Does melee take more skill?

[BrawlLover]

then you should give melee a chance

 

[IrArby]

@Binx: Sorry about the confusion I was referring to Yeniths post just above me not yours since he very reduntantly said technical fighters like Melee bring to mind Marvel vs. Capcom and Starcraft. Everyone heres been saying since pg 1.

 

[MasterMarth2008]

Melee defiantly takes more skill than brawl! i know some guys who kill me on brawl but i kill them on melee!

 

[IrArby]

^^^^ Good to see that people read what others have posted before posting redundantly.

Aww some things change but others . . .

 

[BrawlLover]

nice self quote man

rezpect

 

[Fletch]

Melee defiantly takes more skill than brawl! i know some guys who kill me on brawl but i kill them on melee!

What the hell?

 

[NES n00b]

stuff

So....the difference is because the counter attacks are on the ground (which doesn't matter) and you can stuff people's approaches with another higher priority attack (which you admitted happens in smash but in a smaller degree)? All I have to say is that the ground thing is arbitrary, footsies is still basically spacing, and yes in smash you hit people all the time with a higher priority attack it happens all the time.

That other stuff you said I don't know why you said it. I am not going to deny Marvel vs Capcom 2 is one of the best fighting games ever.

 

[BrawlLover]

na for real dawg

 

[Binx]

Melee is SO much different from other fighters they are hard to compare as far as skill goes, they are both 2D and thus have similar mechanics, GGXX and others have double jumps as well, the difference is the in melee the ability to run through your opponent on the ground unexpectedly, jump over them, retreat to the edge for invincibility frames and then counter attack, there are just different options.

 

[BrawlLover]

imagine melee in 3d...hahaha

 

[.Marik]

Melee defiantly takes more skill than brawl! i know some guys who kill me on brawl but i kill them on melee!

.....

*Facepalm*

But yes, Melee takes more skill than Brawl, for obvious reasons already discussed about here.

 

[Zodiac]

I wish I was as good at Guilty Gear as I am in Melee. :3 I have a PS2 and have no Guilty Gear either. : <

The newest guilty gear came out on wii, its awesome !

 

[Wind Owl]

lol @ people who don't read past the topic title

EDIT: LOL GG on the Wii >_>
I heard some false points were 20 frames rofl

 

[slartibartfast42]

I just bought starcraft just because of this thread, it's great, but I REALLY suck.

Never played starcraft. I know its huge, but I never looked into. Mainly cause my pc sucks. So anyone wanna give me a good video of starcraft? One that shows why its soo good?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRlPCu88I80

Any computer made after 1998 can run starcraft. Its minimum requirements are:

Windows 95
90 MHz processor
19 MB ram
DirectX compatible (any version, lol)
640x480 8-bit display

If your computer doesn't have that, then you probably have trouble viewing image files. Seriously.

To see your computer's capabilities, click start, then run, then type "dxdiag" and press enter. You probably have enough processing power to run starcraft at least 5 times over, even if your computer is trash and can't run any new games.

 

[illboyzeus]

LMAO at this topic.

 

[ranmaru]

I just bought starcraft just because of this thread, it's great, but I REALLY suck.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRlPCu88I80

Any computer made after 1998 can run starcraft. Its minimum requirements are:

Windows 95
90 MHz processor
19 MB ram
DirectX compatible (any version, lol)
640x480 8-bit display

If your computer doesn't have that, then you probably have trouble viewing image files. Seriously.

To see your computer's capabilities, click start, then run, then type "dxdiag" and press enter. You probably have enough processing power to run starcraft at least 5 times over, even if your computer is trash and can't run any new games.

But is starcraft fun?

 

[x Mackadotious]

all how u look at it. create ur own combo that is based off of a knock back system and weight of the character on character, or press a given combination that always works. what about a parry? ssbm: perfect shield. what about a counter attack? ssbm: sidestep > attack, perfect shield > attack, attack > attack. gotta be fast, stay on ur toes, constant movement across the stage. EDGE GUARDING!!! thats an art of its own.

