After the SDCC tournament yesterday... I'm having doubts Smash 4 will be a good competitive game.

[Senario]

Whenever I see post like this, I'm reminded of the QNA Sakurai held where he was asked "would you want a competitive player to help you design the game" to which he responded "have you ever made a video game?"

While I'm not saying competitive players have no idea how to make a better game, I trust Sakurai and team a lot more than I trust most others to do something like this. I'm sure balance is a consideration, but so are the 100+ other things that go into making a game like this.

The only problem with his statement is that he is not arguing against the fact that a competitive player may know balance better than he does himself. (Though the competitive player in question worded it fairly badly). What he is doing is poisoning the well and questioning the person's credibility rather than their actual point. It makes it a very uphill battle to try and argue against that when people no longer take you seriously because the opponent attacked you for an unrelated point.

I know you aren't saying competitive players have no idea but it was an irresponsible comment made by Sakurai imo. The part after where he said the team was full was fine, but that statement to me just screams of bad argument. It is like saying political scientists have no say in politics because they haven't run for office.

 

[Turokman5896]

Look at the title of this thread, it is talking about Smash 4 won't be a good competitive game. That is an insult that has been uttered to brawl. "Brawl is SO uncompetitive, it sucks.". That is why people are so defensive. They say smash 4 won't be competitive, and it isn't worth their time and they are going to start shooting out insults to the game and it's players. That is exactly why people are defensive, and while I believe it needs to be toned down, the upcoming smash 4 community has the perfect right to be defensive.

This^^ Maybe the thread should say "Is shielding too strong?" That would probably lead to a better discussion as people wouldn't feel the heat of the flame wars from the smashboards home page.

@ Senario frankly I think the other guy was disrespectful. "If I beat you can I balance the game?" That just sounds a little rude, and sakurai responded in kind. (Both were joking though)

 

[Ulevo]

Why was i quoted here just curious lol.

I think I accidentally quoted you.

 

[Bladeviper]

The only problem with his statement is that he is not arguing against the fact that a competitive player may know balance better than he does himself. (Though the competitive player in question worded it fairly badly). What he is doing is poisoning the well and questioning the person's credibility rather than their actual point. It makes it a very uphill battle to try and argue against that when people no longer take you seriously because the opponent attacked you for an unrelated point.

I know you aren't saying competitive players have no idea but it was an irresponsible comment made by Sakurai imo. The part after where he said the team was full was fine, but that statement to me just screams of bad argument. It is like saying political scientists have no say in politics because they haven't run for office.

expect i think it was pointed out that that whole interaction came off as a joke type thing not meant to be hurtful towards anyone, at least thats what some people who where are the round table said

 

[Cap'nChreest]

Look at the title of this thread, it is talking about Smash 4 won't be a good competitive game. That is an insult that has been uttered to brawl. "Brawl is SO uncompetitive, it sucks.". That is why people are so defensive. They say smash 4 won't be competitive, and it isn't worth their time and they are going to start shooting out insults to the game and it's players. That is exactly why people are defensive, and while I believe it needs to be toned down, the upcoming smash 4 community has the perfect right to be defensive.

"I'm having doubts" does not mean he's saying "this game won't be good competitively"

Even with those insults Brawl still has a scene.

Smash 4 will have a scene.

Melee has insults thrown at it like "tourney-tards" and "living in the past" and it still has a scene. Insults won't kill the tourney scene. Even within the fighting game community people hate Smash as a fighting game. They make fun of Melee players too. Saying they play a party game for kids competitively.

If Brawl and Melee survived through insults so can Smash 4.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

The Smash 4 tournament was a lot of fun to watch thats for sure. But a couple matches by the Bowser player Damien made me realize that Smash 4 may not be a very good competitive game because the defensive options are so incredibly strong. Shield dropping is the fastest its ever been and shield stun is the lowest we've ever seen in any Smash to date. Even the commentators were shocked at how quick shield dropping is now . Again, Sakurai has made defensive play even stronger in this iteration of Smash which has been the trend in each Smash game.

In Smash 64, the shield was a horrible option. Shield stun was so long and shield dropping took so much time that by blocking attacks you were actually vulnerable to follow ups! Clearly this didn't make for a very good balance between offense and defense.

