Playing to Learn

[MookieRah]

Are you a phyciatrist?!?!?(some1 will corect my spelling I know it) Seriously though, this is going to help me alot, the whole mentality thing was realy interesting and helpful.

Nah, I just took a lot of psych classes in college and I'm somewhat intelligent.

 

[Samochan]

Nah, I just took a lot of psych classes in college and I'm somewhat intelligent.

Somewhat? ^^

You're just being too modest here. :3 But modesty >> arrogance anyday yay.

 

[fkacyan]

This thread is awesome. I need to have a crew member of mine read this. I'm convinced he's stuck himself on a lower level than he could be by self-limiting.

It doesn't help when other smashers don't think you're good and vocalize said thoughts, but everybody runs into that. I think this text block will help. A lot.

 

[MookieRah]

I updated the thread again. I figured I should incorporate the "chunking" theory into the essay. It definitely seemed more important than a footnote on page 3.

I'm convinced he's stuck himself on a lower level than he could be by self-limiting.

Yeah, he probably is. I say that cause most people are hung up on something. For example, if you hate ROBs then you have a mental barrier, because you have an innate fear of the character. The thing is, if you aren't willing to admit it you will never overcome it, and to overcome it you have to put in some work. Honestly, if someone fit into the example I made, if that person worked on some anti-ROB strategies then not only would it help him because he has learned effective strategies against ROB, but it also builds up confidence towards fighting ROBs.

Always, always keep tabs on your mentality, and work towards fixingit as much as you would fixing general errors in play. It's just as important, and so few people realize it.

You're just being too modest here. :3 But modesty >> arrogance anyday yay.

It's not so much intelligence really. I'm just interested in psychology and have decent book smarts in that subject. I then apply that knowledge to my own understanding of things.

 

[Fearmy]

one word: WOW!




Amazing, You wrote a book not a guide.

 

[choknater]

Beautiful, beautiful thread.

I've been around for a while, I know the ropes. I just gotta say MookieRah, this is the best advice thread I've ever seen.

 

[Crizthakidd]

does this ever happen to you. especially in brawl where one day u do good and play well but the next day you dont play or u dont think about smash at all.

the following day u come back and play online and totally get owned. u can win or concentrate and play right

another thing that happens to me sometimes i get in the zone and beat a really good player then play another below average player and lose. lol wtfff brawl

 

[rinoH]

that was awsome

 

[MookieRah]

I've been around for a while, I know the ropes. I just gotta say MookieRah, this is the best advice thread I've ever seen.

Thanks, I'm glad people are enjoying it and learning from it.

another thing that happens to me sometimes i get in the zone and beat a really good player then play another below average player and lose. lol wtfff brawl

I had this problem in Melee for a while. Basically I was used to playing good people, but when I played not so good people their randomness and use of crappy strategies/moves threw off my rhythm. When I learned to observe though, I wrecked them. Lower end players run almost purely on patterns, and they very rarely adapt in matches. If you toss one solid brick wall at them then they will more than likely suffer a devastating loss.

This reminds me, the next update I will do on this essay will be about establishing fear and controlling the momentum of matches.

 

[GodAtHand]

I have a tourney this saturday, Get it online before then for me!!!!!!???!!!!? and thanks for the information!

 

[SmashAura4]

This thread has so much truth to it. I feel that I've reached a plateau that I don't think I'll ever pass. I guess the only way to fix that would be to go wifi. Untill now, my brother and I have been feeding off eachother's skills, but now it's time to step the game up a little. I don't play to win, I play for knowledge.

 

[MookieRah]

So yeah, I wrote up a huge essay on momentum to add to this at work today during my free time, but when I emailed it to myself it didn't go through. The thing is, I'm not sure how to get it somewhere online without it infringing some rule or another. Hopefully I can get it and post it back here.

 

[GhettoSheep]

This is an incredibly useful guide, unlike most things on swf.

Kudos, this helps me a lot now

 

[chaosscizzors]

i LOVE this thread, u have the same mentality i do when i go into a match. see the win and it will happen, but that's just the way i look at life lol

 

[mastermycojeb]

this is a very good thread

 

[MRS1]

Awesome guide. One of the tactics that I use that isn't mentioned is that I'm sort of ok with losing sometimes. Maybe this is a bad thing, but if I go into a match with a highly skilled player, I just think to myself, ok, maybe I'll lose 30 times. I know I'm gonna be good enough to beat them if I play them enough, so I'm ok losing for a little bit. We all have a bunch of losing matches in us, we just need to get them out.

