My uncle Jimmy told me he was once attacked by a 400 pound gorilla. He's only alive today because he understood the nature of the beast and hit him with the wake up super. If he "took the throw" he'd be used for bicep curls and subsequently potbustered
im glad he brought up wrestling..cuz the whole time i was thinking this shit happens in boxing lol. guy picks up boxing and learns techniques then gets overwhelmed by some overly aggressive meat head swinging for the fences.
This is advice I really would've needed when I started with FGs, took forever for me to figure out. My whole life while playing Tekken 7 was me being mad that nobody on my rank knows how to play the game "the right way". I realized later how much more fun FGs are when you are willing to take risks yourself.
Its the Jedi bell curve. When you start Wakeup Super is sick and unexpected Then you get a little better, and never wakeup super Then you see a pro play and they throw out a wakeup super in top 8 and everyone loses their minds instant EVO moment #69 I too struggle to just get a little funky in my playstyle after i settle in but I have bad execution anyway
Fr. This is why its ironically easier to win in higher rank than lower rank as yoshi. Cuz mf start to think, allowing you to have wiggle room. The lower rank? Get ready to get hopkicker in the most unprecedented moments
Another big thing, is that the player you think is "bad" might not actually be bad at all. I think trying to categorize players as strictly "good" or "bad" is a limiting factor for recognizing how to grow.
I don't know where I heard it from first, but the strategy seems to go: at low skill level, you're cleaning up after other people's mistakes. At high skill level, you're trying to force them to make mistakes in the first place.
One truth I had to learn to improve was that, when I started doing the smart thing and still lost to people being maniacs on the sticks, it *was* a skill issue. They were so much better at being stupid than I was at being smart and that's the truth, there is a skill to playing like an animal and some people are good at it
For me, it's more like fighting maniacs and smart people is just a different skill set, if someone plays like a maniac I just need to play a lil lame and wait for them to do something I can punish, I don't need to force mistakes out of them like I do with smart players
@@jonnysac77 masters i feel are folks who can freely - with allowed bias to one side or another of course - switch between a wild ape and a smart ape. After all, Donkey Kong Jr Math exists
A piece of advice I keep giving to players who are worse than me (there aren't that many, but still) is that when they're learning a matchup... they should challenge *everything*. Is this advice going to cost them multiple tens of rounds? Absolutely. They're going to get smoked by every frame trap and every decent oki setup out there... but here's the thing: A player who blocks everything and never challenges will never learn what they CAN challenge, a player who challenges everything will quickly learn what they CAN'T challenge. You'll never learn how dangerous the world is if you never get out there and experience it for yourself!
Exactly. It's OK to be weak temporarily in order to become stronger later. The goal isn't to strictly win, but rather to improve. And if your true goal is to improve, you actually end up winning more in the long run anyway.
I've been struggling with this for, God, more than 15 years by now? And I feel like one of the most eye-opening things that happened to me was learning about the neutral RPS from Krackatoa (he's not the one who came up with it, but I don't quite remember where he heard it from). Basically, you can play proactively, reactively or preemptively, and all three win against one and lose to another. New and inexperienced players tend to play proactively: they just mash moves and see what happens. More well-versed players want to play reactively: they know that they need to watch the enemy character and act accordingly, picking the right tools for whatever situation they end up in. However, human reactions don't only matter when reacting to mixups: every action you make based on the enemy behavior has an innate lag to it, which proactive players can easily take advantage of by getting in and twerking on you before you can even realize they got in. This is when you want to play preemptively, leaving big buttons on the screen for the enemy to walk straight into and using their inability to whiff-punish or dodge it in time. Sure, they might hit you out of that Pot 6HS, but how much life do you lose if they don't know the proper punish? Can they even hit you again next time? Obviously, the best players can switch between the three playstyles on the fly, but this mindset was still a huge help for me, allowing to see the game in broad strokes before zooming in and making specific choices.
I saw a JDCR vid where he also said to embrace cheesy moves at low ranks so you can move up to play proper "tekken". Its not bad to use "bad" or "cheesy" moves against people who cant deal with them. Cause if you try to play high level fighting games at low ranks your gonna find yourself playing high level with just yourself.
The logic of abusing moves applies to all levels, even at highest level people come up with techs and if others can't deal with it they get blown up. Like Kusoru at Final Round with his log assists. If the opponent can't deal with something there is absolutely no reason not to abuse the hell out of it. It's not your fault you're spamming, it's your opponent's fault for not being able to deal with it (or the game for having shitty balance).
CAT CAM I ran into a really good player in the tower recently (and took six of our fifteen games) but still have problems with feral Sol and Potemkins, so this is definitely a video I'll com back to. Thanks for covering this topic.
@@belalghunaim7803 as an Anji player, neutral isn't so bad, but putting him in the corner, where Anji is usually strongest, is really frustrating. Back Mega Fist shuts down Fuujin pressure; he easily gets out of Shin and delayed Nagiha. Gapless Nagiha, Rin, or even empty Fuujin all run the risk of Pot Buster. I get that you have to rps around those kinds of options with delay Nagiha or empty Fuujin, but if Pot guesses with either move correctly it turns the whole match around whereas I don't feel like Anji has a huge cashout guess to play around.
@@AidenR19 for the most part Sol is my fault because I mistime the proper moves to deal with moves that give humongous counterhit damage and feel like an idiot (2S/2D versus Vortex for instance). There's also gimmicks lile empty BR into Wild Throw that I don't see against higher level Sols and it frees me up more than I'd like when the feral hogs mug me in the tower.
i had a wrestling teammate who rolled. he would be about to be pinned on his back and his move was dubbed the turtleman roll and he would pin ppl somehow. it made 0 sense bc he was doing this as a senior and it worked so much
This advice is all basically encapsulated in the famous FSB vs G andhi match in SSF4 AE 2012 at dreamhack from late 2013, which you can find to really see.
