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Author Topic: learning melty blood with a friend  (Read 4806 times)

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Offline Vizer

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learning melty blood with a friend
« on: January 03, 2012, 10:19:35 PM »
me and a friend are new to fighting games and we wanna learn MBAACC, but i have some questions:

how hard of a game is melty blood to start with? i'm familiar with some of the mechanics (grooves, parries, the combo notation) from watching other fighting games, but neither of us has played a fighting game enough to reach competence

are there any must-read resources? i've skimmed through the Guide to Learning MBAA (as an SF Player) and the Directory of General System Mechanics and we'll continue to use them as referential material, but more would be great

how should we start? i'm thinking we should pick just one character each and learn the game and the matchup by playing with just them, for a long time. after picking characters i'm guessing we should practice bnb combos in training and watch lots of videos between playing sessions? it seems to me like practicing bnbs is especially important in melty, because if you don't have them down you can resort to mashing and still form (bad) combos, and bad habits

are there any characters that stand out as being especially good for beginners? i want to play the most fundamental character, the ryu of melty blood, but because of how different the game is, i don't know what "fundamentals" are

i have an arcade stick, but my friend doesn't. what's better in the long run: keyboard, pad, or does it not matter? the pad is a standard 360 controller

thanks, that's it for now, but i'll probably have more questions later and i'll try to keep them here

Offline Mistwraith

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Re: learning melty blood with a friend
« Reply #1 on: January 03, 2012, 10:41:33 PM »
I believe if you really want to pick a simple character to start with.

Nanaya Shiki, or Tohno Shiki might be the better choices to go with.

Having a joystick is definitely better in my opinion in the long run, but it is really up to an individual preferences.

I myself started by watching some clips on how to do the BnB combos and applying them in training mode until I can get it right, you can always drop us questions if you hit the wall somewhere. I believe there would be players who are able to help you.

Offline Roy-Kr

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Re: learning melty blood with a friend
« Reply #2 on: January 03, 2012, 11:12:39 PM »
Melty was my introduction to fighting games and the only one I've kept playing.
I think Melty is less intimidating for beginners than other games because of how intuitive it is.
If you want to get better then just play the game.

are there any characters that stand out as being especially good for beginners? i want to play the most fundamental character, the ryu of melty blood
Please don't pick a knife user; there are too many knife users :(

Quote
i have an arcade stick, but my friend doesn't. what's better in the long run: keyboard, pad, or does it not matter?
It's just preference.

Offline Sashi

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Re: learning melty blood with a friend
« Reply #3 on: January 03, 2012, 11:50:10 PM »
It's gotta be Len. Fairly easy combos and you get to be a cat when you crouch. Being a cat is the best.
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Offline ehrik

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Re: learning melty blood with a friend
« Reply #4 on: January 04, 2012, 12:05:47 AM »
me and a friend are new to fighting games and we wanna learn MBAACC, but i have some questions:

how hard of a game is melty blood to start with? i'm familiar with some of the mechanics (grooves, parries, the combo notation) from watching other fighting games, but neither of us has played a fighting game enough to reach competence

Melty blood isn't that hard of a game to get started with but its difficult near the end, but fun at all levels of play.

are there any must-read resources? i've skimmed through the Guide to Learning MBAA (as an SF Player) and the Directory of General System Mechanics and we'll continue to use them as referential material, but more would be great

You'll want to check out the wiki as well http://wiki.mizuumi.net/w/Melty_Blood. Although as of now most characters have no information in their respective wikis, you can read about the system mechanics and differences between moons here. In some cases, you can even read the original PS2 wikis of each respective character and play them the same way. (There is a link at the very top of every character page that links back to their Original PS2 balance character pages.). If MB Is your first fighting games, you'll may also want to look up specific terms from fighting games such as Meaty, or whiff, or neutral, etc. If you have any specific questions I would love to answer you. Just post here or send a pm.

how should we start? i'm thinking we should pick just one character each and learn the game and the matchup by playing with just them, for a long time. after picking characters i'm guessing we should practice bnb combos in training and watch lots of videos between playing sessions? it seems to me like practicing bnbs is especially important in melty, because if you don't have them down you can resort to mashing and still form (bad) combos, and bad habits

Thats a very good idea to start with one character and sticking with him/her. Yes in addition to practicing BNB combos, you'll want to practice movement in general (IADs, double jumps, super double jump, super jump, specific neutral movements), pressure (blockstrings and stuff people can't mash/jump out of, etc) to start with. Watching videos is also great, but you'll want to get a general understanding of your character first or you're not going to understand whats happening in the video.

are there any characters that stand out as being especially good for beginners? i want to play the most fundamental character, the ryu of melty blood, but because of how different the game is, i don't know what "fundamentals" are

Some beginner characters that stick in my mind atm are probably c-tohno, c-nanaya, f-koha. I'm sure other people have some good ideas as well. Post up some characters you think you may like too; we'll tell you about them.

i have an arcade stick, but my friend doesn't. what's better in the long run: keyboard, pad, or does it not matter? the pad is a standard 360 controller

Better in the long run is definitely arcade stick if you plan to head out to events. Keyboard is for people who don't leave their homes (with very few exceptions), and XBOX pad is awful. Use a ps2/3 pad if possible

thanks, that's it for now, but i'll probably have more questions later and i'll try to keep them here

answered everything I could in bold

edit: u are the best beginner who actually researches shit before posting ever
« Last Edit: January 04, 2012, 12:08:34 AM by ehrik »
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Offline Rokunaya

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Re: learning melty blood with a friend
« Reply #5 on: January 04, 2012, 02:23:14 AM »
First off, welcome to the scene. Now let me try to answer your questions:

As far as melty blood goes, the closest to Ryu you're going to get is Tohno in any moon. C is the simplest one though, but any form of him is good.

