I don't understand how to do combos in Fighting Games =( help!

I haven't played fighting games seriously since the olden days and I never was very good. I have at multiple times last couple years tried to get into it, with street fighter 4, mortal kombat, and a few others. Most recent fighting games seem to have some sort of mode where they go move by move of each character and teach you how to do their moves and a lot of their combos.

I for the life of me can hardly ever do any of the combos past the first couple on most games. [I am currently trying Persona 4 Arena]. I guess I just don't get it. In my mind half the time as far as I can tell I am hitting the buttons exactly as they say but I have no idea on any sort of timing, or if there are pauses or anything at all. I just lack any understanding of how combos in a fighting game actually work and come together. I am saying, I seriously have trouble with the button presses of basic combos and I have no idea what I do wrong. These games just say press ___ ___ ___ and then ___ ect but is there a rhythm, a timing, or what in fighting games? I honestly just have never understood something so basic. And whenever I do get a combo right and progress I never have any idea what I did differently than the other 10 times.

Anyone have any advice for stuff like this? I mean I normally do quite well in video games but I just feel like in all these games I have no feedback of what I ever do wrong or right when trying to do combos. I am probably just stupid but does anyone have any advice or maybe some guide that can teach me something so simple and basic down to the very button presses of combos =\ cause I have been unable to find it.

I love the fighting game genre but I just don't know what I do wrong with this stuff.

I can't get anywhere near learning strategy or anything when I am struggling on basic button press execution as it seems to be beyond me.

Please be nice guys i know I must sound like an idiot but I really need help =(

I'm in the same boat as you, but mashing buttons seems to do the trick...

The timing is very specific and sometimes position specific. For example some combos only work in the corner. Some combos are easy because the move chain together easily. Others are harder and need to be canceled into eachother. Harder and stricter yet are the moves that require linking, meaning the moves don't naturally connect except on a couple of frame of the animation.

This is the best I can explain it. Unfortunately, most games don't tell you any of this, so combos become frustrating.

Yeah, man, it's tough to learn how to do that shit. I learned with fucking Street Fighter IV, the first fighting game I ever really played seriously, and that game is an ASSHOLE about the timing. You'll get it eventually. Just time it differently every time until you get it, and keep doing the same shit over and over and over until you get it right.

And don't even try to figure out cancelling yet. Unless it's way easier in Persona than in SFIV (Which again, asshole timing) you'll just be miserable and never be able to use it in an actual match in all likelihood.

In P4A I suggest going through the Lesson Mode first, and then choose a character and go through their Challenges. The Challenges teach a lot about combos and you can even watch the computer do it through "Demonstrate" in the menu. I've found that there isn't that much rhythm in P4A compared to SF4, at least in the easier combos. Just press the buttons at a fairly quick rate, don't rush it, and make sure you're doing the correct inputs. Even if you only make it through half of the combo, you'll know that you're headed in the right direction.

There are also "Easy Combos" in P4A where if you just keep hitting the Light Attack button (X by default on Xbox) it'll do a nice combo for you. A good way for beginners to get into the fight.

Well different kinds of fighting games will have different kinds of combos. The combos you do in Marvel are very different than the ones in say; SFIV. Marvel uses chains where you just have to transition very quickly beween button presses. SF uses links where depending on the link you'll have a specific window in which the second hit will combo. A general rule is that when trying to combo together two hits; if the second hit comes out but gets blocked then you pressed it too late. If the second hit doesn't animate at all then you pressed it too early. Knowing that, you can learn the timings gradually through trial and error and eventually commit them to muscle memory.

Of course I don't know anything about Persona 4 Arena specifically so I can't be sure any of that was relevant, but there you are.

Hmm ok that helps a lot that if they block/if it doesn't come out it is too early thing. That is exactly the info I am looking for. Cause before I had no idea what actually I was doing wrong in combos and when I did them wrong I had no idea how off my button presses were. That gives me an idea to work on thanks

I will second Vesper Arcade as a good resource for people wanting to get better at fighting games. I don't have any experience with Persona 4, but I do with Marvel/SF4. It sounds to me that you're maybe pressing the buttons too fast. Moves in fighting games are broken down into frames. Each frame is 1/60 of a second. All moves have start up frames, active frames (when your move will connect with your opponent), and recovery frames (sort of a waiting period til you can attack again). When you hit your opponent, they enter what is called hit stun - a certain number of frames where they cannot move or block. Take the number of frames of hit stun and subtract the number of recovery frames and that is your frame advantage to land subsequent hits in the combo. Landing a subsequent attack while your opponent is in hit stun is called a link.

