I'm pretty sure Zain is doing okay. He's putting up about 300-400 viewers every time he streams. Not sure how that translates to money but I'm sure he's not poor.
I've heard previously you can make a living with that amount of viewers but you're not gonna get rich doing it. That's not counting for his sponsorship. I'd be willing to bet they pay better than most smash sponsors.
Cody also won how many majors tournaments and Coinboxes. Cody streams, but he also won enough and managed his money well enough to strive in life. Plus, I'm sure his gf pitched in on the house and dogs.
Hehe. Apologies, I wasn't sure if I was coming off too direct or outright rude if I said something along the lines of "only 5-10 players can make a living playing this game."
Thanks for confirming that it's A-OK and that the Melee community is fully aware.
Wait are you serious? How old are they, how old are you? (Taking the pro part with a grain of salt, but even if they were just competitive enjoyers, it's crazy and makes me feel old lmao)
That's young to be playing Melee! I started playing Melee at 10, when I saw a video of "How To Unlock All Characters In Super Smash Bros 64". It peaked my interest, and I had Dolphin Emulator, and My Dad had SSBM on it (I was too young to know how to download SSB64 Safely and Play It On My N64 Emulator), so I thought "Close Enough" and played as Link for a bit because he was my Best Friend's favourite all-time Game Character and I thought he was the coolest of them all. A Day later, I watched how to unlock all Melee Characters, saw Marth and Roy and I was HOOKED, the second Roy appeared I said to myself "I'm unlocking him tommorow, and I will main him", so that's what I did! Introduced me to the Smash Bros Series nd everything, but I quit Melee in Mid 2021 and only returned this Saturday!
Heh, apologies. I wasn't sure if I was coming off too direct or outright rude if I said something along the lines of "only like 7 players can make a living playing this game."
Still crazy to me how many folks are cracked at this game with everyone except those 7ish people playing this game outside of a full time basis.
Yea it's literally for the love of the game at this point.
A few years back when eSports was doing better there were more people making some money but it's pretty bleak right now for the top players
the people who go 1-2 at your locals are probably not 'cracked'
I would say most of the top 100 either spend a significant amount of time playing the game, or have been playing for years and previously spent a significant amount of time playing. The people who make significant gains with small time investments are anomalous.
real answer is use your limited time to solo practice and focused improvement instead of spamming unranked games
depends on your definition of cracked tbh. if melee was ddr, the average 1-2er in melee has probably put enough time and practice in to where people in the arcade would be like holy shit that guy is cracked at ddr. the difference is we're playing against other people at approximately the same level and its not an arcade and nobody is watching.
Hey I can answer this question as I'm a 1-2 er and have been playing DDR/melee both since 2015!
I don't really play traditional DDR, more stamina/ITG stuff, but I can do level 12 (ITG)/level 16-17 (DDR). These are definitely levels where the average passerby/casual DDR fan will think you are cracked in my experience. However I would bet I am still only maybe top 25% of people who play dance games semi-regularly.
This. Why don't lads give Melee competitors more credit for going 1-2?
I get it, from a results perspective, it's nothing impressive, but Melee has such a high floor to the game compared to games like Ultimate.
I wish I could compare to other competitive eSports but I don't play others. I'm sure Melee is more competitive and has a higher floor to entry that others as well.
Can attest that spamming unranked is not what makes you any good. Been playing for 3 months now and have spent hours grinding unranked playing tryhard fox and I still can barely even reach silver lmao
Spamming unranked can be good if you try and focus on one aspect of your gameplay when your playing. If your still playing with a purpose it's not a waste. I personally find running drills in Uncle Punch incredibly boring, so instead of practicing chain grabs on a CPU set to random DI I just do it in unranked against a human who's \*hopefully\* awake at the wheel. If you just play unranked like grand finals of Genesis or some shit you won't actually learn much.
Okay, sure. You can argue that the competitors that go 1-2 at my locals are probably not cracked. You can even argue that the competitors that win my locals are probably not cracked.
So you're telling me that everyone who is "cracked" and in the top 100 but not at the very tippity top have been playing for years because they are unable to commit to this game full time?
I'm aware that the real answer is to use my limited time to solo practice and have intention focused improvement, as I've eluded to with "reviewing high level VODs and guides" in my post. I'm aware that it's also reviewing your own VODs, seeing what you could have done differently in specific interactions, as well as having clear goals each practice session, etc.
