I clearly need to provide a definition of objectively:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/objective
based on facts rather than feelings or opinions : not influenced by feelings
This means while you can make claims about the game, any statements that state "better" are necessarily subjective - I can give an example of the 2 most common ones I see here:
"But Melee is faster than Brawl"
- Necessarily has the logical point that is hidden but definitively present "And I think faster makes for a better competitive game" [which is an opinion - the statement could have the word "slower" in it and would still be just as unprovable. As an example, since a game that is "slower" can allow for more precise inputs, it allows for more mental mastery and slightly less result of reflexes, and then it's a question of if you prefer reflexes and finger speed and some mental mastery or a bit less of each of the former but ever more of the latter - that's a trade-off that is entirely opinion.
"But Brawl is too defensive"
- Necessarily has the assertion "And I think defensive options being strong is bad", which is an opinion, not a fact, and therefore subjective, as opinions are all feelings. There are merits to play being more defensive, such as making every successful offensive read matter all that much more (to better preserve the lead), but I won't bother going into them.
That said, parts of this post just became redundant, but I spent 2 hours typing it, so whatever.
The first question is:
Can you compare two games and how they are as a competitive game objectively?
Imagine there are two movies.
Can a movie have better narrative structure and more complex characters and better acting? I'd say it can. There are definitely grey areas here, but you can also have one movie that has
clearly better structure, or acting, or character development.
When we discuss fighting game design, what makes a fighting game is ability to foster player interaction and support a system whereby you can read your opponent through understanding what they want to accomplish. Fostering a system that makes it a very mental game matters. Ceiling matters too- both physical and mental skill ceilings.
However, watchability matters as well to a lesser extent. If a game is not watchable because of slow pace, if the game rewards the defender too much and encourages camping, or has a lot of infinites, these are errors that can be attributed to game design.
So if a movie has better narrative structure, better acting, better cinematography, and better character development, can we state that it is an objectively better movie?
You CAN objectively quantify these things. In the same way that no film critic
on the planet would say that
The Phantom Menace is a better movie than
The Empire Strikes Back, narrative structure, writing, character development, acting, etc are real elements of a movie that can be *done better*. There are definitely grey areas that fall down to opinion, but there are also cases where one movie is very clearly, objectively, better than the other in terms of narrative structure. It doesn't mean that there aren't people who prefer The Phantom Menace- hey, it's got better action sequences. But The Empire Strikes Back is a much better written, developed, and produced film.
Similarly, I think
Donkey Kong Country 2 has the best game design of the Donkey Kong Country series, but some people might prefer Donkey Kong Country 1, because of the art style and differing level design with less focus on animals. Donkey Kong Country 3 is unanimously considered the worst game.
And similarly, from any unbiased, informed viewpoint by a critic, The Dark Knight is a better movie than Catwoman.
LMBO
Acting is inherently subjective - if you aren't looking for what is normally termed "high-quality" acting, you won't like those things. If all you care about are throw-away jokes, then Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure will be a better movie than any Star Wars movie could ever hope to match [and my dad thinks the best movie ever made is "Masters of the Universe" alongside "Blazing Saddles" and "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure"]. There's NOTHING objective about art because it's ALL dependent on taste (and while you can label my dad's taste "Bad", we can enthymeme out your logic and I could point out all the normative statements that prove you have an opinion, not anything objective).
You picked an art, and art is the most subjective thing out there. Smash is the same way.
You can say The Dark Knight is objectively better than Catwoman from a film perspective. Similarly, Melee is better than Brawl from an objective game design perspective.
I'd argue yes.
You can say one game is objectively better than another. No, there's no point system, and there's grey areas. But there are also clear cut cases where a title is better or worse than its predecessor or sequel.
Depends on how much the grey matters. And that's also wholly subjective - if L-cancelling is a deal-breaker, Brawl will always be a better game because it doesn't have the critical flaw of useless APM-boosters at the highest level. You can argue all you want, but it's subjective.