Melee's shield (the goldilocks of them all) was just slow enough that you had a few options of punishing out of shield but (with a few exceptions) those were mostly limited to punishing an attacker who poorly spaced their attacks on you. Shielding couldn't be punished and attacking a shield wasn't punishing unless you used the wrong attack/spacing. It was the best shield timing of all the Smash games because it made defense viable but not ideal. It forced players to get better and understand their characters better in order to not get punished on block.

Brawl's shield was so fast that many moves, even when spaced perfectly, were incredibly unsafe on block. Shield grabbing and dropping in Brawl was so strong that defensive play became ideal very early in the game's life. The scales of offense vs defense tipped severely into defense and the gameplay suffered greatly. In fact, over any other single change made from Melee to Brawl, the change of the shield timing had the most impact on making Brawl a defensive game. Why attack someone when they can shield it and punish you even if you space it right? The best characters in the game were able to beat this through various options like range, speed, a solid grab game or projectiles. It limited the viable cast from the huge roster we started with to a select few.

Now we come to Smash 4. This has the absolute fastest shield drop and lowest shield stun we have ever seen. Running up and shielding is extremely effective. A Bowser player completely shut down a Shiek and a Toon Link because nearly everything they did on his shield could be punished by dropping it and using one of his (compared to the rest of the cast) slow attacks. Bowser was punishing Shiek for too much lag. Let that sink in for a second. Now throw in increased landing lag on aerials... Okay, now add on spotdodging being even better and rolls being faster than ever.

Every single defensive tactic in Smash 4 has been buffed from Brawl. The scales of offense vs defense will very easily shift to defense unless characters have ways of beating shields. With shield breaking being slightly more viable (damaging shields seems easier now with certain attacks), that could add an additional way of dealing with shields. But if a character doesn't have range, a good grab game, speed, decent projectiles, or options of breaking the shield... then they may not be very viable. Even though I think he was a lot of fun when I played him, Villager is a good example of a character like that.

Unless Sakurai makes some changes (fingers are crossed here) from the E3 build that was being played at the San Diego Comic Con... then Smash 4 may end up being another title that the community forces to be competitive but won't actually be a very good game. No matter what happens, Smash 4 will have an even better run than Brawl did competitively. Lets just hope our concerns and constructive criticism are heard by the right people so this new game can become a worthy successor to the Smash title.

Honest question.

Do we know how fast shield can go down after being hit and such? Because I get that shields still don't look as safe but still can be a tad hard to pressure. Even with Brawl's shields that wasn't the only issue, with more shield breaks and what looks like shields take more hits do you think this will be a main problems?

 

[Turokman5896]

"I'm having doubts" does not mean he's saying "this game won't be good competitively"

Even with those insults Brawl still has a scene.

Smash 4 will have a scene.

Melee has insults thrown at it like "tourney-tards" and "living in the past" and it still has a scene. Insults won't kill the tourney scene. Even within the fighting game community people hate Smash as a fighting game. They make fun of Melee players too. Saying they play a party game for kids competitively.

If Brawl and Melee survived through insults so can Smash 4.

"Unless Sakurai makes some changes (fingers are crossed here) from the E3 build that was being played at the San Diego Comic Con... then Smash 4 may end up being another title that the community forces to be competitive but won't actually be a very good game. "
It could be worded a lot better.

 

[Lozjam]

This^^ Maybe the thread should say "Is shielding too strong?" That would probably lead to a better discussion as people wouldn't feel the heat of the flame wars from the smashboards home page.

See, if the OP worded it like.
"So, seeing the Smash 4 shield has intrigued me. It has very little end lag, and I think this might be an option for more defensive play. I myself am not a fan of it, but do you think it will change. If it doesn't, how will it affect the competitive scene? "
We would have no problem.
Instead we got a person insulting Brawl, and calling Smash 4 the same thing, and calling it "unfit for competitive play"
This is general needs to stop. People should not insult a game or it's players, especially if said game is not out.

 

[Ehn Jolly]

The only problem with his statement is that he is not arguing against the fact that a competitive player may know balance better than he does himself. (Though the competitive player in question worded it fairly badly). What he is doing is poisoning the well and questioning the person's credibility rather than their actual point. It makes it a very uphill battle to try and argue against that when people no longer take you seriously because the opponent attacked you for an unrelated point.

I know you aren't saying competitive players have no idea but it was an irresponsible comment made by Sakurai imo. The part after where he said the team was full was fine, but that statement to me just screams of bad argument. It is like saying political scientists have no say in politics because they haven't run for office.

