Can anyone teach me how to get good?

[Starry.]

..........

 

[zwalk2]

People on here might be able to give you some tips and advice, but it's nothing compared to what you'll be able to do if you just practice on your own.
I've lately noticed an improvement in my skills, simply by constantly doing 1v1 matches against level 9 CPU's, with no items. This Smash is also the first Smash I've tried to be competitive with.

 

[SevenYearItch]

I really love smash bros! but honestly I'm not very good but I really want to be. I've only just got into playing the game competitively and everything that I've learnt is from what I've seen in shofu's videos. I really want to get on a professional level but I'm having a hard time getting better on my own. According to my 3ds my win rate on for glory 1v1 is 52 percent if that means anything >u<

Step 1: Your For Glory win rate means nothing. Mine is like a 56% or something, yet I'm told I play great from people I match up with on here and other forums. Better example: Ken (Liquid's own Ken) has a 22% win rate on For Glory

Step 2: Play people on the forums. Go to your main's sub-forum and challenge people to dittos. See what kill moves they use and how they recover. They might be doing things you have no clue were viable strings.

 

[_Magus_]

Here's a diagnostic you can run:
1) Am I approaching with Dash Attack with any character, for any reason?
2) Am I rolling a lot?
3) Am I being predictable with a certain pattern? (Needles > Dash attack is a pattern I see in bad sheiks a lot.)

If you have any of these bad habits, do your best to try and break them.

 

[many37]

I will tell you what my college Organic Chemistry instructor once told me:

"I am only here to serve as a guide for what you need to learn. You are the best teacher you can find."

...and he was right. When we teach ourselves how to do something and learn from the mistakes we make while doing so, we assimilate the topic at hand way better than with someone teaching you what to do.

Research on the techniques that get posted here and improve by practicing the way you play.

 

[Starry.]

I will tell you what my college Organic Chemistry instructor once told me:

"I am only here to serve as a guide for what you need to learn. You are the best teacher you can find."

...and he was right. When we teach ourselves how to do something and learn from the mistakes we make while doing so, we assimilate the topic at hand way better than with someone teaching you what to do.

Research on the techniques that get posted here and improve by practicing the way you play.

My problem is that I don't know when i'm making mistakes and how I can correct them without someone telling me.

 

[many37]

My problem is that I don't know when i'm making mistakes and how I can correct them without someone telling me.

I'll give you a hint.

Usually, when you are making the same mistake repeatedly, you have an imbalance of how you are approaching the problem. For example, in your case, you cannot see what you are doing wrong when you play and thus are unable to learn from your mistakes. You retry the exact same approach of solving the problem over and over.

Discover what gameplay habits you have by examining what you do the most when you play.

Maybe you short hop too much.
Maybe you roll too much.
Maybe you use Smash attacks too much.
etc...

Once you realize your gaming habits, try to modify them in order to improve. No one in this site can do this for you. This is something you must do yourself.

 

[Starry.]

I got the game on release and i've been playing daily but I don't feel like i'm getting any better. I've never beaten a good player. I try not to spam roll or just spam certain things in general. When I do play against a good player and lose they just leave immediately so I can't practice against them :/

 

[Roukiske]

Honestly the best way to get better is for an experienced player to analyze your play and tell you what you're doing wrong. Either upload your matches for people to watch or find someone to play against who can tell you what you're doing right and wrong. I can't play ATM, but I can watch a video or something I suppose.

Edit: Only because you say you're not sure what you're doing wrong. If you did know what you're doing wrong then constant 1v1 for glory is fine on its own. CPU's only help you if you are very very new to the game and can't beat them. After that you need to practice fighting humans.

 

[Vade]

The best way to get better is to recognize patterns in your play and identify what you do most, it could be you approach with dash attacks too much or you always try for shields grabs and never go for grabs outside of that. It could be anything. Also you need to find what moves are your kill moves, and how to make best use of them. Also try playing with people here on the forums or try getting into the skype group, the players in both these places actually give constructive criticism.

 

[SevenYearItch]

Big issue here is clearly that you're not saving your replays. At the stats screen after the match, hit Y on your DS to save the replay. Then watch this replay. Typically even great players watch their stuff back and can pick out very obvious mistakes they make due to muscle memory and last second reactions. Its helped me A TON

 

[Starry.]

well I saved a video of me getting completely beaten is there a way for me to share it? maybe you guys will be able to tell me how to not suck so much?

