It's important to acknowledge that playing against friends is inherently less stressful for some people, and stress inhibits both learning and performance.
Agreed when there is too much stress. Personally I think there is also a "optimal" level of stress that creates more focus therefore higher learning, just dont want to have too much stress.
Well it’s also the rule of the dialectic. Any sort of dialogue or any competitive playing must be backed by a feeling of mutual aid. It needs to be friendly competition by default
It's also important to take into account that there's a lot of psychology to consider as well. For example, and you may have heard this about studying, but it's well-supported in psychology that for learning new information, spaced practice is better than massed practice. This means that, when trying to learn from playing against someone much better, or when trying to learn new execution or to practice a new strategy for a particular situation, doing a little bit frequently is a lot more effective than doing a bunch all at once - so, a few matches against a better player, with time to think and learn as much as you can from that small, digestable amount of information, rather than 6h of sets that is so much information you just can't absorb any of it to improve. Or with that new combo, land it a few times and then try again another day, instead of repeating all at once - after several smaller sessions, maybe THEN try to see if you can do it 5x in a row. Stuff like that. And that's just ONE piece of psych information that helps with planning improvement.
100% agree. I think this is actually a really common pitfall of people on the threshold of being a "top players", I've talked about this a few times on stream before. It's why consistency is so important.
I started thinking about this recently. I used to play video games all day so when I got into fighting games I kept playing like it was a normal game by doing 5 hours sessions everyday. But I noticed that by doing this with fgs I started to play too much on auto pilot and without stopping to think about what I was doing right and what I needed to improve. I was just hitting my head on a wall but now that im doing smaller sessions with a bit more focus I feel like im able to pay more attention to my opponent and adapt mid match more consistently
I've got like 3,000 hours on SFV, not including a bunch of locals, majors, watched hundred or thousands of hours of replays and tourney footage, played with friends, joined a coaching discord, even ran some tournaments... never got out of gold.
I'm fascinated by the topic of improvement in competetive games, as a long term Starcraft Player who now plays GG strive on the side its really interesting just how much habits and attitude towards learning transfer between the 2 games despite having extremely different core concepts/gameplay. Personally I would love to see more info on high level players from one genre of game E.G Counter Strike/Dota/League etc trying out other genres and to see if they could get as good in those games. The skills might be different but the path to learn and refine those skills can be consistently done by high level players. Personally I have 271 hours in Strive and have switched characters a bunch and only hit challenger for celestial a few times and never got in. My goal is to be as good at Strive (or fighting games in general) as I am at Starcraft. The hardest part about this goal is that its really hard to compare because ranking in Stacraft is a very accurate measure of skill for active players. So I can pretty confidently say I'm top 4% of the EU player base due to my rank where idk what the percentage of players that are in celestial are. Either way I know I'm not as good as I want to be in fighting games and I'm working towards that. Diaphone, your content and streams and general attitude towards the game has been very helpful and is appreciated. The other really interesting (but slightly depressing) part of this kind of conversation is about the players who sincerely try to improve but end up being hardstuck at a level. I think the hardstuck part applies to everyone, its just the level is different. At a certain point I think players hit their limit and it seems that it doesn't matter how much extra information is given or practice put in the improvement is not noticible. I love the thought expermiment that given effectively unlimited time and the best coaching in the world could ANY player become an Evo champion? I honestly am not sure. Anyway I waffled on, TL;DR good interesting video.
AdrianRiven is the most notable player that plays league and FGs, he’s quite good. I definitely think the mindset developed from other competitive endeavors helps with FGs for sure. I have too many thoughts on “hard stuck” that I might make a vid on but I think a lot of it comes down to mentality, ineffective practice and not noticing more gradual improvements For the thought experiment… I think most people could do it, unlimited time is pretty OP lol.
Super insightful video! I met a nice person on ranked 1 year ago. We said GGs in chat, talked for a minute and send friend requests after that. Since then we are playing casuals about once a week, learning together, talking and havin' fun. And our growth as players really picked up the pace! With his help i improved as a player more in the last year than in the 5 years before that. And i got a friend! So thats pretty cool, too! Talk to people you meet online. Say ggs, be respectful and friendly! You'll become a better fighting game player in the end 😉
Really enjoyed the video! I think playing in online tournaments is another important way to get better, particularly with learning how to handle nerves
From the time I started playing this game until now the amount of improvement that I have shown is crazy. I went from being barley able to win a match in floor 5 to floor 9 and smashing everybody on floor 8 and I can say one VERY big thing for me was my mentality. Once I changed my mentality from I suck at this to play what am I doing wrong and how can I fix it the amount of improvement that came was insane. In my opinion your mentality and willingness to put time in and learn is what really opens up the doors for you because I’ve never been a necessary high ranked (not top tier) player in any game and this is my first game that I’m am somewhat of a high rank and I can say I feel very very accomplished. My goal was to get to floor 9 and I got there now I’m working towards celestial and at the beginning it felt like I would never get there and now it is just at the tip of my fingers and I think another think that really helped me was finding the character that I was most comfortable on maybe not my best character but I’m comfortable on them and that ended up being I-no and the amount of improved that I started to have once playing a character I can constantly perform on made a huge difference.
