Is the skill gap in Smash 4 too small?

[thehard]

A format of 2 stocks and rage definitely makes upsets much easier to happen. That I agree with. I think when someone wins a close game, it wasn't much of an outplay. But when someone solidly wins a game, then it means much more than it usually does.

What do you think of 3 stock for Smash 4's future?

 

[MrTsAGamer (MrT)]

Rage is an important factor to take into account, this game has aggressive potential, but being aggressive is forgotten in the situation where you and your opponent are at 160 each and you die, now you have rage to deal with, potentially making you die early. This leaves less room for error . I think adding 3 stocks would increase the aggregation by players being given more stocks to play with and take risks with. Any thoughts or am I being stupid

 

[SilverhandX]

Maybe not TOP pros but newer players vs nicely skilled players (middle of the road) you definitely have more upset than you did in Brawl's early days, at least in Socal we do. The TOP players are on such a high skill gap that the 2 stocks effect isn't so apparant, but for other skill gaps (beginner to medium) the 2 stock effect makes a huge difference.

If you think about having to beat the best players in a 2 stock match or a 4 stock match, and you played 100 games with each other, which do you think you'd be more likely to take a few games off?

I honestly don't think it is a matter of debate that as the number of stocks increase, the chance of beating a player who is overall better than you (and by better, I mean on average places higher than you in tournaments) increases in linear fashion.

The thread is really asking if the game mechanics themselves contribute to any skill gap difference, and to me the answer is no, and I am attributing this feeling he is having to the stocks difference entirely.

Stock increase decreasing the chance of upsets is absolutely true, and I feel like a lot of people haven't really thought about that. I think 2 stock is detrimental to the game, and having at least 3 would be better. However, if you look beyond 2, 3, or 4 stocks, imagine playing 50 stock games. That's far from logical for tournaments, but I think in a game with a ton of stocks the better player would pretty much always win, where as with something like 2 stocks upsets are far more likely.

 

[villager]

What do you think of 3 stock for Smash 4's future?

Campy players ruin that idea. I'd love to see 3 stocks, but when you have all these annoying guys too scared to fight you end up with 2 stock matches that run to time after 8 agonizing minutes. Dabuz on Rosalina is a good example of this stupidity.

The meta is shaking out well though, and I think more aggressive play puts 3 stock in the cards for Smash 4's possible future. I'd rather see an aggressive Rosalina wreck face than roll away from a Pac-man endlessly like a ****** "because it's safe and 4 has no wavedashing" come on man.

 

[EgeDal]

Campy players ruin that idea. I'd love to see 3 stocks, but when you have all these annoying guys too scared to fight you end up with 2 stock matches that run to time after 8 agonizing minutes. Dabuz on Rosalina is a good example of this stupidity.

The meta is shaking out well though, and I think more aggressive play puts 3 stock in the cards for Smash 4's possible future. I'd rather see an aggressive Rosalina wreck face than roll away from a Pac-man endlessly like a ****** "because it's safe and 4 has no wavedashing" come on man.

never blame the player, if it looks like a viable option it's either opponent's fault for not being able to counter that, or it's developer's fault for making such options viable

 

[AccountsDept]

If I am to make a negative statement;

While, yes, the "mountaintop" of high-level play is very, very far away from me, I must say that unlike melee, the mountaintop doesn't look that much more interesting then the part i'm at now. Not much at all. The visible difference between low and high level play is negligible, and very few times do I find myself going "wow, that was ****in' sick", save for certain players like Boss at Xanadu.

Melee's ridiculously high skill ceiling along with it's abysmally low skill floor, while it may make newcomers go through hell to climb over the first initial, indeed very unforgiving, hump, once they're over, they're on the road to the mountain top at an exponential pace, and the mountain top looks like this, rather than this.

