Even as someone that isn't tired of fighting games (or multiplayer games as a whole), this is something I've also found myself doing on occasion. There's just something that's so enticing about foregoing a simple win or loss and attempting to go for something... Cool? Unique? I think this mindset can also (although much more rarely) be seen at the competitive level, which is when we get some of the great moments like that infamous walk up slowly smash clip. Great video, excited to see more!
Being cool or unique is fun! I have tons of respect for the people doing it on a competitive stage too, where you can feel the stakes so much more. And thank you for watching and commenting!
I agree Hotashi a pro Nagoriyuki player for Guilty Gear Strive is kinda like this at times if you watch his gameplay. He's VERY good but he likes to have fun and goof around even if it means he loses the round every once in awhile
I think this is why I really like characters such as Big Band who can play just about any song on Trumpet. Is is useful in a fight? Not really but it is fun to play some meme song after landing a cool combo or play myself out when I know I'm gonna lose. I'd rather be stylish and goofy in my playstyle than being optimal or even successful
This advice generally is common when a player has experienced too much of the game, in any game really. It's really good advice when it comes to keeping ones interest in the game still be there and often helps with burnout. It's genuinely good advice when it comes to having fun. Make your own fun. These are games after all and being too stuck up in doing a routine would make one lose interest pretty quickly in a game once the routine gets boring.
Dude you just made me realize I am doing it subconsciously recently… First in Blazblue I always go for the big finish the requires all your meter when the opponent has low hp (no idea what it is called, I am that inexperienced with Blazblue and also equally bad at even getting meter) and it is so satisfying to hit my friends with it and it makes hours of playing a lot more interesting because we all try to go for the big finishers. However I do play Guilty Gear Strive at locals and currently I am the definitive first seed, and I have started making worse bursts. I know my risk reward with bursts well and I know when I should keep it, but I have started bursting at lower HPs or when I have a round lead and I should save it. I told myself this was practice for more difficult sets where I need to steel myself, but it’s just another challenge… and I literally did it twice today in grands finals, lost both those rounds but won the tournament. Super interesting video! I will try to invent some challenges of my own without almost throwing tournaments in the future xD
My personal challenge involves IKs or killing with a max-damage Ghastly Wail ( Elizabeth in P4A, does 7800 damage ). Edit: I just realized max-damage Ghastly Wail would mean the opponent has Negative Penalty ( 11300 damage ). New challenge unlocked.
Your Answer is pretty sick. Makes me want to try him. I tend make my own goals during matches too. I also like to try out the entire roster over time and learn each character to some degree once I get burnt out from playing my main.
I used to practice defensive play by picking guile and only allowing myself to attack on guaranteed punish. It was kind of fun when successful, being a brick wall that drove opponents to frustration.
I play Baiken in GGST, so I like giving myself parry challenges like the one I have on my channel. It's genuinely fun to watch someone struggle as they weigh their options after you parry their dive kick for the third time. And what a glorious feeling it is their brain goes full monkey-mode and they use an overdrive out of nowhere, only to lose their meter, their health and probably the round. I play for those moments.
I really enjoy this concept you are putting forth, personally I have already been doing this on and off during my journey to improve at strive. Some days I'll play without a burst available, some days I'll try to Instant Block literally everything, and sometimes I try to do weird stuff to people to see how good my reads/reactions are, something like doing pressure sequences and stopping early to bait them to jump so I can air throw. Without those little missions I've been giving myself I think my enjoyment of fighting games would have diminished significantly if I was just playing strictly to win.
Yeah giving yourself small challenges versus newer players is always such a blast and tbh I think Blazblue allows it the most thanks to it's astral finishes. I always try to close out the match with one no matter what even if it is super unoptimal 😂
This is actually a fantastic idea, and I’m glad you brought this up. I think it’s easy for us to innately catch onto it (like if we see someone do something weird, we try to get them to do it again under the same conditions), but actively thinking about it can be a great way to learn. Thank you!
I've done this for quite a while, whether the game is "backdash on reversal for timing practice" or "throw Gold Burst." Honestly the more of the mindgame situations you learn, the better you improve so this way of learning helps on that. Also, said accomplishment is way fighting games hold me more compared to different games which have more content but offer me less, haha
I like to learn character vs character specific combos and I get so exited when I get to try a very specific combo that most don't know about, my favorite is byleth vs donkey Kong in smash ultimate, when donkey Kong is at 0 percent byleth can do up special into neutral air and then I think another nuetral air or up air (I don't remember how it goes lol) into a kill almost instantly
Wait... there's no way you mean up smash into nair is a combo on DK? For real? That's crazy if true I'm a Greninja main, I unfortunately don't know many character specific combos, but I like to counter as many projectiles from a distance as I can to make the opponent go "wtf Gren can do that?"