I can't lie; the table of average hours to get to X floor surprised me quite a bit. Can't help but feel like I have in fact gotten better at fighting games
Thanks for another good video Diaphone! I've been watching your content since Strive came out and I can for sure say it's helped me get to celestial! I think the community take awaybis super important frfr! I'm kind of a shy person, but getting to know some of the regulars and new people on the ggst discord feels like its opened a much deeper door when it comes to playing these games, for me.
I honestly think about a lot, I think about people's genetics, level of focus while playing, and ways that people learn data faster that benefits them. But like what seems most apparent is playtime whether your winning And/or losing the majority of the time
Having a training partner is so extremely helpful not only for skill building but also for motivation. Training partners can help you learn the game from nothing and continue with that aid throughout your time with a game so long as youre close in skill. Not to mention that playing against one person a ton can be really helpful in learning things like how to lab options or alter your play style for specific matchups as you will increasingly grow more attuned to your opponents character options and tendencies far quicker than if you just played random characters online. All of this not to mention that having someone who isn’t always competing for the win is what makes these games really fun for me. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve laughed my ass off after running full screen as ky to grab my training partner. Strive was my second 2d fighter after DBFZ and with only light local experience in smash I finally got into celestial last week with roughly 150 hours, and only was no doubt thanks to my training partner as we went from complete noobs to both being in celestial in just a couple months. It only took me ~200 matches in ranked to get to celestial but the 1000+ player matches I shared with my partner were definitely what got me there. Find a training partner it will help you so incredibly much.
Good video, and that last part is probably why I've stopped being competitive. I'm not okay with losing in competitive setting, and even if I tell myself I should be okay with it I do not learn from my losses, which results in losing still not being okay. Plus I'm getting old and don't have enough competitive experience to compensate the discrepancy. Which is probably why I have more fun getting wins from lower floor players, and come to terms that I'll never improve competitively
Highlighting the importance of playing with "Friends and people you know" is great here and can be branched out to "Someone you can actively communicate with". Specifically because you can learn what you've done WRONG or anything the opponent was able to learn about you and capitalize on and you can chat back and forth about strategies to fill those gaps. What can be measured can be improved and that goes with your game plan as well.
Thanks for doing this, it's insightful. I'm have a suggestion for a follow up to this survey. How do you practice? Gathering info on where different types of players spend their time and how they track their improvement relative to their practice/play time. This could give insights into where/how people see improvements in games (relative to their goals) vs. how they put the time in.
I've been playing DBFZ with a couple friends for a year or so, and even though I'm not exactly at their level, watching their sets and playing with them has been incredibly helpful for all of us. The instant feedback after each match and seeing others improve in certain areas they lacked before is a constant influx of motivation to keep practising and keep improving. Great video!
Improvement for me in strive has just come really slowly since from day one I was stuck between floors 6-8 and only now about four months later after about 100 hours I've gone up to floor 9. I think there are lot of things holding me back but they aren't things I can change easily. Some of it's the difficulty of my main (Jack-o) but playing a simpler character just doesn't feel as good to me since I have always leaned towards more difficult characters in FGs or any other genre. And I don't feel as motivated because none of my friends are into fighting games and I would not expect them to spend £55 on strive just for me to play with a friend unless they really wanted the game. It helps to see the statistics from the video since I have always felt like I was a bad player for how many hours I have spent in the game but comparing what I have to what most people do let's me know I'm doing something right, and that keeps me going. The other thing is just that I always think playing sets with people on discord is not a good idea because I always think I won't really be helped by people just because of how young I am compared to the large majority of players who play fighting games. I know that I have just pretty much waffled a few paragraphs but it would really help me to hear some advice from pretty much anyone.
Don't worry about age... idk the age of most people I play vs, it don't matter. And yea it's prob way harder to make celestial with Jack-o, but I dont think thats an issue taking longer either
i think besides practice and mindset, physical health is just as important. ideally you wouldn't want to play a tournament on 3 hours of sleep for example lol. so things like hydration, sleep, regular breaks etc. can keep you at top shape for improvement or just playing in general
This data is really cool. I feel this was accurate for me as I practiced in Xrd and thats when I really felt like I went from a below avg player to an above avg player.
It took me 389 hours to get to the Celestial floor, but I haven't passed the 5 of 6 matches yet. It's been a heck of a rough battle. Edit: that's my Steam tracked number. In game it's 248 hours. Apparently I spend a lot of time AFK lmao Edit 2: not even 10 hours later in game and I got through the Celestial Trial! I'm so happy! I even saw you in the room Diaphone! I almost challenged you during my trial but realized I needed to win 😂😂😂 thanks for the awesome video!
