.:: Official Online Discussion ::.

[Vaztor]

I didnt' actually read through any posts except the first post, but I just thought I'd point out some things in the Topic Creators post.

Both of these two things are actually bad news. One is that there will be no online player ranking system. The other is that they are currently having problems making four player online play possible.

1. No Ranking System is not a BAD thing. I personally think Smash Brothers isn't meant to be how well you stack up against somebody, but rather how much fun you could possibly have. Without a ranking system, this will reduce the amount of disconnectors worried about their precious little record. (Good Example: Mario Kart DS, Metroid Prime Hunters, and basically all the Wi-Fi games out right now). Also, it will allow the game to be played the way it's meant to be played

2. Problems with having four players, has been said about Mario Kart, and Metroid Prime Hunters, but they made it through all right. I have absolutely no worries for Brawl. If you have seen the capabilities of MPH on the DS, I think you'd understand. Besides, Sakurai states that the sole purpose of the creation of this game is Wi-Fi. They won't ditch us with some cheapass minigame.

There may be some other issues with making ssbb online. For instance, if someone hasn't unlocked secret characters or stages, will they be able to play agianst someone who has unlocked secret characters or stages? Maybe they should just allow all the characters and stages to be unlocked from the start, wouldn't you think?

No. The player has to unlock what they don't have. If they play against somebody they haven't unlocked, thats no big deal. Stage Selection could be a poll. Etc. Have you played any of the DS Wi-Fi games?

Another problem they may have with online mode is glitching. There has been glitching in ssbm, and theres no doubt in my mind ssbb will have a few glitches. So, what if there's a glitch in ssbb? If there are glitches that would suck, but hopefully they can patch the game to fix these glitches?

I can somewhat agree, but a good player should be able to win even with glitches.

So like I said above, Wi-Fi for Brawl is one of the main reasons the game is being made. I really have no worries for it :D

 

[hellsoldierx15]

I completly agree with Vaztor.

But one thing that is bugging me about the online play is that if you play actual people rather than computer players, then you will get better, right? Thats how the pros do it, with experience and playing other people. Well, if everyone plays online against eachother, then everyone will become great and then they will be pro. Then everyone is gunna be at MLG events and owning people left and right. Maybe or maybe not. I dont know. But thats how I see it. So with enough practice online, you can potential become a king of smash to others. Not a bad idea if you ask me

 

[Paranoid_Android]

You should not need to unlock all characters before taking SSBB online. This just makes a completely arbitrary barrier between having some fun with 1 player, and having rediculous amounts of fun with WiFi. Personally, I'm going to take the game online as soon as possible and test out new characters against real opponents and then work on unlocking them during the times when I either can't find someone, or am itching to play someone new (who I probably faced in multiplayer).

 

[pdogg84]

I don't know if this is old, but I found this:
http://www.opera.com/products/devices/

PS: I use the internet browser so I was curious!

Opera, How in the hellz did that f^cking **** happen

Them *******$, F^ck 'em all to hell so they can screw their moms and give her head

 

[Jiikae]

No ranks equals= no evil glitch domination. It's been said many times. That's why I like sites that make their own ladders with tourneys and stuff.

 

[Vaztor]

I completly agree with Vaztor.

But one thing that is bugging me about the online play is that if you play actual people rather than computer players, then you will get better, right? Thats how the pros do it, with experience and playing other people. Well, if everyone plays online against eachother, then everyone will become great and then they will be pro. Then everyone is gunna be at MLG events and owning people left and right. Maybe or maybe not. I dont know. But thats how I see it. So with enough practice online, you can potential become a king of smash to others. Not a bad idea if you ask me

Well... some people just plain suck.

But seriously, not all people play the same. Every person has a different playstyle.
Trust me, everybody will NOT be a pro. THere will be plenty of noobs roaming on Wi-Fi for a LONG time.

 

[NintendoWarrior]

Well they could have 2 rooms online. One for those who have unlocked secret stuff and one for those who haven't yet.

 

[Big_Bag]

the online service should be something like gunbound, if you know what i mean. look it up.

 

[nuro]

I completly agree with Vaztor.

