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100 Steps For Improvement: Interview with SSBM Rank #98, Zealous5000
Zealous5000 is one of the newer ranked players on the SSBM Rank. At #98 in 2017, I had a chat with Zealous about his year and opinions on his rank, as well as some points about his own past with Melee.
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For anyone who doesn’t know you, what region are you from? What character[s] do you play?
Zealous5000: I'm from New Jersey and I play mainly Marth, sometimes Fox for weird characters or when I am upset that my Marth sucks.
How long have you been playing SSBM? What about Melee caught your attention and made you want to keep playing it?
Zealous5000: I've been playing for three, almost four, years. I started playing Melee because I was playing other fighting games that were smaller (Arcsys/anime games like Persona/Under Night/Blazblue). I was tired of playing small games where you went to a major to play 50 people if you were lucky, 100 if it was super big.
I saw a Melee club tournament at my college (University of Massachusetts-Amherst) and I got excited because this seemed like an opportunity to play fighting games at school which never happened unless I travelled elsewhere. I went like 2-4 in round-robin pools and like 2-2 in bracket and got 13th, so naturally as a competitor I thought I could beat people, so then I kept on playing.
I didn’t really expect to play for so long, but I had the idea that I would play until I felt like it didn't feel bad losing to the person I lost to (which never happens), so I ended up still playing until now.
On that note, how was your experience with juggling Melee and school?
Zealous5000: Melee and school wasn't that difficult for me because of only travelling to regional events at the furthest (Mass Madness) and maybe Apex once, and I didn't play an extreme amount so I just ended up practicing/playing in my free time where I wasn't planning on doing my homework/studying anyways.
Would you say that worked well for you? Felt like you weren't committing too much time to Melee?
Zealous5000: I would say that I definitely felt like I couldn't do my best and that was frustrating, but I think I would attribute that mainly to balancing a long distance relationship and Melee, school didn't feel like a really big deal.
I think I felt like if I played much more and practiced more diligently I could have become MUCH better, but I learned now that I have the free time that I didn't really want to put in that sort of effort and time so it wasn’t a big deal anyways.
How do you think your improvement happened? Was there a specific time you felt like you improved greatly? How would you describe your rate of improvement?
Zealous5000: I never felt like my rate of improvement stopped being anything but linear, but I think my consistency in showing it in tourneys changed a lot in the last semester of college/after I graduated. Before that I feel like I used to lose pretty early a lot and underperform.
I think my rate of improvement was pretty fast/linear because I played fighting games before, so I had a lot of ideas of how I should be playing that I learned from really good anime players like LordKnight, Tonberry, and trying to translate how they played into Melee made me stronger I think.
When did you graduate/how long do you think you were playing? Would you say playing other fighting games helped you improve?
Zealous5000: I graduated after playing for about two years in 2016 and I think that playing other fighting games definitely helped me improve. I still think that I got to see some of the most impressive players in fighting games, period, in the anime Tristate community. Playing them and seeing their play helped form my ideas of how to play in order to make me a strong player.
Those players that influenced me were probably like Lord Knight, Tonberry, SKD, Grover, Colpevole, and way more players that were all very sick at the games they played.
What would you say your strategy for improvement was? Did you just play a lot with others, study, or practice by yourself? What do you think helped you the most?
Zealous5000: At my highest rate of improvement, I used to watch a TON of vods of high level matches. Not only of just Marth, but of spacies/whoever to just understand melee better and see if I could steal ideas from all top players and translate it into Marth gameplay. I also solo practiced very consistently for like a year which I think helped my execution come online very quickly.
I didn't play with people that much in my opinion, but the vod analysis and solo practice with consistency helped a lot for becoming better.
Did you have a specific system for vod analysis that you used?
Zealous5000: I just tried to watch a different vod or two everyday, nothing too efficient. I think in general I’m a very inefficient player when learning/practicing but I put in the hours this time around.
Ah, so just a lot of time/effort?
Zealous5000: It was a lot of vod analysis/solo practice at least. I think a super skilled player could have gotten way more out of it than me, but that's okay.
How does motivation play into your improvement? Are you more discipline or motivation based when it comes to personal improvement?
Zealous5000: I think i'm motivation based, I don't really like losing. I don't like practicing but I dislike losing to people who I think aren't that good way more than practicing. I'm actually learning recently though that I don't have a stable motivator and kind of just floated through Melee to see what would happen.
I've been taking a Melee break to try and find a good reason to keep playing and keep pushing to become better, because even though I made Top 100 this year I think I had the smallest improvement this year.
I was actually just gonna ask how you felt about your rank, and how you feel about ranks in general? Like are you a number/rank motivated player, like "I want to be #1 in this region," or just "I want to be better?"
Zealous5000: I think I am motivated by ranks and think they're a lot of fun, but regional rankings aren't very important to me. SSBMRank is very fun and I’m happy I made it onto the list, but I do think that the bottom half of the list isn't too prestigious. I don’t think there is a notable skill difference from like 65-150.
So about my rank, I feel like if I really did my best I could have been top 50, but I would have had to work harder and perform better than I did this year. That is probably my goal, top 50.
I also like comparing myself to other players too, especially Marths. So another goal that I have would probably be just higher than the Marths I want to do better than, like Stango/Zain/Rishi. I had that goal last year but Zain shot up in the ranks way further than I thought, so it might be hard. Maybe I can still do it though.
How do you feel going into 2018? Been doing anything different than 2017 to help you improve? Is there something you plan on changing to help you achieve your goal?
Zealous5000: 2018 is weird because I'm trying to find a real reason that makes me feel good about playing compared to last year. 2017 in my opinion was feeling like if I won, I was sort of relieved but not happy and if I lost I was very upset.
