User talk:Miles of SmashWiki/Archive11

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Ken

Please explain in detail why my edit to Ken was a bad edit that needed to be reverted? Did it need sources? --ILOVEKEN (talk) 21:54, September 12, 2009 (UTC)

You really need to work on understanding how to outlet your immaturity in a less disruptive way. Miles (talk) 21:57, September 12, 2009 (UTC)

Yeah well your momma is a bitch.--ILOVEKEN (talk) 22:00, September 12, 2009 (UTC)

Yeah well your account is banned. Miles (talk) 22:04, September 12, 2009 (UTC)

PO

Why did you delete the page about PO? I did not write anything about a high ranking, I simply wrote that he was heading towards a high placing! PO is not ranked in sweden, and I did not write that he was either. The page was done to motivate him since he is a friend of mine, and I was there when he had pool play @ the German Tournament "Smash Attack". Please, be kind and put it back on, I did not write anything improper. So be kind and put it back on? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Random-ness (talk • contribs) {{{2}}}

It's not a question of kindness; PO simply doesn't fit any of the Smasher notability requirements for the wiki. Sorry. Miles (talk) 19:30, September 19, 2009 (UTC)

"Has participated in a tournament that is run by SBR rules (or a low-tier tournament) and has some level of regional or national recognition." He is known in sweden and by some germans, the tournament was national and one of the biggest in Europe actually. I think this qualifies? + "Can prove legitimate regional or national notoriety otherwise not covered by these guidelines" There are vids of Po on youtube, and he is known by swedish smashers, he has entered a really big tournament + vids, he is part of the swedish smash-community. Alas, Plz put the article back up...—Preceding unsigned comment added by Random-ness (talk • contribs) {{{2}}}

Supply links and I'll look into it. Also, sign your comments with ~~~~. Miles (talk) 21:05, September 19, 2009 (UTC)

Vandalism

Hi, this guy has been vandalising pages. Unfortunately, Wikia hates either me, my computer or my Internet so it crashes the Internet when ever I try to undo his edits. Can you undo them for me and possibly block him? also, there is another article, Rootbrian, that is vandalism. Thank You, Solar Dragon (Talk) 20:24, September 20, 2009 (UTC)

Looks like Pikamander got him. Miles (talk) 23:15, September 20, 2009 (UTC)

Get brawl!

Dude you need to get brawl it's awsome! (most of the time) 64smasher (talk•contribs•logs)

You're hardly the first one to recommend this. I'm trying to. Miles (talk) 22:28, September 28, 2009 (UTC)

Ok 64smasher (talk) by the way I'm using ur color code and costomized it 2 my liking.

Fine by me. Miles (talk) 22:42, September 29, 2009 (UTC)

Ohai

Is this 'Miles of SmashWiki'? :D I'm new at this wiki stuff lol Pizzapie7 (talk) 02:41, October 3, 2009 (UTC)

Indeed it is I. :D Miles (talk) 02:49, October 3, 2009 (UTC)

I'm still trying to get this working, I tried adding the NOTE to some people, but it wouldn't go through, it said the Category wasn't made. D: I probably did this wrong too lol Pizzapie7 (talk) 03:03, October 3, 2009 (UTC)

We don't have a Category:NOTE. What are you trying to do? Toomai Glittershine eXemplary Logic 14:05, October 3, 2009 (UTC)

I think he's trying to tag Smasher and Crew pages that lack notability, but I can't be certain. If he is, all he needs to do is place {{notable}} at the top of the relevant page. If it's not that, then I have no idea what he's trying to do... PenguinofDeath 17:43, October 3, 2009 (UTC)

Signature Update

Nice Halloween theme! MarioGalaxy^{May Guthix be with you...} 21:42, October 11, 2009 (UTC)

Why thank you.

