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Taking the damn shot

Dan_Ros

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danielroscoe1
Long story short: Skullgirls is a game that i'd like to play and find someone to play with, i just want to be able to play at an average level, i'm not very confident with my skill level, that's why i decided to join this forum and open a thread right here.

I'm not really good at explaining things in a compact block of text, so i'll just point out a bunch of flaws or problems:

-Nobody to play with: my connection is not that good. I usually don't obtain anyhting from matchmaking: I get an average of 200 ping from american players, and since i'm from Europe, i never got the chance to play with somebody from my same region since i think the SG scene in my continent is pretty much dead (let me know if you're more informed than me).

-Hard understanding of "Airdashers":
I've never been good with theorical or fast paced videogames, and that sucks especially for "Anime" Fighting Games for various reasons that i could explain better in the further points, such as a really lackluster application or forgetfulness of fundamentals, the total ignorance on hidden mechanics, bad understanding of the momentum and even worse time of reaction from upcoming threats and so on.

-Lack of consistency: I've never been a hardworker nor a fast learner, and that's a big problem when it comes to self-improvement. I'm not able to get my head stuck on the tutorials, that's why most of (if not all) the things i learned were told me from an external point of view rather than a personal analysis. Hours of training mode in single player brought me to nothing at all, it was not uncommon to waste my time on seeing the animations in slow motion (for my slight interest to get into sprite animation myself) rather than focusing on the effective utility of the moves.

-Theory vs. Practice: I'm familiar with most of the fighting game terms commonly used, such as blockstrings, cancels, pushblock, reversal, whiffs, resets, footsies... too bad that i forget the 80% of these concepts during the gameplay and that leaves me to a really basic, instinct driven, uneffective gameplay. Need me a way to not completely lose my mind during the fights.

-Insecurity on characters. I still don't feel to have a solid team. There are only 2 characters that i feel comfortable to play with, too bad that i really feel the need for another member in my team, but let me explain in details.

Valentine - I think it's the only character i played since the start of the game, maybe i'm not a master with her, since i still don't remember any of her BnB combos or tools (like the syringes), but i'm so used to her moves to the point that would be really hard to me to pick a substitute if necessary.

Ms. Fortune - My second most consistant pick. At first i was attracted to her head gimmick, but i didn't get the hang of it and decided to play her as a common rushdown. Even with her i'm just with the basics and i still have to learn some of her tools (like the fiber uppercut converts)

Fillia - I would really, really like to play with her, but i just can't, it's really a tough challenge to me. She sums up most of the problems i have with the main concept of the game, her range and speed is a huge problem, her combos are stupidly hard to me, if i press the wrong normal i feel like to put myself in a huge disadvantage. The only one thing of her that i'm able to use most of the time is the Hairball assist.

Big Band - At first i was attracted to his huge damage potential from the magic series, but maybe a living orchestra with bad mobility and super punishable normals is not the thing for me. Using him only for his extremely useful assists seems a waste to me.

I don't know enough from the rest of the cast so i'll stop here.

-Poor Offense: Not knowing to use the technical knowledge of the game at my advantage, i have a hard time to approach. I don't really keep myself away from the action, but i'm poor on the pressure side, i don't know how to use dashes and cancels in the proper way, i'm not able with mixups and so on.

-Combo Procrastinator:
In a game heavily based on combos and execution, it could be a problem the fact that i never got into training, discovering or learning for combos. Just to make an example, i still haven't finished the tutorial because of that parasoul combo i have to perform in chapter 6, and i have like only one combo per character that i'm able to pull off, most of the times it doesn't help me to reach a decent damage.



Enough with words since i wrote a lot, here's a best of 10 i made with a friend from his perspective. He won 10-1, but i felt the only victory was a lot compared to many other sets i made with him. Feel free to analyze it and let me know.

 
If anybody is going to tutor him or play a long set with him or something, please go easy on this pupper. The only thing he really really needs is confidence, I think.
I'm the only guy that regularly plays him (or plays him at all) on his friends list, and before recently picking up Robo I would just run a train over him repeatedly with Para/Filia. I figure constantly losing 30/0 or something along those lines is not the best way to get a hold of the mechanics.
 
Boop Boop

here you go: https://discord.gg/cDTYj

a link to the SG Discord where you can connect with EVERYONE. [pretty much]

The High lvl players hang out there too so if you ever have questions or if you want a match or something. They're there to help you out with it. Please use this discord server if you ever need help.

now you say you want to improve? PERFECT, that is a great attitude and you should keep that going for the weeks to come. What I suggest is to block off about 30 minutes to an hour every night so you can practice one key thing that you feel needs improvement. Like Blocking, or breaking bad habits [an example would be you constantly pressing buttons when your opponent is attacking you or when you're in blockstun. another would be you using j.mp with Val as a jump in tool when j.hp is a fair greater normal to use due to its range, damage, and positive frames on hit.]

If you follow a training plan that goes by weekly you can really improve yourself as a player.
 
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For the blocking practice the enemy CPU on training mode can be enough?
 
One of my friends showed me that training mode with the CPU is very helpful if you tick "block after the first hit" in the settings. That will help you see what moves of yours can or can't be blocked during a combo.

Although for learning to block yourself, setting the AI to Nightmare or checking out the in-game tutorials for it might be a good starting point. (Nothing replaces practicing on real people, however.) It takes some practice and forming a good habit of using push-block.

As for your connection, I've been able to play with people in Europe pretty okay considering I'm in the US. When my GGPO setting is high enough, there are a few hiccups here and there at worst. It also helps to play over Ethernet instead of WiFi. (My ping went from 200-300 to 60-80 when I switched to an ethernet cable. My WiFi adapter's driver was unreliable anyway.)

Some people I play with don't like setting GGPO that high, however. If they have to go above 2, it's already less tolerable for them.