Alabama Thread! (10/26/2016 update)

[Will_]

It's like that everywhere, pretty much. I don't know about other regions, but the southeast certainly retains a lot of love for Melee (and hostility to all who oppose it).

So it seems. You think it'll change, eventually?

Oh again again, and everyone. I'm going to be bringing a friend to the VGB tournament on the 19th. We're friends. She plays smash. Don't scare her off.

I'll be too busy getting owned at FAST1 to try and impress girls. XD

 

[ihavespaceblondes]

Oh again again, and everyone. I'm going to be bringing a friend to the VGB tournament on the 19th. We're friends. She plays smash. Don't scare her off.

Is she going to dress up as Paula???

 

[j00t]

Or Porky!?

roflpwned.

 

[MookieRah]

I thought I saw some Bham tournament that was supposed to happen this weekend. I can't seem to find it now, was it a mirage, am I going crazy?

Also, to be a part of the discussion:
Brawl is not nearly as technical as melee, and comes with a lot better defensive options. Things are harder to punish severely, but punishing mistakes isn't all that hard. The matches are longer and more drawn out, and usually the most consistent player per match wins, as gimps and early KOs aren't a very likely occurance.

 

[theONEjanitor]

Melee requires the samething, so i disagree with you just said. Maybe it has some truth to the people you play, but not me.

i think melee requires mostly muscle memory, and game knowledge
(as well as the spacing and patience that all competitive games have)
People who are good at melee definitelly deserve more credit at this point because they put it long hard hours of technical practice, just like most sports.
brawl hasn't evolved like that yet, but I believe that in the future we will see some true brawl geniuses who have just figured the whole game out, it won't be tech skill, it will just be pure theory and ideas put to work.
to me, melee is like a sport like basketball or golf, it requires a lot of actual technical practice and drills and muscle memory.
brawl is more like chess and poker, where you learn mostly by thinking about what to do, there's no physical ability needed.

@ shai, i'm beginning to see how inferior halo 3 is to halo 2, but I still find it fun

@ will
the love for melee isn't goin anywhere, really you shouldn't expect it to, melee is a completely different game and its awesome. its not like going from SF2, to SF2:Turbo which is basically the same game with updates, its a whole different game, its gonna turn off different people and its going to entice some people. eventually people are going to stop screaming BAWRL SUX every few seconds, just because it'll get old, but that doesn't mean they're gonna start liking it
and unless someone figures out how to increase hitstun in brawl, i'm pretty sure the melee heads aren't going to ever see it in the same light. All I can say is just have fun. There are enough people who like the game around for you to play competitively. People **** on melee when it came out too. Some people still prefer the original. You just play and have fun with a game you like.

@mookie rah
i dont think there is a bham tourney this weekend, there is one the weekend after that, and the one after that though.

 

[saintrage]

Well moogle, i think will all the tournaments around, that i was kinda thinking of waiting a bit before hosting one.

Majist, that makes me , but to know that you are playing Starcraft, as that is also what i am going to be playing soon as well. Along with AoEIII since I've already got the game. The blizzard downloader is ****ing with me though zzzz

As far as Halo 3...well this is amazing.

prt.1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5336SV9nqIk
prt.2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVB186ygOW0

Also free anyday this week, so lets smash sometime soon.

 

[SleepyK]

I don't hate brawl at all.

I dislike subspace emissary, at the very most.

But brawl is a terrible competitive game. The "to each his own" mentality doesn't excuse the game from not being a good competitive fighter.
The game does not reward thinking or patience. It tends to reward camping and playing fairly mindlessly. Chess doesn't have automatic set ups that work on your opponent in any situation regardless of the scenario.

There was a ROB player at Impact Clash last week who beat Mike G (who got first at final round, beating justin wong)

All he did was ledge camp, spot dodge downsmash, and optic blast/top.

literally, that is all he did the entire time. I suppose he was very consistant.

The biggest problem I have with the game is that it isn't entertaining for competitive play. Though melee was designed not to be a competitive game, a happy accident made it out to be a fairly good one. Brawl was specifically designed to remove all the things that made melee competitive.

Brawl has a severe lack of punishment for anything. If you mess up your recovery, oh... your recovery move grabs the ledge before your recovery move finishes, greatly diminishing one of smash's unique aspects - edgeguarding. Powershielding is commonplace and really reduces the pace of the game altogether. Combos are either absolutely guaranteed, or nonexistant. Hitstun ends before the move that induced hitstun finishes. I guess I'm just complaining in general here.

