Core Skills That Every Great Player Has Mastered

[rubedo777]

As the late Bob Ross, once said, talent is merely applied interest. Some of the best FG players are old men who have just played way more and are far more experienced.

 

And what about the young players that are just godly out of nowhere?

 

Do you know Xiaohai was destroying people in kof in the arcades when he was just a little kid? 9 years old. And what about that 13 year old Tekken player, AK:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6H90ekE0E6o

 

Some players are just born with it. Some of these amazing players actually have very little match experience.

[Qu_Ane]

Of course lol. Not everyone's born the same. That's why some players are dramatically better than others that still play the same amount of time.

 

Of I could say, no matter what, why you will never place in Evo top 8. lol

So luck is when something you can't control happens to be in your favor, such as being born with a higher degree of talent.

[Guilty_X]

And what about the young players that are just godly out of nowhere?

 

Do you know Xiaohai was destroying people in kof in the arcades when he was just a little kid? 9 years old. And what about that 13 year old Tekken player, AK:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6H90ekE0E6o

That's basically where the word prodigy comes from, which is just an insanely talented kid. Probably didn't even need to practice that much to get to that level.

 

Same reason why I am way better at smash than anyone I know even though I don't play it that much. I could pick up the controller right now after not playing in a year and still be as good as I was after a couple games. I can just really feel the game and I just understand how to play it very well. That's talent. 

 

Now sadly doesn't carry over to GG. lol.

 

 

reflexes are maximized by knowledge.  show me a video of somebody with incredible reflexes and I will show you how they expected it or buffered.

Two words. Guitar Hero.

 

I was also very high level at that game and I can tell you the best players.... were just born that way. (better than I ever was and I was good).

[rubedo777]

reflexes are maximized by knowledge.  show me a video of somebody with incredible reflexes and I will show you how they expected it or buffered.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zt2umIhuTD4

 

What is he "expecting" or "buffering" here? Everything here is brain power and reaction. Yes it's not fighting games but still applies.

[Qu_Ane]

And that's why I used the word "luck" there. It's an uncontrollable variable, the word 'talent' is being misrepresented. Talent is just your power level, luck is how you managed to start off with said power level.

 

A lucky person can start off with a power level of 4,000 while everyone else started off with 2,000.

 

But that might not change the fact that both of them are talented, cuz you need at least 1,500 to learn Blazblue, where as some only have 1,000 and can barely manage their footsies enough to get in a combo or even poke, and will eventually give up and play something else.

[Dude Butts]

that game is entirely patterns.  he has simply encountered enough combinations of having each kind of block with each kind of setup underneath to make his decisions that quickly.  that tetris player didn't get there without thousands of hours of practice.

[rubedo777]

that game is entirely patterns.  he has simply encountered enough combinations of having each kind of block with each kind of setup underneath to make his decisions that quickly.  that tetris player didn't get there without thousands of hours of practice.

 

Of course he practiced, but the point is that the blocks are not pre-determined. Whatever is coming next, he needs to react to, take into account the current block structure that is in play and execute the right placement, in a very very short amount of time, repeatedly. That is all reaction, even if he has thousands of hours of practice.

[Dude Butts]

he gets to see 3 of them ahead of time

[TheRealBobMan]

The game shows you the next 3 incoming blocks and allows you to store a block for later use.  It's not purely reaction to random blocks one at a time (that would probably be pretty lame anyway).  When you have the advance notice of the next 3 blocks, yes, it's going to take you time to learn recognition, but once you have that developed you can move at a high speed because of the mental buffering you'll be able to perform.  You'll be dealing with block 1 and 2 while reacting to the third block and planning what to do next.

 

And like Dude Butts said, at that level of practice/skill/experience you'll have plans laid out ahead of time for how to deal with certain block combinations relative to the tower you're building.  Being able to stock a block helps you to optimize for a high score while also giving you some ammunition to prevent a really screwy pattern of incoming blocks from messing you up too bad.

 

 

'Recognition > Reaction' sets can be developed and trained until they're second nature.  If you want to argue that some people develop that kind of thing faster than others, I'll let you have that.  However, if it takes one person 4500 hours and another 4200 hours to get to that skill level, that 300 hour difference, which is a lot of time by most standards (37.5 days of 8hrs/day worth of practice), is probably not that big a deal to someone that already was willing to invest 4200 hours of their life into something they liked.  And of course, those 300 hours have to be spent with serious effort.  300 hours to one person wont achieve the results that 300 hours for another person will.  That's not talent, but rather knowing how to train, or having learned how to learn.  Time efficiency, chunking, knowing when additional time into one tested skill isn't worth as much as time spent training another tested skill, etc.

 

Sometimes skill at one task transfers directly to another task.  Sometimes the effort you put into learning the skill will help you learn a completely unrelated skill faster, even if what you learned doesn't directly transfer to the new task.

[Dude Butts]

the blocks aren't truly random, either.  there are 5 predetermined blocks that there can be, and he gets to see them 4 ahead of what he's got.  no doubt it's impressive, but not inhuman, and barring any serious learning disabilities, not something you or i couldn't do with a long enough period of exposure.

