I’ve been trying to learn how to play Super Smash Bros. Melee, lately.
Melee is a game that was accidentally created in such a way that has led to an enormous amount of competitive depth and room for improvement.
I’m in a somewhat unique position because I played it a bit as a kid but unlike a very large portion of the community, I know very little about the metagame, the movement tech, the lingo, what’s considered good or bad, etc.
The majority of the community, it seems, has either played for years already, or has watched the competitive scene for years already, or both. Most commonly, both. There is a huge resource of tutorials on YouTube and Reddit and various Discords and Google Docs, and it’s easier than ever to play via Slippi, which allows for painless online matchmaking and ranked mode.
Of course, I came in attempting to remain humble but also with some part of me screaming out that I’m about to become god’s gift to the game and destroy everyone with their preconceived notions of what’s good or bad, of how you’re ‘supposed to play’, et cetera.
And so, after a week or so of practice I entered a tournament specifically for beginners and got basically destroyed.
The only leg up I had on the competition was that I’m able to skip some of the initial hurdles of executing difficult things on a GameCube controller by deciding to play on a keyboard. This means that I’m fumbling around less than some order newbies and that gets me to a base level of competency that others seem to lack—“what?? you’ve only been playing a week? that’s crazy, you’re at the level of a month or two for sure”.
But a prodigy I am not. And so I went to the books. I’ve been watching the videos, and reading the docs, and looking at the frame data, and googling until I understand what a tech chase is, and what a ledgedash is, and every little bit helps, but I also have to practice everything I learn, preferably immediately after learning about it, or it doesn’t do a lick of good.
Melee in particular very clearly illustrates a process I’ve never quite experienced in the same way.
When you learn a given ‘tech’ (almost always some exploit in the game used by competitive players to gain an advantage), you usually first learn it by recognizing it. You see it happen in a match, or someone mentions it, or you read about it on a forum. Your brain creates a little pocket of space in the Melee zone called ‘wavedash’.
Then, you learn what is is, why it’s used, and how to do it. The entry is filled in.
Then, you try it in practice mode, and you fail.
Over and over. Eventually, you can do it maybe 50-70% of the time in practice mode.
That’s pretty decent, right? So we should be able to use it 50-70% of the time while we’re playing!
Nope. Unless your opponent is standing still or barely moving, you’re going to fumble it nearly every time when you start trying to use it in matches.
But when you hit it! When you start hitting it in a match, and especially if you use it in a way that gives you an advantage in the fight rather than just to show off, something clicks. And then when you see other people use it more adeptly than you, hopefully it makes even more sense. And when you go back to practice mode after using it a few times in a real match, you’re instantly more consistent at performing it. Using it in the pressure of the real situation, that solidifies it in your mind.
There’s a Japanese phrase, ‘swimming on a tatami mat’, to refer to practice that’s so far removed from reality that it accomplishes basically nothing.
To me, this all feels analogous to the language concept of Comprehensible Input. You can practice grammar and vocabulary all day long, but until someone speaks the word and you understand the meaning, it tends to easily slide off back into the noise. And then, to speak the word in appropriate context, in a real conversation, that solidifies it.
First you learn what a wavedash is, then how to do it, then you practice the pronunciation, and then you use it in conversation. Only then do you begin to know what is truly meant in the conversation between two players when someone wavedashes.
And the meaning that conveys between you and your buddy in a friendly match, compared to the meaning conveyed by two top players competing for a five-figure prize is like comparing preschool math to rocket science.
I’m reminded of a conversation I once had with a piano teacher I respect greatly who taught at a music store I worked at for some time.
I had a friend who said he didn’t want to learn music by the books, he didn’t want to learn to read music, he didn’t want to practice scales or etudes, he just wanted to play, and learn that way. Why? “I don’t want to learn other people’s stuff, man, I want to make my music.”
I said, what do you think about my friend? Does he have any merit in this thinking? He said he wants lessons from you, but he doesn’t want to use the books.
The teacher said, quite plainly, “He thinks he’s unique and forward thinking, breaking the mold, but I’ve had a hundred students like him. He’s lazy. It’s a cop-out. He doesn’t want to practice or study and just wants to skip to the result in his head. You have to learn the rules before you can break them. And if he was really the rare entirely self-taught savant, he’d be too busy playing to bother asking you, and too proud to want lessons from me.”
I think about that conversation pretty often. I try to use it to keep me grounded when I start feeling like I don’t need to learn the rules before I break them.
There’s a sort of legendary Melee player named Borp, who gained brief popularity and then vanished away, who didn’t use the wavedash, didn’t use any of the techskill that’s so ubiquitous, and managed to beat high ranking players using his unorthodox methods.
I think people like me, and like my friend, want to be Borp. The trendy meme right now would be that our toxic trait is believing we totally could be as good a Borp if we tried. But the secret of Borp which anyone who’s put a lot of work into the game will tell you, is that he’s good because he could do all that techskill and he chooses not to, he knows all of this stuff and then uses that to break the meta, he isn’t some guy off the street who picked up a Melee controller off the ground and started destroying people, every time he doesn’t use a wavedash is a conscious choice.
The meta element of anything is a necessary evil, and something that also must be tempered. You need to know the rules to break them, you need to not just watch the tutorial but understand it, and try it, and fail, and the try it in a real match, and fail, and then finally after a hundred matches of failing to hit it when you need it, you’ll start hitting it every time, and then you’ll use it way too much because you can finally do it. Then eventually, once you can pull it off without thinking, you’ll truly understand it, and stop using it so damn much just because you can, and it becomes another element of complexity and beauty to your expression of the craft.
Thank you for writing this out. It resonates with what’s happening in my head on a deeper, emotional level (“if I study enough meta, I will become a fearsome champion in my first match, ha ha”).