Was literally just thinking about this, love the breakdown of risk vs "safe" play and the short-term vs long-term growth. I'm replacing "That's a bad option, my opponent shouldn't do that" with "It doesn't seem like they should be able to get away with that, so what makes it bad?" It's my responsibility then to make the option "bad"; if I can't figure something out to put the risk-reward in my favor, it's a good option against me. Also seen my in-game awareness improve as a result.
This topic is interesting because I feel like this is one of the more straightforward explanation for NOT getting better at fighting games as a conscious choice. TONS of people exist between the space of literally just mashing and trying to actively improve. The people who play the game a lot but ONLY to do their "one (funny) move" are in this space. They often pick up how to defend against common strategies only to do their funny move, or if they don't even care about that they stop rematching. Shit am I just describing how grappler mains get into FGs
You have to give your opponent a reason to not use the high-risk/high-reward "gorilla" option. If they keep hitting you with it, they aren't going to stop, no matter how "improper" the risk/reward should be in that situation.
I've been stuck on that plateau for years in every game I play, very helpful vid. I don't really lose to "worse" players in tournament, but I can't get my mind around taking more risks against higher level players. I play too safe, too "correct", and changing that playstyle takes a lot of effort.
This is a good video. In that mindset of constantly defending, i feel like that person meeds to learn to have fun again. Stop worrying about every hit you take.
My first FG was SFV and I'll tell you what, learning how to fight Ken players was a fight for my life everyday at the beginning but it felt SO good to finally consistently beat the "Crazy Ken" players I played Urien though so I don't have a whole lot of room to talk about being crazy
When I was going to events I felt like this was code for "I lost to someone unpredictable who mixed my shit. It was a good blend of smart and dumb." IDK why tho
I haven't finished the video yet, and i know its like a year old, but i do have my own take on the premise. The key to beating "bad" players, and the mental block thet killed me when i was losing while playing "right", is learning that no one has to respect your gameplan by default. If you want to go up amd get the the strike throw oki, but you're constantly getting mashed out when you try throw, its because your opponents dont respect the meaty. So club them to death with the meaty until they learn to hold block. THEN you can throw them, and every single aspect of "correct" play has to proceed along similar lines. You earn respect for your gameplan by running the basics first and then adapting to your opponents reactions. Getting good is just building up that gameplan until it holds up and you dont have anything fake left in your game plan. Once you get past that point you're actually ready to start dealing with people who will also play "correctly" from the start, and then you start the next step of evolving your own gameplay and skills.
Before hopping online, repeat the motto: I'm bad, and that's good! I will never be good, and that's not bad! Came back to this video after having a terrible time in Strive, really hits hard.
Obviously when you're learning how to "play correctly," you learn what your character is supposed to do for their general gameplan, as well as what your opponent's character's gameplan is and how to stop it, but you should never forget: You're fighting your opponent, not his character. It doesn't matter whether he's playing his character suboptimally; you have to 1) figure out what he, the player, not the character, is going for, then 2) figure out ways your character can stop that. I'd also argue you shouldn't be playing every round the same way; if you're playing someone you've never fought and it's an early round, try different things in the same situation and note how he reacts to it. Make a mental note, so that you know how to react in those situations in later rounds. Essentially sacrifice the 1st round or so (or 1st game if your online game allows you to play more than 1 game) to figure out as much of your opponent's tendencies first.
The main thing I see with this kind of complaint is that the reason people lose to "bad" players is because they actually check thst you're playing the game and not on autopilot. When you play with "good" players, you will naturally see the same kinds of behaviours and combo routes, so you naturally start to internalize that and you end up with "Oh, I'm playing into a sol, he is going to do X things at round start and Y will be his gameplan", and while its good to have a general idea of how the character *wants* to play, you're still fighting a person who is going to behave differently than the last sol you fought. Point being, getting shaken up by "bad" playstyles is good and they are not in fact bad at all, just different from the norm, and learning to adapt to your opponent is a core part of playing fighting games.
That friend knowledge checking IRL would be the vane of my existence if i ever met him. man i hate knowledge/skill checks because once i learn how to deal with it, is over, insta win, E, Z, i hate how it feels like I'm doing homework and not playing against a human, i drop SFV multiple times because of these fleshy CPU "humans", i don't even feel good when figure them out, i really needed this video man thanks
Nothing at all feels more frustrating than feeling like you are playing the character "right" and your opponent is just fucking around and you just don't have answers to their random bullshit.
Also, even while mashing you are learning what kind of mashing works for you. You learn your own style of mashing, but when you give that up you stop know what works/feels good for you. So just being less comfortable with your character can mess you up even more.
Thanks for bringing martial arts in this topic because is exactly like in fighting games XD one trick martial arts or feral swinging punchers in striking often beat new people that is learning. People still learning get overload by the quick decision making during a match or fight while the other guy is not thinking and doing his thing xD
Really enjoyed this video, it's a good video about life in general but very much so for fighting games. It is so easy to get sooo mad when you get janked out in a game, especially when you start with a friend and they do one thing over and over and win and you're getting smacked up. It's important to know you're not perfect and neither is the person you are playing against, when you learn something new you (a new character or new techniques) it's important to accept loss will come but also don't just let someone mash a button at you and *never* challenge don't just hold down back because it's *not* your turn. Learn your new stuff, have fun goals and put an end to monke monday one fight at a time.
It's as simple as this. Just because you're taking a safer style of gameplay doesn't mean you now don't need to deal with all the unsafe high risk reactive situations your opponents put you in. I think the best thing you can do whilst you're trying to go over the... let's call it "super bronze" hump where pretty much you just have to win punishing your opponents mistakes because they all do high priority punishable moves is to develop a super simple gameplan in neutral to fall back on whilst you think and come up with counter strategies. Sometimes you flowchart so much better than them you don't need to learn a counter right then and there and can save it for the lab.
