For smash 4 to succeed, we need to change

[Amazing Ampharos]

Wow, this got bumped. Three things to respond to in this.

1. If you're seriously arguing about Melee vs Brawl at this point, I don't even know what to do with you. People who seriously insist upon continuing to fuel the fire that has ravaged our community for half a decade even in a topic specifically telling them how bad doing exactly what they're doing is just seme so hopeless to me. It's like telling a smoker they have lung cancer and watching them go outside for a smoke in response to the news. I don't know what could even be done with them other than banning them from the site when the new game comes out if they don't shape up or just flat out ostracizing them. It doesn't even matter if Melee really were a better game; the behavior is awful regardless, and if smash 4 is even treated half as badly as Brawl was, it's going to hurt our community in predictably severe fashion.

2. I don't advocate us repeating the mistakes we made in rule formulation in the past; the BBR model didn't work out, and I can see that easily. However it failed mostly because it was just ineffective (and by the way, the BBR arguments were nothing special; you didn't miss anything by them not being shown off); real tournaments didn't really listen to the BBR at all which largely means the quality of their work wasn't even important to how things happened. It's not even like their first ruleset was anywhere near an end-all either; every last ruleset the BBR ever put out was basically just shrugged off by the community within a month. Every local scene doing there own thing and nothing being the same is basically the status quo, and it really sucks and holds the game back so much. I could write an essay on this topic alone so easily, but I'd say the big points are that it creates natural battlelines, changing rules actually do change the game a lot which inevitably hurts a lot of players who invested into the "wrong" things, regional differences in rules create strong disincentives to travel which is not productive to growing a scene, and the political reality of the free for all actually produces rules that are contrary to what most people wanted anyway (most people want less banned than is typically banned now).

I do agree that we shouldn't be making arbitrary rules in secret; it not only doesn't actually work to get the rules used, but it leaves a bitter taste in the mouths of many. That's why I stress the idea of unity. The entire community needs to come together and find rules that represent the real will of the majority, and then we need to form behind it and support it. I'm sure there will always be some degree of dissent, but I think going for a stable, unified ruleset early and just making sure whatever that is is supported by the masses will give us the best overall happiness level (and fairness level!) out of our ruleset.

3. Yes, we do need to put our efforts into figuring out how to draw in many of the prospective new players; heck, a big part of why I support early unity rulesets is because the whole battle over stage policy is a sideshow that keeps good minds focused on what rules to use instead of how to grow the game. Honestly, I'm terrified of the current direction we're going though; it seems to me like figuring out what's going on is harder than ever. Facebook is basically just horrible; it's totally insular, and you can only easily find events supported by any groups you already belong to. The only "do everything on smashboards" approach didn't do a good job of sucking people in, but at least once a player found out about smashboards he could easily see people active in his region and find all reasonable travel distance tournaments. I'm hoping most TOs will be sensible enough with a new game to just give up on using Facebook to organize when the new game drops; I already make enough disgruntled long posts explaining how we need to do better than the status quo. I don't want to have to wage a war on Facebook too so I do hope others are thinking about how to draw people in and how to make information about our events avaiable to as many people as possible.

 

[D-idara]

You don't hear Brawl fans complaining about how it doesn't look enough like Brawl...just sayin'

 

[Chimera]

There's nothing wrong with rejecting a game with massive flaws, especially if Smash is never going to spin the competitive gears of gaming, which I don't think it will. If you want to be mainstream, you adopt the sequel without question. If you play for love, you give the sequel its chance, then pick what you like better. I'm pretty convinced that I'll have little reason to play Melee anymore with a few more PM tweaks.

This is a pretty terrible mindset to have, especially as a backroomer who, for some unknown reason, has a large influence on how the game is played competitively.

Smash is at the largest competitive fighting tournament in the world. How many more gears would you like it to spin?

My biggest fear for Smash 4 is its overly nostalgic players. It's going to be so sad if people pick up the game, realize wavedashing is still gone, and immediately start playing Melee or Project M.

 

[D-idara]

My biggest fear for Smash 4 is its overly nostalgic players. It's going to be so sad if people pick up the game, realize wavedashing is still gone, and immediately start playing Melee or Project M.

Why can't people move on?

 

[LiteralGrill]

So what will we do?

I know what I'm doing: preparing.

I'm going to be a leader, make a large group with TONS of tools to help people become TOs and get events hosted in their area. Heck, fill up my gas tank and I'll come down to where you live and host your event, stream it even, and hit up any town along the way to hold small smashfests and help them get their scene going while I'm at it. I'm going to stream fight nights every week to help players who just can't travel or live in places where they are the only players so even they can try to become inspired and find a way to bring smash to their area. I'm going to mentor and tutor people who want to try to be a TO so they can contact local places, find unique ways to get sponsorship, get the newspaper involved, and so many other things that new people wouldn't know to do to get the scene going. Heck, I'll probably try to host a huge national event the likes of which has never been seen before while I'm at it.

