Tournament Talk Back - "Randomtivity"

Classic Fighting Games Super Smash Brothers Brawl
1

So, here we go. Thoughts on our first unofficial tournament with everything on. I’ll give my 2 Cents, first;

Items - While spawning any old where, aren’t game breaking (at least within the parameters we set). Items never spawned in any characters hands. Random placements on the map, where either one of us could have grabbed it, regardless of who was faster.

Even after the items are retrieved, I was at no real disadvantage without one. Items can be grabbed on the ground, and in mid air (if thrown) with nothing but a slight time prep, or simply blocked. My second character (Wolf), has a natural ability to reflect anything shot OR thrown at him, with his Down + B. Items (again, within the short time frame during each match, and the items that spawned in our games) didn’t seem to hinder any of my basic, itemless strategies. It will take time learning every item, PokeBall, and Assist Trophy’s effects to heart, but once I do, dealing with anything that spawns won’t seem all that hard.

Smash Balls - Playing most of the earlier matches with Ganondorf, arguably the slowest guy (?) in the game, I had no problem getting any Smash Ball, or at the least, keeping my opponents away from them.

Stages - I had matches on Frigate, Final Destination, Mario Bros., Shadow Moses, and Port Town, Aero Drive. The only one I had a hassle with was Mario Bros. nothing major. There’s various enemies spawning on all sides, on every floor, at all times, but it’s nothing simply avoiding, or hitting from under won’t fix. No enemy is invincible on the Mario Bros. stage. Just another factor to keep in mind while playing on it. Other’s may disagree with me. No big deal.

Advantages on Stages - We all know stages like Hyrule castle, give potential running bastards a serious advantage (especially on timed matches), but this isn’t the only advantage characters/players can gain on stages. Small, “floating” stages gave tether characters a huge advantage. Being that the area between the left and right edges were relatively small, compared to other stages, and all.

Also, there’s some characters who suffer slightly, too. All the Landmaster guys’ FS do poor on stages that aren’t flat. They get a severe advantage on flat stages (your Final Destinations and what not), but it’s hard to land a single hit on Summit, Mario Bros., and others (multi-levels, and high points in the stage give the opponent areas to evade to).

Random note

The Fan is crazy. Lavi caught me in what seemed to be an infinite with the fan, and mashing down the A button. I had Ganondorf, and he raised my damage % from under 50 to 300 + very easily. I couldn’t get out of it, no matter what I pressed/mashed.

And that’s all for now.

2

Yeah, I didn’t find anything particularly broken either. Even Spear Pillar and New Pork City (my counterpick stages) were fine to play on for just about anyone, with one person saying that he hated NPC (but I think he still won that one).

I’m also interested in how a free-for-all tournament would turn out. It seems some characters are better suited to fighting one-on-one while others might be better for group fights.

EDIT: NPC allowed me to dodge a few FSs, such as Lucas’s PK Starstorm and Wario’s Super Wario with relative ease. It’s definitely worth taking this into consideration.

Also, though this was just a casual match outside of a tourney, Rumble Falls’s walls prevented me from losing a stock after I got hit by Zelda’s Light Arrow.

3

I used fox most of the time, but I did have the oportunity to play his landmaster on the Mushroomy Kingdom, and all I can say is that its useless. All the blocks prevented me from moving around and breaking some blocks took too long, but my opponent just kept his distance hiding behind more blocks, haha. I dont feel its a disadvantage though, because in reality, all you did was steal the final smash from your opponent who could have used the final smash to take you out, depenending on which character he uses.

4

I have no problems with the items except healing. THAT SNAPS IS RIDICULOUS! lol
costed me a match :frowning:

5

Shade do you have any vids of your matches?

I like the ending to this one…

6

Nope. Not on my end. I don’t have an SD card, or anything.

7

No, you won it, you ho.

Well… you have a Wii… you have a Wii hard drive…

8

that was great

9

Yeah, wasn’t it great how Wario got the first kill and then Pikachu won the second stock entirely with the use of items? The first 24% he did to Wario was the Final Smash. The next 40-50% or so was bonus damage when Pika got a super mushroom and then the kill came from the assist trophy that spit out a bunch of hammers that Pika happened to get to first because he was giant and juggling Wario already. Totally awesome.

I don’t understand how people couldn’t see that the items determined the winner in that match. It had nothing to do with the skill of the Pikachu player. He happened to get the last hit on the Smash Ball. The super mushroom happened to run into him during the battle and because of that he was the won still on the ground when the hammers fell. Wasn’t that game 5? So if these matches were best of five, then the Pika player advanced because of the random distribution of items. I’m pretty sure that’s what Scamp was getting at.

I’m glad you guys had a fun tournament, but if the video evidence doesn’t obviously demonstrate to you guys how the random distribution of items severely influences the outcome of the match, then you’re not even trying to consider how this would effect high level play at tournaments. If 10k was on the line and THAT was the final match, then the Wario player just lost the money because the RNG favored pika for that round.