I feel like tekken is a big culprit of this. I feel like (especially some characters) until you get to the top few ranks, everyone is just doing gimmicky/knowledge check things, cus how are you supposed to know all 240 moves of every character?
This is why PR Balrog was such a good and scary player. He was a player who could play super randomly and nutty but with the skill of a person who could win Evo. He was one of the most unconventional players and that made him strong
Love how this also applies to IRL fighting like boxing and HEMA fencing. I routinely find myself losing to aggressive not so technical people because I'm not able to defend as well but also in turn don't take enough risks and try and play very safe. Works better against experienced people but against newer people it falls apart
1 year later, this is exactly what I've run into in SF6. I've got nearly all the characters to plat 2, but I can't get anyone past that. It's been a constant solid wall. I played a few mirror matches last night and got SMOKED by someone just throwing out every unsafe move you can think of - I was so annoyed! He's throwing out moves I know are massively unsafe, but by the time my brain has registered the move and thought "Oh what's the best follow up to that" he's already mashing out unsafe overheads and hitting me again. Going back and looking at the replay, my button presses are SO conservative - I'm playing super defensive waiting to punish their reckless gameplay, but meanwhile on their side they are just mashing after unsafe moves and catching out my defensive brain processing delay. I think I need to mash more and play a bit more high risk, but damn it's hard to get my brain into that gear.
Damn that’s good though. Not bad at all. My wall is Silver 3. Lol although only have the game for 3 weeks and I’m totally new. But still. I hope I get past this. Started at Bronze 1.
Lots of good advice. Another way to deal with bad players who manage to beat you by surprising you with random moves, is to play safe, let them make mistakes, and punish them.
This is the best video I’ve ever seen explaining my exact issue I was having with fighting games, after trying out some new stuff and taking those risks I have progressed a lot in tekken and I’m more excited to try other games now that I’ve wrapped my head around what was holding me back. Thank u.
When I first started to play Tekken 7 I played MRaven and learned a bunch of tech, combos etc. When I jumped online for the first time I couldn't apply any of my tech cause I would just get hit by randoms mashing Rage Art and mashing one string over and over and I didn't know how to defend against anything. Then I realized doing 41 into backstance down 3 gave me a low that lead to a combo opportunity. When I did that I started winning way more then before cause no one was blocking it. Learning that made me realize that going for risky options is a completely fine thing to do, especially when fighting lower level players. Always doing the safe option isn't usually what wins you games
"This guy beat me by playing wrong. If he had played right i wouldve countered it." is a phrase I have to confront in my mental filter way too often. I keep telling myself "That just means you lost and you're aware of how badly you misunderstood the situation." Lmfao
Watched this video again after picking up SF6. Kimberly has been a blast, but I realized a lot of her strengths is in a lot of tricks and traps and gimmicky stuff, so when I warm up, I don’t play her, I play one of my secondary/off characters that’s either guile or a shoto, because that warms up my fundamentals and reactions
I think this usually means newbies or flowchart type players, the answer to that is that it just happens sometimes, sometimes you get randomed out, sometimes I beat people way better than me, if you lose consistently to players like that then you probably just aren't thinking about it correctly, like just sit back and block, wait for them to make mistakes, if they are actually bad, that's all you need to do
When he metioned that the concept of easy scrub killer strategies in all sports, it reminds of bringing out your queen early in chess, while it doesnt work with a good oponent, you can cheese out wins with people that dont know how to stop it.
Yeah, I find I play so much better when I’m not thinking, the moment I say to myself “aight, I’m gunna try this on them when they do this” I’m already trapped in their combo
Why do fighting games consistently include such gimmicky options, ones that are frustrating as a newbie but meaningless at the top level? What's the point?
Yeah, trying to play footsies, whiff punish and do true blockstrings doesn't work against people rubbing their face on the stick, you gotta buffer the shit out of everything or just bulldog your way in and do stagger pressure and spacing traps, but then you run the risk of getting too used to "noob-killing strats" and not learning the game yourself, so you should still make an effort to consciously whiff punish and hit confirm in between doing those and not be afraid to let loose because a true blockstring doesn't let the opponent mash in between, but if you press on minus frames you might still catch them flinching and get a counter hit. Also, know how to press on defense, you can see in SFV that SF4 players on defense will always backdash, V-reversal, V-shift or DP, they only take the options that are safe and/or invincible, but at high level the players are always checking pressure with buttons, it's a really important thing to do, you can't be afraid to try, but you also need to learn from when it works and when it doesn't, obviously.
This unfortunately reminds me of my own FG journey. I started with Smash 4, and mained Little Mac, who is very skewed toward ground movement and super strong moves on the ground, but has very limited platform and air movement and really weak air moves. I could beat people up who would fight me ground-to-ground and get wins that way, but anyone willing to camp me out could beat me pretty easily. Because of that, I feel like it stunted my growth in terms of Smash fundamentals, because I could just get gimmicky wins, and I struggled more when Ultimate came out and I switched characters to someone more fundamentals-based. Thankfully I’ve been able to unlearn the bad habits Mac taught me, but I know what it’s like firsthand to learn how to play gimmicky at the expense of long-term improvement
This puts into perspective that I should learn how to safe jump correctly, cuz I have a friend who always wake up super when by right he should block and I eat that super all the time
God this is such a good video. RN, Im on that exact road trying to learn how to deal with gimicky playstyles by throwing myself into celestial until I find answers. I lose all the fucking time and it shows. I play really good neutral against someone and then on one knockdown I just lose to getting thrown like 5 times coz Im too scared to tech throws more often yet or backdash them. But thats ok, coz long term my defence against that will get much much stronger and since I play Ram and have a really good backdash backthrow incident, I will murder everyone who gets too throw happy. This phase is not easy to get past in anything, so I cope seether and mald almost every time to everything. And thats ok, salt is a part of fighting games. While not caring about results is truly the ideal, you will not achieve it immediately. So I will continue to grind and mald my ass off to having to hold Bridget mix forever until I learn that matchup or find answers to it.
