For smash 4 to succeed, we need to change

[Mr.C]

Why is advocating the release of a new game that isn't strictly worse regarding skill & depth compared to its predecessors a bad thing? If the next SF games turned into Dive Kick I'm sure their community would be up-in-arms, rightfully so.

The entire Brawl community are just your simple run of the mill flavor of the month players. They play what's new, because it's new. What happens to the competitive Brawl scene when SSB4 is released? It's going to completely die off, everyone will migrate towards the new FOTM because the game isn't worth fighting for. The same can not be said about Melee. Why do people advocate Melee so deeply? It's not because the game is Melee, it's because the game is a very good prerequisite for a very deep, skill-intensive, and technical game. Something all fighting games released in the future should strive for, especially a games successor.

 

[Dooms]

If you say so.

------------------

I definitely agree that if there is a character that seems like it needs to get banned, then we need to either ban it asap or leave it alone and let it roam freely. Having that MK ban argument for 4 years was completely pointless and ended up being a waste of training for many players, and in the end the debate (and MK himself) really ruined it for certain players. We as a community should probably discuss these types of things for a year MAX. A few months with tournament results would be ideal. We should also try to do it sooner instead of later so that we don't have too much of the community voting for the broken character simply because they main said character. Seemed like that was a problem with the MK ban.

For the stages thing, I don't know how that will work out. People just seem to get mad when they don't have creativity when it comes to the stage thing. It was the same with Metaknight (He's banned? Screw all of you, I want him legal! I'll host my own MK legal tournaments, yeah!), but I feel that stage lists will be more possible. Stage list will probably be the only troublesome thing I can think of for a ruleset, since we'll all be debating the legality of certain borderline stages (examples from Brawl are Luigi's Mansion, Jungle Japes, Norfair, Pokemon Stadium 2, and Pictochat). We may just have to start out with a list of stages that must be legal followed by a list of optional stages so that people will still practice on the optional stages, but they can still be removed at any point.

One rule set that everyone follows is the ideal situation, but I'm just not so sure on that being possible :/.

 

[Crispy4001]

You're also a person missing the point.

You don't have to like it. You don't have to rally behind it. Just don't attack it and start arguments because of how bad it is. It's pretty easy to not be a total jerk about things, and if you think that this is a thread saying that you need to support Smash 4 simply because it's new, then you need to just stop posting in here and leave.

It's simple, really. Just don't be a jerk about things. Say that you don't like the game if you really want to. Don't say "This game sucks, and you suck for playing it" and don't start pointless arguments just so you can stroke your ego and look like a drooling idiot. Shouldn't be too difficult for anyone that made it through elementary school.

The problem is that the point is incomplete. The OP said that the problem last time was that people "raised hell" and "fought" Brawl. How? He didn't say. Just implied that this "vocal minority" was in the wrong.

In reality, the reaction against Brawl stemmed from reasoned arguments against Nintendo's design decisions, not trolling. If SSB4 happened to look like a Melee 2.0, the same sort of reaction would come from those who prefer Brawl. This is just a reality of differing tastes, something we should learn to better embrace as a community.

The important thing to remember is that healthy skepticism is a good thing, and that people should be free to express & discuss it. The argument the OP was making is that we should keep that to ourselves and show only eager optimism so that SSB4 can become the new competitive Smash standard without contention. And this is all before we really know jack about the game to begin with.

Don't worry, I don't think you're making an argument for him here.

 

[Dooms]

Sorry I sounded so harsh, then. My misunderstanding.

 

[Crispy4001]

Sorry I sounded so harsh, then. My misunderstanding.

Hey, it's nothing.

 

[Pyra]

We have "Stop judging brawl based on melee, many people find it fun and it's a good game!" in the red corner and "Brawl was a horrible mess because it didn't meet the expectations that a top class competitive fighting game should have met!" in the blue corner.

Let the Shove-my-opinion-down-your-throat match begin!


...What? It's been going on for years?


Carry on then.

 

[VelenZiga]

I used to come here a lot before KC:MM spirited me away...I see this place hasn't changed a bit.

I understand how Ampharos feels, and I think most of you aren't even trying to comprehend what he means. Even though the way he delivered it was -admittedly- very dogmatic.

The way most Melee tournament veterans think portrays them as a crowd that thinks that Melee is the perfect game. People in the competitive community consistently applaud it's pacing, for example. You know what's ironic about that? The speed of the gameplay was actually a negative by critics who played the game before we did. One even went as far as to say Melee "is too fast for it's own good." Funny, right?

Moving on, the fact that people continuously compare Brawl, and now Smash4 to Melee is a flawed and utterly biased way of thinking and analyzing things. It doesn't matter how technical or in-depth the gameplay in Melee was, or is, it will not change that fact. Brawl was judged by most of this community based on how it measured up to critically acclaimed Melee, rather than it's own merits. People will try to deny that, but they can't separate the Melee comparisons from their arguments. To use a foodstuff analogy: it's like judging the Chunky Garden Combo Prego sauce based on a comparison to the Original recipe. The trend is doomed to continue it seems.

