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

[Earthstrike]

Both players choosing to win in this case results in people sitting and camping eachother. Depends on who is the better camper, which he already stated.

Well then you're definition of winning is seriously out of line with that of what most people would hold it to be. One game can only have on winner. Whoever is the better camper is the winner and whoever isn't is the loser. Since the loser was trying to win, he clearly didn't have a choice, which was previously asserted. This is is what i was refuting. Now, I completely agree that ONE player may have the choice to win or lose. This represents the case of projectile character vs non projectile character. But it is in fact a sound assertion that TWO players cannot simultaneously decide to win since Brawl only has ONE winner per match. This was all I asserted in that post.

 

[Sirami]

It should be noted that I do like Brawl. It is fun. I just don't think it's really worthy of being treated as a competitive game. I agree with a lot of what's been said here. The way to win in 1v1 Brawl matches, just don't take a lot of skill, but instead take a lot of patience.

 

[MajinSweet]

@Maijin, really good campers can do it. I can do it.

How exactly, with what character and who did you play against?

 

[Sirami]

I hate to say it but, M2K is just plain wrong here, right from the start of it. "Block any aerial" he is already thinking of it on Melee terms, where you could just shffl any air attack. In Brawl many characters can poke shields with standing attacks with no fear of being grabbed. This will force the would be shield grabber to do anything except try to grab. Also, a lot of characters can space aerials so you land behind your opponent, no chance of shield grabbing. This game isn't nearly cut and dry as you guys make it out to be. Shield grabbing will probably end up being less effective than it was in Melee. Sure its "safer" but, so what? If you can't accomplish anything with it, who cares. And there are still tons of ways to get around shield grabbers.

It's true. Many characters have moves that "auto cancel" that can be used for shield pressure. And yes, so long as the move doesn't have terrible recovery, you can space the move to land behind the person, if they are just standing there. I've managed to "counter space" myself, so to say, before where when I see that they are probably going to land behind me, I turn around and then shield. Yes, you have enough time to do that, most of the time, but it is hard.

Another thing, is power shielding. I'm getting a lot better at this. Even if the aerial does auto cancel, a power shield often guarantees a quick counter attack. Sure, you can't usually smash them, but you can usually pop out a Fair with Marth after a power shield (either that or the folks I'm playing against simply haven't tried air dodging after I power shield).

The defender seems to have a big advantage, so far as I've seen, unless it's somebody like Marth who recovers extremely fast against a character with no moves to punish with.

 

[Pink Reaper]

I wrote up a topic on how I personally avoid tripping. I've only tripped once in the last 3 days of playing, since I started using this, and it was because I chose to dash without walking first (I think, that still needs to be tested.

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=153247

There's the post on it. Can somebody test to see if you trip even if you start your walk animation before you dash?

Also, there's another post I made that applies to this topic, again from another post, but I'll repost it here.

Re-Posted from http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=152180&page=11
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You know what, I'm sick of hearing these arguments (listed in bold:

Melee was designed to be a party game too, but we made it competitive. We're doing the same thing for Brawl.


I see this all the time, every time a new game comes out, and the new game is always embraced. This won't be different for Brawl. I'm assuming (wrongly btw) that just because a game is embraced, that it's better (competitively?).

It took a long time for Melee to become deep. Brawl will become deep in time

The reason people made Melee competitive is because folks realized over time that the game was really deep. In the eyes of the rest of the fighting game community, Melee was just another party game, until people saw that it was a good competitive game. Once everybody saw it for what it is, it was embraced. That's not the case this time. Now everybody's embracing Brawl, because it's Smash, the sequel to a great game. People are so desperate to love it, that they simply won't see that it's extremely likely that it won't be worth embracing. This kind of mentality has happened before, with the transition from TTT to T4. T4 came out, and the majority of Tekken players stopped playing TTT, and switched to T4, which will always be remembered as "the stinker" of the Tekken series, in the eyes of most competitive Tekken players. There were a ton of people that pointed out legit reasons as to why T4 wasn't nearly as good as TTT, but nobody listened. Almost everybody embraced it, brought it to the major tournaments that it really didn't belong in, and a lot of people to this day are disappointed with what it did to the Tekken community. Honestly, the Tekken community here in the US has never regained the strength it had before T4 came out.

TTT > T4 : SC2 > SC3 : And just speculating: T6 looks like it could be very bad at a competitive level, compared to T5.

And since somebody mentioned shooters up there, ever heard of Quake 3 and 4? This is almost a mirror example to the scene now with Melee and Brawl. ID clearly made an attempt to market their game to casual gamers, and a broader audience. They toned down the "advanced techs" in Q3, and just made the game easier to play. When the game first came out there were a lot of good players that saw Q4 for what it was. Again, when people complained about Q4, many pro players didn't listen, and were ready to embrace Q4 regardless of the complaints.

"Give it time. You'll get used to it." is what a lot of people said about Q4. Well, a lot of Q3 people switched over to Painkiller, CS, or some other shooter, while some tried to make everything they could out of Q4. Eventually it was realized that Q4 is a game that honestly, almost anybody that's decent at shooters can excel at, and because of the physics changes the first kill ends up being so important that it's simply not a good game when it comes to testing skill. What happened? Well, nobody plays Q4 anymore. Not nearly as many people play Q3. The Quake community moved on, for the most part.

This kind of thing sucks big time for Smash players. If people embrace Brawl, and the community splits, the Smashers don't have a "Painkiller" or "CS" to switch to, as there's no other fighter out there like Smash.

Hands down, Brawl wasn't designed to be competitive, at all. If it ends up being a great competitive game, it'll be an accident again. It's not safe to rely on accidents that might happen.

Now I'm not saying "don't play Brawl", but what I am saying is, "don't stop playing Melee"! If a whole lot of players drop Melee now, which is clearly a gem of a fighter, for something that is designed to be a nothing more than a hunk of coal (fun to burn, but doesn't last too long), well, you're just hoping that there's a gem of equal value in that lump of coal.

There is always a chance I guess.

Look, change in and of itself isn't a bad thing, but when all changes point to the fact that the game was designed specifically to not cater to you and your preferences, it's probably not going to be that great a game for you. If somebody invents Chess 2, now with only two easy to understand pieces (pawns and rooks), only now pawns move and capture like the King used to, and the goal is no longer checkmate, but to take all of the other guy's pieces...... well.... I doubt that pro Chess players would even try to embrace it. Then again, Chess players are pretty smart.

I vote for this to be linked on the front page now plox. Also, for the record, while I have been playing Brawl, I've been playing Melee more just so I at least Im doing all I can to save it.

 

[boxelder]

Quake 4 didn't fail because it was a bad game or because it was made as a party game (which I don't agree with, and really wish people would stop satating this opinion as an indisputable fact. The people who created this game know more about how it works than anyone else int he world. Great games don't happen by accident. It's BS, there's too many moving parts for that to happen). Anyway, Quake 4 failed simply becaus epeople were tired of Quake gameplay. And if you want to carry out the comparison, people had the EXACT same reaction to Quake 3 as you are having to brawl, and guess what, the old players left, or faded into obscurity, and few were able to transition, and despite all that controversy Qauke 3 will always be remembered as the superior game.

 

[Earthstrike]

I vote for this to be linked on the front page now plox. Also, for the record, while I have been playing Brawl, I've been playing Melee more just so I at least Im doing all I can to save it.

Let the post be challenged again. There is one thing very infactual about it. In it a statement is made that Brawl was not designed to be competitive. To say this is to make a statement on behalf of Sakurai, who, on numerous occasions, has gone on the record to state that the game was being developed for the hardcore. You may believe it was poorly or improperly executed, but do not make belligerent statements on Sakurai's behalf.

 

[MajinSweet]

Also, that post was under the assumption that top pros from the old games (melee in this case) would all see the new game (Brawl) as not competitive. But in fact quite a few top pros are embracing Brawl, for what it is.

 

[Earthstrike]

Actually, in Tic-Tac-Toe, the player with the starting move basically has nearly complete control of the ending, his opponent CAN NOT WIN, if the first move takes the center square. From there, the opponent can either take an adjacent square and lose or take a diagonal square and force a draw. So, by this logic, the first move made by the first player decides whether he wants to win/draw or if he wants to lose(doesn't chose the center square) Now, im not saying this holds true for Brawl, but I am stating that even if you have two opponents with equal drive to win, only the first can chose to win, the second can only chose to lose or draw.

