Should the Gloves come off? Competitive Equipment Discussion

[Count Bleck]

EDIT: Providing a quick to the Equipment Catalouge thread for easy tracking of known equipment, as well as the Equipment Math Thread For understanding of Equipment mathematics on increases, decreases, etc.

Alrighty then. It seems that the community all around is becoming more and more open to the acceptance of character movesets. Many have said that these moves changes can add variety to matches and can even offer a whole new meta. But I've noticed that nobody has been talking about that other feature that came with this game much.

Yep. That's right. Equipment.

Now, before we get to the insta-bans and #Kappas, lets keep an open mind and actually review over what these items are and what can they bring to the competitive scene.

1. What is equipment?

Equipment, from what I have gathered, are power-ups that are divided into 3 sections: Attack, Defense, and Speed. They can be equipped to increase a certain stat while decreasing another. For Example, You can have equipment that makes you hit harder, but at the same time, you may move a bit slower overall. You may have up to 3 equipment per character.

EDIT: Thanks to SmashRiver64 for this piece of information:

For those who don't know how the Equipment work;
Attack = +Attack -Defense
Defense = +Defense -Speed
Speed = +Speed -Attack
Find a good Balance, or stay to one side. It's up to you.

2. What does it offer to the scene?

Equipment offers a very simillar deal that customizable movesets do: it adds a breathe of fresh air to characters and adds a whole new meta to the game. As stated earlier, every buff to a stat decreases another. This means while you can defenitly equip 3 Attack items or 3 speed, You'll be leaving yourself full of holes the opponent can take advantage of. Every piece of equipment suddenly becomes a vital decision that could significantly change how the character plays and what your next match will play like.

Picture this: You have an Ike and just lost to Palutena. She has some speed boosts equipped that decrease her defense and attack, but she still outranges you have a bit of trouble catching up to her. However, you do have a moveset saved that increase your defense and speed, but at the cost of your attack power. Since Ike already hits like a truck full of trucks and Palutena is already weakened from her own enchancements, You can easily take her on during the second round. At which point the Palutena has to plan out her next round and equipment, and so on. Hoever, this is simply one way equipment can turn out.

3. There's no way to see what equipment my opponent has! They could counterpick me and I would have no way to tell!

FALSE.

(go to 1:28:23 if the video doesn't work)

As soon as customizations are turned on, icons will be shown over all the selected players, showing exactly what boosts they have with them at that time. There is even a profile selection screen that shows the players custom movesets as well, which is unavoidable. This way, people can can confirm with one another their movesets and equipment before the stage select.

4. Buffs? IN MY SMASH BROS.?! This will never work out in competitive play!

Oh? But it already has. If you have the game, you probably fought a character who works almost exactly as the equipment does. Heck, you might even be maining him!

It's time to talk about my good man Shulk

All this talk about Buffs and de-buffs should have sounded familliar to you already, but yeah, Shulk is a living character that runs a very similar formula the Equipment system does. If you use his Monando arts, you get a buff in one stat, and a debuff to another, only in his case, they are on a time limit and he must wait to recharge that specfic buff before using it again. Regardless, Shulk is using his arts all the time, and you know what? This didn't cause a massive outcry. In fact, people loved it! It was unique! Fresh! New!

So, if Shulk gets positive reception and is not considered broken, and Custom Movesets are getting positive receptions, why are Equipment getting all the negativity? Because most people stopped reading at buff and said #banned, most likely.

So, there. Thats my thoughts on the matter. There are some difficulties to overcome concerning this as well, but they shall be adressed when they arrise. For now, now that we had some extra time to think we need to ask a question:

Should the gloves come off to promote more calculated matches? Or should they be here to stay, for even more variety and creativity for both the competitive and casual community?

 

[Bedoop]

So much this.
Just-
So much of this.

 

[Gawain]

I think they have potential. As long as the balance is there. But having a debuff to your defense honestly sounds like it won't matter. Who wouldn't trade defense for offensive power or speed? Defense in Smash doesn't mean a whole lot.

