Can't do combos, regardless of training. Am I alone?

I'm not asking if you can't execute because you haven't put in the training time. I'm asking if there's other gamers out there, who love fighting games but just cannot perform the required combos.

My cred:

I started playing fighting games back in 01. My execution was horrible. I could never cancel a normal into a super. My light attacks in 2d fighters never held a threat because I could never follow them up with damage. This lead me to lose a lot. I do not know a person that has a higher loss ratio in fighting games than me (before someone tries to snipe that sentence for not being implicit, I mean any gamer that has at least 10 hours of fighting games under their belt). This doesn't necessarily mean I'm hopeless; far from it! By having a huge loss ratio, it means that I've continued to endure (and lose) against a skill level higher than mine, and I still haven't quit.

Now hey, I'm not asking you for a solution. I bought a hitbox stick as soon as I heard about it. It did wonders for me, but I still can't execute higher level combos than short short super. I'm losing less, but I'm still losing a lot. I've played fighters with less execution, like Soul Calibur or Tekken. Tekken's still difficult in the combo department, but Soul Calibur was good! As much as the FGC dislikes Soul Calibur, it was the only game I could really play. SC requires a lot of move list memorization (of your enemies), so after a while of going to tournaments, I just got tired of the game because I didn't really like what it was about. Back to 2D, I've had my huge share of training combos for hours on end as well, but for every 3 hours I put into a combo, an average fighting gamer would probably only need to put 15 minutes in... and I still can't execute essential combos 9/10 times.

The last time I played a fighting game totally burned me out. I played KOFXIII (which has high execution requirements) against one guy the whole night. He and I went back and forth for 10 matches, and even though his execution was flawless, I was going 1 to 1 with him with combos that were only a third as damaging. I outsmarted him... but he caught on and adapted to my playstyle, and then after that, we went on for a total of 60 or so matches, with me losing at least 50 of them. Getting streaked on doesn't bother me, but the fact that I can't execute without dedicating a significant amount of time does.

Is there anybody out there like me?

I could do a whole bunch of Tekken 3 10-hit combos, but I'm assuming this high end stuff I don't understand is probably something I can't pull off?

@csl316:

Nah, I think I can do all those 10 hit combos at the bottom of the command list. As for you pulling a hit confirm normal into super, we don't really know if you can do it until you've tried, but it's certainly different from a 10 hit tekken combo.

It's probably not your manual dexterity but you might not be understanding the combo system. For a game like street fighter ( and most other 2D fighters), in order to buffer a normal move into a special, you have to execute the motion for the special move during the normal move's active frames. If you aren't able to overcome this shortcoming, chose characters that are less reliant on combos for their damage.

At a certain point, you need to sit down and just do that shit over and over again. Having a guide to walk you through combos and timing (think Prima strategy guides) will help a lot. It isn't so much manual dexterity as much as it is just learning the systems and the timing. Once you get that muscle memory down, it's all good.

For the longest time I just thought that it was a dexterity thing - some people were just naturally better at it than others - until my friends and I started playing Mortal Kombat 9. We would play the demo together every night before the game came out and we were all pretty much on the same level of skill.... Then my friends got the game a few days before I did (along with a strategy guide) and spent the next 3 days playing that game NON-STOP and reading the guide. In that time they beat the game 3 times, the challenge tower twice, and from that point on I couldn't touch them in a match.They are now doing the same thing on the Street Fighter and Marvel v Capcom side, too. They're even starting to play (and win) some local tournaments. In about a year, they went from total scrubs like me to the type of guys that you would see at EVO. If my friends can do it, so can anyone else.

Player that can outsmart an opponent, but isn't tip top when it comes to execution?

Sounds like someone who should play grapplers.

I'm fairly decent, but not great. I'd never play Ibuki in SF, for example, which is practically all execution and timing. (Less so in Ultra with D-Wake-Up, I guess)

Fighting games are probably the type of games that require the most amount of dedication. It sort of bothers me because I'm definitely interested in them but I only play Netherrealm games, they're just more accessible.

