The AADL Smash tourney
Sep. 5th, 2015 02:22 amSo today there was a Smash 4 tournament at North Quad. I decided to enter, figuring I was unlikely to win but if nothing else I could probably beat a few people who didn't know the game very well. :P It was pretty small; only 16 people showed up.
It was... not very well-organized. Well -- it could have been a lot worse, considering it didn't seem to have been organized by actual Smash players. But here's how it worked:
Format -- first, everyone played 3 single-game matches against other people. (I'm not sure how those were determined.) Then top 8 went to single elimination; since there was more time left than expected, these matches were best of 3.
Rules -- OK, so, before anything else, at the beginning of the tournament, the organizer held a vote over whether the tournament would be free-for-all or one-on-one (!). There were a few votes for FFA, but not many.
Rules were 2 stock, 5 minutes... and all items on low. After some people complained about this, it was decided that items could be turned off if both players agreed. I didn't see any matches actually being played with items, I'm pretty sure there were at most one or two.
(Tangential note: A lot of people assume adding items makes things easier for new players, due to the extra variance. It might make things easier for OK-but-not-great players, like me... but in my experience, actually new players are just unfamiliar with and bewildered by the items, and it makes things harder for them.)
Stage selection was always random -- from among all the stages. Yes, seriously. But it was decided that if both players can agree on a stage they could play there instead. (All my matches were played on Battlefield.)
Except actually not all the stages were available! I was worried that, say, not all the DLC would be there; but in fact not even all the unlockable stages were unlocked. Hence why Battlefield rather than Smashville. (All the DLC characters were there, but I don't think all the DLC stages were, IIRC.)
Let me move away from rules for a moment. So, I went 2-1 during the initial part. I played Ness, of course. First match was a close game against a pit player, whose name I forget; Ray, I think? He had quite an advantage on me at first but eventually I fought my way back. Second match was against Adrian, who played Dark Pit and would eventually win the tournament. I got destroyed, not even close. Third match was against BK, who played Lucario; that was an easy victory for me. So, wide range of skill levels on display!
After that was cut to Top 8 and single elimination. (Fortunately, no tiebreakers were needed.) I'm not sure how seeding was done among the many tied people. I ended up facing Adrian first and so was eliminated quickly.
Let me talk more about the rules here -- there were no particular rules about character selection, or the order in which characters and stages were picked. First game against Adrian was basically a reprise of last time; I picked Ness and he picked Dark Pit, and he beat me even more resoundingly than last time. For the second game, I figured I needed something different if I wanted to have a chance, so I picked Little Mac. And then he changed to Sheik! Wait, what? I lost, I should be counterpicking, not him! I mean, since there were no defined rules, and I wasn't likely to win anyway, I didn't bother to complain. I lost the second game, again by a lot, but not as badly, at least. (I don't think the organizer really thought about just how to do best-of-3 when it was a last-minute addition.)
Also when we went to top 8 one player dropped out for being actually affiliated with the tournament. Blech. If someone is going to have to drop out, don't let them play! This is just dumb.
Anyway, despite the lack of organization, it was still a fun time. That's really all I guess.
-Harry
It was... not very well-organized. Well -- it could have been a lot worse, considering it didn't seem to have been organized by actual Smash players. But here's how it worked:
Format -- first, everyone played 3 single-game matches against other people. (I'm not sure how those were determined.) Then top 8 went to single elimination; since there was more time left than expected, these matches were best of 3.
Rules -- OK, so, before anything else, at the beginning of the tournament, the organizer held a vote over whether the tournament would be free-for-all or one-on-one (!). There were a few votes for FFA, but not many.
Rules were 2 stock, 5 minutes... and all items on low. After some people complained about this, it was decided that items could be turned off if both players agreed. I didn't see any matches actually being played with items, I'm pretty sure there were at most one or two.
(Tangential note: A lot of people assume adding items makes things easier for new players, due to the extra variance. It might make things easier for OK-but-not-great players, like me... but in my experience, actually new players are just unfamiliar with and bewildered by the items, and it makes things harder for them.)
Stage selection was always random -- from among all the stages. Yes, seriously. But it was decided that if both players can agree on a stage they could play there instead. (All my matches were played on Battlefield.)
Except actually not all the stages were available! I was worried that, say, not all the DLC would be there; but in fact not even all the unlockable stages were unlocked. Hence why Battlefield rather than Smashville. (All the DLC characters were there, but I don't think all the DLC stages were, IIRC.)
Let me move away from rules for a moment. So, I went 2-1 during the initial part. I played Ness, of course. First match was a close game against a pit player, whose name I forget; Ray, I think? He had quite an advantage on me at first but eventually I fought my way back. Second match was against Adrian, who played Dark Pit and would eventually win the tournament. I got destroyed, not even close. Third match was against BK, who played Lucario; that was an easy victory for me. So, wide range of skill levels on display!
After that was cut to Top 8 and single elimination. (Fortunately, no tiebreakers were needed.) I'm not sure how seeding was done among the many tied people. I ended up facing Adrian first and so was eliminated quickly.
Let me talk more about the rules here -- there were no particular rules about character selection, or the order in which characters and stages were picked. First game against Adrian was basically a reprise of last time; I picked Ness and he picked Dark Pit, and he beat me even more resoundingly than last time. For the second game, I figured I needed something different if I wanted to have a chance, so I picked Little Mac. And then he changed to Sheik! Wait, what? I lost, I should be counterpicking, not him! I mean, since there were no defined rules, and I wasn't likely to win anyway, I didn't bother to complain. I lost the second game, again by a lot, but not as badly, at least. (I don't think the organizer really thought about just how to do best-of-3 when it was a last-minute addition.)
Also when we went to top 8 one player dropped out for being actually affiliated with the tournament. Blech. If someone is going to have to drop out, don't let them play! This is just dumb.
Anyway, despite the lack of organization, it was still a fun time. That's really all I guess.
-Harry
