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Skrylar's Training Diary

A lot of members here put in their steam names on their profile for a reason, so while no one is offering in specific, I'm sure you could try adding some people you see here (me included) and just asking for games when you see them playing the game. At the very worst, they'd just decline on their end and there'd be no foul, though most people you see here are friendly enough to play some matches with you if asked at the right time.
 
I would def take Fenster up on his offer he is the best solo Parasoul there is. Feel free to friend request me too my Steam is down there in my signature.
 
And what should repeating the exact same singular input be referred to as?
As a fully serious answer:
If it doesn't work against you it should be called "playing badly". Repeating the same action that doesn't work is bad play.

If it works against you it should be called "outplaying you".
It doesn't matter if you think it's "brainless" or "spammy" or whatever, the fact is that if you couldn't get around another person literally just repeating the same action, you got outplayed. As much as that stings, it's true. If you can't deal with me doing something, and I want to win, as long as that thing is working why on Earth would I EVER do anything else?

"Spamming" indicates the mindset that what they are doing is unfair or that you have no recourse, which is the important thing to AVOID and is why it's bad to use that term to characterize someone else's play.
If you want to be a good player - of anything! - the best advice I can give you is: Attribute all your losses to yourself and all your wins to your opponent. Get rid of the "there's nothing I can do" mindset.
 
Please feel free to add me on steam -- Would be good to try some 1v1's, I gotta work on my Robo-Fortune so it'll be great practice for the both of us I think :)
 
"Spamming" indicates the mindset that what they are doing is unfair or that you have no recourse,

In the TA/Zero-K community, "unit spam" just meant building large amounts of the same unit and someone would usually say to just build counter units. Here it's considered defeatist.

Ok. I'll stop referring to it as spam.

I would def take Fenster up on his offer he is the best solo Parasoul there is. Feel free to friend request me too my Steam is down there in my signature.
I may take you all up on that :)

Didn't play for a few days, studied frame data instead. Mostly the safe moves for intentional blockstrings.
 
In the TA/Zero-K community, "unit spam" just meant building large amounts of the same unit and someone would usually say to just build counter units. Here it's considered defeatist.
The difference is, that in Fighting Games, what is considered "spam" in other places isn't actually happening most of the time.

- If I spam you with text messages, I send you 5 letter notes nonstop: Message, instantly next message, etc, with the goal of just getting out a ton of texts as soon as possible.
- If I spam Footmen in an RTS, I build 3 Barracks and mash on [F] nonstop until I hit the food limit: Again, the goal is to get out as many Footmen as possible, as soon as possible.
- If I spam Nukes in an MMO, I am pressing Q every time my Thunderbolt gets off cooldown: You get the picture, damage maximization by casting my spell literally whenever it is possible.

When someone "spams" jMP with Painwheel, or "spams" Hadouken with Ryu, or "spams" Napalm Shot with Parasoul, that is not what's going on.
Spamming jMP would mean you hold upforward and wildly mash on the MP button, to get out as many jMPs as possible in a given timeframe.
Nobody with more than 10 hours playtime in any Fighting Game is gonna do this (unless the Fighting Game they are playing is utter shit - else this is obsessively easy to beat).
- Because, unlike in other places, spamming by itself provides you with nothing (20 text messages instead of 1 is more annoying, 20 footmen instead of 1 make my rush more likely to succeed, 20 nukes instead of 1 is 20x the damage; .. 20 predictable fireballs in a Fighting Game just means the opponent jumps over all of them and lands free hits on you)

MAYBE they only use one Button, or only one skill! That is certainly possible. But they will 'never' do it in a "Push this whenever possible" way, and as such it can't really be classified as spamming.
The difference between "spamming" and "only doing one thing" is that the latter still carries thoughts and positioning on every action.
Maybe I defeat you as Parasoul doing nothing but Napalm Shots!!, but I won't be doing them 'anytime I can' - Instead, I'm going "Let's move a bit closer now, he is scared! Gives me some positioning" and "I think he will jump, so do M Tearshot instead of H Tearshot" or "Let's delay this next Napalm Shot a bit, to bait him into moving forwards" or "He expects H Napalm Shot, so I will do L this time to throw off his timing" or "I am too close to safely Napalm Shot, let's backdash twice then try it again" or etc
This is very very different from "H Napalm Shot, H Napalm Shot, H Napalm Shot, H Napalm Shot, H Napalm Shot on repeat whenever I can hurr durr", which isn't really a factor if you spend 5 minutes in training mode with your character.

And that is pretty much the entire point of complaint vs the term "spamming" in fighting games.

