Event - E3 Invitational 2014 Addressing the Smash 4 hate

[Phan7om]

Seriously people, stop pretending that people didn't like Brawl and won't like Smash 4 just because it isn't Melee. That just shows how obviously you just don't get it... People who like Melee don't only play Melee and no other games because they think everything should just be Melee. There are plenty of ways to make a game enjoyable for that portion of the community and just because Brawl wasn't and Smash 4 likely won't be one of those games doesn't mean people are just stubborn and want everything to be just like Melee. Some people just don't enjoy extremely slow, defensive, and shallow fighting games.

How do you explain the hundreds of Melee players who hate Project M? It may not be you, but die-hard Melee players exist and those are the people they are referring to, not you.

 

[Sandfall]

The situation that I was referring to was a scenario brought up in the post I quoted where some other developer bought the rights to the smash series. My comment (or probably any comment on smashboards for that matter) isn't going to have any effect on whether or not Project M gets shut down because someone else paying the Project M developers to release a game version wouldn't even be possible without the consent of Nintendo or if Nintendo sold the rights to someone else, at which point it would have no relevance to them. I'm sure Nintendo has to know that there are people who would much rather play Project M than Smash 4 anyways. Even if Project M didn't exist I still wouldn't play Smash 4. I would just continue to play Melee. I understand your concern though. I really would hate for Nintendo to shut down Project M. I would literally never support anything they did ever again if that happened.

Oh it's not your specific comment. Your comment was (and could be interpreted as by someone who isn't paying attention) in the same vain as those saying "I'd rather play PM than Smash 4, no way I'm buying that!" Companies like the big N can be ridiculously overprotective of their IPs. Mods in the past have gotten shut down numerous times. I think it is in everyone's best interests to leave PM out of the Smash 4 discussion entirely.

 

[Braggins]

How do you explain the hundreds of Melee players who hate Project M? It may not be you, but die-hard Melee players exist and those are the people they are referring to, not you.

It is a very simple explanation. Melee and Project M aren't the same game and some people enjoy Melee more and are satisfied enough with it that they don't want to play Project M. There really aren't that many people who like Melee who are just straight up against Project M and don't think anyone should play it. You said in your own post we are talking about merely hundreds of people. Those people don't have much sway in the overall community.

 

[Braggins]

Oh it's not your specific comment. Your comment was (and could be interpreted as by someone who isn't paying attention) in the same vain as those saying "I'd rather play PM than Smash 4, no way I'm buying that!" Companies like the big N can be ridiculously overprotective of their IPs. Mods in the past have gotten shut down numerous times. I think it is in everyone's best interests to leave PM out of the Smash 4 discussion entirely.

Fair enough.

 

[Phan7om]

It is a very simple explanation. Melee and Project M aren't the same game and some people enjoy Melee more and are satisfied enough with it that they don't want to play Project M. There really aren't that many people who like Melee who just straight up against Project M and don't think anyone should play it. You said in your own post we are talking about merely hundreds of people. Those people don't have much sway in the overall community.

I guess I should've made this more specific. You said that "Some people just dont enjoy extremely slow, defensive, and shallow fighting games." And to that, we infer you mean that its the main reason people like Melee, which I ask... "How do you explain hundreds of Melee players that hate Project M" 1, 100, doesnt matter how many there are... how do you explain that situation. I know why, and its not because of the speed.

 

[Braggins]

I guess I should've made this more specific. You said that "Some people just dont enjoy extremely slow, defensive, and shallow fighting games." And to that, we infer you mean that its the main reason people like Melee, which I ask... "How do you explain hundreds of Melee players that hate Project M" 1, 100, doesnt matter how many there are... how do you explain that situation.

Because there are some people that just hate change or anything that is different than what they are used to and are going to overreact to any differences. Or, like I said in my other post, they just prefer the things about Melee that make it different from Project M. There are always going to be people who hate on something just to hate it or just because it is different than what they are used to. There are certainly people that are going to do that with Smash 4 (this will even be the case for some people who loved Brawl) but that doesn't mean that there aren't valid criticisms of the game or that people who have problems with it are just wrong or being stubborn and should shut up and not complain.

This isn't related to your post (I didn't want to double post too much), but I find it very ironic that some people keep saying that people who don't like what they've seen of the gameplay are just jumping to conclusions and shouldn't complain, but at the same time these same people are making claims just as far in the other direction and praising the game despite the fact that they also haven't played it yet and thus have no more or less of a right to make a claim about how good or bad the game appears to be.

 

[Str4y]

Braggins as much as I love how smash 4 looks, I respect your points. How would you change it? Also, given the mechanics that it has(poor or not depending on person) already, what would you do to try and make it work? Is there a way to make it more aggressive or more of your play style without changing anything? You have a good head on your shoulders, so I want to hear your insight on this.

