Items vs. No Items: A rambling essay

[Kirydos]

I have a simple enough opinion; it's obvious that Smash Brothers is not just a game of skill but also a game of chance. I enjoy playing the game as such. If I get an invincibility star, a pokeball that makes Lugia appear, and a hammer, well.. that's super for me. Should my opponent recieve such a gift from above, so be it. You can work around it.

At any rate, your "skill" in the game should be key with how well you can handle this random element. That's what makes Smash Brothers. The skill to use the items given to you. The skill to manage against superior items from your opponent. And of course, the skill to simply beat the tar out of your opponent in the mean time.

But anyway, that's what Smash is for me. I always play with everything, set to it's simple medium drop rate. It's not a lot as it is, after all. Chance is as much a part of this game then mere fighting skills (which I most certainly admire, I'm hardly disparaging that aspect).

And then the debate opens up to the Smash Gods who bestow upon us mortals these items; but that's another story.

 

[1psemet]

Well, as always I can't just go about leaving my statements undefended and acusations not met. I'm going to do it slightly out of order and do BBT first, while I have more energy as his is a deal longer.

Um... I obviously meant nor implied anything of the sort. When I said that items effect the actual outcome of 100% of the matches, it doesn't mean that it effects said matches BY 100%, there's quite a difference. I meant that in 100% of items matches (barring either both people completely ignoring items or there being a plague of Mr. Saturns), the outcome of the match is unknowably different than without. Obviously the best person still wins most of the time... but it's not nearly as precise. Where for the reasons outlined in my last post Judgement does not do. I find it difficult to believe that ANYONE could believe what you accuse me of believing, as they would be boarderline too stupid to live...

As for my suggestion to jump behind the camper, I never said that it was foolproof. But you posed a situation where the camper will not get closer to the edge than the farthest reach of his throw-kill zone. If you're on the edge and he does decide to move in, then it basically becomes a normal battle with an exceptionally close edge, as you can roll pass/jump over/run past the man and you would then be in a position where all (well, a good deal) of your moves would be kill moves. And perhaps I didn't make this clear... but this is geared towards Onnet, where one has those annoying buildings blocking you. Otherwise you can still simply be in front of them and just continually try to peg them closer to the edge and your own kill zone.

And indeed, as I'm sure is obvious to everyone, these situations are only a problem for certain characters (projectile-less ones), on certain stages (crappy ones). I continually bring that up to point out that if you're afraid of camping (because you know your opponent will, or are just generally paranoid), then chose a character with a projectile. It's another aspect of strategy. Anyone who plays a projectile-less character should already be perfectly well acquanted with having to be the aggresor, though, as they always have to be on the attack against people with projectiles. And for your situations... Yes, as always it's the better players responsibility (by necessity) to go about beating the crap out of the other to prove it. You have to work if you want to be recognised as distinctly better. It's part of a viable strategy for the underdog to try to get to SD, where he would have a comparative advantage. But this generally isn't a problem, as the first stage is in all probability not a camparific stage (espescially when you consider the fact that many of the campy stages such as FZ aren't a problem with the majority of chars), and even if the better player loses the second, then he can simply chose an un-campable third. As for the rest... Saying that the camper will develope a full stock lead is the thing under dispute. If it was that effective, then it would pose the problems that you bring up, granted. I'm maintaining the position that it in fact isn't. Therefore when one player kills the other, he can't just camp and develope some huge lead, but instead will die (assuming they're about equal or the non-camper's better).

As for the slob picks thing... If I somehow gave the impression that camping couldn't occur in slob picks, I certainly didn't mean to. What I was getting at that, specifically, DK (and, BTW, when I say DK camping, I mean not only camping with DK, but also imply trying to camp in a similar fashion with any of the chars with good throws.) camping couldn't be a problem in that it couldn't simply win it for you. And, I agree, it would be foolish to pick DK for the second match, which I recall stating (though not in so many words), as you'll doubtless get creamed in the third even if you miraculaously win the second (I think that DK vs Shiek on FZ would still result in a Shiek victory in all probability, anyway). It's not viable to depend on such for victory. Of course if you randomly get, or choose when you lose, a stage that is all camparific, then you can still see a deal of it in tourneys. I don't think this argument is solvable with anything but time, though. As I think that camping simply isn't advantageous enough that it will allow you to win against a superior opponent, while you do. We'll just have to watch the big no-item tourneys and see if any problems develope. As of now I havn't heard of any, I might say, which while inconclusive goes to back up my beliefs.

As for my analogies... Indeed, this analogy, like basically every single one, can be picked apart and proved inadaquite on some level. That's why I stay away from them in general. I made this one because you brought up poker, saying that "I don't see you claiming that poker is too random to get meaningful results", and implying that poker skill was valid in comparison to other types. And in fact you seem to agree with me despite your earlier statement, as shown by your other one of "Poker is all random, with players calculating the ebst way to use that randomness.". Confusing. Anyway though, no, obviously items aren't as random as poker. Nor are non-items as non-random as Tennis on many of the stages at least (the ones with randomish hazards). I was going for the parallel of " A good deal of any given poker hand is luck dependant, as are most matches with items, though not to the same extent.". Eh, that's the problem with analogies.

And as a closing statement you say "BTW sorry if it bothered you that I responded out of order.". Heh, now, while I appreciate the sentiment... it strikes me as rather ironic when you take the gratuitous insults in your post into account. On that note though... that's the way the vagaries of response works. Some things seem more important, and it often just fits better if you respond out of order.

Mattdeezie: I was under the impression that we were still talking of camping in that situation when you said 1:1 odds, as did BBT if I correctly guess from her statements. For SD, I'd agree though. Unless one person is QUITE a bit better, the odds are basically even. As for the odds in the other situation, I think they're quite a bit better for the uninjured man, and, whatever they are, that's just the risk you have to take if you want to pull ahead. That's just part of Onnet, which is one of the reasons that I certainly wouldn't pick it. And you say "time puts the person ahead at a disadvantage"... if he's ahead a stock, he's at an advantage. If he's only ahead percent, he's still at an advantage, as he can much more handily kill the other before time runs out. Either way, if you're losing your at a disadvantage. And I feel the need to point out once agian that this is rarely if ever a problem, depending on the amount of time that you have in the match.


And to the newcomer Kirydos: you say "If I get an invincibility star, a pokeball that makes Lugia appear, and a hammer, well.. that's super for me. Should my opponent recieve such a gift from above, so be it. You can work around it.". That's a part of my point, and a good anti-items reason. In the long run it'll even out, granted, and you CAN work around it, it's not like it makes the match unwinnable. But it puts you at a quite distinct disadvantage, through no (or, very little) skill of your opponents. A single match like this can throw the results of a tourney out of whack, and if you happen to get two such streaks in seperate matches and your opponent none, it can make for very pointless and biased results.

 

[Bumble Bee Tuna]

GOD **** IT!!!

I AM NOT A FEMALE! These boards have about *5* female members! You should not assume femininity! WTF? There are 5 girls out of a member pool of nearly 10,000 here, and you would assume someone to be a girl? WTF?

Sweet Jesus! Here's some effing pictures! I'm the guy in them! Pound it in your head! Claim I look lame all you want, because that's true, but please, get the gender correct.

http://bumblebeetuna.i8.com/photo.html

Well I'm not actually really angry but please, in the future avoid calling me "her" and "she" and that'd be peachy.


Exactly what do you mean by "unknowably different"? I'm just wondering what kind of criteria items had to pass to be decided that they influence the outcome 100% of the time. If it's what I think it sounds like, though, everything that can occur in a match affects the outcome unknowably. Every decision made in the game will affect the outcome, and you won't know what would have happened if you decided differently.
I won't bother getting into the fact that this can just be turned around full circle- The outcome of a match is affected 100% of the time when you decide to turn off items.
Mind clarifying what the **** this percentage argument is about?

There are quite a few projectileless characters in the game, and thus it affects quite a few characters (I'm including those with useless projectiles as well, because it will affect them too. Zelda, in some cases Sheik...sometimes Fox, Falco, and Luigi, G&W...)

As for stages, This is really one of the big beefs with no-item play. The stages are only "crappy" without items (Well, some of them. Flatzone always sucks). I enjoy Fourside greatly, but without items it becomes one big campground.
****, camping could even affect seemingly demure stages. Corneria seems like a good enough stage, right? Well, as Peach, I'm going to want to camp out under the fin, because I love dress-spinning people off of that wall repeatedly. I love that wall. As my opponent, you don't want to get comboed into that wall for 120% in two shots. You'll just stay on top of the fin. Stalemate! Of course, with items, you'd dominate the level and get more, and you'd have a much better venue for throwing them at me what with being above me. I wouldn't bother camping and the game would go on.

I don't see how it's the better player's responsibility to be the agressor. It's the better player's responsibility to play better. This means to play in a way that is most advantageous to him. This means not attacking an entrenched camper.
How won't the camper get ahead by a stock? He camps, it gives him an advantage. The advantage leads to a kill. He leaves his campground because you're invincible. He is now up a stock. If you camp, he ignores you and wins because he is up a stock. So now you have to come after him. If he can knock you away once, he is free to run back to the campzone where he can get an even bigger lead.

The point with Poker is that it can be used as an example for me. Poker is a completely random game, yet it is acceptable. Item play is significantly LESS random than Poker, so it would also be acceptable. I don't really see the problem. This is somewhat off track, as the point of these analogies was in regards to you thinking that item skill was somehow "fundamentally different" than non-item skill. This is certainly not the case. Items are a part of SSBM. The reason why you think skill with items is "fundamentally different" is because you think that items require calculating probabilities and factoring randomness in, while normal play does not. Normal play of course does require plenty of guesswork and trying to figure out the probability of your opponent doing certain moves. I see this as a pretty slight difference, they aren't exactly the same concept. But I certainly wouldn't claim that they're different enough to qualify as "fundamentally different". Fundamental difference would be like Poker vs. Tennis, yes, two completely different games that aren't even the same type of game (sport vs. cards). Items vs. No items is simply different versions of the same game! It's more like saying skill in college basketball is fundamentall different than pro ball because the 3-point line is a different distance from the basket...two versions of the same game.

-B

 

[EvilEvincar]

Stop being ludicrously stubborn people!

Now the camping issue has hit a point where people are getting tired of it. BBT, camping, as proven again and again, is not as avantagous as you keep claiming. If it is, then items wouldn't help at all. The only item that would help is one that appears very rarely: the star. All the others the camper would simply block back toward you (or at least away from him). If you would at least try to use a non-projectile method of decamping you will find that it is alot better the projectile decamping methods. Since I usually play Zelda/Shiek (yes, I do actually play Zelda, in fact, alot more then Shiek). And I usually kill the camper. If it doesn't kill, it has him fly away, forcing him to either return to non-camping or die to edge-guarding.
People seem to take the "safe" method of decamping, waiting the opponent out. But just knowing about the camping metagame, but only taking one method that is chancy at best, makes me think that everyone has at least one scrubbish quality to them. At Sirlin, the Playing to Win article not only mentions about who are scrubs, but the flow of the metagame. When a winning method is discovered, countermeasures are developed. Then players either find another winning method or develop counter-counermeasures. As is, camping will live on because the anti-camping measure only plays on patience, not the game.
Now for the randomness issue. Items cause a problem. Let's say player one has a 1500 rating and player 2 has a 1300 rating (this is presumming you start at 1400, and higher is better). Without items, the second player may get a fluke game win, but rarely, and almost always loses the match. With items, that flukeness increases to where player 2 may win the match in two games.
And the problem is, there is currently no way to know if this has ever happened. The pro-item side keeps saying "Nobody has complained." This is because complaining is like complaining to a baseball umpire. It does nothing, and gives you the possibility of being thrown out.
As for the stages, it is all the matter of opinion. BBT dislikes stages because those are the ones in which camping occurs the most on. Should certain stages be eliminated? In my opinion, a few, but in both item and non-items play. But I suggest leaving the stage issue to a different thread, because it is a different topic.
As for time limits. I personally don't see why they shouldn't be implemented, even with items on. If there is only a limited time to play the entire tournament, time limits keep the tournament from going into overtime. I believe that putting them in either SD or calling it a draw would be good, though I prefer calling it a draw. And it just becomes another part of the metagame. Can it be abused? Yes, but then you have to figure out measures against that abuse. I'm sure everyone in Magic had to deal with that at least once in their tournament career (it happens most often in Limited, due to the fact Constructed is a faster format).
I wish peole will stop saying items and no items SSB is two different games. Type 1 and Type 2 Magic has a different metagame, but has never been considered two different games. The same applies here.
Sorry, no Magic quote today, have to go.

