EVO 2018 Discussion Thread for Smash 4

[LancerStaff]

Just because the FGC can be ****ty doesn’t mean the Smash fanbase isn’t. Just because the FGC can be ****ty doesn’t mean the Smash fanbase doesn’t have crap to clean up.

 

[Crystanium]

Just because the FGC can be ****ty doesn’t mean the Smash fanbase isn’t. Just because the FGC can be ****ty doesn’t mean the Smash fanbase doesn’t have crap to clean up.

These two sentences seem redundant because they're expressing the same thing in different phrases. Like I said about the word "community", I also included "fanbase". What do you mean by "fanbase"? Grouping everyone together isn't a fair judgment when there are those who aren't obnoxious, threatening, or hostile.

 

[LancerStaff]

That the fanbase has let **** sit so long is legitimately on everybody. It’s totally 100% fair.

 

[Loki]

What kinda pains me about this whole situation is that, wathever small competitive life remained within smash 4 is gone. Spectators who where watching the GF most likely left with a terrible taste in their mouths, not wanting to repeat it and word of mouth is fast and wild. They will not watch another smash 4 GF because from now on they will think that:
a) Bayo (is boring and) dominates the competitive scene
b) The bayo representatives are immature and unprofessional (this mentality can expand to the rest of players)
c) The community is toxic

And the worst is that... its kinda true, all three points. With no one wanting to see smash 4, its future as a competitive game is doomed and sealed, relegated to local events and at best, in-house tournaments with its own streaming services, and even then only the loyal will watch. This does not even takes into account how investors and TO feel about even thinking of hosting a smash 4 tournament. Will Bayo mains dominate again? Will people want to watch the tournament? Is it worth the time, effort and money investment or should all of that go into another game? Go safe and/or fresh...

Honestly, the future of competitive smash 4 was already pretty thight with Ultimate releasing hell soon but this... this was just the last nail.

 

[BSP]

Bayonetta, based on the discussion we've had here, appears to be PART OF the problem. Nobody here has seriously put forth any claim that Bayonetta is so broken as to be on par with Super Turbo Akuma or MMPR Ivan Ooze or so on, so I'm presuming it's not just a matter of raw character power; something else is afoot here.

I think it's bayo's power and what fighting/watching her entails.

Sm4sh has had its share of characters that were clearly at the top for some time, and it still has a bunch of infuriating things. Hoo hah Diddy, release version Sheik, Rosalina still being able to kill you at stupid %s with rage, you name it. The game is full of stupid things.

Why is Bayonetta the only one that, from what I've seen (and this is where I possibly haven't been looking hard enough), elicits actual boos and reactions from the crowd? Maybe people do think she's busted relative to the rest of the cast, or maybe her players had something to do with it.

Edit: Because I forgot to talk about it, "fixing" this issue is pretty hard.

Obviously, death threats aren't ok and shouldn't be tolerated in any form. However, I don't think general booing is a clear cut issue. Where the line is drawn for "harassment" will dictate that discussion. Otherwise, unless the TO/event organizer makes a ruling against it, it's fair game.

I see the "you don't have to watch" response come up a lot too. That's the option a good bit of people took in the sm4sh GFs, and it still makes the game look terrible.

 

[ぱみゅ]

Why is Bayonetta the only one that, from what I've seen (and this is where I possibly haven't been looking hard enough), elicits actual boos and reactions from the crowd? Maybe people do think she's busted relative to the rest of the cast, or maybe her players had something to do with it.

She's a scapegoat, all complaints got concentrated into her and since most Bayo players had a sassy personality from even before the drama started, decided to embrace it and then everything snowballed from there.

 

[TheMisterManGuy]

I think Smash 4 at EVO 2018 should serve as a good reminder of what can happen when a fighting game stops getting updates at the worst possible time. Sakurai and the team moving on to Ultimate and the Wii U on death's door meant Bayo wasn't able to get nerfed properly until the next game. It's a simillar problem UMvC3 had at the end of its life, where the Meta was dominated by Virgil and Capcom couldn't nerf him because they lost the Marvel license.

