Does equipment have competitive potential?

[TheMisterManGuy]

I have a custom Lucina save with great speed but poor defense. I've seen people say that Smash 4 leans more towards defense, but with the right equipment, can there actually be potential for competitive equipment customs?

 

[Gatoray]

Everyone else will say no I guarantee you. However, I do believe there is potential for equipment in online tournaments. (can't elaborate right now, I'm on mobile)

 

[Fluorescent]

A handful ideas of competitive equipment come into my mind when I read the op but when I see it, they tend to curve into a way of 'unbalanced' or 'too OP'.

While I can't make up any cons or pros about this, I feel that equipment can bring a huge effect into competitive play. However, the opinions of others and how hardly someone talks about bringing equipment into competitive play makes a lot of people stick with the vanilla stats.

 

[Putuk]

I feel stuff like "Auto-Heal" could be pretty broken.
Though using it to play as a quick Dedede is a joy.

 

[Smearglangelo]

There's a lot of potential for equipment in competitive play. I think the only reason people aren't messing around with it more is because of the impact custom moves are already having on the meta.

I predict that in a year or two, after everyone's gotten the hang of custom moves, we'll start to see more people exploring the possibility of implementing equipment in some tournaments.

 

[Raijinken]

Potential? Yes.

But there's way too much variance in it for it to see widespread use. It's virtually impossible to get all systems at an event to have the same loadouts, unless we were to embark on an extremely time consuming and possibly-not-worthwhile quest to find the top-ten equipment setups with custom moves as well, for all 52 characters.

 

[LancerStaff]

Ultimately it's logistics and the nature of tournaments preventing it from getting off the ground.

When you're expected to bring your own set, like in KIU or Pokemon, then it works out pretty well. The problem then being the lack of balance... But then again we're using customs already.

 

[ぱみゅ]

Equipment's problem is not on the RNG alone, what actually kill them are the side effects.

Starman, baseball bats, auto-heal, exploding shields, all are more than simple gimmicks or variations to the gameplay, they're far too wild and victories are acquired by trivial skills that are determined by these effects alone.

 

[TheMisterManGuy]

Equipment's problem is not on the RNG alone, what actually kill them are the side effects.

Starman, baseball bats, auto-heal, exploding shields, all are more than simple gimmicks or variations to the gameplay, they're far too wild and victories are acquired by trivial skills that are determined by these effects alone.

So we would have to place restrictions on specifically which equipment is allowed and which isn't

 

[DunnoBro]

Equipment's problem is not on the RNG alone, what actually kill them are the side effects.

Starman, baseball bats, auto-heal, exploding shields, all are more than simple gimmicks or variations to the gameplay, they're far too wild and victories are acquired by trivial skills that are determined by these effects alone.

I think wide-sweeping bans like all items, all healing, and all negative modifiers would have to be done.

Really, outside of those there's nothing too gamebreaking. Moon Launcher? Thistle jump? Hyper Smasher?

There's also an equipment editor out, so it is feasible to get Standardized Equipment sets similar to what we did for customs (Though with customs, AND all the different kinds of equipment, it's unlikely get nearly as close to universal agreement as we are with customs)

Personally, I find equipment fun but on the same scale items are. (Actually, they're much MUCH more fun than items, even for casuals in my experience)

The reason is it isn't like customs which just adds an option, equipment changes fundamental interactions. Movement speed, even combos are effected. And don't even get me started on stuff like shield exploder, moon launcher, and no-flinch smasher on little mac.

The most likely way equipment can be implemented, is if we as a community get together and decide "This character is completely nonviable, this slight pure stat boost should help this"

 

[Jexulus]

I think it could work competitively, but it'd have to be casual to the extreme. Can't see it being more than just something on the local scene. Too many regulations would have to be put in place at larger tournaments.

 

[DavemanCozy]

Not a chance. There's too much equipment with dumb side effects: self-healing, item spawn, critical hits, etc.

You could make an argument to just ban those, but then your encroaching in complex banning. That would be ridiculous to enforce.

Not to mention how difficult it would be to agree on builds in actual tournament. If people argue with each other with custom moves already, imagine the amount of debate equipment will introduce.

 

[LancerStaff]

Equipment's problem is not on the RNG alone, what actually kill them are the side effects.

Starman, baseball bats, auto-heal, exploding shields, all are more than simple gimmicks or variations to the gameplay, they're far too wild and victories are acquired by trivial skills that are determined by these effects alone.

Would you believe a shooter that's focused on OHKOs, undodgable attacks, homing shots through walls, (sometimes all three!) abilities that make you completely invincible and teleport you to the other side of the battlefield, and just about every other OP thing you can think of is balanced?

