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Okokokokokokokokok... I know this issue has been beaten to death and I would understand if this thread is locked, but looking at the MLG interview with M2K:
"2. Who was your hardest match this tournament?"
"Ally, but Snake is my most practiced matchup. About half of my Brawl playtime is against level 3 CPU Snake, so I have a lot of experience in the matchup."
We've heard he plays against CPU's, but what do you need to do against a level 3 CPU to be productive?
Just hit them, hit them again, then hit them some more. If anything, he does it because they don't have "inhuman airdodge reaction time", and M2K can get a 'feeling' of Snake's weight while he attacks... But that's all I see you gain, and you could gain that much easier by just fighting Snake players as much as possible (of course, if you're at your house alone and wanna practice...).
It's all for visualization and practicing spacing and precision. He most likely gets furious at himself if he gets hit once, or fails to get a gimp off one hit string.
AI's do get you good up to a certain point...
I mean when you're complete and total newb your first goal is to probably beat a LV 9.
After that though you don't really get better unless you play real players.
I mean, I played LV 9s so much in the passed that I got to a point where I just knew what they were going to do and when. Like if you D-throw them with snake they will almost always roll towards a ledge.
But like Kewkky said, its probably more about getting a good feeling of their weight and what combos work on them
The A.I. is of course really good at punishment (when it doesn't spam roll). The A.I. shows you some ways to approach or beat an approach, but of course its programming hasn't "thought" of everything, and you don't see ATs.
The A.I. also invents really crazy combos / traps that only work at a single damage value.
The A.I. never screws up a grab or punishment to a char like Kirby's landing hurtbox.
And the A.I. has completely sick Smash DI, some of the time, so while its failure to survive doesn't prove something is impossible, the A.I. has shown me quite a lot about ways to save myself in times when it is possible.
Also, because of the fact the A.I. doesn't actually think and doesn't watch you and doesn't have a mind to be gamed, if you challenge yourself to play "only to beat its approaches" (don't spam aggro on it, as you can do against any computer until they start insta air dodging), it can help you notice bad habits of yours, but only if you yourself bring some level of self-awareness in. That is, since the computer doesn't watch what you do, it will sometimes just get lucky and hit you anyway, if you keep doing the same thing in that situation to respond. It will point out that response (a) is not a get out of jail free card, and (b) is in fact answerable with what the A.I. just did (so you make a note in case you play this from the other side).
Conversely, it may escape something which you think is a good string, because the computer doesn't get nervous or tunneled into forgetting its options. It keeps things really simple, and has shown me (in situations where the opponent doesn't do anything I haven't thought to test, of course) what simplicity can get you. But again, you've got to be self-aware, this time realizing that Human players will not play perfect an entire game, indeed you have to count on it, so you've got to play real people and still see what psychologically works, or in real games you'll play as dryly and unpsychologically as the computer, and you'll never get an edge.
I actually learned the most about the Kirby - Ganon matchup by carefully probing the Kirby and Ganon A.I.s than any game I've played with a person. It's not a substitute for those real games, and I don't pretend I now have everything I'd need to take on a Human (again, since the A.I. simply will never reinvent the game), but I was able to get data that couldn't lie to me.
By watching the technically perfect Ganon respond to me trying out dumb **** with Kirby on it, I learned ways (at least *ways*) to counter said dumb ****.
But because this can't be stressed hard enough, you can't learn anything from how **** you can **** the A.I. when it does stupid things like ALWAYS air dodging out of a throw (you can CG any CPU with any character, pretty much), recovering like a moron, randomly doing unsafe moves (MK jab? I swear, the L9 MK would be pretty beast if it never jabbed and could aim its recovery.), etc.
(It especially saddens me that I can't get *any* practice for Ganon Choke chasing reaction against an A.I. whatsoever, because they all wait there for a couple frames completely removing the guessing game. If they randomly answered with the actual options, I could choke A.I.s and chase all day and be godlike with that trained reaction. :\)
Actually the A.I., again as its "technical perfection", you sometimes see it using unsafe moves which situationally turn out to be safe. Falcon Kicks, say, which knock you just so and you can't position a punish... actually you're left on guard, even.
If you memorize these situations, it's one extra edge... and it'll be as much of a surprise as it is when the CPU does it, unless facing someone with pre-eminent knowledge & understanding of the physics and frames of the game. Such a pro would be of a sort that doesn't exist for this game, I don't think. We have pros who have conscious access of frames in real time, we have M2K who is said to 'get' Smash in general, and any pros at that mythic level are good at adapting and applying learned behaviours ('trained neural pathways'), but these last few are through unconscious media; Take anyone at M2K or Ally's, or I dunno, Mango's level from Melee, and this person would be of a meta-Godlike level above their Godlike competitors, if they "knew" everything about cause and effect in the game physics, consciously, in real time.
That's the ultimate goal, and unless I'm mistaken, it's quite far from Human achievement.
If it has been achieved, the Human mind has yet again blown mine.
*~*~*~
Don't play CPUs to learn the game. Play people first. For a long time.
Then touch CPUs.
CPUs destroy you if you tackle them first. I mean destroy your skills, and very brain structure for learning the game, even if you "destroy them" in the match.
I find that if you train with a CPU with the intention of NOT DESTROYING THEM then it can be useful. If you just select Metaknight and continuous gimp a Snake CPU you will not learn anything. However, if you practice Dair camping and making sure you are not getting hit by any of snakes things then the training is very useful. If you don't play to win, then you will get something out of it. By the same measure, It is highly ineffective to practice stuff like comboing or grab followups because If you try to exploit the AI's poor choice of DI and stupid air dodges then you are doing yourself no favours. However, if you simply practice the core basics of your character which includes recovery, spacing and zoning, then AI training can be useful.