Without strong leaders willing to go above and beyond ANY game will fail. With those leaders, even the worst game can achieve heights no one can fathom. And I'm working with Smash Bros, a fantastic game. See you all when I get famous

 

[Renji64]

This is a pretty terrible mindset to have, especially as a backroomer who, for some unknown reason, has a large influence on how the game is played competitively.

Smash is at the largest competitive fighting tournament in the world. How many more gears would you like it to spin?

My biggest fear for Smash 4 is its overly nostalgic players. It's going to be so sad if people pick up the game, realize wavedashing is still gone, and immediately start playing Melee or Project M.

No wavedashing isn't a problem it just needs to be a good fun fast paced game for me to want to play it. Brawl is too defensive alot of the matches people are standing around people compare it to chess of all things. It is up to sakurai to fix the rift he cause by giving a middleground that appeals to everyone it is possible.

 

[LiteralGrill]

No wavedashing isn't a problem it just needs to be a good fun fast paced game for me to want to play it. Brawl is too defensive alot of the matches people are standing around people compare it to chess of all things. It is up to sakurai to fix the rift he cause by giving a middleground that appeals to everyone it is possible.

Brawl didn't need to be a game like that, we changed the rules of the game only for "personal preference" instead of thinking about what doing that meant. 2 stock Brawl can be great for spectators, items speed up play in Brawl and make it more aggressive, more stages help character variety, watchability, match speed, and overall fun. Brawl CAN be a fast paced game, it's the fault of people who made and enforced the rules that it isn't, not the game itself.

 

[Renji64]

Brawl didn't need to be a game like that, we changed the rules of the game only for "personal preference" instead of thinking about what doing that meant. 2 stock Brawl can be great for spectators, items speed up play in Brawl and make it more aggressive, more stages help character variety, watchability, match speed, and overall fun. Brawl CAN be a fast paced game, it's the fault of people who made and enforced the rules that it isn't, not the game itself.

I tried watching high level brawl i just don't get it i guess. It is a fun game with items i'm just hoping smash 4 can draw in non brawl fans as myself. I'm trying to more postive about the game and get my friends back into smash alot of them quit due to the way brawl was designed and moved on to other fighters.

 

[LiteralGrill]

I tried watching high level brawl i just don't get it i guess. It is a fun game with items i'm just hoping smash 4 can draw in non brawl fans as myself. I'm trying to more postive about the game and get my friends back into smash alot of them quit due to the way brawl was designed and moved on to other fighters.

And I bet that match would have been more exciting if the rules were designed to make it more fast paced. It is something people need to think about.

 

[Chimera]

I tried watching high level brawl i just don't get it i guess. It is a fun game with items i'm just hoping smash 4 can draw in non brawl fans as myself. I'm trying to more postive about the game and get my friends back into smash alot of them quit due to the way brawl was designed and moved on to other fighters.

Wavedashing was just one example, but the main point is that people refuse to accept change. Smash 4 will not be Melee. We know that. It will also not be Brawl. People need to accept that, and learn new ways to play the game, instead of complaining about how it's different. (Not saying you're complaining, just clarifying)

 

[RelaxAlax]

I know what I'm doing: preparing.

I'm going to be a leader, make a large group with TONS of tools to help people become TOs and get events hosted in their area. Heck, fill up my gas tank and I'll come down to where you live and host your event, stream it even, and hit up any town along the way to hold small smashfests and help them get their scene going while I'm at it. I'm going to stream fight nights every week to help players who just can't travel or live in places where they are the only players so even they can try to become inspired and find a way to bring smash to their area. I'm going to mentor and tutor people who want to try to be a TO so they can contact local places, find unique ways to get sponsorship, get the newspaper involved, and so many other things that new people wouldn't know to do to get the scene going. Heck, I'll probably try to host a huge national event the likes of which has never been seen before while I'm at it.

Without strong leaders willing to go above and beyond ANY game will fail. With those leaders, even the worst game can achieve heights no one can fathom. And I'm working with Smash Bros, a fantastic game. See you all when I get famous

I'm with you on that, definitely looking into getting my town into competitive Smash. Any tourneys we have are far from home. Building a community whos open to helping eachother. I've got a few people interested and a good location potentially.

Rules will be hard to identify with this game, but as long as the community is open to ideas and doesn't shut others down it can work out.

