Event - E3 Invitational 2014 Am I the only one truly disapointed?

[MasterOfKnees]

And if he had stuck around you would be complaining that he was wasting time and not fixing the things that you feel need addressing. The man has time and again proven that he is dedicated to his craft. Lest we forget that Smash came about because Sakurai sacrificed his weekends for a game no one had high hopes for. Why is it such a bad thing that he wants to get back to work and get stuff done?

I have been increasingly frustrated with this fandom since the invitational ended and I saw the reactions. Yeah, I don't get the closed roundtable thing but that's hardly a nail in the coffin. But you interpretations of Sakurai's answers demonstrate, for lack of a better term, complete ignorance.

This is the man who is in charge of creating this game. He's the guy that knows the mechanics, the engine, and the plans for the future. Having random people challenge him that they in their infinite wisdom can help balance the game has got to be irritating. Did this random guy know anything about game design? Does he know the vision and the goals of the team? Sakurai has made it clear. This game that he is making is for a wide audience. Yes, he obviously wants to include us and seems to be bending over backwards to do so. This whole tournament proves that. But we are not the majority of smash players. Sakurai is not making this game just for us. He's making it for everyone.

Hell, we don't even have the final build. Sakurai made it quite clear that things could change. Why don't we, as tired as this line is, sit down, shut the **** up, and wait for the chance to put time and effort into the game before declaring it to be tripe. I'm shocked that after just one day some of these players are declaring the game a waste. Why? Because it's different? Because they changed things and now you have to learn the system over again? Give it a chance, for Arceus' sake.

Oh, and yeah, I think that the fact Sakurai puts in gimmicks, items, weird stages, and outright says all characters aren't balanced for 1v1 play PROVES that to him it's still a party game. Hasn't it been like that for... ever?

And don't get me started on the BS regarding the reaction to the grand finals...

Come on guys. Enough. Give the game a chance and see what happens. Give Sakurai a chance and see what happens. He's gone on record to say that people who post these kinds of threads are his least favorite gamers. Now how do you expect to get what you want if you're getting lumped into that group?

Oh, and before I forget, YES! If you don't know how game design works, then you have no business telling a game designer that he's doing his job wrong. I don't care how many hours you have in Melee. This isn't Melee, and Sakurai isn't going to stand there and have people tell him that they can do his job better.

End Rant

I agree that the guy in the Q&A was snooty, but not so much with the rest.

I respect Sakurai's dedication to the project of course, but just because he spends a lot of time on the project doesn't mean he's doing the right things. Casual players will play the game regardless if it has a lot of hitstun or not, they will play it even if there's L-Cancelling or Wavedashing, Melee proved that by being the highest selling game on the Gamecube. The casual audience is incredibly easy to please, they're happy as long as they can make Mario fight Sonic with fluid gameplay, so what's the point in focusing so much on pleasing them and thus neglecting many of the criticisms the competitive community, the actually dedicated fans, has given to Brawl?

Sitting down and shutting up is the worst thing to do if there's something that you're not happy with. There's one particular thing I really liked about Microsoft's E3 presentation, and that's how they constantly thanked the gamers for letting their voice be heard so they could make the best product possible. The Xbox One was flamed to pieces, and Microsoft changed things accordingly, and they seem genuinly humble about the whole thing. If Sakurai hates taking criticism, then he should never be in this business. Constructive criticism is the most valuable thing you can get out of a product because it helps you improve, that's basically one of the most basic designer rules ever, no matter if you're designing video games, toys, dresses, w/e. That's why video games like Other M suck, because Sakamoto was too prideful to take in criticism from Fusion and simply cranked the flaws of that game up to 11, and he's still too stubborn to admit it was a mistake even after all the hate, even going on record to say that we are wrong for not liking it. If Sakurai is like that, then I have no faith in this being anything but Brawl 2, because Sakurai doesn't always know best, nobody can make the right choices all the time, and neither he or fans should pretend that he can. To be fair though, I don't think Sakurai is like that since he has removed things like tripping, but I sure hope his least favorite gamers aren't people that give criticisms.

