Re: How do i get good at this game?

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archiving 11brendons post in some old ffr thread for newbs who want to get good at the expense of fun

my best advice:

play every day at least 2 hours, more if you can. its extremely important for developing muscle memory and stamina.

when the game pushes you, dont back down, push back. eg dont back down from files that seem too hard for you, play them through anyway until you are fast enough for them, and when youre fast enough for them, rate up and go even faster, push harder.

practice sucks and is boring. and i might not have mentioned it, but practice sucks and is boring. if you want to get better, you need to put up with long boring sessions where you feel like youre accomplishing nothing. the results will show in a couple weeks and you will be thankful you practiced and trained for that.

training more than one skillset at a time isnt really good for you unless the skillsets have synergy (jumpstream/stamina, tech/jack as examples).

consistency matters. consistent what? not consistent gameplay, but consistently playing the same way every time matters. dont change up your cmod, receptor position, keyboard placement, hand position, whatever the hell variable is possible to change when you play. it is a lot harder to diagnose issues and develop consistency if you change something every time you play. set up settings youre completely comfortable with at the time, have your game window be placed in the same exact place every time if youre not on fullscreen, chair in the same exact place, arms, hands, keyboard, pay attention to where you put everything.

find a rival. my periods of fastest improvement were when i had someone else there pushing me. if you completely outpace your rival or they stop, get a new one asap. you dont even need to have direct communication to your rival. if you just find someone that is close to you in level, try to pass them as much as possible.

DONT VIBRO JACKS dont vibro jacks, if you cant vibro then good for you, if you vibro jacks then you are setting yourself up for complete failure. instead, focus your technique on either wristjacking or elbowjacking (if you dont understand those, the wrist/elbow is the fulcrum point and you move them up and down to hit jacks. for wristjacking, same motion as drawing a line up and down real fast with a pencil or picking a guitar fast)

along with my last point, every single skill falls back on three points: one hand trilling, jacking, and reading. balancing these three skills is hard but if you practice these and get good at them you can take on anything.

lastly i would say take everything i said with a grain of salt. improvement in this game seems to be completely random based off the person and everything i listed worked for me, but a lot i listed doesnt work for others. try out things i listed and if they work for you, they work for you. if they dont, then dont do them. some points like dont vibro and dont change your setup are pretty concrete though, listen to those.

also i noticed people saying things like you have to look out for doing things wrong when it comes to not hurting yourself. the only pains you should worry about at all are sharp pains. those are bad pains. if you have burning sensation pains in your hands or arms while youre playing (not after), thats good, youre building stamina n shit. if you cant feel your thumbs and or pinkys after a session and a few days after, you probably have carpal tunnel and you should buy some wrist splints and see a doctor or something.

i wrote a lot but im assuming a lot of people will read this and hopefully take the time to think about the points ive listed as they are the core points i follow for improvement at sm. i wrote this all off my head within like 20 minutes so it might be hard to follow and if so too bad deal with it

forgot to mention, dont grind files. play them once and be done with it for at least that session. you can try it again next session or after, but grinding files can form habits and bad muscle memory and can really stunt your improvement. always try to play new shit. probably also going to drop more advice in here as i remember shit if i do

i wonder if he ever got any good at the banjo

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The post is real advice, but this point needs to be hit on more seriously in case the reader glosses over the whole thing in the wrong way:

You should not push yourself to play more particularly if you are dealing with certain pains. Also keep in mind that taking a break from the game for a day or more at a time can help with improvement. If you intend to play excessively as often as possible (2+ hours daily, etc) then you need to pay very close attention to how all of your limbs involved feel. How parts of your arms, shoulders, hands, fingers, wrists will feel may differ depending on your playstyle of choice or how hard you choose to play. If you lose feeling in some part of your arm or hands this can not only be an issue of carpal tunnel but also RSI or something as far as nerve damage which can be a more permanent injury. You want to play as much as you think your basic pain tolerance will allow, but also do not play through actual sharp pain or loss of feeling.

You will hear cases of people who have pushed through pain at all skill levels of play and have stories of success and of failure which have both been either permanent or temporary. Do not take a sample size of 1 success to be the end all. What one person may describe as “pushing through pain” may not be the same as what you think it is.

All other points made in the post are very true for genuinely good (not brainless mashing) high level accurate play.

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sorry im new to the game but what does jacks mean

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image

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Ok thank you

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So are quads a type of jacks

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a jack by definition is two consecutive arrows in a column. the arrows can be part of a chord, and one or both of those chords can be quads

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Thanks

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Playing frequently and always in the same way does build muscle memory, but sometimes you obtain the wrong muscle memory (which is usually called “mindblocking”). So changing your skin, playing a different vsrg or not playing for a long period of time can actually help when you are stuck.

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When do you know if you’re stuck tho

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You probably won’t get actually stuck (unless very top player i suppose). But what I mean is when it feels like you can’t improve anymore or go back to your peak

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skill improvement slows down as overall skill grows and you can get a feeling of being stuck once it gets slow enough that you can decay just as quickly given a certain lack of dedication or focus. for example playing only index files and pushing into the lower 20s you can slow down and then if you take a short break and play a different kind of file once you feel like you suck. you get into this mindset that you are bad at the game and that can get self destructive