Is Seeing Super Smash Bros. for Wii U @ MLG a Possibility?

[S0 B00sted]

Both Melee and Brawl ended up on the MLG circuit. Does anyone think it'd be possible for Sm4sh to end up there as well?

 

[B0NK]

Yes.

afk

 

[ATH_]

I don't see why not. This game is definitely funner to watch than Brawl (at least imo)

 

[JetpackX]

inb4 anyone makes the mlg joke

Spoiler

 

[Agro_98]

It's a definite possibility

 

[LunarWingCloud]

Why wouldn't it be?

 

[S0 B00sted]

Why wouldn't it be?

Perhaps because of the sandbagging incident in Brawl.

 

[shapular]

Could be. I think Smash was probably successful enough at MLG this year that they'd want to bring it back, and Smash 4 would be the logical choice. But Smash hasn't been at MLG more often than it has, so who knows what the MLG people are thinking?

 

[BassX]

Better question, How do you qualify to compete in MLG smash events?

 

[Utena]

i doubt it, this game might end up being less competitive than brawl and that didnt have a very long or successful MLG run.

 

[Raijinken]

i doubt it, this game might end up being less competitive than brawl and that didnt have a very long or successful MLG run.

Due in no small part to match-fixing scandals. But it is what it is.

All appearances say Smash4'll be nice and competitive in the long run and short run. But it's wholly up to MLG to decide what to run and what not to run. There are plenty of other outlets to boost a game's esport reputation besides MLG.

 

[DunnoBro]

i doubt it, this game might end up being less competitive than brawl and that didnt have a very long or successful MLG run.

By what measure does sm4sh's competitive future look questionable compared to brawl? It actually overlaps with more popular and modern fighters than any other smash, even melee. (Statistically speaking, Melee is an anomaly)

Personally, I think the future is bright for sm4sh. MLG? Probably, but it mostly depends on the community, NOT THE GAME, as to how long it lasts. Hopefully the smash community has pruned it's reputation in recent years, and while I'm not one for the PR game, I do feel the likes of VGBC and CT have done a fine job representing us.

But we already observe that the general opinion, both of player and spectator is that sm4sh is more appealing than brawl was, which in turn makes it more appealing to MLG.

 

[Conda]

By what measure does sm4sh's competitive future look questionable compared to brawl? It actually overlaps with more popular and modern fighters than any other smash, even melee. (Statistically speaking, Melee is an anomaly)

Personally, I think the future is bright for sm4sh. MLG? Probably, but it mostly depends on the community, NOT THE GAME, as to how long it lasts. Hopefully the smash community has pruned it's reputation in recent years, and while I'm not one for the PR game, I do feel the likes of VGBC and CT have done a fine job representing us.

But we already observe that the general opinion, both of player and spectator is that sm4sh is more appealing than brawl was, which in turn makes it more appealing to MLG.

Seconded. Good post.

 

[samoht45]

It really depends on Nintendo, but so far it seems like they want to help the competitive community this time around rather than completely ignoring it. That being said I think it's definitely possible. All new competitive games should be given a chance and this one happens to have a huge following behind it.

 

[DavemanCozy]

If it is in MLG, that would be hype.

It would be even more hype if they didn't DQ you for not showing up 5 min early to your match and if it didn't cost +100 to enter the venue.

 

[Gawain]

Well I used to be part of the "smash 4 Is competitive, dissenters shut up" camp, but as I've played the game and certain tactics and characters have proven to be overbearing as well as the near entire lack of oki in this game have started becoming glaring issues in my opinion. Rolls and spots are way, way too strong (and one could make an argument on shieldstun too). Hitstun is still a little too low, really fast nairs slow games down to a crawl.

Certain matchups don't have these problems wreaking too much havok, but a strong majority do; the strongest characters are able to abuse the fast rolling/have aerials that come out fast/etc or are able to get around it using some other gimmick.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that, as things stand it just doesn't have a whole lot of depth. The lack of oki reads that defined past smash games is my biggest issue.

