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

[LOL_Master]

so basically...playing like a noob in melee (which is what brawl is) requires more strategic thinking....yeah right, stfu noob

 

[DRaGZ]

Honestly, I read the first post yesterday and forgot you had a "no useless argument" clause in effect. Tho I probably still would have said something along those lines, I just wouldn't have said it so much.



It's not random, if a person is consistantly wrong, they have bad predictions skills. It may seem random to the loser because he doesn't understand why he lost. There are people on this planet who can tell exactly what you are thinking about by just looking at you. I've spent the majority of my life watching how people react to certain situations and predict how people I've never met will do things based on what I see, its the same concept. The reason I'm doing so well in Brawl right now is because I know what people are going to do most of the time.

The same was true in Melee. If there was a single correct response for something in Melee, then the person who set themselves up should have known that outcome was what was going to happen. If everybody had perfect prediction skills, nobody would ever lose, every match would stay at 0% forever. At some point somebody has to be wrong, this is no more true for Brawl than it was for Melee.



again you go right back to your undeveloped understanding of the game. Punish all offensive actions? Find your autocancelling short hopped aerial attacks, 10x better than l-canceling. There is plenty of room to punish poor choices as long as one player or the other is playing aggressively. Correct choices will always keep you safe.

I won't argue that tripping takes away from the competitive aspect of the game, but it by no means ruins it. It's easily managable. Like I said there are plenty of ways to get minimize tripping, I trip maybe once every 4-5 matches and it's normally in a non-crucial moment because I'm not trying to keep my movements under control.



Maybe I wasn't clear... I already have found ways around all of your problems... I think playing defensively is a poor choice and I consistantly beat people who do play defensively. I play aggressively in Brawl and lose very few matches. I meant "you" literally, not the general kind. I already know how to play against the styles of play you deem unbeatable or too hard to get around. And I win almost every game I play, the times I lose are to other people who play aggressively. And I have played people like Azen and Ken in brawl a number of times. I know what I'm talking about.


Unfortunately, I must go now... I'd love to stay and chat, but I can't.

I think you're very wrong on the part I have bolded. Some characters THRIVE on playing defensively (e.g. Pit) and some characters thrive on switching between an extremely offensive style and an extremely defensive style (e.g. Wolf). The higher the level of intensity/skill in a match in Brawl, I have found, the more emphasized these traits become.

It's like doing decision-making models on neural networks. Arguing more about a topic often doesn't sway people (about 95% of the time, people stay with their choice), rather it solidifies their previous assertions. I'm observing the same thing in Brawl: the higher the level of play, the more you must rely on playing to your character's strengths, and sometime playing very defensively by camping and junk is a necessity to win.

@ LOL_Master: You're giving everyone who enjoys Melee a bad name. I.e., you're acting like a so-called "tourny***" and making yourself and every poster near you look bad. I'd really appreciate it if you'd stop.

 

[Papapaint]

It's not random, if a person is consistantly wrong, they have bad predictions skills. It may seem random to the loser because he doesn't understand why he lost. There are people on this planet who can tell exactly what you are thinking about by just looking at you. I've spent the majority of my life watching how people react to certain situations and predict how people I've never met will do things based on what I see, its the same concept. The reason I'm doing so well in Brawl right now is because I know what people are going to do most of the time.

Golly. You should be a detective.

The idea that you can tell what someone's thinking about is immature, ignorant, sherlock holmes bull****. The human brain is incredibly complex, and the best smash players are the ones who do not get locked into predictable patterns. In melee, this meant so much of the game--and skill--revolved around managing to land the first hit. In Brawl, there's no reward for outsmarting (or out-predicting) your opponent--at least, not a reward which outweighs the risk.

The same was true in Melee. If there was a single correct response for something in Melee, then the person who set themselves up should have known that outcome was what was going to happen. If everybody had perfect prediction skills, nobody would ever lose, every match would stay at 0% forever. At some point somebody has to be wrong, this is no more true for Brawl than it was for Melee.

Well, according to your last statement, this would make you the best **** thing to happen to melee.

again you go right back to your undeveloped understanding of the game. Punish all offensive actions? Find your autocancelling short hopped aerial attacks, 10x better than l-canceling. There is plenty of room to punish poor choices as long as one player or the other is playing aggressively. Correct choices will always keep you safe.

The autocancelling attacks tend to have low knockback. With the lower hitstun, that means you'll be punished for properly punishing them. Fail.

I won't argue that tripping takes away from the competitive aspect of the game, but it by no means ruins it. It's easily managable. Like I said there are plenty of ways to get minimize tripping, I trip maybe once every 4-5 matches and it's normally in a non-crucial moment because I'm not trying to keep my movements under control.

That's all well and good, but it'd be a crock of **** to lose in the finals of some tournament because your Luigi couldn't figure out which **** foot to move first.

Maybe I wasn't clear... I already have found ways around all of your problems... I think playing defensively is a poor choice and I consistantly beat people who do play defensively. I play aggressively in Brawl and lose very few matches. I meant "you" literally, not the general kind. I already know how to play against the styles of play you deem unbeatable or too hard to get around. And I win almost every game I play, the times I lose are to other people who play aggressively. And I have played people like Azen and Ken in brawl a number of times. I know what I'm talking about.

So you live in VA and california? Or you've just played people like them?

No one's saying that playing defensively is a sure-win strategy. It is an advantageous position though. You talk a big game, I'll gladly take you on WiFi. If you can show me that playing defensively is a poor decision, I'd love to learn from you. Otherwise, you haven't proven anything.

