Is there a difference between practicing tech skill and practicing the competitive mindset?

[Ganreizu]

I'm not exactly sure where to put this. I chose this forum for this question because there doesn't seem to be a general competitive discussion board, and because my story involves P:M and netplay.

I've been playing for a long time "casually", in quotations because while i do strive to improve, my talent pool is limited and i'm not naturally surrounded by people who identify as competitive players. I don't really identify as casual in the sense that i'm very interested in the technical sides of the game and i want to learn a lot so i don't look like a fool, although I never really go out of my way to attend tournaments or anything. When i started occasionally playing people who do, i noticed there's a very distinct difference between these players and players like myself. They have a very distinct and deliberate way that they go about their actions. Whether it simply be that they are used to a lot more situations than i am and actively think about those situations as they happen, or their tech skill allows them to weave their way out of anything, or if the difference in two players' levels "creates" that impression, i'm not really sure.

When i do go out of my way to play with players i know are better than me, like most others in that position i would imagine, i practice a little bit. Seeing as i don't have a functioning wii, i play with my computer instead. By myself i have a pretty smooth experience; i can practice tech skill in peace and be confident that it can transfer over to console because getting the timing for things is better than not having that opportunity. However if i want to have that kind of presence that competitive players do, the only way for me to practice that is by playing other players. That means i either have to go to tournaments, go to where competitive players are (colleges, clubs, etc), or netplay. While my computer is good enough to be smooth by myself obviously netplay is a lot more strenuous so most people who know what netplay is supposed to feel like don't like to play me. Just now i tried it for the first time in a few months, claiming i wanted to practice a bit, and the response i got was that it was the opposite of practice and that i would play worse. This was obviously true; i couldn't expect to play on a frame drop heavy netplay session and honestly think i would play better on a lagless CRT. I merely wished to practice playing against the competitive mindset, which i suppose you could argue becomes easier with frame drops and lag because each action is slowed down and it becomes easier to pick things apart. Do you think this is beneficial to one's level of play? Does netplay with heavy lag cause you to play worse regardless of the data you get on other players' decisions, or is exposure the most important thing for a developing player despite hardware lag that would impede tech skill in situations that provide the highest level of exposure?

Thanks for listening

 

[Mooch]

What you're talking about is somewhat of a gray area. This is just one man's opinion, but what I think netplay truly lacks is "feel." When you're playing against a real opponent on a lagless crt, you get a sense of how it "feels" to execute the combos you practiced and make the decisions you think will win you the game. A lot of "feel" is experience. There's a large difference between knowing on paper what you need to do against diddy and actually having one in your face throwing bananas and fairing you. You can know that he has x number of landing lag frames on y aerial, but it's another thing entirely to "feel" the timing on punishing that landing lag. To "feel" it until it's natural to you. Until it sits somewhere between reflex and knowledge for you individually. There isn't a guide to tell you how to do that. You just have to screw it up enough times until you get it right. With a real person.

I don't know I don't really think I can give you a solid explanation of what feel is. You just have to experience it. You need to play with other real people in person on a lagless CRT to get better. I think you'll find a lot of different people have different reasonings and rationalizations as to why this is, but you'll be hard-pressed to find someone who disagrees with it.

 

[Ganreizu]

What you're talking about is somewhat of a gray area. This is just one man's opinion, but what I think netplay truly lacks is "feel." When you're playing against a real opponent on a lagless crt, you get a sense of how it "feels" to execute the combos you practiced and make the decisions you think will win you the game. A lot of "feel" is experience. There's a large difference between knowing on paper what you need to do against diddy and actually having one in your face throwing bananas and fairing you. You can know that he has x number of landing lag frames on y aerial, but it's another thing entirely to "feel" the timing on punishing that landing lag. To "feel" it until it's natural to you. Until it sits somewhere between reflex and knowledge for you individually. There isn't a guide to tell you how to do that. You just have to screw it up enough times until you get it right. With a real person.

I don't know I don't really think I can give you a solid explanation of what feel is. You just have to experience it. You need to play with other real people in person on a lagless CRT to get better. I think you'll find a lot of different people have different reasonings and rationalizations as to why this is, but you'll be hard-pressed to find someone who disagrees with it.

I played on a lagless CRT a few hours after writing this thread, and while i have played on lagless CRTs before, i agree with you that there is a feel to the pace of tech skill and the game in general that isn't present in netplay. Do you think there is value in knowing possible options and tactics/strategy of players/characters regardless of timings though? If no, is there really any reason to play netplay at all? I severely doubt that upgrading to double or triple (or beyond) hardware performance/specs would achieve lagless gameplay comparable to a CRT. I know for a fact it's not my connection that's causing those problems.

Although, after practicing by myself in dolphin, i noticed a radical improvement in my techskill despite the fact that it was (albeit slightly) slower than CRT, so at least i can practice that on my own and know i won't have to go through too much transition when i play on the real thing.

 

[Narpas_sword]

crts have abotut 8.3ms of lag iirc.

 

[Y-L]

I don't think so Narpas I'm pretty sure it's a very very very small number that's not worth worrying over.
Most monitors have 1-10 ms of delay (mine has 5) which is essentially nothing. There are crt monitors as well. Dolphin can perform the same as playing as a crt, especially when the new netplay build is complete (shades won't be generated on the first frame causing very small stutters between menus and matches for some people), also there is exclusive full-screen with less input lag and the audio delay will be fixed. It's a pretty exciting time to join netplay now that melee and pm have a site dedicated to netplay matchmaking.

Too many people john about netplay but the truth is with a stable connection and good hardware you're going to be experiencing only a few frames of delay after all things considered.

 

[Narpas_sword]

8ms IS a very small number not worth worrying over =p

 

[1FD]

Emukiller talked after his famous-ish tourney win Mewtwo slaughter saying more credit goes to Netplay than ANYTHING towards him winning it, because it was that good for everything from diversity to community.

This might help you understand tech-skill and what it actually is. http://www.smashmods.com/forum/threads/dat-smash-updated-establishing-yourself.4861/

Get a crt and wii/GC/whatever. Somehow. Online, new, used, whatever.

 

[GP&B]

Only complaint about netplay: no custom anything.

I don't like vanilla Brawl textures and music. ;-;

 

[Ganreizu]

Emukiller talked after his famous-ish tourney win Mewtwo slaughter saying more credit goes to Netplay than ANYTHING towards him winning it, because it was that good for everything from diversity to community.

This might help you understand tech-skill and what it actually is. http://www.smashmods.com/forum/threads/dat-smash-updated-establishing-yourself.4861/

Get a crt and wii/GC/whatever. Somehow. Online, new, used, whatever.

I already have a CRT actually, my wii just doesn't read discs anymore. I know it's just $40 or whatever but since i never have people over who want to play my computer works for my purposes just fine, and 1v1 purposes just as well if i do have someone over.

8ms IS a very small number not worth worrying over =p

8.3 ms is indeed an insanely small number to not worry over. I guess it's impossible to be lagless but i probably couldn't even sense that kind of lag to begin with so for all intents and purposes it might as well be lagless

 

[shairn]

8.3ms is half a frame, so it affects absolutely nothing.