St.Louis Area Discussion Thread

[TP]

You don't need one. There were 185 ledge grabs in 6 minutes of planking, which means one grab every 2 seconds. You should be able to play that video in your head.

 

[Rob_Gambino]

but it's dk, lolololol. Just run off d-air him, drag him up with tornado, get under him u-air/shuttle loop, just steal the edge. I still can't run it in my head.

 

[TP]

The opponent was Olimar. He died twice trying to get Will off the ledge. Obviously an MK would just tornado the crap out of him.

 

[MetalMusicMan]

Planking is ****ing legit. Characters who are bad on the ledge can maintain the lead. Get ****ing ***** whiners, Will is my new favorite player.

 

[Lixivium]

Let the Planker win, then have the audience vote as to whether or not they must forfeit the next round.

 

[MetalMusicMan]

Yeah, that's the spirit of competitiion... oh wait.

 

[TP]

Will, you're wrong on this. Well, not exactly wrong. You are correct in thinking that if our goal is to have an ideal, competitive ruleset, planking is fine. However that is not our goal, or at least it shouldn't be. Our number 1 priority should be to make the smash community as large as possible. There are millions of players out there who have either never heard of competitive smash or have only seen a couple of youtube videos. You know which videos get the most views? The "controversial" ones. Will vs Rich Brown is gonna get 10 times the views that Trela vs Ally is gonna get, and the casuals who hear about us are gonna watch 6 minutes of hardcore planking instead of 3 super close and intense games. Until things change, we're gonna keep having our really hyped up nationals get only 140 players, which is nothing. And don't say we are better off without people who can't handle what a real competition is, because you know full well that people change over time. I know that I've gotten much more patient and willing to plank over time. Time in this community does that to you. We NEED our game to be interesting to watch, period. I don't care if our ruleset is worse for it.

 

[Lixivium]

Yeah, that's the spirit of competitiion... oh wait.

Did you know there was a time when NBA games had no shot clock?

"In Biasone's day, players fought like hockey thugs, fans frequently threw things on the court and nobody could figure out how to stop the mayhem. You can't overstate how excruciating the stalling and fouling tactics were. There was the time Fort Wayne famously beat the Minneapolis Lakers 19-18. There was the five-OT playoff game between Rochester and Indy in which the winner of each overtime tap held the ball for the rest of the period to attempt a winning shot, leading to a bizarre situation in which Rochester's home fans booed and booed and ultimately started leaving in droves, even with the game still going. The '53 playoffs averaged eighty free throws per game. The anti-electrifying '54 Finals featured scores of 79-68, 62-60, 81-67, 80-69, 84-73, 65-63 and 87-80. You get the idea."

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/090528&sportCat=nba

This sort of thing still goes on to some degree in soccer, basketball, and any timed games. When it's at the very end of each game, it's at least tolerable, but when people were stalling from the get-go, it was clearly ruining the game of basketball. Obviously you love stalling and think it's awesome to watch - "Play to win, scrub", and "just get the lead" and all that jazz. But I doubt many people today would argue basketbal was so much better back before they had the arbitrarily limiting shot clock.

I'm not saying that the ledge grab limit is the solution, but sometimes rule changes can benefit everyone involved. Of course, you have to hold some sort of attitude besides "deal with it" and "OMG anti-competitive".

 

[Hylian]

Dks planking seemed better than mks hoenstly watching will do it. The only reason he lost to anyone is because he wouldnt get a % lead lol. Once he had a % or stock lead it didnt seem like anyone he played could get him off the ledge. Apparently there is only a 2 frame window to hit dk, and its easy for dk to do lol.

 

[Cook]

^Just because it seemed good doesn't mean anything.

"did you know that olimar can Dtilt a planking DK? Or that if he spaces the grab so it barely touches the ledge, it can grab a planking DK that isn't making mistakes or you can use a timed and spaced yellow fsmash, or if you expect the UP-B, you can shorthop offstage, whistle bounce away from stage while fast-falling and then UP-B to hit him with tether and possibly spike him (DK's up-b doesn't autosnap IIRC), or bait out a bair, shield it and JC US OOS with a yellow pikmin"

^This is something Dabuz told RB after the match via FB and RB said he tried it and it worked, so even Olimar can get him off the ledge. If Olimar has multiple options for doing it then probably a lot of characters have something they can do.

