Alabama Thread! (10/26/2016 update)

[munkus beaver]

Also, Reflex, couldn't rocksmash beat mach WW? Or at least hurt MK more than he hurts you?

 

[theONEjanitor]

oh my badz

 

[theONEjanitor]

so i used to think rob countered snake, but i'm not sure anymore. i need to play good rob.

robs another character where there aren't that many good mainers just just dsmash alot and no one knows what to do about it.

but i'm thinking if snake gets all up in robs face, rob can't really do **** to him

rob probably counters snake on FD and big stages

 

[TheReflexWonder]

ninja link beat flex pretty soundly in the one vid i saw from CoT but that was just one set..

reflex did you fight chudat? I would have liked to see that too.

I got screwed in the match against NL. I beat him with an even bigger advantage in the second match, and he was obviously unnerved. Then they threw us out of the venue. At least half an hour later, they wake me up off of Chibo's apartment's floor so I could play. I'm tired and starving and I don't have the momentum from before. THAT'S what happened.

Also, I'm bad at fighting bananas, but I've been working on it.

As for H.E.R.B, I fought Chillin and Chu after losing to M2K in Winner's Semifinals. I don't have a problem with Kirby (predictable character), and Chillin is just a campy Falco. Too much experience from Calvin saved the day.

Also, Reflex, couldn't rocksmash beat mach WW? Or at least hurt MK more than he hurts you?

Rock Smash -can- beat it, but it takes perfect timing and positioning. The small rocks are outprioritized by the tornado, so it only works if the initial hit clips him first.

 

[Will_]

luis, rep it up at gigs. I might see you at panhandle if not gamebox.

 

[theONEjanitor]

reflex did you beat them with PT?

also, i'm torn between playing aggressive snake and campy snake.

like i'll play campy and do pretty well and then get behind in a match, then get super aggro and recapture the momentum.
i've made a lot of comebacks this way...so that's get me to thinking. maybe I should be aggressive the whole match...

it probably just depends on my opponent

 

[j00t]

I got screwed in the match against NL. I beat him with an even bigger advantage in the second match, and he was obviously unnerved. Then they threw us out of the venue. At least half an hour later, they wake me up off of Chibo's apartment's floor so I could play. I'm tired and starving and I don't have the momentum from before. THAT'S what happened.

Also, I'm bad at fighting bananas, but I've been working on it.

As for H.E.R.B, I fought Chillin and Chu after losing to M2K in Winner's Semifinals. I don't have a problem with Kirby (predictable character), and Chillin is just a campy Falco. Too much experience from Calvin saved the day.



Rock Smash -can- beat it, but it takes perfect timing and positioning. The small rocks are outprioritized by the tornado, so it only works if the initial hit clips him first.

You are my shining star of hope when it comes to Brawl.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

You are my shining star of hope when it comes to Brawl.

In what way? Keeping the game entertaining? Or the balance issues? 'cause I think the game is rather balanced; it's just that there's a lot of dumb stuff.

reflex did you beat them with PT?

also, i'm torn between playing aggressive snake and campy snake.

like i'll play campy and do pretty well and then get behind in a match, then get super aggro and recapture the momentum.
i've made a lot of comebacks this way...so that's get me to thinking. maybe I should be aggressive the whole match...

it probably just depends on my opponent

I beat Chillin with Wario, since I felt I could do the best that way, since I play Calvin so often.

I played two games with PT against Chu, and then decided more movement would be best and finished the set with Wario.

As for the playstyles with Snake, have you considered the idea that your playstyle changing made you less predictable, which is why you did better? Perhaps if you just switch up more, that's what will help.

 

[j00t]

In what way? Keeping the game entertaining? Or the balance issues? 'cause I think the game is rather balanced; it's just that there's a lot of dumb stuff.

You're just... you. You keep the game entertaining by beating great Brawl players with horrible characters (except Wario). That was my goal when I played Ganon, you just do it a lot better than me

Well... the dumb stuff is what makes it unbalanced.

