Meta Building a Strong Yoshi Community

[Delta-cod]

Hey everyone, Deltacod here, your (as of writing) Smash Ultimate Yoshi Board moderator. As those who have been around Smashboards for a while know, activity on the boards (especially the Yoshi boards) tends to become...non existent very quickly into a game's life cycle. When I initially joined Smashboards during the Brawl days, the Yoshi boards were a pretty active place. I had been lurking for a week or two before finally making an account and posting. There was plenty of activity, match up discussions tended to actually get some nice meaty analysis going, lab and data was cataloged pretty well (though not everything was completed), and the community felt welcoming to all new players.

Perhaps my favorite time on Smashboards history was when the Brawl Back Room undertook the massive project of developing a match up chart for every single match up in the game. Character experts from each board were brought into a forum to discuss match ups with each other and to try and arrive at a ratio, to provide a nice resource for all Brawl players, across every single character. It was a really incredible experience -- discussions were nice and organized, the analysis was (generally) well thought out, and I feel like some aspects of match ups that had never been explored before got...well, explored!

Unfortunately, with the advent of Esports and social media and sponsors and branding and streaming and twitter and etc. etc. etc., board activity does not last long at all. After the initial hype wave, people come to the boards, ask to be pointed to the nearest Discord (using Smash 4 boards as an example), then...never really show up again. Full disclosure: I don't spend any time on Discord (I ain't got time for that), so I don't know what happens there. I'm sure people help each other out and discuss match ups. The problem is...where is this discussion cataloged? Where can a new Yoshi go to find all this information that's been provided already? Where are the resources for players to reference so they can try to improve their game?

I think that this move to more instant media (Discord, twitter) has been good for getting people talking, but awful for the benefit of lower leveled players. Guides and data aren't quite as easily accessible as they used to be. If I'm trying to find any information for self study, I'm probably out of luck. I'm entirely dependent on the good graces of a top player to share their wisdom with me, if they feel like I'm worth the time. I think that, since the Brawl days, the average player of a Smash game has gotten worse. I actually feel confident in my ability to place Top 16 in a local and I've attended one whole Smash 4 tournament in my life. There's not enough investment in the community anymore, just feeding the top players.

So, I want to try to reverse this trend for Ultimate. I want Smashboards to actually be a place where players can come, find cataloged data easily, find match up analyses, get critiques, and to feel like this is a place where good discussion actually takes place. I don't want the Yoshi community to be a place where there are one or two Yoshi Gods and everyone else is basically scrubbing out of their own locals. Everyone should be at a decent level of play. This is the type of playerbase that will prove Yoshi's strength.

I posted some ideas (and a similar explanation) on the Smash 4 boards. You can find the original here: https://smashboards.com/threads/yoshi-social-20-years-of-yoshis-island.352003/page-72#post-21940541

Here's the things I think need to happen (from the same post):

• Can't advertise/use alternate channels of communication publicly (I'm sure we have ways of contacting each other privately/off the boards already, but we can't continue to expand them to all newcomers).
• Hold everyone on the boards to a high standard of contribution
  • Recognize great contributors ([IMG]https://smashboards.com/data/avatars/s/302/302498.jpg?1459035546[/IMG] Pixel_ would be an example off the top of my head)
  • Cultivate newbies into better posters by forcing them to actually explain themselves (one liners are garbooooo)
  • Spelling/Grammar actually do matter
  • Tone actually matters
• Make people feel like their presence here is worthwhile and that they matter
  • Respond to questions in the Q&A thread quickly.
  • Actually critique people's videos
    • This means forming a dedicated critique team.

However, this is obviously a community. Nothing can be dictated from the top down. And obviously, if only one person is trying to get something going, it's just not going to stick. While we're still a ways out from release, I think now is the time to decide: What do you want out of Smashboards?

• How should we deal with Discords and other external methods of communication?
• Should we put most of our discussion here? Or should we just try to catalog the important conversations that occur elsewhere here? How do we hold people accountable to sharing the discussions that occur elsewhere here?
• Do we want to promote/recognize some people as being top contributors? Is it worth doing? How could we do this?
• On the other hand, should we sort of scold people for posting poorly in discussions? How should we do that?
• Should I just take my nostalgia and shove it away and accept that Smashboards has become obsolete?

I dunno the answers to any of these questions. You all tell me what you want. I live to serve~

 

[Sinister Slush]

Hey everyone, Deltacod here, your (as of writing) Smash Ultimate Yoshi Board moderator.

