Unfortunately this blog never really took off, probably because I never actually shared it publicly. So it was always more of a place for me to write about my Street Fighter progression, written as if there was an audience interested in reading it.
My previous post was from last June, about 7 months ago, funnily enough also around the time myself and ThatGuyBrophers set up www.darkworldgaming.com. So all the time I'd previously allocated to keeping this up to date went into setting up and growing Darkworld Gaming - which is still doing pretty well!
But thats not to say my Street Fighter days also fell by the way side! I continued to practice, and ended up running the Ultra Street Fighter 4 launch event tournament (was held locally to me and the guys at Xtreme Gaming didn't know how Street Fighter tournaments typically ran) while also placing third over all and bagging some swag in the process.
From how well the USF4 launch event went I convinced the guys at Xtreme Gaming to let me set up a free weekly Fighting Game Community (FGC) event there. Thus Friday Night Fights was born. I finally had a place to play weekly offline tournaments. As a community we grew, incredibly friendly bunch and everyone is very helpful - my Street Fighter game has improved greatly from the practice and advice given from some of our regulars. And I'm now doing regular write ups for Friday Night Fights (FNF) at Darkworld Gaming as well.
So how has my Street Fighter progress been? FNF is split into "Seasons" and Season 1 ran from September through to December, and I stuck with Juri for most of that, and was doing fairly consistantly (usually floating between 3rd to 5th each week). But eventually found that it was somewhat the character holding me back, my fundamentals weren't bad, but I wasn't able to do what makes Juri good very well if at all.
I picked Juri because I wasn't good enough with Akuma to warrant his low health, and Juri only has 50Hp more... The other problem I frequently had, is although I play quite a good zoning game with Juri, I have a tendancy to just want to dive kick in and go HAM! The problem there being is that going ham without the proper combos results in counter hits, whiff punishes and eating command grabs...
At the suggestion of one of our regulars, MOP|C4IQ, towards the end of Season 1 I started experimenting with Gouken. Initially this was a bit rocky, getting used to different anti air buttons lost me many a match. But over all I naturally played Gouken in that Lame zoning game. My fireballs and anti airs were keeping people out and I started winning some matches - but still did little better against the people that were beating me regularly with Juri.
So I've started looking at improving the Gouken play, started working on link combos and what not. Generally if I can keep people away I can squeeze out a win, but some of the guys, namely MOP|C4IQ and SFO|AVG can just get in freely it seems. I've started getting the odd round on them, but its very hit or miss.
But in the last couple of weeks, in moments of disheartedness from losing badly with Gouken, be it against people at FNF who I shouldn't be losing to, or due to the TERRIBLE match making on Steam making me face off against the number 8 Cody or the number 12 Evil Ryu (just two examples of last night) even though I'm at only 300PP/500BP and selecting "Same Skill", in those moments I've found myself being a bit naughty.
In those moments I've been playing someone else, someone who has interested me since her announcement, even though I've always disliked her counterpart.... I've been playing Decapre.
I'd always said once I got to a certain level I'd learn a charge character and a grappler, to make sure I had a base knowhow for various character types. And I'd said my charge character would be Decapre. But I ended up just messing around with her a bit and she's so fun!
My fairly new friend Joesephyr rarely can make FNF due to work committments, but when he does his Vega wipes the floor with everyone. But he's started coming round to mine to just chill out and play some Street Fighter. Two nights ago I showed him my Decapre, and actually got some games on him, against all three of his 'main' characters: Vega, Fei Long and Poison.
My Decapre is far from good, but the mix of Lame and Ham that I tried with Juri seems to work a bit better with Decapre for me it seems. My execution is still a little off - charge characters being new to me and all that. But I have more options with Decapre I feel. Ground Slam to Ultra 2 and Target Combo 2 to Ultra 2 are both options already - albeit not even 50% execution yet. But its good when some of the people I've played recently have pointed out that "its a shame your Ultra didn't come out, that would've finished me off". Next step is to work on Psycho Sting FADC Ultra 2... Just need to find a guide on the inputs for it...
I may well update this a little more frequently now, I might even share it about for people to actually see and all that jazz...
