This is very real. Often I'll encounter a player with a very one-dimensional gameplan and think, "why can't I just beat them?" and the answer I've found is that I know the options they're picking aren't "good", but I don't fully understand *why* they're not good. Is it because they're inconsistent and the risk/reward doesn't fall on their side against a player that knows what they're doing? Is it advantageous because it beats someone trying to "beat" your option, but it leaves you to get punished against someone with the patience to block? Are they running something you know is fake, but you don't know where your opportunity is? Until you learn the answer to that question, *and* a way to answer it, you will not be able to beat them. For example, I played against an I-No a while back who would just switch between jumping in and divekicking at various heights with various amounts of delay. I thought it was bad because I knew she was coming from the air and I could just 6P her, but it was so inconsistent and winning the trade meant returning to neutral with a little damage: losing it meant she got to mix me. After about 20 games I started just blocking and 5Ping her, and things started to stabilize. I just had to have a consistent answer to that option, and it stopped being a threat when it wasn't a mixup. On the other hand, I played a Ky as Testament a few weeks ago who would constantly stun dipper and blow me up from neutral, making it very hard for me to maintain space. I started punishing him with 2K > 2D > 236S, but since it didn't do much damage, it didn't effectively discourage him from using that option, so my neutral and zoning was still in shambles. It wasn't until I took the opportunity to learn a punish that allowed me to deal decent damage and set up pressure that I was able to address his over-reliance on one option, and disincentivize it enough to create room for me to play the matchup. So yeah. Now I start to think of players like this as like, puzzle enemies in games. If you don't have an answer they'll destroy you. But if you let them teach you what skills you need to have under your belt, they can help you identify weaknesses to become a better player.
This is exactly the correct way to think about it. I have been playing fighting games so long that I literally treat every player I come across online like a bag of two or three tricks that once I solve its just over. I definitely still lose, but this attitude means that I make the opponent show me that they are more than that bag and that allows me to lose to worse players less than I would otherwise trying to actively read them.
@@TsukumoYatsuhashi Yeah yeah! There might be a better one, but I've been using 2D > 236H> microdash > 5K > 6H. It's a little precise, but it works. 236S won't connect at the end, so you can end it with either Arbiter Sign for the extra damage, or do 236[S] full charge to obstruct their grounded approach and set up zoning.
@@TsukumoYatsuhashi if you IB the second hit, you can usually get close slash for a full punish. If you don't get the IB, you have to spend meter to make it hurt. I recommend this: 5S xx 5HS 6RC cl.S xx 214P, 5K dash cancel, stain hits, cl. S xx 6HS xx 236S/super.
This is a thing in combat sports and also games like chess, you get used to dealing with the standard predictable 'strong' moves, or the textbook responses, but someone who is just vibin out and doing whatever can really throw a wrench into the works. They may not have any overarching strategy, and when you're used to people that have one it's super confusing. Ultimately this is where having a solid first layer pays off though.
I think the real problem is definitely in the mindset of thinking X style of play is weaker (usually more disrespectful mashing and DP heavy styles), but then not adjusting to beat them like you said. Then it becomes a double ego problem because you just *assume* your opponent will respect you, and when they don't, because you haven't enforced respect, you get upset. I feel like I have the opposite problem (probably from fighting many netplay Sols, Baikens, and Slayers in Xrd), where I basically treat my opponent like a caged animal, staying as far and safe as possible, keeping pressure as tight as I can, until you've proven you're not a gorilla who got access to Melty Blood or whatever
I find myself thinking this sometimes when an opponent is just mashing or just doing the same thing over and over. I always have to stop and remind myself that if they are beating me they aren't a weaker player, it's my fault for not being able to adapt. They might be doing these things specifically because I keep allowing them to work. Maybe they're cracking up right now at me because I won't adapt.