Actually I think the in game tracker badge is for time in an actual match. I have 400 hours in game on steam but it says something like 225 on the badge and then 100 something in training mode. Kinda weird lol
@@astrangeriremain yeah I'm not 100% sure how it calculates, I just assume it's going to be more accurate to actual time played vs the Steam number Lord knows every time you spend 5 minutes connecting to network every time adds up lmao
Wow a data analysis video, this is so sick! I agree on your point on having friends to boost and gauge your skill performance. Honestly I was just going to buy strive for a casual thing and stick to KOF 2002 UM until my friend purchased the game and went to a higher floor. So, I decided to play some more and reach a higher floor which lead to both of us racing and hitting celestial around under 120 hours of gametime. Now we just go and give advice on matchups and scenarios whenever we decide to play. Coming from different fighting game backgrounds me and my friend both learned some skills from each other while playing strive. I most likely would have quit or taken longer to hit celestial if it wasn't for my friend lol. Also the I-no discord and your YT vids helped with the process as well thanks Diaphone!
none of my real-life friends want to play fighting games because they say it takes too much time and work, but they play PVE games like FFXIV and Genshin Impact everyday lol
To add to this, when i ask randos (soon to be friends) to do sets with me i always ask to do it over online with a Mic. because they'll tend to tell me tricks more often than not. "this is fake" or "most sol's i know, 5p here"
Would've been neat to see if main selection had an impact. I know this would've added an additional element of salt but I wonder how much it matters. I just started playing this week and hit floor 9 in under 30 hours with Leo. All I've realistically done is spam fireball, anti-air/wake-up flash kick, and then cross-up backturn spam over and over again. I can't hit-confirm, throw tech/avoid, vary/layer my offense, do optimal combos (I only know 2 bnbs and no RC combos), or any of the things that would define a "good" player on a system level, but backturn cheese lets me rob games off players that are absolutely better.
I think this data wouldn’t really be useful because this kind of stuff has a cap to how effective it can be. Sure it bops players that haven’t learned the match up but as soon as you get slightly past that you’ll hit a big wall and then have to learn the rest anyway. Guilty Gear is a very match up intensive game so almost every character can cheese wins on clueless opponents. But that’s just what it is: cheese. So I don’t think it would add to a discussion of how to get to the highest level of play, where this wouldn’t work.
The Guilty Gear Strive tower system is a flawed system because it's not a true indicator of skill. Why? Because it's not Elo-based. There's no fighting game out there with a Ranked system that is Elo/Glicko-based. They all use some stupid algorithm when a tried-and-tested system like Elo or Glicko exists.
Mmm, from my personal experience, I feel like it’s not so much who you main, but how long it takes you to settle on a main and hone in on that particular moveset. I’m fairly sure I spent a solid 70 hours or so waffling before I finally settled on axl, and only then did I really start to get serious Then again, I’ve just switched again to testament after 450 hours and still haven’t hit celestial, so who am I to judge
@@Maver1ck101 Also you can just dodge bad matchups in the Strive lobby system, which is kind of the opposite of an indicator of skill. I've seen Twitch streamers do it and I don't understand the mentality behind it
Good info, thanks. I don't have any PSN friends that have Strive, but have been in the Resource & Community Discords for a while. Hope to finally get in sets w/someone around 10th floor (like me) to get instant feedback you mentioned, which I've done for other games like SFV. I don't know how many hours I have, but do a lot of Park, replay review, training, and watch a good content guy on YT for my main, then do a little Tower. Played offline & online tourneys for other games, placing low, but never for GG. Wish I could play more often (usually just some weekends). Maybe Celestial's possible. Fun vid.
I got to celestial in under 150 hours. I barely played accent core (about 10 hours) and other than that I had no gg experience or knowledge. This vid really boosted my confidence. I'm probably better than I think
you can't escape the fact that learning a fighting game will ALWAYS feel like a chore, because you're never able to learn about theory unless you learn the controls, and to learn theory you also need to know some combos, which are even more specific and boring to learn in some cases. Even playing against friends can be incredibly painful because they can be leagues better than you to the point where you don't learn anything, can't learn anything, and just end up getting demolished in under 20 seconds. Fighting games are designed for veterans, new players (like me) have zero chance at getting good or having any fun at all.
For me it took about 180-200 hours to get to celestial on my first charachter and about 10 hours on my second. Now I can do it in 10-15 minutes, after playing 450 hours. Playing with friends helps, I agree, but for me the most helpful thing is labbing situations and optimal stuff.
Picked up kof xv as my first fighting game to actually learn, but all my friends play ggst and are celestial, they aren't really interested in getting kof either. So I've been really debating just trying to grind and learn all the fg fundies through kof or just drop kof for a little while and play an easier fighting game, and go back to kof when I already developed all the fighting game fundies and muscle memory
When I play kof it's all just me doing combos in training mode and trying to play the game in casuals and getting absolutely fucked when I thought I would be getting matched with similar level people. Feel like I'm at a brick wall where I can't find friends who play kof and are similar skill level and can't practice the fundies in online matchmaking
This is a great video and I agree, my friend I play alot of local with he loves dbfz but hes not as good as me (he dont own the game just plays with me) so I play randoms against him and doing that has made me learn alot more character specific combos, I wish he liked gg more but it's a bit overwhelming for him especially when I play zato 🤣 his gio is coming along slowly his defense and fundamentals are pretty solid its combos that he cant do (no auto combos lol) I'm currently in floor 8 but not lost a Match in a while, between all the rpgs that came out and family I don't get much time to play online and I get weird nerves when I play random people I cant explain it, my friends I mix all day play calm the second I'm against a random I forget half my practice 🤣 need to meet more people on similar skill level to learn off as you say
Yeah I've definitely gotten super demotivated. Don't really have anyone to play with besides tower and I feel like I'm basically mashing still, bouncing between floors 8-10. Been considering dropping my main (Axl) for someone who will feel less like one or two mistakes loses me a round. I think generally I just don't have any idea how to properly learn or how to formulate a gameplan. I've got around 500 hours in Strive with more than that in SF 4/5 and idk. I dunno what I'm doing lol. Trying to look at it with less of a dour view, I think I'm just lacking knowledge of those building blocks to start my whole approach to learning in the first place.
