Having problems learning specific match ups for your main in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U? Looking to up your game smarts? SSBWorld might be the solution.
With 56 characters in the game, hundreds of YouTube channels to learn from, and countless amounts of data, it is no surprise that Smash Wii U is a hard game to master. Anthony Nelson, the developer of SSBWorld, knew this and set out to create an information repository that will benefit the community as a whole.
Now that the site has launched, we sat down with Nelson to discuss its formation and future.
P: What motivated you to build the website?
A: Smash Wii U was the first game in the Smash series that I ever played. I absolutely fell in love with the game and desperately wanted to get better. The gap between me and the average player at a tournament was tremendous.
Smashboards was a intimidating to me since so much the information was way over my head. The community there is smart. What helped me understand the game best was watching tournaments on Twitch or the VODs on YouTube. While watching Twitch, I often found myself looking for more information on the players on stream. YouTube search was limited and I found it very hard to find good sets for lesser known players or characters.
There are other VOD sites out there, but they traditionally only focus on the characters or tournaments. I love those features, but I felt like there also needed to be a focus on the players and statistics. Eventually, I just decided to build the site that I wanted for the community.
P: What goals do you have for the website?
There are so many goals for the site. I'll try to focus in on a couple of big ones.
A: First - Generating Unique Data & Statistics for the Community
Our site has potential to create some great data for the Smash 4 community, since every video on the site records the players, characters, stages and winners/losers for each game within the set. Due to our data being entirely VOD based at this time, it won't be the perfect data source for many metrics. However it should be able to provide some really unique insights into questions like this over time.
- Which character usually wins between Mega Man and Luigi?
- When Mega Man and Luigi play each other, what stages are most to least favorable to Mega Man?
- Which characters are being player more or less over time?
- What characters or stages does my upcoming opponent struggle against?
- How did Florida players do against California players last year?
Second - Becoming a Smash Resource For:
- Competitive Players: I want to help them study character vs character match ups or players who may be in their Pool or bracket. I also want to help them during the stage striking process by showing them what stages give their character the best odds in the match up or what stages their opponent has struggled on in the past.
- Commentators: I want to help them catch up on a player they are unfamiliar with and be able to use it to get a grasp on how active they are in the tournament scene, what characters they use and how frequently they use them as well as their general performance and notable wins or losses.
- Smash Esport Fans: I want to help them watch videos of their favorite player, character or recent tournament.
A: There are Smash communities everywhere and some really good players within each of those communities that will never travel to a major tourney. I hope to promote each and every city and help all sorts of players gain visibility. Our player profiles are a great way for Smash players to promote themselves.
P: Will you expand your website to other Smash games such as Melee and Project M VODs?
A: We would absolutely consider expanding into other Smash games if the site continues to grow and the community shows demand and the ability to support the creation of it. Our site is truly run by the community.
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