Current Events > Stage banning really is pretty stupid for Smash tournaments

(+) Yeah! (+)

Zero_Destroyer posted...

The "play however you want" thing is dictated by the game, ergo people can make rulesets within the boundaries of the game. You don't seem to get this. I'm not arguing players in a tournament setting get to play however they want, I'm arguing that the game allows for those rulesets to be made without violating "what the game intended" because the game is intended to be customizable.

The community decided on customizing based around rulesets that restricted items/stages. This has been the case for nearly 2 decades with most of the debate within that community happened over a decade ago.

the community decided that a game that was "intended to be customizable" never to let a specific type of customization anywhere close to a tournament setting.

Why do you know better than the participants of that community?

this isn't about knowing better... this is about using incredibly weak rationalizations and logic in order to support a flawed argument.

GiftedACIII posted...

This is like asking why developers use patches to nerf and buff things

your argument doesn't work since choosing what to remove in smash has absolutely nothing to do with the devs and everything to do with what the "community" decides regardless what anyone else wants in the matter.

The reason those things were banned generally had to do with game balance or removing random elements.

all of which are part of the game's inherent design which i already chimed in on earlier:
it's almost as if some games weren't designed for tournament play yet people still insist they can and should be when you implement x and y and z restrictions!

I have never seen people in my many years of participating in the community seriously suggest "We should make items legal".

i guess as long as you personally haven't seen it, then it must be true..

Nobody is clamoring to play Temple in tournament because they know somebody will pick Sonic and that Sonic player will Spin Dash camp/run for 8 minutes.

again something you cannot reliably prove in any sort of way.
all it takes is me to walk into any smash tournament, put my name and money down and demand it to be so and i'll promptly be shut down immediately.
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I only play Pok Floats
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Get you a man who can do both.
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AsucaHayashi posted...

your argument doesn't work since choosing what to remove in smash has absolutely nothing to do with the devs and everything to do with what the "community" decides regardless what anyone else wants in the matter.

So this sounds like you just have a problem with communities rules and think everything should be decided by the devs. Unfortunately for you, the general community rules are already accepted by the devs since those are the rulesets that are used in every official tournament.
AsucaHayashi posted...

all it takes is me to walk into any smash tournament, put my name and money down and demand it to be so and i'll promptly be shut down immediately.

This is such a silly argument. Of course people can't do whatever they want. If I want to play a game at 1.01 in between patches since a character I use is much better there I can't do that either.
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AsucaHayashi posted...

Zero_Destroyer posted...

The "play however you want" thing is dictated by the game, ergo people can make rulesets within the boundaries of the game. You don't seem to get this. I'm not arguing players in a tournament setting get to play however they want, I'm arguing that the game allows for those rulesets to be made without violating "what the game intended" because the game is intended to be customizable.

The community decided on customizing based around rulesets that restricted items/stages. This has been the case for nearly 2 decades with most of the debate within that community happened over a decade ago.

the community decided that a game that was "intended to be customizable" never to let a specific type of customization anywhere close to a tournament setting.

Why do you know better than the participants of that community?

this isn't about knowing better... this is about using incredibly weak rationalizations and logic in order to support a flawed argument.

GiftedACIII posted...

This is like asking why developers use patches to nerf and buff things

your argument doesn't work since choosing what to remove in smash has absolutely nothing to do with the devs and everything to do with what the "community" decides regardless what anyone else wants in the matter.

The reason those things were banned generally had to do with game balance or removing random elements.

all of which are part of the game's inherent design which i already chimed in on earlier:
it's almost as if some games weren't designed for tournament play yet people still insist they can and should be when you implement x and y and z restrictions!

I have never seen people in my many years of participating in the community seriously suggest "We should make items legal".

i guess as long as you personally haven't seen it, then it must be true..

Nobody is clamoring to play Temple in tournament because they know somebody will pick Sonic and that Sonic player will Spin Dash camp/run for 8 minutes.

again something you cannot reliably prove in any sort of way.
all it takes is me to walk into any smash tournament, put my name and money down and demand it to be so and i'll promptly be shut down immediately.

