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Oh, Ranked.

Mewz

Mewz

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Oh, Ranked, if it's not 500+ ping, it's opponents extremely past my skill level. In both cases I have a perfect record of losing. I understand that I should have some skill in this game, but I haven't been playing fighters that long in general, I'm working on it, and I try to play against real players when I can, ala Quick Play. We'll get to my lobby experience in a moment. For Quick Play, it seems that everyone there is settled quite far above my skill level, as every match, I have been infinite combo'd to death quite readily. Even burst baited into a continue of the combo, which admitted is my own fault; Like I've said, I'm still learning. However, that seems to defeat the point of the game mode being called "Ranked", isn't it supposed to put me against people of a similar skill level? I understand the first few matches, but out of 10, I have lost every single one to infinite combos, and flawless input. (At least from a secondary character, if they were using more than one.) It's quite frustrating to just get stomped on, and not even have a chance to do anything in the matches. That set aside, my experience in lobby matches has been interesting as well, in the sense that the same thing happens, where I fight people far above my skill level, in 'beginner' lobbies, and get stomped on. I have had some more even matches, and they're enjoyable, but the few times I win against random people in lobbies, I end up getting trolled so that nobody can play, by people rapidly leaving and joining, readying and dropping ready as the timer rolls around, consistently interrupting the timer and lobby interface. I do have a sparring partner, and we have been helping each-other, but we don't always have time to play together, so whenever I try to find other people through the game interface, lobbies and quick matches, it's been a rather unpleasant experience. I don't have any ideas I'm going to propose to deal with this, but it dos need to be worked on, other less determinate people would probably have had this kind of experience and just left the game entirely, instead of just trying again, and continuing on.
 
My biggest suggestion to every new player is to never touch ranked, and instead start 2 person beginner lobbies and make friends with everyone you meet of relative skill level. If someone joins who's way above a place you can have fun at? Leave after one match and don't let it bother you. That match wasn't one you were ready to play, so keep it up with other people until you are ready.

You can also contact other people on this forum in the beginner section for help and advice and even matches probably.
 
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Firstly, there are no infinite combos in SG. You're getting players who reset you many times (Reset=Do a combo, interrupt it on purpose in a particular moment when the opponent won't expect it and start a new one again.).

Secondly, what Ranked Mode? The online mode has only Quickplay and Lobbies. There's also private rooms for 2 players on consoles currently.

Thirdly, we do have not just one, but two matchmaking threads for players on Steam (I assume you have the PC version, because I see your Steam handle):
You could send friend requests to people around your playing level, but it won't hurt to have some people on your friendslist that are better than you at the game and try to have some Lobby matches with them and learn from mistakes.

Fourthly, SG is not the only game where experienced players troll beginner lobbies. It happens in other fighters (I've seen it happen in SF4) and competitive online games in other genres.

Also, personally, I'm really getting sick of new players claiming that SG has infinite combos. Dude, have you seen matches of the Fist of the North Star fighting game?

 
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Skullgirls is the least-infinite-havingest fighter ever, just an FYI.

Beyond that, keep at it and keep to accepting low ping matches. You learn from your defeats, as long as you pay attention to why you lost. I would also advise you keep doing the tutorials as you improve so you never forget the very important basics. Lots of new players think you only need to do them once, and then they forget some of the most important things from them.
 
So I have to go to the forum in order to have a good experience? That seems to defeat the purpose of having Steam integration at all. I appreciate the direction you're giving me, but I do insist this is a legitimate problem that the Skullgirls team needs to address sometime. However...

Vladislav_Paizis said:
Firstly, there are no infinite combos in SG. You're getting players who reset you many times (Reset=Do a combo, interrupt it on purpose in a particular moment when the opponent won't expect it and start a new one again.).

Secondly, what Ranked Mode? The online mode has only Quickplay and Lobbies. There's also private rooms for 2 players on consoles currently.

Thirdly, we do have not just one, but two matchmaking threads for players on Steam (I assume you have the PC version, because I see your Steam handle):
You could send friend requests to people around your playing level, but it won't hurt to have some people on your friendslist that are better than you at the game and try to have some Lobby matches with them and learn from mistakes.

Fourthly, SG is not the only game where experienced players troll beginner lobbies. It happens in other fighters (I've seen it happen in SF4) and competitive online games in other genres.

