Getting into Fighting Games

[Xenesis13]

Hi all,

Newbie here, having a bit of trouble learning fighting games so I thought maybe I'd stop trying to struggle through everything on my own and ask a question or two of people who actually know what they're doing.

So obligatory brief self-introduction- Only fighting game I ever played before January of this year was Dragonball Z Budokai 3. I was decent, could beat my friends, but looking back I mostly just mashed buttons. I got fairly into competitive gaming last year which eventually lead me to fighting games early this year. I started with DOA5 and SF4. I like DoA but I can't seem to get my head around 3d fighters. SF4 I really enjoyed which lead me to Darkstalkers and Skullgirls.

In my wanderings on the net I had heard of Blazblue a little bit and decided to pick up CT for like $5 for my PSP. I really loved the art and character designs, even though the psp d-pad made it kind of tough, so recently I got CS (not extend, apparently i need to go shopping again :P). As with CT I've chosen to main Noel, cuz I like her. I did all the tutorials and did her first 3 challenges (and the 1st combo of the 4th challenge ( was crazy, pretty happy I finally got it)) along with playing through her arcade (on the easiest difficulty >.<).

So anyway, I'm a little overwhelmed by some of this fighting game craziness:

So it seems this game is a lot about combos, challenge 4 was tough but I think it was like 10 moves tops... People seem to throw around 20 move combos like they're nothing around here, I looked up Noel's combos and.... wow... I didn't count but it looks like 60+ different combos, granted there's some overlap but... damn. So do I need to memorize all that to be competent?

At the moment I really just dash around avoiding stuff and then jump in and try to follow the chain revolver combo ( D>A>B>C>D ) but there's just so much stuff I don't know how to react to. I don't know how to get to the point where I really think about the game like a fighting game player, rather than just seeing it as a 2player platformer where you can punch and kick.

I suppose mostly I'm just having trouble with the difficulty curve of the whole thing, it seems like once you know what the buttons do the next step is to be chaining 20 move combos into each other in the air and knowing how to do it different for each character. Perhaps a little guidance on the in-between would be helpful :D

Thanks for listening to me ramble, and hopefully this is the right place for this thread. I usually just lurk forums, but I'm enjoying learning what little I've managed to learn about fighting games and Blazblue in particular so I thought I'd reach out to you guys and see what help or advice you can provide.

[Celerity]

Hi,

Good post, it seems like you already kind of understand what's up. The "just another action game" mentality can be difficult to break at first, especially if you play a lot of other games like shooters and beat-em-ups. The main difference is, in BlazBlue, you're eventually fighting against other humans and you can (and should) be blocking or otherwise trying to counter their attacks. Right now, you're probably pressing too many buttons. Start blocking a lot more, even against the AI, and punish them with a combo when they perform big moves with a lot of recovery. Pay attention every time you press a button and get hit, and train yourself to only use an attack when it has a purpose.

As for combos, yeah, BlazBlue has the longest combos. I guess you could consider learning a character's combos to be a part of their learning curve, but at your level it's definitely not necessary to know everything. Try sticking with a few simple BnB (bread & butter) combos that work on everyone. You don't need to optimize your combos right now, it's more important for you to learn general gameplay, but converting some damage from your hits is still important. Figure out what moves you're confirming from most frequently and learn two easy combos for each: one for midscreen and one for the corner. The Noel Wiki page actually has some of these simple BnBs listed if you're overwhelmed by the combo thread.

Finally, I don't know if you've already checked it out or not, but Persona 4 Arena is a very good entry-level ArcSys fighter with easier combos and fewer moves/characters in general, so it's a little less overwhelming. However, if you really like the BlazBlue characters/story/etc. you should definitely stick with it. It's nothing you can't handle with a little practice. Good luck!

[Kikirin]

Gonna tackle the combo-learning front.

