The competitive problem

[The Halloween Captain]

Smash bros. has always been a fun game about battling with your favorite characters using unique, clever fighting mechanics. Win or lose, items or no items, 1 v. 1 or free-for-all, the premise stays the same, and a good time is had by all.

Competitive smash, however, doesn't make sense. It developed because people wanted to get better at this game. some of them went to extremes. That is, they began searching for frame-rate data, memorizing specific matchups, started relying on only "good" characters, and taking all the randomness out of the game.

Why?

It is not normal to study a game. Even the concept of "practice," which is seen often in the world of sports, is rather odd, as the objective is to become better so that you can win. The problem with this is it takes the "recreation" out of the game. It stops being as fun and light-hearted as it once was, and in many cases limits those involved to a select few characters, maps, and rulesets, while forcing them to learn new tactics and practice those tactics until perfected. A game with more than 3 dominant characters is often considered "balanced," and a game you have to invest a lot of practice and research to be good at is "deep." The exact depth is determined by how many levels of play there are, a game where many high level players can destroy eachother such that matches are consistently won by the slightly superior player tend to be "very deep."

The problem therefore shows itself thusly: If one is to be good and practice anything, why on earth would it be smash? The skills are only worth something until the next smash comes out. It limits the practical gameplay possibilities to few characters, and the number becomes especially small the higher up the player tiers one goes. It requires an absolutely incredible amount of knowledge and practice to be good at. And ultimately, all one learns from the experience is how to do a select few very precise button presses consistently. And maybe, just maybe, a player is enough of a genious (and a recluse) to win back the hours spent in front of a screen on a game that was meant to be played much differently than the way the player decided to play it.

How can being competitive be more fun than being non-competitive?

 

[V-K]

If you fight with 4 players on Wario Ware with items it´s imo very random and frustrating.

Competitive is much more fun because you know you won because you are good and not because of some random item or anything.

 

[Metal Reeper]

Sage........

 

[ssbbFICTION]

Because you can make money doing it @_@

 

[The Halloween Captain]

Sage........

What does that mean?

Because you can make money doing it @_@

Money is the side-effect. You get money because there are a lot of people who study smash, but it doesn't work the other way around. Tournaments are only practical monetarily if you are already a competitive player.

 

[AlphaZealot]

http://allisbrawl.com/news/newspost.aspx?id=408

I don't understand what the problem is though that you mention in the OP. Why is it a 'problem' that people play Smash competitively instead of just casually? Is it a problem that people play chess both casually and competitively?

 

[Sosuke]

Well I think its more about who you ask.
It's not like you have to stick to one of them anyway.

But imo:
Two pro MKs playing = not fun
Two pros using any other characters = fun
Random people playing with items = ... maybe. =/

 

[The Halloween Captain]

http://allisbrawl.com/news/newspost.aspx?id=408

I don't understand what the problem is though that you mention in the OP. Why is it a 'problem' that people play Smash competitively instead of just casually? Is it a problem that people play chess both casually and competitively?

I have trouble being precise enough to explain myself effectively, but I sum up my issue with it here:

I find that competitive anything is kind of pointless. The competitive strategies are good at every level, but the low-level strategies can't be implemented effectively at high levels of play, which ultimately limits the number of options you have that lead to victory. Not only that, but competitive playing isolates you further and further within your own game the better you get, until tournaments and a select few friends are the only hope of finding any fun or challenge left in the game. I found this out at very low-level competing, where even though I was crushed in early rounds of small regional tournaments, I was still too much better than anyone I knew to have fun with the game anymore. Going competitive is the reason I quit smash except when I'm with friends, and the problem with MK demonstrates one of the many problems with having a competitive scene at all.

 

[ssbbFICTION]

So you are saying you wish you were still bad at the game so you would have fun with your friend? Or that you were good enough to win at tournaments? 0_o

 

[Coney]

I think it's a difficult proposition, which is why you're getting silly replies. I think it's also difficult to speak for the entirety of the smash community. Different people play the game competitively for different reasons. Some seem to be entirely focused on the money, like Fiction's post suggests. There are a growing number of people in the competitive community that play just for fun--most of them are those that that want MK banned, to make tournaments more diverse and/or enjoyable. Did they come as a result of Brawl's technical ease, or did they simply make the decision to play the next smash game competitively prior to the game's release? Dunno. No one does.

