How can I not care about GSP?

[Deltapivo]

I see a lot of people talking about how bad the GSP system is and that it shouldn't be cared about, but how can I not care about it when i'm stuck in this limbo of 130k-200k GSP?
I've been giving full atention to the game, playing a lot a doing my best to improve, but the highest I can get before going down again is a little more than 200k.
How the hell people usually play for an hour, or a day in the worst cases, and get into elite smash like it if it is no big deal to achieve?
ffs how am I supposed to get out of this purgatory of low GSP if it doesn't matter how much I play and improve I always fall back?

 

[1FC0]

GSP is meaningful. It does take skill to collect it.

Only a small percentage of players are allowed in Elite Smash but Elite Smash is easy to get into because QP is full of casual players who are really bad. If you cannot get into Elite Smash then maybe you are one of them. If you want to improve then it's just the usual things: read guides, watch pros play, learn matchups, and above all practice. Otherwise you could just let it go. It's just a game. If you play it you should probably play for fun. Though ironically having fun may also be key to improving.

 

[StoicPhantom]

How the hell people usually play for an hour, or a day in the worst cases, and get into elite smash like it if it is no big deal to achieve?

Because they already have solid fundamentals and experience from other games. I played Smash 4 competitively for over a year, so it wasn't that difficult for me to get to Elite after they fixed the ranking issues that were present early on. It's not that they just stumbled on some secret, they already have some serious playtime to begin with.

But fighting games are hard and it will take a long time to get good at them. While the number gap make seem pretty significant, there isn't actually that much difference between say 3 and 5 million GSP. Based on the average curve, anyone really low or really high will struggle to move anywhere quickly while those in the broad middle will jump up and down quickly. Because you're on the low end of things it will be more difficult to break out of where you are at, but once you do, you will shoot up rather quickly.

So my Zelda is at 7.166 million and takes several wins just to go up a few thousand GSP. My Bayonetta is in the 500,000 range and also takes a long time to get anywhere. Most of my characters in between can jump pretty quickly, with the exception of those just on the border of Elite Smash.

So don't get too discouraged and keep practicing. It might seem like you are awful because of the low number, but honestly there isn't really much difference between 200k and 3 million. You don't really start seeing any real skill gaps until you hit 6 million and then until you hit 7.2 million. Pay more attention to your win rate than your GSP. Win rate is the only thing that matters, GSP is just a rough abstract of your rank.

 

[Firox]

I'm not entirely sure how GSP is calculated, but I've found that certain characters gain a lot more GSP per win than others. I think it's because they factor it based on all the other people that play that specific character. For example, since Joker is regarded as a top tier character TONS of people play him (or at least try to). Because of this, you have to have a crazy high winrate with him to make elite. On the other hand, I got to elite smash with just 7 wins with Ridley likely due to the fact that relatively few people play him competitively. Greninja's are pretty rare to see too and I only needed like 10 or so wins with him to get to elite. Then I tried Wolf. Holy hell, was that a climb. I had to win like 20+ consecutive matches to get up there because he is (or at least was) one of the most popular competitive characters in the game.

 

[StoicPhantom]

I'm not entirely sure how GSP is calculated

Here and here are good explanations. It essentially depends on where you are at on the bell curve, but also if you are just before the Elite barrier.

 

[Coccinelle]

I m also a low GSP player. Here is my experience for those who may be interested. At your GSP level, the problem is that winning 1 game raises your GSP by around 1k and you lose it quickly, so you have to be consistent if you want to climb the GSP scale. But that is possible. With my previous main, I got around 145 GSP very slowly and then my GSP progression became much faster. To give you an idea, I found GSP being like a ladder :if you win you go up one step and if you lose you go down one step. And the steps would be something like: 100 101 102...143 144 145 160 200 250 320 450 600 720 850 980 1100...
In my experience, players above 100k tend to play much better than those <90, those >125k are noticeably better, and I see no real skill difference in the 125 - 1000 or maybe 1500k range. I think there are a lot of decent players around 125K; obviously these players are not very good but not rarely the have a good knowledge of their character and how to play, they are far from being total noobs. Total noobs are mostly <70-90k.
I have not been able to maintain a GSP higher than 1000k and have rapidly changed my main, so I don't have a lot of experience at higher GSP, but I have played against some players around 1500k and was still able to win some games.
Now playing Falco I m stuck around 135K and my win rate is around 50% thus my GSP is stable. To be honest I think that some characters are clearly more demanding than others. It may take time to become consistent enough to climb GSP if you play a more technical character without much cheap options. At higher level I suspect technical skill might be more homogenous. But whatever your GSP the most important is to feel that you are becoming a better and more consistent player day to day. This is the way. I have written.