My chance at memeposting in the staff room...

Full disclosure: I don't spend any time on Discord (I ain't got time for that), so I don't know what happens there. I'm sure people help each other out and discuss match ups. The problem is...where is this discussion cataloged? Where can a new Yoshi go to find all this information that's been provided already? Where are the resources for players to reference so they can try to improve their game?

I basically did this for my discord, I actively linked to SB on almost any occasion I had to people that wanted info on something and already plan to do the same in this game along with having a resources channel that was almost all SB links and a few random YT vids.
Also not counting the separate MU threads I made, there was some other random Yoshi's that made threads and discussion sort of happened in those too until it died down.

Just check the archived stuff I had in the thread, it's for the most part pretty well done, just the chart itself is empty cause reasons I'll go into below. Also had tourney results archived tips and metagame discussion thread etc. that had decent traffic
Course not only that but any projects done in the Discord once the game is out, I'll post on SB too as well just like my attempts for the MU yoshi chart for Smash 4.

Though that didn't work out cause constant patches changing things while Yoshi was left in the dust + rage made things really hard to gauge compared to melee/brawl days of discussion.
A MU discussion could easily be sidetracked from many different opinions cause someone will mention rage BS that messes with the MU in some way shape or form and made it worse or better for us, so a combination of that and nobody being active made my MU chart project fall through even when some discussions on Matchups happen but nobody agreeing on a single thing. So most of the middle/high tier Yoshi mains just made a MU chart and changed our opinions on it every few months.

I think that this move to more instant media (Discord, twitter) has been good for getting people talking, but awful for the benefit of lower leveled players. Guides and data aren't quite as easily accessible as they used to be. If I'm trying to find any information for self study, I'm probably out of luck. I'm entirely dependent on the good graces of a top player to share their wisdom with me, if they feel like I'm worth the time.

I'm of the opinion that things are quite easy to find cause people just go to YT or reddit and usually find what they're looking for pretty easily most of the time. Forums unfortunately isn't as important as it used to be but it's still infinitely better for archiving than anything else like Discord Reddit twitter etc.

The problem for finding stuff is if some top players think it's a great idea to have serious discussions on twitter (back when the character limit was 120) or only during random times for their streams you'd be hard pressed to find that stuff unless word of mouth spreads through discord servers or something that stuff actually happened, so TIME TO WATCH THE VOD. Or of course if you just happened to be bored one day and clicked the Smash bros for wii u image on twitch and clicked Nairo/dabuz/whoever's stream.


Plus when it comes to top tier characters, you'll have hundreds of thousands of vids all over the place. Especially from top players cause ESPORTS age so they need to make guides here or there to get ad revenue from YT vids or just make a video cause their sponsor told them too instead of just uploading twitch stream highlights.

For mid/low tiers, that's usually where the community lives or dies depending on if they have content creators in some shape or form. Whether it's someone that can work around google docs, make vids, create sites, or have the tenacity to instigate discussion on everything then they become like the Shulk mains. (probably the character in smash 4 that had the biggest content junk made, like how Marth for Brawl was the centerfold for knowing every intricate detail about him)

I think that, since the Brawl days, the average player of a Smash game has gotten worse. I actually feel confident in my ability to place Top 16 in a local and I've attended one whole Smash 4 tournament in my life. There's not enough investment in the community anymore, just feeding the top players.

I literally feel the same with my scene, even despite everyone in the middle/low tier area of players just moving to DLC to try and fix problems but never actually helps 95% of em in terms of improving results or earning back the money they've used on donating to top 3/6 the last few years, I'd still get top 16 most likely, maybe not into the money placings as often as I used too cause every other character got stronger or lul DLC while yoshi got small nerfs and stayed mostly the same, but still pretty sad I'd enter once every 3-12 months and place higher than half of the people that picked up DLC.

Almost all people these days don't wanna put much effort to get accomplishments. They want instant results and that's the same for vids, just get to the nitty gritty. You'd be hard pressed to have someone in this day and age sit down and be able to watch a 15+ minute video talking about a character's neutral, advantage/disadvantage state, combos and all that jazz.

So, I want to try to reverse this trend for Ultimate. I want Smashboards to actually be a place where players can come, find cataloged data easily, find match up analyses, get critiques, and to feel like this is a place where good discussion actually takes place. I don't want the Yoshi community to be a place where there are one or two Yoshi Gods and everyone else is basically scrubbing out of their own locals. Everyone should be at a decent level of play. This is the type of playerbase that will prove Yoshi's strength.

