How did/will you learn to play?

[Smur]

In melee and brawl, I never reached the true PRO status. I was always a bit over average or "good" to the casual player. But in SSB4, if the game permits it, I plan to go FULL BEAST MODE.

So anyways, my question, how did you learn to play and get good? Were your skills self taught? Did you have a partner always willing to play and get better? A teacher? A burning pit of salt you wished to overcome by beating the person that's always better than you?

 

[RODO]

Self taught mostly. Only thing I picked up on was Z-air that I can recall. I have just played a lot of smash

 

[smashbrolink]

In melee and brawl, I never reached the true PRO status. I was always a bit over average or "good" to the casual player. But in SSB4, if the game permits it, I plan to go FULL BEAST MODE.

So anyways, my question, how did you learn to play and get good? Were your skills self taught? Did you have a partner always willing to play and get better? A teacher? A burning pit of salt you wished to overcome by beating the person that's always better than you?

Self-taught, and I've already got a challenge set up.

3 level 9 computers made of what I consider to be either the most annoying or the most difficult enemies.
A large stage for the sake of survive, preferably without hazards.
The only item activated would be one of the three healing items, set on the lowest setting, and nothing else.[The type picked determines the difficulty of the challenge even further. Food: Hard, Max Tomato: Medium, Heart: Easy. I usually got Medium till it's cleared once, then go again on Hard]
No teams, 99 stock, no time limit.
The goal's to survive without dying while claiming at least half the lives of two out of the three opponents, total.
Cannot go more than two minutes without engaging in combat.
Optional condition; must allow opponents to recover.

I did this in Melee.
It took 4 days.
I tried it in Brawl.
I still have not accomplished it, but I'm close.

I don't know if it'll be possible in Smash 4, depending on the returning stages.

 

[SmashCentralOfficial]

When I first discovered the "competitive" side of Melee I was blown away, and shortly after found these forums. I was then able to find people in my city and even at my school who were also on the forums, and we started getting together once or twice a week on a regular basis to play Melee. As a group we started going out to tournaments and smashfests (because it IS kind of awkward going to someone's house or a venue to play a video game with strangers), and from there we just started meeting and playing new/better/more people and started getting better ourselves. When Brawl came out, I was the only one out of the group who actually wanted to play it, so I honed my skills through the GameBattles ladders. It didn't take long for me to see why my friends hated Brawl, and soon after I gave up on it as well.

When it comes to the new Smash game, I kind of want to take a hiatus from Smash Bros. altogether for a couple months leading up to its release date so I can have the most fresh first impression of a new Smash game possible. However, I've become quite the Project: M junkie as Brawl was not fun at all for me (and still isn't), and I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to put it down when a release date for Smash 4 is confirmed.

Edit:

A burning pit of salt you wished to overcome by beating the person that's always better than you?

LOL I didn't notice this the first time I read the post. There's always one or two friends that I'm about even skill-level with and occasionally there will be days where one of us is just destroying the other. That is the burning pit of salt right there aha.

 

[KingofPhantoms]

I picked up my Brawling skills after a long time of playing online. I still work on them today.

 

[Evil-Guy]

I picked up my Brawling skills after a long time of playing online. I still work on them today.

I picked them up recently after playing the game after a while. I am a late bloomer in Brawl!

 

[DakotaBonez]

I just been playing smash on the N64 back when I was too young to know how to read the menus. I really sucked at the game I think but I knew how to Up B and roll and all that jazz. The neighbor girl played the game with me every day and without her I probably never would've realized how fun the game could be with friends.

I'm relatively new to the internet and discovery of competitive smash, I hope the community on these forums will be able to help me go FULL BEAST MODE on the Wii U version of smash bros, and that maybe I can contribute and teach someone else how to smash.

 

[Orngeblu]

I pretty much taught myself most of the way, but I got some advice from some good players I fought, pointing out my habits and all. I'll learn the fundamentals, learn match ups, etc.

 

[Hong]

Played SSB64 every day in the 8th grade.
Was not inherently pro for the SSBM days, but I hosted tourney-goers on the road, so I learned a lot of cool stuff from them.
Brawl is a joke so I only played it as a party-game on request.

