I always get my ass kicked on just about every fighting game and lose a lot, except for SF2THDR. Why is this? I can’t seem to ever be good at any fighting game.
However, I have only been playing fighting games for about a year. I started with BlazBlue as my first actual fighting game (other then when I used to call SSBB a fighting game). I started playing the game seriously online and never got good at it. I’ve quit playing that game and have been mainly playing MvC 2 and SF2TDHR instead.
I seem to never be able to land any combos, and on MvC 2 I usually get hit by one combo in the start and then get a character almost killed.
Continue playing? what else can anyone say? Continue playing, practice hard and try to get better. try and see why it is your losing and learning how to get around that.
I used to think this. Actually . . . I still struggle with the feeling of not getting any better, of not being good at anything. I have friends who kick my ass just for their own amusement.
But you can’t let it get to you. You have to stay positive. That last sentence makes me a hypocrite, but still. Instead of focusing on beating your opponent, just try and focus on doing three things:
Stay calm
Stay focused
Stay optimistic
As long as you keep the above in mind, even in what seems like your darkest hour, you’ll have a clearer mind, and you’ll have a better chance at success.
Oh yeah, and practice practice practice. Practice footsies, strategies, mindgames, etc.
If you’ve only been playing for a year and you’ve been playing at least 3 different games, you might not have put a lot of time into any 1 game. Stick with those 2 games and stick to only a few characters and practice. You might even want to ditch MvC for a while and just focus on improving on SF2, but obviously you should keep playing MvC if you like it a lot.
You’ve gotta be a bit more patient, a year is like a blink of an eye when it comes to getting good at anything. Remember, a lot of people who are good have been playing for years and years, and they all started out pretty bad, I’m sure. You have to figure out what you’re doing wrong when you lose, and what you did right when you win. Getting locked on to one habit isn’t gonna help you improve your game.
What's most important is that you forget about winning, ESPECIALLY online, and make sure you're having fun first. If you can have a good time while losing, you'll just get better because you enjoy the game. If you aren't having fun, its just not your game. A good example is MvC2. I'm very vocal about how much I don't like that game, most of the time for fun, but I do understand that some people enjoy it and can be really good at it. It simply is not fun to me.
Try to find a group of people to play the game with. You might think no one is around to play with, like I did, but after mentioning my interest in fighters to a classmate, I discovered a large community of players that live no more than 10 minutes away from me, and I made a ton of new friends.
Online play is bogus. Don't even bother gauging your skill on online matches. A lot of times online, players have 3 or 4 good combos memorized, then just do them because reacting to the memorization when there's lag online will almost always be in favor of a memorized combo rather than an attempt to guard high to low, or do a counter attack (unless you mash it out).
You're doing something right if you come to this site, and feel free to ask any questions and plenty of people will provide a concise, clear answer. Go to Eventhubs.com for some basic information on the more popular fighters out now, then stick around here, other sites like sonichurricane.com, and watch tournament and casual videos to see the difference in play styles and come up with ideas for your favorite character.
Most of all, practice. Most fighters now have fairly robust training modes giving you options and information that could help you understand why something might work and why it wouldn't. A year is time enough to learn I character in one game well, but as the years go on, even if this remains a casual hobby, you'll improve. Fighters almost always last for years so you have plenty of time.
[media=youtube]yy8FDjSGmwQ#t=0m14s"[/media] But seriously, one year isn’t a very long time to be considered really good at three seperate fighting games. Pick one to get good at, and find people (preferably local) to practice with.
In my experience it’s all about the basics. Big combos and setups will get you the big damage but as you said you’ve got to land them first.
My main piece of advice is to work on your defence. Most unsuccessful players don’t block appropriately which gets them killed pretty sharpish. Practice blocking attacks and pay attention to when their offence falls off. Offence always has lulls or gaps; most combos have to end or reset somewhere. Those are the best time to change the momentum of the match and strike back (unless it’s being used to bait of course :3 )
Also, be aware of your options both when you’re knocked to the ground or knock your opponent down. You’re mainly looking at the following:
Crossups (dealt with differently depending on the crossup and character. You can just block these though by pressing forwards)
Throws (gets people who are prone to blocking on get-up. You can counter this by teching. Learning the option select is handy too)
Blocking/Backdashing (usually a bait for a reversal… if you try to reversal and they do these, you’re gonna get hurt. If you blocked, threw or backdashed yourself you’re usually safe.)
Jab / Move / Meaty (usually trying to catch you as you get up if they think you might throw or just not block in general. Blocking is the safest way to deal with these, especially jabs.)
Jump ins (usually trying to smack you in the head because they expect you to block low. Technically cross-ups are jump-ins too but I mentioned them seperately due to the difference in how you handle them. Jump-ins can be blocked standing, or usually totally countered with a wake-up reversal ala dragonpunch if you’re on the ball enough to catch them)
There’s a strong paper/rock/scissors there that’s very important to learn. There’s always the chance you know all this stuff but it’s good to repeat as often the core stuff like this is where a lot of people fall down :3
In my opinion, BlazBlue is kinda a bad start for you when entering the fighting game genre. BlazBlue leans more on getting down combos and executions down to a pinch and that’s a little harsh on people who are starting to play, but still enjoyable and a overall good game if you want to learn that stuff. If you don’t want to learn BlazBlue, I would say start playing more of HDR since you said that you get more wins on that game and it’ll teach you the basics of how to play fighting games like SFII.
Teach yourself to learn basic moves of the character that you like, this way you know what tools the character has when using basic attacks. Then move on to special moves (e.g Hadouken, Shoryuken etc.) of that character and learn how to incorporate the basic moves with the special moves to get combos (e.g. Noel’s 5Cxx BC whiff > Dash loop or a simple c.Roundhouse>Hadouken in SFII.)
Stick with one game that you like the most, and learn the character that you like the most inside and out.
I don’t have it. I can’t buy it, I’m broke. I used whatever greater portion I had left in my savings account to buy SF2THDR for 540 MS points on XBL last week.
I am trying to learn to live without a job. As I probably won’t be getting SSFIV either.
I want to learn T-Hawk. I have been using him since I started playing, because I want to bait people and f*ck them up with a 360 when they mess up. However, I wish I knew someone who was a good T-Hawk player so I can learn some stuff from him. I added this one guy, StrickenNative on XBL, but he is never online.
I’d say, learn T-Hawk by yourself, and not what others tell you. You need to learn how your play-style is before learning from others. That way, you can incorporate people’s teachings into your own game plan.
I want to learn T-Hawk. I have been using him since I started playing, because I want to bait people and f*ck them up with a 360 when they mess up. However, I wish I knew someone who was a good T-Hawk player so I can learn some stuff from him. I added this one guy, StrickenNative on XBL, but he is never online.