 

[TTTTTsd]

I think this could easily be at MLG honestly. Whether it would draw in a super huge crowd or anything is up for debate but it has pretty good potential and the high level play isn't snoozeworthy yet.

The only issue is the players that show up and I'm pretty sure the greats would definitely be there.

 

[Dooms]

Well I used to be part of the "smash 4 Is competitive, dissenters shut up" camp, but as I've played the game and certain tactics and characters have proven to be overbearing as well as the near entire lack of oki in this game have started becoming glaring issues in my opinion. Rolls and spots are way, way too strong (and one could make an argument on shieldstun too). Hitstun is still a little too low, really fast nairs slow games down to a crawl.

Certain matchups don't have these problems wreaking too much havok, but a strong majority do; the strongest characters are able to abuse the fast rolling/have aerials that come out fast/etc or are able to get around it using some other gimmick.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that, as things stand it just doesn't have a whole lot of depth. The lack of oki reads that defined past smash games is my biggest issue.

This will become less and less of a problem as more patches come out (probably) and as the metagame develops imo. You have to remember that we're still only... what... like 3 weeks into the Wii U release?

A big thing that Smash 4 has going for it at the moment is that there is a lot of character diversity. At top level play there are many characters being played, and while it may not show as much at mid-high level (as people tend to pick flavor of the week characters), the fact that you have a huge array of characters that are viable in top level play (Sheik, Diddy, ZSS, Ness, Mario, Donkey Kong, Robin, Dark Pit (which means Pit would do just as well), Sonic, Shulk, Yoshi, Rosalina, Lucario, Fox, and there are definitely more I'm forgetting) means that it's entertaining to watch because you have no idea what the match up is going to be at the end of the tournament. Hopefully this amount of character diversity stays consistent as the game develops, but we'll see.

 

[Gawain]

This will become less and less of a problem as more patches come out (probably) and as the metagame develops imo. You have to remember that we're still only... what... like 3 weeks into the Wii U release?

A big thing that Smash 4 has going for it at the moment is that there is a lot of character diversity. At top level play there are many characters being played, and while it may not show as much at mid-high level (as people tend to pick flavor of the week characters), the fact that you have a huge array of characters that are viable in top level play (Sheik, Diddy, ZSS, Ness, Mario, Donkey Kong, Robin, Dark Pit (which means Pit would do just as well), Sonic, Shulk, Yoshi, Rosalina, Lucario, Fox, and there are definitely more I'm forgetting) means that it's entertaining to watch because you have no idea what the match up is going to be at the end of the tournament. Hopefully this amount of character diversity stays consistent as the game develops, but we'll see.

Well I think what you have yo understand is that every fighting game has character variety in the early days. It doesn't really mean much right now. I'm justnoting that some have very distinct advantages that are making them more dominant.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

THe more I fight people who spam rolls, the better I am at dealing with them.

 

[Gawain]

THe more I fight people who spam rolls, the better I am at dealing with them.

That doesn't make it healthy for the games later life. It doesn't matter if it's possible to deal with it. It's how much it actually engages your brain to deal with it and how entertaining it is to perform and watch. In 64, Melee, and PM, tech chases exist. They're interesting, there are clear options that need to be covered, and if played perfectly one could theoretically keep it going till death on some characters. Being on the floor or hitting the floor is a clearly defined state with a clearly defined set of possibilities. In Smash 4 the rolls are so fast and have some much invincibility that it's just about impossible to have a tech chase. This is especially true when you factor in the lack of jump momentum carrying over (not entirely needed but it exacerbates the issue tremendously). On top of that spot dodges are so fast for some characters that it's too strong of a strategy to just sit in place, Mario is a great example of this.

All of this junk added together makes for an overly defensive game. No, it's not Brawl. But that's not setting the bar very high, it still heavily favors defensive play.

 

[Dooms]

Defensive isn't bad though lmao.

Like, rolling is a legitimate option at times. So is spot dodging. Why is this bad?

