A New Address: In light of your well being, I call upon you to deliberate this.

[Alexander Hamilton]

AFTER an unequivocal experience of the inefficiency of the subsisting Smash Brothers Order, you are called upon to deliberate on a New World Order in the interests of a one Smash Brothers Union. The subject speaks its own importance; comprehending in its consequences nothing less than the existence of the Union, the safety and welfare of the parts of which it is composed, the fate of an empire in many respects the most interesting in the world. It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good Order from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their individual Orders on accident and force. If there be any truth in the remark, the crisis at which we are arrived may with propriety be regarded as the era in which that decision is to be made; and a wrong election of the part we shall act may, in this view, deserve to be considered as the general misfortune of mankind.

I submit to you, a New Order. A new way to prove any one individual's skill, simply, random matches and random items all the time. Do not, I regress, end your reading here. For even for the quick to assume, there is an inducement to be had.

Please first remember: We have all heard those Smashers that believe that the most skilled of fighters are versed in all circumstances; any item, any stage. However, it is often a view that is simply passed off as naive by most. Or at least it is as I have observed the responses here on Smash Boards. Well I propose a solution, one that I can hope will create a more perfect Union.

We do all concede that any one battle you play may not be your best performance. The conceivable explanations for this are beyond this writing, for the list would be boundless. So I ask, would this not mean that the reason one could not perform their best is due to random variables? As I see it, this is the case. Thus, how is it that one could best perform? We as proud Smashers have already figured that out; through a series of battles one can most likely, or more so likely, prove their ability.

And so I submit, that random items and random battles all the time is the greater proof of skill. For it should be accepted that, we as humans are random in our performance, and our game Super Smash Brothers, is random in nature. It should therefore, be accepted that randomness is simply a part of playing Super Smash Brothers and we should attempt our proof of skill in a random world under the circumstance of multiple rounds.

Thank You,

Publius

 

[tydis]

you took far too long.

 

[Corigames]

When Boxers start using Bats, Hammers, and bombs and saying that it requires skill to beat someone up with those things against someone unarmed...

The thing is, nobody wants to practice to be good at something to have someone new or inexperienced beat them because of chance. It's not fun and not good for competition. People will start playing characters that have a way to near or do instant win with a certain item and hold out for it, because it wouldn't be fair to turn certain items off that could potential help certain characters and not others.

Personally, I say no to the item argument.

 

[Alexander Hamilton]

This is not simply a item argument. What possibly can keep you from performing in even a no item, one stage match? Many factors, how you slept, frustration, contacts bothering you, many things. Seemingly random reasons, so to combine that with someone who is versed in all staged and items, and can still perform well under bad personal circumstances, is simply a better fighter than you are coreygames. I would also like to say that when players can accept that randomness is a part of the fight, they will relax and become less frustrated, especially in light of it talking several matches to prove themselves. This is also a way to remove excuses for bad performance.

 

[Corigames]

I would also like to say that when players can accept that randomness is a part of the fight, they will relax and become less frustrated, especially in light of it talking several matches to prove themselves. This is also a way to remove excuses for bad performance.

How many tournaments have you been to where you had to put $5 or more into the pot?

 

[Alexander Hamilton]

How many tournaments have you been to where you had to put $5 or more into the pot?

Several, you don't have to belong to smash boards to be very good at this game. Why is that relevant to my argument, and where is your rebuttal?

 

[Corigames]

Several, you don't have to belong to smash boards to be very good at this game. Why is that relevant to my argument, and where is your rebuttal?

Well Hamilton, a good speaker who would debate about things in a manner that would answer my question directly instead of trying to insinuate that I'm not being respectful which is why he was able to be so persuasive, I know that you don't HAVE to be a member to be good, and that's not any part of what I was getting to. You should work better at guessing.

What I was going to say is that if I have money riding on my skills as a player/fighter, I want to eliminate as much of the random chance of me losing that there is. If I payed $10 to get into a tournament, go into the first match and have the other person get a super hammer right away, I'm going to be more than a bit frustrated. Same goes for other more "skilled" players who get knocked out because they were hit with an explosive capsule compared with them hitting the enemy with a capsule containing food or other health items and, therefore, being the closest one to them.

Heck, I have fun playing with items just as much as anyone else, but, when I want to prove skill, I want there to be less chance of me being beaten by someone of lesser ability than me.

