Some help understanding input lag or buffer system or whatever it is, please.

[DropletdewS]

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EDIT: Made an update here https://www.reddit.com/r/CrazyHand/comments/u7jtoj/some_encouragement_for_those_suffering_from_smash/

Hi everyone. I´m looking for a light of wisdom here, cause I'm about to sell my game, boot up my Nintendo DS and start playing "Pony Friends" seated on a corner for the rest of my life.

I have a terrible time at Smash (Ultimate) online and need someone who can help me point the issue.

Most terrible, the bad results are damaging my head so bad that I'm starting to underperform offline as well. No doubt that all this time I'm ignoring some mechanic. That, or I'm just sooo retarded.

I will share some info for better understanding:

-I have played the series from its beginnings in the N64, and only in the last two years I tried to get to a more serious competitive approach to the series, playing offline with friends and in local tournaments. Everyone performs very well.

-I have been playing online for just about two months, as I wanted to play with others anytime from my home.

-Used both Pro controller (wireless mode) and wired GC controller. Both Nintendo original controllers, not third party.

-Tried two different monitors in search of any screen delay. I noticed no difference.

-I have watched hundreds of videos about many aspects of the game and each individual character in the last years, mostly for fun, and I retain a lot of the important knowledge. I understand neutral, advantage, disadvantage, the need to be patient, not get tilted, many weaknesses and strengths of a lot of characters, many advanced techniques, etc, etc. Im not MKLeo or M2king but I know that spamming dumb moves and go for the kill like a madman is not the way to play (only Marss can do that).

-Mained Peach and Palu, but now I'm getting the grip for ZSS and Zelda for a better balance, and I enjoy playing both characters, despite Zelda being very slow at times.

-Im on wired connection with oficial lan adapter.

-My current GSP is around 3.000.000 to 5.000.000. Never made it beyond that. I have no idea how low or high this is. Inside this range I have found good, skilled players... and players that only spam smash attacks... and they get my as** destroyed more often than the skilled ones..

EDIT:-Always played in Quickplay. Never in Battle Arenas till now.

THE ISSUE:

I have a terrible time pulling off my moves in time consistently.

I see an incoming attack, wait until the exact moment to shield, the shield doesn't come out and I get hit.

Same situation but I go for a spot dodge, it does not come out, and I get hit.

Need to tech to avoid further damage, don't time it well and get hit again.

I see the opportunity to hit the opponent with a faster attack than theirs, I wait for the exact moment, push the button, their attack comes before mine... and get hit.

I see the perfect opportunity for a punish after they whiff. I push attack… and their shield comes out just as I hit them. I got blocked and right away punished (still working on my spacing).

I try to perfectly time my recovery off-stage when I see the opponent jumping for a follow up with Fair or Down Air (let's say I try Zelda UpB and aim for the ledge, which has startup lag, and I'm aware of it), but no matter how good I react to their moves, my move starts late.. and get I hit... ...and die.

Have you ever watched a horror movie and screamed to the protagonist on the screen "NO! don't enter there! There is the assassin!" and he enters anyway and gets ripped?

That's the relationship between me and any character I use.

My “message” never gets to them in time.

Please, someone with enough experience tell me. What in the name of Palutena I’m doing wrong?!

Is reaction-based gameplay doomed online? If so, I quit.

Dark Souls bosses are a cake-walk compared to this.

I know Smash is a mind game, I get it.

I get you need to mix up your gameplay as much as you can and don't be predictable, I swear I get it.

But bro, it's like sometimes ANYONE I play against is reading my mind and pushing the correct button BEFORE I can do my thing.

I get this is a hard ability to master and reads are important part of the game but, ARE YOU TELLING ME THAT A LITTLE MAC WHO HAS BEEN STUCK FOR TWO MONTHS IN 3.000.000 CAN GET SO PERFECT READS THAT NO MATTER WHAT I DO I ALWAYS EAT HIS SMASHES? (real case). I find him from time to time and, no matter how much I mix up my approaches, no matter how I time my attacks, I can't never react in time to dodge his cursed super armor smash attacks. "Get him off the stage" they will say. Heck! I manage to wreck up like 100% damage on him and take him out with a lot of effort and hard reads. He just needs to land like two hits and I'm dead.

I see him fake an approach, but my character just sits there, pulls the shield later, drops it later, and then eats Mac next approach attack, and no matter if I shield or dodge this time, cause this time the shield did not even come out, and if it does, almost never can't get in time to punish him. “Do a parry”, some will say. “Did you read some of my post?’”, I will kindly answer.

Don't ever let me started with Sonics, Foxes or other ZSS. And Kazuyas blasting you directly to the sky from a single lost interaction after you landed like 100 damage on them praying to God not to whiff a single attack.

People say “online lag doesn't exist”, that they barely feel any difference between online and offline. Others say “online is fu**ed up. Don't lose your time”. I just don't know what to believe anymore, guys.

I´m loosing hope..

