You know what, I actually read this article, carefully.
I can't believe I'm doing this either...
This is despite the fact that most human beings wouldn't be able to see the difference in how the games play unless presented with a head to head comparison. Even then they may not be able to see it. Unless you're accustomed to the lightning fast pace of competitive Melee play, the differences may be undetectable.
This statement is flawed because while most
human beings wouldn't be able to see the difference, most
smash brothers players would be able to see and feel the difference.
So if the differences are minor, and tripping is a rarity, why did Brawl cause Melee devotees to feel so robbed? It's because contrary to what many may think, the core appeal of the series isn't watching a bunch of Nintendo characters hit each other into space and then explode. The thing that really makes playing Smash Bros, particularly Melee, feel different than other fighting games is the absurd level of control that it allows you to take over your character.
He's half right.
The appeal of competitive smash brothers is due to the control a player has over their character, but that's not the core appeal.
I'm going to just assume he meant air dodge and ignore that.
Smash Bros. allows you to do the most amazing things without really trying.
False because you have to have the control of your character to do the amazing things. The controls are simple to understand and your attacks are easy to preform.
When every character in a fighter has this many abilities, the game becomes not so much what strategies you choose, but how fast and efficient you are in implementing them. This eventually turned most high level Smash Bros. Melee play into a race to get in there then start a poke and fake routine until your opponent makes a mistake. Any sort of long distance game, alternating between closing in and backing off, or anything but fast, short range normal attacks has been mostly thrown out the window. The most statistically successful and commonly used characters (Fox, Sheik, Captain Falcon) all are all about speed and risk reduction, making the game a contest of reflexes and dexterity more than anything else.
He underestimates the value of the strategy.
The strategies implemented in smash brothers are essentially the same as any other fighting game at it's core.
"Make your opponent make a mistake."
From a viewer perspective, it all looks like reflexes and dexterity, but there is more to it than just that. Those do play an important factor in smash though.
To put it bluntly, competitive Melee has become a game that attracts impatient control freaks who want full authority over their player character and their opponent at all times, leaving nothing to chance and no time to wait and see how a situation will unfold.
A very biased statement.
People just want the heavily controlled and fast paced gameplay that is intense and enjoyable to play.
Increasing chance reduces control, and the small amounts of time that are waited can be some of the most crucial seconds.
In a game like smash brothers, it's not every second that counts.
It's every frame that counts. Waiting those extremely short times is the difference between combos linking together, making just the right move, outplaying your opponent, or even winning the game.
Physically, not much time has passed at all in 4 seconds, but in smash, that could be a literal eternity and like I already said, the difference between victory and defeat.
The consensus began to preach that if you wanted to maximize your chances of winning at Brawl, you has to minimize your chance of tripping by dashing as little as possible. This lead the most dedicated Brawl players to master the art of playing defensively,
I haven't played competitive brawl, but I just don't believe that this is true.
The reason for defensive play is because it's strategically bad to play offensively all the time in Brawl. You will get punished for it, regardless of tripping.
If tripping was in melee, it wouldn't of suddenly turned the game into defensive central, the only thing it would of did is lower the effectiveness of dash dancing and you would see people only resorting to it when they are trying to pressure the opponent or evade oncoming attacks as opposed to doing it even when it's not necessary.
Tripping doesn't fit in a culture that values winning and being in control over experiencing new things and overcoming new problems. This is why I love it. Tripping forces the players and the spectators to remain on the edge of their seats all the time, watching and wondering if something "unfair" is about to happen, and what that will lead to. Tripping just means you can't just follow a series of recipes from the "How to win at Smash Bros" cookbook. It means you have to be ready for anything.
Opinionated statement.
Not everyone enjoys watching unfair things in games, even in real games. he makes an allusion to the elements of nature being present in sports, but
if it was possible, those elements would be removed in order to make the game more fair for everyone.
Even without tripping you can't follow that recipe. The game is dynamic and ever changing. The fact that he doesn't know this shows how unversed he is with the game itself.
In Brawl, every dash is a test of character, a display of willingness to play the odds. That kind of acceptance of random elements is what elevates a game to a sport.
Starcraft exists as a complete contradiction to that statement.
Or would he like it if everyone played with partially broken keyboards as well?
They're willing to face the fact that in sports and in real life, some amount of chaos and discomfort is inevitable. It's their love of the game and their passion for self improvement that pushes them to face their fear of the unknown.
Because there is nothing that they, or the people they work for, can do anything about.
They face those things because that's the rules of the game they play. Those variables exist and they have to take it into account. Not because they want to, but because
they have to. A Video game doesn't have to adhere to those standards because it's something that you can create. Those type of things don't have to exist and in the end, make the game fairer for everyone.
A game where 1/50, or even 1/5 dashes lead to a trip would be an exciting, hilarious decent into barbarism.
For about the first few seconds it might be funny or "LOLOLOL XDDDD U TRIPPED" but overall the game will become unenjoyable because of bad design choices.
And this article maker as a watcher might think it's funny to even watch, but after a bit it will be stale because of this design choice.
Ugh, I don't know why I'm even trying with this guy. It's like he would be more excited from a football player slipping on something than another football player taking him down.
Even better than that would be a mode that punishes players for attacking an opponent after they've taken a random fall. We instituted a system like this back at my local arcade when Street Fighter 2 was new. Everyone who played in our town knew each other, and we all agreed that throws were against our rules, as they were "too cheap".
It may be hard to imagine that kind of sportsmanship in today's world of online rage quitting and near constant anonymous trash talk, but that's the way it was.
Home rules are not good for the competitive scene.
At my own home I don't edgehog, it's not interesting and makes the fights less intense. I could see the same thing for grabs in traditional fighters as well since I feel the same way
at home.
However, he says it's "Too cheap" with the quotations so at least he understands the same as I do that those moves have very valid and strategic uses in a competitive environment.
To have those kinds of rules built into the next Smash Bros could make for an extremely interesting dynamic. If you take a "cheap" hit on an opponent and a red or yellow card is thrown in, you're going to have to face consequences. Maybe the player who was fouled on would get a free Smash Ball attack in compensation, or worse, the offending player may be removed from the game. In Ice Hockey (both in real life and on the NES), those kinds of risks are taken regularly, sometimes as part of a larger strategy. It may be smarter to take out a particularly opposing player with a cheap shot, even if it means being taking out of the game with them. That kind of thing is a lot grosser in real life, as it's real people getting physically assaulted, but in Smash Bros, it's just a relatively harmless foray into calculated crime and punishment.
For a fighter, that would be the epitome of bad game design.
That differs from eSports, where every effort is usually made to remove variables that detract from overall "fairness". I'd argue that valuing "fairness" too much only works to make games feel fake. All games, including sports, are based on the way we naturally order our lives. Consciously or subconsciously, we all conceive of arbitrary win states to strive for and rules to follow in order to make those wins "fair." We assess our capacity and our worth by our ability to obtain those wins "fairly." What makes that experience feel "real" is balancing those fixed rules and goals again the mushy, inconsistent nature of existence. Living things are not a series of ones and zeros. We're all amorphous, ever-shifting blobs, whether we like it or not.
I won't argue with this opinion, but I heavily disagree with it to the point where I really want to bang my head into something.
I prefer games that give me the opportunity to safely practice dealing with a flawed, unfair world and an even more flawed, fallible person (myself) than games that work to provide a perfect fantasy where I have total control and predictability.
Ahem.
"Just play Brawl.
"
