Has "For Items" Competitive Smash Officially begun?

[Jack Kieser]

@Overswarm ! @ LiteralGrill ! Hey, guys. :D The summon worked, I'm here Unfortunately, I'm busy tonight setting up PAX Prime cosplay plans and having dinner with the GF and roommate, so I probably won't be posting, but I'll catch up on the thread tomorrow (I'm off of work, yay!) and probably post then.

In the meantime, yes, I'm totally up for items in SSB4 (I'm probably not going to be as gung ho this time around, though), and I'll most likely be running at least ISP side events when I finally get my ass in gear. >_<

 

[Deleted member 245254]

Here's the thing.

When I first started playing Smash Bros (64) with friends the very day it released, it was a blast, items and all.

Match after match, as the days, weeks, and months went on, and as things began to get repetitive, certain things began to slowly tug at our enjoyment of any given match, and we naturally gravitated towards turning items off. It just felt more natural, and less like the game was interfering on the match.

This was without any knowledge of any competitive scene (was there at the time?).

Melee comes around. Items are cool for a short time but again, just as in Smash 64, we slowly gravitated towards turning them off again. Even more funny, is that we steadily shifted towards only playing on Final Destination, Battlefield, or other levels that are far and wide recognized as tournament legal because of their general fairness.

We still know nothing about the competitive community.

The kind of validation me and several other friends felt when we finally bumped in to the existence of a competitive Smash scene, that they literally play by the same rules we naturally were led to play with, without even knowing about a competitive scene...well, I mean. It's just so freaking obvious why the meta-game is the way it is. It clearly is more enticing for those wanting to compare 1v1 skill and skill alone. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why the scene plays by the rules it does...it's just freaking human adaptation. It's literally newtons law at work.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who went through this.

 

[DunnoBro]

That sounds about the same as my first smash experience. There was this babysitting service at our church and they had an n64, that's where i got my first take of smash 64 and home console gaming (sisters had snes and stuff but they never let me play ) and i got hooked! We played a lot in free for alls but when we'd want to determine who the best was, we knew to turn off items for 1v1s.

After i got my own to play at home with i dominated, I also naturally gravitated towards fox and pikachu though I had some weird mentality that made me avoid jumping as much as possible.

 

[CloneHat]

You want to play with items? Host a tournament

 

[Rodriguez5]

Is this guy half ********?

 

[Jack Kieser]

So, I've caught up on the thread. And, as the guy last generation who probably had the most experience with competitive item play, and if not as certainly one of the most knowledgeable, I feel that I can add to the discussion a bit.

First of all, I want to say this: the OP obviously has a few hang ups. All this talk about "real Smash" and such in this thread, from everyone, is nonsense. Now, I'm sure many people reading this will probably think, "yeah, because items obviously aren't the real way to play competitively", but that's not right, either. The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of the people who actually know why items are banned, and were around to remember it happening in real time... those people are long gone, and the ones who do remain don't post here. So, to both the OP and the rest: you all probably need a really good reality check.

The fact is, competitive Smash rulesets have not been a free market enterprise for almost 8 years. The way we do things now... those ways of thinking and acting haven't been seriously challenged in a long time. No one has proposed anything other than what we have been doing since 2 years before Brawl's launch and had it actually be taken seriously on its own merit. Hell, ISP was widely, seriously successful by any decent metric, and even that was nowhere near taken seriously by most players, never even tried.

Most Smashers have been running their practice, their competitions, their entire way of thinking about playing the game, on a fundamental set of assumptions that haven't been seriously challenged for years.

You can read it even in this thread. Parroted party line talking points about random spawns, auto-activated items, clutch victories as the norm, inconsistent event results. Most of you haven't ever read my admittedly ancient (by internet standards) thread, done any research, actually played in any format that isn't standard 1v1 or doubles. You have no experience, because very few of you have ever tried to go outside what you're used to and get it, taken personal responsibility to expand your experience.

Many Smashers treat rulesets the same way that my small town Mesquite, TX neighbors treated travel: never left the county, never left the state, and never left the country, but sure as hell certain about their opinions of a world they've never even seen, much less visited.

And, that's sad, to me.

@ LiteralGrill has done a lot of research, a lot of talking, and has been passionate about trying new things with Smash 4. It reminds me a lot of how I used to feel before I became the jaded, cynical misanthrope I am now, honestly. And one thing I've seen Capps say before, and it's something I'm sure will be said again, is that Smash 4 is the perfect opportunity to revisit those old, tired assumptions, those old ways of thinking, and use the opportunity of a new game to learn. I think the idea of using Smash 3DS as an items platform has a lot of promise, and is something we should seriously consider, as a community. I really want to commend you.

But, we can do better than that. I've seen threads on this very board talking about all sorts of sad, tired stuff. Banning stages, banning modes, banning custom moves, and yes, banning all items, before the game's even released. Before we know what we're dealing with. And, sticking just to the item debate (if you can even call something as one-sided as this a 'debate'), it's obvious a lot of the people commenting are uninformed. They haven't even considered the possibility that items take skill to use properly, that the randomness they introduce are counterbalanced in meaningful ways with new tech, new ATs, new skills, and new strategies. And that, like @Overswarm said, that the format actually increases the gap between good and bad players, and doesn't enable ridiculous upsets and random results. The fact that many people talk about items as an "all or nothing" proposition, completely ignoring ban lists and the potential for counterpick systems, makes me sad, because that means many people obviously haven't given the system serious thought.

I honestly think that, at this point, the cynic in me has won. Items will never be a default standard for this community. That time has long passed. I hope Capps can prove me wrong, but it's probably not even a legitimate possibility for the 3DS community, not because the format wouldn't work, but because our current roster of entrenched players are so scared of change and learning a new format that they'd fight it tooth and nail; and who can blame them, when to them, hundreds of dollars are on the line every event? If I were a player whose life depended on the game, I'd manipulate the rules to favor me over newcomers any day of the week. It's also sad that we haven't figured out that it's not smart to let top players determine the rules that make them money and keep them dominant.

But, I want to think that items have a place in Smash 4. I want to think that a properly built, tested, and implemented items ruleset could service a large, underrepresented part of this community, and a large portion of new players. I want to think that it could be a bridging force, helping to get Nintendo deeper into our community, and getting us more mainstream respect and coverage. I honestly want to believe that we could use this opportunity to actually grow as a community, and not stagnate. And, I'm the kind of person who despises beliefs.

So, that's my piece. I think we have a real chance here, to start from scratch and learn a lot, about the game and what it means to have a well-rounded, healthy community capable of real growth. And, I think items can play a large role in that. I think that the evidence shows that the format works, that it's viable, that it's competitive, and that it's healthy.

And I really hope we give it the chance it deserves.

 

[LiteralGrill]

jack before I respond to all you said I want to say one thing. This post inspired me in a serious way and I thank you for that. I cannot guarantee that ISP will be common place on the 3DS or even a common side event, but I can promise I will lead the charge for ISP in a new thread for Smash 4. Maybe if I'm lucky at least a large scene can build for it online. Have hope.

The fact is, competitive Smash rulesets have not been a free market enterprise for almost 8 years. The way we do things now... those ways of thinking and acting haven't been seriously challenged in a long time. No one has proposed anything other than what we have been doing since 2 years before Brawl's launch and had it actually be taken seriously on its own merit. Hell, ISP was widely, seriously successful by any decent metric, and even that was nowhere near taken seriously by most players, never even tried.

It is true, those people who say "well run one and if people actually want it they'll show up" is just not true. Though people who really do want items, maybe you need to find a rallying point. Heck, a smashboards group? Just somewhere safe to talk about items and organize. If people want it, I'll do it.

You can read it even in this thread. Parroted party line talking points about random spawns, auto-activated items, clutch victories as the norm, inconsistent event results. Most of you haven't ever read my admittedly ancient (by internet standards) thread, done any research, actually played in any format that isn't standard 1v1 or doubles. You have no experience, because very few of you have ever tried to go outside what you're used to and get it, taken personal responsibility to expand your experience.

Many Smashers treat rulesets the same way that my small town Mesquite, TX neighbors treated travel: never left the county, never left the state, and never left the country, but sure as hell certain about their opinions of a world they've never even seen, much less visited.

And, that's sad, to me.

I've tried ISP myself in Brawl, a lot of the things people have assumptions over I can agree are not true. Plus the rampant misinformation is terrible. People still think items spawn closer to the losing player! I just read and responded to an old backroom member who was telling people this. If the best must trusted group of players is spreading wrong information we have problems.

Don't just beleive what you are told and parrot it. Test it yourselves. If you don't like it after that it's totally fine, but be ready to back it up with real reasoning and logic.

@ LiteralGrill has done a lot of research, a lot of talking, and has been passionate about trying new things with Smash 4. It reminds me a lot of how I used to feel before I became the jaded, cynical misanthrope I am now, honestly. And one thing I've seen Capps say before, and it's something I'm sure will be said again, is that Smash 4 is the perfect opportunity to revisit those old, tired assumptions, those old ways of thinking, and use the opportunity of a new game to learn. I think the idea of using Smash 3DS as an items platform has a lot of promise, and is something we should seriously consider, as a community. I really want to commend you.