I'd also say there's nothing wrong if the general art direction or feel of the other movie strikes a better cord with you. Starcraft: Brood War is generally considered a better competitive game than Starcraft 2, but the competitive scene still plays Starcraft 2 because it's good enough and newer.
So the second question is, is it just an opinion that Brawl is weaker in each of these aspects? In what way can I actually say that it is objectively better?
Brawl and Melee are similar enough games that you CAN compare them, and in the vast majority of categories you can compare them in, Melee is designed better as a competitive game.
CCing, L-canceling, the way juggling is skewed, among others... things that aren't in Brawl and [arguably - subjective too] improved the game for it.
When we discuss fighting game design, what makes a fighting game is ability to foster player interaction and support a system whereby you can read your opponent through understanding what they want to accomplish. Fostering a system that makes it a very mental game matters. Ceiling matters too- both physical and mental skill ceilings.
However, watchability matters as well to a lesser extent. If a game is not watchable because of slow pace, if the game rewards the defender too much and encourages camping, or has a lot of infinites, these are errors that can be attributed to game design.
Errors? That's subjective - camping is considered an "Error" because it's not fun, but there is ZERO reason that camping is objectively bad [enthymemes would prove every single claim of "it's bad" needs an "I feel" statement or it's logically incomplete]. Slow pacing is also A) subjective and B) not a measure of a game. Watchability is also completely viewer relevant - some can't watch Melee because it's too fast, that doesn't make it bad. And I personally love watching Brawl - that doesn't mean it's "fast enough" for others.
From a game design perspective, Brawl has a lot more failings than Melee. Lower skill ceiling, more random factors (like tripping), more infinites, slower pace, less ability to convert from hits (reducing the depth of the threats you can level against your opponent, which is important in mental games- imagine Poker if you weren't allowed to put the pressure of the threat of going All In), etc.
Those are all subjective because they all assert that X is better for competitive games - if the point of a competition is to see who can win the neutral more times, and who can convert whatever glancing blows into other glancing blows, Brawl is vastly superior to Melee, end of story (as an example, Puff could win the neutral like 12 times against Fox, but if Fox gets 4 combos into usmash on Yoshi's, he wins - the Puff player was the better reader, but the Fox was better at converting and/or survival DI, and therefore won. Is that what the point of a competition is? Who can make 4 reads and convert, and survive the rest? Or is it who can win the poking game?). And yet the generally accepted (but entirely subjective) goal is not that, which is why Brawl is held in lower regard.
The thing is, we can hold competitions for different things in the same game relative to what we want to look for. Insane combo ability? 64 is vastly superior if that's what you want, because there is no DI and that means combos are harder to escape from (that is a fact, if your opponent always takes the optimal route to a combo, with no DI combos are harder to escape than with DI). Crazy combos but a hope for escape? Melee all the way. The ultimate pokefest, with the goal being to wear down your opponent and slowly force more and more mistakes to capitalize on? There's no better Smash game than Brawl. (Also, I am assuming only non-modded smash games - UMvC3 would also be good for insane combos, as an example).
Randomness is present in both - is it a skill to overcome it? Yes - but we don't measure that.
Lower skill ceiling? Considering Nairo and Zero were still pushing it in Apex 2014 (and I would expect as much at Apex 2015 if it's there), the skill ceiling hasn't been capped. Sure, you might not have to mash as many buttons, but you can always improve how well you read someone - when two MKs can't hit each other but are still moving because of perfect reads of each other, we'll have capped out. Until then, not even close.
You can go all in, it's just harder (I've seen FOW go for a PKT2 offstage to KO someone - it worked and he won because of the trade favoring him, but it's possible to do crazy things like that in the name of victory - AND you're begging the question by assuming being able to go all in is necessarily a good thing - some may argue that Brawl has the only acceptable risk-reward for that, and that it's too rewarding in Melee, at which point Brawl would once again be the better game competitively).
