you want to learn philosophy? except maybe not really.
i bet you couldn't even learn super smash bros melee. that's a challenge.
if you can't learn smash bros, i doubt you'll ever learn philosophy.
if you managed to learn smash, you would have used various methods of learning successfully. you could then re-use some of them for learning philosophy.
if you learned smash, you would have dealt with details. you would have done precise thinking successfully. you could use that for philosophy.
but maybe it's too hard for you. playing smash well requires being able to research information online, understand it, and apply it.
playing smash well requires patience at appropriate times.
playing smash well requires effective practice. you have to practice in such a way you get better.
playing smash well requires succeeding at things you were bad at initially. you will be very bad at lots of the game initially. you'll have to change that.
playing smash well requires asking questions productively.
playing smash well involves running into players who are better than you, and seeing really plainly and clearly they are better than you. no excuses, no denials, you're outclassed. and it involves watching games from top players and learning from them and aspiring to be better.
playing smash well requires learning to do some thinking and situation-handling quickly.
playing smash well requires learning new terminology and physics. the terminology is easier than in biology or philosophy. the physics is much easier than the real physics.
playing smash well requires persistence and effort.
playing smash well requires strategy. you have to think about strategies well and implement them.
playing smash well requires good use of testing. is something a good idea? test it out. you can test out lots of your ideas and see how it goes. to make progress you'll need to choose useful tests, and learn from the results. smash allows doing lots of tests quickly, so if you fail at first, you can try again cheaply.
playing smash well requires discussing smash in a productive way.
playing smash well requires objectivity. biases don't win games. myths you tell yourself (like strategy X or character Y is really great – when actually they aren't) don't win games.
playing smash well requires initiative. no one will hand you smash skills. you have to pursue them.
learning smash requires creative practice techniques. play some slow paced games. play some games where you focus on doing one or two things right and autopilot the rest.
learning smash requires developing some autopilot strategies that you can perform with little attention. but you need to be able to turn them on and off. and you need to be able to make changes to them as you get better.
learning smash requires forming habits but then dropping or improving them as you make progress.
learning smash involves making mistakes and and then fixing it and not making those mistakes anymore.
learning smash involves making many tiny improvements which add up to big progress overall.
learning smash requires judging ideas on their merits, not by how fancy the writing is. there's lots of good ideas about smash that are written casually. here's an example written by a player (MaNg0) who some consider to be the best ever: "My summary for this matchup is..Shielding is your best frienD!!!This match is all about spacing! U gotta like run to them shield but space it.. then fair out of shield..Not much really to say about this match... BEtter Spacing and PATIENCE Wins .."
learning smash requires learning from criticism. if you never seek out criticism, you'll get stuck. if you dislike criticism instead of appreciating it, you'll get stuck. if you don't understand what to do with criticism, you'll get stuck.
if you don't have the initiative, persistence and ability-to-learn to play smash well, you'll never get far with philosophy (which requires far more of those skills).
if you think smash is too much work as a step forward, you'll never get competent at philosophy, which is far more work.
if you're too busy for smash, you'll never get competent at philosophy, which takes far more time.
if you don't want people to see your smash mistakes, and want to learn it all alone in private, you will fail at both smash and philosophy.
if you silently ignore this, you will fail at philosophy.
Smash is available on Windows and Mac for online play.
Messages (32)
> if you can't learn smash bros, i doubt you'll ever learn philosophy.
What if I don't want to learn smash bros?
Have you asked any smash brothers players if they are interested in philosophy?
> What if I don't want to learn smash bros?
why?
I don't want to because I have not really enjoyed games of any sort for a very long time. They're not fun / interesting. This has seemed to be true whether the game is chance oriented or high skill dependent, slow or fast paced, primarily physical or primarily mental, single or multi-player, digital (video games) or analog (board/card/sport games).
The only times I have played games as a teen or adult was due to social pressures of one sort or another. As I got older the social pressure to play games lessened and I simultaneously got better at resisting it.