 

[smaci92]

WELL SAID! This is absolutely flawless!

 

[MookieRah]

Alright, I'm in the process of posting my Momentum essay. The site is being all wonky though :-(.

 

[N M E]

Bravo, this was one of the most interesting peices of text i've read in a long time. This should realy help people if they take the time to read it. This is what i love about this forum, people are willing to give others advice so they can better them selves. I'm book marking this for future refrence.

This article gains my seal of approval(Like anyone cares :/)

 

[Seison]

Hey MookieRah. Just wanted to give my two cents on your essay; I think it's awesome. I enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed Sirlin's book. Do you plan on adding any more sections? I would really like to read more on this topic.

It's threads like these that always get me so pumped over competitive smash (not that I'm not always pumped anyway) but then I remember I live in east coast Canada. *SIGH* What I wouldn't give to be part of the real smash scene.

 

[MookieRah]

Hey MookieRah. Just wanted to give my two cents on your essay; I think it's awesome. I enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed Sirlin's book.

I actually plan on ordering that soon. I would just order it right now, but my dad was laid off yesterday and I want to conserve money. I honestly want to read that fully, take notes, and expand upon it.

Do you plan on adding any more sections? I would really like to read more on this topic.

I'll add more sections to it as I stumble upon them. My goal is to try to cover every aspect of high level play, explain it, and then give good examples of how one can incorporate it in their play. I also feel that I could flesh out what I have said way more than I have, and that I'm a bit too vague. It's a work in progress, that's for sure.

*SIGH* What I wouldn't give to be part of the real smash scene.

Don't feel bad. I live in Mississippi. It's one of the worst states for smash. To top it all off, Memphis, a once thriving smash scene close to me, has died. At the moment I'm trying to recruit a bunch of people in the area and get them into competitive play. My guides will hopefully help the newbies get an idea that there is more to the game then picking a character and learning their moves.

 

[Popertop]

Thank you MookieRah. This guide is going to help me a lot during my competitive life. I always forget to have a strong, positive mindset during my matches and I let myself get bogged down with negative thoughts and stopped by "brick walls" like Samus's Zair. Looking at this gets me more excited and positive about FS4 this weekend, and I'll implement strategies and positive thinking and see how I do.
Has this been stickied yet? 'Cause it really deserves it if it hasn't gotten it yet.

 

[ptown]

thanks for the info, but what's a low strong? what are you talking about?

 

[Popertop]

thanks for the info, but what's a low strong? what are you talking about?

He's making a play off a famous Street fighter player by the name of David Sirlin who wrote "Playing to Win" which this is based off of. In Street Fighter Alpha 3, he used Rose's Low Strong move for nearly entire matches, and was his claim to fame.

 

[Tenshi-kun]

Thank you so much for this. It's really helped me to stop "playing" and think about myself, not only in Brawl, but in life as well. I have to admit I'm a Novice by your tier standards, but with this I know I can get better and plan to. Thanks again.

And you played Arash? Haha, his Bowser owned my Pikachu and his Jigg is terrifying, but then again, I was a Fox then. Haha. He's nice though, he gave me his fries once when I hadn't eaten that day in attempts to get to the tourney, haha :D Way nicer than the rest of the SoCal dbags. :/

Gracias again :]

Edit: About the book "Playing to Win," is it an actual book? Like, can I find it at a book store?

 

[MookieRah]

And you played Arash?

Yeah, but it was a really long time ago. I think Moast 3 was in 2005? Yeah, a long ways back.

Edit: About the book "Playing to Win," is it an actual book? Like, can I find it at a book store?

I doubt you will find it at a store, but you can order it online. Here is a link: http://www.lulu.com/sirlin

 

[Tenshi-kun]

Haha, oh wow. I remember playing him in like 03 or 04. Have you seen/heard of him in Brawl?

And thanks for the book link. I definitely wanna read it.

 

[ReppinThat703]

dang this is some really good stuff its going to definitly come in handy soon when I start preparing for my first tourny

 

[mariofanpm12]

and this isn't stickied because why?

