Advice for new players

[Artifex]

Hey guys Ive played SF4 for a few months now (not 100% full time mind you). but I reached rank B with my main and C+ with several other chars. so I just wanted to mention a few things Ive noticed to those just starting up.

1. Don't bother learning combos or anything the like. I spent hours practicing moves, how to focus cancel properly in diferent situations etc. but it is utterly useless against a ken/ryu who spams shoryukens the whole match(for example). Idd, you will most likely lose more matches against worse players than you, than against higher ranked ones(and no I am neither trolling nor angry, thats just the way it is).
This is because there is a strange phenomenon in SF4: People who start anew tend to try different basic attacks, and register which one is the most effective (like shoryuken, or DJ's HK Down), they notice which one is the most effective and spam/lame only that, and guess what? It works! so why do players get "worse" later on? Well, eventually they get BORED of spamming the same attacks and they decide to learn/try new stuff, but little do they know that this their downfall.
It is much easier to beat a B+ / A rank ryu/guile/cody etc. who has lost the HABIT of spamming their char's lamest attacks than a rank D-C+ one that knows only that.
The moral is: spam as hard as u can (even though I dont actually tbh, but I wish I could endure the boredom of doing so) because that is the key to beating... anyone (in this game).

2. Hate mail. Accept it. I got one of the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ welcomes to this game, but that didn't stop me (or any1 else who still plays)You will quickly learn to ignore/ fight back. Hatred is a way of life in this game. The winning players will often angrily send messages pumping their ego, and the losers will do the same making up any excuse...
Ofc this isn't true for everyone, idd there are also some really nice people in this game who enjoy a gg... but as far as I saw this is a relatively small minority(like 1/10)... either that or I was unlucky... who knows. what I CAN say is that I know other ppl who play SF4 and they all had the same experience so... u decide

3. Ryu. Another strange thing of this game, is that despite the 30+ chars to choose from, a general 70% of the players will use a ryu, another 20% ken, and 10% anyone else.
Do not worry. you are not going crazy. even if u fight 10 ryus in a row online it is entirely normal. This is because every1 wanna be the hero, and every1 wanna use a char that makes winning simple. Idd u might be a ryu player yourself! :O (in which case, stop reading this post immediately, uninstall game, and go in the corner of your room feeling ashamed)

Well thats all I can think of for now. I already know the "more experienced" players(or those who were lucky enough to experience SF4 differently) who read this post and answer it will all be like "nooo! you're wrong! its not like this, it is a game of speed/skill/xp/ etc." and the usual garbage they like to feed to those who didn't nerd as much as they did. But what can I say? if it has to happen, it has to happen :/

///--- 8/10/2012

That been said... I didnt edit this original post as I feel that these were my sincere views of the game during the first phase (months), and I know many other people who felt the same when they played it - but apparently there is idd light at the end of the tunnel... the question is "how long do you want your tunnel to last?"

I know this book worked out for me, perhaps it will for you too... http://www.sirlin.net/ptw/

[Pt.Jones]

I sense great wisdom

[EU Gillstolemyride]

Wob

[MDZ jimmY]

I think you didn't understand anything about this game if you're not trolling with your post.but let me try to seriously comment on things you said:

"It is much easier to beat a B+ / A rank ryu/guile/cody etc. who has lost the HABIT of spamming their char's lamest attacks than a rank D-C+ one that knows only that.
The moral is: spam as hard as u can"

you can't just spam anything in this game...if you did, you'll lose everytime against a good player. if somebody always spams hadouken, eventually they'll become predictable and you can just jump in on them...and it's the same story with shoryuken...if you "spam" it your opponent will eventually block it and you'll pay hard for it...so NO you can't just spam. every character in this game has to be careful throwing out certain moves on certain distances. if somebody beats you by spamming a move then it was YOUR FAULT for not doing something about it. I'll give you a good example why spamming "your best move" doesn't work:

let's take the matchup Ryu VS Sagat as an example...ryu can't just throw hadoukens all the time because it turns out that sagat has an even greater projectile...so should ryu spam hadoukens full screen just because it's his trademark move? no, it's a bad idea and you'll definitely lose if you play like that. in this matchup it's sagats job to keep you away from him and it is your job to get in...it's as simple as that and the good thing about SSFIV: AE v2012 is that it is balanced SO well that you can't blame unfair matchups anymore...every character has an answer to every single move...so learn the matchups, learn you're combos, read you're opponents habits and counter accordingly.