If you think your main is holding you back, you should def consider switching. As for the learning aspect… it’s tough to say especially over YT comments but there are some really good books on the subject you should consider, cool thing is they apply to pursuits outside of FGs too
@@Diaphone Honestly I don't think he is, I think part of me just wants the easy out. But I have been thinking trying to learn another maybe more traditional character might do me some good. And I'm curious about any book recommendations you might have.
I play somewhat often with a couple of friends. Once, one of the guys in the group (who mains Chipp) made a comment about how we were better than him just because of the matchups (My friend and I were maining Gio and I-No respectively). So.. for the next two weeks we learned chip, we labbed and trained together... we didn't even look for combos online, we "invented" (or rediscovered) whatever suboptimal smoothbrained combos worked for us, and our somewhat limited skill, strictly with the mirror matchup in mind. Next time he joined us, he didn't even win a single round.... I'm slightly ashamed of how petty we were... but i learned a LOT, about the game, and about me as a player. We ended up doing the same when Baiken came out, and intend to do the same when Testament drops. So... yeah... in retrospect, the whole "i play with friends" having some sort of effect, makes absolute sense
Oh sick I'm above average! Though I don't think i'm at the same level as the average celestial player. I have 200 hours played, my only 2D fighting experience before this was a little bit of SF4 when it came out. I lose most of my celestial matches at the moment
I understand the importance of asking for help and advices for the people you play with. I joined a discord server where I play consistently with the same people and they are all better than me but I still feel I am improving playing with them even though I lose most matches. The thing is, even though I ask some things here and there, I really wanted to have long conversations and ask way more things, even the obvious ones, but I never do that because I fear I might be too inconvenient and annoying by throwing all my problems in the game at them. Am I thinking too much or would you reading this feel annoyed if someone started asking you a bunch of questions with no limits?
@@Diaphone Yeah, I think you are right. In the end everything can be talked through if you just be respectful in case you want to ask for help and Im just overthinking too much. But its still a bit awkward in my head, I feel like I shouldnt bother more experiencied people too much because the conversation would hold a way higher value just for me and the other person would prefer to spend their time playing with someone their level or something like that instead of giving attention to every newcomer that may not even stick with the game/community in the long term.
The Guilty Gear Strive tower system is a flawed system because it's not a true indicator of skill. Why? Because it's not Elo-based. There's no fighting game out there with a Ranked system that is Elo/Glicko-based. They all use some stupid algorithm when a tried-and-tested system like Elo or Glicko exists.
82% are floor 10 or higher. Sounds like a daed gaem where only the sweatlords remained. The best way to improve seems to be not improving at all and doing something more useful with your life. FGs are barebones products and you can't get to the top unless you no-life it like the ones already there. If you do get there, you'll have a niche, non-transferrable skill, sooo... Pretty bad?
I can see this, my brother and I played an old game together, it’s called “Lost Planet 1”. People use to say we were some of the best players. We both gave feedback to each other when playing, and like the Bible says… Proverbs 27:17 ESV Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another. Sadly my brother only plays shooters, I tried to get him to play fighting games but he won’t unfortunately.
Tbh I don't have anyone to really spare with. Normally I just go to the Park and get a few games while I'm in Training mode just to get myself warmed up.
![fellow fellow - PROUD feat. INK WARUNTORN [STRING QUARTET]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/BQrVkMPTdHE/mqdefault.jpg)
It's important to acknowledge that playing against friends is inherently less stressful for some people, and stress inhibits both learning and performance.
Agreed when there is too much stress. Personally I think there is also a "optimal" level of stress that creates more focus therefore higher learning, just dont want to have too much stress.
Ok but i dont have friends
@@morvmorchins, bro you roasted yourself 😭😭
Well it’s also the rule of the dialectic. Any sort of dialogue or any competitive playing must be backed by a feeling of mutual aid. It needs to be friendly competition by default
It's also important to take into account that there's a lot of psychology to consider as well. For example, and you may have heard this about studying, but it's well-supported in psychology that for learning new information, spaced practice is better than massed practice. This means that, when trying to learn from playing against someone much better, or when trying to learn new execution or to practice a new strategy for a particular situation, doing a little bit frequently is a lot more effective than doing a bunch all at once - so, a few matches against a better player, with time to think and learn as much as you can from that small, digestable amount of information, rather than 6h of sets that is so much information you just can't absorb any of it to improve. Or with that new combo, land it a few times and then try again another day, instead of repeating all at once - after several smaller sessions, maybe THEN try to see if you can do it 5x in a row. Stuff like that. And that's just ONE piece of psych information that helps with planning improvement.
