It's hard to judge progress in a game like this. There aren't any levels or achievements. There are unlockable swords and outfits, but the costs relative to the rewards you get are so large that pursuing them systematically is kind of a waste of time. The only real metric is your multiplayer rank.
However, the problem with this is that, by that standard, I moving backwards. My rank is roughly 69,000th. It's possible that I'm getting worse as time goes on, or that everyone else who plays the game simultaneously got much better, but when I played against Faolind last night (by the way, I want to express my thanks for keeping me company in the middle of the night), I was able to win more than I lost, so I feel like I must be improving, not just absolutely, but relatively.
I suspect the issue is that I don't have generalized fighting-game skills. I don't know how to read an opponent or cancel moves or exploit invincibility frames. I'm able to beat the computer almost 100 percent of the time, but Faolind was the only opponent I've played long enough to take advantage of my usual video-game strategy - brute force repetition, whereby I throw myself up against a problem until I stumble upon the correct solution.
That probably does mean that I am uniquely ill-suited to climbing the ranking ladder. If I can only win against an oak-league player after a half-dozen attempts, I don't deserve to be in the iron-league.
It just really wounds my pride to admit that.
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