Averaging 10 celestial floor wins per day

Ten wins on the celestial floor in Guilty Gear Strive doesn’t sound like a big deal and realistically speaking it really isn’t. The goal however wasn’t to go for 10 wins per day, but averaging 10, which means that you have to make it onto the celestial floor first. If you don’t make it there before let’s say the 12th of a given month, you are now looking at winning 16 matches per day to still reach an average of 10 for the entire month. Couple that with learning a brand new character, meaning that there are no knowledge resources for you to take advantage of, as well generally being relatively slow in picking up new characters and all of a sudden, this modest goal turns into quite the difficult undertaking. 

 

Final Baiken Tally - My ranking on the 24th of February

You need to have fun

To have fun is insanely important during this process, the process of learning a new character that is. Especially in the beginning it can feel almost impossible and quite demoralising as you get beaten silly by people seemingly sliding their entire faces across their buttons randomly. It’s critical that you do not forget that you are in fact learning a new character and that you have neither the required muscle memory, nor the knowledge as to what you are even supposed to do with this character yet. It took me a good seven to ten days just to start consciously making decisions and even then, they were mostly wrong. As the whole ranking system in Strive is free of any logic or sense though, you’ll fight people on the celestial floor that shouldn’t be above Floor 8 all the way up to people that would probably be on Floor 20 if that was a thing. As long as you keep that in mind and don’t feel “either cheated out of a win”, or that you are responsible for steamrolling someone this early on, you should be good to go. Just enjoy the journey, the extra challenge of reaching an arbitrary amount of wins on top of all of this isn’t really something that you should go for unless you know that you will be ok with the frustration that comes along with that.

 

Final Baiken Tally - Level 604

Averaging 10 wins per day on the celestial floor

I made into heaven on the 2nd of February, I had already discussed why that was dumb and my opinion on the matter hasn’t changed. Getting into heaven that early, is what actually got me interested in going for this “challenge” though. I know I keep harping on and on about how dumb the non-existent matchmaking system in Strive is, but that senseless system is a major factor in how quickly you reach your goal each day. As I strongly dislike the lobbies with a burning passion, I hardly ever spend any time in there and just jump straight into Training Mode and wait there. If someone beats you relatively easily they will keep hunting you down to bolster their monthly wins. Now your losses start to accumulate and as time keeps marching on as well, it will get harder and harder to reach your 10 wins. Why? Because real life is a thing. Between things that I have to do every single day like work, going to the gym, going shopping and things that I want to do and will not absolutely not sacrifice for a silly little challenge like spending quality time with my wife, doing stuff for my YouTube channel and maintaining my Blog among other things, those 10 wins are honestly relatively low on that list of priorities. Now imagine someone with children, they would have even less time than I do. In the beginning it really is just luck of the draw and being able to reach your goal or not is highly dependent on who is currently on the celestial floor and how good they are. As you keep playing it slowly but sure won’t matter anymore who is there as you will get better. Sure you could go matchup sniping in the beginning as well, but that would not only defeat the purpose of the challenge, it also heavily hinders your progress in the long run. If you want a badge no one takes seriously to being with, by my all means, go game the system, if you want to get better though, just play the game.

 

Final Baiken Tally - the last few matches

Stacking knowledge and skills

No matter how bad it might be in the beginning, as long as you’re actively learning and internalising problematic scenarios, scenarios like getting zoned out, getting frame trapped, being stuck in the corner or dealing with Chipp… you will get better each and every day, which creates a compounding effect. Characters like Happy Chaos, Chipp and Axl gave me so much trouble in the beginning with Baiken, but as time went on and the same people kept seeking me out, I started to get better at these match up, a lot better. Would I be able to beat them consistently now? Probably not, that does require a lot more match up experience, but the fact that I don’t keep getting bullied into submission anymore is a huge step in the right direction. Millia, Ky and Ramlethal on the other hand, I feel like I have made close to no progress on those three match ups throughout the month. That’s OK though, as that is also something I can keep working on. In the end I hit my goal by the 23rd of February.

It was in fact still updating and my final tally was 290 wins. I was thinking of maybe getting 10 more, just to hit 300 wins for the month, but honestly, as I had already got a few wins in final days of January, when she was released, I didn’t really care too much. The fact that I hit my goal about days before the month concluded showcases an important aspect of learning and improving. The more I played and started to comprehend what the problems were, how I could apply the combos and pressure tools I have been practicing, the quicker the wins started rolling in towards the end of the month. There were some days where I was racking up 30+ wins in a single day, in the same time frame that it took me to reach 10 wins in the very beginning. It’s that same compounding effect created by stacking my acquired knowledge on top of an improvement in skills and handling your character. If you keep that in mind and just focus on improving, rather than winning, you will naturally start winning the more you play. There are times when you will get tight and salty and you will just throw all sense and reasoning out of the window to squeeze out a hollow win, but as long as you don’t let that be the norm you are well on your way to becoming a better player.

 

Conclusion

I can’t honestly say that a goal of averaging 10 wins a day for a month is good, I would even find it hard to say that it makes sense. A more sensible goal might be to play 30 matches per day and to focus on sub goals during those games. Sub goals like block or whiff punishing, hit confirming, specific baits or executing a combo you’ve been practicing. In the end it’s all about having fun though. If you’re not enjoying the process of learning a new character, it’s most likely that you are not enjoying the character. I assume this, as I firmly believe the process of learning and watching yourself getting better at whatever you are practicing, is one of the most satisfying things to experience. For me that is the case both at the gym and with fighting games of course. I know that I really enjoy the process. When I don’t like the activity itself though, then there’s no way for me to enjoy the process either. If you are anything like me in that regard, maybe consider trying a different character until you find one that you enjoy. Once you do, I am almost certain that you will have a blast during that process as well.

Alright, I am actually going to step away from Guilty Gear for a couple of weeks for now, as I want to keep playing Horizon Forbidden West and Elden Ring for the next few weeks. See you next time!