A few helpful reads:

http://shoryuken.com/2011/11/29/six-psychological-tips-to-help-you-level-up-your-game-faster-part-1/

http://shoryuken.com/2011/12/22/six-psychological-tips-to-help-you-level-up-your-game-faster-part-2/

http://shoryuken.com/2012/01/16/six-psychological-tips-to-help-you-level-up-your-game-faster-part-3/

For combos in particular, the idea of "chunking" is particularly valuable. Rather than thinking of combos as consisting of "20 different moves" you can think of them more as "multiple strings of moves done one after another."

As an analogy, looking at the sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog", you probably don't look at it thinking that it is made with 26 different letters. Rather, you process it as words (a sequence of letters) and phrases (a sequence of words). Combos are similarly made of sequences of moves, multiple of which make the entire combo. Repetition will help you with this as you get more familiar with particular sequences.

Assuming you're on CS2, here's an example using (the first part of) Challenge 4 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kB2QgtBFx6k:

Combo: 5a > 5a > 6a > 6c > jump > j.b > j.c > j.b > double jump > j.b > j.236c

I see this as three chunks:

5a > 5a > 6a > 6c - ground launching string

jump > j.b > j.c > j.b - air string (part 1)

double jump > j.b > j.236c - air string finisher

Practicing the first chunk is straightforward, as it starts with both characters on the ground. To practice the other two, you have to do them on an airborne opponent. You can simplify the transition to them by simply doing 6a > jump > (air chunk). The second and third chunks can be melded together into one larger chunk when they become second-nature with repetition.

When it comes to learning new ones, you can similarly break down new combos into such chunks and practice each one separately. Some chunks may be trickier to set up for practice than others, but there are usually simplified ways to get to them. As you become more familiar with Noel (or any other character), you'll start noticing particular chunks (or variations of it) being reused across combos. From there, it's a matter of recognizing which situations allow particular chunks to connect.

Hope this helps!

Edited April 26, 2013 by Kikirin

[Airk]

Welcome.

As you say, this stuff tends to escalate from "this seems simple enough" to OMGWTFISGOINGON!? awfully quickly. Here are some things that might help you along.

#1: Don't let the huge pile of combos intimidate you; Learn one or two and then just play the game. Eventually you'll start thinking "I really wish I had a combo I could do off a throw" or something, at which point you can go learn another one.

#2: Unfortunately, combos ARE important, so you WILL have to learn one or two. Start with whatever you can manage in Challenge mode. Do it once in challenge mode, then write it down and take it to training mode until you can do it at least 3 times in a row. (You'll want to strive for more later, but 3 times means you at least have a fair chance of making it happen in a match). Then try to use that combo against the AI to get comfortable with it, or skip right ahead to trying to use it on people.

#3: You'll need to understand the concept of 'punishing' - which is not necessarily obvious if you've never played a fighting game before. You'll notice that when you block something, there's a period of time where you can't do anything afterwards. This is called "block stun." You'll also notice that moves don't immediately stop "Happening" when they make contact with an opponent - moves have recovery, which, at this stage, is probably just best thought of as "the stuff that happens after the move is blocked or hits." For different moves, the amount of blockstun they cause may be more or (generally more often) less than the amount of recovery they have. So to take an obvious move, if Ragna performs an Inferno Divider, and you block it, he'll go flying up into the air, then come down, land, and stand there for a moment unable to do anything. All that time is the recovery, while you are only in block stun for a relatively short period of time. This means that as Ragna comes down and lands, he is wearing a sign that says "kick me". and you should. An important part of developing in fighting games is figuring out what moves you can punish, and how.

#4: Blocking is important. It's what lets you punish things. You probably won't be very good at it at first, but holding downback can go a long way. The game has a convenient feedback system that tells you, when you get hit, WHY you got hit. When you get hit while trying to block, there will be a little exclamation point - a yellow one means you were blocking high (holding back instead of downback) and the attack hit you low, a red one means you were blocking low and the attack hit you high (most jump attacks and some special grounded attacks must be blocked high.), and a light blue one means you were in the air and tried to block an attack that must be barrier-blocked (Back +AB) in the air...without using barrier.