This is like a long version of the tortoise and the hair. People using shortcuts and gimmicks to get the immediate win will always lose in the long run. Like in RTS, you HAVE to get through the waves of cheesers before they getting to the people that know what they are doing. Eventually, the cheese strats will no longer work at a certain level and those players will just stop ranking up.
This happened to me on SF6 Ranked yesterday, gimmicky and overly passive players. It tilted me so much that I just unistalled the game in anger which is very uncharateristic of me. I calmed down and thought about the matches while it downloaded again and just took a different route, I just played their passive game instead of being overly aggressive (ironic coming from a Marisa main) and did that until THEIR ran out to just go in. With this I started getting win streaks, perfects here and there, even a double one, a one and done Guile and a Ryu who just ragequitted on me as I was going for the game, they won game 1 I was a hit away from game 2 and even got a perfect. I'm just Platinum 2 but I'm learning and improving daily, kinda since I don't play everyday.
I should have abused Sheeva’s stomp more. I was already playing like it was mostly worthless except as an occasional surprise (like I did in MK9) before they nerfed it.
Not fgc related but you reminded me of an interaction in a casual Apex Legends lobby where I lost to a guy that had less health than me. He did a risky slide jump around the corner that surprised me and killed me but my teammate cleaned him up two seconds after. As a ranked player I'm not expecting someone to make a dumb decision like that so it threw me way off.
2000's kids know the lifestyle of in in daycare in melee in the temple free for all sitting on the edge of the stage as pikachu spamming down b the entire match trying to get second place so you are allowed to play in the next free for all.
I agreee this is great advice for almost any game or sport. This advice rings true for when I was getting (relatively) good at poker. I kept getting bullied at the table by this ferral player. When I talked to my friends later it was pure copium. I knew I still had a lot to learn, but I was letting my ego get in the way in of reflection. It wasn't until I started reading some poker books that I realized how scrubby I was being. When I took out the ego and took it as a learning experience it went so much better.
3:50 - 4:02 lol true. Everyone should play some Smash Ultimate online to experience this, the amount of people you see with this mindset is huge. They will play 1 specific way and if you deal with it, they out.
So basically you can "play well", learn and improve, and still lose a bunch, because it's part of the process... also, doing random "stupid" stuff helps rather than playing safe all the time
Old video so Idk who’s going to see it. After a few years of SFV on and off I was playing Ken and I would just rush down and play aggro as hell against people and it would work a good amount of time. Until I got into a match this akuma and me and him were actually attempting to whiff punish each other in neutral. It was easily the moment I felt like I had evolved.
A really clear example to me is ping pong. I can beat most of my friends because my serve is good enough that they can't return it. But if I ever match up against someone who can hit it back then I am fucked
My uncle Jimmy told me he was once attacked by a 400 pound gorilla. He's only alive today because he understood the nature of the beast and hit him with the wake up super. If he "took the throw" he'd be used for bicep curls and subsequently potbustered
Fireballs just don't work in that type of situation, you just get jump attacked cause your DP comes out too late.
@@jandoe2576 Don't forget that if a Gorilla jumps at you, the EX version is projectile invulnerable
this vernacular is devious
Wakeup super is the only answer when a beast overtaken by bloodlust attempts a risky meaty. Ppl get too thirsty sometimes.
To stop being a bad player, you must first embrace and become one
The on block DP is rewarding when it frametraps, trust.
@@zenbrown7144 those moments when you get away with a failed umeshoryu
Exactly. They opposite of what every single FG content creator teaches you.
The video LTG needs, but not the one he deserves.
god comment
@@qwerpholeentertainment4541 Ur mom made a god comment about the BBC. GTAB peon, gahduu
@@ToranosukeEdo what?
LTG lives in y'all heads rent free 😂😂
Listen bro, ima come in ya mom's room wit a Tarzan outfit on...saying OO OO AH AH!~
im glad he brought up wrestling..cuz the whole time i was thinking this shit happens in boxing lol. guy picks up boxing and learns techniques then gets overwhelmed by some overly aggressive meat head swinging for the fences.
the more I hear of Sajam's junior high/high school school years it just sounds more and more like everything added up to him being made for the FGC
This is advice I really would've needed when I started with FGs, took forever for me to figure out. My whole life while playing Tekken 7 was me being mad that nobody on my rank knows how to play the game "the right way". I realized later how much more fun FGs are when you are willing to take risks yourself.
Its the Jedi bell curve. When you start Wakeup Super is sick and unexpected
Then you get a little better, and never wakeup super
Then you see a pro play and they throw out a wakeup super in top 8 and everyone loses their minds instant EVO moment #69
I too struggle to just get a little funky in my playstyle after i settle in but I have bad execution anyway
Fr.
This is why its ironically easier to win in higher rank than lower rank as yoshi.
Cuz mf start to think, allowing you to have wiggle room.
The lower rank? Get ready to get hopkicker in the most unprecedented moments
I just started playing street fighter 5 and I literally have the same problems right know
Another big thing, is that the player you think is "bad" might not actually be bad at all. I think trying to categorize players as strictly "good" or "bad" is a limiting factor for recognizing how to grow.
nah they're actually trash bro trust me
When I punish wakeup super 3 times in a row and he goes for it a 4th time, he's awful.
