Why You Play Well* Against Good Players but Not Bad Players
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- Опубликовано: 6 дек 2023
- streamed Dec. 5, 2023
*last longer
Speedkicks/status...
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I ran into Punk in ranked. Never felt so helpless. Everything got reacted to immediately. I most certainly DO NOT do better against better players.
Lol. Love punk but probably the last name I'd wanna see 🤣
I’d say that’s more of an extreme because it’s hard to play well against one of the best players in the world if you aren’t one of the best players in the world
Dude is known for his reactions. I legit cant think of one character nor playstyle I have under my belt that could land three hits on him. Esp while he is using Cammy.
This is a bad way to see it. You didn’t play against a better player, you played against one of best players in the world. Only a few people can actually play him without looking dumb
Bro I had a mirror match against Moke's Chun-Li in the Japanese servers once in battlehub. Let's just say that I only had one round where I got a single hit on him. Out of 5 matches I had against him, I got perfected. 4 matches were double Ps. Is this normal?
Against an opponent at your skill level or better, you're basically agreeing to play the same game together. But then you run into Johnny Donuts the silver Ken online, you go in for the sportsmanlike fist bump and he sucker punches you. From that point, you have to recognize that he doesn't want to play the same game as you, and from there you can literally sit still and wait for him to do something dumb so you can punish and kill him
I laughed way more than I should've at "Johnny Donuts the silver Ken player"
"Johnny Donuts the silver Ken online" could be a legit nickname lmfao
That is the funniest name I have ever seen 😂😂😂
This is honestly the best piece of advice ever. I think this is what I needed to make sure to think again when up against those kind of players
I remember playing a freind of mine in tekken and it was this exact exchange, me going in enforcing frames and and ducking and backdashing and wavedashing and my friend literally yoloing rounds left and right. After a few losses and close wins, it legit clicked.. "what if i spam, CH launchers" ... saw him popping like a fire cracker.
A follow-up tweet to that Speedkicks tweet put it nicely: the good players will often, out of habit from playing other good players, show you respect _that you don't actually deserve_. The bad player just exposes those weaknesses in your play way faster because they throw shit you're not prepared for at you.
I concur (and thank you for checking Twitter so we don't have to). As such, I'm only replying to remind you that for italics to work on RUclips, the underscore has not be touching punctuation unless it's containing it. So _Airplane!_ will italicize while _Airplane_! won't because RUclips.
_hey thank you!_
You love to see the underscores
Sure. But my problem is that bad players are chaotic and throw random shit, so I don't know what they are doing because they don't know it themselves. So I will lose match or 2 but then they will never win again. But they usually win once or twice and gtfo. Usually using cheap gimmicky characters you never see, so it takes a bit to adjust.
I'm specifically talking Tekken, which is hundreds of times more complex than 2d like street fighter. I do get blown up by bad players sometimes and do better against good players because it's what I'm used to and it surprises Me.
It has nothing to do with looking good against daigo or weaknesses being exposed. Leaving aside that bad players play on wifi with trash connections and abuse the shit out of it...
@@kato093but the point being is that if the good player opponent that you're used to fighting decided "fuck it" and played risky and randomly like a bad player does, you would still lose to that because you lose to that style of play, the better player just assumes you're also a player that knows how to deal with that and doesn't do it and instead plays less risky and more solid. It does expose the weakness that you can't deal with that playstyle, you're doing well against people who choose not to play like that, and usually good players choose not to play like that cause they're assuming their opponent can deal with it, but you can't, so you're being given unearned respect.
I lost more than I liked to a Ken that would only jump in, jab, throw, or dp. When I saw the method to his madness it was so much easier to punish him. He lost 4 in a row and quit.
I'm sure he was just going to the lab to learn some new tech. /s
Something that always gets in my head about this stuff is i can never tell "is this *supposed* to be what he's doing or am I getting scammed" lol i guess the reality is i'm getting hit anyway and it doesn't matter if they're playing 'right' or not i was the dope that got smacked
One of the best abilities is adaptability 😬
The point about Nephew watching a replay of someone who said they don't make mistakes was super interesting. I think the hardest part of learning fighting games (or really any skill in life) is recognizing that every single thing you do is a decision you're making that could probably be improved. It's not just about blocking the wack-ass mixup, it's about what led you to being in the situation to have to block the wack-ass mixup.
where can I find that video?
@@pluviaaeternumalmost a week late but it’s called this twitch chatter talked trash it’s from about 2 months ago, it’s got the guy with the hat and came in the thumbnail
Self-awareness as a life skill is sorely underrated. Things like social media and being able to play online with virtually 0 “feedback” has made people feel themselves just for realizing a Twitter account is (still) free, and they can say the least curated take for instant attention
I think of it like control decks in card games: like yeah you didn't get otk'd by Timmy spamming his board and summoning Nutbuster Dragon turn one and slamming you for 50000 damage but they were consistently a card or 2 ahead for the entire game and then just went into a big wincon when you had no options to stop it. In both situations there's not a lot you can do but the perception is "well I'm not dead turn 1-2 so I must've done pretty good" when in reality you wasted several negates on cards that didn't actually matter and didn't have a way to break the board once they set up
Sounds like striker vs dragon link
Yeah, win rate in a long set is a much better indicator, since it's less vulnerable to that kind of cognitive bias. Like, if you felt like you were doing really well the whole time but still got washed 10-1. There's probably a reason the opponent was able to consistently close out the matches even if they all felt to you like they were close.
