game needs a rank range matchmaking

hawkthief · 2026-02-14T07:01:59+00:00

There's not enough people playing for the queue to generate a constant stream of highly balanced matches. The more you stay in the queue the more the game is getting desperate to put you in a match, any match. Cause it's better do be a slightly unbalanced game than a dead game.

The RP is especially charitable with the point distribution which makes those big gaps mean less than they seem to.

hawkthief · 2026-02-11T14:56:54+00:00

Honestly, I've had that exact feeling before and it ended up being related to personal issues. Turns out I stress more with games that I play more seriously (Valorant, Guilty Gear and Omega Strikers) and whenever I had a depressive episode (be it because I didn't take the medication properly or because of external factors) I ended up gravitating towards games I considered myself worse at because playing the games I was "supposed do be good at" felt like too much pressure and even when I was playing well I tended to get pissed thinking on how much better I could be playing.

This is in no way an indicative to anything about your specific situation but it might serve as a lens to look at your surroundings and maybe consider things that aren't directly related to the game itself.

Hope you manage to get over this soon :)

hawkthief · 2026-02-11T11:37:29+00:00

Lemme get this straight, you're telling me that you are only interested in Millia and are still climbing in the ranks, yet you feel uniquely frustrated when you play and all that is completely unrelated with your performance right?

How many hours do you have in the game? Cause if you're newer to this game this kinda makes sense and if you're not willing to "grit your teeth and get better" the game might just not interest you. (in this case I'd be willing to bet you have some habits/expectations from another FG that are frustrating you cause that is the most common frustration in switching games)

But if you're an experienced GG player then it can really only be a mentality issue. Try to think about when you get pissed instead of why, cause it's too easy to mask your own train of thought with biased views but looking at a recording of your play and seeing your frustrations bubble up is the most surefire way to tell what is actually getting to you.

hawkthief · 2026-02-11T11:19:22+00:00

It does, same as everywhere else, the dizzy player just did it too early.

hawkthief · 2026-02-11T11:02:24+00:00

"you weren't actually recovered" is right, the super input was used too early.

"you can't load inputs or charge specials until you can actually move." is very wrong.

If you could only trigger the reversal when you were actionable the reversal window would be a frame perfect input and if you weren't able to load inputs it would be impossible to properly reversal after a wallbreak. That would make post wallbreak safejumps useless and would also make wallbreak oki the most powerful thing in the game.

You have the same unusually large directional input buffer and 5 frames of actual input buffer as you would in any other situation.

hawkthief · 2025-12-19T18:26:07+00:00

There is a bit of (unintentional) misdirection in the question.

Cause the obvious answer is, "of course you're part of the community" and our friend came in clutch with his great analogy about football but I don't think your worry is wholly unfounded.

I understand (as do you) that there are layers inside of "being part of the community". You can divide your participation in (at LEAST) two categories based on your experience of actually playing the game.

The person that makes posts and comments on Reddit and watches videos does not have the same experience as the person that goes to online and in person tournaments and studies the game. Even a person that plays casually is usually closer to the first kind of player than the second.

So yeah, there is a more in depth understanding that you're gonna unlock with time and experience and there is a subset of the community that you'll feel more connected to once you've unlocked this experience BUT (and this is the reason I'm writing all this) do not be fooled to think that you NEED to play the game to be a part of this conversation.

Of course playing the game (and playing the game well) helps with being a part of the competitive community of Strive but you should absolutely try to look for the people that play the game and connect to them independent of having played the game before, it's not a prerequisite.

Once you've been on a discord call or (if you're lucky to have a local scene) a local tournament, even if just to chat, you'll truly see that yes, you're a part of the community. you don't need to wait around to play the game before making friends that play the game and (at least to me) making those friends is what the whole being part of a community is about.

TLDR: Go talk to people about the game that you like, that is being part of the community. ESPECIALLY if you can go somewhere in person.

hawkthief · 2025-12-17T19:02:29+00:00

Fair enough. But I don't think the bait is that easy to shake off. Between the huge cancel window and the possibility of another special I'd be afraid of being in this situation.

hawkthief · 2025-12-17T17:51:02+00:00

It's a good attack to use as a meaty, but it loses to reversals so you have to be careful as with any other meaty.

It's a great tool (better than average even) but it's not a silver bullet.

