I’m sure I am not the only person who gets taken down by this but there are many many button mashers out there in any fighting game and I lose to nearly all of em even though I know what i’m doing they always seem to hit me and get lucky and do something huge. So what’s your tips and strategies against button mashers and spammers in any game? including Naruto ultimate ninja storm generations,street fighter x tekken and persona 4 arena because I get smashed by button mashers and spammers in those 
- Step the F*ck Back
- Slow the F*ck Down
- Block and punish in the most repetitive boring way possible to make a point to them that they need to stop mashing.
- Throws are good.
- Don’t get cocky.
- No flashy bullshit. It won’t work and you’ll just get angrier and lose more.
- In the nicest way possible; if you lose every time, they aren’t “getting lucky”. Mashers are ALWAYS an easy kill. Learn to learn.
Hope this helps sir.
You’re beyond help as long as you believe that that bolded statement is true. You have to start by being honest enough with yourself to realize that losing to button mashers means that you don’t know what you are doing.
btw, if possible don’t use the word spam, it makes you sound like a scrub.
No such thing as a spammer. Just bad losing.
But punish them ridiculously. Then punish them some more.
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block and punish
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FYI “spammer” is a scrub term. If someone is only doing one move repeatedly, it should be easy to counter.
If you are losing to button mashers and “spammers” then you are not near of knowing what the hell are you doing
take it slowly
watch your opponent on What they usually do and then counter accordingly
patience is key
If you are being hit by the same move over and over again, then it means you are doing something wrong that allows you to get hit by the same move over and over again.
No way man. It’s the other guy’s fault for doing the same broken move over and over again. If he really knew how to play, then he’d do different things all the time, because that’s what the mark of a good player is. Doing different things, not just winning. It’s obvious this guy’s opponent just doesn’t have any honor, and refuses to play the right way.
Read these:
http://sonichurricane.com/?page_id=1702
After that, start watching high level matches of whatever games you play and try to reconcile what they are doing with what you just read. You can search for top 8 of any recent tournament as a good starting point and branch out from there. While watching those videos think about what they’re doing and and why they’re doing it, what it is meant to deal with, etc. And then think how you can apply similar ideas to your own gameplay.
There is also a thread in this forum meant for new players to post videos of themselves playing and ask for feedback from more experienced players. If you have the means you should certainly take advantage of it. What everyone has said so far to you has been general advice, but post footage of yourself and you’re likely to get more specific stuff.
As an overarching guiding principle, work on the assumption that you are a bad player and that you lose to bad players because of that. There are no honor points for not mashing and spamming, there are only people who win and people who lose. Every loss you take to a player you think is bad is feedback that you have to improve. Never blame the other player’s decision-making, the other player’s character, or the online connection for your losses. Place the blame squarely on yourself. That is the correct mindset for personal improvement.
Everyone has already pointed out to you that if you are losing to spammers or mashers you don’t actually know what you’re doing. I’ll add one thing to that - bad players often do not know whether someone is actually spamming or mashing. If someone is throwing fireballs at you with Ryu and preventing you from jumping over them with anti airs, he’s not spamming. He’s playing his character correctly and exposing your inability to deal with his attacks. If a Chun player keeps poking at you with good buttons and you can’t do anything about it, he’s playing it correctly and exposing that you have a weak ground game. this pattern goes onward the same way for any fighting game or character.
The same is true for mashing - there are some situations that are going to look like mashing to you but it’s only because you don’t know enough about the game yet. If you have loose blockstrings and you’re getting knocked out of them, if you’re throwing out moves that are punishable on block and they are getting punished with a reversal, if you are trying to walk forward without having earned that space and keep walking into the same normals, those players are not mashing, they are punishing your bad play.
As you get better you will be able to better perceive when players are actually mashing or spamming thoughtlessly, and you are not going to have difficulty breaking those players down. Until then please take the advice in this thread as the gospel truth. I’m sure it is not what you expected to hear, but accepting it will be your first step towards actually playing well.
would these tactics be used against people who have no clue what their doing and just go nuts on the pad and press everything repeatidly ? do i step back and wait till i can punish ?