 

[theONEjanitor]

hmm that makes sense.

i guess I need to just stop relying on snakes OP-status to win matches :-P

 

[TheReflexWonder]

You're just... you. You keep the game entertaining by beating great Brawl players with horrible characters (except Wario). That was my goal when I played Ganon, you just do it a lot better than me

Well... the dumb stuff is what makes it unbalanced.

Heh, thank you. At the same time, I think PT and Lucas have some potential; I'm thinking mid-tier material at most, but maybe just low.

The dumb stuff does screw up balance, but it's not dumb enough to dismantle everything else's balance. There's gameplay beyond Meta Knight...which is something I wholeheartedly like to attempt to show.

hmm that makes sense.

i guess I need to just stop relying on snakes OP-status to win matches :-P

Your theory on aggressive Snake might be true, though; maybe your aggressive Snake is just better than your campy one; I was just offering an idea.

 

[j00t]

Heh, thank you. At the same time, I think PT and Lucas have some potential; I'm thinking mid-tier material at most, but maybe just low.

The dumb stuff does screw up balance, but it's not dumb enough to dismantle everything else's balance. There's gameplay beyond Meta Knight...which is something I wholeheartedly like to attempt to show.

I think you are proving your point quite nicely.

 

[theONEjanitor]

the very existence of reflex and people like this is conclusive proof that brawl is a potentially good competitive game.
but we who play the game with seriousness already know this.
the only reason people even dispute it is because everyone wrote the game off within a month of its release because there was no hitstun. since then, everytime anything even slightly appears to be off about the game they just say, "see I told you brawl was dumb", as if its the only game with dumb stuff in it. No one really ever took brawl seriously.
Everyone thinks Metaknight breaks the game, but the only reason people think that is because they don't take the game seriously enough tolearn how to play the game and figure out that he's a relatively one-dimensional character, like most other characters in the game lol (who just happens to be fast as **** and have ridiculous hitboxes) and that he can be beaten, as well as pretty much anything else in the game people think is dumb.
its a sad story really. if competitive brawl fails it'll be because everyone jumped on the brawl sucks bandwagon, not really because it actually does suck.


in terms of my snake, I think we're both right in some ways...there are times to be aggressive. sometimes I just go on autopilot with snake and then my opponent starts gaining momentum and I wake up like wtf i'm losing.

it think it all depends on what the situation is, and what my opponent will fall for. My aggressive snake isn't better than my campy snake tho, that's for sure, just in cases where my opponent is letting up, i can get in some dash attacks (which is a really underused move by snake players) which is a great momentum stealer, (and starter for me)

 

[munkus beaver]

Good players switch up their playstyles. I am often able to get ahead of Will early on in a match, but he adapts to my particular playstyle in that game quickly and is able to counter it.

One of my greatest strengths is my ability to switch up my playstyles, one of my greatest weaknesses is that I have trouble doing it on the fly and I have trouble getting out of the ruts of particular styles.

MK doesn't break the game at all. He's just the best character with all likelyhood. I personally think that G&W has the most potential, but nobody ever plays him with seriousness. Honestly, he has a ton of potential. He has movement, he has kill moves, he has damage moves. And his moves that kill can be kept off DR because you won't ever use them to wrack up damage (excepting down-smash)

 

[Will_]

if competitive brawl fails it'll be because everyone jumped on the brawl sucks bandwagon, not really because it actually does suck.

This

10agrees

 

[theONEjanitor]

with snake its just that 95% of the time you can set up a wall of hitboxes that opponents can't get through
and oftentime switching it up isn't necessary.

i think the first time I had to really focus with snake was playing against moogle at tcs4. snake doesn't like it when you block and moogle blocks a lot :-D

i really wish that was recorded.

 

[theONEjanitor]

I AM calling metaknight of unfair, because he is lol, much like Sheik vs. Bowser was unfair in Melee.

THAT being said, i'm calling it like i see it. Even though my goal is to learn how to fight them, I think its ridiculous that the basic rules of smash that have been in place for decades don't apply to these characters. (note: I say spammy, but being "spammy' is not the problem. In Melee, if you spammed f-smash and d-smash with any character, you would get your *** kicked. the problem is that IT WORKS and it shouldn't).
as I mentioned, there may be some secret to these characters that I just have yet to figure out
but if that's so, I remain of the opinion that a character is overpowered when, and i want to emphasize this, any single one of their attacks, much less nearly ALL OF THEM, has priority over nearly EVERY OTHER ATTACK IN THE GAME. i have my own ideas about the game thus far, which will probably change, as they have changed in the past.

