Tournament Videos from Japan

[~ Gheb ~]

[collapse="Umebura 8"]Finals:

Nietono vs Abadango



Tiebreaker for 3rd place:

Aile vs Rain



Semifinals:

Nietono vs Aile
Abadango vs Rain



Quarterfinals:

Aile vs Coral
Rain vs Yukhoe [/collapse]



Recent Wifi Tournament:

Semifinal 1 - Edge vs Blue-Ray : Game 1, Game 2
Semifinal 2 - Rain vs Kie : Game 1 & 2, Game 3
Finals - Edge vs Kie : Game 1, Game 2

 

[Gatoray]

Grand Finals:
Wow, I thought that people said Pacman sucked! Those fire hydrant plays were brilliant!

Also, I really liked the idea to use Jigglypuff as the mediator; the shield break KO is a great way to gauge exactly when the match starts.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Pacman's projectile camping and stalling game looks really obnoxious to deal with. The more mobile and aggressive Greninja had a lot less trouble dealing with it than the zoning and ground-control based Rosalina. The same holds true for their respective matchups against DHD. It would be awesome to see this kind of RPS system working out for a large proportion of the game's roster!

 

[Conda]

Interesting matches, thanks for the link.

That one announcer though.

 

[Leonyx]

Hey, during the Rosalina vs Wario Quarterfinals match at about 6:50, what happened to Wario to make him move so quickly in the air? I understand that Wario is known for his air movement, but that looked strange.

 

[Thinkaman]

Pacman's projectile camping and stalling game looks really obnoxious to deal with. The more mobile and aggressive Greninja had a lot less trouble dealing with it than the zoning and ground-control based Rosalina. The same holds true for their respective matchups against DHD. It would be awesome to see this kind of RPS system working out for a large proportion of the game's roster!

No, this would be awful.

StarCraft where Terran beats Zerg beats Protoss beats Terran would be a miserable competitive game.

Polarization is as much a component of balance as unfairness.

Balanced means 5-5 matchups, period.

 

[Indigo Jeans]

I was surprised in the finals around 4:50 where Nietono let himself get cornered between the hydrant and the barrage of bonus fruit. Nerves I guess. A really great match nonetheless, for the most part Nietono seemed to be constantly aware of the spurts of water and even used them to approach and generally space at times.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

No, this would be awful.

StarCraft where Terran beats Zerg beats Protoss beats Terran would be a miserable competitive game.

Polarization is as much a component of balance as unfairness.

Balanced means 5-5 matchups, period.

I'm not sure if this is sarcasm or not, I know those are the 3 Starcraft races and that's literally it. But if the characters have an RPS balance going on, then wouldn't the metagame keep shifting to stay ahead of whoever's more popular instead of having a few top tiers?

 

[LancerStaff]

No, this would be awful.

StarCraft where Terran beats Zerg beats Protoss beats Terran would be a miserable competitive game.

Polarization is as much a component of balance as unfairness.

Balanced means 5-5 matchups, period.

I'll take a RPS system over the rather feeble attempts at balance in the past.

I know I say this alot, but KIU was balanced around the idea. The very best things can be countered, and countered hard. As a result, the counters to the best are used more then the best, lol.

 

[Thinkaman]

The purpose of balance as a subtractive element of game design is to preserve the potential gameplay created by content variety.

A game is unbalanced when gameplay is lost due to a lopsided matchup of elements, whether it is a hard counter or a globally dominant element. Both of these are equal failures--when a game is not fun because the outcome was already determined at character select, why doesn't matter.

Putting polarization on a pedestal is the consequence of conflating global balance with local imbalance within a game state.

Rock-paper-scissors is a boring game that no one would ever seriously suggest playing competitively. It is a non-orientable Yomi state, and thus degenerate.

 

[RanserSSF4]

Most people thought characters like DHD would be in most top 8's, but that doesn't seem to be the case. The tournament had a huge diversity of different characters and each one offered a totally different playstyle. DHD is a zoning/lame character, Greninja is a paced, aggressive character,Rosalina is an anti-zoning character if done right, etc.

Nietono's greninja was a monster. If greninja can be this good and have little to no problems against camping characters, I can see him being used more often in tournament play!

 

[Thinkaman]

The "campy" characters in Smash 4 seem refreshingly well-designed and fun to play against, unheard of in a fighting game. They all rely on multiple weak tools that can be combined into formidable zone control.

