I first checked out the Steam discussion section for Skullgirls during the free weekend and was disappointed to so a worrying number of complaints and questions on some rather mundane things such as menu navigation, but also some on unexplained mechanics such as Drama/Undizzy. This FAQ/Guide should hopefully help get people started and fill a lot of people in on various things that often go unknown to players until they talk with those at a higher level. If there are any more questions on anything in the game that you would like answered feel free to post them in my discussion here:
http://steamproxy.net/app/245170/discussions/0/648811852525633168/#p2

This guide is unfinished and I will be adding more to it as time goes on.

The menu in this game is screwed up how do I control it!?
To answer your question quickly: On keyboards you can use the Z key to accept, the arrow keys to navigate and the X key to cancel.

How do I change my controls!?
On the main menu of the game go to the "Help and Options" feature. Next, select "Choose Controllers" and press the left direction on the controller you wish to use (whether that's a keyboard, pad or fightstick), now press a button like A or X on your controller or Z if you're keyboard, this makes sure you have the controller you want to use assigned to player 1 (you). After that, select "Controls" (also in the "Help and Options" menu), then select "Config All" on the player 1 selection, follow the prompts on the screen. Made a mistake and struggling to fix it? Go down to the bottom of the "Controls" menu and select "Restore Defaults". These are all common sense things that are the same in pretty much every game, but there were many people struggling to navigate the menus so this needed to be addressed.

I completely screwed up my controls and can't even navigate the menu now, how do I revert them?
On your computer, go into your "My Documents" folder. There you will find a new folder called "Skullgirls" (or "Skullgirls Beta" if you've been playing the beta). Go into it, open the next folder which is a bunch of random numbers, and delete the file "BUTTONSETTINGS.bin". Restart Skullgirls and voila, your controls will be returned to normal. Make sure you follow the instructions I gave in the previous paragraph to stop this from happening again!

How do I change player 2 controls?
Similarly to the above method, except at the "Choose Controllers" screen press right (->) on the controller you wish to use and select "Config All" on the right hand panel on the "Controls" menu.

Lobbies are broken
Yes they are, they're still useable though and Mike (the programmer) is working on a fix for them, if you notice any bugs you can report them on the skullheart forums in the bugs section. I believe there is an email address you can send them to as well but I have forgotten it.

Should I change my controller?
Contrary to popular belief, every controller is a viable option. Personally I play on pad, most of the pros do play on fightsticks but there are some (including someone in the top 8 players in the world) who don't. I know people who much prefer the keyboard to pad, so don't think it's a huge handicap to you, but if you do get really into playing the game it might be worth investing in a fightstick to get that full arcade experience!

What the flying ****sticks the final boss is a piece of hippo **** holy ****ing ****
Assuming you tried playing Marie 300% or selecting Nightmare difficulty I fully agree. In any other difficulty, however, she is beatable as long as you have a grasp of some fundamentals (blocking, getting in, attacking in the air).

I don't understand how to play at all what's going on?
In the training menu there is a tutorial mode which will talk you through everything you need to know to get started plus more. It is a very good training mode however it is a little outdated (the devs know this and as soon as they have time between working on the new characters they will add a new one for you) due to several updates over the past year. If you are new to fighting games play this tutorial before going online or you will regret it!

I can't pick some of the characters in story mode...
Valentine and Double's stories have to be unlocked by completing the other characters' stories. They are fully playable in every other game mode though.

How do I make the most out of training mode?
Training mode in Skullgirls is the most robust you will see in any currently existing fighting game. There are save states, multiple recordings, 2 forms of input display, hitbox displays, detailed attack data showing things such as IPS and Drama/Undizzy information and several other more standard training options such as whether the training dummy stands, jumps, crouches, blocks, etc. At a beginner level you won't need all this but as you move up you will have more and more uses for all the features available.

I suppose I should start by explaining things you can do to help you learn combos faster. The first thing you should know is that all of the special training mode features can only be accessed in "Training Mode Options" on the pause menu while in offline training mode, which can be accessed from the "Training" section of the main menu. Go into these options and make sure of 3 things:
-Blocking is set to "After First Hit"
-Ground Teching is set to "Backwards"
-Escape Infinite Combos is set to "1st hit"
Fortunately these can all be found near the bottom so just press up when at the top and you'll be taken straight there. These make sure that your combos actually work and people can't escape them in real battles.

