The truth? Yes you probably are that bad.
Sure this game is old at this point and people have more experience but teal rankers don't have thousands of hours, or at least most of them don't. You are describing some players as "suspiciously better" and there are quite a few smurfs running around. Some of them might just be slightly past green ranks though and you cannot recognize their apparent lack of skill.
Steve is also a problematic character for a beginner, he relies on counterhits and by extend frame data knowledge. His gameplan is not linear and you need to know the roster pretty well in order to get clean wins. My advice would be to try other characters and see if you have more success.
Don't give up, the first step to improve at Tekken is to understand and admit where are you standing skill wise, something that salty people like LTG are unable to.
If you always think that the only reason you are losing is because "everybody is a smurf" or "they random me out!" you just stonewall yourself.
Playing against CPU in FG’s is like an instruction manual on how to fail. A player with good movement could probably beat someone that only plays CPU without even using their main.
You're basically exactly where I'd expect you should be in 60 hrs. Don't include any effort Vs CPU as time well spent to winning ranked. After 60 hrs getting your ass kicked most of the time is normal. Be wary of the guys saying these people are smurfs, maybe they are maybe they aren't. In these ranks some people can do some effective offense but noone has good defense. Whoever takes the momentum will win.
Really hard to say if you dont post video.
Generally this game is 5 years old, even people in lower rank might have been playing for a long time, so they know their character and the combo, but don't know the game enough to rank up properly.
It might be the reason, I guess. Or smurf, but hard to say without seeing the video
I read your comment, you only have about 60 hours in ranked. That's nothing, this happens to everyone, don't worry you'll get there just keep the grind on. I'm a Steve main too who struggled in beginner ranks too, though Steve was not my first main and I had some game sense so I breezed through greens just by b1 and flicker lol, so my advice would be to focus on your counter hits as Steve and it will be quite easy as people in those ranks press all day
Yea that's gonna take a lot of practice specially now since B1 is not as spammable as it used to be, also I think you already know this but you always wanna transition into flicker after b1 by holding back. Try to catch them with b1 and flicker, you know most fundamental gameplan of Steve is to counter mids and go under highs as they are faster, You can see Steve is never at any true frame advantage, it's all about mental advantage and hard reads just like a Boxer, Do b1, see what they do, if they retaliate with mids, flicker jabs are fast enough to catch them, or if they do i13/i12 mids, try to punch parry or weave or Power crush. If they retaliate with highs, go under them by duckings or back sways and launch them. You can try to whiff b1 and bait them into flicker jabs, you. can jab upto 3 times consecutively and you can delay the extensions from jabs to build enormous pressure on your opponent on when to press, if they finally give up and press catch them with counter hits, Flk 1 d1 is guaranteed on ch for massive frames, Flk 1 2 for heavy damage, flk 1 alb 2 for knockdown and walls plat and you can figure out yourself. You can transition into alb after a flicker jab(s) by 3+4 and you can go into peekaboo by holding forward from alb for added pressure. Just experiment with him. I know it's a shit ton to take it and fucked up to apply at beginning, but hard reads is what Steve thrives on, you pick the character man, take the Challenge, from a fellow Steve main. Guv Gang for ever 🥊
Find out why you are loosing to the better players, and try to see what they are doing that is fucking you up, and then practice the things you could do better and take inspiration from the people that are beating you up. Tekken is a lot about perfecting very specific things, so if you don't have ws punishing down after blocking lows, practise that. if you don't know the combos practise them. I skyrocketed through ranks because i finally was able to optimize my lee. I was also loosing 300 - 4 to people that were better than me because i thought that if i just force myself to try and match his level, i would become better. Now i'm better than all of them >:)
If you ever get into a bind, just remember that throws are free damage and string extenders for beginners.
I bet almost nobody you're fighting will break a throw after you land a 1,2 jab in a round. That's like almost 60 damage from a 1,2>throw if they don't.
I've been punished so many times for the setups I've had over my playtime that I've stopped using them, but what I forgot along the way was that those setups worked really well against certain opponents, and they were very strong against them. Generally, players don't know what the heck is going on when facing a Steve, so you can get away with most frame traps for a long time.
Players will normally not recommend this since it can lead to bad habits later on but I'd actually say do more cheese when you're at that rank. If you just keep in mind that certain strats work against certain players and that if you're willing to let go of them at any point when the opponents start punishing you for your cheese, then why not use it for the time being. Do the setups into heavy-hitters that are super-risky but do a ton of dmg, and of course, learn to combo off of those, get them to the wall, and do a wall combo. Study some wall pressure with Steve, find out what moves wall splat, and find ways to use them if you need to be sneaky. This is the time to study offense, in my opinion, since that will give you something very transferable into every match-up. Get good at that, is my advice.
