I demonstrated that I know why. I've played Smash competitively for years now. I don't spend my life traveling cross-country to California for tournaments, but I do play at a high level. Secondly, I never said it was "deeper" than other games, per se, rather, it had more elements and more dimensions which amalgamate. I also never said any particular thing was unique to smash, rather, Smash vivified the concept.
You still implied rather heavily that the game was deeper, by saying that in incorporates elements of character depth and stage depth that are simply not present in other games.
Fundamentally, they are. Deplete the health bar equates to force output. If you put out less force than your opponent, you will likely lose. Simple as that.
If you want to play that game, Smash is all about force output, too. Gimp your opponent faster, and you win. Magic!
You'll notice I never said anything specific about Guilty Gear because I do not play it at a high level. However, I do play it, and I'm fully aware of its absence from the list of games with a level of freedom equivocal to Smash. Guilty Gear is fast, but you're deluding yourself if you believe it's without confines and has a plane of motion like Smash's. As for its characters, I'm aware they have a distinct uniqueness to them, but they still are primarily separated by special moves. Basic movesets are still present among a myriad of other things.
You're now acting like Smash doesn't have moveset tropes. Look at dtilts, ftilts, jabs, bairs, nairs, uairs, dairs, fsmashes, dsmashes, etc. Most of them follow very specific tropes. That's because there are certain abilities within the game that you
need in order to have a functioning character. Just because those needs are different in Smash from other fighters doesn't make them suddenly "unique." Maybe their form and function are new, but their necessity is as old as fighting games.
That's the entire point: that the stages are trying, but not impossible to overcome. I main Ganondorf, and I've beaten R.O.B.s on FO before, and Warios on Brinstar. Good ones. I had an extremely rough time, but the beauty of it is that I was able to think differently and play differently to utilize the facets of the stage to my advantage. That, my friend, is what adds depth. Your line of reasoning that it being degenerate to one character subtracting depth doesn't quite follow.
I've got a secret for you: If you're beating Warios and ROBs on their respective counterpicks as Ganondorf, they clearly don't know how to use the level to their advantage. If they did, you would have lost. Congratulations on being better than they are, but realize that anecdotes like that hold little sway in debate.
19 are left. That's plenty, methinks.
19/41 = .46
My point stands. Keep in mind most tournaments only have about fifteen legal CPs, and four legal neutrals, and there are those that argue Yoshi's Island isn't neutral, because of DK's Spinning Kong shenanigans. The point: there are three stages that are widely considered to accurately represent the comparison of skills that two players possess. If you want me to break it down for you, here it goes.
Two players of near, but not equal, skill play on a neutral. Naturally, the slightly better player wins. The slightly worse player CPs to a stage where his character has a large advantage,
plays the match properly, and wins. Then the slightly better player picks his CP, and wins the set. The second two matches may as well have not even happened, since their outcomes were guaranteed barring some major failure of one player to play properly. Note that if the slightly worst player had managed to win the first match, because as players of near skill, the slightly worse player will of course win occasionally, even when both players are playing properly, he would have won the whole set.
This widens the gap necessary for better players to win according to their skill level. The reason full sets are played is to give the better player a chance to win through their statistical advantage, but Smash removes that concept entirely.
I've played them all save for BlazBlue. And you'd be less embarrassed if you actually read into why the characters were unique. The point I covered several times was that fighting games can have unique characters, but Smash supersedes them by a mile. Why? Speed difference, attack speed, range, personalized movesets, different physics, weights, KO options, etc. Shall I go on? It's nice that MvC2 has everybody and their mother's in it, but that doesn't change the fact that each character follows a basic model.
Speed difference is in many of those games, and no amount of your denial will make it less true that characters in those games have character specific attack speeds, ranges and movesets. I wouldn't have listed them if I weren't positive of this fact. They don't all have different weights, although BB at least has different fall-speeds. They make up for this, however, by making each character have a character specific amount of HP, meaning the same combo will do relatively more or less damage to different characters. That sounds a lot like the character-specific KO percents. Interesting. True, KO moves are unique to Smash, but that's just a function of the King-of-the-Hill mechanic of the game, which I've never denied is unique.