BUT HEY GUYS
if i can change

anyone can change

M I RITE

 

[munkus beaver]

A lot of people like brawl, there is just this isolated movement on smashboards that creates the aura of negativity that is a disease.

Some people honestly don't like it (like coach) and I'm fine with that, because they have their opinion and they don't squawk about it.

Some people actually like it, but pretend to hate it (like JWT) because they want to jump on the melee love/brawl hate bandwagon. They don't love the game, but they perpetuate the idiocy in order to keep their bandwagon seat.

And some are the trolls that have convinced themselves that they hate the game so much because they feel the game steals away from melee (it doesn't) so they go out shouting and screaming about how horrible the game is in a vain attempt to get people back to melee.

Most people that play the game off the boards and go to tourneys like the game or love it. And I am honestly glad that some of the 'top tier' people don't show up to these tourneys because if they did, they would discourage the new blood from getting into the game at all. I have been happy so far with the people who have shown up to the brawl tourneys, as many have never been to one before. They will learn the game and get better and its own community will form.

I like brawl more than melee, on a fundamental level, because it moves the game away from requiring technical skill. Much in the same way that I like melee more than traditional fighting games because it moves the game away from memorizing combos and incessant practicing in practice mode to get your high-punch-to-low-kick-to-mid-punch combo timing and positioning perfectly. Smash has always had a more casual, more approachable feel to it, and I think that brawl preserves that spirit much better than melee has.

I'm sorry, but it is hard for some people to learn L canceling or wavedashing. It is also not very worthwhile to do if the crowd of people you play with don't bother with those tech skills. Brawl lets you at least get better on a fundamental level just by playing your friends. You get better at the game and the metagame without having to perfect your technical skills in practice mode.

...10chars.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

MK doesn't break the game at all. He's just the best character with all likelyhood. I personally think that G&W has the most potential, but nobody ever plays him with seriousness. Honestly, he has a ton of potential. He has movement, he has kill moves, he has damage moves. And his moves that kill can be kept off DR because you won't ever use them to wrack up damage (excepting down-smash)

I agree with you about Meta Knight.

I completely disagree with you about G&W. He's so utterly one-dimensional (or should I say two-dimensional?); spaced aerials and safe smash attacks. He doesn't seem to have anything beyond that, which is why I call him merely an average character.

EDIT: I also completely agree on your take on competitive Melee and competitive Brawl's fundamentals.

 

[theONEjanitor]

also i lose alot of stocks by accidentally doing upsmash when I mean to uptilt. especially when trying to turn around uptilt.

i'm gonna try turning tap jump off and see if that helps

 

[theONEjanitor]

and i think a lot of my brawl opinions are slightly skewed because I play online a lot.
thats one of the main reasons I used to think MK was so broken.
d-smash is virtually unpunishable online. and you could probably spam tornado the whole match and win as well.
GW is also really good online.

another likely reason I have trouble with GW is because I haven't really implemented Smash DI into my game successfully yet :-/

but my online experience is the only reason I'm decent at this game I think.
it's sort of like training with weights on :-D

 

[munkus beaver]

I agree with you about Meta Knight.

I completely disagree with you about G&W. He's so utterly one-dimensional (or should I say two-dimensional?); spaced aerials and safe smash attacks. He doesn't seem to have anything beyond that, which is why I call him merely an average character.

Ok, then let's talk a bit about MK.

I think he's the best, but that means very, very little. The entire cast of characters plays on a very even field. There are a couple of bad matchups for certain characters where they have to get over a lot, but even in the case of MK, he is not a 'hard counter' to much of any of the cast.

If you are at a higher skill level with DK than your opponent is with MK, you will win.

If you are at a higher skill level with squirtle than your opponent is with MK, you will win.

