Guide Drastic Improvement

[Divinokage]

Well if it was really possible, i'd have proof by now. Who in the world has a similar style? You can't quantify it that easily. lol. The only thing you are really emulating is how the tool works themselves, it won't really help you in a long run to become a top player and even then you still won't have the full understanding as to why they are doing what they are doing. I mean if it was that easy we'd be a million of a mix of PP and stuff.

 

[Bones0]

@bones do you at least agree that the number of viable strategies will drop over time?

Calling a strategy viable is extremely misleading. Just because a piss-poor strategy was viable in 2001 doesn't mean it wasn't still an awful strategy. In that sense, I guess you could say the number of "viable" strategies is ever decreasing as the overall player base becomes less likely to lose to bad strategies, but what really matters is the number of optimal strategies. If you are under the assumption that there is a set number of optimal strategies at a game's peak metagame (however you want to define that), then it's obvious that the number of optimal strategies is constant throughout a game's lifespan. The players just aren't aware of the optimal strategies yet. If executing X and Y in fashion Z is the best strategy in the game and it's determined to be unbeatable, that doesn't mean there are less optimal strategies than when the game came out. It just means players learned to beat all of the suboptimal strategies.

 

[john!]

that's what "viable" means, bones. it's a strategy that works well relative to the metagame at the time. melee players get better, our metagame advances, and suboptimal strategies get picked off in a darwinian fashion.

 

[Rarik]

So after the 3rd time Smashboards decides to go offline on me I'm just gonna summarize what I've been trying to say rather than make a long post.

1.) DivinoKage's logic is silly despite me agreeing that emulating a player is a bad idea (which I already said). Just because you haven't seen it yet doesn't mean it doesn't exist. We haven't seen Extra terrestrials, does that mean they don't exist? Also emulating how they use the tools IS emulating their playstyle, although the idea of a playstyle is silly (I agree with Umbreon on this point). If you want to improve the playstyle yes you need to understand the reasoning behind it, however if you've spent all that time analyzing their play in order to emulate them you've probably picked up quite a few things about why they do things the way they do.

2.) I hate separating tech skill(inputs only) and decision making. You can press all the buttons you want, but you still need to press them in the right situations. That's why I prefer to talk about execution which to me is a mix of tech skill (again inputs) + decision making. Probably because I'm a league/starcraft player at heart and Micro mechanics is the mix of being able to control your units (tech skill) as well as how you control them (decision making). Also in my mind decision making != Strategy.

3.) Playing the game IS the most important part of the game. I can go over all the theory and strategy I want but if I can't execute it, what's the point?

4.) Just as a disclaimer only the first post I made on this topic is at all an attempt to explain Umbreon's view point. Everything past that is my own opinions.

5.) Bones' description of viable strategies is really well said.

 

[Divinokage]

Well look, you can't do a SH FF Marth Fair any faster than M2k can as he is pretty much frame perfect, there's nothing beyond that. If you tipper or non tipper then you'll have to see what the opponent does to react to that. I mean that you'll have to train yourself to see how the character gets knock-backed and how DI influences that or even CC. From that point is where your mind comes into play, the follow-up.. Everyone does different followups which means theres no way to completely copy a style.

 

[Rarik]

Good thing emulation is just imitation and not completely copying, and I don't see why it's not possible to imitate follow ups, it just takes a lot of effort and analyzing, and isn't really worth it even if you succeed.

 

[gnosis]

Well of course the playing the game part is the most important. It's also just about as worthless of a statement as I can imagine. "just play better and you'll win, that easy" Gee thanks.

And why wouldn't you want to separate the two? You don't think someone can make correct decisions but have trouble inputting them, and another person can't input his flawed decisions perfectly? Separating the two allows us to make more refined analysis of why someone is good or why someone is bad (again, important when we're talking about improving or why so-and-so beat so-and-so). Conflating them serves... nothing, as far as I can tell.

