My thoughts on Evo2k8

[everlasting yayuhzz]

I can't believe people still approve of item for competitive play. The game already isn't that good for competitive play, and then items come and make it ten times worse.

 

[AlphaZealot]

What is this with your incessant desire to have us admit failure or admit we were wrong or something? As proud as you guys are to fully proclaim that you guys can live without Evo, Evo can live without Brawl, too. We don't owe you guys anything and you guys don't owe us anything either. But we still want to cooperate because we'd still like to have Brawl. No one on Evo side is pressing anyone to "admit they were wrong" or anything. We will still stick by the decisions we made for '08. But we're willing to move on and work out a different solution for '09. You sound as if we should be eternally grateful for your desire to help us. That attitude is equally as pathetic as Evo thinking we're better than you guys. And frankly, I don't think either attitude is even an accurate description of us. We don't think we're better than you (in fact, proclaiming you can live without Evo is a more haughty declaration than anything we've said). I know you're angry right now with us with how things went down, and so your desire for some sort of conclusive "you were right we were wrong" is really strong right now. But neither side needs to "bow" to the other to at this point to keep things moving forward. Because it's that kind of attitude that will prevent any future relationships we have. Again, everyone knows that this relationship isn't necessary and neither side benefits more than the other. Doesn't matter. That's not what this is about. Learning to work with each other is a very symbiotic thing, and we'll both benefit equally from it. You think we erred, we think we just did things differently. If we can all move past that, perhaps we can mend this relationship and get back to a point where we are all working together again.

Sound fair?

This advice should be heeded.

I'm fairly certain everything that can be said on each side of this debate, including how the actual tournament went, has been said. Figuring out where to go from here, as Ponder has noted, is the next step, so lets please stop rehashing all the old arguments, and lets especially keep the "BRAWL SUX LAWLS" stuff out of here (eyes everlasthing yayhuhz).

Keep the discussion on the future so we can stay on track, these threads have died far to often from spam and pointless debate related to items versus no items. Warning will ensue.

For next year:
Assuming its still not sponsored, I think most Smash players would be okay with raising the price to $20 admission (to coincide with the $20-30 door fee). That way you can pay out top 5, maybe even 7, and have the first place prize be closer to $1,500, instead of $700.

For example, had this year been under roughly standard rules, I would have expected somewhere between 200 and 300 players to show up (I would say closer to 300, considering FC was canceled). If next year is mostly standard rules, I would expect roughly that same amount (Brawl will have picked up steam and a tournament is a tournament, who cares what happened this year).
Assuming its 200 persons:
$4,000 pot
$1,600 First place
$800 Second place
$600 Third Place
$400 Fourth Place
$200 for 5th
$200 for 5th
$100 for 7th
$100 for 7th
Overall that would be a reasonable payout and much more akin to what is the norm for a national Smash tournament, and all that has to happen is double the entry to what is actually almost a standard $20.
OC3 last year cost...it was either $60 or $75, of which only about 40% of the money went into the pot. At FCD, for the $75 entry, the roughly 256 players saw over 10k in prizes, but still about 45% of their money was taken away for other expenses (cost of location, security, food for everyone in attendance). Having a $50 overall fee to have a venue for 2 days, along with solid TV's/setups, and prizes/the EVO experience (which will mean something), isn't to bad a deal.

It could also be possible to run two divisions. Have an items division and a no items division.

There could be some pretty cool stuff that could happen to. For example, say the items division was 96 player cap and the no items division was a 192 player cap, then delegate local tournaments around the country as building toward seeds for EVO, with 32 players receiving Byes first round in the items tournament and 64 players receiving earned byes for the no items (there could be different numbers, this is just an example). By delegating local tournaments as simply having some meaning toward EVO (you could develop a point system based on attendance or something) you not only create incentive for the winners of those tournaments to attend, but you also create hype for EVO. On top of that, if it were a perfect world, everyone would have near the same ruleset, creating a further unity in the system.

---

Where would EVO be willing to go from here and could the wants of the at large Smash community be met?

 

[everlasting yayuhzz]

I never said Brawl sucked, and you misspelled my name. Either way, Evo's tournament in my eyes was a huge letdown from the get-go. As soon as the SRK members started trolling our posts over there, I gave up hope on that failure of a community.

