Informal Ramble: My Experience Learning Guilty Gear Strive

I've commented on this in the past, but a handful of players who started in my era of fighting games were fed poor advice about evaluating risk/reward. I tunneled on theory-crafted reactive play, centered around opponents hanging themselves. I put so much focus on making the "best" decisions, that I would forget to actually interact with and assess the opponent sitting next to me. I initially thought this was just a quirk of my play, but some of my peers expressed similar challenges during our conversations. Their path of improvement has been involved allowing themselves to actually represent threats and control the tempo against opponents. Ironically, reactive strategies only work against strong opponents when you represent the threats for them to play around. 

I'm always thinking plenty of steps ahead of my opponent. More often than not; this is normally a bad thing. One core memory of this is when I was learning Injustice 2. My husband was constantly hitting me with Dr. Fate's wake-up reversal, which was mostly safe on block. I remember him asking me why I never represented Armor b3 / f3 to punish it on my offense, and I responded with "because then you'll stop doing it and I'll waste meter," despite the fact that I had never actually shown this option. 

So, then- how does this come back to my descent into Guilty Gear: Strive? This is a significantly different fighting game venture for me. I can't think of a time where I've played the biggest fighting game at the time. I never grinded a Street Fighter game or anything of the sort. More often than not, I gel with the smaller communities which aren't normally as competitive. This isn't to at all imply that there isn't competition in these games, just that I tend to be familiar with most opponents. I've never played the biggest and most competitive fighting game available, and I think this avoidance has actually limited my growth to some degree. 

This version of Strive isn't my favorite fighting game (though it is infinitely more fun than vanilla, which I hated), but it has a comically large playerbase. A lot of my friends are really strong at it, too- which gives me access to powerful learning resources. I like learning, and being able to make so much progress in a short time is very energizing.

When it comes to the gameplay, Strive is way different than any other game I've taken seriously. The thing is, what you can represent in Strive without taking some form of risk is very limited. This game is constantly asking me to take risks and be confident in my assessment of my opponent in order to represent threats. All three areas of play have been improved tenfold.

My offense has always, without a shred of a doubt, been the weakest part of my play There are plenty of reasons for why this may be the case. You could argue that the "can opener" mixups on Valkenhayn gave me too much leeway and freedom to make mistakes without too much conditioning of the opponent. You could argue that Skullgirls' reset-oriented offense screwed around with my development as a player in my early fighting game years. There are plenty of reasons for why this may be the case, but ultimately, the primary weakness of my offense is my fear of taking risks that can be answered by the opponent. I would argue that this is a weakness I have displayed in every area of my play, but this is most notable on offense. 

Anyway, there's been a strong improvement in this area. Once I accepted that any option I picked in Strive risked my death (thanks Chipp health), letting go of that anxiety about the risk became effortless. There are way fewer moments where I "freeze up" from hesitation compared to my time in BlazBlue or Them's Fightin' Herds. I feel that this improvement has actually extended beyond just my offense. I'm a lot more willing to represent reversals and riskier defensive options in order to make the opponent play around more hurdles. I'm less hesitant in calling out an opponent's neutral pattern to close out a match, even though I know there's a chance of me dying for being wrong. Additionally, I'm quicker to dismiss interactions that could otherwise be perceived as tilting. Strive has actually beat that out of me more than any other game, because everyone can die for making any choice at any moment. If anything, it's made the genre more fun!

I've only been playing Strive for a month and some change, but the amount of fundamental improvement is just astounding to me. I can't wait to see where I am with a few more months of experience.