But Jack, you must have never considered the fact that you have to pick it up first!
10lolercoasters
I will be frank and I am not trying to be rude. Your balance criteria are double standards. Such is why I disagree with them.
‘Don’t get hit’ is the only way to deal with a Dedede or Marth chain throw. ‘Don’t get hit’ is the only way to deal with a Falco edge infinite against Dedede. ‘Don’t get hit’ is the only way to deal with the IC’s chain throw.
So why is ‘don’t get hit’ now a problem where Pokeballs, Final Smashes and Assist Trophies are concerned? Because they spawn randomly? That’s just not enough. Items spawning randomly is a rule of the game much like Dedede, Marth, Popo/Nana and Falco being able to grab you is. It is up to the players to determine how the items will affect the match. They don’t turn the match around without the user or the target screwing up somehow.
Smash isn’t a standard fighting game- dodging is pretty much the only way to deal with a LOT of things. And it’s perfectly fine that way, because you get the room and the dodging ability.
For that matter, Pokeballs do have counters and are not universally advantageous to the user and disadvantageous to the target. For one, anyone with a reflector can bounce a thrown Pokeball off and turn themselves into the owner. For another, ANYONE can catch it in mid-air and just throw it down. For a third, Goldeen and Munchlax spawn fairly commonly and their benefits are minimal or non-existent. Finally, Electrode damages ANYONE that gets caught in its blast, not just the target.
Not to mention their usefulness is 100% variable to the stage they’re on. Weavile on FInal Destination vs. Weavile on Rumble Falls is a completely different story in terms of zoning effectiveness and use.
Don’t worry; I am a pretty frank person myself, so I welcome it when other people are, too.
‘Don’t get his’ is certainly not the problem with Pokeballs (or any other item, for that matter). There is a problem, however, with how that imbalance is acquired.
Keits noted earlier that he thought how a powerful move (at the time, Smash Balls) is acquired is irrelevant, but that seems (in my experience, at least; lord knows I don’t spend an abundance of time on SRK) to be an opinion held by a minority (vocal as they may be), because many people hold the belief that arbitrarily awarded advantages are counter-competitive. I, personally, am kind of on the fence, so my opinion doesn’t matter too much here, but the majority of the people I’ve dealt with voice the concern about the difference between awarded advantage and natural advantage. Allow me to elaborate.
I held an ‘ISP’ tourney May 24th, and the Loser’s Bracket Finals came to Jumpman (Wolf) versus Mr. 3000 (Dedede). Both players were exemplary. Both players knew their characters well. Dedede, however, is a natural counter to Wolf, as Wolf is one of the few characters Dedede can chain throw at any %. Jumpman chose not to change characters for the entirity of the set, and so I view his loss as his own fault. He chose not to change to a better matchup, so Dedede’s chain grab was Dedede’s right to use, as a natural advantage over Wolf. These kind of advantages can be accounted for, planned against, and strategized both before AND during a match, which is why chain grabs are universally allowed (in most cases).
Now, lets come to a few items for perspective. Warp Stars are, for all intents and purposes, one of the most balanced items in the game. They are VERY powerful, but also VERY hard to hit with (against a knowledgeable and competent opponent), making their risk/reward ratio very equal; there is little risk to using it (just pick it up, you can’t be knocked out of it or interrupted), but also little reward (few stars result in hits). There is a universal counter to them (running away like a little girl or Air Dodging with style). There is even a little risk to using them, as you are vulnerable for a few frames after you land (easily capitalized on if the air dodge was timed correctly) and you can suicide with them (also a rarity, though) The fact that they randomly spawn is actually pretty meaningless, because the chances of you successfully landing a hit are minimal, at best.
Pokeballs, however, give only rewards to the user. Reflections will never happen in a competitive match because there is NO reason not to throw the ball at your feet to instantly get a Pokemon out. Once a Pokemon is out, it attacks only the opponent, so whereas the opponent has to worry about dodging the Pokemon, the user does not and can freely attack with impunity. Latias and Latios are among the most common Pokemon, incredibly hard to dodge and able to kill at low %. Such a powerful advantage to be awarded arbitrarily to either player is ludicrous, as far as current competitive Smash is concerned (and ultimately, we HAVE to confine ourselves to most of the conventions of competitive Smash because if we don’t, item play WILL fail; no competitive Smasher will ever play it. I mean, just look at how many non-SRK Smashers are boycotting EVO; a surprising amount of non-SWF Smashers are doing so, as well). Because of all of these reasons, Pokeballs are banned. We apply the same logic to EVERY decision we have made so far, banned or not.
Jack - there are hundreds of reasons not to throw the pokeball at your feet just to get it out. 95% of the pokemon do not move, or barely move, so positioning the poke-spawn carefully can make your pokemon deadly. Throwing it at your feet the moment you get it probably wont.
There is simply nothing broken about the pokeball. Even the ONE pokemon that was still being thrown in my face as a ‘free instant kill’ (the water shooting whale blue one) I avoided last night while fighting a player much superior to me, and I was so thrilled that I killed myself two times after on purpose to make sure the match ended in under three minutes so I could save the replay. It will be on youtube for Zoolander soon.
