Official 'Item Standard Play' Thread (UPDATE 1/15: MAJOR TX TOURNEY INFO)

[Sliq]

I do believe flaming is generally considered 'posting remarks that are intended to incite argument,' which is exactly what you did... oh, wait, I'm sorry. That's not right at all. That's trolling, which is looked down upon much more than flaming.



So, I gave plenty of warning. What you posted directly violates what has been established in the OP, and adds literally nothing to the discussion.

I'm not discussing viability. The quantity of items that appear is going to be a huge amount of the tournament, and I fail to see how high is a more valid quantity than none.

 

[Rebel581]

Stop arguing with each other. Just set the item switch to super special awesome and be done with it.

 

[AlphaZealot]

Sliq, this thread is operating with the function that items will assumed to at the very least, be on low. You can't have an items standard with items set to off.

 

[Jack Kieser]

Stop arguing with each other. Just set the item switch to super special awesome and be done with it.

You sir... get a cookie. ^_^ *presents Super Special Awesome cookie*

 

[Sliq]

Sliq, this thread is operating with the function that items will assumed to at the very least, be on low. You can't have an items standard with items set to off.

Fair enough. The lowest possible setting, and only "weapon" items. As in, items that change the moveset of the charcter. No throw items (as in you hit a and throw them; their only function is for throwing, then stuff happens).

 

[UltraDavidSRK]

About dragoon and fan, we on SRK have been testing items since the game came out in casuals and tournaments both on- and offline, and there's a consensus that dragoon isn't broken and a near-consensus that the fan is broken.

As you noted in your tournament write-up, the dragoon comes with a lot of interesting strategic play; it makes run-away less effective for as long as its pieces are in play, it creates games about when/whether to grab the pieces or when/whether to defend them from the opponent, and it makes positional games very important. But you guys aren't right about its effectiveness once assembled; I've noticed I can dodge it most of the time, and most of the people I've talked with have said the same thing. The reason is that the person who's trying to dodge is really the one on point. Both players have to anticipate what the other is going to do, but the dodging player can bait the shooting player into shooting at the wrong time by dodging, rolling, jumping, and whatever else. The shooting player doesn't really have this, he just sort of has to wait there trying to predict or react. People with the very best reactions can react to the end of a dodge or a roll sometimes, but that's hard, and while we all might get better at that eventually, I don't think that's too likely. In any case, right now dragoon seems to bring in a lot of interesting strategy without being anything like a free kill.

Most of us have come to the conclusion that the fan is too dumb, though. You can actually DI out of it (by trying to go through the opponent to his back), but that's character- and location-dependent, so oftentimes you can't. Even where you can, it's almost always a free 100% whenever you get close to an opponent with a fan, and because the fan lets its user keep most of his mobility and movelist, it can be kept for an entire match without impeding its user's ability to get close to you. I think you're right about this when you say that the risk/reward ratio is totally off. I'd ban it. Some of us still want the fan to be in as a counterweight to other really strong items like curry, starman, and heart, but frankly I want those off anyway, so I don't think that's a very good argument.

Edit: Just wondering, but why were smash balls turned off for this tournament? And on the tourney page you say that Hanenbow and Lylat are laggy and slow things down; what do you mean by that?

 

[Jack Kieser]

It's awesome to see someone from SRK in here joining in on the discussion; I have been kicking around the idea of joining the boards there and sharing the information I've gathered with the community there.

It's interesting you would say what you did about the Dragoon, because half of the people I talk to echo your sentiment, while the other half say what I referred to in the tournament write-up. It's very interesting how polarizing the Dragoon is as an item. Personally, I agree with you, but as it stands now, not many people have enough experience with the Dragoon to bait an attack effectively (which one would think is counter-intuitive to such a mindgame-based series like Smash). Really, it could go either way at this point, and I have a feeling that the Dragoon will be one of those items that individual tournaments end up deviating from the standard a lot because, regardless of what we end up deciding.

