Do you know how? I’m guessing you do. It’s not as hard as it sounds. I bet everyone’s tried to perfect the computer at some point. I’m sure everyone’s played against runaway specialists and decided to patiently avoid everything instead of chasing them down.
So then, what makes it so difficult to do this when you’re one blocked special move away from death? The fear is all psychological, right? Like the whole beam-walking on the ground versus walking on a beam between skyscrapers quandary.
When you watch Daigo make those crazy comebacks with no life left, does it ever seem like he’s playing scared? When you see Kobe take a game-winner with his team down two points at the buzzer, does it ever look like he thinks he’s going to miss? That’s how you have to play. If you know you can make the shot, don’t allow yourself to think any different simply because of numbers on a clock (or colors on a lifebar).
You know, Kobe doesn’t always make those and Daigo doesn’t always win those, but you’re much better off with that confident mix of focus and determination than without. If you don’t already know exactly what to do in that situation, come up with a plan quickly and execute it. Embrace the moment, because there’s no better way to develop that clutch instinct than forcing yourself to face crunch time head-on.
I believe honesty is the key. Sadly, a lot of people actually come up with execuses for why they’re losing before the round even ends! Can you think of a more massive waste of brainpower? There’s no sense trying to figure out what to blame, because at the end of the day it doesn’t really matter to anyone but you.
It’s one thing to downplay a loss to save face when your friends are giving you a hard time, but don’t make excuses in your head to soothe your own ego. Trust me, you’re never going to get better beyond a certain mediocre point unless you’re brutally honest with yourself. Lying to yourself only ever holds you back.
Focus on the task at hand, forget about what comes next, don’t worry about any of the people watching, and do what needs to be done – because “if you’re not prepared to be wrong then you’ll never come up with anything original.”
On a related note, learn how to use the clock. When you’ve got a health lead with time running out, don’t run away out of fear. Run away to make your opponent make mistakes in a rush to come at you; and think ahead so you’ll be ready when it happens. The last thing you want to see in a replay is them jumping at you and you blocking or messing up an uppercut.
Sometimes I simply quit 1st round but I charge super meter for 2nd one. I’m thinking that my supers are too precious to be wasted. If I use all supers and lose 1st round I have nothing left in 2nd round. If it’s a Guilty Gear kind of game I have nothing to lose if I try to comeback.
That’s fine. Most of the time i think it’s better to try to win the round, but you can certainly sacrifice a near-hopeless round for meter. But then your challenge should be to charge as much meter as possible before you die, while at same time costing your opponent meter to finish you off.
Plus if you manage to succeed, you’ll have accomplished something which gives you confidence and mental momentum going into the next round. Either way, there’s no reason you can’t try to win without using meter and seize the opportunity to learn something (about yourself).
I would try to win of course. I’m usually rushing down opponent when I have little health.
Seeking opening and landing super. Punishing his moves with super. But what if I start rushing right away and get KO-ed? Then I haven’t accomplished anything in order to win the match. So, charge meter THEN try to win for me.
Nice write up Maj, especially that TEDTalk reference! Didn’t know you watched TED either haha.
Pretty much agree with everything you wrote there. Don’t give into the pressure and let it affect you. Block it out and just simply play your game, calm and cool. It takes a lot of mental strength, but it’ll come with experience.
If you ever play without HUD this totally helps you forget about your heath and just play to win. I used to play 3S with no HUD then save the replays and be amazed at how I would play different all because I had no idea what my or my opponents health and meter were at.
brocko: Haha can’t remember how i found that video. Must have been linked by a friend or something. But yeah, i liked it a lot.
crappypatty: That’s pretty clever! Watching your own matches is always a great way to learn though. Trying to replay everything from memory can be too difficult.
Hello there!
First of all, I’m from Mexico, so, sorry for my english.
Second, I’been reading your strategy guide, footsies, clutch situations, etc, and all I can say is that you are amazing!. I’ve also read S-Kill domination 101, Sirlin playin to win book and your at the top man, thanks for your exellent and hard job, I really appreciate it.
Third, this is where the problems beguins. Here in Mexico King of Fighters series are more played than Street Fighter. This past sunday I went to a little tournament (like a 40 participant), the game was The King of Fighters 2002 (the original version, not the unlimited match) and something happen to me, something that I was not prepare to: I don’t want to keep playing, I’ve loose that killer instinct and trow the match away, I don’t care anymore If I win or loose. It’s strange because I was pretty exited about the tournament, I’ve train daily for a month, I did a pretty good 1st bracket (I win 2-1 and the match that I loose I almost make a pretty good comeback, 5 % of my health drained the 90% of my opponent health, It was my third character against the complete 3 of my opponent), so the thing was cool, but sudenly in the second qualyfiers I lost my focus, I lost my will to fight, simply I don’t wanna keep playin’.
I’m pretty angry with me because I don’t wanna keep playin. To me it doesn’t matter if I got to play against a tournament champion or a beguinner, it’s just another player, the same amount of time, health, the best wins that’s all, but still I don’t know what happened to me.