 

[Bumble Bee Tuna]

certainly not

It hasn't been proven that camping isn't advantageous. It has been stated, but there certainly hasn't been any backup for that.

All we really have is an attempt to explain how to beat camping from 1psemet and Eoraptor, who of course always play Samus and Pikachu, two characters with projectiles that can decamp. Of course they'd know all about camping, right?

An effective anti-camping method HAS been discovered for the metagame. It's called items. But if you eliminate them, you still have one effective countermeasure- It's called stalemating. It's just that stalemating is not a good way for the game to progress.

Please don't put words in my mouth. I certainly have no problems with stages where camping can occur easiest. That's because there are items that make camping near-worthless. With items off, yes I have a problem with certain stages that make camping easy. Unfortunately in the no item game I'd even need to turn off stages like Corneria because it would be quite easy for players to stalemate on opposite sides of the fin.

Your example of Magic is laughable. 90% of that game is figuring out how to abuse your cards to their maximum efficiency. If you lose to "abuse", you just lost to a more skilled deck-builder. Deal with it. There is no way a strategy in MTG could be considered cheap if the cards aren't banned/restricted. The banned/restricted list specifically tells you what things are cheap and what aren't. If it's not on the lists, it's fair game. Saying something is cheap in M:TG is the ultimate form of scrubbery.

How exactly do you have a "draw" in an elimination tournament?

-B

 

[EvilEvincar]

BBT: It really does seem like you don't read everything.
While in a elimination you can't (or at least to my knowledge) get a draw. I said it was preferable because most tournaments run a swiss or round-robin style format, where draws are valid.
You still don't get it. One: you can't cling to items forever. In fact, you can barely cling onto items now. Every example shown so far by the items side (or at least I presumed, since they are mostly taken from tournaments) have been with items. And people still stalemate, despite how powerful you have claimed items are against camping. At one point, even with items, you will be forced to learn on how to decamp without items. That is presuming that there are smart campers that learn. Otherwise, why are we arguing over it?
And camping has been proved non-advantagous multitude of times. And every time, you have just waved your hand, saying it would just be better to stalemate. While it is the SAFEST tactic, it isn't the BEST. The best would be one which kills the camper every time. And while that hasn't been done yet, the stratagies mentioned can make it so it can be done, most of the time (as long as the camper is at low health).
And I suggest you ignore analogies. Every responce to them lately you have made falacies against them (more acurately, Equivocation, according to Applying Ethics by Olen & Barry). I made the example because I was tired of people calling SSBM two different games just because of one option change. And I'll repeat: It's the same game people! You just have to adjust your stratagy to the metagame. (And btw, I wish Magic was as simple as abusing one card. But it doesn't work like that. If it did, control would rule Magic all the time. And also, I have never said anything in Magic was cheap. I was out of that phase about 6 months into my career.)
PS: I didn't mean to put words in your mouth. If I did offend you in an unintentional way, the sorry. But I still stand that the stage issue is for a different thread.
Now for something from Unglued.
Editor's note: There were no suitable flavor text submissions for this card From Censorship

 

[Bumble Bee Tuna]

you don't know anything, do you?

No. No no no.

Almost ALL tournaments are elimination. The minority that have a round robin element still take the top people from the round robin and put them into a elimination bracket. I don't think I've seen a single tournament that only had a round robin. Meaning you can't have draw as an option.

Your argument tends to hinge on you just repeating over and over that the item argument is invalid, but you don't ever actually back it up. You just keep repeating that the item side has no argument, and maybe it will come true!

The claims you do make are completely wrong (see first paragraph). Take, for example, this gem:

"And people still stalemate, despite how powerful you have claimed items are against camping. At one point, even with items, you will be forced to learn on how to decamp without items. "

Riiiight. There has never been a stalemate with items on. How could there be? Items will break a camping situation if you're patient. Stalemate is impossible unless both players vow not to attack each other, which isn't going to happen no matter how much 1psemet theorizes it. The only time people stalemate successfully is when there are no items.

As for anti-camping tactics- I'll believe it when I see it. I don't think it has even been shown theoretically possible, yet, but the proof is really in actual gameplay. I'd suggest a challenge- Someone good at camping at TG can challenge 1psemet to a match on Japes with Link, no items. The Link will camp. 1psemet will be a character without projectiles. ****, he could even be Zelda, since Din's Fire is such a great move! We'll see him put his amazing anti-camping strategies to work. Until then, your argument is a little silly. On the other hand, even if it is possible to decamp someone, it's pretty obvious that a lot of very good players here don't think so. So in a tournament, these players will not try it. They will wait it out. Which is a stalemate. Regardless of if in your grand theories it's advantageous to try to decamp, actual players disagree. And they'll still stalemate if you turn off items.

If you want me to stop picking apart bad analogies, stop posting them.

-B

 

[EvilEvincar]

First BBT, I said you have had problems with analogies because since your second post on page 19 your evidence against them have been fallacies. If you are going to say something is bad, prove it. The fallacies you are stating aren't proof. And also, don't take it personally, I'm trying to give constructive criticism.
As for the tourny point, even if most tournies are elimination, it doesn't matter. Then have SD during elimination and draws in RR or swiss. I thought I have already basicly said that.

Your argument tends to hinge on you just repeating over and over that the item argument is invalid, but you don't ever actually back it up.

I have backed it up. First, the situations given in which stalemates have happened are in tournies (which I already presumed were item tournies; correct me if I am wrong on any). As for the second sentence in my quote you posted, this is already found on Sirlin's Playing to Win article, which not only tells of who are scrubs, but tells of an ever-evolving metagame. If for the camper, the anti-camping method is items (as you are currently stating), the camper has to adapt or die. Those that do not adapt are scrubs, as stated on Sirlin. And due to this, your experience with camping seems like all the campers are scrubs.
As for your last paragraph (or second to last if you're that stingy), it does seem like in the meantime we'll have to declare a stalemate (no pun intended) about camping. This is just because no matter what we say, you just wave your hand saying it is just theory (which is actually another fallacy stated from Olen & Barry), and the only proof you'll accept is a match at TG. Though I will it will be an interesting side event to watch. No, I won't be watching the screen, I'll be watching people's faces, especially your's.
And one more thing, I really do think too many people underestimate Din's Fire. It is a hard attack to connect, but if you do, you can do so many thing with it.
"Ah, a faceshredder. Very rare. Nearly unstoppable. Good luck!"-Cabal instructor From Cabal Trainee

 

[Bumble Bee Tuna]

it's no use.

I don't see wtf you're trying to say.

Your analogies were fallacious and I said so? Instead of just waving your hand and saying "you just said fallacies according to Olen and Barry!!!1(who the **** are they?)", perhaps you could actually, well, argue.

No stalemate has ever occurred in an item tournament. A 19-minute match occurred at TG, but luckily items prevented the stalemate. Without them, it would have been one. How you think this argues for your side, boggles my mind, but if you say so...
A stalemate also almost happened in a no-items tournament, but the players just decided to switch off attacking each other because neither had the patience to stalemate.

Your interpretation of scrubbish behavior is ridiculous. A camper is never a scrub, unless he complains that items are too cheap as a countermeasure to camping instead of just stopping camping. I don't even understand how you could be reasoning what your saying, but please just stop for your own sake.

As for TG, I won't be there. And it could be at any tournament. If a good camper wants to head to the WA tourney and challenge 1psemet there, that works too. It's just that what you're doing here is theory fighting, and it's ridiculous. You're not even doing a good job at your theory fighting (1psemet's list of the 'options' available to each player were laughable at best).

BTW, please enlighten as to how you would ever hit a Link bombarding you with boomerangs, bombs, and arrows with Din's Fire. I'd love to see it. The problem is that Din's Fire is slow, easy to dodge, and predictable.

-B

 

[Gilgamesh]

It's just that what you're doing here is theory fighting, and it's ridiculous.

Lol BBT, you go something against theory fighting? remember that samus is the queen of theory fighting. (as said somewhere in the MBR)....

heck, what am i talking about.... i rambled again, and i'm not even on crack.

About 1psemet's list of "options", i compared it to when someone made a list on how Bowser could "easily" defeat FFS. He just put up a big list of what should bowser do in each case, and presto, Bowser owns FFS. That was laughable, because it assumed the player would never fail. It was another example of theory fighting. Item defending, on the other side, is based on REAL facts seen in multiple tourneys and our houses too.

 

[Novowels]

*peeks in thread*

LOL, I can't believe this is still going on. Well, I think I'm going to jump in for a brief moment....

Just from skimming over all the posts (what's with this fixation on camping? wtf? gonna tell a ghost story and eat s'mores?) I noticed something interesting that is at the core of this duscussion. 1p mentions over and over that items "disadvantage" players either "randomly" or "psuedorandomly." I found this curious. So items affect the game in a random fashion....

So what?

First of all, every one of the characters have inbuilt advantages and disadvantages. Generally, these are consistant (Luigi's green missile, G&W's hammer, and Peach's turnips being exceptions) but of course, in different situations (different heights for instance) they won't be. Much like items.

Maybe throwing upwards and using the Thunderjolt should be banned from tournaments since it puts characters at a random disadvantage fighting Pikachu and Pichu. It's not really fair for the players after all. The other characters can't attack upwards like that, and it could be accomplished simply. (all throwing must be down forward, or back). Simple. Fair. That's why they included the option of which direction to throw in the game, right? It's fairly random anyways: It definately depends on placement and the effects are different based on percentages. Assuming the rat player can manage to grab ahold of the opponent, which is based on numerous things, he also must be able to hit with the thunderjolt. There could be platforms or items in the way! Random! Uh oh.

Here's an interesting parallel I think:

I had a much similar argument my friend a few years ago about super-moves in Street Fighter Alpha 3. This happened after a match wherein I knew his tactic, (basic Ryu corner trap) and the only option to stop him (and win, in the process) was to use the window of invincibility in the start-up of a super-move to blaze through his attack and damage him. I did so, and of course he didn't like it very much. I was on an "unneeded" level (something 1p has said about items) and should have fought "fair" or somesuch thing.

His basic premise was that supermoves shouldn't be used in the game at all, and that we should only use the characters in Classic mode. (not having supers, he pointed out, is an option in the game) He argued much like 1p, albeit he understood the grace of brevity. Much like 1p though, he had a fixation with "randomness." He was quick to point out that, aside from the free meter you are given at the begining of the first match, the supers you get are essentially randomized. Raising the meter is accomplished by attacking and being attacked. Certain characters could raise their meter much faster, and technically you could even raise the meter accidently by getting hit by certain moves. Also, attacking air to raise meter leaves you open to retaliation. Dangerous.

Additionally, my friend pointed out, the super moves often were overtly powerful compared to the "regular moves" of the game. They were highly prioritized, went farther, and did more damage when they hit.

"The game," my friend smoothly iterated, "Is totally balanced without supermoves. They are uneeded. When you throw a fireball at someone and they jump over it, you can dragon punch them. That's youmi, that's strategy. Introducing a superfluous possibility, like Akuma's super-air-fireball, into the game disrupts that strategy. You don't need any skillz to press down-to-forward twice and punch. The game is much more skillful without the addition of the move."