on a high level, SFIV will play like a game of chess...it all comes down to who has the better understanding of the game and eventually who can get into the other players head.

but I understand why you think this game is about spamming certain moves...spammers will keep spamming until you force them to do something else and if you can't figure out what you're doing wrong, I suggest watching pros (with the character you use) and try to understand how they deal with the stuff you have so much trouble with.

btw. how does your argument that you will win against the good players but lose against the bad ones even make any sense? shouldn't the good players eventually lose their points if they keep losing against bad players? I'm at 4000PP and even I sometimes lose to somebody under 1000PP. these things happen but they're very rare.

"Ryu. Another strange thing of this game, is that despite the 30+ chars to choose from, a general 70% of the players will use a ryu"

I'm a Ryu player myself (although I play a wide variety of characters as well) but I almost never encounter any ryu players online...but well maybe I'm the only one who feels that way oO

"and the usual garbage they like to feed to those who didn't nerd as much as they did."

it's funny that your post suggests "spamming" is the key to winning and yet you seem to admit that if you "nerd" hard enough, you'll become better.

[Artifex]

jimmy btw u are right. I didn't mean spamming is the key by ITSELF. I just shortened that sentence to avoid writing a whole book. basically no human being with any sense (even a total noob) would rely on ONLY spamming the same attack to win, because like u said, the opponent would block that attack and reply. But that is why noobs select more than 1 attack to spam!
Classic Example: ryu spams hadukens, the opponent KNOWS hes only doing that and not giving up, so approaches. by the time hes landed close enough, ryu will spam a couple of shoryukens (♥♥♥ 1 shoryuken only can fail, but np since they have so little off-time and an INVINCIBLE hitbox) and throw the opponent metres back, and repeat the cycle.
(ofc, almost every char has his way of doing it)

Now u will say "you can contrast even that if u're good". And yes, also there, I agree. But believe me even for a skilled player it gets frustrating, and the frustration eventually wins you over. especially when you actually DO dish out some damage, and he ANYWAY continues to spam stubbornly.

This is because we are (at least most of us) human, and frustration gets us.

But lets even suppose we are some kind of "machine" (or hardcore nerd) who has become immune to this kind of frustration: the noob will just throw in the famous "random ultras" in moments when u think "a normal human being would never do something so stupid lol" yet it works because of that. Also, most of the times when a noob sees his spamming is ineffective, thats when he will go doing random techniques mashing his controller/stick, and then you are REALLY fu*ked because u cant predict half the stuff hes doing (indeed, he probably doesnt know himself)

As for a skilled player, you immediately knows he has a certain standard of knowledge, and know which attacks will lead to which combo, and all u have to do is avoid them/ block at the right time.

But yeah I don't actually deny that if you become pr0 (in other words, lose your job/ studies) this whole argument becomes irrelevant and u can face any situation... but for the general "rest of the world population" who plays every now and then, there is no need to waste time learning combos when u can win out of random unpredictability...

As for the point on losing BP " I'm at 4000PP and even I sometimes lose to somebody under 1000PP. these things happen but they're very rare." Nope, Im afraid this is very subjective. It is not rare anymore (maybe when the game was new it was) but now for a newcomer who reaches rank B for example, he will only reach 5000 BP and then go soaring down - That is because the nerds who levelled up their main to A+ since the game came out now find themselves bored and decide to play new chars and obviously r*pe the sh*t out of any newcomers even if they are not used to the char.
Result? The Rank D Nerd (who has Rank A/B chars elsewhere) beats the rank B newcomer. and the wonderful points system of the game punishes you severely ♥♥♥ "you lost to someone lower rank" lol.

Anyway I dont really care, I still like the game(♥♥♥ its addictive). all this is just to warn the upcomming players of the problems they will face, and not to get desperate even in the face of bullsh*t :)

[EU Gillstolemyride]

wob meant " wall of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥" just so you know...


