but golden hammer does have risk around it.
anyone with a falling air attack (bowser butt stomp, kirby down+b, g&w downair) go through clean. rapid air attack (peach downair) will go through clean. sex kicks can go through it when applied properly.
and then there’s ledge stalling and ledge attacking which is ultimately universal.
which characters are you afraid can’t deal with the golden hammer? tell me, and i’ll do my damnedest to find a counter to it.
They are coddling. How you obtain the means to do something powerful is irrelevant. Trying to use this as a case-in-point only shows how desperate this group is to turn Smash into something it is not (a traditional fighter). Why are there so few of us trying to embrace the game for what it is?
I’m going to have to agree with KMD on this one. Competitive gaming has always been about the better player winning, and even a remedial knowledge of competitive gaming history shows this. Adding random chance already messes with the premise enough, and getting anyone who has played competitive Melee in the last 5 years to play with any random chance variables activated is a challenge in and of itself. (As an aside, I can see how random chance can actually enhance the search for the better player, but that’s just me). It’s not a question of ‘[embracing] the game for what it is’, its a question of ‘how does the Smash design fit into competitive gaming’, and the fact of the matter is that, unlike almost any other fighter I know of, Smash has a LOT of excess variables that must be taken into account during competition. No other fighter has to go through as many hoops to be competitively viable (at least competitively viable as far as competitive gaming as defined by history is concerned) as Smash does, which is why we don’t allow ‘broken’ (as determined by our project’s balance criterion) items. The item list we have is almost 50/50 in terms of bans/allows, so it’s not like we’re totally gimping the game. We’re just trimming away the excess, trying to find what works and what doesn’t as far as competitive gaming is concerned.
Don’t forget, there are precedents that must be respected; if you want to break those precedents, feel free to try, but there will be a TON of resistance (which is why this project is attempting to find the middle ground).
k. Can anyone PROVE that which player gets the item is random? No fucking theory fighter or a show of your half-assed “logic”, but VISUAL PROOF? Just about everytime I’ve played with items on, the other player had to ask for my fucking permission before they could get to an item.
Umm… what? No one ever said that items spawned in a players hands or anything. Items spawn randomly, meaning that the time, item spawned, and spawn point chosen by the game engine is random. Players don’t receive items randomly, they receive item drops randomly. Yes, if you don’t allow the opponent to pick up the item, well done, but that doesn’t change the fact that it wasn’t there before and now it is thanks to a completely random and unpredictable algorithm.
Jack - Wrong. Competitive gaming is about who can win at the game being played. We are not adding random chance to the game. People are trying to remove as much of it as possible. You are simply not playing the same game anymore when you do this, and while it is “people being competitive over items of brawl”, it is not seeing who the best brawl players potentially are.
choosing to remove something becuase you cannot master the skills needed to deal with it is not competitive. Competitors do not sidestep the problem, they fight it.
And again, good job showing how little you actually tested the items. They do spawn on a regular timed interval. Every 10-14 seconds on medium. Its very easy to get a rhythm going of when the next one will be spawning.
10-14 seconds is still random. It’s just random within a 4 second interval. If it was every 14 seconds without fail, you would be right. The fact remains that it is impossible to accurately and reliably predict item spawns, which is what the whole debate is about right now. Random chance, AGAIN, has its place, but competitive Smash (which happens to be the game we’re playing, btw) has, for the majority of its lifespan, been about reducing random variables as much as possible. I don’t agree with that, and neither does anyone who has applied themselves to this project, so we try to reduce random chance to a manageable level without eliminating it entirely.
I don’t see anything wrong with this. items are powerful, either player has access to them. the player that picks up the item (which means that the player couldn’t be stopped from grabbing the item, the opponent lost the battle for the item, or opponent lets them grab it) gains access to the item. Even if the item is picked up, you can still defend yourself
the first route to go with dealing with randomness is what can YOU, the player, do about it. if the randomness is too powerful an aspect (ex. the entire game revolves around that ONE aspect), THEN it needs to be dealt with.
You see, you just explained yourself why bans and intelligent item lists have to be made. “if the randomness is too powerful an aspect (ex. the entire game revolves around that ONE aspect), THEN it needs to be dealt with.” If you don’t have a fair, balanced, and intelligent item list, people will simply farm items, compounding the already problematic campy nature of Brawl’s current metagame. Part of the allure to many people who used to be completely against item play is that, if done correctly, items can stifle campy gameplay without becoming the most dominant aspect of a fight. The fact remains that Brawl (and Smash) is a party game first. We have to craft it into a competitively viable (and fair) fighter, regardless of what ‘purist’ mentalities we may hold. It’s a nice thought that we can play Brawl in a very unaltered state and not have competition degenerate, but as of RIGHT NOW, that isn’t the case. We have to make some concessions to make things work right as a competitively viable game, and that’s what we’re trying to do: make items-on Brawl competitively viable with as few concessions as possible, or at least with intelligent concessions.
when I said “revolves around that one aspect”, I mean it absolutely destroys the game. The point where the game becomes less of “who is more skilled” and more of “who can horde the best items and use them well”. items in Metal Warriors, for instance, absolutely destroys the game (for those who play it and disagree, I’m not saying having an item negates skill). items in SSBB… I don’t think that’s been proven at all
My take on it is this,
if you really feel you have to craft the game into something that’s competitive, and that its not competitive at default… is it really worth playing competitively in the first place?
