CvS2 driving me insane

Classic Fighting Games Capcom VS SNK 2
1

Okay, I need a little advice, or at least a hint that maybe I don’t have what it takes to play this game, but I’ve been playing CvS2 off and on for a little bit ow, and I just can’t seem to a) break old habits b) learn the nuisances that will break you from mid level average, to higher.

I’ve been playing SF for years, but since I’ve played mid to low level people, I’ve been in a rut. I’m not a horrible player, but I grew up playing SF in a very slow paced environment, where things like throwing was cheap (I never really saw it that way, but it was the general rule) rushdown was unheard of, and fireballs were taboo almost. Now I sit and try to adapt to higher level play but I can’t help but think either my mind doesn’t click to this fast enough, or I can’t break out of the old ways.

A few examples. I can’t poke. Well maybe a little, but I get outpoked bigtime, and I get outpoke when I’m sure I should have the higher priority. I just don’t think I know how to poke well. I try to do pressure strings, and I get stuffed a lot. I can’t zone too well.

Also I have trouble comboing. I work for a long time trying to figure link timing but it never seems to come to me. I’m not sure how to work it. I try watching for a point in the animation, but that doesn’t work. I try a to work in as a rhythm, but that doesn’t work either. God forbid I try in a real fight, as I get all nervous and f-it up. That and I have this stupid vice of mixing my combos up, ie: I’ll practice with Geese, and start doing Geese combos with other characters, (ie: Bison trying to jab, jab, jab, cr. RH) it’s quite embarrasing in my head that I have these mental blocks.

Also I just seem to get raped when I’m cornered. I don’t understand reading my opponent. My watching for patterns usually ends with me in the corner as I try to figure it out. and as I can’t poke to test very well, I just get stuffed there.

I guess overall what I’m asking is that is this normal stuff to go through, or am I at the no new tricks for an old dog? I’d like to get better but it gets so frustrating to lose when you know what’s coming.

2

I was in your position last year.

C.lpx2 C.hk, that’s a pretty easy link, press Hk >>>>immediately<<<< when lp shows return frames.

Fireball traps don’t really work as well as before.

Combos are different for other characters. That bison combo you posted doesn’t even link in the end.

Watch a lot of CVS2.

STOP ROLLING.

note:to you elitists, i don’t like using the word footsies, it sounds like you are flirting with your opponent, 99.8% of the time, your opponent is a male.

Footwork is really important and that’s how most matches are decided, by good footwork.

Can you give us an idea of your opponent’s positioning and what you are thinking of the moment when in the corner?

It sounds like your footwork needs a lot of work.

basic idea is, you are jiggling in and out of the opponent’s poke with the largest range, trying to make him whiff a move. Remember Ryu vs Ryu fights back then, when you were pretty close and fireballs would not work cause you are too close, you might jiggle around and wait for someone to whiff a c.hk. the explanation is vague but experience is the only way to get better in footwork. some people like to play it far, close , people have patterns etc. etc.

3

I’ll find myself doing a rugal combo with geese very rarely. I catch it quickly and return to normal.
While learning the game(still am), I spent a lot of time trying out damaging combos. Overall that makes for decent practice on link timing, motions, but doesn’t really help for the heat of a battle.

What you need to do is find some players that can easily defeat you. Challenge them repeatedly, trying as many of the tactics you know. Stick to them for a little while. You just want to get comfortable with being at a disadvantage.

Personally, I have my own rhythm which depends on my character, groove, opponent’s char+groove, and life on both sides.

Last but not least, analyze your losses. Is there something you tried that always failed? Drop it. Is there a move you couldn’t counter? Think of other ways around/through it. Keep thinking, get out of the rut. DO NOT PLAY THE CPU FOR PRACTICE. Only to try out a combo after training mode but before doing it in VS. Shit’s too easy.

4

True they aren’t as good as the old days, but I still can’t get in on MOrrigan.

Yeah, I know it’s not a link, but my mind tends to only remember the combos I just practiced if I practice them for a long time, so when I get to Bison I accidently try Geese combos.