@@Zetsuuga But did it hit the 4th time?
@@Zetsuuga but did it work?
@@Zetsuuga You got galaxy-brained at it worked the 4th time, didn't it?
I don't know where I heard it from first, but the strategy seems to go: at low skill level, you're cleaning up after other people's mistakes. At high skill level, you're trying to force them to make mistakes in the first place.
Brian F said something similar in one of his videos
@@EmeraldLance That might well be where I heard it.
One truth I had to learn to improve was that, when I started doing the smart thing and still lost to people being maniacs on the sticks, it *was* a skill issue. They were so much better at being stupid than I was at being smart and that's the truth, there is a skill to playing like an animal and some people are good at it
For me, it's more like fighting maniacs and smart people is just a different skill set, if someone plays like a maniac I just need to play a lil lame and wait for them to do something I can punish, I don't need to force mistakes out of them like I do with smart players
@@jonnysac77 that's the correct answer, monke players forced you to be patient which is very lame but that the price to tame the beast
@@jonnysac77 masters i feel are folks who can freely - with allowed bias to one side or another of course - switch between a wild ape and a smart ape. After all, Donkey Kong Jr Math exists
"They were so much better at being stupid than I was at being smart"
Excellent quote, I'll have to keep that one in mind.
A piece of advice I keep giving to players who are worse than me (there aren't that many, but still) is that when they're learning a matchup... they should challenge *everything*.
Is this advice going to cost them multiple tens of rounds? Absolutely. They're going to get smoked by every frame trap and every decent oki setup out there... but here's the thing:
A player who blocks everything and never challenges will never learn what they CAN challenge, a player who challenges everything will quickly learn what they CAN'T challenge. You'll never learn how dangerous the world is if you never get out there and experience it for yourself!
Exactly. It's OK to be weak temporarily in order to become stronger later. The goal isn't to strictly win, but rather to improve. And if your true goal is to improve, you actually end up winning more in the long run anyway.
I've been struggling with this for, God, more than 15 years by now? And I feel like one of the most eye-opening things that happened to me was learning about the neutral RPS from Krackatoa (he's not the one who came up with it, but I don't quite remember where he heard it from). Basically, you can play proactively, reactively or preemptively, and all three win against one and lose to another. New and inexperienced players tend to play proactively: they just mash moves and see what happens. More well-versed players want to play reactively: they know that they need to watch the enemy character and act accordingly, picking the right tools for whatever situation they end up in. However, human reactions don't only matter when reacting to mixups: every action you make based on the enemy behavior has an innate lag to it, which proactive players can easily take advantage of by getting in and twerking on you before you can even realize they got in. This is when you want to play preemptively, leaving big buttons on the screen for the enemy to walk straight into and using their inability to whiff-punish or dodge it in time. Sure, they might hit you out of that Pot 6HS, but how much life do you lose if they don't know the proper punish? Can they even hit you again next time?
Obviously, the best players can switch between the three playstyles on the fly, but this mindset was still a huge help for me, allowing to see the game in broad strokes before zooming in and making specific choices.
Loosing to players who just mash whatever the "get off me" system mechanic is everytime they're on defense is the most frustrating thing ever.
I saw a JDCR vid where he also said to embrace cheesy moves at low ranks so you can move up to play proper "tekken". Its not bad to use "bad" or "cheesy" moves against people who cant deal with them. Cause if you try to play high level fighting games at low ranks your gonna find yourself playing high level with just yourself.
The logic of abusing moves applies to all levels, even at highest level people come up with techs and if others can't deal with it they get blown up. Like Kusoru at Final Round with his log assists. If the opponent can't deal with something there is absolutely no reason not to abuse the hell out of it. It's not your fault you're spamming, it's your opponent's fault for not being able to deal with it (or the game for having shitty balance).
CAT CAM
I ran into a really good player in the tower recently (and took six of our fifteen games) but still have problems with feral Sol and Potemkins, so this is definitely a video I'll com back to. Thanks for covering this topic.
I main pot, what was the trouble with the feral pot? Might be able to grant some insight :)
@@belalghunaim7803 as an Anji player, neutral isn't so bad, but putting him in the corner, where Anji is usually strongest, is really frustrating. Back Mega Fist shuts down Fuujin pressure; he easily gets out of Shin and delayed Nagiha. Gapless Nagiha, Rin, or even empty Fuujin all run the risk of Pot Buster. I get that you have to rps around those kinds of options with delay Nagiha or empty Fuujin, but if Pot guesses with either move correctly it turns the whole match around whereas I don't feel like Anji has a huge cashout guess to play around.
What problems do you face against those feral Sols?
@@AidenR19 for the most part Sol is my fault because I mistime the proper moves to deal with moves that give humongous counterhit damage and feel like an idiot (2S/2D versus Vortex for instance). There's also gimmicks lile empty BR into Wild Throw that I don't see against higher level Sols and it frees me up more than I'd like when the feral hogs mug me in the tower.
i had a wrestling teammate who rolled. he would be about to be pinned on his back and his move was dubbed the turtleman roll and he would pin ppl somehow. it made 0 sense bc he was doing this as a senior and it worked so much
This advice is all basically encapsulated in the famous FSB vs G andhi match in SSF4 AE 2012 at dreamhack from late 2013, which you can find to really see.
Was literally just thinking about this, love the breakdown of risk vs "safe" play and the short-term vs long-term growth.
I'm replacing "That's a bad option, my opponent shouldn't do that" with "It doesn't seem like they should be able to get away with that, so what makes it bad?" It's my responsibility then to make the option "bad"; if I can't figure something out to put the risk-reward in my favor, it's a good option against me. Also seen my in-game awareness improve as a result.
so simple, but this is one of THE best fighting game improvement tips, analogies and allegory I've ever heard. the wrestling example was perfect.
