Guide Tips on becoming a better player: Part 2 - Online vs Offline/Tournaments

I enjoyed this veey much. Great post!

Hi guys, so I have a question about online vs offline playing. I know that lag can potentially hurt one or both of the players online but my questions are these?
1) Is lag the only things that's different as opposed to offline play?
2) Isn't it safe to say that if someone usually always beats someone online then offline the result will be the same?
Thanks guys.

ILuvFightGames said:

Hi guys, so I have a question about online vs offline playing. I know that lag can potentially hurt one or both of the players online but my questions are these?
1) Is lag the only things that's different as opposed to offline play?
2) Isn't it safe to say that if someone usually always beats someone online then offline the result will be the same?
Thanks guys.

Click to expand...

1. Lag and delay.
2. Absolutely not. Your opponent might win simply because you are dropping some high execution stuff that you usually do 10 times out of 10 in offline. Or the game might lag at the moment where you suppose to win, but lag gave opportunity for come back.

lag reduces reactions which allows tactics that should not work, ie jumping alot, work better because your opponent cant react to your jump fast enough. just cuz someone beats you online alot does not mean the same will happen offline.

Gengar said:

lag reduces reactions which allows tactics that should not work, ie jumping alot, work better because your opponent cant react to your jump fast enough. just cuz someone beats you online alot does not mean the same will happen offline.

Click to expand...

Not to mention that online makes some punishable things unpunishable.

ILuvFightGames said:

Hi guys, so I have a question about online vs offline playing. I know that lag can potentially hurt one or both of the players online but my questions are these?
1) Is lag the only things that's different as opposed to offline play?
2) Isn't it safe to say that if someone usually always beats someone online then offline the result will be the same?
Thanks guys.

Click to expand...

1. Lag is the only change in most fighting games, but it is a massive problem that changes portions of the meta game. Not being able to react and execute properly makes things feel safer, and thus more abusable as they were intended to be.

2. Because of the above, some players may be playing nuttier than they would be able to in an offline setting (jumping more, doing more unsafe options, etc). And the other player may not play that way and may not be comfortable attempting to play that way. The shift in how things feel changes the dynamic of the game heavily.

This is why the Enhanced Online update is so big. Rollback, done properly, largely eliminates this issue.

Frame traps that should work, do not. And vice versa
counter poking does not work correctly
AA is incredibly hard on reaction
abuseale online tactics.

The difference is not even comparable.

Just keep in mind I wrote this 5 years ago in 2011

loogie said:

pretty sure sharkteeth would 20-0 you, offline or online - that's how average I think you are. and speaking of online warriors, I think you're the best warrior out there.
I've met and played sharkteeth offline, he is not too far from tekkenmaster level - and I played both offline

Click to expand...

Wasn't sharkteeth a scorpion player in mk9 whose idea of playing scorpion was teleporting like an idiot? He beat me several times at the start, then after kicking his ass several times in a row he refused to fight me anymore calling me a spammer. lol
I was like, dude, if you keep doing the same thing, I'll keep punishing it the same way. Who's spamming? XD

Nice breakdown bud, I hope more people read this and learn something.

GLoRToR said:

Wasn't sharkteeth a scorpion player in mk9 whose idea of playing scorpion was teleporting like an idiot? He beat me several times at the start, then after kicking his ass several times in a row he refused to fight me anymore calling me a spammer. lol
I was like, dude, if you keep doing the same thing, I'll keep punishing it the same way. Who's spamming? XD

Click to expand...

Yes... That was like 4-5 years ago

loogie said:

Yes... That was like 4-5 years ago

Click to expand...

So the dude is actually not an asshole anymore?

GLoRToR said:

So the dude is actually not an asshole anymore?

Click to expand...

he admits to being cocky at the time. I actually met him in person for an MKX tournament here, and was cool. we play online, super cool now. and very skilled at the game. doesn't get any opportunities to travel.
in the last tournament here, he was only eliminated by TekkenMaster in the winners finals, put x-azeez in losers, but then lost the losers final to him in the runback.
trust me, the guy is cool.

loogie said:

while this fellow here iced_taz, who is complaining about other online players is your typical rager. and at age 32 behaves like a 13 year old.

Click to expand...

