Quickplay/Elite Smash or Battle Arena?

[Jaro235]

It has been a while since I have seriously played Smash. In fact, this is my first thread here in three and a half years. I wanna get back into Smash because I forgot how fun this game is, but my only option is online if I want to play with others. The problem for me back to quick play where I have several characters in Elite Smash that I feel rusty on or got in after a few wins.

With certain characters, my biggest fear is losing Elite Smash with them and never getting it back. Because of this, Elite Smash has felt more stressful than ever especially whenever I am on a losing streak(which has happened often). It is much harder to have the motivation to have multiple games with another player when you lose consistently in most battles and see your GSP drop. Even when I win, I have a hard time doing rematches for the same reason and I get the desire to end on a high note. Each time I did a rematch, it did not go well for me. Now I will say that aside from one or two times, I haven’t run into any ruleset or lagging issues. It’s more or less that I am just not that great at this game and I need to practice. It’s a bit hard for me to be motivated with the GSP system though.

With Arenas, it feels much less stressful. I have started making my own arenas about a month ago and I have a pretty good experience each time. I encounter people with a variety of levels of skill, I don’t have to worry about GSP and I can even watch other players duke it out. Even if I am getting bodied, it doesn’t bother me as much as it does on quickplay and I am much more willing to have multiple rematches with the person beating me. I have had a lot of fun with arena battles. However, I kind of worry that this may seem like an easy way out for me. I don’t have to worry about GSP and I seem to do better here.

While I do want to get much better at the game and potentially enter a local tournament, I want to have some fun too. That being said, I don’t want to never compete in Elite Smash again. To improve myself, should I stick with arenas or should I try to play quickplay with my mains again? This has been on my mind for a month since I started playing Smash again.

 

[FrozenRoy]

My advice is a month late, but I would say to check in with Battle Arenas if you are getting that stressed on Elite Smash, at least to ease yourself in. When you get that far in your own head, it is gonna make it harder to practice when you've been away from the game for so long. Ease yourself into Arenas, then go back into Elite Smash after.

You may also want to consider trying Quickplay with non-mains and using that to get yourself back into the environment, especially with characters close to your mains in style.

 

[Jaro235]

Thank you for the advice! I have been mainly joining anf creating Battle Arenas, but I have also jumped back to Quickplay with other characters (Byleth, Ganondorf, Sephiroth, Bowser and Joker) I enjoy using and it has helped a lot. I feel that my time in Battle Arenas have helped me get much better, especially with Yoshi. I did a some Elite Smash battles with my three best characters, Palutena, Yoshi and Wii Fit Trainer after about a month of arena battles and while I still have room for improvement, I am starting to do much better with all three of them. I think I will continue to play in Battle Arenas with my mains just a little longer to get a little better, then I will go to back Elite Smash to see how much I have gotten better. Thank you again for your advice!