From what I understand, most games have differing systems and timing and you want to comprehend them before really thinking about executing them. Otherwise, it's practice, practice and more practice. I heard the best way to get better, is to find someone of similar skill level and train and learn with them, which can be quite difficult.

Right here.

I bought the $40 version of Killer Instinct when I got my Xbone, and as much as I want to like it I just can't get a hold of the combo system, despite the decent tutorial.

And yet, I still preordered the Ultra version of season 2...

One day KI, one day.

I love fighting games and I suck at Street fighter. Like really suck at Street Fighter. I know how you feel.

I can't perform any Combo's. The timing on them makes no sense to me. It feels like either the timing is super tight, requires canceling or I have too much Tekken in my blood. I've been playing 3-5 hours of Ultra Street Fighter 4 every day since release, still can't do the combo's in the tutorials. Enjoying the game, but I have no idea what i'm missing.

I've never played any of the King of Fighters games and Soul Calibur makes no sense to me; it feels like a broken / unfinished Tekken or Dead or Alive game.

Pick one fighter and practice practice practice practice practice practice practice.

I absolutely suck at fighting games post early 00s, but I could pull some mean shit with SF Alpha Charlie because I played the shit out of that one with friends. It probably helps that Alpha 1 is one of the slowest and clunkiest of Street Fighters.

Nope you are not alone. I cant do combos for the life of me. And it is making killer instinct classic very difficult.

I managed some fairly high end combos on Taki back in my SoulCalibur 2 days, but in general these days I just don't have the motivation to be that good at a fighting game. People my age just don't want to compete at that level (myself included)

It depends on the game. I like fighting games, but I am absolutely terrible at them, so I tend to gravitate towards games that make me look way better than I am - namely Dead or Alive and Mortal Kombat. As much as I would love to be able to enjoy them, I just can't get into Street Fighter or Tekken or anything more technical. I also can't stand fighting games that don't have a block button. I got into the genre on games with a block button, and the notion that I would ever move my character away from my opponent is insanity to me.

yeah I always sucked at fighting games, not my thing.

I'm relatively decent in Persona 4, and I only know two extremely simple combos. That game may be an outlier, and I do recognize I need to get about double the amount of confirms in order to beat an opponent who executes well, but that's my cross to bear. Trying to get more competitive, you'll learn way more spending two hours doing nothing other than blocking than you will by memorizing some extended, case-sensitive combo string.

Whenever I sit down and ty to go through every combo a character has, it always takes me way over an hour just to get through it because I'm so bad at inputting them, and when I do pull it off, it just feels like I got lucky and I can't really reproduce it. Fighting games are still lots of fun to me, but I've had to settle with never being able to pull off combos on demand and only having good fights with lower-level AI. Something about quarter/half circles in particular is completely lost on me.

That's ok though, I'm way way better at shootin' people instead :D

@hencook:

I think it's more common than you might think. Some folks are lucky and get them right away, but then there a lot of folks like me who need a lot of practice.

While I can do some combos in some games decently, I do drop stuff sometimes. I just practiced and made sure a combo is a combo.

Some games I vary in execution. In SFIV, my ratio is more in the negative because I am a bit frightened by the player and the matchup more which prevents from doing links consistently. In KOFXIII, I feel much more comfortable because I am more accustomed to the game and I also pay attention to the intricacies of the input buffering and shortcuts. Same for Tekken.

In the end, just keep on practicing and feel confident when doing these combos even if you might get hit.

Honestly 10 string combos are super hard to do for me compared to Tekken's more common structure (launcher, filler, bound, filler/ender).

You will. I don't know much about what's keeping you from mastering it but try taking a look at Maximilian's Assist Me episodes on Killer Instinct (1, 2). I found them very helpful. Also watch top 8 of KI from this year's EVO.

@thephantomnaut:

Thanks for the vids!

They certainly helped a bit, perhaps I can get halway decent after all