I want to give a detailed insight about that, as a professional teacher. I'll give you the theory on how you learn movelist and frames and wil give you a concrete method. I think it would be very interesting to see more research on learning fighting games because like so many things you've learned in school or for your job, FGs are exactly like activities such as speaking a foreign language or driving a car: a combination of knowledge you acquire (frames, movelists, combos, to name a few, when it comes to FGs or traffic laws, what every tool you have in your car does, etc. when it comes to the car driving example) that you have to remember (oh that move is -12!), recall actively, put it in your "active" brain (it's -12 and I punished it!) and eventually sharpen to reach optimization (it's -12 but I used my i12 punisher and not my usual i10 jab punish or my i10 because I get a wallsplat). It's kinda sad that very few people realize FGs are the same brain activities and body exercises as a lot of more "noble" activities like I mentioned earlier. Now the question about MU is a nerdier way of saying "how do I keep up against my opponent?". And to explain what you can do to learn MUs, I will transpose what science says about learning a language to speak it and it's gonna make sense instantly. Going 1v1 against an opponent is pretty much the same as having a spoken conversation with someone. You both have tools to interact (the words you know, the grammar, the implicit | the movelist of each character) with each other but you have your own personality and thinking ability (the unique traits of your main). As Applay rightfully said, understanding your character first is good. When you learn a language, you want to know the very useful words first and polite ways to reply: "no thank you, yes please, may I do blablabla, I would like...", no need to learn complicated stuff at the beginning. Going over a character's movelist to learn the MU is indeed not a good idea. I mean, mainly if you go through every move passively, looking at the frame data and call it a day. There are two big issues here. Your brain isn't a machine with unlimited abilities. There's a phenomenon called cognitive load. Your brain has RAM and ROM and like the ones in computers, it's limited. If you overload the RAM, nothing will work and each learning activity you do will take up some of it. When the RAM is overloaded, the PC becomes slow, stops functioning normally but the screen is still on, the PC isn't broken. Same for you. You are alive, your brain is not damaged but it can't process anything. Do you understand what I'm trying to say? Yes, you're just overloading your brain with way too many moves and frame info. You yourself don't necessarily feel overwhelmed but your brain is. That method is basically the same as opening a dictionary of a foreign language, read four pages in a row and expect to remember all the translations and definitions. Very few people can do that and it doesn't mean you'll be able to remember actively and use it in conversation and here comes the second issue: if you want to learn, not only do you need to limit yourself to a reasonable amount of "knowledge bits" at a time, you also need to learn them through an ACTIVE practice so you can use them in ACTIVE context. Have you ever learned a language, tried to speak it and then thought "fuck, how do you say that again??" then the person you're talking to gives you the word and you tell yourself "oh yeah right, I already learned it, I'm so dumb"? That's the problem here. You know, yeah, you know for sure that fucking move is -15 but you keep punishing it with an i10 jab. Because your knowledge is passive. You need to know and ACT with that knowledge and that's when things become difficult. To be able to recall things and use them actively, you need to learn them actively, use and reuse them so they become... yeah, a word we use a lot for FGs... "muscle memory". That was just about learning move properties but MU's are more than just knowing frames and what's a high or mid. You need to understand game plans and mixup situations. Sticking on to language examples, those could simply be life situations or topics in a foreign language (buying something, going to the city hall for visa things, asking your way, etc.). All these things require bits of your language knowledge (in Tekken, it's your movelist, your ability to sidestep or backstep, etc.) but you will not always need to recall the same bits. And again, with language, the best thing here is to be exposed to those situations on purpose or in a real match with FGs (which we could equal to traveling to the country) or recreate in practice mode (have a friend or a teacher than can emulate this situation for you). One is more stressful and that's one more factor to consider: your feelings and your natural ability to learn, react and adapt. When dealing with those situations, force yourself to think "wait, what should I do in this situation" and try something if you didn't learn it before. You have no choice anyway. If you never press, you will lose. Same for language again, if you're ordering in a restaurant and you stay completely mute because you don't understand what the waiter says, you're never gonna get food. Then please check in practice if you could do what you had in mind or find appropriate things for that situation. There's still so much I could say and I'd gladly do it if people are interested because learning anything is fascinating. Here's a practical plan of what you can do: - Select a few moves from the character you want to learn the MU for and ONLY a few of them and/or the ones you struggle against. Applay does an amazing job at figuring out those moves for you with his "5 moves you shouldn't let x get away with" on his Twitter account. - Now once you know