How playstyle is molded.

[Get Low]

I was wondering how many people think that their playstyle in this game is largely shaped by who/what characters they play against regularly.

For example, I'm a Peach main, and I learned this game by playing with my two friends who were Falco and Falcon mains, respectively. Even though Peach is generally a campy character, I developed a more aggressive playstyle with her as a result of playing against Falco and Falcon most frequently, which are two matchups that Peach generally can't camp in.

 

[Kal]

I think this is pretty common. I played against a very campy person, and developed a very aggressive Marth playstyle in response. However, some things are determined by personality, in my opinion.

 

[Get Low]

I think this is pretty common. I played against a very campy person, and developed a very aggressive Marth playstyle in response. However, some things are determined by personality, in my opinion.

I think what character a person decides to main is mostly based off of personality. It could affect playstyle as well though.

 

[Divinokage]

I'd say we all have our strongest match-ups depending on what your friends played with you for the longest time. The style I think is definitely the way you view the game in general. I mean you pick a character that you think suits you the best and you try to force your views or drive upon the others to prove that your style is better than theirs.

 

[danieljosebatista]

Do you guys think playstyles can change over time? I personally feel that I'm a pretty aggressive player, but I find myself playing more carefully these days. I don't mean defensive, just thinking more about how to use my aggressive options better

 

[the_CAM_factor]

my playstyle is definately self taught, its super weird for the people i havent played against at first. i personally like it and have tried to change it but i always go back to my playstyle when im on auto pilot.

 

[n1000]

Do you guys think playstyles can change over time? I personally feel that I'm a pretty aggressive player, but I find myself playing more carefully these days. I don't mean defensive, just thinking more about how to use my aggressive options better

no, of course not.

 

[Massive]

You and your playstyle are limited by the number and quality of players you play.

Unless you are an anomalous outlier in terms of talent, you're probably not going to get much better than the group of people you encounter most frequently. Your playstyle will become geared towards fighting/beating them as theirs will to playing against you.

This is the reason smaller smash communities tend to be substantially worse on average than larger ones. They reach a point of equilibrium where nobody can improve much more. A pecking order is created based on strategies that are successful in that setting, and at this point it becomes difficult to progress.

It can be partially bypassed by slowly/forcibly increasing the skill level of everyone involved (constant tech practice/player rankings/etc), but the only true way to break the cycle is to add more/better players to the mix.

 

[Divinokage]

Or you can go to tournaments around the world, that's what I did despite the lack of players here.

 

[Blu]

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=317242

Need I say more?

 

[Bones0]

I have to remind myself to laser more when I play other people because the only person I play is a powershield fiending Marth.

 

[ajp_anton]

When I mained Falco, people said that I play Luigi like a Falco.
Now that I main Luigi, people say that I play Falco like Luigi. Needless to say, my (current) Falco is very weird...

When I play, I rarely think much. My play style is more influenced by players I watch. Though I don't really watch much videos either, for example I don't think I've watched more than 2-3 high-level Luigi matches in my entire life.

 

[EPsilon933]

My Fox and Peach are both very aggro. It's from playing against Falco so much. As anyone, you can't play a defensive game and let yourself get lasered. And when you get a hit on Falco, you can't give up your opportunity to follow up

 

[Omni]

i don't think play styles are molded. they just evolve

charmander won't stop being a fire pokemon. but with proper training and experience he'll grow to be a charizard and he'll learn fireblast

you can't explain that

 

[ShroudedOne]

When I mained Falco, people said that I play Luigi like a Falco.
Now that I main Luigi, people say that I play Falco like Luigi. Needless to say, my (current) Falco is very weird...

When I play, I rarely think much. My play style is more influenced by players I watch. Though I don't really watch much videos either, for example I don't think I've watched more than 2-3 high-level Luigi matches in my entire life.

This is pretty much me. I feel like my brain leeches from what it sees, and integrates it into my mind. Then it gets into my gameplay. So I'm not very interesting to watch as a result. As far as me being aggro or defensive, it depends on what my brain decides to remember to play like that day. I prefer approaching.

 

[Teczer0]

i don't think play styles are molded. they just evolve

charmander won't stop being a fire pokemon. but with proper training and experience he'll grow to be a charizard and he'll learn fireblast

you can't explain that

Ahhaha this was so awesome.

Play styles are molded a lot via environment, I think that's a good reason why you seem to get similar styles from different regions. There are a few other factors obviously, like what you find more comfortable doing, what tricks you use often, what you try to improve on, etc and personality IMO.

 

[Bing]

My playstyle was developed based on the fact that it was uber difficult to find people to play against. So computers became the norm. Goodluck camping against a computer. So having an aggro Marth became my thing. Then I determined that my Aggro Marth wasnt working out(I learned this by constantly failing at tournaments) So now I have an aggresive Fox. And so far is been working out better.