 

[Egret]

I think this thread relates to a pretty good philosophical question that the ancient Greeks pondered about for ages. Is being a god (Melee) better than being mortal (Brawl)?

"I'd rather be a slave in melee than a king in brawl." -Dead Achilles, The Odyssey

 

[Blu-ninja]

i can only say one thing about this debate and one thing only:

give it more time.

really...i mean guys..

the game has only just surfaced from the minds of nintendo, can we please give it a chance..?
either way , i don't see why you can't play brawl and at the same time play mellee y'know?

Nothing will ever replace the fast pitched furious fights mellee offered, nothing will ever replace the grace in which our characters moved in mellee, and nothing will EVER replace the many memories we created through mellee...


your first wave dash...

your discovery of L-cancel...

Putting your hard work together and watching all your training pay off...




Nothing will ever replace mellee. so long as you have the disk, nothing will replace it.


If street fighter can have a multitude of versions and STILL hold up as a community, so can we!
We can play brawl AND mellee at the same time, i know IM not tired of my Mellee peach and i welcome the challenge of her brawl re-endition! so why cant you guys welcome brawl's challenge and give it a chance first before throwing it off?

i say, give it a few more months, give it a few more discoveries, and if it's STILL not competitive enough...
well....we gave it a try dint we? we tried it not individually, but as a community.


so to reiterate, lets give brawl a good FIRM chance first...not judge it by what we have now.

alright?

 

[Azen Zagenite]

=^_^=

I play like a noob in Melee. Spamming forward smash with every character and stuff, lolll. I'm probably not even in the Top 100 of most Technical players. But I still did decent anyway. Technical skill isn't everything... Brawl is just fine.

So far Brawl has been very competitive, at least for me. Thanks to the online mode everyone can play and practice with good people. Online tournaments and ladders; a lot of people are taking Brawl more seriously than in Melee. Not to mention that the online competitive scene would probably encourage more people to come to live tournaments.

I already played against several people that **** me in Brawl, that just shows how much more competitive everyone is. Brawl is too good! No Jones.

 

[Plairnkk]

So i went over to my friends house today who i usually played melee with for 5-6 hours at a time, until we ran out of time. I went over there today to play brawl and after about two hours we were just left in a bored stuper. I thought hard and tried to figure out why.

After a few minutes I realized it's as simple as this - Making every character the same weight made the game BORING, at least for me.

Say in melee i'm playing marth. I beat a fox player first match. Second match he switches to peach. These are two COMPLETELY different matchups. In Brawl, each character plays essentially the same against every other character, and all "combos" (i say in quotations because we know combos dont really exist) are the same against everyone

Also, each CHARACTER plays basically the same, PERIOD, so even switching characters isnt fun.

edit:: azen u lie like anything. u act like u arent technical in melee til u need to whip out ur technical fox to beat my sheik. lol, ur technical when u want to be.

 

[Azen Zagenite]

=^_^=

Raftbuild: Jealous of my full jump neutral aerial to shine Fox?! I wanna play you some tonight in Brawl!

 

[Mew2King]

GOD ****IT AZEN, JUST CUZ YOU DON'T LIKE TO DO MASSIVE COMBOS DOESN'T MEAN I DON'T

I FIND THE COMBOS FUN, YOU FIND the SUPER GIMPY FORWARD SMASHS FUN

IF IT WAS LIKE MELEE WE COULD HAVE ALL BEEN HAPPIER, BUT THEY HAD TO COMPLETELY GIVE IN TO EVERyONE THAT DOESN'T LIKE TO DO THAT STUFF, I FIND THAT FUN

 

[Pink Reaper]

I don't know who you are Mr. "Zangenite" but your obviously not very good at smash and only joined smashboards to gain Brawl info from E for All.

 

[Rhubarbo]

Does everyone realize that Brawl has to be less techincal because either:

A) Nintendo forced Sakurai to develop a dumbed down game.
or
B) "Smash is a game that should be enjoyed by the whole family. Everyone's mom, uncle, and older sister should be eager to beat up a hedgehog with a robot! That is why I made Brawl more "accessible" for everyone."-Sakurai

Whoever made Brawl a dumbed down game should remember that Melee was the top selling GCN game. It's funny that this game caters towards the casual even though they'd buy it no matter what. A casual player probably spams c-sticking and a spammable move (Pikachu's Thunder and Link's Spin Attack). If us competitive players are such a minority, the casuals shouldn't worry because most of them would never face one of us anyways. But, it doesn't matter to Nintendo because we'd purchase the game either way.

Nintendo should have focused on screwing up Mario Kart. It's not like that have any massive potential ever. By the way, they did that anyways (points to Mario Kart Wii). Don't believe me, go look at some videos of how slow it is and how large it's tracks are!

 

[Azen Zagenite]

=^_^=

M2K: You play DeDeDe, you have an infinite grab combo! Isn't infinite enough???

 

[BlackPanther]

They better not **** up Mario Kart because I'd much rather play that. But on topic why are all of the casuals on here defending Brawl anyway? Go downstairs and play with your mommy. We're talkin about Brawl on a competitive, this doesn't concern casuals. We can clearly see that this is a better game on a casual level but to replace Melee with so much more to offer on the competitive level shouldn't be replace with such a watered down game and more random variables. If you cannot see that Melee is better competitive game overall then that just means you like bein spoon fed everything.

