So I’m probably going to sound like a whiny little jerk in this, but whatever.
My problem is that I’m losing every single match ever (hence the title). People have told me that I should be more unpredictable, but whenever I try that, the opponent sees right through me anyway!
Another person told me that I should stay focused and not choke, but here’s the strange bit. Whenever I’m watching a USF4 match, I know what’s going on just fine. However, when I’m actually playing, I feel like I’m going to pass out trying to respond to what’s on-screen! Even when I’m standing still! And the best part? Out of the 100 matches that I’ve played, I have won 2. TWO! And one of those was M.Bison vs. Sakura (an even matchup.)
Matchups are basically non-existent when I’m the one playing. I’ll know which matchups are good and bad. But if I’m playing Gouken and they’re playing Hugo, they’re going to win. Yeah, it’s got to the point where, even if I am trying my hardest, I know in the back of my head that I’m going to lose. Uh-huh.
I know all about tech-throws and technicals and which moves are safe on block when I’m not playing. But from the minute the announcer says “Fight!”? Poof. Gone. Bye-bye USFIV knowledge. I’ll see you again when I need you the least.
Something I should probably mention is that I might have something called Depersonalization Disorder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depersonalization_disorder) and I feel that may be having an impact on how I play. Now, the reason I haven’t stopped playing altogether is because I want to get good at the game. It sounds real cheesy, but I’m not one to immediately give up at something if I’m interested in it. But now I feel like I’m striving for a lost cause.
So what do you all think? Could it be that fighting games aren’t right for me even though I love them?
Sounds like you are just new to fighting games in general, and this genre is probably THE hardest to get at a level where you are anywhere near decent. Most people suck for the first year or two unless they’re putting in a few hours trying to get better almost everyday. Remember that you will lose A LOT in the beginning, but if you keep practicing you will eventually be able to win one out of every two or three games in about 6 months. Also, know that about 70-80% of the people playing USF4 online have either been playing SF4 and/or other fighters for years, so it is only natural for you to lose a lot.
Go to the Newbie Dojo section for more help, as this section is for discussions about USF4 only.
It happens a lot more than you think. You want to improve, so all that’s left to do is continue playing. Start having fun with Training Mode and record the dummy so you can get better at blocking things you find annoying. Also, if you don’t already, use the Replay Channel to watch your replays to see what mistakes you’ve made. It’ll help you adjust your game play in so many ways.
Hey man, after a year and an half or so of playing KOF13, I did matchs for a few hours with a good player. The results were like 110-5. I had more than a thousand of hours of plays on this game. I was able to wreck beginners to intermediate players apart. He didn’t have trouble handling me, playing his Z-team.
But I was still in the middle of a long long road. That was 2 years ago.
Today, if we play again. I think the score wouldn’t change much. I’m a lot stronger but he did progress too, that bastard.
Don’t hang up. You’re on the doorstep of something you don’t even realize how deep it is. Keep it on, you won’t regret it.
Yeah, I’m the same way. I guess it’s a beginner thing.
Whenever I play, this happens:
Eyes: "He’s jumping! Brain, respond!"
Brain: "A-ha! We have him now! Hands! Shoryuken at once!"
Hands: “Whozawhat? I don’t…wait, do what now? Fireball? Ok!”
Of course, in training mode I can do a bajillion dragon punches in a row without missing a beat. ><
Like others have said, fighting games can have a high learning curve to them for a new player. You will lose when ur first playing and you like myself just need to learn to shrug it off and try to figure out what it was that u had a hard time dealing with. The more u play and try to learn from your losses the better u will get and u will see it in time.
play training mode with computer on hard. lets you practice your combos and defense against a “random” moving target. i suck ass at fighters but as long as you want to get better and keep training you will do it!!!
also this may help:
make a list
in the list include a couple basic normals
1 bnb combo
1 punish
master those on a moving target along with blocking and you will get better.
As people have said, it’s normally a long road from being new to winning some matches. What helped me early on was thinking of every match as a large collection of smaller events, and trying to set goals based on that as opposed to focusing on winning. You might not be able to beat your opponent yet, but you can win some small moments in the match. If you think of it in those terms, you’re much more likely to make progress and feel good about your games, as your losses will become more competitive. Otherwise it just feels like trying to fight through a brick wall.
