Griefing

Griefing is the act of intentionally ruining other players' experience with a game. Seen in almost all co-operative multiplayer games, it entails a variety of acts aimed at causing one's own team to lose or making the game not fun for opponents.

Griefing in the Super Smash Bros. series generally consists of:

• Self-destructing repeatedly and using share stocks to deprive others on the team of their stocks.
• Constant use of self-damaging moves such as many explosives simply to damage teammates.
• With team attack on, trying to KO teammates.
• Simply being useless, e.g. not taking any actions or doing nothing but taunting.
• Choosing an abnormally large stage such as Temple in combination with a fast moving character such as Sonic or Fox to constantly and safely run away from the opponent.
• Repeatedly using Pokémon Change with the Pokémon Trainer in online play to lag the game.
• Ganging up on a player in a free for all, especially if one player specifically uses ineffective moves (such as Water Gun) to just annoy the victim and distract them from the other players.
• Causing a taunt match and enforcing it by ganging up on any player trying to have a serious match.
• Abusing tactics that cause a specific combatant to avoid taking damage, such as the Infinite Dimensional Cape with Meta Knight or shell hopping with Falco.
• Employing hacks to desynchronize online participants or play as an invincible character such as Giga Bowser or Wario-Man.
• Changing the player name tag to something insulting or otherwise offensive, and optionally proceeding to play using the new name (Wii U version only).

Griefing was especially common in Basic Brawl, as the combination of anonymity, complete lack of control over the match rules, free for alls being mandatory, and no restriction over stage and item selection, created conditions unfavorable for serious matches and ripe for griefers to abuse. This is one of the main criticisms players had of Basic Brawl, as many found it unenjoyable for those choosing not to resort to griefing themselves.

Unlike Brawl's wi-fi mode, which was entirely unmoderated, the one in SSB4 allows the reporting of griefers, which can result in them being banned from playing online.