Let's talk about our attitudes and Captain Awesum

[Amazing Ampharos]

So, I have a big topic about customs I'm predictably working on after EVO. That's the discussion I want to have, but it's not the discussion we need to have right now. EVO was a great time for the most part, and I enjoyed most of my time with the community this weekend. One thing, however, was really not cool at all, and that's the generally awful attitudes I saw consistently aimed at New Jersey smasher Captain Awesum for the entire tournament. It was, frankly, an embarrassment to our community, and it was just not a reasonable way to treat a fellow player.

For those who aren't aware, Captain Awesum is a Villager main from New Jersey. His playstyle is by far the most hardcore defensive playstyle in the current smash 4 metagame. If he doesn't believe you will stop him from doing it, he will ledgestall. If he has a lead, he will almost always run away and play for a time-out. Even if he's losing, he just throws a wall of projectiles and slowly chips away. He runs the custom set 1322 and leverages every bit of those customs just to play the absolute maximum amount of defense. He's not fun for most people to watch, and he's clearly not fun to play against. This is just who he is.

Here's how he was treated. As he went around and played games, he had a crowd of players following for the purpose of heckling him and cheering on his opponents. After he won any game, people would jump in to offer the best coaching they could to anyone playing against him. Oftentimes people would just yell personal attacks at him, accusing him of sucking at the game or just of being an awful person. The most surreal moment was his set against Larry Lurr. It was a very slow match in which Larry struggled greatly to approach this wall but was keeping pace. Larry gets a lead in game three and then the crowd starts their "time him out" chant, hilarious hypocrisy given their apparent incredible opposition to time-out tactics otherwise! They just decided they really hated Captain Awesum and wanted to see him lose in whatever way possible. In short, a large number of the people there worked together as a group to make Captain Awesum feel unwelcome and unappreciated in the community. It was like watching stream chat play out except in person; I didn't think people in real life would ever actually act that way.

I have a lot of problems with how this all played out, but here's the heart of it. Captain Awesum is just a guy doing his best to win. He did pretty well at EVO but not overwhelmingly so (top 32!). If you actually talk to him in a non-hostile way, he's a reasonable person; he mostly has steeled himself to being heckled, but it clearly does bother him how unfairly everyone treats him. I think it's fine to find his playstyle dull or otherwise non-entertaining; that's a fair assessment of it really. I think it's fine to root for players who are fun to watch, and for 99% of people, that won't include Captain Awesum. However, when we cross that line from merely enjoying watching other people win to being actively hostile toward a player for something as trite as his choices about how to best win at a video game, we're going way too far. Not only is us collectively deciding that certain playstyles are somehow not acceptable a by definition scrub attitude (none of the other communities at EVO, including the Melee community, would ever be dismissive toward a playstyle in this way), but it violates the trust of all players to be treated fairly as people separate from however they play these games. I was treated pretty well, but I am a defensive player at heart. When I saw Captain Awesum be treated this way, I got legitimately scared that if I continue to improve that eventually people might turn against me the same way. I can only imagine many others in the crowd felt the same way; if we are cool with being total jerks to Captain Awesum, how can they be sure we won't do the same to them someday? How can our community survive if players can reasonably have these fears?

This needs to stop. When anyone shows up to our tournaments and makes a good faith effort to compete, we must treat them with respect. This includes players who play in obnoxious ways like Captain Awesum; there is no acceptable exception to this. Frankly, if you are one of the people who was a part of that, you should probably hit up the Captain with an apology, but even if you aren't willing to do that, seriously rethink your attitude. You don't have to like how he plays, but you have zero reason to show this kind of hate to him and further have to recognize that his objectively strong performance has earned real respect. If we don't as a group improve our behavior in this way, it is a very dire omen for this game's competitive future.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Is it weird that the first thought I had when seeing this topic is "oh, that's how he spells it"?

Anyway, solid points all around. I'll be the first to say that I don't think I'd ever enjoy fighting against someone like him (hardcore zoning/runaway is always a pain, no matter what character it's attached to) but I was unaware that people were actively heckling him. I wish I could say I'm surprised but in retrospect I'm really not.

Melee's an interesting comparison since I know there are a few (character-specific?) ways of stalling at the ledge with little if any vulnerability between regrabs. Melee being what it is, I'm almost certain that it requires fairly fast, precise inputs. Is that the reason it's not looked down on there? (Alternately, is it looked down on and I just missed that memo?)

