Melee Might Die: A Rebuttal to "Why Melee Won't Die"

This originally appeared as a post on /r/ssbm, the Melee subreddit. The original post in its entirety can be found here. It has been reworked for formatting on Smashboards with minor edits to be posted here.

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I want to preface this opinion piece by stating the obvious: HugS is a far more outstanding and knowledgeable community member than myself. He's seen it all from the beginning to the present and I'm some 09'er, and if I were you I would value his opinion over mine. I'm also limiting my scope to what I think our community is actually capable of controlling. For example, eSports unexpectedly dying in the next 15 years is not something to worry about unless it happens. Maybe we should worry about that.

I enjoyed HugS's piece, published in MeleeItOnMe October 9th, however I believe his optimism is warranted only on a superficial level, and I think his arguments suffer from unclear chronology. Their problem is that they speak more to the question of why Melee is currently alive and how it got here rather than why it won't die at some point in the future, which HugS readily admits is a possibility in his opening. On a long enough timeline Melee's death is certain, but that doesn't tell us anything useful. To be absolutely clear, here's my proposed timeline. Melee deserves at least a century of play, and it deserves to be big. Not just eSport big, but Olympics big, NCAA big.

What follows is predicated on anything short of a Melee century being considered an early death. Can you plan that? Probably not, but then again I have no doubt that right now major community members are collaborating with industry professionals to try to accomplish just that. It's what we all want, and the potential for profit is significant. They are inevitably going to run into obstacles that can't be beaten with a reddit fundraiser, or a Facebook campaign, or even all the familiar faces coming out to rally us for a Spirit Bomb, Gods throwing down in the background... There is a timeline where Melee dies, and to be proactive about avoiding it we need to identify those obstacles and learn as much as we can about them before they ever present a real problem. The only tested and proven method for keeping Melee alive through tough times is having an informed and active community ready to go on a moment's notice.

Melee Welcomed Back To EVO 2013​

In a skype conversation with Scar in 2013 he asked me about the future of Melee, and I basically paraphrased HugS's article. This was during the EVO drive. I was feeling what everyone was feeling. This is it, the return of the Eternal Game. The prospect of Melee back at the biggest fighting game stage in the world was the culmination of a nearly six-year effort to keep the fire burning and all of us, new members and old, got to enjoy an enormous payoff. Ever pull off a huge comeback against your rival? It felt something like that, but for the whole community, and the feeling didn't go away. Melee as an institution felt and still feels invincible.

Before you keep reading, I need you to let go of that feeling and see the game and the scene with fresh eyes for a second, because if Melee is really going to be the game that lives, the people who will keep it alive haven't even picked up a controller yet. If you don’t keep these people in mind when you discuss the future of Melee, you aren’t discussing the future of Melee. No matter how storied a community might be, if it doesn’t attract enough new players to grow then it will die, but we’re a little more ambitious than mere survival, right?

Here are HugS's main points and a summary of their contents below.

1. "Support From Major Esports Players"
- Our multiple sponsors support and genuinely love Melee, thus they are incentivized to prevent its death.

2. "Resistance to Sequel Replacement"
- Having survived two sequels Melee is ostensibly a standalone title until an HD rerelease/true successor.

3. "Ease of Viewership and Story Lines"
- The human drama and on-screen action of Melee is attractive to general audiences irrespective of specific game knowledge.

4 "Community-based Upbringing"
- Melee is a social binding agent that has cemented a foundation of dedicated community organizers who are also best friends, who won't let each other down by allowing Melee to die

Let's go through them briefly.

1. Our sponsors love and support Melee right now, but we're also a hot commodity right now. They may support us through a rough patch if something happens and viewership declines, but only up to a point. Some of the employees of said sponsors may be fanatics like us, just as enthused and ready to lend a hand. Some might even have significant clout in their respective organizations that they use for Melee's benefit. The love of those individuals reflects neither the will of the shareholders, nor is it any assurance of continued support; to them we are an engine for success. These are their jobs and they cannot support decisions that their numbers say are wrong. We cannot ascribe notions of human loyalty to for-profit entities. They will do what they need to do to survive, as should we. We are well-positioned to profitably coexist with a number of them, but this is sustenance, not insurance. This is a symptom of success, not a cause.

