Board 8 > I just went to the worst local smash tournament ever

(+) Yeah! (+)

Okay - things that really bothered me about the tournament:

- The venue is super fucking shady. It's this card/board game store that sits in a garage near the edge of the town. It shares the garage with this tiny lazer tag arena, and there's a gun store next door. Also, the town landfill is very close by. Legitimately not a good place to be around at night, which is when the tournament is held. Dead serious, if some crazy psychopath or something wanted to hide next to the garage and surprise attack someone, it'd be too easy.

- It ran so slow. They decided to start doubles 30 minutes late, and then start the singles bracket 15 minutes late. The doubles players that did decent held up the bracket for singles and made people who had to face them wait an extra hour and a half just so they could finish their doubles matches. They were only competing for like $15 each for first place in doubles, if that. Ugh. Then people played friendlies and the TO didn't make them get off setups when tournament matches needed to be played.

So that all sucks, but maybe the part that bothered me the most was the awful people that went there. One guy was loud, obnoxious, had the absolute worst laugh in the world and used it frequently, was shouting in the middle of matches when something even remotely intense or exciting happened, etc. Most of the other guys just took the game way too seriously and thought they knew everything about it. I got lectured about some move's hitbox or some matchup at least 5 times while I was there, even while playing friendly matches before the tournament even started. I saw one guy (who had his gamertag on the back of his jacket) get eliminated and then sit at the setup for like 10 minutes as if he was contemplating his life and how much it sucked cause he lost, which prevented anyone else from using that setup and just looked pretty pathetic. Some people sat at the ledge at camped, even when they were behind (jacket boy was the biggest culprit) and honest to God I cannot fucking see how the hell they have fun by doing that. You sit at the ledge and spam projectiles for 5 minutes. What the fuck are you actually enjoying about that. It doesn't even work most of the time.

So, after I played my first two matches, I waited for 20-30 minutes for my next match, only to realize the people I was waiting on to play their set were both doing nothing and just didn't know who each other was but didn't care to call out the name to find out. Also, one of the guys decided he was gonna wait for the pizza that the venue ordered to arrive. So he finally got his pizza, ate it with a buddy, took his time, and then played his match. I played the winner of that (he played Duck Hunt, spammed projectiles at the ledge, and I 2-0'd him for his troubles), and then I had to wait for another hour and a half for my next match because of the doubles holdup.

Once I finally got to play my match, I was tired and bored. I didn't want to be in that shady fucking garage anymore. My next opponent (who, thank God, was one of the 4 normal people in there that wasn't a "genius" asshole or a weirdo) slightly projectile camped with Rob, and I was too tired to play that shit. I played so impatient. He had some nice trap setups I guess. But I wasn't really thinking about how to counter it cause I just wanted to go home. So I lost and then got the fuck out of there.

Why can't smash tournaments just have nice normal people who want to play the game and enjoy it? I feel like some of these guys are so uptight that they have to resort to ledge camping because they know some idiot will fall for it and they'll win and that's all that really matters to them, and when they lose their life is over. Also, why can't the tournament host just make the players play the bracket? Some of us have things to do and don't want to be at a shady garage to play casual games of smash until 2 AM.

Bad bad bad tournament. don't want to go to another one any time soon.
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For reference, this was the venue:

http://imgur.com/a/2OjEf

It's a good two or three minutes driving from any other notable place, and that area is already kinda isolated. That garage door near the middle of the picture was where you went in to play. Shady. SHADY.
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Do drug deals happen there?
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probably not but i could certainly see it happening!
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sounds like most fighting game tournaments
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Solioxrz362 posted...

Why can't smash tournaments just have nice normal people who want to play the game and enjoy it?

Smash tourny players don't seem to actually want to enjoy it. Pretty much every serious tournament-going Smash player I've met have been kind of a jerk.
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ninkendo posted...

sounds like most fighting game tournaments

then most fighting game tournaments need to fix themselves.
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This just sounds like an awful tournament assuming this is an accurate account. I've been to tournaments most places in my state and a few in surrounding states and have basically only had good experiences. People are good to talk to, love playing the game, aren't assholes and most of them don't get too salty, etc.

