Heavy Brawl as the competitive standard? EDIT: Could a pro post his/her opinion?

[SmashBro99]

So let's destroy Sonic and DDD's recovery moves, yeah you guys want this game balanced, lol.

If you can't deal with camping in normal Brawl, just stop playing.

 

[Superstar]

So let's destroy Sonic and DDD's recovery moves, yeah you guys want this game balanced, lol.

If you can't deal with camping in normal Brawl, just stop playing.

Well, they mean play styles balanced, not actual characters if I read right. For me, play style balance > character, although to be honest it kinda already is unbalanced as far as I know, it favors both projectile and move spamming due to lack of approach, I just fear that projectile spamming is a bigger problem because of the distance, when you can spotdodge and do defensive techniques to moves done in a closer vicinity. Maybe its because I haven't fought those kinds of people yet, just the projectile abusers.

 

[Kraz]

ok dragz. your problem is simple. You need to get owned by more people while camping. It's been tried against me and they have been destroyed. The gravity is fine albeit different from melee. I loved melee, still do, but that's not this game. Camping is easy to do against people who don't know how to approach it, but against me it's useless. How? i'd rather not say, but if you happen to live in the NE ohio area i'd be glad to show you. Hint? there are AT LEAST 2 options in attacking you didn't list. Figure em out and get on with improving your skillz instead of looking for the easy way out. I'll look forward to the fight when it comes tourney time.

~peace,
Kraz

 

[Aqueus]

Hmm... I've been doing some testing on Heavy Brawl and I have to say I'm slightly disappointed. My results yield that some characters travel vertically about 3/4's the distance by using their jumps. This was mentioned before, but the important thing out of this is that the ceiling of the level hasn't moved. It's not like the ceiling has adjusted to these settings, so characters who could normally rely on a vertical kill (Wolf comes to mind immediately, maybe I just like his 2-hit USmash, though) become severely weakened.

I'm also noting that Pit's ^B is also severely gimped by comparison from Heavy to normal. He only travels about half the distance vertically that he normally does. There are a few other notable comparisons, Dedede suffers in normal Brawl from barely being able to rise vertically with his multiple jumps. Within Heavy Brawl Dedede's jumps don't even make him move a whole character height vertically when jumping. His ^B also diminishes greatly, so that he covers about half the normal distance. This is unacceptable for me, I don't play these characters, but it gimps them, and they function fine under normal Brawl.

 

[JugaBro]

Hmm... I've been doing some testing on Heavy Brawl and I have to say I'm slightly disappointed. My results yield that some characters travel vertically about 3/4's the distance by using their jumps. This was mentioned before, but the important thing out of this is that the ceiling of the level hasn't moved. It's not like the ceiling has adjusted to these settings, so characters who could normally rely on a vertical kill (Wolf comes to mind immediately, maybe I just like his 2-hit USmash, though) become severely weakened.

I'm also noting that Pit's ^B is also severely gimped by comparison from Heavy to normal. He only travels about half the distance vertically that he normally does. There are a few other notable comparisons, Dedede suffers in normal Brawl from barely being able to rise vertically with his multiple jumps. Within Heavy Brawl Dedede's jumps don't even make him move a whole character height vertically when jumping. His ^B also diminishes greatly, so that he covers about half the normal distance. This is unacceptable for me, I don't play these characters, but it gimps them, and they function fine under normal Brawl.

Mabey your not jumping again at the height of their jumps, because I see Pit and King D3 having great recovery. I mean, I see King D3's gimped slightly, but it was overly good already. Pits realy isn't gimped at all. Half the height? Definitly not. Mabey 3/4 like the other characters, but then they are still equal in their height loss. Besides, King D3's upB is not great for offense, since you dont have so much time to dodge it.

 

[Gonzoyo]

I still think that a good enough player would still be able to beat a camping sod.

 

[Aaryk]

Camping has taken a strangle hold on play right now because it is a new game and it is the first thing people have found to be successful. I don't think anything needs to be done about it YET. If, as time goes by, camping remains the only way to win matches, measures will be taken to fix this, such as Heavy Brawl.

IMO, if camping keeps up, I can see everyone just going back to Melee...