I remember during ADHD's first match against Will that when ADHD first tried to get Will off the ledge he DID succeed in taking the ledge back, but then he ended up getting killed shortly after. You gotta keep in mind, though, that this was like his first time dealing with the situation and he didn't know what he was doing. He got killed and then was like "**** this, it's impossible!" However, if he had taken his time at first and tried to figure something out then he might have been ok. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Diddy's d-tilt could reach DK, or maybe even down-angled f-tilt. Also, z-dropping bananas probably would have been a smart thing to try. Hell, maybe he could even time his d-air to spike DK at the end of the up-b.


That said, I also agree with TP and Lixi (I think I've even used the shot clock example before!). It is anti-competitive to complain about a tactic that does not violate the rules, but it is not anti-competitive to change the rules to keep the game interesting. Soooo, I'm still on the fence about whether I think there should be universal lgl, MK lgl or no lgl. Initially I thought it should be only MK because I thought he was the only character that could do it and not be stopped by anyone (except maybe MK I think?) and I didn't like that having one for other characters would hurt their games while MK is still MK even with a lgl. But, I see the value in keeping people interested in the game, and if most people want a lgl for that reason then I am perfectly ok with that.

A problem I have, though, is that a lgl doesn't really even affect MK's planking game in most matches because he doesn't have to drop off the ledge and then immediately up-b like DK to plank most characters; he has like 80 jumps. Sure, if he's just jumping around down there people can come after him, but that's suicide for most characters. Plus, he can just camp in the air onstage and just come to the ledge to land. Like people have said, Redhalberd legitimately planked someone with less than 30 ledgegrabs. In the FAMOUS LARRY VS. DOJO MATCH Dojo had less than 40. I just don't know that a lgl is the answer for MK, but idk what would be better. People keep mentioning Japanese rules but I don't know exactly what their rule is. Something about air time vs. ground time I think?

 

[MetalMusicMan]

TP the reason that we get less players is because no one takes our competition seriously because we have bull**** rules that make our competition a joke. "Making the competitive Smash community as large as possible" is achieved by showing that it is a viable competitive game, which it is.

Why do you suppose that so many Smash players only play Smash? Why aren't our top players top players in any other game? Our community alienates itself by being ****ing childish and pissing on the integrity of the game, something that no other community does like we do.

And then we all sit here and say, "gee, this game is really great, I wonder why we can't break through?" We can't break through because in order to become a part of the community, to get into the game, you have to learn all of the bull**** intricacies of our "optimized rulesets". THAT is what turns off new players.

People effectively "plank" in every competitive game. They play for time outs, they play gay. 10,000 ****ing people ROUTINELY watch SSF4 streams where Filipino Champ times people out with Dhalsim every game, playing as gay as possible.



Our problem is not planking or "new players seeing gay play". That's a stupid childish notion that you've been brainwashed into by people who say that we need to save our community by holding it back with stupid rules that only put us further in the gutter.


Lixi, basketball isn't a video game, people all abide by new / changing rules because no one wants to get stabbed in the face instead of stuffed when they're playing. A game has it's rules defined, players abide by them because that is how the game plays. Anything exterior to that is 4 year old bull****. Go make a mod and support that if you like, but if you aren't doing that, play the game you say you are playing.

 

[Cook]

^This post is pretty bad. I was able to see your point on most things up until now, Will, but your assertions here are just incorrect.

 

[MetalMusicMan]

Your argument: "Uh, no u?"



Yes, my post is the bad one.

 

[TP]

Will, your entire argument is based on the assumption that we should look to other competitive fighters for new players instead of casuals. This is not Street Fighter. Sakurai made this game to appeal to casuals because that's where the big money is, and we should do the same.

 

[DeLux]

The basketball shotclock was introduced as a way to attract larger television and spectator audiences because people would rather watch a slow sport like Baseball because it provided more action then the clock killing tactic in basketball. That is how slow basketball games were.

Actually Dean Smith at North Carolina was famous for inventing the four corner offense to kill the clock, a strategy that made him one of the winningest coaches in basketball history.

By analogy, if you assume that faster paced gameplay makes for exciting gameplay to watch (which based on popular opinion, it does) then it would attract bigger crowds to watch based on the history of competitive games.

 

[Hylian]

Will, the majority of the sf community bashes smash because we dont use items. Anyone who tried to logically argue that it's ok to turn them off got banned on srk. It was ********, and like 20+ people got banned just for trying to say that items add randomness.

There is a reason the smash community doesn't have 3000$ mms, etc. Its simply not as competive of a game and the crowd it attracts generally doesnt care to be super competitve about it. Smash has one of the closest knit communities I've seen, people like going to tournaments to hang out with people and arent as competitve about tournaments as other communites.