They are playing how they like to. You can set up your own tournament, they're not gonna stop your or shit you down. It's like going to a basketball court when a few people are playing 2v2 and demanding that they use the ball to play knockout instead with you.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daoLcPGxeyA" data-time="

Stuff like this video are the reason why certain stages are banned. It's not like all stages were banned immediately, even Poke Floats was tourney-legal for a long period of time. The community comes to a general consensus when certain aspects of a stage become abusable and it slows down the gameplay as a result.

When money's on the line, some people will be the lamest they can possibly be if it's the safest option, and they'll definitely camp next to a blast-zone on a runoff platform the entire game if it will be an instant kill for them. This is obviously not fun for spectators either. If you legitimately think all stages should be legal no matter what and want these tactics around all the time, you're not the type of person that has any sort of investment in the competitive scene to begin with.

Conflict posted...

What's funny is that you think Smash is the only game subject to banning of certain characters or stages

why do you think that?

there's no denying that smash is definitely the most popular that also takes its restrictions the farthest out of every other tournament fighter.

GiftedACIII posted...

So this sounds like you just have a problem with communities rules and think everything should be decided by the devs. Unfortunately for you, the general community rules are already accepted by the devs since those are the rulesets that are used in every official tournament.

are we talking about the same dev who stated that smash isn't a fighting game meant for tournament play?

This is such a silly argument. Of course people can't do whatever they want. If I want to play a game at 1.01 in between patches since a character I use is much better there I can't do that either.

that's a weird distinction..
of course you can't play on 10.1 if the official version is 10.2 but this is again different since smash tournaments choose to exclude x/y/z which are still 100% part of the game regardless of versions.

a better comparison would be if tourneys could willfully choose between version 1.0 or 2.0 and they only went with one.

Life_Noodles posted...

You can set up your own tournament, they're not gonna stop your or shit you down. It's like going to a basketball court when a few people are playing 2v2 and demanding that they use the ball to play knockout instead with you.

or the simpler way is to just give up on the game altogether and play another game whose competitive scene isn't as restrictive in order to create balanced, competitive scenarios.
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AsucaHayashi posted...

talking about the same dev who stated that smash isn't a fighting game meant for tournament play?

What does that have to do with anything? It's pretty clear they accept the general community rules since those are the ones used in all official tournaments and that dev did make all stages variations of battlefield and final destination along with taking away items for the For Glory leaderboard matches.
If you want to say Smash shouldn't be a competitive game to begin with that's an entirely separate topic, but as you said yourself, it's very popular so it's inevitable that it'll have competitive scenes and in those competitive scenes there will have to be rulesets since literally every competitive event has restrictions and rules. (Or do you think people should have the ability to choose infinite time/stock and have a never ending match just because it's an available option part of the game?) Just because someone is an entitled snowflake who wants everything their way doesn't mean the community set rules aren't valid. If you don't like it, then yes you can take your advice and play something else or make your own rule set. There's a reason the decided community rulesets are the most popular.
AsucaHayashi posted...

of course you can't play on 10.1 if the official version is 10.2 but this is again different since smash tournaments choose to exclude x/y/z which are still 100% part of the game regardless of versions.

a better comparison would be if tourneys could willfully choose between version 1.0 or 2.0 and they only went with one.

The point is that obviously you can't do whatever you want.
And your last sentence is actually true. Tourneys DO have the ability to go with version 1.0 or 2.0... They can either use a base retail game with no patches or they can use the most updated one.
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I mean I doubt that the creators of warcraft 3 designed it to start a huge worldwide trend of MOBA games but here we are

that was started even as a custom map which is like the definition of not playing the game as intended according to this logic right?
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this isn't about knowing better... this is about using incredibly weak rationalizations and logic in order to support a flawed argument.

How is the argument flawed? Why is it wrong to eject random elements in a competitive title whose scene emphasizes, above all else, player skill?

again something you cannot reliably prove in any sort of way.
all it takes is me to walk into any smash tournament, put my name and money down and demand it to be so and i'll promptly be shut down immediately.

There's no issue with this. The rules were established before you went in.

all of which are part of the game's inherent design which i already chimed in on earlier:
it's almost as if some games weren't designed for tournament play yet people still insist they can and should be when you implement x and y and z restrictions!