I guess I'm one of those people, though I'm not for (or against) MK banned. It started as development for me personally, a big group of friends all playing together one or two nights a week. We played with items first, FFA. Then we took out the items. Then we tried 2v2. Then we moved on to 1v1. It's a gradual process and one that develops with the player(s) in the early stages of their competitive development, one that ultimately ends (potentially) with the individual attending and winning tournaments.

EDIT - I started writing waaay back when there were only two or three replies and came back to this later, so pretend I'm not slow please

 

[The Halloween Captain]

So you are saying you wish you were still bad at the game so you would have fun with your friend? Or that you were good enough to win at tournaments? 0_o

I'm saying that I wish I was still bad enough at the game that I could have fun with my friends.

It's a little more than that though, even when I do find people that are about as good as me, playing competitively just isn't fun. Win or lose, I find that my competitive opponent is good enough to avoid and directly counter many of the tactics that I could use at lower levels of play. I had fewer options, and actually found playing competitively annoying because I was forced into using certain attack styles or losing. For example, a good G&W can make projectiles almost useless, a good IC's force you to be super-wary of their grab range, and a good Olimar is just painful.

 

[ssbbFICTION]

I'm saying that I wish I was still bad enough at the game that I could have fun with my friends.

It's a little more than that though, even when I do find people that are about as good as me, playing competitively just isn't fun. Win or lose, I find that my competitive opponent is good enough to avoid and directly counter many of the tactics that I could use at lower levels of play. I had fewer options, and actually found playing competitively annoying because I was forced into using certain attack styles or losing. For example, a good G&W can make projectiles almost useless, a good IC's force you to be super-wary of their grab range, and a good Olimar is just painful.

Is that like enjoying low level play of soccer more because goalies dont know how to block?

 

[Ingulit]

Is that like enjoying low level play of soccer more because goalies dont know how to block?

Yes

Playing that kind of soccer is AMAZING

 

[Coney]

I'm saying that I wish I was still bad enough at the game that I could have fun with my friends.

It's a little more than that though, even when I do find people that are about as good as me, playing competitively just isn't fun. Win or lose, I find that my competitive opponent is good enough to avoid and directly counter many of the tactics that I could use at lower levels of play. I had fewer options, and actually found playing competitively annoying because I was forced into using certain attack styles or losing. For example, a good G&W can make projectiles almost useless, a good IC's force you to be super-wary of their grab range, and a good Olimar is just painful.

I can understand that, but it just sounds as if you've made a poor decision. You had fun with your friends, decided you might have fun playing competitively and developed your skills so you could compete. When you realized that competition wasn't really your deal, it was already too late.

So you don't enjoy the game competitively, and you're asking why others do? Just clarifying.

 

[The Halloween Captain]

Is that like enjoying low level play of soccer more because goalies dont know how to block?

It's more like enjoying free-for-alls over 1v1 in my case.

I can understand that, but it just sounds as if you've made a poor decision. You had fun with your friends, decided you might have fun playing competitively and developed your skills so you could compete. When you realized that competition wasn't really your deal, it was already too late.

So you don't enjoy the game competitively, and you're asking why others do? Just clarifying.

Somewhat. To put that into perspective for those who play competitively - are you having more fun with the game while you were learning how to wavedash, or when you were playing for the lulz?

 

[BentoBox]

 

[Eyada]

I'm saying that I wish I was still bad enough at the game that I could have fun with my friends.

It's a little more than that though, even when I do find people that are about as good as me, playing competitively just isn't fun. Win or lose, I find that my competitive opponent is good enough to avoid and directly counter many of the tactics that I could use at lower levels of play. I had fewer options, and actually found playing competitively annoying because I was forced into using certain attack styles or losing. For example, a good G&W can make projectiles almost useless, a good IC's force you to be super-wary of their grab range, and a good Olimar is just painful.