 

[Renji64]

Wavedashing was just one example, but the main point is that people refuse to accept change. Smash 4 will not be Melee. We know that. It will also not be Brawl. People need to accept that, and learn new ways to play the game, instead of complaining about how it's different. (Not saying you're complaining, just clarifying)

I feel ya but they quit because brawl wasn't fun to them but yeah i'm starting to learn to accept it as it is.

 

[nat pagle]

Devils advocate here:

-Melee vs Brawl. This stupid argument carried on for years, and it was an absolute toxin on the entire community. I could go on for hours about how terrible this argument was, but it can be summed up simply. Brawl was the new game and was absolutely inevitably going to be the main game of the community. A relatively small but extraordinarily vocal set of people decided to raise as much hell as possible to try to fight this. All the rest of us played into their game and one way or another took sides, and years later, here we are, divided.

You left out the part where Brawl nearly caused the scene to die. It was nowhere near as technically demanding or up-tempo as Melee and it ended up with a lot of people having quit Melee but not wanting to play Brawl competitively. The only people who still argue Brawl vs. Melee are the ones who have a grudge against it for nearly ruining the entire scene.

People have a right to be mad and voice negative opinions.

-Meta Knight. Honestly after about a year we should have realized that we were really never going to ban him, but for basically the game's entire lifespan we fought it, constantly re-arguing about how we were going to ban him but then never doing it. Eventually we did... and then we settled on undoing that. Winner? No one. Loser? All of us.

What did we lose?

-Stages. There were basically two competing and polar opposite visions of what the stage list for the game should be. We started with a very "liberal" stage list, but there was always a war over it and a dynamic that guaranteed the eventual victory of the "conservatives". Stages that were banned were almost never unbanned, and all they had to do was get something banned in one region and rely on time until that ban would spread. Players in a region with any given stage banned would have no experience on it and would inflate the ranks for banning it, and momentum would inevitably build. After one set of "controversial" stages was finally mostly banned, new stages could be thrown into our never ending battle. Eventually we were down to single digit remaining stages, and nowhere on this road did the regions agree on a stage list.

Not all regions have to be the same. NFL rules are different than CFL. If you really want equality, just copy and paste the Apex ruleset and you're set. Different regions can have different rules, this is Smash, not a voted on legal front.

When you go on SRK, someone from outside of the community posts that smash sucks, and the response from us they get is "well, Brawl sucks, but Melee is different!", what does that tell them and anyone else reading that exchange other than that we're just a joke? It certainly does nothing to encourage anyone to play any smash game, Melee or Brawl.

Why not? Melee has more competitive value and support than Brawl. If someone trashes a specific NFL division as garbage, it doesn't mean the entire NFL and their fans are horrible. Not to mention, you can't micromanage and punish each person for voicing their opinion loudly. Just internet shame them.

We must all work together. We will all support smash 4 or at the very least refrain from attacking it. The inevitable handful of trolls who cannot do that will be treated as such and rejected by the rest of us.

Yeah right. No one's going to ban them from Smashboards, no one's going to ban them from tournaments, etc. We'll just try to shame them for not having the correct opinion and become a bunch of Beliebers who keep blabbering "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything"! This isn't the 2nd grade, you can have discussion that includes negative opinions and a mature audience won't discount an entire scene over a troll. And we certainly won't reject them to the extent necessary to shut them up instead of pissing them off and encouraging them to troll even more.

League of Legends is full of garbage people, yet survives with ease.

From day one, we need a true unity ruleset used at every tournament coast to coast in North America as well as in Europe and Australia, and we need it to be truly representative of our collective will with no gaming of the process by anyone to accomplish an agenda. Once decisions are made, we need to stick to them. If we decide we're going to ban something or for that matter not ban something, we are not going to re-litigate it over years while pressuring any TO we can find. We're not going to repeat the ever shrinking stage list until we're playing on a single digit number of stages, but we're also not going to try to force people to play on everything under the sun out of our own personal principles. I would be lying if I said I didn't have tons of ideas about the best ways to go about things. I've thought nearly endlessly about the particulars of how we could do better, but in the end, I see the same fundamental roadblock that we must overcome first. We need to work together, every one of us, as a united smash community.

There are two simple things that makes this impossible:

If you establish a unity ruleset, you must also establish a way to enforce that ruleset. If a person decides he wants Poke Floats legal and goes with that, do you have the authority to shut them down? Blacklist them? Delete them from Smashboards and hope they don't go somewhere else? How do you stop them from playing the game how they want?

That brings me to an even bigger issue, by establishing one unity ruleset, you are emulating the very sentiment Nintendo enacted in response to EVO. You either play our game this specific way, or you are not welcome to play it in a tournament at all. Everyone's view outside of the unity ruleset is voided and your voice is silent.

