Events surrounding the melee vs brawl hate

[Pyra]

And how, exactly, would switching to believe "we do not matter" fix everything?

I didn't realize I was implying that ;u;

 

[Banjodorf]

Look! Overswarm and Buzz are back! Haven't seen those guys in years!

...and one of them is fueling a Melee vs. Brawl debate when that wasn't the purpose of the thread. For shame.

Schisms in a community that prided itself on cohesiveness are not good no matter what way you slice it. Like it or not, as Smash grows, more players grow interested in the competitive aspects of the game (assuming they come here) Sone can't compete on the same level, but that doesn't mean their input is invalid. It also means that we as a community need to be fluid, and able to change ourselves with the times.

From Buzz's post, all I can read is post-Brawl venom. Is that the kind of community we want to appear to be to new people joining?

Sakurai himself admitted Brawl was directed at a casual audience while Melee was the opposite. The new game will be somewhere in between. Why can't we accept the two games as they are, and move forward?

 

[Chauzu]

I loved every game in its time. I probably won't be playing much Brawl when Smash 4 comes out. Every game has its time.

That said, I have no problem with people preffering the older games. Whatever suits you.

 

[Overswarm]

And how, exactly, would switching to believe "we do not matter" fix everything?

It'd solve a lot of PR problems both from outside and within the community, for one.

 

[Puca Readabook]

i always thought the objective of any Smash game was to win... right?
Assuming that a competitive player will always beat a casual player...the casual player's insight on how to ineffectively play the game shouldn't even hold validity IMO,
But unfortunately, even casual players are effective at shelling out money to Nintendo, and of course money is the most important thing in this world and you need not worry about anything else

Also i don't like the terms competitive and casual, how bout Pro/Scrub and Good/Bad? Because to some degree casuals ARE being competitive, they're just garbage and don't dedicate adequate time to become proficient players.
Casuals need to learn how to respect their competitive Sensei counterparts.....

 

[Puca Readabook]

oh and Brawl sucks because its not exactly like melee.

 

[SmashShadow]

HEY LOOK, A TURTLE!

 

[psyniac_123]

i always thought the objective of any Smash game was to win... right?
Assuming that a competitive player will always beat a casual player...the casual player's insight on how to ineffectively play the game shouldn't even hold validity IMO,
But unfortunately, even casual players are effective at shelling out money to Nintendo, and of course money is the most important thing in this world and you need not worry about anything else

Also i don't like the terms competitive and casual, how bout Pro/Scrub and Good/Bad? Because to some degree casuals ARE being competitive, they're just garbage and don't dedicate adequate time to become proficient players.
Casuals need to learn how to respect their competitive Sensei counterparts.....

You almost trolled the pants off me. Well played, sir.

 

[TheBuzzSaw]

From Buzz's post, all I can read is post-Brawl venom. Is that the kind of community we want to appear to be to new people joining?

You do realize that Brawl was so bad that fans took it upon themselves to take the game, break it down, reprogram it, and form an entirely new game, right? I should probably mention that this happened over the course of multiple iterations too. Personally, I don't like Project M, but it just cracks me up that it even exists. Also, tripping.

 

[Frostwraith]

Brawl wasn't a bad game. It was just aimed at an entirely different target. Just because a game doesn't suit your tastes, it doesn't necessarily mean it's bad by itself.

Sakurai has said recently he hadn't competitive players in mind when he made Brawl, but beginner players. With the new Smash, Sakurai will aim to all kind of players by offering a mid-term between Melee and Brawl.

Those are the facts.

 

[Banjodorf]

You do realize that Brawl was so bad that fans took it upon themselves to take the game, break it down, reprogram it, and form an entirely new game, right? I should probably mention that this happened over the course of multiple iterations too. Personally, I don't like Project M, but it just cracks me up that it even exists. Also, tripping.

Yes, I realize that and I personally LOVE Project M and the amount of work the PMBR puts into it. However, the incredibly subjective quality of Brawl is not the issue at hand. Tripping has, since he's taking it out of Smash 4, been viewed as a mistake by Sakurai.

My point is that the attitude being given off here scares away players who want to join a Smash community because its a Smash community. It's fine that players aren't happy with a game, as I eventually wasn't, and want to make it better suit their needs.