Are you actually going to start editing here again? (plz yes) Miles (talk) 21:47, October 11, 2009 (UTC)

Ahem, does anybody notice my occasional roll-backing? Anyways, other than that, until the "Revival" is successful (I don't see why they removed the article from the front page so early), I'm only gonna be semi-active. MarioGalaxy^{May Guthix be with you...} 21:49, October 11, 2009 (UTC)

Semi is better than not at all. Miles (talk) 22:21, October 11, 2009 (UTC)

User Page Help

OK, so I want to make a player competency chart on my user page with Brawl characters like you have with SSBM characters. What do I need to do to make one of those? SuperSmasher94 (talk) 17:03, November 1, 2009 (UTC)

Wii price lowered!

I don't know if you know this but the Nintendo Wii's price has lowered, Great, huh, only $199. So you could get Brawl pretty soon, it's great adventure mode rocks! I just wish I could get the other trophies and stickers on Brawl. And Nintendo Wii's can play GameCube games, so you can sell your GameCube if ya want to save up money for that Wii--StrawberryFlowermaster42 21:03, November 1, 2009 (UTC)StrawberrFlowermaster42

Hoping, hoping. Miles (talk) 22:50, November 1, 2009 (UTC)

A logical and coherent argument against tiers.

Hi, how are you?

I've written an accumulation of anti-tier arguments to go with the pro-tier argument page already on display in the page Tier List. Make of it what you want, because I know you happen to be a profoundly pro-tier person yourself, but at the very least read it once over, and if it seems to be logically coherent enough for you to publish, please do so.

"An argument for why tiers don’t apply.

A number of people make the arguments that tiers exist, under certain premises that I wish to address today. This is an argument against tier validity.

Brawl is considered to be a non-rotational game, or a game in which responses to attacks, as opposed to designated attacks, choose the victor. A massively vast and complicated game of rock-paper-scissors, if you will. But what does this mean? Allow me to demonstrate with an example. Take one of the worst known “matchups” in gaming history: Ganondorf and Olimar. 10-90. Olimar’s long range combined with his speed and versatility outmatch ganondorf in every sense. So does this provide evidence for the existence of tiers?

Certainly not. There is a particular strategy used by Ganondorf players against Olimar players, and that is the SHSD(Short Hop Shield Dash), as demonstrated by this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5MwNPXSUZk&feature=related

Both fighters are professional; both are playing in a ladders tournament at this point in time.

This is known as the Optimal Procedure Technique (OPT), or as I like to call it, the rock-paper-scissors game. In an OPT, a player finds the most effective technique against an opponent, and spams it relentlessly in an attempt to win his game. Due to the incredible amount of different available strategies(including such strategies as spamming projectiles, powershielding, and even mindgames), practically every character has some form of OPT over another character.

A logical response to this information is to claim that spamming the same technique throughout your entire fight will get predictable, and that the opponent will respond by altering his fighting style. For example, in the above video, if the above Olimar decided instead of grabbing and tossing his pikmin from a long range to attacking at short range with his tilts(sadly, he never did), surely the Ganondorf in this video would have been screwed? Furthermore, how are lower-tier characters supposed to be fun to play if they have to spam the same ability to compete?

However… this is in fact the intended purpose of the OPT. Once an Olimar player chooses to fight close range, he is giving up his matchup advantage against Ganondorf. In an unfortunately unoptimal system, as seen in the video above, if the Olimar player continues to choose to play his matchup, he will lose terribly, but chooses to do it anyways, turning the game into a ganondorf-spam finish. In a more optimal system, the Olimar would play competitively and choose to use different, un-optimal styles of play to win the Ganondorf. In summary, for every matchup there almost always is an OPT against the main technique, and by playing the OPT one can defeat their matchup disadvantage.

Two extra notes. Firstly, an OPT cannot be a “defensive” technique; the OPT is strictly an offensive technique. If defensive techniques were considered OPTs, then one could even include running away indefinitely to be an OPT; however, the logic in this argument is obvious. The game would be at a permanent standstill, and victory would be unachievable as long as the opposite player continued to exploit that particular move. Second, regardless of a character’s moves, every ability has a slightly different function. Once the opponent starts playing a different style to counter the OPT, every move becomes equally available for the Ganondorf player to use against another player in every situation. Therefore, playing a “bottom tier” character is not boring; it merely means you have to know your character better, and hope your opponent will put up a fight (on the other hand, if he doesn’t, it’s almost a guaranteed win on your behalf).