 

[Replacement100]

I challenge you to a real life dual to the death, where many random objects just spawn out of nowhere. Oh, and some of the items can accidentally kill you. You might be weilding a rusty fork vs. my randomly spawned machine gun, and then the rusty fork may just randomly splinter into your eye.
Meet you at Hyde Park at dawn. Oh, and random monsters might spawn right next to you and instantly kill you and eat your extended family. The ground might give way to you randomly and you may just happen to fall through the world and die.
In fact, I might just use my randomly spawned telekinesis-death-ray to make the ground below you fall, which makes your plastic butter knife force itself into your eye, making you wander aimlessly into the monster's mouth.
It's not my fault you're not SKILLED enough to use that RANDOM plastic butter knife against a RANDOM Death-Ray in combat.

Now do you kinda see why we don't judge skill on one's ability to adapt to randomness?

PS: I was serious, see you at dawn. (kidding..)

 

[Frey]

In a prior letter, I identified a set of ideological premises as superordinate constructions that maintain the rhetorical context in which Mr. Alexander Hamilton is able to sow the seeds of discord. I will now elaborate on three of his most imperious premises:

1. He has a duty to conceal the facts and lie to the rest of us, under oath if necessary, perjuring himself to help disseminate the True Faith of commercialism.
2. He is the most recent incarnation of the Buddha.
3. He's merely trying to make this world a better place in which to live.

To begin with, his list of sins is long and each one deserves more space than I have here. Therefore, rather than describe each one individually, I'll summarize by stating that documents written by Mr. Hamilton's operatives typically include the line, "Mr. Hamilton's activities are on the up-and-up", in large, 30-point type, as if the size of the font gives weight to the words. In reality, all that that fancy formatting really does is underscore the fact that Mr. Hamilton says that black is white and night is day. You know, he can lie as much as he wants but he can't change the facts. If he could, he'd really prevent anyone from hearing that at no time in the past did the most self-serving lowlifes you'll ever see shamble through the streets of cities, demanding rights they imagine some supernatural power has bestowed upon them.

Mr. Hamilton once tried to toy with our opinions. If you consider this an exception to the rule then you truly don't understand how Mr. Hamilton operates. I hope, however, that you at least understand that his hypocrisy is transparent. Even the least discerning among us can see right through it.

We must lead the way to the future, not to the past. As mentioned above, however, that is not enough. It is necessary to do more. It is necessary to fight to the end for our ideas and ideals.

Mr. Hamilton claims to have turned over a new leaf shortly after getting caught trying to turn the social order upside-down so that the dregs on the bottom become the scum on the top. This claim is an outright lie that is still being circulated by Mr. Hamilton's loyalists. The truth is that if one accepts the framework I've laid out here, it follows that Mr. Hamilton has repeatedly been spotted giving rise to what I call unsympathetic, bumptious ex-cons. When questioned about that, he either denies any knowledge of it or offers unbelievable and ludicrous explanations that only a refractory, unforgiving freebooter could believe. Today, we might have let Mr. Hamilton leave behind a wake of inhumane reaction. Tomorrow, we won't. Instead, we will expose Mr. Hamilton's malversation. His communications are merely a stalking horse. They mask Mr. Hamilton's secret intention to deny us the opportunity to make a genuine contribution to human society.

Never mind that Mr. Hamilton's buddies are profoundly influenced by what Mr. Hamilton says and does. What's really important is that Mr. Hamilton is too cantankerous to read the writing on the wall. This writing warns that even when the facts don't fit, he sometimes tries to use them anyway. He still maintains, for instance, that he has a "special" perspective on plagiarism that carries with it a "special" right to confuse the catastrophic power of state fascism with the repression of an authoritarian government in our minds. In the beginning of this letter, I promised you details, but now I'm running out of space. So here's one detail to end with: The encroachment of sexist initiatives into the social fabric of our politics, our institutions, and our laws would give credence to my claim that Mr. Alexander Hamilton's the bane of my existence.

 

[Pink Reaper]

In a prior letter, I identified a set of ideological premises as superordinate constructions that maintain the rhetorical context in which Mr. Alexander Hamilton is able to sow the seeds of discord. I will now elaborate on three of his most imperious premises:

1. He has a duty to conceal the facts and lie to the rest of us, under oath if necessary, perjuring himself to help disseminate the True Faith of commercialism.
2. He is the most recent incarnation of the Buddha.
3. He's merely trying to make this world a better place in which to live.