 

[Bedoop]

Defense in Smash doesn't mean a whole lot.

Aside from the fact that the name of the game is to stay in the ring ala Sumo Wrestling, who needs it? XD

 

[Count Bleck]

I think they have potential. As long as the balance is there. But having a debuff to your defense honestly sounds like it won't matter. Who wouldn't trade defense for offensive power or speed? Defense in Smash doesn't mean a whole lot.

Depends on what you mean by defense. if from what I learned from the Weight Rankings is true, Defense is another fancy term for Weight. And Weight means a LOT in Smash Bros. Do you want to survive like Bowser but run like Jigglypuff? or Hit like Bowser and go flying like Jigglypuff?

 

[Gawain]

Aside from the fact that the name of the game is to stay in the ring ala Sumo Wrestling, who needs it? XD

My point is that characters that get KO'd easily but are faster are in general better because Smash is a lot more about avoiding being hit in the first place. It's why Fox, Marth, Sheik and the like are always so good compared to characters like Bowser and Ganondorf. The latter last longer but that doesn't mean anything when you're being solidly outplayed by faster guys.

Now I have to say that things may be different this time around as characters like Bowser seem a whole lot better than before, but that's mostly because he has armor frames everywhere, almost certainly not because he "lasts" longer.

 

[adlp]

i don't think equipment should be considered until the Wii U version comes out

or maybe

SSB4 Wii U ruleset will be no equipment, and 3DS will keep all equipment legal

at least until it's deemed balanced enough that equipment actually compliments high level gameplay, then we allow it on Wii U tourneys

 

[2fast]

How easy is it to set up equipment?? You may be able to save loadouts on your own 3DS, which isn't a problem, but if you have to hop on stream and use that 3DS than it could be a problem if it takes forever to set your own specific equipment.

 

[Bedoop]

For those who don't know how the Equipment work;
Attack = +Attack -Defense
Defense = +Defense -Speed
Speed = +Speed -Attack
Find a good Balance, or stay to one side. It's up to you.

 

[Gawain]

i don't think equipment should be considered until the Wii U version comes out

or maybe

SSB4 Wii U ruleset will be no equipment, and 3DS will keep all equipment legal

at least until it's deemed balanced enough that equipment actually compliments high level gameplay, then we allow it on Wii U tourneys

This is slightly off topic, but I believe this topic, and this sub board in general, apply to both games in reality. I can't say with a straight face that, after a month or two when the Wii U version comes out, that TOs will be using the 3DS version for tournaments. There may be a few small ones during that time period, but after it comes out? No way, there's no way they'll use the version with less stages, more difficulty to broadcast, and in general just less featured.

 

[Count Bleck]

How easy is it to set up equipment?? You may be able to save loadouts on your own 3DS, which isn't a problem, but if you have to hop on stream and use that 3DS than it could be a problem if it takes forever to set your own specific equipment.

The 3DS for a tourney of this calibur should have all the equipment unlocked themselves. No sense in not being able to recreate a build because of the TOs.

As for how easy it is, please refer to the video with the timestamp i posted.

 

[Count Bleck]

For those who don't know how the Equipment work;
Attack = +Attack -Defense
Defense = +Defense -Speed
Speed = +Speed -Attack
Find a good Balance, or stay to one side. It's up to you.

Thanks! I'll add this to the OP.

 

[Raijinken]

I, personally, hope there's at least a small scene for equipment-legal competitions. Keeps things fresh and interesting, and tips things further towards favoring skill over matchup experience.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

For the 3DS, my only concern is that due to the randomized nature of equipment you get (both the actual piece and the stats tied to it), matches may be won or lost because one player simply had more time to grind for equipment, or got lucky with a good find. That sort of pre-game preparation works in something like Pokemon, but I don't think it's what we want to test in a tournament.

That said, it's still infinitely more feasible than on the Wii U, and I don't have any inherent objections to the idea. I'm just worried about possible fairness issues.