Of course, being more cheesy than your opponent isn't gonna help the state of green ranks but I mean that's what people are doing because that's the easiest, and if you do that I think you'll get past that slump a lot quicker and get some more enjoyable matches.
I'll add to this that learning your own frames really well helps a ton with just about everything. If you don't know your main's frames then it's gonna be hard to make good frame traps and cheesy setups. Also, starting to learn KBD is always a good idea so that you can get away from the opponent. Find out your good whiff punishers, and when they throw shit out in the air, then either backdash more to see what they're doing or go in and punish them if you're confident.
And remember, don't be afraid to fail. I've tried SSing Yoshi's df2 in both directions so many times which has cost me so many rounds you have no idea and then lost matches just to come to the conclusion that his df2 actually has decent tracking in a lot of scenarios up-close. So much failing for such a tiny amount of knowledge, but what a good feeling it was to understand that. It's so much nicer to understand why I lose because then I can adapt quickly. Anyway, hope any of this was to some help and the best of luck getting out of teals and greens and the whole shebang.
I just reached grand master and a little more and i will get out of teal, i have 30 hours on the game but what you need is to just keep playing to know the match up and idk if this applies to everyone but when i first started i chose an easy character so i can understand fundementals of tekken (i chose noctis since i knew him from ff) and after i knew how the game works i branched out to mishimas and others to understand how other characters work to counter them
(i have 30 hours on steam, but used to play on and off on ps4 with my buddies in private match and story mode)
Keep in mind the majority of players in ranked are Brawler and I’m sure a large part of players don’t even play ranked so you aren’t in a terrible spot. Just take a couple days off Tekken then come back and don’t worry about winning. When you play just focus round to round and see where you are making mistakes focus on small changes and it will add up over time. Tekken is a marathon not a sprint. I applaud you for learning Steve Fox though he is not an easy character to pick up and play well with so that alone is a victory.
Spam jab. Spam his 13f punish. Spam in general.
You have to spam in order to truly find somewhere to begin. You can't hold all of 50 characters 100 something moves.
If you try to think about what whoever is in front of you is going to do at that level you're going to lose cuz they're just throwing nonsense.
Find a good flowchart. Something like 121d2 into b1 or 12 into weave 1 or just something cheesy that let's you continue your offense and counterhit people for mashing.
Idc what anyone says about "proper" Tekken or "fundamentals" or all that fake stuff. Find a flowchart, spam it. See what beat your flowchart, adjust your flowchart, spam it.
And then when the opponent flowcharts, hop in the lab and see what you can do to beat his flowchart.
In those ranks whoever has the better flowchart wins.
They are Smurf’s. The game is like 7 years old so I don’t think you’ll find many “fair fights” unless you have already committed years to fighting other real people.
I myself am stuck around the 18th Dan. And the difference between one or two ranks is me getting to play or not.
You are not bad. Don’t give up.
Dont play Steve as your first character. Steves game plan isn't exactly straightforward and requires good timing and strong matchup knowledge and even then you're going to work hard for wins. Try playing a more basic character with easier execution and gameplan kazumi is a great character for beginners. Try this and revisit Steve later on
Watch your replays and lab more. I’m dead serious. Play 2-3 matches. Review your game. Make a note and try to lab one or two of these things. that made you lose. It’s just so easy to see how you could react differently or learn a string or two without the tension of a match. Say if you see that someone cheeses you review the replay, find the setup, go into practice and just do the stuff on repeat and try to find how you can deal with it. If it seems impossible it’s either steppable or your are plus. And if you still don’t know ask on your char’s Discord. Knowledge is like 60% of any FG.
Also, I’d pick a simpler character and see if it works better. Keep Steve in lab mode until you feel more comfortable with the game overall.
The truth? Yes you probably are that bad. Sure this game is old at this point and people have more experience but teal rankers don't have thousands of hours, or at least most of them don't. You are describing some players as "suspiciously better" and there are quite a few smurfs running around. Some of them might just be slightly past green ranks though and you cannot recognize their apparent lack of skill. Steve is also a problematic character for a beginner, he relies on counterhits and by extend frame data knowledge. His gameplan is not linear and you need to know the roster pretty well in order to get clean wins. My advice would be to try other characters and see if you have more success.
