Putting it all together?

[WholeGrainBear]

Hello, I've recently just signed up here to get some real help in order to be a lot less "scrubby" when it comes to fighting games, specifically Persona 4: Arena.

I've picked my character Yosuke and I really like how it feels. I got a grasp on gliding, atleast enough to pull it off 75% of the time (not a lot, but better then nothing). I learned combos, mixups, and everything, I just can't get it all to come together. Online play turns into Auto-combos and mashing the hell out of the A and X button on my controller. Using oki is completely out of the question, as I almost always forget to Slide/FA. My R-action is usually only pushed in panic situations, along with constant pushes of the X button. After awakening I'll start EX.dash springing until i'm fresh out of SP.

Basically, how can I fix all these bad habits and start doing what I'm supposed to be doing?

[Elochai]

Bad habits, in my opinion, are either stopped by force of will or force of association. When people start blocking and punishing you, you should begin to associate X action with Y consequence, given a certain situation. For example, you hit awakening, and your first instinct is to do EX Dash. After you get blown up for it a few times, you should associate that behavior with getting blown up. Being that you don't want to lose, you wouldn't do it anymore. In other words, you can consider this "learning the hard way."

Alternatively, you can kind of practice situations in training mode until you break habits, or create new, "better" habits. It all comes with time and experience.

[WholeGrainBear]

Constant abuse would probably change how I react, but sadly I fight lower level players more then high. Fighting people who constantly eat a full screen A. dash spring really makes me play worse.

I guess I should fight only higher ranked players? That doesn't really work. I made it to C rank without a lot of work.

I guess I should've mentioned I play on a Xbox controller, not an arcade stick.

[excelence]

Learn to Block... only push button when u're not in panic state, u'll see stuff more clearly when u get used with being pressured.

[Ctrlaltwtf]

Online play turns into Auto-combos and mashing the hell out of the A and X button on my controller.

I am so tempted to simply say "You're on your way to P4A greatness!" or something, but I'll resist.

Oki isn't quite as relevant on most characters, at least not when compared to GG or BB. Chie and Narukami are the most oki-prone characters in my opinion.

After awakening you should be using Sukukaja. I know that much about Yosuke. Yosuke's got an insanely fast running speed and amazing A pokes, you should use and abuse them.

From what you've said, all I think you really need is some practice. You're panicking too much when the game actually starts and you're not thinking about your options.

I call this Training Mode syndrome.

[WholeGrainBear]

@Ctrlaltwtf, I spend training mode basically practicing combos and mix-ups. What should I do in order to make my time more valuable?

[Ctrlaltwtf]

@Ctrlaltwtf, I spend training mode basically practicing combos and mix-ups. What should I do in order to make my time more valuable?

Fighting other people, honestly. Even fighting high-level CPUs can help get your nerves under control. There's a big difference between doing a combo in Training and successfully confirming it in the midst of a melee.

It's like the difference between learning how to drive a car and learning how to drive.

If you meant how to spend your time already in Training mode, you could try setting the dummy to a high level CPU, or at the very least setting it to random recovery options.

Edited May 22, 2013 by Ctrlaltwtf

[WholeGrainBear]

Fighting other people, honestly. Even fighting high-level CPUs can help get your nerves under control. There's a big difference between doing a combo in Training and successfully confirming it in the midst of a melee.

It's like the difference between learning how to drive a car and learning how to drive.

If you meant how to spend your time already in Training mode, you could try setting the dummy to a high level CPU, or at the very least setting it to random recovery options.

Gotcha. I'll try and play more players instead of constant training mode time.

[Airk]

The other way to try to fight this sort of thing is to try to consciously THINK about what you're doing during the match; This can be hard, because things happen very fast, but if you can, try to lodge 1-2 ideas permanently in your head; Simple stuff like "When I hit awakening, I will do X." ("Do X" is usually easier than "not do Y"). Repeat it to yourself. Try to hold onto the idea throughout the match, and then act on it when the time comes.

You'll only really be able to work on one of these things at a time, but that's enough to make steady improvement.

[WholeGrainBear]

The other way to try to fight this sort of thing is to try to consciously THINK about what you're doing during the match; This can be hard, because things happen very fast, but if you can, try to lodge 1-2 ideas permanently in your head; Simple stuff like "When I hit awakening, I will do X." ("Do X" is usually easier than "not do Y"). Repeat it to yourself. Try to hold onto the idea throughout the match, and then act on it when the time comes.

You'll only really be able to work on one of these things at a time, but that's enough to make steady improvement.

That sorta sounds like playing it like a "flowchart". I thought that was generally a bad way to build a strategy? Just curious if what i'm saying has any truth to it.

[Celerity]

That sorta sounds like playing it like a "flowchart". I thought that was generally a bad way to build a strategy? Just curious if what i'm saying has any truth to it.

Yeah but playing with a flowchart is much better than playing without any plan at all, which is what you'll mostly be doing while you're inexperienced. I wouldn't recommend that you flowchart everything, but focus on one or two things each match that you want to do consistently. "I will always confirm my 5C", "I will not panic on wakeup", etc. Learning the rules is the only way to learn the exceptions.

[Airk]

That sorta sounds like playing it like a "flowchart". I thought that was generally a bad way to build a strategy? Just curious if what i'm saying has any truth to it.

You could look at it like that, or you could look at it like you're ALREADY playing by flowchart because you do the same dumb thing every time, so instead, you are trying to consciously replace the dumb thing with a better thing, and in so doing, try to break out of the mold doing the same thing everytime by remembering what your options are.

Also, you'll note that I wasn't suggesting that you "build a strategy" this way; Just that this is how you break your bad habits. They're not the same. You aren't even in a position to think about building a strategy because you can't even do what you "know" you should do. Even if you had the best strategy in the world, you wouldn't follow it.

