Advice on how to become better?

[Iyokuu]

I've had the game all weekend now, but... I haven't really made any progress. I've just been searching through forums, watching videos, and reading about nearly every character and still haven't decided on a set team. I like K' because he looks super cool, but obviously I like Mai (who doesn't) because she's been my eye candy for years. Other characters interest me, but nothing really clicks with my fingers like Street Fighter did. I've read tiers don't really matter in this game, which is great news and that I should pick characters I like. Shen is combo friendly, right? Which is cool, but I don't like too slow of characters. I also don't like grapplers or big characters.

But my character selection isn't what I really need advice on, it's how to go about tackling KOF. In SF I would just go through training mode, practice some combos, then get online for some match-up practice knowing I wouldn't get destroyed by some top player because I knew how to perform my BnB's. With KOF I'm a bit worried about getting online for that reason. I feel I won't learn anything by getting destroyed. It just feels weird to me compared to SF, but I really wanna make some progress in this game. So can the community here help me understand and tackle KOF?

[desmond_kof]

You just started.

Remember, every experience you will have in KOF (either win or lose) will be learning experience for you to get better but only if you accept that.

Try your best to take in every second of gametime you put in as information for you to remember and to study for next time. If you lose and get destroyed, and feel that you didn't learn anything, you just gave up on potentially learning some valuable information from your experience. So, try your best to set your emotions aside and use your experience as an educational one for you to get better. If you have a specific question, ask someone.

Regarding characters, I would say, feel free exploring the cast, and learning their basic moves and combos. When you play against more people and different characters, you will start to develop a sense of what characters you feel most comfortable with, then slowly you will start to cut down on all the characters you have dabbled with, into a team (or 2) you feel more consistent with.

Play to learn, then use what you learn to win later.

[Iyokuu]

That's some really nice advice I enjoyed reading. Thanks for that. With that being said, if I'm dabbling with every character then exactly how do I utilize training mode? I mean, just learn every one that interest me BnB's? lol What would you recommend to a beginner at KOF, but don't limit me to just an easy character please.

[desmond_kof]

Well, sometimes an easy character can help you learn how to play the game more quicker than someone that requires more work to open up their offensive and defensive options.

Training mode like every fighting game to help to learn your characters move list without any interruption (unless you want the CPU or a friend on), as well as understand the properties of other characters moves as well. It's also good to practice combos, spacing, zoning and various setup for your characters or to practice against it.

I will make a thread here in this section about some online resources to help out new players.

[Sharnt]

It's hard to tell for me since it was very natural.

But what I did the first time I get the game was to took one hour with EVERY character of the game to try them quickly, and at least see the command list and how to punish the most obviously unsafe moves such as dp or invincible reversal moves (Often just guard it and then do a combo is enough but sometimes you must run or use a special because normals/runs are too slow). Just to know what is unsafe or not.

To do this there is something REALLY REALLY USEFUL : pick the same character for both sides in the training mode, then set your opponent guard on "1-guard-jump" mode. Try one move on your opponent guard and then hold up to jump as soon as possible. Thus you'll see if your positive on guard or not and you will see whether or not the move is safe or not (The timing of landing will tell you if you are + or - on guard and if you have enough time to punish).
Then you set the cpu on recording mode (Look in command settings the circle/arrow are for recording/replay with the cpu) and try to punish it.

I hope to be clear.

Once it was done, since I knew which characters to play, I started to train with it.

The main point is to learn every characteristic your characters have :
Which move is invincible, safe, can beat a cross up attempt, anti air, beat projectiles, is invincible to lows, pass through the projectiles is overhead etc ...
At the same time I tried to learn how to jump (hop hyper hop etc ...) more naturally. And

Then starting with basic no meter combos. And masterize them.
Then 1 Ex combos.
Then 1 Ex 50%DC.
Then 2 Ex 50%DC.

BUT I didn't look on the net which combos to made (Mainly because at arcades times there were not really info about the game for non top tier char), I tested by myself every possibilities I found. To learn the system, how things juggle etc ...

Then I started to play against other human players. And it was really hard.

Then I looked for possibilities after my combos on wake up and thought about how practical my combos were, because after some matchs I understood I didn't knew what to do.
Once I understood most of them were useless I remove them from my game, keeping the core, and really useful combos.

Since then I'm trying to play as much a possible against as many as possible players. To learn match ups, styles and improve my game. Passing a point you can't improve without playing a LOT and regularly.

