Demo played (at DigiPen party)! Wavedashing (in Melee form) appears to be out!

[Chepe]

I dunno why anyone would be worried about teching and fastfalling and short hops and such. Those were completely and purposefully programmed into the game. Teching is even in the instruction booklet! They call it "pressing L/R as you hit solid wall/ground when blasted to regain your fighter's stance". And fastfalling and short hops being accidental finds is just a ridiculous idea...

 

[Ban Heim]

Quick question...I know l-cancelling was programmed into the game but was it actually included into the instruction manual?

 

[WiiPlaya77]

nope, it was on the official site tho...

EDIT: what's funny is that if this is true, then they went out of their way to remove a useful aspect of the game to get rid of wavedashing...

 

[Zauron]

I dunno why anyone would be worried about teching and fastfalling and short hops and such. Those were completely and purposefully programmed into the game. Teching is even in the instruction booklet! They call it "pressing L/R as you hit solid wall/ground when blasted to regain your fighter's stance". And fastfalling and short hops being accidental finds is just a ridiculous idea...

Very true.

I never had any worry about those techniques. I figured WD'ing would be removed, but replaced with new options - such as faster dodges, which seems to be exactly what happened.

I figured L-Cancelling would be in too, because it was also obviously intentionally programmed that way, however, video evidence indicates it is gone (but ALL air attacks have L-Cancel'd lag now, so it doesn't really matter any more).

 

[Ban Heim]

nope, it was on the official site tho...

EDIT: what's funny is that if this is true, then they went out of their way to remove a useful aspect of the game to get rid of wavedashing...

My thoughts exactly. Removing a useful tactic that everyone used to get rid of another that only 5% of the players use seems very counter-productive to me.

I figured L-Cancelling would be in too, because it was also obviously intentionally programmed that way, however, video evidence indicates it is gone (but ALL air attacks have L-Cancel'd lag now, so it doesn't really matter any more).

It does matter though. It seems like they're trying to eliminate the gap between pro and casual smashers, which means that for those who truly want to get better, they'll have a very hard time setting themselves apart from a run-of-the-mill Brawl player.

 

[_X_]

nope, it was on the official site tho...

EDIT: what's funny is that if this is true, then they went out of their way to remove a useful aspect of the game to get rid of wavedashing...

I'm pretty sure they could have just made the traction after an air dodge really tight so the player wouldn't slide.

Something is amiss...

 

[Salaad]

My thoughts exactly. Removing a useful tactic that everyone used to get rid of another that only 5% of the players use seems very counter-productive to me.



It does matter though. It seems like they're trying to eliminate the gap between pro and casual smashers, which means that for those who truly want to get better, they'll have a very hard time setting themselves apart from a run-of-the-mill Brawl player.

We'll still find new glitches.

 

[element_of_fire]

We'll still find new glitches.

we weren't using 'glitches' in the first place

 

[Vortok]

It does matter though. It seems like they're trying to eliminate the gap between pro and casual smashers, which means that for those who truly want to get better, they'll have a very hard time setting themselves apart from a run-of-the-mill Brawl player.

Well... depends how you define pro. If definately takes more committment to learn the timing on stuff like L-cancelling... but if it's made easier or auto, that just makes the game more about how you play your character/strategy and less about being able to do the more advanced techs (as nobody can deny, L-cancelling gives a great advantage and it's not something EVERYONE can do easily in Melee).

The people that devote more time to Brawl will be better, and still be able to beat a casual. The gap might be smaller (can't so I fully agree with how Nintendo makes games sometimes... but Mario Kart is fun as hell and specifically programmed to give the worse players better items), but if you're good you'll still find ways to triumph over lesser skilled players.


And again... I like wavedashing and feel that this way of removing it (if it was... a few seconds testing can hardly be called clear evidence) isn't the best... at least at first glance. The "greater traction" would just lead to triangle jumps used for spacing. Dunno why they couldn't just make the air dodge "stall" on the stage (so at ground level, but in the air dodge animation) instead. Oh well... prolly a deeper reasoning behind it but I can't think of it.

