I just finished watching the evo2k8 matches..

[LB-]

Hi guys,

(DISCLAIMER: Please keep civil here. I am not a Smash-pro by any means and I just want some constructive reasoning with the community. I know I might be opening up a can of worms but bear with me if you can. Thank you!)

After watching the evo finals at evo personally, and then watching it again on the DVD today while recovering from "food poisoning", I decided to come here to check out some threads on why everyone made fun of Evo for having items in play.

I've read many threads regarding the rules/tournament matches/arguments for and against items and I actually have come up with the following conclusion. Before that though, here is some history.

Street figher community (this is where I am from and this gives you full right to call me a Smash-scrub) generally do not ban anything UNLESS it is 100% broken. That means only things that gets banned are characters and glitches that is game-breaking. For example, if ANYONE can pick a certain character and do 1 move over and over again to win, that is game-breaking.

There are multiple characters in a video game. Just because one character has a huge advantage over another (Snake over Captain Falcon) doesn't mean that character should be banned due to an innate advantage that the game gives to the in-game mechanics as long as it is not game-breaking... That is the stance the fighting community takes, and that is why we've allowed things like switch-glitch/Juggernaut glitch in MvC2 and roll-cancels in CvS2 and even allow characters like Vega to be played in ST tournaments when they are in fact soft-banned in Japan.

Spawning from this ideology, Mr. Wizard (who runs both SRK and Evo tournaments) have asked the SWF community to provide logical explanation and video evidence that enabling certain things are GAME-BREAKING.

However, here are the arguments that I've gathered up from many closed threads on SWF.

1. It adds randomness to a game.

Sure, I 100% agree with this statement. Hey, tripping is random. It is part of the game that is NOT game-breaking. Brawl tournament is NOT single-stock full-item game, and nor is Evo. I believe in the skillset of the players that almost all instances of the items CAN BE AVOIDED with smart gameplay and good execution.

One of the arguments that pop up over and over is "what if player x has 0% and player y has 200% and random SB comes out and player x dies to final smash". It is not that simple. You are bringing up an extreme case, and that STILL doesn't prove any point. Player y might not get the SB. Player x might dodge the SB. Player x might get it, but player y might beat it out of x and go for the win. Who knows what might happen, but despite the given RANDOM chance at an initial state, the game is not broken by any means.

Poker and Magic: The Gathering has been brought up also that despite randomness, skill always wins in the long run and good players end up near the top over and over. Bad beats happen and just because a single-bad beat happened doesn't mean it is game breaking. That is why the Evo tournament is set at 3-stock, 2 out of 3, double-elimination.

2. That's how it's always been, and look, even evo2k7 banned items from Melee tournament.

Hey, George Bush has been president for 8 years now. Let's continue? No. Just because a certain way of life has been promoted over another for many years, that shouldn't mean we should just take it. There is nothing wrong with promoting change that might be for the better. This argument is totally illogical and based off personal opinions rather than facts so I won't even argue here too much.

3. Why do we need tournament footages to prove something SWF already knows and have made up their minds about?

Really? So why is that on most video threads with evo2k8 threads majority of the comments are "lolevo itemz on" or "wow nice display of skills there even without items" or "**** i didn't know you could do that with FS (or avoid or whatever)".

Obviously, this hasn't been tested despite some of the "past tournaments" having had full-items on. Yuna's argument was "why waste a major tournament like Evo2k8 to prove that items are broken", but the whole point was that Yuna should have provided evidence BEFOREHAND so we didn't HAVE to waste a major.

Nobody said the tournament footages had to be from a 300-man massive Brawl-fest. You could have had a 10-man tournament with top players and had a few 3-stock 5 minute matches and shown evidence that items were broken.

This wasn't done. The burden of proof was in the hands of the SWF community and instead of 'stating the obvious' as you guys make it seem, no testing was done and no evidence was provided.

4. It changes the game; how it is played, the flow, the tiers.

This is actually the best argument I've read so far, but it still doesn't prove any points. It might change, but nobody knew if it would change for the better or for worse. Randomness might come into play here and there and makes you lose stock/games you shouldn't, but it just means you need to learn to be a better player/bigger man and show in the long run who is better. Even with evo ruleset, I don't think tiers would change that much anyways.

From what I've read, the biggest complain from Evo was chain grabs. That surely says something no?
------

So, what is the conclusion? To be blunt, it really seems like the community as a whole is very reluctant to change and has a 'my way or the highway' mentality. I don't want to offend anyone to bring up age, but it definitely might have something to do with acceptance as I really don't understand the whole backlash and the boycott without ANY substantial proof.

I don't know if I'll accomplish anything directly for posting this, but I do want to get a better feel for WHY you guys hate on evo so much, and I also want to persuade at least a few top players / tournament organizers who are slightly on the fense or even open about new directions on the scene to take a stand and maybe allow for some lenience in the future (and hopefully a better 2009).