It's sad really, and that's one of the main reasons the Melee vs Brawl debate existed: people grouping off each other as either "Melee-tards" or "Brawl-tards", and arguing over which game they liked was superior -for all the dumbest of reasons- all just because one side or the other couldn't let things be.

What Ampharos really wants is for everyone to judge the game as a title that stands on it's own, instead of comparing the newborn to it's brothers. He wants us to support it cause he -like myself- is tired of the Melee / Brawl divide that is still present here. People are free to choose and play the game they like: go ahead, it's your time and your money, but this is supposed to be a community of individuals who play and laugh together, have a good time, have good conversation. Not some group of segregated camps like it felt like to me when I frequented this place a couple years ago. Yet people insist on things being this way...why?

Over time it's just become petty and vulgar.

EDIT:

Do I think that people should blindly buy and support this game? No. Do I think they should give it a chance? Yeah.

Remember when Brawl was first shown, it ran off a version of the Melee engine? That changed over time. This new game demo they showed seems to run off a version of the Brawl engine, and if what happened with Brawl between it's first showing and the final product is any indication, things will change. It will be different. How so remains to be seen. People are jumping to conclusions about a game that's not going to be out for another year. Speculation should be high, assumptions should not.

 

[SmashDivine]

The problem is that the point is incomplete. The OP said that the problem last time was that people "raised hell" and "fought" Brawl. How? He didn't say. Just implied that this "vocal minority" was in the wrong.

In reality, the reaction against Brawl stemmed from reasoned arguments against Nintendo's design decisions, not trolling. If SSB4 happened to look like a Melee 2.0, the same sort of reaction would come from those who prefer Brawl. This is just a reality of differing tastes, something we should learn to better embrace as a community.

The important thing to remember is that healthy skepticism is a good thing, and that people should be free to express & discuss it. The argument the OP was making is that we should keep that to ourselves and show only eager optimism so that SSB4 can become the new competitive Smash standard without contention. And this is all before we really know jack about the game to begin with.

Don't worry, I don't think you're making an argument for him here.

Someone can give reasoned arguments for why classical music is much more complex, intricate, and deep than almost all music produced today. It's actually really easy to demonstrate that. And some people think that is what music should be.

But anyone who thinks that we should try to convince people who are enjoying rock and roll, hip hop, rap or the blues that their preferences are inferior, and therefore that they should stop doing what they enjoy and start listening to classical, likely has a superiority complex. It should be enough that you enjoy what you enjoy and if you feel secure in your choices you shouldn't feel compelled to make incursions into the activities of others who aren't harming you.

This so strikingly parallels the reaction of Bob Dylan's fans after he went electric in 1965. His fans booed him for "betraying" them and taking his music in a different direction. I suppose one should decide to what degree an artist, or art producing company, is beholden to their "fans", and also what it means to be a fan at all. Dylan's view was that he'll produce whatever he wants, and if you like it you can buy it, if you don't go buy something else. I imagine Nintendo has a similar view. But there will always be people who try to force their artists to comply with their vision of who they should be, or worse yet, take part in the discussions of a community solely and explicitly for the purposes of sabotaging that community.

You can have a thread dedicated to the Brawl vs Melee argument and deposit your golden morsels of wisdom there.

 

[Mooplet]

Damn, I was so ridiculously let down by brawl. I really don't think that was influenced by anyone else, I just didn't see any potential in it for what I was craving or looking for in that game at that time.

 

[TheBuzzSaw]

I am still going to buy the game on principle. I am loyal to this series, and I want to own the game. We certainly won't have any problems there. I just question what is meant by Smash 4 "succeeding". Considering that pretty much all of us will be buying the game, it will certainly be a reliable financial success for Nintendo. I'm sure what we want is for it to succeed in terms of this community. We want it to be competitive because competition keeps the game alive years after it comes out. However, I stand by my original statement that we will judge the game according to its competitive depth, not because it's a new smash game.

L-canceling very much does add depth to the game, and it is not an artificial skill barrier. It gives the defending player an opportunity to affect the timing. L-canceling can be tricky when you have to anticipate whether the opponent will sidestep or shield. Just because successful L-canceling is always desirable does not mean it should be handed out as a freebie to everyone.

 

[VelenZiga]

I am still going to buy the game on principle. I am loyal to this series, and I want to own the game. We certainly won't have any problems there. I just question what is meant by Smash 4 "succeeding". Considering that pretty much all of us will be buying the game, it will certainly be a reliable financial success for Nintendo. I'm sure what we want is for it to succeed in terms of this community. We want it to be competitive because competition keeps the game alive years after it comes out. However, I stand by my original statement that we will judge the game according to its competitive depth, not because it's a new smash game.

