The 4 steps you should follow when learning ANY Fighting Game.

Thank you to my Patreon supporters for voting for this topic! Today we're covering my learning process in fighting games - these are the 4 steps I follow when picking up any fighting game for the first time! Hope you find it informative and useful for your own learning process!

Today I'm playing King of Fighters 2002 Unlimited Match, the steam version, public beta branch. Code Mystics has been absolutely killing it with the rollback lately, and this port is no exception!

[nomad]

"Step 1: Learn your characters moves"

New Tekken players checking their movelist: *incoherent screeching*

[ultrawillpower]

One major tip for new players: Even when things are getting rough, esp. in your 1st Online match, *_DON’T RAGE QUIT._* You’ll never learn nor evolve your skills if you don’t keep fighting to your last health or character. Losing is a part of growing, and even when you don’t win, you’re learning and adapting with every second. FG Devs should always remember that having *Practice, * *Tutorials, * and even *Trials* from the start go a long way to learning a new game and steadily letting your nerves wash away after your 1st Online fight. As Qui-Gon once said, “Concentrate on the moment. _Feel, _ don’t think. Use your instincts.”

And for both veterans of the game and the FGC in general: when new players join the party, _don’t_ put them down like smug elitists. Instead, take your time to help them out, teach them, help them grow into friendly rivals and close friends.

[bobhoskins-klue]

“Muad'Dib learned rapidly because his first training was in how to learn. And the first lesson of all was the basic trust that he could learn. It's shocking to find how many people do not believe they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult. Muad'Dib knew that every experience carries its lesson.” - Frank Herbert, Dune

[LettuceGod]

These are the four steps I take
1: do the tutorial
2: pick a simple character
3: learn a couple easy combos
4: go online and play

[Varshun]

The best step is to message your opponent before the match and let them know that throws and special moves are banned because they are unfair. Then you can play the game the correct way and learn how to fight without cheap garbage.

[nitumaki]

Can’t wait to see you stream 2002, rollback really does revive a game

[jeanschyso]

my own 4-step process is this.
1. Look up who's a honest simple character.
2. Learn the universal mechanics. The thing that any character can do
3. Learn a basic bitch ground combo
4. Learn an anti air move. If there is Anti air combos, just do a knockdown after the anti air. We can learn a second combo tomorrow.

After that I'm ready to play online. I won a lot more than I lost when I played Power rangers when I played it in June, and the first match was just me doing steps 2 and 3 during the match. I still don't know how the robots work, but I didn't need to know in order to have fun and win a few games.

[iamthebossmanify]

For people concerned about charge characters in general, MOST of the time your character will have some attack that puts the opponent in hit stun for long enough to do your hold your direction and do the opposite direction and your button. Same goes for chars with a 360 or 720 input, usually it's a heavy move, but it's not as scary as it seems to use these characters.

[dvy]

the zombie thing was leonas orichi blood form. In KOF my team is Iori, Robert and K.

[capefeather]

"The startup on that is crazy"
LATER...
"Why is Ralf just screaming like that"

[phoenixlich]

I know from experience how hard it can be to let go of caring about win/loss ratios and rank and all that. But once you do any game becomes so much more fun. i think the main reason people get stressed about rank in some games (doesnt really apply to fighting games) is when periodic rewards are tied to rank so you stress about losing your progress towards a reward goal. but really most seasoned players and especially pros do not give two poops of raisins about rank. you'll always find some smurfing anyways. rank means nothing. win/loss ratio means nothing. win streaks only mean one thing: match making (mmr) isn't well tuned.

[TheMasterBlaze]

Manually activates Riot of the Blood in Leona.
"Yo! She's in zombie mode!!"

[Vellik]

I actually really needed this, recently swapped my entire team in Fighterz and well obviously I'm nowhere near as good as I was with my day1 team. I'm not used to getting bodied this bad but I know I'll learn the situations with the new team by taking the small victories. Thanks Corfty.

[Balthazar]

You always need to find your "gateway" character. This is a character that you LIKE, that makes sense to you, and who acts as your "in" to the rest of the mechanics of the game. If you can find this character, you will find your Rosetta Stone for the rest of the game, and you can now have a reference point with which to compare the rest of the cast to.

[Aranesque]

Besides the helpful tips, IT'S SO FUN TO SEE SOMEONE PLAY KOF FOR THE FIRST TIME!

Leona in particular has a lot of history behind her, and in KoF '97 that "zombie" form was crucial to the plot. The fact that it became a super move is very interesting for her character. And yes, SNK special moves were always this brutal and I love them :D

[homurayurisquad]

I usually prefer playing sets with someone on friends list than random netplay. that way you can communicate findings, tips, strategy that seem to work, etc.

[bamboebahr]

Thanks for this, this is the attitude I try to bring to every new fighting game. It works pretty well until I start to get better and gain just a bit of confidence, only to hit a brick wall of massively better opponents. Then it's just a one way ride to tilttown until I take a break.

[jdolce]

I agree with the idea that you should play to learn, not to win. I've had to focus on parts of my game plan and be happy with getting results from that rather than only being satisfied with a win. Thanks jm!

[nekture]

Love to see some SNK.

THE sprite art masters.

[julianmillo]

I usually just watch high level players in tournaments to get a general idea how to play a character, then go from there