RoaBS has MOVED!

OK, so I haven't transferred all my information over yet, so this blog will still exist for a little while. Meanwhile, all new posts will be at my new location:

http://blog.smashnexus.net/

Please be sure to update your bookmarks! There will be no new posts here! :)

H2P Series Introduction

I received some inspiration on what I wanted to write about over the next few weeks. Being trapped in the smash abyss of eastern Idaho, I have spent a lot of time teaching new players how to smash better. Amidst these lessons, I realized that much of what I was teaching could be applied to games outside of smash. There is indeed much to learn in order to master smash, but much of it stems from fighter fundamentals. One of the most basic lessons is "don't get hit". It sounds simple, but an entire lecture can follow that statement. For many players new to smash, "don't get hit" is a rather foreign concept (no, I am not being sarcastic).

So, I am going to write a series of lessons. The articles will be central to smash but attempt to convey the messages in such a way that they can be applied in non-smash situations. It is a bit of a tretch, but I find it worth shooting for. I am also open to outside help! If you have faith in your smash knowledge and your ability to express that knowledge in writing, let me know (TheBuzzSaw@Gmail.com).

December 3rd = Phailure

Wow... Nintendo has a wickedly sick sense of humor. Today (December 3) marks the day that Super Smash Bros. Brawl would have come out had everything gone according to the E3 announcement. Sakurai obviously wants December 3 to not be a day long remembered. Technically, no one can blame him because if he did give us an awesome update, it would draw extra attention to that day.

My sentiments exactly...

Smash Dash #3

2nd Stamp brings us a double update episode of Smash Dash! Be sure to view the full size version as well!

SMYN Trial Posted

Here is my trial for the Show Me Your News podcast. I hope you enjoy it! Be sure to vote for me in the thread!

Smash Nexus Forum goes live!

After much trial and error, I finally have my forum up and running. Granted, there is no action there right now, but at least my site has a home for discussing the future of the Video Smash Nexus and whatnot. So, I apologize for the recent drought of lengthy articles. I hope this is proof enough that I have been working hard at developing my site. Until then, be sure to check out my recent SmashTV post. So far, it is receiving positive reviews!

SmashTV Update

For those who are unaware, I am a writer for the official SWF Smash Blog. I post the weekly SmashTV "broadcast" every Saturday.

SmashTV - Episode I - Tires Don Exits
SmashTV - Episode II - Montage Madness
SmashTV - Episode III - Coming Soon to a Wii Near You
SmastTV - Episode IV - Evolution

SMYN Trial Success!

I had my trial today with Youko and SamuraiPanda for the Show Me Your News podcast. It was tons of fun, and I hope I make into episode 23. Whether I make it in or not, you should be listening to the podcast every week! It is really high quality material and covers a wealth of topics surrounding Brawl's upcoming release.

Poll Review #3

What format do you prefer the most?
singles (1v1) - 20 votes
doubles (2v2) - 8 votes
crew battles (various) - 3 votes

Hmmm... I think the results speak for themselves. Singles is clearly the most popular event amongst my readers. I plan on doing an article in the near future on how doubles offers a unique experience. Many players prefer singles as a result of how hard it is to maintain a loyal teammate (myself included). Doubles requires that two people practice together so that they learn how to play off each other. Crew battles, on the other hand, are not too popular yet. Two other people besides me voted for it. XD

SMYN Trial

Well, the word came from Youko himself. Tomorrow, I will be doing my trial for episode 23 of Show Me Your News. Wish me luck! :)

Signature of the Week #4

It's been another busy week for sugarpoultry and her sig shop! This week's best sig was the one for Dojo. Congratulations!

The War Rages On

Earlier in the month, I described the interesting conflict taking place between competitive and casual smashers. Well, the discussion marches forward as members from both sides take their defensive stances. Competitive smashers continue to be weary of the casual smashers' accusations against them regarding items, "true skill", and advanced techniques. Casual smashers feel insulted by generalizations regarding how most any competitive smasher would defeat them (by a fair margin, too).