L-canceling very much does add depth to the game, and it is not an artificial skill barrier. It gives the defending player an opportunity to affect the timing. L-canceling can be tricky when you have to anticipate whether the opponent will sidestep or shield. Just because successful L-canceling is always desirable does not mean it should be handed out as a freebie to everyone.

When you use things like L-Canceling and other things to define and separate people, then it is an artificial skill barrier. You can't argue something isn't what it is just because you happen to be good at something within the game. When not everyone can perform a trick or mechanic for various reasons, and said trick or mechanic is considered a mark of skill, then it is an artificial skill barrier, because the people who play the game are the ones who designate them as such, which is an artificial creation.

 

[TreK]

Reading the posts so far, the title of this thread is indeed justified.

 

[Orngeblu]

I hate to see the communities split like this. I'm excited for Smash 4, regardless of this Wave Dashing and L-canceling. VelenZiga has summed it all up. This war is never going to end, though. It's still just sad to see the communities will probably split yet again.

 

[Eternal phoenix Fire]

Personally, I'm kind of glad the new game is more like Brawl than Melee. I enjoyed both games, but the satisfaction of knowing that the people that spent all of their time hating on Brawl solely because it wasn't a Melee clone will never get their sequel. Brawl players get exactly what Melee players would have wanted AND we get megaman.

It's delicious.

you're an asshole.

Besides that, i'm on the fence about it. I wouldn't min seeing L-canceling gone, but what mechanic would replace it? Would it be automated? would it be a simple input? L-canceling is ok as it is if you're into the technical difficulty of melee, but there are arguably many more who believe its extremely tedious. As for me, I can go either way.

 

[Crispy4001]

Someone can give reasoned arguments for why classical music is much more complex, intricate, and deep than almost all music produced today. It's actually really easy to demonstrate that. And some people think that is what music should be.

But anyone who thinks that we should try to convince people who are enjoying rock and roll, hip hop, rap or the blues that their preferences are inferior, and therefore that they should stop doing what they enjoy and start listening to classical, likely has a superiority complex. It should be enough that you enjoy what you enjoy and if you feel secure in your choices you shouldn't feel compelled to make incursions into the activities of others who aren't harming you.

This so strikingly parallels the reaction of Bob Dylan's fans after he went electric in 1965. His fans booed him for "betraying" them and taking his music in a different direction. I suppose one should decide to what degree an artist, or art producing company, is beholden to their "fans", and also what it means to be a fan at all. Dylan's view was that he'll produce whatever he wants, and if you like it you can buy it, if you don't go buy something else. I imagine Nintendo has a similar view. But there will always be people who try to force their artists to comply with their vision of who they should be, or worse yet, take part in the discussions of a community solely and explicitly for the purposes of sabotaging that community.

You can have a thread dedicated to the Brawl vs Melee argument and deposit your golden morsels of wisdom there.

You're talking to someone getting a doctorate in classical music, and I mostly agree. As someone who's listened for hours to some truly terrible 20th modern stuff (and also some great 20th century modern stuff), an artists creative integrity can still be preserved without people liking their music. But the audience has every right not to like it, express that, and give their reason why.

I've refrained from making this a Melee vs Brawl debate, because this debate really isn't about it. The arguement here is whether we should continue to speak from our preferences when something new comes about, or should abandon all whims of critique for the sake of being non-judgemental and accepting of Nintendo, as if weak creative vision makes for a good fighting game.

Don't extrapolate what I'm saying to SSB4, since I'm not on any side of the fence yet. But if comes out that the input delay and tripping are back, for two (extreme) examples, those speaking against these things shouldn't be labeled degenerates working to undermine Smash and the Smash Community. That's the BS farts and roses crap that is simply unacceptable, and where I take a hard line against the OP.

People deserve to speak their minds about these mechanics. If that ties into the Brawl vs Melee debate, so be it.

 

[CRASHiC]

More technical options required to play effectively = more depth, by virtue. If Game A requires two inputs for an action and Game B requires one input for the exact same action, Game A automatically has a deeper and more technical learning curve.

Depth is about choices. Having an option be required to play the game at an optimal level is the opposite of choice. People who have played games so difficult that they make Melee look like child's play at a literal top of the world level have established that arbitrary button inputs that could be simplified are a BAD thing to have in a competitive game, be it Star Craft BR, Dota 1, or Marvel Versus Capcom 2.

You have been greatly misguided by Smashers son. Come with me. Let me show you the light.

L-canceling very much does add depth to the game, and it is not an artificial skill barrier. It gives the defending player an opportunity to affect the timing. L-canceling can be tricky when you have to anticipate whether the opponent will sidestep or shield. Just because successful L-canceling is always desirable does not mean it should be handed out as a freebie to everyone.

