Are mindgames only effective if your opponent is playing them as well?

[JPOBS]

Mindgames get a lot of hype around these boards, but i've been pondeirng if mind games only take real effect when both you and your opponent are playing them.

Anyone experienced enough to have a few mindgames probably is trying to calculate a great number of possibilities on a given situation. That said, the purpose of a mind game is to make your opponent misjudge on of those calculations. But what if your opponent isnt playing your little game? I'll give two examples.

the first is between my brother and I. i use advanced techniques, he doesnt, i try to use mindgames, he doesnt. i beat him consistantly but not without some difficulties. Sure he gets predictable (playing sheik, his common approach the dash attack -> any multitude of arial juggles) and i can spot dodge into a counter etc but regardless, playing sheik doesnt make it a easy task. Frankly, what should he care if if wasdash back, dashdance, wavedash forward, short hop over his dash attack->bair? as far as he's concerned, he just happened to "miss".

Another example i give is bombsoldier. BS seems quite content with beating the snot out of you as quickly and efficiently as possible. he doesnt bother with trying to outsmart you, he just gets the job done with constant pressure, and obviously its working. granted, we havent seen anythng out of BS in months/years so he could have changed his game but i'll rest my case with that/

So do you think mindgames are only/most effective if both parties are playing them? i tend to believe so.

 

[Anther]

You're not mindgaming right if shffling Nair's into his dash attack works every time works, so you decide change it up and start dashdancing and get hit by his dash attack. But at the same time its good to try everything so you can create a list of tendencies of your opponent.

You're trying to manipulate your opponent into doing something to your advantage. If everytime you SHL towards someone, they roll behind you, pick up on that. If you SHL and they jump right before you reach them, pick up on that. That's the nature of mindgames. Picking up their tendencies and capitalizing on them. General fakeout tactics and whatnot are good and all, but until you have a general idea of what your opponent is going to do, or how they react to your fakeouts, I wouldn't necessarily say they're being mindgame'd.

People without advanced techs have less options, thus for the most part you don't have to do as much to get around their attack patterns, as you should figure them out pretty quickly.

Mindgames aren't literally dashdancing, wding back and whatever. but wding back to avoid their attack because your opponent expects you to stand their and shield their attack is more along the lines of mindgames =p.

 

[Repryx]

No IF he thinks he happened to miss then It all works out even better for you! Mindgames can be luring your opponent into a certain pattern and pace then mixing it all up.

BS Doesnt use Mindgames and thats probably why Ken beat him. (Marth does well against predictables)

YOu may think they only work if the other person is trying to outsmart you as well but do this to your brother. Keep Dash Attacking (maybe 4 times in a row) and on the 5th time WD back (Or forward if he rolls back) and Fsmash. THAT is a mind game. It has NOTHING to do with the other person trying to out smart you...In fact If they are ismuch harder to perform mindgames on an opponent! SO maybe It just seems too easy to you.

All this means Mind games are easier to do on a non-mindgame doing opponent.

 

[Anther]

Bombsoldier obviously plays a mindless game and throws the same attack patterns at his opponents, overwhelming people with techskill, cause techskill > any thought put into the game.

 

[JPOBS]

Bombsoldier obviously plays a mindless game and throws the same attack patterns at his opponents, overwhelming people with techskill, cause techskill > any thought put into the game.

that might have been sarcasm but i couldnt tell.

by any means thats something i left out of my post. BS has amazing techskill. And again, i beat my brother not because i out think him but because i just have better tech skill plain and simple, and i'd agree that techskill is more important for the most part.

 

[JPOBS]

You're not mindgaming right if shffling Nair's into his dash attack works every time works, so you decide change it up and start dashdancing and get hit by his dash attack. But at the same time its good to try everything so you can create a list of tendencies of your opponent.

You're trying to manipulate your opponent into doing something to your advantage. If everytime you SHL towards someone, they roll behind you, pick up on that. If you SHL and they jump right before you reach them, pick up on that. That's the nature of mindgames. Picking up their tendencies and capitalizing on them. General fakeout tactics and whatnot are good and all, but until you have a general idea of what your opponent is going to do, or how they react to your fakeouts, I wouldn't necessarily say they're being mindgame'd.