The game allows you to input those restrictions with basic settings in order to make the game more competitive. It isn't an issue inherent to the game if that issue can be easily removed from the situation.

i guess as long as you personally haven't seen it, then it must be true..

You really don't get this.

There are several splintered sub-factions of the Smash community that mostly revolve around the competitive scene in the long run; the decision to ban items started sometime in the mid-2000s with the Melee scene, and this cultural element if that scene carried over to the ultimate separate Brawl community, and then the Smash 4 community after they migrated from Brawl.

If there was a movement for this, it would be vocal and apparent. You're welcome to demonstrate a tourney-goer movement that widely advocates for the legalization of items, but until you do, you're arguing in bad hypotheticals that show your total disconnect from that scene and the scenes within it.

or the simpler way is to just give up on the game altogether and play another game whose competitive scene isn't as restrictive in order to create balanced, competitive scenarios.

Person A: "Hi, we're a community that has existed for nearly 2 decades. We have several games you can play that are all pretty different, and we have a nice, healthy, large competitive scene!"

Person B: "you should all stop playing cuz i don't get ur rules and i don't like them"

You're projecting your issues with the game onto a community that doesn't share your concerns about the game. You are welcome to not participate since you're certainly not bringing any good criticisms to the table.
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Balrog0 posted...

I mean I doubt that the creators of warcraft 3 designed it to start a huge worldwide trend of MOBA games but here we are

that was started even as a custom map which is like the definition of not playing the game as intended according to this logic right?

This is one of the best counterarguments available to people who take issue with Smash's custom rulesets. The best one to bring up is probably Project M, because it absolutely forces discussion to shift to how the game is actually played since P:M was designed to be a competitive platformer fighter that emulates Brawl, but Counter Strike and MOBAs are also good points of comparison.
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GiftedACIII posted...

What does that have to do with anything? It's pretty clear they accept the general community rules since those are the ones used in all official tournaments and that dev did make all stages variations of battlefield and final destination along with taking away items for the For Glory leaderboard matches.

it means that anything that dev states can't really be taken at face value including doubling down on aspects that frankly seem like appeasement towards a very rabid fanbase.

GiftedACIII posted...

The point is that obviously you can't do whatever you want.
And your last sentence is actually true. Tourneys DO have the ability to go with version 1.0 or 2.0... They can either use a base retail game with no patches or they can use the most updated one.

maybe to make my point clearer i should have said 1.1 up to 2.x since console gamers can't choose their own patches so it's either the completely vanilla version or the most updated one.

the point was that with a singular copy of the game, smash players already have everything in the game as part of the game's most basic design which they arbitrasrily choose to exclude regardless of it being vanilla or the most updated version.

Balrog0 posted...

I mean I doubt that the creators of warcraft 3 designed it to start a huge worldwide trend of MOBA games but here we are

that was started even as a custom map which is like the definition of not playing the game as intended according to this logic right?

they designed the game to be moddable and seeing as none of those elements made it into the base game when it was played competitively(afaik), then i don't see the relevance.
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Zero_Destroyer posted...

How is the argument flawed? Why is it wrong to eject random elements in a competitive title whose scene emphasizes, above all else, player skill?

because the game was never designed to be a competitive game meant to showcase true player skill.
the fact that there exists random elements as part of the basic game design should already be proof of this.

The game allows you to input those restrictions with basic settings in order to make the game more competitive. It isn't an issue inherent to the game if that issue can be easily removed from the situation.

something that's as arbitrary as removing/putting in x, y and x at will up to the discretion of any individual tournament holder can never be considered as competitive in the same vein as other games that don't need such artificial cherrypicking in order to create balanced, playable scenarios.

If there was a movement for this, it would be vocal and apparent.

the point is that if the original "movement" was so strong and vocal in its appearance as you're apparently convinced of, those issues would have been solved by the devs a long, long time ago either by balancing items or all the stages as to being worthy of pure, competitive tournament play.

You're projecting your issues with the game onto a community that doesn't share your concerns about the game

actually i'm projecting my issues with the game onto a community's arbitrary enforcement of rules that's not in line with how the devs designed the game.

i'm not saying others don't do it(shit like using secret characters only playable with a code etc.) but nobody else takes it as far as smash as far as the removing some of the game's most basic gameplay elements.
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AsucaHayashi posted...

it means that anything that dev states can't really be taken at face value including doubling down on aspects that frankly seem like appeasement towards a very rabid fanbase.

