Old School Acclimation

[Omni]

Background: Been in the smash scene since 2004. Retired from Melee once Brawl came out. Stopped playing Brawl once the money no longer satisfied me. Took a year and a half out of gaming in general to complete my CPA. And after about a 4 year hiatus I'm trying to come back into the scene.

So I guess you could call me old school.

When I came back into this new Melee scene I knew I'd be rusty. Not only from years of not playing Melee, but the damage done by Brawl that kinda' saps away from your Melee energy (you know what I mean). And as I've been shaking off the rust and getting back to snuff I've to the realization that I've been left behind.

Left behind how? Hm... My first thought when coming back was that all I had to do was restore myself to my former skill level to reclaim my former status. And I thought wrong. The game has changed. Space animals have risen to a standard of tech skill so high that today's average Fox use to be Silent Wolf 4 years ago. Peach edgeguards like she's Sheik. Marth has to be more refined and sharper than ever to stay useful. Falcon's are shield dropping and becoming even more creative in their platform game.

Essentially, the metagame right now for me is hard. The game is hard; it never use to be this difficult.

How do I feel about this? I feel two things: impressed and excited. I'm impressed because well... it's Melee. It never ceases to amaze me that after all these years the metagame continues to grow. The metagame literally knows no bounds and will go as far as the human mind & body can take it (which is pretty damn far). But I'm also excited because coming into the scene now feels exactly the same as when I entered the scene in 2004. Well, not exactly. But similar in the respect that I have to climb up the totem pole once more. I have to learn more styles, techniques, habits, punishes, etc. I have to evolve with the metagame.

But there's one thing old school players have going for them and that's experience. I'm sure most new school can attest that many old school players have this special ability where we can do **** that... well frankly, shouldn't work. We know things. And we play with a lot of feeling and instinct that can only obtained with time and experience. In short, an acquired sixth sense.

It's a good feeling, and one that I wanted to share with you guys. I'm curious if any of you, both old and new, can identify with where I'm coming from.

 

[Bones0]

My honest advice is to stop relying on your old school mindgames-based sixth sense that you described, and instead try to play in such a way that even if your opponent knows exactly what you're doing, he can't do anything about it because it's too late. I like to think of it in terms of chess. If you are constantly putting your opponent in "check" by being in the superior position relative to his, he cannot counterattack successfully. As long as you maintain that check, you will inevitably put him in "check mate" (i.e. you finally get a touch). From there, it's all about the punish game, and as soon as your punish no longer seems maintainable, you want to revert right back to putting him in a constant state of check.

We should talk at Pound. I think my game is very much lacking old school elements like feeling out players, throwing them off, mixing up my options, etc. so we can both help each other I think.

 

[Omni]

It's not that I'm going to stop relying on them, but that I'm going to simply integrate it with the necessary tech skill.

From my viewpoint, it's a lot less like Chess and much more like Rock-Paper-Scissors because almost everything in the game has a counter option. This is my view based on the neutral game with two opponents who comprehend Advance & Retreat neutral game.

 

[Bones0]

It's not that I'm going to stop relying on them, but that I'm going to simply integrate it with the necessary tech skill.

From my viewpoint, it's a lot less like Chess and much more like Rock-Paper-Scissors because almost everything in the game has a counter option. This is my view based on the neutral game with two opponents who comprehend Advance & Retreat neutral game.

I think your perspective is inherently flawed... Some positions are simply superior to others (e.g. Marth underneath Peach). Old school heavily favors RPS mentality while the more advanced metagame has started to hold players to a higher standard of decision making that is more similar to chess. It used to be all about how you did a strategy, and the strategy itself didn't really matter much so long as you were applying it well. Now that everyone is applying strategies well, it's really important that you pick the best one.

I'm not saying you should totally abandon old school ideals, but I think trying to simply beef up your tech skill and continue to apply roughly the same strategies as you did in '04 won't work. Stuff like Azen fsmashing 3 times in a row simply will not work in this metagame's climate, no matter how good your reads and spacing are.

 

[Omni]

Right, but you're not telling me anything I don't already know. I actually wrote a thread topic that discussed the importance of positioning amongst the neutral game. Edit: Found it. Divide Between Good and Great.

The "best" strategy is not always the better strategy. I'm sure you understand the concept of doing exactly what you're not suppose to do to beat out some options.

 

[Superspright]

Semantically speaking the 'best' strategy is the superlative of strategies and better is merely more adequate than another strategy. In other words, you don't make no goddamn sense.

 

[Omni]

Thanks for pointing out that minor semantic flaw. Your contribution to the thread has been meaningful. By strategy, I was referring to the "best decision" at a given moment.

 

[TerryJ]

Over the many years of simply reading these forums I've come to agree with many different styles of play. Which to be honest might have something to do with why I still suck at this game even though I've put countless hours into diligent practice. I have a habit of trying not to make confrontation so I tend not to disagree with someone or their idea/belief because I try to see it from their point of view so I usually get the gist of what they're trying to say.

What I'm trying to get at is there's a ton of different ways to play the game and none of them are necessarily right (unless there is a right answer and that's why I, comparatively speaking, still suck). Some people play with their gut and have a feeling of which moves to use when the time is right and some like to go into battle with a legitimate strategy, i.e. X checks Y but Y checks Z. Because of my indecisiveness and constant study I can never seem to pick which frame of mind to use against someone in a battle. A lot of the time I just straight up miss punishes or fall off the ledge because I feel like doing some tech practice mid-match or something stupid to that effect.