 

[verbatim]

We could just have a format where the default equipment are the only one's allowed (+21 one stat, -14 another). This would cut out any crazy things and remove the problem of TO's having to do extra setup.

 

[ぱみゅ]

So we would have to place restrictions on specifically which equipment is allowed and which isn't

I think wide-sweeping bans like all items, all healing, and all negative modifiers would have to be done.

Really, outside of those there's nothing too gamebreaking. Moon Launcher? Thistle jump? Hyper Smasher?

There's also an equipment editor out, so it is feasible to get Standardized Equipment sets similar to what we did for customs (Though with customs, AND all the different kinds of equipment, it's unlikely get nearly as close to universal agreement as we are with customs)

Personally, I find equipment fun but on the same scale items are. (Actually, they're much MUCH more fun than items, even for casuals in my experience)

The reason is it isn't like customs which just adds an option, equipment changes fundamental interactions. Movement speed, even combos are effected. And don't even get me started on stuff like shield exploder, moon launcher, and no-flinch smasher on little mac.

The most likely way equipment can be implemented, is if we as a community get together and decide "This character is completely nonviable, this slight pure stat boost should help this"

Plase refer to this:

You could make an argument to just ban those, but then your encroaching in complex banning. That would be ridiculous to enforce.

Complex bans are a hell to enforce and keep on check, and furthermore, a hell to actually decide which ones are good/bad enough to be banned.
We could go flat and ban all side effects to avoid complexity, but then we run into another problem: Logistics.
We either allow the players to create a set to fit their tastes, or get as close of it as possible, or allow them to transfer from their 3DS. The problem with the former is time, as it depends of a number of factors like Unlocked Equipment, and the number of times a player would create/modify a set. The latter isn't too bad, but it needs someone to supervise it so it doesn't get anything rule-breaking (considering the semi-complex ban is is place).

Would you believe a shooter that's focused on OHKOs, undodgable attacks, homing shots through walls, (sometimes all three!) abilities that make you completely invincible and teleport you to the other side of the battlefield, and just about every other OP thing you can think of is balanced?

1) OHKOs and stat boosts aren't Smash's focus. Its focus is a ([player-vs-player]/stage) interaction via hitting each other (and/or shielding, avoid hits, etc).
2) Consider how many points are scored in that shooter and how many are scored in Smash. Wild changes like those make Smash's scores vary way too wildly.

 

[DunnoBro]

Plase refer to this:

Complex bans are a hell to enforce and keep on check, and furthermore, a hell to actually decide which ones are good/bad enough to be banned.

Which is why I said wide-sweeping bans, not specific or complex bans.

"Anything that heals, gives an item, or is a negative effect is banned."

Would deal with the vast majority of potentially or actually problematic equipment.


(Complex would be more like no-flinch smasher on mac, or home run bat + quick batter)

 

[Master Knight DH]

Would you believe a shooter that's focused on OHKOs, undodgable attacks, homing shots through walls, (sometimes all three!) abilities that make you completely invincible and teleport you to the other side of the battlefield, and just about every other OP thing you can think of is balanced?

Yes it's totally balanced. That's why it earned itself a 7000 word blog post about a forced mechanic that degenerates into stupidity, with 30 frame dodge moves having 44 invincibility frames, not even exaggerating (Smash 4's have 22 invincibility frames on standard, for the record), merely standing out, and then what's left over afterward still is an imbalanced mess with underwhelming core mechanics.

That last part is especially notable when in Smash 4 moves like Warlock Punch and Hammer Flip actually have unique traits able to let them work.

If a game is "balanced" by everything being able to spam to strong effect, even if the character variety is consistently thick, it's still encouraging brain-dead gameplay. Smash 4, I recently learned about how NOT attacking when in the air becomes useful by avoiding landing lag, because it makes projectile spam MUCH more tolerable to deal with for one, and the intent of exploring it was actually to get even the clumsiest of grabs to actually, ya know, work. And I was figuring this out playing as Sonic, who doesn't have a lot of landing lag on his Neutral Air, but if I'm going to play keepaway, I'd rather not waste frames on landing lag from attacks that do nothing. And this just brings up good game design: being punished for attacking unnecessarily. That sort of thing is why games should care to balance to code to the extent where anti-armor is useful enough on a consistent basis, never rendered redundant OR useless, and my favorite, rewarding good gameplay.