EDIT: I also want to say that there's a Villager player in my local scene (in other news, I have a local scene now) and while he's against customs for personal reasons he still plays a very hardcore camping villager with Lloid and slingshots. It's still annoying. I can mitigate it somewhat with Gravitational Pull (insert jeers here?) and I won't pretend it's comparable to dealing with the combo of the trip sapling, explosive balloons, and Pushy Lloid, but I think it's important to remember that even without the custom help, that's still Villager as a character. He has the tools to play keepaway. Why wouldn't he use them?

 

[ぱみゅ]

People booed when Hungrybox received his Medal.
This community can be pretty bad sometimes....

 

[ZarroTsu]

Oftentimes people would just yell personal attacks at him, accusing him of sucking at the game or just of being an awful person. The most surreal moment was his set against Larry Lurr. It was a very slow match in which Larry struggled greatly to approach this wall but was keeping pace. Larry gets a lead in game three and then the crowd starts their "time him out" chant, hilarious hypocrisy given their apparent incredible opposition to time-out tactics otherwise! They just decided they really hated Captain Awesum and wanted to see him lose in whatever way possible.

Hot damn. I'd have punched someone in the face or brought them up on-stage to play "for" me at that point. (High school PTSD)

Was there no security in the vicinity? I know EVO was probably run by lanky nerdy dudes, but you'd think someone would be available to drag people out of the building for being disruptive ****heads.

I've all the respect in the world for someone who can handle that crap in person.

 

[Jams.]

(none of the other communities at EVO, including the Melee community, would ever be dismissive toward a playstyle in this way)

Sorry for zoning in on this one point, but I don't believe this is true. Hungrybox was booed pretty heavily by the Melee crowd for his ledgestalling even though the matchup is hugely in Fox's favour. In addition, wobbling was a hugely contested issue in Melee because players believed it was lame, despite the ICs being completely balanced with wobbling legal and never taking large events.

 

[Scarlet Jile]

People don't deserve personal attacks for how they play video games, period.

That said, if you play like such an asshole, you're probably an asshole.

 

[C0rvus]

I have noticed the vitriol towards very specific characters camping have received. Like, not Fox laser camping, but HBox ledge camping to avoid said laser camping gets viewers mad. Custom Villager gets people so mad despite the counterplay. I mean, Smash 4 especially is a pretty defensive game, so I really don't understand the hate for custom Villager specifically. There's a local player who plays with the same setup and he isn't very well liked; at least people don't boo him or give him crap to his face. I think the issue I have with the guy is how low effort he plays; granted he rarely wins against players who know anything about the MU. As for Captain Awesum, I didn't watch his matches, but the response from the community is pretty sad. It's okay to not like it, but don't be a **** to people about it. Sometimes we have to remind ourselves that we are playing a video game. Let's try to act like reasonable adults.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

People booed when Hungrybox received his Medal.
This community can be pretty bad sometimes....

Sorry for zoning in on this one point, but I don't believe this is true. Hungrybox was booed pretty heavily by the Melee crowd for his ledgestalling even though the matchup is hugely in Fox's favour. In addition, wobbling was a hugely contested issue in Melee because players believed it was lame, despite the ICs being completely balanced with wobbling legal and never taking large events.

The Melee crowd booed Hungrybox, but it wasn't nearly as harsh as what Captain Awesum got as treatment. I don't really like the booing of Hungrybox's strategy either, to be clear, but it's a minor nuisance that probably made Hbox feel like his strategy annoyed people a bit whereas the attitude toward Captain Awesum is pure toxicity that clearly made Captain Awesum feel that people hated him personally. As I recall, Hbox's medal reception was a mix of boos and cheers (with overall more cheers) whereas for Captain Awesum it was literally three of us who were cheering for him as far as I could tell (his crewmate John Numbers, my crewmate Junglechief, and I were his little group trying to show him a bit of support in a sea of hate).

EDIT: Anti-wobbling rules are awful IMO, but I don't recall ICs players who used wobbling at wobbling legal event being treated badly for it (though maybe I am just ignorant and it happened?). I also thought that this was in the past and the Melee community of today was solid on not banning wobbling; is that not true?