Edit - I should add that I love to break games, sometimes more than I like to play them. I picked up techniques like the wavedash on my own time, though I learned a lot from both Japanese and western gamers in the way of application.

 

[Zzuxon]

I agree with much of what you said. I've never been competitive before but I'd like to start with SSB4.

 

[[Corn]]

I didnt have many kids in my area when I was growing up, and this was before I owned any communication devices.

I played against lvl 7 computers until I learned what I wanted. Then when I got good at it, I kinda stopped until someone wanted me to play it, which I then kicked their A** at it.

Did that for all of the Smash Games.

 

[Smur]

I usually had my bro or friends to play with, but I'm going off to college this year. But I actually don't see it as a problem, if anything, I'm kinda hype because I feel like the competitive community will be really big for SSB4.

We'll most likely have MUCH better online play than brawl, good enough to where competitive play could be possible. The friend system will probably work a lot better. We would probably have microphones to talk while we're playing and could give out some tips. Plus, the community is still growing, so we'll have even more people. SO HYPEUHAGHEW

 

[Platsy]

I taught myself since I didn't know any kids that played Smash, nor did I know what a Smashboard was at the time. It wasn't until around early 2012 that I found out that there was Smash Bros tournaments and all of this weird tech stuff. I trained by fighting level 9s pretty much, since I didn't have any human players to go against.

I'm probably planning on doing tournaments when SM4SH comes out, since it will be the first time I'd think about competitive stuff early into the game. I doubt I'd be Apex worthy, but it's worth trying.

 

[HeroMystic]

So anyways, my question, how did you learn to play and get good? Were your skills self taught? Did you have a partner always willing to play and get better? A teacher? A burning pit of salt you wished to overcome by beating the person that's always better than you?

In Melee, it was self-taught by constantly playing with friends. I eventually figured out what youtube was and started watching matches and ATs and mimicked it.

In Brawl, it was here on Smashboards where I got most of my ideas. The once thriving Mario community worked together to better ourselves, but now everyone either quit or went to higher tier characters.

In SSB4 it'll probably be me communicating with the Mario boards again. Hopefully I'll manage to stick it out when the time comes.

 

[Admiral Pit]

I wasn't introduced to competitive play in Melee, so I was completely terrible, few friends playing casually whenever we got together. In Brawl, I just had a few tips from actually good players (over the internet of course), and studied much competitive gameplay and more to become a remarkable (but still hated) player, for a Pit and Bowser user that is. Unfortunately I may have to teach myself because the Pit boards were repulsive for the most part, with little to no matchup discussions, and some of the players likely left for if not second higher tier characters.
I'm expecting to maintain my capabilities as Pit and Bowser and hopefully add Palutena (if she makes it in) to the mains list. I will find it tons more difficult though if I can't use my GC controller (which is pretty much most likely), as I've always played with it. But with that in mind, I'm likely going to have to learn most things on my own and study gameplay again.

 

[aspirin cookie]

One of the first things I plan to do is vs. each CPU individually , at their highest level of course (nasty) , no weapons , stock two . This is only to get the over all feel and flow of the new physics . And this is just for the first night (midnight release) . Then it's off to real matches throughout my college dorms , with true Smash Bros . You can't win them all , but I will kill you .

 

[Phan7om]

At my school there was a Brawl tournament going on, and I wanted to enter cuz I thought I was good at the game. I used to "main"/use Sonic and TL at the time and I was one of those Homing Attack-Spin Dash-Fair spammy/Jump-Dair noobs... I got destroyed. One of my good friends won the tournament by a landslide... so I kept practicing because I wanted to become better than him so I could win the tourmanent next year.
~Turns out that they didnt have a tournament my Senior year in High School so I never knew if I was better than my friend Michael or not... but I still kept playing because this is what I've become.~

 

[DigitalDragon]

Back in high school, my friends and I would play Melee (and later Brawl) pretty much every weekend for hours. It soon became clear that I was learning and improving much faster than everyone else. Unfortunately, all of my friends were never interested in learning the finer points of the game (they would get mad at me if I tried edgeguarding them at all, just to put it in perspective), and I didn't actually have a gamecube or wii of my own to practice, so all I still knew very little about the game overall. When I got to college, however, I quickly learned that my school had a fairly big smash community, and my eyes were truly opened. There were monthly tournaments and training sessions with people that actually cared about improving and learning. It was beautiful. I left college as a decent Melee player and essentially the best Brawl player on campus, but now none of my high school friends want to play with me anymore

 

[Smur]

In SSB4 it'll probably be me communicating with the Mario boards again. Hopefully I'll manage to stick it out when the time comes.