 

[Zig-Zag!]

Those videos look like ******** melee

 

[PityLord]

The competitive players are all looking for exploits and glitches... why not just this? It's simple, keeps ALL of brawl's major changes (including the physics system, minus floatiness), emphasizes some of the effects people keep touting as Brawl's deep thinking (the degrading knockback, multiple airdodges, etc.) and STILL provides for a completely different game than melee.

I know it was on page 3 but I like this comment most.

I also were sceptical about high gravity but it looks great for me now. It retains all the defensive options and gives a lot more offensive ones wich leads to an exelent ballance if you ask me. Also the recovery issue isnt big enough I think for it to be a big deal since th auto-sweet spot still gives good recovery for most people.

Im looking forward to see this in action on a tournament.

 

[Doomgaze]

Again, example, please. Otherwise I'm just using anecdotal evidence.

Ganon's dair being pretty hard, and opponent recovers from the hit lag faster than Ganon does from his after-lag. There are MANY more instances of such hard moves which I'm sure you will find by playing the game. The hit lag is SOO low in this game you can't even jab combo certain characters, because they ****ing jab you right back.

 

[KyUuKyUu]

I still think that a good enough player would still be able to beat a camping sod.

What if the camper is a good enough camper? The character approaching has inherent disadvantages, and thus if both players are equally skilled, the camper will win. Then the game is not balanced - camping is better. People begin camping. We come around full circle.

Those videos look like ******** melee

Even though I'm against your position, I lol'd at that sig.

 

[jwj442]

I haven't played heavy brawl much, but I did notice that moves generally knock people upward less. For people who have tested it extensively, are vertical KOs still viable? HOw badly does the nerf in fall speed hurt them?

Also, can the Ice Climbers still do their dthrow-> Nana fair spike trick at the edge? I couldn't do it when I tried, but I didn't try it much. Maybe the timing is just different.

 

[Aqueus]

Ganon's dair being pretty hard, and opponent recovers from the hit lag faster than Ganon does from his after-lag. There are MANY more instances of such hard moves which I'm sure you will find by playing the game. The hit lag is SOO low in this game you can't even jab combo certain characters, because they ****ing jab you right back.

This varies greatly depending on how you do it. If you stomp someone and land immediately afterwards, you go into the 'recovering from the stomp move' animation. If you perform the stomp and then land then you go into the 'landing' animation, which has virtually no lag.

I think this is where I'm coming from, maybe you mean something different:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyhnF4jZa_Y - check in at 2:30 to see Ganon's stomp in action.

 

[DRaGZ]

It's like people are posting without even reading. Jesus Christ.

So let's destroy Sonic and DDD's recovery moves, yeah you guys want this game balanced, lol.

If you can't deal with camping in normal Brawl, just stop playing.

For the upteenth time...I CAN DEAL WITH CAMPING. I, personally, am not hindered by camping.

• My R.O.B. can handle camping.
• My Toon Link loooooooves to camp.
• My Wolf loves to camp.
• Strategically, I have nooooo problem with camping.

BUT THIS IS NOT THE ISSUE I AM TALKING ABOUT. What I am talking about is that camping, whether you can get around it or not, is disproportionately strong in this game! Heavy Brawl makes it so that camping isn't disproportionately strong anymore. I'm not even going to bother explaining why it's better because I've already done it several times.

ok dragz. your problem is simple. You need to get owned by more people while camping. It's been tried against me and they have been destroyed. The gravity is fine albeit different from melee. I loved melee, still do, but that's not this game. Camping is easy to do against people who don't know how to approach it, but against me it's useless. How? i'd rather not say, but if you happen to live in the NE ohio area i'd be glad to show you. Hint? there are AT LEAST 2 options in attacking you didn't list. Figure em out and get on with improving your skillz instead of looking for the easy way out. I'll look forward to the fight when it comes tourney time.

~peace,
Kraz

I think you need to get owned by more people while camping. I think you need to experience the problem camping has on this game, and then I think you'll realize what you're in for when the game continue travelling in this direction.



