Let's talk about our attitudes and Captain Awesum

[Ulevo]

I think there is a distinct difference between players playing defensively and players playing the way that Captain Awesum did.

I am in no way condoning the behaviour of those who decided to personally attack him. How a player wins or loses within the context of competitive Smash should not translate to how they are treated once the match is over, and I hope he as an individual is doing well. However, I feel it is important to look at this from a different perspective.

While people tend to not regard defensive play as highly within our community, I feel the reactions he drew were more specifically concerned with him exercising a strategy that could harm the games health.

We all remember Brawl planking, yes?

Here is the reality. Regardless of how much EVO calmed your nerves about customs not being a problem due to the nature of how the finals went, that in of itself does not conclude anything either way. You do not conduct an experiment once and base your understandings on it. You replicate the experiment multiple times under the same conditions and then collect your results.

While it did not ruin the top 16 or top 8, he still got to top 32. EVO was very stacked, with many entrants, and this strategy took him very far in to the bracket for a player that was on virtually no ones radar.

What would have happened if someone better than him decided to exercise this strategy? People keep talking about how there were almost no degenerate strategies present, but is it really that surprising given how Captain Awesum was treated? How many more custom villagers would we have seen if people felt they would not have been personally attacked like he was? How many more will we see in the future when suddenly those personal attacks are not enough to dissuade this type of play?

He lost to Larry Lurr, but if you watch the matches, it was not because Larry outplayed him, or beat the strategy. It is because Captain Awesum messed up in game 1. Meanwhile this strategy allowed Captain Awesum to time out and beat players who are arguably much better than he is.

I am not suggesting this strategy is unbeatable. I am suggesting players have a right to be concerned about it. A strategy does not have to be perfect in order for it to deter players from playing or to harm peoples perception. This is the very reason why the Sheik Vanish + Game & Watch Bucket strategy was banned mere days before the event. It was not impossible to lose using it, but that did not stop players from dropping their strategies mid tournament to pick it up.

In the end, I was hoping Captain Awesum did much better than he did and got farther in the bracket because it meant it would increase the likeliness that it would receive attention from the balance team.

I did not bring this up to derail the thread from community morales and ethics to competitive strategy, but I believe understanding why players are acting the way they are helps to understand ways to help prevent it in the future.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

While personal level attacks ain't exactly something we want in the community... there was quite a level of frustration in watching it happen for me. Not because it was boring to watch or the like, because it was just feeding the anti-custom people easy ammo.

I mean, they were already going to use EVO to "prove" that customs shouldn't be in the game (Too many customs in top 8? They break the game. Barely any in top 8? Nobody uses them, they aren't worth the effort). But Awesum just gave them the easiest, lowest hanging fruit possible. He's a guy that people in his area know doesn't do well without customs, and then suddenly with customs he's top 32 at EVO outranking a loooooot of players who are better. You can argue that the other players got bracket screwed, or that some of them weren't used to customs or what not, but its all still easy ammo.

I get playing to win and all, but "playing to keep the game healthy" should be the top priority. If he didn't make top 32, there would be less grounds for people to argue against customs. He could probably go back to his normal region and continue to do well in the custom tournaments there and potentially make money there (and thus win more overall). Now? Anti-custom people in his region have pretty solid looking ammo for their arguments, meaning that he could actually be losing a whole lot more now because of him playing villager like that at EVO. People who were on the fence probably took one look at that set and went "Ya, no thank you" even though that playstyle is fairly beatable. We had a whole giant post in another topic explaining how almost every character can actually beat it fairly easily if you have the knowledge, but nobody is going to care. They saw what they saw, and that's all that matters.

Basically, by playing the way he did, he actually did a fair amount of damage to the community and the game as a whole.

 

[Raijinken]

While personal level attacks ain't exactly something we want in the community... there was quite a level of frustration in watching it happen for me. Not because it was boring to watch or the like, because it was just feeding the anti-custom people easy ammo.

I mean, they were already going to use EVO to "prove" that customs shouldn't be in the game (Too many customs in top 8? They break the game. Barely any in top 8? Nobody uses them, they aren't worth the effort). But Awesum just gave them the easiest, lowest hanging fruit possible. He's a guy that people in his area know doesn't do well without customs, and then suddenly with customs he's top 32 at EVO outranking a loooooot of players who are better. You can argue that the other players got bracket screwed, or that some of them weren't used to customs or what not, but its all still easy ammo.

I get playing to win and all, but "playing to keep the game healthy" should be the top priority. If he didn't make top 32, there would be less grounds for people to argue against customs. He could probably go back to his normal region and continue to do well in the custom tournaments there and potentially make money there (and thus win more overall). Now? Anti-custom people in his region have pretty solid looking ammo for their arguments, meaning that he could actually be losing a whole lot more now because of him playing villager like that at EVO. People who were on the fence probably took one look at that set and went "Ya, no thank you" even though that playstyle is fairly beatable. We had a whole giant post in another topic explaining how almost every character can actually beat it fairly easily if you have the knowledge, but nobody is going to care. They saw what they saw, and that's all that matters.

