Trying to get "gud" seems so freaking pointless...

[Jrzfine]

I had similar issues before I came to college (no access to a local scene), and the best I can suggest is to either take the above advice and buckle down and prepare to lose a lot in the meantime (including in For Glory and online tournaments), or decide that you really just don't care about playing competitively at this point in time, and just play for whatever timeframes you find it fun.

Not every game is for everyone. I love Starcraft, Dota, Smash, you name it, but I'm bad, average, or meh at all of them and far more. If attempting to be super competitive isn't something you're mentally prepared for, don't stress over it. It's not worth stressing out just because you have a perceived (or enforced, doesn't matter) skill deficiency that you can't overcome. Heck, I've gotten worse at Smash (or maybe my friends have gotten better, frustrating either way for someone who used to win 95% of matches in my group), and I just treat it like a learning experience, and whenever I get tired of it, I go play something else.

In other words, if there's a disconnect between your skills, goals, and attitude, you'll either have to forcibly bridge the gap, or just come to terms with taking another path. There's nothing wrong with doing so, but it is very difficult to consider that one might not actually be decent enough at a game to compete. I've been playing Smash as long as it's existed, and I'm still too underconfident to compete with any regularity. And I'm still trying to decide if I even care, when I enjoy just playing single player or getting a few friends over and playing.

This is pretty much the extent of the help we can give you.
TLDR:
Its up to you to decide whether you want to pursue competitive play, now that you know the effort it takes. Be prepared to lose and get ready to rage, because lord knows every Smasher here has thrown their controller in anger at some point and wanted to quit. What makes us competitive is the fact that we stuck with the game, through anger and sadness. If you don't want to play competitively, that's fine. But for the sake of your enjoyment of Smash 4, don't go half way. Half way to greatness is always the most frustrating place to be.

 

[JBGamer2300]

This is pretty much the extent of the help we can give you.
TLDR:
Its up to you to decide whether you want to pursue competitive play, now that you know the effort it takes. Be prepared to lose and get ready to rage, because lord knows every Smasher here has thrown their controller in anger at some point and wanted to quit. What makes us competitive is the fact that we stuck with the game, through anger and sadness. If you don't want to play competitively, that's fine. But for the sake of your enjoyment of Smash 4, don't go half way. Half way to greatness is always the most frustrating place to be.

Halfway to greatness is exactly where I feel like I am in Smash. Oh, and by the way I am TOTALLY stealing that line "Halfway to greatness is the most frustrating place to be." It's awesome. XD

 

[NickRiddle]

You said your scene is dead... but I don't believe you. Where do you live that you think that? Have you checked the Regional Zones of this forum?

 

[Jrzfine]

Halfway to greatness is exactly where I feel like I am in Smash. Oh, and by the way I am TOTALLY stealing that line "Halfway to greatness is the most frustrating place to be." It's awesome. XD

Glad you liked it .

Now that you know where you stand, all thats left is for you to decide which path you want to take. I urge you to make your decision quickly, because the sooner you know what path you want to take, the sooner you can git gud / have fun with smash 4 again.

 

[Saviorr]

In any case, playtime is the chief factor to improvement. Those in the fighting game community know that it takes years of effort to elevate yourself to the competitive level.

Take any other competitive sport. Martial Arts, Basketball, Soccer, whatever. The truth is you need to play for years to keep up with even "moderately decent" players. Even varsity high-school players (who are much removed from college-level, semi-pro level, and professional level sports) require years of effort to get where they are.

Just don't expect yourself to be playing at pro-level Smash without any effort. Understand that even moderately skilled players (ie: a low-ranking Purple Belt in Brazilian Juditsu still requires around 3 years of training) have put a huge effort into this game.

Does it really take years of effort to get to a competitive level in Smash? I don't think actual sports are the best analogy because a lot of the reason it takes years of effort to be good at a sport like soccer is because of the need to be physically fit.

I think that it takes a great time commitment, dedication, and consistency to get good but I don't think it necessarily takes years of effort. Without anyone decent to play against I have been locking myself in my dark room for hours every day playing against a level 9 diddy and am already way better than I was when I was playing only 4-5 days a week. I'm discovering combos with pikachu I didn't know were possible. Moves I used to think had no chance in connecting are suddenly hitting their marks with little to no effort on my part.

I'm also just generally becoming more comfortable with pikachu's movement and moveset which allows me to think more about exactly what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. I also think it's worth noting the value in practicing alone. You get to come up with your own tricks and style that no one's seen before.

As an aspiring competitive player I am very inspired by Mew2king and his work ethic towards the game. He didn't have anyone to play with at first but he put the time in everyday to get perfect and got results.

