Realizing when you are "free"?

Newbie Saikyo Dojo
21

A few things:

The first thing is, I can relate, I’m not any good either and probably never will be.

The second thing is, the person who said that is insecure, and it’s obvious based on what they said. This community, like several others that I’ve dabbled in, is chock full of people who derive all of their self-worth from the activity they devote their time to, and it’s really quite sad. They think being better than someone at any one thing somehow gives them the right to be pricks, and it doesn’t. Criticism is all well and good, but telling someone they suck and shouldn’t try after they’ve just been smashed a billion times over is called bullying, and it’s bullshit.

The third thing is, it’s really not that big of a deal. If you’re not having fun, don’t play. If you are having fun, play. I played a ton of sports growing up as a kid and ultimately ended up dropping everything except basketball, why? Because the other sports I competed in weren’t worth it anymore. I wasn’t having fun, I wasn’t motivated, and I knew I wasn’t going to go anywhere with those things, so why continue wasting my time?

22

its the mental game. ryry has good reaction, he can read his opponets, he knows tricks and set ups that you dont notice because youre getting set up by it. the best way to get better is to play with good players who arent free. i understand what your saying and how you feel. but if you feel that you suck then you most likely will continue. remember ppl like ryry, valle etc have YEARS of experince.

23

Another thing of note: You won’t get any better if you think you are the best right? So in a way thinking that you suck will help you get better, because you will be trying to not suck. This is another thing that helps me out, whenever I get myself down about someone being better than me, I just use it as a driving force to help me improve.

24

you cant let other players discourge you either. people like O-no try to break you in because it can distract you and most likely it did.

i’ll give you an example:

theres a player named ariez who plays/played(depending on how hes feeling) fighters. he talks ALOT of shit and will try his hardest to “break” you down. he has talked shit to me all the time but when i played a long ass set with him he shut up because i was keeping up with his gen.

do most players talk shit because they hate you or they dislike you style of play? nah they do it to fuck your head up. the only way to shut him up is to play solid.

maybe you don’t like playing with ppl around watching you? put headphones on, ignore them or try to focus on the game.

25

you cant let other players discourge you either. people like O-no try to break you in because it can distract you and most likely it did.

i’ll give you an example:

theres a player named ariez who plays/played(depending on how hes feeling) fighters. he talks ALOT of shit and will try his hardest to “break” you down. he has talked shit to me all the time but when i played a long ass set with him he shut up because i was keeping up with his gen.

do most players talk shit because they hate you or they dislike you style of play? nah they do it to fuck your head up. the only way to shut him up is to play solid.

maybe you don’t like playing with ppl around watching you? put headphones on, ignore them or try to focus on the game.

26

Try asking someone better for help, or watch your own replays, find out why you lost, and don’t do that ever again.

and seriously…

No respect for the rage quit.

27

I’ll comment because I had a similiar experience, get ready for a read.

When Street Fighter IV came out I bought on release day, and was pretty excited. I had never seriously picked up a Street Fighter title, but this seemed to be revolutionary… so I thought I’d give it a shot.

The only fighting games that I ever competitively played were Super Smash Brothers Melee, and Brawl ( insert jokes here ). And let me tell you, I was pretty good. In melee I was able to hold my own versus quite a bit of people, and when brawl came out I took advantage of the online play to get ahead of all my friends. It really worked out, I was pretty much undefeatable. But let’s face it, Brawl kind of sucks. Random tripping? Really?

Anyway, the point is that I put countless hours into the game, and so I knew if I just sat down and " learned " something, I would be able to excel at it. It was the same for games like Left4Dead1/2 (PC first person shooter). I put in over 200 hours, and I was finally at the point where if I didn’t have my GF on my team to handicap our chances, my team and I would have just wiped the floor with most people.

So… let’s backtrack a little. I had bought Street Fighter IV… played it the first day I got it, worked really hard on unlocking characters, getting alternate costumes, etc, and finally got the game down. So I went online for the first time one day, and BAM.

I lost.
So I played again.
Lost again.