That's right. The player who goes second has no choice. Two players cannot simultaneously choose to win. That was my assertion. BOTH players in a game cannot BOTH choose to win.

Edit: And just to show I've been consistent with this position I'll quote my response to scar.

But it is in fact a sound assertion that TWO players cannot simultaneously decide to win since Brawl only has ONE winner per match. This was all I asserted in that post.

We seem to be having a disagreement. Are you telling me that you disagree with the following statement "Two players in a two player game of brawl CANNOT both decide to win the match". Do you agree or disagree with that?

 

[boxelder]

It's pretty telling that none of that haters are even mentioning the footstool jumping. So determined to hate .

 

[Sirami]

Well, every change made seems to be an attempt to simplify the game, at least to me.

I'm more closely tied in with Tekken than I am with Quake. I don't think that Q4 was designed to be "non" competitive, but it was designed to be "less competitive", which is what we have here in Brawl.

You're right, less competitive doesn't equate to non-competitive.

But look, straight up, the reason Smash made it into Evo last year, is because other fighting game fans realized that there was more to Melee than basic attacks and spacing.

 

[Sirami]

That's right. The player who goes second has no choice. Two players cannot simultaneously choose to win. That was my assertion. BOTH players in a game cannot BOTH choose to win.

Edit: And just to show I've been consistent with this position I'll quote my response to scar.



We seem to be having a disagreement. Are you telling me that you disagree with the following statement "Two players in a two player game of brawl CANNOT both decide to win the match". Do you agree or disagree with that?

Yes, this is true. In Tic Tac To, both people don't have the option of taking the center square. In Brawl, we do.

Brawl is about patience.... at least it seems....

 

[Pink Reaper]

That's right. The player who goes second has no choice. Two players cannot simultaneously choose to win. That was my assertion. BOTH players in a game cannot BOTH choose to win.

Actually, your wrong. Two players can both chose to win. Psychologically speaking, any two players who enter a competition have both chosen to win. No one ever choses to compete and then choses to lose. As such, two players who play against each other will both chose to win. However, in my previous post, I point out that its IMPOSSIBLE for one player to win, despite making the conscious choice to win. This is because, due to outside influences, his choice has been nullified and replaced with a new choice, the one to either stalemate or lose.

Now while you may be right that two people cannot simultaneously win, two people can simultaneously chose to win. However, as I pointed out, certain outside influences can force a loser, despite neither choosing to lose.

Edit: Hey, no editing your post -.-

We seem to be having a disagreement. Are you telling me that you disagree with the following statement "Two players in a two player game of brawl CANNOT both decide to win the match". Do you agree or disagree with that?

Once again, you actually missword what you mean. You mean to say that both players cannot win. Both can decide to win, both always DO decide to win, or rather, both decide to attempt to win. Now, like in tic tac toe, there are certain outside influences, which are the the baser game mechanics. If both players chose to ATTEMPT to win(its technically impossible to chose to win as both players control the outcome to some degree) but player 1 choses pit and player 2 choses Bowser, player 1 is automatically given an advantage by the game mechanics, which premote projectile spamming and camping(the center square) Player 2 only has the option of either a)accepting defeat or b)attempting to force a draw. However, since there are no draws in Smash(well, not usually) Player 2 will almost have to accept defeat as the game has essentially handed victory to his opponent(assuming player 1 uses the center square correctly)

Edit2: It should also be pointed out that no SINGLE person can simply chose to win at anything ever(unless theres a "Press this to win" button that only one person is given access to) As such, the inital arguement that only one person can chose to win is actually wrong.

 

[boxelder]

Well, every change made seems to be an attempt to simplify the game, at least to me.

I'm more closely tied in with Tekken than I am with Quake. I don't think that Q4 was designed to be "non" competitive, but it was designed to be "less competitive", which is what we have here in Brawl.

You're right, less competitive doesn't equate to non-competitive.

But look, straight up, the reason Smash made it into Evo last year, is because other fighting game fans realized that there was more to Melee than basic attacks and spacing.

I was a really really hardcore Quake player, and Brawls release is like one big flashback to Qauke 3's release. Quake 3 was "dumbed down" by a lot of people's standards at first. People were PISSED about it, worse than this. You need to give yourself time to get to know Brawl. Let it sink in, and try to give it the benefit of the doubt if you love the series.

For the record it's also pretty much the same thing every time Counterstrike gets patched as well .

 

[crazygoose]

I'm sorry, I just can't understand why people think that Brawl "forces the skill gap of 2 people closer together." That's such a crock of s***. A game itself cannot affect the skill of 2 competing players, you're either better than your opponent or you're not. THATS IT.

A few pages back someone brought up how Forte beat Azen pretty bad at a tournament, and then someone else said that Forte only won because the game "brought him up" to Azen's "superior skill level."

I was actually so stunned by this moronic "refutal" that I forgot to facepalm. So the game was what caused Forte to win? It sounds to me that while Azen might be better at Melee, Forte is better at Brawl. I was a god at Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo, but I'd never DREAM of faulting Street Fighter 3 for a loss because it wasn't the same as it predecessor. That would be both ******** and outright arrogant.

Jesus H, people. Seriously, what the **** are you thinking to make statements like this?

 

[Earthstrike]

Now while you may be right that two people cannot simultaneously win,

Perhaps this tangential argument is now over. Our disagreement mostly focused on different definitions of the meaning of choose anyways.

its technically impossible to chose to win as both players control the outcome to some degree

Edit: There. You agree with me. That's exactly how I responded to your first post on this issue.

Also, I'm editing because I'm under the impression that's part of the rules.

My Edit2: First, I'll quote myself

In a game a player can never have the choice to win

No I'll quote you two posts later.

its technically impossible to chose to win as both players control the outcome to some degree

Thank you for agreeing with me.

 

[SiD]

Let me start off by saying that I very much like this thread. Your OP and some of your linked responses definitely made me cast doubts on Brawl that I didn't have before. But this only made me think critically about it.

So although I think you have many valid points, I disagree in many ways. You say that because Brawl is more about the initial give and take, and singular moves, instead of about combos and punishment. You are correct. And yes, this obviously makes it a slower game. But that is not necessarily a bad thing. It makes it more about making every move count, rather than quick thinking.

In some ways, this aspect of the game reminds me of chess. Each movement is important, each piece or attack is important. Sometimes you're put in a situation where all of your options will not put you at an advantage. But this only requires you to think outside the box a little bit. Hell, you have to run into traffic if you want to safely cross the freeway, amirite?

So this means that because your approach options are limited, each choice is of more importance that it was in Melee. Much like in chess, each piece can only move in certain ways, so you must use the right piece.

You say that projectile spamming may cause this system to collapse, and while this may prove true, I don't believe it is as of now. Sure, it further limits your options. But it limits theirs too, if their game revolves around running and gunning. And for every projectile character, there is a character that can reflect, absorb, or otherwise block said projectiles. This leads me to another conclusion, that counterpicking will become more important than being fully devoted to one character.

Only time will tell, but I believe that just like Halo to Halo 2, Brawl will be just as competitive as Melee, or at least very very close, only in a very very different way.


(Sidenote, lol at the fact that Halo always gets brought into Smash arguments.)

 

[paper_crane]

I can do most of the basic AT's like shffl, wave dash, ledge hop and basic chain grabs. Can't do stuff like Samus's swd, or edge cancel attacks. And of course no one plays a character exactly the same way. But to be good at Melee, you have to know these universal techniques, no way around it. Why is Brawl less competitive because it focuses on something else? And really, have you seen a pro melee Fox player not use up throw to up air, SHL, shine spiking or drillshines? I wasn't trying to say people play a carbon copy of each other, in a game like smash of course everyone will have something unique to there play style but, the amount of things you must do far out weigh those things.

Thats my point, maybe in Brawl there won't just be a "best strategy" that every single person must use in order to win. Why not multiple strategies that are used for different things?

In three years, every Squirtle in Brawl will still be spamming the Shellshifting technique, every Marth will still be whoring fairs, every Dedede will still be chaining down throws. As far as character-specific strategies go, there will always be certain bread-and-butter tactics that you have to use to survive with a given character. Brawl isn't going to be different in that regard just because dashdancing and wavedashing are missing.

And besides, characters already differentiate themselves from other through their movesets and other individual properties like speed and power and range; a solid set of universal options would simply give characters more ways to exercise their potential. In Melee every character can dashdance to enhance their ground games, but this doesn't detract from their individuality, because every character has a different set of ground attacks with unique qualities--qualities that are simply amplified by the dashdance.

