phi1ny3
Not the Mama
Haha, so I had a good experience with this recently. We went to a gaming "clique" that was just debuting recently, and I decided to just round up some people and just show them objectively the cool stuff about competitive smash. Mind you, most of these guys had played fighting games to at least some degree, but most were more low level/mid level players in those games, so I told them the beauty of having a game as accessible as this, and that while it was rough around the edges, that it had a great community behind it and fostered enough to make it competitively viable.
We plunked down, and gave a crash-course on smash, for those who didn't play it, or only played it in a more party/casual fashion prior. We went over basic stuff, like the pseudo RPS effect (attack/dodge > grab, grab > shield, shield > attack, although this is obviously really generic), what any character wants to use the most, setups, reading the opponent, edge play, etc.
The fun part was when we got to why items didn't exist in competitive play. Instead of just going "because they're stupid and you should feel stupid for thinking otherwise", I had them play with and without items. There were at first questions like "If they're in the game by default, why do you guys remove them?" I brought up that the same reason we patch games nowadays (constructively, mind you, not crying from every little advantage) is done for similar reasons why we remove items in smash. I told them briefly the reason it started (because it wasn't always the case, at least for Melee), and why it appeals to the competitive build. We showed them that items were definitely built with a "chaotic" game in mind, but that if the game had really been strictly a party game that nobody could change around, they wouldn't allow the option to turn them off. The game isn't worsened in any way doing either with or without items, but in order to make emphasis on spacing, skill, control, and options matter, one only needs to go to the game options to completely change the game. I wanted to make it clear that there are still a lot of competitive smashers that would be willing to go FFA and crazy with items, as long as it wasn't being used as a standard for competitive play, they had not forgotten smash's flexibility in that case, but find enjoyment by changing the game itself, and we also showed them how there had been other ways people have had fun doing crazy customized things, like Duelist Pro (I sure hope everyone here knows what that is, it's pretty fun as a little time killer lol), to show that Smash's strength is the combined ability to marry highly customizable gameplay, with an engine and design that is depthful enough to still let it become competitive in a sense.
Now when we actually played, I showed them/told them about different items and why some of them are literally game-breaking even on a casual level (the fan and some others, in particular, were definitely ones they agreed cheapened the experience), and I showed them that we've done some testing (albeit little) and found that items merely don't appeal to what we wanted out of it for a competitive build. They more or less agreed, and I even showed them how a match can look when it's a 1v1 on a more serious level. They agreed that while it was a different game, it wasn't necessarily bad. And I concluded that I love smash the way it is, I still play party-style, but when I want to dispense with the kid gloves, I get a good kick out of smash providing a more non-traditional fighter (I won't get into a debate on that, but I feel that's the best way to describe it, as so much of the core components are translatable into other fighting games), and enjoy how it allows me to flip between those options quickly on a dime. I would have to say that tbh, the best way to introduce the game is to go down to their level (even if that means you have to groan your way through items lol, imo it's worth it, and I personally still get a kick out of the craziness occasionally), enjoy it with them, and then compare it to how depthful it can become when you let all of the competitive aspect loose in a couple of matches. I've concluded that the growth of this game competitively can be achieved, but one must be a little more open-minded, and empathize with how they perceive the game, it's a process that needs to be met halfway, but smashers definitely need to step it up in opening doors imo.
We plunked down, and gave a crash-course on smash, for those who didn't play it, or only played it in a more party/casual fashion prior. We went over basic stuff, like the pseudo RPS effect (attack/dodge > grab, grab > shield, shield > attack, although this is obviously really generic), what any character wants to use the most, setups, reading the opponent, edge play, etc.
The fun part was when we got to why items didn't exist in competitive play. Instead of just going "because they're stupid and you should feel stupid for thinking otherwise", I had them play with and without items. There were at first questions like "If they're in the game by default, why do you guys remove them?" I brought up that the same reason we patch games nowadays (constructively, mind you, not crying from every little advantage) is done for similar reasons why we remove items in smash. I told them briefly the reason it started (because it wasn't always the case, at least for Melee), and why it appeals to the competitive build. We showed them that items were definitely built with a "chaotic" game in mind, but that if the game had really been strictly a party game that nobody could change around, they wouldn't allow the option to turn them off. The game isn't worsened in any way doing either with or without items, but in order to make emphasis on spacing, skill, control, and options matter, one only needs to go to the game options to completely change the game. I wanted to make it clear that there are still a lot of competitive smashers that would be willing to go FFA and crazy with items, as long as it wasn't being used as a standard for competitive play, they had not forgotten smash's flexibility in that case, but find enjoyment by changing the game itself, and we also showed them how there had been other ways people have had fun doing crazy customized things, like Duelist Pro (I sure hope everyone here knows what that is, it's pretty fun as a little time killer lol), to show that Smash's strength is the combined ability to marry highly customizable gameplay, with an engine and design that is depthful enough to still let it become competitive in a sense.
Now when we actually played, I showed them/told them about different items and why some of them are literally game-breaking even on a casual level (the fan and some others, in particular, were definitely ones they agreed cheapened the experience), and I showed them that we've done some testing (albeit little) and found that items merely don't appeal to what we wanted out of it for a competitive build. They more or less agreed, and I even showed them how a match can look when it's a 1v1 on a more serious level. They agreed that while it was a different game, it wasn't necessarily bad. And I concluded that I love smash the way it is, I still play party-style, but when I want to dispense with the kid gloves, I get a good kick out of smash providing a more non-traditional fighter (I won't get into a debate on that, but I feel that's the best way to describe it, as so much of the core components are translatable into other fighting games), and enjoy how it allows me to flip between those options quickly on a dime. I would have to say that tbh, the best way to introduce the game is to go down to their level (even if that means you have to groan your way through items lol, imo it's worth it, and I personally still get a kick out of the craziness occasionally), enjoy it with them, and then compare it to how depthful it can become when you let all of the competitive aspect loose in a couple of matches. I've concluded that the growth of this game competitively can be achieved, but one must be a little more open-minded, and empathize with how they perceive the game, it's a process that needs to be met halfway, but smashers definitely need to step it up in opening doors imo.