This is a really nice video. As someone pretty new to fighting games but really interested in them, I know how toxic they can be, and not just in the usual way. I love hanging out in Training Mode, labbing, studying on Dustloop, Dreamcancel or Mizuumi. But the more I knew, the more self-critical I became, to where every loss felt more like stupidity than inexperience. This kind of smaller in-match milestone or goal based thinking is probably a much healthier way of approaching fighting games. I'll try it out sometime.
It's a great response. If you can't find the fun in the game, then make it yourself. I actually have the same challenge every fighting game I play. Never get conditioned. I play how I feel, regardless of the result. No I'm not that good but dammit it's fun. Especially fun with Sol. Playing that way while having a command grab and a dp with the same motion makes it even easier to yolo as much as I want, sometimes even on reaction. And it's somehow even more gratifying when you have TWO highly punishable options that your opponent sometimes can't figure out. It's like watching somebody try to read a coloring book. Win or lose, I usually get to deliver more stress than I take in, which is very satisfying.
I'm kinda happy that I've been playing fighting games pretty consistently for 10 years and only in the past year or so have I ever started to become "advanced beginner" I'm probably never going to place top 32 in a major or even top 8 at my locals but I constantly feel like I'm always learning. I don't see me ever really hitting that plateau before I'm dead.
This entire video is full of things I both have been doing since day 1 of starting to take fighting games semi-seriously about half a decade ago now and also have been trying to instill into my friends who I've tried to get into fighting games like this. It still shocks me how this isn't something everyone does when picking up a fighting game for the first time. Sure winning is fun but not being able to understand why you won (or more importantly lost) kinda takes the impact out of a win because you don't have something to go back into training mode and/or multiplayer to practice, making challenges is a great way to do that. Coming up with challenges I feel falls into the same category of telling new players things like "nice set-up" or "nice block" instead of focusing on combos, as both help encourage players to pursue things that'll help them in the long run, be it learning fundamentals for newer players or as you have pointed out in this video giving veterans a new way to enjoy playing the game. It's honestly some picking up on this and some not is why I believe some of those I know have jumped onto the bandwagon of playing these games while others bounced off super hard, that lack of motivation to jump back into another game to try some stupid shit out. 7:29 also it's very funny my main challenge right now is teaching myself to DP MORE, as since I've played so many characters without DPs and against someone I know in the past who tends to play characters with really oppressive mix-up now I play Kagura in BBCF I forget to use their Flash Kick on defense cause I subconciously think I have to block the mix lmfao
Answer is still to this day one of my favorite fighting game characters of all time, he is so fun to play. A shame that when Rev 2 came out, he was overshadowed by Baiken, Answer deserves better
i give myself challenges, but only really come up with them as a response to something thats happened already. "oh i should try to parry this" "try to bait this to whiff punish it" etc, if a game is super close though usually im just focused on winning. I havent given up tryharding yet even if I know i may never become #1.
I do this in a way to help me improve at FGs. I just do challenges like anti air all their jump ins or get to a sequence to try and work in a new set up I've been learning. Things like that, it's fun and satisfying to challenge yourself and even more so when it helps me be a better player in the long run.
when the video paused on the sol doing the dp my answer was "because it would be really really funny if it worked" which i guess is telling of my thought processes
My personal challenges are usually either: "Wow, I am absolutely horrible with this character, let's see how well I can do if I try to learn them" or "I almost never use this move, I should see if I can do something cool with it"
This is the long hand way to say 'develop style' Style isn't optimal but it's memorable. If winning isn't the goal, there's no wrong way. In winning situations I like to practice throwing a paper against their scissors (paper rock scissors) and try to level up my paper in general. When the noob scissor doesn't beat your cardboard paper, and they KNOW your game plan is to walk up and throw them. Standing Jab beats raging demon if you think about it hard enough.
I tried letting instinct guide my mind in a sort of "do objective a because it'd be really funny" way to get better at unpredictability. It worked, and I honestly forgot about it until watching this video. Might go with it again eventually
Amazing advice. I've definitely done this on multiple occasions and it makes things much more fun and interesting nearly every time. Although I've really never considered how it could be beneficial for newer players. I've been helping a friend of mine get into fighting games recently so I'll have to remember this next time I play games with him.
Ya totally! I started setting goals for grabs in tekken with King. "Punish with a muscle buster 3 times this games." Or "try hitting a buffered giant swing" it makes rounds worth more XP. Even if you lose the whole match getting those little wins really cranks up the momentum
Whenever I play Strive sets with friends or in front of friends and I'm playing Sol my priorities shift from winning / not making mistakes to "how many times can i hit HMC in this one set". I've thrown several games by doing this but hitting the funny grab never gets old.
