- The timings for L-canceling on shield, p-shield, hit, and whiff are all different. All top-level players will tell you this.
- Even top-level players miss L-canceling enough times for it to be significant. As I've said a thousand times before, this is a service to the opposing player.
- As a corollary to the above, balancing through human error is one of the most difficult things to do, but one of the best and most ingenious things to do. What makes PM and Melee unique from other fighting games is that others balance through limits, making games like Street Fighter 4 a slow piece of crap (seriously, it's absolute trash competitively). But PM and Melee balance through this freedom allowing for human error. The reason why so many people make basketball analogies is because PM is one of the few games that allows for the full range of human reaction and error. Sure, it wouldn't apply to other fighting games, but then again, other fighting games don't even compare.
1. Yes they are different, but how do these things significantly increase the game's depth for the player utilizing them? Yes, they have to learn a different timing, but how does the depth expand beyond that and into the inner workings of the game? This argument is about how manual L-canceling increases depth in-game. Details about different timings and inputs deal with depth in a practice and execution sense, characteristics that are independent and external from depth in-game via a game design standpoint. They are independent because based on game design theory, increasing the skill floor (out-of-game depth from practice and hard work) does not always increase in-game depth (depth from increased option pools and decision trees). You have to identify how the increased difficulty (in this case, learning different L-canceling timings) increases in-game depth and opens the player using it to increased options and decisions and compare this to other standards such as auto L-canceling and determine what is gained and lost. When you do this, you see that the only thing you gain from manual L-canceling are just button presses that serve no other purpose than to just be pressed to accomplish only one effect, an effect that can easily be done by making it automatic.
2. You can't use the failure to execute the mechanic as evidence for how the mechanic adds depth to the game. That's only evidence of how NOT using the mechanic correctly adds depth. We are arguing for how the use of manual L-canceling itself adds depth, not the lack of. You also can't use the experiences of the opponent as evidence for how manual L-canceling adds depth. If it adds depth, you should show how it benefits the player who uses it because that shows how that depth is applied to the most important person that matters: the player. Telling me how the
incorrect usage of the mechanic benefits the
opponent instead of the
player is arguing about something completely different and is a red herring argument.
But let's say that this is relevant to the argument. Then how is it that a mistake of the proper utilization of the mechanic and the opponent netting a punish for it indicative of the mechanic providing depth? I could sneeze during the match and miss my wavedash and get punished and comboed to death. Is that sneeze evidence of how wavedashing adds depth to the game because the mistake caused me to die? How is human error, something that can be explained by external factors such as lack of practice/experience, being sick, being heckled in the crowd, etc. evidence of an in-game mechanic's inherent depth? There is no logical association here. Just because you practiced a certain mechanic a thousand times and a noob can't even get it once and you trash on the noob because of that difference, does not mean that the mechanic you are utilizing has inherent in-game depth. You are just abusing the high skill floor that separates you and the other player. There is also no logical association between mechanical mistakes and in-game depth at top level, too. Just because Armada missed an L-cancel and Mango converted that into a kill, does that tell you that L-canceling has depth or does it tell you that Armada simply just made a mistake, which he could have done for any other move for any other reason?
3. Game developers definitely take into account the potential for human error when designing difficulty levels and hard to execute decisions. But what the also do is make sure that in increasing such difficulty, there is also a proportional reward for getting it right that significantly adds to the gaming experience when compared to all other available alternatives. Manual L-canceling fails at this requirement and allows players to be punished for making mistakes and not to get significantly rewarded for doing it right in-game when compared to other alternative strategies like auto L-canceling. You could say, "but reducing the lag for manually pressing the button IS the reward, therefore it adds depth", but this is why you cross-check it with alternative solutions because when you compare it to auto L-canceling, you see that auto L-canceling does all the things manual L-canceling does except requiring a repetitive input that has to be pressed nearly 100% of the time an aerial is done.
And ah, the basketball analogy. There are actually very interesting parallels to be made from basketball and Melee in terms of the free-flowingness of both games. But one common comparison when it comes to this debate is that manual L-canceling in Melee/P:M is like dribbling a ball in basketball in that even though it's something you have to do all the time, it adds immeasurable depth to the game in all the opportunities that arise from dribbling. Therefore, L-canceling has significant depth. I don't know if you were alluding to this argument, I don't want to make a strawman argument here, but I want to assume for now that you were. since I feel like I've seen it a lot before. As such, I will show you why this is a false equivalence.
Dribbling adds depth to the game of basketball that simply holding the ball or having an automatic ball dribbler from the future can not give at all. When you dribble a ball, you gain access to a lot of maneuverability options with your body and the ball, you can do creative passes, you can cross-up your opponent, you can play dribble mindgames, etc. Automating this process takes away all these things from the option pool and completely restricts decision trees.
What depth is being added by manually L-canceling? The mere act of manually L-canceling (not the effect of the L-cancel, just the manual press alone) does not provide ANY options that would easily classify as in-game depth. Manual L-canceling does not add any offensive/defensive options, spacing/zoning options, punishment options, combo ability, edgeguard ability, mix-up opportunities, etc. When you compare it to its automatic variant, the only difference is the repetitive button you're pressing. All of the other aspects of depth do not get affected AT ALL.
In basketball, taking away manual dribbling or all dribbling takes away all of those decision tress and option pools that could have been made, meaning a significant drop in player experience. In Melee/P:M, replacing manual L-canceling with an automated variant only removes the physical burden. Nothing else about the in-game is being compromised or affected, therefore such comparisons between dribbling and manual L-canceling are a false equivalence.
Also, you have not really tackle the points I made in my initial argument. Do you agree that we need an objective method to determine and gauge the value of depth? Do you agree that methods based on individual skill and hard work are subjective and irrelevant to in-game depth? Do you agree that if we do need an objective method, game design theory is one of the best ones? I think it would advance the discussion if these things were addressed.
