General SSF4 questions and introduction

Well I recently just bought SSF4. I have always been a COD player but with Black Ops being terrible I decided to go back to my roots of when I was young playing Sega and SNES. So Street Fighter 4 it was. The thing I’d like to know is. What more can I do to improve. Before you type a answer, check out some of my fights on my youtube. YouTube - StricKeN86vids’s Channel. I started out using Akuma but his low health is so annoying to me one combo I’m almost dead. So I started using Ken even though I hated him in SF2 but I actually owned people with him.

I can point out some of my flaws and can ask how to avoid them. For one I throw way too many Shoryukens randomly, but then on the other hand the randomness of it sometimes pays off in a HUGE way. I get annoyed when people turtle and I start jumping in on them and get countered out the ass. And my main problem is when I get knocked down and someone jumps in on me. I know block high first then low but I just can’t seem to do it. Or they cross me up and I wind up getting owned.

Is there anything I can do to avoid those? like crouching fierce punch or something? I try shoryuken but they wind up behind me and own me. I try immediately jumping backwards and fierce kicking but that only works some of the time. Any tips at all? I don’t know any SF terms yet so please explain in detail. I don’t know what flow charts are or FADC or any of these terms I keep seeing online. Anyhow if someone can introduce me to these terms that’d be awesome and tell me from watching my videos what I’m doing wrong please.

Start here to get familiar with the basics:
http://shoryuken.com/f322/basic-video-tutorial-guide-total-beginners-ssf4-234560/

Go here and pick the character(s) you want to learn the most about in detail:
Character Discussion

The character discussion forums will go a long way into making you a better player.

Random shoryukens will work online at the cost of your rep, so be ready for a lot of hatemail and dissin if you continue to do it. Learning how to deal with turtles will come with time, learning, and experience. You’ll learn character-specific wakeup strategies and anti-air moves in the forums as well.

Good luck & have fun.

btw you play great! you just need more options in your game,

here are some examples: you knockdown your opponent off with a SRK or a sweep, there are many possibilities for setups during that moment… you can either do a cross-up combo on them during wake up. or tick throwing them by sticking out a crouch low kick into a throw on wake up…the idea here is to mix things up… you want your opponent to guess what you’ll do next…and if they guess wrong, they get punished for it!

but man there is soo much to it in this game, you have to dig deeper into it. knowing the basics of footsies, match ups etc…etc. and of course the fighting engine in this game…the best way to learn all that is to keep playing cus that way you’ll gain more knowledge and experience from it. use the replays as a way to note on some of the mistakes you made during the match and how to learn to fix that. When i first started out in SF4 i use to play it like SF2 and believe me i learned it the hard way XD

Well it’s very hard to do combos on a xbox controller so I try to instead counter and anticipate my enemies moves. For example if I think they’re going to punch kick jump in w/e I’ll do a Shoryuken and 75% of the time I’m right. So I can’t really say they’re random but. Not to mention I’ll try to do a Hadouken on my xbox controller and wind up doing a Shoryuken or my ultra lol. It’s really hard and I can’t use analog for my life or joy stick I need D-pad. But take a look at these videos of my first few days on SSF4. I beat some people with over 12k BP.

[media=youtube]XCw0ftl7_uc]YouTube - Super Street Fighter 4 Ken [StricKeN86[/media] Me vs Dudley
[media=youtube]SjHQ6r2isdA]YouTube - SSF4 Ken [StricKeN86] vs trash talking Ryu [Za1th] [must see![/media] Me vs 12k bp ryu
[media=youtube]cVe0N6jeKEU]YouTube - Super Street Fighter 4 Sagat [StricKeN86[/media] my first time using Sagat

I got alot of flames from the Ryu guy was it deserved? Also can you tell me what flow charts are and FADC and all that are? I checked Ken forums but it’s just a bunch of videos of people usihng Ken and doing combos over and over again. Wasn’t much help.

Those people don’t have 12k BP lol

If they did, you’d be getting destroyed. People with 12k BP are usually very experienced and will wipe the floor with you.

The point system in the game is weird, there is PP, which is basically how much you win or lose overall. BP, which is how much time you’ve spent playing with that specific character (after 5k BP, it becomes more about skill than time). Then there is “total points”, I have no idea what it means, but in my experience it is meaningless.

Anyway, I have been an FPS player for 15 years before switching to this game, so I can relate I guess. So far it has been a slow road, but the main thing I’ve learned is that you have to THINK before you do something. There is a counter and strategy for every scenario in this game, and you really have to sit back and analyze your matches to see what you’re doing wrong. In FPS games you can get pretty far on skill alone, but in fighting games you really have to have to have a gameplan going in.

Many beginners instinctively throw out SRK’s after they get knocked down, and yes sometimes it does pay off, against scrubs. But if you take a couple of minutes to actually think about this decision, you will see how stupid it is.