I found this a bit silly. I mean, it is easy to visually tell when the opponent has a "super" ready, why not simply change your tactics accordingly? Is that so hard? He would merely echo that the super is "cheap" and "unneeded" and, indeed, he would eventually say that I was the "scrub" for relying upon it at the detriment of other, apparently more "honorable" or "tactical" moves.



He contined complaining, meanwhile I used the supermoves, outprioritized his attack, and won. Honor? Bah. I won.

I feel this analogy fits very well into this discourse about items vs no items play. The items add new levels of complexity into the game. One oft-mentioned error in these arguments is that the characters are "unbalanced" when, say, a Home-run bat drops directly in front of them.

It's like a gift from the gods! (if you believe in that sort of thing). You are suddenly more powerful than your opponent! Oh no! That must mean the game is broken!

Listening to the no-itemers grouse about the empowering abilities of items, one would think that the unholy reception of the bat has suddenly bequeathed you with invincibility, given you the ability to teleport next to your oppenent, freeze him in place, and smash him off the screen, with no start-up or lag, for an instant KO!

I might be exaggerating their stance slightly.

My rebuttal to this belief: Certainly, receiving almost any weapon changes your offensive capabilities. But does it really break the game down into David vs Goliath levels of brokenness, and randomly at that? Is it "unfair"?

Let's see.

Let's say Fox is fighting Mario on the Final Destination stage. Both of them have many options: Attack with a projectile, run and attempt a grab, advance and attempt a ground attack, jump and attempt an air attack, run away, or wait. This is simplified massively, of course.

Now let's introduce that (gasp!) random item. A blaster appears right in front of Mario. Mario quickly picks it up (!!!) Oh my, he is now more powerful than Fox. He has just changed the game. (or the metagame if you wish) There is now a few new options to his offense: that is, firing or throwing the blaster.

Fox does, indeed, have to be more careful now. After all, a decent player can juggle the opponent across the screen with well-timed blaster shots. If Mario were to choose to fire the blaster at Fox, it opens new defensive tactics: he could jump to avoid it, sidestep or roll to avoid it, or reflect it back. If he dodges the blast in some way, Mario has just wasted a shot! Uh oh, it looks like these items aren't all that all-powerful after all. The ranged ones all have limited use. Supposing Fox chooses to reflect? Uh oh, the items can be turned upon their users! My oh my, that is downright uncharitable for such a game-breaking, random, scrubbified, unskilled item!

Of course, the vast majority of items can be thrown. Youmi comes into this very handily. Dare I say... Catch the item? Yes, this is a skill. Yes, it's fairly difficult to learn. Yes, scrubs will whine about it. Catching items is a tactic that will not only negate much of the powers of items, it will shift the balance of power to your favor! Why throw a powerful item at someone if they can catch it and thus gain the power themselves? Trepidation. Strategy. Mmm. If you know your opponent is skilled at catching items, that tactic is effectively shut off, much like jumping over a fireball in Street Fighter which will lead to getting a Dragon Punch in the groin. It's certainly random that Mario received the weapon, but even so he is not even remotely overpowered vs Fox. An expert Fox is actually more dangerous when the opponent picks up a projectile weapon.

Your premise that the item appears randomly and gives a random character random power falls flat: it's still in the hands of the players. The only thing that is increased is overall offensive ability in the game.

The randomness in a sense becomes almost a non-factor. Simply acquiring an item shifts game balance in one very important way: It both puts you at an advantage, and it puts your opponent one (mis)step away from being at the advantage.

I do feel that the two views are different games. Super Smash Bros. Melee (no items) is undoubtably a fun game, but it lacks the depth of the real game: Super Smash Bros. Melee

Experts learn to use items and learn to defend against items as well as use their defense as offense.

from Sirlin.Net--
Can you imagine what will happen when the two groups of players meet? The experts will absolutely destroy the scrubs with any number of tactics they’ve either never seen, or never been truly forced to counter. This is because the scrubs have not been playing the same game. The experts were playing the actual game while the scrubs were playing their own homemade variant with restricting, unwritten rules.

Did I say brief? :D Anyways, comments? Anyways, fighting games are all about options. The more options, the more tactics. The more tactics, the better.

 

[1psemet]

Well, you all seem quite determined to keep this thread alive, and, that being the case, I suppose I'm obligated to come back into it. Espescially when considering several of the more asinine statements that have come up. First off, BBT, I've already said that as I agree that you're seemingly not female. In that post you will notice that I also referred to you as male, and that the her was just a typo. And, though I admit your probable maleness (the odds are simply for it, as are all contextual clues), I would like to say that you can never be really sure, what with this being the internet and all. You could have gotten those pictures from anywhere, and for all I know it could be a sick joke or perversion with you (or you could be the female in them). I've come across some really messed up people on the internet... no way to tell conclusively until you meet someone personally.

Let's see, I'll go about responding to all your posts (BBT), and then I'll point out the good points/analogies that EvilEvincar pointed out that you just conveniently ignored. You are quite well versed at ignoring the gist/specifics of posts, and twisting a few unfortunately worded phrases to your side... this is what makes arguing with people (especially fundamentalists), so terribly annoying. Ah well, here goes:

For the percentage argument, I have no idea. Such is the mutation of things in drawn-out debates. As for my "unknowably different", I'll use as an example that vid that Matt put up that everyone's yammering over. Matt grabs the pokeball, and at this point enters a unknowable difference that isn't related to anyone's skill. Out of all the possibilities, he get's an Unknown, which is devestating to Sam. And if he got anything else? Unknown, but almost certainly less favorable for Matt. This could very well have been a crux, changing the whole match, and it wasn't directly through skill. In a no-item match, all of the crux's are skill-based. "If only I'd have landed that fA" or "If I'd shield grabbed" are mistakes of one, capitalised by the other to their benefit. But you can't plan, or claim to be skillfull just because you happened to get a powerfull pokemon. You can see in the course of this one match several points where items were devestating and that "unknowably effected the outcome" in a random (or psuedo-random, depending) way.

For camping and projectiles, let's make a list (though apparently you have a problem with them, I'll get into that later.). I'll seperate it into projectileless, crappy/only-sometimes-usefull projectile, and **** skippy projectile.

Projectileless: 7 (I don't count Bowser's fire, not that he effects anything)
Captain Falcon
Marth
Bowser
Donkey Kong
Roy
Jigglypuff
Ganondorf

Projectiles of dubious anti-camping quality: 7
Fox
Luigi
Falco
Kirby
G&W
Yoshi
Mewtwo

Anti-campy projectiles: 12
Mario
Dr Mario
Link
Samus
Ness
Zelda
Shiek
Peach
Young Link
Pikachu
Pichu
Ice Climbers

Hmm... seems like about half have usefull anti-camp (because Zelda's is aimable, and Shiek's 45 degrees.) projectiles, half of that have projectiles that are good in many camping situations (like Jungle Japes), but not always, and the last quarter who lack any. Among those 7 you see 3 played regularly, Jiggly semi-regularly, and Bowser, DK, and Roy (because he's worse in every meaningfull way than Marth) almost never. It seems to me like most characters can handle camping without storming, and some that can't have obvious defenses agianst it (ie. Jiggly). I rather thinks that the statistics are in my favor here.

Stages then. I disagree completely with your statements here (though I would seem to agree with your somewhat contradictory statements in the MBR ). As for "camping" on stages like Corneria, I scoff. I'd like to ask once again, do you consider simply being defensive superior to offensive? Because in the Corneria example, they can land on the back part to the right of you. You think that you have the advantage while sitting in the corner? You can't roll back, and you're jumping's hindered. If you're playing a level 1 cpu as an opponent, sure, but no-one else is going to simply run into and crouch cancel your smash (for the figure you gave was for a fully charged {Fully charged!! Haha) dA that they crouch cancelled or were otherwise utterly stuck for the duration and more. Seeing as how they're coming from your right, away from the wall, this will almost certainly not happen. Sitting in one place that conferrs no real tactical advantage isn't camping.

It's the better players responsibility to be the agressor, indeed. More specifically, it's his responsibility to win. Otherwise there is no proving that he's better if the other doesn't attack. You can't just look at two people sitting there doing nothing and go "wow, that Fox is smooth... but that Shiek guy kinda sucks.". The winner will, for the large part, be the agressor (or have a really, really stupid opponent who keeps running into his stationary attacks). And, how won't they draw ahead a stock if they are better yet attacking an entrenched camper? Why, because they are better. It's inherent in the statement. First of all, for most characters camping isn't a problem, and even for those who it would appear to be so, it DOESN'T conferr and advantage. But even in your fanasy world where it does, it would then depend on how much better the guy is. Camping (in your world) conferrs a COMPARATIVE advantage. Let's say that we have you playing against someone with no video game experience, who furthermore isn't very bright, and he also barely knows the controlls. Just enough for him to try to camp. Are you saying that he has the ADVANTAGE over you? As in he'll win just because he's camping? Didn't think so. If you're better, then you can overcome the advantage. It all depends on how big the advantage is (negative in my world, huge in yours) and how big the difference in skill.

In regards to the Poker talk... you say "The point with Poker is that it can be used as an example for me. Poker is a completely random game, yet it is acceptable. Item play is significantly LESS random than Poker, so it would also be acceptable.". You call this reasoning? That is the perfect example of fallacious assumptions coupled with non-sequiturs. First of all, Poker ISN'T acceptable, not by a long shot, to the huge majority of people. As you say, it's basically completely random and most people aren't insane/risky enough to throw their money into the pot and leave it up to fate. This being the case, saying that SSBM is "less" random means nothing. Less than completely random, eh? When does it become acceptable? To you it would seem, right away, as you find poker acceptable. But most people want skill to play a significant part of the game. Three quarters random? Half? Even one quarter is far too much.

And as for the fundamental difference in item "skill" and no-item skill, it's quite blatant. It boils down to this: item play, like poker, isn't actually completely dependant on skill, while no-item play is. As for your saying that;

"The reason why you think skill with items is "fundamentally different" is because you think that items require calculating probabilities and factoring randomness in, while normal play does not. Normal play of course does require plenty of guesswork and trying to figure out the probability of your opponent doing certain moves."

Have you read Yomi layer 3 at sirlin? You should. Normal play involves "guesswork" about what they're going to do next, with distinct consequences and counter's for each, and your intiuting about their playstyle. Item play involves "guesswork" to a vastly different extent. Can you "guess" that a star will appear on your opponent and thus start evasive manuevers? Can you guess that you'll be killed by the proverbial bomb-omb? Can you guess which pokemon they'll get? No, no you can't. It's not remotely similar. The "randomness" of no-item play CAN be factored in, while with items it can't. That simple. And no, your analogy is nothing similar. Sure it's the same game, but drastically different for all that. It's much more like, in magic, saying that completely open play is the same game as the newest block. Sure, it is indeed the same game, but with huge differences in the randomness (lots and lots of instant kill combo's in open) and play.

 

[1psemet]

Onto your next post: No, camping hasn't been "proven" anything. Either advantageous or disadvantageous. It seems to me that it hasn't reared it's head as a problem in any tournaments as of yet... though of course absence of proof isn't proof of absence.

As for your next statement, don't make assumptions about my playing, or my beleifs. You show your ignorance and bad guessing skills when you state my line of reasoning involving items (in the quote a couple paragraphs ago), and now this. You know what? My playing of Marth, Jigglypuff, and Luigi is vastly more common than my Samus. Marth and Jiggly have to decamp always, and Luigi does the vast majority of the time. I speak from a great amount of personal experience and play-time. This is coupled with the vicarious experience of witnessing the matches of my playgroup with char combinations where camping could be a problem. Try sticking to what you know (or think you know), instead of making completely unwarrented and asinine assumptions.