Brawl is NOT worthless in any of these category. It's a valid fighting game. But Melee does each of them better.
I've already explained various aspects of what subjectivity actually IS, and various examples that should prove this false. BUT, line-by-line!
Nearly every change from Melee to Brawl has negative design reprecussions, in terms of game speed, player interaction, and combos. (More on combos below.)
You and nearly everyone else can fetishize speed, but that doesn't mean faster actions = good - forcing people to react faster won't necessarily make the game better, just more filled with errors - and while you have to force errors to win, forcing errors when they have more ability to react (or whatever - more airdodges, better ability to counterattack and recover) would show more skill than flow-charting a spacie recovery (yippie for them).
. Reduced shield stun made it easier to punish hits on shields. This made approaching riskier.
More bang for your buck when you do succeed - there's no objective reason that offensive play should be the defining factor of the game, not ONE objective reason out there. EVERY SINGLE REASON YOU CAN NAME is INHERENTLY subjective because they ALL rely on the claim "
and I think x is better", and the words "AND I THINK" are the
crippling flaw. You gotta fake them out more, make their shield shrink and stab it, or reposition to punish them for sitting still, but relentless shield pressure (Fox dair shine) is not necessarily a good thing.
. Same as above, improved defensive play.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with improved defensive play, unless you already have a subjective framework that says "offense is good". And this actually gives players more OoS options, so if you want options, hey look - Brawl has more in the shielding department - it outclasses Melee there.
. Improved defensive play.
I'm getting redundant because you are using the same subjective argument. It's not inherently or objectively better to have better offense. Not proof at all.
Ability to interrupt hitstun
. This eliminated combos. The elimination of combos has has many negative effects:
* If you cannot combo, hitting someone defensively and aggressively is equally valuable. Hitting someone with a nair out of shield is just as good as rushing them down with a nair (unlike in Melee, where defensive attacks weren't as good because they are less likely to be set up for a combo).
* If you cannot combo, projectiles become more valuable, because individual hits are the end-all-be-all of punishment. In Melee, if you camp, each projectile does one hit, but if your opponent catches you, they can do five or six hits. In Brawl, each projectile does one hit, and if your opponent catches you they are going to hit you once, so why approach with a projectile? This improved defensive play.
* If you cannot combo, comebacks become much less likely, and there is less payoff from big risks. Imagine Poker, if betting was capped so players could not go All In. Losing games would get dragged out, because the losing player cannot take a big risk to get back in the game or lose it all.
* If you can break out of hitstun, you can do an attack and jump immediately to survive longer. This leads to VERY long survivability in Brawl.
All of these improve defensive game.
Elimination makes the game more about footsies and neutral. If someone wants to make a game about that (as I discussed above), then that makes Brawl the ultimate footsies measurer and therefore the best competitive fighter out there (except Dive Kick maybe?). It's about what you think constitutes a competition, which is subjective, and why all your arguments fall hopelessly apart.
As to specific points:
- The best Melee players turn defensive hits into tech chases and combos. I don't see your point. Also that means you can transition smoothly from defense to offense
- Projectiles are awesome. I don't see why encouraging heavy use of projectiles in more than one matchup (Fox Puff) is objectively bad. Oh wait it's not you just assert it is when you don't know what the word "objectively" means.
- Comebacks are more focused on gimping in Brawl, last I checked - and characters still have true combos anyway, they just don't last for 80% (not that having 80% combos is good or bad - it's all opinion). Each read becomes more important - you had to fall far behind by a series of bad reads, and so you have to make the difference up to get back. You have to pony up more risk with the offstage and hard reads in Brawl than in Melee - that's not a bad thing at all.
On another note I don't understand why you say comeback mechanics like Rage are bad, but then state that the inability to make comebacks is bad. If you think it should be all player-driven, fine, but given that comebacks are generally considered (subjectively) to be exciting, mechanics that encourage it would seem to be a plus in a subjective book of yours - you get to see people have more need to finish it before they lose and the other player has higher hopes and a bigger incentive to go all in.
