Super Smash Bros Evo Bayonetta Controversy

[KHCast]

To not deviate from the Smash Ultimate topic, I figured I’d make a new one entirely on this issue cause...yikes.

So umm... wow this happened. Never before have I seen such a toxic environment as with the Smash fandom in this instance. I’ll agree that both are at fault, it was petty of the competitors to idle around to spite, yes. But it also is the result of the booing and shit they had flung at them for probably months. Just yikes. This is when the term “entitled” and “immature” are fair terms to use at gamers. Like look, I don’t like Bayonetta all that much personally in Smash either, but I don’t froth at the mouth at good players using her. I really don’t know where that base is going to go from here. Lately, just in general actually, I’m seeing more and more toxicity in the game fandoms. FF, No Mans Sky, even KH, just...why suddenly are we turning into the things we tried for years to claim and prove we aren’t?

[Blue Wisp]

Not sure if all of them but mooooooost professional gaming scenes are a cesspool of shit so this doesn't surprise me.

From both ends.

Gamers are humans (mostly) and humans are (mostly) assholes. And the vocal minority really stands out compared to everyone else who, you know, aren't assholes.

And damn some professional gamers are sooooooooooo damn full of themselves. Especially with fighting games or MOBAs. I don't know if it's the nature of the competitive scene or what but you can see stuff like this eeeeeeeeeverywhere.

So yeah. Shit happens, am not surprised at all.

[KHCast]

13 minutes ago, Blue Wisp said:

And the vocal minority

I don’t think I’m this instance this was a minority. A lot of people at evo were booing and the twitter rage after was pretty vocal from /many/ different sides of the Internet regarding this. The smash fan base in particular has for quite awhile harbored this entitlement and it seems like it finally reached a boiling point.

[Blue Wisp]

31 minutes ago, KHCast said:

I don’t think I’m this instance this was a minority. A lot of people at evo were booing and the twitter rage after was pretty vocal from /many/ different sides of the Internet regarding this. The smash fan base in particular has for quite awhile harbored this entitlement and it seems like it finally reached a boiling point.

How many people were at EVO and how many were watching at home? I don't have numbers but the second ones feel far larger.

Also lol Twitter. All social media sites are home to many assholes dude. It's like being surprised for finding crap in a sewer. 

Besides, Banjo was a better pick than Bayonetta.

[KHCast]

I’m just saying I personally feel as if you’re giving way too much credit to fandoms this large, and underplaying just how massive the toxicity can spread, when the gaming world in general has just been a pretty toxic place lately on plenty of issues. Especially when we’re talking about a competitive and passionate community like the “hardcore” smash players. 

[SaturnWolf]

Just the other day I had a discussion with someone that thinks that accepting this sort of thing "makes us look like childish idiots" in relation to competitive Smash players.

Not that stomping your feet and screaming does a lot to prove people that don't take the competitive scene seriously wrong. Yeah, most of those big league, MLG "professional" scenes are nothing but elitist assholes. I truly don't understand why people place such importance on them as if how much it's played at tournaments will make the game any better or worse.

[KHCast]

I’m honestly curious if they’re gonna host smash at evo again next year after this. That’s probably the one thing I’ve been wondering about most. 

[Big Panda]

Why do people hate Bayonette in Smash? I haven’t played as her because I never got around to downloading her DLC pack.

[Polkadi~☆]

20 minutes ago, Ernest-Panda said:

Why do people hate Bayonette in Smash? I haven’t played as her because I never got around to downloading her DLC pack.

She’s apparently stupid amounts of overpowered. So much so that playing her is looked down upon, and that she got nerfed to hell and back for Ultimate.

[Tornado]

So having missed most of Evo this year (and not that I had planned on watching the Smash portion anyway, but I even missed most of the FighterZ stuff ), what happened that we are supposed to treat with scorn so I don't have to watch a nearly ten minute video?

 

Until then I'm going to assume that a good portion (all?) of the later matches were made up of Bayonetta (which is something that was a bad idea by Evo to allow in the first place since that means you have a room full of people who already are contentious at times with having Smash even at Evo to begin with all watching a bunch of people clean house with a somewhat scrubby and controversial-from-the-beginning character, though I also recognize that Evo's hands were sorta tied since she's no longer in any active ban lists I'm aware of) in a game with dozens of other characters to choose from. People who watch Super Turbo matches live aren't there to see people fuck up everyone with Old Sagat so much that everyone else has to switch to not get their asses handed to them.