Next, set the "Select Button" option to "Save/Load State". This is an incredibly useful feature that will save you a lot of time when making and learning combos. Basically, press the button mapped as your "Select" button (NOT any of the attack buttons), once and it will save the current state of training mode, that's the character positions, current moves, current health, everything about that moment of the game. If you tap the button again the screen will flash and you will revert to that state. To erase your save hold down your Select button. This stops you from having to take the Dummy out of the corner every time you mess up a mid-screen combo and likewise saves you having to put them back there every time you want to test a corner combo.

Now you're set to learn a combo quickly, but surely you want to know all its details too. The damage, the Drama count and the IPS stage are all visible in training mode, as well as information on the opponent's health and red health value. To display these, go back into the training options and switch "Attack Data" on. All this information will be displayed in the boxes under the health bars. Drama count is visible next to the Combo Stage information.

You might also be curious about these recordings I mentioned earlier, to use them switch the "Select Button" option from "Save/Load State" to "Dummy Record/Playback" or "Both". Both is good because it loads a state and then plays back the recording so it always happens from the same part of the screen, but I'll just tell you about Dummy Record/Playback. The controls are similar to the Save/Load State controls. Press select once and you'll be put in control of the other team/character, but not recording. Use this to get used to doing the combo or action before recording it. Press select again and it'll start recording. When you're done recording press select again to finish. Next time you hit select the recording will play back. Use this to help learn to counter certain moves. To erase your recording and make another one hold the select button. You can make more recordings by changing "Recording Number" in the training options. Many people use these for combo videos as they don't need to clip out all their mistakes from a video as they can just record the correctly pulled of combo and record a playback of that instead.

Other than that all the other features are pretty self-explanatory, play around with them in training options to get to grips with things if you're curious, otherwise just leave it until you want to practice something.

I'll stick it to you straight, I think there is a notable element of luck involved with this. Stage 1 can be beaten as long as Marie doesn't do certain things in particular orders (GIGAN SKULL -> MINI SKULL -> SKELETON GRAB COMBOS), stage 2 is very beatable unless Marie decides she doesn't feel like sitting around for more than 1 second and stage 3 is actually just ridiculous and requires you to have enough health to take ridiculous amount of chip damage as well as getting hit normally as you are gonna get hit by her.

There are things you can do in stages 1 and 2 to make your life easier though, see this video here (contains foul language):

As you can see in the final match, round 1 is very much about getting her to flinch. I think flinching is related to damage per chain, but it might also be hit count. Basically, if you hit her enough quickly she will actually flinch. With Filia I was using s.HP -> HK Hairball by the end, and I know with Squigly you can do j.MK -> j.HK with the correct timing. This seems good and all except for the fact that she doesn't seem to flinch when activating a move, so if she feels like throwing out a Gigan Skull right at the start then your life becomes so much harder.

Round 2 is significantly easier. Lure her out of the corner and get right up next to her. At this distance she will either perform her shadow's poke, or throw out a minion. Some GOOD design thing here (unlike the rest of the fight): when she goes for a minion attack she raises her arms for a second or 2. If you keep jumping over her while hitting her and not jumping in front of her when you see her raise her arms, her pokes will keep missing and you'll take very little damage (there is one minion type that can hit you while you're behind her so block for safety) unless she decides not to stick to one place.

Round 3 is ridiculous just run in and try to do as much damage as you can as quickly as you can if you get hit, even if you end up blocking, your chances of success reduce drastically. I know I was using Gregor Samson but supers generally aren't a viable option. Staying off the ground will save you trouble but nothing will stop you from getting hit at all other than killing her. Supers that DO work are Filia's Gregor, Squigly's Battle Opera and Val's Scalpels maybe, anything else is not recommended.

I keep losing what do I do?
First of all, make sure you've played the tutorials. If you haven't then read the above section for an explanation on how to access them. If you have then you know what you need to know in order to get started with the game. It is possible, however, that you don't know proper combos, so spent a little while in training mode coming up with something you can easily pull off and you'll be able to do damage with. After that you only really need to play the game to get better. There is a lot to learn but that doesn't mean you can't have fun, find some players of similar skill to play with and add them to your friends list, find some better ones and (politely) ask them for advice, people will be willing to help you more often than not, but if they don't help you don't get angry with them.