Also - I just cant stand the idea of the containers being banned. Those are full of totally interesting situations and strategies and i fucking love them. all of them.
eh, containers i think are fine… if it wasn’t for the chances of them dropping a bunch of good shit at one time…
there’s been a few times i popped a capsule and got a pkball, assist trophy, and a hammer at the same time.
does it happen often? not that much. but lets face it… dealing with a pokemon, and AT, and me running at you with a hammer which all stemmed from a single item… it probably doesn’t sit to well with many other people the few times it does happen.
it goes from the worthless containers (stickers and single items) to potentially uber rewarding to the point where one is expected to be superhuman to offset the advantage.
and i’m someone who is for dealing with pokeballs and assist trophies.
What I don’t understand is why items don’t fall under these natural advantages? They’re everywhere without exception, their existence is always known as long as you’re paying attention and they can even be strategized against. The difference between Dedede’s chain grab and a Pokeball in that sense is that everyone can use the Pokeball.
Items require impromptu planning and changes in strategy because of their random spawning nature. They can be planned around, but only when you know they’re in play. You see someone grab a Pokeball, you know anything could be coming from a Goldeen to a Weavile. You hear the Franklin Badge noise, you know that projectiles will be useless for a while and plan accordingly.
In the end, it is still something that can be accounted for. It’s just different from the kind of strategizing your example brought out.
Latios and Latias are hardly guarunteed KOs at any %. They KO the least of most of the Pokemon I see come out.
But that is besides the point. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter where the advantage came from. IMO, what should be the question is, is this advantage so enormous that it detracts from competitive play? Say my opponent spawns a Kyogre at the last moment of the match. I dodge it, but my opponent uses the zoning advantage to KO me. Circumstances towards getting that Kyogre are completely irrelevant. Has the match been made less valid by the appearance of this Kyogre?
Concerning Assist Trophies, has Devil and Nintendogs been taken into account as far as the decision to ban? Both are notorious for drastically altering the match for both players in a way comparable to Spear Pillar.
And I’m still arguing for the ban to be lifted from the Unira…
Exactly! Carbunkle, you nailed the dilemma right on the head. The problem is that, according to current Smash philosophy, that match would have been invalidated by the Kyogre because it allowed your opponent to get a kill he wouldn’t have otherwise gotten (this is the part I’m still on the fence about) not because he earned it, but because of a Pokeball that randomly spawned, an item that takes no skill to use. Had, for instance, a Lip’s Stick spawned, it would have been ok, because it takes some skill to use that; you have to actively hit your opponent with the Lip’s Stick or get a well-aimed throw (without your opponent catching or air dodging it).
I guess that’s what ultimately kills items like the Pokeball; they are ‘throw and forget’ items which don’t require any skill to use effectively. Keits was right in saying that placement can be very important for certain Pokemon, but in the thick of battle, most people would rather just get the thing out there and camp behind it than try to get the perfect placement for a Pokemon that may or may not appear.
EDIT @ Zamuel: We tried to take all of the Assists (as well as the Pokemon) into account when we discussed their verdict; there are a few assists (like there are a few Pokemon) that do not drastically alter the match, but there are also plenty of Assists/Pokemon that do, and because we cannot control what comes out of an AT/Pokeball, we decided the best course of action would be to minimize the risk and just ban the item; can’t complain about low % Issac/Groudon/whatever kills if they never get the chance to spawn.
And, yeah, I’m pretty sure we’re going to overturn the Unira ban; I just need to get off my lazy ass and update the list (we also had to re-ban the Timer because of a REALLY good exploit with it; I’ll link to the videos when I update that one, too).
Oh yeah, as a general update to those in here who aren’t following the discussion thread on SWF, someone suggested having item counterpick lists, like stages. A set of neutral items, a set of counterpick items that can be turned on but aren’t defaulted to on, and banned items that cannot be in play. I think its worth exploring, but that means I have to do more writing so I wanted to poll people to make sure it was a good idea before I sink a bunch of time and effort into something the members of the project didn’t want.
This is getting ridiculous.
‘we want items but we don’t want them to affect the match in any way possible !’
I think it would be better to simply have the current allowed/banned setup + counterpick system that is currently in place now. While having an added list seems good in theory, it may overcomplicate things. With a single counterpick item for your choice, you have to weight the risk of your opponent getting the item or it even showing up due to the randomizer–especially with containers off.
For the purpose of this question, where the advantage came from is irrelevant. Indeed, if the Kyogre hadn’t spawned, I wouldn’t have screwed up and let the opponent KO me while trying to dodge it.
But was the very act of the Kyogre spawning enough to determine the game, to the point where you could feasibly say ‘If a Kyogre spawns, then the game is basically set.’ That’s what I mean by harming competitive play. Where an advantage is simply so massive that there is little room for competition against it.
Such advantages are why the Pokemon had to be split into tiers that are more equal in power with eachother. Otherwise, everyone would pretty much just pick ubers and that’s all the game would center around.
Personally, though I don’t think a Pokeball falls under this category. That it’ll spawn a Kyogre is an inconsistent event to get to happen (It will maybe affect 1 out of 20 matches at most) and it’s not a guarunteed win just by spawning.
