Things to know and learn in fighting games

[Vixsinationz]

I need help understanding what some of these things mean in fighting games. What is neutral game and what are fundamentals of fighting games specifically in blazblue thanks.

[InWithTheAshes]

Neutral is basically the game at the point where neither player has a distinct advantage within terms of position: Nobody's being hit or blocking anything, and both players are attempting, in some form, to get in on the other.

Concerning fundamentals, they're usually referring to the skills that are required to play well and win in most fighting games on a competitive level. Spacing (knowing where your attacks are going to hit and if the opponent would be close enough to intercept it or not) mixup (not being predictable), execution (having the technical ability to perform the action you intend to do), things such as that.

[Vixsinationz]

Ic now I have a better understanding of what those terms mean. I would just like to ask you if you can list me more fundamentals because I feel like that area is where i lack and I could improve if I knew more fundamentals so could you please give me a big list of fundamentals. Thanks.

[Airk]

Fundamentals aren't really something you can 'practice'; They come from playing lots of fighting games. And I mean LOTS.

Basically, fundamentals are:

Spacing and movement

Knowing how far your moves reach

Anti-airing

Punishing

The latter two theoretically somewhat practicable, particularly punishing, but the others are things you just need to develop through play.

If you want to improve your fundamentals, the only real way to do it is to watch replays and identify how you are failing ("I pressed 5B when I wasn't in range, and then got punched in the face because it whiffed.") and then try to focus on doing/not doing whatever is necessary to fix that. ("Practice hitting with 5B at maximum range.").

[InWithTheAshes]

It's where most of us lack, honestly .

As well as what I stated before, there's also screen awareness (just being able to keep track of what's on screen), meter management (spending your meter efficiently, with regard towards potential future uses), hitconfirming (knowing when you've gained a hit and following into something to combo with before the enemy's hitstun runs out), reactions (exactly what it says, like switching to high block for an overhead before it hits), and prediction (being able to read your opponent well, although obviously not perfectly). That's pretty much it: Everything else (combos, tick throws, movement etc.) can be assigned towards one of the other categories of fundamentals.

[Celerity]

The definition of fundamentals is subjective, and moreover, it's meaningless. It's one of these vague terms which has no real purpose other than to confuse new players. If you want the best definition, it's a bunch of small skills like situational awareness, spacing, and reads that carry over from years of playing fighting games. You cannot develop good fundamentals without experience, and it's also very hard to consciously improve them, so don't worry about it and just let them develop naturally.

As for what you should be working on: Proper neutral and spacing with your character are the most important skills, but even a player who lacks in those areas can be a big threat if they excel in mind games/hitconfirming/etc. You should pick a character that works to your strengths and then consciously try to shore up your weaknesses. Work on your overall neutral game while choosing one or two other small things to focus on each day, like "today I'm going to make sure to hitconfirm every anti-air" or "today I'm going to get this combo down and use it a lot online", and eventually you'll have a more complete game.

[Tronotron]

The definition of fundamentals is subjective, and moreover, it's meaningless. It's one of these vague terms which has no real purpose other than to confuse new players. If you want the best definition, it's a bunch of small skills like situational awareness, spacing, and reads that carry over from years of playing fighting games. You cannot develop good fundamentals without experience, and it's also very hard to consciously improve them, so don't worry about it and just let them develop naturally.

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Thanks, that's great. I've been seriously bogged down by the jargon here, even in Beginner Mode posts. Usually most of these words end up referring to something pretty straightforward and half the time I'm already aware of it without having the terminology to refer to it.

I'm just beginning to learn the fundamentals in BlazBlue and I've been already playing for a over a year, often hours at a time against the CPU and in training mode. It seems to me that every character is quite different and you just have to play lots and lots with your chosen character so as to master the movements and get used to how the various things in the frame data actually play out. Watching videos helps a lot , as well as reading around here even though I usually understand less than half of it. I only understood how to counter-attack very recently after getting sick of getting destroyed by endless combos in Hell difficulty. I have bad button mashing habits from having grown up with shooter and hack'n'slash games and that is the most important thing to overcome in my case, and I guess for a lot of other people. I still cannot reliably pull off any but the most basic combos!