Positional play vs. Percentage Play

[BigD!!!]

the thing is though, signia, the "high enough percentage" youre striving for in that situation is way, way higher than the % necessary for you to kill them by surprising them with an up smash after you get up, or ledgehopping then uthrow uairing. obviously, there are situations where its pointless to do something that wont kill when you have a free hit and a kill move/edgehog is available; i talk about this all the time with forward b to uairing falcons these days.

you cant really say that scar got "countered" by that recovery, he did the safest option that couldn't possibly give dehf the advantage. if he had jumped out there to kill dehf and dehf forward b'd to recover instead, then scar would have died and lost anyway. but i saw him pass up multiple opportunities on the last stock to just jump out there and hit dehf, and despite the terrible statistical advantage that would give to dehf it would have won him the set.

this kind of thinking applies to almost all situations besides ones where youre trading a free kill for further combos or something akin to that. for example, sometimes you should shorten a combo so that it will result in the opponent being knocked off stage. lambchops does this with falco a lot, and it works great. but then again, based on your opponents abilities, they might DI wrong and let you do huge combos on them which result in a kill that doesnt require an edgeguard. its about mixing up what youre going to do in order to best exploit your opponent's weaknesses

 

[AprilShaw]

People let attitudes get in the way of serious discussion way too much. What Signia is saying, or at least the core concept behind it, makes sense 100%. There *are* decisions that are the best, in a small number of situations. The vast majority this does not hold true, but Signia is still right.

Here's an obvious example, just to show the idea: let's say, you're Fox, against any other character on Pokemon Stadium. Let's say you get a grab and your opponent is at 999%, and you're sitting in the pit (you know, the shine infinite place on the rock stage). You now have 4 options: you can throw any of the 4 directions. Down throw will not kill directly, and is therefore the worst choice. Back throw and forward throw can be teched. Up throw will send them up so fast that they cannot DI and tech the sides, and therefore, will die, 100% of the time, regardless of what they do. Up throw is, in this situation, the best option. Because of its existence, you have no reason to use the others.

Signia is correct. If Falco is recovering from far enough out that he won't be able to get on stage, edgehogging is the best option. There is no justifiable reason for using anything else unless you're just showing off (I'm assuming you're making all decisions because to lead you to a win).

Regardless, BigD also has very important and constructive advice: for the vast majority of choices you have to make, no one can tell you what will be the best option. Because of all those choices, a vast minority (does vast even make sense in this context?) have that best option.

One thing I strongly disagree with, however, is the concept of natural intuition for the game being separate from the rest of your skill. Sure, some people pick up the game faster/slower than others. But what you get as an end result is the sum of your experiences, your knowledge, your "intuition" (reaction time, spatial visualization, memory, planning/problem solving, etc). If this is what you were trying to say BigD sorry I misunderstood but it seemed to me you were trying to say that they're different. I do agree with the point you were trying to get across, though, and it's important for people to recognize that the boards can only do so much. Learning matchups is incredibly important but it's more important to just play people better than you of all different styles; experience really does rule over everything in this game.

Edit: Also, despite agreeing with Signia, you brought the drama on yourself. If you seriously expected to start a post calling someone an idiot and not get flamed then you need to spend less time on forums.

 

[FoxLisk]

Okay CABC thank you for phrasing this all very maturely. Hopefully now we can stop bickering and actually say something constructive.

Here's my take one what went wrong with this discussion:

1. Brickman says, "let's look through videos, and find important moments, and say what action that player took that lead to them gaining an advantage (or moving to a disadvantageous situation)."

2. A bunch of semantic bull**** goes on

3. People entirely ignore the point of this thread and argue about the possibility of whether or not there are "best moves," and then both say the same things over and over in condescending and angry tones for no reason

Can we now move on to

4. Everyone realizes that there usually isn't a "best move" based solely on the situation, but taking into account the players' history, sometimes we can determine what one player could have done to salvage a situation by determining why the other player did what they did? Or like -- when mango rests Armada's roll, obviously that was the best decision because it got a free kill and won the match. But let's talk about why, from a gameplay and mindgames perspective, the decisions before that lead to armada rolling right, and Mango predicting it. Why was jumping around his shield and not attacking sufficiently intimidating that Armada rolled in a dangerous situation instead of nairing OoS? what was he expecting mango to do? How did mango get the read that he would, in particular, roll to the right?