#5: There's a TON and a half of good information on the Dustloop Wiki. Don't worry too much about the numbers, but the system explanations have a bunch of good stuff, and most of the character pages have good explanations of what that character's moves are good for.

#6: Play, and ask lots of questions. If there's something you don't understand, we can probably help.

[mAc Chaos]

Punishing is a simple concept if you played any FPS or RTS games. In both of those games, every weapon has a cooldown after it attacks. For instance let's say you play Halo and someone fires a rocket at you and misses. You have until the next time they can fire the rocket to get a free shot at them. Or in Starcraft, units have cooldown rates between their attacks. In fighting games it's the same thing. Attacks have certain recoveries, and if an opponent's attack recovery is very long you can hit them with an attack of your own before they are able to respond. The same goes with your own attacks, you don't want to throw out slow recovery moves very often since they are risky.

[Ctrlaltwtf]

The basic fundamental of blocking in this game is designed around using downback, and switching to regular block when necessary to block Highs. The vast majority of Lows are very fast while Highs are usually quite slow and risky. This is intentional. Once you master this you'll suddenly realize blocking has become much much easier. For instance Ragna only has two moves from the ground that hit High: 6B and Gauntlet Hades, which are both rather slow. Gauntlet Hades is also punishable on block. Knowing this, you can get used to just using downback as your default block, and switching to standing block when you see 6B or Gauntlet Hades. You might think this makes blocking way too easy, but that's why Throws are in the game.

Also, you'll find that those "60+ combos" are really more like small variations of the same thing over and over again simply placed into different situations. It's definitely not necessary to remind every single tiny little variation.

Edited April 26, 2013 by Ctrlaltwtf

[Xenesis13]

Oh wow, a lot of great links and info here, and so soon :D

First off I had a vague idea about punishes from street fighter, but I thought high attacks were waaay more prevalent than they apparently actually are. I would kind of randomly guess stand or crouch block and get punched long before I could think about using a punish myself. Perhaps some kind of drill where I only attack the ai immediately after a block would help with that.

Additionally I like the 2 combos idea better than 60 haha. Particularly once they're broken down further. I guess I'll pick out a couple from the wiki page (thanks for that, its much less terrifying than the combo thread) that look doable and start practicing. As for when to combo, I can do it to punish, but does going on offense get into hit confirming? At the moment I just kind of start "comboing" as soon as I'm in range of the bad guy. The 5a 5a from challenge 4 looks kind of like a hit confirm, but my brain works nowhere near that speed lol. Should I just focus on punishing and worry about developing light speed reactions later?

I have seen P4A, surprised to hear its *less* complex. I might pick it up just to play with, but I really like Blazblue, and with CP coming out someday, my hope is to be familiar enough with Blazblue by that point that I can kind of jump in on release.

Thanks so much everyone for all the responses, kind of makes me feel dumb for not just asking sooner, but I had to beat my head against the wall at least a little. :P

[Airk]

First off I had a vague idea about punishes from street fighter, but I thought high attacks were waaay more prevalent than they apparently actually are. I would kind of randomly guess stand or crouch block and get punched long before I could think about using a punish myself. Perhaps some kind of drill where I only attack the ai immediately after a block would help with that.

Yeah, there's not really very many - characters generally have between 1 and 3 (excluding jump attacks.) so learning which attacks are which is important. You can DEFINITELY practice defense against the AI - at least in terms of learning to block certain moves, though I'd suggest just going into training mode and setting the AI to 100. (or at least, to as high as you can manage.)

Additionally I like the 2 combos idea better than 60 haha. Particularly once they're broken down further. I guess I'll pick out a couple from the wiki page (thanks for that, its much less terrifying than the combo thread) that look doable and start practicing.

Sounds like a plan.

As for when to combo, I can do it to punish, but does going on offense get into hit confirming? At the moment I just kind of start "comboing" as soon as I'm in range of the bad guy.