From my experience this couldn't be more wrong. Just to give you an example, on gamefaqs not too long ago Mew2king gave his impressions of Brawl and he theorized on its future. He predicted shield grabbing was going to dominate the game. Now, the first thing I noticed (and hugs and Gimpy mention this recently on 1up.com) in Brawl is that grab attacks and throws probably got the biggest nerf out of all basic mechanics. Grab attacks for the most part do crap damage, throws too in most cases. Very few characters have throws with any kill potential. And besides maybe Dedede, there doesn't seem to be anyone that can really combo from a throw at all. So whats my point? No one knows how this game will end up being played. The only reason camping looks good now is because we suck, and camping--in pretty much any game is easier to do than being offensive. I might be wrong here, but didn't Melee start out the exact same way? With tons of roll spamming and down smashes?

We have good reasons to believe that camping will end up being the best strategy. We've gone over the problems plenty of times: shield stun is practically non-existent, especially with powershielding, so there are almost no close-range approaches that are safe on block (keep in mind that shield grabbing is not the only shield counter). The alternative is grabbing, but as you said, grabs tend to suck in this game. Even if you manage to land a solid hit, hitstun is so low that there are next to no combos; to land another hit, you basically have to start over from square one--that is, against an opponent that is fully prepared to defend himself. This means that at close range, you're basically just going to be trading hits back and forth unless you are exponentially smarter than your opponent, and in competition, that just isn't likely.

The result is that you have no incentive to make the first move; it is much safer and easier to spam projectiles and camp as you wait to punish the opponent's mistake, especially in light of Brawl's enhanced defensive options. Aggressive approaches are ineffective by nature BECAUSE of the lack of hitstun and shieldstun. This is a problem that cannot really be solved simply by discovering new strategies.

And it's true that Melee started out the same way. 2002's Melee was campy as anything. But that was before we found the advanced tactics that made more offensive strategies viable, and Melee didn't suffer from inexcusably small hitstun and shieldstun across the board. Nothing we've seen so far indicates that Brawl will be able to overcome this weakness.

 

[MajinSweet]

In three years, every Squirtle in Brawl will still be spamming the Shellshifting technique, every Marth will still be whoring fairs, every Dedede will still be chaining down throws. As far as character-specific strategies go, there will always be certain bread-and-butter tactics that you have to use to survive with a given character. Brawl isn't going to be different in that regard just because dashdancing and wavedashing are missing.

Your missing the point. Key words here "every Squirtle" "Every Marth" Every Dedede" in Melee its Every character must at least do this and this to win. The thing I like about Brawl so far is that its promoting character uniqueness which will require players to know more about match ups. For example, lets say your quite good at Samus' aerial extender cancel, but, will this even work against a shellshifting Squirtle?

And besides, characters already differentiate themselves from other through their movesets and other individual properties like speed and power and range; a solid set of universal options would simply give characters more ways to exercise their potential. In Melee every character can dashdance to enhance their ground games, but this doesn't detract from their individuality, because every character has a different set of ground attacks with unique qualities--qualities that are simply amplified by the dashdance.

Yes, but once we learned who gained the most from those universal techniques, those characters were clearly the best. Answer me this, who gets more out of a dash dance, a fast character or a slow character? Who gets the most out of shffling, a character with good range and priority, or a character with low range but, a lot of attack power? Universal techniques just won't effect everyone on the same level, while I'll admit L canceling comes close, but one it comes down to it--characters with less lag still have the edge.

We have good reasons to believe that camping will end up being the best strategy. We've gone over the problems plenty of times: shield stun is practically non-existent, especially with powershielding, so there are almost no close-range approaches that are safe on block (keep in mind that shield grabbing is not the only shield counter). The alternative is grabbing, but as you said, grabs tend to suck in this game. Even if you manage to land a solid hit, hitstun is so low that there are next to no combos; to land another hit, you basically have to start over from square one--that is, against an opponent that is fully prepared to defend himself. This means that at close range, you're basically just going to be trading hits back and forth unless you are exponentially smarter than your opponent, and in competition, that just isn't likely.

I've said this quite a few times and been ignored pretty much every time. Quite a few characters have attacks that when spaced properly, don't really allow a counter attack. Its true that there is less shield stun, but there is more shield knock back. And just because people get out of hit stun quickly doesn't mean your safe. In the air usually the only thing you can do to protect yourself is air dodging, which can be punished. It does have lag afterwards where your vulnerable and can't do anything.

The result is that you have no incentive to make the first move; it is much safer and easier to spam projectiles and camp as you wait to punish the opponent's mistake, especially in light of Brawl's enhanced defensive options. Aggressive approaches are ineffective by nature BECAUSE of the lack of hitstun and shieldstun. This is a problem that cannot really be solved simply by discovering new strategies.

And it's true that Melee started out the same way. 2002's Melee was campy as anything. But that was before we found the advanced tactics that made more offensive strategies viable, and Melee didn't suffer from inexcusably small hitstun and shieldstun across the board. Nothing we've seen so far indicates that Brawl will be able to overcome this weakness.

Your forgetting one important thing though. In Brawl, characters are more floaty, so when you are hit, its true that you have less hit stun--but being in the air longer means longer time of being vulnerable. Once people start using some of the new mechanics better for approaching, camping won't work as well. There have been countless times where I simply short hop and air dodge into someone, they whiff an attack and I punish. You can make the camper make mistakes with these new options too.

 

[Pink Reaper]

Your missing the point. Key words here "every Squirtle" "Every Marth" Every Dedede" in Melee its Every character must at least do this and this to win. The thing I like about Brawl so far is that its promoting character uniqueness which will require players to know more about match ups. For example, lets say your quite good at Samus' aerial extender cancel, but, will this even work against a shellshifting Squirtle?

who names these techniques? Anyways, this is wrong as its under the assumption that spamming character specific things in Melee would work against every other character. This is obviously wrong as characters have counter pick characters. Jigg's Rest Combo's work great on Spacies(in melee) but that doesn't really matter if you counter pick with the right character. For that matter, shine combo's work great with Falco unless your opponent choses Jiggs, in which case suddenly your at a bit of a disadvantage.

Yes, but once we learned who gained the most from those universal techniques, those characters were clearly the best. Answer me this, who gets more out of a dash dance, a fast character or a slow character? Who gets the most out of shffling, a character with good range and priority, or a character with low range but, a lot of attack power? Universal techniques just won't effect everyone on the same level, while I'll admit L canceling comes close, but one it comes down to it--characters with less lag still have the edge.

Dash Dancing is only most useful for characters with large dash dances, not fast dash dances. CF, Marth, DK(yes, DK) all have very large, very usable DD's but Sheik, Sheik's is useless. And a character with good range and priority already has an advantage over a character without them. Shffling does not affect that, the character with more priority will always beat the character lower priority. Shffling only allows you to do those attacks more quickly so range really has nothing to do with it. Also, it could be argued that L-canceling actually helps the LOWER tier characters more than it helps the higher tier characters. Marth can still combo to hell without it, but Gannon can't compete on ANY level without L-canceling.

I've said this quite a few times and been ignored pretty much every time. Quite a few characters have attacks that when spaced properly, don't really allow a counter attack. Its true that there is less shield stun, but there is more shield knock back. And just because people get out of hit stun quickly doesn't mean your safe. In the air usually the only thing you can do to protect yourself is air dodging, which can be punished. It does have lag afterwards where your vulnerable and can't do anything.

This point hasn't been ignored, its just been refuted multiple times and you don't seem to want to accept it. While SOME attacks from SOME characters can be spaced to hit a shield, they can't be relied on for multiple reasons, the most obvious being the diminishing knockback/hit stun element. You can't rely on a single well spaced attack forever. There are characters who have range enough to beat out shield campers(marth and Meta Knight) but you have to admit, the sheer brokenness of the shield limiting players to only a few characters is horribly, horribly wrong.

Your forgetting one important thing though. In Brawl, characters are more floaty, so when you are hit, its true that you have less hit stun--but being in the air longer means longer time of being vulnerable. Once people start using some of the new mechanics better for approaching, camping won't work as well. There have been countless times where I simply short hop and air dodge into someone, they whiff an attack and I punish. You can make the camper make mistakes with these new options too.

This beats a stupid camper. A smart camper will see your short hop and roll away and drop his shield. This is because no matter what you do you'll be open when you hit the ground(unless you do nothing in which case nothing was earned and your right back where you started) allowing for the camper to punish, retreat, and begin the process anew.