 

[Loki]

I think Smash 4 at EVO 2018 should serve as a good reminder of what can happen when a fighting game stops getting updates at the worst possible time. Sakurai and the team moving on to Ultimate and the Wii U on death's door meant Bayo wasn't able to get nerfed properly until the next game. It's a simillar problem UMvC3 had at the end of its life, where the Meta was dominated by Virgil and Capcom couldn't nerf him because they lost the Marvel license.

While true, it`s not fair to place the complete blame on that. Most of it is on the community for not being smart and for not looking ahead. Melee has thrived with its few characters and quite dominant ones... yeah, mind you, Fox aint nowhere as oppresive, boring-to-watch and suffocating as Bayo can be, but they have managed to control damage pretty well again and again every time a character or a tech became oppresive or annoying to deal with.

Its not on the game`s to be better in that regard but us as a community to deal with it the best we can. If it means either banning her or sucking it up... well, thats up to the community as well. At this point, popular opinion about bayo is unsalvagable. That ship is gone and wathever floats should be saved.

 

[NINTENDO Galaxy]

Edit 1: Don't read yet, my spoiler wound up inside of a quoted post.

Edit 2: Fixed.

I think presuming there won't be any serious balance flaws and that Ultimate won't repeat this is well-intended but naive.

Sakurai can't possibly catch every balance issue out of the gate. There are times where he's legit unaware of a problem and it takes a LOT of effort to bring it to his attention since he's very busy and isn't focusing on tournament-level play as his primary interest anyway (his stance has generally been "don't forget the beginner" or words to that effect).

Even if he did, once we discover who's top tier, that character will receive bandwagon-hate. It is the nature of crowds to do this.

So I don't think it's a good idea to presume the problem will go away.

Instead... 'ThatGuyWhoKnowsNothing' is actually on to something. And part of the solution is simply trying! Get the message out at all. Raise the topic. Get TOs to talk about it, get top players to talk about it, get Smashboards authors to write about it (that last part won't reach as many viewers as the first two, but it'll help all the same). The message has to be "We cannot harass our players like this, and we need to decide on consistent standards for when to ban a character or tell the audience to Git Gud and show them how to develop the mindset of developing counters to popular characters."

Just having the discussion is going to help. The crowd needs to get their expectations calibrated, rulesmakers need to figure out whether lines need to be drawn, and top players need to be able to support one another when incidents like this occur. So long as any one group feels isolated and vulnerable, this won't work. So everyone (or at least large swathes of each demographic) need to feel like their concerns are understood and that what they expect of the other groups is realistic.

With that out of the way, let's explore another question: What does this solution I speak of actually look like? Well, it's a lot of things... but they're all facets of the same basic idea: Communicate.

The community needs to talk with each other about some things, such as...

How do you feel about large, sponsored venues? If companies and tournament organizers are going to shell out money to help you organize majors, do you have any obligations to them if you attend their events? If so, what are those obligations? Do you actually want these large companies and venues, along with their accompanying standards, involved? The trend so far says 'yes', and I'm pretty sure the community actually does... but they need to figure this out for certain and learn how to work with these entities.

What makes a character banworthy? Where is the line drawn, how soon do you determine it, and how do you enforce it? This has come up a few times over the years. Brawl Meta Knight is the obvious example, but now we have Bayonetta showing a more polarizing incident. The Mii Fighters are a lesser example of this kind of thing, but they're far less so since they haven't caused any major incidents like what happened last night at Evo.

The community needs to be introduced to this narrative. Whatever you guys decide about character bans, you've got to get your rank and file onboard with this. Fortunately, this is more time-consuming than actually difficult. You just have to talk about it. Bring it up with Tournament Organizers. Have them speak out about it. Have top players speak about it too. The common player and spectator won't think about it terribly much until you introduce it to their thought process by actually mentioning it. TOs, opinion leaders, and top players have an incredible ability to frame and guide the narrative this way. Use it for good purposes.

TOs need to make clear that harassing players is unacceptable, and enforce it. Talk about it on your social media pages. Make an example or two by tossing someone out for violating the rule. People will catch on quickly.