I am really saddened that so many people didn't attend Evo even when they could solely based on the four arguments above. I really wish you guys would have shown up and maybe meet the people face-to-face and possibly cross-over to the arcade scene as well.

Anyways, hope something positive comes out of this.

Thanks!

(prepares for the inevitable "omgz u smash n00b itemz suck lolevo")

 

[JacobWins]

Some items are okay

Smash balls are not

 

[Mic_128]

I don't know if I'll accomplish anything directly for posting this, but I do want to get a better feel for WHY you guys hate on evo so much

A lot of the Evo hate is because despite Mr Wizard asking for input, even being invited into the SBR and both here and on the evo site with logical and valid debate, they then literally said "Well we're doing it our way anyway"

I will be keeping a sharp eye on this, so do NOT be an *** when replying to this thread, do not spam in this thread or you will be infracted.

 

[deepseadiva]

omgz u smash n00-

I will be keeping a sharp eye on this, so do NOT be an *** when replying to this thread, do not spam in this thread or you will be infracted.

Anyways, my thoughts on the matter is that the point of a tournament ruleset is to insure that the best player gets first place, while the worst player gets last place. Items, while most of the time will still allow this to happen, obscure this, and really only get in the way of tournament accuracy.

It's very logical in my opinion.

 

[Tyheam]

Street figher community (this is where I am from and this gives you full right to call me a Smash-scrub) generally do not ban anything UNLESS it is 100% broken. That means only things that gets banned are characters and glitches that is game-breaking. For example, if ANYONE can pick a certain character and do 1 move over and over again to win, that is game-breaking.

There are multiple characters in a video game. Just because one character has a huge advantage over another (Snake over Captain Falcon) doesn't mean that character should be banned due to an innate advantage that the game gives to the in-game mechanics as long as it is not game-breaking... That is the stance the fighting community takes, and that is why we've allowed things like switch-glitch/Juggernaut glitch in MvC2 and roll-cancels in CvS2 and even allow characters like Vega to be played in ST tournaments when they are in fact soft-banned in Japan.

That is, in my opinion, the main point. The smash community has a different mindset here. There are not as many options to turn off stuff in Street Fighter so the community just learned to go with it. Go with what they have and that's it.

In all Smash games you can turn off items so the developers gave the community the choice. The majority of this community seems to prefer keeping the random factor to a minimum. To some it may be more fun with items on but it's hardly fairer.

When it comes to characters, none have been banned yet. You can't say that the smash rules haven't been thought over again and again. For example Metaknight: the stance right now is anti-ban but this is no final decision. As more ATs come up and the metagame changes the SBR may choose to ban him.

Now as Mr. Wizard runs Evo he can decide the rules but in the end it is the smash community who really plays the game and so he should in my opinion listen to the SBR even if he thinks differently about it.

 

[LB-]

@Jacob: I am not sure if you've seen the matches or not, but even with SB, the matches were pretty balanced in terms of who won which matches they should have won.

@mic: hmm really? from the threads I've read here, what I've gathered was that the valid and logical arguments that WERE brought up was deemed "not valid and illogical" due to the lack of evidence and that is what I meant by points regarding tournament-video proof. I totally maybe be incorrect here so please correct me if I am wrong. Thank you for helping this thread stay constructive!

@meno: I totally understand your point. A fighting game community has always been the community to weed out the best; not to make money such as the poker community. An emphasis will always be placed for tournament winners and you want to ensure that the title of a champion only goes to the best player possible. That is why you would rather not include randomness into the game and I totally respect that opinion. On the other hand, you can also agree that even if randomness (random facts: in CvS2, there are combos that sometimes work and sometimes don't work purely based on chance. in ggxx:ac, a character's move would COMPLETELY WHFF depending on when of the character's neutral animation was being displayed) was included in the game, the consistent winners will always be revered rather than single 'lucky' winners. To bring up poker again, people remember both Doyle Brunson and Chris Moneymaker, but they are remembered and revered at totally different levels.

Also, I don't think a goal of a tournament is solely to find out the best player. If that were the case, then the ruleset of "1v1, single-stock, no item, final destination, no time limit, single match single elimination tournament" can be argued as well. I don't think anyone would go that route, and nobody would go full-item route either, but I thought Evo was a good middle ground.

@tyheam: I agree that the SWF and SRK mindsets are different, and that is why we need to have intelligent discussions to come to an agreement. 3s (one of the other fighting games played at Evo) does have system directions that can be turned on so you can do crazy things like air-combos, super-cancels, etc. Those are however NOT default design of the game, just as item-off is NOT the default design of the game. The default design of the game IS to have the items turned on, and due to balance issues, not all items were included. If good argument as to which items should have been turned off (such as the smash ball), then there is no reason why SRK community would have ignored that request.