I choked up a bit I'm not even lying. Someone has to stick their neck out and I'm damn proud to be the only one doing it.

But, we can do better than that. I've seen threads on this very board talking about all sorts of sad, tired stuff. Banning stages, banning modes, banning custom moves, and yes, banning all items, before the game's even released. Before we know what we're dealing with. And, sticking just to the item debate (if you can even call something as one-sided as this a 'debate'), it's obvious a lot of the people commenting are uninformed. They haven't even considered the possibility that items take skill to use properly, that the randomness they introduce are counterbalanced in meaningful ways with new tech, new ATs, new skills, and new strategies. And that, like @Overswarm said, that the format actually increases the gap between good and bad players, and doesn't enable ridiculous upsets and random results. The fact that many people talk about items as an "all or nothing" proposition, completely ignoring ban lists and the potential for counterpick systems, makes me sad, because that means many people obviously haven't given the system serious thought.

I honestly think that, at this point, the cynic in me has won. Items will never be a default standard for this community. That time has long passed. I hope Capps can prove me wrong, but it's probably not even a legitimate possibility for the 3DS community, not because the format wouldn't work, but because our current roster of entrenched players are so scared of change and learning a new format that they'd fight it tooth and nail; and who can blame them, when to them, hundreds of dollars are on the line every event? If I were a player whose life depended on the game, I'd manipulate the rules to favor me over newcomers any day of the week. It's also sad that we haven't figured out that it's not smart to let top players determine the rules that make them money and keep them dominant.[/quote]

I'll be hosting a lot of 3DS events. I intend on banning nothing until it's proven ban worthy. It'll make my life a lot harder, but it's the route to go. If items can't catch on I will at a bare minimum host ISP side events whenever I can. I really also don't understand the reason why people want to ban things before even testing them. I made a thread with a poll just asking if we should give items a fair test (not even asking to legalize them) and the majority said no. Why must the community be so closed minded? It doesn't hurt at ALL to test these things, and honestly I think a lot of people were scared that if they were tested people might see they aren't as bad as they thought so they said no to protect their own skins. You are right, letting top players make the rules that make them money is a horrible idea that people need to realize is happening and must stop.

But, I want to think that items have a place in Smash 4. I want to think that a properly built, tested, and implemented items ruleset could service a large, underrepresented part of this community, and a large portion of new players. I want to think that it could be a bridging force, helping to get Nintendo deeper into our community, and getting us more mainstream respect and coverage. I honestly want to believe that we could use this opportunity to actually grow as a community, and not stagnate. And, I'm the kind of person who despises beliefs.

So, that's my piece. I think we have a real chance here, to start from scratch and learn a lot, about the game and what it means to have a well-rounded, healthy community capable of real growth. And, I think items can play a large role in that. I think that the evidence shows that the format works, that it's viable, that it's competitive, and that it's healthy.

And I really hope we give it the chance it deserves.

I've said it many times, having some events with items would bridge the gap from casual players to competitive and would bring a LOT of people into our community. I do hate to see this opportunity wasted by so many others, I wont be wasting it myself.

EDIT: I took my own idea in stride. I made the ISP Group right here on Smashboards. PM me for an invitation and I'll let you in. I'm keeping it invitation only for now to keep the trolling at a minimum.

 

[thesage]

How was ISP successful? I've read threads where people have told you (jack kaiser) that tournament players later on in the bracket shifted to no item matches at ISP tournaments. I've never seen one being held near me (NYC/DC smash scenes) nor have I seen any interest in people hosting them. You were even banning certain items since you thought they effected the game too much.

The back room makes rule sets based off of what is being played at tournaments. They don't issue ultimatums. Many tournaments have various stages allowed.

People who are good at this game find items simple and stupid. Items are either ineffective, too overpowered, make you die randomly, or make low tiers completely useless.

Which items would you even find allowable in a tournament environment? I am not gonna pay to lose a match because a deku nut/bomb/exploding capsule/reverse lightning/poison mushroom spawned on me while I was attacking my opponent. Characters that are good at zoning/camping become even more powerful since they can control a bigger portion of the stage. I just got knocked off of the stage after me and my opponent traded hits and a beamsword/bat/mario fire sword thing/pitfall spawned next to my opponent. Without items I would've been put in a minor position, but because items are on I lose that stock. The opponent can just jump off throw the projectile at me and then punish my airdodge or early up-b or my item catch since I can't attack unless I use a special (unless I'm Peach). Those characters good at zoning already tend to be higher tiers. So we get campier playstyles and a bigger imbalance for characters.

Items are gonna be banned in smash 4. Some stages are gonna be banned in smash 4. If you gonna cry about it you should probably see a therapist since that's kind of ****ed up to be so emotional about a video game ruleset.

This thread should be locked. This isn't about smash 4 anymore. It was just made by a troll looking to stir up some trouble.

EDIT: LOL at the backroom being trusted. There are many smashers that don't like them or indifferent to their opinions. I'm on the indifferent side lol.

I feel like I should disclose that before I even knew what a wavedash was or unlocked Mewtwo I turned off items when fighting serious mode matches against my friends. I do play with them when I'm just looking to have fun but arguing for using items when money is on the line is just not a good idea.

 

[LiteralGrill]

You were even banning certain items since you thought they effected the game too much.

Items are like stages, you can ban those that create issues while allowing others. What is so weird about that?

The back room makes rule sets based off of what is being played at tournaments. They don't issue ultimatums. Many tournaments have various stages allowed.

I hate to be rude to them, but as it stands now the back room is irellevant as all of the major TOs ignore their recommendations anyways. Don't forget they did once issue sort of an ultimatum with Unity however.

People who are good at this game find items simple and stupid. Items are either ineffective, too overpowered, make you die randomly, or make low tiers completely useless.

You're inexperience with items is apparent here. Many low tier characters are actually buffed a good bit with items. Have you ever seen Gannondorf with items? He pops up a few tiers at a bare minimum.

Which items would you even find allowable in a tournament environment?

I'm pretty sure he wrote an entire thread about this that was linked a few times here now that holds the answer.

I am not gonna pay to lose a match because a deku nut/bomb/exploding capsule/reverse lightning/poison mushroom spawned on me while I was attacking my opponent.

Funny that, all of those are banned in ISP. You need to learn more about the idea before blatantly dismissing it like you are.

Characters that are good at zoning/camping become even more powerful since they can control a bigger portion of the stage. I just got knocked off of the stage after me and my opponent traded hits and a beamsword/bat/mario fire sword thing/pitfall spawned next to my opponent. Without items I would've been put in a minor position, but because items are on I lose that stock. The opponent can just jump off throw the projectile at me and then punish my airdodge or early up-b or my item catch since I can't attack unless I use a special (unless I'm Peach). Those characters good at zoning already tend to be higher tiers. So we get campier playstyles and a bigger imbalance for characters.

Yeah, that could happen. those people who want to play with items don't mind. However, I will draw a slight objection here. From what I know of items play one of the biggest parts of it is mitigating your disadvantages and using your advantages to the best of your ability when you can. That is a factor in MANY competitive games and in some it is introduced randomly just like items arre and causes no issues.

Items are gonna be banned in smash 4. Some stages are gonna be banned in smash 4. If you gonna cry about it you should probably see a therapist since that's kind of ****ed up to be so emotional about a video game ruleset.

I'd be more concerned about your rage involving it. What's wrong with having a civil discussion about items? Nothing. Perhaps you should see a therapist for your anger issues.

This thread should be locked. This isn't about smash 4 anymore. It was just made by a troll looking to stir up some trouble.

I'm not seeing where this stopped being about smash 4. Despite the possible origin of this thread the discussion has overall be healthy and interesting. No reason to lock it just because you don't like what is being discussed.

 

[RODO]

A mode where 1 item appears every 30 to 60 seconds in the center of the stage could be interesting.

That actually sounds hype

 

[thesage]

I am not raging at all I'm laughing my ass off. This debate is the intellectual equivalent of watching the three stooges smack each other around and I'm a big fan of slapstick comedy.

I would really like to know what makes Gannondorf better with items on? He's a slow ass character. In melee I see him getting worse and in brawl he's absolute trash who doesn't even have an actual recovery in a game where most characters have amazing ones.

I do think it's funny you guys allow the bunny hood and I think it shows that you don't really know how to play smash well whatsoever. I could take the time to argue against the unbanned ISP ruleset items, but I gotta go pet my cat. I'll just ask why these tournaments aren't very common and what would prioritize having them over smash 64, melee, or brawl tournaments? I think the answers are self evident.

 

[XStarWarriorX]

No.

It started in early 2001, died some time after.

/Thread

 

[Jack Kieser]

I really shouldn't dignify this with a response, but I guess I have nothing else to do right now. >_>

How was ISP successful? I've read threads where people have told you (jack kaiser) that tournament players later on in the bracket shifted to no item matches at ISP tournaments. I've never seen one being held near me (NYC/DC smash scenes) nor have I seen any interest in people hosting them. You were even banning certain items since you thought they effected the game too much.

