Welcome to Gaia! ::

Here we are going to discuss about the big question in brawl tournaments here in the guild:

Will the smashball be turned On or Off during play?

Discuss:
Leave reasons and such
No spamming please
anything that doesn't look like a legit argument or anything productive towards this thread will be deleted.

The poll is for shits and giggles. most people can be opposed to it, and the minority may have better reasons.

So:
DO NOT GO OFF OF THE POLL

Felix your argument is taken into consideration because that was a long convo. -.-

ok well I'll give reasons why items were banned in melee tournaments (we define the smash ball as an item yes?) as well as new situational things that the smash ball holds as unique over every other item in the game.

1st and foremost the main reason items were banned in melee were because of random spawns which can favor 1 player or the other. if there was a way to make item spawns constantly in 1 place at specific time intervals I have a feeling items may have been allowed in tournaments, but frankly that just isn't the case. with random item spawns at random intervals of time, the luck of the item spawn favors one player or another, taking away from skill required in order to win. so, this is the MAIN reason items were banned in melee, because you can't deny that the item spawns are random and therefore are luck based.

2nd reason were that some items are broken. (hammer or starman as perfect examples) there is no getting around this. if you were to get either of those items all match and your opponent did not, no matter your skill level, you would be using an unbeatable strategy that cannot fail. of course you can choose to turn items on or off, but that leads me to the next point. Assume you got smash balls all match. everyone would agree that you would win without using any skill, correct? therefore, smash balls are broken. BUT BUT BUT the thing right now is start up and end lag on the final smashes. if start up lag is as bad as a falcon punch, then maybe smash balls aren't broken or may not be considered as a broken strategy that is unbeatable. or maybe the end lag is as bad as recovering from a rest. we dont know these 2 things yet, only how the attacks work for everyones final smash and that once you get it off you are going to get guaranteed damage and a possible kill.

3rd reason is how some final smashes are more favorable in a 1v1 and others are not. ike's final smash is clearly much more favorable in a 1v1 than Dedede's is. ike's seems to be a guaranteed kill should you get it off, whereas Dedede's simply guarantees a small amount of damage on your opponent. so, in a 1v1, ike's final smash is much more powerful and with smash balls on he could be broken, meaning we would have to restrict more characters from tournament play, which I'm sure no one wants (myself included). the more people we can choose in tournament the better.


now, naka's counter argument to my random item spawns was that the smash ball is unique in that it takes multiple hits to gain, and that you can knock it out of a person. but I argued that the random spawn still favors one player over the other because that player can start attacking it first, or should he choose to control that portion of the stage. both of which give a major advantage to the player it spawned closest too. stage control is a big deal in smash brothers games traditionally, and I guess I can give the easiest example I can think to help everyone understand.

when you knock someone off the stage, their goal is to get back so they dont lose a stock. now, this is made much harder if the opponent they are facing has control of all the parts that they will try to get back on. and correct control of the attacker's portion of the stage can lead to a kill if played out right.


now, even though the smash ball has random spawn and therefore still involves luck, there is another thing to address which is hitting the smash ball out. if using a final smash has the startup lag of a falcon punch I may not be opposed to its use so long as most attacks will hit the smash ball out while it is being activated. but, if you cant hit it out during start up lag (or if its neigh impossible to do it in a serious match) then this point will be mute. for now, none of us know so we cant say whether or not we can hit it out during start up lag. but, if you cant and it is neigh unpublishable then I would say without doubt that smash balls are broken.

i'm saying from what I can tell smash balls may break some characters making them un-usable for tournament play. like how most boss characters are banned from tourney play in other fighting games because they have a few moves that are broken, I speculated that some final smashes are completley broken (like free KO no matter what broken) where as others are not, meaning to make it so that no one wins using this single strategy that a character would have to be banned.

but that whole post on how smash balls work was mostly speculation, with the only real facts known being that some final smashes are much better (to the point of being broken, from the looks of it anyways) than others and that the smash ball spawn is random, much like every item in smash bros. oh and I guess the other facts were it takes multiple hits to get the smash ball and that you can knock it out of someone who has the smash ball.

Granted, its only once per match so i don't see the big deal.

doesn't the bolded portion exemplify even more so the matter of luck involved as opposed to skill? and how the smash ball moves is even more luck based?


seems to me that there is still way too much luck involved for smash ball to be used in touranment play.




also the coupe de gras on the smash ball how it spawns after you are losing. I remember seeing that every time someone was down 2 points in a time match that a smash ball would always appear at the spawn point when they come back, meaning there is even less skill involved when getting smash balls. I almost forgot to bring up this matter. I remember naka argued that if this was able to be turned off that skill would still be needed for getting the smash ball on regular basis, but if you cant turn this off (which is very likely) then that is just one more strike against the smash ball.

look over some of the threads plz. Especially the one that talks about...
http://www.gaiaonline.com/guilds/viewtopic.php?t=11282559&page=1
Nvm, just click that link and look at my post. its about 9th or 10th from my initial post. So I MIGHT have some tournament matches with the smash ball on but yeah, who knows...

I think Smashballs should be on.
As smashers we should be ready for the unexpected. So knowing when to lay off of beating your opponent into the dust and going after something else (like a smashball) should be second nature.