Covenant wrote:I'm going to make a case for competitive play, but remind people that competitive play does not mean you have to turn off all items, ban all the interesting stages, and only play with fox and marth. But there's reasons to limit some of the options and reduce the variables of gameplay, especially because those changes would actually foster an atmosphere where more players are viable and more interesting matchups are likely.
Certain stages benefit certain characters--that's a fact. Bridge of Eldin, for example, benefits Pit, Fox, Falco and Snake a lot more than it does Bowser, King Dedede and Donkey Kong. Denying that some characters have huge advantages based on stage choice is ridiculous, since it's an obvious fact. Try telling me that Bowser and Pit are both equally matched in New Pork City.
Frankly, NPC is a worse stage for tournaments than FD is.
But the idea is to expand the definition of what a "tournament stage" can be. NPC and FD are IMO
both bad for tournaments, while I feel Pirate Ship, Mysterious Planet, or Pokemon Stadium(both) are perfectly fine.
If all stages are on, especially with items, I can't effectively compete on many of them as some characters, so those characters begin to fade away in terms of desirability. Bad!
Individual play styles already change a character's desirability. For example, I usually don't play Bowser because
I suck at him, not because he's more vulnerable to items. But I have played, and even
won with him from time to time. In a tournament, I wouldn't use him because he doesn't fit my play style. If I want a heavy, I'd pick someone like Ike, Samus, or Donkey Kong, because they fit my style better.
The existance of items benefits smaller, faster characters. Pikachu, Metaknight, and goddamn Sonic are all way more likely to reach a given item more quickly that a slower, heavier character.
Assuming, of course, the item in question appears equally-distant from the characters. But it the same item appears right next to Bowser while Sonic's on the other side of the stage (or airborne), that's a different story.
Slower are often Large characters and so also suffer from a larger hit profile from thrown items, which do extreme amounts of damage.
That's where those radical tactics such as "Dodging", "Blocking", and "Catching" come in.
Furthermore, Slow and Large characters are often Power characters too, and so gain the least from the addition of beam swords, fans, bombs and so on. If you leave all of them on, you favor more of these same kinds of characters over others, and diminish the advantages of some, making them less favorable and less likely to be chosen. Bad!
They may gain less, but they still gain, and still end up stronger than a smaller character using them.
Certain characters, like Snake, Ness, Lucas, etc... are all very good at chasing down Smashballs. Snake's nikita will kill a smashball in a single hit, as well as being a guided projectile.
Nikitas are also fairly slow compared to smash balls, and leave him vulnerable to attack. In fact, going after a Smash Ball in general tends to leave you vulnerable. I've won fights before because, while the opponent(s) was going after the Smash Ball, I was going after
them.
This makes smashballs favor one character over another in general, and the effect is not even either. Metaknight is quick but has some trouble killing it. Once he finally does, his smash requires a foe within arm's reach to begin it. Compare that to Snake's, or Ness' or Lucas' final smash, which not only consume some screen space in snake's case (covering up the battle) but also giving them a massive killpower boost likely to clear the stage. Compare Kirby's (doing about 40 damage to whoever is in moderate range, as well as dropping some small food items) to Marth's (instant kill on any one person you successfully target--easy to do) to Pikachu's (massively fast flying deathball zipping around in a guided path). By leaving Smashballs on anything but low or off, you make it far easier for some characters to continually reverse the flow of battle with an extremely low cost-to-benefit ratio. This makes it disadvantageous to choose certain characters, especially the ones that can't kill the smashball easily or the ones that have a smash that's too weak to be viable. This makes them less choice in an environment were Smashballs are common, and further decreases the viable pool of characters. Bad!
IOW, Final Smashes, like the rest of the characters' moves, are better in some situations than others. What a nightmare!
You add these all up and often the characters who already felt mediocre overall (Bowser, Luigi, etc) recieve huge hits against them while some that were already quite powerful (Lucas, Snake, Pit, etc) become extremely dominating. Obviously, the game is fluid and what seems like a poor situation to be in can change rapidly, and player skill matters quite a bit,
And that's what Smash Bros.
is. A fluid game where a situation, good or bad, can change rapidly. Trying to change that too much breaks the ideal.
but to say that the game is perfectly balanced as it is in all circumstances is incorrect, and so someone who is expecting a fair fight is entitled to feeling unfairly treated by the stage or the random number gods if they lose a fight based on bad luck.
That's the way it sometimes goes in real competitions, too.
However, if they repeatedly lose fights because they are plinked from long range, or can't get the items, or whatever the situation is, you're going to start removing the fun value for them, and if they complain about it, they've got a point. And suddenly natural selection has kicked in, and only the fittest survive.
Imagine that, in a tournament, no less!
Maybe they just suck, and they'll be playing you as Ike and complaining about how overpowered Mario is or something, and then they're just moronic. But if your buddy is playing DK, you're playing Falco, you've got items on and Rumble Falls pops up... you can bet that he's in a LOT worse shape than you, regardless of skill level.
I take offense to that example. Mostly, using Rumble Falls. There's not a lot of time to go chasing items and Smash Balls on that stage by default (Autoscrolling stages, particularly that one and Icicle Mountain, are as much survival challenges against the stage as they are fights between the participants), much less when it speeds up. Plus, Falco's moves aren't always conducive to that stage, while DK's only disadvantage is that he may not have the time to fully wind up a punch.
So I think that making the game more competitive-friendly also makes it more fairness-friendly. I honestly find it hard to believe, or justify, that someone could play a game without items and find it boring or unexciting or too orderly. If you are then someone isn't playing aggressively enough, that's all I can say--two characters slugging it out, juking around, dodging, throwing... there's a lot of very fast-paced action there. If both players are fighting hard, the game won't be boring or slow, and it will have plenty of options for chaotic frenzied action when it's 4-player.
If you want people to play less defensively, take it off stock. Make it points--points encorage aggressiveness, which adds to fun and lets people get in hits without punishing the loser (or enabling team-ups). Remove the most aggrivating levels (Norfair, Spear Pillar) or the most unbalanced levels (Bridge of Eldin, New Pork City) depending on the way you guys play. You'll also make MORE characters available if you reduce the number of partially unfair stages, which will reduce the amount of Fox/Marth/Sheik action you encounter. Once people can actually hope to compete as Bowser, or R.O.B. or whoever, you're more likely to see those characters show up.
Personally, the ideal of fairness is all but impossible in Smash Bros, and as shown, the attempts to make it "fair" don't really help, and decrease the difference between playing Smash Bros, and say, Street Fighter.
And if I'm playing Smash Bros, I want the option of picking up a bat and knocking you into next week with it, whether I'm Bowser or Zelda.
In short:
http://comic.legendaryfrog.com/?comic=4