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Mind Over Meta #25 - Adaptation

LiteralGrill

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Mind Over Meta is a weekly series of articles on /r/SSBPM, the Project M subreddit. Written by several different authors, this series covers many of the mental aspects of playing smash and other subjects related specifically to Project M. This week user orangegluon wrote about adaptation. The original article can be found here, and to read the rest of the series check out the Mind Over Meta Archive. Sit down, read, and enjoy.

---​

Do the Darwin

When animals evolve, they generally change form and behavior over successive generations through natural selection in ways that better suit the challenges of their environment, as detailed in the theories of Charles Darwin. Since this occurs through multiple parent-offspring cycles, depending on the organism, it can take years or centuries to adapt to a new environment.

But an average match in Project M lasts less than half an hour, so we don’t have that kind of time for your kids’ kids to improve and win these tournament matches. So we’re going to adapt more immediately, like a mimic octopus, which changes color and shape according to its environment on-the-fly.

There are a lot of scenarios you’ll face, and since you can’t preemptively combat all of them, you need creativity and wit to adapt to new or unusual challenges. Maybe someone uses a character in tournament you’ve never fought against, or a bizarre but powerful strategy. It’s tough to define exactly how to adapt. Adaptation is partly experience and partly ingenuity. However, there are some key steps you can take toward adjusting your game to counter someone else’s. I’d like to walk through a few of possible steps to see if it helps your game.
S.L.A.N.T

When I was in 9th grade, I had an old English teacher whose grading scheme was often harsh and stringent. Many peers would complain about her, and she wasn’t popular among my friends. I don’t know how I passed her class.

But one thing I took away, which has stuck with me in the back of my mind over the years, is that she taught us to pay attention. “Everyone always says, ‘PAY ATTENTION!’ But by the time you’re in high school, no one has ever actually taught you how to. Well, today, I’m going to.”

Paying attention is the very first, and probably most important, step in adaptation. If you’re merely going in on autopilot, then by definition of autopilot, you cannot possibly adapt. My first advice is to avoid autopiloting, so that you don’t realize too late that you have to adjust your gameplan, when you’re down two stocks and wondering why your usual strategy has failed. If you aren’t attentive, you miss every clue as to how you might overcome a difficult challenge, so you are destined to fail.

When my English teacher taught us to pay attention, she was explaining how to learn in a classroom. But I’ve found that the same advice can help marvelously for learning in front of a CRT as well. The key is to SLANT:
  • Sit up. Posture is important in absorbing what’s going on. Standing, a la Liquid’Hungrybox, works too, but the point is to maintain position in a comfortable way that facilitates focus and eliminates the effects of external distractions like aches or noises.

  • Lean forward. You only need to lean slightly. Leaning means that your entire body is pointing toward the TV, and you are therefore focusing your attention in that direction, to the characters on the screen. Sitting up and leaning also keeps you from slouching; when you slouch, you are telling yourself that you will be lazy, and sitting up will help avoid that, and put yourself in a positive mental state.

  • Ask questions. How are you playing? Is it working? Are your aerial approaches effective every time? What’s happening as a result? Are those DACUSes missing because you misspaced them, or because the opponent is avoiding it? What is the opponent doing to get that grab on you? Are you getting consistently mindgamed? These are all examples of questions that not only keep you tuned into the game, but also help you reflect in real time what has been happening so you can avoid repeating mistakes and continue innovating when strategies don’t work.

