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Brawl - More balanced than Melee? Lie or truth?

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Zankoku

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The point is gone. Melee is balanced. Brawl is balanced. Which one is more balanced the people who are most actively arguing really do not have enough experience in both games to debate well enough about. As long as the game is more balanced than two characters (it's more than Fox and Falco in Melee; it's more than Snake and Meta Knight in Brawl) it's fine. We all know there are terrible characters, and really good characters, and it's only the idiots who'll claim that terrible characters can somehow be good when you "play them right." Luckily enough, both games for the most part only have bad characters, not terrible ones.
 
Zankoku

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No arguments there, Falcon is easily the worst character in the game.

And I've been stagebanning Green Greens since Melee. I'm glad they left it in for Brawl, so I don't have to change which stage to ban.
 
Samochan

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SwastikaPyle said:
It's sort of strange that while everyone agrees that Metaknight is god tier and should have the advantage in every match, a player will beat Lucario with DeDeDe and lose with MK.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1FWMDj_wys&feature=related

Watch the other matches. He wins with DeDeDe and loses with MK. And don't even think of saying 'That MK sucked'. This is Mew2King's Metaknight.
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Does every character have advantage in every matchup? And I don't recall anyone saying Meta and Snake have the advantage in every matchup, more like they own most characters simply because they're so good. Even while mewtwo sucked, good mewtwo could hold his ground against falco, so it's a good matchup. Just like Wario seems to have a good fight vs Snake, Lucario with his range can outrange metaknight from what I saw of that fight, so it didn't seem entirely one-sided. Lucario also has weight advantage and he keeps getting stronger as he keeps getting damaged, while meta is suffering more from being simply unable to kill lucario due to diminishing knockback.

Though it's not about meta owning everyone anymore now, but about snake owning everyone. >_>; The ftilt gives me nightmares.
 
KevinM

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Thinkaman said:
There we go, that was much better.

I just can't agree that Falcon/Ganondorf have that much worse matchups. I even played some Falcon tonight against some Snake and Falco; not the best players in the world, but not random clowns. The disadvantage was obvious (I particularly hate Ganondorf against Falco) but it was always managed and there hasn't been a matchup yet that I have always lost. (Against good players, obviously.) Take a look at the Ganondorf sub-forums, especially Sliq's stuff, and you will find a metagame that is far mroe competitive than any of the bottom tier in Melee.

Yes, Mewtwo, Pichu, Kirby, Game and Watch, they all have their little gimmicks that let them sneak in a KO here and there. However, obscurity is not a good strategy. When I first got into Melee, a guy in a friendly at a tourney killed me with Kirby with some trick. I can't even recall now what it was, but the thing was, I never let it happen again. If you aren't ignorant, Mewtwo is no less a threat to space animals than something like Jiggly's u-throw to rest: Yes, it's extremely good and gives them a chance, but only if the person playign the high tier is either ignorant or "********".

Falcon and Ganondorf aren't going to set the meta-game on fire any time soon, but they have more of a core game than the low tiers in Melee did. They have great uairs still, and are decent tech chasers. If would take Falcon on Snake, probably the worst matchup in Brawl at the moment, ANY DAY over Mewtwo against Marth or Bowser against Shiek. (Heck... most characters against Shiek...)
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M2k and PC Chris were both rested by mango off an upthrow rest. Nice try though at pound 3. Learn2Melee.
 
Byronman

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It seems my argument is losing horribly =(

I have just one thing though (I am going to get flamed for this): I don't understand why everybody thinks C. Falcon is bad...
 
N

Nigerian Star Storm

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Byronman said:
It seems my argument is losing horribly =(

I have just one thing though (I am going to get flamed for this): I don't understand why everybody thinks C. Falcon is bad...
Click to expand...
Yay, now I get to post ancient copypasta.

Anyways, CF is considered so horrible because he's a Melee character in Brawl Engine, was apparently is a HORRIBLE mix and has ruined what he was in Melee. His comboing potential was what made him in Melee, without that it really cripples his game. He has Atrocious Priority, since a great majority of his moves can be stopped by a simple jab. Average strength attack with either a lot of ending lag or Startup lag, that don't even do damage worth it. He cannot approach AT ALL, he's probably one of the easiest characters to camp once you get into high levels of play, easily telegraphed, has trouble racking up damage, nerfed Knee, the fact that so many others either are great newcomers, or Veterans that got buffed. When you add to the fact he has likely the worst matchups in the game and Horrible Tourney outing so far, he definately at this point in time is a serious canadate for the worst character in Brawl.


Edit: And what the heck is up with the Ganon bashing? Ganon actually makes his hits counts, Autocanceled Dair into Upsmash is 50%, probably more damage then two falcon punches. He has a decent tech chasing game, is a heavy and can tank things out, Ganoncide when he gets up a stock. Ok priority and can acutally approach and better aerials than Falcon. While his matchups are bad, they're not quite as bad as Falcon's with virtually no advantages against anyone. I still believe Ganon is still not that good, but he's not nearly as bad as Falcon.
 