He said it like that because he knew you'd make a topic about that. He's M2K It's not like he fights the best snake and various snakes all the time (sarcasm) . He does train against lvl 3s but he said it like that to troll you.
I play wario and train on CPUs. I practice on not getting hit the entire 3 stocks and putting myself into grab range. It's definatleu helped me improve.
Imo you can get better fighting the cpu especially level 9. IF you play vs the computer like you would do vs a good player. And dont spam stuff that works vs cpu but not vs other humans. So if you play the cpu the right way, i do strongly believe that you can get alot better. But once you reached that limit, its only humans that counts. Except for warming up.
I beat a lv9 Diddy and a lv9 Ganondorf without ever being hit once with Kirby in separate matches, with 3 stocks each, by rushing towards them and never letting them do anything to me.
The A.I. is of course really good at punishment (when it doesn't spam roll). The A.I. shows you some ways to approach or beat an approach, but of course its programming hasn't "thought" of everything, and you don't see ATs.
The A.I. also invents really crazy combos / traps that only work at a single damage value.
The A.I. never screws up a grab or punishment to a char like Kirby's landing hurtbox.
And the A.I. has completely sick Smash DI, some of the time, so while its failure to survive doesn't prove something is impossible, the A.I. has shown me quite a lot about ways to save myself in times when it is possible.
Also, because of the fact the A.I. doesn't actually think and doesn't watch you and doesn't have a mind to be gamed, if you challenge yourself to play "only to beat its approaches" (don't spam aggro on it, as you can do against any computer until they start insta air dodging), it can help you notice bad habits of yours, but only if you yourself bring some level of self-awareness in. That is, since the computer doesn't watch what you do, it will sometimes just get lucky and hit you anyway, if you keep doing the same thing in that situation to respond. It will point out that response (a) is not a get out of jail free card, and (b) is in fact answerable with what the A.I. just did (so you make a note in case you play this from the other side).
Conversely, it may escape something which you think is a good string, because the computer doesn't get nervous or tunneled into forgetting its options. It keeps things really simple, and has shown me (in situations where the opponent doesn't do anything I haven't thought to test, of course) what simplicity can get you. But again, you've got to be self-aware, this time realizing that Human players will not play perfect an entire game, indeed you have to count on it, so you've got to play real people and still see what psychologically works, or in real games you'll play as dryly and unpsychologically as the computer, and you'll never get an edge.
I actually learned the most about the Kirby - Ganon matchup by carefully probing the Kirby and Ganon A.I.s than any game I've played with a person. It's not a substitute for those real games, and I don't pretend I now have everything I'd need to take on a Human (again, since the A.I. simply will never reinvent the game), but I was able to get data that couldn't lie to me.
By watching the technically perfect Ganon respond to me trying out dumb **** with Kirby on it, I learned ways (at least *ways*) to counter said dumb ****.
But because this can't be stressed hard enough, you can't learn anything from how **** you can **** the A.I. when it does stupid things like ALWAYS air dodging out of a throw (you can CG any CPU with any character, pretty much), recovering like a moron, randomly doing unsafe moves (MK jab? I swear, the L9 MK would be pretty beast if it never jabbed and could aim its recovery.), etc.
(It especially saddens me that I can't get *any* practice for Ganon Choke chasing reaction against an A.I. whatsoever, because they all wait there for a couple frames completely removing the guessing game. If they randomly answered with the actual options, I could choke A.I.s and chase all day and be godlike with that trained reaction. :\)
Actually the A.I., again as its "technical perfection", you sometimes see it using unsafe moves which situationally turn out to be safe. Falcon Kicks, say, which knock you just so and you can't position a punish... actually you're left on guard, even.
If you memorize these situations, it's one extra edge... and it'll be as much of a surprise as it is when the CPU does it, unless facing someone with pre-eminent knowledge & understanding of the physics and frames of the game. Such a pro would be of a sort that doesn't exist for this game, I don't think. We have pros who have conscious access of frames in real time, we have M2K who is said to 'get' Smash in general, and any pros at that mythic level are good at adapting and applying learned behaviours ('trained neural pathways'), but these last few are through unconscious media; Take anyone at M2K or Ally's, or I dunno, Mango's level from Melee, and this person would be of a meta-Godlike level above their Godlike competitors, if they "knew" everything about cause and effect in the game physics, consciously, in real time.
That's the ultimate goal, and unless I'm mistaken, it's quite far from Human achievement.
If it has been achieved, the Human mind has yet again blown mine.
*~*~*~
Don't play CPUs to learn the game. Play people first. For a long time.
Then touch CPUs.
CPUs destroy you if you tackle them first. I mean destroy your skills, and very brain structure for learning the game, even if you "destroy them" in the match.
Wow, this is a impressively informative explanation. I never quite understood the lvl 3 CPU concept either but it makes much more sense now. Thanks for sharing.
Why doesn't someone i don't know.....actually ASK M2K why he plays CPUs for training, more specifically level 3 snake CPUs? And post what he says here so the "mystery" will be clear. Just my opinion.
agreed, beating the crap out of a lvl 3 cpu isn't really considered training imo. I always train with a lvl 9 wario, and I think I should move on to other characters since it's kind of easy now
Oh my god. The number of people coming in here and saying "U shud play levul 9s cuz there hrder" when there is a full, detailed explanation 8 posts into the thread is starting to make me wonder where the hell the human attention span went