I can respect that, I simply don't have a great love for how a lot of competitive players I've seen seem to think they know everything about competitive play to the point where it would make things unfun for casuals. Most people who'd be demanding things like that aren't the best to go to, and again, there's a lot more to focus on than just the competitive side.

I think more competitive players should be involved in playtesting the game myself (since we had good players testing cards in the Naruto CCG to find out where the bugs were), but I also don't think I'd trust any competitive player more than I'd trust Sakurai, who has to work on the full scope of things.

 

[Senario]

This^^ Maybe the thread should say "Is shielding too strong?" That would probably lead to a better discussion as people wouldn't feel the heat of the flame wars from the smashboards home page.

@ Senario frankly I think the other guy was disrespectful. "If I beat you can I balance the game?" That just sounds a little rude, and sakurai responded in kind. (Both were joking though)

I addressed this I said I thought the guy/competitive player COULD HAVE worded it better. I do think they are both in the wrong though. The competitive player worded it terribly, he could have said "I have some great ideas about balance due to my involvement with the competitive scene for years. Is it possible I could suggest some changes/input for the game?"

And of course Sakurai could have left the poisoning the well comment out too "Sorry, We currently have a full team of people working on balance and adding more people would take time to bring you up to speed on balance."

 

[Turokman5896]

See, if the OP worded it like.
"So, seeing the Smash 4 shield has intrigued me. It has very little end lag, and I think this might be an option for more defensive play. I myself am not a fan of it, but do you think it will change. If it doesn't, how will it affect the competitive scene? "
We would have no problem.
Instead we got a person insulting Brawl, and calling Smash 4 the same thing, and calling it "unfit for competitive play"
This is general needs to stop. People should not insult a game or it's players, especially if said game is not out.

Exactly! Some rewording and a more mediator-esque approach would go miles for discussions!

 

[Bladeviper]

I addressed this I said I thought the guy/competitive player COULD HAVE worded it better. I do think they are both in the wrong though. The competitive player worded it terribly, he could have said "I have some great ideas about balance due to my involvement with the competitive scene for years. Is it possible I could suggest some changes for the game?"

And of course Sakurai could have left the poisoning the well comment out too "Sorry, We currently have a full team of people working on balance and adding more people would take time to bring you up to speed on balance."

i agree but asking if he could play him one v one for a job was kinda stupid too, the whole thing was stupid lol

 

[Dinoman96]

Whenever I see post like this, I'm reminded of the QNA Sakurai held where he was asked "would you want a competitive player to help you design the game" to which he responded "have you ever made a video game?"

While I'm not saying competitive players have no idea how to make a better game, I trust Sakurai and team a lot more than I trust most others to do something like this. I'm sure balance is a consideration, but so are the 100+ other things that go into making a game like this.

Man, that quote got taken way out of context lol.

 

[SoaringDive]

Wrong.

And lets not take it there.

No talking about Brawl or Melee or how they compare.

We're talking about Smash 4

(trying to avoid unnecessary flame wars/closing a thread. Melee vs. Brawl debates close threads)

I know, I was criticizing the argument going on through the thread. Sorry if it seemed like I was trying to provoke a Melee vs Brawl argument, my intent was the opposite.

 

[SuperiorYoshi87]

[quote="Book Jacket, post: 17159947, member: 253798"

Shield is looking a little beefy, and that might end up detracting from the offensive options.

I don't think it looks as good as people are saying, it breaks sooo much faster now so you have to be more careful when putting it up.[/quote]


This is true Bowsers Down B shatters shields in one go. Either that attack is WAY stronger or shields are weaker

 

[Renji64]

I'm gonna have to wait and see this game does seem like it is gonna be defensive>offensive like brawl and nothing but 1-2 hits and camping punishes.

 

[Bladeviper]

i think its a bit of both, attacks in general seemed to lower shields faster

 

[Senario]

I can respect that, I simply don't have a great love for how a lot of competitive players I've seen seem to think they know everything about competitive play to the point where it would make things unfun for casuals. Most people who'd be demanding things like that aren't the best to go to, and again, there's a lot more to focus on than just the competitive side.

I think more competitive players should be involved in playtesting the game myself (since we had good players testing cards in the Naruto CCG to find out where the bugs were), but I also don't think I'd trust any competitive player more than I'd trust Sakurai, who has to work on the full scope of things.