I and a few others plan to do this, so don't have to worry too much bout that, it'll all basically come down to who wants to pick up the discussion after the work is posted.
Instant messaging is still infinitely better for just casual discussing, especially since a lot of newer players have a lot to say usually but almost none of it is really helpful or correct. So we could just gather comments that were actually useful and tell the people to copy/paste em to SB.

Otherwise to be frank, if ya wanna help ya need to play the game this time around or even try some attempts to even just socialize in the new discord to know the community at a basic level and know when anything is being planned. (or even join just mod team of mine to toss some ideas cause more heads is better than just 2 [wall and I] that's planning to do stuff for the community once the game is close to being released)
Cause ya certainly can't help too much in MU knowledge or scenarios if ya don't play the game.

Here's the things I think need to happen (from the same post):

• Hold everyone on the boards to a high standard of contribution
  • Recognize great contributors ([IMG]https://smashboards.com/data/avatars/s/302/302498.jpg?1459035546[/IMG] Pixel_ would be an example off the top of my head)
  • Cultivate newbies into better posters by forcing them to actually explain themselves (one liners are garbooooo)
• Make people feel like their presence here is worthwhile and that they matter
  • Respond to questions in the Q&A thread quickly.
  • Actually critique people's videos.

2nd BP - I think in terms of great contributors that should be given moreso to me, yikarur, furil (who was doing all characters anyways), the wall and Egg. Just a minor nitpick but also kinda shows again how little ya checked on stuff.
3rd BP -1 liners are garbo yeah.
Being nice is one thing but we can't treat them all like special snowflakes. Other than that we can easily just point out if what they said is right or wrong by correcting em and saying add more meat to their post instead of 1 line or paragraph of text.
4th-6th BP - Critiquing vids and answering questions isn't hard and can be easily done, just needs to be from people that mostly know what they're talking about. Scatz level of WoT when analyzing the vids or at least half.
Will most likely, in terms of Discord, be handpicked for who we think are usually good for giving advice.

However, this is obviously a community. Nothing can be dictated from the top down. And obviously, if only one person is trying to get something going, it's just not going to stick.

This was kinda why a decent amount of projects I did also didn't get going, nobody seemed to care unfortunately. (not counting my debunking thread of Smash 4 yoshi secretly being garbage which eventually ended up being true overtime to the public lul)

While we're still a ways out from release, I think now is the time to decide: What do you want out of Smashboards?

• How should we deal with Discords and other external methods of communication?
• Should we put most of our discussion here? Or should we just try to catalog the important conversations that occur elsewhere here? How do we hold people accountable to sharing the discussions that occur elsewhere here?
• Do we want to promote/recognize some people as being top contributors? Is it worth doing? How could we do this?
• On the other hand, should we sort of scold people for posting poorly in discussions? How should we do that?
• Should I just take my nostalgia and shove it away and accept that Smashboards has become obsolete?

I dunno the answers to any of these questions. You all tell me what you want. I live to serve~

1st BP - Discord is fine, we can just use it for regular socializing, image/video posting unrelated to smash and basically use as a "preview" of sorts for what we plan in the future by mentioning it and making a channel to discuss it half seriously for quick not really insightful messages, then for full details and actual work we archive all the important info and the real stuff gets posted onto a thread on SB.
Most discord channels regardless of server is just a social anyways even if it's supposed to be a serious channel, because instant messaging. No serious discussion actually happens and if it does it quickly gets drowned out by another half serious topic between others or someone deciding to randomly start up a convo in it hours later when the topic dies down that has no relation to the channel's main purpose.

That's why I like using SB for more serious discussion cause there isn't a 2k character limit for posting and isn't as condensed for the text and able to see a lot more on your screen.

(just a random league server of mine for possible future use so ignore first comment, but the first part of this old houston ****post is just showing an example of discord being unable to have 2k characters and without any paragraphs apostrophes periods etc. A mess to read if you wanna make a long post with actual good grammar)
Being able to give warnings for people to not talk outside of the thread topic. (along with being able to lock threads that's already been made or not important so the discussion that was about to happen in that thread converges into the thread that already exists.

Both me and Wall (the other person that's gonna help me out with all the stuff) never liked the whole using Discord like the Smashcords servers does to archive stuff. Just a conglomerate mess of channels with 10 million links or posts that attempts to sit in the 2k character limit shoved in there which makes it difficult to find most stuff cause Discord is a chat/voice service not something to archive important stuff unless you make a server solely for that by having less than 10 people in it or even yourself only for archiving.