 

[san.]

I've never seen Smash Bros this Toxic, it is pretty scary....Like it is worse than League of Legends and that has a Toxic community.

I fully agree with this sentiment. No wonder why I haven't really felt like coming back to the forums that much these past few years..

Based on the beta build's contents, we can see from a glance which mechanics are missing that may have previously existed in the series. The current physics are a decent indication for the future, but undoubtedly, the game is still experiencing iterative design tweaks where such aspects are highly variable. There is a reason why staff at the event were open to suggestions, since changes are still underway. Understandably, it is unlikely to see any more heavy content additions outside of the current layout this close to launch, but tweaks of various game properties are ever-present until finished.

That being said, even if the final product is largely identical to what we currently have, I believe that most of the naysayers are over-analyzing what is missing over the possible gameplay prospects of the current additions. For instance, it's difficult to say how ledge play will turn out with what seems to be even stronger recoveries with better chances to grab the ledge. Some may see it as the loss of the ledge game, while I personally see it as the opportunity for aerial battles offstage with far less risk for your average character than before. I could definitely see more offensive play with increased incentives to initiate an attack offstage, a privilege that only a select few characters had in past games.

There is also the potential for many character-specific tricks and nuances that simply cannot be explored this quickly and especially with such a limited roster. Character moves seem to have more emphasis on multi-purpose style of play, and they seem to have developed in a direction we are not quite used to yet. We also cannot forget the improvements to character customization that we should leave an open mind for how to handle it well.

It's too early to deny the game's potential simply because some older techniques are missing, especially with many other unknown factors that we are not yet aware of. The Nintendo staff have received some constructive feedback from their fans, which is tremendous progress already. Nintendo received the qualms of these players firsthand, so there's not much reiterating complaints will accomplish. It's more effective to focus on any new gameplay possibilities that we can find once the game comes out. I am a gamer before I am a competitive smasher, so I personally just want a great game before the natural next step of competitive motivation. Of course, I want both in the end.

 

[Braggins]

Well, that is probably enough for me tonight. Thanks to everyone who joined in on the discussion. I haven't posted on SWF for a while and I'm glad that the discussion stayed quite civil and even when people strongly disagreed nothing even remotely resembling a flame war broke out. I was around for the Brawl vs. Melee days and it was really ugly. It was far worse than anything I've seen regarding Smash 4. Although it does worry me to some extent, I actually think there is a good chance that things won't get to that point again even if the Melee or more competitive oriented of the community don't like Smash 4. I actually think the main reason the Brawl/Melee thing got so bad was because after Brawl was released the tournament support for the Melee community dropped off a cliff and the community basically started to die because the tournament scene started to focus solely on Brawl. The Melee players were angry because the amazing community they were so invested in was dying for a game that they generally considered to be trash and the Brawl community got angry that the Melee players hated their game and were so openly critical of it. Now it seems that the tournament scene (at least major tournaments) has moved more towards featuring the series as a whole by supporting all the games with whichever game that brings the most hype and excitement being the most relevant (which, like it or not is still Melee). Hopefully this trend continues that way Smash 4 has a chance to be successful but not at the expense of the rest of the community the way Brawl was for a while. Hopefully the only thing that changes is now Smash events will have one more game to feature that people enjoy.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

If we really allow ourselves to be dominated by hate, the whole community is doomed. That's not just the Brawl community or the fledgling smash 4 community but the entire smash community; don't even begin to think just attacking things actually helps Melee because it hurts it too in the long run (acting toxic just makes people run far, far away from smash). Let's be real here; even now, none of us really know how smash 4 plays. We have some basic ideas, and there may be things to be concerned about, but there's a lot of promise here too. We can choose to try to build on it and have a bigger, better community, or we can tear each other apart and have nothing but ruin to show for it. I see a game that generated so much hype that smashfests around the country ground to a halt as hundreds of people showed up to each.

From what I personally saw, a lot of people there respected tourament play and some seemed interested in getting into it in the future. If they come here and see a healthy community trying to build something great, we will have the most fantastic opportunity for growth in our community's history. If they come here and see stupidity like us tearing apart a game we've barely played a demo of, they're going to quickly conclude we're nothing but a joke and go do something else. I think some of you guys are just kneejerking over rumor and the vaguest of impressions (and coming off completely unrealistic expecatations of certain thing working in ways they were for sure not going to work) and maybe in a few days will feel foolish for posting really negative stuff and will hopefully refocus on building the community positively in whatever way they feel best. Some are likely already salivating at the opportunity to create more chaos and dream of bitter forum wars like in the old Melee vs Brawl days; if you really just hate the smash community, go ahead and do that, but if you actually like it, please exercise some judgment here. I choose to believe that most of the community has their hearts in the right place and will, if nudged gently, behave responsibly, and then as the release comes near we can take care of whatever bad apples insist upon trying to ruin things for everyone.

