Alabama Thread! (10/26/2016 update)

[_Keno_]

If sunday is a no, just play Fridays and I'll show up whenever.

 

[shaSLAM]

we need a regualr smashfest to happen. id come.

 

[NinjaFoxX]

id try to come.


sunday sounds legit.

 

[_Keno_]

we need a regualr smashfest to happen. id come.

good, everyone should come.

I know Huntsville does a thursday night thing, so we dont necessarily have to do it on the weekend.

Everyone from b'ham list their open times so that we may finally have smashfests.

My Open times

Monday: after 7pm
Tuesday: after 2pm
Wednesday: after 7pm
Thursday: after 4pm
Friday: noon to 7 pm, 10pm to 2 am.
Saturday: all day, pretty much
Sunday: same as Saturday

 

[NinjaFoxX]

well, weekdays are pretty subjective, so it really depends.
as for saturday: after 3pm.
sunday:depends on when i can get the car.

 

[theONEjanitor]

you guys could come to my apt whenever you wanted.

@ reflex, that's the idea.

@ project m. to some extent I'm excited about the project, but on the other hand, they are trying to basically remake a game that's already out. Whats the point of that. I'm more interested in seeing a Super Smash Bros. Melee 2, than saying the same game again with updated textures.

there are things in melee that shouldn't be there, why bring them back?
why artificially increase the skill gap by bringing back jc grabs and l-cancelling? just make the moves do that normally?

i do like that they're attempting to make the bad characters better, i'm pretty excited about gw, link, and zelda. project m zelda looks boss

 

[NinjaFoxX]

i like fake difficulty. surpassing it makes you sooo much better. /imo

also, i have no clue where you live. we should get some melee and stuff in sometimes...

 

[SleepyK]

because by making them not do them automatically there's a clear distinction between competitive and casual play.

plus an artificial execution barrier is neat because there's something to work for while you're learning how to not suck

things that bother me - people who complain about things being difficult in a fighting game. generally they argue that the game shouldn't have any arbitrary barriers and it should just become a mental game


no it's a fighting game you butt it emulates fighting which is physically dependent as well as mentally dependent

if you want a thinking only game go play chess buttface

 

[SleepyK]

like ok if it's unnecessarily difficult to do anything at all then ok that's too much

but it's not as if lcanceling or dave washing is omg taxing hands borken

 

[NinjaFoxX]

dave washing

Dave Washing.

 

[shaSLAM]

lol sleepy said buttface

 

[SleepyK]

i'm not even knocking brawl specifically like i tromally do. (troll normally)
brawl isn't easy and lots of things require practice and are hard to do consistently.
it's about the practice, since it presents a kind of dedication to the game.

 

[theONEjanitor]

i don't care how difficult it is, the problem is that its specifically artificial.
there's no reason to do that, when you have the power to fix it.

that fact that you say brawl isn't as easy as people would like to believe backs up my point. you don't need artificial tech skill barriers to make a game challenging and competitive. I don't mind wavedashing, or moonwalking or float cancelling etc.

i think the main problem that i have is the fact that you HAVE to use these moves EVERY TIME. it's not about the difficulty. Why map a button to something like that? It was like in Mortal Kombat: Mythologies (random, terrible game btw), where you had to press a special button just to turn around and face the other way. It artificially made the game harder for no reason.

in Halo 2 for example you had the BXR move.
this is an example of an advanced tech (although not as difficult to master as melee's techs), that wasn't an artificial skill barrier. It was a glitch in the game that increased your options, but A. it wasn't REQUIRED for high level play (but more or less advised), and B. it wasn't something that you HAVE TO DO EVERY TIME (like l cancelling)

but over all I understand the project is specifically designed to recapture the feel of melee

and i agree that it is rewarding to pull of difficult maneuvers after practicing them.

and I like some of the new mechanics they are trying to add to the game

and, there's not going to BE any casual Project M play lol Casual players aren't going to play that ****

 

[SleepyK]

no, it was definitely required to win high level melee battles. you do have to pretty much do it every single time close combat if you have a full clip (or if you don't you do the rrbxr). You could bxb, but the rr bxr/fullclip bxr/ no reload ammo bxr are infinitely superior.

why were they so difficult? no reason, melee should automatically meleefire when you hit melee.

also if you ahve a secondary the game should automatically doubleshot yy doubleshot for you every time

here t1j let's get on xbc. we will get into a close quarters melee battle, and you will only be able to regular melee while i will be able to bxr and bxb you.

also we will get into gun fights and i will have a modded controller that automatically quadshots for me and you only get to regular shoot with your BR.

