Global Standardized Version of Melee

[Bones0]

@Mach
in fighting games every option has a response, it can be either correct or incorrect. styles of play arise because of personal patterns or habits in selecting a response to stimulus.

keeping that in mind you need to understand that the only difference between top level play and other areas of play is that there are more correct responses and safe decisions present in the game. we know that peach is solved because we understand why and how she must respond to being attacked in certain ways, and while she has strong responses in certain cases that can be very punishing, all it takes is to avoid those situations and you will be dealing with a limited character.

falco is solved because we have reached the ideal method of falco play, we know what a falco looks like, we know what a falco abusing his character's tools looks like. laser aerial. laser dashdance aerial. laser retreat. laser approach. laser safe poke. laser commital action. with this being the meat of falco every other interaction is correct response and incorrect response. you will never see another style of falco because any style that doesn't play around his lasers is suboptimal, this is why falco is optimized. once a player has developed all tools that tie in with lasers, directly into a developed and dynamic combo game, you are seeing the pinnacle of falco play.

peach works in the same way because of her limited speed, she and falco are very similar characters. both operate on a flowchart and have little room for personal style because they are only dominatingly strong along a certain avenue of game flow. fox and marth are far less constrained when you start looking at the game from that perspective.

So Falco is solved... until people start powershielding more often and lasers become less common. Wow, it's almost like he isn't even solved at all... :O

 

[BTmoney]

I'm for 100% PAL to make things easier. it's actually just balanced better. Let's not act like NTSC is better lol.

I imagine too many people would hate switching to PAL so a compromised version could be best option. But I see none of this happening, cause it would be kind of hard to convince the general body to stop playing NTSC especially cause smash is viewed as an "American" game and then there is everywhere else (not being nationalistic). Not only that but it seems like a massive reach to make people play a modded version NTSC/PAL combo and not just one or the other.

tl;dr PAL master race and I don't think there is a real argument for NTSC other then convenience.

edit:

And no one appreciates how ridiculously good 2014 PP Falco was. He plays very, very different from everyone else and his character never looks exploitable in his matches. I never watch PP v. X character/player and think man Falco has it hard now. He made Falco v. Fox look like it was almost Falco favored v. Mango lol. His ideas and movement are very effective and not being replicated or improved on by anyone else. Maybe sometimes Falco in this meta looks like he struggles with Peach but really that is it (and debatable).

 

[Yeroc]

You can argue for the idealization of the game above all other considerations, but at the end of the day, convenience is really important for actually promoting adoption. Widespread recycling of waste is a good ideal and I think most people can agree on that, but until it becomes more convenient than throwing things away, either through municipal subsidization and support or through dire shortage of resources making material goods prohibitively expensive and thus recycling becomes a vital necessity, it won't gain popularity. That's just how people work. We can, and have throughout human history, argue until the cows come home about the best way to go about building and improving society. But we just can never seem to put some of those ideals into practice.

That said, you also run into other issues like people who have no interest in adopting PAL whether or not it truly is more balanced because NTSC is what they've played for years upon years and aren't interested in "improving" Melee.

 

[Varist]

So Falco is solved... until people start powershielding more often and lasers become less common. Wow, it's almost like he isn't even solved at all... :O

you're being facetious. if falco's laser is powershielded he either powershields it back and shoots another laser at some point or he eats whatever punish comes after the powershield. did you think falcos were going to invent some other technique to deal with people who stop their lasers? a falco without lasers is a slow fox.

i seriously can't believe your argument is "eventually people are going to be powershielding everything", you really believe in this 20xx **** son

 

[MookieRah]

While I don't agree with Varist in general, I do agree that the idea that everyone will powershield lasers to the point they become a detriment to Falco is absurd. We've known about powershielding for a long, long time. Lasers are also one of the easiest things in the game to powershield, and people have had the chance to practice and improve their skill in this area, but you hardly ever see a very high success rate. On top of that it's also much harder to follow up on a powershielded laser than it is to follow up on a laser that is shot. You either have to commit to reflecting before hand, or have what is most likely inhuman reaction times.

To get back on topic, I think that right now Smash is obviously bigger in the US than the rest of the world, but it's still growing in other places. Not only that, the US is largely ignorant of the world. Just because the US is the most known group and overall the most skilled, doesn't mean that there are actually more players than the PAL player base. Again, the point of having a standard is so that everyone in the world is playing the same game. PAL should be considered as the standard despite the use of NTSC in the US.