What isn't OK is pinning down players that don't feel that way. I'm sure you wont disagree that just shrinking down the community to Melee-only Smashers and not trying to encourage synergy is a bad idea. Especially with a new game and new players joining all the time.

 

[IsmaR]

You do realize that Brawl was so bad that fans took it upon themselves to take the game, break it down, reprogram it, and form an entirely new game, right? I should probably mention that this happened over the course of multiple iterations too. Personally, I don't like Project M, but it just cracks me up that it even exists. Also, tripping.

That says infinitely more about the community than it does about either game.

Also hi Buzz.

 

[Mr.C]

^The average reaction of people when they learn about this strange concept that is 'competitive Smash'.

I wonder why? It's almost like the majority of the casual Smash and wannabe-competitor community advocate the watering-down of game play instead of advocating a game that requires practice, dedication, and intense technical prowess to play effectively. Smash shouldn't be respected as a competitive e-sport because the majority of the people playing the game shouldn't be respected as competitive players.

 

[Puca Readabook]

Maybe if Pros didn't **** so hard the scrubs wouldn't be so butthurt =/

 

[Pyra]

Maybe if Pros didn't **** so hard the scrubs wouldn't be so butthurt =/

Anyway, I figure I'd like the game to be more of a "Easy to pick up and play for fun, but difficult to master and be pro at it" game like Pokemon.

But who am I to shove my opinions down your throats? You guys are already doing it to each other anyway.

 

[_R@bid_]

People just need to respect that other people have different tastes and ways of playing, and that just because I like to play Melee with no items, and you might like to play Brawl FFAs with items, we don't have to say the other person is wrong. Plenty of casuals are jerks and want to water down the game so no one can be better than them, and plenty of competitive players are jerks that want to screw over casuals with the new game. Since Sakurai's trying to reconcile these two halves, why can't we, too? Lets stop the arguing about who precisely was in the wrong or the right, and just say we're all in the wrong.

 

[SmashChu]

I first want to say that Overswarp made some amazing points. Considering the difference between player focused and spectator focus is a start to understanding some of the dislike for competitive Smash.

You're right... if you don't care about winning.

Depends on the rules. Lack of knowledge with items really killed players at EVO 08. If I ran a 4vs tournamnt with all items on and most of the stages, knowledge of competitive Smash wouldn't help you very much.

And how, exactly, would switching to believe "we do not matter" fix everything?

He means switching to player focused. Sports are for spectators. Competitive Smash is for the players. The spectators are players who also play. There is no one outside of that. I remember going to MLG and finding out some Starcraft 2 fans don't play the game. If competitive Smash is to grow, it has to be for fans and behave that way. Right now, it doesn't do that. It behaves for the players. A growing competitive Smash would need to be focused on being more entertaining which may mean thinking about things a little differently.

 

[_R@bid_]

I don't think forcefully making competitive smash more entertaining to watch will really help much. People who use more "boring" characters and play styles will just get disgruntled and likely split off themselves, dividing the community more. And boring is pretty subjective- even with his combos and pressure and speed, I find Melee Fox the most boring and annoying thing ever.

 

[Puca Readabook]

Anyway, I figure I'd like the game to be more of a "Easy to pick up and play for fun, but difficult to master and be pro at it" game like Melee.

I totally agree, but ya know....anything that's influenced by brawl is going to comparable to dumpster guts.

And who needs opinions when the facts are laid out in front of you?

 

[Eternal phoenix Fire]

 

[Pyra]

"Why can't we be friends" - War

I knew what this video was going to be before you edited it because I was going to post the same thing.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

You know. It's arguments and venom like this that makes me regret being competitive.

 

[Puca Readabook]

Its not our fault that brawl sucks

 

[Eternal phoenix Fire]

Its not our fault that brawl sucks

Dude...please be quiet, you aren't helping the situation.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

Its not our fault that brawl sucks

It is your fault that you're dumb though.

Seriously. Stop trolling. There are a lot of scars when it comes to this topic. Trolling here will bring an all out war.

 

[Puca Readabook]

Dude...please be quiet, you aren't helping the situation.

