For real. This happens with other skills too. "I have major mental health issues stopping me from improving at my skill what do I do???" Handle your real-world problems first! How can you focus on a game or an art if you are suffering?
@@heinis4856 I mean... I get the point but still, you should have priorities lol. Imagine: "Hey so, that advice doesn't work for me, because I work 18 hours a day because I must be able to feed my newborn. Anyways, how do I L-Cancel better?" lmao
@@DSHC224 people say that type of stuff because smash could be the thing they enjoy to help them cope with mental health issues like depression (such as myself if I'm being honest) they just focus too much on the competitive aspect of it though so idk entirely about most mental health issues but depression is a very common one so in that situation you can tell those people to deal with that problem first and hope it gets better and they can get through it and if smash is their method of coping with the problem then to just focus on having fun and competitive later
@@heinis4856 but they need to take care of everything they need to do besides there hobbies so they can do there hobbies and not be 10k in debt and living without food some nights and the real world should be in priority then smash so they can play smash and be eating good food living in a ok place making good money and have there personal life good and be mentally stable before any hobbies
I think that his tips are very good. Even if you implement this thought process in other areas, adjusting to whatever you would like to do, it'll bring results. "Everyone wants to be, but nobody wants to become a specialist" is a very powerfull guide in becoming successful in whatever you want.
Hey Armada- what's the best way to buy a new controller? The c-sticks on every used controller I test are worn out and I can't seem to find a good place to buy a new one online. Would be interested to hear your thoughts on the matter.
Is it even possible to have consistent practice when there are no locals near you and all you have is CPUs to play against? I want to improve but I've been stuck on your step 1 for years.
Netplay is always a great option. It's possible to get great without consistent local competition. Look at PPMD, he came from an area with no players and got insanely good despite that.
I play ultimate daily, always trying to improve with every character (Snake, sonic, shiek, greninja and bayo mains, pls hit me up in discord im prox#8596)
A lot of people dont really know what improvement looks like. I've seen people improve and not even know that they've done so because the results dont reflect it. Improvement does not lend itself to immediate results all the time. If you start tech rolling more when you didnt know how to do so prior and you're still losing, you've still improved.
That means most people are probably untalented and the internet cant handle that because it means most of them ARE NOT anime protagonists and thats rough
Best thing to come out of this talent vs hard work drama? All these top players encouraging others to inprove instead of convincing them they suck and will never improve to secure their throne at the top. Thank you armada for encouraging others to better themselves!
Improvisational music parallelisms 1.consistent practice 2.with musicians, not just backing tracks/metronome 3. with backing tracks, drones, drum machine app and metronome or solo without anything else but own instrument 4. Labbing.-- learning new tunes. new ideas. taking individual chords, sequences of chords, rhythms, or melodies out of time and spending time trying "new" things. not just playing same things over same familiar tunes. consciously and carefully trying new things in general. - In different keys! 5. time management. do you actually have time? do you need to "make" the time? time within practice time has some structure and few distractions. Set Reviews (recordings of yourself and others) 1. Recording yourself and listening. recording live performances as well as practice. being honest with what you are hearing.what happened? was your playing in time you want? in tuning you want? tone you want? 2. listening to other musicians. what went well? what about those things made it good to you. maybe transcribe that idea for closer analysis of what happened in that moment. ---also what went wrong. 3. when something goes wrong, what happened? why? 4. what could you have done differently? how can you work on that? isolate and slowdown? perhaps. 5. see 4. above Financial priority (can be somewhat controversial like he said) 1. saving money to see favorite living musicians concert. buy adequate equipment (for example- improving instrument from borderline broken to playable with even tuning/sound...). . . taking gigs for chance to play with people - at whichever price comfortable (this is where arguments against taking low paying gigs **even for a chance to get better** can be made for lowering the value of musicians). taking a fulltime music gig that would be musically fulfilling but perhaps pay less than qualify-able non musically fulfilling job. Even the other way around with risking/selling everything and taking non musical job to move to new york in hopes of one day getting enough gigs to quit non musical job. Saving money to move to more musical place. life is a balance. 2. Get lessons/set reviews from great players.