I play league and starcraft too and I don't see how they change anything about that.

Also, strategy is contained within decision making. My framework has always been strategy = broad or overall plan, tactics = moment-to-moment specifics of that plan being implemented, tech skill = pushing the right buttons at the right time, right here being defined by your tactics/strategy and not whatever is actually optimal.

edit: strategy and tactics I don't think have super discrete boundaries, it's more of a spectrum between micro and macro decisions.

 

[Deleted member]

Separating technical inputs from decision-making is conceptually advantageous because it allows you to isolate and focus on individual variables for improvement. Similarly, "offense" and "defense" are almost synonymous at any level of functional play which makes the semantics behind them very difficult, but it still pays off to at least try to understand those concepts better for one's own learning process. To say that you didn't want to do something because you knew it was stupid as soon as you did it is a VERY common thing and I personally do it all the time. Even the last time I was playing Dr. Peepee in the marth mirror i was jumping too much and i knew it and i lost for it, but bad habits like that are hard to break, etc. I would still say that it's NOT a technical error though. To me a technical error is a disconnect between the mind and the fingers after the brain has already made the decision. But at that point we're getting into it much deeper than is needed, and I'd like to keep the discussion nit-pick free.

Rarik gets my gold star for this discussion. Pretty much nailed it, well put.

 

[Rarik]

Was going to make another long post but GUYS I GOT A GOLD STAR. Anyways it was mostly semantic in nature and not really useful so I'll save you guys the trouble of reading a silly post.

I still would like to say talking about pure tech skill (just inputs) seems kinda useless. If in reference to improvement it's oh, you need to get better at pressing buttons, so go press buttons until your better at pressing buttons. Not really much to discuss there. If in the context of analyzing why someone won or loss, again, it's oh they messed up an input there, clearly that's a bad thing and they should not mess up. If it's fancy things/options you can do with super awesome tech skill, then unless it has an application it doesn't really matter now does it? And when you're talking about applications you're really just talking about decisions you can make. That's why I prefer to talk about decision making, and generally just lump tech skill as part of the decision as you do make decisions based on your personal perceived level of button pressing. If I can't waveshine as fox, I'm not going to punish someone with waveshine-Usmash even if they're at kill %, and while that's a good decision in the short term, in the long run it will turn into a bad decision as it's a reliable option on a large portion of that cast that if I'm unable to do, it could potentially cost me games due to missing guaranteed punishes. Of course then you analyze why I missed the punish realize it's because I can't press buttons well enough, i get told to press buttons better, and we're now at why did you even tell me that I know that already.

I dislike being told to press buttons faster.

 

[gnosis]

The only reason I kept bringing it back to pure inputs is because that's what my original question was about. Everything else was a deviation. The question isn't about 'is thinking about strategies out of game or executing strategies in-game more important', it's about 'is melee shallow enough and solved enough at this point that you'd rather be the most technical (best inputs) than the smartest'.

Although I do think tech skill isn't as shallow as you make it. Proper technique makes things world easier, and talking about that can be immensely useful - and some people's hands are just different than others, so even then there's not necessarily a 'most proper' technique, and talking about what works best for what you've got to work with is also immensely helpful.

 

[Rarik]

Fortunately Melee is at a point where quick decision making still matters as the best possible moves in every situation hasn't been completely figured out.

and as we explore the melee metagame further, people are going to agree more and more on how to best play each character, there's going to be less and less variation in playstyles, and the smart player will have less and less room to innovate and be unpredictable

I agree [with Bones about nobody having a complete grasp on the most effective strategy] because I don't think Melee is anywhere near the point where everything is figured out to the tiniest little details. Mainly because there's so many tiny little details. However I still feel like high level play is mostly about execution.

Melee will probably never get to the point where your game plan is so detailed that the focus is purely on your execution. This game will likely be focused on constant adaptation to your opponent and trying to force your opponent into something for a good while longer....
Either way, for a while, I believe the best Melee players will be a mix of both quick thinking/adaptation, and incredible technical skill, being able to do whatever you want, whenever you want.

