Having trouble online.

I've begun playing Street Fighter 5, and have encountered something that I've never dealt with in fighting games before: I can't even hold my own against the worst of players. I've never been good at fighting games, as I've never devoted the time necessary to master the infuriatingly precise timing that is required to perform combos and the like. That's not going to change, but that's also never been an issue. In either of the last two fighting games I was really into (Street Fighter 4/KOF XIII), I was plenty capable of taking on people at my skill level AKA the bottom of the barrel. I might not be able to get off any lengthy and/or complicated combos, but I was fairly good at mixing up my playstyle and what moves I was using to keep my opponent off guard.

But now, I'm having some serious issues with what I've learned are called, "Meaty's": Hitting someone the exact frame they recover from being knocked down. I get knocked down once, and I'm done. I try and block, and I get hit. I try and wake-up uppercut out of the problem, and I get hit before I can get the move off. For the life of me, I don't know what to do in this situation. I just get crushed. I never encountered this in SF4, or in any other fighting game. It's just not something that those at my skill level ever tried; or if they did, they never did it right.

Like I stated earlier, I'm never going to put the time in to get good; it's just not going to happen. I like to play a lot of different types of video games, and I'm only willing to devote so much of my free time to games. Practicing hit confirms with Juri for dozens of hours just isn't going to happen. Being bad at fighting games before didn't mean I couldn't enjoy them, as there were plenty of people as bad as me that I could spar with. That doesn't seem to be the case anymore.

Is this just an issue with SFV, that the playerbase doesn't have enough casuals like myself, or has the average fighting game player just gotten better over the last few years and passed me by?

Kinda... Average player skill definitely goes up over the life of a game as the pool of players dwindles, and the average FG player has probably improved a lot since 2008. But also I think ranking/matchmaking is not terribly meaningful at a lower level since your knowledge of the game mechanics and your opponent's character is probably more important than your opponent's skill. You shouldn't get stressed about winning/losing to someone of a particular rank, etc. It's better to focus on improving yourself whether you win or lose. That should be fun too.

Moreso than worrying about combos, getting started in an FG is a lot about identifying and solving problems. You've already identified one problem well - you keep getting hit by meaties. You've also basically identified the solutions to the problem in SF - either block, wakeup reversal, or mixup your ground techs (quickrise/roll back/nothing). Now you gotta figure out why that's not working - maybe you're getting crossed up when blocking, maybe your uppercut doesn't have the invulnerability you thought it did (I think some SFV characters don't have full invuln on their meterless DPs), maybe you're timing the DP wrong (it will say "reversal" if you're doing it right. I think SFV has a lot of input leniency so you can do the input before you are actually standing), maybe you don't know the different wakeup timing options. So that's kind of the cycle of improving in fighting games, play, identify problems, research/practice a solution, play again - it shouldn't be grinding a 1F link combo for hours in training mode, but rather spending 5 minutes making the dummy do the move giving you trouble and experimenting with options. It's still hard to improve and every FG has a ton of stuff to learn, but not so time consuming or grindy if you play/practice in short cycles or split up your time.

I liked this video relevant to that, you might be interested:

@xkkzz: Thanks for the reply. I had just gotten off a couple hour play session of completely one-sided matches and it finally got to me.

Honestly, winning and losing isn't the problem for me. I lose most of the time; that's fine. The occasional win is nice, sure, but most of my satisfaction comes from the smaller victories. Did I manage to goad them into jumping at me by staying at a certain distance and then uppercut/air throw or some other AA to punish? Did I learn to reliably block their most used ground combo? Did I learn that they're a little weak to throws, or sweeps, or something else? Even if they then go on to adjust their playstyle and wipe the floor with me, that doesn't negate that small victory I had earlier. I still had a good time.

It's matches where I can't do anything that are screwing me up. Like I said in my original post, meaty's are destroying me. I can't find any small victories in a round where I get knocked down once and that's it. I think they're going to start off with one move and block appropriately; they hit me with something else. I try to get off an EX uppercut (to take advantage of the additional i-frames) but I've never been able to reliably perform a DP, so most of the time I just end up sweeping by accident. I know the answer is to practice. I know that my previous statement about hit confirming for dozens of hours was hyperbolic, but even if I only put in twenty hours (like the video suggests) in a planned and constructive manner, that's a boring twenty hours.

