I am new to Street Fighter and fighting games in general. I bought AE about 1 month before Ultra came out and have been trying to get into the game because this genre looks like a ton of fun once you can break the barrier of entry they have.
I have watched every VesperArcade tutorial about Street Fighter so I understand all the mechanics and have been reading constantly about techniques. I know the barrier of entry to fighting games is insanely high and I’m struggling at this point of how to get over that hump to a point where I can enjoy the game. Currently I can execute some basic combos, I have some red focus combos so I can land an Ultra, and have a good idea of how to block and crouch tech.
My issue I think is that no one on xbox live is even remotely close to my level of skill and I am constantly getting bodied. I got double perfected last night for the first time ever and this guy only had like 400 PP. I know Ultra reset the stats but I had a ton of problems finding lower end people in AE as well. I want to stay committed to learning and getting into the game however I’m at a loss of what to do to improve. Getting bodied really doesn’t teach me much because not landing a hit and doing everything wrong isn’t exactly improving my game and is frustrating.
I started with Ryu for about 3 weeks to learn basic game mechanics but he really really doesn’t fit my style, I like cody, I like his style, and if the feedback is to go back to Ryu for now I will but I’m hoping I can stick with Cody. Should I just play arcade mode until I can beat Seth on Very Hard? or Hardest? Is my approach to online play incorrect?
Any help to get by this difficult barrier of entry would be much appreciated.
Just keep playing players that are beating you and try to improve, that’s the only thing you can do really. Arcade mode will not help much, but it could help your familiarity with other characters moves.
In the matches where you say you’re getting bodied, have you watched them back? Upload something for us to have a look at - it’ll be a lot easier to spot any obvious issues.
Without more information, the only general advice I’d give is to play fairly conservative.
Anti-air. Cody has all sorts of options for anti-airing, but b.mp is a great place to start.
Stick to simple combos. Sounds like you’re doing this already, but there’s a lot to be said for cr.lp cr.lp cr.lk xx hCU!
Concentrate on punishing your opponent’s mistakes fully. Don’t worry about hitting link combos, just use cr.hp xx hCU whenever you get a chance to punish something like a whiffed uppercut. If you’re in doubt about how punishable something is, either let it slide or go for cr.lk xx hCU. Punish with raw ultra if you get the chance - there’s no shame in not comboing into it!
Vary what you do on wake-up. Most of the time you’ll probably be blocking, but mix in the occasional backdash, EX Zonk and EX Criminal Upper. Yes, these are all punishable, but you have to give your opponent pause for thought next time they try to pressure you.
Learn a couple of safe-jumps. Cody has a simple safe-jump after a back throw which is safe against 5 frame reversals. Many beginner level players won’t understand this, which means you can often land a free jump in combo against them at least the first time you use it. (Sadly it’s not just beginner players that sometimes get hit by this!) Safe-jumping became a little more complicated now that delayed wake-up is in the game, but if your opponent delays their wake-up you’ll still be safe.
Learn from other players. There is a wealth of material on YouTube in the form of tutorials and actual match footage. You don’t have to figure everything out on your own from scratch!
Don’t worry about losing, especially based on how much (or how little) PP your opponent has. Focus on what you did well in the match or could have done better. If you lost because Ibuki knocked you down and you guessed wrong from then on, fair enough, but if you lost because you missed a glaring opportunity to punish something unsafe then you know what to work on for the next game. Everyone gets perfected - it’s inevitable. Once you get to a reasonable level of competency with Cody, you will start perfecting other people - guaranteed.
Thanks for the replies. I’ve been watching Momoshi and those others I’ve seen y’all say are good. I don’t usually see the upload replay button, how can I get to my match footage and get it onto the forums, as bad as my matches are I’d be happy to send them there and get some advice at this point.
I think what you’ll end up seeing is that I don’t know how to properly pressure an opponent on a hard knockdown bc it seems I get hit by all reversals (safe jump would be an option but my timing is admittedly poor). I don’t do well at stopping pressure I get a little overwhelmed and my body can’t react to what my brain is saying, when I try to react I’m too slow and they get a counter hit instead of me properly countering them. Once I’m in space my footsie game is poor/my ability to get in close is also poor haha. That and I don’t know the matchups well so I’m sure some of my frustrating matches are like 8-2 against Cody and I’m thinking its all my fault lol
But yeh, let me know how to get my replays up here and I’ll definitely upload a couple tonight if I can
You need to condition them to not do anything on their wake up.