 

[Keaghaan]

Smash is a game where you have matchups. Good, neutral, bad. Depending on the character you play with, you either have the upper hand, in a stalemate, or at a disadvantage. All characters also have a different amount of good/neut/bad matchups. Some may have more good matchups, some may have more bad.

To become good in this type of fighting game, I would recommend you stick to one character first. As you play and master your favorite fighter, try to learn every other character's movesets in-game. The best way? Challenging everyone and anyone. Like any other fighting game, you tend to recognize many/all characters movesets (ones that are used frequently, e.g a spammable/irritable move/attack). By recognizing many different play styles, you're bound to learn and conjure up ways to defeat your opponents.

You see, we can all use the same characters, but it is also how the player uses their movesets. This can be a huge factor in which a player wins or loses. And no, the game is not "broken", or "rigged", or that the other player sucks is why you lost... It really is because you played in a way that is predictable and repetitive. I've been through this countless times, and frustration is just part of the learning experience. Choose not to sulk over every loss and instead learn from it, see what you can do better next time, then perform it. Always stay on your toes, don't ever let the opponent read you. Just like in a real-life fight, whether it is boxing or UFC. People don't just walk into the ring or the octagon and just start swinging recklessly...

 

[etecoon]

Does it really take years of effort to get to a competitive level in Smash? I don't think actual sports are the best analogy because a lot of the reason it takes years of effort to be good at a sport like soccer is because of the need to be physically fit.

This is true of sports but there are more parallels in e sports than you'd think. You need things like very precise and quick fingers, good vision, fast reaction time, good working memory...the latter two aren't even really confirmed to be trainable to any great extent(twitch reaction, you can get better relative to certain stimuli but your base processing speed may just be a case of it is what it is), IF they are it is certainly something that would take years. As far as finger speed and precision it might be more worth comparing to playing an instrument than sports, it can take many years to become extremely proficient at playing piano or guitar for instance

 

[dragontamer]

Does it really take years of effort to get to a competitive level in Smash? I don't think actual sports are the best analogy because a lot of the reason it takes years of effort to be good at a sport like soccer is because of the need to be physically fit.

I think that it takes a great time commitment, dedication, and consistency to get good but I don't think it necessarily takes years of effort. Without anyone decent to play against I have been locking myself in my dark room for hours every day playing against a level 9 diddy and am already way better than I was when I was playing only 4-5 days a week. I'm discovering combos with pikachu I didn't know were possible. Moves I used to think had no chance in connecting are suddenly hitting their marks with little to no effort on my part.

I'm also just generally becoming more comfortable with pikachu's movement and moveset which allows me to think more about exactly what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. I also think it's worth noting the value in practicing alone. You get to come up with your own tricks and style that no one's seen before.

As an aspiring competitive player I am very inspired by Mew2king and his work ethic towards the game. He didn't have anyone to play with at first but he put the time in everyday to get perfect and got results.

Lets say Yoshi just running-USmashed against your Pikachu's shield. (not a power-shield, a normal one)

What is the best attack you can use to punish Yoshi? For damage? For Knockback potential? At what percentage and distance will you threaten a KO (important in Smash4, because stale-moves makes your KO moves weaker and weaker as you abuse them)? Or are you in a low-frame advantage situation? (ie: No good punish, so you want to predict their next move and punish that), or are you even in a frame-disadvantage situation (Will the opponent have the advantage in guessing your next move?) ? Does the shield-pushback prevent you from counter-striking with jab or tilts?

Repeat for Yoshi's Jab1, Jab2, DTilt, FTilt, UTilt, FSmash, DSmash, Nair, Fair, Bair, Dair, Uair, Egg throw (up-B), Egg Roll (side-b), Yoshi Bomb (down-b). Yoshi's Neutral B and Grab beats shield, so both attacks are irrelevant in this scenario.

If customs become a thing, then add those properties to the mix. (which is why I'm against them personally. That's a lot of extra work for me to remain competitive if we keep customs on.)

Repeat for every opponent. Even if we stick to "suspected top 10", that's a lot of matchup data to learn about. Learning matchup data alone will take you months to years. Each attack in the game, from each approach will have its own properties. Knowing the optimal strategy against each is along your path to mastery.

Then repeat for every secondary or tertiary you plan on picking up.

After learning the optimal counter-strategies, you then have to practice till you perform optimally in each situation. In frame-advantage situations (where you can't quite reliably punish), you need to know what your opponent's options are (back-roll, forward roll, spot-dodge, powershield), and practice responses that beat his responses.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and the hypothetical Pikachu player above will probably want to practice his own gameplan at somepoint, as opposed to purely only learning about responses to your opponent's potential strategies.