---

I mean, having item-on isn't as random as going to a tournament and having people randomly choose their main characters out of a hat, is it? Going into the tournament knowing items are not off, working around items popping up out of no-where doesn't have that big of an effect in a 2 out of 3 double-elim tournament.

You seriously can't argue that a person x, who beats person y more with standard items on but loses more with items off, is the worse player. Items open yet another layer to the game and brings depth which could promote even higher echelon of skills (space control, item combos/placements, etc). I think that would only help more than hurt.

 

[KishPrime]

If good argument as to which items should have been turned off (such as the smash ball), then there is no reason why SRK community would have ignored that request.

But they did ignore that input, and gave no warning that they were choosing to ignore it.

As was stated earlier, they basically said that they wanted input. After it was given, then they demanded that we host items-on tournaments so that we could post videos to prove our points. Since no one wanted to waste their tournament, this never happened, and then Evo's organizers came back and said that there wasn't any video proof given to blame it on us.

 

[Radiation]

Some items are so strong that the majority of the time the game devolves into "who can get the item first." Smash Balls (and spicy curry) are the worst culprit for these items, if you get one of them with a character that has a good final smash it's very unlikely you will not lose a stock unless you're REALLY good and your opponent is HORRIBLE, which is wtf stupid. There shouldn't be a no-risk life-losing element that randomly appears in any fighting game unless we're playing with six stocks or something like that, which we're not. If you look at the finals Ken was a lot better with items for the most part, the reason he lost is because half the time he intentionally ignored them. (Not to say the other guy wasn't good at getting them, but if you look all he had to do in order to win was run toward the items every single time one spawned)

Items do still take skill, it's just that they shouldn't (in our community's opinion) be the overpowering focus of the game. A better item ruleset is here, it makes items an important part of the game but there's actually a balance vs. attacking your opponent/controlling spacing and actually thinking about whether picking up the item is a good idea, etc.

The depth of most items is just "run toward them, pick them up/break them and suddenly you're at an advantage," which is about as shallow as a puddle. "Space control," "placement" is pretty much - if you have (most) items you control the entire stage because you can throw it at someone. Item combos are virtually nonexistent with the exception of the fan, which should be banned anyway because it's an instant win vs. anyone except Jigglypuff. Item placement is actually smart with the remote mines and the pitfalls but otherwise the only place you want items is in your hands and you want to keep the rest of the players away from them.

EVO Melee tournies didn't have items on, why the change?

[edit: lol if you want item combos, play as diddy kong]

 

[KishPrime]

Also, people who complained about the Wobbles chaingrab were, for the most part, not the experts of the game or the Back Room. The Back Room overwhelmingly voted against banning the "Wobbles," and it was not banned at the largest community-run tournament series.

Chain grabs are an integral part of Sheik's game, I doubt many people were complaining about chain grabs in general. Tournament pros did not make a habit of complaining about them anyway.

 

[JesiahTEG]

I'm trying to fight my opponent. Not run away from a baseball bat.

 

[Mic_128]

I mean, having item-on isn't as random as going to a tournament and having people randomly choose their main characters out of a hat, is it? Going into the tournament knowing items are not off, working around items popping up out of no-where doesn't have that big of an effect in a 2 out of 3 double-elim tournament.

Having your opponent randomly get new/better attacks and a dangerous projectile aren't that great.

 

[IslandBrawler]

Some items are so strong that the majority of the time the game devolves into "who can get the item first." Smash Balls (and spicy curry) are the worst culprit for these items, if you get one of them with a character that has a good final smash it's very unlikely you will not lose a stock unless you're REALLY good and your opponent is HORRIBLE, which is wtf stupid

I'm gonna have to disagree with you on that one Radiation. While I agree that SBs and some other items ( spicy curry for example ) are powerful they aren't all unavoidable. Yes some characters have one hit kill FSs and some items are one hit kill items ( dragoon ) but there is always as you yourself pointed out an element of randomness to it all. I play pretty often with items on against one of my friends, who is actually a better brawler than me, and believe it or not items don't change this. At the end of those matches it's still obviously clear that he's still the better player. So even with items on the better player still will come out on top. Almost all items are avoidable with the right timing and it seems to me that nintendo went out of their way to make sure there was some level of balance to the items. Items such as hammers are deadly yes but let's say, as you pointed out that if the game becomes just about grabbing up items what's going to happen to the guy that grabs the hammer and the head falls off?

