Would you approve of items being in the official recommended ruleset

[Dr. R.O.Botnik]

Since some people absolutely refuse to see any truth in the statement that a lot of you guys don't like items, I have made this thread to get some results that will probably turn out exactly the way I expect it will. If one of you kind, upstanding mods would add a poll to this, I'd be ever so grateful.

 

[Life]

Polling Smashboards misses the point as it only gets the absolute most hardcore of the community involved (most Smash players do play with items; most Smash players on Smashboards do not).

And I've wanted food turned on for some time.

 

[Dr. R.O.Botnik]

I'm looking for proof as to whether or not it will split/drive off the existing community, which is the thing I was arguing against. Obviously there are a lot of people outside of the community that use items, but that is not the argument that I am trying to make.

 

[Kink-Link5]

I don't approve of official recommended rulesets, so no.

 

[WindMajor]

I would one day like to see items used as the standard, but as of right now I don't approve of such a drastic change without it being at least a popular side event first, unless the community is unanimously in favor of just hitting that items ON switch.

 

[Grim Tuesday]

Side event: Yes!
Main event: **** no!

 

[Flayl]

I'd be okay with it if the items were on Low for singles (and maybe mid for doubles) with a lot of the items turned off, basically everything in Jack Keiser's banned list plus a few more.

edit: I wrote this as if the ruleset were the only one available to me, not because it's recommended. Don't give a **** about that.

 

[Raziek]

Maybe food on low/mid, but nothing else, thanks.

 

[Claire Diviner]

Most items can give an unfair advantage to a player. While some items are seemingly harmless, you also have to consider something:

Say food was allowed, and your opponent is at kill range for your USmash. A food item appears, they eat it, and you USmash them, but the damage recovery was JUST enough for the opponent to survive, which then allows them to make some sort of comeback (assuming they're good enough). It's that kind of match-up tilting that would cause controversies. Goodness knows random tripping does enough of that.

 

[Dre89]

People need to provide reasons as to why (limited) items are bad. Obviously things like the golden hammer and the star would be banned.

Items to automatically equate to a random or ruined meta. Mario Strikers Charged is an example of a game that had a good developing meta where items didn't break the competitive aspect of the game,

 

[Dr. R.O.Botnik]

The problem that most people have with even limited item rulesets, as far as I've seen, is that it gives a large advantage to whoever the item spawns closest to, and since items spawn in random locations, it's impossible to purposely put yourself in the position to get such an advantage. There are also the people who claim that it would drive off large portions of the community. I personally think that we should leave items off for the above reasons, and also because the game is fine without items and the addition of items would be too big of a metagame change for the community as a whole to handle.

 

[Life]

The problem that most people have with even limited item rulesets, as far as I've seen, is that (1)it gives a large advantage to whoever the item spawns closest to, and since items spawn in random locations, it's impossible to purposely put yourself in the position to get such an advantage. (2)There are also the people who claim that it would drive off large portions of the community. I personally think that we should leave items off for the above reasons, and also because (3)the game is fine without items and (4)the addition of items would be too big of a metagame change for the community as a whole to handle.

I don't feel like doing the whole line-by-line thing with this, but I do feel like defending items atm sooooooooooooooooooo:

(1)Actually, it arguably adds a new layer of strategy: controlling as much of the stage as possible in order to get the most item drops. That is, if you can get to a greater percentage of the stage before your opponent than they can get to before you, you'll get more items on average. (Unrelated, but items do not spawn closer to the losing player, although Smash Balls do appear to move towards the loser after they spawn.)
(2)Obviously. There are also a ton of noobs that would come in if we added items (and told said noobs about it), as well as a decent handful of SRK people who object to Smash because we turn items off.
(3)The game is fine without items. The game is also fine with a mere three stages, but that doesn't mean three stages are better than eight, or eleven, or thirteen, or twenty-three. What's to say that a few of the less-powerful items could enhance the depth of the game (by introducing glide tossing, by adding new options to even out chaingrab- or planking-based matchups, etc.) more than they subtract by randomness?
(4)The subtraction of MK would be too big of a metagame change for the community as a whole to handle.