The biggest thing about MK is that he puts your 'default skill level' higher than other characters, a lot like sheik in melee. He's easy to pick up, he has some very easy strategies to use, and he isn't that complicated to play on a basic level. But once you get to the higher levels of play (which honestly, most people aren't) it balances out immensely.

George is a great example of this. By all accounts, if smashboards were to be believed, he'd never beat my metaknight. But we are generally dead even with each other, with a little luck pushing the match one way or the other.

I am just glad that Alabama has such a great variety of characters and such a great cast of players that nobody has picked up a high tier character because they thought they could use him to cheese to win. People have consistently chosen the character they like or the character they have fun with.

Which is why I am calling Alabama the smash capital. Screw new jersey. They can walk the plank with their stupid stupid poop flinging tactics.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

Which is why I am calling Alabama the smash capital. Screw new jersey. They can walk the plank with their stupid stupid poop flinging tactics.

HAH

WALK THE PLANK

That's quite funny.

(I'm going to update this post in a minute.)

Now...

Meta Knight -is- the best, and he does lock down a lot of the cast...but that really can be said about Sheik in Melee, too. That's the biggest reason there was a low tier in Melee.

But having more skill is obviously the most important point overall. If I can beat M2K's Meta Knight with Pokemon Trainer, then he's nowhere near untouchably good.

Once more people get to a higher understand of the game, it'll all balance out, and the character diversity in tournaments will reflect that. Note that Meta Knight's dominance has all but disappeared in recent times (now it's just M2K's dominance :/).

 

[NES n00b]

The entire cast of characters plays on a very even field.

Are you sure you are not exaggerating? Cause really, the ENTIRE CAST?

 

[munkus beaver]

I also laughed when I started playing the game, because people I played against would say MK was broken because of his up-B. They would just just parrot the sentiment that MK was broken and then they would assume that it was because of his up-b because that was my favorite method of attack. You can even check my videos, I almost never used whirlwind in singles. I avoided it like the plague. And that was why he was supposed to be 'broken.' And during that time I was a dominate force in Alabama. It is only recently that I have incorporated the whirlwind at all and it has been one of the things I have had the most trouble with figuring out how to fit it into my playstyle appropriately, since I don't like the ability.

 

[munkus beaver]

Are you sure you are not exaggerating? Cause really, the ENTIRE CAST?

Why would you think that I am exaggerating.

Honestly.

The whole cast is more or less balanced. Counters are the exception, not the rule of brawl. Even jigglypuff or link can play just fine against the rest of the cast.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

Are you sure you are not exaggerating? Cause really, the ENTIRE CAST?

Captain Falcon does pretty well against characters who have to stay grounded.

 

[theONEjanitor]

yeah I think every character is viable in tournaments,

well i'm hesitant to say that jigglypuff is lol
cuz geez all her moves suck except fair, which is heavily decayed by the middle of the match
not to mention she dies really early.

but yeah

the whole "tiers" thing was something I never understood fully. Even in melee. NESNOOB four stocks my marth with pichu. because he's better than me at the game. skill has always overridden tiers, and people would scream so loudly, that some characters aren't viable, but I play the game and play some mewtwo, and I'm like, hey he's got a lot of good moves, who says I can't win with him as long as I play smart.

and even more so in brawl because playing smart is the only way to win at a high level. and every character has good moves. and all you have to do to win is to not get hit by your opponent, which is basic enough...no character has any move that FORCES you to take damage, (although tornado is really close lol but the damage is negligible in most cases), and there are as we know very few true combos therefore if you get hit in Brawl its likely because you screwed up somewhere. So then the whole game is basically you not screwing up and trying to get your opponent to screw up.
And this is all regardless of the characters played. Some characters obviously have good strats that often lead to the opponent screwing up, but in every case it's always the fact that the opponent screwed up, and not because "insert character is OP". All that is required is for the person who screwed up to figure out what to do in order to not screw up in that situation again and/or find more ways to make the opponent screw up more often.

gimping/gay stuff happens in certain matchups, like if MK gets ganon off the stage he's probably dead, and that's what's called a bad matchup and that exists in every game and it doesn't really say anything about MK except that he has an advantage in this matchup. still, if the ganon player figured out how to not screw up he could win the matchup.

so obv i acknowledge that tiers exist and bad matchups exist. but I honestly believe that every smash game to date is sufficiently deep and open-ended that a player can simply learn how to play and win with any character simply by playing better than the opponent.

