Slowly Getting Worse?

[Shady]

I used to be pretty decent in my opinion and now progressively I struggle more and more to be my friends who were on the same level as me at some point. I've made an effort to play offline as much as possible and even tried to go to tourneys (couldn't due to circumstances, first one is actually next weekend) but it seems like I'm just getting shittier and shittier as the time goes on. I lose to the most scrubbish bullshit online and I can't even give some of my friends a good fight anymore, like they just mop me up. I know I want to start going to more and more tourneys now that I'm settled in at my new place, but like at this point I keep thinking "what's the point? just to show up, lose two and go home?" It's getting to me on so many levels, since I feel I am terrible now.

Anyone experienced any kind of drop off? Any advice? Like I'm just fucking lost for what to do and I don't want to stay a scrub forever. And yes, like I said, I do play offline in casuals and shit, but haven't really had a chance to go to a tourney yet (since I doubt my ability to take even a round after beatings I receive from my friends) but will try to. I'm just getting soo fucking discouraged with this whole thing.

 

[chemicalNova]

Has your gameplay changed? If not.. should it?

Online you'll randomly lose to stupid stuff regardless, so I wouldn't worry about that.

If you're making a clear effort to play offline, maybe your friends have just tacked onto your moveset. For example, I play against someone who will always... ALWAYS wakeup slide as Sub Zero.. which basically gives me a combo straight afterwards.. into another slide, into another combo. If he doesn't slide, he clones away which means he gets hit by my projectile while he can't block.

Maybe you just need to switch up how you play now.. are you aggressive? Try a bit more defensive play.. are you defensive? Get in their face! Switching it up gets wins.

chem

 

[YougotCaged1]

Wow I thought I was the only one. I've been getting systematically worse at this game for a while now. I was planning on going to NEC but I was thinking "why should I when I'm just going to embarrass myself?". There's a couple things I did that helped me with this problem. I picked 1 character to use and 1 character only, Scorpion. Ever since then I've been getting better an I feel alot more comfortable using him thus boosting my confidence. Also a little break helped to clear my head. Turn it off, and try again tomorrow. Also I came to a realization to not take online seriously and just use it to learn matchups and practice. Offline is all fair game. What's really affecting you is your confidence. Once you start building up your confidence, you'll start bodying people and not be the one being bodied. Hope I helped!

 

[chemicalNova]

Should clarify: When I said "switch up how you play", I mean in terms of tactics. Definitely don't jump from character to character.. thats a recipe for disaster.

chem

 

[gamesun]

I play online a lot but there was a point were I felt the same way as u did like "wtf is going on here" loseing to players who arent as good as me but then I just started to just practice. Practice my combos n just playing on expert n I became good real good with different characters like Lao,sub,mileena,scorpion, and ermac of course u have to play constantly to keep ur skill high cause I've stoped for a while n I lose every once in a while for reasons I don't know lol but my advice practice is key go look at video like combo vids (check,lantern,Blake,hoodfresh) or look at tourneys online to find out how to face certain opponents n how to use certain characters. it's all about practice n studying like homework hope this helps good luck

 

[rev0lver]

Yeah, you're not going to get any better by playing the same way. There's always something new to learn, even if it's just matchup-based. Every time I play a session I try to incorporate something new into my game, and it keeps making me stronger. Everyone else is leveling up, so you can't stay the course and expect to make progress.

 

[EndofGameBoss]

This happens because we become stuck in a rut and become predictable. This happened to me recently with Baraka, so I picked up another character to mix things up. It helped and I switch back and forth between the 2.

I wouldn't worry about losing online too much. Offline and Online are basically 2 different games. My friends and I get together every now and then and play a small tourny. We did 1 last night and I was dropping combos left and right because I'm use to online. I eventually got the timing back, but I wouldn't look into that too much. Just mix things up and use new strategies.

 

[SpyderJ]

Ok now bear with me here as I try to explain my view on this. Since this happens in almost every form of competitive game for a lot of people. In short you have to do something to your style of gameplay to make it more appropriate to higher level of play or change something that will throw people off. Im mainly thinking of either Reo going mileena for evo, lots of people didnt fully know how to handle her, or Perfect legend's kung lao being above all of the other kung laos at that time.

Either way its just about not becoming predictable. Have someone to look up to, im in no way doubting what you can do, however in any game to ignore what either the current trend is or to not use specific strategies that people playing your character are using is pointless in my opinion. Look to the best of the best for knowledge. Now developing your own style for how to deal with each individual character is important, however most if not all of us cannot be the innovators to a characters, class, or race in a game.

