It wasn't that long, honestly.
And I really never found it to be a problem in offline, just online. It's like the game's flaws are heavily emphazised, and so are my own. I repeat, I never felt like I struggled against newer players other than online. And to this, you might say, "well if it's only online then why would it bother you?"- and to that, I answer, it's been about 6 whole months of quarantine where I'm pretty much solely confined to playing wifi. At this point, it's somewhat hard to tell whether it's just wifi or if the game is really this bad.
And I really never found it to be a problem in offline, just online. It's like the game's flaws are heavily emphazised, and so are my own. I repeat, I never felt like I struggled against newer players other than online. And to this, you might say, "well if it's only online then why would it bother you?"- and to that, I answer, it's been about 6 whole months of quarantine where I'm pretty much solely confined to playing wifi. At this point, it's somewhat hard to tell whether it's just wifi or if the game is really this bad.
I've played Smash since Brawl, and when Ultimate came out I wanted to get good. The following March I went to my first tournament, and lost badly, but it was a start. In the many months that followed, I didn't really take many breaks from Smash, and when I did, they were short lived and done to improve my mentality. I grinded, labbed, watched tons of YouTube tutorials, played against all sorts of skill levels. I have about 1,300 hours logged into the game. Just recently it has started to pay off in online tournaments. My win rate went way up, I was more prepared for random BS like super armor and fast OOS options and annoying projectiles, and I was winning against people who had stuck around since early Sm4sh days. I finally made top 3, and when my Discord server's PR comes out this week I'm confident that I'll make top ten. There are still those who played Sm4sh that I lose to, but it's generally pretty close. I stayed dedicated to one character and Smash has been my main hobby since the release date. My progress has been a bit slow-I'm no prodigy-but I want to make top 15 nationally before this game dies.
So yeah, that's my story. I don't disagree with your opinon-this game is very much geared towards newer players like I was back in 2018-2019. It doesn't hide that fact, from the buffered short hop to the buffer system in its entirety. And it's a lot different from Sm4sh, from what I've heard, so it's not like veterans will have a seamless transition. It's a double edged sword-by making it more approachable, you make it easier for less experienced players to win-while making the game different and easier to lose in for veteran players.
I don't really have an opinion on the Talent vs Effort debate, I more so just do what's best for me to get better. I won't say "play a lot" because literally no one in the history of the universe has benefited from that advice. I think that, if you are being beaten by new players, most probably have some things in common, like doing a dash attack right after GO! or excessively doing one option (getup attack and techroll out and other stuff). You've obviously played for much longer than I have, so take all this with a grain of salt-and I understand if you don't want my input. What I'm trying to get to here is, there's got to be something holding you back from doing well against these newer players, and the sooner you can figure out what that is, the better. Maybe it's something in you that others are exploiting, or vice versa. Don't take it as an entirely negative thing-Smash Ultimate is a game where anyone can beat you at anytime, and that's part of its beauty. I may not sympathize with your frustration, but I understand where it's coming from. That's all I wanted to say-you don't have to listen to me, I just wanted to get this out there.