Where do you stand on the "coaching" controversy?

From Kotaku
>Coaching, in both Smash and in the general fighting game community, refers to when a player will get help mid-set from an outside party. This could be a designated coach, a player familiar with the match-up, or just a friend the player being coached relies on. This is distinctly different from coaching between games in a tournament—here, the players are receiving help mid-set, between individual matches in a best-of-three or five situation.
>Though it happens somewhat often, it usually takes an egregious example, like Julio Fuentes’ infamous phone call mid-set to get advice in facing PR_Balrog (while also receiving in-person coaching) for the community to address coaching head-on. For Smash, it seems one tweet has simply sparked debate again, leading to many pros and tournament organizers weighing in.
>On one hand, coaching can help a pro overcome themselves and do better, and even in Smash Melee’s scene, coaching has become a notable position. Names like Tafokints and Captain Crunch have been synonymous with the rise of their respective players, Mang0 and Hungrybox. Though these coaches don’t offer mid-set advice (too often, at least), they’ve been instrumental in the continued growth of their players.
>Detractors, however, disagree with the idea of having to beat two minds rather than one, especially when many players don’t have access to the same resources.

I've always been a strong proponent of "if it's in the game, it's part of the game" but coaching has never entered my peripheral before. It's not cheating pertinent to the game, but it's also not fair for a supercomputer to run through a play and weigh in on your opponent's doubts, reassert their convictions, or pick up stuff they may miss mid-battle. Especially when money or titles are on the line.

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Because in the end it all comes down to your own abilities.

I once had a guy stand behind me and tell my opponent when to block my overhead kick. It was a rough time.

But isn't that what sports teams do?

A coach is part of the team.

They stopped coaches from being with the teams during matches during CS:GO as well. I like it that way because it puts more emphasis on the in game leader to recognize things and make calls as opposed to having someone dedicated to it standing behind them and having all 5 players basically demoted to unthinking aim machines.

It is as retarded if someone asked to not analyze LeL/Dota matches for stats

Not that I know much about Smash, but I'd say it's ok when you're between games, but not when the match is being played.

Or get your own coach.

t. mad he got shat on.

>mentioning a fucking supercomputer

Are you autisitc?

This. It's a completely sensible solution, but someone will bitch about it and needlessly elongate the community's discussion.
There's nothing wrong with learning MUs or techniques from others, as long as it's you who's recalling that knowledge mid-match. Coaching is acceptable in other sporting mediums because it's a presumed condition of professional play, and an industry in itself; it isn't equal, but it's more ubiquitous - which mitigated that gap between coached and uncoached players. I get the feeling that the FGC can't accommodate that yet, so keep coaching outside of matches.

I don't give a fuck if you're gonna get coached, but I'm dead fucking tired of these asswhipes taking 5 minutes between every match of a BO5 for some jagoff to pat them on the shoulder and say IT'S OKAY BRUH YOU GOT BRUH THIS JUST STAY FOCUSED BRUH YOU'RE LOSING IN THE NEUTRAL BRUH JUST BE PATIENT BRUH. Hungrybox literally paid money to hire a fucking sports psychologist to coach him, it's ridiculous. Every major needs to start strictly enforcing the coaching rules that have recently started popping up, which are usually any or all of the following:
>ONE coach per player allowed on the stage at any given time
>a maximum of 60 between matches
>coaches get the fuck off the stage after their coaching period is over
>sometimes coaching is even banned once pools are over

>>a maximum of 60 between matches
*60 seconds

Coaching doesn't guarantee a win. Receiving coaching via cellphone is weird though.

I agree with this.
Yeah I don't care for it personally, but if they're going to do it their needs to be rules about it. You constantly have not just one but like 2 to 3 guys go up to the fighter and talk to him for minutes. That's fucking bullshit.
>1 coach
>1 minute in between rounds
>After the minute COACH NEEDS TO LEAVE THE FUCKING STAGE
There. But on a personal note I do hate it, it's supposed to be me and the opponent. If my opponent wasn't smart enough or good enough to study the fighters in the game that's on them fuck them.
It's stupid they can have someone run up and tell them "Oh that move he's doing is -2, punish it with your M kick into combo." Like fuck that, he should've known about that himself.

I think there shouldn't be coaching midset, once you start game 1 that's it until the set is over.

As expected of pissbabies.
Always finding something to complain about.

I think so too

Hmm, I agree with this.