1) Considering that during these long combo strings my IPS gauge continued to fill, it's safe to assume it was indeed a combo I had no chance to break out of without burst. (And no amount of holding back or down/back got me into guard.) Hence Infinite Combo. If I timed burst correctly, I would be able to stop it indeed, however I had not timed it well in any of the cases it happend to me.

2) QuickPlay literally calls itself ranked mode, when selected the text below says "Fight online in a ranked match!"

3) I've never used Steam's forum system either, I'm generally responded to with hostility.

4) Indeed, lobby trolls happen in other games as well, so why isn't there a solution as simple as buffering re-joining a lobby you have chosen to leave.

EDIT: I saw my post was edited by a moderator when i went to add an addendum, wha? Why? What changed?

Anyway, as an addendum, I made a mistake in my 4th response, honestly, I don't see a way for having high tier plays not be able to troll beginner lobbys be feasible, but they should be able to deal with people just trolling the lobby in the sense of rapidly leaving/joining/ready/unready/etc,

As an additional addendum, I wish to correct myself as well about the fact I was referring to the combo strings I was in as an "Infinite Combo", a more accurate description is an inescapable combo, as if I accidentally burst too soon or late, it is no longer possible to escape until my character is down for the count.
 
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It would also not hurt for beginners to spend some time in single player, trying to beat arcade mode in the highest difficulty for instance (don't care about Marie)
 
Honestly, arcade would probably HURT more than it helped.
 
Beuzer0 said:
It would also not hurt for beginners to spend some time in single player, trying to beat arcade mode in the highest difficulty for instance (don't care about Marie)

While this is true, AI handles nothing like real people do. Oh, and for the record, I do actually beat arcade mode on Nightmare, with Cerebella and Big Band, with exclusion of Marie.... Big Band isn't good for bullet hell mode.
 
Arcade doesn't really prepare for online matches with people, since you're just playing the AI. I would only use it just to get the hang of the characters and learn simple hitconfirms.
 
Vladislav_Paizis said:
Secondly, what Ranked Mode? The online mode has only Quickplay and Lobbies.
Quickmatch is ranked. Wins there count toward your leaderboard standing.
 
Mewz said:
So I have to go to the forum in order to have a good experience?
? No? You have to play in Lobbies.

The nature of Quickmatch is that you get a random opponent - it can be pretty much anyone who queued at the same time as you did.
If you are worse than 90% of players, that makes it pretty likely that you'll meet someone in Quickmatch who is better than you are.
I figure most people in QM aren't very interested in noob stomping (at least I'm not), but they can't do anything about it either.

If you open/enter a "Beginner" Lobby, generally you will fight other Beginners. Because like, it's not random this time. What magic.
Beginners actually have it by far the easiest to get matches - when there's a single Lobby up, it's pretty much always "Beginner"; if there are multiple the majority of them will be it.
The amount of 'Expert' Lobbies opened over the course of a week can probably be counted on one hand, and most of the people in there aren't actually good, so that's kinda annoying for me too??
If you meet someone near your skill level / who you have fun playing against, add him to your friend list and ask him to play again later. That's what.. everyone does, including me.

The problem with "Matching people of similar skill" is that the community is quite small.
Something like DotA can implement a proper matchmaking system because it has a humongous playerbase;
Skullgirls has something like 150-200 people online at a time (and online means just that - half of those might be browsing the art gallery, some might be in Korea, and some are in private lobbies or wherever) - if it were to wait in Quickmatch until someone *from roughly your area* + *in your skillrange* queued at the same time, it would have to be renamed to Slowmatch.
SF4AE has roughly ~1k players per day, and the matchmaking system doesn't work at all there either, so yeah.

1) Considering that during these long combo strings my IPS gauge continued to fill, it's safe to assume it was indeed a combo I had no chance to break out of without burst. (And no amount of holding back or down/back got me into guard.) Hence Infinite Combo.
It's Undizzy Gauge, not IPS. Different systems.

An infinite combo is something that is theoretically infinitely long. SG combos aren't.
You could call a Touch of Death combo "infinite" (since it's as long as it matters during a match), but even then there aren't really any in same ratio.

A "long combo" is not an "infinite combo", and in SG you can't even do a long combo into another long combo.. unless the other guy got burst baited, but that's kinda his fault innit.

4) Indeed, lobby trolls happen in other games as well, so why isn't there a solution as simple as buffering re-joining a lobby you have chosen to leave.
Dunno what this means?

Lobbies have some issues because the SG team is small and the Lobby guy quit. They will probably get fixed at some point, but it might take a while. Problems of an Indie Company~
 
Mewz said:
So I have to go to the forum in order to have a good experience?