2nd BP - Yes

3rd BP - in terms of discord, just giving a role that shows separately is a simple solution, or even just a post pinned on Discord saying "here's the people that should be active in this server and doing most of the vid critiques. Tag either on SB or Discord if you want their input."
SB just have the OP of the thread remind of who's the biggest contributors worth mentioning, should be good enough.

4th BP - Well SB it's usually just tell em nicely to add a bit more and maybe in 1v1 DM tell em how to improve giving advice, but if they continue being bad then can just start giving out warnings or just ignore em.
Discord same thing, except instead of warnings given out we just keep them from being able to post in the critique channel for however long we want.

5th BP - Yes and no. SB is still good for archiving but you're gonna be hard pressed for it to be super active, forums just aren't the focal point of discussing things anymore unfortunately but it still makes for a good site to post important stuff being all in one place.
>thread title
>skim through OP or the other posts in it to get basically what you were looking for
compared to
>discord meta channel!
>if there's any, click pinned posts to see any info and scroll through the mess of meme/not-so-serious discussion posts to find the nuggets of serious talk
>over 100k messages so good luck finding the 400ish that's worth reading with the real info all in one screen (check printscreen image for example of what scrolling through a discord channel would be like if walls of texts happened)

I miss forums either way, been doing site work being mods/admins for stuff for years since 2005 whether paying for the shell servers or approving/declining member registrations, then AiB and Yellowrello's site in 08 was the first two true smash sites I used before I finally made my 2nd account on SB instead of lurking the last few years from 06-09.

As a side note, I don't like the new SB preview feature. Grr
The quote system seems to have gotten worse too, puke.

 

[Delta-cod]

My chance at memeposting in the staff room...

I mean I'm not saying no, but I'm not saying yes either...

Just check the archived stuff I had in the thread,

What exactly am I looking for here? I think this is actually my problem with Discord -- I don't actually know what archived stuff I'm looking for here. Where is the transfer of information?

A MU discussion could easily be sidetracked from many different opinions cause someone will mention rage BS that messes with the MU in some way shape or form and made it worse or better for us, so a combination of that and nobody being active made my MU chart project fall through even when some discussions on Matchups happen but nobody agreeing on a single thing. So most of the middle/high tier Yoshi mains just made a MU chart and changed our opinions on it every few months.

I think it's up to us to set the limits/terms for MU discussion. What exactly are we considering? Do we need to discuss rage in depth or can it be categorized? etc. etc. Once we get our assumptions going MU discussion should be fruitful.

I'm of the opinion that things are quite easy to find cause people just go to YT or reddit and usually find what they're looking for pretty easily most of the time. Forums unfortunately isn't as important as it used to be but it's still infinitely better for archiving than anything else like Discord Reddit twitter etc.

[...]

For mid/low tiers...

I'm almost 100% sure that Yoshi will remain a mid/low tier, and thus it is up to us to get information going. We likely will not have a bevy of information being dropped on us by top players. Even when Yoshi was "really good" in Smash 4 (lol everyone was so fraudulent) no top players were really discussing him.

You'd be hard pressed to have someone in this day and age sit down and be able to watch a 15+ minute video talking about a character's neutral, advantage/disadvantage state, combos and all that jazz.

While I agree videos should get to the point, people's inability to dig into a character's neutral state (THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THE GAME) is really their problem and why they suck.

Otherwise to be frank, if ya wanna help ya need to play the game this time around or even try some attempts to even just socialize in the new discord to know the community at a basic level and know when anything is being planned. (or even join just mod team of mine to toss some ideas cause more heads is better than just 2 [wall and I] that's planning to do stuff for the community once the game is close to being released)
Cause ya certainly can't help too much in MU knowledge or scenarios if ya don't play the game.

Oof ouch owie. But this is valid. Smash 4 occurred during my College days in Chicago, which while it'd seem like I have time cuz college and Chicago, it was a lot harder to get to things than I thought. Now that I'm teaching in NYC I should be able to get out to more (weekends generally available, NYC public transit woohoo).

I'd like to think that I was able to at least question people well despite not having played much, but I wasn't on Discord so I suppose I missed too much. I definitely wasn't involved enough in Smash 4.

2nd BP - I think in terms of great contributors that should be given moreso to me, yikarur, furil (who was doing all characters anyways), the wall and Egg. Just a minor nitpick but also kinda shows again how little ya checked on stuff.