This is... ok. *sigh* Here we go.

First of all, I have no recollection of these threads, so you should probably cite your sources or keep your mouth shut. Second, an ISP tournament either has a CP list or simply an allowed / banned list. If players disabled all items in any match, that match should have been invalidated and the players DQ'ed for cheating, and if the TO didn't do that, it's his / her fault for sucking at his / her job; I know at one of my first ISP tournaments, when we were still testing things out, a player got salty and asked me to change the rules literally halfway through the event, and I told him to suck it up because he agreed to the rules when he entered. It's not the format's fault if the TO can't nut up.

Second, ISP has had an (admittedly) small showing offline. I never doubted that. However, check the thread. Pretty much every serious player who ever came to the thread and tried it out said explicitly that, not counting their own personal opinions on tweaks to improve the lists, the format was solid, competitive, and worked. In my books, that means it was a success. I couldn't care less about popularity: if the format worked in a tournament setting, and we have evidence that it did, then the experiment of "create a viable item ruleset" was a success.

The back room makes rule sets based off of what is being played at tournaments. They don't issue ultimatums. Many tournaments have various stages allowed.

The back room absolutely used to issue ultimatums. The word of the BRoom was law back in 2007 and 2008. The way they handled Brawl's metagame lost them respect with the community at large and they only stopped issuing ultimatums when they realized that everyone stopped listening to them: at that point, they started making "suggested" rulesets, as opposed to "official" rulesets. Not really sure how that's relevant to whether item formats are viable or not, though.

People who are good at this game find items simple and stupid.

First of all, wow, THAT'S not an accurate statement. Second, even being generous to you assuming it was, since when is the opinion of top players infallible? As I've already said, they're biased as all hell (I wouldn't want to support an entirely new format to learn, either, when it could cost me thousands), and item play is admittedly more difficult and more complex than non-item play. It's factually incorrect that item play is simple, and whether it's "stupid" or not is an irrelevant opinion from anyone, including top players and TOs. What's important is whether it's consistent and competitive. And it is. Overswarm already testified to that effect in this very thread.

Items are either ineffective, too overpowered, make you die randomly, or make low tiers completely useless.

As a class, you cannot make that kind of judgement about items. Individually... yes, you're correct that SOME items are not balanced. Which is why we banned those items, made a neutral list, and even added a CP list just in case.

Which items would you even find allowable in a tournament environment?

It's obvious you're uninformed. You're one of those problem people I referenced in my second post to this thread. You want to talk? Inform yourself. Go read the ISP thread.

I am not gonna pay to lose a match because a deku nut/bomb/exploding capsule/reverse lightning/poison mushroom spawned on me while I was attacking my opponent.

Oh, then it's a good thing that ISP has (almost) every single auto-activating item banned by default (some are counterpick items).

Characters that are good at zoning/camping become even more powerful since they can control a bigger portion of the stage.

Sometimes. Actually, some characters with good spacial control moves but no projectiles of their own become more powerful, as well. Feel free to read the thread to see all of our character discussions. Either way, not a problem. Our current format, with our curated list of stages, also makes some characters more and less powerful than they would have been with another format. This is not, in and of itself, an argument for or against any particular ruleset, as it is a side effect of ALL rulesets.

I just got knocked off of the stage after me and my opponent traded hits and a beamsword/bat/mario fire sword thing/pitfall spawned next to my opponent. Without items I would've been put in a minor position, but because items are on I lose that stock. The opponent can just jump off throw the projectile at me and then punish my airdodge or early up-b or my item catch since I can't attack unless I use a special (unless I'm Peach). Those characters good at zoning already tend to be higher tiers. So we get campier playstyles and a bigger imbalance for characters.

You only lose a stock if you airdodge unintelligently. Or mistime your aerials, which catch items if properly timed. Also, with items on low, as is standard in ISP, not really a problem.

Items are gonna be banned in smash 4. Some stages are gonna be banned in smash 4. If you gonna cry about it you should probably see a therapist since that's kind of ****ed up to be so emotional about a video game ruleset.

Not even going to respond to this. It seems like the person who isn't capable of using well-written, meaningful, well-argued posts has more of a problem here, and that's not me.

This thread should be locked. This isn't about smash 4 anymore. It was just made by a troll looking to stir up some trouble.

Or, you know, it was an attempt at meaningful discussion that you can ignore if you really don't like it. >_> Honestly, especially considering your post-Capps reply post, I'm guessing YOU'RE the real troll around here.

EDIT: LOL at the backroom being trusted. There are many smashers that don't like them or indifferent to their opinions. I'm on the indifferent side lol.

...yay?

 

[LiteralGrill]

I am not raging at all I'm laughing my *** off. This debate is the intellectual equivalent of watching the three stooges smack each other around and I'm a big fan of slapstick comedy.

I would really like to know what makes Gannondorf better with items on? He's a slow *** character. In melee I see him getting worse and in brawl he's absolute trash who doesn't even have an actual recovery in a game where most characters have amazing ones.

I do think it's funny you guys allow the bunny hood and I think it shows that you don't really know how to play smash well whatsoever. I could take the time to argue against the unbanned ISP ruleset items, but I gotta go pet my cat. I'll just ask why these tournaments aren't very common and what would prioritize having them over smash 64, melee, or brawl tournaments? I think the answers are self evident.

Well since you are determined to be rude fine. If you don't know why Gannondorf is better with items, you obviously are not informed enough about items to be apart of the conversation. So, since you don't know enough to contribute, get out until you do. It's not like you could find that out in a mere matter of minutes with barely any effort or anything. Seriously, why are you even here if you don't want to contribute in a positive way?

 

[Deleted member 245254]

Honestly, banning specific items is not as sensible as banning certain stages or even characters.

At the end of the day, for the game to even function you need to be playing AS a character ON a stage.

Items are not necessary anywhere in the equation for a match to ensue, so if you can turn one off, people are just gonna go to the extreme and want to turn them all off because at its core every item has the potential to do the same thing...create an advantage where there wasn't one in the first place.

This advantage can be as simple as spawning closer to a player, and that applies to every single possible item.

It will not work. Items didn't wind up getting banned arbitrarily within the Smash community.... Sakurai didn't arbitrarily take items out of the mode meant for competitive players. You think this is a coincidence?

There's years, and freakin' years of study and educated conclusions made over the fact that items are just not meant for competitive play. Simple as that.

 

[LiteralGrill]

There's years, and freakin' years of study and educated conclusions made over the fact that items are just not meant for competitive play. Simple as that.

Well how about side events? Is there an issue with that? I know it'd be lofty to expect the community to adopt this as a standard (it's insanely unlikely) but having events for those who do like items isn't impossible right?

 

[Deleted member 245254]

Well how about side events? Is there an issue with that? I know it'd be lofty to expect the community to adopt this as a standard (it's insanely unlikely) but having events for those who do like items isn't impossible right?

Sure, for what it's worth you can throw a kahlua cocktail party as a side-event if you think people would be inclined to participate, I don't think anyone really cares at all what you want to do within that medium.

It will never be on the stream though.

 

[Jack Kieser]

Honestly, banning specific items is not as sensible as banning certain stages or even characters.

It absolutely is, but I'll hear you out.

At the end of the day, for the game to even function you need to be playing AS a character ON a stage.

Items are not necessary anywhere in the equation for a match to ensue, so if you can turn one off, people are just gonna go to the extreme and want to turn them all off because at its core every item has the potential to do the same thing...create an advantage where there wasn't one in the first place.

And, how does this make ban lists for items nonsensical? All this means is that we have more flexibility with item lists than we do with stage and character lists. This doesn't make banning single items nonsensical at all.

Stages create advantages, too. I really wish people would stop bringing up these terrible arguments. EVERY ruleset decision we make affects character / player strengths. Lower timers make camping easier. Plank and Overswarm, I guarantee it, do better in low-timer settings because it's easier to time out and easier to stall by virtue of having to keep it up for less time. This also holds true for any campy character. So, even our base settings value some players and characters over others, to say nothing of our stage selection.

This advantage can be as simple as spawning closer to a player, and that applies to every single possible item.

And this, again, is not an issue, in and of itself. It's obvious that you weren't around in the old days of Melee because this wasn't even the argument used then. The argument then, and the ACTUAL reason items are banned, is because there were no ways to turn off containers, so there was NO way to ensure, even with a ban list, that a match would not be decided by an exploding box or capsule, which was determined to be too powerful for competition. Brawl solved this problem.

It will not work. Items didn't end up getting banned arbitrarily within the Smash community. Sakurai didn't arbitrarily take items out of the mode meant for competitive players. You think this is a coincidence?

You're mixing cause and effect here. Sakurai didn't ban items in For Glory because they aren't competitive. He banned them because WE banned them. And, in Brawl, we banned them needlessly and without reason.

There's years, and freakin' years of study and educated conclusions made over the fact that items are just not meant for competitive play. Simple as that.

And most of those "studies" and "educated conclusions" are explicitly refuted in ONE THREAD. Which you obviously haven't read.

 

[Deleted member 245254]

It absolutely is, but I'll hear you out.