People without advanced techs have less options, thus for the most part you don't have to do as much to get around their attack patterns, as you should figure them out pretty quickly.

Mindgames aren't literally dashdancing, wding back and whatever. but wding back to avoid their attack because your opponent expects you to stand their and shield their attack is more along the lines of mindgames =p.

yea i know i was just using that particular example.

He has a tendency to full/double jump to avoid my attack while im still in the invincibility frames after a death. I just rush him, anticipate the jump, dair->shine->whatever.

 

[TierWhore]

Just like to point out that Wobbles addresses this exact topic in his "Four Aspects of Smash" Topic. To paraphrase, he basically says that if you don't need to outthink or overthink, don't. If your opponent is falling for the same thing over and over again, keep doing what you're doing. The moment they switch it up, be prepared to switch it up as well. And Bombsoldier has plenty, plenty of mindgames, common misconception.

 

[AlphaZealot]

Umm, you realize that if he isn't thinking than you can get away with spamming a single tactic because he will never know how to get around it.

People are ALWAYS thinking, there is no way to get around it, this is a flawed question, and evne if it wasn't, just SHL him to death.

 

[RBinator]

In a nutshell, yes. It sounds like your brother is playing like a slightly more advanced CPU, in which he seems to be repeating the same failing tactics over and over. In a couple of replies I read it was said that you should mix it up although it sounds like the same thing is working over and over. Why mix it up when your foe isn't catching onto it? It seems like changing what you do against your brother when he goes for a dash would be like randomly changing winning tactics on a CPU. Maybe I'm missing the point here, but I don't see why mind games matter against those that are generally not that good to begin with and keep falling for the same tactics.

On the other hand, against anyone good that will catch on, then yes, mindgames will likely be pretty important, but then again, this is coming from someone who gets mindgame'd a lot. Against one of my friends, I'm basically in a state of almost always being read. If Bombsoldier does indeed have some mindgames, he sure seems to do a good job of hiding it with all the crazy tech skill and flat out ****** people into submission that he tends to do.

 

[Problem2]

don't ever do anything unnecessary. If your opponent doesn't even go for obvious holes, then trying to trick him won't do any good. You have to use mindgames that apply to your opponents level of play. Once he figures out the simple mindgames, you can start doing the more advanced ones.

 

[ShackDaddy]

mind games are like fake outs, so regardless if ur oppnent is using them, urs should be working(if they're good enough). If you run at them they will most likey attack or dodge, so if u stop and make them attack or dodge, u just caught them with a mindgame. Or you could just destroy your oppnent with no hope, ur choice.

 

[pdk]

if you want to see how well fakeouts can work on people who go for the obvious move every time, play some middle schoolers

but really now "mindgames" is thrown around on here extremely haphazardly; the way people use it as a super-general term for fakeouts, simple tricks (e.g. ledgehopping to attack), even elementary **** like dashdancing constantly, makes it so vague and pointless anymore that it's like every use of it is part of a big joke among SWF

 

[pikachun00b7]

BS has mindgames. Just PC has a hell of a lot more.

 

[RBinator]

This reminds me of a time I was at some guy's house and there was a newbie there who got Smash the day before. After some free-for-alls, we did some 1-on-1s, including against the newbie. Everyone except for one guy four (or five, don't remember) stocked the newbie. That one guy got down to his last stock because he was trying way too hard for some reason when everyone else didn't really do much. I remember not trying to trick the newbie and just doing basic tactics to win.

It's stuff like that which gets me thinking that mindgames is basically only a concept for more skilled players. Trying to trick or fake out newbies doesn't seem to do much good rather then just using a few simple winning tactics since even if they do catch on, what's the odds they will have the tech skills, tactics, and spacing to counter something what you're doing? So basically, even if you're not using mind games and the other guy knows exactly what you're going to do, but doesn't know how to counter it and still gets caught in it, is there really a point to mindgaming him out if he doesn't change to working tactics?