To begin with, his list of sins is long and each one deserves more space than I have here. Therefore, rather than describe each one individually, I'll summarize by stating that documents written by Mr. Hamilton's operatives typically include the line, "Mr. Hamilton's activities are on the up-and-up", in large, 30-point type, as if the size of the font gives weight to the words. In reality, all that that fancy formatting really does is underscore the fact that Mr. Hamilton says that black is white and night is day. You know, he can lie as much as he wants but he can't change the facts. If he could, he'd really prevent anyone from hearing that at no time in the past did the most self-serving lowlifes you'll ever see shamble through the streets of cities, demanding rights they imagine some supernatural power has bestowed upon them.

Mr. Hamilton once tried to toy with our opinions. If you consider this an exception to the rule then you truly don't understand how Mr. Hamilton operates. I hope, however, that you at least understand that his hypocrisy is transparent. Even the least discerning among us can see right through it.

We must lead the way to the future, not to the past. As mentioned above, however, that is not enough. It is necessary to do more. It is necessary to fight to the end for our ideas and ideals.

Mr. Hamilton claims to have turned over a new leaf shortly after getting caught trying to turn the social order upside-down so that the dregs on the bottom become the scum on the top. This claim is an outright lie that is still being circulated by Mr. Hamilton's loyalists. The truth is that if one accepts the framework I've laid out here, it follows that Mr. Hamilton has repeatedly been spotted giving rise to what I call unsympathetic, bumptious ex-cons. When questioned about that, he either denies any knowledge of it or offers unbelievable and ludicrous explanations that only a refractory, unforgiving freebooter could believe. Today, we might have let Mr. Hamilton leave behind a wake of inhumane reaction. Tomorrow, we won't. Instead, we will expose Mr. Hamilton's malversation. His communications are merely a stalking horse. They mask Mr. Hamilton's secret intention to deny us the opportunity to make a genuine contribution to human society.

Never mind that Mr. Hamilton's buddies are profoundly influenced by what Mr. Hamilton says and does. What's really important is that Mr. Hamilton is too cantankerous to read the writing on the wall. This writing warns that even when the facts don't fit, he sometimes tries to use them anyway. He still maintains, for instance, that he has a "special" perspective on plagiarism that carries with it a "special" right to confuse the catastrophic power of state fascism with the repression of an authoritarian government in our minds. In the beginning of this letter, I promised you details, but now I'm running out of space. So here's one detail to end with: The encroachment of sexist initiatives into the social fabric of our politics, our institutions, and our laws would give credence to my claim that Mr. Alexander Hamilton's the bane of my existence.

tl;dr Hamilton's a troll >_>

 

[KernelColonel]

Post tl;dr versions for the lazy kids please.

Items will be banned and you won't change that. Tournaments are about two players competing in the rawest level of skill. There are no items, there are no stages that hurt, kill, or have wonky ledges. Items are discluded, in their ENTIRETY, because they are random and take away from the skill of the game. If there is a random factor that influences the match, even if it's just a single Mr. Saturn spawning conveniently beside one character, it will be exterminated if possible.

I use this scenario often to depict the unfairness of items:

Imagine two Sonics fighting eachother on Final Destination, items on. As the fight progresses, both opponents are knocked to either side of FD. They both Ukemi, but as the Sonic on the left side is rising, a Smart Bomb appears right beside him. Since the other Sonic is all the way on the other side of the stage, he has no chance to run across the stage and prevent the other Sonic from grabbing the item. No matter what, the Sonic on the left side of the screen will grab the item uncontested, no matter how fast the other Sonic runs.

What is fair about that? I challenge anyone to tell me. To tell anyone.

 

[Frey]

Lol I used a complaint generator, if you guys want it, just reply .

 

[PwnyRide]

I challenge you to a real life dual to the death, where many random objects just spawn out of nowhere. Oh, and some of the items can accidentally kill you. You might be weilding a rusty fork vs. my randomly spawned machine gun, and then the rusty fork may just randomly splinter into your eye.
Meet you at Hyde Park at dawn. Oh, and random monsters might spawn right next to you and instantly kill you and eat your extended family. The ground might give way to you randomly and you may just happen to fall through the world and die.
In fact, I might just use my randomly spawned telekinesis-death-ray to make the ground below you fall, which makes your plastic butter knife force itself into your eye, making you wander aimlessly into the monster's mouth.
It's not my fault you're not SKILLED enough to use that RANDOM plastic butter knife against a RANDOM Death-Ray in combat.

