Scar on the Melee vs Brawl debate: What does competitive really mean?

Papapaint · Mar 19, 2008

FredTHAreD said:
Personally, this feels a lot like the Halo to the Halo 2 and 3 transitions. Hardcore Halo fans love Halo, but typically hat Halo 2 and 3 because of the changes made in gameplay. I think the biggest problem here, is that you guys wanted a the same old Melee, with new characters.

I'm sick of seeing this example, as it's simply blatantly false.

Hardcore Halo fans--that is to say, those who play Halo for money--have welcomed the new games with open arms, particularly Halo 3. Bungie made H3 FOR the competitive crowd, and they work very closely with MLG players to ensure the game is balanced.

BlackPanther · Mar 19, 2008

Pink Reaper said:
Don't bother man. No matter how many times someone points this out, no one will ever accept it as n00bs would have to stop crying about "glitches" if they did.

Lol I know but I'd figure I'd make a somewhat intelligent post about wavedash and glitching. And that way if anyone argues with it then they are truly an idiot.

ham-tomato · Mar 19, 2008

Such a fierce, if ultimately trivial debate, I must partake.

I loved melee, I really did, but at times it got a tad predictable. These moves combo at these percents, this move kill at this percent. It seems to me that the players who mastered melee seemed to become masters of repetition. Since the engine was predictable you got predictability in character selection, play styles, and tactics. I am not claiming that these players lacked skill, in fact I think to be a top melee players requires disgusting dexterity. But melee tended not to challenge players in their adaptability or versatility.

I am fairly sure Nintendo's goal with Brawl was to provide more organic gameplay. Things like tripping and the reduced stun time are all designed to hinder what made top melee players so skilled and I think it is only natural that so many melee players feel angry about this. After all they spent days learning how to perfectly to reflector stun, wavedash, reflector stun, etc.

Instead Nintendo is encouraging new skills in players. First and foremost is memory. You now not only need to consciously remember what moves you have used but what moves your opponent used and factor this into your current tactics. The game as gained a stronger cerebral component and has a reduced autonomic element.

But as of yet people have yet to realize that a game can be deep in other ways besides have complex 'techniques'. The absurd amount of posts about this new move and that new move seem to demonstrate people are still stuck in this mind set.

MichelFalcaut · Mar 19, 2008

ham-tomato said:
Such a fierce, if ultimately trivial debate, I must partake.

I loved melee, I really did, but at times it got a tad predictable. These moves combo at these percents, this move kill at this percent. It seems to me that the players who mastered melee seemed to become masters of repetition. Since the engine was predictable you got predictability in character selection, play styles, and tactics. I am not claiming that these players lacked skill, in fact I think to be a top melee players requires disgusting dexterity. But melee tended not to challenge players in their adaptability or versatility.

I am fairly sure Nintendo's goal with Brawl was to provide more organic gameplay. Things like tripping and the reduced stun time are all designed to hinder what made top melee players so skilled and I think it is only natural that so many melee players feel angry about this. After all they spent days learning how to perfectly to reflector stun, wavedash, reflector stun, etc.

Instead Nintendo is encouraging new skills in players. First and foremost is memory. You now not only need to consciously remember what moves you have used but what moves your opponent used and factor this into your current tactics. The game as gained a stronger cerebral component and has a reduced autonomic element.

With that, I would like to direct our readers' attention to Marvel Vs. Capcom :laugh:

spindash · Mar 19, 2008

ham-tomato said:
Such a fierce, if ultimately trivial debate, I must partake.

I loved melee, I really did, but at times it got a tad predictable. These moves combo at these percents, this move kill at this percent. It seems to me that the players who mastered melee seemed to become masters of repetition. Since the engine was predictable you got predictability in character selection, play styles, and tactics. I am not claiming that these players lacked skill, in fact I think to be a top melee players requires disgusting dexterity. But melee tended not to challenge players in their adaptability or versatility.

I am fairly sure Nintendo's goal with Brawl was to provide more organic gameplay. Things like tripping and the reduced stun time are all designed to hinder what made top melee players so skilled and I think it is only natural that so many melee players feel angry about this. After all they spent days learning how to perfectly to reflector stun, wavedash, reflector stun, etc.

Instead Nintendo is encouraging new skills in players. First and foremost is memory. You now not only need to consciously remember what moves you have used but what moves your opponent used and factor this into your current tactics. The game as gained a stronger cerebral component and has a reduced autonomic element.

But as of yet people have yet to realize that a game can be deep in other ways besides have complex 'techniques'. The absurd amount of posts about this new move and that new move seem to demonstrate people are still stuck in this mind set.

And Alberta strikes again! *high five*

The thing is, it is true that the new elements in Brawl, such as memory, remembering what moves you did, factoring them into current tactics, and all the other fancy dancy words you put in (you're 100% right though) have the potential to be explored further in Brawl then they were in Melee.

The problem with some people though is that despite the new front of strategies and things to explore for Brawl, as a competitive game anew. Do people even want to move on and try these methods over other tried-and-true formulas that have been in Melee? I wish I could say that a lot of people do want to give it a shot and put their heart and soul into it. But it's hard for some with the mindset of Melee and the legacy that's been established for seven long years to suddenly get a complete and total makeover with Brawl in our grasp.

That being said, I'm a Brawl supporter and will gladly accept the new style of play that needs to be implemented while playing Brawl. I have a LOT of fun and I have a feeling that once the game has settled in for a longer period of time and more people have gotten around to playing locally with others (not to say this is already happening, I'm not overlooking this) a lot more often then before, it'll get more fun, and there will be laughs all around. New strategies will form. In my mind, the development team catered to casual gameplay more.

However, they catered more to casual gameplay in Melee, and in 64 before it too. They weren't keeping the competitive aspect of the game in mind (competition to them, in my opinion, is still some multiman fights with items on and in their mind, "GETTING SERIOUS! Let's do this! I shall defeat you, Bowser!!!!"). And look what happened. LOOK at what we have been finding over the years, as a community who could make a competitive game happen if we tried hard enough. Look what we've made the Smash series into! Something competitive. Something exciting. Something absolutely intense. We as the community cater to the Smash Bros. games for TRUE competition and the mindset for it.