A+ nerd speaking.

[Artifex]

idd. everything I mentionned about the game are pretty bs facts, but hey, blame capcom

[MDZ jimmY]

@Artifex:

I like your second post and I do agree with some of the stuff you said...but still I can't help but wonder why you think spamming is such a good idea...the problem with spamming (for example ryus shoryuken) is that it does too little damage. if you hit one random shoryuken it does 100 damage with a deep hit and only 70 if you're not next to the opponent. if your opponent has a brain he will block 2/3 of your random uppercuts and everytime there is a punish involved. a good player might take 40% of your life because of one blocked uppercut (yes even LP shoryuken is THAT punishable), but you don't even need good combos to beat that stuff.if you consistently punish the blocked uppercuts even with something less damaging like a sweep, you'll end up winning most of the time because as I said, normally you'll miss more random uppercuts than you'll hit...and that's just the nature of randomness. oh and btw. if you hit more "random" uppercuts than you miss then obviously it's not random anymore, but you're reading exactly what your opponent is going to do next. most of the time you can do that against newbies because after 10 seconds you find out a certain pattern in their attacks and then you can do crazy punishes that SEEM random, when in reality you're reading the player like a book.

about random ultras:

if you keep getting hit by random ultras then it's most likely that you didn't take advantage of the situation. most players will do random ultras when they are low on health and need to make a HUGE comeback. 99% of all the players (even the good ones) will crack and at some point they will try a random ultra...so you just have to bait that one out. typical situation: do a hard knockdown on a player that has almost no health left and dash straight at him and when he stands up do nothing...you'll see that the player will most likely do a random ultra or something really punishable. what I'm trying to say is that even random ultras are part of the mind game that has to be considered when you play.

about the ranking system:

of course you are right when you say that a skilled player doesn't even need his main to beat out other people, even though it appears that they have the same amount of BP. but then again you also have to look at the PP...when somebody has 4000PP and only 2000 BP you can be certain that this is not his main character and you can almost be certain that this guy knows what he's doing.

in 2010 I started to "nerd" at this game because it was SO much fun playing it and I had a friend that sometimes played against me and we were pretty even. after some time I started to learn more and more stuff about the game and my friend didn't care, so he didn't learn all the tricks that I learned. but guess what? he still was able to beat me sometimes and I almost stayed at this 50/50 win rate. that's when I realized how important the mind game is in SFIV...even if you're technically a total noob, you can win against a skilled player by reading him and outplay him with your mind and NOT with combos.

I think this is why I love this game soo much...to me this is really a game of chess as I said in the first post and I love every part of it, even when I lose to a random scrub that happened to outplay me with some ridiculous reads...I think these things are also part of the fun. you shouldn't get angry because you lost to somebody that apparently doesn't have much knowleadge about the game...you should think about what you were doing wrong and change your game plan accordingly.

[Tuhnu]

Escrito originalmente por Artifex:

But yeah I don't actually deny that if you become pr0 (in other words, lose your job/ studies)

First of all, you don't need to sacrifice your life to become very good at Street Fighter and secondly, you don't even need to be very good to learn how to punish risky moves like shoryuken. If you know the opponent has a tendency to do a certain thing when you get close, you should be able to block it.

Escrito originalmente por Artifex:

Anyway I dont really care, I still like the game(♥♥♥ its addictive). all this is just to warn the upcomming players of the problems they will face, and not to get desperate even in the face of bullsh*t :)

Well that's a newsflash; fighting games are hard. That's exactly what makes them fun, at least for me. The game is very simple in general, but once you start getting into it, you realize there's much more to it. It's how you deal with that, that'll determine how much fun you'll have with it.

To me it just seems like you'll rather whine on the forums than get into training mode and practice against "shoryuken spam", because it's easier.

And just to point out, the only advice you really gave any new players is that they'll have to practice a bit to get good, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

[Rainbow Space Communist]

For starters:

MASH UUULTRAAAA!!!!

For advanced players:

MASH DP!!!!

