A re-assessment of my goals for Brawl

[NintendoMan07]

Link to original post: [drupal=738]A re-assessment of my goals for Brawl[/drupal]



I purchased Brawl back in March and I feel that... I've lost sight of just WHY I thought the game was worth my $50. Just what I had hoped to achieve with Brawl in my possession.

First, I really don't want Melee vs. Brawl in the comments. Nor do I want Melee recruits coming here to argue just what I need. Save it for some other lost soul, please.

Not in any order, some of my most important goals for Brawl:

1. Understand the art of competition - not met
2. Enjoy SSE and the one-player experience - met
3. Become a more outgoing person - not met
4. Fight competently - not met
5. Improve skill - not met
6. Be able to leave a match, regardless of win or lose, and say "well, at least I didn't embarrass myself in someway or another" - not met
7. Find a main - not met
8. Have fun - questioning
9. Win a match that counts - not met
10. Become a contributing member of a Smash community - questioning

Now, my evaluation of my progress toward them:

1. This... I am far from reaching. This is probably my biggest roadblock of all, I think, is that I don't understand just how to adopt a mindset in such a way that I don't have to sacrifice just WHO I AM for it. I did this for my high school band class, in a way. I remember the band director saying to "leave the personal problems at the door". Yet... I can't seem to overcome this for Brawl. It's probably because with band I didn't know the competitors, I guess. Or that I didn't care. Or it may have been because I was with a group, that my contribution to the group didn't cause the direct demise or success of the group. I was always a "do my best" kind of guy. But... Brawl is completely different from this. It's not a "do your best" thing. It's not "Ok, I score A points, and you score B points, and we'll see who's the better at this", it's more like "I'll do this while sabotaging your ability to do the same." And I don't have a problem with that as a principle, it's just... well, it's not in my natural realm. I've always been a 1P person, a person that engages in indirect competition. So my question to myself and others is... how DO I "leave the personal problems at the door" while at the same time being myself?

2. Nothing to say here... actually, 1P stuff still helps me in a sense to get away from the stress of meeting the other goals.

3. I guess this hasn't happened because of #1. I've gotten to this point where I'm suffering from self-confidence and self-motivation issues. And without resolving those, I'm not gonna be doing well in Brawl, nor in real life in general.

4. I don't think there's a match I've had even with the comp where I haven't pulled a stupid stunt. The majority of the time it's just that I'm plain too slow and whiff attacks. Other gaffes include numerous SDs due to silly moves, or in certain cases taking damage from my own moves. So... this is part of the reason I don't fight people... I just feel more comfortable knowing that I've saved them facepalm moment after facepalm moment. So yeah, this goal's in progress.

5. This is tied to all the previous goals. Like I said, #1's my biggest roadblock to this one now.

6. The accomplishment of this goal... will without a doubt be the turning point of my Smash career. Out of the 10 or so losses I've had online and other matches I've had offline, this became a big issue to me. Losing isn't near as bad as losing stupid. And I've lost all those matches stupid. And so... it comes back to the "try my best" mentality. If only I could find this mentality again for Smash, I think I'd be set for life.

7. This is tiny compared to the others. I've got a lead on Toon Link and ZSS, but I'm for some reason not ready to declare them mains yet.

8. This... could be a no in some cases and a yes in others. Sirlin seems to think I can only say yes to this after I've improved significantly. But I can't say that I've had a Smash career devoid of fun either. I just hope Sirlin is right in the end...

9. Yeah, I feel I can't accomplish this until I've accomplished #4 and #5.

10. Again, a minor tiny goal. And I don't want contribute in an awesome way or anything... I just like to be helpful. Of course, I can't be helpful if I don't help myself.

So... suggestions would be very helpful. Especially on those goals I've placed that would be groundbreaking to me.

 

[Daedatheus]

If you're not having fun, you should quit now. I'm serious. If it's not fun for you, there's no point, and improving will be more difficult.