I don't think Melee is at a point anywhere near where Starcraft was and where League eventually will be (barring Riot intervention), mainly because Melee is so much faster than those games. Unfortunately when talking about how technical play and the optimization of strategies, those are some of the best comparisons because it's actually happened whereas in Melee you can tell that some people are losing because they just didn't accomplish their gameplan, but it's not really the primary reason most people lose

5 quotes from 5 different posts answering that. My opinion is that at the highest level execution does matter more than being a smart player, but that's also just my opinion and doesn't mean I'm right. I'd guess a more widespread opinion would be that at this point in time Melee is at an inbetween point where you need to be both. Just in the long run it will tend to focus more and more on technical prowess.

 

[gnosis]

From their perspective, but it basically disagrees with what Umbreon said so it's not really relevant to my original question. What did Umbreon mean when he said you should accept that you'd rather be the most technical over the smartest? He didn't seem to be talking about some theoretical future state of the game like everyone else here.

And even if he was, and the game does get 'solved', I still feel that it's a complex enough system that grasping a complete understanding of the system and keeping it up in a tense match is not easy - not to the point that I'd feel it okay to sacrifice points in it to gain some points in tech skill (of course here I'd have to say I'm talking about within human capability - perfect tech skill kinda breaks this game so no need to go there). I'd feel better with decent technical precision and superb system knowledge/response rather than vice versa.

But that's assuming Melee isn't very shallow/obvious/simple/etc. once it is solved. If it is, then I do understand why Umbreon said what he did, and I wonder if Melee is even a good game, bringing me back to my original post on this.

 

[Rarik]

Realize and accept that if you had to choose between being the smartest player ever or the most technical player ever, you would choose the technical ability. As a game progresses through its competitive life span, the window for what are considered "viable techniques" slowly decreases as people learn how to overcome them. Ultimately, the best and final skills are the ones that cannot be overcome. This is true for almost any competitive game. It is an observable and notable trend.

Yes, he is talking about some future state of the game.

 

[gnosis]

Yes, he is talking about some future state of the game.

Haha yeah that's obvious now. It had been so long since I'd actually read it (posted that first thing a month ago now, thanks DDOS) that I kinda forgot what the context was.

 

[Rarik]

Yeah, screw you DDoS'er.

Also, I wouldn't worry about some future state of Melee that may or may not be shallow/obvious/simple/whatever because it's been 12 years of people trying to figure out this game and it's still got a ways to go before it's completely figured out. Also I don't know what your definition of a good game is, but to me any game that's had people spend thousands and thousands of hours of their time playing it is quite the incredible game.

 

[gnosis]

Hmm, basically why I would hesitate to agree with that is the whole thing with currently viable strategies vs actually viable strategies. If the game is perceived to be deep for a long time but then everyone realizes oh, no, it's actually quite simple, the game was always that simple and thus always not really a good game, just took everyone a while to see it.

A game could be solved and still deep though, so solving a game in and of itself doesn't necessarily make it bad (one would hope not, considering every single game imaginable is theoretically solvable).

 

[Bones0]

You usually won't know if a game is solved even if it is though. With every metagame shift people have the tendency to believe, "okay, THAT is how you play Melee. There's no way anyone will ever beat that." Then someone comes out of nowhere and completely upends everything you thought you knew about the system. Chess is significantly more limited than Melee in terms of the number of unique games playable, but even chess doesn't have a ridiculously complex flowchart that can lead you to victory every time. Maybe they are getting close, especially with supercomputers, but even then you have to take into account the human element. Once again, this is much mroe prevalent in Melee than in chess. In chess you can sit there and think about each move as long as you want. In Melee you have to account for your reaction time, timing variances that may limit what options are worth attempting, your confidence/mood, etc.

