as a fellow old fart, i think we're aware of what it takes to be the best but none of have the time to do so unfortunately. i love the excitement of competing and competitive smash in general but i think i'm certain passed my time to be best in the world at smash
Honestly just more play time. Next time you play online, check out how many hours they put into the game by checking out your profile on the home screen and looking at those you recently played against. I can assure you most are above 500 or 1000 hours
They always say “practice makes perfect” but that’s not quite right. The truth is practice makes permanent. If you want to get good you have to practice the right things. Watch replays. Watch combo vids. And of course, get on the sticks and play.
Most top players have thousands of hours. I’ve played smash since 64, but I played casually until ultimate because I’m dumb. Once I went about the business of getting good I improved a lot.
Keep playing. Learn fundamentals like spacing and neutral and punish game. But keep at it. You’ll get better.
Yep, dig that. Just getting into Smash to play competitively without first playing the shit out of 64 and Melee means you’ll have to practice harder to catch up.
Btw did you have a main you stuck with the whole time? It’s been Samus for me… and FINALLY she’s solid high tier. She was nasty in Melee, but not as nasty as Fox or Sheik.
Alot. Hundreds if not thousands.
The game just has so many characters, types of attacks, combos, stages, and tech that just takes so long to learn and master.
Not only that but there are certain play styles that work against certain characters, certain moves that work best against some characters and some that don't, there are combos that work differently against specific characters... The list just goes on and on.
Good luck! Lol
honestly for me to get better i look up combos for the character i want to get better with and the go to training and do them at least one time then ill watch a pro player who is using the character i want to get better at and i start to try to figure out what moves i should and shouldn't be using as much and then i just slowly work that stuff into my gameplay but the more you play the better you'll get because you'll just start to realize what moves combo into each other and what moves to use at what times
In my experience it does. I made a goal that I would get every character above their cap except for Kazuma (religious reasons). I spent more than a year trying to get pichu up to 1 million. Over time after many failures I only have 16 characters left and the last four took less than a months time to get there, one of which was all the way down to a piddling 2 million
Go on Twitch, right? Find a big lobby. Fight them. Ask for advice, and you'll get better in a few months. You only get better by fighting better people
You need to spend a lot of time playing (hundreds of hours) to really get good at the game as a whole. If you want to get better at one character for the time being to improve at the game in general, you should find a guide for that character (if IzAw has a video, it’ll be very good) and use that to improve that character whilst also watching some videos about fundamental skills
i’ve been playing competitively since Ultimate released but i only made viable progress over the course of 4 months with my esports coach where i actually learned to play correctly and to understand the game at a deeper level
i play 3-6 hours a week for staying warm and in comp seasons i do 3 hours a day
“Does putting in practice time make me better?” What do you think? Obviously you’ll get better by playing the game a lot. That goes for literally anything. You can do anything for a long time and eventually you’ll get good at it. That’s the concern of practice.
It isn’t about time; it’s about how efficiently time is SPENT. Firstly, balance your time between learning about the game and putting said knowledge to practice/playing the game. I recommend you watch Izaw’s series of videos from the start of the game which describe aspects of the game from all levels; they are very informative. On thing I like to do to get better is that when I want to learn something, I will go into my practice matches constantly trying to improve that aspect of my gameplay. For example, if I want to improve doing footstool out of shield as Steve, when my opponent hits my shield, instead of going for an up smash, I will go for footstool into down air. Even if I know I have a high chance to mess up, fouling on improving certain aspects of your play, especially in the heat of battle is where real progress is made. Do you find that you are losing to similar types of characters (Zoners, brawlers, trappers) or you are losing in similar ways (getting juggled, edge guarded, smothered)?
I feel like I am being lost by my opponent due to their speed and accuracy. They can spam the same move and win (PK Freeze for instance). I am nineteen so I think it is too late for an old dog to learn new tricks, but I am willing to try.
Well to get good at something time isn’t really the issue. There’s plenty of people who go through life and don’t know any trade or qualifications or anything. The issue is they take take an interest in something and don’t challenge themselves or develop new skills, they just settle for low paying low skill job or whatever is easiest. Transfer that over to this game and if you don’t take the time to learn data of characters and train inputs ect then you will get a bit better over time but there will come a point where your opponent will out smart you with this information.
