I'm not a big fan of quote soup, but for this I have to kind of take it in bits since there was not an overarching thesis.
To start from the bottom, the community's standards mean very little when they only make up a fraction of all Smash players. Here are the facts on why Brawl is a great game
Looking at these facts, it's impossible to argue that consumers didn't like Brawl. They clearly loved it. So who is out of wack. The 99% of all the people who bought Brawl or that 1 percent on Smashboards? So this is the first step on the realization. Everyone loved Brawl but this tiny community didn't. So who is really crazy. Most people or the small community. The logical answer would be the community.
However, one thing I notice was you said this
please do not downplay the mechanics any further. I interpreted the tech skills as I saw them and the name of the game was rush. Players kind of just went in and the winner was the one with the most offense. But why should it matter? The discussion was "Why the community hasn't moved on," and my point was "That's wrong," essentially. What it seems is that you are defending the mechanics when they don't need to be defended. So I sense some emotion in your lines.
Neither am I a fan, but. . .
Metrics alone cannot tell us anything without some fundamental understanding as to how to interpret them. You must start with a claim or principle, and here you seem to be saying that more sold copies equates to a better game. You make a causational error, there is no rational causal link between these things and the quality of a game. Yes, quality and sales sometimes correlate, but that is no valid intellectual position. The analysis of the quality of a game must be determined on establishing correct and specific criteria that must stand to rational scrutiny as to why it is objectively better, not on the preferences of the time. If this cannot be done, then it cannot be proven to be better or worse in any way; I cannot abide by any positivist postulation or relativist revelation that supposes the will of the majority, or that might, makes right, nor will I regard utilitarian theories of the "greatest good" as valid. Right is an immovable lodestar, not a slave at the whim of wordplay, it cannot be broken, only broken against.
I was attempting to shift the discussion away from "Why the community hasn't moved on?" to demonstrate why that is an asinine question, and I believe I have succeeded. The stances of a competitive community are developed around criteria, and the competitive community at large choosing differently from the rest of the community is a morally neutral act. To call their will into question is to suppose that their criteria and preference is evil, but since by the current analysis it is morally neutral, then it can be reasonably assumed to be true until proven otherwise.
As for the mechanics, it can be demonstrated that DI (both survival and combo DI) was more prevalent and required more analysis and knowledge of character traits in Melee than in Brawl. Further, spacing and zoning is universally rewarded, moreso in Melee not only because there are more significant instances of the neutral game at any given moment due the relative speed and risk factor of the whole game, but also because even when employing hitstun to combo it was still important to develop the strategies necessary to trail the opponent and their DI/tech and hit them as efficiently as possible in the following frames. Eventually this becomes more and more habitual and is sped up more and more by the users. By this analysis, as I'm sure many professional players can attest to, it is far from a game of rushdown, and indeed Melee has an extremely high skill ceiling, moreso than Brawl.
So, it would make sense that I would seem emotional from your perspective, but, as I said, I know myself to be honest and I have confidence in my analysis of my own mood. I advise you to trust me when I say this. Just a suggestion, I know you have every right to deny my intuition.
Everything you said was wrong. First, the US and Europeans had no issue moving to Starcraft 2. Many were in the beta including Idra, Day9, Artosis, Incontrol and TLO. Many SC1 pros moved over as well like Boxer. Your wrong that SC1 was stopped as Flash and J Dong were still playing in Korea for at least a year after SC2 came out.
The assumption that these came were small changes shows me you know nothing about these games. Starcraft 2 allowed you to select more than 12 units in a group which changed the entire way you played. Micro was far different because you didn't micro individual units.
There is also a big change as workers were far weaker. Not to mention pivotal units for each race were removed which were the Reaver, the Lurker and the Medic. MvC3 was far different than 2 as there are now LMH instead of punches and kicks. The cast was entirely changed as well meaning you're looking at a totally different game. And who can forget SF4 which removed parrying and is generally slower than SF3. If you think "parrying isn't a big deal," then you've never seen
this.
Games change. All three of these games saw drastic changes with all of the removing a lot of characters (units) in the new iteration. However, despite the fact Brawl changed, the community wouldn't have it. They even went as far as to make a mod for Brawl to make it Melee. It even goes as far as changes movesets for veteran characters back to Melee and it was non discreetly named after Melee. The Smash community's behavior is not normal.