Ah, so now even developer designs don't matter to you. It has more value than the uninformed rambling of random forum users who clearly don't know how competitive scenes work.

AsucaHayashi posted...

maybe to make my point clearer i should have said 1.1 up to 2.x since console gamers can't choose their own patches so it's either the completely vanilla version or the most updated one.

the point was that with a singular copy of the game, smash players already have everything in the game as part of the game's most basic design which they arbitrasrily choose to exclude regardless of it being vanilla or the most updated version.

Yes, that's what I mean. Either use a vanilla retail copy or an updated one. But obviously all tournaments are going to use the updated one.
And I'm not sure how you're still not getting that every competitive event has exclusionary rules and restrictions. As I said, the ability to have infinite time and stock is an available option that's in the basic game. You think that should be option for players to choose just because "they put their money down and demand it to be?" And no, banning that is no more arbitrary than their agreed on criteria for why certain stages are not allowed.
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AsucaHayashi posted...

they designed the game to be moddable and seeing as none of those elements made it into the base game when it was played competitively(afaik), then i don't see the relevance.

I don't understand why those are what makes the comparison relevant, though.

Is your position that, when you're doing a casual game, it makes sense to make arbitrary changes that modify the entire style of play forfun, but when you make changes to the base game in order to make it more competitive, that's bad?

Seems pretty arbitrary to me tbh, just let people play the game how they want
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GiftedACIII posted...

Ah, so now even developer designs don't matter to you.

you do see the irony don't you?

you're apparently supporting the fact that he's putting more stock in one devs decision to balance the game around tournament play while willfully ignoring that same dev's statement that the game was never a fighting game meant for tournament play.

that is cherrypicking at its finest.

Balrog0 posted...

I don't understand why those are what makes the comparison relevant, though.

maybe because whatever modded map has absolutely no bearing on how the base game of WC3 is played? however, removing items and stages in smash definitely takes off a huge chunk of how it's played.
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I mean the entire premise of games is that we are restricting what we can do arbitrarily

like to beat you at warcraft 3, I could just literally find you in person and kick your ass irl and win the game through that method

but we restrict ourselves to whatever arbitrary crap the devs thought made the gameplay work

why is it bad when players make further restrictions on that to make the game play work?
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AsucaHayashi posted...

GiftedACIII posted...

Ah, so now even developer designs don't matter to you.

you do see the irony don't you?

you're apparently supporting the fact that he's putting more stock in one devs decision to balance the game around tournament play while willfully ignoring that same dev's statement that the game was never a fighting game meant for tournament play.

that is cherrypicking at its finest.

Again, what is even your point with bringing up the latter? That smash should just not have a competitive scene at all? You yourself have said that it's one of the most popular games there is so obviously that's not going to happen. Yes, the base game is unbalanced and unsuitable for competitive play. All the alterations done to it for the for glory leaderboard matches is. That's the point. It's like how ingame Pokemon you can use items to keep reviving yourself or have amie to automatically heal status ailments at the end of the turn or just have a 30% chance to always survive at 1hp but PVP removes all of that.
It really just sounds like you just want everything your way.
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AsucaHayashi posted...

maybe because whatever modded map has absolutely no bearing on how the base game of WC3 is played? however, removing items and stages in smash definitely takes off a huge chunk of how it's played.

I still don't understand the relevance? What is the basis of your argument? You're basically saying you can play the game however you want, except competitively has to be based on what devs had in mind, right? How does that make sense to you?
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@AsucaHayashi has to be trolling.

"It isn't meant as a competitive game so it shouldn't be played as such!" is literally the only thing they're saying and it's a pretty fucking stupid thing to say.

Unknown5uspect posted...

@AsucaHayashi has to be trolling.

