How to explain why something is a bad option?

[deadjames]

Ok, so really this could go in any Smash discussion, but I thought I'd post it in the P:M boards simply because that's been my Smash game of choice recently. So I have a friend that I practice with all the time and he has the potential to be a really good player, but he has a really bad rolling habit and every time I tell him not to roll so much, for all intents and purposes he ignores me despite the fact that I consistently show him that I'm able to punish it in our matches. I know instinctively that in many situations rolling is a bad option, but I'm having trouble articulating to him why it is a bad option so I was wondering if anyone could help me out with that.

 

[| Kailex |]

You could, uhm, show him some other options that he can do oos. Show him some cool stuff or maybe some videos

 

[TreK]

^that

if that doesn't work, idk, roll a lot to show him how easy it is to punish or something ?
or make him watch his own replay, that usually is the best way to point out habits.

 

[Chzrm3]

If you keep crushing him when he makes bad decisions, and he's a competitive person, he'll eventually get better. It's important not to be too harsh on him as far as what you say - I've found that people can really respond in the wrong way when I try to help them improve and they didn't ask for advice.

But through your actions, by dunking him consistently, you'll eventually show him that what he's doing is wrong.

 

[deadjames]

You could, uhm, show him some other options that he can do oos. Show him some cool stuff or maybe some videos

I've tried, I taught him how to WD OOS, but he refuses to use it, he plays Ganon and thinks his WD is too hard and in my head, I was like ***** I play Bowser, go cry about it, but I then proceeded to suggest that he practice it with Luigi since he has probably the easiest WD, but he refused to do that. I think what it boils down to is that he's just stubborn and doesn't want to put in the time to learn, which is frustrating for me because he's the one who convinced me to get into competitive Smash and he always wants to team with me in doubles, but I don't know the right way to tell him that he's holding me back by refusing to learn these things.

 

[Vashimus]

Just keep punishing him for rolling predictably, he'll eventually wisen up. If he doesn't, I suggest finding a new training partner because your friend may very well be an idiot.

 

[DrinkingFood]

I have a friend that I practice with all the time and he has the potential to be a really good player, but he has a really bad rolling habit and every time I tell him not to roll so much, for all intents and purposes he ignores me despite the fact that I consistently show him that I'm able to punish it in our matches.

Start punishing the rolls, duh. Do what I do to my casuals and semi-casual: starting calling their roll, out loud. Makes them realize how predictable they're getting, and if they care at all to get better or win, it'll start to aggravate them until they pay good attention to when and why they're rolling. It also helps to teach them what is a good option in that situation. Wavedash OoS is often overwhelming for newbie players though- tell them to jump OoS. If you're not able to predict their rolling habits after a few games then you aren't paying enough attention, and that's the only way anyone improves. Even if you're better than him, start super try-harding some matches, sitting forward and watching his rolling habits. Then just stand in one spot as you wait for him to roll while saying out loud "Roll" before grabbing him and 0-to-deathing him, Mango style. If your casual players are anything like mine, they'll often roll: When they miss an attack and you're close by, when you're close to their shield but not in grabbing range especially when they have the roll distance to roll behind you, and when they're close to the edge and want center stage. You don't have to actually explain to him why rolling so often is bad. Show him.

 

[deadjames]

Just keep punishing him for rolling predictably, he'll eventually wisen up. If he doesn't, I suggest finding a new training partner because your friend may very well be an idiot.

Well I know he's smart because he has proven to be proficient at reading his opponent, and he has technical proficiency too because he can L-cancel, DACUS, pivot grab, etc. I just don't understand why defensive tech skills seem to be so hard for him to grasp.

Start punishing the rolls, duh.

despite the fact that I consistently show him that I'm able to punish it in our matches. I do like your suggestion about calling the rolls aloud though, I'm going to try that next time we actually play in person because we play on wifi a lot.

 

[| Kailex |]

Yeah do it mango style. And calling out his next action will get him frustrated a lot, continue speaking to yourself out loud about how good you are and that you know what is his every single action that he's going to make for the rest of your lives. I know its not true but he'll get annoyed i love annoying people, so, yeah

 

[deadjames]

Yeah do it mango style. And calling out his next action will get him frustrated a lot, continue speaking to yourself out loud about how good you are and that you know what is his every single action that he's going to make for the rest of your lives. I know its not true but he'll get annoyed i love annoying people, so, yeah

Haha I might get punched if I go that far. Still debating whether or not it's worth it.

 

[DrinkingFood]

despite the fact that I consistently show him that I'm able to punish it in our matches. I do like your suggestion about calling the rolls aloud though, I'm going to try that next time we actually play in person because we play on wifi a lot.