This definitely doesn't make the game non-competitive lol.

 

[Conda]

I honestly think the pool of spectators and viewers is quite low, which is a big deal for large tournaments like MLG. I'm a commentator myself and I'll tell you - you can make all the content you want, but there's not a lot of people out there who are watching competitive smash the way they're watching competitive Starcraft or LoL or even Hearthstone.

That doesn't stop me of course, I'm on a mission to bring Smash to people who don't know how fun it is to watch as a spectator. But we all need to work together and promote our favourite streamers and youtubers and get Smash in the spotlight. Competitive Smash has a lot of potential.

 

[Davis-Lightheart]

That doesn't make it healthy for the games later life. It doesn't matter if it's possible to deal with it. It's how much it actually engages your brain to deal with it and how entertaining it is to perform and watch. In 64, Melee, and PM, tech chases exist. They're interesting, there are clear options that need to be covered, and if played perfectly one could theoretically keep it going till death on some characters. Being on the floor or hitting the floor is a clearly defined state with a clearly defined set of possibilities. In Smash 4 the rolls are so fast and have some much invincibility that it's just about impossible to have a tech chase. This is especially true when you factor in the lack of jump momentum carrying over (not entirely needed but it exacerbates the issue tremendously). On top of that spot dodges are so fast for some characters that it's too strong of a strategy to just sit in place, Mario is a great example of this.

All of this junk added together makes for an overly defensive game. No, it's not Brawl. But that's not setting the bar very high, it still heavily favors defensive play.

The way I see it, whether a game is defensive or offensive doesn't really matter in the long run. It's the dynamics of the players, and their struggles to make themselves better than others. Brawl was still a pretty successful game for a good deal of it's life, and that's probably twice as defensive as this game. In the end, I feel Brawl was killed by the lack of it's dynamic, what with Meta Knight being the nigh-undisputed champion, and people got bored of that.

At the current time, Sm4sh has no official tier list. It has nothing aside from players testing out what they hope works. And it's such a different game from Melee, that it can't rely on Melee's legacy to keep it afloat, since it's gameplay is so focused on the defensive. This will be tough in Smash 4's early life, but I think it will pull through, and develop it's own meta and it's own audience once people discover tier lists, and a struggle is presented.

I saw a match between M2K's Diddy and Will's Donkey Kong, and I can say that match was pretty hype for me and a whole lot of people, despite being slow and defensive. The match up was against Will, and it looked like he would lose, but people cheered when he pulled through in that match, and more than anything, people want to see this struggle. It will take some time for it to be established, but it will happen. Whether it makes it into MLG or not will depend on a number of factors, but I believe that despite offense or defense, Smash 4 will find a stronger audience than Brawl did, as long as it doesn't have a MetaKnight.

 

[DunnoBro]

One note about the buffs to spot dodging and rolling: As a whole the cast is by far the strongest it's ever been. You take any character from this game and put them into the environment of any other smash(and allow them access to the same tools all other characters have, l-cancel, wavedash, etc), they will dominate.

Many moves have more range, last longer, and hit way harder. Whether or not it was necessary, or went too far, the decision to buff defensive measures was definitely justified and I'd prefer he buff those than air dodges!

I also think giving characters more roll/spot dodge punishing options would be more appropriate than directly nerfing them.

I'm not really feeling the issue personally, but also generally not against any idea to make the game less defensive.

 

[Teh Sandwich]

i doubt it, this game might end up being less competitive than brawl and that didnt have a very long or successful MLG run.

LOL how do you figure? This is already the most well balanced smash bros in the series...
That's what makes a good competitive game.. balance..

 

[Utena]

LOL how do you figure? This is already the most well balanced smash bros in the series...
That's what makes a good competitive game.. balance..

i mean youre wrong on the second point.... rock paper scissors is a perfectly balanced game but thats not even remotely fun to watch.

more importantly why have you been registered since 2010, and out of 14 total posts 3 of them are trying to argue with me

 

[Gawain]

Defensive isn't bad though lmao.