@Earthstrike: Once again I want to point out that while no player can simply chose to win, the option of winning may be taken from a player due to outside circumstances.

 

[Doomgaze]

Your forgetting one important thing though. In Brawl, characters are more floaty, so when you are hit, its true that you have less hit stun--but being in the air longer means longer time of being vulnerable. Once people start using some of the new mechanics better for approaching, camping won't work as well. There have been countless times where I simply short hop and air dodge into someone, they whiff an attack and I punish. You can make the camper make mistakes with these new options too.

You're not exactly more vulnerable in the air in brawl, because you can AD multiple times and air control is much better. It's just that in brawl most characters are horrible fighting downways and fast falling doesn't do much. When you're upthrowed by most characters, they can't even immediately follow up on that because you are too far up. So they will have to wait for you to get in range for their uair, or just wait for you to come down, by which time they will charge their charge shot, stock up on needles, et.c. further adding to the camping element.

 

[MajinSweet]

who names these techniques? Anyways, this is wrong as its under the assumption that spamming character specific things in Melee would work against every other character. This is obviously wrong as characters have counter pick characters. Jigg's Rest Combo's work great on Spacies(in melee) but that doesn't really matter if you counter pick with the right character. For that matter, shine combo's work great with Falco unless your opponent choses Jiggs, in which case suddenly your at a bit of a disadvantage.

I never said anything about "spamming" character specific things in Melee. In fact I wasn't really saying much about those type of techniques, my main point was about universal techniques in melee.

Dash Dancing is only most useful for characters with large dash dances, not fast dash dances. CF, Marth, DK(yes, DK) all have very large, very usable DD's but Sheik, Sheik's is useless.

Fine, larger dash dance--not faster. Doesn't change my point though. Its a universal technique thats supposed to help everyone but, in fact it helps certain characters much more.

And a character with good range and priority already has an advantage over a character without them. Shffling does not affect that, the character with more priority will always beat the character lower priority. Shffling only allows you to do those attacks more quickly so range really has nothing to do with it.

Some what of a contradiction here. Its fine if certain characters have more priority, but when you add a universal technique that makes these attacks less laggy, and overall harder to punish. And you can do them more often, well that characters advantage just increased by a larger margin than the next guy.

Also, it could be argued that L-canceling actually helps the LOWER tier characters more than it helps the higher tier characters. Marth can still combo to hell without it, but Gannon can't compete on ANY level without L-canceling.

It "could" be argued, but the fact of it is, slower characters are just flat out blown away even with L-canceling. And really, how would we know that without L-canceling that certain characters just can't compete at a competitive level? When was the last time there has ever been a competitive melee match with no AT's? You can assume, but we don't really know.

This point hasn't been ignored, its just been refuted multiple times and you don't seem to want to accept it.

Find a time where it was refuted, find multiples, because I don't see it.

While SOME attacks from SOME characters can be spaced to hit a shield, they can't be relied

Pretty much every character has a method of poking at shields, or getting through shields. Some have multiple ways.

on for multiple reasons, the most obvious being the diminishing knockback/hit stun element.

Your using an attack to weaken there shield not kill them. And does attacks to a shield even count towards stale move negation?

You can't rely on a single well spaced attack forever.

Yes you can actually, if they are that devoted to camping, then you need to be that devoted to poking the shield.

There are characters who have range enough to beat out shield campers(marth and Meta Knight) but you have to admit, the sheer brokenness of the shield limiting players to only a few characters is horribly, horribly wrong.

You forget every character with a projectile, characters with abilities that go right threw shields. Such as ganon and Bowser's side B. Wario's bite, Dedede and Kirby's swallow. There are MANY WAYS to get through shield campers.

This beats a stupid camper. A smart camper will see your short hop and roll away and drop his shield. This is because no matter what you do you'll be open when you hit the ground(unless you do nothing in which case nothing was earned and your right back where you started) allowing for the camper to punish, retreat, and begin the process anew.

Or you could punish his roll, for example if I were playing Ike I would have a free Side B hit.

 

[Wiseguy]

Melee is too in depth to say how good a person is based on a few matches. I'm sure you know all the factors. Silent Wolf is probably the BEST IN THE WORLD technically, and he does well at tournaments but he's not one of the very top pros. Magus, locally, is one of the smartest, most knowledgeable, experienced smashers, but I'm sure you've never heard of him.

In the end, though, we do know who is better than who. The Melee community is very tight, we all know eachother, we all know our records in tourney, we are a community. So yes, we know who is better than who, and even when people are REALLY CLOSE in overall skill, there is usually a very consistent winner.

This is because Melee allows us to see these small differences in skill. It translates them into results, honest to God it does.

The "pro Melee debaters" are generally 4 or 5 respected and knowledgeable members of the community.

I don't doubt that the people you mentioned are highly, highly skilled Melee players. Nor do I doubt the community's ability to guage their skill - based on their preformance in Melee matches over long period of times (not just a couple matches). The key word being "Melee" matches.

This being a new game, you can't say definitively that the best Melee players will be as skilled when it comes to a new game like Brawl. It seems to me that a person's level of skill at Brawl should similarly be determined by how well they preform in Brawl matches over time. And if two people are competing on an equal level, it matters not their Melee experience. They are equally skilled at Brawl. That's just how I see it.

First of all, this simply doesn't happen. This is the beauty of Melee IMO, you almost never win luckily. It's always because your level of skill is higher than the other person! I have had to argue this with non-gamers, too. They seem to think, from their limited video game experience, that anyone can win at any game, you're just pushing your fingers. It's not like a sport.

I argue that Melee is different from other video games. You need to condition your body (muscle memory) before you can even move like the others. You need this movement to increase your options and your overall speed. Then when you're playing the same game, you need experience. You cannot win without both.

My arguments for why Brawl is not as competitive lie here. I don't think Brawl has that.

I was exagerating, but I think the point is valid. If a non wavedasher could beat a Melee pro in Brawl, its because they played the better game. Nothing random or lucky about it.

Perhaps a finely honed skillset like quick reflexes will turn out to be less essential in Brawl. That doesn't make the game less competitive. Rather it simply rewards other equally valid skills like strategic thinking and ingenuity. Calculating what moves to use against an oppoent at a given time.

Maybe that kind of skill requires fewer hours than perfecting one's muscle memory. But requiring a different skill set does not make a game less competitive.

I mean that's just the difference between smart people and not so smart people. Ryoko is one of the most technical Melee players there is, he never messes up. His deal is mostly frame perfection and being one pixel away from getting hit.

He's just the kind of player who would find something like that. The people who imported Brawl aren't that way, in the Melee community at least. So I mean this point is going to show that people who are good at Smash are good at Smash. Not a point I'm trying to make, but it's there.

My point was more to show that advanced techniques are not always readily apparent - even to those whove played Melee for ages. Hense, advanced techniques could be discovered later on that we do not now know about.

Take, for instance, the new technique of "wave-hopping": http://youtube.com/watch?v=53Wix_KsK5g

This is a fine assumption to make, but it is false. Everyone has been playing every game mode, and there are lots of FFAs and teams going on due to limited supply of Brawl setups and ridiculously large demand for Brawl. I prefer items off, but people nearby are playing with items on.

Point taken. But I'm concerned that some of the ultra hardcore Melee pros are still too fixated with Melee conventions to explore the depth in alternate modes of play. Maybe I'm wrong, I think further experimentaion in modes like teams could lead to discoveries of currently unknown depth. Or not. Point being: we don't know after only a week.

I thought you said you weren't going to preach?

Well I'll let that one slide. Competitive players are competitive players, established as such by the community. If you're going to argue that the whole community is competitive by their own decree then go for it.

Anyways, I mean my buddy Chocobo came up with a C4 trick with Snake in teams. He puts it on his teammate, the teammate gives it to an enemy and then they blow him up. Again, you're working with false assumptions. Good points if your assumptions were true, but they simply aren't.

You're right. I guess that was pretty hostile. Sorry. Sometimes I just get worked up about dumb things.

It just rubs me the wrong way when people divide the community by saying "these people are competitive" and "these ones are not competitive." Which I don't think was your point at all. My bad.

For the first part, I don't think anyone is ever going to play Brawl for money if there is a chance that a heart drops in front of their enemy who has 100%. Items are too random and unfair. And yes, we realize how bizarre Snake is. Lots of people are playing with him, trying to figure stuff out, myself included.