2. This trait is demonstrably a major factor in Melee's staying power; the metagame chugs on ceaselessly while technical wizards like Dan Salvato demonstrate that Melee can be adapted to have increased functionality for a new generation of competitors. If Melee is to survive a century, it's going to need to adapt, and we’re going to need oversight over that adaptation. The elephant in the room is Nintendo. They have the final say over the distribution of what is legally their content. They can prevent us from changing the game if we need to. They can split the community any time they want by re-releasing Melee with the slightest of changes. They're a bull in a china shop, and there's a reckoning to be had over whose game this really is. Until we resolve this Melee will always have two directions, ours and theirs.

Can I even mention PM? Is the gag on? Nintendo may play dumb with their official silence but they've had plenty of chances to take legal action that would lead to PM being an officially approved Nintendo mod, thus giving the game its own life and ensuring tournaments for ostensible Nintendo fans, maybe even making new ones in the process. Instead, they choked the distribution of PM videos and forced tournaments to drop the game once they started officially sponsoring them.

20XXTE: Coming Soon​

3. This is absolutely true but isn’t unique to Melee. If people start playing other games the stories will follow. Melee also doesn’t have the benefit of next-gen graphics, which shouldn’t be a factor but still might be when it comes to future spectating.

4. Members of the Smash Community reiterate fairly often how exceptional the community they belong to and the games they play are, and can you blame them? Confirmation is everywhere. We are in a growth state. Here is a prevailing pattern of logic I encounter when talking to other fanatics about Melee's Cinderella story: The game is close to perfect for playing and spectating -> players and audiences are more passionate -> they are more willing to organize for the community in their free time + large Nintendo install fanbase -> Melee hits player activism critical mass and gains superpowers. This is the logic underpinning "Why Melee Won't Die", and it doesn't paint a complete picture.

The notion that Melee fanatics feel more strongly about their game than other gamers feel about their games is tempting, but narcissistic. Perhaps most fans would never say this out loud or consciously admit it to themselves, but they feel that they love their game the most, and most Melee players I know freely admit it, AND the incredible streak of activism the Melee community has become known for seems to confirm it. Melee would never ask of us, "What have you done for me lately?" We unquestionably love our game and everything else seems to flow from this constant activity born of love. The reason sponsors are really interested in us? We get things done. Where other communities flounder, we succeed. And we look damn good when we succeed because the love is real.

The problem with this narrative, and this is going to hurt some people, is that being an activist for Melee has been made easier and easier over the years, and is particularly easy if you are middle class, which many smashers happen to be. Melee activism is highly facilitated, as HugS notes, by one of the tightest and most highly functioning groups of friends in the world as well as countless passionate TO's, artists, musicians, modders, and competitors. When you donate to Melee related causes, the numbers are fairly small and you can make a tangible difference with a small contribution, but there are also many larger donors among us. You can make a world of difference at locals just driving TV’s or people around. TO’ing is something anyone can get into thanks to readily available online guides written by the best TO’s in the business.

Don’t get me wrong, we wouldn't be where we are without the hard work of all of those individuals, regardless of their economic status, but communities have worked harder than us and fallen short. Passion is not the the deciding factor. If our community hadn't been at the forefront of game capture, video on demand, and social media activism/organization due largely to the socioeconomic status of its members, then the work of those TO's might not have carried us through the dark ages. This is my take on the beautiful accident. I'm not totally discounting the prevailing narrative, but I think this is how it needs to be reframed if we're to identify the real threats to Melee's continued growth.

...which I still haven't really explained, so here's what I'm afraid will limit the growth of Melee this century:

A. The Metagame Isn't As Resilient As We Think

It has been said before that Melee has a hard limit and a soft limit, the theoretical skill cap and peak human performance, respectively. At the moment the metagame on the international stage is particularly diverse, even vibrant. The best character, Fox, does not perform that much better than the other top tiers and players like Axe and aMSa are reimagining the midtiers and getting results. The worst you can say about the character spreads at most major top 8's is that they're healthy. For now, the soft limit indicates that the game is highly unbalanced, but not broken. As much of a joke as it has become, there's a real possibility this won't always be the case due to training tools like 20XX pushing the soft limit higher and higher. What will 10 years bring? 50? What then might the soft limit look like? The only thing one can say with any probability is that it will tend towards the hard limit.