Basically, by playing the way he did, he actually did a fair amount of damage to the community and the game as a whole.

While I agree with setting a goal of longevity, that mindset itself is actually directly counter to playing to win. People lose interest in stagnant, or unbalanced, or low-variety games just as easily as in repeat cheese strats. Patches are helping, but the three matchups I tuned out of during EVO deliberately were Sheik vs Sheik, Sheik vs Diddy, and Sonic vs Mario. Sonic because nothing happened because that's how he has been designed, Sheik and Diddy because I've literally burned out on watching those two characters do the exact same strategies (fair fair fair bouncing fish or dthrow->uair for Sheik, dthrow uair for Diddy pre-nerf, and not that different now) every tournament. But when a lot of money is on the line, no top player has to or (from a pure play-to-win perspective) should care about the game's long-term health. You do what you have to do to win. The real world is the same way. If it weren't actually illegal (to varying extents) and if "victory" weren't determined essentially by finances, far more businesses would do whatever they could to make profit, regardless of the world or economy's health.

In other words, the problem is here to stay unless either a lot of people change their attitudes, or we reach total balance parity. I'm not betting money on either of those.

 

[ぱみゅ]

CaptAwsum doesn't do exceptionally well in his region.
People there apparently adapted and he no longer has great results.

 

[BSP]

Games live and die with their viewer count.

I thought they lived and died with the people who actually go to the tournaments.

 

[LanceKing2200]

Minor correction: Captain Awesum is from Connecticut, not New Jersey. He travels to RI and MA tournaments occasionally and is ranked on our New England power rankings.

Also (I haven't seen this mentioned) as far as achievements at EVO go CaptAwesum beat Rain 2-0 to get into top 32.

 

[MajorMajora]

I see a lot of bad things towards Awesum's playstyle, but let me say some things in favor of it.
1. It is not that harmful to high level competition. Think of how many people probably played that way in pools. Now, think about how many people playing that way made it out. Pretty much only he made it to top 32, which shows that he is an exception rather than a rule this means he was either
A: lucky with who was in his pool, or
B: actually skilled in comparison. He also didn't make it too much farther. This shows that his strategy requires skill to play at a high level, and it will take an exceptionally skilled villager to be a contender. Therefore, it doesn't really go against competitive values except maybe a few matches where an unexperienced player beats a slightly more experienced player.
2. If harm to the competitive values of smash isn't a concern, then what about viewership? Well, I'll be honest, but the matches with C. Awesum were pretty hype, and people got into it. Perhaps it was out of hate, but people got into them. It can help if there's a villain to root against. People from other games even came to see his match against Larry. I don't know how mnay people were watching then compared to other times, but it felt more alive than any other time in the tournament (though I wasn't there for top 8, I believe, there were probably hyper moments).

 

[Cornstalk]

This is just a small piece of the toxicity that has been pushing a more casual player like myself away from even -trying- to be part of a local smash community, let alone the big picture. Why did these people think it was okay to go out of their way to harass him? Why did no one do anything about it?

I need to side track here, because I almost made a post of my own about this, but I feel its related and better kept to this topic...

When I go to any kind of competitive event, from a small time tournament all the way up to a major league venue, I expect a certain level of good sportsmanship. This is particularly true for commentators, representatives of the genre, and pro players. And yet I come to smash boards, THE hub for all things smash, to see the EVO results, and I find crap like this in a front page topic:

One of the favorites to win the event after a dominant performance at CEO 2015 only weeks ago, Leffen washed out of the event with losses to Hungrybox's Jigglypuff 2-0 in winners and to Plup's Samus in losers. Matchup inexperience likely played a key role in both of these losses. Unable to again make a stand at the grandest stage, Leffen will head home with his status among the top of the Melee hierarchy still in doubt.

Leffen placed 5th along side Mango. You could call him top 6 at WORST. Out of 1,869 people that entered. I haven't followed any of the drama around Leffen, so maybe I don't fully understand what this is suppose to mean... but that's actually the point. When I read that I thought, "Gee, Leffen must have been knocked out early for this to be brought up." I had to read through the placement list twice for it to sink in that a 5th place performance was apparently being frowned on!

This coming from people booing HungryBox... and now apparently there is a Captain Awesum hate squad too? It's toxic for bringing in new players. This isn't even a major event issue. I've personally been disgusted by the kind of people that show up even or small tournaments. No deodorant, constant Johns, tier trash talking, x-version of smash is for scrubs...

I'm probably ranting more than contributing, so I'll so close with this:

I can't be the only one that doesn't want to deal with the pointless drama and negativity.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

CaptAwsum doesn't do exceptionally well in his region.
People there apparently adapted and he no longer has great results.

That kinda ties into the point I was trying to make (and I'm guessing I only got partly across).

