What i notice with fg guides made for newbies is that they are very generic and not very helpfull for beginners , they mostly tell you what your char is capable to do but they dont give you a basic plan of very few moves to get you started , a newbie who just started a fg will most likely not learn all his char’s moves in one day but neither he will wait one year to start to play against other players , dont get me wrong , if you know all your char’s moves and use them correctly then you will be a much better player and exploit more mistakes of your opponents but a newbie doesnt care about all this , all he wants to know is 1-2 very easy and decent combos , a way to engage and hit , i mean some basic proactive plan to get him started , this will make him beat some other players of his level and slowly add more stuff to his game from that point and improve , most guides seem to take the approach take a ton a stuff , learn it all then play instead of you can start with this to beat newbie competetion then add more , this is clearly wrong , you can call me a newbie when it comes to fightning games because i didnt play much until now but from my experience the second way works much better , i was a successfull wow arena player which was among the few games that i played on a high level and required muscle memory , i recall i played at low ratings at first with like 12 keys then slowly i added more and more and reached 60 , i would never be able to start outright with 60 , i assume moves is something you learn as you improve in levels and ratings and you encounter new situations you need to react to , this also allows you to practise better the first moves you learned against real competetion , are there guides who take a step by step approach? is it possible to do it this way?
Yeah, you need to know not only all of your characters moves, but you need to know the moves for every character in the game. For your character, the more knowledge you have the better. There’s little extraneous information concerning your main. Learn everything about your character that exists. Even if you don’t use a move you should know it exists merely for the sake of knowing not to use it accidentally or for the sake of understanding your char.
For others, you don’t necessarily need to know how to input every attack (but you probably should to better understand their options), but you do need to recognize and know how to handle every attack and situation
Still for a newbie this is what i call , trying to run before you can walk , i doubt you need so much to beat bronzies ( i dont how the ranks are named) do you disagree?
Not at all. I agree entirely. Fundamentals are called so for a reason. If yours are good then you can beat someone who has more knowledge than you and knows combos and what not. It’s just as you break into higher level play, knowledge becomes more the focus, as well as yomi (the skill of being 2 steps ahead of your opponent and into their head)
I completely disagree with the OP, it seems as if you’re struggling with a certain combo or combos and you’re trying to skip a very fundamental part of fighting games, especially SF. You’re in a way saying, “it’s ok to not learn supers since I’m sure you can beat beginners with specials and normals only”. Nah bro make sure you hit the lab and practice every and all combos for your character.
i dont think that is what OP was saying ^ i think he just meant learning fundamentals before trying to apply everything at once
Depends on the game tbh. In 2D games, most moves serve a purpose. some you won’t use that often for anything so they might as well be there. 3D games have a similar situation in that you focus on two handfuls worth of moves and learning combos to play them successfully.
In the case of NRS games they’re just adding shit without rhyme or reason; feel free to ignore most of the target combos in there.
Im not struggling with anything and i didnt say that its ok not to learn an important part of a character , what i said is its ok to learn it later , i believe its perfectly fine to just learn very few normalls and a special and beat some bronzies and then expand upon your base and learn how to land supers or more advanced moves , there is no need to learn it all at once , you first build a base then proceed from there , if you dont build a base then you will never be able to move forward , you need to begin somehow , once the competetion becomes harder this will motivate you to learn more in order to beat it , thats how you naturally improve at games and on the other hand if you just want to play on low ranks just for fun , you will now be able to do it and feel like you are doing something.
That’s how you learn, I’m not saying you have to land every optimal combo 100/100 times but you do have to learn the basics first. I don’t understand how you can beat people without some basics but then go back to learn another basic to beat better players? Waste of time in my opinion, if you have some basics then you probably already know all your players moves. But to each his own, you might be talking about playing against people not knowing 100% of things about your character and that’s the norm, everyone does that. But that’s different than saying, “I’m not gonna learn this until I face better competition” to me makes no sense.
Street Fighter is a game of knowledge. The more you know, the better your advantage against your opponent. That being said, don’t overwhelm yourself with new knowledge, but if you are going to delay learning something until later then make sure you understand that there will be very visible holes in your gameplay until you learn it.
