Scar on the Melee vs Brawl debate: What does competitive really mean?

[Eggm]

Lol.

Let's all go play melee.

FTW!!! SPOC V Scar's tournament this saturday Banks, bring mainhamshiprie omgggg that'd make it even more epic than it already is. Cyrain/plank/HAT want to come from md/va, and nj/pa is gonna b there strong, ny is brining hax/jman/alukrd/vanz, its going to be sweet, i hear pittsburg is coming to omg!

 

[SynikaL]

I'm so disappointed that we are as a community planning on moving forward with this game.

Thank you.

Way to piss away all the years I personally spent in other communities trying to convince people we weren't playing a clownshoes party game in tournaments by dropping Melee for one!

Even more irony: we now have the two-faced SRK community claiming Brawl is good. Idiocy all around.


-Kimosabae

 

[Alukard]

dam ... i totally agree with wife ... on this i'm sry

 

[OddCrow]

hows about we ban this thread and all like it until this time next year, and the re-open, where we will promptly find a winner, or that no one gives a f***.

but people who just say that melee will always be better, are entitled to that. Go ahead, I am positive there will still be melee tournaments. and you can always wait between 7-infinite number of years to play the next game, OR learn how to program and make a game sooooooo fundamentally broken you can play and DOMINATE for YEARS!!!!

 

[demonpanther]

Melee is in fact more competitive than brawl. i am not gonna sit here and tell you that the level of technical mastery and mental skill required for melee can be accomplished in Brawl.

Brawl however is more fair. That is the straw that most pro-melee players feel is short. Larger characters are on equal footing with smaller ones. There are not that many things that can be abused. Fairness can be argued as well but i can tell you that if a tier list was made for melee casuals, the same characters at the top will be at the top, the same at the bottom will be at the bottom. Melee was never fair in terms of characters. In brawl i can name at least 20 characters as of now that have high tier potential.

What Brawl lacks is technical mastery. The mind-games are there but many techniques don't give tried and true results all the time. To a pro melee player that is a downside. If you flip the stick, it makes for an equal amount of intensity. Instead of looking to get a setup you have to think a little bit more for that kill.

Brawl is easier
Brawl is less competitive

I hate when pro-melee players say that the tournament scene will suck. They are further from the truth than they can imagine.

 

[(*Jman*)]

lets play melee cause brawl is a wack game ^_^

 

[Fletch]

Here we go again.

Actually, its extremely relevant and a point people try to ignore because its very valid and hurts there argument. Melee was a great competitive game with lots of depth but, mostly it came from mistakes. Brawl could turn out the exact same way, especially considering the the game at its core has many of the same features and concepts. Way to many people try to just ignore Brawl supporters with "Brawl wasn't meant to be competitive" and they just totally ignore that Melee was the same exact way. Its just plain unfair.

I acknowledged before that Melee's greatness was in most part a mistake; there is no reason for this to happen again though, especially when the developers took every action they could to prevent it. We are trying to "break" the game, and again have made no major breakthroughs. Brawl could turn out the same way, but there is no reason to think that at this time.

We don't really know if they did that yet, I'm really leaning towards them not doing that from my experience.

What evidence do you have for backing this claim?

We have been constantly finding little things that will impact the game, no one is even close to putting them all together and applying them, once that happens--you can be sure the game will change quite a bit.

... There hasn't been anything that will be game-breaking or add that much depth yet, but I really hope you're right in the long run. Again, no major evidence.

I know this, but my point was Melee had its own version of "noob friendly" recovery to argue against his point of Brawl "just being for kids". In Brawl, if you try to Up's into the side of the stage, it punishes you with a death. Why do we ignore the loss of certain Melee things that were noob friendly and only focus on the things that Brawl has that are noob friendly. Simply because its different?

Lots of stages in Melee had this feature too (I'm assuming you're referring to Brawl's Final Destination, in that case I point you to Melee's Battlefield). But besides, recovering in Brawl is so much easier it's ridiculous, you ignore other facets such as being able to grab the ledge from both sides. Ledge game also gimped by the new invincibility lag, among other things including pretty much everyone's recovery being buffed by new Up+Bs, floatiness, gliding, extra air dodges and other stuff.

Also, many characters have to be very careful about when they choose to use Up B, or different recovery methods depending on the situation. People that require tethers get ***** by edge hogging now. And now, Brawl is more about edge guarding before you even get to use an Up B, Brawl's edge guarding game is so much different.

And less in depth with less options. Tethers suck, but I think this was just a simple oversight by the developers. Something positive though that they offer a different way to be edgeguared; too bad it is extremely simple. I really wish they took away the easy edge-hogging from Melee and left it at that; now they just completely took away any hopes of consistent edge-guarding.

I didn't say it didn't, I just said complex controls don't just make a game better, and easier to use controls don't make the game worse. A game can still be amazingly complex and competitive with simple controls.