 

[BrawlLover]

starcraft is like almost as good as brawl, i wuv brawl

 

[Mic_128]

Starcraft has a great story, and is a very balanced RTS with the sides having very diferent units instead of just the same unites repainted for each side like most (way more different than WC3 too)

 

[BrawlLover]

WC3 however isn't so much worse than Starcraft. SC has a lot going for it, which is why people are dying for SC2, also most likely Blizzard will not screw up the balance of the game even by adding new units.

 

[IrArby]

I played through 2/3 of WC3 that storyline blows!

Ya Know what I'm looking foward to? Mario RPG Legend of the Seven Stars ON Wii! Do it Nintendo! I'm super cereal about this.

Ya ever looked at a twenty dollar bill . . . ON Wii?!!!

 

[BrawlLover]

oh yeah that game is gonna be mass ****...hopefully

 

[Fletch]

WC3 however isn't so much worse than Starcraft. SC has a lot going for it, which is why people are dying for SC2, also most likely Blizzard will not screw up the balance of the game even by adding new units.

I have to be one of the few people that liked WC3 more than SC (I still play it a bit). Maybe because I actually enjoy micro over macro? Either way, both absolutely excellent games, and are great choices for anyone wanting to get into an RTS. Here's to hoping SC2 is just as good.

 

[`Jammin' Jobus]

warcraft is intense. its so frustratingly hard though. when you play against someone with good micro you literally feel helpless


you seen moon's shuttle micro? that **** is insane.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSGUOBfFlFQ

 

[Kro]

Ok, time to dissect that long quote on the 1st page. I play a lot of fighting games fairly well and have enough experience in most 2D fighters to understand high-level play in almost any game. LA has a very much alive arcade scene. Please forgive this wall o'text.

So, let me get this straight, your comparing a game with preset button combinations to a game where you literally adlib each combo you perform?

In smash, you do not adlib each combo you perform. After you land an attack, there are a limited number of ways an opponent can DI. Many characters such as Marth and C.Falcon have enough range and speed to cover any of these options on reaction, due to the huge freedom of movement in smash.

Let's break it down. To perform a shuffled drill shine you have to press the following button combinations,
-Short Hop, pressing down on X/Y for (in Fox's case) less than 3 frames (you finger must have left the button after 2 frames, or 1/30th of a second).
-Press down+A or down on the C-Stick.
-Press down on the control stick to fast fall the attack.
-L Canceling the Drillkick (you must press L/R/Z 6 frames before hitting the ground, or on the frame you hit the ground, which in total gives you 7 frames or slightly more than 1/6th of a second to hit it).
-The L canceling means the lag after the attack is canceled after 9 frames (instead of 1, meaning 10 frames after the attack is the soonest you can shine, the closer to the 10th frame the better.
-Shine, press down B, it hits on only the first frame, or 1/60th of a second.
-Wavedash out of the shine as soon as possible (after the 4th frame that the shine comes out [IIRC]). To wavedash, press X/Y, followed by L/R and a direction. You must press this before the 4th frame because on the 4th frame Fox leaves the ground and jumps (therefore press L/R within 3 frames or 3/60th's of a second).
-Every wavedash with every character has 10 frames during which you cannot do anything (which is why you can't always attack during a wavedash with characters whose sliding animation ends before the 10 frames of lag is up). After this 10 frames you have to make a decision, all this set of moves did was begin a combo. That's it, and all of this happens in around 1-2 seconds time (the majority of this time is spent before you initiate the drill kick in the air, IE the frames during which you are jumping upwards).

With the exception of Fox, the amount of frames you have to input the command to wavedash is pretty lenient. Additionally, you are using the technique that requires the most tech skill in melee to pull off for just 1 character as an example of what is normally required to perform well in melee as a whole. But let's look at some other games shall we?

