So I've been playing fighting games for most of my life, and I decided to make a go at getting serious about it with SFV, but during the beta, I keep falling into this hole where my attacks are being blocked or countered countered every single time, and every time I think I see an opening, the opponent always manages to block. Are the servers still just laggy due to testing, causing weird input delays? Or is there something I'm not understanding about the mechanics?

I need to see you playing to judge. But if it isn't rollback net code then you're prolly just picking bad times to attack.

It did! Also, I had no idea crouching medium kick linked into hadouken! Thanks for that! But you guys are right, I need to show and not tell. During the next major beta period, we should play a bunch of matches and I can record the footage on my end. It starts on the 17th, right?

@theindomitablesnowman:

Judging by that last comment I'm going to just assume you're unfamiliar with the game. It just takes time to learn when it's your turn to attack.

The basics of when you can attack rely on the "simple" (maybe not that simple) concept of advantage.

In a neutral state where both players do nothing, the advantage is 0 or neutral. Depending on the startup speed, recovery speed and stun value of the moves you use, the advantage can change in favor of either player. Usually called + or -.

As an example, a move that "recovers" really slowly is the shoryuken which takes its sweet time falling down on a miss or block, leaving you at a huge negative advantage and the opponent at a huge positive advantage, leaving you open to get attacked mostly for free.

This concept plays into everything you do in the game, including blocking an attack, dashing, jumping or attacking yourself. That's why doing nothing/blocking is often a very good option, especially against opponents who will stress out and do something "unsafe" (negative) to leave you at advantage and letting you do more aggressive decisions. Depending on how deep you want to go with this knowledge, if you pay attention this even plays into just normal attacks like a medium punch. Cammy in SFIV for example tends to leave herself at big advantages by making an opponent block her normal attacks and can therefore push her luck with more attacks that will come out faster than the opponents counter.

Advantage is counted in frames (frame data), but you don't need to know numbers to use the concept. You'll get a feel for advantage just by looking for it and playing a lot.

Sorry for nerding out a bit, but hopefully this is somewhat helpful for someone?

EDIT: To clarify a little bit, if it's not lag (it could be) you might just be interpreting the advantage as lag, because the opponent locks you up in a blocking state (blockstun) longer than you'd think.

Your probably playing against serious players, that's why it's so hard for me to get into street fighter anymore I just can't hang with them no more. Jump attack, medium sweep hadoken/dragon punch was/is my main/only combo in street fighter 4 lol.

You might not be using optimal punishes. It really depends on what your opponent is doing, but if you want a punish, try using a normal (like a punch or kick) because they're the fastest moves. Then you can cancel or link those punches into a combo.

Just take some video, and post it. Also considering you didn't know about cr. mk > hadouken makes me think you've never played street fighter before at any sort of level other than button bashing. You're at the baby stage, it's going to take a lot of patience to get past that.

It's actually called canceling (which is what the "xx" stands for in notation) which is an important distinction as "linking" refers to a different mechanic. Since cancelling cMK into Hadoken is the most basic of basic Street Fighter concepts, it sounds like you simply don't have the familiarity with the game yet. Since you've implied you have a lengthy history with fighting games, I'd be curious to know which ones you feel fluent in. It might be easier to describe SF in the ways it is not like other games you've played.

I'm pretty familiar, I just don't play shotos a lot. Yeah, the guy with the Sagat pic doesn't play shotos, go figure. I've mained Juri ever since SFIV came out, and I thought I had a good handle on the concepts of canceling and linking. It just seems like SFV is meant to be a much safer played game, but I can't figure out how to properly punish aggressive play. I'd love to get footage, is the Beta up again?

Sorry for being late with my reply, and thank you all for your kind words!

@theindomitablesnowman: Basically cancelling is when you interrupt the animation of one attack to go into another, most commonly done in SF with normal into special like Ryu crMKxxHadoken. Linking is when you let an attack go through its entire animation before inputting your next attack and it combos. A common link for Juri, for example, starts with her close LK which leaves her opponents with 6 frames of hitstun, which you can then link into her crouching MK which has 6 frames of start up. I tend to notate links with commas but I have also seen > used so either clLK, crMK or clLK>crMK.

As far as punishing, that just comes down to learning each matchup. I feel like attacks are generally less safe than they are in SFIV but maybe that comes with playing Mika where practically anything she does is punishable on block. More aggressive characters like Nash and Necalli tend to be safe on a majority of their offense.

EDIT: And no, beta was up for a few hours 2 nights ago as a stress test but the actual phase 3 beta starts at 12:01AM PST on December 18.

Awesome! Sadly, I have SFIV for 360, so I can't just record the footage from that to show you guys how bad I am. Next week though, you'll get everything!