This topic is interesting because I feel like this is one of the more straightforward explanation for NOT getting better at fighting games as a conscious choice. TONS of people exist between the space of literally just mashing and trying to actively improve. The people who play the game a lot but ONLY to do their "one (funny) move" are in this space. They often pick up how to defend against common strategies only to do their funny move, or if they don't even care about that they stop rematching.
Shit am I just describing how grappler mains get into FGs
You have to give your opponent a reason to not use the high-risk/high-reward "gorilla" option. If they keep hitting you with it, they aren't going to stop, no matter how "improper" the risk/reward should be in that situation.
I've been stuck on that plateau for years in every game I play, very helpful vid. I don't really lose to "worse" players in tournament, but I can't get my mind around taking more risks against higher level players. I play too safe, too "correct", and changing that playstyle takes a lot of effort.
As a former high school wrestler, that Peterson story might be my new favorite thing. Thanks for that!
Learning to add decision making and strategy to the feral play style has been deeply rewarding.
I call neutral the Devil's Playground
This is a good video. In that mindset of constantly defending, i feel like that person meeds to learn to have fun again. Stop worrying about every hit you take.
My first FG was SFV and I'll tell you what, learning how to fight Ken players was a fight for my life everyday at the beginning but it felt SO good to finally consistently beat the "Crazy Ken" players
I played Urien though so I don't have a whole lot of room to talk about being crazy
When I was going to events I felt like this was code for "I lost to someone unpredictable who mixed my shit. It was a good blend of smart and dumb." IDK why tho
I haven't finished the video yet, and i know its like a year old, but i do have my own take on the premise.
The key to beating "bad" players, and the mental block thet killed me when i was losing while playing "right", is learning that no one has to respect your gameplan by default. If you want to go up amd get the the strike throw oki, but you're constantly getting mashed out when you try throw, its because your opponents dont respect the meaty. So club them to death with the meaty until they learn to hold block. THEN you can throw them, and every single aspect of "correct" play has to proceed along similar lines. You earn respect for your gameplan by running the basics first and then adapting to your opponents reactions.
Getting good is just building up that gameplan until it holds up and you dont have anything fake left in your game plan. Once you get past that point you're actually ready to start dealing with people who will also play "correctly" from the start, and then you start the next step of evolving your own gameplay and skills.
Before hopping online, repeat the motto:
I'm bad, and that's good! I will never be good, and that's not bad!
Came back to this video after having a terrible time in Strive, really hits hard.
Sajam Friend : Kakushi-waza : Pītāson
The Enemy : Na..Nani? Ugokemasen
I like the “feral player” term. Accurate
Obviously when you're learning how to "play correctly," you learn what your character is supposed to do for their general gameplan, as well as what your opponent's character's gameplan is and how to stop it, but you should never forget:
You're fighting your opponent, not his character. It doesn't matter whether he's playing his character suboptimally; you have to 1) figure out what he, the player, not the character, is going for, then 2) figure out ways your character can stop that.
I'd also argue you shouldn't be playing every round the same way; if you're playing someone you've never fought and it's an early round, try different things in the same situation and note how he reacts to it. Make a mental note, so that you know how to react in those situations in later rounds. Essentially sacrifice the 1st round or so (or 1st game if your online game allows you to play more than 1 game) to figure out as much of your opponent's tendencies first.
The main thing I see with this kind of complaint is that the reason people lose to "bad" players is because they actually check thst you're playing the game and not on autopilot. When you play with "good" players, you will naturally see the same kinds of behaviours and combo routes, so you naturally start to internalize that and you end up with "Oh, I'm playing into a sol, he is going to do X things at round start and Y will be his gameplan", and while its good to have a general idea of how the character *wants* to play, you're still fighting a person who is going to behave differently than the last sol you fought. Point being, getting shaken up by "bad" playstyles is good and they are not in fact bad at all, just different from the norm, and learning to adapt to your opponent is a core part of playing fighting games.
That friend knowledge checking IRL would be the vane of my existence if i ever met him.
man i hate knowledge/skill checks because once i learn how to deal with it, is over, insta win, E, Z, i hate how it feels like I'm doing homework and not playing against a human, i drop SFV multiple times because of these fleshy CPU "humans", i don't even feel good when figure them out, i really needed this video man thanks
Nothing at all feels more frustrating than feeling like you are playing the character "right" and your opponent is just fucking around and you just don't have answers to their random bullshit.
Brian_F saying that "I play better against good players" is just a lie was such a power move
I'm in this range and disrespect goes a long way until you can learn what kind of player you're fighting
Also, even while mashing you are learning what kind of mashing works for you. You learn your own style of mashing, but when you give that up you stop know what works/feels good for you. So just being less comfortable with your character can mess you up even more.
Thanks for bringing martial arts in this topic because is exactly like in fighting games XD one trick martial arts or feral swinging punchers in striking often beat new people that is learning.
People still learning get overload by the quick decision making during a match or fight while the other guy is not thinking and doing his thing xD
Really enjoyed this video, it's a good video about life in general but very much so for fighting games. It is so easy to get sooo mad when you get janked out in a game, especially when you start with a friend and they do one thing over and over and win and you're getting smacked up. It's important to know you're not perfect and neither is the person you are playing against, when you learn something new you (a new character or new techniques) it's important to accept loss will come but also don't just let someone mash a button at you and *never* challenge don't just hold down back because it's *not* your turn.
Learn your new stuff, have fun goals and put an end to monke monday one fight at a time.
It's as simple as this. Just because you're taking a safer style of gameplay doesn't mean you now don't need to deal with all the unsafe high risk reactive situations your opponents put you in.
