Hey all,
My name is TMS and I've recently been a part of a budding tournament scene in my local area. While before this year there were no Smash-related events around, there have been already two events this summer; both to moderate success. It's a wonderful thing and I feel fortunate to be a part of the growing Smash community. Our events are run by a local business who does a great job of finding venues, reaching out to sponsors, handling funds, and collecting prizes to be given out in raffles at the events. Just in the aftermath of the second event, however, a leader of said business has come to me with a problem: the case of wobbling.
Wobbling, as you all know, is an exploit in Melee that lets the Ice Climbers guarantee a kill off of one grab, as long as both Popo and Nana are on screen next to each other. It has come to be a very powerful strategy in the competitive scene, with pro players such as Wobbles and Nintendude using the technique to take stocks whenever they get the chance.
The problem that has arisen here doesn't really have to do with wobbling itself, but rather with player reactions from it happening in tournament matches. Getting wobbled isn't exactly fun for anyone; it just makes the player sit there and watch as his or her character's percent goes upwards of 200%. At the latest tournament, an Ice Climbers player showed up and ended up taking third place out of sixteen, earning many of his kills from wobbling the opponent. While I thought he was a nice guy and was happy to have him at the tournament, some of the other players weren't so happy. There were complaints related to wobbling being said all over the room, and supposedly one player even threw his controller in anger after getting wobbled. Many newcomers to the tournament lost very quickly because this player was grabbing them and not letting them go; a technique which new players might not understand.
This is not a good look for potential sponsors or businesses who wish to get involved with the tournament host. After the tournament concluded, the business leader who ran the tournament came to me asking my opinion on wobbling. This guy is not exactly part of the smash scene (his job is to set up any local e-sports events, not just Smash), but he firmly believed that Wobbling should be banned from tournaments. I personally didn't agree, but I did understand some of the points made.
His business is about getting people involved in the local e-sports scene, and setting up events for those players to have fun at. Will new players come back if they went 0-2 in their first tournament because of wobbling? Possibly not. Is wobbling exciting from a spectator's point of view? Definitely not. This is a problem because the business wants to have the most exciting event possible; not just for players, but for spectators as well, so more people can get interested in the scene. If an ICs player runs through the tournament and most of the stream is dominated by Popo's pummel, will people really tune into the stream? Probably not.
I personally believe wobbling should be allowed, but the points made above are sound ones. Coming from a traditional fighting game background, infinite combos are something that happen all the time. The general mindset regarding infinites is "don't get hit." This sort of applies to Ice Climbers as well. Don't get grabbed. Fighting the Ice Climbers requires matchup knowledge just like any other character. In traditional fighting games, however, infinite combos are usually very difficult to perform and even garnered respect among the crowd if a player could pull them off. Wobbling requires no technical skill at all, which is why its so off-put by many players in the community.
I'd like to hear some of the voices on Smashboards and what they have to say about this issue. Currently, the official ruleset allows wobbling to be performed, but for the sake of a (relatively) small local community, what do you guys think? Should it be banned? Should the rule be kept the same, or altered in any way? Please let me know!
My name is TMS and I've recently been a part of a budding tournament scene in my local area. While before this year there were no Smash-related events around, there have been already two events this summer; both to moderate success. It's a wonderful thing and I feel fortunate to be a part of the growing Smash community. Our events are run by a local business who does a great job of finding venues, reaching out to sponsors, handling funds, and collecting prizes to be given out in raffles at the events. Just in the aftermath of the second event, however, a leader of said business has come to me with a problem: the case of wobbling.
Wobbling, as you all know, is an exploit in Melee that lets the Ice Climbers guarantee a kill off of one grab, as long as both Popo and Nana are on screen next to each other. It has come to be a very powerful strategy in the competitive scene, with pro players such as Wobbles and Nintendude using the technique to take stocks whenever they get the chance.
The problem that has arisen here doesn't really have to do with wobbling itself, but rather with player reactions from it happening in tournament matches. Getting wobbled isn't exactly fun for anyone; it just makes the player sit there and watch as his or her character's percent goes upwards of 200%. At the latest tournament, an Ice Climbers player showed up and ended up taking third place out of sixteen, earning many of his kills from wobbling the opponent. While I thought he was a nice guy and was happy to have him at the tournament, some of the other players weren't so happy. There were complaints related to wobbling being said all over the room, and supposedly one player even threw his controller in anger after getting wobbled. Many newcomers to the tournament lost very quickly because this player was grabbing them and not letting them go; a technique which new players might not understand.
This is not a good look for potential sponsors or businesses who wish to get involved with the tournament host. After the tournament concluded, the business leader who ran the tournament came to me asking my opinion on wobbling. This guy is not exactly part of the smash scene (his job is to set up any local e-sports events, not just Smash), but he firmly believed that Wobbling should be banned from tournaments. I personally didn't agree, but I did understand some of the points made.
His business is about getting people involved in the local e-sports scene, and setting up events for those players to have fun at. Will new players come back if they went 0-2 in their first tournament because of wobbling? Possibly not. Is wobbling exciting from a spectator's point of view? Definitely not. This is a problem because the business wants to have the most exciting event possible; not just for players, but for spectators as well, so more people can get interested in the scene. If an ICs player runs through the tournament and most of the stream is dominated by Popo's pummel, will people really tune into the stream? Probably not.
I personally believe wobbling should be allowed, but the points made above are sound ones. Coming from a traditional fighting game background, infinite combos are something that happen all the time. The general mindset regarding infinites is "don't get hit." This sort of applies to Ice Climbers as well. Don't get grabbed. Fighting the Ice Climbers requires matchup knowledge just like any other character. In traditional fighting games, however, infinite combos are usually very difficult to perform and even garnered respect among the crowd if a player could pull them off. Wobbling requires no technical skill at all, which is why its so off-put by many players in the community.
I'd like to hear some of the voices on Smashboards and what they have to say about this issue. Currently, the official ruleset allows wobbling to be performed, but for the sake of a (relatively) small local community, what do you guys think? Should it be banned? Should the rule be kept the same, or altered in any way? Please let me know!
