The hardest thing about learning a fighting game is __________________

[Phoenixazure]

Combo memorization. Timing links together and maximizing damage with progressively more complicated combos. I just don't have the time patience these days and most games that require a higher than baseline degree of skill. I'm still confident in my base knowledge to get passed the lower intermediate level but once it's maximizing every "turn" is when the road blocks start appearing

 

[samcastor]

Along with matchup knowledge, I will also mention a basic gameplan for each character. Yeah BnB combos are easy to find but I have been hacing trouble just finding the basica gameplan for some KOFXV characters I want to use. Stuff like, what is your pressure strategy, which buttons are good for checking space/whiff punish, etc.

 

[Crayon]

As a casual, I don't know why my brain just can't wrap my head around the way combos work. Like, in something like Spider-Man or Arkham Asylum you can string together all kinds of cool combos and that doesn't pose a problem, but the second you start talking about mid-kick to low-punch to backdash or whatever, it all falls apart. Maybe those action games just allow for more flexibility and creativity if you decide to web-zip instead of heavy punch or something, whereas in a fighting game if you drop a move, you just get juggled for 90 seconds and may as well put the controller down. Or maybe I just can't read other people but am really good at reading A.I.

Also, nuts to all the complicated inputs.

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There's actually some relation to a combo in an action game and a combo in a fighting game, mechanically. Sometimes, at least. The main difference is that action games are very freeform, because it's just more fun in that situation. It's a chance to get creative. In a fighting game, they are generally way more restrictive. Some fighting games combos are more restrictive than others but almost none are going to be as free as spider man.

The difference in restriction is often vast and they don't feel related. In fighting game terms, spider man combos are all cancels aka chains, and every move is roll and jump cancelable. Same for many modern action games. That would be way, waaaayyy too unrestricted for a lot of fighting games as it essentially lets you mash whatever and get a combo. Excellent for an action game, not great for a fighitng game.

 

[Professor Beef]

For me it's 360 moves like Zangief's piledriver

I still can't do it right

Click to shrink...

I can help with that one!

You don't need to do a full 360 motion at all. You've never had to actually! You can instead do a HALF circle and end that half circle with diagonal up/forward (or up/back, depending on where you started the half circle) then press any punch ALL in a fluid motion.

For the number notation nerds, that's 412369 or 632147.

You can also use negative edge and buffer the motion during a lariat (using Zangief as an example still) or one of his punches, then release the punch button at the right time.

Well there's the main reason it never happens. No one wants to actual do the shitty part of a setting up a tourny.

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Speaking as one of the last people to run the old GAFbats, yeah it's a pain in the ass to setup and an even bigger pain to get people to stick around even for a full day.

 

[Devil]

Still can't get the timing consisently right for SF5 combos even though everbody complains how dumbed down the inputs are, lol. It never feels right or precise on a controller and when I tried to learn stick inputs just felt slower to do (even after tons of practice) and it took more brain capacity away just for the inputs.

Still loved playing it but there was always that barrier I never felt with other FGs like Tekken or Smash. I had less problems with GG Strive combos for some reason. On the other hand, the hardest thing to learn with Tekken and Smash is matchups and GG Strive has a lot of different meter specials/cancels, some of which I still never used after dozens of hours of practice, because I couldn't.

 

[Genesius]

There's actually some relation to a combo in an action game and a combo in a fighting game, mechanically. Sometimes, at least. The main difference is that action games are very freeform, because it's just more fun in that situation. It's a chance to get creative. In a fighting game, they are generally way more restrictive. Some fighting games combos are more restrictive than others but almost none are going to be as free as spider man.

The difference in restriction is often vast and they don't feel related. In fighting game terms, spider man combos are all cancels aka chains, and every move is roll and jump cancelable. Same for many modern action games. That would be way, waaaayyy too unrestricted for a lot of fighting games as it essentially lets you mash whatever and get a combo. Excellent for an action game, not great for a fighitng game.

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There you go, lol. Someone who can take my ramblings and turn them into a coherent statement.

I get what you're saying. It's probably why I stick to offline modes in fighters, I just want to punch the mans. I'll never actually be good at punching the mans.

 

[uuddrlrl]

Knowing when it is "my turn".

 

[Thrill_house]

Match up knowledge, frame timings and the biggest one imo is finding the desire to keep going and learning after getting smoked. You really have to want to improve constantly

 

[Korigama]

Still can't get the timing consisently right for SF5 combos even though everbody complains how dumbed down the inputs are, lol. It never feels right or precise on a controller and when I tried to learn stick inputs just felt slower to do (even after tons of practice) and it took more brain capacity away just for the inputs.

Still loved playing it but there was always that barrier I never felt with other FGs like Tekken or Smash. I had less problems with GG Strive combos for some reason. On the other hand, the hardest thing to learn with Tekken and Smash is matchups and GG Strive has a lot of different meter specials/cancels, some of which I still never used after dozens of hours of practice, because I couldn't.