For example, if Pikachu SH Dairs into his opponent's shield (that landing hitbox... wtf), what are Pikachu's options, and what are the opponent's options? Which attacks of yours have "commitment" (ie: if you hit their shield, they can guarantee a punish), which attacks leave a frame disadvantage (you have options, but they're all limited and your opponent moves first), and which ones leave a frame advantage (you have the advantage to continue pressure).

For every attack, for every opponent... Lather, rinse repeat. On Shield. On Power Shield. On whiff.

 

[Roko Jono]

I will tell you what I usually tell people when they play.

Play smart. This game does not reward idiots. Here is your first lesson and I am dead serious about this one:

You would like to do attack x. If you whiffed or had an opponent block attack x, would you get kicked in the face? If the answer is yes, you should NOT be doing attack x.

We call this type of move 'unsafe'. Many new players do unsafe things and I swear I could win a round just doing Bowser forward-tilt alone because of this.

 

[ninrok]

In any case, playtime is the chief factor to improvement. Those in the fighting game community know that it takes years of effort to elevate yourself to the competitive level.

Take any other competitive sport. Martial Arts, Basketball, Soccer, whatever. The truth is you need to play for years to keep up with even "moderately decent" players. Even varsity high-school players (who are much removed from college-level, semi-pro level, and professional level sports) require years of effort to get where they are.

Just don't expect yourself to be playing at pro-level Smash without any effort. Understand that even moderately skilled players (ie: a low-ranking Purple Belt in Brazilian Juditsu still requires around 3 years of training) have put a huge effort into this game.

But that's fine. There are plenty of people who don't necessarily want to play at the highest level. This specific forum is named "competitive discussion" for a reason, almost everyone here wishes to reach or excel at that competitive level. Honestly, years of Smash sounds difficult to accomplish, but for many of us it isn't. I've personally been playing fighting games since 1993, and have been playing Smash since the first game was released.

I didn't reach "competitive" level in any video game until 2002, when I entered the budding TeamLiquid Starcraft Brood War scene. I didn't reach "competitive" level in fighting games until 2008 when I dedicated several months to learn BlazBlue. And finally, I barely am entering "competitive" Smash today as I prepare myself for Xanadu weeklys.

If you hang around fighting games long enough, you suddenly end up in a position where you realize you have decades of experience. In any case, the competitive level in all games, from Chess, to Go, Shogi, Fighting games, Smash, Starcraft, League of Legends, Sports and Martial Arts... they all require years of effort.

Now, we can accelerate your learning. When I started video games, the "scene" didn't exist at all, and the internet also barely existed. It was basically impossible to discuss strategies or improve outside of sinking more and more quarters into arcade machines (against players who would never give you advice). Video Games were still looked as a strange fringe "Nerd" thingy that you kept private.

Today, you have the benefits of forums like Smashboards, where you are connected to hundreds of players who are willing to help you out... if you ask the right questions. I'm confident that in a period of months, a dedicated newbie can actually reach my level with all of the benefits of today's technology.

-------------------

If you really do wish to improve, please discuss your gameplan with us. Lucario is a fine character in my experience. But you'll need to communicate your experiences if you want any hope of getting a useful response from this community.



And if you're surrounded by players who are significantly better than you, you are in a significant learning advantage. You best improve when you can watch players live and discuss the game with them.

I honestly wish I was in your position, to be surrounded by players better than me. The stronger your peers are, the faster you can learn. Just keep playing with them, even subconciously you'll be improving.

Man, this whole post... I super-relate to this lol. Been playing Fighting games since the early 90's and classic SFII, playing 5$ matches against friends in SFEX+a and Tekken 3, but didn't even know what competitive really was til' I moved from MI to AZ in '05 for school. EVERYBODY in college was playing Tekken 5 (my main game), SF3TS, MvC2 and Smash. A few of us even sectioned off and played the KoF series hardcore.

Got introduced to local tourneys by friends of mine - one of which is still my training bro til this day - and had been playing Smash super-casually since the first game. I even remember for a good while being one of "those" guys that balked at Smash being a fighting game back then. Thankfully I learned pretty soon after that how silly that was.

Had to stop playing FG's even semi-competitively in '08 after graduation because I was barely making rent, didn't pick anything up seriously again until SSF4 and UMvC3 came out, and started going to tourneys again in 2011. Got addicted to SFxT and traveled for it in 2013-2014, and now picking up Smash and re-learning it from the competitive side of things.

And after all that, I'm still average as hell.

