t3h Icy
Smash Master
- Joined
- Jun 12, 2009
- Messages
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Link to original post: [drupal=4358]Math and Psychology[/drupal]
NOTE: I originally wrote this for a Pokemon RBY (Red/Blue/Yellow) community, but thought this was related to Smash too (and I also cover it a bit). Some of the direction from this is towards RBY players, but the principles apply to both games.
Felt like blogging. =P
Most board games like Parcheesi, Monopoly, Chess etc are almost entirely math-based, whereas you can break the game down into little formulas, statistics and use mathematical methods to increase your chances of winning. A lot of games are math-based, though a die or dice are thrown in often to add some luck into it. Some games like Monopoly you're at the mercy of luck with the rolls of dice, but the player still has a ton of outside control. A game like Trouble is much more luck-based as the player as at most, four options at a time (each of the player's pieces).
Most video games be it MMORPGs, FPS, Fighting, etc have the same math fundamentals, but stress a lot more on your ability to read the player, figure out their patterns and just plain outsmart them. There's a lot of psychology involved in something as simple as Rock, Paper Scissors and for games played at 60 frames per second and much more than 3 choices for each of those frames, you need to think quickly and precisely. However, you have to also have the technical abilities to perform what it is you want, be it controlling a crowd of enemies with your movement, aiming a gun, or spacing and using your moves perfectly.
Something simple like Tic Tac Toe is "complete" and can be played purely mathematically to ensure a win or tie each time. There is no psychology involved if you're aware of the math.
Now for RBY, you don't need any technical abilities at all, so long as you can decide which of the moves/switches you want to make each turn and within the time limit. You can basically ignore that as a granny could do exactly what she wants each turn. In Pokemon, you need to know the math and psychology of the game if you want to succeed, or else you have to pray on the RNG (which Stips can do apparently).
Both parts of the game are incredibly difficult to perfect in entirely different ways. The math is always there, always has been and always will be, but because of the dynamics of the game, it's not realistically possible to analyze all the possibilities perfectly. Even Chess which has been around forever and has tons of supercomputers working for it can't come close to playing perfectly. You can do some steps like the math of how much damage a Pokemon will do, the chances of KOing across X turns, and specific 1v1 situations, but you can't calculate the exact percentage of Team A beating Team B.
Outsmarting your opponent is key and often you can turn a neutral situation or even a bad situation into something in your favor if you trick and trap your opponent with fine switches and prediction. The psychology of RBY is more about knowing your opponent as the game itself often allows both players to capitalize, but comes down to the players themselves. Psychology is not at a point where you can mathematically figure out what an opponent can do, but if you're significantly more experienced or smarter, you can still predict your opponent accurately. After enough play, even top players go about 50/50 with each other, and it takes someone really special to be able to read a high caliber player without fail. I know Borat in particular believes "prediction" is more guessing instead, but I believe that a player will always leave patterns as they make their moves. For noobs, it could be as simple as they mix things up every 3rd turn, but for more advanced players, it can get as messy as the dynamics of the game itself. Can a player read someone like this? Not realistically, but I believe it's possible. So it can be called guessing if you prefer. In that case, it's still noticeable when you can read someone a level or several below you.
I have always pushed for the mathematical end of the game personally and it's why I like using my really consistent Pokemon to eliminate some luck involved and avoid bad bad match-ups like Zapdos and Persian have. I am confident in reading my opponents, but a lot of people surpass me. However, I love analyzing match-ups, setting up damage range traps and knowing the best ways to attack to give me the highest statistical chance of winning. These can range from 2v2 Pokemon wars, or something as simple as Body Slamming Jolteon with Snorlax before Earthquake. Sometimes I use mindgames to push for an even higher advantage if I'm confident enough to do it. This is my playstyle.
But, because of how deep the game is, you can focus on the math part in a completely different way. WaterWizard, while reading opponents accurately likes to abuse Pokemon not expected, or doing zany setups to use Pokemon and moves that offer other things. His is more a high-risk, high-reward style of my type of play, but he has the brainpower to make things like Articuno, Counter on everything and whatever else he feels like using work. Zilch likes to do this as well, more in the happy middle and with the time he puts into gimmicky metagames (more than I do), he's amazing at anything like UU, BL, etc. We always have really even tourney sets and he's always been a fun opponent for me.
