Komma @KommaChameleon@awoo.space

Apparently Alucard cannot appear as an assist trophy in Wii Fit Studio because there's a gigantic mirror that should not show his reflection :3c

Nier Onomatopoeia

https://www.twitch.tv/commachameleon Gargoyle's Quest 2 on my stream now! You will believe that demons can fly!

Ask them here if you want. :>

The whole reality of the situation is too complex to fit into a couple short posts, but my take is: Smash as a *product" is sold on the idea of seeing familiar characters in chaotic party-fights that are easy to control, carefully balanced against the fundamentals of fighting games: outguessing your opponents, using attacks to control space on the screen, using good timing to reduce your risks and punish other players, etc. Smash as a *tournament community* is less interested in that chaos part and more interested in those fighting game parts, plus pushing the limits of the game's control techniques.

My take is that items are part of the chaotic novelty, explicitly designed to help weaker players sometimes feel the thrill of victory (or to reduce the sting of losing; "it was just bad luck"). To me they seem about 80% on the axis toward "output randomness"--that is, one player is closest to the item as it spawns and is the only one with an opportunity to succeed with it. For some people and parties this is great! In fact, if you played enough matches then the randomness would eventually even out. But it's not a system where the randomness offers symmetric opportunities to both players, nor is it one where the randomness is forecasted in some way that allows players to really fight for an opportunity to use an item.* For the randomness to even out in a tournament, the event would probably need to do longer sets, and the power of items does distract from those interesting fundamentals of two players interacting that are at the core of the game.

This doesn't mean randomness is bad or that any game with randomness is not worthy of competitive pursuit! And I want to emphasize that Smash can still be very unpredictable even with the items and wacky stages disabled. I'm just trying to articulate why items are not the norm in the Smash tournament community. If you like the items, maybe you can find enough people who also prefer those rules and run your own smaller events!

* Well, I concede that items do always appear on the stage itself, so if you've launched an opponent off the stage then you might have a better chance to grab the item, but feel that it's fairly minor.

@garrcanine@snouts.online yeah and I'm not sure if there's any kind of response I can write that would actually help anybody, hahaha

somebody on twitter is saying "maybe if smash competitors can't handle items and stage hazards then they aren't as good as they say they are" and the 20-year-running forum debate scars about "randomness in competitive games" are opening up again

@ShugoWah@snouts.online Would allow petting permissions on my Android Device

Does anybody want: to cuddle

@ShugoWah@snouts.online YEAH F THIS

CS Go? More like siesta

Though you could also fairly say "I like video games and pretend everything by Rockstar doesn't exist" and be right

Tonight I dodged a Red Dead Redemption 2 conversation by saying "I usually prefer silly stuff like this (smash bros)" and I think I stand by that claim if you look at it from the right angle

[doing xmas shopping in the mid 2000s] Snake, try to remember the basics of QVC

The upside, I suppose, is that being able to play as the bad guy does communicate the banality of evil. Maybe it's fun (in a horror/thriller way) to be scared of situations, made plausible through rules and simulation, where key battles of history unfolded differently; to see the world as being more mutable and not taking any human rights victory for granted.

I dunno, maybe there is some form of play within the possibility space of realistic battle scenes from the civil war that helps people engage with history or deal with the emotional trauma of the past--and therefore a compelling reason for the game to exist.

But it's a lot more culturally dangerous than the fictional wars of Overwatch and Black Ops, and I would like to see the developer say not just "we don't support the views depicted in this game" but more specifically "we think the Confederacy had some screwed up ideas but this scenario doesn't make sense without them"

Like Mafia 3 did

There's an American Civil War FPS in the top-selling list on theme which is just a lot of dog whistles

called "War of Rights"

says you can "fight to defend your family and livelihood with the Confederacy"

boasts "historical accuracy" without mentioning the term "slavery" at all

basically just taking the trappings of history and turning into a gory playset

my reaction is extremely skeptical but I'm also wondering what the "responsible" way of doing this is?