There shouldn't be a no-risk life-losing element that randomly appears in any fighting game

None of the items even the SBs are no-risk. There is a big risk in trying to get SBs especially if one person is already at a high %. Getting any item involves risk, true after getting the SB you've got a golden opportunity to punish your opponent but what happens in the case that you're not playing with a one-hit-kill-FS character? I've seen players survive almost EVERY FS in the game, the only ones I can think of that can't be survived is Marth's and Zelda's. Even in the case of those two playing against someone with skill means it's going to be pretty hard to use their FSs because of the fact that you can only use them in a straight line.

Items do still take skill

Exactly, getting items takes skill, using items effectively takes skill ( case in point, the rocket launcher ) and hanging on to items takes skill. I can't think of a single item in the game that is infallible. The clocks have a random chance of slowing down you or your opponent, the hammers can sometimes be a blessing or a curse, SBs take skill to get and in most cases take proper strategy to use, the lightning bolts don't always shrink your opponent, the spicy curry can be avoided ( I've done it myself ) ....and the list goes on.

When it comes right down to it, the items are inherently random, everything about them is random and that's what the problem is, players are afraid of those random variables. This isn't such a bad thing because it's nice to know that as a brawler you're as skilled as they come with a particular character. Sometimes it's nice to be able to completely demolish your opponent with pure skill but let's face it, which of us hasn't felt some deep satisfaction with watching a final smash be the icing on an already sweet cake of pwnage? All in all though my personal opinion is that for a really competitive scene like Evo maybe it's a wise idea to not have items on, after all in games such as SF there are no items and that's one of the things that separates SF from Brawl when they are viewed as competitive games. With the smaller scenes though, don't ban items completely, they are part of the game and they do NOT make matches one sided plus playing smaller tournaments with nothing on the line save for bragging rights, what's the harm?

 

[TheBuzzSaw]

The main problem is that EVO is equally stubborn. No, the SWF community cannot tell them how to play the game, but EVO consciously chose to exclude this community by mandating items in the rule set. That is fine, but SWF individuals reserve the right to not travel to EVO. As a result, EVO did not feature the best players, and attendance was pathetic compare to the Melee event of last year. EVO carries this attitude of "we will enable items and you all WILL attend". That's just poor politics to begin with.

Politics aside, items give arbitrary random advantages. That is the bottom line. Of course Final Smashes are (sometimes) avoidable, but you cannot argue against the fact that whoever possesses the Final Smash has an excellent advantage. That is why items are banned. They don't need to be "broken" to warrant elimination.

Plus, I think the mentality of "using as many elements of the game as possible" or "it's part of the game" is ridiculous. That essentially puts control into the hands of the creator. Sorry, but we don't owe Sakurai anything. We've already handed over $50. We can change the game into something else if we want. EVO chose the path of being the underdog minority by coming up with a competitive item rule set. That is fine, but we choose not to participate. We derive more satisfaction from games where luck is minimalized, and victory is obtained through effective use of the character, not effective gathering of items.

All in all, the pro-items side is just as guilty as the anti-items side. "Items take skill!" Yeah, well, so does playing without items. You cannot stroll into SWF and attempt to lecture people into feeling bad about how the competitive community operates. If you host an items tournament, and no one shows up, you have no one to blame but yourself.

 

[kr3wman]

Concrete evidence :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8PuYBlbNVw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65Khbn0WNgo

:D

EDIT : I'm searching for a vid where 56k gets down-thrown by a falco and an explosive capsule spawn in the down-throw resulting in the death of the falco.

I can't find it tho. T_T

 

[TheBuzzSaw]

That first video was painful.

 

[SmashChu]

A lot of the Evo hate is because despite Mr Wizard asking for input, even being invited into the SBR and both here and on the evo site with logical and valid debate, they then literally said "Well we're doing it our way anyway"

Truthfully, Mr. Wizard was justified as no one brought strong evidence, only what they saw as "infallible" arguments. His logic was never actually countered, and everyone gave the same brain washed argument. He claimed that they did not know if any of the rules were unbalanced or not. Brawl was also new. No one argued that and argued why they preferred the other way in Melee and almost demanded that he come to their side.

This is something the community will have to learn. They will only rationalize what happened saying they were right and he was wrong.

 

[TheBuzzSaw]

Truthfully, Mr. Wizard was justified as no one brought strong evidence, only what they saw as "infallible" arguments. His logic was never actually countered, and everyone gave the same brain washed argument. He claimed that they did not know if any of the rules were unbalanced or not. Brawl was also new. No one argued that and argued why they preferred the other way in Melee and almost demanded that he come to their side.

This is something the community will have to learn. They will only rationalize what happened saying they were right and he was wrong.

Mr. Wizard was given plenty of evidence in his discussion with the SBR (the part that no one could see). The SBR even ran tests to verify certain attributes of items. Mr. Wizard's expectations were not down to earth. Regardless, we do not need to produce video evidence anymore. The All Brawl group is providing plenty of that for us.