And, how does this make ban lists for items nonsensical? All this means is that we have more flexibility with item lists than we do with stage and character lists. This doesn't make banning single items nonsensical at all.

You have flexibility until the list has been narrowed down to only being 100% items that create no unfair advantage, which is zero items.

Stages create advantages, too. I really wish people would stop bringing up these terrible arguments. EVERY ruleset decision we make affects character / player strengths. Lower timers make camping easier. Plank and Overswarm, I guarantee it, do better in low-timer settings because it's easier to time out and easier to stall by virtue of having to keep it up for less time. This also holds true for any campy character. So, even our base settings value some players and characters over others, to say nothing of our stage selection.

In a minor way comparatively, yeah, stages can create advantages. They usually don't overall but yeah, but we absolutely need stages to even fight, so it's a necessity that we narrow the stage list down to the most fair choices. It's unnecessary with items at all so the purpose is deemed much more arbitrary.

And this, again, is not an issue, in and of itself. It's obvious that you weren't around in the old days of Melee because this wasn't even the argument used then. The argument then, and the ACTUAL reason items are banned, is because there were no ways to turn off containers, so there was NO way to ensure, even with a ban list, that a match would not be decided by an exploding box or capsule, which was determined to be too powerful for competition. Brawl solved this problem.

Well this is you being pompous. I have absolutely been playing Smash Bros. since it's first iteration, the day it released. I'm fully aware of the "main" argument against items because of capsules, I just felt it wasn't worth mentioning because it's obvious, but that isn't the only argument and just because you haven't heard it before doesn't make it invalid. Maybe you aren't paying attention yourself?

You're mixing cause and effect here. Sakurai didn't ban items in For Glory because they aren't competitive. He banned them because WE banned them. And, in Brawl, we banned them needlessly and without reason.

Holy crap, are you in Sakurai's mind? Why don't you reveal the rest of the roster while you seem to be rootin' around in there.

You can't definitively say anything when it comes to what Sakurai does.

And most of those "studies" and "educated conclusions" are explicitly refuted in ONE THREAD. Which you obviously haven't read.

The elitist is strong with this one. An item elitist, if I've ever seen one for the first time.

 

[Garquille14]

there needs to be a Canned Response for these topics, saying why items are stupid

 

[Jack Kieser]

You have flexibility until the list has been narrowed down to only being 100% items that create no unfair advantage, which is zero items.

Which is also a slippery slope argument, which is a total garbage argument. You don't just ban particular items willy-nilly. There's a method to it. One that I laid out explicitly in, like, 3-4 full paragraphs of competitive philosophy in the ISP thread.

But, I'll spell it out for you here, since it's becoming more obvious that people are not willing to self-educate by clicking a few links. >_> There are specific reasons to ban any particular item: does it over-cerntralize (does the match become about using that one particular item)? Does the item have an adequate risk-reward ratio (is the item OP or too weak, or does it do too much or too little in relation to how easy it is to use)? Does the item, when used as intended, have acceptable counter strategies in place (fairly self explanatory, can you do something about an item being used, or are you unable to affect the match once it's been used)?

We use those criteria to determine if an item is bannable or not. So, unlike your ridiculous scenario in which we just ban things because and eventually get to no items, we only ban things if the system in place says we can, if we have a reason to. Some items (in fact, a lot of them), you cannot make a valid argument using those criteria that an item can be banned. So, we never get to 100%.

In a minor way comparatively, yeah, stages can create advantages. They usually don't overall but yeah, but we absolutely need stages to even fight, so it's a necessity that we narrow the stage list down to the most fair choices. It's unnecessary with items at all so the purpose is deemed much more arbitrary.

Some stages change matchups up to 30%. That's a LOT of advantage. Don't downplay how much stages affect things. Besides, you just ignored the entire point of that passage. WE determine which characters are good and bad depending on our ruleset choices. In order for you to counter this, you have to prove that our ruleset choices have ABSOLUTELY NO affect on tier lists or matchups. If you cannot, my point stands.

Well this is you being pompous. I have absolutely been playing Smash Bros. since it's first iteration, the day it released. I'm fully aware of the "main" argument against items because of capsules, I just felt it wasn't worth mentioning because it's obvious, but that isn't the only argument and just because you haven't heard it before doesn't make it invalid. Maybe you aren't paying attention yourself?

Let's assume you're not backtracking furiously and you actually DID know that. If you were paying attention, I've already let you know that all of the other arguments against item play? Yeah, already demolished those previously. Bro, I've been making this argument, having this exact same discussion, since 2007. I've seen, and broken down, every argument in the book. Again, reference the ISP thread.

Holy crap, are you in Sakurai's mind? Why don't you reveal the rest of the roster while you seem to be rootin' around in there.

You can't definitively say anything when it comes to what Sakurai does.

A bit tangential, but if I can't use the fact that For Glory exists, his interviews, E3, the Invitational (including the rules page that explicitly called us out), and other circumstantial evidence to establish that Sakurai made For Glory mode by referencing our rulesets and customs, then you're telling me that every method of establishing motive known to the Western world in the past 500 years is invalid, and I'm sure the modern criminal justice system would disagree with you. If you can't figure this out on your own, you're not paying attention.

The elitist is strong with this one. An item elitist, if I've ever seen one for the first time.

You know what? I don't get this. It's like, in the modern United States, being an intelligent, confident, educated person is a bad thing. Buddy, I absolutely am more knowledgeable, intelligent, well-read, and capable of arguing this than 90% of the registered Smashboards users, and I'm proud of that because that is due to the hard work I put in over months and months of research, testing, TO'ing, discussing, and organizing. Do I think items are better than non-items? Absolutely not: they are two formats with their own strengths and weaknesses, many of each. Do I think I'm absolutely more qualified than you to talk about it?

Most certainly. And that's entirely because of how you've been discussing this, like someone who really does not know what he's talking about.

Maybe you should listen and learn before you speak. Go read the ISP thread, educate yourself on the modern item metagame, then come back and we'll discuss this like equals.

 

[mimgrim]

I have nothing against item play. Go ahead test it out, deem if they are worthy or not. Just don't get it to replace non-item play. But, believe it or not, I am actually very picky about item play and only find a certain type of item play to be fun, with the rest being boring. The only items I actually like are things like Peach's Turnips, ZSS' Armor Pieces, Bananas, Mr. Saturn, and the like. Do you see the pattern? The only way they are used is to be thrown/dropped and there is no other way to use them, unlike the Beam Sword (which can be attacked with) or the Ray fun (which can be shot). I have nothing against you if you want to bring ISP back in Smash 4, but if it involves the items that I don't like/find to be not fun I will not want any part of it myself because I would find it boring personally. So I wouldn;t participate in the events, but I wouldn't speak against them either, unless the replaced what the current standard is in which case I would have a problem with it.

Hopefully that makes sense.

 

[Garquille14]

The only way items will ever work well in comp smash is if they function somewhat similar to pickups in Quake. They're on a timer and they're always the same, in the same location. But stages would need to be bigger than they currently are to accommodate this.

 

[Deleted member 245254]

Which is also a slippery slope argument, which is a total garbage argument. You don't just ban particular items willy-nilly. There's a method to it. One that I laid out explicitly in, like, 3-4 full paragraphs of competitive philosophy in the ISP thread.

God I bet you also tell sports fans they should have to have been drafted to have an opinion on what happens in a game.

It's not a science, items create advantages. Period. No argument or well written thesis can debunk that. Just because you like to state it does.

But, I'll spell it out for you here, since it's becoming more obvious that people are not willing to self-educate by clicking a few links. >_> There are specific reasons to ban any particular item: does it over-cerntralize (does the match become about using that one particular item)? Does the item have an adequate risk-reward ratio (is the item OP or too weak, or does it do too much or too little in relation to how easy it is to use)? Does the item, when used as intended, have acceptable counter strategies in place (fairly self explanatory, can you do something about an item being used, or are you unable to affect the match once it's been used)?

We use those criteria to determine if an item is bannable or not. So, unlike your ridiculous scenario in which we just ban things because and eventually get to no items, we only ban things if the system in place says we can, if we have a reason to. Some items (in fact, a lot of them), you cannot make a valid argument using those criteria that an item can be banned. So, we never get to 100%.

I can make this easier for you. All items create an unfair advantage, some little, some big. Boom I just saved you some mad time. Proof?

The current competitive scene.

Some stages change matchups up to 30%. That's a LOT of advantage. Don't downplay how much stages affect things. Besides, you just ignored the entire point of that passage. WE determine which characters are good and bad depending on our ruleset choices. In order for you to counter this, you have to prove that our ruleset choices have ABSOLUTELY NO affect on tier lists or matchups. If you cannot, my point stands.

We determine good and bad characters but that doesn't stop people from playing the bad ones and changing the communities mind on them when we see them played well. Sonic for example spent a lot of Brawl in low tier, and now he's known for jumping the most spots in smash tier history due to just 2-3 players performing well. Tier lists are moderately good indicators of certain things but they are not Bibles.

People often put responsibility on things like the stage or character way more than they do the player these days, and that is where the skill lies.

