Fighting Games: Improving in lower ranks

One of the toughest things to get used to and accept in fighting games is the fact that you are responsible— for everything! There’s no teammate to blame, you made those decisions. You cannot blame your opponent for doing something you simply haven’t learned yet and you cannot blame the game for… well if the netcode is awful, then yes; you can blame the developers I guess, but that’s still outside of the core game at least. In this post I want to help you in clearing what I refer to as level 1 and 2, anti airs being level 1 and level 2 being patience.

Losses should equal progress

Before anything, you should keep in mind and accept that everyone loses. You lose, Daigo loses, the person that just beat you lost before and will lose again and I lose, I lose a lot in fact. In fighting games, especially those that have replay functions, losses are your best learning tools. Why you lost is pretty simple right? You got hit a lot and your life bar got emptied before you could do that to your opponent. The first question that you need to ask yourself and analyse is: “Why did I get hit again and again?” Just swallow your pride, trust me pride isn’t helping you here and go through that replay with a fine-tooth comb.

It’s not impossible to learn from a win, but it is unlikely. You won right? So in your head you must have done everything correctly, right? That is an exaggerated assumption of course, but nonetheless I still firmly believe that it’s much more efficient to learn from your losses. If nothing else, it gives your losses value. Throwing sentences around like “I play to win” are at best a joke and at worst delusions of grandeur when you don’t even know how to approach a zoner from full screen or how to stop people jumping in on you. Speaking of those two examples, did those scenarios sound familiar to you? Let’s see if we can do something about that. Keep in mind though that we are talking about lower levels here. With lower ranks I am talking about bronze league to and including Gold league, from Super Gold onwards there tends to be a little more thought behind certain actions… sometimes at least. I am using Street Fighter V as an example, but with a few tweaks here and there the logic holds true for almost any fighting game out there.

Decision making and jump-ins

This goes all the way into Gold rank from what I have seen, but it’s the most prevalent in Bronze and Silver of course. As the majority of players in those ranks haven’t yet developed an understanding how certain aspects of that particular fighting game work, they will naturally gravitate towards something that will net them an instantaneous reward. In most cases that’s jumping in on your opponent. It requires no execution and can lead to big damage. Both the jumper, as well as the person getting jumped on haven’t yet grasped the concepts of spacing and anti airing which apply to just about any fighting game currently available, otherwise this would not work to begin with. Don’t get me wrong, Jump-ins are a fundamental part of the game, and all the way into the highest level of play there are still people jumping in on their opponents, but there is a risk-reward calculation that is usually taken into account. What is the opponent doing, will they have time to anti air me, what situation will I be in if my jump-in gets blown up and so on. None of that occurs in low level play, it’s just the following equation: IF(JUMP_IN=HIT,BNB,JUMP_IN_AGAIN). If you just thought that’s the most disgustingly basic MS Excel formula you’ve ever seen, then congratulations you are already on the right track! Let’s go fix your jump-in problem.

Anti airs

Every character in most fighting games have some type of an Anti Air, some are better than others, some have really amazing ones, but require execution or decision making and others are not as good, but can still get the job done as long as you’re willing to invest just a little bit of time. In Street Fighter V I used to play Karin who could anti air with several normals from s.HP, c.HP, s.LP and even s.MK. The only special she could use for jump-in was her EX Ressenha, which requires meter. Even s.LP and s.MK are both very situational to use, so realistically you would mainly use either s.HP and c.HP depending on the distance from which your opponent jumped in on you. The logic here went a little bit like this: If the opponent is likely landing in front of me both c.HP and s.HP should get the job done, if it’s ambiguous or a definitive cross up s.HP is likely the safer option to go with. I am playing Lucia now and while the logic behind which anti air to use is lot simpler with her, the execution required for it is more demanding, as you will have to execute a DP motion. Either way you will need to condition yourself to either choosing the correct anti air, internalising execution proficiency or both.

Once you get proficient at converting your opponent’s jump-ins into a damage dealing situation on your end, one of two things is going to happen. They either understand that it’s not working and stop jumping in on you, which leaves you free to play the ground game, or they don’t know anything else and will keep jumping, which means you will eventually just win by continuously swatting them out of the air. 

