Hey guys, new to this site.
Is it a good idea to Arcade on hardest? I find online to be much more difficult and more frustrating than Arcade on hardest difficulty. Will i become a worse player online, by playing Offline too much?
I wouldn’t consider myself to be a competitive fighter by any means, i just play to have fun.
(BTW… I had NO idea how huge the competitive scene is in these Capcom fighters actually are.)
If you’re not a competitive player, then there’s no such thing as becoming a “worse” player, since “worse” is relative.
I’ll break it down. Playing arcade will make you better at beating the computer, and make you worse at playing real people. The reason for this is that when you play arcade, you’ll be training yourself, even subconsciously, to read the computer’s patterns and exploit its weaknesses. The AI is free to reversals and frame traps all day. However, it will relentlessly punish things that are unsafe, and pull off ridiculous anti-airs on “reaction”. So you’ll stop doing things like mixups, tick throws and crossups, because all these tactics are reliant on playing against someone that doesn’t have perfect knowledge of everything you’re going to do, which the computer does.
When you play people, you learn the whole range of mind games and mental play that make fighting games so attractive. You won’t be able to mash out reversals or mash jabs and win. If you want to learn how to become better at beating people, then you’re by definition a competitive player. If you’re not, then don’t worry about a thing and just keep having fun with the game.
All that said, playing arcade mode CAN be decent for practice in certain situations. Firstly, you need to stay very aware that you are playing a computer, not a person, and that playing the computer is really just a live exercise, rather than a real match. Use arcade mode on Hardest to see what the computer will punish your moves with, or what anti-airs they use. It’s also a good way to bring a character you’ve just started learning to a basic level of proficiency. This works because when you first pick up a character the most important things are learning the ranges your character is most effective at, what anti-airs work well, and practicing your combos in live conditions. The mental play aspect only really comes into play once you’re fully proficient with the character’s moves and tools.
Especially in the beginning, it is definitely fine to fight against the computer. This helps you learn what the other characters can do to an extent, and also as Combo fiend points out in a recent video, they will punish you alot for any moves you use that are unsafe.
Maybe don’t play arcade mode though, try versus and set the rounds up higher. Set the computer teams to random and fight until you win, then if you still feel uncomfortable against those characters try again, or if you are ready for the next batch go back to character select and random again.
Once you’ve found out your bad matchups, try and include one of the characters that you know your characters are bad against (say Rufus or Zangief or whoever), and then either another solid character (like Ryu, Ken or Kazuya) or choose a character you still feel unfamiliar with (one of the Tekken characters most likely).
But yes, playing against the computer on hardest or the next step down is just fine especially while you are still training. It will help you start to get the hang of landing combos on a moving opponent.
Then once you’ve done enough of that try doing some matches in the endless online mode so you don’t get all obsessed about points and you can keep your blood pressure lower.
Wow! Those was a very knowledgeable answers. Thank you! Made me realize some things i hadn’t before. I’m still practicing big tag team combos with certain characters, so i feel comfortable training against the cpu with them.
I’m going to start training in versus with longer rounds instead of playing arcade so much. I do have a completely different mindset when playing online vs offline, so, hopefully i have that going for me.
I was bummed at first because i thought they did away with ‘Player Match’. Turns out they just changed it to Endless mode. Yeah, i guess i’m a little too obsessed about points. I love how SSF4 did their PP and BP though, It helped me realize my progression a little bit.
I say to myself i’m not competitive at all in these fighting games, but, they are so satisfying when you pull off a win(even against the cpu) that it’s hard to not be competitive.
I actually use arcade to train a little.
Since the matchmaking system sucks in this game I use arcade request to play online. I set the difficulty to Normal or easy, and I only focus on land my combos, nothing else. At that level the AI is nothing but a training dummy in movement for me to warm up and practice my combos for the online matches that are coming.
I use arcade on hardest to practise combos.
I find execution practise on a training dummy is best followed by practise against a moving target, hence the cpu play.
The thing about arcade mode in hardest is that the CPU follows the same pattern. Best way to practice is ranked matches. I was at 5k BP with heihachi and Kuma and then I switched to Nina/Juri and fall to 2.5k lol. Now I am at 7k BP so I think it is the most effective way to learn cause you fight against different styles. Endless is not good unless you find a m8 at your level who is willing to learn and spend hours fighting against you.
The CPU Guile is pretty good in this game.
This is exactly what I do; set it to very easy and practice my combos while the game finds me an online match.
Arcade mode is good for practicing reaction times and combos, not for applying strategies and manipulating your opponent. The first two are important however the last two are even more important…
The Arcade Mode is just okay for practice in any fighting games in my opinion. I play Arcade Mode many times from easy to hard difficulty. But you need to fight against your opponent to get the real experience of playing fighting games.
Yea I play the cpu often just to nail help nail combos on a moving target and build the muscle memory to hit these things on reaction/instinct. You only get so many opportunities when you’re fighting an actual person, you need to make the most of them. Its a pressure-less way to learn new characters too. Its been pointed out, but playing on a hard difficulty will point out right away what moves you throw out will end up getting you slapped in the mouth. You’ll gain a basic knowledge of the characters this way as well and some of what they’re capable of. You’ll learn what you do that can be punished, and you get to experiment with what you can punish with in return. There’s nothing wrong with playing the CPU until you let it become a crutch.
If I’m playing a new game that I have no idea how to play, I mess around on arcade until I can beat it on hardest setting. At that point, you should be comfortable enough with movement to start trying to really play it.
I’d love to see a cpu learn human play style from its online player base to the point where you didn’t know if you were playing a real person or not. That’d be a good way to bolster the size of the player pool (which is kinda small in comparison to other genres).
i like playing the AI on hardest when im learning new chars, or just for practice when im starting a game. the computer gets predicable, but it helps you learn your anti-airs and poke ranges (you whiff a poke on Marduck and you are gonna eat one of those running takedowns)
He only has 2 moves, LOL!
Heck yeah it is. I’ve been practicing with my new team of Cammy and Asuka all weekend. Can’t wait to jump online this coming week to show them off!