noob trying to improve - long story/rant enclosed

[half_silver28]

I'm fairly new to anime-style fighters and obviously just signed up for this site. I've got a bunch of questions mostly relating to P4A (and BBCP, which I'll definitely be picking up when its out). Before that though, I'll give you a long-winded story that you can just ignore and skip to the numbered questions if you want.

My first fighter was classic SFII when I was like 7. I basically just spammed random things and got beat by the kid down the street. In 2002/3 I loved playing smash bros Melee and Soul Calibur 2. For years I actually did toy with getting better at them, but I could never wavedash correctly and SC2 was always a distant second. Fastforward to 2008 and I suddenly get interested in fighters again. I was in college and had no money, so I was reduced to emulated Street Fighter games on keyboard (protip: never do this). Then after college I finally got a PS3... and the fight was on. I bought MvC3 and SFAE initially, and BBCSE a bit later. I tried to get good at MvC3 as my first serious attempt at fighting: it was awful. I simply fail to wrap my head around any fighter with assists and literally do most of my damage when down to one character. That's why my purchase of Skullgirls never amounted to anything. I sold MvC3 and continue to hate it for preventing better fighters from getting more popular. I got pretty decent at SFAE, maining Cammy, but I just sort of lost interest when I started playing other games. As for CS Extend, I never really tried to get good at it, never picked a main and sold it the second I heard about CP.

My first venture into the fighting game community was for Smash Bros Brawl. Yep. I found out about the arcade near me (a freaking awesome place) and went to some Brawl tournaments there. I mained Zero Suit Samus and never did well. I'm already starting to lose interest despite a tournament being held this weekend.

And now, thanks to a recent Persona obsession in which I played P4 and P3, I'm trying to legitimately play P4A. I was trying to learn GG for a period, but I'm not sure if I want to go on with it after being embarrassed by a Jam player on a tournament stream (I played May btw, who I realize now is a horrible main for me, as I suck with charge characters). For P4A, I settled on Chie as she's a powerful character that doesn't require a whole lot of complicated knowledge or inputs to do. I am managing to go toe-to-toe with some of the better players in my region, and I did make top 8 at a tournament last week (I think I just got a favorable draw). That said there are a lot of things I think that are preventing me from getting better and taking games off of those top players. The thursday fight nights at the arcade also introduced me to Chaos Code, which is one of the most fun fighters I've ever played. I'm not that good at it though, I basically just play a basic Rui, and I don't own the game or know a lot about the system yet. If it got a US release though, I'd be ALL over it.

For right now though, P4A is my sole focus until Injustice comes out (Raven clinched it for me) and holding out for CP. I was thinking of trying out Arcana Heart 3 too.

1. yes questions, finally. Should I get a stick? Most of my input issues come from my awful mashing tendencies - I'll try to do B Skull Cracker and get B Power Charge... and you all know how much of a problem that can be. But I also can't block low at all in this game, which also explains why I can't beat Mitsuru for the life of me. I play pad, and I have to literally wrap my thumb around the joystick uncomfortably to block low reliably. I think a stick might make that easier. And of course if I do decide to get a stick, should I get a custom one, a cheap one or should I get the stick with a special edition Injustice pre-order? I should probably at least make an effort to learn to play on stick first, as I've proven almost horrifically bad the few times I've tried.

2. I'm awful at hitconfirming. Half the time I get a neutral ground hit with Chie, I panic and just go into auto-combo instead of knockdown oki like I know I should. It doesn't help that I mistime my oki so much. And hitting with anti-airs ever? forget it. My most common tactic is to just spam C and j.C and hope to get a hit. How do I get better at this?

3. Training mode - how do? I mostly tend to mostly just practice basic combos and oki in there. I know enough to actually do well, but I just panic too much and usually mess up my combos in actual matches. But the really good players as far as I can tell know EXACTLY what to do in training and go through the dummy settings like wildfire.