Aaryk: I think we can fix this if we try this early. We need to have at least one Heavy Brawl tournament so we can at show that this is a viable concept. At the same time, I think if Brawl dies most of Smash is going to die. A large portion of the attention had moved towards Brawl and away from Melee. If Brawl fails to impress now, the concept of Smash will be stained in competitive gaming circles and Melee will go down the ****ter along with Brawl. Sure, some hardcore people will still play Melee, but the community will be greatly diminished.



jwj442: Vertical kills are still about the same. Like I posted earlier, I can still make vertical kills at around 110%, more realistically at about 140% due to the opponent resisting.

 

[Yoshistar64]

This varies greatly depending on how you do it. If you stomp someone and land immediately afterwards, you go into the 'recovering from the stomp move' animation. If you perform the stomp and then land then you go into the 'landing' animation, which has virtually no lag.

I think this is where I'm coming from, maybe you mean something different:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyhnF4jZa_Y - check in at 2:30 to see Ganon's stomp in action.

I just read your response from the petitions thread.

If recovery is the only problem with Heavy Brawl , then look at the problems with a regular Brawl. One is DEFINITELY less campier than the other. One game is faster than the other. And as of now, one seems to be more competitive than the other.

 

[Nitoheilapine]

Actually, heavy brawl is pretty fun... It's the concept of using mods (which is produced by the game) to play in tournaments. It's kind of like the taboo of video gaming. Even if it is a part of the game, many are not going to like it.

((Skipped many posts, sorry if this is just restating things.))

 

[DRaGZ]

Actually, heavy brawl is pretty fun... It's the concept of using mods (which is produced by the game) to play in tournaments. It's kind of like the taboo of video gaming. Even if it is a part of the game, many are not going to like it.

((Skipped many posts, sorry if this is just restating things.))

I don't think it's like a mod at all, and you said it yourself, it's part of the game. We're not distributing demo copies of Brawl from E4All here, we're just using a mode that the developers themselves put in the game. In the words of Sakurai himself:

Please try out a variety of different Brawl settings.

He WANTS us to try different things! This is a different thing, and for the competitive scene it works better than regular Brawl.

 

[PK-ow!]

I have only two things to say, for now:

One, if I could get out into the world, I'd very much like to see someone try these so-called 'campy' techniques against me, because they don't look that invulnerable.

Two, I dispute about half of the "pros" listed in the original post, as "pros". It is begging the question as to what is a better game. For example, saying that Lucario's d-air becomes awesomely buffed - how is that a good thing? You don't know and I don't know, and we don't know if it's bad either. The point is, you have to give a reason for believing that's actually a good thing, because if you don't, I'm just going to take parity of argument and claim it's a bad thing.

 

[DRaGZ]

I have only two things to say, for now:

One, if I could get out into the world, I'd very much like to see someone try these so-called 'campy' techniques against me, because they don't look that invulnerable.

Two, I dispute about half of the "pros" listed in the original post, as "pros". It is begging the question as to what is a better game. For example, saying that Lucario's d-air becomes awesomely buffed - how is that a good thing? You don't know and I don't know, and we don't know if it's bad either. The point is, you have to give a reason for believing that's actually a good thing, because if you don't, I'm just going to take parity of argument and claim it's a bad thing.

Well, people seem to think that buffs to characters are pros and nerfs to characters are cons.

I think I'll relabel them.

Also, it's not that the techniques are invulnerable. They're not. If they were then R.O.B. would never have been hit. It's the fact that they're a lot more powerful and effective than performing an approach. Your reward for camping is much better than it is for approaching a camping opponent in regular Brawl, and camping has far fewer risks than approaching. In Heavy Brawl, the risks are about the same and the rewards are about the same, thus the only way camping really works is if you can do it very well consistently. Therein lies the solution to the problem...

 

[paper_crane]

One, if I could get out into the world, I'd very much like to see someone try these so-called 'campy' techniques against me, because they don't look that invulnerable.

Nobody's saying that camping is invulnerable. But any way you look at it, the risk-reward ratio is a lot better for the camper than the aggressive player, because regular Brawl is a game that revolves around chip damage. To deal this chip damage, you can either place yourself in danger by playing aggressive hit-and-run, or you can get the same chip damage by camping with projectiles and shield counters, which is much safer and easier. If you're trying to minimize your losses, why would you jeopardize yourself with an unwieldy offensive approach when you could achieve the same results with safer camping tactics?