Cody has some insanely easy Safe jumps: after a back throw just hold up forward you can do J.Hp/HK/MK and combo if it lands or continue pressure if they just block. - for 5 frame reversals, after a LK Ruffian do a Nj HP as late as possible - 4 frame and up reversals, after a CU just jump forward - 3 frame reversals.
You can also just do nothing or throw out a jab and punish their reversals or whatever. Once they stop going for wake up shoryu’s and other super invincible wake ups you can then go for the meaty set ups to get that Counter Hit damage in.
Go to Replay Channel > Battle Log and it’ll list the last matches you played. There’s a limit to how many it stores though, so if you have a replay you want to save don’t play too many games before saving it. I haven’t used the YouTube upload feature myself, but if you can’t get it working just record the screen with your phone or something.
Awesome I’ll check that out and try to remember some of those safe jumps/baits. So the forward jump after CU I don’t try to attack just empty jump to bait the DP and if it doesn’t come out pressure with a block string/frame-trap or throw?
You can whiff a jump-in after hCU and be safe to reversal DP, although personally I don’t think it’s that useful. You can genuinely safe-jump some characters after hCU though, like Chun and Fei.
These are a bit old, but most of the content is still relevant…
Sorry it took me a few days to get the replays. Took me all night last night to figure out that Xbox360 Upload to Youtube doesn’t work/takes over an hour to upload. Was faster and easier just to take with my phone and upload so sorry for the quality.
During the match I fealt really pressured by the Cammy player because she was just throwing out random moves. After watching the replay and seeing that she was using nothing but triple kick the whole match (aside from a throw and a few focus attacks) that really made me feel like I shouldn’t be losing to someone who doesn’t know how to use their normals lol. Any advice would be appreciated. I dropped a few combos in there but the main problem was I had trouble getting in.
I’m not a cody player but I watched your video and have some thoughts.
a. You’re not playing a poking game. You need to know which normals make great pokes and use them more often, pokes deter a character from moving in against you like how cammy was allowed to dance all around you even though they weren’t a good player. This is the first and most crucial part of ‘footsies’.
Next time you’re watching momochi or any pro, try concentrating on what they do when they are walking around, see how they poke or throw out light attacks to keep the opponent guessing and afraid of moving in, see how they walk and dash around while throwing in a LOT of quick crouch blocks as they are very wary of low attacks, especially like Cammy’s spiral. Watch how they adjust their spacing to be just out of range then throw out a poke for if the opponent comes into range.
b. Work on basic combos. You need to have something solid for a jump-in attack that connects and you need to work on not finishing said combo if it is blocked (if unsafe).
You need a basic but strong punish combo at the ready for when the opponent whiffs a dp etc. You’ll also need a bnb combo that starts off light attacks.
c. other things- work on your basic Anti-air normal. Throw in more focus attack level 2 and be able to dash after crumple into ultra consistently. Block low more. Have a basic punish off a medium attack ready for eg. when cammy spiral arrow’s you and you block it.
d. It won’t take much to start beating players like that cammy. Be analytical, learn and adapt. Keep it up and always play the best players you can and get bodied as much as possible to learn the fastest . Never jump too much or rely on jumping in.
I think what happens is I start seeing all the random moves and I’m not confident enough in my poke game so I try to slow the game down some lol. But you’re right I definitely strayed from footsies in that match.
For the cody players these are my basic combos that I use (although I didn’t get a chance to land them in this video) let me know if they are decent enough:
-NJ or J-Forward HP; c. HP; HP+CU (will red focus the CU if I have meter and Ultra)
-c.LP; c.LP; c.LK; HP+CU/LP+CU (I’m still trying to learn how to connect lights into specials, I can do c.LK into a CU and 2 c.LPs into a c.LK but I can’t put it all together consistently yet)
-c.HP; HP+CU (my punish for long recovery moves)
-c.LK; LP+CU (my punish for short recovery moves)
Thanks for the advice Jazz cat I will work on my anti air’s and normal footsie game and try to improve that without worry about winning/losing for a few days.
