Voting Gauntlet: Winter Festival vs. New Year’s!

[GuiltyLove]

I'm glad my Catria apparently helped @Motendra beat a team with Rein and Bow Lyn. Still not sure how that happened :P

[Rezanator]

3 minutes ago, Blade Lord Lyn said:

Well now that definitely is both ways more latter to former not that I and I'm obviously sure many fans aren't complaining! ^_^

It would be way better than being able to touch our units.

[Ice Dragon]

I mean, the main thing about competitive Smash is that its focus is specifically on mechanical skill in how well you know your character and your opponent's character. Essentially, it's treating Smash like all other competitive fighting games, which isn't wrong, but it ignores the fact that risk mitigation and dealing with unexpected circumstances are both part of the game and are just as much skill-related as it is to know the characters and game mechanics.

 

I think the Voting Gauntlet is in a similar situation. People only see that the mode is not what they want it to be and dismiss the differences as something undesirable instead of actually trying to see what those features bring to the table.

Edited January 7, 2018 by Ice Dragon

[Tybrosion]

10 minutes ago, GuiltyLove said:

I... don't think they hate fun. Your attitude makes me think that it would be hard to convince you otherwise, though! I used to go to tournaments a bit in the past and was friends with some good ranked players, so I think you're being a little misinformed and judgmental! 

If they have fun playing the game the way they do, then more power to them. To me, though, it just seems like an unfun and backwards way of playing the game that I personally wouldn't see myself having fun with like they do. Being judgmental wasn't my intent at all. That and whenever I use a strike-through, it should be assumed that I'm not being serious about whatever I said.

[Vaximillian]

55 minutes ago, LordFrigid said:

In other news, @Vaximillian's Sharena evaded me for an entire gauntlet...again. What did I do wrong D: ?

Your Caeda didn’t ignore me at all. Half of the matches I played (which wasn’t much, admittedly), she showed up and did wonderfully. As it must be.

[GuiltyLove]

Just now, Tybrosion said:

If they have fun playing the game the way they do, then more power to them. To me, though, it just seems like an unfun and backwards way of playing the game that I personally wouldn't see myself having fun with like they do. Being judgmental wasn't my intent at all. That and whenever I use a strike-through, it should be assumed that I'm not being serious about whatever I said.

If you don't think it's fun, then that's fine. Why do you think it's a backwards way of playing the game?

A lot of stages were banned for the reason that many stage hazards were random. In the past, stages like Poke Floats and Rainbow Cruise (Melee) were legal even with moving stage platforms because they were based on a timer. The cloud on Yoshi's Story is also based on a timer. Over time, Poke Floats and the other stages became phased out for whatever reason, but most of the stages still remain. The idea is to play on flat stages with platforms (most people consider Battlefield to be the most fair stage, at least back when I was playing) to minimize the randomness. 

Yes, there are random things like Luigi's misfire or Peach's turnips, but the randomness only causes a small chance of certain things happening, and you can usually prepare for it. The reason why items are banned is because they are very random and can change the way a match goes. For people who want to play in a way that minimizes randomness and lets them have a fair fight, I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

Playing with items is fun, and I certainly wouldn't mind doing it. For gameplay that would be more representative of pure skill, I think playing without items is a lot better. Though it takes skill to use items, they are really just too random at times.

Most people don't actually like FD that much, at least in Melee. It favors some matchups a bit too much, like Fox vs Jigglypuff or Sheik, Marth or Pikachu vs Fox, Ice Climbers vs whoever. I hope that you'll at least see why people play that way, even if you still don't like it!

[Tybrosion]

7 minutes ago, GuiltyLove said:

If you don't think it's fun, then that's fine. Why do you think it's a backwards way of playing the game?

Given that I feel this thread has been derailed far enough, I'm going to choose to not answer that here. I already feel bad for contributing to the derail as is.

