Just can't get back into the groove.

[Bowser D.X]

Hey I left the tournament scene over two years ago, I've practiced here and there a bit but never for a long period. Right now I'm finding it hard to get back my skill; I always came last at tournaments but against a CPU or non competitive player I was nigh unstoppable. Now I struggle against my brother who can just roles past everything and spam certain moves. I used to be able to flog him but now he has the upper hand even with less training than me. Maybe it's stress, but I just can't get the focus I once had.

Is there any tips I could use just to get that edge back?

 

[Stride]

No offence intended, but if you always came last at tournaments then you were never good. At low levels of play, certain strategies or skills in certain areas can be very powerful and give a player a serious advantage even if their opponent has a significantly higher overall skill level. Basically, because low-level players are so bad at everything, games are mostly determined by how well they can deal with or do certain simple things (Marth forward smash spam, for example) rather than how good they are in general. Therefore, low-level competitive players still often lose to non-competitive players. In fact, newer competitive players often struggle with bad players more than they do with players of their level or even quite far above it, since they blindly execute the strategies that are successful against the better players but don't know how to adapt them to deal with the "less skillful" and more degenerate strategies from the worse players. You might know basic techskill and combos and other "competitive" stuff, but if you don't also have a decent understanding of neutral game and how to adapt to what's going on you're still going to keep running into move spam just the same.

My advice is to not try to "get your edge back", but instead to just learn the game normally like any competitive player. Learn techskill and practice your execution until you're comfortable with everything you need to do, and pay attention to what's going on when you play other people so as to work out what bad habits you have or areas for improvement in general. A simple but good way to go about it is to examine every time you get hit, and think what caused it and what you could have done differently.

Beating CPUs means nothing. CPUs are simultaneously really good and really bad, in a way that's nothing like a human; they have 1 frame reactions but their entire neutral game is just walking towards you at all times then doing a random attack when they get close enough. You can literally beat them just by standing still and forward smashing over and over, but trying to play "properly" against them can sometimes fail pretty badly since they just ignore what you're doing so you have no way to play neutral against them meaningfully. Use CPUs as punching bags to practice combos on; trying to play them like humans will just build bad habits. Beating non-competitive players means little if you're just spamming moves and rolling around without thinking about it right back at them, but it is meaningful if you can understand and deliberately exploit their weaknesses and consistently beat them. Against those players the point isn't to win, but to understand how you're winning.

 

[KirinKQP]

Practice basic tech skill and movement to warm up from after that hiatus and combos. When playing against CPUs, you shouldn't play against them like another person, they're just punching bags. Become familiar with the game's mechanics and become comfortable with tech and executing combos and such. That, and watch tournament sets with people using your character. That is usually what gets me in the mood to get up and play Melee more; I stay familiar with the matchup and am motivated to play more.

On the part that your brother is beating you by spamming and rolling, you are rusty on reading and tech chasing. He definitely makes mistakes that you are not capitalizing on and thus you are losing. Since you don't play well in tournaments, you should find other players who are better than you and constantly play friendlies with them.

>.> play more I guess..

 

[Bowser D.X]

No offense intended, but if you always came last at tournaments then you were never good. At low levels of play, certain strategies or skills in certain areas can be very powerful and give a player a serious advantage even if their opponent has a significantly higher overall skill level. Basically, because low-level players are so bad at everything, games are mostly determined by how well you can deal with or do certain simple things (Marth forward smash spam, for example) rather than how good they are in general. Therefore, low-level competitive players still often lose to non-competitive players. In fact, newer competitive players often struggle with bad players more than they do with players of their level or even quite far above it, since they blindly execute the strategies that are successful against the better players but don't know how to adapt them to deal with the "less skillful" and more degenerate strategies from the worse players. You might know basic techskill and combos and other "competitive" stuff, but if you don't also have a decent understanding of neutral game and how to adapt to what's going on you're still going to keep running into move spam just the same.

My advice is to not try to "get your edge back", but instead to just learn the game normally like any competitive player. Learn techskill and practice your execution until you're comfortable with everything you need to do, and pay attention to what's going on when you play other people so as to work out what bad habits you have or areas for improvement in general. A simple but good way to go about it is to examine every time you get hit, and think what caused it and what you could have done differently.

