Probably should rephrase my post then.

For the record, I have no problem with items. When I play to screw around I'll play with items. If I want to do something competitive wise and skill based, I take them off. You might not find then overpowered, but you should atleast be able to see why people could find them OP. It's like if in a football game, there was a random chance that the running back became twice as large and almost impossible to tackle, and this was determined by luck. You could see how it either becomes centered around luck or around the random growth spurts, rather than playing football. People could say adapt to this skill based happening that has a major chance to turn the tide of the game, or they could just remove the growth spurt. Seeing as how one of the options does not involve the chance of the tide turning based on luck, you could see why removing the growth spurt is the prefered option.

Competitive players have a right to play however they want, seeing as sometimes it's money on the line rather than just bragging rights. However, I can safely say that a no item scenario on a flat, lifeless stage is not my cup of tea when it comes to Smash.

That being said, that video example is really bad. Before fox gets totally raped by Sheik, that is when the first capsule hits him, he stands TOTALLY still. When he attacks the barrels that explode and drop a star that Sheik picks up, he's attacking wildly for no reason and almost INTENTIONALLY smashing up the barrels even though they could explode. What's more, the match just started, a time limit of 8 minutes and a four stock. I know it's hard to come back from that humiliation, but not impossible. Frankly, the player for Fox plain sucked, because you can dodge AND catch capsules from what I can remember of Melee. It reminds me of that video where some guy lost because he taunted while the enemy was flying in the background, but he dies first because an exploding barrel or bobomb dropped on him. In a game where explosives can drop on a moment's notice and everything is on the line, why are you taunting?

Even though I think I've made my stance clear, there's still problems with the item system that makes it virtually impossible for competitive play to totally accept. Explosive containers are one thing: there's no way to make them turn off their explosive nature, there is always a risk, and even if items are as low as they can go they still appear just as often. Then there is the party ball, which always has a chance to drop bobombs even when they are turned off. It's not to say that competitive play would instantly accept items if those elements were changed, but I think everyone would agree that it would be a good start. That video alone would be nearly moot if explosive containers didn't exist.

(11-12-2013, 01:05 PM)TomGuycott Wrote: That being said, that video example is really bad. Before fox gets totally raped by Sheik, that is when the first capsule hits him, he stands TOTALLY still. When he attacks the barrels that explode and drop a star that Sheik picks up, he's attacking wildly for no reason and almost INTENTIONALLY smashing up the barrels even though they could explode.

While he isn't the best of Foxes, you can still see where the threat of exploding items spawning out of thin air could be an issue. Also, Im sure a lot of the attacks that are wild were for spacing, but who's to say.

And Im sure you could turn off the containers and have things such as beam swords and some of the more "balanced" items on as a happy medium. Although then some characters would get screwed because it would make edgeguarding a lot easier, and Im sure you could imagine why making a tactic that's supposed to be "high risk high reward" would be frowned upon. Wouldn't bother me too much, but w/e

But like I said, I generally play comp. If they decided that to change the rules one day to Ganon only with Cracker Launchers and a high item spawn rate, I would shift to playing it that way

(I probably should've said that earlier instead of arguing about items, but oh well)

Oh for fucks sake not this argument again.

Look, items are items, they're there because the developers wanted them to be a part of the game. If you like em, play with them, if you don't, don't bother.

Personally I think that people who believe that items "take away the balance of the game" are the people who are too afraid to lose anyways. That's my personal opinion because I hear this shit from tourney sires all the time. I can see where items get frustrating on the other hand, but that's why you should turn them on to low if you don't want them showing up as much.

To be frank, there seems to be a lot of characters that are meant to be played with items, as they get a more significant advantage compared to others. Examples being DK being able to move freely while using crates and barrels, Falcon and Sheik making a storm of star out of a Star Rod, Mewtwo spining a Beam Sword while dashing to make continuos damage, etc.

I notice a lot of the complaints against items fall apart when you learn how to dodge properly.

(11-12-2013, 02:51 PM)Diogalesu Wrote: Personally I think that people who believe that items "take away the balance of the game" are the people who are too afraid to lose anyways. That's my personal opinion because I hear this shit from tourney sires all the time.

(11-12-2013, 06:14 PM)Kriven Wrote: I notice a lot of the complaints against items fall apart when you learn how to dodge properly.

Honestly, a lot of the fury against "item spammers" reminds me of the backwards-ass rage against "button mashers" in conventional fighters like Soul Caliber on the grounds that button-mashing "ruins the game" (but in reality, if you consistently lose to them, then frankly you're not as good as you think you are). Although, there are some things I'll concede on in Smash from a competitive standpoint: for instance, the Heart Container can be a massively bullshit arbitrary upper hand.

But whatever, play however you want and all that.

I'll admit some items need balancing just like characters. Some items are overpowered. Usually really powerful items have a risk factor like the Hammer makes your mobility worse and there's a chance the head will fall off. An invincibility Starman hops around and is hard to catch. The Dragoon needs all three parts to use.

But then you got things like the Superspicy Curry which is easy to obtain, doesn't hinder mobility, and has no risk factor! That is an OP item and I always take it off.

Nintendo Direct presentation coming up tomorrow. Place your bets on a new character reveal!

I'm hoping for Yoshi finally.

It would make sense, assuming they talk about the new Yarn Yoshi game and Yoshi's Island on 3DS.

I'm not a competitive smash player, but I have dabbled in competitive Pokemon since 4th gen and I can tell you that every competitive metagame attempts to remove as many sources of luck as possible. Obviously you can't get rid of them all, but the whole point is player skill. That's why in a competitive Pokemon match you might see someone "throw" a turn after getting a lot of crits or if the opposing pokemon gets a lot of paralysis turns.

Anyway, the problem with smash items isn't the items themselves (although some of them are OP), it's how they are distributed. They just randomly spawn wherever regardless of the players. Sure, there's skill involved in getting and using them properly, but the luck far outweighs the skill. That's why they're banned. If it worked where you get to choose an item before the match and also when to bring it into play, they probably wouldn't be banned as a whole. But that's not how it works.

When did "adaptability" stop being a skill?

Again, it's merely quicker to determine skill with without heavy luck involvement.
The justification used for banning them may be they are too random and/or OP, but this is mostly an issue in short, single matches... the kind that competitive play uses.

Even with the all the items on high, if you play enough matchs all the lucky wins start to become just outliers, and those that make a habit of getting "lucky" start to prove its not really luck at all. (or just a high enough stock count)

Items are not practical for competition due to how much time it would take to properly determine skill though.
You'd need a sports season like timeframe instead of a days event. In this case, everyone would get their lucky and unlucky OP item chances roughly equally, and those more skilled at fighting (Or just zoning and dealing with zoning when items appear)


With this said... I hope they implement a secondary pure skill based final smash system than you can toggle with the old item based method. Seems a little sad to not be able to use every move available to a character just because items are turned off. Mostly an issue with samus though...

Guess there was no reveal oh well, I expect Zelda will appear outta the blue next week or so.

There was no Japanese Nintendo Direct with this one so I didn't expect them to do any new reveal without it.