Positive in-game benefits of adding a few* items include:

1. Walkoff camping is no longer OP (because you can grab a Beam Sword or whatever and chuck it at them safely, or you can pick up food to reduce their lead). This could lead to a couple of new stages being added (Mario Circuit, possibly MK1-1).
2. Planking is weakened (for the same reason as walkoff camping), which might allow the removal of the LGL.
3. Matches that are heavily skewed by chaingrabs, infinites, etc. (I'll use D3/DK as an example) are less so (because DK now can get projectiles to help him deal damage without risking the grab).
4. Item-based ATs, such as glide tossing, single-naner lock, DACIT, z-drop aerials, etc. now become available in every matchup, not just the ones where a character can spawn a compatible item (Diddy, ROB, Peach, ZSS maybe a few I'm forgetting). This is *probably* good for balance (although I can't prove it).
5. Stage features such as Smashville's balloon and YIB's Shy Guys are no longer mostly-pointless Ness-gimpers since they now drop food.
6. Items generally favor aggressive play, thanks to food making stalling with less than a stock lead inadvisable and glide-tossing allowing a new approach option. One of Brawl's biggest flaws is that it is seen as too defensive.

*

Spoiler

Don't pull the stupid Bob-omb card on me, please. I'm just talking ISP neutrals, for now at least.

While out-of-game benefits include:

1. Noobs becoming more interested--who knows how many are turned off by the fact that we ban so much stuff?
2. Same with SRK people. The worst of our feud with them really comes from the aftermath of EVO '08, which involved shenanigans involving Ken getting repeatedly Final Smashed and us complaining about it. Turning on a handful of items could be seen as an olive branch of sorts.

The only real in-game negative is the additional randomness, which I doubt is any worse than tripping, which we deal with; the only real out-of-game negative is that some good players (and TOs) would refuse to attend (or run) item tournaments, at least at first--although supposedly Ken liked item play, so it might not be as many as it seems.

(And I'm not going to pretend I'm totally unbiased: as a Sonic main, my run speed lets me get more items than the opponent. That doesn't make my arguments any more invalid.)

 

[Cassio]

Fair warning to everyone who will attempt to debate items with Robotnik, this discussioned occurred less than a week ago with pretty much the same exact points presented here:
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=320806

eventually Ben, Jack and I had to stop responding to him. Since he failed at supporting his point logically, Im certain the only reason he posted essentially the same thread in a different forum was to recruit more people to his side.

 

[The Ben]

To add to Cassio's point, he also said there was nothing that would change his mind about items. He isn't looking to have a discussion with pro-items people (or at least neutral people), he's looking to have a discussion AT them.

 

[Grim Tuesday]

InCom: Walk-off camping was never broken.

But anyway, I don't buy into the whole "items improve the game" thing.

When people get items in tourney Brawl matches, what do they do? Catch > Drop > Catch > Drop > Glide-toss > etc...

WOW, SUCH DEPTH AND SKILL.

Sure you've got items like Bananas and Grenades which are skillful, but most of the similarly skillful items are broken.

 

[Dr. R.O.Botnik]

Fair warning to everyone who will attempt to debate items with Robotnik, this discussioned occurred less than a week ago with pretty much the same exact points presented here:
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=320806

eventually Ben, Jack and I had to stop responding to him. Since he failed at supporting his point logically, Im certain the only reason he posted essentially the same thread in a different forum was to recruit more people to his side.

I wasn't looking for a debate here. This thread (which I really wish had a poll) is supposed to be everyone else's opinions about whether or not they would want items in the official recommended ruleset. My post above was meant to show the possible opinions of others with anti-item people, as well as my own.

WARNING: THIS IS NOT COMPLETELY RELEVANT TO THE MAIN TOPIC, PLEASE DO NOT DERAIL THE THREAD TO ARGUE ABOUT THIS.

Also, that argument wasn't all my fault, unlike what you want everyone else to believe. I was actually ready for a reasonable debate, but then, immediately after my first post, Ben comes right out of the gate with his "all-or-nothing" argument, and states it in a way that is not actually an argument but is just a mockery of what I said. Following those events, I've tried to argue my points in a reasonable (yet not completely perfect) manner, but Cassio immediately started demanding proof for everything while giving none of his own. Also, if you look at the beginning of the argument, you'll see Red Ryu, moderator and BBR member, saying pretty much what they wanted me to say.