Like, rolling is a legitimate option at times. So is spot dodging. Why is this bad?

This definitely doesn't make the game non-competitive lol.

It has been objectively proven that most people don't want to watch a campy game. This topic is about MLG. Stuff like MLG is all about the bottom line, in this case it's viewer count. No, it doesn't make the game uncompetitive, but it doesn't improve the games chances of getting big competitively. Laughing it off is honestly a stupid way to look at it. You're basically asking for no changes despite the fact that changes could make the game objectively better.

 

[RanserSSF4]

It has been objectively proven that most people don't want to watch a campy game.

I find that very ironic because Injustice, a campy, defensive game still made it to MLG despite how campy it can be, and yet, it still got good views.

 

[TTTTTsd]

My major beef with the idea of nerfing rolls is the overall effect.

Sure you get more viewership MAYBE if new people want to jump on ship, but then you have the issue of other cast-wide matchup problems. Look at a character like Ganondorf vs. someone like Link in this game, or any projectile/zoning character. Inherently rolls IMO help in these kinds of matchups quite a bit for my character, as do the improved defensive options.

It's a super fine line but I am okay with sacrificing viewer count or even an MLG position if it allows me to have better matchups when I'm actually playing.

Not saying changing them would absolutely ruin my character but I think it would dent him (Ganondorf) given that he is a character that relies on it to really work.

 

[Dooms]

It has been objectively proven that most people don't want to watch a campy game. This topic is about MLG. Stuff like MLG is all about the bottom line, in this case it's viewer count. No, it doesn't make the game uncompetitive, but it doesn't improve the games chances of getting big competitively. Laughing it off is honestly a stupid way to look at it. You're basically asking for no changes despite the fact that changes could make the game objectively better.

I'm laughing it off because there is no way that Smash4 is defensive enough to where it won't get viewers.

 

[Morbi]

It has been objectively proven that most people don't want to watch a campy game. This topic is about MLG. Stuff like MLG is all about the bottom line, in this case it's viewer count. No, it doesn't make the game uncompetitive, but it doesn't improve the games chances of getting big competitively. Laughing it off is honestly a stupid way to look at it. You're basically asking for no changes despite the fact that changes could make the game objectively better.

You cannot objectively prove that "most" people do not want to watch a campy game. That is subjective language by nature.

 

[DunnoBro]

You cannot objectively prove that "most" people do not want to watch a campy game. That is subjective language by nature.

He worded it poorly, but in this context he's right. It was proven more people did not want to watch the more campy game, brawl.

He wasn't talking about any campy game ever. Though I will say MLG is huge, and there were other issues with dropping brawl than just viewer count. Even with less interest it seemed to generate revenue for them. As long as these "less people" carve out their niche and made their demand known, there being possibly more people interested if the game was different is rather irrelevant.

Personally though, the issues with brawl weren't just "campiness"

 

[Gawain]

You cannot objectively prove that "most" people do not want to watch a campy game. That is subjective language by nature.

Now we're arguing semantics. It is obvious that melee and PM draw in more viewers (and players for that matter) than Brawl. That's a fact. Games like Marvel attract more viewers than games like Injustice do. It reasonable to assume that fast games attract more viewers.

 

[|RK|]

That doesn't make it healthy for the games later life. It doesn't matter if it's possible to deal with it. It's how much it actually engages your brain to deal with it and how entertaining it is to perform and watch. In 64, Melee, and PM, tech chases exist. They're interesting, there are clear options that need to be covered, and if played perfectly one could theoretically keep it going till death on some characters. Being on the floor or hitting the floor is a clearly defined state with a clearly defined set of possibilities. In Smash 4 the rolls are so fast and have some much invincibility that it's just about impossible to have a tech chase. This is especially true when you factor in the lack of jump momentum carrying over (not entirely needed but it exacerbates the issue tremendously). On top of that spot dodges are so fast for some characters that it's too strong of a strategy to just sit in place, Mario is a great example of this.