Mind you I like Brawl, but it had a lot of glaring flaws that were flat out stupid and should be fixed, and while some are fixed it's obvious to the naked eye that things beyond 2-3-hit combos still aren't possible, and that's kind of ridiculous in a fighting game (which it in essence is, no matter if Sakurai wants to admit it or not.)

 

[Erimir]

If they reveal Ridley or K Rool... or Shulk and Isaac, I'll be pretty pleased with the roster.

I'm a little disappointed because I wasn't interested in Pac-Man, and I didn't like the idea of Miis... and now I'm worried that they spent even more effort on Miis than on other characters.

I liked Palutena though, and I'm pretty pleased with most everything else I saw.

I thought the 1v1 matches looked promising. We're only like 5 hours into the competitive scene people, kinda early to be dismissing it as having no depth. Most of the invitational isn't really much basis to go on since it was 4 player FFA with high items.

 

[Arturito_Burrito]

I was very disappointed about the ending of the grand finals for the invitational for pros.. I though Hungrybox played a lot more like a pro, not running away like a little ***** with a faster character.. Yeah sure it's a skill to evade and the strategy that won, but running away from kirby to force a sudden death that is 75% in your favor just seems lame to me. I lost some respect for him as a player seeing that. I would've fought even if it meant losing, not run away jumping around like a scared child..

Sorry, I just think kirby was clearly at a speed disadvantage and still was played beuatifully by hungrybox, who should have won that last match.. I'm no fan of any pros, as I'd rather play and win myself, but it (the ending) just didn't sit right with me ..

also, where the bloody f**k is K.Rool.. C'mon people..

Here you go Mr. Scrub

http://www.sirlin.net/ptw/

 

[GTZ]

Here you go Mr. Scrub

http://www.sirlin.net/ptw/

Not a scrub, just like a fair fight. can't burn me for always wanting the challenge rather than the easy way out holmes.

 

[Reoyoshi8]

....having played and loved the series from N64 to now, I can safely say that both entries in the the franchise shall receive my money. I was impressed with what I saw and loved every minute( until I came on here). The hype is real and it's further solidified my need for this game.

 

[GrownCannoli]

For me personally I thought it was a huge let down. The character reveals were lackluster and the gameplay it self was hard to watch. It looked like brawl on 1.5 speed and we all know how good brawl was...

It sucked every bit of hype I had out of me. Maybe I was expecting too much.

 

[smashingDoug]

e3 for smash sucked the announcers for the treehouse this where nothing but annoying they called link zelda once the characters suck miis really? pac man never liked him still don't palutena never played kid icarus so i could care less samegoes for all the newcomers not one of they catches my eye its just charizard x all over again to make the fans who make the most noise to shut up i can say my interest in the game died for the game fast

 

[The Slayer]

Protip on hype: Feel but don't let it consume you. Otherwise, disappointment will come at you harder than normal.

Also, you're not the first and definitely not the last person being pessimistic on a game that's not 100% done yet.

 

[Wegenbarth]

To be honest, I am really disappointed. I didn't expected Melee 2.0 but I also didn't want Brawl 2.0.
It still looks floaty and defensive-play-rewarding, which kinda kills the longtime fun for me. Esp how easily it was for Zero to camp out the last 40 seconds in the finals. Its better than Brawl, but not not as good as I hoped it will be.

To the Charas: I can live without any of my weird wishes (Tingle, Waa, Ashley and Kamek), but I still am kinda annoyed that PacMan and Miis made it. Even though I started to like the Miis (cant say that for PacMan), but it means that the Sal Leak is true, which again means we won't have Rool or Ridley which really sucks.

 

[Kokusho]

Yes I'm very disappointed too. For basicaly the same reason.
There is a lot of thing good about this game. New modes, NFC amiibos, fun new characters and such but in the end none of it will matter for me because it looks like I won't like playing the actual game.
Sakurai is acting like a despot who think he knows it all. And he just don't care about what's happening around his game. What he is saying to people like us, who actually like the uniqueness of smash as a fighting game is "f*** you I don't care about you this game is a party game".
At this point he is not even trying to reach for everyone casual and hardcore. He is simply dismissing us. Even though the rest of Nintendo are acknowledging us be inviting melee/PM players, giving us a GC controller, Nintendo as a whole see the benefices of catering to the competitive scene, we are the most hyped, the most vocal, the most passionnate, they know they have a lot to win by appealing to us, BUT the director of the game himself simply doesn't care !
And also from what he said on Q&A it sounds like Online will be bad again...just saying.