[Pawn]

This sort of behaviour is well-known among large crowds at football (soccer), which I'm sure most of us are aware has been known to erupt into actual physical violence between fans. The fact is that, with gaming becoming more mainstream and competitive, this kind of audience reaction was inevitable.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

5 hours ago, KHCast said:

’m just saying I personally feel as if you’re giving way too much credit to fandoms this large

Fandoms this large are exactly why the minorities are so vocal. Minority of an increasingly huge population is still huge.

Not that it's an excuse to ignore or make littleness of it, but it's important to note, they're still the minority and not the norm to judge by.

[Tornado]

Also, re: Vocal minority.

Competitive players make up a small, small fraction of the people who buy Smash Brothers games. People who physically go to Evo and pay money to watch it live make up a small fraction of that. We aren't talking about Third Strike here.

[Wraith]

1 hour ago, Tornado said:

So having missed most of Evo this year (and not that I had planned on watching the Smash portion anyway, but I even missed most of the FighterZ stuff ), what happened that we are supposed to treat with scorn so I don't have to watch a nearly ten minute video?

 

Until then I'm going to assume that a good portion (all?) of the later matches were made up of Bayonetta (which is something that was a bad idea by Evo to allow in the first place since that means you have a room full of people who already are contentious at times with having Smash even at Evo to begin with all watching a bunch of people clean house with a somewhat scrubby and controversial-from-the-beginning character, though I also recognize that Evo's hands were sorta tied since she's no longer in any active ban lists I'm aware of) in a game with dozens of other characters to choose from. People who watch Super Turbo matches live aren't there to see people fuck up everyone with Old Sagat so much that everyone else has to switch to not get their asses handed to them.

The OP is trash and doesn't really tell you anything so a lot of people are missing context in this thread. 

EVO was supposed to be Smash 4's last hurrah before the new game, but the game had started running out of steam long before then. The best and probably most liked player in the world quit the year before because he considered the game gimmicky and not worth competing in. Many other top players either didn't show up to EVO or got upset and placed low. Bayonetta is a problem for the game's design, but usually she's held down by the top players who know how to deal with her but refuse to play her. 

This isn't going to happen when so many players don't have their heads in the game though. The top 8 had 3 Bayonetta players who managed to crush the remaining competition with ease. This is frustrating for spectators who hate watching the character, but there's nothing morally dubious going on until you get to this:

Grand finals start and the two players stall the match for 3 minutes taunting. A lot of people in the community took this as a massive insult. Players who worked hard saw the competition turned into a joke before their eyes. To many it made Smash 4 look embarrassing to the other communities. It was also the game's last "big" tournament and the whole game basically goes out with a whimper now. 

Many others thought it was funny, or that they worked to get to grand finals and so they were allowed to do what they wanted. Bayonetta players get a lot of heat thrown at them for playing the strongest, cheesiest character so this was seen as a form of payback.  It's really up to you to decide whether what they did was okay or not. 

Personally I think this wasn't that big of a deal in the grand scheme(like yeah it sucked but there will be other tournaments guys) and the controversy has already kind of faded away from the consciousness of the community at large due to the Smash direct, so it's not really worth making a topic about in the first place, but whatever. There's the context.
 

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

6 hours ago, KHCast said:

I’m honestly curious if they’re gonna host smash at evo again next year after this. That’s probably the one thing I’ve been wondering about most. 

The time spent wondering and debating such is heavily wasted, I'd argue. Melee alone keeps Smash well and invigorated.

Smash Ultimate, mark my words, so long as it keeps its balance and competitive features in the zone, is going to have such a wide player-base that I'd play Kingdom Hearts 3D, three times in a row if it didn't make it.

As for this latest debacle......nah. The actual turn of events wasn't even that big to warrant barring Smash from Evo in the future, never mind the fact that it was happening at what is apparently the tail end of Smash 4's EVO mainline career. Didn't make nearly big enough a splash, and the Direct only helped in further burying any mass of negative sentiments there might have been.

Seriously, much bigger actual damage would need to have been done to bring up the idea that we won't see Smash at EVO next time.

Now, if the game itself has issues like Marvel Vs Capcom Infinite, then that's a cause for worry.

[Wraith]

Oh yeah I forgot: Smash not being at the next evo isn't worth seriously debating either because EVO only cares as far as if they can sell tickets and ride the twitch wave off of your game. They overwhelmingly care more about your game's potential as a spectator sport than any flaws with the game design or sportsmanship. You can see this with any of the Marvel games, the new Dragon Ball game or...any of the Smash Bros games really. There are much more mechanically solid fighting games that exist that don't get play just because there isn't as much "hype" around them. 