I think the best thing you can do whilst you're trying to go over the... let's call it "super bronze" hump where pretty much you just have to win punishing your opponents mistakes because they all do high priority punishable moves is to develop a super simple gameplan in neutral to fall back on whilst you think and come up with counter strategies. Sometimes you flowchart so much better than them you don't need to learn a counter right then and there and can save it for the lab.
I feel like tekken is a big culprit of this. I feel like (especially some characters) until you get to the top few ranks, everyone is just doing gimmicky/knowledge check things, cus how are you supposed to know all 240 moves of every character?
This is why PR Balrog was such a good and scary player. He was a player who could play super randomly and nutty but with the skill of a person who could win Evo. He was one of the most unconventional players and that made him strong
Ah yes. Pr balrog, the daywalker.
I just want to say, whoever the editor is that chose to put Kliff as the thumbnail of this video.
I see you.
This talk was really good, im basically still stuck in that year of getting my ass beat while learning and this was super encouraging!
Love how this also applies to IRL fighting like boxing and HEMA fencing. I routinely find myself losing to aggressive not so technical people because I'm not able to defend as well but also in turn don't take enough risks and try and play very safe. Works better against experienced people but against newer people it falls apart
You can't reason with gorillas.
You just have to put em' down.
1 year later, this is exactly what I've run into in SF6. I've got nearly all the characters to plat 2, but I can't get anyone past that. It's been a constant solid wall. I played a few mirror matches last night and got SMOKED by someone just throwing out every unsafe move you can think of - I was so annoyed! He's throwing out moves I know are massively unsafe, but by the time my brain has registered the move and thought "Oh what's the best follow up to that" he's already mashing out unsafe overheads and hitting me again. Going back and looking at the replay, my button presses are SO conservative - I'm playing super defensive waiting to punish their reckless gameplay, but meanwhile on their side they are just mashing after unsafe moves and catching out my defensive brain processing delay. I think I need to mash more and play a bit more high risk, but damn it's hard to get my brain into that gear.
Damn that’s good though. Not bad at all. My wall is Silver 3. Lol although only have the game for 3 weeks and I’m totally new. But still. I hope I get past this. Started at Bronze 1.
Lots of good advice. Another way to deal with bad players who manage to beat you by surprising you with random moves, is to play safe, let them make mistakes, and punish them.
This is the best video I’ve ever seen explaining my exact issue I was having with fighting games, after trying out some new stuff and taking those risks I have progressed a lot in tekken and I’m more excited to try other games now that I’ve wrapped my head around what was holding me back. Thank u.
When I first started to play Tekken 7 I played MRaven and learned a bunch of tech, combos etc. When I jumped online for the first time I couldn't apply any of my tech cause I would just get hit by randoms mashing Rage Art and mashing one string over and over and I didn't know how to defend against anything.
Then I realized doing 41 into backstance down 3 gave me a low that lead to a combo opportunity. When I did that I started winning way more then before cause no one was blocking it.
Learning that made me realize that going for risky options is a completely fine thing to do, especially when fighting lower level players. Always doing the safe option isn't usually what wins you games
"This guy beat me by playing wrong. If he had played right i wouldve countered it." is a phrase I have to confront in my mental filter way too often. I keep telling myself "That just means you lost and you're aware of how badly you misunderstood the situation." Lmfao
Watched this video again after picking up SF6. Kimberly has been a blast, but I realized a lot of her strengths is in a lot of tricks and traps and gimmicky stuff, so when I warm up, I don’t play her, I play one of my secondary/off characters that’s either guile or a shoto, because that warms up my fundamentals and reactions
I think this usually means newbies or flowchart type players, the answer to that is that it just happens sometimes, sometimes you get randomed out, sometimes I beat people way better than me, if you lose consistently to players like that then you probably just aren't thinking about it correctly, like just sit back and block, wait for them to make mistakes, if they are actually bad, that's all you need to do
When he metioned that the concept of easy scrub killer strategies in all sports, it reminds of bringing out your queen early in chess, while it doesnt work with a good oponent, you can cheese out wins with people that dont know how to stop it.
Yeah, I find I play so much better when I’m not thinking, the moment I say to myself “aight, I’m gunna try this on them when they do this” I’m already trapped in their combo
Peterson roll flash kick confirmed
Why do fighting games consistently include such gimmicky options, ones that are frustrating as a newbie but meaningless at the top level? What's the point?
That Peterson roll guy was the definition of a power bottom.
Saw a cat, liked the video. No questions asked
2:17 the magical amount, the magical amount, not enough for u, to go 0-2, but just enough to count
Evolving over time definitely makes a difference.
Yeah, trying to play footsies, whiff punish and do true blockstrings doesn't work against people rubbing their face on the stick, you gotta buffer the shit out of everything or just bulldog your way in and do stagger pressure and spacing traps, but then you run the risk of getting too used to "noob-killing strats" and not learning the game yourself, so you should still make an effort to consciously whiff punish and hit confirm in between doing those and not be afraid to let loose because a true blockstring doesn't let the opponent mash in between, but if you press on minus frames you might still catch them flinching and get a counter hit. Also, know how to press on defense, you can see in SFV that SF4 players on defense will always backdash, V-reversal, V-shift or DP, they only take the options that are safe and/or invincible, but at high level the players are always checking pressure with buttons, it's a really important thing to do, you can't be afraid to try, but you also need to learn from when it works and when it doesn't, obviously.
Okay now how do I beat good players
the wrestling analogy is so good.