As for Smash Balls, we've had them disabled in 1v1 for a while now. There are a lot of reasons for it, but ultimately the reason I decided to disable them for the tournament was to be able to focus on the rest of the items in more detail; we'll be discussing Smash Ball for a long time, so we aren't really rushed to make a final decision on them yet. As for the lag thing, I made the stage decisions based off of my experience with certain stages online; my net connection is pretty decent, so I figured if I frequently lag on any given stage, I can expect someone with a larger distance or a less decent connection will lag, too. Nothing concrete there; stages weren't as important to watch as items were, and it turned out well anyway.

 

[Jack Kieser]

Here, after much procrastination, are the results from one of my live 1v1 tests. Luckily, my close friend and fellow Smasher, Irish, was willing to be a guinea pig and face me in two ten match sets. Here are the results.

--------------
1v1 Test Set
--------------

GLOBAL VARIABLES

Number of Matches Per Set: 10

Characters Used: Toon Link (Phaze) and Ike (Irish)

Stage: Final Destination

Rules: 3:00, No Stock

Item Rate: Low

Items Disabled (for ITEM SET): (Smash Balls) (Assist Trophy) (Pokeballs) (Containers) (Blast Box) (Maxim Tomato) (Heart Container) (Superspicy Curry) (Bomb-omb) (Smart Bomb) (Deku Nut)

---------------------
Control Set Results
---------------------

Phaze Total Wins = 8 out of 10
Wins in Sudden Death = 1
Kill Count = 26

Irish Total Wins = 2 out of 10
Wins in Sudden Death = 2
Kill Count = 17

--------------------
ITEM SET RESULTS
--------------------

Phaze Total Wins = 8 out of 10
Wins in Sudden Death = 0
Itemless Kill Count = 20
Item Kill Count = 7

Irish Total Wins = 2 out of 10
Wins in Sudden Death = 0
Itemless Kill Count = 12
Item Kill Count = 2

--------------------------
1v1 TEST CONCLUSIONS
--------------------------

This was my first human trial in my own proprietary test format; as such, I wasn't sure if my format would hold up to be an accurate test of the difference in skill like it was for CPU fights, but it seems that my worries were quite unfounded. I discussed the results of the test with Irish afterwards and even he voiced that the numerical results from the test quite soundly showed a difference in skill, and that the difference in skill carried over from the control set into the item set with almost exact precision. I had hoped that our first live test would be between two humans playing the same character, but unfortunately there are no characters that overlap between Irish any my own mains, and so we were forced to do the test with differing characters; looking at the results, I don't think the results were skewed because of it.

The set of items that we used was the same set used for the 'ISP' project's first online tournament; I did this three days before the tournament was to be hosted as a test to see if there were any glaring balance issues, and I have to say that this test echoed the results from the tournament exactly; only the Dragoon and the Fan had any glaringly exploitable strategies involved. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find any footage to capture that illustrated clearly the effect of items on our matches, which could be good or bad; scientifically, I would have liked to get some footage, but none of the items (excluding the above mentioned) had enough of an effect on the course of battle to be considered important.

There was a clear preservation of skill between the control and test sets which parroted all of our previous tests. It would seem that, barring extreme circumstances, item play can and does support a test of skill between two players, as the number of matches won carried over from the control to the test set, while the overall kill rates for both players stayed relatively the same (with minor fluctuations). As a Toon Link player, manipulation of projectiles is a key skill, but Irish was able to counter Toon Link's native projectiles with ones provided by the game, a welcome addition to Ike's arsenal. It should be noted that I attempted (with a certain amount of proficiency in the control set) to play as campy a Toon Link as I could to echo the sentiments of many players on SWF worried about Brawl's overly defensive nature, and as such abused Toon Link's projectiles as much as possible; it should be noted that in the control set, Sudden Death was reached twice (and thus, stalemates were occurring), but it was very difficult to be so overly-campy in the item set; Ike being able to have access to projectiles of his own forced my hand and made us both engage more often, and as a result we had no Sudden Deaths in the item set. I find this to be in support of items in general (as well as specialized) tournament play, if only to force more varied playing styles.