Certainly, one could argue that the tier list applies for beginner and even intermediate gameplay; but once such gameplay turns advanced, and all possible techniques are mastered, or at least used correctly, tiers cease to exist.

Such is the competitive style of brawl. It is a reactive game, as many of you have noticed, and competitive play requires absolutely revolutionary styles of play almost every fight, multiple strategies functioning and forming just for one game. To claim that tiers exist is virtually the same as to claim that the black team in chess is at a disadvantage for always being one move behind; the different strategies unlocked by playing black allow for an optimal strategy as well. Neither side has a “greater” optimal strategy, due to the fact that each strategy has a counter. It’s a proverbial rock-paper-scissors game in which scissors is thrown the most by Ganondorfs because a majority of Ganondorfs play rock, thereby finding that in the competitive edge most people throw paper. Once the paper people switch to rock people, the matchup guide is gone.

But matchup is just a single issue concerning the existence of tiers; what about relative damage, capabilities of jump and recovery, varieties of attack, and so on? Allow me to address each separately:

Relative Damage: Each character has a set of moves that do an enumerable amount of damage. But what of those characters who have attacks that deal 30% damage, as opposed to those who can only hit for 6%? Certainly such a ratio of speed to offensiveness would be impossible to calculate?

The answer is no. Each character, despite seemingly having extremely random damage abilities, actually has their attacks in a relatively stable range. Each character has a few off-hand jab attacks that deal anywhere from 4-9% damage, medium-powered abilities that deal anywhere from 12% to 16% damage, and powerful thrusts that do anywhere from 20% to 25%, all with similar lags and recoveries. Don’t believe me? Look at each character and attempt to find an exception. Such a small range applies to nearly every character.

Likewise, every character has a K.O ability at 110%-130%, 85%-95%, and 55%-75%. Not a single character exists (besides Solimar, of course, who can only K.O at 160% with his f-tilt) who does not have an ability that fits this description. Recovery Capability: Many arguments are made concerning a character’s ability to recover. However, EVERY character has a third jump in some form or other, and their relative traveling distances with one jump and a Bup can always gain them recovery from the edge of the screen to the edge of the stage. Don’t believe me? Yet again, try it with every character in the SSBB arsenal. This does not apply, however, to the ability to recover from a vertical drop, for example: Toon Link and Metaknight can recover practically from anywhere regardless if their jumps and Bup are retained, but this is cornered with the fact that not all deaths allow a chance to recover. Also D.K and Bowser have great horizontal recovery but terrible vertical recovery. This is okay though, because most who die under the stage do so from of a meteor smash and only a few characters can recover from one of those, if they’re lucky. Some often talk of character’s ability to be edgeguarded: this legend is a total hoax. Perhaps in the beginner and intermediate players, this applies, but once applied to advanced gameplay, an unlikely recovery in which a player cannot hope to land on the ledge without a grab can be edgehogged by practically anyone. This does not mean that some characters aren’t more easily edge-grabbed than others, however; some truly are. But one cannot (unless played extremely carefully) kill a Ganondorf or a Link with an edge-grab at a low percentage; the least percentage required to successfully edge-hog a Ganondorf to death would be 85%-95%, around which percentages things become too close to call(since Toon Link and Meta-Knight can easily be K.Oed because of their light weight, as well as the Ganondorf and Link in question).

Variety of Attack: Certainly some characters have more useful abilities than others? Ganondorf’s down smash and Warlock Punch are perhaps two of the most useless abilities in the entire game, and yet a Falco never wastes a single move? Certainly the character with the most useful and equally balanced abilities would be higher on the tier than someone who only has three functioning abilities? Actually, this does turn out to be the case. In the same way that the last two were the case. In beginning and intermediate play, the tier list does exist, and does apply quite well to such issues. Watch any Ganondorf or Ike player who is a beginner in brawl fight ,and you will see as well as I do the pathetic spamming of A-smashes and fully charged B moves for practically everything, whilst the Metaknight uses all of his attacks at random and is happy to find they all are extremely useful and quick. However, as players grow to be more advanced, the amount of moves they use decreases, until you get your typical advanced Olimar player who mainly uses grabs and smashes. The worst-case scenario is Ice Climbers; advanced players of him pretty much only use grab. Not because that’s their only useful move, mind you, but because the tier list that they follow so attentively also claims that the Climbers can only chain grab to remain competitive. And so they don’t play any other styles of Ice Climbers.