Let's assume you're not backtracking furiously and you actually DID know that. If you were paying attention, I've already let you know that all of the other arguments against item play? Yeah, already demolished those previously. Bro, I've been making this argument, having this exact same discussion, since 2007. I've seen, and broken down, every argument in the book. Again, reference the ISP thread.

Backtracking? You mean like taking back something I've said, which I haven't done at all?

Surprise, surprise, the guy who commits to the item thread thinks he's debunked all anti-items arguments. *Yet they are still deemed never to be tournament legal*. Some movement you've created with your beautiful reasoning...

A bit tangential, but if I can't use the fact that For Glory exists, his interviews, E3, the Invitational (including the rules page that explicitly called us out), and other circumstantial evidence to establish that Sakurai made For Glory mode by referencing our rulesets and customs, then you're telling me that every method of establishing motive known to the Western world in the past 500 years is invalid, and I'm sure the modern criminal justice system would disagree with you. If you can't figure this out on your own, you're not paying attention.

You know what? I don't get this. It's like, in the modern United States, being an intelligent, confident, educated person is a bad thing. Buddy, I absolutely am more knowledgeable, intelligent, well-read, and capable of arguing this than 90% of the registered Smashboards users, and I'm proud of that because that is due to the hard work I put in over months and months of research, testing, TO'ing, discussing, and organizing. Do I think items are better than non-items? Absolutely not: they are two formats with their own strengths and weaknesses, many of each. Do I think I'm absolutely more qualified than you to talk about it?

Most certainly.

Western world this, United States that.

I don't even live in America so this is all tripe to me.

Maybe you should listen and learn before you speak. Go read the ISP thread, educate yourself on the modern item metagame, then come back and we'll discuss this like equals.

Maybe you should get a life.

 

[Jack Kieser]

God I bet you also tell sports fans they should have to have been drafted to have an opinion on what happens in a game.

It's not a science, items create advantages. Period. No argument or well written thesis can debunk that. Just because you like to state it does.

You're entirely right, items create advantages. Just like moves do. And fall speed. And stages. Lots of things make advantages. If you understood ludic theory, you'd know that this is not, in and of itself, a bad thing, or anti-competitive, or a reason to ban anything. Ryu's fireball is an advantage that a developer created. Someone assigned the crazy ability to a Queen in Chess to mirror all other movement patterns (minus the Knight). Games are all about a standard set of restrictions, and then giving players advantages and disadvantages based around breaking those restrictions, and seeing what they can do with them. It's all very complex.

What this boils down to is: if you don't understand the fundamentals of ludic theory, you probably shouldn't be commenting on how to design a game, and that's what we do when we create rulesets: design a game-within-a-game (most commonly for us, standard competitive Smash, but also ISP counts in the same way).

It is absolutely a science. And a philosophy.

I can make this easier for you. All items create an unfair advantage, some little, some big. Boom I just saved you some mad time. Proof?

The current competitive scene.

Ah! And you're wrong for two reasons. One: the current competitive scene didn't come about from a vacuum, and there are plenty of tangential social factors that play into our rulesets; you would be correct if all players and TOs were perfectly rational human beings who only acted in the best interest of competition 100% of the time. Second: all items do not create unfair advantages. Some create perfectly fair advantages, because not all advantages are "unfair" (mainly because "unfair" is a completely meaningless term in the context you're using). Proof: a massive thread that I curated that you still, for some reason, refuse to read.

We determine good and bad characters but that doesn't stop people from playing the bad ones and changing the communities mind on them when we see them played well. Sonic for example spent a lot of Brawl in low tier, and now he's known for jumping the most spots in smash tier history due to just 2-3 players performing well. Tier lists are moderately good indicators of certain things but they are not Bibles.

People often put responsibility on things like the stage or character way more than they do the player these days, and that is where the skill lies.

And this also applies to ISP. Again, in reference to Ganondorf, most players in early ISP thought Ganon was trash because he's trash in vBrawl. Then, we found out that a large, large number of item related exploits, like the infinite Green Shell jump exploit, were best used by Ganon; actually, he necessitated multiple item bans for that reason, he was TOO good. And, that wouldn't have been found out if the players didn't put in time in the lab and try it out. So, in a very relevant way, skill in ISP is still character and player determined.

Backtracking? You mean like taking back something I've said, which I haven't done at all?

Surprise, surprise, the guy who commits to the item thread thinks he's debunked all anti-items arguments. *Yet they are still deemed never to be tournament legal*. Some movement you've created with your beautiful reasoning...

Not all, most; I can counter enough arguments that the burden of proof is not on me anymore, it's on those who want to ban things (something still not really understood by a lot of players and TOs these days). It's still a bit of an issue that edgeguarding opportunities can be imbalanced, although that can be argued away if you cite stage control as a tested skill in ISP. Item spawns are still pseudo-random (we actually found code in the game that supports spawn areas, and I created and provided test .PAC files for editiing them, as well as evidence, mainly circumstantial, that items are on a partially predictable timer based on spawn rate).

And, again, there are some arguments that, regardless of how good they are, won't sway people because they aren't rational actors. If everyone acted rationally 100% of the time, there'd be no religion in the world. Same principle: if all Smash players acted rationally 100% of the time, I'm convinced we'd use items. But, there is social baggage, and the people in power have lots of biases, and so we don't have item play, even as side events, even though there IS factually a portion of the competitive community that wants to use them.

Western world this, United States that.

I don't even live in America so this is all tripe to me.

Hooray for you. You still seem to agree with many Americans that being educated and eloquent is a bad thing. >_> Not the greatest attitude for someone posting on a discussion forum. This is tangential, though, so that's the last on that.

Maybe you should get a life.

Haha, grow up.

 

[Deleted member 245254]

You're entirely right, items create advantages. Just like moves do. And fall speed. And stages. Lots of things make advantages.

These things can't be helped for the game to be played at a base level. People even try to suggest adding switches for landing lag cancel or Wavedashing allowance, but they aren't reasonable requests. We deal with the hand we are dealt.

Items can be switched off without affecting the dignity or technical plausibility of a match, while at the same time interfering less with the whole function of the fight, to determine who controls their character better to the point of winning.

So they will be off. Run your item side events, that's fine, but don't ever try to actually argue that items can be objectively fair and use things that we CAN'T TURN OFF as the basis for your comparisons.

Haha, grow up.

Look very closely here...

 

[Malex]

These things can't be helped for the game to be played at a base level. People even try to suggest adding switches for landing lag cancel or Wavedashing allowance, but they aren't reasonable requests. We deal with the hand we are dealt.

Items can be switched off without affecting the dignity or technical plausibility of a match, while at the same time interfering less with the whole function of the fight, to determine who controls their character better to the point of winning.

So they will be off. Run your item side events, that's fine, but don't ever try to actually argue that items can be objectively fair and use things that we CAN'T TURN OFF as the basis for your comparisons.

Actually, I disagree with the thinking that items aren't objectively fair. If items spawns are random, then over a large period of time, any significant "advantages" or "disadvantages" will equal out. Extremis ad absurdum: You could bring up the argument of the most unfair situation. (You are recovering from off stage and an item spawns next to the opponent.) I don't necessarily feel that this is so bad a position to be in, unless you have ZERO options. In which case, you are going to die unless the opponent makes a mistake, which is exactly the same situation you're in if he has the item. (You can actually take actions to mitigate this situation, but I won't even get into that.)

 

[Brickbuild101]

I think tournament play should at least be Smash Ball only. It requires skill to break one, right?

 

[Deleted member 245254]

I think tournament play should at least be Smash Ball only. It requires skill to break one, right?

It doesn't. It's spawn location and the amount of hits it takes to break is relatively random therefore, it's a randomly distributed unfair advantage.

 

[Jack Kieser]

This is the one thing we're likely to agree on. Smash Balls are really... not great. :/ First of all, the randomness is not really an issue... if both characters don't have projectiles, or both characters do. Fox is a ******* with Smash Balls on, because Fox's blaster doesn't cause knockback... meaning he can spam laser, the ball won't fly away, and he get a Final Smash when it breaks... and it WILL break.

And that's on top of him having the god damn Landmaster.

Which, at the end of the day, is the main problem with Smash Balls. It's not the ball itself (although, god damn it Sakurai, just give us a super meter, Mac already has it): It's the Final Smash. They are admittedly balanced for FFA. For 4 player fights. Which means that in a 1v1, no matter how balanced a FS is in FFA, it cannot possibly be properly balanced for 1v1. Final Smashes will always, always break the very first criterion of item play: they have a totally borked risk/reward ratio.

Except for Marth's. DO NOT USE IT IN THE AIR. >_<

 

[thesage]

Zipzo, look at Jack Kieser's post history on smashboards. This is pretty much the only thing he talks about. He goes in circular logic and talks about items in competitive play and ISP. That's his thing.

The "ISP Project" (mainly founded by Jack, 4 others, and a troll from the SRK forums) banned timer solely because of moves like Ganon's dair, instead of reasons like the person who is slowed down has their invincibility frames extended so they can stall for free or that it can randomly activate. You told me my lack of knowledge was the reason why my arguments were incorrect, but it honestly seems like you cannot even comprehend the big picture that competitive smash is.