 

[DanGR]

This message needs a more aggressive tone. This is totally unacceptable. Anyone who treats others like this should be thrown out of events entirely.

 

[Aunt Jemima]

It's generally shown that the more obvious defensive styles of play are hated. For example, HungryBox and Armada. Despite HungryBox receiving a ton of hate, it was absolutely required for him to camp as Armada was laser camping and would have taken major damage trying to get in. What separates them, though, is that one is a pink ball constantly grabbing a ledge while the other is a mechanized animal from space shooting bright red lasers. Nobody really cared that Armada was camping because it looked interesting, whereas HungryBox did not. (By the way, I personally find defensive playstyle like HungryBox and Dabuz to be more interesting.)

This is shown heavily during Villager's ledge camping, as he's setting up a wall of objects and projectiles the opponent has to get through. During this match-up, most will root for the opposing player, even though they're most likely playing defensively, as they seem more interesting.

Sadly, this makes it so anything seen as defensive by the community is ridiculed in hope to possibly remove it. Behavior like this is clearly unacceptable, and I think something should be done at tournaments to prevent it as it's truly unfair. I'm not sure what, though.

 

[CursedJay]

It's generally shown that the more obvious defensive styles of play are hated. For example, HungryBox and Armada. Despite HungryBox receiving a ton of hate, it was absolutely required for him to camp as Armada was laser camping and would have taken major damage trying to get in. What separates them, though, is that one is a pink ball constantly grabbing a ledge while the other is a mechanized animal from space shooting bright red lasers. Nobody really cared that Armada was camping because it looked interesting, whereas HungryBox did not. (By the way, I personally find defensive playstyle like HungryBox and Dabuz to be more interesting.)

This is shown heavily during Villager's ledge camping, as he's setting up a wall of objects and projectiles the opponent has to get through. During this match-up, most will root for the opposing player, even though they're most likely playing defensively, as they seem more interesting.

Sadly, this makes it so anything seen as defensive by the community is ridiculed in hope to possibly remove it. Behavior like this is clearly unacceptable, and I think something should be done at tournaments to prevent it as it's truly unfair. I'm not sure what, though.

It all comes down to a maturity issue. The majority of the community is younger than 18, and with shorter attention spans comes a lower tolerance level for such defensive play. People will eventually grow up, but things like this well never not be an issue because of smash's general audience.

.....Can't stand CptAwsm's style, personally, but that's just me.

 

[thehard]

Obviously, we should never support player bullying, and we should shun those who participate. Bottom line. However:

I think the best thing that the players who are being ridiculed can do in this situation is to "own" it. I LOVED how Dabuz stood up and embraced his heel status to the EVO crowd after his set with FOW, it was hilarious. I know he himself was harassed for playing Rosalina at a different tournament, so it's great that he turned a negative situation into a positive one (I can't tell how many boos were genuine and how many were for fun, but I'm assuming most of it was for fun considering his set lasted 3 minutes)

I think there's an important difference to be established between "loving to hate" players and simply hating players (and as I said earlier, CaptAwesum's situation is just flat out bullying and harassment, and that's obviously too far). It should not extend outside of a main stage, into "real life" either.

I also don't think it's necessarily bad that the crowd started cheering for Larry to reverse time-out Awesum (or any other players), but after reading your post, it comes off as more malicious rather than wanting to see "good prevailing over evil", for sure.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

That's so scrubby I almost want to host villager, sonic, rosalina, and capt falcon-only tournies with customs.

 

[Strong Badam]

A major issue this community has is selective respect. Specifically, the Smash 4 community has been trying quite hard to get the Melee/PM/64/whatever factions of the Smash Community to care about their game. They want other people to respect the undeniably large amount of effort, time, talent, etc. that goes into being good at it, and at the same time are vicious to those who have acquired that skill in a way different than their own, by practicing Custom Moves. Before EVO, I saw all kinds of arguments saying that customs are fraudulent, ruin the game, allow unskilled players to succeed, etc.. The top 32 at EVO had very few customs, and almost all of the players who ran customs are also highly successful in customs-banned metagames (CEO/APEX or their local scenes). Grand Finals still had a Sheik. Whoop whoop.