There's a difference between projectile range and actual move range, especially in a rock-paper-scissors sense. In MK Shang Tsung's jumpkick has an annoyingly long hitbox that's impossible to punish, but if you're Nightwolf, your high kick extends beyond it a tiny bit, and can knock him down. Each move has its own range and priority, and is not limited to projectiles or special moves.
Thanks for illustrating my point. Stop saying other games don't bring range into consideration now.
Does this subtract from the inherent uniqueness of the concept? No. That, and planking rules have been instated, drastically mitigating the amount of plankers. Over the past several months, I haven't fought one MK, G&W or anyone who planked. Even if they did, again, this doesn't demerit the dimension of play it offers.
Fair enough. It's a unique aspect of the game, and it adds an element that is unseen in the rest of the genre. I never tried to deny that, though. I was contrasting this with your implications that it makes Smash somehow a deeper game. I'm showing that where it introduces deep options, it also introduces pretty shallow ones. You've admitted that many of the degenerate options for stalling are directly related to abusing weaknesses in other characters' recoveries. Some of this stuff has had to be banned in the past, if that says anything about the competitiveness of the game. I've admitted that the King-of-the-Hill mechanic is unique, which is really rather meaningless in a game's competitiveness. Now stop skirting around the fact that the balance of the concept is questionable.
You're sorely undermining the profundity of Smash's fluidity. I didn't state camping can't be done in other fighters, nor did I say you can't run. Sure, Smash has its share of just about everything; but that's the great thing: it accommodates everything. The fluidity of the game alone should be indicative of how much it can affect the need for precision, timing and punishing. Those games give you limited options, again, hearkening to rock-paper-scissors. Not to say this is intrinsically bad, but my point is that Smash's nature breeds technical ability, precision and an analysis of more variable outcomes.
I think you underestimate the fluidity of other fighters. More specifically, you're confusing the ability to turn around with fluidity. See the next scab-picking.
It seems like you're purposely ignoring the focal point of each listing. Cross-ups and mix-ups do not equate to creativity. Again, rock-paper-scissors. You have to anticipate simply that: high or low. Pay close attention to the phrase "attacking out of context". Most fighters simply do not allow for it, as each move is too restricted to be implemented in creative ways.
I'm saying that attacking out of context is the same thing. It's a mix-up. Whether you hit me with the front or the back of a move is still nothing more or less than a mix-up. You can hit me with a bair, or with the back of fair. It's up to me to decide if I'm safe in that situation, and if I guess wrong, then I get punished. This is actually what a cross-up is; it just has a different utility in other fighters than in Smash. I'll have more on this later.
Did I say Smash was the only game with tier lists? You're repeatedly proving to me that you just skimmed my post and decided to be contentious. >_>
And no, I've never, in all my years, seen as much thought and consideration going into constructing a solid tier list as Smash. The uniqueness catalyzes imbalance, and that imbalance is carefully dissected and formulated into a list. There are many more factors into considering a Smash character's tier placement thanks to the vast ocean of differences and remarkable attributes.
Maybe Smash players put too much thought into it. I've always felt that there is a tendency of Smashers to overanalyze stuff, and I'm amazed every time I have to explain a simple concept to people.
And ultimately, when I talk to good players, they can break match-ups down to really simple things, even in Smash. A friend of mine said of Olimar dittos that the player who is willing to fsmash more will win. That sounds like the underthinking that you find so offensive, doesn't it? Unfortunately for your point, this breakdown is very true, and I think the Smash community would be healthier if it learned to look at things this way.
Hell, the SBR-B really just votes on the tier list, and if their is any debate, most members just keep their own counsel on who they think is better. That's really not much different than other communities, when you think about it.
And you're half right about the skimming. I only read the post seriously until you decided to suggest that Guilty Gear lacks mobility. Did you play Potemkin or something? Because you could argue Smash lacks mobility if you play Link. But then go play Eddie in Guilty Gear, or Jigglypuff in Smash, and you can see a lot more mobility.
I didn't forget it, but I didn't expound upon it. But you're right, it is an important facet. But if you're fooling yourself into thinking DI is the one unique trait of Smash, then you're sadly mistaken, I'm afraid.
