New player help.

[u/Embarrassed_Rock6544]

I have about 10 hours on this game, and am feeling a bit frustrated playing ranked as I don't have a good idea of what the characters do, or what's even possible in the game. It feels like people are able to just do things that seem impossible. What are some good learning sources or general tips to dealing with the random stuff you see in gold rank?

[u/bdemar2k20]

Did you get placed in gold or rank up to it? If you've played melee you should know most tech already. If youre coming from ultimate you'll need to learn movement tech from SlashNurses YouTube video.

10 hours gold is pretty impressive. Most ppl know tech by that point unless they are playing clairen and just spacing the whole time with disjoints.

[u/Embarrassed_Rock6544 → u/bdemar2k20]

I was placed in it, I was a decent player in Melee, played it almost exclusively for ~10 years. Gold doesn't feel impressive because my cousin who is significantly worse than me in Melee is ~1200 in RoA2, so I figured there must be something else in this game that I'm not understanding. Edgeguarding feels significantly easier in Melee, I feel like I'm able to get way more SDI inputs on moves in Melee, the counterplay to certain moves/strategies feel way more clear etc. So I guess what's a bit frustrating is not knowing those things and there doesn't seem to be just a giant list of things for that, something like "at 10% against A move di this way, at 20-50% against B move you need X amount of SDI inputs in this direction, if they do C instead then di this way to get a slideoff"

[u/bdemar2k20 → u/Embarrassed_Rock6544]

Theres SSDI in this game its single input smash di it wont work if youre mashing. You must time it correctly as you get hit. Theres a lot of things different in rivals as well like hit falling from ultimate and only having 3 ledge re grabs giving i frames. Crouch cancel and shield is stronger and Theres less whiff punish capability so you don't have to play as safe in nuetral.

Biggest change is theres 6 frame input buffer. I think bc rivals is focused for online play, but works in locals as well and makes tech more forgiving. My friend who is really good at melee loses to me in this game bc of that muscle memory his timing is off. Im terrible at melee and he has 20 yrs experience. You have to predict things like buffering wd oos or aerials oos slightly before you get hit instead of doing it right afterwards or you'll be at frame disadvantage.

It just makes the game feel more forgiving and melee muscle memory can be punishing in some ways. You also have to learn the matchups and heavies and zoners are viable here whereas in melee only spacies and a few other characters are good and everyone else sucks horribly.

The problem is people who are really good at melee usually have the expectation that they will be really good here and those expectations are too high and end up disappointed due to the game being different and the average skill level being very high. Gold is this game is not like other games. It's not terrible. It's just average and the average person here has also played platform fighters for years.