I have tons of fun whether I win or lose, and even when I practice techs in any of the 3 smash games, I can have fun doing it because the reward of pulling off something successfully after all the effort is huge.

I even face my friends 1v2 in Smash64, where the odds are against me, and it is WAY more fun to me than winning all the time. They think I'm crazy when I say "let's do that again!" Sometimes I eventually win, other times I may not.

Having fun is not all about being good. It has to do with enjoying a challenge, learning, and simply wanting to play smash, which is impossible to explain (like anything else, it is often impossible to explain why you enjoy certain hobbies). However, that's not to say that being good has no effect on your enjoyment. The better you get, you tend to have a lot more fun, no doubt.

But if you're not having fun right now, why do you still care about playing? If you're playing for money, you're playing for the wrong reasons - unless you're an ex-Melee pro who wants to make some cash with your pre-existing skills to carry over.

As for choosing a main - whoever you play as most and/or are best with is your main. That's it. You don't have to "declare" a main or anything. Just play with who you want, improve with who you want. But if you want to get good, you NEED to focus on a small amount of characters at first. Just starting out, focus on one, as you get better, try 2 or 3. Learn the matchups and important stuff about other characters, and learn how to play your main(s) well. Also fool around with other characters every now and then, it's fun and you will learn a bit more about those characters, which helps when you face them with your main(s).

As for understanding the art of competition - this was one I had to take on, too. I hate the negative idea of competition, where people are boasting, talking ****, and measuring themselves by their wins and losses. Lots of people do this, but THAT is not what competition is about. If competition is an art they are reducing it to something less. Real competitors respect skill and good sportsmanship. When a match is won or lost, they shake hands. The art of competition requires that the competitors be mature, and able to understand that a win or loss in a game means nothing more than that - a win or loss in a game. Emotional detachment is a good way to help yourself win, and to accept losses. You can then use those losses as motivation to improve and to respect the skill of your opponent, and use the wins to reinforce the efficacy of tactics you might have been using in a certain matchup. Anyone who rubs their victories in your face, and means it, without humour, in my opinion should be shot. Nothing is worse than someone thinking they are better than you because they beat you in a videogame. It means nothing to the quality of character of either competitor, and is a big dumb macho attitude, no different than in any game or sport where people talk sh-t or act like douchebags.

As for #5, improving your skill - understanding the "art of competition", as you put it, is by no means a prerequisite to improving at the game. You can be a totally casual player who plays for fun and isn't really interested in mastering characters or winning all the time, but enjoys winning, so they learn some new things and implement them, and slowly improve their skill. You don't have to deal with competition in order to improve, but the purpose of improvement in Smash is generally to make yourself better able to handle competition, so once again ask yourself "are you having fun?" and "Why do I care about improving, and does competition even interest me?"

I hope I've helped you out.

 

[NintendoMan07]

First, NONE of my goals talk about money, and by extension, I really don't care about the money. You're right, fun is important to me. I... just find there's a balance that has to happen. Fun vs. Skill.

Sure, right now I could just turn on lots of items and comps and play that way and ignore everything that's going on around me like I did with Melee... but I'm sacrificing one of my more important goals: understanding competition and building a competitive nature.

 

[Daedatheus]

Sure, right now I could just turn on lots of items and comps and play that way and ignore everything that's going on around me like I did with Melee... but I'm sacrificing one of my more important goals: understanding competition and building a competitive nature.

You're still not getting it. If the game isn't fun for you, there's no point playing. Competition doesn't mean "no fun". Competing is fun to do, improving one's skill is fun to do, etc. Just because you compete doesn't mean you're all of a sudden going to stop enjoying the game, until you start winning tournaments or something. Ask any Melee pros, they absolutely love playing the game - they'd HAVE to in order to have the desire to play so much to get to where they are in terms of skill level!

I feel like you read something somewhere that told you how you should be approaching this, and you might have either interpreted it wrong, or just plain out of context.

