forced design

[Vro]

the most fun thing about melee to me was that everything was all a beautiful accident. it is crazy to think how many years it took to make combos videos the way they look and have a metagame as aggressive as it is. when you look back at a lot of the early, legendary combos of melee, you almost laugh at how fake some of those combos are. the mental game was on another level compared to the technical knowledge or power. when you play melee today, technical power is extremely important, not only to avoid technical mistakes which open your defenses, but also understanding minute aggressive decisions, such as placement of aerial or followup based on percentage.

melee seemed solved to me before project m came out. yet mango was still doing crazy new things like pushing people off of platforms while attacking, doing ridiculous openings and followups that were still impressing veterans of the game.

2.1 demo was raw as ****. it stayed that way for a long, long time for FC. and that was really nice to be tournament considerate. all the technical advances into 2.5 were amazing and needed (brawl input lag anyone?).

now there are more patches and a lot of characters are being touched. some characters are worked on by several people and have very good integration into the cast. some characters do not feel solved at all.

some characters seemed solved or solvable very quickly. i think sheik is still one of the best characters so, yes, some traits are naturally apparent in high tiers. however, it took fox several years to advance to the highest tier, for our community to understand his ability.

it is not just technical skill advancement of our community. it is not just sharing knowledge across the internet. it is not just matchup inexperience. the transition from melee to project m is one of forced design. it is a different environment where things are deliberate and not accidental.

of course mission statement says blah blah blah and it's okay that it's not a carbon copy of melee. however, with each minute i experienced after 2.5, my mind compared it more and more to other brawl mods. And why shouldn't I? it is in fact a brawl mod.

just go tell me to go back and play melee. if you wanted melee you could just go back to the cube. what if i want to grab the edge with raptor boost or play more than 5 god damn stages? well deal with it.

OK. So I learn all these matchups, all these moves, on these stages. The game is young so I will forgive local or community differences in rules. Oh the game is young so I'll forgive multiple patches. Oh, okay the game is young so only the developers of the game win. Oh, okay the patch notes aren't released as patches come out, it'll come around.

So what you're saying is that I should practice the game A LOT to make up for the time I'm figuring out the patch notes. And then I should adapt to the next patch because it's just a demo and everything is subject to change. And then you're going to say it's okay that X strategy is one dimensional, look at Y Melee counterpart. Then you're going to say it's OK that it's not Melee, it's not Melee.

fundamentally melee favors movement over everything. movement and defense usually wins up until the highest tiers of play where you cannot just camp out mistakes and rely on big blind/ little blind encounters.

project m fundamentally favors attack. it doesn't matter where you place the attack, it has a high enough threshold and acceptance that if you didn't land the small sour spot window, it is guaranteed to connect with a X Y Z for at least 20%. Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating, but most combo windows are in the single digits in Melee. Only chain grabs are "automatic" in their percentage building. Previously, only falco comboed me in a way that I felt helpless - like I only had 2 or 3 minor - minor opportunities to get out, such as powershield counter attack, powershield grab, lightshield reposition, or smash di on certain attacks.

i am fighting against people who have practiced the demo in the past single digit number of months and they are comboing me like a falco or fox who has been playing the same character for years. and yeah, you can say my di is bad and that i should learn the matchup. OR MAYBE YOU CAN ASK WHY IT IS SO EASY FOR OFFENSE TO WIN.

did you know it matters down to the body width and around 10% difference between dropping a combo as falco and losing momentum by using the wrong move or placement. sure you might regain the momentum, but in melee a delicate thing like that is not regained by spamming your special moves and throwing out auto cancelled aerials. it is about moving and valuing options.

there is little value to options when approaches are designed. sure there are a lot of games that are incredibly successful with much more transparent design in the FGC. but this is smash. am i right? or am i wrong? you want to create rock paper scissor scenarios with this kind of power level or did you want movement to be the key factor to success?

do you know it doesn't matter how you move, it's how big your **** is.

 

[Paradoxium]

I'm guessing you read strong bad's legendary comment.

 

[ItalianStallion]

I'm not so sure what your overall point is. You kept on jumping around.

 

[Paradoxium]

Yea I'm not really sure how to respond to this post, he needs to state his thesis and stay on topic more.

 

[MagnesD3]

I'm not so sure what your overall point is. You kept on jumping around.

All I see is

salt

 

[ItalianStallion]

All I see is

Why would I be salty? I don't even like swimming in the ocean.

Get your facts right people!

But in all seriousness, I don't understand how my reply = salt. I really am curious as to what his main point is. He did jump around a lot without clarifying a lot of things.

 

[MagnesD3]

Why would I be salty? I don't even like swimming in the ocean.

Get your facts right people!

But in all seriousness, I don't understand how my reply = salt. I really am curious as to what his main point is. He did jump around a lot without clarifying a lot of things.

I think you misunderstood me, I was talking about the OP...

 

[GP&B]

I'm pretty sure he's talking about the OP.

Also, I swear I've seen way more comments about defensive play and zoning showing up more in Project M than anything, usually followed by Ivy/Zelda salt.

 

[ItalianStallion]

I think you misunderstood me, I was talking about the OP...

Well, don't I feel like an idiot.

