Content Cop - Linbin

I think Linbin has garbage opinions about the smash community

I suppose there are a few things I should get out of the way first

1. As much as I hate to it it, Linbin is actually a good blogger for the most part. So, while I do think he’s arrogant and dumb as a stump when it comes to the smash community, I do not consider him a bad blogger.

2. I’ll be starting with more minor complaints about his content, then move into a blog he made a while ago to explain why I cannot at all understand his opinions about smash. Some of the things mentioned in the beginning of this are just as much jokes as they are actual things I don’t like about his content/opinions.

3. I’ll be speaking as if I have an understanding of what Sakurai/Nintendo’s intentions are. I will be doing my best to discover their intentions based on their actions, things they’ve said, etc. There IS a chance I am off on some things, although I believe I am right or basically right about all of these things.

4. I am NOT arguing that competitive players matter more than casual players. It think it’s a 50/50 split in of how much community input matters. Competitive is the minority, but I believe no side is above the other in of what’s prioritized.

5. Even if Sakurai came out and blatantly said “I did not add any mechanics to Ultimate for anything other than casual play”, that doesn’t mean Ultimate can’t BE competitive. As a dedicated fanbase, we can take a game and make it into something else, even if the creator might not agree with it.

6. DO NOT “cancel” Linbin for this. I know the average person won’t see this as a reason to harass him, although just to make sure I’m in the clear in of amino guidelines, I feel I should specify; DO NOT witch-hunt Linbin for this.

”Filthy Casual”

Often times, Linbin will talk about how ridiculous is that competitive players look down on casual players, and that he’s never heard the insult “filthy competitive”, although has heard “filthy casual”. First off, I don’t even think the portion of smashers that look down on casuals is big enough for this to be worth mentioning. Secondly, I actually HAVE heard competitive used as an insult from Linbin himself-

So, no, casuals aren’t some group of oppressed people that get mistreated all the time, and the little flack that casuals may get can be applied to competitive players to.

”Credit to-“

At the beginning of pretty much all of his blogs, Linbin says the following:

I’m guessing this is just a half-assed attempt to make his blogs sound more professional. Literally what’s even the point of this. I doubt people don’t understand that you don’t own the images of box art, simple pngs, and GIFs of gameplay you use in your blogs. Now if you use someone else’s art in your blog, I could understand being transparent that the artwork isn’t yours, but saying “credit to the original owners” doesn’t do shit to actually credit them. I don’t care if he credits them or not, cause it’s just simple shit from google images, but this middle ground of “I didn’t make this but someone probably spent time on it lol” is so weird and pointless.

“Smash Ultimate is NOT designed for Competitive Players”

:warning: Actual Criticism Alert :warning:

“Yeah Smash Ultimate is cool and all, but one problem I see is that these FUCKING MORON Melee players have a preference that I don’t particularly agree with! How could this happen?!”

What Linbin fails to realize is the reason Melee players want another Melee. He sees people who want another Melee and takes it as Melee players hating any game that isn’t Melee, which isn’t the case. Melee players want a new Melee, not because they don’t like anything that’s not Melee, but because they love Melee. BY FAR most of the time, they’re not driven by hate, they’re driven by ion. If you think otherwise you’re lying to yourself.

Here’s another excellent thought from Linbin. He claims many people see Melee as a sea of Fox dittos on FD. Interesting how he can have this opinion despite there being ELEVEN CHARACTERS (Puff, Fox, Marth, Sheik, Falcon, Falco, Peach, Pikachu, Samus, Yoshi, and Young Link) used by Melee’s top TEN players of 2018, according to Liquipedia. Melee is absolutely not a competition of Fox dittos. It never has been, so I suggest you do some research and realize the character diversity Melee offers. Additionally, you claim that Ultimate is NOT for competitive players. I suppose that’s why there was a literal section of E3 2018 where they talk about competitive mechanics? I’m not saying Ultimate is STRICTLY competitive, but to completely disregard that part of the game and community is ignorant.

Not once in my life have I heard the word casual used as an insult. I’m not going to pretend it’s never happened, that’d be ignorant. I will say that it hardly happens at all and Linbin’s stance of “competitive players TWISTED Smash’s purpose and insulted the target audience” is pretty stupid. Additionally, Smash isn’t “designed for a casual audience”. Since the original Kirby games, Sakurai’s mindset has, for the most part, been to make games that are easy to pick up, and difficult to master, which can be applied to all Smash games post-Brawl.

It’s beyond frustrating that he fails to see that us having a preference that differs from his doesn’t make us toxic. In that quote, Sakurai does not say “fuck competitive lol that shit ain’t worth it imma just make ultimate a casual game if yall dont mind”. He’s saying that it doesn’t make sense to go all in with competitive aspects, which would result in a game that can only be played competitively, alienating a portion of his audience. However, the same goes the other way around. Why should Sakurai go all in with casual aspects and make a game “not designed for competitive players”, alienating a different portion of his audience? Later in the quote Sakurai also mentions that he doesn’t like when players compete for money EXCLUSIVELY. He never stated he takes issue with people competing in general.

Incorrect, Linbin. Sakurai has always made games that are easy to play, and difficult to master. You’re right that Nintendo is not at all about prize money, but literally NO top players are playing for the prize money. You’re bringing up points against a group of people that doesn’t even exist. Prize pots for smash aren’t big enough for competitive players to be driven by money. ittedly, Nintendo has not ed competitive financially outside of a couple instances, although I strongly believe that this blog illustrates why Nintendo still DOES us. Another point you make is that smash has never added any competitive mechanics intentionally, which is... objectively untrue??? In Melee, all the “glitches” people like to talk about were noticed in development and left in. They may not have been added with competitive intent in Melee, but directional airdodging, dash-dancing, dash-cancelling, and several other aspects of Melee that Nintendo KNOWS are competitive have been added back to Ultimate. It’s simply ignorant to suggest that these were intended for casual play. You’re telling me casual players care about universal frame three jumpsquats? I don’t think so.

