Improvement

[Pάρί]

After coming home from Forte 3, and playing a lot of out of state players. I realized I suck more than I thought, lol. The two days being at Forte 3 I started to notice my terrible bad habits.

Spacing
Okay so first off, I suck at spacing. I dont get it at all. When someone says you learn spacing from playing the game it frustrates me. Maybe I just dont have the presence of mind to understand it. If someone could give me a cut definition of spacing and how to improve on it, that would be fantastic.

Movement
I also noticed that my movement compared to other foxes / players was choppy and dull. Is there any drills I can do to make my movement smoother? Any kind of advice would help right now.

Stage Control
This is probably my worst skill, Idk how to keep stage control. Whenever I do have it Im pretty sure I automatically lose it. If someone could give me examples of when you have stage control, and how to keep it that would be fantastic.

Options / Mixups
Im unfamiliar with the correct options im suppose to pick in scenarios, Im not educated on which options to pick on lets say punishing a recovering marth. If someone could help me on that, that would help alot.
Mixups, ive been meaning to ask about this for awhile. Is there some kind of trick to doing mixups or do I have to think about every mixup? Im not sure about it.

Thank you in advance for helping me out with these 5 things.

 

[SuperShus]

well
normally id leave someone else to reply, but everyone else has done that.
so youve been playing smash for a year and a half,

when i started i thought techskill was the answer to everything. more tech means more options, more options means victory. I was sadly mistaken.

you didn't say anything you were good at so I don't know what direction to point you in - in terms of what to practice/get good at next. instead I'll offer some directions for you to not go in. lol
right, after i answer your questions

spacing is the way you place yourself so that you are striking the best balance for the moment based on your soft read on your opponent's options which allows you to both be close enough to strike when the time is right and yet far enough to avoid being hit.
digest that for a bit.
and if you don't know what I mean by a soft read, i mean like its a feeling you have not of exactly where they'll be at what time, but whatever you're using - consciously or otherwise - to determine what actions you should be doing.
if you're full drift sh or fh nairing across the stage for 80% of your approaches like I did a year and a half into learning fox, there's your problem. turns out always nairshining the living **** out of your opponent isn't actually good or safe, rofl.
anyway, that's spacing, kind of. lol

movement? eh... that's a toughie. in some ways it helps to just practice alone, but if you can't implement the movement in a match its useless.
i suggest practicing basic tech you've already gotten down until you can do any movement technique into any other movement technique. then get into a match with a buddy and try to link movement options into attacks. then youll just get comfortable moving and attacking.
movement is something you can focus on, but itll get better even if you dont focus on it. just like anything in melee whatever you focus on gets better and whatever you dont stays the same or slowly gets better subconsciously with time.

stage control is really weird, because it's simple but it is still really complex.
if you're having trouble keeping the upper hand, you're probably committing too early and not pushing your advantages (positioning).
notice when you're on the edge it feels impossible to get back to the middle of the stage against people better than you. notice that they dont just run up to you when you're near the edge (unless you're p bad lol). they wait until you do something dumb and then they maul you like a bear. you should do the same when you've got someone on the edge. if you don't use the fact that they can't dash back (strongest defensive option for most characters) then you might as well not have them on the ledge. basically, zone with sh and fh bairs and utilts and stuff like that. don't run up and do anything crazy except as mixups to zoning.

as for discussion mixups themselves, it's not really worthwhile.
i could list every mixup i know, but i'd have to list the standard options too - and if i explained why the standard options are standard and why the mixups are mixups then we'd be here till the end of time.

basically you just have to watch pro af smashers and smashers slightly better than you and see what they do in those situations. ask yourself why they do those things and try them yourself in matches, see what happens and try figure out good things to do.

a mix up is just when you have both been choosing rock and you think he's gonna pick paper next time so you pick scissors - even though it loses to rock... it's just a guessing game of what beats what beats what. there is so much breadth that it is not simple to simplify
unfortunately i can't really just list mixups for everything.

i suggest asking local fox mains for advice in certain situations in certain matchups, what do i do when i get a grab on fox at 0, for example.

gl hf

 

[Zalezus]

I feel like all of your issues are problems with your fundamental understanding of fighting games. Not to say that you can't play smash or anything.

However unlike other fighting games, Smash has the much more important factor of stage positioning due to the way kills are gained (off stage.) All of your listed issues ask the questions:

Where am I?
Where is my opponent?
When do I approach/respond?
Why? and How?

Standard options and mix ups from them ask more complex questions like:

How are they reacting (typically you physically respond to this in real-time)?
What did my opponent do last time?
How will they react to X?
How can I most optimally (or chaotically) capitalize?

Some of these questions can actually be answered with frame data:

Full Shield > Grab beats GUA
Strong Bair will trade with X
FP Waveshine > Usmash is guaranteed on Peach with hit confirm
etc.

Check out some of the discussion on the boards here. The community here is pretty solid about discussing *specific* situations in which Fox's options are discussed in detail (because he has so many). The only way to really flesh out and take advantage of your good options is to know them intrinsically, so read up buddy. Watching combo videos puts you inside a player's head and really paying attention to specific moments in the match will clue you in as to how and when to mix up. The meta is so far forward people like Borp can easily take parts from the past and present to really shake the opponent if they aren't confident.

I would say the last thing to keep in mind is that combos are great, but losing an advantage sucks more than getting extra percent (situation depending of course.) Knowing when to fade back or dash dance away can tip the match in your favor....or feed you Marth tippers all day.

Know your HITBOXES/GRAB BOXES. Know your options. Know your opponent's options (actually very important.) Watch matches more intently; you won't get better in a vacuum. Be confident. Don't over analyze; Melee scenarios pass too quickly to dwell. Embrace impermanence.

This game is Chess; you should know what all of the pieces do. Good luck and have fun

 

[Zalezus]

I'm just going to link you here:

http://smashboards.com/threads/fox-advice-questions-topic.98202/

 

[jazz_1993]

Know your HITBOXES/GRAB BOXES. Know your options. Know your opponent's options (actually very important.) Watch matches more intently; you won't get better in a vacuum. Be confident. Don't over analyze; Melee scenarios pass too quickly to dwell. Embrace impermanence.

This game is Chess; you should know what all of the pieces do. Good luck and have fun

I love how you put this.