Did someone had experience this?, how can I handle it?
I have another question:
Why in fighting games people tend to pick the characters that are easy to use or top tiers instead of picking someone else? SF III had Chun or Ken, MvC2 had Cable, Sent, Mag, Storm, KoF 2002 had Kim, Billy, Iori. Why does people choose the boring path of pick the strong character instead of train hard with a medium tier for example?. Is it impossible to win a tournament with a medium or bottom tier?
I don’t wanna sound like a scrub, but I wonder if people are that lazy? does they really enojoy playing a character just because it has strong easy to use tools?
Maybe you can say that everybody uses different the same character but I don’t think so, at least here and at least in KoF.
Thanks for your time and patience, sorry again for my english.
Hm. Interesting question, sir. Have you asked yourself why you stopped caring? Because there are a lot of possible reasons for it and i don’t want to guess blindly. Maybe someone standing next to you was eating a delicious-smelling pizza and you were really hungry?
I understand your complaint about the tiers problem, but it’s a little more complicated than it seems. Let me tell you a story. Before everyone started watching matches on the internet, everyone had to learn from their local communities. So all the new players basically looked up to the best player they could find and started by duplicating their play style.
This led to very interesting results at Evo because we started noticing that were a lot of Shotos were from SoCal, a lot of Dhalsims were from NorCal, a lot of Vegas were from the upper East Coast, and so on. What happened was the best player in SoCal played Shotos and the best player on the East Coast played Vega, so when new players were trying to figure out how the game should be played, they saw a specific character winning all the tournaments. So they chose that character to learn. What’s funny is it wasn’t even true top tiers because the different regions disagreed on tiers until they met and somebody won.
So i think part of the tier problem comes from new players simply trying to understand how the game should be played and seeing one character show up all the time. It’s much clearer to imitate a top player’s style than it is to come up with your own style, especially with a character you have to invent on your own, especially when you’re new to the game.
Another problem is that MvC2 Cable/Sent/Mag/Storm are simply way more fun to play than the other characters. Part of being top tier means your character is powerful and versatile. If you play Spider-Man, you have to play a specific way and usually you only have one way to win. If you play Sentinel, you have many different options to choose from and you can control the match many different ways. It seems boring to see the same characters over and over if you hate top tiers, but as a player it’s hard to blame people for choosing more interesting characters.
Also regarding laziness, it’s true that some players like to win with minimal effort. But then again some top tier characters require a lot of work too. For example Mag/Storm/Psy requires a lot more skill to master than Cap/Guile/Charlie. It’s hard to blame someone for picking a team with a much higher ceiling, you know?
But sometimes people definitely hurt themselves with tier whoring. I think there are some potentially amazing Terry players out there who are wasting their talents trying to play Billy when it doesn’t fit their style at all. But what can you do? It happens.
Mr. Maj or maybe I should call you Mr. Maj-ster (like “Master” but with a “j” jajajaja…lol). You are pretty inteligent guy and your work and comments support that. What you said about power and versatiliy in a character or team of characters is true. But what happens when you really like a character but it isn’t “good” enough? or had pretty bad match-ups against the characters that “everybody” uses? For example: In KoF 2002 I began playin’ with Yashiro, Chris, Terry; then I switch to Kula, Terry and Takuma, then Takuma, Kula and Yuri. I feel more confortable playin’ with Takuma and Terry than Kula or anybody else, but I still like the characters I choose and I feel good in their shoes. I change Terry because it had, from my point of view, pretty hard matchups, as Takuma. The question here is: Should I “addapt” to the environment and choose (copy) another character like Kim or Billy even if don’t like those characters just to use the “tools” that the game give me to achieve victory?
I don’t like the idea of switchin a character just to win, even if this character had limited tools or a linear game. Some people recomend to have a “play” character and a “business” character, you know, but still I don’t think about it as a confortable idea.
Even at a business level if a firm starts to make new movements, implementing new strategies the other firms began to try to copy it. A fundamental point of an strategy is to make things different and in order to achieve competitive advantage, but maybe I can still pick Billy and “try” to play it different…
Just to finish, I’ve been playing fightin games since I was 8, I’m 22, but began to play competitively, with techniq and tryin to know how the game works since I’m 20. I’ve also prefer Street Fighter rather than KoF, because I consider that SF is a way more technical and smart game, also I had play Ryu and Guile since I was a kid but Ryu is my all time favorite character (maybe Akuma in second place, yeah I love shotos!!), and in KoF I don’t find a character that can replace or even mimick Ryu.
Thanks for your pattience, time and knowledge, your making a pretty good job and I really appreciate your effort. Keep the good and hard job man.
Thanks.
Thank you sir. Haha just plain “Maj” is fine.
About the question of switching characters, i don’t think there’s a universal answer for everyone. It depends on your personality. If you’re going to be very unhappy playing Billy, then maybe you should never switch.
