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

[Zankoku]

Remember that we know how to get through every character's 'camping' and projectile game in Melee because Melee has so much tournament data under its belt. There will be plenty of inventive ways to use techs we've already discovered not to mention (hopefully) future ones as well once Brawl has more data collected and seriously studied.

Also remember how in Melee getting through a character's camping/projectile game also meant getting a setup for a combo that either led to a lot of damage or even death. Now realize in Brawl getting through a character's camping/projectile game means getting in one or two hits before he gets away from you to the other side of the stage and starts over.

 

[The_Woebegone_Jackal]

Are you joking? Projectile spam is very powerful in Melee, even with all the data on it, Falco's lasers, Sheik's needles, Samus' everything are still powerful enough to make them incredible threats and the only reason its not unbeatable is because it limited them in options, however in Brawl, since those option limits are forced on even those who aren't spamming the advantage instantly goes to the camper.

And Waveshielding >>>> Shield Dashing.

we all know wavedashing is godly compared to approach techs in Brawl but we got what be got and it works.

I also didn't mean to imply that camping wasn't viable in Melee, just that we did know ways around them (even if it was hard to do).

I'm going to post a vid of basic approach techs that I don't see many utilizing. They work quite well for me, especially against campers. I'll get it up for the critics in a few.

 

[The_Woebegone_Jackal]

Here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrDefAxDnx8#

well there ya be.
I'm no doupt not the first to do this but I rarely see any of these done, let alone a video of them.

Shorthop Airdodge (shad?) into a shield/sidestep and attack/grab etc or straight into an attack is a wonderfull way to approach your opponent, especially a camper/spammer. As any good player would realise doing either of these constantly is asking to be predictable so it is best to mix them up. Ideally it would be best to mix it up even further by including other approach techs as well such as Fox Trotting and Shield Dashing. With all these techs alone there is a good approach game not many have fully utilised yet.

Fox Trotting-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-x8wygkxDyI

Shield Dashing-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upLXveFz_rY

shad'ing () and these other techs arn't flawless, but niether was wavdashing. Mix it up

 

[Zankoku]

You realize that short-hop airdodge is very vulnerable on landing, right? There's a small window where you lose your airdodge invincibility and you can't shield yet. It's a very unsafe approach for anything except a random mixup. Shield dashing is just exploiting the small window of unshield lag, which, guess what, the camper will have a better use of.

Foxtrotting has been in Smash before Brawl.

 

[LouisLeGros]

Brawl is better.... I have played both quite a bit lately. Melee is too fast and the techniques in Melee where bugs.

Brawl has so much more and the flow seems better although slower.

You know, some people say opinions can't be wrong. I think this is evidence to the contrary.

 

[The_Woebegone_Jackal]

You realize that short-hop airdodge is very vulnerable on landing, right? There's a small window where you lose your airdodge invincibility and you can't shield yet. It's a very unsafe approach for anything except a random mixup. Shield dashing is just exploiting the small window of unshield lag, which, guess what, the camper will have a better use of.

Foxtrotting has been in Smash before Brawl.

I know foxtrottings been around for a while but if wavedashing were still in it would deserve a mention would it not? Fox trotting is a viable approach, so I chose to acknowlage it.

I've made this work in matches before and if my vid didn't show it well enough go into training and play around with it in slow mo. You can delay the air dodge so that its invulnerable frames are still there when you land and if you either just hold the shield button or time it there is little delay between when you shield/sidestep. The delay is very small.

 

[Panickless]

if the skill it takes to be good at the games are different and can't be compared, why would you pick the game with limited combos and slower gameplay?

it's much harder to avoid good projectile spamming in brawl due to the slowness and floatiness of the characters. and the person spamming is never the one forced to approach

Hey, why play Super Turbo when we can play Marvel vs Capcom 2!? Limited combos and slower gameplay is a poor reason not to play a game.

 

[arrowhead]

Hey, why play Super Turbo when we can play Marvel vs Capcom 2!? Limited combos and slower gameplay is a poor reason not to play a game.

i don't know what those games are but i think you misunderstand my point. create another version of melee. get rid of l-cancelling and slow the characters' movement by 10%. would you play that altered version or the original?

jackal: i think ankoku means if projectile spamming was powerful in melee even with fox trot, why do you think it would be a good solution to projectile spamming in brawl? especially when it's even more effective. btw, there are projectiles that travel slow enough that your timed airdodge tactic won't work

 

[Radical Dreamer]

Hey, why play Super Turbo when we can play Marvel vs Capcom 2!? Limited combos and slower gameplay is a poor reason not to play a game.

