EVO 2018 Discussion Thread for Smash 4

[Blade of Evil's Bane]

Maybe you're right about Ultimate maybe not, guess we'll see in time. Btw what i meant was that Ultimate seems to take competitive play into account (compare to the older ones where it was cleary meant primarly for casual play with friends). It's not going perfect and a lot of people will be disapointed as usual, no big deal, it's a game.

As for the community, i don't know enough to confirm what you're saying, i just love playing the game a lot and talking about the game a lot. Plain and simple. I'm probably not the only one.

Let's just hope you'll be positively surprise by Ultimate.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Then the community needs to be addressed. If Bayonetta is demonstrably 'not that bad' and the response against her is unjustified and unprecedented in the Smash community... then you guys need to get your opinion leaders, TOs, and so on to get out in front of this and stop this hate train.

What happened last night is a huge problem, it's not something you can just presume will go away. People need to get out there and control the message, bringing the community at large around. This is a messaging/narrative thing, the sort of thing that can be solved with strong PR.

I think social media, especially twitter and somewhat reddit, I see playing into this and how people are reacting. It’s not easy to find a good solution and heal open wounds on this given how much vitriol is around this topic.

We know people hate playing against Bayo and watching her. I don’t get the watching part personally but it’s hard to get people interested when there is a mob of people who will leave streams the moments she shows up.

I think Omni’s recent YouTube video nailed it in terms of what happened and why it is a two sided issue.

Ultimate will help, but if people do this song and dance again I will call them out and tell them to knock it off if I see it.

 

[Pegasus Knight]

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.

 

[ThatGuyWhoKnowsNothing]

In my head, Bayonetta has one of the largest potentials in the game, people have figured out that bayo + bayo things = bayo wins, and people haven't innovated with the moveset, (yes this is an over generalization, but most of my statements come with a pre-attached "In general" so keep that in mind) so the problem is some combination of Bayo being actually more broken than is reasonable, people haven't innovated against Bayo, and the Bayo's haven't made enough innovations with their own charecter to keep it interesting and fresh

 

[lmntolp]

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.

No one knew that the Bayo nerf patch in mid 2016 would be the last patch of the game, and that the dev team all but disbanded to work on Ultimate. That was only 3 months after Bayo's release. Nintendo was not transparent at all about patching intentions or which patch would be the last. There was a lot of wait and see how people would adapt or what would happen in the next patch because knee-jerk reactions were looked down upon.

Also, at that time it wasn't apparent how oppressive Bayo was, or even whether she was the best character, because it took time for people to optimize the SDI follow strings and for super strong Bayo players to emerge. By that time patches were already over.

Release Bayo had a lot of warning signs, but there wasn't a unified community opinion because of the above.

 

[PURGE THEM LIKE THE]

One thing that always comes up is that bayo has counterplay. There have been numerous videos and posts about how to sdi witch twist, but what about fighting in neutral? What about getting out of her frame traps? What about her hardest matchups makes them so difficult, and what can other characters take away from that? What about ledge trapping her?

Is there even information about these things? I don't know where to find it. There should've been some sort of highly accessible, easy to use and understand website full of counterplay for bayo, and not just for sdi'ing some of her moves, but fighting her in all phases of the match and with as many characters as possible. Some top players seem to have good knowledge on how to deal with bayo, but as far as I'm aware, you won't be learning any of it from them unless you catch them on stream and get lucky enough to have your question answered and demonstrated. Has information like this already been made public? If so, it certainly hasn't been well advertised for me to not have found it.

Of course, the game will likely be dead in just a few more months, and for a project requiring this much dedication, it's certainly not that rewarding. This is something people should've been creating 2 years ago.

 

[lmntolp]

Is there even information about these things? I don't know where to find it.

This info is very hard to find and you have to know where to look. I was lucky I found ESAM's non-Pika specific videos about playing vs. Bayo and picking stages. Also in the Pika discord there was a huge google doc with matchup info of Pika vs. every character, but that wasn't easy to dig up. If you're lucky and someone posts a great character guide on Smashboards, it'll talk about common matchups too. You could also do the reverse and look up Bayo guides to learn her weaknesses or what her gameplan is.

But I haven't found any centralized library of how each character should play vs. Bayo, and that would've been helpful. I'm also not sure who would be willing or qualified to put that together, since most people are just concerned about their own characters.

 

[Sleek Media]

Just here to say I told you so. Gotta listen to the players and viewers next time. That’s two games in a row ruined by “lrn2play n00b” defense of OP characters. Blaming the community for being “toxic” is no better than Nintendo waltzing in with that “team damage off, all items and stages on, and you will like it” mentality. LISTEN.

 

[link2702]

Just here to say I told you so. Gotta listen to the players and viewers next time. That’s two games in a row ruined by “lrn2play n00b” defense of OP characters. Blaming the community for being “toxic” is no better than Nintendo waltzing in with that “team damage off, all items and stages on, and you will like it” mentality. LISTEN.

Hate to say it but this guy is probably right.

