How do I become better?

[Akenero]

Link to original post: [drupal=5481]How do I become better?[/drupal]



I have read everything,I'm always in the arena,I'm terrible...I've tried...so so much...to become stronger...but I cannot...no matter how much practice I get in,I cannot win...I read the character guides so much,and I use what they say,but I don't get any help...I practice,practice,and practice more,I have no doubt in my mind I am missing something...but I have no Idea what...I need to become stronger.

 

[Diddy204]

Ask for advice after playing a match....

Don't focus on reading how to get better... Get better by playing... Keep playing in the arena. Don't rage quit just keep playing and ask for advice

 

[Skadorski]

Trying too hard is entirely possible.

 

[Gadiel_VaStar]

It comes w/ time. Nothing is ever given to you in this game though, you have to work for it. Go to tournaments and get more experience, and you'll learn fast. How many tournaments have you been to? If it's below 5, then clearly you have some catching up to do.

 

[Sephirothxxx]

Link to original post: [drupal=5481]How do I become better?[/drupal]



I have read everything,I'm always in the arena,I'm terrible...I've tried...so so much...to become stronger...but I cannot...no matter how much practice I get in,I cannot win...I read the character guides so much,and I use what they say,but I don't get any help...I practice,practice,and practice more,I have no doubt in my mind I am missing something...but I have no Idea what...I need to become stronger.

You will get better in time. I have a few tips, and those would be a)playing with friends; playing with real people helps you get better practice. And my other tip is b) if you have have the chance, go to a tournament. Not a big one, but maybe a local/ lower level tournament. The more REAL PEOPLE you play with the better.
Always ask for tips and suggestions from fellow players. Also, since you evidently main Roy, I'd be all over the Roy boards if I were you. And for lucas, do the same.

 

[Johnknight1]

Face top opponents, ask them how they smashed you, and learn from it. Do this a few dozen times.

Also, sometimes take a break from playing and watch videos. Try to figure out what the top players do, copy it, paste it in your style, and eventually, if you work on that enough in real matches, you will take their techniques/moves/strategies and make it into one that is purely your style.

 

[BlueXenon]

Im not a good player, but I have improved a lot in 5 months and I was able to beat players who have been playing for years.
This is the best guide I ever read for this game, it helped me so much.
http://clashtournaments.com/?p=390
and this one too
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=327723
I've read a lot of guides, and these 2 are the ones that helped me the most. These guides are both about the mental part of brawl. I think technical skill is a lot more important, but i was never good at it.

 

[Luco]

Face top opponents, ask them how they smashed you, and learn from it. Do this a few dozen times.

Also, sometimes take a break from playing and watch videos. Try to figure out what the top players do, copy it, paste it in your style, and eventually, if you work on that enough in real matches, you will take their techniques/moves/strategies and make it into one that is purely your style.

Actually this is really good advice. Don't worry about being unique, that comes with time. I saw a top player's playstyle (consisting of a lot of SHPKF), used that and now i've got other stuff going on in addition to the fact that i'm really good at my PKFs and a bunch of stuff... things just get better.

Also... I had times like you where I thought I couldn't get any better. Sometimes the best thing to do is actually take a break from smash for a little while and then come back to it. You'll be rusty at first after a few weeks of not playing and then suddenly you'll be doing all these flips and tricks. Remember that in addition to experience, time is needed to get better and also patience and persistence. It takes a while but I know you'll get better. You likely have and haven't noticed it because that's happened to me before. ^_^

 

[Metros]

I am in the same position as you, but when I chose my character three years ago the one thing I told myself (after learning about the tier lists and such) that I would never give up on my character.

My first tournament, I got 5th, but only recently, at my second tournament there were far more pros there. I lost every match. I only won because somebody was kind enough to forfeit to me, but still I got nowhere.

However, the positive thing to come from that experience, was that I was forced to adapt my game play to a way I'm not used to. And by doing so, I drastically improved. I can now do things I could not figure out for the life of me how to do before, and I had that 'oh I get it now!' moment.

Patience, confidence and faith in your character/s will take you a long way. Study others that main your character, and watch how they play if possible. Watch videos, and take notes. Learn as much as you can, and continue to practice. Remember, only you can bring out the potential in your character.