 

[Braggins]

Braggins as much as I love how smash 4 looks, I respect your points. How would you change it? Also, given the mechanics that it has(poor or not depending on person) already, what would you do to try and make it work? Is there a way to make it more aggressive or more of your play style without changing anything? You have a good head on your shoulders, so I want to hear your insight on this.

I think they need to increase gravity, speed, hitstun, and shield stun even more. That would be a very good start. My main problem was just that the game looked extremely slow and boring like Brawl. Brawl actually did have some competitive value even though it wasn't nearly as technical as Melee. Most people just couldn't get behind Brawl because the slow and defensive gameplay made it sooo boring for many people. There were some other very troubling things I noticed from watching the invitational. For example, the knockback on grabs seemed so high that it was impossible to have any kind of follow up on a grab even at low % and I've actually read that there is a built in delay after throwing someone to even further make grab follow ups less possible. During the final match Hungrybox star ko'ed Zero with an up throw at like 88-92%. Rolls have apparently been made quicker and more invulnerable which will make the defensive aspects brought about by the slow pace even more profound. Even with the low % throw kill it was like 7 minutes into the match before both players were on their final stock despite neither of them playing overly defensive or going for a time out and when Zero decided to start stalling on his last stock it seemed almost impossible for Hungrybox to land a hit. They seemed to have further limited the movement options from Brawl, although new ones could be discovered after the game is released. The ledge mechanics seemed to have been changed to make the ledge game even more shallow than Brawl's. Other than the overall speed and more hitstun to speed the game up there arent too many specific things that I think NEED to be changed or added. They just need to something to make the game more exciting and interesting and add a more offensive element (especially for the competitive folks). It is true that there may be things we don't know about to help in these areas but given some of the things I saw that definitely will hold it back in those aspects, how similar it looked to Brawl, and what I know of Sakurai's philosophy, I just don't see that happening at this point unless there is something completely off the wall that we couldn't possibly see coming. Early on people were saying the same thing about Brawl, that we should just wait for new things to be discovered, but as time wore one the game just continued to become more and more defensive because the defensive options were too strong and the physics just didn't generally allow for a faster or offense oriented gameplay.

 

[Sarej]

One thing that stuck out to me was when Sakurai said something along the lines of "do you know how to make a game?".

Think of all the stress this guy goes through, if I were him my hardcore fanbase would be the ones I care about the most but I also have to look at the broad spectrum of things I have to do. Often not the broad spectrum are casual players and that's just how it is. There's a part of me that thinks we'll find some new advanced techniques in Smash 4, once it's out we'll find some.

Respect for Sakurai for taking all of the horse **** flung at him.

 

[Sarej]

I think they need to increase gravity, speed, hitstun, and shield stun even more. That would be a very good start. My main problem was just that the game looked extremely slow and boring like Brawl. Brawl actually did have some competitive value even though it wasn't nearly as technical as Melee. Most people just couldn't get behind Brawl because the slow and defensive gameplay made it sooo boring for many people. There were some other very troubling things I noticed from watching the invitational. For example, the knockback on grabs seemed so high that it was impossible to have any kind of follow up on a grab even at low % and I've actually read that there is a built in delay after throwing someone to even further make grab follow ups less possible. During the final match Hungrybox star ko'ed Zero with an up throw at like 88-92%. Rolls have apparently been made quicker and more invulnerable which will make the defensive aspects brought about by the slow pace even more profound. Even with the low % throw kill it was like 7 minutes into the match before both players were on their final stock despite neither of them playing overly defensive or going for a time out and when Zero decided to start stalling on his last stock it seemed almost impossible for Hungrybox to land a hit. They seemed to have further limited the movement options from Brawl, although new ones could be discovered after the game is released. The ledge mechanics seemed to have been changed to make the ledge game even more shallow than Brawl's. Other than the overall speed and more hitstun to speed the game up there arent too many specific things that I think NEED to be changed or added. They just need to something to make the game more exciting and interesting and add a more offensive element (especially for the competitive folks). It is true that there may be things we don't know about to help in these areas but given some of the things I saw that definitely will hold it back in those aspects, how similar it looked to Brawl, and what I know of Sakurai's philosophy, I just don't see that happening at this point unless there is something completely off the wall that we couldn't possibly see coming. Early on people were saying the same thing about Brawl, that we should just wait for new things to be discovered, but as time wore one the game just continued to become more and more defensive because the defensive options were too strong and the physics just didn't generally allow for a faster or offense oriented gameplay.