The only thing I'd say is maybe not try to imagine the last sentence too much, haha. I think portraying a faceless opponent, as someone antagonistic/judgemental, can also do a great deal in making the learning/growing experience harder. I think most of us are just having a good time, and we all know how it feels to learn through whoopin, so there's no judgement.
@@demidevilqueen yea I was just saying it hypothetically. I don't think it's plausible that's the case. You usually can tell if someone is an angry player just by their mannerisms lol. That and they usually teabag
Mostly what the opponent doing to you is knowledge checking if their doing the same thing over and over. Because they know that you're not blocking, the move itself is pub stomper that casual will have a hard time to deal with, or their trolling.
@@Underground3 not always, I'm not just saying like in GGST. I meant this as a very broad comment. Sometimes in some games characters really just do have broken stuff that they can spam and there is a knowledge check involved to an extent but also sometimes it's just because the move is broken lol.
@@gregoryolenovich6440 That why I pacifically say pub stomper moves. Because for casuals they will consider those to be broken when the opponent is taken advantage of their lack of knowledge of dealing with it. Where as character like season one Happy Chaos who can lock you down in full screen. I can consider that as broken. Due to no way of interacting his zoning and you have to sit there and block it. Other people may consider that not to be broken from other fighting games they played. I not that its broad so to say, it just the word "broken" has been use soo vaguely from casual and veterans. Lordknight even made a video about it.
Why can't you beat bad players? Lots of reasons but 3 big ones IMO. 1) Because they don't know how to guess wrong. 2) You can't condition somebody who doesn't even know why they should be scared. 3) How can you 50/50 somebody who doesn't know 100% of the options?
Imo what you are saying is not that true 1). A bad player still has to choose an option if you put them in a Guess, so you just need to identify what they go for and counter that, exemple : high/ low mix, and he is always blocking low, go for overhead, or you réalise that they always mash on block, just delay your attacks. 2) if you realize they are playing random then you can just straight up skip the conditioning part and go for simple options that will hit, for exemple delaying attacks since they will mostly mash on block, no need to mix here, or you can just let them kill themselves with unsafe stuff. 3) here again, no need to go for mix since you don't need them here, and it's even better since they don't know 100% of the options, hit them with the one they don't know over and over until they realize it, then change your option. Imo the reason someone can't beat bad players is a lack of fundamentals and adaptation to your opponent instead of following a flowchart like a bot,which also means that person is not really as good as they think they are.
I'm kinda surprised so many folks agree with this. Your layer 1 should essentially deal with all of this. If you layer 1 relies on implicit threat, complete knowledge, and proactive offense (most of the time), then your layer one is flawed. 1. Assuming you mean someone DOESN'T know what wrong is, and isn't simply just correct all the time, you layer 1 should not rely on the opponent guessing wrong to open someone up, or allow you to win neutral. Your layer 1 should be designed in such a way that you (generally speaking) don't need to guess to start your BASIC offense. Odds are, your BASIC offense will not look like top player of your choice, for reasons below. 2. If you cannot condition someone that is simply mashing/highrolling on defense all the time, or they simply will not respect A to get to B (i.e. you play Ky, and they will not respect meaty 5k), this issue is not that 'they don't know enough to know why they should fear my oki,' this issue is that YOU are not running your offense in such a way to condition effectively to begin with. In the aforementioned example, just hit 2d, problem solved. YOU need to pay enough attention on offense to adjust to when they start blocking 2d, so that you can go back to running strike throw, or whatever. If they mash in minus frames most every time, then you can simply frame trap them, EVERY TIME. No need to condition them, since they've already conditioned themselves to begin with. 3. A 50/50 really shouldn't rely on the opponent know all of the options, that's a false assumption. If I run cross under mix with Zato using BTL during sandwich pressure, and you mash because you paid 60$ to hit buttons and not block and you snipe Eddie by accident, that's not your fault for not know my sick-nasty cross under unreachable mix, that's my dumbass's fault because I didn't keep it gapless against someone who simply does not know what the implicit threat of mashing (a full combo for me) is. My base 50/50 is functionally gapless and therefore it doesn't matter if my opponent knows all the options, since they either get command grabbed or get hit by a low. Only once my first/layer 1 pressure/mix stops working can I implement other ones. When you copy a top player's mix, or what GameStorageCh or whatever, NO ONE is playing layer 1 at that level because they are all (generally) strong enough players to have complete matchup knowledge. I always used to wonder why high level Zatos only generally showed 2 options after 5h pierce, which was 5h drill or simply double down straight into mix despite the gap being there. Before I learned why they run pressure that way and I copied it, I got bodied for doing it, a lot, until I learned what the previous corresponding layer was in order to plug the gap. @nilsix2371 said it fairly well, your issue isn't that your opponent is playing the game the 'wrong' way, its that you've xcopied a top player flowchart, without actually learning how to cover all the things the top players AREN'T doing.