Most importantly, don't give up. I've gotten angry, frustrated and on the verge of quitting myself, COUNTLESS times, as I'm sure a lot of people have. But I told myself I'd never give up on my character, and I haven't after almost four years. I'm improving more and more.

And my main is one of the low-tiers. Mewtwo. Good luck!

 

[Shocksauce]

Just kill them before they kill you.

 

[himemiya]

Ask for advice after playing a match....

Don't focus on reading how to get better... Get better by playing... Keep playing in the arena. Don't rage quit just keep playing and ask for advice

this and find tournements in your area to go to. Find people around your level and higher to play with and cpu won't get you better, trust me. Also stop playing casually and always play competitively And don't be a Kevin Reeves cause you'll be hated by the community (I have a reputition aswell).

 

[Kink-Link5]

"Don't get hit" is a very sound mentality.

I mean, you're going to get hit, but it's not the point.

Stay back and study your opponent, see what they do and when they do it, how they do it, and how well they do it, all while being non-confrontational. The key thing to getting better is being put in a situation, understanding what you did in the situation, and thinking of everything else you could have done in the situation to change that situation- good and bad.

Utilize the timer. You have 8 minutes (Or infinite minutes in Smash64) to beat your opponent, and you should use as much of that time as you can. Breath on the angel platform until it goes away, keep running from the opponent, and just try to get a grasp for how avoiding the opponent's attacks works. The more you study your opponent, the more opportunities you'll see.

Don't focus on capitalising on every hit or comboing for maximum percent every time. Instead try to set your opponent up so that they are in a bad position once you're done with your successive hits. Going for less damage but easier future hits is a very worthwhile proposition.

Understand how matchups work. Don't give a **** about the matchup numbers or charts thrown around, just focus on understanding the matchup on a personal level. What your character can do against theirs, and how you can avoid the enemies attacks yourself. Matchup experience is vital, untrainable, and needs to be understood through personal understanding. But it is vital none the less, and by far the most important part of the game (The only part of the game actually. I mean really, it's your character vs your opponent's.). If you don't have experience in hard matchups, personal or character wise, it's something you have to overcome on your own.

Know about trades, when you can take them, and how to afford them more easily. In Melee they can lead to important recovery situations, while in Brawl they can make for very interesting followups that don't work on normal hit.

Understand your mobility, stage control options, raw safety on hit, whiff, and block, and your moves' hitbox coverage and speed, to use your character the most efficiently and avoid your opponent most easily.

Basically,

All I'm trying to say

is

Just Play Homo.

 

[Orange Fox]

Do what I did, I played every single day in most of my free time. I had nobody to play offline so I played online. While playing online will not help you get better a quick as offline, both will help. The more you play the more you learn how to dodge and time your moves. You also learn follow ups to your moves and get better at combos. When you hit character A with move A it sends them flying this so far letting you follow up. Also, online will help you with match ups.

 

[himemiya]

Well you can play everyday and not get any better so key trick is learning the strengths, weaknesses, and the meta games as whole.

 

[Kink-Link5]

Mentality plays a huge role too. Playing the same way, even when "trying everything" isn't going to net any better gameplay. How to have a better mentality is difficult to explain even in person, let alone on a forum. Ask the players that beat you what they do, and how they look for openings, rather than "What am I doing wrong?" It's easy to see in hindsight what could have been done better, but it doesn't help when you're doing something in the here-and-now, since you realistically can not keep a conscious track of every single thing you've done right and wrong in every situation that is constantly changing every second.

 

[Death Arcana]

you need confidence!
if u go in feeling depressed you're gonna have a bad time...
and thats when your gonna notice that,
your hands are too cold
your control stick is too sensitive
your B button doesnt respond the way u want it to
Everything will get to your head and its GGs from there

so what you can do is Practice enough to the point where you feel confidence in
your abilites.
and maybe try listening to some music before and/or during a match
here is some songs i listen to before a match
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lsn2tT5yTc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DawIbXJ4W6s

 

[Orange Fox]

Well you can play everyday and not get any better so key trick is learning the strengths, weaknesses, and the meta games as whole.