10

I somewhat have to agree with M3D; those tournament matches were hype and all, but either the items were inconsequential (save Smash Balls) or completely game changing (like the Pika/Wario match mentioned earlier). The Fan pseudo-infinite is sickness too.

11

Actually, I think we are all aware that the use of items is what determined the winner. Not the items themselves, but rather the player using them.
I also think we are okay with that.

12

It’s a little pre-mature to be judging something solely on one video. There were other options that Wario could have utilized, but decided not to and went for the Kirby star instead. He could’ve waited to see what his Assist Trophy would give him, but he didn’t. Tingle can spawn many different things and everyone should know how he works by now. While Wario was flying around on the Kirby Star, he immediately lost his ability to control space as he had no control of the amount of time the star would take to crash down (as it is set) and Pika was able to utilize that space control instead (thus grabbing the hammer or probably anything that could have spawned on the entire level).

The only thing I really saw was that the regular hammer does alot of knockback, but even then it can be countered if you know what to expect. Instead, maybe it is the Assist Trophy that caused the problems instead.

These videos at least provide a starting point on what looks strong and what doesn’t.

If you want to look at Video Proof, then here’s what AZ showed us in Melee about an “unlucky” match ([media=youtube]OCVT9GNMgZ4[/media]). Fox lost because of a random Klaptrap. I thought sure enough, it’s probably banned in Melee then. The answer? “No, it’s not banned, it’s a counter-pick.” What? A stage that has a random element that cost a pro a match wasn’t banned?

But that’s only judging it from ONE video. If SRK has a tourney like this every week, they’re sure to figure out after numerous data results and videos like the one posted from the event of stuff to figure out before Evo. All Smashboarders have done is just say “it should be banned” without any proof to back up their claims.

13

I wish I had recorded that match. I was thinking I could keep Ganondorf there until the rest of the match but when you hit 300+% I opted to try to take a stock.

I haven’t looked at any other threads but has the Fan been discussed? It seems small/medium sized characters can escape it while heavy characters might be caught there at the users discretion.

14

I think you missed the part also where Pikachu also lost his first stock BECAUSE of items (timer-backfire, Jeff assist, etc.)

Pikachu hit Wario only ONCE and totally lost his positional advantage due to his FS. Doesn’t sound broken to me.

Pika got the Super Mushroom at the SAME TIME Wario activated the AT, which also could’ve benefitted him just as much. Again, I see nothing unequal.

Both Wario and Pikachu had equal opportunity to get the hammers. It’s just the Wario made the mistake of getting on the Warp Star (which has the risk of you giving up your position and not being able to control your character in recovery) instead of waiting to see what would spawn.
In other words, Pikachu used the items available to BOTH players better. It was a tactical error that cost Wario that fight. NOT randomness.

RNG favored Pikachu? Do you even know what you’re talking about?

Super Turbo players have lost EVO Finals matches due to random dizzies. Do they bitch about losing to “randomness”?
NO. They adapt to the randomness, man up, learn from their mistakes, and DEAL WITH IT.

15

So…why’re you talking to M3D?

Anyway, I lost my first (and only) match 0-3, with some of the…“kinkier” stages. First was Rumble Falls, which is obviously crazy. And it was Snake vs. Metaknight. I’d have to say that Snake has a pretty serious disadvantage on that particular level, since none of his B attacks can be used, except the C4 in one spot.

I then played Shadow Moses, my own pick, got a beam sword early and did some serious damage with it, both pinning the Metaknight against the wall and slashing the hell out of him and then throwing it while he tried to get away. I ended up dieing once after my own Excite Bikes knocked down one of the towers and I got smacked out. The second time, a smash ball appeared while the Metaknight was being brought back into the match after a kill. I ended up chasing it, but couldn’t get it to break and the Meta just grabbed it and did the slash and I died.

Third time was in the Mario Bros level, with the pipes and turtles and crabs. I died twice with 40 damage each because I was a dumbass and got between my opponent and the edge.

16

i love that, its always he won cause he had the hammer and hes a nub. never he won cause falcons knee is broken lol.

of course all item are not created equal. take off the broken ones like assist pokeballs and bumpers and so on and so forth.

17

From that one vid, sure. But if you’d been watching the others from kotetsu213, you’d know that ana had been doing pretty well in his matches. It wasn’t a case of some total noob beating a pro, which is what your argument hinges on. Until it is proven that items cause wild inconsistencies within tournament results, we’ll be running with them on.

18

I’ve just about stopped paying attention to M3D. He totally misses the point of the game. Smash isn’t about character vs. character exclusively. It never was.

19

LOL Items… we’ve come so far from the beggining of the smash scene and we still have people saying things like:

If such items existed in street fighter, and had as large an effect on matches while being random, do you think they’d be tourney legal?

20

Non-sequitur.

Smash is a completely different game from SF. Smash was DESIGNED from the very first game to have items and a bit of randomness incorporated into its system.

It’s funny that a 14-year old traditional fighter that wasn’t designed for any randomness has far, FAR less of its player base bitching about it compared to a 1-month old non-traditional fighter that IS designed to have some degree of randomness.