Selective respect also goes toward the other games. Fox and Falco are the best characters in Melee, yet they are cheered for. When someone particularly talented and skilled at the game (Hungrybox) comes along against all odds, countless unfavorable matchups, and beats similarly extremely skilled players in disadvantageous matchups, he gets booed and people harass him on Twitter and all sorts of different outlets telling him that he's ruining the game.

Frankly, it's sickening, and if I hadn't already decided to not play either of those games those instances would have certainly changed my mind. Respect good play as a whole. It isn't specific people or strategies you're vicious toward, but your game itself.

 

[Ghostbone]

Hate the game not the player.

Smash 4 crowd seems to not understand that, you can think campy villager is stupid/unfair but you still have to respect someone who uses that strategy. (because guess what, they're in top 32 of evo, not you)

 

[Baby_Sneak]

Ignore post.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

Bullying is unacceptable and so are death threats (like poor HBox got).

It's so sad because even though I love the series and want to constantly get better at it, these people make me hate the community.

I was scared to go to my first tournament because I thought that I would meet these Melee and Smash 4 players who were total dickheads

And I met those.

These people definitely exist. I was doing better than I thought at the Melee tournament with my . I guess I just knew the game more and played the neutral better. One guy was so ****ing cocky though... He walked up to me when our match was supposed to happen.

"You the Mewtwo player?"

"Yeah."

"Oh I've been waiting to beat you." he says as people behind him snicker.

Dude almost picked because he thought he was THAT much better than me. He would have too if I didn't call him out on it. Then he went and SD'd twice. It was very cathartic, but I still it scared me off from doing anything more in that community. I think his behavior was caused because I didn't play Melee "right." I didn't wavedash or L-Cancel. My fingers just aren't fast enough to do it consistently. I played somewhat defensively and got that far by playing the neutral better and knowing what the characters could do. Not by combos or rushdown. I also played who is a "scrub character." After losing the set to this guy, I didn't want to play Melee anymore, because he was a real **** about it. According to him, I wasn't worth the time even though I made it pretty far.


Which is a shame, because there were some awesome people who played who were awesome. I even had a gentlemen's agreement for dittos on Brinstar Depths with one of them. We had fun and got together afterwards, but I just didn't go back to any tournaments with that group.


I heard later that the group which used to be a club stopped running due to loss of interest. I know exactly why it happened. It was due to ***** in the community and no one stopping them from shaming players outside the "cool zone."


I'm not sure how to counter it.

In fact, I don't think we even can. People will be *****.

But I just want more people to call them out on it.

Maybe a youtuber like @Omni can talk about it or something. I dunno.


I'm all for not liking certain playstyles or aspects in a game, but nothing justifies bullying.

 

[ぱみゅ]

That Mewtwo story reminds me of the tale of a kid that got not only bullied but completely ignored for wanting to play with his 3ds as controller. People even avoided playing friendlies against him.

Dude, is our community really that unwelcoming to players?

 

[Pazx]

Larry timing Captain Awesum out was undeniably fantastic from a spectator's perspective and the crowd enjoying that wasn't hypocritical or cruel in any way that I can see. Other than that, I agree with the vast majority of all the posts in this thread.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

That Mewtwo story reminds me of the tale of a kid that got not only bullied but completely ignored for wanting to play with his 3ds as controller. People even avoided playing friendlies against him.

Dude, is our community really that unwelcoming to players?

I talked about how Smash players have tunnel vision with tiers a while ago.

I guess this is a part of that.

 

[thehard]

Calling out those oh-so-macho "If mean players make you cry you're not fit to compete" posts before they can begin.

People don't understand that the thick-skinned can still find that behavior extremely annoying and not worth being around, without having their feelings hurt. I know this is a really basic, obvious statement but believe it or not some people do not understand this concept.

That's why I like this area of Smashboards, you guys are great.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

You either deal with the hate or you fold to the pressure. It's interesting you write this piece. When someone plays a defensive strategy it's called playing lame or playing gay. This holds true for multiple games no matter what. I don't think that there's a need to regulate the crowd unless physical threats are being made. Why do you think a lot of these top players wears headphones?

 

[Swamp Sensei]

You either deal with the hate or you fold to the pressure. It's interesting you write this piece. When someone plays a defensive strategy it's called playing lame or playing gay. This holds true for multiple games no matter what. I don't think that there's a need to regulate the crowd unless physical threats are being made. Why do you think a lot of these top players wears headphones?

