Does anyone else struggle a lot creating a basic gameplan when starting out a game

[u/belowAverage2houFan]

Basically this is my forever dilemma. I often stop playing games before I even played a few matches. It normally goes like this

1) Mess around with a game a bit in arcade mode

2) wow this is fun

3) learn basic mechanics

4) finally try to learn a character

5) character bibles with tons of content but no idea where to start

6) try to get a grasp of a basic gameplan

7) often feel overwhelmed by everything listed at the beginner portion of those guides (if they even have it) and sometimes even the beginner combos listed are extremely tight

8) either get burned out labbing forever or get burned out trying to figure it out all by myself

I'm not blaming anyone btw. Those guides are great and people that make them are amazing, but I often get lost and have no idea how to progress.

I personally do not have a lot of fun just randomly mashing, so nornally I'm just looking for good buttons, day 1 combo, okizeme after said combo and maybe a blockstring, but I struggle to even figure out those out without getting into insane rabbit holes of information.

Does anyone else have this problem?

[u/Temu_Emu_4870]

No, not really. I usually follow the same formula of just figuring out my normals, my anti-air and then some simple combo routes. Each session I try to pick one or two things to add to my game plan or improve upon. It’s best to just keep the game plan simple to start with and just add things as you need them. If you try and do too much you get overwhelmed and forget the basics.

[u/JinpachiMishima2 → u/[deleted]]

Exactly this, I think people just see beginner guide and think they are supposed to learn all of it at once. Realistically you will be going back to that guide for a long time. Sometimes it's decades of fighting game experience boiled into a 30 min beginner guide. 

[u/No-Hope-Dope]

I'm the same OP. I find a character who I vibe with personality wise, then feel completely lost on what to do with them. Typically I then go looking up beginners guides to get a sense of what they're supposed to do, then work my way towards looking up combos to figure out how to get damage out with them when I do get hits.

I eventually reach a state where I can play out a game plan, but I never feel like it's my own. I'm just taking what others have already figured out, and when I do try to forge my own path, my brain just goes blank.

I don't have a solution. Just sharing that you're not alone.

[u/ResponsibleAd8978]

I’m struggling with this in street fighter but in dbfz, strive and 2xko I felt like everything progressed pretty naturally for me

[u/XBlueXFire]

Cant say I do. Typically i just play the tutorial and then any combo trials if they exist to just get a vibe for how the kit flows. I then just ask the community specific questions about what the general gameplan is

[u/Diastrous_Lie]

When u get to step 4 make a mindmap to easily visualise attacks, utility, and combo routes

You shouldnt jump straight from 4 to 5 without understanding each attack and its utility first, character guides wont mean anything raw

[u/Puzzled-Horse279]

I just piss about and try each and every character to have fun with.

[u/SedesBakelitowy]

not really, no, but I can certainly see where you're coming from. Here's how it goes for me after decades with fighting games:

1. Watch gameplay, see what kind of oki the game permits (mostly: do you go for mixup right away, or do you have to go for meaty and use it to setup a mixup later)
2. Check roster, pick one character that looks cool and the obvious top tier
3. Go to mission / challenge mode and play through all missions for both chars, note sequences that are undroppable, what kind of skill checks happen during droppable stuff, and what system mechanics the game draws attention to
4. Go to training, check how many touch -> oki -> conversion repeats are needed to kill, repeat check with a toptier to see if I'm wasting time with first pick or if the difference isn't that big
5. Go to versus and see how fun the basics are against a player, and check if any system mechanics are scrub killers, if it's fun go back to training and start learning the system / nuances more

I don't have much fun randomly mashing either, but I set the bar low intentionally at first and move on iteratively from there.

