Usually I go in first round and I try to see what kind of a player they are. Are they a jumper, are they really aggressive, do they throw a lot, are they defensive, etc. I try to adapt as best I can but a lot of times the first round I lose because I’m trying to figure out how they play. The second round I want to try to look out for whatever I noticed… if they jump a lot then I’ll try to look out for anti-air opportunities. If they throw a lot then I’ll throw tech more. The problem (I think) comes when they change it up in the third round because then I have to go back to adapting and figuring out what they are doing again. Since I mainly play ranked, that’s usually all the time I can get. Or sometimes a person has a set list of gimmicky things that I just don’t have the time to figure out in one ranked match session. I notice that in all the games I play, I usually do better in long sets.
I think a lot of the problem I have is when it feels like someone does something random or I just plain don’t know how to deal with the situation. Since I’m comparatively new to the game to most players… I just don’t know how to properly react to many situations or things like the ranges of some moves throw me off. Or I have a lot of moments when I’m like “REALLY?!” For example… full screen hurricane kicks or three throws in a row or random ultras or when people just mash jabs or DPs or ultras when I’ve got them in a blockstring. Nobody just blocks
I feel like I do better against players with a decent understanding of how to play over people who don’t. I still usually lose, but it’s much closer. And when I do lose to better players, I can usually identify why. When I lose to a lot of unskilled players it’s like… “Well you couldn’t have really known they were going to do that.” or something. It doesn’t help that I am a more defensive Chun-Li so players who like to really get in my face and not let me slow the tempo down cause me problems.
Edit: here is an example of a match I just lost. It was against a Vega player. He did his ex roll thing and I blocked it… then he did ultra and of course I had hit a button
Another example of a match I just lost… to a dudley. Lost the first to a wakeup ultra and the second to jump, land, ultra.
And another example… blocked the palm rush thing of gouken’s… only to eat a random ultra 2 after.
Important thing to note, online people throw out Ultras like candy on Halloween.
It is problem I share with you online. You aren’t do anything wrong they are just playing super desperate.
It makes it difficult as you said to play offensively, because I always expect some reversal to be mashed either on wakeup or during a block string etc.,
Everyone is so scared to lose online because, “OMG my superficial meaningless points!” So the lower their health gets, the more desperate they’ll get.
This is why online play is toxic and shouldn’t be taken seriously.
I don’t mean this to offend, but in my experience, even “high level” online play barely scratches the surface of low level offline/tournament play. I swear, I go to WNF a lot and play online at home, and some of the high BP/PP players I see online wouldn’t stand a chance against some of the WNF regulars. I’m not even talking about the guys who place a lot who get more exposure, even plenty of the guys who get knocked out early are very solid players.
The key difference, in my mind, when playing online is that in a single match format (rather than two out of three tourney format), there is not usually enough time to adjust to your opponent’s playstyle. In addition, a lot of times lag makes it hard, if not impossible, to play footsies. The absence of those two things makes online overly rushdown heavy and, like you said, overly YOLO-heavy.
For example, even now I am barely starting to grasp footsies because I was primarily an online player before I got serious about the local scene, and I lost a lot of matches to get to where I am, and I will lose a lot more.
If you absolutely have to play online, I would always always always err on the side of caution. Assume players are going to mash reversals on wakeup, during your blockstrings, between your 1f links, etc. Then condition yourself to maximize your punish damage when this happens. Punishment maximization is at least a skill that translates well everywhere.
I just moved down to Philly recently so I’m going to try to find whatever scene is here and try to integrate myself. Before moving, there was no other option but online for me.
The thing for me is that if you see top tournament players online… they usually have 3500-4000pp and 20000bp. They seem to be able to manage a somewhat consistent level of play online as well as offline. I would like to be able to achieve that.
Random side note: I hate fighting Chun mirrors. It seems like every Chun online just loves doing Hazanshu, Hazanshu, HazanSHUUUUUUUU!!! Meanwhile, I’m sitting there going “Really? That move really isn’t something that should be tossed out all the time like that -_-”
I dunno, I try to keep a balance between online and offline and then travel whenever I can. Offline will usually give you more honest players and your execution and decision making will be one to one (as long as your monitor setup isn’t laggy). But it does get to a point where after you’re there for a while, unless you are traveling on a regular basis (or you get people from different regions coming through all the time)… you’ll be playing the same people who are probably sticking to their mains for the most part, so playstyle and matchup experience can get stagnant if you only do it that way. Traveling and getting in as many good sets with different players is probably the best way to improve, but online is still a good way to get some different playstyle and matchup experience as well if you can’t travel that much. No matter what you do, always be making a conscious effort to get better.