Signs indicate that this will not end until after Brawl is released. First off, the discussion is taking place in the Brawl discussion area despite many of the arguments being drawn from experience with Melee. The moderators seem tolerant of this as a similar thread in the Melee forums would not receive much (if any) attention. All focus is on Brawl at this point. More and more new members are joining the fray. Many people are registering accounts just to participate in these discussions.

Another Glimpse Into Tournament Lore

AlphaZealot was in another interview at Smashes my Bros. I highly recommend checking it out. AlphaZealot discusses many of the philosophies involved in the banning of stages, the role of tiers, and a couple other interesting topics.

The wavedash is STILL not a glitch.

Apparently, the logic from my first attempt still confused several readers, so I will reiterate the logic here in a hopefully more understandable manner.

I have been doing software development for a long time. So, despite what many may think a glitch is, I will explain it here. Before software is released, it is tested to its greatest extent. Numbers and scenarios are fed through the system to ensure that it behaves correctly. Let us imagine a basic calculator as an example. Before releasing any kind of calculator software, we must make sure that it reacts appropriately to any given input. So, we test 1 + 1 and get 2. 3 + 5 = 8. 13 + 7 = 20. No matter how many times we run these tests, the results are identical. The software has structured limits on the results based on the input.

So now, the calculator is out in the wild. Like most non-graphing calculators, this one has a solar panel for power. In poorly lighted environments, my calculator starts to operate slowly. Eventually, it goes insane and stops cooperating (despite having power). The display works fun, but I punch in 1 + 1 and get 413 (I really have before). Despite the many tests done by the creators of this calculator, the math operation experienced a glitch. Something happened (most likely the low light conditions) to cause the software to behave irrationally but still believe it was operating correctly (hence the instant result displayed). By giving the calculator more light and restarting it, 1 + 1 once again yielded the expected result of 2.

In the world of Melee, the designers obviously knew about air dodging (since, well, they put it in there), so it probably did not take long for someone to ask the question: What happens when an air dodge comes in contact with a solid surface? Well, if it is anything besides a floor, it simply blocks the momentum. They could have left it that way and had the floor simply stop movement but allow the air dodge animation to continue. They chose instead to have the character slide along the ground (and sliding still exists in Brawl).

Now, there is another big controversy about the definitions of glitch and exploit. Some believe the two are identical. They both relate to intent, but they relate to entirely different intents. An exploit takes advantage of physics in a way the game creator never intended. A glitch violates the physics in a way the software never intended. In other words, while the creator's intent is mostly reflected in the software, a glitch happens when the system reacts contrary to the many tests run before release. Air dodge + contact with floor = slide. That is a natural occurrence in the game. Wavedashing is clearly an exploit because it is doubtful that the creators ever thought players would jump and air dodge so fast that the jump animations were essentially invisible to the point where characters appear to just slide along the ground. However, the software itself behaves 100% as it should.

Now, let us return to the Ice Climbers Freeze Glitch. Something happens in this process that leaves the victim in a grabbed state despite being released (and despite the Ice Climber losing his or her grip but not also freezing). Under all other circumstances, the victim simply breaks loose and is free to move afterward. Somehow, when the Ice Climbers get together, the circumstances become just right to where this system fault is made known.

I have seen Captain Falcon fall through the center of Corneria. I have also seen Fox fall through the center of Pokemon Stadium. The floors are supposed to be solid surfaces. Somewhere in the object collision algorithms, the system suddenly decides that the character ought to be relocated to below the stage. These are software glitches.

Competitive Rant

There was an excellent post on SWF on how many competitive players feel about anti-competitive casual smashers. I felt it was worth noting here.

The crux of this debate is that some people do not want other people to play a certain game competitively. That's it. No one is asking the inverse, demanding that casual gamers play by their arbitrary set of rules. It is simply the anti-competitive crowd going out of their way to spite those who are better than them. Their "arguments" normally focus on some abstract "way the game was meant to be played", which we all know actually means "way I want to play the game". To this I can only say, who killed Sakurai and made YOU king?