Perhaps you're using the wrong character?

For the longest time, I loathed playing "competitive" style Brawl. During every 1v1 match I played I would become agitated, then frustrated, and finally outright angry. Playing as Samus, I was annoyed and drained by every round of Brawl I played, regardless of my opponent; I hated all of the stupid crap I kept losing to and I hated the general feel of the game. I even considered throwing away the disc and moving on to better things.

Eventually though, I realized that I didn't hate competitive Brawl --I just hated playing as Samus. I hated having to run away constantly and projectile spam. I hated having no good shield pressure. I hated not being able to do anything effective against my opponent in close quarters. I hated her options for dealing with pressure. I hated her options for dealing with campers. I hated how she had no real options for controlling the pace of the match against certain characters, how she basically had to give in and "play by their rules". I flat-out hated the way she played; none of her options matched what I wanted to be able to do.

So I switched characters, and found that Sheik makes the game infinitely more enjoyable for me. All of the stuff I used to grumble about is now laughable, and I actually have fun while playing even when I lose. As I find myself in situations that used to make me feel helpless and frustrated as Samus, I keep finding that Sheik has the answer I was looking for all along. She's just....perfect. (For me, anyway.) It took me awhile to find her, but switching to Sheik really paid off.


-------

Or, perhaps competitive gaming simply isn't your thing. There's nothing wrong with that. Only certain people find joy in testing themselves and struggling along a difficult path of self-improvement. 'Different strokes for different folks', and whatnot.

 

[Bluebottel]

Darn. I dont think i have ever seen so much stupidity in one post before.

It is not normal to study a game.

The entire professional Quake, Go, Chess, Checkers, Counter-Strike, Halo, Smash, Street Fighter and Starcraft says hi.
Can you even define 'normal'? If its something that a large percent of the population doesnt do then its not normal to...
Compete in games
Compete at all
Being a doctor
Driving expensive cars
Being registered at smashboards
Play Brawl/smash/anygamewhatsoever

I can go on but i hope you see the point. If its some other silly definition of yours then who cares what you think? You are here and have a load of posts so you are obviously more interested in smash than most people.

Even the concept of "practice," which is seen often in the world of sports, is rather odd, as the objective is to become better so that you can win.

And its perfectly fine in sports but not in smash? Are you high? Winning is a very basic need for a huuuge part of the population. To be good at something. To be better than everyone else. To get recognition among peers.
Study some basic pshycology and find out for yourself.

The problem with this is it takes the "recreation" out of the game. It stops being as fun and light-hearted as it once was, and in many cases limits those involved to a select few characters, maps, and rulesets, while forcing them to learn new tactics and practice those tactics until perfected.

Sex and sleep is recreational. And who said it takes the fun out of it to play to win?
Heck, why are you even here?
Read and learn. You are a scrub.

The problem therefore shows itself thusly: If one is to be good and practice anything, why on earth would it be smash? The skills are only worth something until the next smash comes out.

Welcome to the real world. Everything they learned back in 1850 is worthless today.
This applies to everything. You learn how program in Java. Sorry, your boss wants someone who can program in C#.
You learn how to drive a forklift. Sorry, your workplace just got new models out.
You learn all the ins and outs of a windows version. Sorry, microsoft just released a new version.
Please, cry less. Remind me of why you are here again.

It limits the practical gameplay possibilities to few characters, and the number becomes especially small the higher up the player tiers one goes. It requires an absolutely incredible amount of knowledge and practice to be good at.

Oh NOES! Smash is just like every other **** game ever created by man. Some things are better than others. Who would have guessed? Oh wait...

And ultimately, all one learns from the experience is how to do a select few very precise button presses consistently. And maybe, just maybe, a player is enough of a genious (and a recluse) to win back the hours spent in front of a screen on a game that was meant to be played much differently than the way the player decided to play it.

