MoltenSilver said:
Hello Escapist
Recently my circle of, well friends is a bit generous so lets just call them "people whom I frequently play games with", have decided that Skullgirls is going to be the next big time-obsession for us. I love the aesthetic of the game, and I love the characters and I certainly don't regret buying or bemoan this game being chosen as the next 'we're all playing ___' among my group, but this one rather large problem:
I am utterly, irredeemably horrendous at fighting games. So I'm here to ask the Escapsist's community's advice on how to learn more the most successfully.
Now I can already guess the first thought: "Practice". And yes I know its going to come down to that and time investment and there aren't any shortcuts and blah blah blah, but practice is worthless if I don't even know what I'm supposed to be practicing about it.
One of my biggest problems, in so far as my uneducated eye can guess, is it just seems to be impossible to be consistent with input; I feel like I can press the exact same button series over and over and get a different result even when to me there nothing different I've done. If I try to perform any quarter-turn move I'll probably succeed 3/10 times. Even after spending a large amount of time just trying to practice doing a quarter-turn move reliably over and over I don't feel any differences between the times it's correct and the times it isn't, and don't seem to see any improvement in the rate I perform the move I mean to do.
If anyone cares to give advice specific to Skullgirls, I haven't picked a 'main' character, but I'm strongly gravitating towards Painwheel based just on character aesthetic.
Lose repeatedly. Also, it'd be a good idea to go to shoryuken.com or skullheart.com and read up, but the best way to learn is to lose over and over again while doing your best to win, then thinking about why you lost and how you could do better, even if it's as simple as "don't get hit by the crouching light kick."
Also, play all the characters and don't worry about a main. While you think one character is cool looking, that character might not be the one for you. I have a friend who loves Guilty Gear, and loves Sol Badguy, but only ever beats me with Bridget, whom he can't deal with because Bridget is a man. So he picks Sol based on aesthetic and gets bodied by me over and over. Think of it like dating: why the hell would you marry yourself to Painwheel when there's all these other nice women you could get to know? You've got options, so you should explore them, even if you expect you might not enjoy it, because you could be surprised.
To break it down into a neat list:
1) Get comfortable with doing the motions. You say you're having a hard time with your inputs being right, which tells me you're fucking it up. You feel like you're doing it right, but right now, feel isn't enough. Go into training mode, make it so you can see what you're actually inputting, and just practice doing the special moves over and over.
2) Learn what buttons do what. Another part of your input problem is likely that you are just doing anything. For SG, you want to first figure out where each of your punches and kicks are, then figure out which normals chain (in other words, combo) into one another. I don't play Painwheel, but I'm pretty sure you can do light, medium, fierce as a simple combo, and I think her fierce kick knocks the opponent into the air. You can also hold down your buttons to gain super armor on a normal that'll add damage to your hit if you are hit. She's a tricky gal.
3) For SG, specifically, don't start with a team. Use a single character. It'll help you learn match-ups, how to deal with assists, and you'll have a better chance of winning. As you get better, you can play with other characters and try to expand your team. I currently tend to use Parasoul/Valentine but I like Squigly and want to add her in somehow.
4) Also, SG has a tutorial that you can go through that will teach you everything you need to know, so do it.
5) Again, lose repeatedly and viciously, then think about what you did wrong. If you're playing with someone you know, they can maybe give you tips. Unlike what many folks will tell you, Arcade mode is not a good way to get good at fighting games, because the core of fighters is playing against other people, who will often do outrageously devious shit to you that the CPU won't do (it'll just read your inputs). It's best to play other people often.
6) Don't get disheartened. Everyone who is great at fighters has sucked at one point. You're inexperienced and learning, and that's OK. When I first learned fighters, like really learned, it was in an arcade, so not only was I losing, but I was losing money, I was losing face, all of that shit. I would have to go in there with like 25 bucks in change. Then gradually I got good enough to where I only needed 1-5 depending on who was in there and what game I was playing, but it took a long time, it took a lot of losses, and it took me very seriously thinking about how I lost, what I did to facilitate that loss, and how I can react against it better in the future, then practicing that shit.
7) Nothing is cheap. Don't cry about something is cheap or unfair. When Peacock zones (keeps you away from her) you out with bombs and fireballs, it's not the character's fault or your opponent's fault that the match didn't go the way you wanted it to go. Competitive games are about exploiting the opponent's weakness. If you don't block overheads (attacks that hit if you crouch), then I'm gonna do that shit all day. There's no reason for me not to. If you don't stop me from throwing you, again, all day. This doesn't make me, you, or anyone an asshole; the fuck of competitive games is to play hard and competitively. If we played basketball, you wouldn't be happy if I played on my knees, would you? I'm gonna go hard to win, just like you should.
You can play me: my name on everything is Zeldias (Xbox, PSN, Steam). Just add me on whatever you play on and if you see me on, gimme a holler.