If you're actually interested in playing competitively I wouldn't let that experience deter you, since I don't think it's really the norm. (Though admittedly depending on where you are there might not necessarily be any alternatives in which case...yeah)
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Never been to one like that before
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Solioxrz362 posted...

Why can't smash tournaments just have nice normal people who want to play the game and enjoy it? I feel like some of these guys are so uptight that they have to resort to ledge camping because they know some idiot will fall for it and they'll win and that's all that really matters to them, and when they lose their life is over. Also, why can't the tournament host just make the players play the bracket?

Any Smash tournament I've been to has had a lot of obnoxious and terrible people there. They get so butthurt when they lose and just scream and shout, and then turn around trying to act cool and go "Hey, good game." Like, it was so bad at one me and my buddy went to that to this day we still, when losing something, have a fake freakout and then reach out to shake each other's hand and go "Hey, good game."

Smash people are weirdos. Did they also try to meme stuff there too? There was one fellow who would constantly scream "HAMMER OF JUSTICE!" each time he did a forward smash with Dedede. I wanted him deceased.
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Solioxrz362 posted...

For reference, this was the venue:

http://imgur.com/a/2OjEf

It's a good two or three minutes driving from any other notable place, and that area is already kinda isolated. That garage door near the middle of the picture was where you went in to play. Shady. SHADY.

Oh I know exactly where that place is

Never actually been there, but have a couple friends who have and they tell me it's kind of a shithole area in general.
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I went to a smash tournament once that was all 4-way Coin matches
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I prefer tournaments at bars as it cuts out the under 21 crowd and also scares away a lot of the super weirdos because there are girls there.

I don't want to be rude, but the Smash community contains a lot of...people who have difficulty with social norms/facial expressions, and those people can be difficult to handle.
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In my limited experience of Smash tournaments, I've found the whole experience is much more enjoyable if you just get rid of the competitors entirely and replace them with Amiibos.
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This is coming from the same community that brought you "no items, Fox only, Final Destination"

Of course they don't want to have fun.
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this seems somewhat exclusive to smash tournaments for whatever reason. maybe it's something with the game - but they always seem horribly run or behind. I won't claim to know why or say that it's a bad game or anything like that.

the smash scene has always been really weird. the street fighter scene seems normal in comparison. again, no idea why. I think it takes a special kind of person to find competitive smash whereas it's right in your face with a more traditional fighting game.
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I think there's something inherent about SSB that makes it weird on the competitive level. Part of that is that on the casual level, it's a game that looks a lot like a party game, and plays a lot like a party game. So to begin with, most people aren't playing it too competitively. The people who get too good at it might tend to be more solitary, since that requires individual practice and sometimes reading technique online. If you get too good, then you're no longer able to play it with your friends, anyway, so the people who do want to be competitive, I'd imagine, trend away from playing with normal humans.

I don't think the people freaking out during game and saying 'good game' are therefore bad as a result... they're just used to playing alone and not with others. You don't really think of the guy on the screen as being a person, and you're probably super-competitive. That doesn't mean you're not genuinely trying to be sportsmanlike afterward.

Sorry your experience sucked!
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Smash community has been known to be trash for years.

Sorry @ViviffTheMobile
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SeabassDebeste posted...

I don't think the people freaking out during game and saying 'good game' are therefore bad as a result... they're just used to playing alone and not with others. You don't really think of the guy on the screen as being a person, and you're probably super-competitive. That doesn't mean you're not genuinely trying to be sportsmanlike afterward.

I don't think they were bad people, just really, really weird and socially disturbed. When I say freaking out, I mean yelling and whining while people would just sit there in awkward silence after they won, side-eying this crazy person. And I know they're trying to be sportsmanlike but it's just kind of funny. And when it happened at both of the ones we went to, we chalked it up to Smash community being full of nuts.
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I feel like people in this topic have been to either 0 or 1 Smash tournament and are judging then primarily based off of interactions with the community online, which doesn't reflect the actual tournament experience at all.

I suppose in theory I know little about the Melee community so it could be just that game, but I don't see a good reason why that community would be any different from Brawl or Smash 4.
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pyresword posted...

