Has the gap between skilled players and less skilled players increased in brawl?

[Blad01]

I agree with this thread. The gap between noobs and top players is larger now that 10 months ago. That's because the game has evolved, we now know how to deal with "broken" moves, and mingames are an important part of gameplay today.

 

[MookieRah]

I think the fact that we have a split in the community to where we are modding the game to be more competitive speaks for itself. We could have modded Melee if we wanted, but it didn't need it, as competitive players didn't feel the need to change anything.

In the years to come, I predict that there will be a casual smash community that revolves around Brawl. You will see anime convention tournaments and all sorts of stuff like that playing it, but the competitive community will more than likely move to Brawl+ over time.

 

[-Ran]

Basically it's a monkey see monkey do game. Monkey's get the game and see MK or snake played and they then they practice it and within a week or 2 they are max levele

Alright, I expect to see your name as the best in your region starting next month.

 

[Dark Sonic]

At upper levels of Melee play where technical ability is high, "all players" are able to use the 'same tools' (wavedash, L-cancel, chara-specific techs) and it breaks down to who can bait the opponent into mis-spacing to begin strings of moves for damage and/or kill.

He is not talking about high level players playing against each other. He's talking about high level players playing against low level players, in which that technical barrier does in fact widen the gap between them.

The better player wins in both games, however in melee, the gap is still wider. The better player not only out thinks the low level player, but also beats him in tech skill since the low level player wasn't even dedicated enough to tackle a small technical barrier.

edit: I just saw your post and I agree. The skill gap has widened since brawl's release, and it will never ever ever be wider than the skill gap in melee.

I believe that melee's skill gap was actually a good thing, since it kept scrubs out of tournaments (quality over quantity)

 

[The Real Gamer]

Lets not turn this into another Melee vs Brawl...

It happens all the time.

Every single time the word "competitive" or "skill" is associated with Brawl, Melee comes out of nowhere.

It's like a dumb rule.

 

[Archangel]

Alright, I expect to see your name as the best in your region starting next month.

Why that response to that quote? All do you feel I'm downing your skills? Tell me when did you start playing smash? If you started in melee and made the jump to Brawl then even you've got to admit that the game is almost too easy to master. If you just joined in the game and you feel your the best in your region its probably because you are....but why?

The strategy is simple....You get the best players with the most effective moves or you Main their counters.....only options. Basically I see Brawl as a waist of Player selection screen space. If only 5 or 6 can compete against each other then why are the other characters even there?

 

[ShenCS]

They're only modding it because they don't want to feel like they wasted 7 years of their life.

 

[Phyvo]

They're only modding it because they don't want to feel like they wasted 7 years of their life.

It can't possibly be that they're modding it... for FUN!?

 

[AAP]

ok so... if we're not comparing skill gap difference (skilled / noob) between melee and brawl, what are we comparing? how the skill gap has increased since the game came out, then thats just obviously stupid. For it to do anything other than increase, means the noobs are getting better, the skilled are getting worse or both. So unless they're teaching the finer points of smash at Wal-Mart with every copy of brawl i'd say the gap will likely increase until it plateau's (when that is, is a whole other debate). And unless someone comes up with some AT's that apply to the whole cast and make gameplay faster, the melee skill gap is still bigger.

 

[thesage]

I actually think that with the loss of tech skill, it makes it harder for newer players to get as good as the current ones. I mean, once you have powershielding lasers down, the Peach vs. Falco matchup is a joke.

 

[Tenki]

He is not talking about high level players playing against each other. He's talking about high level players playing against low level players, in which that technical barrier does in fact widen the gap between them.

...

I believe that melee's skill gap was actually a good thing, since it kept scrubs out of tournaments (quality over quantity)

I meant it as a comparison as to why the 'tech skill' issue sort of breaks down at a higher level, because it almost always breaks down to who the smarter/better player is.