Again.

It's not disliking playstyles or disliking certain players.

It's going way too far with it, to the point where it's harassment.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

Again.

It's not disliking playstyles or disliking certain players.

It's going way too far with it, to the point where it's harassment.

I've said what my threshold is for this type of stuff. The question is how you handle things. This isn't something limited to smash4. It happens at a lot of major sporting events. The only way you can really police this stuff is to not have s crowd.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

You either deal with the hate or you fold to the pressure. It's interesting you write this piece. When someone plays a defensive strategy it's called playing lame or playing gay. This holds true for multiple games no matter what. I don't think that there's a need to regulate the crowd unless physical threats are being made. Why do you think a lot of these top players wears headphones?

At Evo 2014, SnakeEyez beat Ricky Ortiz in Street Fighter basically by pressing down-back for about ten minutes. Seriously, watch the set. There is way, way less happening there than in the worst of CptAwesum's matches. For some reason, the Street Fighter community isn't particularly bothered by this. In fact, this was one of the hypest sets at the whole tournament despite the fact that SnakeEyez responded to a matchup where hitting buttons gets you killed by just not hitting any buttons at all. There's a certain degree of maturity that the smash community lacks on show here.

We shouldn't have to deal with the hate. Or, failing that, we shouldn't have to deal with the harassment.

People don't deserve personal attacks for how they play video games, period.

That said, if you play like such an *******, you're probably an *******.

Why the hell would you say that? Seriously.

 

[Jiggly]

I can't believe people even wanna bother hating someone over how they play the game. Sometimes I am truly ashamed to be a part of this community, because of the minority. I really think we need to start shunning this kind of attitude, and making sure everyone knows this isn't okay. Sometimes you can't just "Ignore the haters".

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

At Evo 2014, SnakeEyez beat Ricky Ortiz in Street Fighter basically by pressing down-back for about ten minutes. Seriously, watch the set. There is way, way less happening there than in the worst of CptAwesum's matches. For some reason, the Street Fighter community isn't particularly bothered by this. In fact, this was one of the hypest sets at the whole tournament despite the fact that SnakeEyez responded to a matchup where hitting buttons gets you killed by just not hitting any buttons at all. There's a certain degree of maturity that the smash community lacks on show here.

We shouldn't have to deal with the hate. Or, failing that, we shouldn't have to deal with the harassment.




Why the hell would you say that? Seriously.

I watched it live last year I don't really need to rewatch. The difference in that match and Captain awesum is ge runs away and the mu led to that match being long and drawn out. SFIV is a slower paced game and people can respect high level footsie battles. Chris G took a lot of hate for playing Morrigan.

There's good and there's bad when you have a spectator sport. You don't know what people will do or how they will act. It'd be great if everyone was respectful however that's an impossibility. Unless you say no talking or something of the sort. However, at the end of the day people will do/say things in an attempt to harass or upset some one.

 

[CyberHyperPhoenix]

It's generally shown that the more obvious defensive styles of play are hated. For example, HungryBox and Armada. Despite HungryBox receiving a ton of hate, it was absolutely required for him to camp as Armada was laser camping and would have taken major damage trying to get in. What separates them, though, is that one is a pink ball constantly grabbing a ledge while the other is a mechanized animal from space shooting bright red lasers. Nobody really cared that Armada was camping because it looked interesting, whereas HungryBox did not. (By the way, I personally find defensive playstyle like HungryBox and Dabuz to be more interesting.)

If those people who dismiss Armada's laser camping because they find it "interesting" and "flashy" should really just go and watch KOF XIII tournaments, since those combos are flashy af in that game and will be probably more interesting for them than a Fox camping with Double SH lasers.

Seriously tho, this sort of behavior is just sad and unjustifiable. Captain Awesum probably feels really bad, so I personally hope the perpetrators feel bad as well

 

[RayNoire]

The Smash community, historically, is one of the most immature, mean, and downright terrible gaming communities there is. Sm4sh isn't nearly as profoundly toxic as the Melee community (a big reason why I don't play Melee anymore), but we still have our moments of shame.

I don't think anyone deserves to be shunned like that. Not Captain Awesum (even if I hate his name), not Dabuz, not even Angel Cortes. People have to learn the difference between hating a "villain" character and hating an actual person.