What the fuck are you talking about
This is why every Burn/Mill deck feels bad to play against even if you do well against them. 90% of the time they're going to come within an inch of killing you but if you're patient you can consistently win when they're within an inch of taking you out with their wincon. But BOY does it always feel as sweaty as trying to Lame out a competently designed Rushdown character with a Zoner.
You said card games but I think you might want to specify yugioh bc a handful of things make it seem to me like it only really applies to yugioh
I feel like intermediate players tend not to take risks in situations they don't yet understand, and will respect your offence sometimes more than they should. I guess to avoid being counter hit in random frame traps, or to wait for you to commit to something super unsafe. Which will allow you to apply offence often. Even when it isn't working, it makes you feel like you're doing something skillful in the match. A "scrub" that plays "random", might challenge your fake offence more often, and force knowledge checks back at you, which leads to that helpless feeling against them. I agree that it is probably a better measure of your overall skill that you be able to beat the wild players, and not just the patient ones.
Yeah, the way you would beat a random player in that type of scenario would be to learn proper frame traps/pressure routines with no gaps, and to respect the player enough to not over-extend your pressure, where as if they were super respectful of it, you would do things like unsafe pressure strings, mix in overheads/grabs, and if they’re teching it’s time to shimmy them, the important part is to understand very clearly, “this person is doing this, so I should do something else” this is probably one of the most important skills in a fighting game, learning to adapt
As a decidedly "slightly above the average," intermediate player, this shit right here. I'll let you hit buttons and just block 27 times if it means that on that 27th time you're in minus 47 and I'm GUARANTEED to punish with lock, stock, both barrels, good fucking NIGHT, before I'd press a single button that I'm not at least 70% sure is a good idea because I just don't KNOW yet how plus or not you are.
There's an old proverb that I think also feeds into this
"Both the master and the novice fear the novice, for neither knows what the novice shall do"
There is a line in the sand where being bad is so disruptive to normal patterns that it weakens the opponent, there's a reason the low-ranks are often considered this weird morass where fundamentals seem to falter and are harder to learn
And then when you get to the high ranks you can harness some of that chaotic scrub energy in a controlled way to surprise the top rank players.
Then you end up in situations like Punk playing that one top rank Kimberly in Japan and calling him "the worst player he's ever played" even though in the best of 3 he only won ONE more round. That's gotta mean Punk is the second-worst player then, right?
Run into this quite often in ranked trying to crawl into Diamond. Platinum is full of people with solid fundamentals but also the most monkey brain individuals ever born. Often I'll lose the first round against said wild player, take a second, recognize their gimmicks and say "I understand the minigame now" and then just punish all their nonsense.
Plat is so weird man. I'm glad I'm out of there now but it made me so mad at the time. One game I get a Ken that tries to space his HP perfectly, the next I get one Dp'ing in neutral.
Least aggressive Zangief main on wakeup with a Level 3 bar maxed out:
@@leithaziz2716blud is almighty. Bro's loyal fans
@@Caleb-zl4wkhomie got no mercy. buddy has no remorse
To me, there are more yolo players in Diamond than Platinum. Even in masters, people mash jab after getting hit.
This was a reality check I needed. I get so used to my usual gameplan working that I tend crumble against players that don’t do what I expect. So I get mad and say I’m just not used to ‘scrub’ tactics anymore, when in reality I just suck shit at adapting. Kept this video in mind during my last play session and the I played so much better.
If you think the guy beating your ass is a scrub, you gotta ask yourself, what does that make _you?_
Even quite good players will like drop the first round against a crayon eater who goes absolutely HAM. They just take the next four rounds straight. Sajam has a good segment about that I think when he was doing Lily to Master where he ran into a Rashid like that.
From a certain skill level and above, it's important to acknowledge that all players have a couple of things they do decently. For instance, I noticed some people have crap offense, they can't open you up. But they know how to confirm certain hits and when they do, their combo is going to hurt which lands you in the corner and mental stack go brrrr.
While Johnny 2by4 isn't the sharpest player, he still needs to be respected for the couple of things he does well.
He can hit that OD DP like nobody else
I found your last clip about this topic right when I was having a "why am I losing to bronze players who are throwing out random shit" moment, and it got me to realize that I was too obsessed with having the most optimal gameplay and wasn't taking advantage of my opportunities as a result. Since then, I've gotten a little better at just going in on people and maintaining a varied aggression to force them into making mistakes. Mentality and observation are so important, even against low-ranked players.
Good players playing a bad player don't need to take any risks or play super aggro, they can just play slow and safe and win easy. So the bad player in that match thinks, wow I forced this good player to play slow and careful and I didn't get completely stomped.
Of course they don't consider that the better player could probably stomp them embarrassingly if they wanted to play wild.
This is a real thing in combat sports as well. I’ll give the example of fencing/HEMA since that’s what I’m familiar with. Beginners will do very risky things and attack into lines that you thought you had closed by presenting another threat that they just didn’t even see. It’s pretty common to get double hits in HEMA vs beginners because they’ll just go ham.
I was training to beat what I expected to face. My expectations were incorrect, so my training didn't help me. I had to use a different strategy, and fundamentals solved a lot of it for me. Good defense was also something I was lacking, because I thought if I could just land a hit I could convert it into that 10-hit combo I'd been practicing.
This. Comment. Right. Here
should be pinned.
I'm at a spot in my +R experience where, I definitely feel at the " I need to force good players to make more mistakes" stage, and that's honestly really weird to approach. Some of them just don't budge at all.
