Items? The casuals say NO! Items? The Pros say NO! Finally, something they can agree on. Unfortunately, I’m one of the biggest supports for items on the planet. Its time to drag this issue out in the open and see what’s items are all about.
<p align="center"><a href="http://smashboards.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/smash-items.jpg" title="smash-items.jpg"><img src="http://smashboards.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/smash-items.jpg" alt="smash-items.jpg" /></a></p>
It seems that nobody plays with items. I think I’ve pinpointed the source of this phenomenon. Here’s my theory. Back in the days of Smash64, everyone played with items. Because we didn’t have access to friends to play with all the time, we had to settle with playing against computers. Unfortunately the computers had AI that were extremely distracted and attracted to any item that fell onto the stage. It wouldn’t matter where on the stage they appeared, if there was an item somewhere, the computers dropped everything and went for it. Eventually, we simply turned off the items because they made the game less fun. This attitude carried over from Smash64 into Melee. Those without the attitude either abandoned items because everyone else was doing it, or they made up excuses about how “cheap” they were. Now, we’re at a painful point where, when those of us want to start playing with items again, it’s been so long that we have forgotten how to use them. What’s worse is, for the competitive smashers, strategies with items didn’t have a chance to evolve like our teams and 1v1 strategies. So when items appear, players would rather get rid of them rather than use them. If not, when they try to use them, they lose because of their inexperience and the negative attitude towards items is perpetuated.
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It may be a painful process to recovery, but I promise it is a rewarding one. The first order of business is understanding more about items. There are three types of items. Activate-items, Throw-items, and Weapon-items. Activate items activate instantly when grabbed or touched. (Hearth Containers, Metal Box, Mushrooms). Throw-items are held by the character and are thrown with the press of the A button (Screwball, Freezie, Poke Balls) B attacks, jumps, dodges and shields are still usable. Weapons-items , unlike throw-items, are not thrown with the A button. This gives you free range of all air moves. Also ground neutral A attacks, as well as forward tilts and smashes, are replaced with special weapon attacks. (Bean Saber, Star rod, Fan)
In general, each item is designed to have a double-edged. This simply means that there are some pros and cons to using them. Activate-items generally alter the character’s natural condition and are activated by touch. This means whether or not you want to be big, tiny, or invincible you might be affected by touching an item on accident. For Throw-items and Weapon-items, if you’re holding either, you can’t grab. Grabbing from a defensive shield position is an extremely effective and fundamental strategy in converting a defense into an offense. Sacrificing a grab can be dangerous for whoever holds an item. This is one way how items are balanced.
A lot of people think that items are dangerous because they can be thrown for easy kills. Most of the throwable items don’t’ send opponents very far. In most cases, throwing the enemy from a grab, or using an attack would send the opponents flying farther. Also, most thrown items have the lowest priority in the game. This means that you can use just about any air or ground attack to counter a thrown item. Even Kirby’s weak neutral air can stop a thrown bat. Plus, any thrown item can be caught by simply pressing Z when in the air, or by pressing A when on the ground. Items can also be caught in the middle of an air dodge for a safe alternative. This isn’t even mentioning that thrown items can be reflected by activating your shield at the right time.
I’ve broken down the items into eight categories. (<strong>bolded</strong> items are too powerful and should be banned from competitive play)
<strong>RECOVERY:</strong> These items restore health to whoever grabs them first. These items are typically banned from competitive play because of how much they favor the player who gets to them first. There’s no downside (double-edge) to grabbing these items. When there’s no downside, there’s not balancing between using the item or not.
<strong> Food, Maxim Tomato, Heart Container</strong>
<strong>HEAVY HTTERS:</strong> These items pack a punch. However they’re not too powerful because each can be countered in different ways.
Warp Star<strong>, Bob-omb</strong>, Hammer
<strong>PROJECTILES:</strong> These items shoot out projectiles. Other items also shoot out projectiles, but these fit the category best. They also do minimal damage and knock-back to opponents when thrown.
Ray Gun, Super Scope, Fire Flower
<strong>STICKS/WEAPON-ITEMS:</strong> All of these items look like sticks and fall under the Weapons-item category.
