I read a bunch of this, and I just want to clarify that I played Brawl competitively for 2 years. My preference for Melee does not equate to inexperience with Brawl. I simply did not prefer it.
Now, I don't claim to be omnipotent, nor am I perfect in my predictions. However, I form these brash opinions based on facts about the game's mechanics, guided by my understanding about how competitive smash works. If I know as much as anyone else about the game's mechanics, fine. But I am able to formulate a prediction based on these mechanics in a way that less experienced players cannot.
In Brawl, some of my predictions were as follows:
I quit Samus in Brawl within 1 month of the game's release because I felt she had no potential. People assured me that I did not yet understand the potential mechanics of the game, and that my experience with her in Melee didn't mean anything in Brawl. I believe she ended up being in the bottom 5 of the whole cast.
I mentioned that ROB was a pretty bad character and that he would continue to drop on the tier list. People pointed to examples of ROBs succeeding, adding that it was me, not the character. The results for ROB began to vanish, and ROB gradually dropped on the list.
I finally quit Brawl altogether because I felt the game was too shallow, that it lacked consistency in results due to various mechanics promoting guessing over actual control over outcomes. I felt it would not continue to succeed due to the degenerative nature of the game. That is, I felt that limitations on options would lead to clear, one dimensional optimization, which would degenerate the gameplay. In retrospect, I think this was a huge contributor to the decline in the game's attendance numbers, and its overall success.
Now, I said I form my opinions based on the mechanics of the game, guided by my knowledge on competitive smash.
Fact: aerials lag.
Prediction: As competitive players optimize their style, shield grabs will be the norm counter as they will be extremely easy to perform. I see the game degenerating to ground approaches, and aerials being used for follow ups instead. I also see character selections degenerating to those who have aerial options, as landing lag is not consistent across the board, and some characters will have heavy advantages.
Proposed solutions: L canceling or lagless aerials. This is a solution not because it's more like Melee, but because it actually solves the problem in my prediction.
Fact: ground mobility is far more limited than it is in Melee.
Prediction: If it's hard enough for a character in Melee to approach by ground, I imagine a grounded approach in Smash 4 will be far more predictable. As such, an optimized player will begin to take a defensive approach on the ground, rather than to risk losing the neutral game by approaching themselves with limited mixup options. However, as long as there are mixup options, the ground game won't be too bad. It will just be slow and limited, (the brawl problem). I can see specific character traits salvaging this part of the gameplay, but I don't think a character should solve a gameplay problem, as this leads to heavy character centralization (again, another Brawl problem).
Proposed solution: Dash dancing, wavedashing, or other forms of movement options. I love the fact that pivot tilts remain in the game, however, an option to reposition without attacking would also be great. I don't need Melee specific movement options, I just need more options.
So anyway, I don't say that the game has problems because it's not like Melee. That's way off, and it's an easy way to discredit my opinion based on my game preference.
I simply did not enjoy competitive Brawl because it had problems, the same problems I am seeing in Smash 4. If you think the term "problem" is too subjective here, let me know how Brawl is doing right now.