One thing that comes to mind with this video (which is fantastic as always) is the playing risky vs playing safe and how that relates to good players
I haven't seen him play in a hot minute, but back in SF4 Kazunoko was always famous for playing like a maniac. But the thing that backed it up was that he was so incredibly good at that and the thing is he KNOWS when to take risks. Like all baby fighting game players back then I thought I had to play really safe and never make mistakes. But seeing the way he played in the matches I saw made me realize that I have to learn to take risks
Now I just play like a dumbass, but hey, someday
Bruh I lose against "bad" ken players online all the time because they spam crouching medium kick for every neutral encounter. Obviously it's my fault for wanting to walk back, but damn is it infuriating.
Nah Ken always had good wake up options. You try to shimmy? Sweep. You try to throw? Dp. You try to do nothing? Now it’s back to neutral
@@hands-ongaming7180 this is true for every character though
@@rivahs Zangief with no wake up reversal: bruh
@@hands-ongaming7180Sajam has made a video about the exact same set of excuses you're making. All you're saying is that every option has an answer, that does not mean the opponent is going to choose the right one every single time.
@@X19Virus that doesn’t stop the fact that Ken can use meterless DP as a reversal and Zangief has to use meter that will leave him very unsafe if he messes up.
i dont play fighting games but this really helped me in terms of fps games. "why does that guy kill me but then he just dies to another random jimmy on my team". helped me look at it through a different perspective.
Finding the answer to things you struggle with by seeing how other people deal with you doing it is so useful in every competitive game. I love the suggestion to play like the people you struggle against.
In SFV, I beat one Gold Ken by anti-airing him. Exclusively. I got hit a couple times at the beginning by extending, then I slowed down and turtled. I realized he did not know how to approach without jumping in. Each round took a while, but I was laughing my ass off the whole time.
Ryu Guardiola is truly a cursed image
I would have died more if Sajam put his hair on Pep.
I say that sentence in Tekken a lot and after a solid elipses i always say "all i have to do is block its my fault"
And then I run into a Hwoarang or Lei player.
This happens to me in a very specific way. Sometimes when I play somebody who keeps doing the same things I tend to mix myself up in my head. E.g. they'll throw me, then walk up and throw me again. I'll be like "surely they won't do it again" so I block when I get thrown and get thrown again. "This time surely they won't do it again" - they do it again. I feel stupid everytime I lose a match like this
The no mixup mixup
When your opponent outsmarts you by doing nothing. We've all felt that at some point.
I always think of that match in SF4, that Rufus player against Gandhi, the insane Ryu player. And how he just fell apart. The commentators saying things like this in REAL TIME about the Rufus player's play. I wasn't sure if it would be rude to name them or not, but you can find it if you want. Dreamhack Winter 2013.
This describes me so well.
Except for the part where I do well against good players. They stomp me too.
I was literally saying "If I'm allowed to cope then I'm hard stuck low rank because I'm solidifying my fundamentals aginst worse players. Basically, I can't beat someone spamming random Cammy specials."
i used to be that guy who didn't want to learn combos, setups etc because i thought it was some form of cheating to learn all this before i had a solid neutral. i had this idea in my head that it was scrubby/dishonorable so i kept stubborny trying to "practice my neutral" against players who either press every button simultaneously, or who had learned a couple of solid tech and kept getting me with it. needless to say, i wasn't making any progress and i was only frustrating myself and blaming opponents for my mistakes.
now? if i can win the entire match off off the same looping oki, then i will. if a player is not capable of adapting to that, if that much is enough to beat a player, then i figure i have nothing to learn from their neutral. i'll ride the winstreaks as far as they'll take me up the ranks, because then, once i get to a rankl where people enough that my simple setup no longer works and i'm forced to play neutral, then it's neutral worth playing. plat 1 players aren't the cream of the crop, but it's probably the minimum level where you can start playing neutral with any kind of intentionality, and learning combos and setups will absolutely take you all the way up to plat. besides, it's not like it's autopilot, especially in SF you'll still have plenty of RPS and stuff and you can't take half of someone's lifebar away without spending resources
besides, you won't learn neutral properly, you won't learn why certain moves are good and the importance of getting certain kind of knockdowns if you can't do a simplr bnb combo and its ensuing oki. i used to not understand why cammy's cr.HP was so good until i learned her bnb combo and the simple setup that derives from it. now that i get it, it's making me fish for opportunities to place it and it's giving my neutral a purpose -- i'm no longer just trying to get hits more or less randomly, i'm looking to get kd's to get my oki started, and once the opponent is conditioned to look out for these kds i'm starting to see how it opens up other options. if i didn't know my bnb combo, my opponents wouldn't respect my offense because it'd just be a stray hit. now it's 2100 damage and you have to guess a mixup afterwards; THAT's something people look out for.
tl;dr: don't be arrogant fellow newbies, learn your combos like everyone else and let yourself be carried up the ranks despite having no neutral. you'll eventually hit a point where you need to learn neutral anyway, and then you'll be learning it against players who have some idea what they're doing + you'll have some idea of what YOU'RE supposed to be doing when you win those interactions
@@jambondepays1969 In my case, I don't like learning combos because it's not the fun part of the video game. I will jump into ranked with the most jank-ass combos imaginable, and just say "screw it, the average player is so bad at fighting games that I'll just hit them more times than they hit me." Eventually, I'll run into people that understand 2+2 = 4 and have to learn better combo routes to keep up, but I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with jumping into pvp just after learning what your character does.
