What should i focus on when fighting much better players?

[eager quail]

I'm talking specifically about matchmaking lobbies. Most of the players i know and often play from discord are very good and we can have some back and forth games, but some people are on a completely different level and the skill gap makes it feel like i'm not really learning anything. I already know I'm not beating them, so I don't worry about winning those games, I just wanna know where to shift my focus to in order to actually improve, even when I'm getting my ass beaten.

[split heron]

This is the first time I have heard this question asked and I’m not sure how to respond

Is this a really common occurance for you?

[eager quail]

yeah, i figured this would be an unusual question, and i'll probably have better answers asking my opponents directly

[eager quail]

it really depends on who i'm playing against, since im in SA the playerbase is quite smaller, so i'll play the same people a lot

[split heron]

Ah that makes more sense, what would you say your skill level is? That will kinda dictate what I think you should take away

[eager quail]

true i should probably have made that clear in the post

i sit pretty comfortably in plat, i think im around 1150 rn, i did reach low diamond once

i'm not really a beginner anymore, but there's some people there that i'll go 0-40 whenever i play them

i think a simpler way to phrase what i'm looking for is how to learn from losing

[split heron]

I think playing versus very good players is super helpful bc when you mess up you will know it. Wether it be in neutral that the punish you for or you DI something wrong, good players WILL take advantage of it way more than other players

They are good at finding opportunities to just obliterate you

It matters less so in advantage, while they can definitely help you realize some combos you were doing are flawed and you need to adapt, the really good players are likely exploiting your mistakes far more

An easy example of this for me was yesterday when I fought this La Reina player

I queued into them like 5 times in a row

And they always without failure knew how to kill me off of a couple mistakes

https://medal.tv/games/rivals-2/clips/mg3haPXonvAT87XXe?invite=cr-MSxiUTYsNDAxNTk1OQ&v=5 here’s an example

I DI’d the Nair wrong so I died for it

Quick, simple, easy to understand

Neutral mistakes are harder to pinpoint and require more in depth vod reviewing

If you aren’t mixing stuff up that’s a problem they will exploit

That’s what good players do, and if you wanna win it’s kinda on you to realize how they are countering it and adapting

[eager quail]

yeah i think this really stands out to me

stuff like the nair DI you mentioned is something i don't really pay attention to cuz it feels so small

[split heron]

Something I have learned a lot from playing players around the plat level is they really stick to a gameplan

Even if it’s not working

[eager quail]

im probably in that spot where it gets harder to improve because i need to focus on these small things now

[eager quail]

oh yeah im def guilty of that 😅

[split heron]

I mean it works

but then it stops working at a certain level

[split heron]

that is definitely true, I think the game is just simplied in a lot of ways where learning the basics and getting "good" is fairly easy

but the later bit of it is much harder

bc you need to think more about situations

not to sound rude but I think most people in the gold-plat elo are kinda just playing the game, the aren't thinking about the game

some people call it auto pilot

and once you start thinking you will find yourself improving quickly again. I realized I wasn't thinking as much as I should be and when I did more I went from mid plat to masters

[peak nymph]

I feel like the place to start is asking the very people that are beating your ass 😭 that's the biggest benefit of lobbies in the first place

oh my bad only the first message loaded

lmao

[split heron]

well what do you think about what I said thusfar?

[eager quail]

it makes a lot of sense, yeah. So far improving has been quite linear, but then i hit this wall and i didn't really know what to do

i think isolating the small mistakes and working on those is the right answer

[split heron]

do you have a local scene at all?

[peak nymph]

yeah I think this is good advice, there are different benefits to fighting people of all skill levels

[eager quail]

not anywhere near i live unfortunately

[split heron]

are there any online tournaments for SA?

I am not super familiar

but I think if you really want to improve competing in tournaments regularly is a great way to do it

and you can always ask your opponent for advice afterwards

[peak nymph]

to address your original post, asking specific questions to the good players that you play against is paramount

[eager quail]

probably yes, i did join a few ran by the people on the server i'm in

not sure if they get much bigger than that tho

[split heron]

I think in some situations it's fair to ask a player "What should I have done there?"