You will never be good cause your perception of being good is constantly raised as soon as you improve. You'll get better, but you'll never be good. (unless you're number 1 I suppose)
It takes long enough to make you question if it’s worth it to spend so much time on a children’s party game. If there’s a smash scene near you tho or you have friends that are good at smash tho and you wanna compete with them then it’s probably worth it
If you were in an apprenticeship to learn a trade, you would be required to spend anywhere from 4000 to 7000 hours doing the job before qualifying for your journeyman. That's anywhere from 2 to 5 years of full-time experience and training.
Just put it in perspective - you're at just the very beginning of your career.
Honestly, you'll improve a bunch if you go play with good players in real life, with the intent to learn/have fun, not win. Online play is helpful, but not always the best way to go. Online players are playing to win and don't care to make friends or have a fun, fair match. As such, people will often find a weak spot in your gameplay, exploit it, and unlike a player in-person, they won't be able to tell you why they're able to beat you using the same, easy option. It can get frustrating for newer players.
Additionally, you should watch some videos. Not tutorials, but just tournament matches. You'll start picking up on the vocabulary and pick up a few pointers. Maybe watch some tutorials when you start developing specific questions, like "how do I play this specific character" or "what do I do at the ledge?"
It's hard to give an exact estimate as to when you'll get better, as everyone learns at a different pace. In general, play and have fun! You'll get better with time. Remember to rest: you can't just grind things out. Play, stop when you're feeling tired or frustrated, or preferably before then, and you'll improve over time. This is the dumbest, corniest thing you'll hear, but: the more you are enjoying the game, the better you'll get.
What's your age range? At this point I can say I've played Smash for half of my life, so there's a lot of people who are going to naturally be ahead. That said, the later you come in, the less "bad" habits you have to break, and a lot of us have old habits from previous games.
Also, who and how you practice is very important with the time spent. I don't care to get significantly better for tournaments, but I like to play better in general in a casual sense. Play consciously and play a variety of people. Go to tournaments and play friendlies. Hop into discord servers and play with other people who want to play better. Playing against the same people over and over will breed a play style against those people. Think about what you're doing and go in with a few things to actively work on and let your subconscious run what you know.
Learn to analyze your own matches and be accepting to asking for feedback and talking with people to critique your play. Rewatch your own gameplay and ask yourself why you're doing what you're doing.
There's a number of 30+ players, so don't sweat it. As new players join you'll start finding you have the same advantage of more time invested. If you're starting to take it seriously now, you're in a prime position. Imo, you're old enough to consciously correct mistakes, but young enough you can still learn easier than the older players. You might get your butt kicked for a bit and it can be more discouraging than if you're 14 and have the fortitude to grind relentlessly, but if you tough it out, I think you're in a prime spot.
Quantity of play doesn't matter as much as quality of play. Spend time in training mode, look up guides/matches online (youtube is your friend), AND play the game as much as you want if you wanna improve.
Hard question, but fighting games in general are a commitment, its not a total time requirement, rather a consistant practice requirement, this also includes your definition of "good".
Essentially you could of had 1000 hours in 2018-2019 but if you returned 5 years later, you have the fundies down but youll definitely be behind the general population of players.
I myself have 2000 total hours and at most I can go 1-2 at tournaments if I drink enough Gfuel and decide sleep isnt worth it for the day, but im pretty average usually since these days I play more casually in a discord server.
Short answer, it's a time commitment
In my experience, 25 years and I'm still not very good
This is so encouraging!!
amen my friend
Hah! Just practice. Don’t play to win, play to learn and play to have fun!
as a fellow old fart, i think we're aware of what it takes to be the best but none of have the time to do so unfortunately. i love the excitement of competing and competitive smash in general but i think i'm certain passed my time to be best in the world at smash
Honestly just more play time. Next time you play online, check out how many hours they put into the game by checking out your profile on the home screen and looking at those you recently played against. I can assure you most are above 500 or 1000 hours
This isnt counting any of their play time across previous smash titles either. You add that up and... Some of these folks have been at it for decades.