Seriously it saddenens me, I'm not even that good of a player in either melee or PM, I don't even know all the advanced techs and can't use most of them efficiently in a match. I don't dislike items, I play a whole bunch a different character, am good at what I do, you could say I'm a competitive amateur. But still, what I like about melee and project M is the responsiveness of the game the fast flow, the make your own combo on the fly thing. I like to have the choice, I know that if needed I can try a bit harder take risks with some waves dash, dash dancing and land some nice hit. Competitive games are about risk vs reward, Brawl for me wasn't rewarding, I hated playing it, it felt sluggish and very one dimensionnal.

 

[Naraku]

Not a scrub, just like a fair fight. can't burn me for always wanting the challenge rather than the easy way out holmes.

Looks like you need another read http://www.sirlin.net/ptw/

 

[Vintage Creep]

I agree that the newcomers weren't at all that unexpected, but at least Pac-Man and Mii's reveal completely SHATTERED all that "X doesn't belong in Smash! Y doesn't have any moves! What can you even do with Z?" bull****.
They look absolutely GREAT. Sakurai is a genius and he knows how to make Smash Bros. Smash fans DON'T.
I expected a little more as far as stage reveals go, but we got three in the week before E3 so that's OK (even though they were all from franchises who already got stages).
The Invitational was simply beautiful. I hope it becomes a tradition.
Nintendo simply won this E3 and made one of the best E3 in the history of E3s. And it's not over: today they'll announce Metroid Dread.

 

[D-idara]

For me personally I thought it was a huge let down. The character reveals were lackluster and the gameplay it self was hard to watch. It looked like brawl on 1.5 speed and we all know how good brawl was...

It sucked every bit of hype I had out of me. Maybe I was expecting too much.

Yes, it was amazing.

 

[Ryuutakeshi]

So according to Gamexplain the roundtable audience laughed and applauded when Sakurai asked the kid if he'd ever made a game. So I guess it's safe to say most people would disagree with the OP.

 

[Weeman]

If you can give me one, just one situation where having advanced techniques in the game would make the game less fun for casual players, then I'll concede.

As it stands if someone doesn't care about competitive Smash, then it won't matter to them. The only thing that comes from removing ATs and fast gameplay is a very sad hardcore fan base (which, ultimately is what KEEPS your game growing year after year.)

As i said i understand some of the disappointment, i agree that those mechanics wouldn't hurt the game and that the online should be working smoothly by now.
That said my gripe with the OP was calling Sakurai a "Nintendotard" for stupid reasons like:

"Adding insult to injury, he is leaving tomorrow cause "he is busy". Seriously? Everyone is there at E3 attending people and working hard and you go cause you are busy?".

What about his arm health problems?, what about his family?, one thing is bashing Sakurai for not agreeing with his development decisions, but bashing him as a person just because of him not doing everything as you wanted during an event is a pretty selfish way of thinking.

 

[Pazzo.]

I'll resay this again, these may have been pros, but they had no clue what the engine/moves etc. were like til they just picked it up. Combos aren't gonna show up on day 1 to a game people just picked up on the spot.

Thank you. Everyone, listen to this man.

So.... is it wrong to like what I've seen? Because I actually like how the game looks all around faster than Brawl.

No, I've just come to learn that the Smash complainers are loud. They like and will make themselves heard.

 

[Zone]

I know the game isn't out yet. So I don't know the end result. But from what I've seen.

I'm glad as hell I didn't give into any hype. I'm glad Nintendo did this, and I have huge respect for that.

But the game looks like crap to me. Will not buy.

 

[Phyr]

*last paragraph*

1) i'm a game designer currently making games and making my living from there.
2) I have played more brawl than melee in my life, i think. I also enjoy and i'm good at melee. Plus i'm not some random guy playing with his friends. I go to all the national tourneys in my region and do well in them. I like that is an improved brawl like i said in the op. I don't like they are not trying to listen to us more.
3) It keeps being a falacy and bad mannered, even with japanese language modal forms not being translated. It's rare for a japanese to be so direct and it's considered rude there.