 

[victinivcreate1]

well I saved a video of me getting completely beaten is there a way for me to share it? maybe you guys will be able to tell me how to not suck so much?

Bruh, sit down and watch your play and try to pick out what you're going to do. Make sure you haven't watched it a few times before hand. If you can predict anything, you're predictable.

And then upload it on youtube and then ask people here to help you analyze it.

 

[Raijinken]

Bruh, sit down and watch your play and try to pick out what you're going to do. Make sure you haven't watched it a few times before hand. If you can predict anything, you're predictable.

And then upload it on youtube and then ask people here to help you analyze it.

Without some sort of capture device I don't think there's currently a way to just upload replays to Youtube (but I'd love to find out if there is one).

Anyways, as for improvement. Obviously, the best sign that you're doing something wrong is if you lose (even if that something amounts to "I used Character A against B, and Character B counters character A). While it takes time and can be pretty hard to shoot holes in your own playstyle, it helps in general if (for instance, while reviewing a replay, or even better, while playing) you think "Why did I just do that?" and "Why did my enemy do that?"

If you answer either question with "I don't know", try evaluating it. If your enemy did that, there are a few common answers: They're new and don't know better moves, they're predictable, they're a CPU, or because it was the right choice (and led to a kill, positioning, damage, whatever).
If you made a mistake, ask yourself why it was a mistake. If it was just a bad move, don't do it again (harder than it sounds, I guess, but that's how it is). If it was bad timing, try improving the timing. If it was predictable, try a different move. On the other hand, if it was a good move, ask yourself what made it good, and improve on those habits. It's a constant evaluative cycle.

Example: I was playing against a Little Mac yesterday on For Glory. I was Marth, whom I've mained since Melee. My go-to strategy against Mac is normally to shield his almost-inevitable dash attack, and grab. I tried that a few times, and it kept failing (I'd guard, but he'd go through me with the attack). I noticed I would either need to pivot grab out, or find another way to punish his dash attack. I tried the pivot grab, but I'm not very good at those, so those failed and got me punched. Instead, I went for an entirely different option: I countered. Marth's counter scales now, so that was an effective way of launching him away and offstage.

But then after a stock he caught on, and started approaching with a grab. Shields and counters won't help against grabs, so I changed my strategy again. I started rolling backwards (unless he used SideB or dash attack) and punishing with tippers (the spacing was pretty much perfect). It took more reaction timing, but fortunately the lag was low, so I was able to pull it off. Thus, by swapping between those three strategies (shieldgrab, counter, dodge punish) based on split-second decisions, I was able to take advantage of Mac's limited approaching options, and took the match.

In short, constantly evaluate not only your own habits (which you can identify by asking yourself "If he does ___, what would I do?" If you only have one answer, then it's a habit), but also those of your opponent. Smash is mental as much as it is technical, so if you can out-predict your opponent's moves and then have the execution to outplay them, you'll start winning more and more, and playing better and better. It's kinda like playing CPUs - people say they're bad practice because they're predictable, but if you play right, nearly any opponent is predictable.

 

[Ryukutsai]

Best advice I can give based on my own experience is to find someone better than you by a noticeable difference and play them over and over again. While this method can be discouraging it will teach you more than you think and this has worked for me and many of my friends.

By playing a more skilled player you'll notice the things you're doing that aren't working and naturally push out the bad habits. It's helpful if the person you are playing against is analyzing what you're doing as the matches play out.

I started out playing Smash seriously when Brawl came out and I was the only one of my friends without a Wii to play Brawl at my own house. So I was by far the least skilled/knowledgeable of my friends at it made learning hard at first. But I stuck to it playing against them despite the discouragement and used it as my best learning asset.

 

[WolfieXVII ❂]

Make sure not to roll much, I guess. Practice makes perfect also, so you could keep trying with whatever character you are good with. Look at replays to see what you did wrong. Try playing dittos with characters you use to see other techniques and strategies. It's how I learned Pit so fast. Lvl 9 CPUs aren't the best because they just use brute force to win. Skilled players use more tactics and the like.