- Survivability is a testament to good DI and momentum cancelling - those are ATs that are relevant to competition (depending on what the best is supposed to be able to do), and actually adds an element of survival other games lack (though it removes some combos, I fully acknowledge that).
Related to that:
Strength of punishes matters a lot as far as depth in decisionmaking. Melee allows for much harder punishments if you DI wrong or make the wrong choice, which puts a lot more risk in many decisions. A great and simple example in a competitive game is Poker (Texas Hold 'Em). Imagine if Poker didn't have the ability to go all in and limited raises to three times the previous raise. It would not only make the game go slower, and prevent legitimate comebacks, but reduce the depth in decisionmaking, because you often wouldn't be able to pose a great enough threat to push your opponent off of hands.
Brawl is like this raise-capped version of Poker. The weak punishments harms the game in a number of ways. It doesn't make the game noncompetitive, but it hurts the game as a whole by reducing the mental threat a player can exert.
DEHF is a "mental terrorist" (some commentators called him that as a compliment, I do too) for a reason - he's a master of making a whole lot out of nothing. Like I said above, if you can worm your way in, force them to make more and more errors, you'll get so many punishes that even if they are only 7% each, they quickly add up to in excess of 80% or more, which makes it much harder for them to come back.
And the key there would be getting in their head - you have to make all the right plays, which
in my opinion takes far more skill than making a few powerful combos, but that's not how others value it so the general consensus is different from my opinion.
Poker has even more RNG than Smash, so it's clearly less competitive, although that's entirely tertiary to what's being discussed - I just question the relevance of art, something where subjectivity is king/queen (is it offensive, or art, to have Brooke Shields pose nude as a 10-year old? Teri Shields thought "art") and Poker, where RNG can make anyone a champion (hey, get a Royal Flush and go all in, if a poker king makes a wrong read and calls your bluff, the new player's first hand ever beat the grand champion - something that would NEVER happen in Smash if a pro made one wrong read once in a match against a newer player).
As I said above, the ability to recover from unforeseen setbacks could be viewed as important in competition (and the ability to capitalize when they happen to someone else). I'm not saying I particularly like this line of reasoning, but it is one that does adequately demonstrate that reevaluating our subjective opinions and positions on what competition is, and what skills we look to test, could ultimately make tripping something that is actually valued as testing that skill further.
And every gem has its flaws. *cough* Melee *cough*
Brain-dead juggling doesn't test skill. Or at least, in my opinion it doesn't - making the playing field more level would be an upgrade to some and a downgrade to others - this is once again premised on the faulty assumption that bad defensive options or options that favor offense objectively make for a more competitive game -
they do not.
I think juggling is less one-sided in Brawl, but that's just me, not some fact that makes a comparison objective by any stretch of the imagination.
improves defensive game by preventing followups. The slowfalling characters in Melee are the hardest to combo (Samus, Luigi, Jigglypuff), and in Brawl everyone falls at those speeds.
Read the landing. It's another skill that's vital in Brawl that's not nearly as tested in Melee, unless you count tech-rolling, but I don't.
mean that players cannot overshoot the ledge, improving defensive play by removing the need for precision for recovery. This reduces player interaction, since there is no longer a guessing game of "is he going for the sweetspot or not?" as the player can sweetspot at any time rather than having to fake out his spacing to obscure whether he is aiming for the sweetspot.
Some characters don't have this (first and foremost), but it also means the edgeguarding player must be more active and go below the stage lip more often - more risk for a greater reward (the gimping) and that is arguably better for competition than double jab -> counter -> b-reversed up+b 4 times in a row. A larger sweetspot does not preclude interception - it just means the edgeguarder requires more skill to do so, and if more skill is what we want to see, Brawl clearly has the edge in the edgeguarding department (Melee has the edge in recovery skill required, but that's not always skill so much as an opponent guesses wrong or messing up, since there are times when a character literally has no options that can't be covered, which happens less in Brawl, meaning the Brawl player must commit less until they see where the opponent goes, and therefore would react faster, which would still be something more competitive in edgeguarding at least if testing reflexes is desired - and if skillful edgeguarding is the only thing people want to compete over, or feel it is the defining factor, then Brawl beats out Melee. That is not the prevailing opinion which [part of] is why it's not though).