For the misinformed, which includes most of the anti-competitive crowd, here are the standardized rules for Super Smash Bros. tournament play:
-4 Stock, 8 Minutes, Team Damage, No Items
-Both players choose one stage to ban for the set
-Both players pick characters at same time and go randomly to one of the six "neutral" stages.
-The loser determines the next stage to go to, from almost all of them. The loser also picks character second.
-Best out of three wins

Obviously, we have to talk about items. Items add luck to the game, period. If a good item appears next to you, you very well could instantly win. If a bomb or exploding container appears in front of your attack, you very well could instantly lose. Players don't like having their skill nullified by luck in a competition. Players enter tournaments to pit their skill against their opponent's, not to gamble. Items benefit top-tier characters more, period. It only widens the gap between characters. Most the high tier characters are fast and/or very aerial, giving them a massive advantage in obtaining items on the stage. Some people say that items were meant to balance the game, claiming that characters like Mewtwo and Pikachu were designed as item gods, and their low tier positions are due to items being banned. This is bull****. If an item spawns directly between Pikachu and Shiek, who will get to it first? Fox and Falco, two of the top characters, even have their reflectors to give them the upper hand even when their opponent has the items! Are you saying they need MORE advantages?

If you want to play competitively with items, go ahead. Make your own tournament. Tournaments are organized by players, not people who own stores. Just don't be surprised when no one shows up, because virtually no one wants to play competitively with items. Tourneys do not play with items because the people attending them don't want to, not because some evil tourney director is making them.

Next stages. Hyrule Temple sucks, ok? Let's get that out of the way first. The bottom zone makes it almost pure luck as to who kills who first, giving certain characters huge advantages and leading to REALLY long matches. If you want to organize a Hyrule Temple tourney, go ahead, no one will show up. The only other stages that are banned are ridiculous ones like Super Flat Zone that no one ever likes anyway.

Now then... The six "neutral stages." People act like tournaments only play on Final Destination, which is ridiculous, since it's only one of the six default stages even, and it's typically banned by a player if their opponent has a good Falco. Some tournaments even play with something called "Dave's stupid rule", which states that no stage can be played twice in a set of matches. Yoshi's Story, Fountain of Dreams, Pokemon Stadium, Battlefield, and Dream Land all receive just as much play as Final Destination, if not more. And those are only the initial stages! The other counter-pick stages just aren't included on Random so you don't get some ridiculous random match-up like fighting Peach or Jigglypuff on Mute City.

So why are there so many people who think tournaments are the scourge of Smash? It's simple really. Every fighting game suffers from this to some degree, but it has hit the Smash community particularly hard due to its "easy to learn, impossible to master" nature: Everyone and their dog thinks they are great at Smash, some are, but most suck. People seem to get the idea that just because they've unlocked all the stages and characters, that they are true masters of the game. Then one day, they come up against someone using advanced techniques with tournament rules, get destroyed, then become angry and bitter towards tournament rules and techniques like wave dashing.

So next time you get beaten by an advanced player ask for some advice rather than the usual, "Bawwwwww! Wave dashing and L-canceleing are such cheep glitches (PROTIP: they're not glitches). The game is supposed to be played on Hyrule Temple with full items." It's not like advanced players are in some secret club, and are determined to keep these techniques hidden from you just to maintain an advantage. With the exception of a few rare douche bags the whole notion of elitism is false, most advanced players would be more than happy to explain advanced techniques to you. Furthermore, it's not even that hard to learn them. In only a couple hours you can learn to wave dash, a couple more and you can learn to L-cancel. From there it's just a matter of practice until you can incorporate them into your game.

So what do casual players have to complain about? Nothing, the anti-competitive crowd just doesn't like the fact that some people are better than them at the game, and they don't want to put forth the effort to become better themselves. That's it. The can claim otherwise all day, but that's it.

Is Competitive Smash a Sport?

