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Brawl vs Sm4sh lvl 9 CPU

Crucible

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Hello smash community. After 5+ years completely isolated from smash I recently picked up a wiiu and sm4sh and have been enjoying my time but can't help having a pretty difficult time against level 9 CPU's?

I probably am just getting accustomed to the new MUs and movesets but I played Brawl competitively(did well in a few local tourneys and ladders) and remember being able to breeze through those lvl 9's so would anyone with more experience be able to tell me if sm4sh's lvl 9's have been buffed or am I just that terrible atm? They seem to follow up throws much better and perfect shield frequently among other things.

Thanks in advance. Also in socal if anyone if looking for friendlies!
 

TheWill44

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While the Sm4sh AI’s have been completely overhauled, I still find them to be not much of a challenge. It’s still not smart to train against level 9’s though. If you play them long enough, you should find noticeable flaws (Ness spamming Up B onstage and leaving himself super open.)
 

SmolNozomi

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The main problem with Lv 9 CPU's is their frame-perfect shielding. Nearly everything you give out to them will be perfect shield or dodged.

Aerial game also applies, with them air dodging the instant your put in the input.
This can work against them, as they will try to avoid the attack without thinking about their recovery.

Just practice and learn how your main works and their combos/bread and butter, and you will become much better.

Peace ✌
 
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Crucible

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While the Sm4sh AI’s have been completely overhauled, I still find them to be not much of a challenge. It’s still not smart to train against level 9’s though. If you play them long enough, you should find noticeable flaws (Ness spamming Up B onstage and leaving himself super open.)
Yeah I've noticed some characters using questionable moves lol did better tonight though with a character change so looks like I'm improving

The main problem with Lv 9 CPU's is their frame-perfect shielding. Nearly everything you give out to them will be perfect shield or dodged.

Aerial game also applies, with them air dodging the instant your put in the input.
This can work against them, as they will try to avoid the attack without thinking about their recovery.

Just practice and learn how your main works and their combos/bread and butter, and you will become much better.

Peace ✌
Yes the air dodge "reads" are strong with the AI lol thanks for the advice
 

#HBC | Red Ryu

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Smash 4 AIs and Brawl to an extent are frame perfect which is really obnoxious.

Because it’s hard to practice against a CPU that always frame perfect power shields a frame 2. It’s why I’m Brawl they always got hit by a frame 1 jab from squirtle.

What they can teach you in smash 4 is frame trapping where you know your attack will Be airdodged but then you follow up to catch it anyways. They are harder in that they are smarter AIs but they also in some ways still hold some BS reaction time.
 
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NINTENDO Galaxy

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You can try amiibos, but even those have faults too.
 

maybe.

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As one who had questionable internet for a very long time and therefore had to resort to practicing on the cpu for large amounts of time I can for sure say I do not recommend playing against the level 9 cpu. Their air dodges are basically frame perfect and only come out when you use your attack so you can't predict and read it to punish like you would be able to against a human. They also make the same stupid mistakes over and over again (they almost never tech landings so punishing their landings with an up smash or something is typically painfully easy). The best use I've found for practicing against cpu is to either do level 1 and just practice killing them over and over again to get more comfortable with your moves and getting muscle memory on your combos, or if you want practice against a more live opponent level 7 is pretty decent in terms of allowing you to practice your moves against a character that is kind of trying to dodge it but doesn't have absolutely frame perfect air dodges and shields and therefore get kind of a better idea of what combos are true and will work against real opponents and which ones aren't. This is the only real use I've found for grinding on cpu characters, now that I'm super comfortable with my main I almost never do it unless I'm trying to pick up a new character and I'll do it until I have decent muscle memory with their combos, unfortunately you can't really ever learn to read your opponent and think of the game on that level from playing the cpu but it definitely is a decent resource for practicing your moves and getting your combos more clean.
 

A Scrub

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If you're fighting CPU to beat them, just get them to air dodge into the ground.

The only good they're for is to practice your moves or giving yourself a good handwarmer.
 