And on the complete opposite side is Posthuman. He literally plays only during tournaments and maybe once in awhile otherwise, but he's actually a Psychology major (I don't know if this is what helps him), and he beats you down by outsmarting you. From what I've seen from playing him, he has the knowledge of damage ranges, etc, but he seems to have trouble using Pokemon and moves he's not comfortable with (he tried Dugtrio vs WaterWizard in September OU GFs and it went.....not well). But because he studies and learns all about human behavior, he's really comfortable and confident in reading his opponents, so he's improving without playing the game. I find it both stressful and exciting playing him, and our styles really clash and go even with each other. I feel Nerd is the same way but he likes to play and abuse his team a lot more.
(Funny being a math guy, I go evenish with Posthuman and Zilch (down to the wire of the last game in the last two sets vs each of them, though lost all four), and have had handled WaterWizard well, while getting demolished by Nerd).
So what can you do with this to improve? The math is always there and ready to be extracted, and you can easily do this if you know the mathematical methods to do so. If not, you can see a lot of situational threads I've written to get an idea of how it's done. And it's a lot more difficult to teach someone to outsmart an opponent. I like to just break it down for a player by explaining they have at most, 9 options per turn as do the opponent, and of these 81 possibilities, the RNG gets involved in all but double switches. You have to figure out which is the most likely your opponent will choose, and pick something that gives you the best option for that. What option is best can be hard to define as some are low-risk, some are high-risk, some are medium reward, and some will give you the game. These depend both on the decisions you and your opponent make and what the RNG decides to do to you. Try to figure out which half you're focusing on and learn to strengthen it even further or balance out your weaker side.
I know we have a lot of Smashers, so I'm going to rant a little about that too. In RBY, you need Math and Psychology, and in Smash you need Knowledge, Intelligence and Technique (I've used this triple before in a previous blog). While Knowledge/Math and Intelligence/Psychology are by my definition for this, the same, I think the words are better suited due to the difference in needing Technique and not. For Melee where you have even more dynamics and these dynamics being used at 60 frames per second, the mathematics of it are beyond us. And with so many more options for each of these frames, the psychology of the game is much more complex than something blind-turn-based. So I've called them Knowledge and Intelligence for games like Melee.
For Melee, there's is no real feasible way of winning against top players without all three, and being completely superb in just one is enough. Dark from Chile is the most technical player in the world ("Perfect Dark"), and he seems smart and knows about the game, but I couldn't see him winning major tournaments just running off his tech skill. The same idea applies for DJ Nintendo who is incredibly knowledgeable about the game and for Tope who reads and reacts superbly which his techchasing. Like RBY, you have to have all major elements at a high level to keep up competitively, and Melee adds a third with the player being responsible for handling their character, their spacing and their moves consistently and at will.
Right now, I think Isa is our rising star as he's learned a lot about RBY since starting here and has the mental power to outsmart and outplay his opponents. He's also a Melee player in Sweden, so the transition probably makes things easier for him and he just has to get more experienced and comfy with the game. I'd like to see how mighty Isa can become. ;>
And for me, I'm going in the opposite direction. I've been wanting to play Melee competitively for years now but haven't realistically had opportunity to due to location, and took interest in RBY instead (due to online play and lag never being an issue, opposed to FPS games, etc). I've gotten a taste of it since moving to southern Alberta two years ago, and with how fast I've learned (taking 5th at my first tournament on my second "real" day of playing) and how much I'm willing to devote and have already devoted into the game, I'm very confident I can become a powerful player when I move to BC, home of top players like Sion, Diakonos and Blunted Object. I am incredibly excited to start playing on the regular with players well above me that force me to have to catch up. I really would love to test my mental limits of learning as fast as possible, as a life lesson and to improve myself both in and beyond the game.