Overall, I found this test to be very successful, as it proved a number of things including the accuracy of my testing format and the effect item play has on inherent turtling/camping strategies. I hope to do many more of these tests in the future; I am rather sure that they will be just as fruitful as this one was.

 

[Twin Dreams]

Don't base test results off single trials.




And about the SRK member talking about the Dragoon. All the you have to do is wait for the opponent to roll, airdodge, etc. As soon as they do, you can hit them in the lag and kill them. If they mess up once, it's a free kill for you. So, that doesn't work.

 

[Jack Kieser]

I'm not sure what you mean by 'single trials', unless you were talking about the tournament test; all of the tests that I have personally conducted have been, at minimum, 20 matches in a row. I don't think any of the tests, except the tournament (in which it's hard to do something in the style of my other tests), were done with a single trial.

Unless I'm just misinterpreting your meaning, in which case, please elaborate.

 

[UltraDavidSRK]

And about the SRK member talking about the Dragoon. All the you have to do is wait for the opponent to roll, airdodge, etc. As soon as they do, you can hit them in the lag and kill them. If they mess up once, it's a free kill for you. So, that doesn't work.

If you can do that on reaction, you can react and aim way faster and way better than anyone I've met so far, to the point that I pretty much don't believe you can do it consistently. I'd love to see video if you can, but my own experience says that humans just can't do that kind of thing yet. If you can, congrats, and if more people learn how to, then maybe we'll rethink dragoon. But even if it becomes an item that usually results in a kill, I still don't think it's broken and I still think it has beneficial effects for strategy.

About the test set, I agree that it's hard to make real conclusions on one set of 10 matches, but we've pretty much noticed the same things you have. With most items and stages, the better player still wins at about the same rate as he does with no items and few stages. The reason why some people have found that results with items are less consistent, we think, is that they just aren't familiar with the various characteristics of items and with the skills and strategies that come with them; if they learned all that stuff, they'd find that getting randomed out is about as rare as it is with no items.

And items, especially dangerous items that have to be fought over like smash ball and dragoon, make running away a much less effective strategy. All items do this to at least some extent in that because you don't know where the next item will spawn you have an incentive to always control as much of the stage as possible, and you can't do that as effectively if you're "camping" or running away. Smash ball and dragoon are particularly good for this, since if one of those spawns, both players have to make sure they pick up that item or else they risk losing a stock, and the chances are very small that any item will spawn in the smaller area of the stage controlled by the camping player. Even if it does, in the case of dragoon that one spawn is just the beginning, and in the case of smash ball, if the ball spawns in the camping player's area, it'll move around and force both players to either chase after it or stop the opponent from chasing after it.

And yeah, items can be great for balance, although they can also be bad. Some characters are much better at controlling and breaking smash balls, for example. And because some characters are naturally better at controlling space, chances are they'll control most of the spawns of individual immediate-grab items. But if, for example, a Ganon picks up an item, he immediately becomes a much better character. So yeah, there are tradeoffs here, but I think items have pretty interesting effects on balance.

 

[Dark Sonic]

If you can do that on reaction, you can react and aim way faster and way better than anyone I've met so far, to the point that I pretty much don't believe you can do it consistently. I'd love to see video if you can, but my own experience says that humans just can't do that kind of thing yet.

Reacting to a roll is not that dificult. It's just a matter of knowing how far that character's roll goes. Reacting to a spotdodge is also not that hard because you don't have to aim, only time the attack. Airdodging seems like it would be the most effective, and it is indeed hard to react to an airdodge and aim consistantly, but it can be feasibly done, in the same sense that you can time powershields in melee, dispite it being a very small window. All dodges give you plenty of time to react, so the window of vulnerability being small is not as important as you would think. You react to the dodge to aim, and then it's just a matter of waiting for the dodge to end.

I'm not going to go into the whole "no items" debate here, as it would be counter productive. I just wanted to dispute the idea that aiming with the dragoon is "too hard."