4) I call him nintendotard for the same reason someone said that happened with OtherM: the worst mistake of Nintendo has always been lack of closeness with the players, most of the time enclosing selfish ideas and selfish opinions about they are right and how we are wrong and not spending much time with us.

In this E3 they have tried hard, and acomplished, to get closer to the fans. But then here comes Sakurai and says lol nope.

If it was health or family i would say ok. But he explicitly said that he is going back to keep working in the game so no excuses.

5) There is still time to come, but you are being so much wishful about that. I wonuldn't get my hopes up if i were you.

6) The Gamceube controller, and the tourney, ar enot handled by sakurai but by other nintendo departments. He explicityly said he has not been involved in the invitational making nor he has any hand in the plans for competitive smash to come. He has done nothing of this.


Sakurai is a mastermind and smash is great. I really appreciate it for that. I just wish he could have a change of mind and also reflect it in the words he uses and the actions he does. That's all.

 

[Mr.Random]

Holy **** this thread lol.

 

[Weeman]

1) i'm a game designer currently making games and making my living from there.
2) I have played more brawl than melee in my life, i think. I also enjoy and i'm good at melee. Plus i'm not some random guy playing with his friends. I go to all the national tourneys in my region and do well in them. I like that is an improved brawl like i said in the op. I don't like they are not trying to listen to us more.
3) It keeps being a falacy and bad mannered, even with japanese language modal forms not being translated. It's rare for a japanese to be so direct and it's considered rude there.

4) I call him nintendotard for the same reason someone said that happened with OtherM: the worst mistake of Nintendo has always been lack of closeness with the players, most of the time enclosing selfish ideas and selfish opinions about they are right and how we are wrong and not spending much time with us.

In this E3 they have tried hard, and acomplished, to get closer to the fans. But then here comes Sakurai and says lol nope.

If it was health or family i would say ok. But he explicitly said that he is going back to keep working in the game so no excuses.

5) There is still time to come, but you are being so much wishful about that. I wonuldn't get my hopes up if i were you.

6) The Gamceube controller, and the tourney, ar enot handled by sakurai but by other nintendo departments. He explicityly said he has not been involved in the invitational making nor he has any hand in the plans for competitive smash to come. He has done nothing of this.


Sakurai is a mastermind and smash is great. I really appreciate it for that. I just wish he could have a change of mind and also reflect it in the words he uses and the actions he does. That's all.

If you have said it like that in the OP it would have been better, but you seem really pissed there.
As for the "have you ever made a game" thing, i think you should also consider the request of the "tournament player" wich was already kinda disrespectful, but also the match he requested wouldn't have helped with the balance at all, he just wanted to show off.

 

[Phyr]

As for the "have you ever made a game" thing, i think you should also consider the request of the "tournament player" wich was already kinda disrespectful, but also the match he requested wouldn't have helped with the balance at all, he just wanted to show off.

Gotta agree with you there. But still that's no excuse for such a response.

 

[TFerg]

There are probably players who were good enough to be competitive players in Melee... but couldn't master the wavedash.

Some of the ATs that require a very fast, precise sequence of inputs over and over aren't likely to matter to completely casual players. But they may shut players out of the competitive scene.

.

"Mastering" the wavedash takes like 30 minutes of practice, and then just implementing it into your natural gameplay over time. Some characters don't even really use it much. This is coming from someone who literally just started using ATs 3 weeks ago. It's simple: If you want to be competitive, then yes, you care about ATs and put the time in to learn them. I really don't understand the excuses people are making here. Somebody else said something like, "Well what if people get beat online by ATs, that's frustrating."

You can't have a good competitive fighting game with huge differences between the good and the great, and also have it be incredibly simplistic. I'm sorry, it just won't happen.

 

[Weeman]

Gotta agree with you there. But still that's no excuse for such a response.

Yeah can't argue with that. I'm not a competitive player so i guess i just can't help but feel hyped for this game since smash means so much to me for many reasons other than competitive gameplay, but i understand why would people be disappointed.

