I have no idea where I'm going with this blog so I'm just gonna write. Also, this is about fighting games.
Alright everyone, I have a confession to make. I am the biggest freaking scrub you've ever seen at this game. You most likely have seen my name before if you post in any of the fighting game threads. After losing for the millionth time, I decided it's time for a change.
I like to walk around and say "Online means nothing." but the truth is my online record with Yun is like 1-30. Sure the fact that it lags a lot may have something to do with it but the biggest factor of all is that I suck. All I know is book smarts. I know so many different way to land U1, I know so many different mix ups, I know all those stupid anti airs, and I know all those character specific combos/ways to land ultra 1 after a command grab. If you name a move chances are I can tell you how unsafe it is, when to use it, and why to use it over another move. I think it's safe to say I know more about this character than 99% of the people that play him yet they have all shown more success than I have. Yet I'm probably one of the scrubbiest Yuns that should not even try to give advice about anything.
Why is this? Just cause I have the book smarts doesn't mean I have the finesse or the mentality to win I guess. Sure I play a lot and yeah I spend a lot of time reading and talking about the game but I still haven't been OUT there. I've been to a major or two but there's like 5 or 6 a year and I've been playing fighting games for around 3 years. I've only been to like 1/15 of them. I didn't start to take these games seriously until very recently but that doesn't matter. It doesn't change the fact that I suck yet talk really big. I think the biggest problem I have is something really simple with no easy fix. I am not an experienced player at ANY game. I'm a casual gamer, not a top competitive one.
Lately I've been spending a ton of time and money playing fighting games. I'm traveling to my friend's in other cities, I'm playing at the arcade, I'm spending all this time hitting the lab, and so far I've read every single post in the Yun section on srk. Let's look at some numbers. Playing at the arcade is costing me $20 a week. Traveling to a friend's to play 2-3 times a week costs me about $10. Buying food while at my friends, and at the arcade costs at least $30 for a week. All in all that's about $250 a month just to play fighting games. This is definitely too expensive and unhealthy since I'm eating a lot of fast food. Now that I've written it out, it seems like a ton of money and time is just going down the drain. Something is going to have to change.
What usually goes down during one of my sessions at the arcade or at a friend's is this. I wait for like 10-15 minutes to get on the set up since there's a ton of people who want to play different games. Usually we can only fit 1 set up per game so the wait times are fairly hefty. I get up there, pick my char and press some buttons. Do a combo or two, press some more buttons and win/lose. All of this is completely mindless. I'm just up there doing it and not THINKING about it. If I win I go "Cool I win, *buttons buttons buttons.*" I'm not thinking at all about why I won or why I lost. I'm just saying oh okay it happened and that's that. Playing like this is a complete waste of time seeing how I am not improving at all. Whenever I play I constantly walk around saying "Oh my god I'm such a scrub" or "I'm fucking awful at this game." Never has a positive word come out of my mouth about my game play. I am way too hard on myself.
I've decided though. If I'm going to spend all this time and money, I am damn sure going to get something out of this. If I win I'll say "Damn, I'm fucking good. I did x, y, and z correctly and just fucked you up." If I lose I'll say "Wow, I'm a fucking noob. Jesus, I messed up on x, y, and z. Next time I won't make that mistake and I'll fuck you up." By saying this stuff out loud I am acknowledging both my strengths and weaknesses. This should, in theory, give me an idea of what I need to do to improve as a player. At all of the sessions, I'll spend the time waiting for my turn analyzing the players. I'll actively watch and focus so I can maybe gleam a bit of their play style before I get up there. Being able to notice patterns and habits and tendencies is absolutely vital to be a good player. I will work on noticing the small things. When I practice at home, I won't just do stupid combo training that has no benefit what so ever. I will spend my time working on different set ups and figuring out what what I can do in every situation. The last change I'm going to do is get out there. I've stagnated and become complacent with my group that is not at a high level at all. I'll be travelling out to nearby sessions with a higher quality of player. I'll travel to majors and even smaller local tournaments. If I'm going to spend all this money and time I'm damn sure going to get something out of it. Hopefully in the future you'll see me in top 8 at Evo or some shit. I know it's a HUGE goal but I'm aiming to be the best. Most likely nothing's going to come out of this but fuck it. Gotta at least give it a shot you know?
Oh haha, sorry about that. I was just writing and totally didn't realize I did this. I was initially going to post in the Street Fighter thread but I realized this was more of a blog so I just c/p'd it after I was done.
On June 17 2011 16:59 jcroisdale wrote: Whoa that was confusing you. You say this game without referencing anything I thought it was starcraft. I think im wrong???
Yun has nothing to do with Starcraft
On June 17 2011 16:52 Demoninja wrote: I like to walk around and say "Online means nothing." but the truth is my online record with Yun is like 1-30.
Never has a positive word come out of my mouth about my game play. I am way too hard on myself.
You aren't being too hard on yourself, don't worry
On June 17 2011 16:52 Demoninja wrote: When I practice at home, I won't just do stupid combo training that has no benefit what so ever.