That's cool :D, we should meet there then (In a year lol). I plan to main (or sub-main) Mario too.

 

[Renji64]

I always played with friends. I used to play with my one friend who would always beat me. Then I just kept improving till i became the best in my local area and of course 3 lvl 9s and single player is even good for reflex if you speed run it. Brawl I went to local tourneys but after it kinda died down and i wanted a challenge so i moved to melee.

 

[The World Warrior]

I was self taught until it came to advanced techs. I learned some of those by watching several vids online and trying them out myself. I'm no pro by any stretch of the imagination though. I'm in the zone where I'm good enough to mop the floor with my friends but possibly not yet good enough for actual tourneys. Not that the tourney scene is all that big here in my crap town though. I did play in a tourney once though and only made it to round 2. This was way back before I ever learned any advanced techs though so who knows how I might stack up now.

 

[MrGamer419]

I learned most of my skills by playing against my brothers and some people in my community and checking videos for techs

 

[grizby2]

Self-taught/ leanring to beat my bro and pull off an ash-ketchum.

I train my reflexes with the "Fox challenge"

in brawl..
set fox to lvl 9 with 300 stamina, set yourself for 1 stamina. see how long you can survive or how much dmg you can do before getting hit.

 

[TigerBizNiz]

I honestly didn't start getting good at SSBM/SSBB until I started playing online, watching tutorial videos and tournament videos. Funny how when I was in middle school, I never thought X and Y buttons would be helpful. Started using those buttons more often and now I feel like a pro! (Well sort of)

 

[Morbi]

Well I got most of my Fighting Game Fundamentals from other games. I am self-taught. I used to play with my sister everyday for hours. We would give each-other MU experience with a plethora of different characters. So consistently practicing with someone who was on an equal skill level definitely helped.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

There's one really basic trick to getting better, and it's very simple. You need to play people better than you. I played Melee for years with friends, and while we all improved together slowly, I only started to improve quickly when I found better competition. If you try hard and play smart, you'll eventually "even out" to the level of competition you play on a regular basis so really the single best thing you can do for yourself is be a part of whatever strong local scene you can find.

As per how to improve yourself efficiently, the main thing you have to do is look at your game and figure out what exactly is making you lose games. People talk about technical stuff on the boards a lot, and that can be really important with some of the character specific techniques being totally necessary to reaching potential, but there's a lot more too. Do you understand proper stage control, and can you identify which zones you need to control with your particular character in particular match-ups? How tight is your control over your mobility? Do you space your attacks properly (remember to include both X distance and height in your spacing calculations) both to maximize pressure as well as safety? Do you play the ledge game well? Do you maneuver off-stage effectively? Do you properly navigate various stage geography effectively, including slopes, platforms, walls, walk-offs, transformations, pass-through floors, and damaging hazards? Do you properly punish unsafe attacks from your opponents? Do you properly mitigate hits you take from your opponents, including good DI, SDI, grab breaks, techs, etc.? Are you truly using a character who works for you in every matchup, or do you need to either pick up secondaries or switch mains completely? That list is only a beginning of various basic gameplay stuff to be thinking about too, and different players have different abilities at various fundamental aspects of good smash play. Figuring out where you need to focus is huge, and from there, play those strong opponents while pushing yourself to do what you don't usually do well.

 

[Senario]

Mostly self taught, me and my younger brother started learning the AT to melee right before brawl came out. I play fairly decently in melee although my brother is leagues ahead of me due to natural talent at fighting games. So I lose most of the games I play, I only really realize how good I've become when I play my brother's friends who are also into melee.

As for Brawl, I played it for a while then I put it down since there really was no competitive aspect I enjoyed about it. Moon gravity, low to nonexistant hitstun, chain grabs that weren't available to(almost) all characters, and so on. It didn't feel as fluid or keep my attention as long as melee has due to it's slow pace.