So regardless of what is more competitve if you dont appeal to the community you arent going to prove or do much.

 

[DeLux]

Infinite chaingrabs don't appeal to the casual community either Hylian

 

[MegaRobMan]

stuff that I agree with.

I thought it was pretty persuasive, idk what cook was talking about.
but (using basketball again)
I work for the city of Omaha and score keep basketball 6-10 m-Th as my 2nd job for like forever, and there is no shot clock in rec leagues. It doesn't matter if the game is close or destruction, the second the team starts ahead starts milking the clock, people start getting fouled, and fouled hard/hurt, because there is nothing in the rules to prevent the team with the ball from stalling i.e. lol DK. I'm heavily in favor of a shot clock and in favor of changing the rules as you go to adjust for things that even the playing field. Adding the 3 point line so white people could play basketball is just like adding a LGL. They just need to make it universal instead and spend time troubleshooting new rule ideas before they come out.

Because making some rules, like banning infinite's...

Infinite chaingrabs don't appeal to the casual community either Hylian

Doesn't appeal to hardcore gamers, who I'm in favor of attracting. **** casuals. I still hate (Lux) for telling me I was better than him after he beat me using IC's "infinte" chaingrabs

Spoiler

<3 (Lux)

but that doesn't mean they should be banned. You actually have to have tech skill to do IC's stuff. Though the true lazy D3 infinites on Luigi and DK I personally feel the rules shouldn't allow.

What about MK's cape glitch? Should that be legal?

The basketball shotclock was introduced as a way to attract larger television and spectator audiences because people would rather watch a slow sport like Baseball because it provided more action then the clock killing tactic in basketball. That is how slow basketball games were.

Actually Dean Smith at North Carolina was famous for inventing the four corner offense to kill the clock, a strategy that made him one of the winningest coaches in basketball history.

By analogy, if you assume that faster paced gameplay makes for exciting gameplay to watch (which based on popular opinion, it does) then it would attract bigger crowds to watch based on the history of competitive games.

Good work Lux.

 

[Cook]

Your argument: "Uh, no u?"



Yes, my post is the bad one.

I'm sorry, I was leaving to go get some food so I didn't want to spend much time writing something up. I should have just waited until I got back and had more time before saying anything. Well, I'll show you what I meant now.

TP the reason that we get less players is because no one takes our competition seriously because we have bull**** rules that make our competition a joke. "Making the competitive Smash community as large as possible" is achieved by showing that it is a viable competitive game, which it is.

I really doubt that this is the case. How many times have you heard someone say "I'm done with Brawl, you guys all have a scrub mentality" as opposed to people saying "I'm done with Brawl, this game is just too gay." I know that I personally hear the second one WAY more often. In fact I don't actually KNOW of anyone who has quit because of the community and not the game, whereas I know several people who have quit because of the game (I also know MANY people who keep playing because of the community and not the game). Yes, this is all anecdotal evidence, but since we don't really have any national surveys out there it's all we have to go off.

As for players from other communities, yeah they think Smash is a joke, but the impression I've always gotten is that they think Smash is a joke because it's a children's party game. They don't take it seriously for the same reason they wouldn't take a Warioware tournament seriously. At first glance Super Smash Bros. seems way too full of random elements and not nearly deep enough to be truly competitive, and there is no reason for a Street Fighter player to have any other opinion unless he actually tried to get into Smash. But why would he when he has no reason to think it is more than a party game?

Why do you suppose that so many Smash players only play Smash? Why aren't our top players top players in any other game? Our community alienates itself by being ****ing childish and pissing on the integrity of the game, something that no other community does like we do.

Is it common for top Street Fighter players to also be top Starcraft players? I don't really understand what you're getting at. Probably the reason why our top players aren't top players in other games is that they like Smash better. I know that's the reason why I don't play any other game competitively. It's a very different type of game. I don't see why it MATTERS at all if our top players don't play other games. Is that some sort of goal we should have? Why? How many top football players also play basketball professionally? Very, very few top athletes do more than one sport. Why is that? Probably because in order to be the best they have to specialize.

And then we all sit here and say, "gee, this game is really great, I wonder why we can't break through?" We can't break through because in order to become a part of the community, to get into the game, you have to learn all of the bull**** intricacies of our "optimized rulesets". THAT is what turns off new players.

