Brawl - More balanced than Melee? Lie or truth?

[aho43]

fyi Brawl was delayed in the US so they could print more copies. I think the Japanese release was for similar reasons. Delay wasn't as long in Japan because the Japanese market isn't as large as the US one. Brawl isn't a perfect game, but the best characters in Brawl are much closer to the worst characters in Brawl than their Melee counterparts. Who is the worst in Brawl? I'd be picking from 20 or so characters because its really too hard to say. And its not like they're bad either.

 

[Yuna]

Marth and Toon Link being better than everyone else(perhaps) has absolutely NOTHING to do with Brawl being more balanced.

Pretty much EVERY FIGHTING GAME IN EXISTENCE hass 2 or 3 characters that are significantly better than the rest. Does this mean the game is not balanced? No, it doesn't.

Most fighting games considered "balanced" do not have 37 characters and only 2-3 who really stand out from the rest, though.

It's also important to note how much better than the rest of the cast, especially those directly below them, the God- or Top Tier is.

Ken, Chun Li and Yun own Street Fighter 3: third Strike, and yet you see all sorts of players placing high(or winning tournaments) not using any of them. This was not the case in Melee, where a huge chunk of characters simply couldn't place in tournaments.

Name them all and I'll name just as many (proportionally) placing high in tournaments. And I don't really know of any character outside of the Top winning any major 3S tourney.

So far Marth, Toon Link, Olimar, Luigi, Lucas, Mario, Ike, Snake, Pikachu, Kirby, Pit, Meta Knight, Pokemon Trainer, Lucario, Falco, Fox, Wolf and Wario all look very solid.

How many of those can do all the below:
* KO well
* Combo into KO moves well
* Combo well at all
* Rack up damage well (either with single moves or broken combos)
* Approach well

How many of those can do 4 or 3 of the above? How many can do 2? Just 1? You see, the balance is significantly less when you consider these facts. Edgeguarding has been gimped and recovering has received a major buff, so all of the above are vital now.

No longer can you easily knock someone off the stage and gimp them to death with edgeguarding.

 

[Revven]

yeah I know but that could have been one of the reasons

It would take alot longer than it did to balance each character.

Guys, this isn't the topic for discussing why they delayed the game. In fact, I'll tell you why even just so you stay on topic.

First time: It was for Sonic. Of course when they added him they have to then do some more balancing to make room for him so everyone has a chance against him. So, that's the main reason why it was delayed so long, plus, he wasn't 100% done as we saw at E 4 All.

Second time: Production. He delayed it because they needed enough copies to meet the demand in the US. Nothing more and nothing less.

Okay? Kay.

 

[Ogre_Deity_Link]

Only thing I can say is that I'm dissapointed in the fact that Link is STILL mediocre.

Stupid not balancing things out.

 

[Xengri]

I'm going to go with it's way to early to use ether side as a argument.

No one can say that it is more balanced or, that it is less balanced then Melee.

What may seem obvious my turn out to be false in the future.

Remember when Melee came out and, people actually thought Roy and Marth were equal?
Yeah, it seems pretty obvious now, huh?

 

[Forget Me Not]

...to determine a change in something you need a control. We lack a control to compare Brawl to. So we cannot say if Brawl is more balanced than Melee technically. However we can say it "feels" more balanced due to the various buffs and debuffs of characters from its predecesor. Naturally people will compare Brawl with Melee because thats how sequels work. People are supposed to improve on things that was a problem before.

 

[RedMage8BT]

Remember when Melee came out and, people actually thought Roy and Marth were equal?
Yeah, it seems pretty obvious now, huh?

We're a lot better at analyzing the characters now.

 

[Malificent]

I personally don't even know how we can even separate the "good" and the "bad" when half of the United states hasn't even played brawl yet. Now dont get me wrong Yuna, i have read many of your post's and I honestly value them more than others. I am just simply stating that, we can't jump the gun. I mean watching video after video seeing some toons amazingly played and then watching another video of that same exact toon being so terrible its almost unbearable to watch. I mean we can sit here and debate a Tier list list all day, every person here can agree, but the Tier lists always change, Melee's did a few times.

