Does anyone here play exclusively online?

[Reila]

I have read a few posts here of people saying they use online as a training ground, which is fine, but also weird since online and offline play are considerably different and although many things you learn by playing online might be useful for offline play, I would say it is not the ideal training ground... or is it?

But anyways, I want to know about players that don't take part in local tournaments. How many are there in smashboards? Obviously the majority of Smash 4 players don't take part in local tournaments, but considering smashboards is mostly a local tournament/offline play-focused board (so much that offline players often belittle online players around here), I am wondering how many of "us" there are here.

 

[Richard 89]

I have read a few posts here of people saying they use online as a training ground, which is fine, but also weird since online and offline play are considerably different and although many things you learn by playing online might be useful for offline play, I would say it is not the ideal training ground... or is it?

But anyways, I want to know about players that don't take part in local tournaments. How many are there in smashboards? Obviously the majority of Smash 4 players don't take part in local tournaments, but considering smashboards is mostly a local tournament/offline play-focused board (so much that offline players often belittle online players around here), I am wondering how many of "us" there are here.

Online Tourneys are the only thing that i have close to competitive play, since i live nowhere close to any local scenes. I hope one day online tourneys can be just like offline locals.

 

[Satoros0]

I can really only speak for myself, but the lag introduced in the vast majority of online matches makes it very difficult to do reaction-based maneuvers, for example punishing opponents' moves. That being said, I do like playing online to get exposed to a lot more variety of characters and styles of play. I can't see being able to get that kind of exposure with offline play unless you attend many large tournaments on a regular basis.

 

[dahuterschuter]

I don't take part in local tournies because the closest local tourney in my country is a 14 hour drive and none of my friends want to play games they can get rekt at unless it's an online shooter.

So instead I have to put up with Sm4sh and ****ty-ass 4gloryhole if I want to play Smash Brothers at all against anyone.

 

[Reila]

So instead I have to put up with Sm4sh and ****ty-*** 4gloryhole if I want to play Smash Brothers at all against anyone.

Or you could play on Anther's Ladder or add people from here and play with them instead of complaining about a mode that is entirely optional

 

[dahuterschuter]

Or you could play on Anther's Ladder or add people from here and play with them instead of complaining about a mode that is entirely optional

Why would I want to when it's just the same but more work?

 

[SteadyDisciple]

I play almost exclusively online. The nearest local tourneys are a couple hours away, as are pretty much any players of even remotely serious inclination. Given that I don't really care about being a competitive level player (just to have fun with relatively even matches, though I do enjoy learning more advanced techniques on occasion), Online play gives me in minutes what I would otherwise have to set aside most of a day to do, if/when I could get it to fit with my work schedule.

 

[David Wonn]

The lack of people to play locally combined with the horrendous input lag online in one quarter of matches have forced me into being a solo offline player 99% of the time (which isn't necessarily a bad thing itself.) I didn't see an option for mostly offline so I went with the next logical choice, which is accurate enough. Fortunately the solo modes are addictive enough, and the drive to improve high scores keeps me going for now, hoping someday Nintendo will implement regional settings in For Fun / For Glory. On the rare occasion that I do go online with this game, it is only in friend rooms or to use the Share and Spectator modes.

 

[ixos]

Why would I want to when it's just the same but more work?

Because the people on Anther's Ladder and here on Smashboards are a lot better than the majority in For Glory, and therefore better for practice?

 

[Reila]

Because the people on Anther's Ladder and here on Smashboards are a lot better than the majority in For Glory, and therefore better for practice?

That is not necessarily true. I have faced formidable opponents on For Glory at times Lets not forget Anther's Ladder and Smashboards players also play FG.

 

[ixos]

That is not necessarily true. I have faced formidable opponents on For Glory at times Lets not forget Anther's Ladder and Smashboards players also play FG.

True. But for the most part, there will probably be significantly more variety in characters used, and less mindless spamming. Also, we can give feedback to help each other to get better.

 

[Nexin]

I mostly play online on Anthers. I want to start competiting in offline tournaments by the end of this semester, but college is taking up a lot of free time at the moment.

 

[Deleted member]

I mostly play online.
I like to play against my friends and any opponents on SmashBoards. I do have an Anther's account, but I never use it.
I sometimes go on For Glory if I want some quick matches (because finding an opponent isn't exactly quick, or guaranteed). I mostly avoid For Glory and use it as a last resort.

 

[Dokokashira]

I play almost exclusively online for the same reasons a lot of others have said: my nearest locals are far away and I don't have the money nor the time to travel to and enter locals regularly. Most of the scene where I live is in the bigger cities like Philadelphia, and I'm an hour and a half away from it. I can't afford to drive to Philadelphia every week for locals, and the closest public transportation is at least a half hour away. So if I want to go to a local, I need absolute dedication, and most of the time I can't provide that.

Alongside this, I consider myself to be below average in skill compared to an everyday offline player, and I get nervous, flustered, embarrassed, self-conscious, overapologetic, and all other sorts of nasty emotions easily when I play, especially when I get beat badly. Even if I wanted to go to a local, I'd probably get cold feet days before it started and not go because I don't want to embarrass myself. It's a dumb mindset to have... but eh.

I do plan to go to my first local on the 27th. I'll be attending with my much more skilled friend that I met online, so I wonder how that will turn out!

 

[Reila]

I do plan to go to my first local on the 27th. I'll be attending with my much more skilled friend that I met online, so I wonder how that will turn out!

Good luck!

 

[Purin a.k.a. José]

So so. I play mostly online, but also do other stuff on offline modes (for example, labbing characters or killing time on Single-Player modes).