This is true for DHD, Pac-Man, ROB, and Villager. Link/TL was also always like this.

This is a superior balance paradigm because the opponent can choose which element(s) to challenge in their approach, and the threat is relatively constant (does not scale with distance much); we should see fewer hard counters.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

The purpose of balance as a subtractive element of game design is to preserve the potential gameplay created by content variety.

A game is unbalanced when gameplay is lost due to a lopsided matchup of elements, whether it is a hard counter or a globally dominant element. Both of these are equal failures--when a game is not fun because the outcome was already determined at character select, why doesn't matter.

Putting polarization on a pedestal is the consequence of conflating global balance with local imbalance within a game state.

Rock-paper-scissors is a boring game that no one would ever seriously suggest playing competitively. It is a non-orientable Yomi state, and thus degenerate.

But at the same time, true perfect balance where every character goes 5-5 with every other character is extremely difficult, if not impossible, and the impact of the stage on the matchup makes it even more complex. In the absence of perfect balance, is it preferable to have cyclical imbalance (RPS) or a hierarchy where there's a small group of top tier characters that beat the rest of the cast?

 

[LancerStaff]

The purpose of balance as a subtractive element of game design is to preserve the potential gameplay created by content variety.

A game is unbalanced when gameplay is lost due to a lopsided matchup of elements, whether it is a hard counter or a globally dominant element. Both of these are equal failures--when a game is not fun because the outcome was already determined at character select, why doesn't matter.

Putting polarization on a pedestal is the consequence of conflating global balance with local imbalance within a game state.

Rock-paper-scissors is a boring game that no one would ever seriously suggest playing competitively. It is a non-orientable Yomi state, and thus degenerate.

Pokemon has a pretty stable meta, don't you think? Naturally, Pokemon and KIU do it better because it's teams over 1v1s. I was just saying that intentionally invoking the lopsided balance in a uniform way is better then the general high tier > low tier character matchup chart we've had for three games now.

 

[Thinkaman]

But at the same time, true perfect balance where every character goes 5-5 with every other character is extremely difficult, if not impossible, and the impact of the stage on the matchup makes it even more complex. In the absence of perfect balance, is it preferable to have cyclical imbalance (RPS) or a hierarchy where there's a small group of top tier characters that beat the rest of the cast?

It's a false choice, given that the nature of the problem is the difficulty in hitting the bulls-eye (achieving perfect matchups) in the first place.

Stating that we should make poor balance our goal because perfect balance is hard is erroneous. The best way to get as close to the center of the bullseye as possible, is to aim for the bullseye.

 

[Thinkaman]

Pokemon has a pretty stable meta, don't you think? Naturally, Pokemon and KIU do it better because it's teams over 1v1s. I was just saying that intentionally invoking the lopsided balance in a uniform way is better then the general high tier > low tier character matchup chart we've had for three games now.

Elements of teams are local imbalances of state, not true global imbalances.

This is much like how various attacks in smash beat one another, as is their purpose within the system.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

It's a false choice, given that the nature of the problem is the difficulty in hitting the bulls-eye (achieving perfect matchups) in the first place.

Stating that we should make poor balance our goal because perfect balance is hard is erroneous. The best way to get as close to the center of the bullseye as possible, is to aim for the bullseye.

I didn't mean to imply poor balance should be the goal, but I honestly can't think of a single example of a fighting game that is perfectly balanced, except for the original Street Fighter because Ryu and Ken were literally palette swaps. But I also want to point out that just because A > B > C > A..., that does not necessarily make the game as a whole an imbalanced mess. (That just being the smallest example. It could easily be extended to an arbitrarily large number of characters that have advantages over some and disadvantages against others.)

I'm struggling to articulate my point clearly, so I'll refer to the Perfect Imbalance episode of Extra Credits in the hope you can understand them better than me, since I find myself in agreement with it.

 

[TheTuninator]

I'm glad to see that Rosalina is as potent against the projectile spammers as I expected, since I'm likely going to main her. She looks like so much fun!

 

[Indigo Jeans]

This might be a silly question but the answer escapes me. Why do they use Jiggypuff's shield jump as the moment to begin the match, instead of the automatic countdown? Is there some TO related reason I'm missing, or is it just for flavour?

