Why isn't the best option always the best thing to do?

[L33thal]

Everyone always says this, but when I'm playing I always subconsciously think, "Why not do the best option every single time? If a set of moves have high priority, good spacing, and are hard to punish, then why not do it?"

I mean I get that you have to mix it up and try not to be predictable, but with characters that are hard to punish if they play perfectly like Fox, Falco, and Marth, is it that bad to be predictable?

 

[EPsilon933]

There are no perfect strategies. Every action you do has a weakness. Don't always have the same weaknesses. Your opponent will know how to counter you always

Also, "if they play perfectly". Humans can't do that. We also can't perfectly predict the opponents' options all the time. We're going to guess wrong sometime

 

[Bones0]

As long as the opponent can't stop you, by all means keep abusing the "best" option. Just be prepared for the predictability that comes with that approach. I don't mind my opponent predicting me rolling from the ledge for an edgehog as long as that option covers everything. If I ledgedash with invul and the opponent never punishes me, I'll keep doing that as well. Just base your options on in-game results and you'll get a feel for what strategies need to mixed up and when you should switch it up.

 

[The Prince: SDJ]

Everyone always says this, but when I'm playing I always subconsciously think, "Why not do the best option every single time? If a set of moves have high priority, good spacing, and are hard to punish, then why not do it?"

I mean I get that you have to mix it up and try not to be predictable, but with characters that are hard to punish if they play perfectly like Fox, Falco, and Marth, is it that bad to be predictable?

The Key word in your statement is hard to punish, not impossible. If you do the same hard to punish option every time then you become predictable allowing your opponent to punish your usually safe option.

 

[Zone]

Tell me a "safe move" and I'll show you a counter.

Things are made safe through conditioning or using tools that are safe because it requires your opponent to take a risk to counter it. But too predictable and you'll eventually eat a hard punish.

 

[VegiLohrd]

The "best" option is completely relative. What makes the most sense to do on paper or in practice might be something that you can't do in a real match consistently. I think in the documentary for example that it's said that the best way to beat m2k is to throw out things that shouldn't work because since he knows the best way to counter most situations he won't know what to do about it.

 

[Deleted member]

I mean I get that you have to mix it up and try not to be predictable, but with characters that are hard to punish if they play perfectly like Fox, Falco, and Marth, is it that bad to be predictable?

no, it's not. it's perfectly acceptable and encouraged to always pick the best option.

i wrote about this extensively in my guide "drastic improvement" in this forum, i suggest you read that as well.

edit: zone tell me how to counter waiting

throwing out things that dont actually work vs m2k might be the worst advice in smash history

 

[Zone]

no, it's not. it's perfectly acceptable and encouraged to always pick the best option.

i wrote about this extensively in my guide "drastic improvement" in this forum, i suggest you read that as well.

edit: zone tell me how to counter waiting

throwing out things that dont actually work vs m2k might be the worst advice in smash history

Specify waiting, do you mean edge camping? Dash dancing?

Just standing there....

No matter what option you choose there is a counter otherwise this game would be a wait fest when you get a lead and victory assured.

But that's not the case though. There are optimal options, where you leave the least openings like late nair, shine, early retreat nair. But even that option is vulnerable at the start because you're delaying your original nair. It's optimal to check how they react when you close space, while maintaining safest route


You need a more non-general explanation than "waiting"

 

[The Star King]

no, it's not. it's perfectly acceptable and encouraged to always pick the best option.

I would suggest you read this:

http://www.sirlin.net/articles/rock-paper-scissors-in-strategy-games.html

Suggesting you should always pick the best option is akin to saying you should always pick the same option in a weighted RPS game.

And you can't always beat your opponent's option (though it depends on the action they take) by waiting, because of human reaction time limits.

 

[Deleted member]

waiting in smash is the preservation of your options prior to dedicating your character to an action, waiting is really broken in both the neutral game and the punishment game for resets because it significantly more likely ensures the desired outcome at a very discounted cost. i guess that conversation can be saved for a different thread, but the short version is that nothing beats it other than going for surprises, which are generally pretty bad if the opponent uses good positioning in tandem with waiting.

i've read all of sirlin's articles and i've disagreed with a few points of his in the past. a weighted RPS game simply changes how the "best decision" is decided, although i assure you that you could use some kind of data mapping and trending to determine an objectively best decision between the three and win out on it in the long run as a numbers game (in the early days of melee for example, you could argue that the fox-sheik-marth game had a skew towards marth winning over the other two). however this is a pretty poor example, since you can win 7 rounds and lose 2 and still not reach the desired result in a tournament, so playing the numbers game in the long run is not favorable for a bracket. also, both players are prone to mistakes in determining the best option, so all you have to do is be relatively better than your opponent at it and perfection is not required.

i would posit that it is also why all of our best players atm play very linear and automatic, as opposed to clearly adaptive. it's very easy to find top player sets where both player use roughly the same tactics for the entire set or tournament regardless of whether they are winning or losing, but it is much harder to find a real set where you can tell that a top player adapted in some way (ek vs amsah was ek playing terrible for the 2nd half of the match and just throwing out blind fsmashes, which is a mal-adaptation on his part more than it was an adaptation for amsah, which is the closest exammple i can think of off-hand). i would think that this reinforces the idea of always using the best option, but i'm not ready to go there just yet.

 

[Zone]

Eh you're still being too general.

Hard to tell you a counter to something so broad.

You can close space if they're dash dancing and play the footsies game.

You sound like you're saying you have to commit to offense when they wait when it's not true. You can use movement to feint approaches, which can get them to either lose space to move in, or open them up to try to retaliate. You can also place moves out of their range to bait their approach. But just barely or they won't bite.

Plenty if safe-like answers that don't require you to fully commit every time.

 

[1MachGO]

@ Zone , I am not sure if you understand what Umbreon means by "waiting". Waiting =/= literally standing there (at least in the sense Umbreon is implying). It means to hold off from acting when the threat of your action is readily available.

A perfect example would be one of the infamous times Mango has dashdanced next to his opponent while they are shielding. Mango has the opportunity to shield pressure w/ shine + aerials, go for a grab, etc. but deliberately holds off from it because the threat is just as effective; why commit when you can cover the inevitable OoS option brought upon by the gradually depleting shield?

In this sense, there are few counters to waiting once you've established some kind of threat. The best way to defeat it would be some kind of preemptive response, or, as Umbreon said, "surprises".

 

[Zone]

I know what he means, that was a joke. I just wanted a specific safe move you should always be using

 

[AceMan]

While it is good to do the best option available, it's predictable and the opponent will counteract your near perfect play so every now and then try to mix it up.