Game development and taking input from your most skilled players is a two way street. You as the game developer can come up with something great and much like writing you get input from your peers and skilled players on how it would work. Then you test and test and test until you can't test anymore. And sometimes good ideas come from competitive players and you also review them and test again and again.

I have a lot of respect for the League developers despite me playing less and less since I've been playing since season 1. They listen to a lot of competitive player's input and take a lot of notes on what is going on at the top levels of play to balance it from the top down. But they also come up with their own solutions to inherent problems with balance and the meta. They do a really good job even if they miss the mark occasionally, which is inevitable in a hugely popular and diverse game like league. And I respect them for trying to make the game good for competitive play and good for playing with friends as they largely succeed on both fronts.

 

[JV5Chris]

I have a hard time believing this game will be campier than Brawl with what we have seen.

I don't think so either, but I do think the general use of it will go way up. Like I mentioned earlier, from my perspective this game currently lacks options to counter or apply pressure to shields given the visibly quicker drop rate.

 

[Bladeviper]

Game development and taking input from your most skilled players is a two way street. You as the game developer can come up with something great and much like writing you get input from your peers and skilled players on how it would work. Then you test and test and test until you can't test anymore. And sometimes good ideas come from competitive players and you also review them and test again and again.

I have a lot of respect for the League developers despite me playing less and less since I've been playing since season 1. They listen to a lot of competitive player's input and take a lot of notes on what is going on at the top levels of play to balance it from the top down. But they also come up with their own solutions to inherent problems with balance and the meta. They do a really good job even if they miss the mark occasionally, which is inevitable in a hugely popular and diverse game like league. And I respect them for trying to make the game good for competitive play and good for playing with friends as they largely succeed on both fronts.

i think the only problem with that is that sometimes the community at large can be somewhat uhhh stupid is the word that comes to mind and when devs do listen they have to make sure that they are not taking the bad with the good

 

[Lozjam]

"I'm having doubts" does not mean he's saying "this game won't be good competitively"

Even with those insults Brawl still has a scene.

Smash 4 will have a scene.

Melee has insults thrown at it like "tourney-tards" and "living in the past" and it still has a scene. Insults won't kill the tourney scene. Even within the fighting game community people hate Smash as a fighting game. They make fun of Melee players too. Saying they play a party game for kids competitively.

If Brawl and Melee survived through insults so can Smash 4.

Brawls competitive scene is pretty much dead... It got so stunted by Melee players you don't even believe. If you started a Brawl stream, the chat would be flooded with people saying "why aren't you playing project M noob". Note that P:M is my favorite smash game thus far. And Melee still has a huge backing by almost the whole community. Brawl players even supported Melee being at evo last year, while Brawl was continuously getting shunned.

 

[Ehn Jolly]

Game development and taking input from your most skilled players is a two way street. You as the game developer can come up with something great and much like writing you get input from your peers and skilled players on how it would work. Then you test and test and test until you can't test anymore. And sometimes good ideas come from competitive players and you also review them and test again and again.

I have a lot of respect for the League developers despite me playing less and less since I've been playing since season 1. They listen to a lot of competitive player's input and take a lot of notes on what is going on at the top levels of play to balance it from the top down. But they also come up with their own solutions to inherent problems with balance and the meta. They do a really good job even if they miss the mark occasionally, which is inevitable in a hugely popular and diverse game like league. And I respect them for trying to make the game good for competitive play and good for playing with friends as they largely succeed on both fronts.

That's fine and dandy, but there's a lot of competitive players who also don't know what makes a game good. I've seen a lot of WOW players with that problem, thinking they know best. And a lot of times, you hear their ideas and you just sigh, wondering what you're hearing. There's some good competitive ideas, and there's some BAD ones, so it's hard to pick and choose between the two.

So while I'm fine with the SSB team getting advice and such and listening to feedback, I feel it should only ever at most be taken as suggestions, instead of bible law which is how I've seen some people handle it. Competitive players do have some solid ideas, and they should be acknowledged, but with a large grain of salt, as I'm sure you've talked with some competitive players who've had some bad ideas.

 

[Senario]

i think the only problem with that is that sometimes the community at large can be somewhat uhhh stupid is the word that comes to mind and when devs do listen they have to make sure that they are not taking the bad with the good

Well that is why they balance from the top down. They'll listen to pro players who are at challenger and such for input and occasionally lend an ear to somebody like you or me.