No offence to ZeRo, he's cool and all, but that clip's really silly. It's a stagnant confrontation with no real impressive skill involved to keep the situation at a stalemate, and as quick as i am to voice my distaste with brawl, it did have a character that was a prime example of how to make a fun-to-watch campy game. Smash 4's more slow pace doesn't promote the kind of crazy forethought and constant action (CANNOT STRESS THE IMPORTANCE OF THIS PRINCIPLE ENOUGH) that goes into a character, like, say, Snake (with an exception for duck hunt maybe), but all those characters that promote camps are still top tier. Save for, say, Diddy and Sheik, Sm4sh's top tier crates stalemates that are blatantly unimpressive compared to, well, every other game in the series.

Getting a little off-topic, voicing my dislike for a lot of Sm4sh's mechanics rather than answering the thread's question, but they're deeply related. There is not the same kind of show of iron-fist level dominance in Sm4sh, partly because of the improved balance, yes (sheik v. bowser isn't quite an insta-lose situation), however, I do think a lot of that is because the game's design is purposely crafted to limit the maximum ability of high-level players. Yes, the better player will still win 99% of the time, but the game prevents you, from, well, being Leffen in that first melee gif at all times. There can never be that same show of control as in melee, and I think that's what makes a lot of matches less interesting to watch compared to a hypothetical in which that's not the case.

 

[allshort17]

Perhaps because of For Glory, the recent support of Nintendo and other major companies, and just the newest of the game, Smash 4 has the biggest population of lower mid to mid level players out of any Smash game. As even you noticed, this "lack of skill gap" only exists outside of the top, which is partly true. Since there is a lower skill floor, all a player needs is basic fundamentals or a gimmick and can compete with a majority of players. Why it may seem like this trend is so pronounce in Smash 4 is because the pool mid-level players is huge while the pool of top level players hasn't really grown yet or maybe even decreased.

If you look at any region, it's the same 3-5 people winning tournaments and taking the top 3 spots.
*MD/VA- Seagull Joe, Boss, Pink Fresh
*Socal- Tyrant, DEFH, Xzax
*NY/NJ- Nario, Nakat, Jtails, Dabuz, Vinnie
*Florida- Esam, MVD, Nick Riddle, Master Raven
*Europe- Mr. R, Leffen, Cyve, J. Miller
plus people like Zero and M2K who travel so much.

What you'll notice is not only is the pool of top players is small, but it mainly consists of people who were already top level players in other Smash games, mainly Brawl. There have been some players like Jtails and Da Puffster who have leveled up, but mainly no one new is winning tournaments. If the skill gap were small, there would be a large pool of tournament winners full of volatile results and new players, but that isn't the case.

 

[villager]

never blame the player, if it looks like a viable option it's either opponent's fault for not being able to counter that, or it's developer's fault for making such options viable

Believe it or not there actually is a "wrong" way to play any game and I think the developer is not at fault. You can choose to run away in melee too, viable option there as well buddy. But would you play that way? No because it's ****ing stupid. Think about it.

People play too timidly because the game is new. There is early footage of melee where the players would camp too. It's not the fault of the developer that YOU don't see your aggressive options. Most people don't even know that Rosalina's down B can damage opponents.

 

[neohopeSTF]

I think its more that Smash 4's combos are very "cookie cutter" you see the same ones being done over and over, and they aren't especially hard to do so the game relys on reads and building up percent, which imo isn't too exciting to watch.

 

[AccountsDept]

Believe it or not there actually is a "wrong" way to play any game and I think the developer is not at fault. You can choose to run away in melee too, viable option there as well buddy. But would you play that way? No because it's ****ing stupid. Think about it.

People play too timidly because the game is new. There is early footage of melee where the players would camp too. It's not the fault of the developer that YOU don't see your aggressive options. Most people don't even know that Rosalina's down B can damage opponents.

While I see your point, it's important to remember that the exploratory mindset we have today was not the same in 2002 when Melee was released. The thought processes were very different, and the progress they made was heavily slowed by the fact that we don't have a reference point to start from. We do.

