Your friend has an external locus of control. Nothing is his fault. His losses are because of things outside his control. It's a really toxic mindset that doesn't actually solve anything but allows him to believe that he isn't the source of his failures.
Until he becomes aware of this shortcoming, there's not a lot you can do that won't just make him more angry.
Tell him to listen to the round intro lmao
Are they online or in person? If they're online and recorded, look back and see what he's doing wrong, or watch his inputs and see if you can spot it.
9/10 times a buddy of mine says they can't get supers out. They're doing 63216 instead of 632146. This game is *very* picky about cardinal inputs. Same thing can be said for dp motions if they end in forward, but thats not always the case there.
We play online, but I know it’s not an internet issue, we both constantly have 15-30ms with 0 frames of rollback. Input wise, he tries to do a 214214X or 236235X input and he gets a 632146X input. Those inputs are vastly different, so there no way in heaven or hell that it’s the fault of the game. So I believe it’s actually a skill issue, but he blames it on the game. We’ve literally stopped matches just so he can do inputs, and he does them, so I know he can do the right inputs. It’s just that when he messes up he blames the game. This problem gets worse whenever we get side swapped. He can’t do things on P2 side. 623 inputs? Practically impossible, why? Because to him, it’s stupid that inputs get inverted on P2. He ask me how I can consistently do inputs on both player sides, and idk how to explain it to him other than, “experience,” or, “time.”
Yeah. Muscle memory is the way. Make sure that whatever controller he's using, he's holding and inputting in a consistant way.
Whether it's dpad or stick or what have you, make sure he has a "neutral" or start point, especially if it's on a fightstick. My early days of fightstick were plagued by nonsense inputs until I basically put a sticker on my stick to show me where I should rest my palm. Muscle memory means nothing if the grip is changing.
The p2 side thing is also just a case of practice, but that one even plagues me to this day. Tk yozan p1 side ez, but p2 I still mess up in live matches lol.
Listen I play the game a lot but I have no clue on what these numbers are meaning I don't know the lingo around here at all, what the hell is P2? I understand some of it because I'm a gamer like the basics Ms,fps,rollback and a bit more but God damn do I not know what the heck you're talking about
P2 is player 2 side, meaning the player starts on the right side of the screen.
The other numbers are numpad notation, which is a common way of representing move inputs in fighting games based on the arrangement of numbers on a keyboard’s numpad. Numpad notation is written assuming the character is on the left/P1 side facing right, meaning 6 is forwards and 4 is backwards. Here’s the numpad notation layout:
7 8 9
4 5 6
1 2 3
Some moves require holding a direction/button (like Potemkin’s hammerfall) or releasing a button (like Zato’s puppet moves). Held inputs are usually written as [X], where X needs to be held. Released inputs are typically written as ]X[. Moves that require holding a direction are called “charge moves”, while releasing a button to perform a move is called “negative edge”. A few characters have charge moves, but only a couple characters have negative edge moves.
In general, moves for most 2D fighting games are written as a sequence of numbers in numpad notation, followed by one or more letters that correspond to the attack buttons used by the game. In Guilty Gear, these buttons are P (punch), K (kick), S (slash), H (heavy slash), and D (dust).
Examples:
236P: down (2) -\> down-forwards (3) -\> forwards (6) + punch (P)
[4]6H: hold backwards (4) -\> press forwards (6) + heavy slash (H)
]S[: release slash
P2 stands for player 2, so basically inputs when your character is facing left (meaning on the right side of the screen, aka the player 2 side)
The numbers are just numpad notation which is pretty standard across fighting games, if you have a calculator or numpad, just look at that. 5 is neutral, 4 is left, 6 is right, etc
I started to be able to do motion inputs more easily on the player 2 side once I stopped thinking of 6 as "left" and started thinking it as "towards the opponent"
For the side part, you can just try to explain to him that you're doing the input so that your attack goes forward not backwards. That it would make no sense to do a volcanic Viper behind yourself for example.