[Meta77]

Welcome to the fgc. When you get into the serious ranks this Is typical. And honestly just a part of it. Trash talking  , troll characters.  wall traps. Huge egos. This is nothing new.

[KHCast]

4 hours ago, Wraith said:

The OP is trash and doesn't really tell you anything so a lot of people are missing context in this thread. 

EVO was supposed to be Smash 4's last hurrah before the new game, but the game had started running out of steam long before then. The best and probably most liked player in the world quit the year before because he considered the game gimmicky and not worth competing in. Many other top players either didn't show up to EVO or got upset and placed low. Bayonetta is a problem for the game's design, but usually she's held down by the top players who know how to deal with her but refuse to play her. 

This isn't going to happen when so many players don't have their heads in the game though. The top 8 had 3 Bayonetta players who managed to crush the remaining competition with ease. This is frustrating for spectators who hate watching the character, but there's nothing morally dubious going on until you get to this:

Grand finals start and the two players stall the match for 3 minutes taunting. A lot of people in the community took this as a massive insult. Players who worked hard saw the competition turned into a joke before their eyes. To many it made Smash 4 look embarrassing to the other communities. It was also the game's last "big" tournament and the whole game basically goes out with a whimper now. 

Many others thought it was funny, or that they worked to get to grand finals and so they were allowed to do what they wanted. Bayonetta players get a lot of heat thrown at them for playing the strongest, cheesiest character so this was seen as a form of payback.  It's really up to you to decide whether what they did was okay or not. 

Personally I think this wasn't that big of a deal in the grand scheme(like yeah it sucked but there will be other tournaments guys) and the controversy has already kind of faded away from the consciousness of the community at large due to the Smash direct, so it's not really worth making a topic about in the first place, but whatever. There's the context.
 

The discussion of a currently heavily talked about issue within the Smash fanbase to me came off like topic worthy, given the topics I’ve seen allowed and discussed in the games thread. Also a lot of the events you discuss are in the video which summarize what has happened, hence why I posted it as it does a good job at summarizing in better words what happened, and given my lack of knowledge on the high competitive league like that, I figured that’d be the best method of displaying and explaining what has happened, along with giving my two cents regarding the fallout. No need to come at me with the “this is shit” comment.

But dang, if this attitude is quite normalized, guess that turns my interest in getting competitive in certain fighters.:/

[Tornado]

The best method would have been making an OP with at least a sentence saying what had happened ("Evo fans react badly to Bayonetta sweeping the final Smash 4 tournament" is a pretty good summary that could have even gone in the topic name, even if it's somewhat misleading), instead of saying "watch this video" and then posting your reactions to said video with nothing at all to explain anything about what this thread with the meaningless title was about.

 

46 minutes ago, KHCast said:

But dang, if this attitude is quite normalized, guess that turns my interest in getting competitive in certain fighters.:/

What attitude? I'm still not watching an eight minute video, so put it in your words: What is the actual issue here?

[Sega DogTagz]

Somewhere some Sega rep is laughing his ass off at finding histroy's most indirect way of pissing in an old rivals cheerios.

 

[KHCast]

4 hours ago, Meta77 said:

Welcome to the fgc. When you get into the serious ranks this Is typical. And honestly just a part of it. Trash talking  , troll characters.  wall traps. Huge egos. This is nothing new.

 

6 hours ago, Pawn said:

This sort of behaviour is well-known among large crowds at football (soccer), which I'm sure most of us are aware has been known to erupt into actual physical violence between fans. The fact is that, with gaming becoming more mainstream and competitive, this kind of audience reaction was inevitable.

I’m mainly responding to these comments, that are saying how aggressive, bullying, childish antics are common or expected in the competitive gaming sphere. Like I get shit talking players and everything, that comes with the territory as we’re a competitive species. But man, these players I’ve heard were getting shit for quite awhile on pretty extreme levels for their choice of using Bayonetta. And then they’re decision to idle around the finals, ignore the crowd and just talk to eachother, just seemed like the cherry on the immature cake. To hear that this kinda attitude should be expected, just kinda leaves a disappointed, and sour taste, that doesn’t really motivate me to try going competitive like I was wanting to do with the new smash.

 

ill agree though, should have probably done something more akin to how I did it with the butch Hartman topic. Video + summary in case people didn’t wanna watch (also josh did explain the events also, which I can see you read as you liked his post, so are you saying this not seriously or serious that you don’t know what’s going on still?)

4 minutes ago, Sega DogTagz said:

Somewhere some Sega rep is laughing his ass off at finding histroy's most indirect way of pissing in an old rivals cheerios.

