I seriously need some help and dont even know where to begin. I thought I was somewhat decent, but soon as I go and play online I get my arse handed about 98% of the time on scoreboard matches ill average about a 2-15 record. I usually am a ken/ryu guy but lately have been using Akuma. I can execute the typical moves with relative ease and offline I usually have no problem w/ moves or combos. Its just when I go online I constantly get demolished, even by who you can tell cant execut moves properly. It seems like everyone knows my next move, i cant block or just the moves are not executed. I do seem to experience lag at the beginning of almost every match, not sure how much of lag plays into move execution, im on a dsl 3.0mps connection. All I know is that i suck horribly, and its almost to the point where its nowhere near fun anymore. Please help! I would like to play w/ some of you guys and get some pointers as to why i suck.
the big thing you should do is spend some time in practice mode, get your combos/techniques down. another thing a player suggested on the forum is pick a charachter and play without using any special moves IE: Dp Hadouken Hurrican kick.
practice figuring out what works against charachters and what doesnt.
then you can move into doing more complicated things.
just stick with it man you gotta get your ass beat to beat ass in this game
Ya i definitely need to work on some combos.
I went through that stage where I constantly got my ass whooped as well. All I can say is keep playing and keep your head up. I thought I could win the game tigershotting all day, but I kept getting stuffed by shoto’s Jump RH, but after a while I notice my senses got more sharp and my ability to read the other players increased as well. When you play, it’s important to keep yourself alert and try to see the match every which way. I used to tunnel vision a whole lot (read playing completely offensive one match and then just sitting back and blocking the next) and it’s probably the easiest way to get dominated. You sound like you really want to get better and that mentality alone plus the experience from playing tons of match will get you where you want to be.
I should also note that people on PSN are somewhat a lot better than the people I face on live. On live I win about 70% of my matches whereas on PSN I’m at about 50%. Don’t know what it is but usually when I get dominated the hardest is when I’m on PSN.
The reason everyone seems to know what you’re doing when you’re playing Ken, Ryu, or Akuma is because Street Fighter is over 20 years old, and everyone and their mother has played the game using Ken or Ryu. So to compensate, you either have to hone Ryu/Ken/Akuma to an exceptional level, or study the different characters/people you play against to find out what makes them tick.
Well if you would have said Ryu I would have said look up DGV on 2dfighter, and watch his replays. So are you playing on the PSN or XBL? I only see a PS3 tab by your name. Is the competition more stiff on PSN than on XBL? Maybe someone might could judge if they have both consoles. I myself play on XBL, and I win about 50/50 which feels about right since I am not a fine tuned polished player. I feel sometimes the game is a 50/50 chance for me, but when you get almost to peak level of quality play, then you will win most of your matches cause of studying all the little things. Just make sure that you attempt the combos you practice in training in a live match. Even if it fails horribly, just go for it, and don’t hold back.
I’ve sorta noticed after attempting some pretty complicated combos in training that some of them don’t like to come out quite right when playing online due to what I believe to be the lag of the game. Depending on if the connection is just terrible. I notice this often after I play my brother locally then decide to play a match online it just doesn’t feel the same. Don’t get me wrong the online is great, but nothing is going to beat local play. So basically what I am saying is don’t go for combos that are flashy go for the easiest ones that still do the same amount of damage as the flashy ones.
Like with Ryu I would go for a jump in fierce punch to crouching fierce punch to hadoken 3 hit combo after a dizzy, but you could try doing something that would link 3 hits that would end with a shoryuken. Now to me the shoryuken route wouldn’t be smart for me cause I can pull off the link into the 3 hit hadoken a lot easier due to the motion being easier to execute for me if you understand what I mean. And on the dizzy topic, always punish a dizzy, don’t throw, go in for a nice half damage of your opponents bar combo, that is easy for you to execute. Don’t let him get off that easy punish dizzy always. But with all these new sticks hitting the market punishing a dizzy might be looking to be more difficult cause of the turbo function they are putting on the sticks. Since online isn’t really a real tournament people will probably be abusing the turbo function more to get out of grabs and stuns.
Ya im only a one console man right now so, its the PSN that im playing on. Im also wondering can a fight stick really improve someone’s game?
I’m sure lag plays a gigantic factor but it’s not the only one, it’s experience, knowing how to read your opponents, being able to execute the specials and supers under pressure, and knowing when it’s best to play it safe. Past that there are things you can learn here like general match up specific strategies, priorities on certain moves and combos.
Just keep at it man, if you want to get good then you will have to practice at it. Play some friendly matches so you can get used to at least one play style and try to read one opponent before you play any ranked matches where guys are pulling any dirt they can just to steal wins. It’s much harder to learn without experiencing both. Also play around with the rest of the cast. You can see what you find annoying when you play other characters and what they need in order to do damage. You also might just find them fun.
It’s tough at first.
First thing you need to do is learn as much as you can about the game. That way you can at least understand the techniques your opponents are using to demolish your ass, and even if you can’t keep up with them at in-game speed at least you can reflect on the match afterwards and realize “God, I just couldn’t predict his crossups all game. I need to improve my game in that aspect.”
