TwilightInZero

+1 to the oft-quoted reply above me. Playing fighting games gets frustrating for me since I'm not very good at them, so I make sure to play them minimally during the free time I have on my own. I still go to the arcade to play them, but I sometimes get frustrated there too, at which point I have to make myself stop playing. Sure, I do enjoy playing FGs with friends, and I enjoy going to the arcade... but I went back to filling my time primarily with single player games. That's how I used to pass the time before I got into FGs, and now games don't make me so miserable anymore. The big problem with fighting games for those of us who do not have the talent, skill, or time to put in the work, is that there is way too much pressure to win, or even just to improve, and unfortunately, that just comes with the way fighting games as a whole are. It's you against someone else. That's it. And unlike other types of games, the more you try, there is a chance that you're actually going to do *worse*, because the other person is going to improve, or heck, just outright learn your habits. If you're playing Tony Hawk's Pro Skater and trying to wallride over to that impractically placed E, eventually you're going to get it. But imagine if that E moved further down the wall on successive tries? Even other types of competitive games are easier to enjoy than fighting games, particularly games that are eight people or more, like FFA shooters. I'm very partial to Quake Live, myself; I've played Quake online since I was a kid. Especially with the skill matching present in QL, you have to be a special kind of bad in order to come out on the bottom of the heap every single match. More often than not, you'll be in the middle of the pack and completely satisfied as long as you enjoyed the match. That's not the case in fighting games. There are two positions in a fighting game: the winner, and the loser. You're either bottom of the heap, or king of the hill. Or rather, you end up feeling that way. Fortunately, single player games don't have any of these problems, and even when they're similar to fighting games in how they play, they're much easier to enjoy. All you have to do is progress in the game, and you get as much time, and with recent game design ideology, as many tries as you want. (Ever noticed how "lives" aren't really a concept in modern games, or at least how there are infinite continues?) It's an experience with much less pressure, and definitely much less stress. Hell, let me go ahead and recommend a game to you right now. If you've got an XBox 360, go drop 1200 MSP on Dust: An Elysian Tail, right now. It's an Action RPG Platformer and it is so good. I'm about to start on my third playthrough, going to go for the highest difficulty. I played it because I enjoyed it, and just happened to get good. The point I was trying to get to through that tangent above is that we need to figure out some way to play simply to play. Not play to win, because there's pressure and stress there. And not play to learn, either, because there's still pressure and potential stress. We need to figure out how to play just to enjoy the game. It's hard because these games have many ways to unintentionally, subconsciously make us feel bad. Nobody meant it to be that way, of course, but it just ended up being that way. But if we can play without worrying about winning, without worrying about learning, without worrying about getting good, we might just improve naturally... or not. At that point, we wouldn't need to improve anyways. And maybe when the game (or rather, the metagame) doesn't feel like it hates us and wants to make us miserable, investing time into learning may feel like fun instead of work. tl;dr: Play single player games and remember how to enjoy gaming. Then, we need to figure out some way to play fighting games just to have fun. Honestly, I don't know how either. For me, that's the big missing piece. Does anyone here have any tips on how to shut out the things in FGs that make you feel bad when playing, or other ways to simply enjoy fighting games without trying to win or trying to improve?

I want to do something to help, too. I'm in Northern Kentucky, which is a 30-40 minute drive away from Arcade Legacy, and thus, a 30-40 minute drive from PowerUp in April. I already visit Arcade Legacy whenever something's going on and I have the time and money. I like to think I get along with them well, even though the scene is primarily Capcom games; one of my closest friends in that scene placed 3rd in Marvel at a small tournament that took place just this weekend. I already planned on going to PowerUp, long before all this willpower sparked up, as an opportunity to witness and be a part of the hype for an EVO qualifier. And now that I know BBCSE will be there as a side event, I'm going to support it to the best of my ability. But I'm not posting just to say "hay me too", I'm also wondering if there's anything more I can do, like perhaps organizing smaller, more local tournaments? Would that even help? I'm a student at Northern Kentucky University, and we have a really nice game room. I hang out there all the time, and there's a small group of people I play BlazBlue with almost every day that I'm on campus. We recently held a free entry tournament with university-specific prizes, and eight people entered, including myself. Due to our usual TO getting sick that day, I ran the tournament too, and it went smoothly. Me and the group that I usually play with have been talking about a paid tournament for a while, and they want me to run it. Of course, the reason to make it paid would be so that non-NKU students would be able to enter, thus opening up the rest of the Cincinnati area. Would that help, or should I instead focus efforts on getting my friends and I to PowerUp?