 

[BADGRAPHICS]

I did some research into equipment a little while ago. What I found was that buffs and debuffs seem to scale based on a ratio, and that ratio changes depending on bonuses offered by the equipment.

The bonuses seem to be ranked; certain abilities have less of an effect of the buff/debuff ratio than others.

It would extremely useful if anybody with the game could take as many screenshots of equipment they've picked up as possible, so we can work out exactly how these ratios work, and how the abilities are ranked.

 

[Tristan_win]

I am absolutely against using equipment in tournaments for so many reasons but the flavor I'll bring up right now is how they would make the game less deep on the mid to high level. As someone gets better and better at smash they tend to naturally learn how to better manage not only their percentage but their opponents as well. 'I can kill them at X%, I can combo them from X%, he can't kill me until X%, he can't combo me until X%' I feel this plays a big part in the mid to high level of smash and by everyone adding equipment it would expend the amount of information you would need to know to unreasonable amounts.

Sure people might die faster and matches would be quicker but the thinking involved to win those matches would be a lot less, in a way it would make smash4 the worst smash due to inconsistencies from match to match.

 

[rpgcaster]

I am absolutely against using equipment in tournaments for so many reasons but the flavor I'll bring up right now is how they would make the game less deep on the mid to high level. As someone gets better and better at smash they tend to naturally learn how to better manage not only their percentage but their opponents as well. 'I can kill them at X%, I can combo them from X%, he can't kill me until X%, he can't combo me until X%' I feel this plays a big part in the mid to high level of smash and by everyone adding equipment it would expend the amount of information you would need to know to unreasonable amounts.

Sure people might die faster and matches would be quicker but the thinking involved to win those matches would be a lot less, in a way it would make smash4 the worst smash due to inconsistencies from match to match.

THIS! Being able to alter equipment would change a lot of this out of the metagame. There would be no point of learning any of this which in previous installments of the series was a very large part of competitive gameplay, knowing what moves to use at what percentage levels and in what situations.

 

[Count Bleck]

I am absolutely against using equipment in tournaments for so many reasons but the flavor I'll bring up right now is how they would make the game less deep on the mid to high level. As someone gets better and better at smash they tend to naturally learn how to better manage not only their percentage but their opponents as well. 'I can kill them at X%, I can combo them from X%, he can't kill me until X%, he can't combo me until X%' I feel this plays a big part in the mid to high level of smash and by everyone adding equipment it would expend the amount of information you would need to know to unreasonable amounts.

Sure people might die faster and matches would be quicker but the thinking involved to win those matches would be a lot less, in a way it would make smash4 the worst smash due to inconsistencies.

Who is to say that calculations cannot be a thing with equipment? Pokemon was able to to do just that. The only difference in this case is that we do not have enough info on equipment as of now, which leads people to believe that it could change a character drastically without consequence.

In reality, all that needs to be done is research on the subject. If we can find a ratio of how the equipment influence a player, Then figuring out when to kill them will be a breeze.

 

[BADGRAPHICS]

I am absolutely against using equipment in tournaments for so many reasons but the flavor I'll bring up right now is how they would make the game less deep on the mid to high level. As someone gets better and better at smash they tend to naturally learn how to better manage not only their percentage but their opponents as well. 'I can kill them at X%, I can combo them from X%, he can't kill me until X%, he can't combo me until X%' I feel this plays a big part in the mid to high level of smash and by everyone adding equipment it would expend the amount of information you would need to know to unreasonable amounts.

Sure people might die faster and matches would be quicker but the thinking involved to win those matches would be a lot less, in a way it would make smash4 the worst smash due to inconsistencies from match to match.

Yeah, to maintain those ideals in the metagame, people would need to know exactly what equipment their opponent was using, and be able to calculate how that would affect their combos and launches on the fly; not an easy task.

Not impossible, I don't think, but it would certainly be difficult.

I think we should consider equipment legal for the time being, we learn nothing by refusing to experiment.