When I say Melee will need to adapt, this is one of the things I'm talking about. Nevermind that half the cast has little tourney representation at all because they're terrible or bugged. If the metagame stales and one or two characters maintain dominance over major placings for too long, then we lose out on the excitement of the all-star Nintendo cast, we lose out on rare and beautiful playstyles and interactions, and ultimately we will lose out on new community members who want a more balanced game. I genuinely don't know if Melee can survive something like this because even if the game could be patched, it probably wouldn't be because:

B. Melee Fanatics Are Obstinate

I once asked a prominent New York City TO whether Melee would benefit from a balance patch. He told me he’d rather have only the top four characters with the current settings than change a single thing to balance the rest of the cast. Melee is too sacred, even its less worthwhile aspects. Without getting into a whole thing about whether L-canceling adds depth, let’s just say that it becomes extremely linear when you realize you can spam light shield before you land without consequence. Rather than being a feature, it’s actually a safety valve. Without L-canceling the hard and soft limits are much closer together and Fox is very easily the best, rather than the character with the best results for the most work. Altering the inputs of Melee is blasphemy, but it may become necessary, because we now know that:

C. Melee Destroys Hands

As a classical guitarist I was lucky that I already knew the importance of taking care before performing lots of sharp, repetitive hand motions. Awareness of this issue and associated precautions are far more widespread than they've ever been. Other games also have this issue, however, because of its low payouts and high barrier to competitive entry, Melee is a high risk, low reward game to get into. This is the most pressing threat to continued growth.

We can't assume that new players will ever see Melee the way we do. Remember, fresh eyes. My generation played casual Melee, so competitive Melee looked like super heroics by comparison. This hasn't been the case for a while. Without recency OR nostalgia to aid us, the games that are more lucrative, less costly investments (in terms of time and health) will win out over Melee to be the big games of eSports. As a standalone, eternal game we are in an extremely unique position vis a vis player acquisition, and Melee has performed more than admirably in attracting new players, but we cannot overcome being a terrible investment, and waiting for our prize pools to make up the difference is some seriously passive play.

D. Nintendo

The wild card. Nintendo doesn't even act as logical as most corporations because their enormous cash reserves allow them to operate in the red for long periods of time. The potential for legal action against us is real, the threat of a divisive remake is real, and the communication between the community and the company has been mixed. Nintendo may ultimately help us more than they hurt, but there's no certainty. They have the power until we/they emancipate Melee.

In Conclusion

I stick to the saying that you don't present a problem without also presenting a solution. To take Melee to the next level, to immediately banish any doubt of its immortality, I propose we beat EVO in 2017 by putting on a bigger Melee tournament than they can (not at the same time, obviously). Beat EVO and we show the world that this game is bigger than the fighting game eSports niche it has settled into. The Melee community hasn't gotten together to do something really big in a while, which leads to:

E. Community Complacency

It hasn't happened yet, but I've seen signs. It's great to reflect on our accomplishments, to take pride in our victories, but we do that enough already and in order to keep signifying to the world and our sponsors that we're still the can-do community, we need to keep doing. Smashers are putting the sweat of their prime years into maintaining this dynamo, but they aren't enough to keep growing it by themselves. The only way Melee gets its century is if more TO's step up, build communities, replace the old guard, populate the world with new Melee players so that when Super Smash Con, or whatever becomes of Apex, or a brand new national series start their booking process, they're booking for 2,000 entrants, even 3,000. Once again, the only tested and proven method for keeping Melee alive through tough times is having an informed and active community ready to go on a moment's notice. Times aren't so tough now, so let's show the world what we can really do. We just have to watch out for:

F. Top Player Burnout

I'm pretty sure that's the next level. Let me know why I'm wrong below.

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This piece is purely the opinion of its author, and does not reflect the position of Smashboards or its affiliates. Additional shoutouts to NPR|Willie for his eyeballs, SmashCapps for taking an interest, and the whole NOLA crew.

 

ayy lmao. You're right. Did you just walk up slowly and cleverly use the word "salt" in a way never seen before?? Mango in Jail. Z I P B O Y S. Kreygasm, the disrespect. Shadowrealm. Wombo Combo. GRsmash.

...

Please go away. Or contribute something to the discussion. Either or.

You're right as well, i should contribute to this. Melee wont die until it stops selling, and until no one knows of it's existance. That is when something truly dies. Also, arguments can never die but an opinionated argument can never be won because opinions are subjective.