 

[j00t]

Some people actually like it, but pretend to hate it (like JWT) because they want to jump on the melee love/brawl hate bandwagon. They don't love the game, but they perpetuate the idiocy in order to keep their bandwagon seat.

Cute.

I should make myself clear. I like the game as a Smash game. It has everything that drew me to the game on a casual level in the first two games and improves on it (More characters, more stages, great music, better graphics, all the nice details). There are a plethora of characters that are represented well in Brawl, and in turn I am drawn to them and use them.

It just doesn't have what I want for a competitive game. It is arguable that Brawl took one step forwards and three steps backwards when it comes to tournament-level gameplay. The game is just slower overall, the new airdodge mechanic makes the game boring, edgeguarding is virtually nonexistant (M2K is the only one I have seen use monster edgeguarding skills, but I think he can only do i with Metaknight and possibly other multi-jump characters), and the stupid stuff that Reflex mentioned earlier keeps the game unbalanced beyond my tastes. Removing the l-cancel mechanic and other small stuff like keeping momentum on aerials, dash dancing, etc. was just dumb. I don't mind that they took wavedashing out, but since they took dashdancing out as well the game just feels one-dimensional.It's true that I have played Brawl competitively, but there are things that just keep pushing me away from it.

Melee has everything I want. I think there are individual character balance issues in Melee, but it is nowhere near as bad as Brawl (atleast for me). It is a more demanding game on a technical level, and it requires more thought to it than you might think.

That being said, I love how you call me out like that based on a night of casual play with friends that I like to hang out with.

I'm not trying to be a jerk with you, I'm just laying everything on the table. I REALLY WANTED TO PLAY BRAWL LIKE I DID MELEE. I waited so long for this game and so far it's been so disappointing. I'm putting all my feelings out for it in this post, right now. If you can work with me and show me some redeemable qualities to Brawl, I might play it again.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

I'm convinced that Brawl is more balanced than Melee.

Take a good Sheik and 0-to-death half the cast.

As for Brawl, there are only a few matchups that are near as bad. Dedede vs. DK, ZSS vs. Fox, and Pikachu vs. Fox/Wolf/Sheik are the only ones I can think of right now. In other matchups, you can beat the opponent simply by playing smarter. This is not different in either game.

Edgeguarding is perfectly viable in Brawl. Wario is fully capable of it, and Lucas's PK Thunder gives a good chunk of the cast a lot of trouble. You don't know how many people I gimped this weekend with that alone. Granted, you have to work for it, so I understand how people might not understand how doing the same move every time while on stage doesn't work anymore. :D

L-Cancelling was stupid, I thought. In Brawl, some moves have so little lag as to be considered auto-L-cancelled, while some moves didn't. Simply learn to use the laggy moves in a more conservative manner. I don't mind lagless moves; I just don't think I should have to precisely L-Cancel every single time to be considered even decent.

 

[munkus beaver]

I call you out because you constantly complain about how terrible a game is that you constantly play. If you complained less about how terrible it was, I wouldn't bring up anything. Either play the game or call it terrible, don't do both.

It's a flawed game (all games are), but people are not in the habit of playing games they find terrible.

 

[munkus beaver]

Someone who preaches the truth about l-canceling!

It was the worst kind of mechanic. The kind you wanted to do all the time, and you either did it or you didn't. It was literally a switch, nothing more than an arbitrary barrier to separate the 'skilled' from the 'unskilled.' It wasn't like a short-hop, where you had cases where you wanted to do it and you didn't, you always wanted to L-cancel.

That is the absolute worst kind of mechanic.

 

[j00t]

I call you out because you constantly complain about how terrible a game is that you constantly play. If you complained less about how terrible it was, I wouldn't bring up anything. Either play the game or call it terrible, don't do both.

It's a flawed game (all games are), but people are not in the habit of playing games they find terrible.

Okay, maybe next time I'll say "bawbawbaw this game is a TERRIBLE COMPETITIVE GAME bawbawbaw."

