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^^^^^ This so much. People struggle to use the mental strength to play seriously constantly. So they just john and mess around in non-tourney matches.
It's pretty sad that most players in brawl are like this. It's a poison that has infected most smashers.
If it's not a mm or tourney match people won't try. It really just shows their own weakness. I mean u don't have to go all out but playing stupidly is dumb when u could be getting better.
what americans call "practice" is when theyre actually playing in a tourney match. hell when i started playing my only real way to play serious and get better was in tourney matches. in the beginning i was denied real matches during non tourney matches because i was considered a 2nd class player, thus resulting in haphazard results in bracket for me. and to this day i still troll/sandbag in BOTH non and real tourney matches because the will in me to out play my opponent has vanished OR is that my american excuse for my loss. has the beginning of my smash training altered my way of thinking today?
This is the only part of your post I 100% agree with Seibrik.
It's not the stages, it's not because they didn't try to use gay gimmicks or gay tactics to beat us like we adopted. They used their SKILLS, all of it from poking, zoning, camping, punishing, reading.
I've been watching the recorded matches of each of them over and over. From when they lost and when they won and their poking and zoning were huge factors, also match up knowledge.
M2K vs Ocean, Ocean vs DeLux and even the friendlies that Otori did against M2K are very prime examples.
Ocean on Delfino got timed out, but it wasn't like neither character were in killing percent. The way he was positioned and how he handled his gyro, and was shooting his lasers, by going under the stage shooting them to having the gyro near the edge and repeating, and slightly moving back and forth hardly moving from his spot. Containing a certain area of the stage was helping him out a lot, not just M2K running into nairs. He showed he knew what to do in certain parts of the match up.
His set against DeLux, he played it differently he stayed away from the ice climbers using his up-b and nair to stall in the air until their invincibility wore off so he can get a safe shield poke. He a played very strong air game against the ICs making them chase him while he threw aerials out, and shot them with gyros and lasers if DeLux tried to roll away.
Yes they play on SD, BF and SV a lot, and probably have clocked in a lot of hours, but they also are more focused on winning than anything else. When they play they take each stock as and think about what happen if they die, I noticed it whenever Nietono got killed, he would put his head down wait a bit before dropping down and start to fight again.
All in all we need to work on our pokes, come up with different situations be a bit more creative with our play style if we want to get better. It's nice to adopt certain styles, but mix it in with your own instead of trying to be the same MK you saw on stream or in tourney.
We know the techs, we know what the japanese know cause they post it on their youtube channels all the time but a lot of times we brush them off and say they aren't useful before trying them in tournament or other matches.
I agree that their fundamentals are superior, but not necessarily because of the stage list or ruleset. They simply have a more refined style of playing the game because they'll dedicate the same amount of time to perfecting their basics as Americans will on mastering gimmicks, and then some. I highly doubt that learning (or even mastering) the 7-10 extra stages we've allowed for FOUR YEARS has really been such a factor.
Their level of dedication far exceeds ours, and it shows. The Japanese aren't daunted by the long hours of practicing even the simplest of aspects of a character and making sure there are no gaps in their execution. They've even shown to be committed to learning more advanced "gimmicks" than us, such as platform drop canceling Shuttle Loop and the banana footstool infinites.
This is very true and important. Ally can beat 9B and Otori [just not with his MK] and so can Mew2King in good shape, Anti can beat Nietono for sure and we've already seen Nairo doing it as well.
It strikes me as really odd how people start to exaggerate things in the wrong direction - just because people are shocked that Japan has proven itself to be better than North America doesn't mean that people should lose their heads about the issue. Japan is better but it's not like "omg Japan is so much better than USA HOLY ****". The truth is that all of the things that are better about the way Japan runs its tourneys lead to the same outcome: that the Japanese have a more constructive mental approach to the game. This s where they really excel - may it be their will to practice, or their ability to stay calm and open minded while playing. This is the whole reason why Japan is currently better than the USA, they don't play on a "whole other level". They do exactly the things everybody else does - they've just learned to do it a little better.