Like I said, this is kind of opinion, and I think the other way, but I won't say you are wrong.

Nope, Melee is a VERY noob friendly game, doesn't mean it can't be great for the hardcore though. Brawl might turn out the same way.

Melee at a competitive level is nowhere near a noob friendly game; hell, I'm still learning stuff about Melee. Brawl does not feel as if it will be the same way. I really don't care about how the games are played casually, that is not what we are arguing about. I hope you're right about Brawl though... but again, no evidence points to this happening.

Unless the tripping is there to punish certain types of movement, thus the game would require more complex controls.

I hope that's the case, but all evidence points to the contrary.

Experienced people don't really matter at this point to be frank, the games new and besides mental battles, everyone is essentially at the same level. Its simply up to the masses to play the game, and its still way to soon to expect major results.

The core gameplay is still there though, and we sort of "know" what to look for. The Melee players are still the best at Brawl, but hoping for results blindly does not necessarily mean they are going to happen. We can hope though...

Nope.

Addressed two quotes up.

We don't know it doesn't have depth yet, many competitive players from traditional fighters said the same thing about Melee. It took some of them 5 years to be convinced, some never were convinced. Why are some people so adamant on "proving" that Brawl has no competitive game play? Do you want the game to fail in a competitive scene? Why?

I absolutely do not want the game to fail in the competitive scene, and neither would any sane Melee player. We want to have a new game, but the sacrifice in depth appears to be so great right now that it is not worth the transition; Melee simply stands as a much better game right now. That's what concerns me... Everyone would obviously want a new game since we've been playing the same one for 7 years, yet no one can even take Brawl because it is just too simple right now, and does not offer near the options of it's predecessor... It's just too watered down. Discovery of some AT's could help, but again nothing points to this happening.

Brawl is vastly different that Melee in the game play department, some Melee habits may even work against you when playing the game. SSB may be a different story but, I'll be the first to admit that I don't have much experience with that game. My point is, as much as we may think we know what to look for, we really don't. And secondly, we shouldn't even be looking for "game breaking techniques" yet. We should just focus on applying basic game play functions and currently know AT's to a higher level.

I don't agree with this, I feel Melee skill has transferred over quite well and has for many people, it's just we are now limited in our choices. We know the basics, and that's all Brawl allows us to do without presenting any other real options. We'll see what happens though, hopefully I'm wrong.

I really just have to disagree, the game has quite a few things put in a purpose for people looking for a competitive edge. The game has way to much diversity and characters for there not to be anything in the ways of depth. Maybe it won't have as much depth as Melee? But whats the point in theorizing? Why don't we just find out for ourselves?

We eventually will find out for ourselves, it just doesn't appear to be heading in the right direction. I guess we can only give it time for now though.

 

[Fletch]

Thank you.

Way to piss away all the years I personally spent in other communities trying to convince people we weren't playing a clownshoes party game in tournaments by dropping Melee for one!

Even more irony: we now have the two-faced SRK community claiming Brawl is good. Idiocy all around.


-Kimosabae

I think that's the worst part. Melee wasn't respected before for being a true fighter, Brawl being supported in the tournament scene will confirm Smash as being a complete joke of a competitive game.

 

[behemoth]

I don't even know where to start. . .

First off, it's pretty apparent that the only people here arguing against Wife's or Scar's posts are people that don't even play the game competitively. In which case, stop ****ing posting on this thread. This is includes you behemoth, no one's ever ****ing heard of you, so you can go **** off.

Secondly, if any one here argues that Melee was all about tech skill, then you seriously only played the game for about 5 minutes. If those saying this had ever attended a Melee tournament they would know that every person there can wavedash, L-cancel, waveshine, JCG, and everything else until their blue in the face. IT'S NOT HARD. So what's the separator? Mindgames. Just like Wife said, making split second decisions. Brawl doesn't require that. You could draw your plan out on a piece of paper while you wait for your opponent to fall from the sky.

Lastly, can we transfer idiots like Eternal Neo, AKC12, and behemoth to GameFAQs? They be praised as gods for their "insight" over there.

Oh, my god! Someone else jumping on the bandwagon. Did you read a single word I wrote? No, you just read that I told wife to **** off for their tone, which was rude, I'll admit. They wrote something laden with a tone that wasn't necessary to get across their (largely correct) assertions.

If you had bothered to read anything of my post, you would have seen that I believe Melee was far more competitive, I hope the community stays around, and I compete in as many tourneys as my school and work schedules allow.

Does it matter who I am? because you haven't heard of my avatar you immediately know that I think Melee was a matter of tech skill (it wasn't, I've seen shiny technical foxes get their ***** handed to them. Hell, I've done it with a mediocre Gdorf).

let's try to keep this intelligent.

FWIW: I should probably apologize to two people. Wife, my bad, I was extreme, shouldn't have escalated it, I just wish you wouldn't assert that anyone who enjoys brawl is a n00b.

