Project M/melee player, why do they get so frustrated during Brawl?

[Frenzy]

Disclaimer: I don't mean all Project M/melee players, as I play those as well and have friends that do to that don't mind Brawl. I just mean a certain type.

I mean, I have always seen Brawl as more of a party game. Turn the items on, grab three friends, and let the hilarity ensue on a random board for hours.

But yesterday we had a group of people playing, mostly strangers. It was on the Wii U so they couldn't plug their gamecube controllers in, which they seemed irritable about. So we started playing, and this one guy kept ignoring all the items, grabbing and only using his A button.

He completely killed all the fun in the room by ripping on the game. He went to finish me at one point and I tripped and avoided his attack. It was perfect randomly and I thought it was funny.

Anyway, the match ended and he threw his controller down and just walked out of the room, muttering, "No skill whatsoever."

I just couldn't understand why he would get so frustrated over something that was obviously just to have fun. There is a time for 1 vs. 1 Fox on final destination and I time for fun with friends.

Plus, if there was no skill involved, how come he didn't randomly win sometimes but was the first to die every time?

 

[FoxBlaze71]

Well, I think you answered your own question. A random items/bad stages/FFA kind of environment DOES sap the skill out of the game. There's nothing anyone, regardless of skill, can do when a scrub Sonic grabs a Smash ball.

You may enjoy that kind of thing, and that's fine, but the "1v1, Fox only, FD" (which doesn't exist BTW, random internet dumbasses just made it into a stupid meme) which is actually more like all characters, tolerable stages, no items, is a better test of skill and is the competitive standard for a reason.

IDK about the guy you were playing, since he sounded like he sucked pretty bad if he couldn't beat some casuals in a FFA, but it makes sense he was frustrated if he was dying for stupid reasons (trips, explosives falling in front of him, etc.)

 

[Frenzy]

I think resourcefulness, adaptability, and performing under pressure are all nice skills as well. I think a lot of players who are better at survival than inputting combos and exploiting tech/glitches would be sort of insulted that they are considered to have no skill because they do better in a less controlled environment.

 

[FoxBlaze71]

The problem with that idea is that the skilled player ends up fighting the game more than the inferior player. If you just add in variables in every possible way, then the game isn't much more than one big RNG and gives whoever can grab an item a free kill.

The resourcefulness, adaptability, and performance under pressure with items and **** flying at you is absolutely nothing compared to the level of those traits needed at the highest echelon of competitive play. Survival and techniques exist within that level, also far beyond what you see in casual item play.

If your theory held up, then we would see casuals like that doing amazing things that no one else does even at higher levels of play, but instead they're still languishing in Basic Brawl online, trying to figure out where the shield button is.

 

[Frenzy]

Casuals would still be casuals. I think the only reason we don't see amazing things done with items is that people who play competitively have already abandoned items.

I think the only reason we don't see stuff like that is there is no community for it. People who want to play competitively end up having to play by the old-school, melee-only group's rules.

Imagine how much play would be mixed up if each person got to pick two items, even on low, and then the opposite player turned off one of those items. You would see people adapting their play-style to certain items. And since they would be on low, player skill would be mixed with item skill.

Perhaps some characters are better at using items, for example. A fox might reconsider if his opponent was wearing a reflecting badge. It could bring balance and new play styles to a stagnant game.

 

[FoxBlaze71]

Uh, no. Characters already have defining elements to their play style that require you to adapt. Players themselves make you adapt with an actual mix-up game. You're trying to substitute the mental aspect of adaptation and skill with throwing **** at people, and it really doesn't work.

Going off your second bad example, Fox would suffer because lasers are the biggest asset he has in a game where he's already severely nerfed from his previous version. A huge part of Fox's meta is laser zoning, and he shouldn't be getting nerfed just because the other guy had the dumb luck of a reflector spawning in front of him. The reason Brawl is stagnant is because it wasn't designed to be a deep game to begin with, and similar to the yearly/near yearly releases of casual-oriented games like CoD, it was never meant to last. It wasn't a game like Melee that added so much depth, it was just another placeholder until the next mediocre release, AKA, Smash 4, came along. Unsurprisingly, the Brawl scene is dead now, while Melee is still going strong. That's the answer to the topic title in a nutshell.