  • Nod yes and no. That means, don’t just ask questions, answer them! Asking questions alone doesn’t help unless you affirm the answers correctly and adjust your movement, spacing, combos, edgeguards, neutral game, and everything else accordingly. If those DACUSes aren’t working, don’t use them or only use them as a surprise. Figure out whether those grabs are because you aren’t watching your microspacing or if it’s because you keep hitting shields repeatedly. Nodding also means confirming good things you or the opponent do, when you get a good KO or the opponent does. Do it physically. Yes, nod at the screen. It gives physical reaffirmation of what you’re thinking, and it also helps reset your mentality after you have been KO’d. Nodding means that you are ready to give the next stock another shot, and that you aren’t dwelling on past mistakes in a negative way, instead using them to improve the next stock by learning from them. PPMD is one of my favorite players who does this. By nodding, you are telling yourself “OK, that was fine. Let’s keep going.” Maybe you shouldn’t have jumped offstage to get yourself spiked. OK, I’ll watch out for that again. Or maybe you nailed that Wolf Flash onto the platform for an early kill. OK. Try and get more of those. Nodding gives you this dialogue with yourself to keep you engaged and refreshed every time you need a clean mental slate.
  • Talk with teachers. I don’t mean to literally consult people, especially not mid-match. I mean that as you adapt, look for patterns you have seen before. This Samus’s missile pressure looks an awful lot like Bobby McFriend’s projectile game with Link. I wonder if I can attack the situation similarly? This Lucas is using his magnet as a really strange poke, a lot like Roy’s tilts, so maybe could I capitalize on punishing it similarly? Asking things like “what have I learned about this before” really helps to put strange, nuanced opponent playstyles into a familiar context, where you aren’t so thrown off by surprise and can gain some solid ground. Adaptation, as I said, is partly experience and partly ingenuity; drawing from your mental database of past games is a powerful asset. (Be careful not to entirely remove yourself from the match this way; a good time to reflect on past matches is when you’re on the respawn platform, or in between games, but generally not mid-combo, lest you lose focus)
SLANT may not work as a method of paying attention for you, but it’s a possible approach to focusing and adapting that has helped me here and there. Whether or not SLANT works, though, the point is that paying attention to the game is the first (and often a deceptively hard!) step in adaptation during a match, and it’s therefore crucially important for you to learn how to pay attention, even if no one has taught you before.
Three Quarters and a Dime

Paying attention only gives you input into your inner Smash machine. Output doesn’t happen until you make some adjustment to your game, whether that be anything from “stop spotdodging” to “wait an extra split second during your chaingrab-into-combo-into-techchase to nail the reads.”

Changing game plan mid-game can be scary. If things aren’t working, you can feel desperate or hopeless, and that bogs down your clarity and ability to adapt. So the first step in making changes is to stay calm, always.

Since there are so many parts of a strategy that can be adjusted, it’s hard to discuss in any detail any specifics of what you can adapt parts of your game. A few very general examples might be to simplify your game (don’t go for crazy edgeguards, just do the easy thing and grab ledge cleanly), or to be more aggressive (apply more pressure, since the opponent tends not to punish) or play defensively (you keep getting hit when you try for rushdown combos, so why not be patient and go for more stray hits?). Anyone can adapt, it’s just a matter of mentally preparing yourself to shift gears, and then actually shifting gears.

Altering your play style often feels really uncomfortable. I always feel awkward, every time, but that’s from not being flexible often enough. It pays off when I can do it right. I once played against an extremely campy, non-technical Kirby in a tournament. My approaches as Roy weren’t working, because I was being continually baited and punished when the opponent would roll and then grab, or smash. Stupid things because I was playing overly aggressive and getting frustrated. After I lost a game, I switched to a new character and decided I would just throw projectiles as Game and Watch while spamming tilts to put up a wall of damage. I have to say, it felt awful. But by focusing on a new gameplan and following through on it, even such a simple and dumb plan, I found more success. Sure, I ran the timer down really low, and sure, the game looked very stupid to spectators, but I made an adjustment and stuck to it when I saw it worked, and I won out as a result. It might not have been an optimal plan, but it worked just fine for the time.

But this plan only worked because my opponent refused to adapt, which brings up an important point. In a match, both players should be trying to outpace each other. You should expect your strategies’ effects to wear off throughout the match as a good opponent learns and adapts his own playstyle to counter yours. When you become more defensive, the opponent might as well, and elect to chip percents instead of rush down. Or if you become more aggressive, the opponent might shield more. This feels frustrating unless you are ready to re-adapt. And then you can expect your opponent to adjust his own playstyle in reaction to yours, and continually try and outsmart the other player.

This is the real dynamic of Smash, in this ongoing struggle to keep one step ahead. It’s the soul of almost any competitive game, a battle of wit and technique. In Smash, you’ll often see adaptation decide the outcome of matches, especially at the highest level. As an example, Mew2king, one of the kings of Super Smash Brothers, is known for his ability to adapt to players’ playstyles over time. With a proper mentality, he can take a losing position and slowly download the opponent, study the opponent’s subtle habits, and come out on top by making subtle adjustments here and there. This iconic set between Mew2king and Neon certainly exemplifies this skill. Mew2king notes this himself in this clip from the post-game interview. By using character choice and careful observation, he snatched victory from a very close and intense set.