 

[Banks]

if most people kept on holding melee tournaments this problem wouldn't exist.


but everyone is having brawl tournaments around here. **** THAT ****

 

[Scar]

lmao I agree with M2K, obvi. pancake already responded to b-run so that's fine, I see where you're coming from and of course certain people can read other people, this is prevalent in any/every other fighter.

lol @ Azen, his Samus is crazy technical too. He's just a smart player. I love Melee for the very reason that players with styles so different such as M2K and Azen can play the same game with amazing amounts of success.

Brawl hasn't seemed to look that way, but B-Run is telling me that he ***** defensive players and he already knows how the game is played, so maybe there is a lot there I just don't know. The quote, "I know what I'm talking about," is pretty powerful.

Though the stuff he brought up was largely unimpressive.

 

[Mew2King]

no an infinite grab combo isn't enough, i have my own standards of gaynesses, ill just CG to the edge and down tilt and hit them off again with waddle dees or fairs or bairs

 

[LavisFiend]

If you ask me, Olimar is the selling point for Brawl to me.

WIthout Olimar, I am reduced back to psychic ******* and a runt swordsman. That ain't cool.

I also hate how pick up friendly Metaknight is. Everyone just seems to spam the same little tornado move or that "RUHYUHUYUHYUHYUH" move.

Metaknight for butthole tier.

 

[TheKneeOfJustice]

So far Brawl has been very competitive, at least for me. Thanks to the online mode everyone can play and practice with good people. Online tournaments and ladders; a lot of people are taking Brawl more seriously than in Melee. Not to mention that the online competitive scene would probably encourage more people to come to live tournaments.

Like, the Online argument is extremely flawed. We can't say melee didn't have these things. It's not a fair comparison. When melee came around those sorts of features were hardly available, especially when looking at the scale of how available it is now.

 

[Eggm]

if most people kept on holding melee tournaments this problem wouldn't exist.


but everyone is having brawl tournaments around here. **** THAT ****

Better than no tournaments, since brawl's release tournaments on every weekend have dissapeared inf act theres been like 1 tourney a weeeknd (Sat/Sun) IF we are lucky. However scar is holding an epic tournament saturday for melee, with a few md/va coming and a few ny and pittsburg, and most of nj/pa you guys should come.

 

[LouisLeGros]

I hope the melee tournament scene can stay alive. It seems like all the organizers are switching to brawl.

As well as Brawl not being as competitive I don't think it will have anywhere near as long of a life span as a competitive game as melee has had (and still can have if the community works hard enough to keep it going).

also
lol @ M2k & Azen, I love the smash bros competitive players.

 

[Papapaint]

Better than no tournaments, since brawl's release tournaments on every weekend have dissapeared inf act theres been like 1 tourney a weeeknd (Sat/Sun) IF we are lucky. However scar is holding an epic tournament saturday for melee, with a few md/va coming and a few ny and pittsburg, and most of nj/pa you guys should come.

Ooooooo....

Where is this tourney?

 

[rajendra82]

So i went over to my friends house today who i usually played melee with for 5-6 hours at a time, until we ran out of time. I went over there today to play brawl and after about two hours we were just left in a bored stuper. I thought hard and tried to figure out why.

After a few minutes I realized it's as simple as this - Making every character the same weight made the game BORING, at least for me.

Say in melee i'm playing marth. I beat a fox player first match. Second match he switches to peach. These are two COMPLETELY different matchups. In Brawl, each character plays essentially the same against every other character, and all "combos" (i say in quotations because we know combos dont really exist) are the same against everyone

Also, each CHARACTER plays basically the same, PERIOD, so even switching characters isnt fun.

edit:: azen u lie like anything. u act like u arent technical in melee til u need to whip out ur technical fox to beat my sheik. lol, ur technical when u want to be.

You are a complete idiot as shown by your lack of knowledge of elementary physics. How fast something falls is not dependent on their weight. Galileo showed this to the world centuries ago by dropping two balls of different weights from the leaning tower of Pisa. Both balls fell down at the same rate and hit the ground at the same time. In Melee they hacked in the variable falling rate after the fact so it was glitch that was meant to be fixed. Do you see how the heavy characters don't get knocked back as much when hit the same way as the lighter characters. That is also realistic, because the force is the same but the mass it's acting on is bigger, so the acceleration is smaller. Physics in Brawl is quite a bit more logical than Melee.

Every character basically plays the same.? WTF are you talking about. Are you telling me that you used the same strategies while playing as Olimar, Dedede, Fox, and Snake? I understand that you don't like the game, but stop making bogus arguments to put an objective spin on your subjective opinion.

 

[LouisLeGros]

Physics in Brawl is quite a bit more logical than Melee.

Especially when you jump with sonic, if Newton has any problems with it then he can **** off

 

[Papapaint]

You are a complete idiot as shown by your lack of knowledge of elementary physics. How fast something falls is not dependent on their weight. Galileo showed this to the world centuries ago by dropping two balls of different weights from the leaning tower of Pisa. Both balls fell down at the same rate and hit the ground at the same time. In Melee they hacked in the variable falling rate after the fact so it was glitch that was meant to be fixed. Do you see how the heavy characters don't get knocked back as much when hit the same way as the lighter characters. That is also realistic, because the force is the same but the mass it's acting on is bigger, so the acceleration is smaller. Physics in Brawl is quite a bit more logical than Melee.

Every character basically plays the same.? WTF are you talking about. Are you telling me that you used the same strategies while playing as Olimar, Dedede, Fox, and Snake? I understand that you don't like the game, but stop making bogus arguments to put an objective spin on your subjective opinion.