What I do aside from execution practice is check for legitimacy: if someone does something questionable that works, I’ll set that same situation up in training mode and see if still works vs. the way I responded to it during the match (and if it does then I’ll see if there’s anything else I could’ve done about it and use that instead). Same thing if I myself “just tried” something that I didn’t know was going to work and it did. 'Gotta work from multiple perspectives.
-Re: your online experience: The initial approach is good (figuring out what the player has a tendency to do in the 1st round), over time that just gets better and things become easier to read… even when they start changing it up. But it’s also good to recognize if your own tendencies are either working or if you need to shift gears a little bit to get momentum. This is just as important offline as it is online. Also, if you lose, make a note of what got you killed and reflect on whether it was lucky guess on your opponent’s part or if they just took advantage of something you were doing the entire time.
-When it comes to fighting people who seem to be playing random (they could be just trying to throw an element of unpredictability into an otherwise solid gameplan… but I usually wouldn’t give them that credit until they pass my legitimacy tests above lol), learning what a character can and can’t do in a given situation will help reduce the “randomness” of what people do.
A lot of players play by feel to learn that over time, but frame data is a really good supplement to that and will help you get to that point quicker (especially with Chun in this game). Knowing the frames for key moves and practicing traps, setups and punishes in training mode will help you to learn to shutdown anything that looks even remotely abusable. Then what do they have left? They’ll actually have to think more about what they’re doing or eat damage for their troubles.
It’s not just frames though, meter, time and health will also dictate what they can and can’t do and the risk/reward of the situation. If you have a lead someone is sitting on 2 bars and/or ultra and that is the ONLY way they’re going to come back quickly… just don’t give it to them. Stay outside the range where they can use it for that purpose, keep them out and get your damage safely. Then only good reads, thinking and conditioning to open you up will get them the round (in which case they probably deserve it). Shoot, they might not even have enough time to do that if you’re playing the clock.
Yup, this will net you higher success rate overall. You’ll get more things in your favor respecting the reversal than not respecting it. Versus an unknown opponent, I usually only risk not respecting the reversal when I can afford to (i.e. it doesn’t lead to much else if I’m wrong or I really have nothing else to lose and have to make something happen).
-But this isn’t just online stuff, this is about interacting with players in general that should translate both online and offline. You said you’ll try to integrate into a local scene in Philly, so eventually you’ll start seeing the difference between legit stuff and lag tactics if you continue to play online as well as offline. Try not to let the lag tactics and issues with input delay frustrate you too much once you recognize it (because it’ll still come up sometimes even if you stick with only green bars). I usually curse about it on stream, but I’m still having fun and joking while I’m venting that way.
Playing offline is fundamentally different. Theres an entire meta-game revolving around what your opponent does when hes sitting next to you. You can listen to button presses or if theyre getting frustrated etc. Also, offline, theres no lag, and people play way more defensively/solid when they put money in. When I was at BC this was made apparent to me. I consider myself a good player, and when I used to play online I never really had problems with ranked, even against people who were rated A and above. Even when I was learning Akuma, I was beating peoples mains who were ranked A+.
But when I’m at a real tournament, things are just different, people read you more, people make less excuses because if theyre seen raging people will laugh at them.
One key point to offline play, since people pay to play (tournaments atleast) frametraps become more viable, because people are less likely to say “fuck it, im mashing” because that could end a round. The people I played at the various tournaments I’ve gone to in my time, can take full advantage of that, and you will lose a lot of health and be left in a bad situation after that. In ranked mode, I dont do frametraps as much, because even “good players” are willing to take stupid risks, and this fundamentally changes the way the game is played.
Not to mention, online players dont really do footsies at all. I dont care how many points you have, at your first tournament, you will get whiff punished a lot.
Well I went to my first live in-person FGC gathering…
I guess for the next few weeks they are just doing casuals and not a tournament. So in the end I didn’t get to play one game and plus nobody said “Hi” to me <.<;; Part of it is my fault for being shy but they all knew I was a newcomer coming for the first time (I shared it on the Facebook page and plenty of people were nice and welcomed me on there… yet nobody said anything when I showed up in person) And it seemed like the same people were hogging the same games
So downside is that I think I’ll be stuck online only for a while longer. At least until they bring back the tournament format and I’m guaranteed a least one game. Upside is that nobody there who I saw really intimidated me with their gameplay. I felt like if I keep practicing then I should be able to at least put up a decent fight and hopefully not go 0-2 in my first little tournament.