Also just saying, view losing as somewhat of a good thing. Im pretty sure your probably sick of it but to be honest, its crucial to try to not let losses get too you as much as possible. The way I see myself after I lose and become frustrated is that my mind is not where it should be. The term ive found for this is being on "tilt" for fighters I guess it could be deemed as salty but imo its somewhat of a trolly way to say it. Being on tilt can ruin your gameplan and its about not letting the losses effect you too much. This is for every and all gaming environments. Take the loss as an opportunity to understand what went wrong. There is always something that every character is capable of in most situations. Its just a matter of execution and being in the propper state of mind to be able to pull off what you want to pull off.

Now this is purely my opinion, but I see getting good with a character as in roughly 4 stages. Its very basic, and you could say that there are alot of other factors in here which there is but still.
1. Getting combos and strings down and having a basic understanding of the character
2. Obtaining a stable game plan with most of the tools the character has to offer and use the effectively
3. Knowing every tool and option your character has and being able to use all of them efficiently and effectively.
4. Mastery of a character. or at least the closest thing to mastery of a character that we can see. (If you distinguish a specific character by a single player behind them, then that is what I define as mastery at whatever point in time it is.)

 

[Justice]

I see two things going on here.

1. Your playstyle has become static and predictible, especially to your friends whom you play with a lot.

2. You need to play people better than you. You were the best out of your group and your friends learned from you while you became complacent and comfortable. You didn't improve because there was no need to. Now it seems like you are getting worse only because those around you are getting better so you look worse in comparison. All that's left for you to do is congratulate your friends and hit the lab and start changing things up.

 

[STORMS]

I used to be pretty decent in my opinion and now progressively I struggle more and more to be my friends who were on the same level as me at some point. I've made an effort to play offline as much as possible and even tried to go to tourneys (couldn't due to circumstances, first one is actually next weekend) but it seems like I'm just getting shittier and shittier as the time goes on. I lose to the most scrubbish bullshit online and I can't even give some of my friends a good fight anymore, like they just mop me up. I know I want to start going to more and more tourneys now that I'm settled in at my new place, but like at this point I keep thinking "what's the point? just to show up, lose two and go home?" It's getting to me on so many levels, since I feel I am terrible now.

Anyone experienced any kind of drop off? Any advice? Like I'm just fucking lost for what to do and I don't want to stay a scrub forever. And yes, like I said, I do play offline in casuals and shit, but haven't really had a chance to go to a tourney yet (since I doubt my ability to take even a round after beatings I receive from my friends) but will try to. I'm just getting soo fucking discouraged with this whole thing.

JUst by going by the title of this thread... you either just need a break from (playing) MK, need a new strategy (maybe you're stale with what you're doing) and three: New character to learn?

 

[Robotic]

I'd like to offer a different viewpoint on this. Awesome topic, btw.

After reading the responses here, I slowly and begrudgingly accepted the possibility that this is happening to me, too. I thought about it for some time and came to a hypothesis that I hope you all will chime in on: You getting worse could actually be you getting better in another way. <---"this guy's stupid" right? Let me explain: After constant exposure to the game and it's mechanics, mastery of your main, his strengths and weaknessness, familiarity with certain matchups, you are soaking in the near infinite possibilites of every moment in the game. BECAUSE there are so many variables, this is causing one to be gunshy: I sometimes pause my offense because I am aware of the risk in doing it! I fuzzy block only to see my opponent do the same, I'm mentally calculating the next possible outcome, only to see that my opponent didn't fuckin calculate at all and beat me to the next punch!

Your game knowledge is scaring your reflexes and seeing more risks than ever before. You see a minefield where you used to see openings and opportunity. Your newfound combos, resets, setups and ways to apply them are not working in all situations and you are getting punished for it. I had this happen in SSF4, and shit, it lasted about 3 weeks. It all came down to overthinking the situations because your brain is overloaded with theory; everything you see is an opportunity to apply that theory, but by the time you've decided what you want to do, your opponent has already done something else. This is natural at a certain phase in the growth of your game knowledge. My only advice is to take your game into practice mode on expert level for 10 minutes every time you turn it on - always random the opponent. The AI sucks, I know, but it will at least get your reflexes ready and expose your combo technique to in game situations (ie: blocked elbow dash and how to punish, how far can I be to still dash in and combo a whiffed Lao spin, can I really throw attempt off of this setup, etc.).

The summary: You've reached a point where you know more about this game than you ever have, and the possibilities and new risks you see are currently slowing your decision making and your ability to see your game plan through; this is only temporary. I hope this helps. Hell, I hope me typing this helps me right now!