But, I look back and see the improvements I've made, and the fact I (mostly) understand frame data and how it works, as well as being able to actually talk about the genre I love and understand it as a whole rather than living by "well it looks safe".

When you're going through all of that, it doesn't seem like much and especially if you're going through stretches when you only seem to lose. Hell I go through that discussion at every tourney I go 1-2 or 0-2 in lol (in fact I had that same internal monologue of "wtf am I doing" this very weekend). But it really is about the small improvements and taking mental notes (or real ones!) on everything you learn from each match.

OP: I know I keep harping on looking back at matches, but its particularly useful here, especially since with Smash 4 you even have local recording, something most FGs to this point still don't have for some reason. Look back at your losses and even your wins, see what worked and what didn't. That doesn't require much more time commitment than anything else and you'll be better for it.

But as has also been said, if you're already of the mindset of "I don't have enough time or dedication to get good", then the point is already defeated really. A LOT of getting good at anything - but ESPECIALLY FGs - is mental. That's why you see some players who may even not be that experienced able to push forward and challenge the best at times.

(As a personal note, that's still my biggest problem. I have a very hard time fighting nerves and frustration during matches. Probably my worst enemy.)

 

[Saviorr]

Lets say Yoshi just running-USmashed against your Pikachu's shield. (not a power-shield, a normal one)

What is the best attack you can use to punish Yoshi? For damage? For Knockback potential? At what percentage and distance will you threaten a KO (important in Smash4, because stale-moves makes your KO moves weaker and weaker as you abuse them)?

Since when is yoshi's up smash safe on shield? A running up smash or running grab or shield grab would punish yoshi easily and around 80% pikachu's up smash combos into down b if you react to the opponent's di and same thing for an up throw at around 130%.

Also I would never SH dair on shield. That's just begging to be punished.

Repeat for every opponent. Even if we stick to "suspected top 10", that's a lot of matchup data to learn about. Learning matchup data alone will take you months to years. Each attack in the game, from each approach will have its own properties. Knowing the optimal strategy against each is along your path to mastery.

Then repeat for every secondary or tertiary you plan on picking up.

After learning the optimal counter-strategies, you then have to practice till you perform optimally in each situation. In frame-advantage situations (where you can't quite reliably punish), you need to know what your opponent's options are (back-roll, forward roll, spot-dodge, powershield), and practice responses that beat his responses.

I understand knowing the match ups is important but if you knew your character well enough wouldn't you just intuitively know what your options are in any given situation?

 

[dragontamer]

Since when is yoshi's up smash safe on shield? A running up smash or running grab or shield grab would punish yoshi easily and around 80% pikachu's up smash combos into down b if you react to the opponent's di and same thing for an up throw at around 130%.

I know it isn't safe. That's why I asked "what is the BEST punish". You listed roughly two different options. Running up-smash, Running Grab. Running Grab has 8-frames of startup, plus the running time. Up-Smash is 10 frames, plus the running time.

Pikachu's FSmash has range and 15-frames of startup. Is it quick enough to punish Yoshi's shielded USmash?

You see, when you play by intuition and just "experience", you never learn the optimal punish. Now I'm not a Pikachu player, but I do expect a ~10frame option to be the best counter-attack to Yoshi's USmash. So I do think Pikachu's running USmash is the best answer.

I don't know though. (Which is fine: I'm not trying to reach mastery with Pikachu). But the point of the question is to introduce you to the concept of optimization. What is the theoretical best play in the situation?

Then you need to know the theoretical best play in every situation before you're a master.

Also I would never SH dair on shield. That's just begging to be punished.

You never SH Dair on a shield. You SH Dair against grounded opponents who aren't expecting it. But then maybe you got out-read, and now Yoshi managed to shield your surprise attack.

In any case, you need to know the tradeoffs here. What is Yoshi's maximum punishment against your SH Dair?

Or, if you don't like thinking about situations you rarely put yourself in, then how about Yoshi's maximum punishment against Pikachu's SH Nair? Lets say you cross-up Yoshi with a SH Nair, so that Yoshi's Jab and Grab are locked out as options. Will Yoshi's backwards FTilt punish you before you recover?

I understand knowing the match ups is important but if you knew your character well enough wouldn't you just intuitively know what your options are in any given situation?

You'd know some options by instinct. But without study, you wouldn't know the best option. Yoshi is trapped for a certain number of frames after a shielded USmash, and it is somewhere between 10 and 20 frames. I don't think anyone really knows the cooldown frame-data of all attacks in the game yet, but this is important to knowing for sure what your maximum punishment can be.

There are plenty of options to punish Yoshi's USmash. The real question is, what is the BEST option? Learning the absolute best option in every situation is what takes years of study and practice.