Yeah, and sprinters/athletes/footballplayers/hockeyplayers learns SO MUCH MORE!
And who the **** cares in what way it "should" have been played? The developers suck at playing their own game. Sakurai is such a huge scrub that i dont care what he thinks.
How games "should" be played is dictated by how players play them, nothing else.

To put that into perspective for those who play competitively - are you having more fun with the game while you were learning how to wavedash, or when you were playing for the lulz?

I hate losing so i have a infinite better time learning how to wavedash so that i can do just that in games and win.
For the lulz is just a excuse for people that are bad at the game. Anything so that their little bubble wont have to burst just yet.




Now please go away and take you scrubby mindset with you.

 

[The Halloween Captain]

Character preference - I find Jigglypuff to be my character honestly. But that's only because I don't use her to "play to win."

I'm not trying to be a scrub. I apologize if I come across that way. It's simply that I was casual for years and loved the series, but after taking smash seriously for six months, I found that I wasted six months of my life on a game that I convinced myself was fun. I got really good, but in retrospect, it was dull. It was obsessive. It wasn't healthy mentally, and it wasn't worthwhile. I used to "play to win" in everything, and then I stopped when I could beat everyone I knew with ease. Eventually, I started questioning the point of "playing to win." I stopped "playing to win" every match, and started having fun again. It stopped being work, reasearch, and practice, and started being nothing more than a social activity, which made it fun again.

Sometimes it's hard to admit when a scrub is right because we consider ourselves more knowledgeable than a scrub, but honestly, I think that most people are scrubs and not pros because they have a better understanding of the true value of games, and know the limits of what is reasonable when deciding how much they want to "play to win."

Sirlin's competitive scene is not a utopia. It is only the best that competitive gaming can be. If you have a problem swallowing it as "good," then it only means that you understand the inherent flaws with competitive gaming that exist in the best-case scenario.

 

[Zankoku]

Come on, seriously? Playing randomly for the sake of play is boring. Perhaps you can somehow find long-term entertainment in doing something truly pointless, but if there's no purpose behind it then I find it to become pretty dull in a rather short amount of time.

There's nothing in it for me. No skill to measure, which may or may not be a plus, so whatever. Nothing to learn, because you're just doing things aimlessly. No objective to determine whether you're actually doing anything right. In the end, it just feels like you're not actually in control of anything - it's taking your inputs, but it doesn't really matter much in the end, now does it?

This is why I play competitively - because at least then there's enough things in the game to keep me occupied.

By the way, the "play to win" mentality? That's not the mindset you have to take when playing competitively. It's merely the optimal one if your primary objective is to win.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

The only reason I played Smash Bros for more than a few months was because of how much fun I had getting better with my friends. They aren't nearly as able to keep up with me in Brawl, but the problem there is them falling behind, not me pulling ahead. Also, I can report that tournament style rules really do develop independently; in melee, my friends and I with little internet influence eventually were playing by rules fairly similar to the tournament standard just because we came to the conclusion it was more fair and, yes, more fun. The only differences our rules had from tournament rules were that we didn't have a timer, we had a few extra legal stages (we only banned Icicle Mountain, Temple, Venom, Flat Zone, Brinstar Depths, Big Blue, Mushroom Kingdom 1, and Yoshi 64), and we played with every legal stage on random, not with a counterpicking system. We actually had a cultural thing where we were expected to play for quite a while with random characters too; being able to play in diverse conditions was something we considered a very important part of the game (and we played for hours on end with a rotation so sometimes unfairly losing was not a big deal; getting something like Pichu vs Marth was actually added hilarity).

If you just want to have real fun with your friends, I will swear that it's more fun to play how we did than how you're advocating. Nothing is more exciting than getting better, using your new ability to pull off a big winning streak against your friends, and then being sent back to find new tricks as they start integrating what they learned from you. Granted, my group always had me to deal with, and I play every game defensively which kinda totally breaks FFA. I also was the guy who would whine a lot if unfair things happened to me (not unfair as in my character had a disadvantage but unfair as in I got screwed by bad item luck or a broken stage). I also was the guy who exploited stuff; I really like winning. I don't think any of this is bad.