The-game-that-will-not-be-named only cared about its equivalent to equipment and customs*. The latter could have been done right, actually, had it not been so half-efforted. One of the options in the customs*, the one that allows attacking through walls, had a cost that prevented simultaneous usage with it of ANY of several instantaneous *****-yous to Ganondorf-style melee ability.** Had the customs* that still could be used with the one in question have been balanced better as well, the custom* in question would have simply been much better balanced as a Glass Cannon one. As to the core mechanics of the-game-that-will-not-be-named, well, they reward giving up recharge time, mobility frames, shot speed, shot stamina, AND an innate ability to go through walls with a pathetic +40% extra damage, and who knows what else it's thinking.

* - the mechanic in question is actually recycled in Smash 4, though dumbed down in general. It's not in the Wii-U version before you ask. It's not a TRUE equivalent to Customs, but it may as well be.
** - don't bother to use technicalities. The one I know you'd have to be thinking of is too inept to try to be broken and you should know why if you could want to bring it up.

-

Oh, and my simple answer to equipments. No. Way. Jos(e).

 

[LancerStaff]

1) OHKOs and stat boosts aren't Smash's focus. Its focus is a ([player-vs-player]/stage) interaction via hitting each other (and/or shielding, avoid hits, etc).
2) Consider how many points are scored in that shooter and how many are scored in Smash. Wild changes like those make Smash's scores vary way too wildly.

The game I'm talking about is Kid Icarus. Which is basically SSB as a shooter with a deep Pokemon like weapon synthesis system.

Defense still exists. Rather then being combo'd to death like in certain fighting games you just die in one shot. Instead of two or three stocks you get about thirteen depending how you look at it. Mindgames and footsies still manage to be important even with all this supposedly OP stuff flying everywhere.

I guess I'm just irked because people say equipment isn't balanced even though KIU works well and we're using custom moves already, which I'd say isn't nearly as balanced because custom moves are completely set while equipment can really turn a character into anything you want.

Yes it's totally balanced. That's why it earned itself a 7000 word blog post about a forced mechanic that degenerates into stupidity, with 30 frame dodge moves having 44 invincibility frames, not even exaggerating (Smash 4's have 22 invincibility frames on standard, for the record), merely standing out, and then what's left over afterward still is an imbalanced mess with underwhelming core mechanics.

That last part is especially notable when in Smash 4 moves like Warlock Punch and Hammer Flip actually have unique traits able to let them work.

If a game is "balanced" by everything being able to spam to strong effect, even if the character variety is consistently thick, it's still encouraging brain-dead gameplay. Smash 4, I recently learned about how NOT attacking when in the air becomes useful by avoiding landing lag, because it makes projectile spam MUCH more tolerable to deal with for one, and the intent of exploring it was actually to get even the clumsiest of grabs to actually, ya know, work. And I was figuring this out playing as Sonic, who doesn't have a lot of landing lag on his Neutral Air, but if I'm going to play keepaway, I'd rather not waste frames on landing lag from attacks that do nothing. And this just brings up good game design: being punished for attacking unnecessarily. That sort of thing is why games should care to balance to code to the extent where anti-armor is useful enough on a consistent basis, never rendered redundant OR useless, and my favorite, rewarding good gameplay.

The-game-that-will-not-be-named only cared about its equivalent to equipment and customs*. The latter could have been done right, actually, had it not been so half-efforted. One of the options in the customs*, the one that allows attacking through walls, had a cost that prevented simultaneous usage with it of ANY of several instantaneous *****-yous to Ganondorf-style melee ability. Had the customs* that still could be used with the one in question have been balanced better as well, the custom* in question would have simply been much better balanced as a Glass Cannon one. As to the core mechanics of the-game-that-will-not-be-named, well, they reward giving up recharge time, mobility frames, shot speed, shot stamina, AND an innate ability to go through walls with a pathetic +40% extra damage, and who knows what else it's thinking.

* - the mechanic in question is actually recycled in Smash 4, though dumbed down in general. It's not in the Wii-U version before you ask. It's not a TRUE equivalent to Customs, but it may as well be.

-

Oh, and my simple answer to equipments. No. Way. Jos(e).

MKDH. Hm. Didn't expect to see you around here... I'll respect your opinions, but you have to admit that they're atypical in the competitive scene. Most people would rather play with mods rather then not because that's what really sets it apart.

 

[Master Knight DH]

I need to make some quick responses.
-The game used division defense. Which is only good if you use good checks. KIU didn't do that.
-Players could have more than 5 stocks to viable effect if weapon modifiers weren't so cost-effective it's ridiculous.
-So if Sonic was able to 1HK or even 2HK Ganondorf, Ganondorf just needs to git gud. Gotcha.
-Equipment in Smash 4 is still OP regardless. And this despite it being weaker than KIU's weapon modifiers. Even if it wasn't, why should the player need to go through a counterintuitive system to get what they could possibly want?
-KIU needing weapon modifiers to set it apart is absolutely bogus. How about the people who could simply want to work with the core physics simple as that? Those people play by heart. Reward that so that doing so doesn't suck.