I believe that stating that "Melee had slow games too!" is a fallacy, because the collective knowledge that we have as a community has exponentially improved. When Smash 4 was released, it was much more quickly dissected by top players of other games, and we can come to conclusions faster, as, when Melee was released, the concept and play style of a "Top Player" as we understand today didn't exist. This is mostly apparent in the mental game.

 

[BestTeaMaker]

Campy players ruin that idea. I'd love to see 3 stocks, but when you have all these annoying guys too scared to fight you end up with 2 stock matches that run to time after 8 agonizing minutes. Dabuz on Rosalina is a good example of this stupidity.

The meta is shaking out well though, and I think more aggressive play puts 3 stock in the cards for Smash 4's possible future. I'd rather see an aggressive Rosalina wreck face than roll away from a Pac-man endlessly like a ****** "because it's safe and 4 has no wavedashing" come on man.

Campy players are campy whether it's 2, 3, or 50 stocks. Dabuz's playstyle is very patient and reactionary. He doesn't go full on aggressive. Also because Rosalina and Olimar control so much space, it's hard for opponents to effectively approach.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

For all it's worth, 4's airdodge is pretty stupid, too. It's the ground options available after a landing that made Brawl airdodge so ridiculous.

It's still a lot easier to punish though.

That much I think is more true than with Brawl by a long shot.

edit: In terms of tech skill and playing the game.

Not really, execution to play the game is simple, which is fine in itself.

Applying it and using it smart, that is another story.

 

[allshort17]

Campy players ruin that idea. I'd love to see 3 stocks, but when you have all these annoying guys too scared to fight you end up with 2 stock matches that run to time after 8 agonizing minutes. Dabuz on Rosalina is a good example of this stupidity.

The meta is shaking out well though, and I think more aggressive play puts 3 stock in the cards for Smash 4's possible future. I'd rather see an aggressive Rosalina wreck face than roll away from a Pac-man endlessly like a ****** "because it's safe and 4 has no wavedashing" come on man.

How is your name and first main Villager, yet you're against camping?

 

[DaRkJaWs]

I know that eventually we will move away from two stocks: the idea that the game lasts longer in smash 4 has been debunked over and over with the exception of where you see two campy characters like a rosalina and PAC man for example is rare. And I'm glad zero at least made his position known as well on this. I think after EVO we need to make 3 stocks the minimum, and even go as high as 4 stock. There really is no good reason not to, and it needs to be talked about now instead of later; two stocks per game is really a travesty especially when you take rage into account.

And to the person saying videos of high level play was boring, I doubt you actually watched any of the matches with zero in it. The way he plays is interesting and slick.

One last note: on the subject of melees history with movesets as opposed to smash 4s. I'm honestly surprised melee got as big as it did particularly because once the gamecube came out it was by far the least popular console Nintendo has ever sold. Smash 64 was on the much more popular n64 yet nobody until well after melee came out thought of hosting tournaments for it with the exception of some they held in places like LA. Other than going through the beginning history, The point is that the community of smashers that smash 64 should have created was instead created through melee and that community is the reason sm4sh became as heavily scrutinized as it is now in terms of movesets, AT, and such. It's not necessarily because sm4sh is easier or whatever bs you want to argue. Hell, I know of an advanced technique that nobody else save for one other DK knows about (it's a pretty big set of stuff you can do with it with certain characters) as I discovered it and I have no reason to tell anyone here about it because I'll lose my competitive edge, and nobody will know about it until they scrutinize me at tournaments wondering how the hell I'm doing what I did. We've just scratched the surface, bro.

 

[Muro]

TL;DR:
Smash 4 is a potential gateway drug to bring new players to the melee/project m scene.

I think, ultimately, this is the most sm4sh can ever hope to be.

 

[DaRkJaWs]

I think, ultimately, this is the most sm4sh can ever hope to be.

Says the guy nobody likes.

 

[Zorai]

2-stock, 3-stock, and 4-stock formats are essentially three different games.

There is no real reason to replace the 2 stock format, we just have to understand the implications of it. What 2 stock does is it basically makes Sm4sh extremely similar to traditional fighting games like street fighter, where you have only a handful of chances to tilt the round in your favor, or your opponent can start snowballing their lead.