These are the kinds of questions and situations that I think will actually benefit from this kind of analysis.

 

[joeplicate]

HAHAHA

I knew you would read my post, just declare it dumb, with no explanation (because there isn't one).

Oh and BigD you're right, you should sometimes use risky strategies if they'll give you good enough payoffs. I wasn't saying you should do only do one "best move" in situations where it CAN be countered, I was saying that you should do the "best move" when it CAN'T be countered because not everything can be countered at any given time (btw I'm pretty sure my example still holds at "high enough percentages" as I said). Scar DID get "countered" because whatever did made his edgeguard fail.

There is an optimal mixed strategy for any given situation, however, meaning there is a best proportion of risky moves and safe moves. It is impossible to really implement a mixed strategy because it involves being completely random, but it's still worth discussing so you get an idea of how often you should be taking these risks.

newflash: i called you dumb personally, not your post
idk you're just mad annoying dude




i think this is a really important distinction to make, except i would draw the line at "positional play" vs "guaranteed moves"

where guaranteed is anything like tech chases, w/e off a grab, pure combos, chaingrabbing--anything where you have (or should have) complete control over your opponent.

and you have to switch between both really fast


Like Alex19 has been doing pretty well recently; his positional game is insanely crisp and fast and top-notch (from playing mango and lucky a lot) but he doesn't follow up grabs that well in fox dittos. Presumably it's because he hasn't landed enough grabs on the other 2 since they're so good!

so it seems like he's been improving a lot in having a super-great shield pressure game, and good movement and not getting caught and having tech skill, mostly, but he could still use work on getting his guaranteed stuff down.

 

[Signia]

Edit: Also, despite agreeing with Signia, you brought the drama on yourself. If you seriously expected to start a post calling someone an idiot and not get flamed then you need to spend less time on forums.

Hm yeah the insults was more of response to the elitism going on. "this person is right because he's better than you" lol.

 

[joeplicate]

i love when people put things in quotes to make it sound like another person actually said that, then LOL it away

for the record,

If you really believe this, what are you doing on the boards? just learning more random combos and tech skill so you can continue thinking about the game wrong?

that's what i was telling him to calm down over. it's pretty obvious that bigD doesn't think about the game in the wrong way, and there is no way he's just here to learn "RANDOM COMBOS AND TECH SKILL" LOLOLOLL

this guy foxlisk seemed pretty happy to jump to conclusions, whereby i politely reminded him to calm down. i meant to imply that his conjecture was highly unlikely, seeing as bigD is probably a better player than him. meaning, he probably knows more and just got misunderstood


why you gotta come jumping in here with such a big attitude, or something to prove
so quick to call me out on false logic!
so quick to jump to capital letters and self-righteousness!

i'm not being "elitist" by any means
don't take it personal, learn how to post on a forum haha

 

[BigD!!!]

there wasnt really any elitism going on

replicate said that i was better than foxlisk in response to foxlisk making it look like he said that I think about the game wrong, then foxlisk and signia both started talking about how irrelevant that is

but anyway, of course there are "best" moves in some situations, but most of those situations arent really worth discussing. i guess i should have acknowledged that, but i didnt think it was really important.

i have been thinking about it the way replicate describes, and i think that is a good description. i think hax is another good example, he does some really dumb stuff sometimes in lieu of something simple and guaranteed and ends up with the same or a worse result, but hes so **** clever that he gets enough grabs to win anyway.

CABC, i don't really think natural intuition is separate from skill, i just think that it is, for the most part, separate from the tactical/guaranteed combo aspect of gameplay. a lot of good players, especially from more early days of smash, find success doing things that seem predictable and easily punishable. this is an example of their superior positional play, that, while surely improved over time, they gained primarily through natural intuition and ability due to the difficult time most other people have when trying to reproduce the styles of drephen, azen, dope, or pc.

edit: replicate is a stud

 

[Signia]

that's what i was telling him to calm down over. it's pretty obvious that bigD doesn't think about the game in the wrong way, and there is no way he's just here to learn "RANDOM COMBOS AND TECH SKILL" LOLOLOLL

this guy foxlisk seemed pretty happy to jump to conclusions, whereby i politely reminded him to calm down. i meant to imply that his conjecture was highly unlikely, seeing as bigD is probably a better player than him. meaning, he probably knows more and just got misunderstood


why you gotta come jumping in here with such a big attitude, or something to prove
so quick to call me out on false logic!
so quick to jump to capital letters and self-righteousness!

i'm not being "elitist" by any means
don't take it personal, learn how to post on a forum haha

omfg ...