100% agree. I think this is actually a really common pitfall of people on the threshold of being a "top players", I've talked about this a few times on stream before. It's why consistency is so important.
I started thinking about this recently. I used to play video games all day so when I got into fighting games I kept playing like it was a normal game by doing 5 hours sessions everyday. But I noticed that by doing this with fgs I started to play too much on auto pilot and without stopping to think about what I was doing right and what I needed to improve. I was just hitting my head on a wall but now that im doing smaller sessions with a bit more focus I feel like im able to pay more attention to my opponent and adapt mid match more consistently
I've got like 3,000 hours on SFV, not including a bunch of locals, majors, watched hundred or thousands of hours of replays and tourney footage, played with friends, joined a coaching discord, even ran some tournaments... never got out of gold.
Maybe the real celestial were the friends we made along the way
I'm fascinated by the topic of improvement in competetive games, as a long term Starcraft Player who now plays GG strive on the side its really interesting just how much habits and attitude towards learning transfer between the 2 games despite having extremely different core concepts/gameplay. Personally I would love to see more info on high level players from one genre of game E.G Counter Strike/Dota/League etc trying out other genres and to see if they could get as good in those games. The skills might be different but the path to learn and refine those skills can be consistently done by high level players.
Personally I have 271 hours in Strive and have switched characters a bunch and only hit challenger for celestial a few times and never got in. My goal is to be as good at Strive (or fighting games in general) as I am at Starcraft. The hardest part about this goal is that its really hard to compare because ranking in Stacraft is a very accurate measure of skill for active players. So I can pretty confidently say I'm top 4% of the EU player base due to my rank where idk what the percentage of players that are in celestial are. Either way I know I'm not as good as I want to be in fighting games and I'm working towards that. Diaphone, your content and streams and general attitude towards the game has been very helpful and is appreciated.
The other really interesting (but slightly depressing) part of this kind of conversation is about the players who sincerely try to improve but end up being hardstuck at a level. I think the hardstuck part applies to everyone, its just the level is different. At a certain point I think players hit their limit and it seems that it doesn't matter how much extra information is given or practice put in the improvement is not noticible. I love the thought expermiment that given effectively unlimited time and the best coaching in the world could ANY player become an Evo champion? I honestly am not sure. Anyway I waffled on, TL;DR good interesting video.
AdrianRiven is the most notable player that plays league and FGs, he’s quite good. I definitely think the mindset developed from other competitive endeavors helps with FGs for sure.
I have too many thoughts on “hard stuck” that I might make a vid on but I think a lot of it comes down to mentality, ineffective practice and not noticing more gradual improvements
For the thought experiment… I think most people could do it, unlimited time is pretty OP lol.
Super insightful video! I met a nice person on ranked 1 year ago. We said GGs in chat, talked for a minute and send friend requests after that.
Since then we are playing casuals about once a week, learning together, talking and havin' fun. And our growth as players really picked up the pace!
With his help i improved as a player more in the last year than in the 5 years before that. And i got a friend! So thats pretty cool, too!
Talk to people you meet online. Say ggs, be respectful and friendly! You'll become a better fighting game player in the end 😉
Playing vs my friends has been great since we constantly switch characters to avoid getting bored.
Really enjoyed the video! I think playing in online tournaments is another important way to get better, particularly with learning how to handle nerves
From the time I started playing this game until now the amount of improvement that I have shown is crazy. I went from being barley able to win a match in floor 5 to floor 9 and smashing everybody on floor 8 and I can say one VERY big thing for me was my mentality. Once I changed my mentality from I suck at this to play what am I doing wrong and how can I fix it the amount of improvement that came was insane. In my opinion your mentality and willingness to put time in and learn is what really opens up the doors for you because I’ve never been a necessary high ranked (not top tier) player in any game and this is my first game that I’m am somewhat of a high rank and I can say I feel very very accomplished. My goal was to get to floor 9 and I got there now I’m working towards celestial and at the beginning it felt like I would never get there and now it is just at the tip of my fingers and I think another think that really helped me was finding the character that I was most comfortable on maybe not my best character but I’m comfortable on them and that ended up being I-no and the amount of improved that I started to have once playing a character I can constantly perform on made a huge difference.
I can't lie; the table of average hours to get to X floor surprised me quite a bit. Can't help but feel like I have in fact gotten better at fighting games
Thanks for another good video Diaphone! I've been watching your content since Strive came out and I can for sure say it's helped me get to celestial!
I think the community take awaybis super important frfr! I'm kind of a shy person, but getting to know some of the regulars and new people on the ggst discord feels like its opened a much deeper door when it comes to playing these games, for me.
I honestly think about a lot, I think about people's genetics, level of focus while playing, and ways that people learn data faster that benefits them. But like what seems most apparent is playtime whether your winning And/or losing the majority of the time
I really like this type of content and I’ve never made a goal in fighting games in general. Now I will!