Mistakes are far more costly in the 2 stock format. Yes this will lead to varying outcomes in future tournaments but ultimately whoever was playing better will have won. Personally, I prefer a format where you are allowed a very small margin for error. This really creates higher tension matches where you can't risk sloppy play.

2 stock is perfect.

 

[Muro]

Says the guy nobody likes.

Don't worry buddy, you'll see it too in due time. No need to get cranky.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

I think, ultimately, this is the most sm4sh can ever hope to be.

You really don't know that.

And you shouldn't pretend you do know where it will go.

 

[thehard]

Look

I don't think most players left Brawl because of the pace or lack of combos or whatever is normally said, they left because of metagame degeneration (poor character balance, infinites, planking etc.)

Seeing as Smash 4 has none of that, it's hard for me to think of it as a gateway game or something that will even "die" before the next Smash game comes out (assuming it's Smash 4 2.0). It's simply a quality game which ensures a long competitive life

This is all disregarding the fact that Smash 4 and Melee and PM play very differently.

 

[Muro]

You really don't know that.

hence the "I think" part of my post. I see sponsors ignoring the game, I see the horrible reception the game got (really, it's as bad as it could be with nintendo marketing behind it), and I see Zero, the best sm4sh player and a figurehead for the game already talking about bailing on the game for melee, I know how things panned out for brawl (a game I still like very much). I dunno if it's just an instinct man, it seems like it's going down that road.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

hence the "I think" part of my post. I see sponsors ignoring the game, I see the horrible reception the game got (really, it's as bad as it could be with nintendo marketing behind it),

Sponsor what? Evo i the most sponsorship will get with Nintendo. We're not gonna see Doritos and other stuff at large tournaments with Esports any time soon, and neither for Melee either.

This means nothing.

and I see Zero, the best sm4sh player and a figurehead for the game already talking about bailing on the game for melee, I know how things panned out for brawl (a game I still like very much). I dunno if it's just an instinct man, it seems like it's going down that road.

https://twitter.com/ZeRoSSB/status/568573265939189761

He said he'd only do it because he always pushes it to the side for other smash games, no other reason involved.

Even if he did, this is not relevant.

 

[Muro]

Sponsor what? Evo i the most sponsorship will get with Nintendo. We're not gonna see Doritos and other stuff at large tournaments with Esports any time soon, and neither for Melee either.

This means nothing.

Player sponsors.

Anyway, we'll see how it turns out in the end. The next big reality check is gonna be EVO indeed.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Player sponsors.

Anyway, we'll see how it turns out in the end. The next big reality check is gonna be EVO indeed.

CEO and other will happen before then.

Nothing bad has happened yet.

 

[thehard]

Where did Smash 4 get horrible reception? In a subset of its already comparatively minuscule competitive community?

 

[Muro]

CEO and other will happen before then.

Nothing bad has happened yet.

If it's not one it'll be another, sooner or later apex is bound to repeat itself, because that's what the game is.

Where did Smash 4 get horrible reception? In a subset of its already comparatively minuscule competitive community?

well yeah, which is a big chunk of the part of the game I happen to care about the most. If you only play the game casually of course this doesn't apply.

This is how the mainstream sees the game competitively: link. We're already past the "it's between brawl and melee", to the more progressive "it's like brawl, but no tripping". It's a matter of time before the consensus turns to "it's not even as good as brawl", for which you can make a good argument already (and it has been done).

 

[allshort17]

Sponsor what? Evo i the most sponsorship will get with Nintendo. We're not gonna see Doritos and other stuff at large tournaments with Esports any time soon, and neither for Melee either.

This means nothing.

.

It is weird though that top level Smash 4 players aren't receiving player sponsors like Melee. Out of all the games in the FGC, Melee's the one of the first to get backing from major e-sports organizations like Cloud 9, Curse, and Mortality. Even if you'd like to say that the most top players have had more time to prove themselves to sponsors, many top Smash 4 players are top Brawl players as well, yet haven't got sponsored because of that either.

