I have been playing SF casually on and off for a couple of years now. And I recently just decided I want to become… well good at SF. There is just one problem. I have seen no gains in my ability after a month or so of practice. I seemed to hit a wall. I can’t seem to get combo’s down. My execution is shabby. I don’t seem to be going anywhere with my fundamentals. And forget about mind games. I can’t even pressure on wakeup. Let alone read. Online I just get torn up from… well everyone. This all goes to say. Im frustrated. Any tips for trucking through what seems and endless river or suck. Anything I should try and change. Or any tips for practice. Or just getting over this seemingly daunting hump? Thanks.
You already seem to have identified some problems in your gameplay, now it is up to you to address those.
Can’t do combos? Practice them!
Can’t do pressure strings/setplay? Practice them
Mindgames is something you only get with experience, you force your opponent in certain situations and limit their options and try to recognize their tendencies…and capitalize on them.
Some of these situations are what they do on wakeup, during pressure, when you throw out a fireball, when they have two bars, when you neutral jump, forward jump, etc etc
Fundamentasis the same story, they are not something you can practice in training mode, they require a real opponent, you need to be able to anti-air, use you pokes in such a way that they control your forward space, also known as “footsies”. During this little back and forth dancing you try to bait out their pokes and set them up so that you can anticipate and whiff punish/counterpoke them, or simply to stuff their forward movement. You also need to have hitconfirms, having an attack sequence at the read for what to do once you have recognized you’re actually hitting your oponnent or if they are blocking your attacks, this is where light attacks and chains come into play and normals which give enough time to visually recognize they are hitting so you can decide from there.
Alot of these things can be found out by simply being creative or if you want just look up some player matches and see what other (top) players and their respective characters are doing.
Eventhough you say you have played casually for years from what you’ve written it indicates you are still very much a beginner. If you’ve never taken the time to actually improve untill now then a month is pretty short. Try to apply what you learn in training and by readin information and watching videos and apply them in small portions, don’t try to do it all at the same time, set small goals during endless or ranked matches. Best mindset is simply remain cool and look at what is happening, look at the opponent and not so muich at your own character.
Hope this helped a bit.
^Pretty much everything this guy said.
You need to understand that, by comparison to other games, fighters take an enormous amount of time to actually become “good” at. It’s a long road to even the half-way point for most people and you need to be able to learn through the salt and tears online hands you (preferably while enjoying the game) or the process takes even longer. A month of serious effort + “years” of casual play is really just a drop in the bucket.
I think you’re over thinking it, give it a bit more time, try have fun in your training, don’t take it too serious.