Mother******* keep doing noskill infinates it's pathetic
First of all, Skullgirls has physically no infinite combos whatsoever. If the game detects someone is attempting one you will have the option to break out (except when they attack your assist character, but that's a special case that I'll explain later in full detail and you'll not see it at your level) by pressing any button. In addition to this there is a system in place that prevents the opponent from doing a long combo twice in a row that is similar to the other system. This one is being made stricter soon to prevent on player from completely trapping someone in a series of resets. Resets, for that matter, are probably what you are actually referring to as infinites. They are where someone stops their combo and then tricks you into letting them start a new one for extra damage, it's a high level technique and I made a post about them in this thread here (just scroll down a bit and find it): http://steamproxy.net/app/245170/discussions/0/648811852412741696/#p2

How do I fight Peacock?
It really depends on your character. Some will have a harder time than others. If you have a character that can airdash or fly (Filia, Fortune, Valentine, Painwheel) do so at head height to avoid ground and air bombs, other than that it's all down to getting in on her and not letting her get away. With Parasoul, Squigly, Double and Bella things are very different. Parasoul has a wonderful ground dash and her jumping HP (D key on keyboard) is really good against other jumping attacks, but you have to press it early. Double can punish projectile spammers with her car attack (often referred to as the swag wagon, input is a quarter circle toward the opponent -> 2 punches (A, S and D are the punch keys)). Bella is a lot harder, but you can reflect projectiles with the right timing using Diamond Deflector (Right, Down, Down-Right, LP (A key on keyboard)), this also puts the enemy in Stagger unless they manage to block in time, giving you a chance to get in on them and pound them to death. As for Squigly I have no idea as I haven't spent much time using her =_="

Originally posted by Shadoninjayt:

Originally posted by RuRi:

For a squiggly against Peacock, you can use that move which pulls the arena so it's around Squigly, and you can combine that with her super which summons them music balls and which can lock Peacock in place, stopping her from zoning and giving you a chance to setup for a combo.

That's from my experiances anyways.

Center Stage (QCF+MP) [pulls camera towards center of Squigly]
LM Squigly Battle Opera (QCB+LKMK) [Makes music balls]

How do I know when I'm not a beginner anymore?
This is a very iffy question. The general consensus is that when you are winning most of you beginner matches consistently, you're ready to move on. The biggest problem I had with doing this was I didn't want to get all the higher level players bored of winning all the time, as I was going from the top of one pile onto the bottom of another, but you have to remember a lot of people like winning, assuming there is at least a little bit of a fight going on.

(if you want me to add a group to the list then just post a link and description in the comments below)

One of the biggest issues new players face is finding other players on their level. Likewise, when you reach a higher level of play you may struggle to find many people better than you that you can learn things from. Thankfully, there are a few groups that can help you out:

UOTS (Unofficial Official Temporary Skullheart)
http://steamproxy.net/groups/weoatsnow

Skill Level: Any

Pros:

• Get help from some of the high level players
  
• Everyone will do what they can to help if you ask about things
  
• Weekly tournaments
  
• Wide range of skill levels
  
• There are always people in the group chat

Cons:

• Currently primarily consists of EU players (there are a good few from other regions though!)
  
• Group isn't 100% dedicated to Skullgirls, several members play other fighters too
  
• Unsuitable for anyone under the age of 13 really

Skullgirls Salt League
http://steamproxy.net/groups/skullgirlssaltleague

Skill Level: Beginner - Casual

Pros:

• Great for finding matches against fellow beginners
  
• Accepts your salt/frustration
  
• Still growing, will get even better as more players join
  
• Group chat is good chat

Cons:

• Only really for beginners and casual players
  
• Small (for now)

What's the weird letters everyone is using like QCF, s.LK, 6s.HP, DP and stuff?
I'm assuming by this point you are familiar with the controls of the game, such as LK, LP, MK, MP, HK, HP and how to use various special moves. These weird letters are common fighting game notation, they basically make it easier to read and write combos, assuming you understand how it's written. The way people join moves together in this form varies, personally I use '->', but many people use ', ' or just '>'. Here's an example of a basic Filia combo under this notation (with my style because I prefer it):
c.LP -> c.MK -> s.HP -jump> j.LP -> j.LK -> j.MK -> QCB MK -AirDash Cancel> j.HP
Before anyone that knows how to play the game talks about how this is an unoptimised combo for things like Undizzy, its purpose is solely to explain common notation practices. It could also be written (and is actually better to be written) as:
c.LP -> c.MK -> s.HP -jump> j.LP -> j.LK -> j.MK -> MK Airball -AirDash Cancel> j.HP
(Airball is slang for Hairball in the air).