With that being said, I also believe there are a lot of toons in the Smash Series now that bring a lot of new play styles to the field, such as Sonic, Olimar etc. I just truly think it depends on style of play. We have a ton of new characters, characters people have not yet learned to play "correctly" characters that are still trying to be discovered. I believe there is no perfect character, and that all characters have a counter, and I believe this because of the character diversity that the smash series has always offered, which is why I learn more towards it than any other fighting franchise. With that being said, I am also truly a believer learning multiple characters, kind of like counter-picking against your opponents character.

I understand where you are coming from, stating that the gap between tiers is larger, but it also seems to me, that many of the characters are good regardless of tier, and judging by the community here, it looks like there is a strong population behind every single one of the characters in Brawl.

 

[ThaCarter]

Guys, this isn't the topic for discussing why they delayed the game. In fact, I'll tell you why even just so you stay on topic.

First time: It was for Sonic. Of course when they added him they have to then do some more balancing to make room for him so everyone has a chance against him. So, that's the main reason why it was delayed so long, plus, he wasn't 100% done as we saw at E 4 All.

Second time: Production. He delayed it because they needed enough copies to meet the demand in the US. Nothing more and nothing less.

Okay? Kay.

We are not off topic..

He's saying he thinks they delayed the game to balance the characters..I said that wasn't exactly the case...

 

[Yuna]

I'm going to go with it's way to early to use ether side as a argument.

No one can say that it is more balanced or, that it is less balanced then Melee.

What may seem obvious my turn out to be false in the future.

Remember when Melee came out and, people actually thought Roy and Marth were equal?
Yeah, it seems pretty obvious now, huh?

Remember when Street Fighter II came out and everyone was a n00b?

Melee came out 7 years ago. People were n00bs back then. We no longer are. We know a lot more about competitive gaming, game balance and Smash in general.

We know what to look for when finding out ATs, strats and techs. Please stop using the stale argument of "Remember when this other game came out".

 

[Thinkaman]

Glad you made this topic Yuna; I'd seen your stated opinion in other threads but didn't want to diverge into an argument. From my week with the game, I have to say Brawl did seem more balanced.

I have no proof of this, and no judgement can be made until at least a year... but I think back to Melee. I considered maining Mewtwo when the game first game out, only to IMMEDIATELY see that he was a very bad character who I did not enjoy playing as. My other attempted main was Zelda/Shiek, since I tohught it would be clever to always get to use whoever was better for the job. However, it became IMMEDIATELY obvious that Shiek was almost universally better in any situation, so the novelty wore off.

We IMMEDIATELY saw that Fox and Falco were top characters, along with Marth. The very first day we thought Roy was also great, but it only took a bit more play to see that he was vastly inferior to his less clumsy counterpart. We IMMEDIATELY saw that Pichu and Bowser were awful compared to the rest of the cast.

These basic, obvious things we knew right off the bat, within a week of playing the game. And yet... after a week with Brawl, nothing "immediately" jumped out at me. If I had to bet money, I could make some guesses as to who might end up on top and who would be more towards the bottom... but they would be only vague guesses. (Though I have much more solid opinion on who will be good and bad for doubles...)

Bottom line is, if Brawl has large gaps between characters, they are not nearly as glaring as those in Melee or many other games.

 

[Rang Flash]

Skill in Melee means **** in Brawl. How do I know this? Well the fact that I was able to win at least half of the Brawl matches I played against Melee pros is a good indicator.

Go play Azen in Brawl.

 

[Thinkaman]

Sorry if this is a double post, I'm assuming someone else will post while I'm typing this... >_>

Remember when Street Fighter II came out and everyone was a n00b?

Melee came out 7 years ago. People were n00bs back then. We no longer are. We know a lot more about competitive gaming, game balance and Smash in general.

We know what to look for when finding out ATs, strats and techs. Please stop using the stale argument of "Remember when this other game came out".

OBJECTION! When Melee came out, people were no more noobs at it than we are in Brawl; we had played Smash 64 after all, right? Just as we played Melee? That playing Melee makes us no more of future Brawl experts than playing Smash 64 made us future Melee experts.

I understand that the point of this topic is to compare Brawl to Melee, but let's not confuse experience of the two.

 

[Kuroneko]

Is there a paper, rock, scissors situation like there was in melee? Do you think that in the future it will happen? Of course I know nothing, but from what I seen, a lot of characters can win, maybe dwelling on favorite character nerfs prevents you from believing Brawl is balanced or more balanced. Korean DJ won that NES Boston release tournament supposedly with Sheik and apparently she is totally nerfed! omg!