 

[Shaylan]

All the above advice but here's one out of the box too.
At the very basic level of real life martial arts you are not told anything. None of the whys and hows and whens of the technique, you're just made repeat everything until you are so bored of it that it gets on your nerves and you dream with it and you want to quit because it makes no sense.

Then, after a little (or long) while, you even forget about the old stuff because suddenly you are pitched with the task of having to learn a lot of advanced stuff that makes you go "hell yeah, skill stuff finally!". You suddenly find yourself absorbed in all the neat looking and seemingly high level junk that you get thrown at you by your instructor(s).

At a given point in the near future when you feel that you are killer cookie and rawk the sawks off of the world, you are pitched together with a master level somebody. Hell yeah, I can SO put the guy down.
Guy walks up to you, you're on the ground, he used a move from year 1 and you're laying down and your high level junk suddenly ain't worth half a corndog. WTF.
That's the point where you feel that you are getting worse, or time to go back to the basics that you were bored with and thought are useless. That's when you start to pick it all apart, the hows and whens and whos and... get my point. You tasted the highs, time to get back into the lows.

You can only get better by getting worse at some point.
The basics is where you need to get better, if your kung fu is not strong enough.

 

[Lt. Boxy Angelman]

I'd like to offer a different a different viewpoint on this. Awesome topic, btw.

After reading the responses here, I slowly and begrudgingly accepted the possibility that this is happening to me, too. I thought about it for some time and came to a hypothesis that I hope you all will chime in on: You getting worse could actually be you getting better in another way. <---"this guy's stupid" right? Let me explain: After constant exposure to the game and it's mechanics, mastery of your main, his strengths and weaknessness, familiarity with certain matchups, you are soaking in the near infinite possibilites of every moment in the game. BECAUSE there are so many variables, this is causing one to be gunshy: I sometimes pause my offense because I am aware of the risk in doing it! I fuzzy block only to see my opponent do the same, I'm mentally calculating the next possible outcome, only to see that my opponent didn't fuckin calculate at all and beat me to the next punch!

Your game knowledge is scaring your reflexes and seeing more risks than ever before. You see a minefield where you used to see openings and opportunity. Your newfound combos, resets, setups and ways to apply them are not working in all situations and you are getting punished for it. I had this happen in SSF4, and shit, it lasted about 3 weeks. It all came down to overthinking the situations because your brain is overloaded with theory; everything you see is an opportunity to apply that theory, but by the time you've decided what you want to do, your opponent has already done something else. This is natural at a certain phase in the growth of your game knowledge. My only advice is to take your game into practice mode on expert level for 10 minutes every time you turn it on - always random the opponent. The AI sucks, I know, but it will at least get your reflexes ready and expose your combo technique to in game situations (ie: blocked elbow dash and how to punish, how far can I be to still dash in and combo a whiffed Lao spin, can I really throw attempt off of this setup, etc.).

The summary: You've reached a point where you know more about this game than you ever have, and the possibilities and new risks you see are currently slowing your decision making and your ability to see your game plan through; this is only temporary. I hope this helps. Hell, I hope me typing this helps me right now!

Thinking about it, I've done the same thing with Cyrax ever since I went into Neo-In-The-Matrix-Kung-Fu-Overdrive getting ready for NEC, so youre not alone, shady. ill start brainfarting in the middle of a match because im weighing out so many pros and cons in mid-battle (especially against Nightwolf, idk why but there's something about him that just gets under my skin), i forget the part where im actually supposed to fight. But as you said, sometimes the best thing to do is mix it up, try approaches you've never tried before or havent tried in awhile (for example, before i learned anything about fancy foowork in this game, 2 1 2'ing and knocking people fullscreen was my bread and butter, but i stopped for awhile, and now i find myself mixing it back in the soup with great success ), and follow whatever brings you the most joy and bloody success .

That's some quantum, inside-out-burger smart shit, Mr. Robot.

 

[Prinz]

I had a moment like this with Jade. I started losing after a decent streak of wins. Then I realized: 1. I always start the round with b2 (more and more start punishing); 2. I play more offence than defense (which Jade is pretty weak and, again, I start getting punished); 3. I use wake-up attacks automatically, not by reaction, almost never neutral lie down or roll (which, again, gets me punished). After changing these a little bit (although it's pretty hard cause I'm used to them) I started coming back. But the good stuff is when you start mixing strategies up, man, that's awesome! So, my point, find your most used gameplay tactics, change'em a little or even drop 'em for a while, try playing your character in an other way. Then, when you see results mix-up. It'll get better and better, I promise you.