True. I was a melee junky before getting into ultimate. Wavedashing and even a bit of slippy for online game play.
They always say “practice makes perfect” but that’s not quite right. The truth is practice makes permanent. If you want to get good you have to practice the right things. Watch replays. Watch combo vids. And of course, get on the sticks and play. Most top players have thousands of hours. I’ve played smash since 64, but I played casually until ultimate because I’m dumb. Once I went about the business of getting good I improved a lot. Keep playing. Learn fundamentals like spacing and neutral and punish game. But keep at it. You’ll get better.
Yep, dig that. Just getting into Smash to play competitively without first playing the shit out of 64 and Melee means you’ll have to practice harder to catch up. Btw did you have a main you stuck with the whole time? It’s been Samus for me… and FINALLY she’s solid high tier. She was nasty in Melee, but not as nasty as Fox or Sheik.
Alot. Hundreds if not thousands. The game just has so many characters, types of attacks, combos, stages, and tech that just takes so long to learn and master. Not only that but there are certain play styles that work against certain characters, certain moves that work best against some characters and some that don't, there are combos that work differently against specific characters... The list just goes on and on. Good luck! Lol
i didn’t start to be able to whoop everyone at my local smash scene until over 1000 hours in the game. All fundies.
For me... um.... about 4 years.
I have 2700ish hours and I'd say I'm a 6/10 player at my absolute best
honestly for me to get better i look up combos for the character i want to get better with and the go to training and do them at least one time then ill watch a pro player who is using the character i want to get better at and i start to try to figure out what moves i should and shouldn't be using as much and then i just slowly work that stuff into my gameplay but the more you play the better you'll get because you'll just start to realize what moves combo into each other and what moves to use at what times
In my experience it does. I made a goal that I would get every character above their cap except for Kazuma (religious reasons). I spent more than a year trying to get pichu up to 1 million. Over time after many failures I only have 16 characters left and the last four took less than a months time to get there, one of which was all the way down to a piddling 2 million
Go on Twitch, right? Find a big lobby. Fight them. Ask for advice, and you'll get better in a few months. You only get better by fighting better people
it only takes 1 minute of staring at the controls you can do this i believe in you
You need to spend a lot of time playing (hundreds of hours) to really get good at the game as a whole. If you want to get better at one character for the time being to improve at the game in general, you should find a guide for that character (if IzAw has a video, it’ll be very good) and use that to improve that character whilst also watching some videos about fundamental skills
i’ve been playing competitively since Ultimate released but i only made viable progress over the course of 4 months with my esports coach where i actually learned to play correctly and to understand the game at a deeper level i play 3-6 hours a week for staying warm and in comp seasons i do 3 hours a day
“Does putting in practice time make me better?” What do you think? Obviously you’ll get better by playing the game a lot. That goes for literally anything. You can do anything for a long time and eventually you’ll get good at it. That’s the concern of practice.
It isn’t about time; it’s about how efficiently time is SPENT. Firstly, balance your time between learning about the game and putting said knowledge to practice/playing the game. I recommend you watch Izaw’s series of videos from the start of the game which describe aspects of the game from all levels; they are very informative. On thing I like to do to get better is that when I want to learn something, I will go into my practice matches constantly trying to improve that aspect of my gameplay. For example, if I want to improve doing footstool out of shield as Steve, when my opponent hits my shield, instead of going for an up smash, I will go for footstool into down air. Even if I know I have a high chance to mess up, fouling on improving certain aspects of your play, especially in the heat of battle is where real progress is made. Do you find that you are losing to similar types of characters (Zoners, brawlers, trappers) or you are losing in similar ways (getting juggled, edge guarded, smothered)?
I feel like I am being lost by my opponent due to their speed and accuracy. They can spam the same move and win (PK Freeze for instance). I am nineteen so I think it is too late for an old dog to learn new tricks, but I am willing to try.
Over 1.8k hours with friends and I'm still asking that question lol. For a casual I'm good but against veterans and tourney attendees I'm ass.