 

[GenesisJLS]

Has anyone ever thought of a vote? I mean come on, a vote would once and for all determine what majority of the Brawl players want.

 

[SamuraiPanda]

I can finally post again after I finished my finals, and this thread has really gone downhill. I saw quite a bit of flaming from our side, and I have to say I'm dissapointed. Lets keep this more civil people.

I don't think a consensus can be reached. Honestly, the SRK people should stop trying to convince the SWF people of the merits of items. They do not like them in a tournament setting and you will not convince them otherwise. They have been moving away from items for years and are not just going to turn around and go back because you say so. Continuing to argue will just create more ill-feelings on both sides which doesn't benefit either community.

I don't know why this was ignored, but I completely agree with this. There is no point in arguing further, especially because the past is behind us. We cannot go back and change Evo2k8 to be held without items, but we can try and change Evo2k9.

The only open question in my mind is where to go from here with respect to Evo. We have a mountain of evidence that there is no room in the Brawl community for an items-format tournament sub-community. With that in mind, I'm interested in learning more about the Smash tournament scene at a national/international level to try to figure out where we fit in, if at all.

While I can't speak for everyone, I feel that Evo is definitely a presence that the Smash community would love to have (although, like others have stated, its not "necessary" per se) in the future. I've already mentioned before that I love Evo, and I don't have hard feelings towards the tournament itself (just Mr. Wizard), so I think that as long as the ruleset is announced well before the tournmanet next year, the unfortunate reputation from this year will have time to clear up.

And while there really isn't much demand for an items-format tournament sub-community, we don't try to discriminate too much. In fact, Jack's ISP (Item Standard Play) thread is stickied in the Brawl Tactical board because it is truly the best effort this community has ever seen at trying to make items work competitively. Have you ever tried reading his thread? Its quite good.

Please also keep in mind that its not necessary to "bend to our will" or anything silly like that. There are only a few standards that the Smash community as a whole expects from tournaments. Things like no items, most obviously broken stages off, and a few other things are the bare minimum that a tournament should follow if they want a good turnout. Of course, we'd love it if you used the SBR guidelines as a starting point and simply build from there. Truly, the ideal situation for Evo2k9, IMO, is taking the SBR guidelines and just tweaking them to suit needs of the tournament. No hassle, no arguments, no hard feelings, and not much complaining (there will always be some ^_^''). Its definitely a win-win for both sides.

Also, I have a question about what happened at Evo2k8. I remember there was a compromise made between advanced slob picks, and Evo's method, by making both of them legal. But most people, myself included, predicted that Evo's method would be the most used by far due to larger advantage they can give the loser in most cases. So I was just wondering: How did that go over during the tournament? Did it work well? Did everyone simply use Evo's method? Or did people inadvertently use advanced slobs?

Other than the items debacle, the counterpicking system and always starting on Smashville were the only other sore spots with the ruleset, but it seems like people are forgetting about those...

 

[EnigmaticCam]

I just recall that in the match where CPU defeated Ken to put Ken into the Loser's bracket, Ken got hit repeatedly by Spot Dodge into D-Smash. Ken probably would have learned and come back in the Final Match to win it, given Ken's pedigree, though, so I think you're right. I take back my statement, but I still stand by mt opinion that CPU's victory should not be discredited as being solely due to items.

This to me presents yet another problem with item tournaments. Randomness may not really affect the outcome between two people of very different skill levels, but it will make things very unclear between two people of almost the same skill level. Were CPU and Ken so evenly matched that the aftermath of all the randomness randomly steered the match to CPU's favor? No one can really say, and no one can argue based on what happened without items because (1) they both held their own quite well, despite mistakes made by BOTH, and (2) you would end up admitting that the randomness isn't really competitive in the first place.

But personally, I like the direction this thread is going. I'm glad we can have these discussions with the more civil peeps from SRK rather than the elitists that ensued from the rules discussions threads.

 

[choknater]

i think cpu deserved the win

 

[Dark Hart]

Keep up with the conversation, Turbo. theONEjanitor said if the Smash Community played with items, Evo would play WITHOUT them just to spite you guys. My statement was in response to that. "Trust me, if the Smash community DID play with items, we would have ran our tourney the exact same way." In other words, we didn't do anything in particular just to piss anyone off. The statement was in no way a proclamation of what rules were better. It was a response to the claim that we supposedly made our decisions JUST to be opposite.

