How would you teach a complete beginner to do a hadouken?

BlackShinobi

I wanted to separate this from the other thread but it started of of a post that I made in there

BlackShinobi, post: 7606994, member: 292 wrote:

I can teach any able bodied person who wants to learn how to throw a hadouken how to do it in under 10 minutes and how to do it 95% of the time in 2-3 hours. Not to put down other peoples efforts, but if you can't teach someone how to hadouken consistantly within a few hours the problem is most likeIy not a learning problem for them, its probably a teaching problem on your end.
I taught my mom how to throw a hadouken, its really not that hard.

So the scenario I am asking about is this:
A person who has never played a fighting game asked you to show them how to play Street fighter, specifically Ryu. There is a PS3 and a TV in the room with you along with two pads and two sticks. How would you (in detail) teach a person in the same physical room as you sitting at the same console how to perform Ryu's special moves?

I really do think this is a teaching problem and not a learning problem. I refuse to believe that something I can show my mom how to do in 10 minutes is so incredibly difficult to learn that its causing people to give up on fighting games.

Hopefully some people will answer my question and this doesn't turn into a rambling discussion on dumbed down games and the laziness of new players that could have stayed in the other thread.

Louiscipher

Slowly show them the motion. Letting them win is a good start too.

Chef Borjan

BlackShinobi, post: 7610559, member: 292 wrote:

I really do think this is a teaching problem and not a learning problem. I refuse to believe that something I can show my mom how to do in 10 minutes is so incredibly difficult to learn that its causing people to give up on fighting games.

But thats not the reason at all. Its getting bodied by people whilst they are still making their baby steps that puts them off it.

In any case, I'm not sure what you want people to say. It really is as simple as explaining to them that the buttons and movements on the stick will make the character do things, then explaining that 'special moves' can be done if the game sees a specific set of inputs (like a code). Then.... just tell them the game needs to see the stick pressed down, d/f, forward and then the punch button.

If they can't understand (they might not DO it immediately, but they will if they understand it) that they you aren't speaking to someone with acceptable comprehensive skills.

BlackShinobi

Chef Borjan, post: 7610604, member: 11101 wrote:

In any case, I'm not sure what you want people to say. It

I would like someone to explain in detail what they would actually do or say, the fact that so far two people have replied that the way you show someone how to do a hadouken is to show them how to do a hadouken, is kind of reaffirming my thought that it may be a teaching problem.

FenixStryk

If I were to teach someone how to play fighting games, I would not start with specials. In my opinion, movement, blocking and normal attacks should be taught before they are shown special attacks and how to incorporate specials into their full offensive arsenal.

That said, if I were to quickly (and poorly) do so? I would explain the input, demonstrate it a few times in front of them, then tell them to spin their stick counter-clockwise for a moment until they felt comfortable with the motion, and finally tell them to press punch after "spinning" their stick from down to forward.

Floor

If you are teaching someone on a fightstick, showing them how to properly use that comes first I think. Stuff like how to hold to the stick itself so they aren't grasping it vertically with two fingers or just flicking it around instead of smooth motions. This way they have more control over their movements, both in game and while operating the fightstick.

After that I would teach the person the cardinal directions of the game in that is always up and is always down. However forward and backward are RELATIVE to the direction their character is facing. Using left and right can confuse right away. By getting the "what exactly forward is" barrier out of the way, it ensures that the person won't be trying to do a hadouken motion backwards if they were to ever switch sides on the screen. This should prevent some early frustration. Also, I would explain that you can combine directions in down-forward, up-forward, down-back, and up-back.

Once the player has a grasp of what is going on with the left hand, you move onto the buttons. Explaining this should be simple. Top row are punches, bottom row kicks. From left to right: light, medium, and heavy. If your stick is 8 buttons, then you would have to explain that they are essentially shortcuts and count as striking all three punches or kicks at the same time.

Now I would move onto the actual motion of hadouken. Since they should understand what I mean when I say, "Down, then down-forward, finishing with forward and punch at the same time." Having training mode with the input display so the player can see how the game interprets their inputs. Tell the person to take it slow at first and make sure the motion is smooth. Riding the wall of the gate would help a beginner as well.

Preppy

There's a newbie dojo: I'll move this there.

BlackShinobi

Preppy, post: 7610809, member: 2608 wrote:

There's a newbie dojo: I'll move this there.

Its not a question for beginners, I'm not asking for people to help me show someone how to do this, I'm asking to see if people actually know how to do it. Everyone keeps saying how they tried to show someone how to play fighting games and they quit because it was too hard to learn basic concepts and went back to Call or Duty or some other game.