Who's going to make this ruleset? What percentage of people have to agree on it in order to justify eliminating all other opinions? This kind of autocratic legislation kills diversity and rigidly alienates anyone who doesn't play just how the rules say. Just imagine how much animosity and division there would be if So Cal decided to break off of the unity ruleset, would we just have a massive divide trying to alienate them all?

 

[Daedra]

This thread caused more arguments then getting the actual idea off to people. I completely agree with you though, but this is how every gaming community is unfortunately.

 

[JacopeX]

well basically, street fighter is rock, paper, scissors in a nutshell. its just meh...it hasn't really changed since the snes days and imo, its just not fun anymore. sure they added "flair" and "high def graphics" but its just okay imo, and when everyone outside the smash community is treating smash as a joke game, i can't help but disagree. just in the basic gameplay alone, theres more to smash than any traditional fighter i've played.

RPS fundamentals are probably the most basic things you must have if you ever wish to be at least decent at any fighter, especially smash. I have no idea what you are saying here. And please do not even take the lowest possible denominator and most technically watered down game in the series and compare it to fighters that you obviously know nothing about if all you see them for is just combos. Please save yourself the mockery and do some research has to what you are calling out here. you're making yourself look worse if you actually believe a game requires more skill when there's less tech involved.

 

[cmvnb3]

The problem is that even the solution to the arguing only results in another entire argument that can't be resolved and so the moral of the story is: No, you can't ever (EVER) unify such a large community so don't even bother being so deluded. The End. The exit's through the gift shop. Have a nice day.

 

[LancerStaff]

The problem is that even the solution to the arguing only results in another entire argument that can't be resolved and so the moral of the story is: No, you can't ever (EVER) unify such a large community so don't even bother being so deluded. The End. The exit's through the gift shop. Have a nice day.

That is why I believe in putting an end to smash vs. smash debates. That'd clear up the biggest stain on our community.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Okay, I'll respond to your devil's advocate if you insist.

Brawl did nothing to hurt the scene. It was a game, and it was, I might point out, a very successful tournament game. Just look at the numbers its events put out for so many years, and then try to tell me it was a bad tournament game with a straight face. I mean, bad games do happen, and communities end up not supporting them. The problem is that this isn't the situation with Brawl. As a community, we supported Brawl, and that Brawl would be supported was clear and inevitable after a few months of the game's lifespan. We still hold Brawl tournaments to this day; honestly the game has done almost as much for us as Melee did. Notice how it's not even important which game is better; the fact is that Brawl put out results, and a lot of players within the smash community were behind it. When that's the reality, attempts for years to sabotage that part of the community by immature members who can't accept that other people like something they don't can't be written off as an honest difference of opinion. No one says anyone has to like Brawl, but all members of this community have a "civic duty" to support the entire smash scene. If you want to see more Melee, I encourage you to build up Melee; it's making deliberate attempts to tear down Brawl that's a problem. Yeah, we need to take as powerful of a stand against those people for a new game if they rear their ugly heads again; we tolerated them to a very unreasonable extent with Brawl, and they made a lot of aspects of participating in the scene flat out unenjoyable which ran off tons of players in the long haul. The internet response of ignoring trolls and hoping they go away is especially awful here; we proved it doesn't work, and as long as we kept playing Brawl, they still had something to attack. I'm not even going to begin to get into the suggestion that it wasn't that bad; it took more effort defending Brawl than playing Brawl!

League of Legends isn't comparable at all in the community dynamic. It can tolerate having an awful community because the central core of the community is run by Riot. That means that the community can do stupid stuff all it wants because the core functions they need to survive and grow are being done for them. We don't have that luxury; Nintendo hasn't done anything for us beyond making the game, and there's no reason to suspect they ever will in the future. Unless we plan to wed ourselves to the MLG again which is very much a situation of pros and cons, we need to take care of ourselves which means that we're just not going to succeed without some actual cooperation.

The NFL and CFL can get away with different rules because they never play each other; you might as well compare the NBA and the NFL at that point because they're disconnected. On the other hand, smash players travel all over. Saying different rules for different events are okay would be the football equivalent of saying it would be okay if first downs were only 8 yards in Denver, the field was 120 yards long in Seattle, field goalds were worth 4 points in Kansas City, if each team had four time-outs per half in Dallas, and if the field were 20% wider in New England. Yeah, that would be really stupid, and that's basically what we do with smash now. You can't even just cite APEX rules because for one APEX rules haven't always been the same and for two APEX rules are about as non-democratic as you can get since it's just one TO from a very conservative region making a decision. I've laid out elsewhere the how on this; we basically just have to take it to the people and do a little democracy.