This is anti-design.
Keeping L-canceling in because of a very very very small amount of variance in decision making (when to press a button) that punishes a user during SHOULD be a passive action is not a good decision at all. It adds a huge burden on the player for what is an almost nonexistent amount of depth, and even then this depth is very one sided. Depth should occur from the side of both players, both players should be making decisions in a given situation otherwise you've made a very unfun, poorly designed hock of crap.

 

[Dooms]

There's a difference between "speaking against it" and calling people playing a certain game idiots or morons for playing a different game. It turns into talking less about facts and more about how idiotic you think the other side of the spectrum is. If it was just talking about facts along with your opinion of not liking the game, it'd be fine. It's hardly ever that way, though. The debate always goes into a flame war on the people that play the games instead of the actual games themselves. :|

 

[CRASHiC]

I was here when Brawl came out. I don't play either game anymore, but as someone who has participated in multiple tournament scenes, I can assure you that what was and is done to Brawl and the players who chose it as the preference is NOT having a discsussion. It is NOT critique. It is NOT stating your opinion.

What I see is a constant, deliberate and belligerent attack on those who play the game.

If you go to a fighting game tournament, you can put in TMNT fighter from the SNES and no one is going to say a word to you. You can put in god damn Jackie Chan and get asked to bring it to the main stage. YOU CAN PUT IN THE DEADLIEST WARRIORS GAME AND NO ONE WILL QUESTION WHAT YOU ARE DOING.

Do players voice their opinions of games they don't like? Oh surely. But are people shamed for having a preference? NO! There may be some online banter from time to time by a small portion of the community, but it never gets personal and it NEVER is done in person. Commentators have the good sense NOT to alienate members of the community by bad mouthing the game on stream during a nationals. Count in your hand the number of times its happened in Smash off the top of your head that you alone have seen.

The issue is not the opinions, whichever side they are placed. The issue is the violent and disrespectful discourse that it going on.

Not only are you socially alienating members of your community, but you're giving ammunition to the other communities.
To quote Mean Girls "When you call each other ******* and Whores, it just makes it okay for guys to."

 

[Crispy4001]

There's a difference between "speaking against it" and calling people playing a certain game idiots or morons for playing a different game. It turns into talking less about facts and more about how idiotic you think the other side of the spectrum is. If it was just talking about facts along with your opinion of not liking the game, it'd be fine. It's hardly ever that way, though. The debate always goes into a flame war on the people that play the games instead of the actual games themselves. :|

Would it be wrong for me to say tripping was a moronic idea?

This is the closest thing there is to fact when talking about Smash games. So much is subjective that we have to learn not to take someone's opinion about a mechanic personally, or as some kind of an affront on a segment of the Smash community's fun.

The explicit trolling meant to incite flame wars, yeah, that's should be curtailed. But I'd rather trust the mods than try to get a groupthink brigade of dulled expression and feigned optimism going to counter it.

 

[CRASHiC]

A lot of mods were part of the problem.

 

[Dooms]

Would it be wrong for me to say tripping was a moronic idea?

This is the closest thing there is to fact when talking about Smash games. So much is subjective that we have to learn not to take someone's opinion about a mechanic personally, or as some kind of an affront on a segment of the Smash community's fun.

The explicit trolling meant to incite flame wars, yeah, that's should be curtailed. But I'd rather trust the mods than try to get a groupthink brigade of diluted intelligence going to counter it.

Of course that wouldn't be wrong.

Sorry for saying fact. OPINIONS on the game itself are fine. Saying that Brawl sucks is fine. Saying that Brawl's lack of speed, Brawl's tripping, Brawl's lack of rewarding reads, and anything else about brawl is terrible... That's fine, too.

We as a community should be drawing the line at that. After that, it gets into the actual community. "Brawl players have no tech skill and they are bad for playing a non-competitive game." Anything like that towards either side is completely pointless and that is why I am personally against any Brawl vs Melee debates (because it usually ends up being like that). If we as a community could debate without bashing the communities themselves, then I'd be fine with it. However, it usually never happens that way.

 

[payasofobia]

There's a difference between "speaking against it" and calling people playing a certain game idiots or morons for playing a different game. It turns into talking less about facts and more about how idiotic you think the other side of the spectrum is. If it was just talking about facts along with your opinion of not liking the game, it'd be fine. It's hardly ever that way, though. The debate always goes into a flame war on the people that play the games instead of the actual games themselves. :|

For every good argument there are 3 idiotic ones. You'll just have to accept the mixed bag you have.

And this thread as a whole is pretty pointless. This "fragmented" community is just a normal sized fighting game tournament scene that can't get big because the game has ****ty online and no ingame tournament support whatsoever in the shape of clients, leaderboards or more active developer endorsement.