Halo 3... It's very odd - Halo 3 basically removed all of the things that made Halo 2 a broken game... which removed a lot of the fun from it, somehow. I guess you can draw parallels to both series in some sense.

Anyway, I'm rambling nonsensically.

 

[MookieRah]

The game does not reward thinking or patience.

Ummm... have you played Brawl against people who are smart enough to think? Honestly, it's not that bad, it's just that you can't punish people's missed techs/rolls with smashes and stuff now, but I will punish those all day long with ROB's ftilt, tacking on a good chunk of percent and damage their morale by predicting their ****.

greatly diminishing one of smash's unique aspects - edgeguarding.

I'm sad to see it go as well, although the wake up game from the ledge/pursuing off the ledge is now the things you do to gimp people.

Combos are either absolutely guaranteed, or nonexistant.

It's not that bad, play Fox or Lucario. Either that or do what I have done, take advantage of their defensive options. Bait people into air dodges and blast them. Not a true combo, but you can string together a lot of hits by just playing smart.

 

[Majist]

jesus, we are not doing this again, are we?

i have a solution: EVERYONE PLAY STARCRAFT

 

[DracoFox]

jesus, we are not doing this again, are we?

i have a solution: EVERYONE PLAY STARCRAFT

>->; I like this suggestion.

Seriously, its just a game. Sadly it didn't man up to Melee, but the game was made the way the creator wanted it to be played.

Sadly, I hate to do this, but this is just in case I get bored or that I am desperate. Here is my Brawl code. ⌐-⌐ 4725-7612-0650.

 

[Shai Hulud]

Basically what happened in Halo was this. Halo CE was awesome, but Bungie didn't mean to make it awesome. They didn't realize people would actually learn how to aim and **** with pistols. They didn't think people would actually be able to aim grenades from across huge maps and land them.

So in Halo 2 they slowed down movement speed, decreased the field of view from 90 to 70 degrees, increased auto-aim and magnetism, made the grenades blow up almost instantly, and added a number of "spray-and-pray" weapons like the SMG. At first Halo 2 was total garbage but after they patched the game to decrease the burst spread on the battle rifle, increased grenade damage, and increased melee damage, the game became playable. When people learned all the weapon glitches like instant reload, BXR, BXB, double-shot, etc., the game became playable and competitive.

Then along comes Halo 3, where they kept all the bad things from Halo 3 (increased auto-aim, magnetism, etc.) and removed all the happy accidents (weapon-glitches). They also decided to make terrible, terrible maps where you can wander around for minutes without seeing anyone because they're so stupidly ****ing large. And they spawn you with a spray-and-pray weapon, the assault rifle, which takes no skill whatsoever to use, because according to Bungie, the spawn-weapon should not be able to perform headshots. Of course in Halo 2 you could change to a viable spawn weapon (the battle rifle) but the battle rifle in Halo 3 is so inconsistant that MLG has had to tune the weapon damage. Last I checked they changed it to 11-bullet kills instead of 12 (each burst shoots three) because you're almost always going to get screwed over by at least one bullet flying out of the targeting reticule because as Bungie says, it's more realistic. Because realism in a game involving 8 foot tall genetically engineered soldiers in 2-ton powered suits who can jump 12 feet and flip a scorpion tank is obviously a consideration. Plus in Halo 3 Bungie added a lot of noob bull**** like man-cannons, missile pods, and portable turrets. Ugh.

Halo CE >> Halo 2 >> Halo 3.

And yeah, the series is actually a lot like Melee. Melee was good more or less by accident, like Halo CE. Halo 2 was an attempt to make Halo suck, and it was somewhat successful. Halo 3 finished if off.

I think Brawl has done a good enough job ruining the Smash franchise that we won't see anything worse, however.

Oh, and the comparison of Brawl to chess is completely ****ing ridiculous. No video game ever has or ever will even come close to the level of strategy involved in chess, especially a fighting game, especially a fighting game designed for six-year-old ******* who've never played a video game in their lives.

