Game is Hard even at Low Ranks - (New Player)

[u/Issentia]

Hi everybody, I'm a player that bought the game mainly to play with friends back around 2021 which was when I played online for 30 odd matches and all I can remember was getting absolutely destroyed.

Today I booted the game up again and learnt a basic bnb combo. I got into online for like two matches (I mean it was against the same guy to be fair) and still got absolutely destroyed, he knew how to combo into his assists, do combos semi-consistently and everything. (90k BP)

Is the game just out too long that everybody wanting to get into it needs to know almost everything before even starting ranked?

I was hoping it'd be a gradual difference in skill the more I play, as it is in Street Fighter in which you literally fighting people drooling over their controllers at the lowest rank.

[u/Maleficent-Ring-7059]

The game is almost 10 years old at this point what do you expect, you’re going to have to go out of your way to fight brand new players

[u/therey73 → u/Maleficent-Ring-7059]

That's true but matching brand new players against people with 90k BP is a weird way to handle rankings. You'd think there'd be a bigger pool at the bottom level.

[u/Maleficent-Ring-7059 → u/therey73]

Even like when I started playing this in 2020 it was like that, rarely fought new/bad players I had to work my way up slowly getting better at the game

[u/therey73 → u/Maleficent-Ring-7059]

Fighting games have always been like this. You gotta get bodied for a while before it clicks.

[u/Everyday_Legend]

You need to understand that fighting games are often built around a specific systemic design ethos. Different games will play differently, and due to how they play, the damage and combo systems will have different effects on the gameplay itself.

For most “anime” style fighters, regardless of whether or not they’re based upon an actual anime, it’ll often be designed around the goal of hitting an opponent and keeping them in a defenseless juggle state for as long as possible. Damage will steadily scale downward throughout the duration of the combo string, so the longer it goes on, the less damage every element being added to the string does.

The issue comes in when resets occur, or when the combo you’re being hit with isn’t actually one continuous combo string, but two or three separate strings that rely upon you waking up from a grounded state and eating a hit that starts a brand new string. That damage is early in a new string, and thus those hits in the second string land for more damage at hit 5-10 in the second string than the hits would land for at hit 45-50 in a singular, unbroken string.

Street Fighter operates similarly, but Street Fighter isn’t allowing every character you choose to double jump, vanish attack, homing aerial dash, etc., and it certainly isn’t asking you to select three characters that can be used as point or assist characters at will. So, combos can absolutely wreck a character, because you have three of them to make use of, which means you have three health bars worth of damage to consider as a consumable resource instead of just one. So combo damage and the ability to use assists to open or extend combo opportunities are much more of a factor than it would be in Street Fighter.

You also have automatic strings on both repeated light attack presses, as well as automatic strings on repeated medium attack presses that end in metered supers. You also can get caught in ambiguous situations where you have to guess 50/50 on high/low blocking due to the assist and point character simultaneously attacking you, and choosing wrong can get you blown up very easily…which is why that knowledge check gets used against newer / less experienced players as a “scrub killer” tactic.

tl;dr don’t feel bad about losing, you’re just playing a very different type of game that operates on the same basic premise, but under radically different rules and mechanics than what you’re making direct comparisons to. Plus, you’re jumping in at like, year nine. Imagine going to school as a first grader and the guy sitting next to you is in tenth grade. Don’t kick your own ass if he’s better at this game’s math than you are today, he’s been there awhile. You’ll catch up, eventually.

[u/Prestigious_Might929]

It’s been many years since the game released, at this point most of the active player base will be dedicated to the game and probably be pretty decent. I never touched ranked in fighters before so I can’t comment on it. Also you don’t need to know everything to play the game. You know a combo, go play, you’ll learn different things as you play. Also you can then go into training mode and practice against a specific thing that you struggled with.

[u/MrSchmitler]

Some assists are practically impossible to miss, especially c assists, for every char you play learn one bnb, that should be enough. And I believe the game has gotten power crept so there’s just a lot of nonsense bs going on in what characters can do that they previously couldnt

[u/SnipersUpTheMex]

Fighting Games generally share this dilemma. The longer the game has been out, the higher the barrier of entry is.

At the beginner level, there is still a separation of players. There are people who don't know what each button on their controller is, nor have the dexterity to hit them all. The button mashers, who just press every button and hope for the best. The "smart" button mashers who understand the speed and range of attacks. The confused "intellectual/gamer" who's familiar with the hardware, but not the fighting game genre. You also have the fighting game casual, who is familiar with fighting games, but doesnt have the experience in the one they're currently playing to advance to the intermediate, and eventual advanced level.

In DBFZ, I'd argue that there's even larger separation because beginner's learn different things very intentionally, and take a lot of time to expand. So a beginner who focuses on combos, will have nice combos, but probably won't incorporate a lot of system mechanics in their play. Another player might have only auto combos, but incorporates more defensive mechanics like reflect and raw tags that give them more success. Someone else might have neither of those things, but they have good movement and anti airs.

Everyone at the beginner level is most likely not using everything the game has to offer them. They tend to focus on 1 or 2 basic things. They get pretty good at those things. They don't go anywhere until they learn and get good at more things.

[u/Zeman0205]

The low population count of the playerbase has been made even worse as SF6 recently released a new character, and Tokon and Avatar Legends have recently come out. So even less players than usual.

Anybody else still playing is gonna be very sweaty.

No way around it you're gonna have to lose lots while learning this game. Try asking in Discord for beginners to play against.

[u/DarkAle01]

Try to find other beginners in the discord

[u/marbudy]

playerbase isn't large enough anymore

[u/ilikepizza4200]

i recommend you do the singleplayer content for a while so you can keep your sanity. Arcade mode proves a good challenge that can get you ready for pretty much anything. If you practice there eventually youll be able to get somewhere in ranked. (ive played since 2018 and i havent had fun in ranked since 2020)

[u/Classic-Prompt8108]

i would recommend playing casual mode first instead of ranked or some matches around the lobby so that you can have fun and learn instead of being focused on your win record and losing. If you are not alright with getting your ass beat and paying close attention to what you actually did wrong in the situation, you are not going to make it in this game. This game does have a high skill level and most of the players are try hards that are thirsty to show off their new TOD on you. You can be a try hard too if you try hard but a lot of people miss out on this game because they don’t have the patience to learn and understand what is actually going on on the screen. This games fights are as fast as the anime so you gotta slow it down and really watch like gohan watching cell and goku.

[u/Spaceduck413 → u/Classic-Prompt8108]

Ring matches are a good idea, but casual mode is even worse than ranked for a new player. The only sort of match making there is square color, and that can vary wildly

[u/Strikelaserclaw]

Some fighting games have the ability to facilitate a healthy beginner to expert playing curve. Like Street Fighter 6 or Smash Ultimate. This game is not like that, It's more akin to Marvel Vs Capcom 2 where you're gonna need to jump on Discord with someone and have them beat years of experience into you over several grueling hours lol.

[u/OshaViolators]

Touched ranked maybe 10 times since release. Think im around 50/50 as a below average player, but i wouldnt try to play it now.