 

[Yuna]

OBJECTION! When Melee came out, people were no more noobs at it than we are in Brawl; we had played Smash 64 after all, right? Just as we played Melee? That playing Melee makes us no more of future Brawl experts than playing Smash 64 made us future Melee experts.

I understand that the point of this topic is to compare Brawl to Melee, but let's not confuse experience of the two.

SSB64 was vastly more different from SSBM than SSBB is to SSBM. The community back then was also small and the skill level much lower per capita.

A whole slew of new things we'd never heard of were added to Melee. Not that much really new was added to Brawl. Back then, the Smash community also were largely ignorant of the use of ATs in their game. I mean, it took them 2 or so years so figure out that wavedashing is really useful.

Nobody really knew how to play Peach until Mike G. entered the scene. The same goes for Ken for Marth, Chu Dat for ICs, etc. People would often revolutionize how characters were played because the community was so n00bish they didn't really explore the metagame too much.

I mean, how hard is it to figure out that Marth is really good if you sit down and study him?

Now, the minute a new tech/combo/strat/whatever is found, hordes of people immediately test it out to see how good it is and what you can use it for.

Is there a paper, rock, scissors situation like there was in melee? Do you think that in the future it will happen? Of course I know nothing, but from what I seen, a lot of characters can win, maybe dwelling on favorite character nerfs prevents you from believing Brawl is balanced or more balanced. Korean DJ won that NES Boston release tournament supposedly with Sheik and apparently she is totally nerfed! omg!

Were there any other good players there? And KoreanDJ has something a lot of casuals lack (or at least lack in spades): Mindgames.

I can beat people as Zelda in Melee. I'm not even that good as her. I'm just good enough to outmaneuvre a lot of people as her.

 

[Thinkaman]

Is there a paper, rock, scissors situation like there was in melee?

What? There were very few hard counters in Melee's matchups, even less if any that made triangles... Chris Taylor has a good quote about this...

 

[Mic_128]

So, for those who have actually played the game and quite extensively, is the game more balanced than Melee or not?

Concidering the most anyone could have played this for is a month (give or take a few days) this question really can't be answered yet.

 

[plasmatorture]

OBJECTION! When Melee came out, people were no more noobs at it than we are in Brawl; we had played Smash 64 after all, right? Just as we played Melee? That playing Melee makes us no more of future Brawl experts than playing Smash 64 made us future Melee experts.

I understand that the point of this topic is to compare Brawl to Melee, but let's not confuse experience of the two.

Overruled.

There was practically no competitive scene for 64 when Melee came out. 64 hadn't been explored nearly to the extent that Melee has been now. As Yuna says, after the level of depth we're used to in Melee, it's easy to take those skills (the finding out weird/glitchy/random depth skills) and apply them to brawl. Additionally, we're all 7 years older than when Melee came out, so as human beings we're a lot less nooby than we were then.

I mean, how long did it take for someone to do moveset swapping things in melee? I don't know, but I'm pretty sure it took more than a month, which is about how long it took for Brawl.




@Yuna,

Since I don't know, who would you consider the characters that exemplify this unbalance? Besides Marth and Olimar, and on the other spectrum, Yoshi and Peach, there doesn't seem to be much consensus in general about who is good or bad in the game.

 

[yoshi_fan]

Reliabe = who?

For example, i can't answer right?

From my standing point, it seems like all the characters have been somewhat improved (not buffed or nerfed, i mean inproved in bancing their powers and styles). Even the worst of them all, ganondorf, has his little trump card: side-b

Edit: please, yoshi is better than ganon. At least give him that =___=U

 

[smallwolf24]

I Kuroneko Brawl could turn to be like a rock paper scissors scenario something like that with some characters just like in melee. But I still believe in the philosophy "Novice with a shuriken will loose to an Expert with a rock". So ultimately it depends on the user so I'm not too worried about balance but character wise maybe since I haven't played the game to really experience it.

 

[shadydentist]

While skill at Melee doesn't translate into skill at Brawl, the *mindset* that allowed you to get good at melee definitely does. So basically if you want to improve, its you who has to change, and not the game.