 

[AvaricePanda]

Well you have to realize that competitive players ARE a minority.

Out of the millions of people that have and have played this game, only a couple ten thousand play competitively. It's fun for us. I have to agree with Ankoku--my mentality towards a lot of games is just to get better. I didn't like FFAs because while a couple were fun, the game life dwindled down to a couple of weeks. I felt like I wasn't in control. Then I started playing 1v1s with my older brother and I had a ton of fun; it was just me and him competing, and I had a better reason to play the game. I had an urge to get better.

This, of course, isn't the mentality of everyone playing this game, nor is it the "right" mentality. Really, there is no "correct" or "wrong" way to play this game. Fun is subjective. Do what you have fun with. It just turns out that we have fun playing competitively.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

When playing FFA back in melee, all I did was run away and spam Pk Thunder. I basically never lost, and no one would come after me since they were guaranteed to get last if they tried. I can see how FFA is fun among some crowds, but if even one player (in my case, me) even tries to win, it just falls apart. Playing a game in which one player can decide they want to always win and make it no fun for everyone else just seems like a bad idea.

 

[Dark 3nergy]

Well you have to realize that competitive players ARE a minority.

And people wonder why Sakurai wont listen to us. It's because its true, we're all a minority compared to the other 12million people around the world playing Brawl casually. Sakurai and his studio get more money catering to the masses vs those who want to play it competitively.

 

[Melomaniacal]

It seems like you just don't understand... well, competition. Mankind has competed in almost anything possible since before we knew how to speak. Competition will happen. When you're trying to be the best at something, you eliminate poor strategies. Some people, like you, think this is boring. Some people want to use every failing technique, just because it's fun. Other people have MORE fun competing.

 

[The Halloween Captain]

Come on, seriously? Playing randomly for the sake of play is boring. Perhaps you can somehow find long-term entertainment in doing something truly pointless, but if there's no purpose behind it then I find it to become pretty dull in a rather short amount of time.

There's nothing in it for me. No skill to measure, which may or may not be a plus, so whatever. Nothing to learn, because you're just doing things aimlessly. No objective to determine whether you're actually doing anything right. In the end, it just feels like you're not actually in control of anything - it's taking your inputs, but it doesn't really matter much in the end, now does it?

This is why I play competitively - because at least then there's enough things in the game to keep me occupied.

By the way, the "play to win" mentality? That's not the mindset you have to take when playing competitively. It's merely the optimal one if your primary objective is to win.

I'm not sure anyone on this site can fully understand my responce to this except for Mew2King and a handful of excellent non-tournament goers. Even that is uncertain, depending on how they view the game.

It is far better to get bored with smash by playing for the sake of play than to become leagues above all the other players you meet.

Between Brawl's release and early winter 2008, the only players I ever met that were equal or better than me were at a couple of tournaments over the summer. After I lost my second Brawl tournament I decided to get really good at smash so that I could win the next one. The only problem is that I don't know very many players that are close to my skill level. I met a couple of players that were only slightly less skilled, and they and I both understood play to win. The problem was that playing to win was simply dull after a while. And annoying, depending on the characters. The fact that I was too good to lose and still improving myself, coupled with the fact that a lot of play-to-win tactics are annoying in how much they limit your approach, projectile, etc. tactics, I got bored of Brawl. I stayed in denial for a good amount of time because I figured that if I really learned how to play competitively, I could have fun at tournaments, but the fact was at some point I was never going to lose to the people I regularly played with unless I got so bored with the game and annoyed with their tactics that I let them win out of lack of interest.

And then I fully realized that since playing the game wasn't fun, and practice only made me better and thus made the game more dull, I should stop playing, learning, and practicing.

However, if I had just played for the sake of playing in the first place, letting go of being competitive wouldn't have been a problem, and I could have moved on. That is why I question the desire to constantly better yourself at smash - at some point, the only thing that getting better can do is make it harder for you to find equals, and thus the game stops being fun.