My reasons for not enjoying games are not all explicit. The most explicit reason I have is that I have lots of interesting challenges, puzzles, etc in my work and general life already. Stuff where the output matters directly to my life. So I don't enjoy putting effort into the artificial challenges, puzzles, etc. in games where the outcome of the activity itself doesn't improve my life. I always feel like I could & should be working on something with more direct benefits to me.
I'm sure this isn't the only reason I don't like games, but it's a big one.
@#6533
sounds like you're facing some flaws that get in the way of SSBM. and you'd face many flaws to ever get good at philosophy.
you don't really know what playing the game is like and block the project from the start without finding out.
you don't really know what TCS is like and have blocked finding out for years.
same old stuff.
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lumping together lots of different games is ridiculous. they very wildly.
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it's foolish to only do "Stuff where the output matters directly to my life". then the stakes keep you doing conservative strategies and limit experimentation.
"artificial" problems have less design constraints so they can do some good things. a common one is direct human vs. human competition. that's a common way of dramatically increasing the maximum useful skill for a problem (how much details, precision and optimization matter before you hit a "good enough, problem solved" point). it's common for people who haven't competed to have never dealt with anything very hard.
strategies for competing with other humans are also qualitatively different than strategies for dealing with other stuff. because humans can think creatively and adapt to what you're doing. human beings are the most interesting thing on the planet. if you've never competed with any, you're fundamentally missing out.
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another important thing is projects you can discuss. discussion is needed for quality control, for integrating philosophy into the project, and for using it as an example for learning philosophy. you don't seem to have any good projects to discuss. that's a big problem. (the alternative is you have suitable project(s) to discuss but don't, e.g. to evade criticism).
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> I always feel like I could & should be working on something with more direct benefits to me.
doing something optimized for learning is the most beneficial thing you can do.
once upon a time approximately everyone was stuck farming. they were doing stuff directly beneficial to their lives. and they didn't learn much.
a few were able to live a life of relative luxury. this gave them time to write poems and do other leisure activities without clear, direct benefits. and so much good came of this.
> lumping together lots of different games is ridiculous. they very wildly.
Yes, they vary wildly. I did not want to lump all games together; it ended up as the only theory I had that fit the data.
For a while I thought, I just didn't enjoy *some* kinds of games. Like sports or physical games in general, or games involving quick reaction time or hand-eye coordination, or team games, or games where the outcome was mostly / entirely dependent on chance, or competition games, or whatever else you care to name.
But then I'd try some other kind of game/puzzle that didn't have any of the aspects I thought I didn't like, and I'd find I still didn't enjoy it so I'd try to guess what else was the problem.
I eventually noticed that my reaction to doing a sudoku puzzle is approximately the same as my reaction to playing baseball or Monopoly or World of Warcraft or Chess or Pac Man. Games that have little or nothing in common. My reaction is the same to the math puzzles posted on FI.
I only reluctantly arrived at the conclusion that I didn't enjoy any games. There's a lot of social pressure to have at least some kinds of games you like; it would've been easier to find a kind of game that I liked.
the relevant category may not be *games* but *games found by certain search criteria* – such as peer recommendations of socially popular games combined with pressure.
or maybe that's how it started and now you're an irrational hater.
> it's foolish to only do "Stuff where the output matters directly to my life". then the stakes keep you doing conservative strategies and limit experimentation.
It's true I am relatively conservative by some standards. But I'm also a risk taker by other standards. I'm not sure where I sit objectively on the risky vs. conservative scale.
I do take risks most people - even ardent game players - aren't willing or able to take. Like working from home. Like moving to a different country. Like homeschooling. Like some of the investing I do. Like rejecting the religion I was raised in and that's important to my extended family.
Maybe "too conservative" is nevertheless a problem for me. Seems possible, but a poor reason to do something I don't think I'll enjoy.
> "artificial" problems have less design constraints so they can do some good things. a common one is direct human vs. human competition. that's a common way of dramatically increasing the maximum useful skill for a problem (how much details, precision and optimization matter before you hit a "good enough, problem solved" point). it's common for people who haven't competed to have never dealt with anything very hard.