I’ve been trying to learn how to play Super Smash Bros. Melee, lately.
Melee is a game that was accidentally created in such a way that has led to an enormous amount of competitive depth and room for improvement.
I’m in a somewhat unique position because I played it a bit as a kid but unlike a very large portion of the community, I know very little about the metagame, the movement tech, the lingo, what’s considered good or bad, etc.
The majority of the community, it seems, has either played for years already, or has watched the competitive scene for years already, or both. Most commonly, both. There is a huge resource of tutorials on YouTube and Reddit and various Discords and Google Docs, and it’s easier than ever to play via Slippi, which allows for painless online matchmaking and ranked mode.
Of course, I came in attempting to remain humble but also with some part of me screaming out that I’m about to become god’s gift to the game and destroy everyone with their preconceived notions of what’s good or bad, of how you’re ‘supposed to play’, et cetera.
And so, after a week or so of practice I entered a tournament specifically for beginners and got basically destroyed.
The only leg up I had on the competition was that I’m able to skip some of the initial hurdles of executing difficult things on a GameCube controller by deciding to play on a keyboard. This means that I’m fumbling around less than some order newbies and that gets me to a base level of competency that others seem to lack—“what?? you’ve only been playing a week? that’s crazy, you’re at the level of a month or two for sure”.
But a prodigy I am not. And so I went to the books. I’ve been watching the videos, and reading the docs, and looking at the frame data, and googling until I understand what a tech chase is, and what a ledgedash is, and every little bit helps, but I also have to practice everything I learn, preferably immediately after learning about it, or it doesn’t do a lick of good.
Melee in particular very clearly illustrates a process I’ve never quite experienced in the same way.
When you learn a given ‘tech’ (almost always some exploit in the game used by competitive players to gain an advantage), you usually first learn it by recognizing it. You see it happen in a match, or someone mentions it, or you read about it on a forum. Your brain creates a little pocket of space in the Melee zone called ‘wavedash’. Then, you learn what is is, why it’s used, and how to do it. The entry is filled in.
Then, you try it in practice mode, and you fail. Over and over. Eventually, you can do it maybe 50-70% of the time in practice mode.
That’s pretty decent, right? So we should be able to use it 50-70% of the time while we’re playing!
Nope. Unless your opponent is standing still or barely moving, you’re going to fumble it nearly every time when you start trying to use it in matches.
But when you hit it! When you start hitting it in a match, and especially if you use it in a way that gives you an advantage in the fight rather than just to show off, something clicks. And then when you see other people use it more adeptly than you, hopefully it makes even more sense. And when you go back to practice mode after using it a few times in a real match, you’re instantly more consistent at performing it. Using it in the pressure of the real situation, that solidifies it in your mind.
There’s a Japanese phrase, ‘swimming on a tatami mat’, to refer to practice that’s so far removed from reality that it accomplishes basically nothing.
To me, this all feels analogous to the language concept of Comprehensible Input. You can practice grammar and vocabulary all day long, but until someone speaks the word and you understand the meaning, it tends to easily slide off back into the noise. And then, to speak the word in appropriate context, in a real conversation, that solidifies it. First you learn what a wavedash is, then how to do it, then you practice the pronunciation, and then you use it in conversation. Only then do you begin to know what is truly meant in the conversation between two players when someone wavedashes. And the meaning that conveys between you and your buddy in a friendly match, compared to the meaning conveyed by two top players competing for a five-figure prize is like comparing preschool math to rocket science.
I’m reminded of a conversation I once had with a piano teacher I respect greatly who taught at a music store I worked at for some time. I had a friend who said he didn’t want to learn music by the books, he didn’t want to learn to read music, he didn’t want to practice scales or etudes, he just wanted to play, and learn that way. Why? “I don’t want to learn other people’s stuff, man, I want to make my music.”
I said, what do you think about my friend? Does he have any merit in this thinking? He said he wants lessons from you, but he doesn’t want to use the books. The teacher said, quite plainly, “He thinks he’s unique and forward thinking, breaking the mold, but I’ve had a hundred students like him. He’s lazy. It’s a cop-out. He doesn’t want to practice or study and just wants to skip to the result in his head. You have to learn the rules before you can break them. And if he was really the rare entirely self-taught savant, he’d be too busy playing to bother asking you, and too proud to want lessons from me.”
I think about that conversation pretty often. I try to use it to keep me grounded when I start feeling like I don’t need to learn the rules before I break them.
There’s a sort of legendary Melee player named Borp, who gained brief popularity and then vanished away, who didn’t use the wavedash, didn’t use any of the techskill that’s so ubiquitous, and managed to beat high ranking players using his unorthodox methods.
I think people like me, and like my friend, want to be Borp. The trendy meme right now would be that our toxic trait is believing we totally could be as good a Borp if we tried. But the secret of Borp which anyone who’s put a lot of work into the game will tell you, is that he’s good because he could do all that techskill and he chooses not to, he knows all of this stuff and then uses that to break the meta, he isn’t some guy off the street who picked up a Melee controller off the ground and started destroying people, every time he doesn’t use a wavedash is a conscious choice.
The meta element of anything is a necessary evil, and something that also must be tempered. You need to know the rules to break them, you need to not just watch the tutorial but understand it, and try it, and fail, and the try it in a real match, and fail, and then finally after a hundred matches of failing to hit it when you need it, you’ll start hitting it every time, and then you’ll use it way too much because you can finally do it. Then eventually, once you can pull it off without thinking, you’ll truly understand it, and stop using it so damn much just because you can, and it becomes another element of complexity and beauty to your expression of the craft.
Thank you for writing this out. It resonates with what’s happening in my head on a deeper, emotional level (“if I study enough meta, I will become a fearsome champion in my first match, ha ha”).
This is going on a post-it on my desk.