1 frame links are pretty much required for high level play and you have to do them every time you do that combo

specifically artificially difficult

how far do you go before that argument becomes invalidated?

should combos happen automatically with no chance of you messing them up?

clearly things shouldn't be so unnecessarily difficult that it makes the game unfun or impossible to play consistently at a high level, but having something be difficult doesn't necessarily detract from the game and i honestly feel that the practice required adds to the learning curve of the game.

you don't HAVE to WD all the time but it sure helps.

you do HAVE to lcancel every time you aerial, ok.

i feel that having techniques that are difficult to pull off adds a zone of error in the game where you can mess up their practiced techniques to throw them off balance. plus it adds to the emulating real life fighting thing where you know, you messing up can get you knocked out.

also how the crap do you mean me saying that brawl isn't easy helping your argument?
there's tons of ATs in brawl that are difficult to pull off and require practice to use consistently.
lots of them you have to do every time. not necessarily every single time you aerial, but still.

HERP DERP ARTIFICAL BARRIER GAME IS HARD 4 NO REASON SHOULD ALWAYS DO EASY

 

[SleepyK]

i edited it a bunch so please read the whole thing before posting

 

[*Cam*]

I don't think there are any AT's in brawl that are so necessary that you can't play competitively without using them (I don't count comboing as an AT). In melee, I'd say L-cancelling is too integral a part of the game to not use it in tournament play. Brawl seems more like a thinking game to me than melee, not that melee didn't have thinking, but it relied a lot more heavily on tech skill.

 

[Saki-]

My free schedule:
Monday- 5-8 pm
Tuesday- Busy all day (Marine Core )
Wednesday- 5-8 pm
Thursday- same
--------------------

Friday: 4:50pm -12 am
Saturday: 2 pm- 8pm
Sunday: 2pm-8pm

Times vary between me driving or people being over.

 

[SleepyK]

I don't think there are any AT's in brawl that are so necessary that you can't play competitively without using them (I don't count comboing as an AT). In melee, I'd say L-cancelling is too integral a part of the game to not use it in tournament play. Brawl seems more like a thinking game to me than melee, not that melee didn't have thinking, but it relied a lot more heavily on tech skill.

i agree, but there are certainly ATs that you pretty much can't win without at this point in the game.

h2 was a terrible example t1j, because the ATs in that game in the end game became too integral to be able to win without using.

 

[*Cam*]

i agree, but there are certainly ATs that you pretty much can't win without at this point in the game.

h2 was a terrible example t1j, because the ATs in that game in the end game became too integral to be able to win without using.

I honestly don't know what ATs you're talking about then. You really don't need DI nearly as much as you did in melee. There are a lot of character specific ATs, but that's only if you use one of those characters.

 

[SleepyK]

like.. every character's ATs?

btw let's play a match where you don't DI

and i do


also you don't get to use any other ATs

and i do


honestly please explain this to me because i've never gotten this far in this particular argument.
there is absolutely no reason not to use the ATs in high level brawl or many games and not using them will pretty much result in you losing vs someone who isn't using them. imo in that sense, the game basically becomes unplayable.

i can see that lcanceling is definitely towards the far end of superfluous because it's integrated into something as simple as approaching or attacking, but still.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

I honestly don't know what ATs you're talking about then. You really don't need DI nearly as much as you did in melee. There are a lot of character specific ATs, but that's only if you use one of those characters.

What do you mean, DI isn't as necessary in Brawl? Ceilings are generally higher, and a lot of the "good" moves send people at otherwise-difficult angles. KO moves that regularly KO at 130% can go as low as 90%. If not for its effect on combos in Melee, I would argue that DI is more important in Brawl.

Pikachu would only be okay without his chaingrab. Snake would have a -much- harder time camping without his DACUS. Mach Tornado wouldn't be nearly as overpowered if it couldn't autocancel. The survivability of a lot of characters would be drastically reduced without proper momentum canceling. Many things that we take for granted really make all the difference in competitive play.

 

[theONEjanitor]

well you sounds like you know more about halo than i do, but there are situations in which you wouldn't bother bxring. such as for assassinations, for example. it would just waste bullets and you'd be slightly hindered by the fact that you would have to reload sooner.

There's nothing in Brawl that you literally HAVE to do EVERY TIME you have the opportunity to do it. Not even DIing really. In brawl, You could get away with inputting no DI whatsoever. for like the first 80% of each stock with most characters. nothing i can think of at least. I dont have a problem with advanced techniques in general, if thats what you're geting from me, you're misunderstanding. Wavedashing is fine. its a useful technique that I would like a special input for so i can use it when i want and not use it when i dont want. This is how Brawl ATs are, and i brought it up because you said the game, despite have no artifical skill gaps, is still challenging and in many ways competitive.

dacus is good, but you don't use it LITERALLY every time you have the ability to do so. do you see the difference? If you needed to DACUS as your primary mode of doing anything with snake, then i would want the input for DACUS to be forward on the analog stick.

