Introduction and question

[hickwarrior]

Hello, I thought I'd just join this community and see if I can get into playing skullgirls a bit more regularly. I'm not sure how competitive I can be, but that has to be shown in fights.

Anyway, I've played a few fighting games. SFII comes to mind, but not with anyone else. As a kid, kind of a sore loser. Later on in life, I would try out SFIV, and I think because of that game or another I bought a gamepad. Not the best way to play fighters, but quite doable. When it came to going online, however, I am quite scared with a reason. I feel like I can never make a good difference in a fight... That, or my confidence is quite low. More on that later. Went onto the next version on PC, did have someone to fight with. But that guy really is into the game, while I keep playing many other games, something I like to do a lot. I also played yomi online for a bit and started to get more into it there, but still not enough to truly feel committed to it.

So that's a very small of what I did do when playing fighting games. Quite limited, but that's how it is for videogames in general over here. In my experience anyway.

However, I know I(a bit too strong a word perhaps, can't think of a substitute and am too lazy to find one) suffer from a crippling fear of not doing well or at the very least very low confidence in myself. Mind you, do not go into real-life here, it's about the mindset I'd need to grow for the game itself. Should I just play and not care, just observe what the opponent is doing and how? If so, what about if I feel like I can't just get good at the game ever?

It's a bit tough to explain, but I hope I painted the right picture for me on that question.

On the other side, assists. Like I noted previously, I never played a game that uses assists. How do assists help me in the game? How can they hinder me? IS that learned by experience or theory?

Aside from that, I hope that I stick to this game for at least a month. I tend to hop from game to game far too often to be stuck on just one game. Monster hunter is the exception however.

PS: how do arcade sticks feel anyway?

 

[juju_for_president]

Welcome to Skullheart (and potentially the Skullgirls fandom, if the game is to your liking). I will try my best to address what I believe I can. If anyone else that posts responses to this finds something in my post to be inaccurate, please mention it.

First, I would certainly recommend beginning, not with online play (not even Beginner Lobbies). Online Play is NOT a good way to start playing.

Instead, start with the well-made Tutorial Mode, than proceed from it to switching between trying characters, and getting the feel for the game and its mechanics, in Training Mode and Arcade Mode (preferably on a low difficulty setting, regardless of prior Fighting Game experience, until you are certain you can perform well on the next difficulty). The AI is not a perfect representation of what you will be up against in Online Play, but it is certainly closer than SFIV's AI in that regard.

I cannot stress enough that taking your time playing alone before playing online is not only completely reasonable, but will give you much opportunity to develop your skills before taking on crazy people that have been playing the game since its console release... like me. :P

Assists serve for several different uses, but the three primary uses are zoning, combo extension, and DPs against poor attacks. Every character has at least one normal or special that has some use as an assist, and with the ability to choose from ANY of their moves to serve as an assist, the range of strategies is large. Early on, you will likely want to pick simple DPs to serve as cover and extra damage against the enemy.

The disadvantage of using assists is that any assist move will be briefly vulnerable to an enemy attack, and take extra damage if they are caught in a combo (not sure how much more exactly). Even worse, you can have both your assist character AND the character you are playing as get caught in the same combo, leaving you with the potential to lose two characters at once.

Edit: And remember, if you find that the game is just too difficult, you can always spend time admiring the amazing art of the game in Slow Motion in Training Mode! :D

 

[DDB]

Should I just play and not care, just observe what the opponent is doing and how? If so, what about if I feel like I can't just get good at the game ever?

It helps not only to observe what the opponent's doing, but also what you were doing. Identifying what you have issues with helps in gittin gud. You can't let losing get to you, then you'll end up playing worse and just continue a vicious cycle of getting depressed over losing repeatedly.

How do assists help me in the game? How can they hinder me? IS that learned by experience or theory?

Assists can be for keeping people off of you, getting in on them, or helping continue your assault on their poor souls. You can't just throw them out all willy-nilly, though. Your assists are like your babies, and if left unattended will get the crap pounded out of them by all the big kids. Keep your assist babies safe and cradled.

PS: how do arcade sticks feel anyway?

When I first got my arcade stick, I hated it. I wanted to throw it out the window and jump out and chew on it. After a month or 2 of playing with it, I found myself enjoying it far more than the PS3 controller I had been using since who knows. However a stick is a pretty costly investment. If you're not sure about a stick, you might wanna head for a cheaper one.

 

[Broseidon Rex]

Confidence comes with experience and playing others. I actually picked up skullgirls and took it serious because I wanted to get competitive in something I felt strongly about. Sure, when I was just learning how to use a fight stick, it was practicing motions in training and then getting beaten the crap out online (which didn't help my ego much). But I stuck with it, and then came both competence and confidence.
So again, don't worry about confidence now. Keep with it and it'll come in time.

 

[Amuse]

I know I(a bit too strong a word perhaps, can't think of a substitute and am too lazy to find one) suffer from a crippling fear of not doing well or at the very least very low confidence in myself.

Aw boy, do I know how you feel. Online jitters is a pretty common problem, believe it or not. I used to suffer from it for a long time and thanks to that, I´d become completely uncapable of beating people who had absolutely no idea what they were doing, I´d lose to people pressing random buttons way more often than I´d like to admit.

I´ve pretty much gotten over it now, and the way I did it was continually strive to improve. Alot of that fear comes from not knowing your opponent (I found that when I was playing agaist people I had played before, or just friendlies with friends I was fine, and thus preformed much better) so what I did was learn as much about matchups as I possibly could, even played the character I was learning the matchup for for some time, so that I got a good grasp of what they can do. Once you figure out what your character can do against the character you are facing it becomes a lot less scary, and consiquently, you´ll preform much better.