In regards to being slow, it seemed different depending on the character being played. You could see Greninja and Sonic were much faster than most characters, there is a definite difference in speed values per character.

 

[Jumpman84]

Some people just enjoy different things and have a different idea of fun. I am more interested in the competitive aspects of the games and their is no video game experience that is more fun or exciting to me than playing an intense competitive game of Project M or Melee. Just because some people take the game more serious doesn't mean their goal isn't to have fun.

Now that you mention it, while I enjoy Project M (not for the mechanics, I like the costumes and new characters), I think it was a bad idea and should have never been done. Ironically, while the competitive community likes it, it could very well be doing more HARM to it than good.

For example, that female invitational player who smack talked the game like an ungrateful brat. Before going further, it's pretty obvious that Nintendo knows all about Project M. They have to, considering that the mod is too good for its own good that it ends up getting full blown media coverage. Fortunately, Nintendo pretends to not be aware of it, lest they have to shut it down to protect their IP. And for their part, the Project M team mentioned not adding Smash 4 characters in because it would look like they're trying to compete with Smash 4 and ruffle Nintendo's feathers. This relationship between the two has worked and kept peace.

The issue here is someone saying that Smash 4 is terrible and that they won't buy it and play Project M. Before the game is even released! This not only looks bad for Project M, which has been drawn into a conflict it never wanted to begin with, it's also bad for the competitive community, which Nintendo and Sakurai have been trying to appeal to since the game's announcement. They have gone out of their way to do things for the communtiy's benefit (the GCN controller adapter is painstakingly obvious of that), and what do they get?

Their olive branch gets snatched away, snapped in two, thrown on the ground, and stomped on repeatedly. The competitive community ignores all of the improvements, declares it "no hope", and says they'll go back to playing an illegal mod and not buy Smash 4. Ignoring that this is painting a bullseye on Project M and giving Nintendo a justifiable reason to go in for the kill, this sends the wrong message to Nintendo:

1. No matter what they do, the competitive community will never accept Smash 4 as a viable game.
2. The competitive community would rather play a game of their own creation over Smash.

Now, I mention several times that Nintendo could shut down Project M, but that's not the worst that could happen. The worst thing to happen is Nintendo using this reaction and Project M as an excuse to STOP TRYING to cater to the competitive community. If you think it's bad now, imagine years down the line when Nintendo refuses to listen to the competitive community regarding the next Smash.

"They'll never be satisfied with the changes made and refuse to buy it, so why bother? Besides, if they don't like it, they'll just make their own version of the game to enjoy..."

 

[C3CC]

I just appreciate all three games for what they have to offer. Melee is my favorite, but 64 and Brawl are awesome too.

 

[PLATINUM7]

I certainly hope all this hate stops. I'm not saying people should just pick Smash 4 up as their favourite title, but at least stop bashing it before they play it, or bashing it because it's not Melee 2.0. I felt expecting this game to have many advanced techniques seemed unreasonable, but I certainly don't feel their exclusion makes this game bad. I also feel it definately isn't reason for people to antagonise people for looking forward to the game.

Will I like Smash 4 the best? Maybe, maybe not. Will I hate it if I don't like it better than previous titles? I doubt it. From what I've seen it looks amazing, from what I've heard, the game needs work but is still super fun.

Will the game be enjoyable to everyone? No. But I don't see why people have to ruin it for others or express their dislike for it in such a way. One of the great things I like about Smash is how each game still has a thriving community. Each person prefers certain aspects. What I don't like is people acting superior or treating others like crap when they feel differently. So this game won't be what everyone is looking for but that doesn't make it horrible.

But really, will I like the game? Yes!
Will it have an amzing competitive scene full of longevity?

Spoiler

 

[ToothiestAura]

...You people realize this is a demo right? Not the final build. Brawl was closer to Melee in it's demos, I believe. So this means very little for the final product.

I played it today and it didn't seem anything like a completed game; this probably a much earlier version of the engine than is currently being worked on by Sakurai and his team.

 

[Jumpman84]

I just appreciate all three games for what they have to offer. Melee is my favorite, but 64 and Brawl are awesome too.

I feel the same way. All three Smash games are my absolute favorite titles. Heck, I even like Project M! My personal preference is Brawl > Melee > 64, but I've been playing Melee a lot recently as part of my Smash preparation (been trying to unlock Mewtwo before he returns to Smash 4). Each game truly is its own and should be treated as such, in my opinion.

 

[Sarej]

...You people realize this is a demo right? Not the final build. Brawl was closer to Melee in it's demos, I believe. So this means very little for the final product.

I played it today and it didn't seem anything like a completed game; this probably a much earlier version of the engine than is currently being worked on by Sakurai and his team.