I think i contributed enough now

 

I do have a proposed answer to the top-tier domination. There are the top 4 (well, 1 and 3), and then a bunch of other characters that nobody but Armada can really win with.

So what if TO's put a character limit in registration? Take a tourney with 1024 singles fighters. Limit the number of foxes to, say, 250, falcos to the first 200, marth and shiek to the first 150, and then you've got another 300 characters that aren't top tier.

I know it's not a perfect system, just an idea.

 

On the "Melee Will Die" part...

Like some others preceding myself, I don't see Melee dying. There are still people out there that enjoy the title and as long as they're there, there's really no way one can say for sure that it's "dead." However, I do see it becoming a niche relic of the past.

 

Melee died before. It was pretty much dead in the early years of brawl. Brawl was drawing more players than melee. When brawl started to die melee grew.

This is largely true. In a weird way, Brawl saved Melee because the games were so different from one another. If Brawl had been like Smash 4 or even Melee, I think we'd be talking about Melee now like we talk about the original. A lot of Melee's top competitors were heavily discouraged by it and, in the first year of Brawl's metagame, a lot of people jumped ship. I remember back when the situation was so bad that some people were predicting that Brawl would be completely dead by the summer of 2009 especially when it was rejected by EVO that year. People simply didn't want to quit Smash so most people who didn't like Brawl either waited for Project M to get farther along or went back to Melee. I think it was an interesting time because people were desperate to keep the competitive scene of the series healthy, even if it basically meant splitting it between three games.

 

This is largely true. In a weird way, Brawl saved Melee because the games were so different from one another. If Brawl had been like Smash 4 or even Melee, I think we'd be talking about Melee now like we talk about the original. A lot of Melee's top competitors were heavily discouraged by it and, in the first year of Brawl's metagame, a lot of people jumped ship. I remember back when the situation was so bad that some people were predicting that Brawl would be completely dead by the summer of 2009 especially when it was rejected by EVO that year. People simply didn't want to quit Smash so most people who didn't like Brawl either waited for Project M to get farther along or went back to Melee. I think it was an interesting time because people were desperate to keep the competitive scene of the series healthy, even if it basically meant splitting it between three games.

Actually it isn't that weird, Melee died at that time for the same reason games like Street Fighter 3, Guilty Gear X and Blazblue CS Extend died.
"It got a sequel, time to move on." But then Melee proved to be a complete anomaly in fighting games, eclipsing even Street Fighter 2 in levels of resilence.

Once people noticed that many of the features that made Melee what it is weren't coming back for Brawl, people jumped ship, eventually the community regrouped back in Melee and the rest is history, and a Documentary. One that people can actually watch without sleeping.

Also, on the note of Blazblue, BB is certainly not dead. We're just hanging around trying to get all info possible from Central Fiction. (The sequel, for those unaware, and simply awesome if anyone's curious.)

Besides, it's not like everyone just bleeping hates "Extend" re-releases, CSEX anyone?
(To clarify, CSEX was the third re-release of Continuum Shift, and it had PM like balance. And people got sick of waiting for a true sequel. And that basically killed the game.)

Also, sorry, got kinda off-topic. And made the post too long again. ****.

 

I've paid quite a bit of attention to melee, i've paid attention to all smash games aside from 64 and brawl. Yet i see no change, its still Fox is best, then Falco. People constantly claim changing metas, new characters getting popular yet its still fox, falco, and a few others. I wont deny people who play Melee are good but they dont win often ,if ever, unless they, choose fox falco, sheik, etc. the meta hasnt changed in years, it stagnated probably a year after the game was released.

The tier list is only a fraction of the metagame. Just because Fox is considered the best doesn't mean the game isn't evolving. Doubleshines and shield drops are becoming commonplace. Falcos are starting to to incorporate soft Nairs/Bairs as DI mixups. Sheik players are finally getting the techchase game down to a science. 20GX has proven itself to be pushing Falcon to new heights. PP has shown how powerful a good dashdance game can be. Mango almost took his previous set from Armada in a Falco vs. Peach set, something everyone thought would end in a solid 3-0.

Even if the tier list isn't shifting, the game is evolving. The tier list and the metagame are not synonymous.

 

I Think Time itself Will kill Melee some kids only know about brawl and smash 4 little know about melee and 64 for that matter. Most of melee's competitive smash players are older 15+. People who play smash 4 I find Are 8+. I will give melee 10 to 20 more years.