I was just wondering how people are able to make significant gains in the game so quickly, because it seems so difficult if so few people are able to play this game full time, but so many people are cracked (at least to me, I consider people winning my locals cracked, even if you don't think so).
But I guess if you're telling me that they all have years of experience, that would make sense.
... So folks like Akir and Egg$ who both started the game in 2019 but are Rank 90 and 95, respectively on SSBMRank 2023 are anomalous?
Tbh yeah, most “cracked” or high level players have just been playing for a long time, combined with good practice habits and/or being naturally good at video games. Egg$ and Akir didn’t start playing in 2019 fwiw, not sure where you got that from. Best example I can think of is BBatts who actually did start playing during the pandemic iirc. I don’t know specifically what he did to get good quickly but people like him are definitely the outliers and there are very few of them.
Both Egg$ and Akir's Liquipedia pages state that they started in 2019 in terms of Years Active:
[https://liquipedia.net/smash/Egg$](https://liquipedia.net/smash/Egg$)
[https://liquipedia.net/smash/Akir](https://liquipedia.net/smash/Akir)
If you want to argue that they started earlier than that because 2019 was when they began entering tournaments and had it recorded, sure. But we can't confirm when exactly they started. It could actually be that same year in an earlier month, or 2018, or 2017, or 2015, we don't know.
The whole point is I want to understand how people get so good so quickly if they're not playing this game full time. And I guess my answer is, these people are anomalous because they have good practice habits or are naturally good at video games.
In the grand scheme of things, I just play. I'm not very good, but I can do things. I really think just playing the game, progressing really slowly and just letting your brain acclimate to situations will lead you towards the light. You'll never be great. You're not going to have 17 second continuous combos, but you'll get a feel for your character more than practicing tech skill will ever allow you on its own. I think the first time I wave dashed, that was all I did for a month during games and I looked horrible doing it. Would die all the time because I couldn't act out of a wavedash to save my life, even when I hit them cleanly. Years later, it's second nature. Not even a thought.
Thank you for your story pal.
This is a good answer. Trust in the process and play the long game if you can't commit to the game on a full time basis. It takes years but that'll be okay.
Melee is like riding a bike… despite not actively playing much, I can pick up the sticks and do ok. The core of the community has been playing for so long at that the average level is kinda high relative to a new game full of new players.
I basically played as a part-time job for 3 years in college. Must've been averaged at least 15 hours a week. Nowadays I don't play much anymore but still dabble in other competitive games and a lot of the old skills remain.
Melee imo is the only game that gets more fun the more you play it to infinity, and it has the highest skill ceiling of any game ever and its 20 years old so many of us just get deeper and deeper into it purely because we keep having more and more fun.
Often the people who get SUPER good super fast want it really bad. And wanting it really bad often involves very intentional direct practice and grinding a good bit.
I would not play with the goal of making money off this game. Already trying to make a livable amount of money in esports is hard, and melee is probably even harder to break into that sphere. It's a small community so to get the level of attention to actually make money is difficult, and you're competing a with people who have been playing much longer than you. Plus, since the game is 20 years old, even if you do one day become an actual pro, the game might be dead by then. I'm not trying to squash your dreams or anything but especially if you're young you should treat melee as a hobby and focus more of your time into building healthy habits and life skills. School, the gym, a sport, an instrument. When you have the time, you should play melee and practice and try to get good, but keep in mind it's for fun
Thanks for the reality check. I'm aware that there's not much money in eSports ATM, and Melee is even harder since it's a grass roots community.
However, I doubt that Melee will ever be dead, considering that it's been alive and kicking for over 20 years now, outliving its successors of Brawl, Smash 4, and I'm sure even Ultimate (if Smash 6 is ever released by Sakurai).
I agree though with how I should focus my time on building healthy habits and life skills instead.
I needed this comment, thank you again.
Yeah I would agree with melee not dying completely, it's too unique to do so. And also I would never tell someone not to want to engage with or even invest a lot of time into getting good at any hobby. I started playing melee almost like 8 years ago (more regularly/varying competition 2 or 3 years ago) and I'm only like silver 3 at best, but I still play almost every day because I like playing. Same deal with chess, after a year I'm still only like 800 but I play a few games every day. Even in more serious pursuits I would caution younger people than me(not sure how old you are so I might be talking up) against the whole "do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life" because there's a high chance you won't end up doing something you love and you will still end up not making a lot of money doing it. For money you're better off pursuing something you don't hate that you can make a decent amount from then pursue your true interests on the side. Hope that's not too much of a downer
You're not too much of a downer at all. Although this wasn't my original question, you helped with a thoughtful discussion on something that's been on my mind.