 

[Crispy4001]

Anything like that towards either side is completely pointless and that is why I am personally against any Brawl vs Melee debates (because it usually ends up being like that).

Just to mention it... Brawl vs Melee isn't going away in the ways it's relevant to whatever game design decisions Sakurai makes going forward. It's not something that can be completely avoided in these discussions.

The silver lining? It'll be more of SSB4 vs Melee, SSB4 vs Brawl, SSB4 vs PM, etc as we learn more about what's in and out.

 

[VelenZiga]

A lot of mods were part of the problem.

Very much this. At risk of getting lambasted for it: Smogon as a community was no better in my experience. People there are often belligerent towards outsides and new people who don't do things their way.

 

[iMichael]

You guys ever heard the definition of insanity?

 

[SmashDivine]

You're talking to someone getting a doctorate in classical music, and I mostly agree. As someone who's listened for hours to some truly terrible 20th modern stuff (and also some great 20th century modern stuff), an artists creative integrity can still be preserved without people liking their music. But the audience has every right not to like it, express that, and give their reason why.

I've refrained from making this a Melee vs Brawl debate, because this debate really isn't about it. The arguement here is whether we should continue to speak from our preferences when something new comes about, or should abandon all whims of critique for the sake of being non-judgemental and accepting of Nintendo, as if weak creative vision makes for a good fighting game.

Don't extrapolate what I'm saying to SSB4, since I'm not on any side of the fence yet. But if comes out that the input delay and tripping are back, for two (extreme) examples, those speaking against these things shouldn't be labeled degenerates working to undermine Smash and the Smash Community. That's the BS farts and roses crap that is simply unacceptable, and where I take a hard line against the OP.

People deserve to speak their minds about these mechanics. If that ties into the Brawl vs Melee debate, so be it.

That's great that you're doing your doctorate in Classical music. I'm doing mine in mathematics right now, but I compose music that would best fit into that and other genres such as Baroque and Romantic. I think you'd also find that we agree on what you have to say about Melee vs Brawl more than you think.

Clearly I don't think the game is above criticism (nor Melee for that matter). Of course tripping is ridiculous with respect to competition. The point I keep trying to put forth is that the solution that should satisfy everyone would be to have any discussions related to "Melee vs Brawl" / "Brawl is inferior" in a dedicated thread and not pollute the fun experience that others are having. If I try Divekick and discover that I think it is a joke of a game, I may say so if asked, or when talking to friends or in a thread specifically dedicated to criticisms and critiques of the game. But if I go where Divekick enthusiasts are trying to set up a nice community for themselves and having fun, and lob disparaging remarks about the game they like and (as has occurred here) about them by mere virtue of their affinity for the game, I will have revealed myself as a browbeater.

I simply can't understand what justification there is for opposing this suggestion. Maybe the aspiring freedom fighter who, recently and on this thread, compared this issue and the need to speak up about it to the plight of Gandhi and MLK will think the suggestion tramples his or her right to freedom of speech. You've all got your freedom of speech, and along with it the freedom to be a lavish bully; my suggestion is that you exercise it judiciously.

 

[Cassio]

Because if it turns out to be bad game, everyone should just keep quiet and pretend they are satisfied for the sake of those who are. Oh those poor, overly-sensitive content players, they have it so rough.

Encouraging all smash players to baby the new community and blindly accept the new game is not a means to end any of these conflicts. Quite the opposite actually.

It's just a highly unrealistic fantasy. Time to face reality.

The only people that need to face reality are the melee heads who bash on brawl and now continue to bash on smash 4 before its release, because the collective knowledge of such users on brawl or smash 4 amounts to posts that sound very ignorant. Not even trying to be rude here, but what credibility do they have to comment on metagames that are not melee or Project: M?

The short of the matter is no one wants to hear from the same melee players that bashed on brawl bash on smash 4 as well, because they were wrong about brawl. I dont mean wrong in the 'lets hold hands and get along' sort of way, i mean their analysis and predictions about brawls metagame and its competitive value didnt even land on the board or anywhere close to it. Brawl is a fun, competitive, worthy sequal to the smash series that a strong community of players enjoys, and as smash 4 draws closer will probably enjoy more success. Brawl is a legitimate alternative to melee.

As overswarm said no ones asking you to enjoy the game or play it. No ones asking you to stop promoting competitive games you do enjoy either. But commenting or bashing on games you have low understanding of is entirely ignorant, which many older players from the smash community are guilty of.

In this context, all Ampharos and Overswarm are asking is for parts of the community to stop being ignorant and either support the smash series or to stop commenting on games they dont understand.


Also Crispy no one is saying people cant voice their opinions, but its really not exaggerating to say that some players have gone as far as to advocate against the success of another game they do not play but that many other people enjoy.