This is pretty much what you're going to be doing as a newbie; It's not the RIGHT way to play, but when you're new, you really don't have things together to the point where you can do things "right". That said, you should still TRY not to just auto-launch yourself into a combo, especially if you see your opponent is blocking.

The 5a 5a from challenge 4 looks kind of like a hit confirm, but my brain works nowhere near that speed lol. Should I just focus on punishing and worry about developing light speed reactions later?

Yup. Pretty much. Just keep in mind, if possible, what you shouldn't do.

Thanks so much everyone for all the responses, kind of makes me feel dumb for not just asking sooner, but I had to beat my head against the wall at least a little. :P

Eh, sometimes it's good to figure some stuff out for yourself too.

[Ctrlaltwtf]

Hit confirming will come with repetition and practice. Just comboing near someone is not necessarily a bad thing, because it puts them under pressure (this is called a block string). Begin consciously adding Lows and Highs to your block strings to increase your chances of landing an actual hit.

Highs are a big part of the game, but they're intentionally slow and rare. Look at Ragna's 6B for instance. He can still cancel into other attacks from it, so it's perfectly safe and he can just use it during his pressure. However, he can only gatling (cancel into) it from 5A, 2A, or 2B. None of those attacks have very much blockstun at all (the amount of time the opponent can't move after blocking a hit). This intentionally forces him to have a gap in his pressure (a frame gap) if he wants to use his High-hitting 6B, which is generally more likely to hit than a Low. This makes him vulnerable while he's preparing his 6B (6B's "start-up").

This are some common terms you'll see a lot on here.

As for punishing, I can give no better example than Ragna's C-Inferno Divider (623C). If you successfully block it, he's punishable for a long time afterwards during C-Inferno Divider's recovery (the time it takes after performing a move until you are able to move/block again.)

Edited April 26, 2013 by Ctrlaltwtf

[crimsonstardust]

Well on the topic of combos, this is generally what I tell people that are struggling with understanding how to play a fighting game. Yes combos play a big part of fighting games generally, but your combos should be an extension of your footsies/neutral game. What I mean by this, as already mentioned better by a few people already, but to add my 2 cents into the discussion, so this involves things like hit confirming on a stray/whiffed move and turning it into some kind of damage.

My recommendation for combos (on top of what other people have said) is to try and practice them in training room to a point or at least to a point where you can hit them consistently (and I do mean real consistent). Some people may not agree with this next part, but I also suggest to spend a little time, not a lot but just some to practice your combos on a AI set on normal to be able to see if you can land combos on a moving target, I say normal cause things like hard or extremely high AIs have extremely busted programming to guard everything. My personal reason for this is so I don't have to think about execution when I'm setting up pressure or involved in a neutral game portion of the fight, so when I get the hit I turn it into some kind of damage. I also recommend to think about how you end your combos, if I use Ragna as an example, you'll see a lot of people that play the character fish for 5B to connect into 5C and do Hell's Fang with the follow up. In general its not so bad of a mid screen combo and depending on your position you might do that to push them to the corner. One thing I like to do is sometimes not do the follow up for Hell's Fang when I confirm a hit with it just so I can keep constant pressure (and I have a few variations on how I wanna keep pressure). The reason why I brought this up is finishing your combos is good sure, but be also weary of your position cause that really can change the whole flow of any fighting game.

Also it can help to learn how to read frame data, it helps me personally just cause it makes it easier to understand how fast moves are or how I need to punish a move.

Anyways I hope that helps.

[Xenesis13]

Hey all, quick update on where I'm at;

Just got CS:EX this weekend, so now I'm up to date and everything. Think I'm improving a little bit, my footsies has advanced from spamming all the buttons to spamming some of the buttons. Actually memorizing pieces of combos, although there's some spots where the number goes blue. I'm assuming that's bad across the board?