Foxlisk thought BigD was saying that positional play was pointless to discuss when he said it was "indescribable," and he was hardly saying anything in his posts, so he called him out on it. You told him that he's right because he's a better player, which is irrelevant. Only an elitist would think it is!

It is possible both he and I either misunderstood BigD or he miscommunicated whatever he was trying to say there, maybe you should have suggested that instead of sounding elitist. Anyway, BigD agreed and posted more anti-discussion. After reading that, I then had something to prove (you say it like that's a bad thing!). Nothing was taken personally until you made it personal (you said I was dumb). I don't need to learn how to post on a game forum, this ain't facebook.

Edit: I'm done, btw. You guys did a terrible job communicating what you supposedly wanted to say. The post below me is total nonsense.

 

[BigD!!!]

thats not what happened haha

we both explained why replicate said what he said, at the same time, and posted the same thing. foxlisk brought the personal attacks into the debate, saying i thought about the game wrong. replicate said i didnt. he did not say that everything i said was right due to my being better, nor did he say anything i said had anything to do with my being a better player. he simply said that foxlisk, a worse player, shouldnt be telling people who are better than them that they think about the game wrong and instead listen to some advice.

nice version: my "anti-discussion" has sparked a whole lot of discussion in this thread, even if half of it is crying about my claim that no matter how much you read the boards it wont make you good. there are things to discuss in this thread, but my first post addressed the fact that too many people, who oftentimes arent very good, bring frame data into discussions and try to find the very best way to shield pressure or combo or w/e instead of discussing the range of options you have at every opportunity.

mean version: apparently skill does have something to do with it cause all the good players seem to get it hahahahahaha get froed

 

[AprilShaw]

Signia they weren't being elitist lol you just misunderstood. Replicate and and BigD are both cool people from what I've seen here on the boards, they wouldn't think like that so just chill. I don't wanna backseat mod but this thread brings up a real cool concept that's worth talking about and I'd be sad to see it locked.

 

[joeplicate]

aight signia, congrats on getting on my ignore list

edit: raaaape

 

[Cactuar]

Lol. My recovery is too good, and going for the ledge 99% of the time with up-b angles is only a part of it. People have way more recovery options than they realize. I use a combination of two of those as my standard recovery, and anything/everything else as a backup in case I feel that either one of those might be covered.

I made a thread pretty similar to this one a long time ago called "Push and Pull vs Punishment" btw.

Push and pull is everything you do to bait, lead, trick, control space, etc...

Which eventually leads into the...

Punishment game. Which is combos. Or even single hits you use to punish mistakes. Or in my case... "setups that lead into setups that lead into setups."

This whole idea of "Percentage Play" just looks like a player choosing to emphasize his punishment game rather than his push and pull game.

People generally sway in favor of one side or the other. I'm personally like 90% Push and Pull. M2K is 90% Punishment. *shrug*



Someone should just dig up all my old smash theory essays...

 

[FoxLisk]

Okay:

BigD: You explicitly said that "the positional aspect is almost indescribable in terms of how it actually is applied." I stated (perhaps too harshly) that this is a terrible thing to say on a website that is devoted to describing how to apply proper techniques to improve at Melee. It's like showing up to a creative writing class and saying that it's impossible to teach someone how to be a good writer.

I stand by that statement. If you have nothing constructive to say, don't say anything at all. I was not saying that you thought about the game wrong, I was trying to make it clear how negative and unhelpful your message was. I don't have a ****ing clue how you think about the game, I just know that saying it's impossible to describe the kind of play that the best players use is not the right way to think. It's shutting off before you've even tried. So if you really do believe that, please, stop posting in this thread so we have a chance to actually get to some valuable discussion.

 

[Mahone]

The thing is, people would go to a creative writing class and say it's impossible
to teach someone how to be a good writer, because everyone there probably
believes that they have a natural talent for writing.