 

[SleepyK]

well you sounds like you know more about halo than i do, but there are situations in which you wouldn't bother bxring. such as for assassinations, for example. it would just waste bullets and you'd be slightly hindered by the fact that you would have to reload sooner.

absolutely incorrect. there is always a chance (especially with higher sensitivities and headsets) that people will turn around or you won't be exactly behind them so BXRing is always preferable.

"wasting bullets" is a completely null and pointless argument. having to reload sooner is invalidated by things such as offhost automatic BXR reload and rrbxr as well as bxr dodging and bxb.

This is how Brawl ATs are, and i brought it up because you said the game, despite have no artifical skill gaps, is still challenging and in many ways competitive.

i have stated multiple times i did not say taht in the slightest. brawl has a multitude of ATs that require practice to utilize effectively

also, this isn't a firm belief i hold, so please stamp this one out. lcanceling is only required when you are going to be doing an aerial. i'm not sure how to word this properly but couldn't the same logic as "dacus is only required when you want to use it" be applied to lcanceling?
other than the fact that you aerial a lot.

 

[*Cam*]

At the absolute highest level of play, you couldn't get away with not using ATs. At our level of play, you certainly could with some characters. Marth for instance doesn't really require many ATs, just good spacing/timing. That's not to say Marth doesn't have ATs, just that they aren't necessary to go toe to toe with amateur players (that's what I call anyone who plays competitively but isn't a pro). Like Janitor said, you really could get away with not DIing effectively with the C-stick. Most people use the control stick to DI intuitively anyway, and that works well enough to play on our level.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not condoning using no ATs. I think we should use ATs as much as they help us win. However, I still think the lack of difficult ATs in brawl makes it a lot more friendly to new players who don't want to spend 40 hours practicing something superfluous before they can even play.

 

[SleepyK]

in which game do you need to practice 40 hours before you can play competitively? i'd say MVC2 probably.

also i'd tend to argue towards high level play when i'm referring to competition.

 

[theONEjanitor]

absolutely incorrect. there is always a chance (especially with higher sensitivities and headsets) that people will turn around or you won't be exactly behind them so BXRing is always preferable.




i have stated multiple times i did not say taht in the slightest. brawl has a multitude of ATs that require practice to utilize effectively

i guess i just have watched a lot of bad halo players then. if there's literally no case in which you would melee with out bxring, then yes i would want my B button to automatically do it. its artificially more difficult for no reason.

also
there's a difference between "skill gaps" and "artificial skill gaps". Brawl doesn't have artificial skill gaps. advanced techniques =/= (does not equal) artificial skill gaps. i dont see why you don't get that thats what i'm saying. you said brawl is challenging. i'm saying see a game can be challenging without artificial skill gaps. because brawl doesn't have artificial skill gaps. it does have advanced techniques. but it doesn't have artificial skill gaps. melee has artifical skill gaps. melee was also challenging. but a portion of melee's challenge came from artificial skill gaps. brawls challenge doesn't come from that. i dont know i'm trying to explain myself thoroughly. because you always seem to have trouble understanding me.

also, you can cam are discussing something entirely different than what i'm talking about. the use of advanced techs in general is not an artificial skill gap. just the ones that you have to press extra buttons for something that should be automatically inputted because you have to do it every time.

 

[SleepyK]

(also, yy reload also helps mitigate the "wasting bullets")

ok, please provide some examples.

also, i would like a firm distinction made between artificial skill gaps and ATs.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

BXR wasn't put in the game by the developers, though. That's a glitch that happened to improve efficiency in melee combat. No one could've foreseen it; things like that happen sometimes.

Also, Meta Knight is -the- artificial skill gap. <3

 

[*Cam*]

I have had much more than 40 hours practicing melee, and I still can't DI out of combos properly, L-cancel, waveland, or wavedash. The only one of those I really find unnecessary is L-cancelling. It's throwing in an extra button to press every time you do an aerial. I'm not dissing melee, but it does rely heavier on tech skill than brawl. If you're into that, then by all means, play it. I play noobs everyday in the gameroom at Auburn, and I have come to appreciate that brawl is much more noob-friendly. I want people who are starting out to be able to get to the fun stuff faster. I consider strategy a lot more fun to work on than tech skill. Yes, there is definitely still tech skill involved, no argument there, but the tech skill is not as integral to playing the game as melee's is.