I totally agree. I play cello and had a lesson with a cellist who is really successful and is in a well known quartet. I set up a lesson with him since he was nearby for a concert. He taught me that music is all about experimentation: How do you get good sound? What works and what doesn't? How do you interpret the music and send it to an audience? etc.
imo nobody has a true ceiling it's always possible to improve even if you have done everything in this list theres always more smash to be played more practice to be done
Great video, I think you pointed out a lot of stuff that can help players improving if they want to. I mean, your summary is honest and shows that becoming better is at first the responsibility of the player. I'm not really playing smash these days, and I don't think I'll play "seriously" again. However your video is really interesting for other areas as well. Thank you for your time.
bestness seriously made like 3 tweets and blew this convo up the amount of influence these people have is crazy cuz they can say completely ridiculous or stupid things (like bestness did) and a large number of people will be genuinely affected by it
@NIKIFOROS PAPADOPOULOS It's cause people who are respected are allowed to talk outside of their area of knowledge and spew BS. Celebrity culture at its worst. I don't know if he said you need to be able to play good people constantly or not as well in the tweet, but if he did then he is at least right in that aspect.
NIKIFOROS PAPADOPOULOS I think it’s more 40% natural talent and 60% hard work. It’s not like natural talent is this thing that magically brings to the top and you only have to play like an hour a day and that’s it. BN is probably very talented and never really had to work to get to his level and that’s why he has that opinion. It’s all good though. I think it’s wrong for him to think that, I also think that it weren’t for his natural understanding of the game, he probably would have quit.
highlightman It feels like this is burnout mentality: a player who made it to top 50 status but doesn’t want to go any further. Auto-piloting with a zoner on elite smash does nothing to close the gap between bn and the players better than him. It’s like an professional athlete walking into a school practice and just destroying everyone
ight I seem to have started a convo in the replies to this comment but natural talent truly can be about 0% naturally being talented just means you have to spend less time grinding the thing your getting better at if one person struggles with ledge trapping and one person is naturally good at it the one struggling can grind it out and think what they can do better eventually they will over take the other one if they arent getting better at the same rate this can be applied to every aspect of the game. Unless the person your trying to get better than is practicing 20 hours a day and is already naturally better than you you can over take them by playing more and thinking what you can do better. regardless of "natural talent" talent is just a booster time and grinding the game will put you at the top
I like to practice until I can consistently do something 10 times in a row and once I've done it 10 times in a row I try and see if I can do it 10 more times, only then do i feel consistent. If you know any melee tech just try doing it 10 times in a row and see if you can do it. Start with the basics too even stuff as simple as doing up tilt turn around up tilt can be inconsistent if you're trying to do it too quickly, heck even SHing consistently is difficult until you get it down, and stuff like JC grabs/up smashes and wavelands and shield dropping are SO hard to get consistent and SO important so they definitely need practice. Every character has a BIG list of things that are important to practice so, say if you have a spare half hour, practice 6 things for about 5 minutes each or give some more time to what you have fun doing/think's more important to work on. Then when something becomes second nature to you increase the difficulty of the tech you're practicing til you're practicing NILs til you're consistent like Zain. Melee is actually really fun to practice solo and it helps a lot! I got my first 7th place at a local with Peach after practicing seriously like this the last tournament I entered. Thanks for the video Armada!
Thank you for this video and in particular for mentioning lessons. I've been considering getting lessons because they seem for helpful for learning other skills, but I've been on the fence because nobody ever seems to recommend or mention them. Basically hearing you recommend lessons/set reviews let me know I was right about them being helpful.
Gotta love the growth mindset, Armada! I like that you can see the nuance in the things that are in our control vs the factors that aren´t. It´s easy to get swept into one extreme orthe other. Very inspiring video
Thank you Armada for this video I know that I've probably missed some things while trying to improve like analyzing sets or other things Thanks for the advices!