Lip’s Stick, Star Rod, Beam Sword, Home-Run Bat<strong>, Fan</strong>, Parasol
<strong>STAGE SHIFTERS: </strong>These items change the shape of the stage. Bombs create areas that player can’t run over. Red shells rein terror on platforms or other surfaces. And the Flipper can partition sections out of the air because they float in place when thrown.
Motion-Senser Bomb, Red Shell, Flipper
<strong>THROW-ITEMS:</strong> These items work best when thrown.
Green Shell, freezie, Mr. Staurn<strong>, Poke Ball (allowed only for teams) </strong>
<strong>ACTIVATE-ITEMS: </strong>These items alter the characters natural state.
Super Mushroom, Poison Mushroom<strong>, Starman</strong><strong>, Screw Attack</strong>, Metal Box, Bunny Hood, Cloaking Device
<strong>MISCELLANEOUS: </strong>
Barrel Cannon<strong>, Party Ball</strong>
So now everyone can play with items again and nobody will have a problem with them, right? Wrong. There’s still one more issue, and it’s a big one. This issue isn’t the fault of items directly, but it involves how the items appear on the stage. Items generally either drop individually, in a barrel, or in a capsule. When an item drops individually in a random location there’s a change that the item will be bomb appearing directly in the way of an attack making the explosion unavoidable. Though this is very rare, it does happen. So in order to fix this, it would be wise to ban bob-ombs. But the problem isn’t completely fixed. Capsules and crates can randomly explode too. This means that a capsule can randomly drop in the way of your attack and explode.
This is where Sakruai’s humor doesn’t positively affect his game. These random explosions go against the game design that’s already present. I’ve already discussed why most of the items were fundamentally balanced because they have doubled-edges. Why would he need to have crates randomly explode when people want the items inside? Why would the game need to punish us so? There is no reason for a move like this. Unfortunately there’s no way to turn this feature off.
Like I said, the chance of randomly exploding from an unavoidable situation is small and can randomly screw you up. But Smash Melee was designed with a lot of random built right into the core of the fighting engine. Characters can fly in random direction from attacks, character can bounce of of invisible “walls” when hit, or attacks can simply fail to land a blow even when the strike goes right through opponents. There’s no way to removed all of these effects, and we’ve been able to live with these just fine. So why not live with items too?
So we have a choice to make. Or rather, each of us have to make the choice for ourselves. Play with items or not. We all have our reasons for liking or not liking them before, but now we have the facts. So, why would we decided to live with an increased chance of exploding? I’ll tell you why. Items provide the balance for the game. We all know Fox is super strong, and Kirby is super weak. But, Fox with cool items only gets a little stronger, while Kirby with cool items becomes a lot stronger. The items give many of the low tier characters moves and abilities that they need to round of their characters. The high tiers are already well rounded and well designed. In this way, items help make everything more fair.
The world may never see serious high level competitive play with items during Melee’s time, but that doesn’t mean Brawl is hopeless. There are a few things Brawl needs to do in order to help foster this revolution.
1) Get rid of exploding crates and capsules.
2) Design the random item drops to occur in a pattern. Or at least design it to where they spawn away from the fighting players. They could even design it to where items only spawn up when both players are on the stage during a 1v1 game. In this way, one player won’t get the “advantage” if an item appears while the other player is knocked off the stage.
And beyond this, Brawl could add a new item system that is far more superior than having them randomly spawn. What if the stage had specific areas that the items spawn at? This would allow the level designers to design specific spawn points on the level to help keep the balance. A good comparison may be how Halo balances it’s levels by placing specific items in specific locations that respawn on a timer.
Better yet, what if each player could select and equip a number of items to their character to use during a match. They would have access to only one of these items per stock, and players could activate the item by taunting. This would be balanced for a number of reasons. 1) There’s no risk of random explosions. 2) Players can pick items that balance their characters or their own play style 3) When they activate the item, it’s obvious because their character must taunt first. While they’re taunting they can’t attack, so they can only activate items in safe situations. If you don’t want them to activate an item, then keep up the offense.
For those of you who are still unconvinced that items offer new strategies that push the game into all new levels, I’ll try and put together a video of some of the techniques I’ve been working on. In the mean time, do yourself a favor and turn the items back on just to see what they’re like. Medium or low is fine. I challenge you to find the balance.