 

[Overswarm]

I first want to say that Overswarm made some amazing points. Considering the difference between player focused and spectator focus is a start to understanding some of the dislike for competitive Smash.


Depends on the rules. Lack of knowledge with items really killed players at EVO 08. If I ran a 4vs tournamnt with all items on and most of the stages, knowledge of competitive Smash wouldn't help you very much.

To an extent that is true; EVO 08 had no notable players that I remember. Ken was there, but he was washed up by that point and had no experience with Brawl. We have run item tournaments (and item FFA tournaments!) and found that the placements are both consistent (meaning you could actually run item and FFA tournaments competitively) and very similar to non-item/FFA tournaments. There were some changes, such as characters such as Sonic or ROB doing much better with items than without, but ultimately the game and placement remained constant.

He means switching to player focused. Sports are for spectators. Competitive Smash is for the players. The spectators are players who also play. There is no one outside of that. I remember going to MLG and finding out some Starcraft 2 fans don't play the game. If competitive Smash is to grow, it has to be for fans and behave that way. Right now, it doesn't do that. It behaves for the players. A growing competitive Smash would need to be focused on being more entertaining which may mean thinking about things a little differently.

It depends. Fighting games will never be popular, ever. Capcom and developers like capcom have made sure of this by taking what was THE competitive enterprise in video games and drilling down further and further into what they consider a "competitive" game to be. This alienates the majority of players to the point where people don't want to watch games they want to watch highlights.

Ask people at smash tournaments "did you ever see that one video where Chun Li did her super against that Ken player in white and he parried them all and then killed her with his super after?". You'll get a bunch of "yep" responses from people that might not know the game (other than "street fighter"), probably won't know what tournament it was from, and might not even know the names of both players.

Those same people probably never played 3rd Strike competitively because it doesn't appeal to most people.

Smash brothers has made huge strides in this, but we've got the same knuckle draggers in our community. Luckily Sakurai takes a balanced approach with how he designs games and has an overall vision that he tries to make work for everyone. He goofs up sometimes, but even when he does he's not far off the mark.

Tripping, for example. Horrible thing that we all hate. 1 in 100 chance of losing a match when you dash. Just awful. It's also hilarious and fun and exciting. Go play smash with some randoms and watch what happens when someone trips. WE get angry. Most people go "oh ****!" and laugh because it's just another "thing". Sakurai knew what he was doing when he added that. People like to be "winning" and tripping creates an automatic "you're winning" situation for the opponent. Gives 'em a rush, makes the bad player feel like they're winning for a second. That's a good feeling.

And all the steps Sakurai has made have been incredibly successful. They have increased the amount of people playing Smash by a huge factor.

To give you an idea of how much more popular Smash is than other fighting games, remember Street Fighter IV? It sold a whopping 3 million copies. That sounds like a lot until you realize it's competing with Smash 64. Melee beats it by 4 million and Brawl by 8 million! That's why you see things like "SF IV arcade edition" and "Super Street Fighter II Ultimate Tournament Arcade It also bakes pies HD Remix and Rearrangement" junk released. It's because the people that bought SF IV are the same ones that buy the next one. With diminishing results.

"SUPER Street Fighter IV" came out in 2010, two years after SF IV. 1.8 million copies sold. About 2/3rds or 1/2 depending on how pessimistic you are.

Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition then. 400,000 sold.

3DS? 1.1 million.

This is how you know Sakurai knows what he's doing. If you round up, SF IV in all its iterations has sold 6.5 million copies. 500k less than Melee from the gamecube era.


So we have two options as a competitive community.

One is to try to make it a spectator sport. Stream it, get commentators, have online events where people who aren't physically there can be a part of the show, etc., etc. This is being tried, but it's hard. For one, it's nearly impossible when you have a group actively trying to sabotage the community from within. If you've got a group constantly complaining that a version of smash is a bad game, it becomes difficult for it to become a popular talking point as it becomes a point of contention.