I think my goal there was to highlight a newer member of the community, but you're right I was out of touch (and looking back, you definitely contributed a lot). And I'm habitually bad at giving old hoagies the necessary recognition they deserve. I'm sorry.

4th-6th BP - Critiquing vids and answering questions isn't hard and can be easily done, just needs to be from people that mostly know what they're talking about. Scatz level of WoT when analyzing the vids or at least half.
Will most likely, in terms of Discord, be handpicked for who we think are usually good for giving advice.

I'd actually argue that Scatz level WoT when analyzing vids is too much for most players. Many players have one or two HUGE holes in their gameplay or mindset (see: approaches to the neutral game) that cause them to lose. It's more productive for all parties involved to just focus on the one or two points of someone's gameplay that will give them the most improvement. A low level Yoshi doesn't need to know that the reason he got hit at 4:37 was because he fell into a Yomi level 3 trap. He needs to know that he keeps Short Hop Egg Tossing at MK in neutral, and that SHET is in general a terrible neutral tool, and he should stop that. Then he'll get hit less often in ALL his matchups, and we can move on to a more specific part of his gameplay.

A top player may need that really specific analysis of all interactions WoT tho.

but it still makes for a good site to post important stuff being all in one place.

Yes. And I think that coherent discussion of topics (like match ups) will actually be better here after a certain groundwork is provided from, say, Discord. I imagine it's much easier to provide meaty responses to specific points here on the boards where there's time to craft an answer and respond to quotes (yayyyy).

 

[Sinister Slush]

What exactly am I looking for here? I think this is actually my problem with Discord -- I don't actually know what archived stuff I'm looking for here. Where is the transfer of information?

Not supposed to be discord related, it's to show the effort and lengths I went to with some of my threads even before Discord was the main place to socialize that I and others did to do stuff on SB. (can comfortably say MU discussion in my discord or even the "official" Smashcords stuff those discussions never took off or anything of value in terms of SC was done)
That thread had 17 pages of 40ppp with some discussion from both sides chiming in every now and then to the best of the dead boards efforts or me posting in their MU chart thread to discuss stuff over yonder. (everything, not just yoshi I mean. even Rosa or more popular/high tier characters never posted anything)

This thread I linked, the one that was pinned in the smash 4 yoshi sub-forum with techniques and how to do/more analyzing, moveset data kurogane and I did before furil and Yika did frame data, tourney results, the early move analyzing and tips when the game wasn't out yet. There was stuff done and archived on the boards over Discord.

Click the heads in the 3rd spoiler tag if that's what you meant on where's the stuff, or the 2nd spoiler for our/their separated threads to read up on discussion if any.

I think it's up to us to set the limits/terms for MU discussion. What exactly are we considering? Do we need to discuss rage in depth or can it be categorized? etc. etc. Once we get our assumptions going MU discussion should be fruitful.

Have to wait for the game to be out and Yoshi not getting screwed over for once in terms of future reveal vids of anything to be able to theorycraft and have more meaningful discussions.
As for "rage categorizing" the worst part about that is even after years ago when people found the levels of rage from 30%-150+% it was still wildly inconsistent in terms of saying you need to think of their level 2 4 or whatever rage amount and our rage level that might change the MU in terms of combos working or not, when someone will die etc.

With rage being toned down in this game though discussing 1v1 MUs should be much more consistent compared to
Yoshi player 1: I think DK vs Yoshi is +1 our favor
Yoshi player 2: I'd say the same thing until we get dingdonged at 40% to death cause DK is 120+%, so I'm more inclined to say it's an even MU for us or even -1 in some circumstances cause >RAGE

Yoshi player 3: ZSS vs Yoshi is even cause reasons here
Yoshi player 4: but rage zss gets a grab at 0% and we die off the top regardless of our DI once the rage upb hits us around 30%, -2
No procrastinating either, that's how discussions all over boards, discord servers or FB/twitter would eventually go down.

Rage influencing the MU so hard regardless of character that nobody could agree on even 1 or 2 ratios to the point high/top level players didn't even do Ratios anymore when making their charts most of the time, had to include a wall of text for a section for whatever amount of characters they throw in that area or if they did have a ratio in it, usually accompanied by decimal ratios which started getting even more popular in smash 4 compared to only the pika's in brawl age that did it.
Random examples: https://twitter.com/dabuzsenpai/status/961040541885566977?lang=en
https://twitter.com/LimaBayo/status/895266371352788992

This also highlights >discussing serious MU topics on twitter's 120 character limit, even though now it's doubled to 280 wooOoAaaAhhHh

I'm almost 100% sure that Yoshi will remain a mid/low tier, and thus it is up to us to get information going. We likely will not have a bevy of information being dropped on us by top players. Even when Yoshi was "really good" in Smash 4 (lol everyone was so fraudulent) no top players were really discussing him.