 

[Binx]

Link to original post: [drupal=738]A re-assessment of my goals for Brawl[/drupal]



I purchased Brawl back in March and I feel that... I've lost sight of just WHY I thought the game was worth my $50. Just what I had hoped to achieve with Brawl in my possession.

First, I really don't want Melee vs. Brawl in the comments. Nor do I want Melee recruits coming here to argue just what I need. Save it for some other lost soul, please.

Not in any order, some of my most important goals for Brawl:

1. Understand the art of competition - not met Good luck with this one, it's an ever evolving process, there is a lot to learn
2. Enjoy SSE and the one-player experience - met gratsies
3. Become a more outgoing person - not met This one is as easy as your willing to make it, all you have to do is start doing more things and being more social =)
4. Fight competently - not met it's brawl...
5. Improve skill - not met Well, you meet this every single time you think about the game or play the game, maybe not to a huge degree, I would try and reword some of these in a more positive way. you'll see more improvement that way
6. Be able to leave a match, regardless of win or lose, and say "well, at least I didn't embarrass myself in someway or another" - not met I am going to assume this is because you have not played in a tournament match yet and don't count friendlies, don't worry it comes with time.
7. Find a main - not met Pick someone you like and you will have a lot more fun, unless of course winning is the MOST fun for you in which case I don't know the game well enough to give advice here, especially since MK is likely going to be banned in the near future. how I decided my main in melee was watching videos until I saw someone do cool things.
8. Have fun - questioning if you aren't having fun, then I suggest you do 1 of 2 things, find out why and fix it, or find a new activity that you will enjoy, life's too short.
9. Win a match that counts - not met every match you play, win or lose, will count because it will be how you measure and gain improvement
10. Become a contributing member of a Smash community - questioning I have not read your stuff, but just do your best to be creative and give positive feedback and you'll definitely be a welcome member to the forum

Now, my evaluation of my progress toward them:

1. This... I am far from reaching. This is probably my biggest roadblock of all, I think, is that I don't understand just how to adopt a mindset in such a way that I don't have to sacrifice just WHO I AM for it. I did this for my high school band class, in a way. I remember the band director saying to "leave the personal problems at the door". Yet... I can't seem to overcome this for Brawl. It's probably because with band I didn't know the competitors, I guess. Or that I didn't care. Or it may have been because I was with a group, that my contribution to the group didn't cause the direct demise or success of the group. I was always a "do my best" kind of guy. But... Brawl is completely different from this. It's not a "do your best" thing. It's not "Ok, I score A points, and you score B points, and we'll see who's the better at this", it's more like "I'll do this while sabotaging your ability to do the same." And I don't have a problem with that as a principle, it's just... well, it's not in my natural realm. I've always been a 1P person, a person that engages in indirect competition. So my question to myself and others is... how DO I "leave the personal problems at the door" while at the same time being myself?

2. Nothing to say here... actually, 1P stuff still helps me in a sense to get away from the stress of meeting the other goals.

3. I guess this hasn't happened because of #1. I've gotten to this point where I'm suffering from self-confidence and self-motivation issues. And without resolving those, I'm not gonna be doing well in Brawl, nor in real life in general.

4. I don't think there's a match I've had even with the comp where I haven't pulled a stupid stunt. The majority of the time it's just that I'm plain too slow and whiff attacks. Other gaffes include numerous SDs due to silly moves, or in certain cases taking damage from my own moves. So... this is part of the reason I don't fight people... I just feel more comfortable knowing that I've saved them facepalm moment after facepalm moment. So yeah, this goal's in progress.

5. This is tied to all the previous goals. Like I said, #1's my biggest roadblock to this one now.

6. The accomplishment of this goal... will without a doubt be the turning point of my Smash career. Out of the 10 or so losses I've had online and other matches I've had offline, this became a big issue to me. Losing isn't near as bad as losing stupid. And I've lost all those matches stupid. And so... it comes back to the "try my best" mentality. If only I could find this mentality again for Smash, I think I'd be set for life.

