What makes someone good/Different classifications

[pwndj00n00b]

So this question has been in my head for a while, but I never bothered posting it. It has recently come to my mind again and I finally feel like typing it out. What exactly makes someone "good"? What makes someone a "n00b"? What exactly makes someone a "Pro"?

All these questions came to my mind the other day when I was smashing with some kids I knew. This kid claims he is so amazing when all he did was pick Ike and spammed his smash attacks. Sure he won, but does the fact of winning some matches mean your good? Does having technical skill mean you are good either? I mean I can tell a difference between a new player vs a veteran player.

Back when I played Melee hardcore I mained Captain Falcon and had technical skill with him and could do everything from dash dancing to multi-moonwalking. This still didn't mean I was good since all I did was beat my friends. Well aside the fact from being sponsored by MLG what exactly makes some one good?

I personally believer there are different classifications of skill and those are:
Tournament Players , Competitive players (people that play competitively), and People that play for fun, each having there own ranking system of Pros, Good people, new players, n00bs, and those that just suck.

Forgive me if this seems jumbled as I just sorta went with my thoughts and put them together in this topic, but please tell me what you think of my logic and tell me what you think on what being "good" means.

 

[J0K3R]

I always saw this kid who played ness at my schools tourney's in melee really good but he never used any at's. He always knew what move best suited the situation, and was really good at shield grabbing.

 

[pwndj00n00b]

Oh another very good point, technical skill does not make someone good, its the ability to comprehend the game and use everything to its max. I play/ed with kids like that as well, they did not believe in technical skill, but manipulated the game and took advantage of every mistake made. In my opinion that is what makes someone good/ pro.

 

[Rhambo]

In my opinion, you are "good" if you can beat intense all-star without continuing. You are pro if you have any sponsers whatsoever... I know my definitions aren't very helpful and are fairly vague, but they are personal definitions that I group brawl players into.

 

[Cookiez]

If you can beat All-Star on intense, then well done, your good at manipulating AI. It has very little bearing on how you do against humans.

Also, people who don't believe in technical skill are pretty much dead cert not pros. You say they take advantage of every mistake, but the fact is that overwhelming technical skill (combined with smart play, of course) will cause more mistakes to be made, and these mistakes to be capitalised upon with much greater efficiancy.

Its quite hard to define "pro" per se.

But this article does it quite well. Warning, it's hell of a long read...

http://www.ukterrorist.com/articles/progaming/

 

[Resident_Smash_Genius]

You're a pro when you've grossed at least $1000 in earnings. lol. (I just like to say that cause I have)

Honestly, I suppose it depends on how old you are, if you actually care about tournaments, if you like items, if your in for the fun....

Good players are everywhere. The ones who know how to play the game, win all the time in their play-groups and can hold their own against better players. N00bs are everywhere too. The ones who sorta jump around and randomly smash buttons. Those are the noobs. Then I'd classify the average player. The guy/girl who knows how to spam and camp well, as well as throw in the occasional combo. The average players will adore brawl. I love brawl but... sometimes it goes against my more competitive melee side.

 

[pwndj00n00b]

What I should have said was does not use all the technical skill, since Aniki did not wavedash in Melee he would be a good example of this. He picked up on people's mistakes and punished them. Sorry if that was very confusing.

 

[ChromeSonic00]

So this question has been in my head for a while, but I never bothered posting it. It has recently come to my mind again and I finally feel like typing it out. What exactly makes someone "good"? What makes someone a "n00b"? What exactly makes someone a "Pro"?

All these questions came to my mind the other day when I was smashing with some kids I knew. This kid claims he is so amazing when all he did was pick Ike and spammed his smash attacks. Sure he won, but does the fact of winning some matches mean your good? Does having technical skill mean you are good either? I mean I can tell a difference between a new player vs a veteran player.

Back when I played Melee hardcore I mained Captain Falcon and had technical skill with him and could do everything from dash dancing to multi-moonwalking. This still didn't mean I was good since all I did was beat my friends. Well aside the fact from being sponsored by MLG what exactly makes some one good?

I personally believer there are different classifications of skill and those are:
Tournament Players , Competitive players (people that play competitively), and People that play for fun, each having there own ranking system of Pros, Good people, new players, n00bs, and those that just suck.