You're throwing around terms like "balance", "skill", and "adaptation" while simultaneously having no idea what they mean and trying to put them in the same category as their polar opposites, like items, bad stages, and most flagrantly of all, really bad players. Here is what happens when competitive play and items are forced into a bastardized relationship. It's not pretty.

 

[Frenzy]

I saw the bumper perfectly placed for a KO, I saw them both using techniques to try to avoid the smashes. It was pretty entertaining. I usually just see Captain Falcon combos, Jigglypuff KO's and a bunch of boring Fox/Falco play.

Melee is not going that strong. Large cities get 20 people at most at weekly events and most of the new players never come back. A small core of die-hard fans does not really equal a thriving community.

 

[FoxBlaze71]

But without the bumpers, what would they do? They would have to adapt to each other and actually think about the other player and his options more, as opposed to the **** randomly spawning on-screen. You're taking away from the mental game that you describe as "boring", though plenty of players, who are almost all unsurprisingly more skilled than the items crowd, do find it entertaining.

Here's the concept: imagine proper competitive play that I described, which could be considered 100% in terms of the amount you and the other player have to act and react to each other. When you add items, that drops in percentage significantly because you're fighting the game and its randomness. Less and less is the game about reading and mixing up your approach/defense, it's more about the items and obtaining them in whatever part of the map they randomly spawn in. Instead of defending against the opponents attacks, you're trying to see what the hell's going on because ****ing Nintendog is obscuring your view. You're not going towards the peak of adaptation and skill, you're moving away from it rapidly.

Also, lol at your ideas of Melee dying.

http://www.eslgaming.com/article/smash-back-new-era-super-smash-bros-melee

Meanwhile, Brawl events are approaching lower levels than 64 ones in terms of existence, let alone attendance.

 

[Frenzy]

Okay, now turn your argument towards Smash 4. Looks at how well the streams for the tournaments had and hw much hype it brought, and the whole tournament had items on.

 

[FoxBlaze71]

That's because it's a shiny new toy. There's always lots of people boarding the hype train during a Smash's release, but not so many years afterward, unless it's of Melee's caliber. Once the next version comes along, Smash 4 will be forgotten, because it's not meant to be a masterpiece. Thinking that the popularity of pre-release footage belies anything about the enduring quality of the game is ridiculous. Melee is surviving in its advanced age, with those competitive rulesets you find you boring, because it's a better game than Super Smash Bros New Installment NOW WITH MORE ITEMS!

Not to mention that because of the pre-release status, we're not going to see competitive play, we're going to see bads just smacking each other around in the flawed environment I've already described extensively.

Either way, you about done? This is entering the Brawl vs Melee category these kinds of topics always turn into, and after six years, they still haven't produced anything.

 

[DJ _ICE]

Large cities get 20 people at most at weekly events and most of the new players never come back. A small core of die-hard fans does not really equal a thriving community.

Source for first sentence? Chicago's weeklies get consitently 40-50 people and its on a Wednesday. Xanadu's even higher than that. Anyway to answer the OP's question, Melee players and PM love playing the game no items 1 vs 1. Also, we love playing items and free for alls, but there's a time for one and there's time for another. The guy you were describing was just a jackass, nothing more, not representative of the competitive community as a whole. The reasons pm and melee players dislike brawl is for completely different reasons than the ones you're bringing up by the way

 

[XStarWarriorX]

I saw the bumper perfectly placed for a KO, I saw them both using techniques to try to avoid the smashes. It was pretty entertaining. I usually just see Captain Falcon combos, Jigglypuff KO's and a bunch of boring Fox/Falco play.