If I were to analyze his essay, it would seem he is sort of calling for a different design apporach that developers will create moves with no real strategy in mind (No deliberate linking moves, no creative strategy and meta development through design). This is essentially what Melee was (Maybe. We can't claim to know what the developers were thinking when they created the game. For all we know, they were thinking of Shiek's f-tilt linking to forward air). However, switching to this design policy would mean they couldn't truly balance the cast. You need to take character specific strategy into account. And a big part of a move's effectiveness is what follow-up it rewards you with (DI Dependent of course).

 

[SpiderMad]

I thought you were going to talk about a little more than just offense from reading the title and the first paragraph, which is something I've had on my mind myself. Certain things are just going the wrong direction to me, and hidden attributes and unintended design gets slashed more and more from the game I guess.

Seeing Oracle dislike ROB after apparently ROB's boosters were made less controllable, and in return had an intended buff (his side-b reflecting more to be better to deal with Falco or whomever) is just one example of something that seems weird to me. It's always nerfs like that where opportunities and control is kind of lost, like Pit being a stone when he shoots arrows in a SH, where as before he if initiated fast enough could SH Arrow WL/AGT/DJ. You get into the line of "he didn't have enough commitment" but there needs to be some kind of threshold between interesting and forced design that has everything figured out (or tries to). Also specifically for Pit, it would be like removing Wolf's AD cancel, except Pit players didn't even utalize firing the arrow soon enough to take advantage of the open frames.
That's what I got from this post as well
http://smashboards.com/threads/mult...i-think-its-blech.340160/page-3#post-15841882

 

[Rarik]

If I were to analyze his essay, it would seem he is sort of calling for a different design apporach that developers will create moves with no real strategy in mind (No deliberate linking moves, no creative strategy and meta development through design). This is essentially what Melee was (Maybe. We can't claim to know what the developers were thinking when they created the game. For all we know, they were thinking of Shiek's f-tilt linking to forward air). However, switching to this design policy would mean they couldn't truly balance the cast. You need to take character specific strategy into account. And a big part of a move's effectiveness is what follow-up it rewards you with (DI Dependent of course).

Agreed 100%. If his point is that forced design is bad then he's **** out of luck. You can't expect to balance a cast of 40+ characters without some sort of direction which ends up forcing design in one way or another. It's reasonable to say that PM is going in the wrong direction with their design, but that's a different argument.

 

[Rat]

I think in PM's character designs there is very little subtlety. Moves aren't designed with much nuance. Ike's SideB is for approaching. DK's DashAttack is part of a Grab/Attack mix-up. Squirtle's Bubble is for edgeguarding (and set-ups.)

Moves aren't designed with room for player creativity. There's nothing like "it should have this sort of a feeling." People don't say, "let's see what the players will come up with move."

Moves are designed to fit a specific purpose. Anti-air. Approach. Combo tool. Get off me. Panic Button. Combo finisher. And the moves are given stats to push it towards that. Charizard's nair has been sped up to make it easier to approach with.

This approach gives moves a sort of canned feeling. A good example for me is Squirtle's SideB. The move is a combo tool and approach option. You're supposed to use it go through projectiles and hit your opponent. And as a player that's what you do with it. It's not something discovered.

Anyways this is a sort of rambling. I don't really have a conclusion or judgement from this.

 

[MagnesD3]

I think in PM's character designs there is very little subtlety. Moves aren't designed with much nuance. Ike's SideB is for approaching. DK's DashAttack is part of a Grab/Attack mix-up. Squirtle's Bubble is for edgeguarding (and set-ups.)

Moves aren't designed with room for player creativity. There's nothing like "it should have this sort of a feeling." People don't say, "let's see what the players will come up with move."

Moves are designed to fit a specific purpose. Anti-air. Approach. Combo tool. Get off me. Panic Button. Combo finisher. And the moves are given stats to push it towards that. Charizard's nair has been sped up to make it easier to approach with.

This approach gives moves a sort of canned feeling. A good example for me is Squirtle's SideB. The move is a combo tool and approach option. You're supposed to use it go through projectiles and hit your opponent. And as a player that's what you do with it. It's not something discovered.

Anyways this is a sort of rambling. I don't really have a conclusion or judgement from this.

So like a fighting game.

 

[ELI-mination]

I honestly have no idea what that whole post is about, vro

 

[MysteryRevengerson]

"What?" Sums up that post a lot since I'm lost to the meaning and it asks a bunch of questions (...That don't get answered?)

 

[Nguz95]

This is a continuation of the categories of a** topic Vro started a while ago.
I think it's difficult to make judgments now since the game is still very young. Balancing characters, especially brand-new ones, is difficult. I say we cut the devs some slack at all times. It's hard to create a metagame from scratch.

Vro, could you please expand on your idea about Melee being all about movement and PM being all about attack? I think it's a really interesting distinction, and I want to hear more.

 

[The_Guide]

I think he's trying to say that spacing doesn't matter in this game? From how I understand it, he dislikes that there's no mediocre hitboxes on a lot of moves, allowing people to throw them out without regard for their character's position.

To clarify, I don't know if I share that view. I do think thats what he was trying to convey, though.