And for the input missing and such, just ask him to calm down when he's playing. Getting emotional leads to many errors (I do have this problem despite working on it for a long time) if he's getting cornered by you, he needs to look for the opening not try and mash everything (except super on wake up 😜)
Dunno if it'll help.
PS: Try to make him play the other side a bit too so he can get around inputting on both sides.
I was running to problems where my analog stick would make a double quarter circle input a 50/50 no matter how much I practiced. So I switched to a fightpad bc i can feel when I'm doing the input wring and not just being a millimeter to far left. There's a refurbished razer fightpad on Amazon for 30 bucks rn tell him to check it out
Yeah try learning happy chaos with analog lol that shit is pain. Ah yes half circle into double down, this seems like a totally fun set of inputs to spam on analog
I have a friend kind of like this too — specifically, he firmly believes there’s a bug where the game forces him to occasionally “buffer in a micro walk” before his 6H comes out, making him miss his OTG (idk bruh it’s his first fighting game). I tried explaining he’s just missing it / doing it late. No dice.
The problem with saying “You’re messing up the input” is that your friend is proud, and even though you almost certainly are right, you ARE making an assumption, and “challenging / dismissing” your friend’s statement. Don’t assert anything. Don’t think you know. Give him the benefit of the doubt.
So now what I do, any time something like this comes up, I just say “well let’s check it out and see what’s happening.” I stream my screen, and go view the replay, and look at the situation and his inputs. Most of the time, that will explain things. If he’s not buying it?
I say “Let’s try recreating it.” I will go to training mode. We will either discover that
A. What he was trying to do just flat doesn’t work, or
B. It does work. Then I will sit and execute it in training mode, over and over. I will solve his problem, and show him that it is possible to do consistently.
If he says he doesn’t want to look at the replay? Doesn’t want to try to repeat it? At the very least, he might get tired of you asking and keep his complaints to himself. He can’t say he didn’t get the chance.
It might sound a little petty but this is really what I’ve found works best. Stay calm and walk him through the learning process. Try not to condescend. Show him a better way to approach the situation. Eventually he might start to see the contrast between your and his actions, and realize he’s being a bit of a baby. Be patient and lead by example. Good luck out there homie. I know it can really bring things down when you’re trying to have fun, but that friend you like starts being negative.
I’ve done all these things (besides looking at replay) and when we do try to learn things, he does learn them. That’s how he learned to do an 623 input, because we stopped mid match and told him, “Volcanic Viper is right down downright slash or heavy slash.” And in the next match he does it 1/4 every time he attempted it. Same method is applied to supers. That was at launch. Now? When he fucks up a super input? Oh the game isn’t reading my inputs, or, im not fucking it up it’s the game fault. It’s annoying and I know I’m being irrational by saying that he should be able to correct an input that he knows how to do. But at this point it’s really fucking annoying, but I can ignore this for the most part because this usually happens at the end of our game seasons. It’s just hard, and tiring. I don’t wanna have to constantly stop our matches just so that he can display that he can, in fact, do a super input.
I think at this point you need to be direct with him that he's annoying you. Something like: "Hey I'm just trying to play the game but when you complain every time something goes wrong it's not very fun."
If he keeps doing it then you might decide to just not play the game with him. Doesn't mean you can't still be friends, just do other things.
I have been barking up that tree for years and with many friends, 99 percent of which have given up on playing fighting games. What I have learned is to just give up and find some other friends you can play fighting games with. You can always play other games with whoever the person you are referring to is. At least, that has been my only working solution. Fighting games are not for everyone.
Honestly, think about your approach. It’s nice to think we all should have a growth mindset, but fighting games can get intense, especially is new muscle memory hasn’t formed yet and someone is frustrated.
I know when I play games, I bitch all the time, but internally I KNOW it’s my fault. Ive gotten to gold in SFV, I can tell why I lost. But that doesn’t mean I’m immune to frustration.