 

[kr3wman]

Truthfully, Mr. Wizard was justified as no one brought strong evidence, only what they saw as "infallible" arguments. His logic was never actually countered, and everyone gave the same brain washed argument. He claimed that they did not know if any of the rules were unbalanced or not. Brawl was also new. No one argued that and argued why they preferred the other way in Melee and almost demanded that he come to their side.

This is something the community will have to learn. They will only rationalize what happened saying they were right and he was wrong.

He asked us to test Smash items on like if the 8 years that we played smash competitively didn't matter.

He asked us to purposely do items on tournament to test it. We knew items-on tournament weren't profitable at all since we knew the turnout would be very low.

When he saw we didn't do it he just started listening to Keits like he was the pro smash player. Because Keits finds Brawl without items boring

Spoiler

and, imho, because he sucks at it too

he wants items on because 'unlike Smash 64 and Melee who were incomplete games and needed the rules to be changed' Brawl was fine as it is.

I don't remember items as broken as the Fan, the Smashball or the curry sauce in Smash64/Melee yet we don't use items anyway.

Take it as you will, it was failed logic on their part. Even though our community didn't do the right thing like organize a tournament with a fail level of such a great magnitude it would have convinced them to turn items off.

But no we didn't. and we're stupid for that, of course.

 

[brinboy789]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8PuYBlbNVw

...wow ending was gay

 

[metaXzero]

In the end, the greater Smash community just doesn't like playing with items. In Melee (starting around 2004), the argument that led to the widespread ban of items was due to the random exploding capsules and crates that would spawn on characters attacks. These came on with items on and couldn't be turned off until Brawl.

While that argument is null in Brawl, most of us here are accustommed to the non-item side of Smash and would rather stay like this. It's simply preference.

 

[SSD]

how often does a player at that level up an item and actually USE it? From the matches I've watched, almost every time they would just throw it at the other guy. Beam sword? throw it. Super scope? throw it. Star rod? Time to use the old Z button.

What is the point in adding non-throwing weapons if the majority of the time, people just throw them? Apparently, they aren't WORTH using for their intended purpose. If it's not worth using for anything besides throwing, why have it at all? The only exception to this would be the home run bat, because using it normally generally doesn't work. Star rod and beam sword aren't impossible to hit with - beam sword gives you more range, (and multiple attacks for some characters who already have swords) and star rod gives you several projectiles(rapid fire for Falcon and Sheik), but each is thrown away regardless.

You might as well have randomly spawning suit pieces for most of the melee/projectile items.

 

[Revven]

how often does a player at that level up an item and actually USE it? From the matches I've watched, almost every time they would just throw it at the other guy. Beam sword? throw it. Super scope? throw it. Star rod? Time to use the old Z button.

What is the point in adding non-throwing weapons if the majority of the time, people just throw them? Apparently, they aren't WORTH using for their intended purpose. If it's not worth using for anything besides throwing, why have it at all? The only exception to this would be the home run bat, because using it normally generally doesn't work. Star rod and beam sword aren't impossible to hit with - beam sword gives you more range, (and multiple attacks for some characters who already have swords) and star rod gives you several projectiles(rapid fire for Falcon and Sheik), but each is thrown away regardless.

You might as well have randomly spawning suit pieces for most of the melee/projectile items.

Well, this is because generally speaking the Home-Run Bat and Star Rod are better to be used thrown as they have much better knockback and strange properties when thrown (Star Rod bounces across the stage, not as bad as Melee but, it still does so, on certain stages it is better to throw it than it is to use it for its intended purpose). And the HR-B is better thrown due to its knockback and general damage (as you already noted).

The Star Rod can be used in such gay ways.

 

[SSD]

Well, this is because generally speaking the Home-Run Bat and Star Rod are better to be used thrown as they have much better knockback and strange properties when thrown (Star Rod bounces across the stage, not as bad as Melee but, it still does so, on certain stages it is better to throw it than it is to use it for its intended purpose). And the HR-B is better thrown due to its knockback and general damage (as you already noted).

The Star Rod can be used in such gay ways.

Still. Some of the argument behind having items is that if they are there, you should use them.
If the projectile/melee items have the ability to repeatedly smack people/fire off projectiles, you should use them.

It's utter hippocracy.

 

[Revven]

Still. Some of the argument behind having items is that if they are there, you should use them.
If the projectile/melee items have the ability to repeatedly smack people/fire off projectiles, you should use them.

It's utter hippocracy.

Yep, and that's why I never have them on. ALSO! Did you know that the Cracker Launcher is also better to throw than actually use? It's pretty redonk. It's uber dumb too.