It’s one of the few instances where someone really manages to explain how the neutral game in SF actually works, and what thoughts and considerations good players put into how they space themselves and which buttons they press.
thanks for the video Naeras it’s very informative, going to take a while to master that. However, how would you suggest to start the footsie game with someone because I typically play against those players that don’t want to footsies and are going nuts and jumping everywhere. Hard to footsie when someone is completely ignoring their side of footsie.
Anti-air them and make them pay for jumping at you. A lot of new players won’t see any reason to try to approach you on the ground if they can just jump at you for free. So, figure out which range they tend to jump at you from, and just watch your opponent lose half their health bar at jumping straight into an attack. After a couple of times they’ll be more wary of jumping at you, and try to hit you with something grounded. Observe what moves they use at this point, and use that to apply the principles above.
But, yeah, practicing actual footsies in a scenario where people aren’t even bothering playing footsies is hard, and it’s (sadly) a fairly common scenario at lower levels. In this case, just go for having a solid defense and preventing them from getting in on you, and use that to either force them to play the ground game, or to just get in on them and rush them down. They can’t just jump in at you if they’re in blockstun either =)
If you really want to practice neutral, get a practice partner at about your level. It’s gonna help a lot.
People have made good points already, but here are my thoughts after watching that.
You recognised that the Cammy player was just throwing out random stuff, this is good. That should make you feel happy though because everything she was doing was giving free punish opportunities. Blocked sweep at close range - free punish. Block heavy kick at close range - free punish. Blocked Spiral Arrow - free punish. Block Cannon Spike - free punish. Whiffed Ultra - free punish. You were a bit unlucky after the Ultra - you went for a max damage jump-in combo but it didn’t quite come off (note: jump hk is more reliable than jump hp in that kind of situation - it does a bit less damage but it’ll connect sooner). Sometimes just be content to block the Ultra, take the chip damage and punish with your own Ultra. It’s not max damage, but cr.lk xx hCU will punish absolutely everything I mentioned. Sit in training and just practise that over and over. Once you get the hang of it, cancelling from other normals will become second nature and you can finish fights like this one in much shorter order. You said you felt like you had trouble ‘getting in’ and in other posts you talked about footsies, but versus opponents like this all that becomes much less important compared to anti-airing, blocking and punishing their stupid mistakes (most of which stem from a complete lack of understanding of the way the game works!)
You can’t link anything after cr.lk (without a counter-hit) and it doesn’t chain into itself. If you want to be pressing a light button repeatedly for a confirm use cr.lp, but, as above, versus this type of opponent you’re better of being super conservative and just letting them hang themselves.
Don’t jump. Obviously you have to jump sometimes and the more comfortable with the game/matchups you get the more you’ll understand when it’s a good time to do it, but early on I think it’s good practise to try and play entire games without jumping. Cammy doesn’t have a fireball, so you could quite easily go the entire match without jumping unless you were trying jump back lp to escape Cannon Strike pressure.
Take solace in the fact that the Cammy player essentially won by masher’s luck. She KOd you during Red Focus by mashing and I’d say it’s unlikely she understood what was going on. She then KOd you with a fluke trade into Ultra, which was also the product of mashing. You may have lost the game, but I can’t imagine your opponent is over in the Cammy forums asking for advice - they probably think they’ve already mastered that character
Thanks for the advice guys, I actually won a few matches last night with Cody (2 or 3 in a row even). I was really happy about this. I definitely knew when my opponents were playing dumb and I even baited a few wake up DPs for easy punishes. Everything you guys are saying is really helping, I was worried the community might not be behind a new player like myself but you guys showed up I really appreciate that.
Figured out the Xbox360 Youtube thing, apparently you have to let the video play in slo mo to embed lol.
Here’s the video from my best match last night:
[/quote]
Pretty good stuff, especially the punish after the whiffed Ultra. I don’t know much about Cody since I’m relatively new as well, but I do know he has a bunch of unique attacks to make up for his lack of specials (I think there are a few overheads he has among other things). These moves are vital to keeping pressure on your opponents as Cody, so try them out once in a while. Also, don’t rely on jump-ins too much. As I’m sure you can see, your opponent from this video was punishing you for it with his EX shoryukens. Lastly, take advantage of Cody’s rock throw either to keep distance at lower health levels or to try to get your opponent to dodge it.
. Never jump too much or rely on jumping in.