So why do people use more than four moves at all? The answer is the same for why people play Sheik/Zelda and Pokemon Trainer. Having an assortment of abilities at their disposal allows for different styles of gameplay with the same character, whether you choose to play a spammy Falco or a close-combat one, or a Link who uses his projectiles more often than his smashes, or vice versa.

It does provide a slight competitive advantage, however, to constantly shift your gameplay, so in a sense the characters with greater variety in their abilities could have some sort of a meager advantage over those with less variety; however, this would only be another form of mindgames, which can be easily replicated within the same fighting style, therefore leaving the style or styles of gameplay open to the players in much the same way that selecting what character you would like to use in Brawl to begin with is.

In conclusion, despite the existence of slight imbalances concerning recovery, damage output, and the sort, these advantages and disadvantages are drastically smaller than those believed to exist by the proponents of the tier list, to the point where skill, overall, is the main factor for winning, with little contribution to the actual character played with, or the fighting style used." 98.165.18.223 01:28, November 9, 2009 (UTC)

First off, I'm glad to encourage healthy debate on the subject of tiers; though I'm pretty convinced in my point of view, I'll gladly comment on your decently well-written manifesto here.

• "Brawl is considered to be a non-rotational game, or a game in which responses to attacks, as opposed to designated attacks, choose the victor. A massively vast and complicated game of rock-paper-scissors, if you will."
  • I don't agree that something that you correctly labeled as vast and complicated can be compared to something so basic, but I'll continue analyzing your analogy.
• "This is known as the Optimal Procedure Technique (OPT), or as I like to call it, the rock-paper-scissors game. In an OPT, a player finds the most effective technique against an opponent, and spams it relentlessly in an attempt to win his game. Due to the incredible amount of different available strategies(including such strategies as spamming projectiles, powershielding, and even mindgames), practically every character has some form of OPT over another character. A logical response to this information is to claim that spamming the same technique throughout your entire fight will get predictable, and that the opponent will respond by altering his fighting style. For example, in the above video, if the above Olimar decided instead of grabbing and tossing his pikmin from a long range to attacking at short range with his tilts(sadly, he never did), surely the Ganondorf in this video would have been screwed? Furthermore, how are lower-tier characters supposed to be fun to play if they have to spam the same ability to compete?"
  • Yes. I agree with this.
• "However… this is in fact the intended purpose of the OPT. Once an Olimar player chooses to fight close range, he is giving up his matchup advantage against Ganondorf. In an unfortunately unoptimal system, as seen in the video above, if the Olimar player continues to choose to play his matchup, he will lose terribly, but chooses to do it anyways, turning the game into a ganondorf-spam finish."
  • This seems to be a reflection of the individual Olimar player's skill; skill is more important than tiers by definition.
• "In a more optimal system, the Olimar would play competitively and choose to use different, un-optimal styles of play to win the Ganondorf. In summary, for every matchup there almost always is an OPT against the main technique, and by playing the OPT one can defeat their matchup disadvantage."
  • Yes. This supports tiers.
• "Two extra notes. Firstly, an OPT cannot be a “defensive” technique; the OPT is strictly an offensive technique. If defensive techniques were considered OPTs, then one could even include running away indefinitely to be an OPT; however, the logic in this argument is obvious. The game would be at a permanent standstill, and victory would be unachievable as long as the opposite player continued to exploit that particular move."
  • Stalling is banned.
• "Second, regardless of a character’s moves, every ability has a slightly different function. Once the opponent starts playing a different style to counter the OPT, every move becomes equally available for the Ganondorf player to use against another player in every situation. Therefore, playing a “bottom tier” character is not boring; it merely means you have to know your character better, and hope your opponent will put up a fight (on the other hand, if he doesn’t, it’s almost a guaranteed win on your behalf)."
  • Agreed. This supports tiers.
• "Certainly, one could argue that the tier list applies for beginner and even intermediate gameplay; but once such gameplay turns advanced, and all possible techniques are mastered, or at least used correctly, tiers cease to exist."
  • I read your treatise but failed to see the evidence to support this point. What sudden difference at advanced play could possibly undo the complex framework upon which tiers are designed?
• "To claim that tiers exist is virtually the same as to claim that the black team in chess is at a disadvantage for always being one move behind; the different strategies unlocked by playing black allow for an optimal strategy as well. Neither side has a “greater” optimal strategy, due to the fact that each strategy has a counter."
  • Chess is almost completely balanced. Aside from one difference (white playing first), the players have identical pieces, starting layout and available strategies. This is the reasoning behind black's ability to overcome one difference at the beginning. Additionally, in both chess and Smash, players regularly switch between acting and reacting. This causes the play order to become mostly irrelavant.