In GGXX:AC, there is something known as FRC (False Roman Cancel) which is fairly similar to L-cancelling in smash. It cuts off the ending lag of special moves and certain normal moves at the cost of 25% super meter. You have exactly 1 frame to press 3 buttons during your attack to FRC it. If you mess up, you perform an RC and lose 50% super meter instead of 25%. If you don't have 50% and screw up the FRC, then you won't cancel the lag. This example is probably one of the strictest in the amount of active frames to input commands, yet using FRC is practically mandatory to do well in GG for every character. Eddie's shadow is a character-specific thing that is the most complex mechanic I have ever encountered in a fighting game.

CVS2 comes in a close second with roll-cancelling, which is nearly impossible to detect visually yet absolutely vital in high-level play. It basically grants invincibility to the starting frames of any special move if you tap lp+lk less than a tenth of a second before the ending input of the special move. So if you wanted to roll cancel Ryu's fireball, you would input down, down-forward, lp+lk, forward+punch to perform a RC'd fireball. Mess up and you will perform a roll, which is easily punished for big damage. Another example is the A-groove custom combos of Sakura and Bison. Performing SRK motions continuously and precisely without accidentally performing a hadoken or super is HARD.

Third strike has something similar with kara-cancels, which extend the range of throws and certain special moves. And of course, parrying.

If you want difficulty in the amount of necessary button inputs in a limited timeframe, nothing tops MVC2. Sentinel is the second easiest character to use of the big 4 in mvc2. He has a technique called 'Fast-fly.' To activate fly using sentinel, you have to input qcb (quarter-circle backwards on the joystick) +2 kick buttons. You input the same motion to deactivate it. Fastfly involves performing an attack while flying, deactivating fly to cancel the lag of the attack, then quickly activating fly again to enter a neutral state. This means that everytime you attack you need to input qcb+2 kicks twice in less than a second just to enter a neutral state a little faster than normal. Fast-fly can also be performed mid-combo to extend its duration and damage slightly. Sentinel can also do this on the ground to cancel the lag of his mouthbeam attack. I'd rather not get into trying to explain magneto.

Wow, two buttons certainly can do a lot. Traditional fighters decided to expand on the number of combinations by doing 2 things. 1)added more buttons to the arcade (from 2, to 3, to 4 to 5, to 6 and so forth) and 2) made the buttons combinations longer, essentially just adding to the order of memorized buttons you need to press. Is there frame specific timing required? Not for pulling off combinations, but yes, for some things (for example parrying), you must time things very very precisely. However, the length of time you hold a button has no bearing on anything (for most traditional fighters). In traditional fighters its more a game of rock-paper-scissors on who can predict the other persons button combination and then choosing the best button combination to counter this. You you need to time on button after another? Not really, just enough so that the computer can register a combination as a chain and not two separate actions.

This is just filled with ignorance and flawed logic. Yes, smash does a lot with two attack buttons. Yes, other fighters have more attack buttons. Since other fighters have more attack buttons, they can also take the same advantage of directional inputs + attack buttons to create a greater variety of attacks than smash can with just 2 buttons.

There is also a difference between buffered attacks (or combinations) and links. However, first let's explain something called 'hit confirming,' which is basically just making sure your first hit actually hit in order to continue the combo safely. In smash, it is very easy to hit confirm. Here's an example: When Marth performs an up-tilt, there is considerable lag before he is able to move again. In addition, if the opponent got hit, they will be stuck in hit stun long enough for marth to easily verify that the hit landed and juggle again with another uptilt. Let's compare this to Third strike.

One of the most basic combos you will see is Ken's low forward x SA3 (super art 3). This is a buffered attack. Buffered attacks do not require strict timing to connect attacks into a combo. However, in order to buffer Ken's super into low forward you have to input the motion for the super before you see whether or not low forward actually hit. This makes the attack very risky. You should only perform low forward x SA3 if you know for certain that it's gonna hit. If your opponent blocked it, then you just ate a whole lot of damage from his counterattack and wasted a super.