Top players and opinion leaders can help by showing where they draw the line on a character. In the Street Fighter community, our metrics for bans are Super Turbo Akuma and 3rd Strike Gill; they do things that other characters simply cannot mount a coherent response to, and we are careful to explain why they're a problem. ST Akuma and 3S Gill are our lines in the sand, and we're very clear to our fellow players that anyone falling short of their standard of 'overpowered' will generally be allowed to run as-is and you had better develop some counter-plays to them because while it's possible the devs will nerf them in a patch you cannot count on it.

Talk about it on your streams. You have tons of players tuning in to watch you play, so you have an audience. Have this conversation with them during the matchmaking queue, during breaks, things like that. Encourage them to step up and suggest ideas on how to deal with various parts of a character's kit. Is there something you can do about X or Y move that Bayonetta (or any character in controversy) has? Get them working on discussing how to defeat it rather than complain about it. It promotes viewer participation (which is good for you!) and changes the narrative from what we saw last night... to trying to deal with the problem directly.

Who knows, maybe the character really is too good and deserves a ban... but right now, what's needed is a shift in narrative and mentality rather than banning a specific character. Without this shift, you're going to wind up at this same problem again in 4 months when Smash Ultimate comes out.

So please, go forth and communicate. Express things. Explain things. Introduce new points to the conversation, shift it to go where you want it to go. It will take time, but it can be done and will be worth it.

Just saw Omni's video, interesting stuff; thank you for mentiong it Red Ryu.

Something actually came to mind afterward... for all the complaints about Bayonetta, I have to wonder: Did anyone bother speaking to Nintendo directly about it? If that many people seriously believed she was that overpowered and anti-fun, where was the letter writing campaign? I'm sure people snarked about it on here and on Twitter and so on, but did anyone put their thoughts down on paper, stamp it, and send it in to NOA?

I imagine if they got enough letters about it, they might have said "Hold on, let's look into this". It might sound quaint to talk about physical letters in 2018, but it can and has gotten results; think back to the 'mailing in cupcakes to change the Mass Effect 3 ending' thing.

Whether getting Bayonetta nerfed by a similar campaign is a good idea is of course open to debate (several players have suggested her win-rate isn't THAT high to justify this)... but if people really felt that way, I have to think that talking to Nintendo instead of yelling at Bayo players would have gotten better results in the era of the balance patch.

Because of Brawl MK and now Smash 4 Bayo (who while the best in the game isn't banworthy IMO) in these last moments of Smash 4 and going forward our community needs to clearly define when a character is to be banned through concrete data such as saturation (how popular the character is at top/high level play), tournament success, and community satisfaction.

Spoiler: Long response to your post; condensed so it won't flood the page

Thanks for coming here and talking with us. What you have said, players and others have tried but with no success.



As for getting top players to help spread the message I doubt that will work for our community. Instead of that, our top players are the ones spreading the character hate and misinformation, they even make jokes out of them. Our community has a huge bandwagon where they only listen to the top players and those that get amazing results; challanging a top player's opinion starts arguements and it's pretty difficult to change a player's mind once they have been sold to believe everything a top player says.



As for getting TO's to budge and help us that won't do either. They only listen to the top players and their circle of commentators/friends.



Having discussions here and asking smashboards to make articles about the problems within the community would be nice... if only the community wasn't divided between many social platforms. The summary is that smashboards activity declined with the release of discord and the smash 4 community migrated there and formed their own community (a server for every character and then some, it's suprisingly a well-knit community). The top players mainly talk using twitter unless they make a youtube video expressing their dislike for X thing or talking about something else. Then there is smash amino, facebook, and youtube comments which are their own hubs of information and discussion.



Regarding counterplay to problematic characters and scenarios. This year and last year saw a lot of media content from our scene aimed at Bayonetta and other stuff related to her. It seems to have helped slowly over time. The main reason that Bayonetta is seen as such a problem is because our top players were dying in the same scenarios as other players, so many of us assumed that the character was unbeatable when in fact that our top players were not using their defensive tools correctly or if they tried, they overdid it or messed up and instead died earlier than intended. This then caused our community to cry "X player was doing the right thing but still died!". So they go back to seeing things as hopeless. On another note, our top players really aren't top players, as they have been able to get away with their same habits for years and some have only recently been getting punished for them.



