Regression in skill?

[Rubyiris]

Has anyone experienced this? I've gone many, many months playing badly, and there's only so many times you can say 'I'm having an off-day', or so many times people can say 'oh you just SD too often.' before you begin to realize, maybe you're just not getting any better, or possibly getting worse.

In my situation, I currently have very consistent practice. Constant waves of local tournaments, weekly smashfests, random get togethers with other smashers in my area, travelling to Phoenix to play with the big boys, etc. Despite this, I'm actually seeing a regression in how I play. It's not just other people getting better, but I'm also forgetting how to do things despite playing regularly. I'm also finding it more difficult to think. It's not so much autopilot, so much as a thick cloud in my mind that's making focus, and clear thought difficult.

Feedback would be lovely.

 

[-ACE-]

tournament focus? do you play better in friendlies when there's no pressure?

 

[Tekk]

Maybe a smash break would be positive, take some time to think about your game.

 

[N.A.G.A.C.E]

Did u have a similar thread a couple of months back?

Anyway a break might help, another option is get matches recorded and really study them. If u know what your issues r like for example lets say u roll to much u could let your Opponent get a free punish on u for rolling. So maybe u could take whatever bad habits u have and try something like that

 

[Life]

This wouldn't be our business, but do you have problems outside of Smash that could be throwing you off? (Don't answer that, just think about it.)

 

[Krynxe]

Maybe a smash break would be positive, take some time to think about your game.

qft

If you just play a lot without much analysis, you'll just begin to play instinctively and make your playstyle more permanent rather than improve.

 

[Rubyiris]

tournament focus? do you play better in friendlies when there's no pressure?

I play better in tournament.

Maybe a smash break would be positive, take some time to think about your game.

Maybe after NYTE.

Did u have a similar thread a couple of months back?

Anyway a break might help, another option is get matches recorded and really study them. If u know what your issues r like for example lets say u roll to much u could let your Opponent get a free punish on u for rolling. So maybe u could take whatever bad habits u have and try something like that

I have at least a thousand recorded matches of myself, and I study on a daily basis. I know what I do wrong. It's a matter of fixing them is the problem. All of my problems require me to practice with another person. Specifically one who is about my level, and has the patience, and ability to deal with me messing up, and punishing me accordingly for doing so.

I did have a "similar" thread in that I hit a snag in my improvement. I was playing about par for a few months. Something happened and I got better. Now, something happened again and I'm playing worse than I was previously.

This wouldn't be our business, but do you have problems outside of Smash that could be throwing you off? (Don't answer that, just think about it.)

I'm actually at a point in my life that nearly all of my problems have resolved themselves, which is why I'm more confused as to why my performance is slipping.

qft

If you just play a lot without much analysis, you'll just begin to play instinctively and make your playstyle more permanent rather than improve.

It's not that I'm playing instinctually, it's that I can't keep focus, and my thoughts are often veiled and unclear. I sometimes feel like I'm thinking in slow motion.

 

[Fly_Amanita]

I've gone through a few such regressions and the way of getting past them has always varied.

Based on what you're saying, it sounds like the way of getting out of your current funk is not to constantly study your strategic errors since you claim to know what you could be doing better in that regard, but rather to review what is going on in your mind when you're playing. You say you have a hard time focusing and thinking clearly mid-match. Do you have any idea what might be causing this? It's not an easy question to answer, and it's not one that has a nice, uniform answer.

For example, the first major regression I went through after becoming decent was in early 2010; I did poorly one tourney, and afterwards, started obsessing over lots of little things and how they might affect my performance. I was always paranoid and constantly stressed about whether I was in shape to compete, and was always worried about the outcomes of the matches. I eventually realized that the first poor performance was likely just due to variance, and that my subsequent paranoia itself was the problem; I subsequently managed to force myself to be more confident and focus better and immediately started living up to my standards again.

