how does one improve at street fighter?

Sam

I screw up moves all the time and im not great at combos, or breaking opponent combos.
I find strategy guides incomprehensible.

WuckFarcraft

Button Smash

Cryogen

What is it about strategy guides that is incomprehensible to you?

Without knowing what version of street fighter you are playing, the only general advice is to practice, and keep practicing. Practicing against a dummy opponent that doesnt move to work on your combos and moves, and practicing against a human player that is telling you what they are going to do to practice combo breakers and counters. Once it starts coming together, then you just have to play a lot against people that arent rubbish.

Drez

I don't find strategy guides useful either.

Like I know the movements involved in doing Zangeif's Pile Driver from, hell, Street Fighter 2 for the SNES. But in the last, what, 15 years? I've been unable to do it ever.

It's really all about practice I guess.

Fellhand

Just keep trying with one guy until you're good and don't be afraid to grab. Grab is under rated.

I'd recommend playing Ryu or Ken until you're really good.

ViolentChemistry

Rhythm is the key as you open up the door.

Actually rhythm is huge. Once you figure out the rhythm of the game it gets a lot easier to land moves and combos. I've never been able to get the hang of Street Fighter though. My game is King of Fighters.

Incenjucar

You need to actually start considering the patterns and how you'd react to them, rather than "oh shit, I better blast out a fireball!"

Plan things out some.

brandotheninjamaster

vary your techniques. If you telegraph your opponent will learn your style and and begin to counter it. Also know when to break out your combos. One thing that works for me when I am playing akuma is to lure the opponent in close and then pull out an unblockable shungokusatsu (or whatever its called). But with any character make sure you know what combo to use and when to use it.

supabeast

Practice against people who grossly outclass you and learn from them. Record your matches and watch them again.

Something to be aware of is that getting good at Street Fighter (at least to compete at the higher levels of play) requires years of dedication and memorization, much like chess. The really great players memorize every frame of some characters movements, and learn to make decisions at the framerate of the game. Go over to shoryuken.com and read through the archives and you’ll really start to understand what makes guys like Daigo so great.

Eat_Fire

supabeast wrote: »

Practice against people who grossly outclass you and learn from them. Record your matches and watch them again.

Something to be aware of is that getting good at Street Fighter (at least to compete at the higher levels of play) requires years of dedication and memorization, much like chess. The really great players memorize every frame of some characters movements, and learn to make decisions at the framerate of the game. Go over to shoryuken.com and read through the archives and you’ll really start to understand what makes guys like Daigo so great.

I was beaten to giving the link. On the bottom of the forums there, there is a matchmaking section. Go to your local area and look to see if their is a thread for your city. Where I live, 10-20 ppl would meet up once a week to play and hang out. Also a good way to find the arcades to go play at.

ViolentChemistry

Are you looking to play competitively or play with your friends? Because people who aren't tournament-players often would rather mutilate their own genitals with a rusty spoon than play fighting games with tournament-players. It's an entirely different kind of play.

Sam

ViolentChemistry wrote: »

Are you looking to play competitively or play with your friends? Because people who aren't tournament-players often would rather mutilate their own genitals with a rusty spoon than play fighting games with tournament-players. It's an entirely different kind of play.

I don't know, I want to hold my own against fans in general, not win tournaments.
But to be specific

I'm playing Hyper Fighting on 360

I can't beat anyone online, and on Arcade I can't get past stage 2 Guile- I used to be able to at least beat the story mode, although the last time I remember owning SF2 was Turbo on SNES.

Sam

So here's my problem- I go on training. Do the hurricane kick. I can keep doing it and I feel pumped up.

But when I fight, I can't do the right things at the right time. I don't spam fireballs and hurricane kicks, but to use them effectively, you need to be able to do them whenenver you want and I can't, and I don't know why.

Sam

Same with Chun Li, the only other character I play a lot. The spinning bird kick is a bitch to get done under pressure/timing

noir_blood

Sam wrote: »

So here's my problem- I go on training. Do the hurricane kick. I can keep doing it and I feel pumped up.

But when I fight, I can't do the right things at the right time. I don't spam fireballs and hurricane kicks, but to use them effectively, you need to be able to do them whenenver you want and I can't, and I don't know why.

Maybe the game isn't for you? I'm in no way trying to be mean, just that if I get what you're saying, you can't puill of the fireball motions, you're going to have a hard time pulling off anything else. Try playing with Guile once or twice, see if his motions(LEFT,RIGHT/DOWN,UP) are any easier

Sam

I can pull off the fireball motions, and the hurricane kick, in training and against my friends who suck even more than I do (or never play rather)

But in a heated match I cant do it at the right moment- I can still do it, I just can't time it against an aggressive opponent, or even the computer in Hyper Fighting.