So for smash it would be like say...(i'm just going to use random smash pros here): Bring in M2K for input on the game and what could be better, or Ken, maybe Armada if they can. And a few others. I mainly suggest melee pros because if you want the game to have competitive viewing we know that offensive gameplay+smash works for high levels of viewership. Defensive play has been shown to make the scene die out competitively with many people dropping the game. Ideally if you want to create a new competitive game at EVO go with what works for the series. If Marvel 4 (hypothetically) played like street fighter with defensive play then people would leave the scene, sure they MIGHT be replaced by players who like street fighter but they would be alienating a fanbase for no other reason than change for the sake of change.

This is why you playtest things for a while before you permanently change things. Some changes work and some don't, it doesn't matter who comes up with them. Both competitive players and Sakurai can miss the unintended consequences of their changes and thus it needs more testing. And this is also why patches are important, if a change works well initially and then people use it in an unhealthy way you have to change it. And unhealthy doesn't mean bad for one part of the playerbase, it means that there is no interaction between what the player does and what counterplay they can add to the game. Some things being good is fine, being able to actively decide to play against them to counter it is what is desired.

 

[Bladeviper]

Well that is why they balance from the top down. They'll listen to pro players who are at challenger and such for input and occasionally lend an ear to somebody like you or me.

So for smash it would be like say...(i'm just going to use random smash pros here): Bring in M2K for input on the game and what could be better, or Ken, maybe Armada if they can. And a few others. I mainly suggest melee pros because if you want the game to have competitive viewing we know that offensive gameplay+smash works for high levels of viewership. Defensive play has been shown to make the scene die out competitively with many people dropping the game. Ideally if you want to create a new competitive game at EVO go with what works for the series. If Marvel 4 (hypothetically) played like street fighter with defensive play then people would leave the scene, sure they MIGHT be replaced by players who like street fighter but they would be alienating a fanbase for no other reason than change for the sake of change.

This is why you playtest things for a while before you permanently change things. Some changes work and some don't, it doesn't matter who comes up with them. Both competitive players and Sakurai can miss the unintended consequences of their changes and thus it needs more testing. And this is also why patches are important, if a change works well initially and then people use it in an unhealthy way you have to change it. And unhealthy doesn't mean bad for one part of the playerbase, it means that there is no interaction between what the player does and what counterplay they can add to the game. Some things being good is fine, being able to actively decide to play against them to counter it is what is desired.

id be fine with pro's helping, but at least he is getting help from a team that makes more balanced fighting games in general so its a start.

 

[ShrekItRalph]

i think the only problem with that is that sometimes the community at large can be somewhat uhhh stupid is the word that comes to mind and when devs do listen they have to make sure that they are not taking the bad with the good

Yeah, I mean there are so many people telling Sakurai what to do it must get overwhelming. There are people who want the game to play like Melee, people who prefer Brawl, people who feel like it has to be completely different from all previous games, people who want advance tactics, people who want it easy enough for anyone to pick up, people who want all stages to be battlefield or Final Destination and people who find that boring and want more hazardous stages with walk offs and people who don't care because they just want a game in which you can make Mario and Link fight each other (and those who want to fight as Shrek).

And the thing is as long as all these people are potential customers, none of these things that people want should take priority over what others want, but you are never going to please everybody.

 

[Ehn Jolly]

Yeah, I mean there are so many people telling Sakurai what to do it must get overwhelming. There are people who want the game to play like Melee, people who prefer Brawl, people who feel like it has to be completely different from all previous games, people who want advance tactics, people who want it easy enough for anyone to pick up, people who want all stages to be battlefield or Final Destination and people who find that boring and want more hazardous stages with walk offs and people who don't care because they just want a game in which you can make Mario and Link fight each other (and those who want to fight as Shrek).

And the thing is as long as all these people are potential customers, so really, none of these things that people want should take priority over what others want, but you are never going to please everybody.

This right here is my biggest issue. I've come from a lot of communities that had input allowed (Naruto CCG, Pathfinder RPG), and no one can agree on what's good. Even if you bring in pros, like leave it top tier players, there's still going to be a skewed bias for what is and isn't good to add. Being good at a game doesn't necessary make you great at designing it, since what you enjoy about it may not make it a better game. Even if you let M2K help, there's no saying that better balancing by their suggestion would make it better, which is the problem here. Balance is a subjective science, which is what makes it so hard to determine.