 

[Heavyarms2050]

Holy crap, I play heavy gravity and Link goes no where when he does his up+b, screw heavy gravity.

 

[Nitoheilapine]

I got to admit, the more I play heavy brawl, it's pretty fun. I don't know how to debate this subject cause I never played melee in a tournament scene, or brawl (except for gamestop, doesn't count). It does kill some of the problems I've been having with my friends fighting, but only one of them does competitive and it helped us both.

I've read over the first post and it seems the pros heavily outweigh the cons. A few good points of heavy brawl are with some of my own characters. Most of them are spikes.

For Ice Climbers, Popo into Nana fair off the edge of the stage is just a miracle...

Lucas's Bair spike hexagon punishes those who enter it. His dair causes people to rise if hits people wrong. Heavy brawl (I believe) will make the opponent fall into the third pump which spikes them. I'll try it soon.

 

[DRaGZ]

Holy crap, I play heavy gravity and Link goes no where when he does his up+b, screw heavy gravity.

He goes up much higher if you do it just before the peak of his second jump. Also, due the stickiness of ledges, Link still recovers relatively fine: my roommate, who is not very good at Smash to begin with, can literally run off and nair an opponent below the ledge on Final Destination to kill him and then recover with a second jump and an Up+B. Link is mostly fine I think.

 

[Rebonack]

Holy crap, I play heavy gravity and Link goes no where when he does his up+b, screw heavy gravity.

Hey, even in heavy brawl Link's recovery is better than it was in SSB.

I'll say it again just so someone else doesn't have to. Everyone's recovery is nerfed across the board. It isn't just Link.

Though if you ask me this is a good thing. Edge guarding a recovering opponent is a viable strategy since they can't just DI toward the ledge and tumble to safty anymore. Recovery in the normal Brawl is too good. Pretty much everyone can recover from anything.

 

[Heavyarms2050]

Some characters don't even have a recovery anymore because of high gravity. I die at fcking 45% with olimar because fell to fast to glide back into the stage. And what the point in having N64 up+b for link it doesn't kill anything much alone go anywhere.

 

[DRaGZ]

Some characters don't even have a recovery anymore because of high gravity. I die at fcking 45% with olimar because fell to fast to glide back into the stage. And what the point in having N64 up+b for link it doesn't kill anything much alone go anywhere.

How the heck did you get knocked off that early when you're Olimar? Hehe...seriously though.

Did you have your second jump? I also play with Olimar a bit, and his jumps in general seem fine. So all you really needed was a second jump and his tether recovery.

 

[Rodriguezjr]

Holy crap, I play heavy gravity and Link goes no where when he does his up+b, screw heavy gravity.

I played as him now. He is not that heavy with heavy gravity on.

 

[LouisLeGros]

okay, I finally got about reading this thread. Like a lot of people I'm hesitant to change the game mode like what heavy gravity does.

However, we have done it before with stocks, items and stages so I'm willing to consider it.

I do not have my own copy of Brawl yet (**** UPS!) so I can not test it for myself. Then I think there have been more then enough rants against what can pretty much only be called scrub ignorance.


My thought on this though... what can this discussion really amount to? This is smashboards, but what kind of sway do we have on the competitive scene? EVO & MLG seem to be taking up Brawl and how can we have any effect on the way it is played there?

What the new comers that have never been to a tournament think about this subject isn't really important. The established competitive smash organization would have to embrace this change for it to go anywhere.

 

[Time2Brawl]

I think you should accept the fact that Brawl isn't Melee 2.0 and just adapt to the new game.

Agreed. Stop trying to change the f**king game, there's nothing wrong with it.

"But the spammers"
Deal with it, they aren't that hard to beat.

 

[Heavyarms2050]

I played as him now. He is not that heavy with heavy gravity on.

he feels fine on high gravity, i'm taking about his **** recovery in that mode

 

[LouisLeGros]

Agreed. Stop trying to change the f**king game, there's nothing wrong with it.

"But the spammers"
Deal with it, they aren't that hard to beat.