Scar: I wasn't trying to derail the thread, as it has been intelligent, educational, and entertaining. My bad d00d.


ON TOPIC: I still don't understand the entirety of why the "magnet hand" thing and the ease of recovery is a bad thing. Doesn't it make it more challenging? You must admit, at least the lowered edge invincibility frames make the timing of an edgehog more crucial.

Just trying to see a silver lining.

 

[Papapaint]

So... does anyone wanna go on wifi and try to work out ways to consistently get around camping?

 

[behemoth]

I'm down, but uhh, I'm kinda embarrassed to ask this: where do I find out my code for brawl?

Also, I'm in central Texas, so might be laggy though I have a pretty kickass connection.

 

[Papapaint]

Hey-- do you have either AIM or googletalk? That'll be the easiest way for us to talk.

 

[Papapaint]

I'm down, but uhh, I'm kinda embarrassed to ask this: where do I find out my code for brawl?

Also, I'm in central Texas, so might be laggy though I have a pretty kickass connection.

You find your brawl code when you go to wifi and click on friends list thingie... it's right under your name.

And I've played texans before with minimal lag.

And your sig STILL makes me laugh.

 

[Kami-V]

More Characters = More Diversity = Numerous playstyles = More competitive [brawl]
Less Characters= Less Diversity = Less playstyles = Less competitive

Less Clones= More Diversity= Numerous playstyles= More competitive [brawl]
More clones= Less Diversity = Less playstyles = Less competitive

More Balanced Characters= Less emphasis on WHO the character is, and more on player's mental skill= More Competitive [brawl]
Less Balanced Characters= More emphasis on WHO the character is, and less on player's mental skill= Less competitive

Less advanced techniques= 'simpler' game = more emphasis on mastery of core techniques=more competitive [brawl]

etc....

I have to disagree with you here. There are still clearly defined characters that are drastically more powerful than others in brawl. While none seem to be standing out as much as, say, fox in melee, I can clearly see some characters as much better characters than others... one name coming to mind is Toon Link. I'm sure we will get many TL 'clones'.

Your statement on more balanced characters I also can't really agree with. I feel a lot of the characters in brawl were made very sloppily. Metaknight IMO is a great example. His specials are clunky and akward, and most don't seem very effective at all. But I haven't played metaknight much, so I can't make a huge statement about it, correct me if I'm wrong, but he just seems very poorly designed.

I also disagree with your last statement. Core mechanics of the game are really core mechanics that exist in every fighting game, which cactar very cleary explained (you can see a link to his post on the first page), push pull and punishment. Mechanics that we had like wavedashing and the overall slowing of the game have made a very lackluster push pull. The punishment has also been decreased heavily since combos barely exist anymore.

 

[Joe_Sumo]

I don't want to get into opinions but instead facts. One undeniable fact is brawl is much slower. everyone is floatier and unless yer sonic, you run pretty slow. also everyone's short hop is huge which slows down aerial approaches and everyones recovery is godly. the most annoying part is spamming seems to rule from my experiance.

congratulations sakurai you made a game with 35 slightly modified samus's

 

[Gilgamesh]

It's actually 3 slightly modified Landmasters

I don't want to get into opinions but instead facts. One undeniable fact is brawl is much slower. everyone is floatier and unless yer sonic, you run pretty slow. also everyone's short hop is huge which slows down aerial approaches and everyones recovery is godly. the most annoying part is spamming seems to rule from my experiance.

congratulations sakurai you made a game with 35 slightly modified samus's

See? And people complained about the lack of Metroid representation.

 

[Papapaint]

See? And people complained about the lack of Metroid representation.

This is the best post in this thread.

 

[General_Zod]

Hmm. I solely believe just like a lot of my friends that Melee's Depth was a "beautiful mistake". I mean, don't you see that most techniques were discovered by accident and that they brough so much alternatives to all the characters?. As much as I like to stay neutral and lurk moar(lol), I have to take one side on this, Melee's lifespan isn't over, there's too much to be found yet. Most people do not like being defeated in melee, cause they feel like they were "cheated by a guy using glitchs", but for my case a defeat means that the other player took more time to prepare and wanted to win more than me. This is what brawl is taking from us, our preparation, our practice, our time spent on this game. We wanted to evolved, not to go backwards.
Whenever I see m2k play and see how beautiful and fluent this game can be played, it makes me wanna turn on my gc and start smashing. But now, whenever I play brawl or watch somebody else playing, I don't feel the same. Maybe it's because I'm a"___________ Insert insult here for people who like melee's game flow better over brawl", but for now brawl is not as much atractive to me as it was melee when it first came out.

I'll resume my lurking.

PS: My english sucks, so beware. xD!

 

[Fletch]

See? And people complained about the lack of Metroid representation.

Funniest post ever.

 

[Plairnkk]

i despise brawl, its not a good game

that being said, anyone want to play me online?