OK, got my first videos uploaded to a Dailymotion channel under my PSN handle:

http://www.dailymotion.com/user/JackRyanForPope/1

I'll try to get a few more up before day's end, try some other characters. I'm really feeling Nash right now, he's got good reach and strong anti air. And he has a frickin' Genocide Cutter, that's always nice.

Edit: Here's a good match that displays my main problem of every button I press getting countered and never being able to counterattack. I screwed up the trimming, so the fight doesn't start until 2 minutes in. Sorry.

@theindomitablesnowman: Might help to reply tag people. This thread is already near the bottom of the page so it's just lucky that I happened to pop on at this time and catch it.

Looking at the video, the biggest thing that stands out to me is the complete lack of anti-airs. Ryu is jumping at a lot of unsafe ranges and you can freely blow up his attack with I think cHP is Nash's go-to AA normal. Because you're just blocking (or sometimes taking the hit), that puts Ryu on the advantage meaning anything he presses from that point on is going to come out first.

Another thing that sticks out to me is the spacing/timing when you seem to get counter-hit a lot. In round 2 starting at around 4:02 you get hit by an air-to-air by Ryu then upon landing immediately get counter-hit. Because Ryu is the one that hit you out of the air, he's going to be at advantage when you land meaning in most situations, the only way you will be able to beat out his attack is with an invincible move which does Nash even have? I don't think even EX Legs is invincible. Just his Critical Art. Unless you're trying to make a real bold call-out read, you're going to have to block. From that point on Ryu pushes you out with a few normals and lands a few more counter-hits. Ryu generally has longer range than Nash so pushing buttons in those situations is going to typically be a bad idea. You should never be counter-hit by the tip of Ryu sMK or cMK because at those ranges, you aren't going to be able to hit Ryu anyways.

I appreciate the desire to focus on defense, but Nash doesn't excel at keeping the opponent out. As a frame-trap character your goal should be to get in and keep pressure on the opponent until they crack and press a button at a bad time. Of all the characters in the beta, Nash is definitely the most difficult to play effectively. If you like the more passive style of stand back and react, Birdie might be a better choice for you.

EDIT: Oh and tech throws o_O

@starvinggamer: Thank you so much! I'll take those words to heart and get a few more matches on film tonight. I'll try playing Birdie a bit too, I did enjoy using him during the short time he was unlocked in the last Beta.

Damn, beta's still down...I wonder if they'll add time onto the end like last time this happened?

@theindomitablesnowman: Well this is scheduled maintenance right now so probably not.

Similar to what others have said, you're being too defensive and timid. If you're going to stand back and get hit, you might as well go buck wild and get in there applying pressure and get hit. Also, don't look at your opponents character too much, try to look just as often at the space between you and the opponent. The mind games you can play with footsies is one of the funnest things in SF.

@dudeglove: Yeah, I need to learn to have my fingers on both lights at all times, I'm eating way too many throws. I just can't seem to anticipate them properly. There's no really good tell for when someone's gonna try it, but ducking is no good cause overheads are so brutal. I'm using a Hori Fightpad, thinking about switching back to a stick when I get the money for one. Wish I could just pay someone to swap some parts on my Madcatz 360 stick. Oh well.

@theindomitablesnowman My advice: Pick another character. Nash seems more intermediate to advanced. He's real awkward to control and his game is mostly frame trap/CH setups. I agree with what @starvinggamer said, you are pushing buttons when you couldn't possibly have advantage, leading you to get counterhit a lot. Try to be more unpredictable. We've all fallen into the autopilot trap, hell the best players in the world do, so you have constantly remind yourself not to be predictable because that's when you get read and that's when it starts to really hurt.

We were supposed to get some games of USF4 in but never did, sorry about that. Still hmu if you see me on PSN and wanna play something.

@hippie_genocide: If you got a 360, I've got plenty of time, especially if the Beta is still down!

Man, I wish the command list would do a better job explaining what each V-Trigger actually does. Hell, what each move actually does, for that matter! Anyways, I got a couple more matches uploaded, including a really good asskicking by a Nash player that was good or lucky, I couldn't tell. Maybe Laura's not for me, either...

But Karin definitely is, I'm doing some work now. Although I could just be getting incredibly lucky. I think I need to start playing this less like SF4 and more like Virtua Fighter, since counter hits are so brutal. I'm uploading the first video now, does anyone know what time the Beta ends tonight?

@l1ghtn1n: Until the top of the leaderboards isn't populated nearly exclusively by Charlie/Nash I'm going to give it to him.

Ugh, I just got obliterated by a Ryu...getting trapped in the corner with that dude is bad news, he absolutely cannot be beaten to the punch by any move, ever. Though I suspect the dude might have been lagging badly. Or me.

@hassun: He certainly has the right attitude...man, getting blown up suuuuuucks.

