Step Up Your Game: Chapter 4 - Down for the Count

I read this while listening "Scars of Time".
This motivated me a bit more. Thank you Justin.

Reading this help me a lot because just about every fighting game that comes out i get because that's how much i love them.. but i get discouraged sometimes because i have no one to play with offline because their is no one where i'm from that play fighting games so i have to play online and i'm tired of online because people disrespect u for winning or losing and that's not cool. I can't never bring my self to disrespect someone over a game. I don't care how bad I lose.. but i'm not going to give up. Thanks j.Wong.

Have faith in your character? What if your character is legitimately booty?

I kind of miss the times when people brought their skills and character choice to the table as a whole, as a badge of who they are. Some people are just crazy with certain characters and you can't do anything about it. Combofiend mastered Spencer for example. Spencer is a great char but his bionic arm grapples are not easy to learn, and Combofiend went out of his way to not only learn them but excel with them.

I feel like you used to do this yourself, such as with Cammy in MvC2. The one-two punch of you being really good with Cammy, plus people not knowing the matchup, led to tons of wins.

I really think that once a person gets too good at the game though it kills their drive. You gotta rely on the people around you to keep you going, to keep things fresh and hungry.

I am and will always be proud of my Taskmaster, Hsien Ko, Shuma Gorath team. I have so much fun with them and it's designed very specifically to stop bull$^%*. That team took time to build synergy (which suprisingly works well).

When I get serious, Wesker/Spencer/Magneto do the job. There may not be much synergy between them aside from Magneto's EM disruptor assist, Wesker's Samurai Edge and Spencer's Slant Shot *pokerface*.
They have pretty good DHCs and a useful THC if Spencer is on point.
But the point of this team is that I can use all of them as point characters and Wesker and Spencer doesn't really use meters so I can keep a strong zoning with Magneto.
Plus the point that everyone can work well as anchors and I OCV'd with each one of them.

My love for this game is in the building since XMvSF since it resembles that game so much for me, it'll never die.

I just recently started picking up Abel because I think combos look really cool.
When i get Ultimate ill most likely use Dante, Vergil, Wolverine or something because I love Devil May Cry, and Wolverine was my favorite XMEN character

I play with gief, and i was planing to o go on a tournament, but ever since i got UMvC3 i barely played SF, and when i played, i did poorly. Guess it's the so called "love" justin is talking about, i think i'll have to wait for my UMvC3 hype to end...

Of course, what justin fails to mention here is that the best case scenario would be if the character you loved happened to be top tier as well.

If you're interested in competing, you should be able to evaluate your own character and whether or not they are viable in a tournament setting.

This is the exact words I couldn't find when I tried to describe my feelings for Ultimate Marvel 3..

I have a pashion for that game for many reasons, and this was simply just amazing read..

I look forward to more of Justin's words of wisdom.

This is amazing stuff in this article... Absolutely agree... In any endeavor, your love and passion for it are critical and often overlooked. And you can't manufacture it.

Most of the comments are about character loyalty, it seems, but he's talking about simply loving to play, too...

Awesome read. Thanks for this, Justin. I'm going to keep going with the team I love and not let hate from other people sway me.

Its such a simple concept, but reading it from Justin makes it feel like I've been too stupid to notice such things, as far as Marvel goes at least. Maybe I'll stick with my Wesker/Ryu/Hulk team. Play through the pain.

Players who are "tier whores" exemplify the American mentality of trying to win with the least amount of effort possible, even if the win is unrewarding. It's the mentality of those guys who play MMOs, aren't really having fun, but have their massively tuned script that allows the to repeatedly push one key and their character executes an entire battle and wins every time. Then they compulsively "enjoy" playing that way to rack up wins.

The joke is that people who play a game "the right way", and the right way includes playing a character because you ENJOY it, end up learning more about the game in the long run. In fighting games, they learn more about matchups because they don't just change to a "high tier" character and execute one strategy they learned about that wins most of the time, against that one character, as long as that one character behaves a certain way. (Meanwhile, the guy playing THAT character is probably doing the same dumb thing, merely relying on a single tactic he was told would be "top tier".)

Of course, it's easy for people to say "awesome advice" when it's a player of Justin's stature giving it. (No disrespect meant to Justin.) Usually, someone who gives this advice is told they're "weak" for not just picking one of the game's stable of 2-4 supposedly top tier characters and using "the right" strategy to rack up wins.

i really love Ibuki and her play style but i reached a level where everyone telling me i'm so cheap/scrub/brain dead with this character :( after that i reached a point i get someone in a vortex situation and i feel the stun is near i back out !!!!! and i lose the round :P but i'm going to stick with Ibuki tell the end ;)