I'll always upvote a Cora-A Gaming video.

I think one difference between old school and new players is this.

OGs grew up with arcades and home systems like SNES to play MK and Street Fighter 2. We didn't have dozens of fighting games to play. We also didn't have to worry about online ranks. We played and if we won great, if not we hopefully learned something for next time.

New players are too obsessed with getting to top online ranks in a month or less of play time. They seem to forget to "enjoy the journey". To any new player reading this, you can have just as much fun with the game in Bronze rank as you will in Master ranks. Try to learn something each day and go from there. You did buy this game to have fun, right?

EDIT: One more thing for the new players. Some of the OGs have nearly 3 decades playing Street Fighter type games. You won't get that type of knowledge overnight.

Holy shit ty

Oh I got you. Do these 3 things and it'll take you through the early ranks no problem:

1. Learn to anti air. People will try and abuse jump in at early ranks. Learn to consistently anti air and you'll completely shut some people down

2. Learn a simple 3-4 hit combo that ends in a special move. You'll use this to punish other players when they fuck up.

3. Pick one character and stick with them until you get them to at least gold (platinum would be better). Switching characters is very difficult early on.

Bonus: learn to counter DI. I'm lower ranks people will spam DI because it's effective at those ranks. If you learn to counter it, you'll dominate

That's it. Winning at lower ranks in street fighter is 100% fundamentals. You don't need long or fancy combos.

1. Practice execution. It doesnt need to be no 50 million hit combo but just make sure you have the fundamentals or the character you want to play down. Street Fighter usually isn't about super long combos.

2. Don't take losing too harshly, you're not at a tournament, you're at home just trying to learn. As long as you had a fun battle thats all that matters

3. Learn what other characters are capable of through playing against them so as soon as you see a character you can sort of expect a vague game plan from an opponent. (Ex: Zangief has super damaging command grabs so you might want to keep a good distance away and attack from range, JP is a nightmare and controls the fight with projectiles and traps but has trouble dealing with most opponents if they're super close so get in there and keep the pressure up)

4. Just keep playing, eventually you will learn it just takes time. The Capcom guides in game are super helpful but dont be afraid to look up some guides on YouTube too especially since they can really take your time guiding you through specific situations with a character.

5. Hell maybe watch some pro players. I watch them and sometimes they'll do things I never even considered trying with a character so it helps expand my ideas for what a character is capable of

6. If possible play with a friend and learn together

some small tips I've given to a brand new player (coming from playing basically my whole life)

1. no shame in modern controls! they're extremely effective, and require generally no warmup if you want to jump straight into ranked

2. learn at least one punish combo (if on modern, the heavy auto combo works great). punishing comes after your opponent swings and misses, or you block something that takes them a long time to recover (e.g. a dragon punch, or any super move)

3. learn one anti-air or they'll keep jumping at you. doesn't have to be a perfectly executed dragon punch. sometimes a crunching heavy punch works just as well, and is more reliable

4. if you're in the lower ranks, abuse drive impact. keep using it until the opponent convinces you otherwise :)

Fighting games are a long journey, but it's some of the most rewarding gaming I've ever done. Welcome to the club. :)

https://youtu.be/OsmaDNsOrf8?si=ziHqRTIgcXk3_mOz

Like other mention there are guides on YouTube. First few things I’d focus on improving are anti airing and reacting to drive impact. Newer players like to jump a lot and spam drive impact. I’d also suggest playing ranked as you will always play someone around your skill level. If you go into battle hub you might get matched against more experienced players.

If you go on YouTube and search for “Street Fighter 6 for beginners” or “how to get better at fighting games” you’ll find a lot of really helpful vids that break down fundamentals for the genre! Here’s one SF6 vid from Brian_F that I think is really good: https://youtu.be/MK-AJyD1XKk?si=CwQ5M39-QXrL8kMn

And this is another one from Justin Wong, who is one of the best fighting game players in the world: https://youtu.be/24mC37_vgxY?si=7dD10xdRrdeFB1Wk

Both of those are really good at breaking down the game in a way that makes it feel a lot more approachable, as I know from experience that fighting games can be a bit daunting when you’re starting to get into them. So I’d say to watch those videos as well as videos from other content creators (Diaphone is another one of my favorites), and also just like watch some matches. EVO just happened recently so you can find the top 6 finals from this year on YouTube, I found that for myself it was really helpful to watch those higher level matches after watching beginner guides because that helped me to understand some stuff a bit better seeing it play out on a higher level, because at higher levels of play those fundamentals of the genre are absolutely still at play.