That said, there's nothing "honorable" or "dishonorable" about either approach. It's a matter of what you're willing to put in, and what you're looking to get out.
@@caliburnleaf9323 i hate learning combos too, that's why i recommend learning a simple bnb and go ham. cammy's bnb is literally just 3 hits. i'd argue that knowing your bnb is part of "learning what your character does" tbqh. a big part of what Cammy does is get in, get a kd, and start pressuring at close range, and you need the basic bnb for that
but yeah, i definitely agree, it's not a question of honor or dishonor, but rather of do you want to get better at the game or just jump into games and have fun? both approaches are valid and i'd even say complementary. starting out by just pressing buttons online is absolutely fine and will get you a feel for the game, but if you want to do more, you can learn the bnbs and basic setups and jump back online to press buttons, and you'll get an even better feel for the game because you know why you want to press certain buttons
the whole thing is a rather stress free approach to getting better at fighting games really. i barely lab, once i get the gist of a new tech i just jump online and practice it even if it makes me lose ranked matches. not caring about losing ranked matches is another huge thing to improve tbqh
I have absolutely noticed good players losing the first game against lesser known players a lot, and i always thought, "hes downloading." And sure enough, they win the next 2 or 3 games straight.
My enjoyment in SF hit a new level when I started understanding why I was losing. Because then I could enjoy the satisfaction of beating that strategy. When I didn’t understand why I was losing, even if I randomed out a win against Johnny, it didn’t feel satisfying. It is in those moments I feel like I am demonstrably improving.
I was getting blown up by low forward into drive rush in a lot of matches. I started blocking low more often against those players and watched them start burning themselves out. Problem solved, right? Well it turns out you can still play the game burned out, and I didn’t have enough experience against burned out folks to effectively take advantage of that. Now that I’m getting better at that I have time to figure out strategies to punish people who start running away once I show them I can pressure them in burnout.
That’s just fighting games. Sometimes you have to figure out three or four “solutions” to one “simple” problem. It’s an uphill battle, but once you get it down, you can finally move on to getting your ass beat by something completely different and repeat the cycle one more time.
What's the worst is not when you're dying to bad players and you don't know why because you're also bad, but when you die to bad players and you know exactly why but you can't do anything about it because you're bad.
I picked up the game this past week having not played since early July due to life stuff. I got brutalized by the dumbest Modern Luke play I've ever seen in like my 4th match. Rather than get mad and call them a scrub, I spent the next few days thinking about how I would change up my play if I encountered it again and took it to the lab. Getting better as a player means accepting your faults and actively trying to improve.
This video was very interesting as always.
I was also very surprised to hear you play Hunt. It's a very cool game that I feel like a lot of people overlook.
Having an aggressive gameplan and decent reactions can make up for poor fundamentals and lack of technical knowledge. It'll only take you so far, obviously, but it enables a lot of "bad" players to win. This is true of other genres too, like RTS and FPS
An interesting exolination to this question. Was never really sure how to articulate this situation, but as usual, Sajam makes it make sense!
I'm pretty bad myself but I've often told friends I'm usually way more scared of a new player than an experienced player. I don't mean it in a bad way, but, newer players just don't have the know-how to be conditioned in the same way a more experienced player might. They'll bust out that 'random' hail mary option that 'they'll never use because it's just that bad', and it'll hit you. They don't have that same fear because they don't know 'better', and it's definitely spooky. The unpredictability definitely psyches me out personally lol
In my own case I think it's probably because I'm just not being patient enough to wait for them to do whatever it is and fire back *after* they've opened up. I'm trying to do my own 'standard' thing (light into command grab or whatever) and getting smacked in the face because I kind of forget "oh yeah they might not know this is a risky situation and I got smacked because I'm autopiloting into the throw when I should be frame trapping'.
I think certain players approach FGs like they approach LoL, where your build is dictated by character/rune choices made in early game or before the game, or card games, where your deck is chosen before the game. They have a gameplan and they’re sticking to it. They picked that gameplan because they think it’s good, after all. This isn’t even necessarily a bad thing if you’re new or in SF6 ranked, where first to two can go by incredibly fast.
It’s just that they then have difficulty differentiating between “I lost, is my character choice bad?” and “I lost, is my gameplan choice bad?”
Great video, needed to hear that. I often feel like that but don’t post about it. Definitely need to work on dealing with certain tactics. My anti air game is trash and has always been trash. I feel like it always takes an entire hemisphere of my brain to hit one anti air.
(On the last bit) as someone who loves Fighting games and TFT, FG’s are incredibly skill based games but if you think there is 0 RNG in fighting games, your capping. “Reading” your opponents has a little bit of luck involved, and there’s a reason some mixups people legitimately say it’s time to guess.
This is somehing I feel so much, every time it's so frustrating to play against the kinda Ken that does the same move over and over and forces me to real-time lab.
Working on how to properly analyze another playstyle is just as important as your footsies and reactions and what-not.
I do find I struggle when I play people who do risk it all, and it's the biggest reason no matter how annoying or stupid I think they're playstyle is, I'll always play them again. Take a breath, and tell yourself to slow down. They walking back and only look to wiff punish? Walk them to the corner, they will jump, lol they always do. Getting hit by something you think is super unsafe? Check out some punishes in training for like 2min, and then next time walk and block until they do the unsafe thing. You'll end up winning 2-1 against them instead of losing 0-2.