• "It’s a proverbial rock-paper-scissors game in which scissors is thrown the most by Ganondorfs because a majority of Ganondorfs play rock, thereby finding that in the competitive edge most people throw paper. Once the paper people switch to rock people, the matchup guide is gone."
  • No, the matchup guide is updated to represent as well as possible what options are available. Smash is not accurately represented by your analogy; no strategy precisely counters another in the same way as in RPS.
• "Relative Damage: Each character has a set of moves that do an enumerable amount of damage. But what of those characters who have attacks that deal 30% damage, as opposed to those who can only hit for 6%? Certainly such a ratio of speed to offensiveness would be impossible to calculate? The answer is no. Each character, despite seemingly having extremely random damage abilities, actually has their attacks in a relatively stable range. Each character has a few off-hand jab attacks that deal anywhere from 4-9% damage, medium-powered abilities that deal anywhere from 12% to 16% damage, and powerful thrusts that do anywhere from 20% to 25%, all with similar lags and recoveries. Don’t believe me? Look at each character and attempt to find an exception. Such a small range applies to nearly every character."
  • But the speed, range, and predictability of all of these moves vary from character to character, creating more imbalance and more ground to support tiering.
• "Likewise, every character has a K.O ability at 110%-130%, 85%-95%, and 55%-75%. Not a single character exists (besides Solimar, of course, who can only K.O at 160% with his f-tilt) who does not have an ability that fits this description."
  • No character is impossible to win with, agreed. Some are just more difficult.
• "Recovery Capability: Many arguments are made concerning a character’s ability to recover. However, EVERY character has a third jump in some form or other, and their relative traveling distances with one jump and a Bup can always gain them recovery from the edge of the screen to the edge of the stage. Don’t believe me? Yet again, try it with every character in the SSBB arsenal. This does not apply, however, to the ability to recover from a vertical drop, for example: Toon Link and Metaknight can recover practically from anywhere regardless if their jumps and Bup are retained, but this is cornered with the fact that not all deaths allow a chance to recover. Also D.K and Bowser have great horizontal recovery but terrible vertical recovery. This is okay though, because most who die under the stage do so from of a meteor smash and only a few characters can recover from one of those, if they’re lucky. Some often talk of character’s ability to be edgeguarded: this legend is a total hoax. Perhaps in the beginner and intermediate players, this applies, but once applied to advanced gameplay, an unlikely recovery in which a player cannot hope to land on the ledge without a grab can be edgehogged by practically anyone. This does not mean that some characters aren’t more easily edge-grabbed than others, however; some truly are. But one cannot (unless played extremely carefully) kill a Ganondorf or a Link with an edge-grab at a low percentage; the least percentage required to successfully edge-hog a Ganondorf to death would be 85%-95%, around which percentages things become too close to call(since Toon Link and Meta-Knight can easily be K.Oed because of their light weight, as well as the Ganondorf and Link in question)."
  • Yes. Every character can recover. Edgegames are dependent on matchups (can characters spike easily? stage spike only?), and matchups are much of what determine tiers.
• "Variety of Attack: Certainly some characters have more useful abilities than others? Ganondorf’s down smash and Warlock Punch are perhaps two of the most useless abilities in the entire game, and yet a Falco never wastes a single move? Certainly the character with the most useful and equally balanced abilities would be higher on the tier than someone who only has three functioning abilities? Actually, this does turn out to be the case."
  • Supports tiers.
• "In the same way that the last two were the case. In beginning and intermediate play, the tier list does exist, and does apply quite well to such issues. Watch any Ganondorf or Ike player who is a beginner in brawl fight ,and you will see as well as I do the pathetic spamming of A-smashes and fully charged B moves for practically everything, whilst the Metaknight uses all of his attacks at random and is happy to find they all are extremely useful and quick. However, as players grow to be more advanced, the amount of moves they use decreases, until you get your typical advanced Olimar player who mainly uses grabs and smashes. The worst-case scenario is Ice Climbers; advanced players of him pretty much only use grab. Not because that’s their only useful move, mind you, but because the tier list that they follow so attentively also claims that the Climbers can only chain grab to remain competitive. And so they don’t play any other styles of Ice Climbers. So why do people use more than four moves at all? The answer is the same for why people play Sheik/Zelda and Pokemon Trainer. Having an assortment of abilities at their disposal allows for different styles of gameplay with the same character, whether you choose to play a spammy Falco or a close-combat one, or a Link who uses his projectiles more often than his smashes, or vice versa."
  • Skill > mindgames/personal playstyle > matchups > tiers.
• "It does provide a slight competitive advantage, however, to constantly shift your gameplay, so in a sense the characters with greater variety in their abilities could have some sort of a meager advantage over those with less variety; however, this would only be another form of mindgames, which can be easily replicated within the same fighting style, therefore leaving the style or styles of gameplay open to the players in much the same way that selecting what character you would like to use in Brawl to begin with is."
  • See preceding comment, personal playstyle.