Also hit-confirming... ummm so lets say I'm doing Noel's 5A > 6A > 6C > 6D > 236A > 66C > j.D > d.6B > d.6C > d.5D > d.5C > d.236D combo ( the 6C->6D part of that seems to always let them escape, they can air roll long before they fall enough to get hit by the low 6d so if any Noel players can clear that one up...). So I'm fighting and I throw out a 5A randomly, it seems like i need to know whether to go into the combo the instant that attack hits/is blocked which just seems inhumanly fast to me. Any tips or tricks on that front? Throwing out an extra 5A before deciding makes it almost manageable but doesn't that hurt my combo damage?

Anyway, thanks for the continued help. I'm having fun failing slightly less miserably than a week ago :P

[InWithTheAshes]

Firstly: Don't do anything randomly. Ever. Always know what you're doing and what you're trying to do.

Secondly, yes, I doubt that anybody here commonly reacts towards hitting with a 5A within cases where it wasn't assured. Most jabs are generally used for stagger pressure (You are Noel, do this), getting out of pressure, and simply starting a pressure string yourself.

What you may want to do is look at what you'd do if the 5A was blocked, and then, see what you can get from that instead. The problem with Noel's 6A, unfortunately, is that it has deliriously little horizontal reach, so what you'd get here is probably something inferior that wouldn't involve it (Any Noel players here to confirm (Rimshot) this?), but it may be something to try.

[zeth07]

Hey all, quick update on where I'm at;

Just got CS:EX this weekend, so now I'm up to date and everything. Think I'm improving a little bit, my footsies has advanced from spamming all the buttons to spamming some of the buttons. Actually memorizing pieces of combos, although there's some spots where the number goes blue. I'm assuming that's bad across the board?

Also hit-confirming... ummm so lets say I'm doing Noel's 5A > 6A > 6C > 6D > 236A > 66C > j.D > d.6B > d.6C > d.5D > d.5C > d.236D combo ( the 6C->6D part of that seems to always let them escape, they can air roll long before they fall enough to get hit by the low 6d so if any Noel players can clear that one up...). So I'm fighting and I throw out a 5A randomly, it seems like i need to know whether to go into the combo the instant that attack hits/is blocked which just seems inhumanly fast to me. Any tips or tricks on that front? Throwing out an extra 5A before deciding makes it almost manageable but doesn't that hurt my combo damage?

Anyway, thanks for the continued help. I'm having fun failing slightly less miserably than a week ago :P

You want to make sure you turn the tech options on in training mode when practicing combos or just realize blue beats aren't legit combos because they could've teched.

Hitconfirming can be looked at in two ways: 1) Recognizing you actually hit the opponent and being able to confirm into a combo. 2)Using multiple attacks to "hitconfirm" your combos properly.

For fast moves it is just not physically possible to hitconfirm them, what this means is that you are more or less committed to doing 2 moves in succession, so doing something like 5A>5B. But some moves you can easily hitconfirm off with just that one attack, like Hazama's overhead into Hotenjin. It is also necessary for recognizing whether or not you need to do a standing combo, crouching combo, or if you actually caught them out of the air.

I don't know Noel so I can't help you there but I'm assuming since it is starting with 5A, you pretty much have to do 5A>6A then hitconfirm from there. Doing multiple 5As like you mentioned would also be hitconfirming it, because by the time the 2nd 5A possibly hits you visually recognize that and know you can continue into 6A or go into something else otherwise if the initial hit was blocked. Using multiple attacks in pressure strings makes hitconfirming easier but it does in fact reduce your combo damage but in certain cases you really have no choice because it is the optimal thing to do. What you don't want to do is autopilot your whole combo/pressure because then you aren't actually hitconfirming at all.

