one of my favorite things to ask folks is what do they know now that they wished they knew then? Often times it boils it down to what they consider the most important opinions/principles on a subject.
so my question as a srk newbie/average player looking to improve:
What are your top 5 things you wish you had known when you started playing sf4?
I look forward to your answers, this board is amazing!
-Never attempt 1 frame link combos against a grappler or ever.
-Never Unnecessarily jump.
Don’t do shit to someone waking up
If you wanna do 1 frame links, practice for like 24 hours to ensure minimal reversal shoryus/ultras/other crap
Something is wrong with dee jay’s jump arc
Don’t do meaty attacks
Stay away from people when they are waking up
Great idea for a thread. Here are the things that I think that players of all skill levels should work on.
-Learn to throw.
You should be comfortable going for a throw attempt from a variety of situations. Don’t limiting yourself to throwing only after a blocked jab, blocked focus, or when your opponent lands from a jump. Try using throw in situations such as on your opponent’s wake-up, walking in after your opponent’s whiffed ground poke, or random dash/walking throws. If your throw game is weak, the rest of your offense will suffer. There are a lot of beginners who have a lot of potential, but they would be so much better if their throw game was as good as the rest of their game.
-Learn to defend patiently.
Sometimes, you just have to be comfortable with doing nothing. Some players panic under the opponent’s offensive pressure and are overeager to reversal, spam jabs, focus attack, jump away or backdash. It is okay to use these defensive options, but one of your options should be to simply sit, block and tech throws. If you are unwilling to do so, your opponent will find a way to exploit it before the match is over.
-Learn to block projectiles.
This is very similar to the above point. Watch any high level vid, and you’ll notice that a lot of projectiles are blocked. This isn’t because they don’t know how to avoid the projectile without taking damage. It’s because they know that if you are unwilling to block a fireball, the opponent will surely exploit it. Once you prove to your opponent that you’re willing to block his projectile, you are much more likely to catch him off guard with one of your more aggressive options. The only time blocking should be ruled out as an option is if it would kill you.
-Develop a solid ground game.
A lot of players rely way too much on jumping as a means of offense. Every character has at least three solid ground pokes that should be used in every round. If you can outplay opponent on the ground, he will have to resort to riskier tactics in order to win.
-Pay even more attention to your opponent’s game than your own.
Making decisions in Poker are based on three things:
[LIST=1]
[]What you think he has.
[]What he thinks you have.
[*]What he thinks you think he has.
[/LIST]
As you can see, two of the three aspects are based on your opponent’s thought process, and only one is based on your own. Street Fighter works the same way. If your thought process focuses entirely on what YOUR situation is, what options YOU have at a given moment, and how YOU will plan your attack, you are only playing Street Fighter at 33%. Following your opponent’s thought processes, noticing their patterns and tendencies, and knowing their state of mind are things that you should be basing your decisions on. This is what separates the top players from the rest and is the most difficult aspect to improve upon.
I disagree about your first tip. pretend you’re going for a 1 frame link and just jump up for the lolz into combos. If you are consistent with your 1 framers, if the guy respects you or if he’s smart, he’ll stop mashing 360. You can set up for a gutsy throw right there (i’d normally go straight for the comb), and he might even think you’re wreckless.
Take your time. No need to rush, just be patient and relax.
Learn as much as you can about matchups, and playstyles. It helps you develop your own.
Never let an opportunity slip by. Learn to recognize a good opening. If your opponent gives you a clear opening, learn to take it in the most damaging way.
Stop jumping. Every time you jump, there should be a good reason you’re doing so. If you don’t have one, stay on the ground.
Practice. Practice, Practice, Practice. Keep practicing.
Play Rufus online and watch your inbox fill up with this.
This might just be one of the most useful basic guide to street fighter I’ve ever read. Kudos!
take “spam”, “cheap”, and “turtle” out of your fighting game vocabulary. A good player isn’t going to stop using something that works.
If it works, make sure it works well otherwise it will backfire on you.
don’t be too predictable in your strategy.
don’t be too unpredictable in your strategy, because you can take a lot of damage playing randomly.
Learn your links
almost every normal has a purpose. learn how to use it. i see a lot pad players mapping mp and mk to an inconspicuous location and i assume its done because they think they can do fine just with lights and heavies.
can’t attack a character head on? your normals losing to the other characters every single time? theres more than one way to fight than just attacking head on. every character has a different game plan so stop trying to play one character the same way you do with another. learn when is the perfect time and perfect position to attack. ex: with viper, you do not want to engage in an up close game using your normals against an offensive chun li/balrog. your normals will get beaten out every single time.
learn how to block. its a given but too many people panic when they get pressured and try to mash reversals only to have them baited and punish badly afterwards.
learn your combos. you’re sacrificing damage potential without learning your combos.
don’t be too predictable. opponents will eventually catch on and exploit your weakness
And as others said, don’t use 1 framers in matches unless you’ve practiced them for hours upon hours and can very consistently hit them.
This will be more than 5, and I’m not a vet, but this will likely be good.
1: Don’t jump unless you have a reason to. When you jump, it is sortof like telegraphing your next move. You can’t stop jumping, once you’ve jumped. Don’t do it all the time! Don’t think of it as a way to travel across the screen faster like many players do.
2: Links are hard. Don’t get frustrated about not being able to link 6 normal combos. You can be very good at this game, and not be able to do links that well. Cancelling normals into specials is good enough for most people.
3: Practice countering the cheese plays. The vast majority of people seriously just spam specials all day, or jump in all the time. When you counter something, make a mental note of what happened and what worked, and before too long, you’ll be doing it out of habit.
