash out of pressure only to get caught with another down 1/4).

I know I personally have to learn the strings and set-ups so that I can block correctly, yet it's the small interrupts that throw me off my game. The sad thing is I "main" Sub-zero and his specialty is controlling space (To go into even more detail, Unbreakable. I see so much potential in this variation despite the hate and I feel like if I can become strong in this one, then Grandmaster should be the logical go-to).

P.S. You're the man. Really appreciate you helping out new players who are trying to learn how to play the game more competitively. On-line only does so much and it can be intimidating asking someone better than you for advice, believe me I've tried and it seems like most ppl take the sink-or-swim mentality and/or are simply out for themselves (at least on the westcoast). Thank you. If you've subscribed tp this thread or the MK thread I would love to pick your brain for tips and whatnot.
Click to expand...




It sounds like you're not combating their low pokes with your own low pokes. You'll want to use your d+4 for that, since Sub-Zero's is super fast and has great range. If you're on offense trying to get in and they're stuffing you with pokes go in right outside their poke range and use your own d+4. Don't look for their poke, just do yours, preemptively. The other good thing to do against pokes is to jump. You see people saying never jump, learn to get in without jumping, ect and I don't agree with that mentality. Jumping is an important part of footsies in 2D games. If you walk to the range they like throw out pokes and you jump they'll be in the recovery of the poke while you're jumping and will have a hard time anti-airing you. Even if they do anti-air you it's not the end of the world because now you have them looking for your jump and that is one more thing on their mind to set up your offense. Think of it this way...you have a bunch of options in the neutral that can be punished. Your long range moves like f+4, your pokes, your run, your dash, your jump. The opponent has a way to blow all these up..but they cannot do it all at once. No one can look for a dash, while looking for run, while waiting to anti-air you. What you need to do is get them worried about all these options so they pick from a couple to focus on and it opens up the rest. Like if they're hyper focused on trying to anti-air you then you're more likely to successfully run up to them and get your offense going. I think part of the reason you're getting blown up in footsies by their pokes is that you're not mixing it up enough, you're letting them control that space in front of them with pokes because you're not threatening them in other areas.

Also a random Unbreakable tip. A bunch of normals canceled into EX d,b+3 are plus. Some are super plus. IIRC f+4~EX d.b+3 is so plus his b+3,3 is guarunteed and they cannot poke out of b+2. I don't see many Sub players talking about that and I think it's pretty good.
 
I'd not spotted this thread. I'm awful at fighting games, but really want to get good at Smash 4. I enjoy it, but every time I play online I get wrecked. Like, barely able to get a hit in.

Does Smash count?
 
Neat idea for a thread. Looking forward to playing yall in SF V next month.

Is there an existing GAF FGC PS4 community I can join?
 
I think I'm pretty okay at USF4 so if any Australians want to practise or want some base or character tips on PS4 or PC feel free to add or invite me.
Main is Chun li and Ibuki.
PS4 - MrLilDavo
PC - Butt Toucher
 
I haven't played a fighting game in a while, ranked in USF4 is frustrating, KOF13 is dead and Fightcade is scary as hell also my internet was fucked for almost a week. I'm just not in the mood :(
 
Zombegoast said:
Yeah he has the fastest projectile recovery and if they are backdash happy just OS.

I don't see a lot of Elena players on PC but when I do they are Rank A in the tens when playing as Decapre and they all follow the similar pattern of trying to do mix ups and do jump ins or cross ups with their tiny hurbox. Also they are crap without meter.
Click to expand...

I don't think you should try to lame it out as Guile at all versus Elena. Granted the matchup is like 7-3 in Elena's favour lol. I lost in a MM to Dieminion 3-2 in the MU and he played it really offensive. You can't just sit there and let Elena gain meter/U2 meter by staying back IMO. You gotta dictate the match yourself.
 
Crab Milk Mickey said:
I'm about to head out, so I'll get around to elaborating later. Also save some replays if there's still any in your Battle Log so I can have a point of reference.
Click to expand...

I feel like Sim is more annoying for Chun. A good Sim will keep Chun out, which is what she mainly wants from her game. He has better long range pokes and his ability to cover the ground game with a fireball and then shut in any jump ins (especially with Chun's floaty jump) makes for a very difficult time. If you stick with trying to challenge him on the ground and progress through the ground game he has his fierce to make life even harder for her. Once you manage to somehow get a knockdown on him, then it's harder for him and once you get ultra 1 it makes it so he can't do as many dumb things (if you get hit by instant air overhead jump back fierce you can punish it on it or block) but then he can still just use his ranged normals to prevent any inward movement.