Not to say that this is a sign of the game dying or stagnating, but it is something to consider.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

It is weird though that top level Smash 4 players aren't receiving player sponsors like Melee. Out of all the games in the FGC, Melee's the one of the first to get backing from major e-sports organizations like Cloud 9, Curse, and Mortality. Even if you'd like to say that the most top players have had more time to prove themselves to sponsors, many top Smash 4 players are top Brawl players as well, yet haven't got sponsored because of that either.

Not to say that this is a sign of the game dying or stagnating, but it is something to consider.

Melee has been on the pro circuit longer before Smash 4 came out.

That's a pretty big reason as to why people have been picking up Melee players given the 2-3+ years of Evo already.

 

[thehard]

This is how the mainstream sees the game competitively: link. We're already past the "it's between brawl and melee", to the more progressive "it's like brawl, but no tripping". It's a matter of time before the consensus turns to "it's not even as good as brawl", for which you can make a good argument already (and it has been done).

No, that's /r/games, and I already see a bunch of familiar faces from /r/smashbros, which is decidedly Melee and PM-centric, in that thread

 

[Muro]

No, that's /r/games

well I don't know any other bigger place where the games are talked about. Anyway, all the arguing changes nothing anyway, let's see where the game heads.

 

[thehard]

Oh my god that thread

Yeah, it's pretty common in sm4sh to see 2 stock/6 min games time out.

There's no technique you can master to guarantee victory over someone else.

The top Smash 4 players aren't that much better than everyone else, and Smash 4 tournament results have been incredibly varied because of this.

the highly defensive nature of the game means that players like Zer0 will continue to run out the clock in certain fights rather than actually finish the matchup, which is about the most disappointing and frustrating thing to watch and/or experience.

It's ok to hate the player and not the game in these cases right?

 

[|RK|]

If I am to make a negative statement;

While, yes, the "mountaintop" of high-level play is very, very far away from me, I must say that unlike melee, the mountaintop doesn't look that much more interesting then the part i'm at now. Not much at all. The visible difference between low and high level play is negligible, and very few times do I find myself going "wow, that was ****in' sick", save for certain players like Boss at Xanadu.

Melee's ridiculously high skill ceiling along with it's abysmally low skill floor, while it may make newcomers go through hell to climb over the first initial, indeed very unforgiving, hump, once they're over, they're on the road to the mountain top at an exponential pace, and the mountain top looks like this, rather than this.

No offence to ZeRo, he's cool and all, but that clip's really silly. It's a stagnant confrontation with no real impressive skill involved to keep the situation at a stalemate, and as quick as i am to voice my distaste with brawl, it did have a character that was a prime example of how to make a fun-to-watch campy game. Smash 4's more slow pace doesn't promote the kind of crazy forethought and constant action (CANNOT STRESS THE IMPORTANCE OF THIS PRINCIPLE ENOUGH) that goes into a character, like, say, Snake (with an exception for duck hunt maybe), but all those characters that promote camps are still top tier. Save for, say, Diddy and Sheik, Sm4sh's top tier crates stalemates that are blatantly unimpressive compared to, well, every other game in the series.

Getting a little off-topic, voicing my dislike for a lot of Sm4sh's mechanics rather than answering the thread's question, but they're deeply related. There is not the same kind of show of iron-fist level dominance in Sm4sh, partly because of the improved balance, yes (sheik v. bowser isn't quite an insta-lose situation), however, I do think a lot of that is because the game's design is purposely crafted to limit the maximum ability of high-level players. Yes, the better player will still win 99% of the time, but the game prevents you, from, well, being Leffen in that first melee gif at all times. There can never be that same show of control as in melee, and I think that's what makes a lot of matches less interesting to watch compared to a hypothetical in which that's not the case.

Disclaimer: Melee's combos and 0 to deaths are hype as hell.