 

[LB-]

Lots of posts so I will try to address a few here; I am sorry if I missed a point but please let me know if I did:

@Radiation: I looked at the 'balanced ruleset' that you have hyperlinked and aside from the smash ball, golden hammer, and the bumper, the banned items are the same. I believe you also agree FS are not necessarily a free-win, and golden hammer is also a very high-risk/high-reward item. There are a lot of instances where such instance would benefit a player, and items are allowing that extra depth to the metagame.

@Buzz: To clarify, I have no afflication to the Evo tournament and I am not crying about the tournament being a bust due to me being stubborn with my rules. I understand that Evo staff cannot come to SWF and say "Wow, we hold your game as one of a select few games at Evo and you don't even come? I hate you guys. Never a Smash game at Evo!!!". In fact, I think Brawl finals were one of the more entertaining matches to watch (over 50% of the characters chosen for 3s was Chun-Li... *yawn*) and had a decent turnout. What I am sad about is that the "top players" and the "pros" of the game chose to boycott solely based on differences of opinions. While I totally understand the mentality of "why us, as an established community with already established ruleset, attend an event that is against our set rules", the argument FOR having items were just as logical and could easily have been overlooked. Americans travel thousands of miles to Japan to play in single-game, single-elimination tournaments which infact has more to do with randomness than you might think. Just hoping it turns out better for 2009...

@kr3wman: Very cool video as a Marth player and I do agree with both of your videos. However, 56k would have won the first video based on evo rules as sudden death does NOT come into play. As for the second video, those items weren't even allowed and rightfully so. Still no good evidence of smash ball being an end-all.

@Smashchu: thanks for the support/understanding!

@metaxzero: Exactly; a matter of preference but something that could have been understood? British likes driving on their left, but I'm not going to boycott Britain just based on that. It's not broken by any means and a skilled driver would still drive perfectly fine (probably a bad analogy hehehe sorry).

Remember guys, Evo rules were not a free-for-all all-items on anything-goes tournament...

 

[SSD]

ALSO! Did you know that the Cracker Launcher is also better to throw than actually use? It's pretty redonk. It's uber dumb too.

Yeah, I always hated that. It's like a hammer that sucks and you can throw it. horrible item.

based on evo rules as sudden death does NOT come into play. As for the second video, those items weren't even allowed and rightfully so. Still no good evidence of smash ball being an end-all.

Wasn't the whole "all brawl" thing started by the same guy who came up with the idea of having items at evo?

 

[Jack Kieser]

Oh no, another items thread. And an EVO items thread at that... As far as I'm concerned, most of the reason that there was so much contention was simply a difference in philosophy. The SRK guys wanted to follow that "only ban it if it's broken" mentality, but that is completely diametrically opposed to Smash Bros. Keits tried that with his All-Brawl ruleset; needless to say, competitive Brawl is pretty opposed to All-Brawl.

The problem is that when Wiz started banning items, it was totally without any logical progression. Unfortunately, ISP stuff didn't get into full swing until after Wiz made his decisions, so we couldn't point to that and go "try this out". As far as "video proof" goes, both parties are at blame. On SRK's side, why not just do it yourself? They had the game and capture cards. But, on SWF's side, no one here was willing to put aside item stereotypes from 64/Melee and hold serious tournaments to see what changed in the transition (hint: enough to count). What resulted was a cluster****; a wonky ruleset at EVO (and lets face it: it could have been MUCH better) resulted in a sub-par tourney (not terrible, but certainly sub-par), and neither community wanted to be adult about not flaming each other.

I don't think items are particularly great for competition, but I'm not convinced that they are brokensauce, either. I think that SWF was too impulsive and not open enough to change, and that SRK was too childish and lazy (not to mention both sides being incredibly full of themselves).

But that's just my two cents. Lord knows someone is going to be in here in about 10 posts multiquoting the hell out of this thread.

 

[metaXzero]

Yeah LB- that British analogy was awful (unless we have some sort of international competitive traffic racing league lol).

Item Brawl just has too many differences from non-item that most dislike. They're different games in the long run.

 

[TheBuzzSaw]

Items represent the poker version of Brawl. "Luck is a part of the game." The competitive community at large does not like the poker version. Apparently, the top "pro" players don't like the poker version either. My recommendation would be to just start a separate item-based community instead of stress over attempting to convert the current community to items.

 

[RDK]

Having items on in Brawl makes it a completely different game. They're banned not only because they introduce randomness and often times helps the losing player (and I'm talking about spawn randomness, not quantifiable randomness like in MTG--stop using that as an example, they're not even comparable) but it overcentralizes the game around items.

SRK has always been a childish community; there was really no surprise when Wiz decided to flip us the bird.