Yoshi as a character just never seemed to be popular to the public since his release in the 90's, which is unfortunate. But yeah for the low end of characters that's not popular or good it's always been up to the community to keep the character alive, and in terms of Yoshi there was attempts but it wasn't good enough.

While some other characters just died out cause their one god at the character switched off (megaman/kameme to mostly sheik and other DLC) or quit the game cause life, other games, or DLC (ranai villager getting screwed by DLC at every out of country tourney he entered so eventually went to focus on other fighting games instead)

While I agree videos should get to the point, people's inability to dig into a character's neutral state (THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THE GAME) is really their problem and why they suck.

Of course, but in terms of melee and brawl, that form of actually thinking in the neutral almost doesn't exist in most smash4 matchups cause you're Bayo with a frame 4 Witch twist to spam and ignore neutral, or invincible Ryu upb that even goes through little mac's KO punch, or you're mewtwo that can just nair across a flat stage and win most or every exchange.

Smash 4 occurred during my College days in Chicago, which while it'd seem like I have time cuz college and Chicago, it was a lot harder to get to things than I thought. Now that I'm teaching in NYC I should be able to get out to more (weekends generally available, NYC public transit woohoo).

I'd like to think that I was able to at least question people well despite not having played much, but I wasn't on Discord so I suppose I missed too much. I definitely wasn't involved enough in Smash 4.

Of course, around the last year and a half of smash 4 ya started to be a bit more active and making posts to help. Life over smash after all, unless you get a sponsor you ain't making a life outta smash.
If ya have a bit more time to be active this time around that'd be nice. Don't have to be active right now even, still have another 6 months almost before the game is out, assuming no more footage of smash 5 happens or Yoshi (and a handful of other characters that wasn't in the e3 demo build) don't get videos showcasing their tinkered kits.

I think my goal there was to highlight a newer member of the community, but you're right I was out of touch (and looking back, you definitely contributed a lot). And I'm habitually bad at giving old hoagies the necessary recognition they deserve. I'm sorry.

In terms of newer people doing things that was super helpful for the community (outside of labrats like furil) I don't think there was many but The Wall and Egg. is who truly comes to mind really that helped a good amount.

Cause the level of most of pixel's stuff (for your example) in terms of threads is something 30+ others on Smashboards did with their "Yoshi guides" in the guides section, you'd have quite a handful of basic videos and guides made for yoshi.
ADayInTheLabs on YT made a decent amount of yoshi vids that was kinda helpful for entry level Yoshi's, or yoheking finding some stuff that was actually new and interesting but unfortunately was unreliable most of the time.

Even though one or two of my earlier threads was the same thing with basic **** like "here's the moves input, % and explanation of what it does" it was one of the first threads done and posted in 2014 (some before the game was even out with the gifs made by me) so seeing it made 20+ more times on the yoshi boards or in the Smashboards guides section over the course of the game's lifespan is like, Well looks like nothing new has cropped up with nobody really trying to be unique with the work. Just making the explanation of the moves either shorter or longer walls of text to go through.

Just skim a couple of the guides to see where I'm going with this.
Though with smashboard changes back then I think any threads that popped up on the boards was only automatically posted there if a guide was made for X character. Not sure on that, I think the guide section of SB was a missed opportunity and not many really checked it.

I'd actually argue that Scatz level WoT when analyzing vids is too much for most players. Many players have one or two HUGE holes in their gameplay or mindset (see: approaches to the neutral game) that cause them to lose. It's more productive for all parties involved to just focus on the one or two points of someone's gameplay that will give them the most improvement. A low level Yoshi doesn't need to know that the reason he got hit at 4:37 was because he fell into a Yomi level 3 trap. He needs to know that he keeps Short Hop Egg Tossing at MK in neutral, and that SHET is in general a terrible neutral tool, and he should stop that. Then he'll get hit less often in ALL his matchups, and we can move on to a more specific part of his gameplay.

A top player may need that really specific analysis of all interactions WoT tho.