Combos are basics which you should train until you can execute them in your sleep(and in real matches) without dropping them. Also, it helps getting the feeling for your character(endless matches are better in that regard though).
Online means a lot! Even though I play quite a few weaboo fighters (with like 0 community ;D), going online and getting your ass kicked is part of the learning experience! Don't worry so much about your record until you rough it out and learn the ins and outs of matchups. NO I DON'T MEAN CHARACTER SPECIFIC COMBOS. And no that doesn't mean anything if you know them but can't execute them.
If you really are spending that much going out to play, I wouldn't really call yourself casual anymore, but that's not the problem. As Lucumo said, combo training has its benefits! Even if it's just for like 10 minutes a day practise all your basic combos, your BnBs, your mixups, etc... Just because you know em doesn't mean a thing unless you use em. Just get used to the feeling, and don't play to win right now, you need a lot more experience. Just think hey if I win then I win, if I lose then well I'm learning how to play against a certain character.
The fact that you know you are approaching the game wrong is one thing, but please try hard to change your mindset, thats very important no matter what you're doing, that is if you really are out to improve. Think about why you do certain things. Is it a bad habit or is it something that you see other Yun players do? I don't play SSF 4 AE but I watch a lot of streams + youtube videos. I can't give specific advice, but watch those too! It's part of learning. Good luck if you do travel to EVO and beat Daigo, Tokido, Mike Ross, Marn, and Jwong of course for us okay? If I watch the stream I'll be rooting for you
When you realize you've been playing but not properly adapting, the easiest way to improve is mind numbingly simple but took me a couple years to figure out.
Next time you play somebody, try to just not let yourself get hit at all. This is completely impossible, but the point is that every time you get hit, you need to immediately figure out why it was that you got hit. It takes a ton of mental effort to do, but after a while it becomes more automatic and will make adapting on the fly in tournament settings incredibly easier. You should become a good bit more defensive, but you definitely start beating a lot more players a lot more consistently when you force them to earn their damage instead of handing it out recklessly.
Pyrolee had a podcast once where he said he can tell whether someone is at least half decent right away, because only a decent player can actually ever hit him., and I don't think that's much exaggerated.
An easier way to get started is to start saving every loss replay from online or casual matches and go through them with the "why did I get hit" mentality. It's painful though, epecially if its tournament footage.
We all scrub out sometimes. My most recent tournament example was in mvc3 + Show Spoiler +
I put that guy in loser's, but by the time grand finals rolled around, he smashed me game 1 and I just gave up. I even switched teams to something I knew damn well wouldn't work just to goof off instead of actually trying =/
Oh man, I've got some brilliantly horrible losses on youtube now that I'm looking at it. Here's EMP's Evil Rahsaan (not a zangeif player) counterpicking himself in the vanilla sf4 days to mess with people when I got to grand finals against him. + Show Spoiler +
If you really try though, sometimes the stuff holding you back is absurdly simple. I know one guy who lost after getting decently far in every local tournament because he'd jump near the end of every round and would die for it every time.
Once, in a match that didn't get recorded, a Seth player who had put me in losers and got matched up against me again was dominating me for free until I heard somebody watching say "he's just letting seth jump all over him." all of a sudden I realized that was 100% of how the guy was getting in on me, started hitting anti airs, and never lose a round afterward. So damn obvious, but in the moment I would've never noticed.
@Lucumo, for me, training mode execution has absolutely nothing to do with in match execution. My execution while in training mode is around 95% but during a match it goes down to like 50%. Practicing combos in training mode isn't going to help me much at all. Everyone always says I'm way too hard on myself haha. After every loss or even after a mistake I just go "God I'm such a noobie how/why did I do that." I still think it's a good thing to do though.
@Shinshady, online is worthless for me since I have access to a thriving offline community. My internet isn't the best so I'll lose 2-3 matches clearly to lag which makes me tilt and then I start mashing and keep losing. Yes one day I will body all of them, don't worry . It may take a year, or two, or three, but I seriously plan to stick with this. I'm turning this into a long term investment!
@Trumpet, That sounds like a good way to get better and it sounds incredibly hard. I'll give it a shot over the next few weeks and we'll see. I'm going to take a break for a week or two so I can go into this fresh. I really do want to start recording my stuff so I can see myself get bodied but I don't have the equipment and no one I know does either. I'll have to rely on my friends telling me what's wrong for now. I know two things that are definitely holding me back. One is in game execution. In KOF 13, one of the best players I know in NorCal straight up told me. "Hey man, when I play you, I don't worry at all. You get in at least 10 hits a round but you never convert for full damage so I know I'll never lose to you. Once you fix that shit you'll be better than me for sure." I have no idea how to fix this besides playing more. The other is me getting random as fuck once I get flustered. I have a tendency to crack and start playing randomly no matter what happens before that one moment that makes me get all flustered. These are two things that will only come with experience and play time which I plan to get plenty of. I hope to show results soon (within a few years!)
EPT
