Hey guys very new player here. So just to start off I’ll introduce myself. I’m a avid gamer and concider myself a top tier player. I play many games at the top or near the top of it’s scene. I’ve been masters in Sc2, 2850 in arena on WoW (r1 if you are familiar with WoW) on two diff classes. plat 1 in LoL, won a few local tournaments for smash and Sc2, safe to say I’m a pretty well rounded gamer. Now none of those is ment to Make myself seem great to you all or impress, I’m just trying to get my point across before I speak it. So obviously I’m going to tell you about how bad I am in ssf4 U. And this to me is just unacceptable lol. As of now I’m playing on PC and with a 360 controller. I’ve been really into the sf scene for a while now I’m hooked I want nothing to do with any other game all I think. About it street fighter, match ups replays FADC’s the game has taken over my mind and I love it. I watch replays of every WNF anything SoCal or NoCal, capcom cup you name it I’ve watched it. I know the spacing’s I know the match up’s I would say my knowledge for the game is pretty high by now. Now when I get into the game I simply…go brain dead and it is embarrassing. To the point where I’m basically giving free wins out. Now I explained my gaming background before to avoid any speculations about " are you new to games" . " maybe you’re game iq isn’t high enough yet". No these things are there I promise, but for some reason my thumbs go handicap mode when I grab the sticks. I have trouble doing the simplest commands like dragon punches, fireballs, wake up anything. And worst of all ANY ultra …I just can’t get my thumbs to move fast enough or in the right way/ pattern that what I assume to be correct way. The point of this post is to get any help I can. I also have trouble when I get rushed down it’s like I can’t block to save my life. Maybe this game just isn’t for me but I hope that this isn’t the case. Any help on getting used to buttons or tricks to doing commands or ultras that I just don’t know? Thanks for taking the time to read this!
Go into training mode and put the dummy on auto block. That way u can work on combo timing
Study, learn, be self critical and analyse.
It doesn’t matter if you have ever done anything well. If you don’t know how to learn smartly, Street fighter isn’t for you.
This game isn’t full of a wide spectrum between new players, dumb players, pro players and smart players like most games. Anyone even marginally decent in SF is already somewhat dedicated, most likely intelligent and most likely spending atleast some of their time studying the game in a critical way. Expect to lose, enjoy learning from your losses and challenge yourself to do so.
The more you learn the game, the more you will be able to critically think during a match, it’s like anything: the practice you do is so that 10% of that practice will begin to subconsciously come out on reaction and as your understanding and awareness increases, the game will slow down so that you can make more informed decisions. Don’t worry about feeling braindead for now.
Be humble, accept you are a shit player due to inexperience and any achievements you’ve had in the past don’t matter or affect that. Everyone starts Street fighter as a shit player and that is where the ones that become great get their drive and hunger.
You are not the first person to come here or any other forum and talk about how good he is at other games yet struggle with fighting games. The truth is those other games do not require as much time or effort to attain a “mediocre” level. Using a mouse and keyboard is intuitive for most people of this generation since they have been using them since they were kids much less played point-and-click games which is basically the main “skill” you need to learn to use a mouse + keyboard. Meanwhile in fighting games you have to seamlessly integrate movement with complicated motions to accomplish basic tasks. In street fighter each character has 24 different normal attacks not including special moves or command normals and the onus is on you to pick the correct option. Imagine if in an FPS every time you want to shoot someone you would have to press one of six buttons, with possibly a command beforehand depending on the distance between you the opponent, what class the opponent is, and what attack the opponent is doing to you. Add in the fact that there are no automatic actions, if you stop pressing anything in an RTS your workers will continue mining, your troops on attack-move will attack anything they see, you champion in LoL will autoattack anything in range. In fighting games if you stop doing stuff and you will literally do nothing (FPS games are like this too). Lastly if you make a mechanical mistake in a fighting game it could easily cost you the round and the whole game. You mess up an anti air, they get a big damage combo and knock you down, then you have to guess on you wake up and if you guess wrong you’re stunned or dead at this point. Meanwhile in LoL you miss with your skill shot, so you run out of mana a little sooner and need to return to base a little sooner, about 100 gold is lost, the game is over not over, you still have about the same chance to win the game as before. Or, if you get caught off guard by the enemy you can just Flash away, or use one your champion’s abilities that lets you escape or controls the enemies from engaging, you’re probably fine, the match is not over.
You are not special or different, everybody started the same and worked their way up from nothing or quit. Everybody struggled to do a hadoken much less a shoryuken much less one of those in a high pressure situation that could cost you the game. About a year ago I thought I was “ok” at the game, looking back I see how much I’ve improved and realize how bad I was then and how bad I am now. There’s only so much watching someone play can teach you in such a mechanically intensive game, just keep playing and actively try to improve. Practice your execution in training mode and then practice it in a real match even if there’s a big chance you’ll fail and lose. Focus on the basics: spacing, punishing, anti airs. Find a local scene and play as often as you can, that’s by far the quickest way to improve. As far as blocking goes, that largely comes from experience and is unfortunately the hardest thing to learn since it’s basically unique to every single character. Take blocking practice as it comes, if a character is giving you trouble then go to training mode and make sure you are blocking the correct way. Figure out which moves are unsafe and your easiest punish.
you go brain dead because your muscle memory for simple commands isn’t there yet. knowing frame data and matchup knowledge does you no good if you can’t execute at a basic level. Go to training mode and practice until you can hit what you want, when you want. look at inputs to see what you are doing wrong when shit doesn’t come out. I’m ass at Starcraft, because even though I have a game plan for zerg, my micro sucks and I can’t execute that game plan. Same thing applies here.