Links on the other hand, require that you input the second attack on the exact ending frame of the first attack. A good example of this is Ken's low strong x SA3. Since you are able to connect SA3 on the ending frames of low strong, you can stick out low strong and quickly input SA3 after you are sure it hit. This, however, is much more difficult to pull off (needs pretty good reflexes) than buffering super into low forward.

Now, in most traditional fighters, you don't have movement fakes, you can attempt to get your opponant to wrongly predict a move, but it is only by using other moves that you can do so. In Smash, because of double jumping and wavedashing you have both on the ground movement jukes/feints and in the air jukes/feints. The result, anytime I play 99.998% of the people who own SSBM I will win, usually without losing a single stock. I could actually degrade the game into a SINGLE attack, a simple tilt even, and still win because I can create openings by movement. How can such a concept be represented in numbers? The number and ways to juke can be infinite yet they don't actually take up any buttons (unless you want to use wavedashing, but it doesn't require an attack button).

The fact that you are winning that many matches spamming only 1 attack implies that your competition is terrible and that you have an abusable attack. Every fighting game uses movement to create openings. It's just not as easily apparent because it isn't as flashy as smash or marvel. Forward dash, backdash, hell even just walking back and forth out of poke range is a way to create openings through movement. Ever seen sagat's cr. fierce in cvs2 or chun's fierce in third strike? These moves are effective because the players are maintaining a range where that poke outranges or outprioritizes the pokes of their opponent through subtle movement. Just because characters have larger hitboxes and smaller environments in traditional fighters does not mean that spacing isn't important. This is where footsies come into play, which was explained very well previously:

Footsies, explained in a disgustingly simple way, are when I stand barely outside the range of your farthest attack, and when you hit a button, I hit my highest priority button and beat it. Smash has some of that, yes, like for punishing smash attacks, but not to the insane degree that games like ST and CVS2 do. They are not the same by a long shot because smash isn't based on a ground game, and footsies are all about the ground game. Poking, zoning, and high/low mixup are completely foreign concepts to smash, but are crucial elements of the Street Fighters.

lordXblade's explanation of footsies and the high/low mixup game is also relevant in addressing the following:

Even shielding (AKA blocking) in Smash is incredibally complex. For starters, you have two types of shield, light and full. Each type will give you a differant result and will last a certain amount of time (IIRC 5 seconds versus 8 seconds). It not just the shield that matter though, its how you get out of it. The ability to jump cancel the shield added a huge amount of depth to the defensive tactics in Smash. In any other figher you can block until you run out of room, in Smash, it is possible to actually run away from your opponant for an entire match. Think about that for a second. Running away, for an entire match. When you block in any other figher you almost always have to exit the block by attempting to attack/counter the opponant. In Smash you can simply wavedash out of the shield away from them, forgoing the actual fighting until the defender chooses to engage or the offender predicts the opponant correctly.

Shielding in smash is its least complex aspect. It blocks your entire body. Thus, you don't have to worry about high/low mixups or crossups. You only have to worry about throws and shield break.

You also display a clear lack of knowledge about out of blockstun (shield) options in other fighters. Alpha counters (guard cancels) are present in almost every game after SSF2 Turbo. Everyone knows about parrying in Third Strike and its equivalents in other recent fighters. Street Fighter IV just recently introduced focus attacks (a mechanic that balances out parrying and also functions as an FRC a la GGXX) which has the ability to dash out of hitstun and blockstun.

Finally, that whole thing about being able to run away for most of the match, while rare in most fighters (mvc2 Storm and Cable say hi) is totally possible. Besides, isn't it better that you actually have to counter attack to get the opponent off you instead of wavedashing backwards all day to run away and destroying the momentum of the fight?