Forgive me if this seems jumbled as I just sorta went with my thoughts and put them together in this topic, but please tell me what you think of my logic and tell me what you think on what being "good" means.

QFT, I totally agree with you. One of my friends beat me and took advantage of every mistake I made, even though I know advanced techs. (I just don't know how to apply them in the situation that is needed of them.)

 

[Paingel]

It's hard to talk about words that lack a discreet definition.

In order to have Good vs. Bad, you have to have a certain standard. Things that meet or exceed this standard are "Good", while things that fail to meet this standard are "Bad". BUT.... This is only true within the context of the given standard.

Now, this standard can be anything I want it to be. If I were to judge everyone on this forum as being "Good" if their name was "Paingel" and "Not Good" if their name was anything else, then I would completely rock the whole forum and no one would be able to measure up to me. *Evil chortle*

Granted, none of that really matters because the standard that I came up with is a load of crap. The only time that person who would use a standard like this is if they were looking for me, in which case it would be "Good" if they found me and "Not Good" if they didn't. It doesn't really mean much of anything.

Now that we've established that it's completely possible to create a totally meaningless standard, it would probably be in the best interest of this discussion for us to come up with a standard that actually has more meaning to it.

Say for instance that we looked at some players who were considered to be "Pro" and then we also looked at some players who were considered to be "Scrubs". A player is either Pro or Not Pro, and a player is either Scrub or Not Scrub. Now, just because a player is Not Pro, that doesn't make them a Scrub. And just because a player is Not Scrub, that doesn't make them a Pro. Therefore, these two categories, while generally considered to be mutually exclusive, are not all-inclusive. So it's better to decide whether or not a person is Pro according to one standard, and decide whether or not a person is Scrub according to another entirely seperate standard.

Going by my own standards, I would say that a person is "Pro" if they have a deep understanding of how the game is played, and they can consistently perform at high levels. Note that I'm rating this according to performance and not win/loss ratio. A Pro playing against other equal-level Pros will have the same win/loss ratio as a Not Pro playing against other Not Pros, so clearly victory and defeat, in of themselves, cannot precisely determine how "Pro" a player is.

So then we measure things like Performance and Knowledge. How well do they use their moves? How well can they predict and avoid their opponents moves? How well can they KO? How deeply do they understand the game? Things like that should be considered when deciding whether or not a person is Pro.

But... this is getting long. Maybe I should just pick a standard and go with it?

Here's how I define the words you've mentioned.
Scrub: Someone who will never admit that they were wrong.

Pro: Someone who was never wrong to begin with.

Noob: Someone who lacks even a basic understanding of the game. (What's a smash attack?)

Good: Someone who has at least a decent understanding of the game. (This is. *KO*)

 

[pwndj00n00b]

It's hard to talk about words that lack a discreet definition.

In order to have Good vs. Bad, you have to have a certain standard. Things that meet or exceed this standard are "Good", while things that fail to meet this standard are "Bad". BUT.... This is only true within the context of the given standard.

Now, this standard can be anything I want it to be. If I were to judge everyone on this forum as being "Good" if their name was "Paingel" and "Not Good" if their name was anything else, then I would completely rock the whole forum and no one would be able to measure up to me. *Evil chortle*

Granted, none of that really matters because the standard that I came up with is a load of crap. The only time that person who would use a standard like this is if they were looking for me, in which case it would be "Good" if they found me and "Not Good" if they didn't. It doesn't really mean much of anything.

Now that we've established that it's completely possible to create a totally meaningless standard, it would probably be in the best interest of this discussion for us to come up with a standard that actually has more meaning to it.

Say for instance that we looked at some players who were considered to be "Pro" and then we also looked at some players who were considered to be "Scrubs". A player is either Pro or Not Pro, and a player is either Scrub or Not Scrub. Now, just because a player is Not Pro, that doesn't make them a Scrub. And just because a player is Not Scrub, that doesn't make them a Pro. Therefore, these two categories, while generally considered to be mutually exclusive, are not all-inclusive. So it's better to decide whether or not a person is Pro according to one standard, and decide whether or not a person is Scrub according to another entirely seperate standard.

Going by my own standards, I would say that a person is "Pro" if they have a deep understanding of how the game is played, and they can consistently perform at high levels. Note that I'm rating this according to performance and not win/loss ratio. A Pro playing against other equal-level Pros will have the same win/loss ratio as a Not Pro playing against other Not Pros, so clearly victory and defeat, in of themselves, cannot precisely determine how "Pro" a player is.