As per enforcement, it's pretty easy. We just don't support non-unity events. Sure someone can hold a tournament with all items on Temple only. None of us show up, and even if people do show, it doesn't count for stuff like ranking, we don't give props to whoever won any more than we give props to people for winning friendlies in their basement, etc.. If we have a broad consensus on one ruleset that is the competitive standard, we pretty much have it done. Anything else can be played by anyone, but it's known not to be competitive. If one region decided to try to be rebellious after the fact (though they'd have as much say as everyone else in making it, of course, so they'd have little incentive to actually do this), sure, let them. Few from out of region will be travelling to their events, and they are getting awful practice for nationals and such at home. The reality in such a situation would be that they'd change the rules back within a few months as the masses of local players who weren't behind the rule change within the region would grow really upset with the local TOs for using the wrong rules and killing their attendance; I don't think any region is so stubborn that they'd be willing to give themselves a permanent self-inflicted wound of that size.

The Meta Knight thing caused so much internal strife; players with sour grapes all around quit over it to quite a large extent. The way we kept arguing about it made people who kept losing to MK players feel like it wasn't fair when they lost so they quit in frustration. Then sometimes he would get banned, and that would run off MK players. The entire argument was constantly heated, and it served to make everyone unhappy. Unhappy people aren't going to continue to participate. It's just obvious how bad the whole endeavor was; we needed to make a decision a lot faster and just stick to it.

Also, notice this constant house divided theme. We spend basically all of our energy that's not actually playing in fighting with each other. If you were not already a tournament player, would you want to join a scene that sometimes plays the game and sometimes wages countless internal battles over every possible issue ranging from which characters and stages to allow to whether we should even play any given game at all? Beyond playing the game, a prospective player is going to be looking for a scene that's actually enjoyable to be a part of, and not focusing on internal battles might make it a bit easier for us to focus on reaching out to people who never would have considered joining us otherwise. I actually like the smash scene as a whole; don't get me wrong. However, we do have some issues, and these issues basically just put a wall in-between us and the players we could have. If I thought it was hopeless, I wouldn't post at all, but I think if we can just learn to work together a bit better, we could be so much more than we are now.

 

[nat pagle]

Brawl did nothing to hurt the scene. It was a game, and it was, I might point out, a very successful tournament game. Just look at the numbers its events put out for so many years, and then try to tell me it was a bad tournament game with a straight face. I mean, bad games do happen, and communities end up not supporting them. The problem is that this isn't the situation with Brawl. As a community, we supported Brawl, and that Brawl would be supported was clear and inevitable after a few months of the game's lifespan. We still hold Brawl tournaments to this day; honestly the game has done almost as much for us as Melee did. Notice how it's not even important which game is better; the fact is that Brawl put out results, and a lot of players within the smash community were behind it.

I remember the documentary made it clear Brawl was not well received competitively and a lot of people had issue with it. And I trust them because they included interviews with notable individuals, I don't buy that Brawl did as much for the competitive scene as Melee did. Melee was at MLG for years, while Brawl barely stayed on the circuit. Melee is almost always the headliner and has been for quite a while, Brawl momentarily took the spotlight solely because it was new.

League of Legends isn't comparable at all in the community dynamic. It can tolerate having an awful community because the central core of the community is run by Riot. That means that the community can do stupid stuff all it wants because the core functions they need to survive and grow are being done for them. We don't have that luxury; Nintendo hasn't done anything for us beyond making the game, and there's no reason to suspect they ever will in the future. Unless we plan to wed ourselves to the MLG again which is very much a situation of pros and cons, we need to take care of ourselves which means that we're just not going to succeed without some actual cooperation.

And how do you suppose we combat trolls beyond internet shaming? Obviously, either shaming doesn't work or we haven't been harassing people enough for saying Melee is better than Brawl. I don't see how this new initiative can have any affect on the internet based and wide reaching community. If someone just says "I don't care" when you grill them, nothing will change.

I've laid out elsewhere the how on this; we basically just have to take it to the people and do a little democracy.

With absolutely no way to enforce it.

As per enforcement, it's pretty easy. We just don't support non-unity events. Sure someone can hold a tournament with all items on Temple only. None of us show up, and even if people do show, it doesn't count for stuff like ranking, we don't give props to whoever won any more than we give props to people for winning friendlies in their basement, etc.. If we have a broad consensus on one ruleset that is the competitive standard, we pretty much have it done. Anything else can be played by anyone, but it's known not to be competitive. If one region decided to try to be rebellious after the fact (though they'd have as much say as everyone else in making it, of course, so they'd have little incentive to actually do this), sure, let them. Few from out of region will be travelling to their events, and they are getting awful practice for nationals and such at home. The reality in such a situation would be that they'd change the rules back within a few months as the masses of local players who weren't behind the rule change within the region would grow really upset with the local TOs for using the wrong rules and killing their attendance; I don't think any region is so stubborn that they'd be willing to give themselves a permanent self-inflicted wound of that size.

