Advice to all new Skullgirls (or any game for that matter) players from a professional gamer

Classic Fighting Games Skullgirls
1

I’ve been debating on doing this for a while but I will give a brief statement and see how the responses are before actually writing an entire paper about it.

First off, my name is Danny aka MegamanDS. I am known for usually trolling or acting dumb but this is going to be a very serious post for the incoming gamers.

I’ve been playing games since I was a baby and playing professionally/competitively since 2001. I have won tournaments, been sponsored, made plenty of combo videos, posted hundreds of videos of matches and much much more for the FGC. I stopped playing competitively since 2009 and with Skullgirls being released in 2012, it brought me back to the competitive playing level.

Now, I’m not claiming to be the best like I usually do or blah blah, but I do honestly consider myself good at the game. Heck, not to sound cocky but when the game was first launching, I am usually the innovator for certain tactics, playstyles, assists and combos (like I am for all games I play). I brought my MvC2 playstyle to this game and it seems to be the way the game is moving.

So what leads me to this post is that I have been playing a lot of PC Beta now and just online in general (since this game is lag-free online yay!) and I notice that 90% (not exaggerating) of the players I play DON’T know how to play or what they are doing. Now I’m not saying they suck. There is a difference in my opinion between someone that sucks and someone that just doesn’t know how to play. The advice I want to give to all you new players is two words: TRAINING MODE.

To learn how to play the game, go through the tutorial for basic fighting game fundamentals. Once you know that, go to training mode and learn moves, then learn combos, then learn basic tactics, then learn advance tactics. I am not trying to be mean, but actually trying to give serious advice. You must spends hours (and I mean HOURS) in training mode perfecting your characters before jumping online to play actual opponents. I know its going to suck, its going to be boring, its going to be tedious, but it WILL pay off.

Playing online will NOT make you better if you don’t know how to play. Playing online (or other people) will make you better once you DO know how to play because then it will teach you matchups, specific scenarios, poking games, adapting to your opponent and so forth.

So please, if you are new to the game, spend about 2-3 hours a day in training mode learning all the characters until you fall in love with a couple. Then spend hours in training mode learning their moves and combos.

If this post gets good feedback or shared or anything, I will write an entire article on how to get good at fighting games. I’ve been in the scene long enough to know what makes you a top player. Even though I personally am not the best, its not because I can’t be, its because of training mode and time restraints.

2

Please make more man. I’m pretty sure there’s a decently large influx of fresh new players coming to SG. I’ve spread the word on other sites too, that and looking the steam forums you can see that there’s fresh meat coming in. I mean there’s a ton of activity going on there since the Skullheart forums are down (assuming it was the biggest forum community for SG besides SRK).

Looking for a direction to play towards was the first thing I did when I realized I was having a lot of fun playing. If you do decide to publish some stuff, advertise on the steam community forums. Most people who are new don’t even know what SRK is, I sure as hell didn’t until google led me here.

One of the things I notice in nearly all the freaking competitive games is the lack of guides for fundamental stuff, stuff you need to know before moving on to the more advance stuff. In League/DotA starter builds, how to play your role properly, how not to die to really obvious stuff… In Starcraft 2, the importance of making workers and scouting, the relationship of an early-game strategy against a long-game one and how to interpret it and so on. In Quake Live, hitting your target harder and more often than it hits you, which is really the bare bottom fundamentals but noooo everyone wants to hit their air rockets and flick shot their rails all day when really pulling out your LG will kill your opponent or at least make the biggest impact on the enemy team. sigh

Looking forward to more content thanks.

3

there are always interested casual players who look into a new released game. but they not gonna put work into it, they just wanna have fun and win. well in contrast to sf4 only mashing without basic and advanced knowledge isn’t gonna win you one match. so I guess just wait and the frustration will do the rest to the scrubs and only those with dedication for the game will remain. posting demands here will not reach them or even change their behaviour. those who are interested will find their way to shoryuken or skullheart.

4

?? Ever seen a solo Bella play?

5

have you ever seen a solo bella against peacock and assists?
it’s a slaughter.

6

Thanks for the advice. I was under the impression that the training mode would teach me bad habits, since I would be learning what works best against a training dummy and not against real people. I’m going to start spending more time in training mode, but 2-3 hours a day? I don’t even play games that much lol. Guess that means I just need to make time, or move on to something easier.

Right now I’m kinda starting from the beginning, since I dropped the gamepad and am now using a keyboard. It feels more responsive and natural, but combos are a little weird. I’m currently building a hitbox, so in a few weeks I should be on that.

7

It’s the opposite really. Training mode should teach you the basics of what your character/team can put out. Once you know that, then you should move on to learning from matches so you can figure out how to apply what you’ve learned in training mode in a real match.