It's also hard because we don't have "heavy hitters" in smash that can feasibly be beaten by any number of players. We generally have one guy per region who is "the best". Occasionally a two person rivalry. This makes streaming within your region very hard. On top of this, smashers tend to divide themselves mentally by region. No one watches the west coast play and says "GO (player)!!!" because they like the guy. Occasionally they do when they play their character, but no one has a favorite player like people have favorite sports teams. The closest we get are national events where the region "leaders" end up fighting each other. Regional crew battles are some of the biggest things in our community because of this, although it's fallen out of favor recently because of the whole "everyone feels they know the results already".

aaaaaaand on top of all that absolutely no one is going to say "hey, I'm going to watch this smash brothers tournament" when they aren't a competitive smasher.

The other option is to make it a player sport. This is the typical thing we've done and it's really only changed recently. Personally I feel this is the best choice. Embrace our smallness and all that.


Neither way gets new blood in though. That takes sacrifices.

 

[TheBuzzSaw]

Tripping, for example. Horrible thing that we all hate. 1 in 100 chance of losing a match when you dash. Just awful. It's also hilarious and fun and exciting. Go play smash with some randoms and watch what happens when someone trips. WE get angry. Most people go "oh ****!" and laugh because it's just another "thing". Sakurai knew what he was doing when he added that. People like to be "winning" and tripping creates an automatic "you're winning" situation for the opponent. Gives 'em a rush, makes the bad player feel like they're winning for a second. That's a good feeling.

Mmmmm not really. I've played with my share of "randoms", and not a single one thought it was oh-so-hilarious. Even casual players cannot appreciate being punished for no reason whatsoever.

 

[Banjodorf]

I've gotta say, OS, really made me think of alot of great things we could do to try and get competitive Smash out there. Streaming has done alot for the LoL community (I know, different game, different genre, more MLG-oriented audience) but it still taught me alot about what steaming can accomplish.

@Buzz Funny story about that, I actually know a couple people that'll miss tripping and I spare no expense to tell him and his brother they're stupid. Still though, the Brawl community (which I'm not a part of) needs to stop being stigmatized, no matter how "small" or "casual" they might be, because that kind of **** is killing us. Come on now.

 

[DakotaBonez]

 

[Puca Readabook]

Yeah Nintendo has created a Smash Spectrum versatile to all playstyles

 

[smashbrolink]

You do realize that Brawl was so bad that fans took it upon themselves to take the game, break it down, reprogram it, and form an entirely new game, right? I should probably mention that this happened over the course of multiple iterations too. Personally, I don't like Project M, but it just cracks me up that it even exists. Also, tripping.

Ten bucks says that if the Gamecube were more hackable and people actually put forth the effort, they'd have done much the same to Melee; hacked it till it suited their preference.
Likely by finding and altering all the code that related to high-tier skills like Wave Shining so that it didn't even exist, so that players who played their copy of the game would be forced to do more than rely on high-end techs to win.
They didn't hack Brawl because it was horrible. They hacked it because they couldn't learn to love Brawl for what it was. They felt uncomfortable with the changes and wanted the familiarity.
In essence, they wanted Melee 2.0.
That's what it all stemmed from; a bunch of people wanted Melee 2.0, didn't get it out of Brawl, and hacked their Wii's to get what they wanted. Nothing more and nothing less.

 

[Jack Kieser]

So, I remember the Great War very clearly, because I was frustrated the entire time. I started playing competitive Smash back on Melee, probably in '03 or '04, even though I didn't know it. A friend and I were always fighting, back and forth, him maining Falco and me maining Link. But, neither of us knew about the scene or SWF. When I went off to college in '06, I met a group of competitive players and started playing with them. It was fun, yeah, but I wasn't as happy with them as with my friend because I was always belittled with the new guys.

"Why are you playing Link?" "Why aren't you wavedashing?" "Why not learn to SHFFL?" And the one that pissed me off the most, "Why aren't you playing someone better?" Here I am, taking stocks off every game, winning about 1 in 4 or 5, and yet I got so much **** just for my main, much less my inability to do stuff like WD'ing and SHFFL'ing (and it is an inability; especially in the case of SHFFL'ing, my fingers aren't physically capable of moving that fast). I loved playing Melee competitively, loved it more than anything, but at least my old friend didn't judge me. The community (through these guys) did. It wasn't pleasant, even if I was still at least having fun.