 

[Rarik]

Agreed with Nguz, continuing with the Offense vs Movement discussion would be much more interesting than this random mess of a post that's split between two topics.

 

[MagnesD3]

As long as there are sweet spots and sour spots on moves spacing should always be extremely fundamental.

 

[GP&B]

Thinking about it though, doesn't a halfway decently designed game have some pretty heavily implied usages for utilities? This concerns anything with a lot of options like fighters and RTS's. Things become a lot harder to balance when you include ambiguous properties that only belong to one or two characters (part of why Lucario, Ike, and Sonic jumped around a lot) so designing characters with a certain direction in mind and then building moves around that is, while kind of obvious in their purpose, the safest way to approach it without running into major problems. I think the main worry expressed is over moves that are too safe or combos that are too free; both reasonable concerns. Part of Ike's changes were built around giving him more intelligent spacing game rather than the broccoli swinging madness we had before (even though he still ultimately suffers a lot in close quarters).

 

[SpiderMad]

Moves are designed to fit a specific purpose. Anti-air. Approach. Combo tool. Get off me. Panic Button. Combo finisher. And the moves are given stats to push it towards that. Charizard's nair has been sped up to make it easier to approach with. This approach gives moves a sort of canned feeling.

Breaking out of an upcoming aerial combo/attack (which Peach/Luigi's nair do amazingly) with Ike use to be a toss up between Bair or Up-air (which is 2 or so frames later than bair, but lasts out longer) as well as Bair had body hitboxes behind him while Up-air had some in front; then in 2.5 they reduced his body hitboxes from those aerials and others making him more of a combo sack and weakening the differences between the moves and stuff, and then in 2.6 they gave him a way faster nair which is nice but his it replaces using bair and especially up-air most if not all of the time to break out of combos.

 

[Eltrion]

It seems as though he wants it both ways. First the moves' uses are too obvious, then the lack of proper patch notes means that the devs have a leg up on everyone else.

There really is nothing stopping you from just not reading the forums and working everything out for yourself if you want to.

The real truth of it is that it isn't 2001 anymore. The Internet is a much bigger place now. That unknowing feeling you had working out how to play Melee won't magically come back if the moves intentionally designed to seem like they were the ideas of wacky old Japanese men. The framework has been laid. People already know how this type of engine works. What you would get is an inferior and less balanced game.

That feeling that Melee was superior because you had to figure everything out? That's Nostalgia talking. If someone were to learn PM from scratch without the Internet, they'd have the same experience as if they learned Melee from scratch.

I guess what I'm really trying to say is, the new game isn't the reason everything feels different than 12 years ago. You are. The world is. You arn't the kid you used to be. You know things now. You have methods of research available that put the tricks passed around by a circle of friends into obsolescence. The PMBR can't change that.

 

[Juushichi]

eltrion brings up a subtle point that a lot of FGC people had to come to terms with (especially in terms to tires)

with the internet and accessibility to metagame being developed all over the place and such... games are being figured out EXTREMELY quickly and optimized really fast.

MvC series is a constantly usd example.

MvC2 had characters like spiral, dhalsim, etc (mid tier) being used for a very long time and eventually people found out what the real **** was. you still had people like clock who ran the doom strider shell and other people, but it really took a very long time for this to happen.

MvC3 was solved really really quickly. UMvC3 had MarlinPie's TAC tech (which was his specialty and a treat to watch) cracked and optimized and used in less than ONE YEAR. LESS THAN ONE YEAR and doom shells popped up all over the place. Round Trip glitch, Firebrand unblockables, all kinds of stuff was figured out, posted and optimized (though there are like 3/4 Brand players).

 

[SpiderMad]

That feeling that Melee was superior because you had to figure everything out? That's Nostalgia talking. If someone were to learn PM from scratch without the Internet, they'd have the same experience as if they learned Melee from scratch.

That's kind of leaving out the mysterious point that Melee created a metagame it could barely see coming (Though I think it was just as much work and dedication as miracle, they planned all the algorithms and everything near perfectly besides making some crap characters).

with the internet and accessibility to metagame being developed all over the place and such... games are being figured out EXTREMELY quickly and optimized really fast.
.

Without getting into it, SF3:Third strike compared to SF4 is like your MvC example: SF4 is more balanced but there's less room for deviating from whatever the optimal thing to do for each situation is. I should find some post about it, because all the 3s players that dislike SF4 got a bunch of fascinating reasons.

 

[Paradoxium]

K all I'm gonna say is that crazy strategies often arise in an attempt to beat the most popular/effective strategies at that time. In a way, it is like an arms race

 

[shadow0x0cloud]

From the little I gathered it seems he dislikes how the PMBR makes it so certain moves only perform 1 specific task and he prefers for it to flow as he believes melee did. Hes tired of Utilt being an anti air, f tilt being an approach, and stilt being a poke. They should have more uses than what's on the surface. I kinda do agree. Playing as link, his tilts have different purposes. The arc on ftilt can let it be used as an anti air and spacing tool. Utilt hits on both sides so it can stop crossups. Dtilt easily flows into fair on hit, has that meteor sweet spot, and is good for poking. Not only that but all those uses really feel noticeable in your free form combos, which , IMO, is brawls attraction of a fighting game.