Training yourself to think well is hard, and it's not something I personally am great at, but it couldn't hurt to actively try to force yourself to keep your mind in the right place. You know you need to keep your head in the game and that you need to focus. If possible, try devoting a lot of energy into keeping your head in the game, and make sure it doesn't drift elsewhere. Also, while you likely can't keep track of every little thing going on in the game, it's easier to isolate a few recurring important situations and try to deal with those. Again, I am not great at focusing, but if I'm able to identify a small handful of major areas in which I need to be doing something differently rather than trying to monitor anything and everything going on, the task at hand becomes much easier and I'm often able to do enough to get by.

 

[Rubyiris]

Thinking clearly, and keeping focus is a problem I have in general as a person, but I'm not quite sure why it's gotten worse recently in terms of smash. Sometimes I tunnel vision, and hyper-focus on one aspect of play, either what they're doing, or what I'm doing. Sometimes I'm distracted by outside factors, or sometimes my own inner dialogue makes me lose by default. Fear, paranoia, pride, etc.

 

[CloneHat]

It's like playing music; if you think about what you're doing, you make a mistake. Focus on the bigger picture and let the micro strategies work themselves out.

 

[Rubyiris]

I'm not really sure why, but I kind of have to focus on what I'm doing nowadays. Despite playing more often, my execution has gotten progressively worse, and I hardly ever hit important fast falls or l-cancels. It's pretty embarrassing.

 

[Iron Dragon]

It's probably based on taking too many things in at once. You didn't fully refine the skillset you learned when you started improving at a steady rate and because of this are thinking TOO much in advance as to what is actually happening.

It's always important to remember that while you can predict some things, that the other player is thinking and is on their toes too, they can make a variance in their gamepla at any point to throw off what you're attempting to do. I don't think you've lost skill but have rather lost ADAPTATION skills because you once again didn't fully refine how good what you already had.

 

[Rubyiris]

My techskill still sucks **** though. You have no idea how annoying it is to do a delayed aerial and still get punished because you missed the fastfall LOL.

 

[Iron Dragon]

My techskill still sucks **** though. You have no idea how annoying it is to do a delayed aerial and still get punished because you missed the fastfall LOL.

Well you're stubborn too.

 

[Rubyiris]

And you're a ***** who needs to play with me more often. :3

 

[Geenareeno]

I'm actually at a point in my life that nearly all of my problems have resolved themselves, which is why I'm more confused as to why my performance is slipping.

This is going pretty deep, but maybe you need to make an active effort to affect the course of your life. The gods of destiny and fate are making you play worse in an attempt to make you change your life.

Thinking clearly, and keeping focus is a problem I have in general as a person, but I'm not quite sure why it's gotten worse recently in terms of smash. Sometimes I tunnel vision, and hyper-focus on one aspect of play, either what they're doing, or what I'm doing. Sometimes I'm distracted by outside factors, or sometimes my own inner dialogue makes me lose by default. Fear, paranoia, pride, etc.

Dude story of my life.

As for actual advice, 100% take a break. Three major benefits. One, not playing will be healthy for your mind, by the sounds of it. Two, when you come back, you might it easier to regain your techskill and learn new techskill faster than you expected. Three, while you take a break from Smash, pick up a new hobby/game. If you play something like Street Fighter you might improve your spacing or understanding of how fighting games work.

 

[Rubyiris]

Diet, exercise, school, making real efforts to change my behavior, and coming out about my sexuality/gender problems and doing research on professionals to see within my town aren't making active efforts to change my life?

I agree that taking a break will help, but there's no way I can now, not with a tournament on the 31st, and a southwest/westcoast regional in my town the very next weekend.

 

[Jeyfar]

I've gone many, many months playing badly,

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF you're in love man, ****storm is near @_@ run away before it's too late

 

[Rubyiris]

I don't get it.

 

[Prince_Abu]

why do u make threads like this
theres only 1 way to get better at smash which is practicing

 

[Rubyiris]

There are plenty of other ways to get better, actually.