I believe that your last sentence couldn't be more wrong. I don't know what kind of new players you are around, but the ones I meet are always the most turned off by things like infinites and planking. A new player isn't going to be like "What, I can't infinite Mario with DDD? That's gay, what scrub thought up that rule?" No, a new player is more likely to be like "Omg, he won the match by just grabbing the ledge over and over. **** this game, it's way gayer than I thought." I mean, maybe there are a few players out there who already play some other game and are interested in Smash and then get turned off by our limited rulesets. I acknowledge that that has surely happened before. But that is not the average new player. The average new player is some guy who plays Brawl with his friends and hears about a tournament somewhere. That type of player wants to see interesting matches similar to the ones he has at home, but better. The average new player isn't a Street Fighter veteran because the Street Fighter veteran already has a game he plays, why would he be looking for a different one? If we want our community to grow as large as possible we need to cater toward the more abundant type of new player (casual Smash players) than toward the less abundant type of new player (veteran of some other game and adherent of Sirlin's philosophies).

People effectively "plank" in every competitive game. They play for time outs, they play gay. 10,000 ****ing people ROUTINELY watch SSF4 streams where Filipino Champ times people out with Dhalsim every game, playing as gay as possible.

Yes, they win by playing as gay as possible under the rules of their game. If people enjoy watching it still then the rules are fine and there is no problem. If 10,000 people are watching then it is obviously still interesting enough (Street Fighter timer is what? 90 seconds? Pretty different from 8 minutes). However, if people lose interest then the rules need to change. I'm not stating conclusively that the rules for Brawl need to change right now, I'm just saying in general that there is a point where you have to do something to keep your audience, because a game is only good as long as people are still watching and playing.

Our problem is not planking or "new players seeing gay play". That's a stupid childish notion that you've been brainwashed into by people who say that we need to save our community by holding it back with stupid rules that only put us further in the gutter.

I don't think any rules we have made have put us further in the gutter at all, but I think that I spent enough time addressing this subject earlier and already explained why I don't think any of our rules turn off the majority of new players.

Lixi, basketball isn't a video game, people all abide by new / changing rules because no one wants to get stabbed in the face instead of stuffed when they're playing. A game has it's rules defined, players abide by them because that is how the game plays. Anything exterior to that is 4 year old bull****. Go make a mod and support that if you like, but if you aren't doing that, play the game you say you are playing.

No, basketball is not a video game, but that doesn't mean the two aren't comparable. They are both competitive games, and the exact same rules regarding competitiveness apply. To say that video games are different just because they are played with a controller or on a screen is a very limiting mindset to have and prevents people from being able to take competitive gaming seriously.

Anyway, this is the paragraph that I most took issue with. First of all, your explanation for why they change rules in basketball is ludicrous. The reason why they changed the rules are as Lixi and Lux said, as backed up by the source Lixi linked, not by this other reason you came up with. I mean, I can only assume your sentence was hyperbole, but I don't really understand what point you were trying to make. The thing is, basketball officials saw a problem and they changed the rules to abide by it. If they hadn't then the basketball metagame would have continued to evolve under the old rules. Maybe it would have been a better game, maybe not. Who knows? Either way, the game has unquestionably flourished under the new rule.

You tell us to play the game we say we are playing, implying that changing the rules changes the game. When they added a shotclock to basketball, did it cease to be basketball because of a rule change? Of course not, that's a ridiculous notion. If you change a rule in Brawl it's still Brawl. When someone invents a new sport they try to come up with the best possible rules. However, they can't foresee every potential abuse of the rules. If they don't anticipate something and the players/spectators don't like where the game is headed, is there just no solution but to either abandon the game or play until there's no one left? That just seems like a waste to me. A game does not belong to its creator (who can't possibly foresee every problem with it anyway), it belongs to those who play it, watch it, and enjoy it.

In my opinion it is best to let the players decide how their game should be played because they are the ones who push the game to its limits and discovers flaws with the rules. The problem is that a lot of players have knee-jerk reactions to things, so the real difficulty lies in determining at what point to make a new rule.

 

[Gamegenie222]

What was up with smashboards crashing a few minutes ago that was weird and how many people truly quit brawl or smash in general? I know Gimpyfish plays street fighter and marvel competitively now and likes it but at his prime he was the best Bowser in melee but people still bring up his smash past in his SF videos all the time.

 

[Lixivium]

I agree with everything Cook says and disagree with everything MMM says.

MMM, do you honestly believe someone new to Brawl could watch all that planking/stalling and think, "man, what an awesome experience, these people really play to win"?

Do you honestly think if it were banned, they would say, "to hell with these scrubs, if I can't plank I might as well go play Street Fighter."

I mean that just seems delusional to me even though I will be the first to admit I don't hang around Brawl players that much. I imagine although most of them prefer the slower pace of Brawl, they don't actually enjoy watching paint dry.