7. This is tiny compared to the others. I've got a lead on Toon Link and ZSS, but I'm for some reason not ready to declare them mains yet.

8. This... could be a no in some cases and a yes in others. Sirlin seems to think I can only say yes to this after I've improved significantly. But I can't say that I've had a Smash career devoid of fun either. I just hope Sirlin is right in the end...

9. Yeah, I feel I can't accomplish this until I've accomplished #4 and #5.

10. Again, a minor tiny goal. And I don't want contribute in an awesome way or anything... I just like to be helpful. Of course, I can't be helpful if I don't help myself.

So... suggestions would be very helpful. Especially on those goals I've placed that would be groundbreaking to me.

My thoughts in the quotes, I kind of tl;dr'd after the initial stuff. Tired sorry =)

 

[NintendoMan07]

You're still not getting it. If the game isn't fun for you, there's no point playing. Competition doesn't mean "no fun". Competing is fun to do, improving one's skill is fun to do, etc. Just because you compete doesn't mean you're all of a sudden going to stop enjoying the game, until you start winning tournaments or something. Ask any Melee pros, they absolutely love playing the game - they'd HAVE to in order to have the desire to play so much to get to where they are in terms of skill level!

I feel like you read something somewhere that told you how you should be approaching this, and you might have either interpreted it wrong, or just plain out of context.

Possibly this?

My thoughts in the quotes, I kind of tl;dr'd after the initial stuff. Tired sorry =)

No problem. At the worst your comments just went over the stuff I already knew. I see no harm in that. Besides, I feel it's not a blog if it's too short. lol

Anyway... comments:

1. Yeah, thanks for the well-wishes. Friend Finder seems to really distort the character of competition, it seems.
2. Again, thanks. =D
3. This one's a life goal focused through Brawl. I'm not a man of many interests, so I figured this'd be the easiest way to go about it... although #1's throwing some complications into the mix.
4. Er... clarify this one, please?
5. Ok, but just realize you're telling a pessimist to reword that positively. But yeah, I've just taken the small steps for granted.
6. Yeah, you've got that right.
7. This is one of the ones where you're giving me the stuff I heard before. I'm actually nearing a choice at the moment, and I mentioned this was just a minor issue. If you'll read the part associated with this, perhaps you could give a suggestion there?
8. I'm going with the "find out why and fix it" approach. Life may be too short for this, but I'd just HATE to leave earth with a lot of leaks.
9. The rest of Smashboards seems to disagree with this... again, I'm sensing the brainwash effect taking place with me here...
10. Well, I'm not looking to be the best thing on the planet... but looking back every post of mine so far has just been... trollish. Or just generally unhelpful. I hate that. But at least I haven't done something incredibly stupid. Yet.

 

[ZeroFox]

Yeah, if you're not having fun with the game, don't bother.

Sure some people play to win or play to learn. But first and foremost is playing for fun. Only when you enjoy a game, can you actually put forth the necessary effort to get good.

If you don't like a game, you're probably going to give a half ***ed effort and you'll wind up playing worse than you're capable of.

 

[raydude]

Yeah, if you're not having fun with the game, don't bother.

Sure some people play to win or play to learn. But first and foremost is playing for fun. Only when you enjoy a game, can you actually put forth the necessary effort to get good.

If you don't like a game, you're probably going to give a half ***ed effort and you'll wind up playing worse than you're capable of.

^^ this

 

[NintendoMan07]

So... the general consensus so far is that either I totally misinterpreted Sirlin or the Sirlinites don't know what they're talking about?

At any rate, I know I've kinda "forced" Brawl on myself now (my Melee experience was full of fail, and I've been telling myself I would NEVER let that happen with Brawl), but I kinda realize... that with ZSS and Toon Link... it's not as forced. I kinda like those characters better than the rest now. So... I think I'm on an upswing.