4. Typically whenever I get pushed into the corner and have to start blocking, I'm toast. Whenever I try to tech out I get reset, if I try to evasive action out I get hit, if I try to DP it either doesn't come out fast enough or I get baited. Mashing out usually gets me DPed or grabbed. Apparently I have to tech forward specifically, but I haven't gotten that down yet I guess. Ironically, I'm pretty good at blocking in the corner, just terrible at getting out. How do I not get rolled over?

5. I also am very bad at paying attention to my meter. It's fine if I'm playing SF or something, but for P4A I have to keep track of my burst, persona cards and SP meter. I'll often try to do a combo or super or something and then fail when I remember that I'm persona broken or don't have enough SP. Not to mention trying to burst when I don't have it ready. Is there some sort of trick to this? Also should I be using my burst more in combos or for defense? Or yellow bursting for meter?

I feel that if I can get help with even one of these, I'll get WAY better. I hope you didn't read the story before my long-winded questions. If so, respect.

[Celerity]

1. A stick isn't necessary, especially for P4A. It might be a good switch for you personally if you think it would help you play better, but most likely you're going to need an adjustment period regardless of what you use. I can't for the life of me understand why you're trying to play with analog instead of D-Pad though, D-Pads are way more accurate, especially for diagonals like you mentioned. If all you've got is an XBox 360 pad then pick up a better one, but PS2 or MadCatz pads should work fine.

IMO, best thing you can do whether you're getting used to pad or stick, is just spend 10-15 minutes every day perfecting basic inputs like: IAD, TK 2369X, 623X, 632146X (not used in P4A but still will help your execution). If you still have Guilty Gear, practice with I-No, you'll learn a lot.

2. Play more. Mashing is just a result of not understanding your options, and not committing things to muscle memory. Even good players mash when they're learning a new game. It goes away on its own.

3. Meh, there's a good guide to training mode right here, I can't add much to it. You can use a high-level COM or random guard to practice confirms.

4. Honestly this is probably a good thing. It sounds like you're playing against competent opponents. Hopefully they're friendly enough with you that you can just ask them after the match what you should've done differently, or whether you could've disrespected their pressure. Learning how to tech and burst properly IMO is the hardest thing about playing anime fighters, you're not doing anything wrong. P4A is a very momentum-heavy game as well. Just try not to get caught by the same gimmicks twice, and once you figure out their tendencies, you can start baiting DPs and resets, and turn the tables on them!

5. See #2, reading the screen at a glance is just something that comes with playing a lot, you can't practice it. And a a general rule I would say you should never burst offensively unless it's going to kill, mostly because (as you pointed out) it's so difficult to be on defense in these games.

[half_silver28]

thanks for replying!

I play with an Afterglow PS3 controller (the left analog and D-pad are switched). It's honestly served me pretty well aside from the aforementioned low blocking issue (and it doesn't destroy my thumb). I could definitely experiment at the arcade (they have sticks available to borrow), but maybe one of those fighter pads would be an option too. Probably the most infuriating thing is when I actually start to get off a combo, and then randomly Power Charge and screw it up when I SWEAR that I didn't do 236 twice.

I guess I just have to play/practice more, but I'm impatient as hell and get bored of training within minutes - I'd rather fight someone. But I also get incredibly salty when playing online and usually ragequit. It's a brutal cycle. I need to make more time to go out and play in person.

[InWithTheAshes]

Despite what Celerity said, I would recommend a stick. It's essentially just allows better, more consistent movement, and there are some characters (Arakune, Carl.) that almost require it (Or entirely require it, such as Eddie.).