And for this talk of metagaming... Indeed, items are a solution to the non-problem of camping. So is picking a char with a projectile, being aggressive/better than them, attacking while invincible from returning, a time limit, and indeed stalemating if the TO makes the mistake of not putting one on. Stalemating is only possible in this case. Items take out the strategies and counter-strategies involved in camping, while itself it isn't a strategy. Having items on is a setting that obviates strategies. In magic, because that's the term it's based off of, turning items on is akin to banning a card, while using counter-strats is metagame.

"Please don't put words in my mouth." you say to EvilEvincar. I find this amusing and hypocritical when you take into account that you have done exactly that to me and others countless times. Heh. Anyway, for your comment on stages... if you decided to turn Corneria off, then you're insane, as I've stated above.

And your counter to his Magic example is laughable. Goes to show how much you know of the game. You say that you can't call cards cheap that aren't banned/restricted. That's ludicrous. That's how they become banned/restricted, people realising that they are game-breaking and cheap, after which errata is placed. Saying something is cheap in N:TG is the precurser of it getting banned, and realising it's effect on the game. If you lose to "abuse" it's most often because A: there was some particular metagame aspect to his deck that hosed yours, B: you got a crappy draw and/or vice versa. Furthermore, EvilEvencar never said anything about "abuse" at all in the fashion that you seem to think. Nor did he call anything in magic cheap. He was speaking of the metagame aspect of the game, which applies to the sirlin article that you seem to fail to see the paralels with SSBM. He was also referring to, specifically, the stalling possibilities of certain formats and the metagame involved in such. His rightfull conclusion (as it is backed by much magic knowledge) that it isn't a problem, as stalemating isn't in SSBM. You go off on some strange tangent from there.

Your third post (i really shouldn't wait several days to respond, but eh, I'm lazy): First of all, he does indeed know what he's talking about. A good majority of CCG tourneys are either round-robin or swiss, which is what he was talking about. Unless you happen to live in some strange, isolated part of the universe where CCG tourneys are run differently than everywhere else. Furthermore, what he said specifically states that he thought drawing should be an option if both people decide to stalemate forever. If the top two people at a tourney refused to fight and wanted to call it a draw? It can, and does, happen in almost every sort of tourney (though mostly CCG ones). You just split the first and second place prize and go on your way. Drawing is thus ALWAYS an option, even if not on the tourney rules sheet.

Hmm... some useless sarcasm... then you go on to say that his statement was unaplicable. Obviously he meant that even with items, most of de-camping is without (as in, you use your other skills). With the exception of the Star, the other items can be quite easily deflected off, shielded, or caught (talking small-platform here, the much more prevailent kind). So at most you generally use items as cover as you rush in there. Even with a Star you have to rush in there and do something, it seemed rather straitforward to me. And saying that though possible stalemating "isn't going to happen" with items is idiocy. What would you propose to do when it did? Say at TG I'm faced up against my brother in the losers bracket. Now, I recon there's around a fifty percent chance to beat him with some char combinations, which, say, we have. We both decide to sit there on FD, and not attack unless we get a star. This could go on a near-infinite amount of time, and, eh, what do we have to lose? It could quite easily be a stalemate. This has happened on Venom, where half the items simply roll off, and the other half rolls into a dangerous position to grab. It could quite easily go on for an hour with us both sitting on our respective sides and only attacking when we had a big advantage. It can happen, and will if anyone (or two) people decides to make it so. Any tourney without time limits is breakable, at least from the viewpoint of not being able to continue until people finish with their matches. Can you wait an hour before going to next round because two people are slow?

And as for "actual players" agree that camping is a problem... right. SOME "actual players" think so, while there is a goodly amount that thinks like me and EvilEvencar. While a lot of good players think it's a problem, a lot of good players don't. I havn't heard any tales of the multitudinous no-item tourneys turning into stalemates. From my experience, you item-loving stalemate-paranoid people are actually in a minority. Out of the 15 or so people in WA that I know of that aren't related to my group... they all prefer no-items. Perhaps we should set up a simple poll to see. And fine, if someone wants to try to play some campy no-items matches I'm up for it. Scamp said he would like to do something of the sort, and since Scamp would seem to be good, that'll work. I accept any such challenges.

And to your last post (whew): You say a stalemate almost happened in a no-item tourney? This seems to be a isolated event, but I wish to know the specifics. Whatever they are, it still isn't a problem. Why? Even without a time limit (foolish in my opinion), a fundamental stalemate isn't possible. One person will run out of patience first, or failing that, one person will fall asleep first. So stamina and patience are then simply factors if you have no time limit and both people are being asinine. You can wait for it, which is itself a strategy. No need for artificial rules at all.

And as for Din's fire again... Perhaps he'll accept a challenge to anyone at TG to a couple matches with link vs Zelda on Japes. The reasons for it were alreadly listed by Eoraptor long ago, and if you didn't believe them then, you won't believe them now. Only time, and matches, will tell.

Gilgamesh: as for your disdain (along with BBT it would seem) for my "list"... You're insane. It's a simple list of the options available to both, and only in the commentary did I bother to elaborate why I though the attacker had the advantage. Sound reasoning. This list you speak of involving Bowser obviously involved a lot of crappy, non-sequiturlike reasoning, on the other hand. And it's fundamentally different as well. I list what's available to both, while he obviously wasn't very comprehensive or the conclusion obviously would have been the opposite. It wasn't even good theory fighting. And my conclusions are just as backed up by fact as yours are, based on my experience and tournaments as well. There are multitudinous no-item tourneys (they might even outnumber not) and one istance that wasn't really a problem was raised by BBT. Woo, how broken no-item play obviously is. It's you people who are making assumptions. As Mattdeezie said about the various stages, fair until proven broken.

 

[1psemet]

*sigh* Novoweles responded whilst my post was posting. He also has a rather lengthy one that will take a deal of energy to respond to exhaustively... energy that I don't have now. So, I'll pull a BBT and only respond to select stagements and the gist, more will come later if needed. First of all, your friend was possibly right, but insane. As are you for drawing the false paralel. The supers in said game aren't even remotely the same in terms of randomness. And your example is the extreme on the balanced side of the spectrum for items. As well as completely misunderstanding why it's important. A single blaster is nothing. That's fine, it gives you a slight advantage, and is isolated. But when you get a SPREE of items? Often quite more advantageous than the blaster? Or when you get the best pokemon, and them the worst? The one person can win (almost) completely through lucky items. In the low-stock environs of tourneys, this can lead to crappy results that aren't represenetative of anything. Most of the time it doesn't happen, but it's always a matter of a difference in scale. No-items = as fair as can get, average quality items spread evenly between peeps = almost fair. Mauling items that continually benefit one guy through no skill = unfair, and bad for tourneys. You will notice that in no other fighter are there elements that are as randomising and potentially unbalancing as items in melee. Why? Because it's not a good thing, as game designers realise. I'd be willing to bet that if you contacted the man at sirlin, and told him all the pertinent facts that he would certainly agree with me. I still maintain that you people for some unknown reason can't see the obvious paralells with yourself and the proverbial scrub.

And, of course, I never said items are "cheap". And no-one (besides NJE) suggested "were playing their own homemade variant with restricting, unwritten rules.". You characterise us in an asinine, slandering and untrue way. We suggest turning off items. I in particular suggest putting in a time limit. Where are the "unwritten rules"?

 

[Mattdeezie]

vien here

i remember when you first started this thread, i thought you were quite an intelligent no-items patron--something hard to come by. i remember mentioning this thread to mattd after it had reached a couple of pages that i hadnt gotten around to reading. matt's response was that you (and later, your friends) are a big fat scrub. i was curious, since i thought--even though i didnt agree with your philosophy on the game--you at least subscribed to the same type of competetive thinking that many people on these forums lack. that is, not crying out that things are cheap. and, as far as i know, you guys have never said anythings cheap in regards to ssb--i guess you guys should be commended on that. anyway this is all in regards to what you, 1pinksemet (effing hilarious), said at the end of your last post:

We suggest turning off items. I in particular suggest putting in a time limit. Where are the "unwritten rules"?

i dont read this thread in detail anymore, but i do know many intricate things about it. i always get the feeling (note "feeling": the quote i included instills such a feeling, it isnt exactly a good example of what im about to go into, i know. but im too effing lazy to look up TWO quotes) that you and your group are confused as to why there is so much animosity or ill-will towards your ideas on the game. i for one, can tell you where my--and consquently matt's--dislike (i put it nicely!) started from. going back to what i was saying about matt calling you big fat scrubs (his exact words i might add): he showed me exactly what he was talking about.

"I believe that the best thing to do, when confronted such is to tell the contestants that unless they finish the match (or at least break any stalemate) within a certain time that they both forfeit the match."

woo hoo! i f*ckin found the quote. sammit this thread is long. after seeing this i immediately knew--just by even suggesting this--that you are, like matt so eloquently put it, a big fat scrub. after this i no longer cared what you said because you were, in my mind and maybe in many other peoples' m1nds, just plain ********.

leaving that for a moment. i think i understand your argument a lot better now. i think the length of all your posts and the suspiciously pretentious language you use damages your argument by making it incomprehensible. to quote my friend mattd: purple monkey dishwasher. lemme get this right, you guys think items cause results of tournaments to be innaccurate. am i right or am i effing right? *thumbs up*

anyway, thats not such a bad stance. i can see how someone would think that. so if im right about what your beliefs are, why not just leave it at that? no amount of asslong posts, theory fighting, stupid analogies, and statistics (i hate how numbers and stats were brought into this as evidence) will prove anything to either side. like i said before, though youve made me work to figure out what youre trying to say, youve made your opinions known. now all thats left is to let time prove who's right (if that happens at all).

a few loose ends to tie up

-m1nds/theend is my best friend!

-i know you guys are comin to tg. that takes a lotta guts to come stay at matt "all i think about is hate" deezie's house after all the stuff hes said. i for one can ensure you that, although i do think youre a big fat scrub (mentally speaking) and i dont agree with your views on the game, id do what i could to make you feel welcome to tg. no hard feelings as*hole.

-i talked to pinkluigi when he was drunk.

-dont talk to pinkluigi when hes drunk.

im spent!

 

[Scamp]

Originally posted by 1psemet
And fine, if someone wants to try to play some campy no-items matches I'm up for it. Scamp said he would like to do something of the sort, and since Scamp would seem to be good, that'll work. I accept any such challenges.

Ask for it by name!

Alrighty then. Jungle Japes, no items. You be Zelda, I'll play any character in the game. You choose. It wouldn't be fair if I just played with Fox, as then you could just say that I was better than you. No, we're going to have to choose a character that I have very little skill with.

As for the no-tactical advantage thingy.....okay. I'll be Peach, you be whoever you want. Corneria, no items. I'll chill in the area to the right of the fin, you come and get me.

By the way, I don't agree with your anti-campy projectiles list. Most of those projectiles aren't hard to avoid. The real brain-scratcher on that list is Pichu. If I'm camping, and Pichu is lobbing thundershocks at me, I'll sit there forever until he stops. Free damage.

 

[Bumble Bee Tuna]

Response to post #1

"You are quite well versed at ignoring the gist/specifics of posts, and twisting a few unfortunately worded phrases to your side... this is what makes arguing with people (especially fundamentalists), so terribly annoying. "

Riiight. And exactly how can one ignore both the gist AND the specifics? It seems that if you're going to make an unfounded insult, you could at least make one that makes sense. If I only get the gist, I must be ignoring some specifics. If I'm ignoring the gist, I guess it means I'm responding to the specifics but NOT to the big picture. But if I'm ignoring both...I must not be responding at all. If you say so...And of course, the idea of you accusing people of ignoring things is laughable in itself.

"For the percentage argument, I have no idea."