Having a training partner is so extremely helpful not only for skill building but also for motivation. Training partners can help you learn the game from nothing and continue with that aid throughout your time with a game so long as youre close in skill. Not to mention that playing against one person a ton can be really helpful in learning things like how to lab options or alter your play style for specific matchups as you will increasingly grow more attuned to your opponents character options and tendencies far quicker than if you just played random characters online. All of this not to mention that having someone who isn’t always competing for the win is what makes these games really fun for me. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve laughed my ass off after running full screen as ky to grab my training partner. Strive was my second 2d fighter after DBFZ and with only light local experience in smash I finally got into celestial last week with roughly 150 hours, and only was no doubt thanks to my training partner as we went from complete noobs to both being in celestial in just a couple months. It only took me ~200 matches in ranked to get to celestial but the 1000+ player matches I shared with my partner were definitely what got me there. Find a training partner it will help you so incredibly much.
Good video, and that last part is probably why I've stopped being competitive. I'm not okay with losing in competitive setting, and even if I tell myself I should be okay with it I do not learn from my losses, which results in losing still not being okay. Plus I'm getting old and don't have enough competitive experience to compensate the discrepancy. Which is probably why I have more fun getting wins from lower floor players, and come to terms that I'll never improve competitively
Love this stuff man, I get so stoked whenever I see you upload!
Great video! Very interesting and this correlates a lot with my Tekken journey as well (T7 being my first serious fighting game).
Highlighting the importance of playing with "Friends and people you know" is great here and can be branched out to "Someone you can actively communicate with". Specifically because you can learn what you've done WRONG or anything the opponent was able to learn about you and capitalize on and you can chat back and forth about strategies to fill those gaps. What can be measured can be improved and that goes with your game plan as well.
Thanks for doing this, it's insightful. I'm have a suggestion for a follow up to this survey. How do you practice? Gathering info on where different types of players spend their time and how they track their improvement relative to their practice/play time. This could give insights into where/how people see improvements in games (relative to their goals) vs. how they put the time in.
I wish I could like this twice for all The effort you put doing this, you are realy amazing man!
"How do I punish that move" "lol, dunno"
Loved the video. I think people really underestimate the effort it takes to get good at anything. It's not just mindlessly putting hours into it.
I've been playing DBFZ with a couple friends for a year or so, and even though I'm not exactly at their level, watching their sets and playing with them has been incredibly helpful for all of us. The instant feedback after each match and seeing others improve in certain areas they lacked before is a constant influx of motivation to keep practising and keep improving. Great video!
Improvement for me in strive has just come really slowly since from day one I was stuck between floors 6-8 and only now about four months later after about 100 hours I've gone up to floor 9.
I think there are lot of things holding me back but they aren't things I can change easily. Some of it's the difficulty of my main (Jack-o) but playing a simpler character just doesn't feel as good to me since I have always leaned towards more difficult characters in FGs or any other genre. And I don't feel as motivated because none of my friends are into fighting games and I would not expect them to spend £55 on strive just for me to play with a friend unless they really wanted the game.
It helps to see the statistics from the video since I have always felt like I was a bad player for how many hours I have spent in the game but comparing what I have to what most people do let's me know I'm doing something right, and that keeps me going.
The other thing is just that I always think playing sets with people on discord is not a good idea because I always think I won't really be helped by people just because of how young I am compared to the large majority of players who play fighting games.
I know that I have just pretty much waffled a few paragraphs but it would really help me to hear some advice from pretty much anyone.
Don't worry about age... idk the age of most people I play vs, it don't matter. And yea it's prob way harder to make celestial with Jack-o, but I dont think thats an issue taking longer either
Absolutely love this type of content as a new fighting game player! Thanks diaphone!!
I really should put myself out there more try to make more friends. Strive and FG's in general has been quite the lonely experience for me.
i think besides practice and mindset, physical health is just as important. ideally you wouldn't want to play a tournament on 3 hours of sleep for example lol. so things like hydration, sleep, regular breaks etc. can keep you at top shape for improvement or just playing in general
Actual facts (main reason I work out every day lol)
Thanks for the data, Diaphone
I definitely need to get a training buddy and start setting reasonable goals
This data is really cool. I feel this was accurate for me as I practiced in Xrd and thats when I really felt like I went from a below avg player to an above avg player.
It took me 389 hours to get to the Celestial floor, but I haven't passed the 5 of 6 matches yet. It's been a heck of a rough battle.
Edit: that's my Steam tracked number. In game it's 248 hours. Apparently I spend a lot of time AFK lmao
Edit 2: not even 10 hours later in game and I got through the Celestial Trial! I'm so happy! I even saw you in the room Diaphone! I almost challenged you during my trial but realized I needed to win 😂😂😂 thanks for the awesome video!