Some people play against your character, while others play against you as a player, disregarding conventional strategy to do what they know will rattle you and win that way. In the coreA video on mindgames he mentioned how NuckleDu would play guile against one chun li player and r.mima vs another, because he knew he could do better by using a grapper to scare one and use a zoner to frustrate the other, and that is the essense of someone who reaches through the screen to bit you directly and creates the kind of bruised ego that makes you want to claim that person is not a good player rather than acknowledging that you have a weakness in your mental game that was exploited ruthlessly.
The other thing I've seen on this topic is that because top players have developed their own strategy with the matchup, they are sometimes also baiting you into digging your own grave rather than just pressing forward. It often means that it feels like you have more room to breathe despite actually having much less.
Like Punk will famously say "their random". Good players half the time are one-dimensional, very safe playing style. So their easy to read and go again. Whereas Bad players will throw out random unsafe moves that you will never expect anyone to throw out willy nilly due to get punished heavily for it. Making any option they throw out unpredictable.
Lol u cant call a good player 1 dimensional, a good player is going to adapt after the first game or even mid game and know how to mix up safe and unsafe at a tempo thats hard to predict....thats why theyre good.
@@maxrusty3596 If you know the character good moves, the optimal damage it lead and what to expect from that character. Then there's not much mix for you to expect other then blocking it or taken the throw. You don't expect a good player at game start, to hit you with a punishable 20 frame start up move or DP. Who in the hell would risk Iosing 70% health and end up losing the round from it?
@@Underground3 A bad player...point being a good player is going to do that when u least expect it. A good player isnt 1 dimensional thats all im saying i know what u were trying to say that good players are solid and dont take too many unnecessary risks unless they see u are respecting them too much. But u said 1 dimensional and thats just not true.
Great video! Love these deep dive, psychological videos. I think the biggest thing of "doing bad vs weak players" is when you're looking at the "You Lose" screen and you know that what they were doing SHOULDN'T have worked. As you said about respecting certain playstyles over others, sometimes if an opponent exploits a weakness of yours its easy to write it off as "they're doing a bad thing because they're a bad player" and not acknowledge that they've noticed that you don't react/block/punish the bad thing, so they just keep doing it. I've caught myself in this trap a tonne of times. Got a buddy whos much better at fighting games, and gets away with some "gimmicky" plays (thats what I call it) because I'm bad at punishing those kinds of plays so the risk reward becomes heavily skewed in their favour. It was very frustrating, (and still is a little) but became much better when I looked at it from the perspective that I am letting them get away with continuously doing this gimmick. Once that becomes the focus it at least gives a clear goal to work towards. I think this is similar to when people face someone who they think is worse, they fail to punish the "bad" playstyle and then criticise the opponent as someone who will never be able to get above X rank because "this is all they do". When I lose to a "bad" player, I like to watch it back thinking "what would (insert favourite pro player here) have done, because they wouldn't have lost vs this player". It almost always comes down to - Anti airing/punishing unsafe stuff/ etc. Great video again, keep up the good content :)
This speaks to my thoughts about a lot of competitive games. People will call things/players Bad without actually dissecting what they mean by that, and a lot of times Bad means suboptimal for a specific competitive environment, but then when you're facing someone that's either completely disregarding the meta or just ignorant of it you can get really thrown off.
