-wavedashing
-l canceling
-dashdancing
-wavelanding
-JC grabs
-airdodge recoveries
Those are moves. They are inputs that create different states for the game, so they count. It's a short list for a game with 40 moves already, but all of these are heavily used and crucial to Melee's depth as a fighting game.
Things like JC shines and jumping out of certain specials in Melee cancel out the character-specific moves in Brawl like crawling or glide attacks. Footstooling is the only new universal move, and while it has its purposes in competitive play, it's not enough to outweigh Melee's extra moves.
Street Fighter is not considered a very deep series of fighters. It's recognized for the influence it had on the genre, but the formula was greatly expanded with other series. I know GG and Tekken have upwards of 60 inputs, depending on the character. Couldn't tell you how the other fighters stack up.
There's a difference between a move/mechanic and the resulting/emergent applications for a move.
I agree that L-canceling is a move. But wavedashing and wavelanding are techniques that are just part of how the air dodge move works. Just because we've found and named these specific uses doesn't mean they count as "extra moves," which is a troublesome phrase in itself.
Up smash out of shield is simply a result of how the two moves are programmed. The designers wanted players to be able to jump and upsmash out of shield. (or up smash before the character's feet leave the ground). It's the same way with JC grabs. These are just emergent uses of moves, not new mechanics.
Are you talking about gameplay depth or simply the number of moves per character? They are not directly related.
Where did you hear that the SF series is not regarded as being very deep for a fighter?
This definition of viable options is a bit watered down. Generally in fighting games, viable options also consists of character placement, spacing, timing, hitbox, hurtbox, mixups (as you defined it), life/% of opponent, the amount of time left in the round, and player mentality. In advance play, different moves will become viable solely depend on all of the above. Some moves will be viable in some time and not in others, it isn't just as simple as two characters standing on a flat ground.
With my definition, viable options is an evaluation of how effective a move is at the given time it is played, much like a move in a chess game.
Two definitions will bring up two different results. Bringing up your definition is fine, but claiming that the "myth" is "false" is only true with the limited definition given.
Do you have a better definition of viable options? Because it sounds like you have a lot to say without offering an alternative or making anything clearer at all. You say viable options "consist" of character placement, spacing...etc, but this is already obvious. In other words, the rules and factors of battle determine what's viable and how.
Later in the same video, I explain how options (no matter how risky) are made more and less viable according to the active conditions of battle. But, in order to build up the concept, I had to start small/focused/"watered down." Otherwise, I would have said any option is viable or not viable depending on many factors that all just depend of many things. This wouldn't be much of a talking point.
Also, the viability of a move is not used in the same as a "viable option." You can evaluate how functional a move is in a specific scenario. That's determining its viability. But the term viable options is commonly used to mean the options that are more likely to achieve successful results.
I agree, and I also believe that it is your job as the project's director to filter out the obvious illogical and incorrect statements within surveys, including them will only make your project weaker and more juvenile.
That's your opinion. Others, who hear these kind of statements all the time, are glad to see them addressed out side of a "juvenile" internet forum environment. The funny part is, the people who originally made those statements may not think they're so illogical and incorrect. The more people who state it, the more I think people actually believe such things.
I may have misunderstood the goal of your project then, but I personally believe that creating language links between video games in general is more important than attacking the literal text of players' surveys (whom might expect to be represented by their actual meaning instead of being attacked with the literal text that they give in a hurry).
I already addressed the idea of interpreting the meaning behind submissions. And there was no time limit for taking the survey. If you were in a hurry, that's your business. If that's your belief, then just be glad it's not your project. Since I'm doing all the work, I'll do things my way.
And if you think there's a way to create "language links" when there isn't a clear language across the community and the language that is used is completely jumbled together, then you must know something I don't. The way I see it, building a structure on a bad foundation is a bad idea. So I'm attacking the foundation.
Generally, when players have an idea of what represents a game, they will think about the game's metagame (especially when they're part of the community). So when considering in the most recent tournament APEX results, where 25/48 players in melee bracket play space animals, and 2/63 players in brawl brackets play pit. I would say it is pretty fair to have an image of space animals when thinking about melee.
Ok. I'm not sure why you said this.
And you assume way too much from people even within this community. With so many casual Brawl and Melee players that submitted, I highly doubt that they are as up to date with the metagame as you seem to imply. So bringing up Apex data doesn't help us better understand where these contributors are coming from.
