This whole stigma of "playing lame"

[JipC]

Was watching some highlights of Mango/scar commenter from SSC and for like 10 minutes straight all they do is complain about "lame" play. And then theres the whole thing from Evo where HBox got so much hate for camping on the ledge. And people hating on Wizzy's Falcon. And the East Coast thing in general.
I dunno, I wouldnt say I'm particularly flashy or particularly lame, but this whole thing kinda bugs me, its just shunning people for playing the game a different way than others. Should I be taking this so seriously or do you think this is actually cancerous for the community?

Was talking about this with some other people and I think someone brought up a good point:
"I'd say that about 90% of fighting game players think that speed = good. If a match isn't extremely fast and highly aggressive, then it's 'boring' or 'lame.'

Also, a lot of people get REALLY salty about dying to defensive play and camping."

 

[St_Steady]

Well, at the end of the day, the only thing that matters is winning.

Besides that, everyone is gonna have opinions. Scar and Mango are both flashy players, so of course they don't like seeing campy or defensive play.

It may not be fun to watch, or play against, but oh well, that's not all that matters.

 

[20YY SS | Saiblade]

I disagree, @ S St_Steady . In the end, we're all playing a game, so at the end of the day, the only thing that matters is having fun. If you're having fun AND winning, while playing campy, I say don't let it bother you. That said, I do think we have a lot more unnecessarily toxic people in this community than I'd like. In a community as huge as the Melee scene is, there will always be some trolls, twitch chat people, and toxic people, it's inevitable, but what bugs me the most about the Smash community is that 90% of the toxic people haven't even been to a tournament, and are toxic to newcomers, putting them off of going into the game.

 

[pagedMov]

lame is lame dude, and camping the ledge because you're up a stock is pretty lame

 

[Delta Chae]

lame is lame dude, and camping the ledge because you're up a stock is pretty lame

It was a Puff vs. Fox match between Armada and Hungrybox. Matches between those two have traditionally been extremely campy to begin with even when Armada used Young Link as a Puff counter, add in the fact that Puff loses hard to Fox, what else was Hungrybox supposed to do? It's a tournament, all that matters is winning. Why should the player be concerned about the audience's reaction to how they play?

 

[TobiasXK]

It's a tournament, all that matters is winning. Why should the player be concerned about the audience's reaction to how they play?

they shouldn't. if winning is all that matters to a player, they shouldn't need positive feedback from the audience to do what they do. flipside, they also shouldn't let negative public opinion of their playstyle influence them to change their play and lower their chances of winning. they shouldn't be "concerned about the audience's reaction" in either direction.

but also (and somehow this is starting to feel more important), totally unrelated spectators shouldn't be constantly lecturing everyone for having negative opinions either. this stuff shouldn't matter to the players directly involved and it especially shouldn't matter to anyone else.

EDIT: i do think there's a line that can be easily crossed into meaningfully disrespecting a person and not just their gameplay, or using really harmful language and things like that. but we're also seeing pretty disproportionate reactions in response to things like boo-ing or calling peoples' playstyles "campy" or "lame".

 

[Delta Chae]

they shouldn't. if winning is all that matters to a player, they shouldn't need positive feedback from the audience to do what they do. flipside, they also shouldn't let negative public opinion of their playstyle influence them to change their play and lower their chances of winning. they shouldn't be "concerned about the audience's reaction" in either direction.

but also (and somehow this is starting to feel more important), totally unrelated spectators shouldn't be constantly lecturing everyone for having negative opinions either. this stuff shouldn't matter to the players directly involved and it especially shouldn't matter to anyone else.

I just don't understand why everybody was up in arms about the Armada vs. Hungrybox thing at Evo. It was pretty par for the course for an Armada vs. Hungrybox match and what else was Hungrybox supposed to do in that matchup? We all know how bad that matchup is for Puff because she doesn't have a reliable answer to laser camping, she's just too slow in addition to being vulnerable to dying as low as 50%.

 

[Dylan_Tnga]

I think, Ideally you can mix both styles together for effective mindgames and mixups. If you go hard all the time you become too easy to read, likewise the same applies to excessive camping / defensive play....

Armada punished HBOX pretty hard with those Dtlts as fox vs HBOX regrabbing the ledge over and over. Although I will admit, seeing time outs in smash melee sucks and shouldn't be the goal. You can't blame HBOX though, Armada is RIDICULOUSLY good you gotta do what you gotta do son.

It all comes down to what works best for you. But leaning too much in either direction won't help you win, you need to be mixing it up. I truly believe in the old "mindgames" addage in melee as a route to victory. I beat people with 10x my own tech skill all the time because I know how to mix them up, and how to read them.

 

[pagedMov]

It was a Puff vs. Fox match between Armada and Hungrybox. Matches between those two have traditionally been extremely campy to begin with even when Armada used Young Link as a Puff counter, add in the fact that Puff loses hard to Fox, what else was Hungrybox supposed to do? It's a tournament, all that matters is winning. Why should the player be concerned about the audience's reaction to how they play?