 

So long as the community is welcoming to new members, it will be OK.

 

To see the day, when Melee dies out...
Would that be the same day that Smash itself dies?

No, it wouldn't. Because believe it or not, everyone doesn't praise Melee like it's the best thing since sliced bread.

I'd say 1/2 the Smash community stays with Melee while the other half moves on.

 

The tier list is only a fraction of the metagame. Just because Fox is considered the best doesn't mean the game isn't evolving. Doubleshines and shield drops are becoming commonplace. Falcos are starting to to incorporate soft Nairs/Bairs as DI mixups. Sheik players are finally getting the techchase game down to a science. 20GX has proven itself to be pushing Falcon to new heights. PP has shown how powerful a good dashdance game can be. Mango almost took his previous set from Armada in a Falco vs. Peach set, something everyone thought would end in a solid 3-0.

Even if the tier list isn't shifting, the game is evolving. The tier list and the metagame are not synonymous.

If the metagame is truly "evolving," then why aren't there more players using other characters besides Fox , Falco , and Sheik and discovering any new techniques from them?

 

If the metagame is truly "evolving," then why aren't there more players using other characters besides Fox , Falco , and Sheik and discovering any new techniques from them?

First, I don't understand why you're implying that implementing new technology with Fox, Falco and Sheik doesn't count as the game evolving. It may not be going in the direction you like, but it's still the game changing and growing more complex.

Second of all, people ARE implementing new things with other characters (not so much discovering, given that we've been working on this game for 14 years, although we are still finding some new tech every now and then). A lot of it is universal (shield dropping) or simply perfecting things we already knew (coughcoughPPMD'sDashdancingcough), but beyond that there are still specific things. PPU's set vs. Hbox at Apex showed off the power of pivot Fsmash and setups for it. Hbox has been constantly adding minor (but noticeable) things to his gameplay for the last year or two. Capitalizing off of missed techs on the platform after Uthrow (or successful techs at times), making use of Dair setups, and experimenting with ledge stalling (not exactly excited about that one). Look at what the 20GX movement has done for Falcon techchases and followups. As much as Armada claims to have given up on Peach, he only uses Fox vs. Leffen, Hbox, and sometimes PPMD. Everything else is a job for Peach. Compare Axe's play to his play a year ago (He's learned to slow it down when he needs to). I don't think I need to mention what aMSa has done for Yoshi as a character. Other characters may not be as popular as spacies, but they're evolving all the same.

While people are gravitating towards top tiers more and more, that's an inevitability in any game in regards to top level play. It's not a great thing, but the same thing happened to Brawl, and the same thing will happen to Sm4sh. It's hurtful to the game, but it's not something that's going to kill it.

 

I truly think that one character (Fox) will kill melee due how stale it will be when people see dittos 5 billion times in a tournament. Melee players are forgetting that people like smash/view smash tournament because of the characters and how the game is played.

I don't think Melee HD is ever happen, but a re-release of the game with fair balance or the pal version on the Virtual Console would be a logical idea.

 

To see the day, when Melee dies out...
Would that be the same day that Smash itself dies?

I don't think smash itself would die, but the day melee dies is not in the near future. We, as the melee community, have seen huge growth in the past year alone and that has brought a lot of attention to the smash community as a whole. One day the next step will be taken and we will move on from melee, but to myself and hopefully the majority of others sifting through these comments it will be a very sad day

 

Umm... Project M has been around over 4 years, and that didn't happen. PM got shut out of Twitch, sure, but it's still huge. It has a future, and PM had and in the very long-term future will have a very healthy success at a underground level. It is extremely clear by this statement you don't know what in the bloody hell you're talking about, and are talking about subjects you don't understand.

Clearly you also don't understand the definition of the phrase "future" either.

I thought it was because you didn't know where to go any more and started rambling.

That's not a splinter lmao. If that's a Splinter, then Marvel vs. Capcom and Capcom vs. SNK were splinters to Street Fighter? Guess what? Those games made Street Fighter as a series bigger and more popular.

Whoops, I spoiled the end result of what Project M did for Melee and Smash 4, and what Smash scenes growing does for other Smash scenes. Apologies for those who didn't want spoilers for how different related games getting popular effects one another. I forgot you don't want spoilers like it's Star Wars.

Melee is ours; we paid $50 for it. You are literally rambling like a fish out of water.

