Big-Cat
Challenge accepted.
I believe that the game and its community has a lot of potential, but I continue to see little innovation in your meta. I wanted to get this off my chest and say my thoughts on why the Smash 4 meta is so lackluster. I'm by no means an authority on the game. You can agree or disagree for all I care.
You don't take risks.
This is mostly aimed at the mid level. A lot of players at this level and below will think the only approaching option in Smash 4 is jump ins, but then you own't do that because it's unsafe on shield. There's a reason why, there's a lot of rewards and spacing options with it, so there naturally has to be a balance with the risk. That aside, it doesn't hurt to take the risk sometimes to toss out a powerful attack as a hard read. It's high risk, high reward. You have to learn how to manage risks and just go “here goes nothing”.
If you don't take risks, we're just going to have 90% of our matches on Smashville STILL and everyone picks Sheik because she's the safest character in the game.
You don't know how to practice.
This isn't quite anyone's fault. In other fighting games, practice is not that hard to set up. Things like random block, working on combos, resets, etc. aren't options we have available in Smash. Smash is very bare bones with its training mode, but you can still practice.
You can study up on how DI works (it's a lot less complex than you think), what is a character's strength and weaknesses, and more. One thing I found extremely helpful was seeing that every character is designed to be proficient in two out of three ranges – close, mid, and long. Exceptions may exist here and there, but this is generally the case. With that in mind, you can try to exploit that hole in their range options. This is where CPU's can be helpful, but their capacity is limited.
You aren't patient.
Without fail, you will see beginners just running in, jumping, and rolling. Walking is seriously neglected and is vital for having control of the situation. Sure, you may not get in quickly and rack up damage, but it's better to wait and get the momentum than to just go all berserker. There may be periods where attacks don't connect at all or you're both just moving around. That's totally fine as both of you are trying to safely get an attack in. Patience is arguably the most important of the fundamentals in a fighting game.
You care more about execution than strategy.
This is human nature really. You gravitate to the flashy stuff sooner than the boring and practical. Things like perfect pivot are very limited in their practical usage. You can get cool combos with them, but the chance of pulling them off at high level is unlikely. It's not about who can do the coolest stuff, it's about who uses their stuff the best.
You fit characters into molds they won't fit in.
Most of the time, I see players trying to play characters the same as they would any other character. Typically, this is rush down. With some characters like Roy or Sheik, that's great, but every character is not going to work that way.
I'll see some players try to be aerial heavy with heavyweights, when it's clear they excel at ground combat. Thankfully, no one in their right mind tries to play an air heavy Mac. I'll see aggressive play of characters that really aren't meant to be played that way like Zelda and Palutena. They're more zoning and turtling than in your face gameplay. You should adapt your playstyle to those characters instead of the other way around if you're intent on playing them.
I'm not exactly anti customs, but I can't help but think that customs give players tunnel vision of what tools a character has. You become more focused on the special than the normals which are used for the bulk of a match. To a certain degree, these customs can be crutch moves such as the infamous case with Kong Cyclone, even if it's manageable.
You play for show, not to win.
Maybe it's the whole talk of eSports and sponsors, and maybe a little bit of Melee's influence, but for the love of God do what you have to win. This is a game, not a show. If you don't need to win using a bunch of rushdown then don't do it. If you need to, go ahead. Don't go for style. If you get style, that's great and is definitely a crowd pleaser, but don't go looking for it.
You don't take risks.
This is mostly aimed at the mid level. A lot of players at this level and below will think the only approaching option in Smash 4 is jump ins, but then you own't do that because it's unsafe on shield. There's a reason why, there's a lot of rewards and spacing options with it, so there naturally has to be a balance with the risk. That aside, it doesn't hurt to take the risk sometimes to toss out a powerful attack as a hard read. It's high risk, high reward. You have to learn how to manage risks and just go “here goes nothing”.
If you don't take risks, we're just going to have 90% of our matches on Smashville STILL and everyone picks Sheik because she's the safest character in the game.
You don't know how to practice.
This isn't quite anyone's fault. In other fighting games, practice is not that hard to set up. Things like random block, working on combos, resets, etc. aren't options we have available in Smash. Smash is very bare bones with its training mode, but you can still practice.
You can study up on how DI works (it's a lot less complex than you think), what is a character's strength and weaknesses, and more. One thing I found extremely helpful was seeing that every character is designed to be proficient in two out of three ranges – close, mid, and long. Exceptions may exist here and there, but this is generally the case. With that in mind, you can try to exploit that hole in their range options. This is where CPU's can be helpful, but their capacity is limited.
You aren't patient.
Without fail, you will see beginners just running in, jumping, and rolling. Walking is seriously neglected and is vital for having control of the situation. Sure, you may not get in quickly and rack up damage, but it's better to wait and get the momentum than to just go all berserker. There may be periods where attacks don't connect at all or you're both just moving around. That's totally fine as both of you are trying to safely get an attack in. Patience is arguably the most important of the fundamentals in a fighting game.
You care more about execution than strategy.
This is human nature really. You gravitate to the flashy stuff sooner than the boring and practical. Things like perfect pivot are very limited in their practical usage. You can get cool combos with them, but the chance of pulling them off at high level is unlikely. It's not about who can do the coolest stuff, it's about who uses their stuff the best.
You fit characters into molds they won't fit in.
Most of the time, I see players trying to play characters the same as they would any other character. Typically, this is rush down. With some characters like Roy or Sheik, that's great, but every character is not going to work that way.
I'll see some players try to be aerial heavy with heavyweights, when it's clear they excel at ground combat. Thankfully, no one in their right mind tries to play an air heavy Mac. I'll see aggressive play of characters that really aren't meant to be played that way like Zelda and Palutena. They're more zoning and turtling than in your face gameplay. You should adapt your playstyle to those characters instead of the other way around if you're intent on playing them.
I'm not exactly anti customs, but I can't help but think that customs give players tunnel vision of what tools a character has. You become more focused on the special than the normals which are used for the bulk of a match. To a certain degree, these customs can be crutch moves such as the infamous case with Kong Cyclone, even if it's manageable.
You play for show, not to win.
Maybe it's the whole talk of eSports and sponsors, and maybe a little bit of Melee's influence, but for the love of God do what you have to win. This is a game, not a show. If you don't need to win using a bunch of rushdown then don't do it. If you need to, go ahead. Don't go for style. If you get style, that's great and is definitely a crowd pleaser, but don't go looking for it.
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. I like to just have fun, and gain skill while doing that. That's worked so far with many different things in life. Though, I do stop and think all the time, which is probably what allows me to do that. However, you're probably right. I think I've reached the point in Smash 4 where if I want to get even better, I do need to be serious with practice. Smash is probably the first skill in my life to which I've reached that point. I'll keep that in mind.