This went on for about 20 rounds in a row, didn’t win a single one. What the hell was going on? I knew how to do all the moves, and almost mastered the ultras, and I couldn’t get a single win in. So, I got discouraged, and kind of quit.
I knew that Street Fighter IV was still popular, and the most mainstream fighting game out there, so I still kind of followed it quite a bit, being the avid gamer that I am. EVO2k9 came around, and I sat through the whole thing on my computer. It was so exciting… even though it was a game I knew that I sucked at.

And so the news of Super Street Fighter IV came, and I got excited again. I watched the Spooky stream for about 4 days straight before the release, just so I could get a head start on things. I figured that I would main Ibuki, just because of how she was being played.

And so then came the release day… bought it, went home, slept, and then opened it up the next day. First thing I did was play arcade… ( easy mode of course ). After not being able to beat Seth, I went into training mode for a bit, then learned some of the moves. I realized that neck-breaker pretty much destroys any AI after abusing guard crush. And so I used it… used it some more, and used it even more. Just neck-breaker’d my way though all the difficultly modes where everything was free. I beat the hardest mode, I was so proud…

Then I jumped online for the first time. Ibuki players unite! First round, I jumped straight into neck breaker. It worked! Did it again… and it worked again! Mhm… it didn’t work the third time… or the fourth… or fifth… and I was getting punished because they were blocking each one.

I lost.
So I played again… and then lost again.

I kept losing. What the hell was going on? I learned the moves, I beat arcade mode in all difficulties, and still here I am again losing.

So then I ran into SRK. It was a vast information system about a game that I thought I knew everything about, and boy was I wrong. So many combos… so much new " lingo " that I had no idea about. So the learning began.
I stuck tight to the Ibuki forums, and realized that Ibuki just wasn’t working for me. Here is where our stories get similar.

I watched tutorial vids, spent countless hours practicing combos, and learned everything there was. Still I was losing online about 80% of the time, ( winning 20% only to people who probably just bought the game ). And so the discouragement was present once more. Maybe I was just bad?

And so I took a break. Kind of sucked, because I had just bought an arcade stick ( TE-S ) exclusively for Super Street Fighter IV. After a couple of weeks ( again, even though I didn’t play the game I still followed SRK and tournaments like any other avid street fighter player ) I decided to play because of some awesome inspirational things I had seen at some of the tournaments. Things like FADC ultras, and BNB combos.

Slowly… but surely, I started to get better. I learned some target combos, and I thought I was ready to face the world once more. Playing my roommate ( who is just good at fighting games in general ) my eyes were opened yet again. I was still losing 50% of the time. Me, who spent hours reading and learning all about the game, was losing to someone who just picked it up with a controller and had no idea about combo strings, or even how to do some of the more complicated ultras. How was I losing? I got discouraged yet again.

This time however, I was not going to let it get the best of me. I watched more footage, and read more about the game than I ever had before. Then I sat down for hours, learning how to link combos. I played against the computer in versus mode, this time the RIGHT way ( not abusing the same attack over and over ). The AI blocked almost all my attacks, and I got punished badly. This is finally where my eyes were open.

This game is about learning when to attack, when not to attack, and when to counter attack. Some of its muscle memory, some reflexes, and some experience. Put all of those together and you’re going to start picking up stuff that you never have. I learned how to link attacks, block when I needed to, and punish accordingly. The AI, on the hardest difficulty, had nothing on me. I was finally winning 100% of the time. Now, I know it’s just the AI and they have scripts they run off of, so I knew playing a human was going to be completely different. Here once more was my roommate… I hadn’t played him since the last time I was losing 50% of the matches.

So we played a round, and I beat him.
Then we played another round, I beat him again.

Things were so much clearer… blocking accordingly, punishing, linking moves… It all came out so naturally.

17-0 (keep in mind he likes playing in rounds of 5, instead of the normal 3). That was the final score before he had to head to work. We were both surprised. Before he left, he said something along the lines of, " If you’re going to be getting that good, you better start going to tournaments and profiting. "

I didn’t show it, but damn I was proud of myself. Someone who used to be on par with me didn’t stand a chance anymore. We played again tonight, and it came out to about 20-2, only because I was using 2 characters that I normally don’t. I’ve been jumping online and winning about 60% of my matches. That doesn’t sound like a big deal, but compared to my 0% it really is. I just need more experience with specific matchups.

