Does Sakurai really want to simplify the game?

[Sliq]

Brawl is not being simplified. There's a difference between accessibility and difficulty. Smash is by no means a difficult game, but Brawl is being modified, SLIGHTLY, to make it easier to get into. To make Brawl easier, Sakurai would have to remove the depth of Smash gameplay itself, and common sense can tell you whether or not he's doing that.

In Brawl, there's less lag. So the gameplay would be faster, right? But it's not; it's slower than Melee. And yet, because of the decreased lag, it makes Brawl a more active game.

In Brawl, everybody lives longer. Big freakin' deal. So maybe 90% is the new 50%. Matches will be lengthened a little.

In Brawl, everybody is floatier. We've known from the start that Brawl would have a greater emphasis on air combat, so something like this is an obvious modification.

Same with the new airdodge. It fixes potentially fatal mistakes and it opens up a great amount of depth for air combat. It may remove a certain advanced technique from play, but that technique was far from being THE barrier between the good and the bad.

In Brawl, you can reverse edgegrab and there are new edgegrabbing sweetspot mechanics. I've already explained that this forces players to WORK HARDER to kill their opponents. How on earth is that supposed to make the game easier? Rather, new players will potentially die less. That can help for accessibility.

The fact that sweespotting is done for you implies to me a dumbing down of recovery to make it easier, when it doesn't need to be.

Also, the fact that aerials have reduced lag (i.e. auto l-cancel) also implies to me that they wanted to dumb down the game to make it easier.

This is only speculation based off of a demo, though, so it really isn't that prudent.

 

[Mr. M]

Okay, hold on there guys...

I hate to point this out, but would you rather face a bunch of decent to very **** good players with the elite crowd off doing their thing, or a bunch of noobs with a couple of good to **** good players, with the elite crowd off doing their thing? I'd prefer the former, really. Because while yall go off and do your thing, I can enjoy the game with many more people, and they can put up a more decent fight. Maybe I'll stop four stocking people?

Tiers tiers tiers tears tears tears. This game should really be called Super Smash Brothers BAWWWWWWWWWWWWW. So the characters are coming out more balanced, how is that hurting the metagame now? Gasp, people might actually use obscure characters and win in tournaments? Not in my Super Smash! hainsaw:




Auto L-Canceling is pretty darn nice in my opinion. I'm sorry that you guys, you know, the ones with the brains like a super computer can clearly do L-Canceling and other techs like it was a habit, but some of us can't. Gasp, I know! Some of us aren't thinking of L-Canceling while fighting. We are more worried about not getting our ***** handed to us. And oh no, no wavedashing~ Better quit now while we are ahead, can't use a move that usually gives a smart opponent an opening to lay some more smack down.

What's wrong with a little ease? Maybe it'll help yall get your heads out of your ***** and think about the game rather then some glitches or small details that the creators put in. :/ I'm sure, some how oh lordy, that skill will STILL play a large part in this game.



Or maybe it won't. Guess we'll have to wait and see. And if anything, there is still Melee.


tl;dr version: BAWWWWWWWWmaybe-maybe notBAWWWWWWWWWhey, some balance in the game!BAWWWWWWWWWWW


[edit]

Edited for GLARING FLAW. :freak:

 

[Psydon]

The fact that sweespotting is done for you implies to me a dumbing down of recovery to make it easier, when it doesn't need to be.

Also, the fact that aerials have reduced lag (i.e. auto l-cancel) also implies to me that they wanted to dumb down the game to make it easier.

This is only speculation based off of a demo, though, so it really isn't that prudent.

I've already admitted that some aspects of Brawl have been simplified, but to say "Brawl is being simplified" or "Brawl is being dumbed down" implies that such modifications are being done on a whole, and that the effects are large in scale. And that is simply not the case. Some minor things have changed, but the easy-to-learn-and-easy-to-play-but-difficult-to-master gameplay is still there.

Yes, auto-ledgegrabbing, while certainly unnecessary, does make things easier...for the recovering player. These things go both ways, you know. Now we can all recover more easily, but we also have to put up with a greater difficulty in edgeguarding and our opponents generally living longer. Unnecessary? Yes. Unfair? No. Dumbing down? Not really. There's still the intricate dance and clash of strategies and counter-strategies that is recovery and anti-recovery; that's not going anywhere.

The lack of lag doesn't really make the game easier. So people can pull off moves a little faster, but everyone moves slower. So what? Remember, it goes both ways. Your opponent can act sooner, but so can you. If you're giving your opponent the beatdown of a lifetime, the same lag as Melee or less lag than Melee won't change that by a lot--if anything it'll make it even worse for your opponent. You won't need to worry as much about your opponent acting sooner as they will need to worry about you acting sooner because you're the one winning.

 

[darkNES386]

GIF's to back these up. Might want to download these yourselves in case we get an imageshack frog. Took these at 10 frames per second (best I could do):

Fast Fall

Footstool Hop

Hold Back After Roll Ledge Guard? (performed by CPU, sorry that the roll doesn't show up so well)

Interesting Sonic Ledge grab:

Diddy's Forward-B?

Diddy up-B to Forward-B?