Back to RBY, for any folk here that feel like they've understood what I've wrote and would like some tips, improvement or direction in how to improve themselves, come ask me and I'll train you.
NOTE: I originally wrote this for a Pokemon RBY (Red/Blue/Yellow) community, but thought this was related to Smash too (and I also cover it a bit). Some of the direction from this is towards RBY players, but the principles apply to both games.
Felt like blogging. =P
Most board games like Parcheesi, Monopoly, Chess etc are almost entirely math-based, whereas you can break the game down into little formulas, statistics and use mathematical methods to increase your chances of winning. A lot of games are math-based, though a die or dice are thrown in often to add some luck into it. Some games like Monopoly you're at the mercy of luck with the rolls of dice, but the player still has a ton of outside control. A game like Trouble is much more luck-based as the player as at most, four options at a time (each of the player's pieces).
Most video games be it MMORPGs, FPS, Fighting, etc have the same math fundamentals, but stress a lot more on your ability to read the player, figure out their patterns and just plain outsmart them. There's a lot of psychology involved in something as simple as Rock, Paper Scissors and for games played at 60 frames per second and much more than 3 choices for each of those frames, you need to think quickly and precisely. However, you have to also have the technical abilities to perform what it is you want, be it controlling a crowd of enemies with your movement, aiming a gun, or spacing and using your moves perfectly.
Something simple like Tic Tac Toe is "complete" and can be played purely mathematically to ensure a win or tie each time. There is no psychology involved if you're aware of the math.
Now for RBY, you don't need any technical abilities at all, so long as you can decide which of the moves/switches you want to make each turn and within the time limit. You can basically ignore that as a granny could do exactly what she wants each turn. In Pokemon, you need to know the math and psychology of the game if you want to succeed, or else you have to pray on the RNG (which Stips can do apparently).
Both parts of the game are incredibly difficult to perfect in entirely different ways. The math is always there, always has been and always will be, but because of the dynamics of the game, it's not realistically possible to analyze all the possibilities perfectly. Even Chess which has been around forever and has tons of supercomputers working for it can't come close to playing perfectly. You can do some steps like the math of how much damage a Pokemon will do, the chances of KOing across X turns, and specific 1v1 situations, but you can't calculate the exact percentage of Team A beating Team B.
Outsmarting your opponent is key and often you can turn a neutral situation or even a bad situation into something in your favor if you trick and trap your opponent with fine switches and prediction. The psychology of RBY is more about knowing your opponent as the game itself often allows both players to capitalize, but comes down to the players themselves. Psychology is not at a point where you can mathematically figure out what an opponent can do, but if you're significantly more experienced or smarter, you can still predict your opponent accurately. After enough play, even top players go about 50/50 with each other, and it takes someone really special to be able to read a high caliber player without fail. I know Borat in particular believes "prediction" is more guessing instead, but I believe that a player will always leave patterns as they make their moves. For noobs, it could be as simple as they mix things up every 3rd turn, but for more advanced players, it can get as messy as the dynamics of the game itself. Can a player read someone like this? Not realistically, but I believe it's possible. So it can be called guessing if you prefer. In that case, it's still noticeable when you can read someone a level or several below you.
I have always pushed for the mathematical end of the game personally and it's why I like using my really consistent Pokemon to eliminate some luck involved and avoid bad bad match-ups like Zapdos and Persian have. I am confident in reading my opponents, but a lot of people surpass me. However, I love analyzing match-ups, setting up damage range traps and knowing the best ways to attack to give me the highest statistical chance of winning. These can range from 2v2 Pokemon wars, or something as simple as Body Slamming Jolteon with Snorlax before Earthquake. Sometimes I use mindgames to push for an even higher advantage if I'm confident enough to do it. This is my playstyle.
But, because of how deep the game is, you can focus on the math part in a completely different way. WaterWizard, while reading opponents accurately likes to abuse Pokemon not expected, or doing zany setups to use Pokemon and moves that offer other things. His is more a high-risk, high-reward style of my type of play, but he has the brainpower to make things like Articuno, Counter on everything and whatever else he feels like using work. Zilch likes to do this as well, more in the happy middle and with the time he puts into gimmicky metagames (more than I do), he's amazing at anything like UU, BL, etc. We always have really even tourney sets and he's always been a fun opponent for me.