Yes, if there's anything I demand from smash, it's for elementary physics to make sense. The game should only revolve around REAL stuff, like jumping again in midair, or the ability to make yourself stop and then fall faster, or the ability to...

wait a second...

 

[FishkeeperTimmay!]

Well, I still fundamentally think that the game having less AT's is better for the competitive environment. This is merely because it allows SMART players to get in the game without having to have crazy muscle memory. To stand a chance against the pros in Melee, you couldn't just be a smarter player who understood his character and match ups better, you had to be able to have the finger dexterity to Wavedash, L-Cancel, Short Hop and Dash Dance flawlessly, in an incredibly fast paced game, WHILE trying to outsmart your opponent. Mind games DIDN"T always win you the game. Mastering you match up didn't give you enough of an edge. You could always loose if you technique wasn't up to your opponent's level.

A perfectly played Fox could always beat you. You HAD to have a basic level of technical skill to compete. If you couldn't washdash, your opponent was going to outspace you. If you couldn't L-Cancel consistently, your opponent would always be faster that you. If you couldn't short hop, you'd run into the same problem. This were not tests of your fighting capabilities, but tests of your finger dexterity. Brawl doesn't HAVE these flaws. It tests your fighting skill at its most important and fundamental levels, mind games and character knowledge.

Need an example? Just look at Azen, who is probably one of the best Mind Game players around. He played Link, one of the most vulnerable characters against the Top Tiers. And he won a lot, but when his mind games weren't anything less than amazing, his opponent technical speed would overwhelm him. That was the nature of Melee. Mindgames could only take you so far. Technical skill could always make up for it.

Melee was also unbalanced because of its AT's. Remember going to a tournament and seeing only 5-6 characters viable winners? That was all because of ATs, as only FAST characters, or RANGED characters could compete in the lightning fast environment. Tricky characters like Link or Mewtwo were crushed by fast combos that they literally could not respond to. With Link... Fox would Waveshine you off the stage and spike you to oblivion. With Mewtwo...Marths would Ken Combo you if you failed to dodge him properly once. Where was the skill in that? Players never HAD the chance to fight back in those situations.

Brawl doesn't suffer this fate. It doesn't have many, if any AT's, so players are tested on their abilities to outwit their opponent, and understand their characters strengths and weaknesses. No longer does a hit lead to death through comboing. No longer are matchups decided by speed alone. Your character's isn't considered by his lag stat alone. The game is MORE complex because of this. The powerful Ike has a chance when facing the wickidly fast Metaknight. Depth in matchups has increase a hundredfold. Thats competitiveness that your looking for. A better player WILL always win in Brawl. We are just judging what makes a good player on different ground now.

 

[Papapaint]

Well, I still fundamentally think that the game having less AT's is better for the competitive environment. This is merely because it allows SMART players to get in the game without having to have crazy muscle memory. To stand a chance against the pros in Melee, you couldn't just be a smarter player who understood his character and match ups better, you had to be able to have the finger dexterity to Wavedash, L-Cancel, Short Hop and Dash Dance flawlessly, in an incredibly fast paced game, WHILE trying to outsmart your opponent. Mind games DIDN"T always win you the game. Mastering you match up didn't give you enough of an edge. You could always loose if you technique wasn't up to your opponent's level.

A perfectly played Fox could always beat you. You HAD to have a basic level of technical skill to compete. If you couldn't washdash, your opponent was going to outspace you. If you couldn't L-Cancel consistently, your opponent would always be faster that you. If you couldn't short hop, you'd run into the same problem. This were not tests of your fighting capabilities, but tests of your finger dexterity. Brawl doesn't HAVE these flaws. It tests your fighting skill at its most important and fundamental levels, mind games and character knowledge.

Need an example? Just look at Azen, who is probably one of the best Mind Game players around. He played Link, one of the most vulnerable characters against the Top Tiers. And he won a lot, but when his mind games weren't anything less than amazing, his opponent technical speed would overwhelm him. That was the nature of Melee. Mindgames could only take you so far. Technical skill could always make up for it.

Melee was also unbalanced because of its AT's. Remember going to a tournament and seeing only 5-6 characters viable winners? That was all because of ATs, as only FAST characters, or RANGED characters could compete in the lightning fast environment. Tricky characters like Link or Mewtwo were crushed by fast combos that they literally could not respond to. With Link... Fox would Waveshine you off the stage and spike you to oblivion. With Mewtwo...Marths would Ken Combo you if you failed to dodge him properly once. Where was the skill in that? Players never HAD the chance to fight back in those situations.

Brawl doesn't suffer this fate. It doesn't have many, if any AT's, so players are tested on their abilities to outwit their opponent, and understand their characters strengths and weaknesses. No longer does a hit lead to death through comboing. No longer are matchups decided by speed alone. Your character's isn't considered by his lag stat alone. The game is MORE complex because of this. The powerful Ike has a chance when facing the wickidly fast Metaknight. Depth in matchups has increase a hundredfold. Thats competitiveness that your looking for. A better player WILL always win in Brawl. We are just judging what makes a good player on different ground now.

That's like saying "Well, Rugby was about scoring points and stuff, but you could only really play if you worked on your strength. I think we need to make a game that requires scoring points, but not physical prowess. I think if you can outthink your opponent, you don't need to be capable of surviving a beating. That makes the game unfair."

Physical ability is part of competition. If you can't be arsed to learn how to use Advanced Techniques, don't complain about them.

 

[FishkeeperTimmay!]