Personally I didn’t find bayo to be anything close to the problem brawl metaknight was, but at the same time, it was pretty clear a big chunk was finding her problematic, and the community should have started having a serious discussion about whether she needed to stay legal or not. Right up until she was released 4 had pretty solid balance and the game wasn’t feeling centered around one character, she drastically tipped the scale, yet many kept making the same excuse they made for brawl metaknight “it’s too early in the metagame, give it more time so people can figure her out” now some of those same people are using the next excuse made for brawl metaknight, which was “now it’s too late, it’ll destroy what’s left of the community”

The fiasco at evo is a pretty clear sign now that she probably needs to be dealt with now.

 

[The21stSmasher]

Well then, it's a good thing for me I didn't bother watching grand finals the moment Nietono lost in losers finals; Captain Zack and Lima's little stalling session would have made me stop watching too, even if I initially plan on sticking around.

This whole “Ultimate is going to be built to be competitive” thing is a pipe dream. Already the cracks are showing, with previously mediocre and bad characters getting more nerfs than buffs, seemingly little awareness of what makes a game actually fun to play, a reluctance to hand out actual nerfs or even rework anything, and the introduction of distinctly detrimental mechanics.

Timeout... the only bad characters from Smash 4 that I know of that got hit up with more nerfs in the demo is Kirby (I think) and Samus. Zelda's okay and Bowser okay too even w/ out his Up-throw combos, also the whole less lag on all ariels thing is a plus on him too. Pac-Man is stronger than he was in Smash 4 from what I hear and Ganondorf... man, I don't even gotta explain myself about him. Other than them, the rest of the bad characters for Smash 4 in the Smash Ultimate demo is looking fairly decent to me.

Also, what "distinctly detrimental" mechanics are you referring to? The balloon-like knockback? Something else? Or is it all of them?

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

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.

After playing the demo players were allowed to give feedback and it seems based on the invitational they clearly know she needs a little more work, even if I feel like people are downplaying the nerfs she did get.

We’ll see what happens, i’m not expecting a playable demo on the Eshop until late October/early November to see what else they have changed.

I think what likely happened is they jumped ship after the last Bayo patch to make ultimate, which only stings for some people since they wanted just one more patch to change things.

 

[Jandlebars]

So, I haven't been around this community over the last couple years or so. But I understand Bayonetta's tarnished history in Smash 4 enough that I feel like I can add my thoughts to the discussion.

Zack and Lima's behaviour was, to put it lightly, incredibly disappointing. I didn't have the opportunity to watch the Grand Finals live, but I think if I did and saw what was happening I'd have to close the stream. Stalling in Grand Finals, antagonizing the crowd at such a major tournament, even in reaction to what the was doing, is utterly disrespectful to not just EVO, but also to the competitive smash community as a whole, and depending on one's perspective it can even reflect poorly on the whole FGC (though the rest of the FGC overall carries itself with dignity when it comes to this sort of thing). I hope that the two of them can learn from this and come to understand that those actions can have serious repercussions on how Smash is treated in the future.

That being said, I have seen too much focus on how the players and not enough criticism of the audience at the game.
For those individuals who simply left because they could not watch a Bayo mirror: I respect and appreciate that; you paid for your entry, you are there to watch what you want to watch, and no-one should take that away from you.

But for the audience that wanted only to hoot, howl and holler to disrespect the players and the work they took to get there, just because they chose to use Bayonetta? Grow up. OP or 'boring' characters are going to come and go, like they always have. It doesn't matter what competitive gaming scene you invest yourself in, because those kinds of imbalances or playstyles are going to exist. You don't blame players for taking advantage of the game's flaws to do their best to win, because that has never been an acceptable attitude in any competitive scene.

Maybe they could have banned Bayonetta at EVO this year, maybe it might have made this Grand Finals more appealing, but the appalling impatience and disregard for the spirit of competition would have still been there underneath it all, and that's truly worrying. I am concerned for if/when Smash Ultimate is at EVO next year that a similar thing will happen with another undesirable character. I want this series to continue to thrive competitively, but it can't if people are going to act this way.

 

[MagnesD3]

From an outsider's perspective (I tuned into evo for sfv and play most smashes for fun) this event looked really really bad.. it paints the community and the game in a bad light making them look childish, immature and unprofessional. I hope this blows over for your all's sake and for the future of Smash Ultimate's competition but it wouldnt surprise me if there were major repercussions from this. I could easily see evo dropping smash since it potentially has already or in the future could damage their image. I could see Nintendo giving up support for the competitive scene and listening/catering to them all together (meaning potentially worse balance) just when it seemed like that relationship was actually starting to go somewhere (just look at all the good changes in Ultimate) simply by the attitude that was displayed on something they have been told for years by the community to take seriously. And if there was ever anything to give fuel to people in the fgc hating on smash not giving it respect as a fighting game this would be it. Hopefully it will all work out and wont affect Ultimate but I have my doubts..

 

[toonito]

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.

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.

 

[MaestroDavros]

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.

 

[Blade of Evil's Bane]

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.

I've watched the finals and it was soooooo awkward. It was if they were playing a casual match in their living room when everyone wanted a real competitive match (at least that's what i was looking for). Anyway i'm pretty sure the organizers at EVO had a word or two with them after the match, i'm sure there is plenty of people of experience taking this matter seriously.