You can take two different things from the gameplay that you posted. The first is what you said - the top level of Melee shows a level of aggression and dominance that Smash 4 lacks (or rather, doesn't show as often). The second is that a wider variety of playstyles are viable at the top level in Smash 4. ZeRo and Dabuz are both incredible players, and ZeRo tends to be the more aggressive player, while Dabuz is far more defensive. This is, if nothing else, clearer in Smash 4. More diverse playstyles, much like the variety of movement options in Melee tend to lend to interesting gameplay. Now you may not enjoy certain styles in Smash 4, and that's fine. A lot of skill is still involved.

 

[Iceweasel]

Yeah, no. Go find a local where a top player shows up and money match him. You're gonna get bopped. If he's trying to style on you, you might take a game off him, but if he's being serious, you're gonna get demolished.

 

[SuperSalamence]

It's still a lot easier to punish though.

On the ground that is. Brawl air dodges had 20 frames of vulnerability with the exception of the then newcomers (Ike, Pit, Lucas, etc.) who had only 10 frames of vulnerability. This relatively wide window offered a considerable amount of time to punish higher up air dodges. In Brawl, if Falco was trailing an opponent in the air trying to land, Falco could go for an up air and then cover the opponents 'air dodge with a back air. Falco's up air has a very early IASA frame which means he can act out of it almost instantly and back air is his fastest aerial. The up air would whiff because of the invincibility but the back air would cover the 10 or 20 frames of endlag. This was known as frame trapping. In smash 4 however, the vulnerability between air dodges has been reduced to 2 frames(if I remember correctly), the difference is visually noticeable and the same setups that were previously frame traps no longer work. Even worse, air dodges are now interruptible mid animation meaning you can avoid an aerial and immediately counter with one of your own while your opponent is still in the end lag of their attempted aerial. Of course you could always wait for an air dodge and try to punish that, but you only get 2 guaranteed frames on a moving target which isn't necessarily easy to counter. You may see gifs of air dodge punishes, but many, if not all of them could have been avoided if the opponent simply dodged twice in a row.

 

[lil T]

Okay, let's start this off right. First of all, let's clear up something important:



First of all, this isn't true; average landing lag in this game is definitely lower than Brawl at the very least. Melee is a strange, non-linear comparison since, while Melee has less landing lag on aerials on average, smash 4 has considerably wider and more useful auto-cancel windows so lagless landings are way more common in 4 than in Melee. It's more about a different meta where you use your aerials early instead of late and do more full hops and don't fast fall as often since you're fishing for auto-cancels a lot more in this engine. This is also a really strange way to phrase things since, even if smash 4 had strictly more landing lag on aerials than Melee, that wouldn't be "worse". Since when does the amount of landing lag aerials have have anything to do with game quality? Lines of thinking like this are way too common and really hurt our collective ability to understand these games we play.

---

I'm actually seeing much more pronounced skill gaps in 4 than I saw in past smash games honestly because I feel like this game has way more "footsies" than any other smash game mostly because jumping around (which resets situations) is so much worse. In Melee jumping put you in that state where you had these insanely safe attacks (due to how L-cancel worked in combination with the fortresses that were Jigglypuff and Peach in the air), and in Brawl, jumping put you in that state where you could fling yourself around with copious invincibility since Brawl airdodge was pretty ridiculous. In 4, when you jump, you're taking a huge risk every time. Landings are intrinsically unsafe due to airdodge landing lag (and pretty high average ground speed helps!), and the way auto-cancels work makes doing late aerials to bail yourself out of trouble more of a guessing game than an actually solid escape. The implication of this is that you just don't jump as much and rely instead on asserting stage control on the ground and trying to bully your opponent into situations where they are forced to choose between risky options. This is hard to do and hard to avoid, and when I see players of uneven skill meet, I often see extremely decisive victories due to skill gaps in this regard. When players are close in skill, I generally see the results come down to clean adaptation and decision making to force these decisions on the opponent; it feels to me like it's almost always crisp and clear that the winning player was actually playing better in this game.