 

[Divinokage]

You usually won't know if a game is solved even if it is though. With every metagame shift people have the tendency to believe, "okay, THAT is how you play Melee. There's no way anyone will ever beat that." Then someone comes out of nowhere and completely upturns everything you thought you knew about the system. Chess is significantly more limited than Melee in terms of the number of unique games playable, but even chess doesn't have a ridiculously complex flowchart that can lead you to victory every time. Maybe they are getting close, especially with supercomputers, but even then you have to take into account the human element. Once again, this is much mroe prevalent in Melee than in chess. In chess you can sit there and think about each move as long as you want. In Melee you have to account for your reaction time, timing variances that may limit what options are worth attempting, your confidence/mood, etc.

That's exactly why I said you can't copy another player, your own human factor makes it so that no one plays exactly the same.

 

[Bones0]

That's exactly why I said you can't copy another player, your own human factor makes it so that no one plays exactly the same.

I'm not sure I agree with you when it comes to the extent of what players are able to copy from others, but I definitely agree with the overall idea. I believe a player could very well learn to emulate a top player of their choice to a high degree, but they'd have to put a lot of work into learning that player's game and mentality in order to understand the decisions as opposed to mimicking their actions. I think distinct playstyles are much less a result of physical differences like reaction time or dexterity and much more a result of how we learn the game. Someone who learns early on to play really safe and defensive is going to play a lot different than someone with similar physical attributes who learns to apply pressure as much as possible to throw their opponent off their game. Of course, these mindsets are probably based heavily on the natural order of our brains, so in that way I guess you could say our physical composition is what defines our playstyles and limits our ability to copy others'. I wish we had a case study of identical twins separated at birth who got into Melee to see how different they play. I have a feeling they would play pretty similarly, maybe even selecting the same main or something.

Actually, idk how similar twins who aren't separated at birth are, so that'd be something to look at. Someone needs to go interview Twin 1 and Twin A and show them video clips. Then, pausing at a certain point in the video, ask them what they would do next if they were in the player's shoes. Then compare to see if they both suggest that the player go for a grab or bait something with a DD. You'd have to cross reference this with non-twins just to make sure similar answers weren't due just because the situation called for it though.

 

[Rarik]

I think distinct playstyles are much less a result of physical differences like reaction time or dexterity and much more a result of how we learn the game.

This is why I think it's possible to emulate someone else's playstyle. If someone learned the game by watching and analyzing HungryBox's gameplay they would develop a puff very much like HBox's. Of course it would require a ton of work and analysis of Hbox's play and why he does the things he does, probably wouldn't be worth it, and of course it wouldn't be a 1:1 copy of Hbox's playstyle. It would be an emulation, an imitation, a cheap knockoff if you prefer, but very similar to HBox's defensive playstyle. Do the same thing with Mang0's puff and you get a much more aggressive playstyle.

 

[Divinokage]

Bones, that's not going to happen because if I had 2 of the same me, both our experiences are going to be completely different. One of them can become an artist and the other can become a fighter, I think you all underestimate how humans work. There's billions of possibilities, just like there's billions of alternate universes if I had made a different choice in life or in a match, it doesn't matter.

I mean there's proof right in front of our eyes that no one plays exactly the same, how the hell can you disregard that? Of course there's similarities but other than that...

 

[MookieRah]

Bones, that's not going to happen because if I had 2 of the same me, both our experiences are going to be completely different. One of them can become an artist and the other can become a fighter, I think you all underestimate how humans work. There's billions of possibilities, just like there's billions of alternate universes if I had made a different choice in life or in a match, it doesn't matter.

Oh, the nature vs nurture debate! It's a fun one. That said, I have to agree with Bones0 on this. A lot of recent research points to nature being much more responsible for stuff like this than we thought in the past. Hell, there are a lot of things that someone can predict about adult life based on behavior in babies at this point. That is not to say that nurture isn't HUGE, but lets not forget that DNA plays a very, very big part as well.