 

Would have been even more of a piss take if the finals only consisted of Sonic’s and Bayonetta’s

[Meta77]

2 minutes ago, KHCast said:

 

I’m mainly responding to these comments, that are saying how aggressive, bullying, childish antics are common or expected in the competitive gaming sphere. Like I get shit talking players and everything, that comes with the territory as we’re a competitive species. But man, these players I’ve heard were getting shit for quite awhile on pretty extreme levels for their choice of using Bayonetta. And then they’re decision to idle around the finals, ignore the crowd and just talk to eachother, just seemed like the cherry on the immature cake. To hear that this kinda attitude should be expected, just kinda leaves a disappointed, and sour taste, that doesn’t really motivate me to try going competitive like I was wanting to do with the new smash.

I mean that's any competitive game. Smash is just a more openly talked about one in terms of that stuff.  but if you found it bad now just wait for ultimate. Fighting players can be aggressive and have huge egos

[Tornado]

They were using a scrubby character at an international championship that people paid money to go see in person. The players knew going into it what they were doing and how it would be reacted to when they did it. The people who were at the event knew what the players were doing. If I cared enough about Smash to pay a hundred bucks (or whatever Evo admittance is nowadays) plus whatever it cost to stay in Vegas for the weekend to go see the last Smash 4 tournament, I would be pissed if I saw someone picking a cheese character and mopping up the tournament with it as a result; and it's pretty galling to label people as entitled because they didn't react to a competitive event with a live audience like it was a late night talk show with an applause sign when they were seeing something they thought was pretty shitty happening.

 

 

On top of that, I don't know if I would leave en masse like it seems half of the crowd did as soon as the last non-Bayonetta character was knocked out of the tournament:

But I certainly would have when these supposedly professional E-Sports players competing in the biggest event of the year for the genre decided to deliberately fuck with people in the crowd after that had already happened because the crowd didn't give them the respect they feel they earned by cheesing through an already depleted tournament roster with arguably the most powerful character in the game.

 

 

 

 

If you're interested in getting involved in competitive play, no one is going to curse your name for choosing a high tier but easy character and trying to learn it when you're starting out; even in Bayonetta's earlier days where she was actually banned. The worst that may happen is that you'll get teased a bit, but no tournament you're realistically going to enter starting out will have people good enough that their won't be wiggle for both parties to win a match or have stakes high enough that it's worth getting fussed over anyway. That's different from what happened here.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

11 minutes ago, Tornado said:

But I certainly would have when these supposedly professional E-Sports players competing in the biggest event of the year for the genre decided to deliberately fuck with people in the crowd after that had already happened because the crowd didn't give them the respect they feel they earned by cheesing through an already depleted tournament roster with arguably the most powerful character in the game.

I'm still somewhat confused on what the actual tipping point was here. Was it just the sole fact that these people picked the cheesiest and overpowered character to fuck with the spectators, or was it on top of everything else, they decided to deliberately began fucking around and taunting each other in-game (Like the clip above showed with the Bayonettas doing nothing but charging attacks while the two players giggled to each other)? 

Either way, Tornado has a huge point in saying that if I payed to see something like this only for some jackasses deciding to fuck with everyone, I would be absolutely livid. I'm not particularly in any competitive scenes, but wouldn't this essentially be the equivalent of paying to go see a movie, only for the projectionist to begin fucking around with the camera and the film reel for no apparent reason other than "lol for the lawls".

[KHCast]

I’m not saying they needed to be overly positive, or that the competitors themselves were blameless and oblivious to what the problem was, however they still abided by the rules and used a character that was okay to use in the tournament. I get the upset attitude the crowd had, and to a level agree it’s kinda bs she hasn’t been banned outright yet from these official events, but I mean were people expecting her not to show up given the pretty lax rules there were regarding what was and not okay here? I mean the Smash invitational was more balanced with its rules and outcome. (Using different characters up until the final match, and because most of these big names already used bayo early on, she couldn’t be used again.) Here it was, just keep using the character you want.

However, I just think especially with the Smash elitists attitude in general when it comes to this game  even outside this competitive stuff, on top of these events, it just kinda came off as something where both sides are at fault and got a bit immature and toxic, and really put on blast the entire community and was an embarrassing moment where no one won. I think had the two played with Bayonetta and not taunted, and had a fair match, this could have still been an interesting battle, but yeah, instead what we got was dicks taunting and being salty over people not being cool with their character picks(which I’ll agree, they KNEW would happen.). Idk, was this reaction a thing when pros during like MvC2’s days would constantly use storm, sentinel and magneto?