Now do you kinda see why we don't judge skill on one's ability to adapt to randomness?

PS: I was serious, see you at dawn. (kidding..)

This is absolutely legendary.

 

[Evilpenguin]

I don't need advice from the past. I'm not scrooge or anything...

 

[Ojanya]

This is absolutely legendary.

I challenge you to a real life dual to the death, where many random objects just spawn out of nowhere. Oh, and some of the items can accidentally kill you. You might be weilding a rusty fork vs. my randomly spawned machine gun, and then the rusty fork may just randomly splinter into your eye.
Meet you at Hyde Park at dawn. Oh, and random monsters might spawn right next to you and instantly kill you and eat your extended family. The ground might give way to you randomly and you may just happen to fall through the world and die.
In fact, I might just use my randomly spawned telekinesis-death-ray to make the ground below you fall, which makes your plastic butter knife force itself into your eye, making you wander aimlessly into the monster's mouth.
It's not my fault you're not SKILLED enough to use that RANDOM plastic butter knife against a RANDOM Death-Ray in combat.

Now do you kinda see why we don't judge skill on one's ability to adapt to randomness?

PS: I was serious, see you at dawn. (kidding..)

That just about puts it into perspective. But you forgot that the winner gets 2,000 dollars.

 

[Mic_128]

Imagine two Sonics fighting eachother on Final Destination, items on. As the fight progresses, both opponents are knocked to either side of FD. They both Ukemi, but as the Sonic on the left side is rising, a Smart Bomb appears right beside him. Since the other Sonic is all the way on the other side of the stage, he has no chance to run across the stage and prevent the other Sonic from grabbing the item. No matter what, the Sonic on the left side of the screen will grab the item uncontested, no matter how fast the other Sonic runs.

Sonic then throws the bomb, but the second sonic catches it or simply air dodges it and goes on to kick some hedgehog behind.

Replacement: Your argument is flawed on 2 fronts. First, none of those items are in smash, and if they were I can tell you those ones in particular would be off. One of the most overlooked points is that deadly items such as hammers would, without a doubt, be in the off position.

Secondly, why didn't you just shield the plastic butter knife? Or jump, then jump again in midair, dodge by becoming invincable for half a second, and then shoot electricity at him from your hand using telekenisis? Oh yeah, Smash isn't real life. If it was, life'd be cooler.

 

[A New Challenger]

Oh yeah, Smash isn't real life. If it was, life'd be cooler.

If Smash were real life, I wouldn't be able to walk to work in the morning without having to beat at least 4 scrubby anthropomorphic wolves and three scrubby pretty boys with swords every ten minutes... Using nothing but my telekinesis and my rope snake. That would suck.

 

[Corigames]

Sonic then throws the bomb, but the second sonic catches it or simply air dodges it and goes on to kick some hedgehog behind.

Replacement: Your argument is flawed on 2 fronts. First, none of those items are in smash, and if they were I can tell you those ones in particular would be off. One of the most overlooked points is that deadly items such as hammers would, without a doubt, be in the off position.

Secondly, why didn't you just shield the plastic butter knife? Or jump, then jump again in midair, dodge by becoming invincable for half a second, and then shoot electricity at him from your hand using telekenisis? Oh yeah, Smash isn't real life. If it was, life'd be cooler.

This just in, mods are now banning analogies. Is nothing sacred?

QQ

 

[Mic_128]

Analogies are one thing, but don't go halfway with it. It's like crossing the street. You either go all the way, or don't. If you stop halfway, it ends in a big mess.

 

[Corigames]

Analogies are one thing, but don't go halfway with it. It's like crossing the street. You either go all the way, or don't. If you stop halfway, it ends in a big mess.

But see, in Smash, you are on a 2D plane. You cannot Cross the street if you are constantly on it like on Onnet. Then there are levels like Mute City where you CAN'T leave the street. If we could move in the X (or Y, depending on how you look at it), then crossing all the streets would be a lot easier wouldn't it?

Your analogy wasn't much better. I thought his was clever, you were just being picky as to point out that the items he was talking about would probably be turned off in a item tournament, which is completely devoid of the meaning of what he said.