Crucible

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Wow a lot of great input really appreciate it thanks Smashboards
 

Crystanium

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You probably should not fight CPUs, unless you're not interested in being competitive. If not, ignore this.
 

maybe.

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You probably should not fight CPUs, unless you're not interested in being competitive. If not, ignore this.
I think that's a pretty gross overstatement honestly. Whenever I hear people on streams ask top pros what methods they use to practice they almost always say "practicing my moves on a level 1-3 cpu" even heard nairo on his stream one time recommend practicing on a level 7 cpu to test out how tight your combos are. Obviously if you're just trying to win and exploit their obvious shortcomings it's a pretty bad idea but I can personally attest that I've improved a lot since I started taking like an hour or so per night just doing all my moves on cpus before I go into live matches. So, like I said in my other post, grinding on a level 9 is stupid but practicing combos on a level 1 is a really good way to get comfortable and build muscle memory with your combos and a level 7 is a pretty good way to test out if your combos will actually work on a live player or if they're air dodgable or whatever.
 

Crystanium

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I think that's a pretty gross overstatement honestly. Whenever I hear people on streams ask top pros what methods they use to practice they almost always say "practicing my moves on a level 1-3 cpu" even heard nairo on his stream one time recommend practicing on a level 7 cpu to test out how tight your combos are. Obviously if you're just trying to win and exploit their obvious shortcomings it's a pretty bad idea but I can personally attest that I've improved a lot since I started taking like an hour or so per night just doing all my moves on cpus before I go into live matches. So, like I said in my other post, grinding on a level 9 is stupid but practicing combos on a level 1 is a really good way to get comfortable and build muscle memory with your combos and a level 7 is a pretty good way to test out if your combos will actually work on a live player or if they're air dodgable or whatever.
I should have been clear. There's nothing wrong with practicing combos on CPUs between 1 and 3. I've been trying to practice Sheik recently and I wondered how players could land f-air multiple times. There are two ways I see this working. The first is using f-tilt multiple times to rack up damage, which then can lead to multiple f-airs. The second is having a mobile target who won't just stay put. The way I see it is if you're going to practice combos, go ahead with a stationary or mobile CPU at low levels. You don't want them to fight back. Then try these combos on a human player. Humans adapt. I can't say a CPU will have an unlimited way of adapting like a human will. Humans learn from their mistakes. As time goes on, AI will improve.

However, while you think I made a gross overstatement, the OP gives no indication that he or she is trying to practice combos in a setting like Training Mode. What I see is that the OP is simply fighting CPUs to win. CPUs don't tell you what errors you made. Humans do. Again, that may change as time goes on and AIs improve, but at the current state, CPUs don't tell you anything. If you played a level 7 Bayonetta, for example, is she going to return like any human player would? I very much doubt it'll try to hit the stage with an aerial to bounce off and gain height to recover.
 
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Crucible

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I should have been clear. There's nothing wrong with practicing combos on CPUs between 1 and 3. I've been trying to practice Sheik recently and I wondered how players could land f-air multiple times. There are two ways I see this working. The first is using f-tilt multiple times to rack up damage, which then can lead to multiple f-airs. The second is having a mobile target who won't just stay put. The way I see it is if you're going to practice combos, go ahead with a stationary or mobile CPU at low levels. You don't want them to fight back. Then try these combos on a human player. Humans adapt. I can't say a CPU will have an unlimited way of adapting like a human will. Humans learn from their mistakes. As time goes on, AI will improve.

However, while you think I made a gross overstatement, the OP gives no indication that he or she is trying to practice combos in a setting like Training Mode. What I see is that the OP is simply fighting CPUs to win. CPUs don't tell you what errors you made. Humans do. Again, that may change as time goes on and AIs improve, but at the current state, CPUs don't tell you anything. If you played a level 7 Bayonetta, for example, is she going to return like any human player would? I very much doubt it'll try to hit the stage with an aerial to bounce off and gain height to recover.
Although I was playing lvl 9 cpus just to win, after doing more research I'm now practicing on lvl 7/8s like "maybe." said just to get some timing and combos down as well as doing so in training. I like going against the CPU firstly because I'm new in my area and don't know anyone locally to play with and because at least the AI will try and adapt/escape strings etc. Entering a local tourney this weekend though so should be able to get a lot of friendlies in as well to see where I stand instead of measuring myself against a frame perfect CPU. Thanks for the input tho
 