Notice how I said "certain" items?

Something like a heart container requires zero skill to use. It's pure luck if it lands closer to you. Something like the Smashball, on the other hand, requires skill to obtain as players smack it around the stage.

Personally, I'm wary of any items in 1 vs 1s as they tend to distract from the gameplay rather than enhance it. But items that require skill (ie: smashballs and team healers) could potentially have place in team tourneys. Further testing is required, obviously.

Anyway, I've seem a couple videos of advanced Snake players and the techniques that are surfacing seem as complex as anything in Melee. Is it really fair to say Brawl lacks depth before we see what this characters is really capable of?

The depth I speak of MOSTLY has to do with lack of l-cancelling and hitstun on aerials. The former gets rid of too many safe approaches. Any good player realizes that you cannot approach in Brawl without being punished unless you're playing someone who isn't going to use the best strategy available.

No hitstun gimps a critical aspect of fighting games, the punishment part. This is discussed on page 6, I think, but it's important.

So making it harder to approach makes the game less competitive? I have to disagree. It could very well mean longer, more drawn out matches that reward defensive strategies over offensive, but it still requires skill. Less so in the reflexes department maybe, but more so in the strategic thinking department.

And, of couse, not everyone agrees with your analysis: http://smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=153818

Peace.

-WG

 

[MajinSweet]

You're not exactly more vulnerable in the air in brawl, because you can AD multiple times and air control is much better. It's just that in brawl most characters are horrible fighting downways and fast falling doesn't do much. When you're upthrowed by most characters, they can't even immediately follow up on that because you are too far up. So they will have to wait for you to get in range for their uair, or just wait for you to come down, by which time they will charge their charge shot, stock up on needles, et.c. further adding to the camping element.

First of all, I already mentioned the air dodge thing, you have multiples but, your still vulnerable after using one. Good players will learn how to punish this.

And no, the game isn't nearly that floaty. Samus nor Sheik will have time to charge up charge shot or needles after the average up throw, just no way. If they tried, they will get punished.

 

[paper_crane]

Your missing the point. Key words here "every Squirtle" "Every Marth" Every Dedede" in Melee its Every character must at least do this and this to win. The thing I like about Brawl so far is that its promoting character uniqueness which will require players to know more about match ups. For example, lets say your quite good at Samus' aerial extender cancel, but, will this even work against a shellshifting Squirtle?

To win, every character must run and walk and jump and shield and use Up B and air dodge and roll and press the A button... oh my, they're so similar!

Where do you draw the line? Just because it's dashdancing instead of dashing, it shouldn't exist because it encourages conformity?

Universal options are essential. The more fundamental abilities characters have in common, the more likely they are to be balanced. But that doesn't mean that character specific tactics are not important. Most characters in Melee had character specific advanced techniques that had nothing to do with the universal ones. Peach had the float-cancel, Yoshi had the DJC, Samus could recover with bombs, Link could grapple onto edges. Dashdancing and wavedashing did not keep any of Melee's characters from being unique, and if you haven't recognized this, you are simply not looking hard enough.

Yes, but once we learned who gained the most from those universal techniques, those characters were clearly the best. Answer me this, who gets more out of a dash dance, a fast character or a slow character? Who gets the most out of shffling, a character with good range and priority, or a character with low range but, a lot of attack power? Universal techniques just won't effect everyone on the same level, while I'll admit L canceling comes close, but one it comes down to it--characters with less lag still have the edge.

Obviously, faster characters benefit more from movement options like dashdancing and wavedashing, and that's as it should be, just as heavier characters benefit more from crouch canceling. That's not the problem.

Take this example: in Melee, Bowser is just strong and not much else. Pichu is just fast and not much else. Pichu, being more mobile than Bowser by nature, theoretically "benefits more" from movement-enhancing options like the shffl and the wavedash and the dashdance. Yet Pichu and Bowser are relatively equal characters. Now, consider Sheik, who is both fast and strong. Sheik barely benefits more than Pichu from the shffl, wavedash, and dashdance, yet she is considered top tier. The problem then, does not lie with the universal options. The problem is that the characters were imbalanced to begin with.

I've said this quite a few times and been ignored pretty much every time. Quite a few characters have attacks that when spaced properly, don't really allow a counter attack. Its true that there is less shield stun, but there is more shield knock back.

You can argue for Brawl's approach options all you like, but the fact of the matter is that Brawl is heavily tipped in the defender's favor. Properly spacing attacks to avoid being shield-countered was a huge part of Melee as well, but the attacker had other options for avoiding punishment on block. Brawl offers no such options; your only choice as an attacker is to stay far out of range if your attack gets blocked. This does nothing except reset the situation, which is exactly why the game is so camp-friendly.

And just because people get out of hit stun quickly doesn't mean your safe. In the air usually the only thing you can do to protect yourself is air dodging, which can be punished. It does have lag afterwards where your vulnerable and can't do anything.

Your forgetting one important thing though. In Brawl, characters are more floaty, so when you are hit, its true that you have less hit stun--but being in the air longer means longer time of being vulnerable.

The reward for landing a successful hit is still much smaller for the attacker than in Melee. The defender recovers from hitstun almost immediately and has his aerial attacks and several air-dodges at his disposal, compared to Melee where you can actually be comboed off the hitstun, and even if you recover in time, it is much more difficult to space yourself for an aerial counterattack, and you only have one air-dodge, after which you are a sitting duck until you hit the ground. You can downplay the problem all you like, but Brawl definitely sides with the defending player.

Once people start using some of the new mechanics better for approaching, camping won't work as well. There have been countless times where I simply short hop and air dodge into someone, they whiff an attack and I punish. You can make the camper make mistakes with these new options too.

But once again, the risk-reward ratio is much worse for the attacker than the other way around.

So far, none of your arguments suggest that camping will not be a dominant strategy. You've only shown that the attacker may occasionally, at great risk to his own safety, trick the camper into screwing up--which was a given. That doesn't really change the fact that Brawl is primarily a defensive game.

 

[greenblob]

Ah, there it is again. A common misconception, but i forgive you.


I do agree on the "intelligent discussion" part though. Sometimes i wish we had more of it here at my beloved Smashboards.

True, Smashboards isn't for competitive Smashers exclusively, but you can't deny that it caters to the competitive crowd and is practically the hub of competitive Smashing.

 

[xXx_KidIcarus_xXx]

I myself am 'pro-Brawl', and even i realise that it will be less competative then Melee. In my opinion this is because Brawl is no longer a game for training and then having versus matches, there is so much more to Brawl than there was to Melee, the point of Brawl is completel different than Melee. In Brawl there are so many different ways to fight, there's SSE, regular Brawl, the events are different, and then you have the challenge of unlocking all the masterpieces, so beating other players isn't the only thing you can do on Brawl, and those are the reasons why i think Brawl will indefinitely be less competative than Melee. ^^

 

[MajinSweet]

To win, every character must run and walk and jump and shield and use Up B and air dodge and roll and press the A button... oh my, they're so similar!

Where do you draw the line? Just because it's dashdancing instead of dashing, it shouldn't exist because it encourages conformity?

Now your just making vast generalization in an attempt to satire. We both know there is a big difference between using the core game play elements that are required to play the game compared to advanced techniques required to play the game at a competitive level.

Universal options are essential. The more fundamental abilities characters have in common, the more likely they are to be balanced.

But, this isn't true for Melee. With the exception of probably just L-canceling, the universal techniques help certain characters much more than others.

But that doesn't mean that character specific tactics are not important. Most characters in Melee had character specific advanced techniques that had nothing to do with the universal ones. Peach had the float-cancel, Yoshi had the DJC, Samus could recover with bombs, Link could grapple onto edges. Dashdancing and wavedashing did not keep any of Melee's characters from being unique, and if you haven't recognized this, you are simply not looking hard enough.

I didn't say Melee characters were not unique, they clearly are when you look at there move sets and properties. I simply don't like how every character must use all the same universal techniques to be able to compete. Does pressing L, R or Z when you land with an aerial somehow give the game depth? Does pressing that button somehow make the game more competitive? Am I the only one that thinks that knowing how to avoid lag by knowing your character is better than knowing the timing of a button? Instead of "press this when ever you land." We have "Do I have time to use this attack from a short hop, or do I need to full jump? How many of my attacks can I reasonably auto cancel? It the reward worth the risk of the attacks that may take too long?"

