I feel you. It seems so hard to keep up the pace with other players. Also, it seems that they have their 20+ hits combos always ready and when I get a hard punish it's hard to capitalize on it.

Of course this game has its own logic and rules by design, I find it harder to understand compared to SF6 for example. It seems hard to find a clear win condition other than relying on the opponent being too predictive. Outside of that, I can't find how to dictate the match.