Sidenote: I don’t think I’m going to let people borrow my stick unless I’m cool with that person individually They needed an extra stick and I offered mine (1 of the three times that night someone said something to me… None of which were really conversation pieces…) so they thanked me and plugged it in. A few players later this one guy starts playing and he’s banging on my stick really hard… Then he has the nerve to turn around and tell me I need to fix my stick (the ball was unscrewing since he was turning it so harshly). I wanted to tell him that maybe he shouldn’t be so rough with it but I just smiled and nodded lol Took me a while to figure out how to fix that too when I got home
You got to take the initiative and introduce yourself. If someone else plays your character, or some other character you like, then by golly talk to him/her asap.
I know. It’s just that in my mind, I already introduced myself to them via Facebook. It would’ve been good manners IMHO for someone to just be like, “Hey you’re the guy who posted on there right?” and wham… now I’m talking with people and am part of the group.
Maybe I just think about things differently, but I would think that if you want to have your scene grow larger that you should make an effort to welcome new people. It took place on a college campus so plenty of people were walking by… what if someone started to take an interest after watching but nobody says anything to them? That’s a lost opportunity to bring in new players and expand the scene. Or offer to let some people who have been watching for a while to play. That is a way that you can bring in more female players too since there usually are some girls around with their boyfriends and many are just watching everyone else play. I dunno I’m just typing as I think now lol I guess in summary is that to me it doesn’t seem logical to want to expand your scene while not making an effort to include people and putting the pressure on newcomers to initiate things.
But that’s why I said I would go back the next time they run a tournament. That way I’ll have to get recognition and the better I do the more recognition I will get. I will admit that I tend to overthink these things… things like manners, protocol, courtesy, respect, etc are very important to me and plus I do customer service for a living so I know that a simple greeting when you see someone new walk in isn’t that difficult lol But I guess that can be my role in my local scene then… I’ll try to be the one who talks to new players and introduces them to everyone else.
Anyways on topic now! I didn’t see any Chun players there so I think I will be the only one repping her. Though I think I saw someone’s old post on the Facebook group talking about playing Chun… but I think that was at a major or something so more people probably go to those than the weekly events. The best player that I happened to see was an Ibuki though. It’s a pain in the ass but manageable so I think I can at least do better than the boxer player I saw who went 0-6 xD It seems like most of the people there play Marvel though so looks like I should pick that back up too.
Sometimes you do have to say that assure people. “Hey I’m _______ the _______ player on SRK/Facebook.” It can awkward at first, but it’s worth it. :lol:
I guess so. Regardless, I’m more determined now to practice up because I feel like I have a decent shot of doing well the next time they hold a tournament.
For instance, I’m doing my best to block/react correctly to vortices since it’s mixup characters. I still really need to judge my spacing/Kikoken use better, throw escape/not mash tech better, and to stop dropping combos.
I played a pretty long set with Warahk online yesterday. Lots of close matches but he still won most of them. He plays Sagat now instead of Guile which I thought was weird, but his Sagat is very solid.
So what do you think about these confirmed USF4 changes? How drastically will this effect Chun?
I’m fine with the 2 ultras (though it will make fights with grapplers much more difficult. But she tends to excel in those matchups so maybe it will even things out) but the red focus has me severely concerned. Seems like we are trading one kind of unblockable setup for another
At least we will see regular SBK and the new armor breaking ex Hazanshu more often, I guess…
I´m not so sure about the 2 Ultras for Chun.
Having both is nice, sure, but Ultra 2 with reduced damage is, erm…
Everytime you used it for the little bit of extra damage you think to yourself: great, for 50 points of extra damage i can`t use Ultra 1 now. (I exaggerate ofc.)
Anyone have a link to confirmations that these things will be in Ultra? I read rumors a few days ago but nothing concrete.
EDIT: Derp. It’s on the front page.
I will still use U1 only for most matchups. In the matchups I would ordinarily use U2 in, I might use both simply for the utility of having U1 as a combo extension off cr.HP xx Legs, and as a punish.
I am interested in the red focus though. It concerns me. While it does give us a use for non-EX SBK, it really just comes down to a guessing game in which using SBK puts us in a worse situation whether they focus or not. The only way I can think of to really fix this would be to adjust frame advantage for SBK when it hits… maybe to adjust pushback but then I dunno if all the hits will still combo.
I wonder how many hits Red Focus can actually absorb, or if there’s no limit.
I also wonder what the implications are of having two ultras on some really advanced option selects.
Red focus change only benefits Chun because there’s no use for it against her.
Unless U2 dmg buff is substantial I’m gonna stick with U1, especially if it becomes more consistent to juggle.
How is there no use for it? It absorbs multiple hits, and it might have unlimited absorbs (we already know it can at least absorb all five hits of Ryu’s Super - reference here). This means any of Chun’s multi-hitting attacks that we would normally use against FA (b+MK, Swedish Firecracker, Lightning Legs, EX Kikoken) don’t work.