 

[Rob_Gambino]

The problem with using the shot clock analogy with planking is the punishment of the violation. If you're not able to hit the rim within the allowed time, you lose a possession. If you grab the ledge one too many times, you lose the ENTIRE GAME. The equivalent punishment in smash would be forcing the planker to get on the stage, and the opponent gets a free jab or possibly even a tilt (f snake), then they separate with both on the stage and continue the fight. Assigning a ref to each station with a stop watch would be a pain, hence why most high schools to this day still do not play with shot clocks.

Shot clock is definitely the best argument to implement a LGL. In high school ball, there this was team, Mount Vernon, that was known to have a really good defense to outsiders because they held some of the best offensive teams to 25 points. They just ran a 4 corners offense the entire game setting backdoor picks for easy lay ups. They would keep possession for a minimum for 3 or 4 minutes. They weren't a very good defensive or great at shooting, so they had a much greater chance to beat other teams the less shots each team got. It's similar to the strategies teams use to defeat the Patriots in the NFL.

I can see it as something that needs to be addressed, just not sure the ledge grab limit is the right way to go about it.

There's other things I want to talk about with planking/basketball, but I don't really have enough time before I head into work. When you're planking you're truly in a really bad position. You can play perfectly for 3 or 4 minutes, but usually against a smart opponent all you've racked up 30% damage or so. You mess up when you're planking, most of the time you are dead. You have better odds against that if you're mk, but death is still fairly probable like 30%.

In basketball if you have quite a bit of a lead, you typically try and stall. If you mess up, the opponent gets a free 2 points. In smash if you mess up while trying to stall, your punishment is giving away the equivalent of 30 points. Stalling in basketball is much more broken than stalling in smash.

I disagree with noobs rather watching adhd vs ally rather than rich brown vs will. I've shown competive vids to non competitive brawlers, and they are really kind of bored with the high quality stuff, but when they see someone planking. They have a lot more questions and are thinking and believing in ways to beat it. But yeah, if every brawl match started to boil down to that crap, something would definitely need to be done. I'm not sure the LGL is the best way to go about it.

 

[TP]

I disagree with noobs rather watching adhd vs ally rather than rich brown vs will. I've shown competive vids to non competitive brawlers, and they are really kind of bored with the high quality stuff, but when they see someone planking. They have a lot more questions and are thinking and believing in ways to beat it.

I've had the opposite experience. Just saying.

 

[TP]

By the way I upped the timer to 9 minutes for my tournament. I'm the only player in STL who ever tries to time people out anyway so I better not hear any complaints about making the tournament harder for myself lololooooooolollllolol

 

[MuBa]

Where yo curly mustache at?!

Wait...wrong forums...

 

[Fuujin]

This arguement needs some Gaga.

 

[Sage JoWii]

If I didn't hate Cook for anything and everything, I'd say that I love his posts. Don't care much for the content, but the delivery is retardedly good. It's wild. JK, I don't hate him.........................................................entirely.

MMM, get wrecked. I don't care if he countered your points, put up legit info or was even on subject. GET. WRECKED. GET. IP'd.

Fuu, I hate you. Juss sayian.

 

[MetalMusicMan]

Will, the majority of the sf community bashes smash because we dont use items. Anyone who tried to logically argue that it's ok to turn them off got banned on srk. It was ********, and like 20+ people got banned just for trying to say that items add randomness.

There is a reason the smash community doesn't have 3000$ mms, etc. Its simply not as competive of a game and the crowd it attracts generally doesnt care to be super competitve about it. Smash has one of the closest knit communities I've seen, people like going to tournaments to hang out with people and arent as competitve about tournaments as other communites.

So regardless of what is more competitve if you dont appeal to the community you arent going to prove or do much.

If Smashers weren't making arguments like "we disable items, so we can make a LGL!", etc., then they wouldn't receive hate from any competitive community, much less SF. That's a terrible and completely ******** argument, it really proves how little someone actually understands about how things work or why we do things.

There's nothing wrong with no items (or WITH items for that matter), its no different than playing SF with 3/5 rounds instead of 2/3 rounds, anyone who would argue otherwise is probably trolling or doesn't understand the concept because someone from Smash made a dumb comparison.

Also, yes there are plenty of dumb people in SF, I never said there weren't Just far less dumb people on average because they aren't spending time arguing over nonexistant things.

I'm sorry, I was leaving to go get some food so I didn't want to spend much time writing something up. I should have just waited until I got back and had more time before saying anything. Well, I'll show you what I meant now.