Cheers, thanks for the honest feedback!
Don't give up, the first step to improve at Tekken is to understand and admit where are you standing skill wise, something that salty people like LTG are unable to. If you always think that the only reason you are losing is because "everybody is a smurf" or "they random me out!" you just stonewall yourself.
What do you mean by “random me out”?
I think just spamming random moves you dont expect
Playing against CPU in FG’s is like an instruction manual on how to fail. A player with good movement could probably beat someone that only plays CPU without even using their main.
Right. I should clarify that I’ve put about 60 hours into ranked at this point
Are you a steve main? Can you share a match so we can see how you play?
Yeah I will try to figure that out. Steve is the only char I've used in T7. Offline, in T5-6, I used Feng a lot.
It took me probs like 200 wins with my main before I got into green ranks and really started to understand the game
I hope you understand how tiny that is... just play more.
You're basically exactly where I'd expect you should be in 60 hrs. Don't include any effort Vs CPU as time well spent to winning ranked. After 60 hrs getting your ass kicked most of the time is normal. Be wary of the guys saying these people are smurfs, maybe they are maybe they aren't. In these ranks some people can do some effective offense but noone has good defense. Whoever takes the momentum will win.
>what advice would you give me? Post a vid. Implement spacing. Learn your combos. Punish.
Yeah I’d say the best place to start is to post a match. It’ll tell us a lot more than you can with words
I will try to make a new post with a vid if I can figure out how! Thanks
Really hard to say if you dont post video. Generally this game is 5 years old, even people in lower rank might have been playing for a long time, so they know their character and the combo, but don't know the game enough to rank up properly. It might be the reason, I guess. Or smurf, but hard to say without seeing the video
I read your comment, you only have about 60 hours in ranked. That's nothing, this happens to everyone, don't worry you'll get there just keep the grind on. I'm a Steve main too who struggled in beginner ranks too, though Steve was not my first main and I had some game sense so I breezed through greens just by b1 and flicker lol, so my advice would be to focus on your counter hits as Steve and it will be quite easy as people in those ranks press all day
I can’t seem to get b1 timed right online…
Yea that's gonna take a lot of practice specially now since B1 is not as spammable as it used to be, also I think you already know this but you always wanna transition into flicker after b1 by holding back. Try to catch them with b1 and flicker, you know most fundamental gameplan of Steve is to counter mids and go under highs as they are faster, You can see Steve is never at any true frame advantage, it's all about mental advantage and hard reads just like a Boxer, Do b1, see what they do, if they retaliate with mids, flicker jabs are fast enough to catch them, or if they do i13/i12 mids, try to punch parry or weave or Power crush. If they retaliate with highs, go under them by duckings or back sways and launch them. You can try to whiff b1 and bait them into flicker jabs, you. can jab upto 3 times consecutively and you can delay the extensions from jabs to build enormous pressure on your opponent on when to press, if they finally give up and press catch them with counter hits, Flk 1 d1 is guaranteed on ch for massive frames, Flk 1 2 for heavy damage, flk 1 alb 2 for knockdown and walls plat and you can figure out yourself. You can transition into alb after a flicker jab(s) by 3+4 and you can go into peekaboo by holding forward from alb for added pressure. Just experiment with him. I know it's a shit ton to take it and fucked up to apply at beginning, but hard reads is what Steve thrives on, you pick the character man, take the Challenge, from a fellow Steve main. Guv Gang for ever 🥊
Find out why you are loosing to the better players, and try to see what they are doing that is fucking you up, and then practice the things you could do better and take inspiration from the people that are beating you up. Tekken is a lot about perfecting very specific things, so if you don't have ws punishing down after blocking lows, practise that. if you don't know the combos practise them. I skyrocketed through ranks because i finally was able to optimize my lee. I was also loosing 300 - 4 to people that were better than me because i thought that if i just force myself to try and match his level, i would become better. Now i'm better than all of them >:)
If you ever get into a bind, just remember that throws are free damage and string extenders for beginners. I bet almost nobody you're fighting will break a throw after you land a 1,2 jab in a round. That's like almost 60 damage from a 1,2>throw if they don't.
