can’t believe this is still being debated. item players need to give up the ghost. items in major tournies are done because even if it is valid the fact is that most tournament goers enjoy smash without items. the evo staff even acknowledges that if they were to do another brawl tourny it would be itemless. if evo can’t even stay with item tournies I doubt there is anybody else out there willing to have a major tourny with items. I personally think brawl with items is better competively but I also hate the type of game brawl is with items so I’d never attend an item tourny.
Are we civilized yet?..no I’m being fuckin serious
I say ol chap we are very civilized.
Takes a sip of tea
It’s just that we still have silly cunts who still want to preach about items although its been done to death. Like Monte said Brawl will probably be item less at next year’s evo, but that’s if Brawl even gets a spot. There will be quite a bit of competition next year for spots, and I’m curious as to how it will turn out. I’ve lost interest in Brawl; It will probably be a while till I play it again.
Were there enough people at the brawl tournament to warrant two (items on/off) rulesets for next year? Were there even enough to have brawl included next year?
Is it standard nowadays that people who try to contribute to the topic get flamed and neg reped while others keep insulting them?
But you still don’t know WHICH item will spam. It can be a good one, as well as a bad one. So why include this randomness when you just as well can turn it off?
You can read an interview with the EVO winner CPU here, but this part is particularly interessting:
And James Chen, Ponder and inkblot can attest this.
EDIT: Ok, seems like item debates aren’t well-seen here, so I won’t argue about this any longer.
It’s all preference anymore. Both items and no-items Brawl are broken in their own ways.
That said, Brawl, especially with items (which in turn allow more stages since items give every character a ranged option and greatly reduce the viability of camping) is a unique experience in the fighting game world. All items is yes, absurd, but without the healers and exploders, it offers a fast-paced game of adaption into the Brawl mix. High level item play is a totally different beast then anything else you’ll find- you aren’t going to see Mario back-throw someone off the cliff just to jump after them, throw the springboard at their feet mid-air to launch themselves to their opponent’s height, then air F+A them into the pit in itemless Smash, and depending on the person, that’s either extremely sad (because it’s extremely stylish to watch a player adapt to the tools on the stage to setup kills in extraordinary situations) or extremely satisfying. (why should Mario get a shot at a kill just because there was a springboard lying around?)
That said, some people prefer their Smash that way- a lot of people want a return to the no-items (Because item play broken in SSB:M, sadly), neutral stage, matchup-driven Smash. While that format is flawed as well, in a different way, (The heavy focus on character matchups leads to some heavy unbalance in many cases, with characters like Meta Knight and Snake having tools that most characters don’t have a built-in counter to, basically shutting down a huge chunk of the cast and shunting them into low-tier for no reason other then they can’t fight Snake/Meta) it’s not more or less so then item-driven Smash. Right now, it’s mostly a matter of pick your preference, regardless of what SWF or SRK wants to say about it.
Then there’s those who basically wanted Brawl to be Melee 2.0, but that’s a viewpoint I never got, since the only major differences are the extreme execution barrier and heavy emphasis on touch of death/suck combos. And really, if I wanted an itemless, flat-leveled, execution heavy combofest where a small number of mistakes can cost you the entire set, I’d just get back into Guilty Gear, which is a better game for that sort of thing on every level. Natch.
In that interview, CPU also says they practiced with items like mad for this tournament. No one else in top 8 is saying that. CPU and his bro said they considered items and stages and tried to devise strategies that would help them win with these rules. And CPU did win. Hmmmmmmmmmmm…
And of course you dont know which items will spawn. It can be a good one or a bad one! Why take OUT all the depth that items add just because you are scared of having an unknown factor in your matches? Brawl without items is fine, but it doesnt test some of the very unique and interesting skills that brawl with items does. Improvisation, Stage Control, Adaptation, all of these are a distant afterthought to a group who thinks Smash should be played as close to a ‘real’ fighting game as possible… when in fact, what makes it appealing to all the ‘real’ fighting game players is the fact that its NOT the same.
Who the hell cares if snake and mk rape most of the cast? deal with it. In st sim, o,sagat, claw, n boxer own the rest of the cast but people have been playing that for 15 years, the gods of marvel don’t stop anyone from enjoying this classic from 02, yun/chun>the rest of the 3s cast and yet it’s one of the most widely played fighters out there.