Beta is beta, learn that fast kiddos.

 

[Braggins]

Now that you mention it, while I enjoy Project M (not for the mechanics, I like the costumes and new characters), I think it was a bad idea and should have never been done. Ironically, while the competitive community likes it, it could very well be doing more HARM to it than good.

For example, that female invitational player who smack talked the game like an ungrateful brat. Before going further, it's pretty obvious that Nintendo knows all about Project M. They have to, considering that the mod is too good for its own good that it ends up getting full blown media coverage. Fortunately, Nintendo pretends to not be aware of it, lest they have to shut it down to protect their IP. And for their part, the Project M team mentioned not adding Smash 4 characters in because it would look like they're trying to compete with Smash 4 and ruffle Nintendo's feathers. This relationship between the two has worked and kept peace.

The issue here is someone saying that Smash 4 is terrible and that they won't buy it and play Project M. Before the game is even released! This not only looks bad for Project M, which has been drawn into a conflict it never wanted to begin with, it's also bad for the competitive community, which Nintendo and Sakurai have been trying to appeal to since the game's announcement. They have gone out of their way to do things for the communtiy's benefit (the GCN controller adapter is painstakingly obvious of that), and what do they get?

Their olive branch gets snatched away, snapped in two, thrown on the ground, and stomped on repeatedly. The competitive community ignores all of the improvements, declares it "no hope", and says they'll go back to playing an illegal mod and not buy Smash 4. Ignoring that this is painting a bullseye on Project M and giving Nintendo a justifiable reason to go in for the kill, this sends the wrong message to Nintendo:

1. No matter what they do, the competitive community will never accept Smash 4 as a viable game.
2. The competitive community would rather play a game of their own creation over Smash.

Now, I mention several times that Nintendo could shut down Project M, but that's not the worst that could happen. The worst thing to happen is Nintendo using this reaction and Project M as an excuse to STOP TRYING to cater to the competitive community. If you think it's bad now, imagine years down the line when Nintendo refuses to listen to the competitive community regarding the next Smash.

"They'll never be satisfied with the changes made and refuse to buy it, so why bother? Besides, if they don't like it, they'll just make their own version of the game to enjoy..."

You make some good points. I am actually quite surprised that the relationship between Nintendo and the Project M team hasn't been an issue. Given Nintendo's track record with things of this nature and how they've dealt with the competitive community in the past I am surprised they haven't shut it down already. Where I disagree is that I don't actually think they've done anything relevant for Smash 4 to try to cater to the competitive community. I'm pretty sure the gamecube is preferred by most of the community and not just the competitive players so I don't think that was them trying to throw us a bone or anything. Also, things like the For Glory mode and online ranking system are literally completely irrelevant if the gameplay isn't any good and doesn't make people want to play it competitively in the first place. The only things they can do to try to cater to the competitive community deal with the gameplay and they can do it in ways that either will generally be accepted by everyone or aren't even relevant to casual players so they won't notice them or won't care.

I'm curious, what did the female smasher say about the game at the invitational? I must have missed that.

 

[Ryuutakeshi]

I think a lot of the hate is unreasonable, obnoxious, and kinda stupid in some respects. As I pointed out at Best Buy today, the competitive scene in Smash makes up somewhere between 1-3% of all people who will play Smash. I think it might be a good idea for some people to remember that. Sakurai could probably afford to make the game even more competitively unbalanced, lose that audience, and still make an impressive profit on the game.

Me, I like what I'm seeing. My only concern is the blast zones being so far out.

 

[Jumpman84]

I'm curious, what did the female smasher say about the game at the invitational? I must have missed that.

Courtesy of someone in another Smash 4 hate thread.

peachyhime from the invitational.

You make some good points. I am actually quite surprised that the relationship between Nintendo and the Project M team hasn't been an issue. Given Nintendo's track record with things of this nature and how they've dealt with the competitive community in the past I am surprised they haven't shut it down already. Where I disagree is that I don't actually think they've done anything relevant for Smash 4 to try to cater to the competitive community. I'm pretty sure the gamecube is preferred by most of the community and not just the competitive players so I don't think that was them trying to throw us a bone or anything. Also, things like the For Glory mode and online ranking system are literally completely irrelevant if the gameplay isn't any good and doesn't make people want to play it competitively in the first place. The only things they can do to try to cater to the competitive community deal with the gameplay and they can do it in ways that either will generally be accepted by everyone or aren't even relevant to casual players so they won't notice them or won't care.

Those are good points. While I can't personally relate (I'll never be good enough to be in a tournament ), I still think that this relationship between Nintendo and the competitive Smash community should be a two way street. An infinitely better way of putting it would be thus:

"Nintendo, I appreciate all that you're doing to try to appeal to our community. I know that you are trying to meet our needs and have taken good steps in the right direction. Here are some of the things that I noticed about the game while playing that may cause some issues with competitive play and how these can be addressed."