 

[beanwolf]

I agree that Sakurai not sticking around for at least a day or two after the direct looks really bad, and even that he doesn't really care. Every other devloper/director is present at the show for the most part, and if he really cared what the 16 invitational players had to say about his game, he should have stuck around and listened to their opinions.

He says he has 12 "testers" on staff but I can near guarantee that they do not have the same scope on the game that the 16 players + 3 commentators do. The evidence for this is right in Hugs' tweet, where he claimed that Sakurai believing Samus was OP to be a completely ridiculous claim. Yes, Hugs didn't get to play the game very long, but he has still played Samus for 14 years and I feel can better recognize her strengths and weakness in a COMPETITIVE environment.

I don't know, but I really don't understand Sakurai. It's like he fails to understand that his casual and party fanbase could not give a flying sh*t about the game's actual mechanics; they only care about character representation, stage inclusion, and cool features. To be honest, out of the hundreds of people I've met that have played smash, both casual and competitive alike, prefer Melee, stating that Brawl feels slow and sticky. Typically casuals will lament that even though Brawl had a lot of cool things and a ton of new content, it just wasn't fun after you stopped seeing new things because the game felt so restrictive. When I tell casual players that feel this way towards Brawl about PM they flip sh*t and say that is the greatest idea ever, usually getting back to me after they've played PM for a while that it's the best smash game they've ever played (and these are items-on, FFA players!!!!).

You could very well design the game to a competitive standard (complete with ATs like wavedashing and L-canceling) while still including plenty of content that ropes in new players and casual fans of the series alike, while still creating a deep and competitive game.

For some reason, he doesn't understand this and feels that these two things MUST be mutually exclusive. His perpetuation of this attitude throughout these past two directs as well as at the roundtable is what is most angering to me, regardless of the state of the game.

It's been said that Nintendo reps on the show floor are taking notes of competitive player opinions on the game. Between that and the Hbox vs. Zero Grand Campfest let's hope we can at least get some sort of faster, offensive play into Smash4.



Side Rant: Sakurai also apparently includes ITEM USE in character balancing (he said this during Brawl's development as well), which to this day boggles my mind. Even if items could not be toggled off, balancing item play is like trying to get a true random number generator to spit out the same number five times in a row. It's not worth his time and many would say it is the wrong approach to balancing the game.

 

[Thirdkoopa]

I'll resay this again, these may have been pros, but they had no clue what the engine/moves etc. were like til they just picked it up. Combos aren't gonna show up on day 1 to a game people just picked up on the spot.

This. So hard. We'll definitely have to see more first; I think the Best Buy event may be a little more telling.

 

[Neerb]

The level of b!+(# on this forum is palpable. This is a freaking embarrassment to the community.

We get 3 new characters including Palutena, a character a ton of people wanted and we all expected to be in, the Miis, Nintendo's new second mascot who look WAAAY better in Smash than any of us ever thought they would, and Pac-Man, the mascot of the company making the game and the single most iconic third party character of all time who actually looks really good in a fighter which is more than I can say for his Street Fighter X Tekken appearance. And what do people do? Cry about how "underwhelming" it was because they didn't get whatever one specific more obscure character they wanted who still might be in the game later by the way. Oh yeah, and they showed Game & Watch in the Pac-Man trailer, so throw a vet in there too.

Then a bunch of people used to playing competitively are forced to play on new stages in new physics with new items in FFA matches (you know, the way Smash Bros has meant to be played since nineteenfreakingninetynine) and everyone says the game doesn't play "the way it's supposed to play." Are you completely insane? Not only is no one here making the game and therefore has absolutely no say in whatever the heck Smash is supposed to be, but we haven't actually seen people who are used to the game play it, which by the way makes the "Brawl 2.0" comments completely idiotic because they would have actually been used to it if that were the case.

Sakurai said it's a party game? Boohoo, it IS TOTALLY A PARTY GAME AND ALWAYS HAS BEEN. Yes, a strong community exists around playing competitively, but that's our choice, not the intention. For crying out loud, half the competitive stuff people praise in Melee is just broken physics due to a rushed development cycle. "Sakurai isn't paying attention to the competitive scene?" I'm sorry, I must have missed the removal of tripping, larger balancing team, faster-than-Brawl physics, competitive-only online mode, and the tournament of 16 competitive players with 3 competitive announcers in a stadium of 3000 fans at the biggest event in gaming livestreamed to the entire world. Get the heck over yourselves.