Maybe Smash community should learn to bathe and use deodorant before properly trying to combat such "issues"

Pretty much this and then a limit on how long the coaching actually lasts, I've seen too many sets where they wait out the winners hot-streak to fuck with his flow so the losing party can mentally get an advantage. A lot of buzz-words there, but I can't think of how to put it otherwise.

ehh, real sports have them, be it a team sport, or one on one shit.
I honestly don't really see anything wrong with it, unless it's some retarded shit like Like it's fine, but don't be an ass and just plain out stand behind the opponent fucking with him

Deodorant is an item. Items are for scrubs.

I'm also against coaching in general because a player shouldn't just be the hands for many minds to be telling them what to do, but it's much harder to enforce. If someone's looking at their "notes" on a phone, how do we know they're not being texted by a friend? So in the meantime, the bare minimum should be immediately cutting down how much it disrupts tournaments and kills their opponents' momentum.

How exactly would you enforce this? What if the "coach" just sits offstage and yells advice to you.

Relevent
youtube.com/watch?v=G_x-SWVeCEQ

That's why you have people near the players that can stop that shit flat out. Penalties exist for a reason. Coach is standing a foot away coaching mid-match? Lose a round.

>It's a smashfag complains about a long established FGC concept episode

How come the fgc always has arguments about coaching but it has never been a problem in say, boxing for instance?

It shouldn't be allowed. Most of the justifications people have for it are retarded. "If we want to be taken seriously we need to have it" when all of the real sport comparisons you can make to Smash Bros either have coaching outright banned or it's up to the TO's discretion.

It benefits top players over randoms, though. So it will probably remain a rule.

What if the coach is yelling advice from a distance say from the crowd or something?

Same thing, designate who the coach is, if they make nonsense like that you take a round from their player. Its not fucking rocket science.

Does it really matter?

>he ain't my coach, he's just a fan who shows up to every one of my matches.

Coaching in team e-sports is fine imo.
In FGs? FUCKING RETARDED.

>How exactly would you enforce this? What if the "coach" just sits offstage and yells advice to you.

You can't do that, if your designated coach tries to shout out things to help you during play the player that coach is assigned to is disqualified. ZeRo should have been disqualified against Xzax had he not lost to him anyways because he was shouting things to him. Pierce also did the same thing in doubles against ANTi but he didn't enforce the rule, ZeRo/Nairo would have been disqualified.

I know, down-right retarded.

Smash autists continue to prove why they're a running joke

So what if a random person in the crowd is yelling advice? Do you still penalize them? What's to stop the coach from just getting a regular ticket and yelling from the crowd?

and that would be easy to identify numbnuts. Most events have a large gap between the players and the crowd. This strat would only work at locals and even then people would realize oh hey that fellow pro player is yelling at Fchamp every match.

Stop being retarded.

Not in Boxing.

e-sports is made up of whiny bitches that were nothing BUT whiny bitches trying to pretend they are something they ain't.

Underrated

>designated coach

So you can just get someone who isn't your designated coach to give you advice

If "coaches" should be banned from Smash, then why not ban spotters in racing, who give direct info to the racers through a headset? Why not ban coaches from boxing for telling their fighter that the opponent has a weak left jab? Why not ban an audience that could shout backseat gaming tips, or worse, hide a coach?
This is stupid, let them stay.

Yeah, easy to identify my ass. If some rando buys a legitimate ticket and shouts advice to everyone, how are you going to justify kicking him out (aside from a blanket rule of "audience members may not shout")?

Even if such people could be identified, that opens up an even worse problem. I will hire a man to shout advice at my opponents, getting them penalized.

THIS is the real problem with "coaching". You have an asshole being a distraction intentionally.

i thought these guys wore noise cancelling head phones during matches?

I think it's a problem with video games because they're rigid and solvable pieces of software. A coach can look at you losing, consult some documentation, and feed you a winning strategy. In fighting games for instance, a coach can look up frame data and tell you which of your character's normals are the most plus on block and what your opponent's fastest start-up normal is, which varies from character to character. Oh, your coach reminds you that your opponent's jab recently got nerfed from 3 frames of start-up to 4 frames in a recent patch or something? Well there you go, he's not going to be able to deal with such-and-such pressure. It just feels iffy to me. It should be the player's responsibility to know this stuff. Then you get something like which is just ridiculous. There needs to be rules.