 

[_X_]

Vortok, do you know anything about poor little Fox?

 

[LavisFiend]

Vortok, do you know anything about poor little Fox?

_X_, Fox is screwed. Conform to the belief that Wolf will make the cut and be the new Fox.

Only then, can you acheive enlightenment.

 

[Ban Heim]

Well... depends how you define pro. If definately takes more committment to learn the timing on stuff like L-cancelling... but if it's made easier or auto, that just makes the game more about how you play your character/strategy and less about being able to do the more advanced techs (as nobody can deny, L-cancelling gives a great advantage and it's not something EVERYONE can do easily in Melee).

The people that devote more time to Brawl will be better, and still be able to beat a casual. The gap might be smaller (can't so I fully agree with how Nintendo makes games sometimes... but Mario Kart is fun as hell and specifically programmed to give the worse players better items), but if you're good you'll still find ways to triumph over lesser skilled players.


And again... I like wavedashing and feel that this way of removing it (if it was... a few seconds testing can hardly be called clear evidence) isn't the best... at least at first glance. The "greater traction" would just lead to triangle jumps used for spacing. Dunno why they couldn't just make the air dodge "stall" on the stage (so at ground level, but in the air dodge animation) instead. Oh well... prolly a deeper reasoning behind it but I can't think of it.

You know, your second paragraph makes me feel much better about Brawl and the lack of WDing as well as the altered airdodging. I'm actually getting pumped again.

EDIT: And I hope you're right Salaad.

 

[Vortok]

I learned practically nothing about Fox. I saw him played twice, I think. One time was my friend with a Remote (aka, 4-5 suicides/botched recoveries). His Up and Side B still seem to travel a keep distance. He has the same F-smash. I think he might have the same up smash, but might've been a dif. char that did that up smash. Most of what I saw, we've already seen in videos anyways. I'll play him tomorrow and test the shine at the very least (startup lag, jump cancel, and if I can hit anyone the trajectory of it).

I think he's not nearly as much of a fast faller now, but everyone seemed floaty at first. Might just be that characters play different from Melee that's throwing me off. I mean... I think I almost suicided jumping across the Eldin Gap with Mario, for crying out loud.

 

[Zauron]

It makes sense they'd nerf Wavedashing though, which is why I'm not surprised. I use it all the time (Luigi is my main after all!) but I knew it couldn't last. Here's my thoughts on it:

1) The design of Smash that makes it so unique is that instead of focusing on the player's skill with doing a complex set of sequences with their controller, it focuses almost entirely on the metagame. Performing moves is easy - only 1 button! Its all about how you use those moves, positions, predictions, mindgames, and so on that make Smash unique. I wish more fighting games did this to be honest. WDing was a complex set of buttons not too dissimilar from the moves other fighting games have that involve multiple button presses with correct timing to do.

Sakurai knew you could slide like that but probably did not think people would use it the way we do - he likely thought it was just a neat thing you'd do every once in a while, almost accidentally, while dodging an attack. When he realized how much it was being used, it started to mean that being good at the metagame was not enough, you had to have this technical skill to go with it to truly compete. To some players who could otherwise have the mindgames and metagame skill to be real pros, it was out of reach because they just could not master the finger dexterity for SHFFL'ing or WD'ing.

However, he saw how people enjoyed these techniques. So, he removed them but changed things to make it less necessary - lower traction when landing from air attacks, much quicker dodges, automatic L-Cancelling, etc. Things that are similar to the advanced techniques but usable by everyone. Shifts the focus back to what made Smash great and unique in the first place - easy to do everything in it, but difficult to truly master the nuances of how every move interacts with every other move to outplay your opponent.

With these, it maintains the whole design theory behind Smash - concentrate on using the moves your character has in the best situation, rather than having to learn complex button sequences in order to compete.

