I’ve been playing FGs since Yie ar Kung Fu, and after 27 years, I’ve decided that I am never going to be any good at them. I’m okay with it, and I still consider myself an enthusiast, but I’m never going to be anything more than a half-step above a button masher.
I’ve played damn near every fighter ever, from 2Ds like SF, GG, and MvC, to 3Ds like SC, Tekken and VF, to obscure stuff like Arcana Heart and Toshinden, to every MK game, to terrible games like Star Wars: Masters of Teras Kasi and ClayFighter, and I’m always terrible. I put a lot of practice into SSFIV (A LOT) over a period of about four months, and eventually felt comfortable going against a serious player I know: He beat me like I was a four year old.
I don’t know if it’s an issue with my reflexes, my hand-eye coordination, or what, but I just can’t compete with players who play any more than casually. Rather than deal with the extreme frustration that comes with sucking, I’ve chosen to simply watch, cheer, and stick to single-player Easy modes.
If SF4 is the first fighting game you have ever taken seriously, then 4 months is not long enough to become good at the game. It takes a long time to build up the reactions and muscle memory required for hit confirms and combos, and even more to build up understandings of the matchups and overall game flow, depending on your initial level of dexterity and reactions.
As for your previous fighting games experience…unless you seriously put time into learning how to play them, it’s all bunk. Remember, you spend most of your life breathing. Doesn’t mean you will be as good at breathing as someone who has practiced holding their breath for long periods of time.
One recommendation: If you want to get better fast, go play Super Turbo on GGPO. This game will build your fighting game fundamentals like no other, even if you only play against the CPU because it will force you to learn when and where to use moves. The hard level AI has perfect reaction times and will kick your ass until you bleed quarters, because that’s what it was designed to do in the arcades. Playing against actual people is even better.
Remember, being able to play fighting games is a skill. Like any other, it takes time and motivation to get good at. Even Justin Wong was terrible when he first started, and it took him months of playing to even get to the level where he wasn’t a button masher. As for me, it took me 6 months to stop being absolutely shit at fighters, and another 6 to get anywhere near decent. I’m still not amazing, but I have improved hugely since I first started playing. You just have to keep going, keep practicing, and keep losing, until you get better. Everyone has felt as if they were not improving at one point, but you will grow as time goes on. Don’t give up.
I know I’m not great in fighters…but I can’t be content just sitting on the sidelines at times.
I’d rather be able to say that I supported my scene by showing up and competed to tourneys…regardless of my skill.
It usually motivates me to try harder.
This may sound facetious, but maybe you’d be better if you didn’t play every single fighting game and just focused on one? Like the poster above me said, 4 months really isn’t that much time at all.
I have that feeling sometimes. I’ll get mad salty, and feel hopeless sometimes, but it’s in my blood to just think “screw it” and to play off the salt. I could give up now and never have to face such devastating losses ever again, but then I would be living with the frustration of knowing that I suck. I’d rather take some losses and level up, so then maybe, someday, somehow, I’ll never be free ever.
Screw sucking, it’s definitely possible to improve.
I feel the same way, but I still keep playing. Every time I lose, I rage a little (by myself, I dont send hate mail or anything of that sort) then I try to practice more. I may still suck but I realise that I still enjoy playing fighting games & even though I lose a lot, every time I get a win, it feels damn rewarding!
I suck at fighting games too. However I’m really good with zangief at street fighter 4 this allows me to compete at a high level with him. Very few people are good with a bunch of chars and at a bunch of games. It’s much easier to learn 1 char and 1 game.
How many hours a day during those 4 months were you practicing? I have put I’m guessing 2000 hours into sf4 over the past 2 1/2 years and I wouldnt be suprised if this is a common ammount of time for top 09er’s. My advise is just keep grinding. In time you will get good if you have the drive to win or really really hate losing.
I absolutely feel ya OP, I just plain don’t have the natural hand-eye coordination to really be top-level. I’ve accepted it and am fine with it, though that doesn’t mean I don’t still always strive to improve; even though I don’t think I’ll ever be top tier I still don’t think I’ve found my ceiling yet. I just enjoy the games and being a part of the FGC, I’m hoping I can get deeper into the streaming end of things so I can still make a solid contribution to the community despite my inability to be a major competitor.
The big hurdle is learning to not get salty as fuck at losing, losing sucks and I don’t enjoy it but I’ve tried to set my goals differently and change what I consider ‘winning’. If I lose to someone I’m clearly better than I’m upset, but if I at least stick to my fundamentals and lose to someone just because they’re better than me that rolls right off my back at this point. I try to set specific goals like ‘AA every jump-in this match’ or ‘land a full FADC combo against a live opponent’ rather than worrying about my W/L record.