I was wrong about Starcraft. I took some anecdote that my friend told to me as truth without researching for myself to see that Blizzard did not ordered cease and desists on Brood War streams when SC2 came out. However, that does nothing to the rest of the claims made, a sequel does not necessitate a better game, and since the goals of competitive communities are indistinguishable, we should either suppose that the competitive Smash community is disordered, or that Brawl has fallen outside of the acceptable range of change the competitive community would accept as a competitive Smash game. I suppose the latter.
The split is manufactured of the non-competitive community which asserts they are part of the competitive community, and at this point 'non-competitive' becomes a simple label for those who regarded Brawl as the superior option, and their labeling is based on the criteria set by the default group. They are therefore different because they are different, and can be distinguished as such. I will not put forward the qualities that distinguish them and their judgments, as they are readily apparent, and I do not wish this post to be about Brawl vs Melee, I intend this post to be a refutation of what you have put forth as an explanation for the Smash community being disordered.
Since I have supposed the latter, I must insist of the truth that if a game came out that was radically different from the standards and qualities of the previous game of a series, the community would be split asunder as it is observed with the Smash community, as it has not then we must regard the changes in sequel titles as insufficient difference to be at odds with the standards of the competitive game communities built around said series. Brawl's differences have hence been determined
a priori to be sufficiently far from the previous collective standard of the community, and this immutable fact cannot be changed by any measure of experience. This is based on the principle that the competitive community's ends were to have fun in a competitive game, Brawl evidently did not fulfill the criteria required to satiate their desire, whereas even in the absence of parrying the rest of the game fit their standards.
And yes, I have seen the Daigo EVO moment full parry, if that's what the link is to? I'm just assuming having not clicked it, let this be a test for my limited knowledge. I have also borne witness to Boxer's masterful SCV rush long ago as well, 'Twas epic! Heck, I even remember when the SCV/workers were nerfed in the SC2 beta, I was there.
The argument I'm making is based on observation. As I mentioned above, the community has a loathing hate for Brawl despite the general populous not feeling that way. The other competitive communities play the new game despite massive changes that make the games fundamentally different. The Smash community does not embrace the new game and even goes as far as to mod it back to the last game. And, as I mentioned before, the community has already considered that the next game looks "too much like Brawl." There is also the fact there are topics that says these mechanics should return. Notice how SF players don't say parrying should return or SC players that control groups should go back to 12. So after looking at all of this, what conclusion would one draw. It would be that the community are zealous towards Melee and that their behavior is not normal. The reason I can see this is because I'm the out group. I don't have any emotional investment while the community does have an emotional investment in the game. I noticed you had this when you tell me not to down play the mechanics and spend the better part of a post on that despite that was not relevant to what you were quoting. So my judgement is not clouded and I can see the facts. And the facts are as I just presented them.
There are a lot of issues with the community shunning anything that isn't Melee. But I'll talk about that in another post.
I actually didn't realize this until reading this portion of the quote, but I already addressed the argument from observation. . . I think. . . But I would also hope you to trust me when I say I do not have a loathing hate for Brawl, I simply view it as insufficient given the criteria of the 'competitive' populous, and sufficient given the criteria of the rest of the community, surely you too can see that. I try to make myself less emotionally involved so to not make hasty generalizations, whether I succeed at that is not something I'm willing to try and judge. As of now I really don't feel anything but blankness as I attempt to think through this. But no observer is special, reason is readily accessible to most. I hope you would trust me when I say that I do not do that for appearances, but I think that I, and others, truly benefit by believing these things. I plead you give me the benefit of the doubt as to my character and intentions. You must also note that when people say "too much like Brawl", they are making a value judgement based on comparison, and while the value is subjective to each individual's ends (here as too much), the analytic portion is measurement of the fact (things can be proven to be more like Brawl and its mechanics, or less like Brawl and its mechanics), why deride them for their judgments on such trivial matters as game preference? Since it was shown that communities have collective ends, it is silly to suppose that their estimation as to what qualities are best to achieve these ends is wrong and evil. Who knows best for them?