2) Wi-Fi. If you know much about network latency coding in action games, things would be easier without L-Cancelling and complete control over dodge direction. Basically, the less control the player has to change a predictable motion suddenly, the harder it is to deal with latency. By air-dodging continuing your current momentum, prediction algorithms work better. By having a landed air attack have the same lag recovery time regardless of whether or not you pushed L, the algorithms work better. The less variation possible once the player has started a move, the easier it is to make it work smoothly over the network.

I believe many of the simplifications are because of one or both of the above 2 reasons, including the change to air-dodging, L-Cancelling, auto-sweet-spotting, grabbing ledges that are behind you, auto-combo by holding A, homing tether recoveries, faster dodges, longer hit-stun on multi-hit moves (helps with the network stuff), nerf to double-jump cancelling, and so on.

 

[_X_]

I learned practically nothing about Fox. I saw him played twice, I think. One time was my friend with a Remote (aka, 4-5 suicides/botched recoveries). His Up and Side B still seem to travel a keep distance. He has the same F-smash. I think he might have the same up smash, but might've been a dif. char that did that up smash. Most of what I saw, we've already seen in videos anyways. I'll play him tomorrow and test the shine at the very least (startup lag, jump cancel, and if I can hit anyone the trajectory of it).

I think he's not nearly as much of a fast faller now, but everyone seemed floaty at first. Might just be that characters play different from Melee that's throwing me off. I mean... I think I almost suicided jumping across the Eldin Gap with Mario, for crying out loud.

Yeah fair enough man, I remember my transition between N64 smash and Melee it felt like a different game (not to mention the new controls). I'd love to be able to jump out of his foward B... :'(

Thanks in advance for testing him.

_X_, Fox is screwed. Conform to the belief that Wolf will make the cut and be the new Fox.

Only then, can you acheive enlightenment.

HMMM, we'll see tonights update may yeild good results... or it might be the ORANGE PEEL!

 

[Ban Heim]

2) Wi-Fi. If you know much about network latency coding in action games, things would be easier without L-Cancelling and complete control over dodge direction. Basically, the less control the player has to change a predictable motion suddenly, the harder it is to deal with latency. By air-dodging continuing your current momentum, prediction algorithms work better. By having a landed air attack have the same lag recovery time regardless of whether or not you pushed L, the algorithms work better. The less variation possible once the player has started a move, the easier it is to make it work smoothly over the network.

I believe many of the simplifications are because of one or both of the above 2 reasons, including the change to air-dodging, L-Cancelling, auto-sweet-spotting, grabbing ledges that are behind you, auto-combo by holding A, homing tether recoveries, faster dodges, longer hit-stun on multi-hit moves (helps with the network stuff), nerf to double-jump cancelling, and so on.

Although I agree with you about how all of those things would make online play less laggy, I doubt that that was Sakurai's original intention. Didn't they not even decided to add Wi-Fi until just recently? Wouldn't that mean that the game still had the same (or similar) mechanics as it does now?

But yeah, I never thought how the lack of WDing, l-cancelling, and all that could make online play faster. Hopefully it'll be worth sacrificing them for low-lag online play.

 

[Zauron]

Although I agree with you about how all of those things would make online play less laggy, I doubt that that was Sakurai's original intention. Didn't they not even decided to add Wi-Fi until just recently? Wouldn't that mean that the game still had the same (or similar) mechanics as it does now?

But yeah, I never thought how the lack of WDing, l-cancelling, and all that could make online play faster. Hopefully it'll be worth sacrificing them for low-lag online play.

Uh, no, online play was planned from day 1. It was reconfirmed recently with the Wi-Fi update, but before the project even STARTED Iwata said he wanted it to be one of the first Wi-Fi games. Sakurai knew it was going to be an online game from the beginning. So it probably was a factor in many of the decisions on mechanics changes.

 

[Ban Heim]

Uh, no, online play was planned from day 1. It was reconfirmed recently with the Wi-Fi update, but before the project even STARTED Iwata said he wanted it to be one of the first Wi-Fi games. Sakurai knew it was going to be an online game from the beginning. So it probably was a factor in many of the decisions on mechanics changes.

