Do you think playing online helps or hurts your game?

[jmjb]

Do you think playing online helps or hurts your game?
To be good at online you need to adjust your play style so all of your moves are imputed at different times. It's also especially trains you to not use fast frame moves, since there a pretty substantial lag from input to execution.
ex: shield is a frame 1 move that should come out in 16ms, however online it comes out at 300ms~800ms on typically all battles workout heavy lag. because of this you need to rely on bigger attacks with longer hit boxes. most times when they see the animation come out, their shield input won't go through in time even if they shield the frame the attack animation starts.

so I want to raise this question to you guys, how do you feel training online effects your game offline? does it help it or hurt it?

 

[Lustful_Kaiser]

From my experience when I play online it helps me out playing online with people that has played at local tournaments since they gave me a general idea what to expect from a tournament or any competitive play. If you're playing for glory its going to be hard since most players are spammers (that are around alot) will eventually leave you to learning bad habits even though its easy to beat them. If you happen to find a challenging player there take advantage of that since they're not everywhere sadly.

Overall just play with friends online if you got any contact with competitive players that are far away from where you live. I have learned a lot about their play style and benefit from their tactics; if you know any competitive players that are in your local area I suggest to train from them so you don't have a small chance of lags and get the best off of that.

 

[TempestSurge]

I find playing online helped me to improve more by getting that experience from fighting real players. I remember a time where I never liked playing online at all, due to nervousness, and when me and my brother would fight a local match. He would always destroy me because the only practice I had was against CPUs and I had predictable and bad habits that when he was Marth (cause I was Ike so we had FE matches) would always know when to counter or block literally every single thing I did.

And my cousin, who was in the same boat as me as far playing online, would play three man battles and my brother would take a stock off me, and then proceed to take a stock off him. Even when we tried to double team him we lost. We always used to joke about his Marth being crazy and psychotic and stuff cause we couldn't touch him! Anyways now that me and my cousin play together more in team battles, fought against real people to learn from other matchups, mistakes, dittos etc. we can actually go head to head with him. I've learned the matchup knowledge to better combat Marth and just habits in general.

And since FG mode is hit and miss to where you get a decent player or not, creating/joining a friend's room has always been the most beneficial as far as the online experience goes to improve yourself. I'm not too sure about the inputs and stuff, I never really felt much difference from playing offline unless it was the real obvious laggy matches with that two second delay or whatever.

 

[cpm]

playing online helps me.

 

[Underhill]

If you go to Smash Ladder, you'll get a lot of results than For Glory. You'll face better players and it will help you get more experience and get rid of your bad habits on them. For Glory, the only thing to you'll get is spammers and players with bad habits. Also on Ladder, you might make more friends on there and have sparing partners as well.
So Online helps, but try to find a player who's close to your area and you won't have any lag at all.

 

[KingofPhantoms]

It definitely helps me more than playing against CPUs, because I have an easier time considering how actual people will play their characters and helps me adapt to playing against them.

As tough as the more advanced players can be, I can't improve much if I don't have a very good idea of what I'm up against. The more I fight them, the better I get.

 

[Joshua Flynn]

Do you think playing online helps or hurts your game?
To be good at online you need to adjust your play style so all of your moves are imputed at different times. It's also especially trains you to not use fast frame moves, since there a pretty substantial lag from input to execution.
ex: shield is a frame 1 move that should come out in 16ms, however online it comes out at 300ms~800ms on typically all battles workout heavy lag. because of this you need to rely on bigger attacks with longer hit boxes. most times when they see the animation come out, their shield input won't go through in time even if they shield the frame the attack animation starts.

so I want to raise this question to you guys, how do you feel training online effects your game offline? does it help it or hurt it?

I think fighting online helps my game, because the problem of fighting local players is you only get used to their own tactics, and they yours. There's often been times in for glory where players have surprised me because they used a new or innovative approach, which meant the next guy to try it, I knew how to counter it.

Button lag I think is only a concern of the very uppermost tournament players where an absolute analysis of all frames is important to them. I think creativity in approach and tactics is better than mastery of the trivial, because if you learn new game styles online and merge it with a new approach, it's something the opponent will not be used to. And if you have a stack of approaches, once they get used to one, you can opt for another.