Anyway, you'll see that I stated that I wasn't going to post anymore. I originally wasn't, but then Jack (who I thought was neutral and reasonable at that point) posted in the thread again and it turned into a pretty reasonable discussion...for all of one page. Right afterword, Cassio, in response to a statement I made about items not being popular in the community, stated that it wouldn't matter because there's a much larger potential audience that we would be appealing to. I responded with this post. Notice that I used the absolutes "never" and "nothing" in that post. This is where Jack goes completely to one side and sends the entire thread off the rails on a crazy train (and also where everyone previously on my side is pretty much gone).

Jack, after my statement is made, starts demanding proof that driving away the community is a bad thing (while no one on his side has given physical evidence of anything), while Cassio plays the victim and Ben claims that I'm afraid of change. Clearly I'm being completely unreasonable here. Anyway, I respond to Ben's post in full, while also asking them why they don't hold item tournies, tell them that people obviously don't like items due to the lack of support for them, and demanding out of them what they demand out of me. Jack then reveals that he did test items, but that he assumed I already saw it. He then criticizes me for making statements based on common knowledge, even though that is literally what he just admitted to doing.

After showing me his analysis, I state that it doesn't disprove my argument and explained my reasoning. After he tells me that me not being wrong doesn't mean I'm right, I respond to tell him that my point was not that I'm right, my point was just that he didn't prove me wrong (and also a mockery of their stance in response to someone calling out Ben). He decides to keep arguing against my "randomness is bad" stance that I dropped a while ago, tells me that I still need to prove my side because his article was still proof of his side, and then criticizes me for mockery (which was fair I guess). I then tell him why his post isn't proof of his side, and tell him why he's being hypocritical and that their hypocrisy is what I'm trying to get through to him. Cassio then responds with a rather aggressive sounding retort about how multiple people have told me why I'm shouldered with the burden of proof (keep in mind, though, that I said pretty much the same thing about item randomness and he did not take that as valid proof). C.J., BBR member, then responded about how they don't have to prove anything because they disproved an argument that I stopped arguing a while ago. This is when I decided to make this thread to actually see what you guys thought about items.

Jack responds to another statement I made, still arguing the thing that I dropped a while ago, and stated that he agreed about how most people in the community don't play with items on. I tell him that that was my main argument since a long time ago, and then proceeds to argue that I'm technically wrong because I said "never" and "nothing" instead of "never and nothing except for racists and homophobes", which I had to explain to him was obvious and should have been inferred because any non-ignorant person knows that these things are bad. We came to kind of a mutual agreement to stop, and then other people started posting.

When the others started posting, I posted an explanation as to how the thread derailed and why it wasn't all my fault. I though we were done, but then Jack basically starts bragging to Unabletable about how hard he owned me, and I called him out. He responds with a post that basically was just him ranting about how everyone on SWF is dumb because they don't follow his way of thinking, and proceeded to block me. I then mocked his post and posted a Wikipedia link to the "naturalism fallacy" to show that default shouldn't be standard until proven detrimental, and that's where we are now.

P.S. keep in mind that I was arguing against 3 people at the same time with little to no support from anyone else, and that it will seem a lot more like I'm in the wrong because of the quantity of opposition I was getting.

That being said, I'm not looking for an argument here, I just want to know where we all stand.

 

[| Big D |]

I don't believe it should due to randomness.

 

[Raziek]

That was one ultra-butthurt wall.

 

[Dr. R.O.Botnik]

There's "ultra-butthurt" and then there's defending yourself and the thread against biased slander.

 

[Life]

There's "ultra-butthurt" and then there's defending yourself and the thread against biased slander.

Not slander.

Slander is spoken, libel is written

 

[The Ben]

Also it can't be libel or slander if it didn't cause any monetary harm.

 

[Wizzrobe]

I don't believe it should due to randomness.

This, This is why items should not be used.

 

[Dr. Tuen]

If items do have a tendency to spawn towards the losing player, then food on low would be interesting. It would encourage more offensive gameplay to prevent an item-based comeback. Instead of camping a lead, a player would want to press the lead to improve the margin in two ways: by continuing to put the hurt on the opponent, and by grabbing food when the opportunity arises (non KO fsmash with a weak offstage character? don't bother going after them, let the recovery happen while you reap the delicious food benefits).