Actually I think the in game tracker badge is for time in an actual match. I have 400 hours in game on steam but it says something like 225 on the badge and then 100 something in training mode. Kinda weird lol
@@astrangeriremain yeah I'm not 100% sure how it calculates, I just assume it's going to be more accurate to actual time played vs the Steam number
Lord knows every time you spend 5 minutes connecting to network every time adds up lmao
@@ZawaOnTH-cam Yeah hahaha, esp when the game first launched. Never even thought about those all adding up lol
Wow a data analysis video, this is so sick! I agree on your point on having friends to boost and gauge your skill performance. Honestly I was just going to buy strive for a casual thing and stick to KOF 2002 UM until my friend purchased the game and went to a higher floor. So, I decided to play some more and reach a higher floor which lead to both of us racing and hitting celestial around under 120 hours of gametime. Now we just go and give advice on matchups and scenarios whenever we decide to play. Coming from different fighting game backgrounds me and my friend both learned some skills from each other while playing strive. I most likely would have quit or taken longer to hit celestial if it wasn't for my friend lol. Also the I-no discord and your YT vids helped with the process as well thanks Diaphone!
Every FG needs +R replays, that shit is fucking cheap af for learning and labbing matchups
none of my real-life friends want to play fighting games because they say it takes too much time and work, but they play PVE games like FFXIV and Genshin Impact everyday lol
LOL yea I ran into the same problem when I first started, thankfully there are plenty of people out there that play FGs
I have had the same happen to me. Don’t let that deter you from enjoying yourself though, meet others who share this hobby and grow together.
get a friend to boost you to celestial noted ✅. jk great video Diaphone! very informative as alwasy thank you
To add to this, when i ask randos (soon to be friends) to do sets with me i always ask to do it over online with a Mic. because they'll tend to tell me tricks more often than not. "this is fake" or "most sol's i know, 5p here"
Would've been neat to see if main selection had an impact. I know this would've added an additional element of salt but I wonder how much it matters.
I just started playing this week and hit floor 9 in under 30 hours with Leo. All I've realistically done is spam fireball, anti-air/wake-up flash kick, and then cross-up backturn spam over and over again. I can't hit-confirm, throw tech/avoid, vary/layer my offense, do optimal combos (I only know 2 bnbs and no RC combos), or any of the things that would define a "good" player on a system level, but backturn cheese lets me rob games off players that are absolutely better.
I think this data wouldn’t really be useful because this kind of stuff has a cap to how effective it can be. Sure it bops players that haven’t learned the match up but as soon as you get slightly past that you’ll hit a big wall and then have to learn the rest anyway.
Guilty Gear is a very match up intensive game so almost every character can cheese wins on clueless opponents. But that’s just what it is: cheese. So I don’t think it would add to a discussion of how to get to the highest level of play, where this wouldn’t work.
The Guilty Gear Strive tower system is a flawed system because it's not a true indicator of skill. Why? Because it's not Elo-based. There's no fighting game out there with a Ranked system that is Elo/Glicko-based. They all use some stupid algorithm when a tried-and-tested system like Elo or Glicko exists.
Mmm, from my personal experience, I feel like it’s not so much who you main, but how long it takes you to settle on a main and hone in on that particular moveset. I’m fairly sure I spent a solid 70 hours or so waffling before I finally settled on axl, and only then did I really start to get serious
Then again, I’ve just switched again to testament after 450 hours and still haven’t hit celestial, so who am I to judge
@@Maver1ck101 Also you can just dodge bad matchups in the Strive lobby system, which is kind of the opposite of an indicator of skill. I've seen Twitch streamers do it and I don't understand the mentality behind it
Good info, thanks. I don't have any PSN friends that have Strive, but have been in the Resource & Community Discords for a while.
Hope to finally get in sets w/someone around 10th floor (like me) to get instant feedback you mentioned, which I've done for other games like SFV.
I don't know how many hours I have, but do a lot of Park, replay review, training, and watch a good content guy on YT for my main, then do a little Tower.
Played offline & online tourneys for other games, placing low, but never for GG. Wish I could play more often (usually just some weekends). Maybe Celestial's possible. Fun vid.
I got to celestial in under 150 hours. I barely played accent core (about 10 hours) and other than that I had no gg experience or knowledge. This vid really boosted my confidence. I'm probably better than I think
you can't escape the fact that learning a fighting game will ALWAYS feel like a chore, because you're never able to learn about theory unless you learn the controls, and to learn theory you also need to know some combos, which are even more specific and boring to learn in some cases. Even playing against friends can be incredibly painful because they can be leagues better than you to the point where you don't learn anything, can't learn anything, and just end up getting demolished in under 20 seconds. Fighting games are designed for veterans, new players (like me) have zero chance at getting good or having any fun at all.
awesome video thanks!
I've never seen a sleeveless hoodie before. TIL.
i play with a friend selecting everything random.... its a slow way to get better, but it's super fun meanwhile
I actually think playing random select is a very good way at getting better (but over the long term, not the short term). Makes such a good foundation
For me it took about 180-200 hours to get to celestial on my first charachter and about 10 hours on my second. Now I can do it in 10-15 minutes, after playing 450 hours. Playing with friends helps, I agree, but for me the most helpful thing is labbing situations and optimal stuff.
Nice vid.
I think you were looking for "my little pony: friendship is magic"
Picked up kof xv as my first fighting game to actually learn, but all my friends play ggst and are celestial, they aren't really interested in getting kof either. So I've been really debating just trying to grind and learn all the fg fundies through kof or just drop kof for a little while and play an easier fighting game, and go back to kof when I already developed all the fighting game fundies and muscle memory
When I play kof it's all just me doing combos in training mode and trying to play the game in casuals and getting absolutely fucked when I thought I would be getting matched with similar level people. Feel like I'm at a brick wall where I can't find friends who play kof and are similar skill level and can't practice the fundies in online matchmaking
RIP me for being antisocial, lol. So hard to make friends, not due to resources just due to me.