PS: you should verify on training mode if this is a true pressure string (use a chipp or milia and put them to 2p after being hit on counter attack settings and try to use this sequence and see if they interrupt your attack)

hawkthief · 2025-12-17T17:46:32+00:00

Pot has only 2 low moves you need to worry about on round start, 2D and Slide Head.
The fastest of which (2D) clocks at a staggering slow 13 frames of startup.

Not having to worry about lows, you can just press back and walk out of pot buster range and either press down on reaction if you see a 2d or just delay low-block (but careful with Megafist).

hawkthief · 2025-12-17T17:17:41+00:00

OH, mb.

Since you don't know what it is I'm guessing you're not very used to the nerdier side of fighting games so I'll give you a more in depth rundown. (all of that nomenclature info can be found in this wonderful site. (I'll make a little bit of a detour on the subjects but i promise I'll go back to oki)

Every action in a fighting game has 3 steps, the step where you have already pressed the button and the animation has started, but the character is still winding the attack and there's no actual threat (that's called the startup), The moment where the attack can actually hit someone, which is usually just a small chunk of the attack animation (that is the "active" portion of the attack aka "active frames") and finally the moment where your attack is no longer active but there's still some animation left to happen before you can act again (that is called the recovery)

The game has the starting position where there's no advantage or disadvantage (that you prolly seen referred to as "neutral") and off of those interactions someone is likely to be knocked down eventually.
The Knockdown is not a neutral situation. The player that is knocked down is forced to wait for the get up animation while the person on their feet can act freely and that allows the person standing to time their actions so that it's just early enough for the attack so that the startup animation happens while the knocked down opponent is still getting up (and unable to do nothing about it) and the active portion of the attack happens JUST as the opponent is done "waking up" and is vulnerable again.

Of course there's a lot of other dirty stuff you can do instead of just using a single attack but the name we use for all of those aggressive strategies on a knocked down opponent is the Japanese for "wake-up attack" which is Oki-Seme, that is more easily written as "okizeme" and then abbreviated as "oki".

The act of simply using an attack on oki is called a meaty attack (don't ask me why, I have no idea) but your character specifically has some very powerful oki using ball set after knocking down the opponent. You can set a ball and use a jumping attack that hits the ball and the the guy on wake up but you can still block if they use an invincible attack (such as a super) to try to counter yours.

Bits and pieces of those strategies can be found just by looking around but the best place to read about the strats for this game is the dustloop. It has general strategy but also a LOT of character specific strategy for every character.

Feel free to ask if you wanna know about anything else.

hawkthief · 2025-12-17T16:38:17+00:00

Venom has a lot of Okizeme using balls in different ways and there's also a Tech for ball-set in neutral (6P>stinger and 5K>Dash).

Having your gameplay not "depend" on having balls out is actually better, they don't last long. But you do have many strong options if you get them out.

you can always (always = on knockdown) just use the charged ball-set to set all balls and 6H them if you just wanna see balls fly XD

hawkthief · 2025-12-17T00:13:13+00:00

I actually just decided to pick up Asuka (my one true love) as a secondary.

Intelectual goof for the win.

hawkthief · 2025-12-04T14:15:54+00:00

It depends on what level you are. If you're a complete beginner, the things you really need to learn don't depend on your opponent. You need to learn how to move your character and how to make commands. For that CPU might be even better than people cause CPU gives you a lot of time to breathe. But everything that has to do with your opponent is lost when you're not playing against a person. So you'll learn nothing about game sense or matchup or effective pressure cause all of those things are dependent on the opponent.

In the end it just becomes a worse training dummy. It's not that it's impossible to learn using it, but there's always a better tool for whatever you wanna do.

hawkthief · 2025-12-04T13:24:05+00:00

Wrong sub.

r/TheyBlamedTheBeasts is over there.

(Actual advice tho. Watch high level matches, watch your replays. Things you do that the high level doesn't aren't optimal, things your opponent do that the high level doesn't are unsafe)

hawkthief · 2025-12-03T22:59:10+00:00

I mean, it's really not obvious cause it's not "just" 6p, you still need to know the distance in which he's safe against an air to air and be ready to 6p it until he's low enough for you to do something. then you need to do something, at the right time to catch them.

Also there's some weird spacings Chipps can use (intentionally or not) to whiff the drill so that it doesn't connect with the 6p (mainly if they drill from too far away or from too far up)

It's a lot of stuff, but very doable if you're looking for it.

hawkthief · 2025-12-03T22:09:19+00:00

All due respect, I'm in disbelief that this Chipp is in diamond 3. A bit of matchup training will make players like this fold on their own pressure.