And not everyone can go for the sweetspot whenever - Dedede, Sonic, Snake, Wario, "Wolf" [that thing is TINY], Peach backwards while floating (not sure about on the way up...), Ike, .half of Luigi's recovery (side+b and tornado - I'll say only half because super jump punch is used a lot of course) are who I can think of.
Also another case of nothing being perfect.
Improved recoveries initially seem like "different instead of worse", but what happened is that a small number of characters- Metaknight, Pit, G&W, and a few others- have such good offstage play that the ledge is their most advantaged position. This lead to planking, and then scrooging to get around the artificial ledge grab rules. This is literally the equivalent of a Street Fighter game in which the walls are a safer position than the center, so the community makes a "no back to the wall for too long" rule to fix camping. It's just bad game design.
Those both assume that camping is bad - it may be boring to watch, but if the goal is to play to win, do what it takes to win - if it's legal, do it, regardless of what others think.
This may actually somewhat lower the skill ceiling, if we're not testing for planking ability, but you have to hit the opponent at some point. This is also why every game ever has rulesets about these things (Temple is banned because of Fox - does that make Fox's camping ability in Melee a bad thing? No it makes that strategy and stage something we ban - so we ban the same strategy in Brawl, it just happens to be present in other areas.)
Also, gems have flaws (mainly the ledges being plankable, not recoveries being better).
Game balance. Metaknight is far better than any character in Melee relative to his cast, and Ice Climbers are absurdly good because the lack of combos makes their chaingrab way stronger (their opponent can't zero death them back). Dedede has chaingrabs on half the cast that makes them unviable. Ness. Lucas. Lots more of the cast are just unplayable in Brawl due to the environment with very very skewed matchups/
Play a spacie, ICs, be a titan, or be Axe or aMSa if you want to break top 5. Yeah, Melee is balanced.
Oh wait...
Sheik invalidates like everyone not in the top half (Dedede is her replacement). Fox and Falco are the two strongest and beat everyone else except Marth and Samus (Falco has other even MUs but whatever, that's what Fox does). ICs and MK do the same thing - MK does it on one character (except for sort of Pikachu), and Marth also invalidates anyone without range in Melee.
In Brawl you have like 10 viable characters - the top 9, and Fox and/or Wolf who have a pocket TL (that's sufficient coverage, you could go elsewhere). Meanwhile, in Melee you have 2 viable characters (3 because Marth can handle the top 2) and some players who make the others look viable - but go to tournament results and check how often people place that aren't one of the top 5 or a spacie - it's incredibly low (Wobbles, thanks for playing ICs well). But ADHD won SKTAR 3 (I think that was it), a solo Snake main took 2nd (MVD), and an Olimar took 3rd (Denti). The odds of no spacie being in top 3? The odds that M2K, Armada, Hbox are the finish AND that Hbox doesn't hit M2K (who would go Fox), or if M2K is not there, put Axe, aMSa, or perhaps Mango's Falcon. That's very, VERY low odds. In Melee, at BEST, being generous, you have 6 viable characters, 7 if you have a backup for ICs (Peach problems) (Captain Falcon struggles against spacies and Sheik too much with them being half the tournament), so if you do the math:
9/39 = ~25%
7/28 = 25% (I think it should really be 4 and 4 players).
The game balance isn't really any different, except MK polarizes things. If you ban MK, the game balance in Brawl actually improves significantly, with no one having no losing MUs. In Melee you need to ban Fox and Falco, which then needs a Puff ban since Fox is illegal, to remove characters with no losing MUs.
