So you've decided to play a new fighting game and you're learning the ropes. How do you get to learn to play these kids of games?
The piece I wrote below applies not only to fighting games, but to many other genres of games. There's a lot of technical stuff in here so get ready. I'll try to make it as simple as possible.
Learning those moves: Muscle Memory
So you've started out your fighting game career: you have your character chosen and you're starting out by playing a few matches. It's time to start learning those moves. Practice takes a lot of repetition; in the Narutimate games, this includes timing for KnJ and techs. In other combo based games, it's the timing and order of attacks in a combo that matter.
For techs and KnJ, muscle memory is what matters a lot. Ever saw a shuriken thrown at you and you block instinctively, effectively knjing to the other side? Or have you ever instinctively knjed at the very first hit of a counterattack, as if you had expected that counterattack to come? That comes from muscle memory. You had experienced that hundreds if not thousands of times, and your brain has stored the information.
On the other hand, you learn combos or setups partly due to procedural memory learning, especially when learning combos, which are composed of the initial setup, the followup and possible finishers. Soon you will be able to do this unconsciously, by instinct. Example: when the Passion Setup for Itachi was discovered, people started doing this setup really fast when there was a possibility for an x-dash exploit. It was instinctual, it was hard to predict, and it made Tsukuyomi more dangerous.
There are three phases of learning a procedure, said some guy named Fitts in 1954.
Cognitive Phase - here is you start to learn what a sequence of steps in a pattern are composed of. Some people do this by breaking down the procedure into components and trying to link them together. This can include a long combo in a fighting game, a sequence of moves in the Narutimate series, or a hard section in a rhythm game. Here, just study the move and practice each section at a time.
Associative Phase - in this phase, you repeat the above actions over and over until you get it down pat and it becomes second nature. You gain this in fighting games by encountering the same situation again and again. In a BnB combo, you get to do this all the time since that combo is your bread and butter.
Autonomous Phase - here is where you perfect the sequence you just learned. You start doing the sequence with less thought, and you can concentrate more on other things, like alternative strategies or mixups. And if you learn those, the greater the capacity of the game for mixups, the larger the procedural "tree" becomes. How do you get this? Just lots of experience.
Like learning normal memories, muscle memory has both a short term and long term component. You can use this knowledge to help improve your game (I will be talking about how short term muscle memory can make you do mind games in a later article.) The more you practice a given task, the more you learn.
Memory Encoding
Memory is imprinted into our brains by encoding. In the Narutimate games, we encode muscle memory through various stimuli.
Visual Stimuli - for example, seeing a sequence of moves and knowing exactly what kind of string they are performing.
Acoustic Stimuli - when teching, I time my techs by listening to the sound of the tech hit and pressing X by the rhythm. as the action gets more familiar, anticipating the tech just by the sound.
Tactile Stimuli - thanks to the Dualshock controllers, Narutimate players use tactile encoding to learn tech timing. One anecdote I can share was in an earlier tournament, one player wanted to switch controllers because the available controller had no vibrating function. It turned out that he timed his techs by noticing the timing of the moves.
How to Improve?
So, armed with this information, what can you do to improve your game?
The Superstar effect - some have shown in studies that, in a competition, when there is a super good badass performer in the competition, his mere presence causes the other competitors to underperform, as if the outcome was predetermined. This bodes even worse with veteran players. Against a player with a skill set way higher than their own, veterans break their composure and tend to overthink things to much, to the detriment of their game.
We know, it's not fun to get pwned by people whose skill is much higher than yours. But to overcome it, you can: 1) start off by playing people of your skill level then work your way up, or 2) forget the star status of your enemy and focus.
I personally advocate playing "superstar" players to gain their strategies and use those against them. But why does the superstar effect work in the first place?
Stress - part of it is due to stress. Once stress takes over, you tend to double think things. Your capacity to learn or execute learned actions decreases. This is what is known in competitive games as choking. So calm down before starting that match, ok?
Alcohol - alcohol screws with long and short term memory. It changes the structure of the brain. Alcohol also leads to thiamine deficiency, which can lead to disturbances in the nervous system.
Sleep - it's well known that sleep improves memory formation, as it is a major period in the formation of memories. So maybe those 24 hour nonstop sessions weren't so nifty after all. Also, sleep deprivation impairs memory as well. So sleep well.
Playing with a Friend - it's almost a standard answer in fighting games that playing with a friend beats playing with a CPU. But there is actual scientific evidence for this. A couple of dudes in MIT compared the spatial response times and threat and challenge appraisals when playing against a computer, a stranger, and a friend. The study found that playing against a friend had the best data. So who you play with matters as much as how.
So to all the competitive gamers out there, make friends with your fellow colleagues. Because if you tend to make enemies of everyone, no one will play with you. Heh.
References:
Wikipedia articles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_memory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procedural_memory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_encoding
Madigan, Jamie. (2010) Zerg Rushed by a Tiger? Just give up.
http://www.gladwell.com/2000/2000_08_21_a_choking.htm
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/pres.15.4.381
The piece I wrote below applies not only to fighting games, but to many other genres of games. There's a lot of technical stuff in here so get ready. I'll try to make it as simple as possible.