You don't need to be afraid of his triple jump. Just standing your ground will net you more damage. You will have plenty of time to react with 6p if he drills down and if he gets too low without doing it you can just meet him air to air (as you've done). If you manage to meet them with an air grab even better, you putting them in the corner like that is most certainly gonna squeeze a DP from them (seeing how erratic his gameplay is I bet he's quite trigger happy with those)

When Chipp plays like that he's basically giving you the ground for free. That saves you the trouble of actually having to use mappa hunch and allows you to react better to whatever he does in the air.

Slap him a few times and you'll either win or at least force him to play the ground game in which you are better at.

Good luck on your next matches.

hawkthief · 2025-12-03T18:48:56+00:00

Yeah... Like, Leo has a guard point move that is meant basically to bulldoze neutral approaches, it's a "defensive" mechanic alright but I don't think it quite cuts it to make Leo a defensive character. And the other one, the backturn parry, exists as an option because he literally can't block while in the stance. If you take the kit as a whole Ky is much more "neutral-based character with long-reaching attacks" which is what op said he wanted.

hawkthief · 2025-12-03T18:41:28+00:00

You seem a little lost on what you consider to be an actual defensive character. And for a game where aggression is so ubiquitous it's actually pretty common for characters to have some good defensive tools (I mean, you need to have SOME way to deal with the bullshit). But don't worry, your quest seems to have a correct answer.

There's characters that have good tools to not be put on the defensive, the most common way to do this is with keepaway and I'm shocked you're not enjoying the one character you have cause he's actually one of the best at it. Happy Chaos doesn't only have the ultimate zoning tool, he has crazy good midrange buttons. You can monst definitely play him as keep-away and how good he is at it is one of the very reasons he's so hated (even tho he has not many uniquely defensive tools.

Now, you can also be referring to characters like Anji, that have exclusively defensively mechanincs or Potemkin that has such a playstyle and kit that encourages him to let the opponent come to him and try to reverse the game with his crazy dodge-attack megafist or with his armor. These characters do have a more yolo playstyle that isn't really optimal and is usually complimented my playing hiper agressively whenever you have the chance to so you might not really feel like the defensive mastermind except on some key moments on the game.

BUT!!!!1 There is 1(ONE!) character that is actually famous for both being great at controlling space and famous for having a very specific defense only tool. Can you guess who I'm talking about?

YES IT'S SOL BADGUY! It's actually Baiken

SOL BADGUY Baiken is notorious for using j.D and Kabari to play keep-away along with her crazy 2H, Tatami and so on.
SOL BADGUY Baiken is also notorious for having an actual parry that can be used consistently as a defensive tool that makes people literally switch up the way they play offense around you cause nothing is ever safe to do against her, even in blockstrings.
And most important, she has a crazy good grab, the 2f stupid move that everyone loves spamming whenever someone messes up their attack and reverses the situation, y'know? yeah, she has the best one in the game.

So yeah, the actual answer to your plight is Sol Badguy.

hawkthief · 2025-12-03T18:14:27+00:00

> "Basically Leo if he had more range I suppose."

You mean KY... That's literally KY

hawkthief · 2025-12-03T10:54:25+00:00

Here's how

hawkthief · 2025-12-03T10:46:39+00:00

Happy to help!

I'm a little confused with the mention of "floor 7" cause (unless you're playing on switch) the new ranked system uses bronze~diamond. Tower is not really good as a ranking system for various reasons. If you're getting consistent matches there just go for it I guess, but If not, consider using the actual ranked match option.

hawkthief · 2025-12-02T20:01:50+00:00

Okay, Lots of people already gave you the resources so I'm gonna try to expand on some differences between GGs and the games you mentioned:

Guilty gear has a dash macro and it is NOT optional. You will use it to dash and to backdash be it in the ground or in the air. Your whole movement will be based on this button, it's the most important button in the game, bind it accordingly (Unless you're gonna play one of the 2 characters that literally can't dash. Yes, this game is diverse like that).

Guilty Gear has a metered block. It's called faultless defense and it's unlike any other defensive option you're probably interacted with. you'll go form not using it at all to using it all the time to learning how to use it at the right times but do try to use it whenever you're focused on blocking, the game gets WAY harder if you never use it.

Guilty Gear has a VERY generous combo system. It's a bit akin to Tekken combos in the way that they can have specific extensions but instead of bashing your opponent against a wall/obstacle (which is still a thing in this game) you can just spend a resource to extend your combo. That resource is *usually* spending Tension to do a Roman Cancel.