 

[ragnarock]

I think brawl is a good fun game, but thats all it is. And its so easy to camp on that game it makes me feel bad. I won a biweeklie by beating a really d@mn good G@W with my wolf. And honestly the G@W was better that my wolf, but because of the easy to camp element in that game i won the match and the biweeklie. Out of all the matches i've seen by pros, that i know that'll beat me. But no one hasn't didn't anything so fantastic to the point that made me say "O hell yeah he really thought that through before attcking." The game so slow you can tell when someone probably think of what to do next. Melee does have more muscle, but it's plenty of times that I won matches by thinking and ploting what to do next. Any decent melee player had too because melee put you in so many situation that you had to think of something. If you couldn't think while you are under pressure you won't beat a good player in melee. Because if they had the right character you were going to be under pressure. If you played melee and your were good and you never and to think while playing that game you f*cking lieing. No pro player can say that. But brawl is a good game just not competitively i think. Its fun, but thats it. Thats why its so easy, its noob friendly.

 

[SleepyK]

Ummm... have you played Brawl against people who are smart enough to think? Honestly, it's not that bad, it's just that you can't punish people's missed techs/rolls with smashes and stuff now, but I will punish those all day long with ROB's ftilt, tacking on a good chunk of percent and damage their morale by predicting their ****.

Yeah, I was exaggerating a bit in my disgust, but even still, it is pretty bad. I've played barlw with people who think, and even then, camping tends to be more advantageous than trying to play smart. ROB player vs Mike G. Desu wins with metaknight by bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb

It's not that bad, play Fox or Lucario. Either that or do what I have done, take advantage of their defensive options. Bait people into air dodges and blast them. Not a true combo, but you can string together a lot of hits by just playing smart.

Lucario's game revolves a lot around camping... fox can't really combo. You can powershield his dair, etc.


Also, Shai, I also meant the inclusion of SSB64 <_<

 

[theONEjanitor]

sleepy k are you talking about that tournament that occured like one week after brawl came out? you realize the error in that?

to say that brawl doesn't reward thinking is absolutely incorrect. in fact, that's the only thing it rewards.

Also, camping =/= not thinking.
Every competitive sport/game/etc. involves massive camping. Even in melee, people are starting to realize that camping works better.

about MK, i suspected early on that MK broke Brawl, and I'm still debating that. but that's just one character.

if you think i was trying to say brawl or any game is a deep as chess, you need to re read my comments.

@ halo 3. honestly if you couldn't take an assault rifle and hold down R for 1.5 seconds and then melee for the kill, I'd find the game much more fun.

anyway let's just have fun. that's what its about in the end, isn't it? I find it quite interesting that most of us have gotten so deep into competitive gaming than we can't even have fun with games we think are non-competitive.

 

[SleepyK]

sleepy k are you talking about that tournament that occured like one week after brawl came out? you realize the error in that?

to say that brawl doesn't reward thinking is absolutely incorrect. in fact, that's the only thing it rewards.

Also, camping =/= not thinking.
Every competitive sport/game/etc. involves massive camping. Even in melee, people are starting to realize that camping works better.

about MK, i suspected early on that MK broke Brawl, and I'm still debating that. but that's just one character.

if you think i was trying to say brawl or any game is a deep as chess, you need to re read my comments.

@ halo 3. honestly if you couldn't take an assault rifle and hold down R for 1.5 seconds and then melee for the kill, I'd find the game much more fun.

anyway let's just have fun. that's what its about in the end, isn't it? I find it quite interesting that most of us have gotten so deep into competitive gaming than we can't even have fun with games we think are non-competitive.

I dunno, that rob player just shot lasers or a top, then spotdodge downsmashed.
Final round was like a week after brawl came out, but Impact Clash was one or two weeks ago. I love fun games. Brawl is a very fun game if you don't play it competitively, which i stated earlier. Halo 3 is... just kinda dull, since it seems like a dumbed down halo 2.

 

[j00t]

sleepy k are you talking about that tournament that occured like one week after brawl came out? you realize the error in that?

to say that brawl doesn't reward thinking is absolutely incorrect. in fact, that's the only thing it rewards.

Also, camping =/= not thinking.
Every competitive sport/game/etc. involves massive camping. Even in melee, people are starting to realize that camping works better.

about MK, i suspected early on that MK broke Brawl, and I'm still debating that. but that's just one character.

if you think i was trying to say brawl or any game is a deep as chess, you need to re read my comments.

@ halo 3. honestly if you couldn't take an assault rifle and hold down R for 1.5 seconds and then melee for the kill, I'd find the game much more fun.

anyway let's just have fun. that's what its about in the end, isn't it? I find it quite interesting that most of us have gotten so deep into competitive gaming than we can't even have fun with games we think are non-competitive.