You should already understand what LP, LK, etc. refers to, but perhaps you are confused about the 'c.', 's.' and 'j.' preceding them; the 'c' refers to crouching, the 's' refers to standing and the 'j' refers to jumping, or being in the air while attacking (some people use 'a.' instead). QCB refers to doing a quarter circle backwards, in other words down->downleft->left, likewise QCF is a quarter circle forward. DP, which is the input for moves like Filia's Updo, Cerebella's Cerecopter, Double's Butt-Thrust, Fortune's Fiber Upper, refers to a Dragon Punch input. This comes from Street Fighter, where the input for Ryu and Ken's Shoryuken (which translates to something like Rising Dragon Punch/Fist) is forward->down->downforward. Usually though, people refer to special moves by their names rather than by their input, as this is easier to read.

One more notation type is a little weirder imo, but lots of people still use it for things such as command normals (like pressing forward + HP with Cerebella). This is the use of the numbers between 1 and 9 to specify direction. To show you an obvious example, MK Hairball, which can also be written as QCB MK, can be written as 214MK. To find how this works like at your keyboard's numpad:
7 8 9
4 5 6
1 2 3
If I tell you that 5 refers to not pushing in any direction do you see how this could work? The numbers refer to other directions similar to their positions, so 2 is down, 8 is up, 6 is right, 4 is left, 3 is down-right, 1 is down-left, 9 is up-right and 7 is up-left. Usually in Skullgirls I only ever see this used for thinks like Cerebella's big forward punch (forward + HP) which is written as 6s.HP.

What's an IPS?
So you've heard all about how Skullgirls doesn't have any infinite combos whatsoever, but how does that work? The answer to that is with something called the Infinite Protection System, or IPS for short. The way IPS works is based on 4 things: Chains, Starters, Attacks and Stages. The former 3 are all basic parts of combos, the last one is specific to IPS. When IPS detects a move that was used after stage 2 being used on stage 5 to start a chain you will be allowed to burst. Eventually the attacker will run out of moves and there will be no way to avoid IPS any longer, and so infinite combos do not exist at all.

What's an Undizzy?
A long time ago, on a version of Skullgirls far, far away....
Combos were ridiculous. I mean more ridiculous than they are now. IPS was preventing infinite combos but it most certainly was not keeping people from killing in a single combo. When the game was moving forth to new realms on the PC the lead designer, MikeZ (who is/was also pretty well known in the Blazblue community for playing as Tager in tournaments) decided something needed to be done. He took more inspiration from one of the games Skullgirls initially took a lot of inspiration from and implemented something called Drama (however everyone just calls it Undizzy). The basic gist of it is that if a combo has too many attacks in it, the opponent can burst like with IPS. Essentially, as each hit lands a number somewhere increases, and when it reaches a certain amount the player can burst. When a combo ends the number doesn't go down instantly, this means doing a huge combo, resetting really quickly and then doing another large combo won't work (although it still often does work with 'optimized combos').

What's that green bar under the health bars?
Up until recently Undizzy had been an invisible value, however there's a storm brewing in designer land and more changes to reduce combo length are coming soon. As compensation for this, all the complaints about invisible Undizzy values have been addressed and people have been granted a bar so they can see where this value is at. This means it can both be taken for an attackers advantage as well as a defenders advantage, so make sure you wait until you've been hit once or twice AFTER the sparks before bursting, otherwise you could find yourself in trouble.

I tried bursting on IPS/Undizzy but it didn't hit and they beat me up more :(
Well my friend you have stepped into the world of mind games, the most exhilarating part of the fighting game genre in my opinion. You encountered what is known as a "Burst Bait", at an early intermediate level usually these only work on people who try to mash out a super or press to burst on the first possible hit, they are specially made for the purpose of tricking you into activating you your burst so you can be punished.