His strategy has diminishing returns. After you've played against it a few times, most characters can beat it. Really all you need is a move that can easily hit under the stage without going off stage yourself. Or a custom with a windbox. More characters have one of those two things than you think, particularly on stages with thin ledges.

However, he was facing many people who did not have that experience under their belt, such as Rain. They made stalling Villager look a lot stronger than he actually is. In many peoples eyes, it also made customs as a whole appear horribly balanced when really its more like Bowser and Little Mac back during the early days of the 3DS. Just need a short amount of time to get used to it.

But many top level players refuse to ever use customs and thus don't know how to beat it. And then he makes top 32. Now they're even more justified in their minds in refusing to use customs because hey, look at all of the people who struggled against that kind of playing style.

What needed to happen at EVO, was lots of custom use that slightly benefited players, like changing ZSS's Neutral B against Sheik. People don't get heartburn over that. Seeing that kind of thing, things that shifts MUs by a small amount, would bring more of the people on the fence (including higher level players) over to the pro-custom side. But because somebody who is very beatable with experience made top 32 by abusing a lack of knowledge against customs, customs basically got shot in the foot with a shotgun.

 

[GTZ]

This and many other examples like this one are the fundamental reason why I do not go to events anymore or host Smashachusetts tourneys anymore. You couple that with the arrogant Melee crowd and some really arrogant Smash 4 players and it makes for one of the most immature competitive communities I have ever experienced.

 

[ToadsterOven]

This and many other examples like this one are the fundamental reason why I do not go to events anymore or host Smashachusetts tourneys anymore. You couple that with the arrogant Melee crowd and some really arrogant Smash 4 players and it makes for one of the most immature competitive communities I have ever experienced.

Ouch. Sorry to hear that.

Any examples of arrogant smash 4 players? I'm thinking of the ones who diss on customs without any sort of knowledge or personal experience with customs who instead just get their opinions from top players who in some cases sadly aren't that much more knowledgeable themselves.

 

[Illuminose]

People should not have heckled him, but you cannot seriously condemn booing or wanting to see him lose. It is the nature of such a strategy; it's unreasonable for him to expect people to sympathize with him or otherwise support his strategy given the nature of the competitive community and how degenerate his strategy is. He can use his tools to win, but he also can't complain when he receives a negative reaction from the audience. People wanting to see him lose is not even a problem to me because it's not something they want to watch and they're well within their rights to boo him or cheer against him. Heckling and harassment is too far, but stuff with the audience is a natural response because it is not enjoyable to watch.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

I think there are two very important things I need to compound on here.

First of all, there's the way this is tied in with custom movesets in general. @ Ulevo I'm sorry if this isn't charitable but your argument to me sounds like Captain Awesum's strategy is brokenly overpowered, Captain Awesum is not a good player, and the community needs this kind of hatred merely to prevent a strategy like this from taking over. We could argue about the strategic power of Captain Awesum's strategy or about Captain Awesum's general aptitude as a player, but I don't see the importance of these things. Either they're not broken and Captain Awesum is merely a master at this particular niche of the game (allowing him to outperform everyone else who tries to do the same thing) which deserves respect even if his niche is a really boring niche, or they are broken and he's merely the only one not cowardly enough to abuse the gimmick for easy wins. Either way, he deserves respect, and if the latter is true, what you should be wanting is for many players to do the same thing and to perform much better than just "top 32" so it can be unambiguously clear to all that this is so broken. Using social stigma to "hold back" a degenerate strategy is absolutely insane and counter-productive; the best way to deal with a degenerate strategy is to allow it to dominate super hard for a brief period of time and then implement an appropriate rule change once it is clear to all how degenerate the strategy is. Even from a simple game strategic health standpoint, the social stigma is more counterproductive than the gimmick strategy ever could be since it strongly impedes the proper development of the metagame.

The second point I would have to make is that we all need to actually listen to the people in this thread who tell stories about how needless negative attitudes have affected them personally. It's easy from the perspective of someone established in the community to tell someone to suck it up. We already have enough friends in the community that we can trust we'll continue to have a reasonably good time no matter what we do. The evidence here is really strongly suggesting that a willingness to direct hate at other players for something as trite as their gameplay is alienating to a lot of prospective players and would-be players. Even if Captain Awesum's play were just about the worst thing ever, it would STILL not be a good idea to treat him this way just because of the message it sends to everyone around him. Does anyone here believe that Captain Awesum's play is so vile that it's a reasonable and acceptable trade-off to have a smaller and more negative community to "deal with him"? By condoning this style of behavior, that's pretty much exactly what is being endorsed. I'm not so naive as to believe that we can prevent every idiot from booing at so-called boring play, but when nearly the entire crowd unites to direct hate at one player and when a very substantial niche follows this same player around and basically harasses him throughout the event, we have an attitude problem.

