Training to Online - What am i missing?

GuyJohnson

I've been a ssf4 player for about 6/7 months now, slightly on and off a few years back but im only now gettin my teeth sunk into the technical aspects of the game such as plinking, techs etc.

I'm becoming increasingly frustrated however, with no matter how hard i try even if i land basic bread and butter combos in training, i find them impossible to land on actual players. If i try to start the combo its either blocked, or i cant get close enough to start the combo, and if i do they immediately counter-hit me or have this innate ability to hit me first before i can even start ANY input.

I sit in training for hours and hours performing combos but i cant even land basic links against players unless i focus crumple them first. It seems as if every other player knows something that i'm missing completely.

I know i'm still relatively new but i'm sure by now i shouldnt be subject to such beatdowns when im sure what i'm doing is correct. Am i the only one who thinks there's a massive gap between training and online play?

dance robot

Nope, you're not the only one. There is a huge gap between training mode and actual play. Plainly put, no real opponent is going to kindly let you walk up to them and do your combo the way a training dummy will. You have to work to get into that range. The most obvious way is to jump in, but that's risky. Another option is to focus dash through one of their pokes at closer ranges, which will hopefully put you in range for your combos.

Also, you may need to alter your combos so that they can connect from further ranges. It might be a good idea to practice focus dashing towards the CPU in training mode as it performs a poke, then immediately try to combo. This will show you what ranges you need to be at to successfully complete the combo.

Lastly, many opponents will be mashing out their reversal while you're hitting them in the hopes that you'll drop your combo at some point and they'll be able to retaliate. You may be getting the combo in training mode but leaving small gaps in actual matches due to online lag and/or nerves.

BlackShinobi

GuyJohnson, post: 7862927, member: 82996 wrote:

I know i'm still relatively new but i'm sure by now i shouldnt be subject to such beatdowns when im sure what i'm doing is correct. Am i the only one who thinks there's a massive gap between training and online play?

Said every scrub ever.
If you aren't winning you are doing something wrong. If you are losing and saying I'm doing everything correct then you need to get rid of that line of thought before you can work on the other things.


First you have multiple issues,
Landing the hit, Hit confirming and execution.

Landing the hit is a much larger issue, which I probably don't have enough time to go into now.

Hit confirming is on you, you have to practice it, just from the way you worded it I get the feeling that you are trying to start your BnBs from heavy attacks, which I could be wrong but, if you are you need to work on combos off of something more practical. Mashing during combos only works when the person doing the combo messes up, you can bait attacks by intentionally droping combos, but the best way to negate this is to practice until you don't mess up.

Practicing against a moving target may be the only thing playing the computer is gooing for, you have to take away some of the control of when your combo hits to get used to doing it in a real match, If you only practice against the unblocking traning dummy you get stuck in these modes where you continue the combo on auto pilot when its blocked or freeze up because you weren't expecting it to hit in a real match. you have to do more practice against a move blocking opponent to work on not missing the moment when you get it.

GuyJohnson

First off, thanks for the quick replies.

I can understand what you guys are saying about making sure i dont drop combos which i do often, however there are parts i cant get to grips with (now i find this hard to explain so i guess i'll just break it down):

1. Every time i try to counterhit i cant seem to hit first (even with light attacks) though i do my best to get the timings right.
2. You're correct a lot of my combos do come from landing heavies (if they hit), though i struggle to understand how to succesfully link light attacks into worthwhile combos, especially when they are consistently blocked/counter hit.
3. Even if i take my time against characters like ken and blanka, whenever i try to punish they will throw a move that immediately counters me.

I know all of this sounds very vague but it's just frustrating when the more i spend in training seems like i'm not really getting anywhere. It doesnt help also that endless battles put me up against 80% of the players who are 2000pp and above. Then i just get massacred because they are all over me and i have no idea how to escape.

If it helps at all ive been maining gouken a lot, as i started with akuma and realised i was nowhere near ready to protect his poor health pool as i was making too many mistakes and being punished. I could land his basic combos (HP, Tatsu, DP, FADC, Red Fireball) but then switched to gouken as he had similar commands with a style more built for zoning/punishing.

I'm not saying im doing everything right because i know for a fact i'm not and that's what this thread is for.