The ISP thread was started in 2008 and never got popular. I have never met anybody in person who talked about it. Brawl-, Brawl+, and Project M are known even by casual players and people who don't even have accounts on SWF and are all significantly more successful (especially Project M).

Items-on tournaments were given their chance and it just seems nobody is honestly interested in playing in them (or paying for them at least). The ISP thread was made in 2008. I have never heard of any tournament using this ruleset except for WHOBO 1/2. Granted I live in a big city, but I can find multiple places to play project m tournaments. I can't find any ISP tournaments. Almost 1/8 of the posts in the ISP thread are posts made by Jack Kieser and most of the ISP related research is done by him as well. It's a very small community. Even the advice threads in the melee character forums have more variation in posters (at least for the higher tiered characters).

I tried looking for the Whobo 2 ISP tournament results to see which player was talking about what happened higher up in the bracket but I couldn't find it at all. The terms Whobo and ISP gives me discussions about mk bans and internet service providers and the Whobo 2 results thread doesn't seem to have it.

I'm bored and unemployed and want to stay up for the Naruto release so I'll bite the bait and argue against every single item. I'm going to categorize the items into two different sections, overpowered and useless. Useless items deserve a ban just as much as overpowered items

Overpowered Items -

Ray Gun - sheik's melee fair on falco's laser that potentially combos into itself.

Pitfall - the projectile, much faster version of "DK's side-b". The two moves are not comparable whatsoever.

Banana Peel - the effectiveness of Diddy Kong in tournaments should be more than enough proof that randomly giving it to somebody without that person suffering from the startup lag of diddy's down-b is overpowered. It even screws with Diddy's normal playstyle since he can normally only have so many bananas on the battlefield. Diddy Kong dittos would be lolhilarious with this (whoever presses down-b first is the only one to get a banana).

Unira - throw it on the ground and make sure it's activated and just stand there. You just got some free seconds off of the clock if the opponent doesn't have a projectile. Opponents will have difficulty deactivating it if you are spaced properly to punish their lag.

Screw Attack - setups into rest, quick aerials (most nairs). Opponents with this are harder to edgeguard. At higher levels of play this item becomes useless since you just stall until it's up or SDI out. May also potentially alter jump physics in a way that is detrimental to how a character works (characters that rely on double aerials in a SH) and could be accidentally equipped by a character that does not want it (could spawn while doing a fair, dash attack, jab or airdodge). It's mostly in the overpowered section because of my experiences with it in melee (best edgeguard ever lol). In brawl it's mostly harmful to it's own user.

Gooey Bomb - randomly can blow up in your face. Not as strong as the other bomb items, but considering the slow nature of brawl, this could end up making a big difference.

Superspicy Curry - The fact that you can hit your teammate does not negate the fact that this is overpowered. Worst comes to worst and you have all 3 other players on the other team trapped and you force them all offstage you just sacrificed one stock to take two of theirs.

Smash Ball - still has the same problems it does in 1v1. The fact that you could potentially hit your teammate is not enough. The same arguments for superspicy curry can also be made with the smash ball.

Motion-Sensor Bomb - Oh boy another zoning tool to make brawl even more defensive and campier.

Cracker Launcher - DAS BANNED

Metal Box - Essentially provides you with super armor. Can be activated randomly.

Super Scope - free 30 or so damage. Can be used for clutch edgeguards.

Dragoon - unblockable one frame attack.

Beam Sword/Home-Run Bat/Lip's Stick/Star Rod - rarely used for their jabs/f-tilts/f-smash attacks at higher levels of play. Mostly used as projectiles. Rewards whoever is closest to the spawn point.

Hammer/Golden Hammer - Golden Hammer let's you stall. Both are not reliable as they can be duds.

Useless Items:

Smoke Ball - useless, causes lag online

Hothead - not programmed correctly. Takes too much time to make noticeably big. Not very consistent.

Franklin Badge - Zoning in smash is not only accomplished by projectiles. Meta Knight has 0 projectiles and is able to camp all day. If a character that does rely on a projectile is against an opponent that does get this item, they just play keep away for as long as the item is active. Instead of rewarding aggressive play, it promotes further camping.

Team Healer - because tournaments use friendly fire this item can randomly hurt my ally. Due to the poke/zoney nature of brawl it's best to simply never use this item. It takes a lot of effort to setup and then has a random chance of failing. It's more beneficial to ignore or quickly throw it off the stage to deny the enemy from using it.

Mr. Saturn - can deal damage to shields. Otherwise useless. You can be put into hitlag if you hit it which could throw off your spacing/timing of your character.

Freezie - usually broken before you can even see it. Can be mashed out of at most percents.

Bunny Hood - negates short hopping. The increased ground speed doesn't make up for the fact that your aerial game is absolutely destroyed. Can randomly activate.

Sandbag - Another camping tool. Protects against projectiles. Can randomly spawn and eat a projectile that was going to kill somebody (Samus's charge shot).

Food - Can randomly induce lag when you're on the ground. Can randomly heal people. Brawl is a zone/poke focused game so negating one attack can impact the momentum in a match.

Warp Star - too easy to dodge

Fire Flower - only useful as an offstage edgeguard for characters that tend to have better options anyways.

You could say that people who are willing to play with items can accept these levels of randomness or just want to do it for fun. That's cool. I don't care how others play the game. The problem is when you ask an already established community to accommodate you. Most people in the competitive smash community would rather have other side tournaments. Items become redundant, promote camping, or are just too broken at higher levels of play.

There is just no interest for people to watch streams of people playing with the ISP ruleset. No interest for people to hold cash tournaments for this ruleset over other tournaments. Maybe you should to take note of what your competitors are doing (the brawl mods) and hack brawl to make items better suited for the competitive environment. It's unlikely this ruleset would ever be implemented as a replacement to the normal brawl ruleset and items are completely not allowable in melee due to exploding capsules.

How does this apply to smash 4...

So a lot of people who are entering the scene when smash 4 comes out may wonder why items are banned. We had this same issue happen before brawl came out. Smash, regardless it it's brawl, melee, 64, or even smash 4 from what I've played, relies on a very delicate spacing/zoning/neutral game that flows extremely smoothly. The movement options in smash working fluidly is what creates such a fun and interesting gameplay to watch and play at higher levels. Stages that inhibit or impede that neutral game are banned from competitive play. Items also can impair this "smooth" gameplay found in high levels in smash. Once you good enough at smash this feeling is quite apparent. Items can be very fun, and some of the most unbalanced ones are the funnest (pokeballs, smash balls), but they just hinder competitive play.

When melee tournaments started getting big people debated whether items should be on or off very passionately. This was still less than a couple of years since melee was released (and smash games in general were still very new back then). The debate ended after a couple of regionals and items were banned (short version of the story I know). Eventually people started to get really good at melee and smash skills in general (compare the early videos of azen to anything m2k/armada/drpp/hbox/mango do now). When brawl came out there was an upsurge of new people to the community who may have wanted items on, but eventually acquiesced to other players who wanted them off. Look at the join dates of most of the brawl broomers, most of them joined in 2008-09. Why did these new players eventually come to accept that items should be off in major tournaments?

Once you are good enough at smash the answer to items in competitive play becomes fairly apparent. This is why a lot of tournament players are hesitant to explain their reasons for banning items and are dismissive to those who ask for them in tournaments. Unfortunately, when it comes to the bottom of it, the reasons why items are banned are rather hard to describe. We could just accept the randomness, but we've been spoiled to almost 12 years of items being off in smash bros tournaments and having a successful tournament scenes in two games (as well as smash 64 online and project M). Less than 1% of people who buy a copy of a smash bros game attend a super serious smash brothers tournament yet there is an overwhelming majority of tournament attendees who want items to stay off. Items won't be on in smash 4 tournaments and it'll be even harder to ask for them to be on in a side tournament since there are other smash games that have significantly stronger competitive scenes that would deserve the spot more: melee, brawl, and project m. The potential for items on in tournaments is dead.

I will stipulate that the only way I see items being on in a tournament is if Nintendo starts sponsoring items on tournaments; however, Evo did that and it got them 100 entrants and was seen as a joke/insult to the smash community. Even the finals in the smash 4 invitational had items off out of respect to the players. Nintendo probably knows how to advertise to the hardcore better than that.

I have to poop so that will be the end of that overly long post. I really need a job.

 

[LiteralGrill]

It's not a science, items create advantages. Period. No argument or well written thesis can debunk that.

Okay. I will try a different approach, I don't want to debunk it. Items play differs from regular play. Just because it can give you an advantage, even at random, doesn't make it bad.

I come from a big board game background (I am a technical writer that edits board game rulebooks) so here's an example from that world explaining why. Scrabble. I've spoiled it to keep the post tidy, give it a read.

Spoiler

There are many games that have high-stakes with huge cash prizes that rely heavily on luck, the prime example being Poker, but the one I want to mention is Scrabble. Yes you read right, Scrabble.