I disagree with tripping, but hey, I'm not the pickiest guy in the world either.

In my mind, Brawl's looking brighter then ever. We're getting some developments in tactics and mindgames already. Squirtle's unique shellshifting, the ability to practically super wavedash across the entire stage of Final Destination into an Up Smash with Squirtle, the methods of spacing air attacks while moving backwards, thus avoiding the punishment from shieldgrabbers and shield jabbing, auto cancelling, Dedede's chaingrabbing, and people can still pull off those precious Ken Combos that feel oh-so-good~ To name a few that have been created. Why have we been finding these tactics that are improving how we play?

Because we're a community who wants the best out of our competitive Smash Bros. games. Because we WANT to find new things to play with. This is why we have been discovering new things everyday! Even if some of us may have our doubts.

People, we're MAKING it happen, it's beautiful. But some of us haven't begun to open our eyes to what will happen! Yes, the tactics that gave Melee speed and Captain Falcon's nifty ability to wavedash off that platform on Yoshi's Story into a well timed Knee for the epic win are gone, but what Brawl left behind it's beginning to usher in new nooks and cranies that are just waiting to be discovered. Some of us try too hard, some of us think in the Melee mindset, and some of just don't think hard enough. It's not an entirely new game. But it's an entirely new beginning as we work and give off that attitude of wanting to make it happen.

We wanted to make Melee happen and look what we've accomplished and established for seven years. I want to make Brawl happen! So then I can look back at what we have all accomplished after seven long years!

It's a matter of if you guys want to make Brawl happen. Open your eyes. The journey with Melee isn't over if you don't want it to be. But now's our chance to give Super Smash Bros. Brawl an opportunity to walk the path.

Let the game march, I say.

DRaGZ · Mar 19, 2008

I feel like this argument has run its course.

I mean, literally, there is no more ground to cover. We've covered the entire gamut of reasoning with nearly the entire gamut of stupidity/intelligence and maturity/rage. I think we're done here.

Wiseguy · Mar 19, 2008

Scar said:
Post fixed, also how many times have we seen this argument? NO ONE IS DEBATING THIS! We all realize this and no one is trying to say that ANY SKILL whatsoever translates from Melee to Brawl. Please get this through your head.

The post I was adressing basically boiled down to. "So-and-so was so great at Melee, yet this superior players doesn't win as often as they should in Brawl - hense Brawl is not a measurement of skill."

Maybe I just keep misunderstanding people. But I still say the

Scar said:
Also, the notion that head-to-head matchups is the best way to figure out who is a better player is flat out ridiculous, especially in a game like Smash. In Melee character matchups have blatantly let less-skilled players consistently beat players with more overall skill, just because the lesser has more experience with the matchup/plays Sheik vs a Bowser.

A head to head matchup (particularily in a less than balanced game like Melee) is an imperfect way to guage skill. But I would argue it is the best way, or at least the least poor way, of determining skill.

Furthermore, most would argue that while character choice gives advantages to certain players over others, greater skill trumps all. (Gimpyfish says hi.)

Scar said:
Just because I might be able to beat M2K's Marth 50% of the time doesn't mean that we are equal in skill.

Selecting a character you can't win with is as much a strategic error as taunting in the path of a Falcon Punch. Neither are advisible if you want to triumph in a measurement of skill.

BigRick · Mar 19, 2008

Scar said:
This is not the conversation we're having. We're talking about broad flaws in game mechanics. You can't say "some characters have follow ups," there should be a way for each and every character to punish the hell out of a player who just used a stupid move right in front of you. There simply isn't.

Specific solutions to broad problems are not solutions.

No, I really think they can be... each time you find a new effective tactic, you add to the metagame.

Right now Brawl's game engine currently promotes camping and projectile zoning.

Finding effective counters to these tactics, even though they're matchups specific, will improve the depth of certain matchups.

Like in every other fighting game, the characters that doesn't have effective options will end up being lower on the tier list and the competitive game will revolve more often around the ''deeper'' character matchups, which are the matchups between the stronger characters, those that have options.

In melee, what matchup was more exciting to play and had more depth? Marth vs Fox or Bowser vs Kirby? The competitiveness of the game was anchored around the more higher tiered matchups.

In the end, it's a good thing to take account of some specific things that certain characters can do, because it will also inspire players of other characters to try and develop similar effective strategies.

distr0ia · Mar 19, 2008

in the end, I think Brawl requires more application of strategy and on-the-spot thinking, as opposed to abusing the same tired, yet brokenly effective techniques over and over again and that's whats driving the Melee pros crazy

Scar · Mar 19, 2008

idk Distr0ia and ham-tomato have the exact same point and unfortunately while it may seem true to them it simply isn't. It is, in fact, their opinion on a game they fundamentally do not understand. ham-tomato is somewhat correct, while Distr0ia is completely wrong. It can be argued, probably correctly, that Melee involves way more on-the-spot thinking.

It's pretty easy to demonstrate that Melee offers more options and gives you less time to choose between them. How it can be argued, then, that Brawl requires more on-the-spot thinking is beyond me. Also the notion that spamming reliable tactics mindlessly can win matches is disgusting. People have tried that, they get ***** by anyone who has even a somewhat analytical mind. Players can win without thinking in Melee when they've already thought about their tactics, know when and why they're doing them, and have done them enough times that it has become reflex.

Give Brawl time and you'll see that too, but to a lesser degree since a player can't stay on offense that long.

My least favorite part about this thread is hearing people's opinion on Melee when they do not fully understand it as a game. It hurts my eyes and ears, and also my heart. It hurts me to know that these players, who gave up on the game simply because they feel that they cannot win, are enjoying Brawl.

Some people legitimately enjoy the game of SSBB more. Some people don't want a hyper-competitive game, and that's understandable and to be expected. But I see people who, without even realizing it, are trying to argue that Brawl is just as competitive as Melee and use their close matches with people they think are good at the game to prove something to themselves. This denial hurts me.

More on point, "Brawl tests memory"... well, I do see that, and that's something valuable to be tested... but the simple truth is that this test of memory does not make up for everything lost. Most importantly, it doesn't make up for the lack of punishment Brawl allows for.

