Do you REALLY get better by training...?

[WwwWario]

Ugh... I'm kind of upset right now. Not angry, just a little sad.

Me and my two big brothers played Smash 64 and Melee all the time back in the days. We played it for fun, we had no idea about competitive game, reading, wavedashing, L canceling, hitstun, tiers or anything related to that. We just played for fun, and tried our best and learned the characters we liked. My brothers were always a lot better than me, so eventually, Melee wasn't fun anymore for me because of this. Kind of the same with Brawl, although I was a little better in that game.

With Smash 4 and it's lifetime so far, my two brothers have been out studying some medical stuff, so they haven't been home very often. They're not super-into Smash anymore. Or, they're not nearly as into it or excited for it as I am, though they still think it's a great, great game franchise. From Day 1 Smash 4 came out (the 3DS version), I've been playing, almost every single day, and got the Wii U version as soon as it came out; practicing, learning the new Smash 4 mechanics, learned what's smart and not in different situations compared to previous Smashes, gotten really into competitive Smash (interessted in it), battled with lots of people on Smash Ladder to get better, watched tons of videos, and used mostly 3 characters that I practiced with. All in all, I've played and done a lot to get better and understand the game better. My brothers were only home during holidays, being Christmas, Easter, Winter Holiday, and now Summer, and when they were/are home, they do some battles with me now and then. And they win against me more than I win against them... still, after all this time.

This makes me overall demotivated like heck. I mean, it wasn't long ago that they learned that Air Dodging had landing lag in this game, yet, they are very good. They read well, they punish well, and yet they're almost not into Smash at all anymore. And still they are somehow good. They just play it when they're home sometimes, while I practice, learning to read, learning to punish, learning what's smart, learning to put pressure, practicing - but at what cost? After almost a whole year with Smash 4 now, it feels like we've been playing equally much because of how good they are. Right now, it feels like all practice is a waste. What's the point of trying to improve (and I truly do, and I even felt like I've improved a lot) when you DON'T improve? :\ I'm going to be honest: I'm not a bad player, but I'm definitely not a professional. I'm not one who run into everyone with a Dash attack, or do obvious mistakes all the time. Yet... when I face them, I feel like I haven't improved a bit. This just makes me sad and want to give up, honestly.

 

[CrazyPerson]

I feel that training 1st hurts you but then helps you... hear me out.

I have found then when I am trying to learn a technique a few things happen. 1. I neglect other stuff that works. 2. It is harder to land than the quick smash attacks and such. 3. I rely on a move I can't do...

During that time, I get pwned a lot more than before.

But once I figure it out, and it is more natural, things get a lot better as I have a tool that I didn't before... and it can be integrated in with the rest of the stuff.

But there are a lot of factors... how does one train? CPUs are freaking terrible training partners... either they won't attack or they read controller inputs and air dodge with super human effectiveness making any air game impossible to practice.

If I train against someone who can't punish me, then I develop bad habits.

If I train against someone a billion times better than me I am to busy trying to find the freaking ground to actually attempt anything... and frustration and lack of fun kicks in.

It is difficult to find training methods that isolate what you want to learn on, then allow it to be implemented into what is already known... if anyone figures this out please fill me in.

 

[4DCOMPETE]

I suggest you enter local tournaments on a regular basis... $5 to $10 bucks is not a lot to spend for the amount of training you will get.

I obviously think you need to practice combos (in training mode)... But my suggestion is do not spend more than an hour on a specific combo or string. Then get out there and play as many different people as you can.

 

[Apollyon]

I find a certain quote to fit pretty well here. Have you figured out whether they are playing against your character, or playing against you?

Seriously, The important part is not whether you are improving or training as much as you understand why you keep losing. Yet you have to understand that losing to the same person consistently is not a bad thing. It means that your play-style is either too predictable or poorly thought out.

Are you winning on traded hits? Do you keep falling for the same trick over and over again? Are you being out-spaced constantly? Trying to notice little details in a match will help you tremendously. Of course, the only way to pick up on these things is to play. I would personally recommend tournaments since there you can ask questions during friendlies, and ask for advice in general.

One example: I went to a tournament last year, and stuck with Shiek the entire time. I noticed that in friendlies I would always keep losing to this one guy who played Ness. After talking for a bit with him, I didn't even realize when I was playing him that every single time I jumped, I would always try to land right next to the opponent with a F-air, setting me up for a shield-grab. A bit of practice later and I placed 4th out of 45-50 people.