Side note, Hunt is such a great game, one of the most fun shooters I've played in a long time. Nothing beats killing a trio of 6 stars.
This is something I told myself a lot of times and I'm glad it finally got an answer. I'm definitely putting this mentality at work the next time I say it and trying my best to improve in that way. The only problem I see with this is that there are a lot of one-doners. You can find someone like this and then lose the first match of the set and be like "alright, I think I got why I lost. I'll try to fix that", and then you see how they press "Quit" after that, so you don't really have the time to try to fix it immediately and I think that's bad. Maybe the next player you find plays in a very different way and you don't really need to do whatever you were supposed to fix because if you force the situation you lose a disadvantage. I don't know. In the end it's all about the people you find after all.
In game theory there's a fun term: donkey space. This is when a player intentionally picks a sub-optimal strategy or move. They knowingly make a "mistake" in order to see how other players react! Do the other players recognize the mistake? Are they blind to it? It's a test of how well the others know the game. And playing "donkey style" upsets the meta and mind games. "Are they intentionally fucking around? Just to see what I'll do? It's a trap!"
Besides just making a read on the opponent, donkey space is used to tilt players. At some point the "donkey" straightens up and makes better plays - especially if they suspect the others don't know as much as they, now that it has been tested.
So why this is relevant is that "bad" players are essentially playing in donkey space without knowing it. Against someone who knows enough to realize there IS a meta game, there ARE mind games, pseudo-donkey space play totally fucks you up at first. You are trying to see if it's a trap and they just keep doing bullshit over and over. It causes hesitation. And hesitation allows the random stuff to get through.
It’s amazing how much my play improved in Strive when I stopped mashing on defense. I didn’t even realize I was doing it. I just knew I kept getting counter hit in the middle of my opponents combos. I wasn’t taking my turn properly.
It also helped when I started doing it to other people. Seeing them mess up made me realize what I was doing wrong.
9:21 man Sajam really trying to get an innocent TFT player stabbed in the arcade.
hey Sajam, it's Driftwood. This video cut me deep and were the words I needed to hear. I hate you for saying them, and I love you for saying them. Love you and your vids buddy.
I'm about halfway through the video right now, and what I'm getting from it is that a good player steps back to figure out the opponent's reactions and what they like to do by default. I'm assuming that this also means that a good player will intentionally create certain situations to see how their opponent reacts and once they have the info they want THEN they can start reading the other player. Is that correct or am I still missing something? I ask because my biggest weakness right now would probably have to be reading my opponent and mind games.
Having watched the video fully now it seems like I was right about that, but now my question is how do they create these situations? How do they know when it's a good time to create them?
I think it comes from a lot of experience. For example, if you notice your opponent _always_ instantly reversals you if you drop a link, then they're probably mashing reversal while being comboed. You could purposefully stop your combo on a move that's safe and just block their DP/Super, then proceed to punish again with reset scaling. If they tech a lot, try shimmying more. If they often wakeup DP, try to bait it by cutting a DR short, spacing DR > block, walkup block etc. It's about pattern recognition, setting expectations, seeing how they react, then defying those expectations on purpose. Conditioning is related to reading and predicting, and reacting is easier when you have a read on how to prioritize your mental stack.
Reminds me of the legendary Gandhi clip from the SF4 days, failing to so called adapt to a certain playstyle is how the suppossed 'better' player loses against the inferior player.
I remember Maximillian playing an inexperienced guy and he said “this guy is making me play really weird!”. Someone as experienced as Max still had trouble reading his opponent due to them not doing the norm.
This is one of the best fighting game videos ever. Very eye opening and a great way to grow as a player regardless of the game you are playing. (Smash player here) Liked and subscribed!
My opponent wont know what im doing if i dont know what im doing 🙏
Just playing a tad more patient really exposes a lot of players even in platinum/Diamond/low master. It really is all about adjusting to your opponents mistakes, and also at the same time being honest about your own shortcomings.
Very clarifying take
There is something to be said about you assessing any given situation trying to predict or anticipate the next move, taking into account the opponent's character's normals, specials, gameplan, general strengths and weaknesses and then they just do some fucked up shit with no fear, with sheer determination in their eyes and you are so flabbergasted and unprepared because any and all calculations made did not even consider this outcome, it was already deemed impossible right out of the gate
The run-up DP, a true classic.
I used to have this issue, but the thing I realized that was giving me trouble was I was very good at playing aggressively thanks to how I altered my play but my defensive skills were lagging over time due to me not practicing them, I figured at the time that since defense was what I was best at anyway it should improve with my offense, issue is that it did not. Been working on my defensive skill lately and been seeing massive improvements.
“The best swordsman in the world doesn't need to fear the second best swordsman in the world; no, the person for him to be afraid of is some ignorant antagonist who has never had a sword in his hand before; he doesn't do the thing he ought to do, and so the expert isn't prepared for him; he does the thing he ought not to do; and often it catches the expert out and ends him on the spot.”
-Mark Twain
This is my exact problem. I have no problem playing against people that *actually* try to fight me. But when playing against people that just constantly jump away and spam long-range attacks, I completely shut down and don’t know what to do.
This makes sense with the slump I've been experiencing. Now that I think about it, I never really played in a way to force a mistake, rather just do nothing and look/wait for a mistake to be made.
If you are good...
You are bad against good players...
Bad against bad players...
And a warm up to great players.