I also think people confuse skill ceiling and skill floor. This game definitely has the lowest skill floor of any smash game; there's a pretty hard limit to how much you can suck at smash 4, and you don't need very much practice at all to be able to play in a coherent way that can look respectable. This results in far fewer total blow-out games among weaker players than in past smash games; even bad players at least have the bare minimum of ability to fight back. On the other hand, the ceiling is enormous; just look at what zero does to everyone he plays (generally brutal games that make it super obvious he's the best by far), and I strongly suspect even he is just barely scratching the surface of this game's depth. The game's skill ceiling, how much you can improve, is just obviously very large; it's my suspicion it will prove to be the largest of any smash game, but we won't be able to be sure of that for the next several years. I'd also like to make it clear what claiming the opposite means. If you believe this game has a low skill ceiling, then you need to offer some very serious explanation for why you aren't winning nationals since a low skill ceiling means it's easy to get as good at the game as you can get. You also need to explain how it's even possible for zero to be as good as he is versus everyone else; games in which a very small number of players just dominate everyone else are generally games in which the community as a whole is very far from reaching the skill ceiling.

I'd also like to share another observation that I think speaks well for this game. In early Brawl, it took about a year for top Melee players to really stop being a factor at a tournament level; they relied for a long time on skill transfer from Melee and it just worked until the meta grew a lot in Brawl. In 4, being good at Melee never seemed to help all that much, and even though you honestly see less cross-over, when you do see it the results just don't happen. If you don't specifically practice 4, you just don't win at it, and that tells me that smash 4 pushes players really hard. Like if this game didn't push skill, I'd expect to see players who don't care or don't try winning, and honestly, I'm just not seeing that at all in this game. I disagree 100% with the premise of this topic and actually feel the exact opposite.

Also to be clear, I'm not interested in smash game vs smash game arguments, but I do think that if you aren't fully immersed in 4, it might be easy not to notice the meta. 4 is a beautiful game, and it's growing better and better at an incredible rate. I know there will always be Melee-heads especially since the gameplay dynamics of 4 are even more different from Melee than Brawl was, but if that's you and 4 is seeming bad to you, I'd just ask you to consider that maybe what makes 4 great is just outside of your sight as opposed to non-existent. If that's not you and you just feel like you can't improve at 4 which is the source of your criticism, I really suggest looking within instead of blaming the game. Just watch your game with a super critical eye asking where you could do things better, and look at the micro level and not just the macro level (if you take a step forward at a bad time or fail to take a step forward when you should, that matters a lot!). You should find, honestly even if you're a top player, tons of spots where you didn't do the best thing even within your understanding, and if you watch others play especially those better than you you'll probably also discover that your understanding itself has a lot of room to grow. I know as a player I feel like I'm improving every time I play just from testing what does and doesn't work in my own play, and then I watch someone like dabuz who I can kinda relate to in terms of playstyle but who just outclasses me hard as a player and just see so plainly that I still have so much further to go. With that being the case, how could I possibly feel bad about the game?

My sides are in orbit right now lmfao
Typed that horribly at first, Hard to type when dying.

 

[TheHypnotoad]

Look

I don't think most players left Brawl because of the pace or lack of combos or whatever is normally said, they left because of metagame degeneration (poor character balance, infinites, planking etc.)

Seeing as Smash 4 has none of that, it's hard for me to think of it as a gateway game or something that will even "die" before the next Smash game comes out (assuming it's Smash 4 2.0). It's simply a quality game which ensures a long competitive life

This is all disregarding the fact that Smash 4 and Melee and PM play very differently.

Top players left Brawl because there weren't enough pot monsters to make large tournaments viable to host. There weren't enough pot monsters because when new players wanted to join the Smash scene, they would be bombarded with what was essentially propaganda telling them "Brawl is bad! Melee is good! Play Melee!" And the same thing is still happening, but replace Brawl with Smash 4. That is why the game's future could be grim, because there aren't enough new players.