 

[LancerStaff]

This might be a silly question but the answer escapes me. Why do they use Jiggypuff's shield jump as the moment to begin the match, instead of the automatic countdown? Is there some TO related reason I'm missing, or is it just for flavour?

I think the Jiggs is hanging around to stream the matches.

 

[Nalefyre]

This might be a silly question but the answer escapes me. Why do they use Jiggypuff's shield jump as the moment to begin the match, instead of the automatic countdown? Is there some TO related reason I'm missing, or is it just for flavour?

The jiggs is the one with the capturecard

 

[ParanoidDrone]

This might be a silly question but the answer escapes me. Why do they use Jiggypuff's shield jump as the moment to begin the match, instead of the automatic countdown? Is there some TO related reason I'm missing, or is it just for flavour?

In order to stream from a 3DS, you have to physically mod the device. Obviously not everyone has done so, nor do they wish it to be done to their own. So in such matches, they will have a 3-person match and the character on the modded 3DS will suicide ASAP.

As far as why Jigglypuff and the shield break, it's a) funny as hell and b) watching the shield shrink serves as its own sort of countdown and the players can begin fighting once Jigglypuff dies. Just falling off the side would leave it slightly ambiguous as to when exactly they would cross the blast line.

And ninja'd.

 

[Indigo Jeans]

I think the Jiggs is hanging around to stream the matches.

The jiggs is the one with the capturecard

In order to stream from a 3DS, you have to physically mod the device. Obviously not everyone has done so, nor do they wish it to be done to their own. So in such matches, they will have a 3-person match and the character on the modded 3DS will suicide ASAP.

As far as why Jigglypuff and the shield break, it's a) funny as hell and b) watching the shield shrink serves as its own sort of countdown and the players can begin fighting once Jigglypuff dies. Just falling off the side would leave it slightly ambiguous as to when exactly they would cross the blast line.

And ninja'd.

Oh, duh

 

[~ Gheb ~]

If greninja can be this good and have little to no problems against camping characters, I can see him being used more often in tournament play!

Nietono seemed to be constantly aware of the spurts of water and even used them to approach and generally space at times.

Nietono is generally an insanely skilled player. During his prime as a Brawl player he was arguably the best in the world. You will probably not see a similarly skilled Greninja anytime soon - always keep that in mind when you wath him play as you might draw wrong conclusions on the character based on Nietono's performance as a player!

His game plan seemed simple and effective: pressure the opponent with water shoryken and Greninja's massive mobility into making defensive moves like roll or shield and punish them accordingly, typically with grabs. Of course an ordinary Greninja player won't be able to emulate this seemingly easy game plan because it takes a very high level of skill to be able to make these kinds of reads. The way he grabbed Pacman and DHD out of their roles sometimes was downright baffling.

 

[keninblack]

From what I can tell, at least in the early metagame...

The days of "just pick one good character and you're good" are definitely not going to happen in this game.

Using 2-3 characters are going to be required for optimal efficiency. Match-ups look too important in this game, and no characters (yet) seems to be strong enough to ignore match-ups.

For the sake of this games life I REALLY, REALLY ****ing hope it doesn't have a Fox or MK were just glancing over.

 

[Thinkaman]

I'm struggling to articulate my point clearly, so I'll refer to the Perfect Imbalance episode of Extra Credits in the hope you can understand them better than me, since I find myself in agreement with it.

I'm friends with James, and I've told him to his face that this is the worst thing he has ever written.

Multiple Riot devs refuted him on their forums, posting that this sort of degenerate, polarized, RPS situation is exactly what they are trying to avoid. It's one of their biggest problems.

I'll refer you to David Sirlin's fantastic rebuttal:
http://sirlingames.squarespace.com/blog/2012/7/18/a-discussion-of-balance.html

 

[Rich Homie Quan]

Good Lord, Greninja's ability to cover ground is ridiculous. He's got sheik level mobility.

 

[WastingPenguins]

Projectile camping in this game is ****ing obnoxious mostly because everyone's just playing on flat stages. Those Pac Man hydrants wouldn't be half as effective on Battlefield.

 

[LancerStaff]

Projectile camping in this game is ****ing obnoxious mostly because everyone's just playing on flat stages. Those Pac Man hydrants wouldn't be half as effective on Battlefield.

That's the problem. Projectiles are nearly worthless on other stages now. FD is shaping up to be the only balanced stage.