Also, as pointed out, several NTSC players prefer PAL, and it's also the latest official version of the game. I know there are also PAL players that prefer NTSC, but I honestly don't think there are as many NTSC defectors as there are PAL defectors.

 

[Bones0]

Nowhere did I say people would be powershielding every laser... I specifically said "more often", and for most players that probably means less than half the time, a percentage I've easily surpassed myself already. If Falcos are eating punishes from PSed lasers, they will laser less often or favor it less/more in certain situations. This has, to an extent, already occurred. Falcos have to be extremely careful doing lasers on top of people these days because players can option select PS grabs with no downside whatsoever. How can you claim a character is solved when his main tool has such a glaring weakness that people do not utilize as often as they could?

This is all just a single specific example. There's any number of techniques or strategies that will become more developed over the next year, next 5 years, and even the next decade that will shape the metagame into something radically different. To say a character is solved is to ignore such potential and ridiculously naive and arrogant.

 

[Varist]

Laser-observe-action is falco's fundamental playstyle and that will not change. you're not convincing anybody it will just because powershielding exists. and you definitely aren't convincing anybody it will change when you haven't even come up with the next 'evolution' in falco play. there is none, that is the character at his core and to argue that he isn't solved because powershielding exists is ridiculous

falco will have no new game strategy against the top 4 in the next few years because that is simply the meat of the character and to assume he will find some magical new tool...? I can't even call it optimistic, it's just delusional

 

[Bones0]

Laser-observe-action is falco's fundamental playstyle and that will not change. you're not convincing anybody it will just because powershielding exists. and you definitely aren't convincing anybody it will change when you haven't even come up with the next 'evolution' in falco play. there is none, that is the character at his core and to argue that he isn't solved because powershielding exists is ridiculous

falco will have no new game strategy against the top 4 in the next few years because that is simply the meat of the character and to assume he will find some magical new tool...? I can't even call it optimistic, it's just delusional

Why does he need a magical new tool to laser sparingly? The punishes opponents get off of PSing just have to be good enough to dissuade lasers. They don't have to negate everything Falco does. Even if PSing wasn't a factor, just because Falcos will be lasering and DDing in a year doesn't mean it will be done in the same way. You're just acting like PP has been laser-DDing for years while totally ignoring that Mango's Falco looks nothing like his in neutral and still competes at a high level.

 

[Varist]

and you're ignoring that mango's falco is inconsistent against players who have reached his level of play for exactly the reason you unwittingly described. there's a reason he won 2 evos with fox, not falco. that he covers the jiggs, the peach, the sheik, the marth, and sometimes the falco matchup with fox.

mango's falco competes at a high level but only barely at a top level. if you want to ignore the trend of dying falco mains you can but the character is very satisfyingly solved. his neutral game strategy is understood well and he in fact does not look that different among different players. for every character the community has used mango as their one shining example that the game can be played in funner and less optimal ways, but that was when not all players were as good as mango was. if you're fighting someone who's as good as you, you play as optimally as you can while staying unpredictable in which responses you request of your opponent.

 

[Bones0]

and you're ignoring that mango's falco is inconsistent against players who have reached his level of play for exactly the reason you unwittingly described. there's a reason he won 2 evos with fox, not falco. that he covers the jiggs, the peach, the sheik, the marth, and sometimes the falco matchup with fox.

mango's falco competes at a high level but only barely at a top level. if you want to ignore the trend of dying falco mains you can but the character is very satisfyingly solved. his neutral game strategy is understood well and he in fact does not look that different among different players. for every character the community has used mango as their one shining example that the game can be played in funner and less optimal ways, but that was when not all players were as good as mango was. if you're fighting someone who's as good as you, you play as optimally as you can while staying unpredictable in which responses you request of your opponent.

Mango won 2 Evos with Fox because that's who he primarily played when Melee got back into Evo. lmao And I'm not ignoring the trend of dying Falco mains or the fact that Mango has always used Fox vs. floaties, but I don't see how a character's popularity or success at top level has anything to do with him being solved. If anything, you would expect a ton of Falco mains getting success just by emulating PP's example of "perfect" Falco.

 

[trilok]

Also, as pointed out, several NTSC players prefer PAL, and it's also the latest official version of the game. I know there are also PAL players that prefer NTSC, but I honestly don't think there are as many NTSC defectors as there are PAL defectors.