I use P/K, so I don’t roll at all.

Hard to say, depends on opponent. A few examples. I’ll play as Gief, and have no clue how to get close without jumping in. I can parry some of the time on jump in, but never near 100%. I try to bait them towards me with Fierces and standing forward but I whiff a lot (afraid of getting too close because I get poked if I start to advance…lose lose scenario for me), and that scores them knockdowns, and they push me to the corner where I proceed to panic and try to SPD through pokes.

Or the Kyo/Haoh rush in low poke to overhead. I can keep them at bay for a while with whoever I’m using but they will eventually get in a overwhelm me up close. I see the overhead coming but can stand quickly enough half the time. And once anyone gets me in the corner I panic.

Funny you should mention the whiff sweep, I sweep way too much, and it’s subconcious. I tell myself I want to rip the button out.

[quote]

the explanation is vague but experience is the only way to get better in footwork. some people like to play it far, close , people have patterns etc. etc. **

5

Invers3:
Go on AIM

Learn to be patient.
Just learn the basics as best as you can. Everything else will come natural.

6

yeah i kinda know how you feel. none of my friends are any good at any beat em ups meaning i win pretty much 100% of the time. i don’t have x-box live and am crap on an arcade stick meaning i don’t get the chance to improve by playing good players. to people that know me i am amazing at games but i myself know that compared to some people i might even be classed as a scrub.

my standard flattens out after about a week of playing which really sucks.

and yeah i used to play akuma a lot and when i switched to ken i’d try air fireballs. lol

7

Take a deep breath before every match. Always stretch out your fingers to make sure you’re warmed up and won’t mess up your combos as well.

Patience is the most important lesson to learn if you want to win in any fighting game. Show some self-control and always resist the urge to be too hasty (and doing something stupid) when the opponent has an advantage on you. ESPECIALLY when you’ve been cornered. Wait it out and look for you opening. Don’t just panic and try something random.

8

I really suck

I think the hardest thing I am having trouble with is that my patience become turtling. And not like a good Honda style turtle. Here is sort of a mental recap/rundown of another poor night on Live:

Another night of getting outpoked with Haoh’s standing fierce. I thought it was slow? It seems to beat Rolento’s cr. fwd.

Yamazaki’s snake hands destroy me. I can’t get inside. On occasion I may get a jump in just after a high snake hand, but it doesn’t lead to much. I stare at him on the ground defenseless to get a hit on him on the ground.

I really miss A3 Gief. He sucks to me in this ver. His Banishing Flat hitbox seems smaller (maybe it’s the superjumps.) I NEVER land a spinning CL (and I know about the ducking till they reach headlevel, still hit out of it everytime.) And it seems like his spds are much harder to tick into.

I watched some video of a guy playing Bison. Doing a lot of walk up cr fwds. I must be doing something wrong, that thing was getting stuffed right and left.

I can’t stay on the ground. I fell for so many traps to make me jump. (It’s really sad when you know your falling for it.) I got baited by Yuri, Yama, Mai, Chun, and King (King for christssakes!) to name a few. (I hate little girls in CvS)

I parried a fireball super in a real fight for the first time tonight. Granted it was from full screen, but at least it was meant to block kill me. It felt good up until the point where the guy ran up and cr fwd-ed my as I parried the last hit.

Same note. I don’t parry at all. I love parrying, but in the heat of the fight I can only do it when I’m really thinking about it. And that leads to trouble, like tonight I had to keep trying to parry the Kaiser Wave unsuccessfully. I can parry jumpins, but only if they are from a mile away.

I love Ryo right now. Fun character. Problem is his pokes seem so ‘stumpy’ Standing forward is nice but all the others are so slow and short. Jab is okay but it’s hard to get that close.

Rolls completely destroy me. If you roll on wakeup, you destroy me. (More on wakeups later) Roll through my jump ins…you destroy me. Roll through my pokes, destroyed…I thought low jabs snuffed rolls?

