So I’ve been playing Robot Unicorn Attack for a while, and I think that it has improved my reactions a bit.
I’ve checked how much my reactions have enhanced by playing two reaction-measuring games: this and this.
Before RUA, I got 0.25 of a second in the sheep game and 0.32 in the car game. After RUA, it was boosted to 0.22 and 0.30 of a second respectively.
So I wanted to know what you guys do to improve your reactions and other aspects of your game.
You can’t improve reactions by playing other games. If you click when the circle turn to green, then you improve in spotting circles turn to green, but not in the shit you do need the reactions for.
I only half agree. It’s simply a matter of associating the action with what to react to after practicing and you’re good to go.
Even if let’s say you are correct, it’s still more time efficient to jump straight to the shit you need to react to and practice that instead of other stuff.
Seriously just play the damn game and learn like everyone else. Your reactions will increase with your knowledge of said fighter.
If you see a jump in coming because said player is predictable, you’ll react relatively quickly when the jump in actually comes vs reacting to a jump in that you didn’t see coming, typically you’ll AA the former while you’d play it safe and block the latter.
Same concept of hitting the button when it turns green and getting it right within .001th of a second because you went through that damn test 10 times over and over to get that score.
Besides what good is reactions in fighters when you can’t make the optimal decision within that set time? How do you make optimal decisions within a split second? It helps to think about it before hand no shit
Hell if you had crazy reactions and put no thought to how you’d react, you’d probably end up getting baited all day. There’s a reason why higher level players whiff jabs.
If there was truly another game that’ll boost your reactions towards said fighting game, it’d be called -insert fighting game title- Jeopardy. The rules being that you have to give the correct answer for a random question within a theme within a exceptionally short time.
Example:
3S MAKOTO IS FLASHING YELLOW ON YOUR WAKE UP WHAT SHOULD YOU DO? YOU HAVE ABOUT 1/6th OF A SECOND TO ANSWER CORRECTLY
A) Block high
B) Block low
C) Press buttons
D) Jump
E) Backdash
F) Down parry
G) Forward parry
H) Wake up Grab
…
Y) Hit your opponent with your Stick
Z) All of the above
TIMES UP
Of course i’m joking.
TL;DR play the damn game. Reaction tests won’t help you get better in fighting games.
Oh no, I’m not talking about reaction in any and every situation; I’m talking about specific situations. For example, if you do a frame trap cr. mp with Ryu and try to catch a counter hit to link Ultra 2. Or when you’re knocked down and expect the opponent to either chip you with a fireball or wait, and if he does use a fireball, you use Ultra.
There are points you reach in reaction-based games where it may be useless beyond that. Like in RUA, it becomes more about pattern-recognition and expecting where the next star would be, dashing where they usually are even if there isn’t one. But still, I think they’re useful for those specific situations.
As for the flaggers: I’d like to hear your opinion on the matter.
I’m gonna say that you should look into other methods, like things that make you think faster in general. Maybe start with a really good diet, look into good sleep habits, and find out if there are some mental exercises that might help.
I find that I can think a bit faster if I have a good night sleep and take supplements like fish oil, and vitamins seem to help.
But I’m not saying those things are a substitute for playing the game, just some stuff that might speed up the learning process that you should consider looking into.
Improving reaction times is 80% mental. It’s not solely about being able to react to every little thing your opponent does. It’s about how you dedicate your limited levels of focus, your ability to recognize patterns and tendencies, and understanding situations and matchup details of the game. Anti-airing a jump-in with a DP seems difficult when you first start playing as a brand new player in fighting games, but once you learn the range of when and where people are most likely to jump, it becomes a pretty trivial matter.
Extend that basic example to every minute aspect and detail of fighting games, and that’s how reactions are developed and honed.
If you picked Ryu’s Ultra 2 you’re already doing it wrong.