Yeah whatever, I hate you, you should probably just die because I'm so mad / raging / an *******. Rawr rawr rawr rawr rawr rawr lawl lawl.

I really doubt that this is the case. How many times have you heard someone say "I'm done with Brawl, you guys all have a scrub mentality" as opposed to people saying "I'm done with Brawl, this game is just too gay." I know that I personally hear the second one WAY more often. In fact I don't actually KNOW of anyone who has quit because of the community and not the game, whereas I know several people who have quit because of the game (I also know MANY people who keep playing because of the community and not the game). Yes, this is all anecdotal evidence, but since we don't really have any national surveys out there it's all we have to go off.

You hear that about every game. That's what people say when they get fedup and can't cut the mustard anymore. "This game is gay, it's boring and dumb, etc." People literally say that about pretty much every game when they get burned out. People say SSF4 is "too boring and slow", they say MvC3 is "too noob friendly", etc.

Once again, this is something that happens in every community and is in no way specific to Brawl. You only think it's specific to Smash because you are naive to everything outside of it, because--like most Smashers--it's the only game you have ever played competitively.

As for players from other communities, yeah they think Smash is a joke, but the impression I've always gotten is that they think Smash is a joke because it's a children's party game. They don't take it seriously for the same reason they wouldn't take a Warioware tournament seriously.

Some people do think that. Those people are ********.

At first glance Super Smash Bros. seems way too full of random elements and not nearly deep enough to be truly competitive, and there is no reason for a Street Fighter player to have any other opinion unless he actually tried to get into Smash. But why would he when he has no reason to think it is more than a party game?

They have plenty of reason to think that it's more than a party game. They're somewhat dumb for not realizing that the game can be played in many different ways (not everyone is that dumb obviously, but you are right many are).

Here's the problem though, we perpetuate and continue the image of our game as a "bad party game" by using ******** rules because "we need them". Our game is not a bad party game, but it looks like it is when we spend hours arguing over infinites, ledge grab limits, etc. to "make it competitive".

It's already competitive, we wouldn't look like such a joke if we didn't make ourselves such a joke.

Is it common for top Street Fighter players to also be top Starcraft players? I don't really understand what you're getting at. Probably the reason why our top players aren't top players in other games is that they like Smash better. I know that's the reason why I don't play any other game competitively. It's a very different type of game. I don't see why it MATTERS at all if our top players don't play other games. Is that some sort of goal we should have? Why? How many top football players also play basketball professionally? Very, very few top athletes do more than one sport. Why is that? Probably because in order to be the best they have to specialize.

Oh you definitely SHOULD specialize. However, it's incredibly odd that almost NO ONE plays or is even remotely known for having TOUCHED most other fighters, shooters, etc. I think there's a fair following for Star Craft 2 and LoL in Smash, but most of those players are new to those games and have only ever touched them in the last year or so.

Our game is definitely unique in terms of gameplay, but not as much as you think. Smash is not so different than Street Fighter, really. And particularly Brawl is very similar to SSF4. You have the obvious differences of mechanics or move execution that existing between a game like Smash and a traditional fighter, but the spacing, the pace, the character archetypes, the strategy, what is safe and what isn't. It's all very, very similar.

If you ever gave SF4 the time of day, you'd probably see what I mean. Many characters are direct parallels to a Brawl counterpart.

My point is that most people who play competitive games have played other games, or do play other games. Smash players don't even bother because they are too scared / intimidated, and they play Smash because "it needs our help".

If they ever played another game, they'd realize how IDENTICAL our issues are to ALL COMPETITIVE GAMES and that we are not some wounded bird that needs help to survive in the competitive scene.

I believe that your last sentence couldn't be more wrong. I don't know what kind of new players you are around, but the ones I meet are always the most turned off by things like infinites and planking. A new player isn't going to be like "What, I can't infinite Mario with DDD? That's gay, what scrub thought up that rule?" No, a new player is more likely to be like "Omg, he won the match by just grabbing the ledge over and over. **** this game, it's way gayer than I thought."

Some will, some are very interesting in chain grabs and attacks. Some are really scrubby and will be instantly turned off. That polarization is going to happen no matter what you do. People are drawn into the game because "hey, Snake is cool and I want to beat up Sonic with him!". They stay or leave because of the gameplay and their desire to compete. This is true of any game, the characters and cool factor of the game (outside of competitive play) are what draw most totally new people in.

