I’m a new player to USF4. I’ve watched videos on Fundamentals and I feel that I can pull off a few hit confirms in Training mode.
But then I attempt my first endless battle and I get completely bodied.
Everything I learned just goes out the window and I just feel nervous and I end up making mistakes.
Would I just have to keep playing to get the confidence to not feel the pressure?
Anyone have any tips?
You’re getting your footing, and you’re gonna take your bumps. Focus on learning from your matches, not necessarily winning.
Play a lot more. Fighting games don’t work like other games where you watch a youtube video of the walkthrough and then get past the level all of a sudden. You’re playing against another human being like in a sport.
Keep playing, find sparring partners on your friends list to practice with regularly and ask lots of questions. Have someone you are regularly playing with and asking lots of questions to all the time.
I have a habit of playing without cognitively thinking. Any idea how I could work on that??
Practice.
You have to play against other players, a lot, in order to get comfortable with the situation.
For example:
If you stand half screen against a meterless Ibuki, you’re like "Omfg what will she do, what will I do? A million things could happen, how do I react, what can I do?"
If I stand half screen against Ibuki, I know that only 2 things can threaten me: A neckbreaker or a jump-in, so I advance slowly holding down/back in between advancing so she can’t neckbreaker me, and I get ready to buffer my dragon punch which beats out her jump-in options clean.
With experience you’re able to narrow the options your opponent has from all the different distances and meter statuses, which in turn allows you to focus on other things, like taking note of your opponents habits.
Most people who are new take too much time, trying to learn combos, hit-confirms and the like, when it is much more important to learn how to move properly and find out the range and applications of your and your opponents pokes, specials and ultras.
If you pick the right characters, you can beat up people who have a lot of points just by using normals.
Couple of days ago I wrecked a 12K BP Sakura player who had super damaging combos and setups where you didn’t know where to block off of jumping in.
Basically when you let him jump in he’d take all your life bar.
When I anti-aired every single one of his jump-ins he was completely lost and his ground game was a joke.
For me it’s less frustrating to learn how to play the basic game first, then work on my execution, than the other way around.
I just have more fun playing against people than playing against the controls.
I feel like when you’re in a situation where you’re proficient at the ground game and you realize that you lost a couple of clutch games against opponents that are about as good as you in playing the actual game, because you left a lot of damage on the table, is the point at which you should take a look at the moves you know how to land regularly, and learn how to combo out of them.
Just act as if you’re playing SF2 in 1992 when you only had your single buttons and specials, and didn’t know anything about combos.
Also keep in mind that this game is 7 years old and rarely gets new players.
Most people will just wreck your ass because they have a big experience advantage over you.
Just try to relax and learn the game, then when SFV comes out next year, you’ll play against a lot of bloody noobs who have never played a fighter in their lives and all that hard work pays dividends.
Yeah I know what you mean. My main goal is to practice and be at least semi decent by the time sf5 comes around. I find the fgc fascinating and I wouldn’t mind being part of it and playing against decent players.
Just adjust your expectations.
Most games are designed for you to beat them pretty easily since they’re used as entertainment.
With fighting games you have to adjust the expectation of being able to control the game in a relatively short span of time, to something more realistic.
Learning something like an arcade stick or even a normal controller in order to play fighting games well, is like learning and instrument or a sport.
When Kobe Bryant lands a slam dunk, Jimmy Hendrix put out a guitar solo or when the old Tyson landed a knockout, you wouldn’t sit there with the expectation of “Well if I train basketball/boxing/guitar for a couple of days/weeks/month, I can do that, too.” You’re amazed how good these people are and appreciate the time and effort they put into their craft.
Somehow with competitive video games, people expect to do these things in a couple of days and that brings them into a frustrating place when they realize that things aren’t as easy as they seem and they quit.
It also doesn’t help that there’s no proper matchmaking that pits you against people on your own skill level, like in games like Dota 2, LoL or Starcraft 2.
You’re being thrown into a lions den right away and from there it’s sink or swim.
Best advise I have for you in that regard is:
Add people you play against, that seem like they suck just as bad as you, or that beat you only slightly to your friends and ask them if they want to play endless. You might make a couple of friends along the way and have a much more enjoyable time playing the game online.
P.S.: Also don’t avoid people much better than you. There’s a lot to be learned from getting dismantled once you reached a certain level.
Try playing people better than you. We have a guy that comes to our weekly and hardly ever misses. He is new to fighting games but askes lots of questions. I often put him in against F3 alucarDand even though its a total mis match it has been improving his game. Play ranked and set it to any skill level so youplay against the best in the world online. DOn’t worry about winning.
Yeah, getting used to losing is a good thing, cos you’ll do a lot of that in the beginning. Then when you win against an actually good player it’s like whuuuh
Have a couple of beers