In Scrabble, the Z is actually rather broken as it has many uses but is still worth 10 points. The largest complaint for items in smash is that no player with money on he line is going to risk losing a match to an item spawn. My question is, does a pro Scrabble player complain when in the finals his opponent gets a Z at just the right time even though he has lost out on a LOT more money than the Smash player has? No.

There is more to Scrabble then just coming up with words and finding a spot for them on the board. Those two skills are very important obviously, but no player will become a successful pro without being able to deal with the over-arching element to the game: minimizing the effects of bad luck, and maximizing the effects of your good luck.

When thinking of item play, it's more important than thinking whether items are unfair or not, it's how interesting the game is made of minimizing the bad luck and maximizing the good luck. Yes, an item could give someone an advantage for no reason, but that doesn't mean they need to be banned. Part of the flow of the game should be how the opponent then survives that luck, keeps fighting, and hopes for the next bit of fortune to be theirs, and to utilize it when this happens.

Tldr; Many other high-stakes games rely on the flow of luck, and there is no reason we can't play for money and have the same features.

Many competitive games have things similar which play for WAY more money then Smash. If this looks familiar yes I did copy/paste it from an old items thread of mine.

Zipzo, look at Jack Kieser's post history on smashboards. This is pretty much the only thing he talks about. He goes in circular logic and talks about items in competitive play and ISP. That's his thing.

The "ISP Project" (mainly founded by Jack, 4 others, and a troll from the SRK forums)

Trying to insult someone to say your argument is right is quite the fallacy. All of what you just said has ZERO relevance.

The ISP thread was started in 2008 and never got popular. I have never met anybody in person who talked about it. Brawl-, Brawl+, and Project M are known even by casual players and people who don't even have accounts on SWF and are all significantly more successful (especially Project M).

Yet another fallacy here. While yes, items play has never been the most popular thing here on Smashboards stop and think to yourself why. Maybe it's because lots of people (like yourself) insult those who mention it in any way and it makes it difficult to even learn if players would be interested in trying items play or not. I'm up for running anything players show interest in, I can say personally while I'm well informed on items play it's not for me. However, it gives me no right to belittle others who may have interest in it like so many others do. Why alienate potential members of the community who might end up entering items off events too by insulting them for enjoying the game they enjoy? Our community doesn't get as many new people as you'd think, and turning them away blatantly will slow our growth a TON.

TLDR; Do to the attitude of most on Smashboards it is incredibly difficult to support those who would enjoy items play as they are deterred from even wanting to come here or stay here for any amount of time do to how terribly they are treated. We as a community should be ashamed of ourselves for how we act a lot of the time.

Useless items deserve a ban just as much as overpowered items

Pretty sure that's actually in the ISP thread too, we're getting somewhere. I'll try to bite even and discuss the items with you.

Overpowered Items -

Ray Gun - sheik's melee fair on falco's laser that potentially combos into itself.

It's counterpick in ISP so it won't see use in the first match (and possibly not at all.) Jack and I will probably differ on this but I personally don't like having questionable items available even as counterpicks. I'd have banned it personally.

Pitfall - the projectile, much faster version of "DK's side-b". The two moves are not comparable whatsoever.

There's more to the Pitfall then that actually, consider it's uses offstage too where is can actually somewhat spike. This item can be set down like a mine to catch someone later, and even if it does get them the first time there isn't much you can actually do before they mash out, a quick smash attack at most. It's not as bad as one would think, and heck you can always catch it too.

Banana Peel - the effectiveness of Diddy Kong in tournaments should be more than enough proof that randomly giving it to somebody without that person suffering from the startup lag of diddy's down-b is overpowered. It even screws with Diddy's normal playstyle since he can normally only have so many bananas on the battlefield. Diddy Kong dittos would be lolhilarious with this (whoever presses down-b first is the only one to get a banana).

Once Diddy places his Bananas, they are fair game to all of the other characters anyways, a player can just pick them up and combo him themselves (there are infinites against Diddy using this for every single character btw). It's also one banana unless you really do manage to have two spawn and you kept the one active long enough which while possible I won't deny is impressive and if you did that you deserve to be able to combo with them. Consider if Mario for some silly reason was able to throw Bananas just like Diddy, would he jump up the tier list? Probably a little, but not be incredible leaps and bounds. Diddy's tool kit works well with Bananas which is why he's so high tier.

Unira - throw it on the ground and make sure it's activated and just stand there. You just got some free seconds off of the clock if the opponent doesn't have a projectile. Opponents will have difficulty deactivating it if you are spaced properly to punish their lag.

Another counterpick where I again will say I wouldn't have had them even possibly on.

Screw Attack - setups into rest, quick aerials (most nairs). Opponents with this are harder to edgeguard. At higher levels of play this item becomes useless since you just stall until it's up or SDI out. May also potentially alter jump physics in a way that is detrimental to how a character works (characters that rely on double aerials in a SH) and could be accidentally equipped by a character that does not want it (could spawn while doing a fair, dash attack, jab or airdodge). It's mostly in the overpowered section because of my experiences with it in melee (best edgeguard ever lol). In brawl it's mostly harmful to it's own user.

It has that risk reward Jack was talking about from what you just said. Plus it can even be knocked off someone if they are actually using it to their advantage. I'm not seeing this one as useless or OP, I didn't connect with you on this, reexplain?

Gooey Bomb - randomly can blow up in your face. Not as strong as the other bomb items, but considering the slow nature of brawl, this could end up making a big difference.

I'd have banned CPs, sorry for repeating just being thorough.

Superspicy Curry - The fact that you can hit your teammate does not negate the fact that this is overpowered. Worst comes to worst and you have all 3 other players on the other team trapped and you force them all offstage you just sacrificed one stock to take two of theirs.

You raised an honestly fair point about doubles, that should be looked at. It is banned in singles though for the obvious reasons.

Smash Ball - still has the same problems it does in 1v1. The fact that you could potentially hit your teammate is not enough. The same arguments for superspicy curry can also be made with the smash ball.

I actually also agree with this one, Smashballs have a hard time working competitively.

Motion-Sensor Bomb - Oh boy another zoning tool to make brawl even more defensive and campier.

Minus you insulting Brawl for no needed reason, the thing I always liked about the bomb was when I could force someone who played it into their own bomb (not as hard as you'd think). It also does vanish after a bit as well, it can be a curious tool but not really as strong as you'd think.

Cracker Launcher - DAS BANNED

It might have been on the doubles list, but I agree here.

Metal Box - Essentially provides you with super armor. Can be activated randomly.

I again mention I'd have banned the CP items.

Super Scope - free 30 or so damage. Can be used for clutch edgeguards.

Free? Really? Did you lose your shield and forget how to dodge? Even with rapid fire not all of the shots actually register as a hit so it doesn't do as much damage.

Dragoon - unblockable one frame attack.

Again with CPs and my apologies for repeating myself...

Beam Sword/Home-Run Bat/Lip's Stick/Star Rod - rarely used for their jabs/f-tilts/f-smash attacks at higher levels of play. Mostly used as projectiles. Rewards whoever is closest to the spawn point.

Some truth, but you may wanna read my bit on Scrabble too. Plus if everyone else is always using them as projectiles, my hitting with them might be a surprise.

Hammer/Golden Hammer - Golden Hammer let's you stall. Both are not reliable as they can be duds.

Golden was banned, but the normal Hammer is probably in the useless category. Why? You can powershield and throw them off of the stage to their death. Taking this thing is pretty much asking to die from an experienced player.

Useless Items:

Smoke Ball - useless, causes lag online

Why does lag online matter? It's not entirely useless, hiding in the smoke is useful for mind games as it is legitimately not easy to see what you are doing. The most tame item for sure.

Hothead - not programmed correctly. Takes too much time to make noticeably big. Not very consistent.

I again would have banned the CPs and what you might not know is that the Hothead actually could glitch and be exploited to create insane amounts of damage.

Franklin Badge - Zoning in smash is not only accomplished by projectiles. Meta Knight has 0 projectiles and is able to camp all day. If a character that does rely on a projectile is against an opponent that does get this item, they just play keep away for as long as the item is active. Instead of rewarding aggressive play, it promotes further camping.

Or they could just knock it off of them with a nice strong attack. I always thought there was very little risk in taking this thing, and thought it may have been better banned but I didn't run ISP back then (sorry Jack)

Team Healer - because tournaments use friendly fire this item can randomly hurt my ally. Due to the poke/zoney nature of brawl it's best to simply never use this item. It takes a lot of effort to setup and then has a random chance of failing. It's more beneficial to ignore or quickly throw it off the stage to deny the enemy from using it.

I honestly agree here too.

Mr. Saturn - can deal damage to shields. Otherwise useless. You can be put into hitlag if you hit it which could throw off your spacing/timing of your character.

You just listed two reasons why it's good, the shield damage it does is actually quite phenomenal and screwing up my opponent's approach so I can get a hit in sounds good to me.

Freezie - usually broken before you can even see it. Can be mashed out of at most percents.

The first part really means nothing. It can be mashed out of as quickly as the pitfall though too, just saying. Maybe one hit or a curious edge guard, a tame item but not completely useless.

Bunny Hood - negates short hopping. The increased ground speed doesn't make up for the fact that your aerial game is absolutely destroyed. Can randomly activate.

