Is a Melee like game the way to go?

[Black Mantis]

Is there any confirmation that its the tekken team and not just namco? Cause I wouldn't find it hard to believe if the partnership is purely menial work to help with the long development cycles of smash (cause samurai feels the need to start from scratch every time) and possibly support some namco characters and by namco I mean pacman.

My hopes are that Evo will show competitive smash off to the namco guys who attend to protect sfxt from falling into obscurity lol

Yes, the Tekken staff is one of the people on board. Soul Calibur too
http://www.joystiq.com/2012/06/22/namcos-smash-bros-team-includes-tekken-tales-soulcalibur-sta/

Soul Calibur>>>>>>>>>>>>>Melee too

3d fighters are harder to play than 2d fighters anyway.

 

[El Duderino]

SmashChu spoiler alert:

Brawl-ified Melee would sell around 11 million, Melee-ified Brawl would sell 7 million or worse.

Soul Calibur>>>>>>>>>>>>>Melee too

I'm not a Tekken player, but do play lots of SC. I would absolutely disagree, but it's like comparing apples to oranges. Completely different fighting games on any level of play.

 

[Black Mantis]

3d fighters tend to be harder to play because the extra dimension adds another layer to the gameplay.
Random fact:Tekken players were wavedashing way before Melee players were.

 

[Kink-Link5]

I find 3D fighters diffult because they're so slow. It feels like I'm trodding through molasses even when tapping 88 or 66 or 44 or whatever. All the positioning comes from just having to remember how every single move moves you since they're what will be doing most of the movement for you. SC2 seemed to have a better pace for a 3d fighter but it's still sluggish. If they feel like **** to play I'd probably like them more.

 

[bertbusdriver]

i hate myself for reading this entire thread.

The competitive aspects of melee didn't hurt casual sales/retention in the slightest bit. For each respective game, casual players would still get destroyed by someone that made bracket at APEX. And if they really cared about appeasing casuals, they would have gotten rid of chaingrabs and infinite grab-release regrabs (IIRC this is why ness is bad in brawl.).

Then again, super casual players are playing with items FFA, so character balance and gameplay mechanics are pretty vastly different. They wouldn't give a **** if smash 4 had much of the underlying melee mechanics in the same way PM does.

Last I checked melee sold 8.1 million copies for 21.74 million Gamecubes. Brawl sold roughly 10 million for 96 million Wiis. You're free to interpret that however you'd like.

 

[Big-Cat]

Tekken is a 3D traditional fighter and it differs a lot from Smash. Hopefully, the Tekken team (if they are working on Smash) only implements things in a way that suits Smash, and doesn't make Tekken 7 out of Smash.

Actually, they're not too different from each other. Both have the same fundamentals albeit in different fashions. They als oboth have an emphasis on movement. The difference is that Tekken exploits the Z axis while Smash ignores it and exploits the Y axis.

A lot of aspects in Tekken and not in Smash can be transferable with some changes. Things like crouch dashes (a new wave dash), strings, and deeper blocking are examples. Still, you can't play one like the other, but knowing the fundamentals of one CAN transfer to some degree.

 

[Vkrm]

Yes, the Tekken staff is one of the people on board. Soul Calibur too
http://www.joystiq.com/2012/06/22/namcos-smash-bros-team-includes-tekken-tales-soulcalibur-sta/

Soul Calibur>>>>>>>>>>>>>Melee too

3d fighters are harder to play than 2d fighters anyway.

So more difficult = better game? Melee > brawl then, close the thread. Time to start playing shaq fu.

 

[El Duderino]

Let's be honest here, anyone that wants squash SSB4's competitive potential does so because they hate playing technical players, our rules, and/or want us eliminated. It's about as anti-inclusive of a view you can get while still ironically implying to promote a game for everyone.

The beautiful thing is this is largely a matchmaking problem that has already been solved with MK7's Custom Communities:

So basically, if you plan on avoiding competitive play, it's time to stop whining about the associated technical barriers and rules. Instead, embrace a game that makes improvements across the board.