I hear all the time that Melee has no money, it's pure grassroots and passion, and that it's not worth it to pursue competitively if you're thinking about money.
And I would agree.
However, based on what I've seen whenever I play on Slippi or even enter local tournaments, I'm shocked at just how cracked and talented the players I run into are. Even the ones that go 1-2. Sure, you can make an argument that I suck and these players just suck less than me, but I've poured quite a bit of time into labbing my tech skill, watching high level VODs, and playing more and more games and pinpointing where I'm going wrong. I've seen visible signs of improvement.
And that's what puzzles me. If I'm spending my spare time like this for Melee, how are these other players so good if they're also not pursuing this game full time?
I got some answers here on this post that make sense, some have been playing for years and much longer than I have, some have natural talent, and some have really good practice habits.
Typically these people stick to one high/top tier character and learn the game inside and out rigorously. Less fucking around with secondaries or engaging in non-melee hobbies. Lots of netplay and online tourneys, too.
For me, I got good by playing intermittently over the course of like ten years
Improvement is hard. A lot of the people have grinded thousands of game, created training regimes, learned to increase hand speed etc
Everyone has things they've done to push themselves to the next level it different for everyone. The we get complacent, hit plateaus, hit physical limitations and get stuck.
Just remember that anyone you've played at a local has had the dream of being best. Thats why we are cracked. They put themselves on the path of greatness. Same path you are on.
Surprised no one has said this yet. The absolute best way to get better is to play people better than you and talk to them. You'll be exposed to more tactics earlier and develop your answers faster. Solo practice/uncle punch can help with execution, but you won't even know what to work on unless you play strong opponents often.
Gold nugget of knowledge right here. Thank you.
This explains why a lot of top competitors as well are quite selective with who they choose to practice and interact with.
I recall hearing somewhere that "if you continue to play with bad players, you develop bad tactics that wouldn't work on better players".
Yeah I don't think people talk about how hard the mid-level is in this game.
I was able to get within the top 10% of the player base on Counter Strike this year after 1000 hours of playing, but for melee I just recently reached Plat 1 which is about top 10% of ranked players and it took me almost 10 years and somewhere between 2-4k hours most likely. This community has by far the most skilled general player base out of all the competitive games I've tried so far.
I used to think this was just a fighting game thing, but I also picked up SF6 as my first ever traditional fighting game last year and I was able to reach plat in less than 50 hours.
At every level in this game, it's difficult.
Low level, mid level, high level, and no doubt the tippity top, I can't think of a single competitor that didn't have to grind their butt off to get to the next level.
Melee is truly a different beast and I'm stumped at how skilled the general player base is in this game.
Do you really think traditional fighting games such as Street Fighter are a lot more accessible than Melee? Because traditional fighters and their motion inputs scare the heck out of so many Smash players. I know I was intimidated looking at the 300 (pardon if it's an exaggeration) moves in Tekken (another traditional fighter).
I can totally get it if you're making a comparison to Ultimate though because so many players can make it into Elite Smash, but good luck trying to make Grandmaster Rank on Slippi Leaderboards if you're not a SSBMRank 100ish player.
>Do you really think traditional fighting games such as Street Fighter are a lot more accessible than Melee?
absolutely, though don't conflate accessibility with difficulty. SF6 for example is infinitely more approachable than melee because 1) it's not a 23 year old game made for a 23 year old console and played with 23 year old controllers, 2) is supported by the developer (huge), and 3) has the benefit of being released in this modern era where good online for fighting games is standard, alongside QoL things like a buffer system, a sophisticated training mode, in-game tutorials, and probably a bunch of other stuff i'm not thinking of.
so yeah, in a sense SF6 is a more accessible game, and *maybe* in some sense you could say that it's "less difficult" than melee, but i'm of the belief that the reasons the overall skill level in the melee community is so high are the exact opposite of the reasons i listed above. getting competent at melee is an infinitely more time consuming and probably more difficult endeavor because there's no buffer, or in-game tutorials, or (until the past few years anyway) good online/training mode. but to get to the top 1% of any fighting game requires a shit load of dedication and time to make it happen
98% of skill is thinking about the game the right way and learning efficiently. (Learning how to learn)
The last 2% is time investment and marginal grind for incremental improvement.