As per the smaller stuff, I could have sworn Captain Awesum said he was from New Jersey when I was talking to him, but the EVO hall was REALLY loud so I easily could have misunderstood. Also, he was salty after the loss to Larry Lurr not because he lost but because of how the crowd was acting, specifically the mountain of coaching Larry got and the zero coaching Captain Awesum felt he received (John Numbers tried to offer Captain Awesum coaching as a crewmate but was basically drowned out by the crowd apparently). I'm sure some people here feel it's good and proper for everyone to be against one person because that person did something as vile as play lame in a video game, but as fellow human beings, I hope we can all be minimally empathetic enough to understand why that might bother the target.

 

[TheHypnotoad]

Ouch. Sorry to hear that.

Any examples of arrogant smash 4 players? I'm thinking of the ones who diss on customs without any sort of knowledge or personal experience with customs who instead just get their opinions from top players who in some cases sadly aren't that much more knowledgeable themselves.

People who hate on customs, people who hate on no customs, people who hate top tier characters, people who hate low tier characters, people who hate on certain controllers, people who don't respect players who are worse than them, people who hate on others for playing a different game, people who hate on certain playstyles, the list goes on and on and on.

I have no problem saying that the Smash community is one of the worst communities out of every video game in existence.

 

[⑨ball]

-snip-

Depending on what question you were trying to ask yourself with the experiment, EVO may have just been the final deciding one. Seeing as most people were betting on EVO either being some catastrophe due to customs or some kind of balance paradise, I'd say most people were looking to see if they were harmful to the metagame; and with 3+ months of customs and no noteworthy change in results (same general people in top 8), I feel most of us can conclude that they're no worse than anything else we've had to deal with when delving into a new series. Again however it really depends on what people were looking to prove or disprove with EVO thought of as an experiment.

I'd personally like to see more of his bracket actually. The only notable player that we know he beat was RAIN who we're pretty sure had no experience in customs. Did he really ride his way up to top 32 on this strategy alone or did he manage to come across a bunch of players that had no idea how to deal with this strategy?

Someone better like ADHD? He was the originator and smart counterplay like we'd expect with any bad mu pretty much shut his entire interest of using Villager down.Those are also very dangerous questions. Not because we should be worried about "degenerate" play, but because if we're using personal attacks and harassment to discourage play of any sort, we're setting a very fertile ground for tactics that are going to cause real physical harm to players.

If you mess up and your opponent doesn't/capitalizes on this, isn't that the definition of being outplayed? Where exactly is the line for strategy, skill, and player choice? At what point can we honestly say that player a is better than player b and not their choices? I try not to delve into those things too much because I just want to play, but why are we so readily able to argue Captain Awesum's skill because of a strategy without doing the same to recognized players like Mr.R ?

This same argument "it can be beaten but players are dropping [x] to pick it up" can be argued about Diddy and Sheik too. How many Diddy players did we have pre patch? We had what--7 Sheik's in top 32? What's the current gap in placings between Sheik and the other top tiers or for that matter the rest of the cast? A strategy doesn't really need anything to harm people's perception actually. We're easily swayed creatures that already tend to lean in one way or another with very minor things affecting how we see things.

Whether or not it needs to be balanced at all is debatable, but I understand your interest in such. I'm not sure which of these threads I saw it in, but there was a suggestion of using media outlets like online magazines to get Nintendo's attention on some of these things. It sounds worth the effort at least and I'd like to see someone trustworthy like Reflex take head of it.

-snip-

There's literally nothing that can't be considered easy ammo in a debate when both sides are already convinced. While you can argue that customs make players artificially better, you can say the same thing about character usage in general. It should also be questioned if the reason he doesn't do better in locals is because he simply doesn't have the tools to do as well in the style he plays.

Playing to keep the game "healthy" is in no way a players obligation and is hardly expected of us. If that were the case you'd see soft bans on whatever character of the week people were complaining about. If it's an issue that affects tournament attendance, TO's should consider banning it, but in most cases we love this messed up series so much we'll show up even if we've got legit 0-death combos or chaingrabs. I get that you're worried, but custom villager doesn't help or hurt either side of the debate. However, if you truly feel like it'd stand as a point against customs you should reanalyze you position on customs. Not to say that it's good or bad, but you might be leaning more towards something like compromise if you feel this way.

 

[Puppyfaic]

Um... I kind of want to chime in with a quick thought of mine... I've seen a couple posts in this thread that have stated things I don't really agree with...

As for the player...if he can't take the kiddyhate the Smash community throws, i don't think he needs to be competitive.

These types of things. Things that basically sum up to "This is the way things are. If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen."

Which leads me to something I can't really understand: Why does this "heat" exist at all? Why should someone have to man up or get out? Maybe I'm just being incredibly naive, but I don't think this is a fair argument. This isn't the way things should be. People shouldn't HAVE to take this kind of thing for the way they push buttons on a controller. You could say "But this is how it's always been!", but that doesn't make it OK. It shouldn't have been that way to begin with!