What I think is the case atleast, right now:
NTSC= majority of players
people from PAL that want NTSC= small percent of PAL players
people that want NTSC->PAL-> Moderate amount, but not majority.
Overall people that want NTSC: probably still the majority. Regardless of the percentage of defectors, the overall population matters more.


Even though it might make sense to go to PAL between the two from our current metagame perceptions of balance, I also think picking and choosing is nerfs/buffs between the two is stupid for various reasons(The nerfs happened when sheik was 20SZ broken haxxx and jiggs was invisible. Look at sm4sh patches even early on when diddy was ignored and the rest of the perceived top tiers got nerfed hammerred, mostly based on japanese tournaments even). I believe the standardization at this point in the lifecycle of melee will only cause irritation and divisiveness which now would extend within a nation. I think this would become a case similar to that in this comic: https://xkcd.com/927/ . Adding this global standard, especially if there was picking and selecting nerfs/buffs would not lessen the amount of variation, but rather increase it as its existence of a new standard. To accomplish a standard, we would need a monopolizing body of people/TO enforcing it. Our community has shown that it has issues conforming to a set standard even considering stagelists and the legality of wobbling. I agree with the thought of a standard, but I think its impractical.

On a sidenote: I think the falco discussion should be moved elsewhere as the discussion has changed from why current metagame perceptions might be arbitrary and fallacious to extrapolate a permanent global standard from into whether falco sucks or not.

 

[1MachGO]

Laser-observe-action is falco's fundamental playstyle and that will not change. you're not convincing anybody it will just because powershielding exists. and you definitely aren't convincing anybody it will change when you haven't even come up with the next 'evolution' in falco play. there is none, that is the character at his core and to argue that he isn't solved because powershielding exists is ridiculous

falco will have no new game strategy against the top 4 in the next few years because that is simply the meat of the character and to assume he will find some magical new tool...? I can't even call it optimistic, it's just delusional

Not gonna lie, Varist, I don't find any of your arguments to be all that credible.

Your evidence to prove Falco is "solved" more or less boils down to the claim that he uses an option and can maximize his success when he uses that option. You could honestly make the same statements about Fox and dashdance:

fox is solved because we have reached the ideal method of fox play, we know what a fox looks like, we know what a fox abusing his character's tools looks like. dashdance aerial. laser dashdance aerial. dashdance retreat. dashdance approach. dashdance safe poke. dashdance commital action. with this being the meat of fox every other interaction is correct response and incorrect response. you will never see another style of fox because any style that doesn't play around his dashdance is suboptimal, this is why fox is optimized. once a player has developed all tools that tie in with dashdance, directly into a developed and dynamic combo game, you are seeing the pinnacle of fox play.

Look at that... it works. Of course, it is worth mentioning that you somehow consider using a character's option as homogenization of "style". Style typically refers to preference in strategy (i.e. aggressive, patient, manipulative, tricky, etc.) and the options you use correspond with those strategies. This isn't to say some characters adhere to certain styles better than others, but when it comes to very organic tools like dashdancing or lasers, it is often up to the player how they wish to apply them.

In other words, Falco using lasers because they're good =/= solved. There are many functional ways to use Falco's options and this is made evident by how different Zhu, PPMD, Mango, and Westballz play from one another.

If we are talking about "innovation in play" then I suppose Westballz platform camping Peach was a pretty good example of some underutilized strategies that definitely aren't perfected. I also can't stress enough how unoptimized Falco's combo game is in regards to maximizing advantageous positioning. We see lots of big platform combos. Some lead into kills, some build lots of percent, and others are simply able rattle the opponent as much as possible. What we DONT see are combos which progress horizontally and force edge guard situations as often as possible (the "Hax" style). Falco has the option coverage, poke game, throws (mainly fthrow), and edge guarding tools to pull this off, but we haven't really seen any Falco's perfect this approach quite yet.

And this is probably what you are really missing, Varist. PLAYERS comprise the competitive scene and the "game" would be nothing without them. Why did it take 13 years for a Falco to camp a Peach on battlefield? Why don't more player's ledge stall? Why is Falcon more "fun" than Sheik? There are so many confounding and emotive details that drive the meta that you might as well consider "4 stocks, 8 minutes" a guideline and not the "rules". 100% optimal, TAS play would probably consist of two players going to their respective ledges and ledgestalling for 8 minutes until they reached a draw. In the REAL world, PPU ken combos over the stage because he KNOWS Shroomed will DI away. An ordinarily suboptimal option becomes an optimal response because it beats the PLAYER, not the GAME.