I want to play Melee in a way that doesn’t feel so pressuring like that, so I think that’s also my goal.
Hmm, in a way where you feel like playing for a more solid reason other than 'I don't want to feel upset if I lose here?'
Zealous5000: I've been playing a lot of other games (like Dragon Ball Fighter Z and Dota 2) to see if I could find the same passion I used to have for fighting games. I think the balance is just off for me about winning and losing, because very rarely do I feel good about winning, even if it’s a great player. I normally feel like they played bad or something, while any loss normally is a match where I wonder why I didn't use my brain at all and I get upset.
Also because I haven't been practicing much in 2017, so showing up while you're not ready this is just bound to happen.
Do you feel like your passion for the game is declining? Or is it something else?
Zealous5000: I think that is possible, but I really don’t know myself too well. I'm just doing whatever I feel like until major season comes back. I'm just playing Melee whenever I want now and have been feeling much happier while playing, even though my results have been drastically worse.
On a side note, I feel like happiness should be valued over results, unless results make you happy. How do you feel about a sentiment like that?
Zealous5000: I totally very much agree. I think that turning a hobby like Melee into work is a mistake at the lower levels. I feel like I’ve played so long out of obligation, and eventually it had to be too much for me.
I think if I played out of really having fun and enjoying the game, I wouldn't ever burn out like this.
Do you feel like you're in a period of burnout? What do you try and do to avoid/get out of burn out, or do you just realize its a period of time for you?
Zealous5000: I think I currently am, but this is the first time this has happened for me in fighting games ever. So I haven’t had burnout in about 5 years. I think I'm just getting older and I have to reevaluate what I like the most now that my time is becoming much more limited, because I’m an adult now.
You've never really experienced burnout? In five years?
Zealous5000: I think it was just because of my community of friends, my college friends made Smash pretty fun. A lot of my friends ended up quitting before me, and the more people that quit, the less fun it was to keep playing.
How do you feel playing at the local-level helps you for major-level, do you prefer going to weekly locals or prefer to practice and study on your own?
Zealous5000: I think it helps a lot to try and be consistent at locals. If I can play a local without giving up any free wins and using my brain during the whole tourney, a major will be many more times difficult to concentrate without getting tired/flustered.
So I feel like when I’m disciplined in my gameplay at local tournaments, I do well at majors. I like going to weekly locals over self-practice because I like competition, but I think to improve its important to do both in moderation. Self-practice is very essential for real improvement when you have flaws you need to fix.
What was a matchup you struggled with in the past, if any?
Zealous5000: I struggle with a lot of matchups depending on what I've focused on. I feel like I can keep three-to-five matchups pretty polished, but if I focus too much on Fox, I become bad against Peach or something.
How do you feel like that works for you?
Zealous5000: It's bad and I wish I could be good at them all the time (haha!), but it is something to improve on. I think in general though I would struggle with low tiers/uncommon characters because I've never put the time to grind them out. All my other problem matchups I've felt good and bad at them at one point such as Marth, Falco, Puff, and Peach.
Do you feel like if you ran into a lower-tiered character you could just wing it? Ever had a time when that just didn’t work out?
Zealous5000: I used to think all those matchups were my best and worst at some period of time, and yes, it has not worked many times. I lost to Ryan Ford's Doc and I've lost to Qerb many times now.
I sort of prepped a few ideas, but in general I didn’t really think of what I was gonna do. I've played Fox vs the low-tiers, it works sometimes and most of the time it doesn't. In general though, I can tell for sure when I play I don’t make the characters feel like low-tiers by hitting their weaknesses, and I should.
Opinions on doubles? How do you think doubles can affect singles’ play and vice-versa?
Zealous5000: I think that doubles can certainly affect singles because of smash Stamina, intense Smash thinking for too long is hard. There’s a very finite amount of being warmed up and too little is bad, but if you play too much it’s probably also over.
I think for doubles, TRUE doubles I don't like. In my opinion, true doubles is playing very close to your teammate, always saving them and always finding 2v1 situations that are unwinnable instead of playing risky spots. But when I play doubles I like picking Fox and trying to kill the other team by myself and seeing what happens out of the chaos. It’s definitely less good for winning, but that kind of doubles is very stress relieving for me. I don’t take doubles very seriously, I think doubles is very counter to why I've liked fighting games. If I wanted to play a true team game, I'd play CSGO or mobas, fighting games for me are all about the 1v1.
If you could give a piece of advice to a beginner, a "mid-level" player, and someone close to your level, what tidbit do you think would help a player in each of those areas? Just anything you might think a Marth player of those levels might need to think more about.
Zealous5000: Haha, I think I am still a mid level player, but in those ranges… I'd give the advice to all players to practice punish game way more than they probably are.
To a beginner, I would try and really feel comfortable with hitboxes and understand the strengths and weaknesses of each move to build good building blocks for future gameplans.
For mid-level players above beginners, I would recommend not generalizing situations so much. I find that most people try to group situations like "Fox" on platform and how to beat that. There could be many variants of that situation: Fox just landing on a platform, dash=dancing on it, shielding on it, and it’s not the same.
To people around my level, I wish that most players would manage their risk-reward better. I feel like I see the Marth players come up with weird fixations too much on what they want to do, but in those moments they stop looking at the screen and stop reacting properly. I think that almost every Marth in the world could be much more reactive and use Marth’s strength that way, rather than trying to proactively bully people with a good sequence of moves.
Huge thanks to Zealous for the interview, you can go ahead and follow him on twitter here: Zealous5000. Good luck to him in 2018 and moving forward!
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