If you press the 2nd button in a combo while your character is in the active or recovery frames of the first attack, nothing will happen.....you hit the button too fast. If your opponent blocks the 2nd attack, it is because they recovered from hit stun before the active frames of the attack.....you hit the button too slow.

SF4 is very link-centric, and yes the timing can be a bitch. The only thing I can suggest is practice, practice, practice. You will get better at it. Marvel is more chain combo focused, which completely disregards recovery frames. I won't say its necessarily easier, well.... yeah it is easier. At the very least it has a lower barrier to entry for beginners, but there's still high level play there.

One feature from Tekken 3 that I loved was when you did combo training if you had the computer demo the combo, each button press had a sound effect so you could learn the combo by getting the rhythm of it. It was great. I can't figure out for the life of me why that was never picked up by Capcom for their fighters.

you're not alone. i've never been able to figure combos out at all. i tend to just mash buttons and move in the general direction that you're supposed to with the d-pad and hope for the best. i don't even play online cause i know i'll just get destroyed. nice thing about P4A is that it's rather easy that you can just hit one button and still pull off a good combo. i've actually enjoyed it so far, more then any other fighter besides maybe Mortal Kombat. And blocking? Yea, still haven't figured that out yet lol

@Hippie_Genocide said:

I will second Vesper Arcade as a good resource for people wanting to get better at fighting games. I don't have any experience with Persona 4, but I do with Marvel/SF4. It sounds to me that you're maybe pressing the buttons too fast. Moves in fighting games are broken down into frames. Each frame is 1/60 of a second. All moves have start up frames, active frames (when your move will connect with your opponent), and recovery frames (sort of a waiting period til you can attack again). When you hit your opponent, they enter what is called hit stun - a certain number of frames where they cannot move or block. Take the number of frames of hit stun and subtract the number of recovery frames and that is your frame advantage to land subsequent hits in the combo. Landing a subsequent attack while your opponent is in hit stun is called a link.

If you press the 2nd button in a combo while your character is in the active or recovery frames of the first attack, nothing will happen.....you hit the button too fast. If your opponent blocks the 2nd attack, it is because they recovered from hit stun before the active frames of the attack.....you hit the button too slow.

SF4 is very link-centric, and yes the timing can be a bitch. The only thing I can suggest is practice, practice, practice. You will get better at it. Marvel is more chain combo focused, which completely disregards recovery frames. I won't say its necessarily easier, well.... yeah it is easier. At the very least it has a lower barrier to entry for beginners, but there's still high level play there.

One feature from Tekken 3 that I loved was when you did combo training if you had the computer demo the combo, each button press had a sound effect so you could learn the combo by getting the rhythm of it. It was great. I can't figure out for the life of me why that was never picked up by Capcom for their fighters.

Persona 4 does have kind of hybrid SF4 and Marvel 3 style to a certain degree in terms of inputs. I am down with this comment.

Establish timing and muscle memory. Repetition is key especially if you are new but it will pay off when you are able to do combos.

@MyNiceIceLife said:

you're not alone. i've never been able to figure combos out at all. i tend to just mash buttons and move in the general direction that you're supposed to with the d-pad and hope for the best. i don't even play online cause i know i'll just get destroyed. nice thing about P4A is that it's rather easy that you can just hit one button and still pull off a good combo. i've actually enjoyed it so far, more then any other fighter besides maybe Mortal Kombat. And blocking? Yea, still haven't figured that out yet lol

The P4A auto combos are decent wont take you far especially when concepts such as resets and punishing are emphasized in the game. Blocking is just like regular fighting games, hold back. Learning those concepts along with other topics such as movement and mind games are important but that can apply to every other type of game to certain degrees. The only major differences is that it's a different control scheme and mechanics that apply to the genre. After time playing fighting games, learning wasn't painful and it was rewarding. The challenge is against actual people where it's the most exciting. Using tactics a computer controlled player might fall for wont work against folks. If you know you will get destroyed by folks, why not learn how to play to beat em?

@ThePhantomnaut said:

@MyNiceIceLife said:

you're not alone. i've never been able to figure combos out at all. i tend to just mash buttons and move in the general direction that you're supposed to with the d-pad and hope for the best. i don't even play online cause i know i'll just get destroyed. nice thing about P4A is that it's rather easy that you can just hit one button and still pull off a good combo. i've actually enjoyed it so far, more then any other fighter besides maybe Mortal Kombat. And blocking? Yea, still haven't figured that out yet lol

The P4A auto combos are decent wont take you far especially when concepts such as resets and punishing are emphasized in the game. Blocking is just like regular fighting games, hold back. Learning those concepts along with other topics such as movement and mind games are important but that can apply to every other type of game to certain degrees. The only major differences is that it's a different control scheme and mechanics that apply to the genre. After time playing fighting games, learning wasn't painful and it was rewarding. The challenge is against actual people where it's the most exciting. Using tactics a computer controlled player might fall for wont work against folks. If you know you will get destroyed by folks, why not learn how to play to beat em?