Sounds much more respectful and professional than saying it's hopeless.

 

[Braggins]

I feel the same way. All three Smash games are my absolute favorite titles. Heck, I even like Project M! My personal preference is Brawl > Melee > 64, but I've been playing Melee a lot recently as part of my Smash preparation (been trying to unlock Mewtwo before he returns to Smash 4). Each game truly is its own and should be treated as such, in my opinion.

This perfectly exhibits how it is possible for Nintendo to cater to all aspects of the community. Melee and Project M are so different than Brawl and are chock full of things that make the competitive community love them and yet even the people who don't care about that stuff still love them. Casual players didn't have a problem with how fast Melee was or how hard you could combo people. If anything they probably liked that stuff because people tend to like fast paced gameplay and even people playing purely casually are going to enjoy hitting one of their friends with a cool combo. I doubt there were people who saw a youtube video of a someone wavedashing and thought "What, this is what some people are doing with this game? Ew, I hate it and don't want to play it anymore." This is why some people get so frustrated with Brawl and now possibly Smash 4. They basically just seem hellbent on removing everything that competitive players like even though it has no affect on casual players. Likewise, competitive players wouldn't look at a game with good competitive gameplay and think "Eww, look at all these different random cool features. I don't want to play this anymore."

 

[Sarej]

Courtesy of someone in another Smash 4 hate thread.

People just a game in a beta state is ignorant at best, hurts my head.

 

[PLATINUM7]

http://nintendoenthusiast.com/artic...bros-wii-u-perspective-competitive-player-e3/
Sounds promising. Some cons but I guess they can be fixed.

 

[FrostShock]

I certainly hope all this hate stops. I'm not saying people should just pick Smash 4 up as their favourite title, but at least stop bashing it before they play it, or bashing it because it's not Melee 2.0. I felt expecting this game to have many advanced techniques seemed unreasonable, but I certainly don't feel their exclusion makes this game bad. I also feel it definately isn't reason for people to antagonise people for looking forward to the game.

Will I like Smash 4 the best? Maybe, maybe not. Will I hate it if I don't like it better than previous titles? I doubt it. From what I've seen it looks amazing, from what I've heard, the game needs work but is still super fun.

Will the game be enjoyable to everyone? No. But I don't see why people have to ruin it for others or express their dislike for it in such a way. One of the great things I like about Smash is how each game still has a thriving community. Each person prefers certain aspects. What I don't like is people acting superior or treating others like crap when they feel differently. So this game won't be what everyone is looking for but that doesn't make it horrible.

But really, will I like the game? Yes!
Will it have an amzing competitive scene full of longevity?

Spoiler

Spoiler

Thanks for the Optimistic Charizard. I really needed that after some of the bile I've waded through regarding Sm4sh and Codename S.T.E.A.M.

 

[Braggins]

Courtesy of someone in another Smash 4 hate thread.





Those are good points. While I can't personally relate (I'll never be good enough to be in a tournament ), I still think that this relationship between Nintendo and the competitive Smash community should be a two way street. An infinitely better way of putting it would be thus:

"Nintendo, I appreciate all that you're doing to try to appeal to our community. I know that you are trying to meet our needs and have taken good steps in the right direction. Here are some of the things that I noticed about the game while playing that may cause some issues with competitive play and how these can be addressed."

Sounds much more respectful and professional than saying it's hopeless.

Well, I just wanted to point out that you don't have to be good and definitely not good enough to do well in tournaments to care more about the competitive aspects of the game. I haven't gone to tournaments in a long time and I'm by no means a pro smasher or anything but I still play Smash strictly as a fighting game that I am trying to win and improve at while having as much fun as possible. Competitive balance, depth, speed, etc are the things I care about in regards to Smash. Even before I got better at the game me and my friends were still playing as you would a fighting game and trying to beat each other and get better. It is more a mindset and has more to do with what you like about the game and why you play it. You could be casual in the sense that you only occasionally play the game but depending on how you play and what you are trying to get out of it you could still care more about the competitive aspects than things like items or costumes. Even if you don't consider yourself a competitive gamer (at least with Smash), I would guess that most of the things I would want out for Smash 4 would make it more enjoyable for you as well. The competitive community just has a problem with Brawl and might with Smash 4 because if you are trying to take the game to another level, in regard to the fighting game aspects, we tend to be extremely disappointed because that next level basically doesn't exist.

 

[Katy Parry]

I actually played the game and it was amazing in my opinion. Simple as that. It's plenty comptetitve. I was even able to string combos off as Zelda..in a free for all. With items. And it was the first time I had played the game.