I never said he shouldn't have played campy, I just said it was lame. It was a good option used with full justification because of the match-up, but that doesn't really stop it from being boring.

 

[JipC]

I mean.. if playing to win is "lame" and boring then thats clearly the games fault

 

[Delta Chae]

I never said he shouldn't have played campy, I just said it was lame. It was a good option used with full justification because of the match-up, but that doesn't really stop it from being boring.

I really didn't expect anything less from the match. First of all we saw it happen before so there was no reason to assume he wouldn't do it again. Secondly, as I said before, it was an Armada vs. Hungrybox match, when has a match between those two not been extremely campy and boring?

 

[zero sum]

if you don't want to play flashy because you don't feel comfortable doing it or maybe prefer playing campy that's perfectly reasonable and you shouldn't change your playstyle because falcomaster2001 can't deal with needle camping or something. that being said it's not unreasonable for someone to not like your play because of it and you shouldn't take it personally. and it's valid if you're upset that people are criticizing you and calling you boring, but the fact is that at the end of the day it's just… sort of not interesting to play against or watch campy players, and those players have to own up to that

‘play to win’, sure, but there's nothing wrong with not liking campy play. and sometimes i think it's helpful to make a distinction between defensive play and camping: i don't think the two are interchangeable and they shouldn't be used as such. camping in my eyes is just very repetitive play where you aren't really engaging with the opponent aggressively or allowing your opponent much room to do the same

armada often plays very defensively and he has a good following. even mew2king, who sometimes borders on campy, has a really good core group of supporters. anyways, the fact is that people who are actually good at this game (i'm not good but still) almost never expect anything unreasonable out of you; they don't expect to play someone with mango-esque levels of aggression every time they pick up a controller. they expect you to engage with them

and i think playing a campy player sometimes cuts out some of the interactions that people enjoy about melee because it's typically really boring and repetitive to watch and play against. also not to hate on campy players but i think it's reasonable to not like that, especially since camping just… isn't really that great. a lot of it that i've seen just relies on inexperience and never having faced the strategy before (e.g., hungrybox ledge planking at fc return vs hungrybox ledge planking at evo). of course campy play can have interesting dynamics involved but you can see similarly deep strategy evolving in aggressive and even more defensive play and it's not boring at all to watch for most people.

i think it's really boring but i don't hate campy play at all fwiw (other than maybe hbox's ledge planking lol) but i thought i'd try to explain why people don't like it if it was necessary

 

[Cthulhu's Underling]

I don't see why people are so salty about 'lame' campy play. In fighting games, camping is a tool used when excess amounts of thoughts are factored in, such as when you realize you're in a situation in which you can't just run in for a hard rush-down. Thus, I find it interesting. But it will be boring as **** if someone takes it upon himself to plank for a minute+.

What I'm not fond of is the run-away style. While it may be entertaining to watch, chasing someone across the stage, whiffing my ass off for a third of the match is aggravating. Then again, I'd venture to say the only reason this is the case for me is that I'm more aggressive than defensive, so I like to go in for a strike, rather than wait for an opening, or go for complex mind-games (I realize it's a personal downfall, but it's hard to change your habits). We all need to learn to appreciate each others' style.

Besides, if you people want camping worthy of complaints, play a first-person shooter, not a fighter.

 

[Joeyd123]

Campy play is just boring as a player and as a viewer. For example, in Smash 4, there is nothing fun about playing a link or toon link who just camps you and spams projectiles. Aggressive play is one of the main reasons people like Melee. Watching Hungrybox ledge camp was very boring for someone watching the EVO stream from home.

 

[-ACE-]

One thing you have to realize is that when a mango fanboy is on the mic with mango, there will most likely be some word vomiting.

I've never really agreed with the term "lame" when it comes to gameplay, even when I'm about to fair the 65th missile vs a campy samus. It's quite alright to prefer to watch less campy styles (like most of us), but I simply cannot hate on anyone trying to actively push the metagame.

For example, your typical wizzy set might not look like this, but I have utmost respect for 20GX and their approach to multiple option coverage. Hell, wizzy techchases with knee quite a bit. I don't see the problem lol.

Winning is winning, no johns.

 

[EPsilon933]

Campy play styles and characters aren't as bad as people make them out to be. Or at least fun is subjective. I find Peach vs Jigglypuff and Peach dittos to be Peach's funnest match ups among the top 8 for her. The neutral game is more exciting to me than comboing is

I might be saying this because I love trolling people by talking about how hype these match ups are and I know that most players don't agree

When I'm against noobs, I like playing as Captain Falcon vs Fox and Falco for the fun of making combo moments

 

[Comet7]

that epsilon guy has an awful playstyle. taunting like he does is so BM

 

[EPsilon933]

that epsilon guy has an awful playstyle. taunting like he does is so BM

I only taunt spam in tournament sets when I'm against someone equal or better than me ^.^