I feel like people in this topic have been to either 0 or 1 Smash tournament and are judging then primarily based off of interactions with the community online, which doesn't reflect the actual tournament experience at all.

I suppose in theory I know little about the Melee community so it could be just that have, but I don't see a good reason why that community would be any different from Brawl or Smash 4.

i'm judging the community based on 10+ years of stories and streams that are almost identical to the original post but sure
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I mean I'm basing my account on 3-4 years of going to actual tournaments.

Probably the truth is that every scene is different and that some scenes are just bad which leads to these stories, but I mean I have just simply not experienced what you guys are talking about other than 1 person at our 35-50 person weekly, and even that 1 got significantly better after going to events for a month or two.
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So, I've been to Shockwave (aka the GOOD local weekly tournament nearby) twice before, and both times it was a good experience. There were some of the same assholes there, but oh well.

I actually went to Shockwave this week on Wednesday with some friends, and funny enough I played jacket boy in bracket. He started to ledge camp me with Wii Fit Trainer as soon as the game started, so I just punished his mistakes, took his stock first and did it back. He was so upset afterwards. I timed him out in the last game we played lol

He ended up placing higher than me but people probably thought "I'm going to approach him!" and that was their biggest mistake

Reg posted...

Solioxrz362 posted...

For reference, this was the venue:

http://imgur.com/a/2OjEf

It's a good two or three minutes driving from any other notable place, and that area is already kinda isolated. That garage door near the middle of the picture was where you went in to play. Shady. SHADY.

Oh I know exactly where that place is

Never actually been there, but have a couple friends who have and they tell me it's kind of a shithole area in general.

Yeah, that part of Lewisville is a shithole.

PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

Did they also try to meme stuff there too? There was one fellow who would constantly scream "HAMMER OF JUSTICE!" each time he did a forward smash with Dedede. I wanted him deceased.

Well, one guy's tag was "OnePuffMan", he played puff, had a controller made to look like Jigglypuff, and had a guy following him popping off every time he got a rest. That was pretty fuckin annoying. Other than that, I'm sure someone was trying to meme but I didn't see it.
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Solioxrz362 posted...

I timed him out in the last game we played lol

Why do smash tourneys use time? Obviously I'm only one person but I've never considered time more skillful than stock.
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Emeraldegg posted...

Solioxrz362 posted...

I timed him out in the last game we played lol

Why do smash tourneys use time? Obviously I'm only one person but I've never considered time more skillful than stock.

It's 2 stocks, but there's a 6 minute timer just in case some guy wanted to play campy. It prevents the game from going on forever and keeps the tournament going.

So when I say I timed him out, I mean that I took his stock first, giving me the lead, and then just camped him back until the timer ran out. I won the match because I had the lead.
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Wait Solio who do you play?
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Solioxrz362 posted...

Emeraldegg posted...

Solioxrz362 posted...

I timed him out in the last game we played lol

Why do smash tourneys use time? Obviously I'm only one person but I've never considered time more skillful than stock.

It's 2 stocks, but there's a 6 minute timer just in case some guy wanted to play campy. It prevents the game from going on forever and keeps the tournament going.

So when I say I timed him out, I mean that I took his stock first, giving me the lead, and then just camped him back until the timer ran out. I won the match because I had the lead.

I mean I know you had the lead, I got that much. I guess I'm just wondering are there people you run in to who'd camp if there was no time limit? Like just make it run forever because they can, there's really people who go to tourneys who'd do that?
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I've been considering bringing Smash tourneys to my shop, but this topic really makes me think differently. Not necessarily because of the behavior; I've dealt with salty players in our card games. Mainly because of the frightening potential for super-late hours. I really don't want to deal with that.
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scarletspeed7 posted...

I've been considering bringing Smash tourneys to my shop, but this topic really makes me think differently. Not necessarily because of the behavior; I've dealt with salty players in our card games. Mainly because of the frightening potential for super-late hours. I really don't want to deal with that.