 

[UltraDavidSRK]

Hey, if you can do that, that's cool, but I know I can't and most people I've talked with can't do it either. Are you talking about theory, or you talking about real experience here? Remember, it's not like someone says, Ok, I'm gonna dodge, heads up, here it comes! The dodging person is trying to trick you into shooting, he's trying to bait you, so the dodging/rolling situation is going to come as randomly or at as inopportune a time as the dodging player can make it. Can you respond to the presence of a situation and then to its result that fast? Again, I can't and most people I've asked can't either, and it'll take some actual video to make me change my mind on that. I don't think my reactions and the reactions of my friend are so much poorer than those of most other people.

 

[Dark Sonic]

Hey, if you can do that, that's cool, but I know I can't and most people I've talked with can't do it either. Are you talking about theory, or you talking about real experience here? Remember, it's not like someone says, Ok, I'm gonna dodge, heads up, here it comes! The dodging person is trying to trick you into shooting, he's trying to bait you, so the dodging/rolling situation is going to come as randomly or at as inopportune a time as the dodging player can make it. Can you respond to the presence of a situation and then to its result that fast? Again, I can't and most people I've asked can't either, and it'll take some actual video to make me change my mind on that. I don't think my reactions and the reactions of my friend are so much poorer than those of most other people.

I'm talking about real experience. A roll is very easy to catch, and you have to remember that I'm specifically looking for a dodge here. I'm not going to fire it until I actually see you dodge (or do an attack if I catch it in time), so I'm going to be specifically looking for Rolls, sidesteps and airdodges. In the air you'd only have airdodges, and on the ground you'd only have rolls (which is extremely easy to catch, though hard to aim at) and spot dodges (which is really easy to aim at, just more dificult to time).

Maybe you just weren't actively looking for a roll or spotdodge. It's the same thing as Captain Falcon players looking for people to miss attacks so that he can approach. It's not that hard to react to something that you know is eventually comming. You will spotdodge or roll, the only question is when.

I admit aiming is very hard the first couple of times, but I'm actually used to that kind of aiming system from other games.

 

[Jack Kieser]

There is something important to remember, though, that we're all not taking into account: you only have 5 seconds, tops, to fire. What Dark Sonic is saying is completely accurate, but what happens if the opponent doesn't roll or spotdodge? All someone has to do, theoretically speaking, is stay moving and unpredictable for 5 seconds and the Dragoon will fire on its own. Aiming the Dragoon is not, as far as my experience is concerned, as simple as saying 'it's easy to aim because the opponent will mess up' or 'it's incredibly hard to hit with'; personally, I think that the Dragoon's success or failure depends more on the two individuals playing the match than any other item.

 

[UltraDavidSRK]

Yeah, it's all about mindgames. I don't have to dodge or roll, I can run, walk, jump, fast fall, whatever, lots of stuff. And it's not incredibly hard to hit someone with dragoon, it's just that in my experience and the experience of the other people I've played and talked with, its success rate is less than 50%. That's still really good because it's a free chance at taking off a stock, but even though it doesn't seem immediately obvious the dodging player has the advantage in the situation. The dodging player has a lot of different tactics he can use to make the shooting player miss, while the shooting player relies his predictive ability and his reactions; he doesn't have anything to cause the dodging player to dodge etc in a way and at a time that'd be bad for him. Obviously it can go either way in any particular instance, especially when one player understands the guessing game and the other doesn't, but in general I think the dodging player has a slight advantage.

 

[Dark Sonic]

I suppose that if the dodging player is close in skill to the shooting player, he has a good chance of dodging it. My experience in hitting with it has mostly been on players who think that rolling or spotdodging are effective ways to dodge it, when really they're not.

And I would never go as far to say as the dodging player has the advantage. If he messes up, he dies. If the shooter messes up, nothing happens and they go back to fighting. To me, it seems like there's zero risk in getting the dragoon, and it's always the best option. Therefore, the shooter is the one with the advantage.

