joejoe22802
Smash Ace
- Joined
- Jun 28, 2005
- Messages
- 873
So take what you will from this, this is just a very personal perspective on somethings.
Heres a little quote to start things off.
Culture patterns which, after having reached what would seem to be a definitive form, nonetheless fail either to stabilize or transform themselve into a new pattern but rather continue to develop by becoming internally more complicated.
^_ This game is not unilinear and if you play it that way, you will lose.
In order to get good at this game, one must play this game, watch this game played, and think about this game.
Playing
The most important part of getting better, especially when you start is to simply play. This will help you gain confidence in how your character works. (O yeah choose a character and stick to it because characters are very specific and mixing them together when you aren’t already really good will muddy up your approach)
While playing the game, one must be aware of why they are playing. Huge differences exist in between playing computers, friendlies, and competitive matches.
Computers are great for practicing technical skill and pretty much useless for other things. Understand this and just use them to run drills.
Friendlies are your time to experiment. I say experiment because you are able to change one variable (how your play) and see how your opponent responds. This teaches one what doesn’t ever work and also what works when. It is important to note that the goal of these matches in not to win. If you are so prideful that you gotta win every match, you’re slowing yourself down. Try out different things playing offensive or defensive, pressure or bait, whatever you want.
In competitive matches you are in this interaction similar to a conversation. You do something and your opponent gives you feedback in the form of reaction. Using this observation and your past experience from playing friendlies, choose the appropriate option (unless you only play in a linear way all the time and don’t have answers because of it…….)
Another key concept about playing is having a plan. It is very hard to freestyle a whole match, especially in unfamiliar matchups. (If you only get to play with fast fallers at home, you might go to a tournament just to end up getting spanked by a marth, samus, peach blah blah blah) A good way to do this is to read match ups online. Another reason we need to have a plan is because it will teach you what is wrong. If you isolate concepts and perform them, you can learn what didn’t work. When you just go into with a general goal of winning, it becomes much harder to keep tract of what didn’t work.
Watching
Next up we observe how to watch the game
It is important to understand the difference in what you’re watching similar to how I explained approaching playing the game.
I don’t really watch combo videos anymore but it mainly gets your creative juices going. It also shows you what combos work in specific situations. It must be noted that DI can be wrong and that people might give their lives for certain combos. But I believe it’s equally as important to know that these things can still happen in tournament matches.
Next we have Tournament videos.
When we watch high level games with all the familiar faces, we can see a clear distinction in playing. There is much less slop and players general play very efficiently, only doing what they need to do (at least in today’s metagame). These players are also generally resolute in how they approach things. This will give you a very good example to learn from
When watching semi pro/ lower level matches, you can develop a catalog of commonly made mistakes. I believe some good check points to look for when watching and also when playing includes recovery, recovery from ledge, and actions after throws. Of course this is just a start.
Thinking about the game
It is very important to think about the game outside of the time actually spent playing.
There is a huge amount of information on smashboards. Some good ones to hit up include the DI thread, of course match up stuff, and lunin’s spacing thing.
Recently I’ve been using the search function to cross reference information. I search character (A) in character (B) melee section and then character (B) in character (A) section. In this case I am character A. What this does is gives me a insight on what I’m trying to do and what the other character is trying to do to me.
So I’ve been playing this game for a while and I’d like to explain some ways I tend to break down the game.
When you’re in a position to punish someone you should position yourself in the position that will eliminate the most options. This is throw around a lot but I’d like to break down an example. Say you down throw a falco as sheik. If you position your self a good character space away from the falco. You can turn around grab to get the tech inward. Run forward to grab the get up, get up attack or tech, and run straight with a dash attack to get the tech away. It is really good to break down situations like this.
Later I plan on breaking down more theoretical aspects of how I think the game is played and explain some mental aspects.
Heres a little quote to start things off.
Culture patterns which, after having reached what would seem to be a definitive form, nonetheless fail either to stabilize or transform themselve into a new pattern but rather continue to develop by becoming internally more complicated.
^_ This game is not unilinear and if you play it that way, you will lose.
In order to get good at this game, one must play this game, watch this game played, and think about this game.
Playing
The most important part of getting better, especially when you start is to simply play. This will help you gain confidence in how your character works. (O yeah choose a character and stick to it because characters are very specific and mixing them together when you aren’t already really good will muddy up your approach)
While playing the game, one must be aware of why they are playing. Huge differences exist in between playing computers, friendlies, and competitive matches.
Computers are great for practicing technical skill and pretty much useless for other things. Understand this and just use them to run drills.
Friendlies are your time to experiment. I say experiment because you are able to change one variable (how your play) and see how your opponent responds. This teaches one what doesn’t ever work and also what works when. It is important to note that the goal of these matches in not to win. If you are so prideful that you gotta win every match, you’re slowing yourself down. Try out different things playing offensive or defensive, pressure or bait, whatever you want.
In competitive matches you are in this interaction similar to a conversation. You do something and your opponent gives you feedback in the form of reaction. Using this observation and your past experience from playing friendlies, choose the appropriate option (unless you only play in a linear way all the time and don’t have answers because of it…….)
Another key concept about playing is having a plan. It is very hard to freestyle a whole match, especially in unfamiliar matchups. (If you only get to play with fast fallers at home, you might go to a tournament just to end up getting spanked by a marth, samus, peach blah blah blah) A good way to do this is to read match ups online. Another reason we need to have a plan is because it will teach you what is wrong. If you isolate concepts and perform them, you can learn what didn’t work. When you just go into with a general goal of winning, it becomes much harder to keep tract of what didn’t work.
Watching
Next up we observe how to watch the game
It is important to understand the difference in what you’re watching similar to how I explained approaching playing the game.
I don’t really watch combo videos anymore but it mainly gets your creative juices going. It also shows you what combos work in specific situations. It must be noted that DI can be wrong and that people might give their lives for certain combos. But I believe it’s equally as important to know that these things can still happen in tournament matches.
Next we have Tournament videos.
When we watch high level games with all the familiar faces, we can see a clear distinction in playing. There is much less slop and players general play very efficiently, only doing what they need to do (at least in today’s metagame). These players are also generally resolute in how they approach things. This will give you a very good example to learn from
When watching semi pro/ lower level matches, you can develop a catalog of commonly made mistakes. I believe some good check points to look for when watching and also when playing includes recovery, recovery from ledge, and actions after throws. Of course this is just a start.
Thinking about the game
It is very important to think about the game outside of the time actually spent playing.
There is a huge amount of information on smashboards. Some good ones to hit up include the DI thread, of course match up stuff, and lunin’s spacing thing.
Recently I’ve been using the search function to cross reference information. I search character (A) in character (B) melee section and then character (B) in character (A) section. In this case I am character A. What this does is gives me a insight on what I’m trying to do and what the other character is trying to do to me.
So I’ve been playing this game for a while and I’d like to explain some ways I tend to break down the game.
When you’re in a position to punish someone you should position yourself in the position that will eliminate the most options. This is throw around a lot but I’d like to break down an example. Say you down throw a falco as sheik. If you position your self a good character space away from the falco. You can turn around grab to get the tech inward. Run forward to grab the get up, get up attack or tech, and run straight with a dash attack to get the tech away. It is really good to break down situations like this.
Later I plan on breaking down more theoretical aspects of how I think the game is played and explain some mental aspects.