"It isn't meant as a competitive game so it shouldn't be played as such!" is literally the only thing they're saying and it's a pretty fucking stupid thing to say.

also -- modifying rules that game devs designed to be modified is okay in casual play, but not in competitive play

no reason for that except preference so far though
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i also can't stress enough how little of a fuck I give about smash or competitive smash play fwiw

I havent even played a SSB game for a decade now (I just checked, I barely tried Brawl when it came out and that was the last one)

there's just some weird elitism that seems pervasive with people who do hate competitive smash that I've never understood
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There's weird elitism when it comes to the Smash games in general. Whether it comes to its place as competitive game, it's place in the FGC, which game is better and which should be played, etc.

Doesn't make sense to me either. Just play the game, man. Or don't. Live and let live.

Balrog0 posted...

i also can't stress enough how little of a fuck I give about smash or competitive smash play fwiw

I havent even played a SSB game for a decade now (I just checked, I barely tried Brawl when it came out and that was the last one)

there's just some weird elitism that seems pervasive with people who do hate competitive smash that I've never understood

Like I said earlier, it's mostly Nintendo haters who can't stand Nintendo success.
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Balrog0 posted...

i also can't stress enough how little of a fuck I give about smash or competitive smash play fwiw

I havent even played a SSB game for a decade now (I just checked, I barely tried Brawl when it came out and that was the last one)

there's just some weird elitism that seems pervasive with people who do hate competitive smash that I've never understood

I think it's mainly that a lot of non competitive gamers kneejerk at the word "ban". Though Voldo is right that it seems to happen a lot more with Nintendo games.

I gave this topic a quick skim and wanted to chime in. People seem to be under the impression that competitive players ONLY play by tournament rules. That is not true in the slightest. I knew professional Smash players in college, and they would frequently play with items and banned stages when they weren't doing ladder matches. Hell, they would break out Brawl Minus every so often. They can and do have fun with both casual and competitive rulesets.
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Balrog0 posted...

but we restrict ourselves to whatever arbitrary crap the devs thought made the gameplay work

why is it bad when players make further restrictions on that to make the game play work?

we're not comparing it arbitrarily since we're not judging smash by its own merit.

we're comparing it to every other competitive fighter out there whose communities don't need to take drastic steps in order to make their game of choice balanced and playable in order to showcase player skill.

GiftedACIII posted...

Again, what is even your point with bringing up the latter? That smash should just not have a competitive scene at all?

no, if pokemon can have a competitive scene then smash players are certainly entitled to.

You yourself have said that it's one of the most popular games there is so obviously that's not going to happen. Yes, the base game is unbalanced and unsuitable for competitive play. All the alterations done to it for the for glory leaderboard matches is.

that's pretty much all there is to it. all this back and forth ITT has basically been an effort to get the point across that the smash competitive scene is almost entirely an arbitrarily community-driven effort while the rest of the FGC are part of competitive scenes that are non-arbitrarily developer-driven efforts since the community has next to no say in how the games should be played... and the competitive scenes are much, much better for it.

Balrog0 posted...

I still don't understand the relevance? What is the basis of your argument? You're basically saying you can play the game however you want, except competitively has to be based on what devs had in mind, right? How does that make sense to you?

while i agree that it's arbitrary both ways whether it's what the community or devs have in mind, i'm far more inclined to believe the direction the devs choose for their games seeing as that's how nearly every other competitive game is played out there... except for smash.
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pokedude900 posted...

I gave this topic a quick skim and wanted to chime in. People seem to be under the impression that competitive players ONLY play by tournament rules. That is not true in the slightest. I knew professional Smash players in college, and they would frequently play with items and banned stages when they weren't doing ladder matches. Hell, they would break out Brawl Minus every so often. They can and do have fun with both casual and competitive rulesets.

finally a post that makes sense.

the main difference is that you probably won't see this in bigger tournament settings which defeats the argument that the game can be played whichever way one chooses since you can't really choose if you want to be part of the "real" competitive scene.
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AsucaHayashi posted...

while i agree that it's arbitrary both ways whether it's what the community or devs have in mind, i'm far more inclined to believe the direction the devs choose for their games seeing as that's how nearly every other competitive game is played out there... except for smash.

Depends on what you mean. That may be true for direct competition games (I'm really not sure)

But, for example, to the extent one views speed running as competitive, that's certainly not the case there are plenty of arbitrary restrictions on what you can or cannot do depending on what kind of style of speed run you want to do, or whether you are doing a tool-assisted run or not, that kind of thing
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Balrog0 posted...