. In Melee, you could cancel a run by crouch cancelling, dash dancing, or wavedashing. In Brawl, you can't cancel a run except by jumping. This means running is a commitment in Brawl (the runner is going to dash attack or shieldgrab). So, Brawl players rarely run. This lowered game speed, as players had to walk to move safely.
Pivot grab, tomahawk anything, spotdodge, roll back, shield drop -> anything, upsmash, RAR bair.. there are tons of options.
I have also read various arguments about how dash-dancing not having any form of commitment is actually a really bad thing, and that pretty much all forms of movement in all other games have commitment (you can't block while walking in any other fighter). If you want free, safe movement, then ok, Melee is better, but that's a subjective opinion, and other fighting games also have most movement options requiring commitment. If everything should have a commitment, which is the case in other games, then Brawl is superior by this measure, and I have talked to people who play other games and say as much - they don't like Smash because movement is "too easy" and too safe.
Removal of L-cancelling with no corresponding reduction in aerial lag.
This resulted in all characters having longer landing lag. This not only reduced game speed because of longer landing lag, it also lowered game speed by forcing people to aim for autocancel windows (usually meant people could not fastfall their aerials), and it improved defensive play by making many moves unsafe on shield that were previously safe AND it reduced followups to attacks.
MK got lag reduction
Joking aside, autocancelling aerials adds an element of strategy - instead of mashing the shield button and subsequently down+B, you have to actually space your aerials to make them safer (Marth has a safe fair, Falco bair is relatively safe, among other things), and this requires more in the spacing department. Melee had it too, but as my hyperbole of Fox should explain, it was not nearly as relevant on some characters.
It also encourages position-based follow-ups, where you force the opponent into a worse spot and continue to capitalize over and over - the "mental terrorism" I mentioned earlier, which may be more desirable to some.
Assuming safety on shields is good is assuming that the game should be oriented towards strong offense and bad defense - that's an opinion, not an objective fact.
Infinite combos and chain grabs. Brawl has much, much more of these. Dedede has infinites on five characters out of a grab that makes them unviable, Fox gets infinited by a half dozen characters, Wario gets infinited by 3-4 characters, etc etc. There's at least a dozen or more wall infinites in the game as well, and tons of chaingrabs that DON'T require DI chasing.
Wobbling, waveshine infinites. Dedede's infinites are usually banned (and the characters I can think of are unviable for other reasons, except Wolf?), and non-DI chasing CGs exist in Melee too (Marth's fthrow shenanigans on spacies are one example). Having to DI CGs that last up to death if not DI'd is arguably worse than having CGs that are not DIable but only last X percent (Dedede is like 30% or something). And walls are banned for a reason, those exist too in Melee (a top comment in a set of Wobbles vs Axe was "Nice 211% wobble Axe" because he trapped Wobbles with Pikachu's jab on Pokémon Stadium - that stuff happens in Melee too, and on a very common stage, unlike in Brawl where you MAY see Pokémon but it's not something all the spacies will CP to almost every time).
You also assume DI-less CGs don't make for a competitive game, but they raise the acuity required to make sure one avoids grabs, and the reward for grabbing (an offensive option) becomes higher. That said, ICs present in both games still locks this down hard.
In every measurement of a good competitive game- in depth of player interaction, in game speed, in ability to make comebacks *without* a rubber banding mechanic, in viewability- Melee is better designed than Brawl. Every game change in Brawl served to make the game more defensive and campy, make interactions slower, and make the game less of a spectator sport, as well as less balanced.
Not less balanced (that's above - Brawl's bottom tiers have a chance against some members of the top, but the top 8 all hard counter the bottom 4 in Melee - not true in Brawl at all).
You've begged the question by saying "I assert that campiness is bad, therefore Brawl is worse" when what I'm contesting is that campiness is objectively bad. It's not, and you are not able to quantify why it objectively would be (and you can try - I'll keep pointing out all the opinions you sneak in to make your claims). Better reactions due to more time on both ends could make the reactions much more "skin of one's teeth" and the like, which could make it all the more intense to watch. Is that a bad thing? Some would say yes, I don't think so, but that's my opinion, not an objective fact.