Edit: GIMR also raises a good point [that ultimately leads to my conclusion too] but the "they play for honor" part is straight up BS. But the fact that they don't play for money helps in another way: not only does it not distort their competition, it also allows for "scrubby" side events. A Brawl tournament can be the greatest fun in the world if you run a FFA tourney next to the regular singles competition - but you can't get that for money. If tourneys are fun then more people will continue to attend them. Why do you think monthly tourneys in the Osaka area regularly hit between 60 and 100 entrants?
This is the only part of your post I 100% agree with Seibrik.
It's not the stages, it's not because they didn't try to use gay gimmicks or gay tactics to beat us like we adopted. They used their SKILLS, all of it from poking, zoning, camping, punishing, reading.
I've been watching the recorded matches of each of them over and over. From when they lost and when they won and their poking and zoning were huge factors, also match up knowledge.
M2K vs Ocean, Ocean vs DeLux and even the friendlies that Otori did against M2K are very prime examples.
Ocean on Delfino got timed out, but it wasn't like neither character were in killing percent. The way he was positioned and how he handled his gyro, and was shooting his lasers, by going under the stage shooting them to having the gyro near the edge and repeating, and slightly moving back and forth hardly moving from his spot. Containing a certain area of the stage was helping him out a lot, not just M2K running into nairs. He showed he knew what to do in certain parts of the match up.
His set against DeLux, he played it differently he stayed away from the ice climbers using his up-b and nair to stall in the air until their invincibility wore off so he can get a safe shield poke. He a played very strong air game against the ICs making them chase him while he threw aerials out, and shot them with gyros and lasers if DeLux tried to roll away.
Yes they play on SD, BF and SV a lot, and probably have clocked in a lot of hours, but they also are more focused on winning than anything else. When they play they take each stock as and think about what happen if they die, I noticed it whenever Nietono got killed, he would put his head down wait a bit before dropping down and start to fight again.
All in all we need to work on our pokes, come up with different situations be a bit more creative with our play style if we want to get better. It's nice to adopt certain styles, but mix it in with your own instead of trying to be the same MK you saw on stream or in tourney.
We know the techs, we know what the japanese know cause they post it on their youtube channels all the time but a lot of times we brush them off and say they aren't useful before trying them in tournament or other matches.
I think these posts explain my thoughts perfectly.
It's nice that Japan won Apex, and we want to see what we can learn from them, but we do not have to adopt their stage list or change any of our rules to do so. By changing our stagelist, we won't automatically learn what to do against our opponent. We have to do that by analyzing all sorts of things about our characters, mindsets, and strategies. It's cool that you'd like to practice it on stages that don't interfere, but that does not and should nothave to extent to tournament sets. We aren't getting better by restricting ourselves even more.
Honestly, I think it's just the culture. The way they approach things like competitive video games are different from how we approach them. Take Street Fighter, for example. The scene in Japan isn't particularly huge. And I'm sure there are more frequent tournaments in North America. But players like Daigo practice 12 hours a day, every day. Hardcore dedication. I'm sure Ocean, Nietono, Otori and the other Japanese Brawl players approach the game the same way.
I beat Daigo in tournament in Street Fighter Third Strike back in 2002 in Japan in a Ranbat. Is it because I am a better player? Is it because I'm american and not japanse? No.
You are bound to make a mistake or to make a misplay and he did. It cost him the entire set and we shook hands. They didn't a "Oh that american beat you! How are we going to remedy this!?" argument afterwards either. I think we're over-pushing the issue here.
You have a choice. Either you win or you lose...HOW you choose to do either option... that is completely up to you. It's all about YOU. It's not the stages fault, it's your fault for not using the stages more effectively to your advantage. You as a player, it's your responsibility to learn how to use the character you play as....and learn everything you possibly can.
The important part of any defeat is to learn why you lost.
Learning and adaptation is the key to any victory.
We may have different rule settings but the fundamentals are ALL the same.
Even though I'm not from the U.S I agree 100% with this. Everyone needs to start focusing on their skills not on stage gimicks. While on the subject I do think Frigate should be banned for that stupid flip thing.
Not really, I can get around the stage flip pretty easy. Its just that I would rather not have to worry about it and instead worry about beating my oppenent.
You know what I cant get over... that people are surprised that Asians beat them at a video game. Do you guys live under a rock or what. Change your ruleset all you want... dont expect results to occur like, ever. If you want to match them in skill, pack up your stuff and move to japan where their culture actually supports getting better, over playing to take fellow gamer's money.