 

[Jack Kieser]

I think what David means is that once the Dragoon is activated (but before the Dragoon is fired), the dodging player has a situational 'advantage'. He has more control over the situation than the shooter does because the shooter is forced to play a waiting game, only able to react to what the dodger is doing. Sure, you can 'pressure' in a way with the cursor, but it is slow and inaccurate, so it is much easier for the dodger to fake out the shooter than for the shooter to fake out the dodger.

 

[UltraDavidSRK]

I think what David means is that once the Dragoon is activated (but before the Dragoon is fired), the dodging player has a situational 'advantage'. He has more control over the situation than the shooter does because the shooter is forced to play a waiting game, only able to react to what the dodger is doing. Sure, you can 'pressure' in a way with the cursor, but it is slow and inaccurate, so it is much easier for the dodger to fake out the shooter than for the shooter to fake out the dodger.

Yep, pretty much. Of course it's better to have the shooting position because while shooting you have zero risk and a very high reward whereas the dodging position sucks because you have pretty high risk (a 40% chance of losing a stock is still a lot of risk) and no reward. This is why getting the dragoon is still really important and why it leads to interesting strategy and an interesting impact on what kinds of strategies are effective, cause you still gotta make sure you get the dragoon. But once the dragoon is set up, yeah, Jack summarized what happens pretty well. The dodging player can force the shooting player to react, but the shooting player can't really do the same. The shooting player puts constant pressure on the dodging player, but he doesn't really have anything to force a specific action at a time that's bad for the dodging player, while the dodging player does.

 

[Scamp]

Sounds like more people need to play the "Dragoon game."

Grab a friend. Go to training mode. Set the dummy to "control." Alternate grabbing the three dragoon parts. Best of 10 tries wins. It's kind of like a free-throw or three point competition in basketball. Put some money on it to make it REALLY interesting.

And if you play on a stage where you could possibly live even if hit by the Dragoon, even if you survive the hit it still counts.

 

[Twin Dreams]

The point here is.



1.) The dragoon can unfairly spawn for a free kill for one player.
2.) The losing-the-dragoon-on-spawn feature can cause an instant double kill.




You're assuming that the avoider has infinite skill to get away. However, what happens if a dragoon user of infinite skill uses the item on an avoider of infinite skill? My prediction: The avoider is killed by the dragoon.

1. The camera auto homes in on the avoider.
2. The cross hairs are faster than characters


The avoider will have to be constantly moving around and trying dodge something faster than him. If he does ANYTHING that causes lag, it can result in his death.

 

[UltraDavidSRK]

I'm not assuming infinite anything, I'm assuming equal skill for both players. Heck, I'm not even assuming that, I'm talking about real-life experience with me and my more-or-less equally skilled friends. For us and for most other people I've talked with who've really tried dragoon out, the success rate of a dragoon shot is less than 50%. Even if for you it's above 50%, it's definitely not 67%, and it's definitely definitely not 100%. Scamp's right, you should try playing the dragoon game.

Also, about this double kill thing... that's not a double kill. A double kill is where a Fox player turns into the landmaster, kills the opponent, and then on respawn jumps up underneath the opponent until the opponent is lifted out of the playing area and killed (which is escapable and only works on people who don't know how to get out of it). This dragoon situation is not like this. What you're talking about is that someone gets killed by their opponent, and then they get killed with dragoon when they respawn. Why is this a problem? It's like, why'd you get killed, and then why'd you get hit with dragoon? Both of those situations were avoidable

And the dragoon pieces basically never spawn such that one player gets a free dragoon. Have you ever seen this happen? I don't even know how it could happen; you'd have to be controlling just the right spots on stage at just the right moments to pick up the pieces, and you'd also have to not get hit during that whole time.

 

[Twin Dreams]

And the dragoon pieces basically never spawn such that one player gets a free dragoon. Have you ever seen this happen? I don't even know how it could happen; you'd have to be controlling just the right spots on stage at just the right moments to pick up the pieces, and you'd also have to not get hit during that whole time.

So, you agree, that it is possible that if you were in the right places at the right time, they'd spawn on you and you'd get them unfairly?



