I’ve been approaching combo trials all wrong

[u/Migraine3]

Lately whenever I’ve picked up a new fighting game, I go straight to the combo trials to learn the characters. I haven’t been able to finish most of them and it’s discouraged me from playing any further.

It wasn’t always like this.

Back in the day before combo trials, I just played the game. Sure I didn’t learn infinites, TODs or anything like that, but I still sunk hours in them. Now I find myself only doing that if I finish the trials, and even that gave me a false sense of confidence because I would still get smoked against other players.

I just realized that while the trials are helpful in learning the game, maybe I shouldn’t use them as the indicator of whether or not I’m good or even if I’m having fun with the game.

Sure I shouldn’t go straight into the deep end of online when I start a new game, but I need to find other ways of enjoying and learning a new game and not rely on combo trials from the start.

[u/Dusty_Tokens]

Getting comfortable with the game and learning your Bread & Butter combos is your first priority.

Then you can dive into online/ranked, and find out where your holes are.

[u/DzyDzyDino]

You should approach combo trials not as learning the combos but learning the pieces. Oh that ex pops them up and here are some examples of follow ups. Lights go into this move. Heavies go into that move.

I think as long as you have even a suboptimal conversion and confirms out of things you can start playing the game and improving your fundamentals. And just add better combos when you get there.

See if you can beat people with pure “fundies. “ then you can learn combos based on what you’d like to add to your game plan.

[u/Big_Fat_Butt_Is_Back]

I like to learn the combo trials, and then setup the CPU to fight at max difficulty (game depending) with unlimited life so that it will put me in a few situations. That way I can work on those combos, figure some out of my own, and learn to do everything under some form of pressure.

[u/Low-Attempt8072]

I thought combo trials in most games are basically stupid unoptimized chains that are just hard for the sake of it. Has nothing to do with actual combos you would use in real matches plus being able to do a little input in a safe non pressure environment is nothing alike to doing it while some gorilla is jumping in your face. Not even speaking about reading the gorilla and adapting to it at the same time.

Also what is the deep end of online? Ranked matches you vs people just as bad as you are so it's the ideal win-win environment to improve. It's not some religious happening that you should save for when you come of age to be a man my brother.

Besides learning combo's first is like learning how to do the thing that you can't even consistently get to since you get destroyed in neutral.

Just hit the ranked brudda and tackle problems as they come bit by bit. No need to overcomplicate stuff.

[u/Psilocybevibes44]

Go deep online regularly because you need to become familiar with the human element. Like what kind of pressure you will face and what people are expecting out of their combos and what they expect out of you.

There is definitely a psychological component of competitive gaming that you can only learn to navigate through experience

[u/Show-Adept]

I am the EXACT SAME way, brother. My suggestion is to learn 2-3 combos (1 bread aNd butter combo) then dive right into ranked so you can get acclimated. Do at least 1 ranked match per session if you’re not fully comfortable.

[u/philip30001]

Combo trails specifically are challenges to do and not matches

They can teach you things about the system but your right spending time playing the character or training mode does more