 

[CUsmasher2011]

This was a great guide...very well put. It helped me a lot

and this isn't stickied because why?

I agree, this should be stickied as well

 

[Equus]

This was a great guide...very well put. It helped me a lot



I agree, this should be stickied as well

Ditto for the sticky!

As a smash "novice", this guide really helped me understand how to really improve my game, especially the psychology behind it. Unfortunately, since I don't have my wii right now, I won't be able to apply this to my brawling for about a month. I'll bookmark this guide and look over it even more while I'm waiting to get my wii back.

 

[MookieRah]

I'm glad that the thread was revived again, I figured it would have fallen through the cracks until I made another update.

Speaking of updates, I can't think of anything new to really address with this. If I could think of something that was relevant to the essay I'd post it, but I'm drawing blanks.

 

[_Phloat_]

Brilliant article, for the first time I feel like brawl is as competitive as melee. This really helped me develop my mentality during the game, not just listing off things that are happening but controlling the match.

Thank you.

 

[Sino]

It haven't helped me yet. But i think it will help me in the future. I hope that thx to this guide my stress with matches goes away. In a friendly I don't have it, but in a serious match I have it. I get stressed out because I want to show my skills and don't want to disappoint myself and wanna prove myself against my opponent

 

[solidsnake01]

I suggest that for the info under 'Super Pros' you put "has absolutely no life and probably lives in his mom's basement."

Seriously though this is probably the single greatest ever.

 

[Crystanium]

You know, ever since I lost against this fellow who calls himself "FALCN," I just don't have the morale to continue. A friend of mine is "Seeking Brawl," but I don't even know if I want to fight him, since I've been losing a lot lately tonight. This gets me extremely angry. The thing is, this "FALCN" person I fought against lost against me several times. Tonight is the first night he has defeated me. I am frustrated and so very upset. We did two matches.

I couldn't defeat him with my Samus, even though I've beaten him in the past with Samus. He used Mario, and constantly used that **** cape over and over again. I couldn't get close, because he'd turn me around. I went another go, but this time as Pit. He was Falco, and he used his Blaster like five times. I was defenseless, because I could not counter him. If I got close, he'd use his Reflector. If I fired an arrow, he'd use his Reflector.

I was going to go a third round, this time as Fox, but then he left. I hate it when people do that. It gets me angry at them. I might be taking this game too **** seriously, but seriously, I'm not like others who say, "It's only a game." Gosh! **** Wolf, Mario, Falco, and the rest of the roster. I hate them all. I read what you wrote about being proactive, but I don't know how you're supposed to do that. Do you have any tips?

Oh, and I hate Final Destination. It's as if the people I brawl with have only that stage unlocked! As if there weren't other stages! It's overrated.

 

[One_With_Sumthing]

You know, ever since I lost against this fellow who calls himself "FALCN," I just don't have the morale to continue. A friend of mine is "Seeking Brawl," but I don't even know if I want to fight him, since I've been losing a lot lately tonight. This gets me extremely angry. The thing is, this "FALCN" person I fought against lost against me several times. Tonight is the first night he has defeated me. I am frustrated and so very upset. We did two matches.

I couldn't defeat him with my Samus, even though I've beaten him in the past with Samus. He used Mario, and constantly used that **** cape over and over again. I couldn't get close, because he'd turn me around. I went another go, but this time as Pit. He was Falco, and he used his Blaster like five times. I was defenseless, because I could not counter him. If I got close, he'd use his Reflector. If I fired an arrow, he'd use his Reflector.

I was going to go a third round, this time as Fox, but then he left. I hate it when people do that. It gets me angry at them. I might be taking this game too **** seriously, but seriously, I'm not like others who say, "It's only a game." Gosh! **** Wolf, Mario, Falco, and the rest of the roster. I hate them all. I read what you wrote about being proactive, but I don't know how you're supposed to do that. Do you have any tips?

Oh, and I hate Final Destination. It's as if the people I brawl with have only that stage unlocked! As if there weren't other stages! It's overrated.

Play Link! [shotdead]
'K, seriously though, I would focus more on one character.
Anyways.
For Mario, I think that Samus's grab goes through his cape, as well as spot dodging, dsmash, nair...
For Falco, it's easy to (a) hold the arrow until he's done reflecting or (b) intentionally make the arrow miss the reflector or (c) shoot the arrow at an angle, so it doesn't hit you on your way back or (d) bait a reflector, then run in and smash him in.