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Mew2Nick

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Sorry, but I also have a similar question for you guys, and I would really appreciate it if you could help. You said it is just stupid to practice on lvl 9 CPU's for Sm4sh. Is it beneficial at all? Is it going to be harmful to my smash playing? My problem is that I would really like to start playing competitively, but I have no real people to practice on. My only way to practice is to train on CPU's. Are you saying that the only way for that kind of training to be beneficial is if I do it on lvl 7 -or- lvls 1-3? In other words, IS IT GOING TO BE HARMFUL TO MY SMASH SKILL IF I PLAY ON LEVEL 9 CPU's?
 

maybe.

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Sorry, but I also have a similar question for you guys, and I would really appreciate it if you could help. You said it is just stupid to practice on lvl 9 CPU's for Sm4sh. Is it beneficial at all? Is it going to be harmful to my smash playing? My problem is that I would really like to start playing competitively, but I have no real people to practice on. My only way to practice is to train on CPU's. Are you saying that the only way for that kind of training to be beneficial is if I do it on lvl 7 -or- lvls 1-3? In other words, IS IT GOING TO BE HARMFUL TO MY SMASH SKILL IF I PLAY ON LEVEL 9 CPU's?
Honestly, probably. Level 9 cpus have frame perfect air dodges the vast majority of the time which can't be baited out like against a human because they activate on the exact frame that you attack. Getting used to playing against that will most likely shape you to avoid techniques that are very useful in upper level play (baiting out air dodges to punish them being the biggest one). The other thing about level 9 cpus is that they are very exploitable, since they always air dodge your moves perfectly it is very easy to get them to air dodge into the ground and then punish the landing lag, they also don't mix up ledge options very much at all so you'll likely learn to just charge a smash by the ledge every time they're holding on.

So while I don't think it would hurt your technical game at all, certainly it would help that since the only way to land combos on the cpu is to be absolutely perfect, I think ultimately it will hurt your mental game and possibly condition you to do things that any human would learn to punish the hell out of. You also won't be working on your mental game in terms of thinking of your opponent and reading them throughout a set since cpu players don't change their habits or try to adjust to what you are doing and at high level play the mental game is one of the most important aspects of a set, many good players may lose the first game of a set but once their reads and conditioning start to set in they will change what they are doing and end up winning based on those adjustments, you need to learn to handle how people will adjust to your gameplay and then be able to adjust to their adjustments accordingly and you just can't learn that from playing against a cpu.
 

Mew2Nick

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Honestly, probably. Level 9 cpus have frame perfect air dodges the vast majority of the time which can't be baited out like against a human because they activate on the exact frame that you attack. Getting used to playing against that will most likely shape you to avoid techniques that are very useful in upper level play (baiting out air dodges to punish them being the biggest one). The other thing about level 9 cpus is that they are very exploitable, since they always air dodge your moves perfectly it is very easy to get them to air dodge into the ground and then punish the landing lag, they also don't mix up ledge options very much at all so you'll likely learn to just charge a smash by the ledge every time they're holding on.

So while I don't think it would hurt your technical game at all, certainly it would help that since the only way to land combos on the cpu is to be absolutely perfect, I think ultimately it will hurt your mental game and possibly condition you to do things that any human would learn to punish the hell out of. You also won't be working on your mental game in terms of thinking of your opponent and reading them throughout a set since cpu players don't change their habits or try to adjust to what you are doing and at high level play the mental game is one of the most important aspects of a set, many good players may lose the first game of a set but once their reads and conditioning start to set in they will change what they are doing and end up winning based on those adjustments, you need to learn to handle how people will adjust to your gameplay and then be able to adjust to their adjustments accordingly and you just can't learn that from playing against a cpu.
Thanks for your help, I appreciate it!
 
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