So yeah, I think it'd be interesting. If anyone gets a stream with some reasonably skilled players trying this out, I'd eat my own hat. And I have a lot of hats to pick from.

 

[Grim Tuesday]

Items don't spawn towards the losing player.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Fair warning to everyone who will attempt to debate items with Robotnik, this discussioned occurred less than a week ago with pretty much the same exact points presented here:
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=320806

eventually Ben, Jack and I had to stop responding to him. Since he failed at supporting his point logically, Im certain the only reason he posted essentially the same thread in a different forum was to recruit more people to his side.

Fallacy, just because he debated his points badly doesn't mean he is wrong.

~

And only smash balls seem to have an effect with the losing players, aka easier to break and where they move around if I recall correctly.

 

[Kewkky]

I wouldn't approve of items in any main event ruleset, nope. The majority of my reasoning involves me not deviating from the norm and my own experiences with playing with items. Food on low barely makes a difference in a game, so there's not much difference between having it on and not having it at all, but I'd still rather not have any items on at all.

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

I wouldn't approve of 'em, either.

Even the weaker ones still screw with the match-ups and are random regardless.

It just doesn't work as a main standard. Fun as a side event, though. Likewise, Stickers. They're quite annoying and force actions we don't want. That alone is bad.

If it weren't for them, I'd be willing to give it a try. But them... nope.

 

[Johnknight1]

Almost all of the items do ridiculous damage, knock back, or stun. Plus I think the Ice Climbers are way better than anyone else with items. At least that was so the last time I played with items, like 4 years ago.

As for food and other healing items, their random spawning can really turn a game inside out, and favors the fast characters. Basically, it gives an unfair advantage to whoever is closet to them and/or the fastest character.

 

[The Ben]

Not having items also favors the most mobile characters. The reason Meta Knight was "broken enough to get banned" is because there wasn't a situation he couldn't get out of and could easily out maneuver any other character. It doesn't matter what character the game favors, a tier list will exist regardless of items.

 

[Hat N' Clogs]

I don't like using items and I wouldn't want them to be part of the ruleset because imo they just get in the way of the game and some will abuse items and not use their full potential. However, I still like using items occasionally, but they shouldn't be part of the ruleset imo.

 

[Destiny Warrior]

I don't think this thread will work as well as you expect it to(in garnering data(, because items cannot be brought in one fell swoop. It is a simple fact. Side-events are what people will want to try first. Unilateral questions like "Should items be in standard ruleset?" are usually not going to get a yes, even if the person likes items.

The first thing to do is to have items=on in some side events/local tournaments. Items were banned off the bat in Brawl, and most people have no competitive experience with it. They didn't have much of a reason to learn the items metagame(a lot of competitive players don't learn New Pork City's structure, and how to reduce the effectiveness of opponent's Final Smashes on it, as they have no reason to do so), so they will naturally resist a unilateral huge change, so this thread will naturally poll "no".

Outside of the ISP, not too many efforts as far as I can see have been taken to study the effect of items on the game. Items haven't been experimented with a lot, because they were banned fromt he beginning. It is very very hard to change the status quo, especially if it was established a while ago.

tl;dr: This thread will definitely get the answer "no" from the community, simply because it discusses a unilateral change. Unilateral changes, especially controversial ones, will always get a thumbs down. A better question to ask would probably be "Do you think the randomness of items can possibly co-exist with a competitive metagame?", though I digress.

 

[Strong Badam]

My only issue with banning items is that they were never tested in the first place. The first rulesets in March 2008 (and sooner!) had them banned (read: before any tournaments were even held), so a valid argument couldn't even be made using tournament data against their legality! Certainly, there are inherent issues with items in competitive play (most revolving around randomness) however it seems the community doesn't seem to mind a certain amount of randomness all that much given the stagelist. But it's just bad practice to ban things without testing them. If in Smash 4 items are redesigned in general and end up having very little impact on results, and are very skillful, and we banned them right from the get go, there's a lot that could be potentially lost. You just have no idea how something will affect the competitive side of things until they're tested, and no amount of theory bros. can replace that. By all means, if it's determined that something's detrimental to competitive play after testing it, ban it then, but no sooner.