 

[Eternal phoenix Fire]

Heavy emphasize on defense over offense doesn't make it noncompetitive. It makes it--

Boring?

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

balancing for the casuals is not a bad thing, this is something DOTA2 hardcore fails at, but you can't let it dictate how game balance goes.

 

[pizzapie7]

Boring?

Ding ding ding, we have a winner.

Brawl is competitive. Smash 4 will also be competitive. I'd argue the major problem with Brawl competitively, why people say it's not a "good" competitive game. Is that it favors defensive options over offensive ones so much. That's not just calling it boring to watch or boring to play, because that doesn't make a game uncompetitive either. I'd argue a game begins to be uncompetitive when the better player doesn't win because of things that are out of their control. Brawl's biggest fault is that it leans so far defensively that being offensive isn't really all that viable, and on top of that the game isn't fun to watch or play (in my opinion, an opinion shared with many). Call Brawl a piece of **** all you want because it's boring, but at the end of the day it's not uncompetitive.

I take everything I saw yesterday on stream with a grain of salt. All of the players had no idea what they were really doing, and the vast majority of them were terrible. The game certainly looks more offensive than Brawl, though. So if your opinion is that Brawl was bad competitively because it practically disabled offense, this game certainly has more competitive potential for you.

@ #HBC | Red Ryu : I have to disagree. Casuals either don't notice or care about balance in the first place or have ridiculous opinions. Take Brawl Ike for example? Is Ike overpowered, or even good? Certainly not. But casuals who don't understand spacing and how telegraphed his moves are think he's ridiculously good. The same type of people who think Smash 4 Bowser is going to be a huge problem. Listening to casuals would just result in the nerfing of mediocre characters who they can't win against.

@ Lozjam Stop spreading hate. Melee did nothing wrong.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Honest question.

Do we know how fast shield can go down after being hit and such? Because I get that shields still don't look as safe but still can be a tad hard to pressure. Even with Brawl's shields that wasn't the only issue, with more shield breaks and what looks like shields take more hits do you think this will be a main problems?

This still is a question to consider.

 

[Soul.]

This is true Bowsers Down B shatters shields in one go. Either that attack is WAY stronger or shields are weaker

Bowser's Down B was stronger in knockback, I think. I'm really not sure about shields. If the move has more knockback, that could have made the shield break. This is what happened in the 3DS tournament.
While shield dropping may be the fastest it has ever been, I don't think that will make the games defensive..well, maybe, maybe not.

 

[JamietheAuraUser]

Another thing to note about Brawl's defensive play is that most attacks in Brawl literally do no damage to a shield. The only reason the shield shrinks from standard attacks is because of the natural decay from holding it out. Jab combos? 0 damage to shield. Mach Tornado? 0 damage to shield, but still ridiculous shield pressure because it forces you to hold it out. Only specific moves, like Marth's Shield Breaker, have any shield damage properties at all. If you were to go into every single character's files and add shield damage matching the attack's normal damage, that shield wouldn't hold up for anywhere near as long.

 

[Rich Homie Quan]

From what I've seen, offensive and defensive options are both strong. I think that's the true balance of this game.

Copious amounts of sheilding is punished by sheild decay. Shields seem to break fast. If you're going 1v1 against someone who can put forth a lot of constant sheild pressure, sheilding everuthing isn't going to be a good option. At some point, I think this game makes defensive playstyles switch up.

The main thing that is messing up offensive play is landing lag on aerials, which really isn't as bad as people are making it out to be. Offensive players just need to be a bit more careful.

 

[Book Jacket]

I don't think it looks as good as people are saying, it breaks sooo much faster now so you have to be more careful when putting it up.

This is true Bowsers Down B shatters shields in one go. Either that attack is WAY stronger or shields are weaker[/quote]

It breaks faster than brawl, sure, but that doesn't make it weak. You can still shield drop pretty quick, and shield stun doesn't look that big. Also, spotdodges and rolls are strong. The strength of the shield as an option isn't defined solely by its capability to take hits.

Also, Bowser's down B is a high-risk high-reward move, and due to that, is not the best example for the topic. I mean, it breaks shields, but it is easily avoidable and easily punishable, too.