Melee is not going that strong. Large cities get 20 people at most at weekly events and most of the new players never come back. A small core of die-hard fans does not really equal a thriving community.

People like you will never understand.

Melee is not going that strong? Um, why do you think MLG added melee back in the cards if "it wasn't going that strong" the brawl community died because it couldn't get enough support, sure there was some poisonous talk, but in the end, they didn't show up.

If you say "hurp a derp adapt" Okay then, we competitive players should Adapt to randomness. I wish Boxing could be like that as well, you know if the audience was allowed to throw items to the ring would be fantastic right? that way fighters would adapt to what is being thrown instead of actually outmatching each other. Wait why fight in a ring when you could do it in the middle of a road, Yeh! more adaptation skillz! fighters would also need to adapt to have random cars passing through! /sarcasm.

Anyway PM/Melee players suck at brawl at times because.

>The game is defensive based, they're used to offense.
>The game's engine is slower and more floaty, thus again, more prone to campy play
> No "smooth landings" they're used to L-canceling all their moves and when you play brawl and you use in short hop aerial, your character will be stuck in the mud for a free hit.
>A melee player knows how to execute consecutive combos, in brawl you get one free hit then an airdodge, which equals more defensive play. No follow ups. etc etc. there's a long list.

However, brawl can be a game where players can be skilled at, it just takes some time to get used to, frankly though if someone is used to melee, it bores them to have to bait out moves and punish.

Anyway to answer about your friend, he probably never played brawl in his life, if you played me, and I play PM/Melee more than brawl, I would certainly do well in brawl because i'm used to the game, I've played it and studied its mechanics because i'm a sucker for every smash. however items take no skill whatsoever, and tripping is dumb.

I dont understand why every board has to have, "how come items aren't being used?" we abandoned items for a reason, and yeah we tested them, we gave them a chance in early melee and brawl, and it wasn't viable.

 

[Frost | Odds]

Casuals would still be casuals. I think the only reason we don't see amazing things done with items is that people who play competitively have already abandoned items.

fyi, Diddy and Peach and ROB and the Links are characters. There's a number of advanced techs based around them (in all 3 games), and a ton of melee and PM players (including myself) have invested time in learning to play with those items.

Randomly spawning items are still garbage, and add nothing of value to the game.

 

[Tremendo Dude]

It may be a bit unfair to say that dealing with items takes absolutely no skill, since there is a bit of a skillful element in dealing with items already in play, manipulating item placement, catching items, knowing when and how to discard, and trying to control the field to deny said items to your opponent.

That said, items have no place in a setting where the goal is to have a balanced match and determine the better player, such as in tournaments and competitive play in general. Reserve them for the funsie matches if you like things to get crazy. I usually keep the things locked up in the attic collecting dust, but that's just me.

 

[MirrorTael]

I have to say, I walk the middle line here in this debate. I think it just boils down to knowing what you're playing for at the time. If it's competitive and you're playing for a title/crown, you wanna show off your skill with no distractions getting in the way. If it's just casual, then that guy needs to lighten up. I understand what you're saying completely; i too find that it takes a certain level of skill to adapt to using CERTAIN items. I'm impressed by whoever can dodge/simultaneously grab a bomb thrown at them in mid-air and launch it back at the player who threw it, or who can actually seamlessly land a hit with the home run bat. I'm a huge fan of the pokeball, but that is also something that can be easily avoided if you know which Pokemon do what. But I have much loathing for the fan, the invincibility star, the hammer, and the Fox/Falco/Wolf smash ball moves where you kill your adversary by rising into the sky repeatedly until they die. These don't require much skill to use. And that Nintendog was an idiot inclusion. (Some of the level choices can enrage me as well because you simply can't have a proper battle on them). Tripping never happened enough for me to get annoyed by it. So while I can understand how everyone will have their own little annoyances (I can only Brawl with GCN controllers myself) it seems like that guy wasn't there to just have fun. Seems like he wanted a more serious match and was disappointed. I had to laugh at FoxBlaze's comment "the "1v1, Fox only, FD" (which doesn't exist BTW, random internet *******es just made it into a stupid meme" because i knew a guy in college who would ONLY play if it was 1v1, on Final Destination, and take a lucky guess who he ONLY used? XD