AsucaHayashi posted...

while i agree that it's arbitrary both ways whether it's what the community or devs have in mind, i'm far more inclined to believe the direction the devs choose for their games seeing as that's how nearly every other competitive game is played out there... except for smash.

Depends on what you mean. That may be true for direct competition games (I'm really not sure)

But, for example, to the extent one views speed running as competitive, that's certainly not the case there are plenty of arbitrary restrictions on what you can or cannot do depending on what kind of style of speed run you want to do, or whether you are doing a tool-assisted run or not, that kind of thing

my only point is that since the smash community "randomly" chooses to exclude x/y/z, there's pretty much nothing stopping them from someday choosing to reapply x/y/z in that same game and calling it the "proper" way to play.

it's 100% up to the individual tournament holder and what they believe should be the "proper" showcase of player skill.

by following the dev's vision as closely as possible, that arbitrary element becomes a non-issue since there's only one way to decide player skill across the board.

speedrunning also has random restrictions like no glitch/no TA etc. but i kinda respect them more for it since i've seen them divide them up in categories and let people play how they choose.
on the flipside i severely doubt i'll see an items-on/all-stages available smash tournament at evo in the near future.
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StraightMACLIN posted...

You got stages in Tekken 7 that benefit certain characters with floor/wall breaks.

Good thing the Tekken community isn't bitch made like the Smash community.

At least people play Smash
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I can see why some characters are banned, because they are overpowered.
I can see why some stages are banned, because they can be used in an unfair way.
I can see why items are banned, because it adds an uncalculated randomness.

...but I still think that it is pretty stupid...
The whole point with the Smash series is to pick your favorite character, it doesnt matter if it is not the strongest or fastest one, having a fast and intense match, taking splitsecond decisions if it is worth it to try getting that spawned item, if it is worth it to try stopping somebody else from getting that item, avoiding the level traps, using the level design against your opponents, learning how to best use the different items and how to avoid them. A well used item can change the match, and since it is random and can happen everybody, it is not unfair.
...yes, it is still unfair if you get killed by a randomly spawned item above you, but it can happen everybody, and if you cant accept that then you should play another game.
Removing half the game just because you lack the skills to avoid items feels like banning jumping and combos using more than one button in a Street Fighter game IMO.
But that is just my two cents, and I know that they are wrong in most players eyes, so I keep them to myself most of the time.
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AsucaHayashi posted...

that's pretty much all there is to it. all this back and forth ITT has basically been an effort to get the point across that the smash competitive scene is almost entirely an arbitrarily community-driven effort while the rest of the FGC are part of competitive scenes that are non-arbitrarily developer-driven efforts since the community has next to no say in how the games should be played... and the competitive scenes are much, much better for it.

That should be common sense. And the reason the other games aren't like that is because the games are balanced enough that the community doesn't feel the need to. There are still instances of certain stuff being banned. And this isn't limited to video games, TCGs notably do this too.
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QueenCarly posted...

StraightMACLIN posted...

You got stages in Tekken 7 that benefit certain characters with floor/wall breaks.

Good thing the Tekken community isn't bitch made like the Smash community.

At least people play Smash

Haha, roasted.
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But...tekken...entrant numbers....
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Ushiromiya posted...

But...tekken...entrant numbers....

Higher than both Smash games? Yeah. They don't let facts get in their way.

AsucaHayashi posted...

my only point is that since the smash community "randomly" chooses to exclude x/y/z, there's pretty much nothing stopping them from someday choosing to reapply x/y/z in that same game and calling it the "proper" way to play.

it's 100% up to the individual tournament holder and what they believe should be the "proper" showcase of player skill.

by following the dev's vision as closely as possible, that arbitrary element becomes a non-issue since there's only one way to decide player skill across the board.

speedrunning also has random restrictions like no glitch/no TA etc. but i kinda respect them more for it since i've seen them divide them up in categories and let people play how they choose.
on the flipside i severely doubt i'll see an items-on/all-stages available smash tournament at evo in the near future.

yeah I mean after reading your previous response and this one, I do understand your point on the basis of comparing the game to other fighters. I don't follow fighting games competitively at all so you could be right, though it seems to me like the point is overblown
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