 

[Vro]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxx55e1ZQCY

yes some games are that forced and deliberate. some people actually read everything and can talk about games like mvc3 and how games are solved thru internet and metagame.

but then there's everyone who is like: what is smash about? oh it's just about percentage and stocks right? hurrrrrrrr

no it's more about how nothing's value is flat out obvious. the strategy is so unbelievable ambiguous that only one player in the world can win majors with the most top tier character.

all the choices are so stupid and obvious.

http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=429573

archaic and limited design forces higher skill ceiling. by removing the limitations (OR CATEGORIES OF ASS) you remove the ceiling of skill.

--

I can't find it right now, but look up the video where mango commentates his game against PP. he talks about one specific nair that is a 10 out of 10 nair. do you know what he follows up that nair with? DASH. he executed the perfect move (which was EXTREMELY non-obvious) and his best followup is movement. do you know how many ass ****ing approaches i see get rewarded in this game?

 

[GP&B]

Maybe it's why I like Toon Link so much. A lot of options dealing with whenever projectiles connect and I have a lot to react to as well as a lot of choices to pick from. I wish some more specifics were given out though because I kind of get the sentiment otherwise.

 

[Rarik]

Ok, I see what you mean now Vro. Sucks that it took Day9 explaining your concept about 999x more effectively to get it across, but I understand what you're getting at now. Unfortunately, I'm not sure whether you're right that this applies to Project M. How do we know that the skill ceiling is definitely lower? How do we know that it's actually the design and not just us failing to push the game to it's limits? You said yourself that you thought melee was solved before Project M came out, yet mango pushed it beyond the limits you thought were there. How do we know that some amazing player won't come along and push the game beyond the limits you thought existed?

In the end though, I agree. I agree that the PMBR should pay attention to the skill ceiling, that they should pay attention to whether or not offense is favored over defense, and then to decide, well is that what we want? I also agree that moves should have some bad traits, that they shouldn't be good in every way, and that they shouldn't be linear, they should have multiple uses that aren't always clear. I agree that the game should be deep enough, and complex enough that even the slightest movements matter. However please realize that this is difficult to do, and unless you actually start being productive and suggesting ways to go about improving the game, this post is essentially useless. You can go on rants all you want, but unless you're clear about your intent, and help suggest ways to achieve what you've suggested it will never get accomplished.

I also think that you could've just posted this in "Categories of ***" since this is basically an extension of it.

Also also, the minutiae you desire may be there, but the semi-frequent updates may be preventing the development of the metagame to that point, although I think you've realized that and thought about that already.

 

[The_Guide]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxx55e1ZQCY

yes some games are that forced and deliberate. some people actually read everything and can talk about games like mvc3 and how games are solved thru internet and metagame.

but then there's everyone who is like: what is smash about? oh it's just about percentage and stocks right? hurrrrrrrr

no it's more about how nothing's value is flat out obvious. the strategy is so unbelievable ambiguous that only one player in the world can win majors with the most top tier character.

all the choices are so stupid and obvious.

http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=429573

archaic and limited design forces higher skill ceiling. by removing the limitations (OR CATEGORIES OF ***) you remove the ceiling of skill.

--

I can't find it right now, but look up the video where mango commentates his game against PP. he talks about one specific nair that is a 10 out of 10 nair. do you know what he follows up that nair with? DASH. he executed the perfect move (which was EXTREMELY non-obvious) and his best followup is movement. do you know how many *** ****ing approaches i see get rewarded in this game?

Vro, are you talking about resets in this post? Forgoing guaranteed damage to take a position that greatly limits the opponent's options, and will likely result in them taking more damage than the guaranteed combo?

From what I can tell, this post is arguing that resets are weak in PM. That combos are universally powerful and that its possible to convert into them from a ton of different moves, effectively eliminating the need to go for resets.

Do I understand you correctly?

 

[GP&B]

Seconding having more clarity and direction in your posts. I think everyone understands what you're getting at (it's been a common sentiment for a long time), but there needs to be clear examples and potential solutions to really help out the people who are in charge of the whole thing.

 

[Rat]

I've seen Day9's baseballs and frisbees, but not that blog you linked. Which was ****ing awesome. 10/10 blog.

 

[Kink-Link5]

Vro has stated here most of my qualms with Project M as well. Over the course of increasingly common version changes, moves have been designed more to fulfill specific roles that act as an incentive and reward for the people that had used them exclusively in those cases, but that punish players who used the move in less conventional means to some success. These players who used characters or moves in a non-traditional way are told to suck it up and to "l2play" when the subtleties of Ike's bair or Charizard's Nair hitboxes are redefined to perform not several tasks, but one task very well.

Answers to moves can be theory crafted to say what move is best to use in x situation because it is designed to be used in x situation. A huge degree of variability seems to be intentionally limited as movesets are made more polarizing. I can sympathize with people that feel they're forced to just stick with Melee top threats, since Jigglypuff's bair isn't going to be slowed down and have its length increased to emphasize "Use this as a spacing move, not as a get out of combo move," and Falco's bair isn't going to be made smaller yet stronger to "reward precision kills."