And my, there are alot of scrubs at tournaments :<

It's such a straight forward game that anyone can reach the max level in Brawl within a month. My mother actually can play the game competitively....no joke she isn't half bad either..lol. It's funny and sad at the same time but that's the way it was built. Slow, Stiff, Blocky, Laggy, Floaty. Basically it's a monkey see monkey do game. Monkey's get the game and see MK or snake played and they then they practice it and within a week or 2 they are max leveled. I'm not talking **** about the game but it is what it is. A simple game which makes the gap much smaller by default.

The strategy is simple....You get the best playersedit for vocabs: characters with the most effective moves or you Main their counters.....only options. Basically I see Brawl as a waist of Player selection screen space. If only 5 or 6 can compete against each other then why are the other characters even there?

The plateau that people need to reach to be able to perform moves with their characters is low. But between higher level players and people who think "oh, I just need to learn ____ technique, and I'm on the easy road to top 8", there's alot more dynamic that you're understating, or rather, not exposed to - mainly where people actually think, space, feint, and counter-predict each other.

I noticed a trend where all the 'speed' (reaction ability, tech skill) that players use are focused on defensive situations (wasting as little time in shield as possible to counterattack, powershielding, SDI, correctly DI'ing fast moves) than they are in offense situations (approach, etc).

SDI out of Metaknight's F-air and tornado consistently, punish him out of shield (and specifically, those moves) consistently, SDI through/out of GAW's B-air.

The thing is, not everyone can do that. Why else would people be complaining about how they can't punish Metaknight, how _______ character/move/tactic is overpowered, etc.

 

[EnjoiLove]

Eh, usually spammers just spam a certain move that seems quite either appealing or doesn't need skill involved. Like a certain friend of mine, he likes Wolf for his fsmash and his laser. So all he tends to do is fsmash-laser-laser-fsmash. Though he is learning to change. Thank goodness.

 

[Roager]

Brawl has skill involved. It is not the same skill that melee had. We know this. Brawl skill is focused upon strategy, mindgames, spacing, etc. Melee skill is focused upon combos, quickness, AT's, etc.

You can say Melee is a more skill-based game if you want to. I don't really care. Go back to melee if you want, feel free. But don't ***** and whine about how bad Brawl is. Admit that it is a very different game, make your choice, and leave it at that.

And even if the pro-n00b gap isnt as vast now as it was in melee, it is much more pronounced now than summer 2008.

 

[Irsic]

Nobody had truly had perfect technical skill in Melee, though.

And it should have been obvious how my previous post related to the topic at hand. There was a huge technical gap in skill between those who have played more in Melee, and less in Melee. The significance and limit of technical skill in Brawl is much lower than it was in Melee. With mostly only the metagame to go on, the difference is smaller.

I really don't believe that's what he was going for. More like Brawl now compared to Brawl in May, where people believed the gap was barely visible.

 

[Illomatic]

well of course the better player would win against a worse player
but i kinda get what you mean, i dont think the gap has widened

 

[da K.I.D.]

roager is absolutely right....

he is trufax

pick one and dont bash the other. or both i love both.

 

[Archangel]

If the game has skill to it Perhaps I don't see it. If you mean killing someone after they tripped and killing them is skillful then perhaps you've got the wrong definition of skill. The game takes no effort...Zero. I've only lost a competitive match like 5 or 6 times...ever. It's not because I'm "That good" It's because their is no escape from Tier on this game. It's basically the Bible lol. MK isn't a problem once you've played him Over 9000 times. I'm just tired of everyone I play using Snake or MK. Brawl is only fun in 4player matches with Items on when your just BSing around. In a competition....well there simply isn't one. So I've learned how to use Diddy Kong to beat MK...who cares. Diddy's entire attack is based around throwing an Item at someone so they slip and can't move. I can do it but it just seems pretty gay...but if you experts say that's skill then...okay.

 

[Redson]

Spam_Arrows, I 'm forced to agree with Ran Iji on this one. If Brawl is so easy, and if it requires so little skill, go and place first in a few tournemants, eh? Do that, then come back and tell us that Brawl doesn't require skill. Waste of character space? That'd odd, considering that Melee had a few wasted characters as well IE; Pichu. Come on, not every character is going to be tournament viable. There are always going to br broken/notbroken characters in every fighting game you play. In a sense, there are a lot of wasted character spaces in a lot of fighting games, but it doesn't matter, because people will play them regardless. Despite Pichu's epic fail in Melee, people still played the rat, didn't they?