 

[LancerStaff]

I need to make some quick responses.
-The game used division defense. Which is only good if you use good checks. KIU didn't do that.
-Players could have more than 5 stocks to viable effect if weapon modifiers weren't so cost-effective it's ridiculous.
-So if Sonic was able to 1HK or even 2HK Ganondorf, Ganondorf just needs to git gud. Gotcha.
-Equipment in Smash 4 is still OP regardless. And this despite it being weaker than KIU's weapon modifiers. Even if it wasn't, why should the player need to go through a counterintuitive system to get what they could possibly want?
-KIU needing weapon modifiers to set it apart is absolutely bogus. How about the people who could simply want to work with the core physics simple as that? Those people play by heart. Reward that so that doing so doesn't suck.

Please MKDH, I know you're not supportive of the game as a whole but I wasn't trying to derail the thread. We're not even talking about Smash anymore...

 

[Master Knight DH]

I'll wait for somebody else to respond. In the meantime, tell me saying KIU balances itself out when Evasion+ exists and punishes players with instant losses just for having a low mobility or melee-oriented weapon doesn't just fall flat on its face.

Oh, and by the way, I love how two people brag about having "beaten" me in an LvD where BOTH of my teammates were AI garbage, while packing min-maxed stupidity with Evasion+ included, and then claiming that I had merely left myself open by using Super Armor and Counter to wall any melee rushes coincidentally right after the melee guy had just used Super Armor and Lightweight. Yes, I totally left myself open, folks. Oh, and I also love how they call me a coward for not sticking around for multiple matches to deal with the Evasion+ stupidity I clearly would have seen.

--

Meanwhile, as to equipment, here's another problem with it and KIU's weapon modifiers: cheat devices. There's no way to prove something was legitimately obtained, and that's assuming you want to prove that anyway. I was thinking about it because I realized that you could literally fit Evasion+, Shot DEF+, AND Shot Range+, all capped all onto the same weapon, and a cheat device would allow for so many stars even before a negative modifier like In-Peril Attack Boost(-). Nothing could prove that a near-340V weapon with that sort of thing wasn't given by luck. Even getting past that issue, there's still the matter of enforcement. And as said before, that creates complex banning.

Equipment would just have the same problem, needless to say.

 

[SpandexBullets]

If you're just posting to say "not ever, obviously people would want to implement invinciblity and +199 speed, stupid equipment is not viable"...do not post. That is counter-productive and you smell bad.

If anyone's intruiged by the 'Anchor Jump' equipment, which mulitplies your fall speed by x1.4, do not bother.
Sorry, I got it, and it just implements heavy gravity on you - including the jump nerf, the fact that aerials cause you to fall instantly (making it incredibly difficult to follow-up with aerials), and that your launch trajectory will 'bend' with you still in hitstun, similar in effect to Melee's hitsun and low-launching combo starters.
I tried making it work with equipment that increases your jump to meet the nerf...but your short-hop increases to almost full hop height. If it can be used, it'll be a super specific set, and increasing speed to restore jump height adds too many complications that can't be sorted in a single set.

Sakurai pls.

 

[SpandexBullets]

Although I do like the equipment that influences airspeed and double jump height - Jigglypuff, Ganondorf and Kirby got that PM airspeed going with 'Pro Glider', fairly easy to get.
Pit, Dark Pit, Meta Knight have a much better juggle-game and recovery with 'Mid-Air Springer'...

aaaaand another thing; Moon Launcher increases damage AS WELL AS launch power, despite only detailing launch power.
• Fox Up Smash; 16 > 22

Sakurai whY

 

[Purin a.k.a. José]

Some are quite OP, but they can be banned! On the other hand, every one of them can change the stats of the characters.

 

[ぱみゅ]

Okay, I'll summarize my thoughts again:
-Stats changes are okay.
-Side effects are not.
-If we enforce the banning of some side effects, then it's an unfair, arbitrary distinction.
-We could ban all side effects altogether to avoid any sort of brokenness.
-Whatever the case, setting characters up would be a logistics nightmare, and as TO, I know that's a HUGE disadvantage for Equipment as a whole.

I don't really care about the KI:U discussion as it goes to a tangent I really don't want to go to.

 

[Thor]

You could certainly hold a tournament where equipment is allowed, but otherwise uses a standard ruleset. If the rules are agreed upon by all, then seeing who is the best with equipment is a competition and hence competitive.

However, it would either be strictly bring-your-own-equipment, which is not well-liked because some people do not have a way to bring their equipment [3DS or a Wii U to transfer to a common setup], or it would have to be using a single setup, which is awkward because it means that a different setup might produce different results.