Perhaps you could just start out with a smaller tourney to kind of gauge how it would go?
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For Smash? Yeah, that might be a good idea. I just don't see a lot of ways in which I will profit from hosting the game.
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I will say tournaments running late can be a problem in Smash especially for inexperienced TO's. My weekly is pretty good about that, but I've been to tournaments where that wasn't the case.
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That's what I'm worried about; if I run a tourney it's damn sure going to end on time, but if I was putting an employee in charge of this fracas, I just know it will run until midnight.
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If you've been to good ones, then presumably you just want to stay away from ones at obviously shady venues. It might be a self-fulfilling prophecy that the well-adjusted people choose not to go to the sketchy places to play.
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Well, you'd make money off entrance fees, selling snacks and drinks, and you might get people buying comics/cards and get the word out about your place. Maybe run some kind of promotion for someone who enters the tournament to entice them to keep coming back in the future.

Just spitballing ideas.
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pyresword posted...

Wait Solio who do you play?

Mario mostly. As of late though, I secondary Bowser and Pit. And of course friendlies I'll play as like half the cast
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Emeraldegg posted...

Solioxrz362 posted...

Emeraldegg posted...

Solioxrz362 posted...

I timed him out in the last game we played lol

Why do smash tourneys use time? Obviously I'm only one person but I've never considered time more skillful than stock.

It's 2 stocks, but there's a 6 minute timer just in case some guy wanted to play campy. It prevents the game from going on forever and keeps the tournament going.

So when I say I timed him out, I mean that I took his stock first, giving me the lead, and then just camped him back until the timer ran out. I won the match because I had the lead.

I mean I know you had the lead, I got that much. I guess I'm just wondering are there people you run in to who'd camp if there was no time limit? Like just make it run forever because they can, there's really people who go to tourneys who'd do that?

They won't make it go forever, but there are definitely people who would camp you out for 10 minutes or more if they wanted to and if there was no timer because they don't want to approach and they'd rather just try to frustrate you and force you to approach and make mistakes
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SeabassDebeste posted...

If you've been to good ones, then presumably you just want to stay away from ones at obviously shady venues. It might be a self-fulfilling prophecy that the well-adjusted people choose not to go to the sketchy places to play.

I'd never actually been to the place or the area around it. Didn't know it was gonna be that awful
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scarletspeed7 posted...

I've been considering bringing Smash tourneys to my shop, but this topic really makes me think differently. Not necessarily because of the behavior; I've dealt with salty players in our card games. Mainly because of the frightening potential for super-late hours. I really don't want to deal with that.

Start no later than 8, only do singles, enforce the bracket and enforce DQs for matches where someone is missing or not wanting to start, and you can end on time easy.

If you want to do doubles as well, start that at least an hour before singles
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Solioxrz362 posted...

scarletspeed7 posted...

I've been considering bringing Smash tourneys to my shop, but this topic really makes me think differently. Not necessarily because of the behavior; I've dealt with salty players in our card games. Mainly because of the frightening potential for super-late hours. I really don't want to deal with that.

Start no later than 8, only do singles, enforce the bracket and enforce DQs for matches where someone is missing or not wanting to start, and you can end on time easy.

If you want to do doubles as well, start that at least an hour before singles

Yeah there's no reason a well-run tourney should take as long as this one solio went to, it sounds it was all about poor administration. If people know they can't mess around and hold it up for everyone, then it should be fine.
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Solioxrz362 posted...

I'd never actually been to the place or the area around it. Didn't know it was gonna be that awful

Makes sense. Anyway, given that you do have good experiences around you, you'll be fine. Better to know (and get a cool story out of it), and no harm done, right?
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I feel there's a certain mindset behind people who are playing a game competitively that was both never really meant to be played that way (causing a lot of particularly degenerate strategies that most would not find fun to execute to become the norm for it) and was released over 15 years ago now.

To me it just seems like expected that yeah you're going to see a higher concentration of weird people there, on average. That doesn't mean there aren't perfectly well adjusted Smash scenes, but the Smash scene just has a lot more of these stories and I don't think it's because of any sort of reporting bias or even because the scene is bigger to any significant degree-- to me it just makes sense. I'd expect the same thing out of like, Primal Rage or Brutal Paws of Fury tournaments, if they were a thing.
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Solioxrz362 posted...