Click to shrink...

Less focus on links with Strive unlike SFV, in addition to gatlings being more limited compared to old GG, would have much to do with making combos easier to grasp for players who normally struggle with those.

Knowing when it is "my turn".

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That's the sort of thing that usually has to be labbed down to specific match-ups to improve upon, testing what is and isn't safe for yourself being more useful than memorizing pages of precise frame data in my experience.

 

[Mesoian]

Yeah, I'd say matchups. It's why I continue to say that SmUsh is up there as one of the hardest fighting games to learn, despite it being easy to just noodle around with. Setting Tier Lists aside, if you want to truly learn that game, figuring out the match up for HALF of the roster is a herculean effort. Fighting games with 20 characters feel breezy in comparison.

And you do pick it up naturally and you figure things out from playing good people. But I feel like I don't learn the matchups for most of the cast until I've gotten...300, 400 wins with a character under my belt? Otherwise, I'm still getting hit with stuff I just don't know and learning a little bit more each time. But it's REALLY hard knowing what to do against the entire roster, to the point where, unless you're in there every day, no breaks, it's kind of impossible.

 

[adj_noun]

I can help with that one!

You don't need to do a full 360 motion at all. You've never had to actually! You can instead do a HALF circle and end that half circle with diagonal up/forward (or up/back, depending on where you started the half circle) then press any punch ALL in a fluid motion.

For the number notation nerds, that's 412369 or 632147.

You can also use negative edge and buffer the motion during a lariat (using Zangief as an example still) or one of his punches, then release the punch button at the right time.

Click to shrink...

Thanks! I'll keep that in mind.

 

[threi]

Coming to terms with the fact that no matter how good you think you are, there are tons of people who will make you feel like a total beginner.

 

[Pundere]

Learning matchups against characters with higher skill floors is a big one for me. Against Sol or Ky I can easily run training mode to figure out certain scenarios, but for someone like Zato I have to figure out how to reliably get to that scenario before I can learn it.

 

[Mesoian]

Learning matchups against characters with higher skill floors is a big one for me. Against Sol or Ky I can easily run training mode to figure out certain scenarios, but for someone like Zato I have to figure out how to reliably get to that scenario before I can learn it.

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That's why that replay mode in +R is so cool. Easier practice against characters that you may not know how to play yourself.

 

[Sabot]

Pretty obviously it's learning to hit buttons with intent. That's the biggest gap to clear.

 

[jett]

Everything? lol

Learning to play a new character is like learning to play a whole new game sometimes. Learning BnBs, frametraps, mixups, specific match-ups, etc. Playing fighting games is a real bother.

 

[joeblow]

Defense, defense, a thousand times defense.

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

Goddawful reaction times that have only aged badly.

 

[SquirrelSoup]

For me it's character crises i think. Just can't seem to manage sticking with one character while learning. Whenever i get blasted i really focus on the negatives of whoever i'm currently playing and then i tend to hide in training mode learning a new one for a while. rinse, repeat.

 

[Ferrio]

Coming to terms with the fact that no matter how good you think you are, there are tons of people who will make you feel like a total beginner.

Click to shrink...

 

[Transistor]

To me, the hardest thing about it is balancing having fun while getting good. It's easy to get swept up and have it feel like a job rather than actually enjoying yourself.

 

[Nepenthe]

Just being able to control your character.

 

[Zombegoast]

Blocking

 

[Gelf]

It may not be the biggest reason I lose but combo links are the thing that frustrate me the most, like my brain feels in pain trying to cope with the precise timing on some of them in Street Fighter, especially if the combo uses a lot of buttons as well. This goes extra for hit confirms, by the time I can have the knowledge I got a hit in I can't react fast enough to input the follow up. I despise trial modes because doing them feels like I'm going to get a migraine.

Some other games do feel easier for me combo wise though since they feel less based on tightly linked inputs to me. For example in Virtua Fighter if I get a counter hit, juggle or whatever I can usually follow with at least something hitting even it's not optimal. I find it intuitive enough that I can work out some of my own combos in training without having to look them up.

Aside from combos I do struggle in neutral especially against a defensive player. If your not jumping into me then I'm not sure what to do, especially since as I established I often can't react fast enough to hit confirms. Again I have less of an issue with this in VF as well for some reason, I just get that game much more than others but I'm too dumb with my fighting game knowledge to work out why.

 

[Silvergun-Blue]

Having the drive to actually put time into a game (not speaking for me but just what I've seen from the usual 'I can't get into x fighting game for y reason' topics).

Click to shrink...

It's this. Realizing just how far it is you have to go before you can even consider yourself competent. There are so many facets to being good at fighting games and consequently so many roadblocks to stop you dead.

 

[tapedeck]

Click to shrink...

I can hear this image.