I also think that it's possible for someone to emulate another player's style to a fairly good degree if they studied videos enough, but for the life of me I have never heard of anyone on the boards declaring "My life's goal is to play exactly like player X". Usually, people emulate the current top players to a degree, but once a player gets to a fairly high level they begin to focus more on their own problems and less on strictly copying someone else.

Also touching back a bit in the thread where it was discussing reaction time. Raw reaction time is for the birds. Very little that pro players (or professionals in any fast paced field really) do is based on raw reaction. Also, all the people that you see online that post how good their reaction scores are... well it isn't really very "raw" reaction if you are performing identical tests each time. Instead you see from seasoned players is trained reaction time, and it's something that EVERYONE can improve on regardless of who you are. It really isn't some magical thing, but it sure does look impressive as hell.

For example, I could never DI for **** back in the day outside of grabs and a few easy things. When I started playing again here in Sweden I decided that I should actively work towards fixing that. I came to the conclusion that the best way to learn to DI was actually more about being aware of myself than it was of my opponent. I would try to focus on the moments after I made a mistake knowingly, and then I trained myself to input an appropriate DI in those situations. Fast forward a month or so of working on that and now I have half-way decent survival DI.

There are tons of examples of where one can learn to have a trained reaction to specific circumstances, especially in fighting games. Option selecting in SF comes to mind, although not the best example, but it does show another way that players have adapted to not rely on reactions at all. Honestly, I think I would go a step further and state that the best players probably do a lot to not rely much on raw reaction at all, and that if you are using a strategy that is dependent upon incredible raw reaction it is likely sub-optimal as that would increase the risk of the strategy.

 

[john!]

for what it's worth, two of the best players in illinois are twins (not sure if they're identical), and their character pools are very different.

however, i'm gonna side with mookie here and say that a lot of our success in smash (and life in general, really) are based off of what we were born with. sure, practice makes you better, but only a minority of people even have the POTENTIAL to become a top professional. many of the most successful people in any field will tell you that all you need is hard work to be like them, while ignoring all the good fortune and lucky breaks they had. (look up "self-serving bias" for more on this)

 

[Divinokage]

for what it's worth, two of the best players in illinois are twins (not sure if they're identical), and their character pools are very different.

however, i'm gonna side with mookie here and say that a lot of our success in smash (and life in general, really) are based off of what we were born with. sure, practice makes you better, but only a minority of people even have the POTENTIAL to become a top professional. many of the most successful people in any field will tell you that all you need is hard work to be like them, while ignoring all the good fortune and lucky breaks they had. (look up "self-serving bias" for more on this)

That depends what field you are working in. Having good connections can = luck so you should try to be friends with a lot of people to increase your chances. It's exactly how I got into Warner Bros. You can't do **** alone, you'll even end going crazy most likely.

But as for the potential I don't agree, it sounds like the lamest excuse not to try your hardest. You gotta be willing to be self-critical about everything you are right now but I think not many are willing to do it, they are content with going with the flow. They use smashfests or tournaments as an escape rather than to actually get better as a person and player. There's certain things EVERYONE can do.

 

[john!]

sure, people use it as an excuse to not achieve THEIR full potential, but that doesn't mean that it's not true.

 

[Deleted member]

I'm bored and probably going to be online for most of tonight. I'll do an open Ask Me Anything on Skype while I play PM and Fire Emblem.

Shoot me a message on Skype @ umbreonmow if interested.

 

[MookieRah]

however, i'm gonna side with mookie here and say that a lot of our success in smash (and life in general, really) are based off of what we were born with.

Actually to this point I couldn't disagree more. There are cases of people with extreme talent naturally, but even in those rare scenarios you will see that those people have put in an enormous amount of time and effort to be where they are. I honestly think that "talent" is not that important in the grand scheme of things, and what is more important to someone's overall skill is both the amount of time they put in and the efficacy of their training methods.