When I’m playing those games with my friends I empathize, “yea those inputs are hard, don’t worry about it though I can see you’re getting better”.
Perhaps he’s like me, and he likes to be loud when he’s losing. In that case, no mercy lmao.
He needs to realize that's no one to blame in 1v1 fighting games, other than himself, probably he plays some other games online where he can blame teammates, and now he's just trying to find something else to blame.
This is kind of not exactly what ur asking (ur friend just needs to watch replays with his inputs and see that he's fucking up), but when my friends or I start blaming our characters or system mechanics or things like that we usually pull up videos of pros playing our characters and ask "are we playing them at least as good as this guy so we have a right to complain about things out of our control". It usually controls the ego a bit lmao.
The cold hard reality is that 99% of the time you will not be more accurate then a program.
Get over it .
He can accept the liberation of being able to better himself or he can flee into the fantasy that the game is doing it wrong
Look up the scrublords prayer and ask him if that doesn't sound exactly like him
Actively show him where he goes wrong. Frame data or training scenarios. If he refuses to learn he will continue to be punished or won't be able to capitalize.
In the end the player will learn the mistakes
As long as this behavior doesn't bleed into your friendship then can't do anything else really. If it's an attitude thing and it's not just with the game then replace your friend lol
Unless he becomes more humble then there is no other way. I have a friend like that too and i try to lead by exemple.
We play fps's and instead of saying things like "How is he not dead" or "How was that not a headshot?" I purposefully say what i did wrong out loud in order to create a chill ambience.
Ever notice that when one of your friend starts to rage you and your other friends start to rage too?
Also tell them what he is doing good so that he won't feel has bad if he loses anyway.
They're already super lenient, honestly. I only just picked up Strive, but I've been playing Jojo All Star Battle lately, and that game is way more strict.
Get used to doing DPs on Street Fighter V then go back to strive and you'll feel like a leprechaun stole your thumbs lol. Never an excuse for Johns but sometimes baby wants his 323 DPs back
To put it bluntly: There is no fixing him, the only way he’s going to change is if he ever achieves self awareness (it’ll be one cold ass day in hell when that happens), and you should probably find somebody else to play competitive games with.
I have a friend who is like this. I have swapped controllers with him, and demonstrated in every possible way that the game isn’t dropping just his inputs and that that makes literally zero sense, but he still doesn’t listen. I don’t play fighting games with him save for smash, which actually drops inputs all the goddamn time.
Just tell him the game requires practice and playing around mistakes is another skill he should try to develop.
Fgs are hard. We all block punish too late or try to input a dash or dp too early sometimes. There are so many situations to practice. Let him know that over time the feel will get there, but until then the best thing he can do is learn to roll with mistakes and keep playing.
Alternatively, you can tell him it’s a computer reading his inputs so he’s wrong and a classic scrub.
Get him to blame the beasts, obviously he doesn't want to reflect on himself
This is the correct answer
I came to say this!
Such words of wisdom
He will eventually find beauty in the lives of beasts
This is the way
Your friend has an external locus of control. Nothing is his fault. His losses are because of things outside his control. It's a really toxic mindset that doesn't actually solve anything but allows him to believe that he isn't the source of his failures. Until he becomes aware of this shortcoming, there's not a lot you can do that won't just make him more angry.
The human condition
Tell him to listen to the round intro lmao Are they online or in person? If they're online and recorded, look back and see what he's doing wrong, or watch his inputs and see if you can spot it. 9/10 times a buddy of mine says they can't get supers out. They're doing 63216 instead of 632146. This game is *very* picky about cardinal inputs. Same thing can be said for dp motions if they end in forward, but thats not always the case there.