TL:DR
Try to notice your own flaws in your play-style before you become dejected. Little mistakes that you don't even know you make will often cost you a match. Naturally if your opponent has played against you for a long time, they don't even need to be too good at the game to realize how to punish you.

 

[4DCOMPETE]

Great Advice.... That back to, enter local tournaments..... They are worth it. Don't take them so serious that you cant learn and just as important have fun

 

[HeavyMetalSonic]

Apollyon makes a good point. Some characters can be played favourable in certain ways, For example, Villager, playing keep away is very good for his moveset, given s/he has a lot of projectiles at his disposal. But that doesn't mean you have to play him/her like that.

I have a friend who hasn't been into Smash, but when 4 came out, he decided he'd give it a good shot with me after hyping him up alot about it. He struggled at first, but now he's pretty damn good. I taught him as much as I could, and he took off.

But, the problem is he only really uses one character, Metaknight (He has a thing for taking supposedly bad characters in games and using them well, he likes a challenge and doing the unexpected, and he REFUSES to look up information on him, essentially making up his own mind on how to use a character so he plays different to how people expect, and it works damn well).

The amount of times he's gotten angry because I wipe the floor with him no matter who I use, is unreal. He has done alot of testing on Metaknight, and knows alot of tricks and such... But he has some very bad habits. When he respawns, 90% of the time, he'll teleport straight to me, which I obviously punish...

If I use Mario, he is SO scared of Mario's Fair (I spike him so much he's become scared of it, and I'll psyche him out using it by saying "I'm gonna get ya!" or such when he tries to recover, sometimes forcing him to use Down B to teleport behind me, which I'll anticipate and punish with Mario's Bair). If I'm on the ledge, he'll sit by the ledge and will tornado thinking I'm gonna jump. It worked for a bit... But I picked up on it, now he's totally unsure of it. If he knocked me upwards, he would always try to follow with Shuttle Loop, but I picked up on the timing to air dodge it, which would leave him vulnerable, so he instead switches to tornado as it's safer. He figured out that if he holds tornado on me and I don't dodge out of it, it'll eat my shield and he'll get a free hit... I picked up on having to dodge near the end of it so that it didn't.

It's things like that, that you need to pick up on when someone is using a character that really helps. See how they handle certain situations. Knowing a character helps, but knowing the person also helps ALOT. And I wouldn't say it's so much the training, it's the experience, knowing how to handle certain situations, being put into tough positions time and time again and knowing what will happen if you do option A or B. And sometimes, even throwing out a wild card works, doing things which are unexpected.

 

[iNSANE]

I would be one of the older brothers in your scenario. I have played Smash against my little brother since Smash64 all the way up until now and with my main in either game I'm almost unbeatable for him. He is a good player and so far he beat all of my and his friends that played against him but there is something about his playstyle that I just figured out. For example when he plays his Main Cpt. Falcon.
I played against this falcon for more than 15years or so ofcourse the game has changed from Smash 64 up until Smash 4 but honestly I still feel like I'm playing the same Falcon. I just know what he is gonna do in certain situations, I wouldn't even call it a read because in a lot of cases I just know because he is always doing it. He may not notice it but he has some flaws in his play that I can always exploit, even when I tell him about it they are eventually coming back into his play. His punishgame has gotten better, he makes less mistakes, he reacts faster, he plays smarter but in the end I have simply figured him out.

I think you need to figure out why you are losing or look for flaws in their play. Instead of forcing your playstyle on them maybe just try things out and see what works. If you found something they struggle against expand on that. My little brother always tries to beat me by simply improving his execution and punishgame but that is not the reason why he loses. Against most people he plays just having great execution will be enough but once you played him for hundreds of hours you see flaws that nobody else notices and that is what I exploit. He just tries to beat me, I try to figure him out and in the long run I win because of it.

 

[Deleted member 269706]

The first step to training is to understand how the metagame works. This is easily the HARDEST part of training because it never really ends. And the less you know, the harder it is to play, so starting off can be extremely discouraging. You have to learn how to break bad habits, develop new strategies, understand other players and their strategies, and constantly try new things, keep what works, abandon what doesn't.

 

[AZ_Spellbound]

Training mode is good for working on your execution and tech, but you need to go out and find other real people to play and learn with.

 

[Xandercosm]

Just simply playing works for me. I've played so many freaking matches that I've just beaten skill mercilessly into my brain...