 

[goateeguy]

http://www.1up.com/news/masahiro-sakurai-reflects-super-smash

in Sakurai's own words: "There are three Smash Bros. games out now, but even if I ever had a chance at another one, I doubt we'll ever see one that's as geared toward hardcore gamers as Melee was. Melee fans who played deep into the game without any problems might have trouble understanding this, but Melee was just too difficult.""

 

[Vkrm]

Melee was too difficult but KI uprising wasn't? I'm not convinced. And with all the effort by the melee community recently plus bamco working on smash4 it's not unreasonable to be slightly optimistic toward its competitive viability.

 

[volbound1700]

Tekken is a 3D traditional fighter and it differs a lot from Smash. Hopefully, the Tekken team (if they are working on Smash) only implements things in a way that suits Smash, and doesn't make Tekken 7 out of Smash.

@volbound1700: I see your point. But Melee selling the most units on the GC is indeed an accomplishment when taking all the great games released on that system into account. Brawl has only been outselled by casual games that don't have received outstanding reviews, except for Mario Kart Wii, which is actually a good game with a solid online experience (as well as having hardcore elements).

People remembered Melee and bought Brawl. The new consumers consist mainly of casual gamers that played Melee at others' places.

I do not think it speaks heavily that Brawl was outside by Wii Sports, etc. So was Call of Duty, Halo series, Super Mario Galaxy series, Skyward Sword, and all the other games put out that generation. Also I do not think GCN had better games then Wii. Wii had the Galaxy Series, DKCR, two Kirby games, Fire Emblem classics, Pikmin 2, NSMB Wii, Rayman Origins, and a lot of other great classics. Overall Wii has more great titles then GCN.

I will agree to your last sentence though that Melee could have sold fans to Brawl.

 

[Strong Badam]

lol @ calling Pikmin 2 a Wii game.

 

[volbound1700]

Was it a re-release?

 

[Ove]

Actually, they're not too different from each other. Both have the same fundamentals albeit in different fashions. They als oboth have an emphasis on movement. The difference is that Tekken exploits the Z axis while Smash ignores it and exploits the Y axis.

A lot of aspects in Tekken and not in Smash can be transferable with some changes. Things like crouch dashes (a new wave dash), strings, and deeper blocking are examples. Still, you can't play one like the other, but knowing the fundamentals of one CAN transfer to some degree.

I am not convinced. Can you please repeat what specifically make Smash and Tekken so similar? I highly disagree with both having the same fundamentals. Heck, the only thing they have in common is that they both are fighting games... And Smash isn't even a "traditional" fighter! Tekken doesn't emphasize movement like the way Smash does. Smash emphasize stage control, Tekken depends more on small manouvers and neat tricks (e.g. side-steps).

When it comes to strategies, combos, techniques, in-game content (that counts to), movesets etc., Tekken and Smash are miles from each other. So please Kuma, help me see the similarities.

Sure, Smash can learn some aspects from Tekken, but like I said earlier, it has to be in the fashion of Smash.

 

[Big-Cat]

I am not convinced. Can you please repeat what specifically make Smash and Tekken so similar? I highly disagree with both having the same fundamentals. Heck, the only thing they have in common is that they both are fighting games... And Smash isn't even a "traditional" fighter! Tekken doesn't emphasize movement like the way Smash does. Smash emphasize stage control, Tekken depends more on small manouvers and neat tricks (e.g. side-steps).

When it comes to strategies, combos, techniques, in-game content (that counts to), movesets etc., Tekken and Smash are miles from each other. So please Kuma, help me see the similarities.

Sure, Smash can learn some aspects from Tekken, but like I said earlier, it has to be in the fashion of Smash.

Well, just like how Smash has its own takes on concepts, so does Tekken. Stage control is very important as it can be the difference between eating a high damaging wall combo, setting up a balcony hit, etc. There are even characters that have to place great importance in stage control like Xiaoyu and Lili who must move around the stage whiff punish them into advantageous positions. So in this sense, it does emphasize movement, but of course, not in the Smash sense nor vice versa. Also, EVERY fighting game places importance in stage control. It's called zoning.