The reason smash inputs are easy to pick up is because of Sakurai’s philosophy that intends to cater to everyone. Sakurai DID increase the speed of the game, and he DID add tech like wavedashing. Wavelanding is in the game, although is nerfed due to Sakurai wanting to avoid another super tech-heavy game. However, preferring a fast-paced game is not toxic, nor does it make one a “whiner”. It’s quite clear that Ultimate is meant to cater to both casual and competitive players. Sakurai isn’t saying that catering to competitive players is a bad idea, he’s saying that a game so fast it can injure you physically is not his goal. The thing is, there’s a ton of middle ground between a completely casual game and a completely competitive game. That middle ground is Ultimate. Regarding that third screenshot-

“There was this COMPLETE DICKHEAD who thought that competitive players, the group that knows by far the most about this game, mattered! How does he fail to see that casuals, the group that often can’t comment on balance/what should be changed gameplay wise, are the second coming of the aryan race?!”

You wanna know why competitive input matters AT LEAST as much as casual input? Cause we know a whole lot more than people who play casually. Not to say playing casually is inferior, but it’d be ignorant to suggest that casual players have any more than a casual understanding of this game. Wanna know what many casual players asked Sakurai to do in the early days of Ultimate? Nerf K. Rool. Nintendo ended up nerfing an already bottom tier character and had to later buff the character to fix that mistake. You can even take a look back at Sm4sh. They did the same thing with Little Mac (although his buffs didn’t even come until Ultimate). Competitive players have always asked for sensible things, and, thankfully, Sakurai has listened for the most part. When you say that casual input matters more, you are essentially saying, “We may be incredibly wrong, but we should still be prioritized because we’re the majority”.

Additionally, no one competent is arguing Melee was intended to be competitive. Sakurai was very against that back then, although myself and many others believe his recent actions suggest a change in thought. Melee was intended to be nothing more than a casual game, although by taking a competitive stance, dedicated fans have made it into an amazing competitive game. It may not have been made with competitive play in mind, although it can absolutely be played that way.

I don’t get how he goes the entire blog with the mindset of “Smash is not competitive at all and never will be” to “Competitive matters a little, I guess”.

I seriously don’t know where he gets the idea that the casual community matters x3 as much as the competitive community. For real, if someone really wanted to boast that they matter more and made a list of all the things the that Sakurai had done for the competitive and casual communities in Ultimate, do you actually think the casual list would be x3 as long as the competitive one?

What happened last time Sakurai tried to exclude the competitive community? Brawl had some good content, but it’s gameplay was just awful.

Even without all this evidence, whether you play casually or competitively doesn’t mean shit most of the time. You think if the whole competitive community asks for Shantae in Smash, Sakurai’s gonna say, “Well, you all play the game competitively, so your opinion actually only matters 1/3 of anyone else’s opinion, and for that reason Shantae will not be in Smash”? How ridiculous does that sound? The only times this would matter is if you’re talking about balance and gameplay, because that’s the only time where casual and competitive players have different priorities in what they’re asking for. However, it is possible to create a game that benefits both audiences (think literally any Smash that isn’t Brawl).

Next, I’ll be going over some of the comments left on this blog-

Sakurai didn’t say that he did not add those for competitive play. He said he did not want to make a game that is strictly competitive. It’s quite ignorant to say, “In 2002, when there was no competitive scene at all, Nintendo didn’t intend for Melee mechanics to be competitive, so, in 2018, when there’s a flourishing competitive scene and Nintendo has undergone several changes, Nintendo must not have added those mechanics to be competitive”. The reason they added these mechanics for competitive now is because they KNOW those mechanics are competitive.

This next comment was not responded to by Linbin. Why? I assume because it tears apart all of his arguments, and it’s honestly hilarious. I actually left a comment on Linbin’s blog saying “Am I the only one seeing that Linbin isn’t responding to any of the good comments?” However, this comment was deleted by Linbin minutes after it was posted. What I assume happened is that Linbin did not want to be proven wrong, so he ignored responding to this comment completely. Shoutout to Noob Arts btw

I think this comment is incredible. My favorite part is his opinion about the gameplay, which perfectly describes why it’s best to avoid a game with a specific audience when it’s possible to make a game including multiple audiences.

Here Linbin tries to argue that the comments against him are all “bias” and thus are wrong. What’s incredible is that Linbin is so biased towards casual play, that he has completely forgotten the difference between bias and a preference. These comments aren’t bias, as they all bring up valid points that demonstrate why you’re quite wrong, whereas you simply twist quotes from Sakurai to try and prove your arguments that are backed by next to no evidence. These comments are actually proving you wrong, so you can’t shrug it off as “bias” and then aim for moral high-ground by saying “Tsk tsk!” and talking about double standards.

Eventually, Linbin did respond to the comment I left on his post (but I had to copy-paste it into a thread of replies since he didn’t respond to the original for whatever reason). I’ll leave the screenshots here, although I won’t leave any commentary for them, as I’ve already addressed all of the points he brings up (Look to the section about the 25/75 split). Additionally, a lot of the content in my comment is similar to this post, so you may not have to read my comment to understand Linbin’s response.

Conclusion

I think Linbin is a good blogger, but he’s an arrogant hypocrite that knows nothing when it comes to the community. He’s basically the Salem of the smash amino. If he sees this and manages to prove me wrong, I’ll it I was wrong. Until then, don’t let anyone tell you they matter more than you without a reason. Competitive players are a part of the audience. Casual players are a part of the audience. One may be a larger part of the audience, but that does not mean their opinions matter more.