I can relate, too. I think I may have hit my plateau early. Pretending SSF4 PP means anything for a second, I’m not really sure if I can get past the 1000-1500 range, and that’s on my “main” game. I’ll keep trying, but I’m not sure I can do much better.
Although if it helps, try to be more focused on being the best you can be, rather than being as good as other people.
I’ve felt the same way but I haven’t been playing that long and I’m not the type of person to just give up. I’m good at a lot of things but I wasn’t always good at these things, I practiced and learned. That being said I do have a had time with SF4 just because I can’t find a character that I like enough to want to learn, so I end up to just picking a bunch of different characters and not learning any of them. Ideally I would pick one character I like and just stick with it but I’m not able to do that SF4 for some reason.
4 months isn’t much time at all for anything. If I hand you my skateboard or bass guitar do you think 4 months would be enough to be good at it? Will 4 months of working out give you large muscles? Now focus on just one game for now, and train harder and smarter. Study the match-ups. Learn basic combos, learn difficult links. Keep a notebook and make notes of your matches. Go play people in person and when they beat you ask them how they beat you. Don’t worry about wins and losses online because they don’t mean much. With Juri on PSN I have a tad over 5,000 BP (B rank) and XBox Live about 4,600 (C+ rank), went to the Detroit Ranbats last saturday and went 0-2 But with those 2 losses I learned more about the match up between Juri&Oni and Juri&Blanka. losing is good because you will learn from losses. If you are always winning that just means you are playing people not as good as you.
If I were you, I would enter local tournaments. I know you may respond back with stuff like you don’t have a local scene, but there is probably one close. Going to local tournaments is a good way to get better. Generally they aren’t too much money to enter (at most 10 venue/10 for the game). I’ve seen cheap tournaments that had no venue fee and only $5 for the game, or $5 venue $5 entry. For the first 7 month in SFIV, I didn’t even have the game. I was laid off and unemployed, didn’t have a PS3 or XBOX and couldn’t afford one. I would go to a local, small weekly tournament in the area. And although I lost, I would think about why I lost, brain storm, and come back the next week with some new ideas. It also gets you use to playing under pressure. Trust me, if you have a local scene, I would advise making it out to small local tournaments.
I played street fighter II when it came out in the early 90s. I also had world warrior for the snes. I wasn’t very good back than, and I couldn’t do the special moves consistently. I got super street fighter iv about 1 1/2 years ago. I have about 450 hours on my save file now. I’m only about 600-700 pp with my best character. Doesn’t seem like I have gotten very far relative to the amount of time. So I kind of know what your thinking. But looking back on my practice: I went for the platinum trophy. So the first thing I did was do all the trails. This took me over 200 hours. THAN I took it to online matches. In my first 100 games I only won 5. So it looks like that ~220 hours of trial practice didn’t really help my online game very much. From there I went for the C to shining C trophy. I’m close to this now, after about another 200 hours. But switching characters after about 17-20 wins may have stunted my growth too. I spent a little time on a main - Blanka, to get tenpeat, and endless ten. After reading this thread, I think if I had spent all 450 hours with blanka in online matches and training mode, I would be better than I am. So I blame how I have played the game. At least this is my hope.
Fighting a human is not like fighting a CPU. Is similar to play chess, you must win by not just trying to outperform your opponent, your flashy combos matter nothing if you can’t land it. All is about knowing how to hit and how avoid being hit, you must enter your opponent mind, size him up and know what can work against him and what not, you can’t fight the same against every opponent nor can win every fight with a 100 chance.
My advice is stop playing the cpu and play only humans, find someone who beats you soundly and play him until you do better, even if you don’t beat him once, you will still learn a lot and when facing a lesser opponent you will crush him cause you will find more holes to punch through and he will miss chances to beat you senseless.
Don’t try to play harder, try to play smarter.
PD: Blanka is a character based in mix ups, if you are always random, you will learn nothing, try to mold your mix ups to your opponent habbits, note what he does when you knock him down and how then reacts when you try the same.
PD2: Ask yourself why did you lost certain round, If you do something often and end losing half hp when the opponent block and punish it after seeing you do it too often, then you should realize that you should either do it rarely or mix it up with something that will punish the punish.
But with those 2 losses I learned more about the match up between Juri&Oni and Juri&Blanka. losing is good because you will learn from losses. If you are always winning that just means you are playing people not as good as you.