any fighting game is still just as reliant on execution even when the “execution barrier” is low. take for example sf5. nothing too hard in that game. but to compete at high level, you need to be able to maximize time and space throughout the entire match, which is the sport or physical aspect. for instance, you need to execute commands with as tight of frames as possible: hit tight pressure strings, do strict reversals, dash in as frame fast as you can after the recovery frames etc etc. it is just street fighter doesnt emphasize this too heavily, but it is still there,
but krazysh0t brings up a good point. SF5 does prioritize knowledge pretty heavily, so dont stop learning. i honestly would not focus too much on whether youre trying to run before you walk. just keep playing and learning. sure, youll take a few steps back, but that can mean you are simply learning. i believe that as a player levels up, it may consist of a player breaking down and then building up their game over and over until eventually it is rock solid, then you just try to turn it into gold
I see where you are coming from, but the is no “core set of moves to beat newbies(scrubs)” because no two people play exactly the same, and the games are so open ended there is no correct way to play. I could tell you to learn with Ryu crouching medium punch canceled into fireball and that may do well against the first opponent of the day,but you next may be a “jump back run away fireball Ryu” and your third may be a “uppercut every time you are close and Tatsu from full screen” type player and you will lose when all you have is a low medium punch into fireball.
Where you thinking is most incorrect is that you think that since all the information is given to you that it was meant to be learned all at once. How you are supposed to learn is this way; Play your match and, win or lose, did the opponent do anything you did not have an answer to? If yes then search online or ask someone how to deal with it. Fighting games are super in depth and the game knowledge grows with your experience. You should have as a goal to learn at least one new thing per day, and spend time reviewing stuff you may have already learned because just because you read something today does not mean you were ready to understand the concept or able to execute it in your own game play.
Also since fighting games are so open ended no two people learn the same way. This variety means any super newbie guide would only be useful to someone who learns in a similar way to the author.

any fighting game is still just as reliant on execution even when the “execution barrier” is low. take for example sf5. nothing too hard in that game. but to compete at high level, you need to be able to maximize time and space throughout the entire match, which is the sport or physical aspect. for instance, you need to execute commands with as tight of frames as possible: hit tight pressure strings, do strict reversals, dash in as frame fast as you can after the recovery frames etc etc. it is just street fighter doesnt emphasize this too heavily, but it is still there,
but krazysh0t brings up a good point. SF5 does prioritize knowledge pretty heavily, so dont stop learning. i honestly would not focus too much on whether youre trying to run before you walk. just keep playing and learning. sure, youll take a few steps back, but that can mean you are simply learning. i believe that as a player levels up, it may consist of a player breaking down and then building up their game over and over until eventually it is rock solid, then you just try to turn it into gold
SFV’s execution barrier will inevitably get raised as one hit confirms, meaties and other to be learned executions become more important. Only a couple characters are near the craziness of SFIV (I’m learning a new bnb with Chun that’s probably the hardest bnb in the game but doable), but yeah it’s going to harder. It’s just nice that the baseline execution to get started playing neutral game is much easier than IV.
There are plenty of guides showing how to learn the game in steps. Like some of Gootecks’ youtube videos.
It isn’t exactly hard to know what your characters buttons do, you can learn that after 10 minutes in training mode and there is the challenge trials to teach you a few basic combos. This will be easy to learn and after 20 minutes in training or less you’ll be able to do basic combos and know how each of your normal moves act.
After that you can take it step by step in improving your knowledge of the game even focusing on one thing at a time like concentrating on anti-airing your opponent every match until you have it down. Maybe watch a couple of Floe’s or Gootecks’ tutorials and try to train one thing at a time. Just because they might have a few different pieces of information in one video doesn’t mean you have to try and remember it all.
There are plenty of things you can start with, you don’t even have to be able to do combo’s do win a match if you have knowledge of other things, especially against other newbies. Training your anti-air’s and punishes for blocked attacks is a great start. You don’t have to bundle yourself with information, just take it in steps.
Normals
Simple Combos (though they are easy enough in this game)
Anti-airs
Punishes
Spacing
Footsies
As an example. Not suggesting you use that particular order.
The thing is, it’s easier to say what a character can do (moves/combos) over what a character should do (gameplan). The former is easily found out, while the latter tends to take awhile to solidify and tends to change depending on what new things are discovered about the character and the game. Hence for the most part, you’ll find more people writing about the former, than the latter.

The thing is, it’s easier to say what a character can do (moves/combos) over what a character should do (gameplan). The former is easily found out, while the latter tends to take awhile to solidify and tends to change depending on what new things are discovered about the character and the game. Hence for the most part, you’ll find more people writing about the former, than the latter.
Agreed, but learning what combos off what takes time. I’ve been playing Birdie for two months now almost every day and I’m still discovering new things. Different ways to setup combos, new combos, etc. Things I once thought couldn’t combo, I’m gaining the input speed to combo from. I think you should pick one MAIN character that you play at least a few hours every day. Learn the ins and outs of that character and once you reach a really high competence with that character, maybe start learning another one. This is how you keep the game fresh to yourself.