Breathe. We're going to be fine.

 

[Starbound]

All I'll say is that no reaction to a game is "unfair." Barring extreme or unusual circumstances, games generate the reactions they deserve, positive or negative, and it's laughable to sit around as a community and mope about the game not getting the reaction it "deserves." It's not entitled to anything, but everyone is entitled to whatever opinions they can adequately back up.

This is pretty much my opinion on the matter.

But can we at least wait to hate until we have the full games in October and December. These games are nowhere near complete yet (heck, my demo at Best Buy flat out crashed multiple times in the 3 hours I was there so I really do think we're playing an early build, not just everything Sakurai had done by last month).

 

[nessokman]

I'm disgusted at the lack of care in these posts. This is a company which has made millions of the Smash name is a little bit of quality so much to ask for? Are you really expecting people not to be mad after the atrocity that was brawl instead of learning from their mistakes they make another floaty game with no combos?

You sound so passive, either that or you don't know what makes a good fighting game. Let me tell you what this game is going to boil down too, and thats playing defensively. Because its clear defensive playing is rewarded on this game, its also clear that this game is going to be played as a hit/run/hit/run/hit/run that is absoutely boring as ****.

People have a right to hate on this, this isn't what we asked for as a community and instead they would rather cater to the audience which plays their game once a month.

I wish I could slap you. They are catering to the VAST MAJORITY of smash players, this community is puny and pathetic in comparison.

According to the wiki, this board has 170,000 members.
Let me show you just how minor we are-
(Note: these are theoretically if everyone on smashboards owns the games)
(Note:%=170,000/game salesX100)

Brawl:~11,000,000
1.5% sales for smashboards

Melee:~7,000,000
2.4% sales for smashboards

64:5,500,000
3% sales for smashboards

We aren't worth catering to, we're just a tiny spec to the overall series.

 

[Kuraudo]

We got an invitational. A huge stage. The pros got to show off the new game. We all got to play the demo and give feedback. And we have the BALLS to write off this game as terrible?

...

We don't deserve this game. We don't deserve ANYTHING that Nintendo gave us. And we got it. All of you haters can just **** right off. This hate is not warranted, and on a DEMO build mind you. This is coming from a Melee/Brawl/PM player such as myself mind you. If this is the kind of crap I'm supposed to read through when Smash 4 finally releases? I'm just about going to swear off this whole damn website even though I'll be competing in tournaments. I'll use it to confirm myself for tournaments and THAT'S it.

This doesn't go to just Melee players either. This goes to all people that leave a sour taste in everyone else's mouth. Shame on you. Shame on ALL of you goddamnit.

You don't deserve to play the new Smash. I don't want to see any of you haters playing the new Smash.

God I give up. 6+ years of being brutalized for playing Brawl and now we're riding the train to hell with Smash 4 AGAIN?!

Screw this. /out

 

[nessokman]

We got an invitational. A huge stage. The pros got to show off the new game. We all got to play the demo and give feedback. And we have the BALLS to write off this game as terrible?

...

We don't deserve this game. We don't deserve ANYTHING that Nintendo gave us. And we got it. All of you haters can just **** right off. This hate is not warranted, and on a DEMO build mind you. This is coming from a Melee/Brawl/PM player such as myself mind you. If this is the kind of crap I'm supposed to read through when Smash 4 finally releases? I'm just about going to swear off this whole damn website even though I'll be competing in tournaments. I'll use it to confirm myself for tournaments and THAT'S it.

This doesn't go to just Melee players either. This goes to all people that leave a sour taste in everyone else's mouth. Shame on you. Shame on ALL of you goddamnit.

You don't deserve to play the new Smash. I don't want to see any of you haters playing the new Smash.

God I give up. 6+ years of being brutalized for playing Brawl and now we're riding the train to hell with Smash 4 AGAIN?!

Screw this. /out

I agree 100%, this community is rotten.this "it isn't melee it isn't good" attitude is why I predict the competitive scene for this game won't last more than 2 years.

People will quit it because it isn't melee and that will be the end of it...until the project M team takes it upon themselves to once again try to fix a perfectly fine game.

 

[PLATINUM7]

This doesn't go to just Melee players either. This goes to all people that leave a sour taste in everyone else's mouth. Shame on you. Shame on ALL of you goddamnit.

