-Ran
Smash Master
Link to original post: [drupal=2541]Self Inflicted Plateaus[/drupal]
We’ve all reached a point in playing any game where we reach a time of limited growth, and even regression of our abilities. We look to players who appeared to be close in skill creating a widening gap, and we see players that were once easy tournament bracket wins becoming respectable players. We constantly seek for an answer to solve our problem, but typically months can go on before we finally get beyond the hump in the road. It’s always a very, very distressing time as a player.
Currently, I know that I’ve plateaued as a player. For the past few months I’ve made very little gain in how I’m playing, so I’ve had to ask myself what has caused me to reach this classical stage as a player in any game?
You need to look towards the success that you’ve had in your ‘glory days.’ Why were you winning? Typically the reason that you won most of your matches six months ago was because your opponents were making more mistakes than you. They were giving you free damage, and you were gratefully accepting it. Maybe they were using an approach, or you were typically playing a character that your own has an advantage against, but the end result will typically be that you were winning due to being opportunistic. As players mature the windows that we look for free damage begin to shrink.
The play-style that you had then won’t work anymore. However, the players that were ‘easy wins’ for you months ago have been gaining skill against players that they need to create windows against to do damage. They never had the pool of players that you did that were giving free damage to you. They earned all the damage that they did, and evolved in an environment that forced it. If you didn’t change with them, then you’ve now found yourself at a plateau.
When I personally looked back, I can safely say that most of my wins were because of this. I was letting my opponent make mistakes and that’s why I winning. I played safe and conservative. It worked then, but now it has lost its ‘FALCON PUNCH.’
If only the problems ended there. As I turned my gaze into the mountains of skill that loomed before me, I realized that I had all the gear that I needed to actually climb the mountain at my feet. I knew how each tool functioned and how they could aid my travel, but mentality I wasn’t prepared. In fact, I had told myself that I could no longer do the most crucial thing in the game.
Wait.
That’s right, I lost the ability to mentally camp. Believe it or not, someone that mains Snake couldn’t manage to maintain the mental drive to continue to camp a match. After five, maybe ten seconds if I was lucky, regardless of how much of lead I had, I’d run in to my opponent’s spacing. I literally have thrown matches because of this style of stupidity that I have flavored my game with. It is a consistent mental error that I have found myself making due to what I have enforced in myself as “I can’t camp anymore.”
I’d run in as Snake. A running Snake to those that aren’t aware by now has the fewest options possible. He can Dacas, grab, shield, and short hop to a bair. Aside from that, Snake isn’t capable of doing anything that is truly threatening to shield pressure when he’s sprinting around. Of course, I’d get punished. Maybe I’d get 10, maybe 20% damage for doing it, but I’d find myself taking so much more. I’d literally allow the momentum of the game to shift in the favor of my opponent.
Yet intertwined with the lack of playing safe, I have given away matches. Since I’m not doing the most effective means of playing my character with a lead, I give a window for my opponent to come in swinging at my approaches. Typically characters in Brawl are at their best when they are on the defensive, reacting to their opponent’s attacks. Yet here I was playing as if I was trying to play catch up the entire time. But it goes beyond that. Rather than going for a safe recovery, maybe air dodging or doing a B-reversal grenade mind game, I instead would attempt to attack. That’s right, a flying Snake attacking his opponent when he isn’t going into a situation that he has an advantage at.
So now, I’ve identified major reasons I’ve reached my plateau. I have a playing style that has relied on being opportunistic against my opponents’ ever-dwindling mistakes, and I have mentally caged off the most effective way to play Brawl when you have a lead with my character. Beyond that I have consistently given away damage [Aka, the reason I winning before] to my opponents by not playing safe, and I’ve made poor choices all around.
So what needs to change? If I look at this objectively then I realize that even though I have found countless reasons for my plateau, there is only one fix that needs to be made. I just need to play safe. Camp more plox. If I have a lead, I do not NEED to pressure my opponent. Even if my character does not have a method of assaulting my opponent at a range, I do not need to go –anywhere- near them. If I’m at a negative position, I need to focus on getting to a neutral position before attempting to attack. In other words I have to be a stingy miser when it comes to taking damage.
My style of play, poor choices, giving away of wins, and lack of camping, all will go away if I become content to play it safe. That’s the catch. I have the want to play Brawl safe. If the game isn’t fun to me played this way, then I need to move to another game. Yet, I cannot blame Brawl for this style of play. Most games come down to who plays the safest. You don’t take risks when you have the lead; you just let the game end.
I hope that by writing this and identifying my errors that I’m going to be able to break the cement shoes that are keeping me bolted down to this plateau. Here’s hoping.