That's odd. I knew they were planning on it at first but I didn't think it was set in stone. Wasn't there an interview with Sakurai that said that even if Wi-Fi was added, it would be very basic (which seems to imply that they were not planning on it at the time)?

 

[Shai Hulud]

Uh, no, online play was planned from day 1. It was reconfirmed recently with the Wi-Fi update, but before the project even STARTED Iwata said he wanted it to be one of the first Wi-Fi games. Sakurai knew it was going to be an online game from the beginning. So it probably was a factor in many of the decisions on mechanics changes.

That's why I predicted a long *** time ago that if Brawl had online, it would suck by necessity.

 

[Zauron]

That's odd. I knew they were planning on it at first but I didn't think it was set in stone. Wasn't there an interview with Sakurai that said that even if Wi-Fi was added, it would be very basic (which seems to imply that they were not planning on it at the time)?

It wasn't that they weren't planning it, its that they weren't sure if it was possible. Most fighting games that have been online have sucked. Its really hard to do well. He was just trying to keep people from getting their hopes up too much. In order to even have online at all for a game like this, particularly with 4 player support, there has to have been a dedicated Wi Fi coding and design team for pretty much the entire project.

Trust me on this. I make games for a living. Wi-Fi play for an action game, especially one of this magnitude, is NOT something they would have time to add just recently, they had to have been working on it since the beginning of the project, and if there's one thing I've learned while working in game development, its that having online multiplayer affects EVERYTHING in your design and code. It simply cannot be tacked on later unless the multiplayer aspect is a separate mini-game that has no relation to the core game.

 

[BackItch]

I just wanted to thank Infil for relaying this information to the community, even after all the flames. You have infinite patience for putting up with all of the unwarranted flames and keeping in good spirits.

It's great to be skeptical of claims. I encourage it. But some of you guys are so close minded you can't even accept the POSSIBILITY of wavedashing being gone.

Hopefully this has all had time to sink-in, so you're not completely shocked and appalled that your precious "advanced" tech has been removed.

It would be a shame for you to miss out on such a wonder game because you're too focused on such a minor thing.

 

[Zauron]

By the way I spoke with Vortok privately, I'm convinced he is telling the truth based on his knowledge of NOA employees. If there were any doubters left. I guess you have no reason to believe me either, but take from this what you will.

 

[Shai Hulud]

Gay.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

We'll see.

I'm not too terribly concerned. I'm still gonna buy the game and play the hell out of it regardless.

 

[kilroy]

thanks Vortok and Infil! your efforts are much appreciated!

 

[Kasumi]

Me, I love the wavedash. If I hadn't found out about wavedashing, I would have given up melee a long time ago. (I actually shelved it for a long while, then learned about it on gamefaqs at random) I think it's really fun to do. I'll be hella disappointed if it's gone and there's nothing to replace it. I'll still buy the game, but there'd better be something quirky for me to do while playing it.

That said, yeah thanks for making this thread. I believe you, your friend AND the Nintendo employee. (Though pretty much everyone else does at this point as well)

 

[Infil]

Thanks a lot Vortok... hopefully people will stop dealing out the personal insults now. Also, the real thanks goes to mgslee, my good smash buddy, who gave me these impressions. I was just the one who stuck my neck out and told you all. I still haven't played the game! (mgslee, I still want to kill you)

I think once you guys start playing Brawl yourselves, after a few months you'll quite like the changes they made. They aren't making them blindly. They're not desperate for ways to remove wavedashing, and therefore, cut out a part of the game they didn't want to change. It's all done with a grand design in mind.

It's fine to speculate on how the game will be played differently, but to say it will SUCK because certain key Melee techniques were changed/removed is just ridiculous. You think they wasted these last 2+ years on a game that's going to suck?

If people open their minds and are prepared to restructure the way they play Smash, Brawl will be the most enjoyable game ever made. If you spend all your time trying to "force" old wavedashing techniques, you're going to end up frustrated for no reason! In 3 years, I'm sure we'll be discussing the metagame and loving every match, just as we do now with Melee.