It's much less exciting and more repetitive? I don't even normally defend Marvel.

 

[Panickless]

i don't know what those games are but i think you misunderstand my point. create another version of melee. get rid of l-cancelling and slow the characters' movement by 10%. would you play that altered version or the original?

jackal: i think ankoku means if projectile spamming was powerful in melee even with fox trot, why do you think it would be a good solution to projectile spamming in brawl? especially when it's even more effective. btw, there are projectiles that travel slow enough that your timed airdodge tactic won't work

No, I don't think I misunderstand you; faster game play and longer combos does not a good game make.

Unless by "limited combos" you meant something else. Lower damage, perhaps?

 

[arrowhead]

No, I don't think I misunderstand you; faster game play and longer combos does not a good game make.

Unless by "limited combos" you meant something else. Lower damage, perhaps?

no, you completely misunderstand

 

[Scar]

This thread has reached 70 pages and as expected I still see people wondering what we mean when we say there are no combos in Brawl. This is an essential part of the thread, so I'll have to put it on the first post.

I haven't read the thread in a while thanks to preparation and execution of Smashpocalypse, but I certainly will do my best to catch up.

 

[LavisFiend]

Smashpocalypse?

 

[Admiral Pit]

Well I love both Melee and Brawl. Though some characters were overpowered in melee, it was still competitive and challenging such as trying to beat Fox with a Bowser. In brawl, there are much more characters to choose from (Pit being 1 of my favorites) though some are surprising popular (Again, Pit) and are used often.

However, one thing I missed in melee were some of the items, like Parasols. Parasols were fun to use, as I'd slowly float down to the ground. Red shells were good too.

Also in Melee, it was fun to have a redead or Goomba pop out of a Crate once in a while, then toss it at an opponent.

Another thing I miss that was in melee but wasnt in brawl were the Stages from the 64. Dreamland, was a classic and I'd wish Brawl had a Stage from the 64, but I bet the stage would be small anyways.

You know those bonuses that you get for doing certain things like "Bob-omb squad" and "Home Run KO"? Those were fun to have.


Now, what Brawl has that Melee doesnt have... The obvious one is more characters and stages, as well as Online play.

Also in Brawl, Captain Falcon finally learned how to use the Home-run bat properly. lol

Beam swords sound like Lightsabers and have much more range than Melee's beam swords.

300+ songs(some from melee), you gonna need an Ipod with a lotta space to contain that epicness.

Capability of Fighting Master hand and Crazy hand at the same time in classic mode, bout time.

SSE Adventure mode... Simply amazing and epic.

Overall, Both Melee and Brawl have their ups and downs, but are both still fun to play nonetheless.

 

[MaverickZer0]

As per combos: There are combos in Brawl... as much as people say there isn't; using their own arguments of what is "competitive", spamming attacks and being "cheap" should constitute as a "combo. I've done plenty of "combos" where the enemy could not recover in time, could not shield etc. This game doesn't remove combos, you just don't have the chance to combo at 0% and **** somebody at the start of the match.

Also, people have overlooked the fact that Brawl shortened the "killzones" on the off-screens.

This is a NEW game... why are people angry that they fixed glitches, improved and changed gameplay?

If they didn't how would SSB be different than a sports title? New game every year, just shinier new graphics... This isn't supposed to be the same as Melee, whether it's supposed to be competitive or not, it's supposed to be FUN!

I find it extremely entertaining, replayable and enjoyable. A steal at the 49$ pricetag compared to the pathetic games being released on other consoles that feature a measly 6 hours of core-gameplay. This has online mode, multiplayer, single player... this game has enough to appease everybody, in different ways.

While it may not be as "competitive" for those who are used to Street Fighter Turbo, it's still plenty entertaining to those who just want to play Smash Bros.

 

[arrowhead]

your post reeks of "i'm just another casual gamer who doesn't understand"

 

[I_R_Hungry]

it would be pretty funny if allowing items remedied all of the camping issues people have with brawl lol

 

[Radical Dreamer]

Also, people have overlooked the fact that Brawl shortened the "killzones" on the off-screens.