I tend to set myself challenges like that, usually to try to do something I've been practicing or try to improve at reacting to something, sometimes just fun stuff to mess with my friends like throwing them as much as possible or trying to get them to waste meter
I'm still pretty bad at fighting games, but I've taken a sick obsession with corner juggles in any fighting game I can use them in. It's not "What gives me the most damage", it becomes "How long can I just make this person go up, down, up down, up down". I'll always devolve back into the meta slave gameplay when I seriously want to win, but the games where I'm just stringing moves I ordinarily would never do is honestly where I'm having the most fun.
After playing Smash for years, I’m finally getting into traditional fighters with GGST. Currently, setting goals to hit a simple combo or even just recognize situations in which I could hit one is the only thing motivating me to improve right now. I know I’ll eventually have the execution in the back pocket, but for now the mental stack is just focused on simple growth.
My each session has a sub-objective that gets harder as a progress with that character. I consider the session "won" if either I win the session or complete the sub-objective. At first those will be just "Land bnb from every type of launcher" to "insert crazy setup here". During those as you noticed I will find something really interesting about the character I play and discover that character in a whole new way.
@@DazIsBambo Your content helped me get from floor 7 to Celestial in strive. And as far as in-match conditions go; I often throw out moves like Testament’s TP feint to dodge projectiles. It’s risky, but funny to see a projectile or even overdrive whiff
I helped you do that? I'm flattered! But congratulations on improving and fighting celestial! Your teleport tricks with Testament is exactly what I'm talking about. Just fun stuff to do that makes you feel good, without it needing to be about winning!
Thank you! It was your video on Zoning that helped and that’s why I subbed. I was a newbie trying to improve and I didn’t understand anything about Zoners or countering them until then :)
when I get bored I learn a low tier to show others that they are more broke than people claim they are. Became an inside joke with my friends where I would "expose" new characters every month lmao. I only really focus on winning in tournaments and when my buddies talked shit but I dont really have fun with that, I just like sparring, learning and using my character. But it can also go the other way around, pick the broken braindead top tier and making your friends suffer can also be very entertaining. One of my friends also has infamously abuses dp's where Im starting to think his goal is to hit as many wakeup grabs and dp's as possible, he never just blocks on wakeup Very useful is to just hyperfocus on using tech or mechanics that you cant apply well and just spam it vs lesser experienced players where a "normal battle" would be of little challenge anyways until you can reliably use them in all kind of scenario's Loving all the new uprising fg content creators
my favorite little challenge is that blocking isnt allowed. parrys only! i do this one way too often to the point where i actually dont block easy stuff and just go for parries on the stupidest things 😂
This video explains why I get bored even with my favorite fighting games (or games from a different genre) after playing them for so long. I should try to take this mindset on more because the only time I do improve or have any fun is when I have a goal. Otherwise I'll just hop on the game like a mindless zombie and regret playing since nothing special is going on. Thank you for this insightful video.
i'd do this but as a means to an end. so adressing habits, making sure i nail some combo x times consistently, finally hit these habits etc. ironically the more you stress about doing them the harder they get and the more frsutrating it gets when you stop seeing progress on them as all the stuff you need to work on keeps piling up. now, i'll make it a habit to see if i can get away with the stupidest option i can think of at least once every other set or so. because of instead of dwelling on how interactions are supposed to go, i can allow myself to be plesantly surprised by whatever actually happened. fighting games are an amalgamation of code that's as functional as possible, player's feelings, and the execution of the fleshy meat bags those feelings pilot. the results are almost always objectively hilarious
My absolute favourite thing to do in fighting games is making people make mistakes and then beating them while imitating them. I'm a very wholesome person but I love being a little shit and if I can help someone realise their mistakes while at it, all the better!
The way I enjoy fighting games is that I simply play them for the characters/music and only in Arcade mode. Not the most popular method I assume, but still.
lord i was an answer main the moment i saw those xrd instantkills, there is truly no other character that feels like a privilege that i am able to indulge in. It is answer that gave me a reason to keep playing lmao
Tekken when I'm going against someone who's letting me do random things that others wouldn't in ranked, I try to hit crazy unsafe moves like slow unblockables, relaunches, or in GG: Just see if I can hit a Charged Dust into a combo I learned online
Omega strikers has been a lot of fun for me. With it being team based a lot of these challenges can be applied to even better team work. The game is so simple alot of the time you can have faith in your Randoms to do cool shit like passing the ball to you. However in a call with friends of varying skill levels I go from the guy carrying to the one partaking in the fun when I try to help aid my friends in ending certain bad habits. I'm diamond while all my friends are that or wayyyy below that rank so me going," I dare you to pass to me" or "Don't get Ko'd I'm walling you off the next chance I get" Are little challenges I've given to my friends to help win games while having fun and keeping things mellow even in ranked matches.