 

[SleepyK]

but why would you not do certain ATs when you need them?
why not just have them be an easy button press?

I have had much more than 40 hours practicing melee, and I still can't DI out of combos properly, L-cancel, waveland, or wavedash. The only one of those I really find unnecessary is L-cancelling. It's throwing in an extra button to press every time you do an aerial. I'm not dissing melee, but it does rely heavier on tech skill than brawl. If you're into that, then by all means, play it. I play noobs everyday in the gameroom at Auburn, and I have come to appreciate that brawl is much more noob-friendly. I want people who are starting out to be able to get to the fun stuff faster. I consider strategy a lot more fun to work on than tech skill. Yes, there is definitely still tech skill involved, no argument there, but the tech skill is not as integral to playing the game as melee's is.

40 hours? really? no offense, but you are probably practicing the wrong things the wrong way.

also, the "fun stuff" argument is assuming you are playing with the competitive ruleset.

 

[*Cam*]

but why would you not do certain ATs when you need them?
why not just have them be an easy button press?



40 hours? really? no offense, but you are probably practicing the wrong things the wrong way.

also, the "fun stuff" argument is assuming you are playing with the competitive ruleset.

That's more than 40 hours over a long period of time. Yes, we are playing with the competitive ruleset in the gameroom, and a lot of new players have expressed interest in going to tournaments because of it. They have basic tech skill, so when I teach them to play competitively, I can get straight to strategy, which is incredibly fun to learn IMO.

 

[Duchock]

I think you are looking at it the wrong way. (I'm entering the argument. This will not end well)


In what way should a game be played? And what makes it competitive? Take for example Pokemon Puzzle League. Should there be a certain combination of buttons that have to be pushed in order to make the blocks move faster? No, that would be pointless. The game is reliant on smart thinking and pattern recognition. Brawl, in many ways, is very similar. You have to recognize your opponent's patterns and concoct a counter strategy on the fly, not at all as similar to Melee's "you play better and react faster than your opponent." You get better at Brawl moreso by improving your cognitive reasoning than better reaction time. Cause sure, you can hit that shield button fast enough, but wouldn't it be better if you could avoid that situation from happening in the first place?

Barwl/Melee may be similar games, but the basis of design is very different. One rewarding smart plays (however simplified they may be, such as, Snake reacting to a character dashing towards them with a tilt, or complicated like effectively pulling off spikes). Whereas Melee is more certainly more technical of a competition. Brawl can be technical too, but indeed it is not the sole design focus.

 

[theONEjanitor]

Imagine if in Super Smash Bros. 4: No Johns, you had to Press L or R to bring up your shield, but there was a massive bug in the game where it didn't reduce or remove any damage done to you unless you additionally pressed down, left, up, right, AA exactly one frame after pressing the shield button.

To casual players, No Johns would just be a game without a shield button.
to competitive players, shielding would be an "advanced tech". and players who used it would almost certainly have a huge advantage on players who didn't. but it would be an artificial skill gap, because (most likely) there would be no situation in which you would press L or R without inputing the extra buttons to make it actually work. In No Johns Plus, the developer community should remove this artificial gap, and make R and L cause the shield to automatically work.

this basically the equivalent of L-Cancelling. albeit a bit more extreme of an example.

now imagine if Pressing L or R, brough the shield up, but instead of removing all damage, it only removed half damage. and there was a glitch where pressing down, left, up, right AA, would right as the shield went up, would negate all damage instead, except your shield stun would be 3 times as long.

this would be a much more situational advanced technique, that you wouldnt probably use EVERY single time you pressed the shield button. In this case, i have no problem with it. It isn't artificial, its just another tool at my disposable.

advanced techniques always widen the skill gap, but only sometimes artificially/arbitrarily.

wavedashing is like a hammer. you use it when you need it.
l-cancelling is like your heart. you can't not use it.

notice how a hammer requires special effort to use, and your heart automatically works.

i dont really care what the button input is, the problem is that there IS a special button input at all for moves like L-cancelling. If the input for wavedashing was left right right ABXY, that would suck, but we'd get used it if we wanted to play at a high level.

Smash IN GENERAL has relatively easy button inputs when compared to some other games. That's why a lot of other communities might think the game's "for children" or "easy" if they'd never played it.

 

[shaSLAM]

i think fast falling and double lazering are the brawl AT's

 

[j00t]

Good ****ing gosh.