Sorry I never replied. Yeah, I did read Airk's post, and it sounded right to me. So when I started paying attention to when I hit the button, something I also had to pay attention to when I actually first started learning how to do special inputs, I was able to get out my super. Didn't even need d-pad to do it, and after a week or two of trying to use it, I returned to the analog stick because it felt better to me. Call me crazy, but I can feel the motions with more clarity. Granted of course, I'm only able to apply that advice when I'm calm enough to pay attention and even get the directions right, and when I'm actually in a situation in which I can do it (I have it ingrained in my mind that wakeup -> DP should always work, or at least the DP should always come out, but that doesn't seem to be the case). Among the myriad of other problems I have playing this game right now, I at least know what to do about this one. So thanks.

Okay, so my Dad's xoom tablet saved the day. I was able to record some vids and get them up on YouTube. vs Jin vs Ragna vs Noel vs Hazama Any and all tips, pointers, and criticisms are greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I see. Thank you for the info, I never knew this. I only uploaded one replay ever, way back in 1.02, of me landing Requiem on someone, just because I saw the option and was still new to netplay. Not going to be quite so easy to get back to that point, my game could use some improvement. Which is why I want to upload a replay in the first place. x_x

So can you not upload replays to the leaderboard anymore? At least on XBox? I could use some help, but I don't have good means to record my matches. No capture card, and my low-end android phone likely won't hack it for camera recording.

This kind of thing happens to me offline too... I guess I shouldn't have made the implied distinction. I always worry that if I slow my inputs down, I won't be able to get the move out before it's too late. And that usually ends up being the case. I practice the move(s) over and over in training, but when I go to actually use it, I crap out.

So here's a scenario that I frequently encounter. I'm playing online against somebody and I've got them up against the ropes, but now they're starting to do the same to me. They're turning on the aggression and they're going to kill me with the next hit. But I'm Tsubaki, and now that she's got the CS2 balance, 236236C is a good reversal. If I can get it out, the tables will turn back in my favor! So I tech up, input it, and either nothing happens, or I end up doing 236C or 623C instead. I get hit and die. This kind of thing happens to me all the time. I lose matches that I shouldn't lose because of it, and it's extremely frustrating. DP motions, double quarter circles, half circle forwards... I can't input them consistently, especially under pressure. And I've been playing this game for a long time! I thought it was because I play with the analog stick, so I switched to d-pad, but I have the same problem there too. Has anyone else ever experienced this kind of problem, or am I just bad? What would you guys recommend I do in order to overcome this problem? Or maybe am I misunderstanding the way the system works?

XBL: TwilightInZero Northern Kentucky.

Thank you likewise for the quick fix and for the difficulty-separated combo list. I feel a lot more confident with Tsubaki 2.0 now that I know some combos that don't rely on the IAD link or the dreaded (by me anyways) Benedictus link. I'm sure I'll pick them up in time, but it's nice that I don't have to right away.

You've got some 1 charge combos in the 0 charge section, and Tsubaki's first combo aka 5BB 2BB 5CC > 236A 214A 22A was totally missing. Mayhaps some editing went awry? Also, for 5BB 5CC > 22C 236D > dash ... I find that using 5C 2CC instead of 5B 2CC is slightly easier and does a teensy bit more damage.

I'm having issues with missions 8 and 9 too. One's got the IAD combo, and the other has the big bad 623C > 214A > dash 2CC. It feels like I can get mission 8 with perseverance, but mission 9 feels like it's completely beyond my capability. I'll be looking forward to seeing combos that don't use that link. Are there going to be any, or is the Benedictus Rex link going to be pretty much a staple now?