Til Sajam is a grappler irl
Dude the first half of that wrestling story had the middleschooler in me so fucking pissed
😮 not me “it’s broken, can’t do anything”
This unfortunately reminds me of my own FG journey. I started with Smash 4, and mained Little Mac, who is very skewed toward ground movement and super strong moves on the ground, but has very limited platform and air movement and really weak air moves. I could beat people up who would fight me ground-to-ground and get wins that way, but anyone willing to camp me out could beat me pretty easily. Because of that, I feel like it stunted my growth in terms of Smash fundamentals, because I could just get gimmicky wins, and I struggled more when Ultimate came out and I switched characters to someone more fundamentals-based. Thankfully I’ve been able to unlearn the bad habits Mac taught me, but I know what it’s like firsthand to learn how to play gimmicky at the expense of long-term improvement
“There’s no way this guy is going to wake-up DP again, I bet I can finally start my oki”
“SHORYUKEN”
Me fighting for my life in tekken tryin to deal with people do 10 hit strings and not knowing what gaps exist or how to block them 🤕
Funnily enough i started wrestling in 6th grade and also didn’t win a single match the first year. Rough times
This puts into perspective that I should learn how to safe jump correctly, cuz I have a friend who always wake up super when by right he should block and I eat that super all the time
I LOVE BEING A BAD PLAYER. I’VE BEEN SO NAUGHTY WITH MY BAD DECISION MAKING AND MASHING! PLEASE PUNISH ME MORE.
I was being mauled by some of these wild low level players in rank. I’m lucky enough to be alive
God this is such a good video. RN, Im on that exact road trying to learn how to deal with gimicky playstyles by throwing myself into celestial until I find answers. I lose all the fucking time and it shows.
I play really good neutral against someone and then on one knockdown I just lose to getting thrown like 5 times coz Im too scared to tech throws more often yet or backdash them.
But thats ok, coz long term my defence against that will get much much stronger and since I play Ram and have a really good backdash backthrow incident, I will murder everyone who gets too throw happy.
This phase is not easy to get past in anything, so I cope seether and mald almost every time to everything. And thats ok, salt is a part of fighting games. While not caring about results is truly the ideal, you will not achieve it immediately. So I will continue to grind and mald my ass off to having to hold Bridget mix forever until I learn that matchup or find answers to it.
This is like a long version of the tortoise and the hair. People using shortcuts and gimmicks to get the immediate win will always lose in the long run. Like in RTS, you HAVE to get through the waves of cheesers before they getting to the people that know what they are doing. Eventually, the cheese strats will no longer work at a certain level and those players will just stop ranking up.
This happened to me on SF6 Ranked yesterday, gimmicky and overly passive players. It tilted me so much that I just unistalled the game in anger which is very uncharateristic of me. I calmed down and thought about the matches while it downloaded again and just took a different route, I just played their passive game instead of being overly aggressive (ironic coming from a Marisa main) and did that until THEIR ran out to just go in. With this I started getting win streaks, perfects here and there, even a double one, a one and done Guile and a Ryu who just ragequitted on me as I was going for the game, they won game 1 I was a hit away from game 2 and even got a perfect. I'm just Platinum 2 but I'm learning and improving daily, kinda since I don't play everyday.
i watch this whenever i get salty after a session to put me back in the right mindset.
Talking about the Peterson roll hit like a truck that's fucking hilarious
Me, who mains GGST Faust as my first fighting game character: “I’m in this video and I don’t like it”
I should have abused Sheeva’s stomp more. I was already playing like it was mostly worthless except as an occasional surprise (like I did in MK9) before they nerfed it.
Sajam been telling FG advice for years and somehow keeps getting better???
Low-key, he just casually TED talked some truth to us
Remember, online ranked matches dont matter. Tournament ones do. Everything else is practice.
Lost to someone I should've beat in bracket and I've been thinking about this for 2 days straight. ty
*YOU MUST DEFEAT JOHNNY DOUGHNUTS TO STAND A CHANCE*
This video is so goddamn valuable
Some people are so far behind they think they're ahead and it's a vocal majority 😂
I just get too emotional and pissed off and then like roll a new player and hate it because they were weaker
Its hard to play against players that never addapt or are completely random in their decitions
if they never adapt find the thing they can't react to and spam it.
I think that I'm the bad player that people get mad when they lose to lol. I've made several rivals in FGs so far after I started last year.
"Why did Brian make this video again?
Oh."
Everyone here trying to improve, struggling, and carving their path to success.
Meanwhile me: Boots Catcam when?
Not fgc related but you reminded me of an interaction in a casual Apex Legends lobby where I lost to a guy that had less health than me. He did a risky slide jump around the corner that surprised me and killed me but my teammate cleaned him up two seconds after. As a ranked player I'm not expecting someone to make a dumb decision like that so it threw me way off.
2000's kids know the lifestyle of in in daycare in melee in the temple free for all sitting on the edge of the stage as pikachu spamming down b the entire match trying to get second place so you are allowed to play in the next free for all.
I agreee this is great advice for almost any game or sport. This advice rings true for when I was getting (relatively) good at poker. I kept getting bullied at the table by this ferral player. When I talked to my friends later it was pure copium. I knew I still had a lot to learn, but I was letting my ego get in the way in of reflection. It wasn't until I started reading some poker books that I realized how scrubby I was being. When I took out the ego and took it as a learning experience it went so much better.
3:50 - 4:02 lol true. Everyone should play some Smash Ultimate online to experience this, the amount of people you see with this mindset is huge. They will play 1 specific way and if you deal with it, they out.
So basically you can "play well", learn and improve, and still lose a bunch, because it's part of the process... also, doing random "stupid" stuff helps rather than playing safe all the time
Old video so Idk who’s going to see it. After a few years of SFV on and off I was playing Ken and I would just rush down and play aggro as hell against people and it would work a good amount of time. Until I got into a match this akuma and me and him were actually attempting to whiff punish each other in neutral. It was easily the moment I felt like I had evolved.
A really clear example to me is ping pong. I can beat most of my friends because my serve is good enough that they can't return it. But if I ever match up against someone who can hit it back then I am fucked