 

[SunshinePuppies]

not getting constantly distracted by other games

 

[Starwing]

When I was a beginner as a kid, the hardest thing to learn was inputting moves, be it specials, supers, or even some command normals. Although I didn't know at the time what frame data, crossups, neutral, combos or other mechanics are, I was able to understand it at a basic level intuitively and realitively quickily after an hour or two in training mode or fighting another player/CPU. Inputting moves, on the other hand, took me more time to execute consistently and is usually the biggest barrier to get past before I understand a fighting game.

Even today I still get tripped up from game to game evrt now and again and its a big reason why I'm not a fan of most Western fighting IPs like Mortal Kombat or Killer Instinct.

 

[MrNewVegas]

Habit breaking.

After taking in bad habits or suboptimal routes or even excluding buttons it's hard to break.

I play Sakura. Before that I played Ryu. I find it very difficult to open with light kick, I'm always crunching for light punch or crouch medium kick.

 

[zoodoo]

Another one:
team based fighting games. i can't wrap my head around them. Learning 1 character is already hard, multiple seems colossal

 

[JumbiePrime]

For me it was coming to terms with the fact I can make all the right decisions and still lose .

 

[EvilBoris]

Buttons

 

[Shiryu]

There is literally nothing hard about fighting games in general especially since SF4 era.

 

[sixteen-bit]

not getting tilted

 

[Greent4]

There is literally nothing hard about fighting games in general especially since SF4 era.

Click to shrink...

Alright go win Evo.

For me its learning to not mash or panic on wakeup.
Being patient is a very hard thing to learn.

 

[Alek]

I think it's not getting flustered in the moment when your getting rushed down or generally losing momentum. You can learn all of the controls, your characters combos and generally have good execution but if you can't cope with how the pace of play shifts against you, you will lose consistently.

And it's a very frustrating and discouraging way to lose, because it feels like you know what to do but you just can't. It's partially an emotional thing but also about memory consolidation and building processing fluency for various situations. You can know the right thing to do but you have to practice it hundreds if not thousands of times before it becomes fluid.

And then there's so many of those scenarios because there's so many matchups. You can feel like your progressing in one matchup and still stuck in others and that can feel really bad. It's a combination of approaching the game with the right mindset (clinically, with a focus on growth) and a tonne of time practicing. It's not something you can get over quickly and it's the point where you really need to decide how much you want to commit into these games.

 

[Crayolan]

Time/dedication. Gotta stick to a single game long term to get even half decent and the constant losing throughout the process is tough.

 

[Ciao]

Finding someone your level or at a level you enjoy fighting against. Having IRL friends who have the same level as you, and progress at the same rythm, makes learning FG a joy.

 

[RagingAvatar]

For me, it's finding people to play with.
I'm an Xbox guy.

 

[closer]

recognizing and unlearning bad habits
making choices with purpose

 

[dancingphlower]

It seems obvious but blocking and knowing when to punish. People think about how difficult combos and motion inputs are but most of the time, people lose because they're not learning the neutral (myself especially included).

 

[Bigg]

Consistency. Specifically always following the safest gameplan while keeping your execution solid. It is so, so easy to just fall into the trap of making risky maneuvers when things aren't going your way and hope they shake out, and like 9/10 times this doesn't work no matter what my brain tells me.

DEB/Romolla has a good video about this.

 

[eraFROMAN]

Mindgames. If you catch my pattern too early, I'm probably losing that round before I can adjust. Depends on the game, though; MK footsies baffle me, but you probably aren't breaking me down in ST lol

 

[Pyro]

Time. It's so hard to put aside the time to just grind and learn when I'd rather spend it getting more joy out of other games or clearing my backlog.

 

[ArjanN]

Having the right mindset is more important than any specific technical thing you can learn.

 

[Korigama]

not getting tilted

Click to shrink...

Also, being able to will yourself to take a break when you know you're tilted.

 

[Deleted member 34949]

I can help with that one!

You don't need to do a full 360 motion at all. You've never had to actually! You can instead do a HALF circle and end that half circle with diagonal up/forward (or up/back, depending on where you started the half circle) then press any punch ALL in a fluid motion.

For the number notation nerds, that's 412369 or 632147.

You can also use negative edge and buffer the motion during a lariat (using Zangief as an example still) or one of his punches, then release the punch button at the right time.

Click to shrink...

Yo I've avoided grapplers for YEARS because of the 360 thing and reading this felt like I just opened my third eye

recognizing and unlearning bad habits
making choices with purpose

Click to shrink...

This is it for me.

 

[OGlol]

learning and accepting a loss

 

[Jakisthe]

For me, reliably being able to execute moves. I can pull off a QC motion about 50% of the time in practice modes, and other motions maybe 25% of the time. The idea of being able to do this in a live match seems absurd.

 

[J_ToSaveTheDay]

Receiving consistent feedback about your performance to keep getting better.

I have to keep building my own regimens by cross-referencing commentary and my own replays. There's very little direct feedback in fighting games when you don't have a strong local scene.