...I don't know. This is just how I felt about this sort of thing. Maybe I'm wrong. But this just doesn't seem right. Then again, I'm not sure I'm one to judge what's "right" or "wrong" in this context, anyway.

 

[TheHypnotoad]

should

"Should" is a meaningless word. It implies ideals. We do not live in an idealistic world.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

"Should" is a meaningless word. It implies ideals. We do not live in an idealistic world.

Ideals inform actions. The word "should" may not reflect a current reality, but that doesn't make it useless as a target for what we are pursuing.

 

[MikeKirby]

A few things I want to point out.

1. C. Awesum is from Connecticut NOT New Jersey.

2. Crewmate Johh Numbers? I mean they teamed at EVO, yes, but, as far as I know, John#s is sponsored by Nucleus and is part of the NYC House of 3000 crew. Maybe C. Awesum is sponsored by Nucleus? But he definitely isn't part of Ho3K. I mean, I see them talking and playing together every so often. Who wouldn't talk to Numbers? John#s is a very likable guy.

3. Hate the game, not the player. The treatment he gets is horrendous and disgusting. Coming from a Kirby who played Brawl, dealing, approaching and getting walled by projectiles is the norm for me. It's how he and his character plays. So what? Get good. Using that Villager set isn't as braindead as you think it is. Especially the mental aspect of it. It's pretty demanding. I've talked to him and he actually knows a good deal of information. I feel he's quite smart and I feel he just wants to be accepted. I can respect that. However...

4. He... Has some issues with expressing his frustration. From what I've personally seen, he gets quite salty when he loses (example: Vs Will he kind of shoved him trying to leave the set up after a loss). He johns or pops off pretty hefty after a win or loss (example: Vs me he HAD to get on the commentators booth to say a few things after the set). He ended up punching someone (on the shoulder) and cursing him out after he won, which ended up getting him disqualified from the tournament. He also pockets a Windy Kong even though he has no idea how to extensively use it other than the sake of the Up-B. It's hard NOT to dislike someone who abuses every cheese tactic in the game. It takes a special kind of person to do that which attracts the attention he gets... NOBODY deserves that kind of treatment but the image that he portrays himself as need improvement, as well.

I personally have nothing against him. As a player that's a different story but I have no room or time for hatred in my life.

 

[LightLV]

Um... I kind of want to chime in with a quick thought of mine... I've seen a couple posts in this thread that have stated things I don't really agree with...

These types of things. Things that basically sum up to "This is the way things are. If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen."

I never said people should do it, or be allowed to do it, i tried to suggest he should expect it. Haters are just a part of success, and even if his tactic didn't get him too far, people who can't wrap their minds around beating it are just gonna do what haters do.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

A few things I want to point out.

1. C. Awesum is from Connecticut NOT New Jersey.

2. Crewmate Johh Numbers? I mean they teamed at EVO, yes, but, as far as I know, John#s is sponsored by Nucleus and is part of the NYC House of 3000 crew. Maybe C. Awesum is sponsored by Nucleus? But he definitely isn't part of Ho3K. I mean, I see them talking and playing together every so often. Who wouldn't talk to Numbers? John#s is a very likable guy.

3. Hate the game, not the player. The treatment he gets is horrendous and disgusting. Coming from a Kirby who played Brawl, dealing, approaching and getting walled by projectiles is the norm for me. It's how he and his character plays. So what? Get good. Using that Villager set isn't as braindead as you think it is. Especially the mental aspect of it. It's pretty demanding. I've talked to him and he actually knows a good deal of information. I feel he's quite smart and I feel he just wants to be accepted. I can respect that. However...

4. He... Has some issues with expressing his frustration. From what I've personally seen, he gets quite salty when he loses (example: Vs Will he kind of shoved him trying to leave the set up after a loss). He johns or pops off pretty hefty after a win or loss (example: Vs me he HAD to get on the commentators booth to say a few things after the set). He ended up punching someone (on the shoulder) and cursing him out after he won, which ended up getting him disqualified from the tournament. He also pockets a Windy Kong even though he has no idea how to extensively use it other than the sake of the Up-B. It's hard NOT to dislike someone who abuses every cheese tactic in the game. It takes a special kind of person to do that which attracts the attention he gets... NOBODY deserves that kind of treatment but the image that he portrays himself as need improvement, as well.

I personally have nothing against him. As a player that's a different story but I have no room or time for hatred in my life.

Heh, please forgive me as a Midwesterner for being totally unfamiliar with whatever goes down way out in Atlantic North, especially about who is from which state and how you guys group players (in KS, we mostly use the prefixes for names as jokes, and everyone is everyone else's crewmate; I have just learned that in AN the prefixes are meaningful and the term crewmate has significance beyond locality). Thank you for your insight into this guy in particular, but I do stand behind my general point. Few people in that crowd knew Captain Awesum personally so, even if as a player he isn't the most mature, that can't have really been factoring in heavily to the hate he got. Based on what you are saying, I would agree that Captain Awesum probably has some room to improve his own conduct outside of the game, but to me the most important thing is that the way he's treated by others is significantly problematic at least what I witnessed at EVO since what I saw there will cause problems far beyond anything having to do with Captain Awesum as an individual player.