In street fighter, it is possible to react to actions before identifying what it is. For example, people can react to pumps rather than an actual fireball, or even the clicks a stick makes when you pump. People whether consciously or subconsciously DO react to these queues. In my opinion, most people who have been playing sf for a reasonable amount of time will have more than enough raw reaction time. The problem is identification and judgment. Ever play a lightgun game where there are targets to avoid? Your reaction time becomes slower as targets to hit and avoid become more visually similar, and then improves again once you identify key things to look for. I Think that’s what people are getting at when they say you can only get better by playing the game. Because for most people who’ve invested a reasonable amount of time improving, the only meaningful/useful improvements rely on this identification. And it may be subconscious last year I had to learn NOT to react to certain physical movements my opponents were making. I didn’t realize I was doing this until I noticed a guy “headfaking” when he plays. And its a common enough occurance that he fakes against most players… And invoke a reaction. For the longest time I always tried to figure out why I kept doing a very unsafe move with apparently no stimulus, I just chalked it up to bad decision making under pressure until one game he made it really obvious to me since he did it many times in a row and I happened to be glancing at him.
Knowing this, you can “slow down” someone’s reaction time, or force them to guess by identifying ass motions and steps you can take to invoke a reaction (because they are similar to a legitimate move) to fake moves an force them to focus that much Langer before reacting (eg pump by don’t press button, short kick instead of forward or roundhouse etc…). A crazy example that illustrates this well is how effective fake fireballs are in games that have them (alpha series, HDR). Since you can’t identify how you should react until the fireball actually appears. (And then judge its speed). Yes raw reaction speed helps, but its almost negligible compared to the time it takes for you to identify something. If your opponent doesn’t fake, go react to their stick clicking. You can have a supposed 0ms reaction time to those not in the know. (Obviously doesn’t work if they’re too far or if the room’s too loud). I think top players know this, and their reaction time isn’t necessarily a meaningful amount less than ours. But they identify faster, which is why these fakes can still trip them up.
Noticed a mistake in my post, edited to: " I’m NOT talking about reaction in any and every situation;" might have caused some confusion.
Like I said, I’m not looking to react to every little thing that happens on the screen, but just when I expect for something to happen but am not sure, meaning where reaction is needed, e.g. hit confirming, counter-hit confirming, etc.
For that case don’t you set the CPU on random block/random counter hit?
It’s easy to confirm those, so it’s better to find something more difficult for finer reactions.
Play more people IRL
If your looking to use training mode to practice reacting to things such as counter hitting into ultra. Other than that, playing a lot will undoubtedly increase your reaction time, as you’ll become more aware of certain attack animations and you’ll be able to punish accordingly.
^That and…
This
More games need to have 3.slots for recording. Sega is always ahead of everything.
You’ll find your “reaction time” improve the more u play a certain game. That’s cause it isn’t physical reflexes getting better, but because u get better at anticipating things and recognition.
you’re not really improving reaction time, you’re acquiring game knowledge. the ability to recognize situations and respond appropriately to them where before you didn’t know what to do or hadn’t ingrained it in your memory.
people who are trying to purely react to something really fast are fun because you will bait all kinds of dumb things out of them with stand jabs.
Your reaction time is always the same it never improves it just declines a little the older you get.
What actually improves is your anticipation and familiarity with a given game and that’s why after some time you feel like things are happening at a slower pace.
You’re just able to sort so much shit out that isn’t important in that situation like for example when you’re a noob that plays his first game and stand full screen away from your opponent you don’t know what happens next and how he might attack you, you’re just fucking confused and look out for everything and most likely make a bad decision when the fireball comes resulting in a hit.
A seasoned veteran knows that only a fireball can reach him and that allows him to concentrate on just that and just look for the fireball buffer and react to the fireball speed.
It’s really simple:
Play a lot and your reactions in that game will become better, but your reactions for an unknown game will still be the same human reactions you’ll always have and most likely be wrong because our natural reactions are made for survival i.e. dodging, protecting eyes and running away and not succeeding at fighting games.
That’s also why it is difficult for players fighting really bad habits like blocking a jump in over a fireball.
Why would you block if you can uppercut? Because your brain tells you that you’re under attack and should defend yourself.
Going for an attack instead trying to deflect the attack is against human nature.
You’ve got to train and condition yourself in order to get “good” reactions, there’s no easy way to do this other than playing the game and fighting your own shortcomings.
Well, you see, in those last two games I measured my reaction time, I only played them once after hours of RUA. So I don’t know how recognition in one game improves reactions in another, unless improving reactions in one game actually does improve reactions in general.