 

[Starry.]

Best advice I can give based on my own experience is to find someone better than you by a noticeable difference and play them over and over again. While this method can be discouraging it will teach you more than you think and this has worked for me and many of my friends.

By playing a more skilled player you'll notice the things you're doing that aren't working and naturally push out the bad habits. It's helpful if the person you are playing against is analyzing what you're doing as the matches play out.

I don't really know who skilled players are. I would love to play against them to practice though. Although I doubt people would want to waste time playing against a bad player like myself >,<

I have a hard time beating characters with projectiles. Mainly link, toon link, bowser jr and duck hunt. also little mac can be annoying sometimes but it depends on the player.

 

[Raijinken]

I don't really know who skilled players are. I would love to play against them to practice though. Although I doubt people would want to waste time playing against a bad player like myself >,<

I have a hard time beating characters with projectiles. Mainly link, toon link, bowser jr and duck hunt. also little mac can be annoying sometimes but it depends on the player.

Sometimes it can help to play a character strong against that type of play, and then learn how to adapt that to other characters. Characters with reflectors (Fox, Falco, Palutena, Mario, Doc, ROB, Villager) are pretty good against projectile users, so maybe try using them a bit. Once you get used to that, and learn the patterns of the projectiles, try figuring out how to best dodge them as your character of choice. Going by your avatar block, you play Zamus: Use her own projectile, which is fairly quick to fire and even has some bonus stun on it. Try just jumping over the projectiles (works against all but skilled Duck Hunt and Tink players, since they can angle their shots well). Once you've cleared it, you can probably DownB onto the enemy's head to punish them (for that matter, if you're close enough to begin with, DownB might work for the dodge, too).

 

[CCTANK93]

I don't really know who skilled players are. I would love to play against them to practice though. Although I doubt people would want to waste time playing against a bad player like myself >,<

I have a hard time beating characters with projectiles. Mainly link, toon link, bowser jr and duck hunt. also little mac can be annoying sometimes but it depends on the player.

You could add me if you want. I'm always up for sparring. Im a pretty good player and I think playing me might help since I like to use a lot of different characters too. You can ask for any character to practice against and I'll play it. I'm a Lucina main though so you'd see me playing her a lot

 

[Wintropy]

Robert Frost made a distinction between working for the sake of doing something and working for the sake of achieving something.

The former, he said, is like hitting a ball against a wall without paying attention or concern to it: you're doing something, but you're not understanding anything new or refining the craft at all.

The latter, on the other hand, is like hitting a ball against a wall and thinking about how you'll hit it better and quicker next time: you're doing something and you're reflecting on how and why you do it so you can improve in future.

If you're going to play a lot of opponents because that's what you believe will make you better, I'm sorry to say, but you won't achieve much in the long run. You will always gradually improve, but you won't be aware of what you need to improve and how you know that you've achieved that. It's important to remember that there is no fast track to instant promotion here: you have to reflect on what you're doing and do it with the mentality that "I will improve by doing this".

Remember that the game is also meant to be fun. If at any point it ceases to be that and becomes a burden, stop and walk away. Cool down for a while. You don't step off the running track and immediately head off to the Olympics; you don't pen your first academic assignment and apply to be keynote speaker at a major teaching conference. You need to set realistic goals for yourself and enjoy doing it, otherwise you'll just be whacking the ball against the wall and wondering why you aren't doing something else.

tl;dr - If you're going to whack the ball against the wall, at least be aware of why you're doing it and try to be the best wall-whacker you can be.

 

[LIQUID12A]

There's no true pathway to getting good. User guides, small tips and questions do help, but the only way to truly improve is to try and try again. Fail at times, but don't stop. Win and improve on your successes.

This tide gets you down
But swim up now, refuse to drown
There's so much to learn
You just got to wait your turn

-Every Time You Look Around, Miracle Of Sound

 

[Starry.]

Thanks everyone for your help. I feel like through the duration of a day I made some decent progress. I actually managed to get used to having Tap Jump turned off (though I still SD every now and again lol) even though I thought it was impossible at first.

I'll just keep watching shofu's Smash Bros. videos and reading guides on the characters I play as and hopefully I'll be able to improve further.