 

[UltiMario]

In Melee jumping put you in that state where you had these insanely safe attacks (due to how L-cancel worked in combination with the fortresses that were Jigglypuff and Peach in the air)

This is the least true thing I've read from an even half-respectable member in like months.

Jiggs and Peach are very special exceptions to the general mechanics of Melee. Yeah, I guess compared to Smash 4, jumping can sometimes be pretty free in Melee because you can actually get back to the ground once you leave it, something that Smash 4 completely lacks. Smash 4's risks to jumping aren't because of any competent footsies, its that vertical movement in that game is so utterly abysmal that your options to get back to the ground are easily punishable and put you right back into a situation where you're up above the stage. In Melee (partially because of faster fall speed and safer aerials), there are actual options to get back down so you don't see people getting "juggled" by people constantly launching their completely vulnerable opponent back into the air.

Bar Jiggs or Peach where they have a substantially easier time setting up safe aerials than the rest of the cast due to very unique mechanics, jumping in Melee is risky. It's the 2nd most vulnerable spot to be in (the 1st being off the edge) since you open yourself up to hits and combo opportunities you otherwise would be protected from. Non-Peach/Jiggs floaties take a very high risk of getting hit just for jumping (ex Fox running Up Smash), while fast fallers how lower inherent risk of getting hit from jumping since there's a smaller window to punish, which is properly weighed out by those punishes being much more damaging, and quite easily opening up for a kill.

The risks Smash 4 has for jumping is pretty much just an insanely watered down version of other Smash games. You basically only have the dynamics of the Melee floaty punish games, except you strip the options the floaty has to escape aerial punishes in exchange for stripping mobility from the punisher. The slower and faster falling characters don't make nearly as much of a difference in punishing jumps than comparing punishes on fast fallers and floaties in Melee, and you don't get any insane kill punishes from hard reading jumps.

Honestly, if anything, the risk on jumping in Smash 4 is incredibly low, way, way lower than Melee. It's the risk on falling that's high, which produces a completely different (and IMO worse) set of mechanics when it comes to punishing jumps. You can see how much that means when you play against characters like Sonic who have very, very good options to get down and how that severely dampens the ability to punish his jumps, making them much safer than an average member of the cast. The only reason jumping is risky in Smash 4 at all is because they don't have a safe falling method like that, and why punishing a jump just resets that jump situation rather than creating new situations like hitting a floaty in Melee does.

 

[HeroMystic]

Honestly, if anything, the risk on jumping in Smash 4 is incredibly low, way, way lower than Melee. It's the risk on falling that's high, which produces a completely different (and IMO worse) set of mechanics when it comes to punishing jumps. You can see how much that means when you play against characters like Sonic who have very, very good options to get down and how that severely dampens the ability to punish his jumps, making them much safer than an average member of the cast. The only reason jumping is risky in Smash 4 at all is because they don't have a safe falling method like that, and why punishing a jump just resets that jump situation rather than creating new situations like hitting a floaty in Melee does.

Bad example. Sonic has terrible landing options. A much more effective example is ZSS due to Flip Kick and B-reversed Paralyzer or Villager who can stall with Lloid Rocket or simply use N-air or D-air since he's one of the few characters that has a good countering option below him.

 

[SuaveChaser]

All the brawl players are the top guys mostly in this game because the game is pretty much brawl with less options. Smash 4 has the lowest skill ceiling but it is demanding in it's own way to be really good.

 

[BestTeaMaker]

All the brawl players are the top guys mostly in this game because the game is pretty much brawl with less options. Smash 4 has the lowest skill ceiling but it is demanding in it's own way to be really good.

Please qualify what "Brawl with less options" means. This post sounds like you're just being contrary for the sake of being contrary.

And how does Smash 4 "demand" to be really good? It already is considered a good game by many people. Like it was said, this game definitely has a lower skill floor because it requires less technical knowledge compared to Melee. But in no way does that diminish the skill ceiling. ZeRo dominating every tournament he's been in since Apex is proof of this.