 

[DRaGZ]

I'd play you almightypancake, but I realized you're in Virginia...

I'm in San Diego, CA. The lag would be horrendous, unless you really wanna endure it.

 

[Plairnkk]

we can try, i played someone from los angeles earlier it wasnt too bad

 

[Radical Dreamer]

I'd rather play Melee with you. Even though it'd mean getting ***** pretty badly.

 

[Papapaint]

Hey guys... check out my thread "thinking outside the melee box". It has some significant information related to what we've discussed in here.

 

[spindash]

I'd play you almightypancake, but I realized you're in Virginia...

I'm in San Diego, CA. The lag would be horrendous, unless you really wanna endure it.

Actually, if you have a decent enough connection, I've found that the lag hasn't been murderous as of late if you're with friend codes. I'm in Alberta but I play with others far down in the States and in Toronto on the other side of Canada, but I've only noticed the kinda delay you'd get from playing a high def T.V. without the components for pin-point feedthrough. Meaning? Milisecond of lag at best.

And this is me with a decent router (by decent I mean it's your average wireless connection).

Give it a go! Shouldn't be that bad. ^^

 

[LOL_Master]

Nice argument, the usage of stfu and noob really prove what you know about smash. Care to explain how L-canceling makes Melee better than Brawl?

yes noob, i do attack, l cancels, give me options, in brawl, i float, hit you, and get shield grabbed, you are a great noob : )

 

[House M.D.]

scar's definition of competitive as a game where the better player consistently wins, but i think a few qualifications are in order.

1) poker is a highly skill-based game (some may disagree but they're wrong) but the best player rarely wins. only in the long run does the best player win. and this is a big reason the game is so popular; skill matters enough that people play it competitively but randomness is high enough that novices play as well

2) if brawl matches were 100 stock, even a slight skill difference between players would be differentiated. the real issue is that tournaments would then take too long.

3) i'm not sure how we can claim yet that the best player doesn't win consistently in brawl. perhaps after two years of competition of a different player winning every tournament that will be true, but perhaps someone will exhibit ken-like dominance and we'll see that the game is as competitive as melee.

4) when examining the difference between brawl and melee, i don't necessarily think competitiveness is the differentiating factor (if it is, we can't be sure yet). i would say it is more an issue of depth, like the difference between chess and checkers. however, there is a saying that checkers is a deep well while chess is a vast ocean; perhaps this analogy will ring true for brawl.

 

[Kio Iranez]

I don't think I can say anything that has already been said, but here's a little anecdote.

Yesterday, I was playing a friend who bought Brawl with me at the midnight release. We've both been playing ever since, but yesterday, he just cracked. He was so angry that he couldn't perform most of the things he did in Melee, that he just up and quit. He plays as CF, so naturally, in Melee, he would soar through the air and perform every tech possible. Now, he can't L-cancel, wavedash, moonwalk, etc.

I noticed one very important thing. It wasn't those missing techs that were really bothering him, as I also abused them in Melee, though I'm already used to Brawl. It was because he wasn't thinking as much as he should. Brawl is slower, therefore, mindgames are more important.

Yes, there are less technical options, but now it seems that you can't just go crazy on your opponent and win. You need to think. Honestly, it sounds like that is the problem with most people who don't like Brawl. They don't like to think.

 

[Wiseguy]

I don't think I can say anything that has already been said, but here's a little anecdote.

Yesterday, I was playing a friend who bought Brawl with me at the midnight release. We've both been playing ever since, but yesterday, he just cracked. He was so angry that he couldn't perform most of the things he did in Melee, that he just up and quit. He plays as CF, so naturally, in Melee, he would soar through the air and perform every tech possible. Now, he can't L-cancel, wavedash, moonwalk, etc.

I noticed one very important thing. It wasn't those missing techs that were really bothering him, as I also abused them in Melee, though I'm already used to Brawl. It was because he wasn't thinking as much as he should. Brawl is slower, therefore, mindgames are more important.

Yes, there are less technical options, but now it seems that you can't just go crazy on your opponent and win. You need to think. Honestly, it sounds like that is the problem with most people who don't like Brawl. They don't like to think.

I think that's EXACTLY the problem that people have. In Melee, if you had Robo-cop reflexes and understood how the game worked you could get by on a very simple strategy (ie: attack, attack, attack!!!) Brawl demands strategic thinking, and therefore rewards a very different skill set.

I kinda feel sorry for the people who incorrectly believe that Brawl is lacking in depth and competitiveness. The Smash community is evolving without them.

 

[IWuvGeno]

. He plays as CF.

That's all you needed to say. I main Falcon too, it's a tough job.

An equal amount of skill won't win with Falcon, that's why it gets frustrating. It really has less to do with thinking than you make it out to be. When you get tossed over and over because of priority with Falcon, you get highly frustrated and lose the ability to think calmly. When I practice 30 stocks sometimes, by the end I'm not thinking quite as clearly. I start off being very evenly matched, but you really have to be 2 steps ahead of your opponent at all times, quite literally.