You don't have to just punish them either. Make it a goal to get him to roll, then super telegraph your plans to punish the roll. It'll give him plenty of time to think and react to the fact that rolling will get him punished. If you wonder what I mean by telegraphing the punish, I mean actually stand where he will roll to every time (as well as saying it out loud, guaranteed lulz and frustration) as if it's that easy. Doesn't matter how many times it doesn't work, so long as it works sometimes. Confirmation bias will tell him that it's working most of the time. Once it seems like you're beating him with no effort because of something he's doing, one of two things will happen: He'll start noticing and eventually break himself of the habit, or he'll continue to do it because he doesn't actually care to beat you and just plays the game when he has nothing else to do. In the case of the second one, get yourself a new friend(s), 'cause that one's broken.

 

[Vashimus]

More broken than Owen Wilson's nose.

 

[Hylian]

Explain to him how you are making him roll. Pause the match right when he rolls and explain what you did that made him feel like he needed to roll and options he could have taken otherwise. Recognizing situations that people want to roll in will help a lot more than just "don't roll it's bad you can do this instead". I have a friend who had a bad roll habit and I did this and it helped him a lot, he rarely rolls now except when it's good to. I used to just punish him hard all the time for it but he never really stopped until I started pausing and went "Here I am dashing right in and out of your range doing nothing so you will roll" "Here I fair your shield and then crouch with no action to make you react and roll or spotdodge" etc etc.

 

[Mithost]

Punish him. Destroy him. Hard. Keep winning against him in every match you can. Don't keep ranting at him about why he lost, just keep beating him. There are three outcomes to doing this.

1) He will ragequit. If this happens, he doesn't want to get better and you will not improve because of playing with him.

2) He will quietly accept that he needs to start taking your advice, and you will start to see him improve. He might not Wavedash out of shield, but he will start trying to work around your strategies.

3) He will complain about losing, and become frustrated. If this happens, it is very important to never say "I told you so!" or to become a broken record with suggestions. He knows what you are going to say, and his pride has told him to refute that if you say it to him. Instead, slow down a bit. Wait half a second before you punish his roll, and always punish using the same attacks. This makes him able to learn for himself what is wrong, and if he wants to start winning, he will stop those obvious punishes from happening... his own way.

 

[DMG]

You don't have to prove that Rolling is a bad option in those situations. Show him what the better options are, and expand his mind to the plethora of other options he probably could have chosen instead. It's the awareness and exploration of those options, that teaches a person more than "Rolling here specifically was bad, but might be good in a different situation/if you weren't spamming it, and might still get you hit regardless".

Once a person is really aware of the different options they have, then they can explore individual options in a deeper way and make progress, because hopefully they won't lose sight of the other choices. Then they make individual choices on how to go about playing, and WHALA a Smasher is born

 

[Rizner]

What others are saying is good, but also if he tries to put you in that situation, when you'd normally wd oos or do something fancy, just walk away and make mention of it. Say things like 'Nope, I'm out.' so he sees that even a simple action like that can work if someone else is baiting the roll. Maybe he can start with something simple like that and move to jumping, then wd oss

 

[Tlock]

Pick up puff and rest him every time he rolls, it is literally the most free punish in the game. Then say "you need to stop rolling".

 

[The_Altrox]

I roll too much too. The times when I almost broke the habit was when I had somebody to play with who would pint it out and punish me for it. Some of my best vBrawl games were when I temporarily broke it with my Wolf.
Unfortunately, I haven't had any high level people to frequently practice it, so I started rolling again. I gotta get it back to the front of my mind so I know that I should try other options.

 

[Hylian]

Just punishing someone for something really hard all the time is a bad way to teach them. There are legit reasons to roll, just eliminating an options from someone head will stifle their competitive growth. You should teach them to recognize situations and react accordingly to them, just saying "this bad! this good!" isn't going to do much. They may understand that something is bad but they won't know why, and knowing why is the most important part.

 

[Phaiyte]

It's not really that hard. If he has a habit of using one bad option, stuff it the same way every time and keep saying "that won't work in this situation. Try this instead."