For Bayonetta's case, i could not agree more, a serious discussion is needed. I like to think that we're part of the the 'smash community' here could be a good start if we create a thread here on smashboard. Not one where we go on full rage mode and infinite rants against the character but more of a serious analysis of what makes her broken (btw i'm not accusing anybody of rambling or going full rage mode but i'm sure it could happen easily in a discussion involving Bayo).

In the meantime, we could find the best channel to get the results up top (maybe via proplayers, they are kind of the ambassadors of players or any other way, as long as it works).

Anyway if you're interested in this idea, let me know (cuz i won't discuss that alone on a thread obviously )

 

[ProfessorVincent]

Just here to say I told you so. Gotta listen to the players and viewers next time. That’s two games in a row ruined by “lrn2play n00b” defense of OP characters. Blaming the community for being “toxic” is no better than Nintendo waltzing in with that “team damage off, all items and stages on, and you will like it” mentality. LISTEN.

Here's why I don't get this:

Why do some people think Lima and Zack did not deserve to get into GF so much that they booed them whenever they played? We have seen Bayo players playing other characters, and they are really ****ing good! Zack's Peach, Salem's Greninja, Tweek's Cloud, Leo's Marth, Aba's Mewtwo... the list goes on and on. We think people like Aba, Leo, or Tweek deserve to win because we've seen them win with other characters as well, but think about it: they are the ones who happen to play other top tiers. Of course we won't see Salem's Greninja or Zack's Peach in top 8, because these characters don't make it to top 8.

If, instead of booing, people would open their eyes and watch Zack's or Lima's playing, they'd see they made it to GF because the other players there just couldn't stop them. Even in their own personal show that they decided to put on (probably out of spite for being harassed the whole day) they were playing really ****ing well, and we could all learn from watching.

 

[MagnesD3]

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.

.

Honestly this, I thought they would both have been disqualified immediately after they did it for as long as they did fully knowing what they were doing.

 

[ProfessorVincent]

Honestly this, I thought they would both have been disqualified immediately after they did it for as long as they did fully knowing what they were doing.

...that feel when you're trying to preach the truth and it just flies right by.

Edit: Dabuz doing the work!
https://youtu.be/mw0b4a-lr4w

 

[Crystanium]

I'm not pleased with words like "community". By using the word "community", you group people who aren't even part of the problem as though they are part of the problem, simply because they're part of that "community". I suspect "community" is used to attach an identity to a nebulous, pervasive group, giving people the false sense that they're curing the disease, when all they've done is suppress the symptoms. Believe it or not, you can be an enthusiast, and not be part of the competitive scene. Spectating is not participating. Ask yourself: Who is saying inappropriate or offensive things? Is that person known in the competitive scene? If so, something can be done about it. If not, what can be done about it? How does one know if that person is part of the "community"?

In terms of viewership, it's no surprise people are tired of seeing Bayonetta. She's not fresh or original. Her combos are cookie-cutter. A lot of her attacks lead up into combos, and it seems she's the only one who isn't affected by rage, whether she or her opponent is at greater damage. Even with harassments aside, people tend to enjoy watching Bayonetta lose. The stunt Captain Zack and Lima pulled was completely unacceptable. Anyone who watches YouTube channels like YEET Smash will have no problem finding comments expressing delight in Bayonetta being bodied. Viewership may not have mattered before, but it does now. (My brother tells me that people scoffed at him when he brought up the importance of viewership in the past. How things have changed.)

Also, stop using the word "toxic". It's vapid and trite.

 

[link2702]

I’m starting to wonder if there’s gonna be long term repercussions for zack and lima going forward in smash overall...? To do what they did in the gf of one of the biggest fighting game tournaments around, as others have said it’s likely to ruin smash’s reputation overall for a long time, makes me wonder if they’ll be ousted from taking part in big and small smash tournaments due to their actions humiliating the entire community.

I wonder if depending on how damaging this is in the long term, many players and possibly some TO’s might not want them taking part in their tournaments both for fear of them doing something else controversial, and also out of anger for damaging smash’s already fragile favorable reputation that took the community years to get too.

 

[dahuterschuter]

Honestly the Grand Finals fiasco at EVO was the most appropriate and fitting end for Sm4sh there ever could have been

 

[MaestroDavros]

I'm not pleased with words like "community". By using the word "community", you group people who aren't even part of the problem as though they are part of the problem, simply because they're part of that "community". I suspect "community" is used to attach an identity to a nebulous, pervasive group, giving people the false sense that they're curing the disease, when all they've done is suppress the symptoms. Believe it or not, you can be an enthusiast, and not be part of the competitive scene. Spectating is not participating. Ask yourself: Who is saying inappropriate or offensive things? Is that person known in the competitive scene? If so, something can be done about it. If not, what can be done about it? How does one know if that person is part of the "community"?