There are few characters that require this amount of thinking to begin with... maybe it's just an exercise in futility - only time will tell.

 

[distr0ia]

This thread has quickly turned to garbage. No one is arguing anything intelligent

I understand where you're coming from...but perhaps at this point, the question itself of whether or not Melee is the more competetive game is irrelevant

how 'bout that?

 

[CT Chia]

i personally really enjoy the strategic thoughts involved with playing brawl. i have to learn my character and know all the moves well. especially aerials as you have to take autocancelling into effect, knowing when it's safe to use what moves, the spacing so you don't get shield grabbed, priority, and more. for instance, i know its safe to attack someones shield with ROB's bair as it pushes me away from them after i attack them, so i wont get shield grabbed. or i know that toon link's nair autocancels and has decent priority, so its a very good attack to use when ledgehopping.

 

[Zyphent]

I question the purpose of threads such as this, now. What was the whole goal of this? To get one side to win in the end? Its a never ending debate, and even if you "won", is your goal to get everyone to turn around and say "Jeez, they're right, I should stop playing [Brawl/Melee], it DOES suck after all".

Both games have positive and negative aspects of them, and should be played seperately. In the end, if you like Brawl better, go have fun and play Brawl, if you like Melee better, go play have fun playing Melee, nobody from the 'opposing' side will miss you im sure, as all you've seemed to do is start fights with them saying your game is better.

 

[Pakman]

i personally really enjoy the strategic thoughts involved with playing brawl. i have to learn my character and know all the moves well. especially aerials as you have to take autocancelling into effect, knowing when it's safe to use what moves, the spacing so you don't get shield grabbed, priority, and more.

You do realize all these things are in melee right?

 

[Cactuar]

Chibo, you are bad at smash.

 

[Lightning Ice]

http://smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=154612
I was waiting to post until I found something like this, people are finding out more effective ways to deal with shield campers and to improve the game's offense. You keep saying that nothing is pointing to anything being found out but this and B sticking, and RAR in just a week. We are far from finished with finding things out for the game.

 

[Thirdkoopa]

Alright; scar, nice post here, so I'll put my two cents on the topic.

Anyhow; It IS To early to judge whether It Is competitive or not, but we might as well start somewhere.

The thing is that we just don't know yet, first I'll start talking about melee, my melee experience began when I first got it and I only learned about advanced techs and all those things from a couple of friends and people.

Afterwards, I got more competitive in it, It really wasn't a "You get the game thus you're good" Story but rather an effort of time.

Advanced techs took the time to learn.

As for speed in melee, It was to fast on it, and brawl made it a bit to slow.

Now as for brawl on a competitive level, there's more you have to do like learn around the motions with the character you will use since there are a lot of gimmicks this time around, but that doesen't do much.

Things like WDing and all are now out but who knows what future advanced techs may hold? I doubt that SHFFLing De-Synching (Doubt I spelled that right) And WDing were all found out on day one, so who knows how competitive they can get?

As for the moment: I just have to go with melee, there's no denying it despite brawl being at an early point in the game, melee requires a bit more carefulness with all that speed (Speed and all is debateable) But then once those techs come out for brawl then this subject can actually go into a further point in debating.

Again: We have to start somewhere at least on this, but for a game that's been out for 6 years compared to one that's only been out for 1 week in the US Then It's hard to compare this early, I just say to give it some time.

Anyhow again, great first post, and I'm glad we had a thread for some people to be able to discuss the matter of melee VS brawl in competitiveness.

 

[Mercury]

Well, I will try to make as much sense as I possibly can for Melee players, but just know that I never took Melee as seriously as I am taking Brawl, which puts me in an awkward position that I'm noticing is highly favorable as far as learning Brawl goes, but to translate this and debate with people over a game I haven't religiously triedt o master is somewhat difficult, so bare with me. However, I have seen quite a few videos of 07 tourneys, and probably 80% of all of MLG's Smash videos, so I have seen what it looks like to compete in Smash.


First of all, the notion that technical skill directly correlates to making a game competitive is not true at all - it can make it more competitive than it already is, but if it is not very competitive in the first place, then you are RELYING on the technical skill to provide you with a competitive environment. Technical skill only makes good players better, and bad players (or players who don't know the technique) worse. The game was there before the technical skill was, therefore, the game is enhanced by the technical skill, not the other way around. Anyone who assumed that they would leave what we call ATs but are really 90% of the time glitches is just ridiculous, so to then assume that Brawl is now less competitive because of the lack of ATs is a moot argument, because common sense (mine at least) easily saw this coming and prepared for it. Not only that, but there are clearly ATs. They just don't break the game like Wavedashing did. My personal opinion is, yea, it broke the game completely in ways that you don't even recognize, but that's another argument altogether.