But if you wish to compete over who can win a tournament with the customs they bring or the customs on only one setup, a competition could certainly be had. However, these competition conditions are not enjoyed by many, which is why these events don't happen.

 

[SpandexBullets]

Okay, I'll summarize my thoughts again:
-Stats changes are okay.
-Side effects are not.
-If we enforce the banning of some side effects, then it's an unfair, arbitrary distinction.
-We could ban all side effects altogether to avoid any sort of brokenness.
-Whatever the case, setting characters up would be a logistics nightmare, and as TO, I know that's a HUGE disadvantage for Equipment as a whole.

I don't really care about the KI:U discussion as it goes to a tangent I really don't want to go to.

• Some side effects only affect small things like airspeed, jump height, fall speed etc.
• We can start a discussion within this thread for anyone who wants to do a couple of online matches.
• Ask who's entering
• Ask them to show you their sets
• Check that it's not op
• This'll probably be only online anyway, halves the time consumption if someone else has the equipment needed.

 

[Malex]

I had an equipment study going on before work + school was too much and I stopped.
Perhaps I will begin studying them again over the summer.

In any case, the major problem with customs is the randomness in acquiring them.

Let's say that the best set up for a particular character is a +++ set up. You have a +30/+30/+30 set up. While someone else, through their good fortune, is able to reach a +50/+50/+50 set up. You literally have a worse character than some one else at no fault of your own.

People then think that large stat adjustments are too crazy and want to put a hard cap on them. The game already puts diminishing returns on stats, the more have of something, the less value the next increase will get you. The fact is, it is already difficult for equipment because of the randomness. If you now add restrictions to them, you've decreased the number of viable equipment load outs, and have made it harder.

Also, people are butthurt because of special effect and want to limit them, because spawning 1 item is game breaking good or healing or w/e. Same thing about limiting equipment as above, it only hurts equipment.



So, from my previous discussions on equipment:

1. There is little to no evidence that equipment play is broken.

2. There is no reason to limit the total stat adjustment. The game puts a diminishing return on your stats.

3. There is no reason to limit special effects. While spawning with an item may sound pretty good, I think most people will be going for different effects. If you want to play with equipment, I highly suggest embracing these as the main difference between standard play, not as something that should be banned. However, if people are truly butthurt about them, it offers a discrete, enforceable ban. And is the only realistic limitation that can be placed.



The final nail (and only nail really) in the coffin for equipment, however, is the random way it is acquired. Which, at the launch of the game, offered too much variability and people did not like it. Maybe may have gotten over it by now.

 

[SpandexBullets]

I'm looking at exclusively using side effects and very, very precise and deliberate stat buffs/nerfs.
Such as generally buffing Shiek for kill power and nerf connecting combos.
Or making MK's aerials more deadly with air scrapper and mid-air springer to further his recovery.

I tried stat buffs for a while, but this was by far a more interesting route to take.

 

[Malex]

My previous post is from my memory of the last discussions I had of equipment. However, I was clicking around and found a very thorough post by @Thinkaman of why equipment won't work, and I agree with it.

Spoiler

There are a multitude of problem, any of which is a show-stopper single-handedly.


It's flat out logistically impossible.

You make a MK with -49/+50/+14, Air Defender, and Glider? Great. How do you plan to put that on every console at a tourney? Not only would it take a prohibitive amount of time, but what equipment each setup has on it is random. You literally can't do it. (Contrast with custom moves, where everyone uses the same sets and making them takes seconds, not minutes.)

Not without a 3DS, which has its own issues for this. Using a 3DS for this purpose still takes tons of logistical tourney time, and also forces every player to have a 3DS and grind equipment in that version. (Unlike using a 3DS for custom moves, which is a one-and-done deal that only requires one handheld at an entire event)


Extreme variations in Attack and Defense cause match length to be hyper volatile.

The natural match time for a 3-stock game between 2 attack-maxed Little Macs or Ganondorfs could be around 30 seconds. It's basically 2-3 hits per stock.

The natural match time for a 3-stock game between 2 Defensive-focused Mega Mans or Villagers is probably going to be around 20-25 minutes.

To say nothing of Sonic, which brings us to...


Extreme variations in Speed effects stalling in many matchups.

The size and movement physics parameters of the characters are carefully calibrated such that, on stages suitable for 1v1, no character can avoid their opponent indefinitely. Stalling potential is limited and incurs risk. Even Ganondorf can corner Sonic--on every 1v1 stage.

Shattering this carefully constructed equilibrium with speed mods changes this. A sufficiently fast Sonic, Falcon, and Palutena can run away from several default-stat slow characters easily and indefinitely, even on FD.