@Duchock: From what I read, are you saying that Melee doesn't require reasoning and thought behind it? Because it surely does. You said that you have to "recognize your opponents patterns and concoct a counter strategy on the fly" for Brawl, but it seems like you implied that you didn't have to do that in Melee, which is absolutely incorrect. In fact it might be more important in Melee, because if you make a mistake in Melee, it is usually punished by taking a stock, whereas in Brawl if you make a mistake you get away with a few scrapes and bruises. If you don't adapt to your opponent before he is two stocks above you, then the game is over by that point.

@T1J: I never really understood your "artifical skill gap" argument. Why do you want to be at the top of the playing field while putting in as little effort as possible? I'm not saying that Brawl doesn't take practice (I was trolling Brawl back in the day for not taking skill to play, but I was wrong. Yeah I admitted it) to play. You still have to learn the characteristics of the game, and beyond that the specifics of each character, but just because Melee takes a little more practice you won't try to get better at it? Take soccer for example. The first thing you learn is how to kick the ball with the tip of your toes. And then you learn how to kick the ball with the side of your toes and the arch of your foot. You get more power out of kicking with the tip, but you have hardly any influence as to where you want it to go. You gain control of the ball when you start kicking with the side of your foot (And yes, you almost always use the side of your foot over the tip of your toes. That's what I learned in like fourth grade, anyways ). Are you saying you'd stop practicing soccer because you thought kicking with the side of your foot was an artificial skill buffer?

Also, your examples are way over the top. If I had to press 6 buttons within one frame instead of one button during several frames before landing, then I think I'd have to hurt myself.

Alright, back to homework.

 

[SleepyK]

i'm not trying to say that lcanceling is a good thing necessarily, just that i like it because i feel as if it adds something to the learning curve. but thank you very much for continuing to make civil posts.

i feel like we still haven't made a clear distinction between artificial skill barriers and ATs..
largely because i feel like ATs fall under artificial skill barriers.
I think the thing with lcanceling in melee is that it becomes more immediately necessary to utilize them than other ATs in the game or even brawl. regardless, any AT i think falls under the "artificial skill barrier" gap if you, as joot stated, want to play at a high level with exerting minimal effort.

also, i disagree that brawl is more of a thinking game than melee is because at high levels, you run about the same amount of risk/reward calculations while spacing. high level brawl is usually pretty fast unless someone is planking. melee definitely does have a stronger emphasis on execution. no doubt about that.

i know there hasn't been much misinterpretation as of yet, which i am grateful for, but i'mma throw these thangs out there - i am not trash talking brawl. i am picking it up and i enjoy watching high level brawl gameplay.

 

[j00t]

sup sleepybutt

 

[theONEjanitor]

sleepy i fully see what you're saying. and in all honesty i take pride in being able to wreck my friends in melee because of my (moderate) ability to use things like l-cancels.

mainly I think in Project M and things like it thats its arbitrary to put it back in there, and you could get a lot of people into the game such as brawlers who never got into melee if you removed things like that. but maybe that's not the point of the project. i dont think it would diminish the challenge or competitiveness of it at all to do so.

 

[NinjaFoxX]

i beleive the examples should be more realistic...er

lets compare, like BnBs in general for a fighting game. in melee, some of your BnBs require you to L-cancel moves, in something like...hm....Street fighter, a BnB may require you to cancel a move or 2 in order to complete it. the difference is in SF, all you need to cancel you move is your next input. like you mkick cancelling into a lpunch, all you need it to time the lpunch correctly. as for melee, before you can cancel that aireal into something, you need to press L or R first.

thats pretty much the logical gist of what janitor is saying.

secondly, i think the general reason to add in L-cancel to P:M is simply to add more options to the game, the amount of things you can do just from cancelling you arieal makes the gameplay less stale.(and makes you less predictable)

 

[SleepyK]

i'm not sure. there are a lot of tricks you can pull to mess up someone's lcancel. i know it's "artificial," but i feel as if the existence of options like that add a type of depth to the game. what if someone could mess up your 1 frame link in ssf4 via slight gameplay mechanics?

tbh i hope they add neutral frame throw teching in project m.

i've always thought that was a cool idea.

and duchock, joot already said what i wanted to say.
it's not a tech-off. there b lots of thinkin

i kind of pride myself for being an intelligent player.

i beleive the examples should be more realistic...er

lets compare, like BnBs in general for a fighting game. in melee, some of your BnBs require you to L-cancel moves, in something like...hm....Street fighter, a BnB may require you to cancel a move or 2 in order to complete it. the difference is in SF, all you need to cancel you move is your next input. like you mkick cancelling into a lpunch, all you need it to time the lpunch correctly. as for melee, before you can cancel that aireal into something, you need to press L or R first.

thats pretty much the logical gist of what janitor is saying.

uh, i've already brought that up. that does kind of already exist in fightan gam