How Do You Learn To Play Characters in Fighting Games?

[Fappy]

I'm sure there is some kind of common practice among pros that requires a rigorous training regiment, but I am not interested in that. I want to know what the common folk do to learn characters and combos.

I've been playing BlazBlue as my exclusive fighter for a few years now (playing on and off with long gaps in-between) and found that I have a pretty basic system for learning characters. I usually start with tutorial in-case I need a refresher on the basics, then I move on to Story Mode/Arcade mode. Generally I play those to get the basics down for all of the characters and what-not, but I have found that practicing against AI isn't all that useful.

Most good fighters have some kind of challenge mode that teaches you combos which I do with every character I intend to play. I get as far as I can until the combos get too impractical and then I go back and try to do the practical ones a few times more to get them down.

Then the most important part: Practice Mode against another player. I feel like doing practice mode matches (infinite life and what-not) against another human player is probably the most useful thing you can do. Not only do you learn how to fight against certain opponents as select characters, but the infinite life and varied nature of what your opponent is doing allows you to be experimental in a way you normally couldn't. There's nothing cooler about this than figuring out a new combo through experimentation. Bonus benefit: two people are learning to play characters for the price of one. Me and my buddy did a 1 1/2 hour practice match last night and I figured out all kinds of stuff with Noel that I had never know was possible (and I have played her a lot already) as did he with Hakumen.

So I ask you people of the Escapist, how do you learn new characters in your fighters of choice?

 

[Fappy]

So I ask you people of the Escapist, how do you learn new characters in your fighters of choice?

In Mortal Kombat II I'd usually pick a character like Jax or Johnny Cage and subsequently get my ass kicked after I'd won a few matches.


:/

You mad the mistake of not playing Reptile. He's so OP in MKII.

 

[Fappy]

So I ask you people of the Escapist, how do you learn new characters in your fighters of choice?

In Mortal Kombat II I'd usually pick a character like Jax or Johnny Cage and subsequently get my ass kicked after I'd won a few matches.


:/

You mad the mistake of not playing Reptile. He's so OP in MKII.

Was he not a hidden character or something? Been a while since I last played.

He was a secret character in the first game. He was playable from the get-go in MKII. I think Noob Saibot was the secret character in MKII.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

I tend to find a hand full of characters I like the feel of, and then I stick to them.

For instance, UMvC3 has characters coming out of the wazoo but I only know how to use a few of them with any real skill (Ammy, X-23, Vergil and Morrigan, if you're curious).

Most of the stuff I learned from Marvel, I did in online tutorial videos that basically explained the basics, stuff like OT, groundbounce, that sort of thing. Then it was just a matter of practicing combos, getting a feel for the characters, seeing how well certain characters worked with other characters etc.


The thing for me though, is that I find playing against other players the best sort of practice.

Sure, you can spend hours in training, spreadsheeting your combos down to a T, but when it comes to actually playing the game, it's not just your ability to pull off combos that matters. It's the way you play, your spacing, your defence and attack strategies, all of that defines your style of play.

 

[Fappy]

The thing for me though, is that I find playing against other players the best sort of practice.

Sure, you can spend hours in training, spreadsheeting your combos down to a T, but when it comes to actually playing the game, it's not just your ability to pull off combos that matters. It's the way you play, your spacing, your defence and attack strategies, all of that defines your style of play.

Yeah that is going to be the bulk of improving your game for sure. However, I feel practice mode against another human is great for figuring out what your characters are capable of in a scenario that doesn't translate to a competitive match. Once you've got a character down-pat however... the only way to improve is to play the real thing as you said.

 

[Burig]

Button mash.
I find a character I like; the appearence of, the animations, the speed - something I can use, and just use them usually, occasionally switching it up to another character I like. Experimentation also helps. I remember in Tekken there was a training mode where you were put up against the wooden character (Mokugen or something, I forget) or a character of your choisng and you can just mess about there, or look up specific moves.
I personally don't play too many fighting games, but wouldn't say no to a game of Tekken.

Although, this does make me remember a party at a friends house, he had one of those games, but it in a 3D enviroment, or had a 3D part to it. I was pretty much whooping someone else until they found something that they could do that involved the enviroment, and just hung about there so I couldn't actually do anything to them (or, I could, but wasn't fast enough at reacting to avoid it). Was quite annoying.