 

[Tristan_win]

togather

Yeah, to maintain those ideals in the metagame, people would need to know exactly what equipment their opponent was using, and be able to calculate how that would affect their combos and launches on the fly; not an easy task.

Not impossible, I don't think, but it would certainly be difficult.

I think we should consider equipment legal for the time being, we learn nothing by refusing to experiment.

Edit: I've rewritten my respond because i notice my last respond had some bull**** in it. >.<

I think just because it's possible doesn't mean we should allow it. I also think by allow them at this point in the game early development it would only hurt progress, it would make it much harder to find combo's and hype up our community that seem to thrive off them. If anything we should at least wait until we have a full list of all the items before we even consider them as there a chance that some items could be broken to the point of requiring a instant ban.

 

[BADGRAPHICS]

togather


Edit: I've rewritten my respond because i didn't like my last one >.<

I think just because it's possible doesn't mean we should allow it. I also think by allow them at this point in the game early development it would only hurt progress, it would make it much harder to find combo's and hype up our community that seem to thrive of them. If anything we should at least wait until we have a full list of all the items before we even consider them as there a chance that some items could be far more broken then others.

You're probably right, actually. Especially finding combos (and other repeatable tactics), that could be severely stunted.
Perhaps the best thing to do is to run tournaments without equipment, but promote fully-customised characters for side events.

It definitely warrants experimentation, though. It's possible that in a couple of years time we'll all be talking about how much competitive depth is added by equipment, but we'll never know unless we test it to destruction.

 

[Folt]

As for whether equipment should be allowed in or not, I at least believe research into how it works and the effects you get from them is something that should be done before we say for certain, like how there's people here researching custom moves.

 

[hakaithesamurai]

I think it would add an interesting and new aspect into the meta, similar to custom moves, but I dont know if it would be practical to use on the wiiU. On the 3ds you could have your equipment and customs all ready to go on any 3ds. You would have to take more set-up time on the wiiU version.

 

[Gawain]

I am absolutely against using equipment in tournaments for so many reasons but the flavor I'll bring up right now is how they would make the game less deep on the mid to high level. As someone gets better and better at smash they tend to naturally learn how to better manage not only their percentage but their opponents as well. 'I can kill them at X%, I can combo them from X%, he can't kill me until X%, he can't combo me until X%' I feel this plays a big part in the mid to high level of smash and by everyone adding equipment it would expend the amount of information you would need to know to unreasonable amounts.

Sure people might die faster and matches would be quicker but the thinking involved to win those matches would be a lot less, in a way it would make smash4 the worst smash due to inconsistencies from match to match.

That is solid reasoning. I hadn't thought of it that way. It certainly does seem to take a lot of the deeper thought out of high level play. Makes it more of a ballpark guessing game when it comes to percentages.

 

[ScubaGoomba]

togather


Edit: I've rewritten my respond because i notice my last respond had some bull**** in it. >.<

I think just because it's possible doesn't mean we should allow it. I also think by allow them at this point in the game early development it would only hurt progress, it would make it much harder to find combo's and hype up our community that seem to thrive off them. If anything we should at least wait until we have a full list of all the items before we even consider them as there a chance that some items could be broken to the point of requiring a instant ban.

Alternatively, allowing equipment from the start allows Sm4sh to develop its own metagame and no chance for people to have to rethink the way they play if it's tested later.

 

[Muster]

I do like what you have going here, but my big problem with equipment stems from 3 things.
1. it is seemingly random, a la kid icarus equipment, This could lead to hours worth of grinding for min max equipment.
2. The bonuses and detriments are not equal, for example, most boosts under +20 for power have single digit - modifiers, so your character can potentially be boosted in all stats instead of favoring one or the other.
3. I am not aware of all abilities possible with equipment, but easy power shielding, dash hitbox, and etc seem to be very powerful.

I honestly don't think these issues are large enough to warrant a ban, (besides possibly the last one) so i support this!
Edit: it seems that some equipment has detrimental abilities as well, like no respawn invincibility, perhaps these will balance out by having other good abilities or larger stat boosts?

