Things for a total SC noob to practice to become good?

I average out at around 160-180ms, when I'm fairly relaxed. If I tense up, it goes up to around 220-250.

And yes, agreed to the "button mashing" or even just throwing out random attack strings in hopes of hitting being bad. You need to read the situation properly and avoid the panic reaction. CHs are deadly, so if you throw out strings that get full blocked, you're probably going to eat a CH combo in return, which is Bad Business (TM). If they block low, throw out a fast mid. If they block high, throw out a throw or fast low. Keep it mixed up and varied to keep them guessing. If you hit them with enough lows, they'll start blocking low more often so you can land the mid crumpler/launchers. Also remember that you don't have to use full strings. If the first two hits of a string get blocked, it's probably not a good idea to go through with the third unless you're delaying it or changing it up a bit.
 
I just started to practice Kendo in rl and it's really really scary that the same type of stuff you guys are telling me for SC4 my Sensei is telling me in regards to Kendo and rl combat in general.

I wonder if my Kendo will help me improve my SC4 skills and if my SC4 skills will help develop the proper mind set to win a Kendo match.
 
Kendo does teach you to concentrate on the matter at hand and to capitalize on timing and tecnique. It is fairly different to perform tasks with your hands instead of your entire body, of course, so it won't transfer over seamlessly. At least it hasn't for me (yet) but I'm no expert on the matter.

Off Topic Imminent.
Regarding Kendo in Soul Calibur, I and a friend of mine both equipped a shinai each with Mitsurugi and decided to only use "the Kendo attack" (I can't recall the command for it right now.. but it's a swift strike to the head.) and guarding to have a sort of Kendo match. First one to land a hit whilst (in person) stomping the right foot in the floor and yelling "Men!" were the victor of the bout.

End of off topic, heheh.
 
I think the ONE thing that separates from newbies to pros is their affinity towards sidestepping.

Most people just seems confused when you use it and it can be helpful to sidestep when you're on the floor as well (roll away!).

Just the rudimentary stuff that people usually don't use can change the gameplay quite a bit. Yoshimitsu juggling you in the air? Air control away. Cassandra juggling you? Air control sideways or even right up to her. It'll ruin her timing really badly.
 
Shippoyasha said:
I think the ONE thing that separates from newbies to pros is their affinity towards sidestepping.

Most people just seems confused when you use it and it can be helpful to sidestep when you're on the floor as well (roll away!).

Just the rudimentary stuff that people usually don't use can change the gameplay quite a bit. Yoshimitsu juggling you in the air? Air control away. Cassandra juggling you? Air control sideways or even right up to her. It'll ruin her timing really badly.
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sidestepping, ground recovery, air control...all basic gameplay systems you can't go w/o

not knowing these things separates scrubs from people who actually want to get better.
 
Well, I'm new to the whole soul caliber thing for three weeks now. It was pretty intimidating the first time I tried out story mode. I had my tush kicked from one end of the stage to the other and then eventually completely off of it. Getting a ring out on me was as easy as tapping a button for a strong attack while I idiotically stood there and recieved it ungaurded. I was totally at lost to what was suppose to happen and what needed to be done to get a descent play.

If that wasnt bad enough, I thought that online players would be a bit easier. . . .HA! How stupid was that desicion on my part? I tried my first online duel against a level 5 player while I was still at the lowest level. Before a second could drift by after the "fight" announcement my opponent was all over me and had me out of the arena before I could say "what the hell?" He did that for the next two rounds. I felt as low as I could possible feel that day because not only did I lose to a maximum of 15 people, I only had one win and that was agianst a fellow newb who was just as confused as I was.


I decided I had had enough. I buckled up and spent the next three days doing nothing but training with two specific created characters. One, Nami (forgive me if I spelled that wrong) and the other Cervantes. After over a total of 4 hours spent each day in the training mode I felt I had become good enough to memorize my characters moves ad exactly when to perform them. I was right!