Well what if the problem isn't the game, what if the problem is that in 15 years of playing fighting games you never figured out how to show someone else how to play a fighting game? Its not a newbie forum question, its a FGD question, because the people its directed to don't come into the newbie forum.

Maybe the person teaching them thinking this

Chef Borjan, post: 7610604, member: 11101 wrote:

If they can't understand (they might not DO it immediately, but they will if they understand it) that they you aren't speaking to someone with acceptable comprehensive skills.

is the reason that new players quit and not that they are just lazy and can't be bothered.

Maybe I'm wrong, but its worth poking into, but that won't happen in the newbie forum.

Chef Borjan

BlackShinobi, post: 7611084, member: 292 wrote:

Maybe the person teaching them thinking this

is the reason that new players quit and not that they are just lazy and can't be bothered.

Maybe I'm wrong, but its worth poking into, but that won't happen in the newbie forum.

You think that not knowing how to do special moves is the reason for they give up. It's not. The vast majority of people can pull off a hadoken with teaching, you are making this non-existant problem to be the issue. Honestly, go out and perform a survey or something. I bet regardless of gender or age, 98% will hadoken at least once within half an hour.

The problem is being able to do it in the heat of the moment against an opponent who is beating the crap out of you, and you have absolutely no idea what is happening but all you know is that this is not fun... and the casual player puts the game down before ever getting to build up decent reaction, muscle memory, juggling gamplay mechanics or the all important NEUTRAL.

Secondly, yes the way I proposed to teach it is completely acceptable. I did not propose for them to do a 'fireball motion' or a 'quarter circle'. I gave simple instructions to a human being about 3 different positions that the stick must be in before pressing the punch button... and as I said, all I asked for them was to understand it. I acknowledge that it may be an unfamiliar pattern of motor co-ordination, so executing it first time is not a problem. But if they do not understand what I have said, then they are not fit to handle the WIDE array of instructions that the real world demands of each and everyone of us every single day.

Kikuichimonji

I'm assuming I'm teaching them on an arcade stick and they already know how to hold the controller and what the basic movement options are, because that's not what you asked me to teach and I think those should be taught before doing a Hadouken.

Turn on input display, actually show them the actual hand motion, explain it as a quarter of a 360 rotation. If they don't understand, I would actually guide their hand around the joystick in the correct motion. I would probably tell them to hit a specific button (like ) without telling them they have three different versions depending on the punch strength. Once they have it down on one side, only then would I tell them that it's the opposite from the other direction.

I think it's also important to teach them to start slowly so they understand how to do it consistently before they try to improve speed without flailing.

eltrouble

Slow is smooth and smooth is fast. Teach them the basic movements. Show them how it changes depending on which side you're facing, and teach them that it always ends in the direction towards your opponent. Have them ride the gate the first time, but make sure they start off at down, and drag the stick around to face the opponent to finish the QCF motion. Then punch. Break it down between doing the left-hand motions first, and then the right-hand motion of pressing the button.

Pretty easy to do. I taught my gf in a few minutes, and a few minutes later she could spam it consistently without having any prior experience in fighting games or using an arcade stick.

ugo_2u

just tell them to move the stick the same way they rub their dicks when they jack off. that usually works

GordonsBeard

Learning how to throw a football correctly the first time is real hard, how often could you get a perfect spiral as a child? Even if you don't play with a football outside of Thanksgiving with friends or something now, it's pretty simple to throw a spiral despite your lack of practice.

Fighting games are about the same thing. It's really hard to do a fireball on command. Trust me, it is. In a game where firing a gun, running around a corner, crouching, reloading, and seeing the status of your squad members is reduced down to: "mouse1, w, d, ctrl, tab", the very fact that you have to complete an entire SPECIFIC MOTION and then pair that with a button, at the right time - is kind of a strange idea.

If someone gets overly frustrated with the difficulty it takes to pull of a , it might be a good sign that they do not want to play a 2d tournament fighter, perhaps they want to play something closer to a Brawl game. Learning how to use a fightstick properly is like learning how to use a simple instrument. With no knowledge, being given a fightstick isn't going to do anything but confuse someone (why is the stick able to move in a square?????, why are there 8 buttons but only 6 of them are bound to attacks???), but in the right hands you'll be able to pull off once complicated sounding maneuvers like they were pure muscle memory.

Teaching a fighting game to someone is rough, but if they give up when trying to explain the literal basics then it might be a sign you are preaching to someone that has far underestimated the difficulty of such a genre.

CFoto

I taught my gf once and this is how I did it.
-tell her the stick movement for fireball.
-don't mash, I remarked it can't be done if you press punch more than once ( this force her to press 3 stick direction & 1 button per attempt to prevent doing DP)
-key point is the forward + punch. many newnewbie do it in sequence and often fails.

