Step Up Your Game: Chapter 2 - Hitting your targets

Great articles! Keep it up, these are very helpful!

ty justin

"If you play against a human opponent that is clearly out of your league, you will NOT learn anything."

I disagree with this. At the worst, you can learn what you shouldn't do. You can dispose of the tactics that, when you play inferior players, are apparently useful.

Apart from this, you can come to an understanding of the speed and flow of higher level play.

@ 3 I think he means WAY out. Like if your fairly new to SSF4 and don't have a decent understanding of the mechanics and basic strategies, getting absolutely trounced on by some of the world's best isn't gonna help you much. It's not so much as learning the WHAT, it's learning WHY. Being some top players training mode dummy doesn't help and can be very discouraging to new/upcoming players.

I was just wondering when we'd see a second article. It's a good read, Justin. I look forward to your next column, but I do disagree with one thing you said. You mentioned that when you play someone out of your league, you don't learn anything. I almost primarily learn my new tactics whenever I'm at my local arcade playing super, or when I go into that endless lobby when I'm playing against someone who can completely destroy me. Surely, It's probably discouraging to some of the very new players, but as soon as you get that grasp to a point in which you can absorb knowledge used against you, it really becomes a great source to improve oneself on.

I do kind of wonder where the line for "too far out of your league" is? win/loss of 1/10, 1/30, 1/50?

Since I've played against players who manage to do all three of those and I do feel like I learn a whole bunch and not that slowly either when playing against the 1/10s. I feel like I learn against the 1/50s too, but it really does take like 30 matches for me to come to a break through on something...

I'd be interested in other peoples opinions.

Good stuff.

Are these articles going to be linked somewhere in the main page? Because the first one got totally forgotten in like one day after it left the front page, and that's a shame, they're a must read for all beginners and most intermediate players.

@ 6
Yeah I think that's where the confusion comes from, bot knowing what he means by out of your league. Of course we learn from being beaten by players better, but we also know this game. You gotta take it from the perspective of beginners. Like I remember when SSF4 came out, a lot of my casual gaming friends picked it up, ones who never played a fighter seriously and had skipped vanilla SF4. When we would play, I would destroy them. Like it was discouraging probably because they felt getting that god would take to much practice. Eventually they quit. If we had been on the same level and grew together, they may have had more fun and kept playing, but oh well lol

Man Eventhubs needs an edit button sorry for the typos.

Learning from others IS a great way to step your game up. I cannot even remember how I used to play Spencer after fighting a guy who used his swing wire to overhead me. I am a lot more used to certain situations now, it always feels good to see how to use a character.

I think Justin means by "out of your league" meaning so good that you are left doing nothing but mashing reversals, and are even too scared to try to execute combos.

cont'd

ppl are not factoring the emotional component. in the heat of the moment, you'd rather mash out a win than actually try to learn.

Playing the computer really does help. I remember in the SF2 turbo days I played the cpu on hardest with Ken so friggin much that in a real match I could just pretend they were the cpu and almost every combo I attempted came out flawlessly.

SF4 arcade request mode is excellent! Even if it is a bit annoying to have request after request before your first fight even starts...

I'm a training mode monster in MvC3, I can spend half an hour doing the same combo perfectly without a problem, throw me into a match and I won't be able to get trough half the combo.
I got 2 friends around my level tough and we play a lot online.

Put it this way if I was a complete beginner at sf4 got it at release and played it but sat it down for months...So technically at this point im still a beginner. I come back to play and run into 17k sagat and got bodied to the point i wanted to jump head first off the oak tree in my front yard. I didn't learn ANYTHING i didn't know what else to do other than block and that only got me thrown and made me wanna jump in and attack so he didn't perfect me. Getting bodied by a 15k+ person and you're just a beginner won't teach you anything. And training against the cpu helps alot lol he ain't lyin about that one

Whats with the Sako pic? Is he not great with catching people with Rose or something?

nice article, should post this on IGN, GS, and GT.

by "out of your league" he means a beginner playing some1 like him or latif. which I agree with.finding a sparring partner on or at least near ur level is absolutely essential to improving steadily as a player.but its also equally essential to discuss and share information with said sparring partner so that ur strats and tactics evolve enough to open up doors to new discoveries.

id have to disagree with the part about not learning from the pros even when your a beginer. I agree that it can be easy to get discouraged, but.
tbh, learning how to survive the brutal assault of a pro, long enough to learn to counter, taught me more than anything else. not only that, seing their strats taught me just as much.

Online play is great for "playing people on your level." You will sometimes get a really skilled opponent, but I see those as tests because they are few and far between. Most others can be managed, and as you level up you will see that. I'd say want you get to a mid level, you can start thinking about arcades and such. At least then you have a clue on some of the fundamentals.