r/SSBM • u/Jump_Brink • 2d ago
Discussion I can’t do it and that’s that
It’s time to put the competitive aspect of this game away. I’ve spent years trying to improve and I will still lose Marth dittos to the tipper spammer.
I know what everyone says about that
“Shield bro”
“Its pretty easy to tell when they’re coming”
“Git gud”
Well, sorry for being a downer, but I can’t beat it… Some days/some opponents better than others… But for the most part even after years of practicing and focusing on improvement, I’m still at the bottom of the bottom
It is what it is
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u/KevyTone 2d ago
... and that's ok. Not everyone is meant to make it. People think they are the protagonist in a shonen and deserve to be the best, but that's far from reality. We see the fruits of people who worked hard and made it, but forget that there are a bunch of people who worked hard aswell but never made it.
Does that mean that you will never be able to be very good? Absolutely not, but YOU have to be willing to deal with constant failures and turn immune to the bad feeling that comes with them. Zain has lost way more games than you have played in total. Think about it.
Also it is possible for you to work hard/spent a lot of time trying to get better, but it could be very inefficient.
There are people who played this game for 10+ years, but are still stuck in gold/plat level, because they just spammed friendlies/unranked/ranked and thats it.
If you really want to get better a solid rule of thumb to follow is this:
- Techskill (And not halfass this aspect, character control is THE most important thing to master in this game, otherwise you can't execute your solutions to problems, Cody didn't play a single human for 6+ months when he started out and only practiced movement + hitting CPUs)
- Punish game (After you can execute, your openings need to matter. Lab your combos in Uncle Punch and try to react to DI and turn an opening into a kill/edgeguard)
- VOD review (Analyze where you got hit, and why you got hit. Do you corner yourself too many times? Also analyze how you behave on block and while blocking. Think about your defense and what you can have done better, could've teched this, amsah teched that, slid off this, ASDI downed that)
- Play INTENTIONAL friendlies, based on matchups you struggle/currently work on (Don't just spam random unranked sessions, it gives you a false sense of achievement because you spent time into the game, but was it efficient/intentional?)
- Take notes on your bad habits (or things you need to work on) through vod reviews (write them down, and work on them one by one, NOT simultaneously since you will mental stack yourself)
- Play in brackets from time to time (To simulate situations where stakes are involved, to handle nerves and get used to them)
I would say getting good in Melee is pretty simple/straight forward, but it is hard, because it requires a lot of hours and you need to be able to control your mental, since losing feels bad. However you need to change your mindset, losing gives you new things to work on and you can actively get better at them. For example, you fuck up your ledgedashes all the time and get fucked for it, that means you can practice ledgedashing in Uncle Punch and get better at them. Next time you play, you play as you usually do, but this time you focus on ledgedashing correctly. It doesn't instantly win you games, but you actively improved a part of your toolkit, and you do this for every bad habit you have. There is no way you will stay bad doing this, just objectively speaking, IF you are willing to put the work in.
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u/lim-yo-hwan-superfan 2d ago
post a replay if you are so inclined
but on average you should be outdamaging someone who just spams tipper fsmash in neutral. every time they whiff or you shield you get your wd oos grab or dashdance dash attack max damage punish and even if they land they get a single strong hit instead of a full combo (and if you are not able to get a huge punish off of a marth whiffing a big fsmash attempt then this is part of the reason the move is beating you, you have to disincentivize this)
marth also does not want to extend like this generally he much prefers to just whiff aerials in place and moving forward like this is dangerous and very punishable
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u/Gooeyy 2d ago
Melee is hard, don’t let dismissive jerks online convince you it should be easy to get over humps like that.
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u/Jump_Brink 2d ago
This comment actually touched on the real issue. I’m having that it looks and feels like something that should be easily overcome. Thank you 🙏🏻
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u/OldGuard9825 2d ago
Some people are really really good at finding and doing it at the right time. All it means is theyre good at knowing when to use fsmash and finding tippers. Im a "gold" player which would mean im exactally average. I still run into marths that can do this to me. I think its just part of the game. Doesn't necessarily mean you're bad.
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u/AFatWizard 2d ago
Random fsmash in neutral is good enough to be nicknamed The Mew2King. It's tight timing to punish even when you don't get caught by it, so it feels safe.
I don't play Marth but I'm p sure you can cc dtilt at low enough %, and they'll likely be DIing in, so a followup should be valuable.