When Brawl came out, I was very active here. I loved it. The pacing was better, more manageable, for me. I mained Link, so a slower, more defensive game was right up my alley. Sak took out some of the AT's that barred me from getting better at the game. I picked up Lucario, TL, and Link and did great. I loved Brawl in the beginning. But, the hatred... so much hate.

It started with D3. The damn chain grabs got everyone salty. Then, Snake was broken. Then, the stage list started to dwindle, first due to D3 infinites, then due to preference. The game was being gutted left and right, and sometimes there was a good reason, but a lot of times (much more than I was comfortable with) the justification was a very elegantly worded and lengthily espoused version of "it's not like Melee was". The Melee players started getting hateful, trashing Brawl as inferior, not simply different. Around this time, the influx of new players from Brawl's release was reaching a height. All of those players were in the same position I found myself in during '06. They already were forced, in a way, to abandon much of how they liked to play to be competitive: restricted stages, no items, all that stuff. But, even when they acquiesced to how the proto-BBR tried to run things, half of the community **** on them just for playing Brawl. These players were trying to fit in and enjoy themselves while competing, and 50% of us just trashed them for it. For having a preference.

I started ISP (then by a different name) on a bet from one of those Melee players that it would never work because people didn't want to play that way. Honestly, I was prideful and wanted to prove him wrong, sure, but a big part of it was because I knew what it felt like being those new players. I knew some of them, even if it was just .00001%, would have appreciated it, and I wanted to make a place on the boards that I felt would foster a mindset where preference was ok. I don't know if it worked out like that. I'd like to think it did.

What OS says rings true to me. So much of Brawl's early problems stemmed from the Melee community, the old guard, thinking too much of themselves. With a new game, OF COURSE there would have been changes. Systemic, yes, but cultural, too. 90% of the new members at the time had never read a word of Sirlin, didn't even know what scrub meant outside of the context of the one horrible pop song. Those people shoved their desires for what they wanted Brawl to be down the throats of every player on SWF and belittled anyone who dared to say otherwise. Yes, the new players did instigate, too. The "Fox only, no items, FD" meme didn't help. Both sides had a part to play.

But, Brawl probably would have gone so much better if those older players had a little humility and openness to change. There probably would have been many more events with both Melee and Brawl early on if some people didn't **** all over one of the games. If players wanted to play a slower, floatier game, so be it. We'd make it work (and I think did).

AA made a great post on here about the community needing to change before SSB4 comes out, and he beat me to the punch, but he's right. Sometimes, we suck. We're stubborn, we can be ***** to each other, and thanks to EVO and SRK, we have an inferiority complex and feel like we have something to prove. We can't just be a good fighter, we have to be an amazing one that no one can doubt has competitive value. We can't just have a healthy metagame, we have to have one carefully crafted for maximum depth. We didn't accept what we were given and hacked apart the community bickering over whether we should move on or stay in the past when the whole argument was a false choice in the first place.

I hope people honestly listen to OS and AA and learn from our past. Buzz, I get what you're saying, but you gotta realize that some of it (and most of how you're saying it) just isn't helpful. It isn't conducive to a healthy community, at least not one that's ok with moving on. Yes, the competitive community matters, in some small way, but it's just that: small. Almost insignificant. And, the more we can keep that in mind, the more humble we'll be. And it's that humility that will serve us the best, not wavedashes or ATs. Because, at the end of the day, a game that has all the depth in the world means nothing if we've scared everyone away from playing it.

 

[smashbrolink]

So, I remember the Great War very clearly, because I was frustrated the entire time. I started playing competitive Smash back on Melee, probably in '03 or '04, even though I didn't know it. A friend and I were always fighting, back and forth, him maining Falco and me maining Link. But, neither of us knew about the scene or SWF. When I went off to college in '06, I met a group of competitive players and started playing with them. It was fun, yeah, but I wasn't as happy with them as with my friend because I was always belittled with the new guys.