You will also see things break down in this way if you try other things that mess with these factors such as Tiny Smash.


Extreme variations in equipment stats are impractical to train against.

It's daunting to have to train against 51 possible opponents. Custom moves further complicate things, but it's still reasonable. For example, custom moves on an opponent doesn't change how your moves hit or combo them.

But when you add variations to how hard moves hit, that is out the window. Your combo-%s and move behaviors are going to be radically difference based on the combination of attack and defense stats.

Speed adjustments are even worse; this changes the rules on what is punishable, what punishment options are available, and even what aerials auto-cancel or not. The entire game becomes less predictable and more unsafe. (More defensive.)


Many of the equipment effects are competitively degenerate.
Stalling: (heavily encourages or enables staling, or dramatically mitigates/skews possible harassment)

• All-around Trade-off
  
• Auto-Healer
• Countdown (sort of)
• Crouch Healer
  
• Nimble Dodger
  
• Perfect-Shield Helper
  
• Shield Exploder (especially with Perfect Shield Helper)
  
• Shield Healer
  
• Shield Reflector
  
• Shield Regenerator
  
• Vampire

Luck-based:

• Critical Hitter
  
• Shield Healer (iirc?)
  
• Vampire

Overpowered or Centralizing:

• Critical Hitter
• Desperate Attacker
  
• Desperate Immortal
  
• Desperate Speedster
  
• Home-Run Bat
  
• No-Flinch Smasher
  
• Picky Eater
  
• Quick Batter (w/ HRB)
  
• Vampire

Polarizing: (Affects certain matchups more than others excessively, degenerating things into rock-paper-scissors and requiring players to use a different equipment set for every matchup)

• Air Attacker
• Air Defender (best example: I would run this on every character in the game against Jigglypuff)
• Air Pinata
• Air Pushover
• All-around Trade-off
• Anchor Jump
• Antiglide
• Antileap
• Bob-omb (counters trade-off abilities)
• Double-Jump Boost
  
• Double-Jump Drag
  
• Escape Artist
  
• First Striker
  
• Glider
• Gluey Edge
• Hi-Jump
• Insult to Injury
  
• Item Hurler
  
• Item Lobber
  
• Item Pitcher
  
• Leaper
  
• Lo-Jump
  
• Meteor Master
  
• Moon Launcher
• No-Flinch Smasher
  
• Shield Exploder
• Shield Healer
• Shield Reflector
• Speed Skater
• Sprinter
• Thistle Jump
• Trade-off Attacker
• Trade-off Defender
• Trade-off Speedster
• Vampire

Irrelevant: (Essentially not applicable to competitive 1v1 play)

• Caloric Attacker
  
• Caloric Defender
  
• Caloric Immortal
  
• Caloric Powerhouse
  
• Caloric Speedster
• Countdown (sort of)
• Double Final Smasher
  
• Final Smash Healer
  
• Food Lover
  
• Item Shooter
  
• Pity Final Smasher
  
• Smash Ball Attractor
  
• Smash Ball Clinger
• Sudden Death Gambler
  
• Super Final Smasher

This is a huge % of the effects, much more than half. And of those that remain, the ones we COULD use, they tend to make this carefully-tuned game worse, not better; examples:

• Various Items (like Ray Gun)
• Unharmed [X]
• Safe Respawner
• Hyper Smasher
• Smooth Lander
• Speed Crasher

In conclusion, there are a dozen reasons why equipment is ill-suited to a competitive environment.

Take your pick!

 

[SpandexBullets]

My previous post is from my memory of the last discussions I had of equipment. However, I was clicking around and found a very thorough post by @Thinkaman of why equipment won't work, and I agree with it.

Yeah, WE KNOW.
I can't believe you and 99 other people decided to post with the notion that players would use anything past the "polarising" set. (I've tested them all, btw, and they're far from polarising.)

And, fyi, the metaknight I was refering to is +1/0/0, completely balanced. Once you've played the other modes a while, you build up an amount of equipment that's good for balancing out the traits you desire.

As with the equipment nature of equipment, it's true that local tournaments around the country would be impossible to do, but online is different.

It is RNG based, we acknowledge that, but at the very least it's not totally random in value. Equipment you want with a low point value can be attained with low level play/amiibo/crazy orders, and high stat level equipment follows that rather simple pattern.
It's difficult, but with that logic, pokemon is a logistics nightmare. It is totally possible to get those traits you desire, and we can narrow down what traits are useful and desireable for certain characters using this thread.
It's ab unbelievable grind, but I believe it's worth it.