 

[Quarium]

Mostly play online, although I have participated in a handful of offline tourneys and try to go to smash meetups of my scene almost every weekend.

I'd say online is a good training to a certain point but I can assure the meetups/tourneys with some of the best players around being present are what honed most of my skillset.

 

[Reila]

Mostly play online, although I have participated in a handful of offline tourneys and try to go to smash meetups of my scene almost every weekend.

I'd say online is a good training to a certain point but I can assure the meetups/tourneys with some of the best players around being present are what honed most of my skillset.

Well... Online is good training for people who only play online, basically.

 

[Quarium]

Well... Online is good training for people who only play online, basically.

This is debatable imo, as you can actually meet some amazingly skilled players online and if you play them enough maybe you can even win a national. Take LD from the smash64 scene, he is a fox player who only played online as far as I know and while he had some problems adapting to offline tournies he is now a top player in 64. The skillsets used are the same and the game is also the same! Just play GOOD people.

 

[Reila]

This is debatable imo, as you can actually meet some amazingly skilled players online and if you play them enough maybe you can even win a national. Take LD from the smash64 scene, he is a fox player who only played online as far as I know and while he had some problems adapting to offline tournies he is now a top player in 64. The skillsets used are the same and the game is also the same! Just play GOOD people.

Oh, I didn't mean to say online experience is useless for offline play. But that training online for offline play isn't as useful as other methods of training.

 

[Satoros0]

I play almost exclusively online for the same reasons a lot of others have said: my nearest locals are far away and I don't have the money nor the time to travel to and enter locals regularly. Most of the scene where I live is in the bigger cities like Philadelphia, and I'm an hour and a half away from it. I can't afford to drive to Philadelphia every week for locals, and the closest public transportation is at least a half hour away. So if I want to go to a local, I need absolute dedication, and most of the time I can't provide that.

Alongside this, I consider myself to be below average in skill compared to an everyday offline player, and I get nervous, flustered, embarrassed, self-conscious, overapologetic, and all other sorts of nasty emotions easily when I play, especially when I get beat badly. Even if I wanted to go to a local, I'd probably get cold feet days before it started and not go because I don't want to embarrass myself. It's a dumb mindset to have... but eh.

I do plan to go to my first local on the 27th. I'll be attending with my much more skilled friend that I met online, so I wonder how that will turn out!

I can definitely relate when it comes to feeling nervous, etc, in an offline tournament setting especially. Even though I've gone to a few locals now, I still get apprehensive (mostly because I know I'll lose) and feel deterred from going.

For me though, once I get there and actually start playing and chatting with people, most of the nerves go away. I'm still super self-conscious and make a few more mistakes than usual, but it's still a lot of fun.

I don't go to tournaments to just win games. I go to meet people who are better than me, learn and get better myself, and have fun while doing it.

Good luck!

 

[Turrin]

So I live in freakin' Hong Kong which means there are literally no Smash scenes within like... probably a few hundred or even a thousand miles from me. Not only that, but that means (because of time zones) there are never more than 2 people on Anther's at a time and the lag is guaranteed to be atrocious because I'm so far from the U.S. Therefore my only option is 1v1 For Glory where I wait 10 minutes at a time to get a Japanese player to actually stay and fight me. Most matches from Japan are pretty much lagless, though, which is nice.
Good news is I'm starting college in Seattle in a week, where I know there are a few competitive Sm4sh events I can check out.

 

[Omegascizor456]

My issue is well i used to play online several hours a day... now maybe 20 to 30 mnutes a day... but the worst thing was when i went to offline tourneys i would get nervous since people were watching... and the worst part is my scene is pretty small tbh, there are some decnetly good players and one really good one but overall we get around 30 ishh people most of the time, so i have barely ANY time to practice... not to mention my locals are bi weeklies :/

 

[Tino]

I play both online and offline, mostly offline. That's how I roll, baby.

 

[KirbCider]

I mainly play online for a variety of reasons.

For one, I don't have many IRL friends that tend to play Smash. I only have two I can legitly play Smash with offline, but can only hang out with one of them fairly often since the other had moved a few cities over. I have two other friends that have an interest in it, but they're definitely beginners and can't play very well (I also don't see them very often either sadly since they're always busy).

My next reason being I feel as if I won't fit in with the tournament crowd at all. I've never been to one and probably never will due to my crippling anxiety. I can't deal with crowds too well let alone unfamiliar places and people. On top of that I don't think there's anywhere local near me that's even Smash related, tournament or club wise. Most would require long drives to and from them.

I would play offline more if I were able to though, but until that happens I'm stuck with Online Play at the moment. Now, offline play as in the other offline modes? I did until I completed them so.... Yeah. I also train my amiibos sometimes as well from time to time.

 

[ixos]

I just realised I voted in the pole but never explained my answer. Here it is.

So I only really have one IRL friend who actively plays Sm4sh, and we both only have the 3DS version. The thing is, we can only play like 1-3 matches when we see each other IRL, so we end up only really playing online together. Two of my other friends have the 3DS as well, but they don't really like Smash anymore, so they never play. A majority of Sm4sh that I play is online, and I just recently started actually using my Anther's Ladder account. I kinda got bored of For Glory after that, because it didn't use stages with platforms. So I do mostly play online, but I play offline as well.

Most of the time when I play offline, I'm just bored and don't have access to internet and am just fighting a CPU. I usually just use Smash mode, because Training mode bores me for some reason. I don't think there are any Smash scenes where I live, but I know there is one within an hour drive. The thing is, I'm only almost 14 years old, most tournaments probably don't use the 3DS version, and my parents sure as heck won't take me to one.