Any tips for a new competetive player?

[Will-O-Wisp]

(If this topic doesn't belong here, please move it accordingly. Sorry )

So I recently attended my first tournament, and got bodied...like hard. It was still a fun time, playing friendlies, meeting people, and learning stuff, but when I asked people for tips, they told me "work on spacing", and one guy said, "play against the player, not the character." Now I understand what both those pieces of advice mean, but I'm having trouble practicing.

So how do you think about spacing? I imagine a bubble around characters and try to be wary of it the entire match, but is that a healthy way of thinking about spacing or am I overcomplicating it?

Is there even a way to practice "playing against players?" I have friends to play against, but I don't see them often, and I don't know how to play online or if I can even do so lol.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Crescent Monkey]

Spacing is virtually impossible to work on until you know how to control your character. Work on all of your movement options, so that you will be able to place your character anywhere on the stage that you want to. Shorthopping, LCancelling, Dashdance, Wavedash, and Waveland are all very important, and learning them in that order is not a bad idea. All other parts of our game are extremely important, but there is no point in practicing them until you can make your character do what you want it to.

 

[TreK]

Hmm, that bubble thing gives you the wrong idea that spacing=precision.
That bubble is your range, nothing more. Your spacing, on the other hand, is supposed to change depending on what your opponent is doing, and what his character is. You take that bubble into account, sure, but it's not the whole thing. In example, when your opponent does a full hop or shields, you can go much closer without being at a much higher risk. The idea is that you want to be able to react properly if your opponent rushes in. You can also get a bit closer once you've figured him out and are able to predict what's coming next, too.

As for the "fight your opponent, not his character", I don't know what they meant by that. But if I had to make a guess, I'd say it's because you have that "trial and error" mentality that we apply during video game boss fights in example, when you test stuff until something works, then assume it's always going to work. In competitive games, you have to assume that nothing is going to work twice, and you have to do some homework because you don't want to have to make errors in order to win. People, unlike bosses, adapt, and that makes them a much tougher beast to slay.
But the "not his character" part is misleading : matchup experience is extremely important, and without it, you can't get to the more interesting part.

You can play online on dolphin, there's a topic for that out there. I heard it's great, but I haven't had the chance to test it just yet.

 

[CÁT Rose]

(If this topic doesn't belong here, please move it accordingly. Sorry )

So I recently attended my first tournament, and got bodied...like hard. It was still a fun time, playing friendlies, meeting people, and learning stuff, but when I asked people for tips, they told me "work on spacing", and one guy said, "play against the player, not the character." Now I understand what both those pieces of advice mean, but I'm having trouble practicing.

So how do you think about spacing? I imagine a bubble around characters and try to be wary of it the entire match, but is that a healthy way of thinking about spacing or am I overcomplicating it?

Is there even a way to practice "playing against players?" I have friends to play against, but I don't see them often, and I don't know how to play online or if I can even do so lol.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I'm with you still learning the "basic" techniques

 

[9bit]

Some really good YouTube videos to get started:

Advanced How to Play

Spacing Tutorial

Reading Comprehension

These are all Melee videos but they apply to PM.

 

[Kankato]

As a new competitive player, I have a question:

In regards to Dash Dancing,what exactly does it accomplish? Whenever I try to incorporate it into my game I just get hit, because I have no idea what to do during or after one. Do you go for the pivot grab when an opponent jumps in? What if they don't jump into you? Can you shield during a dash dance? What do people Dash Dance for?

Any information would be helpful, but stuff covering acting out of Dash Dance would be best.

 

[Rizner]

I think the biggest problem for people getting into competitive smash is too much focus on advanced tech and not enough on fundamentals, playing safe and knowing when things can, should, or might happen. (But some stuff like l canceling should be known, although not necessarily perfected until you get the basics down)
Unfortunately, the best way to learn this is to play against people who have it figured out already. My suggestion would be to watch steams, reach out to those you've met at the tournament, and think about what your opponent might be doing or what you could be doing to get on damage while not taking as much. Try to find more local players, and maybe find a scene already around you. What region are you in?

When watching streams (or youtube videos), try to understand why people are doing things. When playing, record some matches and see why you lost each stock and what decisions led you and your opponent through the match. See if you can notice habits, then when playing see if you can pick up on them during the game. Also, noticed what moves you're getting punished for, and know when it's safe to use them or other options which might reward more (I've seen sheik players use the chain whip thing to punish free falling characters, when they could have done fair, usmash, grab or other, more meaningful punish).

Once you get all this down, move on to the other advanced techniques and learn how to apply them and perfect them.

 

[Will-O-Wisp]

I don't really have any trouble with advanced movement techniques. I know how to L-cancel, wavedash, etc, and drill them on a pretty consistent basis. So I guess spacing is more situational rather than character-based? I suppose that makes sense though since Smash is a very dynamic game.

When I watch streams/videos, I mostly watch their combo's, but what I don't understand is how they DI. I know how to do it, but when I get hit, I fly in the direction I want, but not to the degree that other players do. I remember watching a video where M2K got hit with some move, but he flew in the weirdest direction possible. He started going up, but all of a sudden midflight he took a sharp turn downward and started flying down. It's stuff like that that baffles me.

 

[Hinichii.ez.™]

As a new competitive player, I have a question:

In regards to Dash Dancing,what exactly does it accomplish? Whenever I try to incorporate it into my game I just get hit, because I have no idea what to do during or after one. Do you go for the pivot grab when an opponent jumps in? What if they don't jump into you? Can you shield during a dash dance? What do people Dash Dance for?

Any information would be helpful, but stuff covering acting out of Dash Dance would be best.

DD is a good tool that accomplishes a lot. You can use it to bait, force a reaction from your opponent or just be unpredictable. You can do even more with DD, that is just a few of it's many uses.

EX: I knocked down yoshi and then I DD, he gets scared, does his get up ATK and I grab him.

EX2: mario vs fox, mario is near death, so fox starts getting aggressive with his shield pressure and after he shield pokes and puts the match back to neutral he starts DD when mario shields, mario rolls cause he is scared and fox usmash the hell outta him

A good way to learn when you should use this tech, is by watching melee. I'm sure there are people in PM who use it well, I just can't name any.

 

[burntfish44]

As a new competitive player, I have a question:

In regards to Dash Dancing,what exactly does it accomplish? Whenever I try to incorporate it into my game I just get hit, because I have no idea what to do during or after one. Do you go for the pivot grab when an opponent jumps in? What if they don't jump into you? Can you shield during a dash dance? What do people Dash Dance for?

Any information would be helpful, but stuff covering acting out of Dash Dance would be best.

It depends on the character but generally it's a good means of counter-attack (at least with my playstyle). For example, someone uses a fsmash at me, or throws a grab at me, i dash away then dash back and use my dash attack while theyre vulnerable.

Ken does a pretty good job of explaining things in his marth tutorial here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFCQIAnYUMM
skip to 22:56, and though it's a marth specific video he still goes over dash dancing and how to use it

 

[MLGF]

I got the same advice from a DK player at Apex... in Melee.... while I was using Marth.
I learned that day that my Marth sucks and that it may be a good idea to stick to Project M.

Anyways, I'll give you advice that I think improved me.
Get faster, faster, faster, faster. You want to be able to attack as quickly and precisely as possible at all times. I advise you work on that sort of rushdown as much as possible. Once you are able to control your character at a quick speed, other factors like spacing and such come naturally... except mixups. Gotta learn that one somehow else.

 

[Deleted member]

Keep an open mind, never give up, and never get discouraged.