Also, whenever dragoon items start spawning, it stops all other items from spawning. (or so I hear)

 

[UltraDavidSRK]

I agree that if you were in the right place at the right time for each spawn of the three pieces that you'd get the dragoon, but not that you'd get the dragoon unfairly. You'd have to not get hit for that entire period of time, and if you're playing with items on low or medium that period of time is pretty long, up to a minute. If your opponent is so inept as to both let you control most of the space on stage and not even hit you for an entire minute, then what's unfair about you getting the dragoon? Other than the fact that you're clearly playing a blind man, which is really the only situation where this is possible. No opponent of any even semi-reasonable skill level is going to go an entire minute without hitting you. And because item spawning occurs in random locations, it's very unlikely that one player will control the spawning point each time. So, it's possible but extremely unlikely for one player to get three straight dragoon pieces unchallenged, and even in that situation it's hardly unfair.

And yeah, once a dragoon piece drops, only dragoon pieces can spawn until someone assembles the whole thing.

 

[Jack Kieser]

Hey all. I wanted to post this here because I think it was a very well-written and VERY insightful look into what the project here is doing and its relation to the entire community as a whole. It is a very non-partisan piece, and I think everyone involved in the debate (active project members or not) can appreciate and learn from it.

You can find the post in its entirety here.

Please take some time to read it; I really think that, as a community project, everyone's voice should matter, not just a select few, and not just those of us who will actively participate. Ultimately, regardless of how we play, we're all Smashers at the end of the day, and we should all strive to support each other's ventures, whatever they may be.

 

[Aesir]

Why don't you I dunno host an item tourney? I think items aren't viable for tourneys for the simple reason results become very much a cluster ****.

out of 10 matches w/o items there was a clear winner and it was easy to determine who was the better player. However when we tried it with items on, it was hard to tell, so many other variables you couldn't really distinguish if it was skill or just a random factor.

anyway just host item tourneys, you probably won't get a lot of people at first, but if it really starts to take off you might grab some big names and ****.

 

[Yeroc]

That's exactly what they're trying to do, yet people still come in here trying to preach their opinions on them... ¬_¬

 

[Aesir]

Then someone needs to step it up host a an all item brawl tourney and go from there, make sure you try to attract legitimate brawl players and the losers who sit in their basement and ****.

 

[Jack Kieser]

We're working on it, Aesir, trust me.

 

[Shining Blitz]

I'd like a front-page explination of anny non-item-or-stage-related rule changes in ISP. I, after first hosting a standard tourney to gain some respectability, as well as some Control set data, plan to host one. I did play a few 1v1 and 1v1v1 ISP-style matches on Norfair yesterday, and although I forgot to turn off Cracker and Bom-mbs, they spawned mayby twice each over 3 4-stock matches, and none of them killed anyone.

 

[Yuna]

Stop... arguing... about... the... friggin'... dragoon!

It activates on one frame. Airdodges, spotdodges and rolls do not. Hence, it is impossible to dodge it every single time unless you're psychic. Dragoons cannot and will not be allowed no matter how you whine.

Shining Blitz: Congrats, Bob-bombs didn't spawn that often for you and your friends. Congratz that they never spawned so they killed people. What about the times when they spawn much more often and actually kill people on spawn?

I agree that if you were in the right place at the right time for each spawn of the three pieces that you'd get the dragoon, but not that you'd get the dragoon unfairly.

Yes you would if all three times they happened to spawn next to you.

You'd have to not get hit for that entire period of time, and if you're playing with items on low or medium that period of time is pretty long, up to a minute.

No, if you're behind by even one stock, the game will favour you when it comes to dropping items (all items). It's the most noticable with the Dragoon. You'd have to get hit several times more than your opponent to drop a Dragoon piece.

It's possible for someone who's behind to jab a dragoon piece out of someone who's ahead. The person ahead might not even get a Dragoon piece out of a person by Smashing them... twice.

If your opponent is so inept as to both let you control most of the space on stage and not even hit you for an entire minute, then what's unfair about you getting the dragoon?