And most importantly, remember to have fun! If you’re just in it trying to get wins fast it can get frustrating, but if you just accept that you’re gonna get your ass handed to you for a while and just enjoy the journey of getting better, you’re gonna have a fun time and it’ll feel so much more rewarding when you start ranking up!

Look up Brian F beginners guide for sf6 on youtube if you want to learn the basics. This is not a game you will master quickly or easily but that's not a requirement to have a good time at a tournament. You can still have a blast as a beginner

I think the most important advice is: Just Play. A lot. Get a feeling for the game. Get a feeling for neutral. Know how far your pokes actually are. Learn which moves are more risky (easy to punish) when you use them and which ones are safe.

Once you have a good grasp on your character and his normal moves and special moves: look up some easy BnB (bread and butter) combos. The means look up for:

-) a combo for when your pokes hit. -) a counter hit combo -) a punish counter combo -) a corner combo -) a jump in combo

Another hint. It's better to go for execution friendly combos which do 85% of the max damage possible, if it's easier for you to execute. No use in going for the fancy or the max damage route, when you tend do drop it half the time. General rule of thumb: if you can execute it 9 out of 10 times, then it's serviceable.

One thing that's also very valuable in Street Fighter in general. Learn to anti air. People tend to get very frustrated if all their jump ins get countered. It's definitely worth investing time into learning to properly anti air. This alone can win you matches at locals just because some people can get really thrown off by having all their jumps punished.

As for resources and where to look them up. Just type it up on YouTube and Twitter and you'll find plenty.

Charge characters can be avoided. Just don't play them. If you want to play a charge character, then unfortunately you'll have to get through it and just sit down and learn. Always remember: ABC (Always be charging).

The first thing to keep on mind is that your main goal should be that you're going to hang out with a friend and play some games. Going to a local is a really fun time and can be really exciting when you're sitting back and watching sets.

The first question I'd ask is, what is your experience with the game? Have you played it yet? Do you have any characters you played in ranked yet?

I'll be honest with you some locals are full of people ranked really high (our best players is like 2000mr) so you could get completely ran through.

If you're really new to the game then Brian_F and Chris_F are really good youtubers to look into for improving.

Just remember to have fun, do your best, don't be afraid to ask for advice, cheer your friend on and enjoy watching everyone play.

Prepare your mind to lose a lot in the beginning. It will take time, but the wins will start to come as your understanding of the game grows. 

If you see a term you don't recognize please check this glossary: https://glossary.infil.net/

> Any practice drills?

If you're using classic controls make it a point to do the basic motions, eg. fireball, dp, and super. At least a couple times in a row each side. If you have trouble go slowly and focus on precision, even if the move doesn't come out.

Otherwise, use the built in training drills on the last page for basic stuff like anti airs, throw teching, reacting to drive impact, etc.

> How important is the meta at a small local tournament level?

It's not even that big of a deal at majors. People win with all sorts of characters.

> Can I avoid learning charge characters entirely?

Yes, just play who you like. However, charge is in some ways easier than motion inputs. If you're interested in a charge character give it a proper try.

> the basics are about footsies, priority, punishing

SF6 is not really focused on on footsies and whiff punishes compared to older games. Punishing mistakes from your opponent, however, is very important. Also, SF6 doesn't use a priority system. Under the hood it's all about frame data, hit boxes, and move properties.

> learning SF6?

Check out the sidebar to find the SF subreddit, whose sidebar has links to many discords including character specific ones. You should be able to find a lot of useful resources there. Also check out the SF6 wiki if you are the kind of person that likes cold, hard data. Keep in mind it's not necessary and there are many approaches to learning a fighting game.

Feeling overwhelmed? Need to chill out and relax? Struggling to find a groove? Core-A-Gaming is a popular fighting game youtube channel that has put out some great video essays on general fighting game topics and just getting into the proper mindset.

I'm sure the other folks here will have some great suggestions as well. Good luck and remember to have fun!