 

[Max?]

OT's Rules to Improving in Smash (And as a Person); Rubyiris Edition:

1.) Improve your life outside of melee. Don't have a job or steady source of income? Get one. Drink/do drugs? Quit. Eat unhealthily/overweight? Change it, etc etc. Get your life on track, stop making melee a priority. That alone will make you better.

2.) Play less, stop studying and over-analying your game so much (especially in your free time), and try to have fun. Why are you putting so much pressure on yourself? We as a community have turned something that is supposed to be fun, into this huge overcomplicated political system that really nets you nothing besides feeling like a douche when you "underperform". Stop putting pressure on yourself, and treat this game as it is,

A game.

3.) I can't stress this enough, play this game as little as possible. I really believe (and I think mango said this a LONG time ago) that if people aren't completely comfortable with the essentials and basic (aka necessary) tech skill within 5 years, they should probably just quit. It seems to me that you have a lot of the important tech skill and muscle memory down. What do you ACTUALLY gain from playing all the time? Melee becomes a habit for people, which is once again destructive to you as an individual; do something more productive with your time. Only play once a week or at tournies.

You should also consider travelling more and leaving your region cause... on top of AZ being a pretty smallish scene, having a lot of exposure to different people/regions/playstyles will give you essential experience and will make you more well rounded.

4.) This goes along with stop putting pressure on yourself, but stop caring what the community thinks about you. Smashboards is full of so many freaking *******, most of which who have never gone to a tourney, or live in a relevant region, or have ever done ANYTHING relevant ever, so who cares what they think? Once again, play smash for fun and for yourself, not for recognition, not for glory. Recognition and glory are by products of successful and happy people, not the goal.

5.) Stop being so stubborn. I'm sure you're going to respond to this post and say something like "well I am doing so and so, and I'm not seeing results." I heard you talking in the THC stream about your strides to lose weight, that's great. Well, time to take it to the next level. From the sounds of it, most of your problems are mental roadblocks you've created, and until you deal with your life and yourself as an individual you will never overcome them.

/rant

Oh and P.S.: You main Falco, and since he's pretty much the best character in this game and you're losing I can only assuming you're overcomplicating things with him. You should probably retreating Bair more, and don't forget to platform camp. You know you have some of the best stats in the game right?



For anyone else who is feeling like they aren't improving or have hit a wall, feel free to hit me up, and I'll spit some real talk at you.

 

[N.A.G.A.C.E]

Reading your post max? I am going to somewhhat disagree witn the idea one should only play once a week or at tourneys. Now my reason for this is if u were to think of smash as a sport (not saying it is or isnt a sport, just think of it as one for the sake of argument) anyway if u think of it as a sport and then look at more traditional sports u will see that they practice and train all the time. Now i do think taking breaks at time could be a good thing since unlike traditional sports there no Official smash season so we dont have a off season to just relax.

So to sum up, i believe practice and training r a good thing but like from everything taking time off can refresh you

 

[Scar]

i think 1 and 4 are pretty strong points, but if anyone finds themselves completely unsatisfied with 2 and 3 (5 is basically a restatement of 1) i'm taking a different approach to actively improving.

 

[Alch0ol]

I've had similar blocks as you in my improvement.
When I went to college I accepted that I would play less smash then when I was home.
I honestly accepted that I would fall behind my other friends and stopped giving such a **** about smash
The smash I played at college was mostly against noobs who view ssbm as a party game.
When I came back home and played better players I was surprised to see and feel that I was still improving.
I was also even more surprised to see that my other friends weren't necessarily improving faster then me despite having access to better players to play with on a daily basis.
This has made me reconsider how to get better at smash.
For me personally going to college and essentially isolating myself for months on end (practicing mostly tech skill) has helped far more then its hindered me.

So...
Stop playing the same people in smash
And maybe try and play against people that are worse then you significantly once in awhile to get a totally different perspective on the game.