 

[Kryptonite X]

We'll see.

I'm not too terribly concerned. I'm still gonna buy the game and play the hell out of it regardless.

Step 5 is acceptance.

 

[LavisFiend]

HMMM, we'll see tonights update may yeild good results... or it might be the ORANGE PEEL!

ORANGE PEEL FOR GOD TIER!

 

[Gimpyfish62]

lol nobody is going to flame me i'm freakin gimpyfish calm down everyone lololol i'll get the info as soon as i can so just chilllllll ooouuuuutttttt for now

 

[element_of_fire]

gimpy just call me when you're playin'.... i'll give you my number..... you can call me anytime too you know *wink* *wink* *wink*

 

[BackItch]

Well-played, Kryptonite.

I hope we see more posts from that holier-than-thou psychology major.
Since he apparently knows so much, I'm sure he could plot his progress through the 5 steps himself...

I think he's still hung-up on step 3 last time I heard from him.

 

[Johnknight1]

Me, I love the wavedash. If I hadn't found out about wavedashing, I would have given up melee a long time ago. (I actually shelved it for a long while, then learned about it on gamefaqs at random) I think it's really fun to do. I'll be hella disappointed if it's gone and there's nothing to replace it. I'll still buy the game, but there'd better be something quirky for me to do while playing it.

That said, yeah thanks for making this thread. I believe you, your friend AND the Nintendo employee. (Though pretty much everyone else does at this point as well)

^ EXACTLY WAT HAPPENED to me. (although, I learned it by accident, looked up Melee guides, and found "The Dumies Guide to Wavedashing" video=brought me into the Advanced Tech world! ) Anyways, I'm hesitant to even believe Vortok...since i don't know you. So ya, I can wait another 18 hours!

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Step 5 is acceptance.

Lol.

I don't have to "accept" anything, man. I am allowed to have my doubts. Just because you throw your lot in with somebody else doesn't mean that I have to. If I am wrong in a couple of days, then I am wrong; no bones about it and no whining, either. But I'm not going to apologize for having had my doubts if I am wrong.


At any rate, let me make it clear: I don't care if wavedashing is in Brawl or not. Like any good game, Smash is just going to be taking a turn for the better. If improving the game means they gotta tear out some of the **** that we use in Melee, then so be it. Let the changes come. By all means, I'd love to see how this game is going to be without them. My brain's working at a thousand miles a minute thinking about all of the possibilities that this may entail.

I'm not trying to put fuel on the fire here; I stated my opinion and I am going to hold on to it whether you guys like it or not. Give me some semblance of credit for being somewhat respectable here.

Smooth Criminal

.

 

[Shuma]

Woah... looks like i missed like 10 pages, is WD deconfirmed or not?

 

[Superstarmario]

<3

Seriously, Wavedashing is quickly becoming Ridley's younger brother.

"IT IZ IN BROL CUZ I SED SO !!!"

Quoted. Quoted for victory.

 

[_X_]

Quoted. Quoted for victory.

Is trooth. I think we're going to have to bid our old friend Wave Dashing a fold farewell.

P.S Your sig cracked me up man.

Innuendo as far as the eye can see...

The dude was kidding, right?

 

[kilroy]

Woah... looks like i missed like 10 pages, is WD deconfirmed or not?

the answer to that question is a definitive MAYBE.

initial hands-on reports (if you believe them, and i do) say that it's out as air-dodging is different now.

further examination couldn't hurt.

my money's on it's gone.

 

[Shuma]

Well, that makes me happy.

 

[NES n00b]

I am more worried about the fact that directional air dodging is gone and not wavedashing. I can understand that some of you are happy because the big bad ugly wavedash is gone but how can removing freedom from where you air dodge do for gameplay? They should have not done that. Hopefully, they didn't just do this weird airdodge thing to get rid of wavedashing and that it takes some unexpected turn and has some deep properties to it.