You're on a forum already and I personally don't see what's so bad about going to a community forum where both experienced and beginner players hang and discuss how to get good at a fighting game. I don't follow other types of competitive games, but I'm sure they also have both official and unofficial forums.
That seems to defeat the purpose of having Steam integration at all. I appreciate the direction you're giving me, but I do insist this is a legitimate problem that the Skullgirls team needs to address sometime. However...



Mewz said:
1) Considering that during these long combo strings my IPS gauge continued to fill, it's safe to assume it was indeed a combo I had no chance to break out of without burst. (And no amount of holding back or down/back got me into guard.) Hence Infinite Combo. If I timed burst correctly, I would be able to stop it indeed, however I had not timed it well in any of the cases it happend to me.

Did the hit counter reset at anytime during the so-called "infinite"? If so, then it's a reset not an infinite. It's just much easier to do resets on opponents in SG than in other fighting games, but with time players can learn to predict them and avoid getting put into a new combo by blocking properly, teching throws or mashing reversals/supers... if the opponent is being VERY predictable with resets. Even high-level players can get hit by them. It's a good strategy.

Mewz said:
2) QuickPlay literally calls itself ranked mode, when selected the text below says "Fight online in a ranked match!"

Sorry. I don't know how I interpreted the beginning of your post as you talking about Ranked and Quick Play as separate modes.

Mewz said:
3) I've never used Steam's forum system either, I'm generally responded to with hostility.
People here don't really take Steam forums seriously, especially if it's people complaining a lot after losing and not bothering to learn to get better.
 
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IsaVulpes said:
? No? You have to play in Lobbies.

The nature of Quickmatch is that you get a random opponent - it can be pretty much anyone who queued at the same time as you did.
If you are worse than 90% of players, that makes it pretty likely that you'll meet someone in Quickmatch who is better than you are.
I figure most people in QM aren't very interested in noob stomping (at least I'm not), but they can't do anything about it either.

If you open/enter a "Beginner" Lobby, generally you will fight other Beginners. Because like, it's not random this time. What magic.
Beginners actually have it by far the easiest to get matches - when there's a single Lobby up, it's pretty much always "Beginner"; if there are multiple the majority of them will be it.
The amount of 'Expert' Lobbies opened over the course of a week can probably be counted on one hand, and most of the people in there aren't actually good, so that's kinda annoying for me too??
If you meet someone near your skill level / who you have fun playing against, add him to your friend list and ask him to play again later. That's what.. everyone does, including me.

The problem with "Matching people of similar skill" is that the community is quite small.
Something like DotA can implement a proper matchmaking system because it has a humongous playerbase;
Skullgirls has something like 150-200 people online at a time (and online means just that - half of those might be browsing the art gallery, some might be in Korea, and some are in private lobbies or wherever) - if it were to wait in Quickmatch until someone *from roughly your area* + *in your skillrange* queued at the same time, it would have to be renamed to Slowmatch.
SF4AE has roughly ~1k players per day, and the matchmaking system doesn't work at all there either, so yeah.


It's Undizzy Gauge, not IPS. Different systems.

An infinite combo is something that is theoretically infinitely long. SG combos aren't.
You could call a Touch of Death combo "infinite" (since it's as long as it matters during a match), but even then there aren't really any in same ratio.

A "long combo" is not an "infinite combo", and in SG you can't even do a long combo into another long combo.. unless the other guy got burst baited, but that's kinda his fault innit.


Dunno what this means?

Lobbies have some issues because the SG team is small and the Lobby guy quit. They will probably get fixed at some point, but it might take a while. Problems of an Indie Company~

Clearly you have not read the post I was responding to, and made a point of quoting in it's entirety, which was a response to his response of my original post. Making a Beginner lobby usually ends in me fighting people far beyond my skill level in general, it has been quite rare to fight anyone that wasn't destroying me, moving on from here. Quick Match is referred to as Ranked, that implies that it tries to match skill levels; If I'm wrong about that function, then I am sorry for my misconceptions.Also yes, I confused the Gauge, thank you for the clarification. And finally, any combo that quite honestly lasts from the moment it starts, until the other character is dead, without a single chance to escape can be considered an inescapable combo, can it not? I was previously misusing the term infinite, I rather simply meant that the combo didn't end until I had lost, and yes, I have tended to burst at the wrong time, that is my mistake.