While I cannot say for certain on strategies, combos are indeed different, but they also have similarities. The vast majority of Smash and Tekken combos are juggles. However, the similarities stop there due to Smash's DI making combos not guaranteed with practice. On the other hand, the DI reads are the same as Tekken okizeme as there are several ways to get up which include side rolling, back hand springs, forward or back rolls, wakeup kicks, etc that you must predict in order to continue the offense.

To me, the concepts are very similar while having their own differences that make them stand out. Maybe it's just how I approach them that makes me feel there's similarities.

 

[El Duderino]

http://www.1up.com/news/masahiro-sakurai-reflects-super-smash

in Sakurai's own words: "There are three Smash Bros. games out now, but even if I ever had a chance at another one, I doubt we'll ever see one that's as geared toward hardcore gamers as Melee was. Melee fans who played deep into the game without any problems might have trouble understanding this, but Melee was just too difficult.""

Was that intended to address my statement? I'm not really sure because I never said anything about the general difficulty or gearing the game towards one audience. Just that given the probable online setup, we can better coexist.

In one community, it may be played exclusively as a quick thrills party game. In another, a committed competitive game. There's no reason to trash the party or suffocate the mileage. How and where you play is your choice. It's a good feature that in a widely accommodating game, could be a fantastic one.

 

[goateeguy]

Was that intended to address my statement? I'm not really sure because I never said anything about the general difficulty or gearing the game towards one audience. Just that given the probable online setup, we can better coexist.

In one community, it may be played exclusively as a quick thrills party game. In another, a committed competitive game. There's no reason to trash the party or suffocate the mileage. How and where you play is your choice. It's a good feature that in a widely accommodating game, could be a fantastic one.

It was in response to the question posed by the thread. Sakurai has no intention of making a Melee-like game at least as of the time of this interview.

 

[KrIsP!]

Was it a re-release?

Wow you should never even give people a chance to list good game cube games in your face. Not to mention Fire Emblem classics...I assume you mean The radiant games, which started on the game cube.

 

[El Duderino]

Sakurai has no intention of making a Melee-like game at least as of the time of this interview.

The only real concrete thing that comes out of this article is Smash 4 will not repeat Melee's learning curve. There is nothing suggesting the franchise will further distance itself from the tittle. After all, Sakuari in the same article did call Melee the "sharpest game in the series".

 

[goateeguy]

The only real concrete thing that comes out of this article is Smash 4 will not repeat Melee's learning curve. There is nothing suggesting the franchise will further distance itself from the tittle. After all, Sakuari in the same article did call Melee the "sharpest game in the series".

Well it indicates that he's going to cater more to casuals than competitive gamers meaning that he's not all that interested in making a technical game or one with a deep, complex metagame. Considering Nintendo's utter lack of support for Smash Bros. competitive communities I wouldn't hold your breath.

 

[El Duderino]

Read the article again, Sakuari never said anything about trying to cater more to one audience or another moving forward. He even mentions trying to aim for the happy medium.

 

[SmashChu]

You seem to either have a fairly skewed sense of reality or didn't actually play Melee when it was the most recent game in the series. The best part of Melee was that EVERYONE liked it, casual or core. You never heard people going "Yeah I'd play that party game but it seems too fast for me," you heard people going "I can beat the **** out of Mario with Pikachu on PokeFloats!"
Your premise is inherently flawed; the idea that a casual-friendly environment and one that facilitates competition well cannot be one in the same is false. I myself played Melee casually, free for alls with items on and primarily on Hyrule Temple for several years before I even heard of the competitive scene, and I loved it. My Captain Falcon didn't know how to SHFFL, or Dash Dance, or combo, and most of his KOs were from Forward Smashes, but it was still my favorite game. The competitive scene's existence does not detract from casual players in any sense. In fact, it offers additional depth to those who are interested in taking their play a level further.

First, I played Melee from it's release to Brawl's release. Second, I think it's time for a history lesson.