those moves and/or have seen Applay's tweets, go to practice mode and DO IT YOURSELF. Press the buttons against those moves and figure out your options for your character. That's the active learning phase, be physically involved in the situation, don't just read or be passive about it. - Repeat it and space it. Don't practice the same stuff for an hour, you won't learn faster. Your brain is a muscle and needs to rest to fully put information together. Then do it again the next day, then in three days, etc. - (extra step) if you're feeling very motivated, move on to another character and go to step 1. This technique is called interweaving. You learn better by spacing what you're trying to learn with something different in the middle. So it's like "Day 1: Bryan MU", "Day 2: Alisa", and "Day 3: Bryan again, etc. - Try to apply this knowledge and this nascent muscle memory in a real situation, playing with the mental illness that ranked matchmaking is. If you fail, it's FINE. Be patient with yourself. Rome wasn't built in one day and you certainly never learned a language in three days. If you get too frustrated, then have some rest. The brain doesn't perform well under pressure, you lose motivation (n°1 element of learning, imho) and that's a flop. - For MU and things that are not just frame on block and hit, it's more difficult to practice that methodically but I would suggest just playing the game, being patient again and analyzing what you do with your character so focus on what YOU do, this time, and not what on the opponent does. Know your options. Also don't trust people who say "to learn, you should just play against good players", that's the same BS as thinking you're gonna become fluent in Chinese by going to China and listening to Chinese people talking all day. This is dumb, overwhelming, incredibly time consuming and will very hardly work if you don't "formalize" what you're trying to do by being progressive. Don't ask a three month old to do a back flip. They need to be able to stand up first, thank you. TL; dr, playing FGs is like speaking a language. You need to do exercises, speak it (play the game), listen to it (watch videos of the game and pay attention), write it (help other players with MU), read the language you want to learn (read techs on Discord), combine all of these and force yourself into situations and adapt. Be super patient, be proud of the small improvements you make, and please, by all means, stop playing when you get too frustrated! If you're more methodical, it will pay off better. Certainly a bit less fun than just playing ranked but more successful (and less frustrating :)
These are my two cents, that there are also general rules you can apply to find where you can challenge your opponent's offense, like: - a high is probably safe (maybe do a duck jab?), - a mid might be safe (maybe do a df1?), - a low is definitely not safe (do a ws4) - and a string of 3+ moves might be minus enough to challenge.
I recommend using the replay takeover feature a lot. If you need deeper knowledge of a matchup, what I like to do is go through every move in their move list, but only lab the ones I know the opponents use a lot. So just watch the demo of each move and write down the ones people use a lot.
Thank you for this, Tekken is the first fighting game ive taken seriously and want to learn where to punish certain characters and what is unsafe for them to do. The replay system helps tremendously and videos like this help up my game especially as a Reina main myself 😎
When learning a brand new matchup my rule of thumb is to focus on stances first if they have one. Which moves get them into stance? What are their options out of the stance? Those are always good questions to ask and it helps give some focus rather than just scrolling through the whole move list. For example Lee isn't really a "stance character", I wouldn't say his game plan revolves entirely around his stance, but being familiar with how Hitman works is still guaranteed to help you in the matchup. Like "Oh hey if I block this move then I can interrupt all of his stance options except the armor move, so I only need to watch out for that one"
The best way to learn the matchup is to find out the situations and most used moves properties and then play with at least 2-3 different character loyalists, while also asking them if there are answers to some situations. It's complicated, but that's how you actually learn a matchup, knowing what is what isn't enough, you gotta have that in your hands and muscle memory
One of the reason why I play other characters is to learn match ups. Of course you could just lab them but that's boring. If you check them you can play them too ❤
0:04 for anyone who does want to learn how to punish every single move i lab them myself in highly in depth vids. So far Eddy & Leo are done. Currently working pn Lidia & will do Heihachi next. This is a full series on how to punish against very character against every move with every character
Found you on ranked playing Reina one of these days, I was with Devil Jin, wonder why you didn't stick for the ft3, but ggs anyways you're pretty good.
It was either laggy or I was extremely tilted the day. Sorry if it was the latter, unfortunately sometimes I open the game just to get my head off some problems.
Any tips to stop autopiloting? I'm Tekken King (ranked down - been higher) - today/yesterday I've played pretty awful and noticed I'm just autopiloting more than usual. Don't know if it's just a matter of getting better sleep/exercise.
That's difficult, really. Using fewer buttons may help focus more, 'cause then you have to pay attention to what happens to come up with strategies. It's something you gotta work on little by little to remove habits, so you only do things on purpose or based on what the opponent is doing.