On the other hand, if you become unhappy playing Terry, maybe it’s time to switch. Nobody knows what the rankings are when a new game comes out, but if you pick a character that ends up middle tier, then eventually you hit a wall against top tiers. Personally i don’t think you should give up on the first wall you hit, because there’s usually a way to overcome it.
But eventually you’re going to hit a concrete wall that’s too difficult to overcome and you’ll end up losing a lot of matches because your character doesn’t have an answer even though you have enough skill to win. That’s when you should think about switching. Ask yourself if you’re happy with your character, and if the answer is no, then it’s time to try something new.
Another question is whether you should always play top tiers. Some people play the best character in every game and it works for them. But that doesn’t work for everyone because not everyone can stay focused when they’re winning on autopilot.
I think the most important question is “Which character can help me learn the game the fastest?” For some people that character is the one that gives them the best chance to win, aka top tiers. For other people that character is the one that makes them work the hardest, aka bottom/middle tiers. For other people that character is the most well-rounded one – usually Shotos.
So it’s up to you to figure out your own learning style and try to maximize it. I mean, if you really hate top tiers that much then you’re probably never going to play them that well so maybe it’s better to stick to you favorite characters. On the other hand, you have the power to decide what you like and what you hate, so one day you can decide not to hate top tiers anymore. If you realize that an aspect of your personality is getting in the way of your happiness, it’s within your power to change it, right?
Thanks for everything Maj, it’s true what you say about choices and detition; in games and real life.
I also agree with the analogy of the wall, pretty good example.
I don’t hate top tiers, they are just toys to play, it’s most like feeling upset because sometimes people are really lazy, but what can we do? “it happens”.
Yeah, of course that switching is a personal detition.
By the way today I had made the commitment to myself of revisit the game characters and found someone powerful and versatil but also a character who help me enjoy even more the game, learn the game and maximise my skill.
Again, thanks for all!!! :)
Awesome post sir. Also REALLY liked the TED video. I’m at a point in my life where I really needed that. Anywho, IMO, I think a lot of this boils down to the “play to win” mindset. Like you were saying how people from this area would mostly go with this character, and players from another area with another. People want to win so they went with what they thought was the best way to do it.
Now people hop online and find out who the best/strongest characters in the game are and you get the online shoto fest the is SF IV. Me personally I don’t care for them. When I started playing IV, I was initially going to main Bison but couldn’t get the hang of him from the start. Hopped around a few characters and ended up settling on Gen. I chose him because I liked the character. I think skill > tier. Tier may be a factor in most matchups, but IMO, skill is the deciding factor.
@LordJosh
I too have hit walls.
I hit a wall with Gen and ended up switching characters for a while. I went back to Bison and did really well with him and then hit another wall. I’ve since added Chun Li to my list of characters. My time with Chun has made me a lot better with Gen (and Bison). It wasn’t until I started playing with Chun that I started to seriously develop a solid footsie game and appreciate normals a lot more. I tend to stray away from projectile heavy characters because they can become a crutch. Many times I’ve been in fights with shotos and ended up repeated stuffing hado startup with a simple st. Strong or walking right into the edge of fierce Hasan shu range and punishing them.
Anywho, I guess I’m just saying that another character may be what you need to get past a wall you’re at with another. I don’t think the choice needs to be based on tier at all.
@LordJosh
One thing I find is there are a lot more resources for the top tiers too. Like over on the Rose forum we don’t even have a match up guide.
Also in MvC2 I always play xx, sent and capcom with xx being a low tier/hard to use (BB.Hood, Anakaris usually) so i can have options, have fun and not look scrubby.
I agree, changing characters can give an old game new life. That’s something you need when you feel like you’re not making any progress sometimes. Obviously a lot of walls are mental but it’s a lot easier to identify the problem than it is to deal with it day in and day out.
Like, sometimes you just can’t force yourself to care as much as you used to. That’s when trying something new can be a gamechanger. And like i said in an earlier grappler strategy article, there’s a lot you can learn from picking up a different character.
Going back to this topic, i think “clutchness” is more of a mentality thing than anything else. Obviously every character has a different objective they’re trying to achieve on the path to victory, so it’s difficult to talk about this in practical terms. Nevertheless, i think every player learns to be clutch the same way – by testing your boundaries in precisely those kinds of situations.
It’s also tricky because i think everyone knows what they’re supposed to do and how they’re supposed to approach the situation, but applying those principles is the tricky part. I really think “tricky” is the right word because playing in the clutch isn’t “difficult” once you know how it feels. Some people truly enjoy living in those moments and it’s not that hard to stay focused if you’re not dreading it or trying to escape the pressure.
So the whole trick is conditioning yourself to look forward to those moments. That’s doable, right?
Btw, the $35 it cost to sit in the binoculars section at the Lakers vs Raptors game where Kobe hit that last game-winner was the best thirty-five bucks i ever spent. And would you believe it’s the only Laker game i’ve been to all season? Hype!