@l1ghtn1n: I think he's extremely good. Not even sure I've ever beaten a single Nash in SFV. Probably not an easy character to use but definitely a great one. I've seen people call him the Akuma of SFV.

Wow so you are EXTREMELY new. Well first off I would HIGHLY recommend watching some youtube videos on combos, and matches for Ryu. You dont want to bother with the advanced combos, but jump kick, to med kick, to fireball is a pretty basic one. Also with chars like Ryu you want to be using cross over attacks/combos. Jump just behind the opponent using your medium kick which should land on the back of their neck. They have to reverse their blocking direction making it hard to stop.

Videos will at least show you what the characters can do. This game is very combo heavy. almost everything you do should link to other moves with a average chain of 3 being the easiest ones to do, and the ones you should learn.

Ive been playing SF since SF 2 in arcades, and Im not even that great. Though switching to maining Balrog tanked me bad with Ryu/Ken as my prior main characters. Its a very hard game to get good at but can also be one of the most rewarding experiences when you win a good match. Just stick with it, and dont take it too seriously. And remember, assuming you dont get DESTROYED every match teaches you something.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ELEG_w4r0Y Only watched for a min or two but this seems good. Ignore any comments on Focus Attacks as they are not in SF5.

@theindomitablesnowman:

Ugh, I just got obliterated by a Ryu...getting trapped in the corner with that dude is bad news, he absolutely cannot be beaten to the punch by any move, ever. Though I suspect the dude might have been lagging badly. Or me.

EX QCB+P, or V-Reversal when your getting attacked on wake up. Just use the EX QCB+P sparingly and don't become predictable with it. While Karin's wake-up games isn't amazing it still needs to respected, go show that Ryu :)

Thanks for all your kind words and advice! I still need to put a few more matches up, but I'll probably make a new topic for the next beta/game release, since this one will be nearly two months old by then. I'm not new to Street Fighter, but I suck with terminology, so please bear with me! And feel free to PM me if you have an Xbox and want to play Ultra SFIV!

Also, I haven't been able to lang a single V-Reversal (Is it cool if I just call them Alpha Counters from here on out?). I'm just not finding the right timing.

You're going to have to carve out and dedicate a LOT of time to go from zero to meh okay. You will need to accept that you will lose hundreds of matches.

You may want to invest in a fight stick and take the month or two to learn how to play on those so your execution becomes very steady. I highly recommend it if you don't have one already.

You'll really benefit the most if you have a friend or group of friends who wants to get better with you and you can grind together. Watch matches of high level players, read threads for combos you can do and general data on how the character works, and you should absolutely play each character in the roster for an extended period of time even if you have zero desire to play them. You want to learn what they are capable of, the mindset they are in, how they approach, how safe/unsafe things are, etc so when you fight against one you have a better sense.

In a way, learning characters is like learning maps in a first person shooter for example. This lets you know the best "spots" and flow of combat.

Reach out on here when the game drops and we can do private matches for us to do sessions with you for those that are better. Often less is more when starting out.

Oh, and buy Gootecks' book on Street Fighter 5. It's mad cheap on amazon :

http://www.amazon.com/Simplifying-Street-Fighter-Players-Preparing-ebook/dp/B015KLJCJI

I've read through a lot of these posts and there is a variety of good, bad, and misinformed information all mixed in together. I've watched the video posted by TheIndomitableSnowman and there is a lot to talk about here, so much so that the format of a forum post probably won't be enough.

To keep things simple, the main problem is a lack of fundamentals which I would suggest reading through sonic hurricanes footsies handbook as a primer on understanding fighting games: http://sonichurricane.com/?page_id=1702

Then if you're still looking for specific advice head over to SRK forums or r/StreetFighter and ask for specifics or ask people directly for help or training. Understanding fighting games is hard, we all suck real bad when starting out and the pool is already filled with seasoned sharks.

Also keep in mind: the people in these betas can range VASTLY in skill as those who preordered tend to be those most excited about the release and those who already have experience or know what they're doing. This, obviously, isn't across-the-board, always true (filthy casuals like you and I managed to worm our way in, for instance), but after an initial victory, I was finding myself getting absolutely WORKED.

Losing is a fundamental part of these, as long as you learn from your loss (it's one reason I can never stick with any of the Netherrealm games. I love 'em, but eventually I reach "that" skill tier where I'm just endlessly getting juggled and have NO clue how or why).

Yeah, that's why I don't bother with juggle-heavy games like MK or MVC. (Says the guy that just bought Injustice...it's 6 bucks with all the DLC stuff thrown in, I'm not made of stone!) This game seems way fairer, and I'm starting to realize why I'm losing. Now if I could just get logged in...also, should I make a new thread or change the title on this one now that the game is out and I can start my path to moderate local fame and maybe a couple hundred bucks?