But one thing that is bugging me about the online play is that if you play actual people rather than computer players, then you will get better, right? Thats how the pros do it, with experience and playing other people. Well, if everyone plays online against eachother, then everyone will become great and then they will be pro. Then everyone is gunna be at MLG events and owning people left and right. Maybe or maybe not. I dont know. But thats how I see it. So with enough practice online, you can potential become a king of smash to others. Not a bad idea if you ask me

You do make a good point. There will be plenty more good players online. Not everyone will be pro but a lot of people will be. Most of the pros now consistently play with other pros which is why they are amazing. Noobs will still be around for a while. But a lot of the pros we know now may not be pros at ssbb because of the online play. And I dont think MLG will be filled with pros. Look at Halo, it survives.

 

[hellsoldierx15]

Oh yea, noobs will still be wandering around on the Wii looking for experience....I dont doubt that at all. Hopefully through Wi-Fi, SSBB should be given huge exposure and will end up at MLG.
Thats why I hope Nintendo goes through with it.

 

[Proteus]

Ranking system:

I dunno if anyone here has played Warcraft 3 online over battle.net, but I think a system like that could work well for SSBB. Basically there are two parts to online play, the ranked part and the custom play part.

In the ranked part, people would play against each in random match-ups in either 1v.1, 2v.2, or FFA. Player ranking would be determined by win-loss ratio and quality of competition (if most of your losses are to high ranking people, you won't fall much). You would only play against people or teams at or near your level. For example, if you happen to be level 9, you could be matched against anywhere from a level 7 to a level 11. That way you could still play people better than you, but not be overwhelmed. Plus, the random matchups would ensure that you get to play against a variety of people, hopefully letting you see a lot of unique playstyles.

For unlocks, I think players should be able to choose from whichever characters they have unlocked, so you could end up playing against a character you've never seen before. For stages, I think players should agree on a stage or choose random, which would select any stage unlocked by both players.

Outside of the ranked system, there should be a section for custom games. This is where people could get together with friends or join a game with rules different from the ranked ruleset. You could choose to either host a game or join one on a server list.

 

[AttackstorM]

ranking
miyamoto should force Sakurai to implement a rank system into the game. I think this would be a good marketing descision. I am very competitive and I want to use a ranking system to be able to compete in some way. these systems also make the games life longer because far after a person has unlocked everything in the game they still have something to strive for likegetting top 1000 on the world leader boards.

unlocking
I think whover hosts should be able to select the stage he unlocked or character he unlocked and if he plays a person that hasnt unlocked the stage yet that person should be able to see the hosts character or stage for the duration of time he plays against the host...but when that host disconects the characters and stages not unlocked still will not be available until the person finds another host or unlocks them himself.

lag
i think it is a myth that lag would hurt precise movement. if u think about both players are still synced anyway no matter how much lag. The only thing lag really does is make the game speed slower just like changing from melee to slow melee but probly not nearly as bad.

 

[Vaztor]

unlocking
I think whover hosts should be able to select the stage he unlocked or character he unlocked and if he plays a person that hasnt unlocked the stage yet that person should be able to see the hosts character or stage for the duration of time he plays against the host...but when that host disconects the characters and stages not unlocked still will not be available until the person finds another host or unlocks them himself.

This is also a good idea, but what about random online battles (if of course this function is still kept) I think the voting system based on the stages you have works better.

lag
i think it is a myth that lag would hurt precise movement. if u think about both players are still synced anyway no matter how much lag. The only thing lag really does is make the game speed slower just like changing from melee to slow melee but probly not nearly as bad.

Oh yea I forgot about that. Well from what I remember, The Nintendo Wii is using BlueTooth, which I hear is going to make it virtually lag free. I don't recall where I read this, but with this service, I don't think lag will be much of a problem. Also with the speed slowed down, this could reduce lag also.

 

[AttackstorM]

for choosing an opponent randomly, games ussually have a preset set of stages that it chooses a stage out of for you. in some games u can choose what stages u want in the set then it will search for another player that picked the same stage to be on their search peferences. so for random battles the ppl that have not unlocked a certain stage should not be able to select this stage to be in their search preferences so the search will not match them up with someone with a stage that has not been unlocked.

 

[CaptainFalco30]

I just never want to worry about hearing some 11 year old spit cursewords because they can't win. Halo has sorta ruined my perception on online play.

 

[Zink]

That's a real big problem. I expect some kind of selective mute. Along with a block or something like a pest list.

 

[xianfeng]

I can't wait for online, My Brother doesn't want to play with me because he says he can never win, my sister falls asleep when I'm playing with her and my next door neighbour cries when he looses so online will be so totally awsome!

 

[Killer Tree]

The Nintendo team has NO IDEA what they are doing. They need to learn from Microsoft and have ranks and gamertags.