 

[Omar_25]

Over the past year of playing Ultimate online I have developed a fool proof plan to make myself not care about GSP: don't play quickplay.

I'm absolutely serious, just don't play quickplay. Just use arenas instead if you want to play online. From my experience, the people that I have fought in arenas are way better than in quickplay, plus they're not nearly as toxic as the everyday GSP grinder. There are just so many benefits to playing in arenas instead of quickplay.

1. You can generally play against the same people for an extended amount of time. I can't count the number of times where my opponent in quickplay play a couple games and then leave the moment he loses one match. With arenas, the majority of players (in my experience) will stick around regardless of if they either win or lose.
2. With arenas, the pressure to win for GSP is completely absent allowing you not care as much about losing and focus on improvement.
3. With arenas, you can actually change characters AND stages whenever you want.
4. You can actually communicate with people somewhat. With the added feature of posting pre-made messages in arenas, you can actually communicate with your opponents, albeit with a very limited set of messages. You can also just set your profile as you Discord ID which allows people to add you on Discord and communicate through there. I've met some cool people in arenas doing this.

In general, arenas just have strictly better features than quickplay. The prestige of getting into Elite Smash really isn't worth it to be honest. At the end of the day, it's really just a cool title that doesn't mean a whole lot. You'll probably have much more success improving your game in arenas than grinding for GSP in quickplay. Also, definitely try to find people practice with online, whether that be through Smashboards, Discord, or even IRL friends. Maybe even try to find if your local scene has a discord and find people to play there. Having a consistent training partner helps a TON when trying to improve.

Hopefully this is helpful.

 

[Coccinelle]

GSP has to be taken wiyh a grain of salt but I like QP more than arenas. Not rarely it takes a lot of time before finding the good arena for what you want and you may have to wait too much for my taste. I have no problem focusing on improvement rather than GSP. Just matter of taste.

 

[Dilan Omer]

I m also a low GSP player. Here is my experience for those who may be interested. At your GSP level, the problem is that winning 1 game raises your GSP by around 1k and you lose it quickly, so you have to be consistent if you want to climb the GSP scale. But that is possible. With my previous main, I got around 145 GSP very slowly and then my GSP progression became much faster. To give you an idea, I found GSP being like a ladder :if you win you go up one step and if you lose you go down one step. And the steps would be something like: 100 101 102...143 144 145 160 200 250 320 450 600 720 850 980 1100...
In my experience, players above 100k tend to play much better than those <90, those >125k are noticeably better, and I see no real skill difference in the 125 - 1000 or maybe 1500k range. I think there are a lot of decent players around 125K; obviously these players are not very good but not rarely the have a good knowledge of their character and how to play, they are far from being total noobs. Total noobs are mostly <70-90k.
I have not been able to maintain a GSP higher than 1000k and have rapidly changed my main, so I don't have a lot of experience at higher GSP, but I have played against some players around 1500k and was still able to win some games.
Now playing Falco I m stuck around 135K and my win rate is around 50% thus my GSP is stable. To be honest I think that some characters are clearly more demanding than others. It may take time to become consistent enough to climb GSP if you play a more technical character without much cheap options. At higher level I suspect technical skill might be more homogenous. But whatever your GSP the most important is to feel that you are becoming a better and more consistent player day to day. This is the way. I have written.

Wait you are at 1 million GSP and you are saying the players in 100k or so are not noobs?

Arent most players if not all below 6 or 7 million casuals?

 

[Coccinelle]

Wait you are at 1 million GSP and you are saying the players in 100k or so are not noobs?

Arent most players if not all below 6 or 7 million casuals?

Casual does not mean noob
I mean people at 150k are not good but they would win very easily 100% of fights against true newbies who would be discovering the game. 150k do mistakes, don't space well, etc.. but many know how to shield, play OOS, combo with their main, etc...They are far to be total beginners. It is true also that they are far from "good casual" level. Just my experience.