<p align="center"><a href="http://smashboards.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/smash-items.jpg" title="smash-items.jpg"><img src="http://smashboards.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/smash-items.jpg" alt="smash-items.jpg" /></a></p>
It seems that nobody plays with items. I think I’ve pinpointed the source of this phenomenon. Here’s my theory. Back in the days of Smash64, everyone played with items. Because we didn’t have access to friends to play with all the time, we had to settle with playing against computers. Unfortunately the computers had AI that were extremely distracted and attracted to any item that fell onto the stage. It wouldn’t matter where on the stage they appeared, if there was an item somewhere, the computers dropped everything and went for it. Eventually, we simply turned off the items because they made the game less fun. This attitude carried over from Smash64 into Melee. Those without the attitude either abandoned items because everyone else was doing it, or they made up excuses about how “cheap” they were. Now, we’re at a painful point where, when those of us want to start playing with items again, it’s been so long that we have forgotten how to use them. What’s worse is, for the competitive smashers, strategies with items didn’t have a chance to evolve like our teams and 1v1 strategies. So when items appear, players would rather get rid of them rather than use them. If not, when they try to use them, they lose because of their inexperience and the negative attitude towards items is perpetuated.
<!--more-->
It may be a painful process to recovery, but I promise it is a rewarding one. The first order of business is understanding more about items. There are three types of items. Activate-items, Throw-items, and Weapon-items. Activate items activate instantly when grabbed or touched. (Hearth Containers, Metal Box, Mushrooms). Throw-items are held by the character and are thrown with the press of the A button (Screwball, Freezie, Poke Balls) B attacks, jumps, dodges and shields are still usable. Weapons-items , unlike throw-items, are not thrown with the A button. This gives you free range of all air moves. Also ground neutral A attacks, as well as forward tilts and smashes, are replaced with special weapon attacks. (Bean Saber, Star rod, Fan)
In general, each item is designed to have a double-edged. This simply means that there are some pros and cons to using them. Activate-items generally alter the character’s natural condition and are activated by touch. This means whether or not you want to be big, tiny, or invincible you might be affected by touching an item on accident. For Throw-items and Weapon-items, if you’re holding either, you can’t grab. Grabbing from a defensive shield position is an extremely effective and fundamental strategy in converting a defense into an offense. Sacrificing a grab can be dangerous for whoever holds an item. This is one way how items are balanced.
A lot of people think that items are dangerous because they can be thrown for easy kills. Most of the throwable items don’t’ send opponents very far. In most cases, throwing the enemy from a grab, or using an attack would send the opponents flying farther. Also, most thrown items have the lowest priority in the game. This means that you can use just about any air or ground attack to counter a thrown item. Even Kirby’s weak neutral air can stop a thrown bat. Plus, any thrown item can be caught by simply pressing Z when in the air, or by pressing A when on the ground. Items can also be caught in the middle of an air dodge for a safe alternative. This isn’t even mentioning that thrown items can be reflected by activating your shield at the right time.
I’ve broken down the items into eight categories. (<strong>bolded</strong> items are too powerful and should be banned from competitive play)
<strong>RECOVERY:</strong> These items restore health to whoever grabs them first. These items are typically banned from competitive play because of how much they favor the player who gets to them first. There’s no downside (double-edge) to grabbing these items. When there’s no downside, there’s not balancing between using the item or not.
<strong> Food, Maxim Tomato, Heart Container</strong>
<strong>HEAVY HTTERS:</strong> These items pack a punch. However they’re not too powerful because each can be countered in different ways.
Warp Star<strong>, Bob-omb</strong>, Hammer
<strong>PROJECTILES:</strong> These items shoot out projectiles. Other items also shoot out projectiles, but these fit the category best. They also do minimal damage and knock-back to opponents when thrown.
Ray Gun, Super Scope, Fire Flower
<strong>STICKS/WEAPON-ITEMS:</strong> All of these items look like sticks and fall under the Weapons-item category.