I DID learn the advanced techniques buddy. Thats the problem. I HAD to learn them in order to play Melee at a competitive level. Its not like your analogy.

In S64, your mind games won you matches. Because EVERYONE could 0-death combo, it was fair. ATs in that game made the game fair to almost the whole cast. In Melee, it was not so. Not everyone could 0-death combo. Only some characters could BECAUSE of the AT's. Waveshines, L-Cancel dependant combos like the Ken etc.

So, in other words, everyone learned how to play soccer (SS64), a game of skill and patience. Then they were tossed into a game of rugby (SSM) where your psychical strength was now a factor. Players who couldn't bulk up (learn AT's) were now much less better players. Does that make sense?

 

[Corigames]

More Crying from an Meleer

Because of posts like the one above by Trebor-Nella (I didn't want to take up more server space with a gigantic quote), i'm under the assumption that many of the people here who dock melee for its worth never really played it competitively. You say there were mindgames, there was no luck or random chance, AT's made it hard to play, or that good players beat new or bad players. What's wrong with that? If I spent my life working hard to be a blacksmith and some housewife came out and was able to do just as good or better than me on the first try, I'd feel a bit bad/humiliated. Professionals (since some of you seem to have forgotten what 'pro' stands for) means that these people can play this game FOR A LIVING! If it is their job to be good, then I bet you aren't as good as them. If you want to be as good as them, you have to train and work hard like any other game.

Yes, I am angry that Nintendo intentionally took out ways for people to do AT's as we know them. It was there attempt to make a game that no one can play competitively. Fine, I guess I'll stick to melee. But when I see gamestops, Play N' Trades, etc. trying to throw Brawl tournaments, it makes me ill.

So, say I "adapt." What is so great about me joining the mindless, objection less group of people who just play Brawl? I can sit here and say to myself, "Brawl is fun, lol!" Or, I can objectively look at the game and relay to you guys why exactly I dislike it so much. Any argument given by someone who likes Brawl > melee has been:
1. It's more fun.
2. It's new.
3. Wifi
4. Not Broken.

Well, to say something is more fun is ridiculous. I had more with competitive melee than I ever had with melee in a "casual sense. To me, hanging out with actual pros and people of my level in competition, especially with those I've never met, was a complete blast. Pushing myself to the next level, watching myself gain ability, telling my friends what place I got was all an awesome experience, and it seems right now that I won't get that same kind of experience from Brawl. Time will tell though.

It's new... yeah. That's a great argument. That's why Nintendo has the VC on the Wii... for all those "new" games. doesn't Brawl even feature some demos of those games. Oh yeah, it does. The new doesn't always mean the best.

Wifi. While I do think it is awesome to be able to play someone from my house when they are miles away, it sucks when you press a button and then preform the move five seconds later. This is not Brawls fault, it just sucks that the game is that laggy, and I blame Nintendo's network. then again, it could HAVe been Brawl coders for all I know and care.

Lastly, it's not broken. YEAH RIGHT. If you played melee, any of you, I bet you can read me the tier list from the back of your head. Everyone automatically thinks that because you can play fox well means that you will win. Not really. While it's true the fox is a beast of a character, melee had this rock/paper/scissors thing going on. Fox could be beaten by Marth, Marth could be beaten by Shiek, and Shiek could be beaten by Fox (All examples, may not be true about how that circle went). So, even if you did play the best character, you weren't in dittos all the time, and you weren't a n00b if you played someone who wasn't top tier.

In brawl though, it looks as if there will be 3 tiers in my opinion. 1) Top 2) Good 3) Non-playable. There are some characters that it is so hard to play in a 1 v 1 that it seems not feasible to do. "But buh buh buh Taj!" Some of you will say. Yes, Taj did take Mewtwo and turned him into quite the power house. But... how many of you actually played him in tournaments? If you did, you would know that he played Marth. That's right, he never really played Mewtwo when it came time to get serious.

So, how about people stop telling me and other people who are disappointed to give it more time. It's not like it WILL get better with time. Plus, you are also acting like I'm not giving it a chance. I'm just not going to take it seriously until something profound is found. Maybe people who are now die-hard this-game-will-never-be-not-fun should take a good, hard look and consider the slight possibility that this game could end up being not great.

So please, stop shoving my mouth full of your Brawl love. I get it, you like it and I don't. Big whoop.

 

[Cactuar]

Well I won't try and debate character mechanics, as while i think i a fairly good player I am by no means a devoted student of the game. What I will point out is that what you described seems in my mind to agree with what I said about Brawl having additional levels of skill added to it.

Say your MK and you have used one of his few finishers as you describe. Well now you admit that you gameplay needs to be be altered to this fact. And conversely when you do have full-powered finishers your gameplay will need to revert back. That seems like a new dimension.

Moreover my knowledge that your finishers are weak can effect my play style. While i admit approaching is quite hard with many characters, I might be willing to gamble if I know my 'punishment' is merely going to be percentile and my opponent's is going to be death.

On a side note I find the attitudes of many of the people on the other side of this debate to be quite arrogant. The assumption most run on is that only those who mastered the deepest elements of melee are capable of understanding the depth (or lack thereof) in brawl. As many so fervently point out, brawl is a different game in many aspects, and as such your 'expertise' in judging what is and is not deep gameplay is suspect.

A large point in my argument was that, while camping, I have enough options available that I never am out of kill moves. Your response is flawed in that you have ignored that I have used only one of my available 3 finishers (from shield, choose between up-b, sh nair, upsmash). If you get hit from one of these, you will spend more time recovering than I need to get rid of the deterioration.