 

[Yuna]

@Yuna,

Since I don't know, who would you consider the characters that exemplify this unbalance? Besides Marth and Olimar, and on the other spectrum, Yoshi and Peach, there doesn't seem to be much consensus in general about who is good or bad in the game.

Peach is not bottom tier. She's just not very good.

It's also not well balanced if you're stuck with the following tierlist:
3 Top Tier leaps and bounds better than everyone else
5 man High Tier that's better than the rest but still can't beat the Tops
25-man Mid Tier consisting of Blahs that can't win against the Top or Highs or at least not the majority of them
4 man Bottom Tier that just outright sucks

Let me get back to you later on my complete thoughts on the current Top vs. Bottom (though it'd just be my opinion, of course).

 

[Yuna]

Concidering the most anyone could have played this for is a month (give or take a few days) this question really can't be answered yet.

Yet so many people keep saying "Brawl is more balanced than Melee!". I made this thread for more deep discussion about the matter. Like, why do people think Brawl is more balanced?

 

[Pikachu'sBlueWizardHat]

BREAKING NEWS: Melee was not balanced, and Brawl will not be (totally) balanced either.

I am more hopeful for Brawl though, because even though the roster is bigger (that much harder to balance every character), the prospect of gameplay balancing via patches is very appealing. If someone develops some broken strategy that can't be reasonably countered (a chain throw or something) then Nintendo can be all "**** that, you're getting nerfed" to that character, hence improving balance. The suckier characters can get buffs too.

However, let's not forget what Smash is. It's a crazy, chaotic, fun party game at heart. And the characters are always going to play so as to resemble their counterparts in other games, i.e. Mario will always act like Mario, Link will always be Link, etc. So any potential gameplay balancing that might alter the image of that character ("I never imagined Link was so fast on his feet!") or detract from the craziness of Brawl just isn't going to happen. The Smash series in general was never made for competition; they are party games, so balance isn't necessarily the primary issue.

 

[Thinkaman]

True, the pro community going into Brawl is many times bigger, more experienced, and certainly older than those going into Melee from 64. (I think every one here would be proof of that.) However, I still don't think that makes us any better at predicting the future meta-game for Brawl

I gave my examples of things we knew right off the bat in Melee. What do you say is even more evident in Brawl? Marth almost obviously seems to have a lesser advantage for sure, as does Fox and Falco. (And CERTAINLY Shiek...) Other favored characters like Diddy and Olimar do not dominate as obviously as those previous top characters did in Melee did when we first used them. at the lower end, Bowser, Yoshi, and Ganondorf do seem worse, but have a few good tricks at their disposal; nothing like the bottom 4 characters in Melee.

 

[Eddy01741]

Okay, not to sound really annoying, but you mind disclosing who you believe to be in each tier thus far?

Anyways, I hvan't played the game yett, but I will join the "wait and see" group, since we havn't discovered any advanced techniques yet, which could totally change the tier list later on.

 

[Anth0ny]

From my early impressions, I'd have to say that the characters are much more balanced then they were in Melee.

However, as mentioned, these are early. Give the game some time!

 

[Zek]

Yuna would you at least wait until most of us have the game and are capable of arguing your points before you continue naysaying ever possible aspect of Brawl? I almost always see a stark contrast between your claims and those of pretty much everybody else who has the game. It's irritating to see posters who obviously have a bone to pick with Brawl bash it for weeks on end when they know that their claims are untouchable because hardly anyone else has played it. You are not the ultimate judge of all things balance.

 

[VersatileBJN]

Most fighting games considered "balanced" do not have 37 characters and only 2-3 who really stand out from the rest, though.

It's also important to note how much better than the rest of the cast, especially those directly below them, the God- or Top Tier is.


Name them all and I'll name just as many (proportionally) placing high in tournaments. And I don't really know of any character outside of the Top winning any major 3S tourney.


How many of those can do all the below:
* KO well
* Combo into KO moves well
* Combo well at all
* Rack up damage well (either with single moves or broken combos)
* Approach well

How many of those can do 4 or 3 of the above? How many can do 2? Just 1? You see, the balance is significantly less when you consider these facts. Edgeguarding has been gimped and recovering has received a major buff, so all of the above are vital now.

No longer can you easily knock someone off the stage and gimp them to death with edgeguarding.