- James

Keep up with the conversation, bro. If the Smash community did play with items, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

There are people who think SRK did what they did to piss us off, and I'm not one of them. Yet, I'm still pissed off by what you guys did. Why? Because you went against everything that this community has tried to achieve of Smash's lifetime.

And where did that "Turbo" come from?

 

[Overswarm]

Question:

Why Vegas?

Moving the venue to somewhere less pricey has to be a better decision when you don't have sponsors fronting the bill.

 

[Harbinger631]

Question:

Why Vegas?

Moving the venue to somewhere less pricey has to be a better decision when you don't have sponsors fronting the bill.

Great idea. The tournament should be held in Kansas City. This way, it's in the middle of the country, so it's fair for everyone. Coincidentally, it's also 40 miles from where I live. Everybody wins!

 

[AlphaZealot]

OS: Vegas has some of the cheapest plane ticket rates in the country because the casinos help pay for things The hotel chosen was also only $50 a night. Then there are actually things to do in Vegas so you can make a vacation/weekend of the event instead of having it be just about video games. Considering, aside from Smash, that the average age of other fighting game players is probably between 25-30, I would think that having alternatives to video games is a big attraction.

 

[Ponder]

Where would EVO be willing to go from here and could the wants of the at large Smash community be met?

I have all day meetings at work today, so I won't be able to post anything until tonight. Please don't mistake my silence for lack of interset. Get back to you later.

 

[Baky]

One more thing. Everyone suggested that there was no one of considerable ability at this tourney. SK92 is supposedly one of the best falcos on the west and one of the best, if not the best, player in Vegas.

Just sayin...

 

[Anth0ny]

One more thing. Everyone suggested that there was no one of considerable ability at this tourney. SK92 is supposedly one of the best falcos on the west and one of the best, if not the best, player in Vegas.

Just sayin...

And that's it. Not a single other top player showed up.

 

[Harbinger631]

I would consider Ken a top player seeing how he had the ability to manhandle SK92 without items. So that's 2!

 

[TheBuzzSaw]

i think cpu deserved the win

Apparently, the items agreed.

 

[Baky]

Apparently, the items agreed.

I kinda hope the kid doesnt find himself reading these post. People are a bit hard on him.

He won an items tourney fair and square. If items were off then he probably would not have placed nearly as high but that is not the case. CPU is the EVO Items-on Champion and he proved it by winning. Leave him and EVO2K8 alone and lets just focus on a better turnout in the future.

 

[AfroQT]

lets just focus on a better turnout in the future.

This is what we should do imo

 

[ubersaurus]

Question:

Why Vegas?

Moving the venue to somewhere less pricey has to be a better decision when you don't have sponsors fronting the bill.

I know it's been mentioned they have cheap air tickets and other stuff to do, but there's another thing that was explained to me by the Classic Gaming Expo organizers. In Vegas, you don't need to deal with Unions if you want to set up your event; you can just do it yourself. Hence it's cheaper on that point too. Really, it's a great place if you're holding an event that's anything like Evo.

Honestly though Vegas doesn't seem to have a hell of a lot to do if you aren't loaded for shows or are a gambler. I found some nice arcades last time I went, like the Pinball Hall of Fame and Circus Circus, but outside of those I was pretty bored. Oh, also I hit the Star Trek Experience, but that's closing down at the end of the month, so.

 

[Harbinger631]

Vegas has some amazing hiking in the surrounding area. Beautiful red rock valleys and the valley of fire. Definately may favorite experience when I went to Vegas. Just remember to bring water! You'll see kit foxes and jackhammer rabbits for sure too.

 

[MarsFool!]

I have all day meetings at work today, so I won't be able to post anything until tonight. Please don't mistake my silence for lack of interset. Get back to you later.

Same Ponder that writes "So you want to be a dominator" ????

If it is this guy is pretty reasonable. I just hope that SWF and SRK can make some sort of peace about Evo in the future.

 

[TheBuzzSaw]

I kinda hope the kid doesnt find himself reading these post. People are a bit hard on him.