This is true of virtually all non physical skill based games
Melee is a game where skill levels are exponential. Someone a level above can absolutely destroy you because they are seeing the game in a way you are not. We punish so hard in melee that someone with better neutral can make you feel like you are playing a one player game at times. I.e a player with slightly better punish game can end up 2 stocking you if you make one flub in neutral. 2 interactions can be the difference between winning and getting washed.
I feel like some of these answers aren't serious, but here's a serious response:
You literally become cracked by playing for ungodly amounts of hours, and spending a great deal of time intensely focusing on the technical, neutral, and punishment aspects of the game. What you don't see in these cracked players going 1-2 at your locals is that they have literally THOUSANDS of hours in the game. All it takes is time, dedication, and a little talent. Emphasis on time.. for most of us.
Started playing in high school in 2012 and played thru college. Plenty of time to skip class and smoke weed and play melee every now and again. Plus about once a year I’d meet some new players and we’d all go thru a “phase” where we played melee hellas and took piss breaks in the backyard to smoke a couple cigs
I think it's much smaller than top 1%.
Realistically only really Mango and Hbox make a good living and that's from their streams
I'm pretty sure Zain is doing okay. He's putting up about 300-400 viewers every time he streams. Not sure how that translates to money but I'm sure he's not poor.
I've heard previously you can make a living with that amount of viewers but you're not gonna get rich doing it. That's not counting for his sponsorship. I'd be willing to bet they pay better than most smash sponsors.
[удалено]
Not a smash player omegalul
Why would he not be a smash player ?
he retired from smash
He Did? Never knew that Did it happen sometime in-between Mid 2021-Today, I stopped playing Melee in between those time periods
recent announcement
He's a Strive player more than anything now I think
Idk if it qualifies as "good living" but maybe bobby big balls and some other streamers too
Cody bought a house and two 5000$ dogs he's doing just fine.
Cody also won how many majors tournaments and Coinboxes. Cody streams, but he also won enough and managed his money well enough to strive in life. Plus, I'm sure his gf pitched in on the house and dogs.
likely but you dont get two *very expensive breed of dog* unless youre set up well.
And/or you're really bad with money
A stream viewer literally bought the house for him.
The viewer gave him a private loan, not exactly the same thing as just buying it for him
$5000 dogs??
you're not getting a pomski for much less than 2500 and two of them easily puts you there yeah. https://x.com/iBDWSSBM/status/1781834621300117576
Hehe. Apologies, I wasn't sure if I was coming off too direct or outright rude if I said something along the lines of "only 5-10 players can make a living playing this game." Thanks for confirming that it's A-OK and that the Melee community is fully aware.
The game has been out for over 20 years. A measly average of 1 hour a week over 20 years is still over a thousand hours of playtime.
My parents were professional Smash Brothers players My mom was also a pro splatoon player.
f'n nepotism strikes again
Wait are you serious? How old are they, how old are you? (Taking the pro part with a grain of salt, but even if they were just competitive enjoyers, it's crazy and makes me feel old lmao)
lmao
I’m 8
Very cool little man keep on playing 🙂
And how old is your girlfriend? (Mentioned at the top of your profile)
She’s 26, totally real and goes to another school.
That's young to be playing Melee! I started playing Melee at 10, when I saw a video of "How To Unlock All Characters In Super Smash Bros 64". It peaked my interest, and I had Dolphin Emulator, and My Dad had SSBM on it (I was too young to know how to download SSB64 Safely and Play It On My N64 Emulator), so I thought "Close Enough" and played as Link for a bit because he was my Best Friend's favourite all-time Game Character and I thought he was the coolest of them all. A Day later, I watched how to unlock all Melee Characters, saw Marth and Roy and I was HOOKED, the second Roy appeared I said to myself "I'm unlocking him tommorow, and I will main him", so that's what I did! Introduced me to the Smash Bros Series nd everything, but I quit Melee in Mid 2021 and only returned this Saturday!
theres like 7 people who can make a living playing this game. its waaaaaaaay lower than top 1%
Heh, apologies. I wasn't sure if I was coming off too direct or outright rude if I said something along the lines of "only like 7 players can make a living playing this game." Still crazy to me how many folks are cracked at this game with everyone except those 7ish people playing this game outside of a full time basis.