"Why are you playing Link?" "Why aren't you wavedashing?" "Why not learn to SHFFL?" And the one that pissed me off the most, "Why aren't you playing someone better?" Here I am, taking stocks off every game, winning about 1 in 4 or 5, and yet I got so much **** just for my main, much less my inability to do stuff like WD'ing and SHFFL'ing (and it is an inability; especially in the case of SHFFL'ing, my fingers aren't physically capable of moving that fast). I loved playing Melee competitively, loved it more than anything, but at least my old friend didn't judge me. The community (through these guys) did. It wasn't pleasant, even if I was still at least having fun.

When Brawl came out, I was very active here. I loved it. The pacing was better, more manageable, for me. I mained Link, so a slower, more defensive game was right up my alley. Sak took out some of the AT's that barred me from getting better at the game. I picked up Lucario, TL, and Link and did great. I loved Brawl in the beginning. But, the hatred... so much hate.

It started with D3. The damn chain grabs got everyone salty. Then, Snake was broken. Then, the stage list started to dwindle, first due to D3 infinites, then due to preference. The game was being gutted left and right, and sometimes there was a good reason, but a lot of times (much more than I was comfortable with) the justification was a very elegantly worded and lengthily espoused version of "it's not like Melee was". The Melee players started getting hateful, trashing Brawl as inferior, not simply different. Around this time, the influx of new players from Brawl's release was reaching a height. All of those players were in the same position I found myself in during '06. They already were forced, in a way, to abandon much of how they liked to play to be competitive: restricted stages, no items, all that stuff. But, even when they acquiesced to how the proto-BBR tried to run things, half of the community **** on them just for playing Brawl. These players were trying to fit in and enjoy themselves while competing, and 50% of us just trashed them for it. For having a preference.

I started ISP (then by a different name) on a bet from one of those Melee players that it would never work because people didn't want to play that way. Honestly, I was prideful and wanted to prove him wrong, sure, but a big part of it was because I knew what it felt like being those new players. I knew some of them, even if it was just .00001%, would have appreciated it, and I wanted to make a place on the boards that I felt would foster a mindset where preference was ok. I don't know if it worked out like that. I'd like to think it did.

What OS says rings true to me. So much of Brawl's early problems stemmed from the Melee community, the old guard, thinking too much of themselves. With a new game, OF COURSE there would have been changes. Systemic, yes, but cultural, too. 90% of the new members at the time had never read a word of Sirlin, didn't even know what scrub meant outside of the context of the one horrible pop song. Those people shoved their desires for what they wanted Brawl to be down the throats of every player on SWF and belittled anyone who dared to say otherwise. Yes, the new players did instigate, too. The "Fox only, no items, FD" meme didn't help. Both sides had a part to play.

But, Brawl probably would have gone so much better if those older players had a little humility and openness to change. There probably would have been many more events with both Melee and Brawl early on if some people didn't **** all over one of the games. If players wanted to play a slower, floatier game, so be it. We'd make it work (and I think did).

AA made a great post on here about the community needing to change before SSB4 comes out, and he beat me to the punch, but he's right. Sometimes, we suck. We're stubborn, we can be ****s to each other, and thanks to EVO and SRK, we have an inferiority complex and feel like we have something to prove. We can't just be a good fighter, we have to be an amazing one that no one can doubt has competitive value. We can't just have a healthy metagame, we have to have one carefully crafted for maximum depth. We didn't accept what we were given and hacked apart the community bickering over whether we should move on or stay in the past when the whole argument was a false choice in the first place.

I hope people honestly listen to OS and AA and learn from our past. Buzz, I get what you're saying, but you gotta realize that some of it (and most of how you're saying it) just isn't helpful. It isn't conducive to a healthy community, at least not one that's ok with moving on. Yes, the competitive community matters, in some small way, but it's just that: small. Almost insignificant. And, the more we can keep that in mind, the more humble we'll be. And it's that humility that will serve us the best, not wavedashes or ATs. Because, at the end of the day, a game that has all the depth in the world means nothing if we've scared everyone away from playing it.

There are simply not enough likes in this world to give to this post....

 

[Swamp Sensei]

Jack.

Thank you. From the bottom of my heart.

What you just said....was perfect!

 

[Lovage]

overswarm is a ******** person

 

[MookieRah]

So I was gone since I posted this and holy **** bajesus guys. Way to totally miss the point.

Well, how many more threads do we need on this very topic?