Is that why everyone lives twice as long as before?

Because of Brawl's mechanics, most of the game's combos are pseudo combos by the characters with disjointed hitboxes. Hilariously, because of this, Ike has more in terms of combos than most other characters in the game.

 

[The_Woebegone_Jackal]

jackal: i think ankoku means if projectile spamming was powerful in melee even with fox trot, why do you think it would be a good solution to projectile spamming in brawl? especially when it's even more effective. btw, there are projectiles that travel slow enough that your timed airdodge tactic won't work

My main concern is with shad'ing into a sidestep or shield. I merely listed foxtrotting because its another approach option. shad'ing would be the best option when it comes to approaching a camper.

I'm well aware any approach its not flawless. Multi-hit attacks can nerf this approach if you get to close because it will eat at you till your invulnerable frames are gone. On the projectile end I've only had problems with PK Flash/Freeze (I shouldn't have been near the things in the first place). Slower projectiles, like peanuts, bombs, and turnips, can be caught if you airdodge them anyway so you shouldn't get hit while doing this.

There are others who find use in this...
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?p=4184622&posted=1#post4184622
(thread links posted in the thread are interesting)

 

[Pink Reaper]

Well I love both Melee and Brawl. Though some characters were overpowered in melee, it was still competitive and challenging such as trying to beat Fox with a Bowser. In brawl, there are much more characters to choose from (Pit being 1 of my favorites) though some are surprising popular (Again, Pit) and are used often.

However, one thing I missed in melee were some of the items, like Parasols. Parasols were fun to use, as I'd slowly float down to the ground. Red shells were good too.

Also in Melee, it was fun to have a redead or Goomba pop out of a Crate once in a while, then toss it at an opponent.

Another thing I miss that was in melee but wasnt in brawl were the Stages from the 64. Dreamland, was a classic and I'd wish Brawl had a Stage from the 64, but I bet the stage would be small anyways.

You know those bonuses that you get for doing certain things like "Bob-omb squad" and "Home Run KO"? Those were fun to have.


Now, what Brawl has that Melee doesnt have... The obvious one is more characters and stages, as well as Online play.

Also in Brawl, Captain Falcon finally learned how to use the Home-run bat properly. lol

Beam swords sound like Lightsabers and have much more range than Melee's beam swords.

300+ songs(some from melee), you gonna need an Ipod with a lotta space to contain that epicness.

Capability of Fighting Master hand and Crazy hand at the same time in classic mode, bout time.

SSE Adventure mode... Simply amazing and epic.

Overall, Both Melee and Brawl have their ups and downs, but are both still fun to play nonetheless.

Way to miss the point of the entire thread. Its one thing to not any of the pages and pages of posts, but its another to only read the title and assume you have any idea whats going on >_>

Edit:@Jackal: You seem to be forgetting that when approaching a camping opponent, he's not just going to be sitting there spamming, he has far more options than that(which is why I keep saying spam camping is broken) If you get close enough to Shad he'd have enough time to shield in preparation for an attack, then grab you out of the lag from hitting the ground. You don't really need a foolproof advance in Brawl, but the lack of even GOOD approaches makes the camp game far too strong.

 

[The_Woebegone_Jackal]

Edit:@Jackal: You seem to be forgetting that when approaching a camping opponent, he's not just going to be sitting there spamming, he has far more options than that(which is why I keep saying spam camping is broken) If you get close enough to Shad he'd have enough time to shield in preparation for an attack, then grab you out of the lag from hitting the ground. You don't really need a foolproof advance in Brawl, but the lack of even GOOD approaches makes the camp game far too strong.

thats why you would need to read your opponent. If you beleive hes doing to go for a grab don't attack out of a shad and don't shield, sidestep instead. I've said in the past its not flawless and it takes alot on the users part to take advantage of it. If hes going to smash you when you land shield, if hes going to grab side step instead, and if hes doing something with a window for you to attack... uh, attack/grab I guess

EDIT: play around with a delayed shad into a sidestep in training with slo mo on. The window for punishment is between landing (delayed, you should have invulnerable frames right up to when you land) then shield, and especially sidesteping is very small and unless you're hit with a multi-hit attack its hard to take advantage of it.