That's a great video! The mentality of "I need to win everytime I play" is really flawed and negatively affects your psyche. I have psychological education and I've seen this too much. Let yourself lose at least in games, people, you don't actually lose anything. Have some different fun! Hilarious ending, by the way =)
I feel this is the same reazon why I always end up picking low tier characters, I'm not very good at fighting games, but the satisfaction of doing something "cool" or winning with a character that everyone else ignores because some pro players says that this character is bad because "X" reazons is what drives me to keep playing
This actually helped me a bit. I pretty much quit playing after EVO due to disappointing myself, but I Might jump back in the FGC pool and just try to go back to forgetting about winning and go back to just trying to do hype shit.
i think one of the reasons i tend to play defensive-heavy characters is because, like you said, auto-piloting offense can just get really boring after a while. anytime i play very aggressive characters i end up wanting to change chars in a couple of months.
My challenges are the reason I end up losing most matches because I focus too heavily on the trying to get the enemy to jump and not MASH LIKE A LUNATIC so I can air grab them. Or something something funny dp.
Once i was at the arcade with a friend of mine playing hftf... i was Joseph and on a win streak, but wanted to change to Dio, so i let him win. But not just "let him win" i let him win BUT tried to get as much counters as i cold. Later that day on kof02 i also spammed mai's butt. That day i was being TOXIC and i LOVED it. One of these days i shold try letting myself go and actually use TOTSUGEKKI! BUT I HAVE MORALS!
i can see right through your tactics. You're just trying to get players to improve by focusing on a certain aspect of their gameplay instead of purely winning
Aren't they just trying to read you jumping to the scroll? He's right over it and if you moved to it you'd be hit, not a great move but an reasonable plan
@@DazIsBambo I spent so much time in the computer lab playing SFO; I didn't even know about MVC at the time. Apparently, the website is still up and possibly even still active since there's recent footage and discord link for it. Also, KOF WING would transition from Flash to MUGEN and is still being worked on.
Haven't finished the video yet. I'm not all that good at fighting games so my different way to enjoy them after i got my main fill is to pick a secondary and then a tertiary and so on
I did that a lot when learning mvc3. It wasn't enough to win, I needed to try and win with the lv3 super. In hindsight, I probably should have used phoenix.
You like sprite fights? Have you watched Super Mario Bros Z? Watch Mecha Sonic vs Yoshi. But yes, I set challenges for myself in Smash: Use Zelda with no B moves. Use Fox but only play reactionary; no spamming.
I could have saved you a lot of time on the “make them do wild dp” 1) play sfv. 2) get match to ken 3) 50% chance the will just do like crazy (mostly memeing)
My challenges are always just different sells expression ways of drinking glue. Run up dp 5 times? Got it. Wake up wild throw? Of course. Gauntlet hades in neutral? Why not. Carnage scissors? *Yes*
I liked the video, subscribed and now you are obligated to read this comment. I tend to try to use set ups and mini mind games that other people neglect on characters. I both want to show my opponents "Hey this is a thing" but I also relish in being the only one who knows about it, which is a bit conflicting, and always end up with me showing people the things I've come up with. This way I get to use my best skill in fighting games, blocking. Then wait until I get a chance to show something cool my opponent has never seen before, and go back to blocking again. Here is where I would put my examples if I dare share them: In BlazBlue: Chrono Phantasma Extend, I have a Ragna set up on knocked down opponents, where I high jump, intentionally whiff j.B or J.A (to make them DP), aerial backdash, and then use Blood Scythe to punish their DP mid air. It doesn't always work, but many players just assume that I'm vulnerable after whiffing. Most other set ups I have in that game are ways to land instant kills, or dumb combos that carry someone from one side of the screen to the other, so there's not much to share. In Tekken 7 I play Lucky Chloe because when I swapped from T6 to T7 people told me "Do not pick Lucky Chloe." I now have enough Chloe tricks that most players haven't seen that I can spend 5 rounds showing them new things. Most fun ones are extremely unsafe. (Can't give away my secrets to someone as great as you though) I was planning to write more, but I fell asleep.
Haha, well thank you for subbing and commenting! That message really did make stop to read this first lol My god though, I think you're my fighting game twin, since I also love blocking and love just showing people things to make them go "that exists?" We COMPLETELY differ in character picks though.
Becoming a pro fgc player seems to be laughable when brought up to people. Many times have others said "Just give up" or "No, you're not." Wonder if this is out of pure jealousy, or they're hiding their insecurities because they don't have the drive. One could only wonder :D