[GuiltyLove]

Just now, Tybrosion said:

Given that I feel this thread has been derailed far enough, I'm going to choose to not answer that here. I already feel bad for contributing to the derail as is.

Fair enough. I hope that at least you can take those words into consideration and not think that it's a bad way of playing.

[Medeus]

The thing about Smash is that it allows for the player to make use of different options to play, and that one person's way of having fun can be tailored accordingly depending on how you feel about certain set-ups. If you like most of the stages but can't stand the boss hazards like Ridley, you can toggle those stages off of your random select. You like some items over others? Take the items you don't like off. Want to play on a flat stage but want variety in the design and environment? Omega Stages exists for your heart's content. Basically, Smash is for how you and your friends want to play, and regardless of whether it's competitive, casual, or somewhere inbetween it doesn't matter, just have fun the way you want to have fun. It's not backwards either way you do it, it's just the way you personally prefer to do it.

Anyway, as for the Gauntlet itself, I'm happy to see Azura won. I was backing her from the beginning, so it was nice to have another character that I initially supported last to the end. 

Edited January 7, 2018 by Medeus

[GuiltyLove]

1 minute ago, Medeus said:

The thing about Smash is that it allows for the player to make use of different options to play, and that one person's way of having fun can be tailored accordingly depending on how you feel about certain set-ups. If you like most of the stages but can't stand the boss hazards like Ridley, you can toggle those stages off of your random select. You like some items over others? Take the items you don't like off. Want to play on a flat stage but want variety in the design and environment? Omega Stages exists for your heart's content. Basically, Smash is for how you and your friends want to play, and regardless of whether it's competitive, casual or somewhere inbetween it doesn't matter, just have fun the way you want to have fun. It's not backwards either way you do it, it's just the way you personally prefer to do it.

Anyway, as for the Gauntlet itself, I'm happy to see Azura won. I was backing her from the beginning, so it was nice to have another character that I initially supported last to the end. 

I will agree with you there!

Also thanks for reminding me that VG ended. Time to get feathers...

I only played the minimum amount to get the orbs from quests :P

[Ice Dragon]

7 minutes ago, GuiltyLove said:

For gameplay that would be more representative of pure skill, I think playing without items is a lot better.

This is actually the view that irks me. By "pure skill" you really mean "mechanical skill", which just boils down to treating Smash as a traditional fighting game. As I mentioned, managing risk and dealing with difficult circumstances is just as much skill as it is to play your character well, it's just a different kind of skill. Again, it's not wrong to treat Smash as a traditional fighting game, it's just that the casual crowd sees this view as "taking out all of the 'fun' things that make Smash different and 'more interesting' than other fighting games". (If Smash didn't have items and high randomness to begin with, no one would be the wiser, after all.)

There are obviously some items that are too "swingy", like Pokéballs and Assist Trophies (among my obviously amateur group back in college playing Brawl, Dragoon was the only item banned), but most items behave in exactly one way. Heck, the existence of items means map control is something that is of value because being able to get to items before your opponent matters.

[Rafiel's Aria]

I was trying to discreetly play FEH, but @LordFrigid‘s Tana was so amazing, I gasped, and she managed to impress even my mother who has zero knowledge of video games. (She probably just liked the art, but I take that as a small victory.) I was also treated to Caeda as well. Always a pleasure.

I got to use my Japanese friend’s Close Counter Matthew as well as an Ayra from someone named RoSSo. Dunno if they’re an SF member, but she was pretty swell. 

Thanks all!

[GuiltyLove]

Just now, Ice Dragon said:

This is actually the view that irks me. By "pure skill" you really mean "mechanical skill", which just boils down to treating Smash as a traditional fighting game. As I mentioned, managing risk and dealing with difficult circumstances is just as much skill as it is to play your character well, it's just a different kind of skill. Again, it's not wrong to treat Smash as a traditional fighting game, it's just that the casual crowd sees this view as "taking out all of the 'fun' things that make Smash different and 'more interesting' than other fighting games". (If Smash didn't have items and high randomness to begin with, no one would be the wiser, after all.)