Did people love Melee. Of course. All the Smash Brothers games were well liked. But, did people like competitive Melee. Oh no. They hated it with a passion. That's the difference. It seems memories grow short and no one really knows what went down pre-Brawl. Remember the Tier Wars? People didn't like hearing that their favorite character was bad and they should go to Fox. "Oh," they say. "Your using Roy? Clearly you need to move to a top tier character." It may seem like I'm joking, but this was a real thread. And this was common place. It was common for competitive Smash plays to say one character is awful and you need to change to another despite you'll never enter a tournament. This is also why "Tiers are 4 queers" exist. Remember wavedashing? It was loathed. Ever wonder why there was always an issue of whether it was a glitch or not? It's because the player base saw it as cheating. It was always a hot button issue until Brawl's release. People didn't like it and wanted it removed. Basically, no one liked what Melee had become. Melee got lucky that it was not online. Something like this would ruin the online experience, and the reaction to the game would have been much worse than what actually happened. When Sakurai made Brawl easier to play, he did it in response to these things. Find it surprising that almost every technique from Melee was removed. Even dash dancing was removed (which had little effect on the game).

The reason a game like more, or one with more depth, wont work is because people don't want to spend that much time learning a game. People want to jump in and enjoy it. Surprisingly, people don't want to dedicate all their time to a video game. A lot of people work and go to school. People want to have social lives. And some might even want a relationship with the opposite sex. They don't want to sit down and get the muscle memory down for short hop-air dodge-short hop-air dodge-short hop-air dodge-short hop-air dodge-short hop-air dodge-short hop-air dodge. They want to play and enjoy the game. They want to hop right in and have a good time and they don't want to waste their time getting to that point. This is why games that are geared towards hardcore players do not do as well. People do not want a game geared towards competitive play.

Memories grow short, so the issues of Melee were forgotten. Competitive Smash tries to paint Melee as this perfect game that everyone loved, but the flaws were very real and people demanded a fix. I'd be surprised if anyone remembers the 4Chan raids as a reaction to competitive Smash. The changes to Smash were done for this reason. "But why did I target it so squarely toward people well-versed in videogames, then? That's why I tried to aim for more of a happy medium with Brawl's play balance." Most people here wont get it because they can see players not being competitive. While they will say otherwise, they can not understand players who are not part of competitive Smash. This is why Sakurai said this "Melee fans who played deep into the game without any problems might have trouble understanding this, but Melee was just too difficult."

 

[Yitsul]

ABSOLUTELY! Brawl was a disappointment. I would love a separate classic adventure mode, Story Mode, and then a randomized classic and All Star Mode. I also loved how fast paced melee was.

 

[Vkrm]

@ smashchu now we know why you don't like competitive smash but you don't speak for everybody. The people who bought brawl without buying melee first are not agreeing with you. The only way I could flip things, and see how a game that has the depth necessary to foster a scene is worse then one that doesn't is to be the kind of player that wants to do well, but doesn't want to learn the game, then loses, and then gets mad about how the game works.

 

[goateeguy]

Read the article again, Sakuari never said anything about trying to cater more to one audience or another moving forward. He even mentions trying to aim for the happy medium.

"But why did I target [Melee] so squarely toward people well-versed in videogames, then? That's why I tried to aim for more of a happy medium with Brawl's play balance... I doubt we'll ever see one as geared toward hardcore gamers as Melee was."

Brawl is his "happy medium." And he's saying he won't make it much more like Melee than Brawl was. As I've been repeating, he's saying that a "Melee like game," as suggested by the title of this thread (we can only assume the thread author means "Melee like" as differentiated from 'Brawl like'), is not and never will be in the works.

 

[Big-Cat]

Correction, his goal was to make Brawl the happy medium, but it's clear that he completely missed the target here. As I've said in other threads, instead of trying to resolve the issues in the previous games, he just tossed them out of the window. Compare this to Skullgirls where the developers wanted the options in tact, but they wanted them to be easier without unnecessary difficulty. This is why they removed the "double scooping" super inputs, crouch canceling for dashes (at least in the patch IIRC), and a few other menial inputs despite that the options were completely intact. To me, what Zero Labs did was more of aim for a happy medium than what Sakurai did with Brawl.

 

[goateeguy]

Correction, his goal was to make Brawl the happy medium, but it's clear that he completely missed the target here. ... To me, what Zero Labs did was more of aim for a happy medium than what Sakurai did with Brawl.

I personally agree, but your perspective isn't the one that's going into Smash 4. If this interview is anything to go by, Sakurai does see it as a happy medium.