I completely agree that tripping is the most idiotic thing anyone could have ever done. Everyone agrees. Moving on.

I completely disagree that you cannot "0-death" or anything of that sort in Brawl. I've played Olimar for 60% of my time in Brawl, and I can do it for days if someone does not see it coming. It doesn't matter what you do once I start it up, there are very few ways to avoid it once I get it going. I would concede that it is not a true-to-definition combo, but to me, as long as it takes them from 0-death, I could really care less how close in time proximity the hits were. I am not going to tell any of you how to do it, because then it would be less effective, but I hint at the essential moves you do in NC-Echo's Olimar guide thread, so if you care to check it out, be my guest.

The point of this is, you can still develop advanced metagame strategies that a lesser opponent would be completely dominated by. I smile when people assume that no one has discovered anything "truly useful" in Brawl. It is blissfully ignorant. For instance, hit decay is an AMAZINGLY useful game mechanism that easily (and immediately) seperates the skill level from those who use it properly and those who don't. Maybe you disagree, but it will be hard to when you see people properly using characters months from now like I already am.

For instance, let's take Dedede. Very powerful character. He is my second main (and a big reason why I've learned to incorporate hit decay into the strategy), and a lot of my strategy has to do with avoiding hit decay as much as possible. If I were to use any KO move at around 80%, then the chances that I will be able to perform 10 moves to get that KO move out of the decay rotation before I get the enemy to 100% is unlikely, and it is very significant to using the move because (for those that don't know) the first decay effects the move you use far more in both knock back and damage % than any following re-use of the attack, but using it twice will even further decay the hit and make you have to fight for even higher % and take even more time doing less % per move if you only use the same few attacks over and over.

It's the difference between KOing someone using using anywhere from 10-20 moves and at around 100%, or using 20-40 moves and KOing at 150%. That's a huge difference, I think. Fortunately, I recognize this, so immediately I am at an advantage. Of course, it's incredibly difficult to try to remember 10 moves in one rotation and keep memorizing it, so I just avoid all of that and learn to use all of his moves, and almost never use a move right after I have just done it unless the move is for spacing or small-dmg multi-hits. Gone in Brawl are the Cpt. Falcon knees that bounce you from one stage to another, and arriving are character mastery, where memorizing every miniscule statistic of a single move is inferior to learning the proper use of every individial move a character has... and there are like, what... 13? 6 ground attacks, 4 airs, 3 specials. Good luck trying to main multiple characters if you are used to spamming attacks relentlessly.

And to continue with that point, there is flawed logic in assuming that simply camping with projectiles is a more effective strategy than doing anything else. The main flaw to this is that you simply accept that this is a good strategy because it looks good and you can't seem to beati t, but that doesn't mean anything at all. It just means, either you do not understand the character you are using well enough to combat the enemy, or (more unfortunately) your character is gimped with no projectiles, and no way to block/intercept/avoid projectiles... which is highly unlikely. Characters that can crawl immediately have an advantage vses campy projectile users. You just crawl. Of course it's slower than normal, but going slow and avoiding everything is much better than taking 25% and risking getting knocked back into the same thing over and over again, and the latter is what I am assuming is the problem. There are a lot of characters who could also simply duck and be more patient. The enemy could be perfectly fine with attacking until you get up, but as long as you never give up, the enemy will do something else because you are only responding to the camping the only way you know how and they will eventually realize that you will begin moving once they do something else (in which is likely a bait for you to get to moving, and when you least expect it, they will just start camping again).

To me, (the end of) Melee is more like chess type strategy, and Brawl is more of the way I play poker (and the idea that poker is "just gambling" makes it clearly evident that you don't know how to play poker at all, so if you don't understand how to truly play poker then do not make stupid comments about it).

In chess, you have multiple pieces and everyone in general can do the same things. They all have very direct moves and in itself, is very hard to identify what the player is doing as far as his grand strategy is concerned, unless you yourself are on the same level of thinking. You bait, you set up counterattacks in preparation, you feign movement and attacks, and then eventually you find yourself in a position to completely cripple the enemy in a series of blows. In Brawl, everything is much more statistical. You don't have complete information, but you are forced to assess the situation as intelligently as possible. Sometimes you make pokes, and you try to bait the enemy into an advantageous situation, and from there you have a very limited window of opportunity to cause as much damage as possible without having the enemy try to completely avoid you (in poker's case, folding a hand). I also feel like Brawl plays more like most other fighters do, where there is an element of mixing and resets. Some characters have the opportunity to create these walls on other characters, and it's just impossible to win (like projectile characters for instance) unless you pass the wall, but if you don't even know how to pass the wall, then you have probably already lost. If you read the article by Sirlin, and if you remember his little Zangief splash/ Ryu Hadouken wall trick, then that is exactly what I am talking about. It's the same. Exact. Thing.

