Post Apex 2015 thoughts

[Remioli]

What did you think of the Wii U tournament?

Surprised we didn't see any characters?

Did you think certain characters were really exciting or lame?

Who do you wish had won?

Whatever

 

[T0MMY]

Most of these questions don't sound like they should be in a "competitive discussion" thread.
But I'd like to say after Apex has ended that I hope everyone sees how scrubby the Mii limitation was and that this was a perfect example why vocal minority should never get out-of-game rules imposed in tournaments from sheer whining - especially since the game is so new, really now.
Still wondering how Mii Gunner, Swordsman, and Brawler would have placed and what the matchups would have looked like had they not been limited into oblivion.

 

[Wilyen]

i really really REALLY hate the "pick a top tier" mentality that ppl have when a new fighting game comes out. most fighting games tier list are no way near correct in the first 6 months, smash 4 is no different.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

I think it's a really good sign that we only saw two Diddies in top 8. In fact, top 8 was really varied - only two characters were repped more than once, and even then only twice. Diddy simply isn't the dominant force some people think he is - he's a potent, easy-to-use character, but unless you've got someone like Mew2King or ZeR0 piloting him (i.e. some of the best players in the world), you're not gonna reach the top. We also saw some really crazy ****. Remember when people thought Olimar was low tier? Yeah, Olimar beat one of the best Diddies in the world in losers quarters and it wasn't even close. We saw Rosalina. We saw Sonic. We saw mother****ing PacMan. We saw more than 8 characters in top 8. That's making a statement, right there.

Most of these questions don't sound like they should be in a "competitive discussion" thread.
But I'd like to say after Apex has ended that I hope everyone sees how scrubby the Mii limitation was and that this was a perfect example why vocal minority should never get out-of-game rules imposed in tournaments from sheer whining - especially since the game is so new, really now.
Still wondering how Mii Gunner, Swordsman, and Brawler would have placed and what the matchups would have looked like had they not been limited into oblivion.

Holy **** we actually agree on something. :D

 

[Raijinken]

Wanted to see more Robin, and was sad to see no Miis, but I can kinda understand not using them since they're kinda bad without customs.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Wanted to see more Robin, and was sad to see no Miis, but I can kinda understand not using them since they're kinda bad without customs.

Real talk, who uses Robin other than Nairo?

 

[Raijinken]

Real talk, who uses Robin other than Nairo?

That's what's so disappointing to me. =(

 

[Chiroz]

Real talk, who uses Robin other than Nairo?

Xzaz plays Robin extremely well, but I think he's given up a bit on the character because apparently Robin has a horrible matchup against Diddy and Xzaz lives with Zero and M2K.

 

[TheHypnotoad]

I'll be frank here: It was boring. Most of the matches weren't exciting at all, and all the matches with Dabuz nearly put me to sleep, he plays so campy. The only good set was Zero vs. Mew2king because they weren't taking it seriously at all.

 

[Twixer]

If only custom moves/landing lag reduce skills were more reliable. In the sense of it being easier to obtain all of them and whatnot.

Though I'm kinda speaking without much thought into it, since there isn't really anything I can think of specifically that would cause it to break Smash 4. I'm more than sure there's some stupidly broken custom skills and so on, but like I said, I'm speaking spontaneously.

I also feel like having the reduced landing lag skill on for all characters would make a good difference for campy games, since from what I can tell, not having a way to L cancel things really encourages people to stay at a distance until you're 100% sure you can land the hit.

I don't know. I think that's pretty much one of the very few options to give Smash a better edge in the competitive scene.

But to say my thoughts on Apex Smash 4 in general, early matches were pretty fun, but finals were pretty lack luster/long.

 

[Ulevo]

People keep mentioning how they were surprised and pleased that only two Diddy Kong's made it to top 8. Personally I find this very troubling, because this means that players outside of maybe Zero have yet to break him down and explore his kit properly, even though he's an incredibly stupid character. I'm not looking forward to the upcoming months when more players pick him up and become good with him, and I hope that Nintendo patches him before or with the Mewtwo DLC patch.

 

[Luigisama]

I think the "boring grand finals" attitude that people apparently had at the venue was only because
1. There are people in the smash community that don't like Dabuz. I hear the negative comments all of the time even when he doesn't play campy.

2. Same applies to Zero, but only because as people say "Zero plays so annoying" look at the smash 4 tourney invitational where Zero won. People don't like that.