 

[MartinGM1983]

Too bad King Dedede doesn't have IMPEACH for his final smash...

 

[Alexander Hamilton]

What I was going to say is that if I have money riding on my skills as a player/fighter, I want to eliminate as much of the random chance of me losing that there is. If I payed $10 to get into a tournament, go into the first match and have the other person get a super hammer right away, I'm going to be more than a bit frustrated. Same goes for other more "skilled" players who get knocked out because they were hit with an explosive capsule compared with them hitting the enemy with a capsule containing food or other health items and, therefore, being the closest one to them.

But then what have you really proven coreygames? Not only have the people you played not possibly had their best game, but the complete smash brothers package wasn't there. I would certainly suggest that you are not therefore the best at Smash Bros, or at least you haven't proven it in all circumstances.

Skills with items can be had, in dodging, working around them and of course using them, however please do not consider that this is simply an items on argument. It is an argument to produce better skills of the player.

And if you played every person you fought at least 3 times, you would know who the better player is on a 2 out of 3 basis.

P.S. Frey's post has no actual argument in it. I believe it to be a plagiarism.

 

[Cookiez]

I <3 Hamilton. Like a troll, merely less intelligent.

You've systematically managed to miss or deliberately ignore every point against you.

I really can't be bothered to argue, so heres the tl;dr version, just for you.

Item usage is conducive to random occurences. To accurately test skill, random occurences which swing the match vastly in favour of one or the other party must be kept to a minimum. Thus item play is not used to gauge skill levels.

You state that there are random factors even when playing without items; this is true. However, an increased number of variables which could create an imbalance on the playing field occur when items are turned on, hence turning them off to create a more stable environment in which to test each player.

 

[Unknownlight]

I challenge you to a real life dual to the death, where many random objects just spawn out of nowhere. Oh, and some of the items can accidentally kill you. You might be weilding a rusty fork vs. my randomly spawned machine gun, and then the rusty fork may just randomly splinter into your eye.
Meet you at Hyde Park at dawn. Oh, and random monsters might spawn right next to you and instantly kill you and eat your extended family. The ground might give way to you randomly and you may just happen to fall through the world and die.
In fact, I might just use my randomly spawned telekinesis-death-ray to make the ground below you fall, which makes your plastic butter knife force itself into your eye, making you wander aimlessly into the monster's mouth.
It's not my fault you're not SKILLED enough to use that RANDOM plastic butter knife against a RANDOM Death-Ray in combat.

Now do you kinda see why we don't judge skill on one's ability to adapt to randomness?

PS: I was serious, see you at dawn. (kidding..)

If that was just a bit shorter then I'd siggy that.

 

[Alexander Hamilton]

I <3 Hamilton. Like a troll, merely less intelligent.

You've systematically managed to miss or deliberately ignore every point against you.

I really can't be bothered to argue, so heres the tl;dr version, just for you.

Item usage is conducive to random occurences. To accurately test skill, random occurences which swing the match vastly in favour of one or the other party must be kept to a minimum. Thus item play is not used to gauge skill levels.

You state that there are random factors even when playing without items; this is true. However, an increased number of variables which could create an imbalance on the playing field occur when items are turned on, hence turning them off to create a more stable environment in which to test each player.

I can tell you didn't read.

You are allowing randomness in the abilities of the player but not on the course. I understand that you are eliminating randomness, but you are removing that which is the nature and the way super smash brothers was put together. In a tournament without items you have only proven your skills under radical circumstances. Random stages are another thing, Olimar for example is terrible Hanenbow, but great at final destination. A character at final destination that is bad are most heavy weights, but they are great at Hanenbow because they can encompass multiple levels. Same goes for items, items are a technique, and a valuable one at that.

I avoided most others peoples arguments because the person I started with has stated the same basic thing. I'd argue with those other people by saying "see other post".

 

[Corigames]

But then what have you really proven coreygames? Not only have the people you played not possibly had their best game, but the complete smash brothers package wasn't there. I would certainly suggest that you are not therefore the best at Smash Bros, or at least you haven't proven it in all circumstances.

Skills with items can be had, in dodging, working around them and of course using them, however please do not consider that this is simply an items on argument. It is an argument to produce better skills of the player.

And if you played every person you fought at least 3 times, you would know who the better player is on a 2 out of 3 basis.

P.S. Frey's post has no actual argument in it. I believe it to be a plagiarism.