On the other hand, Mew2king’s adaptation skills are limited by his psychological state, which leads to varying success
against different players. These matches emphasize the importance of mental position and determination on the ability to adapt. Had Mew2king had a different mindset, perhaps he would have been more flexible and made the changes needed.

In a game as dynamic as Smash, being prepared to make these changes as you play is the dividing line between wins and losses. But what about making changes outside of play? What about adapting when the environment of the entire game shifts?
Buried in Patch Notes

Every patch, players are furious. It’s the nature of the game. When your character is nerfed, what can you do but feel hurt? There’s nothing else to be done. Just get mad, right?

Wrong. Adaptation is one of a Smasher’s most important skills, and in Project M that extends to adapting to changing metagames.

The first step to adapting to new updates is approaching change with a positive outlook. When you’re upset about patch notes, you are more likely to just complain instead of adjust. As far as tournaments are concerned, whether nerfs are deserved or not doesn’t affect results. You don’t get bonus points because Squirtle deserves the side-B-turnaround he doesn’t have. You only get points for winning.

Squirtle is actually a good case-in-point for adaptation. Withdraw was widely booed by all but Squirtle mains in 3.0. After it was changed, Squirtle players were heartbroken. I remember the confusion and disappointment that day. But what happened afterward? Squirtle players learned and adapted They understood why changes were made. And they are staying positive.

The players succeeding with Squirtle are the ones that came to embrace changes and utilize the character to the fullest. I think the same could be said of any character.

With nerfs to many popular characters in 3.6, including Fox and Lucario, some have opted to react with disgust and frustration. Others have taken it as an opportunity to adapt and learn, like this local Zelda player:

At first I was a little annoyed about the change to the onstage snap, but after about half an hour of practice I see that it's not a big deal. I should have it about 90% consistent within a week or two of concerted practice.

Some have been forced to even change characters. Change is the nature of life, and we all react our own ways. But I expect to see improving results from players who tackle updates head-on with an optimistic attitude and strive to solidify fundamentals as they explore their characters.

However the update affected your play, I encourage everyone to take the changes in stride and improve your game while adjusting to the update.

Adapting is so broad, it’s hard to accurately describe how to do it. PG | ESAM put it this way in an AMA:

"The more experience you get the better you get at noticing habits. It just comes with time, there isn't a trick...besides [watching the opponent and adjusting]." - ESAM

You just kind of learn how to adjust over time. The same applies to Street Fighter, Mario Kart, and everything in life. But without proper adaptation skills, one thing is for sure: your progress in Smash will hit a hard ceiling.

While it’s a tough skill to learn, I hope this MoM has helped you learn to improve your adaptation ability in Smash. We’ll see you next week with a new MoM.

---​

SmashCapps hoped this was as enjoyable to read for others as it was for him and that it will help players improve their game. To keep up with his own writing adventures follow him on Twitter.
 

TheBlueSpirit

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Oh my god SLANT is actually something my middle school math teacher was all about last year. I can apply that to smash now? Sweet.
 

busken

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Probably one of the least talked about elements in improving your game. This is a must read for rookies and anybody feeling they've hit a plateau.
 

Phoenix502

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Probably one of the least talked about elements in improving your game. This is a must read for rookies and anybody feeling they've hit a plateau.
I second this opinion, almost one of the biggest problems I have entering Smash 4 tournaments is that a lot of people spout stuff like "BS", "That's just stupid", or "*So-and-so* so OP" ... whereas having fiddled around with the game, I've gained some degree of insight on how to figure out most opponents.

the local scene I go to is Project M preferred, and there's this Olimar player who more or less dominates a good chunk of us. the situation's not that different from being thrashed in Smash 4, and yet I don't hear those complaints. I get salty from being dominated as well, but my statement is "What's the trick to this guy?"
 

badangadang

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I second this opinion, almost one of the biggest problems I have entering Smash 4 tournaments is that a lot of people spout stuff like "BS", "That's just stupid", or "*So-and-so* so OP" ... whereas having fiddled around with the game, I've gained some degree of insight on how to figure out most opponents.

