Would playing casually affect how I do in serious matches??

[Isaac4]

I love playing under competitive rulesets but sometimes my friends wanna play 8 player smash and stuff which I'm cool with cause it's chaotic but I don't want to develop any bad habits because of it. Will playing casually actually make me develop any bad habits??

 

[Xelrog]

It's basically a different game. If playing some Street Fighter from time to time won't make you develop bad Smash habits, then neither will playing Smash the party game.

 

[Luigifan18]

It's basically a different game. If playing some Street Fighter from time to time won't make you develop bad Smash habits, then neither will playing Smash the party game.

Yeah, I concur with this. While the most fundamental skills and techniques (such as short hopping, teching, recovering, etc.) are equally applicable to "competitive" Smash (1v1/2v2, stock only, no items, no hazards, tightly constrained stage layouts) and "casual" Smash (free-for-all, any mode, items on, hazards on, any stage), due to both being fundamentally the same game, the differences in the settings mean that success hinges on wildly different skills and tactics. Competitive Smash hinges on watching, predicting, and outplaying your opponent, surpassing mere reaction in order to respond to what the opponent is about to do rather than what they’re currently doing; however, mindgames are much less practical in casual Smash due to substantially more stuff going on at any given time, so you have to watch everything on the screen at once and rapidly react to adapt to whatever is currently happening to come out on top.