Started to corpse hop with Bison tonight. I love it…if only I could link the standing short from the crouching jab. (I have a really hard time linking a crouching move to a standing one, and can’t really negative edge the short knee press after that…I get it once in a while, but nothing consistant.)

The more I play the crappier I seem to get. I’ve been hit so many times from the opponent wakeup special, it ridiculous. in A2 that shit didn’t happen, but now that I’m so caught up in maintaining pressure I start to forget. Even if I know you have no really good wakeup special, I get roll thrown out of my meatys.

Is there any way inside Yuri when she’s running the fb crap? I have to stare blankly when she starts it.

I’m really sorry if I seem scrubbish. I don’t want to be, and I hope coming here will improve my game along with constant play. Thanks for all your help so far.

9

There are a few possible reasons for this:

  1. They pressed their poke button before you did. If two Sagats walk up to each other and low fierce, whoever pressed it first will win.
  2. It was a situation where they had frame advantage/you were at a frame disadvantage. In other words, a situation where the opponent will always move first… like after Sagat makes you block a jab.
  3. Your timing is really off, or you’re mashing. For example, you make them block a Ryu low jab (+7), then immediately hit low forward after. If their move beats yours in this situation your timing is wayyyy off.
  4. Your poke was simply out of range. In this case it will sometimes look like your poke is getting outprioritized but in reality they’re just punishing your whiff.

EDIT:

Well that explains everything. You’re playing on Live. Of course your timing is going to be shot to hell and you’re not going to be able to do link combos. Well, if you’re not fortunate enough to live next to a decent arcade, the best advice we can give you is to keep playing online games until you get used to the lag.

10

I think frame advantage is part of my problem. I have no clue what move leave me where, nor the same with my opponent’s pokes. Is there a way to check this online? I saw people at ECC thumbing through that import book, but I have no clue how rare that is or where to get it. I’d like to see the data, and like I said I don’t think it would be the end-all-be-all improvement to my game, but a little extra knowledge never hurts.

As far as Live goes, the lag may hurt a bit, but honestly my game isn’t much better offline. I just think my timing really needs work, and as long as I keep at it, and don’t tear my hair out after losing so often, I should get better…I hope.

Yes, unfortunately arcades have been dead around here for 10 years. (unless you play Tekken) I don’t know anyone in Columbus that plays CvS (I know 3S and Reload players). Cleveland, I know a few, but can’t go up that way too often. Hell the only time I’ve ever seen a CvS2 cabinet was at ECC this year, and I couldn’t even get near it. I was relegated to A3 most of the time. I got one game in on casual and got spanked (thankfully I didn’t get OCVed) so sadly Live is all I have to learn with now. I hope it doesn’t stunt me when I do get to a town that has decent arcades.

11

I just don’t get it. I try my best to be patient, look for openings, and I still get raped, by people with 33% wins. I’m not that bad. I just can’t stop one trick ponies. Rolling still destroys me, even when I know it’s coming. I try to jab the roll, I get stuff with a special. I try to throw the roll, but I’m never close enough, and I get stuff. How do you guys stop roll abusers…cus that’s 70% of what I play against. No real talent, just exposing a weakness in my game.

I’ve done well to be patient to wait throw people’s poke strings, but there is never an opening. Even missed supers don’t have openings a lot of the time. I got supered trying to punish a missed Shinryuken. He just shiryukens again afterwards.

12

Yes, rolls are a pain when one is just starting out. If you see the roll coming and are still being hit by it, you are probably reacting too slowly.

Remember, most rolls are about 33 frames long. That is a little over half a second to react if the roll goes to completion. You often need to deal with the roll before it finishes (i.e., < 0.5s). It is slow enough to react to every time but you still need to be quick, it is only half a second at most.

Get an idea on the roll lengths and speeds. You probably noticed some character rolls are short, some long. Keep a mental note of who has a short and who has long roll and where the opponent is when the roll begins. This will help you decide to throw or not. Generally, if they are rolling through you, throw.