I'm not saying Brawl is super balanced. I'm saying it seems SO FAR to be more balanced than Melee.

Who said that characters even NEED to combo well in Brawl? I've watched plenty of videos of players who are pretty good at Brawl thus far(Azen, Chillin, Kone, GAWes, Aho, and G-regulate just ot name a few) play well with a plethora of characters.

Gimpyfish won a tournament with Meta Knight. Are you saying him lacking KO power means he won't be able to compete? I doubt a great Meta Knight won't be able to find ways to kill and use his pros to own.

You're telling most of the characters I said won't be able to win? At this point in the game's life span I simply cannot see that. If you have some more insight on why it is the case that Meta, Luigi, Pit, Lucas, etc already are doomed to be annihilated by Marth and Toon Link please share. Some videos of you playing would help too.

and Dudley, Akuma, Makoto, Yang, Ryu and even Alex have placed in tournaments. I didn't say actually win the thing, but I am sure if I looked long enough I can find a major in which Y/S/K didn't win. I know in the most recent super battle opera a team consistening of Makot/Yun and Chun won, and the Makoto player did all of the work.

 

[Xengri]

Remember when Street Fighter II came out and everyone was a n00b?

Melee came out 7 years ago. People were n00bs back then. We no longer are. We know a lot more about competitive gaming, game balance and Smash in general.

We know what to look for when finding out ATs, strats and techs. Please stop using the stale argument of "Remember when this other game came out".

I'll admit, you're right. Generally, the smash playerbase has more knowledge about the series then we did when Melee was released.

I'm not saying, that it is more balanced, in fact, I’ve already said that as of right now, no one has the knowledge to back up the “Brawl is more balanced then Melee” argument.

One same token, no one can say that it is more balanced ether.

It doesn’t matter how much more we know about Smash as compared to when Melee came out.
All we can do right now is predict.
We may have a good sum of knowledge to base the predictions off of, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are just predictions.

Predictions always have a chance to be wrong.
Balance is something that takes time and, experiences to determine.
We’ll just have to wait but, until then, no one can use the stament that Brawl is or, is not as balanced as Melee as a argument.

 

[DRaGZ]

Yuna, it's kinda weird that you're citing tiers when we really haven't any decent tournaments to decide those tiers.

I think there are some characters here that are simply going to be harder to master than others. For instance, when I saw the kind of style it took to play as Snake effectively, I immediately thought "holy crap, he's gonna be like Yoshimitsu in this game", that is, very hard to master but with enough tricks and mindgames to put him in top tier. It took Yoshimitsu players quite a while to become really good in SC2, but once they got there, he stayed there.

Pokemon Trainer might potentially require the need of all three Pokemon to be really effective, but I'm betting a bunch of players are going to primarily stick with one or two of those guys anyway.

Well...that's my two cents. I think it's too early to tell, not because the game is so new but because we haven't really had many viable tournament results yet.

EDIT: Basically, I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's really hard to tell if something is balanced when you don't have tiers to look at, namely because tiers tend to be a reflection of how balanced a game is.

 

[RedMage8BT]

So, I'm guessing Low Tier for Peach, or lower-mid.

Sounds good to me. I'll be owning with a low tier character.

 

[evilflame101]

I am not a perfect person. I frequently make mistakes. When I play Brawl and look at the game, I feel that it's less balanced than Melee. The gaps between the tiers feels greater and the chasm between The God Ones and The Bad Ones is much bigger this time around.

Yet I see a lot of people walking around saying "Brawl is more balanced than Melee"... not a single one of them someone of note (high placings in tournaments or at least well-known). I've never seen some bigshot say this, but that's almost besides the point.

What's important is that I've frequently stated that Brawl is in fact less balanced. I've often challenged statements of Brawl being more balanced. Not a single time have my arguments for Brawl being less balanced been refuted... often they are even ignored for whatever reason.

So, for those who have actually played the game and quite extensively, is the game more balanced than Melee or not? I have yet to see a single credible person state this nor have I seen anyone reply to my challenges of "It's more balanced how?" (variations exist) with valid arguments (and by that I mean any arguments whatsoever besides "Because I think so").

Is this just another preconceived notion perpetuated by ignorance and based on a random rumor some guy made up once which is now spread by people who haven't even played the game or studied too many videos of it?