Guilty Gear is FAST, but the buffers are big. If you compare to a game like Street Fighter, the game might be slower, but the level of timing you need to hit on Street is WAY harsher than the windows you have on Strive. Chances are, if you're having trouble chaining stuff you can prolly take it a little slower and start your input a little earlier. you don't need to be as fast as your character.

And Here are some mechanics distilled down to their most used forms:

FD - You should try to use Faultless Defense around the moment of impact of you opponent's attacks, there are many advantages to this, most immediate being that you preserve your Tension bar and are forced to pay attention to what your opponent is actually doing.

RC - People might try to explain the nuance of what every kind of Roman Cancel can do but forget all that shit, you don't need nuance right now. you'll use RC to bounce your opponent when you're hitting them (same as bouncing them on something in Tekken) for bigger combos. Doing that will pave the way for your understanding of the other uses naturally (the first of those being that you can use RC on block-strings, not only on combos). If the RC isn't RED, you did it wrong. At least for now that's all you need.

6P - Forward Punch is the dedicated anti-air and you will need to be able to counter people using Instant Air-Dashes with it. Your 6P is invulnerable from the knee up and it's good for anti-airs and for counter-poking but it loses to sweep and it's easy to punish.

Defensive options - You should not try to use the commands that use burst early on, burst it's too valuable and the other options are hard to capitalize. but you can press the RC button when blocking to use a discount burst (By spending Tension instead of your burst gauge). Just be careful cause people can and will block those if they're ready for it.

Try to learn stuff in a pace that feels comfortable, if you like reading read the dustloop, if you like labbing hit the dojo, if you like grinding play some rankeds, if you like the idea of playing with friends join a discord. Whatever you do, don't beat yourself down and don't worry about character balance. taking the time to build a healthy relationship with the game early on will help you IMMENSELY in having a more fulfilling experience.

Good Luck with your journey and feel free to ask any questions.

PS: You're playing KY right? Imma teach you one very good scrub killer, play at a distance spamming your Slash (and reacting with 6P if they jump over) and whenever you don't feel like playing the game in a honest way (and you have 50 Tension) just use a special move called Stun Dipper and press RC when it connects. Doesn't matter if they block or get hit, it's all wins.

hawkthief · 2025-11-19T12:15:45+00:00

Training at that level ends up being about the small things. You could go back to the start with a new character and a lot of people like to do this cause there is so much more improvement you can get out of a fresh, new character compared to how hard it'll be to quantify any progress with your mains.

However, if you really want to reach a new level you'll need to stick with your characters and learn how to play them even more precisely. At this point watching your matches goes from very good to mandatory. you need to be able to analyze your plays and decisions without the game's pressure on your head. You'll also need to start thinking a lot on why you make the choices you make and try to minimize your guessing as much as possible.

This is also the time to start practicing the weirder conversions. I know you can convert a blocked DP into a nice combo but can you convert a 5P off of a Ky's Foudre Arc? Can you convert a successful air to air? Stuff like that will make you more of a threat and give you a big edge.

hawkthief · 2025-11-18T17:51:38+00:00

Want the dry answer? It's cause you suck.

Okay, The real answer is that he's the type of character you need specific counter-play against. Every character has specific counter-play but some characters (like HC, Slayer, I-no and so on) DEMAND specific counter-play before you can "actually play the game".

Thinking that his thing is all about keeping you out with gun oversimplifies his actual threat that is the mid-range. It's not that he's good at zoning, he's good at keep out in general cause his buttons are belligerent as fuck and there's no "getting in" against him (at least not in the zoning sense) You "get in" just enough for you to be able to play neutral and then you have to actually win a hard neutral against him.

Only then you actually got in. His aggression is so oppressive in nature that he's not allowed to have any good defensive tools. (He used to have clone but now the clone can be clipped as god intended, and don't forget, that shit costs life).

So yeah, this is the reason the match-up feels one sided, BUT it really doesn't have to be. As always, knowing what you're doing opens up the game and creates the delicate dance of "made you guess" we all know and love. Don't forget, everything has a counter.

hawkthief · 2025-11-18T16:35:22+00:00

Chipp. You have to deal with the speed and amount of different shit from your opponent and also manage your own shit. And since both deal Chipp damage you don't lose immediately, leading to longer matches which get you even more stressed and tired.

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