 

[ThatGuyYouMightKnow]

I'm not going to say I'm against what you're saying Ampharos, I'm completely for it; but the FGC has been this way forever. It happens in every game, not just Smash, and for anyone here to act like it's ever been any different is inaccurate.

To change such a thing is a journey. I fully employ all of you to try.

 

[Zage]

Play to win.

At a tourney with $10,000k+ on a line, why care what other people think? If your strategy works and is getting you decent results, Ledgestall all the way to the Bank of America ATM to deposit that cash if you have to.

People are going to voice their opinions regardless, and have been booing super defensive play since the early days of the FGC. Nothing is gonna change, might as well ignore it.

 

[Browny]

Here's how he was treated. As he went around and played games, he had a crowd of players following for the purpose of heckling him and cheering on his opponents. After he won any game, people would jump in to offer the best coaching they could to anyone playing against him. Oftentimes people would just yell personal attacks at him, accusing him of sucking at the game or just of being an awful person.

*Ahem*

Paraphrasing, "you gon act like a [expletive], you gon get treated like a [expletive]"

Captain Awesum knows the implications of his actions, and he willingly went ahead with it. Every single word of trash talk ever uttered to him, is his own fault. Obviously he doesn't care, because he still did it anyway.

No one owes him an apology, from themselves or the community. If he wants to play the 'I'm not doing anything wrong, its in the rules card' then the crowd can pull the exact same card where booing isn't a banworthy offence.

I honestly wanted him to win vs as many people as possible because the drama is delicious.

If you think the way the community treated him is bad, then make a ruleset which bans it because until then, the hecklers are completely justified to act within the rules, just like he is within the rules to camp like a [expletive].

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

*Ahem*

Paraphrasing, "you gon act like a [expletive], you gon get treated like a [expletive]"

Captain Awesum knows the implications of his actions, and he willingly went ahead with it. Every single word of trash talk ever uttered to him, is his own fault. Obviously he doesn't care, because he still did it anyway.

...Are you ****ting me? The man was playing the damn game and trying to win! That's sort of, you know, the whole purpose of tournaments. His playstyle was unconventional and a lot of people didn't like it. And for that, he deserves that treatment? What the **** is wrong with you? What the **** is wrong with this community?! Captain Awesum did not act like an asshole. He played the damn game. If you can't deal with the fact that not every match is Aggro vs. Aggro, then I strongly recommend you go play some other game, instead of one with a 16-year history of campy play.

If you think the way the community treated him is bad, then make a ruleset which bans it because until then, the hecklers are completely justified to act within the rules, just like he is within the rules to camp like a [expletive].

What a depressing way to look at the world. "If you don't want people to harass and bully players, make rules against it!" WE SHOULDN'T NEED RULES LIKE THAT!

 

[Konneh]

*Ahem*

Paraphrasing, "you gon act like a [expletive], you gon get treated like a [expletive]"

Captain Awesum knows the implications of his actions, and he willingly went ahead with it. Every single word of trash talk ever uttered to him, is his own fault. Obviously he doesn't care, because he still did it anyway.

No one owes him an apology, from themselves or the community. If he wants to play the 'I'm not doing anything wrong, its in the rules card' then the crowd can pull the exact same card where booing isn't a banworthy offence.

I honestly wanted him to win vs as many people as possible because the drama is delicious.

If you think the way the community treated him is bad, then make a ruleset which bans it because until then, the hecklers are completely justified to act within the rules, just like he is within the rules to camp like a [expletive].

Meanwhile every halfway intelligent Melee player knows to disagree with the hate and the booing Hungrybox got for ledge stalling (while Armada was lasercamping him).
I do not think that harassment is completely justified, in fact I believe any kind of harassment is not justified at all, and I would be negatively surprised if you are actually completely aware of what you implied with that.

@ Budget Player Cadet_
I hope you are aware that it takes this exact mindset, but being wrong (which you are not right now), to be the kind of person that hates on Awesum. Take a chill pill, cool down, lead by example, don't throw around asterisks, it's that kind of reaction that would make someone dismiss your opinion. But you are absolutely and positively right, and I can't believe there's people who think the harassment is okay - that ANY harassment is okay.