Because of how it friggin works once you've assembled it. It's a pretty guaranteed stock.

And yeah, once a dragoon piece drops, only dragoon pieces can spawn until someone assembles the whole thing.

And here you defeat yourself. Yes, once a single Dragoon Piece spawns, for a majority of the time, the only items that will spawn until the Dragoon has been completed will be Dragoon Pieces.

This pretty much guarantees a finished Dragoon as soon as one of the pieces spawn, which means that one a Dragoon Piece spawns, at one time or another during that match, the Dragoon will be completed, unless, of course, the match ends before that.

This means that it's a guaranteed almost-guaranteed 1-stock One Hit KO which activates on one frame, which makes it impossible to evade on reaction or by skill alone (except if you count clairvoyance as a skill).

You don't have to run around and collect all 3 at once. You just have to collect all three at one point in time or another.

X player is ahead by 2 stock, Y player hence has a great advantage when it comes to how hard they have to be hit to drop the Dragoon Pieces. They get smashed around a lot but don't drop a single piece, they hold 2 pieces for the longest time. X player gets KO:ed. Right when he respawns and is too far away to grab the last Dragoon piece, Y player collects the final piece. OHKO, now it's even.

Fair? Maybe in your delusional and illogical eyes.

 

[Shining Blitz]

That's not what I meant; I agree that the Bomb-mbs, cracker Launcher, and Dragoon should all be banned; I was just reporting the results. Also, Yuna, thank you for being so supportive. To be honest, based on your other posts, particurally regarding the infinite grab on Ness, I did not think you would be so open-minded.

 

[memphischains]

/subscribed

 

[Jack Kieser]

People... we have a standard! I updated the news post on the first page with all of the details, including the full banned/allowed item list, bracket and match proceedings and rules, and a list of our current stage lists (neutral, CP, banned). Expect the stages to change when the SBR releases their official stage lists later.

A BIG thanks to everyone who helped to make this possible. Now get out there and host/play some item tournaments!

 

[Yuna]

That's not what I meant; I agree that the Bomb-mbs, cracker Launcher, and Dragoon should all be banned; I was just reporting the results. Also, Yuna, thank you for being so supportive. To be honest, based on your other posts, particurally regarding the infinite grab on Ness, I did not think you would be so open-minded.

I have nothing against people trying out their own thing. For one thing, it'll lessen the whine on us to make items-on a new standard. In fact, before Jack even created the ISP, I frequently told people to go host their own items-on tournaments if they wanted them so badly.

Why is the Spring allowed? There's a glitch which allows several characters to stay virtually if not entirely invincible while it's out while simultaneously being able to spam attacks (some of these projectiles). This means that while the spring is out, you cannot do anything but try to dodge said attacks.

 

[-Linko-]

I have nothing against people trying out their own thing. For one thing, it'll lessen the whine on us to make items-on a new standard. In fact, before Jack even created the ISP, I frequently told people to go host their own items-on tournaments if they wanted them so badly.

Why is the Spring allowed? There's a glitch which allows several characters to stay virtually if not entirely invincible while it's out while simultaneously being able to spam attacks (some of these projectiles). This means that while the spring is out, you cannot do anything but try to dodge said attacks...

...or exploit the same glitch.

Anyways, Yuna, have you tried to send Wizard (That EVO guy that decided their ******** ruleset) a link to this thread? Maybe then he will change his opinion on Smash Balls.

 

[Yuna]

...or exploit the same glitch.

Not everyone has moves with invincibility frames. Not everyone can exploit ithe spring sufficiently. Also, what if the spring spawns next to the ledge, making it impossible to stand on the other side of the spring? Excuse me while I spam triple Din's Fire at you.

Anyways, Yuna, have you tried to send Wizard (That EVO guy that decided their ******** ruleset) a link to this thread? Maybe then he will change his opinion on Smash Balls.

We've tried a lot of things. He's not listening.