 

[Lt. Boxy Angelman]

On notes of things that should be noted when trying to improve, there's one thing that bugs me most now...
The fact that the AI rarely, barely ever cancels. As in Kabal's Dash Cancel, Jax's Fists, Rain's Roundhouse - three of the most dangerous moves in the entire game - amongst plenty of others, if you're fighting someone with a cancel on the ladder or in the lab, chances are it's not gonna make a difference in the fight. Which, given how popular the players like CD Jr. and Warda have made the cancel strategy playbook online and in tournaments, is a really unfortunate thing not to be able to practice against other than on MKO, where the lag can often make it even more difficult to beat than it would normally be.

 

[Prinz]

On notes of things that should be noted when trying to improve, there's one thing that bugs me most now...
The fact that the AI rarely, barely ever cancels. As in Kabal's Dash Cancel, Jax's Fists, Rain's Roundhouse - three of the most dangerous moves in the entire game - amongst plenty of others, if you're fighting someone with a cancel on the ladder or in the lab, chances are it's not gonna make a difference in the fight. Which, given how popular the players like CD Jr. and Warda have made the cancel strategy playbook online and in tournaments, is a really unfortunate thing not to be able to practice against other than on MKO, where the lag can often make it even more difficult to beat than it would normally be.

LoL The AI isn't any good for practicing. It's only good to wait for it's moves and react, the moves themselves are generic. The AI has no strategy and no mix-up game and mostly plays reactively to your game. I play the AI just to practice my combos and inputs.

 

[GNG Iniquity]

Take the risks, it's all you can do. I lose to a bunch of stupid shit online, too. Don't take online in a serious manner at all.

Luck is a big factor in winning. Any tournament player will tell you that.

 

[Ruuku1012]

I'd say either take a break from MK but watch some match videos from time to time, learn a new character, or switch up your play-styles. It could also be that your friends play more than you do since I believe you've mentioned recently moving to a new place. In any case, don't give up!

 

[King]

Trust me, it's the online play. Online has been complete garbage the past week.

 

[Creepy00]

Trust me, it's the online play. Online has been complete garbage the past week.

That actually explains why online feels slow as right now. Though i was me :/ since i havent online lately but instead offline. Both have different timing, hate that.

 

[aj1701]

Your game knowledge is scaring your reflexes and seeing more risks than ever before. You see a minefield where you used to see openings and opportunity.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but to make a TLDR version of just what I've quoted, you basically get to a point where you mindfuck yourself? Is that more or less accurate?

 

[Robotic]

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but to make a TLDR version of just what I've quoted, you basically get to a point where you mindfuck yourself? Is that more or less accurate?

Yes. I believe your summary is accurate.

Also, bump because I'm still treading downhill and I can't be the only one curious on how other players deal with this.

 

[NRF CharlieMurphy]

Yes. I believe your summary is accurate.

Also, bump because I'm still treading downhill and I can't be the only one curious on how other players deal with this.

Step away... then come back. Sometimes people (everyone) get into patterns that they don't see. Sports, writing, Jobs, relationships. Sometimes having a break from the "usual" makes the "usual" better

edit: on another note... i don't mean like just not play for days at a time. Video games are like sports. Most athletes practice for roughly an hour at a time. Seems to me that your brain just gets tired after that. I would try just playing for an hour or so and then take a break for awhile. That is how I play... and if anything, I get much less frustrated at silly things and don't make as many mistakes.

 

[RWDY Nori]

If you can't keep up w/your friends, ask them what they are doing different and ask them why you are so free to them now. They play you the most, they should be able to tell you. Maybe your SAME setup isn't working anymore. Maybe you aren't adapting as fast as them. Overall, just sounds like your setups (for example, after a D3, you always dash forward and throw) are becoming predictable. I haven't seen you play so can only help so much

 

[Robotic]

If you can't keep up w/your friends, ask them what they are doing different and ask them why you are so free to them now. They play you the most, they should be able to tell you. Maybe your SAME setup isn't working anymore. Maybe you aren't adapting as fast as them. Overall, just sounds like your setups (for example, after a D3, you always dash forward and throw) are becoming predictable. I haven't seen you play so can only help so much

I hear ya. I don't play ANYONE regularly. I'm a dude with a lady and a little girl with a full time job (where I'm typing now) and no offline scene. I just hop on and challenge anyone to a fight and accept any fight that comes my way. I also don't obsess with top tiers - I enjoy playing characters that I have to work a little bit for a victory - Sektor being my main, Ermac and Quan Chi being respective works in progress. I don't do terrible, I just think I may have complicated the game (as seen in my long post above) a lil too much and I need to flow a little better. How I can get that rolling, is anyone's guess.

Big ups to Texas, btw, my dad is an OG from Mcallen and I have alot of family in San Antonio.