Also, as a side note, it doesn't matter how good or bad your memory is so long as you can reset all the knockback deterioration by spamming a few projectiles. Projectile spamming was already hailed as "too good," and of course we already think it's gay and boring.

Also it's going to look like the same game when you have people that don't use their killmove until the appropriate %, and I really don't see what's wrong with that. Top players should know the knockback and kill potential of their moves at different %s, I don't see why you think that leads to repetitiveness.

It'll be interesting to see Brawl players intentionally not use the best move for the situation because they're saving its "fresh" knockback. But this isn't solving all of Brawl's problems.

BigRick said:
No, I really think they can be... each time you find a new effective tactic, you add to the metagame.

Right now Brawl's game engine currently promotes camping and projectile zoning.

Finding effective counters to these tactics, even though they're matchups specific, will improve the depth of certain matchups.

Yes, I completely agree. It adds to things, but it doesn't solve the problem I am presenting. If I say that Pit can sit on the other end of the stage and arrow VERY EFFECTIVELY and that this takes VERY LITTLE SKILL, you can't just say "Well Fox can sit in shine." This is not a solution to my problem, it's just one part of it.

Good for Fox, but there is still a problem for the majority of Brawl's cast. A problem in the face of a tactic that takes no skill to perform? This is why a tech skill learning curve in games is valuable.

Cactuar · Mar 19, 2008

ham-tomato said:
Instead Nintendo is encouraging new skills in players. First and foremost is memory. You now not only need to consciously remember what moves you have used but what moves your opponent used and factor this into your current tactics. The game as gained a stronger cerebral component and has a reduced autonomic element.

But as of yet people have yet to realize that a game can be deep in other ways besides have complex 'techniques'. The absurd amount of posts about this new move and that new move seem to demonstrate people are still stuck in this mind set.

I have commented on the issue of how the removal of techniques is not that important already. There is no point to make there as none of the people who are caught up with that loss are part of the high level melee community. The reason that we exist at the top of the mountain of players in the community is our ability to adapt, not our ability to spam melee techs. Pretty much every player who is recognized as being better than others right now in brawl is/was a high level melee player. A lot of people have made the argument that we are stuck in the melee mindset, but realistically, the same concepts apply to both games once you get past the removed elements.

I feel that your point on "memory" is not as strong as you think. Most characters can be simplified to very basic strats. These strats involve spamming 1-2 moves that give you decent priority while camping a point on the stage, then using stronger moves to punish an opponent for approaching you. There is no memory of moves used involved in this.

Let me give you an example using both of my current characters, Marth and MK.

Marth:
I spam fair and uair while approaching and retreating.

If a person runs under me and shields, in an attempt to shield grab, I can predict whether or not their shield grab range will be able to compensate for the remaining amount of DI I have while aerial before landing, and from this decide if I want to DI close to their shield and late fair into upb, or if I should float back and tipper fair their shield, following with a punishment because they will try to grab, or given that my opponent is smart, wait for them to do anything because they messed up by trapping themselves in their shield vs a smart player.

If the person approaches me while I'm on the ground, they will generally either dash attack in, upsmash when close, run grab, or shield -> dodge roll or shield grab. Now covering these options, we see me. Standing still. Because they are making the mistake of approaching. If they attempt to dash attack, I grab and outprioritize or shield after the attack starts and punish with either upb from shield or a shield grab. If they try to grab, they will generally begin later than a dash attack and can be predicted, and they will be punished. If they upsmash from run, I will likely have already shielded with the same response as predicting the dash attack. If they run in and shield, I can either expect them to spot dodge from the run and spam forward b combo to cover invincibility frames or just be patient and punish them.

Metaknight:

I do the exact same thing, only I spam nb to frustrate players between waiting for them to attack. A little more reliance on using upb or nair from shield to finish opponents, but the upb and nair stays at full strength because I spam fairs and uairs while not attacking.

You don't have to remember what moves you or your opponent used. Camping and spamming has become such an integral part of the high level metagame that we don't really care about attack derioration, as everything is just an effort to make your opponent approach you, where just about every character is weak in approaching through spam. Characters that are strong in approaching are going to be significantly higher on the tier list simply because they can deal with it. If you do end up losing a significant amount of attack power in any move, you just go back to camping projectiles and the deterioration resets.

The biggest problem with brawl is that the mechanisms in the game that brawl supporters tend to give examples of when looking for "depth", don't really contribute to the argument. Attack power deterioration only matters to people that don't understand how easy it is to run away and spam aerials that have no lag until their KO power on an easily baited move (upb out of shield, run into instant upsmash, upsmash out of shield, etc) is returned. This takes a few seconds at most, and can be done in between hitting an opponent with any of those moves as they will be taking a significant amount of time floating back down to the stage.

I intend to make a thread about the evolution of the "combo" game, which is where the only actual depth in this game will be found.

Wiseguy · Mar 19, 2008

Scar said:
My least favorite part about this thread is hearing people's opinion on Melee when they do not fully understand it as a game. It hurts my eyes and ears, and also my heart. It hurts me to know that these players, who gave up on the game simply because they feel that they cannot win, are enjoying Brawl.

Really? It annoys you to see people enjoying themselves? Sounds like that's your problem.

Scar said:
Some people legitimately enjoy the game of SSBB more. Some people don't want a hyper-competitive game, and that's understandable and to be expected. But I see people who, without even realizing it, are trying to argue that Brawl is just as competitive as Melee and use their close matches with people they think are good at the game to prove something to themselves. This denial hurts me.

Some of us don't accept that a game that simply rewards different skills and strategies can be categorically labeled as inferior as far as competitiveness is concerned. Especially this soon. Sorry if that offends you.

Scar said:
More on point, "Brawl tests memory"... well, I do see that, and that's something valuable to be tested... but the simple truth is that this test of memory does not make up for everything lost. Most importantly, it doesn't make up for the lack of punishment Brawl allows for.

Also, as a side note, it doesn't matter how good or bad your memory is so long as you can reset all the knockback deterioration by spamming a few projectiles. Projectile spamming was already hailed as "too good," and of course we already think it's gay and boring.