As for my expectations I think so much could have happened. Looking at the stream again I think that Nietono would have beat Zero or at least put up a better fight than Dabuz. It seems that Nietono knows how to fight Diddy and how to bait diddy's grab. Also I can see that Diddy is very dominate in smash4 and people only pick him because they want to win.

There were 5 Diddys in bracket M2k, Zero, Aerolink, Ninjalink, and Jtails.
3 sheiks and one of each other character.

 

[PixelPerfect]

I felt that Dabuz was playing too campy and it made for some really boring matches. Also, the best 3 of 5 matches made it take way too long in top 8. There were some pretty great moments but they really should have shortened top 8 and I wanted to see some others rather than Dabuz like Nairo.

 

[GeNo-BreaKer]

Lasted way too long.

 

[Dope_Dizzle]

Lasted way too long.

if you checked the twitch stream times melee top 8 ran longer by about 45 minutes. J/S

 

[Timbers]

not hype at all. Top 8 was a lot of character inexperience and skill differentials. No close matches outside of Nietono vs Mr. R.

 

[TMNTSSB4]

Whoever was playing Rosalina and beat a Captain Falcon was badass, probably the only boss Rosalina I've seen in tournaments. To bad Dabuz started to get worse in a way

 

[GeNo-BreaKer]

if you checked the twitch stream times melee top 8 ran longer by about 45 minutes. J/S

But Smash 4 only has 2 stocks while Melee has 4...

 

[Neoleo21]

But Smash 4 only has 2 stocks while Melee has 4...

That's still not a excuse to point fingers. So what? This detail doesn't change the fact that Melee took longer.

 

[Banjo-Kazooie]

Im pretty sure that the drag was cause because everyone was anxious to see Leffen vs Mango plus Dabuz playing very defensively vs. Abadango. Beyond that, I have some opinions:

-Actually enjoyed ZeRos Diddy at the finals. That feeling you get in Melee when you see a very good Fox and you dont care that he is top tier.
-Good thing that the only Diddys that passed to top 8 were ZeRo and M2K.
-Disliked Dabuz Rosalina. Liked Dabuz Olimar when he wasn't on Castle Siege backing and throwing Pikmins.
-Disappointed the lack of my favorite characters, even in the pools (the ones I saw at least).
-Lack of Miis of any kind was even more dissapointed. Were they banned from the start or just no one got the courage to use them? Because is really underlooked and so is to a lesser extent.
-Hopefully customs will be considered in future tournaments. Smash 4 needs more identity to separate itself from Melee. And just being looked as a Brawl 2.0.

Overall. I did enjoyed the tournament. It did what it could despited being clearly overshadowed by all the Melee hype (cant blame them after all the people it gathered and the Salty Suite aftermath).

 

[Timbers]

But Smash 4 only has 2 stocks while Melee has 4...

lol

 

[ChronoPenguin]

But Smash 4 only has 2 stocks while Melee has 4...

Oh dear lord.

 

[BestTeaMaker]

So disregarding the comments concerning "this was boring" and "diddy OP", I think APEX Smash 4 showed us several things.

First, concerning 2 stocks. In the top 8, it was shown that in 73% of games, the person who dropped the first stock ended up losing that game. Dabuz's matches also showed the "camping" mentality when presented with only 2 stocks. He made no effort to approach Pac-Man after losing game 1 to Abadango. He knew that the moment he dropped a stock he would be instantly behind, so his best bet was to simply sit back. I honestly think that 2 stocks is not going to treat the meta of this game that well, and the argument that it helps makes matches shorter is pointless. The finals for Smash 4 took 45 minutes less than for Melee, which is concerning since it was 2 vs 4 stocks.

Second, it shows that an aggressive playstyle can be played. ZeRo showed this handily with his Diddy. Hate him or Diddy as much as you like, you have to admit that some of the most exciting matches involved ZeRo and his aggressive as hell Diddy. Furthermore, back to the infamous Abadango vs Dabuz matchup, Abadango began to make headways when he began to adopt the aggressive Hydrant -> Z-Drop Key tactic. Also, midways through the matches, he began to approach Rosalina more with trampolines, essentially cancelling out her shield. What I'm trying to say here is that, yes, Smash 4 does reward a defensive playstyle, but it doesn't mean that there is no potential for aggression to win in matchups.