Learning how to beat bad players was how I fell in love with fighting games. The first time I labbed out how to punish the annoying options I saw and then consistently beat them as insane dopamine.
I need to see that Nephew clip
its a full vid on his channel i believe
2:02 Being a Johnny2x4 at a tournament sounds fun
Summarizing to see if I understand the point: winning almost all of your games consistently by a moderate amount (Hypothetical Daigo in the video) is better than winning an average amount of the time, but blowing people out in a large portion of your wins (Manon player in the video). And losing to both in succession will give you the feeling that you played better against Hypothetical Daigo, because you didn't lose by as much, even though the reality is Daigo was going to beat you 100% of the time anyway.
Basically, an L is an L, no matter by how much.
Makes sense. Great insight.
inb4 "theres only so many permutations of optimal play"
Nice formulated gameplan bro, check out this double dash up neutral jump low
Honestly it's because bad players are simply hyper as fuck and unintentionally trick you to throw away the fundamentals you practice and be hyper as fuck with them, turning it into a button mashing contest.
The trick to beating bad players is really just simply calming down and paying attention. I remember I did that once and winning literally became as simple as me simply using my anti air every time they jumped, the irony was I was called a spammer, when they were the ones spamming their jump move and i simply did the only correct option. Anti Air.
Godlike breakdown tbh
You know what....I actually have this problem. And it mostly happens out of frustration when no one is around. I get mad because I feel like the other person isn't that good, when really, they are that good, and I just don't know how to adapt.
Inversely though, it gets worse because once I realize I'm having that moment, I flip it and just say, "I'm worthless and I should just quit playing because I suck and I'll always suck". Not a fun cycle :(
I realized the other day that I've spent about a decade trying to focus on not making mistakes and punishing my opponents' mistakes, but I've spent exactly zero milliseconds figuring out ways to force mistakes.
The whole "I lost but you're bad" thought process is fundamentally based around this idea that a certain way to play (IE yours) is the "right" way to play.
"This guy's not even playing the game, he's just sitting there and hitting EX reversal as soon as I press anything."
"This guy's not even playing the game, he's jumping around everywhere and facerolling on his controller."
Of course, the right way to play is what works. If it works on you, it's right in that moment.
Played a game against somebody in DBFZ that I thought was really good. They were a much higher rank than me, and I was only matched up with them because it was late at night.
What I LOVED about fighting this player was that their playstyle was based around actually using their assists in neutral, and it was awesome because it was a constant reminder to me of the resources and tools that I have available, and a constant running example on how I ought to be using them myself.
So I spent a lot more of that match looking how to comfortably use my assists against them, rather than this weird feeling I have around players who aren't using their assists.
I follow a youtuber whose general goal and advice with the game was that players need to remember to use assists in neutral and blockstrings more. And for a long time, that was my general goal to get good with the game. But against a lot of lower rank players, they wouldn't be utilizing assists as well, and I'd always forget that I have them and that I should be looking for ways to use them.
I will note that I don't have a skill issue with the players not using their resources, because that has it's own counters and playstyle. But I'm saying that my goal was to at least learn how to play the game the "correct" way, because using assists well is an aspect that doesn't get fucked BY those people who are playing randomly. Assists are so safe and strong that they'll be great against those random players since I can cut off a lot of options from them.
My issue is that they're an aspect you have to get used to and get in the right mindspace to properly use, and in a real match I was finding it hard to get a hold of, when I'm focusing a lot more on what my opponent is doing in the match and trying to respond to it.
And because I was focusing so much on my opponent more than trying to shoehorn it into my plans, I wasn't meeting my goals for improvement.
So, playing against somebody that both reminded me to use my assists but that I also knew was looking for opportunities to use assits was super nice, because my general goal with improving WAS learning how to properly utilize my own assists in neutral.
Again, it's because I was watching them do it, and I was thinking around what THEY were thinking, so the entire match was a constant reminder for how I should be looking at the game as well. And it made me see it differently! I was forced to adapt to that mindset in order to compete! It felt awesome! I was playing a completely different game, when the opponent was using all of the resources that they were given. And using my own in return made me feel, for the first time since I installed, like I was getting decent at the game!
First round I lost, don't exactly remember WHY, but I did. We were still figuring each other out, I guess.
Second round I won, and I remember that I won because I ended up punishing a lot of whiffed buttons in neutral, and capitalized off of it really well. I consciously identified my opponent's weakness and exploited it, which is a good sign for me. Plus, my combo game was on point that round, and I had actually landed my corner combo route that I'd been practicing for a long time.
Third round I lost, and I definitely know why:
First, just because I have the least to say about it, but I wasn't looking out for low hits. That's on me.
Second, I was playing a new character on point, and didn't understand their neutral well enough, and got punished for it very badly because at that point they had figured me out.
I didn't have shit movement, my issue was more shit tactics and becoming really predictable. I was actually REALLY good at dodging their assists, and staying safe while doing so.
But my tactics as my point character had grown old, and they had started using hard counters against them. And I didn't adapt.
Then, after that mishap when I was on characters that I understand, they generally gained a lot of momentum on me. So I made a really stupid risk using my resources.
A risk that not only didn't work out, but left me drained of meter when my anchor character really needs meter in order to survive neutral and make comebacks.
Specifically, I whiffed a Level-3 Super in neutral and didn't get shit from it.
So, once they gained momentum, I was down both bar AND my assists. And I lost because of it, since I had nothing to turn the tides back in my own favor. Their use of assists let them carry that momentum through the whole game.