 

[rehab]

So you are not saying that you don't find the game itself fun, but that living in the northeast, you can't find engaging competition?

 

[Zankoku]

I'm not sure anyone on this site can fully understand my responce to this except for Mew2King and a handful of excellent non-tournament goers. Even that is uncertain, depending on how they view the game.

I sincerely hope you're basing that on actually speaking with Mew2King and not on some stupid assumption.

It is far better to get bored with smash by playing for the sake of play than to become leagues above all the other players you meet.

If that's your opinion, then it's your opinion. But it's not a fact, nor is it even close to universal. Personally, I'd rather get bored having achieved something than get bored having truly wasted time, but to each his own, right?

Between Brawl's release and early winter 2008, the only players I ever met that were equal or better than me were at a couple of tournaments over the summer. After I lost my second Brawl tournament I decided to get really good at smash so that I could win the next one. The only problem is that I don't know very many players that are close to my skill level. I met a couple of players that were only slightly less skilled, and they and I both understood play to win. The problem was that playing to win was simply dull after a while. And annoying, depending on the characters. The fact that I was too good to lose and still improving myself, coupled with the fact that a lot of play-to-win tactics are annoying in how much they limit your approach, projectile, etc. tactics, I got bored of Brawl. I stayed in denial for a good amount of time because I figured that if I really learned how to play competitively, I could have fun at tournaments, but the fact was at some point I was never going to lose to the people I regularly played with unless I got so bored with the game and annoyed with their tactics that I let them win out of lack of interest.

Play-to-win tactics? What? Learning how to win involves learning what works, what doesn't and how to make fewer things work on you. If you don't find fun in learning (which, admittedly, not many people do), then obviously playing competitively will not be the best approach to getting fun out of a game.

However, if I had just played for the sake of playing in the first place, letting go of being competitive wouldn't have been a problem, and I could have moved on. That is why I question the desire to constantly better yourself at smash - at some point, the only thing that getting better can do is make it harder for you to find equals, and thus the game stops being fun.

There are many end results that people go for in playing competitively - learning new things and feeling the improvement in their own game, gaining recognition, winning money, and all that jazz. I don't think I've ever been in a situation where a game stops being fun because I couldn't find equals. If anything, it usually didn't last particularly long because competitive players are fully interested in improving, and the better you get the harder it is to improve, so lesser players, given enough motivation, should be quite capable of catching up if you give them the chance.

But I doubt you're at that level.

 

[Nitrix]

Silly thread is silly.

Some people have fun by trying their best and winning. Calling it a competitive "problem" just doesn't make very much sense.

That is why I question the desire to constantly better yourself at smash - at some point, the only thing that getting better can do is make it harder for you to find equals, and thus the game stops being fun.

Not everybody is you. Some people just crave competition and winning. Besides, I doubt you could find nobody that was challenging. At the very least, I would have fun spending the money

 

[The Halloween Captain]

I sincerely hope you're basing that on actually speaking with Mew2King and not on some stupid assumption.


If that's your opinion, then it's your opinion. But it's not a fact, nor is it even close to universal. Personally, I'd rather get bored having achieved something than get bored having truly wasted time, but to each his own, right?


Play-to-win tactics? What? Learning how to win involves learning what works, what doesn't and how to make fewer things work on you. If you don't find fun in learning (which, admittedly, not many people do), then obviously playing competitively will not be the best approach to getting fun out of a game.


There are many end results that people go for in playing competitively - learning new things and feeling the improvement in their own game, gaining recognition, winning money, and all that jazz. I don't think I've ever been in a situation where a game stops being fun because I couldn't find equals. If anything, it usually didn't last particularly long because competitive players are fully interested in improving, and the better you get the harder it is to improve, so lesser players, given enough motivation, should be quite capable of catching up if you give them the chance.

But I doubt you're at that level.

Sorry, I made a stupid assumption about M2K. All I recall is that he didn't like Brawl, said he didn't know anyone in his area (driving distance) who was good, and doesn't play the game much. It was a while ago though, so I don't recall the exact details, sometime last winter.