 

[jmjb]

Ugh... I'm kind of upset right now. Not angry, just a little sad.

Me and my two big brothers played Smash 64 and Melee all the time back in the days. We played it for fun, we had no idea about competitive game, reading, wavedashing, L canceling, hitstun, tiers or anything related to that. We just played for fun, and tried our best and learned the characters we liked. My brothers were always a lot better than me, so eventually, Melee wasn't fun anymore for me because of this. Kind of the same with Brawl, although I was a little better in that game.

With Smash 4 and it's lifetime so far, my two brothers have been out studying some medical stuff, so they haven't been home very often. They're not super-into Smash anymore. Or, they're not nearly as into it or excited for it as I am, though they still think it's a great, great game franchise. From Day 1 Smash 4 came out (the 3DS version), I've been playing, almost every single day, and got the Wii U version as soon as it came out; practicing, learning the new Smash 4 mechanics, learned what's smart and not in different situations compared to previous Smashes, gotten really into competitive Smash (interessted in it), battled with lots of people on Smash Ladder to get better, watched tons of videos, and used mostly 3 characters that I practiced with. All in all, I've played and done a lot to get better and understand the game better. My brothers were only home during holidays, being Christmas, Easter, Winter Holiday, and now Summer, and when they were/are home, they do some battles with me now and then. And they win against me more than I win against them... still, after all this time.

This makes me overall demotivated like heck. I mean, it wasn't long ago that they learned that Air Dodging had landing lag in this game, yet, they are very good. They read well, they punish well, and yet they're almost not into Smash at all anymore. And still they are somehow good. They just play it when they're home sometimes, while I practice, learning to read, learning to punish, learning what's smart, learning to put pressure, practicing - but at what cost? After almost a whole year with Smash 4 now, it feels like we've been playing equally much because of how good they are. Right now, it feels like all practice is a waste. What's the point of trying to improve (and I truly do, and I even felt like I've improved a lot) when you DON'T improve? :\ I'm going to be honest: I'm not a bad player, but I'm definitely not a professional. I'm not one who run into everyone with a Dash attack, or do obvious mistakes all the time. Yet... when I face them, I feel like I haven't improved a bit. This just makes me sad and want to give up, honestly.

THANK YOU.. let me shed a manly tear and reach my heart out to you bro.. man I've been playing since 64 with my friends too.. i recently learned all the same stuff you did and have been practicing, watching videos, learning, trying HARD to learn to get good. they don't do any of that, and don't play much these days, and man they still beat me.. it IS demotivating... my heart goes out to you man..

 

[Tricky Shadowe]

Just simply playing works for me. I've played so many freaking matches that I've just beaten skill mercilessly into my brain...

Yeah, that does it for me too. Like if I play by myself, sure, I learn something but when I play with people, it's like you have to utilize the things you were training to do.

But either way, you are not bad. You only go up from here. :D

My grammar sucks. -_-

 

[Lazerith]

Depends on who you are training against. If you are training against someone who is worse than you, you will get worse. If you are training against someone who is better than you or about the same skill level, you will get better.

 

[Tricky Shadowe]

I just saw this Bruce Lee quote but tell me if this is true:

Learning is definitely not mere imitation, nor is it the ability to accumulate and regurgitate fixed knowledge. Learning is a constant process of discovery - a process without end. -Bruce Lee

 

[FrankTheStud]

Save the replays you lost in and rewatch them. Notice patterns that you do often and tricks you fall for, and switch it up. Didn't Einstein say something about fools doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results? Replays are hard trutha about playstyle, both good and bad, and a lot can be learned from them.

 

[Xandercosm]

I just saw this Bruce Lee quote but tell me if this is true:

Dang! That's deep... Wow!

 

[Quarium]

They are your siblings, they most likely know you to a T. My brother who isn't a competitive smash player or plays much and would most likely get owned at tourney still gives me a lot of trouble because he simply knows the way I react to things and my approaches in line with my emotional reactions etc. You can certainly beat them though, coupling technical knowledge of the game with trying to discover what are they predicting so easily about you. I'd say Mix-up playstyle will certainly get them outta place, turn your game around while applying your comp knowledge and you will certainly come out at the top.

 

[JipC]

Then keep trying. Play in locals, play local friendlies, and STUDY VIDEOS. Study top players, study local players, study your own videos. You will definetly improve if you put in more work. Dont just waste time playing a bunch then expect to be way better. You improve that way but really slowly, its a pretty mediocre strategy of improving.
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