There are obviously some items that are too "swingy", like Pokéballs and Assist Trophies (among my obviously amateur group back in college playing Brawl, Dragoon was the only item banned), but most items behave in exactly one way. Heck, the existence of items means map control is something that is of value because being able to get to items before your opponent matters.

Yes, it does boil down to treating it as a traditional fighter. It's weird, isn't it? It's so much different from other fighting games, but people try to make it like them. Not like it really matters to me, now that I hardly play...

For randomness, I meant that a lot of crates and capsules can generate explosions instead of items. Don't you think that's something out of your control?

Personally though, I don't think I've met any competitive player who thinks the "casual" way of playing is not fun, but a lot of "casual" players think competitive play is not fun. Same thing goes for Pokemon Showdown/Smogon rules, I guess...

On topic: 21k feathers after collecting rewards! I just need a little bit to promote Nino...

[Frosty]

Glad that I got the feathers for this...

Also YAY Azura. Second refresher unit to win a VG; preceeded by Ninian.

[Ice Dragon]

45 minutes ago, GuiltyLove said:

For randomness, I meant that a lot of crates and capsules can generate explosions instead of items. Don't you think that's something out of your control?

Not really. Our yolo players didn't care, and the more conservative players just threw shit at them to be safe.

 

45 minutes ago, GuiltyLove said:

Same thing goes for Pokemon Showdown/Smogon rules, I guess...

The funny thing about Smogon is how contradictory their stance is on randomness, at least from what I gathered from my time lurking there. On the one hand, they very much dislike the fact that attacks can miss at all (e.g. the result of a match can depend entirely on whether or not Heat Wave (90%) or Fire Fang (95%) miss), but on the other hand, as much as they say that the ladder format mitigates the effect of randomness, apparently that's not enough to stop bitching about it.

 

But really, If Voting Gauntlet had the multiplier system in place when it started, I think people would take less issue with it. As it is currently, it's pretty much just a lottery where the size of the team determines the chance of winning. Due to the size of teams, individual contribution doesn't matter all that much for the results (and it never has) and only really matter for the individual feather reward.

Honestly, I think this is a bit more fair than "the larger team has a 100% chance of winning". Based on what I've seen so far, the best changes to make to the Voting Gauntlet system in my opinion are to make the Same threshold even smaller (about 0.5% instead of 1%, perhaps) and make the multiplier a fixed 3× (or 5× or whatever ×) to make it a bit more fair for players who are in unfortunate time zones.

Edited January 7, 2018 by Ice Dragon
Typos, yeay.

[GuiltyLove]

1 minute ago, Ice Dragon said:

Not really. Our yolo players didn't care, and the more conservative players just threw shit at them to be safe.

 

That's true. You can do that. Nevertheless, the explosives in crates can still change the tide of a battle, especially if you're doing an attack and a crate appears in mid-air and blows up on you.

I will say that you're right in saying that using items requires a different type of skill than "mechanical skill". Perhaps it just depends on what people value more. I just really hope people don't think competitive is a "backwards" way of playing the game. That was my main intention in typing all that!

Also, competitive Pokemon seems stressful from the stuff I've seen on Showdown

I really wish VG became more interesting. I stopped playing more than five matches every round now...

[Ice Dragon]

6 minutes ago, GuiltyLove said:

That's true. You can do that. Nevertheless, the explosives in crates can still change the tide of a battle, especially if you're doing an attack and a crate appears in mid-air and blows up on you.

If it weren't for the fact that tournaments actually have to conclude in a reasonable amount of time, most of that can be mitigated simply by increasing stock or doing best-of-[insert number here] matches to smooth out the effect of randomness and bad luck (that's what the Showdown ladder does, after all). Like, you'd have to be an anime character to have so much bad luck to lose a 100-stock match due to bad luck and not due to lack of skill. The problem is, of course, that you can't just hold tournament competitors in your venue forever to finish the tournament. They have to go back to school or work tomorrow and the people who own the place will kick you out.