You are the one who made it...Don't expect me to help clarify.
So you're saying that every match will have something as game-turning as an Unown? And that it negates all skill involved? Sam did a horrible job dodging that Pokemon, AND he gave up his chance to get it. It was skill that got Matt the item and skill that made Sam get beat up by it. And I'd go so far as to say, aside from banned items like hearts, getting an Unown is probably the most useful item possible. I'd rather get one than an easily avoidable legendary. It's also pretty rare, and rarely comes the right way to even have the possibility to do 75%. Taking a game that had an extremely fortuitous pokemon and acting like it's the norm is somewhat ridiculous, but I realize we don't have a vast library of videos yet. Do you think an event the magnitude of an Unown comes 100% of games? How's this different from a Luigi misfire? Or a G&W Judgement? Or a Peach bob-omb? All the situations, Unown and regular moves, involve a player weighing the risk/reward of a certain action and deciding accordingly. For the Unown, the decision was to chase Deezie for the KO instead of get the Pokeball. What's the magic difference?

"For camping and projectiles, let's make a list (though apparently you have a problem with them, I'll get into that later.)."

I just have a problem with stupid lists, like your list that includes projectile (even though we're obviously talking about camping against someone without one) for the attacker and not for the defender, includes "retreat" (how does that decamp someone?), and "grab the ledge" (Do you honestly think being on the ledge is an advantageous position? Do you ever jump off the ledge in regular play because of this great advantage it gives you?). That list was pathetic.

As for your current list, yes, Pichu should be in "projectileless" for the same reason as Bowser. Anyone capable of shielding or jumping will render Pichu's projectile useless. The list is misleading anyway. Luigi's projectile fails against anyone with a real projectile. And if the camper has a good projectile (or a few) like Link, that'll probably knock quite a few folks off of the anti-campy list. Never mind that I don't see how it makes your point valid that less than half the characters actually have useful projectiles. I realize you're point is probably to say that the "top tier" characters that everyone uses aren't affected. Of course, Fox and Falco are "dubious" (read: worthless on Fourside/Onett camping). Sheik is also slightly dubious because good luck landing those needles against a Link. And Marth is regarded as top tier by many people and is possibly one of the most played characters in the game. Falcon and Ganondorf are also widely regarded as "upper tier". Heck, if you listen to Snappy, Falcon is even top tier! So that argument doesn't really hold weight.

Stages:
Defensive is not naturally superior to offensive. That would be poor game design. What's great, though, is that the area past the fin is large enough that you are by no means pinned to being defensive. You lure them to your turf, then you become offensive.
The stat I gave was for 2 hits, and I find it pretty easy to catch a CCing guy in two spins to get 100+% damage. Or 60%. Does it matter? It's a lot. And coming from the right is GOOD! The dress flips them behind me. If they don't cancel it, they get slammed into the wall where even teching won't really save them from an onslaught, and if they do they just sit there and get tooled. Regardless, is it really necessary to nitpick the exact percentage? It's a risky situation for my opponent. I'm sure many players wouldn't chase me down there. (Though in my tourney experience, most of my opponents weren't very strategic. I lure people all the time. I'm assuming that good players wouldn't be this stupid, though). So if neither one of us chases...stalemate! It's just too easy.

As for the better player being the agressor...Riiiight. That's why I got third in my last tournament though I played quite defensively? Or why Vien places third at TG through turtling with Doc and pills? The better player is the one with a game-winning strategy, not the agressor. Games tend to be designed so that agression is usally useful, to prevent stalemates, but by no means is it the only possible strategy. The "best" player is the one who uses everything to its maximum advantage. And this would mean not attacking an entrenched camper.
I've always claimed the advantage was comparative. If it was unstoppable, we wouldn't be arguing because it would be obvious.

Camping (in your world) conferrs a COMPARATIVE advantage. Let's say that we have you playing against someone with no video game experience, who furthermore isn't very bright, and he also barely knows the controlls. Just enough for him to try to camp. Are you saying that he has the ADVANTAGE over you? As in he'll win just because he's camping? Didn't think so. If you're better, then you can overcome the advantage. It all depends on how big the advantage is (negative in my world, huge in yours) and how big the difference in skill.

Poker: It's completely random, in one sense. But it certainly takes skill as well. Or do you think I have just as good of a chance of winning the mational poker championships as last year's champ? I won't deny that a lot of people *think* poker is completely up to chance and doesn't take real skill (hint: there are a lot of scrubs in the world). It's kind of like a lot of people will claim items make the game not take skill. They're just wrong. Argument from numbers just isn't convincing. The amount of randomness in SSBM is much, much less than that in poker. I realize that you also play less "hands", so to speak, in a smash tournament than a poker tournament but I think it's still comparitively less random by quite a bit. If you want a game that's completely random, try Roshambot. Even then, of course, there are mind games, which is why the link I just posted can have an A.I. program that tries to beat you. But it's about as random as it gets, besides taking turns calling a coin toss or something (for complete randomness, you need a game in which all choices possible have the exact same benefits, and your opponent's choices do not affect yours and vice versa).

"And as for the fundamental difference in item "skill" and no-item skill, it's quite blatant. It boils down to this: item play, like poker, isn't actually completely dependant on skill, while no-item play is."

It appears we both interpretted what you said entirely differently. I interpretted it as the difference in skill between Poker and Tennis in that Poker takes mental calculating and bluffing skills. Tennis takes physical skills and some strategic skills. However, from your new clarified position: No item play is NOT completely dependent on skill, by your argument. Peach? Luigi? G&W? Stage hazards? Items just make it slightly more random. I don't interpret "item skill" as being "skill at playing with items on", I interpret it as "skill with using the benefits granted by items, skill at avoiding the opponent's items, skill at getting items, and skill at preventing an opponent from getting items. All of these are very similar to counterparts in the no-item world, and are thus not fundamentally different at all.

"The 'randomness' of no-item play CAN be factored in, while with items it can't. That simple. "

The randomness of items can be factored in as well. Players memorize drop points. They know the probability of an item landing within a time frame. They know the chances of it being a certain item. With this information, they are perfectly capable of factoring in items into their game. It is not the same thing, of course. One is predicting truly random effects from a computer. One is predicting partially "pseudo-random" effects from a human. Randomness is by no means eliminated from a no-items game.

As for M:TG, I can't claim to know a lot about the current state of M:TG affairs, having not played since Ice Age, practically, and having never played at a serious level. My comparison of items to no items play would be more like comparing regular M:TG play to, say, M:TG with red cards banned. Still perfectly legitimate as a game, just missing a large element. Anyway, Red is the color with most of the "coin-flipping" cards. (pardon me if this is incorrect, like I said my M:TG knowledge is not perfect). Or maybe better would be M:TG, but you decided the luck of the draw was too random, and decided that players could draw ten cards, pick one, and then reshuffle their decks every turn. While we're on M:TG- Do they ban coin-flip cards from tournaments? They certainly can very easily influence matches. I've lost plenty due to "Game of Chaos" way back... (At least I think I did...I don't really remember what it does). I know matches with my brother are often quite close, and I've lost some to the difference his goblin coin-flip cards make.

That's enough for now, that took ages. This is exactly 10000 characters. I'll address the rest at some later date.

B

 

[Novowels]

Originally posted by 1psemet
First of all, your friend was possibly right, but insane. As are you for drawing the false paralel. The supers in said game aren't even remotely the same in terms of randomness.

No, my friend was a scrub. I dare you to take the "no-supers" argument to a Street Fighter tournament forum and try to make it there. I guarantee you will get an even more vitriolistic response than the crew here is giving you for the belief in no-items play.

Items are just as random as supers. You get them in the match at random times, and some people can get 2 or 3 in a match while others get none, depending on how you play. It's not exactly the same, of course, but nothing is quite like items in Smash Bros either. I think that's why you're having such a difficult time with them.

And your example is the extreme on the balanced side of the spectrum for items. As well as completely misunderstanding why it's important. A single blaster is nothing. That's fine, it gives you a slight advantage, and is isolated. But when you get a SPREE of items? Often quite more advantageous than the blaster? Or when you get the best pokemon, and them the worst? The one person can win (almost) completely through lucky items.

If you believe this, I'm going to have to go with mattdeezie on you: big fat scrub. Perhaps I'm failing to see how a "spree" of items is anything more than one item at a time, over and over. In all cases, you still have the metagame of "at a disadvantage, one step from being at an advantage." A spree of items can be just as dangerous to the item user as the opponent. It all depends on the skill of the players involved.

In the low-stock environs of tourneys, this can lead to crappy results that aren't represenetative of anything.

Aren't representative of anything? Not even showing who is more skilled at reflecting, power-shielding, grabbing thrown items, and dodging? I guess those aren't "real skills" though. Hmm.

. No-items = as fair as can get, average quality items spread evenly between peeps = almost fair. Mauling items that continually benefit one guy through no skill = unfair, and bad for tourneys. You will notice that in no other fighter are there elements that are as randomising and potentially unbalancing as items in melee. Why? Because it's not a good thing, as game designers realise.

I'm sure HAL is appreciative of your support. And I fail to see how someone that learns how to use weapons offensively and defensively effectively, then does so when the situation arrives, is unfair. Getting an item is somewhat random. Using an item correctly is skill. Defending against items/the effects of items properly is a skill. If by the act of picking up an item the opponent felt the effects, and it was unblockable, I would agree with you. It would be random, free damage. As it stands, I think HAL knew what they were doing when they included items: It added a whole new level (or several, actually) of strategy and skill to the game.

I'd be willing to bet that if you contacted the man at sirlin, and told him all the pertinent facts that he would certainly agree with me. I still maintain that you people for some unknown reason can't see the obvious paralells with yourself and the proverbial scrub.

What, like the part that we all think that a part of the game should be removed because it's "unfair?" OH wait, that's YOU! The last thing I quoted from sirlin.net makes his stance on you and your obvious scrubilation quite poignant, I believe. Let's look again:

"Can you imagine what will happen when the two groups [regular players vs no-itemers] of players meet? The experts [regular players] will absolutely destroy the scrubs [no-itemers] with any number of tactics they’ve either never seen, or never been truly forced to counter. [item offense/defense] This is because the scrubs [no-itemers] have not been playing the same game. [Super Smash Bros. Melee] The experts were playing the actual game [Super Smash Bros. Melee] while the scrubs [no-itemers] were playing their own homemade variant with restricting, unwritten rules. [no-itemes, timers, etc]"

I think it's fairly obvious who Sirlin would side with in this case. You are bucking the status-quo and for what reason? Why, because "it's not fair."

Bull****. Play to win. Abuse items. Learn to reflect and catch items. Turn this unholy abusive power back on them. Don't come to a message board and rant about how they should be turned off.

And, of course, I never said items are "cheap".

No, you dress it up in fancy words and phrases. But if it looks like a duck, and acts like a duck, and sounds like a duck... Then just maybe there's the tiny possibility that it is a duck!

And no-one (besides NJE) suggested "were playing their own homemade variant with restricting, unwritten rules.". You characterise us in an asinine, slandering and untrue way. We suggest turning off items.

Thus creating a homemade variant with restricting, unwritten rules. You can turn off supers in SFA3, it's an option in the game, but nobody is going to play a tournament like that, it's a "restricting, unwritten rule." Supers, and in our case items, are a part of the game. Learn to use it or get left in the dust by the experts.

Items-off is an unwritten rule designed (by you) to make the game more "fair" or more "skilled." You are the very definition of the scrub. I fail to see how you cannot realize this.

 

[1psemet]

Vien, I appreciate your refreshingly reasonable and non-volatile attitude. Because your whole post basically centers around the statement that I made long ago:

"I believe that the best thing to do, when confronted such is to tell the contestants that unless they finish the match (or at least break any stalemate) within a certain time that they both forfeit the match."

