Chronicles of an UberNoob (A Beginner's Journey?)

[Kompozure]

Day 1.

Yesterday was my very first time in the Smash4 "field". As in, the first time I actually loaded the game and started to play. I read the manual first (an unusual move for me, actually) and tried to find a character I liked, and settled on Ganondorf. He seemed to be the Incredible Hulk-like guy here. I don't necessarily have one type of character that I like to play in fighters, I tend to play most with whomever I think is cool. So I took Ganondorf and familiarized myself with his buttons as best I could. Then I tried Classic, and surprisingly, I did better than I thought. At 6.o intensity, I managed to clear the game, I did die in the battle with Master/Crazy Hand. After a continue, and an (automatic?) dial down to 5.5, I managed to pretty easily beat the classic mode. It was pretty easy, so at that point I figured I was acclimated enough to try Vs. modes. All the videos I'd seen on Youtube were no-items, and I assume actual competitive play is no-items, so I went into the For Glory mode.



I was, as an understatement, obliterated.

After an entire evening of learning in the field, it became ridiculously obvious that I am nowhere near a competitive level. I knew I would be bad, but I didn't think the gap would be that much of a difference. I spent just about the first day I bought the game reading different things around the boards here, and just trying to un-StreetFighter and un-Marvel myself. The game engine is something very different from what I'm used to playing, and things that may seem common knowledge are things I'm sure I'm missing at the moment. I can say though, that even though I did lose 100% of the time, I didn't get discouraged very much. The things that annoyed me most were b/c of my own lack of experience and knowledge of how the game runs.

So, with that being said, I'll try to log and share my experience as it grows, ask a whole bunch of questions, and maybe this can be a sort of guide for the fresh new people getting into the game. I'll try not to ask many questions that are answered somewhere else in the boards, and if I do find useful information, I will link it here as well.

In the meantime, if anyone would like to teach, help, or beat up on a free kill/willing student, add me as a friend. My NNID is Kompozure.

 

[Octagon]

I'm always looking for practice partners so if you want you can add me on the Wii U version and we can smash whenever. Make sure you read more about Ganondorf in his forums and stay up to date on the competitive discussion to get better and learn as you go. There are also smash ladders where you can find more players to spar with that are on your same skill level (for the most part...)

 

[Inger]

Just a warning, the most frustrating part of the game is not your first sessions, but later. You will find the most discouraging part of your career when you are practicing at a mid-level skill online and losing to people who use noob tactics like projectile spam or down B spam.

 

[Kompozure]

@FireFly, I will add you, I'm usually online. @ Inger , I can already see what you mean pretty early.. the majority of the people I played online had some one thing they did as often as possible, in quick succesion. It was pretty frustrating. LoL

 

[Kompozure]

Day 3.

Well, I can say this, the game is still fun and I haven't given up on it. LoL I've started to get used to the physics of this game, and have been able to de-program my 2D fighting mindset, at least as much as I can, b/c I still play the other fighting games frequently.

Smash is very different than most fighters, in that the means to the end is very different. There are some elements like zoning, spacing, mixups, etc.. that I am familiar with (although implementing them in this format is still kind of a challenge to me). But the more smash-specific mechanics I'm having a bigger problem getting used to than I expected. for example, I find it really hard to turn and face my opponent manually. I never realized how I took this for granted in other fighting games. Even Tekken has a degree of auto correct. If you guys ever see my replays, and I'm jabbing several times in the wrong direction.. trust me, I'm just as apalled as you are. LoL I'm also having an experience (not necessarily good or bad) adjusting to the absence of auto pilot. If I'm playing Marvel, once I touch you, I know exactly what to do, and for the most part, it's inescapable, and until I'm done or you die, all it is is execution on my part to do whatever string or combo is appropriate. Smash seems to be much more about the neutral game/mind games. The kill mechanic promotes more of a measured approach, in my opinion.

I'm also having trouble getting the kill. For some reason, I am really not very good at chasing down an opponent once I've sent them flying. My character (Ganondorf) is slow, sure. But it just seems really difficult to secure the kill, even with his above normal strength. The usual scenario is I connect with a move that sends them flying, and in their recovery/floating back to the stage, I seems to miss a lot when chasing them down for the finishing blow.

I'm actually playing now, so I'll finish this with some more questions/advice requests in a minute .

 

[rosetta_stoned]

Record replays of yourself. Even just to watch and critique yourself is an enormous help as you don't see the match with the same eyes as a player vs a spectator. To go even further share them with people here on the smash boards as there are many helpful good players to give you better insight.

Ganondorf, i suspect would be a hard intro to the series in the sense that hes slow and it makes it hard to be on the offense. He plays differently than how you see much of the cast come at you with. Theres a time and place to rush down your opponents but for the most part hes all about the baits and the punishes which takes a certain patience you might not be used to with your other 2d fighters. Just remember you dont need nor is it practical to be aiming for big combo strings, he can kill the majority of the cast in 5 or less well timed hits.