Then every tournament should be a special tournament with all of the possible things turned on to show true skill right? Characters have to be able to deal with giant, curry, metal, at high speeds and low gravity while at 300%. That's skill right?

Yes, in a tournament I DO play everyone with best 2 out of 3... it's the standard, but because it is highly feasible for a person to lose twice in a row due to "bad luck," I would not want to participate in any event that a) puts my money on the line and b) goes out of the way to decrease the gap between people of higher skill and newer people.

What you suggest is not skill, but chaos and annoyance. Drop it.

 

[Pikachu'sBlueWizardHat]

I challenge you to a real life dual to the death, where many random objects just spawn out of nowhere. Oh, and some of the items can accidentally kill you. You might be weilding a rusty fork vs. my randomly spawned machine gun, and then the rusty fork may just randomly splinter into your eye.
Meet you at Hyde Park at dawn. Oh, and random monsters might spawn right next to you and instantly kill you and eat your extended family. The ground might give way to you randomly and you may just happen to fall through the world and die.
In fact, I might just use my randomly spawned telekinesis-death-ray to make the ground below you fall, which makes your plastic butter knife force itself into your eye, making you wander aimlessly into the monster's mouth.
It's not my fault you're not SKILLED enough to use that RANDOM plastic butter knife against a RANDOM Death-Ray in combat.

Now do you kinda see why we don't judge skill on one's ability to adapt to randomness?

PS: I was serious, see you at dawn. (kidding..)

Can we please keep things in perspective here? Losing a game of Super Smash Bros. is NOT the same as losing a fight to the death. If you lose the match due to an unlucky item spawn, who cares? Accept it and move on. I don't care how much money you have riding on your super-important tournament match.

And frankly, I don't see why you would ever wager any significant sum of money on a game where randomness is already built into the engine. Minimize random factors all you want, but you can't call Smash a game of pure skill when Peach gets Bob-ombs every time she presses down+B, or Luigi's forward+B gets him a critrocket every time, or your character randomly trips for no reason. In other words there will always be random factors in Smash, so I think it's kind of funny when competitive players bring that up as an argument against items.

 

[Frey]

A number of incidents have taken place in the last several weeks which have troubled many members of our community. To begin at the beginning, when Mr. Alexander Hamilton hears anyone say that he apparently wants to use us to fulfill his odious mission, his answer is to cause a marked deterioration in our literature, amusements, and social conduct. That's similar to taking a few drunken swings at a beehive: it just makes me want even more to expose his malversation. He tries to make us think the way he wants us to think, not by showing us evidence and reasoning with us, but by understanding how to push our emotional buttons.

Think of the lives that could be saved if we would just launch an all-out ideological attack against the forces of propagandism. Even without the lazy ideology of nepotism in the picture, we can still say that if I recall correctly, Mr. Hamilton's forces believe that those of us who oppose Mr. Hamilton would rather run than fight. It should not be surprising that they believe this, however. As we all know, minds that have been so maimed that they believe that Mr. Hamilton's perceptions are Holy Writ can believe anything, especially if it's false. I suppose that's all I have to say in this letter. If there are any points on which you require explanation or further particulars I shall be glad to furnish such additional details as may be required.

 

[Corigames]

If you lose the match due to an unlucky item spawn, who cares? Accept it and move on.

You can't move on when you are knocked out of the bracket >_>

In other words there will always be random factors in Smash, so I think it's kind of funny when competitive players bring that up as an argument against items.

Yes, there will always be random factors in EVERYTHING. What game does not have a random factor in it? Random chance happens, so what? Because we are trying to limit that and get players as close as we can to the core of skill and ability that somehow makes it an invalid argument? You have to deal with the random you are given, but adding more in for the sake of adding more in doesn't make any sense at all! I got an idea, let's make the standard no items since we don't even know if characters can do certain things with certain items right now kinda like how certain characters **** on certain stages. Have you ever seen a Melee puff with a screw attack? O_O! How about that?

Not random > Very Random
The only time this is not true is when you are trying to run a casino.

 

[Paingel]

People seem to prefer it when Skill eliminates Randomness.

You can be tired as all hell, and that tiredness might be random, but if you're hardcore enough you'll push on anyways. The effects of the randomness is negated by your skill.

There can be a million distractions all around you, and these distractions might be random, but if you're hardcore enough you'll stay focused on your task. The effects of the randomness is negated by your skill.