As a clarification to future responses, I am not trying to say that Skullgirls is unbalanced, or needs to be fixed as far as the combat system goes, I was simply stating my experience, as I finally felt I had achieved a decent level of play myself, and decided to try my luck in the game mode labeled Quick Match as there were no lobbies made. Moving on.


Vladislav_Paizis said:
You're on a forum already and I personally don't see what's so bad about going to a community forum where both experienced and beginner players hang and discuss how to get good at a fighting game. I don't follow other types of competitive games, but I'm sure they also have both official and unofficial forums.

This is true, but I came here to voice my experience, not really complain about things, I figured this forum was the best way to do that. Unfortunately, most fighting communities are extremely aggressive and abusive towards people considered 'new players', so I tried to avoid coming to any community forums.


Vladislav_Paizis said:
Did the hit counter reset at anytime during the so-called "infinite"? If so, then it's a reset not an infinite. It's just much easier to do resets on opponents in SG than in other fighting games, but with time players can learn to predict them and avoid getting put into a new combo by blocking properly, teching throws or mashing reversals/supers... if the opponent is being VERY predictable with resets. Even high-level players can get hit by them. It's a good strategy.

Honestly I didn't pay much attention to the combo meter, as I was watching to see if there was a chance for me to escape the combo I was in, I am more than certain they used resets often, but I clearly lacked the skill to deal with it in this case, yes; My bad here.



Vladislav_Paizis said:
People here don't really take Steam forums seriously, especially if it's people complaining a lot after losing and not bothering to learn to get better.

It's OK, I don't take them seriously either. Also, just to clarify once again, I'm not complaining that I lost, simply voicing my experience in finally trying to play online with people that weren't direct friends, as it was a rather negative experience and I believe people who have less patients would simply up and quit the game entirely and never look back.
 
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****Make a beginner lobby with two slots, and if someone comes into there that is way beyond your skill level, press LK after hovering over them to kick them from your lobby. Do not play Ranked or Quickmatch.****

Ranked mode doesn't really pair you with people your skill level, also there's nobody at your skill level playing ranked anyways.

So make a lobby, add some people that are around your level, kick anyone who's way too good, and practice up.
If you still can't beat anyone or even come close then hit the training mode and work on some things.

Like other people here, I always see beginner lobbies open, if one isn't up then make one yourself.
(I like to set lobbies to 2 people only so I can focus on beating one opponent.)

It's not really anyone's fault though, the game used to have ranked matches match you with people at your level but it took way too long and feedback told the team that we'd prefer to play a random opponent faster than wait forever for someone at your level. If nobody is around your skill level anyways playing in Ranked what's to be done?

Good luck!
 
Mewz said:
Making a Beginner lobby usually ends in me fighting people far beyond my skill level in general, it has been quite rare to fight anyone that wasn't destroying me, moving on from here.

You will always find someone who is better than you. How should a system be programmed to determine the player's skill level in fighting games? The amount of wins? There are people called "boosters" who just ask people to lose to them on purpose just to rack up a high rank or get that achievement/trophy. Online rank doesn't always mean the player has skill.

Mewz said:
And finally, any combo that quite honestly lasts from the moment it starts, until the other character is dead, without a single chance to escape can be considered an inescapable combo, can it not? I was previously misusing the term infinite, I rather simply meant that the combo didn't end until I had lost, and yes, I have tended to burst at the wrong time, that is my mistake.

Did you have like around 40-50% amount of health before the other player started the combo and beat you? Then that's just a high-damage combo.

I'll be honest I haven't been playing SG in a long time, but from what I know most high-damage combos are around 6k-7k or maybe 8k (Please correct me if I'm wrong). If BOTH players are playing Solo, 2vs2 OR 3vs3 then both characters should have equal amount of health (Around 15k). Solo characters tend to just do Big Soviet damage against players with teams of 3.
 
Mewz said:
Quick Match is referred to as Ranked, that implies that it tries to match skill levels;
It *DOES* try to. I watched a friend of mine play QuickMatch, and he met much worse people than I usually do.
It will however not be able to match you with other complete beginners reliably, because there aren't enough of them.

any combo that quite honestly lasts from the moment it starts, until the other character is dead, without a single chance to escape can be considered an inescapable combo, can it not?
Yes, but those don't exist. Unless you're playing Trio or are on 1/3rd life already, or something. There is no 1v1 100% combo without something like a 5-meter-start left in this game, .. or maybe there is, but the people who'd know about it are none you'd meet in QuickMatch.