And I don't constantly play it. You keep assuming things based off of the one night I saw you over at Rob's house.

And once again, I was just having some fun with Rob, Shannon and Andy that night. I was bored to tears. Sue me.

Someone who preaches the truth about l-canceling!

It was the worst kind of mechanic. The kind you wanted to do all the time, and you either did it or you didn't. It was literally a switch, nothing more than an arbitrary barrier to separate the 'skilled' from the 'unskilled.' It wasn't like a short-hop, where you had cases where you wanted to do it and you didn't, you always wanted to L-cancel.

That is the absolute worst kind of mechanic.

It's true that you had to learn l-cancelling to play most characters, but seriously, you just press the L button at the right time. It isn't something people should go crying home about.

It isn't the greatest idea, I agree. But it has been there since 64, they knew about it when Melee came out, and didn't remove it with later versions. And it just makes the game more fast-paced. It just feels epic to me.

 

[Will_]

Melee's game engine allowed a large amount of control over your character. That's why skill was a much bigger factor than tiers were. Brawl took away that control in an attempt to balance out skill gaps. Without that level of maneuverability fights were left more to the inherent advantages of a character.

Not to say that tiers meant more than skill at any point, just that character placement means more in brawl than melee. A bad matchup is harder to overcome due to the lack of options.

 

[NES n00b]

Why would you think that I am exaggerating.

Honestly.

The whole cast is more or less balanced. Counters are the exception, not the rule of brawl. Even jigglypuff or link can play just fine against the rest of the cast.

Why I think you are exaggerating.....the fact that there are obviously terrible characters and obvious good characters.

 

[munkus beaver]

You love playing the victim jwt, stop acting like you don't.

And stop acting like I magically formed my opinion because of one saucy night at Rob's. Sheesh.

 

[munkus beaver]

Melee's game engine allowed a large amount of control over your character. That's why skill was a much bigger factor than tiers were. Brawl took away that control in an attempt to balance out skill gaps. Without that level of maneuverability fights were left more to the inherent advantages of a character.

Not to say that tiers meant more than skill at any point, just that character placement means more in brawl than melee. A bad matchup is harder to overcome due to the lack of options.

They exchanged wavedashing for aerial mobility. Technical skill was a much bigger factor in melee. Less skilled players could beat more skilled players by virtue of their technical skill.

I don't like calling technical skill pure skill. I could modify a controller to give me technical skill and then apply my abilities to it. I accidentally played with a modified controller once, and you won't believe the difference it made (I noticed it was modified when I jumped everytime I tried to shield during a match).

 

[Will_]

And stop acting like I magically formed my opinion because of one saucy night at Rob's. Sheesh.

hawt

Forget Philadelphia, Huntsville is the real city of brotherly love.

 

[ihavespaceblondes]

Someone who preaches the truth about l-canceling!

It was the worst kind of mechanic. The kind you wanted to do all the time, and you either did it or you didn't. It was literally a switch, nothing more than an arbitrary barrier to separate the 'skilled' from the 'unskilled.' It wasn't like a short-hop, where you had cases where you wanted to do it and you didn't, you always wanted to L-cancel.

That is the absolute worst kind of mechanic.

Except that hitting an opponent, hitting an opponent's hard shield, hitting an opponent's light shield, hitting an opponent's power shield, hitting multiple shields, hitting multiple characters, hitting projectiles, etc. all required different timings to successfully l-cancel, so you could do things to throw off your opponent's timing and create openings...

 

[j00t]

You love playing the victim jwt, stop acting like you don't.

And stop acting like I magically formed my opinion because of one saucy night at Rob's. Sheesh.

Stop beating around the bush and tell me why I should play this game competitively (which is what I requested originally). And thank you Reflex for your opinion.

Really? How many times have we played together since you've been living in Tuscaloosa? You make it sound like you know which game I play every Thursday night at Andy's house since you've been gone. I've probably played it 2 times at his house since I quit Brawl. And that one time not too long ago at Rob's place. And I went to pops' house once to hang out. Sue me yet again.

And none of this started until after Rob's gathering.