Only a handful of games motivate me to get better despite getting absolutely bodied. Melee has that special effect on me. That is why I put time into it and probably will for years to come.
Hey armada, excellent video right there tbh, hopefully I could apply them but although I want to be someone in smash I don't have the support of anyone (I'm a minor) nor my mom neither anyone in my family, so they kinda reject me for trying playing competitively, and the Country I live in although has a good amount of tournaments sometimes I think that not living in the US will probably affect my improvement
I do set reviews on my stream. Currently not looking to expand past this. I have had plenty of players improving after getting this help. Thing is I do work on a lot of stuff atm so I don't feel like a more serious coaching thing is something I'm currently looking for
@@UGSArmada Fair enough. You just have so much knowledge and seem super knowledgeable about it. I'm hoping Coach Zeke is able to point out what I need to work on, however this video definitely enlightened me a bit.
@@LoneWolf10641 Thanks! But as my first comment said, I do set reviews and people do improve from them. So for people that wanna "hire me" for this that's possible for sure =)
Just a little vent: I will never become a top player. I only want to have perfect inputs and help my friends that do want to be top players. I feel like I'll never be able to do that either. At least I'm able to give some friends a good nudge in the right direction though. Some people I've given tips to benefited greatly and improved fast when previously they played for a long time and didn't know how to improve. Now they are going to tournaments and kicking my butt. I just want to help them even more..... Being better with Lucario and/or Meta Knight would be a big plus. Consistent practice + Time Management - I have a hard enough time just getting a consistent schedule. I can't even get a consistent amount of sleep and exercise. Every time I try to make a schedule, no matter how much time I try to set aside for "free time" there's always a too many things that pop up. Whether something breaking down, some mandatory meeting that people waiting until the last minute to tell me about, or just randomly being too tired to even concentrate for anything I do in the practice session to even matter. Of course, there are other games that I would like to play, but most games take almost no time to play and enjoy when compared to smash. Against Players - I can play other players as much as I want because my focus is online play and not offline play. Since anxiety makes it unfun to play smash with people IRL (but I'm working on that currently which does take time away from smash) but Smash 7 will probably be out before I can fully enjoy playing people IRL in a crowded place with lots of people screaming everywhere. Only problem right now is that it's hard to get a recurring practice partner because I'm struggling with keeping a consistent schedule. Solo Practice - I'm still trying to practice short hops. I've been told to not bother with anything else until you can short hop consistently. Spent 2 months, 30 minutes every day and there was just a slight improvement but still can't short hop consistently, and when I try to bring that into a match it's not reliable at all. With such a slow pace of trying to improve when all you're doing is pressing a button for 30 minutes everyday, it feels like I'll never get to the part where I actually get to doing combos, much less perfect them. I've looked around many times trying to find any tips I could find on short hopping, but it's really discouraging not being able to do it. Sometimes I feel like maybe my fingers are just too slow to play smash competitively. My fingers did get a bit faster after practicing, but will they ever be fast enough to play smash? Getting enough sleep to keep my fingers fast enough is also a huge struggle as well. Labbing - I actually find Labbing to be incredibly fun. Finding new things about characters is fun, even if you're seeing some super niche things. Labbing is the least problematic thing on this list. Watching my own sets + other players sets - I've rewatched a lot of my replays and watched a lot of tournament sets. Problem is, it's kinda pointless when you know what to do, and the options that you should be taking, but your just can't perform the inputs. Like I said earlier, I've been struggling to master inputs, but I feel the progress is too slow for it to matter in the end. Spending money to improve at a game - I will definitely hire someone to give me some pointers on getting better at inputs. Though until I feel safe financially, I'm not going to be spending money on entertainment until I know I have the money to spend. Working full time minimum wage sucks. Need a new job because being in front of a grill for 8 hours a day dehydrates you and really messes with your mind a lot. My days off and when I'm eating food is the only times where I get time to do anything.
