Is there a real learning curve?

[foxyopiumfun]

Is there one really? I played 1v1 for glory this morning and I was getting bodied by everyone I was playing. I'm not new to smash, I had stayed up all night and decided to play which was a bad idea. After being saltier than the Atlantic Ocean I started to play as Lil Mac to learn how he works. After I had picked him I won most of my matches with the exception of a good fox and another better lil mac. I don't play lil mac but I strongly believe he has no real learning curve. That was the most I had ever played him and winning matches. With his f-tilt, running smash, f-smash, N-a and d-smash is the most you'll ever need. If anyone who knows how to space (i dont know the actual word) and time his moves correctly he can edge guard very well. Also gets a mini smash ball that can ko most people at 20+%. I know gimping is the way to go but if he starts off strong at the start is there another way to beat him other than gimping? I fear lil mac everytime, because someone who doesn't really play smash is beating me every time leaving me very salty after thier taunts.

 

[Shog]

Yeah I agree, Little Mac is way to easy to use. You literally can't go wrong with F tilts, Rolling, his Smashes and rarely moves like Counters, Side B and Dash Attack.

I used him once and won the game easily against someone. Once. This character is stupidly designed. Or as you said, has no real learning curve.

 

[ChampKing]

I agree that he is really easy to pick up. However for mastery, good spacing is needed and practically no Mac I see spaces properly. His tilts are very safe when spaced and nobody does it correctly.

 

[Blade Knight]

He has a learning curve, just as any other character does. However right now, the need to learn it is low, as most other people are still very bare bones in their understanding of what characters they play. Mac players will need to learn and become more skilled the more other players become skilled at their own characters. Mac just has an advantage on everybody else in that regard right now since he has the most clear and upfront power out of anybody in the game.

Honestly claiming any character requires no learning curve is a bit silly really, especially considering Mac is by far not the best character in this game.

 

[atzero]

What do you mean by learning curve OP? Do you mean how long it takes for someone to pick up a character and start playing him them? Then yeah your right, little mac's learning curve is really low.

However, mastery of little mac is quite difficult because of his speed, lack of air options and entirely predictable play style.

There is really only one way to play mac. Dominate the ground game, and never let up. This also makes you predicable. Mac is also really susceptible to counter spam because his grab range sucks. This is where his real learning curve is. Im finding out that the easy tricks to get kills with little mac, dont really work that well against people who know how to gimp or think on their feet.

I do agree with all of you though, I think he has some serious design flaws. I wish he played more like a Dudley/Balrog hybrid than a reckless punch throwing animal.

 

[ndayday]

I think he has a "learning curve" just about the same as any other character except he doesn't have to rely on combos as much. Off the top of my head he has what...dash > dash, dash > fsmash, dthrow > upb, dtilt > dtilt, dtilt > ftilt, dtilt > KO? Those 20% punches are a fine replacement though.

 

[UltiMario]

The game has barely been out for any time at all

There are always characters in games that are easier to pick up. In Melee is was Sheik, now it's Little Mac.

It's quite obvious that the Sheiks in 2002 were way worse than M2K's current Sheik, but back then the character was significantly easier to get good at than anyone else.

Same ****, different day.

 

[LightLelouch89]

He has a learning curve alright. I crush 90% of the Little Mac players I run into. The "rush in with guns blazing" routine has gotten a lot of Lil' Macs KO'd quickly.

 

[guedes the brawler]

i feel like mac's learning curve is more of a "counterplay" learnign than anything else. knowing how to deal with peole who know how to deal with you.

i thnk he is great to train some fundamentals with...

 

[STiCKYBULL3TZ]

Indeed he has a learning curve. Those who first pick up Mac without prior experience will find out really quick that he's not just a fast powerhouse that can be overly aggressive and overpower the opponent. That's a quick trip to quick gimps. He takes patience and a calculated approach. Any character can be picked up easily. They all use the same button inputs to do their moves. Arguably Little Mac is more difficult because he has 3 different Fsmashes. But yeah every character has a learning curve. Macs will be increasingly more difficult as people learn the game more.

 

[1FC0]

Little Mac barely has a learning curve. It is an easy character to play as. Like any character you need to mindgame and watch your spacing and stuff like that, but IMO Little Mac does not add much to the learning curve. Bad Little Macs on For Glory are not bad at Little Mac but bad at smash. Little Mac is probably their best character due to his small learning curve.

I like him tough. I played a lot of R.O.B. in SSBB and his learning curve was also pretty small.

 

[CharZane]

The learning curve consists entirely of 'know how to play smash'. That's all it takes, really-- solid smash fundamentals are rewarded gratuitously (i.e. don't spam unsafe specials. If you hand someone who can play the game any character, Little Mac will be among their best, more likely than not. He's simply intuitive. That said, while it's certainly remarkably easy to play a good enough LM to beat quite the majority of beginner-to-intermediate players, there's still a curve to hitting the more adept levels of play with him... though, that still feels a mite more intuitive to me than some characters, considering his streamlined mechanics. That said, actual mastery of any character requires a mostly equal degree of skill no matter who you're using, given that it's oft the ATs and base mechanics rather than a character's specific curve that decide how 'difficult' things get. Chaingrabs, rather than their base mechanics, defined top-level Ice Climbers play, while wavedashing was almost synonymous with top-level Melee play. In the end, one still needs master the game itself, so learning curve is irrelevant in the 'long run'.