 

10 minutes ago, GuiltyLove said:

I really wish VG became more interesting. I stopped playing more than five matches every round now...

I like free feathers. Well, mostly free, but the time cost isn't big enough for me to care much.

Tempest Trials, on the other hand, are a pain to deal with. I just do my two or three runs each day for the daily rewards and call it at that. That gets me 50,000 to 60,000 points which is enough for everything that matters.

[redlight]

It's finally over. Doing VG every 30 minutes is a pain.

[Nanima]

So.fucking.annoyed. 

Before going to bed, I poured all of my remaining flags into the gauntlet for Azura's 11pm (CET) multiplier. My rank was in the 3ks. I knew I wasn't going to stay below 5k, but I thought below 10k at least. Woke up and went to get my feathers to see I was ranked in the 10040s... Bunch of feathers lost to time zone bullshit again. At least I got victory feathers.... I really hate VGs. 

[mcsilas]

@Zeo Congrats on getting on the winning team!

Well I was a bit paranoid about Same Hell this final round so I spent 200 flags a bit earlier than I should have to make up for poor ranking in Round 1 on Team Lissa.

In the end, I ended up with a rank that's just over 1000 for both team and overall ranking, which isn't too bad.

As for my main account, since I never had a bonus unit, I finished around the 7000 mark for both team and cumulative, so again, could be worse since I was mostly in the 10k-30k mark.

But yeah, just drop the whole every 30 min thing and the bad multipliers for specific timezones. it's really inconvenient for a lot of people.

Shoutouts to @Rezzy's awesome Eldigan, @Frenzify's Beruka who still somehow managed to beat Arden, @Momentai~'s Brave Lucina for balancing out my colours and @DefaultBeep's lovely Clarisse for helping me out when the colour balance was against me.

Edited January 7, 2018 by mcsilas

[Ledrert]

Congrats to team Azura.

And good job Team Lissa. It was close. But our Princess didn't have enough love. Poor her...

[Infinite Dreams]

I ended the final round with a score of 1,990,420 and rank 668 in the army. 

Total score was 3,430,814 and rank 129 overall.  Happy with that. 

Most frequent SF allies: 

• @DefaultBeep's Clarisse
• @Momentai~'s Brave Lucina
• @Lord-Zero's Eliwood

Thanks, guys!  

Another ally unit I got a lot was a really powerful +9 Hinata.  I don't think that guy is from these forums, though.

[Zeo]

I'm getting a bit jealous now. Next gauntlet I'm going to be collecting some new friends from on here. 

[HK Motendra]

8 hours ago, GuiltyLove said:

I'm glad my Catria apparently helped @Motendra beat a team with Rein and Bow Lyn. Still not sure how that happened :P

What, were you not on Teams Ryoma and Azura or something? Cause it was pretty consistent in how often I got her lol

[Rezzy]

5 hours ago, mcsilas said:

@Zeo Congrats on getting on the winning team!

Well I was a bit paranoid about Same Hell this final round so I spent 200 flags a bit earlier than I should have to make up for poor ranking in Round 1 on Team Lissa.

In the end, I ended up with a rank that's just over 1000 for both team and overall ranking, which isn't too bad.

As for my main account, since I never had a bonus unit, I finished around the 7000 mark for both team and cumulative, so again, could be worse since I was mostly in the 10k-30k mark.

But yeah, just drop the whole every 30 min thing and the bad multipliers for specific timezones. it's really inconvenient for a lot of people.

Shoutouts to @Rezzy's awesome Eldigan, @Frenzify's Beruka who still somehow managed to beat Arden, @Momentai~'s Brave Lucina for balancing out my colours and @DefaultBeep's lovely Clarisse for helping me out when the colour balance was against me.

Thanks glad he was helpful!