How to get better as a beginner?

[glassy]

Im still trying to figure out how the game works, and whenever I try to fight people online with it set to "Same Skill", I get matched with people who are way better than me (#2 Ken, #30 Cody, ect.) Is there any way to fight people who are also beginners or atleast closer to my skill level so I can atleast stand a chance?

[Detnom]

Make some friends who have the game who are closer to your level to play with? One option, anyway.

[Heroxoot]

I always find someone my level who makes me want to improve. Play with them all the time. For me it was an offline friend, so learning was a lot easier without lag.

[.melted]

Best advice I can give you is don't worry about winning right now. Right now, Training Mode is your best friend. Here is an easy to follow plan that will make improve a lot more than by learning by getting your ass kicked:

1. Pick your main character and go to training mode.
2. Practice your main's bread and butter combos. These are the combos that give a lot of damage and are used for punish situations. You can learn what they are by going to eventhubs.com or in-game in your main's Trials.
3. Practice your main's bread and butter combos, over and over and over until they become second nature to you.
4. Once you can do the combos easily, set the training dummy to Ryu and record him doing a high punch shoryuken.
5. Punish Ryu when he lands with any of the combos that you learned. Make sure the dummy has auto-block. If you don't time it correctly, then the Ryu dummy will block your punish attempt.
6. When you can finally punish Ryu with several combos, pick another character and record him doing something and try and punish his recovery.

*OTHER*
You should also know the reach of your main character's normal attacks. At high levels, this game is pure zoning and most damage comes from normal attacks. All those fancy combos are strictly for punish situations, and those situations don't happen unless YOU make them happen. This can be achieved by baiting, mind-games, mix-ups, etc.

If you, or any other player, wants to be good at this game you'll have to devote lots and lots of hours just to be decent. I'm talking hundreds of hours. Street Fighter boils down to a few things: zoning (spacing), timing, quick reactions, and mix-ups. So, get to practicin'.

[mrrogers]

THis is a game you could play everyday for a year and still not be super good at. Practice and learn from your mistakes and you will always improve.

[amerika*]

I wouldn't do ranked when starting out too much. I'd definitely go exhibition with long sets so you have enough time to learn what's going on against, typically, a set character.

Don't feel bad for losing. Never get down about it. Treat a loss in SF4 like a missed jump shot when practicing basketball. It's worth about as much. Just ensure that you havet he mindset of learning and not getting riled when somebody does something you don't understand. All you need to do is look it up and pretty soon all those weaknesses you have will start to go away.

Also, everything Steel_Wheel said is solid. Definitely go over his post.

[n00bdragon]

First off, realize that you are going to get beat a lot. When starting out literally everyone who is not also starting out is better than you, often way way WAY better than you. You are going to be repeatedly destroyed in matches. There is no way to get around this. There is no training you can complete to mitigate this. How you respond to that will define how much progress you make at this game and how quickly. You need to learn to put your ego aside and treat losses as learning opportunities. When a high ranked player shows up to fight don't think of it as "Oh man I'm about to get stomped." think of it as "Oh man, the master of the dojo is sparring with me. I wonder if I can learn something good." Seek out matches with good players and after you play them go to the replays room and watch them again. I try to save all my matches with really good players and rewatch them frequently. I make note of the things that work for me and the things that don't work, as well as try to understand what my opponent was thinking at certain points of time.

tl;dr: Give up on winning for now. Focus on improving. Getting wins will not make you good. Getting good will make you wins.

[Bibadeez]

I agree with pretty much everyone who posted just now. Steel_Wheel brings up a very good point of practicing your characters bread and butter combos. This is one of the most effective ways of getting good damage in. It's mainly a matter of practicing over and over again until it is commited to muscle memory, and like Steel_Wheel says, second nature. Get to know your chars normals, IN AND OUT. Know how fast the move comes out and how the animation takes to recover after missing, hitting and on block. This is what teaches you what normal moves are safe it certain situations. I think this is mostly learned through experience though. Just playing and experimenting with normals. You should rely more on normals that special moves in my opinion. Normals can lead into specials (a combo) once you get better.
Learning to think calmly and act fast is another thing to practice. To properly punish, you must also know patience. Blocking or knowing when to block is just as important attacking. This is another example of how the BnB combos become really effective. Sure, you can punish with HP if he whiffs a DP. BUT, you could have gotten way more damage by punishing with a BnB. Also, you can block a DP, but if you are spaced enough and back dash, the DP totally whiffs and you got your self a wide open punish. Capitalizing on opprtunities makes a world of difference.
I am also in the learning process. But these are the things that I have picked up from experience. A lot of things will come by just playing. You will start to see players patterns or habits . Then you will start to be able to predict certain things and do things "on reaction". I would say the MOST IMPORTANT THING is to remember to try and have fun. Keeping a positive attitude about the game is what will keep you going and getting better. Everyone loses and everyone gets salty from time to time. But like the previous posters have said, learn from your mistakes. Watch you replays in the Replay Channel and see what you could have done instead. Go into training room and recreate the scenario. It all depends on how good you want to get and how much time and effort your put into getting better. I consider myself a casual player but i LOVE Street Fighter. I will only go as far as practicing things in training room if it really bothers me. GOOD LUCK and sorry for writing a novel. I enjoy talking about SF as much as I enjoy playing it! :P

[.melted]

Awesome posts!

@Brendon...You got all the advice that you need with these posts. All you need to do now is gain experience. Like the other posters said, you're going to lose a lot, but accept it and learn from it. And keep the mindset of learning at all times!

@Amerika, n00bdragon, and CAPT. PUNCH...Very nice posts! Is it alright if I send you three a friend request? I'd love to have some matches you guys.

[n00bdragon]

Sure, I'm free for facing people anytime unless I'm not. Just a warning that I suck, unless I don't.

[.melted]

LOL...k. I'll send u an invite.

[Jackie Daytona]

Originally posted by mrrogers:

THis is a game you could play everyday for a year and still not be super good at. Practice and learn from your mistakes and you will always improve.

I played this game like a madman for tweleve months. The result? I lose almost every match almost every time. I decided quitting was more fun.

[🍋 Lemonfed 🍋]

personally I lose almost every matches but I did get some very tight matches with a few peoples having way more gameplay time then myself ...

[Bibadeez]

Originally posted by Steel_Wheel:

Awesome posts!

@Brendon...You got all the advice that you need with these posts. All you need to do now is gain experience. Like the other posters said, you're going to lose a lot, but accept it and learn from it. And keep the mindset of learning at all times!

@Amerika, n00bdragon, and CAPT. PUNCH...Very nice posts! Is it alright if I send you three a friend request? I'd love to have some matches you guys.

Definately! Always fun to have matches with people who appreciate this game for what it is. I'm in the same club as noobdragon. I'm not very good. I just have ALWAYS loved SF. Also, I am in Hawaii which usually mean an iffy connection. But I am always in the USF4 chatroom here on Steam.