Speaking for yourself, rather than everyone, is usually the best course of action. Many consider defensive techniques like using projectiles to be perfectly viable.

Scar said:
Also it's going to look like the same game when you have people that don't use their killmove until the appropriate %, and I really don't see what's wrong with that. Top players should know the knockback and kill potential of their moves at different %s, I don't see why you think that leads to repetitiveness.

It'll be interesting to see Brawl players intentionally not use the best move for the situation because they're saving its "fresh" knockback. But this isn't solving all of Brawl's problems.

They are only "problems" if you prefered the more traditional gameplay of Melee. Some do, and there's nothing wrong with that. But the vast majority of Smashers prefer Brawl. Sounds like a success to me.

Scar · Mar 19, 2008

FaceLoran said:
The only way to tell if a player is better is if they consistently do better against similar-level competition on a very wide range and sample size to kill variance.

Wiseguy said:
A head to head matchup (particularily in a less than balanced game like Melee) is an imperfect way to guage skill. But I would argue it is the best way, or at least the least poor way, of determining skill.

For you to argue that in the face of the above quote is suicide. You are flat out wrong, FaceLoran is absolutely on point. In a less balanced game it's a miserable way to gauge relative skill, because of character matchups. Hi to your next quote...

Wiseguy said:
Furthermore, most would argue that while character choice gives advantages to certain players over others, greater skill trumps all. (Gimpyfish says hi.)

If they had any idea what they're talking about, they wouldn't argue this. People with good character matchups have a head start. If the skill gap is big enough to cover how bad the matchup is, the better player will win consistently. If the skill gap is not that large, the better player will lose. I'm sure Gimpy has lost to players he is clearly better than simply because of character matchup, though he's too classy to blame it on that.

This is fine, because the better player will consistently place better in tournaments, even though he will lose head-to-head. That's the thing with fighting games and imbalance.

Wiseguy said:
Selecting a character you can't win with is as much a strategic error as taunting in the path of a Falcon Punch. Neither are advisible if you want to triumph in a measurement of skill.

Yes, I agree. But everyone chooses the character they believe will maximize their chance of winning. If that just so happens to be a character that's blatantly countered by the opponent's choice, then so be it. There is no strategic error here.

I understand that this is simply an oversight, but you're dangerously close to having posted something that you're bull****ting, and me calling you on it saying that you're flat out wrong. I fear I've had to do this far too many times.

I haven't read your most recent post, but I have little hope for it.

Scar · Mar 19, 2008

Wiseguy said:
Really? It annoys you to see people enjoying themselves? Sounds like that's your problem.

Absurd, not at all responding to my quote, a terrible input. Clearly missing what I'm saying in the first place. This...

OddCrow said:
OR learn how to program and make a game sooooooo fundamentally broken you can play and DOMINATE for YEARS!!!!

This is what Melee looks like to someone who has no idea what the game is about. This is what hurts me.

Wiseguy said:
Some of us don't accept that a game that simply rewards different skills and strategies can be categorically labeled as inferior as far as competitiveness is concerned. Especially this soon. Sorry if that offends you.

I have already explained, ad nauseam, that the skills set tested is much smaller and less deep. It rewards strategies but typically the same ones, i.e. projectile camping and camping in general. Also, that which was added does not make up for that which has been taken away. I'm not saying that advanced techs were taken away, cry cry. I have never said that. I am and have been talking mostly about push-and-pull vs punishment. Ad nauseam.

Missing the point or ignoring my posts and everyone else's.

Wiseguy said:
Speaking for yourself, rather than everyone, is usually the best course of action. Many consider defensive techniques like using projectiles to be perfectly viable.

Missing/ignoring the point.

Wiseguy said:
They are only "problems" if you prefered the more traditional gameplay of Melee. Some do, and there's nothing wrong with that. But the vast majority of Smashers prefer Brawl. Sounds like a success to me.

thx for speaking for yourself, everyone else prefers Brawl, I'm glad you're an authority. Missing/ignoring the point. No one is debating whether the game is a success or not. This whole post fails.

WALL OF SHAME.

Plairnkk · Mar 19, 2008

Cactuar said:
I have commented on the issue of how the removal of techniques is not that important already. There is no point to make there as none of the people who are caught up with that loss are part of the high level melee community. The reason that we exist at the top of the mountain of players in the community is our ability to adapt, not our ability to spam melee techs. Pretty much every player who is recognized as being better than others right now in brawl is/was a high level melee player. A lot of people have made the argument that we are stuck in the melee mindset, but realistically, the same concepts apply to both games once you get past the removed elements.

I feel that your point on "memory" is not as strong as you think. Most characters can be simplified to very basic strats. These strats involve spamming 1-2 moves that give you decent priority while camping a point on the stage, then using stronger moves to punish an opponent for approaching you. There is no memory of moves used involved in this.

Let me give you an example using both of my current characters, Marth and MK.

Marth:
I spam fair and uair while approaching and retreating.

If a person runs under me and shields, in an attempt to shield grab, I can predict whether or not their shield grab range will be able to compensate for the remaining amount of DI I have while aerial before landing, and from this decide if I want to DI close to their shield and late fair into upb, or if I should float back and tipper fair their shield, following with a punishment because they will try to grab, or given that my opponent is smart, wait for them to do anything because they messed up by trapping themselves in their shield vs a smart player.

If the person approaches me while I'm on the ground, they will generally either dash attack in, upsmash when close, run grab, or shield -> dodge roll or shield grab. Now covering these options, we see me. Standing still. Because they are making the mistake of approaching. If they attempt to dash attack, I grab and outprioritize or shield after the attack starts and punish with either upb from shield or a shield grab. If they try to grab, they will generally begin later than a dash attack and can be predicted, and they will be punished. If they upsmash from run, I will likely have already shielded with the same response as predicting the dash attack. If they run in and shield, I can either expect them to spot dodge from the run and spam forward b combo to cover invincibility frames or just be patient and punish them.

Metaknight:

I do the exact same thing, only I spam nb to frustrate players between waiting for them to attack. A little more reliance on using upb or nair from shield to finish opponents, but the upb and nair stays at full strength because I spam fairs and uairs while not attacking.