Also, Lag will not be a problem, I play online with 16 or more all the time. 4 people WILL NOT be a problem, especially in a fighting game where there is not much going on.

 

[Zink]

The Nintendo team has NO IDEA what they are doing. They need to learn from Microsoft and have ranks and gamertags.

Pish. Why rip off? I'm pretty sure they have some idea of what they're doing.

 

[hit0]

Because xbox live owns. Nintendo should be smart enough to learn from them.

 

[Red Exodus]

Nintendo should learn from Microsoft, after all, Microsoft has the best online community so far. Online could turn out to be a mess if they don't take the right steps.

 

[King_cobra3600]

As long as there is online with 4 characters, iam the happiest person alive.

 

[caboose1029]

I think the easiest way to solve the problem of cheaters and n00bs getting destroyed would be to include several different lobbies, like easy-level, medium-level, and pro-level. If you're man enough to go into the pro-level without being able to handle yourself, you'll just get owned, but you still have the option to step it down.

 

[Keige]

Amount of wins or multiple lobbies is all you need.

 

[Peppers]

I think the easiest way to solve the problem of cheaters and n00bs getting destroyed would be to include several different lobbies, like easy-level, medium-level, and pro-level. If you're man enough to go into the pro-level without being able to handle yourself, you'll just get owned, but you still have the option to step it down.

then again your gunna get these ******* who just like wooping begginers which will just annoy people so there should be a ranking to keep out players that have ahieved a rank so they can't go to say easy but can play up. There are many flaws to this idea that would need to be worked out but i personally think they should have 1 lobby per country where you can plae people by joining a game. There should be ranking to tell you people you are going up against.

BTW are you going to need to pay to play online???

 

[Nietendodude]

As long as it doesn't lag thats all I need!

 

[Keige]

BTW are you going to need to pay to play online???

Nope. It's free.

 

[Razgriz]

lag
i think it is a myth that lag would hurt precise movement. if u think about both players are still synced anyway no matter how much lag. The only thing lag really does is make the game speed slower just like changing from melee to slow melee but probly not nearly as bad.

I completely disagree that lag would not be detremental to gameplay. It can easily lag at a decisive moment, voiding the imputs of two players. Sure they both get lagged, but it can still change the outcome of a match, and incoporates luck into the game. For example, say you are about to execute a lethal blow, and your opponent slams down the shield button, but is a fraction of a second too late, but a spot of lag voids your command, and by the time you realize this and attempt a second attack, your opponent has succeeded in raising his shield. He blocks your attack, shieldgrabs, and combos you to your death. Any measure of lag would be horrible for online play.

 

[IcyFire!]

I think an online ranking system would be a good thing. i like how halo's is set up with the matchmaking with ranked and unranked games and I think it'd be cool if they set up something like that so if you play ranked you can start playing higher level people. In addition to this they could have lobbies where once your rank is a certain level you can go into them and such or you can just play unranked games with your friends for fun. Another halo-like idea would be to have different game-types for fun like random-mirror where you and your opponent get the same random character but that's just an idea.

As to only being able to go online once you've unlocked everything i think that's a horrible idea. I'm probably going to be playing online a lot but if you want to unlock the people to use online you need to not be lazy and go unlock them offline. If you get matched up with someone who has something you don't then tough you have to play them anyway and if you're good enough you'll win anyway because it was your choice to play online before unlocking the things. I'm not saying this to be negative to the people who will go online without unlocking things (like me) but if you don't want to unlock them there shouldn't be an easy way out for them to get the unlockables.

 

[Nefarious]

dunno if this has been said, but do you think the online will be in rooms? like "create room" "browse rooms". or do you think it will have a main chat room, and work by invites.

 

[darksatar]

i heard something that online for the wii will include the wifi adapter and that you can have up to 8 players?

 

[Burning Lava]

Did we already cover the topic of "DNFers?" (Did Not Finish)

There is nothing worse than playing a game for any extended period of time, even for just 4-5 minutes, and having your opponent quit on you. I know most smashers are pretty cool, but there will be A LOT of smashers online that won't be cool. We should come up with some sort of honor code or system to discourage DNFing. I hope there's a built in tracker that records if people quit a match, but I doubt we'll be so lucky. Maybe eventually we can start a thread or SWF based web page for people to report others who have DNFed them. Eventually, maybe those people can be avoided. (maybe not though)

That's just a quick idea, anything better you guys can think of? A solemn oath people can sign to become part of the "honorable brotherhood of finishers?" (And then they can be booted from the group if they are found to have too many DNFs.) Feedback/ideas please.

