Slashdot Mirror
Smash Bros. Online Mode Confirmed
FiringSquad confirms the best news a Wii owner could hope for: online play is a go for Smash Bros. Brawl . This is the news from the official website for the game, and the site discusses the various modes the game will support. You can (of course) play with friends, and you'll be able to use cute little pre-entered taunts on each other. You can also play with strangers, but the game has some serious restrictions on that kind of play: "You can also battle with people you don't know who are looking for brawls. The most important point here is that you will not know each other's names. Your opponent will not know your name or any information about you, and neither of you can send short messages. There will also be no battle records kept for this mode, so whether you win or lose, it doesn't matter. Just sit back and play."
I hope that for random online play with strangers they at least include some sort of skill matchup like Tetris DS did. It was fantastic, depending on your score, 1-1000, you'd be matched up against someone with that same score - and it worked well, my matchups were regularly against people who were just as good as I was. Totally random play would get frustrating for newbies and boring for the more hardcore players if bad matchups occur frequently.
I foresee some whining about the fact that it won't build up ranking data from anonymous battles, but after playing several DS games online, this setup actually sounds like a good thing to me. Hear me out. :^)
In Mario Kart, random, non-friend battles are ranked. So, when some lamer is losing, he quits. Wouldn't want to blemish his record. Game over, no getting to finish, no closure. In Planet Puzzle League, the Smash Bros approach is taken, and random battles are "free". Not ONCE has somebody dropped out mid-game on me, no matter how badly I was pounding them. And no matter how badly I was being pounded, the little devil on my right shoulder never even suggested dropping out.
Take away the stats in anonymous mode, and suddenly the incentive to be a prick for the sake of some arbitrary numbers, dissolves. If you still want the bragging rights, play within a known circle of friends, which should also reduce the prick incentive. This way we can concentrate on having fun playing a kickass game, instead of worrying about the metadata. That might seem wussy to the frat boy Halo crowd, but to me, it's what gaming has always been about.
It's a good idea to make online battles non-ranked. A huge reason is that Smash battles are so customizeable. Item frequency (if any), the items available for the match, the number of lives per player (or maybe HP, or maybe coins collected? etc), the levels allowed via random select, team attack on/off, handicap on/off, etc.
There is so much to bother with that it would be nigh-impossible to implement a reliable ranking system that actually reflects any sort of skill. If all you want to be ranked in is no-item 4-stock 10-minute-timer 1v1 on a subset of stages (typical of SSBM singles tourneys), you'd have seek out opponents willing to play that particular setup. Across what setups would they by chance be ranked, and would some care?
It's basically a pointless and overly complicated system as a result.
If rankings were to matter, they'd have to be on some common terms (e.g. MLG rules), and in Smash coming up with those common terms is far from easy, nor is it reasonable to expect everyone who wants to play a ranked match online to want to observe them in the first place. Considering that even MLG Smash tournament rules evolve over time, this system would have to be updated semi-regularly.
With all this in mind, given that there IS no standard "setup" for online matches, a matchmaking system based on wins-losses would be very unreliable (and possibly fragment the online playerbase).
I like basketball!!1!
Depends on the player if rankings is a plus or a minus (though at Slashdot plus is probably in the majority). Just as an example, amoungst a group of friends I used to play GC games with was one player who despite gaming as much as we did was never very good at any games. In games that either didn't keep detailed ongoing stats, or at least didn't make them highly visible during game play(like SSBM), he could go all night without winning a match without a care in the world; in games that constantly reminded you of who has won the most (like MK Double Dash), he would start getting really depressed after about an hour.
4) Competitiveness. You will find many players just goofing off since the game has no impact on anything. If you are a competitive player, it is no fun to play someone who isn't. The opposite is also true.I totally agree with you, its just that I happen to see this as a plus for SSBB, not a minus. If the ultra-competitive players are going to go off and play Halo 3, rather than matching up against me, I won't shed a tear.