IMO teach one to do fireball is a huge milestone to invite an individual to SF. After you can successfully do it at will, you will be more comfortable to play with *fun*
Fireball is clearly a fun factor in fighting game, SF being the biggest benefactor.
I remembered when I was young and play SF2, I can sit there and fireball wholeday (yes its stupid and get me killed, but I had fun :) )

MetaSkipper

I've taught my buddies how to play Marvel before. It's definitely not only learning what to do, but when, why, and how.

That said, I found it a matter of just going slowly through the motion in the lab, having them do it until they perfect then. Then I gave them a simple combo using the motion so that they got used to not only the motion raw, but the motion "under pressure." Heck, teaching them to chain normals is harder then teaching someone a motion.

Terry Bogarde

i dont know, i think it's a learning problem. I have 2 brothers who i was teaching how to play. One picked it up right away, bringing out moves in both 3s and SSF4. My other brother just doesn't seem to get it. I know what his problem is, I've pointed it out to him, but he gets way too frantic and forgets to listen. I tell them remain calm, don't look at the screen, just try and master the motion, applying it gently so it becomes 2nd nature.This isn't life or death, there's no need to panic or force the move out the 1st time you try, failure is ok. 1 gets the concept, the other still applies so much force and doesn't try to master the motion, also looks at the screen, and gives up when he fails a few times. There are bad teachers, but there are also bad students.

w00denTEETH

I would tell them to press down, down forward, forward, then punch.

petran79

depending on difficulty to me shoto characters are the easiest to learn, followed by grapplers and then charge characters. I cant master charge characters at all. especially that d, up movement or ultras like Blanka and Vega. Hence I avoid those characters.

GordonsBeard, post: 7614037, member: 70048 wrote:

Learning how to throw a football correctly the first time is real hard, how often could you get a perfect spiral as a child? Even if you don't play with a football outside of Thanksgiving with friends or something now, it's pretty simple to throw a spiral despite your lack of practice.

Fighting games are about the same thing. It's really hard to do a fireball on command. Trust me, it is. In a game where firing a gun, running around a corner, crouching, reloading, and seeing the status of your squad members is reduced down to: "mouse1, w, d, ctrl, tab", the very fact that you have to complete an entire SPECIFIC MOTION and then pair that with a button, at the right time - is kind of a strange idea.

I'd also add another fun game for comparison, namely table football

if you watch casual matches, 90 % of players will randomly spin the grapple 1440 degrees in order to score. But this is not the correct way to play the game. Doing a random spin such as this to score receives a penalty in tournaments. One should be able to develop tactics and actually score with a half circle spin and also teamwork. it requires the same amount of speed and precision as in fighters. "Specials" there are also difficult to maste


if I were to play that game trying to do tactics and the opponents just "mashes" the grapples, I'd lose by a margin.

same trend exist in fighters. they are far more difficult than they are presented. I am somewhere in between, not doing random stuff but not mastering the correct way of playing either. but at least this gives room to explore the game even further

best thing would be to combine the movements and spacing with the right moves.

ugo_2u, post: 7613238, member: 42313 wrote:

just tell them to move the stick the same way they rub their dicks when they jack off. that usually works

sizes dont match unfortunately. if the stick is larger, the player will develop a size complex.....

Lahar

BlackShinobi, post: 7610559, member: 292 wrote:

So the scenario I am asking about is this:
How would you (in detail) teach a person in the same physical room as you sitting at the same console how to perform Ryu's special moves?

Personally I'd just say press down forward punch and it shoots a fire ball.
A little advice is that don't use projectiles within jumping distance, its easy to hit when close and you wont get hit if far away.

That's about it.

Squire Grooktook

No one ever told me.

First day with fighters, I was just chilling out and a friend was all like COME PLAY MVC1

"But I dunno how to play figh-"

"NO EXCUSES"

So after we played I messed around with arcade mode a bit. Picked Morrigan and realized I could do Soul Fist with the motion and I was like "oh cool..."

Bakuhakubasugasu

@BlackShinobi
Okay, I have been in this actual situation before so I can shine some light on this. Quick story, to lead up to what I'm getting at.

We party and drink a lot but being a hardcore fighting gamer, we also play fighting games while we drink. There's a lot of random people that show up that probably aren't too familiar with actual fighting games since they're just there for the party. The TV with the fighting games always attracts people though since we're always loud and getting hyped and of course playing money matches and also for drinks. Obviously you just get a little absorbed as a spectator and maybe you want to give it a shot as well to join the hype. Also there's people that bring their girlfriends too and just random girls show up too and they get kind of interested in the gaming/drinking/party atmosphere. So getting to my point, these are people that don't play fighting games and want to learn even the simplest moves.

