Dolfinh's Method of Match Analysis, Notetaking, and Mindset.

[GrunkleBarlowe]

Some of you may know I was planning on recording this. I was hoping to share my method of match analysis & notetaking that has really brought me a long way in the past six months. I didn't do a script or anything and just kinda talked, so it might be a little bit jumbled in places but hopefully the timestamps and stuff will help you out.

The biggest thing I want people to take away from my video is this:

BE KIND TO YOURSELF

Seriously. There is no reason for you not to be. I know sometimes it feels like we talk down to ourselves to motivate ourselves to get better, but that really is not a healthy way to approach it. Do not insult yourself as a player. Ever. You are not bad. You are either Good, Amazing, or Still Learning. And it's PERFECTLY OKAY for you to be the latter. I have come such a long way since stopping all my negativity about my play, and honestly I think that is the biggest thing. You do not compete to impress other people, and if you do then I seriously hope that you can keep a level head in the midst of a rough performance.

I am dead serious. I don't want to hear any of you amazing people to beat yourselves up about learning a fighting game. Even if you've been playing the game since vanilla and have had a real tough time improving. You will have weaknesses as a player, but that does not extend back to YOU. Which is what I know I missed for a very, very long time.

The other thing I want people to take away is the idea of Active Learning. You will learn more by closely analyzing two matches than by playing ten matches. You improve at things better if you analyze them.


Hope you enjoyed it.

 

[fenster]

Definitely good advice and a good plan for people to follow. For sure, Dolfinh is one of the most improved players and is really good imo! So I think the method here shows the results. People should definitely try and look at this if they haven't to help shake out a better mentality and hopefully get over any barriers. A lot of the stuff I know I kind of do internally, but its a lot of the same methods that I think really work and people should get the hang of.

Definitely the point about stop being self-defeating is one I completely agree with and something I wish I could help out others with overcoming.

 

[Dime]

@Dean[SG]

I've been telling you to watch your sets for the longest time :) dolfinh shows a great way to analyze your sets in this video as well as things like keeping up a good mindstate and not getting down on yourself.


This is basically what I do when I watch my vids as well. But I'm not nearly as thorough as dolfinh was here and I don't write down things either. Watching this video shows me though that I should start to write things down ala infiltration because it's hard to remember everything, and oftentimes I will stop doing things that my opponent hasn't shown me that they know how to beat yet.
Plus by watching dolfinh's video I now see that I pick up ALOT of stuff from my own and other peoples videos and writing some of the more important stuff down will probably be very helpful to me, and thusly should be as helpful to you once you learn to analyze your vids.



All in all I think watching your own matches is one of the best ways to get better at fighting games if you put into practice what you learn. And something that dolfinh didn't say here but which is of course obvious and goes without saying is that you can use this same process when watching other people play and is also what I do when watching others.

So yeah, take notes and watch his video :)

 

[Dean[SG]]

@Dime_x Thankyou for forwarding me to this thread :D

@Dolfinh Thankyou for putting this thread up. :D

 

[GrunkleBarlowe]

Definitely good advice and a good plan for people to follow. For sure, Dolfinh is one of the most improved players and is really good imo! So I think the method here shows the results. People should definitely try and look at this if they haven't to help shake out a better mentality and hopefully get over any barriers. A lot of the stuff I know I kind of do internally, but its a lot of the same methods that I think really work and people should get the hang of.

Definitely the point about stop being self-defeating is one I completely agree with and something I wish I could help out others with overcoming.

Thanks fenster for being such a positive support as always <3

This is basically what I do when I watch my vids as well. But I'm not nearly as thorough as dolfinh was here and I don't write down things either. Watching this video shows me though that I should start to write things down ala infiltration because it's hard to remember everything, and oftentimes I will stop doing things that my opponent hasn't shown me that they know how to beat yet.
Plus by watching dolfinh's video I now see that I pick up ALOT of stuff from my own and other peoples videos and writing some of the more important stuff down will probably be very helpful to me, and thusly should be as helpful to you once you learn to analyze your vids.

I find that writing stuff helps me to keep it in memory.

One thing I didn't share in this video is I also have a big "Fighting Game Compendium Note" where I jot down all of my biggest problems. I highlight the really big issues red, anything I need to do in training mode in purple, and anything that I feel I have resolved green. Once I feel something has been completely resolved I remove it.

One example of where this was helpful in tournament was when I fought MysteriousJ at NWM. I was having some issues with my lk bomber assist calls in my previous set and I definitely would have kept making mistakes if I hadn't stopped and looked at my notes.

I also have a positive mindset / motivation note that I read whenever I feel frustrated or self-defeating.

Another thing I didn't show is another document where I break down videos of top level players and try to break down why they are so successful. I've been watching a ton of Japanese Waldstein footage for UNIEL lately and keeping an eye out for other Vsav Fish players on fightcade.

 

[Dime]

I really feel like a video series of various games and analyzing top players games could be super successful in teaching people how to play fighting games or at least how top players tend to think and how intermediates can get there.

The intermediate level is the hardest spot to break out of and it is where I firmly believe I am at.

That along with general laziness is the primary reason why I haven't attempted to do my own video series like that.

It would certainly be cool to see other players critique top players matches, you never know what someone else will see that you may have missed and therefor can learn from.


Unfortunately it's a tough task and largely thankless cause of all the backseat drivers/Monday morning quarterbacks and contrarians telling people that they got it all wrong.


I list that last point because I think it's one of the bigger reasons why tataki took a huge break and stopped making further guilty bits episodes... Even though those episodes are actually what sold me on trying out the series... And I still refer to them to this day for things.

 

[Dean[SG]]

I really feel like a video series of various games and analyzing top players games could be super successful in teaching people how to play fighting games or at least how top players tend to think and how intermediates can get there.

