Had the game since it came out and still suck at it

Itruly feel like burning my ps3. i have had the game since it came out and i feel like i havent really improved at it. I play the game daily and i told myself that repetition would help me get better but it seems like it isnt. This is the first fighting game i took seriously. Is it supposed to be this frustrating?? My two main characters are Makoto & Sakura. and neither seems to have gotten any better even though its been months. Any help would be appreciated. I play on the ps3 btw

You need to provide more information. What are you having problems with? Execution, offense, defense, blocking, etc.? You need to evaluate what is getting you beat in your matches and then work on those issues.

First, you should know that the two characters you’ve chosen are both semi-low on the tier list and you’re going to have a harder time being succesful as a result. Second, SF isn’t a game you can simply play over and over and hope to improve greatly. You’ve got to think while you play, and always play hard. Third, read the resources provided by the Character-Specific sections of this website that have combos, match-ups, and even videos that will help you learn and improve.

Good luck.

This is a poor mindset to have, imo.

When you lose, you shouldn’t just say “ok, well, everyone loses, and this is good for me so I’ll keep doing it” and then jump back into another match (and then lose that one too).

When you lose, you need to analyze why you lost. How did it happen? How can you prevent or avoid it? And then remember these things when you go into the next match (and all matches in the future).

It’s not enough to simply get back up on the horse whenever you fall off.

Give us some more info, have you noticed anything beating you in paticular? Things you find difficult to overcome? Things you do that you regret later like random ultras?

You can get better, and we can help. We just need a little more info : ). And trust me, no one is as good a they think they are, but no one sucks as much as they think they do.

Practice make’s permanent, not perfect i learned just last week that the way i played with my T. Hawk was flawed i beat really bad players by mashing reversal grab. But when i went up agaisnt good players they knew how to punish it and saw that i was just a terrible t. hawk scrub luckily i’m having to change the way i play but i’m becoming a better player for it even though i lose some matches.

I like that. It’s really true. You could be practicing every day for 6 hours, and if you’re practicing the wrong things it won’t help in the slightest.

i bet if you stopped jumping you could win a few more matches. usually he who jumps least has the better chance

Run it back. Learn fundamentals, footsies, etc. PLAY RYU. You don’t learn how to play SSF4 better by starting out with makoto and sakura b/c you are bound to get extremely frustrated missing 1-frame links and trying to land mixups and failing. Bad Idea

Not this one person who introduced me to SF… all he relies on are jump-in’s he’s got terrible footsies and relies on fast travelling specials and gimmicks.

This whole I suck at this for the longest time thing is an issue that’s occuring in video games more often than I like…that example given about “falling off the horse” really shows how we don’t really give a crap about how we lose. When we lose at video games, we usually just hit next and go again without thought…If we were driving a car and got into a collision, we wouldn’t be getting out of the car and walking straight home without even thinking about how it happened.

im honestly not for sure what im having problems with. i think my execution is ok. if i had to say anything was my weak point, i would probably say my mix ups and combos are kinda bad. even though i lose 88%of the time, ive had people tell me that my makoto is pretty decent. i just want to learn. i have tons of patience, its just recently that ive gotten incredibly frustrated. i cant even get my player points over 500. i think its also because i get nervous during matches. especially when im winning

@chocobunny, i never throw anything randomly out especially with makoto. i try to always conciously think bout what im doing. however it seems like everyone can jus top me wit random shoryukens.

Agreed, something I had to learn the hard way when I started out playing Guile/Cammy in Vanilla and was losing consistently. Someone told me to learn a higher tier character, learn the game engine, learn everything about the game by playing with a character that doesn’t take so much uphill climbing to win with.

I switched to Chun, learned her, and started winning consistently. Now I know how to play multiple characters, including Dan, and win with most of them. Even my Dan wins pretty consistently.

It’s nice to be able to play characters you like, but for a beginner, playing them despite them being low tier ends up putting you in a worse spot while trying to learn the game.

So I agree. Play Ryu, or anyone high tier. Learn the SF4 engine first, then branch out into lower tiers. Once you understand the game, applying what you know makes winning with those characters easier.

Also, if you’re a losing player, you should be focusing on improving ONE character, not picking a secondary already. When I was trying to improve my game to the point where I was winning consistently, I played nothing but Chun. Not in casuals, not in ranked, not in Championship mode, not even when I had friends over to play who didn’t even play SF. I played Chun every time I played. Before Super came out, I played a little bit of Rufus and Dan, but I’m talking from around July '09 until March '10, I played nothing but Chun.

So once again, in summary:

  1. Play a high tier character to learn the engine.
  2. Play ONLY that character.
  3. When you get comfortable, go back to the characters you like. Either you will be well prepared to play them well, or you will decide you prefer the high tier character you trained with and stay with them. But either way, you won’t suck anymore.

Signed,
Everybody

The reason why i never started out with ryu and ken was because EVERYONE uses them. Any suggestions of a high tier character whos not too commonly played? I would still like to get really good at the game. Im willing to let go of Makoto (even though i think she like the coolest character ever!!).

I played Makoto in AE at Arcade UFO, she’s legit. But she takes a lot of dedication. Look up videos of Vryu on youtube to see what she’s capable of if you’re deadset on using Makoto.

Alright thats cool. So from that I gather you eat a lot of reversal moves. It indicates that you are being too agressive. There is no need to take any risks at all when you have the life lead. You can get in, do your damage and then make a judgement call, to either go for a confusing mix up or to back off. Online it is usually a bit more helpful to back off. You can sit back and jump over fireballs and wait for them to come to you. Now I dont mean like run away when you have a jabs worth of damage on the enemy, since it is online you are more than likely going to sit on a fair few fireballs. But once you have a nice healthy lead just stay a little bit outside of throw range when they are getting up. If you want, try throw out like a short or jab before they get up, so if they are mashing they’ll probably go flying and you’ll block.

Chun, sagat, honda, bison, balrog. Compared to ryu, these are all less common.

Signed,
Everybody

oh btw go look at flash metroid’s video’s on youtube. he’s got a real sick makato that might could help your game.

unfortunately, it’s going to take a lot of practice. Watch your replays & see what you could’ve done better/blocked & punished.