Mew2King didn't know how to play against ROB. Watch how many times he challenged neutral A alone. :I
But yeah, Japan > Us, we're too focused on counterpicking, counterpicking is a handicap for the loser. Just use the japanese ruleset for a year and let's get our money and our pride back from japan plskthx.
It was obvious that M2K didn't know the match up, Ocean did and the game still went down to the wire. We don't need to use the Japanese rule set, just need to actually sit down, focus and improve. **** the money.
I discussed this point of view from a learning psychology point of view in the other thread. I've been doing this kind of thing for 2.5 years, if any of you need some kind of validation of the opinion. (Call me critical, but players tend not to listen to someone who hasn't won a national...)
In smash we have three basic things to think about:
Yourself This is how you control your character, any applicable techniques you may need to learn, and the practice it takes to make this all fluid.
Your Opponent This includes match up knowledge, reads + responses, and even some player-specific knowledge if necessary.
The Stages This includes stage gimmicks, match up altering counterpicks, and character-specific weakness (which would be covered by a stage ban).
Psychologically, we can scaffold knowledge better if we reduce the amount of information we have to think about at once. In mathematics, students have an easy time figuring out 2 variable problems, but 3 variable problems go right over their heads. When the 3rd variable gets thrown in, human beings simply lose their ability to intuitively figure out the appropriate interactions.
So, we need to reduce how much we think about at once. In this case, it's the stage list. Of the three big things there, the stages are the easiest to reduce. The knowledge gained from gameplay on the big three can be transferred to other stages. One example I saw the Japanese use were the Shuttle Loop cancel mechanics used on Smashville. Those were taken over to Frigate at one point, for interesting ledge play near the left side of the first transformation.
I could go on about this forever...
Here, have a collapse tag with the other posts in them.
I got bored about about page 10, but I have an interesting point to bring up.
Did anyone else find it curious that Japan managed to adjust to stages that they do not see regularly in tournament? Oh sure they probably put some practice in on each, but we've got years on them, so going to Frigate should be the best idea ever, right? Right? (Not against Olimar it's not... lol purples).
If you guys didn't already know, I do a bit of education research and that involves some cognitive psychology. I'll probably mix up my terms here and there, but the point that follows still stands:
We should adapt Japan's stage list. If we do so, our skill on stages outside the big 3 will improve.
Wait... so not playing on the stages will make us better... right? Yes. People learn better under truncated (simplified) conditions. In chemistry, you learn the Bohr model of the atom (electrons like planets) before you learn about proper orbitals. In Smash, a smaller stage set will allow players to concentrate more on the skills required to control your character as opposed to the gimmicks present on a moving stage. When the movement, damage, and gimmick factors are removed, we will be forced to face the problems that we try to avoid via these stage traits. They will be slowly overcome through perseverance and training.
This will work because with less factors to consider, you will be within the zone of proximital development. This is a term that is used to describe the range of cognitive stress one can survive under when learning. If I play a set with M2K (and I have. And I got whopped), I won't learn much because everything is going WAY TOO FAST. This means that the match itself is outside my zone of proximital development.
The concept works with stage gimicks too. If I have to consider whatever it is M2K is doing to me AND all the funny tricks that are present in playing a match on Brinstar or Rainbow Cruise, then I have even less of a chance of learning something significant. So I have to reduce the 'stress' on my brain.
The correct response to this problem is a simplified system
In the end, I believe that the implementation a Japanese stage set (BF, FD, SV) will greatly benefit our community via the simplification of our competitive system. Do this, and our character control and knowledge will rise to the challenge when the Japanese decide to fly their very best over to hand us our egos on a silver platter once again.
It's the phenomena of applying previously attained knowledge to new conditions. Once players attain mastery of the big 3 stages, they'll be capable of utilizing their skills on other stages. A good example is the level of play displayed by Japanese MK's on Frigate. Did anyone else notice that they applied their BF/SV platform cancelling techniques to the part 1 transformation? It was pretty impressive, and fairly instrumental to their victories. The same could be said for their Olimars on Frigate and Yoshi's Island with respect to their use of platforms to limit overhead options.
