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    Street Fighter V

    Game » consists of 8 releases. Released Feb 16, 2016

    The fifth numbered entry in Capcom's signature fighting game series revamps the game's mechanics yet again while using a new system for post-release content.

    From Rookie To Bronze in SFV (a scrub's journey)

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    citizencoffeecake

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    I suck at Street Fighter. When I was five years old playing Super Turbo on the SNES I didn't know this truth.

    "I was FADCing in the womb."

    In '94 or '95 my small group of friends and I weren't focused on fighting one another, we wanted to beat the arcade mode. We spent a lot of time passing the controller around, each taking our shot at M. Bison, each losing time and time again. It was a fun and innocent time. How could we know the despicable truth that the CPU Bison was nothing compared to the real monsters of Street Fighter.

    I dabbled in each successive release and began watching tournaments around the time SFIV arrived. Upon trying my hand at Super Street Fighter IV I felt it wasn't within my being to pull off the combos in that game. I jumped into matches only to watch my life bar melt away and be baffled by the ferocity and skill of the online warriors. This wasn't fun, these people were out for blood. So I stopped and decided that I would be content to watch the big tournaments and marvel at the drama and intensity of high level play.

    Fast forward a few years and Ultra Street Fighter IV is out. I had been watching The Excellent Adventures of gootecks and Mike Ross. This YouTube show features two (formerly) tournament level Street Fighter players going up against the masses in online ranked matches. They win, they lose, they get salty, but they have a lot of fun. Because of this show I threw my hat into the ring again and bought USFIV last year. I played for a few weeks and I may have even won a round or two but I definitely never won a match. People were simply too experienced and too familiar with the game.

    Now SFV is out and I have yet another chance to get in. I was more familiar than I'd ever been with Street Fighter in general. So I downloaded the game on launch day despite warnings of crumbling servers and a barebones package and entered training mode as Necalli. I began searching for combos to learn, figuring out what buttons to poke with and I was feeling pretty good (having never played the betas), I could do a couple combos reliably in training mode and I had played through survival a couple times. Ready for some casual matches. The moment the first round started I forgot everything. I was getting crossed up and mixed up and option selected and everything in between. I couldn't land a single hit let alone a combo. But I kept going at it, getting beaten and going back to training mode to try and refine and reevaluate my mistakes and I actually feel like I'm getting better.

    "Why is my Wiki page so bare!?"

    Tonight I got into Bronze and it felt really good. I'm sitting on 700 something League Points and that is like nothing to a lot of people (and it really isn't that much of an accomplishment I know) but for me it is a step in the right direction. I won something like 5 ranked matches in a row a couple hours ago and I'm able to reliably land 5 to 7 hit combos or safely hit confirm into my critical art. I don't want to sound like I'm bragging because I know I'm still really bad at this game. I've stuck with Necalli (in fact I've yet to play online with any other character) and I know I have a lot of bad habits and many of the things I'm getting away with will not work in the long term. I still jump in too much, I still wake up uppercut, and I still mash when things start getting hairy among many other things. That being said I am excited to continue improving.

    Thanks for reading! Sorry this was long and rambly. I can't wait till the lobby system is better and we can get a group of duders together to play proper. Feel free to add me on PSN or the fighters network thing my name is Tokens on both.

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    Zella

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    #1  Edited By Zella

    Nice little write up. Excellent Adventures is also what got me to really get into Street Fighter, and fighting games in general. For being someone that never won a match online to getting to Bronze in SFV at this point that really says you have learned a lot then. There are likely a ton of players between 0 and 2000 League Points, myself included, and you likely had to match make with a lot of those below 1,500. That means you must have won at least a few matches against people who have a decent idea of the game and not just brand new players.

    I am sure watching a lot of high level play from tournaments, and occasionally on Excellent Adventures when Mike isn't saying "Watch this!", helped with your general knowledge of what to do. That shows too with you already knowing some bad habits, ones that a ton of players have.

    I really hope other people who are interested also take the time to learn and play in SFV as I think it is a great game to learn with. Yeah it may have no trials and pretty much no tutorial but it allows for combos that feel fun and are not impossibly hard to pull off like SFIV. The replay system too allows for you to study yours and other people's play and get better.

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    ivdamke

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    Good to hear someone finally getting in, the story of people giving up is all too common. I expect a Silver update in the future! It's good not to worry about losing constantly, it's not exclusive to rookies and people with low points. I still have trouble coming to grips with that fact.

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    Humanity

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    Excellent read. Gootecks and Mike Ross are great fun to watch, and they even do some very helpful basic training videos up on their channel. Your story literally mirrors my own except after failing at SFIV I tried my "serious" second attempt at Street Fighter X Tekken which was rumored to be a lot easier in execution. I didn't get very far in that game either, but because you always have a tag partner I ended up playing a lot of it with a friend online that was a lot more experienced at the game and that turned out to be a lot of fun. Being able to tag in a real person in a match is great and more fighting games should do it.

    I've been likewise tempted to just like you jump back on the horse so to speak with SFV. The anemic state of the game and a roster that doesn't especially appeal to me is keeping me at bay though. Maybe in a year when they release more content to justify that price point I'll finally get it - my only worry is at that point it's going to be too late for a beginner to get into it.

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    Baillie

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    #4  Edited By Baillie

    Where are you from? We could lobby it up and play a few matches if you want. I've just reached bronze myself, and I'm a Ryu player.