As for learning the game, pick a main for the both of you. It's fine to have alts and the like, but mains are essential to the learning process, make sure most of your time is dedicated to one character when you're first starting out. As to how to learn or pick the characters, japanese match videos located here are usually a good choice: http://www.youtube.com/user/MeltyBread

When you choose your characters, learn their basic beginner BnBs. There should be combos around on the main character boards or on youtube. If not, ask in the respective character boards or visit #mbaa on the mizuumi IRC channel. Once you learn the BnBs and get them down to a pretty much 75% success rate, you're ready to start playing the game with your friend, assuming he does the same.

Once you both start playing, you're going to run into issues where you both don't understand what is going on or how to hit each other-- this is natural, you're both new and pressure and neutral will be obscure concepts to you. The best way to get around this would be watching match videos of your respective characters and studying them, or asking good players simple questions like "what should I do here?" or "What's my answer to xxxx?" Simple questions like these are usually answered properly and quickly, but general questions like "How do I hit my opponent?" will most likely go ignored since it's a very broad concept and rather detailed and opinionated. In short, watch jp match videos of top players of your respective characters, and ask questions in threads or irc for simple concepts you don't understand.

I'm personally doing a series of live streaming sessions dedicated to newer players of melty blood-- they assume you have some fighting experience, so if these are too fast for you that's alright for now, but I suggest you check them out sometime in the near future, they are hosted every friday. It's located here: http://www.meltybread.com/forums/kohaku%27s-video-room/mbaacc-analysis-live-streaming-sessions-redux!/

If you're both really new to fighting games in general and don't get things like number notation and why you should be blocking among other things, I recommend these series of videos from Xie: www.youtube.com/user/XiePlus
These series of videos are long and there are many of them, but if you are very new they are worth a watch. While they're centered around BB, many of the earlier episodes hit very key fighting game fundamentals straight from the get-go.

As for which controller is best for you, Stick is generally the most rewarding and easiest to play fighting games with once you get good at using it--- fighting games are designed around them, and they are catered to in new button schemes and the like. This doesn't mean the other controllers such as keyboard and pad are useless, just less optimal and will be harder to use in higher level play due to certain techniques and movements not being catered to them and instead being catered to fighting sticks. Also 360 pads are garbage for fighting games so if you have a stick please use that instead lol



Phew! That was a long wall of text, but I hope it can help you out. Hope you stay around and i'll forward to seeing you in the future


P.S.: While netplay isn't exactly the most competitive and most solidthing avalible, it can be useful in learning how to play against certain characters and players as long as the connection is decent and you have a fair idea about fighting game fundamentals.
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Offline Zaelar

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Re: learning melty blood with a friend
« Reply #6 on: January 04, 2012, 02:41:31 AM »
Use whatever character you feel like using.  If you're not having fun then change characters.  Go into training mode for 5 minutes to learn your moves and a basic bnb.

Use whatever controller you're most comfortable with.

Just play the game and pay attention to whats going on to learn the game.  If you're not sure of something specific do a quick search for it.

Offline LivingShadow

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Re: learning melty blood with a friend
« Reply #7 on: January 04, 2012, 07:29:42 AM »
When picking a character, pick the one that seems the most natural to you. I started melty playing Arcueid of all characters and later switched to Ryougi when she came out. I picked the two of them because the combos just came naturally once I started learning them.

After messing around with the characters and picking one. Look up their most basic BnB and learn it in training mode. If this is your first time doing combos that long split it into parts and learn each part individually. Doing so makes learning harder combos easier as they tend to be very similar.

You'll also want to look up some basic mixups for your character, even something like 2c s.j9 44 should work. Incidentally, that's what I started with.

When you get bored, look up some match vids of your character. There's the MeltyBread youtube and there are several other channels you can find in the video section of this forum or the individual character threads.

Offline Vizer

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Re: learning melty blood with a friend
« Reply #8 on: January 04, 2012, 10:31:24 AM »
thanks for all the replies, i didn't expect so much help from such a (comparatively) small community :)

it was all helpful and i'm excited to get started

C Tohno is exactly who i had in mind after reading tonberry's post here: http://www.meltybread.com/forums/shiki-tohno-111/mbaacc-tohno-video-thread/

unfortunately, we live in canada (montreal) so we'll probably have to netplay to play other people

i was already set on using the stick, i was asking about the pad vs keyboard thing for my friend :) and thanks for the info on that, i didn't know the 360 controller was so bad (i don't own a 360)

:teach:

this is literally everything i wanted to know, and that commentary series is just the kind of resource i was looking for, thanks a ton for taking the time to reply and for doing that series :D

Offline LoliSauce

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Re: learning melty blood with a friend
« Reply #9 on: January 05, 2012, 05:14:40 PM »
Most important advice I could give: Don't worry about actively trying to build fundamentals or playing characters that are "easy for beginners". 

Just pick people that look cool and fool around with them.  If you find the character frustrating, check out new people until you find someone you click with.  Watching videos helps find that "Whoa, this character looks badass.  I want to do that." connection. 

The most important part of understanding melty is getting a strong feel for the great freedom of movement, leveling up your defensive game, and getting comfortable with executing combos.  As you build these skills, your fundamentals will develop naturally.  Trying to force development without a strong understanding of what the fundamentals are in the first place will only build frustration.
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