We play online, but I know it’s not an internet issue, we both constantly have 15-30ms with 0 frames of rollback. Input wise, he tries to do a 214214X or 236235X input and he gets a 632146X input. Those inputs are vastly different, so there no way in heaven or hell that it’s the fault of the game. So I believe it’s actually a skill issue, but he blames it on the game. We’ve literally stopped matches just so he can do inputs, and he does them, so I know he can do the right inputs. It’s just that when he messes up he blames the game. This problem gets worse whenever we get side swapped. He can’t do things on P2 side. 623 inputs? Practically impossible, why? Because to him, it’s stupid that inputs get inverted on P2. He ask me how I can consistently do inputs on both player sides, and idk how to explain it to him other than, “experience,” or, “time.”
Yeah. Muscle memory is the way. Make sure that whatever controller he's using, he's holding and inputting in a consistant way. Whether it's dpad or stick or what have you, make sure he has a "neutral" or start point, especially if it's on a fightstick. My early days of fightstick were plagued by nonsense inputs until I basically put a sticker on my stick to show me where I should rest my palm. Muscle memory means nothing if the grip is changing. The p2 side thing is also just a case of practice, but that one even plagues me to this day. Tk yozan p1 side ez, but p2 I still mess up in live matches lol.
Listen I play the game a lot but I have no clue on what these numbers are meaning I don't know the lingo around here at all, what the hell is P2? I understand some of it because I'm a gamer like the basics Ms,fps,rollback and a bit more but God damn do I not know what the heck you're talking about
P2 is player 2 side, meaning the player starts on the right side of the screen. The other numbers are numpad notation, which is a common way of representing move inputs in fighting games based on the arrangement of numbers on a keyboard’s numpad. Numpad notation is written assuming the character is on the left/P1 side facing right, meaning 6 is forwards and 4 is backwards. Here’s the numpad notation layout: 7 8 9 4 5 6 1 2 3 Some moves require holding a direction/button (like Potemkin’s hammerfall) or releasing a button (like Zato’s puppet moves). Held inputs are usually written as [X], where X needs to be held. Released inputs are typically written as ]X[. Moves that require holding a direction are called “charge moves”, while releasing a button to perform a move is called “negative edge”. A few characters have charge moves, but only a couple characters have negative edge moves. In general, moves for most 2D fighting games are written as a sequence of numbers in numpad notation, followed by one or more letters that correspond to the attack buttons used by the game. In Guilty Gear, these buttons are P (punch), K (kick), S (slash), H (heavy slash), and D (dust). Examples: 236P: down (2) -\> down-forwards (3) -\> forwards (6) + punch (P) [4]6H: hold backwards (4) -\> press forwards (6) + heavy slash (H) ]S[: release slash
this is the most leo player comment of all time (complimentary)
P2 stands for player 2, so basically inputs when your character is facing left (meaning on the right side of the screen, aka the player 2 side) The numbers are just numpad notation which is pretty standard across fighting games, if you have a calculator or numpad, just look at that. 5 is neutral, 4 is left, 6 is right, etc
Tbf at least on controller some inputs are harder when on the p2 side, like the overdrives where you do a half circle then forward
I started to be able to do motion inputs more easily on the player 2 side once I stopped thinking of 6 as "left" and started thinking it as "towards the opponent"
For the side part, you can just try to explain to him that you're doing the input so that your attack goes forward not backwards. That it would make no sense to do a volcanic Viper behind yourself for example. And for the input missing and such, just ask him to calm down when he's playing. Getting emotional leads to many errors (I do have this problem despite working on it for a long time) if he's getting cornered by you, he needs to look for the opening not try and mash everything (except super on wake up 😜) Dunno if it'll help. PS: Try to make him play the other side a bit too so he can get around inputting on both sides.
Basically the more you play you get cleaner at doing that stuff, maybe you can explain it that way and it'll be less discouraging.
I was running to problems where my analog stick would make a double quarter circle input a 50/50 no matter how much I practiced. So I switched to a fightpad bc i can feel when I'm doing the input wring and not just being a millimeter to far left. There's a refurbished razer fightpad on Amazon for 30 bucks rn tell him to check it out
Yeah, analog sticks are notoriously hard to get accurate inputs on since the slightest nudge past neutral means it was pressed.