"High level" in this case is a loose term. Without a clear definition, it is impossible to determine what is the barrier to entry for "high level play"
Yes, it's a loose term. As I've stated, I used it to create some wiggle room. There's a lot in such a large project that will get more clearly defined as needed. If you have a problem, just state your own definition before making statements so what you say will be clear. Otherwise, just run with it.
Sorry, I argue based on my knowledge on arguments and debates, I don't actually know what data and information exist and what doesn't.
But it is safe to say that only showing one side and not the others presents an obvious bias against the other game.
You say this, but I can only think how unreasonable your views are. As a fan made community of smashers, we don't get a lot of help, assistance, or feedback from anything officially Nintendo. This means almost all of our terms, knowledge, customs, and rules are all of our own making.
Naturally, we have huge gaps in data for many things, and other data that we do have is scattered here and there. Knowing this, at some point we have to be able to talk about what we know and what we don't know. We have to set things up so that we can prepare our development for growth while pointing our conversations in the right direction.
So in the video, I gave what I had (which was all I could find), and I tried to leave things open ended in part to show that what we "know" as a community is very small. It's kind of neat that you (and others) have great and professional expectations from my project, but do adjust those expectations reasonably as you go along.
Just like you, I can only based my arguments on the literal information that is presented to me. As of the videos shown so far, I found some weak arguments that makes me believe that there is some bias toward melee. It is also ridiculous if you believe that every viewer of your project is going to go through pages of texts to find every points that you've made.
I would be very interested if you include some of the disagreements you've gotten from players who have a well understanding of both game's mechanics into your video. Most of the arguments given in the surveys are fairly poor and can barely be argued with literal texts.
You say they're weak, and that's (again) your opinion. You've done well to bring up your points of disagreement, but we're still debating them.
I expect viewers to listen and read carefully. I put together very clear statements, and if that's too much for them, then I don't expect them to respond brashly. If someone is confused, I'll help clarify. If someone disagrees, I'll explain and debate. But if someone simply doesn't want to pay close attention, then they can hold their peace. I see no point in trying to argue against someone who doesn't even take the time to understand my position. Likewise, if you don't want to read or skim through a few blog posts don't get mad a me. I don't expect every viewer to read through it...just the ones who elect to debate my "weak arguments."
You can read most of the responses to the videos here in this thread. Otherwise, I was going to leave off with episode 5 explaining how the conversation/debate has only begun. I have a whole list of volunteers willing to participate in continued conversation, which sounds like what you're talking about.
Melee is a game with faster gameplay, a mistake such as a miss on a waveland could result in death because of the inability to fix your mistake like in brawl.
This is only one example, I'm sure there are many other examples that shows brawl has more punishing situations.
I don't think we were talking about the degree to which mistakes can be punished or fixed in either game. I'm not sure why you brought this up.
But because each of your skill spectrum cannot be mathematically measured, and the difference in game engine in both games. An opinion on which game would require more dexterity skills would only be a mere opinion.
Also, different players will find some moves to be more difficult than others. Some players might have a easy time shine canceling, but a hard time with DI, and vice versa. It is a bit silly to believe that your own experience with difficulties can conclude for the opinions of both communities.
The skill can be "mathematically" measured. I'm not sure why you said that after I said it can be in the video. I'm not talking about opinions here.
I also said clearly in the video and in this thread that using "difficult" or "easy" as a criteria isn't going to work well. Are you trying to say that I suggest using this method? Because that would be silly. It's like you're taking everything I've stated and saying I stated the opposite.
This is true if you only look at the game's engine and game mechanics.
Do not forget that there are usually two players (four in teams) in a game of smash brothers. It is true that if you're the only person inputing the timing sequence, having more options would make the timing more difficult. But when other players' interactions also disrupts your ability to input your timing, the timing spectrum isn't as simple as inputing a note on a music instrument.
In your theory, you are assuming that only one player is inputing the commands, while the other player is on stationary. Your point is then true, more movesets would mean more difference in timing, which making brawl a game with more timing complexities.
I didn't state that having a larger moveset (based on more characters or whatever) gives Brawl the edge in timing variations. I said that the longer timings for moves gives Brawl a greater range of timings to shape its timing based challenges.
When we include players interactions, inputing your commands will not be the same with your opponent on stationary. Your opponent also has the ability to disrupt your tempo and your ability to input commands. This would affect your mental state, which makes it even harder to visually see what is happening and react to your opponent's input commands. The faster game mechanic then gives the players less time to react. Also, because the melee game engine offers less options for players to escape from mistakes, it can be said that the result from a "mistiming" is more punishing than brawl.