So what happens if So Cal wants a specific rule in the ruleset, but every single one of their opinions is silenced on the vote? Do we alienate everyone from So Cal? Heck, do rankings even matter in Smash? If Mango played by a So Cal ruleset and nothing he did counted, would you seed him any differently at an East Coast tournament (yes I know he lives in Ohio now)?

Sure, they have as much say as everyone else, until their style of play is completely banned. And if a TO uses the wrong ruleset on a consistent basis and people don't have other tournaments to go to in a reasonable distance, they will attend. Heck, would a boycott even be worth it? M2K beats Mango in a huge tournament under the wrong rules, that isn't going to nullify the results.

The Meta Knight thing caused so much internal strife; players with sour grapes all around quit over it to quite a large extent. The way we kept arguing about it made people who kept losing to MK players feel like it wasn't fair when they lost so they quit in frustration. Then sometimes he would get banned, and that would run off MK players. The entire argument was constantly heated, and it served to make everyone unhappy. Unhappy people aren't going to continue to participate. It's just obvious how bad the whole endeavor was; we needed to make a decision a lot faster and just stick to it.

Again, 0 authority to enforce. I just don't buy people will 100% boycott a tournament based on the ruleset. It's just not that big of a deal to alienate everyone not playing the "correct" way.

Also, notice this constant house divided theme. We spend basically all of our energy that's not actually playing in fighting with each other. If you were not already a tournament player, would you want to join a scene that sometimes plays the game and sometimes wages countless internal battles over every possible issue ranging from which characters and stages to allow to whether we should even play any given game at all? Beyond playing the game, a prospective player is going to be looking for a scene that's actually enjoyable to be a part of, and not focusing on internal battles might make it a bit easier for us to focus on reaching out to people who never would have considered joining us otherwise.

I have barely seen any Smashboards threads that are clearly "Melee vs. Brawl" or "Why isn't MK banned?" as of late. We are barely fighting with each other, it's just people want to discount any other discussion and point out and ensure that everyone knows "HEY GUYS, WE ARE FIGHTING WITH OURSELVES ALL THE TIME WE DON'T DISCUSS ANYTHING ELSE WE'RE SOOOOO BAD".

I can guarantee you 90% of all Melee vs. Brawl-esque debates rage on Twitch chat, internet comment systems, or jokingly in person. We ARE NOT focused on internal battles, it's just so many people now want new players to think we are.

 

[Vkrm]

You don't hear Brawl fans complaining about how it doesn't look enough like Brawl...just sayin'

That's because brawl was ass. They're desperate for something new so they can finally leave brawl behind.

 

[infomon]

real tournaments didn't really listen to the BBR at all which largely means the quality of their work wasn't even important to how things happened.

rrrrrrrk. What qualifies as a "real" tournament? I bet I know. The tournaments that were organized at least in part by people familiar with the, um, competitive smash "establishment".

A lot of the tourneys that *did* rely on the BBR ruleset were the random locals we never heard about, places where the TOs aren't super knowledgeable all the game's gritty details.

I suppose *that* is the importance of having a single reasonably-respected ruleset: as an asset for TOs to help them get events going.

But when TOs want to deviate from our rules, especially if we're posting rules early after the game's release....... I think they should be encouraged to do that. Boycotting local tournaments because you don't like their rules? THAT is dumb IMO, that is devisive. I want smashers to play smash, get to know each other, have fun, find what works for them. Their rules might turn out to be right.

Unity is super important, and absolutely -- as I mentioned above -- I think it's super important for us to develop a "standard" ruleset to help TOs out. But we can do so with humility: "Here's a standard ruleset, we recommend it for competitive play. But it needs some refining, so come engage in the discussion if you have ideas for how it could be improved."

And we go from there, as a growing community.

 

[smashmachine]

@ Amazing Ampharos : you may not have realized this because you never stepped outside the Smash community, but among the wider FGC Melee is easily considered the superior game, just ask a bunch of Marvel players about it

so in a way, it did hurt Smash's perception, at least until Evo 2013

 

[LiteralGrill]

Honestly, the best way to "enforce" a ruleset would be to make an event as big as Apex and host it with your rules. People will want/need to practice with those rules. If the system is corrupt, abuse it yourself? I'm gonna be honest, I plan on trying to make a huge 3DS event to do so myself, and work to host and help others host circuits to try and aid that goal.