This is a good point. Not only have I seen people saying crap about people looking forward to Smash 4, but I've seen people blindly saying crap about competitive players, whether they play 64, Melee or Brawl.
I prefer Melee, but I'm not someone bullying others and dismissing this game as Brawl 2.0, but yet I really don't want to say what game I like because there's so many places where you just get attacked for it.
I love all the Smash games and play them all non stop, I just like Melee's speed. Sure wavedashing is nice and so is dash dancing but I'm not treating Smash 4 like it's **** because it lacks these. I will enjoy Smash 4 for being Smash 4, a unique entry in the series.
Thankfully, Smashboards has been alright so far (at least the threads I go on) but the amount of crap being thrown around by people now makes me want to take a hiatus when the game comes out.
I just hope people grow up. Yes people prefer different titles, there's nothing wrong with that but why the hell do they have to act like they prefer the 'correct' title?

I think I'm done ranting.

 

[Guybrush20X6]

Call me an idiot but what exactly is making people mad exactly? Is there any specific mechanic that's doing it? Or just because there's no wave-dashing?

Edit: wow, I posted under a bunch of outbursts. We deserve the game if we pay the $60 (plus the console). Nintnedo is a company at the end of the day, not a deity.

 

[Lanog20]

Did Peachyhime seriously say that?! She's probably buttburt because she was the first person to lose during the invitational.

 

[MookieRah]

Haha. I remember these threads when Brawl was released. Both sides of the fence will now exaggerate the problems with the other side, and this thread will eventually result in just creating more hate.

Want to know why? Because the OP acts from some position of authority or high morale ground. Telling people who feel disenfranchised that they should act or feel a certain way is condescending as heck, even if it is coming from the right place. Hell, I think the entire community should be more civil, but you guys seem to forget that the average age of the users here are in their teens and this is the internet. It's not going to happen, and it wouldn't happen in any community, really.

If you don't want to divide the community, how about not making threads that tell people how they should think about the game? How about not making threads that instantly separate smashers into groups and labeling them?

What makes this even more hilarious as all of this is coming from someone who joined March of this year. No, he shouldn't be instantly discredited because he is new, but it's insane for someone that new to come in and tell a community that has been around since 2002 how to act or think on this matter.

 

[Kadano]

^Great post.

I didn’t expect much from Smash 4, so I’m not disappointed. The gameplay I’ve seen so far is uninteresting to me, thus, unless the unlikely case of a major physics rehaul happens, I can save the money for a Wii U and Smash 4 for a couple of those sweet Smash GCCs and just keep playing the game that I love – Melee.

As long as nobody is constantly telling me to switch to Smash 4 or Nintendo starts taking down Melee tournaments ∨ streams, I see no reason to hate on Smash 4. It gave me / us new Gamecube controllers, so I’m grateful for that. =)

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

"Disenfranchised" is an awfully funny word. I wasn't aware that game design was a matter of democracy in the first place, and one cannot be "disenfranchised" if one was never "enfranchised" in the first place. Telling people how to act or feel is also basically the subject of all communication; you're basically saying don't talk to certain people at all, that these people deserve to be shielded from criticism. Your post actually implies a lot of things that are pretty off, but let's not have that big and unnecessary argument.

Here's the very simple reality of the situation. Most of the community right now does not have a significant problem with smash 4. Perhaps the game needs tweaked; given that it is still crash prone in the best version they could manage for a demo, I think it's quite clear the game needs more polish... as one would expect from a game that's not done yet. There's even some room for constructive criticism which has been maturely offered by several people. We do see a vocal minority making fools of themselves and getting too much praise and attention for it, and that's a dangerous omen since that's exactly what happened with Brawl. If it's just insecure people acting out a bit who will think better of it in a few days, it's just an annoyance and not a big deal in the end, but after similar people had an unnatural and dogged insistance on attacking Brawl for years on end, I think some trepidation is very natural. It honestly hurt the Melee community pretty badly too; these people do not deserve to be defended or encouraged no matter what games you like. It's definitely not wrong to take a stand and say that the way these people behave is not okay, and if these people lash out more after that, the responsibility is still on them for that, not on the people who just wanted some civility which is not too much to ask for a community that is actually a collection of real people who meet in person and not of anonymous people on the internet.

 

[PLATINUM7]

^Great post.

I didn’t expect much from Smash 4, so I’m not disappointed. The gameplay I’ve seen so far is uninteresting to me, thus, unless the unlikely case of a major physics rehaul happens, I can save the money for a Wii U and Smash 4 for a couple of those sweet Smash GCCs and just keep playing the game that I love – Melee.

As long as nobody is constantly telling me to switch to Smash 4 or Nintendo starts taking down Melee tournaments ∨ streams, I see no reason to hate on Smash 4. It gave me / us new Gamecube controllers, so I’m grateful for that. =)

As long as you're having fun playing the games you like, that's what's important.
We shouldn't be telling others what to like, whether it be to pick up Smash 4 or dismiss it. But at the same time, we need to respect each other's preferences, not being down each others throats because they think X game is better.

 

[nessokman]

This thread tho....