You clearly, by your words, not a competitive players offering an opinion with no argument or reason behind them other than "I dislike Melee." Big deal. I don't like cricket, but I don't rant on and on about it.

Thus your baseless opinions provided here offer nothing of value to anyone aside from letting us know you have this passionate emotionally charged opinion.

You say stupid crap like this, after ranting about why Project M players should give up, why Melee is bad, and why Smash 4 as a scene and a game is better than Melee's for no reason other than "more modern flares," which does not make a good game, nor prove your point.

You literally go on a rant about Smash 4 that it is better and yet Melee players who hate on Smash 4 are "the enemy" incredibly hypocritical and ruins your entire point.

Your narcissistic statements are so incredibly egotistical, opinionated, and not based in logic that it is giving me a migraine. You talk about the Melee players have an ego, but you sir have the biggest ego of everyone I've seen post here.

You literally are telling Melee fans that talking about how great their game is are flat stupid and narcissistic before doing the same thing for Smash 4.

You sir are a living walking hypocrite with statements like these. You say you are for inclusiveness, but like your entire post, it is one flat contradiction and a lie.

Comments like these are the sort of comments Smash Boards should never be accepting towards. Continuously arguing with inept people with opinions based on hate and holier than thou opinions like this is a fool's errand, so I won't continue.

Just know that if you want to stay on this site, you should learn to not treat Melee and Project M players and fans like trash if you want them and others to not return the favor.

So you disrespect me, twist my words, and then accuse me of trash-talking?

I don't harbor any malice towards you or any Smash player, whether you like to play PM, Melee, or all of them. You have built up a straw man and knocked it down. Bravo.

Your post is not worth refuting.

 

I don't understand why everyone got so uppity about this article, is someone saying a game from 2001 might eventually die such a big thing? It's not happening immediately, and even if it does Melee doesn't just "disappear".. you can still play it.

Now go back to Smash 4, Mewtwo, because you suck in Melee.

Not to start anything, but Mewtwo is just as terrible in Smash 4.

This article... *facepalm*

This post... *facepalm*

If you can't say anything constructive: don't post.

 

The year is 20XX.
The Fox monks are fighting as hard as they can to keep the game alive, but they're burning out. The tendinitis is worsening, and many are wondering if their hands will live to see another waveshine.

 

The click bait is strong with this one...

 

The click bait is strong with this one...

I don't see how the title is clickbait when the article gives out several well-thought-out reasons explaining the author's viewpoint.

 

So you disrespect me, twist my words, and then accuse me of trash-talking?

I don't harbor any malice towards you or any Smash player, whether you like to play PM, Melee, or all of them. You have built up a straw man and knocked it down. Bravo.

Your post is not worth refuting.

You went on and on about how you hate Melee and how about how elitist Melee players are, then you went on an elitist rant.

Then you try to counter me using moronic terms like "Straw term" that only largely uneducated high school age kids use even though you mention you're in your thirties per what you stated.

I don't care if it offends you and I don't care if you're opinion, because I'm going to slice through to the truth: You're a hypocrite, narcissist, and self absorbed person, and your follow up statement is a complete and total lie.

Personally, I don't care about Melee anymore. I stopped watching this year. I stopped playing about 8 years ago. I don't care if Melee continues on for another 20 years, or if it dies off, or whatever. Smash Bros., to me, is more than L cancelling, more than the beauty of Fountain of Dreams and Battlefield's ugly pitch-black background, more than the top players, more than Fox McCloud.

Smash Bros., to me, is about using beloved Nintendo characters in a platforming-fighting game where you launch people off-screen to defeat them. I want the version of that game that is the prettiest, the most fun, and which has the characters and features that most appeal to me. For me, right now, that is Smash 4. For many, it is Melee. Good for those people. Those people are not my enemies, but are like distant cousins. People who see Smash 4 as the enemy to Melee are a big part of why I don't give a **** about Melee anymore.

Virtually no one in the Smash 4 scene is worried about Melee diminishing Smash 4. Our game has 58 characters, is receiving regular balance patches, is compatible with modern technology, looks gorgeous, is fun to play, is exciting to watch, and it does not have as steep of a physical dexterity bar that you must cross to play. The Smash 4 scene right now is pretty much only optimism. In 5 years, who can say? Maybe in 5 years I won't care. I'll be 35 then.