 

[---]

Thought I'd bring this article up since it's never really mentioned all that much:

Spoiler

 

[Big-Cat]

I personally agree, but your perspective isn't the one that's going into Smash 4. If this interview is anything to go by, Sakurai does see it as a happy medium.

No, he simply stated his goal with Brawl. Does he think he achieved it? We don't know for certain. And the appealing to hardcore gamers portion is very much up to interpretation. Let's go and take the whole L-Canceling debate. Some see it as a valuable skill barrier while others see it as pointless. To some, the hard core crowd would be the types that see L-Cancelling as a valuable skill barrier.

 

[FlareHabanero]

Sakurai kind of achieved his goals in a sense of making the game more accessible to beginners, but at the same time it suffered from some problems. The most blunt is how a lot of the stages and items are very imbalanced, which is a problem whether you play competitive or not because it can give players unfair advantages. Of course there is also other questionable stuff like the tripping and the more intense stale-move negation, which felt unnecessary and made some characters ether underpowered or overpowered for the latter.

 

[Black Mantis]

So more difficult = better game? Melee > brawl then, close the thread. Time to start playing shaq fu.

Did I state that?

I prefer Brawl over Melee (I prefer all smash games over Melee) if that's what you're wondering.

 

[Vkrm]

^ no you didn't. I misinterpreted your earlier posts. It would be much appreciated if you could elaborate on how 3d fighters are better then melee though. I played a lot of t6br, and it is obvious being able to move in three dimensions makes footsies more dynamic it doesn't compensate for the lack of an air game. And all 3d fighters to date have preset combos so I still consider melee more technical than most. Maybe not virtua fighter.

 

[Big-Cat]

The lack of an air game is not inherently a bad thing. That's really more for 2D fighters than a 3D fighting game. 2D uses the Y axis for mobility while 3D uses the Z axis. Not only that, but the vast majority of aerials in a 3D fighter would just be sidestepped. It's the same reason why projectiles are a rarity in Tekken and why it's even rarer to see them applied in a real match.

Preset combos is really a stretch unless you count strings. You have strings that tend to have some specific use as opposed to being dial-a-combo. Oh, and those 10 hit combos are useless in high level play as they can be blocked, sidestepped, or low parried at certain points.

 

[TheGoat]

Maybe. But it's not going to happen.

 

[El Duderino]

If this interview is anything to go by, Sakurai does see it as a happy medium.

Really? It sounds more like he takes pride in the initiative he took with Brawl, but is not completely satisfied with the results having noted Melee was sharper.

 

[volbound1700]

I had this friend that loved Smash 64 and played it a lot and got great with Pikachu. I first played and learned with him but never could beat him. I was on a trip when I first played it with him and was introduced to Smash. I came home and since I had a Gamecube I decided to buy Melee (my first Smash game). Before then I mostly had sports games and a Bond game for Cube.

I played him a year later on Melee for first time and drilled him with Fox on Melee. He hated melee and blamed it on the game (I doubt it, his tired tactics in Smash 64 did not work this time around). I believe some of the pro-Melee crowd are like my friend in that they cannot move onto a new Smash game because they cannot be as successful as they were on their past game.

 

[El Duderino]

I believe some of the pro-Melee crowd are like my friend in that they cannot move onto a new Smash game because they cannot be as successful as they were on their past game.

That's a belief you can put to rest. Plenty of Melee players transitioned successfully to Brawl and played a major role in discovering the advanced techniques and metagame that gives Brawl its notable skill gap.

 

[lordvaati]

Yeah Vol, it's a common problem with all series, from MvC2-MvC3, from SFII-SFIII-SFIV, even from the multiple Gens of Pokemon. when something becomes established,people have a hard time leaping ahead most times, and usually choose not to.

 

[Vkrm]

In all the games you mentioned, the players complained but moved on evantually. The melee crowd is different. Brawl was so far below our expectations that some found impossible to put up with.

 

[volbound1700]

One area related to balancing I would love to see work on is heavier characters, I have yet to see a heavy character that is top tier (perhaps maybe Snake). Bowser/Ganondorf/Donkey Kong have always been bottom of the poll and hard to compete with.