You are certainly right that it hasn’t been proven that ALL items degenerate the game… but certain ones do, as far as this project can tell, and we have logical reasons (both theoretical and derived from real-world testing) as to why we think that way. Suffice it to say, I’m sure you’ve already read those. Haha.
@above: …well, Melee had to be crafted into a competitive game, and that worked out pretty well, wouldn’t you say?
I didn’t think that golden hammer made the game worse. But then again I didn’t know it had more range, covered more, the chance is 1/8th, etc.
eh, from what i’ve seen the ranges are damn near similiar. the hammer head falling off and squeak hammer happen comparitively at the same interval, the only real difference is floating and attack speed.
the attack speed keeps people from clashing attacks that would usually be beneficial to grounded characters (ganondorf can hide behind his jab to clash with the hammer, and then once it clashed, you could ftilt and get free shit, but its a no go on the golden hammer because of attack speed.)
the floating really is there to avoid getting gimped off the side if someone gets a throw on you. its air mobility is slow, and doesn’t cover much range, and if you block it, you can usually roll away on reaction. if its used to keep people from ledge stalling, there’s many ways to combat it or straight avoid it.
and if we are talking about damage, which i will concede is a bit more powerful than the regular hammer, we are then talking about a long strain of failed attempts to avoid it… long activation time, simple hammer mobility, still susceptible to being attacked and fucked over… you either failed to succeed or took none of these actions and paid for it.
there is risk-reward in this item, and sometime it will fuck you over… and i’m not simply talking about the random risky of it being squeaky. if people actually tried shit, they could easily get a free 50-60% on a hammer user if he fucks up and falls for your gameplan, and the only thing they can do once stuck in it is mash triggers and hope they drop the hammer. no air tech, no ground tech…
it isn’t so much about that they game is okay without the weapon, its more like i don’t see the reasoning behind it. the list is supposed to be an objective look, yet in practice, i don’t think i’ve ever been out matched by a golden hammer. i might have lost, but it wasn’t because the hammer user was lucky… it was that i didn’t enact the right plan, and i lost because of it.
the problem with the item agenda is that people don’t think that way. they see an item, and think that the item beat them, not the other user, and it damn sure wasn’t thier fault. no one is willing to accept the blame of losing to an item because they lacked the ability to counter it… its like the people who bitch that a certain character’s rushdown is too good, but in reality they just don’t know the counter to it.
does it make that person who’s taking advantage of a person’s lack of knowledge a great player? no. the player getting owned by it is the one to blame.
as it pertains to this game, very few weapons should spawn in and completely catch you by suprise. there is fair enough warning, and the ones that don’t give any warning or do ruin gameplay to the point of brokenness should be banned. but shit like bumper, unira, and golden hammer being banned? doing that would be like taking away someone’s rush down because people were too lazy to find ways to combat it.
Most FPS games need to be “crafted” into being true tourney-worthy games. As does Pokemon (video game). And Magic. Doesn’t mean they can’t be played “default”, but hey. A friend of mine (“DTJB” on here, Keits knows him) and I played about an hour of All-Brawl last night and even he, someone who loves playing the game in all of its weird random-ass glory more than anything, thinks the fan is retarded. When you start admitting that certain things detract from gameplay (fan, Mario Bros stage), everything becomes up for debate. And rightfully so.
I like this thread and the idea behind it. I’d rather not see it turned into another “you don’t play this game at default therefore you aren’t good at the game” or “you aren’t playing the real game at all” thread.
Post of the year, Subt-L. I’d rep you if I could. Good shit.
Edit - Hogosha, thats really interesting, because you play Peach and he plays Wario, and I know Wario can get out of a Peach fan trap in an position on the stage (easier than most characters, too).
We were actually playing mostly random. I remember getting him in one while he was Pit. Don’t remember who I was, but he was having a hell of a time getting out, even with me telling him what to do. He got me in one and it was damn near impossible for me to get out and I tried DI-ing every which way I could…can’t remember the characters for that one either. Didn’t always happen that we couldn’t get out (DI-ing up or behind a few times, or washed away on Distant Planet or whatever the Pikmin stage is called), but even then there was a lot of % being dealt.
I think the worst fan fiascos last night were a party ball spawning three fans (that point got guarded a lot) and a fan spawning right behind me while he wasn’t right on top of me.
shrugs That’s really neither here nor there, though. Point is, the idea of this thread is awesome to me. The “default or nothing” mentality annoys me because it blatently DOESN’T apply to everything and anyone saying it does simply needs to open their eyes and take a good look around them. Posts like subt-L’s are great. Posts like Pimp Willy’s need to take a hike. Contrary to popular belief, I LIKE playing with items. But when a random spawn controls a match because that item spawn (a fan behind you) was 100x better than every other item spawn in the match (two smoke balls, a sticker, and a piece of cake), then you need to do one of three things.
