#bro is trying so hard to make good and fair content and goofs up himself

[ixhadbadxdays]

I need hbomberguy to make an hour long self call-out video now this is so fucking funny

[pidgezero-one]

saving y'all another tweetstorm about sm rando tourney shenanigans

context: in top 8 losers' bracket matches of the super metroid randomizer tournament, cfb vs zoast mutually agreed to do 100% instead of any%, and then cfb and foosda visited all save points. chat was not pleased. cfb posted this compilation of screenshots from the second match, see for yourself: https://twitter.com/CruelFancyBaron/status/927751861016367104

my thoughts on the situation: what the fuck is there to be mad about? cfb, zoast, and foosda are all extremely talented players. there is no money on the line in this tournament and viewers have no material investment in it. it is just a tournament that will end up having a winner.

i used to be a tournament organizer in the competitive smash bros community. smash bros is divided up into sects: melee and smash 4 are the "esports" titles with enormous viewerbases, sponsorships, and decent money on the line, and professionalism is expected to some extent. professionalism includes consistency in player effort and ruleset administration. this means that "hard" rule violations like changing set rules (such as the old tradition of "gentleman's rule" where both players agree to play on a banned stage) and "soft" playstyle deviations (like a top player using a character they don't seriously train with) are discouraged and bound to start a tidal wave of drama and accusations of bracket sabotage. 64, brawl, and project M are smaller and more tight knit, and while these communities do try to keep up professional practice, there is less lashback when something spontaneous occurs.

i can think of a few examples of this difference: a few years back, hungrybox and mew2king were in grand finals at a tournament (I think it was MLG?). hungrybox had a wide match lead, and m2k decided to go puff and ditto him. puff is by no means m2k's strongest character and he likely was not expecting to win the ditto vs the best puff in the world. most likely they did this for fun. some ppl were livid with this decision and wanted m2k to finish the set playing one of his mains instead, although the result most likely would have been the same.

contrast this to smash 64: isai, one of the most talented and historically significant players of all time, is known for just doing what he wants to do. this means that we've seen many a top 4 set with players like himself, superboomfan, and tacos doing DK dittos instead of using top tiers. for the most part, nobody who actually plays 64 gives a shit when this happens. they're obviously just doing it for fun, and we're having fun watching them have fun. ppl who aren't invested in the community are irked especially when isai isn't going his "full potential" with a top tier, but he doesn't feel like doing that.

and IMO that's what's most important. isai, boomfan, tacos, and mew2king are not breaking rules by choosing characters in top bracket for fun. it's a video game, it's supposed to be fun! at the top level these players are at, it's not unreasonable to think that perhaps viewers can enjoy what the players are doing and especially the fact that the players are putting their hearts into it.

what cfb, zoast, and foosda did IMO is closer to this than it is to an actual ruleset change like gentleman's stage select would be. any of them could have violated the stipulation at any time, but they chose not to, because they wanted to do something spontaneous and have fun. these 3 players are incredibly fucking good at sm and sm rando and their modified matches were entertaining, but this evidently was not what some players wanted to see, i guess.

i'm personally not down with viewers being mad about that. imo a tournament with nothing on the line should be primarily about the players. i don't like that ppl can't derive enjoyment from players doing silly on-the-fly things like this. back when smash was grassroots we lived for that stuff. it was fun for everyone playing and watching. many speedrunners feel this way about these matches as well.

that attitude seems to have changed with the popularity of livestreaming having exploded the way it has. there's no hiding that sm and alttp randomizer have exploded outside the confines of the speedrunning community, and are popular now even with people who don't speedrun at all as well as mainstream twitch viewers. mainstream twitch viewers want esports. that's not necessarily a bad thing, but it also demands seriousness that isn't always fair to expect of players who join events for fun. i see this as analogous to ppl being upset about 64 players doing DK dittos just like being upset with m2k and hbox's puff dittoing, it's a whole lot of mad for no reason. speedgaming's other content primarily attracts speedrun enthusiasts and shenanigans are not a problem for anyone in those streams.

there's another perspective to consider outside of players vs viewers, though: straevaras, the tournament organizer, was also not pleased, and posted his thoughts here:

https://pastebin.com/HeFZxE4Q

i definitely do agree with his sentiments that doing things just to piss off viewers is in poor taste, but i'm also pretty sure these 3 jokers would have done these altered matches regardless of whether or not chat hated it. i'm also very sympathetic to his frustrations in later tweets about having to deal with chat being shitty about it. when things don't go as expected in an event, it almost always falls down on the TO ultimately moreso than it does on the players, and few ppl really stop to think about that perspective. i've definitely been there.

i don't agree that the runners in question necessarily violated the integrity of the tournament, though. as a TO you have to be prepared to expect some of your players to mess around in their sets. bracket upsets happen all the time when a player goofs off. that's just part of the package that comes with being a TO, you will never get all of your hundred or whatever entrants to all want the same objective. that's something you're more likely to get out of running an invitational. some of these players joined because they think the game is fun and aren't invested in the outcome. you could argue that that's not the point of the tournament, but it'd be impossible to mandate runners not to get X number of items or not to visit Y number of rooms. TOs can always make a DQ call based on suspicion of collusion in these instances, but that's not something that should be considered in an event that does not have anything on the line. you could also argue that it's disrespectful to the eliminated entrants who really did want to do well, but the only thing you can really say about that is to make better plays next time so you can be the one to turn down the offer to do whatever stipulation in your match next time.

i got shit for years for allowing my tournament attendees to play on hyrule castle, but i kept it legal because my players wanted it. the viewers didn't and they would complain, but that mattered less to me than my attendees having fun. most viewers who had actually run tournaments before saw no issue with my reasoning, and that's important. i see speedrunning as on this level right now, players should be able to do things for fun and it's sad that viewers don't get enjoyment out of that bc they've been spoiled by a very very different culture of gaming. speedrunning at the end of the day should be for fun, so either have something on the line or just let the speedrunners have fun...

just my IMO