Reading your opponent is a very important thing to do in the first place and its even more so if you intend on using a shad to get near them.

 

[Vandom6]

your post reeks of "i'm just another casual gamer who doesn't understand"

And your post reeks of elitist butthole who doesn't understand, but pretends to understand so he can look down on people.

I think the problem is that people expected Melee with more characters and stages, but what they got was Brawl.

 

[jwj442]

Stop exaggerrating so much. Many characters have good approaches. Take DK, for example, who isn't even close to a top tier character (though I do think he's being overlooked somewhat) or one many people care about. He does have a bit of a problem getting past some projectile spammers, but the forward tilt helps a lot with that with its great range, generous timing, and ability to swat down many projectiles. But he does well against shield campers. First of all, ftilt and retreating backair are safe against most characters.

And his hugely improved side-B and down-B are great against shield abusers. The side-B is a bit slow to start up, but when it hits a shield it really crushes it, probably more than half a shield. It helps that the headbutt will hit many characters at the height of a short hop, where he can't be grabbed out of it. The down-B is pretty fast, has huge range, and wrecks shields. DK punch is safe on shields with good damage to them too, though you'll probably want to save that for something else.

Or try Game and Watch. His backair is insane, it eats shields and pokes through them easily.

 

[LouisLeGros]

thats why you would need to read your opponent. If you beleive hes doing to go for a grab don't attack out of a shad and don't shield, sidestep instead. I've said in the past its not flawless and it takes alot on the users part to take advantage of it. If hes going to smash you when you land shield, if hes going to grab side step instead, and if hes doing something with a window for you to attack... uh, attack/grab I guess

EDIT: play around with a delayed shad into a sidestep in training with slo mo on. The window for punishment is between landing (delayed, you should have invulnerable frames right up to when you land) then shield, and especially sidesteping is very small and unless you're hit with a multi-hit attack its hard to take advantage of it.

Reading your opponent is a very important thing to do in the first place and its even more so if you intend on using a shad to get near them.

This is sort of where the rock paper scissors guessing part that many people in this thread have mentioned comes into play. There really is no "best" option here, it is sort of random guessing and hoping you made the right decision.

Now being able to cope with these kind of situations is a vital skill for pro players, but it seems like it comes down to this kind of dynamic a lot more often in brawl then it does in melee.

 

[Standard Muffin]

The problem is that people simpley want to pick up brawl and expect to **** someone with one combo. They just dont understand that getting good at something different doesnt happen overnight, as minimal as the difference is.

Another problem is that people dont realize that wavedashing, l-cancelling, etc, was not intentionally put into melee. The developers did not say, "Well, what would happen if they air dodged into the ground right after they junped? Lets make them move a short amount forward." These advanced techniques were made possible by the game engine itself, not intentional developing, and it took TIME to find and exploit these techniques. Brawl has been out in North America for all of about 20 days, I'm sure in 7 years this game will be just as competitive as melee, and people will have found new techniques to expliot.

 

[arrowhead]

The problem is that people simpley want to pick up brawl and expect to **** someone with one combo. They just dont understand that getting good at something different doesnt happen overnight, as minimal as the difference is.

Another problem is that people dont realize that wavedashing, l-cancelling, etc, was not intentionally put into melee. The developers did not say, "Well, what would happen if they air dodged into the ground right after they junped? Lets make them move a short amount forward." These advanced techniques were made possible by the game engine itself, not intentional developing, and it took TIME to find and exploit these techniques. Brawl has been out in North America for all of about 20 days, I'm sure in 7 years this game will be just as competitive as melee, and people will have found new techniques to expliot.

anyone who took the time to get good at melee knows exactly how hard it is to get good at a game. it's not like the combos in melee are static either. the fun was improvising them. and in brawl, that can barely happen. the developers meant to make this game more even for all players, but good players will still beat bad players. nothing's changed in that sense. it would just be a more boring win. it's not like keeping the competitive edge in the game will hinder casual play anyways

l-cancelling was intentional in melee. it was in smash64 too. and the thing is people didn't tear melee apart like they did with brawl and try to find every exploit they could get. they weren't expecting it to be that deep since smash64 was so simple. but brawl's situation is different. we've already been looking for two months and found nothing as revolutionary as wavedashing. but that's not even the main point. the game's mechanics guarantee that it will never be as quick paced as melee and combos will always be severely limited. no new tech is going to change that