 

[MajorMoses]

I can't say anything about whether items are good for Brawl or not. For me its just a preference. But expecting us to change our preferences is just wrong (and unconstitutional). Evo risked their attendence by putting in items and they should have known that all of the top players wouldn't have come. Asking us to show proof that items should be banned is ridiculous as well since the top players won't go to those tournaments. If the top players don't go, any videos that come out of these tournaments do nothing to support either argument. This argument is one that can only be settled at the top level of skill.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have just reached what I would like to call a "Catch-22". You can't find out whether items are legit without an item tournament full of top players. Top players will never go to an item tournament due to preference. Therefore, the argument about items is pointless.

What we can talk about is the issue of Evo back-stabbing the SBR. Most of the information that I know came from the Show Me Your News podcast. Apparently, there was only one dinky little thread posted by 'The Wizard' that asked the Smash community to prove why items should be banned. He apparently expected EVERYONE on the boards to see this thread and decided to make his own ruleset when nobody replied. From whats already been said, tons of evidence had already been compiled for him in numerous discussions throughout the backroom. Why did he ignore those threads and make his own in some far off area of smash boards? I have no idea but it was a pretty dumb idea on his part.

Lots of posts so I will try to address a few here; I am sorry if I missed a point but please let me know if I did:

@Radiation: I looked at the 'balanced ruleset' that you have hyperlinked and aside from the smash ball, golden hammer, and the bumper, the banned items are the same. I believe you also agree FS are not necessarily a free-win, and golden hammer is also a very high-risk/high-reward item. There are a lot of instances where such instance would benefit a player, and items are allowing that extra depth to the metagame.

You apparently missed when Radiation said that the fan should be banned. It has the ability to trap opponents infinitely without chance of escape (minus Jigglypuff) and it was allowed at Evo. My brother once came home after playing at a friends house and told me about how he had crushed his friend while using the fan. I could only roll my eyes and explain that it was a broken item to him. I don't have much else to say. I thought that this issue had finally been forgotten. It was stupid to bring this back up. I say that Evo can do whatever they want next year. But they should recognize that we won't show up if they continue to ignore us.

 

[-Ran]

What I am sad about is that the "top players" and the "pros" of the game chose to boycott solely based on differences of opinions.
.

Imagine this. We wanted to be chess, but they wanted to play checkers. You use the same board, but the pieces that result in victory are far different. It is not a matter of opinion, it is a matter of ideology. Smashboards makes up the bulk of the competitive scene for all of the Smash Brothers, and we are drawn together by our common ideals on how the game should be played. Our world view of the game is totally 'destroyed' by the 'difference of opinion' of having Items on.

Fundamentally the game is changed once items are turned on.* Regardless of the perception of anyone outside of our community, as conceited as it sounds, it is how we have refined ourselves to play. We, the competitive Smash circle, find that it is the best means to determine who the better player is. The entirety of our efforts has been placed on the concept of 'No Items.' Every match up thread, every tier discussion, every stage analysis has revolved around Items being off. Hundreds of thousands of posts have been dedicated to this mere opinion which has become the foundation of our entire community.

This is our community. If SRK wants/does throw a Brawl tournament, then it will be filled with their own members, unless they are consistent with our style of play. It's a matter of choice, it's a matter of preference, and for us, it's the only way to play.


*You cannot argue that the game is the same with items on. Once Marth is carrying a Gun, his character dynamics and match ups have been changed. This is the same for any, and every character.

 

[Marth Xero]

Imagine this. We wanted to be chess, but they wanted to play checkers. You use the same board, but the pieces that result in victory are far different. It is not a matter of opinion, it is a matter of ideology. Smashboards makes up the bulk of the competitive scene for all of the Smash Brothers, and we are drawn together by our common ideals on how the game should be played. Our world view of the game is totally 'destroyed' by the 'difference of opinion' of having Items on.

Fundamentally the game is changed once items are turned on.* Regardless of the perception of anyone outside of our community, as conceited as it sounds, it is how we have refined ourselves to play. We, the competitive Smash circle, find that it is the best means to determine who the better player is. The entirety of our efforts has been placed on the concept of 'No Items.' Every match up thread, every tier discussion, every stage analysis has revolved around Items being off. Hundreds of thousands of posts have been dedicated to this mere opinion which has become the foundation of our entire community.

This is our community. If SRK wants/does throw a Brawl tournament, then it will be filled with their own members, unless they are consistent with our style of play. It's a matter of choice, it's a matter of preference, and for us, it's the only way to play.


*You cannot argue that the game is the same with items on. Once Marth is carrying a Gun, his character dynamics and match ups have been changed. This is the same for any, and every character.

That has got to be the most awesome /thread post I have ever read.