Forgot to mention this in the video, but the Punishment Training in practice mode is a good one against characters you don't find often
I want to give a detailed insight about that, as a professional teacher. I'll give you the theory on how you learn movelist and frames and wil give you a concrete method. I think it would be very interesting to see more research on learning fighting games because like so many things you've learned in school or for your job, FGs are exactly like activities such as speaking a foreign language or driving a car: a combination of knowledge you acquire (frames, movelists, combos, to name a few, when it comes to FGs or traffic laws, what every tool you have in your car does, etc. when it comes to the car driving example) that you have to remember (oh that move is -12!), recall actively, put it in your "active" brain (it's -12 and I punished it!) and eventually sharpen to reach optimization (it's -12 but I used my i12 punisher and not my usual i10 jab punish or my i10 because I get a wallsplat). It's kinda sad that very few people realize FGs are the same brain activities and body exercises as a lot of more "noble" activities like I mentioned earlier.
Now the question about MU is a nerdier way of saying "how do I keep up against my opponent?". And to explain what you can do to learn MUs, I will transpose what science says about learning a language to speak it and it's gonna make sense instantly. Going 1v1 against an opponent is pretty much the same as having a spoken conversation with someone. You both have tools to interact (the words you know, the grammar, the implicit | the movelist of each character) with each other but you have your own personality and thinking ability (the unique traits of your main).
As Applay rightfully said, understanding your character first is good. When you learn a language, you want to know the very useful words first and polite ways to reply: "no thank you, yes please, may I do blablabla, I would like...", no need to learn complicated stuff at the beginning.
Going over a character's movelist to learn the MU is indeed not a good idea. I mean, mainly if you go through every move passively, looking at the frame data and call it a day. There are two big issues here. Your brain isn't a machine with unlimited abilities. There's a phenomenon called cognitive load. Your brain has RAM and ROM and like the ones in computers, it's limited. If you overload the RAM, nothing will work and each learning activity you do will take up some of it. When the RAM is overloaded, the PC becomes slow, stops functioning normally but the screen is still on, the PC isn't broken. Same for you. You are alive, your brain is not damaged but it can't process anything. Do you understand what I'm trying to say? Yes, you're just overloading your brain with way too many moves and frame info. You yourself don't necessarily feel overwhelmed but your brain is. That method is basically the same as opening a dictionary of a foreign language, read four pages in a row and expect to remember all the translations and definitions. Very few people can do that and it doesn't mean you'll be able to remember actively and use it in conversation and here comes the second issue: if you want to learn, not only do you need to limit yourself to a reasonable amount of "knowledge bits" at a time, you also need to learn them through an ACTIVE practice so you can use them in ACTIVE context.
Have you ever learned a language, tried to speak it and then thought "fuck, how do you say that again??" then the person you're talking to gives you the word and you tell yourself "oh yeah right, I already learned it, I'm so dumb"? That's the problem here. You know, yeah, you know for sure that fucking move is -15 but you keep punishing it with an i10 jab. Because your knowledge is passive. You need to know and ACT with that knowledge and that's when things become difficult.
To be able to recall things and use them actively, you need to learn them actively, use and reuse them so they become... yeah, a word we use a lot for FGs... "muscle memory".
That was just about learning move properties but MU's are more than just knowing frames and what's a high or mid. You need to understand game plans and mixup situations. Sticking on to language examples, those could simply be life situations or topics in a foreign language (buying something, going to the city hall for visa things, asking your way, etc.). All these things require bits of your language knowledge (in Tekken, it's your movelist, your ability to sidestep or backstep, etc.) but you will not always need to recall the same bits. And again, with language, the best thing here is to be exposed to those situations on purpose or in a real match with FGs (which we could equal to traveling to the country) or recreate in practice mode (have a friend or a teacher than can emulate this situation for you). One is more stressful and that's one more factor to consider: your feelings and your natural ability to learn, react and adapt.
When dealing with those situations, force yourself to think "wait, what should I do in this situation" and try something if you didn't learn it before. You have no choice anyway. If you never press, you will lose. Same for language again, if you're ordering in a restaurant and you stay completely mute because you don't understand what the waiter says, you're never gonna get food. Then please check in practice if you could do what you had in mind or find appropriate things for that situation.
There's still so much I could say and I'd gladly do it if people are interested because learning anything is fascinating.
Here's a practical plan of what you can do:
- Select a few moves from the character you want to learn the MU for and ONLY a few of them and/or the ones you struggle against. Applay does an amazing job at figuring out those moves for you with his "5 moves you shouldn't let x get away with" on his Twitter account.
- Now once you know those moves and/or have seen Applay's tweets, go to practice mode and DO IT YOURSELF. Press the buttons against those moves and figure out your options for your character. That's the active learning phase, be physically involved in the situation, don't just read or be passive about it.
- Repeat it and space it. Don't practice the same stuff for an hour, you won't learn faster. Your brain is a muscle and needs to rest to fully put information together. Then do it again the next day, then in three days, etc.
