How much are you predicting vs reacting?

[Ado]

Right now I feel like 90% predicting and 10% reacting.

Am I doing it wrong and are there actually people reacting more than their predicting?

[BaronCappuccino]

Definitely minimal reacting - if I'm reacting, it's preschool level stuff, like maybe a full screen attack. Lord Knight was talking about distinguishing DJ's projectile from the feint by sound, and I'm not doing that stuff.

[Agoraphobic Meep]

I don't think predicting more than reacting is necessarily "wrong." You just need a balance. We all kinda lean to one of those two sides, where we either play better in the moment, or play better thinking ahead. Neither is better, but it takes time and experience to develop the other. I'm on the total other side of the coin here, I'm absolutely TERRIBLE at predicting and making long term plays, and it's easily one my biggest pitfalls as a player. I've been playing since sf4 and I'm still practicing to improve how I do things like manage meter, managing screen space, predicting specific moves at specific times, etc. Just like everything else in fighting games, it takes practice.

[Ahriman]

I have an idea in my mind of the gameplan of my opponent's character and what they're most likely to do when the match starts. I adjust this while observing my opponent's play style (how they behave on defense, what tools they like to use the most). It's easier to react to things if you narrow down in your mind what set of options you're looking for

[Zoid13]

always been a reaction / offensive rush down player, make them play your game :)

[76561198397547086]

You prepare to react by knowing what the opposing character can do at that range and what you can do to counter it, reactions don't matter if you don't know what to react with.

[Snobby Hobo]

This is a nice question actually.

I'm similar: 90% prediction 10% reaction. I will DI in reaction on another DI every so often, and I will delay throw tech every so often as well. My anti-air is notoriously bad but my defense is very strong outside of it.

If I am forced to react too often I'm probably just going to lose. It's part of the reason I hate the jumping-bean Kens.

[Cat on Mars]

This is the wrong way to look at it. You have to understand your reaction speed, your perception, and how the two interact to mix with your thought and memory processing.

First let's go to this site to prove a point

https://humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime

You can test your own reactions and get aggregate data for everybody else. It's in MS. Convert that to frames. For instance: 200 ms is roughly the mode on that chart, and that's 12 frames that I can prove happen. Then combine that with the fact that 3d rendering adds a bit of delay (a few more frames) and you have motions, most people say reactions start at about 16 frames

Combine that with a second fact: Even though everything you have ever reacted to in your life was 1/5 a second ago: You never noticed. We can literally measure it happening, but you don't know it happens because your brain auto-compensates the timing differences. This means just because something FEELS like you timed something correctly it doesn't mean you did. The game knows.

Then the third piece of the puzzle is the fact that your reactions can absolutely slow down. I already mentioned hardware doing it, but also if you are looking for one thing in the game, it will slow down your reactions for the others. This is why prediction IS reaction and the two are inseparable. If you are looking for a jump in, you will react faster to a jump in than if you are looking for DI and they jump. As you play more, you'll notice the auto pilot for things like AAs gets good enough you don't have to predict and that's why higher level players start to become defensive walls.

Edit: some other effects that will explain an even slower reaction time are the fact that we have to differentiate animations, vs a colored flash in the test site, the fact we're looking for other options from our opponent, like above, and even confounding variables like how sleepy you are.

[Bluebeard]

There's instant reactions (like trying to counter a DI or trying for a perfect parry) and reacting after the fact (like whiff punishing). And then there's stuff that's not reactable at all (like throws) which you can only predict.

I figure it all gets better with time so I try not to fixate on either.

[Archiduque Motoko]

Don't focus on reactions, that was my mistake when I started playing FGs, I'm sure you have at least average reaction speeds and those will improve just by playing and training, remember that are many things in this game that look like reactions at high level play and are actually Option Selects, setups, delay tech throws or just plain good ground game and game knowledge. When you react to something like a jump in with your AA or a whiff punish it's because you have to set the situation for that to happen always look to minimize the number of options for a "good" reaction, focus more on ground game and neutral.

[Rose Brigade]

It's both.
Predicting what your opponent is gonna do is part of a fight.
Reacting to moves accordingly, is also part of a fight.
They go hand-in-hand, you have to utilize both pretty much equally.

Predicting an opponents next move doesn't mean much if your reaction speed is F-all
And reacting randomly without knowing what to react with properly leads to mistakes and misfires.

[C1REX]

Some things are impossible to react and you can only predict - like throws for example.
For other stuff you can't just predict as you must time it well and react - like anti air.

[Forza Piadina]

You can do on reaction(if you have good reflexes) anti air, some punish, whiff punish, drive impact everything else is just luck(Some people prefer to call it "read" because it sounds cool"). Yes ok you can exclude something because the distance and or guessing the opponent' intention but that's not the meaning of reacting.
There was a tekken player asking why he couldn't skip the throws... he couldn't believe a throw in this game is 5 frames and 3 frame of interaction window.
Even some drive rushes are practically impossible to react to.