Believe it or not, that’s not an entirely horrible result. I beat people who have been playing much longer than you 20-0 regularly.
Keep playing, keep practicing. You’ll get better eventually. The most important thing is learning how to learn. This is probably where your problem is now.
I think I’ve been following competitive SF4 for about a 18 months now and have gone through crazy amount of tutorials and threads related to learning Street Fighter.
I understand concepts like frame traps, footsies, zoning etc to atleast an intermediate level through all of said videos/tutorials/streams.
But I suck. I’ve put about 200 hours into SF4 (give or take 20) and I lose to players that just jump in all day and mash DP as soon as you pressure them. You can tell they have no idea what they’re doing or care about improving and just random everything, but they still win. It’s rage inducing.
There are some obvious parts of my game that I know I need to improve like AA’ing and combo consistency, but there are times I just get destroyed and sit there like “How the hell was I supposed to do anything about that?”. There has got to be some massive fundamental flaw in my gameplay but I just can’t see it. And that really annoys me.
Vent over
Anyways, I’m going to continue until I either start to see improvement or my stick looks like it was blessed by the rage of Sanford Kelly.
Haha, yeah I know how you feel. A lot of this game is just pure reflexes and coordination, and for some reason it takes people like me hundreds of hours to learn to do basic motions (e.g. dp input) quick enough.
But that’s part of SF’s charm—if someone wants a pure theory game they can play chess or go or whatever.
It just comes with being new, a lot of fighting game players have been playing for a decade or more so we have a lot of catching up to do. I played a few endless lobbies (around 30 games or so) and I won a grand total of 1 game lol. Not particularly botherd (although I don’t enjoy losing), I learn a little something from every loss. Would be unrealistic to expect to win much just starting out.
You have to be able to play solid before you can add unpredictability. If you cannot force jumps and anti air properly/consistently, don’t bother trying to be unpredictable. When you can play solid, you become predictable in a winning way. This forces your opponent to predict you and counter, at that point, adding a random element to your game makes you unpredictable allowing you to have a more firm grip on your winning advantage.
Its called pressure. When not playing the game, you have more time to analyze what’s going on while also having the freedom to not having bad reads affect the outcome of the match. Everyone is a better fighter outside of the match. You need to learn how to limit your opponent’s character in the match up. Limiting your opponent’s options makes the round easier to manage. One of the important parts of a match up is the neutral part where both players have the most options, this is probably where you feel overwhelmed. Each match up is different so you have a lot of learning ahead of you. If you can learn neutral, you’ll be able to turn rounds into simple 50/50 situations where option selects force your opponent to take your pressure or all in escape. Please, keep in mind that your opponent is doing the exact same thing to you…
You’re not solid. It also seems as though you are playing multiple characters. Pick one character and learn your match ups one at a time. In talking about Gouken vs Hugo, it seems that you don’t understand what makes a match up good or bad. You need to take advantage of the risk reward of you options in the match up. Either you are relying on a good move too much (like fireballs) which will get your predicted then beat or you aren’t taking advantage of your opportunities (ie: punishing a whiffed ultra with a throw or sweep instead of a huge combo or punish ultra.) You’re assumption that anything other than not practicing specific situations is the reason why you go blank during a match is your biggest issue. Go to practice mode and learn what you and your opponent can and can’t do at certain ranges. Using Gouken vs Hugo as an example, go to practice mode and figure out how close hugo has to be to punish a fireball with ex lariet, focus dash forward commoand grab and jumping normals. Doing that will ensure that in a match you will know when you can fireball and when you need to stop…
Knowing isn’t practicing. Like I said, practice punishing shit and you won’t be lost during the fight. A good example is ryu vs bison. Record a medium scissor kick with bison into a block and try punishing that with Ryu’s sweep…
You should discuss this with the medical personnel who are helping you with your condition. Ask them if your condition prohibits you from being able to learn a mentally straining eye to hand execution heavy activity. They will tell you if you are in a lost cause situation or what your limits could be if you had any.
If you love an activity, you should do it. If you love an activity that frustrates you, perhaps take it less seriously as a competitor but enjoy it more as a fan. If you love the competition, learn to enjoy your losses, they are important lessons for you…
Haha, you’ve explained my problem perfectly, in training mode i can DP 99/100 times, but whenever i try online i’m always throwing fireballs or normals at people jumping at me