Obviously, faster characters benefit more from movement options like dashdancing and wavedashing, and that's as it should be, just as heavier characters benefit more from crouch canceling. That's not the problem.

But, dash dancing and wavedashing are leagues better in uses than crouch canceling.

Take this example: in Melee, Bowser is just strong and not much else. Pichu is just fast and not much else. Pichu, being more mobile than Bowser by nature, theoretically "benefits more" from movement-enhancing options like the shffl and the wavedash and the dashdance. Yet Pichu and Bowser are relatively equal characters. Now, consider Sheik, who is both fast and strong. Sheik barely benefits more than Pichu from the shffl, wavedash, and dashdance, yet she is considered top tier. The problem then, does not lie with the universal options. The problem is that the characters were imbalanced to begin with.

Actually the problem here is you used Pichu in your comparison, a character that was intended to be a joke character. I believe that even one of his trophies said something like simply using him is a challenge.

You can argue for Brawl's approach options all you like, but the fact of the matter is that Brawl is heavily tipped in the defender's favor. Properly spacing attacks to avoid being shield-countered was a huge part of Melee as well, but the attacker had other options for avoiding punishment on block. Brawl offers no such options; your only choice as an attacker is to stay far out of range if your attack gets blocked. This does nothing except reset the situation, which is exactly why the game is so camp-friendly.

Or using an attack that goes right through shield, or breaking shields--something that is viable now.

The reward for landing a successful hit is still much smaller for the attacker than in Melee. The defender recovers from hitstun almost immediately and has his aerial attacks and several air-dodges at his disposal, compared to Melee where you can actually be comboed off the hitstun, and even if you recover in time, it is much more difficult to space yourself for an aerial counterattack, and you only have one air-dodge, after which you are a sitting duck until you hit the ground. You can downplay the problem all you like, but Brawl definitely sides with the defending player.

And how exactly does this help camping? When the camper gets hits, he will have to deal with the exact same thing.

But once again, the risk-reward ratio is much worse for the attacker than the other way around.

I disagree, people are just not using the right attacks yet. There are moves in the game, created for the purpose of taking out campers.

So far, none of your arguments suggest that camping will not be a dominant strategy. You've only shown that the attacker may occasionally, at great risk to his own safety, trick the camper into screwing up--which was a given. That doesn't really change the fact that Brawl is primarily a defensive game.

Attacks that go right through shields. You can approach and use projectiles at the same time to pressure a shield and stay safe. Well spaced attacks can actually break shields fairly fast in Brawl where in Melee it basically never happened. Dashing shield grab will work very well for characters for low traction. There are many ways to beat shield campers.

 

[Wiseguy]

But once again, the risk-reward ratio is much worse for the attacker than the other way around.

So far, none of your arguments suggest that camping will not be a dominant strategy. You've only shown that the attacker may occasionally, at great risk to his own safety, trick the camper into screwing up--which was a given. That doesn't really change the fact that Brawl is primarily a defensive game.

Let's say your right, for the sake of argument. Brawl turns out to be a defensive game with longer, more drawn out matches. Advancing against your opponent is harder, and defensive strategies are rewarded.

As I've said before, Brawl could very well develop as a game with a greater emphasis on strategic thinking (knowing what move to use in a given situation) than reflexes. Does that make Brawl less competitive? I think not. It simply places a greater emphasis on a different skill set than Melee.

 

[DRaGZ]

Let's say your right, for the sake of argument. Brawl turns out to be a defensive game with longer, more drawn out matches. Advancing against your opponent is harder, and defensive strategies are rewarded.

As I've said before, Brawl could very well develop as a game with a greater emphasis on strategic thinking (knowing what move to use in a given situation) than reflexes. Does that make Brawl less competitive? I think not. It simply places a greater emphasis on a different skill set than Melee.

I think this is true. I, for one, can tell that the need to switch up strategies mid-game is almost required to beat a relatively skilled opponent in Brawl more than it was in Melee (at least for me). Please note that this is all based on my own experiences, which is far smaller than the cumulative experience of players on this board, so bear with me.

Okay, for instance, let me use Captain Falcon from Melee as an example. Sure, he's probably the most versatile high/mid-tier character there is. But he basically boils down to comboing the crap out of your opponent and finish with the knee, the f-smash, the d-smash, a well-placed b-air/u-air, or the occasional u-smash. Of course, you need to modify your game to get this going, but this is essentially the most effective Captain Falcon formula.

Let's also look at Falco (which I actually don't play very much with but this guy I play often with does, so I can visually see what he's doing a lot of the time). What I figure Falco's game boils down to is appraoching with short-hopped lasers, enter a combo game, usually started with a grab, then kill with an u-smash, f-smash, or a spike. Again, you need to set these situations up, but this is what hi strategy boils down to.

My point here is that, with Melee, there is basically only one overarching strategy required to get to your opponent. Captain Falcon and Falco, once they have gotten this down, don't really need to stray away from it because it works really well. Sure, there are obviously a myriad of other ways to use these characters, quite effectively as well. But these strategies tend to work the best and with the least amount of risk, so it's done.

Now let's switch to Brawl.

I've been playing the most with R.O.B. so far, and from what I can tell, he needs to switch his strategy up mid-game a LOT. For instance, playing Diddy Kong, he can actually do fairly well spamming dashes, fairs, and a bunch of his devastating aerials, barely using any of his projectile game. This change when Diddy decides to play the banana game. Then R.O.B. is scared (R.O.B.'s feet [technically his base I guess] are extremely large, so it's very easy for him to trip on bananas). This forces R.O.B. to switch up to a more projectile oriented game and taking advantage of the massively disjointed hitboxes of his f-air, n-air, and b-air despite their immense lag (I mentioned somewhere else on these boards that timing for R.O.B. was especially important when playing against quick characters. This is why). If the Diddy gets particularly aggressive with his banana-throwing and aerials, it becomes required for R.O.B. to then begin a lot more approach with aerials, againing changing his strategy.

Okay, let's look at Wolf, again versus Diddy. If Diddy is not using his banana game, Wolf can punish basically anything else Diddy does with his ridiculously long-ranged f-smash followed by aerials, dash attacks, and u-smashes. However, once Diddy uses his banana game, Wolf's f-smash becomes near useless and it's required for him to reach for his blaster quite more often and approach more with his aerials, making him more predictable and vulnerable. If Diddy begins a banana throwing game, his reflector sees a lot more use, and Wolf actually needs to revert to a turtling game to stay afloat.

The main difference I've been experience here is that strategies for characters in Brawl are inherently dependent on what the opponent is doing. This is not to say Melee is not about responding; quite the contrary, a lot of Melee's strategy involves understanding what your opponent is going to do. But the overarching strategies for most characters in Melee don't need to change. If Falcon remains ultra-aggressive and comboing, he'll do quite well. If Falco approaches cleanly with his short-hopped lasers, you're probably ending up with a clean spike as well. I think Jiggly's wall of pain is a good example of this as well: the only real problem I've seen Jiggly have with this is against Roy, but nobody really plays Roy much anyway.

In Brawl, the strategy you need to adopt seems to require changes in strategy often, especially depending on what the opponent is doing. You may need to go from ultra-aggressive ground attacker, to a camping turtle, to a projectile-fiend, or maybe an aerial approacher. This makes me think that Brawl is much more about the mindgames and strategy choice than it is about mastering a particular strategy in general.

Of course, I could be wrong. After all, I can't claim to be a know-it-all about Melee, especially when it comes to very high competitive play. Also, the different strategies could simply be a symptom of the characters themselves trying to find their zones; it certainly seems that some characters are far more suited to one style of play than another, but it also certainly seems that there's a lot more versatility in characters as well.

I guess it'll all come down to what time tells us, but I'm putting my money on the multi-strategy theory rather than anything else.

 

[hippochinfat!!]

Brawl is a very competitive game. Face it. It's a fighting game.

Who cares? Brawl is moar fun.

 

[Wiseguy]

Great post DRaGZ. Very well reasoned. I hope people on both sides of this debate read it carefully.