SO. THE MORAL OF THE STORY AND TL;DR VERSION:

Practice. Then practice some more. When you’re done practicing, put it into play. If you find you can’t beat Daigo, then practice some more. Don’t stop practicing, ever. Sooner or later, even if it takes a whole other game to show it, you will see that you can get better. Keep a good mindset about it.

PS: What I thought was me sucking early on was fixed by a couple of other minor things like character selection and a gate change. Make sure that you’re playing with what your comfortable with.

28

Yeah, I read the long version and the TL;DR version. IMO, it was a great read. That’s how it was in the beginning for me. Got SFIV two days after it came out. Lost a load of games but of course I continued to play. I eventually started picking up the game a bit better. I did neglect SRK for some time though before I realized how amazing this place was. LOL. And also, what plays a role in getting better are the characters.

I was kinda in your spot for some months ago, chromer. I literally stopped SFIV and waited till SSFIV. Played that for a few days and stop. Why? I’m at a plateau. In fact, I’m still at a plateau. I just started playing SSFIV after EVO because I was so “hype.” The commentators commentate and gave insights about the game. Not just insights about the game but mental strategies and such as well. Honestly, I learned a lot of shit from that stream.

I’m slowly getting back into the game now. Trying to keep a good composure. I’m actually enjoying the game a bit more now that I’m slowly sharpening up my mental game. Trying to keep cool and collected. I use to play online and lose to the scrubbiest thing and would hate myself for it. Today, I decided to start playing the game again. Even if I lose to the scrubbiest thing, I just brush it off. With SSFIV’s new replay tool you can just go back and evaluate what you did wrong and what you need to work on. I mean, before Evo2k 2010. I didn’t touch SF for awhile because I had thoughts like you did. “i’m free” and all that negative shit. Now, it’s just, “Ok, I lost. Gotta go back and watch what I did wrong and work on it.”

You just gotta keep working on it. And notice what you are doing wrong. Like what others said, find out your character’s reliable normals, learn its range, etc.

Sorry for my horrible English and organization.

29

Thanks for the input guys. A little background info though: I play Balrog, Dee-Jay, Guile, Bison, and Hakan but Balrog is my go to guy. When I fight someone, I like to play a bit of zoning game with links and feints before I start with jab-Dash punches etc. However, it seems as if anyone good can see through it and proceed to rape me. Now at home I can take a loss and be fine with it but at a tournament with other people, I get nervous and mess up things I know I’d pull off usually with ease. As many of you have said, it is a mental thing I have to overcome but it just seems I’m at a plateau of no progress. I have hope however as I am now in South Korea and will be moving to Japan next year. I hope to get some practice with the Japanese and learn how they see things compared to America. I’m going to strive to learn Balrog to the best of my ability and if not, I can always pay Gootecks to help me out lol.

30

In a few words? Don’t care so much, love the game and practice a lot. If you’re not having fun everytime you play, stop playing and find something else you enjoy.

Not everyone can become Daigo. Practice alone won’t make you a genius. That philosophy doesn’t work in real life, neither will it extend to video games. You can get better of course, but there’s only so far anyone can really go with a game. Anyone who tells you different is not talking sense. The same applies to anything else… music, art, bodybuilding and so forth. Don’t give such a shit man, just enjoy yourself and when you do that your mind won’t freeze so much.

The fact that you quit halfway through a game reveals a whole load about your mental attitude. I’ve won and lost some of the best games of my life in impossible situations. The only difference was someone was willing to keep going and the other slowed down. If the game is frustrating you so much or making you feel the way you describe, quit. Find something else and enjoy your life.

31

I have a book you should read.

32

It really depends on what you consider bad play, and if that is a catalyst to why you should play or not.

…should we not play basketball at the park because we’ll never be in the NBA?

Is it not worth learning how to get better at chess just because we won’t win some international tournament?

You can always improve. Not everyone is going to be able to get to superstar status. In the grand scheme of life, yes, the great majority of us will only be mediocre at best. The guy in 24th place at Evo would have been in 1st place if the top 23 had never participated that day, but they did show up, so he’s 24. Today was not his day to be #1. That’s the nature of competition, and skill based play in general. We all have our limits, it doesn’t mean we can never improve.

