When I go into practice mode, I can execute combos, meaties and frametraps pretty much 90% of the time.
However when I go only it’s very hard to apply anything I’ve learned because of anxiety. I usually end up doing a bunch of stuff I don’t want to do when fighting others.
So my questions is, how do I condition myself mentally to play? I do CAs when I don’t want to, Cannon Spikes when I meant to do spiral arrow, can’t time cancels properly and crouch block when I wanted to stand block.
It’s quite frustrating so if anyone has any tips on how to overcome anxiety I’ll really appreciate it.
It’s normal, you will get better. Just avoid mashing, always do clean executions on training mode. And play a LOT.
Also, if you are on PC you might want to try using the anxiety free mod. It hides all the information about ranking division, league points, levels, etc. This way you don’t worry as much about your LP and stuff.
Thanks, I’ll play as much as possible since it seems to be the only way to fight anxiety (still I like seeing how many points I have to keep track of my progress).
grab a capture card and watch your replays no matter how painful they are. You will learn what triggers are causing you to do unwanted stuff. Also remember in training mode you control 100% of the the things you do. In a real match you don’t because much of what you should and can do depends where the opposition has place themselves. The only way to know what to do is play a lot so you are repeatedly in those situations. Make part of your training putting the dummy on cpu so you get practice trying to land stuff on a moving target and a target that is fighting back.
I had a little trouble with this some years back. My advice would be not to put too much of yourself into the game, just treat it like entertainment and have fun. If you’re not planning to be a regular tournament player, then why put that kind of pressure on yourself? Enjoy the process of getting better and playing well, win or lose. Even if your goal is to be a tournament player, I would recommend the same mentality.
Also, over-training is another issue. Nowadays when I play a new fighting game I try not to stay in training mode too long. Go through your character’s moves a few times and get familiar with their moves, make a simple game plan (pokes, anti-airs, BnB’s, etc.) and get the hell out of there and start playing some single player modes for a while just to get comfortable using them without overthinking. Don’t expect too much, and just focus on executing your basic stuff and you’ll get decent pretty fast (especially if you’ve played a lot of fighters in the past, there’s a lot of carry-over even between different series). THEN go back into training mode and you’ll have a lot more idea of what you need to work on in there. Again, don’t live there or you’ll get too “stiff” when playing. Good luck
I haven’t touched any single player modes so far since I don’t want to develop bad habits that would make it harder to perform well against other people. I’ll try and have a more relaxed mindset, after all I don’t pretend to become a top player in my country, I just want to be competent at the game.
It definitely sounds like you are overthinking things and worrying too much about being good. The best thing you can do is, instead of playing to win, just play to learn. Think about what you did wrong after you lose a match, and figure out how you can correct it.