[Artifex]

Btw I do train. I watch vids on youtube and read threads on shoryuken.com. posting on forums is part of the learning process. Its when I notice that all those hours spent "learning" were worth ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ because, even though I mastered some hard combos, they are still gonna do 1/2/3 simple attacks and win from random ultra (and when I say random ultra, I dont mean the one that they do when theyre desperate with no health, I mean the one when both players have about average health, and then one accidently mashes the right sequence after something absurd like 2 missed high kicks). And its not when they beat u once or twice that you start to wonder why the ♥♥♥♥... its when it happens 5 or more times...

All this reminds me of the many dhalsim fights I had. As u all probably know dhalsim is an annoying c.unt (I dont care if u play him, hes still an annoying c.unt) who just teleports away and presses the HK/HP and eventually wins. The tactic vs noobs was to HOPE/PRAY that he makes a mistake (like thumb slip off the analog and miss the Z-movement etc.) like that u could get in close and beat him. ofc that was a 1/10 chance and normally I would almost always lose... but the point is that then I got to fight some B+/A dhalsims... and they always lost... why? because they didn't try and lame me! instead of doing the cheap tactic that would have enabled them to win, they tried to do complicated combos and "tricks" they learnt somewhere, and it never worked...

I find that the simple laming is way more effective in this game(scientific explanation: Mindfu*k beats skill). I think if those high skilled players learned the art of laming with their char they would become better (well I guess Sagat pr0s spam fire as much as they can as far as Ive seen...). The reason they don't, however, is the same reason why I don't: not because its ineffective, but because its boring! and besides, many people hate a match which is not enjoyable, so laming grants you victory yes, but also enemies and bad reputation (tested this many many times).

[MAXIMUMSPICY]

The retardation and bad grammar flows like water within this thread.

Artifex, just because you're terrible at the game, doesn't mean you can write rulebooks on it.

[Artifex]

tahts bcus tis iz teh internets.
And for the love of.... whatever you hold dear... They are observations and a form of empathy for those who will start the game and wonder "wtf?" and beat themselves over for nothing.

But whatever I already lost interest in this argument. I don't care whatever comment ensues from here on.

[MDZ jimmY]

@Artifex:

you kinda remind me of my roommate who started to get pissed off because he trained hard to learn some combos and read alot about SFIV to get better...but in the end he felt that all the effort he put into learning these things was a waste of time because some random noobs win with a random ultra and stuff like that.

when I watch him play, I immediately notice whats going on...first of all, he begins to have patterns in his approaches and then somewhere in the game a "random ultra" hits him. I said it before Artifex: if you get hit by random ultras more than you block then obviously, you are showing some patterns...a random ultra like that should hit maybe once out of 10 times.
the seconds thing I noticed when I saw my roommate playing was that he was doing some really bad matchup mistakes...he was forcing himself to have 1 playstyle against the entire cast, which simply won't work. I think this is the part that costs most of the time if you want to get better...learning all the matchups is a tedious and sometimes annoying process, but it's very rewarding...eventually you'll know on the fly what you are doing wrong and what changes need to be done to win.

about "spamming" and "laming":

these words don't mean anything in SFIV..."spamming" and especially "laming" give the impression that the player is doing something unfair and that's simply wrong. guile is DESIGNED to spam sonic boom against pretty much every character, ryu is DESIGNED to "spam" hadoukens against zangief. these things are neither "lame" nor boring, they are part of the thinking process behind every single matchup. dhalsim is DESIGNED to keep you out and it is you job to get in. dhalsim can't just teleport behind you when he's in the corner, he is very punishable and if you don't use that to your advantage then you are doing something wrong.

what I'm trying to say is this:

learn the matchups before complaining about stuff that isn't unfair in any way. every character has his set of tools and they are all balanced really well, so nobody is at a disadvantage (pretty much). if you constantly lose to somebody and don't know why, then go to the replay channel, watch some of your matches and look where you're losing health...that would be the first step.

I know your original post is for newbies and you actually seem to understand some things about this game, but you are giving horrible advice IMO oO

[Rainbow Space Communist]

As i said. Mash ultra for win.

:p

[Inkling]

What's your PP?