I feel I should address it first. This is very important, as this unfortunate peice of wording did indeed probably cost me a lot of support. I refuted what I said initially, and again when BBT brought it back up (around page 16? Don't know, thread far too long...), but I'll do so definitively here.

Okay then. This statement was made within the context of (the "such" in the statement) what to do in a situation where two people just decide to infinitely stalemate. This is only possible with no time limit (though not even then really, I'll go into that later). I suggest over and over again in the following posts to put a time limit on to preven this. Here's the thing, I still stand by my statement to an extent. If you refuse to have a time-limit, then infinite stalemates are possible, even with items. Say at TG I face my brother, and we just refuse to fight. We sit there and will only move in for the kill once the other falls asleep in like ten hours. What would you suggest doing in this situation? Some ******* is trying to break your tourney, and you have no built-in mechanism to defend against it. The only POSSIBLE solutions are A: have a time-limit on the game, or B (which you would HAVE to do at TG, as there's no such thing): Disqualify one or both of them and move on. You can't put the whole tournament on hold while waiting for two people to finish a match if it's patently not going to happen. How can you possibly disagree with this? Mattdeezie continually ignores it, as does BBT and all of you itemers. Why? Because I'm right, and there is no defense. If someone's breaking your tourney, you have to disqualify them. Or do it the sane way (my way), and put on a time limit. If you don't like the strategies involved in such, put it at 30 minutes or an hour. It only needs to serve to prevent stalemates.

I would never suggest this in any sane circumstance. I think that doing such things is idiocy, and the opitome of scrubbish behavior if used in general. But Matt and BBT don't seem to face up to the possibility of it happening, and the only thing you can do about it. Put on a time limit, don't have assholes at your tourney, or recognise the possibility.

Hopefully you can put your mind to rest about me being a scrub (at least in this way), though it would seem that Matt has developed some strange and unnatural hatred for me that I don't see going away.

I don't think it will ever be solved. I agree that no amount of, as you say, asslong arguments, or any arguments, will change most people's minds. I'm not trying to convince BBT, Recipherus, Matt, or Novowels. It simply will not happen, as they are too set in their beliefs. Nor will they convince Myself, Eoraptor, EvilEvencar or the rest. Hopefully we can sway some people who aren't quite so adamant about it yet. I don't see how anything but a big government project (or God himself) could "prove" conclusively either way. And, yeah, that is one of the fundamental problem that I have with item-tourneys.

PS: It's good to know that we'll have some sort of reception, and not be forced to sleep on the deck or something, hehe. No hard feelings and, uh, I'm not a scrub for the reason that you seem to think. Later.

Scamp: Hello again. For TG matches... I'll let someone else settle the Zelda thing. I'm not that good with her, and if you play someone you're not good with the results won't mean much, eh? I think EvilEvencar is going, I'm sure he'll play you (I do believe Zelda's his main char). I was thinking of trying some, say, Congo Jungle matches (no sing-alongs aloud), or JJ for that matter. You be anyone you want, I'll be any non-projectile character and we can have some king-of-the-hill matches there. I also accept your peach challenge. As for Pichu, I'll address that in my post to BBT...

BBT: Let's see... As for my gist/specifics of the post comment, you nitpicky *******, two things. First, when I say things like gist/specifics it quite often means "or" and not "and". This is, if you will notice, how many if not most use it. This is what I meant in this case. Secondly though, now that you bring it up, you do often ignore the gist AND the specifics, and this is indeed meaningfull to say. For example, as I pointed out in my last post, you seemed to take something EvilEvencar said completely out of context and respond in a way that didn't have any pertinence to what he said. Therefore you weren't responding to his gist, nor any specifics, but a fantasy statement that you heard only in your head. It's failures in logic such as this that make me accuse you of such things. Even if you didn't understand what I meant (which you obviously didn't), then all you can come up with as an alternative is "I must not be responding at all"? Sad. And, of course, if we had some sort of objective and very tedious man go through all of this thread and look at how much I've ignored compared to how much you've ignored... It would indeed be laughable. In my favor of course.

I'm not the one who asked for clarification. I stated the initial, quite clear argument and it went on from there, mutating into something that was formed largely by you putting words in my mouth. And no obviously I'm not saying that your average game includes a game-turning unknown, or something like it. Or that it negates all skill involved. As Evil said, you don't seem to read everything sometimes. If something like that happens in a tournament, where you have a maximum of three games with a person, then it can wildly throw off the results. Indeed the unknown is rare, and then you have to take his random trajectory into account, but there are many other item-related things that can screw you. The proverbial bomb-omb, of course (when the TG vids come out, I will be greatly interested in counting the number of times it happens and actually deriving some accurate percentage), but also things like the Hammer. If it happens in 20% (say, or any number for that matter) of the games, than you can get screwed in a tourney environment. And this inability to see the obvious difference between Judgement and this bothers me to no end. There are so many, blatant ways, and they've all been stated before. Happening to get one of the best pokemon, with the best trajectory you could at the time, who went about causing like 70% damage when, where the pokeball was thrown if it was almost any other it would have done nothing, compared to GW taking, at will, calculated 1/9th risks that are blatantly balanced as being part of his move-set and can hinder as well as hurt are utterly different. If you just hit someone next to the fin, and while they're flailing a hammer appears next to you and you get a basically unavoidable kill... You can't compare this to Judgement at all. Judgement, the Missfire, Peaches vegies are easily avoidable in comparison, and certainly more thoughtfully balanced.

Ooh, on to lists. The projectile list was made because of your comment that many don't have projectiles and that most "luigi's, GW's, Fox/Falco" (to paraphrase, as I'm too lazy to look up the actuall quote) are useless. I disagreed, and the only possible way to conclusively solve this was a list of who did/didn't have them and if they were always usefull. So no, we weren't "obviously talking about camping against someone without one". Indeed, as I've said before multiple times, and is self-evident to everyone, camping is only a problem against the projectileless. I was showing simply that they were in the minority, especially among those commonly played. If you can't de-camp people well, choose a char with projectiles making it a moot point. Strategy. And in defence of my other list, no, it was comprehensive. That was why it included "retreat" as an option. And for grabbing on to the ledge... what are you on? Indeed it is usefull. When trying to come back onto the platform (which has obvious paralells with trying to storm a camper), quite often your best bet is to grab the ledge. I contend that this "critique" of my lists is pathetic.

About the specifics of my current list then. I was making a simple comprehensive list, and I didn't bother to provide additional sub-otions. Indeed, Pichu is useless, but not his projectile. He should be taken off of the list entire because no one will ever play him in a tourney, in my opinion. He was where he was because his projectile is a 45 degree one that follows the edges. If trying to small platform camp (say, Congo Jungle), unless you're Fox/Falco or Ness, it's basically impossible to avoid in the long run. It does three damage to him, but it does ten to you (or 7ish if it's on the ground), and you're shield won't cover you for more than two or three. His damage will rack up, but yours will faster, making it so that camping isn't viable against him (not to mention that you can obviously simply beat the crap out of him normally). And, like the others that are "easy to avoid" (Scamp), indeed. One, two, ten but they can shoot out an infinitude of them if you're trying to camp, and your damage will rack up until they can easily kill you with one hit, that's all there is too it. And as for your Link comments... no, no it wouldn't take many off the list. It would do so if you're talking about Jungle Japes specifically, but that's somewhat unique in the camping world, as it's platform is raised. The other small platform camping spots aren't, so it isn't a problem.

 

[1psemet]

Continued from last post:

Link on Congo Jungle is just about as vulnerable as everyone
else. The point was, indeed, that about half don't ever have to worry about camping, and a quarter don't have to worry about several of the possible camping situations. If you're picking someone without a projectile, that's a risk you take.

On to the "stages" then. Corneria specific-like. Yes, it does matter what the specific figure is. You aren't going to get a fully charged up smash unless you're playing a moron, and they aren't going to CC Peach unless they're either a moron or very inexperienced at playing against Peach. So generally you do vastly less damage, in the 20 range. That being the case, it doesn't seem to be such a big deal anymore, it's not a big advantage. And, if they decided not to chase you down there? Time would run out. Oh, wait, you play on some crappy settings that allow stalemating (yes indeedy, it is possible with items. Easier without, but eh.)... sucks for you. Time limit solves this problem, as it solves any stalemating problem.

In regards to your reply to my agressor comments, as you say, Riiiiight... Indeed, game design, if done intelligently, favors the agressor to prevent stalemating. Vien WAS being agressive, in that he was constantly attacking his opponent with pills. Projectile-agressiveness is the same as not, it forces the game to commence through your agressive actions. They had to defend or storm Vien. No stalemating. And this doesn't mean not attacking the entrenched camper, if it doesn't confer an advantage (which I don't think it does). If he's disadvantaging himself by camping, take advantage of it. Even if it did, it's your fault for not choosing somone with a projectile to handle it. Do I choose Fox/Falco? They're mighty good in general, but have difficulty taking out campers... hmm... Simply turning items on to make camping go away is not only scrubish, but reduces viable character variety.

Poker again. First off, you said it was "completely random", so your statements strike me as hypocritical. Indeed though, it does take some skill. It is very small ratio when compared to the near-overwhelming randomeness of the game. The big Poker championships have many, many people who have maxed out the "skills" related to poker, and thus the results are basically random. They'd doubtless whomp on random people (say, you or me), but it's still not a definitive thing. Indeed, SSBM + Items is significantly less random than Poker, on the other hand it's also significantly MORE random than SSBM without.

And Peach, Luigi, and GW are three among 25. They each have a single move that is random to different extents. The vast majority don't. Among those three, you will never see GW in a serious tourney. They are significantly less random than poker hands, as well. And most stage hazards aren't random, but only seemingly so. Among those that are, they aren't detrimental or unavoidable to the same extent that items are (with the possible exception of Brinstar Depths). Items add QUITE a bit of randomess. As for your item skills, indeed, that's a list of the skills you can use to mitigate the randomess. Even if you are the best possible at it though, which no-one claims to be, some situations are unavoidable screwing/benefiting with items that in no way have counterparts in the no-item world.

Indeed. You admit that the randomness is different... why can't you see how meaningfull this is? The psuedo-random effects of the poeple, what it talks about in the "Yomi, layer 3" article is vastly different from the other. As I said, you can "take all this into account" but it only serves to mitigate the randomness. You will still get unavoidably screwed every once in a while. And saying that you "understand" that an item will appear in 8-20 seconds at one of 20ish drop-points, and will be of unknown value isn't the same at all as understanding that your opponent will do one of x currently viable options and thus you can do x viable counters (some will counter all, but not be offensive, some a couple, others only specific ones) and you make your decision based on his playstyle, his knowledge of yours, and the specifics of the situation are hardly groupable in the same category.

And as for M:TG... I don't see any real reason to continue using it as an analogy. I dropped it a while ago, so aren't that up to date either. Perhaps EvilEvencar will respond here. I know that there aren't many, if any, "coin-flip" cards in the new sets, and I don't recall any big tourneys being won by such.

On to Novowels. Let's see... the supers in Street fighter aren't actually random though, are they? Correct me if I'm wrong... but don't you get them by beating up you're opponent/getting beat up in certain ways? Therefore there is strategy and tactics used in getting them, and if one person got 3 and the other 0 then the first played a whole **** of a lot better. And indeed, this is what "I'm having difficulty with". Items in SSBM are the only fighting game element that is truly random to my knowledge. This is a big difference. Other things, such as supers, are at best psuedo-random, like various stages in SSBM. Not the same. I certainly think all items should go, but that all stages should be pickable. Thus I wouldn't take it to the SF crowd. If they are utterly, coin-flipping, random though, then he'd be right.