EDIT: On second thought, I think this is worthy enough to be it's own topic as this is a very specific thing only relating to online in the sense that DNFing is only an issue because of online. The official DNF thread can be found here:
http://smashboards.com/showthread.php?p=2429673#post2429673
(I also linked back to this thread from there for all online related discussion.)

 

[Sandy]

This is what i would like to see...bear with me.


TOURNAMENT MODE

Set up a tournament for up to 64 people, a la melee. It could be set to Friends List Only or Random Opponents, or Both if they wanna make people happy. Then, when a sufficient number of people have joined, the tourney begins. All the fights take place at once, each group of fighters on their own game.

When any match ends, the winner moves up the ladder, waiting for the corresponding match to end so that they can continue against the other winning fighter. Then, when it is down to the final two fighters(or teams?) everyone in the tournament could be given the choice to watch the match or leave. The winner of course wins and gets all the glory. I think it would make for a great tournament mode.

Think this could be pulled off?

 

[Red Exodus]

Yeah, they did it in melee [apart from the 'all matches occur at the same time' part] but they can probably get that done without that much effort. The idea about watching the match reminds me of my spectator mode idea, it wasn't original or anything [Halo's doing it, but I think it's be great for smash since the possibilities are endless and are often missed] but that doesn't mean it's not a decent idea.

 

[Youko]

I think that'd be an AWESOME idea, if they can pull it off. Ideally they should be able to, since it would primarily be a 1v1 match and not the 4p matches that they've said they've had issues with before. The only thing that would make it so much better is if those who got knocked out early got the choice to watch the other matches, instead of just having to quit. Now THAT would be sweet.

 

[pikachun00b7]

Do you know who's handling the lag? Sakurai, the godly developer. He created SSBM in a rush. And he and his team are working hard on the online feature. Do you think he overlooked lag? It won't be super hard to put Brawl online but the lag may be problem (he said something about a "leap") but he'll overcome it.

 

[Doggalina]

Okay, here's what I want out of online:

• A "Who's Online" list and an invite system for friends.
• A rivals system a la Hunters.
• Ranked matches, unranked matches (still against random people), and matches against friends/rivals.
• A ranking system like Strikers Charged. IIRC, this system makes DNFers lose more points than losers.
• Voice chat would be nice, but I don't see it happening.
• The option to choose the maximum amount of people that can join the match.

 

[Me14k]

/
There may be some other issues with making ssbb online. For instance, if someone hasn't unlocked secret characters or stages, will they be able to play agianst someone who has unlocked secret characters or stages?

Another problem they may have with online mode is glitching. There has been glitching in ssbm, and theres no doubt in my mind ssbb will have a few glitches. So, what if there's a glitch in ssbb? If there are glitches that would suck, but hopefully they can patch the game to fix these glitches?
\

Unlockables: look at any other game with unlockables.. the levels and characters are on the person's memory, right? They could still go to those levels and play against those characters, they just cant on their own system..OR.. they can only play games against people that are at levels they have (unlikely)

Glitching: There are glitches in all games, people learn how to deal with them. In melee and alike in most games, most glitches are very hard to pull off. I dont think glitche are going to be a problem.

The only big problem online will have is lag.

 

[Creo]

Okay, here's what I want out of online:

• A "Who's Online" list and an invite system for friends.
• A rivals system a la Hunters.
• Ranked matches, unranked matches (still against random people), and matches against friends/rivals.
• A ranking system like Strikers Charged. IIRC, this system makes DNFers lose more points than losers.
• Voice chat would be nice, but I don't see it happening.
• The option to choose the maximum amount of people that can join the match.

For the mic part(voice chat) I can see it happening. If I recall, MPH for DS had voice chat and I can see a mic or headset of somesort to come out for Wii. They definitely know about it and it would be better so they possibly could have it in consideration.

 

[Youko]

In my opinion, there's one very easy solution to the whole unlockables problem - make Online Mode a mode that is unlocked after all the characters and stages are unlocked. Everyone will have all the same characters and stages then and nobody deserves to have the secret characters spoiled to them online. Plus, this way, you in essence have a right of passage to play online and therefore must have SOME talent if you are able to beat the game. This might not be how it turns out in the final product, but it should be how it's done...

If you have a problem with this idea though, are you saying that you think you'll have difficulty unlocking all the characters and stages in a reasonable period of time? Seriously?