[Hollysmoke]

That's a fair opinion.

 

Of course I disagree. As you can see from my posts

 

Things like reflexes you can't teach. Or feel, picking up the controller and just automatically feeling it more as an 'extension of yourself' as someone else. There would be different degrees to which this is true for each person. This is an intangible thing and is all part of the talent aspect. This is just how I see it.

 

-Guilty

Yes. Yes you can.

Natural aptitude towards a particular direction, whether becoming a creative artist or an inventive engineer, will help you transcend to another level of capabilities that others can't. But let's get real here; it's exactly as Beast said. You want to get good at anything in life, just put your head to it. Don't make up excuses like "Oh I'm not talented enough" kneecap you. One of the core skills that any great player mastered? Positive thinking/attitude. Anyone can master anything in GG with enough time and practice; it may just take longer for some than others, but the point is that you CAN. Saying "I can't" is what great players don't say, they try and master that super-difficulty combo, they watch videos of that seemingly unbeatable rival of theirs until they find a weakness, they just keep playing and never give up. So many people are posting justifications why they can't be a great player, instead of actually trying to become one. GGX2 is like 8 years old at least and people are STILL playing it and discovering new tech for it. Point is, even if you're the most talentless hack ever, if you're willing to put time and effort with a positive attitude, you can become one of the most talented player.

[TITANIUM BEAST!!!]

Let's not bring sports into the equation, because sports and fighting games are not equivalent in the sense of required physical aptitude. I know for a fact that no matter how hard I work, outside of taking steroids, I will never match the required physique of an NFL player, and thus I am barred from that realm of competition. But even in that realm, there is such a thing as working hard, and pretty much any professional athlete spends countless hours honing their craft. Natural talent can only take you so far.

 

Now when it comes to video games, the barrier of entry is much smaller, and the skills required to be a high level player are very much attainable for almost anyone. It's why several of the old top US players were ham-handed when it came to execution, yet still compete with no problem. Most people just don't want to put the requisite time in because "it's video games, man."

 

I don't care how "naturally talented" you are at something, if you don't put in the work and someone else does, you will get wrecked eventually.

[TITANIUM BEAST!!!]

Sorry for the double post, but:

 

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/jul/07/can-science-spot-talent-kaufman

 

Food for thought.

[BloodWolF]

I was a TA in a few University Physics courses in my undergrad and the thing that irritated me more than anything was "I'm not a math person." I see the same excuses from people comparing themselves to people like Dogura, but you don't take into consideration how much time he's put into this hobby himself nor the way he approaches things. When every loss costs you a dollar and you're already thousands of games in, you walk up to the cab with a different mindset and a willingness to learn something for that cost. Barring extreme exceptions, I don't see why anyone can't do whatever they want. We're in a world now where people without legs can run in the olympics. If the top of your priorities is your performance in a game, regardless of what it is, then you have the ability to do well in it. You sure as hell have the resources. Just my 2 cents.

[currentlemon]

Air throws.

I am not joking lol.

I know that Air Throws are important, but for some reason I can't do it.  I don't know if Millia's air throw range is small or maybe something else, but I have so much trouble with air throws.

[Angry Guy of DE]

Knowing what to do in a situation without even having to think about it.

Nothing is worse than when only after a match you realize that you could've back dashed the set-up or pressed buttons when there was a gap.

Also read the manual and do the tutorial, its like free level up in a new game guys.

[king of heart]

I know that Air Throws are important, but for some reason I can't do it. I don't know if Millia's air throw range is small or maybe something else, but I have so much trouble with air throws.

I am not that good with Milla so I just spam air throws when i use her.

And they work fine.

[TheRealBobMan]

I was a TA in a few University Physics courses in my undergrad and the thing that irritated me more than anything was "I'm not a math person." I see the same excuses from people comparing themselves to people like Dogura, but you don't take into consideration how much time he's put into this hobby himself nor the way he approaches things. When every loss costs you a dollar and you're already thousands of games in, you walk up to the cab with a different mindset and a willingness to learn something for that cost. Barring extreme exceptions, I don't see why anyone can't do whatever they want. We're in a world now where people without legs can run in the olympics. If the top of your priorities is your performance in a game, regardless of what it is, then you have the ability to do well in it. You sure as hell have the resources. Just my 2 cents.

 

You wont always have the resources.  What if you want to play Xrd but can't afford a PS3 + a copy of the game?  What if Dogura wanted to be what he is, but didn't have all of that money to spend on the arcades to have the opportunity to learn and get better?

 

 

There was an interesting correlation brought up in Malcom Gladwell's book... I think it was "Outliers"...  about hockey players.  Basically, he noticed that a majority (like a 9:1 ratio) of pro hockey players were born within the same few month span.  That few month span happened to be the cutoff point for children either being the youngest kid in the class for one year, or the oldest for another year.  He asserted that since Hockey is a sport that requires a specific and limited play field, compared to something like Basketball in the United States (there's at least one court in practically every park, and all you need then is a ball to practice the core mechanics), the children that were offered the most opportunity to play had the best odds of getting good.  The kids that turned out to have the best opportunities were the ones that displayed the highest "talent" or "aptitude".  The ones that were the most talented at the time they were screened?  The oldest kids - the ones that had the highest developed hand-eye coordination and motor skills.  They were given more opportunities to play the game and decide if they wanted to keep playing, since not everyone could play because of the limited Hockey Rinks.  I know that his books are written more for style and telling an enjoyable story than to be a scientific assertion of any kind of hypothesis, but that particular story makes a very good point about opportunities.

