I have a question about online matches vs pro matches

[NipponIchi!]

So far my only experience playing KoF somewhat competitively has been from people online,as I don't really know anyone in real life who plays KoF.
I have this question,whenever someone's levels higher than me(I mean that they know what they're doing as opposed to being a complete novice) 90% of the time(if not more) they save their meter and gauge for their last character so they can perform the Max cancel.Generally they preserve their meter(usually full of it) for that cancel.I know it's pretty devastating if successful but I wonder why do they skip drive cancel?I'm mostly confused because I've watched some videos of pro players and they play in a different style and I just don't understand what I should do myself.I try to use drive cancel in my combos or super cancel...Should I save up my meter and gauge too for the Max cancel to use it in the third round?

Thank you for the reply!

Sorry if I made any mistakes regarding the terminology,I'm still having a bit of trouble with that.

[AirLancer]

Depends on the situation and the characters. If they're playing against someone they know isn't quite as skilled, they might feel confident enough that they don't need to get DA DAMAGE right then and there. Instead, they can be fairly confident they'll be able to land the next hit to kill your character without having to spend resources.

On the other hand, maybe you have characters that they don't feel confident facing with their anchor unless they have meter/drive. It could also be that the character they're using doesn't have particularly good combo options from certain screen positions, so it's not worth spending the meter or drive. Instead, they'd push you to the corner where their resources could be better spent.

They themselves might still be figuring things out, and don't even know any decent combos for their 1st or 2nd character. In that case, saving meter for their last character that they're confident in their combos with would be a pretty smart decision.

Me? I've got no problems spending meter, so long as I have a decent reason to.

[NipponIchi!]

Alright,thanks a lot.That was a really good answer.I hadn't considered some of these before.

[Emil_kof]

Depends on many things...another scenario is this. Suppose that the opponent's character has a certain amount of life left so that they won't die in one combo(based on the meter the player has) but will die in two combos - one average combo and one higher damage combo. The higher damage combo might not allow for a good positioning afterwards, whereas the lower damage combo might give a better opportunity to land another combo afterwards...

So instead of going for the bigger combo at the first opportunity they can, they go for the one that gives better knockdown positioning, since neither one alone will kill.

But there's many other scenarios so it depends. But you also have to consider something else. Just because someone is higher skilled than you, doesn't necessarily mean they are making intelligent choices. It could also be the case that they are also making bad choices. The best players to follow aren't just players better than you but the highest level players, preferably ones that play in tournaments and arcades.