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    s-a-n-JR

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    #5  Edited By s-a-n-JR

    Nice write-up. I've always loved Street Fighter, but I was a more semi-casual player (in that I played the game a lot, but I was flying by the seat of my pants), until at some point during the lead-up to USFIV I decided to pick up a fight stick and get a bit more 'serious'. I remember in the process of practicing and researching stuff I discovered Mike Ross, which then led to me discovering Excellent Adventures. Goddamn that's a fun show and you learn a lot, it definitely helped spur me on even more. I highly recommend anyone who wants to get into Street Fighter to check it out.

    Here's the newest one. It's the very first episode with SFV

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    citizencoffeecake

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    @zella said:

    I am sure watching a lot of high level play from tournaments, and occasionally on Excellent Adventures when Mike isn't saying "Watch this!", helped with your general knowledge of what to do.

    Haha exactly, it's too bad yelling "Yo yo yo! Check this out, check this out!" before jumping in isn't a viable strategy.

    @humanity said:

    Maybe in a year when they release more content to justify that price point I'll finally get it - my only worry is at that point it's going to be too late for a beginner to get into it.

    A year man.. that's a bit of a wait but I understand where you're coming from. They're supposedly adding in several missing pieces in March, which seems even more ridiculous as I type it.

    It's good not to worry about losing constantly, it's not exclusive to rookies and people with low points. I still have trouble coming to grips with that fact.

    Yes, taking the losses and just trying to learn from it instead of getting angry is tough.

    @baillie: I'm in the US (midwest), send me an invite any time.

    @sanj said:

    I highly recommend anyone who wants to get into Street Fighter to check it out.

    The episodes with Xavier Woods where they teach him fundamentals are really great too.

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    StarvingGamer

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    One of us! One of us!

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    Humanity

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    @citizencoffeecake: Yah a year seems like a long time but by then I assume the roster will be bigger and more costumes will get added.

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    TheIndomitableSnowman

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    I'm right there with you, dude, don't get discouraged! Let me know if you ever wanna spar.

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    Ninja_Welshman

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    Great read, hoping to do the same. Think I'm going to jump in on PS4 when the March update hits. Was never any good at SFIV.I won a couple of matches but most of the time I either got bodied or choked in the last round. Will definitely check out that YouTube channel though. Hope to see you guy online some day.

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    Ninja_Welshman

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    Hey guys. Thanks for introducing me the Gootecks and Mike Ross. Really enjoyed everything i've seen so far. Anyway, I just found out that Gootecks is doing a 3 part SFV beginners guide. Great for anyone new to the game. Check it out.

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    officer_falcon

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    Seinenfeld

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    Good stuff. Am in a similar position myself, though I played a lot of mvc3 and scv and was not the worst at them, but rarely did I seriously analyse my own play and with mvc3 I had to spend forever in training mode just practicing fireballs and dps as I hadn't played fgs before it since I was a kid.

    This is the first FG I'm really taking seriously and committed to constantly learning and improving in. Am pretty close to silver and am pretty even against silver players I've fought so it's looking pretty good.

    I think one of the biggest things that's helped is identifying what I've been doing wrong in the last few games and then focusing on those in training. For example, like a lot of players I'm bad at anti airing, so if I've just had a few games where my anti airs have sucked I will record the dummy to do a bunch of different jumps in from different ranges and timings, and it definitely helps.

    As somebody with anger issues, I've found it surprisingly easy to calm down after losing to myself because my mentality is that once the next game starts, the last one didn't matter. Easier said than done, but even the best players are always learning, so if your objective is to learn then you take your mistakes and losses in your stride and go into the next match seeing what you can learn next.

    Good luck and glad to hear I'm not the only one having a good time as somebody new to the game.

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    Ninja_Welshman

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    I MADE BRONZE!! Then immediately lost it and went back down to Rookie

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    Anupsis

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    #15  Edited By Anupsis

    Glad to hear your story duder. I made the trek to bronze 2 days ago with similar circumstances to yourself.

    I was always interested in fighting game since I was a kid seeing them around malls and other places. The thing that made me look at SF in a new light, (considering I was like 3 years old when real arcades dissappeared), was that Daigo parry video. I had no idea what was going on but I knew something was there from the excitement in that room and even in myself. I tried emulated SF2 but had no one other than my brother to play with at the time.

    Eventually HD SF2 came out on the 360 which was my first foray into the SF competitive side of things with the horrible lag asside, I had a ton of fun getting my ass handed to me (I'm sure I won 1 or 2 rounds somehow) and then when IV came out I was playing against my cousins and some of my best friends.

    The training mode and challenge mode in IV on the other hand is where I probably learned the most though. Practicing for hours figuring out how to do cancels and input things with the proper timing. Even though I was bad at the game I was addicted to it.

    I caved in on SFV seeing Jeff and Jason ranking other fighting games and seeing their excitement playing the beta made me want V really bady. I got it at launch and have been playing every day as M Bison online which is my best character at the moment.

    Sitting at 500 LP and bronze league right now if anyone wants to play with a newer player feel free to bother me on PSN @ Idion1 or Fighter ID: Zenden, hopefully I didn't bore anyone with my tale.

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    SensibleParty

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    @ninja_welshman: That nearly happened to me! Instead I immediately turned off ranked like a huge coward. I think I'm just gonna chill and play on casual for a while. Its weird how a few numbers can stress me out so much.

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    citizencoffeecake

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    I MADE BRONZE!! Then immediately lost it and went back down to Rookie

    I got bopped back down to rookie last night too, then barely got back into bronze. I don't know if it's because I'm still getting used to the arcade stick or if people are just getting better but super bronze is a long road ahead.

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