Well i think it's more of a lack of caring to block. Any of the fighters I've played have been easy enough to get through arcade mode or story modes without having to use it. And i guess it's more that I just look at it as a video game and if i'm going to have to take time out of my life to learn how to beat someone who fights a certain way using a certain character and learn every counter to whatever is thrown at me that doesn't sound fun at all. For some sure, just not for me. I'll just stick with the AI, at least it doesn't sling racial slurs or curses at me with a pre-pubescent voice haha.

Its all timing and muscle memory just keep at it and one day it will just click trust me.

I'm in the same boat albeit not in Persona 4. I think Fighting games look really cool and I love the character design and different move sets. For whatever reason though I just cannot do well. I've tried practicing but the problem is this huge gap between players. While in First Person Shooters, a genre which I probably excel at most, you can run into players of varying skill levels - with fighting games online you only face up against 1 guy for 1 fight. A lot of people that play fighting games are either just starting out or veterans. I never seem to face people like me, who kinda know a few combos but more often than not drop them because I don't sit in training mode for hours committing moves to muscle memory. So when I go into a fight, and the guy is much better than me I don't learn anything from my defeat as I literally just get destroyed. I fall victim to crazy cross ups or game nuances I'm not familiar with from lack of time spent in fighting games. I wish fighting games introduced a tiered system for online play where you had to earn a certain amount of points from fights won in order to advance and be able to play with better players. At the same time it should lock out really skilled people from engaging in fights with newbies like myself. I mean it can't be that much fun for a skilled Street Fighter player to stomp out newbs all day.

@MyNiceIceLife said:

@ThePhantomnaut said:

@MyNiceIceLife said:

you're not alone. i've never been able to figure combos out at all. i tend to just mash buttons and move in the general direction that you're supposed to with the d-pad and hope for the best. i don't even play online cause i know i'll just get destroyed. nice thing about P4A is that it's rather easy that you can just hit one button and still pull off a good combo. i've actually enjoyed it so far, more then any other fighter besides maybe Mortal Kombat. And blocking? Yea, still haven't figured that out yet lol

The P4A auto combos are decent wont take you far especially when concepts such as resets and punishing are emphasized in the game. Blocking is just like regular fighting games, hold back. Learning those concepts along with other topics such as movement and mind games are important but that can apply to every other type of game to certain degrees. The only major differences is that it's a different control scheme and mechanics that apply to the genre. After time playing fighting games, learning wasn't painful and it was rewarding. The challenge is against actual people where it's the most exciting. Using tactics a computer controlled player might fall for wont work against folks. If you know you will get destroyed by folks, why not learn how to play to beat em?

Well i think it's more of a lack of caring to block. Any of the fighters I've played have been easy enough to get through arcade mode or story modes without having to use it. And i guess it's more that I just look at it as a video game and if i'm going to have to take time out of my life to learn how to beat someone who fights a certain way using a certain character and learn every counter to whatever is thrown at me that doesn't sound fun at all. For some sure, just not for me. I'll just stick with the AI, at least it doesn't sling racial slurs or curses at me with a pre-pubescent voice haha.

The idea of learning fighting games seems unusual at first. Lots of folks including me went through it. Learning fighting games is like learning other types of games. Once you understand the general and game-specific ideas as well as metagame, it's easy to digest. Only that that can vary is personal execution and judgement and other people. While I am not really good, the end result is positive from my experiences in local and national communities. Kids who speak of profane nature are mostly the folks that are mindless when playing fighting games and those folks usually go away after week one of release. Most of the community are generally mature folks who respect one another.

If you enjoyed P4A, you should continue on learning the game and get more fun out of it.

@Humanity said:

I'm in the same boat albeit not in Persona 4. I think Fighting games look really cool and I love the character design and different move sets. For whatever reason though I just cannot do well. I've tried practicing but the problem is this huge gap between players. While in First Person Shooters, a genre which I probably excel at most, you can run into players of varying skill levels - with fighting games online you only face up against 1 guy for 1 fight. A lot of people that play fighting games are either just starting out or veterans. I never seem to face people like me, who kinda know a few combos but more often than not drop them because I don't sit in training mode for hours committing moves to muscle memory. So when I go into a fight, and the guy is much better than me I don't learn anything from my defeat as I literally just get destroyed. I fall victim to crazy cross ups or game nuances I'm not familiar with from lack of time spent in fighting games. I wish fighting games introduced a tiered system for online play where you had to earn a certain amount of points from fights won in order to advance and be able to play with better players. At the same time it should lock out really skilled people from engaging in fights with newbies like myself. I mean it can't be that much fun for a skilled Street Fighter player to stomp out newbs all day.