I might be wrong, but isn't the whole point of Smashboards is to bring together the COMPETITIVE Smash community? We talk about Smash competitively here because that is what Smashboards is for. I can have fun with Brawl, seriously I can. But when I go over to Andy's/Coach's place and play Smash, I go over to practice for my competitive game, Melee. I choose to play competitively - it's "fun" for me. xD

 

[MookieRah]

I dunno, that rob player just shot lasers or a top, then spotdodge downsmashed.

And when Drephen plays Marth he just uses fair and tips with F smashes. Come on now, I could say that about a lot of Melee stuff. I mean, CF just stomps, uairs, and knees right?

You are looking at a Brawl match through an incredibly biased lens. Also your point of view was EXACTLY the same as mine a month ago. Have you even played good Brawl players yet? Honestly, if you haven't, then you don't understand that there is a lot of thinking and stuff going on. I was REALLY disappointed with Brawl early on cause I went balls to walls being all melee mindgamey and it didn't work on people. Guess what though? Now that my opponents have progressed to the stage where they are actually THINKING instead of going on pure instinct I can actually trick people now. Hell, I pull of **** like jab to grabs, jab to smashes, and pivot grabs just cause they don't mindlessly press buttons now.

You also have to get used to the fact that you can't punish as extremely (in most cases at least) in Brawl than in Melee. Like I said earlier, it's ******** hard to land smashes to punish rolls, but I can easily place a ROB ftilt there. It's not as rough, but as much as it isn't extreme it protects me as well, and you can be **** certain that I abuse the defensive options in my favor when the time comes. People of the early Brawl mindset don't seem to understand that the defensive options go both ways, and all it really ends up doing is making the match last longer per stock and it benefits the player that is the most consistent at exploiting his opponents weaknesses.

All in all, the lack of l-canceling really just hurts characters that have laggy aerials. Luckily for us there are tons of characters that have little to no lag. Also, while the defensive options are ********, it isn't so good that offense is completely destroyed. A lot of people like to say that Brawl is a camp fest, but honestly there isn't much camping going on anymore. A lot of what people are complaining about isn't so much camping as it is zoning, and honestly it isn't terrible. I didn't like it at first, but hey, it grew on me.

I don't want anyone here to think that I believe Brawl is better than Melee, I don't, but the thing is it isn't nearly as bad as what a lot of the Brawl haters are making it out to be.

 

[SleepyK]

And when Drephen plays Marth he just uses fair and tips with F smashes. Come on now, I could say that about a lot of Melee stuff. I mean, CF just stomps, uairs, and knees right?

You are looking at a Brawl match through an incredibly biased lens. Also your point of view was EXACTLY the same as mine a month ago. Have you even played good Brawl players yet? Honestly, if you haven't, then you don't understand that there is a lot of thinking and stuff going on. I was REALLY disappointed with Brawl early on cause I went balls to walls being all melee mindgamey and it didn't work on people. Guess what though? Now that my opponents have progressed to the stage where they are actually THINKING instead of going on pure instinct I can actually trick people now. Hell, I pull of **** like jab to grabs, jab to smashes, and pivot grabs just cause they don't mindlessly press buttons now.

You also have to get used to the fact that you can't punish as extremely (in most cases at least) in Brawl than in Melee. Like I said earlier, it's ******** hard to land smashes to punish rolls, but I can easily place a ROB ftilt there. It's not as rough, but as much as it isn't extreme it protects me as well, and you can be **** certain that I abuse the defensive options in my favor when the time comes. People of the early Brawl mindset don't seem to understand that the defensive options go both ways, and all it really ends up doing is making the match last longer per stock and it benefits the player that is the most consistent at exploiting his opponents weaknesses.

All in all, the lack of l-canceling really just hurts characters that have laggy aerials. Luckily for us there are tons of characters that have little to no lag. Also, while the defensive options are ********, it isn't so good that offense is completely destroyed. A lot of people like to say that Brawl is a camp fest, but honestly there isn't much camping going on anymore. A lot of what people are complaining about isn't so much camping as it is zoning, and honestly it isn't terrible. I didn't like it at first, but hey, it grew on me.

I don't want anyone here to think that I believe Brawl is better than Melee, I don't, but the thing is it isn't nearly as bad as what a lot of the Brawl haters are making it out to be.

People in melee who mindlessly pressed buttons tended not to win in melee <_<

And that comparison is oversimplifying things. The rob player literally just did those things, without regard to where mike g was. well, except for spotdodge downsmash. I'm not complaining about his move choice, it's that he won because he camped.... and then spot dodge downsmashed.