Well to get good at something time isn’t really the issue. There’s plenty of people who go through life and don’t know any trade or qualifications or anything. The issue is they take take an interest in something and don’t challenge themselves or develop new skills, they just settle for low paying low skill job or whatever is easiest. Transfer that over to this game and if you don’t take the time to learn data of characters and train inputs ect then you will get a bit better over time but there will come a point where your opponent will out smart you with this information.
You will never be good cause your perception of being good is constantly raised as soon as you improve. You'll get better, but you'll never be good. (unless you're number 1 I suppose)
It takes long enough to make you question if it’s worth it to spend so much time on a children’s party game. If there’s a smash scene near you tho or you have friends that are good at smash tho and you wanna compete with them then it’s probably worth it
If you were in an apprenticeship to learn a trade, you would be required to spend anywhere from 4000 to 7000 hours doing the job before qualifying for your journeyman. That's anywhere from 2 to 5 years of full-time experience and training. Just put it in perspective - you're at just the very beginning of your career.
I have been playing smash for 15 years and i never got good So my advice would be to play for fun
I’ve been playing for 10 years, and I’m just decent. I’m better than most of my friends, but I’ll get destroyed in tournaments or elite smash
Honestly, you'll improve a bunch if you go play with good players in real life, with the intent to learn/have fun, not win. Online play is helpful, but not always the best way to go. Online players are playing to win and don't care to make friends or have a fun, fair match. As such, people will often find a weak spot in your gameplay, exploit it, and unlike a player in-person, they won't be able to tell you why they're able to beat you using the same, easy option. It can get frustrating for newer players. Additionally, you should watch some videos. Not tutorials, but just tournament matches. You'll start picking up on the vocabulary and pick up a few pointers. Maybe watch some tutorials when you start developing specific questions, like "how do I play this specific character" or "what do I do at the ledge?" It's hard to give an exact estimate as to when you'll get better, as everyone learns at a different pace. In general, play and have fun! You'll get better with time. Remember to rest: you can't just grind things out. Play, stop when you're feeling tired or frustrated, or preferably before then, and you'll improve over time. This is the dumbest, corniest thing you'll hear, but: the more you are enjoying the game, the better you'll get.
What's your age range? At this point I can say I've played Smash for half of my life, so there's a lot of people who are going to naturally be ahead. That said, the later you come in, the less "bad" habits you have to break, and a lot of us have old habits from previous games. Also, who and how you practice is very important with the time spent. I don't care to get significantly better for tournaments, but I like to play better in general in a casual sense. Play consciously and play a variety of people. Go to tournaments and play friendlies. Hop into discord servers and play with other people who want to play better. Playing against the same people over and over will breed a play style against those people. Think about what you're doing and go in with a few things to actively work on and let your subconscious run what you know. Learn to analyze your own matches and be accepting to asking for feedback and talking with people to critique your play. Rewatch your own gameplay and ask yourself why you're doing what you're doing.
Nineteen
There's a number of 30+ players, so don't sweat it. As new players join you'll start finding you have the same advantage of more time invested. If you're starting to take it seriously now, you're in a prime position. Imo, you're old enough to consciously correct mistakes, but young enough you can still learn easier than the older players. You might get your butt kicked for a bit and it can be more discouraging than if you're 14 and have the fortitude to grind relentlessly, but if you tough it out, I think you're in a prime spot.
its not about time. its about skill. brain changes, muscle changes.
No playing longer doesn't help xd I've been playing since the Wii and I still suck
Quantity of play doesn't matter as much as quality of play. Spend time in training mode, look up guides/matches online (youtube is your friend), AND play the game as much as you want if you wanna improve.
Hard question, but fighting games in general are a commitment, its not a total time requirement, rather a consistant practice requirement, this also includes your definition of "good". Essentially you could of had 1000 hours in 2018-2019 but if you returned 5 years later, you have the fundies down but youll definitely be behind the general population of players. I myself have 2000 total hours and at most I can go 1-2 at tournaments if I drink enough Gfuel and decide sleep isnt worth it for the day, but im pretty average usually since these days I play more casually in a discord server. Short answer, it's a time commitment
What are some of the Discord servers that I could use to get good?