Of the characters you mentioned, Akuma would be your best bet. He’s a shoto, which basically means he’s a character with a fireball and an uppercut. Shotos are like the gold standard of a well rounded Street Fighter character. He’s probably the most aggressive Shoto, perhaps in contention with Ken, but he has a lower health total to compensate for his insanely diverse toolkit. Whether or not you stick with Akuma long term doesn’t matter, because he has the tools to teach you how to anti air and play neutral, which translates to all characters.

I got 7 in master but im pretty trash so take this with a pinch of salt. I started with cammy and it was really good, fast tho she doesnt hit extremely hard. I absolutely loved Ed! but he got nerfed several times and havent tried him in this patch, and his combos are very timing precise. Akuma, amazing... before the patch. Now its a shadow of his former self, still viable but not like before. If you like aggressive and fast, go for cammy. You like taking your time and analyze the situation, go for ed. You like brute force? Marisa all the way. Honestly choose the one he looks the cooler for you, thats what I always do.

Undoubtedly, the character above with the most active playstyle is akuma, but ed can be extrememly busy as well. Akuma can fireball, jump, demon flip and craps damage, while Ed is baiting, pulling people in and doing many fireball setups.

Cammy and akuma have a lot of overlap: but the key difference is cammy does things reactionary while akuma does things to cause reactions. Cammy's tools are slow but designed to counter a specific type of move from your opponent. Their strength is their walkspeed: where other character's buttons are longer they can walk into range and pressure that way. Cammy can stick to people a lot easier once she's in, but that's the struggle.

Ed and Chun are slower, so depend more on longer pokes before people can get close enough to attack. With people respecting pokes, you can then use a fireball type move to lock people down and force a guess. Ed's easier to play (except for his dream combos), where Chun has to do 2 different moves where other characters would just attack with 2 buttons, so it's more work to learn.

Cammy, Ed and Chun are best played as "whiff punishing" or midrange characters: it's more about catching people who miss and learning how to make people miss. Akuma is good playing this way too, and his low health encourages caution, as wild agro does cause more misses which he can't afford.

Dude just play the characters that feel good and dont think about it

Ryu, if ur new, is the process imo

Good video but the audio is awful

What if ur like beyond advanced?

Too much brain processing power going towards being frustrated and thinking about how your opponents tactics are lame. Means you're autopiloting too much and not finding solutions.

Your brain can only do so much at one time. Every negative thought is lost potential for an idea to beat your opponents.

Not saying you have to be immune to frustration. But I can tell you I turn the game off the instant I feel frustration happening and I usually can go for hours without that happening.

You've played and watched a lot. I guarantee you have the knowledge rattling around in your head somewhere. You just need to have a couple of moments where you contextualize some of that knowledge within one of your own matches.

Posting a replay is the best way to tell what your problems are. From what you’re saying, try focusing more on what your opponent is doing. By Diamond (congrats, by the way), you should have pretty much automatic control over your own character, so you can focus on what your opponent likes to do and adapting to their habits. So if you see they keep jumping, get ready to anti-air; if you see they like to whiff punish, walk forward at them to force them backwards and make them give up space, etc.

This video is a great starting point and can help you get to at least master.

Also playing long sets against high ranked players in battle hub helps too. You will lose a lot but going back to ranked after will feel 10x easier

Same, I have no idea what to do. Its like people download me from nothing. If its a consolation i spent looooooooooooooooot of time in diamond before getting to master. This game is so dumb, you put so much effort for some things and lose because you guessed right or because instead of blocking low you blocked high. I feel like im flipping a coin every match.

> I got mad about myself every time I lost ...

This is your only problem.
Even in a perfect matchmaking situation you are expected to lose half of your matches. If you tie your fun to winning you will have a hard time. The fun is in facing someone, matching their skills against yours, and even taking their blows. Losing can be fun if you learnt something and you should let the gameplay decide if you had fun, not the result.

jump into ranked as early as possible, it's not scary and it's 100 times better than losing to random people who are so far outside your skill it doesn't even make sense nor is fun

Modern or classic does not matter in the slightest. SF is a mental game.

How about people play how they want? Modern is a great way to get into fighting games.

In the meantime, you can try to improve your own play and mindset to the point where you won't have to use your opponents' modern controls as an excuse as to why you lose.

Deplete the enemies health before he depletes yours.

And be ok with sucking for a while. There is a huge amount of new mechanics that definitely take time getting used to.

Nah, you don't need to anti air if you are the one airing. If you suck at defence, just attack more.