Honestly, though, I can't have fun with the competitive aspect of the game, no matter how hard I try. I know it's a different game and it has to be played differently, but even if I am able to look past how dumb Metaknight and Snake are, it still gets very boring after 30 minutes to an hour, regardless of what we're doing. I mean, I've played other competitive games, and I've never gotten bored with a game faster than I have brawl. I tried very hard for a few months to enjoy competitive brawl, but I never could shake that feeling of incredible boredom. After that, things just kind of compound on each other and I tend to overemphasize brawl's flaws. Still, the flaws do make for a pretty poor competitive game.

 

[MookieRah]

People in melee who mindlessly pressed buttons tended not to win in melee <_<

People in Brawl who mindlessly press buttons don't win either. You just have to re-learn how to crush scrubs is all. Nobody knew the game mechanics very well early on and it threw the good players for a loop. It's incredibly easy for me to 3 stock a scrub with CF now by just playing smart and DIing.

Honestly, though, I can't have fun with the competitive aspect of the game, no matter how hard I try. I know it's a different game and it has to be played differently, but even if I am able to look past how dumb Metaknight and Snake are, it still gets very boring after 30 minutes to an hour, regardless of what we're doing.

Johns. Meta and Snake aren't that freaking ridiculous. Play characters that do well against them. ROB can take Snake, and to a certain extent Meta. You do know that Azen ***** with Lucario, M2K destroys dudes with D3, Futile munches on peeps with Wario, and etc right? There are a lot of good characters that do well, and it's not that different than it is with Melee. OH NOES! Fox is too good cause of shine! I was around when people made a huge deal out of that, and then complained about how it was too good and scrubs (and sadly a handful of good people) fed into it. They felt the offensive capabilities of the shine were too much and yadda yadda. People learned how to deal with it and the meta game moved on.

 

[SleepyK]

People in Brawl who mindlessly press buttons don't win either. You just have to re-learn how to crush scrubs is all. Nobody knew the game mechanics very well early on and it threw the good players for a loop. It's incredibly easy for me to 3 stock a scrub with CF now by just playing smart and DIing.

I dunno, there was this fairly smart ganondorf player at Impact Clash, and yay just grabbed him with falco at 0% and ganon died.

Johns. Meta and Snake aren't that freaking ridiculous. Play characters that do well against them. ROB can take Snake, and to a certain extent Meta. You do know that Azen ***** with Lucario, M2K destroys dudes with D3, Futile munches on peeps with Wario, and etc right? There are a lot of good characters that do well, and it's not that different than it is with Melee. OH NOES! Fox is too good cause of shine! I was around when people made a huge deal out of that, and then complained about how it was too good and scrubs (and sadly a handful of good people) fed into it. They felt the offensive capabilities of the shine were too much and yadda yadda. People learned how to deal with it and the meta game moved on.

You're taking me out of context. I'm not complaining about Metaknight or Snake, but metaknight (sometimes snake..) tends to make matches fairly boring. Reflex ***** people with Wario, Desu is our best in state and he plays DeDeDe, marty beats Yay with dedede, omegablack mage beats people with game and watch, Dazwa uses marth and zamus.. Heck, GAWes uses Luigi and Jigglypuff, and does fairly well in England.

By the way, Mookie, are you still a MookieRahtorator? I can't seem to find the staff link.

And you need to visit GA again sometime. We miss ya.

 

[Kalm]

Yeah, cept Fox's awesome shine actually required skill to do.

The best way to learn how to use MK is to bind all your buttons to the special command.

What was my point again? Crap I had one I know it...
.... I'm too tired to continue being pro-Brawl at the moment. I'll do it later.



mmmm Chicken.

 

[MookieRah]

By the way, Mookie, are you still a MookieRahtorator? I can't seem to find the staff link.

Yeah, I still am.

I'm not complaining about Metaknight or Snake, but metaknight tends to make matches fairly boring.

Hmm, I guess I can see what you are saying then. I would assume it's a mixture of the fight being hardcore spacing and the fact there are tons and tons of Meta players. It's just how it goes though, people will use him like mad since he is easy to pick up (well honestly, there isn't any character that is really all that hard to pick up in Brawl).

It's like Sheik in melee. Soooooooo many Sheik's in the earlier Melee metagame that it was just silly. It's just that in Brawl there just so happens to be 2 Sheiks instead of just on.