My next online match was against a level 79 player! "WHY, GOD!?"
His status was 239 wins and 126 losses. I felt a great urge to evacuate this match quickly but it was too late. Pride took over. Suprisingly, I did pretty well. I didn't win but I cam honestly say I gave him a run for his money. I had him over the edge in a record time (my record time) of 40 seconds. I had him on the floor and backing away to avoid a good pummeling. He, ofcourse had me crying for dear life when he started a long series of combos. But I still held my ground. I finshed with two wins out of three under my belt and he took home the victory. I may have lost but I felt as though I had won something back from those 15 other players who defeated me. Now if I could only have my status say TWO wins and fifteen losses.

My point is, if you want to get better at soul caliber 4 then it would be best to get into the training mode (hyperbalic time chamber, sorry, dbz fan) and train your ass off until your thumbs burn. It helps, trust me.
 
Play player matches with you're friends. It helps if you have some one to mentor you, you can request a mirror match with a good player.

Ranked matches are very useless in my opinion, go there if you can deal with losing to laggy players and spammers.
 
Spammers? What's wrong with it? If you're any good or actually want to improve, you're going to find ways to fend it off. Also, not all ranked games are made equal. Some of the higher levelers know how to mix it up and the intensity of the match will be a good testing ground as long as you have the basic understanding of your characters and some good combos and mixups. I actually learned Lizardman from the ground up in ranked only. Now I can give a lot of players a lot of trouble with Lizardman (though not as much as with Amy) nowadays.
 
Nori said:
Spacing is extremely important. If you can find a char w/good reach (let's say Cass's 3b) you can work wonders. I've beaten many people in SC2/3 by out spacing them. They miss a move, be RIGHT outside their reach and hit them. Also, do not panic. Many times, newcomers will start losing and then lose their mind on offense, just throwing out move after move. Veterans will most of the time hit you w/moves and they know exactly what they can do from there. You can learn a LOT in practice mode, WAY more than you can online IMO
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Agreed and I would like to underline this by saying that it is very important to know the moves that create the space you need for a given move. Different moves knock your opponent back a certain distance, or close you in a certain distance, and you should aim to have a feel for what distance you will be after any given attack, before you do the attack, not checking to see how far apart you are after you do the attack.

Knowing the 'optimal' distance for your power attacks is a good step up from scrub-hood. Knowing which attacks or tactics can create that 'optimal' distance for you is another, very big step.

For myself, I have done very well so far with SoCal4's Yoshi (and hey, who hasn't?) but I credit my success with him so far more to my understanding of exactly how much distance a :B::B: or an :A::A: will create, than to the cool high-damaging / high-advantage-taking moves that I toss in after taking advantage of those distances. Without :A::A: and :B::B:, Yoshi would be easy meat.

This will work differently for different characters, of course. Kilik will want to increase range by a lot, and a good Kilik (I've never seen one but I can hypothesize) will know how to create that distance when he needs it. Yoshimitsu owns at a 'slightly-more- than-short-slightly-less-than-medium' range. Maxi needs to be close. Ivy needs to make a choice of whether to favor Sword or Whip, and then stick with it, unless she is being run by a genius player that can navigate successfully between the two. Some characters (like Yoshi) are blessed with easy moves that create their optimal distance, some aren't.

I'm running off at the mouth, sorry. Simply put: Know the distance you want for your power moves. Then learn what moves will put you into the pocket of that distance. For the scrub, ownership of Distance is probably your first and most primary concern after you've learned some basic moves. Once that well runs dry, then start learning your 8-way shit and your dodges and combos and low game and guessing games.
 
Grymlocke666, watching some videos by top players may give you some insight aswell. You can learn tons of tricks (oh, so he used that move right after that other one!) and how they react against certain moves that could give you troubles.