I'm curious to see how top-level LMs look, though-- it'd certainly be amusing if he was as much of a stressful character to face for all levels of play. Though, learning curve certainly has no correlation to potential-- Ike and Metaknight from Brawl are great examples, methinks. The former had a lower learning curve than most characters, but also lower potential, while the latter had a midrange learning curve with literally unfair potential. Not that a character can't have a low curve and high potential (many would say such was the case of melee Sheik), or a high curve and low potential (none would argue that melee Pichu wasn't such a case).

 

[KingTeo]

There's a concept I like to call "ease of use". Little Mac is just a beginner friendly character since he's literally the best in the game at beginner friendly tactics and the basic strategies actions.(dash attack spam, forward smash, jab combo). He strikes me as a "low difficulty, low potential" character.

Once you get into high level paly and people are smart enough to take advantage of his weaknesses and avoid his strengths, there's really nothing for him to do.

472

 

[cot(θ)]

Considering that Little Mac has by far the lowest win ratio in For Glory, I'd say yes, there is a learning curve.

I admit it, when I started playing online as mac, I was one of the scrubby flowchart macs - after all, it works against most players, because of lag / lack of skill / lack of experience. But after a while, more and more people started playing smart, playing near the ledge, etc.

Because of this, I had to step up my game and learn how to use Little Mac for real. Now I'm no pro, but knowing stuff like fox-trot -> roll to get behind the enemy quickly, and learning the timing for pivot attacks is invaluable. Pivot smash is an incredibly valuable technique for mac, but with very tight timing to pull off reliably.

So in my experience, learning Little Mac well enough to defeat competent players is definitely not trivial, and pushes your technical skills quite a bit.

 

[1FC0]

Considering that Little Mac has by far the lowest win ratio in For Glory, I'd say yes, there is a learning curve.

Wrong reasoning. Little Mac seems to attract noobs. He probably has the smallest learning curve in the game but that does not stop noobs from losing to much better players.

 

[Quisciens]

Little Mac has two separate learning curves. While it may not seem like it, aside from the actual character, he needs to be able to read his opponents and see patterns. Otherwise, he'll go for an attack and be thrown off the edge and gimped. If your opponent attacks you wish a long-ranged smash when you get near, jump-cancel a counter. A Little Mac without the ability to read his opponent even slightly is nothing.
The character himself does have a learning curve. This isn't really debatable, because every character has a learning curve. I'm not frankly sure why this is a discussion.

 

[smallwolf24]

In my opinion, fighting against people who know how to properly counter Mac is the hardest learning curve. Overall, I think Mac is relatively easy to pick up.

 

[1FC0]

Little Mac has two separate learning curves. While it may not seem like it, aside from the actual character, he needs to be able to read his opponents and see patterns. Otherwise, he'll go for an attack and be thrown off the edge and gimped. If your opponent attacks you wish a long-ranged smash when you get near, jump-cancel a counter. A Little Mac without the ability to read his opponent even slightly is nothing.
The character himself does have a learning curve. This isn't really debatable, because every character has a learning curve. I'm not frankly sure why this is a discussion.

This is a discussion because some characters have a larger learning curve than others.
Since you need to be able to read the opponent with literary every character, this does not make Mac's learning curce any higher than that of any other character.

Mac has a learning curve it is just probably smaller than that of other characters.

 

[cot(θ)]

Wrong reasoning. Little Mac seems to attract noobs. He probably has the smallest learning curve in the game but that does not stop noobs from losing to much better players.

Care to rebut more than the first line of my post? Or did you just quote that part because it was easier?

Anyway, I understand if my personal experience doesn't weigh very heavily with you, but my experience has certainly been that I needed to understand some better techniques to use Little Mac effectively.

In my opinion, as Little Mac's metagame progresses, more emphasis will be placed on advanced ground maneuvers, especially those that emphasize his incredible speed and smash attacks. I've been experimenting a bit with fox-trot -> dash-dance -> pivot f-smash to get effectively a running f-smash against an opponent, but it's almost impractical with the 3DS controls. That's another factor as well - the 3DS controls are just not very good for advanced ground game techniques, which may be a factor in Little Mac's perceived lack of potential.

Anyway, I'm no pro, and this is just my idle speculation. I'd love to hear what more experienced players think about this.

 

[1FC0]

Care to rebut more than the first line of my post? Or did you just quote that part because it was easier?

I quoted and answered your whole post so obviously I cared to do that. But you are right, I did only pick the easy part (in other words everything of it).

 

[cot(θ)]

I quoted and answered your whole post so obviously I cared to do that. But you are right, I did only pick the easy part (in other words everything of it).

No, you didn't. I suspect you're confusing me with someone else whose entire post you quoted. Either way, there's no need to be snippy about it.

 

[1FC0]

No, you didn't. I suspect you're confusing me with someone else whose entire post you quoted. Either way, there's no need to be snippy about it.