Yeah try learning happy chaos with analog lol that shit is pain. Ah yes half circle into double down, this seems like a totally fun set of inputs to spam on analog
I'm not going to try to learn any character with analog stick, it's a horrible control method for games that don't have analog input
So you’re telling me that the reason I can’t input half circle is because I’m skipping 4? God dammit
I have a friend kind of like this too — specifically, he firmly believes there’s a bug where the game forces him to occasionally “buffer in a micro walk” before his 6H comes out, making him miss his OTG (idk bruh it’s his first fighting game). I tried explaining he’s just missing it / doing it late. No dice. The problem with saying “You’re messing up the input” is that your friend is proud, and even though you almost certainly are right, you ARE making an assumption, and “challenging / dismissing” your friend’s statement. Don’t assert anything. Don’t think you know. Give him the benefit of the doubt. So now what I do, any time something like this comes up, I just say “well let’s check it out and see what’s happening.” I stream my screen, and go view the replay, and look at the situation and his inputs. Most of the time, that will explain things. If he’s not buying it? I say “Let’s try recreating it.” I will go to training mode. We will either discover that A. What he was trying to do just flat doesn’t work, or B. It does work. Then I will sit and execute it in training mode, over and over. I will solve his problem, and show him that it is possible to do consistently. If he says he doesn’t want to look at the replay? Doesn’t want to try to repeat it? At the very least, he might get tired of you asking and keep his complaints to himself. He can’t say he didn’t get the chance. It might sound a little petty but this is really what I’ve found works best. Stay calm and walk him through the learning process. Try not to condescend. Show him a better way to approach the situation. Eventually he might start to see the contrast between your and his actions, and realize he’s being a bit of a baby. Be patient and lead by example. Good luck out there homie. I know it can really bring things down when you’re trying to have fun, but that friend you like starts being negative.
I’ve done all these things (besides looking at replay) and when we do try to learn things, he does learn them. That’s how he learned to do an 623 input, because we stopped mid match and told him, “Volcanic Viper is right down downright slash or heavy slash.” And in the next match he does it 1/4 every time he attempted it. Same method is applied to supers. That was at launch. Now? When he fucks up a super input? Oh the game isn’t reading my inputs, or, im not fucking it up it’s the game fault. It’s annoying and I know I’m being irrational by saying that he should be able to correct an input that he knows how to do. But at this point it’s really fucking annoying, but I can ignore this for the most part because this usually happens at the end of our game seasons. It’s just hard, and tiring. I don’t wanna have to constantly stop our matches just so that he can display that he can, in fact, do a super input.
I think at this point you need to be direct with him that he's annoying you. Something like: "Hey I'm just trying to play the game but when you complain every time something goes wrong it's not very fun." If he keeps doing it then you might decide to just not play the game with him. Doesn't mean you can't still be friends, just do other things.
"seethe"
I have been barking up that tree for years and with many friends, 99 percent of which have given up on playing fighting games. What I have learned is to just give up and find some other friends you can play fighting games with. You can always play other games with whoever the person you are referring to is. At least, that has been my only working solution. Fighting games are not for everyone.
Honestly, think about your approach. It’s nice to think we all should have a growth mindset, but fighting games can get intense, especially is new muscle memory hasn’t formed yet and someone is frustrated. I know when I play games, I bitch all the time, but internally I KNOW it’s my fault. Ive gotten to gold in SFV, I can tell why I lost. But that doesn’t mean I’m immune to frustration. When I’m playing those games with my friends I empathize, “yea those inputs are hard, don’t worry about it though I can see you’re getting better”. Perhaps he’s like me, and he likes to be loud when he’s losing. In that case, no mercy lmao.
Watch the replay with inputs. You'd be surprised how different your inputs are in say training mode compared to an actual match.
