Speaking from personal experience after getting totally buttraped 50 times in a row in endless… if they’re leagues ahead of you, it’s not helping you. I can almost guarantee you will get frustrated and start doing all of the bad things you can do: mashing, unable to read ahead, unable to analyze patterns, etc… because you are getting beat so badly without a chance to even put what you practiced to use.
I played a few times with my friend who is also just starting out on SF, and the wins went back and forth, and we both got to actually try the things we learned (for me, Cr. MK xx FB, DP FADC Ultra, Cr. FP xx Tatsu, bread and butter pokes.)
I’d recommend playing against someone who is relatively close to your level. Its no fun pubstomping, and its no fun being demolished.
In ranked I like playing same skill so were both on an even playing field unless I know the person. Endless I like playing more skilled so I can adapt to there play style and it’s beneficial for when I go back to ranked.
Playing weaker players can be a learning experience, you just have to approach it differently. I find that it’s a good benchmark of your progress, and it can be helpful from time to time to see what habits weak players have in order to exploit them better, because even good players have some of the same bad habits.
Also, this:
Is why online training mode is so amazing for learning. You can jump in with a friend, or someone who plays the same character as you, bounce ideas off of each other, and just play. I highly recommend using it in SF4 once Ultra drops.
That’s honestly the top thing I am looking forward to in Ultra. I don’t really care about the character buffs because I’m still just trying to learn in general, but that will help people learn so much easier than just going into endless and playing countless matches.
Just wanted to add that I played on GFWL today with someone from the SRK forums, not sure who because their tag isn’t the same as their username here.
He was definitely better (his Ryu though… B+ rank) but he was using characters that were D ranked, and I could actually practice b&b pokes (though I never got a chance to FADC Ultra) without panicking and mashing everywhere.
^I logged onto GFWL too late to play with you so I played on XBL instead. I played with a guy who was way better than me, but he wasn’t a dick and just quick after one game. He gave me some advice and then kept playing so I could put it into practice. His name was ShinPorkyPig504.
After a couple of days I think that playing against better people in ranked is a waste of time trying to improve since either people are playing for the points or are playing for the competition factor. In endless people still play for the competition factor, but they seem more open to helping you out.
I’m also new to the game myself, but thankfully, I have a small posse who can watch me play online, we get together about once a week. If you could possibly do it, find some RL friends and take turns playing Endless matches. You can analyze the match in a more smooth and natural way, talking it over with them. Its quite pleasant and helpful at the same time!
I think playing someone better than you is beneficial for the fact that the person you play will be able to point out certain mistakes you may be making that you wouldn’t normally realize as a new player. Playing someone around your skill level is beneficial because of course you have an easier opponent to deal which also means you’ll be able to think and react a lil better to certain situations. As for playing someone leagues ahead of you, it can help and not help IMO. If you have knowledge about the game, you should be able to handle yourself a little before your inevitable defeat…but if not, then yeah you’d probably end up mashing because you’re getting bum rushed the whole match lol. Just my take on it though.