Agreed, I didn't specifically mean every member that submitted a vid to get critique better be ready for a 10k word essay on their gameplay, just as long as it's not less than 100 words it should be golden.

Yes. And I think that coherent discussion of topics (like match ups) will actually be better here after a certain groundwork is provided from, say, Discord. I imagine it's much easier to provide meaty responses to specific points here on the boards where there's time to craft an answer and respond to quotes (yayyyy).

That's the plan fer me.
Speaking of quotes I apparently need to just actively add the name of the person I'm quoting post number and member id (c/p the stuff basically) just so I can tell who I'm quoting now. Seems like they messed with how big the boxes for quoting used to be so I got confused at first from how little they were spaced out.

 

[Delta-cod]

Re: Contributions and Recognitions -- I must have a really crap memory and been really out of touch. I'm not gonna discuss it further because it's definitely evident right now that I have no real idea what I'm talking about. =P

Re: Anything not quoted -- I basically agree so it's not getting post space.

With rage being toned down in this game though discussing 1v1 MUs should be much more consistent compared to
Yoshi player 1: I think DK vs Yoshi is +1 our favor
Yoshi player 2: I'd say the same thing until we get dingdonged at 40% to death cause DK is 120+%, so I'm more inclined to say it's an even MU for us or even -1 in some circumstances cause >RAGE

Yoshi player 3: ZSS vs Yoshi is even cause reasons here
Yoshi player 4: but rage zss gets a grab at 0% and we die off the top regardless of our DI once the rage upb hits us around 30%, -2
No procrastinating either, that's how discussions all over boards, discord servers or FB/twitter would eventually go down.

Oh for sure. I think this is a problem with how people approach MUs though. MU discussion shouldn't be trying to cover every single specific situation that can occur. It should focus on how neutral plays out (and who typically has the advantage there), options for getting out of disadvantage, and the level of punishment that arises out of acquiring advantage. Weigh all those together and you get a MU. Actually, I really liked Lima's chart as a result of this.

Rage really just effects the advantage portion of the equation and can be directly related to the opposing character's ability to actually finish off a stock. Of course, all the rage in the world won't help you if you don't have a chance of winning the neutral.

Of course, but in terms of melee and brawl, that form of actually thinking in the neutral almost doesn't exist in most smash4 matchups cause you're Bayo with a frame 4 Witch twist to spam and ignore neutral, or invincible Ryu upb that even goes through little mac's KO punch, or you're mewtwo that can just nair across a flat stage and win most or every exchange.

See but like, this is the problem. Nobody thinks hard enough about the neutral game in EACH MATCH UP to determine what your win condition is. The first question anyone should ask in any match up is: "What does my opponent want to do in neutral and how do I beat that?" That's literally all I do when I play.

Not sure on that, I think the guide section of SB was a missed opportunity and not many really checked it.

Definitely. Also everyone and their mother could submit a guide which was kinda....eh...

Speaking of quotes I apparently need to just actively add the name of the person I'm quoting...

If you highlight a portion of someone's post a little "+ quote" button will pop up. You can do that multiple times and then insert the quotes in your textbox (they add in order you "+ quote"d them, and it keeps the name/post# etc for each quote. It's how I've been responding to you.

 

[Sinister Slush]

If you highlight a portion of someone's post a little "+ quote" button will pop up. You can do that multiple times and then insert the quotes in your textbox (they add in order you "+ quote"d them, and it keeps the name/post# etc for each quote. It's how I've been responding to you.

Yeah the hovering of quote/reply seems to be a new thing for the boards, so I wasn't 100% familiar with the feature or know how to properly work it compared to how I was more familiar with the old stuff like spoilers code [ url= link here ] text [ /url ] etc.

Was more used to just hit quote and break it apart from there. Even if the rest of the quotes I'd need to add [ quote ] and [ / quote] at the start and end of everything else it was still decently spaced out, but new boards has em so close to together I got lost from where I even began replaying when checking the preview so this new highlighting for quotes thing is neato

 

[Sharky]

So I read the first few posts for now. I like what I've read for sure, and I'm definitely inclined to agree with Delta. I'll try my best to be around to help with any stuff that needs doing, as I plan to be much more active in SSBU.

 

[Zinith]

I know this maybe an odd question considering how few threads are on the Yoshi sub-forum as of right now, but does this thread need to be pinned?

 

[Delta-cod]

No, because there are very few threads at the moment. Perhaps when the rush comes near release date, but ideally decisions will have been made by then so we're ready to roll when the game comes out.