Beating CPUs means nothing. CPUs are simultaneously really good and really bad, in a way that's nothing like a human; you can literally beat them just by standing still and forward smashing over and over, but trying to play "properly" against them can sometimes fail pretty badly since they just ignore what you're doing so you have no way to play neutral against them meaningfully. Use CPUs as punching bags to practice combos on; trying to play them like humans will just build bad habits. Beating non-competitive players means little if you're just spamming moves and rolling around without thinking about it right back at them, but it is meaningful if you can understand and deliberately exploit their weaknesses and consistently beat them. Against those players the point with those players isn't to win, but to understand how you're winning.

That's my point, I never rolled around, spamming attacks and I still don't. I may have lost almost every match but it was never a one sided loss, except for a few really good players. Now no matter how much I focus I can only do so good. I can still do good against CPU's for the reasons you mentioned.

 

[Stride]

That's my point, I never rolled around, spamming attacks and I still don't. I may have lost almost every match but it was never a one sided loss, except for a few really good players. Now no matter how much I focus I can only do so good. I can still do good against CPU's for the reasons you mentioned.

Focus is one important thing, but you still the need skill and understanding to be applied with that focus. It's hard to be specific at this point without seeing you play, but there is definitely so much you can work on. There's tons of relatively heavily execution-based stuff that doesn't require you to think or understand what you're doing much. Can you L-cancel 99% of the time? Can you chaingrab a spacie on FD decently? Can you consistently act immediately out of the lag of all your actions? Can you do basic guaranteed or mostly-guaranteed combos and edgeguards consistently? Can you efficiently execute wavedashes mixed with dashes? Can you wavedash out of shield? If there are any of those kind of things you can't do then you have no excuses, since you can easily learn them just by practicing more.

Beyond that it gets more complicated, and it comes down to your ability to analyse your actions and decide on the appropriate course to take to fix them. As I said before, look at when something went wrong (or where something could be better) and think about why. Why don't you cover your brother's rolls? Why do you keep getting hit by his move spam? In both cases, why does the problem persist if he's not doing very much except those two things and therefore what he's doing is predictable? Those may sound like excessively broad questions, and they are, but the process of finding answers to them is extremely useful.

 

[EmptyNess]

This kids either stupid or a troll

 

[m0use]

Melee is chess... if you are having trouble, then you don't know enough about the game. Plain and simple as that. You can beat anyone, it just comes down to knowledge. The word 'knowledge' is, however, a very loaded word in the Melee world. Knowledge encompasses every factor in melee (will to win, neutral and punish game, edge guards, perseverance through defeat, constant growth, etc.). There are an endless list of things you can do to improve, so long as you really, really, really want to.

More recently, I felt as though I could never beat my friend. And he's good, so I don't feel bad about the singular loss... but... when losing becomes a constant, and you feel as though there is nothing you can do to beat this person, it can be very difficult to improve. It really started to mess with my mentality, to the point where I probably lost a month of effective training, because I was so focused on beating him. I couldn't stop getting nervous and dropping wins.

Then I started getting another friend of mine into Melee, teaching him everything I know and royally beating the crap out of him... I gained a new outlook for the game, which is what I said before, melee is chess- if you are losing, you don't know enough about the game.

After that week or so of playing my scrub friend, I played my 'good' friend.... and won 7 games in a row right off the bat... I was doing things I would see in videos against him, things i wouldn't normally do, three stocking him over and over. Something inside me clicked, and I no longer felt anything but happiness, whether I won or lost, because I'm playing the game I love most.

Study the gods and everything they do. Play different characters. Look up what you don't know or understand. Keep a clear head. Chew gum. Listen to music. WATCH TAS VIDEOS. Play as many different people as possible. And get gud, scrub (:

 

[iAmMatt]

Anyone who says that playing any skill-based video game is like riding a bike is wrong. It takes a lot of time to get back into the groove of playing melee. Take time to stretch your whole body before playing melee so you don't tense up.