Is Hyper Fighting supposed to be this hard though?
Every other SF I've played has been easier, except at arcade cabinets, but thats the case for all fighters.

VThornheart

Are you using a joystick or a pad?

I hear that some people have an easier time doing the moves with one or another. I personally could never do it with both, but that's what friends have told me.

See if you can pick up an old used SNES Joypad controller (or a regular one, if you're already using a joypad), and see if that helps matters.

Sam

I use the 360 controller. I do better with the analogue stick. The D Pad is a piece of shit unless you only use it to input one direction every once in a while, which is its purpose in pretty much every 360 game

ApexMirage

try your hand at buffering - you can qcf+p (ryu's fireball) after a crouching mid kick in pretty much every version of street fighter.

this will be fairly vague, bear with me and let me know if i need to elaborate (which im sure others can do if i cant)

games operate at either 30 or 60 frames per second (to my knowledge)

every move takes x frames to execute, during which no other button press will perform an action (there are exceptions, such as cancels - but that's more advanced stuff)

basically you crouch and hit mk, and right away put in the qcf (quarter circle forward, down to forward) during the crouching mk's animation. once you come out of the animation, you hit p.

if the crouching mk landed (which isnt that hard to do in the first place) the fireball will hit him right in the face, without him being able to block.

just about every special move can be buffered this way, it's just a matter of finding the moves it buffers from (which is where shoryuken.com comes in)

the benefit not only making the fireball unblockable, but you get rid of the "jitteryness" of having to perform the proper motion with the stick/pad since your char is frozen in the kick animation while you perform it. you also get a predetermined notion of 'when' to fireball, so you're less worried about figuring out when to use it (it's just about never a good idea to fireball from long range and the damage is minimal either way)

there was a bit of ranting in there and lost my train of thought like 5 times, sorry >_>

ApexMirage

VThornheart wrote: »

Are you using a joystick or a pad?

I hear that some people have an easier time doing the moves with one or another. I personally could never do it with both, but that's what friends have told me.

See if you can pick up an old used SNES Joypad controller (or a regular one, if you're already using a joypad), and see if that helps matters.

i've been at tekken 5 tournies with people playing all sorts of fighting games including SF, and i dont think i've ever seen anyone use the stick - granted, xbox dpads suck horrible shit, but you might want to consider it

Sam

ApexMirage wrote: »

try your hand at buffering - you can qcf+p (ryu's fireball) after a crouching mid kick in pretty much every version of street fighter.

this will be fairly vague, bear with me and let me know if i need to elaborate (which im sure others can do if i cant)

games operate at either 30 or 60 frames per second (to my knowledge)

every move takes x frames to execute, during which no other button press will perform an action (there are exceptions, such as cancels - but that's more advanced stuff)

basically you crouch and hit mk, and right away put in the qcf (quarter circle forward, down to forward) during the crouching mk's animation. once you come out of the animation, you hit p.

if the crouching mk landed (which isnt that hard to do in the first place) the fireball will hit him right in the face, without him being able to block.

just about every special move can be buffered this way, it's just a matter of finding the moves it buffers from (which is where shoryuken.com comes in)

the benefit not only making the fireball unblockable, but you get rid of the "jitteryness" of having to perform the proper motion with the stick/pad since your char is frozen in the kick animation while you perform it. you also get a predetermined notion of 'when' to fireball, so you're less worried about figuring out when to use it (it's just about never a good idea to fireball from long range and the damage is minimal either way)

there was a bit of ranting in there and lost my train of thought like 5 times, sorry >_>

so mk is the crouch kick, the same one that noobs tend to like to spam?

ApexMirage

there's 3 punches and 3 kicks, light medium and heavy/fierce, on an arcade pad they'd be mapped like this

LP MP HP

LK MK HK

so down(crouch)+mk, whatever you have it mapped to

Sam

that buffer works really well. What buffers Shoryuken and Hurricane kick?

current progress: I started out not being able to beat the first level on the default level of Hyper Fighting on XLA, though there's no options for difficulty whatsoever. I'm guessing it's the same difficulty most arcade cabinets are set to. Now I can get to the 3rd or 4rth stage before burning out.

ApexMirage

i only really know 3rd strike, in which you can buffer both the shoryuken and hurricane kick from crouching mk as well.

ken can MP, HP, DP+LP in 3rd strike, not sure what's different with your version

(DP = shoryuken motion: d,f,d/f)

double crouching LK works as a buffer for some stuff in 3rd strike but you're pretty much on your own for finding other buffers (or shoryuken.com) though, sorry =/
keep in mind you dont need need a whole bunch, you just need stuff that works.

you can use crossups against human players: jump just barely over their head with J(jumping) MK and CH LKx2 as you land on their opposite side , into qcf+p for a hadouken (J MK, CH LK, CH LK, qcf+P)