Congratulations! Your post has been dealt with previously, and is therefore adding nothing to the discussion! Please refer to the important links in the first post, and also read the first ten or so pages to find clear, well-defined responses to your post. Thanks for trying, and please post again once you've caught up with the rest of us.

Love,
The people who want Brawl to succeed in a competitive environment because we love the game!

 

[DRaGZ]

I like that the Marvin response starts of with "Congratulations!"

Hilarious.

 

[Nitoheilapine]

Some characters don't even have a recovery anymore because of high gravity. I die at fcking 45% with olimar because fell to fast to glide back into the stage. And what the point in having N64 up+b for link it doesn't kill anything much alone go anywhere.

Link UpB is rather pushed down there when it comes to recoveries in heavy brawl I'll have to admit. And like the person above me said, how to do you die so fast with Olimar? Either the jumps were wasted early (He plummeted too far below to stage to tether recover), your pikmin stash was too low (Olimar has a long tether recovery with six pikmin. Dunno if it is better than Ivysaur's Vine whip which goes pretty far...), or a combination of the two. There's also edge hogging which destroyed tether but even then, Olimar pops up a bit when using UpB so he should've been able to make it back...

I dunno the circumstances of which character's recoveries become null, but I'm guessing most, if not all, people with a tether-only recovery are screwed. I say tether only cause Link, Tlink, Shiek, Samus/Zamus all can tether recovery if they felt like it. Ice Climbers as well, but belay acts a dual third-jump / tether.

Recoveries that are also seemed messed are the ones that fall before popping up. This is only Diddy's if I remember, but this issue was already addressed in the first post.

The rest of the recoveries are fine if not a little harder to pull off.

-Dedede shoots up ignoring falling speed with his UpB (until plummeting down unless canceled.). His multiple jumps feel like he's a rock with an inner tube in a pool though.
-Kirby's puffs are less noticeable then Dedede when it comes to weight, and his UpB is a staple height.
-Jigglypuff... Oi... She has problems getting back up for those who are not that good with rising pound.
-Luigi's recovery is just sped up. Luigi missle needs to be fired off earlier if you want the correct height. Luigi's tornado... I dunno if this ignores falling speeds or not, but it should because of what I've experienced with Ice Climbers.
-Ice Climbers Belay is now punishable if it doesn't tether to the edge. Nana rockets down to the stage before Popo will finish Belay. Their Squall Hammer height is reduced as well.
-Lucas defies falling speeds with his second jump I believe and he floats in the air for a second when using PK thunder. This should apply to Ness as well.

I've only outlined a few because I'm pretty sure of them. The obvious King of Recovery (Pit) should have no problem with heavy brawl. The Queen of Recovery (Peach) shouldn't either other than her parasol falling just a bit faster.

 

[Mr.Lombardi34]

Agreed. Stop trying to change the f**king game, there's nothing wrong with it.

"But the spammers"
Deal with it, they aren't that hard to beat.

NO! WOULD YOU FRIGGING READ THE THREAD?!

Sorry (This wasn't directed at anyone specifically), I've read this thread from a pretty nuetral standpoint, and the thread's creator clearly DOES NOT want melee 2.0. From the way it stands, heavy brawl brings out all of the good things that brawl has and gets rid of the bad! The problem isn't the spammers, it's the campers. If there's one player who's better than the other, and the worse player camps as the better goes on offense, the better player will not win.

The problem is that camping is brawl's best strategy, and it's lame. Boring to watch, makes matches take ages, and is just not fun in the long run. Turning on heavy brawl makes it so that if there are two players, the winner is not the one who camps the best, but who is the most skilled player.

Now you can flame me back for my opening line, but only if you read my post.

 

[Rebonack]

Some characters don't even have a recovery anymore because of high gravity. I die at fcking 45% with olimar because fell to fast to glide back into the stage. And what the point in having N64 up+b for link it doesn't kill anything much alone go anywhere.

Between Olimar's air jump and his full pikmin chain I'm really scratching my head trying to figure out how you got gimped so early. The only thing I can think of is that someone must have intercepted you after your second jump was already used. In which case bravo for them.

Olimar can recover from near the edge of the boundary on battle-field in heavy brawl. So long as he didn't get spiked or something.

