iPonsay wrote:
I love fighting games but I've really enjoyed getting really into them competitive-wise. All that talk about frames and so on and so forth somehow makes the experience too serious and less fun for me. However, I still love taking the time to load up training with a character and really get into the meat of their moves, learning their playstyle, combos, ect.
Don't take the frame stuff too seriously, you don't need to know everyone's frame data to be effective. What you SHOULD know, is that the game works at 60fps, and that stuff is designed around that, speed wise per move. So if you know the speeds of a few basic moves, you can figure out the rest without knowing actual numbers. The game does get tested for the speeds of actual moves, and character balance can depend on that to some extent.
It really pays more dividends in situations up close, and it's learned gradually over time. Not many people can absorb numbers from a spreadsheet of frame data and be an effective player just from that. But if you know how to use it as a reference point for moves that are giving you trouble, or figuring out whether or not you can get free damage from blocking something, that's a good tool to have available.
It's not like seeing the Matrix or anything while playing lol, you're not thinking in numbers. It just helps to narrow down and choose your options more effectively in the long term. People that ignore it completely tend to do a lot of slow moves in situations where they should be interrupting with a quick poke, or using a move fast enough to guarantee damage.