Oops I did indeed confuse you two.

Still, it hardly matter whether I quote your whole post or not. I think the first part was wrong so I pointed that out but that does not mean that I disagree or have to rebute everything. So as you said, you had no real reason to be snippy about it anyway.

 

[cot(θ)]

Oops I did indeed confuse you two.

Still, it hardly matter whether I quote your whole post or not. I think the first part was wrong so I pointed that out but that does not mean that I disagree or have to rebute everything. So as you said, you had no real reason to be snippy about it anyway.

You're right - my initial response was short-tempered. I apologize for that.

 

[deepseadiva]

He also has half a regular moveset. He doesn't have aerials.

So people can complain about him "only using jab and ftilt", but that's literally all he has.

 

[guedes the brawler]

Arguably Little Mac is more difficult because he has 3 different Fsmashes.

and you are going to use your aerials so much to compensate this.

 

[STiCKYBULL3TZ]

and you are going to use your aerials so much to compensate this.

Not sure what you're trying to say...

 

[guedes the brawler]

Not sure what you're trying to say...

i meant to say Mac's aerials are never going to be used as much as any other character's. he is no air fighter, it's why he has different variations on Fsmash

all in all, he gets 2 "new moves" to compensate for the semi-loss of 5.

 

[STiCKYBULL3TZ]

Right. And that makes him have to use pretty much 100% of his ground moves (can't find a use for downward Fsmash tho). But adding those 2 "new moves" require him to play a bit differently and figure out which Fsmash is most useful in which situation (if Fsmash is the most viable option)

 

[Ceph]

Right. And that makes him have to use pretty much 100% of his ground moves (can't find a use for downward Fsmash tho). But adding those 2 "new moves" require him to play a bit differently and figure out which Fsmash is most useful in which situation (if Fsmash is the most viable option)

Ooo! I know this one!

I've taken to incorporating the downward Fsmash for racking up damage cuz it keeps the opponent lower to the ground (especially if my back is to the ledge, they might bounce off the floor for easy chases)

 

[Phoenix502]

I've taken to incorporating the downward Fsmash for racking up damage cuz it keeps the opponent lower to the ground (especially if my back is to the ledge, they might bounce off the floor for easy chases)

not only does it do more damage, but I've also found that a fully charged one can potentially break Shields... did it twice on players who thought they could shield me, one charged body hook (Fsmash down), and they're stunned long enough for a down taunt and fully charged Straight lunch... er, I mean Straight Lunge

as for the topic at hand, i too fail to understand how whether or not Mac has a learning curve is a discussion... the prime problem about 4 Glory is that it's based on the memetic understanding that FD is the Go-to stage for competition, which gives mac and projectiles the advantage.

if 4 Glory was half FD and half Battlefield, we wouldn't even have this topic to begin with, and I'd bet money on it.

 

[EarthBoundEnigma]

Little Mac rewards people with good technique and a good grasp of the mechanics.
Play against people who know what they're doing.
Then play against a Little Mac player that knows what they're doing.
There is definitely a learning curve.

 

[Z1GMA]

The difficult part about playing Mac is to "hide" his weaknesses.
And there's definitely a Learning Curve to this.

 

[KingTeo]

Every character has a learning curve but Little Mac's is definitely the lowest in the game. He's by far the simplest character in the entire game. You don't need any deep grasp of game mechanics or anything like that.

In fact the only aspects to a good Mac player is sufficient enough reaction time and mindgames, and the knowledge that some people will do nothing but camp the ledge and aim to throw you offstage(act accordingly).

376

 

[KieRanaRan]

I think one of the issues here is that if you put 2 people together to fight in the early days of this Smash game and one of them is Little Mac, then Mac might end up winning because of his obvious advantages. However people are constantly getting better with many different characters.

And yes - many Little Macs who think they are invincible tend to make mistakes and die quickly in For Glory.

 

[Quisciens]

There are definitely several things you need to know well in order to play Little Mac competitively. You all aren't thinking of a competitive environment, where your opponent may or may not be able to read your every action. You can't sprint right up to your opponent as Little Mac -- that's too predictable. So, what else are you to do? JUMP? Things like this give him a very clear disadvantage where competitive play is concerned. Pair that with the fact that he has no air defense, he can be grabbed and combo'd straight off the stage where he'll have not a chance in the world of returning. He gets killed very easily at low percents. You have to prioritize your moves a little more than with other characters because your next attack could kill you. Right now, I'm not really sure why I'm writing this, because this discussion has done nothing if it hasn't made clear that facts and scenarios aren't going to change any perception, simply due to human nature.
@OP: Your wins were likely because For Glory players are horrible in many ways, including their tactics. They aren't going to edgeguard you very well, they're going to attempt in a very sloppy way and miss horribly. If you sprint at them, they have no idea what to do. Generally, they lack experience. The other way to kill him besides gimping is to play smart -- most of these For Glory players don't understand this, and think you can't see them standing on the ledge -- as if they're invisible. The truth is, a simple smash attack can kill Little Mac where it wouldn't normally kill any other character because he can't get back to the stage.