You don't have to remember what moves you or your opponent used. Camping and spamming has become such an integral part of the high level metagame that we don't really care about attack derioration, as everything is just an effort to make your opponent approach you, where just about every character is weak in approaching through spam. Characters that are strong in approaching are going to be significantly higher on the tier list simply because they can deal with it. If you do end up losing a significant amount of attack power in any move, you just go back to camping projectiles and the deterioration resets.

The biggest problem with brawl is that the mechanisms in the game that brawl supporters tend to give examples of when looking for "depth", don't really contribute to the argument. Attack power deterioration only matters to people that don't understand how easy it is to run away and spam aerials that have no lag until their KO power on an easily baited move (upb out of shield, run into instant upsmash, upsmash out of shield, etc) is returned. This takes a few seconds at most, and can be done in between hitting an opponent with any of those moves as they will be taking a significant amount of time floating back down to the stage.

I intend to make a thread about the evolution of the "combo" game, which is where the only actual depth in this game will be found.

agreed 200%, wherein lies my main issue with the game.

i could write the same EXACT thing cactaur wrote about my fox (who i main).

i camp, shoot lasers to make my kill moves strong again, then kill people with drill-->usmash or drill-->dsmash.

all that brawl does is promote camping. The approacher should always lose.

Scar · Mar 19, 2008

LavisFiend said:
Then you throw a temper tantrum whenever you hear someone tell you to just play Melee. You then retort with "I LIKE THE GAME BUT IT WILL NEVER BE COMPETITIVE LIKE MELEE IS WHAT I SAYIN" which is just another way of saying " I WANT TO GET A RISE OUT OF PEOPLE FOR NO PARTICULAR REASON AND TRY TO PROVE A POINT THAT NO ONE WISHES TO AGREE WITH BECAUSE I AM A DRAMA QUEEN."

Sure people will take sides, it's normal, but it dosen't mean jack that both sides are arguing on either side of a ditch, and that not a single side is smart enough to get their head out of their *** and find a bridge to connect both sides.

You deserve to be on the Wall for this post. I understand that you have strong feelings on the matter and believe that there is no progress to be made, and I clearly see that you think that me even saying that is just me hiding behind something and trying to be a drama queen.

But you could not be more wrong. Also, this input is garbage to the conversation at hand. If you truly think that debating is pointless then you really shouldn't be trying to convince us to stop talking and play Smash, which we all are doing anyways by assumption. We wouldn't be on Smashboards if we didn't, I played 6 hours of sacred Melee yesterday and it was awesome.

idk This post was such garbage. If you don't like what you see, don't partake in it. Telling others that what they're doing is worthless is a very upsetting thing to everyone you're talking to.

Lixivium · Mar 19, 2008

Do people honestly factor damage deterioration into their Brawl strategies? I can honestly say it has never made any difference whatsoever in my gameplay, nor do I predict that it will. Why? Damage deterioration does not change the priority and value of any move in APPROACH (what happens before you connect), and the approach is SO VASTLY more important than the EFFECT (what happens after you connect). If anything, damage deterioration just makes any particular move less suitable for followup, further tilting the balance towards approach. I hate to break this to you guys, but Cactuar is right, there is no strategy to be had with damage deterioration other than spamming a few highly effective moves to reset it.

Paranoid_Android · Mar 19, 2008

Knowing only what I know now, I agree with the original poster. However, there is plenty of room for depth to be found within the game, and thus more room for the competitiveness that you define. Players are just beginning to gain mastery over their favorite characters, if you could call it that. The game may never be as good a competitive game as Melee (I'm looking at you, tripping), but it has yet to flourish. Time will tell. Regardless of its competitiveness, I really needed a breath of fresh air: you can't play Street Fighter 2 forever (oh wait yes you can lulz).

Plairnkk · Mar 19, 2008

Lixivium said:
Do people honestly factor damage deterioration into their Brawl strategies? I can honestly say it has never made any difference whatsoever in my gameplay, nor do I predict that it will. Why? Damage deterioration does not change the priority and value of any move in APPROACH (what happens before you connect), and the approach is SO VASTLY more important than the EFFECT (what happens after you connect). If anything, damage deterioration just makes any particular move less suitable for followup, further tilting the balance towards approach. I hate to break this to you guys, but Cactuar is right, there is no strategy to be had with damage deterioration other than spamming a few highly effective moves to reset it.

damage deterioration is a huge part of competitive play. being sure your kill moves are always fresh is vital.

not to say that it's difficult to do, it's jsut huge. If you don't pay attention to it you'll have a hard time competing.

Wiseguy · Mar 19, 2008

Scar said:
For you to argue that in the face of the above quote is suicide. You are flat out wrong, FaceLoran is absolutely on point. In a less balanced game it's a miserable way to gauge relative skill, because of character matchups. Hi to your next quote...

Since everyone can choose whichever character they wish, does strategic character selection play into a person's skill?

Regardless, looking back on FaceLoran's post I agree with what he's saying. The more individual matches you have to work with, the better guage of skill you have. I know individual matchups can yeild flukes.

(And if I sound argumentative, I apologize.

)

Scar said:
If they had any idea what they're talking about, they wouldn't argue this. People with good character matchups have a head start. If the skill gap is big enough to cover how bad the matchup is, the better player will win consistently. If the skill gap is not that large, the better player will lose. I'm sure Gimpy has lost to players he is clearly better than simply because of character matchup, though he's too classy to blame it on that.

This is fine, because the better player will consistently place better in tournaments, even though he will lose head-to-head. That's the thing with fighting games and imbalance.

Lots of people willingly impose handicaps on themselves by choosing characters that place them at a disadvantage. It seems to me that whether its a good call strategically depends on whether they have the skill to back it up. If they don't, then they still know what they are getting into.

Scar said:
Yes, I agree. But everyone chooses the character they believe will maximize their chance of winning. If that just so happens to be a character that's blatantly countered by the opponent's choice, then so be it. There is no strategic error here.