Look, do you NEED to be happy about the character announcements? No. Do you NEED to be happy about the new physics? No. But the sheer overwhelming amount of people claiming Nintendo "doesn't care" or that the series somehow belongs to us is mind numbing. This is why people hate this community almost as much as LoL.

Oh, and one more thing: the most entertaining FFA match last night (not counting that glorious Mega Man FS hype) was by a long shot the celebrity match. That doesn't say something about the game, that says something about the players.

 

[Overswarm]

Side Rant: Sakurai also apparently includes ITEM USE in character balancing (he said this during Brawl's development as well), which to this day boggles my mind. Even if items could not be toggled off, balancing item play is like trying to get a true random number generator to spit out the same number five times in a row. It's not worth his time and many would say it is the wrong approach to balancing the game.

The game is a party game by design, and items are a high point for most players. Balancing for item usage is extremely important, just not typically to us.

 

[Kokusho]

the saddest thing is that Nintendo reps seems to care actually, hence the tournament, the players, the casters, the hype, the controllers, etc. Unfortunatly the one who doesn't seem to care is Sakurai, the one who's making the game ! He may be aware of some stuff but chose to not listen, and most likely isn't that aware of what's happening out there.

 

[beanwolf]

The game is a party game by design, and items are a high point for most players. Balancing for item usage is extremely important, just not typically to us.

But balancing items is 95% impossible. There's no way to control the RNG or even bias it to make it fair all the time, even to casual players. The items themselves can be kept from being ridiculously overpowered as you say, but tweaking characters based on specific items like Sakurai seems to claim to do is just idiotic in my opinion. Even in a party environment, I hear casuals complain constantly about how someone got lucky with item spawns. It's just the nature of them.

For the record, I am not talking in either of my posts here about disappointment with the game's current state, and I am hopeful that Nintendo is still listening to us (prog and others report that they are), but what I am disappointed with is Sakurai's continual flawed logic and poor attitude toward his own series. He can easily satisfy both parties but chooses to do only one, and that is what is most angering and disappointing.

 

[Overswarm]

But balancing items is 95% impossible. There's no way to control the RNG or even bias it to make it fair all the time, even to casual players. The items themselves can be kept from being ridiculously overpowered as you say, but tweaking characters based on specific items like Sakurai seems to claim to do is just idiotic in my opinion. Even in a party environment, I hear casuals complain constantly about how someone got lucky with item spawns. It's just the nature of them.

For the record, I am not talking in either of my posts here about disappointment with the game's current state, and I am hopeful that Nintendo is still listening to us (prog and others report that they are), but what I am disappointed with is Sakurai's continual flawed logic and poor attitude toward his own series. He can easily satisfy both parties but chooses to do only one, and that is what is most angering and disappointing.

As someone who has had to balance item drops for an RPG, it isn't 95% impossible at all.

You take the items and you look at two things: the feeling the player using it gets and the feeling the player it being used ON gets (the one who didn't get it).

ZSS' final smash is one. ZSS feels great using her final smash, I can figure that one out easily just by watching it used at the invitational.

The opponents? Feels much worse.

Seems imbalanced. $5 says it'll be nerfed in some way prior to release, either by smashballs being less common or by the move itself being nerfed.


When people complain about someone "getting lucky" in Mario Kart or Smash, they themselves are openly admitting that they would want that thing. Everyone wants to win. When you get something like a lightning bolt in MK8 it isn't fair, but it feels awesome to be the only big driver.

It's not different in smash. Smash being an "attacking" game rather than a skill-test game like racing simply errs on the side of the user having a better feeling than the other. It's why everyone runs for the smashball or homerun bat or whatever. It feels good to use because it's effective.

 

[Big Burn]

I agree that the guy in the Q&A was snooty, but not so much with the rest.