Well I always thought they had skill-selected options for online. Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition Ver 2012 has that. Unfortunately while the idea is neat, the biggest problem is that locking is limiting. Some folks who might have an online account might be really good but don't play online and limiting prevents those to play higher ranked folks. AE2012 has a good middle ground. The only thing else I can say is use the time fighting by learning the concepts and practicing. I play fighting games only an hour or 2 a day tops but while I can go straight to playing folks online, I choose to take that time to practice. I might lose to folks regardless but I gained something positive from it.

If you have like-minded friends, you can always play with them in player matches and learn along the way.

I've always understood combo systems just fine but personally just never been able to get over the fact so many fighters still use the thumbsticks or dpad (which 99.9% of other games use solely for movement/camera) to input said combos. My brain just can't opporate those particular parts of a gamepad for anything specific like strict motions that either need to stop midway or 3 quarters of the way to be counted. Hence my love of Soul Calibur, one of so few series of fighters where all the combos are done with face and shoulder buttons only.

@Lazyaza said:

I've always understood combo systems just fine but personally just never been able to get over the fact so many fighters still use the thumbsticks or dpad (which 99.9% of other games use solely for movement/camera) to input said combos. My brain just can't opporate those particular parts of a gamepad for anything specific like strict motions that either need to stop midway or 3 quarters of the way to be counted. Hence my love of Soul Calibur, one of so few series of fighters where all the combos are done with face and shoulder buttons only.

Hmm... Well combos involving directions were there since people found about combos during Street Fighter II's hayday. It's just a common trait. Players just adapt to it. Soulcalibur though actually has bread n buttons combos involving directional moves.

I would highly recommend experimenting with Mortal Kombat first. It uses a target combo system, which means there is no real timing to the presses (as long as they are quick enough). If you push the right button combination, the right combo comes out. And then for creating bigger chains/juggles the timing is very well represented by what's going on on the screen (as in when you've punched someone in the air you just want to make sure the first hit of your next combo hits them when they come down). Marvel does the same to a certain extent, but it is more driven by seperate attacks that have "active frames" which means you have to time your next attack correctly. SF on the other hands is extremely technical and almost everything has to be perfectly timed and has quirky relationships where it's more archaic what will and won't work.

I didn't really have any fighting game experience myself, but after some practice I was able to do quite long combos whenever I wanted with several chars in MK. The links in SF on the other hand still completely elude me.

@Ares42 said:

I would highly recommend experimenting with Mortal Kombat first. It uses a target combo system, which means there is no real timing to the presses (as long as they are quick enough). If you push the right button combination, the right combo comes out. And then for creating bigger chains/juggles the timing is very well represented by what's going on on the screen (as in when you've punched someone in the air you just want to make sure the first hit of your next combo hits them when they come down). Marvel does the same to a certain extent, but it is more driven by seperate attacks that have "active frames" which means you have to time your next attack correctly. SF on the other hands is extremely technical and almost everything has to be perfectly timed and has quirky relationships where it's more archaic what will and won't work.

I didn't really have any fighting game experience myself, but after some practice I was able to do quite long combos whenever I wanted with several chars in MK. The links in SF on the other hand still completely elude me.

Yeah I am not really a fan of SF4's combo system. People said KOF is hard to input but I find that easier.

@ThePhantomnaut: Well I'm no high level sc player either, I do well enough at what I want to without needing to worry about too many movement specific moves in those. Now something like say Blazblue on the other hand no idea whatsoever with those games. The funny thing is the confusion I experience over fighters I believe to be quite similar to the type many people have with RTS games where even the basic fundamentals seem strange and complex in ways they can't get over. Yet when it comes to rts games I'm able to macro and micro like a mofo lol.

@ThePhantomnaut: I was thinking more along the lines of brackets rather than More Skilled, Equally Skilled etc options. If you're great then it will take you no time to get out of the pubbie bracket and you'll be on your way to fighting people along your own level and probably enjoying the game a lot more - unless pubbie stomping is your thing. At the same time people that do kinda shitty will get paired with other people that do sorta shitty. If they just wanna button mash once a week then they'll always be in that comfortable bracket with other like minded individuals and if they want to take it a bit more serious then they can advance out. Maybe slightly constraining but I think it offers the best of both worlds for everyone involved.