I realize it's just an assertion to you, but I don't think what I've achieved in life is consistent with having "never dealt with anything very hard." You said common though, so maybe I'm just uncommon.
Or maybe your idea of "very hard" is way above what it takes to be even pretty successful by conventional measures. But in that case, many people *do* compete in direct human vs. human competition, some quite regularly and seriously. Yet they fail to achieve even the level of success I have achieved because they find even the stuff I do (or equivalently productive activities) to be too hard.
So I'm not convinced that hardness is a relevant factor in my case.
> strategies for competing with other humans are also qualitatively different than strategies for dealing with other stuff. because humans can think creatively and adapt to what you're doing.
That seems to me like an argument against game playing, not for it. If solving real world problems is qualitatively different than human vs. human competition in game play, why optimize your learning for human vs. human competition in game play?
> human beings are the most interesting thing on the planet. if you've never competed with any, you're fundamentally missing out.
Yeah, I'm missing out on something that I don't enjoy. And it's not like I've *never* competed with other humans, so have no idea what it's like. I just haven't done much, and what I have done I have not enjoyed so I did not continue.
Skydiving, backpacking, and music concerts are other examples of things some people say I'm missing out by not doing. And I agree, I am missing out on some things in life by not doing those activities. But I don't enjoy them either, so I don't do them.
> once upon a time approximately everyone was stuck farming. they were doing stuff directly beneficial to their lives. and they didn't learn much.
Farming sounds boring. I've never actually tried it, but it doesn't sound like the kind of interesting problems I solve in my life.
> a few were able to live a life of relative luxury. this gave them time to write poems and do other leisure activities without clear, direct benefits. and so much good came of this.
Poems sound kinda boring too.
If I had free time in an agrarian society I think it'd be more interesting to design stuff like an irrigation system or a storage silo than to write poems.
And I think there'd be clear and direct benefits to the kind of things I'd like to do, and I think more good would come of it than poems.
> the relevant category may not be *games* but *games found by certain search criteria* – such as peer recommendations of socially popular games combined with pressure.
I sought out & tried some stuff on my own, but not a ton.
Do you propose an alternate search criteria?
Do you have an argument / explanation why I would find games with a different search criteria to be enjoyable?
> or maybe that's how it started and now you're an irrational hater.
I don't think so, but could be.
Like with reading books though, how do I find out without "forcing myself" to do something I don't want to do?
> It's true I am relatively conservative by some standards. But I'm also a risk taker by other standards. I'm not sure where I sit objectively on the risky vs. conservative scale.
you misunderstood.
you are thinking about conservative vs. risk taker **in life in general**.
but i was talking about in micro situations, not as a life policy.
when practicing smash, and many other games, it's no big deal to try an idea you're pretty sure will fail miserably and get you killed. lots of things can be tried out and rejected in ~15 seconds, others in a couple minutes. and there's no other resources lost like using up materials.
and you can try a strategy idea for a game or two. and if you lose those games, no big deal.
compare this with a typical work environment. your boss doesn't want some failed projects. risk taking is heavily suppressed in various ways. there's customers at stake. sometimes you can set up things like test servers to experiment on, but sometimes you can't, and you're under pressure to go straight to the goal line in an expected way and not "waste time" trying things out. this is partly b/c there is often a "good enough" solution that's desired, and experimentation that may lead to further optimizations is not desired because being 5% better than "good enough" isn't valued.
similar things often come up with all manner of "non-artificial" problems. like say you have a friendship. if you experiment with ways of relating to your friend, you may lose him. if you've known him for years, losing that friend is costly. so you'll be super conservative. real stakes in general breeds tons of conservatism *logically and correctly* – and it's important to have some other activities in your life where failure is very cheap.
> Or maybe your idea of "very hard" is way above what it takes to be even pretty successful by conventional measures.
the level of competition to win a smash tournament is far far far higher than what people face to have a successful middle class life. a successful conventional life doesn't especially require competing with other people – and therefore having to overcome opposing creativity (which is HARD when lots of people try hard).