I hope I have helped to encourage reasonable debate on the subject of tiers. Miles (talk) 02:37, November 10, 2009 (UTC)

For the most part, I was hoping you would post this alongside the comprehensive argument for tiers, as opposed to merely rejecting it due to your personal opinions on the matter in your own discussion panel. To be fairly honest about this, nobody ever checks these sorts of discussions when they look up Tier List on Smashwiki, unless they are like me and completely bury themselves in research.

Although your commentary itself seems reasonable, you fail to understand my claims above. Although I do not make the absurd statement that tiers are imaginary manifest, I do however debacle the notion that tiers have an overly significant hand in winning. Though you may not agree that tiers have this level of impact, there still exists the mindset(an unfortunate one) shared by practically everyone else that tiers are absolute. An easy example to prove this would be the fact that any major-gaming tournament is consisted primarily of 60-70% Top Tier , while the other 25%-30% is immediate high tier. Especially since one of the world's most professional Brawl players mains Wario, who isn't anywhere near high-tier. That is not because playing these characters is overly advantageous, but because they are believed to be so.

Though this mindset will never entirely be erased, I hope to sunder it as much as I can. It's very discouraging for a brand-new brawl player to find out that the only way he could play competitively is if he chooses to play one of the five out of thirty-six characters offered in Brawl. Just a few weeks ago I was telling a friend about how much I enjoy playing Brawl, and he said to me "Oh, I stopped playing that game like a week after I got it. Meta-knight is cheap." Another friend of mine said he used to like brawl until he found out that his favorite character, Ike, was considered low-tier.

Though you may not agree, simply saying that "you don't have to be competitive to have fun" on the tier list page as a disclaimer isn't enough for people like me who enjoy the competitive edge and like to participate in tournaments and such. It would be much more encouraging to newcomers if they were assured that tiers have a relatively small impact on which characters they want to play as, and possibly even mention one or two famous Ganondorf/Wario players as an inspiration to those who play low to bottom tier. Just my suggestion; you don't have to follow it if you don't want to.

EDIT: I see now on the tier list main page that Wario has been boosted up from his low ranking to #3. EXACTLY the kind of mentality I was talking about; the minute someone unique comes along to change convention, all the tier-driven professionals mimic the actions and claim the only reason for it was a "miscalculation on the tier list."

I assure you, the minute Ray Kalm goes national Ganondorf is going from #36 to #4.