And you need to visit GA again sometime. We miss ya.

I'll be there whenever you guys have a tournament more than likely. Perhaps not until August though, cause I have work. It's really funny to me how I have more free time during the college semesters than I do in the summer. I'm going to start up bi-weeklies in Starky and create a network of people to set up carpools for tournaments. It'll be pretty sweet imo.

 

[SleepyK]

Well, by august, wes will be back.

 

[nicaboy]

lol no nice1 but i beat yo *** in a couple of lame sheik dittos lol

anyway i all ways liked the arguement about melee and brawl and here is my 2 cent suckas lmao
the reason why i believe brawl is horrbile in comparison to melee is as follows
melee rewards effort and time. honestly u REALLY have to pracetice in this game (TECH SKILL COMBOS ETC) and not only that once your not stuck playin a level 9 computer at home and make it out of pools of a tourney then ur stuck playin a human and now mind games are involved. brawl lacks advance techs and skill or what have you. day 1 i played brawl i picked the game up in 5 mins back in febuary. so 4 months later not much has changed and i feel i only slghtly improved. brawl is slow very pridictable and when it comes to camping this really can affect weather you win or not. you can camp in melee but that alone cant win you the match

so brawl<melee brawl a party game melee is a man game real story

 

[nicaboy]

wait wes will be back in ga were all screwed everyone goes down a level

 

[SleepyK]

wait wes will be back in ga were all screwed everyone goes down a level

Wes has been playing brawl onry, so his melee skills have diminished.

I hear he's been picking up melee again, though.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

I have a certain liking to Brawl because it allows me to focus more on my prediction skills.

I tried to do that in Melee, but it didn't get me far enough. In my prime, I was always just shy of tournament winnings. I pride myself in my uncanny ability to predict and counter accordingly, but it never seemed to overcome the extreme technical skill that the best players always exhibited. As a result, I came to the conclusion that technical skill would benefit a player more than prediction skills, and I don't think that it is the making of a game that I should pay travel and pay lots of money to play with others.

Maybe it was just my character...maybe it was that my technical skill was too terrible to merit running prediction off of...or maybe my prediction ability isn't as good as I thought it was. Either way, I know my place in Melee.

I feel biased against it in a way, because I've always felt like an intelligent person's mind should usually be able to overcome brute muscle memory, but watching Melee matches, I never really feel like that is the case.

That is why I prefer Brawl to Melee; since there isn't a nigh-infinite learning curve for technical skill, prediction ability would be the most important and most beneficial thing to build up. That experience pays off more in Brawl.

I promise it's not because I'm actually good at Brawl. <3

 

[theONEjanitor]

maybe if Reflex says it, people will actually listen this time.


anyway I dont think i should be arguing about Brawl with people who don't play it anyway.

I have a really serious question though:

who likes candy corn?

Like I feel like I'm the only person that likes it

 

[SleepyK]

i like candy corn.

And reflex, look at gimpy fish.

you just gotta keep playing, son.

 

[j00t]

I have a certain liking to Brawl because it allows me to focus more on my prediction skills.

I tried to do that in Melee, but it didn't get me far enough. In my prime, I was always just shy of tournament winnings. I pride myself in my uncanny ability to predict and counter accordingly, but it never seemed to overcome the extreme technical skill that the best players always exhibited. As a result, I came to the conclusion that technical skill would benefit a player more than prediction skills, and I don't think that it is the making of a game that I should pay travel and pay lots of money to play with others.

Maybe it was just my character...maybe it was that my technical skill was too terrible to merit running prediction off of...or maybe my prediction ability isn't as good as I thought it was. Either way, I know my place in Melee.

I feel biased against it in a way, because I've always felt like an intelligent person's mind should usually be able to overcome brute muscle memory, but watching Melee matches, I never really feel like that is the case.

That is why I prefer Brawl to Melee; since there isn't a nigh-infinite learning curve for technical skill, prediction ability would be the most important and most beneficial thing to build up. That experience pays off more in Brawl.

I promise it's not because I'm actually good at Brawl. <3

I have yet to play your Wario, son. We must fight sometime.

 

[Shai Hulud]

Anyone who wants to play a thinking game should stop playing fighting games. Who cares if there's slightly more strategy involved in Brawl than Melee (a point that is in no way clear to begin with)? Strategies in both games are incredibly shallow, even by top players. Every good Marth player plays almost the exact same way. Every good Falco player plays almost the exact same way. What separates the best players from merely adequate players is not that the adequate players aren't clever enough, but that the best players have faster reflexes and can execute the proper move sequence when the situation calls for it.