> But in that case, many people *do* compete in direct human vs. human competition, some quite regularly and seriously.
there are lots of ways to ruin your life even if it has something good in it. and most people you believe are competing seriously aren't actually. you can't judge it because you don't understand games. most games aren't very competitive, especially intellectually (like lots of sports are very competitive in some ways, including some physical stuff, but the intellectual side of things is neglected).
> That seems to me like an argument against game playing, not for it. If solving real world problems is qualitatively different than human vs. human competition in game play, why optimize your learning for human vs. human competition in game play?
if there's broadly 2 things in the world, why try both?
if there's 5 different flavors you can taste, why ever try different foods to taste more than one? why learn about sugar when you've tasted salt? and certainly if you tried sugar 3 times and didn't instantly love it, then you should just forget about it, right..?
> Yeah, I'm missing out on something that I don't enjoy. And it's not like I've *never* competed with other humans, so have no idea what it's like. I just haven't done much, and what I have done I have not enjoyed so I did not continue.
you're missing out on a whole broad swathe of life, which you claim not to enjoy while having no clue what it's actually like. you had a few bad experiences in some early stages of some poorly chosen activities. then you gave up. now you defend your failure and want it to persist because, among other bad reasoning, you feel certain emotions more about some other stuff.
> Skydiving, backpacking, and music concerts are other examples of things some people say I'm missing out by not doing. And I agree, I am missing out on some things in life by not doing those activities. But I don't enjoy them either, so I don't do them.
stupid comment. we were just talking about "fundamentally missing out". with a reason it's actually fundamentally different. and now you talk about missing out on mundane stuff like it's the same.
> So I'm not convinced that hardness is a relevant factor in my case.
there's a way to settle this and it isn't armchair speculating on an activity you know nothing about.
but you don't want to make the effort. you, just like with TCS, prefer to make excuses rather than understand what you're missing.
> > once upon a time approximately everyone was stuck farming. they were doing stuff directly beneficial to their lives. and they didn't learn much.
> Farming sounds boring. I've never actually tried it, but it doesn't sound like the kind of interesting problems I solve in my life.
you seem oblivious to the point and aren't asking either. you just seem to have assumed i wrote something stupid and pointless, and that you know better.
> Do you have an argument / explanation why I would find games with a different search criteria to be enjoyable?
why are you focusing on emotions? your emotional makeup sucks.
> Poems sound kinda boring too.
you don't seem to have any awareness of the role of poets in history.
you're too ignorant even to realize there's something there you don't know about. or too uncurious to look into it. yet you'll write dismissively.
> Poems sound kinda boring too.
you also expect everyone you interact with is stupid. so if their example appears stupid to you, then you just proceed. you don't think "why would he write a stupid example? maybe there's a reason i don't know about! ..."
> > or maybe that's how it started and now you're an irrational hater.
> I don't think so, but could be.
why don't you think so? that's basically the story you told. bad experiences, gave up. can't logically argue against games, just don't like them. can't introspect about why well, just don't like it.
isn't that all super typical of irrational haters? and you haven't offered any alternatives.
> Do you propose an alternate search criteria?
you haven't said any search criteria you used. you should do that before expecting anyone to tell you *alternate* criteria.
a good initial search criteria is to look for the *best*, *modern*, *electronic* games that involve thinking and strategy and are highly competitive and which have lasted over time.
stuff like counterstrike, starcraft, dota, smash and streetfighter would be examples to look at.
have you ever tried anything you think fits this search criteria? if so name and criticize it. then someone can point out several ways you totally failed to understand what was going on and misjudged it. then you can not change you're mind but at least it'll clarify you're irrational.
>>> or maybe that's how it started and now you're an irrational hater.
>>
>> I don't think so, but could be.
>
>why don't you think so? that's basically the story you told. bad experiences, gave up. can't logically argue against games, just don't like them. can't introspect about why well, just don't like it.
>
> isn't that all super typical of irrational haters? and you haven't offered any alternatives.
I think "hater" is what I especially don't think fits. There's lots of stuff I don't personally want to do that I don't hate. Lots of stuff that would fit into the description of "bad experiences, gave up, can't logically argue against, just don't like" category with regard to my personal activities.