 

[SixSaw]

Speaking from my own experience ditching a nasty rolling habit, I don't think it's necessarily such a bad idea to say "stop rolling, period." Your play will suffer greatly at first obviously and chances are you will lose matches but that's not important. Completely removing rolls from your game forces you to experiment with alternatives in a variety of situations, and in turn requires that you actually think and examine the situation before you act. For me, anyway, that was the root of my rolling problem: not so much that I thought rolling was safe when it wasn't, but that rolling had become an unconscious reflex/ knee-jerk response to certain scenarios. I had a friend who played peach and loved to punish rolls with dsmashes. Naturally this was quite predictable, I could frequently see it coming well in advance, yet I STILL kept rolling into his dsmash exactly the same way again and again because in the heat of the moment the pressure to act quickly had me relying on reflex rather than thought. To make a change, I needed to ditch the play-to-win mindset and focus solely on improving. So yeah, I just stopped caring about the match outcomes and resolved to stop rolling entirely. Once I was comfortable enough with jumping OoS, dropping and running, etc, that I didn't feel the impulse to roll anymore, I allowed myself to start rolling again in addition to all the other options I now had at my disposal. At that point not only was I less predictable, I was an all around better player because I was more accustomed to playing with my brain instead of my gut.

I'm rambling, but the point is: if you want him to improve, put aside the notion of playing to win. Slow the pace a bit and give him opportunities to try new things. Competitive situations are helpful for learning how to apply familiar technique, but terrible for learning new technique.

 

[Viceversa96]

Start punishing the rolls, duh. Do what I do to my casuals and semi-casual: starting calling their roll, out loud. Makes them realize how predictable they're getting, and if they care at all to get better or win, it'll start to aggravate them until they pay good attention to when and why they're rolling. It also helps to teach them what is a good option in that situation. Wavedash OoS is often overwhelming for newbie players though- tell them to jump OoS. If you're not able to predict their rolling habits after a few games then you aren't paying enough attention, and that's the only way anyone improves. Even if you're better than him, start super try-harding some matches, sitting forward and watching his rolling habits. Then just stand in one spot as you wait for him to roll while saying out loud "Roll" before grabbing him and 0-to-deathing him, Mango style. If your casual players are anything like mine, they'll often roll: When they miss an attack and you're close by, when you're close to their shield but not in grabbing range especially when they have the roll distance to roll behind you, and when they're close to the edge and want center stage. You don't have to actually explain to him why rolling so often is bad. Show him.

Lol is rolling good in any situation?

 

[deadjames]

Lol is rolling good in any situation?

Yes.

 

[Paradoxium]

Lol is rolling good in any situation?

Rolling is good in some situations, the advantage it has over wd is that you can go behind your opponent, creating a mix up type thing and getting you in a better position. I think it also has invincibility on it

 

[Dingding123]

igot a naty psotdogeing habt wit zelad

flacon coms in an nipplstamp an i dopstdoge matomaticly
ubp OoS and boms don twerk aterfward, evner fasten fuf

 

[Minor Pandemic]

This is probably going to sound really stupid, but all it took for me to teach one of my friends to stop rolling so much was to make sure he understood that he could jump out of shield. As in, he understood in principle that he could jump, but he hadn't put it together that he could therefore do an aerial or a wavedash or what have you. Once he understood that being able to jump out of shield => he can hit me out of shield, he stopped rolling so much.

 

[EdgeTheLucas]

You don't have to prove that Rolling is a bad option in those situations. Show him what the better options are, and expand his mind to the plethora of other options he probably could have chosen instead. It's the awareness and exploration of those options, that teaches a person more than "Rolling here specifically was bad, but might be good in a different situation/if you weren't spamming it, and might still get you hit regardless".

Once a person is really aware of the different options they have, then they can explore individual options in a deeper way and make progress, because hopefully they won't lose sight of the other choices. Then they make individual choices on how to go about playing, and WHALA a Smasher is born

Man I love your signature, it was part of why I liked the Project M Unsocial Thread until it was inexplicably locked

 

[DMG]

"Inexplicably locked" Plz, we all know why it got locked so quickly. <3

 

[ph00tbag]

I've tried, I taught him how to WD OOS, but he refuses to use it, he plays Ganon and thinks his WD is too hard and in my head, I was like ***** I play Bowser, go cry about it, but I then proceeded to suggest that he practice it with Luigi since he has probably the easiest WD, but he refused to do that. I think what it boils down to is that he's just stubborn and doesn't want to put in the time to learn, which is frustrating for me because he's the one who convinced me to get into competitive Smash and he always wants to team with me in doubles, but I don't know the right way to tell him that he's holding me back by refusing to learn these things.

If he doesn't want to be good, why are you insisting on forcing it onto him.

If he wants to be bad, let him be bad.

 

[Alexo30]

Lemme get a crack at him, I will try to punish his rolls as hard as I can next time I play him. If anyone can punish rolls, it's Falcon. That will be my objective of the matches.