As you saw earlier in this thread, our community is spoiled with patches and hopes of the next game fixing all of their problems when our players just need to get better and learn. Players that try to spread helpful information have always been drowned out by those that complain or the struggling player refuses to listen to help and goes back to complaining or they complain that learning the counterplay is too hard and takes the fun out of the game for them.



Regarding Miis:


They have caused a ton of controversy.


They are the favorites of two of our top players to make jokes about and complain that they are broken. So much so that just mentioning them in discord or smashboards spawns so much hate from out of nowhere or a ton of "lol miis, they aren't real characters". The summary with them is that misinformation spread with a kill confirm so much from our top players that many of our players think it is true and they are indefinitely banned (actually they are given a restricted moveset but few want to play with that) even though there is counterplay to prevent it but nobody wants to listen. Also there are 3 versions of them with 9 moves to mix and match; the community complained so much about not wanting to learn new matchups in the beginning AND throughout this game's lifespan that the players and TO's came up with a "default" moveset when the characters have none to begin with, which renders most of them unplayable while some scenes have instead made their own "best moveset" the only one allowed (we call it the golden ruleset) based on their region's few Mii mains or a collective opinion from their peers.



Years ago Mii players threatned to boycott tournies; they did, and the smash 4 community moved on without them and now call our game balanced. The only reason that miis are legal now is because of Smash Ultimate's announcement and one tweet from one of our scene's popular stream/local (we have a few but these locals also have the TO's/small community that make our scene's ruleset).



These locals are also home to the top players and are where the huge tournies are held so they hold most of the power. And since they are so popular, a majority of the smaller tournies in the US adopt the ruleset, even japan to an extent, but not Europe (go Europe), they are having none of this there (the US has had many fluctuating rulesets).



Because of that one tweet, as if magic happened, many other tournies allowed miis. All the documents and well-thought out discussions from the past meant nothing. All it took was a yes from someone with power, sad.



As for learning things from the street fighter community, other players and I have tried linking Core-A Gaming videos, Sirlin's playing to win (several times), I tried talking about UMVC3 Phoenix (Morrigan-Doom lockdown), some talked about Street Fighter 4, Blazblu, etc. Nothing. All I've heard in response is that "those are different games, it doesn't apply to smash 4", or "QCF is too hard so Ryu is technical". Yeah, no success there.



Not everyone thinks like the vocal majority but it sure seems like it with the way the community responds.



I forgot this earlier, but our commentators are another big source of misinformation, they may be popular but they just regurgitate what is said on twitter and youtube while barely knowing anything about the game itself. Why? Our commentators are there since most of them suck at the game or chose that way to support the game if they chose not to be a competitor. It had good intentions in the beginning but it has really crippled us over the years. Now they even joke about giving misinformation.



Another thing is that you have should of scene our scene when players had the nerve to stall matches. The smash 4 internet blew of with hate, threats, boycotts, giving up, etc. Ridiculous. Players in this community choose to not deal with a problem rather than learn. Death threats to bayo mains or smash 4 players is nothing new, they have happened before, even to Zero, our best player.



If you are still looking for data on Bayonetta then check out this guy's very long post on it.



Link: https://intheloop837.wordpress.com/...own-of-smash-4s-most-controversial-character/



This is our guy who cover's Smash 4's data regarding the characters within the competitive scene over the years. He has many more articles of his own that he rights and he goes by the name "Das Koopa" on smashboards if you would like to search for his name and read up on his responses to topics like this.



Here is a more recent one looking at Smash 4 over the years.



Link:
https://intheloop837.wordpress.com/...stats-attendance-viewership-and-sponsorships/


Another good poster that you can read up on is "Minoderth".

Another thing for miis is that our top players have said on twitter that they would boycott tournies if "free" miis (any moveset) were allowed. For Bayonetta, many players wrote twitlongers announcing their retirement from smash 4 due to her. Some even believe that Zero quit Smash 4 because of Bayonetta (I believe it after seeing many of his videos where he complains).
As for Brawl Meta Knight, he stayed legal because the top players threatened to boycott tournies. As for the Smash 4 scene, tournies only get a lot of entrants if popular players are there.