the local scene I go to is Project M preferred, and there's this Olimar player who more or less dominates a good chunk of us. the situation's not that different from being thrashed in Smash 4, and yet I don't hear those complaints. I get salty from being dominated as well, but my statement is "What's the trick to this guy?"
It's a lot easier to assume that rules or factors outside your control are responsible for your loss. Because the zeroth step in adaptation is being willing to adapt, these kinds of assumptions are counterproductive to growth. Something as simple as mindset can really alter a match's outcome entirely, and I think it really was responsible for Ally's win in PM over Mew2king. Mew2king allegedly complained about Ike afterward, meaning, if this was true, he likely was thinking the same during the match, which could well have closed off the possibility of adapting to Ally's play.

Being salty about characters is one thing and it happens to everyone, but you should understand that this is a game with many viable strategies. I failed to adapt once to a match where a Pit spammed arrows across Final Destination in between ledgehops and U-smashed any time I got close. I was really upset; what a stupid strategy, it's degenerate and low skill and terrible. But I got beaten by that strategy; it was me who was even worse than that strategy, so I've tried over time to develop counter strategies to those kinds of spam tactics. I don't know if it works, but I think that I'll be better prepared in future.

For your frustrated peers in Smash 4... This https://www.reddit.com/r/SSBPM/comments/2rcm6a/mind_over_meta_7_of_smash_and_salt/ might be of interest.
 

badangadang

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All we need now is a mom about mindgames, then all of my questions will have been answered.
I've wanted someone on MoM to do one for a while, but it's hard to compile thoughts on such a broad topic and it relies a lot on concepts like movement and adaptation, as well as others. Now that we have covered more topics we can refer back to, I think we could potentially do an MoM on mindgames in the near future, although it'd still need some incubation for the time being.
 

ForTheLulz

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My brother plays like 12 characters.

I've told myself unless I can 3 stock each one of them 12 games in a row, I'm not good enough at reads.

Even though he's terrible, I lose to him. Lots. He uses wiimote. Shuns any advanced tech.

But I've stopped complaining. It's a learning opportunity for me.
 

Phoenix502

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[...]

Being salty about characters is one thing and it happens to everyone, but you should understand that this is a game with many viable strategies. I failed to adapt once to a match where a Pit spammed arrows across Final Destination in between ledgehops and U-smashed any time I got close. I was really upset; what a stupid strategy, it's degenerate and low skill and terrible. But I got beaten by that strategy; it was me who was even worse than that strategy, so I've tried over time to develop counter strategies to those kinds of spam tactics. I don't know if it works, but I think that I'll be better prepared in future.

[...]
I guess I'll ask your opinion about this: you're playing an opponent that uses a strategy that, to you, feels so simple it's "stupid" that you fell for it. how easy do you think it is to brainstorm a counter when you're not in the calm frame of mind?

lately, when it happens to me, I find I have to grit my teeth to keep from going wild with Smash attacks... and it feels like, in some part, like the rest of me has trouble keeping up with what's going through my head. I dunno if this happens to everyone, but when I step back later and think about it, it's a surreal feeling...
 

waygu

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I guess I'll ask your opinion about this: you're playing an opponent that uses a strategy that, to you, feels so simple it's "stupid" that you fell for it. how easy do you think it is to brainstorm a counter when you're not in the calm frame of mind?

lately, when it happens to me, I find I have to grit my teeth to keep from going wild with Smash attacks... and it feels like, in some part, like the rest of me has trouble keeping up with what's going through my head. I dunno if this happens to everyone, but when I step back later and think about it, it's a surreal feeling...
this is what we all endearingly call auto-pilot. mindstate plays a big role in controlling it, especially before you get upset.

try to do the s.l.a.n.t., deep breathing, music, whatever helps get out of that emotional illogical smash attack area of the brain.
this is also where practice comes in: if youre rewarded for going into smash mode, your brain will consider it a winning strategy and it gets added to the auto-pilot move pool. you can *adapt* to this by getting to that auto-pilot zone and practicing things/tech to help you then, like dash dancing for stage control or shield stops to take some stage.
 

badangadang

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I guess I'll ask your opinion about this: you're playing an opponent that uses a strategy that, to you, feels so simple it's "stupid" that you fell for it. how easy do you think it is to brainstorm a counter when you're not in the calm frame of mind?

lately, when it happens to me, I find I have to grit my teeth to keep from going wild with Smash attacks... and it feels like, in some part, like the rest of me has trouble keeping up with what's going through my head. I dunno if this happens to everyone, but when I step back later and think about it, it's a surreal feeling...
Like I said, I've experienced that before with that Pit example. I have also lost to a very non-technical friend who abused Dedede's grab->edgeguard game and 3-stocked me.