 

[AbstractStream]

As much as I've been tempted to in the past, I don't do tutorial mode because my pride won't let me.

If there's a story mode, I'll go ahead and mess around with the different button combinations and get the feel for the characters as I unlock them. If I keep getting my ass kicked in story mode, I'll head over to practice mode and unleash on some dummies.

Seriously, for fighters, practice mode is my best friend. Challenge mode is helpful, but I use practice mode a lot more.

I've done this with Street Fighter, BlazBlue, and now P4: Arena. Nothing special really, just repetition.

 

[Fappy]

As much as I've been tempted to in the past, I don't do tutorial mode because my pride won't let me.

If there's a story mode, I'll go ahead and mess around with the different button combinations and get the feel for the characters as I unlock them. If I keep getting my ass kicked in story mode, I'll head over to practice mode and unleash on some dummies.

Seriously, for fighters, practice mode is my best friend. Challenge mode is helpful, but I use practice mode a lot more.

I've done this with BlazBlue and now P4: Arena. Nothing special really, just repetition.

The character specific tutorials in the latest BlazBlue are actually pretty useful (and very brief). They pretty much just cover special moves and basic combos/mix-ups. How're the character in P4A btw? Going to play it this weekend and I am thinking of maining Akihiko.

 

[hoboman29]

What I do is find a character I think looks cool then I start playing as them and if I like it I'll keep playing them until I get good as them.

 

[hazabaza1]

I look at who probably has my playstyle.
And then I die.
Then I die over again.
And over.
And over.
And over and over and over and over and over.

 

[AbstractStream]

The character specific tutorials in the latest BlazBlue are actually pretty useful (and very brief). They pretty much just cover special moves and basic combos/mix-ups. How're the character in P4A btw? Going to play it this weekend and I am thinking of maining Akihiko.

I've had the chance to briefly play as Akihiko and he is gooood. I like his speed, but he's mainly for close range combat. Mitsuru can be used for both close range and long range. I feel I was right maining her

Characters like Naoto and Aigis might seem weak, but once you learn their combos, they do some serious damage.

Elizabeth and Kanji's offense is just ridiculous...In a good way. The power Kanji has from a single hit is amazing and he's not even slow.

I could go on lol but I think I'll stop there for now.

 

[Fappy]

The character specific tutorials in the latest BlazBlue are actually pretty useful (and very brief). They pretty much just cover special moves and basic combos/mix-ups. How're the character in P4A btw? Going to play it this weekend and I am thinking of maining Akihiko.

I've had the chance to briefly play as Akihiko and he is gooood. I like his speed, but he's mainly for close range combat. Mitsuru can be used for both close range and long range. I feel I was right maining her

Characters like Naoto and Aigis might seem weak, but once you learn their combos, they do some serious damage.

Elizabeth and Kanji's offense is just ridiculous...In a good way. The power Kanji has from a single hit is amazing and he's not even slow.

I could go on lol but I think I'll stop there for now.

Sounds perfect for me as I main Bang in BB. I was hoping Aegis would play kind of like Nu/Lambda, but from videos I have seen she doesn't really seem like it. My girlfriend is a fighting game noob but a huge Persona fan and wants to play Aegis more than anyone else. Does she have a high enough skill-cap to warrant steering my girlfriend away from? I'd like to get her playing someone a bit more simple on the level of Ragna/Jin/Taokaka.

 

[Soxafloppin]

So I ask you people of the Escapist, how do you learn new characters in your fighters of choice?

In Mortal Kombat II I'd usually pick a character like Jax or Johnny Cage and subsequently get my ass kicked after I'd won a few matches.


:/

You mad the mistake of not playing Reptile. He's so OP in MKII.

Was he not a hidden character or something? Been a while since I last played.

He was a secret character in the first game. He was playable from the get-go in MKII. I think Noob Saibot was the secret character in MKII.

Noob, Smoke and Jade were all secret characters in MK2, Reptile was bottom Tier. Jax and Lui Kang were pretty strong in it though.