At the touraments I've attended (granted, they might be pretty informal by your standards) players could choose whichever character they wished and change their mind until they were both happy with the matchup. Maybe that's not the "official" way to do it, but in my experience going into a match against an opponent that "blattantly counters" your character of choice would be a strategic error.

Scar said:
I understand that this is simply an oversight, but you're dangerously close to having posted something that you're bull****ting, and me calling you on it saying that you're flat out wrong. I fear I've had to do this far too many times.

I haven't read your most recent post, but I have little hope for it.

I'm human. I make mistakes. Sometimes my arguments turn out to be wrong. Discourse is how people learn.

If you know I'm wrong, you can point out why. Or ignore it. It's up to you. This is a free... message board.

Wiseguy · Mar 19, 2008

Drat. Sorry.

Papapaint · Mar 19, 2008

Wiseguy said:
At the touraments I've attended (granted, they might be pretty informal by your standards) players could choose whichever character they wished and change their mind until they were both happy with the matchup. Maybe that's not the "official" way to do it, but in my experience going into a match against an opponent that "blattantly counters" your character of choice would be a strategic error.

Standard rules dictate the the loser picks the level, then the winner picks their character, then the loser picks their character.

BigRick · Mar 19, 2008

Very good post Cactuar.

Scar said:
Yes, I completely agree. It adds to things, but it doesn't solve the problem I am presenting. If I say that Pit can sit on the other end of the stage and arrow VERY EFFECTIVELY and that this takes VERY LITTLE SKILL, you can't just say "Well Fox can sit in shine." This is not a solution to my problem, it's just one part of it.

Good for Fox, but there is still a problem for the majority of Brawl's cast. A problem in the face of a tactic that takes no skill to perform? This is why a tech skill learning curve in games is valuable.

This is character imbalance, I think that the answer to this was covered later in my previous post:

Like in every other fighting game, the characters that doesn't have effective options will end up being lower on the tier list and the competitive game will revolve more often around the ''deeper'' character matchups, which are the matchups between the stronger characters, those that have options.

The only characters worth using against Pit will be those that have solutions to his no skill tactic. In these specific matchups, Pit won't be able to dominate with his no skill tactic and he will have to implement a slightly more complicated gameplan... increasing the depth of the game.

You can kinda apply this to cactuar's post... yes the strategies listed for Marth and MK are very effective, however this becomes harder to implement against a character like Toon Link that has a near-broken zoning game.

Take a look at MvC2, the game is considered very competitive, not only technically but also tactically... because the uber broken tactics use by top/high tier characters are very counterable by other top/hier tier characters. The depth exists at the top, not the bottom.

Scar · Mar 19, 2008

BigRick said:
The only characters worth using against Pit will be those that have solutions to his no skill tactic. In these specific matchups, Pit won't be able to dominate with his no skill tactic and he will have to implement a slightly more complicated gameplan... increasing the depth of the game.

I know but like idk this could just be me refusing to let go, but... I play CF. Bum plays DK. HugS plays Samus, Pakman plays Luigi... these players all have very little if not zero character variety in tournament play. That's because with dedication every character can actually compete vs almost every character, there are very few suicide matchups. Most of them are vs. Sheik.

We can all beat mediocre Sheik players, I guess the difference is that Brawl's top level translates into "mediocre Sheik". Only a few players can actually shut me down with Sheik, it takes skill and knowledge. Pit takes a functional B Button.

jwj442 · Mar 19, 2008

I see some people talk about how the easier powershielding makes camping better. But doesn't it also help against projectile spammers? It doesn't reflect any more, but it does allow you to drop your shield almost instantly and the timing is easier now. I'd think that if someone were good at it, they could dash towards a spamming Pit powershielding the arrows and hardly break their stride. I don't have the dexterity to do this consistently (I had to slow down the speed in training to pull it off), but I'm sure some people do.

Wiseguy · Mar 19, 2008

Scar said:
Absurd, not at all responding to my quote, a terrible input. Clearly missing what I'm saying in the first place. This...

This is what Melee looks like to someone who has no idea what the game is about. This is what hurts me.

Does it really matter? So people who are ignorant of Melee's nuances are enjoying Brawl. I don't see why that should be particarly offensive.

I do agree that particular guy was being spiteful, however. No need for that. But that's the internet for you.

Scar said:
I have already explained, ad nauseam, that the skills set tested is much smaller and less deep. It rewards strategies but typically the same ones, i.e. projectile camping and camping in general. Also, that which was added does not make up for that which has been taken away. I'm not saying that advanced techs were taken away, cry cry. I have never said that. I am and have been talking mostly about push-and-pull vs punishment. Ad nauseam.

Missing the point or ignoring my posts and everyone else's.

I understand your points, I just disagree with them.

Even if the game forces people to play more defensively (which not everyone agrees is true) how they choose to do so will still require strategic thinking as each opponent tries to out-camp the other and goat their opponent into coming within attack range. Use characters with better projectiles, use characters with reflector attacks, use characters with the best sheild grabs. Eventually, one of the players will HAVE to pull out a KO move or two.

This means matches will be longer and more drawn out. It means that landing KOs will be harder. What it doesn't mean is that winning will require any less skill on a strategic level.

Scar said:
thx for speaking for yourself, everyone else prefers Brawl, I'm glad you're an authority. Missing/ignoring the point. No one is debating whether the game is a success or not. This whole post fails.

WALL OF SHAME.

I didn't say everyone, just the majority. And its true. Look around SWF. The "competitive" Smashers are divided right down the middle, with some prefering the changes: http://smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=153818 and some hating them.

As for the people who never played Melee on a technical level, I've yet to hear anything but priase for Brawl. And seeing as its gameplay is now far more accessible for the masses, its not hard to see why.

Is a change really problematic if more people get more enjoyment from the game because of it? I would argue, no.

@almighty pancake: okay, that makes sense. I wasn't claear on character selection rules...

Wiseguy · Mar 19, 2008

ARGH!! Why?! I swear this copmputer hates me.

Scar · Mar 19, 2008

Wiseguy said:
This means matches will be longer and more drawn out. It means that landing KOs will be harder. What it doesn't mean is that winning will require any less skill on a strategic level.