 

[BADGRAPHICS]

I do like what you have going here, but my big problem with equipment stems from 3 things.
1. it is seemingly random, a la kid icarus equipment, This could lead to hours worth of grinding for min max equipment.
2. The bonuses and detriments are not equal, for example, most boosts under +20 for power have single digit - modifiers, so your character can potentially be boosted in all stats instead of favoring one or the other.
3. I am not aware of all abilities possible with equipment, but easy power shielding, dash hitbox, and etc seem to be very powerful.

I honestly don't think these issues are large enough to warrant a ban, (besides possibly the last one) so i support this!
Edit: it seems that some equipment has detrimental abilities as well, like no respawn invincibility, perhaps these will balance out by having other good abilities or larger stat boosts?

Regarding "max equipment", it seems the - stat modifiers get worse as the the + modifiers get getter, but not in a linear way.
Equipment that gives a modest boost may only negatively modify the other stat by 1/5th of the boost, wheras high-level equipment may cause a negative boost which is much more severe.

Of course, it's still possible to max out the stats by finding the best equipment out there, but not without missing out on the potential benefits offered by equipment with less extreme stat boosts.

I've started a thread over in 3DS general to collate all the equipment data, and try and get the facts straight. It's called "Equipment Catalogue"; check it out.

 

[ScubaGoomba]

I do like what you have going here, but my big problem with equipment stems from 3 things.
1. it is seemingly random, a la kid icarus equipment, This could lead to hours worth of grinding for min max equipment.
2. The bonuses and detriments are not equal, for example, most boosts under +20 for power have single digit - modifiers, so your character can potentially be boosted in all stats instead of favoring one or the other.
3. I am not aware of all abilities possible with equipment, but easy power shielding, dash hitbox, and etc seem to be very powerful.

I honestly don't think these issues are large enough to warrant a ban, (besides possibly the last one) so i support this!
Edit: it seems that some equipment has detrimental abilities as well, like no respawn invincibility, perhaps these will balance out by having other good abilities or larger stat boosts?

I don't necessarily see the "grind" being a reason to disallow Equipment (although I also recognize that you're in favor of it!). It's tedious, sure, but not prohibitively. Play Smash Run for a while and piece together what you find.

Question for those that have the game: When you unlock Equipment, can it be used by any character or only the one that you unlocked it with? And is Equipment reusable or do you lose it once you use it?

 

[SmashWolf]

Being brutally honest. I don't think there's any hope for this. It completely changes the entire balance of each character, defense is obviously not nearly as usefull since it lets characters do combos that wouldn't have happened otherwise, there's many other custom effects that will be CLEARLY more powerfull, and everything that was once well-thought out for character balance is now insane.

Not even to mention the effects of buffs on different characters. Some will quite obviously benefit more from it than others. If Nintendo can understand and accept the fact that equipment can potentially break the balance, the competitive community will do so without a doubt.

 

[KlefkiHolder]

Who is to say that calculations cannot be a thing with equipment? Pokemon was able to to do just that. The only difference in this case is that we do not have enough info on equipment as of now, which leads people to believe that it could change a character drastically without consequence.

In reality, all that needs to be done is research on the subject. If we can find a ratio of how the equipment influence a player, Then figuring out when to kill them will be a breeze.

Uh what?

As someone who has spent their fair amount of time with competitive mons (hit me up on Smogon n.n) this comparison makes no sense to me. What are you going to do, have a five minute break pre match to run through all the calcs? Running calcs in Mons takes a while. They slow things down greatly even in something that's very slow paced like Pokemon because you have to run through so many scenarios. And even then the amount of things you would need to calc is less than smash, at least turn by turn that is.

A damage calc wouldn't fix equipment. Idek where that idea came from. And all this is considering damage only. This is all excluding knock back, speed, etc.

 

[Count Bleck]

Uh what?