The game may not require as much technical skill as Melee did, but it's a separate game, people. Stop continuously comparing it to Melee when the game is clearly titled BRAWL. Some people like Brawl more than Melee, despite not needing as much skill. I agree with others when they say that Brawl is more strategy oriented than Melee was, and Melee was more Tech skill oriented than Brawl is. (I'm sorry, that's an *IS* on both of them. Present tense. I still play Melee from time to time. I don't htink it'll die any time soon.)

Also, to answer OP's question, yes. I Do think the gap has increased since May. Dramatically, at that. More experienced players are simply...more experienced, there's no other way to say it. They know how to bait and set the enemy up for an attack, while Noobs justgo around flailing around spamming whatever attacks they can.

Oh wait, I think I just got Troll'd by a PIT MAIN.

 

[AlphaZealot]

Brawl, unarguably, requires less technical skill to play well than melee does, so unless there are people walking around winning melee tournaments without wavedashing I think that the limited technicality diminishes the gap between the best players and the worst players.

So what your saying is that the gap between skilled chess player and an unskilled chess player is slight because they each have equal amounts of technical skill (unless a person has no arms or something I guess).

At Season Beatings III, with 67 people, I 3 stocked (out of 3) every opponent until Winner's Semi-Finals.

Last weekend at a tournament with 35 people I didn't drop a single game until Winner's Finals.

The gaps have been increasing and will continue to increase for some time.

 

[yummynbeefy]

I never thought of this, it's probably because of all the people getting Smash for Christmas.

yea some people getting smash are probably alright or maebe even really good but it probably is the cheif cause once we get to june 09 itll be back to normal

 

[Clone Z]

IMO it increased.

Melee focuses on mindgames and tech skill.

For Brawl tech skill is less demanding so mindgames have more priority, which the good players have due to experience, prediction, etc...

 

[Xexailo]

i still find brawl hella more fun, i dont give a flying crap that its different and OH NO! THE PROS HAVE TO CHANGE THEIR PLAYSTYLE BECAUSE NINTENDO ARE SOPPOSIVELY A$$HOLES FOR MAKING THIS NEW GAME FEEL LIKE ITS A NEW GAME AND not the same old crap (not saying melee was bad i played it since it came out all the way till brawl came out) thing is guys, seriously? dont take it seriously... its fun right? and thats all that matters

 

[MyCurse4Life]

Maybe its because of the controls.

 

[theONEjanitor]

yes the skill gap has increased. anyone who plays this game competitively knows the answer to this question.
the only people who think "anyone can win in brawl" are people who don't play this game with any kind of seriousness and who are basically trolling

or possibly people who live in a region where everyone sucks.

melee and brawl are two COMPLETELY different games. stop comparing them. they require different skill sets. saying "they both have mindgames" is insufficient. I have passable techskill in melee, but I'm still below average in the competitive scene. but I'm above average in brawl. so "having mindgames" isn't a sufficient way to describe what it takes to win either game.

There were more things going on in Melee, obviously. The skill gap in Melee was MUCH wider than in Brawl. But that doesn't mean the game was better, or more competitive. The skill gap in Counter Strike is absolutely heinous, and It's probably less competitive than games like Halo 3 with a smaller skill gap.

they are two different games. don't compare them. just play what you like and shap

but @ the OP. yes the skill gap is increasing and will continue to increase.
the best players in my region continue to win every tournament because they are the best players. if brawl didn't have a skill gap, the winners would change every tournament

 

[Red Arremer]

the only people who think "anyone can win in brawl" are people who don't play this game with any kind of seriousness and who are basically trolling

Fun fact: Although anyone can win in Brawl, I'm way better in Melee and get my *ss handed by lotsa people in Brawl. OMG!

I laugh at those Bralw-sux trolls.

As for the topic, the answer is:
Yes.