You have the right to disagree and should if you think I'm wrong, and that's fine. I just don't understand how complex strategies in Smash can even compare to Brawl strat of shooting and camping.

Wiseguy said:
Is a change really problematic if more people get more enjoyment from the game because of it? I would argue, no.

Ok, fine, but that's not what this debate is about. It's about which is more competitive. If you're going to say it doesn't matter then that's fine, and a lot of people would agree with you. But I don't, I think it's important. And as long as the community does, this topic of conversation will be discussed, and I think I'm an appropriate person to mediate the conversation.

Epok · Mar 19, 2008

This is a pretty interesting post I must say. I'm trying to find the best words to say to introduce myself into this argument without being repetitive. I think that Brawl could be as competitive as melee. But the COULD partly depends on how long it takes us to separate ourselves from the melee mindset. After putting in a ton of man hours to get our game right on melee, and then trying to switch to a new game where we seem everything is "watered down"(in some respects, not all), I'm not surprised that people get frustrated or feel a sense of awkwardness when they try to play brawl. I don't think thats a bad thing, just normal. Heck I still try to l cancel from time to time lol. Perhaps it's not all the games fault, but rather what our expectations are for this to be competitive. I think I can be as competitive but it's gonna take a lot of work, perhaps more than melee.

I think with the idea of competitive vs competition. It's hard to separate the two, because you really can't have one with out the other. Don't worry I'm not going to do the "webster defines" line but you can't be competitive with out competition. And it seems that Brawl has open a flood gate for new competition/and new players. Since the game feels easier/simpler with out ATs like l-canceling and wave-dashing, and to some of us feel "less competitive" I think that so far had an adverse affect on the amount of competition(not to mention online play, how sucky it may be right now IMO). People that are new to the SWF, and having brawl as their first competitive experience in Smash Bros, probably feel that they have a better chance of competing because it feels easier. Therefore, more people will compete, meaning better tournament turnouts, meaning more people trying to better than other people, meaning more competition. But of course this is only a hunch. By all means what could happen is that new people will still be frustrated with pros/good players beating them with the skills of melee that happen to carry over into brawl. but hey, only time will tell. Im not really arguing a particular side I'm just trying add some more depth to this discussion. I hope I helped contribute to the thread.

Wiseguy · Mar 19, 2008

Scar said:
You have the right to disagree and should if you think I'm wrong, and that's fine. I just don't understand how complex strategies in Smash can even compare to Brawl strat of shooting and camping.

I've brought this up before, but what about Snake? He's pretty complex by design. Laying mines and timing grenade throws seems like it would be just as complex as the crazy stuff the best Melee players could put off. Am I wrong?

Scar said:
Ok, fine, but that's not what this debate is about. It's about which is more competitive. If you're going to say it doesn't matter then that's fine, and a lot of people would agree with you. But I don't, I think it's important. And as long as the community does, this topic of conversation will be discussed, and I think I'm an appropriate person to mediate the conversation.

You're right. I'll try to stay on topic.

pockyD · Mar 19, 2008

Wiseguy said:
As for the people who never played Melee on a technical level, I've yet to hear anything but priase for Brawl. And seeing as its gameplay is now far more accessible for the masses, its not hard to see why.

...because those people who weren't interested in melee and don't enjoy brawl have absolutely no reason to come to a website devoted to smash and make posts about it :laugh:

edit: and also, as pretty much everyone has said, we all enjoy brawl on a casual, friendly level, but that's different from enjoying it in the sense of huge amazing tournaments and intense matches throughout

Scar · Mar 19, 2008

Wiseguy said:
I've brought this up before, but what about Snake? He's pretty complex by design. Laying mines and timing grenade throws seems like it would be just as complex as the crazy stuff the best Melee players could put off. Am I wrong?

No. You're completely right. Snake offers smart players strategies and creativity much different than anything Melee has to offer. Talented Snake players will be awesome. Brawl definitely has some plusses, and yeah I mean we've all agreed that the game is really fun. Sometimes frustrating, especially on big stages like Bridge of Eldin vs patient players with spammy characters, but a fun game overall.

These pros and cons make Brawl different than Melee. An obvious fact. But when comparing "better, worse, or just different," I would argue that Brawl is worse from a purely competitive standpoint. That which Melee has to offer is simply greater than Brawl by way of rewards for time put into the game and rewards for being smarter and more skilled in general.

BigRick · Mar 19, 2008

Scar said:
We can all beat mediocre Sheik players, I guess the difference is that Brawl's top level translates into "mediocre Sheik". Only a few players can actually shut me down with Sheik, it takes skill and knowledge. Pit takes a functional B Button.

Haha I totally see your point.

It's sad really but after facing similar situations in other games I managed to not let this kind of thing get to me... the amount of controller inputs that my opponent is doing simply dont matter anymore.

From there all we can do is work hard so that a good number of chars get a solid enough meta to force Pit players to let go that B button...

Wiseguy · Mar 19, 2008

pockyD said:
...because those people who weren't interested in melee and don't enjoy brawl have absolutely no reason to come to a website devoted to smash and make posts about it

edit: and also, as pretty much everyone has said, we all enjoy brawl on a casual, friendly level, but that's different from enjoying it in the sense of huge amazing tournaments and intense matches throughout

I too love both tournaments and casual play, but they aren't unrelated. Being a more accessible game will have MORE people competing on an advanced level, which will make those tourneys even more amazing once their attendance increases by leaps and bounds.

Scar is right, though. This isn't exactly the thread topic...

Scar said:
No. You're completely right. Snake offers smart players strategies and creativity much different than anything Melee has to offer. Talented Snake players will be awesome. Brawl definitely has some plusses, and yeah I mean we've all agreed that the game is really fun. Sometimes frustrating, especially on big stages like Bridge of Eldin vs patient players with spammy characters, but a fun game overall.

These pros and cons make Brawl different than Melee. An obvious fact. But when comparing "better, worse, or just different," I would argue that Brawl is worse from a purely competitive standpoint. That which Melee has to offer is simply greater than Brawl by way of rewards for time put into the game and rewards for being smarter and more skilled in general.