Byronman

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Nigerian Star Storm said:
Yay, now I get to post ancient copypasta.

Anyways, CF is considered so horrible because he's a Melee character in Brawl Engine, was apparently is a HORRIBLE mix and has ruined what he was in Melee. His comboing potential was what made him in Melee, without that it really cripples his game. He has Atrocious Priority, since a great majority of his moves can be stopped by a simple jab. Average strength attack with either a lot of ending lag or Startup lag, that don't even do damage worth it. He cannot approach AT ALL, he's probably one of the easiest characters to camp once you get into high levels of play, easily telegraphed, has trouble racking up damage, nerfed Knee, the fact that so many others either are great newcomers, or Veterans that got buffed. When you add to the fact he has likely the worst matchups in the game and Horrible Tourney outing so far, he definately at this point in time is a serious canadate for the worst character in Brawl.
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Ah...I see...
 
M.K

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I don't really mind that some things might be unbalanced, but I believe those things are few and far between. I mean, I can only think of some chaingrabs.....maybe some priority and hitbox issues....but thats it really.
I just hope my main doesn't come under any crap. X_X Hang in there, Lucario!
 
Browny

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Meta-Kirby said:
I don't really mind that some things might be unbalanced, but I believe those things are few and far between. I mean, I can only think of some chaingrabs.....maybe some priority and hitbox issues....but thats it really.
I just hope my main doesn't come under any crap. X_X Hang in there, Lucario!
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lol

Lucario has his force-palm chain grab which can take heavies and fast fallers up to about 70% . Aura sphere, and all his aerials have priority over just about everything (f-air goes through mach tornado). Almost every one of his attacks has a huge hitbox and lingers for a while.

If he wasnt my main, id call him unbalanced :D
 
Gimpyfish62

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I haven't read a word of this thread minus the first post.

In Melee the tiers weren't significant until we reached the highest levels of play. "scrubs" and low level "advanced" players could use almost any character combinations vs their friends and still have reasonably even matches... Now I SERIOUSLY doubt the average brawl player is actually playing high level brawl. The tiers simply don't apply as much until you reach those top levels. That's why you see characters like Snakes and Metaknights (easy examples) placing high in tournaments so much more than you see other characters placing.

Of COURSE initially Brawl seems more balanced but I'm with Yuna on this one. While there are no truly standout "garbage" characters like there were in Melee (the worst of melee were almost to the point of unusable) the top characters are still far beyond being top characters. We will still see tournaments dominated by a select and small group of characters with rare exceptions every now and then.

Just throwing it out there.

Short version.

High level smash = character 'balance' matters.
Low level smash = character 'balance' doesn't matter as much.

Average players play low level smash therefor the character 'balance' don't matter as much.
 
Z

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While I would agree that the gap between the top and bottom is bigger now than before, I think brawl has added important things that keep the game MORE balanced then before. Fox falco peach sheik marth and falcon were way better then the other characters in melee. It was a joke, 6 characters were playable. In brawl there are a few characters with huge weaknesses (falcon, ganon, ect.) but other than that the new system of air dodging and defensive play seems to override the old combo play. Melee was about fast characters dominating, and even more so on the highest levels of play. Brawl still has imbalances, but marths ability to spam fair and cliffguard is much less powerful with the new system. Powerful characters can now actually win by racking up damage and getting easy vert kos. Falco can now run away and spam lasers and abuse the large powerful slow characters like snake and dedede.

POINT: melee obviously had counter-picks and counter-matchups, but 6 characters reigned supreme. Melee was about spamming combos and spikes, while brawl is about smart play and has a deep metagame. The game is now bout counters, more so then before. I can already see the masses dividing into ******** groups of MK+falco(to counter snake, who counters MK) VS. snake+G&W(to counter falco). People could get by with just these 4 characters, even still, that doesnt mean that the other characters are inferior, just that people copy vids and tournament players. I admit that brawl has a few characters that blow, but the upper eschelon isn't as seperated.
BTW this is just my opinion, it hasn't been around long enough to be sure.
 
K

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I agree with Gimpy on this one, there's a God tier like in Melee, and a tier of not very good characters. However, the distance between High and Low is much smaller this time. You've got two characters looking down on the rest of the cast, and a retinue of viable choices under them (kinda like Melee). There's a larger middle distribution in Brawl, but it's still a bell curve that skews towards a few characters.

Besides, at this point in the game the viability of characters in higher level play really comes down to how hard they have to work to get kills. Snake and Meta can kill incredibly well compared to say, Peach or Ness or Captain Falcon. The better you can kill, the better you do, especially if you counter Snake/Meta. You play Shiek Gimpy, so you know how good she could be if she could only kill worth a ****.

EDIT-O: Zergum, if you're gonna knock Melee, at least know what you're talking about. To be perfectly honest, competitively Melee and Brawl are similar in balance at this point. Melee had two characters above the rest, three about a level under them, and then another eight that comprised the tournament viable characters. That makes for 5 Top Tier out of 26 characters, and 13 tourney viable out of 26. Brawl has two characters above the rest, about five slightly under them, and anywhere from 5 to 13 more tournament viable ones. That makes for 7 out of 39 and 13 to 20 out of 39. The ratio of top tier characters to the rest of the cast is similar between Brawl and Melee.
 