The reason they go to that class is to share their creativity with others that
can understand it. Same way, people like me and BigD (i think, dont wanna
put words in your mouth) come to this site to learn about how to get out of
certain situations and how to do technical things and to be a part of the community,
but we are both aware that you cannot learn how to be good at mindgames and spacing
just through a forum.

To be completely honest, your attitude foxlisk is much worse than his. You dont like his
opinion so you are asking him to leave the thread and claiming he is going against the
idea of the website. Think about it from his perspective, you are trying to put something
in words that cannot be described.... I think to him it seems like you are wasting everyones
time and he is trying to stop you from wasting YOUR own time.

But, unlike you, he didnt just attack you directly.... I think the purpose of this website is for
people to feel comfortable sharing their opinions and you are the one opposing the true
idea of Smashboards.

 

[DtJ Jungle]

Lol. My recovery is too good, and going for the ledge 99% of the time with up-b angles is only a part of it. People have way more recovery options than they realize. I use a combination of two of those as my standard recovery, and anything/everything else as a backup in case I feel that either one of those might be covered.

I made a thread pretty similar to this one a long time ago called "Push and Pull vs Punishment" btw.

Push and pull is everything you do to bait, lead, trick, control space, etc...

Which eventually leads into the...

Punishment game. Which is combos. Or even single hits you use to punish mistakes. Or in my case... "setups that lead into setups that lead into setups."

This whole idea of "Percentage Play" just looks like a player choosing to emphasize his punishment game rather than his push and pull game.

People generally sway in favor of one side or the other. I'm personally like 90% Push and Pull. M2K is 90% Punishment. *shrug*



Someone should just dig up all my old smash theory essays...

Cactuar it's really hard to dig up old smash essays when you've posted 1000 times since hte last one

oh welll

gives me something to do while it ake a break frmo studying

 

[BigD!!!]

good **** mahone, i'm just gonna do some tiny clarification stuff

i'm not saying don't discuss any of this, and i don't think that you can't learn anything. but what frequently happens, especially to space animal players, is they get hung up on the idea of being perfect and unpunishable and as a result get punished like mad for doing the same **** over and over.

don't do that, and you'll be fine. by all means though, discuss viable options for different situations and which ones will be beneficial and which won't

 

[brickman]

So is er' body ready to discuss a match now? Does anyone have any suggestions that they think would be beneficial?

Are we all on the same page now?

 

[Mahone]

I'm just waiting for foxlisk to say sorry

 

[FoxLisk]

i agree entirely with your last post BigD. thank you for saying that instead of mucking it up by stating things in extreme forms that you don't even believe.

mahone: suck my **** >:o remember that time i 4 stocked you all this afternoon?

 

[Mahone]

Foxlisk has a weird way of saying thank you while still sounding like an elitist jerk.

Also everyone here knows that you are awful and could never 4 stock me. You can continue to
lie about beating me while i will provide proof i **** you!!

singles

1 chillin/g-reg/chineseah (they split it)
4 hat
5 mahone
5 thumbs
7 voodoo
7 shinku umehara
8 btree
9 goop
9 chaos knight
9 vist
13 sypher
13 chival ruse
13 foxlisk
13 krned 225
17 debo
17 jove
17 hot $
17 eric
17 mark
17 jigg
17 rei

haha god dammit guys.

im the **** falco who took two stocks in a falco ditto on crews with only 3%, and who, if i remember right -- which i do -- lost to Mahone because I side-B'd off the stage.

in more detail:

i illusioned off the stage, paused to ragequit, realized I got hit by a pound, unpaused, and illusioned off to my own death. it was like the fastest double-illusion suicide in history ^.^

OH NO, now everyone gets to see actual proof that i **** you lolololol **** jealous

But ya we should probably do the analysis now and stop fighting

 

[AprilShaw]

So is er' body ready to discuss a match now? Does anyone have any suggestions that they think would be beneficial?

Are we all on the same page now?

My #1 suggestion would be don't do a top level player if you want it to help the most. Analyzing top level players is much harder than just good players. Someone who can make it to brackets at a tourney like Pound, but not like a top 5/top 8 player is good.

I also wouldn't suggest Fox vs Falco or dittos. Pick a matchup that a lot of people have trouble with (vs Sheik, vs Peach, vs Marth would be my top 3 in no order) and pick a match/set that is close and preferably with the Fox losing at least one match.