[Airk]

Yeah but playing with a flowchart is much better than playing without any plan at all, which is what you'll mostly be doing while you're inexperienced. I wouldn't recommend that you flowchart everything, but focus on one or two things each match that you want to do consistently. "I will always confirm my 5C", "I will not panic on wakeup", etc. Learning the rules is the only way to learn the exceptions.

This too. Note that you probably won't even BE ABLE To focus on more than one-two things. If you try to do more, you'll just end up forgetting them all because you've got too much going on. The idea is to focus your concentration on SOMETHING and fix it. Then, once you've addressed the basic stupidity of "when I get close I freak out and mash buttons." or whatever, then you can move on to something else, and, since you've broken your bad habit, you have room to form good ones.

The funny thing about "playing by flowchart" is that the term is used super often to denigrate people who WON. If they lost, you don't generally need to accuse them of anything.

[mAc Chaos]

Gotta walk before you can run.

Some things are just always the right thing to do. Like if you block Inferno Divider, you will always want to punish it. So having a "punish combo" figured out beforehand, and priming yourself to unleash it the moment you block an attack like that is good.

[Klein]

The best advice I can give any player starting out is a combination of things to remember. Play who you want to play, keep your ego out of the game, and work on fundamentals above all else. There's a million examples of why those are all good ideas, but you'll figure them out, and see why they're so important soon enough.

[Airk]

The best advice I can give any player starting out is a combination of things to remember. Play who you want to play, keep your ego out of the game, and work on fundamentals above all else. There's a million examples of why those are all good ideas, but you'll figure them out, and see why they're so important soon enough.

Unfortunately, these are either vague or too simple. "Play who you want to play" is good advice, but provides no help once the player passes the character select screen. Keep your ego out of the game, also good advice, but is also pretty empty. "Work on fundamentals above all else" is useless to a new player, since most of the time they won't know what 'fundamentals' are and DEFINITELY won't know how to work on them.

Best of all, none of these are relevant to the problems the OP believes they are having.

[Klein]

The OP already has answers. I just dropped what I felt would've helped me find what I needed to way back when. If it doesn't help move our OP in the right direction then my bad.

[Airk]

The OP already has answers. I just dropped what I felt would've helped me find what I needed to way back when. If it doesn't help move our OP in the right direction then my bad.

Fair enough! Though you might want to expand on what 'fundamentals' means, for his benefit.

[Klein]

Done! Edit gogogo.

Pardon me if my summary isn't entirely accurate, last I checked, there was no perfect description of every fundamental, so I'll do what I can.

The "fundamentals" I spoke of are fighting game fundamentals that apply to any fighter, like Yomi.

Yomi is your skill at predicting what the opponent will do. It applies constantly. Any time there's no single answer that's the only good option. Say you're putting pressure on an opponent and you know they like to mash DP, you stop your string to block and they mash DP, leaving themselves open to a free punish. That's good yomi. Same with if you've got an unreactable mixup like a command grab swinging your way, if you guess right and jump the grab, that's good yomi. Practice this by simply fighting humans and figure out common mistakes and patterns.

There's also footsies, which is your movement in relation to the opponent. For example, if you walk just in, then just out of an opponent's poke range and they swing to miss, that's good footsies and a chance to punish the opponent because of it. It's unwise to just dash in face first into the enemy's pokes, so you have to practice good footsies. It's very prominent in Street Fighter because of the slow walk and dash speeds, the short pressure strings that lead quickly back into the neutral game where it applies, and the danger of whiffing certain moves like sweeps.

Spacing too. Spacing is the skill of knowing your attacks' max and optimal ranges. Pretty sure Yosuke's 2B will whiff if you jab enough times before confirming into it, so knowing where it whiffs, after how many jabs, etc is good spacing. Even if the example isn't that great since I don't think Yosuke uses that much 2B outside of anti-airs. Another example would be Kanji's dives. If you miss-space a dive you just whiff and open yourself to a punish.

There's also hit confirmation, also known as Abare if I recall right. It's the skill to take a random hit and confirm it into more, like hitting a 2B and jumping into a full combo. Good hit confirm skill includes normal confirms like jab or anti-air, to more advanced confirms like crouching opponent only combos, or counter hit combos.

Defensive habits can carry over between games as well, depending on the game. Most 2D fighters have mids and lows as their main pokes, and pressure tools. So you'll want to block low and react to highs on defense at a basic level. At a more advanced level it adds more difficult to react to mixups, like Aegis' flight shenanigans or Chie's airdash>high/low game stuff. Basic defense I'd shoot for in Persona is the ability to react to most if not all AoAs, and the ability to block simple cross ups like Narukami 9jump>air turn>j.B.

3D fighter defense is very different from my understanding, thanks to highs and mids being the main thing as opposed to lows, but I can't say I have any decent experience with them, so tag in a Tekken player?

Execution is a fundamental as well. It's merely the skill to be consistent and good at making your fingers, and thereby your character do what your brain wants. Training mode is your friend in this skill, but don't overdo it. Lots of players, especially anime players like to sit in training mode and hammer combo muscle memory into themselves so much that they miss out on time to practice how to get the hit that necessitates the practice in the first place.

And the last thing I can think of is mixup. I'd imagine you know a fair amount about mixups since you've researched Yosuke, so I'll just say it's a skill that's directly tied into execution and yomi in trying to condition your opponent to not block your next move. Say a Kanji does nothing but mixups without command grabs in round 1, you'd probably be more inclined to sit on the ground and get grabbed that way. That's the mixup

Now to the experienced players who know all this already: please do not hesitate to correct me, the goal here is simply to help the OP and nothing else.

Edited May 23, 2013 by Klein