Plus, if you can predict a player with a delay of a 300-800ms (about nearly a second), that means you have a second's worth of read time over your opponent if they only had to read 16ms ahead.

Playing with really bad lag (EG 'bullet time' lag or stop-start lag) I think ruins learning, but it's an uncontrollable variable.

I think there's things to be gained either way.

 

[KirbCider]

I find playing online helped me to improve more by getting that experience from fighting real players. I remember a time where I never liked playing online at all, due to nervousness, and when me and my brother would fight a local match. He would always destroy me because the only practice I had was against CPUs and I had predictable and bad habits that when he was Marth (cause I was Ike so we had FE matches) would always know when to counter or block literally every single thing I did.

And my cousin, who was in the same boat as me as far playing online, would play three man battles and my brother would take a stock off me, and then proceed to take a stock off him. Even when we tried to double team him we lost. We always used to joke about his Marth being crazy and psychotic and stuff cause we couldn't touch him! Anyways now that me and my cousin play together more in team battles, fought against real people to learn from other matchups, mistakes, dittos etc. we can actually go head to head with him. I've learned the matchup knowledge to better combat Marth and just habits in general.

Pretty much my exact thoughts and experiences myself.

I've never attended Tournaments (and personally don't think I ever will due to my Social Anxiety and inability to handle crowds) and only two of my friends IRL wise actually play Smash. I've been playing since Smash 64 and don't consider myself to be a Grade A pro. In fact, I'm pretty far from it and only consider myself to be an average player. Not great, but I can be very tough to take down.

Throughout the years I have improved little by little, but it wasn't until I started playing Sm4sh Online where I began to see vast improvements in my play-style and skill. I was finally able to go against new people and I was finally able to learn new things.

For Glory has helped me immensely and only continues to help me become a better player. CPUs are nice and all, but sometimes their AI can be very easy to exploit in a lot of ways. CPUs can never beat getting hands on experience from an actual player. It's because of this where I simply don't understand why some people claim For Glory isn't good for you at all. Most usually say that lag as well as spammers can actually make someone worse and give them bad habits as well.

Honestly though? I don't think that's happened to me one bit. Lag and spammers are annoying yeah, there's no denying that; however I do not think either of these things have ever affected my play-style. Spammers have actually helped me learn how to handle certain kinds of spamming better (PK spam, Spamus, etc). Spam used to give me a hard time but not so much now.

So in short, yes I do believe playing online helps anyone and everyone immensely even if there's lag or spamming there.

 

[Tino]

When I'm playing with friends or on Smash Ladder, it helps me out a lot. For Glory is full of ****.

 

[Underhill]

When I'm playing with friends or on Smash Ladder, it helps me out a lot. For Glory is full of ****.

Argeed! Thats why I stop playing on For Glory and got into Smash Ladder instead.

 

[Foxus]

Do you think playing online helps or hurts your game?
To be good at online you need to adjust your play style so all of your moves are imputed at different times. It's also especially trains you to not use fast frame moves, since there a pretty substantial lag from input to execution.
ex: shield is a frame 1 move that should come out in 16ms, however online it comes out at 300ms~800ms on typically all battles workout heavy lag. because of this you need to rely on bigger attacks with longer hit boxes. most times when they see the animation come out, their shield input won't go through in time even if they shield the frame the attack animation starts.

so I want to raise this question to you guys, how do you feel training online effects your game offline? does it help it or hurt it?

Its weird really. I tend to play Smash daily, sometimes I can go weeks without a winning a single match. You'd think the more you play, the better you'd get. I'm proof that's simply a paradox.

I don't really play offline unless its in a solo mode, in which case I'm battling just CPU's.

 

[ChaikaBestGirl]

I'd definitely say both actually. There are games where the person you are playing can clearly help your game out by forcing you to go in with mix ups and different aerials, however if you are just going against spammers all the time, that ain't gonna help but probably make you worse

 

[SuperSceptile15]

It honestly depends. Practicing with any character will help you get better at maining them, but on the other hand, lag may throw you off.

 

[Foxus]

It honestly depends. Practicing with any character will help you get better at maining them, but on the other hand, lag may throw you off.

I think lag can even throw a pro off, because it naturally throws our brains reactions off.