Now, I'm confident on how to improve, because I'm really analytical (as you can tell from the long comment), and I can identify why I lost.
With seeing how I lost, I think what's important there is that I can see bigger picture than the fact that I got hit by lows, because DBFZ is a game where blockstrings and pressure can be so long that you'd rather want to focus on not being in that situation in the first place.
And, again, my movement was good, my issue with my neutral was just my general strategy had been adapted to and I didn't respond in time.
I also think one aspect of this that I find helped me, and it helped me both in the moment and afterwards, is how my ONLY metric to judge a "good" and "bad" player here is literally JUST how one was using the resources they were given to their fullest extent.
I've played against other players my rank who may have made less "mistakes" that I've noticed in the moment, but weren't capitalizing on the overall tools and resources they had very well. And it's easier to push momentum against those kinds of players.
I believe that if I'm not some mofo whose literally winning tournaments, I don't really have the metric to judge players' skill just by how they seem, unless it's after I've exploited it in the game. The only metric of skill I believe in is who wins and who loses. And it's a mindset that always reminds me that I need to be looking for the way to beat bad opponents rather than just complaining about their repetitive strategy. Or looking for the weaknesses in a good player's gameplan.
At the end of the day, there's a much longer-term mental game there. And I definitely lost that mental game, but I came out of it a lot stronger.
EDIT: And I'd like to note my mentality is like this because DBFZ is NOT the first time I've been on this journey, as much as it has a lot of unfamiliar things that I have to get used to.
For a few years, I used to play a lot of Smash Bros where my mentality ended up going through this long journey. And BY FAR the most valuable thing I had ever learned was seeing matches for more long-term mistakes to understand the bigger picture.
Learning how to identify mistakes like this from doing match analyses, with no replays (was too lazy to record them), made me so much better at analysis in general. After years of practice with that kind of analysis, I apply it in so many areas of my life.
And BTW, replays are SUPER SUPER SUPER valuable and helpful to get you to figure out how to answer these questions! Don't be afraid to look at your old matches!
EDIT EDIT: It also REALLY helps that I know some DBFZ content creators who ACTUALLY were giving advice to the common level players you'd see online. Particularly NovaZayn. His video on pressure is so good because it tells you how to deal with the opponents you'll ACTUALLY come across online and not breaking down the decisions made in high/top level matches.
Such great advice
Usually it's my offense and conversations that makes me lose matches vs random ass players. In a game I can actually get my offense and mixups going I usually see the random players can't deal with real pressure since their defense is lacking.
The difference between someone presenting a single problem to you vs someone that's trying to problem-solve and adapt to which problems they should present to you.
The most powerful feeling maybe ever in fighting games is the "Oh so this guy isnt looking at the screen" moment and just kicking the shit out of the dude pressing random reversals, mashing on wake-up and just generally being random. You actually get to call yourself the smarter player instead of thinking you are because you walked back and forth and hit low forward
never felt so called out in my entire life 💀
If you get a knockdown on someone, the "orthodox" play is both players assuming that it's your turn because that's the most consistent way to win. You need to consider your options on oki and the opponent needs to respect your pressure. But the mental stack of oki only really STARTS when both players have a sort of unwritten understanding that on a knockdown, it's the aggressor's turn.
If the person doesn't respect it and instead just mashes DP every time they get knocked down, it effectively turns anything you've got on the oki you've practiced irrelevant. In a short set, the gorilla "mash DP every time" strategy could get a win if you're slow to catch on but if you figure out that's the player's habit then you'd easily stomp them because you just block the DP and punish. On watching a replay you might be like, "What the hell this guy was hitting me wakeup DP literally every time he was knocked down, how did I not realize that?"
To use a different game as an example, in Mahjong the most basic fundamental thing you learn as a beginner is just "how to make a hand" and anything like getting a high scoring hand or the mindgames is irrelevant, all you really look at is your own tiles. When you get to a higher level, you start to analyze the other players' discards and habits and what tiles are still available, as well as what a good scoring hand is available to you. It leads to more consistent wins when you are able to craft hands that have better waits, better score totals, more likely to not deal into other players, etc.
For most players in the middle level, running into someone who plays like a beginner is actually overwhelming because their play style of "just make my hand as quickly as possible" forces you to adapt and discard the higher level strategy you've been practicing just to match the pace of the beginner. You can fairly easily swing the game against the beginner by getting like a single mangan (8000 points) but if he's playing so fast that he's winning 6 hands in a row for 1000 it's still annoying.
The metality of "I lasted longer, therefore I did better" is a common thing I find of not that good of players.
It's mostly cope. Like in a friendly match, if I found out my opponent, I take the time to experiment with different interactions instead of playing with what I know.
There's various reasons why one could be getting numbers. You could have out gimmicked an opponent once and now it's never working only getting them stuck in the gimmick loop.
The idea is that you expect a “good player” to play a specific way. Randos play to do whatever, and you can’t adapt because you focus on the fact they aren’t playing “correctly”. That’s why I love playing nuts. If you can make them sit, then not only can you condition well, but you reaction to bullshit is pretty good.
If the bad option keeps working, it's not a bad option.
I've always said there's Top Players, Pro Players, Competitive Players, and then right before you get to Casual Players you have "Apprentice Players" and that's what you're kinda talking about here. Playing risky and random is a legitimate strategy in competitive play, and if you're not able to counteract and adapt to a "casual player" that's cycling the same 3 "bad" options they've noticed work, you're still at the "Apprentice" level. You've learned the flow of a competitive game, but not how to understand, read, and respond to your opponent. They're two very different concepts.