 

[Pink Reaper]

thats why you would need to read your opponent. If you beleive hes doing to go for a grab don't attack out of a shad and don't shield, sidestep instead. I've said in the past its not flawless and it takes alot on the users part to take advantage of it. If hes going to smash you when you land shield, if hes going to grab side step instead, and if hes doing something with a window for you to attack... uh, attack/grab I guess

EDIT: play around with a delayed shad into a sidestep in training with slo mo on. The window for punishment is between landing (delayed, you should have invulnerable frames right up to when you land) then shield, and especially sidesteping is very small and unless you're hit with a multi-hit attack its hard to take advantage of it.

Reading your opponent is a very important thing to do in the first place and its even more so if you intend on using a shad to get near them.

Never assume a window is too small for smash players. Smash is a game played in 1/60th of second and one or two frames is NOT too small of a window to be exploited.

 

[LavisFiend]

Needs more researched character matchups. Rock beats paper, paper covers rock, rock breaks scissors and scissors cuts paper.

Find counters to characters and we will have a temporary fix.

 

[Zankoku]

Rock beats paper

Ah, someone else who agrees with me that Rock is top tier.

 

[Pink Reaper]

Ah, someone else who agrees with me that Rock is top tier.

Yes but the problem is that not even rock can beat Toon Link

 

[LavisFiend]

Ah, someone else who agrees with me that Rock is top tier.

You have found the waldo! Now we must marry! AWAY TO CZECHSLOVAKIA!

Rock for badass tier.

 

[Rhubarbo]

Recently, Nate Bhildorf stated in Nintendo Power that he doesn't like people that play Smash by "memorizing 12 hit combos in training mode". Now I know he didn't have any imput in creating Brawl, but he would know how it works. Brawl intentionally removed all forms of combos to accomodate noobs.

The things is though, practically no combos are memorized in Melee, rather they are strung up on a whim according to the movements of your foe. You use your moves as tools in the right situation to wrap up a foe in a combo and punish them.
---

Another things Brawl does poorly is recovery. In Melee, you have three options for recovery:
1) Edgeguard
2) Edgehog
3) Intercept

If you Edgeguard improperly, a foe can pass your charged attack and launch a counter attack.
If you Edgehog at the wrong moment, you'll get pounded when climbing up.
If you intercept improperly, you will plunge to your doom because you fell too much.

In Brawl, you still have these three options, but this is how they work.

If you Edgeguard, your foe will just perform a super recovery and go in the middle of the stage. If you're in the middle of the stage, the foe will just DI away from you.
If you Edgehog, it won't matter because 9/10 times, the foe won't be under the stage, which is the only time in Brawl where Edgehogging is mildly affective.
In Brawl, if you intercept, you might miss, but you will still recover.

Yeah, Brawl is a noob's game. Not only is it less competitive, it is less fun. Why, because it has less options for players. Is it fun, hell yeah! However, it's Melee>Brawl>Smash64 for me.

 

[DRaGZ]

Scar, I tip my hat to you since this is an incredibly well thought out and executed post... Something that is really missing from these boards.

Now, as much as I hate to do this, I think this entire thread is not arbitration, but this is just a counterproductive post on the Brawl Discussion boards.

Basically all I see this post as describing is the following;

1. People who hate on Brawl are misunderstood and are not actually as much anti-brawl as you think.
2. People who have the most skill should win in whatever game they are playing.
3. People who like Brawl (over Melee) never make any good points about their game, and use weak blanket statements.
4. People who like Brawl (over Melee) continue to use the same two statements which are invalid.

For simplicities sake, I'll just refer to the pronoun "you" when referring to people who firmly believe Melee to be more competitive than Brawl, and "we"/"us" when referring to people who prefer Brawl over Melee (for whatever reasons)

So just what is it exactly you want from us?

Do you want us to parade the streets of SmashBoards with signs saying that Melee is more competitive than Brawl? Do you want us to just give up on this game and not bother playing it because Melee is more competitive? What exactly does it take for you "pro-melee" players to just leave us alone? I'm still baffled over a thread like this, which is so horrendously cluttered with obvious pro-melee statements (as you already admitted in your opening line).

