A friend and I have been experimenting with a limited set of items in tourney-style fights (items being Green Shell, Lip's Stick, Banana Peel, Mr. Saturn, Springboard, Motion Sensor bomb, and occasionally Franklin Badge. I might have missed one or two, but you understand what we were going for). I'm no "competitive analyst" or whatever I should be to pass judgment on these things and be taken seriously, but the items actually improved the game. Considering many people right now spend all their time complaining about how Brawl favors camp-heavy defensive play styles, implementing a limited item set could force some players to think outside the box. It also promotes the player's ability to control the field, and gives characters with no projectiles a chance to mix up their game. At the same time, a skilled player can consistently avoid these items just as he would any attack. These aren't Dragoons and Golden Hammers, either. If you get hit, chances are you're not dead yet.
I'm not saying items are a sure-shot way to improve tournament Brawl, in fact I understand completely the reasons why they aren't usually turned on. Hell, most of the time I play with all items off. What I'm saying is that many of us don't want to believe that this game may have to be played a little differently from Melee in order to achieve its full competitive potential, and very few people are willing to think outside the box for the sake of the game. Hell, there was a similar thread about testing Heavy Brawl as a competitive standard that was more or less brushed off to the side. I can't help but think that came more from bad preconceptions about altering the "purity" of the game than it did from actual fact. Brawl is a new game with new physics, and these physics pose a lot of problems in competitive play. We can't change the core game engine, but there is plenty we can change.
tl;dr Let's discuss the competitive validity of altered and nonstandard gametypes for Brawl. Go ahead, be crazy. Nobody's going to throw rocks at you for trying to justify Coin Battle.
I'm not saying items are a sure-shot way to improve tournament Brawl, in fact I understand completely the reasons why they aren't usually turned on. Hell, most of the time I play with all items off. What I'm saying is that many of us don't want to believe that this game may have to be played a little differently from Melee in order to achieve its full competitive potential, and very few people are willing to think outside the box for the sake of the game. Hell, there was a similar thread about testing Heavy Brawl as a competitive standard that was more or less brushed off to the side. I can't help but think that came more from bad preconceptions about altering the "purity" of the game than it did from actual fact. Brawl is a new game with new physics, and these physics pose a lot of problems in competitive play. We can't change the core game engine, but there is plenty we can change.
tl;dr Let's discuss the competitive validity of altered and nonstandard gametypes for Brawl. Go ahead, be crazy. Nobody's going to throw rocks at you for trying to justify Coin Battle.
