This is exactly what I was looking for to help Muff, Leezy and Good. A great tutorial (credit) Beef Jack.com
WAKE UP SHORYUKENSThis is one of the biggest offenders. Players who get knocked down often do a shoryuken, super, or ultra on wakeup. I think someone told them it was a win button, because they’ll do it over and over and over. The problem with just throwing them out is the fact that if you miss, the other person can easily punish you for committing to such a risky move.
When you do it over and over it stops being a fierce way to stop pressure, and starts becoming sort of cute.
Now I’m not going as far as to say never do a wakeup shoryuken. At times it can work very well if you have an overly aggressive player, or your opponent commits to something that means they can’t avoid it. But if you do it over and over, better players will bait your shoryuken, making it look like they are going to dash up, and then blocking when you throw that ever so predictable shoryuken. This includes moves that aren’t shoryukens but work the same way (Fei Long’s Shienkyaku, Cammy’s Cannon Spike, etc).
Don’t do it!
Also, on this note, this isn’t a bad habit per se, but belongs here for the fact that it seems like there are a crazy number of Ken players. I know you like Ken, he’s American, blonde, and has a wife (who looks like she’s going to birth an alien in his anime opening) but new players act as if he’s the only character on the selection screen.
I always advise playing who you are comfortable with, and who you just generally have fun playing as, but I just wanted to also say that if you play Ken you may be putting yourself at an early disadvantage. Because everyone is playing Ken, everyone is learning also to play against Ken. You could very well do better learning another character that people are still learning the matchup for. No, Ryu doesn’t count. Still play who you like and who fits your style, I just can’t imagine this many people all are playing Ken for this reason.
Plus it’d be nice not to have to fight ten Kens in a row. Please.
FULL SCREEN FIREBALLS/SUPERS/ULTRASThis is one of those habits I really don’t understand. I can see getting into the habit of doing Shoryukens on wake up over and over because for new players it may hit people a lot, but this one just doesn’t really make sense.
At full screen your opponent would have to sit there and do nothing to get hit by the Hadoken, and he has plenty of time to react. Also, even if the Hadoken does hit, it doesn’t do a bunch of damage.
It’s risky because many characters have EX moves that will blow right through a regular Hadoken. Whenever I see players do this, I relax, as I know it’s free damage for me. EX right through the Hadoken and you score the hit, and with some characters this can also put you in the trouble of post knockdown mixups and tick throws (I’m looking at you Balrog).
Full screen ultras aren’t a great idea either, because again, you’re hoping your opponent randomly decides to get hit by it. Then you’ve used your ultra for nothing. The only one I’ve seen used at far range well so far is Dhalsim’s, because you can use the ultra, and then teleport behind your opponent and knock him back into it! Once you see it coming, it’s often too late and jumping out can be tough.
JUMP KICK, LOW KICK = AWESOME WINIt doesn’t. This is a combo that was hot stuff back when 16-bit consoles were king and Michael Jackson was still cool, but now, you need to mix it up more.
Like the Shoryukens I’m not saying never do a jumping attack into a low attack, in fact many great combos come out of a jump in, I’m just saying don’t do the same thing over and over.
I’ve fought many a Guile player who will through a Sonicboom, jump in with a roundhouse, and then low roundhouse. Not only is Guile’s low roundhouse slow (you can hit him between the kicks) it’s just not as airtight a tactic as people think it is.
There are other ways for characters to get in for combos, dashing in, as well as purposely using a move to end up just short of your opponent. Also you can keep your opponent guessing by ticking into a throw.
For those of you who don’t know what a tick throw is, a tick throw is when you use an attack to create the spacing/timing for a throw. So if you hit someone with an attack, sometimes you can use that blockstun to then grab them (leaving their only option to tech the throw). Mixing this in can make you much less predictable, and can even make people wary of trying to punish your jump in the same way they would usually.
DON’T PANIC!!!
This one is important, I’ve had rounds where I was behind and I started gaining momentum and my opponent panicked and his game plan broke down. A player who had been playing well all match will suddenly throw out random EX moves, or even worse, an ultra.
Repeatedly hitting low attacks, or just running away with really no plan what to do. This can lose you matches very quickly once you’ve lost momentum.
Backing up and sort of “resetting” your position with your opponent can sometimes help you get back the spacing you need, if you’re cornered, still don’t panic! Remember you’re never out of options. You’ve got an uphill climb, but if you can land an ultra, or in some cases a super you can take the round back.
DROPPING ON PEOPLE BETTER THAN YOUDropping out of a player match versus people that are better than you does a disservice to yourself. The best and quickest way to get better I find is to play people with more skill than you. The more experience you have against good players, the better. By playing with them you’ll learn more about what tactics are safe, what things you thought would work that don’t because they’ve already figured out a way against it.
Most of the time when I join a player match, if I win the first two matches in a row, the host kicks me from the game.
While not as painful as that kick, it is annoying pretty. I by no means aim to sit around and crush people new at the game for prolonged sessions. That’s not my goal at all. In fact most good players dislike playing people new to the game, but I differ because of my experience in previous fighters.
When I was learning Street Fighter III having a player better than me take the time to give me a lot of games, knowing I was not really a challenge, helped me immensely. I had played a bunch of people who only quasi-knew what they were doing, and being able to play with someone more knowledgeable eventually helped me learn the game a lot more than beating on people who were worse than I am.
So when I play a player worse than me, I have no problem giving him some games to see the holes in his gameplay (I’m not one for trash talk personally so I don’t yell at them about it) and if they ask, I have no problem showing them combos, stuff, etc.
So while you may not learn much if you’re facing a guy who is double perfecting you every round, if you are playing a player that is better than you but still within the realm of reason, it’s best to stick it out and see what you can learn. See why you lost, and work on it again next round. Not to mention it’s satisfying as anything when you finally put together a game plan that works.
These are just some of more prevalent bad habits I’ve seen in players during my first one-hundred games of Street Fighter IV. And if you find yourself falling into any of these categories, don’t fret! Everyone has to start somewhere.
But please, for me…
…no more full screen ultras.
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