Restricting tournament entry based on how many hours a player works/studies?

[Shadow Light Master]

Here's an interesting but bad idea: What if tournaments restricted entry based off how long a player could reasonably dedicate to practicing? I got the idea after thinking about players like ZeRo and Hungrybox and boxing weight classes. People like Zero play Smash full time. People like Hungrybox have to balance Smash with school or a job. Zero has way more time to get good than anybody else does. Isn't it unfair that he's allowed to compete with everybody else?

So for instance, some tournaments would be 40 Hour Workweek tournaments, some would be Not Working tournaments, etc. Players who want to enter Not Working tournaments with players like Zero could do so, regardless of how long they work. But players who have free time aren't allowed to enter tournaments for people that don't.

Anyways, I don't think there's a need for something like this. The idea just came to me because Zero continues to dominate Smash 4 unevenly. I have no idea what Nairo's life is like, but it makes me wonder if he honestly ever has a chance to compete with someone who plays Smash 4 all day.

In addition for the problem not being big enough to need to be addressed, I also realize this is basically impossible to enforce. I just thought it would be an interesting topic to talk about.

 

[Deleted member 269706]

While practice does have it's place when it comes to skill level, there's more to it than just that. Some people just naturally understand the game better than others, some strategies are harder to overcome than others, some people have past experience with other fighters/past smash games, etc. And another thing is, the best way to get good at anything is to get advice from people who are better than you. ZeRo for example doesn't really have anyone who really challenges him and pushes him farther, whereas a lot of other players do, so the level at which he "learns" may be much less exponential than that of someone like you or me. Yes he's still leagues ahead of us, his progress is still slowing down. Moreover, just because one person puts in 40 hours a week doesn't mean that they'll be good at the game. Someone who values a one hour session and really takes the time to understand the game will progress so much more than someone who just mindlessly plays for 4-5 hours at a time. I understand the idea, but there's so much more to it than the time dedication.

 

[Shadow Light Master]

While practice does have it's place when it comes to skill level, there's more to it than just that. Some people just naturally understand the game better than others, some strategies are harder to overcome than others, some people have past experience with other fighters/past smash games, etc. And another thing is, the best way to get good at anything is to get advice from people who are better than you. ZeRo for example doesn't really have anyone who really challenges him and pushes him farther, whereas a lot of other players do, so the level at which he "learns" may be much less exponential than that of someone like you or me. Yes he's still leagues ahead of us, his progress is still slowing down. Moreover, just because one person puts in 40 hours a week doesn't mean that they'll be good at the game. Someone who values a one hour session and really takes the time to understand the game will progress so much more than someone who just mindlessly plays for 4-5 hours at a time. I understand the idea, but there's so much more to it than the time dedication.

ZeRo has M2K. Also, the tournaments wouldn't be for people who practiced 40 hours a week, but rather who works or studies 40 hours a week.

 

[TimeSmash]

When I read the title of this in my notifications, I thought it was about parenting and I was like Jesus parenting done right for a change lmao.

While in an ideal world people would be able to devote more time to Smash, real life things like jobs and other time consuming crap come up far too much. As stated above, just because you practice a lot doesn't mean you'd be getting quality practice. For instance, say you practiced five hours doing what you thought was good tech skill and then had someone you know is good with that character or has good knowledge of the game in general but they could only stay for two or three hours, that practice might be better for you. That's kind of an offshoot of this topic though haha.

Along with being difficult to enforce like you said, there are also plenty of people who work 40 hour workweeks but are high level players, possibly even close to Melee Gods, Zero, Isai, etc. Segregating them from higher level players based on their personal responsibilities could easily be taken the wrong way. Though if you said anyone could enter the No Working set, I guess you could maneuver around that obstacle. It does feel like everyone would just go to that set anyways due to popularity, though I'm sure there would be people who'd enter Working sets to meet players with similar time constraints, and possibly because those players might think because the other ones work full-time too, maybe they're equally good or even worse than them. Though like I said before, people can be quite skilled at something but at the same time not devote as much time as others to it.

 

[Deleted member 269706]

ZeRo has M2K. Also, the tournaments wouldn't be for people who practiced 40 hours a week, but rather who works or studies 40 hours a week.

I'm almost 100% sure that ZeRo can outplay M2K in this iteration of Smash, but he would be someone who is able to push ZeRo nonetheless. But I also feel like this is quite restricting of who is able to enter the tournaments. I mean would school qualify as work? What if there's a college student who wants to enter and is fully enrolled in school and works 20 hours a week?

I understand what you're trying to get at here, but the point of tournaments is to see who the best player is. If we restrict those who can enter, we are then limiting who can play. This reduces the amount of skill showcased at a tournament. It's like saying only people from SoCal can enter a certain tournament. In this case, you are seeing a lot of SoCal techniques/playstyles but nothing from anywhere else. (The main reason that these specific regionals are so popular is because it's so accessible to people in that region). For this reason, most tourneys usually don't restrict anyone from entering, so that they can see who is really the best.

 

[Khao]

Then you're limiting the competitive scene to unemployed people who're no longer studying.

I'm pretty sure that'd be the majority of the playerbase instantly cut off, probably not a good idea.