 

[LightLV]

I don't see why anyone should take heavy offense to the crap talk that goes down in this community anyway. Smash 4 is one of (if not THE) most hilarious, deluded fighting game communities ever.

Majority of the participators are typically ignorant of other fighting game mechanics, tactics, terms or mindsets, and it has only gotten worse through the years. Smash has devoted so many of its gameplay mechanics towards making the game as skill-gapless as possible, both mechanically and through smoke and mirrors (the game's pathetic network mode) that MOST of the communtity can't even wrap their minds around what a Tier List is.

Smash's community is like an NFL commentary table consisting of pop warner children. Like a group of backseat drivers who only ride bikes.

 

[Ulevo]

I think there are two very important things I need to compound on here.

First of all, there's the way this is tied in with custom movesets in general. @ Ulevo I'm sorry if this isn't charitable but your argument to me sounds like Captain Awesum's strategy is brokenly overpowered, Captain Awesum is not a good player, and the community needs this kind of hatred merely to prevent a strategy like this from taking over. We could argue about the strategic power of Captain Awesum's strategy or about Captain Awesum's general aptitude as a player, but I don't see the importance of these things. Either they're not broken and Captain Awesum is merely a master at this particular niche of the game (allowing him to outperform everyone else who tries to do the same thing) which deserves respect even if his niche is a really boring niche, or they are broken and he's merely the only one not cowardly enough to abuse the gimmick for easy wins. Either way, he deserves respect, and if the latter is true, what you should be wanting is for many players to do the same thing and to perform much better than just "top 32" so it can be unambiguously clear to all that this is so broken. Using social stigma to "hold back" a degenerate strategy is absolutely insane and counter-productive; the best way to deal with a degenerate strategy is to allow it to dominate super hard for a brief period of time and then implement an appropriate rule change once it is clear to all how degenerate the strategy is. Even from a simple game strategic health standpoint, the social stigma is more counterproductive than the gimmick strategy ever could be since it strongly impedes the proper development of the metagame.

The second point I would have to make is that we all need to actually listen to the people in this thread who tell stories about how needless negative attitudes have affected them personally. It's easy from the perspective of someone established in the community to tell someone to suck it up. We already have enough friends in the community that we can trust we'll continue to have a reasonably good time no matter what we do. The evidence here is really strongly suggesting that a willingness to direct hate at other players for something as trite as their gameplay is alienating to a lot of prospective players and would-be players. Even if Captain Awesum's play were just about the worst thing ever, it would STILL not be a good idea to treat him this way just because of the message it sends to everyone around him. Does anyone here believe that Captain Awesum's play is so vile that it's a reasonable and acceptable trade-off to have a smaller and more negative community to "deal with him"? By condoning this style of behavior, that's pretty much exactly what is being endorsed. I'm not so naive as to believe that we can prevent every idiot from booing at so-called boring play, but when nearly the entire crowd unites to direct hate at one player and when a very substantial niche follows this same player around and basically harasses him throughout the event, we have an attitude problem.

As per the smaller stuff, I could have sworn Captain Awesum said he was from New Jersey when I was talking to him, but the EVO hall was REALLY loud so I easily could have misunderstood. Also, he was salty after the loss to Larry Lurr not because he lost but because of how the crowd was acting, specifically the mountain of coaching Larry got and the zero coaching Captain Awesum felt he received (John Numbers tried to offer Captain Awesum coaching as a crewmate but was basically drowned out by the crowd apparently). I'm sure some people here feel it's good and proper for everyone to be against one person because that person did something as vile as play lame in a video game, but as fellow human beings, I hope we can all be minimally empathetic enough to understand why that might bother the target.

In my opinion, Captain Awesum is a good player relative to your average Smash player, not to the high or top level competition present at EVO.

I am not saying the strategy is brokenly overpowered. If you paid attention to my post in its entirety, you would have seen I made a specific effort to address that. Making claims right now about it is pointless because we do not have enough viable tournament data. What I am saying is that there is a legitimate cause for concern that as the meta develops and people feel more inclined to use this strategy, it could prove to be a problem, yet no one seems to be paying this any attention even though a virtual unknown did very well at the fighting game championships.

I am not saying the community needs to behave this way, but that this is an expected side effect.

I am not here to argue for Captain Awesum's entitlements or lack thereof, just to point out what should be obvious to people.

 

[Puppyfaic]

I never said people should do it, or be allowed to do it, i tried to suggest he should expect it. Haters are just a part of success, and even if his tactic didn't get him too far, people who can't wrap their minds around beating it are just gonna do what haters do.

And this is my point. Why would someone want to be part of a community in which these things are expected?