8

To be fair, I think it’s a combination of training mode, and online play that makes a player. Coming from other fighting games, I already understand fundamentals, and personally, I actually have an easier time learning bnbs in the heat of a match than grinding against dummies.

dummies can’t teach you how to confirm off stray hits, y0.

9

Dunno why you got people upvoting you on your original post, since it’s as fucking obvious as “If you want to live, you need to drink, eat and sleep”.
Also it’s pretty damn wrong.
You don’t have to be weeks in the training room in order to play online matches.

It’s also pretty damn superfluous since the scrubs you meet online don’t really care enough about the game to learn it and the people that do will improve by themselves and find shit like SRK.com, VesperArcades SF tutorials or stuff like James Chens First Attack.

Dunno how you hope to bring anything new to the table or contribute to the community in any way by posting the obvious in a couple of sentences.

10

Yeah, this mindset - “You must spends hours (and I mean HOURS) in training mode perfecting your characters before jumping online to play actual opponents.” - is what holds a LOT of new players back. How many people do we see on Skullheart saying they are afraid to go online and get beat? How many of these players do you think will ever get any good? Spend an hour or two getting down a basic BnB if you have to, but worrying about “not being good enough” is the quickest way to languish in the beginner stage for far too long. Doesn’t matter how much time you’ve spent in training mode, or arcade mode, when you first start playing real people, you will get beat. Just get it over with at the beginning.

Edit: Also, thank god* this game doesn’t use an online points system like SF4/SFxT. Otherwise it’d be even harder to get people to play online.

*Mike Z?

11

I definitely encourage new players in any game to at least learn the character’s moves in training mode and try to get to the point where if you press a button you know what your character will do.

naturally there are more things you can learn than that but for a really new player (possibly new to the genre in general) spending hours in training mode won’t necessarily accomplish anything because they aren’t even sure what they should be learning in the first place

12

What you saying kid?

Also, shoutouts to training mode monsters.

13

Most people even if they have the dedication, don’t have the time to spend two or three hours a day in practice mode alone. So this will fall on deaf ears unforutunatey. I suck at fighting games but its not because I lack the dedication but lack the time.

14

How do I know who to listen to? I’m not asking who I should listen to, but how do I know who is giving solid advice, and who is delusional? Because I’m seeing a lot of people giving advice here, but I can’t possibly investigate everyone that makes a suggestion to make sure they are legit.

Also, I’ve been parts of communities where misinformation ran rampant, even amongst people that seemed credible and had lots of experience, so I don’t take the opinion of the majority seriously just because they have a general consensus.

I’m willing to learn and take advice, but don’t want to waste God knows how many hours taking bad advice because someones seems credible.

15

Good advice, excellent in fact. This being said idk how effective telling people they need to use training mode is, its one thing to hear it and a completely different one to actually go do it. Its more of a self motivating thing. I spend hours in training mode more because i enjoy a feeling of progression and its meditative qualities rather than because i desperately want to get better and i hear people telling me to.

As far as writing this whole guide goes just go for it dude, in all honesty i would love to hear what you have to say past this, you seem like a chill dude. Im 100% certain you’ve got something to say with more fucking Yomi than this bro

16

Everyone learns differently.

MMDS advice might work for some, but not all.

17

The fastest way to get good at these games is to play against real people. If you are going to spend a significant amount of time in training, at least do it with purpose (pick a specific BnB to practice, practice doing special inputs from both directions, or use the record function to try defending against stuff you saw in vs.). But the idea that you need to “spend HOURS perfecting your character in training” before you go online is just not true. Go online, find someone around your skill level, and level up with them.

18

I don’t get where all these newer folk get off from talking down to Dan of all people. If there is anyone in the Skullgirls community that you should listen it’s him.

You guys don’t understand just how important spending time in training mode is. I’ve seen an EVO champion spend what seemed like hours on training mode before an event just repeatedly practicing basic things in (safe falls, plink dashes, wave dashes) just to be sure that his execution on them is on point. I have seen top players, spend time in training mode simply just doing basic BnBs over and over again just to make sure that their muscle memory was fine. That’s not to say that experience from playing decent players won’t help, but in a game like this were a good part of it involves being able to convert stray hits into damage, then having your execution be on point is something that gives you an advantage over the other guy.

19

And for a new player who doesn’t even know what that half that shit is? To get started on these games it is more important to actually play. Practicing stuff outside of basic execution and BnBs is not worth it for new players.

And the idea that you have to spend hours upon hours in practice before going online further feeds the mindset of folks that always refuse to go online because they’re “not good enough yet” and afraid of getting bodied. This retards the growth of the newbie portion of the SG player-base (which is expansive).

Training is important, but the emphasis placed in the OP isn’t really that helpful.

20

I learned it the hard way. I tried going online with only special move knowledge and I got bodied hard.