In terms of viewership, it's no surprise people are tired of seeing Bayonetta. She's not fresh or original. Her combos are cookie-cutter. A lot of her attacks lead up into combos, and it seems she's the only one who isn't affected by rage, whether she or her opponent is at greater damage. Even with harassments aside, people tend to enjoy watching Bayonetta lose. The stunt Captain Zack and Lima pulled was completely unacceptable. Anyone who watches YouTube channels like YEET Smash will have no problem finding comments expressing delight in Bayonetta being bodied. Viewership may not have mattered before, but it does now. (My brother tells me that people scoffed at him when he brought up the importance of viewership in the past. How things have changed.)

Also, stop using the word "toxic". It's vapid and trite.

It's a... complicated situation. I absolutely agree that generalizing a group's behavior doesn't make it true for all, however on the flip side that isn't the way that people unfamiliar with the intricacies of the Smash community as a whole are going to view it. They're going to look at how the Smash 4 tournament went down, then look at other games at EVO (and likely conveniently ignore Melee) and use it as a justification to say "yep, all the nasty things people say about how the Smash community behaves are true". I am including the way the audience acted as well, but it's also a completely separate problem from the players' conduct, because those audience members chose to stay behind to heckle while many others said "I don't like these players/like their main, so I'm going to watch something else". Dealing with the conduct of the competitors would not deal with the conduct of the audience and vice versa. If it was just a problem with the audience it would be bad enough on its own, but the competitors chose to stoop down to the level of the audience instead of rising above them. That added another layer of problems.

Writing that reminds me of my high school days and the admittedly rare times I got in trouble. I may have not liked getting in trouble, but it certainly worked in that I didn't repeat those same mistakes. I don't care if these two competitors are not even considered legal adults in many jurisdictions, when you go out into the public to a major event with its own rules and expectations you are expected to act on your best behavior for the good of the physical and emotional wellbeing of both yourself and others. Otherwise, chaos ensues, and that's certainly what happened at the SSB4 EVO Grand Finals.

 

[ThatGuyWhoKnowsNothing]

I would like to re-iterate a point I feel I didn't establish well, I very much don't blame CaptianZack or Lima for their actions. Do I think they handled the situation in the best way possible? No. Do I think their actions were uncalled for? Also no. The two Bayo's were put in a terrible position, and they found a way to deal with it. Not the right way, but a way. Before I get absolutely done with the fact that everyone trying to be anything resembling productive keeps getting shot down and verbally beaten, I want to make the fact that EVO GF was at the same time, everyone's fault, and no one's fault, abundantly clear. To make a less than quick analogy, In the end-middle of the phenomenal book Ender's Game, the protagonist is faced with an impossible situation. he is forced to command a 40 man force against an 80 man one, that was deployed in a small enclosed space. Not only that, the opposing force both knew about Ender's attack in advance, but also had a perfectly defended base, which Ender had to bypass, and kill each and every one of the opposing force. This was only an exercise, played with light and suits that stiffen when hit. The exercise was created by the teachers, who engineered it to create the brilliant commander they need for a war in space. Ender then gives up, in the words of a conversation with a member of his force, Ender says, "They've thrown away the rules", to which the soldier replies, "So you throw 'em away too". This is what just went down, to the best of my understanding The audience were the teachers, they put the Bayo's, (Ender) in a tough position and attempt to create the type of smash competitive scene they want to watch, so the Bayo's decided to do anything other than what the crowd wanted. It's not a perfect analogy, obviously, but it's as close as I could come to one

 

[Gearkeeper-8a]

i don't know why people say that this is only a smash 4 problem, all games except smash 64(because is too old and not popular) has this problem, example in melee you have people hating "floaties" and hungrybox in general, in project M, was the "dead game " meme or project recovery, "gimmick game", brawl was lol Mk, tripping, ICs.
The problem will only growth as more young people enter the scene, old community members in general need to growth, and start changing things or things will get worse.

 

[Dukeofdeath5]

The two Bayo's were put in a terrible position, and they found a way to deal with it. Not the right way, but a way.

This point is null and void for me. The way to deal with the situation was to play the ****ing match. To finish EVO and actually give it their all. If they had done so this entire situation would be different. Bayonetta players would have a genuine point to make about just how much toxicity they get thrown at them, and the conversation about whether or not they actually deserve it would be less muddy. Now? I've lost any sympathy for the players. They weren't face with a difficult situation they were faced with a spoiled community being immature. (and yeah, the Sm4sh community is absolutely spoiled, considering the fact they didn't even need to do anything to get their game to EVO other than exist. The competitive community has been given pretty much anything they'd need to thrive from Nintendo support to automatic inclusion in FGC majors. They've got everything to loose not to gain).

Their response was to act immaturely right back, on the world stage, the finals of evolution. The crowd can act like assholes and prove themselves as jokes, that's fine and something that can be addressed. But they disrespected the actual event itself, showing the community takes everything else as a joke too. Their actions, as well as the crowd's, shouldn't be something that's "understood" or "seen from their perspective", it should be something the entire community wholeheartedly denounces.

I've said it before, but I wouldn't blame Mr. Wizard for seriously considering not even bringing Ultimate to EVO if the top players don't give a ****, or at least not feature it on the Sunday spot. But, Mr. Wizard is Mr. Wizard and Nintendo is Nintendo so Ultimate is definitely getting the Sunday spot next year, and thus getting a lot more exposure.