TL;DR/Conclusion: Your goal is to use strategies which beat your opponent and those strategies can be both irrational or in-vacuum-smashboards-tested-logical. Players better than both of us put together have proven this, so stop pretending Falco and Peach are "solved" and "optimized" when the game is merely at the whim of who is playing it.

 

[Varist]

falco's combo game is actually pretty roughly optimized and the reason you don't see those horizontal combos very often is because of falco's limited horizontal mobility. it didn't take 13 years for a falco to camp a peach on battlefield, it just took 13 years for you to see it because you only watch the big tournaments.

your example of suboptimal options is sketchy because you assume in the first place that the option is suboptimal but beats the other action. if it beats the other action it's optimal isn't it.

falco also lacks the option coverage marth and fox have so there's that misconception you have.

i find it interesting that you still think of aggressive as a term that applies to this game when that has been a popular misnomer for what is actually happening in a high level game for a while.

i'm not pretending that falco is solved, it should be as clear as day that he is. every character follows rules of engagement when they're in a certain matchup or else they get hit. falco's rule of engagement against a character with better attributes than him involves the gun because the gun is his character's differentiating attribute. you can choose not to use the gun as a mixup but you can't play through an entire match with an equally skilled opponent without forcing an advantage with the gun.

the four falcos you listed play differently than one another because they're different people. people make suboptimal and panic decisions and no one is ignoring that those exist, but you are ignoring that we are aware in every situation what the safe play is and it's just a matter of composing yourself in the game to reach that type of play. there are few mysterious neutral game situations for falco left and in general for every character and the fact that we have that understanding makes him solved.

the revolution in marth playstyle that has been happening recently is clearing the haze on a lot of the gimmicks that people got away with. falco also had a largescale false perception of his abilities because of mew2king's inability to play the matchup against him properly for a long time, and mango being the most clutch player we saw falcos beating foxes because the best players were using falco.

marth is becoming solved but it happened later than falco which is why you seem to be marking up his potential. falco was playing against players who chose the wrong options very frequently because there was no common understanding of what the response to lasers was. a lazy answer exists that is being mentioned in this very thread, powershielding, but that's not actually what you need to play against falco. his lasers are divisive for the lower end of the cast in the same way marth's range and fox's speed are divisive but against an optimized playstyle on characters with developed options, we realize that the attribute of the gun is not quite as important as the attributes of range and speed. you will continue to see this trend as you already have in the last several majors.

 

[1MachGO]

You keep using this word "we", but who else is agreeing with you?

All of your counterarguments are vague statements which don't disprove anything:

falco's combo game is actually pretty roughly optimized and the reason you don't see those horizontal combos very often is because of falco's limited horizontal mobility.

I wasn't aware Falco had Luigi tier horizontal mobility. Thank you for clarifying how that attribute invalidates his poke game, fthrow, uair and dair set ups.

it didn't take 13 years for a falco to camp a peach on battlefield, it just took 13 years for you to see it because you only watch the big tournaments.

Irrelevant statement since top level play is where theory is tested. No one would give a **** if low-level-Falco x camped low-level-Peach y at some local. Westballz camping Armada shows the technique is viable at top level. Marth's pivot fsmash set ups on Puff were known previously, but no one gave a **** until PPU beat Hbox at Apex.

your example of suboptimal options is sketchy because you assume in the first place that the option is suboptimal but beats the other action. if it beats the other action it's optimal isn't it.

Not sure what you are trying to say here. I said "ordinarily" suboptimal but it becomes optimal in that situation.

It was to illustrate that your bland, binary view of the game is incorrect because there are innumerable situations where mix ups are present or habits can be exploited. The point is that you should operate to counteract your opponent; not the game.

falco also lacks the option coverage marth and fox have so there's that misconception you have.

I mean, other than the fact that practically the entire cast can't dash dance vs. Falco and has to play around his lasers. Falco can put his opponent on the defensive better than any other character in the game. Its just that lots of Falcos get anxious and try to shine pressure whenever they see a shield instead of waiting for an OoS option to punish.

i find it interesting that you still think of aggressive as a term that applies to this game when that has been a popular misnomer for what is actually happening in a high level game for a while.