If I remember right, SRK actually did give Brawl a chance at the beginning, we just royally screwed that up.

And last but not least, I doubt we'll ever get along. Let's face it, this is the internet where people will troll and bash whatever they want, and at live events they'll keep their online born persona. And even TOs have said in the past that they ban perfectly fine stages for competitive play simply out of dislike.

The true answer to wanting to make changes in smash is put yourself in a position to do so then do so.

 

[nat pagle]

And last but not least, I doubt we'll ever get along. Let's face it, this is the internet where people will troll and bash whatever they want, and at live events they'll keep their online born persona. And even TOs have said in the past that they ban perfectly fine stages for competitive play simply out of dislike.

Exactly. People aren't just going to up and change because of some internet speeches. They'll play their game how they want to and they'll say what they want.

Tournaments and regions are too diverse to force everyone to file in under one ruleset without any room for negotiation. ESPECIALLY with the early-mid metagame in Smash 4. If tournament legal is established too quickly, it may very well become outdated and we'd have to have vote after vote to decide what gets canned and what doesn't. Way too much need for constant changes in the ruleset and way too many instances requiring a vote that may not even represent the entire community. E.g. people not associated with Smashboards would get boycotted for not going by what some other group of Smashers likes.

 

[LiteralGrill]

Exactly. People aren't just going to up and change because of some internet speeches. They'll play their game how they want to and they'll say what they want.

Tournaments and regions are too diverse to force everyone to file in under one ruleset without any room for negotiation. ESPECIALLY with the early-mid metagame in Smash 4. If tournament legal is established too quickly, it may very well become outdated and we'd have to have vote after vote to decide what gets canned and what doesn't. Way too much need for constant changes in the ruleset and way too many instances requiring a vote that may not even represent the entire community. E.g. people not associated with Smashboards would get boycotted for not going by what some other group of Smashers likes.

Again, if changes really want to be made as bad as it is you have to put yourself in a place to make them. No one wants a dictator, but someone with intense enthusiasm helping people start and run events will have those people looking to them for what rules they should have. There is your opportunity.

 

[TimeSmash]

Sexy speech.

Marry me please.

But seriously, this is gold

 

[LiteralGrill]

Marry me please.

But seriously, this is gold

I'll perform the ceremony

 

[kackamee]

I remember the documentary made it clear Brawl was not well received competitively and a lot of people had issue with it. And I trust them because they included interviews with notable individuals, I don't buy that Brawl did as much for the competitive scene as Melee did. Melee was at MLG for years, while Brawl barely stayed on the circuit. Melee is almost always the headliner and has been for quite a while, Brawl momentarily took the spotlight solely because it was new.

I'd argue that if Brawl didn't get all the hate that it has been since it's released, it would have had a much stronger competitive scene and would've been "better received".
And also, just because some pro players don't like a new installation to a series, doesn't mean it isn't a good competitive game.
Many pro Marvel vs. Capcom 2 players didn't like Marvel vs. Capcom 3 for instance.

 

[TimeSmash]

I

I'd argue that if Brawl didn't get all the hate that it has been since it's released, it would have had a much stronger competitive scene and would've been "better received".
And also, just because some pro players don't like a new installation to a series, doesn't mean it isn't a good competitive game.
Many pro Marvel vs. Capcom 2 players didn't like Marvel vs. Capcom 3 for instance.

I agree completely. Just because one game was different does not suddenly mean the series sucks or the next installment will suck.

Unless you're the Sonic series, that is

 

[D-idara]

I

I agree completely. Just because one game was different does not suddenly mean the series sucks or the next installment will suck.

Unless you're the Sonic series, that is

No, it still doesn't apply...only bad Sonic games were Black Knight and 06'

 

[TimeSmash]

I liked them up until around Sonic Heroes. It's been touch and go since then.

But anyways, to stay on topic, shouldn't the Back Room be made a little more public as to what they're discussing? Plenty of people on here are great at Smash and not BRoomers. Something needs to change with how this is set up. We don't need to tear down the BR or anything crazy like that, but it should shed a little of its exclusivity

 

[LiteralGrill]

I liked them up until around Sonic Heroes. It's been touch and go since then.

But anyways, to stay on topic, shouldn't the Back Room be made a little more public as to what they're discussing? Plenty of people on here are great at Smash and not BRoomers. Something needs to change with how this is set up. We don't need to tear down the BR or anything crazy like that, but it should shed a little of its exclusivity

It would also be good if the Broom was actually... Useful. As harsh as that is anyone else could do what they do. And since their oppinions are barely respected by most these days it needs a serious overhaul to bring it into relevancy again.