There’s a saying in Jiu -Jitsu class. “The monster dangerous opponents are white belts” The don’t know what NOT to do and can really hurt people on accident.
I see this in Tekken all the time. Someone has watched some Tekken tournaments. Maybe they saw some hype Arslan Ash playing Kazumi way back when and figure they want to play like that and install Tekken for the first time. So they go for this very safe, low risk poke and footsies playstyle because that is how high level Tekken players usually play the game. But as soon as they meet players who don't play like that they get blown up. Then they complain, start talking about lab-characters, refuse to adjust their playstyle because they are "playing correctly" and eventually get burnt out and stop playing the game. If you choose a playstyle where you WILL LOSE if your defense is not on the level of someone who has played Tekken for 2 years while your opponent does BIG LAUNCHERS DO BIG DAMAGE, THIS STRING HAS OPTIONS, BIG LOW FUNNY. Then you are just RPSing with bad odds and you will lose. I respect the effort to go all in on a playstyle you are unable to execute because you believe you will eventually improve and be able to do it. But at some point please just take W and stop torturing yourself. You are not learning good habits or good neutral from these players anyway. Half of the time they will not even punish your risky moves. Learn to see when they are "stealing their turn" and call them out hard and take the rank up. This is the lesson to learn from matches like this.
I love playing against wild aka "bad" players. Helps remind me that I don't always need to respect players as good or better than me in every situation.
As well as the stuff with random moves, bad but unexpected attacks, etc, something I've found is that playing against better players simply forces me to play better. If someone's two ranks below me in the tower and throwing out punishable moves everywhere, I'll get sloppy and possibly get my ass kicked for it. But if I'm fighting for my life against a winstreaking Ky Kiske, I'll end up playing better because I have no choice -- it's the only way I can stay in the game. This is a bit of a different point than whether I'll win or lose -- I'll still probably win against the bad player and probably lose against the good one. But in both cases it always ends up being more even than I'd expect, just because I'm unconsciously adjusting myself to my opponent.
I feel it's very easy to find a sort of flowchart for different matchups. 'Guile wants to hold down back' type of things, and you just expect them to act according to the flowchart. If the opponent then doesn't care for the flowchart, they get the advantage of catching you with something you both don't expect and aren't familiar with. It doesn't matter if their shit is fake, if you don't know it yet, you're probably taking that L before figuring it out.
There's a bit of convoluted banter that isn't "wrong" but can be dumbed down to newcomers being surprisingly pragmatic but erratic. I sometimes win sets against Pro players ON ISABELLE in smash simply by rotating being erratic & violent vs campy. And they'll STILL have the audacity to tell me I'm playing her wrong despite how effective it is. "Good players" tend to believe that Meta = Correct, and often have a very warped perception of what *IS* good but the irony is that a bullet proof vest wont do much in a knife fight - even if the knife is dull.
17:37 Its funny when you can play a "Low-tier" character, *and win consistently* because the opponent doesnt know some really basic knowledge check. Or the Inverse when you're consistently winning against *high-tier* characters because they just see the character is in placing highly in tourneys but dont understand why. I did not fear Gordeau/Ruby in BBTAG at launch *at all* cause whenever I fought one, they would just Grim-reapa/Buzzsaw active switch, and not abuse the glitch at all.
These notes are helpful, but I think these types of videos would benefit from interspersed clips demonstrating the points. Especially with viewer submitted matches who are the ones who suffer from the videos topic.
so if I'm most likely to lose to someone that excels in an area I am undervaluing/underdeveloped in... of course I often think the person I lose to is bad... wow this is fucking actually mindblowing to me right now. It makes sense you'd get baited on this a lot. I need to ditch the whole framework. been working on it, but my brain is just so used to the same thought loops. I'll get there. this helps so much.