I would like this better than a flat ban/allow. It would encourage more experimentation with the items to this end, too.
My personal opinion is that the debatable things that people want allowed (Pokeballs/Assists/etc) should be banned from a standard BUT still tested. They did the same thing with Wobbofet and Deoxy-S (I think it was S) for Pokemon recently. Both were banned but testing still happened and, eventually, they were unbanned.
I’d like a standard list to happen. Even if it’s somewhat barebones in comparison to All Brawl or even what like three of you want (which is All-But-Three-Item Brawl), it’d be a start AND possibly something that could get some heads turned. Better chance with that than with calling every SWF member a scrub. 
Neither Deoxys (any form) nor Wobbuffet were ever banned. As it is, there is no Pokemon that was ever banned. Both Pokemon in question were just ubers tier and only used in ubers.
Tiers in Pokemon are simply to group Pokemon of similar stats to and against eachother for matchups, because stat differences in Pokemon would make so many not competitively viable at all otherwise. You bring a Farfetch’d to ubers? You can try to catch people by surprise with it, but the end result will be that it is OHKO’d. Absolutely no question- no amount of skill or setup can stop it.
Of course, nothing is stopping you from bringing Corsola into ubers. If you want to waste a slot on your ubers team then that is your prerogative, but it’s bad form (and often outlawed) to bring Mewtwo into a UU tournament.
Now, with that aside- a flat ban pretty much discourages experimentation at any length with the item. Nobody is going to play with, learn and prepare for something they don’t have to worry about. I think a counterpick list will allow everyone to be satisfied here. More testing can occur, they may actually get used in some matches and new conclusions can be reached.
A standard list was already compiled from input from SWF. A different community calls for different opinions and a different outlook. Otherwise, there would have been no point in Jack ever bringing it here.
I’ll make this absolutely clear, even though the debate seems like it’s heated at times. I like what Jack is trying to accomplish. And I feel this debate is necessary. If nothing is called into question, then nothing stands a chance of changing. At the very least, the absolute worst that could possibly happen is that it was talked about. And I’m glad Jack is being considerate enough to allow it.
Who has been doing that?
Raises glass Here, here! I’m glad I was allowed to come here and get all of your opinions; only good can come from it, right?
So…you want people to know as much as possible about something you don’t think should be allowed in tournaments? DOES NOT COMPUTE.
You’re still working on the backwards system that there needs to be proof that it shouldn’t be banned, while the burden of proof lies on the accuser.
Indeed. Even if nothing changes, at least it was all talked about ^_^.
I don’t think this has been clarified yet- but how would the item counterpicking work? Would it be like stages where P1 wins R1, then picks Mario for R2 so P2 turns on Smash Balls or is it more like P1 declares he wants Cracker Launchers on, so P2 decides to counter with Franklin Badges?
Or something.
Oh, I thought I explained that. My bad… ^_^’
So, item counterpicks run basically just like Advanced Slob picks. Say we have a Best of 3 set. Double-blind character selection, random stage selection (neutral stages), only approved items activated. Player 1 wins the first match, so player two gets to switch the setting of one item on the list (off->on or on->off), then player one switches the setting of an item, then player two gets to switch the setting of a second item. After that, player two picks the next stage, player one picks his character, and player two picks his character. Next match begins.
And so on for every subsequent match.
I am, however, making a pretty important change to the workings. So far, we’ve had an approved and a banned list of items; especially due to how we run item CP’s, I think it’d be more beneficial to have a neural, counterpick, and banned list of items (much like how stages are run). I’m working on modifying our impressions list now (instead of doing the actual work I’m paid to do, haha), but if anyone has anything they want to add, I’m all ears. I figure the less ban-happy people would have good reasons why any item should be moved from banned to CP, but I’m also looking for reasons why items should be moved from Approved to CP, so let me know if you have anything.
I can see a lot of strategy going into that sort of thing. I dig it ^_^.
I think that for now, all currently banned items should be CP. This way, the people who want ‘cleaner’ matches can use the base set of items and ignore CP entirely. And the people who want to experiment and play with the CP items have a reason to do so. I still think far more testing needs to be done with them in real matches (this is absolutely not to say that yours and other’s testing is insufficient, but the more data across a longer time the better I say) and surely, more people will if they realize they have to eventually deal with that item in a match.
IMO, the only items I’d even consider banning right off are the ones Keits and lamewadd mentioned: Maxim Tomato, Heart, Starman and Curry.
But that is just me. I definitely like where this is going all the same.
Curry is situational. Its best on small stages, and if your opponent has a reflector you might not even want it. It is very powerful in many situations, but its not unbeatable.
Starman is a 10 second delay of game. Runaway for 10 seconds, even on the smallest stages with the slowest character is just too easy because of how all your defensive options work. Starman MAY save you from something that would have been certain death on occasion.
Heart and Tomato are the only two that I think NEED to go. If you had to spend some time eating them or something, maybe, but them being instant and uncounterable leaves them as the only two items with this much of an impact without nearly any input from either player.
Its just ‘safer’ to run with everything on except these four.