 

[VelenZiga]

Also Crispy no one is saying people cant voice their opinions, but its really not exaggerating to say that some players have gone as far as to advocate against the success of another game they do not play but that many other people enjoy.

Cassio has it right. It's a really sickening and disheartening sight.

 

[Vkrm]

As a melee player, taking a look at how the FGC views both melee and brawl is the only way I can sympathize. What don't understand is why brawl players care so much. The games been out for 6 years, thats plenty of time to develop some thick skin. I actually find a lot of the troll comments from outside the community aimed at melee to be hilarious. It's not like people who trash talk brawl or Smash4 will ever do any real harm to the actual scene. I think as long as its true or funny you should be able too say whatever you want without anyone holding a grudge.

 

[TreK]

As a melee player, taking a look at how the FGC views both melee and brawl is the only way I can sympathize. What don't understand is why brawl players care so much. The games been out for 6 years, thats plenty of time to develop some thick skin. I actually find a lot of the troll comments from outside the community aimed at melee to be hilarious. It's not people won't trash talk brawl or Smash4 ever did any real harm to the actual scene.

The Smash community not getting the respect its game deserve cost us at least 94 000 dollars. So yes, we care.
And I would be encline to think that it is mainly the community's fault. We've made mistakes, and we don't want to repeat them.

Edit : As a Brawl player, I'm the first one to recognize my game's flaws. The only thing that I react to are things like 'brawl takes no skill', because it insults me instead of my game, and more importantly, it insults the top players I grew to care about and admire.

 

[Vkrm]

We should wait until evo and decide afterwards if we got what we paid for, but we all know the respect of the FGC can't be bought. We need to put on a good show, and then anyone who can be convinced of smash's legitimacy will be. There will always be haters from the FGC.

 

[Frostwraith]

*leaves thread*

 

[LiteralGrill]

For the stages thing, I don't know how that will work out. People just seem to get mad when they don't have creativity when it comes to the stage thing. It was the same with Metaknight (He's banned? Screw all of you, I want him legal! I'll host my own MK legal tournaments, yeah!), but I feel that stage lists will be more possible. Stage list will probably be the only troublesome thing I can think of for a ruleset, since we'll all be debating the legality of certain borderline stages (examples from Brawl are Luigi's Mansion, Jungle Japes, Norfair, Pokemon Stadium 2, and Pictochat). We may just have to start out with a list of stages that must be legal followed by a list of optional stages so that people will still practice on the optional stages, but they can still be removed at any point.

One rule set that everyone follows is the ideal situation, but I'm just not so sure on that being possible :/.

Well, might as well throw this out there. I was (still am if the game stays alive) a big tournament organizer for PlayStation AllStars Battle Royale, and I've tried lots of interesting things for stage selection.

It may be time to move away from the starters/couterpicks style of things and try something new, or maybe work with it to allow more stages.

A few things I tried:

Consensual Counterpicks: It seemed silly, but it was a system where if both players agreed to fight on certain stages, the could. These were those borderline legal stages, and some people did use this so I got to see competitive play on these stages to test things out a bit. And if anything, it kept more stages legal even if they weren't used too often. The system has TONS of flaws but it's something I spose.

Currently, PSASBR is using an LSS (List Striking System) for stage determination. We have a list of 13 legal stages, and you strike them down until you have 5 stages that you play the set on. Then, you strike for first stage, and use the 5 stages for counterpicks (and it has the rule where you cant pick a stage you already won on unless the opponent agrees).

This system has been VERY well received other then it can take some time to do in an online chatroom (which we are stuck with because I can only manage to get tournaments active online... PSASBR isn't exactly popular or that good in all reality). It makes for a better set of stages to fight on that are fair to all characters involved as much as possible, and adds INCREDIBLE depth to stage selection. Even knowing certain opponents and how they can can help you immensely, and it makes you need to know matchups quite a bit so you dont get screwed with stages.

But in the end, you and your opponent got a stage list YOU agreed to fight on, what the two of you thought would make a good match on. It's rewarding to do.

(As a side note, you could obviously use more then 13 stages as long as it's an odd number and not too small so that the striking wouldn't matter, but not so large as to make the striking take FOREVER either. 13 seemed to work as lucky a number as it is, though I admit some of that was do to stage limitations because the stages glitch up a storm... damn PSASBR has more glitches then ANY game I've ever seen. The game has TV ADVANTAGE where using certain cables and TVs makes you stronger in online matches I **** you not...)

 

[SirGalvan]

The one thing that drove me completely insane in Brawl was your own weapons working against you. When I play with items I never go for the lightning bolt or the time clock anymore since most of the time they are used against me

 

[Overswarm]

You're getting some kind of sadistic pleasure out of deriving Melee players from a game they would love and enjoy on a competitive level. It's not about enjoying a new game for you, or that's at least what it looks like. It looks like you care less about Brawl fans enjoying themselves and more about Melee fans NOT doing so.