Do you know he wanted to beat up Frizen irl for winning vs him online? Real shit.

HateMe! said:

Do you know he wanted to beat up Frizen irl for winning vs him online? Real shit.

Click to expand...

and he's not even half decent as a player

loogie said:

he admits to being cocky at the time. I actually met him in person for an MKX tournament here, and was cool. we play online, super cool now. and very skilled at the game. doesn't get any opportunities to travel.
in the last tournament here, he was only eliminated by TekkenMaster in the winners finals, put x-azeez in losers, but then lost the losers final to him in the runback.
trust me, the guy is cool.

while this fellow here iced_taz, who is complaining about other online players is your typical rager. and at age 32 behaves like a 13 year old.

Click to expand...

Taz was always cool to me, so I can't agree with you there but if Shark is cool, I'm happy that another person turned to the light.

GLoRToR said:

Taz was always cool to me, so I can't agree with you there but if Shark is cool, I'm happy that another person turned to the light.

Click to expand...

we should play again some time, haven't played you since MK9
are you active on MKXL?

Soooooo...basically SonicFox's ESL wins were B'S till Finals time and I really DON'T suck at this game.

Damn..Knowledge is power.

So to know that you are a better player is to reach the ranked match with 10 winning streaks in a row? Sounds like a nice test for me. I had 4-5 winning streaks before the lag spike fucked the last match resulting someone else's Jason win.

loogie said:

we should play again some time, haven't played you since MK9
are you active on MKXL?

Click to expand...

I'd love to play you and all the old buds again.
I was for a while, then they patched it. Pyro got heavily ruined and neither Mournful nor RS are all that great atm.
If the final patch turns out to be favourable for Kitanya I'll probably do, but by now I only play on PC.

The breakdown this thread described about offline events was the answers I was looking for, thanks to the guy that wrote the thread. Now after playing in my first offline major I began to understand how much online play has dumb down my reactions and overall playstyle. In all honestly I was so use to getting away with bs online that I thought I could rely on it in a similar manner offline but I was wrong by a long shot
Now I'm guessing the only way to get more adapt and better to offline play is to constantly play at offline events like locals and majors. However what can someone do if they don't really have time to go to locals and majors all the time?
1. Should they just spend hours in the lab offline to hone their adaptations?
2. How do people gain that ability where they can just switch from offline and online and still play to the best of their ability?

Kaneki said:

The breakdown this thread described about offline events was the answers I was looking for, thanks to the guy that wrote the thread. Now after playing in my first offline major I began to understand how much online play has dumb down my reactions and overall playstyle. In all honestly I was so use to getting away with bs online that I thought I could rely on it in a similar manner offline but I was wrong by a long shot
Now I'm guessing the only way to get more adapt and better to offline play is to constantly play at offline events like locals and majors. However what can someone do if they don't really have time to go to locals and majors all the time?
1. Should they just spend hours in the lab offline to hone their adaptations?
2. How do people gain that ability where they can just switch from offline and online and still play to the best of their ability?

Click to expand...

Continue playing online anyways, if you can't go to tournaments then how can you get better from playing against others other than playing online? Hitting the lab is good to figure out some stuff but you can't just train and not face anyone, because even if you know all your character's combos, you're not testing them out against real live people. Not to mention you can't create strategies for punishing and figuring outMU's tactics if you don't play them.

I remember when I started playing this game I thought I was pretty good at the ladders and I did the whole campaign without a problem so I tried the Klassic ladder on hard. I failed miserably.

Then I started playing online and of course at first I would lose every match, get frustrated and lose more. After a few hours of online play, I figured out some of the opponent's tactics and I started monopolizing on that. I started winning about 1 in every 8 games.

I continued doing that for a few days, and going to the lab with my main, and slowly but surely I started winning more and more matches and soon it evened out.

Just continue playing online until you can get to a tournament and never stop. It's not because you played differently online that you have to play it the same now that you've learned new stuff. You'll still continue to learn.

SM StarGazer said:

Soooooo...basically SonicFox's ESL wins were B'S till Finals time and I really DON'T suck at this game.

Damn..Knowledge is power.

Click to expand...

This article was made way before ESL and way before GGPO like netcode, check the OP date.

Also, yes.

Bump for relevance.

Ok