I pause after almost every ranked set, but I always thought it put me at a disadvantage compared to the hard grinders. Maybe I'm looking at it wrong, I don't know.

Step 1 play the character you have the most fun with(classic Zangief or you did this step wrong).

Step 2 play ranked(This is to keep getting opponents im similar skill range and not wildly easy or wildly hard matches)

Step 3 don't give a sh*t about rankings

Step 4 have fun (also referred to as spd)

Step 5 wonder at how you improved/ranked up so much

I'll rank up again, I'm not getting destroyed in the majority of my games. I just get angry when I lose, at myself more than anything else but some of the same repetitive shit also winds me up. I've read it a thousand times, you have to solve the puzzle and then you move on and that is definitely on me 👍

I'm kinda lost with the ranking system on SF6, they're all fucked up compared to SFV. I was close to hitting Gold in SFV and it felt like a good achievement (even though I didn't get there before 6 got released) but in SF6 it's all shot to shit. The game is 10x better to play though and despite my whining I do enjoy it.

I'm not happy, unless I'm getting angry lol

Jokes aside, this is sound advice. I went on a skid earlier and was getting well pissed off. My reflexes blow, I cannot jump on the Ken gravy train because I cannot string together complex combos and finally fuck JP and fuck Modern Gief even harder.

After I took a break I won a few games and got back into Platinum 3 where I think I'll live forever at best.

I can use my experience with Street Fighter 6 as an example of this. Ever since i started applying this rule, i managed to climb from Silver 1 all the way to Masters. Not only that, but i stopped seeing this game as a way to trigger my anger and started looking forward to play it more and more! And if that's not having fun, then i don't know what is.

I tend to do something similar to this but only after losing 2 sets. If I'm winning I don't want to lose that momentum but if I lose 2 sets, I stop take a quick break, grab a snack/drink and then watch the match back and see where I was getting hit then try and lab that exchange.

I can't say I do this all the time as we all get lost in the "just one more" mentality when we lose but this is good advice overall.

I've found a few things to be true on my attempts to get better.

Significantly better people can coach you, analyze your replays and give you feedback, and give you advice. They are not good to play against. You learn very little if they're significantly better than you.
You will get better by playing people slightly better than you. This, imo is the fastest way to get better but you might not be able to identify why. You'll need them to explain or someone better to explain. Don't stagnate here by doing the same things, understand why those same things work, or alternatives that can do better or win in interactions where you're losing.
You can also get better by teaching someone less skilled than you. Thinking about how to explain something and answering questions forces you to really understand what you're talking about.

Time and practice. That's it. I started from scratch with SF 6. I tried SF 5 before but didn't understand a thing. I just had to learn everything. I just kept playing and eventually started to learn and improve. Also I get hit by DI's and jump ins too after like 700hrs into the game.

I have one tip for you though. Keep doing those combos in practice so you can build up your muscle memory. When you don't have to focus too much on your execution and punishes it's easier to focus anti airing and such.

Don't give up. If you keep practicing you will improve.

start with simple stuff like antiairing, having 1 good poke/counterpoke, 1 reliable bnb combo, 1 easy combo to sa3

then intermediate stuff learn delaytech for defense, mix different wakeup options, learn some kim can mixups. if you have strong offense that relies on throws/cancellable normals you can beat random DIs.

grind rank to play same skill people, when you hit plateaus learn your matchups and character specific stuff

In your settings turn up the sound for drive impact up higher. Turn the music down lower. Go in training mode. Set drive impact training. You’re going to counter drive impact for 5 minutes. Then you’re going to close your eyes. Do it based on the sound for 5 minutes.

Then your going set anti air training. You are going anti air jump ins until you can hit 10 in a row on both sides.

For parry your going make 3 recordings on ryu. One for light fire ball, medium, and strong. You’re going to turn on all 3 recordings set them to random. You are going to practice parrying fireballs. Until you can do it 10 times in a row. You’re not going to just hold parry. You are going try to get a perfect parry. I don’t really care if you get a perfect or not. I want you to able to parry by just tapping it.

You’re then going to hop in ranked. You are going fuck all this shit up that you just practiced. You’re going to do this every day for two weeks. It’s going suck and you are going to tough it out.

In the end you will get better.

Just focus on neutral play. Anti air, defense... Combos isn't even necessary. This dude got to diamond doing no combos

Play the game and you'll improve. You just have to play the game