I don't try to get playing games banned, or think or say it's bad / immoral for other people to play them, or spend time trying to convince others not to play them. Which are the type of behaviors I'd typically associate with being a "hater". I'm just disinterested in playing games *personally*.
I will cop to being a "hater" of watching sports. I do say watching sports is generally bad, try to talk people out of it a little (but I don't seek to ban it). Ex: I don't hate the game of football itself or that people play football. I just hate that people who have no interest in learning to play football better are spending bunches of time and money watching others play it for the purpose of getting caught up in social rituals like tailgating, drinking, trash talking, gambling, cheering or getting upset depending on the outcome of the game or specific plays, etc.
BTW I have no comment on e-sports watching, because I have no experience with that. My guess is that it's not usually bad in the ways that I think ex: football watching is.
And I also accept that my disinterest in playing games personally may be irrational. If I didn't think that was a possibility, I wouldn't be talking about it.
> I think "hater" is what I especially don't think fits. There's lots of stuff I don't personally want to do that I don't hate.
oh this appears to just be that you're unfamiliar modern internet usage of the word "hater".
just read it as more like "irrational alienated non-enjoyer"
>> Do you propose an alternate search criteria?
>
> you haven't said any search criteria you used. you should do that before expecting anyone to tell you *alternate* criteria.
I think the suggestion, "peer recommendations of socially popular games combined with pressure" is a major one.
There were some others, like "games with neat technical effects", "games with a reputation for appealing to intellectuals", and "games that were a challenge to copy" (figuring out how to break the copy protection was fun even though playing the game wasn't).
> a good initial search criteria is to look for the *best*, *modern*, *electronic* games that involve thinking and strategy and are highly competitive and which have lasted over time.
>
> stuff like counterstrike, starcraft, dota, smash and streetfighter would be examples to look at.
>
> have you ever tried anything you think fits this search criteria?
No.
if i had no knowledge of sports, but knew that millions of people really liked them, i would check it out.
you seem to have no knowledge of esports, know that millions of people really like it, but don't want to check it out.
why?
do you have a full queue of super mega popular things to check out?
do you deny that stuff that appeals to many millions of people is worth a look?
i think it's rare enough that one should check out everything that that so many people really like, and it doesn't take that long to get some basic idea of what stuff is. it's pretty easy to go wrong with only a basic initial understanding, but it's much much easier to misjudge things with no understanding at all. and with a basic initial understanding you can expose it to criticism and discuss.
> stuff like counterstrike, starcraft, dota, smash and streetfighter would be examples to look at.
Of those, is SSBM the best for someone who literally hasn't played any video game since Myst, sometime in the mid 90's, to start with? Or is one of the other ones better?
Why is the above comment in a black box?
> Of those, is SSBM the best for someone who literally hasn't played any video game since Myst, sometime in the mid 90's, to start with? Or is one of the other ones better?
what attributes are you looking for?
one attribute is how much Elliot knows about a game, plays the game, writes about the game, and cares to discuss the game. SSBM is the best for that on that list. Elliot knows other games which don't do as well on some of the other criteria mentioned earlier. like some aren't so popular and others are new.
typical "beginner" games are slow paced, have easy controls, are single player, are linear, have easy challenges, try to never make you feel "dumb" or "stuck", and are a "play once and win and you're done" style.
many people hate being bad at games. so they want games which heavily limit how good you can be. then the gap between their skill, and the maximum skill, is low. the main exception to this is competitive games cuz then the difficulty has a lot to do with the skill of the opposing player(s).
competitive games like Overwatch still take steps to help people lie to themselves about how good they are. Overwatch carefully limits what information you see about how well you do. for example you can see your deaths this game, but you can't see the death count of any other player to compare. and you can see your kills but they are counted in a way such that almost all players almost always have more kills than deaths! how? a kill is awarded to anyone who damages someone shortly before they die. so around 2.33 players receive a kill for every death that takes place. the game also hands out 15+ medals between 6 players on a team. (gold/silver/bronze in 5 categories. ties allow for extra medals). so the average player gets 2.5 medals per game out of 5 categories. this results in the majority of players thinking the stats show they are above average. **however** this is just some illusion that's tacked on. the game itself is very hard – optimal play is far far beyond what any human can do. there is *plenty* of room for someone who is better than you to kick your ass.