I just hope they learn from this by then, but the fact that "don't **** around at EVO GF" is even a lesson the community would have to learn is ridiculous to me.

You're right in saying everyone's at fault, but the lack of consequences for anyone means nobody gonna own up to it. Examples need to be made.

 

[Pegasus Knight]

I’m starting to wonder if there’s gonna be long term repercussions for zack and lima going forward in smash overall...?

I hope not, because it will send the absolute wrong message. I am definitely upset about what those two did, and something should be done, but blacklisting them won't accomplish anything good for the community.

Here's what I feel would be more useful for everyone involved.

The community itself needs to take a step back, look at how provoking this was, and figure out how to prevent this situation from happening again. Remember, Zack and Lima didn't do this in a vacuum. They didn't just wake up one morning, with no underlying cause, and decide to make a **** show of the grand finals for a cheap laugh. They were repeatedly provoked, insulted, and apparently threatened! What they did was wrong, but there was definitely a reason behind it.

Simply punishing them amounts to sweeping it under the rug. "We punished someone, all is well, life goes on!" No way. This situation will happen again if it isn't remedied. So the playerbase as a whole needs to get some kind of process in place for determining when a character ban is warranted and when to instead actively promote a message of 'Git Gud. Here's HOW to Git Gud; come join us in making our metagame better!' You need both tools in your box to use as needed. And yes, some of you DID educate players on how to Git Gud against Bayonetta. I know that. Nonetheless, it didn't go far enough if THIS happened!

So while the community as a whole is cleaning up its act, what of Lima and Zack? Banning them won't help; they were provoked and simply tossing them out on their asses for it is cruel. What needs to happen is an ongoing process of reconciliation. They need to legitimately own up to what they did, apologize for it (they did, but it was halfheartedly and it's not hard to see why that happened), and commit to not doing it again. They need to know that if they continue to compete, that so long as they don't do that **** again they will be welcomed back and treated decently.

That has to be a two-way street. Lima and Zack definitely need to clean up their act, but the community must meet them along the way. No more death threats, no more mass booing, no constant harassment. Unless everyone involved is working toward reconciling, this will not work. Damn near everyone involved in this mess was wrong in one way or another, so a whole lot of people are going to need to improve their behavior together.

Don't blacklist Lima and Zack. Make sure they acknowledge what they did, and make what restitution they can while rehabilitating their behavior... but people need to meet them half-way on this.

 

[Master Knight DH]

This is what I've said on ZeRo's video about the mess before finding out the basic details of the mess:

Bayonetta is irksome, but she's far from the only problem in Smash 4's general balance, which means she actually has surprising trouble standing out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOJZlIuJEaw
The ladder of death is stupid and Bayonetta herself can be incoherent to counter, but she does at least have decent weaknesses. Mark my word: when Smash Ultimate nukes the ladder of death from orbit, she is bound to crash down the tiers. Her flowchart is already showing signs that it's going to be nerfed hard enough.

Seriously, players putting so much stock in flowchart in the first place is a red flag anyway. It means they want to believe projectiles are balanced where they stand and so are the Fragile Speedster characters who can just mobility-h4x the projectiles to begin with. Even though that begs for leaving the Mighty Glacier/Melee Tornado hybrid, the archetype that suffers the most from imbalancing, out in the cold. Even in a shooter like Kid Icarus Uprising, gameplay feels better when you can actually sense melee combat being methodical enough even when you're the Mighty Glacier/Melee Tornado hybrid. Smash Bros. is of course supposed to be way more focused on close range, so I actually get to do this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXaA4gOfmmE
Okay, the character isn't Mega Man, sue me. It's not like Mega Man is the only evasion character in the game. I'd rather see characters want to use their, let's call it "anti-armor" after the point that the stuff would be designed especially to counter people with high amounts of raw defensive power like the Mighty Glacier/Melee Tornado hybrid would to mitigate getting hit, at the cost of having clear-cut and VERY viable weaknesses. Anti-armor, especially when it's backed by secondary purpose to provide flow to it and color to the gameplay, is what encourages risk, creativity, and finesse, not some (danged) projectile spam that begs to create character RPS.

Not that people want to care about sophistication. Nah, they will even cheer for deliberate camping teabaggers. The only thing they want to understand is "skill" at any cost, even saying you just suck at the game for FIGURING OUT CLOUD'S WEAKNESSES BEYOND THE RECOVERY. (And don't say that analogy is instantly bad just because Cloud's stats are overinflated and Ultimate will keep Limit from being indefinite. Cloud still has to worry about opportunity costs and air acceleration problems.) And while you try to get "skill", enjoy arrogance from ****ty people who want to be snobs telling you to "git gud", which by the way is innately devoid of empathy to the mere notion of variety; and even abuse the term "salt" because anger shaming is such a good thing. (Hint: anger shaming is so stupid even if it wasn't hypocritical.)

Suffice to say that the Smash Bros. community needs to clean up their (freaking) act and stop with the toxicity that has existed long before Bayonetta was even around to make things worse.