I've seen countless people say this but never experienced it. Random/scrambly/rock thrower like to over-extend and take unnecessary risk, easy to exploit. Basically, trust your disrespect instinct.
Whenever I play some of my friends who are newer to fgs, I usually remove pretty much all the layers from my mix, because basic mix is enough and you gotta learn how to deal with basic mix first before you can start tackling the more layered stuff anyway
I've done this a lot in fighting games and made some upsets because of it. But it's also has happened to me numerous times because my opponent would just not know what I'm doing so they would throw out random shot that would halt my conditioning.
I was playing ram into Ino 8 months ago or so (before the Rekka buffs) felt like I couldn’t handle the matchup against a certain type of player. It was a player who - at the edge of my 5k range would literally always float 5H or stroke. I figured out the option they presented early on, but could not for the life of me find a good consistent answer. If I defaulted to block IAD back or some defensive option I felt like I was putting myself in their mix wincon and If I was hit I’d be going back into the mini blender (my defense was also pretty bad back then since my high/low blocking was on Xbox controller) and I felt like ram had objectively better frame data at that spacing. Nowadays ram can convert way better off 5K/2K but at the time It felt impossibly stressful where I’d just preempt 5K and hit confirm to basically reset into a very similar position until I got them in the corner. After one particularly frustrating set I thought about my options and said “wait a sec… fuck it I can just make him explode” and hit a raw 2H. Literally an option I’ve never chosen in any matchup in my life up until this point. Counter hit into their 70% of their life since ram combos are baby mode to think on the fly. I’ve never felt so good about something. 2 sets later that Ino would block or present safe options at that space and I could 5S again! It was a whole new matchup! I felt so justified when I saw supernoon use 2H against an Ino in the same spot and even though it wiffed I was like “I get it!! I know why he’s doing it!”
As weird as this sounds, this reminds me of stuff I talk to people about. In my line of work I talk to people about motivations and stuff and I've had a lot of people talk to me about how the "worse" or "lesser" person got a job/an award/an opportunity that they as a "better" or "stronger" person should have gotten. A lot of it comes down to me walking them through the idea of maybe you are better than them at one thing but they might be better than you at something else ie talking and networking with people. It all comes down to being able to think on all sides instead of just a one sided dimension.
I was thinking about this concept but everytime I hear this thought I just remind myself that mashers don't just win majors, so skilled players can beat any weaker/inexperienced players.
If the bad player is doing it and the good player isn't doing it, then that just means there's counterplay. Good players typically respect your ability to counter risky things while midlevel players don't; however, as soon as it becomes clear you don't know the counterplay, you're going to get foudre arc'd 100 times in the corner.
"frustrated with people I thought were weaker than me but I was still getting beat?" Who are you, from where are you spying in my house?!?! But yeah, I had a bit of a moment like this last weekend and I got pretty mad (for the first time in Strive, actually). I think what can be frustrating is that when you feel like for whatever reason the other player is not as sophisticated as you (and really this is what it boils down to in the end, I feel) there are a couple of things that happen: 1 - Is that you can start auto-piloting so you become more predictable, make more unforced errors, etc... 2 - Frustration sets in because a lot of the time, rather than feeling like you got outplayed, it felt like you made a mistake on your own, you played yourself. And getting out of that mindset can be really tricky. When you're on a roll you're adapting all the time, figuring out new tricks as you go. But when you're trapped in that frustration, it gets harder and harder to adapt, so you keep sinking lower. I know a lot of my problem was that my execution was just complete garbage, I was on a proper bad off day. But still... hard to shake the feeling
A good player won't be jumping at ryu cause they know you're not supposed to do that. A weak player doesn't know this, so they keep jumping, and now the ryu is challenged to antiair consistently. This is why you do "better" against "stronger" players. The BEST players will notice that the ryu can't antiair shit and will jump like scrubs. Justin Wong once said that the best player is the one that's in front of you. Not daigo, not the ones you see on youtube, but the one that you are playing right now. They're the one you have to beat right now, so pay attention, and do what you need to do. Nothing less nothing more. Then on to the next one.