My "gameplay" doesn't change at all, as I merely continue doing what I was doing to force you to approach again in the first place.

I base most of my "expertise" in judging brawl in that I am exceptionally gifted at analysis on pretty much everything, regardless of my ability to execute my own concepts, which is also quite high. Maybe you should look me up. Any smash player that has experience w/ me will confirm this for you if you need it. It may sound extraordinarily conceited, but it's got a lot of supporting evidence.

So then it comes down to strategies. You believe that projectile camping is the best strategy? You are completely wrong. First, I don't see how you can make a claim like that when we haven't even developed much of a metagame yet. This game will evolve and as long as there is room for the game to evolve, we can't say anything about the competitive potential of the game. There could still be tons of tricks and even glitches yet to be discovered. But regardless... I've been playing this game since the Japanese release and the number 1 problem I find in newbies is that they try to projectile camp and don't play nearly aggressively enough. I won't presume to tell you how to deal with projectile spammers because the metagame will quickly evolve past it, even if temporary spamming does remain viable.

You talk about the evolution of learning how to deal with projectile spam as if the projectile spammers don't evolve at the same time. The point of projectile spamming isn't that they do a significant amount of damage, but that they force you to approach. Players that are adept at this benefit because they only have to learn how to counter the extremely limited approach game build into brawl with their much larger arsenal of defensive measures. My previous posts have been about imbalances, and this is one of them.

In melee, my 2nd biggest counter for laser camping Falco players was run (without fear of tripping) into powershield (which reflected the laser, creating a gap for me to punish them in). I had another very ridiculous counterstrategy, but that is a story for another day as the wide majority of players cannot understand it or implement it due to complexity and technical inability.

There are tons of viable strategies in Brawl, moreso than there ever were in Melee. Characters are now very well defined and require their own playstyles. In melee the game boiled down to a few tricks that any character could do and the best characters were the ones who did them the best. In melee you could shffl b-air and beat most scrubs with pretty much any character. The difference in playstyles is much much larger in Brawl, thus far anyway, further metagame developement could reduce the game to tactics every character can do yet again, but I doubt it.

You haven't really read the posts. Most characters can be played the same way and this point was brought up already. I have even made my own post describing how painfully similar and boring my playstyle is with every character because I have a strategy that is extremely simple and extremely gay. I do not feel that characters are very well defined, as pretty much any move that does not fall into the catagory of being similar to what we hold as standard moveset is either unused or abused. Obviously there are a few catagories of movesets (projectile, disjointed, close range, etc), but the point remains that we only use the move if it furthers the strategy we have overall as a player or if it is clearly abuseable and a dominant or relatively unpunishable point of a specific character's strategy (like how easy it is to spam neutral b with Metaknight and escape).

Each (good) character, save a few, can be placed into one of 3-4 catagories. The characters can obviously be between 2, but the point is that they are similar. This could be subject to change, but realistically, for now, those catagories are Campers, Disjointeds, Grab Range, and Comboers. Note that, just because there is a catagory called Comboer's, it does not mean that I am recognizing the existance of a significant combo game. The unfortunate side effect of the game having such a small ability to combo is that any character with even a limited ability to string together a few hits will be tournament viable, despite any should-be shortcomings.

Your statement about being able to shffl bairs and beat most scrubs is entirely pointless, as I can do pretty much anything, with any character, and beat most average level tournament players.

I agree that, at this point, the playstyles are different, but that is largely based on players using inferior strategies and the metagame being so young. I also think that you do not have an accurate grasp of the high level melee game, as all of the top professional players have drastically different playstyles. I have probably Marth ditto'd M2K more than any other player, and my playstyle is completely unique to any other Marth despite the expected influence from having him as a practice partner.

Tripping is undoubtably the worst idea ever implemented into a smash bros game. However there are ways to reduce it to near negligable occurences. Spend more time walking. "But walking isn't as fast as running!" ... so? You don't have to run everywhere, or save your running time for when it's safe to do so. "Well I shouldn't be forced to walk everywhere." why not? Your approach time in strategies and combos is just as important as spacing. Get used to it. The top players will know how to walk, I'd suggest everyone learn when its a good time to walk and when to run.

This entire paragraph is useless. The point in most players running is that we use it to reach a desired destination quickly, generally one that would be advantageous to us for an extremely temporary amount of time, such as while stringing together hits on an aerial (disadvantaged) opponent. The entire reason we complain about tripping isn't when we trip when it is unimportant, but that it happens at critical points in matches, and will likely change the tide of some important tournament match in the future.

Or how about spend more time in the air? One thing that is completely undeniable is that the aerial game in Brawl is significantly deeper than Melee. Tripping might just be one way to encourage us to play more in the air. Aerial battles in Melee were just the main method of getting back to a platform to keep fighting again. In Brawl the aerial battles are going to develope their own metagame complete with strategies and tricks that evolve as the game goes on.

Any time spent aerial with the vast majority of the cast of characters is time spent at a disadvantage. There are too many options for a grounded character vs an aerial character with the wide majority of the cast, and putting yourself in that position just shows you as being inexperienced (given that you aren't one of a few character). Your statement on the depth of Brawl's aerial game is unsupported and will be ignored as such. In brawl, the depth of the aerial game comes down to this: wait to dodge, outspace your opponent, avoid your opponent, or wait for them to dodge. This may be slightly oversimplified, but any other (good) strategy will branch from these four options.