 

[Frost | Odds]

I WOULD be OK with items under specific circumstances. An example: a Peach turnip (excluding stitchfaces) spawns on the middle of Smashville every 1 minute and 30 seconds. Because both players know exactly what item is spawning, when, and where, there's no random element- as a bonus, the spawn point being in the center of the stage reinforces the importance of stage control, particularly on a map where camping on/near the ledges is pretty strong (in PM anyway, I assume that transfers).

An interesting example of almost exactly this can be found in DotA - the 'runes' (powerups) spawn in the river in one of two known, precise locations every two minutes. While this does incorporate two random elements (the location of the rune, sort of, and what type it is), the randomness can still be controlled. Typically, whoever controls the center controls the rune - and is happy to find it regardless of what type it is.

Items are cool. Randomness is less so.

 

[Frenzy]

That's because it's a shiny new toy. There's always lots of people boarding the hype train during a Smash's release, but not so many years afterward, unless it's of Melee's caliber. Once the next version comes along, Smash 4 will be forgotten, because it's not meant to be a masterpiece. Thinking that the popularity of pre-release footage belies anything about the enduring quality of the game is ridiculous. Melee is surviving in its advanced age, with those competitive rulesets you find you boring, because it's a better game than Super Smash Bros New Installment NOW WITH MORE ITEMS!

Not to mention that because of the pre-release status, we're not going to see competitive play, we're going to see bads just smacking each other around in the flawed environment I've already described extensively.

Either way, you about done? This is entering the Brawl vs Melee category these kinds of topics always turn into, and after six years, they still haven't produced anything.

How can you say for sure that Melee is better than the new game when the new game hasn't come out yet? You already are prejudiced against it because it isn't a carbon copy of melee. Thank goodness normal people don't think like this, or once they'd find their favorite book, food, tv show, etc. they'd never try anything else.

 

[FoxBlaze71]

I had to laugh at FoxBlaze's comment "the "1v1, Fox only, FD" (which doesn't exist BTW, random internet *******es just made it into a stupid meme" because i knew a guy in college who would ONLY play if it was 1v1, on Final Destination, and take a lucky guess who he ONLY used? XD

That's nice, but it's probably because he had some sense of pseudo-pro status and just picked that up on his own. No real competitive ruleset (Apex, Unity, SmaCom, etc.) would actually do that.

How can you say for sure that Melee is better than the new game when the new game hasn't come out yet? You already are prejudiced against it because it isn't a carbon copy of melee. Thank goodness normal people don't think like this, or once they'd find their favorite book, food, tv show, etc. they'd never try anything else.

Jesus Christ.

The reason I don't THINK Smash 4 will be good is because Sakurai doesn't care if it's going to be good or not. One of the things that made Melee great was that both competitive and casual audiences could enjoy it, while having massively different understanding of the game. Though it's not out yet, Smash 4 appears to just be a slightly faster Brawl. I don't know entirely what will be discovered about Smash 4 by the time it's been out a few years, but at this point it's not looking that good (nerfed DI, lots of landing lag, ****ty edge mechanics, the same old slow, floaty gameplay, etc.)

I can also say that all the cheering fanboys who flooded in this year to make all their terrible posts in the Smash 4 boards don't know how it will turn out either, but they're already thrilled and getting down on their knees and unzipping Sakurai's pants. Regardless, you seem to have a nice habit of steering further and further away from the actual topic to more of a tired "h8 melee***s" argument, which as I said, has been around six years and hasn't done anything productive. I don't know why the mods haven't already come and shut down this topic for how inane it's become.