I know I have this issue, but it’s with choking under pressure. When I get hot and red in the heat of the moment, everything I’ve practiced fades away and I’m just scared and I choke again and again and again
I suggest going into casual matches, and fighting using footsies/buttons only. Try to get comfortable dealing with the pressure that will come from being so close. It might help you not to panic when your health is low
Good players are learning and securing the ft10 while you're playing a ft1 in your head, and you still lose the ft3, but you'll lose even harder long term. I still remember the first time I hit up Next Level Arcade and I've never gotten hit by so many frametraps in my life, even as I'm OSing my 3 frame low, in a ft10 in SF4AE against DaFeetLee's Guy. I learned how it felt to be on the receiving end of a soul read that day and it was a pretty damn good experience. Didn't stop me from mashing dp on wakeup for a round or two, we take those baby. Props to him for the set.
To me personally, this feels more prominent in anime fighters and kof or any very faced paced and/or volatile fighting games. Even though I'm pretty bad in every fighting game, I feel like I learn more and more quickly in games like SF and Tekken than say GG and DBFZ because it's easier to see what's happening and figuring out how to punish "bad" players in those types of games, if that makes sense. I also tend to play slow grapplers as well so that probably doesn't help much.
What you're desrcibing is that in those types of games, usually the much older ones, knowledge checks are everywhere, and knowing how to stop moves is a bit unconventional. Try to figure out when Slayer in Xrd ISN'T plus and to counterattack without checking a guide or wiki explanation, because from pure playing, I usually can't tell what I'm missing besides "use Just Block more".
You can really get far (at least to somewhere in intermediate level) with just throwing out moves that the opponent likely doesn't know the solution agaisnt.
I'm so glad Sajam gets free content by remaking the same video for every big game.
"You don't play better against good players, you just lose slower."
Brian "Brian F" F.
The most common bad players are the ones that have 0 defensive ability but can pull off a 50% combo. The second you put pressure on them they have no idea what to do.
This is a good/interesting topic!
I strive to be the dude who's drunk af at the venue, ruining people's bracket runs and just vibin'.
I like Mark Twain’s take on it:
The best swordsman in the world doesn’t need to fear the second best swordsman in the world; no, the person for him to be afraid of is some ignorant antagonist who has never had a sword in his hand before; he doesn’t do the thing he ought to do, and so the expert isn’t prepared for him; he does the thing he ought not to do: and often it catches the expert out and ends him on the spot.
You have to get to a certain level in order to consistently punish bad play or even to consistently spot bad play. If you’re losing to bad play, it just means you’re not at the level you think you are yet. It takes a while to identify things like bad spacing or have deeper match up knowledge. I always do worse in the first round against a lower skilled player because I’m spending more time getting a read on what they are doing rather than just trying to kill them.
I'm one of those bad players that gets arguably undeserved wins.
I've said this, but I'm glad I was able to recognize why. Ran into plenty of really good players online and thought, this guy respects me too much, if he was a little more aggressive he'd discover very quickly idk how to punish "insert move" 😅
The title for this video is a question I have pondered since I could pick up a controller 😊
Ran into 801strider a bit ago in diamond 4 when he was working on his Dee Jay. I got cooked, but i did learn a valuable lesson: block more
Funny timing, I just left a comment a few days ago on the video Sajam did a year ago on this exact topic (the "Playing the correct way" bit). I tend to play wayyy to defensive waiting for the perfect moment my opponent makes a mistake so I can go "Aha, good show sir, now I press MY button". Instead they just run at me screaming with arms flailing and I always felt like I was getting destroyed by "terrible mashers". I would get so frustrated, since I was playing "Correctly"! Well after the last video I went into a match and after I threw out one button and they blocked it....well I just kept hitting the button...over and over, slightly staggered, and eventually they had their move stuffed and I got advantage. It was like holy hell, REALLY?! I can just do that!? Turns out you can just overwhelm people with 'incorrect' buttons sometimes if you play like a bit of a madman every now and then. Totally opened my eyes in fighting games (despite having played them for 8-9 years by now).
I've been watching a ton of replays since then of players who beat me previously, and 90% of their gameplan is massive risks=massive rewards. Normally I'm getting hit by moves that you are (according to the gentlemens duelling handbook) not supposed to throw out. But they do, and they land, and they win. Since then I've found I understand a heck of a lot more when and why I'm getting hit by "terrible players", and I've been having much more success online. Thanks Sajam!
Today I learned that I'm totally the player where I "look good," but I'm actually just thinking of going to the bar after I get crushed because I suck lol
In 20 years entering tournaments, I've never heard someone say this.
I've said this before, but I've always said with the caveat of "and I don't know why," because I know damn well there's *something* I was missing. The explanation is appreciated!
I don’t really like taking the time to look at replays, but if people play ranked with the right mindset you’ll still make progress (although probably slower). I kept getting blown up by Ken’s and realized im trying to get away so much I always get caught by lows.
Getting punked by Johnny 2x4 head is a humbling experience that should only happen once.
Learn from your mistakes,
Baby!
the curse of being inconsistent as hell against 'bad' players while also getting instantly cooked by good ones (my cope is that blazblue is a hard game)
It's ok man, I get cooked by everyone too in blazblue.
Johnny2x4head will stay in my head rent free lmao shits too funny 😂