In conclusion, you think you know the competitive potential of the game already? and you've had it for what? 10 days? a little over a month max? I find this whole thread amusing. I don't claim to know everything about Brawl or even the max competitive potential (if you noticed, I never once said that Brawl was more competitive than Melee). But I do know that it will be a very competitive game and your close-minded statements about how it can never be as competitive as Melee are completely false and unfounded in anything but your own subjective opinion over losing to projectile campers. Just wait a little longer and the pros will show you what you are supposed to do next.

I play two characters that do not have projectiles, and are forced to approach. I lose very rarely. I still voice my opinion that camping, projectile or not, is still the most viable tournament strategy and will be the eventual metagame of Brawl. We have not complained about losing to anyone, just that it is the eventual strategy of Brawl and as such is unexciting. A game that fails to excite the player is doomed to fail competitively.

"Just wait a little longer and the pros will show you what you are supposed to do next."

In case you failed to notice, we experience (I'm going to use "high" level play instead of pro level play because I do not feel that any player should be considered pro at this point.) high level play extremely frequently due to our prowess as melee players and have made all of these points using the observations we gather from that high level play.

tl;dr: Who cares either way? Then go play Melee if it's a big deal.

tl;dr: Why do you care about the existance of this thread to the extent that you felt obligated to post here, when you don't even further the discussion by stating any opinion on the topic at hand, that being the comparison of the competitive viability of the two games? We aren't here to say Brawl sucks or that people should stop playing or insulting anyone. We simply want to foster an intelligent discussion on the differences and potential metagame of Brawl vs the current and past metagame of Melee.

This response to your post may be slightly delayed and I apologize, but I felt it needed something after Scar chose to ignore it as it really doesn't contribute to the conversation.

My responses are bolded.

 

[Papapaint]

I DID learn the advanced techniques buddy. Thats the problem. I HAD to learn them in order to play Melee at a competitive level. Its not like your analogy.

In S64, your mind games won you matches. Because EVERYONE could 0-death combo, it was fair. ATs in that game made the game fair to almost the whole cast. In Melee, it was not so. Not everyone could 0-death combo. Only some characters could BECAUSE of the AT's. Waveshines, L-Cancel dependant combos like the Ken etc.

So, in other words, everyone learned how to play soccer (SS64), a game of skill and patience. Then they were tossed into a game of rugby (SSM) where your psychical strength was now a factor. Players who couldn't bulk up (learn AT's) were now much less better players. Does that make sense?

I hope a soccer player comes along and kicks you for insinuating that they don't work for physical prowess. I hope they kick you square in the ovaries.

 

[FishkeeperTimmay!]

Well, think of it this way, who's gonna tackle me harder? The guy who's been purposefully trying to improve his ability to tackle, or the guy who though is physically very fit, doesn't have to know how to tackle? Hmm?

Look buddy, I played soccer for years. Your lower body gets tough as hell, but your upper body is a HELL of a lot weaker than any rugby players is going to be.

And onto the point, I'm trying to say that Melee needed a completely different skill set in order to play. You needed to flex more muscle and use less strategy, which always pissed me off. Brawl brings back the strategy of the game, WHICH IS HOW FIGHTERS SHOULD PLAY!

 

[Zankoku]

Funny, in my experience, playing extremely technically and not thinking just got you Mew2king'd in one of 200 different ways.

 

[Corigames]

Talk is Talk. Walk is Walk.

And onto the point, I'm trying to say that Melee needed a completely different skill set in order to play. You needed to flex more muscle and use less strategy, which always pissed me off. Brawl brings back the strategy of the game, WHICH IS HOW FIGHTERS SHOULD PLAY!

If you honestly believe that melee had NO strategy and that people who knew AT's automatically won, then I KNOW you never played competitively. I played Samus. I got 4th at a tourny before I knew how to wavedash. Because I was able to OUT THINK people who had only studied how to do things and not implement it in gameplay. It takes skill to use those things, as well as a strong amount of timing with fingers, to do that.

You are flying blind with your speech.

 

[KonradGabreil]

Really cool thread, I am surprised to see all the Pro-Melee players out there.
I personally adore Melee, and I personally adore Brawl even more. Here is why-
WAVEDASH WAVEDASH L CANCEL WAVEDASH.
In my humble opinion, the 'advanced techniques' are merely exploiting game flaws. Nintendo had no idea players would play like this, and you all know it, so don't go and try and say it isn't a form of a flaw.
Watching pro players play is very eye catching in the sense that it looks so... un-natural.
There is absolutely no aesthetics in Melee when you reach the pro level.
Now, I understand that in Melee you have more control.. but so what? Why not try and use some of the ground basics and master them, like ground dodging and whatnot... bad example, but meh.
I'm not saying that Melee is all about that stuff, not at all, there were/are pro-Melee players out there who didn't wavedash, but I am speaking in general, so forgive me.
If you watch a good Sonic player, you will be fairly mesmerized by how fluid and graceful his movements are, even in pitched combat. Some characters, like Wario... aren't so fluid, but still really funny to watch.
Honestly, I think you are all just sad because teching and wavedashing and l canceling are gone.
I never cared to learn any of those, so that may be why I stand where I do.

 

[Cactuar]

Brawl brings back the strategy of the game, WHICH IS HOW FIGHTERS SHOULD PLAY!

Says who...