When a high enough level of mastery is attained, transfer of skills to other environments becomes readily accessible. This set of high level movement skills will trump most stage gimmicks... but they are overshadowed by said gimmicks when everything is thrown into the mix at once. So my previous point is finally wrapped up here:
Mastering character skills and stage control skills on the big 3 will extend to play on other stages. Our stage skills will not diminish with a change in the rule set.
I think the point that hits home is the last quote in the collapse tags. The japanese seemed better at using our counterpicks than we did, and weve been using them for years.
Aren't you jumping to conclusions here? The stages and the counterpick system are the only factors that make the Japanese better? I think we need to look closer at Japanese tournaments, the Japanese players and how they play and pretty much Japanese fighting game culture before we can say anything conclusively. Maybe they're just better.
Take a look at Armada, for instance. He does not have as many different people to play with as the US top Melee players do, and his European opponents, for the most part, are nowhere near as good as the US top players. It makes no sense for him to be the world's best Melee player, but it appears that he is.
Uhm no they usually frown at Smash because so much is banned. If people care about respect from the Street Fighter community, this is exactly the opposite of what needs to be done. It certainly makes sense from a "Sirlinistic" viewpoint that all the stages should be available until they're conclusively proven utterly broken and that they shouldn't be banned just because the players don't like random factors influencing the outcome.
Why do people always talk about Japan as if they've been there or know the scene.
And why does there have to be a specific reason Japan is better, why can't they just have better players.
It's as if Americans think 'well they can't be naturally better than us, they
must be doing something we're not doing and if we do it we'll be better than them'.
why do people always talk about japan as if they've been there or know the scene.
And why does there have to be a specific reason japan is better, why can't they just have better players.
It's as if americans think 'well they can't be naturally better than us, they
must be doing something we're not doing and if we do it we'll be better than them'.
I'm at maybe low-medium level at smash and all i gained of exp is friendlys, MMs, etc. ONLY in sv, bf, fd. These stages make you start spacing better, try to find a way to hit before get beaten, Actually I'm able to perfect shield almost all Falco's laser because i don't have a wall between us (i hate the ledge).
- Smashville: you put skills to get reads because the platform using the platform cancel to grab, smash or something
- Battlefield: you are too close to your oponent so you will get better in the defensive way and find so many ways of using a platform.
- Final Destination: your spacing will get better, your camp (Snake, Falco, Diddy(?), Olimar, etc), no platform so if you send you oponent up, you will try to read where will land and how.
And all of that you can put in CPs together to make you a better player in ANY stage. You just need to mixup all to these skills you gained in neutrals.
That's why I think a ruleset with only neutrals are better, we can use it only for X time or always like Japan, but if we want to get better the practice will be necessary. Don't tell me that you'll practice in Frigate Orpheon, what will you practice? when will flip? or ... Will you just memorize Rainbow Cruise cycle? Meh....
This is just my opinion and maybe the reason why I get to be the best of my city or all sucks here just because I use MK.
It was obvious that M2K didn't know the match up, Ocean did and the game still went down to the wire. We don't need to use the Japanese rule set, just need to actually sit down, focus and improve. **** the money.
This reminds of another interesting point. In general the only time I really see players playing their hardest/seriously is in tournys. When it comes to practice sessions/smashfests people more often than not just go with troll characters they would never consider using otherwise. Even with their mains it seems as if they are not trying at all.
Of course this doesn't apply to everyone but I have noticed this a lot. Which I think is kind of sad because it means many are unwilling to try at all unless it's for money.
I disagree that we don't need at least some aspects of their rule-set. As it's been said by many others including the most compelling piece by Tuan, a more conservative stagelist WILL help us get better. With no gimmicks to rely on we will be forced to get better in general.
Why do people always talk about Japan as if they've been there or know the scene.
And why does there have to be a specific reason Japan is better, why can't they just have better players.
It's as if Americans think 'well they can't be naturally better than us, they
must be doing something we're not doing and if we do it we'll be better than them'.
Japan's style is different. But why do we think they're better? 8 of them, of which two of the contenders for "best in Japan" were not present, showed up and 6 of them made top 16, 3 made top 8, and Grand Finals was a japanese regional.
Japan's better, and I'll repeat what's been said before, it's probably not due to their stage list, but more due to their population density and minimally laggy wifi.