 

[Lozjam]

Ding ding ding, we have a winner.

Brawl is competitive. Smash 4 will also be competitive. I'd argue the major problem with Brawl competitively, why people say it's not a "good" competitive game. Is that it favors defensive options over offensive ones so much. That's not just calling it boring to watch or boring to play, because that doesn't make a game uncompetitive either. I'd argue a game begins to be uncompetitive when the better player doesn't win because of things that are out of their control. Brawl's biggest fault is that it leans so far defensively that being offensive isn't really all that viable, and on top of that the game isn't fun to watch or play (in my opinion, an opinion shared with many). Call Brawl a piece of **** all you want because it's boring, but at the end of the day it's not uncompetitive.

I take everything I saw yesterday on stream with a grain of salt. All of the players had no idea what they were really doing, and the vast majority of them were terrible. The game certainly looks more offensive than Brawl, though. So if your opinion is that Brawl was bad competitively because it practically disabled offense, this game certainly has more competitive potential for you.

@ #HBC | Red Ryu : I have to disagree. Casuals either don't notice or care about balance in the first place or have ridiculous opinions. Take Brawl Ike for example? Is Ike overpowered, or even good? Certainly not. But casuals who don't understand spacing and how telegraphed his moves are think he's ridiculously good. The same type of people who think Smash 4 Bowser is going to be a huge problem. Listening to casuals would just result in the nerfing of mediocre characters who they can't win against.

@ Lozjam Stop spreading hate. Melee did nothing wrong.

I do not believe I have said anything against Melee, it's mechanics, or anything of the sort. I merely pointed out the actions of certain members in the community that is disrespectful, rude, and detrimental to Brawls competitive scene and how something similar can happen to Smash 4(Brawl 2.0/this isn't going to be a competitive game). But as I have pointed out as well, certain individuals of the Brawl community have done similar things, and should not do the same to Melee's community. Although it is understandable to a degree for both sides it needs to stop. Furthermore, hate towards Smash 4 definitely needs to stop.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Hah. Complaints that a new Smash Bros isn't good competitively.

What's new? THE ENTIRE SERIES IS NOT GOOD COMPETITIVELY. Doesn't stop it from being fun.

I'm going to argue that the changes to shielding in Brawl actually made the game healthier as a whole, because it means Marth can't be a scrub and F-smash your shield and expect it to be safe on block. Furthermore it means you don't have to roll or wavedash out of shield to not feel like an idiot when shielding like in Melee. As I've always said, Melee taught bad players to roll because shield drop time is irrationally unreasonable and just makes the skill floor of the game stupid.

But in all seriousness, Smash generally is prone to major balance problems because there isn't grab teching, meaning whoever wins stage control in this game wins it really hard. Only 64 is balanced because everyone dies in like 3 attacks both in casual and competitive settings in that game and because hitboxes to a larger extent are homogenized.

New Smash Bros being more defensive? Let's be real. The game NEEDS better defensive options because they SUCK in this series. You can't grab tech, which means stage control by top tiers is inherently broken when your options to counter grabs safely are highly limited. Furthermore whoever invented the teching system in this series was stupid. It's basically an extended combo system that hinges on the general masses being bad at exploiting it. Actually just ledgestalling is extremely dumb, but thankfully we've heard that it is getting nerfed.

Really though, why are you so worried about this game being bad competitively? Melee is highly questionable competitively outside of the tech skill required to play it. Melee gets super autopilot unless your reaction time is Mango's. Fox and Falco especially don't need to actually make any decisions once they touch your shield. Hell, most of the cast generally speaking just fishes for the spacing to SHFFL spam, and then the top tiers just grab you later because you won't grab tech while on the defensive. You also know that your physics are REALLY SILLY when the light and floaty Jigglypuff is one of the harder characters in the game to KO. Combo DI though is a good thing, I'll give the game that. But holy hell, stage control in this game is horrendous. Especially bad if you can't wavedash out of shield, because it means Marth autorapes you.

To be more optimistic, most of the specific character changes I'm hearing actually give me the impression that Namco DOES know how to balance fighting games. Tethers finally don't suck. Marth finally got nerfed. Airdodging has landing lag. Throw combos are much more limited. Those are all really positive signs.

 

[Senario]

Hah. Complaints that a new Smash Bros isn't good competitively.