Of course, there are A LOT of factors that will hinder people to a great deal which is outside of one's control, but most of them is not genetically based. I would say that location, or rather the quality and quantity of competition, a player has access to will be a natural limiter to what someone is able to accomplish with melee.

You gotta be willing to be self-critical about everything you are right now but I think not many are willing to do it, they are content with going with the flow. They use smashfests or tournaments as an escape rather than to actually get better as a person and player. There's certain things EVERYONE can do.

This, and very much of this. I honestly never "trained" smash appropriately until I got to Sweden. Everything I did before was piss-poor by comparison. So much so that 99% of my practice has been solo, but I've improved greatly despite the lack of playing that many matches with people. Now I have access to someone better than me to play with, and each time I play him (each match) I'm learning much more than I ever did, and it's all due to my mindset.

I think that many of the best smashers were the best more because of how they trained rather than just talent. I'm tempted to try to contact some of the old greats and ask them what they did in their training and how it compared to what others did at the time just to see if my hypothesis has any merit. Obviously M2K is an example of this without me even having to ask.

 

[Bones0]

Actually to this point I couldn't disagree more. There are cases of people with extreme talent naturally, but even in those rare scenarios you will see that those people have put in an enormous amount of time and effort to be where they are. I honestly think that "talent" is not that important in the grand scheme of things, and what is more important to someone's overall skill is both the amount of time they put in and the efficacy of their training methods.

The ability to put in an enormous amount of time and effort are talents in their own right.

 

[john!]

Actually to this point I couldn't disagree more. There are cases of people with extreme talent naturally, but even in those rare scenarios you will see that those people have put in an enormous amount of time and effort to be where they are. I honestly think that "talent" is not that important in the grand scheme of things, and what is more important to someone's overall skill is both the amount of time they put in and the efficacy of their training methods.

oh yeah, definitely. anyone who practices advanced techs and plays competitively is going to beat a new player regardless of natural talent. but when i say "potential" i mean as good as a player can get even with their best effort. like you said, there are limiters.

 

[Twinkles]

bones is a tiger
john is a kitty cat

 

[Tee ay eye]

Actually, idk how similar twins who aren't separated at birth are, so that'd be something to look at. Someone needs to go interview Twin 1 and Twin A and show them video clips. Then, pausing at a certain point in the video, ask them what they would do next if they were in the player's shoes. Then compare to see if they both suggest that the player go for a grab or bait something with a DD. You'd have to cross reference this with non-twins just to make sure similar answers weren't due just because the situation called for it though.

kyle and david are fraternal twins

 

[SAUS]

Awesome read. I guess this is why I always have so much trouble explaining the things I do in-game. People will ask me "how did you do that?!" and I'll say "do what?" and then they'll describe something that's not even close to how I saw the situation like "you beat falco's down-air with captain falcon's up-air!" when really I just punished a miss-timing/spacing by my opponent and describing how they missed by a very small margin is very awkward.

I REALLY loved the descriptions for offensive and defensive play. I see "defensive" players and they are just standing there and I'm thinking "dude you gotta move" and then they whiff a shield-grab and I get free hits. Then people claim that I'm an "aggressive" player, and while I tend towards offense, I really am not completely an aggressive player. I am bad with words so this view-point is really awesome. I'll probably copy-pasta some of these descriptions to help explain to my friends how I play.

 

[FerrishTheFish]

I don't know about you guys, but I can't remember the last time I saw a really technical Fox and thought to myself, "Man ... I'll bet that guy's as dumb as a brick." So why are we talking about being technical vs. being smart as if you have to choose?

For the record, I don't think Melee will ever degenerate to the point where being more technical at the optimal strategy will make you win. There's too little in Melee that is truly guaranteed. A strategy is just a guideline on what inputs to perform; what you seem to be talking about is a flowchart that starts with your character, your opponents character, the stage, and what ports you two are plugged into, and then outlines frame-by-frame the exact optimal inputs you should perform to win based on their frame-by-frame inputs.