Emeraldegg posted...

Solioxrz362 posted...

Emeraldegg posted...

Solioxrz362 posted...

I timed him out in the last game we played lol

Why do smash tourneys use time? Obviously I'm only one person but I've never considered time more skillful than stock.

It's 2 stocks, but there's a 6 minute timer just in case some guy wanted to play campy. It prevents the game from going on forever and keeps the tournament going.

So when I say I timed him out, I mean that I took his stock first, giving me the lead, and then just camped him back until the timer ran out. I won the match because I had the lead.

I mean I know you had the lead, I got that much. I guess I'm just wondering are there people you run in to who'd camp if there was no time limit? Like just make it run forever because they can, there's really people who go to tourneys who'd do that?

They won't make it go forever, but there are definitely people who would camp you out for 10 minutes or more if they wanted to and if there was no timer because they don't want to approach and they'd rather just try to frustrate you and force you to approach and make mistakes

Yeah that makes sense now that you say that, the frustration angle. I always just thought it was unfair, especially with how strong roll-dodging in smash 4 is, that someone could just ko and run the whole time, but 6 minutes is at least better than the dumb 2 minutes online. If you fall behind early in a stock match, you know you can play patient, try and whittle them down and get even with them. In time, if you're down you have to press and it can lead to mistakes if it's not your style. I just feel it punishes players who prefer to wear down their opponents rather than be aggressive. Not that I blame you in this situation, sounds like you were giving it right back to them, lol. I just never liked time much.
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transcience posted...

this seems somewhat exclusive to smash tournaments for whatever reason. maybe it's something with the game - but they always seem horribly run or behind.

Probably because a round of Smash takes 15 minutes. You need to make sure your controls are set, then rock paper scissors to strike first, then strike stages, then play a best-of-3 set with a 6- or 8-minute timer.

scarletspeed7 posted...

I've been considering bringing Smash tourneys to my shop, but this topic really makes me think differently. Not necessarily because of the behavior; I've dealt with salty players in our card games. Mainly because of the frightening potential for super-late hours. I really don't want to deal with that.

I'm in Austin. The only store-weekly that's survived was in a lan-party/card store at a mall, where plenty of people who don't know that Austin has a Sm4sh scene can incidentally find out from seeing it. I wouldn't expect to sell a lot of product you otherwise wouldn't because Sm4sh people don't buy snacks and drinks, according to my ex who used to work at a store with a weekly. The other weeklies that have survived are not profit-seeking ventures.

Late hours aren't that big of a risk as long as you're really strict on running the event. DQ mercilessly and only let people play friendlies at specified times.
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Emeraldegg posted...

Yeah that makes sense now that you say that, the frustration angle. I always just thought it was unfair, especially with how strong roll-dodging in smash 4 is, that someone could just ko and run the whole time, but 6 minutes is at least better than the dumb 2 minutes online. If you fall behind early in a stock match, you know you can play patient, try and whittle them down and get even with them. In time, if you're down you have to press and it can lead to mistakes if it's not your style. I just feel it punishes players who prefer to wear down their opponents rather than be aggressive. Not that I blame you in this situation, sounds like you were giving it right back to them, lol. I just never liked time much.

Take time away and it punishes aggression to an absurd degree. It doesn't make a lot of sense at the level of little local events, but those follow the rules of the big tournaments generally, and the big tournaments can have some respectable prize money on the line. If you could win a few thousand dollars for little more than being able to stay focused for a long time while other people get sleepy, wouldn't you? Plus the defensive strategy just appeals to some people, I'm the kind of fighting game player who...well, sucks, but I alternate between sucking at being very aggressive and sucking at using the most tedious tactics imaginable. It's fun to basically just sit there and watch people do stupid things because they aren't patient enough.
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Panthera posted...

Emeraldegg posted...