I enjoy spectating Brawl doubles far more than Melee doubles - it's much easier to follow and still very engaging, and team combos are vital in Brawl compared to 2 1v1s that can occur in Melee more often. In terms of singles I also still love spectating Brawl events - Melee matches are fun too but there are only so many ways to shine spike someone.
This isn't a matter of opinion- this is game design and knowledge of the game. Brawl's game design encourages defensive play, encourages not fastfalling and early aerials to land autocancels (slowing the game down), makes projectiles and defensive hits too powerful due to poor rewards on offensive hits, and makes the ledge way, way, way too good.
You don't seem to understand what an objective fact is - Brawl's game design encourages those things, sure, but "poor rewards" is subjective (again, ultimate footsies for the ultimate mental master) and "way too good" is the definition of subjective, because your definition of "way too good'" and Mango's definition of "way too good" and someone else's definition of "Way too good" can be (are) vastly different.
It's perfectly fine to prefer Brawl to Melee! Don't get me wrong. But it's unquestionably the best designed game in the series (unless you count Project M, then you can argue).
Poisoned Melee? The only two words I ever enjoyed reading from Xyro, but I was counting real Smash games here (Brawl- > Project M, because it has a competitive depth that's more entertaining [though most refuse to see it, looking only skin-deep] and it's not just a Melee rip-off [except for Fox, but that's part of why he's Minusy]).
I'll keep arguing, relentlessly beating people over the head with the definition of the word "objectively", until people stop claiming that a normative statement can ever be objective, because it can't be by definition. When people stop making objectively false statements (namely, using the word "objectively" in their opinions"), I'll stop getting out the dictionary and de-bunking arguments point-by-point that claim to be objective when they aren't.
Melee is not some perfect paragon that can never be defeated, but almost all of the design changes had negative effects that can be documented and quantified. The number of new mechanics with positive influences on the metagame (like glide tossing) are very, very, very low.
I don't even know how positive glide tossing is - if you have an item, should you be able to move out of shield with it? If you roll, should you be committed, even if you can throw an item? These are all subjective, and therefore can't be known to positive (as much as I like glide tossing and DACUSing, it's foolish to argue they are objectively positive things).
So, despite thinking Brawl is way underrated by Melee players, I very strongly attest that from a game design perspective Melee should be looked at as the best designed game in the series. That does NOT mean that you have to play Melee. That does NOT mean that you shouldn't play Brawl or pick up Smash 4. Saying Starcraft: Brood War is generally considered better than Starcraft 2 doesn't mean you need to abandon SC2. But in the context of these discussions, Melee is better than Brawl, objectively, and can be looked at in that light for game design comparisons.
I already play Melee, and Brawl, and I've already more than disproven that your inability to use the word "objectively" correctly makes the last sentence hilarious only for its utter falsehood.
And I think Melee is a fantastic competitive game, but CCing is definitely something that could be pointed to as a flaw - artificially buffing shines and making some moves (and Roy as a character) nearly worthless when they otherwise would not be - that's arguably a bad design choice too, but people defend it to the death as well, having misconceived notions that their opinions and feelings constitute objective facts, when they never have and never will.
CCing also has strong merits that cause many to label it a positive - I'm not saying I think it is or isn't, but it's another facet of a mechanic that is rarely considered, assumed to be positive because people ignore repercussion of it.
I'm also not saying you can't think now and forever that Melee is superior to Brawl, but claiming your (admittedly popular) opinion to be something objective is just factually incorrect.
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Related to your last point, I don't really feel like helping with data entry, given how much argumentation I've had to type up (this was about equivalent to my longest post in the debate hall) and how my typing predisposes my feelings to people I've not actually met [I'm judgmental - boo-hoo], but give me the weekend to cool off and I may see about helping out.