He won an items tourney fair and square. If items were off then he probably would not have placed nearly as high but that is not the case. CPU is the EVO Items-on Champion and he proved it by winning. Leave him and EVO2K8 alone and lets just focus on a better turnout in the future.

He did win fair and square. No one is disputing that. However, I will never attend an EVO tournament as long as items are enabled. As sour as that sounds, there are thousands of smashers who share my position. Why does EVO insist on attempting to set its own standard at the cost of attendance? Why did EVO not enable items during its Melee competitions? Why is it letting pride be its own downfall? As others have already pointed out, many smash-only tournaments have comparable turnouts to EVO.

 

[jchensor]

Keep up with the conversation, bro. If the Smash community did play with items, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

Right, but that doesn't change my point that we did NOT make our choices specifically to piss off...

Ah, forget it. This is an argument to something not worth discussing anymore.

And where did that "Turbo" come from?

Hahahaha. Sorry. ^_^ It's a common term used in my circle of friends to refer to someone who does something too quickly. I used it because it just seemed like you were yelling at me about something I didn't say at all, as if you didn't quite read the post carefully enough.

He did win fair and square. No one is disputing that. However, I will never attend an EVO tournament as long as items are enabled. As sour as that sounds, there are thousands of smashers who share my position. Why does EVO insist on attempting to set its own standard at the cost of attendance? Why did EVO not enable items during its Melee competitions? Why is it letting pride be its own downfall? As others have already pointed out, many smash-only tournaments have comparable turnouts to EVO.

Look, we already discussed all of this to death. The only question to ask now is: Why keep asking those same questions? Everything you asked has all been answered a gazillion times throughout this thread already by most of us from Evo. And stop putting words into our mouths. Going with the way we did had nothing to do with us having too much pride. Let's just move forward, all right? This not-so-subtle form of backhanded name calling isn't going to get us anywhere.

- James

 

[Beeble]

Who is officially in charge of rules for games in evo?

 

[ph00tbag]

Wait, Evo happened?

 

[TheBuzzSaw]

Look, we already discussed all of this to death. The only question to ask now is: Why keep asking those same questions? Everything you asked has all been answered a gazillion times throughout this thread already by most of us from Evo. And stop putting words into our mouths. Going with the way we did had nothing to do with us having too much pride. Let's just move forward, all right? This not-so-subtle form of backhanded name calling isn't going to get us anywhere.

- James

I've been reading the thread. I see no worthwhile answers. Going the way you did was filled with pride. There are thousands of smashers playing the game a certain way because they have already experimented with items and determined their invalidity in competition. The smash community already exists, but EVO chose to start from scratch. It's like hosting a basketball tournament but pretending the NBA doesn't exist. "We're gonna play with three hoops on each half with different point values, redraw the 3-point line, remove the out-of-bounds rule, etc." OK... but no one in the real world of basketball will take you seriously.

 

[Beeble]

Another question, how much input did Tekken Zaibatsu have on the tekken rules, and how much input did Dustloop have last year (when there was GG)?

 

[Inui]

lol @ people bringing up Faust to support items in Smash

 

[RDK]

I dare anyone from SRK to name one professional sport that has integrated random elements.

 

[Harbinger631]

Weather in bicycling. Gusts of wind in golf.

BAM!!

 

[EnigmaticCam]

I hope it stays at Vegas, coming from a married man. Convincing your wife to go to a video game tournament in Vegas is quite easy.

 

[jchensor]

I've been reading the thread. I see no worthwhile answers.

I'm including your quote here just to let you know I read it. But I see no more need to discuss it with you.

Another question, how much input did Tekken Zaibatsu have on the tekken rules, and how much input did Dustloop have last year (when there was GG)?

TZ is Evo. The guy who runs TZ is on our staff. As for Dustloop, we used the Japanese version of the game which was known to have a TON of bugs in it. We discussed with them about the glitches, what they were, and Evo Staff came up with their own solutions on how to handle the glitches if they came up.

I dare anyone from SRK to name one professional sport that has integrated random elements.

Um... IMO, professional sports probably have the greatest integrated random factor on the planet: referees. When you watch sports, a lot of the time, game deciding moments are determined by refs. Some days, refs feel like calling things close. Other days, they let players play. Some calls can go either way but they have to pick one. Many times they get calls wrong. And they are the sole people responsible for ENFORCING ALL THE RULES based solely on human judgement. From game to game, you have NO idea what to expect from them. Some days you get the tempermental ref who ejects your star player. Other days, you can get away with murder. You can't get any more random than that.