You have to choose to use this one, but the fact that it can really hurt you if you picked it up while it air spawned I can understand. I won't argue here because I haven't played enough with it personally to know how bad it might be.

Sandbag - Another camping tool. Protects against projectiles. Can randomly spawn and eat a projectile that was going to kill somebody (Samus's charge shot).

That's part of the Scrabble. I think that the issue here is it can spawn more items when hit (surprised you didn't mention that) which if the items were set to spawn on low to help things this is counter intuitive to that. It's an item that should be looked at I agree.

Food - Can randomly induce lag when you're on the ground. Can randomly heal people. Brawl is a zone/poke focused game so negating one attack can impact the momentum in a match.

Food has actually been the most popular item in rulesets (some food only rulesets were really talked about) because it destroyed the purpose of camping and planking in Brawl.

Warp Star - too easy to dodge

Yet I still manage to hit people with it often enough. And when it does hit, so satisfying...

Fire Flower - only useful as an offstage edgeguard for characters that tend to have better options anyways.

It's still useful, and when thrown it goes much slower then most items, it can create some cool trapping situations.

You could say that people who are willing to play with items can accept these levels of randomness or just want to do it for fun. That's cool. I don't care how others play the game. The problem is when you ask an already established community to accommodate you. Most people in the competitive smash community would rather have other side tournaments. Items become redundant, promote camping, or are just too broken at higher levels of play.

There is just no interest for people to watch streams of people playing with the ISP ruleset. No interest for people to hold cash tournaments for this ruleset over other tournaments. Maybe you should to take note of what your competitors are doing (the brawl mods) and hack brawl to make items better suited for the competitive environment. It's unlikely this ruleset would ever be implemented as a replacement to the normal brawl ruleset and items are completely not allowable in melee due to exploding capsules.

If people had know what Brawl would become, I'm unsure this would be true. Items do make Brawl a LOT faster and less campy actually, try some ISP for a long bit with a competitor you know likes to camp and you can see this.

Your first bit is really what was curious. I think right when Brawl came out there were more people wanting to try items then those established people who didn't. They were ignored and insulted until they just went away. There might be a good reason to have these events, it could bring in new folks and open them up to competitive play. But now our scene has that reputation of rudeness and unwillingness to ever change so it's going to be hard to find those players and welcome them in. Had we actually been decent to one another you might have seen ISP streams and events as common place today, but who wants to play in something where everyone else with ceaselessly insult them constantly?

How does this apply to smash 4...

So a lot of people who are entering the scene when smash 4 comes out may wonder why items are banned. We had this same issue happen before brawl came out. Smash, regardless it it's brawl, melee, 64, or even smash 4 from what I've played, relies on a very delicate spacing/zoning/neutral game that flows extremely smoothly. The movement options in smash working fluidly is what creates such a fun and interesting gameplay to watch and play at higher levels. Stages that inhibit or impede that neutral game are banned from competitive play. Items also can impair this "smooth" gameplay found in high levels in smash. Once you good enough at smash this feeling is quite apparent. Items can be very fun, and some of the most unbalanced ones are the funnest (pokeballs, smash balls), but they just hinder competitive play.

When melee tournaments started getting big people debated whether items should be on or off very passionately. This was still less than a couple of years since melee was released (and smash games in general were still very new back then). The debate ended after a couple of regionals and items were banned (short version of the story I know). Eventually people started to get really good at melee and smash skills in general (compare the early videos of azen to anything m2k/armada/drpp/hbox/mango do now). When brawl came out there was an upsurge of new people to the community who may have wanted items on, but eventually acquiesced to other players who wanted them off. Look at the join dates of most of the brawl broomers, most of them joined in 2008-09. Why did these new players eventually come to accept that items should be off in major tournaments?

Once you are good enough at smash the answer to items in competitive play becomes fairly apparent. This is why a lot of tournament players are hesitant to explain their reasons for banning items and are dismissive to those who ask for them in tournaments. Unfortunately, when it comes to the bottom of it, the reasons why items are banned are rather hard to describe. We could just accept the randomness, but we've been spoiled to almost 12 years of items being off in smash bros tournaments and having a successful tournament scenes in two games (as well as smash 64 online and project M). Less than 1% of people who buy a copy of a smash bros game attend a super serious smash brothers tournament yet there is an overwhelming majority of tournament attendees who want items to stay off. Items won't be on in smash 4 tournaments and it'll be even harder to ask for them to be on in a side tournament since there are other smash games that have significantly stronger competitive scenes that would deserve the spot more: melee, brawl, and project m. The potential for items on in tournaments is dead.

I will stipulate that the only way I see items being on in a tournament is if Nintendo starts sponsoring items on tournaments; however, Evo did that and it got them 100 entrants and was seen as a joke/insult to the smash community. Even the finals in the smash 4 invitational had items off out of respect to the players. Nintendo probably knows how to advertise to the hardcore better than that.

Ken vs CPU... That whole thing was handled pathetically. It shows how terrible our community could be. and I'm disgraced by it in a large and very real way.

But aside from that, Jack did raise a fair point. Even if items were better it looks like a lot of competitive players would just say no anyways, you even said we were spoiled by it. Why? No one wants to do things that make them making money harder.

If nothing else comes from this thread, I do hope that point gets across. Letting the top players choose our rules is dangerous and stupid as they can and have clearly bent them in their favor. I can talk about how people actually lied to ban stages and even mention how top players and TOs have literally banned stages they said were totally okay for competition JUST BECAUSE THEY DON'T LIKE THEM.

For my final bit, while I tend to be polite I gotta point this out. What do we call people who ban things just because they don't like them and arbitrarily make up their own rules for playing a game?

Scrubs. Yeah, we often act like scrubs in our community then question why other communities don't respect us. It's a real thing to think about.

 

[Jack Kieser]

Capps, I'll say this: personally, I've actually wanted to ban a few things on the CP list, mostly things you also said "yeah, I'd have banned those". But, I created the ruleset very strictly to adhere to the philosophy of "until it becomes a problem in bracket, it's legal". Unfortunately, when I left the community in 2010, many of those items hadn't become really problematic in bracket yet, or at least the people hosting and playing in events that I knew of didn't bring up the issues. They were all still theoretical problems, not like having all this documented video evidence of Ganon being OP.

So, it's not like I'm "NO THOSE ITEMS MUST STAY LEGAL". It's more principled than that. It's about waiting until the in-bracket evidence comes in before making decisions, which is one of the things that I'm really upset at the community at large about, especially when you read those threads on things like custom moves. >_<

 

[LiteralGrill]

Capps, I'll say this: personally, I've actually wanted to ban a few things on the CP list, mostly things you also said "yeah, I'd have banned those". But, I created the ruleset very strictly to adhere to the philosophy of "until it becomes a problem in bracket, it's legal". Unfortunately, when I left the community in 2010, many of those items hadn't become really problematic in bracket yet, or at least the people hosting and playing in events that I knew of didn't bring up the issues. They were all still theoretical problems, not like having all this documented video evidence of Ganon being OP.

So, it's not like I'm "NO THOSE ITEMS MUST STAY LEGAL". It's more principled than that. It's about waiting until the in-bracket evidence comes in before making decisions, which is one of the things that I'm really upset at the community at large about, especially when you read those threads on things like custom moves. >_<

That's totally fair man I understand that. Too bad it never really happened

 

[Turokman5896]

I'll say this as a casual player who loves watching competitive , I can totally see the advantages of items and no items. There is no denying that items add randomness and can be frustrating at certain times, but I say look at brawl, it'd possible that the campiness of competitive brawl could have been reduced with a limited number of items, such as foods, set on low spawns. In addition certain characters really benefit from items and FFA battles. Maybe the community should reconsider its stances and look for new avenues of expansion.

I also really love halo, and I watched the community fall apart and it's relevancy fail because they could not adapt to the new games. Will smash suffer this fate? Unlikely, but we should consider the possibility. Maybe the 3ds version could have the item rules and wackier stages ?

 

[Signia]

the better player will most likely win, even with items.

But close matches will be decided by the randomness of items.

 

[Hong]

I see that this thread has gotten back on track. Keep it this way and it will remain open.

If it starts to degenerate back into personal attacks, it's a write-off. Keep this about items, no need for petty insults.

 

[DownWitDaWaveDash]

For Items Competitive play can't exist, have you not played the Sm4sh demo and seen how beyond OP items are? I got sent to heaven by some beetle thing at 1 % lol

 

[Malex]

For Items Competitive play can't exist, have you not played the Sm4sh demo and seen how beyond OP items are? I got sent to heaven by some beetle thing at 1 % lol

Items would be restricted if they are too powerful or have too large an impact on the game. Just like characters, ATs, and stages.

 

[Coonce]

Live and let live, I say. If your venue wants to hold a tournament with items, go ahead. Nothing's stopping you. I'd just say don't be surprised if the sign up dwindles fast.

If you're going to try to convince a venue to hold a item tournament, then good luck. Hell, even my casual friends don't like playing with items. Unless we're doing something crazy like all bumpers or all explosives for funsies.