Brawl does not reenforce a strong strategy game as there is really no need to worry about being punished in most situations. There is a lot more pressure on having to learn character specific strategies because of those very points that you make about Melee. Just because Marth can 0-death Fox (see: Mew2King combos), doesn't make the matchup horribly unbalanced, it just means that you have a lot more pressure on you to learn how to counter that player's push and pull game and not receive the punishment.

If anything, Brawl reduces the amount of strategy required because of your own argument.

I've stated the logic behind this before in being the lack of balance between the push and pull and the punishment in one of those posts Scar has in the OP. Maybe you should read it.

 

[FishkeeperTimmay!]

Christ, I'm NOT saying At's were autowins! I'm saying that they MADE UP for less than perfect mindgames.

Example, a Fox player is having no luck pressuring a Link player. No matter what he does, the Link player is shielding, spot dodging and punishing everything he's throwing at him. The Link player is predicting his every move.

The Fox player now falls back his AT's. Knowing he can do 5/6 Shines in less than a second, he does this break the Link's Shield, Waveshines him off the stage, and spikes him.

The Link player is powerless to stop him. Even if he spot dodged, the Fox players lag is so small, he'll be able to Shine again before the Link player can Grab/Roll etc.

The fact is people, you can't win on technique alone. But you you CAN use it as a crutch, and a MIGHTY good one at that.

 

[Zankoku]

Really cool thread, I am surprised to see all the Pro-Melee players out there.
I personally adore Melee, and I personally adore Brawl even more. Here is why-
WAVEDASH WAVEDASH L CANCEL WAVEDASH.
In my humble opinion, the 'advanced techniques' are merely exploiting game flaws. Nintendo had no idea players would play like this, and you all know it, so don't go and try and say it isn't a form of a flaw.
Watching pro players play is very eye catching in the sense that it looks so... un-natural.
There is absolutely no aesthetics in Melee when you reach the pro level.
Now, I understand that in Melee you have more control.. but so what? Why not try and use some of the ground basics and master them, like ground dodging and whatnot... bad example, but meh.
I'm not saying that Melee is all about that stuff, not at all, there were/are pro-Melee players out there who didn't wavedash, but I am speaking in general, so forgive me.
If you watch a good Sonic player, you will be fairly mesmerized by how fluid and graceful his movements are, even in pitched combat. Some characters, like Wario... aren't so fluid, but still really funny to watch.
Honestly, I think you are all just sad because teching and wavedashing and l canceling are gone.
I never cared to learn any of those, so that may be why I stand where I do.

Yes, that is why you stand where you do. Teching isn't gone, for one thing, and if I won a tournament for every time I wavedashed I'd be a lot more upset about Brawl than I am right now. L-Canceling was never a flaw. Z-Canceling was arguably a flaw that was documented on Nintendo's official Smash Bros. website.. That they would decide to take the capability to L-Cancel out kind of baffles me, but whatever.

There's nothing really fluid about this game at all. I feel like I'm at the complete mercy of momentum, until I remember that they made the shield pretty much completely break the rules. So instead of wavedashing/dashdancing, you'll see.... shield-dashing. Be sure to let me know if a flashing circle that completely stops a character dead in his/her tracks looks more "natural" to you.

 

[Cactuar]

Christ, I'm NOT saying At's were autowins! I'm saying that they MADE UP for less than perfect mindgames.

Example, a Fox player is having no luck pressuring a Link player. No matter what he does, the Link player is shielding, spot dodging and punishing everything he's throwing at him. The Link player is predicting his every move.

The Fox player now falls back his AT's. Knowing he can do 5/6 Shines in less than a second, he does this break the Link's Shield, Waveshines him off the stage, and spikes him.

The Link player is powerless to stop him. Even if he spot dodged, the Fox players lag is so small, he'll be able to Shine again before the Link player can Grab/Roll etc.

The fact is people, you can't win on technique alone. But you you CAN use it as a crutch, and a MIGHTY good one at that.

Yes. Because it is that easy to just break his shield with shines. What an unintelligent example.

If a fox player is at that level of technical ability, the Link is not going to be able to predict him. There is a reason for the tiers btw, and there are Link player's that can beat very technical Fox players. If you rely on being uber technical, you will get ***** by smart players.

 

[Corigames]

Christ, I'm NOT saying At's were autowins! I'm saying that they MADE UP for less than perfect mindgames.

Example, a Fox player is having no luck pressuring a Link player. No matter what he does, the Link player is shielding, spot dodging and punishing everything he's throwing at him. The Link player is predicting his every move.

The Fox player now falls back his AT's. Knowing he can do 5/6 Shines in less than a second, he does this break the Link's Shield, Waveshines him off the stage, and spikes him.

The Link player is powerless to stop him. Even if he spot dodged, the Fox players lag is so small, he'll be able to Shine again before the Link player can Grab/Roll etc.

The fact is people, you can't win on technique alone. But you you CAN use it as a crutch, and a MIGHTY good one at that.

That whole statement was false. If you are a good link playing a Fox, everything you do will be spammed at them, their advance will be slow and rough. IF YOU ARE GOOD, you can beat any character. Stop acting like the fact that you can wavedash means that you can run away from anything, or that shining will make you unstoppable. It didn't work like that. Try again.

 

[KonradGabreil]

By momentum.. you mean physics and gravity?
When you travel downwards, and you dodge something... laws (of some sort) state that you will still move in that direction. Not some random angle.
If by flashing circle you mean shield.. I don't know what you mean.. you can pass through them.


Honestly, I am at a disadvantage here, since I don't know what it is like to really use an AT. Is that like losing a limb in a way in Brawl? Don't really know what to say to that..