I had since learned what had happened: that the grand finals duo had stalled for 2 minutes straight and the audience were taking more issue than they should have with yet another Bayonetta ditto grand final. How much do I need to change in that post? Absolutely nothing. Both sides were at fault with that incident. The audience had long been advocates of camping, and now they're booing the ditto of a character who screams at the player and their opponent to have a good sense of patience and grace even (or perhaps especially in the case of the player behind the character) if she didn't have the ladder of death. The problem wouldn't be them needing to "git gud" because apparently being a model of perfection demands an overemphasis of the body at the cost of the mind. I could show these until I'm in the blue in the face and I'd still have empathy toward anybody who gets irked with Bayonetta:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXaA4gOfmmE&t=1h34m30s (that particular match, and a few other earlier ones if you know where to look)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOJZlIuJEaw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVmCW3cQInE (old, sue me)
No, the problem is what I highlight: that the likes of the audience are stuck in their own unempathetic ways and get annoyed when those get exposed for the idiocy that it is because it means they have to change. They don't care that difficulty could possibly scare people. They're hypocrites. They're freaking hypocrites who think in absolutes like any Ace Attorney villain would.

That's not even getting into what I hear about death threats.

Oh, but don't think that Lima and CaptainZach are off the hook. So they stall for 2 minutes, only not doing so longer because otherwise they'd be hit with a disqualificaiton. Okay, why? They say it was for their own fun. That's a lame excuse, because 30 seconds is more than enough to cover fun time before getting around to playing for keeps, and that's assuming doing things like imitating Doc Crash from Mega Man 3. Notice, by the way, how RoahmMythril avoids idling for more than 30 seconds, because he doesn't need longer to handle the humor, FOR A VIDEO DESIGNED FOR A SELF-IMPOSED CHALLENGE. 2 minutes is simply WAY too long, and the Bayonetta duo spend as much just holding Neutral B.

Considering how one of them flipped off the crowd earlier to begin with, yeah, there's a ring of truth that it could be for their own fun, in being sadists. This is who we have representing the face of Smash, by following some darwinistic bull. And I also notice how they are apparently great friends with each other. Yeah, you want to know who else are "great friends"? The Poop Team Epic duo. And yes, I'm calling that show that if it's going to grate on me so badly I change the channel not even halfway into the first episode and deliberately avoid it every airing. I call them out for not only being sadists, but also having the *GALL* to act like people should like sadists like them. What makes the Bayonetta duo any different?

I hear Nintendo was watching. If so, I'm hoping they address this. This has been a very constant problem and it's been around long before Bayonetta has been. All Bayonetta did by apparently being too accurate to her games was be surprisingly welcome from getting this mess into open view.

 

[ThatGuyWhoKnowsNothing]

I had a random Idea. Pegasus (My last tag was a fiasco, I give up) keeps mentionings strict rules, but what if we instead created guidelines, as well as a "Council" of sorts consisting of opinion leader, to players, TO's, etc. that would work together on issues, and come to conclusions together. this would help with the aforementioned problem of characters that we'rent necessarily OP, but might/might not be hurting the community. I dunno, I'm spitballing here.

 

[Pegasus Knight]

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

 

[ThatGuyWhoKnowsNothing]

Eh, It's more of a do nothing in as many words as possible type of thing, as well as compiling information. (As far as I can tell, I'm relatively new to this type of thing, I just like to think I have some good ideas, read to pretend I'm not an idiot) what we need is a council with real power to change actual stuff

 

[Blade of Evil's Bane]

I would love to help. Changing stuff is fun even more than talking about it. Got any plans about where to start?

 

[lmntolp]

I had a random Idea. Pegasus (My last tag was a fiasco, I give up) keeps mentionings strict rules, but what if we instead created guidelines, as well as a "Council" of sorts consisting of opinion leader, to players, TO's, etc. that would work together on issues, and come to conclusions together.

I would love to help. Changing stuff is fun even more than talking about it. Got any plans about where to start?

I found a relevant reddit post today about how to get a list of Smash4's community leaders.

Granted it's more of an announcement of a list and a not a list yet, but Vayseth looks like someone to contact if you want to start somewhere. Also Vayseth's post is the first one to give me hope that something productive is being done to move forward.

 

[LancerStaff]

Timeout... the only bad characters from Smash 4 that I know of that got hit up with more nerfs in the demo is Kirby (I think) and Samus. Zelda's okay and Bowser okay too even w/ out his Up-throw combos, also the whole less lag on all ariels thing is a plus on him too. Pac-Man is stronger than he was in Smash 4 from what I hear and Ganondorf... man, I don't even gotta explain myself about him. Other than them, the rest of the bad characters for Smash 4 in the Smash Ultimate demo is looking fairly decent to me.

Also, what "distinctly detrimental" mechanics are you referring to? The balloon-like knockback? Something else? Or is it all of them?

That these characters were even considered for a minute to have any particular aspect be too strong is ridiculous. Samus especially... I don’t remember the specifics but somebody was saying the air charge cancel animation was hokey slow or something, and then her dash attack was gutted with nothing apparent in return. Bowser is likely worse since his grab game is dead and the mechanical changes (more on that in a sec) hurts about as much as it helps. Dorf is similar in my mind, so yes you do have to explain. Characters not in the demo appear to have nerfs too. Roy has what appears to be more startup on his jab, which is again ridiculous, and some other things...