 

[Raijinken]

Ouch. Sorry to hear that.

Any examples of arrogant smash 4 players? I'm thinking of the ones who diss on customs without any sort of knowledge or personal experience with customs who instead just get their opinions from top players who in some cases sadly aren't that much more knowledgeable themselves.

Any player who refused to use customs out of fear that they will vanish was being arrogant, even if they are ultimately right, if it would have afforded them an advantage in a match (Ally vs Manny springs to mind, much as I enjoy watching Ally). Several commentators, call it arrogance or otherwise, conveyed their own dislike of customs, and/or of the stage selection rules. Even ZeRo is pretty arrogant, if you watch any of his Youtube bits.

I don't see why anyone should take heavy offense to the crap talk that goes down in this community anyway. Smash 4 is one of (if not THE) most hilarious, deluded fighting game communities ever.

Majority of the participators are typically ignorant of other fighting game mechanics, tactics, terms or mindsets, and it has only gotten worse through the years. Smash has devoted so many of its gameplay mechanics towards making the game as skill-gapless as possible, both mechanically and through smoke and mirrors (the game's pathetic network mode) that MOST of the communtity can't even wrap their minds around what a Tier List is.

Smash's community is like an NFL commentary table consisting of pop warner children. Like a group of backseat drivers who only ride bikes.

I can't disagree with anything you said about the community, but quite frankly your statement about the skill gap is incorrect, even if you refer to Brawl.

 

[Scarlet Jile]

I have no problem saying that the Smash community is one of the worst communities out of every video game in existence.

Oh, ye of little game community knowledge. Harden your heart to learn that Smash is among the better communities that exist.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

I don't see why anyone should take heavy offense to the crap talk that goes down in this community anyway. Smash 4 is one of (if not THE) most hilarious, deluded fighting game communities ever.

Majority of the participators are typically ignorant of other fighting game mechanics, tactics, terms or mindsets, and it has only gotten worse through the years. Smash has devoted so many of its gameplay mechanics towards making the game as skill-gapless as possible, both mechanically and through smoke and mirrors (the game's pathetic network mode) that MOST of the communtity can't even wrap their minds around what a Tier List is.

Smash's community is like an NFL commentary table consisting of pop warner children. Like a group of backseat drivers who only ride bikes.

Mortal.Kombat.

 

[Raijinken]

Oh, ye of little game community knowledge. Harden your heart to learn that Smash is among the better communities that exist.

Yea, out of "every video game in existance," we're pretty solid. But as far as fighting games go, we have the disadvantage of using our grassroots origins as an excuse to ignore the one time the dev tried to give us guidelines for competition (which most fighting games take at default face-value), and thus we split on every possible point of contention.

 

[Rikkhan]

wow so now we have a salty guy with above average skill that plays unhype and has a ****ty attitude.. suddenly this whole drama feels underserved, also what personal attacks are people referring? if its something like "you suck!", booing and opponents getting coached I mean c'mon...

He as a player has to be pretty naive to not expect this outcome, he is disrepecting everything, players, viewers, customs, the game credibility he is making everything to fill the villian role and you know crowds hate/love villians, or he was just ballsy and playing to win in which you just had to do like dabuz or even ZeRo (when everyone hate it) do by feeding on the crowd hate and tears.

I have no problem saying that the Smash community is one of the worst communities out of every video game in existence.

pfft this statement... "X community is one of the worst communities" is pretty much trope at this point.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

In my opinion, Captain Awesum is a good player relative to your average Smash player, not to the high or top level competition present at EVO.

I am not saying the strategy is brokenly overpowered. If you paid attention to my post in its entirety, you would have seen I made a specific effort to address that. Making claims right now about it is pointless because we do not have enough viable tournament data. What I am saying is that there is a legitimate cause for concern that as the meta develops and people feel more inclined to use this strategy, it could prove to be a problem, yet no one seems to be paying this any attention even though a virtual unknown did very well at the fighting game championships.

I am not saying the community needs to behave this way, but that this is an expected side effect.

I am not here to argue for Captain Awesum's entitlements or lack thereof, just to point out what should be obvious to people.

I don't actually have a problem with your position on how good Awesum's play or individual skill is. I was just covering the whole spectrum there. Yeah, maybe it is expected for people to act this awful way; I'm just trying to say that it shouldn't be this way. I suppose I'd ask how the smash community would react to this match:

To the SF community, this was a great grand finals set, and you hear cheering at the end. I expect there would have been a chorus of boos from our community though, and how just wrong-headed that attitude is is the main purpose of this thread.

 

[Tobi_Whatever]

I thought they lived and died with the people who actually go to the tournaments.

You didn't think wrong, it doesn't invalidate my statement though.