Lip’s Stick, Star Rod, Beam Sword, Home-Run Bat<strong>, Fan</strong>, Parasol
<strong>STAGE SHIFTERS: </strong>These items change the shape of the stage. Bombs create areas that player can’t run over. Red shells rein terror on platforms or other surfaces. And the Flipper can partition sections out of the air because they float in place when thrown.
Motion-Senser Bomb, Red Shell, Flipper
<strong>THROW-ITEMS:</strong> These items work best when thrown.
Green Shell, freezie, Mr. Staurn<strong>, Poke Ball (allowed only for teams) </strong>
<strong>ACTIVATE-ITEMS: </strong>These items alter the characters natural state.
Super Mushroom, Poison Mushroom<strong>, Starman</strong><strong>, Screw Attack</strong>, Metal Box, Bunny Hood, Cloaking Device
<strong>MISCELLANEOUS: </strong>
Barrel Cannon<strong>, Party Ball</strong>
So now everyone can play with items again and nobody will have a problem with them, right? Wrong. There’s still one more issue, and it’s a big one. This issue isn’t the fault of items directly, but it involves how the items appear on the stage. Items generally either drop individually, in a barrel, or in a capsule. When an item drops individually in a random location there’s a change that the item will be bomb appearing directly in the way of an attack making the explosion unavoidable. Though this is very rare, it does happen. So in order to fix this, it would be wise to ban bob-ombs. But the problem isn’t completely fixed. Capsules and crates can randomly explode too. This means that a capsule can randomly drop in the way of your attack and explode.
This is where Sakruai’s humor doesn’t positively affect his game. These random explosions go against the game design that’s already present. I’ve already discussed why most of the items were fundamentally balanced because they have doubled-edges. Why would he need to have crates randomly explode when people want the items inside? Why would the game need to punish us so? There is no reason for a move like this. Unfortunately there’s no way to turn this feature off.
Like I said, the chance of randomly exploding from an unavoidable situation is small and can randomly screw you up. But Smash Melee was designed with a lot of random built right into the core of the fighting engine. Characters can fly in random direction from attacks, character can bounce of of invisible “walls” when hit, or attacks can simply fail to land a blow even when the strike goes right through opponents. There’s no way to removed all of these effects, and we’ve been able to live with these just fine. So why not live with items too?
So we have a choice to make. Or rather, each of us have to make the choice for ourselves. Play with items or not. We all have our reasons for liking or not liking them before, but now we have the facts. So, why would we decided to live with an increased chance of exploding? I’ll tell you why. Items provide the balance for the game. We all know Fox is super strong, and Kirby is super weak. But, Fox with cool items only gets a little stronger, while Kirby with cool items becomes a lot stronger. The items give many of the low tier characters moves and abilities that they need to round of their characters. The high tiers are already well rounded and well designed. In this way, items help make everything more fair.
The world may never see serious high level competitive play with items during Melee’s time, but that doesn’t mean Brawl is hopeless. There are a few things Brawl needs to do in order to help foster this revolution.
1) Get rid of exploding crates and capsules.
2) Design the random item drops to occur in a pattern. Or at least design it to where they spawn away from the fighting players. They could even design it to where items only spawn up when both players are on the stage during a 1v1 game. In this way, one player won’t get the “advantage” if an item appears while the other player is knocked off the stage.
And beyond this, Brawl could add a new item system that is far more superior than having them randomly spawn. What if the stage had specific areas that the items spawn at? This would allow the level designers to design specific spawn points on the level to help keep the balance. A good comparison may be how Halo balances it’s levels by placing specific items in specific locations that respawn on a timer.
Better yet, what if each player could select and equip a number of items to their character to use during a match. They would have access to only one of these items per stock, and players could activate the item by taunting. This would be balanced for a number of reasons. 1) There’s no risk of random explosions. 2) Players can pick items that balance their characters or their own play style 3) When they activate the item, it’s obvious because their character must taunt first. While they’re taunting they can’t attack, so they can only activate items in safe situations. If you don’t want them to activate an item, then keep up the offense.
For those of you who are still unconvinced that items offer new strategies that push the game into all new levels, I’ll try and put together a video of some of the techniques I’ve been working on. In the mean time, do yourself a favor and turn the items back on just to see what they’re like. Medium or low is fine. I challenge you to find the balance.