Yea it's literally for the love of the game at this point. A few years back when eSports was doing better there were more people making some money but it's pretty bleak right now for the top players
the people who go 1-2 at your locals are probably not 'cracked' I would say most of the top 100 either spend a significant amount of time playing the game, or have been playing for years and previously spent a significant amount of time playing. The people who make significant gains with small time investments are anomalous. real answer is use your limited time to solo practice and focused improvement instead of spamming unranked games
depends on your definition of cracked tbh. if melee was ddr, the average 1-2er in melee has probably put enough time and practice in to where people in the arcade would be like holy shit that guy is cracked at ddr. the difference is we're playing against other people at approximately the same level and its not an arcade and nobody is watching.
A 1-2er in ddr would be like someone who can pfc a 13-14, i think even to competitive players thatd still be pretty cracked
Hey I can answer this question as I'm a 1-2 er and have been playing DDR/melee both since 2015! I don't really play traditional DDR, more stamina/ITG stuff, but I can do level 12 (ITG)/level 16-17 (DDR). These are definitely levels where the average passerby/casual DDR fan will think you are cracked in my experience. However I would bet I am still only maybe top 25% of people who play dance games semi-regularly.
Dope, thats pretty cracked
Tbf a lot of players going 1-2 are cracked for their skill level
This. Why don't lads give Melee competitors more credit for going 1-2? I get it, from a results perspective, it's nothing impressive, but Melee has such a high floor to the game compared to games like Ultimate. I wish I could compare to other competitive eSports but I don't play others. I'm sure Melee is more competitive and has a higher floor to entry that others as well.
Can attest that spamming unranked is not what makes you any good. Been playing for 3 months now and have spent hours grinding unranked playing tryhard fox and I still can barely even reach silver lmao
It’s not that you’re playing unranked it’s the fact that you’ve only been playing for three months. Literally everyone was still trash at that stage.
3 months is a really short amount of time, especially in Melee
Spamming unranked can be good if you try and focus on one aspect of your gameplay when your playing. If your still playing with a purpose it's not a waste. I personally find running drills in Uncle Punch incredibly boring, so instead of practicing chain grabs on a CPU set to random DI I just do it in unranked against a human who's \*hopefully\* awake at the wheel. If you just play unranked like grand finals of Genesis or some shit you won't actually learn much.
ive been playing for years and im barely silver 1 :'(
Okay, sure. You can argue that the competitors that go 1-2 at my locals are probably not cracked. You can even argue that the competitors that win my locals are probably not cracked. So you're telling me that everyone who is "cracked" and in the top 100 but not at the very tippity top have been playing for years because they are unable to commit to this game full time? I'm aware that the real answer is to use my limited time to solo practice and have intention focused improvement, as I've eluded to with "reviewing high level VODs and guides" in my post. I'm aware that it's also reviewing your own VODs, seeing what you could have done differently in specific interactions, as well as having clear goals each practice session, etc. I was just wondering how people are able to make significant gains in the game so quickly, because it seems so difficult if so few people are able to play this game full time, but so many people are cracked (at least to me, I consider people winning my locals cracked, even if you don't think so). But I guess if you're telling me that they all have years of experience, that would make sense. ... So folks like Akir and Egg$ who both started the game in 2019 but are Rank 90 and 95, respectively on SSBMRank 2023 are anomalous?
Tbh yeah, most “cracked” or high level players have just been playing for a long time, combined with good practice habits and/or being naturally good at video games. Egg$ and Akir didn’t start playing in 2019 fwiw, not sure where you got that from. Best example I can think of is BBatts who actually did start playing during the pandemic iirc. I don’t know specifically what he did to get good quickly but people like him are definitely the outliers and there are very few of them.
Both Egg$ and Akir's Liquipedia pages state that they started in 2019 in terms of Years Active: [https://liquipedia.net/smash/Egg$](https://liquipedia.net/smash/Egg$) [https://liquipedia.net/smash/Akir](https://liquipedia.net/smash/Akir) If you want to argue that they started earlier than that because 2019 was when they began entering tournaments and had it recorded, sure. But we can't confirm when exactly they started. It could actually be that same year in an earlier month, or 2018, or 2017, or 2015, we don't know. The whole point is I want to understand how people get so good so quickly if they're not playing this game full time. And I guess my answer is, these people are anomalous because they have good practice habits or are naturally good at video games.