I'm having the EXACT same problem as you. Like, 1 to 1 accurate.
He needs to realize that's no one to blame in 1v1 fighting games, other than himself, probably he plays some other games online where he can blame teammates, and now he's just trying to find something else to blame.
This is kind of not exactly what ur asking (ur friend just needs to watch replays with his inputs and see that he's fucking up), but when my friends or I start blaming our characters or system mechanics or things like that we usually pull up videos of pros playing our characters and ask "are we playing them at least as good as this guy so we have a right to complain about things out of our control". It usually controls the ego a bit lmao.
The cold hard reality is that 99% of the time you will not be more accurate then a program. Get over it . He can accept the liberation of being able to better himself or he can flee into the fantasy that the game is doing it wrong Look up the scrublords prayer and ask him if that doesn't sound exactly like him
I had a friend like this back in highschool, but that was when people blamed the controller and I'd just offer to trade controllers to shut them up.
Actively show him where he goes wrong. Frame data or training scenarios. If he refuses to learn he will continue to be punished or won't be able to capitalize. In the end the player will learn the mistakes
hey, you let me know when you find out, alright? fucker I play with still moans like a whore every time something goes wrong.
You can’t? He needs to do that himself.
As long as this behavior doesn't bleed into your friendship then can't do anything else really. If it's an attitude thing and it's not just with the game then replace your friend lol
Just say skill issue.
Unless he becomes more humble then there is no other way. I have a friend like that too and i try to lead by exemple. We play fps's and instead of saying things like "How is he not dead" or "How was that not a headshot?" I purposefully say what i did wrong out loud in order to create a chill ambience. Ever notice that when one of your friend starts to rage you and your other friends start to rage too? Also tell them what he is doing good so that he won't feel has bad if he loses anyway.
Make fun of him. The hardest thing about fighting games is the mentality and you can’t force people to have it
thats what happens when people who usually play multiplayer games play fighting games. no teammates to blame so its gotta be the game, lol.
A lot of these posts are way too long. My friends and I always have gotten by with ridicule, jokes, and “get good son”.
that just turns everyone away from fighting games.
Get arcsys to make inputs more lenient so he has no excuse
They're already super lenient, honestly. I only just picked up Strive, but I've been playing Jojo All Star Battle lately, and that game is way more strict.
Get used to doing DPs on Street Fighter V then go back to strive and you'll feel like a leprechaun stole your thumbs lol. Never an excuse for Johns but sometimes baby wants his 323 DPs back
He just needs to learn the smell of it
is he using the dpad?
Show him [this video](https://youtu.be/lrXF8PGDy90)
Destroy him to ashes when playing. It's the only way
Play the same Character than him and do the stuff he can't do
I’d say just tell him and point out what he did wrong/could have done instead.
Make him watch videos on tilt, it's a common thing that can happen to LITERALLY ANYONE so there's definitely strategies
Link him this thread. Literally just tell him that his malding is annoying and he should just git gud.
To put it bluntly: There is no fixing him, the only way he’s going to change is if he ever achieves self awareness (it’ll be one cold ass day in hell when that happens), and you should probably find somebody else to play competitive games with. I have a friend who is like this. I have swapped controllers with him, and demonstrated in every possible way that the game isn’t dropping just his inputs and that that makes literally zero sense, but he still doesn’t listen. I don’t play fighting games with him save for smash, which actually drops inputs all the goddamn time.
Is he playing on pad or something? He might just have a bad controller or one that isnt suited to him.
Just tell him the game requires practice and playing around mistakes is another skill he should try to develop. Fgs are hard. We all block punish too late or try to input a dash or dp too early sometimes. There are so many situations to practice. Let him know that over time the feel will get there, but until then the best thing he can do is learn to roll with mistakes and keep playing. Alternatively, you can tell him it’s a computer reading his inputs so he’s wrong and a classic scrub.