Advice to someone who can't attend casuals/gatherings, only tournaments?

[miller483]

Due to my work schedule, I can't attend my scene's weekday gatherings, just our ranbats on Saturday. I find this a problem because my lack of real match experience is one of my biggest flaws IMO. A lot of players suggested online play, but I'm not too keen on it due to lag and the risk of picking up bad habits. Because of this I'm now just playing the CPU to get combos down in the flow of an actual match.

My current gameplan is to arrive at tournaments early, and leave late so I get a ton of casuals in. Is it still possible for someone in this situation to level up?

[Shazam]

If anybody lives close to you hit them up for casuals outside of the gatherings. If you have a good connection then playing online against good players (can be hard to find) is much better than fighting CPU. Showing up early and hanging around afterwords for casuals is always a good idea.

[Osuna]

If you're smart (and patient) about it, online is still a source of information. Just look deep into what happens and accept that the correct decision will cost you matches online sometimes.

Look deep into what happens and collect your data. Consciously avoid netplay tactics and be sure to practice combos offline/find some good connections to play with to keep the execution reasonable. I have it somewhat lucky as a person who plays grapplers a lot of the time I'm trying to get a good read so it isn't like I was planning to react in the first place, but online tells me a lot about what the other characters can do, and that match up knowledge that I wouldn't have gotten otherwise.

Of course it isn't as good as having strong local players you can play often, but it is better than CPU's in terms of the information you can get.

[Airk]

If you're smart (and patient) about it, online is still a source of information. Just look deep into what happens and accept that the correct decision will cost you matches online sometimes.

Look deep into what happens and collect your data. Consciously avoid netplay tactics and be sure to practice combos offline/find some good connections to play with to keep the execution reasonable. I have it somewhat lucky as a person who plays grapplers a lot of the time I'm trying to get a good read so it isn't like I was planning to react in the first place, but online tells me a lot about what the other characters can do, and that match up knowledge that I wouldn't have gotten otherwise.

Of course it isn't as good as having strong local players you can play often, but it is better than CPU's in terms of the information you can get.

This; I mean, pretty much nobody has enough of a local scene to get match experience against every character without doing some netplay, so bite the bullet and learn how to do it right.

[Effenhoog]

If you have a local scene, try to play online with local players if you can. Connections with people within your city/area should be much better than trying to find good connections randomly, and you will be playing the same people who go to the tournaments so you will get both character and player matchup experience that will be relevant to your situation

Tournament casuals are a must as well, obviously

[RagnaXBL]

i'm pretty sure playing the CPU will teach you more bad habits than playing online

[mikeohara]

sorry for necroing an old thread, but in May I moved to my current house in the middle of BFE and had to give up my nice 50/5 cable internet. I'm pretty sure I'm in the same boat OP was when he posted the topic, but I tend to think my situation is unique. The nearest town that has true broadband access is 45 minutes away in either direction, and I'm 3 hours from Dallas and 6 hours from Little Rock, AR. Both towns have hefty fighting scenes, and while I've been somewhat active on SRK trying to get something going in my area, the response has not been worth the effort I've been putting in. Besides paying for internet access to play in a local store, what options would I have? I can travel infrequently to gatherings and tournaments, but can't go all that often because of monetary issues. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.