- James

 

[Dark Hart]

Right, but that doesn't change my point that we did NOT make our choices specifically to piss off...

Ah, forget it. This is an argument to something not worth discussing anymore.

Hahahaha. Sorry. ^_^ It's a common term used in my circle of friends to refer to someone who does something too quickly. I used it because it just seemed like you were yelling at me about something I didn't say at all, as if you didn't quite read the post carefully enough.

1. I never said that you made your choices to piss us off.
2. It's cool bro. I don't think I completely understood your posts before I responded, so it's all fair.

 

[Dastrn]

I can't think of a reason for anyone to keep this argument going.

James has already expressed that EVO is interested in items-off Brawl for 2k9.
They made a choice to have their tournament their way.
They expressed that they viewed it as a bit of an experiment.
It's over.
What we need to do now is decide what's next. I'm starting an EVO2k9 thread in tournament discussion forum, and we can discuss next year in there.

Link to EVO 2k9 thread
http://smashboards.com/showthread.php?p=5146481

AZ, can you close this thread please?

 

[inkblot]

I agree. This horse is dead. Please close the thread.

 

[TheBuzzSaw]

Um... IMO, professional sports probably have the greatest integrated random factor on the planet: referees. When you watch sports, a lot of the time, game deciding moments are determined by refs. Some days, refs feel like calling things close. Other days, they let players play. Some calls can go either way but they have to pick one. Many times they get calls wrong. And they are the sole people responsible for ENFORCING ALL THE RULES based solely on human judgement. From game to game, you have NO idea what to expect from them. Some days you get the tempermental ref who ejects your star player. Other days, you can get away with murder. You can't get any more random than that.

- James

This is a terrible analogy because sports refs focus on reducing the random elements as best they can. They do not roll dice before making calls. So, even if refs are inconsistent day to day, ref to ref, they still seek the ideal of perfect rule-enforcement. Refs making "random" calls is not a justification for injecting randomness into this game. We have the power to outright remove the random elements.

 

[Harbinger631]

This is a terrible analogy because sports refs focus on reducing the random elements as best they can. They do not roll dice before making calls. So, even if refs are inconsistent day to day, ref to ref, they still seek the ideal of perfect rule-enforcement. Refs making "random" calls is not a justification for injecting randomness into this game. We have the power to outright remove the random elements.

This thread must remain open! We must argue, and argue, and argue, until smashboards prevails over puny EVO people!! Nothing else matters.

 

[AlphaZealot]

I agree. This horse is dead. Please close the thread.

I was waiting on a response from Ponder to my question, however if he would rather email me (he has my email) that would work to.

 

[theONEjanitor]

I get what you are saying now. You are saying SRK hates Smash. I've seen as many Smash hating posts as you have, I thought you were referring to Evo when you were talknig about SRK. Believe me, plenty of people on SRK have gotten mad at what Evo has done as well. They aren't equatable. Just because SRK hates Smash doesn't mean Evo will try to run it in a way to spite you guys. Again, it's such a waste of time and effort to run a tourney for the specific purpose of spiting someone. Believing that is what is actually immature.



Melee was a five year old game at that point. Brawl is brand new. We banned Akuma in Super Turbo. When HD Remix comes out, which is an upgrade to Super Turbo, should we ban Akuma right away just because he was banned in the previous version? Or should we try him out and see if he is fair now?



There are tons of random factors in a lot of games. Random doesn't automatically = unfair. Do you think, then, that a game like Tetris DS isn't worthy of competitive play? If we ran a tournament for that game, would the best player not win most of the time? Is there a reason why the better professional Poker players still perform the best every year in Poker tournaments?





Mmm-hmm. Just ask anyone reading your posts and my posts and have them say who is being immature.

- James

I've never played tetris DS.