This thread was created to put a bit of perspective on why there is so much vitriol surrounding melee and brawl. It was a lot more than just brawl being a game that many melee players didn't like, it was all of the other factors involved including that which made the smashboards a hostile place and is the reason why people are still arguing about dumb **** 5 years later.

Before I address the main issue here, I gotta say something about this quote.

Depends on the rules. Lack of knowledge with items really killed players at EVO 08. If I ran a 4vs tournamnt with all items on and most of the stages, knowledge of competitive Smash wouldn't help you very much.

This is so badly thought out. If you are trying to argue that the only thing that makes competitive smashers good is the rules that we use... wow. This is the kind of thing that casual players say that set off people who are competitive. It's one thing to dislike how the competitive scene plays, but to completely assume that they are fish out of water when you change a few variables is just silly. I really don't think items are that scary to a competitive player up against a casual one. Especially with the prevelance of power shielding and the superior movement options, the competitive player has a higher chance of getting to an item, and a higher chance of avoiding an item.

This is the kind of thing that bombarded the smashboards and created the problem in the first place. It's elitism from the casual side. This really weird idea that competitive players are actually "bad" at smash and can only play in a competitive setting. It completely disregards that most competitive players were casual before they became competitive, and that a competitive player can't play in a casual setting ever. Things aren't that black and white.

Now, onto Overswarm. What the heck man? Did you get so bitter over a handful of vocal anti-brawl players that you completely forgot why the competitive community set the rules up the way they were? I thought you were around long enough to know how and why they evolved. Here is another smash history lesson.

When smash tournaments began it was just tournaments mostly between local crews and whoever else showed up to the party. I know from talking to MikeG that it was common in his area that the rules were best of 1 10 stock matches with some items and on most stages. When I was playing "casual" competitive smash, it was also largely similar. We did 6 stock best of three matches with all items and all stages and we would honor rule stages. So basicaly the early smash was all kinds of things going on with it. When people started gathering on the smashboards, people were able to compare the rules they used to run tournaments. Over time we adjusted things to make it more fair, with the goal being that the best player would win. Items were on for about 3 years of smashes life... that is quite a fair running when trying to find out if they were fair in a competition. The last straw for their removal was that even with specific items on, there was still a chance for a random spawned exploding capsule seriously affected matches.

Over the course of time the rules became more and more refined and now they are how they are. While many disagree with them, they have perfectly logical reasons for being the way they are. Also, a lot of them do make the game much better for spectators. When making rules for spectators, one of the most important things to do is to make things simpler and easier to follow. Having items off makes things less chaotic and showcases the players actually fighting each other and not vying for position so that one could make the most of items. Complicated stages are another thing that would make it more confusing for the viewer as well, although to a much lesser extent. About the only thing that one could really claim would need to be changed in competitive rules for spectators would be some more rules on chain grabbing, which I honestly don't think it hurts the spectators to see spacies get tossed around. You'd also be giving Fox and Falco a free ride to the top of the tier list by making this change.

The rules are not arbitrary and they aren't made for the sole purpose of excluding casual players from the game. This is the most important point I can make on this subject.

 

[SmashChu]

To an extent that is true; EVO 08 had no notable players that I remember. Ken was there, but he was washed up by that point and had no experience with Brawl. We have run item tournaments (and item FFA tournaments!) and found that the placements are both consistent (meaning you could actually run item and FFA tournaments competitively) and very similar to non-item/FFA tournaments. There were some changes, such as characters such as Sonic or ROB doing much better with items than without, but ultimately the game and placement remained constant.

I didn't know anyone ran FFA or item tournaments. Color me surprised. Glad to hear they worked though. How many contenders were there?

It depends. Fighting games will never be popular, ever. Capcom and developers like capcom have made sure of this by taking what was THE competitive enterprise in video games and drilling down further and further into what they consider a "competitive" game to be. This alienates the majority of players to the point where people don't want to watch games they want to watch highlights.

Ask people at smash tournaments "did you ever see that one video where Chun Li did her super against that Ken player in white and he parried them all and then killed her with his super after?". You'll get a bunch of "yep" responses from people that might not know the game (other than "street fighter"), probably won't know what tournament it was from, and might not even know the names of both players.

