- Primary Subject: Competitive Fighting Games (Current Meta: 2XKO Season 1 / Tekken 8 Ver. 1.05)
- Key Update: Top players are increasingly keeping "secret tech" hidden for major tournaments, leading to a rise in unreliable or purposefully misleading online guides.
- Status: Confirmed
- Last Verified: March 11, 2026
- Quick Answer: Relying solely on online fighting game guides can kill player originality, make your playstyle predictable, and expose you to unreliable or intentionally withheld information.
In the world of fighting games, nothing is more important than individual improvement. The purpose of playing them is so that you can achieve victory over your opponents, both AI and human, and you won't be able to do that unless you learn everything that can help improve your skills.
Normally, you'd want to learn the basics, like how to attack and/or defend, what moves you can use, etc. In this instance, watching others play via online videos is fine, as everybody has to go through the initial learning process, and some people can teach it better than if you taught yourself.
However, the problem arises when you've finished understanding the fundamentals and want to move on to the more advanced techniques. You would obviously want to know the most optimal strategies or tricks that the average player can't or has no idea how to react to, so that you can become the best.
While you have the option to figure them out on your own, you might be tempted to go online yet again, just like you did when learning the basics. This is a mistake that has actually caused the downfall of many, and one that you should avoid at all costs. As for why, the first reason is that if you choose to learn, it kills originality.
So, let's say that you've finally grasped the basics of Tekken 8 and are finally ready to move on to becoming a master at the game. You want to do it with a character like Bryan Fury since you like him so much and want to use him to reach the top. So you then move on to look for videos on what he needs to do to win, and you find that nearly all of them repeat the same combos, strings, punishes, etc.
While you do learn something, this results in you becoming just another person who's trying to play Brian in the most optimal way possible. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, as knowing the best options is always good, but the problem is that it makes you predictable. Since you looked up advanced techniques online and are only using the ones that can help you win, there's a chance that others have looked them up as well.
They'll likely know just as much as you and will be able to adapt easily, which can put you in tight spots and even force you to lose matches. There's also a good chance that they've faced hundreds of others just like you who have learned from the same videos, putting you at an even lower disadvantage.
Another thing is that since you only know how to play based on a guide from someone you watched, you won't be creative enough to come up with new and innovative ways to catch your opponent offguard. By killing your originality, you become just like all the other players reaching for the top, and not being unique can, more often than not, mean the difference between victory and defeat.
If that's not enough to convince you to stop learning techniques from videos you find online, then perhaps the idea that a good chunk of them are unreliable will. People who made it to the top of popular fighting games like 2XKO, Street Fighter 6, the previously mentioned Tekken 8, and more are likely the ones you'd want to watch if you want to get better at certain characters or at the game.
However, those people didn't reach the pinnacle by sharing everything they learned with their potential opponents, as they've worked too hard to figure things out and become the best. So, more often than not, they withhold information, ensuring that some of their best-kept secrets to victory stay with them and only them.
Not just that, but there are some instances where they might even provide information on attack or defensive options that you think are helpful, only to find that there are far better ones you could ever use. Again, this goes back to them trying to protect their spot at the top, and if it means forcing others to learn the wrong things via video, then some will gladly do it. Know that it's not just the top players who do this, but also those who've achieved significant prowess in the game, too, making it even harder to trust what you watch online.
Videos on advanced techniques aren't all bad, as they do contain useful information that you can use, but you mustn't make them your gospel. But I believe that if you really want to become the best at any video games of the fighting genre, you should avoid them altogether, as there's a good chance you develop something on your own that might be even more useful than anything you could ever learn from others.
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