Poker is a game primarily of skill, and the best poker players lose thousands of dollars routinely because of the random factors in poker. (they just don't show that part on espn) Don Cheadle eliminated Phil Ivey from a poker tournament once because of the random factors of the game. Phil Ivey is considered easily top five of all time in ring game poker. Don Cheadle is an actor who plays poker in his spare time. Poker is completely different from Smash because the game is hugely pyschological, and that a lone wins money. If in poker, all of a sudden a random "Hold em" ball would spawn automatically giving a random player a straight flush, the game would cease to be profitable or competitive. The random factors in poker DEFINITELY benefit the worse player, but fortunately players have found a way to make themselves profit in spite of it.
Also, poker is not usually played one on one, and if it was always heads up all the time, it would probably be non-competitive and not profitable.

The items in Brawl have the exact same function as they did in Melee. Many of the items are the exact same items. I thought I asked you people to stop bull ****ting me. This is a bull**** response. Melee was new TO YOU. And you didn't ban anything. The reason is because YOU DECIDED TO LISTEN TO US about the ruleset. It had nothing to do with how long the game had been out. We played Brawl with items when it first came out and we realized quickly that they had the same function as any other Smash game, and the same effects on the matches. (But we would have known this already because RANDOM FACTORS=FAVORS THE WORSE PLAYER=NON-COMPETITIVE.

AGAIN, EVO IGNORED THE SMASH COMMUNITY, for no reason whatsoever, even though WE KNOW MORE ABOUT smash than them. (I find it funny how no one is responding to this point).

SRK is trying to take Smash as their own and change the ruleset. That's just the fact. Stop bulllllllllshiiiiting me. It's possible that the ACTUAL tournament operators did this as a pure experiment, but the SRK community was behind this just to spite us, and that's obviously.

If you don't see the difference between banning a character across games, and banning a feature across games, you're not worth arguing with.


Someone in charge of evo needs to come forth and say, "we ran an items tourney as an experiment and it was ****ty, and we won't do it again". then we shall close this thread, which I'm surprised it still open because az hates when people argue or something

 

[Ponder]

I was waiting on a response from Ponder to my question, however if he would rather email me (he has my email) that would work to.

I have returned!

Let me start off by saying that I shouldn't have implied the bad blood behind the SWF and SRK communities isn't entirely Wizard's fault. If you are looking to be bitter, be bitter with then entire SRK and EVO staff. MrWizard doesn't make decisions in a vacuum and the decision to go with an items tournament at Evo was made by all of us. Hopefully we can put all that behind us now and move forward constructively. Thanks.

Raising the entry fee to $20 sounds great if it's something you guys would like as well. We can certainly do that for Smash only, even if the rest of the FGC would rather say at $10. Pushing the prize money down further also sounds like a good idea.

Having 2 divisions for items/no-items would be a challenge. One thing we did at Evo this year is to try to run 6-well-run events instead of 8-time-pressured ones that ran overtime. That worked out really well. It's hard for me to imagine running 2 Smash tournaments out of 6 total given all the new games coming out next year. Maybe we can do an items side-tournament in the BYOC and a no-items official tournament and have the winners face off for some sort of prize in a mixed-format event (something like one of those boxer-vs-a-wrester contests).

I like the idea of delegating locally run tournaments to determine seeds, but we'd like to avoid a cap. We take great pride in the fact that anyone and everyone can attend Evo and duke it out with the pro's, just like the WSOP. I'd rather change the format to accomdate more people than institute a cap. We can discuss this further if you feel strongly the other way.

Where would EVO be willing to go from here and could the wants of the at large Smash community be met?

EVO is still a long way off. A lot of what we can do will be determined by which fighting games are released and at what timeframe. If Super Turbo HD, Street Fighter IV, Soul Calibur IV, Tekken 6, Tatsunoko vs Capcom, and BlazBlue are all out on console by May, none of them are broken (e.g. no more of this stuff is found), and all have very competitive tournament communities then that's 6 games right there and all the games from this year will be under pressure trying to squeeze in as the 7th, assuming we can do 7! I think there's about a 0.01% chance of that happening, but it could happen. We can talk more about format, prices, etc. later on in the year while we're disussing what the lineup for EVO '09 will be. I want to get Brawl in there, so that's a good sign that it will be, but I'm not the only one with a vote. The only thing I can guarantee right now is that we'll work harder to make sure the Brawl community is happy with the next ruleset at EVO the next time its there, which I strongly hope will be next year.

I will keep in touch. Thanks.