Wtf are you even saying here? Are you implying I did anything more than cite "aggressive" as a style of play?

i'm not pretending that falco is solved, it should be as clear as day that he is. every character follows rules of engagement when they're in a certain matchup or else they get hit. falco's rule of engagement against a character with better attributes than him involves the gun because the gun is his character's differentiating attribute. you can choose not to use the gun as a mixup but you can't play through an entire match with an equally skilled opponent without forcing an advantage with the gun.

The logic of this argument is flawed. Again, Falco using lasers because they're good =/= solved.

"i'm not pretending that marth is solved, it should be as clear as day that he is. every character follows rules of engagement when they're in a certain matchup or else they get hit. marth's rule of engagement against a character with better attributes than him involves the sword because the sword is his character's differentiating attribute. you can choose not to use the sword as a mixup but you can't play through an entire match with an equally skilled opponent without forcing an advantage with the sword."

~sigh~

the four falcos you listed play differently than one another because they're different people. people make suboptimal and panic decisions and no one is ignoring that those exist, but you are ignoring that we are aware in every situation what the safe play is and it's just a matter of composing yourself in the game to reach that type of play. there are few mysterious neutral game situations for falco left and in general for every character and the fact that we have that understanding makes him solved.

If the best Falco players are making suboptimal decisions, then how is Falco solved and optimized?

the revolution in marth playstyle that has been happening recently is clearing the haze on a lot of the gimmicks that people got away with. falco also had a largescale false perception of his abilities because of mew2king's inability to play the matchup against him properly for a long time, and mango being the most clutch player we saw falcos beating foxes because the best players were using falco.

marth is becoming solved but it happened later than falco which is why you seem to be marking up his potential. falco was playing against players who chose the wrong options very frequently because there was no common understanding of what the response to lasers was. a lazy answer exists that is being mentioned in this very thread, powershielding, but that's not actually what you need to play against falco. his lasers are divisive for the lower end of the cast in the same way marth's range and fox's speed are divisive but against an optimized playstyle on characters with developed options, we realize that the attribute of the gun is not quite as important as the attributes of range and speed. you will continue to see this trend as you already have in the last several majors.

Falco's lasers are merely one of his tools much like Marth's range and Fox's speed.

Your argument is laced with recency bias in regards to Falco's recent results and hypocritical, hindsight bias in regards to Marth.

The stagnation of the Marth meta circa 2009-2013 is similar to what is happening to Falco now. In fact, what happened to Marth was far worse because the next best Marth after M2K was PPU (who didn't really get good results until 2012 I believe) and other than that, we had Taj's lone Genesis 2 result.

Falco can catch up and innovate. Its not like PPMD's strategies and feats with the character are suddenly irrelevant because he favors Marth on a personal level. Saying he is "solved" is just as short-sighted as the people who were saying "Marth can't beat floaties and isnt top 5" in 2012.

 

[JKJ]

My vote is for the following:

PAL Fox (all nerfs save for the weight reduction)
PAL Falco
PAL Sheik
NTSC Marth
PAL Yoshi
PAL Falcon
NTSC Ganondorf
NTSC Samus


Also, I think it should be 1.0, so that all the unnecessary nerfs to low tiers are reversed.

 

[MuraRengan]

In the interest of keeping Melee interesting for years to come, I'm all for the idea of a tweaked Melee, but I'm not exactly convinced that it should be as simple as mixing PAL and NTSC. IMO, Melee's health and lifespan would be best lengthened by making some of the less popular characters able to fit in with the popular meta, and I think that would require changes to character physics and move properties which are more drastic than the PAL version offers. I don't think we should be nerfing high tiers, since the majority of the player base is intimately accustomed to the minute intricacies of those chars. Rather, I think lower tiers should be buffed so as to compete with the already established meta.

Oh, and meteor spikes should be pretty much eradicated.

 

[Clint Jaguar]

All I want is NTSC Marth.

 

[Varist]

I think it should be PAL marth because spikes are op in this game and marth is already op, and it should also be ntsc marth weight so fox can still combo him

 

[Yeroc]

This thread has become proof enough that a hybrid version of Melee is a terrible idea.

 

[MookieRah]

I agree with Yeroc. I went in knowing it'd be a can of worms, but the responses have only shown that there is no way a hybrid could ever work in the current climate.