– Not play the game (which some won’t…and I respect that, as long as they SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT IT)
– Ban all items (some do that, and I actually prefer that style over others, but I will agree it’s a COMPLETELY different game than with items on)
– Or turn off certain items. This middle ground is something that’s been done for years with other games. I’d LOVE to see this applied as a standard type of Smash tourney. Not the ONLY type (no item Brawl needs to stay), but it’s definitely something that should be given a fair share of attention. Hell, when there IS a standard list, I’ll run a tourney with it.
I’m actually curious as to how M:TG isn’t played at default? I mean, outside of the really broken Type 1 Banned cards?
I’m not saying that Brawl is better as All Brawl, or some brawl, or diet brawl, I’m just making a point that I disagree with this statement. I definitely do NOT feel it is up to the player to change the game.
If you do have a game where you need to change it so extremely from what it starts with (like brawl… stripping out all items/most items, stripping out majority of stages) in order to have what is deemed “tournament viable,” that mostly means it’s not worth being tournament viable in the first place. Everything is most definitely up for debate, but at some point of banning things, you just have to realize it’s not worth it, and find a different, more worthy game to compete in.
As far as melee goes… no, I do not find that it worked out very well at all. I will readily admit that I never played it competitively ever, it’s not my cup of tea. Inside of the small sect of people who play melee “tournament rules” (NO ITEMS! FOX ONLY! FINAL DESTINATION!) it has been pretty popular. It has the BIGGEST install base (and potential competitors) pretty much of any fighting game on the market at the time (as brawl does now), and yet it works so hard to alienate the majority of the people who play the game by stripping it down. The smash community is big, but it has the potential to be so much bigger if it just reached out and was able to connect with the people who play this game, as is, out of the box instead of creating their own magical “tournament” version of it.
Just a little anecdote that I always think of when looking at the Smash community. When I was in 4th grade, I used to play kickball everyday, that was my recess sport. One day after school, me and a friend got together and played some tetherball, and had fun. The next week, I decided I wanted to try to play tetherball, so I went over to the courts and waited in line. When it was finally my turn, I stepped up, grabbed the ball, and hit it. My opponent grabbed the ball, and she yelled “What are you doing? You have to go 3 times left, then 2 times right first.” I just stared at her, confused. I tried to figure out what she was talking about, but I couldn’t for the life of me understand what the hell was going on. Her and everyone else who constantly played tetherball everyday apparently had some arbitrary set of rules that must be adhered to at the start of the match. Seeing as I just wanted to play tetherball, I hung my head, gave up in frustration after having no idea what they were talking about, and walked off the courts back to play Kickball. Since then, I have never tried to play tetherball again.
Ok, first of all… No items may be right, but the FOX ONLY, FINAL DESTINATION part is not. I’ve been playing competitive Smash for about 2.5 years now, and I can assure you that what you describe is a VERY small sub-set of Smashdom. The majority of us actually take offense when people stereotype us like that, so… try not to.
Secondly, just because you didn’t like competitive Smash didin’t mean it wasn’t a ‘smashing’ success (if you’ll pardon the pun). Sure, most people are a little confused when they hear the tournament rules (I, for one, had a big ‘What the f**k?!’ moment at the term ‘Advanced Slob Picks’), but once you learn them, amazingly enough, they work. I don’t play that way casually, but when I’m going balls-to-the-wall, I sometimes get tired of items mucking up my combos. And this is coming from the guy heading up SWF’s largest item project since… well, since I’ve been there (not a long time, admittedly).
As for reaching out… that’s EXACTLY why I started this project, and why it has such a following. People want to play Brawl as a more complete version for various reasons (some people like it more, it reduces camping, it fixes a few metagame problems, etc.), people want to understand and be a part of the tournament scene that Melee started, and people want to come together a a community. As I said before, the future of Smash lies in consensus and compromise. Saying ‘every item is banned’ or ‘all items should be on’ will literally get us nowhere. A middle-ground approach is the ONLY way to reliably, respectfully, and intelligently approach Brawl item play. Not everyone will agree on every decision, which is why the counterpick system is in place (and being tweaked). But that’s to be expected, and that’s what concession is all about: saying, ‘Alright, we can ban this (even if I don’t agree with it) to allow this (even if you don’t agree with it).’
Type 2, Type 1, Block, Booster Draft, Sealed Deck, Banned list, Restricted list, Peasant Magic, the terms go on and on and I REALLY shouldn’t have to even bring them up if you know what Type 1 is. You CAN play it as “default” but if you do the better player will be the one with some disgusting 1st or 2nd turn kill Type 0 deck and every scrub playing a 100-card Angel deck or some shit will hate the game if they play against someone even halfway good. Nearly any competitive CCG has something like this.
Not everything can be played on a tournament level right out of the box.