Video games have never been about which player is more intelligent. There is generally no abstract reasoning required, whatsoever. What IS required is a lot of spatial computation and manual dexterity (at least with games like Smash or twitch FPS).

If you want a game that involves strategy play chess. Seriously. I'm quitting video games with the exception of Melee because they never last more than a few years and the scene gets younger and younger (compared to me getting older and older, at least), whereas I can still play chess when I'm eighty.

 

[3GOD]

Seriously. I'm quitting video games with the exception of Melee because they never last more than a few years and the scene gets younger and younger (compared to me getting older and older, at least), whereas I can still play chess when I'm eighty.

I plan to still play smash at the ripe old age of eighty, which is just around the corner mind you.

Referring back to some other posts...

Melee requires VERY little "technical skill." Basically, you need to know how to L-cancel and Wavedash unless you're playing Fox, Falco, or Samus maybe. Even an old codger like me can double shine with Falco relatively easily (do the claw so your hand looks all curled up like mine does all the time). Honestly though, I feel like I can go toe-to-toe with most smashers (until you reach Mew2King level) using characters like Ganondorf and Jigglypuff which require very little technical skill/muscle memory.

What Shai said about spacial computation (computing how much space there is between things) is basically Smash (Melee and Brawl) in a nutshell. Brawl is slower and gives both players much more time to figure out how much space there is and how they should move accordingly. This basically reduces the amount of "mental pressure" drastically since one no longer has to make a movement decision without having a fair amount of time to think it over. Not only that, but if you do happen to make a mistake, the amount of punishment received is small (such as the Ftilt of ROB that MookieRah mentioned). I personally find the amount of punishment in Melee to be just about perfect or maybe slightly too much.

I enjoy Melee tons, but I love Brawl also since it has Wario. I enjoy the "new" of Brawl and the large roster, but Melee honestly has a more fun competitive environment simply because it's faster and has more movement options. I personally will play both Brawl and Melee in the future, and I hope that the Melee community will continue to host tournaments (obviously Brawl will continue to be popular for a few years).

Is competitive Brawl fun? - The answer for me is a definite YES.

 

[nice1]

lol no nice1 but i beat yo *** in a couple of lame sheik dittos lol

anyway i all ways liked the arguement about melee and brawl and here is my 2 cent suckas lmao
the reason why i believe brawl is horrbile in comparison to melee is as follows
melee rewards effort and time. honestly u REALLY have to pracetice in this game (TECH SKILL COMBOS ETC) and not only that once your not stuck playin a level 9 computer at home and make it out of pools of a tourney then ur stuck playin a human and now mind games are involved. brawl lacks advance techs and skill or what have you. day 1 i played brawl i picked the game up in 5 mins back in febuary. so 4 months later not much has changed and i feel i only slghtly improved. brawl is slow very pridictable and when it comes to camping this really can affect weather you win or not. you can camp in melee but that alone cant win you the match

so brawl<melee brawl a party game melee is a man game real story

really we did sheik dittos. i only remember playin flaming roy in sheik dittos

 

[SK8orDIE]

it's so over

 

[theONEjanitor]

Anyone who wants to play a thinking game should stop playing fighting games.

or start playing Brawl.

@3god: knowledge of the game is probably the most important thing in melee, but i would say techskill is number 2. when we say "tech skill" we don't mean, "the ability to do flashy stuff", or at least I don't. I mean the ability to move your characters around the stage at lightning speed and perform 0-death combos consistently without messing up. generally the faster, most knowledgeable player wins.

@ sleepy k, honestly reflex is jsut as good as gimpy if not better. gimpy doesn't win tournaments either.

@ shai, we should play chess. I'm not very good though.

 

[Shai Hulud]

Ability to do 0-death combos on characters would constitute tech-skill only if there were no DI in the game. The introduction of DI necessitates constant adjustment of the "combo" to continue or finish it. The principle here is reaction time, not tech-skill. One can decrease his reaction time by encountering similar scenarios over and over, so that he can recognize more rapidly the options available when an opponent, say, misses a tech at a particular location, and follow up accordingly. With enough experience the conscious, mental aspect of gameplay transitions into instinct.