 

[Indigo Jeans]

Projectile camping in this game is ****ing obnoxious mostly because everyone's just playing on flat stages. Those Pac Man hydrants wouldn't be half as effective on Battlefield.

Unfortunately this seems to be true. How are we going to handle all of the omega forms of the stages? I remember a few days ago people were suggested placing them all under a single umbrella where if you strike one you strike them all, and I suppose that would work as long as they all have more or less uniform blastlines.

I noticed that in the semifinal match between Nietono and Aile they played both on FD and Brinstar's omega form. It may just be because its too early to have a definitive ruleset but for now it seems Japan is allowing FD and at least one omega stage.

 

[Cpt.]

Low hit stun looks like it could be problematic, but competitively it looks fine other than that.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Unfortunately this seems to be true. How are we going to handle all of the omega forms of the stages? I remember a few days ago people were suggested placing them all under a single umbrella where if you strike one you strike them all, and I suppose that would work as long as they all have more or less uniform blastlines.

I noticed that in the semifinal match between Nietono and Aile they played both on FD and Brinstar's omega form. It may just be because its too early to have a definitive ruleset but for now it seems Japan is allowing FD and at least one omega stage.

I admittedly haven't been following it too closely, but all the tournament streams I've seen have fought on FD/Omega/Battlefield, with maybe Yoshi's Island sprinkled in sometimes. The smallness of the stage list would almost necessitate treating Omega/FD separately if only so you don't run out of options due to DSR. More broadly, it seems like they're just sticking to them because they're already "proven" so to speak.

 

[ミスティック Speed]

So wait a sec...did this tournament show-off surreal game balance or something...? <3

 

[LinkNIvy]

I'm not sure if this is sarcasm or not, I know those are the 3 Starcraft races and that's literally it. But if the characters have an RPS balance going on, then wouldn't the metagame keep shifting to stay ahead of whoever's more popular instead of having a few top tiers?

if I'm understanding you correctly, you're advocating a Rock Paper Scissors type balance for a 1v1 gametype. I'm already foreseeing every Bowser match getting a projectile camper counter pick every second game, and Rock Paper Scissors balance just means counter picks determining wins instead of who plays better.

 

[Newt Floss]

Anyone that thinks Smash 4 gameplay is going to be boring to watch is crazy.

I know no one in this thread said that but I've seen it elsewhere on the board.

This was great.

 

[petrie911]

It's a false choice, given that the nature of the problem is the difficulty in hitting the bulls-eye (achieving perfect matchups) in the first place.

Stating that we should make poor balance our goal because perfect balance is hard is erroneous. The best way to get as close to the center of the bullseye as possible, is to aim for the bullseye.

Sure, but it's way better if your balance errs on the side of Rock 60/40 Scissors, Scissors 60/40 Paper, Paper 60/40 Rock than Rock 55/45 Scissors, Rock 55/45 Paper, Scissors 55/45 Paper. In the former case, all are still viable choices. In the latter, you always pick Rock.

 

[Thinkaman]

Sure, but it's way better if your balance errs on the side of Rock 60/40 Scissors, Scissors 60/40 Paper, Paper 60/40 Rock than Rock 55/45 Scissors, Rock 55/45 Paper, Scissors 55/45 Paper. In the former case, all are still viable choices. In the latter, you always pick Rock.

This depends exclusively on your fitness function.

The standard deviation of matchup ratios is lower in the second part.

I would much rather have two 55/45s than one 60/40, just as I would rather have ten 55/45s than one 100/0.

This is true for both sides of the coin, winner or loser.

If you exclusively care about characters being picked equal amounts (in and of itself), then the former is superior.

But if you have any other criteria at all, such as wanting the game to be as balanced as possible, the latter is superior.

 

[Dr.Smex]

Good stuff I like how Pacman isn't a one dimensional character, playstyle wise.

 

[Renji64]

Anyone that thinks Smash 4 gameplay is going to be boring to watch is crazy.

I know no one in this thread said that but I've seen it elsewhere on the board.

This was great.

Not everyone finds campy gameplay hype and "reads."

 

[RanserSSF4]

Not everyone finds campy gameplay hype and "reads."

you are right that not everyone likes campy/defensive gameplay, but what's wrong with having "reads" in smash? every fighting game, regardless how different they are, will always have mix-ups/mindgames, which pretty much results in "reads" being hyped most of the time. even melee required good reads to get mix-ups and combos going!