PapaNookumCake sucks.

[ArcPoint]

Three things that I need to get out of the way before I actually get into what I'm going to talk about.

#1: Wow I've been making a lot of threads lol. You guys are probably sick of me by now xD

#2: Ignore the title, it was just to get your attention =) I know I don't suck...that badly.

#3: In case you guys are wondering why I make these seemingly random discussion threads...I do them to get my thoughts straightened out. For some reason (I'm probably not alone on this) I just think better, look at things from different views and just get a better understanding of the idea I'm trying to express when I go out and express my idea (Via writing or speech) and then trying to help someone else understand the idea I'm presenting. Helps me articulate my idea. And as an added bonus, I get to have someone else's take on my idea/other people's ideas =)

OKAY. Now to the actual idea that I'm going to be talking about. I'm gonna (LOL "gonna" is an actual word according to Safari...woo hoo slang) try and make this relatively short, because I don't want responses with wall of texts because I present so much information >_>

I have an extremely fundamental view of Brawl. As I play a match, strategy, strings, tactics, and approaching aren't in any conscious thought. The only thing that goes through my head is options. That's the staple of my game, options. Knowing which ones I have, knowing which ones my opponent has. I then move myself in order to "cover" or counter, these options. Which option to you cover? Well, for one you can cover multiple options with one action. For example: If they're on the ledge and I go up to the end of stage and shield, I cover 3 options: Ledge attack, regular get up off the ledge, and a ledgehopped attack onto the stage. Can this be countered? Oh yes, but that's what I'm predicting, so either I get it right, or I get it wrong. They could jump, or ledgehop and airdodge past me, or roll. But hey, it's a risk I take when I cover certain options. I just be sure that I know which options I'm covering and which ones are still open.

When I'm an advantage or in a neutral situation, I'm predicting what they're going to do, and then countering. If I'm at a disadvantage then I'm left with predicting "Which option AREN'T they going to cover?" I then should move myself accordingly.

At this point, the only two factors in this mindset are: Which option you do (And subsequently cover). And then the execution of said option. Execution obviously covers pressing the buttons, when you do it, how well you space it, how well you judge where they are et cetera.

The execution portion can depend on the options. Like if you're predicting a spot dodge, and you're going use a grab to cover the option then part of the execution is "wait and then grab" So yeah, just wanted to get that out there. Execution I guess is basic, but it can depend on the situation.

Then the next big thing is which option you do. This is obviously based off of past experiences, your knowledge of startup and ending lag, and the idea of how big each hitbox is, or how long invincibility is, et cetera. And then it's based off of past experience with that person, any patterns you find, et cetera et cetera.

In a neutral situation, I just close the distance somehow, until a point where we are pretty close to being able to hit each other.

Okay, that about sums up my mentality when playing this game... I dunno. Can this mentality take someone to the highest level of play? Any thoughts or opinions?

Tl;dr ArcPoint tried to make a short post and failed xD

 

[Ishiey]

I... am way too tired to form a real response >_> hopefully I'll edit this later and make a more in-depth post.

Idk if I'm understanding you fully, it seems almost robot-like from my perspective. But you can't just cover options, as I'm sure you know. You need to work on baiting actions, general "mindgame" stuff I suppose. Otherwise you might get a bit predictable, and as we all know, that's never good... You should definitely know this stuff, but I think that once you reach high levels of play it shouldn't be something you're actively thinking about, it should be a more subconscious thing that you do automatically. If that makes sense. Actively think about your opponent, not your opponent's character.

Or at least, my view on it

 

[ArcPoint]

It's not quite robot like, it's just extremely general. Baiting is taken into account with the decision making of "which" option you should cover. Simple example: SHFF Bair on a shield covers a fair amount of options (release shield, jump OoS, and grabbing before the landing lag of Bair), and it could also bait a shield grab. And since you knew this would bait a shieldgrab you were buffering a Fsmash to cover that option.

And yeah, you should definitely be thinking more about your opponent. Character knowledge should be default at some point.

 

[rvkevin]

The tree of analysis

This is an analogy for developing the best option(s) in a given situation:

"You can meet each move made by your opponent in chess with one of several replies. Your opponent may respond to each reply with any of several other moves. The alternative moves available to you and your opponent 'branch out' and quickly mask the forest for all the trees...

To reduce the bushiness of the tree and to better enable players to see farther ahead in their moves (as well as anticipate those of their opponents), you first need to settle on which moves are the candidate moves...

Candidate moves are chosen by a combination of intuition and judgment. The choices you make in determining candidate moves get better with experience. The calculation of concrete variations is more like work, but it, too, gets better with practice. The more you practice these aspects of your game (as well as others), the better you get as a chess player.'"