It's hard for me to pinpoint what kind of 'style' I play with. I've been playing the game since 64 striving to get better and become the best from the beginning so I'm technically oldschool but I haven't really been part of the scene up until about a couple years ago. I rely mostly on my habits of what I know works (like psychic grabs) so it's hard for me to break them when I get put up against someone who knows how to stop them.

Overall, I have no idea what the hell I'm talking about you've just made me want to write things, but welcome back to the community nonetheless!

 

[SAUS]

TerryJ, I know what you mean. You are like my friend who has great tech skill from practicing and is decent at the game, but lacks the "fighting mentality" (didn't know what to call it) that my other friends and I seem to have. He tries to think everything through and figure out what he should do - he's very reactive. However, I play very proactive. I punish defensive options because I am an aggressive player. He crumbles under my play because he gives me almost infinite breathing room. You have to get in there and fight your opponent, and figure out the small things as each different outcome comes up. I believe this is the "6th sense" that the OP is referring to, and it's the reason I can never say what I was doing. I'd have to watch a replay. There's too much going on for me to tell you how I punished you. You can't just think all that through. It's instinct.

I'd say I'm old-school. Kind of just getting back into the game after a while of doing other stuff. Some of my characters have dropped off hard - fox, samus, shiek - but my core characters (and my main) are mostly in tact - link (main), captain falcon, marth, falco. My tech skill is still greater than a lot of my friends - especially with falco (even though it really isn't that impressive, I just have a solid grasp on what I need for how I play with him).

 

[Varist]

This game doesn't really have "strategies". You can say things like "camp platforms against this character" or "control the middle of the stage as this character" but you will eventually be forced out of your "strategy" to play by your opponent's rules.

The game is decided through pressure. To beat my opponent I need to make him forget everything he has practiced in his bedroom. I can't beat you at things you've practiced, just like you can't beat me at things I've practiced.

If I've practiced my combos against CPUs, I am best when I am hitting my opponent and he is not hitting me.

Let's step away from what that means. Sure, if I'm getting hit I'm losing the match. But let's pretend that doesn't hold any bearing.

No player sits in their room and practices getting combod. They practice hitting and beating the other guy. This is why tournament experience and playing people better than you is so valuable; it teaches you how to lose. It teaches you how to play when you're being hit. You're getting practice in that critical period where you don't have momentum. Ultimately, that lets you keep a cool head.

Step back into the game. If we're at a neutral position and I'm really good at comboing, that's fine. If I don't have enough game sense to watch your movements and bait something, it's 50/50 that I land a hit on you and start something up.

If I can get you to miss a tech or force a jump, I've limited where your character can go. It's up to me to execute properly and do all the right things to read the series of techs and keep you in tumble to kill you for that stock.

You can minimize the time I spend doing that by messing with my rhythm or DIing in ways I can't execute properly to respond to. It comes down to practice.

Then we go into neutral and it repeats.

This is the game in three stages - being neutral, having momentum, and being victimized by your opponent's momentum.

Practice neutral and being victimized by momentum and you will be more comfortable for the majority of the match. More comfortable than your average opponent. If you're comfortable, you can read your opponent more easily. Even if you're losing, you don't play his game. You do what you've practiced. Getting hit doesn't mean you're losing as long as you're still playing your game. Hitting them just makes it easier for you to force your game on them.



I forgot to address the original post. You are romanticizing the neutral game Omni. "Doing stuff that shouldn't work" is fallacious, because there's nothing that inherently shouldn't work in this game. You just did something that your opponent didn't expect and your execution beat his. Instinct is there, sure, but it's nothing only old school players have, it's not a sixth sense. Old school players aren't known for doing funky things and having them work out because they have a special perspective, they just played the game without thinking as much or executing things as complicated as we do today.

Players today do things they believe are safer. Sometimes their safe option is read and countered, sometimes it isn't.

 

[MookieRah]

Hey there Omni. I got back into this game once I found out there was a melee tournament bi-annually where I am now, and since then have helped create quite a scene here.

It's best not to constantly discredit Bones0 as if you have nothing to learn. The first thing you should be focussed on is improvement, not trying to prove yourself to anyone, and discouraging people who are giving you legit advice is a bad way to start. Second, I would say to get caught up in the meta. Read a lot of the Q&A threads for the character(s) that you are maining, and/or grab people that are as close to the top of the meta that you can and talk with them.

There is A LOT of stuff that has changed since Brawl (which was also around the time where I quit melee as well). You can only go so far by using mind-game or RPS based strategies. By relying on that style of play you open the door to your opponent not falling for a trick. For example, Marth fthrowing a spacie off the ledge sets up a RPS scenario. You may get very lucky and take a stock, but you may also lose your advantage if your chosen attack doesn't cover the option your opponent takes. Instead, if you Marth performed an uthrow it would guarantee positional advantage in which you have a higher chance of leveraging something out of it. To an extent, the spacie still has options to escape, but it's much more weighted in Marth's favor when it comes to risk and reward, and is much easier for the Marth player to react to.

In other words, the meta is moving more towards small victories over time, taking less risks, and focussed more on reactive play.