Learning those moves: Muscle Memory
So you've started out your fighting game career: you have your character chosen and you're starting out by playing a few matches. It's time to start learning those moves. Practice takes a lot of repetition; in the Narutimate games, this includes timing for KnJ and techs. In other combo based games, it's the timing and order of attacks in a combo that matter.
For techs and KnJ, muscle memory is what matters a lot. Ever saw a shuriken thrown at you and you block instinctively, effectively knjing to the other side? Or have you ever instinctively knjed at the very first hit of a counterattack, as if you had expected that counterattack to come? That comes from muscle memory. You had experienced that hundreds if not thousands of times, and your brain has stored the information.
On the other hand, you learn combos or setups partly due to procedural memory learning, especially when learning combos, which are composed of the initial setup, the followup and possible finishers. Soon you will be able to do this unconsciously, by instinct. Example: when the Passion Setup for Itachi was discovered, people started doing this setup really fast when there was a possibility for an x-dash exploit. It was instinctual, it was hard to predict, and it made Tsukuyomi more dangerous.
There are three phases of learning a procedure, said some guy named Fitts in 1954.
Cognitive Phase - here is you start to learn what a sequence of steps in a pattern are composed of. Some people do this by breaking down the procedure into components and trying to link them together. This can include a long combo in a fighting game, a sequence of moves in the Narutimate series, or a hard section in a rhythm game. Here, just study the move and practice each section at a time.
Associative Phase - in this phase, you repeat the above actions over and over until you get it down pat and it becomes second nature. You gain this in fighting games by encountering the same situation again and again. In a BnB combo, you get to do this all the time since that combo is your bread and butter.
Autonomous Phase - here is where you perfect the sequence you just learned. You start doing the sequence with less thought, and you can concentrate more on other things, like alternative strategies or mixups. And if you learn those, the greater the capacity of the game for mixups, the larger the procedural "tree" becomes. How do you get this? Just lots of experience.
Like learning normal memories, muscle memory has both a short term and long term component. You can use this knowledge to help improve your game (I will be talking about how short term muscle memory can make you do mind games in a later article.) The more you practice a given task, the more you learn.
Memory Encoding
Memory is imprinted into our brains by encoding. In the Narutimate games, we encode muscle memory through various stimuli.
Visual Stimuli - for example, seeing a sequence of moves and knowing exactly what kind of string they are performing.
Acoustic Stimuli - when teching, I time my techs by listening to the sound of the tech hit and pressing X by the rhythm. as the action gets more familiar, anticipating the tech just by the sound.
Tactile Stimuli - thanks to the Dualshock controllers, Narutimate players use tactile encoding to learn tech timing. One anecdote I can share was in an earlier tournament, one player wanted to switch controllers because the available controller had no vibrating function. It turned out that he timed his techs by noticing the timing of the moves.
How to Improve?
So, armed with this information, what can you do to improve your game?
The Superstar effect - some have shown in studies that, in a competition, when there is a super good badass performer in the competition, his mere presence causes the other competitors to underperform, as if the outcome was predetermined. This bodes even worse with veteran players. Against a player with a skill set way higher than their own, veterans break their composure and tend to overthink things to much, to the detriment of their game.
We know, it's not fun to get pwned by people whose skill is much higher than yours. But to overcome it, you can: 1) start off by playing people of your skill level then work your way up, or 2) forget the star status of your enemy and focus.
I personally advocate playing "superstar" players to gain their strategies and use those against them. But why does the superstar effect work in the first place?
Stress - part of it is due to stress. Once stress takes over, you tend to double think things. Your capacity to learn or execute learned actions decreases. This is what is known in competitive games as choking. So calm down before starting that match, ok?
Alcohol - alcohol screws with long and short term memory. It changes the structure of the brain. Alcohol also leads to thiamine deficiency, which can lead to disturbances in the nervous system.
Sleep - it's well known that sleep improves memory formation, as it is a major period in the formation of memories. So maybe those 24 hour nonstop sessions weren't so nifty after all. Also, sleep deprivation impairs memory as well. So sleep well.
Playing with a Friend - it's almost a standard answer in fighting games that playing with a friend beats playing with a CPU. But there is actual scientific evidence for this. A couple of dudes in MIT compared the spatial response times and threat and challenge appraisals when playing against a computer, a stranger, and a friend. The study found that playing against a friend had the best data. So who you play with matters as much as how.
So to all the competitive gamers out there, make friends with your fellow colleagues. Because if you tend to make enemies of everyone, no one will play with you. Heh.
References:
Wikipedia articles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_memory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procedural_memory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_encoding
Madigan, Jamie. (2010) Zerg Rushed by a Tiger? Just give up.
http://www.gladwell.com/2000/2000_08_21_a_choking.htm
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/pres.15.4.381
Wew! Glad I read this article! Been thinking how does fighting game relates to the brain or at least an idea which is more dominant to me as a gamer...this can really help me as a fighting gamer and allows me to improve some part of my abilities...well...I guess most of my abilities. ^^
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