A thing.

[Cronos_Rainbow]

Some of you may know who I am, others will not. Regardless, going to leave a piece of advice here for you all. Take it or leave.

Looking at the Smash scene lately - something I've not done for a long time as I am now - one thing is very clear to me: A lot of people will never truly be good at Melee. Let me explain.

Seeing the boards, reddit, etc., I see a whole bunch of idolising going on. "press 1 for hungry box". "the kid" etc. In life, the people who do this stuff, I can tell you, will almost never be the people at the top of their field. It's fine to admire people, and to learn from them, but the moment you try to emulate them, you will never be anything more than a shadow. Idolising people the way so many players are only puts you in a mindset of being 'one of the others'.

This ties into 'the meta' (something I really despise). I remember when every Marth and his dog was going for 'Ken combos', because it was in 'the meta' at the time. I can tell you, there was no substitute for Ken at that stage. I remember Azen having a fierce Marth around the time, but it sure wasn't because he was good at 'the Ken combo', it was because he didn't buy into the fad, and played to his own strengths. When everyone was anxious about getting fair combo'd, Azen was charging f-smashes they would frantically run into like noobs.

I'm seeing the same crap happen in Melee more than ever. There are certain fads that are being blown out of proportion right now as if they were just added to the game - Yoshi (Amsa is great, but he isn't the first exceptional Yoshi - Fumi, Bringer etc.), Pikachu (same thing - there've been good Pika's; one from Japan I can't recall the name of years ago was beating top US players regularly while I was there; Cats beat Ken's Marth with Pikachu when he came here if anyone recalls etc.) drillshining being spoken of as if it isn't a 10+ year old thing, people are amazed when Mango uses Falco's f-tilt or d-smash as if they've just been patched into the game etc. etc..

My point is that you don't become the best by walking on paved paths. Try new things. Experiment. Be creative. Don't idolise people and emulate them. Analyse what they do well and learn from it, sure, but think of what you'd do differently, or how you'd punish someone trying to play like that person.

There's still things I can think of that I know are strong across many characters that people don't ever use, and it baffles me. Feel free to ask about this if you want, but more importantly try think of some on your own. You can have the best rock game of all time, but if you don't throw scissors every now and then, paper will beat you down until the cows come home.

I might just be coming across to some of you as some tool spouting ****, but to those of you who want to improve, take a moment to think on what I'm trying to get at with this. You never know, it might help!

 

[Splice]

There is advice here to be had but I don't think this is in anyway objective.
I can see when the way a player plays and talks about the game works for me (Dr. PP) and I think emulating what I can from him works best for me, while on the other hand I have a little book of mixups I've made up myself for different situations based on other peoples habits (regardless of whether they exist already, I have no clue). Sometimes it helps to be able to anchor your progress to a top level player though, because obviously they are doing something right and it saves a lot of work. I think that you can be a good player and get good through emulation.

I think people don't respect A tier characters enough in Melee, which is why Pika's and Yoshi's surprise people. These characters are in the same tier as Samus, and Samus is good. (Yoshi should be in A tier imo been saying this before I saw aMSa). Anyway people can definitely come off badly in my eyes when they are talking about these characters.

I think whether a player can get good or not is based on the things you skimmed over rather than your main points. People who naturally realise that they should think of different options in a situation, or think about what an opponent could do to beat their neutral game tactics and how they can overcome that, have a big advantage being competitive players and not plateauing at the game. I don't think idolising players or abiding by the meta really disadvantages you that much, but being able to evolve your own play on your own for where you at is certainly advantage over only being able to wait for the next time Mango wins EVO to fap to some Fox vids.

Advice from others will always be useful, but there's a point where a player needs to be able to understand the game on that deep level for him/herself without having it told to them, and that doesn't come easily for everyone. Additionally, discipline in listening to others and practicing is important if you wanted to get good at anything else, yet this discipline is lacking among gamers and I believe this is because gaming is at some point for everyone a purely leisure activity whereas learning an instrument usually begins with crying.

 

[1ampercent]

Very informative post, in fact, the amount of idolising/emulation and lack of self creativity/experimenting happens in other competitive games too, and I've pretty much felt the same way, like an outclass being 'anti-meta' (not as much in smash). I despise the 20XX meme (Fox is good, but it's been blown out of proportion), but fortunately from my experience it isn't that much of a fad over here.

 

[woodsta]

It's probably not the case that anyone has much to say about Melee that the top players haven't already considered, so it's a fair benchmark to try to get to a good level of understanding of THEIR play before trying to innovate, as 13 years on, innovation at a low level is essentially reinventing the wheel (and probably going through a bunch of really really ****ty options the hard way).

Not saying the game is figured out, I don't think it is

 

[Cronos_Rainbow]

Please don't mistake me. This is not a post on how to be ok at the game. This is about being truly good - as in winning tournaments at national level good. 'Anchoring your progress' to a top level player, unless you're directly measuring your effort by results against them is still just accepting a place beneath the best. Some people are genuinely ok with that - and I'm ok with them being ok with that. If mediocrity is someone's thing, and they just find fun in coming and doing what they do, I am not here to judge.

I'm sure top players have considered a great many thing. That's why they're top players, after all. They know the game so well because very often they've done the hard yards. They have considered things that aren't regularly employed. They've dabbled in different characters, which helps highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the more popular ones. It also helps to understand why a particular technique or approach is utilised as it currently is by recognising its strengths in the scenario rather than doing it because that's how everyone does things.

As I mentioned, you might see all of this as me spouting ****, but I'm doing so in the hope it might benefit some of you. It's the mindset of champions that makes them champions - there's always another guy with that level of tech skill or right pool of characters. I've never been world champion (few have), but I've been high enough up the pyramid that I feel it worthwhile giving you all some idea what the view is like looking down. Cheers.

 

[CAOTIC]

http://smashboards.com/threads/how-to-get-good-the-good-way.314953/

 

[Cronos_Rainbow]

^ Haven't got time to read over it all now, but at a glance this all seems solid enough. There's one more thing Syke left out that applies heavily to himself "rig the brackets in your favour" - lol Syke.

Thanks for linking Caotique!

 

[CAOTIC]

Yeah I feel your advice succeeds Syke's once players gain their fundamentals. No point in being creative if you don't first know how to use your tools.