Anyways there's no point in getting angry, instead get deluded. Start laughing to the ceiling like some sort of DERANGED HERMIT! :'D

 

[popsofctown]

@ OP, a whole lot of that was true, i lot of it i didn't know before to be true but will take to heart. I do sort of disagree with one bit though, the proactive vs. reactive part. A lot of reactive strategies can be very good, just waiting for your opponent to do something wrong so you can punish it. I've heard that sonic plays well that way, not doing anything particularly interesting until their opponent makes a mistake, then punishing. Also, there's camping, which is more or less reactive. I think after a match is over and it's on tape, you can see who was in control easily, but i don't think proactive and reactive is accurate terminology for how a player should approach the game. Well i think it's just as good as reactive. I can:
1. Begin doing something, provoke a reaction, and try to beat that reaction.
2. Wait for my opponent do something, and beat that.
I tried to take that out of terms of approach-camp, because sometimes there's such a thing as a proactive camp game. After successfully playing a game with either one or two^^ the successful player will appear in control from the spectators.

The stuff about development is all really really good. And i just got back from Mexico and seem to have dropped some bad habits.. it's very weird. I think everytime you do a good move, your brain gets a little positive chemical, and everytime you do a bad move, you get a little negative chemical. So before my vacation, every time i dash attacked into sheild i got a negative chemical. That should stop me and all, but i have muscle memory too, and my mustle memory makes me dash attack (i developed it back when people sucked and let me dash attack them). So then i went on vacation, my muscle memory faded more than my more abstract memory, this is evident when don't know quite how to hold the controller, but remember the exact hitbox of my disjointed fsmash. Since the dash attacks were tagged negative, they faded and the positive tags stayed.

If this theory is right, then maybe there is incorrect times for breaks. Muscle memory is important, and good in some cases. So i think after you learned a tech, it would be a very bad time to take a break (especially stuff like true combos: you want true combos mapped to muscle memory. They are too hard for abstract and they are never incorrect and never need to be dropped, parts b and c of a true combo are not ever wrong).

 

[chili]

This is brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

One part I found very interesting was the very first part: Stages of Development. For some reason, it just really stuck out to me. It seems I'm about halfway between Novice and Intermediate...probably leaning a little toward Novice. :D

 

[MookieRah]

A lot of reactive strategies can be very good, just waiting for your opponent to do something wrong so you can punish it.

Yeah, I probably did misword that a bit come to think of it. I'll address some of those changes in the future. Ultimately, my point for stressing proactive play is because it is way less intuitive to people than reactive play. Everyone can react to situations, but a few actually actively engage in an action in order to cause a reaction in the opponent.

Another thing I'd like to point out is that not that every strategy you take on should be proactive, as there are specific strategies that are reactive in everyone's repertoire. That is fine, but from my experience it seems that being mostly proactive is the best way to stay on top of things, and if you examine the play styles of top players you can see their baiting attempts, brick walls, and other strategies designed at dissecting their opponent and abusing the holes in their defense constantly. It also "feels" that being proactive helps your mindset out, as it constantly gives you objectives and helps prevent you from being in a situation of perceived hopelessness. That may or may not be true on a universal scale, cause I haven't really discussed this with anyone and am pretty much purely going on my gut feeling.

One part I found very interesting was the very first part: Stages of Development.

The problem with that portion of the essay is that it is by far, the least scientific of all the other sections, and it wasn't designed to be the center point of the essay. I basically quickly established a very simple way to have a general idea of where one should place themselves to then use as a tool to know what to begin working towards in your training. It seems like this is one of the more popular sections, as people responding typically point out their standing is on the chart.

This may not be a bad thing, I'm not sure honestly, but from the gist of things I think most people have a more realistic view of their standings as most people who have responded have been fairly modest. It should be stated that being too confident and placing yourself beyond your skill level could be rather devastating, as you discover that you weren't as good as you thought. I can only speak of myself on this matter, but honestly I enjoy smash because of the progression I make with it coupled with the fun and excitement of high level matches. Placing yourself too highly results in an almost backwards effect, which I would find somewhat depressing.