4: When you think you want to start learning the execution in a little more detail by doing focus attach dash cancels, do it in baby steps. Focus attack at level 2 or level 3, and get very consistent at dashing out of that to be able to throw, ultra, or otherwise combo your opponent. When you have that down so well that you can’t even remember the last time you messed it up, (should be a few days of solid playing at least) THEN start practicing how to use FADC in the middle of a combo string.
5: Don’t be lame. This includes talking trash, saying rude things, burping on your headset, and any other snide comment. Seriously, have some civility with your messages and how you conduct yourself.
1. Keep your feet planted
Jumping is an easy way of starting off a damaging combo, but only if you’re sure that you aren’t going to get smacked out of the air and lose a match. Try not to jump so often.
2.Keep your guard up
One of the most basic things you can do in Street Fighter is also the thing that will most likely help you win more matches. Blocking normal attacks (obviously) keeps you from taking unneeded damage. You will also want to learn to throw tech so you won’t take damage from a grab after your opponent gets sick of your blocking.(If you didn’t know, you press the LP+LK buttons when your opponent attempts to grab you) Be careful with special moves though; They do chip damage and your opponent can use them to chip you out.
3.Start making perfect
Get it? Cause practice makes perfect! HAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHA.
Seriously though, you should practice any chance you get. Saw a combo in a video that you’ve been trying to pull off for weeks but last time you tried, Zangief picked you up and broke your neck? Get into training mode, turn your dummy opponent to Auto block, and practice the combo. If he blocks? Dang. If not? Woo! You should also try to play other people online or in real life if you can.
4.Be wary of big and scary
By that, I mean that if you attempt a combo on a grappling character such as Zangief or T.Hawk, make sure that you can complete it because if you miss one attack by a fraction of a second, you’ll end up eating dirt. If you can help it, try to keep your distance and don’t do anything that will bring you closer to a grappler.
5.Do not be a scrub
Let me explain what a scrub means, at least to me:
A scrub is a player who is bad, but won’t actually take time to learn the game and figure out what beats what. In other words, the people who complain about you using a certain tactic and calling it cheap or broken is a scrub. Losing this thought process is the best way to becoming a better player because you can begin learning from your experience and start building strategies. Remember: Nothing is cheap in Street Fighter. You do what you gotta do to win.
Hope I helped out.
Do not mash
Don’t let losing get to your head.
Master combos, and your tools
Don’t make unnessecary jumps
After every loss, think about your loss and how you can improve from it, you learn a lot of things from losing, a lot more than winning
Stop jumping
Stop pressing buttons
Block more
Why are you still jumping?
Use more normals
You will probably be told this more than anything. When it comes to character selection, the best route is just to pick someone that you like. Whether you like something functional, such as their special moves, combos, and normals, or whether you like something cosmetic, such as their character design, their fighting stance and animations, or even just the name of the character, try the character if you think you’ll like it. If you pick a character that you do not like (say for instance, you saw a tier list or someone told you this character is good/this character sucks), not only will you not have as much fun, but you’re bound to get your ass whooped. If you pick someone you enjoy playing, you’ll eventually overcome their weaknesses and wins will come.
The most common reason people who are new to fighting games lose is simply because they do not know how to defend themselves. There are several ways to block in SSF4, from blocking high (blocks high attacks, jump-in attacks, and overheads, but vulnerable to low-hitting attacks and sweeps), to blocking low (avoids many attacks that hit high, blocks low attacks, but susceptible to overheads and jump-ins), to blocking cross-ups, to focus-absorbing attacks. However, you should also be aware that the only way to prevent a throw attempt is to tech it or jump out of it; throws cannot be blocked in the way that normals and special moves can. Last but not least, every character has at least one unblockable move, meaning if the move hits your character, there is no way to block it (e.g. Akuma’s Raging Demons, Zangief’s SPDs/Atomic Busters, Level 3 focus attacks from any character). However, many of those can be escaped by jumping, proper reversals, etc. In short, learn to block attacks; if it’s a throw, learn to tech it; if it’s an unblockable move, learn to escape it.
SF4 and SSF4 have both done a decent job of teaching the players about the characters via challenge trials. These are great for learning how to do the normal and special moves of every character in the game. Since SSF4’s trials are limited to 24 per character, you’re not going to necessarily learn every single special move for everyone, but it’s still very helpful to learn what they teach you. Once you learn what moves your character can do, practice them until you can do them consistently. This way, you know what kind of tools you have available in a match.
Although not every character in SSF4 is a “combo-oriented” character, all characters have at least a couple of them that are useful in matches. Combos are important because they involve stringing multiple attacks together in sequence for high damage, giving you an advantage in battle if you’re able to land them successfully. SSF4’s challenge trials have combos for all characters in them, though many of them are impractical/extremely difficult to set up. In that case, I would watch match or combo videos, or look on the SRK forums in the character threads for bread’n’butter combos, that is, the most basic and commonly used combos for the character in matches. Links are more difficult and will therefore require more practice, but if you pace yourself and avoid rushing into doing extremely difficult combos, you’ll be fine. Just learn the basic ones, and move up from there.
This is something often overlooked by players looking to get better (including myself). Have a good time playing. Don’t let matches (win or lose) get to you; you’re going to win some, and you’re going to lose some. If you inevitably get angry whenever you lose, turn it into focus or motivation to win the next time, because if you just stay angry without any attempt to improve yourself, it’s just going to make you more upset when you lose again. If you find that playing is seriously affecting your mood (e.g. it ruins a dinner/movie night with your girlfriend and you end up not wanting to have sex with her because you lost to a Dan three times in a row), play another game or take a break, regain your composure, and then come back. Trust me, it’s better to stay away from something you like when you’re pissed off.