Tell me, how isn't that an elitist, self-absorbed, narcissistic, hypocritical statement to the ones you are claiming now?

 

You're right as well, i should contribute to this. Melee wont die until it stops selling, and until no one knows of it's existance. That is when something truly dies. Also, arguments can never die but an opinionated argument can never be won because opinions are subjective.

I think i contributed enough now

You actually just made the best point out of any of us, and here I was thinking you were just some documentary kid spouting buzz words.

You win the thread

/thread

 

You went on and on about how you hate Melee and how about how elitist Melee players are, then you went on an elitist rant.

Then you try to counter me using moronic terms like "Straw term" that only largely uneducated high school age kids use even though you mention you're in your thirties per what you stated.

I don't care if it offends you and I don't care if you're opinion, because I'm going to slice through to the truth: You're a hypocrite, narcissist, and self absorbed person, and your follow up statement is a complete and total lie.

Tell me, how isn't that an elitist, self-absorbed, narcissistic, hypocritical statement to the ones you are claiming now?

I do not hate Melee. You are projecting emotions onto me that I do not have. It is quite pathetic to see.

The world "elite" never once entered into the conversation. I do not find Melee players to be elitists in general. I only said that there is no anti-Melee rhetoric coming out of the Smash 4 crowd, which is true as far as I can see. Multiple pro-Melee people in this very thread went out of their way to bash Smash 4, though, so I guess "you guys" might have some growing up to do.

Grow up. I'm not your enemy.

 

I do not hate Melee. You are projecting emotions onto me that I do not have. It is quite pathetic to see.

The world "elite" never once entered into the conversation. I do not find Melee players to be elitists in general. I only said that there is no anti-Melee rhetoric coming out of the Smash 4 crowd, which is true as far as I can see. Multiple pro-Melee people in this very thread went out of their way to bash Smash 4, though, so I guess "you guys" might have some growing up to do.

Grow up. I'm not your enemy.

opinions are like ***holes. they stink

 

Not to start anything, but Mewtwo is just as terrible in Smash 4.

The latest patch really buffed him up. XD

Regarding the topic and putting aside the 'us vs them' arguments.

If by dying you mean everyone stops playing it then maybe a few generations later it will be too difficult to play it but I'm sure people will still find a way regardless.

I think there will be a point when it's no longer featured in the really big tournaments. That's the only way I think it could ever 'die' like previous Marvel and street fighter games.

 

opinions are like ***holes. they stink

Quality contribution to the discussion, guy.

 

Considering how Melee fans like variety of characters and less homogenized roster (play any Smash 4 character, and the weight feels incredibly similar; there's really no differences in air movement, whereas in Melee there's a huge difference amongst the cast), this is unlikely to happen.

Homogenization of the roster makes it to where you can have a huge MUGEN roster like Smash 4, sure, but it also means you can't have character variety like Melee ever again without an added year of development or a 50% larger staff size than the last 2 Smash development teams had.

Additionally, can I want to add you don't have an argument when you say the word "I think" in regards to what would be better in the way you constructed your central argument. We want truths in these debates, not opinions. People can have opinions the moon is made of cheese, but that doesn't make it a point of contention that anyone else cares about.

That's because one bad change can kill a competitive game's balance. Look at the latest BlazBlue game. It went from being the biggest story of EVO 2014 to getting a terrible patch, and now that game is basically D.E.A.D. Sure, the new GuiltyGear game (Xrd) and likely a new release of Persona 4 played a part in that and didn't help the timing, but without that terrible patch that killed balance, it would still have a devout following.

Then there's Mortal Kombat as a series (and Injustice) which gets some pretty terrible patches routinely. We all saw how Mortal Kombat 9 and Injustice were kept artificially alive in a competitive sense thanks to Warner Bros. money.

If we were to see balance changes, it would have to best tested, have to be right, and have to be something that makes the lower end characters better without making the current upper level characters obsolete. That would be an incredibly hard task to do. That is why good game balancing is so incredibly hard, especially when other games are ALWAYS competing for players' interests.

Uhh about the airspeed and weight in smash 4 there are huge differences, like play Charizard then compare that to Mewtwo, they move and very different.

For melee a lot of it centers around fast fallers, floaties and a middle ground for weight.

There are differences in between but overall comparing between the titles of how it feels, I can definitely say both stand out with air movement/ground movement in both titles.