If people are beating you with really dumb things, first step is not to get frustrated, because that changes your mindset to do the same things you're already doing which aren't working, but even less carefully. If they're doing something really stupid, it means that the player is exploiting some aspect of the character or stage or another. You need to lock onto what that is, and that takes full attention.

Next you need to think about why it's working. Are you stupidly running in, or too afraid to punish a vulnerability? Not dash-dancing enough? Getting baited to do dumb things?

Then you gotta fix it. Usually people who rely on low-level/degenerate tactics are susceptible to baiting, so if you can make them do what they've been doing, have it miss (wavedash back, dashdance fairly out of range), and then punish (grab, quick tilt, etc) then you could eke out an advantage.

The thing to remember, though, is that you are NOT playing your typical game. You are improvising and it's really uncomfortable, but it's what you have to do. Focusing on just winning out stray hits is helpful; if the other guy is playing for individual damage points, you should too and beat them. If they're not that high level players, focus on edgeguards; get them out there, and since they often don't know how to recovery safely, figure out how to hit them back out again. The idea here is patience in every regard, because when you tell yourself to be patient, you are making yourself observant (because what else is there to do while waiting except watch the other player?). If they're relying on weird/dumb tactics, they probably aren't going to be that fast a player.

I've thought of doing an MoM on this exact topic before but I haven't fleshed out the ideas that well yet and it's a rather specific topic to cover.
 
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Phoenix502

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Like I said, I've experienced that before with that Pit example.

[...]

The thing to remember, though, is that you are NOT playing your typical game. You are improvising and it's really uncomfortable, but it's what you have to do. [...] The idea here is patience in every regard, because when you tell yourself to be patient, you are making yourself observant (because what else is there to do while waiting except watch the other player?). If they're relying on weird/dumb tactics, they probably aren't going to be that fast a player.
perhaps if I can suggest the topic, it would be discussion on "Improvising and the comfort zone"

It certainly seems like most of my problems stems from venturing out of what I've grown very used to for years. even though I started competition with Brawl, I was a Sonic main and wasn't very keen on sitting somewhere and setting up an obstacle course of prejectiles, it felt more satisfying to be up close and personal, but with Sonic's speed, I felt I could afford to make mistakes, because most fighters couldn't easily punish him initially.

my first real venture into the more in-depth levels of Smash was through Project M, and I still took preference to fast fighters who were relatively easy to use, like Pit and Sonic... over time, I decided to try out other things, and grew to maining ZSS and Charizard as well.

now that I'm in Smash 4, ZSS and Pit play much differently... but because I still preferred mobility with my offense, I eventually picked up Ike in PM and still main him to this day. however, now that I've grown used to fighters like Robin, I can wrap around the idea that mobility is not the end-all, beat-all in my style, it's covering options. I still main Ike and Charizard in PM, and I have a variety for Smash 4. but looking back... it realy does feel like I've evolved a lot because I ventured into unfamiliar territory.
 

Lysozy

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I'm definitely bookmarking this! A lot of new players or rather most of the new players in this community auto pilot in this meta. Question, what would be the first thing to think about when you're playing a match? What are my opponents habits? How does my opponent move? Who's going to adapt faster in this match up? Questions I still ask my self whenever I'm in a Major tournament.
 

waygu

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I'm definitely bookmarking this! A lot of new players or rather most of the new players in this community auto pilot in this meta. Question, what would be the first thing to think about when you're playing a match? What are my opponents habits? How does my opponent move? Who's going to adapt faster in this match up? Questions I still ask my self whenever I'm in a Major tournament.
if youre able to think at that level on the fly kudos to you.
my brain would break it down into more bite-sized thoughts that fit under those categories, but whatever works for you ;)

i think of what are their objectives currently, what di do they want me to have & whats their string end in etc as well as throwing out tests to them. ex: fox/falco down throw. if they dont tech it even or they always roll right then you gotta test em and see if theyre on autopilot
 
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