Just as an example:

If I do 5A>2A>2A with Bang, by the 3rd attack I should have been able to recognize if the 5A actually hit or was blocked. This string leads to low damage though but it is an easy hitconfirm. If it was blocked I could then go for 5C (an overhead) which is useful because 2A is a low, so I'm going low to high for the mixup. An alternative would be going into 5B, which isn't a mixup at all and is just another part of the same string so it is more of an autopilot choice because it is a part of the combo you would be doing if the initial attacks hit. Another example of bad hitconfirming would be if I landed an aerial attack on a grounded opponent but still went into that same string. It's "bad" because of the low damage of that string, so instead because of the extra attack (and increased hitstun difference of the moves) I should instead go into 5A>5B which leads to more damage.

So it's really important to get hitconfirming down so you don't autopilot your pressure/combos and so you can confirm all the random hits you land into damaging combos.

[Airk]

Hey all, quick update on where I'm at;

Just got CS:EX this weekend, so now I'm up to date and everything. Think I'm improving a little bit, my footsies has advanced from spamming all the buttons to spamming some of the buttons. Actually memorizing pieces of combos, although there's some spots where the number goes blue. I'm assuming that's bad across the board?

Well, it's not good, because it means they could have escaped, but it's also not bad, because they didn't. :P What's really bad is when the combo drops entirely.

Also hit-confirming... ummm so lets say I'm doing Noel's 5A > 6A > 6C > 6D > 236A > 66C > j.D > d.6B > d.6C > d.5D > d.5C > d.236D combo ( the 6C->6D part of that seems to always let them escape, they can air roll long before they fall enough to get hit by the low 6d so if any Noel players can clear that one up...). So I'm fighting and I throw out a 5A randomly, it seems like i need to know whether to go into the combo the instant that attack hits/is blocked which just seems inhumanly fast to me. Any tips or tricks on that front? Throwing out an extra 5A before deciding makes it almost manageable but doesn't that hurt my combo damage?

It does. But you'll probably want to do it anyway for the time being. It may also be possible to do some of that combo even on a blocking opponent, but I'll leave the answer to that to people who know more about Noel.

[InWithTheAshes]

O.K., as was specified previously, I don't play Noel, but I looked at her frame data and I found some things you can do upon the occasion that 5A > 6A is blocked (That's definitely a large enough time to know as towards whether it hit or not. It also counts as a frame trap by the way, so doing that as an intentional pressure tool rather than a confirm may actually be advisable):

> 5B > 2B (Low) > 2C (Low).

> 6C (1) > Drive pressure.

> 6C (1) > 2C.

There's probably other stuff and "drive pressure" is sort of ambiguous, but they are some of the options you have. Go look up her frame data and see what you can find from it yourself.

Edited May 6, 2013 by InWithTheAshes

[crimsonstardust]

I play some Noel so here's my 2 cents. I generally don't find myself using 5A or 2A as ways to set combos up, I find it better for pressuring people or tap people out of slow overheads. 2B isn't bad to stagger or to use as a pressure tool also, what you could do with the 5A/2A pressure is set up some high low and throw mix ups. I usually get most of my damage off from mix ups that I can convert into combos, so here are a few examples.

5/2A pressure, 6B (this is her non drive overhead) my usual bread and butter here. If you start seeing your opponent block high you can start mixing it up by using 214A which grabs people when they are standing, though be careful with using this, if they duck it you can get punished for it, I also don't suggest using it in the corner (unless your in the corner getting pressured and you see a chance to get out) cause you switch sides. She has some pretty strong throw combos in the corner also, if your midscreen you can combo 214A after the first hit of the throw and turn it into a combo cause Noel knocks them away when she's done with her throw animation.

2D isn't bad when you see people crouch, it crosses up when characters are crouching.

It's possible for the 6D part of your combo you might be doing it a little slow, also its possible it might not work on some characters, also are you making sure you hit 6C with only the first hit where she spins the guns? Cause after the second hit you can't really combo into anything unless your in the corner.

Here try this combo, its a little easier to do but it won't net the same amount of damage, you loose about 200 damage. 5A 6A 6C jD d.6D d.6B d.5D d.5C d.236D.

Edited May 7, 2013 by crimsonstardust