What am i doing wrong

scrubforever

Hey

I have been trying to get in to 2D fighter for a while now and i am failing hard. Got bot SSFIVAE and SFxT on PC. Here`s my story 

I have been a gamer all my life of 30 years, mostly on PC with some stints of Genesis and PS2 during the years. Not really an arcade gamer though when i was really young and you could find arcades i used to play MK2 and Neo-Geo fighters. During my gaming career i played a lot of competitive games at a semi-pro, advanced amateur, pubstomper level - starting with Quake 1 and Quake 3 i was top5 in my country, than moved to Wolf:ET to be top5, than COD4 to be top10, some Tekken 5 where i never met someone to stomp my Asuka, playing LoL at a high level etc, dabbled in SC2, with various games in between. This means that i am able to play competitive games at high level and do well. Never got into 2D fighters because of lack o local scene, but inspired by Playing to Win and tournament streams i picked up SF4 hoping to learn the game and try to build a scene from scratch.

Problem is that happened around 200 hours of play ago and i am still not able to perform a proper Hadouken when i need it and i am not able to win more than 10% of games i play online or offline. I am not able to do a proper dash during a fight and not able to perform a proper focus attack when i need it. Strategy wise, i know exactly what i should do at the moment i should do it, and i am perfectly able to perform everything in training mode. Say i can do 50 shoryukens, 50 hadoukens and 50 tatsus in a row without breaking in training, but in a real match i can`t do 1 if i have to do it to counter something. 

I started with a gamepad, which was fine and i was used to playing fighters with it because i played Tekken 5 for 3-4 years on a ps2 gamepad and was able to combo, counter and more or less perform anything with it.  I thought that maybe gamepad is not the right choice for SF so i bought a Hori HRAP3, which at first seemed to improve my play but after a while it gotten worse than gamepad. 

I have read almost everything SF related on the web, read tutorials for characters, watched vesper arcade tutorial, read footsies handbook, playing to win and so forth, i seem to not be able to apply any of the knowledge in a real match because it all comes down to execution problems. I also tend to mash on the stick ALOT and can`t figure a way to stop doing that. I go to training, try to not mash, stop mashing, than go to a match and start mashing again without thinking.

I am either doing something wrong or don`t understand something about the game or my mind/hands are not made for 2D fighters.

Is there any way a fellow gamer with fgc aspirations can be helped in this situation ? Maybe i should just quit ? 

HALP!

Magical_Kiwi

Hey,

I don't envy a new player trying to get into the FG community. I have played fighters casually all my life, but I never tried to "learn" a fighting game until SF4 came out. The scene exploded with new players when SF4 came out and so when I was learning I had loads of fellow newbs to learn with. It can be done even now I have no doubt but I do think it is harder for a new player these days. When I play against someone who is obviously new I try to be gentle with them and teach them as best I can but in the end they are still gonna lose and that will get disheartening very quickly.

I've been playing competitively with my friends and against people online most days since release and I still get the odd SRK when I want a Hadoken. Execution is hard and in the heat of battle you do tend to spam and get stuff you don't want coming out. In my experience the solution to that is a) practice in training (and against AI) b) just keep at it until the muscle memory sticks and your hands start doing the work for you.

The other piece of advise I would give you is that you should try and find a friend to learn with or an online training partner. If you can find one person to adjust to, you can spend your time  fixing your mistakes rather than spending all of your time just adjusting constantly to the styles of strangers.

Don't give up, you sound like a talented, determined and constructive member of the community and you have it in you to succeed at this. Winning 10% of your matches isn't all that bad when you consider that there is no matchmaking and you are up against good players all the time.

Keep at it and try to find someone to learn along side.

scrubforever

Thank you for the kind words and the encouragement. It really helps :)

Bilerot

I know it sounds weird, but don`t play to win!
In 2D-Fighters there`s so much going through your brain at the same time, that a beginner is absolutly helpless.

Put the pressure of winning aside at the start, just set yourself a goal for every match.

For example:
- I will antiair at least one Jump-in with a dragon punch
- I will punish a mistake of my opponent (F.e. a blocked DP where he is sailing in the air) with the punbish-combo I`ve worked on before in training mode
- I will focus absorb 4 fireballs in in row
- I will throw him or even better tech a throw.

and so on, you get what i mean.
Focus only on that one goal and consider it a win, if you succeded.
Play endless if you care to much about ranked points.

After a while, all these things come naturally.

There are hundreds of such goals - and at the moment you try to achieve them all at once - and you fail (as you should :-)  )

And most important, don`t have pressure - have fun!

AirLancer

What these guys said. Playing to win at a beginner level, especially against better players, can be a frustrating experience due to lack of experience with the game, execution issues, and those sort of things that can ironed out with time. So for a starter, the best thing is to try and learn what you can from every match. Fighting games require knowing a multitude of situations, recognizing the situation, and executing the appropriate response to that situation in time periods of less than a second. It's a rocky path, but the rewards are better than any other kind of video-game I can think of.