On the subject of "Should they be introduced now?": No, I don't think so. I think it's far too late in the game's lifespan to go and say "Oh, we forgot to test this. Let's do what we should have done originally" or whatever. People have been playing competitively in a specific way for over 4 years now, and it'd shake up things far too much to be worth it, tbh. Rulesets should unfortunately be appeasing the current community, as its basically what you've got until smash 4 comes out.

 

[infiniteV115]

Depends on which items. The mild ones are okay, like food, Franklin Badge (that's the thing that reflects ****...right?), etc.

Things like Heart Containers, Stars, Spicy Curry are too strong imo.

And I'm just beginning to notice that I'm on the fence about a lot of them, like Smart Bombs, Bunny Hoods, Ray Gun...yeah we'd need some testing.

 

[Kink-Link5]

I wish the Screw attack was akin to Melee's.

Smart bomb is almost worthless by itself, but I suppose it could be used to force the opponent into another, better move depending on where they SDI out of it.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

I could reference how inconsistent the library tournaments i ran back in the day with items were result wise but w/e.

Strong Bad is right that no testing was done that exclusively but at the same time it's ok in some situations to skip testing.

We don't need to retest Hyrule Temple for example.

That being the correct approach or even knowing if the line was crossed is the debatable part.

 

[lordvaati]

Strong Bad put it perfectly. in fact, one of the final reasons why items were banned in Melee was because Crates could never be turned off-something that could be done in Brawl. and the only Tournaments we ever had for reference of item ply were a Nintendo event, EVO 2008, and....yeah. we really never spent enough time to test them out at all.

and I can't help but feel that there will always be an excuse from someone to ban them. Melee and 64, they were banned cause of Crates. Brawl gets rid of crates, now they are banned just for randomness. if Smash 4 got rid of randomness, why do i feel someone would STILL come with a reason to Ban them? I mean obvious suspects like Smash Balls, Poke balls and Bomb-Ombs are gonna be gone, but Franklin Badges, food and Mr. Saturns are totally legit.

one could argue that it would be high maintenance to test all the items,but really it's no more so then testing out stages. I mean for all we know,item play in Brawl could have changed it into the strategic offensive game everyone wanted instead of the game that focused so much around defense. pipe dream, yeah, but it could have been under our noses the whole time.

but like SB said,it may have been too late now.

Strong Bad is right that no testing was done that exclusively but at the same time it's ok in some situations to skip testing.

We don't need to retest Hyrule Temple for example.

but theres a major difference between Items in 64/melee and items in Brawl-crates could be turned off. to give an example,let's say you could never Turn Flat zone off of Random stages in Melee and that's what it was like for items then. Obviously HT wouldn't need to be retested, but the same could be said about Bomb-ombs. you can't just classify all items as one single category,just like you can't do that with Stages.

 

[salaboB]

Random doesn't automatically mean the game isn't competitive -- otherwise tripping alone would have ended this.

To deal with the items, you do stage control. Yes, the item may spawn in that one time the other guy drives onto the level -- and in that case, his effort paid off. But over the course of the match, the player controlling most of the stage where items can spawn will be able to gather most of the items. That's skilled play.

If the item sets are also balanced so that all items can be dealt with reasonably and don't cause kills when attacked as they spawn (ie, no stars, bob-ombs or similar), then it further reduces the damage that can be caused. Sure, your opponent might randomly get an item even though you had better stage control -- but since no item allowed will be brokenly effective, you can deal with them getting it.

It definitely will increase the skill cap, because while all the current encounters will be possible (During the times no items are on-field) there's entirely new setups possible that are never seen -- those all will take practice, knowledge, and ability to handle properly.

As stated, it will weaken some less interesting strategies such as ledge camping -- you'll need to be on the stage controlling it, or be willing to give up the item advantage. Suddenly there's a decision to make that's not there currently.

Finally yes it will mix up some matchups -- why is this a bad thing?

 

[lordvaati]

I feel this should be posted to give an example of a legal item ruleset.



Also,this topic shows why having items NOT be random could actually be worse.

 

[san.]

I would be fine with food, weak items, and the sword-like items that aren't too powerful. All on low.

If food only is on low, they appear at pretty regular intervals (not exact but the time can be predicted roughly).

 

[xDD-Master]

Items are fine, not all of them though.
I will probably make a new Item-concept-based Tournament @ BiB3, and record everything etc.
I can post the videos here then (If we get to record them)