This is a great video and I agree, my friend I play alot of local with he loves dbfz but hes not as good as me (he dont own the game just plays with me) so I play randoms against him and doing that has made me learn alot more character specific combos, I wish he liked gg more but it's a bit overwhelming for him especially when I play zato 🤣 his gio is coming along slowly his defense and fundamentals are pretty solid its combos that he cant do (no auto combos lol)
I'm currently in floor 8 but not lost a Match in a while, between all the rpgs that came out and family I don't get much time to play online and I get weird nerves when I play random people I cant explain it, my friends I mix all day play calm the second I'm against a random I forget half my practice 🤣 need to meet more people on similar skill level to learn off as you say
Yeah I've definitely gotten super demotivated. Don't really have anyone to play with besides tower and I feel like I'm basically mashing still, bouncing between floors 8-10. Been considering dropping my main (Axl) for someone who will feel less like one or two mistakes loses me a round.
I think generally I just don't have any idea how to properly learn or how to formulate a gameplan. I've got around 500 hours in Strive with more than that in SF 4/5 and idk. I dunno what I'm doing lol. Trying to look at it with less of a dour view, I think I'm just lacking knowledge of those building blocks to start my whole approach to learning in the first place.
If you think your main is holding you back, you should def consider switching.
As for the learning aspect… it’s tough to say especially over YT comments but there are some really good books on the subject you should consider, cool thing is they apply to pursuits outside of FGs too
@@Diaphone Honestly I don't think he is, I think part of me just wants the easy out. But I have been thinking trying to learn another maybe more traditional character might do me some good.
And I'm curious about any book recommendations you might have.
Great another reason to be sad I have no friends.
I play somewhat often with a couple of friends. Once, one of the guys in the group (who mains Chipp) made a comment about how we were better than him just because of the matchups (My friend and I were maining Gio and I-No respectively). So.. for the next two weeks we learned chip, we labbed and trained together... we didn't even look for combos online, we "invented" (or rediscovered) whatever suboptimal smoothbrained combos worked for us, and our somewhat limited skill, strictly with the mirror matchup in mind.
Next time he joined us, he didn't even win a single round.... I'm slightly ashamed of how petty we were... but i learned a LOT, about the game, and about me as a player. We ended up doing the same when Baiken came out, and intend to do the same when Testament drops.
So... yeah... in retrospect, the whole "i play with friends" having some sort of effect, makes absolute sense
Oh sick I'm above average! Though I don't think i'm at the same level as the average celestial player. I have 200 hours played, my only 2D fighting experience before this was a little bit of SF4 when it came out. I lose most of my celestial matches at the moment
I understand the importance of asking for help and advices for the people you play with. I joined a discord server where I play consistently with the same people and they are all better than me but I still feel I am improving playing with them even though I lose most matches. The thing is, even though I ask some things here and there, I really wanted to have long conversations and ask way more things, even the obvious ones, but I never do that because I fear I might be too inconvenient and annoying by throwing all my problems in the game at them. Am I thinking too much or would you reading this feel annoyed if someone started asking you a bunch of questions with no limits?
Most people enjoy helping.. .just got to get a feel for it (or ask if its ok to have a long convo)
@@Diaphone Yeah, I think you are right. In the end everything can be talked through if you just be respectful in case you want to ask for help and Im just overthinking too much. But its still a bit awkward in my head, I feel like I shouldnt bother more experiencied people too much because the conversation would hold a way higher value just for me and the other person would prefer to spend their time playing with someone their level or something like that instead of giving attention to every newcomer that may not even stick with the game/community in the long term.
Awesome video bro I’m stealing ideas lol
The Guilty Gear Strive tower system is a flawed system because it's not a true indicator of skill. Why? Because it's not Elo-based. There's no fighting game out there with a Ranked system that is Elo/Glicko-based. They all use some stupid algorithm when a tried-and-tested system like Elo or Glicko exists.
Yeah. Everyone pretty much gets to f10 and celestial and it's pretty much gamble on how good your opponent is.
82% are floor 10 or higher. Sounds like a daed gaem where only the sweatlords remained.
The best way to improve seems to be not improving at all and doing something more useful with your life. FGs are barebones products and you can't get to the top unless you no-life it like the ones already there. If you do get there, you'll have a niche, non-transferrable skill, sooo... Pretty bad?
287 hours for the top ranK??? In Tekken, that isnt enough to clear green ranks.
I can see this, my brother and I played an old game together, it’s called “Lost Planet 1”. People use to say we were some of the best players. We both gave feedback to each other when playing, and like the Bible says…
Proverbs 27:17
ESV
Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.
Sadly my brother only plays shooters, I tried to get him to play fighting games but he won’t unfortunately.
First!
I had no idea how cute you are
Tbh I don't have anyone to really spare with. Normally I just go to the Park and get a few games while I'm in Training mode just to get myself warmed up.