This may happen to like 2% of Brawlers, but I assure you that people will get better by simply playing everyday even if they don't study things online.

 

[ndayday]

^ I disagree, at a certain point a lot of people think they understand everything in the game and don't bother trying to find things out. Sure you might get better at playing your friend or relatives but I don't think you'll have an epiphany and learn 4+ years worth of metagame advancement by yourself.

 

[Jim Morrison]

Correction, Nday, you won't learn by playing with the same people, but when you play with a couple of different people who are significantly better than you, you are going to get better.

 

[ndayday]

Yeah you're right, I just was saying what happened to me

 

[Kink-Link5]

Correction, Nday, you won't learn by playing with the same people, but when you play with a couple of different people who are significantly better than you, you are going to get better.

This qualifier would be the kind of relevant information Orange Fox left out. Just playing a lot will not make you better.

Just playing people better than you will not make you better either though.

If you don't have the right mentality in how you approach the game, you'll never succeed or plateau a huge amount.

 

[Pachinkosam]

Correction, Nday, you won't learn by playing with the same people, but when you play with a couple of different people who are significantly better than you, you are going to get better.

Correction, jim you go to tournaments and do you're best.

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

Well you can play everyday and not get any better so key trick is learning the strengths, weaknesses, and the meta games as whole.

This may happen to like 2% of Brawlers, but I assure you that people will get better by simply playing everyday even if they don't study things online.

^ I disagree, at a certain point a lot of people think they understand everything in the game and don't bother trying to find things out. Sure you might get better at playing your friend or relatives but I don't think you'll have an epiphany and learn 4+ years worth of metagame advancement by yourself.

Correction, Nday, you won't learn by playing with the same people, but when you play with a couple of different people who are significantly better than you, you are going to get better.

Uh.... This whole quote chain bothered me. Becoming better at the game is a pretty broad statement. The simplest thing I believe everyone can do is pick a character and just do stuff with that character.

The first day you pick up the game and focus on one character you are already becoming a better player. The most basic thing you can do is become familiar with a character's attacks and attributes. With each mock battle against a CPU you become a bit more familiar with something else. You do reach a point where your gains per match become close to no gains at all, and all you do is maintain your current proficiency. Even then, sometimes something random will pop up like accidentally doing a DACUS with snake and wonder how the hell did that happen?

Now, getting to Ndayday's quote there seems to be some ambiguity. As many other players who have been playing for a long time will likely say, "improvement seems to happen in large jumps". For myself and talking with others, they say they run into a plateau, then all of a sudden see a huge improvement. And even playing with the same people, you can still pick out something from it and improve. Consider players who really have no one to rely upon for the character they play. I think its more prevalant in melee than in brawl, but you see really good players like Axe, Taj, Armada, Shroom, etc. who are considered a pinnacle for the character. They do not really have someone better than them for a character to really try free loading off of as so many of us do. The first steps of improving almost always seem to mimic others and copy the stuff other people do. Eventually, you reach a point where that will no longer work and you really have to start teaching yourself to improve and get creative.

As for the quote by Jim, I would disagree by playing someone significantly better than you gives you much gain on your improvement. It helps in a different way. Even if you play for a long time with a particular character, the really good person will have a better understanding of the game than you will. Playing against them won't guarantee you understand what it is they are doing. The real help comes from talking with them and getting a better idea of what you can improve on. The best I believe I would ever receive out of playing someone significantly better than me would give me an idea of how far I could go. Or perhaps enlighten me on the next level up. For example, where I am at currently with melee, I realize I make far too many mistakes and my punishment game is horrendous. Playing against frootloop hasn't made me a better player at all, but I do get a better idea of where I should go now.

 

[Akenero]

wow...that's a lot of feedback...
thanks...
I'm still not better...I have had someone tell me that I need a win though...I think that will be the best thing for me.

 

[Youngster Joey]

im starting to get xeyloads mindset. watching other players only works if you know why they did what they did tho. i kinda just started realizing that. me being a diddy main i watch adhd and other top diddys. although i learn more options from them i thought the fact that they just did it made them good. when i do it it doesnt work because the other person usually isnt in position for what i do. its all situational and experience based mostly. i have to learn reads and how to work around situations. i used to just play by habits.