 

[Gatoray]

Ok, now that I'm on an actual computer I can elaborate on my previous post. I haven't read the current conversation in this thread so I apologize if I'm out of the loop at all.

First of all, equipment will never be viable for in-person tournaments, unless players are playing on 3DS or are able to upload their custom sets to a Wii U. This is because almost all equipment is completely randomly dropped. Each player must be able to provide their own equipment that they have obtained.

Second of all, if you're going to do an equipment tournament, there is no way a TO would be able to enforce certain custom equipment from being banned. That's too much baby-sitting from the TO and too much hassle. If equipment is on, just give everything the greenlight. If 1 specific build seems overpowered and everyone is flocking to it, then equipment tournaments may not be a good idea, but no one has tried equipment tournaments so we don't even know if that's the case right now.

If I were to ever host an online equipment tournament, I would have each player register 4-6 sets that they will be using in the tournament during the sign-up process. I would make a spreadsheet out of this information and release it to the public so that any player can reference the sheet to see what they're up against. This should encourage players to diversify their loadouts and character selections to be able to counterpick builds effectively. Also, if you do decide to ban certain sets or stats etc, this spreadsheet would be a good way to allow players to do their own reporting system. If a player decides to use a set that they aren't registered for, their opponent might notice this and can record replay evidence and send it to the TO for them to be disqualified.

All in all, I think equipment has potential that people are (for lack of a better term) scared of. They don't want to deal with the semantics and the hassle of trying to ban OP sets and limit stat boosts etc. Honestly, equipment is in the game, and it's cool, so why not just release the dogs and make it anything goes? The worst that can happen is that a few sets will be completely OP and if you don't have that set you can't compete, in which case I will retract my statement about equipment being competitively viable, but until then I stand by my word.

One more note: if you're going to do an equipment tournament, throw all try-hardness out the window and just have fun with it. It's like playing with items, except not as random. Make the prizes for equipment tournaments trivial, don't try to be serious.

 

[Pippin (Peregrin Took)]

I've been experimenting with different equipment boosts and effects ever since mii sharing hit and it's been interesting curious as to how much of a boost does a stat need before the change is more visible.

Some thoughts we might want to consider are capping stat boosts at a certain amount if +200 is too insane, and I agree that certain general bans need to be in place, like auto-healer/home run bat for instance. Unless I'm missing something though, if we're playing without items, which seems to go without question, the item won't spawn even with the equipment on, so that should save us some trouble too.

Lastly, I wanted to direct y'all's attention to the smooth lander/heavy gravity thread since they're really the first to start experimenting with equipment on a major level. I know it's not exactly what the op was looking for since everybody has the same stat boosts, but it's a step in the right direction I think

 

[stancosmos]

The only reason this can never be feasible in larger tournaments is simply logistics. For 1 it takes forever to unlock enough custom moves, and secondly every time you get a custom piece of equipment it has random pluses and minuses. So you'll almost never get the same loadout every match unless you're playing on the same system. In order for it to ever be possible, there would have to be a way for people to unlock 100 or so of the exact same custom equipment pieces, which right now is next to impossible. Personally i'm at 500+ hours in smash and i doubt i even have a small percentage of the total possible equipment pieces.

 

[ぱみゅ]

The "Total possible equipment pieces" is infinite, so it's literally unattainable.

The only way it would work is if people were to have their sets and have them uploaded to the tournament setup. That means, they should bring their own 3DS (or someone's with the set). They would also need not to create any new one or modify the existing sets during the event to save time. And even them having a set transferred every time sums up for a lot of time consumed.

 

[Malex]

The following is for non-special effect equipment.

Badge = 0 - 21
Super Badge = 22 - 40
Rare Badges = 41 - 60

Note: For the purpose of this post "Clothes" refers to non-badge equipment

Clothes:
Tier 1 = 1 - 30
Tier 2 = 31 - 60
Tier 3 = 61 - 90

Weights: + Stat / - Stat

Badges = 1.48 - 2.05
Clothes = 1.43 - 2.05

• Extreme cases:
  • All-in-one stat
    • Best Case scenario = +200 stat / - 98 stat
      • 2x +67/-33, 1x +66/-32
    • Worst Case scenario = +200 stat / -140 stat
      • 2x +67/-47, 1x 66/-46
  • Balanced stat build using 3x tier 3 clothes
    • Best Case scenario = +46/+46+46
      • 3x +90/-44
    • Worst case scenario = +18/+18/+18
      • 3x +61/-43

Spoiler: A formula I devised to predict the effect of attack stat on % damage

-0.1027x^3+0.1539x^2+0.5608x+1

Note: I never found any evidence that attacks degrade past -100, so All-in-one stats variation is extremely small. My model is a little inaccurate on the extremes, but the difference is probably less than 0.01% So, we can ignore the All-in-one build variation, if you can hit max in a score, you will perform the same as anyone else with an all-in-one build.