I also have some girl friends that don't know a lick about fighting games but they'll just get absorbed into watching us play and wanting to try themselves since everyone is just having a blast. So here's the answer to your question and along the lines on what I tell them. I know I have to keep it simple for them since obviously they don't know anything about fighting game motions let alone fighting games in general.

*WARNING, IT MIGHT BE A PRETTY LONG READ FOR SOME PEOPLE.

Spoiler:

Here's an example and what I said during the time I was teaching them, at least something along the lines of it (I'm teaching my friend how to play SF4 and do Ryu's moves on a PS3 pad/stick):

"The first thing is you have to know is that there's 4 buttons to move. Up which makes them jump, down which makes them duck/crouch, left and right." This is where I explain to them that you have to know which side your on. I'll then explain to them briefly why this is important and why I didn't break down left/right as much yet. "You need to understand which player and which side you're on when hitting the left or right directions. Do not think of the left button moves them left and the right button moves them right. Depending on which side you are on, think about left and right being either moving forward or back to your opponent. If you're on the left side and your opponent is on the right side, the left direction button would make you go back while the right direction button would make you go forward. If you were on the right side and your opponent was on the left side, hitting the left direction would move you forward while hitting the right direction would move you back. Its basically which way your character is facing them, you'll have to adjust your directional button presses."

Everyone I taught so far that has no gaming experience let alone any fighting game experience has understood exactly what I taught them and have learned moves in a short amount of time. I don't think it took any longer than 5 minutes to teach someone the basics of moving and learning moves. Now lets move onto the next thing I'm explaining to them.

"Now that you know how to move your character and how the direction buttons function, you'll now have to understand that this game has attacking buttons which consists of punches and kicks." (We're going to be using a PS3 pad for this example since I usually teach people how to use a PS3 pad since they feel more comfortable doing so compared to using a stick.) "You have your top left button which is square, your top right button which is triangle and you have your top front button which is R1. These are your punch buttons and the other set of buttons under those buttons are your kick buttons but for your top shoulder, the kick would be behind the top button which would be R1. So they kick buttons respectively would be the x button, the circle button and the R2 button. To make it easier on yourself, just remember that the top row of buttons are the punch buttons and the bottom row of buttons under the punch buttons are the kick buttons. The reason why there's 3 punch and 3 kick buttons is because they get stronger with the next button. So just remember if you start from the left section of the buttons, those are weak attacks so meaning a weak punch and a weak kick. The middle section of buttons would be the medium power strength and then the last section being the top buttons would be the hardest power strength of a punch and a kick. Just know from left to right, the strength of a punch or a kick will be stronger."

Now that they understand the functions of the basic buttons of moving and attacking buttons, that's when I teach them the basics of inputting and getting a move to work. Notice how I was explaining to them the strength of the buttons in a way they would understand. They might not understand if you just throw jab, strong and fierce at them. They might understand light, medium and heavy too but sometimes I make it very simple for the people where I know they might be a little clueless if I feed them to much information. This is why I keep the explanations pretty simple and never give out what a move is really called but what action the move may appear as.

"Now that you learned the punches and kicks, we'll learn some of Ryu's basic moves. You do someones moves by putting together an order of direction buttons and then a punch or a kick afterwards. All characters have different combination of inputs plus punches and kicks though there are some characters that share similar combinations. This is where you have to remember which side your on. Because you're on the left side, the left button would move you back and the right button would move you forward. For Ryu's fireball move (hadouken), you have to hit the down direction button, the right direction button and then hit a punch button after. The punch button can be any of the punch buttons but depending on the punch, the fireball will be stronger and can also change the speed of the fireball. The thing you always have to remember when doing the directions part is slide your finger from one direction to another. So since I told you to go from down to the right position, make sure you slide down to the right direction. The reason why is because you have to make sure you get whatever other directions from one direction button to another. Because we do this, we also get the forward diagonal motion which is needed to connect the down direction and the right direction together. After this, just input a punch and Ryu's fireball move will come out."

Here I break down Ryu's fireball in a very simple way that anyone could understand. I've taught all sorts of people with no experience with similar lines and they get these moves down in a short span of a couple minutes. I'm just gonna stop right there as basically this is all you really have to explain to them and with other moves, you just break it down simply like I did and they'll most likely understand since they can already understand how the fireball move mechanics work. I always tend to speak simple when explaining things to people with no experience in fighting games so that they'll understand. It might seemed like I typed a lot, but trust me, when you explain it in the way I did as in my example, it doesn't even take long in real life to get this message across to a person to learn. Just my two cents. Sorry if the read was a little long but I feel pretty passionate when I help people learn things or just when I explain things to people.