I second this.

 

[GrunkleBarlowe]

I lost that last point because I think it's one of the bigger reasons why tatami took a huge break and stopped making further guilty bits episodes... Even though those episodes are actually what sold me on trying out the series... And I still refer to them to this day for things.

Funny you mention this because there's actually a small team of SG players (Myself, Domo, Skarmand, Sharpie, and Khaos) working on a project similar to guilty bits, but no details on it for now until we're all done with classes lol.

 

[Nevins]

Good stuff, thanks for making that vid. I watch my replays for Xrd & P4AU since they have that feature, and will consider writing things down. Looking forward to seeing if replays become available for this game on Ps3 in the future. Or if anyone I play can record them...
Yeah, the mental state you mention was pretty cool as well.

 

[Mike_Z]

Good stuff, thanks for making that vid. I watch my replays for Xrd & P4AU since they have that feature, and will consider writing things down. Looking forward to seeing if replays become available for this game on Ps3 in the future. Or if anyone I play can record them...
Yeah, the mental state you mention was pretty cool as well.

If it's just for you to watch, set up a camera pointed at your TV. :^)
Don't hold your breath for console replays in SG, though...

 

[Grunt]

Oh wow this is sick.
I just recently got a few hundred matches against this dude who is super good and I really want to go through them and pick them apart.
Good stuff.

 

[GrunkleBarlowe]

Thank you everyone for your kind feedback, I really appreciate it and hope everyone improves a bit with this method.

One thing I've learned from having to really work on my study habits & ADHD this past year is that what is important is HOW you learn. This might seem obvious to most people, but it took me a long time to get that. Once you know how you learn, WHAT you learn becomes much easier to inhale.

 

[Grunt]

Question: How helpful do you find sets where you get completely, utterly, 500-0, "was I even pressing buttons?" bodied?
Are these kind of sets helpful to you for analysis. or do you prefer ones that are somewhat even so you can get a little bit of the good with a little bit of the learning?
Cuz I'm going through my replays and I got a lot of the latter, but I also got a loooooot of the former.
Imma try everything regardless cuz my only known method of improving is "play matches until you're good", so I'm trying this and hopefully it'll help my training journal.

 

[GrunkleBarlowe]

Question: How helpful do you find sets where you get completely, utterly, 500-0, "was I even pressing buttons?" bodied?
Are these kind of sets helpful to you for analysis. or do you prefer ones that are somewhat even so you can get a little bit of the good with a little bit of the learning?
Cuz I'm going through my replays and I got a lot of the latter, but I also got a loooooot of the former.
Imma try everything regardless cuz my only known method of improving is "play matches until you're good", so I'm trying this and hopefully it'll help my training journal.

From these sets I usually just look at the neutral & patterns in their setplay (resets, incomings, burst baits, whatever). Sage always tells people to never lose the same way twice.

In one set I played vs Cloudking about a month and a half ago, he hit me with the same mixup pattern and burst bait combination six or seven times. Something I honestly would have missed had I not gone back and looked at it closer. I did much better last time I played vs CloudKing.

The "play matches until you're good" mentality is honestly the worst. Learning is NOT an experience bar that fills up as you play. You can play 100 matches with no analysis and Analyze 10 of them in close detail; I can guarantee you that you will learn more from the latter.

 

[Grunt]

The "play matches until you're good" mentality is honestly the worst.

Cool. I'm glad I started that journal. I realized a while ago that after 8 years of melee I was still mediocre, so I wanted to try something different with sg.

 

[Nevins]

If it's just for you to watch, set up a camera pointed at your TV. :^)
Don't hold your breath for console replays in SG, though...

Hm, if my bro has a camera & is willing to hold it to record some matches when I visit...
I think a financial breakthrough at work would help with buying recording equipment (or a camera). Or PS3, fightstick, going to tournaments...
But yeah, I'm not holding my breath on PS3 replays. I'm just thankful this game exists & more content is on the way.

Xrd & P4AU analysis w/a bit of writing this weekend, I hope. I'm curious to see how this might affect my improvement (despite that I can only get to a PS3 on the weekend since I don't own one 0.0).

 

[Mike_Z]

Hm, if my bro has a camera & is willing to hold it to record some matches when I visit...

A table, a book, and a smartphone is more than enough to analyze your own matches.

 

[Nevins]

A table, a book, and a smartphone is more than enough to analyze your own matches.

Yeah, times have been a bit rough for the company these past five years or so & I only have an old fliptop (not-so-smart phone). In a month or so I hope the funding will finally come through. Til then, extreme budgeting...

I remember the days of only playing vs. in arcades. So online, replays, & active forums like this one for community, combos/tech, streams; it's great. I'm glad I decided to stick with fighting games all these past few decades through the ups & downs.

 

[GrunkleBarlowe]

Bumping this so people can find it easier lol.

I'll probably upload another sample analysis pretty soon.

 

[Adwins]

As someone who's been putting off critical self-analyses for months now, I HAVE A MIGHTY NEED

 

[Pickles]

on a somewhat related note to this, how do you choose what matches from a long set (e.g ft10, ft20 etc) to analyse if you don't want to do analysis on every game of a set? I am inclined to pull from closer to the middle since in the beginning there's a lot of feeling the other player out and at the end people can get kinda burnt out but maybe it's better to look over the first few "data" games too?

 

[GrunkleBarlowe]

I'm more likely to analyze games where I feel like I got read like a book or they made smart adaptations. Identify the streaks where you lose multiple games in a row and put extra focus on those.

At the same time identify where in sets you made smart adaptations that lead to wins or smaller victories. It can give you insight into what thought patterns and mental approaches are giving you an edge. Remember; you want to understand HOW you learn, not necessarily what you learn. That part becomes easy.