With that said, I'm gonna have to suggest either this whole set, or match 2 or 3:

Forward (Fox) vs Connor (Peach)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWp2FXu5Cag
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-QjPG5LVjo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3RoxYRF0Qc

 

[LumpyCPU...]

the first post was a good read, but i'm too lazy to read more or help. haha

 

[4 Aces]

Not to sound like a dunce, but what do you mean when you say "tactical play and percentage play?" What's your definition of it as opposed to positional?

 

[.nayr]

The problem is when you figure out what you consider to be the "best" option and you formulate your play, you become stupidly predictable. It's like the Marth players that sit there for an entire game trying to chain grab you because they know it's the quickest way to kill a fox. If you know their underlying intentions it's pretty simple to avoid. You can't try and black and white a game like smash and say that "this option is far superior", as the determining factors are apart of a list far to long to account for all. If your having a poor tech skill day there's no point of sitting there trying to throw out stupidly technical combos, you want to try and space more and play the position game. I only read the first page and this is most likely redundant but oh well.

 

[Winston]

I still don't understand your OP fully...

Over the past several years of play, increasingly the game has developed towards a system of positional play vs that of a tactical percentage based game. What I mean by this is that combos have become formalized akin to an appropriate line of play in a game of chess or the like.

This part says that people have been focusing on positional play as opposed to tactical play over the last few years, right?

What I am trying to get at here is that there is that there is significant room for reflection and analysis to be done in terms of combos and how moves work together with the interaction of DI and tech direction. Certainly this has been done informally already as some of the great combos have already been achieved (thunders, and many others). Yet this is a very inductive approach to a field in which numerous combinations still potentially exist. It certainly will require a lot of patience, thought, and already thorough understanding of how characters react at particular damages in terms of knock back distance, stun time, spacing, rate of fall, and other nuanced characteristics.

And this part says we should focus on analyzing tactical play more in a systematic way, right?

The flaw in continuing to approach the game in the mindset of percentage play is that it relies on rules of thumb and current best practices without fully analyzing the reasons why they are the rule of thumb and stunts the exploration of more effective modes of play. Certainly they are effective, but there is no doubt more effective lines of thinking that can be uncovered if we systemically search for them and understand why in fact they are so effective.

So why does the conclusion talk about the flaw in "continuing to approach the game in the mindset of percentage play" if that is what you are advocating?

Also, why is this in the fox forums instead of general?

 

[brickman]

It's a typo, and a significant one at that. What I believe should be worth reflecting on is having the creativity to reanalyze each set up based on the accrued community knowledge to play fox against other characters in a meaningful and non-predictable way. My criticism is that there are certain lines of play that have become standardized and stale, I think it is helpful to reassess why these lines have come about and how we can better conceptualize our play in order to be more creatively productive in terms of how we approach each situations. This does not imply that we will approach the same situation in the same way, like all things, it must be contextualized about what your opponent knows about you, what you know about them, how they are likely to react in the moves following that action.

It is a lot to think about and I think my lack of precision in expressing what I have meant has caused a lot of confusion. This is in the fox board because I play fox and don't really care about how it applies to other characters (because I don't play them).

Hope this helps.

Note: Edited OP to reflect typo correction.

 

[LumpyCPU...]

i remember when i was a big newb to smash and i was fox against homemade waffles' falco.
after i was getting ****ed up he gave me a tip. he said something like, "try to full hop a lot in this match up because falcos like to short hop and you'll have positional advantage." i started doing them more and it worked for like one stock because he quickly adjusted, knowing i was full hopping, he would just full hop nair me every time.

he gave me a good tip that i still remember against falcos but the bigger lesson was that there is an adjustment that can solve every problem.

the best option, if punishable, is not always the best option. we're at a time where most players don't find out strategies or tactics. they learn them. people have better spacing and more consistent tech skill these days, but it's looking a bit uniform. everyone has "cookie cutter" styles. if we bring back the search for new options, strategies, and tactics, we can create more opportunity for mix ups and less chance of being predictable.

too much effort. i feel original enough. lol i just need more mix ups.

 

[jugfingers]

it's interesting that you mention chess.
chess went through something similar in the late 1800s.
in the romantic period, players would do all sorts of crazy stuff to get an attack going. eventually ppl started playing solid, positional defense, and everything was good again.

Romantic style chess was way iller than watching GM's play the ****ing slav defense.