 

[AbstractLogic]

I will preface this post with saying that I am not trying to discredit anyone or start a flame war. I'm sorry if this seems tangential however there is an analogy that I find to be very relevant to the discussion.

the most fun thing about melee to me was that everything was all a beautiful accident. it is crazy to think how many years it took to make combos videos the way they look and have a metagame as aggressive as it is. when you look back at a lot of the early, legendary combos of melee, you almost laugh at how fake some of those combos are. the mental game was on another level compared to the technical knowledge or power. when you play melee today, technical power is extremely important, not only to avoid technical mistakes which open your defenses, but also understanding minute aggressive decisions, such as placement of aerial or followup based on percentage.

The OP of this thread reminds me of the "nature-ism" argument.

How many times do you hear people talk mention "I don't want chemicals in this" or "I like this because it's natural" ? I think there is this inherent idea that nintendo (nature) isnt capable of producing things that can be improved through engineering. It is normal for people have this vision that say an "organic" vegetable (melee) will be superior to a lab created one (P:M) because of some "natureism-ist?" type bias. if you could recreate the veggie molecularly and possibly decide to enhance it, that makes no statement on whether the veggie is worse. You could argue the veggie is objectively designed for its particular goal.

AKA

Melee is great but that doesnt mean the PMBR can't make something that surpasses it because of some intangible fuzzy feeling you get or some distinction on how it's not identical. I realize this is more of an observation based on your experiences than any statement or proclamation on the issue but I am just sharing my opinion here.

melee seemed solved to me before project m came out. yet mango was still doing crazy new things like pushing people off of platforms while attacking, doing ridiculous openings and followups that were still impressing veterans of the game.

P:M is standing on the shoulders of giants with regards to the knowledge and playstyles of all of the games in the franchise so of course the metagame will develop at an overwhelming pace. The game is designed with a core functionality of a game that has had a decade to develop metagame wise. so much translates from melee to PM playstyle wise. Add that with the current developing state of the cast and you will have a metagame is very likely much more nuanced and involved than anything like what we've seen before.

some characters seemed solved or solvable very quickly. i think sheik is still one of the best characters so, yes, some traits are naturally apparent in high tiers. however, it took fox several years to advance to the highest tier, for our community to understand his ability.

While this is true, P:M essentially directly ported these characters so it's no surprise that fox and sheik do particularly well when the game is based on how good they were in another.

it is not just technical skill advancement of our community. it is not just sharing knowledge across the internet. it is not just matchup inexperience. the transition from melee to project m is one of forced design. it is a different environment where things are deliberate and not accidental.

of course mission statement says blah blah blah and it's okay that it's not a carbon copy of melee. however, with each minute i experienced after 2.5, my mind compared it more and more to other brawl mods. And why shouldn't I? it is in fact a brawl mod.

It's neither here nor there if the design is "forced". The only reason design feels forced is because the developers reveal their intent up front and try to make changes to accomodate a mission statement. The PMBR is definitely not perfect, but it's hard to point out any tweaks they have made that violate directly what their goal is. If the PMBR never posted a changelist or a roster reveal video I'm sure something else would be said. People are heavily influenced by what they see or read from people that they feel have some sort of authority (The PMBR) If sakurai sat down and posted a log of everything changed in smash 4 im sure it would be the same scenario. People would complain that Smash 4 is forced and too synthetic when in reality that is how design works. True it is neat how melee became what it was, but when you design a game around those core qualities plus your own ideas and visions it seems weird to say that they are "forcing it".

So what you're saying is that I should practice the game A LOT to make up for the time I'm figuring out the patch notes. And then I should adapt to the next patch because it's just a demo and everything is subject to change. And then you're going to say it's okay that X strategy is one dimensional, look at Y Melee counterpart. Then you're going to say it's OK that it's not Melee, it's not Melee.

I'm not 100% sure about what you were meaning to say with this, but if you care to discuss it, feel free to clarify your point.

project m fundamentally favors attack. it doesn't matter where you place the attack, it has a high enough threshold and acceptance that if you didn't land the small sour spot window, it is guaranteed to connect with a X Y Z for at least 20%. Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating, but most combo windows are in the single digits in Melee. Only chain grabs are "automatic" in their percentage building. Previously, only falco comboed me in a way that I felt helpless - like I only had 2 or 3 minor - minor opportunities to get out, such as powershield counter attack, powershield grab, lightshield reposition, or smash di on certain attacks.

i am fighting against people who have practiced the demo in the past single digit number of months and they are comboing me like a falco or fox who has been playing the same character for years. and yeah, you can say my di is bad and that i should learn the matchup. OR MAYBE YOU CAN ASK WHY IT IS SO EASY FOR OFFENSE TO WIN.

Offense is favorable for the most part because that is what was intended by the PMBR. Obviously there will be tweaks as to how much or to what degree, but it should seem apparent as to why that's the case.


TL;DR: P:M will keep going in it's direction. I personally really dig it, but if it doesn't give you what melee did, melee will always be there.

 

[ItalianStallion]

Vro has stated here most of my qualms with Project M as well. Over the course of increasingly common version changes, moves have been designed more to fulfill specific roles that act as an incentive and reward for the people that had used them exclusively in those cases, but that punish players who used the move in less conventional means to some success. These players who used characters or moves in a non-traditional way are told to suck it up and to "l2play" when the subtleties of Ike's bair or Charizard's Nair hitboxes are redefined to perform not several tasks, but one task very well.