The search for the best comes from the fact that humans are naturally aggressive. Historically speaking, we had to be since our ancestors were hunters. It's really just simple pack alpha mentality.
Something else to consider that I haven't seen mentioned is that Japan's size is actually to their advantage. They can basically compete with everyone whenever they want so tech spreads quickly. Anything that comes up anywhere in Japan will be figured out faster than here in America where everything is spread out. People in New York aren't necessarily figuring out the same things as the people in California so they're not really preparing in the same way so the skill sets seen across America aren't as broad.
While Im not necessarily in favor of nuking the stagelist, I think those against it have ignored the strongest argument in favor of doing so.
I think the point that hits home is the last quote in the collapse tags. The japanese seemed better at using our counterpicks than we did, and weve been using them for years.
To me, it makes the point fairly black and white. We should adopt a Japanese ruleset for an extended period of time. After a year or so, trend toward the APEX ruleset and we'll transfer the skills we've learned on the big 3.
I don't know if ICs vs. Rob is a great example, because by in large ROB shuts down a majority of ICs desync options, so I was having to play the matchup extremely out of my normal play style.
Even then I still grabbed him on his last stock. I just got nervous and dropped it >_>
By in large, my crewmate's POCKET Rob (stealth Raptor) was better at the matchup than Ocean's ROB and the reason I lost was because I panicked when I grabbed him due to anxiety issues :|
i think we should only allow olimar and mk at tourneys , and we will let 1 person per tourney enter as rob, and play on only 3 stages. there is absolutely no reason to play this game unless we are emulating japans style in order to become them and beyond.
there is absolutely no reason to not pick olimar and mk and a rob as long as our goal is to do what japan did at apex. !!!!!!!
EDIT: i know i dont post a billion posts per year like everyone else but my amazing theory follows the logic of this thread
Edit that last post, I grabbed him TWICE on last stock and didn't convert things I normally do >_>
I gave Ocean back more or less three stocks per game by my measure on messing up guaranteed punishes. If you give someone twice as many stocks, they are bound to win
I don't know if it applies to anyone else, but I think the United States put a lot of unnecessary pressure on itself to beat the World.
For example, my set with Ocean was the one of two sets that I felt nervous about the whole tournament (the other set was with Sorasin in my first round pools but that has more to do with I've never had someone actually use Falco against me in tournament so I didn't know what to do in the matchup) and it stemmed from the fact that I wanted to beat the Japanese players so badly. Like, the whole USA vs. Japan things got into my head when playing the set, so by the time I lost Nana despite having a percent lead at the end of game 2, I couldn't get the thought of, "Oh my God I'm failing not just myself but I'm failing America right now" out of my head. Japan obviously had more experience in playing against US players this tournament than US player did playing against Japanese players, and I'd imagine there came a point when they were desensitized to that factor.
Don't get me wrong, they are really good. But I honestly feel like by in large we didn't so much get beat by them but we really beat ourselves. At least, that's what happened in my case
Delux no offense but when ICs talk about technical missteps and tournament pressure they tend to forget the other side of the coin.
I also dont understand why people are so surprised that smashers want to be the best that they can at brawl. This is a competitive game. If competition doesnt matter than theres plenty of smashers and casual players who Im sure are more than happy to accommodates oddball rulesets. In spite of playing for money we havent lost our entire sense of pride, and if people honestly cared about money alone I doubt theyd be playing hours worth of video games for a couple hundred dollars every other week that they might not even get. Its also a big reason why I was against the ban in the first place.
I actually think an allbrawl type ruleset is the most competitive, but if were going to cut things like items and half the stages anyways then the next best thing is likely the japanese ruleset.
reducing things is so much easier than adding things
i'm perfectly fine with banning/removing stages so long as people have the presence of mind to acknowledge that future developments may make those stages better or competitively interesting
I think calling it competitive might be part of the issue. When you have to ban so much of what makes the game unique than the game wasn't competitive at its core. As crazy as it sounds, I don't think Brawl is a competitive game, I think Smashers are competitive people. The tournament scene for the game is a square peg being rammed into a round hole for the sake of franchise association.
EVO had it right with running the game fairly close to default aside from the custom map. It made the game more rootsy and easier to enjoy from a spectator standpoint. That was the healthiest the game has been, and that is where the game needs to be. Also, we'd beat Japan that way.