Yeah that makes sense now that you say that, the frustration angle. I always just thought it was unfair, especially with how strong roll-dodging in smash 4 is, that someone could just ko and run the whole time, but 6 minutes is at least better than the dumb 2 minutes online. If you fall behind early in a stock match, you know you can play patient, try and whittle them down and get even with them. In time, if you're down you have to press and it can lead to mistakes if it's not your style. I just feel it punishes players who prefer to wear down their opponents rather than be aggressive. Not that I blame you in this situation, sounds like you were giving it right back to them, lol. I just never liked time much.

Take time away and it punishes aggression to an absurd degree. It doesn't make a lot of sense at the level of little local events, but those follow the rules of the big tournaments generally, and the big tournaments can have some respectable prize money on the line. If you could win a few thousand dollars for little more than being able to stay focused for a long time while other people get sleepy, wouldn't you? Plus the defensive strategy just appeals to some people, I'm the kind of fighting game player who...well, sucks, but I alternate between sucking at being very aggressive and sucking at using the most tedious tactics imaginable. It's fun to basically just sit there and watch people do stupid things because they aren't patient enough.

How does it punish aggression? If there's no time, it's not like there's something keeping a player who wants to be aggressive from doing so. Aggressiveness doesn't always equal mistakes if a player knows how to do what they want to do. Whereas if there is time, then it does keep a player who wants to be patient from doing so (Admittedly this is only if they go down by a significant margin, or late enough in the round they need to get moving), mistakes are borne in this case from a player having to play outside of their style. I simply see stock as less restrictive than time. And yes I am definitely biased, as I fall into the defensive category, and I certainly don't have tournament level experience, what I'm saying is merely my opinion.
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Emeraldegg posted...

How does it punish aggression? If there's no time, it's not like there's something keeping a player who wants to be aggressive from doing so. Aggressiveness doesn't always equal mistakes if a player knows how to do what they want to do. Whereas if there is time, then it does keep a player who wants to be patient from doing so (Admittedly this is only if they go down by a significant margin, or late enough in the round they need to get moving), mistakes are borne in this case from a player having to play outside of their style. I simply see stock as less restrictive than time. And yes I am definitely biased, as I fall into the defensive category, and I certainly don't have tournament level experience, what I'm saying is merely my opinion.

It's pretty much always safer to play defense than offense in fighting games. Sticking to low risk moves that control space and are hard to punish tends to be easier to get away with than trying to actually gain ground against someone doing that. Obviously it's a big generalization but that's the gist, and it means that without a time limit defensive play becomes much more optimal, especially when you consider that human patience/endurance is a limited thing and the longer you can successfully stall, the likelier it becomes that your opponent won't be playing well.
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Panthera posted...

Emeraldegg posted...

How does it punish aggression? If there's no time, it's not like there's something keeping a player who wants to be aggressive from doing so. Aggressiveness doesn't always equal mistakes if a player knows how to do what they want to do. Whereas if there is time, then it does keep a player who wants to be patient from doing so (Admittedly this is only if they go down by a significant margin, or late enough in the round they need to get moving), mistakes are borne in this case from a player having to play outside of their style. I simply see stock as less restrictive than time. And yes I am definitely biased, as I fall into the defensive category, and I certainly don't have tournament level experience, what I'm saying is merely my opinion.

It's pretty much always safer to play defense than offense in fighting games. Sticking to low risk moves that control space and are hard to punish tends to be easier to get away with than trying to actually gain ground against someone doing that. Obviously it's a big generalization but that's the gist, and it means that without a time limit defensive play becomes much more optimal, especially when you consider that human patience/endurance is a limited thing and the longer you can successfully stall, the likelier it becomes that your opponent won't be playing well.

Gotcha. Smash is p much the only fighting game I've put considerable hours into so I didn't know that was the norm in most fighters. Thanks for informing me!
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I think it's more accurate to say that the time limit forces/encourages one side (or both in close games) to be aggressive because they will lose on time if they don't.
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I think in general defensive play is just better period, but as the match drags on the time limit forces one side to try and make something happen.
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Living in Socal near the eSports Arena, the locals there are really well done in a nice enviornment with nice streams by 2GGaming so I dont have the problem

I do feel like Smash fans in general can either be more stuck up or annoying than SF fans who are more down to earth
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