I think this whole talent vs hard work thing isn't valuable simply because there are a lot of confounding in between. For example, it does not take into account things like experience, wisdom, etc. that all affect your skill ceiling in addition to just straight talent. Also hard work has a physical cap (24h/day) as well and that isn't usually factored in, the ability to improve is obviously a talent in itself. I think it's a good mindset to think hard work will carry you, because at the end of the day it will carry you near the top, where players will have approximately equal amounts of hard work, where other factors become more magnified. Natural talent is only 1 of a myriad of variables that affect who stays at the very top, and that is static.
I hope so! I wanna help people out. I honestly hope this one gets pretty good reach cause I genuinely feel like it could be super helpful for people that actually wanna improve.
To anyone who says that they don't have enough time, to quote a certain famous bodybuilder, "There are 24 hours in a day. Are you telling me you can't spare a single hour? You sleep 6 hours a night. If you need more than that, sleep faster"
I think I’m just too dumb to play the game. I always just do the same options no matter what and get punished for it. Is it because I don’t know its a bad option? No. I very much know its the wrong option. Is it because I don’t know what a better option is? No. I can name 2-3 better options before I do it. I know the right options and I’m good enough to do then, But I’m just insanely stupid and never do it. I don’t think there is any other reason beyond this
I've decided to be positive, like armada is, and instead of bitching about this I'll post a link to a video made by Karl Jobst one of the greatest Goldeneye / Perfect Dark speed runners of all time. I think the kind of advice he gives there is also useful for Melee, and improving in general: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-AnrnV4AhQz8.html
I think it’s more 40% natural talent and 60% hard work. It’s not like natural talent is this thing that magically brings to the top and you only have to play like an hour a day and that’s it. BN is probably very talented and never really had to work to get to his level and that’s why he has that opinion. It’s all good though. I think it’s wrong for him to think that, I also think that it weren’t for his natural understanding of the game, he probably would have quit.
I try and at least get 1-2 hours of practice a day for smash. And where I'm at there is 2 tournaments a year so I practice go attend and sometimes get slapped other times do alright and go back to the grind. Its cliche but practice does make perfect
Something I would say that helps me not stay down on myself is to be able to abstract the game as much as possible. Instead of thinking about the whole game as a win or a loss, think of a whole game as a series of interactions that take place in neutral advantage or disadvantage. If you feel you’ve won neutral, sweet, if not meh, but at the least you are still in the game.
I have stared to write notes on what to do should I immediately try to learn everything I've written about or learn it more slowly over time ( I have two pages of notes and ive been written notes on my character for 2 days now)
If I a dollar every time Armada said "let's get started, let's get started" at the beginning of a stream of video I'd probably have like $50 I dunno but I swear he says it a lot
I would say I tried super hard at the very least. I even payed for the best Puff in Norway (similar level to Tekk) to come over and grind the MU hella hard with me (payed his travel fee/gave dinners etc). So I did not even really have resources but even outside of events I did tons of stuff to improve at the MU. Thing here is though, if you wanna be the best in the world it's also important to not get to stubborn with MUs if they are not worth it. Me having a very clear winning record with Fox more than proved I did the right call.
I feel like there’s a book out there that’s already broken down this topic of hard work vs talent. There’s so many skill-based things, there no way some big philosopher hasn’t given their insight on this topic. It’s gotta be out there somewhere.
The proof was always there. Armada and leffen living in a country where the high level players is low. ZeRo having the community against him. Mew2king playing and being good at many smash games. Leo practicing the most out of ANY ult player. Thus, why he does crazy losers run and has a strong mentality. I don't know who will read this, but SOME of you can waste the rest of your life hating on these hard working/talented players for chasing and accomplishing their dreams.
