pockyD
Smash Legend
10/17/08 edit - LOL at people trying to dig into this after randomly bumping it 3 months after the fact. Remember that this was posted prior to all the summer tournaments, and that I also stopped checking it after 2 days from the initial post because of (justified) lack of legitimate interest. Don't bump old posts, tear up outdated theories, and then think you're awesome for doing so -_-
Hi all, I'm here to pitch coin battle as a viable format, especially for tournaments in a time crunch, since this "feature" of the game gets almost no discussion or consideration. I don't think this is that long, but if it drains your attention span, i apologize
First off, for anyone who doesn't know, coin battle is a timed format in which coins spawn every time a character is hit. The object of the game is to collect these coins and have the most at the end of the game. Contrary to popular (in my experience) belief, coins do NOT just spawn randomly; they only come when characters are hit, and their spawn amount is generally proportionate to the amount of damage done. When a character is KO'd, they lose some amount of coins (I don't actually know how many), so staying alive is still important
The first major benefit of coin battle is that it follows a timed format. Therefore, the length of matches is predictable and controlled, which can make life SIGNIFICANTLY easier for a tournament organizer trying to squeeze a full tournament into a small window. No longer does the T.O. have to rely on people reporting their matches in a timely fashion; once you put, say, 6 matches on TVs, all 6 will finish at almost the exact same time, so it is trivial to set your watch for 5 mins from now (or whatever), then simply go around and make sure matches are finishing up. Now, a lot of peoples' first reaction will be something along the lines of "Why not have a regular timed battle if you want to run on a timer?" After all, this keeps the traditional mechanic of trying to rack up kills...
Well, the second benefit of coin battle is that it can legitimately determine a winner almost all of the time. Anyone who played in the gamestop tournaments plainly saw how frequently the traditional timed match, even when set to 5 minutes, leads to a sudden death, which quite frankly is a complete crapshoot. How often, when both players can have hundreds of coins, will they have the exact same amount? Not often. In addition, especially in a shortened time window, coin battle gives a much more accurate picture of who is "winning". Similar to the existing tie rule in stock matches (where if a lead in percents is held, that player is the winner, despite the game wanting sudden death), the number of coins a player has at any given moment is a good indicator of how they are performing. In fact, I'd argue that it's MORE accurate than percents, but that's certainly debatable.
Thirdly, coin battle discourages excessive camping, especially with projectiles. You can laser your opponent all day, but if you don't move up and collect the coins he drops, it is all for naught; in fact, you may be helping him by providing him with free coins to pick up while you hide in your corner. This certainly doesn't make the game any more "fair" but it force a player playing to win to tailor his or her style into a much more aggressive mindset.
Fourthly, individual events in a coin battle have a small effect on the overall outcome, assuming one player is thought to be a clear favorite to win. In particular, this allows for the use of (a carefully selected set of) items. Items are dismissed for introducing randomness, but the loss of a stock is less significant in a coin battle, with its importance diminishing as the length of the battle is increased. With the ability to make a "comeback" without taking off a full stock, the "too random" aspect of items and the enormity of impact they can have on a game is diminished.
To anyone who actually bothered to read this and didn't stop at "coin", yes - this is at least partially a joke, but in reality it is indeed superior to some of the formats that have been used for non-smashboards-run tournaments thus far (in particular, gamestop round 1) and for people who are running tournaments in a similar situation (Evo apparently), I believe it should be considered (not that it's BETTER than what evo is throwing out there, but it's certainly not any worse).
For the record, I haven't actually ever played in a coin battle tournament (I doubt there's any actual interest), so this is almost purely theoretical, but I find it an interesting point of discussion anyway, so I would love to hear peoples' thoughts on the matter aside from a "too much of a party game" argument.
Edit: this thread (to me anyway) is more about illuminating the shortcomings of traditional stock matches than about actually trying to get coin battle tournaments started; I don't even like coin battle
Hi all, I'm here to pitch coin battle as a viable format, especially for tournaments in a time crunch, since this "feature" of the game gets almost no discussion or consideration. I don't think this is that long, but if it drains your attention span, i apologize
First off, for anyone who doesn't know, coin battle is a timed format in which coins spawn every time a character is hit. The object of the game is to collect these coins and have the most at the end of the game. Contrary to popular (in my experience) belief, coins do NOT just spawn randomly; they only come when characters are hit, and their spawn amount is generally proportionate to the amount of damage done. When a character is KO'd, they lose some amount of coins (I don't actually know how many), so staying alive is still important
The first major benefit of coin battle is that it follows a timed format. Therefore, the length of matches is predictable and controlled, which can make life SIGNIFICANTLY easier for a tournament organizer trying to squeeze a full tournament into a small window. No longer does the T.O. have to rely on people reporting their matches in a timely fashion; once you put, say, 6 matches on TVs, all 6 will finish at almost the exact same time, so it is trivial to set your watch for 5 mins from now (or whatever), then simply go around and make sure matches are finishing up. Now, a lot of peoples' first reaction will be something along the lines of "Why not have a regular timed battle if you want to run on a timer?" After all, this keeps the traditional mechanic of trying to rack up kills...
Well, the second benefit of coin battle is that it can legitimately determine a winner almost all of the time. Anyone who played in the gamestop tournaments plainly saw how frequently the traditional timed match, even when set to 5 minutes, leads to a sudden death, which quite frankly is a complete crapshoot. How often, when both players can have hundreds of coins, will they have the exact same amount? Not often. In addition, especially in a shortened time window, coin battle gives a much more accurate picture of who is "winning". Similar to the existing tie rule in stock matches (where if a lead in percents is held, that player is the winner, despite the game wanting sudden death), the number of coins a player has at any given moment is a good indicator of how they are performing. In fact, I'd argue that it's MORE accurate than percents, but that's certainly debatable.
Thirdly, coin battle discourages excessive camping, especially with projectiles. You can laser your opponent all day, but if you don't move up and collect the coins he drops, it is all for naught; in fact, you may be helping him by providing him with free coins to pick up while you hide in your corner. This certainly doesn't make the game any more "fair" but it force a player playing to win to tailor his or her style into a much more aggressive mindset.
Fourthly, individual events in a coin battle have a small effect on the overall outcome, assuming one player is thought to be a clear favorite to win. In particular, this allows for the use of (a carefully selected set of) items. Items are dismissed for introducing randomness, but the loss of a stock is less significant in a coin battle, with its importance diminishing as the length of the battle is increased. With the ability to make a "comeback" without taking off a full stock, the "too random" aspect of items and the enormity of impact they can have on a game is diminished.
To anyone who actually bothered to read this and didn't stop at "coin", yes - this is at least partially a joke, but in reality it is indeed superior to some of the formats that have been used for non-smashboards-run tournaments thus far (in particular, gamestop round 1) and for people who are running tournaments in a similar situation (Evo apparently), I believe it should be considered (not that it's BETTER than what evo is throwing out there, but it's certainly not any worse).
For the record, I haven't actually ever played in a coin battle tournament (I doubt there's any actual interest), so this is almost purely theoretical, but I find it an interesting point of discussion anyway, so I would love to hear peoples' thoughts on the matter aside from a "too much of a party game" argument.
Edit: this thread (to me anyway) is more about illuminating the shortcomings of traditional stock matches than about actually trying to get coin battle tournaments started; I don't even like coin battle