Replace chess with Brawl and it still holds strong...Since chess is a move based game as opposed to a real time based , there is no technical skill required, which would be considered the execution of the decisions, whereas there is some technical skill required in Brawl. Although Brawl is much more simpler in the number of options and degree of sequences, since whenever the positioning is reset in Brawl, the options reset, the analogy still demonstrates the concept.

Things like strategy, strings, tactics, and approaching are the result of practice. So when determining the proper way to play certain matchups, we want to determine the candidate moves for that given matchup...When you're approaching, your opponent is going to react to you and you're going to react to his reaction, and so on, so the goal is to determine the candidate moves/options that will give you an advantage, using the term advantage in the loosest sense...For example, getting a percentage advantage, conditioning their response, seeing their reaction to find patterns, or to limit their options may be your particular purpose for approaching.

 

[Arrows]

Im scared.
The moment SP posts, hell will break loose.

My mindset is that brawl is like chess. A VERY VERY VERY FAST GAME OF CHESS.
SO yes I agree xD

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Smash is about randomly doing good things.

 

[ArcPoint]

Hey Turtle, where'd you find that? Pretty good concept.

Do you have an idea of what they mean by the "Calculation of concrete variables"? Especially within the context of chess, because I have absolutely no idea what they mean by that.

Responding to your last paragraph, I'm sort of in a dilemma. In the situation that both players are shielding and within grab range of each other, and then one player jumps OoS, is that proactive or reactive? It can be seen as reacting to the situation of both the players shielding. Although, the situation is neutral. Both players have the same amount of options. I guess the candidate move here greatly depends on the objective. If you want the position reset to neutral, because you don't want to take the risk of doing anything else you could roll away and not get hit. But if you were to grab to try and get a hit...you run the risk of being punished yourself. I guess this is true in most situations, but that choice, of resetting the position or taking a risk is always there.

I guess the point I'm getting at is that there are many candidate moves (unless I'm misunderstanding the definition of a candidate move) in any given situation depending on the goal you have. And even if your goal is to get a hit...there generally isn't a "best" option to go about that...

I think I'm misunderstanding something.

Edit: Also Ishie, congratz on the mod status. Use your powers for good! >=D!

 

[rvkevin]

“Where'd you find that? Pretty good concept.”

Chess for Dummies…go figure. And the concept of candidate moves is simply a method to narrow down options to make it easier to find the best option. You find a set of moves that appear to give you an advantage and between those, determine the best overall move. Although in chess, you have time to think about this decision, in Brawl, this could easily be described as matchup knowledge and in game adaptation.


“Do you have an idea of what they mean by the "Calculation of concrete variables"? Especially within the context of chess, because I have absolutely no idea what they mean by that.”

I would assume it means trying to get the largest advantage among a variety of variables such as pawn structure, material advantage, spatial advantage, piece mobility, king safety, control of the center, etc. Getting a material advantage is irrelevant if it detrimentally compromises king safety, undermines your pawn structure, etc. to the point where the cons are greater than the benefit of the material advantage, and then you shouldn’t go with the exchange.

Things to consider in Brawl…Percentage/stock advantage, move decay, mobility.


“In the situation that both players are shielding and within grab range of each other, and then one player jumps OoS, is that proactive or reactive?”

There are a number of options in this situation…and that player has determined out of a number of candidate moves that jump OoS was the best option…In that situation, did Fsmash come to mind? Probably not, because Fsmash on shield is not safe by any means…So what are some candidate moves? Why not stationary dodge (Looking at their next move, if you think they’ll grab) or grab (Looking at their next move, if you think they’ll continue shielding). This is where specific matchups come into play, they may not be candidate moves when playing IC or DDD (Jump OoS would be a good option, maybe also roll away/Dsmash/retreating Fair), but in general, grabbing when someone shields is not bad to consider.


“Although, the situation is neutral. Both players have the same amount of options. I guess the candidate move here greatly depends on the objective.”

I disagree. If two characters are in shield grab distance of each other, they have the same number of options, but one character can have a better set of options (Would be neutral in dittos). The only situation where all options are equally viable is where each player has no option to hit the other, and this isn’t always a neutral position (Percentage difference forces losing player to approach). Let’s say I’m Diddy on one side of FD and Wolf is on the other. Since either player can’t hit the other, SH Nair, Spot Dodge, and every other option have no effect on the overall situation (Think of being behind the tree on PS1, taunting is equal to doing nothing or Dtilting since it has no effect on the overall situation, although if the opponent is Pit and can bend an arrow around the tree, then it is no longer neutral and some options are better than others). If Wolf moves within Blaster range, perfect shielding, stationary dodge, full hop, and perhaps going to the ledge become candidate moves (Thrown banana falls short).


“If you want the position reset to neutral, because you don't want to take the risk of doing anything else you could roll away and not get hit. But if you were to grab to try and get a hit...you run the risk of being punished yourself. I guess this is true in most situations, but that choice, of resetting the position or taking a risk is always there.