 

[Rusty Shacklefurd]

I prefer brawl for a couple reasons. One, it's new, and no matter how awesome melee is, after 5 years it gets a bit repetative. Two, with it being new, as well as currently slower, there's less emphasis on fast fingers and more on just basic smarts. I'm not saying high end melee players are just really good at mashing buttons, it's just I hate to see people do well simply because they waste all their spare time learning to spam cookie-cutter-combos with Fox (not that they win tournies, but I've still seen too many people beaten by guys who do nothing but waveshines, grab combos, and up-smash spam) almost as much as I hate to see some people stuck in mediocrity simply because they aren't good at pulling off a lot of the quicker techniques and don't feel like wasting all their time in training mode to get better at it. I'm not saying that Brawl evens out the playing field between good and bad players, more the opposite really. I think brawl makes it more difficult for people, who really aren't that good, to just learn a couple really good combos and wind up beating a bunch of people simply because they're more devoted to wasting all their time on training mode as opposed to just enjoying the freaking game.

 

[spindash]

Here, here, DRaGZ! I've noticed this too! Actually, it's very clear!

As a Sonic user, when characters stick to the ground, my approaches with the Spin Dash are top priority with how I get close and start up combos (despite his minimal KO potential). But as soon as someone (should they have the option of prolonged midair maneuverability), I often have to really switch it up into air strikes to counter, and for the ones that can really rule the air, Sonic has to resort to Spring Chasing. He loses his other specials but gains full access to his air attacks while practically always reaching whoever he needs to.

Diddy's Banana game, for example. I can't Spin Dash anymore to approach or run at them. I have to approach with hops and maybe the hop from my Spin Dashing, but when the ground is a threat to me, I need to use a different style. Different strategy.

I agree 100% with DRaGZ.

 

[Scar]

I'm sorry, I just can't understand why people think that Brawl "forces the skill gap of 2 people closer together." That's such a crock of s***. A game itself cannot affect the skill of 2 competing players, you're either better than your opponent or you're not. THATS IT.

The quote in bold is true but not being argued. A game itself CAN ignore the skills of a competing player by removing their application to the game. Brawl players enjoy less strict timing challenges, a much easier recovery, much larger opportunities to DI. If someone sucked at all these in SSBM he would immediately be at a large disadvantage, and rightfully so IMO. In Brawl he's absolutely fine.

In Brawl many characters can poke shields with standing attacks with no fear of being grabbed.

This is not true. Most characters can't. I wonder how much you actually know about the shieldgrabbing mechanics in Brawl. Unless a character is spaced outside of shieldgrab range, almost every single attack in the game can be EASILY shieldgrabbed. From your points, I question your overall knowledge of Brawl physics...

One game can only have on winner.

This discussion was silly. You're arguing way too literally, you guys clearly weren't talking about the same thing. Realize the meaning behind what other people say, don't just read their words. A man wiser than I told me that words are just clumsy tools.

@Sirami, great post, an interesting read, though it seems that certain others challenge you on your account. I wonder what the truth is.

In it a statement is made that Brawl was not designed to be competitive. To say this is to make a statement on behalf of Sakurai, who, on numerous occasions, has gone on the record to state that the game was being developed for the hardcore. You may believe it was poorly or improperly executed, but do not make belligerent statements on Sakurai's behalf.

All evidence points to this claim. We would be fools to listen to this logic, especially without a definition of "hardcore." This game was NOT designed to be competitive, rather to be fun. Which it is.

It's pretty telling that none of that haters are even mentioning the footstool jumping. So determined to hate .

Please do not use the word "hater" in here unless you're making fun of me or the OP. It is not at all telling. It is reasonable and expected that people who have no idea what this technique does or how it works are not talking about it. Also, it immediately sounds impractical.

In some ways, this aspect of the game reminds me of chess. Each movement is important, each piece or attack is important.

While this is true of chess, I believe it is the opposite in Brawl. My case in a single point: In chess, if you make an awful mistake, you lose the game. In Brawl, if you make the dumbest mistake possible (without SDing), you typically gain 15%. There is no way to consistently punish proportional to a mistake.

I've said this quite a few times and been ignored pretty much every time. Quite a few characters have attacks that when spaced properly, don't really allow a counter attack.

We have not ignored it, we've said that it simply isn't true. It simply isn't. Either you know more good shield pressuring techniques than all of us here, or we all know how truly broken a grab out of shield is.

But, dash dancing and wavedashing are leagues better in uses than crouch canceling.

Many of your points about SSBM are simply untrue. You just don't know what you're talking about, and I've asked before if you were an authority on Melee and now you're just spamming false facts. Your point is that advanced techs all help top tier characters more than others. By and large, this is not true!

The only extremely broken, game-breaking application of ATs is waveshining. Every game has their broken tactics, at least in Melee they're hard to do. Characters are all helped by universal ATs.

The quoted portion is unbelievably untrue. Good crouch canceling is INCREDIBLE in high-level play. Characters with extremely good dashdances are helped debatably more than characters with good CCing abilities, but wavedashing helps almost all characters equally.

You asked about L-cancelling and if this adds depth. Well, it adds another skill to the skill set tested in Melee. Failing this technical challenge at an inopportune time yields great punishment. Perhaps you don't see it to be an interesting skill to be tested, but I believe that it greatly challenges a player to have good hand-eye coordination and timing.

It makes Melee a better test of skill by testing more skills simultaneously. This is a point I will attempt to make vs Wiseguy.

As I've said before, Brawl could very well develop as a game with a greater emphasis on strategic thinking (knowing what move to use in a given situation) than reflexes. Does that make Brawl less competitive? I think not. It simply places a greater emphasis on a different skill set than Melee.

I disagree with this logic. I believe this emphasis was present in SSBM, along with a challenge in reflexes. This says nothing about the relative competitiveness of the games since this challenge is posed in both versions. By the same logic this does not prove Brawl a less competitive game. My point only holds if I can demonstrate that the things that were taken out remove more depth than was added by other things.

Brawl does not simply test a different skill set. Rather, it tests a much SMALLER skill set.

@Wiseguy, I will respond to the rest later.

 

[Scar]

This being a new game, you can't say definitively that the best Melee players will be as skilled when it comes to a new game like Brawl. It seems to me that a person's level of skill at Brawl should similarly be determined by how well they preform in Brawl matches over time.

I ignored this because you misunderstood me. I have said before, I never carry Melee skill over to Brawl. You simply misread. This is clear statement of fact and is not something being argued.

I was exagerating, but I think the point is valid. If a non wavedasher could beat a Melee pro in Brawl, its because they played the better game. Nothing random or lucky about it.

For argument's sake, yes. It is my point that no one in Melee wins unless they are actually better at the game. If a player could consistently win with exponentially less movement options via wavedashing, then that player is arguably WAY better than the other player. Your point was made, but it isn't significant. It's a statement of fact.

Also, this argument is very dependent on a player-by-player basis. Some people are just stupid.

Rather it simply rewards other equally valid skills like strategic thinking and ingenuity. Calculating what moves to use against an oppoent at a given time.

Maybe that kind of skill requires fewer hours than perfecting one's muscle memory. But requiring a different skill set does not make a game less competitive.

As I said previously, I disagree. Melee rewards creativity FAR more than Brawl can. Wavelanding opens the door for creative continuations of combos more than anything else Brawl offers. Brawl limits creativity. Also, the skill of strategic thinking is prevalent in both games.

The difference is, sitting and projectile spamming then running away and camping in shield is not strategic thinking. It's simple and silly, and should not be rewarded nearly as much as it is. A player should be rewarded for thinking outside the box, not spamming the B button.

Your second point holds, the lack of technical skill via muscle memory does not automatically make the game less competitive. But the fact that Brawl tests no other skill in its place makes it a more refined test of different skills, however IMO a worse test of overall gaming ability.

Take, for instance, the new technique of "wave-hopping": http://youtube.com/watch?v=53Wix_KsK5g

Tangential, but this looks largely useless. Also, aerial control using more practical attacks (uair, downair, fair, bair) with the c-stick is completely removed. Exponentially more detrimental than beneficial. However, it helps certain characters way more than others.

Where is Maijin Sweet? Pikapika already looks broken, and as if Din's Fire isn't a ridiculous move already?

Point taken. But I'm concerned that some of the ultra hardcore Melee pros are still too fixated with Melee conventions to explore the depth in alternate modes of play. Maybe I'm wrong, I think further experimentaion in modes like teams could lead to discoveries of currently unknown depth.

I already commented on this. I specifically remember bringing up Chocobo and his C4 tech.

Something like the Smashball, on the other hand, requires skill to obtain as players smack it around the stage.

The Smashball has no definitive health bar, spawns arbitrarily and as far as we know breaks arbitrarily. Honest to god, the dragoon pieces get knocked free WAY MORE FREQUENTLY if you have 2 of them. It's also much harder to knock one out if you're holding 2 of them. The game and especially their items promote wild scrambles for broken items like Smashballs and Dragoons.