4neqs

When in doubt use youtube. Tutorials and match videos of your character/game of choice are there for sure

Airk

As an execution aid, since you say you can do 50 blah, and 50 blah, and 50 the other thing, but can't do them in a match, you can:

A) Practice against the CPU;  You're not going to be practicing any clever mixups here, but at the very least, this will help you practice your specials in a less controlled environment
B) If you're still experiencing bad success rates while playing against the CPU, mix up your training routine.  What you're probably doing right now is saying "Time to practice throwing hadoukens!" "Hadouken!" "Hadouken!" "Hadouken!" "Hadouken!" "Hadouken!" "Hadouken!" "Hadouken!" "Hadouken!"!!!! "See? I did it a bunch of times in a row!" but the fact is that you're unlikely to start from neutral and then throw seven hadoukens in a row without doing so much as walking in between.  Instead, try training like this:

Start at downback.  Throw a hadouken.  Walk backwards for half a second.  Throw another hadouken.  Downback. Walk forwards a step. Throw another hadouken.   Jump backwards. Throw a hadouken when you land.  Whiff three jabs. Throw another hadouken.  Downback. Hadouken. Etc.

This helps you get used to doing the motion in situations other than "doing completely nothing" and "just throw a hadouken a second ago" - neither of which are particularly likely to come up in a match.   This is the method I used to get over my own "I can loop dragon punches all day in training, but can't get them when I want them in a real match" syndrome, and I expect it will help you too.

scrubforever

Thank you very much everybody for the help you are providing. I have been training and playing some offline real matches in the past week and i can already see an improvement in mentality, focus, execution and in the end success rate because now i am more calm and relaxed. The tips are usefull and will be in the long run

Here`s hoping i come back later to prove i can be some competition :)

Thanks

AhChang

Try to brush up your execution and prepare yourself what to do in different situation like if you hit them or they block your attacks.

Try different ways of holding the stick and see which way of holding the stick is the most comfortable for you when you're executing a move.

Matchup knowledge against different characters has to be accumulated with experience.

The main thing is don't be nervous when playing against people. They may apply pressure when you're in the corner and forcing you to block for a very long time. But actually you're blocking and no damage is done to you. If they are not using a grapple character, they only thing they can damage you is using throws which with experience, you can tech the throw.

Everything gets time to get used to it. As time goes, you'll be able to execute the moves perfectly even without you yourself realising it.

Kikuichimonji

Work on one thing at a time. Only one thing at a time.

Sounds like a self-confidence issue more than anything else.

petran79

 

petran79

 

petran79

How long did it take you though to reach that level on Quake and Tekken? 5 years at least I presume.
SFIV will probably take you a couple of years as well. Dont count it with hours, but months and years.

Also consider that at 30 it will be harder to learn such a complex and demanding game, than when you were a teen or in your early 20s.

Have in mind that online play in PC FPS came much earlier than online in consoles and  console fighters. Hence PC fps players had more time to adjust and improve in the game, just like in your case.
Consider also that in SC2 and Tekken 5 you may have played against good opponents but the online feature raises the level a lot higher.
Not just because of the better opponents but also due to technical issues (online connection, slowdowns, lag, unresponsive controls etc)
you must know this from your fps experience already.


but probably the mindset does also play a role.

at your age and since you know about PC gaming already, you are entering as an overall gamer, rather than an exclusive fighting game player. 
Same happened to me too. I'd hate to focus exclusively on fighters, as I did the first few months after the release of SFIV. I know that it is unlikely for me to win that way, but I learned a lot despite this.
Still, I have improved a lot the last couple of years. In the mid- 90s it would be unimaginable for me to beat fighting games in hard mode.

I dont feel  angry or sad at all. On the contrary I find it hilarious and am also surprised at what cheap tactics some  opponents use in order to win. I'd hate to do the same. I'd prefer giving my opponent a chance rather than totally dominating. even when playing against a total beginner, I wouldnt mind if I lose. 

Dont forget that a lot of your opponents might have played fighters all their lives or focus exclusively on SFIV the last few years.
They know the game much better as you found out.  Just as you know Quake a lot better and can stomp FPS beginners with various tactics they have no clue off..

If you focus on that game, you'll improve definitely. But if you are a late starter, it might be more difficult to keep your enthusiasm for the game.

scrubforever

Had a 10 hour session yesterday with a friend that ended in aprox 150 to 15 for him. I also believe i took at least a round in 80% of the matches we played. However i didn`t really focus on winning but focused on countering what he was doing and blocking as much as possible, 

As a result i ended up being able to block high and low in the same string consistently, being able to ultra after a wiff that takes a little longer to recover, consistently, being able to link a qcb+hp hit into ultra with Viper for a few times and being able to perform what i wanted say 70% of the time. For me this is a huge improvement and it all came down to mentality and being able to chill while playing so i can do things on reaction.

Now i will be working on something else that is bothering me - i tend to click the same button all the time - i also play shmups rather well (Cave stuff and some Touhou/other doujin) and keep forgeting i can use more than 2 buttons :) 

Also do you think moding my stick to lower the deadzone of the joystick would help me with execution ? I feel it`s quite loose and the deadzone feels big, and i feel like i need to hit the gate to confirm the input. I don`t have the standard Hori joystick but a Sanwa (which i think is JLF, a friend bought it and modded it for me) on the HRAP3.

Thanks again :)

deteknician

Blocking and not pressing buttons when under pressure is hard.  I'm not being sarcastic.

This is why I love FG's.. sometimes you're just fighting your own body/mind.

Kikuichimonji

scrubforever wrote: »

Also do you think moding my stick to lower the deadzone of the joystick would help me with execution ? I feel it`s quite loose and the deadzone feels big, and i feel like i need to hit the gate to confirm the input. I don`t have the standard Hori joystick but a Sanwa (which i think is JLF, a friend bought it and modded it for me) on the HRAP3.<br />
Thanks again :)

It's hard for us to tell over the internet man. JLF's usually are great and have small deadzones. You'd get a better response from the tech talk forum.