What's new? THE ENTIRE SERIES IS NOT GOOD COMPETITIVELY. Doesn't stop it from being fun.

I'm going to argue that the changes to shielding in Brawl actually made the game healthier as a whole, because it means Marth can't be a scrub and F-smash your shield and expect it to be safe on block. Furthermore it means you don't have to roll or wavedash out of shield to not feel like an idiot when shielding like in Melee. As I've always said, Melee taught bad players to roll because shield drop time is irrationally unreasonable and just makes the skill floor of the game stupid.

But in all seriousness, Smash generally is prone to major balance problems because there isn't grab teching, meaning whoever wins stage control in this game wins it really hard. Only 64 is balanced because everyone dies in like 3 attacks both in casual and competitive settings in that game and because hitboxes to a larger extent are homogenized.

New Smash Bros being more defensive? Let's be real. The game NEEDS better defensive options because they SUCK in this series. You can't grab tech, which means stage control by top tiers is inherently broken when your options to counter grabs safely are highly limited. Furthermore whoever invented the teching system in this series was stupid. It's basically an extended combo system that hinges on the general masses being bad at exploiting it. Actually just ledgestalling is extremely dumb, but thankfully we've heard that it is getting nerfed.

Really though, why are you so worried about this game being bad competitively? Melee is highly questionable competitively outside of the tech skill required to play it. Melee gets super autopilot unless your reaction time is Mango's. Fox and Falco especially don't need to actually make any decisions once they touch your shield. Hell, most of the cast generally speaking just fishes for the spacing to SHFFL spam, and then the top tiers just grab you later because you won't grab tech while on the defensive. You also know that your physics are REALLY SILLY when the light and floaty Jigglypuff is one of the harder characters in the game to KO. Combo DI though is a good thing, I'll give the game that. But holy hell, stage control in this game is horrendous. Especially bad if you can't wavedash out of shield, because it means Marth autorapes you.

To be more optimistic, most of the specific character changes I'm hearing actually give me the impression that Namco DOES know how to balance fighting games. Tethers finally don't suck. Marth finally got nerfed. Airdodging has landing lag. Throw combos are much more limited. Those are all really positive signs.

I can't help but feel this post doesn't understand why smash is competitive or the deep mechanics of how smash works....or is trying to relate it to other fighting games a bit too much. Marth was never stupid good, he was simple to learn hard to master. You cannot balance this game exactly like a standard fighting game because it IS NOT a standard fighting game. It still is competitive though.

Grab teching being nonexistant isn't a big problem in this game as grabs have almost never lead to extremely long combo followups. Not like marvel.

 

[Veggi]

I do not believe I have said anything against Melee, it's mechanics, or anything of the sort. I merely pointed out the actions of certain members in the community that is disrespectful, rude, and detrimental to Brawls competitive scene and how something similar can happen to Smash 4(Brawl 2.0/this isn't going to be a competitive game). But as I have pointed out as well, certain individuals of the Brawl community have done similar things, and should not do the same to Melee's community. Although it is understandable to a degree for both sides it needs to stop. Furthermore, hate towards Smash 4 definitely needs to stop.

I totally agree with what you're saying. Brawl was a great competitive game for a very long time and then it dropped dramatically once bashing on it for totally subjective reasons became the cool thing for Melee players to do. I think it's warranted for Brawl players that have to deal with constant trash talk about their game to want to fight back. I'm glad that there are threads like these that directly attack Brawl's value system so I can watch Brawl players tear people apart.

 

[Ragna22]

Heavy emphasize on defense over offense doesn't make it noncompetitive. It makes it different.

This. If Smash 4 isn't considered competetive just because of more defensive options then why is Street Fighter 4 still considered competetive ya know?

 

[Senario]

I totally agree with what you're saying. Brawl was a great competitive game for a very long time and then it dropped dramatically once bashing on it for totally subjective reasons became the cool thing for Melee players to do. I think it's warranted for Brawl players that have to deal with constant trash talk about their game to want to fight back. I'm glad that there are threads like these that directly attack Brawl's value system so I can watch Brawl players tear people apart.

Lets be honest, brawl dropped off in popularity because the fanbase got bored with it. They didn't like the imbalance nor did they like the extreme defensive play. Blaming it on your so called "melee players" is nothing but a strawman argument. It succeeded for a while then died out on it's own merits, not because of what melee players said. (psst, no Johns.)