And I find your "metagame" (to use the term extremely loosely) concept of "at a disadvantage, one step from being at an advantage.", as BBT would say, silly. How are you "one step" away from an advantage when your opponent has a Pokeball, or Star? If he's stupid enough to throw it directly at you when he knows you ca reflect/catch then perhaps. You will find though, that most often they are either thrown at the ground near you, or when you're off the edge or in some position where you can't powershield/grab. They're at an advantage, you a disadvantage. If they're stupid and you're mad-skilled, then it's conceivable to turn it around. Sometimes, with some items. Say they get like ten stars in a row though. How are you going to "turn this around"? A spree of items can be dangerous to the user... hah. Possible sometimes, but you're not going to see it at tourneys.

And no, not representative of anything. Sometimes, as I said. It CAN lead to horrible results where it's not representative of anything because they had no possible chance of countering the items. Most of the time the results are more tame, and the better player is apparent. I played one match against my brother where I had two utterly unavoidable bomb-omb/explosive-pill deaths (yes, most are avoidable, these weren't) out of a four stock match. What does that prove? What "skill" was evident in his beating me? Being less unlucky? I guess you count that as a skill...

Okay, I must clear something up here, as you continually seem to misunderstand me. When I'm speaking of items here, I'm assuming that both people have near what is possible for skill in using/avoiding items. This being the case, whoever has one is still simply at an advantage, and in some situations the opponent CANNOT do anything about it. Say Fox on FD keeps getting stars or, less extremely, cloaks. What the **** can you do? If you fight him, you get the raw end of the bargain, and if you try to avoid him he just sits on a side and racks up damage against you and you can't retaliate. I'm pretty sure it isn't possible to powershield all of fox's rapid blast, and even if it were no-one I've heard of is even remotely skilled enough to do it. As it stands, I think that HAL has items there to have a party-game, fun element. And to attract/appeal to younger, less serious players. Not, distinctly, to add to the balance/depth of the fighting engine.

As for the sirlin quote: you foolish man. There are so many ways that SSBM with/without items doesn't pertain to what he's speaking of which is SF or MVC and whatnot with/without completely arbitrary, undefined rules and "honor systems". And I'm "bucking the status quo"? what the **** are you on? There are at least as many no-item tourneys as item ones, and it's constantly changing through the country as more tourneys form. And they can "abuse" items just as much as you, making the results often distinctly random. In no other fighter is there nearly the level of randomness that items introduce.

As for ducks... if it looks, sounds, and acts like a duck to an idiot who doesn't have any knowledge of biology then it means nothing. Someone knowledgeable could come along and point out to him that it was a swan, a chicken, or even a god**** elephant, depending on how stupid/misinformed a fellow we're speaking of here. Items aren't "cheap", they simply add an unecessary element of randomness, and decrease character balance and complexity in my opinion.

First of all, the rules that I suggest are quite explicit (not unwritten) and sensical. Perhaps you fail to realise that the argument of "wait, you can't try to change the game just to make it more balanced" is both hypocritical and stupid coming from you. Playing with anything but the defaults would be doing so, and last time I checked, TG played with stock instead of time (and a different number to boot), and turned off Hearts and Tommatoes. That's much more arbitrary than what I'm suggesting. I wish to RE-IMPLEMENT a time limit, and simply turn all items off instead of only those that you item people think are cheap compared to the others. Taking off items is a explicit rule designed to add "balance" and take out "randomness". I fail to see how you cannot see the differenct, and furthermore not see that your thoughtless statements apply to you people at least as much as they would me.

 

[Bumble Bee Tuna]

A simple question

Do you honestly believe that your item-stalemate situation would EVER occur in a tournament? Can you imagine any time that this might occur aside from you doing so just to prove your point?

How about you stop theorizing things that never have and never will happen.

The difference between an item stalemate and a no-item stalemate is that the item stalemate can only occur if the players are being assholes and have some ulterior motive, while the no-item stalemate occurs by both players trying to win.

The reason everyone ignores this ridiculous point you keep making about time limits is that you never address the fact that it will not happen. And all the flaws that go along with timed play. When these points have been made, you've ignored them...so when you repost the tired point of item stalemates being possible, people have already rebutted it and see no reason to do so again. And you get so annoying to argue for, mainly because you will never admit fault on your side in any way whatsoever. You intentionally manipulate things. As an example: you somehow felt it was necessary to defend Evincar by pretending he was talking about CCGs instead of SSBM. But should we examine the original quote?

"As for the stages, it is all the matter of opinion. BBT dislikes stages because those are the ones in which camping occurs the most on. Should certain stages be eliminated? In my opinion, a few, but in both item and non-items play. But I suggest leaving the stage issue to a different thread, because it is a different topic.
As for time limits. I personally don't see why they shouldn't be implemented, even with items on. If there is only a limited time to play the entire tournament, time limits keep the tournament from going into overtime. I believe that putting them in either SD or calling it a draw would be good, though I prefer calling it a draw. And it just becomes another part of the metagame."

Is there ANYTHING in there about CCGs? There's nothing to even imply that there's a chance it's about CCGs. He brings up M:TG afterwards. And I think the line "I believe that putting them in either SD or calling it a draw would be good, though I prefer calling it a draw. " really seals the issue. Have you ever heard of putting M:TG players in sudden death? Or any CCG, for that matter (even though he has only ever mentioned M:TG so it's clear that's the only CCG he would be discussing)?

I think that about shows why arguing with you is bothersome. Even so, I'll put up with it and respond to your other posts eventually. When there's so much wrong stuff hidden within massive amounts of crap, it takes quite some time and patience to reply.

-B

 

[terrakalar]

Originally posted by Novowels
Thus creating a homemade variant with restricting, unwritten rules. You can turn off supers in SFA3, it's an option in the game, but nobody is going to play a tournament like that, it's a "restricting, unwritten rule." Supers, and in our case items, are a part of the game. Learn to use it or get left in the dust by the experts.

Items-off is an unwritten rule designed (by you) to make the game more "fair" or more "skilled." You are the very definition of the scrub. I fail to see how you cannot realize this.

Actually, there's a good number of tourney rules that are "restricting and unwritten." Aside from 1psemet's examples of stock and no hearts in TG, there's also the entire slob picks concept.

No where in the game manual or game itself does it say that the loser gets to pick stage and change character. Nor does it say that the winner has to stick with his own character, pretty restricting if you ask me. Furthermore, the whole 2 out of 3 and double elimination format is unwritten.

Of course, some unwritten rules are more reasonable than others, like turning off hearts/tomatoes as opposed to turning off, say food, fire flower, metal box and parasol. But my point is that you can't dismiss a rule just solely because it is unwritten and restricting. Now is items-off an unreasonable unwritten rule? Well that question has been discussed for the last million pages.

About 1psemet's disqualification quote that Vien was disagreeing with, forreal I'm heavily against it, but 1psemet's explanation above does have a point...

Items do make it loads easier to end stalemates, but it still comes down to the playing styles of the players that determine when a stalemate ends. There is still the fear at TG that a match can go on for 30 minutes, if the players are stubborn enough. Now I don't too much of a problem with it (heck, it kinda happened at TG2), but there is the possibility that *a number* of players can rely on that style/strategy.

Having even 5 ultra, ultra long matches can break a big tourney like TG, not game-wise, but logistics and time wise (people gotta go home sometime). Of course its not sufficient enough to start having 5 or 10 minute time limits, and it mite not even happen in TG4, but eventually some other "unwritten" rule/mechanism will have to be in place to prevent this possibility.

 

[Scamp]

1psemet, I just said Zelda because I thought you were good with her. Wasn't it you that talked about how your Zelda and Jiggly owns with items off but with items on they get blown to smithereens? Maybe it was Eoraptor. Anyway, I'm not going back to check.

I'll take it back, you can pick any character you choose and I'll camp on Fourside and let you come to me. You could even pick Pikachu (and I know that's Eoraptor this time) and try to projectile spam me.

And the Peach thing will be fun too.

Oh, and M:TG Type 1 and Type 2 are NOT the same game. They just have the same base rules. Think of board games with rule variants and such. They change the game. Otherwise, you're making the argument that something is the same game with different rules. It's never the same game if you have different rules.

Scamp out.

 

[1psemet]

I'm responing in reverse order because it somehow seems appropriate, and I want to save the mind-numbingly grueling task of responding to BBT for last. Well then, Scamp: Some clarification, as I quite understand and sympathise with an unwillingness to search through this thread. I spoke of Jiggly and Zelda getting comparatively owned with items from "personal experience with my playgroup" or something like that. In reality, I play Jiggly and another of my playgroup plays Zelda. How about we let my Zelda man go against your link (or whatever) on Jungle Japes, Eoraptor with his Pikachu on Fourside, and Me against your Peach on Corneria, and whatever other other impromptu battles we decide on.

terrakalar: My heartfelt thanks for standing with me to point out the obvious. I don't recall if we have the same preferences in general... but you at least seem to grasp this concept that seems to elude everyone else who posts here (besides perhaps EvilEvencar).

On to BBT I guess... As a overall statement, I would like to point out that it's responses like this that cause one to see you as "not bothering to respond to the gist/specifics". You take on small part of the post, and twist it into some semblance of an argument in your favor. And I'm sure it's quite obvious that, to an extent at least, the reason that you and yours don't respond to certain aspects of my post is because THERE IS NO DEFENSE. That's all there is too it. If you find me to verbose to bother with, try defending yourself against terrakalar. You'll find that anything you can say will be futile and obviously flawed. It's a classic tactic in debate, ignore and gloss over the weak points in your argument, and do the same to the strong in your oppositions. It's what you're quite blatantly doing.

Anyway... About the stalemates in general. No, I daresay that my way isn't the only possible one, only the most definitively breaking. What if, scattered throughout the tourney there were several 18 minute matches (as, you will note, happened with Mattdeezie). What if all three of a set of best two of three took 18 minutes? Can you hold up the tournament for 54 minutes while it's being decided? Even if it's only two, or several single ones, it could make the tourney a logistic impossibility. I'm sure it will crop up sooner or later, with the increasing number of people in tourneys. WHAT ALTERNATIVE TO TIME DO YOU PROPOSE? Quite simple, and something that you simply keep hedging about. Stop stupidly stating that it simply won't happen, it is certainly possible and it very well could. What do you propose to do about it when the problem arises? Say me and my brother simply decide to be assholes (we won't of course, but we easily could. And why didn't the cencer catch your use of *******, BTW?). It can happen anytime, you'll find that there are an amazing amount of assholes in the world. Say that me and my brother WILL do it at TG. The only thing you can POSSIBLY do you idiot, is go with my solution and disqualify us, or impose some sort of time-limit.

And, what flaws that go along with timed play? I've ignored nothing, and will respond to anything that you put up here quite distinctly. That it brings several different strategies to the game that you might be opposed to? Ooh, tough for you. That it exacerbates the camping problems? Not really, and it's not pertinent for the vast majority of situations (which includes character/stage combinations). All of your makebelieve "rebuttals" that I've been ignoring have either not existed (for the most part), and for the few that did I responded to exhaustively and pointed out why it was an untenable stance. I can much more truthfully claim that your side has been blithely going about the argument ignoring various aspects. What makes responding to you and yours so terribly grueling is this fact. That you pick and choose your arguments, and liberally strew unwarrented insults in to fill the gaps.

I stated that he was speaking of M:TG when he started discussing round robin and swiss tourneys. There you were quite blatantly on the wrong track. And even if this statement was included in an offhand remark, ooh, a small error on my part. You have had them beyond counting, areas where you twist simple statements and make unwarrented assumptions about people's intentions/beliefs/likes and dislikes. I'll go into what I'm pretty sure he meant here, and the reason why it's a valid point that you missed then and you're missing now. Ahem. He says:

"As for time limits. I personally don't see why they shouldn't be implemented, even with items on. If there is only a limited time to play the entire tournament, time limits keep the tournament from going into overtime. I believe that putting them in either SD or calling it a draw would be good, though I prefer calling it a draw. And it just becomes another part of the metagame."