33

i just played a sesh with a few sova heads using my new character. not only did i lose a few, but i learned alot from it. now i know what to learn, because i played with good players and asked questions. there was alot of shit talking and goofing around but you have to overcome things. i had the same problem once and i just learned to not care what others think of my skill level.

think to yourself:

why does person A matter? (yes he could be a beast but you cant be scared of who you play against no matter who it is)

why do i keep falling for the same thing?

maybe i should ask person A why i kept getting scraped?

if you cant play mentally, specially in a loud hostle tourney, you will get fucked up. ryry will play you like anyone else, hes not scared, but hes aware no man is “free”. you think that man wasnt nervous at evo playing against other top pros? i’m sure he was but he overcame and kept it cool.

you need to find your local gamers and communicate with them, play causals with them and i mean long sets if you can. ask questions and remember them.

34

i also like to add that you need to find your main and run with it. also play with a character that fits your playstyle. im not a big combo person, i’ve used runaway teams in marvel. i just learned sim in ssf4 and i’m happy with my choice because his style is perfect for my style of play. but if you like to rush down and do FADC and shit then find the right character thats for you.

35

i’m pretty sure that whoever that book is about, whatever he did, he did far more than just practice every day. so awesome-pirate’s right when he says practicing everyday won’t make you good. practice doesn’t make you good, power is makes you good. and if you don’t have that, then you’re gonna suck

while I don’t agree with the blatant limitations awesome-pirate seems to have set, I do agree that there are certain limits that are fixed in place. for instance, a 5’7" person can never be 5’4" or 6’1". however, they can stand on the tips of their toes and become 5’10". yet by this method, a taller person (say 5’10"?) who can do the same thing would still make them look short. 5’7" guy could crouch low enough to become 5’4", which should be easier for him than the 5’10" guy. but a 5’4" guy wouldn’t have to do anything. so it’s fact that 5’10" guy is 3 inches taller than the 5’4" one and 3 inches shorter than the 5’10" one. what ISN’T fact is that the short one will automatically be the worst basketball player and the tall one will be the best. that’s because competition is so deep, it allows for people with limitations to compete. it’s the overcoming of limitation and making yourself useful that cultivates you into a good player. you can’t just think you’re able to do ANYTHING or else you won’t be able to do shit

36

as I know all the players mentioned here i will give my 2 cents, some people are free, the people who keep saying they are free, stay free.

Here is my proof, sova went to EVO, quite a few of us in fact, some good players some not, only one that insists he is free, wants to tell us about it all the time and just straight complain, and act like he is trying to get better, but still refers to himself as free.

you know how many of us went 2 and out, only ONE!, mr free guy, you know what else, the rest of us were mostly kinda surprised how free a lot of our matches seemed, playing the high level of players is great you get better even though you think your getting worst. JUST KEEP PLAYING!

as far as people talking shit to you… you mentioned o-no and oj4 mentioned ariez, i am so glad they are part of the community because without someone lighting that fire under you… it’s hard to get the motivation to prove motherfuckers wrong.

also oj4 is right, learn the system with one character then go from there, maybe record some of your matches, i see some of my matches on you tube from a year ago and i it’s so hard to believe they are me.

and whatever you do don’t pay gootecks, thats just stupid…

37

Another SOVA player chiming in.

Lemme tell you a story.

I start playing competitively in 2005. My first game was MvC2 a game considered to have one of the hardest learning curves. Back when the mall in Virginia Beach still had an arcade, I tried to just start small and play the computer in MvC2. I didn’t own any consoles at the time, so no PSX, PS2, or DC. So all of my practice and experience was purely through the arcade and pouring tokens into machines. In the beginning I could only beat button mashers however anyone with a brain and a will could still beat me easy. So I avoided playing other people and just concentrated on playing the computer and practicing getting used to stick going into the arcade during the early morning or early afternoon when no one played.