Oh, I don't expect everyone else to. That's a personal thing for me and I fully understand those that wouldn't feel the same joy in their irritation that I do; I started in the Melee community when it was becoming its largest and then I saw it slowly fade right until Brawl's release, when it got renewed vigor preparing for Brawl followed by an immediate drop off after Brawl's release. Most of the Melee players left that are vocal are bitter and volatile, a fragile shell of the community I left. Before it was just a few vocal individuals amongst a large, cohesive, friendly community. Once Brawl came out, the majority of the good players disappeared from the scene and with them a large chunk of the community's founders. With Brawl having so much support, the only voices left were loud, bitter, and vile.

I really, really enjoy the thought of their bitterness increasing. They've lambasted Brawl for half a decade and now a new Smash is out and they're starting again. They haven't even noticed that Brawl became a huge competitive game, larger than most fighters and having more tournaments and more prize money than they ever predicted.

How is that NOT something to be savored? I get to see them flounder about like fish out of water for another half decade, ranting and raving.... or they go away. Either way Brawl will always have been successful and Smash 4 will have its success. I've seen pages and pages of people discussing about how "Melee is better than Brawl" and "Brawl isn't a competitive game" and "Brawl is defensive, therefore bad" (which is hilarious if you know anything about game theory), etc., etc. High school essays posted for half a decade.

Now it's happening again! From the same people! It has never dawned on them once that complaining about Brawl hasn't altered anything about Sakurai's design decisions, the decision of the players who play it, or any other aspect of the Smash universe. They are literally sitting in a forum created solely for the purpose of being excited about Smash 4 and getting hype and saying "I bet it'll suck, Melee's better". They've been doing it for years and absolutely nothing has changed! They never have noticed once!

And after all their hopes, all their dreams, the constant reminders of "Brawl sucks" in Brawl tournament threads, Melee kids literally booing Brawl when it was on stage at dual events, their giant push for Melee to be at EVO, their hope to have a "melee revival", ALL of it in the name of promoting Melee...

E3 comes. Sakurai appears out of a golden door... leans in and whispers....

"Here is Brawl 2.0"

That is fantastic.

Brawl players didn't even ask for anything but for tripping to be removed. We got everything we could have asked for. It was handed to us on a silver platter. We enjoyed Brawl and now we get a new game we can enjoy. I just find the disparity in how the two communities acted and what the two communities are getting nearly karmic in nature.

Yeah, I'd prefer it if they all woke up and said "Whoa whoa whoa, hang on a minute. I'm in the Smash 4 and Brawl boards, how did I get here? I prefer to play Melee, I'll go there and try to make my game and community look appealing". But that likely won't happen. When people are part of the underdog group they generally try to make themselves appear to be in a higher position by pushing others beneath them, it's the nature of social groups. My options are to get mad and say "WTF is wrong with them? I don't go to basketball games and cheer for soccer!" or to cackle maniacally as some guy repeats for the 30th time why Melee is such a good fighter. I'm going to continue to laugh.

But it's okay to be offended by that, it isn't a good mentality or even a healthy one. Just one I happen to have, so I understand your trepidation. :D

 

[umegames]

Well said, and very much true.It's a society issue, not a game issue.

 

[Overswarm]

Encouraging all smash players to baby the new community and blindly accept the new game is not a means to end any of these conflicts. Quite the opposite actually.

It's just a highly unrealistic fantasy. Time to face reality.

He wasn't asking you to blindly accept the new game. He was asking you to taste the food and, if you don't like it, leave the restaurant without flipping a table due to your disappointment.

 

[VelenZiga]

He wasn't asking you to blindly accept the new game. He was asking you to taste the food and, if you don't like it, leave the restaurant without flipping a table due to your disappointment.

Excellent analogy there my man. Kudos.

 

[XavierSylfaen]

@Overswarm

I don't know how you could have this mindset. A great community loves a game to death, then when a sequel is announced its numerous issues are pointed out and criticized. Brawl comes out, and there's a massive backlash due to a huge amount of people disliking various "features" such as the lack of gravity, lack of hitstun, lack of speed, etc. The community split, and eventually the competitive Brawl scene died down to a degree while the Melee scene made a revival. I know I donated $20 to the EVO fund myself.

I'm sure you can see why there was such a backlash even if you enjoy the slower Brawl gameplay. Was all the **** Brawl players went through from from a certain part of the Melee community necessary or justified at all? No. But I know you can see why it happened, and I know you can understand the sentiment even if you don't agree or sympathize with it at all.