To some up i guess you could say that even after watching the Vesper Arcade tutorials ( all of which i found very useful ) i would of expected a tutorial just generalizing basic strategies for 1v1s.

Again, thanks for the quick and informative replies.

Necrotrophic

GuyJohnson, post: 7863202, member: 82996 wrote:

snip.

Combos, while important, are not really the focus of street fighter games. Learn to zone and do footsies first, thats how you open people up anyway.

the easiest way to land a combo is when you're using it as a punish, so for example, lets say you knock an opponent down (pretend its a shoto like ken or ryu), you stand near them on wake up, and dash back as soon as they start getting up, which makes them whiff a dragon punch, at this point you can land your most damaging combo.

if a shoto throws a fireball at a bad range, you can jump over it and land a combo usually

another trick is to throw in a healthy mix of over heads and low attacks, if your opponent thinks you will hit high, you can hit low and start a combo that way


for the time being just learn zoning, then footsies, if you do these two well, you will find plenty of punish opportunities.

BlackShinobi

GuyJohnson, post: 7863202, member: 82996 wrote:

First off, thanks for the quick replies.

I can understand what you guys are saying about making sure i dont drop combos which i do often, however there are parts i cant get to grips with (now i find this hard to explain so i guess i'll just break it down):

1. Every time i try to counterhit i cant seem to hit first (even with light attacks) though i do my best to get the timings right.
2. You're correct a lot of my combos do come from landing heavies (if they hit), though i struggle to understand how to succesfully link light attacks into worthwhile combos, especially when they are consistently blocked/counter hit.
3. Even if i take my time against characters like ken and blanka, whenever i try to punish they will throw a move that immediately counters me.

I know all of this sounds very vague but it's just frustrating when the more i spend in training seems like i'm not really getting anywhere. It doesnt help also that endless battles put me up against 80% of the players who are 2000pp and above. Then i just get massacred because they are all over me and i have no idea how to escape.

If it helps at all ive been maining gouken a lot, as i started with akuma and realised i was nowhere near ready to protect his poor health pool as i was making too many mistakes and being punished. I could land his basic combos (HP, Tatsu, DP, FADC, Red Fireball) but then switched to gouken as he had similar commands with a style more built for zoning/punishing.

I'm not saying im doing everything right because i know for a fact i'm not and that's what this thread is for.

To some up i guess you could say that even after watching the Vesper Arcade tutorials ( all of which i found very useful ) i would of expected a tutorial just generalizing basic strategies for 1v1s.

Again, thanks for the quick and informative replies.

It doesn't sound vague to me at all, because i've seen it too many times, actually it is incredibly common even down to you attributing your problem to the wrong thing. I've been supposed to finish these article for a almost a year, I think they would have helped since one of them is on this exact thing. I'm going to actually post those things sometime early this year.

Your problem isn't the combos, I mean it may still be executional, but your main problem is how you are trying to get your hits. You are relying on slow easily blocked, improperly timed attacks to start your offense. You'd be better off using lights, but you don't get the game well enough to get close enough to use them. You're essentially trying to learn what you need to do backwards, which is something that alot of new players, especially since streaming has become popular do. Don't learn combos and then figure out how to hit people, figure out how to hit people and then learn to maximize the damage from those hits.
When you learn how to hit people first you can get into a rythm of what works and what doesn't you won't get as much damage off of the hits, but they won't catch you off guard after a while. Right now you are focusing too much on if your attack will even hit and that is distracting you from the combos, once you know that your attack will hit your attention won't be so divided. Focus on your spacing. I've never seen you play, but from reading your posts it was fairly obvious about the heavies and the other thing that is pretty obvious it that your spacing needs alot of work. Bad knowledge of spacing is the reason beginners can't get closer enough to use light attacks.

If you want to look something up look up videos on spacing and videos of top players for your character, don't focus on the combos or the flashy stuff focus on the space that they are occupying relative to their opponent and how and when they they are getting in.

petran79

I became increasingly frustrated too but I stopped caring. Dont even remember the last time I won online in ranked matches.....that 2012 patch destroyed everything
still learning the game.....

