This is the correct definition of competition. Anything else is INCORRECT. Period. Fin. Terminado.
The definition of "competitive" has NOTHING to DO with advanced techniques and exploits. Simply because people have yet to discover them in, oh, sht, a WEEK when Melee had 6 years to date, does NOT mean that Melee is more competitive than its sequel, Brawl.
I'm a Linguistics/English major. I also have taken 2 philosophy of language courses. I'm here to tell you you're just plain wrong.
Words have no meaning outside of those defined by a situation or condition. Words also change meaning based on a situation. For example, a Flush in poker is much different from flushing the toilet. Tapping has a completely different meaning in Magic than to lightly strike. Words can mean whatever you like, so long as you properly establish them.
Why does it need to be?
Why the hell do you need to poke and prod at Brawl to find some amazing techniques to make it faster?
Why?
Why is it so necessary for Brawl to be like Melee?
Once, again, you're making the blanket assumption that people who don't like Brawl are better at it than those who do like it. And as a correlation, the game requires less skill because, obviously, that's the only way they can't be winning consistently. You've backed up your claim of technical skill by stating what Melee required. You can't possibly prove, so early on, that Brawl doesn't have any technical skill (New, undiscovered, and/or different != None). You have not backed up your claim that these people are losing due to this lack of technical skill requirement.
This is the argument:
Brawl lacks many of the things which made melee competitive. Here's a list for you:
Mental Battles on Approach
Melee: Melee revolved around outsmarting your opponent on an approach, always by making them think you were going to do one thing (attacking, dashing, rolling), then doing another. The speed of the game, along with the variety of approach options (wavedashing, dashdancing,, triangle jumping, dash attacking, shffling, wavelanding, retreating, rolling, dodging) made this the single most competitive aspect of melee. You'll never see pros standing still in the game. Note that there are many, many more approach options beyond what I listed, especially when you get into character specifics.
Brawl: Brawl has very, very few approach options. Each one is incredibly predictable and easily punishable. You can dash, dash attack, aerial attack, air dodge, or roll. Each one is visible from a mile away. Because of this, approaching is no longer the most viable strategy. Rather, the best strategy is to sit across the stage and lob projectiles all match.
The difference:
There's no real way to be a mental step ahead of your opponent. If you play a fast character, you can easily predict an approach, and react accordingly. This does not mean Brawl is not competitive; rather, it means that it is
less competitive in this area due to more limitations.
Punishment
Melee: In Melee, the significance of the approach was directly linked to the significance of the punishment. Once you successfully approached, you needed to deal in as much punishment as possible. For Marth, this usually mean Fair combos. For Fox and Falco, this meant shine combos. The point is, the better player would have won the approach and been rewarded accordingly.
Brawl: In Brawl, the significance of the approach is entirely indirectly linked to punishment. Lower hitstun makes it impossible to truly punish someone after a successful approach; in fact, most moves will lead to the attacker being punished more. For example: Wario has the following attack approaches: Dash Attack, Dash-cancelled upsmash, Bike, sh dair, sh fair, sh bair. At low percentages, any character will be able to recover almost immediately from hitstun and knock the beans outta Wario, despite Wario having made a successful approach.
The Difference
In Melee, the approach was only half the game. Once you started the punishment, it took quite a bit of skill to keep it going. In Brawl, even if you don't get punished for your approach, any decent player will use the crazy DI to prevent you from getting a followup. So why even approach? Again, Brawl is limited here, because there's no risk-reward.
Tripping
Melee: Moot. Did not have tripping.
Brawl: Tripping is entirely restrictive. Say we discover good ways to punish people. If they involve dashing, there's automatically a chance that even the
best approach will fail.
The Difference
Tripping is entirely random. You claim to know how to trip; please share with the community. Extensive testing has shown that there is a 1% chance to trip on every dash animation.
Randomness is the bane of competitive smash. I've already listed two ways in which the risk outweighs the reward in Brawl's approach system; tripping is a third. Some people try to bring in different games as comparison... my favorite one so far has been Magic: the Gathering. Even in this seemingly random card game, the best players are the ones who minimize randomness. You'll see good players win consistently simply because they never fall victim to chance.
MAIN POINT
Brawl, right now, as a competitive game, does not allow for much more than camping and spamming. This is not a difficult strategy. Yes, some do it better than others... but let's say, for example, that I'm better than my friend at Brawl. I make better decisions, I play smarter, I play faster. However, since projectile spamming is incredibly easy, and I do not have a reliable method of approach, the skill gap is weakened. We are both at the same skill level, because we are both equally good at the dominant victory strategy--camping. The fundamentals which make games competitive do not exist--it's simply a question of who caves first in the projectile wars, and whether or not they get lucky with their approach. This is what it means for Brawl to be less competitive.[/quote]
