What can I do to train someone in Smash 4?

[DarthGogeta]

Hello to anyone who's watching.

My sister is starting to get a lot better in Smash Bros., and she keeps getting better the more we play. I want to train her so that we can do tag team tournaments (If I can find any on Smashboards, since there's a whole ton of 'em), but...

She's reluctant to play with me because I win too much against her and against my friends. So much so that they really don't like playing with me. I didn't realize that winning can be such a pain in the butt, especially since my best character is and it's a turnoff for ANY of my friends at that point.

So how do I train someone who's a few steps below my skill level? I don't want to sound like I'm bragging or anything, but I want us both to become better and the first step is to train my little sister.

 

[Soup's On!]

Well, losing a lot CAN be pretty frustrating - when I played with friends in Melee I tended to be "the winner" too. I think the first big question is making sure she actually wants to go for it: you can't train somebody to get better and play competitively if that's not what they pick up the controller for in the first place.

Especially for a competitive game, it can be a little easy to sound pushy or elitist when suggesting major changes in the interest of "improving". A friend liked playing as a low-tier character, I suggested some alternatives, they wanted to stick with what they liked. That was the end of it, never brought up again, and I set off to play and help them be the best they could be.

Observe. Observe what she does in matches. That alone will tell you what needs to be taught. Share your own observations - you have more experience and lot going on in your mind, and you have reason to do the things that you do. Point out how you can punish certain actions, how you're spacing yourself, the excellent little move she did just there, how she doesn't seem to be using a certain technique. Narrate mid-fight, even.

Any of these little things you point out can be fleshed out into a whole little lesson on their own. When playing with friends, we'd frequently completely derail what were casual battles to start "sandboxing" - how good WAS that combo, anyway? Is it escapable? Easily punished? Let's play around and work it out. Oh, you didn't know about that tech at all, well let me show you and let's drill it a little.

She's reluctant because you win a lot? There's a starting point and a target to shoot for: let's learn how to beat me. Study yourself, point out your own mistakes and when you can be punished. Highlight your habits and how they can be exploited. Go over the matchup. Prove your mortality.

There's no real good curriculum for it, as far as I'm aware. But improving is all about weak points - weak points your superior experience will let you better be able to point out and help to correct. Everything else falls into place from there.

Oh, and have some fun with it. You're playing video games with your little sister. That rules.

 

[DarthGogeta]

Wow, thanks for the advice! Maybe my friends will learn something too from my boys with that kind of mindset. If all goes well with the training, we might even win a small tourney!

(...I have a lot of characters to use...)

 

[Akira213]

Hello to anyone who's watching.

My sister is starting to get a lot better in Smash Bros., and she keeps getting better the more we play. I want to train her so that we can do tag team tournaments (If I can find any on Smashboards, since there's a whole ton of 'em), but...

She's reluctant to play with me because I win too much against her and against my friends. So much so that they really don't like playing with me. I didn't realize that winning can be such a pain in the butt, especially since my best character is and it's a turnoff for ANY of my friends at that point.

So how do I train someone who's a few steps below my skill level? I don't want to sound like I'm bragging or anything, but I want us both to become better and the first step is to train my little sister.

If a person isn't willing to lose several times when they first start learning to play a game on a competitive level than the impetus is on them to change that. When my friend first introduced me to Street Fighter it was several dozen matches before I could take a round off him and several dozen more before I managed to scrape out a single match win. And when I introduce one of my friends to Counter-Strike they have trouble keeping up because they don't have the thousands of hours that I do. Smash doesn't have as steep a learning curve of either of those games, but the same principal applies.

tl;dr
Tell her to git gud

 

[DarthGogeta]

If a person isn't willing to lose several times when they first start learning to play a game on a competitive level than the impetus is on them to change that.

Yeah, I used to be like that too, when I was a little kid playing Tekken 5 with my Dad. It really sucked but now I can win against him. My sister just needs a little push and she'll improve. The other guy has a good idea that I should've started a while ago. She'll learn over time like she always does; she's freakin' smart.

For starters, she mains Sheik. Will some mirror matches help to give her some tips? I'm pretty fluent with Sheik myself but I need to get used to her more, as well.

 

[Roukiske]

Uh... first and foremost I would make sure she is okay with wanting to take time out of her day to become a better player and actually want to go to these tournaments you speak of. I'm just throwing that out there since we're nice people and look out for one another on here. No sense in doing something you don't want to do (unless she's doing it for you because you're awesome big bro and she wuvs you).

This game is all about playing smart, because you can certainly play it dumb. What I mean by that is, if you are open for punishment and she does something like... down-tilt when she could have forward smashed for a KO (I'm just guessing here, I don't play Shiek), then that's something you would probably let her know to do. If she does forward smash and KO you there should definitely be some positive reaction to it like a head nod, as that really goes a long way. Doing random moves that are not safe? Definitely don't encourage those. I'd say those are the first steps for new players after they learn their basic fundamentals.