Mortal Kombat's (9) is pretty easy. You look at the command list in the pause screen, and simply execute the combo from there. The trick is to insert one of your character's specials before the end of that combo string or right at the end.

With Sub-Zero you can hit 2,2, ice slide, or 2,2,4, ice slide depending on whether you wanna mix it up or not. Almost all characters in the game have combos that branch like that. Just gotta experiment in the practice more or some such.

@ALavaPenguin:

I hope any of this makes sense if not ask questions.

Theres basically 2 types of comboing systems in fighting games, link comboing and cancel/chain comboing, starting with chain/cancel basically the idea is your canceling one move into another so areally basic example of this would be with Ryu in street fighter 4 if you did crouching forward (mk) into fireball. Thats a 2 hit combo. As far as i know (havent played it yet) persona works of these types of combos much like guilty gear did as well chain combo which is like what you see in marvel vs capcom 3 where you can "chain" moves together so in marvel most characters can do crouching a b c for example and theres no big timing restraint basically just hit the button when it looks like you should hit the button its the same with Ryus crouching jab in street fighter 4. Again not 100% sure but i believe this is how persona works aswell. Also just worth mentioning in street fighter you cant cancel and chained move so if you did crounching jab x3 you couldnt end it with a fireball. The reason you cant combo forever with these types of combos is in street fighter the oponent gets pushed back and in say marvel theres something called hitstun deteriation which means the oponents takes less stun of each hit the longer the combo untill eventually the stuns so short nothing is quick enough to cancel into.

The other type "Link" combos requires very specific timing and is governed by the frame data of the game. Hopefully i havent scared you away by mentioning frame data because its not where near as scary as it first looks.

Just a not street fighter runs a 60 frames per second.

So if we look at a link combo in street fighter 4 for Ryu nice and simple crouching stong (mp) to crouching strong (mp) if we look at the frame data for crouching strong (mp)

Startup: 4

Active: 4

Recovery: 8

On guard: +2

On hit: +5

the startup is 4 frames, so if you think in real life if you were to throw a punch you couldn't throw it instantly you would have to pull your arm back and whatnot this is what this represents how long after you press the button it takes ryu to pull back ready to punch.

Active is 4 frames this isnt particullary important just means that there's 4 frames where ryus fist is out there and anything that touches it will get hit.

Recovery means how long it takes ryu to pull his arm back etc basically how long untill you can do anything with him, so during these 8 frames you have no control over him.

Now for the important ones , on guard means whos at a frame advantage if the opponent blocks the move. So if the opponent blocks the move they are put into blockstun for which they cant do anything during this time. So +2 bassically means that whilst you cant move when your recovering he cant move when hes in blockstun you actually recover 2 frames faster them him and are therefore able to move or do something 2 frames faster then he is. Make sense?

On hit is the same idea except instead of them blocking they get hit and are in hit stun,same principle except there getting hit instead of blocking and this is when combos come in. Ryus +5 means your at a plus 5 so you recover 5 frames faster then they do. So if you have any move with a startup of 5 frames or less you can combo so crouching mp is 4 frames therefore you have 2 frames for you to combo into crouching mp. That might sound really really hard considering you have to press the button at the correct 2/60ths of a second but with practice and doing stuff like double tapping and plinking its not to bad.

I hope you got something out of that and i didnt just mindfuck you completely.

@ThePhantomnaut said:

@Ares42 said:

I would highly recommend experimenting with Mortal Kombat first. It uses a target combo system, which means there is no real timing to the presses (as long as they are quick enough). If you push the right button combination, the right combo comes out. And then for creating bigger chains/juggles the timing is very well represented by what's going on on the screen (as in when you've punched someone in the air you just want to make sure the first hit of your next combo hits them when they come down). Marvel does the same to a certain extent, but it is more driven by seperate attacks that have "active frames" which means you have to time your next attack correctly. SF on the other hands is extremely technical and almost everything has to be perfectly timed and has quirky relationships where it's more archaic what will and won't work.

I didn't really have any fighting game experience myself, but after some practice I was able to do quite long combos whenever I wanted with several chars in MK. The links in SF on the other hand still completely elude me.

Yeah I am not really a fan of SF4's combo system. People said KOF is hard to input but I find that easier.

I think its just what you're used to. I'm a longtime SF player so I find that easier. KoF XIII was my first real experience with that series and I find it really hard to do combos in that game.

@ALavaPenguin: PLAY MORTAL KOMBAT, THE NEWEST ONE! THE CAMPAIGN IS A SUPER ENGAGING INTRODUCTION TO THE GENRE.

at least it was for me :D