Answers to moves can be theory crafted to say what move is best to use in x situation because it is designed to be used in x situation. A huge degree of variability seems to be intentionally limited as movesets are made more polarizing. I can sympathize with people that feel they're forced to just stick with Melee top threats, since Jigglypuff's bair isn't going to be slowed down and have its length increased to emphasize "Use this as a spacing move, not as a get out of combo move," and Falco's bair isn't going to be made smaller yet stronger to "reward precision kills."

I have to take you up on Charizard's nair. The move before the redesign only hit people straight up, which was cool. It helped set up combos and could be used through platforms in an interesting way. Then the redesign came, and the move now can hit in a multitude of directions based on the time you hit the opponent with it, which opened up a variety of new strategies and options for players to explore. I know you don't like post 2.1 zard nair, but the argument you're trying to prove with it just doesn't work. Post 2.1 nair rewards creativity and allows performing of several tasks much more than 2.1 nair did.

 

[GaretHax]

I have made posts similar to the OP two or three times over the last few years of my PM lurking career, but I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about the whole situation. I agree with just about everything said, but then again I also personally don't care for the super-linear traditional 2D style of balancing fighting games. I suppose that is what drew me to Melee and PM and kept me here, but I can see the techniques' merits as it can make the process of balancing and predicting/understanding character matchups much quicker. However the more dedicated a team is to using such a process, the more everything about the game becomes a simple execution barrier. After all if x converts into y 100% of the time, why not just give x the extra damage and change the trajectory to match y? I also don't know how feasible it would be to expect the PMBR to balance this project using any other technique, though I must agree that the PMBR may be overqualified for and overanalyzing their current project.
Part of what makes Melee is, I guess what Umbreon would call an Illusion of, choice and freedom in what one does next. While some moves do convert reliably or even perfectly into others, the player can still chose to instead utilize a different option in the exact same situation. It isn't predetermined by, do I have 3 meter and a wall, okay combo a, nope only 2 meter and I'm on the wall already combo b will do the most damage, no meter or wall better just do c. Even if it is inherently the wrong decision to do something other than what is the norm or is guaranteed, Smash presents players with a very real opportunity to convert sub-optimal decisions into a reward, that could very well exceed expectations that were based on spread-sheeting and theory, all because of how much control both players have over their character. But maybe all of this is a simple placebo effect, perhaps there is truly nothing different about the game and all this is the result of a change in my perspective. Honestly for every few bread and butter combo's I have watched players perform, there are a few truly original and interesting ones to be witnessed.

Really my only major beef with Vro's original argument is how autocombo's result in an offense-dominated game, if one hit always converts into a string I would expect to see a trend in defensive strategies focused on avoiding such situations and capitalizing on the opponent's mistakes. To be honest I fail to see how stronger, guaranteed combo's, and move functionality results in a more offense oriented game, if such tools become too powerful it becomes too risky to go on the offensive and risk being hit, much in the same way a lack of strength in such tools makes offensive play unrewarding.

TLDR, I can't quite decide if forced design is a good or bad thing, to a fairly large extent it is unavoidable when designing a character, however I do believe that the over-utilization of the technique can harm a game and create a very stiff and contrived experience that discourages creativity and risk/reward scenarios. However I cannot truly take this stance as I am far too jaded against anything that would move smash even slightly more towards a traditional 2D fighter in design and am probably reading entirely too much into progression of changes post 2.1. But I think the PMBR is fully aware of this and is seeking to take action against it, or at least that is a conclusion I have drawn from miscellaneous posts by several PMBR members indirectly addressing the issue, including Strongbad's post in the Fox/Falco adjustment thread. I guess the question is what they may have or don't have planned to cut back on the auto-combo's and provide more initiative for experimentation and improvisation. Judging by what they have already accomplished, I wouldn't be surprised if they are able to create something that makes Melee appear to discourage creativity by comparison. Who knows.

 

[Oro?!]

In Day[9]'s blog... it's pretty apparent that you could draw the same conclusions that he labels going from Brood War/SC2 to PM/Melee. It is also the same argument to be had from MvC2 to Ultimate, 3rd strike to SF4, etc. It is a culmination of several factors. Games became more main stream, and thus, even the most technical demanding games must be dumbed down from a technical perspective in order to incorporate the largest possible following. There needs to be a relatively low skill floor compared to it's predecessors, but an equally high skill ceiling is demanded by the hardcore original crowd. It is really far fetched how nowadays in game design devs get yelled at for holding your hand in any sense of the word, demand things to be harder or to let go of your hand, but when games are released with little to no guidance from game devs, the game is instantly labelled as too hard or unintuitive much like what has happened recently to Wonderful 101. It becomes a dangerous tightrope, far more perilous than anything else to develop a sequel or spiritual successor to a game that has been labelled as brilliant. There are people who will never even recognize SC2 as a starcraft game because of how different the game is. Like Day9 pointed out, the mechanical prowess and ability for individual units to make big plays so long as your hands and mind can keep up will never be replicated. In SC2 if your unit is beat and in a trap, it will be beaten. There is no wiggle room in a sense. This could be because of a Forced Design on Blizzard's part, but it does not make SC2 unskillful or shallow from a depth perspective. It is just different. The things that are focused on are different. Instead of clunky mechanics, you get smooth streamlined pathing. Instead of jumbled micro chaos where one click could glitch your entire dragoon army, you get deathballs where you just right click once. Those things don't make any less strategic, and SC2 has had it's fair share of balance issues as well in WoL.

