Advice for a weird situation regarding beginner players

[Deleted member]

his brother is clearly not who we're talking about.

 

[Theftz22]

Good players tend to be created more often where there is already a large community to practice enough to become good (Cali, NY, etc.).

A truly great player could come from anywhere because they have natural talent (Armada, PP, M2K).

 

[MookieRah]

Do you think it is good to work with weak and half-interested players to get better?

It isn't just about your own personal growth though. People's motivations change, someone who starts out without much motivation might be spurred into being very motivated. Also, I find it a bit selfish if the only reason for teaching new players is to better yourself as well. Armada is probably quite familiar with Jantelagen, aka "The Law of Jante" which is something that is rooted in a lot of Scandenavian culture. To sum it up the concept, it is pretty much the opposite of American culture, which is the pursuit of helping the group rather than pursuing selfish ends. I don't imagine that he would have refused to help people in his area.

To that end, I thought up a couple more questions for Armada (short ones). If there were other local players, would you have tried to teach them and build a community there? If you did, do you feel this would have affected your skill level positively, negatively, or not at all?

Going back to the part I quoted you on Mow, when I say to teach everyone and not just the better, more motivated players, I'm not suggesting that you sit down and spend hours with the people that are not trying. I think we both need to actually discuss what our views of teaching other players are at this point in order to really go further in this debate. So I'll write up what I'm doing for the group I've been working with as briefly as I can.

So, a little about the group, we are actually a part of a large group (50 or so active players) of a competitive fighting game organisation known as the Ume Gaming Dojo. Smash is the newest part of the group, but it is far and away the largest making up almost half of the most active members. Out of this group I would rank 2nd, as there is another old-school Swedish melee player that is better than me, that I will refer to as X (he does not wish to be named for his own reasons). There is another semi-veteran that is not far behind me in skill, his girl-friend which isn't much behind him, and then the rest are the beginners. Of the beginners there is A LOT of talent, but I'd say about six or so stand out. They are clearly more passionate about the game. Most of these six have come to me on their own and have asked for advice, as well seeking advice from X.The rest of the players aren't bad, and some aren't even less motivated, they either don't have as much passion or as much direction as the six standouts. That said, they are all improving at a very fast rate, even those that don't stand out.

What I have done with my teaching is fairly simple. I publicly post in the UGD facebook group about things that new players should focus on. In fact my Basic Tech Skill thread was something that I was working on for them. I also will post ideas and things that come to me that I would have found very helpful when I was learning to play. Whenever I got to a UGD playing session, I try my best to play everyone at least once and I try to analyse the matches I play with people as much as possible. Afterwards, I give old-school melee shout-outs and I tell the individuals I played what I think they should focus on in their game.

That is pretty much it. Outside of that I do not actively try to teach anyone, and would only go the extra mile for those that come to me. For instance two players in the past month have sent me videos from a UGD meet that they wanted me to critique. I gladly spent an hour or so looking through their vids and discussing with them where I believe they went wrong and what they could do to improve.

So that is it really. I spend most of my time teaching in a macro sense by posting my thoughts in the facebook group. It actually is not much different than what you do on the forums Mow, it's just that I perhaps take the extra step of spending a little bit of time with everyone in the group whenever I am able to attend sessions.

 

[SAUS]

@ Isprayaxe
I think you should crush the noobs. Show them what you are capable of - what they could be capable of. You may lose some people, but 5 actual players is better than 20 level 1 CPUs. They may also take it differently. They may just succumb to your dominance and call you the best while enjoying playing each other. It's not like they'd play you every single game. Having other people rise in skill is probably the most important thing for you, and also if you want the community to last as a melee one.

At my school (university), there is an old TV and gamecube (with melee and 4 controllers) donated to the computer science lounge (run by students) and it is almost guarenteed that people will be there throughout the day. The people there are basically all quite bad. Only 4 of them know about the advanced techniques, but none of them can truly use all of them or even know what all of them are. One of them doesn't really seem to want to get good at the game, but he still enjoys the game, and is still impressed when I do some stupid, flashy combo with C. Falcon. The other 3 of those I am trying to teach the game for real. I just need to get there contact info lol so I can hang out with them or something. They're pretty cool guys.

Anyway, there are a ton of other people that just kind of come and go. They don't really care about getting better, but they enjoy trying to beat each other. They will still play if I am there, and they will often try to 2/3v1 me (we almost always play FFAs). The point is that they still enjoy the game, and to them, since they don't really care too much about improvement (basically they are not motivated to get really good and try to beat me or anything), beating the people they know that are in their boat is the most important, and it is fun for them. They trash talk each other and stuff even though they know they are leagues below me. That is fine by me and they are still having fun. No problem.

Fighting weaker plays is still good for a bunch of reasons:
1) It is still better than fighting CPUs, because you actually get to try to get into their mind. Trying to beat the samus that just spot dodges and down-smashes when you are close and shoots missiles when you are far, is the same as trying to beat the marth player who is spacing super well and comboing the hell out of you. You are trying to beat a strategy, and to find holes in their play. The main thing is the fact that it will be ****ing easy to beat that samus player compared to the marth player. It's still valuable practice though, just not as valuable in the super long-term.
2) You get to see how far you have come. It is a way of patting yourself on the back when you completely decimate the weak players.