JayBee
Smash Champion
Hello guys. It's been a long while, but I'm back. I've graduated from college, and while that means a lot of obvious things, like time to pay off loans and stuff, it apparently doesn't stop me from wanting to hang at this community. I do plan to get back in the local tourney scene at least, and once i get my financial life right, I'll be able to do more. But enough of that, lets get to the reason I decided to make this thread.
GOALS
I am in the process of starting a project that could potentially change the way this game is played competitively. What am I trying to do?
The goal is to create a free, comprehensive, easy to use database/guide of the top players in competitive Smash, and from various sources create a program that can, for any player, at any venue, look up relevant data on top players, their characters, and other information that will assist the player in making well informed decision making before, in between, and during matches.
By doing this, the idea is to allow the player to have a legitimate guide that allows them to not only better understand the match up, but even better, to better prepare against a particular player, and give them a better chance at successfully countering and using the right strategy as the each individual game progresses. By doing this, we now can develop the strategy portion of the game to more legitimate levels.
WHY BOTHER?
Have you ever went into a match worried that you didn't know the matchup, and asked a player who may have been better at it, but in the end either the info didn't help or you couldn't fully grasp the info in the short time you had before the match? Have you ever considered yourself very knowledgeable in a certain matchup, only to meet a player using that character but so caught off gaurd by his or her playstyle, that your "knowledge" became less useful or almost useless?
In today's game, when it comes learning matchups now, is that for every character, you cannot simply expect to go by a general idea of the matchup to "get it." You'd have to, in a perfect world, get the chance to play the many variations of how to play 35 characters. is that going to happen? no way. You have to deal with what your region plays first and foremost, and if they don't play Yoshi, you obviously will not spend the time to learn that matchup. On the other hand you can learn the metaknight matchup all you want, but if you have to deal with 10 strong players in your region who all play differently, you are asking a lot on your brain to remember off the top of your head every one of those players styles, just for the possibility of playing them. This takes times understanding the counterpick system, and takes time away from learning other matchups and player tendancies as well.
There are so many good players playing so many of the characters, the chances you will get beaten not only because you "lol didn't know the matchup," but because you didn't understand how the player was playing X character and pick up on his tendancies in time you become more disadvantaged than you realize.
There are people who can do all this mind you, but most likely, you are not one of them. What this project wants to do is give the player the right information, right at their fingertips, so they can better understand their situation in the bracket at all times, and prepare better.
WHAT THIS PROJECT WILL AND WONT DO
this is intended hopefully for the benefit of the high level player to increase their abilities in competitive Brawl more, in other words, supplement thier ability. This will not be a surefire "how to beat everybody no matter what" guide. There is no way to account for many things like random events at X:XX, or the fact that the player has a brain, and will obviouly adjust multiple times in a match. the guide is just that, a guide. What I hope to see from this is that an already good/great player, takes this guide, and uses the information to get to that next step that he/she seems to just be out of reach. If done right, this will make the great players even better.
BUT KOJIN, ISN'T COACHING WRONG?
This is not really coaching. Also, if you were to attend an event that follows under the new recommended rules by our SBR, it is not necessarily prohibited, although it may be frowned on by individuals. In addition, This doesn't require that you have a person holding your laptop barking orders at you mid match, but I'll get to that later (LOL). Lastly, people are going to be screaming, yelling, and the venue overall is going to loud anyway. So you can and probably will hear the people behind you telling you to do this and that, and no one can really stop that, can they? I mean, other than you ignoring them.
TESTING THE S.P.D.
Once the project is completed, the next major step is to test it out at actual events featuring the top players. SonicMaster5 aka Speed has already agreed to doing this, and because of that, we as the Sonic boards will tailor this version towards Sonic (steak.) and see how much this helps out Speed as a player. This will in turn give us the data we need to prove the usefulness of the SPD.
WHAT WILL THE SPD v1.0 CONTAIN?
To start:
1: The top 100-110 players. I was going to make it 100, but so that Speed can use this in local tourneys in MD/VA, we will leave those spots open for strong players in that region that for whatever reason, didn't make the top 100. Kid Goggles sent me the link to the smashboards thread with the top players there already tho.
2: The player's main, secondary, and other character choices. We'll try to aim for using icons of the characters, and by clicking, or following a link, etc.. they get information on the general character matchup, including counterpicks you should normally use and which stages to stay away from if possible. Then we go deeper by having people analyze the players most common tactics, and tendencies. what makes Player A different from Player B, even though they main the same character? This will probably be the most difficult part to write up.
3: Thier most common counterpick stage(s) .This will allow the player to better use his stage strikes and bans
4: Links to a small portion of matches involving that player, within the last 6 months to a year, with emphasis on the most recent, giving the player an idea of how the player have evolved or gotten worse in recent events.
WHAT NEEDS TO GET DONE
Any help is appreciated, but in order for this to work we need to pool together and contribute. I can't do this on my own, and I am frantically searching for information on programming software, tutorials, etc because even though I am a graphic artist and can plan things i dont have the programming ability at all. Lucky for use most of the information needed is online, and either on smashboards or on Youtube, which is perfect. I need:
1: People to organize data on Sonic's matchups, ALL OF THEM. You will be in charge of taking data that is already out, and in essence create a short essay that clearly and correctly explains the matchup. use what we have hear for info. If you need to add more to it, just make sure it's as right as you can get it.
2: We need people to look for videos of the top 100 players and save the links in order to have about 10 recent tourney vids of each player. serious freindlies count. Try to keep it as early as possible, which should be as easy as using the search options on youtube to show the most recent uploads. granted for some players you can't get 10, just do what you can.
3: If you know anyone willing to lend a hand in creating the program that will take this data and create a easy to use database from it, that would be wonderful. We need this to be as easy to use as possble, any any ideas how to put the info together would be appreciated as well.
What if you can't do any of this but have an awesome idea that you think can help? post it. want to spread word in hopes someone else can see this and help out? Found a tutorial that could make things easier? Not a Sonic main? it doesn't matter, anything thing you can do is gonna help out. This project is gonna take a while, but the more people who help the better.
Contact me via
Skype, Youtube, AIM : KojinSagara
gmail: kojinsagara@gmail.com
Thank you guys for the help. I'm new at this too, but I think with your help this will really take off.
Click here to find out the top players and their rank
to help make it easier to figure out who you want to look at matches for. top 100 to start plz.
JOBS: (?) means that I'm not sure: just confirm it for me.
Kinzer: Matchup Writeups (More help needed to make it easier for him)
Video Searchers (as for as I know): Sonic-Rave , Excel, Espy(?, Kojin, KID Goggles(?)
Others: Bionic (possible design/ programming?)