I feel as if it's different than boxing because in boxing you don't have complete randoms fighting top prizefighters. You won't have an instance of someone who's paid a lot for an experienced coach fighting someone who might not even afford to have one.

Say like a top 10 player faces someone who isn't known to be top 10, but is perhaps top in his region and might reasonably have a shot against the top player. Except with coaching he has another thing aside from skill level to worry about, he might not be able to afford a good coach or even have one but the top player he's facing does. He has someone to go over there and help him notice things that the player isn't noticing.

Once again look at damn near every major even ever and realize how fucking difficult this would be to pull off when there is an average of 50-100 feet from the main stage and the crowd. If some asshat is going out of their way to yell at the players in such a manner they get kicked out, that simple.

Once again, not fucking rocket science.

Normally the FGC commentators are pretty good for calling out players shit and getting them to settle the fuck down.

What the fuck were they doing when that phone call in the middle of the match happened?

>Smash shitters need someone to tell them what to do
Kek baby game for fucking tards

You have to get a coach designated. I'd imagine if there are rules against trying to coach someone who you aren't designated to as well. Perhaps the person doing so is taken out of the building.

Remember that Smashfags are special snowflakes

In actual sports events there are rules governing what coaches can and can't do.

Lets take football for example can you really imagine, a coach running out onto the pitch when a free kick is about to be taken, stalling the game, making all the players move around and then having a phone conversation? Can you imagine that shit?

Sore losers always gotta come up with a term for something to excuse to the fact that they got rekt because they weren't giving it their A game

Video games are not solvable. Or to put it more precisely, using all the computing power in the world right now for the next thousand years you could not prove a game like Guilty Gear solvable.

just sounds like whiny bitches trying to chalk up their failure to anyone but themselves.

Having a someone else watch what you're doing and seeing what mistakes you made is a real great way to beat your opponent.

It's perfectly fine honestly.

>Competitive smash is slow enough that you can call a friend mid-match to get advice.

yup

>Competitive smash is deep enough that the tactical info gained through this call can make a difference.

now that's surprising

The tears are delicious, how long before you ban tutorial and combo videos?

No different than a boxing coach telling you he sees Mayweather's right side drooping a little bit, and telling you he got hit hard there in his last match (in between rounds).

In fact, in boxing, you can yell shit out during the match too, it just won't really be heard.

Would you tell your friends to "stop cheating" if you and your buddy were playing smash and they were yelling shit out like "wave dash wave dash!"

There is literally no difference. The only thing I'd say is designated coaches and a time limit for practicality's sake.

>boxing match
>coach tells me between rounds that every time my opponent throws his right hand he steps his front foot out first and he drops his left hand way low
>next round notice my opponent's front foot come forward
>sidestep his right
>counter with a right hook after he drops his left hand
>ko

How is this different from what you've described?

That's not an argument for banning coaches that's an argument for, like you said, making sure coaches stay within the "delay of game" guidelines that already exist.

Exceptions should be made for the smash community.
Maybe tournaments could hire some designated tard wranglers to coach the autists who attend them?

Going out into the field mid-game would be the equivalent of standing in front of the screen or hitting a player's controller. Standing behind your player is different. Standing by your player's opponent is just asking to get a smack to the face for space invasion.

>Lets take football for example can you really imagine, a coach running out onto the pitch when a free kick is about to be taken, stalling the game, making all the players move around and then having a phone conversation? Can you imagine that shit?
Everything besides running out on the pitch.

I think coaching between sets is fine but shit like where someone is shouting advice mid-match is a major distraction to everyone who isn't the player being coached.

Other than that, my only beef with coaching is that it perpetuates the cliquishness of the upper echelons of many games because the best players get expert advice and everyone else gets dick.

You couldn't be more wrong. You've explicitly said the opposite of what is true.

You'd have a lot of trouble enforcing that.

You really fucking wouldn't.
>Guy is yelling at people on stage a good 30 feet away
>Isn't the named Coach stated by the player before match
>Kicked out of the fucking building
So fucking hard to enforce man, how the fuck could they ever do it, its impossible!

Do you know what it takes to solve a simulation you fucking retard?

Games like Marvel or Guilty Gear or Starcraft are too complex to solve. It's literally impossible today. If it isn't, show me an example of a solved game. Show me the solution to Starcraft you fucking idiot. Being able to find little scenarios in a game and finding some optimal solution there IS NOT what solving a game means, you fucking idiot.