 

[fabulouspants]

i remember my first brawl tournament in 2008. there were around 30 entrants in this small room on university campus and then these 3-4guys bring a small melee setup + TV. during the finals these melee ugly ass kids just start chanting brawl sucks brawl sucks lol. ****ing ugly **** dark prince samus player idiot. silence spectre was there but he was cool.

 

[popsofctown]

Melee players tried to sabotage the Brawl scene so that they would lose fewer melee players to Brawl. It is a rational thing to do. They prefer Melee, so they only cared about the size of the Melee community, not the Brawl community, or even the sum of the two.

There is really no reason to expect the same thing to happen again. The more popular smash 4 is, the more Melee and P:M players will get diverted, that's just the reality. Sabotaging Smash 4 by bashing it will repeat, in an effort to socially pressure Melee players to stay.

I think the best solution is to separate events so that melee people aren't around recent-smash people. Running Melee/Brawl events was thought to be a good idea, but it just put conflict on the frontlines. It doesn't even make that much sense in terms of serving the players best. Most players who entered both would have rather played two tournaments of their favorite game twice. Project M and Melee are extremely similar, and I think it barely makes sense to run those concurrently at events.

What's worse is the impact it had on the competitiveness of both communities. So many melee players diluted their melee practice with brawl practice and reached their full potential at neither. This has negative ripple effects, and even went on to impact the ruleset.

If smash events are run concurrently, they should be scheduled so that it is impossible to enter both, or that you have a limited capacity to enter both. (perhaps you can enter pools for both, but only advance from pools in one or something like that).

I don't think any game is superior, but I think it advances the metagame and leads to better spectating, history, and rulesets if players are picking their favorite game and sticking to that.

This might not be a belief people find popular, but that's what I think.

 

[TimeSmash]

I can agree with points on this. So if there's some big event or tournament, wouldn't it make sense to have Melee at X-X time and Smash 4 at Y-Y time, with P:M or Brawl at Z-Z time? Running two at the same time could be nice, but it could cause potential problems.

I definitely see what you're saying about Melee diehards. I personally think it's a great game, and the fastest one in the series at this moment. That being said, AT THIS MOMENT. I think people need to be a little more accepting of change, take Brawl for what it was, not endlessly ***** about it and let people play the game they want to play instead of shaming or trolling them. I agree with you that players should have a main game to focus on, but at the same time it's not bad to double dip in both if you want to play both games.

It really sounds like I'm not agreeing with you when I read this, but I do for a lot of it and I think you make some excellent points. It's up to the community to mature and not be rude about what game people play and learn to advance each's game own scene and metagame

 

[popsofctown]

I'm just an outlier. I also think doubles should be discouraged because it hurts competitivity.

 

[mimgrim]

If smash events are run concurrently, they should be scheduled so that it is impossible to enter both, or that you have a limited capacity to enter both. (perhaps you can enter pools for both, but only advance from pools in one or something like that).

What about those who genuinely like all the Smash games and want to play all of them competitively and don't bash any of them. Why should they be harmed when they are doing nothing wrong to the community at all? And even if the idea you proposed in the parentheses was done, what if some of those players end up actually doing good and multiple pools and make the qualifications to move on? Why should they get punished for doing a good job?

 

[popsofctown]

You can play all of them, but you can't play all of them competitively. If you play 64, melee, brawl, and P.M., you're gunning for ninth place on at least one of those. That's not that competitive. Just like having 10 brawl mains isn't competitive.

 

[mimgrim]

You can play all of them, but you can't play all of them competitively. If you play 64, melee, brawl, and P.M., you're gunning for ninth place on at least one of those. That's not that competitive. Just like having 10 brawl mains isn't competitive.

That is so completely ignorant.

Explain M2K then.

 

[Thirdkoopa]

Wow, this got bumped. Three things to respond to in this.

1. If you're seriously arguing about Melee vs Brawl at this point, I don't even know what to do with you. People who seriously insist upon continuing to fuel the fire that has ravaged our community for half a decade even in a topic specifically telling them how bad doing exactly what they're doing is just seme so hopeless to me. It's like telling a smoker they have lung cancer and watching them go outside for a smoke in response to the news. I don't know what could even be done with them other than banning them from the site when the new game comes out if they don't shape up or just flat out ostracizing them. It doesn't even matter if Melee really were a better game; the behavior is awful regardless, and if smash 4 is even treated half as badly as Brawl was, it's going to hurt our community in predictably severe fashion.

This. It's one thing to play the comparison game, but it's a completely other thing to start complete wars over it. The amount of damage it's done for the past half-decade won't be rid of. We need to all be united; even if we prefer a different game.