Here you're mixing up too many different concepts/topics including timing challenges, player tempo (which I assume is player momentum/rhythm), mental states, reflex challenges, and punishment from mistakes. This is why it's important to have a clear language. You should only talk about one of these topics at a time; specifically how the timing challenges in the game can be altered by opponent actions. From here you should pick different timing challenges (like L canceling, wavelanding, etc) and describe a situation.
Because you're trying to say so much, you're actually saying nothing specific. It makes it too hard for me to respond.
When you look at brawl, because of a slower gameplay and campier (metagame) playstyle. Players would have more time and less options to disrupt the opponent's timing. The game also offers unlimited air dodges, tripping, and slower fallspeed that allows players to fix any type of errors that may result from another player's disruption from tempo. But because players have more options to reverse the punishment from mistiming, I would argue that melee's timing scheme is more complex than brawl's.
This does not say that brawl's mechanics cannot be taken seriously and cannot compete on a competitive scale. The metagame balances this gameplay mechanics and allows intense and breath taking matches. I would just argue that in terms of timing (metagame): brawl's engine allows more options for players to fix mistakes, thus making the timing scheme easier.
Right here, you're trying to conflate so many different elements of design to conclude something specific about a specific facet of skill/challenges (timing). This simply won't work.
Perhaps you're confused as to what I mean by timing range. And I assume you didn't read through any of the timing specific articles I wrote. So if you're not going to use the system, ask for clarification, or read up on it, then we're at a stalemate.
Then this project should be clarified as Brawl vs. Melee: The differences in two game engines.
Would this conclude that your main goal is to compare and contrast the two game's gaming engine?
If that's the case, it would be unfair if you used melee's metagame was a way to limit melee's engine's capacities.
When you take a stance saying that melee's engine is crippled by the metagame's overuse of aerial attacks and L-canceling, it would be unfair if you left out the overuse of tornado spamming, chain grabbing, and ledge grabbing in brawl. Which would limit the play possibilities within brawl.
Including a metagame when talking about a game engine would only limit the amount of possibilities within the engine. Under this case, I can say that the two games are not presented equally.
The metagame of Brawl or Melee isn't a completely unrelated to its design. The evidence of what we can say about the design should be evident in the metagame. I think it's best to use the two to check each other. It won't be easy though.
"Overuse" and "crippled" are strong words. I've already stated that both games are really deep, complex, and skillful. So though Melee could have been balanced another way, in some ways that doesn't even matter. What it is now is great.
If I wanted to list a bunch of things that have affected the metagame of either game I could have talked about MK tornado spam, infinite chain grabs, ICs chain grabs, glide stalling, Sonic stalling, and ledge camping in Brawl.
I could have also talked about peach bombing, jigglypuff stalling, IC chain grabs, wobbling, camping Fox's/Falcos against some characters, and why Yohshi's Island was banned along with so many other levels. Both games have sore spots, plenty of bans, and rule tweaking for tournaments.
The Brawl v. Melee issue is very large and complex. If you're actually complaining that all I talked about is how Melee's metagame skews toward aerials, then it should be easy to move on from here.
Overall, I appreciate your attempt in trying to set up a common vocabulary within video game community, but a poorly defined vocabulary would only bring up points that are argued in a wrong direction, thus solving nothing.
Also, please remember that this is an opinion from a player whose game is fairly closely related to the other you are comparing. When you take this project to the SF community without clear and agreeable definitions, your project will just be brushed aside and not taken seriously.
If possible, try to collect a set definition by experts from different communities, then have multiple people confirm the accuracy of the definition before using them in your project, or else you will only bring up weak points where most players will ignore and can't agree upon.
I wouldn't say "poorly defined." You talk like you want to debate, but then you've also mentioned (I think) that you don't care to read up on these complex concepts. I said the videos were the simple presentation of the ideas. So if you think my terms should be better defined, they are. If you don't want to really embrace the system after all the hard work I put into the resources, AND you don't want to offer up an equally detailed system, then we're at another stalemate.
I've look across the web for definitions. I encourage you to do the same. They're tricky concepts in themselves and clear definitions are hard to come by. Everyone thinks they know what they mean, yet almost everything I've found has fallen far short.
If you don't personally like my definitions, that's one thing. But after writing so much (420,00+ words), you won't find any "expert" who's thought about this as much as I have. The very idea of finding and communicating with various "experts" seems like an interesting way to go. But I have serious doubt on how worthwhile such an effort would be.