The competition itself of course has a lot of merit, though. Some people are going to complain about seeing gay things, yes. But those gay things are going to happen regardless of what you try to do to fix them, they're a part of competition. If someone is REALLY that irritated by something like an infinite, then they were probably never going to take the competitive play that seriously or end up being anything other than a trolling, flaming idiot in the first place.

I mean, maybe there are a few players out there who already play some other game and are interested in Smash and then get turned off by our limited rulesets. I acknowledge that that has surely happened before. But that is not the average new player.

Really? You don't think maybe you're ignoring the situation here?

"Hey, do you want to play Smash with me?"

"Okay sure, but first please read this 30 page manual."

"...what?"

That definitely happens. It definitely turns people off and confuses them. There is no ignoring that.

The average new player is some guy who plays Brawl with his friends and hears about a tournament somewhere. That type of player wants to see interesting matches similar to the ones he has at home, but better. The average new player isn't a Street Fighter veteran because the Street Fighter veteran already has a game he plays, why would he be looking for a different one? If we want our community to grow as large as possible we need to cater toward the more abundant type of new player (casual Smash players) than toward the less abundant type of new player (veteran of some other game and adherent of Sirlin's philosophies).

Well yeah, the average new player of any game is not a veteran of others. What is your point here? We should still make our game appealing to other hardcore players because a hardcore/competitive base keeps the community alive, and being connected to other communities also helps this greatly.

Yes, they win by playing as gay as possible under the rules of their game. If people enjoy watching it still then the rules are fine and there is no problem. If 10,000 people are watching then it is obviously still interesting enough (Street Fighter timer is what? 90 seconds? Pretty different from 8 minutes). However, if people lose interest then the rules need to change. I'm not stating conclusively that the rules for Brawl need to change right now, I'm just saying in general that there is a point where you have to do something to keep your audience, because a game is only good as long as people are still watching and playing.

SF round timer is 99 seconds. Rounds are 2/3. Rounds equate DIRECTLY to stocks, games equate directly to games. In a game that goes to the third round (similar to each opponent going to the third stock in Smash), that's 3 games with 99 second timers each. 5:30 total timeout. Not really much different than Brawl at all, and you are still talking about 2/3 SETS of games that are 2/3 rounds.

Almost the exact same thing, really.

We have 3 minutes more potential time per game, yeah. But judging by your post there, you seem to think that every SF match is over in like 2 minutes.

I don't think any rules we have made have put us further in the gutter at all, but I think that I spent enough time addressing this subject earlier and already explained why I don't think any of our rules turn off the majority of new players.

Okay, you're just naive to the issue at this point then. There is a certain amount of new players who will never be turned off. As I mentioned, these people want to play the game because "Link is so awesome!". Whether or not they stay depends on their own desire for the competition, something that is greatly diminished by ridiculous rules and constant debate and flaming over which ridiculous rule is the dumbest / most ridiculous.

No, basketball is not a video game, but that doesn't mean the two aren't comparable. They are both competitive games, and the exact same rules regarding competitiveness apply. To say that video games are different just because they are played with a controller or on a screen is a very limiting mindset to have and prevents people from being able to take competitive gaming seriously.

It's not because they're played with a controller on screen. In video games, the rules of the game ARE the rules of reality within the game. In Basketball, the rules of reality are obviously completely different than the rules of the game.

That's the advantage that video games have over sports, chess, etc.

Anyway, this is the paragraph that I most took issue with. First of all, your explanation for why they change rules in basketball is ludicrous. The reason why they changed the rules are as Lixi and Lux said, as backed up by the source Lixi linked, not by this other reason you came up with. I mean, I can only assume your sentence was hyperbole, but I don't really understand what point you were trying to make. The thing is, basketball officials saw a problem and they changed the rules to abide by it. If they hadn't then the basketball metagame would have continued to evolve under the old rules. Maybe it would have been a better game, maybe not. Who knows? Either way, the game has unquestionably flourished under the new rule.

Not hyperbole. Basketball gets to change the rules; Basketball is its own "mod", so to speak. Or a game with constant developer support, take your pick.

You tell us to play the game we say we are playing, implying that changing the rules changes the game. When they added a shotclock to basketball, did it cease to be basketball because of a rule change? Of course not, that's a ridiculous notion. If you change a rule in Brawl it's still Brawl. When someone invents a new sport they try to come up with the best possible rules. However, they can't foresee every potential abuse of the rules. If they don't anticipate something and the players/spectators don't like where the game is headed, is there just no solution but to either abandon the game or play until there's no one left? That just seems like a waste to me. A game does not belong to its creator (who can't possibly foresee every problem with it anyway), it belongs to those who play it, watch it, and enjoy it.