I'm still wondering what the true purpose of all of this is.... really. It's not arbitration, that is all I can say.

Like I said earlier, but I will reaffirm. It's threads like these that keep the community and Smash Brawl from continuing to evolve. Look, Brawl is limited compared to Melee. They removed a lot of advanced techniques which opened up a world of options that they had in Melee. Any Brawl player who says otherwise is only fooling themselves and shouldn't be taken seriously in the first place. Do you need like the entire Brawl community to admit that Brawl is less competitive than Melee in order to get on with evolving the game?

But instead of doing what you and other "pro-melee" players do and focusing on what ISN'T in Brawl (and indirectly, what is in Melee) and focusing on WHAT BRAWL IS and working with that.

Now though, don't get me wrong; You are absolutely right with your entire post. I just think that this thread belongs in the pile of "Beating the dead horse." Fine, Brawl is less competitive. Fine, Brawl is limited. Fine, the pro-melee crowd is right about everything when comparing the two games. Is that what you want to hear? Because it sounds to me that you still haven't moved on with just how bad Brawl is in comparison to Melee.

I believe the proper saying for this would be "If Sakurai gives you lemons, make lemonade" and that is clearly what has happened when Sakurai gave us our Lemon... Smash Brawl. You along with all the other pro-melee crowd are still surprised that you are holding a Lemon in your hand, and it seems like you won't do something with it until everyone else around you acknowledges that you have a Lemon in your hand in order for you to just move on and make Lemonade.



No, it's not. This thread is here to continue to remind everyone that you along with the pro-melee crowd are holding a Lemon in your hand. Meanwhile I'm waiting at my Lemonade stand, and trying to improve my technique in order to make it taste all the more sweeter.

I don't mean to sound harsh (I especially think you don't deserve it because I respect your opinion greatly), but can we please get over it and work towards evolving Brawl. This thread accomplishes absolutely nothing apart from keeping us back at Square One in Brawl's evolution process.


PS: I just realized I really abused that Lemon metaphor I thought it fit so perfectly..

First of all: I highly agree. Melee is currently far, far more competitive than brawl. This is fact.

However, I do have one point to make. I have read most of the pro-melee arguments extensively, and I've been mulling over everything quite a bit. I feel as though I can elaborate on the two blanket statements Scar refers to in his original post.



Now then, I have a few points I'd like to make:

1. The significant point of Brawl =/= Melee 2.0 is the different engine. It's all well and good to think that players are looking at this game and trying to break it, find holes, find ATs, find better punishments, etc., but there's an implicitly hindering factor: all of these players are melee players. We are locked into a mindset when it comes to smash.

By this, I am not saying "More ATs are coming, stop hating lulz." I'm saying that we will find a way to break this engine so that we've got a better system of punishment. The problem is that we aren't--and won't--looking at it the right way. Melee and Brawl are miles from each other--it's like asking someone who plays Street Fighter II to discover advanced techs in MVC2 in one month. Better yet, it's like asking a MVC:2 player to evolve Brawl.

I think that when we do break the engine, it's not going to come from melee players trying to figure out how to cancel lag, or to follow up a throw. It's not going to come from trying to cancel momentum or slide wildly around the stage. It's going to come from some dip**** at a tournament accidentally pulling off some ridiculous combo/finisher/punishment in the most unorthodox way imaginable.

For example: think about Wavedashing. Let's assume for a second that Melee's launch was in the same situation as Brawl's launch. Even if there were thousands of people trying to abuse Melee's engine, it would be quite a long time before someone really made the connection between airdodging and ground momentum. It would be even longer before someone discovered the significance.

I'll use one more metaphor: take the transition from Counterstrike 1.6 to CS: Source. You had literally hundreds of thousands of players trying to "break" source. Far more players than were working on Brawl these past couple of months. I was in a huge clan at the time, and we tried really hard to switch to source. However, the new, slightly different aiming system, the new hit delay, the larger recoil and faster red block recovery... it all pointed to a much less competitive game. Even with hundreds of thousands of people working on it, it wasn't until almost a year later that some of CS:Source's competitive value was uncovered. People realized how to abuse the new aiming system, and it's entirely different from CS:1.6. People learned how to use grenades with the new red block, and these unorthodox methods of playing opened up Source as a competitive game again.

