Hate Speech: We Talkin' Bout Practice?

[IdleMind]

Can I ask a personal question????
How much time do people spend per week playing SC4?
Be honest now guys.
Perhaps we could create a parameter that measures on-line skill level (OLSL) such :
OLSL = Level /({months playing SC} x ({hours/week in SC} + {hours/week on-line}))

In my case this would equate to: OLSL = 22/(9 x (4 + 2)) = 0.41

This can't work, for 3 reasons.

1) Online Level means nothing. Zero. Nada. Zip.
2) Time spent playing does not necessarily = skill (read the article, it pretty much spells this out).
3) You can't quantify skill into a number.

I play maybe once every two weeks for about 3-4 hours, offline.
During my peak playing time, I played about 8 hours a week offline, and spent a good 3 hours a week in training mode.

That's all it took to become better than 90% of the people to play the game.

-Idle

 

[BEENEEWEENEES]

KA - Defensive practice like that is pointless. If you practice things in series to block them your mind is going to know the series and block without needing input from the game. The only way to really practice that is either a VF4:Evo level practice mode where you can have a setup with random followups (can you say 5 different records that have variable frequency (oh and SC4 may have said practice features, I haven't tooled around with it enough to really know)) OR have a practice partner to throw moves out at random so you can practice blocking.

you can record up to 3 different actions for the computer to randomly do and try to defend accordingly. using this is how i trained myself to block Yoshi dragonfly mixups on reaction, though i'm not sure if it'd be much good for anything else.

 

[KingAce]

KA - Defensive practice like that is pointless. If you practice things in series to block them your mind is going to know the series and block without needing input from the game. The only way to really practice that is either a VF4:Evo level practice mode where you can have a setup with random followups (can you say 5 different records that have variable frequency (oh and SC4 may have said practice features, I haven't tooled around with it enough to really know)) OR have a practice partner to throw moves out at random so you can practice blocking.

As far as blocking is concerned...I practice for moves with similar start up animations but end in either mid or low. Like Mitsurugi's 236B and his 1A.

BEENEEWEENEES
I believe it's a lot more than 3 actions, it's about 7-10 or something. Unless, you mean specifically 3 mixup situations.

And it's interesting you mention that....because you can react to Yoshi's Dragonfly mixups, but most people can't. So that is an excellent way to spend practice time.

 

[Fuzzieviking]

I tend to put the computer on the hardest setting in practice and fight them for hours. Usually characters that I personally have trouble with like asta or ivy.

That or I practice other possible combos I could be doing. Its how I learned most of my combos xD

 

[DmanXIIX]

I've spent some time in training mode actually being productive but I've spent too much time messing around. The important thing is to go into training mode with a plan and stick to it. It can become frustrating but it's all part of the process. Eventually you gain a sense of satisfaction knowing that you will no longer be susceptible to simple mixups that have haunted you in the past. If you don't know how to train, ask someone knowledgeable. Have them break down specific things you should work on and how exactly to go about it.

And another thing I learned with training is sometimes things need to marinate. Sometimes you can practice combos or work on a match up for hours on end and nothing will happen. The answer is not to endlessly beat a dead horse, the answer is to give it a break for a day or two and then go back to. Somethings just don't happen in a day. Execution for one takes time. Even if your not nailing all of your character's combos you shouldn't spend 90% of your training time on execution. You will do far better knowing match ups and having solid knowledge of the game while only using basic combos then you would having little knowledge of the game and match ups while doing the most complex combos.

These are things I've learned the hard way throughout my time with SC4 and that I will try to stick to in the future with SC5 and all fighting games.