While i agree that hard work beats talent in majority of cases (with some very rare exceptions), probably the most annoying part about the talent era is the fact that is that someone without talent will be so frustrated seeing someone with talent rapidly improve at the game doing the same things. In general i do think that you have worked your ass of to achieve the status you have in the melee community, i still think that you had talent. The reason is that if you and someone else would go through the exact same training schedule , there are genetic factors like reaction time, muscle memory or just that X-factor that probably will divide you and that other player for being the one who wins. Not a great example but for my personal expierience i like league of legends alot but i'm very bad at it. I have been in like gold division for the past 5 years playing that game and never achived platinum division ( a tier higher). While i never have been super consistent at the game which means i often play alot for about a month and then drop it for a week or month, i have friends that play with a similiar schedule like me and outranks me by a large margin. I sometimes ask why but in alot of scenarios they have understand the game in a way that i can't still grasp, which i probably should have due to the fact all these hours i have spent on the game. It's the same in school, sports and like every other area in life. Shaquille O'neal in basketball was blessed with an insane physique which made his chanses at reaching the top peak of basketball unparalleled compared to most basketball players in the world. The same goes for LeBron James with his physique rivaling greek gods but additional to that he has court vision that many commentators describe as "unteachable, something just extrodinary players are born with". Albert Einstein also had a way of seeing things and an understanding of physics that me as a person who is not so very good at physics never can dream of, even if i choose to put all my time into learning physics. I have no idea if what i'm saying is true or complete nonsense but not long ago i thought why i might fail in something always lied in the fact that i probably didn't work hard enough. That might be true but at the same time when i started thinking about the perspective of talent more i became increasingly more negative towards my future because to be honest, there is VERY little in life i could proudly say im good at. Fine i have a pretty bad self esteem but in the end, nothing i have done has given me very good results which i think is indicator of me not having that much of a talent in those specific areas. To me talent is recognisible by how much a person grows in specif area relative to the time they invest. I hope the fact lies somewhere in that everybody has the chance to do something it's just take some people a longer time to develope but by that i kinda goes against my own words so it's more of a hope than me actually believing in it. Sorry if my english grammar isn't very good and i just wanted to share my view on this, so this isn't factual proof at all and i still encourages you who reads this working towards somthing to still do it because in the end i might be completely wrong!
So pro smashers put in the hard hours of work. It’s inspiring to see how they got where they are with lots of hard work, but I think a question of burnout might be raised. I’m sure top players are vulnerable to burnout, and I wonder how they overcome it to still keep competing.
"People would want the final product". 26:50 I'd say that "People know what they want to be, but don't know what they want to do" is a simple way of saying it.
So pro smashers put in the hard hours of work. It’s inspiring to see how they got where they are with lots of hard work, but I think a question of burnout might be raised. I’m sure top players are vulnerable to burnout, and I wonder how they overcome it to still keep competing.
Thank you for this list. It is very helpful having this in one place and with some authority behind it. IMO one crucial thing that's missing from the list is "mindfulness" (or "meta-cognition"). Honestly, I think this is most people's biggest issue. As you point out, the vast majority of people fail to improve because they don't practice. For some it's an issue of priority, but for most it's psychological. There is a combination of inertia, anxiety, and general paralysis of the unknown that prevent a lot of people from taking these steps. Mindfulness is the best tool I've seen for spotting these psychological hangups in real time and overcoming them. Also, mindfulness is important for putting ego aside and honestly assessing skill and gameplay. It's helpful for managing nerves in tournament and on stream. It's helpful for not getting tilted. And a lot of the time, for me at least, when I'm playing poorly I notice it's because I'm not focused on the play; instead I'm focused on some narrative mental distraction---usually either about how terrible I am at melee or how I'm a God (both delusional and neither helpful). Mindfulness gives you the tools to spot that in real time and gently redirect your focus on your gameplay. Personally I think this is the skillset that is most important for improvement (and it translates into essentially all domains) and also the most overlooked. If anyone reading this agrees and wants to learn how to cultivate "mindfulness" then I recommend checking out Sam Harris content (especially his meditation app). Additionally, check out Insight Meditation Society. These are accessible resources to learn more about mindfulness training.
It is always great to see an awesome player talking about how to improve. I stopped trying hard on Smash because of having absolutely no time, and wanting to play other games too in my little free time. I had a huge improvement in the first months but I'm far from even being decent lol. For those who have the time and the will to improve, I believe in you guys, the hard work will pay off
