Well, if you're serious about becoming good, here's some more drastic measures that'll make you get better A LOT that I basically learned from getting super good at Soul Calibur.
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Find a group of people to regularly play
Preferably they should be better than you but equal works too. For Glory won't do this for you as it's too mixed: you need consistency to get better initially. I'd personally prefer a group in real life as it makes it easier to talk about stuff during the fights and for easier demonstrations but if your situation doesn't allow for it then it's probably a good idea to friend up with some gaffers. When I say regularly, I mean regularly too. Once a week or the like is too little. It doesn't have to be every day but the closer you get to that, the better
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Know your range
Ideally, if you want to get to crazy good levels at a fighting game, you want to know as many moves down to as ridiculous detail as possible. You could look at hitbox pictures if you like but it's not really necessary: the key is being able to 'feel' it in the moment (thinking takes too long for such minutiae during actual play
) Obviously you'll want to start with the character you actually play first though and the way I did this back in my Soul Calibur days was I would pick a move and go to town with it. I'd go into practice and then try to hit the dummy from as far away as possible with it to build up experience of eye-balling the range. You can quiz yourself by running away from the opponent then approaching until you think you're at the farthest possible range you'll hit. If it does hit then congrats, if you can get the same distance and move a pixel away and have it miss then EXTRA congrats: you want to squeeze every pixel out of a move's range :3
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Personal Challenges
Too often people get stuck in a rut of doing what feels safe or comfortable. If you want to learn something intimately though, you're going to have to use it well outside of it's comfort zone. The way I handled this was personal challenges. Against people I felt equal to (or better than) I'd often announce that i was going to set myself a challenge. Most of the time it was "I'm only going to hit you using this one single move" though I would sometimes do other silly stuff like "I won't block at all this fight" or even "I will always announce the next attack I will use"
The most important personal challenge is denying yourself moves you rely too heavily on though. For example, in Soul Calibur my nightmare went from strong to insane when I learned to fight with him entirely without using his sword. By taking away from myself the thing that I leaned on the most, my overall playstyle improved, especially when i reintroduced them back into my game again and as an added bonus there are now some people in the world who instinctively flinch if you say the phrase "Kicks of doom time!" XD
Just be sure that the people you're fighting with won't take it to heart when you pummel them while doing this
Against players significantly better than you, then it might not always be a good idea to do this as you're already struggling against them as it is without self-imposed restrictions. That said, when fighting a better opponent don't be afraid to try utterly insane things: Worst case scenario? They won't work. Best case scenario, though, they can often turn the tide and may even bolster your playstyle/repetoire in unexpected ways.
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Always try to find ways to lose
Ok, this might sound weird but simply put, if you DO get good and start winning all the time then you're basically going to stagnate. You need to start either finding better opponents or expanding into less comfortable areas like playing new characters or doing more and more crazy personal challenges. Winning might be a goal to some, but if you're winning most of the time then it can be very boring and you're probably not learning anything. Do everything you can to make matches challenging for yourself, just be careful not to make your opponent think you're not taking them seriously as that's just not nice ^.^;
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Don't fight people worse than you if you can help it
If you fight someone who's worse than you, especially by a noticeable margin, you will develop bad habits and actually get worse. I'm being utterly serious about this.
So, some of your friends aren't too hot at the game but still want to play? Luckily there IS a way to get better with those who are behind you on the curve of mastery and that's to
teach them rather than
fight them :3 Surprisingly, the simple act of trying to explain how you play and going through it with someone will often open your eyes to things you've been taking for granted and can often lead to some interesting new discoveries you can fold back into your playstyle to bolster it. It can help so much that i'd honestly suggest you seek out people to train up when you feel you have sufficient knowledge to share as the differences can be pretty huge and, hey, the more people you can bring up to your level, the bigger your pool of worthwhile opponents will be ;D
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Nothing is 'cheap'
At the end of the day, you're not making the game and you're not the designer so worrying about balance is pointless. Use the tools you have. Too many people hide behind accusations of 'cheapness' rather than learning to actually deal with things and some even handicap their game by not using something, ever, because someone somewhere thought it was 'cheap'. Don't fall into these traps. Use everything and learn to overcome everything. It's surprising how often something that is 'cheap' turns out to be a fairly basic tactic that's easily overcome once you work out it's often glaring weakness and you'll be a better player, heck a better PERSON, for having run that gauntlet too :3
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Question everything!
If someone kicks your ass with something and you don't fully understand it, ask them about it. If a character gives you trouble then talk to people who main that character to find out what they struggle against and even give the character a shot yourself just to get a 'feel' for things like their weight, speed and some of their moves ranges/nuances. Watch videos of other people playing your character to see if they're doing anything new or interesting you don't already do or if they somehow accomplish something you do in a different manner. Always be looking for answers and life will be a lot more generous in giving you them :3