I'm fortunate enough to have a MVC, SF4, P4A, Blazblue, and SFXT background before I decided to enter Smash 4 competitively. I feel bad for players who entered the FGC through Smash 4 and have to put up with all of this.

I think @Das Koopa had the right idea when doing his Bayo research with comparing her trajectory to MK's in Brawl. Most would agree that the discussion to ban MK was too late but perhaps data thresholds that are monitored can provide warning signs to when a character is approaching and has reached banworthy levels. Also periodic community wide polling to gauge satisfaction with a strong character(s) may prove to be helpful in capturing the audience's views of a character. It would take an entire community to agree on how long we monitor a character's trajectory and how much success a character has in the meta before discussions of banning are to be had. If the community can come to an agreement about these things and monitor the characters alongside community approval then at least we can have protocols as to what to do in the emergence of a polarizing yet formidable character.

I think MK is the only character in Smash history that warranted a ban but by the time most agreed it was a problem it was too late and that helped fracture Brawl's long term competitive popularity. Compared to MK, Bayo's problem is moreso spectator-oriented but it has reached peak levels of controversy and now is the time to have these conversations otherwise Ultimate may share the same poisoning of the well.

dont mind me just freely thinking here.

Regarding polling, I think what needs to be done is to have events do polling by handing everyone a form to fill out at the front door of a venue rather than have 2GG do random twitter polls to gauge the community's interest. Who knows how many people see them if they are lucky to see someone share it.

Don't you guys already have that? Your 'Back Room' council?

We have one but judging by the few discord servers I visit they are not taken seriously. I only see the 4BR brought up when they release a tier list which just sends all the servers into arguements or memes. If you want to cause chaos, post a tier list/matchup chart anywhere and watch the magic.

A user some months ago tried to make a centralized website for competitive Smash 4 info. He advertised it here and it vanished; must of got taken down due to breaking a rule, too bad I forgot the URL, it was a great project.

I think it's bayo's power and what fighting/watching her entails.

Sm4sh has had its share of characters that were clearly at the top for some time, and it still has a bunch of infuriating things. Hoo hah Diddy, release version Sheik, Rosalina still being able to kill you at stupid %s with rage, you name it. The game is full of stupid things.

Why is Bayonetta the only one that, from what I've seen (and this is where I possibly haven't been looking hard enough), elicits actual boos and reactions from the crowd? Maybe people do think she's busted relative to the rest of the cast, or maybe her players had something to do with it.

Edit: Because I forgot to talk about it, "fixing" this issue is pretty hard.

Obviously, death threats aren't ok and shouldn't be tolerated in any form. However, I don't think general booing is a clear cut issue. Where the line is drawn for "harassment" will dictate that discussion. Otherwise, unless the TO/event organizer makes a ruling against it, it's fair game.

I see the "you don't have to watch" response come up a lot too. That's the option a good bit of people took in the sm4sh GFs, and it still makes the game look terrible.

​

My guess is witch time and how players view the game. Actively doing something is encouraged, while playing passive is looked down upon unless it is a popular player not including Zero when he plays Diddy Kong. The crowd has seen him win so much they got bored of it. Don't forget the many "Hoo Hah" chants or all the boos Dabuz gets with his Rosalina and how the crowd always applaud against these two players unless it is in a crew battle.

-

The stuff I've said here is nothing new. Repeated this but with different words on SRK, discord, and youtube (eventhubs is a salt mine). Hopefully somone can put all of our mistakes to good use.

 

[Nobody900x]

I know a lot of people are defending the players for what they did. But as a pro in anything you have to be above a certain standard. If any pro did this every time someone booed them then there wouldn’t be any game. Yes the crowd were ass holes but as players who went into a tourney knowing they were playing controversial characters they need to be ready for this ****. I also worry because smash may not be invited to the next EVO. And honestly that will hurt the game in many ways. And I’m totally in favor of banning them from the next EVO... that was so disrespectful to the owner of EVO, Nintendo as a company, the fans, and the whole smash community.