Personally in the new MK I played through the storymode and just chose who I liked the best, Jonny Cage.

I picked him because his X-ray acts as a Counter which while shit against AI is pretty awesome online, he has a good long game and a good up close and his combos arn't too difficult.

I'm still shite though, but I can beat the average Scorpion using button masher.

 

[Fappy]

So I ask you people of the Escapist, how do you learn new characters in your fighters of choice?

In Mortal Kombat II I'd usually pick a character like Jax or Johnny Cage and subsequently get my ass kicked after I'd won a few matches.


:/

You mad the mistake of not playing Reptile. He's so OP in MKII.

Was he not a hidden character or something? Been a while since I last played.

He was a secret character in the first game. He was playable from the get-go in MKII. I think Noob Saibot was the secret character in MKII.

Noob, Smoke and Jade were all secret characters in MK2, Reptile was bottom Tier. Jax and Lui Kang were pretty strong in it though.

Personally in the new MK I played through the storymode and just chose who I liked the best, Jonny Cage.

I picked him because his X-ray acts as a Counter which while shit against AI is pretty awesome online, he has a good long game and a good up close and his combos arn't too difficult.

I'm still shite though, but I can beat the average Scorpion using button masher.

I got pretty decent at Smoke and Ermac for the time I was playing the new one. Unfortunately it didn't keep me interested very long despite being a pretty decent game.

 

[Laurents van Cauwenberghe]

all I can say is; trial and error. I die and I try again until I can pull of the combos

 

[AbstractStream]

Sounds perfect for me as I main Bang in BB. I was hoping Aegis would play kind of like Nu/Lambda, but from videos I have seen she doesn't really seem like it. My girlfriend is a fighting game noob but a huge Persona fan and wants to play Aegis more than anyone else. Does she have a high enough skill-cap to warrant steering my girlfriend away from? I'd like to get her playing someone a bit more simple on the level of Ragna/Jin/Taokaka.

Nah, I think your girlfriend should be fine. Everything seems pretty balanced for Aigis, so she should have no difficulty progressing in story mode or doing arcade mode. Maybe there might be some difficulty if she goes into network mode, but it's nothing practice can't solve.

Plus, Aigis is fairly fast. That comes in handy a lot. Once Aigis's combos connect, it's just so...@_@

Spoiler

If Aigis doesn't work out, your girl could always use Naoto.

Surprisingly enough, the fighter I had most trouble with was Yosuke. He has great speed, but I just couldn't get the hang of him.

 

[Fappy]

-Snip-

Holy shit she has some sexy air combos going for her. Does P4A have a lot of combos that require facing different directions for continuation? There are not many non-wall combos in BB I can think of that require that and Aegis looks like she has a lot of those.

 

[-Seraph-]

I'm rather picky, and have a bit of a strict means of finding my mains/subs.

As a rule in any fighter I pick up, I need to be proficient with at least 2 characters. A main obviously, and a sub character to mix things up and as a reasonable counter pick wen my main might suffer.

I learn and get acquainted with the games mechanics first and foremost. I need to know HOW the game plays first so i can choose a character that compliments my ability to manipulate those mechanics. Some games I main a rush down character because I can use them within the confines of that game, while in another game I may be better with spacers, or power characters ect... Game mechanics dictate who I can use well enough.

Then from there I look at characters through vids and toying with them, and see if their play style interests me and if I am comfortable with their input commands. This is where characters start dropping from my list if they have inputs I don't genreally like to perform *cough* 360-720s *cough*.

Keep playing till I and decent with the character of my choosing, and off to practice mode and youtube I go. I'll try my best to devise my own combos through practice, and modify any challenge mode combos available to get better effect out of them. Most challenge mode combos tend to be shit, you gotta take them and modify them a bit to get better effects from them.

And of course, after I've practiced enough where I feel I can't think of much else, I hit youtube for combo vids. Filter out the flashy stuff from the practical stuff, and back to more training until I got my selected combos and strategies down well.

Seems like a lot of effort, but I juggle multiple aspects o these at once so I'm not spending several weeks JUST in training mode. I'll bring in these factors into my online matches as well so I can adapt better than just beating up a dummy for several hours and nothing else.