This relates to rock, paper, scissors situations such that every option has a possible counter. In these situations, you still need to determine which options are beneficial in the long run, a mathematical expectation if you will…You tend to avoid grab or get grabbed situations against DDD because in the long run, you get the short end of the stick.


“I guess the point I'm getting at is that there are many candidate moves (unless I'm misunderstanding the definition of a candidate move) in any given situation depending on the goal you have. And even if your goal is to get a hit...there generally isn't a ‘best’ option to go about that...”

If there is an optimal way to play the game, then in each situation there is a best option (Two or more options may be equally best) and the goal of determining candidate moves is to make it easier to narrow the options down to the optimal one. As for trying to build damage, some options are better than others, some make you more vulnerable than others, etc. Same thing for trying to get a KO, some moves are better options for KO’s than others.

 

[ArcPoint]

Chess for dummies lmao xD Too good.

Okay, I define neutral as "the same number of options" not necessarily amount of good options, because if you define neutral as the same amount of useful options, then we're always in a disadvantaged position over MK, just depends on the degree of disadvantage. Sometimes at an advantage if we manage to get MK down on the ground for a tech chase. Advantage is where you more options by a fairly large margin.

In my shield example I was speaking more in terms of what you could directly do OoS, release shield -> Fsmash isn't quite as direct as I was speaking, but I get your point, that option doesn't even come into your thought because it's just super punishable. And yeah, the candidate options change based off of matchups. Obviously against DDD or ICs, grab is an option they are very likely to use, so you want to account for that and NOT put yourself in a position to be punished by that. Although, if your accounting for a grab, then jump isn't exactly the best option either (6 frames to leave ground + 3 or so while you're still in grab range).

"beneficial in the long run" That's an interesting thought. If that's the case I'm thinking the most beneficial in the long run for most situations is the thing that does the most damage. So I guess grab on the ground, and Bair in the air? In general, obviously if you're killing/facing the wrong direction/those two options simply aren't viable. I suppose that does allow you to analyze things a lot better ahead of time. IE, Snake's Ftilt xD it's like the "rock" in rock paper scissors. Or sometimes the best thing to do in a situation is get the situation to your advantage (Could be via defensive options), since that way it's easier to get hits/avoid being hit. Or move you away from a disadvantage. Then I suppose it's greater in the long run.

 

[rvkevin]

“Okay, I define neutral as ‘the same number of options’ not necessarily amount of good options, because if you define neutral as the same amount of useful options, then we're always in a disadvantaged position over MK, just depends on the degree of disadvantage. Sometimes at an advantage if we manage to get MK down on the ground for a tech chase. Advantage is where you have more options by a fairly large margin.”

I’m not sure what you mean by options…I could say Ganondorf has the same number of options as MK when on the ground (Due to the difference in double jumps). They both have the same number of moves, the same number of aerials, tilts, smashes, and specials. The illustration of not being able to hit each other was meant to say that each of your options are neutral in respect to all of your other options, such that they are neutral in affecting your overall goal, which now that I think about it, may not be the case, but it’s minor (If I were to define neutral, I would say it’s when both players have a 50-50 chance of winning based on game features, which would really only happen in dittos when they have the same percent and symmetric positioning). The number of viable options is irrelevant, if Snake’s Utilt covered the entire screen (Not much of a stretch of the imagination) and all of his other moves are equivalent to Mario’s FLUDD, he would not only be broken, but he would only have one good “option” and would have 100-0 matchups with the rest of the cast. The problem with MK is that he has a good option in almost every situation. Whereas when Snake is in the air/offstage, his best option doesn’t put him at an advantage (A case could be made for Ally’s Fair, since it seems to beat MK offstage).

Even if you don’t have any good options, you still have a “best” option in every situation. The point is not to say whether you are in an advantage or disadvantageous position. Determining candidates is meant to find the option that is optimal. If you are in an advantageous position, it’s meant to magnify the benefit, if you are in a disadvantageous position, it’s meant to minimize your opponents benefit. It is entirely possible that the best option leads you to a disadvantageous position (Refer to Ganondorf’s matchup chart).

By saying “beneficial in the long run,” I am acknowledging that Brawl is a real time game and some inputs are done at the same time and therefore, have a probability of success (Like the both shielding in grab range). More specifically, shield beats attack, grab beats shield, stationary dodge beats grab. The most beneficial thing still needs to consider other aspects of game play: percentage/stock advantage. Also, some follow-ups are dependent on covering some options and have a percentage of success. For example, Snake’s Dthrow may not always deal more percent than his Bthrow, but on average, it does (I think), so it is the best option out of grab and then after you Dthrow, there are a number of candidate moves to consider.