I disgress. The point is, the game, to me, is much different than Melee to really compare their competitive merit, especially since I never saw Melee played without all of the crazy AT **** going on. Just because you want to do it doesn't mean that the fact that it's difficult to is a moot point. Regardless, if you simply approach the game in a different way and completely throw away everything you thought you knew about Smash, which is apparently an incredibly difficult thing to do for a lot of people, you will find yourself learning more and at a faster rate. Just forget about what you think you know and recognize that you don't know what the hell you are talking about as far as the game's potential is concerned and you will be a lot better off. If you aren't willing to completely relearn a game, then that's fine too, just go play Melee. I completely understand that for a lot of people it's incredibly difficult, but for me, I've been playing video games nearly all my life (literally), and it's a lot easier for me to just pick up a new game and master it faster than everyone else and play as good as pros on multiple games at one time, but I also know that not many people play any game besides the Smash series competitively, so it could be inherently more difficult just because that is all you know how to do. I'm not trying to be a **** or to boost my ego, that is just how I have observed things on different games and this game doesn't seem to be any different.

And if you were wondering, no, I don't think Melee is more competitive, but it's probably more difficult to master at this point in time. I would not even bother arguing that it's harder to master all the metagame strategies of a game that has been out for less than a month compared to mastering all the metagame strategies of a game that has developed over half a decade.

 

[Thirdkoopa]

Well, I will try to make as much sense as I possibly can for Melee players, but just know that I never took Melee as seriously as I am taking Brawl, which puts me in an awkward position that I'm noticing is highly favorable as far as learning Brawl goes, but to translate this and debate with people over a game I haven't religiously triedt o master is somewhat difficult, so bare with me. However, I have seen quite a few videos of 07 tourneys, and probably 80% of all of MLG's Smash videos, so I have seen what it looks like to compete in Smash.


First of all, the notion that technical skill directly correlates to making a game competitive is not true at all - it can make it more competitive than it already is, but if it is not very competitive in the first place, then you are RELYING on the technical skill to provide you with a competitive environment. Technical skill only makes good players better, and bad players (or players who don't know the technique) worse. The game was there before the technical skill was, therefore, the game is enhanced by the technical skill, not the other way around. Anyone who assumed that they would leave what we call ATs but are really 90% of the time glitches is just ridiculous, so to then assume that Brawl is now less competitive because of the lack of ATs is a moot argument, because common sense (mine at least) easily saw this coming and prepared for it. Not only that, but there are clearly ATs. They just don't break the game like Wavedashing did. My personal opinion is, yea, it broke the game completely in ways that you don't even recognize, but that's another argument altogether.

I completely agree that tripping is the most idiotic thing anyone could have ever done. Everyone agrees. Moving on.

I completely disagree that you cannot "0-death" or anything of that sort in Brawl. I've played Olimar for 60% of my time in Brawl, and I can do it for days if someone does not see it coming. It doesn't matter what you do once I start it up, there are very few ways to avoid it once I get it going. I would concede that it is not a true-to-definition combo, but to me, as long as it takes them from 0-death, I could really care less how close in time proximity the hits were. I am not going to tell any of you how to do it, because then it would be less effective, but I hint at the essential moves you do in NC-Echo's Olimar guide thread, so if you care to check it out, be my guest.

The point of this is, you can still develop advanced metagame strategies that a lesser opponent would be completely dominated by. I smile when people assume that no one has discovered anything "truly useful" in Brawl. It is blissfully ignorant. For instance, hit decay is an AMAZINGLY useful game mechanism that easily (and immediately) seperates the skill level from those who use it properly and those who don't. Maybe you disagree, but it will be hard to when you see people properly using characters months from now like I already am.

For instance, let's take Dedede. Very powerful character. He is my second main (and a big reason why I've learned to incorporate hit decay into the strategy), and a lot of my strategy has to do with avoiding hit decay as much as possible. If I were to use any KO move at around 80%, then the chances that I will be able to perform 10 moves to get that KO move out of the decay rotation before I get the enemy to 100% is unlikely, and it is very significant to using the move because (for those that don't know) the first decay effects the move you use far more in both knock back and damage % than any following re-use of the attack, but using it twice will even further decay the hit and make you have to fight for even higher % and take even more time doing less % per move if you only use the same few attacks over and over.

It's the difference between KOing someone using using anywhere from 10-20 moves and at around 100%, or using 20-40 moves and KOing at 150%. That's a huge difference, I think. Fortunately, I recognize this, so immediately I am at an advantage. Of course, it's incredibly difficult to try to remember 10 moves in one rotation and keep memorizing it, so I just avoid all of that and learn to use all of his moves, and almost never use a move right after I have just done it unless the move is for spacing or small-dmg multi-hits. Gone in Brawl are the Cpt. Falcon knees that bounce you from one stage to another, and arriving are character mastery, where memorizing every miniscule statistic of a single move is inferior to learning the proper use of every individial move a character has... and there are like, what... 13? 6 ground attacks, 4 airs, 3 specials. Good luck trying to main multiple characters if you are used to spamming attacks relentlessly.