Those same people probably never played 3rd Strike competitively because it doesn't appeal to most people.

Smash brothers has made huge strides in this, but we've got the same knuckle draggers in our community. Luckily Sakurai takes a balanced approach with how he designs games and has an overall vision that he tries to make work for everyone. He goofs up sometimes, but even when he does he's not far off the mark.

Tripping, for example. Horrible thing that we all hate. 1 in 100 chance of losing a match when you dash. Just awful. It's also hilarious and fun and exciting. Go play smash with some randoms and watch what happens when someone trips. WE get angry. Most people go "oh ****!" and laugh because it's just another "thing". Sakurai knew what he was doing when he added that. People like to be "winning" and tripping creates an automatic "you're winning" situation for the opponent. Gives 'em a rush, makes the bad player feel like they're winning for a second. That's a good feeling.

And all the steps Sakurai has made have been incredibly successful. They have increased the amount of people playing Smash by a huge factor.

To give you an idea of how much more popular Smash is than other fighting games, remember Street Fighter IV? It sold a whopping 3 million copies. That sounds like a lot until you realize it's competing with Smash 64. Melee beats it by 4 million and Brawl by 8 million! That's why you see things like "SF IV arcade edition" and "Super Street Fighter II Ultimate Tournament Arcade It also bakes pies HD Remix and Rearrangement" junk released. It's because the people that bought SF IV are the same ones that buy the next one. With diminishing results.

"SUPER Street Fighter IV" came out in 2010, two years after SF IV. 1.8 million copies sold. About 2/3rds or 1/2 depending on how pessimistic you are.

Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition then. 400,000 sold.

3DS? 1.1 million.

This is how you know Sakurai knows what he's doing. If you round up, SF IV in all its iterations has sold 6.5 million copies. 500k less than Melee from the gamecube era.

You bring up a great point that I've noticed as well. Smash has creamed other fighting games in terms of sales. When SF4 came out, everyone called it a new age of fighting games. At the same time, Brawl would go on to sell over 10 million units/ The gold age of fighting games is still less than 64, which came out in 1999. Well said.

It does give the community an advantage to grow. As of the year end 2010, Starcraft 2 sold 4.5 million. It may have sold more, but this is still 64 levels. And it is considered a big competitive video game. If only half of the Smash Brothers fan base watched competitive Smash, it would be bigger than Starcraft 2. Something to think about.

So we have two options as a competitive community.

One is to try to make it a spectator sport. Stream it, get commentators, have online events where people who aren't physically there can be a part of the show, etc., etc. This is being tried, but it's hard. For one, it's nearly impossible when you have a group actively trying to sabotage the community from within. If you've got a group constantly complaining that a version of smash is a bad game, it becomes difficult for it to become a popular talking point as it becomes a point of contention.

It's also hard because we don't have "heavy hitters" in smash that can feasibly be beaten by any number of players. We generally have one guy per region who is "the best". Occasionally a two person rivalry. This makes streaming within your region very hard. On top of this, smashers tend to divide themselves mentally by region. No one watches the west coast play and says "GO (player)!!!" because they like the guy. Occasionally they do when they play their character, but no one has a favorite player like people have favorite sports teams. The closest we get are national events where the region "leaders" end up fighting each other. Regional crew battles are some of the biggest things in our community because of this, although it's fallen out of favor recently because of the whole "everyone feels they know the results already".

aaaaaaand on top of all that absolutely no one is going to say "hey, I'm going to watch this smash brothers tournament" when they aren't a competitive smasher.

The other option is to make it a player sport. This is the typical thing we've done and it's really only changed recently. Personally I feel this is the best choice. Embrace our smallness and all that.


Neither way gets new blood in though. That takes sacrifices.

As far as the sabotaging the community, I think it goes back to the Melee worship, but that is for another time. I don't know much about the inter workings of the tournament scene. Just the big ticket stuff. Interesting insight.

 

[Pyra]

If only this worked.

HEY LOOK, A TURTLE!

 

[Deleted member]

HEY LOOK, A TURTLE!

lol. I hope you're using the turtle in order to refer to Bowser.