I'm a little confused. You seem to agree that at least one character offers a level of complexity equal to Melee (stop me if I'm putting word in your mouth.) If that's true, can you know this early that Brawl's metagame won't evolve? 39 movesets is a lot to take in in a week...

DRaGZ · Mar 19, 2008

Scar said:
No. You're completely right. Snake offers smart players strategies and creativity much different than anything Melee has to offer. Talented Snake players will be awesome. Brawl definitely has some plusses, and yeah I mean we've all agreed that the game is really fun. Sometimes frustrating, especially on big stages like Bridge of Eldin vs patient players with spammy characters, but a fun game overall.

These pros and cons make Brawl different than Melee. An obvious fact. But when comparing "better, worse, or just different," I would argue that Brawl is worse from a purely competitive standpoint. That which Melee has to offer is simply greater than Brawl by way of rewards for time put into the game and rewards for being smarter and more skilled in general.

That's why I feel Brawl may promote more strategic thinking and planning than Melee did.

I'm not talking about on-the-spot thinking, because it's been clearly demonstrated (far before this topic) that Melee promotes that far more. (if anything aside from tech skill you can attribute this to the very speed of the game).

I may be wrong, but wasn't Melee still competitively growing? I think part of why it was still growing was because there was still a lot of ground to be covered once a certain level of technical proficiency was met, which makes it deeper. Brawl may not necessarily have more strategic thinking than Melee did (at the very most, it has about the same, maybe a little more with the more tactically-diverse-by-design characters), but removal of technical skill may force players to go far more into the realm of strategic planning/thinking rather than having a balance between tech skill and strategic planning/thinking. In other words, strategy in Melee came down to knowing what your character can do with the ATs you've developed for him. In Brawl, I think it may come down to understanding what specifically your character can handle in specific situations, since the slower pace may promote more analytical thinking.

As for the previous points which were made about projectile spamming and such, I've found that I've been amongst those that found projectile spamming as a viable strategy (I use Wolf quite a bit, and his blaster is quite useful), but I find that a lot of players can get past me quite easily. The biggest projectile spamming problem I've had is with Pit, but, again, I've found ways to approach him that force close combat (e.g. with R.O.B., a simple Up+B with f-air spamming away and maybe ending with a d-air is one of the easiest ways to do this).

The most problematic character I've faced in terms of both strong projectile spamming and strong close combat is Toon Link...but I think we all know by now that he's a beast anyway.

QED · Mar 19, 2008

Wait what? Lagless? Unless I'm misunderstanding your comment... Marth dair (and many others)? I remember being annoyed because dair with a shff with Marth is what I like to consider sitting duck.

So L cancel only took a few hours to master? Tell me the secret. I've always wanted to play like Bombsoldier. I'm assuming you were able to do amazing things like he did in a few hours, am I right?

You are only stating that what took pros and other people months and years to master as something of little importance. Techiniques that come "automatically" (as you say so) now only shortens the gap (and that by a lot) between the amazing players and soso players. As Cactuar and Scar put it, this results to the game being less competitive (in their definition).

Here's a change in point of view. Let's say you are on the higher end of the Brawl scene. You know you are much more nimble, have more experience, etc. and know that you are a better player compared to your opponent. However all your matches come out very close and sometimes you lose. Wouldn't that make you angry? To Think that it takes so little time for people to catch up to you (with much less effort)..

I think that's one of the reasons why people who play the higher end fighting games are so dissapointed in the Brawl outcome and why woudln't they be?

Scar · Mar 19, 2008

Wiseguy said:
I'm a little confused. You seem to agree that at least one character offers a level of complexity equal to Melee (stop me if I'm putting word in your mouth.) If that's true, can you know this early that Brawl's metagame won't evolve? 39 movesets is a lot to take in in a week...

You're not putting words in my mouth. I have a paragraph explaining what I meant, but I'll explain it again. Pardon my impatience.

Snake offers things Melee doesn't. Melee offers things Brawl doesn't. So Snake is complex in a different way than Melee. The two games are different, and test different things, but fundamental flaws in Brawl prevent it from being anywhere near as good as Melee is from a purely competitive standpoint.

DRaGZ said:
That's why I feel Brawl may promote more strategic thinking and planning than Melee did.

I feel that you have failed to demonstrate how it promotes MORE strategic thinking. Maybe you need to think strategically more frequently, but I feel that this is simply because the game forces you back at a neutral position way too frequently.

I also feel that Brawl cannot give you enough options in any given situation for you to make the claim that in any given situation Brawl promotes a deeper strategic thought process than Melee.

If you simply mean that "more thinking" means that players must rely on some shallow thought process (as complex as rock, paper, scissors) very frequently, then yes you are correct. However this goes a long way to say that Brawl will allow less skilled players to win matches by arbitrarily guessing correctly, since there is infrequently a "best" response to these situations.

This does nothing to further the point that Brawl's level of competitiveness approaches that of Melee.

@QED, yes, these are my exact frustrations. I feel that we both understand that certain players are not concerned with high levels of competition and I think it's important to point out that we are okay with that. I certainly am not trying to convince anyone to stop playing Brawl.

I do, however, want to point out obvious flaws with Brawl's mechanics and open the eyes of people who don't understand where we're coming from when we say that Melee is more competitive than Brawl.

pockyD · Mar 19, 2008

Wiseguy said:
I too love both tournaments and casual play, but they aren't unrelated. Being a more accessible game will have MORE people competing on an advanced level, which will make those tourneys even more amazing once their attendance increases by leaps and bounds.

you're still confusing more competition with more competitive

Xzax Kasrani · Mar 19, 2008

i hate to say it but scar is right i was beat by someone that used wolf and i was marth and he couldnt even short hop, he just spammed 3 different moves, if people can evolve brawl then good **** but for right now idk

Scar · Mar 19, 2008

QFT Pocky.

Also, tangentially, it can be argued that Brawl tournaments will enjoy lower attendance rates since people who aren't terribly competitive (the group that Brawl debatably caters to) would rather play over WiFi than travel large distances to get to tournaments.

I predict much larger local tournies for the first few months, and VERY small long-term regional attendance.

Scar on the Melee vs Brawl debate: What does competitive really mean?

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