I'm not saying that melee isn't technical at all. I'm just stating that believing melee is the most technical fighter around is a huge overstatement. In my opinion, the following are factors that make melee relatively easy to play compared to other fighters:

-huge freedom of movement enables you to obtain breathing room (wavedashing)
-ability to cancel the lag on any aerial leads to many safe attacks and an overwhelming focus on aerial gameplay
-no super meter management
-easy hit confirmation
-no high/low mixups and crossups
-simple button inputs

Melee is a good game. Here are some reasons why:

-Many of the advanced techniques in melee parallel things I've encountered in SF games, but are slightly easier to perform. SHFFLing is like triangle jumping in mvc2, jc grabs are like kara-throws in 3s, etc.
-The way knockback varies through damage percentage and DI keeps things fairly unpredictable.
-Tech-chasing fits perfectly with smash's wake-up game.
-Edgeguarding is a totally new and innovative way of playing a fighter.
-The speed of the game is relatively fast and the sheer variety in the character roster makes the game flashy (though not marvel flashy).
-It has enough depth to make good use of essential fighting game strategies such as baiting, zoning, and trapping (mindgames).
-And finally, it also functions well as a beginner's fighting game while maintaining solid competitive play at higher levels.

The reason SRK heads don't take smash seriously is that the overall smash community is much younger and larger, which inevitably leads to less experienced players and more exposure to noobish-beginner play and scrubby attitudes.

If I were to generalize some of the other popular fighters, I would say CVS2, GGXX:AC, and Virtua Fighter 5 require the most knowledge to perform well. If you don't have the basics down in super turbo, you will get destroyed. Players benefit greatly from good tech skill and reflexes in MVC2. A player benefits greatly from reading the opponent in third strike. You can also tell whether or not someone has played super turbo by the way they play SF4 in the arcade. Tech skill wise, I would compare smash to melty blood: act cadenza even though both are fairly different games. All fighters require skill in each of these areas, but some games reward certain skills better than others.

P.S. Brawl is fun, but it sucks. Comparing Soul Calibur (and to a lesser extent Tekken) to Virtua Fighter is like comparing Brawl to Melee. Comparing 2d fighters to 3d is like comparing apples to oranges.

 

[IrArby]

I won't repsond to the whole post above (I'm studying sorta) but Smash is Movement over Moves type of game. The fact that movement is so powerful makes spacing more important and IMO more difficult in most cases.
Shielding is definetly not the most simplified aspect as shielding has more outs and more properties then low/high blocking and you definetly have to worry about grabs there. Granted escaping combos in more traditional fighters requires great skill and timing, Melee has more options that each player must attempt to predict and counter. I feel like you're really dumbing down DI which is in no way easy. You didn't even mention CCing which is an extremely important tech at high levels of play.

I'm not attacking you or anything though I'm probably more than a little biased but I'm trying to argue the points you brought up and not drag my own subjectivity into it.

 

[MikeHaggarTHAKJB]

I've never seen such an excellent post from someone with just 8 posts, Kro. *appluads*

 

[Aiko]

that was pretty awesome kro, you just won 3 internets. Unfortunately the princess is in another castle

 

[Wind Owl]

Yeah, that really was a great post.

I'm not arguing with you, but I used to play Guilty Gear and I quit because
1) Combos take too much practice. When you practice Smash, most of the techs you're practicing are universal, meaning you can just pick up another character and still have most of your practice hours in tact. Also, the combined amount of practice required for all of Smash is much less than for maintaining, say, three alts in Guilty Gear.
2) I know that the spacing game is incredibly deep in Guilty Gear, but there's something about having the incredible freedom of movement that Melee offers that I don't think Guilty Gear can even compare to.
3) Edgeguarding, percentages, tech chasing, and DI are all so innovative and I love them. Guilty Gear combos get boring. I am well aware of the variety available in combos, but in normal gameplay people just spam Bread and Butter combos all day and it just makes the game kind of repetitive. Even if there are a limited number of options based on DI in Smash, at least there is variety. Platforms add even more to this.