How is that different that people yelling during a boxing match, UFC match, football match, soccer match, basketball match, hockey match, etc.?

Literally all of which have between sets coaching as well.

Dealing with distraction is part of playing a sport. Only exception I see are turned based sports (golf, darts, chess, etc.)

>I think coaching between sets is fine but shit like where someone is shouting advice mid-match is a major distraction to everyone who isn't the player being coached.
Time to ban crowds then
It's never a distraction if the coach is telling your opponent to do something then use it to your advantage, bait the fucker to do what the coach is yelling and punish
Coaching mid match is just stupid for everyone involved

Who the fuck cares? It's fucking competitive Smash. Like the special olympics. Even if you win, you're still retarded.

that football coach and everyone else on the sideline could be yelling PASS or RUN to help the defense

If they are perfectly solvable then why does anyone ever lose?

I don't see how. If the person was actually trying to make it so the player he's trying to help hears him then he'll be heard by staff at the event too and then subsequently removed from the building.

>In fact, in boxing, you can yell shit out during the match too, it just won't really be heard.
It can definitely be heard 99% of the time. Only when the whole crowd is cheering can you not hear the coach yelling out to the guy. The point is that the coach doesn't have to yell everything he sees the whole match, just a couple little things to help his fighter along. It's not going to make sense for a coach to scream "Drop your defenses and hit him with a haymaker RIGHT NOW!" or "He's throwing a quick jab, duck it in the 0.1 seconds it takes for him to throw one of those!"

I feel that solvability is a spectrum. Something being safe or unsafe on block is mathematically solved no matter how you approach it. Player reactions can vary wildly, but it's generally scientifically understood that something under 6 frames will be unreactable by a human being with reaction times, execution, and input delay. This is info a player should know or adapt to on their own, instead of having someone look it up and feed it to them mid-match.

I think they should just have a cylindrical soundproof glass screen with a stereo in the top come down during matches. Once it goes down, it doesn't rise up until the set is over.

You really don't think someone screaming your next move into your ear is going to distract you?

>some guy in the crowd shouts "watch the down smash"
>ejected
>someone shouts "hit him"
>ejected
>crowd chants "defence"
>everyone ejected

If your coach is screaming at you, he's your coach, you hired him to do that. If the opponent's coach is yelling in your ear, push him over to his player.

as long as you have rules to actually enforce it (1 coach only, no phone calls, set time for coach advice between matches) I don't see the problem

>Crowd versus one person
Oh so you're retarded then like all smash players, good.

Are you seriously so stupid to think that a BOT is incapable of perfecting a human every time in a fighting game with modern computers?

This is basically what happens with CSGO matches. Last thing you want is the audience OOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHH FUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCCCK when you're being a sneaky sneak. I think in Smash though, they should make it airtight and not let them ever

>I have to stop playing mid-match to physically shove an opponent's coach away from me
>and this is totally fine

Yes, in certain scenarios certain things beat other things. The same is true in something like chess for example.

That does NOT mean that you solved it. That means in that scenario 4 beats 6. In a solved game you might actually lose certain trades to put yourself in an optimal scenario 1 minute later in the game.

You can hear them but you're not going to be distracting yourself by listening to their cues unless you have a good bit of distance between yourself and the fighter.

It's not like a coach can yell "duck in the third frame of his animation!" and have it matter at fucking all. You can't divide your attention like that.

We don't give a shit during boxing matches, why should we give a shit during FG matches? Obviously they shouldn't be on the stage during the round, but let's be real you'd push any "coach" out of your face if they WERE in your ear in that situation.

That is literally just not what it means to solve a computer game. You're uneducated about this subject and saying uneducated things.

If an audience member ran up to the stage, you'd shove him off the stage wouldnt you?

What about the first two examples?

Do you think that somehow has an implication on the definition of solving a game? Humans are irrelevant to the equation.

Sounds like cheating

>If an audience member ran up to the stage
That round would be scratched. If someone jump scares a bowler, it's a free rethrow in most league settings.

>Julio
>PR Balrog
>Smash players

Explain how bots are relevant to this discussion.

>have to expend your physical energy to shove some guy aside while your opponent has no such handicap.

Coaching is fine but should be regulated. Needs to be registered before the event begins, and coach support should only be available between sets. Stops bullshit taking calls and stops people from coaching just to get revenge for their loss. Coaching is useful but it comes off as shit because no tournament regulate.