I was simply stating my experience, as I finally felt I had achieved a decent level of play myself, and decided to try my luck in the game mode labeled Quick Match as there were no lobbies made.
Fighting Games are hard to pick up, hard to learn, and hard to master. It's the nature of the genre. I don't think there is much a company can do about it, other than giving more tutorials?
IF you have ideas on what to do, that go beyond "Matchmaking should match me with players that don't exist" and "Lab0 should do something", that would help a LOT!! Please try and come up with something that makes it more fun for new players.

Maybe there's a way to make the game check playtime on Steam, and then create a "Sub 100h Lobby" or something? I dunno.
 
I honestly just started quick match and kept losing on purpose sure it killed my ranking but i learned how to fight and what works and doesnt and now im in the top 270 and still trying to fight my way up there (on the psn because theres not much players on the 360) best way to learn is to lose in my opinion... literal trial and error
 
MotoEleven said:
I honestly just started quick match and kept losing on purpose sure it killed my ranking
You don't lose anything by losing as far as ranking goes. Leaderboards only count wins.
 
Muro said:
You don't lose anything by losing as far as ranking goes. Leaderboards only count wins.
IIRC there is/was an actual ranking system on the PS3. PC only counts wins, PS3 has you drop places if you lose.
 
^ true because i deranked now im like 272 because i lost to a higher rank than me but dlowly but surely climbling up the ladder... and with the 360 theres not much players so climbing the board is way more difficult
 
to the OP, i would suggest the same as a lot of other people have done. create beginner lobbies, i would still do ranked as well mainly for the purposes of trying to meet people of your skill level.

once you have played a match with someone who is at a similar skill level to you, then invite them to a private lobby or add them as a friend on steam. once youve done this enough then you should have a small network of people who you can regularly spar with.

most important thing to bear in mind though is to not get discouraged if you are getting beaten a lot. i can say with confidence that EVERYONE started out this way and you will get a lot of knocks before you start to realise what it is you should be doing.

skullgirls also has the best training mode ever so make sure you use it to practice stuff. if you found yourself getting beat by a particular tactic then record the dummy to do the same thing and practice ways around it/how to beat it etc.
 
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@Mewz
Welcome to the forums.

I don't find ranked matches very helpful when trying to improve in fighting games. The real learning happens when you're taking your time practicing or researching things in training mode, or fighting someone around your skill level for many games in a row. Quick match is good to just test your current skills against some random opponents, but not much else.

I know this has been corrected over and over, but in regards to infinite or 'inescapable' combos, there really are no known such things in skullgirls. Someone found a sf4 style unblockable not too long ago, but even that is escapable/blockable if you know how to deal with it. I would really recommend recording some of your matches, if you're able to, and either watching them yourself or asking others how you could escape. You'd be surprised what you might learn from that.
 
Here's how I played the game when I started (and believe me I started BAD):

- Went into online versus
- Created a room
- Waited 10 years for an opponent with 300ms ping to appear
- Declined
- Waited another 13 years (Squigly was almost out on console by this point) to get a orange ping
- Accepted
- The guy kicked my ass hard
- I played again
- And again
- And again
- And I didn't stop, and I continued being bad, but for every bad match I can - in hindsight - say that each one was less bad than its predecessors

Eventually, after a huge sum of matches, I've gotten to a point where I feel I'm pretty good at the game. Obviously I don't expect everyone is patient or willing enough to lose match after match for the sake of gitting gud, so here's some stuff I would advise for someone coming into the game now:

Open and join Beginner lobbies. This game has an extremely high number of people who aren't very good at the game, but they will still be able to beat people who are worse than them. There aren't enough good players for them to be trolling beginner lobbies all day, but if you find a match that you feel is out of your league then just leave.

Also, adding people of similar skill is definitely useful. I had like 50 people on my friends list just from playing Skullgirls so I can assure you there are plenty of people out there who will accept. Invite them to games if you ever want to try sparring. Playing against one opponent can end up with you learning how they play and this can lead to gaining experience in adapting to playstyles.

Finally, if there's something you really can't figure out how to deal with, ask (don't complain or people will cry). Do it here if you will, although I don't recommend listening to too many of the posters' suggestions because ahahahahaha daaaaamn. Usually Vulpes knows what's up so just wait for him to reply to your question :P


TL;DR
- Play more
- Use beginner lobbies
- Add friends if you feel like it
- Ask questions when you're stumped
 
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