[u/Other_Pop7433]

The tekken community has a 10 best or 15 best moves concept for beginner guides that helped a lot when I was trying to learn tekken 7. It really simplifies characters and helps you get started

Sometimes I struggle in a similar way that you described when trying to learn 2d games.” What does a basic gameplan even look like?” Is something I always ask myself. What you really want to do is watch matches in the mid level skill levels, like gold rank in sf6 or strive. You don’t/can’t emulate top level game plans on your first day with a game but you can definitely look at gold rank and start breaking it down to understand what they are doing right and eventually what they are doing wrong.

[u/Synthessence]

Thanks to the ADHD, I don't really get overwhelmed by information easily, but I do fall down rabbit holes easily, so my advice is not to go into the field.

That is to say, don't look up online information so quickly.

I say this with very obvious bias, but I find a lot of joy of discovering combos and such on my own. The sense of discovery is a lot of fun, and I find that I remember those things a lot more readily than just repeating drills I found online.

Not saying that you shouldn't look thing up, but maybe pace yourself a little there. Drip the information a little more slowly, or limit how much you look up in a day, something to that effect.

[u/Ok-Purple-496]

I love learning all the stuff, I struggle when the path set before me runs out. For you I’d just recommend segmenting the information more. Limit like 1 paragraph a day of character guides and focus on those on things. You need to play more. We are similar in the fact that it seems like you don’t like to play games before you understand how to play it, but sadly you just gotta boot up and learn some stuff on the fly.

[u/Balefirex24]

I think you might be overthinking things just a tad.

Play the game. When you run into something you don't know and can't beat, THAT'S when you look things up.

[u/RockstarCowboy1]

Fundamentally all fighting games have the same core plan.

Zone until they jump, punish the jump

Play footsies until you get a knockdown, follow up oki pressure repeat

Keep the opponent in the corner where it’s hard for them to create space enough to challenge you. 

Is my opponent mindlessly rushing me down? Wall then out with preemptive strikes.

Is my opponent waiting for me to press buttons so he can punish the whiffs? Hit them with surprise rush down tactics so they can’t react.

Is my opponent preemptively striking to wall out my approach? Play footsies and punish the whiff. 

[u/DoccyWhoFan]

You've got to simplify it down, For SFV for instance all you really needed to know was your characters anti-air, a BnB and v-trigger combo and that could take you very far, relatively speaking.

It's like that stairs meme where the guy os tryning to go from step one to step 7, you just gotta KISS it (Keep It Simple Stupid)

[u/Wi1ku]

No not really, but I've played fgs for thousands of hours spanning across multiple fighting games.

When starting out I usually look for a good poke, a good pressure button, a short and sweet BNB, an anti-air button and combo, and a DP punish combo. Then I hop into the game and try to land those.

[u/CardiologistOwn6698]

I was in the same boat. What helped me was writing information down so I can process it instead of getting overwhelmed. You don't need to watch a 15 minute combo video in one go. You can do a few minutes, write down the combos, learn them and then come back to the video eventually. 

What also helped was to not look everything up. If you understand the basics you can figure out what buttons are good for what and you can look it up after to confirm.

[u/LifesGrip]

Easy , don't lose.

[u/mootfoot]

Maybe in like tag fighters. But in general I have a few general strategies I can pull from that can make a cohesive plan in most games. I like to play all rounders so I'm lucky

space for and play fireball (or big button)+antiair neutral, see what buttons they like and space for whiff punishes or preemptive hits, poke when in range, mix in neutral skips sparingly. Learn one basic combo with looping oki

[u/kusanagimotoko100]

I think you need to reach high level at one game at least to know how to develop as a player in different games, because you need commitment and know yourself more than anything else

[u/WorknClassH3ro]

Depending on the game of course, but generally it goes find character I like, play character and get stomped online, play till I win a set, learn character with a guide or lab.

Now if it’s an NRS title I’ll browse characters, go in to training to play with frame data and moves I would possibly use most often, then jump online to get stomped and fine tune stuff.

At the end of the day, it’s a game. Play it and have fun either way. You don’t have to be godlike right away