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I'm still amazed that you correctly predicted the game 1 draw in my set against Koko.

By that measure, there's still zero improvement in my play at all.

Look at the Shen close C conversions.  I'd say that close to half, maybe even more, of the the time I've spent in KoF 13 has been spent practicing those under various conditions -- starting with the dummy just standing there with 1-hit guard on, to random block, to practicing it off of jump-ins, to practicing it vs. CPU.  

0% success rate with it in those three games.  Lots of other random crap (close C -> jump B, close C -> HD activation, close C -> jump B with a simultaneous HD activation, close C -> Foward B -> nothing), but 0% success rate.

And you can see this everywhere.  Successful anti-airs with Billy 2C?  Zero.  Success rate on King 5B, 3Dxx236B strings?  Only slight better.  Successful 63214B Drive Cancels after Trap Shot?  Zero.  Number of successful punishes of obviously terrible blockstrings?  Yep, you guessed it -- Zero.

And that's not even really talking about the neutral, where I have no clue WTF is happening when I watch those matches.

importance you place on winning and the outcome instead of understanding you just started playing this game a month or so ago.

What else am I supposed to be placing importance on?  In a competitive game, winning or losing is the only measure of improvement there is -- to quote David Sirlin, "The great thing about competitive, zero-sum games is that they offer an objective measure of your progress.  If you are able to win more (that is, more consistently defeat highly skilled players), then you are improving. If not, then not."

http://www.twitch.tv/pbacque/c/6901190

Jesus fucking christ. 

This guy has about half the number of total games played as I do, and every single one of his wins is against me.  And it's not hard to see why that is.  And I am at a total fucking loss.

You can literally just mash moves completely at random against me and win 100% of the time.

And apparently I'm too fucking retarded to actually execute the things I practice in training mode, even after spending ridiculous numbers of hours practicing them against both random guard and CPU.  And, judging from what I see from other people with few games and low rankings online, I'm the only person online too retarded to be able to do normal -> command normal -> QCB+A -> QCF+A under pressure (which really isn't surprising, that's not a thing that should take anyone any practice at all to be able to do).

Shit, it's not like I'm even getting better with time.  Note that those matches in the video are in reverse chronological order of when they happened.  That's right -- I'm actively getting worse with time and practice.  Wonderful.

WTF is wrong with me?

What region are  you?

If you have good connections to TX in KoF XIII, add me: http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198032825140

Just don't expect me to accept the add very quickly, since I'll be out of town starting tomorrow for the whole weekend.

Another King question -- if I know that someone is going to sit and block at start of round, do I have anything better to do than slow fireball?  I tried a run-up throw once in that situation (I had faced this same player at least a dozen games in a row and he downbacked at start of round each game, so I knew he was going to block), but the run-up took long enough that he was able to react with some cr.Bs.

Also, in general, how much should I be trying to do traditional keep-away zoning vs. using fireballs as a setup to go on the rushdown?  In Juicebox's video, he makes it sound like I should mainly be doing the latter, but watching Korean King players, they always seem to focus on more traditional zoning.

So, since there's not a matchup thread for King, how do you handle the Athena matchup?  "Don't throw Venom Strikes" seems like a bad idea for King in just about any matchup, but those damn reflectors wreak havoc on any attempts to throw some fireballs.  One of the guys on my Steam list, in particular, has a habit of just repeatedly buffering in the motion and hitting the button when he sees a fireball, and it pretty much just paralyzes me when I see him do it.

Jesus christ, after tonight's session, I really have no clue what the fuck is wrong with me.

There's literally NO OTHER PERSON with a record anything like mine (hundreds of games and a winrate of less than 10%). 

Someone literally had an 0-2 record before facing me, picked triple-random against me all 16 games we played, and bodied me 16 fucking times, with several being OCVs.  Later, someone who has 20 games total to his name just mashes buttons against me and absolutely bodies me about 10 times in a row.  In other words, you can literally sit ANYONE IN THE WORLD in front of the game for the first time, have them mash buttons, and they'll beat me 100% guaranteed.

So fucking infuriated at myself right now.  No idea what the hell is wrong with me that I take about 10 times the amount of time as anyone else to reach even the lowest of "not completely shit" levels, but this kind of performance is completely unacceptable.

Steam ID: http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198032825140
Location: Arlington, TX

Usually on late evenings.

EDIT: I've also gone through the list on the front page and added the TX folks I saw who were on Steam.  So, if you're wondering who the hell this "Cynical" guy is who added you, that's your answer.

It's 7:45 CDT, and I am here.  Ready for a PM when you are.

I'll be home from work today at about 7:30 PM Central time.  I'll need a bit of time past that to install Google Hangouts; does 8PM Central work for you?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHI1gnJ2G2Y&feature=youtu.be

Some more footage.

Don't know if there's much to say on this one.  Lots of botched punishes (I have no idea why I'm never able to pull out Shen's close C -> f.B in a real match without getting close C -> HD cancel into something awful), lots of botched inptus all over (in particular missed reversals that come out as me holding forward and hitting whatever random button, missed TK Venom Shots that come out as jump normals, accidental Trap Shots when going for s.B -> df.D), screwed up Shen jump-ins after a soft knockdown (I know that j.C can crossup, but I always seem to fuck up the spacing and whiff entirely and get killed for it).  No throw techs, even after eating the exact same throw setup from Ex-Kyo about 50 times. 

It seems like every time I *should* be starting an offense (hit j.CD, etc), I fail to get anything going at all; not having any pressure is obviously bad, but I'm not really sure how to go about fixing this.  Part of it is I need more consistent reversal punishes (to make people not want to do them; DPing looks really good when you're taking less damage from bad DPs than you deal from ones that hit) *and* reversal baits (I swear, over 90% of the time when I try to bait one out, I find myself taking pressure from wakeup c.lks).  Also, in neutral, I practically shut down anytime someone is closer than about half-screen, and with King, it's even further than that.  I just lock up and don't want to push buttons, and then get murdered for it.  Ugh.

Aren't I pretty much obligated to hit a button (or try to roll-escape, although that technically does require hitting buttons) against this kind of pressure eventually, though?  I mean, if I don't hit a button of some sort either between the two kicks or after the special, there's nothing stopping a Kyo player from just doing a close C -> command normal sweep thing I don't know the name of -> HCF B string forever until he guard-breaks me, getting a combo from the guard break, and then starting the blockstring cycle again on my wakeup.

Ah, I didn't realize there was a gap in the blockstun there.

EX DP works, of course.  Tough to do (seems like it'd probably be nearly impossible online?), and, unfortunately, requires meter.

Crouch C, it's hard to know for certain (since I can't rely on button-hold to get normals out on first possible frame like I can specials), but I couldn't manage to get it out without it getting stuffed.

Against Kyo, how do you handle repeated blockstring -> HCF + k blockstring ender -> repeat?

The HCF+K is only -1 on block, which means if I try to punish, I've got literally nothing that's fast enough to beat his close C, and I have to be frame perfect to beat his crouching B.