When the roll is too short to throw use an appropriate ranged attack that stays “hitting” (i.e., meaty attack) for a long time (e.g., Cammy s.HK has 10 hit frames), so the opponent recovers into it. This stops any roll super, uppercut, throw attempts. You mentioned you try to jab the roll but are getting hit, it is likely the jab is not reaching or you did it late because it should work. Note that Iori has a damn good roll so don’t feel bad if Iori players get you time to time.

Also be aware of scrubs who “set up” roll super, etc by making you block a move that gives them frame advantage. Work on your throw timing in these situations as the opponent has a head start on you when they roll.

Try not to become predictable and let people roll through your pokes. If possible use pokes that recover faster than rolls (e.g., Geese d.MK) knowing some frame data helps here(www.justdefend.com has some).

About the poke strings, you say you try to wait it out but there doesn’t appear to be an opening and you use P groove - look harder. Unless it is a true combo there will a hole in the string, this may be your best time to parry. Although, I don’t know the frame data for shinryuken, but on hit or block it should be very punishable - react faster and use a quick hitting move into combo if in doubt (most MP, MK, etc.). Through experience you will learn what moves/combos are punishable and what aren’t.

13

i played a couple games with u online , just seems to me u lack experience the more u play the more u no:) .

u gotta learn anti airs because u got crossed up to many times and that leads to big combos .

14

ahh ive had the same as you, some scrub tactics and you actually still fall for it… i still have it when i play cpu Terry, roll, rising kicks X_x i feel so stupid then, but know what your character can do against it, like throw, or block the appropriate direction and punish =) You will get a feel for it, hell i first couldnt even do c.lk, c.lk with sagat because u had to time it and i was just mashing buttons, but now its just muscle memory =)

15

Well start off by reading all you can. Try to focus on the newer posts, as the game has changed VASTLY since it’s been out. Watch recent CvS2 matches, the matches that are locally hosted here are pretty old. Since you play the xbox version, it’s going to be a bit different than playing the arcade version because of roll canceling, if you really want to learn, there are plenty of resources on this site to become a compotent player.

16

Yeah, cross ups hurt me bad. I don’t really play with any chars that have good dp style AAs. (Chars I use now are Bison, Geese, Gief, Rollo, Balrog, Todo, and the occansional Ryo or Honda, plus a recently picked up Eagle.) I also have another strange mental block of blocking db way too much. I know to block the cross up the other way, I just block db and still get hit (another reason why overheads destroy me.)

I also think I need to stick to one team/groove until I get better. I think I give up on someone too quickly. I’m starting to dabble with C Groove now. I’m just not sure where my fit is. I had played in K for a very long time and with the same team for a long time (Rolento/Balrog/BisonR2) but I found that I wasn’t using the groove for much more than the latter two’s lvl 3 insta-supers. I couldn’t short jump very well (I’m getting better.) and didn’t really JD too much. I switched to P because I love the parry system, but mainly because I liked the super cancel. I had given up on Rolento due to the lack of damage I was getting, but I feel now like he’s the char I can control space with best, and I was reading he was great in C, couple that with the desire to have an AC against A groovers. I’m sorta at the state in which I wanna wipe the slate clean, analyze all my chars, and groove styles, and pick one to stick with. Not quite there yet.

Thanks to everyone so far for all the advice. It’s really kept me from going over the edge playing some of these guys…and I hope I’m not being super annoyingly noobish asking all this stuff.

Edit: Another quick question. As I’m doing a little bit better punishing rolls but still getting raped by them, my question is this: Should I be throwing the meaty as the roll comes or as it ends? I’m guessing as it’s coming towards me, but I can’t seem to find anything that stays out long enough.

17

Hey, I can definately understand where your coming from!!! I was just practicing some combos and I swear I’m going to get a seizure cuz i’m so frustrated!!! I’ve been playing SF for years now, but just picked up CVS2 and it is frustrating!!! I go to the arcade, and everyone woops on me! I’m sick and tired of being a scrub, but I don’t know how to get any better. I mean, I practice but a lot of the times when I try to apply what I practice, it never connects.
I basically use C-groove Sak, Ryu, R2 Chun but I think I need a new team cuz they require too much skill that i don’t have right now…

18

As it ends. But watch out for lvl 2 or 3 supers.