I do believe that you are wise to many things that need changing Vro. I, however, refuse to empirically label all the things not melee as bad or wrong. There are very valuable engine mechanics that can be learned from melee that are very intuitive in useful, but this game is not melee. It is crucial to use the best possible elements to our advantage from the melee system, and try to recreate some situations that made melee so deep and fun, but we cannot take everything from melee. Even if we ported everything from melee, got everything perfect, and removed the brawl cast, it would still not be melee.

The game is not perfect, and you know that I agree with you about ***, but Melee is not a perfect sacred being. I'm just curious if you have any specific examples of *** or entire characters that need to be changed in your opinion.

 

[DrinkingFood]

moves have been designed more to fulfill specific roles that act as an incentive and reward for the people that had used them exclusively in those cases, but that punish players who used the move in less conventional means to some success. These players who used characters or moves in a non-traditional way are told to suck it up and to "l2play" when the subtleties of Ike's bair or Charizard's Nair hitboxes are redefined to perform not several tasks, but one task very well.

RIP ROB's 2.1 side-b, JCz needed it as an optimized approach move (no sublety about it, I'MA JUST BOOST IN AND AERIAL) instead of a movement option, I know you tried to fix it JCz... but now robodash perfect wavedashing can never be a thing. 2.6 side-b just doesn't live up to it

 

[StarshipGroove]

Omg new characters 2 stronk

 

[Archangel]

I'm honestly still kinda lost when it comes to this thread. I've read everything here and there are good points but I don't see the points of the points...if that makes sense?

The person who's post made the most sense to me was Eltrion. This combined with the fact that it's very difficult to designed characters that are equal but different. I don't mean characters that are all 100% balanced with 50-50 Match-ups across the board. I'm saying it's hard to design someone on Par with Fox/Falco/Sheik/Puff/Marth/Peach from melee; While at the same time designing characters that play nothing like them. In fact the current cast sort of proves that.

Fox/Falco you have characters like Wolf/Lucas. For Puff you have Wario who's like tank puff with more mobility but less jumps, for marth you now have Ike and Roy who are also swing you sword and CG FF'ers on FD to win. I assume Roy will have an easier time controlling space now that the tip of his sword isn't made of plastic. For Peach, Nobody really plays exactly like peach but there are subtle rip-offs. Mewtwo has Float cancel 2.0, Dash attacks like Robs,Zeldas that have the same function, The emerging silly Dsmashes from various cast members like Bowser, Squirtle, and Pikachu's. Granted they don't do the same amount of damage if CC'd the general idea is the same. As for Sheik, Again nobody is 100% sheik but Mario is starting to become very sheik-ish Considering his grabs vs the bulk of the cast down to his new Dtilt-Fsmash setup. Pit's also been called Sheik with Wings. Character like ZSS have alot of shiek's flow and agility even if they don't see the same level of success....yet.

so, this tells me that being creative with the new characters and changes to old characters is not only difficult its seemingly impossible. Almost every new or revamped character has at least 1 move that is the same as a previous melee character. The likely response to this is exactly what has already happened. EXTREME measures have been taken but they've worked out decently so far. Characters like Bowser and Squirtle getting Armor, Ivy getting Solar beam, Lucario being turned into a streetfighter character, DK, Charizard, Wario, and Bowser's quake effects...etc, Pretty much everything that is seen as new and extreme to a melee setting is the result of a problem that is nearly on par with an unbalanced mathematical equation. As much as I hate to say it...the unbalance doesn't come from Project M. It comes from Project M being a continuation to melee which was not balance by any stretch of the imagination. I love melee, I still think it's a great game and in terms of engine and played perfection it's still a tier above PM's current incarnation. However, that doesn't change the fact that it's unbalanced leaks down to the general design itself. Characters like Fox/Falco when played with at their highest level exceed the bounds of sanity and thus compensation to compete with on close to equal terms is inevitable. That's why there is a constant push to make characters EXTREME, as well as a constant push to slowly and subtly nerf Fox/Falco. It's simply 2 halves of the same picture, 2 sides of the same coin, it's a problem that can't be solved any other way SO it comes down to 3 choices.

1) Nerf Falco/Fox and in turn start to slowly bring down the WTF of other characters as well.(personally I'm against this option) The outcry for it has already started and it will continue to go up because these characters are being perceptive by a group of people as being protected from the nerf bat for no legit reason other than the fact that they are melee. At the same time whenever characters have been deemed at that level(2.1-2.5 Sonic, 2.1 Lucario, 2.5 Diddy, 2.5 Pit, 2.1 Ike(was NEVER at that level) <-- Those characters are so far smashed with the nerf hammer and most fear this cycle is doomed to repeat. With that said alot of the nerfs were needed. At the same time where do you draw the line? Potentially and even practically some designs that were nerfed surpassed Fox/Falco in overall design but others, like Ike weren't even close. Right now there is a new group of characters being vetted for "at that level". The question in the back of everyone's mind is who's head will roll from the chopping block next?