See above, I don't really need any more than those short sentences to explain how you are misinterpreting what I said.

In my opinion it is best to let the players decide how their game should be played because they are the ones who push the game to its limits and discovers flaws with the rules. The problem is that a lot of players have knee-jerk reactions to things, so the real difficulty lies in determining at what point to make a new rule.

Knee-jerk reactions are a huge part of the problem. Some things, in very specific and dire circumstances, after much testing and data gathering, it's okay to make some exception. But 99% of the time, there is no need for a change or a rule or a ban, etc.

MMM, get wrecked. I don't care if he countered your points, put up legit info or was even on subject. GET. WRECKED. GET. IP'd.

lol, what are you even talking about and why did you call me MMM? Cook posted all of the things I expected, I'm not sure which part was so impressive or surprising

 

[Hylian]

If Smashers weren't making arguments like "we disable items, so we can make a LGL!", etc., then they wouldn't receive hate from any competitive community, much less SF. That's a terrible and completely ******** argument, it really proves how little someone actually understands about how things work or why we do things.

There's nothing wrong with no items (or WITH items for that matter), its no different than playing SF with 3/5 rounds instead of 2/3 rounds, anyone who would argue otherwise is probably trolling or doesn't understand the concept because someone from Smash made a dumb comparison.

Also, yes there are plenty of dumb people in SF, I never said there weren't Just far less dumb people on average because they aren't spending time arguing over nonexistant things.

No one there even mentioned a LGL, people were banned by the SRK mods just for trying to say it's ok to play with items off. Practically every single SF player in that thread said that we were playing the game wrong because we weren't using items and playing on all stages. Someone even brought up your argument that it's just an option in the game and they got banned.

 

[Legan]

lol srk be trollin

 

[MetalMusicMan]

No one there even mentioned a LGL, people were banned by the SRK mods just for trying to say it's ok to play with items off. Practically every single SF player in that thread said that we were playing the game wrong because we weren't using items and playing on all stages. Someone even brought up your argument that it's just an option in the game and they got banned.

That's laughably ********. It doesn't change anything that I'm saying, but if that happened as you say it did then obviously the mods were being total nazi idiot ****heads lol. Every non-idiot that I've talked to understands the point that items are a game setting, but there are people who just trash Smash, yeah. SF/traditional fighter elitists are annoying. My point is that we perpetuate the negative stereotype that they have of us and make it worse though, which we do.

As I mentioned, there are definitely ******** people on both sides though yeah. I think people misconstrue my argument as some kind of herald of infallibility for the entire SF community-- it has its idiots, to be sure. There are dumb people on both sides.

Believe me, I spend a lot of time preaching the good word of Smash to SF players as well I like the Smash community better in many ways (it has you guys!), which is why it's my main game and not SF4, though it's close. But there are several things that we do that are just ****ing dumb and worse than what anyone else does in that regard. We could learn a lot from other communities that are more competitively experienced / varied, not just SF.

 

[MetalMusicMan]

Also, lol holy ****:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAyPRQ19Apg&feature=player_embedded

 

[Sage JoWii]

Successful troll was successful.

Guyyyyz, Genesis?

 

[MetalMusicMan]

Successful troll was successful.

How did I not see this? When have you ever betrayed me, oh gay one? I am sorry

lol

 

[Sage JoWii]

Lawl. 's 'k, I still <3 you baby. Mad homo.

WHOBO results thread is where I'll be for the next day and a half.

 

[MuBa]

I'm in the MvC3 community, which most of them play SF anyways, and I do have to agree on trying to rationalize anything about Smash to them is pretty much going to go nowhere.

It's this group mentality "Smash is meant to be a party game with items on" that is engraved in their minds. Unfortunately prejudice will always exist within humanity if they keep such mentality like this alive.

No point in preaching to the choir.

 

[Fuujin]

How did I get LAST in lt singles at whobo????
I won my first two matches @_____@
I think theres a mistake.

 

[MetalMusicMan]

How did I get LAST in lt singles at whobo????
I won my first two matches @_____@
I think theres a mistake.

There's no mistake, those results reflect your placing in life

 

[TP]

How did I get LAST in lt singles at whobo????
I won my first two matches @_____@
I think theres a mistake.

I know FAE did it first, but Fuujin just keeps on getting mad.

 

[MegaRobMan]

What do you guys think about making the Nebraska Circuit event this. Already planning on having a brawl tournament and it's at the QWEST Center. June 10th-12th so yeah.

http://www.contagionoutbreak.com/