Erawan

Like the man has already said, you basically lack match experience. Hours and hours of training room experience is great, but it's no substitute for the real thing. The best/closest experience you can get to it, is have the CPU control the dummy. I would suggest doing this and have the CPU skill setting low. Just focus on a few things at a time, for instance maybe focus on punishing whiffed specials and hit confirming. Once you get comfortable with that at the point where you don't have to actively think about it, try something else. Rinse and repeat. It's a long journey.

Bakuhakubasugasu

Combos aren't everything. You can have the best combos for all I care, if you don't know how to get that hit, it all means nothing.

Practice your zoning, baiting your opponent, controlling your opponent, learn normals and their ranges, turn on the dummy to random guard so you can practice hit confirms solo. There's a lot of things you can do to practice. Combos isn't the only thing you should be practicing.

dance robot

I know how frustrating it can be to lose to people who are a lot better than you. I've gotten to the point where I try to play only people with 1,000 PP or less. The pace of the matches is slow enough that I feel like I can actually absorb what's happening. Play against the computer in Training Mode on Medium and look for Endless lobbies that are geared towards new players ('Less than 1000 PP', 'Beginners Welcome'). Also, there are threads on these forums for finding players in your region to play with online(http://shoryuken.com/forum/index.php?forums/online-outlets.401/). Try to find someone close to your skill level to play with and maybe they can give you direct advice based on gameplay.

Don't give up.

Meteo2

Another problem you may be having is that you're timing your combos from visual or audio clues. You need to learn how to "dial" in your combo by the feel of it, not by watching the screen closely. The combo timing online, and well as every setup, is the same button pattern/timing as offline. The difference is that you must START to hit the buttons a little sooner than it LOOKS like you should on the screen (very slightly) compared to training mode. Normal lag effects the response time but not the button sequence.

This is a skill you have to learn offline too, because different game systems and televisions can mimic the same visual effect as slight lag.

GuyJohnson

I'll tell you what's most ridiculous. Its the footsies. No matter what i do, jab, strong fierce, no matter how well i try and time it i'm always getting hit and getting put into combos where they jab the shit out of me until i drop. Why cant i do this? EVER. I know atleast 1/2 combos that lead from jabs etc, but i can NEVER get in position, and even if i do, they are always blocked. It's ridiculous. How the hell am i supposed to learn from this!? It's so frustrating when people say practice in online to get better when i'm just ending up getting stomped because i cant even get in range to hit them. I try jumping in, im anti aired, i try dashing then im hit. I focus cancel in and they counter it.

Then there's the other perspective, i try to play safe, i block -> get thrown/crossed up -> try to counter and get punished. Its the same every game.

Seriously, why does it seem to be that im one of the very few who just doesnt GET how to land these piss annoying hits.

Uroboric

9 times out of 10 you'll be starting a hit-confirm combo opportunistically, when you just happen to be in range and you happen to land a hit. The key is recognizing openings to land that first opportunistic hit, so you can combo off of it. This can really only come from playing a lot of matches. That said, your objective isn't to land combos, it's to bring your opponent's life bar to zero or have a life lead when the time runs out.

To me it sounds like a lot of your issues stem from not having a clear understanding of game mechanics, particularly how normal moves work. Every normal move has start up frames where you are vulnerable but the move is not yet active (it can't hit). It sounds like you're constantly getting hit during the start up frames of your moves because you allow other players to frame trap you. This is when they leave a small gap between their attacks that is only long enough for your move's start up frames to begin, and they hit you out of it.

Every move also has recovery frames, and every move puts you at a certain level of frame advantage or disadvantage on block. It's important to have a general idea of these things or else you'll constantly leave big openings for people, and it sounds like that's what is happening to you now.

GuyJohnson

So are you telling me people count frames? Because that seems ridiculous. How can i possibly know when to execute my moves to beat theirs?

Uroboric

It's not a matter of knowing any numbers, it's understanding that's how the game works, and then getting a feel for the numbers through match experience.

To improve your knowledge of game mechanics you might check out this page: http://www.option-select.com/strategy/article/?a=12

You can use that to look up any terminology you don't know, but I'd suggest just reading up on the various topics to help you understand what is going on behind the pixels, because that seems like your weakness at this point