Smashballs are broken, and also favor certain characters WAY more than others. Some smashballs are easily avoided, while others are downright broken and guarantee a lost stock. Punishment disproportional to mistake.

So making it harder to approach makes the game less competitive?

Yes. Viable tournament strategies have been limited because of the ease of a simple technique. Someone with more skill with a non-projectile character can be put up on the other side of the stage by a less-skilled player pressing B. Extreme example, but points aren't proven through subtlety.

 

[behemoth]

Quake 4 didn't fail because it was a bad game or because it was made as a party game (which I don't agree with, and really wish people would stop satating this opinion as an indisputable fact. The people who created this game know more about how it works than anyone else int he world. Great games don't happen by accident. It's BS, there's too many moving parts for that to happen). Anyway, Quake 4 failed simply becaus epeople were tired of Quake gameplay. And if you want to carry out the comparison, people had the EXACT same reaction to Quake 3 as you are having to brawl, and guess what, the old players left, or faded into obscurity, and few were able to transition, and despite all that controversy Qauke 3 will always be remembered as the superior game.

Okay, let me explain something. Most exceedingly well balanced games DO happen by accident.

My proof? Well, I'm currently programming a game, and can give you many examples from my team's experience accidentally balancing gameplay. Moreover, and since that is likely to get me flamed, why do you think it is that almost every balanced game's sequel is unbalanced?

It's not because the devs feel like ****ing up, it's because some stupid little change to the physics, or to how weapon ray intersections are queried, or some other little **** of a change wrecked the whole thing.

And before you say it, no, balanced != great. However, you said great game, and great implies balanced. period.

I could come up with more examples and get into a lengthy discussion of this, however that would derail the thread. Suffice it to say however, that your assertion was wrong.

BTW, I came up with some good points on page... 21, I think, but they were glossed over. Should I just quote myself in a couple posts? I don't wanna look like an attention *****, but I would like to see a couple responses.

Happy smashing

 

[Scar]

I think this is true. I, for one, can tell that the need to switch up strategies mid-game is almost required to beat a relatively skilled opponent in Brawl more than it was in Melee (at least for me). Please note that this is all based on my own experiences, which is far smaller than the cumulative experience of players on this board, so bear with me.

Okay, for instance, let me use Captain Falcon from Melee as an example. Sure, he's probably the most versatile high/mid-tier character there is. But he basically boils down to comboing the crap out of your opponent and finish with the knee, the f-smash, the d-smash, a well-placed b-air/u-air, or the occasional u-smash. Of course, you need to modify your game to get this going, but this is essentially the most effective Captain Falcon formula.

Let's also look at Falco (which I actually don't play very much with but this guy I play often with does, so I can visually see what he's doing a lot of the time). What I figure Falco's game boils down to is appraoching with short-hopped lasers, enter a combo game, usually started with a grab, then kill with an u-smash, f-smash, or a spike. Again, you need to set these situations up, but this is what hi strategy boils down to.

My point here is that, with Melee, there is basically only one overarching strategy required to get to your opponent. Captain Falcon and Falco, once they have gotten this down, don't really need to stray away from it because it works really well. Sure, there are obviously a myriad of other ways to use these characters, quite effectively as well. But these strategies tend to work the best and with the least amount of risk, so it's done.

I'm just quoting this whole thing. I know you started by saying you don't know much about Melee, but I'm going to tell you again: You don't know much about Melee.

Different players have different playstyles. I play CF and my strat is to knee repeatedly. There is only one other player who plays similarly, and that's G-Reg, but he does way more things that I never do. Some people only DD grab, some people start combos from aerials, some people run away with CF's superior speed and just poke until a simple throw>knee will kill. I have a friend whose strategy is to sit somewhere with CF and try to mindgame people to roll or otherwise walk right into his smash attack. There is a lot of variety in the ways people play. Falcos are interesting because they seem to have different playstyles by region. NJ Falcos laser spam better and faster than any other group of Falco players in the world. Forward encouraged Falco comboing to be the core of gameplay, an extreme example being Reik, who will 0-death you if he hits you. A local player named Bass will simply laser repeatedly and punish approaches with reverse utilt, another older player combos out of fB consistently.

All of these are just silly examples. You are saying there is one overarching strategy. My point after all this is that there are many effective strategies. Certain strats counter other strats, and some players cannot change their strategy mid-set and win vs. a player who counters their style.

This is because Melee is an old game and certain players are set in the strats they have been using for months/years. You won't find this in Brawl because strats are at absolute most 1.5 months old.

If Falcon remains ultra-aggressive and comboing, he'll do quite well.

False. A CF player needs to have extreme knowledge of the other character, technical ability, and reaction speed to play ultra-aggressive all the time and win. Hax is the only one I know to be able to do this. Darkrain can do anything.

I love this about Melee. Only 2 people in the world (to my knowledge, probz. Mach Dash and others too) can rush all the time and win vs. the best competition the Melee world has to offer. Other players can still win, they just rely on other strategies.

If Falco approaches cleanly with his short-hopped lasers, you're probably ending up with a clean spike as well.

False. Since SHL is so overused most seasoned Melee players have learned to get around it to the point where it can be ignored. Some players, especially low-tier users, however, can be simply stopped by SHL. Not all characters can deal with it well.

I think Jiggly's wall of pain is a good example of this as well: the only real problem I've seen Jiggly have with this is against Roy, but nobody really plays Roy much anyway.

Jiggly's wall of pain is what I would argue is the best strategy at this point for almost all characters in Brawl. Their floatiness and air controll allows them to jump in, poke, and retreat. Effectively camping over and over.

The main difference I've been experience here is that strategies for characters in Brawl are inherently dependent on what the opponent is doing. This is not to say Melee is not about responding; quite the contrary, a lot of Melee's strategy involves understanding what your opponent is going to do. But the overarching strategies for most characters in Melee don't need to change.

In Brawl, the strategy you need to adopt seems to require changes in strategy often, especially depending on what the opponent is doing.

I argue that this is because bread and butter tactics have yet to be established. We think we know the best strats for a given situation, but there is no way to know all the gimps possible in every given matchup in a game with 35+ characters. Everything will equilibrate, and I think simple camping strategies will dominate the competitive world.

Melee involves very complex, very different strategies with lots of characters. Some are limited to one, i.e. DK who camps monkey punches and cargo uthrow>uair combos. Most low tier characters have to camp and play gay in order to win, but high tier characters have amazing amounts of individual personality and flair.

 

[Gilgamesh]

True, Smashboards isn't for competitive Smashers exclusively, but you can't deny that it caters to the competitive crowd and is practically the hub of competitive Smashing.

Of course. I would never deny that tournament organization and competitive-level discussion is a very important and welcome part of Smashboards. However, many people try to discourage people with a more casual approach towards smash of posting here, citing that it was created for competitive smash or something like that. Which isn't the case.

I do think though, that many casuals tend to be annoying and ignorant, and try to poke their noses in discussions related to competitive aspects of smash, where they generally have nothing useful to say, and shouldn't discuss in the first place since they don't belong to the Smash competition world. That means they're trying to argue into a whole world they know absolutely nothing about.

Heck, i'm a quite old member of smashboards, I still play melee at home, and i've never been competitive, so i just tend to stay away of this kind of threads (even if i read them for fun) because competitive smash doesn't concern me; as long as I play the game however I want, its only obvious that I should let you guys make your tournaments in whatever way you enjoy. In my humble opinion, this is why we casuals ( i define myself as a casual player) shouldn't be discussing the ways of competitive smash, and shouldn't care when we read threads that state how is Brawl compared to Melee in the tournament scene. So in the end, I tend to understand the cometitive players' annoyment when they create these threads to discuss with their equals (other competitives; i don't mean to say equals as in inferior or superior to others) and they get infested with worthless, flaming opinions from people who don't understand the rules of competitive smash, a whole world that doesn't concern casuals in the first place.

(also, if you find my english funky, I apologize.)

 

[Tinkerer]

I do think though, that many casuals tend to be annoying and ignorant, and try to poke their noses in discussions related to competitive aspects of smash, where they generally have nothing useful to say, and shouldn't discuss in the first place since they don't belong to the Smash competition world. That means they're trying to argue into a whole world they know absolutely nothing about.

Although that's true at times, there are idiots everywhere - I've been flamed out of a topic because I was such a "scrub" once, too. Though overall, competitives can almost always express themselves better than that.