 

[Dark Phazon]

How did i learn to play?
I read this sexy thing over and over and over and it was better than sex.

 

[Lemonwater]

Mostly self-taught. I'd spend countless hours grinding away and familiarizing myself with my characters in all the games. This allowed me to fight and beat some of the serious players who watched advanced tech things and wanted to play competitively.

My approach in these games: Master your timing and stick to the basics.

That's not to say that advanced techniques are useless or that just anyone can pick up a character and beat people if they know all the characters' attack properties. A solid foundation is much more useful overall. Basics might be simple but not necessarily easy. Learning to read your opponent is a basic to me, too.

This allowed me to defeat competitive Melee players who ridiculed my character choice at the time (Roy) and looked down on me for never really wavedashing or pulling long combos. They were picking characters like Marth, Falco, Captain Falcon, etc. All you really have to do is poke at the right times, don't get predictable, and abuse the counter. There was no need to immerse myself in advanced techs if my timing and reaction was good. I used Link, too, but people complained that he was 'cheap' and I switched to mostly Roy.

In Smash 64, I mained Link. I believe he is at the bottom of the tier list somewhere right now but people never thought I'd win matches with him. I got so used to fighting Kirby and Pikachu that I actually WANTED my opponents to pick them because I knew what they could do and I knew I'd be able to win for sure if they picked them. Back in those days, I didn't even have internet. Everything was self-taught.

I mained Link in Brawl and regularly fought characters like MK and Snake. There was more of a competitive start to Brawl so I played against a LOT of people. Still, a mastery of the fundamentals allowed me to prevail against people who'd be practicing fancy stuff every day. Eventually I switched to Brawl+ and stayed there. In all three games I relied heavily on timing and reading the enemy, not advanced techs or 'better' characters, and people noticed that.

 

[Curmudgeon]

Smashing buttons on the N64 controller and practicing every day. I believe I'm pretty good, but I've never played competitively so...

 

[extremechiton]

i am self taught. as soon as i got the game i was already an instant semi-pro (possible over exaggeration)

since i never owned a gamecube, i never got used to the gc controller, so i always use wiimote and nunchuck. i even beat my friends who use gc controllers, and they are at my skill level.

just recently i have been watching tournaments, combo vids, and are trying to implement those skills into my playstyle. however i am still somewhat of a casual player, but a fierce one at that.

 

[extremechiton]

i am self taught. as soon as i got the game i was already an instant semi-pro (possible over exaggeration)

since i never owned a gamecube, i never got used to the gc controller, so i always use wiimote and nunchuck. i even beat my friends who use gc controllers, and they are at my skill level.

just recently i have been watching tournaments, combo vids, and are trying to implement those skills into my playstyle. however i am still somewhat of a casual player, but a fierce one at that.

 

[Ojanya]

You basically HAVE to self-teach. It's like learning a musical instrument - you can have some kickass teachers, but you won't be a top elite without taking full responsibility for your education.

 

[Dark Phazon]

i am self taught. as soon as i got the game i was already an instant semi-pro (possible over exaggeration)

since i never owned a gamecube, i never got used to the gc controller, so i always use wiimote and nunchuck. i even beat my friends who use gc controllers, and they are at my skill level.

just recently i have been watching tournaments, combo vids, and are trying to implement those skills into my playstyle. however i am still somewhat of a casual player, but a fierce one at that.

Because your self taught all the self taught PeePz are royalty? All high up on a pedestal looking down on us spitting from above yh?

Lmfaoo joking bro...(KILL YOU !

 

[TreK]

How I got into Competitive Brawl :

I got into Competitive Melee 6 months before the game came out. I learned from videos and guides all the theoretical aspects (how attacks work, several techniques, all the strategy behind spacing and zoning, etc).
When Brawl came out, I went through the single player campaign to find myself a main character, trained a bit against CPUs, then took my ballz wih me and challenged people on several French forums, attending online tournaments and stuff like that. Eventually I earned myself a name, and managed to join a crew. I did online clan wars for a bit, then attended my first offline tournament where I managed to get through pools on my very first try.

So you could say that I had the right method. I plan on doing the exact same thing next time around.