So i’ve made the transition to learning to play stick and although my execution requires a lot of work for CA and charge characters i can pull off most other moves and basic combos first time…while in training.
I played a few casuals yesterday and i because of executions issues, it made playing a horrible experience although i had just spent quite a while practicing.
I’ve played with a pad all my life and i know i wouldn’t have these issues if i used one but that’s the easy way out and i want to learn to get better.
As someone looking to upgrade from scrub status using a fight stick, why am i finding it so difficult to remain composed and execute moves when required against even Story Mode difficulty characters?
I’ll be spending a bit more time getting dusted on the casual match front to i can learn to execute moves under pressure but are there any other general tips i can use for improving in Training?
I went to stick for 2 years, realized that stick is only good for young people who learn fast and people who are used to the controller through spending a lot of time in arcades.
So I went back to pad which I use now for well over 20 years now, and I can actually play properly again.
Stick is a real investment in terms of dedication, at least for me. I don’t doubt that one can improve on it, but I really don’t see much of a reason for that anymore seeing how many pros do very well on pad and how SFV doesn’t have the hardest requirements in terms of execution for now.
Besides more practice no, although to be honest I just memorize the combo and then do the rest of the practicing in actual matches. It really doesn’t matter if you lose and that way you’ll eventually feel more relaxed when under pressure anyway.
“Muscle memory” is a term thrown around a lot but it truly exists. There will come a time when inputs just “feel” right and you can perform them almost unconsciously. That takes time, and though there will always be fuck ups, a good, focused training session before each versus session can alleviate some of the frustration and move you closer to automatic.
Think of it like a fat ass sega pad with a huge joystick instead of the dpad.
Although since I played with them sticks alot before knew what to do. didn’t find out you could get those standalone till I saw evo shit back when ultra was still the view monster.
I semi disagree with practice it in real matches. I mean yeah, do that, but you can play for 20 minutes and only have a chance to land the combo a 20 times. Whereas in training mode you can play for 20 minutes and try to land it 200 times.
The 200 reps of muscle memory learned in training mode will far outweigh the 20 reps of muscle memory under pressure in a real match.
Not to mention if you can’t execute it under pressure that means you’re spazzing your inputs, which means…you don’t have the muscle memory.
Stick could be tough to get used to because it takes more refinement to control it. It’s hard to really go out of wack too much on a d pad. If it makes you feel better, I’m old and I switched to stick, so it’s possible, just takes practice.
I’ve analysed my casual match ups and i can agree with the muscle memory point, i can read the game well enough but i can’t quite react/punishes as cleanly as i need.
Think i’ll spend more time doing drills in training before playing casuals and take it from there.
Greenwood, i know people learn at different rates but thinking back how long was it before you started to feel things fall into place?
I agree with the Steph Curry style drills, too. Before I start ranked matches, I hit up training mode and don’t allow myself to play ranked until I got my BnB combo 20 times in a row without any error (error resets my count to 0). After that I start with casual matches and ranked, while still spending the time between matches in training mode to do all sort of combos, just the way I feel like at the moment.
The problem with dropping combos because of nervousness in ranked matches also comes from the fact that you are scared of losing. I found a good way, which helped me lose pretty much all nervousness during ranked. I don’t know, whether it helps for everyone, but it definitely did for me. This was back in USF4, I also noticed that I was more nervous when I played against people, who were better in terms of PP/BP. That’s why for every match, I looked away from the screen, when the player info was showing and I also ignored the info on the screen during the match. This way, you respect every opponent the same way and you are forced to look at the way the other player is fighting. It eliminates mistakes by respecting your opponent too much or too little. In addidition to this, I tried to play 100% defensive. This forced me to punish every unsafe jump-in or combo and I also had to give up the idea to win very early on, because it’s damn hard to win by only punishing without any aggression at all (I’m talking walking away from the opponent after a knock down, just to give the opponent more oppertunities to attack you). If you do this for a couple days, you are so comfortable with just doing nothing and waiting for your opponent to fuck something up and this will happen a lot.
A strong defense is really the best offense you can have and if you see your opponent running out of ideas on how to get in on you, you can just punish their mistakes easily, which leads to less combos being dropped.
When I learned stick I would do the “Steph Curry” drills too. If you are just starting out, start small, I wouldn’t even go online for a the time being because it may be very frustrating. What I would do was first dash around both sides of the screen, sometimes using one dash after another, sometimes after walking for a bit. Then I would do 50 fireball motions from each side of the screen and 50 DP motions from each side of the screen (also if you are playing someone like Gief, I would do 50 SPD from each side). Once you feel comfortable with that start working on your BNB from each side of the screen. Eventually, I would move on to either playing the computer or playing casuals, just so you can get a feel for how you are doing under pressure. If you have never used a stick before it will take a while to gain the muscle memory (maybe months), but I think the payoff is worth it.
The transition from pad to stick wasn’t too difficult for me. It honestly took a week or two. But I did have a little stick experience just from playing in the arcades in the 90’s. I still drop things, but it’s not because I’m using a stick, it’s because I don’t practice enough. I practice a lot, but not enough. I think it takes me longer to nail a combo than the average person.