 

[Bing]

Ahhaha this was so awesome.

Play styles are molded a lot via environment, I think that's a good reason why you seem to get similar styles from different regions. There are a few other factors obviously, like what you find more comfortable doing, what tricks you use often, what you try to improve on, etc and personality IMO.

I totally agree with this. Like every single Fox main in the gta uses the thunders combo in dittos or Fox vs. Falco. The only difference in any of them is that Raynex chaingrabs.

 

[boomrested]

I play the little pink volleyball (Puff), and after trying to be aggressive for a while and getting beaten to death, I just trained myself to work more on spacing so now I'm a lot more defensive.

 

[Dees]

My favorite player used to be isai. Now my falcon just mindgames people into letting me knee them.

 

[LittleBoyLarry]

I like your smash tag.

Get Low.

 

[Wolfy!]

Basically what Teczero said.

 

[Get Low]

I like your smash tag.

Get Low.

Thanks.

 

[Bones0]

i don't think play styles are molded. they just evolve

charmander won't stop being a fire pokemon. but with proper training and experience he'll grow to be a charizard and he'll learn fireblast

you can't explain that

A Pokemon's play style is molded with every move/TM you teach it, how you EV train it, and what items you let them hold.

 

[DerfMidWest]

I'm told that I play pretty much every character that I've used kinda weird.

Over all, I tend not to use many moves that involve pressing up. Why? I have no idea.
I'm not super duper grabby, even though the characters I use have good grab games.
I've super gimp/edgeguard oriented. I suck at matchups when I can't edgeguard people.

I'm kind of aggressive as a player, although my Pichu is more chill and just does whatever it wants to. I became aggressive-ish because thats how I leanred to play and because I've always glorified aggressive play, being a big old fan of Mango's playstyle.
I'm more technical than most people I've met (I'm still not super technical, but better than most around where I live). I've always loved the idea of being technical and would rather be flashy and fun to watch than be genuinely good at the game anyways (I still want to be good though, I just love techyness).

Whenever I use defensive characters, I use them aggressively for some reason (Sheik, Kirby, ICs, Peach, Samus, etc.)

 

[Grim Tuesday]

I play against bad people, so I play badly.

 

[Divinokage]

I always felt vs strong opponents certain special things they do. You can kinda feel what they feel to an extent like when you realize what makes them so strong or who they are in battle. It gives off something usually, it's neat stuff. Just having an aggressive or defensive playstyle is not nearly enough words to describe just how many cool differences every single players have.

 

[I.B]

Ah this reminds me of Cactuar's explanation of how his play-style moulded. He says because he used to play M2K so often, his style essentially grew as an attempt to counter M2K's. His combo game, he says, is underdeveloped since M2K's good DI prevented him from practicing it properly. Instead, he practiced landing first hits and evading M2K's touch of death.

 

[DerfMidWest]

I believe that three things really cause your playstyle to be like it is.

1. the people you play against. Playing against people better than you forces you to adapt in order to win, when you are first starting out, this makes a big impact on how you play. If you are the best out of everybody you play with, you have more of a freedom of what your playstyle is like, but if you lose a lot, you kind of get forced to play a certain way.

2. Your original main. When you learn how to play the game, and you learn with a certain character, it effect how you play with all your other characters. For example, say my original main was falcon, so I learned to play using a lot of grabs, then, I pick up Falco and my falco would probably play using lots of grabs and playing similar to my falcon. Habits are formed by the character you used most whilst still developing your playstyle.

3. The players you watch. Say you are a huge fan of mango, well, you will instinctively try to imitate how mango plays because you are being taught that he is how one should play the game. Almost everybody takes things from other players that they've watched.

 

[Spyro]

You and your playstyle are limited by the number and quality of players you play.

Unless you are an anomalous outlier in terms of talent, you're probably not going to get much better than the group of people you encounter most frequently. Your playstyle will become geared towards fighting/beating them as theirs will to playing against you.

This is the reason smaller smash communities tend to be substantially worse on average than larger ones. They reach a point of equilibrium where nobody can improve much more. A pecking order is created based on strategies that are successful in that setting, and at this point it becomes difficult to progress.

It can be partially bypassed by slowly/forcibly increasing the skill level of everyone involved (constant tech practice/player rankings/etc), but the only true way to break the cycle is to add more/better players to the mix.

Just because you are the best in your area does not mean you can't get better IMO. Think about how Ken and Isai got so good back when the smash community was tiny. It is a limiting factor yes, and you would proable get better quicker if you had people who were better than you to play against, but it's not imposible. An example of trying to get better when your the best would be that you could thinking about problems in your play style that you have not though of befor and figuring out how to counter those problems.