I don't know. I think I'm just going to have to determine whether or not I like the genre enough to put in the practice so I can get back to enjoying them. I hope that this is just an issue with SFV, but I'm a bit worried that I'm going to encounter the same issue with the next game I decide to get into.

I didn't think you were being hyperbolic actually, I've definitely practiced hard combos in FGs for dozens of hours (and without much progress a lot of the time, my execution is not good) but I didn't realize that was kind of a waste of my time for the low level of my play. I think the 20 hours thing is pretty arbitrary, I guess I just wanted to point out A. there's a lot of easier stuff to learn before the hard execution stuff and B. if you address things one at a time in short cycles between online and training mode then it doesn't have to be a boring grind. I mean, if it's boring to you you shouldn't do it of course, but I think the problem solving aspect is fun and it fits in with your (very good) mindset of trying for small victories.

You won't avoid meaty attacks in any other 2D fighting games - it's a fundamental tactic to the genre. In most games it's common for people to want to go for knockdowns even at the expense of damage because of the chance of setting someone up for a mixup. You're supposed to be at a disadvantage when you're getting up, and you gotta accept getting mixed up sometimes, so your main goal is just to minimize your risk and get back into a neutral situation. I haven't played SFV in a long time but I guess my suggestions would be to mix up utilizing your quickrise and roll, block low by default, put all your attention towards looking for a jumpin/overhead to switch to high block, and continue blocking until they get pushed out or do something unsafe. You'll still get hit by some mixups (or they will realize you're being too respectful and throw you), but that's natural, focus on blocking correctly at least half of the time. Sprinkle in DPs and look for throw techs once you're more confident in your blocking. That's kind of general advice that can apply to any 2d fighting game, maybe someone who plays more SFV has more specific suggestions (or check out the fighting games general thread for a discord link to the friendly and helpful GB FGC!)

Hey @relkin have you thought about joining the Giant Bomb Fighting Game Community Discord?

In my opinion, yes, the average knowledge of FG players has risen dramatically in the last 5 years and yes, you will find most fighting games as challenging as SFV, if not moreso. The reason is that access to knowledge has become hilariously easy. Just type SFV MEATIES in to youtube. You can learn on your own of course, but these little short cuts can give you a seed idea before you come around to understanding the whole thing yourself. As such, a huge % of players tend to know many concepts and but only in simple execution.

The key thing to think about is not how much training you need to do, but who you are doing it with.

For the love of god, don't let Ranked be your only experience with this game, or any fighting game.

Join the discord, get some tips & learn in an environment when you can have longer sets, more thought, and less crazy randomness.

For what it's worth, you sound like you are approaching this the best way possible (small victories count) but perhaps your idea of how fast you will learn doesn't meld with modern fighting games.

tl;dr

• if you don't have lots of time to play, make time to watch some key videos. They will shortcut your training time, but are not a replacement
• play with the same people regularly. this will really help you come to terms with your weaknesses, and get actual applicable advice

Approach Notes

• at early levels, you really, really need to know a few things A) the moves you can punish when you block and B) the moves you need to keep blocking after.
• if you block something, and ask yourself IS IT MY TURN!? write that shit down and look it up. Or, go for it, and memorize the result.
• On wakeup, you mostly want to just A) crouch block, try to react to overheads, and take the throw. As well as B) vary your wakeup timing.
• Patience. In SFV, there are very few characters who can force you to block even 3 buttons and keep the pressure going without taking a risk. Just let the block strings happen and wait for the character to be pushed away from you.
• If you haven't already, try completing easy survival for some/all characters in the game. This will give you some experience with their buttons; early on, you tend to die a lot out of pure lack of MU knowledge or character behaviour

GL duder!

I could go into the whole meta behind the troubles you're having, instead i'm just going to say put more time in.
Watch entertaining youtubers play the game, learn what they do, emulate it.

@geraltitude: @xkkzz: Alright, I'm going to take your suggestions to heart and keep at it. I really do appreciate the support. Thank you very much!

I got linked this video series(of a whopping fifteen minutes so far) just an hour ago by a buddy, so maybe you'll find it handy? It's pretty good.