What I need to enhance myself :
-Waking up. I become a too easy prey when I'm on the floor I'm afraid.
-Okizeme. I don't make good use of the opponent being on the floor. With Sophitia is ok, but with Hilde I need to do better.
-A very agressive Mitsurugi will tear me apart. It probably has to do with being unable to block 1a or 2kb online, but still.
-Patience with Hilde. With Sophitia I control better my own fighting rhytm, a bit more passive, awaiting for the enemy mistake. With Hilde I don't have a smooth fighting style. I'm not predictable, but I'm not menacing neither.
-Throw breaking.
 
What has been helping me is focusing on identifying which angle an attack hits at. High, low, or mid. Many characters have attacks that look like they are hitting at one angle, but are actually hitting at another. Such as a mid attack that would appear to be a high.

Training mode can help with that a lot.

One of my weaknesses are the attacks that hit from different angles. Fucking Siegfried is such a good example of it. Makes me want to scream sometimes!
 
find stings that are you go to moves or setups and practice them until your fingers have it down everytime. depending on what character you play these can either be moves that get you out of trouble or lock the opponent down and are your staple strategy. find a fast poke, a move with good guard stun, a stun, and lows, and mix it up. it takes alot of feeling and steady adapting.
 
Ok I have another question, do you get any kind of frame advantage for GI an attack? Also is it better to follow up a GI with a throw or go for a combo or is it just situation specific?
 
@whatwhatwhat: It's more important to learn how a move hits than to base it on its angle. Moves like Siegfried's WS AA and some of Sophie's stuff are like that, which is why they're abused (And expect them to be abused, at least online).
 
Hello everyone. I'm new ot the forum and after reading this topic I think I've got a general grasp on what I should be doing from now on. I'm not new to the SC games but I've never really tried to play them at a competitive level.

I've got the VF5 HFS and I've just blown the dust off it and started using it last night. I've always been a pad player but after playing them for so long without a cheap stick option I'm gonna hopefully learn the arts of the stick. I'm having a lot of problems with movement, 236 and general execution but hopefully I'll iron it out in time.

Thanks for the replies, keep them coming.
 
whatwhatwhat said:
One of my weaknesses are the attacks that hit from different angles. Fucking Siegfried is such a good example of it. Makes me want to scream sometimes!
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I don't tend to notice that, personally. (even though Siegfried is my main)

What moves in particular from him seem so deceiving to you?

On studying frames: How does one go about that? Bust out the digital camera, upload the video onto your computer and use a program that screenshots each frame? Because if that's the case, I'm on SOL-status.
 
My tip for practicing so you can become better:

Be dumb. Be stupid. Be an idiot.

Why? Because by being stupid, you:
a) learn what's actually smart when you were just goofing around.
b) learn what's REALLY dumb and you should never do again.
c) learn what's risky and what you should only do if you have your opponents on the ropes.

If you go straight into these forums and learn only from us, you are preventing yourself from learning stupid stuff that, hell, might work once in a while. It might even be really good, but only under certain circumstances that you'll discover while, well, being stupid.

If you're playing for "real," like in a competitive environment between friends, you don't want to be stupid...all the time. But that move that he's been GI-ing every time you try it? Try it again; maybe he'll think you wouldn't do it after he's GI-ed it every time, and maybe it leads into a "killer combo" you remember from being an idiot. Maybe you're walking into the biggest beatdown of your life, but hopefully you'll learn something from it.
 
SLiK said:
On studying frames: How does one go about that? Bust out the digital camera, upload the video onto your computer and use a program that screenshots each frame? Because if that's the case, I'm on SOL-status.
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Most people actually calculate frame data relative to some reference point through a whole lot of math. Almost no one actually records footage and tries to count frames because it's not as precise.

If you're asking about studying frame data that's already been presented...

http://www.8wayrun.com/f39/frame-data-t324/

What you should take away from looking at frame data is an understanding of what moves are fast or safe. For example, you should consider moves with low numbers in their impact frames as good interrupts and moves which give advantage or very little disadvantage as low-risk staples.

Even then, they don't tell you the whole picture and should simply serve as a starting point for your experimentation. Some moves with seemingly bad recovery are safe because they also push out or can be applied at range.
 
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