If your opponent goes for some kind of meaty attack or throw, you will hit him for ~130 damage.
If your opponent blocks or backdashes, you will get punished for minimum 230 damage depending on the character. I play Ryu and whenever my opponent whiffs an SRK he will always eat 320 damage.

Now think about that for a second. You are risking 200-300 damage to yourself, just for the chance to do 130 damage to your opponent. Think about how much life this decision is going to cost you over thousands of matches.

That is just one of MANY MANY examples, where if you just sit back and think “hmmm, what would be my smartest option here”, you will start to see the game in a different light, and it will carry over into your gameplay. A smart player can win using only one button, just by not making stupid mistakes. Combos and ultra setups and all that stuff are important, sure, but nothing is more important than simply thinking before you do something.

Aside from that, here are some concepts that you can research in order to improve your game:

hit-confirming - This means adding a couple of light attacks into your combos, so you can visually see whether your opponent is blocking or not before you go ahead and bust out that SRK and get punished big time.

safe jumping - This is when you score an untechable knockdown (sweep, throw etc…) and you can find ways to time your jumpin/crossup so that you hit your opponent on the first frame of his wakeup. If he decides to a do a reversal, your jumpin attack will whiff and you will block the reversal, leaving him open for a huge punish.

crouch-teching - This is a technique that allows you to tech throws relatively safely, without having to stand up and leave yourself open to low attacks. Essentially it involves timing your techs so that you press the buttons slightly after each hit, so that if your opponent goes for the throw you will tech it, and if he keeps attacking, you will continue to block instead of whiffing a throw animation.

auto-correct DP - If you’re using ken and having trouble with crossups, this will help you out a lot. Basically it is a way of inputting an SRK on your wakeup, that will hit your opponent regardless of which side he jumps in on. As a ken player, you shouldnt be having a problem with people jumping on your wake up, because you have a 4 frame reversal that can be auto-corrected very easily/

Reversal window - SSF4 has something called a reversal window, which basically makes it easier for beginners to execute reversals. You may have noticed that when you’re knocked down, you can mash your SRK a little bit too early and it will still come out. That’s because the game gives you an extra 4 frames (i think), to input your move. What makes this important for you, is that when your opponent is doing block strings on you, most likely they are not actually linking them tightly, so you can mash your SRK in the middle of his jabs/shorts etc… and it will almost always interrupt the string and hit him. Obviously this doesn’t work as well against good players, because not only do they link their moves more consistently, but they will also exploit your mashing by simply blocking after a jab and then punishing you hard.

FADC - This just means that you do a focus attack in the middle of a special move, and then do a dash, which allows you to do another move much sooner than you would be able to otherwise. Most famous example is when Ryu does an SRK, he can focus attack dash cancel, which allows him to input his ultra while his opponent is still airborne.

That’s all I can think of for now, GL and have fun =)

YEh I noticed when I’m facing scrubs I can SRK when they’re tapping light combos and almost always get it in. But I don’t mash I look to see if / when I can. I notice if while I’m blocking their light hits are pushing me back, once I get far enough backwards I hit a quick shoryuken and works alot. Not so much against pro players. So wait what you’re saying is if someone jumps in on me and I mash shoryuken itll always work? Does it have to be Ex light medium fierce or what? I tried this alot but when they jump over me or cross up I wind up shoryukening the air leaving my back to them -.-

You can’t mash it. This technique requires timing. Essentially you need to begin the input when your opponent is in the air, and then finish the input just before he hits you, or just after he crosses over. The game will automatically force your SRK to come out on the other side, if you pressed the final button after he crossed over your head.

The reason they are ending up behind you is because you are mashing too early, so by the time they cross over you, the game has already accepted your input for SRK on the previous side due to the reversal window.

You will want to use MP SRK for this, because it has 6 invincible frames on startup, while light only has 3, and hard only has 4. EX has like 11 or something but you wouldn’t want to waste meter on this.

Since your SRK hits on the 4th frame, and has invincibility, it should be almost impossible for your opponent to jump in and hit you on your wakeup.

Dude, you need to upload videos of you losing. I subscribed to see how you do, but you gotta pick out an equal number of videos where you make embarassing mistakes, get owned, or lose by just a smidgen. It’s more exciting to watch and you can reflect on things you could do better. Also a year from now you are gonna look back at them and laugh about how you couldn’t even beat 3000PP B+ players or do FADC into ultra off of any given light punch ;).

Watch videos posted in the Ken and Akuma forums and try to learn new techniques from them. When you find a player that doesn’t get caught by your shoryus, ask to play them more. And if they own you ask them to keep using one move or setup so you can learn to deal with it. Against players your level, sometimes say to yourself “I’m going to try to win this match without jumping” or without fireballs or without fishing for lucky shoryus. It’s important because many players will be able to completely shut down various aspects of your game and you gotta know solid alternatives.

As far as specific tips go, I don’t really have any. Just play and practice, you’re on the right path and if you wanna learn more, then ask or read about matchups in the ken/akuma forums.