Third, I have to admit that the dedication of players to their characters is pretty great, and it resulted in a lot of character variety. Yes, there were a lot of Diddys and Sheiks in the top 16, but even then there were a lot of variety, from NinjaLink's amazing Mega Man to aMSa's Greninja. Hell, in the top 8, a Pac-Man, Duck Hunt, and Little Mac made it far. Olimar ended up getting second. What I hope this does lead to is experimentation with the characters. Compared to previous Smash games, the roster of Smash 4 is amazingly balanced. All it takes is for people to commit to learning characters and explore what they can do.

Fourth, I do hope that people will begin to become open to customs. Seriously, there is a lot of things in Smash 4 that we have not untapped fully. The game is only 2 months hold. Let's make the game even more exciting for years to come.

 

[Neoleo21]

So disregarding the comments concerning "this was boring" and "diddy OP", I think APEX Smash 4 showed us several things.

First, concerning 2 stocks. In the top 8, it was shown that in 73% of games, the person who dropped the first stock ended up losing that game. Dabuz's matches also showed the "camping" mentality when presented with only 2 stocks. He made no effort to approach Pac-Man after losing game 1 to Abadango. He knew that the moment he dropped a stock he would be instantly behind, so his best bet was to simply sit back. I honestly think that 2 stocks is not going to treat the meta of this game that well, and the argument that it helps makes matches shorter is pointless. The finals for Smash 4 took 45 minutes less than for Melee, which is concerning since it was 2 vs 4 stocks.

Give this person a cookie, Two stock promotes camping and slower gameplay by default, no room to really learn, so people make time to learn the other person by camping. Its not fun for players nor is it interesting for spectators, it legitimately hurts the game more than potentially running a bit late ( Folks its practically APEX's tradition to not run on time, the excuse of it won't run on time is becoming irrelevant on principal).

 

[Cactusblah]

The meta is garbage. Sakurai needs to get his head out of his ass or Nintendo needs a new director. There's no excuse to not patch the game when it's finally an option, unlike previous games in the series. Improving the game for competition does not suddenly exclude casuals from playing it. I'm sick of this stupid mindset he has.

As for what we can do, boring characters should be banned until they are nerfed. Rosalina and Sonic are priorities for now. Diddy is a problem, but nowhere near as much as these two.

Omega stages should be the primary stage picks, if not the only stage picks. Smashville is boring. Viewers want to see the other stages and hear the other music in the game. Not Smashville.

 

[Timbers]

The meta is garbage. Sakurai needs to get his head out of his *** or Nintendo needs a new director. There's no excuse to not patch the game when it's finally an option, unlike previous games in the series. Improving the game for competition does not suddenly exclude casuals from playing it. I'm sick of this stupid mindset he has.

I was totally with you until

boring characters should be banned until they are nerfed.
Omega stages should be the primary stage picks, if not the only stage picks.

-ban out of boredom
-nerfing into the ground makes things less boring
-people playing only smashville is boring. solution: force everyone to play on only omega.

everything is boring. fix this by nerfing everything into the ground and play on only flat stationary stages.

 

[Twixer]

As for what we can do, boring characters should be banned until they are nerfed. Rosalina and Sonic are priorities for now. Diddy is a problem, but nowhere near as much as these two.

I know Rosalina and Sonic the ****boy aren't fun to watch, but chill.

 

[Nobie]

I know Dabuz vs. Abadango got a lot of flack for being "boring" but I have to disagree entirely, because it was one of my favorite matches of the entire event. Just because a match goes to time doesn't mean it's boring, especially when you get into how Dabuz and Abadango were trying to break each others' strategies down. Abadango especially took a few risks to try and trick Dabuz (the grab for example) that didn't pan out. You could almost literally see the gears moving in the players' heads, and every moment of it for me was tense and exciting, just not in the same way as watching someone string a 10-hit juggle into a KO.

 

[mega4000]

The meta is garbage. Sakurai needs to get his head out of his *** or Nintendo needs a new director. There's no excuse to not patch the game when it's finally an option, unlike previous games in the series. Improving the game for competition does not suddenly exclude casuals from playing it. I'm sick of this stupid mindset he has.

As for what we can do, boring characters should be banned until they are nerfed. Rosalina and Sonic are priorities for now. Diddy is a problem, but nowhere near as much as these two.

Omega stages should be the primary stage picks, if not the only stage picks. Smashville is boring. Viewers want to see the other stages and hear the other music in the game. Not Smashville.

