Footsies and how to Not suck at it. (NOT a guide, Asking for help)

[RedPxnda]

So I like to think im pretty good at this game, Above average at most. One think I Know I am horrible at is footsies / spacing.

How does one get better at this? (Honestly though I give alot of the blame to laggy online screwing up my moves lol.)

[gentle puppe of leisure]

step 1:play offline

[majik]

I'm not that good at footsies either, but I'll give you some info I came up with while learning. You can't really learn footsies or practice them like you would practice execution, it will come with sheer experience, so try to fight plenty of different people and characters.

Picking a footsie character is definitely a good idea to improve your footsies with your main characters. Chun-li, Elena, Balrog, Fei Long and Vega are imo the characters that rely the most on them. Pick one, find a character guide on the internet and when you'll start winning more consistently with him/her, you know your footsies are getting better. Then try to figure out what you can apply to your main. Like "oh I can use this move to counter footsie sweeps easily", or "I should poke with that move a lot more", or "that move is great for easy anti-airing"
If you've ever worked on a specific matchup, you've also probably found out specific punishes, counter footsies and whatnot for some character, it'd be a good idea to make notes of that work somewhere, and see if you could use it for other matchups overall.

Finally one thing you should avoid at first is to try to do like the pros you might have watched on Youtube, they move a lot left and right to try to bait stuff out, mimicking that will get you hit a lot at first. Instead try to focus on your opponent's movement more than yours, and more importantly on the distance between you and him. Even though it looks very easy and natural, movement actually takes practice. It's even more important in 3D fighters and air dashers, but it is also true in Street Fighter. I still fight some people who never dashed/backdashed even once during the whole match.
It's also good training to go in a match with one particular thing you want to practice in mind. Like "During this match, I'll only try to counter footsie with cr.mk" or "I'll only walk forward and block fireballs until he's in the corner".
Hope that helps.

[RedPxnda]

Originally posted by Exzyleph:

Here are a couple of resources you might find useful in your pursuit:

1. Sonic Hurricane's "Footsies Handbook[sonichurricane.com]"
2. JuiceBox's explanation of footsies:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQQCan5oo90

I think someone here is running around pretending to be JB. Or maybe it is him, I sure got pwned...

[Cipher Esteria]

Originally posted by Goumajinken:

Picking a footsie character is definitely a good idea to improve your footsies with your main characters. Chun-li, Elena, Balrog, Fei Long and Vega are imo the characters that rely the most on them. Pick one, find a character guide on the internet and when you'll start winning more consistently with him/her, you know your footsies are getting better.

Don't forget Bison(Dictator) and Rose.Cammy and Decapre have also a really good footsies game and you can train you're spacing very well with all of them.
Find a player on a level similar to you're own or someone who is better than you.Keep you're targets in mind and don't forget whiffpunishing. Against chars like Chun-Li is whiffpunish a really good tool.

[Ʃ]

Originally posted by Exzyleph:

Here are a couple of resources you might find useful in your pursuit:

1. Sonic Hurricane's "Footsies Handbook[sonichurricane.com]"
2. JuiceBox's explanation of footsies:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQQCan5oo90

Godlike resources.

My approach to footsies is a bit different compared to Goumajinkens but what he has said about match ups and knowing which move to use in which situation very true and solid advice.

I think what you should with footsies is come up with your own tactics and come up with them in training mode and play some online matches to see if they work properly. You should go to the replay channel and let the training dummy mimick some of the things that were done in the most recent you had played.

After you got the dummy to do those things, simply pause and think what you could do in that match. Think of certain ground based tactics that you could use against your opponent. Try them out in training mode, have a notepad saved somewhere else where you store certain tactics used in matches.

After you came up with some tactics, go and play a couple of online matches and see if the tactic you came up in training mode works on people. Just remember to play someone who is equally at your skill level or whose higher at your skill level, its really good to have a rival as Cipher has said.

Also its important to remember the risk of jumping. When you jump, you lose control for a couple of seconds in the air and cannot block any incoming attacks. (The sonic hurricane guide is quite good at explaining this), its always good to think and ask yourself "Why should I jump?" "Is it a good idea to jump?" "Will I get punished?" "Will I sucessfully dodge this move if I jump?".

Don't jump in mindlessly towards your opponent expecting to land a combo, you will eat up a nasty AA or a really damaging combo. If you don't know why or when to jump its best you don't jump towards your opponent. You can jump neutrally if you want to dodge projectiles, just make sure its at a good range.