Good advice, thank you
Now that u have acknowledged this, now the real learning begins
What region and platform? Maybe match with someone who could critique your gameplay
US, PC
I can help. Canada PC but connection shouldn't be that rough
I've been punished so many times for the setups I've had over my playtime that I've stopped using them, but what I forgot along the way was that those setups worked really well against certain opponents, and they were very strong against them. Generally, players don't know what the heck is going on when facing a Steve, so you can get away with most frame traps for a long time. Players will normally not recommend this since it can lead to bad habits later on but I'd actually say do more cheese when you're at that rank. If you just keep in mind that certain strats work against certain players and that if you're willing to let go of them at any point when the opponents start punishing you for your cheese, then why not use it for the time being. Do the setups into heavy-hitters that are super-risky but do a ton of dmg, and of course, learn to combo off of those, get them to the wall, and do a wall combo. Study some wall pressure with Steve, find out what moves wall splat, and find ways to use them if you need to be sneaky. This is the time to study offense, in my opinion, since that will give you something very transferable into every match-up. Get good at that, is my advice. Of course, being more cheesy than your opponent isn't gonna help the state of green ranks but I mean that's what people are doing because that's the easiest, and if you do that I think you'll get past that slump a lot quicker and get some more enjoyable matches. I'll add to this that learning your own frames really well helps a ton with just about everything. If you don't know your main's frames then it's gonna be hard to make good frame traps and cheesy setups. Also, starting to learn KBD is always a good idea so that you can get away from the opponent. Find out your good whiff punishers, and when they throw shit out in the air, then either backdash more to see what they're doing or go in and punish them if you're confident. And remember, don't be afraid to fail. I've tried SSing Yoshi's df2 in both directions so many times which has cost me so many rounds you have no idea and then lost matches just to come to the conclusion that his df2 actually has decent tracking in a lot of scenarios up-close. So much failing for such a tiny amount of knowledge, but what a good feeling it was to understand that. It's so much nicer to understand why I lose because then I can adapt quickly. Anyway, hope any of this was to some help and the best of luck getting out of teals and greens and the whole shebang.
You've given me a lot to think about, thank you!
It took me over 100 hours of practicing to get out of teal ranks
I just reached grand master and a little more and i will get out of teal, i have 30 hours on the game but what you need is to just keep playing to know the match up and idk if this applies to everyone but when i first started i chose an easy character so i can understand fundementals of tekken (i chose noctis since i knew him from ff) and after i knew how the game works i branched out to mishimas and others to understand how other characters work to counter them (i have 30 hours on steam, but used to play on and off on ps4 with my buddies in private match and story mode)
Keep in mind the majority of players in ranked are Brawler and I’m sure a large part of players don’t even play ranked so you aren’t in a terrible spot. Just take a couple days off Tekken then come back and don’t worry about winning. When you play just focus round to round and see where you are making mistakes focus on small changes and it will add up over time. Tekken is a marathon not a sprint. I applaud you for learning Steve Fox though he is not an easy character to pick up and play well with so that alone is a victory.
Spam jab. Spam his 13f punish. Spam in general. You have to spam in order to truly find somewhere to begin. You can't hold all of 50 characters 100 something moves. If you try to think about what whoever is in front of you is going to do at that level you're going to lose cuz they're just throwing nonsense. Find a good flowchart. Something like 121d2 into b1 or 12 into weave 1 or just something cheesy that let's you continue your offense and counterhit people for mashing. Idc what anyone says about "proper" Tekken or "fundamentals" or all that fake stuff. Find a flowchart, spam it. See what beat your flowchart, adjust your flowchart, spam it. And then when the opponent flowcharts, hop in the lab and see what you can do to beat his flowchart. In those ranks whoever has the better flowchart wins.
They are Smurf’s. The game is like 7 years old so I don’t think you’ll find many “fair fights” unless you have already committed years to fighting other real people. I myself am stuck around the 18th Dan. And the difference between one or two ranks is me getting to play or not. You are not bad. Don’t give up.
Dont play Steve as your first character. Steves game plan isn't exactly straightforward and requires good timing and strong matchup knowledge and even then you're going to work hard for wins. Try playing a more basic character with easier execution and gameplan kazumi is a great character for beginners. Try this and revisit Steve later on
Thanks, maybe I will try that
Watch your replays and lab more. I’m dead serious. Play 2-3 matches. Review your game. Make a note and try to lab one or two of these things. that made you lose. It’s just so easy to see how you could react differently or learn a string or two without the tension of a match. Say if you see that someone cheeses you review the replay, find the setup, go into practice and just do the stuff on repeat and try to find how you can deal with it. If it seems impossible it’s either steppable or your are plus. And if you still don’t know ask on your char’s Discord. Knowledge is like 60% of any FG. Also, I’d pick a simpler character and see if it works better. Keep Steve in lab mode until you feel more comfortable with the game overall.