the best games typically are fast paced, have hard controls, and have lots of replayability. major sources of replayability come from:
- very very hard so you can keep trying to do better. along with some kind of metric to improve on like a higher score or faster time
- no storyline
- no predetermined puzzles where, once you know the solution, it's not interesting anymore
- random elements
- competitive games. like how chess or monopoly is replayable.
some games with low replayability are good, but they are more limited projects. kinda like reading one book vs. learning a field. here's a non-replayable puzzle game which several FI people have played a fair amount of, however none of them asked me many questions about the game or otherwise did much to make it into an interactive or exposed-to-FI-criticism learning experience: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/toki-tori/id314388744?mt=8
one of the advantages of multiplayer games is it's harder to hide from criticism and play alone. you play other people and sometimes you run into people who are better than you. and if you play me, i'll see mistakes you make.
some games seem to have low replayability, but people add more by inventing their own rules. the most common way to do this is *speedrunning* where you try to beat the game as fast as possible. you can then play again and try to beat your time. and you can make an online leaderboard and try to beat other people's times. a linear game with a storyline can still be played again, even if you know how to win, if you focus your attention on methods of going fast. example game like OOT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Zelda:_Ocarina_of_Time
speedrunning often turns easy games into hard games. OOT is fairly easy to control if you play through in the normal, casual way. however speedrunners do frame perfect tricks and have to use the controller very precisely and have to be able to correctly enter many inputs quickly.
speedrunning often involves finding bugs in software, understanding them, and then playing on old unpatched versions in order to use them. this adds a lot of complexity to games.
some speedruns are done in a slow and easy to control way. this is called a TAS – tool assisted speedrun. it's where you use software to control the game rather than pressing buttons yourself. normal speedruns are timed in realtime, but a TAS is timed by how long the playthrough is once you put it all together.
here is an example TAS with some interesting explanations which gives some sense of the sort of detailed understanding involved with playing a game very well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpk2tdsPh0A
this mario TAS is for an individual level of the game and uses the special rules of trying to minimize the number of times the A button is used (A is mainly jump, though it can vary contextually). the score is the number of A button presses, then with time as a tiebreaker. the TAS is over 12 hours long. the level can be played normally in more like a minute, but using the absolute minimum number of A presses requires some lengthy techniques. the video skips over most of the time which is really repetitive and just shows the interesting parts.
the most popular game is league of legends. it had like 27 million active players per *day* a couple years ago (must be more now). i consider it to have some severe design flaws, carried over from dota 1, which cater to bad people. it's still a pretty good game though. it's a 5 vs 5 competitive multiplayer game with lots of room to outplay people with superior skill. it's fast paced and has difficult controls (though some games, such as SSBM, have much harder controls at the top level. SSBM is also faster paced at the top level. you can start slow and work your way up.).
a good way to see what a game is like is to watch some gameplay on https://www.twitch.tv and also look it up on forums and youtube. however with ZERO experience playing games it can be hard to understand what's going on from watching. playing a wide variety of games at beginner level, enough to have some clue what they are and whether you like them, is something i'd recommend to everyone.
also: a parent with no clue about games is failing his children. about as much as a parent who has never visited any toystores and has no idea what toys exist and no idea how to help his children find good toys they would like. or a parent who doesn't know how cars work, doesn't know what the cost, doesn't know in what way cars could be useful, and tells his kids to walk. or similar with microwaves or knives or bowls or blankets.
or video. if a parent nevers watch any videos and has no idea what exists (you've heard of TV and movie theaters but never tried them), and you've never heard of youtube/netflix/hulu ... not ok.
or the internet. or books. or soda. or candy. or computers. or phones.
or sports for that matter. if you don't know that sports exist, many people like them, the names of some popular ones, where to find information about them, and some other basic stuff, then you can't do a reasonable job of offering sports to your kid(s). and that'd be really bad and irresponsible.