 

[Tobi_Whatever]

Booing is okay
Harassment is not

 

[Browny]

...Are you ****ting me? The man was playing the damn game and trying to win! That's sort of, you know, the whole purpose of tournaments. His playstyle was unconventional and a lot of people didn't like it. And for that, he deserves that treatment? What the **** is wrong with you? What the **** is wrong with this community?! Captain Awesum did not act like an *******. He played the damn game. If you can't deal with the fact that not every match is Aggro vs. Aggro, then I strongly recommend you go play some other game, instead of one with a 16-year history of campy play.



What a depressing way to look at the world. "If you don't want people to harass and bully players, make rules against it!" WE SHOULDN'T NEED RULES LIKE THAT!

You seem to be taking this the wrong way.

Captain Awesum knows that his options are to 'deal with it' or quit. Since he isnt a wimp, he deals with it, and gets high in a stacked tournament. He got booed a lot, but he didnt care. Therefore who lost in this scenario? He seems fine about it.

Only the crowd and hecklers are the ones unable to deal with it so they complain about it.

I never suggested he should change his actions and in fact I think it was great what he did, I wanted to see more of it. But since saying 'we should be better than this' achieves exactly nothing, how about focusing on implementing SOMETHING that can change it for the better.

This thread isnt going to achieve anything the way its going. Captain Awesum isnt going to change his playstyle and neither should he. The hecklers arent going to stop being rude as hell, but they SHOULD.

So you can either make a rule against that, or sit here telling people (who dont give a **** what you think) that they are mean and should stop being mean.

What is more likely to work? Is the intention of this thread to fix a problem, or to get on the 'hecking is wrong ' circlejerk.

 

[C0rvus]

There's a fine line between not respecting a player/playstyle and bullying/harassing players because of their playstyle. People have been crossing that line quite a bit lately, and it's bull****, quite frankly. Something ought to be done about it, but I don't know what. I doubt most of the folks on this site were involved and we don't want to end up preaching to the choir, so to speak. This sounds like an issue that runs deeper than just Smash; has viewer culture sunk this low?

 

[TheHypnotoad]

You seem to be taking this the wrong way.

Captain Awesum knows that his options are to 'deal with it' or quit. Since he isnt a wimp, he deals with it, and gets high in a stacked tournament. He got booed a lot, but he didnt care. Therefore who lost in this scenario? He seems fine about it.

Only the crowd and hecklers are the ones unable to deal with it so they complain about it.

I never suggested he should change his actions and in fact I think it was great what he did, I wanted to see more of it. But since saying 'we should be better than this' achieves exactly nothing, how about focusing on implementing SOMETHING that can change it for the better.

This thread isnt going to achieve anything the way its going. Captain Awesum isnt going to change his playstyle and neither should he. The hecklers arent going to stop being rude as hell, but they SHOULD.

So you can either make a rule against that, or sit here telling people (who dont give a **** what you think) that they are mean and should stop being mean.

What is more likely to work? Is the intention of this thread to fix a problem, or to get on the 'hecking is wrong ' circlejerk.

I've only been on Smashboards for half a year and I've already realized that every meta-thread is always a circlejerk. You should have realized this as well.

 

[Untamed]

Personally, his play style is very cheap and boring to watch. I'll admit I did take part in the "residentsleeper spam" in the chatroom, for which I regret. That being said, he shouldn't be harassed like that, especially during an event as big as EVO. People really should be kicked out like previously mentioned.

Now I know this isn't about StaticManny, but can we talk about his sonic for a quick moment? I found watching his matches to be even worse than Cpt.A's. He just spindash-shield, spindash shield. Hold it down for forever, then release it. I literally had to mute the stream and go watch youtube until it was over, while I could handle cpt. Just imo.

 

[ThatGuyYouMightKnow]

There are a lot of players in the community who LIKE this 'attention'. Being booed, having players 'hate' them for what they do, how they play and how they act. Sometimes it can be extreme. I actually think the FGC needs personalities like these, as all sports have them. 'Villains'. Leffen is a well known example, he's said it himself, and i actually like him a bit for it. But we should be cautious not to go too far and have things like the Noel Brown incident happen.

Though, in all honesty, I can see Capt Awesum taking this positively if he were in this mind of the personality. It all depends on how the player is. Me for example, I would be devastated, but I'm not such a person who enjoys that kind of attention.

Competitiveness and sportsmanship all in fair and fun play--not in harm.