2) Let Fox/Falco remain where they are but deal with the fact that unbelievable designs that are equal but different/opposite will continue to emerge. This means dealing with the known highest level of fox/falco by putting out characters that can potentially reach the same levels while pressing less buttons or doing amazing things from a distance will continue to cycle through. Isn't to say they aren't Melee in nature, it's to say that it's redefining what Melee is...or another way of looking at it is Project M is tapping into a definition of Melee that the rest of us just don't want to listen to or except because after 12 years it's REALLY hard to change one's mind. Truth is aside from the flashiness, the hype, the YouTube videos, the wombo combo spoofs...etc, there is a part of melee's definition that most on my side of the fence ignore. but since I'm in the mood to keep it real I'm going to address it. Apex 2010 Apex 2012 Grand Finals, and Pound 4 Grand Finals. They show that a high level aspect of Melee is playing cheap, It is abusing the lamer, safer, less flashy, and not exactly 1 frame invincible aspects of the game to achieve the same level of success. Building onto that aspect of the game is in truth very melee. It happens to not be the side of melee that I personally like to see but it IS melee.

Potentially TL:DR

Then there is the matter of designed gaps between characters that cause you to miss even more that is by definition melee. If you remove Fox,Falco,Puff, Sheik, and Marth from the game what is left? IC's with amazing Desync setups and you have an infinite that can't be escaped(sounds like some 2.1 lucario setups), Doc, who without the top piece of he cast would just be a pill spamming character who is also pretty good. Sounds like alot of the campy characters in PM, Samus who's not only spammy but has amazing recovery. If not blast zoned she can recover from the magnifying glass on alot of stages.(sounds like various PM characters to me), Falcon who is faster than everyone remaining and can beat everyone remaining with his combo game and speed advantage(reminds me of old sonic), Ganon/DK, who are overall not designed as well but are big and strong and good enough to beat up alot remaining cast(Sound like 2.1 Ike, Bowser, and alot of the current heavyweight characters in PM), Luigi and Pikachu(good, tricky characters that have alot of good match-ups and seem to be overall balanced well enough to fight the remaining cast(sounds like a chunk of PM characters). And I'll sum it up with Mewtwo, Yoshi, GnW, Ness, the links and Kirby. Each has something about them that is specifically replicated in PM's design or is just silly. Mewtwo's stun tactics, Ivy, ZSS, and PM GnW (Hammer) have those element in them. Mewtwo's side-B can also reflect projectiles like many however, he has a distinctive effect in which case he can sometimes pull characters through a stage...that is wacky design if I've ever seen it...The reflector not hitting people is also...wacky. He's got a JC'able, annoyingly electrical, Nair(Lucas anyone?). Also has kill throw up(Lucas again?), Dsmash(you guessed it). Dtilt(feels Squirtle-ish). Then there is Ness, Obviously PM ness is different but Melee ness did introduce the means of getting back % Through his special.(Ivy getting % recovered isn't new). Yoshi, Introduced anti-trading characters. Yoshi at a high level should be able to win most trades because his DJC and the fact that his second jump has Armor makes him take a hit and kick the hell out of whoever he's near.(The anti-trade/armor has been explored alot in Project M but once again you can't say it's not melee). Mr.Game and Watch. All horrific things about him aside, He's a side-B that can take a stock at random so instant kill moves are certainly melee, He's also got Lingering and expansive hitboxes which is something we see expanded on a great deal in Project M's cast. Last but not least, Link/Young link add a mix of characters that can string together a few attacks but are much better served controlling the stage with their projectiles. This, combined with their explosives projectile setups that lead to kills and general ability to run around and piss you off remind me of Snake, Pit, Diddy, PM Mario, Ivy, DDD, Lucas, Ness, ZSS, & Zelda.

The point of that wall is to show that most of PM's "that's not melee" designs can be traced back to Melee. The truth is what we know as "melee" but the top character's designs eclipse the remaining aspects of melee making it so you don't see them therefore through limited perspective over time your mind comes to believe that it doesn't exist. Now, with that said there are some general things that are not melee because....they are Not melee and they never existed. Move that cause players to trip like Bananas and Bubble beam. However it should also be kept in mind that this game is a sequel not a recycling of melee. Some NEW and unusual things should exist as well as completely new techniques that have carried over from brawl's engine. The point is to do the 3 things that have always been done in Melee. Improvise, Adapt, and Overcome.

3) Then of course there is the last option....just play melee. Option speaks for itself.

If you can't handle it then don't play it. I didn't like the direction Brawl+ took in late 09. I knew that direction was destined for death but I also knew it would lead to this so I just waited. If you feel like the direction of Project M isn't for you then step away. Maybe you'll like the final release or even future installments of the demo. If not...well move on.

well, that's about all I got to say on this topic...Assuming it's on topic.


Edit:
HOLY ****! that was WAY longer than I thought O_O
Apologize for typo's...I'm tired and sleepy but haven't slept all night..

edited for some typos.