mikado xrd matches, for example, are awesome, but they are playing AGAINST the BETTER options of the other. they are playing a wilder game, yet a more thoughfull at the same time
If you're doing worse against bad players, then you're not that much better than them. If you're a stronger player you should be able to figure out how to win faster than your opponent.
Sometimes when you copy an option a good player does you dont know the why. Maybe its a safe jump setup, and your opponent is just mashing backdash on every wakeup, and you're not covering backdash. 'this Zato is just mashing backdash, what a scrub' but like, lol if it working why would they change. Coming back to Stive in season 2 I had trouble (as Chipp) players holding up back on me a lot, or mashing 2k/p. So I tightened up my meaties and made 1-2 frame gaps in pressure. Take the opportunity when playing a 'worse player' to learn how to deal with the options their choosing over and over. lol its like having a human training dumby!
I view it from balance issues with X game (characters with cheap, safe and easier gameplans) and my own inability to adapt and read. In SFV I was almost Platinum a few weeks ago with multiple win streaks... Then suddenly I started to only lose lose lose and my mind was in shock. like wtf is going on!? Now I am almost down to regular Gold again and all I can do is scratch my head hahah! Like... what happened? It's like all of a sudden, I can't win at all xD Basically, feels like someone hit me with a level down spell hahaha!
Idk, I feel like in the modern age, majority of games give us pretty direct feedback, especially with the concept of replays. Like, there's nothing more insightful as to what we need to improve on as players, than watching a replay and seeing the culminaiton of decisions that cost us the round. That aside, Romolla also brings up a great point. The skillset of an individual player is a result of the skillset of the community. Which also means it's always changing too. What was considered what's platinum one month, could be gold the next, and vice versa depending on the playerbase and how we interact with one another. So in that sense, it also means most in-game ranking systems can't actually define how skilled we are, and we shoudn't use them to value ourselves either.
@@demidevilqueen Some good points there. But in order to help you grow as a player I believe you need some defined lines to help build a structured progression. Watching a replay only shows you specific random scenarios based upon the interactions you had with that individual which can change in a frame apart in the next encounter. How relevant the interaction in the replay actually was is more dependent on if the situation was a knowledge check or a read/guess. Training modes are one of the most helpful tools when it comes to frame data and specific match up knowledge and situations. But it does not help with reads and guessing. Even with the evolving community collective skill, the ranks still tell us where on the progression ladder we stand in accordance with the majority of players. The highest ranks still hold stronger players than lower ranks. Which means the goal remains until you reach a high enough skill level that your "rank" is based on tournament results more than in game rankings. So, I still believe that ranks in games are very valuable, even if they are not the alpha and omega. Ranks may not help us know how much we grow on a day-to-day basis, but over time it will start to show the effects of your accumulated hard work. All I can do is take it one step at a time. I play a lot of lobby and casual matches and I see ranked as the proving grounds to test what I have learned. Every time I get to a higher rank, I play more casual matches because I then get matched up with the higher ranks instead of maybe instantly rank down and not get a chance to play people at the new rank.
this discussion often sweeps under the rug that developers lean into this and try to help the weaker player win interactions by accident. like if a DBFZ player is mashing auto combo, there's no way to counter this except to block and then take your turn to do the same thing. Hopefully eeking out a 60% win rate over time. but in a less maliciously designed game the better player would just counter poke it and win. It's mostly in the last decade of fighting games where you have to be careful to only stay one step ahead of your opponent.