I am not at the level where people are fully interested in improving either, as my biggest problem is that I can't really get to tournaments, nor do I know anybody that I can regularly play that's good. you can only have the issue I have if there is no reason to get better, and being competitive, winning money, and surrounding yourself with players who are actively interested in getting better makes it tougher to say there is no reason to get better.

However, maybe you can see the irony: You get better because you want to beat someone who is better than you. You succeed. Now you are the best person you know. The people who like you wish to play at your level get better to beat you. You both keep trying and trying. Then, slowly, the group of people who like you is willing the time and energy into getting better have other priorities, as it gets harder to be good, with greater and greater demnaded of you, the people you know simply stop getting better until there is too few people who you can compete with regularly and enjoyably for their to be a point. This can happen at any level, but is most prominent at the small-town level.

It's like a pyramid of sorts, a huge base, getting smaller and smaller until you reach the point at the top. Except those at the top are seperated by distance, and thus, play much fewer matches worth their skill than those at the bottom. Thus, the better you get, the less rewarding it is, because there are so few matches worth the exponentially increasing time and practice needed to get better.

Spoiler

And thus, tournaments are created as an attempt to postpone and downplay the competitive dilemma so that the best could reach their limit before the game stopped being rewarding.

The better you get, the more fun the matches, but the fewer the matches that are fun.

 

[Zankoku]

Once you've gotten that good, you're pretty much done with the game anyway. And it probably took a lot more time to be done with it than it would've had you gotten bored just playing it for a couple weeks in some FFA all items/stages chaosfest.

You tell me which path was more worth the money, and why you see one of them as a "problem."

 

[1048576]

Tripping and getting f-smashed and annihilated by stage hazards all over the screen just isn't fun for me.

 

[Gates]

 

[The Halloween Captain]

Once you've gotten that good, you're pretty much done with the game anyway. And it probably took a lot more time to be done with it than it would've had you gotten bored just playing it for a couple weeks in some FFA all items/stages chaosfest.

You tell me which path was more worth the money, and why you see one of them as a "problem."

Does that mean you don't play smash outside of tournaments and friendlies? Just curious.

Well, to be honest, the problem I had with the former is that I was bored with trying to reach the competitive level anyway. I mean sure, it kept me from spending money for a few months, but it was also the biggest waste of time in my life. I actually stopped liking my main, and it'll be years before I actually care about winning a match of smash.

I think part of it was because I was a bit of a fanboy. It made it hard to accept that I wasn't having fun anymore. Live and learn, I guess.

Looking back, it seems odd wanting to beat others. Few true competitors don't want more, tougher, funner competition as they improve, but without the masks of tournaments, ranked matches (Halo), and all those other things that bring tough competition together, they could see how much they are alienating themselves from low-level fun by believing high-level fun is more fun than low-level fun, and thus, something to strive for.

I wonder what type of person becomes the best? It can't be a true competitor, as otherwise they would no longer be able to enjoy competition as often as they require it. It must be a different type of person entirely...

 

[Veril]

Character preference - I find Jigglypuff to be my character honestly. But that's only because I don't use her to "play to win."...

Sometimes it's hard to admit when a scrub is right because we consider ourselves more knowledgeable than a scrub, but honestly, I think that most people are scrubs and not pros because they have a better understanding of the true value of games, and know the limits of what is reasonable when deciding how much they want to "play to win."

I play to win with Jiggs when I'm playing in competition, to learn in friendlies, and for fun at parties (ie. I spam rest). Why not play Jiggs to win? I dislike losing... And I still have fun playing to win. Actually a lot more fun if its competitive, regardless of if I win or lose.

Look, as hard as it is to admit a scrub is right... its that much harder for them to admit when they are wrong. This thread could be applied to any game, at any time, or even the idea of competition.

Smashboards... is about competitive smash. You see the problem with this thread?