And to continue with that point, there is flawed logic in assuming that simply camping with projectiles is a more effective strategy than doing anything else. The main flaw to this is that you simply accept that this is a good strategy because it looks good and you can't seem to beati t, but that doesn't mean anything at all. It just means, either you do not understand the character you are using well enough to combat the enemy, or (more unfortunately) your character is gimped with no projectiles, and no way to block/intercept/avoid projectiles... which is highly unlikely. Characters that can crawl immediately have an advantage vses campy projectile users. You just crawl. Of course it's slower than normal, but going slow and avoiding everything is much better than taking 25% and risking getting knocked back into the same thing over and over again, and the latter is what I am assuming is the problem. There are a lot of characters who could also simply duck and be more patient. The enemy could be perfectly fine with attacking until you get up, but as long as you never give up, the enemy will do something else because you are only responding to the camping the only way you know how and they will eventually realize that you will begin moving once they do something else (in which is likely a bait for you to get to moving, and when you least expect it, they will just start camping again).

To me, (the end of) Melee is more like chess type strategy, and Brawl is more of the way I play poker (and the idea that poker is "just gambling" makes it clearly evident that you don't know how to play poker at all, so if you don't understand how to truly play poker then do not make stupid comments about it).

In chess, you have multiple pieces and everyone in general can do the same things. They all have very direct moves and in itself, is very hard to identify what the player is doing as far as his grand strategy is concerned, unless you yourself are on the same level of thinking. You bait, you set up counterattacks in preparation, you feign movement and attacks, and then eventually you find yourself in a position to completely cripple the enemy in a series of blows. In Brawl, everything is much more statistical. You don't have complete information, but you are forced to assess the situation as intelligently as possible. Sometimes you make pokes, and you try to bait the enemy into an advantageous situation, and from there you have a very limited window of opportunity to cause as much damage as possible without having the enemy try to completely avoid you (in poker's case, folding a hand). I also feel like Brawl plays more like most other fighters do, where there is an element of mixing and resets. Some characters have the opportunity to create these walls on other characters, and it's just impossible to win (like projectile characters for instance) unless you pass the wall, but if you don't even know how to pass the wall, then you have probably already lost. If you read the article by Sirlin, and if you remember his little Zangief splash/ Ryu Hadouken wall trick, then that is exactly what I am talking about. It's the same. Exact. Thing.

I disgress. The point is, the game, to me, is much different than Melee to really compare their competitive merit, especially since I never saw Melee played without all of the crazy AT **** going on. Just because you want to do it doesn't mean that the fact that it's difficult to is a moot point. Regardless, if you simply approach the game in a different way and completely throw away everything you thought you knew about Smash, which is apparently an incredibly difficult thing to do for a lot of people, you will find yourself learning more and at a faster rate. Just forget about what you think you know and recognize that you don't know what the hell you are talking about as far as the game's potential is concerned and you will be a lot better off. If you aren't willing to completely relearn a game, then that's fine too, just go play Melee. I completely understand that for a lot of people it's incredibly difficult, but for me, I've been playing video games nearly all my life (literally), and it's a lot easier for me to just pick up a new game and master it faster than everyone else and play as good as pros on multiple games at one time, but I also know that not many people play any game besides the Smash series competitively, so it could be inherently more difficult just because that is all you know how to do. I'm not trying to be a **** or to boost my ego, that is just how I have observed things on different games and this game doesn't seem to be any different.

And if you were wondering, no, I don't think Melee is more competitive, but it's probably more difficult to master.

O___________________O

That's a lot of text, that is one heck of a lot of text, anyhow nice job wording that all up, now when you think about it, the whole chess-poker thing, they both play competitively but are not to be compared.

 

[Eggm]

i personally really enjoy the strategic thoughts involved with playing brawl. i have to learn my character and know all the moves well. especially aerials as you have to take autocancelling into effect, knowing when it's safe to use what moves, the spacing so you don't get shield grabbed, priority, and more. for instance, i know its safe to attack someones shield with ROB's bair as it pushes me away from them after i attack them, so i wont get shield grabbed. or i know that toon link's nair autocancels and has decent priority, so its a very good attack to use when ledgehopping.

Maybe I missed something, but melee has all this too. And a million other things. Also I figured out which of my 5 ariels auto canceled without anyone having to tell me day 1 playing brawl with my main pikachu. It wasn't all that incredibly deep or hard to figure out and realize which to use in which situations in my game.

Yet to this day I haven't quite mastered falcos 5 ariels. I still don't know which to use and when to start it and what part to hit with to do combos as sexy as reiks, 1.5 years into playing melee. I haven't mastered that in brawl yet either.. oh wait nvm there are no combos I don't have to.