Well the big one is what appears to be either shieldstun canceling or a complete lack of shieldstun to begin with. That f***s up, well, everything. It’s close to reliving Brawl’s hitstun canceling. Slow, strong hits even with better frame data are still not safe, and the fast, weaker hits that were always safe are even more safe relatively. Then there’s things like ballon knockback, the short hop macro, and some other things... And some grey areas like the short hop damage penalty.

I refuse to believe this series is even giving a single afterthought towards anything remotely competitive until it can muster something as simple as an actual tiebreaker mechanic.

 

[Blade of Evil's Bane]

I found a relevant reddit post today about how to get a list of Smash4's community leaders.

Granted it's more of an announcement of a list and a not a list yet, but Vayseth looks like someone to contact if you want to start somewhere. Also Vayseth's post is the first one to give me hope that something productive is being done to move forward.

Nice, that's perfect, thx mate. Very instructive.

It's good to see that the dust can settles at some point even after a s***storm like this one. People can look back with perspective and learn from this.

The challenge is to show things in perspective to those who love s***storms (because being angry at something is easy and satisfying on the short term). There's also people who are not properly informed and therefore cannot put things into context and jumps on the 'hatetrain' whenever it passes.

I think we'll need a jedi or something...

 

[Master Knight DH]

Well the big one is what appears to be either shieldstun canceling or a complete lack of shieldstun to begin with. That f***s up, well, everything. It’s close to reliving Brawl’s hitstun canceling. Slow, strong hits even with better frame data are still not safe, and the fast, weaker hits that were always safe are even more safe relatively.

You would know this, but this is the sort of thing I've taken issue with for years. And something I do notice is that by given indications, Smash attacks generally have about 30 frames of cooldown. If there's significantly more or less, provide a list, hopefully not full of characters who are blatantly either Fragile Speedsters or Mighty Glaciers, but if I was just looking at outliers, I'm for knowing. Either way, I think Smash attacks should have a multiplier on the shieldstun to deal enough shieldstun to not be unsafe on block, even against Perfect Shield, in a game called Super SMASH Bros., not Super SPAM Bros. or Super SHIELD Bros.. Projectiles already do to reduce the shieldstun they deal. I don't think programming in the multiplier would be a nightmare.

 

[The21stSmasher]

That these characters were even considered for a minute to have any particular aspect be too strong is ridiculous. Samus especially... I don’t remember the specifics but somebody was saying the air charge cancel animation was hokey slow or something, and then her dash attack was gutted with nothing apparent in return. Bowser is likely worse since his grab game is dead and the mechanical changes (more on that in a sec) hurts about as much as it helps. Dorf is similar in my mind, so yes you do have to explain. Characters not in the demo appear to have nerfs too. Roy has what appears to be more startup on his jab, which is again ridiculous, and some other things...

Well the big one is what appears to be either shieldstun canceling or a complete lack of shieldstun to begin with. That f***s up, well, everything. It’s close to reliving Brawl’s hitstun canceling. Slow, strong hits even with better frame data are still not safe, and the fast, weaker hits that were always safe are even more safe relatively. Then there’s things like ballon knockback, the short hop macro, and some other things... And some grey areas like the short hop damage penalty.

I refuse to believe this series is even giving a single afterthought towards anything remotely competitive until it can muster something as simple as an actual tiebreaker mechanic.

Well then, it is indeed looking like you're straight up losing, if not, lost all hope for Smash Ultimate as a competitive game. Regardless though, allow me to explain myself and give my 2-cents on a few things:

The universal 3-frame jump squat thing that every character in the game has is a pretty big and good buff for Ganondorf, also better D-Smash, which is most definitely similar to Cloud's D-Smash, an U-Smash with a hitbox that covers him, Nair having no sour spot, more grab range, to name a few. TLDR, less laggy, more range in attacks and grab. Honestly, if I were to break down the entire character for you, this post would become longer than it has to be, so I'll just link you the notes so you can take a look yourself and convince me that Ganondorf is worst than he was in Smash 4, right here: https://www.ssbwiki.com/Ganondorf_(SSBU)

You may have a point about Bowser though. I thought he can SOMEWHAT follow stuff up from his U-throw, considering most of its combo potential is lost, but I can be wrong about that. And I heard from M2K in his For-Fun tier list video (I think) that Bowser's nair can follow-up into combos after landing (to itself/other ariels), which again, the work of the universal 3-frame jump squat thing and his D-tilt can trip at low percentages.

Also, we can't make any overall conclusions about characters that weren't in the demo. 23 seconds just ain't enough to go off of, but it is most certainly something to keep note of, I'll give ya that.