Now, he can feel free to come in here and correct me if I'm wrong, as he's doubtless still monitering this thread. He states first that (like any sane person) he recognises time-limits ability to prevent infinite/too-god****-long matches, and thus determines that a time limit should be put into place. IF there is no time limit, and the situation occurs, then he states two of the very few possible solutions (which I happen to agree with). And by speaking of draw, there is the tacit assumption that he's speaking of some tournament format that isn't double elim, where it's obviously impossible. Indeed, he's speaking of SSBM here, and he speaks of Magic immediately after and that switchover is the one you seemed to miss. This was all self-evident in my response, even if I misguidedly implied that this specific statement was in regards to Magic. Ooh. It's replies like this (picking out one minor potential error, and leaving it out of context in regards to my actual statements regarding it, or yours for that matter) that make arguing with you a chore.

 

[Bumble Bee Tuna]

Enough of this made-up garbage

Where do you get off saying this kind if thing? That I didn't respond to certain points because I have no defense? When I reply to you, I hit the quote button and essentially respond to every paragraph (except, perhaps, the many paragraphs that are just long-winded pointless ad hominems). Assuming I have time. I haven't had the time or the energy to do as detailed of a resonse to your later posts, so I haven't. Or do you think that by some freak episode of chance, your first post made absolutely no points but your second and third posts all made perfect points? My goal in the last post was to just show you how ridiculous you're being and maybe by doing that you'll realize why it's so tedious to reply to you. Did I claim you were dodging points when it took you many many days to respond to my posts (and thus it took you many posts to deal with them)? Of course not. Please end this ridiculous charade.

-B

 

[1psemet]

Oh the insanity of trying to get things across to you. When you reply to me, you often do so with quotes, indeed. However, you generally only qoute, and thus reply to, a very tiny fraction of the post. You blithely ignore the vast majority. I don't think there was a single time, actually, where you responded to every paragraph, so perhaps they are all too long-winded for you. And indeed, my second and third post were full of points, many of them reiterations of points made in the first. As to your ludicrous "goal" of attempting to demonstrate how "rediculous I'm being"... what crap. You didn't respond to anything usefull, and basically spent an entire post explaining why you didn't feel like responding to the rest. Furthermore, they were utterly hollow explanations, as they didn't utilise any concrete facts or trends to back them up. You pointed out a specific instance where you thought I was being misguided. As I said before, it's utterly rediculous for YOU to do such a thing to ME. You are the king of such. If you didn't want me to respond to it, useless that it is, then don't post it. If you're going to wait a few days to respond meaningfully, why clog up the thread with useless, spammy flaming? I wouldn't say anything until you responded, as you didn't me. You don't see me popping in and saying "hmm, it's useless arguing with you BBT. Look at this that you said that you were wrong about. It's tedious.", which was the gist of your other post. And, since you lacked any real points (because you apparently weren't trying to make any), I did all that I could and reciprocated reasons that it was tedious and grueling dealing with you.

If you don't want me participating in a "rediculous charade", then don't start one. Pretty simple.

 

[Bumble Bee Tuna]

yup

You just say "hmmm, it's useless arguing with you, BBT", and that's it. I fail to see how providing reasons and instances where you are obnoxious is a worse way to go about than just making unfounded assertions, but if you say so...

-B

 

[1psemet]

BBT, you degrade at quite a steady pace... I didn't just say that. My response was vastly more meaninful than yours, and is based off of far more instances (though I did not bother to go and find them). Do you REALLY want me to go back and dredge up all of the specific instance where you're being idiotic? If you want me to, say the word and I will. It's tedious however, so I'm not naturaly inclined to doing so, as well as I actually want to get the discussion back on track (Meaning: waiting for you or someone on your side to respond in any meaningful way so that the discussion can continue), and not degrade to simply pointing out how idiotic you are at times, and refuting why your examples are gibberish, as I am never such. Wastes time and energy for everyone. But if you insist...

And if you simply can't comprehend what I'm saying, or find it too time-consuming or somesuch, then respond to terrakalar, who summarises a part of my argument that you continually gloss over. And I'm sure everyone would appreciate it if you stopped being such a petty, nitpicking *******. A good deal of your posts on this board are simply useless spammy slander of one sort or another. You were doing comparatively good for a while in this thread though, and it would be a shame for you to stop.

 

[OcarinaLink]

First off, I'd like to give props to both 1psemet and Recipherus. Both of you are leading very valid arguments on both sides of the issue in a mature, educated, and well-written way. I enjoy arguments where both sides bring forth good evidence, and attempt to refute the other through logic and reason.

Although I am new to this argument, I would also like to say that I side with 1psemet, mainly because I also believe that items do provide a detrimental effect on the fairness of a match, especially in a tournament setting. The randomness effect that the two of you have been discussing is exactly why it makes matches so unpredictable...not because players do not know how to use them, but because of the unpredictability of what items spawn, when, and where.

Take for example ipsemet's example of his friend's Pikachu being blown up mid-Thunder by three Bob-ombs spawning during his attack. Was there any way for Pikachu to predict that? Even if he could foresee even the three bob-ombs spawning near him (an unlikely event unto itself), I highly doubt he could have foreseen the timing of the spawn nor the fact that it would happen mid-Thunder, of all the attacks he could have done. This resulted in a KO that shouldn't have happened, and ONLY happened because of a random computation that the GC did on its part.

This one example alone could be considered independent or totally irrelevant...save for the fact that this DOES happen when items are on. How many times have you been screwed over when you were doing a smash, and a large box spawned near you, which HAPPENED to be an exploding one? In a match where you have high percentage damage, but your character is very good at staying on-stage (i.e. heavy characters), does random damage and knock-back really sound fair to you? If that happened to your opponent, you can make the argument that it's part of the game, and that will probably happen to you yourself at one point in the future.

The argument was brought up that, after intense study, you can predict where an item will spawn and when. However, does that address the randomness of not knowing what item will spawn? For all you know, that bomb that you were waiting for might turn out to be a mr. saturn instead. That laser sword you were waiting for on top of Hyrule Temple actually turned out to be a fan. Even if you know where the spawn points are and their timing, how tempted will you be to chalk up a defeat to someone being in the right place at the right time with the right item, while you were in the right place at the right time, BUT with always the wrong item?

The argument of "Items are a part of the game" does not apply in tournament settings. I would totally agree with that argument if we were talking about holding 10-match rounds to decide winners, to give the random variable a chance to even itself out eventually. However, when we're talking about single/2-3 matches, the randomness variable, no matter how fair you say it is, will always favor one player over another in a single match. Rolling a dice, and betting whether a even or odd number comees up, is jsut like that. Over a decent amount of rolls (enough to ensure equal probability), you can say that the dice will always be fair. But on a single roll, you can bet that the dice will always favor someone: you or your opponent. And I hardly believe a single round in smash with items on is any opportunity for items to truly exist as "fair" to both players simultaneously, especially in a tournament.

Finally, to Tavo...you're right in saying that nothing's ever going to be fair. However, as human beings (or at least most I know), we always strive to achieve the fairest environment as much as possible. Nothing stinks more than losing a match that you truly feel you could won, because of some factor that you couldn't control. If you're entering into a tournament, you're right in saying that, in entering, you're accepting the host's rules; thus, in your words, you should just "shut up". However, the rules are what seperates good tournaments from bad ones. How would a "Sudden Death" tournament really reflect one's skill in smash? Is Tiny Melee really a good mode to test players in? How about Lighting Melee? How many flukes could you see resulting in rules like that? These guys are looking to establish a standard in which tournaments can follow, one that reflects fairness and equal opportunity to each player, rules that allow players to perform to their ability in smash, not by dumb luck.

 

[Sandy]

Personally, I kinda despise people who play without items. They kinda have an arrogance about them.
I'd play with or without, but the attitudes of those who play without is usually appalling.

 

[Gimpyfish62]

Personally, I kinda despise people who bump topics made in 2002 that are completely irrelevant in recent times. They kinda have an idiocy about them. I'd post spam or intelligently, but the attitudes of those who bump 5 year old threads is usually appalling.

 

[sagemoon]

Yeah like gimpy said you better not spam, and watch out, cause gimpy is a mod and can ban you O_o;;;

 

[HyugaRicdeau]

Personally, I kinda despise people who play without items. They kinda have an arrogance about them.
I'd play with or without, but the attitudes of those who play without is usually appalling.

I'm glad you overgeneralize and pre-judge people based on their items settings.

Man reading this thread, there was a lot of good conversation and very little spam. People should look at this thread as a model for how to have actual discussions about topics like this when Brawl comes out. The state of Melee Discussion is laughable and I'm frankly frightened for what Brawl portends for Brawl Discussion.

 

[teeman92]

my bro loves putting items on,yet i still lose with them off but anywho,i win some my games

items are stupid imo,i lose in the most stupidest ways(falling off ledge,blow up by a walking bom-omb,etc)

its better with items off,you can do anything without interfereance

 

[GAwes]

Personally, I kinda despise people who play without items. They kinda have an arrogance about them.
I'd play with or without, but the attitudes of those who play without is usually appalling.

Geez you have that many posts and I've never seen you in the atlantic south discussion? you should try going to a tournament in GA sometime bro, i'm sure some of my friends will take some MM with you with items on if you wish haha

 

[Wobbles]

Hyuga: Well, that's what's bound to happen with a popular game that has a massive age-range as its demographic.

I thought the thread was historically informative to read some of. A few fun facts:

--"Items on" was once a majority opinion.
--Sirlin is a massive presence in video-gaming. He was popular in 2k2, and people still "discover" his stuff all the time. This was my first competitive game--I think a lot of people's first competitive game--so I don't really know when Sirlin became the guru he is now considered to be. Apparently at least during 2002.
--"Items off is a scrub mentality." That's a perspective I never thought of. Still disagree with it, but wow.

 

[BigRick]

--"Items off is a scrub mentality." That's a perspective I never thought of. Still disagree with it, but wow.

Already thought about this...

It would be if we didn't have the random explosive crates/capsules issue.

 

[Number 1 DK]

The game is not aobut randomness at higher level play. That is why items should be off. No one wants to go to a tournament and get blown up by a trotting bob-omb or a random capsule in the final match, having a phantom hit is already bad enough. If you want to play with items, do it, but they should be off in competitive play.

 

[Twillight]

I agree with DK, even though items were put on there was too make the game challengeing and more fun to play, but items can also change the game around with one single weapon with I think its kinda cheap, without weapons It shows true skill and puts people to the test espeically and there best ability with out having to keep dogdeing items for a cheap kill. like DK said, If you want items have fun and enjoy, but if your really trying to become skilled try playing without items.

 

[HyugaRicdeau]

The game is not aobut randomness at higher level play. That is why items should be off. No one wants to go to a tournament and get blown up by a trotting bob-omb or a random capsule in the final match, having a phantom hit is already bad enough. If you want to play with items, do it, but they should be off in competitive play.

You can turn off bob-ombs, hearts, tomatoes, etc individually. They aren't the problem. It's the 1/8 exploding capsules/crates, which you CAN'T turn off. Item spawns are vaguely random in time, but they have set spawn points in the levels. Many people also feel that items imbalance the game towards faster characters, and incidentally most of the top characters are fast. It's too bad, cause stuff like motion-sensor bomb can add a lot to the game.

I agree with DK, even though items were put on there was too make the game challengeing and more fun to play, but items can also change the game around with one single weapon with I think its kinda cheap, without weapons It shows true skill and puts people to the test espeically and there best ability with out having to keep dogdeing items for a cheap kill. like DK said, If you want items have fun and enjoy, but if your really trying to become skilled try playing without items.

Well, you're basing this on a biased notion of "true skill." Why doesn't "true skill" include the ability to use items well (I'm not saying it does necessarily)? And by the way, cheap kills are what this game is about.