A change can be as good as a holiday

8 May 2024 • Andy Corrigan

I’ve been in a performance rut with Street Fighter 6 recently. My rise from Silver to the higher levels of Platinum was swift and, after being agonisingly close to getting to Diamond rank a few times, my form’s tanked big time.

Nothing I tried seemed to fix it. My normally reliable move execution let me down at key moments. I dropped combos I never usually would, I was unable to close out rounds, and I played on autopilot often.

Learning new skills only made things worse, which, to be fair, is perfectly normal. Learning how to do something and knowing when to use it are two completely different things.

I won’t lie, though. After what was a fun ride of ups and downs, struggles and powering through, despair started creeping in. It was the first time I felt I was regressing rather than climbing upwards. Given my solid progress up to this point, it was demoralising.

When I hit this struggle back with Street Fighter V, I did the worst thing possible: I quit.

This time, however, I tried something a little different. I don’t mean I simply chose not to quit this time; I literally tried something different…

But first, some context!

Before Street Fighter 6 launched, I could never find a control method I was 100% happy with for fighting games.

Arcade fight sticks allow me to hit buttons fast and hard, helping me get the hang of combos. In modern fighting games, movement around the screen with stick always feels awkward or laboured (a problem I don’t seem to feel with older, pixel-art fighting games - no idea why).

Control pads give me the opposite problem: movement feels better, things like dashing and back-dashing are easier, but combo execution is harder. Plus, most first-party pads’ analog and d-pad options suck for fighting games. I fare better with specialist third-party pads like Hori’s Fighting Commander range or 8BitDo’s Saturn-inspired controllers.

Leverless controllers seemed to solve both problems, and I credit it with helping improving my all-round fundamentals in Street Fighter 6.

However, in this little rut of mine, it felt like leverless too was suddenly a problem too, given the sudden biffed execution and dropped combos.

Instead of quitting or taking a break, I thought I’d try using a fight stick again.

Luckily, with Street Fighter 6 on two formats, I had the means to experiment without worrying about my rank. I spent a few days relearning my bread-and-butters on stick and hit online.

And I sucked at that too for a while. Yet the process still helped.

Change is good, actually

How did a controller change help? It caused a complete mental reset. Suddenly auto-piloting was no longer an option. I had to carefully consider every single action. I reacted instead of operating on assumption. It reminded me how to think about what I was doing again.

I may not have been playing well with stick, but I could identify what led to my slump.

The poor execution and dropped combos? Turns out I was inputting too fast. My timing for combo links was off by some margin, especially when trying to end with Level 3 Supers.

The more stressed I got about results, the faster and more often I hit buttons.

A side effect of hitting inputs too quickly was that I’d also taken to mashing buttons multiple times during execution to get my moves out, which only ever gives you mixed results.

Stick inherently feels a slower control method than leverless, but it helped me realise just how much time I actually had.

There and back again

I’ve switched back to leverless a few times now and, with the hindsight of a controller-holiday, my problems are less prevalent and I feel more like myself again. Even better, I improved with arcade stick so much during this little process that I'm going to keep it going.

Regardless of what controller I land on long term, the things I was doing better before my slump are coming more naturally again. I’m no longer mashing and my execution is cleaner - possibly even more so than before my wobble.

So, if you find yourself struggling too, it’s worth trying something a little different. Whether it’s an alternative controller, a new character, or even a different game; a change is great way to find a new perspective on your problems.