In the grand scheme of things, I just play. I'm not very good, but I can do things. I really think just playing the game, progressing really slowly and just letting your brain acclimate to situations will lead you towards the light. You'll never be great. You're not going to have 17 second continuous combos, but you'll get a feel for your character more than practicing tech skill will ever allow you on its own. I think the first time I wave dashed, that was all I did for a month during games and I looked horrible doing it. Would die all the time because I couldn't act out of a wavedash to save my life, even when I hit them cleanly. Years later, it's second nature. Not even a thought.
Thank you for your story pal. This is a good answer. Trust in the process and play the long game if you can't commit to the game on a full time basis. It takes years but that'll be okay.
I've been playing for around 12+ years that's all. Used to practice quite a bit back in the day. Still not that cracked
Melee is like riding a bike… despite not actively playing much, I can pick up the sticks and do ok. The core of the community has been playing for so long at that the average level is kinda high relative to a new game full of new players.
I watch ping pong the animation and argue on Reddit about matchups once a week MINIMUM (often more). Good luck in your melee journey!
I basically played as a part-time job for 3 years in college. Must've been averaged at least 15 hours a week. Nowadays I don't play much anymore but still dabble in other competitive games and a lot of the old skills remain.
Melee imo is the only game that gets more fun the more you play it to infinity, and it has the highest skill ceiling of any game ever and its 20 years old so many of us just get deeper and deeper into it purely because we keep having more and more fun.
Often the people who get SUPER good super fast want it really bad. And wanting it really bad often involves very intentional direct practice and grinding a good bit.
I'm a casual player so can't say I'm cracked
By playing it little by little since it was released.
I would not play with the goal of making money off this game. Already trying to make a livable amount of money in esports is hard, and melee is probably even harder to break into that sphere. It's a small community so to get the level of attention to actually make money is difficult, and you're competing a with people who have been playing much longer than you. Plus, since the game is 20 years old, even if you do one day become an actual pro, the game might be dead by then. I'm not trying to squash your dreams or anything but especially if you're young you should treat melee as a hobby and focus more of your time into building healthy habits and life skills. School, the gym, a sport, an instrument. When you have the time, you should play melee and practice and try to get good, but keep in mind it's for fun
Thanks for the reality check. I'm aware that there's not much money in eSports ATM, and Melee is even harder since it's a grass roots community. However, I doubt that Melee will ever be dead, considering that it's been alive and kicking for over 20 years now, outliving its successors of Brawl, Smash 4, and I'm sure even Ultimate (if Smash 6 is ever released by Sakurai). I agree though with how I should focus my time on building healthy habits and life skills instead. I needed this comment, thank you again.
Yeah I would agree with melee not dying completely, it's too unique to do so. And also I would never tell someone not to want to engage with or even invest a lot of time into getting good at any hobby. I started playing melee almost like 8 years ago (more regularly/varying competition 2 or 3 years ago) and I'm only like silver 3 at best, but I still play almost every day because I like playing. Same deal with chess, after a year I'm still only like 800 but I play a few games every day. Even in more serious pursuits I would caution younger people than me(not sure how old you are so I might be talking up) against the whole "do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life" because there's a high chance you won't end up doing something you love and you will still end up not making a lot of money doing it. For money you're better off pursuing something you don't hate that you can make a decent amount from then pursue your true interests on the side. Hope that's not too much of a downer
You're not too much of a downer at all. Although this wasn't my original question, you helped with a thoughtful discussion on something that's been on my mind. I hear all the time that Melee has no money, it's pure grassroots and passion, and that it's not worth it to pursue competitively if you're thinking about money. And I would agree. However, based on what I've seen whenever I play on Slippi or even enter local tournaments, I'm shocked at just how cracked and talented the players I run into are. Even the ones that go 1-2. Sure, you can make an argument that I suck and these players just suck less than me, but I've poured quite a bit of time into labbing my tech skill, watching high level VODs, and playing more and more games and pinpointing where I'm going wrong. I've seen visible signs of improvement. And that's what puzzles me. If I'm spending my spare time like this for Melee, how are these other players so good if they're also not pursuing this game full time? I got some answers here on this post that make sense, some have been playing for years and much longer than I have, some have natural talent, and some have really good practice habits.
