OK, so I'm not that great at fighting games but I've finished the story mode and played around with some of the battles and decided to try my luck online...

So, apparently the only people playing online are really good at this game. I'm lucky to land a hit or two. It has a player matching system called TrueSkill but it doesn't seem to have any effect... No matter what I do Player Match, Ranked Match, whatever I'm always matched with someone who completely outclasses me.

This seems to be the biggest problem with online fighting games. The people who can hold their own continue to play and those who belong in the scrub league can't find a decent match because there arent enough of us playing due to being completely dominated.

So, what are other peoples views on this/ stories/ suggestions?

It's one of the big problems fighting games have. They are a pain to get into. The first days are the easiest because people who bought the game at release try their luck before they stop (because they lose interest or because they get blown up a bunch).

I'm somewhat decent and won a few online matches but there are still tactics where I just don't know what to do yet. In a fighting game every tactic is viable and a good player will use every tool available (and if that means spamming Superman's laser, Deathstroke's guns or Nightwing's staff poke a bunch then that's okay too).

You have to learn how to deal with that stuff and that means bashing your head against it and spending time in the lab (figure out which moves are safe, what are the best combo starters, combos, anti-airs, setups and resets in training mode while working on your execution). If you don't then you will always get blown up by those who do. I think NR tried to make the game as accessible as possible but it's still a fully featured fighting game, so it still takes a lot of time and dedication to get to a point where you'll do well online.

If you don't want to do all of that stuff you have to find people who are roughly at the same skill level as you are and play online/offline with them. It may sound harsh but that's how it goes (at least in my experience).

@rawknro11a: Have you spent any real time picking a character and spending a few hours in the training room? Having a character you are deeply familiar with as well as actually knowing how to play to their strengths is going to greatly affect your luck online. Showing up to a fight online without a understanding of your character is like showing up to a gun fight without bullets.

@demoskinos: I've gotten pretty comfortable with 2 or 3 characters and can pull off some ok combos and most of their character specific moves when playing against the AI, but once you put a real persopn in the match it almost seems like I don;t even have a chance to do anything.

@rawknro11a: Well, real players are far more aggressive than the AI is. You've just got to learn how to deal with pressure. And really the only way to do that is to just play. The thing is unlike AI human players tend to fall into a set of patterns so if you're carefully reading what they do you can usually start to notice patterns. You can use this to your advantage by baiting attacks then punishing them ect... Fighting games are as much mind games as it is doing inputs on an controller. If you see that this person likes to open up a lot with a specific attack figure out if you have something that could be a quicker animating attack to get the pressure up on them or just figure out how to deny them and then punish on block.

I'm no great myself by any means but I can still grab some wins here and there. You've just got to really read your opponent.

@rawknro11a: Play against the Hard and Very Hard AI or higher end Normal AI if you want a more realistic expectation of what you'll see online; that said most people aren't particularly good so you could probably get better just playing online at this point.

Very Hard is much more difficult than just about any player at this point.