How do I improve myself at Ultra Street Fighter IV?

Newbie Saikyo Dojo
1

To be honest, I never thought that it would come to actually creating a thread like this, more so at an SRK forum. But here it is.

A short story first:
Since childhood, I never really was into Street Fighter. Sure, throughout the years I heard about the game as it is one of the most popular franchises in the history of video games, but I haven’t really experienced the game for myself. So ever since Sega Genesis/Mega Drive days, I’ve been more of a Mortal Kombat, and later as a PSOne owner - a Tekken guy. These two series were with me up until I bought my PS3 in late 2008. As you can guess - I haven’t ever played online either prior to that. Then, in 2010, I saw a local forum posting seeing a guy was selling his Street Fighter IV copy. Of course I decided to pick it up since it costed like 10$, which is quite a bargain for that game.

And so, I slowly started getting into it, trying out the game, doing trials, playing online, all that good stuff. I even managed to play some Alpha 1 and 2 after buying those off PSN, and later of course I bought the Online Edition of Third Strike. And I generally liked all those games.

But… if Alpha 1 and 2 were stricly offline experiences, and Third Strike required top execution, SF4 was more or less a smoother experience for me.

The problem is - I have been playing for so many years, yet my skill level hasn’t improved not one bit.
I still can’t properly hit confirm
I can’t FADC
I can’t setup for combos/ultras
I can’t cross-up/option select/mix up

People basically body me every time. Sure, once in a while I maybe somehow get a win, but that’s only if I meet even a worse player than I am (as shocking as that may sound), but that win doesn’t improve myself nor does it bring any satisfaction. Heck, I even manage to lose to Dee Jay. Frickin’ Dee Jay! (here the amount of facepalming probably intensifies)

So, in general…what do I do now? 5 years worth of online experience, and I’m still at the beginner level. Is it my setup issue? Maybe I should just move to the PS4 version since I am playing on PS3 (which is known to have frame drops, highest input lag of any console, etc)? Is it the character problem? (I’ve started out as Ken, then kinda played Evil Ryu, then went to Fei Long and honestly found him the most agile and most fun to play as)

I just don’t know what to do any more…

2

Just playing online, especially at the lowest level, will do nothing but create bad habits. To improve hit-confirming, FADC and option selects, you need to hit training mode. For now skip the last two, and focus on basic hitconfirms. practice the combo timing for your specific character until you can hit the confirm 10 times in a row on both sides.

Outside of training mode, focus not on winning, since that will just train you to gimmick out wins against bad players, but rather on specific goals such as successfully anti-airing or teching throws, etc. The mentality you need to have is not to get points or beat other players, it’s to improve your play and fundamental skills, since your mechanics will become better through training mode. A strong base is needed to be able to eventually consistently win against other players, and that is developed through focused play.

Finally, just have fun with it! find some people online or in person who you like and are at about the same level as you, and play them instead of random ranked matches that give you no real insight due to the random nature of first-to-one scenarios. Remember to take breaks between sessions, because playing too much will actually make you worse.

Sorry for the jumbled mess, but that’s my best advice for getting better in general. For character specific knowledge consult the character forums.

3

If you get the game on Steam maybe we can get some practice in.
I’m kinda in the same boat, it’s been 3 years and I still suck.

To be fair though, I always dropped the game for half a year+ after playing 2 month.
So I only see success in training lately, where I login almost every day and practice some basic shit for half an hour.
Pretty helpful if you build yourself a training regime and follow it. Especially when you play with a stick as a former pad user, it’s like learning an instrument.
You basically have to practice your ass off if you want to see results.

4

If that’s what you care about then practice it. Online’s a gambit. I just press buttons if it looks cool lol.
I honestly think guile is an easier matchup than deejay tbh at least against a guile user you can blow him up with juri or sim but deejay has some of the best normals that do a fuckton of damage.

I’d say deejay is like the spinal of street fighter.

5

Yeah, that’s probably a good idea. I guess that would at least eliminate at least one of the problems

Sorry, I don’t really play on PC, and my Windows machine has been dead for months anyway. But thanks for the willing to help and an advice