All of this junk added together makes for an overly defensive game. No, it's not Brawl. But that's not setting the bar very high, it still heavily favors defensive play.

Dealing with rolls doesn't take a huge amount of commitment, though. Once people have figured it out, it becomes less viable to do very often, no? Or am I misunderstanding your post?

 

[Dooms]

Now we're arguing semantics. It is obvious that melee and PM draw in more viewers (and players for that matter) than Brawl. That's a fact. Games like Marvel attract more viewers than games like Injustice do. It reasonable to assume that fast games attract more viewers.

You're also misunderstanding the fact that Brawl had way more problems than simply the speed of the game.

The things that Smash4 has that Brawl didn't have are decent wifi and committed live streams amongst mechanical changes that make the game way better and more enjoyable to watch. Not just tournament streams, but actual live streams. Multiple pros dedicated to the game stream daily, and it's way easier to commit to watching a game that has a committed viewer base than it is to watch a game like Brawl.

You have to understand the fact that since top level people like Fow, ZeRo, Dabuz, and M2K (amongst many others at all kinds of levels) are streaming this game, a majority of which are explaining the game and making it interesting to watch for viewers, there are going to be many viewers on their stream naturally. Mew2King has 2,500+ viewers at this second (7-4 AM in the Americas). That's this morning. Imagine what it's like spread amongst multiple different pro smashers at a decent time.

Smash4 won't have a problem getting viewers anytime soon. Also, remember, this isn't a "is this game more visually enjoyable than Melee" debate, it's a "is this game going to get the viewers that MLG desires" debate, so saying that it won't get as many viewers as Melee is not a legitimate argument against it.

 

[RanserSSF4]

Now we're arguing semantics. It is obvious that melee and PM draw in more viewers (and players for that matter) than Brawl. That's a fact. Games like Marvel attract more viewers than games like Injustice do. It reasonable to assume that fast games attract more viewers.

I do agree, but the problem I have with your comment is that they're different games. Regardless on how different they are, if they still get good views at MLG, than it succeeded and may come back again. In terms of Melee vs Brawl, I agree, but today, I feel it doesn't matter. As you mentioned, Marvel may have gotten more views than Injustice, but as I said, they're different games, and obviously one will have higher views than the other.

 

[Ifrit]

Does it have a chance? I suppose it has a chance simply because it is the new game to play..
It won't last, though. I really love PLAYING smash 4. I can play it for hours with friends, we all love it, despite being in love with melee and P:M and really disliking brawl. But that's the problem, I love PLAYING sm4sh, not WATCHING it. MLG wants games that will bring in the viewers and money, and I really can't see thousands of viewers watching rosalina throw luma at a diddy kong for 3 minutes.

 

[Gawain]

Dealing with rolls doesn't take a huge amount of commitment, though. Once people have figured it out, it becomes less viable to do very often, no? Or am I misunderstanding your post?

The number moves that are capable of dealing with them in the gamut of circumstances are not very big. That's the main problem. In Melee/PM/64, you have lots of different ways to handle an OTG situation. There are multiple answers for rolls away, from aerials to specials to grabs etc. In Smash 4 it's a lot more limited. For some characters their dash attack is literally their sole method of handling it. Most of the time there is no real followup potential from roll punishes in this game, making tech chase situations a lot less interesting and deadly (or even non existent in some cases) than they have been in past games: something that has defined this series' competitive scene.

 

[|RK|]

The number moves that are capable of dealing with them in the gamut of circumstances are not very big. That's the main problem. In Melee/PM/64, you have lots of different ways to handle an OTG situation. There are multiple answers for rolls away, from aerials to specials to grabs etc. In Smash 4 it's a lot more limited. For some characters their dash attack is literally their sole method of handling it. Most of the time there is no real followup potential from roll punishes in this game, making tech chase situations a lot less interesting and deadly (or even non existent in some cases) than they have been in past games: something that has defined this series' competitive scene.

Ah, gotcha.