At what level do "casual" players get shutdown?

[System_1]

what he meant by piggybacking is that he’s riding off of what someone else said. He’s echoing his/her sentiment.

As for mind games, that’s the mind games you play with the other player. IE, on wakeup, there are many options on both sides to control the match. You try to read and outdo the player and set up the flow of the match to control the other player. If you know that the opponent prefers to tech roll forward in anticipation of being dashed into and attacked, a player might not dash in fully and go to where he expects the waking player to rise. Or training a player to expect a particular hi-low mixup, and instead finding another mixup, or even something else entirely. You screw with the player’s mind and flow within the game.

is this done at primarily high level play, because online matches, I have no clue what the opponent’s going to do and usually just go with it. haha. I understand setting the pace and controlling the pace of the fight, since that goes with the same ideal in real life, and throwing stuff at them they might expect, but I never thought of it that way. Do most people? I usually just look for the best opening the beat the crap out of the other guy. Sounds way more brutish than this mental chessgame that you seem to be talking about.

[System_1]

It happens conciously or unconciously in all competent levels of play. If you see someone beating the crap out of you using the same move over and over, you will use a counter for it. You will also try to bait it if you have a good counter for it. The big differences in higher levels of play is that
a) Enough practice has been done so that combos are done automatically with precise timing
b) They recognize opportunities to retaliate and attack better than lower level play.

But that doesn’t mean it’s not in lower levels of play. If you anticipate and counter someone, you’re screwing with their head. If you flip someone three times in a row just to get them angry and play worse, you’re screwing with their head. If you bait an opponent to do something you want to do, you screw with their head.

My advice for anyone starting any fighter game, learn to master three combos. Your basic ‘go-to bread-and-butter’. your basic corner combo. And your basic air combo. Learn when and how to use these and while you’re playing learn to play your opponent.

[HBRD]

What you really wanna look at is win/loss ratio and how many games they’ve played. If they have a win/loss ratio of 70 or so, and they’ve played a shit load of matches, you know there good.

Uh, I’m rank 50, with 69% wins out of 950 matches played. I’m most definitely not good :looney:

No sarcasm either.

[Rabbit360]

is this done at primarily high level play, because online matches, I have no clue what the opponent’s going to do and usually just go with it.

I’m no expert but I find you have to get a feel for your opponent before mind games become effective. Though you can start training them to expect something in the early rounds. Think about if you’re playing close matches with the same person multiple times in a row. You start to predict what they’re thinking, bait and counter.

That’s my understanding.

[Raas]

I wouldn’t think there’d be a specific level that casuals get shut down, obviously since a person can get levels in a variety of ways. Personally I got up to level 8 on my first victory since the first guy I played was level 30 odd and I scraped a win out of it some 11 rounds later.

A casual player will get messed up, in any fighting game when ‘game knowledge’ supplants what is easily viewable. This varies on your own level of dedication, some people never get around to teching throws or not reversalling every little knockdown - but more advanced things like zoning and frame traps will certainly trip up the casual breed. Particularly in this game where messed up bidnas is essentially the name of the game[DAMN YOU NU], right under mvc2 in my opinion. If you find yourself saying, how come he hits me EVERYTIME, then you hit the limit of what you can do just by playing it.