EPTOn May 13 2015 21:27 Flicky wrote:
Firstly, the online matchmaking is completely awful. I ran into the exact same problems looking for equally skilled, I played everyone from 0-10,000 PP when I was starting out.
Secondly, to answer this question, I think playing equally skilled and weaker opponents should be your main goal for the first few months of playing this game and play a friend who is very skilled every few weeks. A lot of people constantly recommend playing against better people, but I think it's a very flawed idea for that to be the majority of your practice before you're comfortable with the game and how it works (3-6 months). Playing against better players is completely overwhelming and not exactly helpful for starting out. They know the game on a completely different level to you. It's like talking maths with a PhD student while you're learning how to multiply. They'll give you vague advice and say things like "this is a good button" but you'll have no idea why it's a good button or how to use it. In the mean-time they'll be destroying you constantly and you'll end up with the idea that nothing your character does works because they already know how to deal with it. For example, my friend would tell me that my offence needs more throws (he was right) but he would just tech them all constantly, so then he tells me that this is good for frame trapping (I didn't know what that was) but then he knows how to deal with beginner level frame traps too. So I'm just left back where I started.
Meanwhile, playing against someone as good as you or worse means you at least have periods where things work. You can learn how to get openings and how to play the game without having your every action shut down completely. Yes you might come up with some scrubby techniques, but when you play against your skilled friend, they will correct you. It's not the end of the world by any means. Learning that X works against a bad person, you can adapt it to work against an equal player and then adapt for a better player.
It's also significantly more encouraging when you're winning a few games.
tl;dr - if you play against better players, you're being constantly told what doesn't work which isn't helpful when you don't know what does work. Playing against weaker/equal players will help you learn what can/does work. The vast majority of your games should be against equal/weaker players when starting out.
Firstly, the online matchmaking is completely awful. I ran into the exact same problems looking for equally skilled, I played everyone from 0-10,000 PP when I was starting out.
Secondly, to answer this question, I think playing equally skilled and weaker opponents should be your main goal for the first few months of playing this game and play a friend who is very skilled every few weeks. A lot of people constantly recommend playing against better people, but I think it's a very flawed idea for that to be the majority of your practice before you're comfortable with the game and how it works (3-6 months). Playing against better players is completely overwhelming and not exactly helpful for starting out. They know the game on a completely different level to you. It's like talking maths with a PhD student while you're learning how to multiply. They'll give you vague advice and say things like "this is a good button" but you'll have no idea why it's a good button or how to use it. In the mean-time they'll be destroying you constantly and you'll end up with the idea that nothing your character does works because they already know how to deal with it. For example, my friend would tell me that my offence needs more throws (he was right) but he would just tech them all constantly, so then he tells me that this is good for frame trapping (I didn't know what that was) but then he knows how to deal with beginner level frame traps too. So I'm just left back where I started.
Meanwhile, playing against someone as good as you or worse means you at least have periods where things work. You can learn how to get openings and how to play the game without having your every action shut down completely. Yes you might come up with some scrubby techniques, but when you play against your skilled friend, they will correct you. It's not the end of the world by any means. Learning that X works against a bad person, you can adapt it to work against an equal player and then adapt for a better player.
It's also significantly more encouraging when you're winning a few games.
tl;dr - if you play against better players, you're being constantly told what doesn't work which isn't helpful when you don't know what does work. Playing against weaker/equal players will help you learn what can/does work. The vast majority of your games should be against equal/weaker players when starting out.
100% agree and thats why it makes me so sad that developers are refusing to put some basic matchmaking in fighting games (USF, MKX).