I am waddling back and worth, staying out of your optimal ranges, controlling some space, predict a jump so I decide not to toss a fireball and instead antiair you, backdash, predict another jump and AA you again, expect you to be scared of jumping by now - so I use a slow fireball and bully you into the corner by advancing behind it, land some free chip on you while you are sitting frustrated in the corner, etc blabla
- And then after the match, rather than being impressed by me controlling all parts of the screen and expertly reading your every action in advance, your thought process is "Wow this stupid guy did nothing but spam fireballs and DP sometimes! Anyone could do this!" which means not only will you be incapable of ever finding a counter (as you are going to be blind to the ranges and timings at which I toss plasma, and unable to recognize that your jumpins are too predictable - since you believe I am just mindlessly doing shit and it is magically working) but you are also straightup insulting me due to your ignorance

If someone is really "spamming Painwheel forward jMP" then
1) You know exactly what they are going to do next (since they just do the same thing over and over)
2) You know exactly when they are going to do this (since they do it on repeat with the exact same timing)
3) You know they have no concern about their spacing at all (meaning they will both do it when they are very close to you, and when it will just whiff)
4) You know that it is an extremely slow normal (22f startup)
- So what you do is:
1) Stand at far range, wait for them to jMP (should be a waiting time of around 1 second!), let it roll through, then dash in as they are landing
2) You now got very close to them for free, since they just did a move at a range where it does nothing and you were ready for that happening
3) Now you know they will jumpforward jMP AGAIN! Since they are just spamming it
4) Recap: You are very close to them, they are going to press a very slow normal
5) Push a button. Any button.
- Tadaa! You just won.

You will meet very few people where this exact course of action actually works this easily.
.. Because most people aren't actually "spamming", they just know that X is very good at Y range, so they will attempt to get into Y range and then do X. With some varying delay, to not make countering it too easily. Or maybe not, if they suspect you to do a thing that would beat X.
Which is very, very different from mindlessly pressing the same button over and over no matter what is going on anywhere, as "spamming" would imply.
 
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Did ten rounds with fenster, then about a dozen rounds in QM.

The ups
  • Didn't get completely perfected.
  • Accidental napalm pillars majorly reduced.
  • More successful jump-overs / push blocks to stop Double Assist pushbacks.
  • A neat intentional napalm pillar punish on Big Band / Parasoul.
  • A sweet combo-to-double-snap-to-assist-combo in QM against Beowulf / Big Band.
  • A few successful rounds of threatening / pushblocking Fillias in to the corner.
  • A few successful corner pins and blockstrings that mixed up in to combos.
  • Air grabs.
  • Down to only 1-2 input errors per round. Success.
  • Drunk announcer voice.
The downs
  • Still getting hit by napalm shots when doing PB's on other parasouls. Need to copy that part for my own blockstrings.
  • Dropping the blockstrings and losing the corner. Sadface.
  • Not familiar with the hit/hurt boxes for what can be air-grabbed.
  • Kept dropping mid-air grab resets against fenster. Didn't drop them against others. Not sure if he was dodging or I was too overzealous with the grab.
  • A few mechanical foibles. Took a sekmet after a reset even though I was blocking high. A couple pushblocks that ended up registering as an attack which was instantly stuffed. Need to set the control panel near the game window to see if I'm holding the stick poorly and keying in the wrong block direction without intending to.
 
Went on for a few hours as Big Band, and had several dozen pushblocks read as 1-frame attacks which were instantly stuffed, several cases of charged punches failing to go off entirely (not punished during startup frames, outright refusing to start in the first place and doing some OTHER move), and issues getting Beat Extend to actually trigger. Regular QCF and single button moves seem to work fine. FQCFs won't come out with any form of reliability.

I've seen training mode occasionally register the double button press either a double button press, or one button and then the other half a frame later. Its hard to debug if its a finger input error or a wiring error :/
 
Went on for a few hours as Big Band, and had several dozen pushblocks read as 1-frame attacks which were instantly stuffed, several cases of charged punches failing to go off entirely (not punished during startup frames, outright refusing to start in the first place and doing some OTHER move), and issues getting Beat Extend to actually trigger. Regular QCF and single button moves seem to work fine. FQCFs won't come out with any form of reliability.

I've seen training mode occasionally register the double button press either a double button press, or one button and then the other half a frame later. Its hard to debug if its a finger input error or a wiring error :/
It's a lot easier to come to peace with these kinda things after examining the replays.

If you type -enablereplays in the steam launch options you can check your inputs and see exactly what went wrong.

I mostly do this with throw techs that I really feel I should have gotten.

Also sorry if you've said it, but are you playing on keyboard? I had trouble with QCF's once and awhile when I used to play keyboard.
 
Also sorry if you've said it, but are you playing on keyboard? I had trouble with QCF's once and awhile when I used to play keyboard.

I use a Mayflash stick modified to use Hori parts and a Cthulhu PCB. Kuro buttons don't really have a clicky response though, they have a hair trigger with no resistance which makes accidental inputs VERY easy.

If you type -enablereplays in the steam launch options you can check your inputs and see exactly what went wrong.
Awesome, thanks. I didn't know the stable version had replay support!