Most perfect answer I've seen in this forum

I know Dabuz vs. Abadango got a lot of flack for being "boring" but I have to disagree entirely, because it was one of my favorite matches of the entire event. Just because a match goes to time doesn't mean it's boring, especially when you get into how Dabuz and Abadango were trying to break each others' strategies down. Abadango especially took a few risks to try and trick Dabuz (the grab for example) that didn't pan out. You could almost literally see the gears moving in the players' heads, and every moment of it for me was tense and exciting, just not in the same way as watching someone string a 10-hit juggle into a KO.

the match was dabuz using down b all the time. Stupid move with almost no recovery lag.

 

[Nobie]

the match was dabuz using down b all the time. Stupid move with almost no recovery lag.

Of course Dabuz would use Down B against Pac-Man. It would be dumb of him not to. Also, I'll agree that move is ridiculous, and I wouldn't mind seeing it nerfed in some way.

However, to say that all he did was Down B constantly is kind of ridiculous, especially when he would also use the extra power of Luma to knock hydrants away. More than that, you could see how Abadango was trying to read his Down B habits, because that move certainly does not protect from CQC. It's a simple fact that when Rosalina is using Gravitational Pull it means she's not doing anything else, which means that she is vulnerable even if only for a brief period.

It's a somewhat unfortunate matchup for Pac-Man, but we saw the potential for a win there. It's just that things didn't work out.

 

[Colin Steele]

What excited me:

• I saw very little use of characters that I think are competitively viable, and hope to see more of them in the future.
• An Olimar player made second, even if he was a campy-ass *****.
• uh... well ****...

What infuriated me:

• 2 stocks, need I say more?
• Diddy pulling Meta-Knight-like U-air strings made me facepalm.
• Campy play-styles from a lot of top players. (It seems the camp characters have won out in the current meta >:| )
• Sonic was played a fair amount.
• There was virtually 0 stage diversity.
• This looked devastatingly similar to Brawl tourneys I used to watch in the day.
• Generally there were no real OOOOOH moments, so no real reason to watch the tournament. Very borying.

 

[Jebus244]

The meta is garbage. Sakurai needs to get his head out of his *** or Nintendo needs a new director. There's no excuse to not patch the game when it's finally an option, unlike previous games in the series. Improving the game for competition does not suddenly exclude casuals from playing it. I'm sick of this stupid mindset he has.

As for what we can do, boring characters should be banned until they are nerfed. Rosalina and Sonic are priorities for now. Diddy is a problem, but nowhere near as much as these two.

Omega stages should be the primary stage picks, if not the only stage picks. Smashville is boring. Viewers want to see the other stages and hear the other music in the game. Not Smashville.

Dont agree with the banning thing, or omega's only, but Sakurai is ****ing wrong. Melee has thrived for 14 years now. The skill involved in mastering that game is staggering, and it is adored by casuals and competitive players alike. I don't know where he's coming from, but I definitely see a project m type hack coming for this game sometime in the future.

Mod edit: Bad words will make you eat children.

 

[HeavyLobster]

People keep mentioning how they were surprised and pleased that only two Diddy Kong's made it to top 8. Personally I find this very troubling, because this means that players outside of maybe Zero have yet to break him down and explore his kit properly, even though he's an incredibly stupid character. I'm not looking forward to the upcoming months when more players pick him up and become good with him, and I hope that Nintendo patches him before or with the Mewtwo DLC patch.

I basically just picked up Diddy yesterday, and my first reaction was to ask why everyone was just fishing for grabs when Diddy has so many other options. You don't even need grab to get those juggle combos, as falling Uair/Nair work just fine as well. Obviously grab is easier to get, but you don't need to force it if it's not there, and can just poke with Fair from the air until your opponent makes a punishable commitment instead of just plucking bananas and charging in on the ground all the time.(what M2K did against Dabuz, which made no sense considering the strength of Olimar's ground game) I mean I do still think people, both Diddy and non-Diddy, will close the gap on Zero as the game develops, but Diddy does have more tools than the rest of the cast with maybe one or two exceptions, and once people start using all of them we will see more Diddys placing well.

 

[digiholic]

I know Dabuz vs. Abadango got a lot of flack for being "boring" but I have to disagree entirely, because it was one of my favorite matches of the entire event. Just because a match goes to time doesn't mean it's boring, especially when you get into how Dabuz and Abadango were trying to break each others' strategies down. Abadango especially took a few risks to try and trick Dabuz (the grab for example) that didn't pan out. You could almost literally see the gears moving in the players' heads, and every moment of it for me was tense and exciting, just not in the same way as watching someone string a 10-hit juggle into a KO.