- (extra step) if you're feeling very motivated, move on to another character and go to step 1. This technique is called interweaving. You learn better by spacing what you're trying to learn with something different in the middle. So it's like "Day 1: Bryan MU", "Day 2: Alisa", and "Day 3: Bryan again, etc.
- Try to apply this knowledge and this nascent muscle memory in a real situation, playing with the mental illness that ranked matchmaking is. If you fail, it's FINE. Be patient with yourself. Rome wasn't built in one day and you certainly never learned a language in three days. If you get too frustrated, then have some rest. The brain doesn't perform well under pressure, you lose motivation (n°1 element of learning, imho) and that's a flop.
- For MU and things that are not just frame on block and hit, it's more difficult to practice that methodically but I would suggest just playing the game, being patient again and analyzing what you do with your character so focus on what YOU do, this time, and not what on the opponent does. Know your options.
Also don't trust people who say "to learn, you should just play against good players", that's the same BS as thinking you're gonna become fluent in Chinese by going to China and listening to Chinese people talking all day. This is dumb, overwhelming, incredibly time consuming and will very hardly work if you don't "formalize" what you're trying to do by being progressive. Don't ask a three month old to do a back flip. They need to be able to stand up first, thank you.
TL; dr, playing FGs is like speaking a language. You need to do exercises, speak it (play the game), listen to it (watch videos of the game and pay attention), write it (help other players with MU), read the language you want to learn (read techs on Discord), combine all of these and force yourself into situations and adapt. Be super patient, be proud of the small improvements you make, and please, by all means, stop playing when you get too frustrated! If you're more methodical, it will pay off better. Certainly a bit less fun than just playing ranked but more successful (and less frustrating :)
These are my two cents, that there are also general rules you can apply to find where you can challenge your opponent's offense, like:
- a high is probably safe (maybe do a duck jab?),
- a mid might be safe (maybe do a df1?),
- a low is definitely not safe (do a ws4)
- and a string of 3+ moves might be minus enough to challenge.
- mid power crushes are usually at least -12 (exception being lili qcb 1+2 being -11, and zafina's stance claw power crush thing in heat being safe)
Get your ass kicked, go to replays and lab. And that’s pretty much it. But you have to know HOW to lab.
Yes, this my first tekken I was trying to find how people properly learn the matchup/ labing the characters
I recommend using the replay takeover feature a lot. If you need deeper knowledge of a matchup, what I like to do is go through every move in their move list, but only lab the ones I know the opponents use a lot. So just watch the demo of each move and write down the ones people use a lot.
Thank you for this, Tekken is the first fighting game ive taken seriously and want to learn where to punish certain characters and what is unsafe for them to do.
The replay system helps tremendously and videos like this help up my game especially as a Reina main myself 😎
this is SUCH a good video - thank you for making content that makes it easier for newer players to pick up the game 🥺✨ We appreciate you 😌🤝✨
When learning a brand new matchup my rule of thumb is to focus on stances first if they have one. Which moves get them into stance? What are their options out of the stance? Those are always good questions to ask and it helps give some focus rather than just scrolling through the whole move list. For example Lee isn't really a "stance character", I wouldn't say his game plan revolves entirely around his stance, but being familiar with how Hitman works is still guaranteed to help you in the matchup. Like "Oh hey if I block this move then I can interrupt all of his stance options except the armor move, so I only need to watch out for that one"
The best way to learn the matchup is to find out the situations and most used moves properties and then play with at least 2-3 different character loyalists, while also asking them if there are answers to some situations. It's complicated, but that's how you actually learn a matchup, knowing what is what isn't enough, you gotta have that in your hands and muscle memory
One of the reason why I play other characters is to learn match ups.
Of course you could just lab them but that's boring. If you check them you can play them too ❤
0:04 for anyone who does want to learn how to punish every single move i lab them myself in highly in depth vids. So far Eddy & Leo are done. Currently working pn Lidia & will do Heihachi next.
This is a full series on how to punish against very character against every move with every character
Found you on ranked playing Reina one of these days, I was with Devil Jin, wonder why you didn't stick for the ft3, but ggs anyways you're pretty good.
It was either laggy or I was extremely tilted the day. Sorry if it was the latter, unfortunately sometimes I open the game just to get my head off some problems.
Any tips to stop autopiloting?
I'm Tekken King (ranked down - been higher) - today/yesterday I've played pretty awful and noticed I'm just autopiloting more than usual.
Don't know if it's just a matter of getting better sleep/exercise.
That's difficult, really. Using fewer buttons may help focus more, 'cause then you have to pay attention to what happens to come up with strategies.
It's something you gotta work on little by little to remove habits, so you only do things on purpose or based on what the opponent is doing.
What game is the music in the video background from?
Tekken tag 2 customization theme. Sunset something
qual o seu rank?
Maybe you should just get better
simply handle it, exactly