Maybe you don’t have enough of a grasp on the game and the characters you are fighting. Do you know everything they are capable of, or do you only know about your character?
They’re able to do a lot more than you imagined or expected. Maybe its too much for you to handle so you place the blame on “they’re just doing anything.” When its true that you can’t handle what they’re doing, you’re admitting that yourself. Go ahead and pick their character and press every button like you think they are and see how far you get.
So eventually by pressing everything they’re going to do something very risky (going for something huge) and leave themselves wide open. You have to have that patience to dumb down your own game then and just block and wait for that big opening. Or stay the hell away from them and make them run into all of your fireballs and projectiles. Spam that spammer, huh!
I always thought spam was a dumb ass term. Why the fuck would I stop doing something that you are not punishing. Nowadays when someone says the term, I purposely do the same combo for the rest of the matches because it is fucking retarded.
Also if you are losing to button mashers, get off of autopilot techniques, only do true blockstrings, and stop pressing buttons.
It’s a start. I think you need to respect your opponents a bit more. They may be jumping all over the place but it sounds like they’re winning. It’s very easy to pick out a bad player, but if you’re losing to them, something’s definitely up at your end too.
If you deem someone a bad player, the first step is to identify what’s bad about them:
*Are they repeatedly jumping in? Or are they crossing you up? Are the hits landing? Are you blocking at the right level or at the right time?
*Are they “spamming” fireballs? Or are they Zoning you out? Or are they baiting you into jump-ins?
*Are they “mashing” low kicks and punches and sweeps repeatedly? Or have they identified you as a bad player who’s not adapting, so they know their low attacks are going to keep landing?
*Are they dragon punching you out of the sky over and over again? Why are you still jumping?
*Most unlikely option - Are they actually a 4 year old that’s just leaning on all the buttons? Because if they are, what are you doing to lose!? Are you blocking at all? Do you lower yourself to their standard and mash back? Are you trying to get cocky and put in parrys and combos and specials? Because that’s not going to work; those are things to play against people that are making deliberate decisions, who are going to actually care. Block and punish really should be all you need. Do you practice footsies?
Some reading material: http://sonichurricane.com/?page_id=1702
IglooBob already posted it, but I think you missed it. It’s really important.
I don’t play any of the games you mention, but the problem may be your mindset and your approach in general. You seem to think you’re above them because they use scrub tactics, but you have to beat those tactics if you want to level up further. So I think you need to take every opponent seriously and not get mindfucked by randomness. It’s easy to get annoyed when people are quote on quote «spamming», but really you can’t expect people to play a certain way, you have to get out of your comfort zone and expect anything.
Well, it’s easier to punish moves on whiff
Just back off out of range, if they go wild, then you can punish any whiffed moves
Though…there are moves that are really good and seem like they can’t be stopped!
I looked up this crazy person’s video again to illustrate that blocking is very important.
I came across my own insightful video -while looking at this thread and other videos- on exactly how to fight a spammer/button presser because you already know what he is going to do, he wants to press buttons. You can use that against him.
He doesn’t want to block. Blocking is a very important move in fighting games. It is the starting point of your whole defense after all!
If they spam uppercut, block.
If they spam normals, uppercut.
I think that the OP also needs to read this
Someone doing random stuff should be very easy to beat. You can step outside their range and then punish when they whiff something unsafe. You can anti air if they jump. You can chuck plasma at them and force them to play your game.
Remember that when you punish something like a whiffed unsafe move or a blocked uppercut, you should always aim for the max damage viable punish. It maximizes your chances of winning and also deals a psychological blow. Many bad players will start off going nuts but when you punish them for 30-40% of their life a couple times they’re going to calm down.
I’m not huge into SFxT but from what I’ve seen and played, putting together big damage punishes should not be difficult.