There will always be a select few in any fighting game who are a cut above the rest who cares? Either play the game and deal with it or play something else.
I don’t have a preference for items either way is cool with me. Playing with items pisses off my opponent but playing without items gives me a chance to beat swf at their own game so it’s win win for me.
Now, preference on items on/off aside, I’ve noticed a few things about the way the Evo attendees have discussed the finals.
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Most of them have admitted to not knowing what the hell goes on in Smash.
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Most of those people have also said that watching the finals was “entertaining”. Not entertaining in the same way that watching the finals for MVC2 or 3rd Strike would be, but more in the way watching a rodeo or a demolition derby would be for the people here. In other words, they like seeing things fall apart or get beasted.
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The comments on Keits’ commentary usually boil down to “you really explained the game well.” I don’t understand how that’s a good thing. When some friends of mine and I watched the ST finals on the Evo 2k7 DVD, we kept on wondering why in the hell the announcer kept on describing the match-up or said how certain things weren’t guaranteed. The thing is, we should probably KNOW all this or else all we’re doing is, in all honesty, looking for combos and pretty lights. I don’t expect the announcer during the 3rd Strike finals to tell me that Chun’s c.mk can be verified into her SA2 everytime there’s a Chun on the screen with meter. I expect to hear something like, “Wong’s looking for a way to get that super,” not “Wong’s trying to hit a crouching medium kick, which he can then use to verify his Super Art II. Verification is the process in which you use…” Nope, don’t give a shit. If I don’t already know this and I’m at what is supposed to be the WORLD’S BIGGEST FIGHTING GAME TOURNEY OF THE YEAR…I’m in the wrong place and should probably be playing 12 year olds at GameStop and my little sister at home.
(Not any knock on you Keits, as you’ve had a shitton of people say that your commentary was good (and I’m buying the DVD), but I sincerely hope it’s good for reasons that aren’t just the above mentioned.)
And 4. Some of the comments (in, say, threads and such) during the tourney were things like “I hope this shuts the smashfags up now that Ken’s gonna win. It’ll prove they’re wrong.” Yet, lookie what happened. A complete unknown won. I mean, congrats to CPU. Kid earned it, items or not. I won’t even say “Ken would’ve won with no items on” 'cause I don’t know if that’s true. But in the end the tourney results proved EITHER nothing OR that SWF was on to something.
Case in point. Brawl finals with items were probably entertaining as all hell. But, going by most of the comments…I can’t help but think that they were entertaining for all the wrong reasons. I’ll reserve further comments (like what item(s) I think should/shouldn’t be on next year, etc.) for when I actually get to see the matches.
The tourney results proved that the best players will win. CPU actually said he practiced for items / stages and I really haven’t heard the same from others. Of course if CPU wins a no items tournament vs some big names then all of a sudden he will get recognition and people will think he is good. Sounds like some BS to me.
Hogosha - My commentary was tailored to a room full of people who do not play smash competitive AND/OR do not use items competitively. I tried to explains game mechanics, while mixing in play by play, color comments, and SRK-in-humor.
So how many people did the Brawl tourney actually have as compared to Melee from last year? I heard there was actually a large drop in participants, going from 270 last year to 105 this year.
Also, Hogosha, after watching the match, there is no doubt in my mind that Ken would have won without items. Most of the item-free time was in Ken’s favor. CPU tailored himself to the item-dependent style, and took full advantage of it. However, it made me question the item list yet again.
Bumpers when smash-thrown are stronger than Ike’s forward smash. I’m also still not convinced that smash balls are that viable, because they bring up more balance issues than the game already has.
I guess Brawl can kind of work with items, but the same could not be said of Melee. Being a member on SWF as well, I completely see where they came from with the “No Items!” mentality, because the items left too much up to pure chance. There were enough exploding containers to justify that. They tried for a long time to justify items, and they failed to do so, which is how they got to the point they are with Melee. Please consider that when you talk about them being close-minded.
I can’t believe CPU has to deal with this after proving himself :. Nobody questions Gimpyfish or Mango.