Your opponent, while on the ground, can do as many as 7 Attacks, 1 Grapple, 4 Specials, and by the time you get to him he might also do a Jump which gives him 5 Attacks or a Dash which gives him 1 Attack and 1 grapple. He might also Shield or Dodge. When he dodges, he might roll forward or backwards, or he might just sidestep. That's as many as 23 equally likely possibilities, and you don't know for sure which one he picks until he does it. But if you're good at predicting him then you can bring it down to maybe 2 or 3 likely possibilities. If you're great at it, you can bring it it down to 1. The randomness is negated by skill.

At any given time in the stage, when items are on Low, there is usually only one item on the stage. There's no predicting this, and whoever happens to be closer will gain it. No amount of skill will negate this randomness.

See the difference?
Some people know how to deal with tiredness. Some people know how to deal with distractions. Some people know how to deal with mindgames. No one knows how to deal with items randomly spawning on the stage, because it isn't really possible to deal with it when there's only 1 item.

When randomness is negated by skill, then that randomness is acceptable.
When randomness is not negated by skill, then that randomness is unacceptable.

At least, that seems to be the general attitude, and I can easily see that point of view.

But here's a question: What if Items were set to Very High? Furthermore, what if you limited the Items so that each player can pick 1 item that they'd like to use in the game? There would be at most 2 different types of items on the field, and there would be more than enough for each player to have what they wanted most of the time. Excluding things like Bob-ombs and Healing Items, does it make a difference between having 5 different Beam Swords on the stage and having 2 Beam Swords on the stage? So long as each player can have their Beam Sword, then the match remains fair, since players remain on roughly equal standing.

Granted, I'm just throwing it out there. I might test it later to see how well it works, though. I'm not even a pro-item user, since I've taken the "I don't care because I don't do tournies" position, but it might be interesting to think about.

"Limited Items On, Low Drop Rate" is still very random because (A) you don't know when an item will be available and (B) you don't know what item will appear when it does.

"2 Items On, High Drop Rate" is very non-random because (A) there's almost ALWAYS at least 1 item available and (B) you know exactly which items are going to appear.

This way players can pick items the way they would a character or a stage. It might actually make items tourny-viable, but even if it doesn't.... *shrug*

 

[Cookiez]

I can tell you didn't read.

You are allowing randomness in the abilities of the player but not on the course. I understand that you are eliminating randomness, but you are removing that which is the nature and the way super smash brothers was put together. In a tournament without items you have only proven your skills under radical circumstances. Random stages are another thing, Olimar for example is terrible Hanenbow, but great at final destination. A character at final destination that is bad are most heavy weights, but they are great at Hanenbow because they can encompass multiple levels. Same goes for items, items are a technique, and a valuable one at that.

I avoided most others peoples arguments because the person I started with has stated the same basic thing. I'd argue with those other people by saying "see other post".

Perhaps I shouldn't have used the word "unintelligent". Apologies.

Firstly...

"You are allowing randomness in the abilities of the player"...?

Whut? Sounds to me like you may be insinuating the skill of the player is random.

Unless you mean that "random" opponents are pitted together, which in a tourney may be true at earlier stages, but still earns a big fat "duh".

Later, you state that in a tournament, you prove youself to be the player with greater skill only in that particular context. Well, again, brownie points for pointing out the obvious.

Nonetheless, the words following the sentence I previously quoted - "but not on the course" is also taken into consideration, and minimised by allowing multiple rounds in a tournament, on different stages. You state that:

"Olimar for example is terrible Hanenbow, but great at final destination".

Well if thats the case, than at least the opponent has an oppertunity to counterpick on the next round and choose a stage more beneficial for that particular character. Whilst I accept that that method creates a slight bias on that specific match, if you take that match as a whole, it creates a level playing field, (At least, as level as it is possible to make - which is incidentally the entire reason items are turned off) as both players are granted this oppertunity.

In that respect, the latter of your rebuttal is invalidated, because the same circumstances are not applicable to items. In three matches, all using items there is a chance that one party will, all three matches be put in an immensley favourable position. The other party is in no way able to change this, as they have absolutely no control over when and where items spawn. Thus, as no option in the game allows the other player to compensate for this, items are turned off.

Even if items are a technique, one player randomly being put in a better position to use them is simply not conducive to and equal match, so it's all but impossible to have a fairtest of skill using items.