In the mean time - pose!
/o/
<o/
My previous post was from last June, about 7 months ago, funnily enough also around the time myself and ThatGuyBrophers set up www.darkworldgaming.com. So all the time I'd previously allocated to keeping this up to date went into setting up and growing Darkworld Gaming - which is still doing pretty well!
But thats not to say my Street Fighter days also fell by the way side! I continued to practice, and ended up running the Ultra Street Fighter 4 launch event tournament (was held locally to me and the guys at Xtreme Gaming didn't know how Street Fighter tournaments typically ran) while also placing third over all and bagging some swag in the process.
From how well the USF4 launch event went I convinced the guys at Xtreme Gaming to let me set up a free weekly Fighting Game Community (FGC) event there. Thus Friday Night Fights was born. I finally had a place to play weekly offline tournaments. As a community we grew, incredibly friendly bunch and everyone is very helpful - my Street Fighter game has improved greatly from the practice and advice given from some of our regulars. And I'm now doing regular write ups for Friday Night Fights (FNF) at Darkworld Gaming as well.
So how has my Street Fighter progress been? FNF is split into "Seasons" and Season 1 ran from September through to December, and I stuck with Juri for most of that, and was doing fairly consistantly (usually floating between 3rd to 5th each week). But eventually found that it was somewhat the character holding me back, my fundamentals weren't bad, but I wasn't able to do what makes Juri good very well if at all.
I picked Juri because I wasn't good enough with Akuma to warrant his low health, and Juri only has 50Hp more... The other problem I frequently had, is although I play quite a good zoning game with Juri, I have a tendancy to just want to dive kick in and go HAM! The problem there being is that going ham without the proper combos results in counter hits, whiff punishes and eating command grabs...
At the suggestion of one of our regulars, MOP|C4IQ, towards the end of Season 1 I started experimenting with Gouken. Initially this was a bit rocky, getting used to different anti air buttons lost me many a match. But over all I naturally played Gouken in that Lame zoning game. My fireballs and anti airs were keeping people out and I started winning some matches - but still did little better against the people that were beating me regularly with Juri.
So I've started looking at improving the Gouken play, started working on link combos and what not. Generally if I can keep people away I can squeeze out a win, but some of the guys, namely MOP|C4IQ and SFO|AVG can just get in freely it seems. I've started getting the odd round on them, but its very hit or miss.
But in the last couple of weeks, in moments of disheartedness from losing badly with Gouken, be it against people at FNF who I shouldn't be losing to, or due to the TERRIBLE match making on Steam making me face off against the number 8 Cody or the number 12 Evil Ryu (just two examples of last night) even though I'm at only 300PP/500BP and selecting "Same Skill", in those moments I've found myself being a bit naughty.
In those moments I've been playing someone else, someone who has interested me since her announcement, even though I've always disliked her counterpart.... I've been playing Decapre.
I'd always said once I got to a certain level I'd learn a charge character and a grappler, to make sure I had a base knowhow for various character types. And I'd said my charge character would be Decapre. But I ended up just messing around with her a bit and she's so fun!
My fairly new friend Joesephyr rarely can make FNF due to work committments, but when he does his Vega wipes the floor with everyone. But he's started coming round to mine to just chill out and play some Street Fighter. Two nights ago I showed him my Decapre, and actually got some games on him, against all three of his 'main' characters: Vega, Fei Long and Poison.
My Decapre is far from good, but the mix of Lame and Ham that I tried with Juri seems to work a bit better with Decapre for me it seems. My execution is still a little off - charge characters being new to me and all that. But I have more options with Decapre I feel. Ground Slam to Ultra 2 and Target Combo 2 to Ultra 2 are both options already - albeit not even 50% execution yet. But its good when some of the people I've played recently have pointed out that "its a shame your Ultra didn't come out, that would've finished me off". Next step is to work on Psycho Sting FADC Ultra 2... Just need to find a guide on the inputs for it...
I may well update this a little more frequently now, I might even share it about for people to actually see and all that jazz...
In the mean time - pose!
/o/
<o/