Looking back, it seems odd wanting to beat others. Few true competitors don't want more, tougher, funner competition as they improve, but without the masks of tournaments, ranked matches (Halo), and all those other things that bring tough competition together, they could see how much they are alienating themselves from low-level fun by believing high-level fun is more fun than low-level fun, and thus, something to strive for.

High level players will still play goofy smash... when drunk. Drunken smash is where its at. With explosives!

 

[AvaricePanda]

I still think you're thinking too much into this.

The vast majority of players enjoy playing casually. We're the minority that enjoys playing competitively. Not everyone enjoys playing competitively, otherwise there'd be millions of competitive players...and there's not. Fun is subjective. Some people have fun going to tournaments, getting really good, etc, while others have fun playing FFAs every once in a while.

You said, "by believing high-level fun is more fun than low-level fun." I don't see why to some people, it can't be. Fun isn't only fun at a lower-level of gameplay. These things aren't universal, and you need to accept that, Your opinions don't account for everyone's; just because you didn't like playing competitively and saw it as a waste of time, doesn't mean that everyone doesn't like playing competitively and it's a waste of time.

Plus, people who live in regions where there are a ton of competitive smashers and tournaments, like California, MD/VA, Florida, New York/Jersey, Houston Texas, Ann Arbor Michigan, etc., are able to play competitively more because they have friends who live close who are competitive players. So really, it's not as if they're better than everyone else around them and can only have fun once a month when they get to a tournament.

 

[Zankoku]

Does that mean you don't play smash outside of tournaments and friendlies? Just curious.

Nope. Disorganized play got boring for me a while ago.

 

[Jigglymaster]

New Jersey is probably one of the most competitive and best states in the US at Brawl.

I like it because I love to play my full potential and still have many people to surpass. Sure I'd probably be the best player in some state but Its hard enough to even make it on the list here.

All I care about is being able to play with people that allow me to play at my best. I enjoy playing competitively, with small amounts of stages and with 2 or 3 characters.

There are 35 characters in this game, I like to look at it as those 35 characters all aren't there just so you can play every single one of them, but rather as a selection for your personality.

We all don't main the same exact character, even though there are a lot of MK's people still pick characters that suit them most.

My personal favorite character of the smash bros series is of course Jigglypuff. I know about that character more than any other character in the game. Turned out that Jigglypuff is bottom/low tier and that I wasn't going to make any good progress with her. My two secondaries at the time were Snake and Diddy, both of them were switching between the better secondary and in the end I believed that Diddy Kong was my kind of character. I picked him as my new main and I'm glad that I did. After 3 years of just being a nobody I started winning and It was the best feeling in the world.

When I win, people talk about me and I just strive for it so much. Playing FFA's with items and stuff isn't that great because people could care less if you win but rather start getting mad at you for winning them all (i'm talking about friends of course). Winning too much gets boring and I want to win against somebody that everyone thinks is really good.

In the end you have to chose one or the other because when you get good you can't become bad anymore. It was my choice to become competitive, it was what I wanted more.

 

[The Halloween Captain]

In the end you have to chose one or the other because when you get good you can't become bad anymore. It was my choice to become competitive, it was what I wanted more.

Technically, you can make yourself bad again. All you have to do is not care if you win or lose. You can't make yourself terrible, but you can make yourself bad. And to be honest, I found that playing to use Jigglypuff's dodge to the tempo of the Kirby fountain of dreams song is really, really fun (especially in FFA).

In fact, that is the entire reason I started playing Jigglypuff in the first place. Well, that and because Jigglypuff is the easiest character to go back to melee with, and she's also easy to learn in brawl from melee.

EDIT: The WHOBO discussion is kind of odd. On the one hand, it's not competitive to ban MK, and on the other, I can't imagine a game being good competitively that has such dominence of a single character. The biggest problem with competitive smash specifically is that smash, by nature, is fueled by fan's love of certain characters. When their character can't win, there is little reason to be competitive anymore. I'm amazed that this game has the community it does considering the material.

 

[East]

How can being competitive be more fun than being non-competitive?

Fun is relative. If I find something enjoyable that does not mean that you have to, and vice-versa. I don't think a lot of people realize this.