Burst Baits are unfair and cheap!
No, they're not. Players that are only just discovering them will usually only have ones that work on if you burst on the first hit, so if you think that's what they're going for you better stop attempting to mash out a super. On the other hand if you just sit there then the opponent is more than likely to stop attacking as they will expect you to burst, however there are some harder ones that can extend the bait up to 7 hits, but you're not likely to encounter one of those unless you're playing in an expert lobby (don't go in those unless you think you're ready or you wanna get beaten up, people aren't going to hold back if you join a lobby titled "Expert") so you don't have to worry for the moment.

Tell me more about IPS.
Last time I talked about this I said:
"When IPS detects a move that was used after stage 2 being used on stage 5 to start a chain you will be allowed to burst. Eventually the attacker will run out of moves and there will be no way to avoid IPS any longer, and so infinite combos do not exist at all."
I'll fully explain this all now:
A chain is most easily described as one bit of your combo, for example with this Filia combo:
c.LP -> c.MK -> s.HP -jump> j.LP -> j.LK -> j.MK -> MK Airball -AirDash Cancel> j.HP
c.LP through to s.HP would be one chain, j.LP through to MK Airball would be another, and j.HP would be the last one. When IPS detects you starting a chain with a move you've already used elsewhere in your combo is lets the opponent burst out of the combo. There are, however, exceptions, and these are based upon the current stage of the IPS. In total there are five:
Stage 1: Any jump-in chain, such as j.HK with Cerebella or j.HP->j.HK with Filia at the start of your combo
Stage 2: The first chain of your combo
Stage 3: The second chain of your combo (usually an air chain, but not always; making use of Filia's c.HP for example takes you to stage 3 before an air combo). If you use a grab you are automatically put in stage 3.
Stage 4: If you add another chain to your stage 3 air combo such as when you airdash and use another chain with Filia you enter stage 4
Stage 5: Everything after stage 4.
In stages 1 and 2 none of your attacks are remembered by IPS, so you can do anything and it won't bite you in the butt later, stage 3 and 4's attacks are remembered, but IPS won't trigger. In stage 5 IPS still remembers your attacks, but if you start a chain with a previously remembered move then IPS will trigger and the opponent can trigger their burst.

Could you fully explain the current (18/11/2013) Undizzy system in full detail?
To explain that date in the title, there is a patch (that you can test out in the Endless Beta) that may hit the main version soon that is changing a few things about Undizzy, but when and if that patch will hit is not yet certain, so I'll explain the current system here. The current cap is at 350, and different types of moves increase the value by different amounts:
Light Attacks (LK and LP): 15
Medium Attacks (MK and HK): 20
Heavy Attacks (HP and HK): 30
Specials: 20
What's interesting about this is how it counters IPS combo optimization. It used to be that you'd just do a chain, then start a loop but for each chain the loop you'd use a different starter (start with HP, then HK, then MP, then MK, then LP, then LK), but if you do that now your Undizzy count skyrockets, meaning simple but long loops like that are not the best option anymore. Undizzy does not start counting until you reach stage 5 of a combo (read the "what's an IPS?" question for more on this) and will not allow the opponent to burst until this point either.

Undizzy quickly decays over time when not in a combo, but it doesn't decay at a constant rate, so it is fairly hard to get it exactly where you want it on a reset, but not impossible to base resets and combos around a range you want it to be in, and not an exact value.

Finally, you can actually check the Undizzy value of your combo in training mode, as well as the current IPS stage (among several other things such as total combo damage) by going onto the pause menu, then into "Training Options" and switching "Attack Data" on, details will be shown in the newly appeared box underneath each character's health bars.

Could you explain the possibly upcoming Undizzy system?
This appends the previous question on Undizzy, so I suggest reading that first as most of those things still apply. The only differences in the potentially upcoming version (which can be tested in beta) is the Undizzy limit now being at 240 instead of 350, it starts counting at stage 3, currently it still only allows bursts at stage 5, and the value decreases faster than it used to, so the focus is generally on shorter combos and more resets, however long(ish) combos are still usable at a cost (either letting your opponent burst or having to get away before you reach the Undizzy cap and give them some breathing room).