Link's recovery has been covered pretty well already. Everyone is nerfed.

 

[Time2Brawl]

NO! WOULD YOU FRIGGING READ THE THREAD?!

Sorry (This wasn't directed at anyone specifically), I've read this thread from a pretty nuetral standpoint, and the thread's creator clearly DOES NOT want melee 2.0. From the way it stands, heavy brawl brings out all of the good things that brawl has and gets rid of the bad! The problem isn't the spammers, it's the campers. If there's one player who's better than the other, and the worse player camps as the better goes on offense, the better player will not win.

The problem is that camping is brawl's best strategy, and it's lame. Boring to watch, makes matches take ages, and is just not fun in the long run. Turning on heavy brawl makes it so that if there are two players, the winner is not the one who camps the best, but who is the most skilled player.

Now you can flame me back for my opening line, but only if you read my post.

Sorry! Let me adjust that.

"But the campers!"

The worse player, as you put it, is suddenly that much better because he camps? I doubt that.

Camping is not Brawl's best strategy.

 

[Ferith]

Those who say "Stop trying to make this Melee V 2.0" really need to stop, sit down, and read what these guys have to say. They make some great and valid points, and really care for the game.

That said, I have that utmost respect for those supporting Heavy Brawl, and although I disagree with them I hope we can settle this in a calm and relaxed manner.

One point that commonly comes up is the idea of punishment. For a casual player this means nothing (so there's no reason you should be here) but for a competitive player this is a huge deal. This is what makes mindgames worth it- it's the reward for your risk, and you're not getting enough of it. As a result you can't truly punish those who play poorly- seperate the men from the boys.

The thing with Brawl is that it's entirely devoted to mindgames. You can't really combo and airdodges put a flaw in many potential situations. However, this only really means longer battles with more mindgames than before. You're now only risking a hit, and fact is mindgames happen so fast in this game (an Ike player will be mindgaming against fast players constantly simply to have a chance. A Luigi player will be attempting to get his opponent in the air which is Luigi's strong point in order to pull off a good string of four to five hits and knock them over the edge- plausible since air dodging doesn't work all the time, there's a waiting period after an air dodge, and you're bound to get a few hits in. A Zamus player will try to set up their opponent in a position favorable to her whip, and so on.) that it really doesn't matter. You could have several "hit or get hit" mindgames within a few seconds, this game isn't going at the slowest pace imaginable. This becomes more of a mental battle, but one where you can make mistakes because you're only suffering one hit. My friend plays several competitive games, huge on street and virtua fighters, and he tells me that some of his games are extremely intense for the player because of these mindgames but incredibly boring to watch.

He played a player (I forgot his name- started with an R, so we'll call him Rukazio...simply because I think it's close) quite recently in a very intense match for him. He noticed a pattern in Rukazio's strategy and attacked it, and soon had Rukazio in low health. As my friend was happy, Rukazio suddenly flipped the entire thing around him. He predicted every one of my friend's moves after that- told it to him too- told him he'd caught on ages ago, and won an extremely uphill battle with nothing but mindgames- and this is from a guy who's terrible with combos in a competitive fighting game. Point is, a fighting game with dozens of lesser mindgames can be just as intense for the player.

But Fer, the competitive scene will dwindle! We don't want this to end up like street fighter, with a tiny fanbase, we want this to have a fanbase as big as Melee! Well we can't do much about that now can we? Sure we can add heavy Brawl to make things fall faster, but why not just add Metal instead? Because it'll be harder to kill your opponent? No, not true, they'll fall incredibly fast if you can get them off the edge. The entire focus of the game then shifts from racking up percent to simply getting them off the edge as soon as possible and watching them plummet. This is the same problem with Heavy Brawl- Brawl was NOT designed to be fast and combo heavy, it was intentionally designed otherwise. It is meant to be a game played with the mind, and not with the abusiveness of techs and combos and an assortment of glitches. Playing Heavy Brawl may be more competitive, but it changes the focus of the game just the same because recoveries become nerfed. Recovery was something drastically upgraded in Brawl for a reason- the game designers know what they're doing. Fights WILL be longer, they WILL be harder and more mentally taxing as a result. Fights WILL be less combo heavy, they WILL be more mindgame heavy. This focus on mindgames allows slow characters to actually have a chance- it makes the game more balanced to all builds. I play as both Ike and Luigi, and am trying to get into Falco. If I were to throw in Ike in heavy brawl, I'd be destroyed. I'd be combo'd like god knows what and my speed would make me near useless in such a fight. This reduces the playability of arial based characters- Jigglypuff- as well (although I'm not sure whether this is a nerf or a buff to Luigi) It changes the way characters are played, and as a result is bound to imbalance something.