The role of tech-skill in Melee is that it is necessary to build a repertoire of movement techniques before you can use your character properly. But learning these techniques in no way guarantees you will use your character any more effectively. Tech skill is a necessary, but insufficient condition for good play.

Tech skill is the first barrier encountered in the game. It's the answer to "How do I make my character move and attack how I want him to?" The second barrier is what people often call mindgames, the answer to "How should I move my character to create openings?" Most of this time this becomes apparent through an empirical process. When you do certain things, you get *****, and when you do other things, you start combos. You start to learn in what situations tactics are appropriate. The last barrier is reaction time, the ability to rapidly assess the situation and execute the movement. For me this is by far the most difficult barrier to effective play, because the only way to decrease your reaction time (aside from taking amphetamines) is to encounter the same situations over and over and over, which will strengthen the synapses in your brain linked to the response mechanisms, to make them fire more rapidly. And the only way to do this is to play good people and to play them frequently.

None of this I think has anything to do with intelligence or strategy or planning. So the point is not that it's a mistake to say Brawl requires more strategy than Melee (it might--I don't know). The point is that the strategic element in any game of this type is vanishingly small, so the matter of which is more strategic is irrelevant.

Bottom line, if you think being good at a fighting game is indicative of intelligence or any kind of deep thought whatsoever, you are probably not aware of what constitutes intelligence or deep thought.

And I'm not directing this at anyone in particular--just my thoughts about looking for strategy and thought in the wrong places.

 

[SleepyK]

Lol, Gimpy tore through SoCal and got second place. He definitely got close to winning tournaments, and he did win money, which is what Reflex complained about bowser being unable to do. Bum wins tournaments with Donkey Kong.
And while Reflex is my very 1st tied with kevinm favourite bowser, from conjecture, I can say that Gimpyfish is a better bowser because... well, he has a better tournament record.

 

[MookieRah]

@Shai
You've got mind games kinda pegged wrong. What you are talking about is stuff that I used to do prior to when I actually realized what a mind game really is. Your discussion of it is too vague. You mainly just lumped it in with experience and moved on. Experience has a lot to do with it but it's not all there is to it. There are subtleties between players and their play styles and how they react to situations. I'm not saying that mind games require a ton of intelligence, but it does require one to quickly assess the situation and make many small calculations within a few seconds. I would call someone who is really good at using mind games as "witty."

Another aspect of play you don't cover is the ability to maintain your composure in stressful situations. This requires a lot of mental concentration, and you can't let that bog down your play either. This is no trifling matter, as this is a huge reason why some players are great and others are good.

The other stuff is pretty much spot on.

 

[Mike G]

heh mookie..good to see you actually doing some modding for a change.. ya lazy bum! =p


btw I heard my name earlier here but yeah.. I stopped playing competitive brawl about 2 months after final round. That rob player did his job and played by the game's rules. I however, dislike the game's rules lol and so does Jwong. We both noticed this after Final round. But whatever...I don't wanna come in here and force my opinion on you guys but. I just can't accept brawl as a competitive fighter. Don't get me wrong I still love it as a game wth all it's great features an sheezy but it's not a game I'd want to improve my skills on. Anyone in GA can tell you that I gave this game alot of chances. I actually tried to make GA a brawl state and I was really good at the game too. Then slowly I noticed little things about the game that bothered me but I still looked passed them. then Started noticing really good players that actually practice and go to tourneys get Destroyed by someone that doesn't even play the game and when he did once he places 3rd at Final round(lol Marty). Started seeing players making alot of mistakes in matches and not getting punished for it. Maybe it's just me and I need to play the game more and stop being so close minded but even after not playing I still the the same things even today. Oh well maybe i'll change my mind in a year or 2 lol

until then I'm going to try and become a beast in Guilty gear(when I get my stick back lol)

 

[theONEjanitor]

well I'm including "reaction time" in tech skill. Anything that involves how effectively you pressthe buttons is tech skill.
and you don't just "learn tech skill and then move on to the next step". tech skill is ongoing, and you get better and better, making fewer and fewer mistakes.
obviously "being good at a video game" is not indicative of "intelligence" (trust me there are some great smashers that lack basic cognitive skills lol), but in brawl, almost every time you hit someone (that's a good player), its because you learned the game or out-thought them. being clever, cunning, patient =/= being intelligent/deep

btwizzle, i play rob, and you can get out of downsmash by DIing upwards


mike g you should give me a crash course in GG, i play it a lot, but i dont know how to do anything advanced.