The average tier 3 clothes from my data set looks like this.
+69/-40 (1.65 weight)

Worst tier 3: +61/-43
Average tier 3: +69/-40
Best tier 3:+90/-44

Worst: +18/+18/+18
Average:+29/+29/+29
Best: +46/+46/+46

Worst: 1.105x
Average: 1.173x
Best: 1.281x

Spoiler: probability nonsense

However, I must note that the "Best" and "Worst" case scenarios are extremely unlikely.

25 possible attack clothes x 3 levels = 75
21 possible defense clothes x 3 levels = 63
12 possible speed clothes x 3 levels = 36
Assuming these are all equally likely, you need 3 (one of each type) and each specific piece has a probability of 1/174. Factor in that about half of equipment receives a special effect (1/2). Now, to get the exact best tier 3 piece we need a +90. (1/30), and a - 44 (1/20).

1/174 * 1/2 * 1/30 * 1/20 = 1/208,800

Probability of obtaining best piece of equipment per trial = 1:208800

Number of trials required to obtain a 1% chance = 2098
Number of trials required to obtain a 50% chance = 144728
Number of trials required to obtain a 75% chance = 289457
Number of trials required to obtain a 90% chance = 480778
Number of trials required to obtain a 95% chance = 625507

Obtaining the "best" pieces are extremely unlikely. I personally believe that given how equipment works, that +++ builds will be the best, especially when you cannot predict what the opponent's equipment will be.

A stat budget is just the overall plus to stats that a piece of equipment gives you. (So the best theoretical piece is +46, like above)

Based on the distribution of the stat weights, I don't find it unreasonable for a particular player to have +20/+20/+20 easily, which is already better than the worst possible tier 3 set up. The highest amount of variability comes from balanced stat builds, because of diminishing returns on stats. Considering the "average" expectation for any player is already "pretty good", I don't necessarily think that the equipment availability is really the issue.


Now, what are we REALLY going to see if we allow equipment? Assuming you even solve logistics issues (or you want to run an online tournament), what stat builds are we going to see? Well, unfortunately, there are problems. I don't think we'll see varied builds in tournaments. This is due to diminishing returns on stats.

Increasing your stats is pretty good from 0-50, but after that you get less value from your stat. So, I don't necessarily believe we'll see +-0 Little Macs or 0+- Ganondorfs, I think the best set up for almost every character is going to be +++. Not only from a min/maxing standpoint for maximum returns for stat allocation, but also because it means you have a better chance against any type of opponent you are up against, because you are overall better.

So, the real question is equipment play where most characters are entering with +++ equipment going to offer anything more than standard play, and I'm not sure if that's the case.

If you want to let specials in, that's a whole different ball game that I haven't looked at data for yet. But as far as regular equipment goes, I don't think any regulation is necessary.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

How do you make some people ensure their equipment is legit and not the hacked/cheated ones where people have +200 in all stats?

 

[Malex]

Well, if you were inspecting equipment, I would just look for equipment that were outside expected bounds. (Anything with a higher than +90, anything with a negative stat less half of the positive, etc.)

But as far as actual solutions go, I have none. You can't inspect every equipment load out.Even if you did find a realistic solution, hacked equipment can just change the stats to the optimum stats instead of illegal stats, giving them a major statistical advantage over the average competitor.

 

[Ian Viola]

There's also an equipment editor out"

What? When? Where? Who?

 

[Master Knight DH]

Here's the actual equipment part of the damage formula:
(Rest of the stuff) * (1000 + 8a + 6b + 3c) / 1000
a is a range of 0 to 50 based on how much of the total equipment boosts provide the first 50 points.
b is the same but based on the second 50 points
c uses a range of 0 to 100 based on points from 100 to 200
I don't have pure attack reduction calculated.

If you don't understand, here are the benchmarks:
+0 ATK - 1.0x
+50 ATK - 1.4x
+100 ATK - 1.7x
+200 ATK - 2.0x

It's consistently linear between the benchmarks too; I even tested with +25 ATK and saw 1.2x damage result. This was from applying Keep It Simple Sir with the experiments. I find attacks that don't have decimal, deal 512% base (since float would get involved), and compare notes.

Oh, and if you're wondering, no, equipment has no effect on knockback beyond the game already using the new percentages. And this includes the sort of extra knockback for simple extra damage that you can see checking out Ness's baseball bat. I also believe that extra ATK increases hitlag/hitstun instead.

I don't think equipment deserves that much of a chance though.