 

[Sinister Slush]

Only thread for now that needs to be at the top for people to see is the social.
Especially since Yoshi isn't in the demo, there's no need to make many threads for Yoshi right now since there's not even 30 seconds of footage to analyze.

 

[Sharky]

Delta, we ready to get this going?

 

[Delta-cod]

Depends on what you mean exactly.

I think the first order of business is to have people start playing the game and to start gathering some experience. With the new release things are inherently going to be disorganized/crazy as everyone's new information and ideas come along.

One strong start we can take is organizing our video critics/information verifiers. People will inevitably start posting videos soon, as well as guides. We need to start pushing people to be better like...now. We also need to make sure we keep up with dispelling misinformation, as that's definitely going to be rampant. And keeping everyone on the same page will be helpful in general.

Meta discussion is tough as there isn't really a stable meta yet...naturally. These will pick up as the game develops -- no need to clutter everything now.

 

[Yoshi_smash]

Now that Ultimate is out, it would be a good idea if someone could make YouTube videos of how to play well as Yoshi. There were similar YouTube videos for Smash 4 that discussed tips, such as how to throw eggs in front of jumps.

Unfortunately, one issue (with all Smash games) is that Yoshi is underplayed, and this may be because Yoshi is perceived to be a low/mid tier fighter. Hopefully Yoshi will be perceived as being a higher tier in Ultimate. The more Yoshi players there are, the more there is to work with. Also, if more Yoshi players become good, and those players attend tournaments, it will not only elevate Yoshi's standing on tier lists, but also elevate interest in playing as Yoshi in general.

 

[noft]

woot. Yoshi boards! I haven't posted since smash 4. I'm looking forward to learning this new Yoshi. So far he's great. I do miss being able to reverse reverse b(they use to call it wavebouncing i guess?), and the egg trajectories are a little different than what I'm use too.

If there is anyone on here that is willing to lab out some Yoshi i'm down. I spent a good minute with YoHeKing & skippykips a couple years back.

The furthest my Yoshi made it on smash ladder was gold 2, *should've been gold 1 but the season changed on the game i won to be promoted.* Also i picked Yoshi up on melee so i'll play you with Yoshi on net play if you want.

 

[Tidycats29]

i havent been around here for years lol
i play a lot online and go locally here in el paso so ill contribute what i can again

i do remember brawl days were pretty active tbh

 

[JKrisom]

Hello! (first post, yay)

Been a yoshi main since 64. I don't think I can contribute as much as other guys do, but if I ever find something interesting while playing online or with friends, I'll let you guys know. So far, I've been having a lot of success with this version of Yoshi approaching with eggs, SH Bair and Nair and then Uair. I need to use more tilts though...

Will there be a "combos" thread though? Or should we use this one to post combos?

Have a lovely day!

 

[Yoshi_smash]

So, I want to try to reverse this trend for Ultimate. I want Smashboards to actually be a place where players can come, find cataloged data easily, find match up analyses, get critiques, and to feel like this is a place where good discussion actually takes place. I don't want the Yoshi community to be a place where there are one or two Yoshi Gods and everyone else is basically scrubbing out of their own locals. Everyone should be at a decent level of play. This is the type of playerbase that will prove Yoshi's strength.

There are now several YouTube videos which are guides on how to play as Yoshi in Ultimate:

Yoshi Is Underrated in Smash Ultimate (by ESAM) -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqrcSiiNzUw
Smash Ultimate Yoshi Guide (from a Smash 4 Yoshi main) (by BananaboySSB) -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZZ0vQ80QK8
Smash Ultimate Yoshi Guide: Part 2 (+ FAQ) (by BananaboySSB) -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pah09ilmgQ
Smash Ultimate: Yoshi 101 (by martyr) -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mtjvl_Kjpbg
Smash Ultimate: Advance[d] Yoshi Combo Guide (by Qwinn CT) -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1kzXQ4UE6s

There is also a YouTube video of Yoshi winning a tournament match (Squerk [Yoshi] vs. ESAM [Pikachu]) -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Is4Fcg4L5t4
Perhaps someone with a more technical knowledge of the game can explain the reasons why Squerk was able to win with his Yoshi (and why ESAM lost).

There are also a lot of YouTube montage videos (such as "Yoshi is EGGcellent - Smash Bros Ultimate montage" by KamiVS), as well as many YouTube tournament videos featuring Yoshi (I haven't seen all of them, so I don't know how often Yoshi has been winning / losing in recent tournaments).