I’d never been interested in fighting games (Played the last mortal kombat for a while but the gameplay didn’t really grab me), but after playing ssfiv for a week with a controller and enjoying it a lot I ordered a fighstick which I’ve now owned for 2-3 weeks and have put about 20 hours into ssfiv. During that time I learned how to play ryu, throw fireballs, dragon punches etc. and then moved on to primarily using Ibuki. I can beat Arcade mode on normal(with a decent amount of losses, grappler characters drive me insane). I feel like I now understand the basic elements of fighting, can almost always get off my specials when I want to (except the forward dragon punch in tense situations for some reason), but I feel like I’ve a hit a wall when trying to beat just medium hard on arcade mode. If I encounter a character I haven’t fought before after the first few fights it’s a recipe for disaster. I’m just not sure what to learn next other than all the characters movesets. Am I at a point where need to go into training and just burn all of Ibuki’s target combos into my mind? Is it worth my time to learn what a FADC is beyond what the letters stand for right now? Practice crossovers? I’m aware of that comprehensive Ibuki book and have been using the vesper arcade youtube tutorial, but I want to know what would make the most sense for me to work on now so I don’t end up wasting my time on something that’s too advanced for me at this point.
even the best player in world can lose to bosses on the hardest difficulty in fighting games if he doesn’t know it’s pattern, i think you’re approaching it totally wrong, basing your skill progress based on what difficulty you can beat arcade mode is pretty bad. lol’ Fighting CPU’s do nothing for you, besides help you with spacing and being used as punching bags for you to do your combos on in a real time. I say you play offline with a friend, play online, and most importantly of all, go to training mode, hell, even trials mode is more helpful than arcade mode. In a year you’ll remember this, and be like “damn i sounded like a noob.” You’re welcome.
How well you do against the CPU on hardest difficult is not indicative of how good you are as a player. Tactics and mindgames do not apply to the CPU as they literally read your inputs and can always do the right answer.
There are no footsies, no spacing and no though to using any buttons, it simple reads your inputs. You cannot do unsafe blockstring becayse there is always going to be an invincible special, super or even Ultra between them. You cannot do frame traps or throw mixups. You cannot do ambiguous crossups either. You cannot even properly practice anti-airs. The only thing playing against the CPU is good for, is how to punish unsafe attacks, and practicing combos against a moving opponent. The CPU does not mixups, has no pressure game, it simply reads the inputs.
Best way to improve is play real opponent, yes you’ll get bodied hard in the beginning, however it atleast gives you experience. Watch some good Ibuki players such as Sako and Pugera for example. See how the play and go from there and apply the things you can do. Don’t have to go for highjump cancel combos or 1 frame links either.
If you’re truly wanting to improve I’d suggest completely abandoning arcade mode and focusing completely on the trials, training mode and online endless lobbies where you can both watch and play other people. I’m not going to lie, it will be a long and painful learning process. However, you will be a FAR better player if you go this route now instead of putting it off and having to unlearn all of the bad habits and “skills” playing arcade mode teaches you.
Also, this series (while occasionally long-winded) is one of the best “tutorials” for newer players trying to improve their game:
Thanks for all the advice. I’ve been doing the trials for some of the characters to practice combos and see who I might like playing as other than Ibuki. As far as my online experience… well lets just say I haven’t won a match yet ha. Playing endless usually results in closer matches than ranked, but everyone online seems like they’ve been playing a lot longer than I have, I get completely wrecked far more often that I have close matches (I play on PC). As far as offline play my only friends relatively interested in fighting games don’t like getting their ass kicked by me in street fighter and would generally rather play BlazBlue or Guilty Gear because if you just mash buttons and do quarter circle movements cool looking anime stuff will happen and since I’ve only invested a couple hours into each of those games they have a much better chance at winning. Also just as a random aside, I recently bought Skull Girls during the holiday sale and the tutorial in that game is really nice especially for people who aren’t aware of resources like this forum. It just does a nice job at getting across basic concepts like executing and defending against mix ups etc.
Dude, u have just played for 20 hrs. So don’t expect too much. Many of us have several years or hundreds of hours invested in sfiv already. Just take it slow n learn along the way
Don’t let losses discourage you. The losing in fighting games never stops. Good players just lose less is all. So long as you have fun it’s all right.
As always in street fighter; only jump when you’re sure it’s a good idea to do so. Also make sure you learn what your character’s best anti-air moves are. Properly anti-airing your opponent will keep you from taking a lot of damage.
Play online, make friends, join endlesses. Talking to my opponents and making friends (or rivals) out of them has been one of the most helpful things for me; the pros don’t learn it all at home alone.
Important, personal word of advice: as you learn, certain characters and their respective playstyles (Dhalsim, Sagat, Shotos, Zangeif in my case) will seem incredibly overpowered and difficult to overcome. The best thing you can do in this sort of situation is to research the matchup on the SRK boards and by watching matches of skilled players using your character against the character(s) that’s giving you trouble. This game is pretty well balanced, and most any matchup can be overcome, although it might not seem that way initially. Have fun and don’t get discouraged; the game can be kind of difficult to get into for people who didn’t grow up on fighting games.
I hate Zangief with a burning passion, Shotos are are at least fun to fight and since I seem to fight a lot of them online I’ve become at least adequate at blocking their mixups. Zangief on the other hand I just seem to have to poke and shuriken to death so as not to get grabbed and beat into the ground. Jump ins are definitely something I still don’t fully understand, I know lots of characters have mix ups that rely on them but whenever my feet leave the ground in an online match I get brutally punished for it. The main thing that keeps me going with a game like this is that when I lose i never feel cheated, it’s because I messed up in somehow, reminds me of playing Dark Souls in a way.
I suggest learning Ibuki’s safejumps: jumping in on the wakeup of your opponent is one of her main maneuvers (from what I can tell). Good Ibukis are always able to crush me by mixing me up and keeping me guessing as to which side they’ll land on.
Also, what exactly do you mean by “brutally punished” for jumping? Depending on the situation, there may be something you could do to improve your use of jumping (or refrain from jumping completely, in some instances).
I think I just need to work on my spacing and timing of my jumps. I just get constantly anti-aired whenever I try to jump in. Jumping in during a wake up seems to always result in a shoryuken taking me out before i can connect. Same thing happens whenever I try to use Ibuki’s backwards dragonpunch +kick where she jumps in the air, kicks the opponent in the face a couple times, and then jumps back away. I’ll admit i haven’t put much time into practicing cross ups yet so maybe I just need to start working those in more often so it’s not so so obvious what I’m trying to do.
Learning your safe jump setups will help a lot. You don’t need a lot of them right off the bat.
Ibuki gets an easy one from EX neckbreaker. Just use the MK command dash as soon as you hit the ground and jump in with LK.
From a regular neckbreaker you can do a Forward LK when you land then jump and throw a kunai.
The best thing is you know where you’re going wrong and that makes the problems a lot easier to address.
I would stay out of the air unless you knock them down first or you jump a fireball ect.
Also I don’t think that jumpy kick move is very good to use in any situation. (An actual Ibuki player might say different.)
SkullGirls’ tutorial mode is a great place to go. Just remember that there is not easy way into fighting games. It takes a lot of time and a lot of devotion. Thats part of the fun. Its also best to play with other people as opposed to CPUs if possible.