I almost forgot to mention that the fact that IT'S A DEMO; anything from that E3 demo (assuming they used the same one for evo) is likely to change from the day of E3 2018 to December 7th. Plus, I'm pretty sure plenty of people who played it mentioned the whole less shieldstun and hitstun, balloon knockback thing to them (which btw I knew you'll mention that, as I'm not a fan of that myself, including the majority of others.). It's not like Nintendo isn't taking the feedback from the competitive scene at all. I know that's kinda optimistic, but they said it themselves in an interview back in E3 2018. Open for feedback from the competitive scene.

Although, whether or not Nintendo will use the feedback make Smash Ultimate better than the demo... well, we'll just have to wait and see to make judges on that. Same goes with characters too. I'm hoping for the best considering Nintendo's intentions to the scene so far. None of my business, but hopefully for you, a little hope can shine from you as we get closer to the release day.

Lastly, yeah I agree with ya there. An actual good tiebreaker mechanic will do very nicely. But, it is as it is with that. :\

 

[ぱみゅ]

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

I was thinking precisely about this during the entire day (driving for 3 hours kinda helped that).

The most important takeoff I get from all this situation is that Smash 4 doesn't really have community leaders, and that is a very passive, very important damage to the game.

Having a head figure that encourages (rewards?) displays that bring positive light to the game and community can be very important to maintain that mentality and people to truly aspire to be at the spotlight.
The closest thing we got is the Panda Global Rankings, who encourage participation on large events and rewards victories over historically great players. That is a good thing, isn't it? Of course it is a positive thing! However, this Ranking is only mathematical and there is no penalty for any foul behaviour outside of the results themselves.
No other entity anywhere has a project or a plan for the community and that has lead to multiple problems in the game's history: From saturation of Major events through entire seasons, to not knowing how to handle punishments (I'm mostly thinking about Hyuga and JK), to being unable to agree into a single global ruleset, to this event in particular.

Back when Captain Zack was part of Phoenix1, I bet he had people behind him that constantly reminded him to keep focus and win. This time, neither Lima or Zack have sponsors or competitive teams behind them, there was NOBODY they could turn to to keep their mindsets in check. So they did what they wanted and this is the result.
(btw, I am not saying there had to be someone on the stage telling them encouraging words, but if this hypothetical Figure existed at all, they'd probably keep in the back of their minds there are people wanting encouraging them to do something good for them and the community and that will recognise them for that.)

Something similar goes for the community as a whole: While community leaders to explicitly tell them their behaviour was NOT okay just seem to not exist, there are some players that are widely followed and respected and could be considered leaders, such as ZeRo, Nairo, Dabuz or Ally.
Not gonna call names, but when some of these players CONTRIBUTE to this drama, call Bayo broken without second thought, some even spoke about how one character destroyed their motivation to play the game, and other statements that keep on transmitting this negativity, the community tend to reflect (and extrapolate) their words as truths rather than the individual sentiments they are.

Interestingly enough, Vayseth just posted something along the lines of this topic, and I respect the effort.

Can we, the Smashboards 4 Backroom do something about this? We are an already established institution who has achieved a number of Smash-related projects in the past, so my answer would be "maybe?". Honestly, only the future can tell.

 

[Nexus Nova]

It could be that these 2 were just to familiar with playing in their community, the Smash 4 community.
I think that this behaviour is ok as long as it's a Smash-only tournament. One particular Smash 4 tournament which is also a major event (I don't remember it from the top of my head) should be fine because it's within that certain group and everyone is familiar with each other there.

Doing it at Evo or a Nintendo event where all fighting games or any game tournament collaborates together is a different story. You're not only with your community but you're also in the same room with other gaming communities.

How I interpret things is that the Smash community is like a group of family and friends that you know so you're more open to them and there's now need to be sophisticated about things. Then, when you go to Evo, it feels like a prom or a gathering of important members of the fighting-game community. While acting all posh and stuff. So you have to show your side of etiquette and be on your best behaviour in front of them.

Anyways, the finalist giving rude gestures to the crowd as well as intentional stalling is immature but the crowd on the other hand, booing Bayonetta ditto is also immature so it goes both ways. But still, the pressure is more focused on the finalists so therefore they need to continue playing like professionals. Players get booed all the time even in sports so it's not an abnormal thing.

 

[Crystanium]

It's a... complicated situation. I absolutely agree that generalizing a group's behavior doesn't make it true for all, however on the flip side that isn't the way that people unfamiliar with the intricacies of the Smash community as a whole are going to view it. They're going to look at how the Smash 4 tournament went down, then look at other games at EVO (and likely conveniently ignore Melee) and use it as a justification to say "yep, all the nasty things people say about how the Smash community behaves are true".

I blame certain people's inability to collect facts before sticking with their uninformed opinion. What's worse, I've seen people comment on YouTube regarding videos addressing what happened at EVO 2018, saying things like, "This is why Melee is better", or saying, "This is why the FGC sees Smash as a joke." The problem with these comments is that they're uninformed and ignore (intentionally or unintentionally) the issues found also in Melee and the FGC. Yesterday, I typed, "FGC" on Google and the drop box included "fgc elitism". I commented on one comment, saying that the FGC would be wise to mind their own business. Because it's not easy addressing the problem, this is where I suspect "community" or "fanbase" is used to group everyone to make it feel easier to judge, and that's just not appropriate or fair.