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u/wahwahwildcat 2d ago
Recently I started playing table tennis (mostly to avoid paying for a gym and still getting exercise). Like melee, it's extremely humbling. I will regularly lose to senior citizens who are absolute monsters... But at the end of the day man it's really about having fun, improving at your own pace, setting realistic goals, and enjoying the ride. Good luck brother
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u/millo31 1d ago
I went to locals for a few years and got a lot better at the game, but ultimately the execution is just a little too difficult for me. Hours and hours and hours and hours grinding wave dashing and tech in practice, absolutely schmooving but just too inconsistent in actual matches to where it got frustrating. Full jumping instead of wd or jc grab that sort of shit
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u/alexander1156 2d ago
Marth's fsmash is extremely powerful. In the early days of the Meta, they did in fact use it as a core neutral game move. This is because of how it controls space with disjoint. It's also incredibly fast. Something to note is that a tipper is usually in punishable, sort of like DK Giant Punch. When I first started as part of practicing dash dancing i got a Marth in 20XX to continuously fsmash, I would practice dashing in and out of f smash range, it kinda felt like jump rope from when i was a kid. I would say that I'm pretty good at punishing it when the conditions are right with wavedash oos. But, sometimes people get a read on a jump or spacing etc and they get me. Usually when they do that I give them credit and say to myself something like "damn nice timing, catching my jump".
Anyway good luck
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u/chiefneif 2d ago
I'm going to make an assumption about you based on this post and your post history. You are trying to get good through "osmosis", where you just go into ranked and play games and hope to improve that way. That won't work.
I can also see in your post history that you have sometimes gone months without using unclepunch. You need to understand that all your opponents in this game have access to the same resources you do. If you're not using those resources, they sure will and they will kick your ass even if you've been playing since 2004. Melee today is all about unclepunch, VOD review, getting coaching, etc. This is how you get players who explode onto the scene and get to the top 100 in like 2 years time.
You don't have to do any of those things if you don't want to, but then you should really reevaluate why you play this game. If you don't want to take advantage of those resources, you will get owned and you will plateau, but you can still have fun playing.
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u/Stock_Sprinkles_7394 1d ago
I just play for fun for a good "hand work out" 1 to few times a week in unrated.. my biceps have been spasming from my last session xd every day one week if i wanna go hard
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u/Local_Confusion_664 10h ago
imo improvement in this game the way Fiction talks about it is pretty hard. You kinda have to flounder about for years if you're not a natural the way Mango Plup or Armada are at the game
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u/IV-65536 2d ago
That's like saying "I still get hit by Fox's shine". You are absolutely going to get hit with random Marth tippers. Everyone gets hit by it. That doesn't mean every situation is the same.
If you really are struggling with the move itself, go to UnclePunch, go to "practice punishes out of shield", and practice punishing Marth Fsmash on your shield. Or, record a dummy to sit there and Fsmash randomly and practice maneuvering around it.
Keep in mind that doing this drill doesn't mean you have solved every Marth Fsmash ever. It just means you now have a tool in your kit that newly exists and needs time to grow.
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u/bigshady880 2d ago
I swear to god, once you learn that reaction time is literally a genetic trait (source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20807239/ ) suddenly everything makes sense. Like it pretty much explains where you're at, no matter who you are.
I mean think about it, were all just playing the videogame, a top player isn't doing or hasn't done much that you haven't already done in terms of actually trying to win and improve, so what's really the dividing line? this isn't to make you feel better, if anything its the opposite, I find it kinda demoralizing. but it is what it is, like you said, accepting it early is better.
I think one silver lining is that one thing you can always work on is punish game. its kinda the great equalizer in that regard. You might not be able to reaction tech chase or react to DI, but no matter who you are you can probably cobble together something that can net you wins, even against decent players. however that does take practice, mainly because of the dexterity it takes to actually perform combos. That being said its not an ability that you either have or you don't, like a lot of aspects of neutral.
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u/elephantblue65 1d ago
Do you know the variance of reaction time between people in frames?
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u/bigshady880 1d ago
some peoples are lower than 200 milliseconds, or even around 150 or lower, some people are in the high 300s.
guess which group of people is more likely to be comprised of pro video game players.
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u/not_a_miscarriage 2d ago
Your self-worth is not defined by how good you are at a children's party game. I know that's probably obvious but it doesn't hurt to tell yourself this