 

Biggest thing I read about in this article (besides player burnout) that I have been thinking about for a while is the amount of time that one must put into the game, as well as their health (though who cares about health, this is melee). To become even semi-competitive, you have to put in at least 150-200 hours of disciplined and focused training, and that is if you are extremely talented. After that, you have to travel and compete at events, getting beaten so that you can improve. Finally, you might possibly be top 200 or so if you have an extremely good knack for the game, and have had all the right training, most likely taking 2-4 years. ALL of this, requires an extremely high amount of love for the game, and determination to become better, as well as unnaturally high perseverance. ALL of this, will be nigh on impossible to install into younger melee players minds, or even those who have never been exposed to the game. That is why our sacred game may die, even within the next decade, as this melee gods will not be around forever, as well as many loved players such as Weston, Lucky, Sfat, as well as an entire age group that, I hate to say it, may get too old for the game in the next 10 years. If everything I'm saying turns out to be BS, then thank the Lord, Melee is sticking around for a while yet.

 

Biggest thing I read about in this article (besides player burnout) that I have been thinking about for a while is the amount of time that one must put into the game, as well as their health (though who cares about health, this is melee). To become even semi-competitive, you have to put in at least 150-200 hours of disciplined and focused training, and that is if you are extremely talented. After that, you have to travel and compete at events, getting beaten so that you can improve. Finally, you might possibly be top 200 or so if you have an extremely good knack for the game, and have had all the right training, most likely taking 2-4 years. ALL of this, requires an extremely high amount of love for the game, and determination to become better, as well as unnaturally high perseverance. ALL of this, will be nigh on impossible to install into younger melee players minds, or even those who have never been exposed to the game. That is why our sacred game may die, even within the next decade, as this melee gods will not be around forever, as well as many loved players such as Weston, Lucky, Sfat, as well as an entire age group that, I hate to say it, may get too old for the game in the next 10 years. If everything I'm saying turns out to be BS, then thank the Lord, Melee is sticking around for a while yet.

Very good point.

I dunno man, melee gets a lot of exposure and the thing is, the reason a lot of younger people rise up in the smash community is that we are friendly to a younger crowd and we all chip in to help cover costs / housing which obviously many teenagers / young adults are pretty broke or don't have a car, etc.

The community is youth-friendly, and melee is always going to be a very inspirational game. That feeling of "I'm going to get better at this" burns in anybody when they start to play the game at a higher level, and it only gets more intense.

I'm getting old for smash, I'm 28 now, and I used to be WAY more into travelling to tournaments / smash fests / etc when I was 16-17...

What you're saying is possible, but the thing is considering how friendly the community is I think that before melee "dies" it will see a fair share of younger, extremely capable smashers. Provided the smash community stays strong and continues to support each other.

 

Very good point.

I dunno man, melee gets a lot of exposure and the thing is, the reason a lot of younger people rise up in the smash community is that we are friendly to a younger crowd and we all chip in to help cover costs / housing which obviously many teenagers / young adults are pretty broke or don't have a car, etc.

The community is youth-friendly, and melee is always going to be a very inspirational game. That feeling of "I'm going to get better at this" burns in anybody when they start to play the game at a higher level, and it only gets more intense.

I'm getting old for smash, I'm 28 now, and I used to be WAY more into travelling to tournaments / smash fests / etc when I was 16-17...

What you're saying is possible, but the thing is considering how friendly the community is I think that before melee "dies" it will see a fair share of younger, extremely capable smashers. Provided the smash community stays strong and continues to support each other.

Not to sure, melee hasnt really picked up tons of new young people as of late. Yeah it's more popular than it ever was but we'll see i guess.

 

Melee is better competitive wise but sm4sh blows melee out of the water in every category. L cancel and wavedash are extremely overrated. Pm could be bigger than melee because more viable characters instead of space animals, less clones but Nintendo destroyed them. Sm4sh is the best smash
#FACTS

Characters other than Space Animals take Melee tourneys all the time, even at the highest level of competition. Armada, PPMD, Hungry Box, and Mew2King come to mind as they have all won large tournaments without crutching on Space Animals. L-Cancelling is huge. It lowers your recover frames on landing aerials, i.e. lets you manuever twice as quick. Removing both L-cancel and wavedashing is the equivalent to binding all special moves in Street Fighter to single button inputs, would you still call it Street Fighter? No, you'd call it Battle Arena Toshinden.