Sadly, that arcade closed down and the machines got moved to an arcade in Chesapeake. This helped me out cause I knew a lot more folks who went to the arcade in Chesapeake instead, so it gave me more incentive to play every weekend and even spending my weekday afternoons playing. I remember running into RyRy for the first time. I thought he was solely Tekken, but soon found out the bastard plays everything. So in MvC2, RyRy was a monster but so were a few others like Teddy Perillo, SyberNinja, and Scooder. Foomyjin at the time was still M.I.A. from the scene. Although I had gotten more used to playing MvC2 and getting used to the sticks on the machines, I didn’t beat RyRy or any of them, however I unloaded a good amount of tokens each week playing the all of them. I just kept playing those guys for an entire year and a half each week not to mention all of the regulars and randoms who frequent the arcade. It’s pretty scary when you get man handled by some Spiderman/Tron player, then see them get completely wrecked by RyRy.

It took me a year after my competitive start to get a win off of Teddy(when he plays his serious teams) about another couple months I managed to beat Scooder and about two weeks after that victory I actually managed to beat RyRy. Again about a year and half is the time frame it took to get me up to their level, at the time(!), and make myself a threat to them.

Again this is an entire year and a half with no console, relying solely on the experience in the arcades to get myself better. None of us really had our own sticks, so RyRy and everyone else were winning off of arcade experience alone as well, so for the most part we were all on a level playing field.

Now there’s XBLA/PSN and sticks everywhere for relatively cheap prices. So everyone again is on a level playing field and you can pretty much practice whenever you want. You can close the gap! It may take a month, 2 months, or an entire year. It’s all apart of the journey and it is definitely possible!

38

Everyone has been mentioning how you should not consider yourself free and get some confidence, that is true, but you should also not underestimate your opponent. You said in one of your initial posts that you are losing to people that you should beat. That is wrong, you shouldn’t beat anyone, you have to go out there and prove it no matter who they are or how they play. The reason for this is because certain styles will beat other styles, sometimes having nothing to do with skill because the skill levels are equal.

This years Evo was a good example. Daigo got some favorable matchups all the way throughout. He never really had any diversity or new matchups that we hadn’t seen him win against a lot before, both going by character and player behind it. Justin Wong on the other hand went up against a lot of unorthodox styles, characters, and player styles in general that he probably didn’t encounter before. Could he have beat them given enough time? Probably, but he underestimated them and I think this shows with his character selection.

So in summary I guess my reply is that no one is free that has the fundamentals down.

39

I’m not sure what power refers to, but your assumption is wrong. He analyzises a bunch of successful people and finds out that all of them have spent a ridiculous amount of time practicing. 10,000 hours to be precise. After 10,000 hours you become a master in basically anything. There are nearly no “naturals” who become masters in less time and nearly no “born losers” who don’t become masters in this time. To put it another way: practice makes perfect.

40

There seems to only be two types of responses I can give here:
1.) "Train harder."
2.) “Quit and play something else, or just remain a casual player.”

I have mixed feelings telling someone to “train harder” after they’ve just established that they have put so much time and effort into the game and cannot seem to improve. I think at that point they’d like to hear something else, even if it’s bad. On the other hand, saying “quit” is just totally fucked up even if you feel like you’re just trying to save them time and future frustration.

At what point do people admit when someone simply isn’t good at a game no matter how hard they try? NEVER? Is there anybody here that’s under the assumption that “some people don’t think, react, or execute nearly as fast or precise as other people?” Because if you admit that even SLIGHTLY, then someone’s talents could possibly be so poor that they will never be able to go beyond a certain point once they hit that brick wall, regardless of how much they go to training mode, study moves & techniques, and gain experience in Vs Human play.

There’s either motivation or honesty in this thread.
Motivation is no doubt positive, but it can also be someone simply “trying to be nice and give hope.” Haven’t you ever seen someone play shit-awful, motivated them to keep trying and tell them what to do, and then months later see them still playing shit awful despite all they’ve done since then? What do you do? Motivate them again? What if it’s 10 years later and nothing’s changed? Do you motivate them all the way to the grave?

Honesty is just that: honest and pure, but at the same time it can be negative or forcing someone to see the sad truth. Is there anyone that considers themselves blunt enough to simply say to another player “you’ve been at this a very long time and I’ve seen you do everything you possibly can, but I gotta be honest here and say that I think you just don’t seem to have what it takes. I’m not telling you to quit playing forever, I’m just telling you play in a way that doesn’t involve beating yourself up over every loss.”? What is there’s truth to that first statement?