 

[Jeapie]

Read Max? his post. You will probly find yourself in one of those situations.

I got better by not playing. Just Sayin that constanly playing doesnt neccesary make each individual better.

 

[EPsilon933]

I don't know how legit this is, but a friend of mine told me DJ, a mid-level Marth from MD (at least he was like half a year ago), recently beat Plank and Vist. My friend didn't know if it was tournament or friendlies, but even if it's only friendlies, that might be saying something about his improvements. He credits it to working out at the gym frequently

 

[Mizar]

Read Max? his post. You will probly find yourself in one of those situations.

I got better by not playing. Just Sayin that constanly playing doesnt neccesary make each individual better.

Yeah like, you didn't play for a while and was like "yo shielddrops are pretty ****" and then you could do shielddrops consistently.

I recognize this though (without the dramatic increase of ****).

Maybe you're just pushing yourself too hard.
Try having more fun and relax.

 

[zZz]

It sounds like you definitely need to take some time off from smash to enjoy your life. Maybe try not to put so much pressure on yourself to do better and just have fun the next time you play. Also, if you must smash then you could try a new character that gives you a different perspective on how to play the game.

 

[Rubyiris]

Until somewhere around July or August, it is not possible to get a job, or travel outside of my region due to my strict school schedule, and low income, but steady income, unless I get lucky and land an evening shift somewhere in my immediate area from 5 to 9 pm.

I'm sure this has been mentioned in the past, but I have a very busy life, that I'm not too terribly fond of, with smash effectively being my escape. Very little even interests me outside of smash, so suggestions to take a break are disconcerting. I understand the potential benefits, but the idea of not smashing at the end of a long week doesn't sit well with me.

Outside of school and smash, I exercise, and eat low Carb, and it's working wonderfullly, but it's not very enjoyable. I've had to give up all of my favorite foods, and exercise for the sake of fitness is straight up boring and chore-like.

Oh, and the last thing is that I enjoy smash, and more importantly, I enjoy competition. I'm not a stophhavingfunguys player. Fun is subjective, and what might be fun for me, might not be fun with others. Smash frustrates me to no end, but at the end of the day, I still enjoy the hell out of it.

I know I'm being stubborn, but it's difficult to be receptive to the idea that less smash is a good thing when it's basically all I have.

 

[ArcNatural]

It just seems that despite your efforts to keep melee fresh and interesting, your subconsciously going automode. It happens to everyone, despite all your efforts to not coast and stay focused. I would recommend taking a break too.

I've always played better with breaks, it allows you to drop whatever habits you had and have a little bit of a fresher outlook on things. There are other ways of taking a break though. Focus on the community, help worser players rather than competing, play low tier only in tournament, try to win only doing ridiculous things and don't take your placements so seriously for a while. You could also try to help out,take over livestream for your local events, help with the hosting etc. Anything to take the focus off competing and playing as much as you have and focusing on other aspects of the melee community. Critique other peoples vids etc.

I'm also taking a break from melee and eating healthy, going to the gym almost every day. I happen to occasionally watch inspiration videos on youtube or such to make it easier to deal with the stress of eating less and burning my body out as much as I can.

Being healthier will make you better, through confidence alone if anything. So I wish you the best in that regard.

 

[Rubyiris]

Being healthier hasn't really done anything for my confidence. Share your secret.

 

[zZz]

Being healthier hasn't really done anything for my confidence. Share your secret.

Have you tried playing other games? I used to be a sponsored Halo player and I've found that playing other games that implement similar mind games is healthy to rounding yourself off as a player.

For example:

I haven't felt the urge to play Halo in ages until this past weekend. We had just got done hosting a local tourney for the first time in ages, and I had been taking my training way too seriously. I decided to get on Halo to see what the competition was like. I found that after taking a break and coming back to it I had a whole new perspective about Halo which I never saw before. Of course tech/skill wise I was god awful but mentally it felt like I was playing better than ever. I preceded to not drop a match all day.