And on the complete opposite side is Posthuman. He literally plays only during tournaments and maybe once in awhile otherwise, but he's actually a Psychology major (I don't know if this is what helps him), and he beats you down by outsmarting you. From what I've seen from playing him, he has the knowledge of damage ranges, etc, but he seems to have trouble using Pokemon and moves he's not comfortable with (he tried Dugtrio vs WaterWizard in September OU GFs and it went.....not well). But because he studies and learns all about human behavior, he's really comfortable and confident in reading his opponents, so he's improving without playing the game. I find it both stressful and exciting playing him, and our styles really clash and go even with each other. I feel Nerd is the same way but he likes to play and abuse his team a lot more.
(Funny being a math guy, I go evenish with Posthuman and Zilch (down to the wire of the last game in the last two sets vs each of them, though lost all four), and have had handled WaterWizard well, while getting demolished by Nerd).
So what can you do with this to improve? The math is always there and ready to be extracted, and you can easily do this if you know the mathematical methods to do so. If not, you can see a lot of situational threads I've written to get an idea of how it's done. And it's a lot more difficult to teach someone to outsmart an opponent. I like to just break it down for a player by explaining they have at most, 9 options per turn as do the opponent, and of these 81 possibilities, the RNG gets involved in all but double switches. You have to figure out which is the most likely your opponent will choose, and pick something that gives you the best option for that. What option is best can be hard to define as some are low-risk, some are high-risk, some are medium reward, and some will give you the game. These depend both on the decisions you and your opponent make and what the RNG decides to do to you. Try to figure out which half you're focusing on and learn to strengthen it even further or balance out your weaker side.
I know we have a lot of Smashers, so I'm going to rant a little about that too. In RBY, you need Math and Psychology, and in Smash you need Knowledge, Intelligence and Technique (I've used this triple before in a previous blog). While Knowledge/Math and Intelligence/Psychology are by my definition for this, the same, I think the words are better suited due to the difference in needing Technique and not. For Melee where you have even more dynamics and these dynamics being used at 60 frames per second, the mathematics of it are beyond us. And with so many more options for each of these frames, the psychology of the game is much more complex than something blind-turn-based. So I've called them Knowledge and Intelligence for games like Melee.
For Melee, there's is no real feasible way of winning against top players without all three, and being completely superb in just one is enough. Dark from Chile is the most technical player in the world ("Perfect Dark"), and he seems smart and knows about the game, but I couldn't see him winning major tournaments just running off his tech skill. The same idea applies for DJ Nintendo who is incredibly knowledgeable about the game and for Tope who reads and reacts superbly which his techchasing. Like RBY, you have to have all major elements at a high level to keep up competitively, and Melee adds a third with the player being responsible for handling their character, their spacing and their moves consistently and at will.
Right now, I think Isa is our rising star as he's learned a lot about RBY since starting here and has the mental power to outsmart and outplay his opponents. He's also a Melee player in Sweden, so the transition probably makes things easier for him and he just has to get more experienced and comfy with the game. I'd like to see how mighty Isa can become. ;>
And for me, I'm going in the opposite direction. I've been wanting to play Melee competitively for years now but haven't realistically had opportunity to due to location, and took interest in RBY instead (due to online play and lag never being an issue, opposed to FPS games, etc). I've gotten a taste of it since moving to southern Alberta two years ago, and with how fast I've learned (taking 5th at my first tournament on my second "real" day of playing) and how much I'm willing to devote and have already devoted into the game, I'm very confident I can become a powerful player when I move to BC, home of top players like Sion, Diakonos and Blunted Object. I am incredibly excited to start playing on the regular with players well above me that force me to have to catch up. I really would love to test my mental limits of learning as fast as possible, as a life lesson and to improve myself both in and beyond the game.
Back to RBY, for any folk here that feel like they've understood what I've wrote and would like some tips, improvement or direction in how to improve themselves, come ask me and I'll train you.