or like if you had no idea what sciences exist, and no ability to suggest anything scientific to your kid at all, that would be really bad. you should know there is a thing called "astronomy" you can look up to find out about the stars. you should know there are people called scientists who know lots of details about stars. and really you ought to know a fair amount more than that. and similar for other fields.
more examples: playgrounds, pools, beaches, amusement parks, science museums, aquariums, zoos, restaurants. including literally McDonalds. i'm not sure the situation in all countries, but American parents who aren't familiar with McDonalds are bad parents. they should know what McDonalds is enough to reasonably judge if their kid would like it to be offered. they should know McDonalds serves burgers and fries. they should know what a burger and a french fry is. etc
parents have to have some clue about stuff like that.
it's gross neglect not to.
this sort of gross neglect is very rare when it comes to zoos or toys or sports. some parents have very bad ideas about zoos (not worth the effort of taking kid who wants to go) and toys (limit the quantity, clean them up the moment you take a break from using them, etc). but the parents at least know what a zoo is and have some knowledge of what toys exist (sometimes their knowledge of the types of toys available is inadequate. but they do know some). some parents discourage their kids from playing sports.
this kind of gross neglect is common when it comes to electronic games. many parents have absolutely no clue and their kids end up deprived due to this ignorance. it's similar with computers and internet stuff in general. lots of parents are grossly ignorant of what stuff you can find on the internet and the kid has to figure it out himself and will make mistakes. the parents should have had basic knowledge and competence about the internet, computers, etc. this is an especially big deal for younger kids who get fucked over with things like having their first computer years later than they should have. as kids get older they have much more ability to find out stuff exists from sources other than their parents, so the consequences of this parental neglect and ignorance gets reduced.
smash vs overwatch
some comparisons btwn smash and overwatch.
overwatch is new. it looks promising but sometimes games fizzle out. i liked diablo 3 when it came out, but blizzard proceeded to ruin it.
overwatch is more popular. huge sales already. over 15 million sales. SSBM has like 7 million sales (#1 gamecube game which is the best nintendo platform)
overwatch is a team game.
team games mean you have less responsibility, accountability and control regarding outcomes
team games make it harder to tell if you did well or poorly
team games make it harder to try out many strategy ideas you have because many strategies rely on your entire team's actions, not just yours
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the reasons gamecube (GCN) is the best nintendo platform:
older consoles were less powerful and had inferior controllers. NES and SENS were 2d only, N64 had significantly worse 3d graphics and framerates. GCN discs also hold significantly more data than previous consoles, and the game designs learned lessons from previous games.
mobile devices sacrifice power and controls for portability. when i say "best" i'm not factoring in portability, just game quality.
the consoles after GCN have bad controllers. wii has awful motion control crap and fewer buttons. the motion controls significantly limit your ability to quickly and precisely enter the inputs you want to.
so to summarize: GCN is the most recent console from nintendo with a good controller. and SSBM is the #1 GCN game.
note that xbox and playstation both have good controllers for their more modern consoles. this is only a comparison of nintendo stuff.
PC is a better platform than console overall, but console has some advantages.
[8/25/16, 11:54:32 PM] curi: i've been practicing marth stuff like
[8/25/16, 11:55:09 PM] curi: wd FF to ledge. i rarely do the FF in games. i'm more than 50% consistent at this in practice. when i started it i was near 0% – would time FF wrong or, commonly, hold it too long so i can't grab edge
[8/25/16, 11:55:19 PM] curi: very short dash to wd to fsmash
[8/25/16, 11:55:57 PM] curi: i fuck my wd a lot doing this. i also fsmash too early sometimes. i'm in fast mode to get the wd out really fast and then i just hit fsmash asap and actually beat the 10 frame land lag on airdodge
[8/25/16, 11:56:14 PM] curi: i got it up to like 40% success tho from a bit of practicing
[8/25/16, 11:56:31 PM] curi: one use for this is do it after fthrow on jiggs
[8/25/16, 11:57:02 PM] curi: if they are at like 90 and they DI so they go max distance in front of you then you need a very brief dash, just doing WD fsmash won't hit
[8/25/16, 11:57:24 PM] curi: you can also do pivot but i'm not even trying to learn that yet
[8/25/16, 11:57:48 PM] curi: and i practiced drop off ledge, double jump, dair, then upB back to ledge
[8/25/16, 11:58:33 PM] curi: i can do that like 50% consistent. more consistent if i do several in a row and have the right timing. but when i'm off i can miss a few in a row. i miss more by upB early (in last few frames of dair) than late.