A sport (according to Dictionary.com's definition) is "an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature, as racing, baseball, tennis, golf, bowling, wrestling, boxing, hunting, fishing, etc." So, technically speaking, smash is not a sport, but oftentimes this argument is carried too far to say that smash is forbidden from being considered competitive. The reasons revolve around two primary ideas: smash is "just a video game" (I wonder what Halo is, then), and smash is "not supposed to be competitive" (on account of being wild and wacky and having newb-friendly mechanics). But my goodness, fishing is a sport? I would venture to say that Mario Strikers Charged has more physical exertion than that!

Regardless, the argument that smash cannot be competitive (for whatever reason) is absurd. Any activity is made competitive by those interested in taking it to the next level. I totally missed when cup-stacking became competitive. Chess is one of the more popular competitive brain games. The Rubik's Cube is the source of many new competitive speed solves. Smash is something with a concrete set of rules that clearly yields a winner and a loser. Serious smashers win consecutively suggesting that there is a level of skill involved in determining the winner. If smash is too cheesy to take seriously, then why are experts at putting dishes away allowed to win money and awards?

Another attack on the competitive smash community is that extreme gaming skills are a waste of talent and time. Taking the game too seriously is somehow unhealthy or pathetic. What most casual onlookers do not realize is that top-level play requires major cunning and lightning reflexes. I have great respect for players who can best me 4-stock to none. They demonstrate their ability to read my attacks and intellectualize at a higher level than me. That is not wasted talent; that is a sharpened tool. Gamers are some of the best problem-solvers I have ever met. When I work with gamers on any programming project, solutions come easily since we are so used to challenging odds. "Proper" programmers see only one way to solve a problem and refuse to do anything other than the "correct" way.

If the competitive environment is not for you, that is AOK. There is no shame in playing a game for party-type fun (as that is what games are for), but competitive players do not deserve this form of mockery.

Nexus Report

Well, the Thanksgiving break gave me a huge boost on the Nexus. For some, it may seem like backtracking since I had to revamp several old components, but now the system is much more intelligent and intuitive than before. It is almost ready for a new team to start indexing. Once that starts, the search functionality will be opened to the public. So, the public will not yet be able to index videos, but that time will come. I polished off submitting and deleting sets. I have just a few tweaks to make before enabling the editing of pre-existing sets.

Sadly, with the break being over, school is once again interfering with my progress. The only good side to this is that the semester ends in less than three weeks. The Nexus will receive my full attention from then on. It will be very exciting for me! I cannot wait to be free of the tyranny that is homework.

This control scheme wins!

It is worth noting in today's DOJO update about controls that players may now disable control stick jumping. This is something I dreamed of while playing Melee. I prefer using the Y-button to jump as opposed to using the control stick. The buttons just offer so much more precision on when and how to jump.

If you look closely at the upper right corner of this image, you will see "Tap Jump", and it is currently "ON". I guarantee that my control scheme will have that set to "OFF". I cannot count the number of times I (or my wife) have tried to use Link's up-B on the ground (only one of many examples) only to involuntarily take off into the air and be brutally punished by the opponent. Those days are over! I suppose it is worth noting that air dodge self-destructs will be less of a problem too.

Women Can Smash

And I have proof. This is a clip from a recent match I had with my wife "sugarpoultry". I am "Buzz" in the video, obviously. I had such a great start. >_>

Poll Review #2 - Hours of Smash

How often do you smash under ideal circumstances?
casually (under 10 hours) - 18 votes
regularly (10-20 hours) - 8 votes
part-time (20-30 hours) - 3 votes
full-time (30-40 hours) - 0 votes
overtime (40+ hours) - 2 votes

This turned out differently than I first imagined. I suspected there would be more smashers spread out through part-time and full-time (hence the "ideal circumstances"). Oh well. It seems most of my readers smash casually during the week. When I am on break, I typically smash 3 hours a day, so I voted regularly. It also seems we have 2 smash zealots. Even in my prime, I don't think I ever smashed in excess of 40 hours a week. O_O