Absolutely agree. That match was like a really deep chess match. It was truly a battle of wills. I enjoyed it more than the M2K vs. ZeRo to be honest.

The meta is garbage. Sakurai needs to get his head out of his *** or Nintendo needs a new director. There's no excuse to not patch the game when it's finally an option, unlike previous games in the series. Improving the game for competition does not suddenly exclude casuals from playing it. I'm sick of this stupid mindset he has.

As for what we can do, boring characters should be banned until they are nerfed. Rosalina and Sonic are priorities for now. Diddy is a problem, but nowhere near as much as these two.

Omega stages should be the primary stage picks, if not the only stage picks. Smashville is boring. Viewers want to see the other stages and hear the other music in the game. Not Smashville.

No.

Long answer: Still no. So, basically, you're saying "Let's nerf the guys I don't like even though they aren't really all that strong." and "I hate the lack of variety, so lets cut down the stage list to only one"? I'm sorry, but this argument doesn't hold water. At all. "Let's remove all of the different stage layouts, cut the cast of viable characters down to a small chunk of viability, remove an entire dimension of play so I can hear some different music"? That's not how things are ever going to work. Ever.

 

[mimgrim]

-Lack of Miis of any kind was even more dissapointed. Were they banned from the start or just no one got the courage to use them? Because is really underlooked and so is to a lesser extent.

They were limited to 1111 guest Miis only. They were gimped by the rulesets. 1111 Miis are horrible characters.

 

[Meek Moths]

i'm still wondering about the dabuz vs. abadong match. the pacman was using all his projectiles 75% percent of the time...and rosalina absorbed 90% percent of them. why didnt abadong just switch chars? sure the rosa was campy but he was kinda trying to...outcamp her. he should have switched to some rushdown char for an easier time

 

[ChronoPenguin]

i'm still wondering about the dabuz vs. abadong match. the pacman was using all his projectiles 75% percent of the time...and rosalina absorbed 90% percent of them. why didnt abadong just switch chars? sure the rosa was campy but he was kinda trying to...outcamp her. he should have switched to some rushdown char for an easier time

Rewatch the fight and see how Abadango switched up his gameplan.

 

[digiholic]

i'm still wondering about the dabuz vs. abadong match. the pacman was using all his projectiles 75% percent of the time...and rosalina absorbed 90% percent of them. why didnt abadong just switch chars? sure the rosa was campy but he was kinda trying to...outcamp her. he should have switched to some rushdown char for an easier time

Maybe he didn't know another one well enough? The problem was that Pac-Man and Rosalina sort of counter eachother. We saw that Pac-Man couldn't do much against Gravity, but realize that if he were someone else, Dabuz would have been able to actually attack him. Abadongo, being a high-level player, understood that, and figured his best chance was breaking the Rosalina wall with his best character, rather than switching to a pocket pick and dealing with a much more difficult play style from Dabuzz. He wouldn't just stick to out-camping him if he switched to Little Mac, he'd change his play to suit Abadongo's new pick.

Rewatch the fight and see how Abadango switched up his gameplan.

^this was posted while I was typing and I think it says things a lot more eloquently than I did just now.

Seriously, those matches were hype as **** and anyone who thinks otherwise doesn't understand Smash Bros at a competitive level.

 

[infomon]

Apex's gimpy ruleset really hurt the image of Smash4.

Mii rules: nonsense, no reason to not allow at least some more special combinations, if not full mii-uploads.

Minimal stage-list: scrub decision, there are at least a few other stages that are perfectly fine.

Stage striking: Questionable to strike across just 3 stages rather than the full list of legal stages.

Stock count: 3 stocks would've allowed room for more mixups and aggressive play.

Bo5 for top-8: Really should have been Bo3.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Apex's gimpy ruleset really hurt the image of Smash4.

Mii rules: nonsense, no reason to not allow at least some more special combinations, if not full mii-uploads.

Minimal stage-list: scrub decision, there are at least a few other stages that are perfectly fine.

Stage striking: Questionable to strike across just 3 stages rather than the full list of legal stages.

Stock count: 3 stocks would've allowed room for more mixups and aggressive play.

Bo5 for top-8: Really should have been Bo3.

Here's hoping EVO is more reasonable. I tweeted them a while back asking if customs would be allowed (yes please) and they said the ruleset was still under consideration. So there's still a chance to push for something better.