Bottom line, a game that could satisfy both parties would be great and it's a damn shame that you're harboring such resentment against some overly-aggressive ******* who instead of ignoring a Brawl thread decided to flame it five years ago.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Yeah, I'm not asking anyone to play a game they don't want to play, but I do ask for their support for smash 4. That can mean so little as acting positive about the community. A lot of times the community events (smashfests, tournaments, etc.) overlap between smash games. Just be supportive of what the people playing smash 4 are doing even if you don't want to do that yourself. This can be as simple as "being nice and answering a small number of questions to help give direction to new people". Then feel free to be as bullish and positive about what you do as you want; no one is ever going to be mad about you going on the Melee forum and talking up how amazing Melee is (quite the opposite; I should hope every smash forum is full of people super enthused about the merits of their preferred game!). Perhaps my original post was not clear in what "support" meant, but that's all I'm asking. I even have the secondary request that, if you truly have such a bitter taste in your mouth about it (something you honestly can't know now given that we know almost nothing about it; I'm terrified of people already ready to attack it even though their knowledge is so slim), just leave it alone. That wouldn't be as good as being a positive force in the overall community, but it's acceptable to hold yourself as neutral and disengaged in all matters smash 4 and for my part I wouldn't be upset with anyone who chose to do that. This is the last thing I have to say about this particular conflict, and I can only hope that at least the majority of people who read this can look deep down and see within themselves that regardless of what they are playing that we as a smash community should be supporting each other and not tearing each other down.

The whole MK thing just makes me really hope that smash 4 just avoids the problem by game design which is pretty likely. I'm sure the developers are acutely aware of the problems MK caused for so many people (griping about him extended far beyond the tournament scene) and are likely to spend more effort not just improving low tiers but also making sure no one character dominates at the top. Namco's help on smash 4 probably has a lot to do with this area, and I trust their competence a lot. I also suspect we may have patches this time around, and those would also address MK style complaints (characters as good as he is would be nerfed eventually so there would be no need for ban talk). It's true though that if the game design ends up the same as Brawl, with that "one character" who is too good but not quite broken but never going away, we will need to talk about it and make a decision relatively promptly and then stick with it. As a player, my inclination is to oppose bans as often as possible, but I'd rather we have a strong decision for a ban than what we did with MK.

I'm happy to see some discussion of the stage thing; anyone who knows me from back in the day knows that I really love stages. I already notice that smash 4 has an interesting design quirk with stages thus far. All of the stages we've seen for the Wii U seem "tame" while a lot of the 3DS ones seem "wild". I suspect this pattern may continue to show itself, and since the Wii U version will be the tournament standard, this would be a great outcome as it would create a winning situation for "both sides". People like me who like many legal stages would easily have it, and people who want stages to be more tame would be happy because the stages would indeed be more tame on average. People who just like zany chaos (I'll admit; it does hold some appeal to me especially in doubles...) would have the 3DS for all the fun that provides. The dev team very well may be helping us out here from the start.

Either way, I do have a basic idea for stage rules and how we can approach them. I have a big theory about why it's the best possible ruleset I could lay out in thousands of words of excellent detail, but I think I'd be more prudent to just say what I would propose from the start.

-We allow every stage except the truly broken ones (demonstrably broken stages like Temple or the really and truly random stages like WarioWare Inc.). There may be a few borderline stages that are "bad in several ways" that we could get rid of with the broad assent of the community, but the general direction would be toward permissiveness.
-Game one is played on a legal stage selected at random. Each player has two random strikes they can use, and the situation of which player uses a strike is handled by deducing a strike from whoever pauses to do the reset first. Once a stage is strick, it is guaranteed not to be used again for the first game (so you don't have to strike the same stage twice if it comes up again). Assuming at least mild rationality from both players, game one is most likely played on a stage that's somewhere within the more fair half of legal stages since two strikes is quite a bit to work with.
-We remove the idea of stage bans for counterpicks. Instead, counterpicking is done like this. First, loser picks three legal stages that have not been used yet in the set. Then winner picks character. Then loser picks character. Then winner picks the stage out of the three stages the loser picked in the first place. This still works as a counterpick for the loser, but it gives the winner several tools to avoid hard counters. It will make the result of losing a game be "get a stage that's kinda good for you" instead of "get your best stage unless your opponent knows you very well to use their ban intelligently in which case get your second best stage".

The exact merits of this approach will obviously depend on what smash 4 actually gives us in terms of stages, but I think fundamentally it's a stronger system than our current one. The starter-counterpick dichotomy mostly encourages the thinking "if a stage isn't fair enough for game one, why allow it at all?" which to be honest is pretty reasonable thinking. There really aren't "tiers of fairness"; either a stage is good enough to be legal or it isn't. The PSABR system is not horrible, but I have a feeling that smash 4 will have too many playable stages to make that realistic (we aren't going to strike through 25 stages). I look forward to seeing more of the stages in smash 4 and seeing what exactly we're being given to work with; that will be a big determining factor in exactly what systems work best for the game.