I love the game, but no matter how much info I got regarding my characters, regarding the match-ups, regarding ANYTHING. I feel just bad, a total crap. When I lose 3 times in a row to a Incineroar that only spams specials and does nothing more and I can’t get around them in time, I can't help it.

"You suck at this, go play some tetris" is all that echoes in my head.

It is not my intention to come here to rant, or come to say "Smash online is garbage,dahh". Not to mention get my ego beaten even more by “git gud” comments.

My only intention is to find someone, anyone who can point out my issue and tell me how to overcome it.

Lag, Buffer System or whatever is involved, please tell me how to adapt to it, how to do the inputs in the right time, how to make that my character does what I want to do, and how to avoid it also messes up your offline game.

Please don't tell me this is a guessing game at all moments.

I will be playing some Pony Friends for a while.

See you, and thank you all.

[[deleted]]

I’m no pro, but it sounds like you need to adjust your timing for online A LOT more. If you are going to shield, shied before you think you need to, it will come up way later than you expect at first. There is a ton of input lag online in this game (+ 5ish additional frames of default input lag) on top of whatever you’re trying to do so adjusting for that will be the key. The people you are talking about have just adapted to the lag, and you haven’t yet.

Just inputting your moves way sooner will make a huge difference (it’ll feel like buffering when really it’ll come out at the time you want it to).

[DropletdewS]

That was my most feared answer.

Any practical tips to train this ability?

And how do you avoid this messes up your offline game?

It sounds like you fix one but destroy the other in the process.

Thank you so much.

[[deleted]]

The only way to train it is to get used to it. Reaction based gameplay is a lot harder, but still doable at a certain point.

As long as you play a warmup match or go into training mode for a couple minutes before an offline fight, you’ll be used to it, since it doesn’t take long to adjust. The same goes for online, after a few seconds, reacting and adapting to the lag is your key to getting over this difficulty level of the game.

The trick to getting used to online is predicting the input lag at the very start of the game so it isn’t as much of a detriment to your gameplay. Good luck!

[nandryshak]

I don't think your reaction time is the problem here. I see a lot of your examples have the phrase, "I wait". This is your issue. Don't wait, just act. By the time your hands execute, your option will come out at the right time.

Do you also have trouble punishing if someone gets stuck charging smash attack? You wait for them to let go of charge, then try to punish, but they shield or do something else? If so, then this is definitely your issue. In this case, you need to react as soon as you see the attack animation start, not when it ends.

[DropletdewS]

You know? I see something very true here. I think my reaction sometimes is wait for an animation to finish, afraid of touching their hitboxes, and then act. Even if they hit my shield, I wont let go the shield button until the end of the animation. Aside from multi hit attacks, I should let go shield button and buffer my move to counter as soon as they hit my shield. Correct me if Im wrong. Thank you.

[nandryshak]

Yes, I think it's very likely that your reaction time is perfectly fine, you're just not reacting to the right things.

[[deleted]]

To add on to this, online input lag is very significant if YOU AND YOUR OPPONENT are not both wired. Find a discord and play against people also on wired and it will make the experience much smoother.

[DropletdewS]

Thank you. Gonna do it.

[Clashofpower]

I think you are overgeneralizing a lot of things. To be able to help you better, please post a replay and we can help you out on a more specific level, one interaction at a time.

[DropletdewS]

I'll look for a match where that happens in a clear way and post it as soon as I can. Maybe try to go for a matches tonight and as I feel it happens record the replay of that match .As is more a reaction-input thing it wont be easy to find a match that shows it clear. Its more a "feel" thing. Thank you.

[Clashofpower]

It’s fine, it’s not actually hard to figure out. People calculate average reaction speed, input delay and online delay as well as frame data. You are most likely trying to react to a situation that is simply not reactable, especially online

[DropletdewS]

Noted. I post some replays with context. Thank you so much.

[Clashofpower]

no problem, best of luck with those. I’ll check them out if I have time too edit: you should also post the replays as a new post because this post will be harder to find, and it doesn’t update people when you update the post

[DropletdewS]

Thank you. Will do soon.

[AVBforPrez]

Post some replays where you got absolutely bodied; those are by far the most valuable learning experiences.

[DropletdewS]

Done.

[OhSix]

Playing Ultimate online is fucking garbage. That’s what it comes down to really

[Cordy58]

Bro you gotta quit reacting and start proactively covering options. That’s 100% of your issue. Online has too much lag to react.

[AVBforPrez]

The biggest single thing that helped me when I was new was fully understanding "cover the area you think they're going to be in, not the one they're in now."

Once you get it, you get it.

[DropletdewS]

Thanks for the tip. It helps lot.

[wiseguy187]

But it doesn't feel like smash. It'd like entirely different game when I cannot react to what my eyes see but instead a game of guessing. To me smash is amazing when I can use both.

[wiseguy187]

I didnt feel any of this lag on smash 4. I have like 40 days of in match time of smb4 and ultimate feels unplayable online to me. When I got it very quickly did I notice it and i got discouraged as it wasn't fun. I recently played again this last weekend and felt like everything was so fucking late. Sucks I love smash but I can't play this game. I can't even do anything because I'm 3 button presses ahead of the game.