I respect Sakurai's dedication to the project of course, but just because he spends a lot of time on the project doesn't mean he's doing the right things. Casual players will play the game regardless if it has a lot of hitstun or not, they will play it even if there's L-Cancelling or Wavedashing, Melee proved that by being the highest selling game on the Gamecube. The casual audience is incredibly easy to please, they're happy as long as they can make Mario fight Sonic with fluid gameplay, so what's the point in focusing so much on pleasing them and thus neglecting many of the criticisms the competitive community, the actually dedicated fans, has given to Brawl?

Sitting down and shutting up is the worst thing to do if there's something that you're not happy with. There's one particular thing I really liked about Microsoft's E3 presentation, and that's how they constantly thanked the gamers for letting their voice be heard so they could make the best product possible. The Xbox One was flamed to pieces, and Microsoft changed things accordingly, and they seem genuinly humble about the whole thing. If Sakurai hates taking criticism, then he should never be in this business. Constructive criticism is the most valuable thing you can get out of a product because it helps you improve, that's basically one of the most basic designer rules ever, no matter if you're designing video games, toys, dresses, w/e. That's why video games like Other M suck, because Sakamoto was too prideful to take in criticism from Fusion and simply cranked the flaws of that game up to 11, and he's still too stubborn to admit it was a mistake even after all the hate, even going on record to say that we are wrong for not liking it. If Sakurai is like that, then I have no faith in this being anything but Brawl 2, because Sakurai doesn't always know best, nobody can make the right choices all the time, and neither he or fans should pretend that he can. To be fair though, I don't think Sakurai is like that since he has removed things like tripping, but I sure hope his least favorite gamers aren't people that give criticisms.

Mind you I like Brawl, but it had a lot of glaring flaws that were flat out stupid and should be fixed, and while some are fixed it's obvious to the naked eye that things beyond 2-3-hit combos still aren't possible, and that's kind of ridiculous in a fighting game (which it in essence is, no matter if Sakurai wants to admit it or not.)

I completely agree. Thank you writing all this out so I didn't have too. What makes me the most upset is that Sakurai clearly knows about the competitive community and his making Brawl 2.0 anyways and deliberately alienating the fans that love smash the MOST. After the first 3 months of playing brawl, and finally accepting how disappointing it truly was, I took some solace in the fact that maybe Sakurai was unaware of the competitive community. I can accept that. But now with the new smash, the fact that he knows about us and does this anyway, flat out pisses me off so much. So stupid. I guess Melee was a magical accident never to be replicated again. I know that the Project M people will do what they can with it, and that's great. But as far as I'm concerned that will always have it's limitations because the coding process isn't being backed by people doing the work for free, not a multi billion dollar company. I don't like the "game isn't finished" argument either. Sakurai obviously isn't going to change things like air dodging, lack of wavedash/dash dance etc. It's clear that's what he wants in the game by now. They'll work out some bugs in the next 3 months, not change their game design philosophy. It's clear he doesn't give a **** about us.
I'll still play it cause I love smash so much, but I'm sure I'll play it for 3 months and then get bored of it, and then play around with the eventual mod that comes out. No way this type of game will have the longevity melee had though.

 

[JCDied4U]

If you can give me one, just one situation where having advanced techniques in the game would make the game less fun for casual players, then I'll concede.

As it stands if someone doesn't care about competitive Smash, then it won't matter to them. The only thing that comes from removing ATs and fast gameplay is a very sad hardcore fan base (which, ultimately is what KEEPS your game growing year after year.)

Chain grabbing, boom. If one person knows it it ruins the game for the rest of the casuals.

 

[Bakasama]

I think that there aren't going to be any major changes to the build in the coming months. The 3DS version comes out in Japan in only 3 months, and most likely anything that could alter the flow of the game entirely, regardless of who is playing at what level, won't be added or changed. Directional air-dodge won't be added; At most it could be a hidden option that you could turn on for individual matches, but there's probably no hope of something like that. L-cancelling being out is extremely depressing, but this is one of those things that could actually be added back in for the final revision. Z-cancelling, after all, was a thing. Individual moves could be altered for better hitstun and linking, but overall, the engine as it stands doesn't lend well for combos as melee knows them. Whoever said 'combos won't be found on day one' -- Players who played Melee did find combos on day one. Because that build lent itself to them. However, it looks like fun. The customization looks interesting, but presents potentially irritating balance issues. If we're going to allow neutral + strong + fast versions of every projectile, or something similar, certain characters are going to have inherently godlike alternate specials that are going to slip through balance testing, with so many available.
Custom movesets probably won't be tournie viable due to time constraints, especially if accessing and altering them can't be done by selecting a character and hitting a single button from within the VS menu.