One point you made that I would like to address, actually, is that hit confirmation is more difficult in other fighters because of the lag time between moves in Smash. That really isn't entirely true. In 2D fighters, you only need to know whether or not your attack hit. In Smash, you need to know if your attack hit, and where your opponent DI's so you can follow up accordingly. This actually requires thought, whereas in Guilty Gear (at least) your brain is basically turned off for the duration of a combo. It's all muscle memory. So yes, combos in Guilty Gear and other 2D fighters require more tech skill, but Smash combos require more thought, or at least more observation.

 

[IrArby]

Especially if your playing a CC Shiek whose a real ***** . . . CC I mean ofcourse.

 

[BlackPanther]

I'm just gonna nitpick through some of the above posts:

Kro, **** good post.

I don't belive that fighters like guilter gear take more tech skill. Traditional fighter games depend on timing for those long *** button combinations. But Melee requires not just timing, but speed because if you're doing a series of neutral airs with fox on a character like marth, you have to worry about how fast you're doing the neutral air because if you do it too fast then it'll do more damage or you're doin it to early and not hitting him at all, plus the timing, where he is in the air is a factor. Muscle memory is pretty much all it takes to do combos in traditional fighters and it's not a bias because I'm pretty adept at traditional fighters as well and not once do I ever think outside of the box when executing combos I just wait for them to make the wrong move, hit them accordingly and start my combo to a super.

And like what Wind Owl said, it takes more thought, you have to worry about how the opponent is gonna DI your attacks so you have to make adjustments accordingly.

Shield is definitely not the weakest aspect of Melee either. I believe there is a great balance in how Melee works so no aspect is worse than the next one. Aside from the two different shields, you can move that **** shield to protect the area of your body that's needing protection because if you don't, you can possibly lose a stock from it so no it doesn't cover your whole body the light one does though, a lot of things can be done with the shield.

I'll add more as this debate rages on this is all I really want to say right now since I'm at school lol xD.

 

[MikeHaggarTHAKJB]

^^Have you played MvC2? (at a high level)

 

[MASAHIROx]

/thread

are you guys serious!?

everyone that is arguing this point is ********.

how is this even a question?

 

[streetracr77]

I'm a brawl player, so I can't say a whole lot about melee, but playing it takes a great amount of skill from what I've seen from the pro's.

 

[Geist]

Even though conventional fighters like MvC SF and GGXX require muscle memory, they're still incredibly demanding on the technical scale. Alot of the time this well exceeds melee's technical requirements.

Technical skill in melee is still demanding, but it isn't worth **** if you can't implement it in your thinking. Spacing isn't the only thing you have to worry about in Smash. DI, percentage based knockback and moves that send you in different variable directions depending on the area it was hit all become a factor as well. Not to mention that melee has an off-stage game that separetes it even further from the crowd.

Or course it's blatantly obvious that all of the mentioned competition fighters take an immense amount of skill. Different kinds of skill though. There is an obvious gap between technical skill and mental skill that is in melee. That's probably why there is so much controversy here.
I also have to point out that conventional fighters may have an edge over melee competitively because they were mostly designed with competition in mind.

 

[GI Josh]

Like many have said already, Melee is matched by many fighting games on technical skill. It's the element of actually planning every little move you make that sets Smash apart from other fighting games.

 

[`Jammin' Jobus]

i dont play other fighters much.. but the fact is I have more fun with smash than I do with anything else.


case closed for me.

 

[MikeHaggarTHAKJB]

Like many have said already, Melee is matched by many fighting games on technical skill. It's the element of actually planning every little move you make that sets Smash apart from other fighting games.

Do you seriously think you don't do that in other fighters?
...
>.>

 

[Fletch]

Shielding in smash is its least complex aspect. It blocks your entire body.

Absolutely amazing post, except this isn't entirely true. Your shield moves with the direction your control stick is in, and if you don't have your shield angled correctly to correspond to your opponent's attack, you can get stabbed.

 

[OmegaXXII]

DUH, does it really take a nuclear scientist to answer this? No it doesn', and it's obvious that Melee does indeed takes more skill (tech wise of course).