Gimpyfish? I don’t remember him winning any Melee tournaments not to mention he has been playing Melee years before he got as good as he got (IE did not come from nowhere). If you mean Brawl, dude…he was winning when Brawl first came out a couple of times. It wasn’t entirely unfeasible that he could consistently win when the game first came out.
Mango not only beat the best, but has beaten alot of good players CONSISTENTLY. I remember people doubting he was better than King after his great placings at super champ combo and another big tourney in California (Might have been some big UCLA tourney but I definitely know he got third in both), but then he got 1st at Pound 3 proving he was definitely among the best. Not only that, but he had been playing in SoCal for some time being ranked 2nd/3rd (probably more like 1st now) so he wasn’t just some nobody.
DO NOT COMPARE MANGO TO GIMPYFISH IN SKILL PLEASE BECAUSE MANGO IS MUCH BETTER! I can’t really blame you since you don’t follow the Melee scene just as I wouldn’t know if J is much better than Rex or YSB (or whoever) in Third Strike or if those people are even close to OHNuki. I have no idea. But please, stop persisting with the common smashboards misunderstanding of how good Gimpyfish is and definitely stop using him to represent smashboards (which some people at SRK do). If you just pulled his name out because of his “popularity” I am sorry, but that kind of stuff irks me.
Who is CPU? Is he even good in his region? Of course people are going to point out that some nobody won Evo when smashboards said it was going to happen. I didn’t think that would happen, but well it happened. Anyways, the point is this is just Smashboards rubbing the fact that some nobody won Evo in SRK’s faces while also convinicing themselves that items are bad with these results as evidience.
What have I learned through all this is that SRK are as unopen to none items as smashboards are to items. While some of both sides are open to either, this doesn’t change the fact that both are stubborn jack ass type places.
You misunderstand and that is partially my fault. I wasn’t comparing anyone with eachother. I picked two good players off the top of my head that nobody would question if they won a tournament to prove my point. I’m not trying to argue any sort of specifics of how CPU compares to them.
The fact is, CPU won Evo and that should warrant at least some level of respect, not cheapening his victory with things like ‘Oh, but he won an items tournament’ and ‘Ken would have won without items’.
Oh sorry, then it is cool.
Even if he did come from nowhere, he still won which is still saying something. :woot:
No worries, I was the one being vague ^^.
You’re mixing things up. 
CPU said that that he didn’t practise a lot because he saw Ken’s name on the registration list and knew that the cards were stacked against him.
It was his brother who practised like mad and HE “only” ended up on 9th place. Hmmmmmm… 
They both said that they only practised until they got used to items, not that they specifically practised them. Most of their training consisted of finding counterpick stages.
If it doesn’t matter which item will spawn, then why not every item was allowed there?
Everyone here keeps saying “deal with it” yet even EVO didn’t allow some items and stages.
Well, he “proved” himself under rules that weren’t accepted by the majority of the community. :
Everyone who saw the finals and knows something about competitive smash agrees that Ken was clearly the better player when items were not in play. Even the EVO staff admits this.
And what exactly do you mean with “Nobody questions Gimpyfish or Mango”?
Some guy from SWF posted a breakdown of the finals:
I don’t know if posting the links to the matched is actually allowed. I know normally it’s not but seems like they were uploaded by the EVO staff, so?
It was part of a compromise with Smashboards in an attempt to make everyone happy.
What difference does it make if the ruleset wasn’t agreed on by “the community?”
Yet, items were in play and Ken lost. Clearly CPU is better under this circumstance. CPU won the game that was played.
Nobody is denying that Ken is an amazing player, but the fact is, he did not win :.
I was vague, I know. I clarified above.
I read all of that and my only reaction is -_-
Ok, didn’t know that. But couldn’t they have banned Skyworld too? hahaha
Well, in real life it’s the fans who make someone a star. So if CPU had won that thing under the rules of “the community” he would have definitely earned the respect of the players. But unfortunately CPU played under the “rules of the minority” and hence gets only support from those players. Poor boy. :\
But it’s sad that the only thing CPU was better in than Ken was item usage whereas Ken was vastly superior in practically everything else (spacing, DI, general mindgames, etc.) and Ken still lost. I think that’s the main concern SWF has with the tournament.
Hahahaha but it’s true 