19

Cool. That might be my problem.

I swear I wish there was a way to only play higher lvl dudes. I play a lot better against them than I do all the one-trick-ponies. Once I get past the whole roll thing I can start to punch all their tickets and start moving on to really improving my game.

But I can honestly say the patience bit is really paying off. I have decided on a team to go full out and practice on. C - Eagle/Balrog/BisonR2. My poking is getting a lot stronger. I just started using Bison’s cr fierce. Man that is nice. And since my poke game is better I’m not running the same crap Devil Reverse game I was before.

Catchafire: I dunno if I’m the best person to give advice, but I can tell you that I think the best idea is to not worry about the combos you’ve worked on in the heat of battle until it’s second nature. I still can’t get a cr jab, cr jab, cr fwd combo with Bison, so instead I just two in one the cr fwd into whatever until I get it down. I mean before I was so obsessed with landing certain combos I wasn’t thinking. It was ‘get in, land that bad ass combo’ and it killed me. And don’t give up on people you like. Just take it more basic until you gel.

20

And so quickly happiness leads to sadness and frustration.

This thread is turning from a plea of help, to a blog of a scrub.

I should have stopped eariler today, but I started playing again, and went roughly 1-25 in matches.

For those keeping score (which probably consists of…just me.) lets see what Oni is having issues with now:

My teeth hurt from gritting them while playing Guile. There are 2 Guiles I play. Roll happy and your not getting near me Guile. Roll happy used to annoy the shit out of me, but the latter steals that title easily. He is the personafication of my problems. I can’t get in. At all.

Here is a tip to those that see me and play me on Live. Just throw fireballs. I can’t stop it. I feel like a ST retard noob. I can try to roll through them, but that would depend on me hitting the roll buttons consistantly. (I don’t get it, 2 damn buttons.) So instead I generally end up jabbing fireballs.

Tip 2 for beating Oni: Rush him the hell down. If I wasn’t playing scrubs I was getting the shit rushed outta me. Lets take a typical match for me: Eagle starts, and generally sits just out of his standing fierce range. The first few moments involve me hanging in this range moving back and froth, throwing out a few st fierces gauging them and looking for a way in to pressure. This is where CvS confuses me the most. Now I want to get close enough to pressure with say cr jab,cr jab, cr fwd, st frc. However I can’t get that close, so I either a) get stuffed on the dashing cr jab b) they jump when I’m switch from Turtle Eagle to Pressure Eagle and I don’t land a cr frc. c) I get rolled on, and because I commited to a move, I can’t retaliate. Turtle Eagle works for a bit but that consists of the st and cr fierces until they break through and shove me in the corner. Once I’m there I try to look for a spot to cr jab, or maybe jumping str, but most of the rushers are good and hip to my squirms for freedom. I may get out, but I get out damaged.

Balrog fairs a little better, as long as they are a least shoto height, as I am quite liberal with the st frc. I kinda think I’m sort one-trick with Rog as my game is st frcs, jab rush punches, and lots of cr jabs when close (Which I can’t two-in-one to the Buffalo Headbutt, and honestly I have trouble doing the Headbutt. It’s just a damned flash kick motion. I played with Charlie, I can do flash kicks…I don’t get it. Needless to say I get lots of jumping frcs instead.)

Bison is a odd test case. The only guy I can get any pressure with. But I tend to do the same thing I do with anyone…zone. I am constantly afraid to breech the bubble area where the opponent can hit me. If I can get in first, I’m okay but if you get in Bison gets crossed up all day, but he’s okay in the corner.

Now the new question of the hour is: Is it possible I am too worry of getting hit and block too much? I don’t mean to turtle but it happens. Should I press more and not worry so much about damage? I have severe downback-itis.