In a Third Strike lobby yesterday I was talking with several people and one skilled opponent mentioned that he rarely used replays. This made me wonder how important replays actually are in improving…
How many matches should one play before watching replays of their previous matches?
Watching top players is usually recommended, yet what is the ratio between watching your own and a high-level player?
You wanna cut down the time you need in order to get better thus want to maximize your training efficiency and thus I believe watching replays can actually help you with that.
Why not take advantage of that?
In my opinion watching pro replays is just for entertainment unless you compete with them.
Sure you learn a thing here and there but the way they play usually does not even resemble your own and your opponents gameplay.
You’re better off watching your own replays and figuring out how people beat you and how you beat yourself.
Really important! Super important.
Watching replays, you can see what mistakes you’re making, or what you could be doing better.
Focus on fixing your mistakes and then you don’t make them anymore, which means the other guy has less and less opportunities.
Establishing a feedback loop by playing, then watching replays and correcting mistakes, then playing, then watching replays, etc., etc. is, IMO, the quickest way to get better, even dangerous.
Well, “quick” is relative… but, being able to slow down/stop/rewind parts of the match, you can catch things where you wouldn’t have in the heat of the moment. If you never stopped and looked back at what happened (i.e. you’re just playing, like what used to happen in the arcades) you might get hit by something 20 times before you realize you’ve been had. Or maybe you’ll never realize it at all!
Really, looking at replays is just a way of compressing experience. Instead of learning down the line that “oh he is hitting me this way”, you can figure it out that day. Just like frame data, guides, videos, etc. are meant to compress experience. You can do it the “hard way” and not use any of these resources, and you’ll have a lot of experience, but it will take you a lot of time.
The great thing is that watching replays to improve works for any game! As long as you have a record function or some equipment…
Ideally you should analyze every loss you have. (A win means “you were correct” so you don’t need to analyze those, unless you’re some sort of perfectimasochist.)
In practice, well, I usually get bored. Looking at one fight carefully, looking at frame data, testing things in the lab, etc. means you’re not “actively playing and having fun”. you know, everyone else is enjoying recess on the playground, and you’re in study hall.
So, it depends on how determined I am.
Generally I’ll set some sort of artificial limit, like “analyze after 5 losses”, or “analyze after page 1 of the replay queue is filled”.
But I know that every time I go without analyzing my losses, any further losses I have from that point (because I decided to “just play”) are my fault entirely, since I’m not focusing on cleaning up my game, I’m just playing.
Well, you can copy maneuvers and techniques from top players. But, watching them doesn’t help you clean up your own mistakes.
If you’ve run out of things to reverse engineer from those players, it doesn’t make sense to watch them anymore (except for fun).
since you brought up third strike
If you are talking third strike specific, don’t watch replays that came from online play. their utility is pretty limited. you’re going to get a lot more bang for your buck following the third strike match vids thread in the 3S subforum, which is where current Japanese footage is posted every week. if you’re playing an offline set or in a local tournament, the footage may be more useful to you. but it only becomes useful to you when you have an understanding of what should be happening.
in third strike game knowledge is the most important thing. you’re going to gain knowledge mostly by watching better players than you, talking to better players than you, and playing as much as you can in the best environments you have available to you (IOW offline is preferable). it does you no good to watch yourself get destroyed in oki situations and think “next time I shouldn’t get destroyed” when you don’t understand what the available options are. game knowledge and decision making are intertwined.
I think you should ignore the advice about watching pro players only being for entertainment. really horrible advice IMO. watching great players is an excellent way to understand the gameflow, available options at any given time, and possible solutions to difficult situations. you only stunt your growth by not taking advantage of that resource.
Replay is really just for ego or entertainment. When you play and you lose to something, that shit gets burned in your head. I played a guy in xanadu like 4 - 5 years ago, he was bison and he raped my ryu and then told me I was not a scrub, I will never forget that fight. I went home and instead of watching a replay, I went to training mode and found the counter to everything he beat me with. Record and replay options are the the most important parts of training. You can watch replays all day, but until you experience whats happening, it won’t stay. Pros have scars, scars that they trained to heal, go get your scars and practice the counters…
it all depends on your mindset. I f you can"t be honest with yourself, then watching replays won’t help because you will just lie about what you see and still blame the others for your losses.