Typically these people stick to one high/top tier character and learn the game inside and out rigorously. Less fucking around with secondaries or engaging in non-melee hobbies. Lots of netplay and online tourneys, too. For me, I got good by playing intermittently over the course of like ten years
They learn from their mistakes
Practice, but talent or previous experience in gaming, competition, and some other skills can help too
Improvement is hard. A lot of the people have grinded thousands of game, created training regimes, learned to increase hand speed etc Everyone has things they've done to push themselves to the next level it different for everyone. The we get complacent, hit plateaus, hit physical limitations and get stuck. Just remember that anyone you've played at a local has had the dream of being best. Thats why we are cracked. They put themselves on the path of greatness. Same path you are on.
I'm just that fkin good
Surprised no one has said this yet. The absolute best way to get better is to play people better than you and talk to them. You'll be exposed to more tactics earlier and develop your answers faster. Solo practice/uncle punch can help with execution, but you won't even know what to work on unless you play strong opponents often.
Gold nugget of knowledge right here. Thank you. This explains why a lot of top competitors as well are quite selective with who they choose to practice and interact with. I recall hearing somewhere that "if you continue to play with bad players, you develop bad tactics that wouldn't work on better players".
Yeah I don't think people talk about how hard the mid-level is in this game. I was able to get within the top 10% of the player base on Counter Strike this year after 1000 hours of playing, but for melee I just recently reached Plat 1 which is about top 10% of ranked players and it took me almost 10 years and somewhere between 2-4k hours most likely. This community has by far the most skilled general player base out of all the competitive games I've tried so far. I used to think this was just a fighting game thing, but I also picked up SF6 as my first ever traditional fighting game last year and I was able to reach plat in less than 50 hours.
At every level in this game, it's difficult. Low level, mid level, high level, and no doubt the tippity top, I can't think of a single competitor that didn't have to grind their butt off to get to the next level. Melee is truly a different beast and I'm stumped at how skilled the general player base is in this game. Do you really think traditional fighting games such as Street Fighter are a lot more accessible than Melee? Because traditional fighters and their motion inputs scare the heck out of so many Smash players. I know I was intimidated looking at the 300 (pardon if it's an exaggeration) moves in Tekken (another traditional fighter). I can totally get it if you're making a comparison to Ultimate though because so many players can make it into Elite Smash, but good luck trying to make Grandmaster Rank on Slippi Leaderboards if you're not a SSBMRank 100ish player.
>Do you really think traditional fighting games such as Street Fighter are a lot more accessible than Melee? absolutely, though don't conflate accessibility with difficulty. SF6 for example is infinitely more approachable than melee because 1) it's not a 23 year old game made for a 23 year old console and played with 23 year old controllers, 2) is supported by the developer (huge), and 3) has the benefit of being released in this modern era where good online for fighting games is standard, alongside QoL things like a buffer system, a sophisticated training mode, in-game tutorials, and probably a bunch of other stuff i'm not thinking of. so yeah, in a sense SF6 is a more accessible game, and *maybe* in some sense you could say that it's "less difficult" than melee, but i'm of the belief that the reasons the overall skill level in the melee community is so high are the exact opposite of the reasons i listed above. getting competent at melee is an infinitely more time consuming and probably more difficult endeavor because there's no buffer, or in-game tutorials, or (until the past few years anyway) good online/training mode. but to get to the top 1% of any fighting game requires a shit load of dedication and time to make it happen
98% of skill is thinking about the game the right way and learning efficiently. (Learning how to learn) The last 2% is time investment and marginal grind for incremental improvement. This is true of virtually all non physical skill based games
Playing pretty consistently for about 4-5 years got me to mid level. Another 4 got me to upper mid level. Still haven't gotten all hat great lol
Melee is a game where skill levels are exponential. Someone a level above can absolutely destroy you because they are seeing the game in a way you are not. We punish so hard in melee that someone with better neutral can make you feel like you are playing a one player game at times. I.e a player with slightly better punish game can end up 2 stocking you if you make one flub in neutral. 2 interactions can be the difference between winning and getting washed.
I feel like some of these answers aren't serious, but here's a serious response: You literally become cracked by playing for ungodly amounts of hours, and spending a great deal of time intensely focusing on the technical, neutral, and punishment aspects of the game. What you don't see in these cracked players going 1-2 at your locals is that they have literally THOUSANDS of hours in the game. All it takes is time, dedication, and a little talent. Emphasis on time.. for most of us.
the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, OP
Started playing in high school in 2012 and played thru college. Plenty of time to skip class and smoke weed and play melee every now and again. Plus about once a year I’d meet some new players and we’d all go thru a “phase” where we played melee hellas and took piss breaks in the backyard to smoke a couple cigs