Let's temporarily ignore all the problems that would have to be overcome to create such a flowchart. Even if such a chart fell out of the sky, you're still a human being with all the shortcomings of a human body.

First, your human brain has to know that chart and keep it in your working memory. Recall that at each frame your opponent has dozens of different and distinct inputs from the control stick alone that will meaningfully affect their DI for the next several frames, each of which will therefore constitute a different path on your flowchart (SDI in particular--that's X more pixels you have to run before your fsmash tips, for example). And you have 60 of those per second. Good luck.

Second, your human eyes have to tell you exactly what path you are on. Can your eyes tell the difference between a Ganon who tried to double-jump one frame before your attack connected and one who didn't? Surely your optimal set of inputs is different in these two cases. Now how about the difference between a Ganon who held the control stick at the rightmost position and one who held the control stick at the second rightmost position? (We're talking pixel precision here.) I'm sorry, did you blink? That's 6 crucial decision trees you've missed, scrub, come back after you improve your tech skill!

Third, your human reflexes have to allow you to properly follow that flowchart. This is flat-out impossible because it takes 2~3 frames for your nerves to transmit the signal from your brain to your hand, plus however many frames it takes for your muscles to contract and perform the required action. How can you follow a flowchart and counter all options to the frame when your body isn't even capable of responding to your brain in a frame?

----------

Moral of the Story: Flowchart or not, you need some brains to win at this game.

 

[Deleted member]

i've decided to finish this for apex. i'll be working on it later tonight. I'm going to work on the "structuring your learning" section. i will be editing this over the next few days to have it completed for good.

edit: I've sent a text to Cactuar, Clowsui, Dr. Peepee, Druggedfox, and Kirbykaze asking them to review the article for edits or additional suggestions. However, this is open to everyone else in the public as well. Anything else, please post here so I don't miss it.

 

[Twilight Emblem]

I would like to see additional serious lengthy write ups in this guide from people who made it to the top like Dr.PP/Mango/Armada/M2K/Isai/Ken etc.
Their thoughts on getting better combined into this guide would be mad hype.

I would imagine that these and more really high level players are available to be contacted and could be asked to add additional information to this guide.

 

[Deleted member]

actually, a lot of that is already in there, it's just written with my words instead of quotes from the players.

 

[clowsui]

reading this again now

edit: no glaring errors or gaps. it's pretty cohesive. will be using it for my own improvement =p

 

[MookieRah]

I concur with clowsui, everything Mow discusses in here mirrors a lot of things I've read regarding psychology and teaching methods. It's ridiculously on point, and if someone actually follows through with this they will improve at a rapid rate. I have more or less followed this since it was posted, and now that it is more fleshed out I will add the new things to my training style as well. Gotta get myself a notebook.

 

[Bones0]

How do you think notes should be organized? I've been using this outline:

I. Neutral Optimization
II. Offensive Optimization
III. Defensive Optimization
IV. Habits of the Opponent
V. Innovations

I have one for Falco and one for Marth, but as I add more and more notes (only going back to remove things occasionally), I find them getting somewhat cluttered. I was thinking about just breaking it down more by splitting "Offensive Optimization" into "Extending Combos" and "Edgeguarding" and stuff like that, but then the more splits I make, the more often I come up on ambiguous notes where I'm not sure where to put them (like if I write a note about how to extend a combo for the purposes of easier edgeguards).


Also, a section on studying vids would be interesting. Maybe I'm biased because I live in the middle of nowhere, but I feel like the vast majority of my improvement is from studying videos (which I just recently posted about in the Fox forums). I also get the majority of my notes from studying vids, though I am going to take a notebook next time I go to play Smash to take notes while I play.

 

[Deleted member]

How do you think notes should be organized? Also, a section on studying vids would be interesting.

Great idea, will do both of these tonight.

edit 1: refined notes section.

edit 2: finished both.