Super Turbo is a hard game to learn. There are plenty of resources out there to help people get started. Plenty of beginner tutorials teaching the fundamentals of ST (and other fighting games). There are also plenty of videos teaching more advanced techniques such as super cancels and charge tricks. But I found that other than a few notable text resources (Forums, and SRK Wiki) There are really no videos helping people through what I believe to be the most difficult stage of becoming a competent ST player. I’ve tried to define “competent” in words a few times, I can’t precisely enough describe my intention in words. But if you keep reading I will give an explanation of my goals (with the help of a very crudely drawn diagram) and Hopefully that will give you a sense of my definition of “competent”.
For the past couple of weeks I’ve been messing around with streaming settings trying to optimize the quality as much as I can to my crappy internet connection. Well, my internet connection isn’t crappy. Just my upload speed is. (my download speed is awesome). My UL is capped at 0.5 mbps =(. I’m going to be doing my final test today, and whether or not I’ve gotten the stream working as best as I can, I’m going to start tomorrow (at around 11:30 Eastern) and work out the kinks on the spot. (with the help of the spectators --if any-- who will watch the stream)
Now, What am I going to do on the stream? Well I’m going to cover 2 games. Super Street Fighter II Turbo and Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo. (Primarily the first). And since I don’t think any of you are interested in puzzle fighter I’ll just skip that explanation.
Now let me introduce you to the previously mentioned crude diagram:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v45/Unessential-Samurai/crudelydrawndiagram_zps75e2e764.png
Now imagine that line represents skill level, Increasing toward the right.
The left are the mass casual players who may or may not know the fundamentals of fighting games . If they do, They are not applying them well. There are plenty of these players they may just be messing around for fun, with no intention of getting better. On the other end, there are the “skilled” players. This group includes top players, as well as people who can hold their ground against top players and not get completely destroyed. And I don’t mean “completely destroyed” in the normal sense either. Normally, I would consider a FT10 set of 8-2 to be “completely destroying” and obviously that would imply that 10-0 is completely destroying as well. BUT. For the purposes of illustrating what I want to accomplish with this stream, even if you lose 10-0 to a top player, but you’ve had plenty of close rounds I’m going to put you in this group of “skilled” players. And there are a good number of these players as well. Not nearly as much as the mass of casual players.
Then there are the people in the middle. There are a large number of these people as well, but compared to the group of skilled and casual players, the group is tiny (which is why I’ve represented them with 1 stick figure). These people destroy the casual players, but can’t seem to win a match against the skilled players. Everyone is either “too skilled” or too… …“unmotivated” to help them grow as much as they can. They can still grow, and many have moved past this stage (me included) But I feel that currently, in ST. The process is much harder than it needs to be.
These people have a good grasp on the fundamentals. Knowing how to do a supercancel can certainly help their game, but They certainly don’t need it to move out of this stage. What these people need is experience and matchup knowledge. The best thing to do is to find another person (or a group of people) in the same situation and grind it out with them. (I think this is why Socal is getting so many good players popping out of nowhere this past year) and I think this will happen to France very soon too. France has a lot of players who will be entering this stage very soon. So that is my advice to them. grind it out with people at your level and then once you’ve figured out a solution find a skilled player to see if they can break your solution.
For the rest of the world, It’s hard to find people of this skill level, either because those people entered so long ago that they’re now part of the skilled players group, or they’ve also felt it’s too difficult to improve and have given up. Sure they can get match up knowledge from the forums, and Sure they can watch match videos to get their information. But Really, they need a combination of both, They need to see it in practice, see how effective it is, see the situations and the spacing, and see it used against a variety of playstyles.
Sure I can tell a ryu to just keep playing the fireball game against chun. (which I have very recently in the Ryu forums). But He might throw too many and let a chun jump in on him too much, He might be doing it from the wrong distance so chun can poke. It could work against most chuns until they come across one who does a weird pattern or bait.
So I’m making this stream to walk people through that process.
Players can ask questions (specific situaions/matchup knowledge) or Play matches on ggpo while getting live feedback (so they can try an application right away).
The most valuable information coming from me would be regarding both sides of any chun vs x (X vs chun) matches and cammy vs x (x vs cammy)matches.
where X is any character. so if you’re having trouble against chun, or are playing chun and having trouble, I’m your man.
But at the level of play I’m targeting, I believe I can also help shotos, guiles, deejays, hondas, and a little bit of boxer and claw. I’d love it if people who specialize certain characters to join me in giving advice.
TL;DR and conclusion: I’m starting an ST Q&A stream tomorrow (Tuesday April 30th) at 11:30pm Eastern. PM me with a message and your skype if you wish to help, and watch if you feel you can benefit from this stream. The link is http://www.twitch.tv/unessential/old
I would Love to do a stream every day, and will try my best to. But realistically, It will probably be closer to 1-3 times a week.
Also, If you like this idea, or want to support my dying local community here in Eastern Canada, Please donate here:
http://imraising.com/unessential/
Proceeds will go toward stream improvements and ST events both online and offline.