If you are unfamiliar with the deeper mechanics of the game (reversals, tick throws, crossups, button-up special moves, etc.) then go to youtube and search for “Sirlin Street Fighter Tutorial”. There’s a series of tutorials that David Sirlin, the lead designer of HDR and previous EVO tournament winner in SF2 Super Turbo. He’s also ranked highly in tournaments for several other fighting games. He explains the basic techniques you need to know in order to understand competitive Street Fighter better than anything else I’ve seen, and does it with helpful video examples.
Also, you need to train yourself to have a memory for things that worked. For example, take a lot of E. Honda vs Akuma matches. I’ve seen decent E. Hondas lose to scrubbier Akumas because, when Akuma starts spamming jab shoryukens, the Honda loses his patience and tries to time a headbutt to punish him for spamming the jab shoryuken. Problem is Akuma is almost totally invincible during the jab shoryuken, the jab shoryuken’s hitbox for Akuma is great at hitting Honda out of the torpedo, and the frame of time you have to get a hit in on him cleanly is tiny. It’s really hard to time it properly, especially if he’s on the other side of the room. The correct respose is to just walk up and try a meaty c.HK to cut his legs out when he lands, but way too often I’ve seen Hondas try the torpedo and get smacked. This ecourages the Akuma to continue spamming jab shoryukens, and the Honda doesn’t learn from his previous mistake and does a torpedo which he also gets smacked out of. At this point almost any Akuma player worth his air fireballs is going to realize that the Honda player has no clue how to respond properly to spamming jab shoryukens, so he is going to do it until Honda proves that he knows how to defeat it. (This is sometimes called getting “Sirlin’d”- Sirlin himself has a weird obssession with doing the same move over and over again until his opponent proves that he can deal with it, especially T. Hawk’s j.down+HP “splash” attack in ST and Rose’s HP in A3…)
Basically, when you do something out of the ordinary and stumble upon something effective, start exploring that new find and try to discover ways to relentlessly exploit the advantages that the new move has. Also learn how to use moves in combinations to develop mindgames. I played a Ryu player who, upon knocking his opponent down, always followed it up by walking near me and trying a meaty c.HK. He did this all the way through the first four rounds, until we both were down to almost no life left on the 5th round. I was getting up off the ground, getting ready to block his c.HK and thinking about what I should do to win the game afterwards… but he hit me with a forward+MP (Ryu’s overhead) and beat me right then and there. He trained me to expect c.HK, and therefore trained me to be blocking low while getting up, and exploited that in order to beat me.
This post is kind of rambling on… The point is that there’s tons of stuff to learn, and it’s almost impossible to ever learn everything there is to know about ST or HDR. Keep playing and you’ll keep learning.
PS. Execution does help. I can’t tell you how many times I picked the winning move at the end of round 5 and ended up losing it instead because I got a fireball instead of a DP. It’s extremely frustrating but practice will start to reduce your mistakes.
Im so glad I got the nerve to put this thread up. Great info guys!
Ya you might have to change your gameplay a little due to lag issues. I actually don’t think combos are necessary to win a match if you understand the fight for each character. Just stick to one shoto character for now. I think Ken and Ryu play different so you’re game style should semi change per character. So once you learn the pro/cons of a fight with one character it’ll make it little easier to transition to a new character. Sticking to one character is good mostly since you can’t see who the other person is picking anyway. Keep trying and practicing…I give you much respect for manning up to the fact that you get beat
haha great thread, Im scared to go online when my copy arrives!
I used to be pretty decent at street fighter 2, was a big 2d beat em up fan in my teens but after getting SFIIHD for the 360 a couple of weeks ago i can barely finish it on easy!!
Im detirmined to get good again when SFIV arrives!!
I would say your more likely to get a fairer fight on Live due to trueskill. Just a theory?!
I would have got PS3 but the delay in Uk release of SFIIHD meant i went with 360 and so i’ll stick with it for SFIV so i dont have to buy two sticks!
When I was younger (not saying i’m old but I’ve played SF for some time) I used to think I was ok, but I kept playing my same group of buddies, and I never really took my SF to another level. We kinda just sat around and threw fireballs ha ha.
As I got older, I met more people my same age, and learned how to ACTUALLY play better. SF isn’t just about specials and supers, it’s about learning strategies and formulating a plan. I don’t know how good you are (not trying to be mean), but there’s ALWAYS room to get better. Just keep at it. Just remember that everyone had to start at the bottom.
What kinda dsm are you btw?
People try and focus too much on landing combos. If you try extensively to combo your opponent he (or she) is going to figure you out very quickly, and assume you’re the flashly win type. I’ve seen players crush other players with relatively no combos needed. It’s all about mind games. Sure, combos is a big part of the game, but there’s so much more.
If you’re a projectile player, master zoning instead of trying to be flashy with the combo system.
You should only be looking for combos when the opportunity is right (like after a safe-block-into-combo-set-up).
Don’t look for the combo entry, let it come natural when the opportunity is right.
Ya i know exactly what you mean, I used to think i was pretty good due to beating up on my friends, but then I really got put in my place by playing other people. I had a 95 talon tsi awd.
As people said allready it seems you focus alot on combos and special moves. I find that it’s alot more effective to see the specials as only tools to be used to counter what the other player is doing, and thereby acting proactively like you see your oponents doing. But I guess that’s mostly true with the non-projectile characters that I tend to use… With Ken, Ryu and Akuma you need to become less predictable instead.
don’t feel bad. As soon as I start playing SF online i’ll dethrone you from your “worst online player ever” title