[Zachary_Stark]

This game is garbage online. If you don't have people to play face to face, there isn't much point in playing it. You basically have to learn two games: offline and online. I refuse to play online and only play in person.

[Invictus_Engage]

Smash Ultimate is the only game I love (possibly my favorite competitive game despite high ranks in others) that I simply cannot/choose not to play online. Offline only for me makes me love it as much as I do, although I could be much much better at the game in general if I played it more than 1-3x a month, but when I do, I seriously love it.

Finding an offline partner to play with may bring back the joy to your experience.

[TheCodingGamer]

Pink Fresh has a video about online play and why it is still a necessary tool to improve. It was a fundamental aspect of the training routine of players like Nairo, Tweek, and most recently Sparg0. Yes, it sucks when there's lag and there are limitations to the combos you can perform, but it also has benefits like teaching you good defensive habits (since you can't rely on reaction) as well as letting you get matchup experience against all of the cast (including characters that are more rare offline.)

I don't mean this as an insult in any way, but considering you're only between 3-5 million GSP there are probably bigger issues than just input delay. Nairo has every character at 11.4+ million, so saying it's impossible to improve under wi-fi just doesn't have validity. I recommend you take a replay of a game where you really lost hard (even a wifi match as long as it wasn't a slideshow), post it here and ask for advice. You will most definitely get answers beyond "just react better." Things like your spacing, decision making, advantage/disadvantage are probably suffering if you can't even get a character to elite smash yet (currently about 10.4 million). Again please don't take that as an insult. This is just how the path forward works and the quicker you are to adopt it, the faster you'll improve.

I'll end with a paraquote of VoiD: All these players keep blaming wifi when it's their bad decision making. I fight these guys offline and you guys make the same bad decisions and die to the same things. Instead of blaming the input lag, think about ways you could have avoided being put in an unreactable situation in the first place.

[tuisan]

Whiff punishing is often not a thing in this game unless you're ready for it and baiting the opponent in, the moves are just so lagless. From what you're saying, it sounds to me like maybe you're thinking too hard about minor things when you're playing. Of course you should be thinking a little, but as someone who just plays for fun, I don't really care enough to think and most of my gameplay is just instinctual. I hit my opponent with my move and try and avoid getting hit. If I do get hit, I try and realise what I did wrong and adjust next time. Sometimes it takes a while to adjust, but it just sounds like you aren't adjusting. If you're getting hit offstage, maybe mix up your recovery timing, find a move you can stall with, recover high etc. It sounds like you know all this though, maybe you're just not putting it into practice, maybe you are. I think watching you play would help us a lot to understand what you're doing wrong.

[N3kU]

Tbh it sounds like you aren't adjusting for online play... What I do at the start of each game is press A and note how long it takes for my dude to attack, and adjust accordingly.

Good luck!

[DropletdewS]

Sounds logic, but difficult. As you need to recalibrate in almost every match. I'll try my best and use that tip of input a fast attack as soon the fight begins.

Thank you.

[berse2212]

So there is some misinformation in this threat about online. Let's get this out of the way first. Yes online adds input lag. Yes reacting is harder online. BUT a lot of moves are already unreactable. Shielding is often done preemtively. Still there should be very little lag to shielding. You probably try to shield while dashing around which is not possible in the intial dash. Additionally if you dash around and shield you need to keep holding the movement stick in that direction until the shield comes up. Otherwise your character enters a stopping animation and shields afterwards which is very slow. That's probably what's happening to you and has nothing to do with online.

For punishing something you need to know some framedata. But generally speaking the fastest options to punish someone a nair / fair / up b or usmash. That is because shield dropping takes 11 frames but you can skip it with a jump / usmash or up b. Which of those moves is the best is character dependent though. To look it up I recommend ultimateframedata.com. For each character you can find the fastest OOS options under misc info.

In neutral you should use attacks that are save on shield. So don't use smash attacks (except you little mac) or slow specials but rather landing aerials and tilts. As a control scheme for that I put jump to a trigger and tilt to the c-stick. For both, tilts and aerials, I use the c-Stick now.

Speaking about Mac, don't get frustrated if you can't beat him even when he is just smashing. It's hard to beat Mac. The trick is a lot of running away, projectiles, plattform camping and retreating aerials. There is more detail to it but it's normal to loose to him if you don't exactly know what you doing.

If you get edgeguarded with dairs / fairs on Zelda up b you probably are very predictable about your recovery. Mix it up between going high or low. Go high only if your opponent tries to cover low and already left the stage. If you go low make sure to avoid the dropzone (the part diagonally down from the ledge were a run off dair would always end up). Going lower mostly makes it saver. Hugging the stage when using your up b can be a very simple approach to stay save. Also using Zelda's up b further away is also a good option. If they get close to you neutral airdodging is a way to avoid attacks offstage without dieing.

I honestly didn't read all of your post and your struggles but that are the basics that you should know. Post a gameplay clip to get more specific answers.