Because I personally don't see how it's more balanced than Melee. But I'd gladly be proven wrong.

Ok i have not played brawl, with that said, i have probably watched more videos of brawl, then you have played the game, so i know as much as i possible could about the game, without having played it. With that said...

I do not agree that there are huge gaps between the tiers. In melee some characters where just playing bad, my friend was decent with pichu, but he could never beat anyone who played a high tier character. The difference between a low tier in melee and a mid tier in melee were even ridiculous. You had to spend much much much more time on a low tier than a high tier character to become good with them. In brawl i think it might be more balanced, simply because i dont see any characters that stand out so much that you can say, so and so is god tier, or so and so will never be any good. I personally think that when people say wario or pikmin are bad, they have no idea what they are talking about. Those characters are much different then what we are used to, and they seem to have alot of potential.

I think it is way to early to start thinking about tiers, as we need much more experience with this game in the entire world, before we can decide if characters are really good or bad. Any character can be seen as good or bad, depending who you see play them, but until everyone has more experiance with this game, we just can't say. I dont see any evidence that brawl is any less balanced then melee, but i also don't see any evidence saying that it is more balanced. I think at the very least they will be fairly close in balance.

Can you please supply me with some specific example of why you think brawl is less balanced? Because you really didn't give any reasons.

 

[hippochinfat!!]

TC hates Brawl and wants to prove Melee is better. They're physco with a capital K!

srslywtf

 

[Yuna]

Yuna would you at least wait until most of us have the game and are capable of arguing your points before you continue naysaying ever possible aspect of Brawl? I almost always see a stark contrast between your claims and those of pretty much everybody else who has the game. It's irritating to see posters who obviously have a bone to pick with Brawl bash it for weeks on end when they know that their claims are untouchable because hardly anyone else has played it. You are not the ultimate judge of all things balance.

Positive discussion welcome but nothing negative? What is this, Nazi Germany?

Stark contrast between my claims and those of pretty much everybody else? Like what. The balance is, like, the only thing where the majority don't agree with me.

I am not the ultimate judge. Neither are you. I just try to contribute to the discussion. What have you really contributed to this discussion other than make a ludicrous demand that I stop posting anything that can be interpreted as something criticizing Brawl?

I don't see anyone getting chewed out for being "too positive" even when they're spouting obvious lies and/or exaggerations. Yet I'm constantly told to STFU because I'm being "too negative" despite that most of the time, I'm simply dropping cold hard facts (though this balance issue is ATM quite subjective) and often in rebuttal to people's overly positive posts (full of exaggerations and lies).

I guess if you hype a game enough for yourself, you'll flame anyone who criticizes it in the desperate hope that the game will be great and not as bad as they say, no matter if a majority of people who've played it say otherwise (I'd still like to know what these issues where there's a stark contrast between what I and others say are).

 

[red stone]

there is no worst character yet...except yoshi

 

[Winston]

It's also not well balanced if you're stuck with the following tierlist:
3 Top Tier leaps and bounds better than everyone else
5 man High Tier that's better than the rest but still can't beat the Tops
25-man Mid Tier consisting of Blahs that can't win against the Top or Highs or at least not the majority of them
4 man Bottom Tier that just outright sucks

Isn't the Melee tier list pretty much distributed in the same way, as long as you account for the 26 char roster?

You have the

Marth Fox Sheik Falco

Then you have the Peach Falcon ICs Ganon whatever

then you have plenty of "blahs"

then you have... Ness Bowser Kirby Mewtwo Pichu >__>

 

[DRaGZ]

Well, to be honest, I haven't seen a character that's just blindingly awful. I mean, in Melee, they were Mewtwo and Pichu, they simply were far too gimmicky to play effectively at high levels of play. But...I'm not really seeing that. Well, at least not yet.

Who knows. I hope we're all very wrong and somehow it turns out Yoshi is a god.

 

[Lovely]

there is no worst character yet...except yoshi

*sigh* How do you know this? Ever look in the Yoshi boards to see your answer?

Besides the point, I believe Brawl is more balance than Melee. I say this because you can no longer just require a sum of five-seven character out of all of them just to win easily in a match. It's pretty much any character can win no matter what now. That's just my thoughts.

 

[Dogenzaka]

Characters and moves and exploits and glitches have been fixed.
That's why.