Hello. I have been playing fighting games for years and have recently decided to try and take them seriously. I have been putting a lot of time into the new game Skull Girls and am having an extremely hard time developing as a player. The following is my current problem.
I do not have any friends that enjoy fighting games to train with, and I also live in an area where there is NO fighting game scene.
This limits my training opportunities to playing online and training mode.
When i play online either i play people that obviously have never played a fighting game before in their lives OR i play people that are not only better than me; they easily outclass my capabilities in every sense.
My question is, how do you go about developing your game when your player base is only online, and they all seem to be so far ahead of you that your not sure what you should be learning?
Ex: I spent about 2 hours in Skull Girls Yesterday just playing other people and trying to get better at things like blocking and not getting punished (which i think was a decent goal for an evening of play considering I am a beginner). At the end of 2 hours i had lost every match.
I don’t mind losing matches, i want to play people better than me so i can develop as a player. My problem is that the players essentially TOD me the second i get hit. While this is impressive, I am not sure what i should be taking away from this to help me get to a point where i can at least put up a fight. Should i just lose matches constantly and practice blocking for days/weeks? I feel very discouraged trying to get better at these games. I am unsure where to go from here. I am about 100 matches in, almost all loses, and i don’t feel like i have gained any useful knowledge other than “block better”.
Is there anything advice any of you more experienced gamers can give that might help point me in a direction of how to go about training and bettering my game?
Practice your links, travel, Find setups that you think people will not break. Theory fighter on here. Those are my main suggestions. When I had problems fighting the Gief vs Dhalsim SF4 match, I found out on here how well j.hp is in that match. Also, like what I said, do what Justin Wong did when he was in the arcade in the early 2000’s playing the computer, leveling up. He looked for setups to get around stuff. Also, watch film and try to implement those setups in your game.
Today, I watched IPW Best Bouts for inspiration in the morning. I watched TC The Beast vs Combofiend in KOFXIII. One of the sickest matches because I saw how to properly play shen and K’.
Just try finding matches between your characters vs characters you want to play against. Granted, SG is new and a lot of technology hasn’t been figured out, you can sit down and try to find ways to make people block the wrong way, which can lead into one of your flashy combos.
Sorry if this did not help at all, I am still trying to digest how MarlinPie finds his Ammy setups.
I’m also not going to lie, play on a tube tv, SDTV or an asus VH236H. Your combo timings are real. Lag timings are good and all for your setup, but on a different tv it will mess you up. Also, when Guilty Gear comes out, try and learn that. That game helps with people’s execution. Execution translates to any game.
Watching Mr.Naps hit single frame links with Kazuya to do Electric Wind God Fist combo is amazing because it is technically 5 just frame links. These 1 frames will help you extend your combo potential.
Those are the best “lab” setups I can think of right now. Also, for the hell of it, buy KOFXIII, play on a tube, go to trial mode. Try getting to trial 5 with each character. Your execution will improve vastly.
Well first question is, who do you play in Skullgirls?
Also, to maximize your training make sure you have a goal, before playing against people online you need to make sure you can pull all your BnBs at the drop of a hat and what moves you can hit confirm them from.
In a game like SG team synergy is pretty important if you’re running with 2 or more, so make sure you’re picking the right assist for your character.
Jwong also said he used to do combos 100x in a row, if he missed once, he would start over. Granted MvC2 days. Fanatiq did the same thing with Magneto tempest. Consistency is what you look for.
first of all, since you are a beginner, you will want to use top tier at least at first, they are generally the easiest to use and you will hav a more intimate knowledge of how to beat them if and when you get better and want to start branching off into characters you actually like (unless you actually like the top tiers)
combos should be the last thing that you focus on… but since you are picking up a combo based fighter… its hard. so imho you should use peacock with doubles assist. they will teach you the neutral game, are at present the closest thing to “top tier” that that game has out yet, and you dont need to know high end combos to win with that team.
just fill the screen with stuff and call out double hornet bomber H assist if they get close. then runaway and continue doing it. you wont win all your games but spamming keepaway like this will allow you to get more and more comfortable with your game and then you can start running 3 man teams with your “practice character” in the middle or up first while you have your real team as back up should your first character die.
i generally think that beginners should use the easiest characters and peacock with doubles assist is good, if you want another easy character use valentine.
practice execution but for now, just practice ANY combo that you can do into super 90% of the time or more and DO THAT COMBO EVERYTIME you can. doent matter if its only a 3 hit combo into a super and you only get 4000 damage from it. just use it for now. practice longer combos in training mode, start to bring those combos out once you can do them with 80% cnsistency.
also, as long as you are playing online against other opponents consistently, you should think about playing against the computer, for offline timing and things like hitconfirming against a moving and blocking opponent. also playing against the computer is a GREAT way to practice how to throw something new into your game. ie you come up with some tactic, and want to apply it but dont really want to use it against people just yet… take it against the computer. unfortunately the comp just wont fall for certain things that humans would and vice versa… but the point is just getting it into muscle memory for use against real opponents. liek a certain reset or something. may not work against the computer but you can stil practice trying to apply it against the computer anyways.
all in all there is no real way to level up outside of playing real people. you can have execution down, mad resets, crazy movement etc. but then you play against real people and that shit flys out the window.
just try and have a balanced approach of real play to training mode… you can CERTAINLY get away with all real play and no training mode, but the inverse doesnt really work, at all.
and use peacock and watch all the hatemail come in :tup:
Well, play game an easier game well not “easier” but i feel that your fundamentals that you can learn from sf4, sfxt, and kof are more much more applicable to these crazy ass games such as skull girls and marvel.
Playing against people who are better than you is one of the best ways to level up, but the skill gap shouldn’t be so great that you can’t even understand how you lose in the first place.
Next time you’re online find someone who you do OK against (meaning that he/she doesn’t destroy you completely and that you can actually understand the reasons for your loss) and ask them if they’d mind playing a few games against you.
If you have access to the hardware for it, I might recommend recording your play with a capture device. Being able to look back at your matches a few times over to see exactly where you went wrong can be really helpful.
I’ve had this problem as well. Your best bet like others stated, watch vids, and forums. But the thing is you have too and I mean absolutely have to implement everything you learn in your routine. The other thing too is that FG have where you can start at the same level as others it helped me grow with the game to the point where I can at least par with players stronger than me. But look up Gootecks CC he talks about how to start off and get better.
I forgot to address the ‘no FG scene’ part…where do you live? I guarantee you that if you poke around you’d be shocked at what you can find, if not in terms of an active scene, at least some players who’d be interested in making one. I’m lucky to live in a major metropolitan area, but I’ve had friends who live on podunk-ass places that managed to find good players to spar with. If you have a college within 45 minutes of you, there’s probably some sort of ringer who could murder most people you play against online just waiting to be found.
well not “easier” but i feel that your fundamentals that you can learn from sf4, sfxt, and kof are more much more applicable to these crazy ass games such as skull girls and marvel.