As someone who has spent their fair amount of time with competitive mons (hit me up on Smogon n.n) this comparison makes no sense to me. What are you going to do, have a five minute break pre match to run through all the calcs? Running calcs in Mons takes a while. They slow things down greatly even in something that's very slow paced like Pokemon because you have to run through so many scenarios. And even then the amount of things you would need to calc is less than smash, at least turn by turn that is.

A damage calc wouldn't fix equipment. Idek where that idea came from. And all this is considering damage only. This is all excluding knock back, speed, etc.

I can't recall people actively bringing a calculator for every single match. And no, I'm not expecting people to do that either. What you SHOULD be doing is calcs run on common sets, as shown by the calculator there. If we find out exactly how much equipment will usually increase and decrease by, then players can be better prepared going into their next tourney and even practice in training mode.

Imagine Equipment as EVs and IVs. No one runs scenarios for each and every increase and decrease in it. But people do remember what they are often against. So lets say people run a lot of attack on Bowser, which lowers his Weight to lets say... Villager. After fighting quite a few Ikes, you should be able to say "Hmm...an Ike. The popular set is X, so I should do Y and be able to kill him that way."

Even if an unpopular set comes out in the middle of play, then you would simply adapt to it. If it becomes popular, you will be more than ready for it next time. It's the natural evolution of a meta.

 

[PikaSamus]

There's also more complicated equipment that does fancier stuff, like increase the window of time for a perfect shield, or has the perfect shield explode. I'm not sure if those ones are okay.

 

[san.]

I think there's potential that it could be fun. A person with +speed boosts may be able to combo out of a throw properly. People may also be able to spec according to their playstyle.

I'm concerned about 3 things:

-How combos or strings change with boosts. Does attack/defense affect knockback and speed's affect on attack frames.
-How the boosts scale. +80 might not be twice as strong as +40 and +80 might not be as far apart from +0 as we think. Penalties may also be stronger than boosts at the same level. I'm particularly worried about how speed scales.
-The power of equipment with special abilities.

It would be preferable to collect data on this like any other aspect that might be beneficial. I think people are getting caught up with the numerical values before we can really attribute how a difference in these numbers affects gameplay.

 

[Mario & Sonic Guy]

I do wonder if the defense boosts could come in handy for the more defensive characters. Rosalina isn't exactly about speed, so I'd think that you could focus heavily on defense for her, just to help counter her low weight issues.

On the other hand, I don't know if the speed drop drawback affects attack speed as well.

 

[InfinityCollision]

Given the random nature of the stat boosts, it could be rather difficult and time consuming to ensure that every setup has the same options available. Balance concerns aren't even on the table until convenience is addressed.

 

[Gerpington]

I'm all for custom moves being allowed....but equipment is a little more...iffy in my book. I honestly don't see many TOs being alright with them.

 

[Thani]

Given that Attack boosts both damage and knockback, I am assuming that Defense does the opposite, reducing both damage and knockback you receive? Given how long people live already, I have to wonder how long a heavy character will live to if specced for 150+ Defense with equipment. Might be possible to have people living up almost to Sudden Death percentages, maybe.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Given the random nature of the stat boosts, it could be rather difficult and time consuming to ensure that every setup has the same options available. Balance concerns aren't even on the table until convenience is addressed.

The nature of the 3DS system could be a point in favor of equipment. While there's still potential unfairness if your opponent simply had more time to farm (or got luckier), you won't be sharing your 3DS with anyone else so you only have to worry about your own personal setup.

 

[san.]

Stats seem to follow a general trend with slight alterations. Being unable to maximize a boost typically results in a lesser penalty.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rUomIZpNjbf1seNGITN0XoXMKjsYtwlEyeY3mpSMVyI/edit#gid=0 (credit to fractalWizard)

Since you tend to get the best equipment from playing modes at 9.0 difficulty, I think it shouldn't be too difficult to get good equipment. The odds of acquiring a specific set is another story.

 

[Fafnir]

Imagine Equipment as EVs and IVs. No one runs scenarios for each and every increase and decrease in it.

Yes they do.