Luckily, the moves themselves (on a move-to-move basis) look more rewarding than in Brawl, and it looks like as the game develops, certain moves will be found as definite kill-moves. We didn't see a lot of spikes during the tournie, but hopefully today after certain teams get out to the Smash Fests, we'll learn more. Hell, if every meteor was replaced by a light spike, the game's direction would be improved greatly, and the tension would be much more visible on the field as players weave in the air to avoid them.

 

[JavierT56]

After the whole invitation yesterday people seem to be really split on how they feel about the new smash. Some people are complaining how its not melee and is just Brawl 2.0. Others are embracing the game for what it is, and are bashing the melee die hards because of their complaining of no advanced techniques, and are saying to be grateful of what we already got with all the reveals and of Nintendo recognizing the community, with the tournament and all. Ill be the first to say that its been great with all the recognition nintendo has given us as community. But whats the point of even trying to recognize us and act like they know we exist if the games we are playing are not conducive of competitive play. I dont know how the game will play on launch but so far it seems like it will just turn into Brawl all over again, where defensive play is highly rewarded. Im not saying that we need wave dashing, dash dancing and all those techniques but make a game where casuals can play and be fine( although they'll play no matter what mechanics are in, they just want to play as link mario and fight each other) but if you want to be serious about the game you can play it at a more advanced level. Almost like a street fighter 4 approach, its a very simple game that can be picked up by anyone that played street fighter but for those who to be competitive they can learn the advanced techniques like FADC, and all the frame traps and such that go into the game.
Theres my 2 cents on smash 4 so far. I hope that what im saying right now is all wrong and that come launch day, the game brings the smash community into a new age that will carry it over for the next 10 years.

 

[RadRedi]

While I didn't walk away from the Smash aspect of E3 terribly satisfied, I still can't say I was disappointed.

I can't call myself a "competitive" player because I don't feel it's necessary to learn glorified development screw-ups to get the most out of a Smash game. However, I can't call myself a casual player because my friends and I play with items off and limited distractions in order to see who has gotten closest to mastering their mains. With that in mind, I was perfectly okay with the gameplay last night. I relished every minute of it.

The Amiibo add-ins are promising, as well. Even if I didn't find having my own personal sparring partner collection interesting (which I do), I am a collector. And being a huge Smash fan, owning physical Trophies is a dream come true.

The newcomer reveals are what got me. I expected every one of those three characters. Heck, I was a Mii supporter. But they basically took a prime opportunity to show off huge fan-favorite surprises and melded it into showcasing the three characters no one thought wouldn't make it. Compared to the trio of Villager, Mega Man, and Wii Fit Trainer, it just didn't have that same wow factor. But that's a personal gripe.

 

[hariooo]

Chain grabbing, boom. If one person knows it it ruins the game for the rest of the casuals.

And that same player is going to be upset if I spend 8 minutes spamming Marth's forward smash in their face. But why are casual players so concerned about winning/losing?

 

[nessokman]

And that same player is going to be upset if I spend 8 minutes spamming Marth's forward smash in their face. But why are casual players so concerned about winning/losing?

Nobody wants to freaking lose, nobody. "Casual" doesn't mean they don't care what happens. It means they aren't hardcore and don't play religiously. They still want to win.

 

[hariooo]

Nobody wants to freaking lose, nobody. "Casual" doesn't mean they don't care what happens. It means they aren't hardcore and don't play religiously. They still want to win.

...exactly. But you're generally going to lose if you play someone who has more experienced than you, AT's or no. You just won't have such a convenient excuse, so why blame AT's at all?

 

[Hokori]

I know one thing...If I got a dollar every time someone mentioned "Melee/Brawl 2.0" somewhere across Smashboards, I think I'd be a rather rich SOB (rich enough to pop tags in a thrift shop, make it rain in a dollar store and splurge on dollar menu items anyway).

 

[nessokman]

How can you be disappointed with all this awesome gameplay!