Please note that I'm not saying things like "ITS NOT MELEE 2.0" or "THE GAMES ONLY BEEN OUT FOR LYKE TWO DAYS". I'm providing past examples. I do agree that so far, Melee has proven more competitive than Brawl. How that will play out over the long term... well, it might turn out like CounterStrike, or it might be like Halo to Halo 2.

I do not think the community needs to say "Melee is more competitive. Let's play Brawl knowing that." They need to say "Melee is currently more competitive. How can we make Brawl equally so?"

I forgot about these posts. I think I'll just leave this topic now, because this sums up, in much clearer words than I can, what I think about Brawl and its competitive scene.

 

[LouisLeGros]

I really liked the on the fly combos of melee. Whenever people bring up how people memorize combos and how you don't think at all, it is like a clear indication that they have no idea what melee was about.

Melee has so much thinking involved in it. The speed doesn't make it impossible to process, but it means you have to make quick decisions when playing melee.

 

[arrowhead]

long post

sakurai gave us lemons, but he didn't give us any sugar D:

 

[GreenKirby]

Good first post.
Brawl may not be a competitive game. I'm starting to think so but I don't even care anymore.

I don't care that people prefer Melee over Brawl.

What I do get ticked off at is people thinking Brawl is a horrible game as a whole because it is less competitive. And they're are yahoos who actually think that.

Trust me, if a quality of a multiplayer game was based on the competitive level, the Sonic Riders series will be more popular than Mario Kart.

 

[Pink Reaper]

Good first post.
Brawl may not be a competitive game. I'm starting to think so but I don't even care anymore.

I don't care that people prefer Melee over Brawl.

What I do get ticked off at is people thinking Brawl is a horrible game as a whole because it is less competitive. And they're are yahoos who actually think that.

Trust me, if a quality of a multiplayer game was based on the competitive level, the Sonic Riders series will be more popular than Mario Kart.

You know what annoys me? The fact that despite the fact that Melee is a much better COMPETITIVE game, literally leaps and bounds beyond Brawl, there's no stopping Brawl from taking over. The fact that Melee fits the tournament scene better than Brawl does doesn't change the fact that all of the hype the game got destroyed any chance of Melee keeping its place as the competitive smash game. I have no problem with Brawl the game, I just have a problem with the fact that Brawl just up and forced its way into the lead.

 

[AfricanZulu]

I just picked up my copy of brawl today, the reason being that I'm currently living in South Africa, and am on holiday in Brazil.

I have been following this thread because I am worried about the competitive nature of Brawl. I picked up Melee competitively when I was studying at Purdue University. I learned how to play from likes of CunningKitsune and NjzFinest.

When I moved back to South Africa, I realized that competitive scene there was no-existant. Which means I havent really played smash in a Long time. I mean I could even go so far as to say that im the best smasher in Africa, but then again that amounts to absolutely nothing.

So what does this have to do with the Brawl vs. Melee debate?

Quite a bit.

For one I am extremely excited for Brawl (I know im a bit behind) but what Brawl allows me to do is play with my friends in South Africa. Yes I will have the advantage of having the Melee background, however currently playing against them in Melee is like practicing against a level one computer.

So in terms of creating a more level playing field Brawl will be nice.

As for the competitiveness of Brawl, only time will tell; And there will be one decisive factor:
And that is if dominant players emerge, and by that I mean someone who dominates the competitive scene, like Ken, Isai, Mew2king and PC Chris did during their Reigns.

As for now, enjoy playing smash again for the first time, enjoy the frenzy one experianced when playing Melee for the very first time. Competitive play will come, as it always does

 

[Zycor]

The only thing I even think of when I see all the Brawl hating threads, I bring myself to question:

Was Melee a highly competitive scene when it first came out? Were all the advanced techniques found with-in seconds of people popping it in their Gamecubes? No and No.

Brawl will just need to have time to fit into more advanced game play, so I'd just give it time, Rome wasn't built in a day, nor was the Smash community nor was the competitive Smash community.

 

[Radical Dreamer]

Another problem is that people dont realize that wavedashing, l-cancelling, etc, was not intentionally put into melee.

Sigh, you're a ******. L-canceling was intentionally put into Melee and 64. They probably removed it in Brawl just because trying to L-cancel online with lag wouldn't work well.