 

[RabiezToCujo]

My playstyle was developed based on the fact that it was uber difficult to find people to play against. So computers became the norm. Goodluck camping against a computer. So having an aggro Marth became my thing. Then I determined that my Aggro Marth wasnt working out(I learned this by constantly failing at tournaments) So now I have an aggresive Fox. And so far is been working out better.

lol heck ya fox is da shiz. i main him, im pretty aggressive with fox myself. double n tripple jc shine wavedash out of jc shine to another jc shine, jc shines n stuff.

 

[Krynxe]

lol heck ya fox is da shiz. i main him, im pretty aggressive with fox myself. double n tripple jc shine wavedash out of jc shine to another jc shine, jc shines n stuff.

The next Javi right here. Get this man to the next national.

 

[danieljosebatista]

You know, it's true that those around you have a huge influence on how you develop. But ultimately the biggest factor in developing your play, good or bad, is you. We all have the utmost potential imo, but few of us reach it

 

[Archangel]

people around you can influence how you play very much. Very few players can say they are completely original though. A few people mentioned already that people you watch, imitate, and inspire you also effect your playstyle. Most of us got everything from someone else...hence my signature. The Video I did for the europe's installment of legacy3 has drastically changed my playstyle... It's like I can't even ken combo anymore.....I keep doing ****ing reverse upB!

 

[Xyzz]

up b is way more swag then that stupid dair!

 

[Massive]

Just because you are the best in your area does not mean you can't get better IMO.

I never said that. My implication was that it would be difficult to get substantially better than your best player, assuming you're not anomalously skilled at the game.

Think about how Ken and Isai got so good back when the smash community was tiny.

They are/were both very talented individuals who innovated tactics which were effective on the population at large. But it's just like the fine print on weight loss commercials, results are not typical.

It is a limiting factor yes, and you would proable get better quicker if you had people who were better than you to play against, but it's not imposible. An example of trying to get better when your the best would be that you could thinking about problems in your play style that you have not though of befor and figuring out how to counter those problems.

The last paragraph of my previous post posited various ways of improving your playstyle, the most effective simply being playing more and different people.

Your style and ability are determined by what tactics you have encountered and how reliable you are at understanding and implementing new tactics as well as counter tactics. Very, very few people will have as meteoric a rise as Mango or Ken, not because many of us practice any less than they do, but simply because they practice the right things more than we do.

There is a set of tactics and heuristics people develop to deal with different playstyles when they encounter them. If you play a small group of people, your tactics become very specialized, you tailor your abilities to counter them. When you play a large or varied group of people your tactics become generalized, making them effective against a larger amount of people.

If you are one of the lucky ones and your specialized playstyle happens to be very effective on most people, then congratulations your playstyle and practice methods are likely very sound. Most people, however, are not so fortunate and will require a exposure to many different tactics/playstyles before they develop the ability to be successful on a large scale.

 

[KirbyKaze]

Ah this reminds me of Cactuar's explanation of how his play-style moulded. He says because he used to play M2K so often, his style essentially grew as an attempt to counter M2K's. His combo game, he says, is underdeveloped since M2K's good DI prevented him from practicing it properly. Instead, he practiced landing first hits and evading M2K's touch of death.

If Cactuar learns how to combo we're screwed.

 

[Jeapie]

I think this is pretty common. I played against a very campy person, and developed a very aggressive Marth playstyle in response. However, some things are determined by personality, in my opinion.

I agree on the personality thing. The best example you can take is yourself since you know yourself the best. I used to play high level fieldhockey ( Its a big sport in Holland ) and when I take my personality in consideration with my sport(Hockey=melee in this scentence )

I noticed that my game is different based on who my opponent is. Playing more faul against rivals and less against common opponents. Winning or losing isnt the most important factor sometimes. I have a strong tendency of feeling of how I lose or win. When we losed but still played good. I didnt mind that much, while other teammates did. ( dont get me started on the coach )

That being said, I have this too in Melee. Me losing to Calle W for example felt awesome. The crowd was cheering for us both and even though I losed, I had a big smile on my face as if I`d won

That explaining my furious, dumb yet mostly entertaining playstyle in the best game ever. <3
Selfsatisfaction - My playstyle =)

 

[King Funk]

That being said, I have this too in Melee. Me losing to Calle W for example felt awesome. The crowd was cheering for us both and even though I losed, I had a big smile on my face as if I`d won

I'm still mad at you at how you lost this. >=(

 

[Mufinman]

I was taught by one of my cousins... Falco vs Falco . Mostly on the F-zero & hyrule maps. Strictly Aerial attacks. Always jumping, always in the air.