 

[Raijinken]

I don't actually have a problem with your position on how good Awesum's play or individual skill is. I was just covering the whole spectrum there. Yeah, maybe it is expected for people to act this awful way; I'm just trying to say that it shouldn't be this way. I suppose I'd ask how the smash community would react to this match:

To the SF community, this was a great grand finals set, and you hear cheering at the end. I expect there would have been a chorus of boos from our community though, and how just wrong-headed that attitude is is the main purpose of this thread.

I'm pretty sure the Smash community would lynch someone who played like that.

You didn't think wrong, it doesn't invalidate my statement though.

A game can live just off of a playerbase, but it really does take a viewerbase for games to thrive these days. A healthy balance of both is great. But it's no secret that even highly skilled players are often disliked for their streaming personalities, for instance.

 

[Bloodcross]

Why do I get the feeling that half of the people in here were actually part of the heckling group and are hiding themselves via the computer screen?

Idk just some thoughts

 

[Nysyr]

Lol of course personal attacks are not okay; directly insulting him as a person crosses the line.

However...

Booing and calling out his playstyle is something that is going to happen no matter what. You either accept being the villain, or you fold under the pressure. This is a spectator sport; the spectators make the sport. When you do things that the spectators don't like, don't expect them to support your cause.

AA, your OP came off extremely as trying to use this as a reason to support customs. I highly suggest you differentiate this topic from that.

 

[WakerofWinds]

AA, your OP came off extremely as trying to use this as a reason to support customs. I highly suggest you differentiate this topic from that.

I'm curious what part of AA's post came across as using it to support customs at all. He mentions customs to describe who Capt. Awesum is and mentions it to say that customs should not be the topic of discussion in this thread.

The point is that following people around for the sole purpose of heckling them is unacceptable, and it shouldn't happen. Sure their play style may bore you, but that's seriously not okay.

 

[warionumbah2]

SF community is far better than the Smash community, its not a fair comparison.

 

[LightLV]

I can't disagree with anything you said about the community, but quite frankly your statement about the skill gap is incorrect, even if you refer to Brawl.

To explain this in detail would undoubtedly turn this thread into a Melee vs. Everything debate (which frankly just goes in-hand with my point), but yes, in Smash 4 the skill gap is lower than it has ever been before.

But to make it short, the way Smash 4 HEAVILY favors defense over offense, recovery over edgeguarding, and added in Rage creates a playfield where punishes are weak and second chances are pretty much everywhere unless you severely screw up (or are fighting an S-tier).

 

[Raijinken]

To explain this in detail would undoubtedly turn this thread into a Melee vs. Everything debate (which frankly just goes in-hand with my point), but yes, in Smash 4 the skill gap is lower than it has ever been before.

But to make it short, the way Smash 4 HEAVILY favors defense over offense, recovery over edgeguarding, and added in Rage creates a playfield where punishes are weak and second chances are pretty much everywhere unless you severely screw up (or are fighting an S-tier).

You're right, I apologize for bringing up that tangent, it's not relevant to the thread.

There is a bit about that on-subject, though. Several people defending the crowd's treatment of Awesum seem to be generally assuming that if it weren't for this "easy" no-effort strategy, he wouldn't have gotten so far. Yet on the same token, if it's such an easy and powerful strategy, should he not have made it further? Or was he just "out-janking" a lot of people who didn't know the style or matchups, and who would have terminated his streak earlier on with more practice?

If skillgaps were so minimal, Zero would have surely dropped a tournament by now. The fact that he hasn't suggests that there is, if not from a technical standpoint (which I can't argue has been reduced, but I prefer that myself as a weak technical player), at the very least a strategic and executional (actually using the right things at the right time aside from technical difficulty) skill gap that many (arguably all) have yet to cross.

 

[Dogivet]

SF community is far better than the Smash community, its not a fair comparison.

While I agree with this, there was still a lot of hate for Gamerbee's Elena healing/timeout, not really the same but it exists everywhere, just not as prominent as Smash.
Spectators (for just about anything, not just games) think of themselves as privileged people who want nothing more than this:

(never mind, it works differently here...)
so is this really to anyone's surprise in the end that there is bias against anyone who plays defensively/slowly?

 

[Locke 06]

snip and a great GF set

The reason why tiger shots is different from villedger is because the opponent is forced to engage. Chun Li can't sit on the other side of the stage and take chip damage. Plus, there is a point to her trying to build the super from the other side of the stage, at which point Sagat is forced to play very differently. There is player v player interaction the entire match. And for those who don't know that chun li can't win fireball wars because she's a charge character, Sagat is imposing his will upon her.

With villager, and planking in general, you're telling your opponent they're forced to come out from safety and fight through your camp to attack you before the time runs out. But villager isn't imposing his/her will upon the opponent. The timer is forcing the opponent to approach. Even when the timer is at 3 minutes, which is a long time, the threat of a timeout is looming. That's a round of boxing long. And when a trip seed is out, the smart thing to do is to not engage. So.................. You get gameplay that is not the most interesting to watch.

In my experience, it's not "playing defensive" that spectators dislike, it's the lack of conflict and player v player interaction.