 

[SamuraiPanda]

I have said this many, many times in the past so I don't feel like giving the entire spiel again. The short version of my favorite argument is this: Brawl with items and Brawl without items are two different games. The balance is different, the pacing is different, the gameplay is different, and nearly every aspect of the game is changed when you turn items on. EVO was asking the SWF community to come play Brawl with items. Unfortunately, that is a different game than what we play, as we play Brawl without items. I don't consider these two versions to be equivalent at all, and frankly nobody else should either.

When all is said and done, EVO ran a game similar to what we play, but it wasn't the actual game we play. However, we have had assurances that in the future if EVO is to run Brawl again (which I truly hope they will), there will be no items.

 

[Wiwiweb]

Street figher community (this is where I am from and this gives you full right to call me a Smash-scrub) generally do not ban anything UNLESS it is 100% broken. That means only things that gets banned are characters and glitches that is game-breaking. For example, if ANYONE can pick a certain character and do 1 move over and over again to win, that is game-breaking.

There are multiple characters in a video game. Just because one character has a huge advantage over another (Snake over Captain Falcon) doesn't mean that character should be banned due to an innate advantage that the game gives to the in-game mechanics as long as it is not game-breaking... That is the stance the fighting community takes, and that is why we've allowed things like switch-glitch/Juggernaut glitch in MvC2 and roll-cancels in CvS2 and even allow characters like Vega to be played in ST tournaments when they are in fact soft-banned in Japan.

I understand why you would say this. Banning items sounds like scrubs banning something they can't handle. But this is not the same thing.

In the Street Fighter case, banning a character is done to improve the balance of the game. Because SF2 tournaments where everyone would be Akuma wouldn't be enjoyable, and many more options of the other characters would be ignored, resulting in a reduced depth of the game.
If we ever ban Meta-Knight, this will be the same kind of ban, because of balance.

The item ban doesn't have the same goal. You admitted yourself that items add randomness (continue reading, this is not the usual rant). Thus, this element of randomness will move the odds of the better player winning closer to 50%. It might not be drastic, but it will still have a little effect. Because of this and because of the definition of competitive, items-on is less competitive than items-off.

Now this doesn't mean items-on requires no skill and isn't competitive. Basically, it's two different games. By banning items, we created a whole new, more competitive game. Some people might like the items-on game, but we decided to play the items-off game. Just a matter of opinion.

 

[victra♥]

So people who don't play our game are telling us how to play it? What?

edit: items on gives brawl a different feel. It ends up being a game where you chase after the item instead of actually spacing and fighting your opponent.

 

[Jack Kieser]

To follow up Panda's post, I'd really like to assert that playing without items is NOT inherently better for finding the "more skilled" player. It's like playing only Halo to find the more skilled player; what if I'm better at SF than Halo? Because items on/off are SO different in the way they play, one IS NOT better at finding who is the more skilled because they use differing skillsets.

People who are better at items but worse at no items are better at managing the outcome of random events (to some degree) and are better at preparing and responding to events out of their control (for instance, always anticipating a bat to spawn and always being ready for it in their minds); that doesn't mean that they are better gamers than people who can't play with items, that means that they have a different skillset. Current comp. Smash doesn't care about that particular skill at ALL, though, so the game they play doesn't need to include testing for that skill. Simple as that.

(Notes: I like how every analogy we instinctively use places no items play as a "more skilled" game anyway, like NI = Chess, I = Checkers. Also, anyone who has SERIOUSLY played with items in Brawl can attest to the fact that someone chasing after items they don't know how to effectively use will just get pwned. Picking up a ray gun =/= win; just because you GOT the item doesn't mean you know what to do with it. Not to mention that if you just predictably go for the item spawns, the other, more intelligent player will always know where you're going. This makes you lose. Just some things I noticed. )

 

[OmegaXXII]

Indeed, EVO was basically telling "us" the SWF community to start playing the game as they do do, which in their is is Brawl with items on, when in fact the SWF community plays it without them, maybe someday they're will be EVO again with a reconsideration having of having items off.

 

[Endless Nightmares]

Concrete evidence :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8PuYBlbNVw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65Khbn0WNgo

:D

EDIT : I'm searching for a vid where 56k gets down-thrown by a falco and an explosive capsule spawn in the down-throw resulting in the death of the falco.

I can't find it tho. T_T

^______________^ yay. I have mixed feelings about that tournament (especially after I got dissed on the SRK forum afterwards), but I am glad some of my matches showed how bad items-brawl really is

lol idk about that vid you're searching for, maybe I wasn't part of that match

 

[pure_awesome]

I like competitive (certain)items-on Brawl. It's interesting and opens up a plethora of new strategies that aren't available in items-off Brawl without completely rendering the game unplayable.

That being said, it's safe to say that competitive Brawl will forever be played items off, if only for the fact that it's what we're used to and it wouldn't make any sense to change now.


That being said, I should point out that 56K only lost the first match because of improper item use, and the items themselves should not be blamed.

The second match depresses me.