Getting zoned out

Fighting a zoner is a little more complicated than dealing with a bunnyhopping rando, especially when your fighting game character of choice excels at close range. We are still talking about the early stages of the game though and with that in mind I’d hazard the guess that you are likely trying to avoid a patience game and run head first into projectiles. At higher levels there are once again a lot more variables to consider. Life lead, the timer, distance, meter, recovery and baits among other things. At this point in the game we are really only concerned with the first two points, namely who has the life lead and how much time is left on the clock.

You have the life lead

If you have the life lead in a fighting game and please believe me on this one, you don’t have to do ANYTHING. If you have a sizeable life lead and and the clock’s about to run out, give your opponent all the space they could ever ask for. Make sure you have the entire screen to react to and avoid incoming projectiles and run that clock into the ground while doing absolutely nothing. If your opponent is dead set on zoning you out, even though they’re the ones that would need to make things happen to turn the match around, it’s not in your best interest to run in guns blazing. The chances of you getting hit by projectiles at different speeds increases and you’re risking your life lead for no reason at all. Instead, just hang back at the far edge of the screen and neutral jump over the incoming projectiles. If you’re fighting a Sagat player you can even duck his high tiger shots instead of jumping.

They have the life lead

Having the life lead is of course the perfect world scenario, but it’s just as likely that you are getting zoned out at a life deficit. In this instance you will have no choice but to take risks, but you shouldn’t overextend. Two things you should absolutely avoid is to jump forward randomly. Make sure that your opponent is either unable to react in time, meaning they’re still in the recovery animations of their projectile, or at the very least, that they cannot reach you with a follow up attack. The other one is to continuously dash forward. You cannot block while dashing and risk getting counter hit, which makes it even easier for your opponent to hit you again. So these are do-nots, what are your options then?

First up, does your character have tools to get around projectiles? If you’re playing a character with a decent projectile themselves, you can just join the fireball wars and try to sneak in an EX projectile in between to create some space for you to dash in. If that projectile created a knockdown, feel free to dash as much as you want, just be aware that depending on the situation, you might not actually be at an advantage once you reach your opponent. If you don’t have projectiles, do you have any moves that are specifically designed to get around projectiles? Karin for instance has both her V-Skill 1 and her normal Ressenha, where as Lucia has her V-Skill 2 and her crappy slide. Same as with the anti airs, some characters’ options are better than others and some require more of a read, rather than reactions.

The best option and I know that it’s also the hardest to get used to is to walk and block. This will get even more difficult as you move up the the leagues and the skill levels of your opponents increases, but the earlier you learn it the better! Slowly moving forward a few pixels at a time and crouch blocking as soon as a projectile materialises is the safest option available.

No matter which option you are able to take advantage of, take note of how your opponent reacts to your approach.  

There really is no sure fire way to get in, as that depends on the match up, who are you playing and which character you are up against. It is very important though that you try and not get flustered by the incoming onslaught of projectiles as impatience will get you killed long before your opponents get the chance to. 

Level 1 & 2 complete

In summary, you don’t want to prevent or even allow your opponent to commit suicide, euthanasia is what you should be actively doing. If you realise that what they’re doing will have them lose, help them in achieving that goal. If that means doing nothing, do that, if it means running out the clock by just blocking and running away, do that. If you receive hate mail after doing all that, congratulations, those are the real trophies in fighting games you should be collecting! Putting all the toxicity aside, there are no rules in fighting games. The only rules are the physical limitations you’re placed under by the game’s engine; that’s it, nothing else. There are no arbitrary guidelines that command you to go in, even though some games might encourage it through bonuses and penalties, like the GRD system in Under Night, you still don’t have to do so. Play in any way you like, but don’t make things harder for yourself by ignoring options the game gives you to succeed. Waiting, doing nothing, exploiting your opponent’s habits and mistakes are all integral parts of the game, use that to your advantage. 

If you’re wondering what level 3 is, it’s basically the rest of the game. From this point forward things aren’t really as clear cut anymore. There are absolutely distinct points that you can focus on to get better. Once again there are simpler things to tackle, as well as very advanced concepts that might sound simple, but are insanely hard in practice. In no particular order you have things like throw baiting, also known as the 2009 shimmy, because apparently no-one was baiting throws before 2009… I will not go on this tirade right now; setplays, counter hit confirms, buffers, frame traps, resets and the list just goes on. If you want me to tackle another topic, let me and I’ll do my best to help you to get out of bronze league. Keep in mind I am just a scrub myself that mainly hovers around Ultra Gold and Super Platinum, so don’t expect too much from me.