The Halloween Captain

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About Metaknight and Snake:

Is their tourney popularity because they are the Brawl equivalent of the Space animals?
Or is it reflective of a early metagame sceen that is still in flux, in which two characters with obvious potential are being used by gamers only starting to learn the intricasies of other characters?

It seems to me that a lotof people select metaknight in an attempt to campitalize on the only character which still possesses combo ability, while a great deal of heavy characters who benefit from the reduced combos of Brawl are not being attempted because of the combo habit. Also, the main reason i imagine Snake is being used is also because of his combo abilities and obvious technical potential. The only thing I don't understand is the lack of Olimar usage, after all his teather is pretty much the best ledge hog in the game when used correctly. I think that currently opinion on characters in developing metagame, in the same way Melee's Peach wasn't used much for a while because, I imagine, she just wasn't very cool.
 
Frown

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I think there's a gap between Ganondorf and the other characters. It feels like I'm lucky if I manage to hit my opponent. But other than that, I think there should be high to low tiers instead of top to bottom tiers.
 
The Halloween Captain

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Agreed, but you do not defend you opinion well. In defence, the new Captain Falcon and Gannondorf will be screwed if they are played like they well in melee. Instead, basic Falcon tactics rely on a ground game, an airborn Brawl Falco would really be the sadest character in Brawl.
 
JigglyZelda003

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Frown said:
I think there's a gap between Ganondorf and the other characters. It feels like I'm lucky if I manage to hit my opponent. But other than that, I think there should be high to low tiers instead of top to bottom tiers.
Click to expand...
i've tried Ganon and he does feel like that at times.
 
I

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I haven't read any of the other pages here but my Brawl experience has been such that I say the Brawl is better balanced and will continue to become more balanced. Why you ask. Simple game mechanics. No char in Brawl has the ability to abuse the mechanics in such a way to give them distinct advantages. In fact think about any one one aspect of the game and analyze how game mechanics seemingly work against it. We'll pick approaching to attack someone.

You can either attack on the ground or in the air. Its that simple

In the air the game automatically slows your momentum, killing your speed, and giving your opponent more time to react. This goes for everyone. The person being approached will have the advantage to sit in their shield and grab you. You can outrange thier grab but then your still back where u started once they dropped their shield. The one game mechanic working in your favor is the ability to DI back before landing and not get grabbed.

On the ground the shieldgrab still kills all out approaching. Moving mindgames on the ground (wavedashing, wavelanding, dash canceling) are removed. Once again if your opponent plays thier cards right you never have the advantage approaching and their are no real technical mechanics be they glitches or w/e that give you the advantage. You could go in and grab but most attacks will outrange grabs and spot dodging is always an option.

If you land a hit they can almost always DI away, attack, or airdodge out of your would-be combo and no char is exempt from this restriction more than any other char (for the most part)

I know I'm setting myself up for hundreds of people to post "THIS IS BRAWL NOT MELEE" but I would lastly reference Melee and its tier list to better describe Brawl's Balance. Think of the top 4-5 chars and all of them had distinct advantages that were purely technical game mechanics/glitches that allowed them to own. Most chars have unique game mechanics but not all of them own. Yea Bowser can infinite jump in Brawl but Melee Yoshi could DJC and He wasn't exactly high up on the tiers was he? But fox was who could JC shines in so many different ways to kick your ***. ATs are what knocked Shiek off the top of the tier list and they also allowed ICs to jump like 6 spots or something.

The programers went out of thier way with the intentions to make chars pretty equal. Since there aren't many (at least not many useful) unintended uses for chars unique game mechanics, all of the chars are going to stay relatively equal. No their not all equal but no one is miles above anyone else. They won't expand drastically.

Hopefully Yuna will consider this an intelligent counter argument. I dont know if anyone else has said this but I think I'm the first.
 
A

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1) You assume "abusing" the mechanics is a bad thing. It really isn't. In fact, it's better if you can use mechanics to your advantage; that makes the game interesting, instead of "My character counters yours so I win". It's a moot point anyway, because Brawl is not lacking in useful bugs. And more are continually being discovered (to the dismay of the people who continually insist that there can't possibly be depth to Brawl, I'm sure).

2) You seem to think that Brawl makes it nearly impossible to approach. Like the above, it's a moot point because it isn't impossible to approach. But if it were, just how would that be balanced? If attacking were as hard as you make it out to be, Brawl matches would be boring to the point of stupor.

3) The characters are not any more equal than the characters in Melee. Sure, they did some shuffling around of just which characters are higher. But there are still good characters, bad characters, and completely uber sucky characters. Captain Falcon dies to most of the high tiers at least as much as Mewtwo ever did.
 
R

RBNuke

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If you banned Snake/MK the game would be considerably be more balanced at the moment, I think.

...

Meanwhile, back in reality, I agree that the god tier is far too godly, but also think that the trash characters are whole lot less trashy compared to the trashes of melee.
 
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