[eager quail]

and yeah, i already do that, it helps a ton with specific matchups and tech, but asking here gave me a better overall picture of it

[split heron]

it's kinda an annoying question and it gets asked a lot, but I think it's worthwhile

[eager quail]

makes sense, it does sometimes feel like im pestering them, but everyone there really likes to help

i do think you helped me a lot tho

[split heron]

who are you mainly playing right now? like character wise

[eager quail]

etalus is my main, but i'm picking up galvan too

[split heron]

I think it can be helpful to join character specific discords for questions if you haven't already, because sometimes things vary a lot based on who you play

[peak nymph]

ic, you might benefit from vod review if you don't already do that. identifying what causes you to lose stocks or take 40%+ is a great place to start

but yeah also everything magmaboy has said

[split heron]

vod reviewing is really just that helpful, but sometimes you don't see stuff you are doing wrong on your own, or you realize you did something wrong but aren't sure what the "right" thing is

[eager quail]

i did rewatch some replays but i felt like i didn't knew what i was looking for

because i wasn't payng attention to the small stuff

[split heron]

if you have anyone willing watching them with someone else is a good step

they may not be a professional coach, but they may pick up on other stuff

A bit ago I won a giveaway for a coaching session from MSB, and it was just reviewing two Vods, one versus a player much better than me, and I learned a ton about my bad habits and things I can improve on

sometimes you aren't directly punished for something so it is hard to recognize it as bad

[eager quail]

yeah i might start looking for places to share vods, i know the character discords i'm in have those

[peak nymph]

use the situations I suggested as a starting point, but also providing vods to others in the community is great when you're not sure what you could do better otherwise

sorry I'm only half reading the conversation before sending lol

[split heron]

it gets back to the question of "what should I be doing here" if you realize something looks fishy

[eager quail]

nah ur good, i'm happy youre also trying to help :)

[split heron]

I do this a lot

not entire vods

just clips

a lot of the time I notice during the moment that Im kinda unsure what to do so ill clip it

or ill go back into the replay later

one of my favorite pieces of advice is based around the idea of realizing you messed up later down the line. Whenever you do something wrong you will likely realize it, it may take a bit, but it will happen. As you get better the time from action to realization will decrease, until eventually you realize something is wrong before you even do it

so whatever you can do to understand a situation better is likely to also benefit you in the future

[eager quail]

I do get that! Sometimes i realize i'll get punished if i do something before doing it, but it's more of a moment of clarity that happens every once in while

also sharing specific clips is so smart, im gonna start doing that

[peak nymph]

fwiw it sounds like you're making a lot of good choices & you just gotta keep at it

so I think you'll really benefit from more 'what do I do here' / 'why does this feel so bad' / 'why can't I get off ledge' types of questions (ideally with footage) when you can't arrive at answers yourself

use the way you feel in certain game states to help guide your questions too

[split heron]

sometimes you do just get screwed over by the game though

[peak nymph]

yeah for sure lol ultimately it's about minimizing those moments

[split heron]

that's another part of it, sometimes where I experience something goofy like someone living a move I think they shouldn't I will ask "what can I do instead?"

things to avoid the situation entirely

https://medal.tv/games/rivals-2/clips/mg2xsQOHfj_CZTSAG?invite=cr-MSx2bkYsNDAxNTk1OQ&v=6 here is an example of that

the up clap didn't kill, I felt robbed, so I wanted to know what I could do differently in routing there

this also applies to offstage gameplay a lot, especially recovering

you mentioned you played etalus, he is definitely a character that has difficulties offstage

so asking about how to avoid situations to begin with will likely help a lot

[eager quail]

i actually improved my recovery a ton by asking my opponents about it

just today i played some sets against an absa, and i was surprised by how often i was making it back

sometimes it does gets a bit hopeless and i die super early, but that's the bear tax

[split heron]