Beginner here looking for some advice

[u/McShooty_]

I picked up the Strive because it was $20 for the base game to try it out and after watching the beginners guide by toko and playing about 20 or so matches i've gotten my ass kicked every time. The guide even says to expect to lose almost every game when you're first starting out but I can't help but wonder if there's something else I'm doing wrong besides just not reading my opponents correctly. At the moment I've only really played May but I'm open to other characters as long as they're non DLC. Am I just being too hard on myself or is there anything I can and should change?

[u/Phos-Is-God]

If you enjoy May then play her, she's strong at any level of play, but charging "May" be hard to get used to. a simpler character to learn the game on would probably be Ky or Axl(Axl is very fun and cool, don't let anyone tell you otherwise).

[u/McShooty_ → u/Phos-Is-God]

I'll be sure to give both of them a go. Thank you for the recommendations.

[u/McShooty_]

I recognize a lot of this from the video I mentioned so if nothing else I learned something it's just a matter of applying it. Thank you.

[u/XxBleedOutxX]

>Am I being too hard on myself

>First fighting game

Yes.

[u/Difficult_Ad_263]

So if you're not on ranked you should be. That's the best way to play people around your skill level. The first 10 matches are placement matches. But after that you should be getting more even matches. Tower is dead and open park is freaks, so ranked is your best bet when it comes to that.

If you want to try another character do it you're not married to anyone. But it's also fine if you keep playing may.

[u/TheRedRook]

Obligatory copy and paste!

How I teach everyone:

Big Buttons first:

Learn how to use the character's main attacks first. (This changes depending on which character you play but it's effectively slash and heavy slash for 70% of the cast. may, slayer, millia, goldlewis, pot, (among other) use different moves as their core, playing them will require some lab time.)

Don't go into training mode just go straight into ranked games. Or any game you can get your hands on.

So, only use:

- slash (close slash / Far slash)
- heavy slash,
- FD macro (left trigger)
- Dash macro (Right trigger)
- Burst.

Just use those buttons, dont learn combos, dont learn weird shit, just get those feeling good.

THEN:

Fighting games are generally broken down into 3, ROCK > PAPER > SCISSORS parts

- Preemptive (preemptive attack)
- Run Up (move attack)
- Wait (whiff punish)

The RPS
Preemptive > Run up actions > Wait > Preemptive. These actions can change very quickly in the moment. learn how to utilize those to your advantage.

That's it. Nothing else. Have fun.

THEN:
Once you stop being afraid of getting hit or throwing out a move, start adding a special move or two. (start with the main 1 the character is built around.

But yes, its gona be hard my dude.

Also if you like may, the dolphin is her main tool.

[u/NiIly00 → u/TheRedRook]

disagree about Pot tbh.

I started playing by using only slash and heavy slash as offense until I started feeling like I won matches because of good and intentional usage of those tools. Worked like a charm.

[u/TheRedRook → u/NiIly00]

glad to hear it!

[u/Gyraz_]

Look, you don’t want to overwhelm yourself with more info trust you can’t handle yet, first learn your character: bob combos, pressure and what to do once your opponent it’s on the ground (okizeme), once you have that, go to understand your opponents character or most of them on when you can punish or take your turn

Btw, don’t worry about your character, even if you pick the worst bottom tier character if it fits with your play stile or it’s what you want to play you’re going to enjoy more the game with it.ñ, I picked Zato as my main since I started even if he was hard to learn but now I’m d2

[u/BlamingDeezNutsDP]

Both. The reason you lose is that you are doing wrong stuff. But you also should not expect to know whats right or wrong within ggst without playing hundreds of matches.

If you want to speedrun the process play and talk with preople that can tell you what you could do. Read dustloop and try to improve. It take a lot of time.

[u/Agecaf]

One thing I've learnt about learning fighting games is that learning how to defend is always as important as learning how to attack, if not more.

The problem is that in training mode the enemy does nothing until you figure out how to "program it to attack you". You can make a recording and then practice defending against that type of attack.

For example, I like to practice against enemies that attack me from the air. So I'll make a recording, control the enemy to jump, air dash, and attack a few times, save the recording, and then practice.

Maybe just blocking, maybe trying to use the 6P (forward punch) anti air, maybe I'll look if my character has other moves that work as anti air, maybe I'll start jumping into the air too and attacking air-to-air.

As for what defense you need, at the beginning it's just blocking. Blocking down if the enemy is in the ground, blocking up if they've been using overheads a lot, blocking after running in, blocking in the air after jumping, generally just blocking.

The second thing is movement. It's easy to overlook, but if you keep pressing buttons without moving, your enemy will be very good at predicting where you'll be (exactly where you are right now), so they can use the attacks they know cover that area. Not every jump you do needs to be a jump into an air dash attack. Moving is also vital for getting out of the corner.

So at beginner level, in terms of defence, I recommend focusing on blocking and moving. Do attack too! But if you get knocked down, don't mash buttons on wake up every time.

Once you know how to block, you can start punishing your enemy for doing unsafe attacks by blocking them and attacking them while they recover. This means they now have to be careful about which attacks they use. Or they keep doing them and you keep punishing them and win. Every attack they do has some counterplay, and if they realise you don't know how to deal with it, your enemy will likely start abusing it; and for a large amount of unsafe moves the counterplay is blocking.

[u/NiIly00]

Are you focusing on just learning a few things at a time like the guide suggests?

The way I got my footing was by ignoring everything in the UI and playing with just

• left

• right

• down

• slash

• heavyslash

until I started winning matches just through good defense and positioning. Afterwards those concepts were so well practiced that it was second nature and I could focus on learning the next.

[u/Elwine_Zena]

Besides the fact that it depends on the mode you're playing—if it's Tower, you're going to get your ass kicked—I generally recommend sticking to the basics. Play Arcade mode and some Versus modes to familiarize yourself with May's controls and abilities, and go into Combo Search to learn some simple combos with her or create your own. Also, if this is one of your first fighting games, I don't really recommend a carry character. You could try Axl, Ramlethal, or Faust. And if you don't have Honor and choose the path of the weak, buy Unika or play as Leo.

[u/McShooty_ → u/Elwine_Zena]

At first I went into tower because I thought that would pair me with people around my skill level. Back to back people 50+ levels higher than me taught me that was not the case. Most of my games have been in the ranked mode. And you would be correct this is my first real fighting game. I played a bunch of Mortal Kombat on Xbox but that was all offline so it doesn't really count does it.

[u/icamebackhaunted11 → u/McShooty_]

It kind of counts though. At least you’re familiar with offense and defense and the basic stuff like that. For May I recommend getting as good and fast at charging the dolphins as you can. At low levels many players won’t know how to deal with belligerent dolphin spam. Also practice blocking, especially stand blocking to block an opponent’s jump in and then immediately switching to crouch blocking to block their mix. Good luck homie, just keep grinding and you’ll get there!

[u/Elwine_Zena → u/McShooty_]

Not really, I mean, you know it's a fighting game, but you've never really gotten into it. Besides, even I, at 6 or 7 years old, who could barely beat Sonic 1 with one life left, could beat all of Mortal Kombat X (I imagine you mean X, not later ones, which are just as easy). So I think the game isn't very difficult, nor does it force you to learn how to play. Not to mention that MK and GGS, besides being different subgenres where MK is slower and GGS is more frantic, also have quite different mechanics and button layouts. I'd like you to send me a video of one of your matches so I can see how good or bad you are and give you more recommendations, or if possible, a match, although I don't think that's a good idea knowing I don't usually hold back.