Most success I've had against Sim involves using Chun's sweep to challenge his fierce punches at the range he's likely to use this. This gives you a knockdown and a chance to get in class for some pressure. He has no good up close reversals so you don't have to worry too much once you're in, but if you play an actually talented Sim those opportunities to get in are few and far in between.
 
Karsticles said:
Think of it like a counter. If you attack when he dashes, you lose. If you wait until he dashes, you win. Good Slayer players won't spam the dash, just like you don't spam counters. You need to teach a spammer why it's bad, though.


We all have those days. :)
Click to expand...

You have those days too? I like your Bison fyi :)
 
paolo11 said:
You have those days too? I like your Bison fyi :)
Click to expand...
Thank you. :-)

Yeah, we all have them. I tend to think it's because we play on autopilot and aren't breaking down the match in our heads. For example, I went back and played UMvC3 for the first time in a while at locals about 6 months ago, and I was struggling against my opponent. Then I realized that I was playing Dormammu like I was using my main team, instead of using the strengths of the current team. When I forced myself to adjust, I started doing better.

However, analyzing your play mid-match and making adjustments is extremely difficult. I think it takes at least 6 months of dedicated play to be able to do it, because you need to first be able to recognize that you're doing the wrong thing, which means having a solid fighting game knowledge backdrop. Then, it takes even longer to be able to break down play mid-matches. The highest level players are doing this every second of their match - they're analyzing at a level that is extremely hard to get to because...well, it would take a while to explain.

Let's just say that it's really easy to push buttons and then get annoyed that you lost. That's the default, low-level existence of humanity. Everything else takes effort, and we all fail to reach our potential on some days due to tiredness, low motivation, distractions, etc.
 
Crab Milk Mickey said:
I

tl;dr - Ranked matches aren't healthy training grounds if you're still experiencing growing pains in my opinion and you'll be better off not having random numbers in a flawed (and limited) system carry any kind of weight.
Click to expand...

I think ranked is fine for the exact reasons you listed. It builds up a defense to cheese or whatever is used to win. Can't get stuck in the "correct" or "incorrect" way to play as that limits how you progress in multiple ways. There are moments when you have to go "dumb" and playing the correct way to play is too structured to really allow that. Its best to alternate between the two.
 
vulva said:
I feel like Sim is more annoying for Chun. A good Sim will keep Chun out, which is what she mainly wants from her game. He has better long range pokes and his ability to cover the ground game with a fireball and then shut in any jump ins (especially with Chun's floaty jump) makes for a very difficult time. If you stick with trying to challenge him on the ground and progress through the ground game he has his fierce to make life even harder for her. Once you manage to somehow get a knockdown on him, then it's harder for him and once you get ultra 1 it makes it so he can't do as many dumb things (if you get hit by instant air overhead jump back fierce you can punish it on it or block) but then he can still just use his ranged normals to prevent any inward movement.

Most success I've had against Sim involves using Chun's sweep to challenge his fierce punches at the range he's likely to use this. This gives you a knockdown and a chance to get in class for some pressure. He has no good up close reversals so you don't have to worry too much once you're in, but if you play an actually talented Sim those opportunities to get in are few and far in between.
Click to expand...

It's a game of cat and mouse. Once you DO get in he teleports and resets the whole thing. Agony.
 
Cindi Mayweather said:
It's a game of cat and mouse. Once you DO get in he teleports and resets the whole thing. Agony.
Click to expand...
Slowly press him to the corner. Once he's there he can't easily teleport out. Also challenge his are normals with focus. If he does instant air teleport, wait for the flash of the second part then hit focus. This usually blows up any air attack and you don't need to guess which side to block.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

One game that deserves a remaster is this masterpiece from the PS2 Era.
2
80
4K
Kagoshima_Luke replied
Switch 2 fans are fighting the scalpers.
2
96
3K
Gamer79 replied
Memoirs of a PC NOOB! My journey into the PC world
2 3 4
151
6K
Radical_3d replied
Isn’t this the fighting game equivalent of twinking?
13
1K
Icymanipulator replied
I joined the 64gb ram master race
2
85
4K
DenchDeckard replied
Top Bottom