My point was that DI is the one unique aspect of Smash that is well-balanced, and that is actually significant. I've admitted that the ring-out/KO element is unique, but even you have to admit it's poorly balanced in every game. The ability to turn around, as I've shown, is just a mix-up. Mix-ups are not new, and just because Smash gives them a new face doesn't mean it's particularly ground breaking.
Half the fun of Smash is consistently outthinking and outplaying your opponent. The healthbar sidelines a lot of potential creativity and gameplay.
It's as though you're not paying attention to me. Read carefully the following statement:
Other fighters let you consistently out-think and out-play your opponents.
All the health bar does is ensure that you don't have to do it for three minutes straight for that one opportunity to to hit with a solid KO move. I don't care how good you are; not being able to KO your opponent at 200% is frustrating, and possibly even demoralizing. Moreso, if you can only hit them with little hits for three whole minutes.
Overall, I can see where you're coming from, but in your own presentation of points, you failed to fully acknowledge the bulk of mine. Instead of focusing on the inherent dimensions of gameplay, you picked at scabs and negative possibilities. If you reply to this, I'd appreciate some examples of how any other game stacks up to Smash as far as characters and stages go.
I've already shown that stages really only impact the game negatively, if they impact it significantly at all, so I won't bother with that, but I'd like to take a minute with BlazBlue, even though it's a pretty **** imbalanced game. But aside from Smash, it's the only other fighter that I have extensive enough knowledge about.
BlazBlue's primary selling point was, in fact, that each of its characters has a specific mechanic, sometimes new, sometimes old. For some characters, this claim fell flat, but for others, it yielded interesting results. Rachel's Silpheed is an excellent example. Silpheed causes the wind to blow, and this moves most sprites on the screen roughly in the direction specified, and it affects airborne sprites more than grounded ones. Naturally, this affords Rachel an unprecedented level of mobility, as she can blow herself to any part of the screen practically at will. Not only that, but it allows a great deal of emergent uses, such as blowing opponents back into combos, and creating opportunities to continue mix-up strings that otherwise would be over.
Rachel also has a great deal of options available to her in the realm of mix-ups, which you like to call "creative methodologies." Some of this has to do with Silpheed, but some of it also has to do with inherent strengths of the character, and with the combination of gatling cancels and move class options that she has.
A word on mix-ups. In Smash, there are three move classes: air, ground and special. The functions of these classes makes them more or less useful in certain situations. BB has move classes as well, but this relates more to states: air, standing and crouching, and the relationships between those states (yielding a more than three classes, I might add). The balance of Smash's move classes means that any aerial can be mixed up in place of another aerial. This doesn't make the ability to use any of those aerials as mix-ups unique, it just changes the way you compartmentalize mix-ups. My opponent can use any of his aerials in the same situation he'd use another aerial. If you're not thinking about that option, then you probably should be. When you look at "creative methodologies" in this light, it becomes another form of mix-up that you have to be mindful of.
Now, due to her wide range of options, and strong combo game to boot, Rachel is considered to be the best character in the game. Compare her to Iron Tager, who has at least one unwinnable match-up against V-13. Actually, Tager's lack of options against several top characters leads people to place him in his own tier. Literally, the tier is called T tier. He's that bad. One could argue that the uniqueness of the characters is partially to blame, but the argument would be as flimsy as your argument that "character uniqueness" is to blame for the imbalance in Brawl's roster.
There are other character-specific abilities that are quite unique. Taokaka's drive allows her any number of mix-ups both by intentionally whiffing, or even upon hitting. Bang Shishigami has a series of specials that create opportunities for sudden changes in his movement, and he even has a bair, essentially. Tager has a 10 frame overhead.
BlazBlue also has a special meter. This is not unusual for most 2D fighters to have, but I'm bringing it up, because it actually has some qualities similar to percent in Smash. Now, while the formula for percent gain in Smash is not quite the same as in other fighters, there is one similarity: in traditional fighters, as your special meter goes up, so does your ability to deal significant damage, while in Smash, as your opponent's percent goes up, so does your ability to KO. Sure, the ability to deal significant damage doesn't relate directly to the ability to KO your opponent, but if you think about taking off a third of someone's health gauge as conceptually similar to taking off a stock, there's actually a fair semblance. You could easily just assert that they're technically not the same thing, and you'd be right, but that would just display an inability to think laterally on the topic.