 

[NINTENDO Galaxy]

The only thing not having Evo will "hurt us" in is that Mr Wizard and co will lose money, while we lose out on publicity. The fgc has shown for years that they don't want us and vice versa. It's meh to me.

As for that Reddit post, after you guys read the post, check out the first comment and scroll down until you see Vayseth's response. If what that guy said is true then we really have a lot of work to do. I do remember the Hyuga situation. Now I wish they never came up with a central "council" anyway.

As for the PGR, some see it as good, I don't. It is heavily skewered towards US events and the ranking for events is based on PGR players who reside in the US (almost all of them), so large tournies in Europe, Japan, and other countries don't get attention unless a US player flies out there. If that region wants more attention, they just have to beat the US player, then eyes will be on them for awhile, until they say that because X player does not travel to the US they are not relevant or their character's meta has stopped progressing all because the player is unable to attend tournies that you frequently watch instead of paying attention to their scenes.

If it's Japan then it's one of two things.

1. They are Japanese so they are better by default. No, they just put in more effort.

2. Japan does not have prize pools so they are full of low tier heroes and play all the weird/underdeveloped characters that the US quickly wrote off as bad or that their competition isn't as serious as ours. No, money or no money, players can still "play to win". Having something to lose on the line physically can motivate players to give it their all. Even with that they may not win so in the end it doesn't matter? I think money + the "play to win" attitude is why players gravitate towards "strong, but not hard" (execution-wise) characters in hordes so they can have the best chances of winning instead of playing who they like or only listening to others opinions without doing research themselves.

Players get on the PGR based on the players they take down instead of their actual skill.

(I thought someone mentioned PGR in a previous page, if not then my bad)

 

[Nobody900x]

The only thing not having Evo will "hurt us" in is that Mr Wizard and co will lose money, while we lose out on publicity. The fgc has shown for years that they don't want us and vice versa. It's meh to me.

As for that Reddit post, after you guys read the post, check out the first comment and scroll down until you see Vayseth's response. If what that guy said is true then we really have a lot of work to do. I do remember the Hyuga situation. Now I wish they never came up with a central "council" anyway.

As for the PGR, some see it as good, I don't. It is heavily skewered towards US events and the ranking for events is based on PGR players who reside in the US (almost all of them), so large tournies in Europe, Japan, and other countries don't get attention unless a US player flies out there. If that region wants more attention, they just have to beat the US player, then eyes will be on them for awhile, until they say that because X player does not travel to the US they are not relevant or their character's meta has stopped progressing all because the player is unable to attend tournies that you frequently watch instead of paying attention to their scenes.

If it's Japan then it's one of two things.

1. They are Japanese so they are better by default. No, they just put in more effort.

2. Japan does not have prize pools so they are full of low tier heroes and play all the weird/underdeveloped characters that the US quickly wrote off as bad or that their competition isn't as serious as ours. No, money or no money, players can still "play to win". Having something to lose on the line physically can motivate players to give it their all. Even with that they may not win so in the end it doesn't matter? I think money + the "play to win" attitude is why players gravitate towards "strong, but not hard" (execution-wise) characters in hordes so they can have the best chances of winning instead of playing who they like or only listening to others opinions without doing research themselves.

Players get on the PGR based on the players they take down instead of their actual skill.

(I thought someone mentioned PGR in a previous page, if not then my bad)

I meant hurt in a very broad term. It’s just less exposure for the game and more exposure helps them get third party characters. And loosing EVO doesn’t help expand the competitive scene and I would love to see smash grow as large as League of Legends or COD (in its glory days). Smash is a game I grew up with since the 64 and I don’t want to see players act like this and I don’t want to see the game like this. I want players who not only respect each other but respect the crowd, sponsors, and viewers alike.

 

[NINTENDO Galaxy]

I grew up with it on 64 too, but I think there are bigger things than EVO that Smash (and fighting games as a whole) will have to overcome if it wants to even come close to League of Legends, but I think that's slightly off-topic for this thread. Actually where I was taking the conversation was going off-topic.