 

 

As far as a personal anecdote, the valedictorian at my High School for my graduating class had a cumulative GPA of 4.5.  CUMULATIVE!!!  This means that all of his grades were "A"s, and that 1/2 of the classes he took were Advanced Placement.  Except that there was a rule that you couldn't take Advanced Placement classes until your junior year, and that you were limited to exactly 1 that year.  It's even more amazing because he went out of his way to be in a sport (I think he did Golf) and music as extra curricular activities so he could get even more accolades, meaning he took 0-period and after-school classes, which would have only served to hurt his GPA if he didn't take more than 12 AP classes.  The guy had to work damn hard to maintain "A"s across all of that so he totally deserves recognition, but he had obvious opportunities that other students were denied in the name of "policy".

[windhelmsquall]

The following traits are all very important, but I believe they go in this order;

Effort > Opportunity to learn and willingness > born talent > time.

I'd also like to add, since I don't think anybody else brought it up ( I might be wrong) , that the worst thing you can be is repetitive.

It falls into "going with the flow". Simply being able to drastically alter your approach to a given situation will make you much better.

One last thing; one of the first things you should do, after learning the fg basics, is learn which style of play you are best suited to. Example being that one of the best zoned players I personally know started out playing rundown. He sucked at it, no lie. Practically had to force him to try a zoner, but once he did it was an almost instantaneous level up.

I really do wonder how many "bad" or "average" players are simply not playing the right character for themselves.

[rubedo777]

The following traits are all very important, but I believe they go in this order;

Effort > Opportunity to learn and willingness > born talent > time.

 

Being Japanese > all that.

[Hollysmoke]

-Snip-

 

Isn't that how they choose Eva pilots? As a Canadian, the hockey analogy threw me off for a bit we have ice everywhere.

 

Accessibility of opportunity, while it is quite an interesting subject to discuss, might be a bit of a tangent for this thread. I forgot who it was that I watched play, I think it was Pain, he didn't even own a PS3 to practice on but he played at locals and with friend's whenever he could. On a pad, no less. He just dedicated himself to becoming a good anime FGC player. I had a shitty beginner guitar for years, falling apart practically before I could finally afford a high quality one. Assuming a reasonable goal for yourself, I feel like you could work hard and make your own opportunities, even if it may take longer for you than it does for others. CAN you do something? Sure. I *COULD* become an astronaut had I put my mind to it maybe, but will I? No, because it's unreasonable to expect me to go to an expensive college that would give me the opportunity to do so. This being a sort of extension of my previous post, you can create a reasonable goal as an opportunity for you to get better. This thread is still about GG, I don't think we should be making comparisons to more grandiose lifestyle choices. 

[TITANIUM BEAST!!!]

Being Japanese > all that.

 

This could be equated to opportunity, as Japan still has a very active arcade scene, gets all of the big arcade titles first, and has an extremely dense player population. There is nothing magical about being Japanese, they simply have the best opportunity to improve.

[windhelmsquall]

This could be equated to opportunity, as Japan still has a very active arcade scene, gets all of the big arcade titles first, and has an extremely dense player population. There is nothing magical about being Japanese, they simply have the best opportunity to improve.

Exactly.

[Destin]

They also in general work harder at things like this, culturally speaking. Like, the number of players who drop combos is way lower than here. That's something most of us have no excuses for. Not saying we all do, but far fewer japanese players are shaky execution players. I guess it's just more embarrassing to drop combos over there.

[Nobus3r1]

Isn't that how they choose Eva pilots? As a Canadian, the hockey analogy threw me off for a bit we have ice everywhere.

The example that was being cited was with regards to youth leagues and age cutoffs.  Basically if you where the oldest kid in your year you where going to be more advanced physically than your younger peers and as such where likely to be given more attention by coaching staffs with that advantage being cumulative over the course of the many levels that youth leagues offer.  It was also shown that hockey and baseball tend to aggregate towards a percentage of players that are left-handed that's significantly higher than the left-handed representation in the general population (football and basketball not as much).  It's also a function of where one is born (as in the Japanese advantage with regards to living in a country with a still active arcade scene) because with hockey in Canada or Soccer in many countries if you show even a modicum of talent people will, due to the athletic focus of the country being largely singular in nature, find you.

 

Of all the skills mastered here I think that one that I agree with most is the ability to stay calm under pressure.  I actually think that more so than whatever you define as talent that being able to remain calm may be more of a either you can or you can't as I've met a ton of people who could easily be described as lab monsters who would just crack under pressure no matter what.  Amusingly(?) as the FGC gets bigger and bigger this is one of the two major scandals that the scene will probably have to weather as performance anxiety is, to a degree, a chemically correctable problem.  The other scandal would be match fixing.