So then we measure things like Performance and Knowledge. How well do they use their moves? How well can they predict and avoid their opponents moves? How well can they KO? How deeply do they understand the game? Things like that should be considered when deciding whether or not a person is Pro.

But... this is getting long. Maybe I should just pick a standard and go with it?

Here's how I define the words you've mentioned.
Scrub: Someone who will never admit that they were wrong.

Pro: Someone who was never wrong to begin with.

Noob: Someone who lacks even a basic understanding of the game. (What's a smash attack?)

Good: Someone who has at least a decent understanding of the game. (This is. *KO*)

Very well said. So by what you are saying everyone could possibly be a pro with their own group of gamers. I would also like to add to your thinking of being able to perform well again and again that knowing how to use tech skill to its full potential goes with this. Let's take Super Wave Dashing in example from melee. Just knowing how to do this did not make you an awesome player, but knowing how and when to use it could. Phanna is a great example of this since he is used it for mindgames, combos, and edge guarding.

 

[[PU] Poison]

What makes someone good is not things like WD or L-Cancel (in Melee), but as some of you said, the ability to exploit the opponent's mistakes at max and to use all your skills, wether they are ATs or just knowing how to spam/camp/smash, appropriately.

 

[Paingel]

Very well said.

Why thank you!

So by what you are saying everyone could possibly be a pro with their own group of gamers.

That's a pretty good point, actually! Since the group could use its own set of standards, then their definition of what "pro" is could change to benefit that group. And as far as that group is concerned, that might be the only thing that matters. Or it might not. It's completely up to them.

I would also like to add to your thinking of being able to perform well again and again that knowing how to use tech skill to its full potential goes with this. Let's take Super Wave Dashing in example from melee. Just knowing how to do this did not make you an awesome player, but knowing how and when to use it could. Phanna is a great example of this since he is used it for mindgames, combos, and edge guarding.

I completely agree! Super Wave Dashing is a move like any other, and like any move it's up to the player to use it that move effectively. To a player who doesn't understand positioning, Wavedashing might not mean much, but to a player who already understands positioning the Wave Dash is a welcome addition to their moveset.

Same with other ATs like L-canceling. To the player who doesn't understand timing or lag, L-canceling might not mean much, but to the player who already understands timing and lag L-canceling is a nice thing to know about.

And there's plenty of people who will make some variance of the following argument.

Given that...
Player A knows about positioning and timing, but not about Wavedashing and L-canceling.
Player B knows about Wavedashing and L-canceling, but not about positioning and timing.

We can conclude that...
Player A will school Player B.

However, while I agree with this argument in spirit, I also have to add the following statements:

Given that...
Player C knows about positioning, timing, wavedashing, and L-canceling.

We can conclude that...
Player C will school Player A
AND
Player C will school Player B

It's better to be like A than to be like B, but to be like C is best of all.

 

[pwndj00n00b]

Anyone have anything else to add?

 

[Infectedpo]

Paingel, you wouldn't happen to be a philosophy buff, would you?
You use logic just like a good philosophy student.

 

[derpinsmash]

in order to be good, you gotta be able to show ya moves! what good is a 360 flying falcon punch if your still facing the wrong direction?

 

[Lazyboy0337]

I think someone that is good if they can finish Boss Battles on Intence without using the heart containers!

But i seriously think it depneds on which group of people are being compaired. Tournament players are "good" if ther win or come close. Just for fun players just say they are "good" if they tried hard, and it showed. Competitive players are in the middle or Tournament and Just for fun players. N00B and Sucky players just say other people are "good" if they do something kinda basic, like 2 K.O.s at the same time

 

[pyro363]

A noob is someone who no madder how much they try they suck at smash with a passion. A good player is someone better than a noob but not great enough to brag at a constant rate. And a pro is the best of the best. He/She will murder you no madder what you do. they also have won many tournaments and can sometimes be well known.

 

[TheJalapeno]

What if you can beat a group of people who are pretty good?

What would that classify as?

...I need to find a local tourney....

 

[shadydentist]

This is why tournaments exist: to qualify 'good'.

In other words, unless you participate in tournaments, it doesn't matter how good you are, because there is nothing to compare it against.