Link Grabbing Ledge on the way up from Up-B:

Link Tether Recovery:

Attack-Cancel:

Interesting Ledge Recovery by Yoshi:

Interesting Roll by Yoshi ... transitioning into crawling and back?

Mario Ground recovery from air, suspected to be a landing from using back-air A, but also looks characteristic of a wavelanding:

(frame by frame comparison with the back-air)

Fast-Jump?

[sarcasm] Isn't it obvious everyone? This new Tripping technique has to be only for fun, come on!... If the computer can do it then how hard or useful can it really be? Who really cares that Yoshi is probably invulnerable since he's flashing while in the middle of that crazy trip summersault that leads into yet another regular roll... Even if he could maybe roll back the way he came from instead of just forward... or catch his balance and tech the trip in-place... there’s no way tripping is going to add depth to this game.

I also liked the general rule of thumb to stay low to avoid my opponents meteor smash attacks and edge defending attacks. Moves such as this and edge guards were the concerns I had. How dare you try to make things more simple Mr. Sakurai by ADDING things. Now I have to worry about them doing a Foot-stool hop!?... they might even fake the footstool hop and then just do a regular attack... they might even jump at me and miss with their attack and then I might be able to use them to foot-stool hop. They could also make me think they're going to Foot-stool hop and then just grab the edge so I can’t, but now when I go to do a regular recovery they jump up and attack me anyways.

Wave dashing was something that gave this series depth. They made that impossible by preventing me from being able to air dodge in whatever direction I want. Now I can only dodge in the direction I'm already jumping or falling through the air... and to make it worse, now I can actually do stuff after I air dodge... I don't want to be able to attack again until I touch the ground. Wait... you say I can still Waveland?... well come on... what's the point of that?... zipping back and forth makes so much more sense then a well timed Waveland that results in positioning me to attack or avoid another players attack.

It's so easy to list the enormous amounts of different possibilities. There’s so few other moves I haven’t covered. Forget that heavier fighters take more damage now. Forget that they don’t flinch. Smashballs are a horrible idea… who wants to have something else to fight for? I dont' want Bowser to stand a chance agaisnt my super fast Sonic. Come On! Everyone knows that speed and quickness is where fighting games are at. I haven't played the game yet and I can already tell these new moves and lack there of certain melee moves are going to make this game wayyyy to simple. [/sarcasm]

 

[floofy]

they should give us the option thats all

they put event with 3 difficulties, thats good

easy for newbies
normal for a difficiculty similar to melee
hard should be for hardcore gamers

 

[Sliq]

I hate to point this out, but would you rather face a bunch of decent to very **** good players with the elite crowd off doing their thing, or a bunch of noobs with a couple of good to **** good players, with the elite crowd off doing their thing? I'd prefer the second one, really. Because while yall go off and do your thing, I can enjoy the game with many more people, and they can put up a more decent fight. Maybe I'll stop four stocking people?

Tiers tiers tiers tears tears tears. This game should really be called Super Smash Brothers BAWWWWWWWWWWWWW. So the characters are coming out more balanced, how is that hurting the metagame now? Gasp, people might actually use obscure characters and win in tournaments? Not in my Super Smash! hainsaw:




Auto L-Canceling is pretty darn nice in my opinion. I'm sorry that you guys, you know, the ones with the brains like a super computer can clearly do L-Canceling and other techs like it was a habit, but some of us can't. Gasp, I know! Some of us aren't thinking of L-Canceling while fighting. We are more worried about not getting our ***** handed to us. And oh no, no wavedashing~ Better quit now while we are ahead, can't use a move that usually gives a smart opponent an opening to lay some more smack down.

What's wrong with a little ease? Maybe it'll help yall get your heads out of your ***** and think about the game rather then some glitches or small details that the creators put in. :/ I'm sure, some how oh lordy, that skill will STILL play a large part in this game.



Or maybe it won't. Guess we'll have to wait and see. And if anything, there is still Melee.


tl;dr version: BAWWWWWWWWmaybe-maybe notBAWWWWWWWWWhey, some balance in the game!BAWWWWWWWWWWW

Yeah, I know right! Why would you have to be good at the game to be good. That **** is stupid.

 

[Ced The Lad]

Psydon already touched on some things that I wholeheartedly agree on. So I won't repeat what he's said.

But I do want to add that the so called "simplicity" of smash is a drawing point to many of the players out there. Many of the gamers I played with/against wouldn't touch a street fighter or Soulcalibur game. But they love smash in general because it didn't take too long to learn and all the time that they would have spent on learning how to play was instead used to hone their skills. I've even brought some non-gamers into the smash scene (non competetive) with the simplicity as the selling point.

Just because it isn't complex to pick up, that doesn't mean the competetive level won't be high. That's melee in a nutshell. Similarly, just because Brawl seems less complicated than melee (although how can anyone say that before the actual game comes out is beyond me) that doesn't mean it will be less competitive or fun.

Finally, people have to realize that there are others out there that consider even melee to be hard to pick up. Giving them an easier experience with Brawl (whether that be a misleading mindset or not) will only help the smash community grow. And aside from keeping this game fresh with plenty of challengers, the profits will only increase the chance of this series continuing for a very long time.

 

[Psydon]

QFT. Thanks, dude. ^^