 

[memphischains]

do you guys know about the green shell thing

 

[Endless Nightmares]

Me vs Keits. lol smash balls

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Dphjdbev1SI

 

[Jack Kieser]

Alright guys, now that our first official 'ISP' tournament has been concluded, it's time to reflect on how things went and see how our standard holds up to scrutiny. Without further ado, here's my...

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1v1 ITEM TOURNAMENT WRITE-UP
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GLOBAL VARIABLES:
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Testing Format Includes -

Double Elimination
Sets of 3, Finals Sets of 5, Grand Finals set of 11
3-stock, 7 minute Matches

Items In Effect Include -

(Sandbag) (Food) (Warp Star) (Metal Box) (Bunny Hood) (Timer) (Beam Sword) (Home-Run Bat) (Lip’s Stick) (Star Rod) (Hammer) (Super Scope) (Ray Gun) (Fire Flower) (Motion Sensor Bomb) (Gooey Bomb) (Freezie) (Smoke Ball) (Pitfall) (Hothead) (Mr. Saturn) (Green Shell) (Banana Peel) (Spring) (Franklin Badge) (Screw Attack)

Stages In Effect Include -

Stages Used Listed Here

Number of Combatants -

35

Testing Results -

Testing Results Listed Here

-------------------------
CONCLUSIONS / WRITE-UP:
-------------------------

When I reflect on how this tournament went, the first word that comes to mind is 'surprising'. The entire event was one surprise after another (at least as the one organizing it), almost all of them good. I feel that based on the turnout and the response given by the Smashers in attendance, as well as the (relative) smoothness of how the bracket ran, that this tournament, as well as our first draft of an item standard, was a great success.

For this tournament, we used the v2.0 item ban list that was created in our thread in Brawl Tactical. Overall, it seemed that this list was very fair and balanced; not one of the 35 competitors complained about a match being decided unfairly or about the general outcome of the bracket; most, if not all, were in agreement that the best man won each set with only slight variance towards the higher echelon of combatants (which is to be expected when two fighters of near-equal skill are pitted against one another).

As far as individual items were concerned, it was easy to discern what items players were concerned about due to Twin Dream's item counterpick system, which was in place at the tournament. Interestingly enough, most sets played with the same item list in effect, that is to say with the Timer and Hammer disabled (and no other changes). Most fighters were very concerned about having to deal with these two items, although it seemed that the fighters concerned with only those two items were usually people who were either against item play in general or were not accustomed to playing with items; in fact, out of the few matches that included these two items, few kills resulted from their use (many of the more item-experienced players under the Timer's effect were able to stay their opponent's hand long enough to allow the effect to wear off, whereas the Hammer was actually easily dodged if one kept a steady head). I attribute this to a general lack of knowledge by the general player base of how items work and how items affect each character (for instance, seeing Link players opt out of disabling the 'Franklin Badge' item).

What I found the most surprising was the number of people who came up to me to confess that they had previously despised item play in general (or at least strongly disliked it), but had changed their minds after playing with our ruleset. I think that is a testament to the fairness and balance of our rules and item bans. There were small problems throughout the day, naturally, but many of them were more administrative in nature, for instance not having enough TVs for Friendlies, which resulted in a few botched sets due to people changing item settings (however, I put the players at just as much responsibility, as due to the counterpick system being in place I had tried to assert that rule settings MUST be checked before the start of every set; this obviously didn't happen). We are still waiting for an official ruling for stage legality by the SBR, which resulted in our stage list (lifted from another website) causing a few problems (Dedede on Shadow Moses). All in all, though, the actual items and the work done in this thread and other 'ISP' threads caused very few problems; things went very smoothly, all considering.

My final analysis: our first draft is a great success. As fair and balanced as any item ruleset/ban list I've ever seen in my time as a competitive Smasher, we should all be proud of ourselves for making a style of play that has been seen as inherently inferior for a while now actually work in a competitive setting. We'll continue our work by improving the ruleset we have now for 1v1... and continuing on to make our 2v2 ruleset. I'll be posting somewhere on SWF shortly to facilitate discussion of a item ban list for use in 2v2 fights.