The smash scene/fgc is known for being a grass-roots community throughout esports; League of Legends players reference us when they talk about what improvements they want to see happen with their game that gets a ton of funding for example. Other games (fighting games) are currently or have lost support from EVO for a variety of reasons. Instead of complaining about it and trying to salvage EVO like it is the best tournament ever (it's advertised to be but it not really is) for a particular game, show support for other tournies that do respect the game and show support through registration numbers.

Now I know I'm off-topic and I lost where I was going with this. CEOTAKU was on my mind since anime games (lumped with smash for not being wanted) usually get poor treatment at EVO but more support for their own events. That is what I was trying to say. Being grassroots can be a perk if used right.

As for players and the crowd respecting each other, that is something that they will have to solve on their own. They can either act like a hivemind and the staff can hire security to calm them down or the community can educate itself and pass it on. I don't believe there is much anyone else can do to get rid of that issue. It's certainly nothing the game itself can solve.

 

[Pegasus Knight]

NINTENDO Galaxy , thank you for the extensive thoughts on what I had to say. I... am sad to hear most of that. You paint a very bleak picture of the community and the prospects of fixing this. I'd LIKE to say "Well fine, then I'll become a 'top player' and pound the community into shape"... but not in my current health, not in my current finances, and not with my current lack of free time.

...Which leaves me wondering what to realistically do about all this.

 

[NINTENDO Galaxy]

Here is another thread where Bayonetta amd the community are being talked about if anyone wants to give this a read.

Link: https://smashboards.com/threads/the...roblems-in-our-community.457065/post-22259730

Speaking of reading, Kotaku made another article about us and Bayonetta, EPSN has made their own too. I'm sure eventhubs will cover it as they have covered the E3 incident and times before over the same problem.

Gonna go hunt for a post of mine and drop it here. It's relevant again.

Edit: Got it.

Link: https://smashboards.com/threads/4br-tier-list-v4-competitive-insight-analysis.452108/post-21919952

The summary of that short post is that Bayonetta exposes players for their bad habits that the community has created over the years and does so in an embarrassing (but stylish) way. The "backlash" I mentioned has been going on for years since the character was released and even before then.

On another note I found my Yomi and UMVC3 posts, man does time fly.

 

[lordvaati]

Just learned about this, and words cannot describe how much of a travesty and embarrassment this turned out to be. The whole course of events reeked of completely unprofessional behavior from both the audience but especially the players. I don't care if you're salty over the audience misbehaving, you're there to play a game at a tournament, so play the damn game. Don't stall and flip the bird, which only serves to rile them up and make it that much worse. Be professional and courteous, and most of all graceful in victory and in defeat. Don't go on Twitter and ****post. And I'm honestly shocked they weren't disqualified and pulled from the stage immediately when the staff realized their shenanigans. People have lost their jobs for less.

The Smash community needs to wake up and realize this kind of conduct is unacceptable.

Regarding the Bayonetta debate, all I'll say is that if a character is causing the amount of grief there needs to be a serious discussion on whether that is reason to ban that character.

indeed. in Many fighting game circles if a TO caught something like that they shut that **** down immediately, as seen in this GF moment @ 1:19:00(heavy language here). To see it allowed at the biggest Fighting Game Event there is seems an immense loss of face.

 

[NINTENDO Galaxy]

James Chen and UltraDavid talked about the Smash 4 situation at EVO 2018 yesteday. This link should take you to the timestamp at 2:09:01. The conversation ends at 2:21:48.

Link: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/295332775?t=02h09m01s

For those that don't want to watch they basically say the same things that have been spouted and forgotten in the CCI thread many times if anyone remembers that.

 

[FooltheFlames]

I don't think any of this controversy will ever be killing Smash 4 for good; that's all I have to say~

 

[Blade of Evil's Bane]

And what doesn't kill us makes us stranger... or stronger it depends.

 

[SegaPlayer404]

I strongly think the Smash Community NEEDS to change, because this will most likely carry into Ultimate, and completely ruin that experience as well. It's gotten to the point where the community is not repairable, because it's turned into the same toxic community that everyone ****s on Sonic the Hedgehog for, except it's not a minority like Sonic's is, it's the entire community. They always make assumptions and never stop to think maybe the characters are broken to begin with because they play the game in a way that was NEVER INTENDED.