From a snot-nosed punk who mashed out Hadokens all match because it was all I knew.
...to trying to learn how to combo because I thought it was all I had to know.
.......to doing long 72-hit Painwheel combos from any hit from anywhere because I know it is the smartest thing to do.
I've gone from using a console's controller.
...to a FightPad.
......to an arcade stick.
I've gone to saying "that's cheap, you suck"
...to saying "that's cheap, nice!"
There are so many terms, acronyms, systems, ideas, etc. that I've learned. For example: Resets, While Rising, and DP. And those have nothing to do with NES, bread, or sexual interaction.
Alternatively, I could have posted a picture with "DP." Let's just say they have "Already Risen" and they're jamming it harder than any NES reset button.
Hell, just yesterday while playing Virtua Fighter 5, my first time playing any Virtua Fighter game, I understood the concept of trying to figure out what my moves were. Ask me a year ago if I could have figured out my moves and I would have been trying to do quarter-circle and half-circle motions expecting special moves.
Around a year ago, I dabbled in playing some Tekken 6, my first real exploration into the 3D fighting genre. From that alone, I learned how the 3D genre handles its move-sets. There are no "special moves" (at least, until recently in Soul Calibur V); it's mostly tapping or holding a single direction and pressing a single or multiple buttons, at the same time or in sequence of each other, to get the various moves of the character. I especially took note of my knowledge when I remembered "While Rising" moves: pressing a button(s) while standing up from a crouching position to get a specific move. This is all really recent knowledge, but it's there in my head. This gave me a far quicker grasp of what I was doing versus when I first picked up Tekken seriously.
Note: I still don't know what I'm doing in either game.
This chance to think about my accomplishments spawned from playing Skullgirls this past week. People are being surprisingly vocal after matches. Most surprisingly, it's all positive! Things like "GGs" "Your Painwheel is good", etc.. There's been a few souls brave enough to ask questions about what they need to do, or what things they should do to get better.
To my surprise, the questions are very basic. Even one guy asked me how he should set up his buttons. NOTHING wrong with that; I encourage them to ask. We all start from somewhere. Even with more technology and resources to learn from than ever before, there's nothing better than having a simple Q&A.
In one specific instance: a dude I met via Twitter and I sat down and just worked through some basic techniques and questions. Here, I realized that I know a lot.
I am a very "feel" player. By that, I mean that I can do what I've seen looks right, what feels right, and flow with my use of unconscious knowledge. If you ask me why something worked, I will not be able to tell you. If I can, it will be poorly explained. So when I had to articulate what I do, and what this guy should do, I had difficulty explaining it.
While explaining why combos are not exactly the most important thing to learn, the moment I said the term "reset" I knew I added a layer of confusion to his cake of learning.
Quick! Eat it before anyone notices!
From there, I needed to backtrack further, which lead to backtracking further...and further... It was more "backfiring" than "backtracking", and I'm glad he was so patient with me.
With my feel play style, I don't possess the ability to explain myself clearly. I'm still thinking about what I could have said different. Even now, I feel there was little I could change (except for the stumbling over my own words bit). Honestly, there's a lot of parts and pieces that go behind what a "reset" is; there is no simple answer for it. My best answer, to myself, so far has been:
Reset - When you purposefully stop short of the optimal damage of a combo for the sake of catching your opponent off-guard.
The reason you would do this is because for each hit further in a combo you do does less damage. If you start a new combo, you have the damage from the previously ended combo and the new combo. You are basically "comboing" different compilations of damage.
With resets, you can put yourself into a better position in the stage, bait attacks, or trying to stun the opponent's character; all of which can lower opponent morale if you can make them feel stupid or frustrated enough for getting hit.
I don't like the answer. It doesn't feel simple enough. I know it in my head what it is, but I just can't explain it. I do feel better after searching up how it was explained at iplaywinner.com. This is after I searched up two other fighting game glossaries that were missing the term completely. Iplaywinner.com used video examples, which shows that it's something that has to be seen and not-so-much explained.
Knowing that I can feel my way through fighters is an interesting realization. I believe the feel comes from a compilation of gained knowledge that is put together in my subconscious. When I need to access that information to explain something, that pool runs a lot deeper than even I expect. It shows when I stumble over my words trying to stuff it all into an understandable package.
I think you, yes YOU the reader, should take a moment and realize where they are in their fighting game skill level, and why. Have you come a long way? What helped you learn? What was your drive to learn? Is there something you know today that you did not know yesterday, a month ago, a year ago?
Honestly, I want to hear about it. Leave it in the comments, shoot me an e-mail, chat with me at the next tournament, etc. It doesn't even have to apply to fighters, think about it for all things you do! Even if you don't let me in on your experiences: whatever it may be that you do, you've come a ways, I know it! Keep going strong and keep your drive alive!
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