General tips:

-forward b to down tilt is a true combo
-forward b off stage connected with someone at the edge of the stage will kill them first for a win if they are on their last stock
-his forward tilt (kick) has insane knockback
- practice spiking with down air off stage for early kills and forward airs
-his jab comes out REALLY fast which surprises people that already know this even. Jabbing after an upsmash still takes me by surprise even tho im full aware

I like your approach and mindset and it will carry you far in many things with practice. Its fun with the occasional ass whooping to instill confidence every now and again but my biggest pleasure from this game comes from getting bodied by someone better than me X amount of times in a row just to grind out a win. Theres something about that achievement of overcoming that is oh so satisfying.

 

[Iceweasel]

In my experience, it's best to take any character you want to learn to a CPU. They can't fight for crap, but know their defensive options and can punish you. Once you can reliably beat a level 9 on a tournament legal stage, you're decent enough to fight a real player. You'll probably get bodied, but at least you have some idea of what you're doing.

Ganondorf is a very read-heavy character. The only thing he has going for him is that he has meaty attacks and kills early. However, he's so slow that you need a decent idea of your opponent's options and be able to guess which one they'll pick if you want to land more than a few hits on them. It might be better for you to start with a faster character, like Lucina, Falcon, or Fox. At least until you know more about your options, the game, and your opponents' options.

More than anything else, do not take For Glory seriously. There is almost always very heavy lag. While this does make slow characters (like Ganondorf) safer, this rewards poor strategies like roll spamming. I fought a Toon Link that did literally nothing but spam roll, grab, bomb, and side/up mash attacks, and he won. No way in hell would that fly in a real match, but the online lag made this nearly impossible to punish. You're honestly better off fighting nothing but CPUs than fighting only on For Glory.

 

[Forty4]

^ This.
Don't use FG as some sort of tool to measure skill. I guess use it to get used to what you need to work on, like roll-spamming. Use tourney results to measure skill, I've never been to one, but results are correlated with skill. If you need a practice partner, I'll be open, but I do have other obligations like school, so I won't be open all the time.

 

[Kompozure]

I appreciate you guys input, and I'm definitely implementing as much as I can into how I play. Is there a way to actually share replays with people in this game? Or a way they can look you up? I will start saving replays where I either learn something new or get completely destroyed.

Yeah, I can see from just a few days of playing that Ganon is going to be a more challenging character to jump into the smash scene with.. Most other characters are really quick, and have some options that can be overwhelming sometimes (FREAKING LASERS, and projectiles in general). I don't have a problem with the difficulty though, I come from a place of one touch games. I'm also trying to work on patience, Ganon is very much that 'when he gets the hit' type of character, and I can see that people start to respect him after they recognize I'm a person who's actually playing, and not spamming Warlock punch.

Online seems so BAD to me. I actually started watching Youtube videos/streams/matches, and the players there are a great difference between what I see when I try For Glory mode. And yes, the roll spam is ridiculous. I actually played a guy who used Charizard, and used whet I'll assume is his Forward+B, at least 9oo times. I had no idea how to defend against it, and once I started to try to figure out a way around it, he knocked me off the map. I did my up+B at the wrong time, and lost a life. After that he just ran the entire time, rolling, and throwing out the Forward+B until the clock ran to zero.

I have been adding a lot of people from the boards here (I will add you guys as well, just give me your NNID's), and hopefully I will be able to play some 1v1/free-for-all/team battles with the friends I make here.. B/c if everyone in For Glory plays like that, I'll never level up.

There are a bunch of other characters I'm definitely interested in, I'm honestly not sure why I didn't start with Ryu, I mean Mario, or Sonic. LoL. I can stick with Ganon, I'm not a person who gets very salty. Even after X number of cheap kills into taunts.

I'm definitely learning, it's a little bit of an issue getting to implement things in the field, but I'm getting there. I think my biggest problem right now is still how to follow up for kills. When I watch matches, no one ever lives into I'd say 8o-up %'s against him. I have matches where people will be at 12o% and still be alive.

 

[visvim]

Sounds like you already have a good understanding of how Ganon works in that he's all about waiting for that opening to commit to the hard read (since almost all of his arsenal requires a hard read). If you're gonna stick with the character it's gonna be a long uphill climb, but don't count out the option of switching off to a more rookie friendly character and coming back to Ganon as as secondary/pocket.

FG is definitely not the go-to space for learning, but it has it's uses. As annoying as they are, I think it\s worth it to learn how to punish "cheap" tactics like the roll/move spam. Punishing is a huge part of competitive play, so I'd argue that it can be useful to understand it on this stupidly elementary level so that you can build upon that knowledge and do it at high level play.

 

[Forty4]

IMO, you should try out Anther's Ladder ( smashladder.com ). Not too sure about what it is, but you can actually find good players on it. NNID: ThePriceIsWrong.