Some months ago I understood I wouldn't be able to win some matchs because my punition combos weren't damaging enough, that's why I learned a mid screen HD combo with 2 bars with all my characters. Since then I'm missing them quite regularly. But I'm not missing it in training, still working on it.

But all this works wasn't useless I improved a lot my game level, clearly. However a long path still awaits me.

I hope this loooooooooong text will be helpful.

[Suiname]

I also highly recommend becoming involved in your local scene and finding and playing people who are really good.  I've been doing this for a few months now, and it's really sped up my progress.  Keep in mind, you are going to lose... a lot.  Also, it's really important for you to ask questions of these better players, because at first, I was losing all the time and the best player was on a level so much higher than me that I didn't even understand what was happening in the matches.  It was only after losing and ASKING what was happening, that the finer points of KOF started becoming a bit clearer.  This is my first KOF ever so there was a lot to learn, but I'm much more comfortable now, and I can even occasionally beat the top players in our scene as opposed to before where it was like 100-0.  I can't say I recommend online too much because from what I've played, the netcode is atrocious.

[Stone Drum]

this is somewhat lame advice, especially considering I just got into kof13 myself, but breaching that first wall of solid play comes down to two things, I think.  

1.) muscle memory with your characters.  Basically, just simply having your character's moveset down under your mind and fingers and can utilize their movesets entirely and effectively without having to think.  

2.) reaction time.  This seems especially important in kof to me; just simply having the reflexes to outplay your opponent.  

The first step is to pick 1 character and take him/her into trial mode.  I highly suggest learn one character at a time.  Our brains are designed to process information in chunks, so make each character 1 chunk of your whole team rather than trying to build your whole team up simultaneously.  Get as far as you can without getting frustrated, and between the failed attempts, mess around with the command list and his/her moveset until you know all of his/her attacks from memory.  

Then improving muscle memory and reaction time can be done simply by choosing a character you gel with (which can take a while, but don't let it take too long, because you might just need some time) and going into practice mode and playing the cpu for a long period of time.  Then transition to repetitious rounds against the cpu on versus mode.  

Having quick reaction time and being able to use your characters smartly obviously requires a mind that is focused, attentive, and speedy, so exercising your mental abilities and being healthy (such as getting adequate sleep and so forth) can really improve your game.  

Now obviously getting really good at the game just takes time, diligence, knowledge of the technicalities of the game and engine, and experience against good players

And remember this: it is a game, and therefore the main motive to improve should be to have more fun.  Don't burn yourself out trying to get good if it lessens the fun of the game for you.

[Sharnt]

I think it's better to build all the char simultaneously.
Why ? Because they are some very specific things by char which needs a long time to learn. Thus if you train them earlier, you will know how to do it earlier. But they don't need especially a long time to train. Just a lot of time to be used to.

[LingeringRegime]

this is somewhat lame advice, especially considering I just got into kof13 myself, but breaching that first wall of solid play comes down to two things, I think.  

1.) muscle memory with your characters.  Basically, just simply having your character's moveset down under your mind and fingers and can utilize their movesets entirely and effectively without having to think.  

2.) reaction time.  This seems especially important in kof to me; just simply having the reflexes to outplay your opponent.  

The first step is to pick 1 character and take him/her into trial mode.  I highly suggest learn one character at a time.  Our brains are designed to process information in chunks, so make each character 1 chunk of your whole team rather than trying to build your whole team up simultaneously.  Get as far as you can without getting frustrated, and between the failed attempts, mess around with the command list and his/her moveset until you know all of his/her attacks from memory.  

Then improving muscle memory and reaction time can be done simply by choosing a character you gel with (which can take a while, but don't let it take too long, because you might just need some time) and going into practice mode and playing the cpu for a long period of time.  Then transition to repetitious rounds against the cpu on versus mode.  

Having quick reaction time and being able to use your characters smartly obviously requires a mind that is focused, attentive, and speedy, so exercising your mental abilities and being healthy (such as getting adequate sleep and so forth) can really improve your game.  

Now obviously getting really good at the game just takes time, diligence, knowledge of the technicalities of the game and engine, and experience against good players

And remember this: it is a game, and therefore the main motive to improve should be to have more fun.  Don't burn yourself out trying to get good if it lessens the fun of the game for you.

Thanks Stone Drum, that makes a lot of sense to me.  That is how my mind works as well.