I'm not saying that a 1 year hiatus is a good thing but if you are serious about competition and you want to start improving again then do yourself a favor and focus elsewhere for a while.

Also Scar has been doing a pretty cool study of "Lean" melee you could look into that might help you as well.

Best of luck to you.

 

[Rubyiris]

Nothing else really interests me. Typically, if I'm doing something not smash related, it's out of necessity, or a timesink until the next time I can smash.

I checked out scar's thing about lean melee but I didn't understand it at all. Kinda makes me feel really stupid.

 

[SSBM_or_GTFO]

That almost sounds like an addiction.

Seriously, find something else to do. There's no way that, out of all the activities you could take up, nothing interests you.

 

[zZz]

Nothing else really interests me. Typically, if I'm doing something not smash related, it's out of necessity, or a timesink until the next time I can smash.

I checked out scar's thing about lean melee but I didn't understand it at all. Kinda makes me feel really stupid.

I understand how you feel. I think a lot of his ideas derive from business principals that he has re-purposed for Melee growth. If you must play Smash then at least try to mix it up. What has helped me in the past is trying to play like I'm totally new to the game Instead of just seeing what is going on try perceiving other solutions to w/e situation is in front of you.

Whenever I do this I tend to lose at first (i.e. you start double thinking yourself which creates slower reaction time) but once I get past that stage is when I discover what is holding me back.

 

[Scar]

I'm gonna work on making it more accessible, feedback is appreciated. But the fundamental idea is that the way we practice is flawed, and if you want to improve, there's a far more efficient method than "play all the time."

Since it's pretty much on-topic (we're talking about being on auto-pilot, and so were most of my posts), what didn't make sense?

 

[Deleted member]

i agree with max's post, but i'll also add the thing from aim last night, where you need a new fun_hobby that gives you exposure. you need something that will mentally challenge you and force you to think, something that can't be reinforced by bad habits and doesn't feed the information to you easily. you need to exercise the brain muscle in some new way, preferably involving movement, outdoor exploration, or social exploration, maybe even all 3.

I'll direct you here, this is the best thing I can think of:

realsocialdynamics.com

remember, improvement in 1 area splashes over to every other area. it's important to constantly strive to be the best person you can be in every aspect.

 

[Massive]

Reading your post max? I am going to somewhhat disagree witn the idea one should only play once a week or at tourneys. Now my reason for this is if u were to think of smash as a sport (not saying it is or isnt a sport, just think of it as one for the sake of argument) anyway if u think of it as a sport and then look at more traditional sports u will see that they practice and train all the time. Now i do think taking breaks at time could be a good thing since unlike traditional sports there no Official smash season so we dont have a off season to just relax.

So to sum up, i believe practice and training r a good thing but like from everything taking time off can refresh you

The sports analogy can be quite apt, but remember what is usually glossed over in these conversations: All sports players have a limited lifespan at their peak level.

Try as hard as you might at real sports or in games, but it is difficult to keep the maximal performance for very long. You will eventually slip and not play as well as you used to. It could be from age, it could be from over or under practicing, it could just be that you've lost whatever mentality/aptitude you had before. There are countless examples of this, even within our own community.

It is not futile, but a break from smash is definitely helpful, and beneficial to anybody who wants to stay interested in this game for a long period of time.

Reinforcing the same thought process and routine that has not allowed you to improve in the past will not make you better. Stop practicing for a while, do something else and come back later with a fresh perspective. Either that or come up with a method of training yourself that is so completely different from what you're doing that it forces you to reevaluate how you play.

tl;dr: Nobody's at their best forever. If you don't cross-train (or at least take breaks), you will burn yourself out and stop improving.

 

[Rubyiris]

That almost sounds like an addiction.

Seriously, find something else to do. There's no way that, out of all the activities you could take up, nothing interests you.

There are other activities that interest me, but there's this thong called a cashgate that doesn't allow me to pursue them.