We’ve all reached a point in playing any game where we reach a time of limited growth, and even regression of our abilities. We look to players who appeared to be close in skill creating a widening gap, and we see players that were once easy tournament bracket wins becoming respectable players. We constantly seek for an answer to solve our problem, but typically months can go on before we finally get beyond the hump in the road. It’s always a very, very distressing time as a player.
Currently, I know that I’ve plateaued as a player. For the past few months I’ve made very little gain in how I’m playing, so I’ve had to ask myself what has caused me to reach this classical stage as a player in any game?
You need to look towards the success that you’ve had in your ‘glory days.’ Why were you winning? Typically the reason that you won most of your matches six months ago was because your opponents were making more mistakes than you. They were giving you free damage, and you were gratefully accepting it. Maybe they were using an approach, or you were typically playing a character that your own has an advantage against, but the end result will typically be that you were winning due to being opportunistic. As players mature the windows that we look for free damage begin to shrink.
The play-style that you had then won’t work anymore. However, the players that were ‘easy wins’ for you months ago have been gaining skill against players that they need to create windows against to do damage. They never had the pool of players that you did that were giving free damage to you. They earned all the damage that they did, and evolved in an environment that forced it. If you didn’t change with them, then you’ve now found yourself at a plateau.
When I personally looked back, I can safely say that most of my wins were because of this. I was letting my opponent make mistakes and that’s why I winning. I played safe and conservative. It worked then, but now it has lost its ‘FALCON PUNCH.’
If only the problems ended there. As I turned my gaze into the mountains of skill that loomed before me, I realized that I had all the gear that I needed to actually climb the mountain at my feet. I knew how each tool functioned and how they could aid my travel, but mentality I wasn’t prepared. In fact, I had told myself that I could no longer do the most crucial thing in the game.
Wait.
That’s right, I lost the ability to mentally camp. Believe it or not, someone that mains Snake couldn’t manage to maintain the mental drive to continue to camp a match. After five, maybe ten seconds if I was lucky, regardless of how much of lead I had, I’d run in to my opponent’s spacing. I literally have thrown matches because of this style of stupidity that I have flavored my game with. It is a consistent mental error that I have found myself making due to what I have enforced in myself as “I can’t camp anymore.”
I’d run in as Snake. A running Snake to those that aren’t aware by now has the fewest options possible. He can Dacas, grab, shield, and short hop to a bair. Aside from that, Snake isn’t capable of doing anything that is truly threatening to shield pressure when he’s sprinting around. Of course, I’d get punished. Maybe I’d get 10, maybe 20% damage for doing it, but I’d find myself taking so much more. I’d literally allow the momentum of the game to shift in the favor of my opponent.
Yet intertwined with the lack of playing safe, I have given away matches. Since I’m not doing the most effective means of playing my character with a lead, I give a window for my opponent to come in swinging at my approaches. Typically characters in Brawl are at their best when they are on the defensive, reacting to their opponent’s attacks. Yet here I was playing as if I was trying to play catch up the entire time. But it goes beyond that. Rather than going for a safe recovery, maybe air dodging or doing a B-reversal grenade mind game, I instead would attempt to attack. That’s right, a flying Snake attacking his opponent when he isn’t going into a situation that he has an advantage at.
So now, I’ve identified major reasons I’ve reached my plateau. I have a playing style that has relied on being opportunistic against my opponents’ ever-dwindling mistakes, and I have mentally caged off the most effective way to play Brawl when you have a lead with my character. Beyond that I have consistently given away damage [Aka, the reason I winning before] to my opponents by not playing safe, and I’ve made poor choices all around.
So what needs to change? If I look at this objectively then I realize that even though I have found countless reasons for my plateau, there is only one fix that needs to be made. I just need to play safe. Camp more plox. If I have a lead, I do not NEED to pressure my opponent. Even if my character does not have a method of assaulting my opponent at a range, I do not need to go –anywhere- near them. If I’m at a negative position, I need to focus on getting to a neutral position before attempting to attack. In other words I have to be a stingy miser when it comes to taking damage.
My style of play, poor choices, giving away of wins, and lack of camping, all will go away if I become content to play it safe. That’s the catch. I have the want to play Brawl safe. If the game isn’t fun to me played this way, then I need to move to another game. Yet, I cannot blame Brawl for this style of play. Most games come down to who plays the safest. You don’t take risks when you have the lead; you just let the game end.
I hope that by writing this and identifying my errors that I’m going to be able to break the cement shoes that are keeping me bolted down to this plateau. Here’s hoping.
