After learning some of the very basic stuff, whenever you are confused on some term or word, use this: http://shoryuken.com/showthread.php?t=221033
It doesnt have some of the easy words so you might find no use in it now, but later it will come in handy
This guy is right on. you are so new at not only ssfiv, but fighting games alltogether. Should not even worry about combos for a long time unless something real basic like LP, LP, LP, MP
hey poptags08, fredric85, idlemindedfool, kelter_skelter and swirt I sent you guys friend invites i hope you dont mind! I’ve been doing a lot of endless I got doubled perfected by a 4000 bp ryu lol it was funny I literally couldnt move!
If you ever have any questions, feel free to PM me or just post on the Arkansas thread (hot-linked as www.arfgn.tk). I know you live in Massachusetts, but we’d be glad to help you out and give you pointers. I’m not trying to take traffic away from this thread, but maybe in a month, you have a question. You can just post on our board for a quick answer (I post on that thread like 2-3 times a day, and basically reply to everybody) or you can just start a new thread.
Anyway, as for your problems and issues:
A PS3 pad is pretty good to play on, though some like Fightpads better. Alternatively, if you have the money, you could invest in a stick but it’s definitely not a requirement. I will say that the consensus is that you’re likely to achieve more with a stick than you are with a pad, but this only applies to people that are at least moderately skilled (in terms of tournament play).
If you want to pick up the fundamentals of this game, a strong choice would be Ryu. He’s extremely well rounded, has almost every single tool that you’ll need in a character, is fairly easy to play (execution wise), and will give you strong fundamentals. Of course, there are “easier” characters to play (for execution) like charge characters or grapplers, but Ryu is definitely a strong choice for a beginner. Other good choices are Guile and Balrog (but Balrog’s lack of a fireball can be frustrating for newer players). That being said, Ryu has moves that are so strong (at lower levels) that people rely too heavily on them. For example, every single scrubby Ryu/Ken player does the exact same thing: They jump at their opponent with jumping heavy kick, then combo it into crouching heavy kick. When they’re in trouble, they mash the dragon punch (aka Shoryuken). This works at low levels, but will get you KILLED at medium to higher levels. Don’t rely on these unsafe strategies.
Learn your normals and the strengths and weaknesses of all of your specials. Everything in Street Fighter is a rock paper scissors game. If you shoryuken, the opponent can block and punish. But if they were going to attack you, you would hit them and then you could focus attack dash cancel (don’t worry about what this is now; it just lets you cancel the animation of your dragon punch so that you can immediately follow up with another attack) and hit them with your ultra. For Ryu, crouching medium kick is your main poke. You can cancel this (if it hits or they block) into a fireball (hadouken). His anti airs are Shoryuken (dragon punch) and crouching fierce. You can also use standing roundhouse to anti-air (further distances), but I’ve mostly only seen this in the Zangief match-up.
Learn how to anti-air appropriately. You should anti-air every single thing that comes at you (except be careful after you get knocked down because people can time their jump ins so that they can punish a shoryuken that comes out; this is called safe jumping). At higher levels, you should Shoryuken everything that comes at you from the air. At lower levels, you’ll notice that your reflexes may not be there yet. For this, I recommend crouching heavy punch. It works and it still teaches you to anti-air. Later on, you should work on your Shoryuken input though. Dragon punches are useful because they scare the opponent a lot more than a crouching fierce will ever do (because as I said before, you can focus attack dash cancel or FADC into Ultra).
Develop a style. Ryu is a great character because he can do so much with his moveset. He can zone/keep-away by throwing fireballs, forcing the opponent to come to him, and then anti-airing any jump in. He can play footsies, kinda (crouching medium kick -> hadouken/fireball). He can rush down with great frame traps. He has an excellent safe jump and many option selects (basically these let you input an extra move so that if an opponent reacts a certain way, you are prepared to punish it, whereas if they don’t, the move doesn’t come out and you can’t be punished for it). A good way, in my opinion, to play Ryu is to zone with the fireballs and shoryuken. This forces you not to do stupid stuff (like jumping roundhouse all day) and lets you determine at what ranges a fireball is safe and stuff like that.
Learn to punish mistakes. Free damage is free damage. I don’t know Ryu very well as I only play against him, but I believe an easy punish is forward heavy punish xx shoryuken (xx means “to cancel into”). There are definitely harder ones (one frame links) and definitely other situational ones that you could use (like ones that cancel into hurricane kick to move the opponent into the corner), but I think you should focus on ONE punish and then expand it as you get better.
You need consistency so hit up training mode very often! But at the same time, you need real life experience, so whatever you practice in training mode, apply it in real life. I’ve seen people spend a LONG time in training mode and can’t apply any of it in real life. Also, I never hit up training mode (and I miss a lot of combos as a result!) but I can still perform a lot of combos just because I play so many games. I would never recommend anybody to skip training mode though. It’s definitely extremely useful. But definitely play games to keep the boredom away from training mode.
…and that’s all I can think of right now. I’m always here to help though. Feel free to ask me anything at any time!
Good luck!
Thanks for all the great info! I’m not going to lie to you fellas, I did training mode of Ryu and got stuck on either 7 or 8 for literally 30 mins. So i just poked around and found that I was able to actually get to 14 on Abel before hitting a snag within a hour I’m sitting at trial 21. I’ve been playing with him quite a bit but the problem I’m coming across is I know his moves I can do up to 21 with less than 3 tries per trial. Problem is in real matches things rarely come out for some reason.
I’m trying tho! As of right now I’m 3 and 32 in an endless room I created! But I’m having fun thats all that matters I suppose =D Thanks again for all the great info Smoke, I should really go back and try and do Ryu’s trials but its things like c.lk, c.lk, c.mk (i made up the actual moves there point is coming) and I do them but they never come out its so frustrating I know how to hit all the buttons and the moves but it just wont count them.
Great job on your progress! I know 3-32 sounds bad, but when I play my roommate, it’s constantly 30 losses in a row. It doesn’t help that he’s our state champion, but every loss makes me a better player.
As for not being able to do moves in real life, that comes with muscle memory. Just keep doing it and doing it. You’ll get there. Practice against a CPU some. It’s good for practicing combos because it actually moves.
As for actually getting combos to come out, you’re PROBABLY doing a link. What that means is that you have to let your animation of ur move finish before the next move can come out. This is the case for many combos go from normal to normal (unless they’re lk into lk or lp into lp). The rule of thumb for links is that if you don’t see the next move come out, you’re hitting the button too EARLY. If it comes out and it doesn’t combo, you’re hitting the button too LATE.
OMG IT FREAKING WORKED! Thank you!!!
I had to sit there and look to see what you were talking about but now I get it!
Haha, Max, when do you sleep?
Gj man. And Cha0tix. Mike and I wake up at like 5PM everyday haha.