Also, a problem that seems to appear during your post is that you simply switch games too often, and the reason for this seems to be that you keep getting beat. As some - one who is currently still sort - of going through this phrase, I will tell you this: As long as you are playing decent players you probably won't be winning much games while you first start out. This is the reason you play better players. To learn how to defeat them. That Jam player you were mentioning before? Learn from him. Even if he doesn't play your character, if he really does play well, he probably knows more about the game's system, May, and, within fact, fighting games in general than you do. Playing better players leads to improvement. Believe me. Was this stream online (Doubtful, even if it did occur after the most recent port.), or did he travel far to compete? If neither, especially seeing as you're looking for some offline games, then go and meet him. Ask him about a few things, and play with him. It'll probably be a learning experience.

Edited March 22, 2013 by InWithTheAshes

[nstalkie]

Cool story bro ! (naah seriously though: I like reading these stories )

The stick thing: don't expect to magically become really good overnight on stick. If you switch, give it about a month of play without going back to pad, no matter how frustrating it might be. I see you have an actual arcade near you ? Learning stick will mean you won't have to adapt much when playing on cabinets, so that would be another reason that I would say to give stick a try.

I guess I just have to play/practice more, but I'm impatient as hell and get bored of training within minutes - I'd rather fight someone. But I also get incredibly salty when playing online and usually ragequit. It's a brutal cycle. I need to make more time to go out and play in person.

This is your real problem I think. Fighting games take a LOT of your time in order to get good. I see you have tried out multiple games, which I always applaud, wish more people did that. Yet, it also seems you give up on them very soon. Ofcourse if you are not having fun with them, that's the right thing to do. It just seems you give up a bit fast. There are a few indicators for that:

- the frequent game switching

- the mashing: again, experience matters, though you can get that down by really committing things to muscle memory. The place to do this is in training mode. If you feel more confident in that you can pull off the combo, the more relaxed you'll be when executing them: the mashing will go away.

- you say you drop your combos in a real match while you can do them in training mode: comes with experience. But if I see that you also mention mashing, you may THINK you can do them in training mode, while actually you can't. Can you do them 10 times in a row without fail ? You can also try to land your combos against the cpu. it's like an "in between" training mode and actual match. It's easier to do your combos on an opponent that stands still vs an opponent that is jumping around. Anyways, being able to do combos in training mode vs in a real match is a problem for many people.

- you don't notice things on the screen like your meters / opponents meter etc... if you get more experience, you'll feel like you have more time to watch for stuff like that.

- trying to learn GG but stopping because you got blown up on a stream by a pro Jam player: EVERYBODY loses, EVERYBODY gets blown up from time to time. It just happens man, especially when playing against players that have been playing for years, while you've been playing for a couple of weeks. learning fighting games costs time.

- don't ragequit

My comments here may seem harsh, but I don't mean to be like that. I think you are probably not a bad player. So I think your conclusion is right: you just have to play and practice more. On top of that, give yourself a break: losing ain't bad ! Everybody loses. It's what you learn out of your losses that is important. You can't expect to become a godlike player overnight.

[InWithTheAshes]

Listen to this guy, he essentially did my post but better.

[half_silver28]

Thanks for all the advice guys!

Well first of all, I was never too serious about my GG play. I was basically just playing it for fun, and I probably would've gotten blown up by that player no matter which character I played. I'll probably still play it on occasion and go back to my original main, Millia. As for switching games often, that's just something that gonna happen with me. I like to play a wide variety of games, fighters included. At the moment though, I'm dedicating much of my gaming time to P4A. I suppose I should just put more effort into training mode and really get those important combos down, doing them 10 times in a row like you suggested. And definitely working on hitconfirms and blocking. And yeah, I'll definitely try borrowing a stick the next time I'm at the arcade to play. I'll probably pass on the Injustice stick and just buy one from the arcade if I really want one (it'll probably be cheaper too).

Online play is still pretty tough on me. I could probably stand to stay away from the horrid lagfest known as P4A Ranked (there are better things for me to do then try to improve that meaningless big letter next to my name), but I'm still gonna get salty. I want my opponent to be there in person to talk to, not some random guy hiding behind a screen.