This game has been released for two months in Japan, not even a month in America. There needs to be significant time put into the game before we can decide which option is best. But Fer! We could make it amazing RIGHT NOW! And then we'd be missing dozens of potential possibilities created through regular Brawl's floaty system. It was made to be a floaty game- let's keep Sakurai's vision intact.

 

[Demon Kirby]

Who the hell rated this as an average thread? It's more productive and helpfull than most others at this moment.

 

[LouisLeGros]

I don't remember if this has been posted in this thread yet, but

Scar asked me to come in and explain the fighting game concept in regard to the actual mechanisms behind competitive play. It general fighting games, the entire engine is boiled down to two things:

The Push and Pull: This is where we encounter the term "mind games" most often. It is everything you do to manipulate your opponent, control space on the stage, creating openings to enable you to land either individual blows or combo starters, how you react and pressure shields, etc.

The Punishment: The end result of all push and pull games. Ranging from individual hits to death combos.

In smash, we still have the same basic fighter concept, and are given an additional component:

The Edge: Encompasses all things related to killing your opponent off the sides and bottom of the stage through guarding the edge. This is where we see gimping most often.

For the Smash series, we have seen the balance shift between the push and pull and the punishment.

In 64, there was a heavy reliance on the combo game, making the push and pull less important than being able to consistently death combo the enemy. The only real importance of the push and pull was to make sure you could land one hit before the enemy. (This is a slightly overstated )

In Melee, there was a balance between the push and pull, and the combo game was significantly more balanced with the addition of DI and the reduction of shield stun. There were so many options regarding movement available that the push and pull became equally important as being able to properly execute the punishment.

In Brawl, we see a huge imbalance in the gameplay. The push and pull game has become far more important than the punishment game, as there is such a weak overall combo system. The problem here is that, while they made the push and pull game so much more important, they slowed down the overall game play and removed many of the movement options, and even inserted an unremoveable random variable (tripping) to further gimp movement. Because of this slower pace, the game becomes boring to watch, as we spend more time in the push and pull, then when we manage to initiate the punishment, there is an epic anti-climactic moment because the opponent can't be punished to an extent that would be fair for their mistake. The game is so oriented towards rewarding camping that, competitively, we will likely see projectile characters stand as far away as possible, then shoot as many things as possible until the opponent approaches, at which point they will exchange very little damage, then resume camping. Close range characters have had their options reduced, as players are punished for approaching by running(your only options from run are to dash attack, grab, or jump. Shielding from run puts you at a disadvantage due to the removal of the first frame running shield and the new lagged shield.), and most characters have a disadvantage by approaching from above. Shield grabbing has been upgraded, given the very small amount of shield hit stun from any move, and at the same time ruined because of the inability to combo out of grab, aside from the few characters that now have nearly skill-less chaingrabs.

I will stop at this point, only because the my purpose here is to explain the imbalance of Brawl and why the mechanisms in this game prevent it from being reasonably viable on a competitive level. Sure, they may continue to play the game in tournament and it may even become big, but it doesn't mean it should be. Brawl has ruined all of the work that we, the melee community, put into getting Smash recognized as a fighting game. Brawl is a platformer party game, not a fighting game.

If anyone disagrees with anything, please feel free to respond with your argument so that I can ruin you. I would further elaborate on what I already have, but I'm starving, and it has probably affected the coherence of some of this post.


Edit: @AlphaZealot: The focus from too many players on too many arguments has been on removal of techniques. All of that is not important. This is.

edit:
of course this is in regard to standard Brawl

 

[Mr.Lombardi34]

EDIT: Scroll down, smashboaards screwed up my post in many hard-to-describe ways.