[8/25/16, 11:59:15 PM] curi: i practiced some ledgedash. with 20xx colors. it doesn't look to me like i'm getting any actionable invul frames. i believe marth can get like 4 if ur frame perfect. but i get more like -8 i think
[8/26/16, 12:00:22 AM] curi: my ledgedash is like 80% consistent to work, not suicide or airdodge above the stage. not necessarily great distance on the slide either. i rarely do it in game tho.
[8/26/16, 12:01:29 AM] curi: i haven't found a lot of situations where i'd want to ledgedash. i mostly do ledge fair, standup, roll. i'm good at ledge nair but i don't do them in game much, i usually do fair if i want to attack. i will drift my fair and stay back in games to try to tipper it and recatch ledge, then opponent backs off and i stand up IME
[8/26/16, 12:02:38 AM] curi: i practiced sh double fair and sh fair waveland. i'm getting faster at pressing buttons and more consistent. the waveland timing is hard though. it doesn't have much lenience. i can get it pretty often if i do sh fair to the left using base of thumb to hit cstick. but other direction or using A, i don't get the waveland very much
[8/26/16, 12:02:57 AM] curi: i'm getting pretty good at sh double fair with A button tho. i think i'm hitting it faster than i used to.
[8/26/16, 12:03:21 AM] curi: i don't double fair in game. but i do rising fair some (just do sh fair and get the fair out ASAP).
[8/26/16, 12:03:36 AM] curi: i'm also improving at l cancelling the sh fair, which i didn't even try to do when i started working on it
[8/26/16, 12:04:34 AM] curi: i try to practice strings of moves more. one i like is utilt dtilt udilt dtilt utilt dtilt. it's important not to get any jumps or usmashes
[8/26/16, 12:04:59 AM] curi: or i'll do like sh fair ff lcancel dtilt jab utilt dashback dashforward jc grab
[8/26/16, 12:05:13 AM] curi: i try to put more dashback into stuff but i don't do it a lot in game
[8/26/16, 12:05:36 AM] curi: in game i shield a lot when in doubt rather than dashback. i'll then drop the shield quickly if i don't need it.
[8/26/16, 12:05:54 AM] curi: i'm getting a lot better at using WD in game. including WD oos which i do one handed with only L.
[8/26/16, 12:06:11 AM] curi: u only have to let go of the digital press of L in order to input the airdodge, u don't have to let go all the way
[8/26/16, 12:06:22 AM] curi: u can even let go early, and still have fully hard shield without holding the digital press
[8/26/16, 12:07:40 AM] curi: i should try some emptyjump FF waveland back fsmash. i wonder if i can FF then waveland. i should learn timing with no FF too maybe
[8/26/16, 12:09:36 AM] curi: seems real hard to FF a marth SH then do anything else b4 landing
[8/26/16, 12:09:53 AM] curi: empty SH, no FF, waveland to fsmash works tho. that seems useful. also do it to grab
[8/26/16, 12:10:06 AM] curi: i also do sh fair ff lcancel grab or dtilt
https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/50i1t9/its_funny_how_smash_totally_breaks_down_age/
how i practice ssbm. video!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B98VgycoAW0
I'm interested in getting into Melee. I've a relatively large amount of experience with Brawl and even more experience with SSB4. I only have very basic knowledge of Melee and less of Project M, which I currently assume is a sort of "pseudo-Melee"/"Brawl but better" kind of game.
What would be the best way to introduce myself to it? Go headlong into Melee, warm myself up with Project M, or perhaps something else?
#11318 play some and watch some. don't play a different game if you want to play melee.