 

[Frenzy]

I think Sakurai puts a lot of time and effort into his games, even if it isn't into things you like. It sort of does go back to the topic, why people who who exclusively play certain games can't have fun playing the other games. By baiting you a little, I got the answer to my forum topic.

In fact, your behavior perfectly answers the forum question. Elitism, an inability to try new things, and pessimism.

 

[FoxBlaze71]

You're still, after all this time, not figuring out what makes true competition, instead following the usual scrub flowchart of complain, toss out absurd ideas, switch topic when absurd ideas don't work, and then crying elitism. There's some big flaws that you're failing to see.

To start, your mention of Sakurai putting a lot of times and effort in his games is laughable. Do you know where he puts that time and effort? 70+% of Brawl's development was on a godawful Kirby campaign with no plot, difficulty, or substance in any form. Even in Smash 4's development, what are we seeing? More characters, items, single player modes? There have been a couple noted changes in mechanics (usually for the worse) but they take a back seat to the other insignificant **** he's tossing in. Though he's stated when interviewed that just added more characters, items, and the like won't necessarily improve the game, he's still just going the wrong direction because he cares nothing about the competitive nature of the game.

You claim that you have the best interest of competitive depth at heart when you post your item ruleset BS that completely violates that basic concept and embrace a game that removes it, then put forth some pretense about Sakurai working brutally hard when he's really just telling his underlings, "Make more Pokeballs." The last time Sakurai actually did work his ass off on a game was Melee, putting in ridiculous hours trying to make it great, and he accomplished that. But instead, he's resented that level of work and has been passing off inferior games because he's lost that spark and care he once had for Smash.

Second, your charge of elitism. Let me ask you a question: if you had to choose a car out of these two, which would you pick? The first is a brand new, powerful sporting-class car. It has a V10, all luxury features, assembled in the best of factories by experienced workers, and is the peak of automotive design because a lot of people put their best into making it perfect. The other car is a used Detroit taxi. It's filthy, dented, abused, and has a rainbow of semen, piss, and blood stains on the back seat from years of drunks, stoners, public masturbators, and other undesirables desecrating it. No one gave a **** about what happened to that taxi. You would take the first car, wouldn't you?

In more pleasant terms, what you call "elitism" is the choice of the people who would take the first car. Melee is a game that Sakurai bled his ****ing heart on, and it shows. That's why the game was beloved, and still played by, both a casual and competitive audience and remains one of the older games still played competitively. Brawl, and its new successor, are the taxi. No one put a lot of work into it because it wasn't meant to be a superior product. It was designed to be utilized briefly and then quickly disposed of. The "elitists" you seem to disdain are those who just prefer the higher-quality option to the one that minimal effort or quality was put into. This draws a parallel not with games alone, but also rulesets.

Does that fully answer your question? I'm getting pretty goddamn tired of writing out paragraph after paragraph defending what should be blatantly obvious just to fuel a terrible topic that's only inciting a lot of tired, old arguments. Seriously, man, give it up. There's a reason that items have been banned all these years and Brawl is considered inferior, and me having to explain such an ancient, well-documented topic to you is really draining and unnecessary.

 

[Young Rinku]

Lol opinions
There's literally no point on arguing about this anymore, this thread needs to be locked, ESPECIALLY since the guy who made the thread even said his question was answered.
Mods pls kill this thread

 

[Frenzy]

Lol opinions
There's literally no point on arguing about this anymore, this thread needs to be locked, ESPECIALLY since the guy who made the thread even said his question was answered.
Mods pls kill this thread

Seconded, I already got my answer.

 

[Frost | Odds]

Lol opinions
There's literally no point on arguing about this anymore, this thread needs to be locked, ESPECIALLY since the guy who made the thread even said his question was answered.
Mods pls kill this thread

Shouldn't your name be Younga Rinku?

 

[Young Rinku]

Shouldn't your name be Younga Rinku?

...
I feel dumb.