Is a Melee like game the way to go?

[Robert of Normandy]

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.

Melee Ganondorf isn't bottom tier. He's mid tier. Melee/64 DK is mid-tier as well.

 

[El Duderino]

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's the same exact vocal internetz heroes that also hate competitive Brawl, which I hate to break it to you, does not assimilate the opinions of the entire Smash fanbase. They make up a small percentage of Smash players that actually care about the competitive play, which yeah, includes you. There is virtually no difference in this stance across the tittles...

Remember wavedashing? It was loathed.

...aside from having an initial excuse to latch onto and externalize their hatred with. That is why it was largely blown up as some game-breaking technique, when in fact, Melee still remains incredibly intact. The game would have died a long, long time ago had those complaints actually held water.

The lack of a similarly sizable DACUS outcry speaks volumes to how uneducated these curmudgeons really are. In their mind, Brawl is suppose to be this pure, representational victory over competitive play, so much that they let arguably Smash's most visible exploit slide by. (no pun intended... ok it was)

people don't want to spend that much time learning a game.

That's great that you think that, but Sakuari has a very different understanding of the importance of strategic depth as it relates to his risk vs reward design philosophy.

 

[lordvaati]

@Volbound for a while DK was High tier in Brawl until people found out about D3's CG BS.

 

[Ove]

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.

I didn't mean zoning when I was talking about stage control in Smash. I meant the fact that you have to actively manouver your character according to the stage. Walls exist in Tekken and you have to take them into account, but the movements are still limited compared to Smash. No traditional fighter can compare with Smash when it comes to movement, Tekken included.

Combos aren't near alike. Tekken has guaranteed combos for every occasion (except when near walls) and execution-wise they are way off from each other. Overall, the strategies differ very much as well.
----

Melee admittedly failed in character balancing, which indeed can be fixed. I too think there are much things to do for the heavy characters in particular.

 

[SmashChu]

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.

I think he succeed in that front. It's interesting that you used Skullgirls as a comparison which is far less popular and less acclaimed that Smash Brothers (Brawl included). People will still talk about Brawl almost 6 years after its released. Skull Girls came out in 2008 and interest is long since dead.

Again, context. Everyone here wants to believe there was no happy medium because their views are so far to one side. The middle is a far distant point. Sakurai did hit the middle, but competitive players have a different definition of middle.

@El Durado: First, Smash fans damn well know about competitive Smash. Ever heard of "No items, Fox only, Final Destination" "Tier are 4 Queers" is another one. The fact that these have been around shows people know about competitive Smash.

Second, the rest of your post shows how ignorant you are. Seeing as you've only JUST joined, it doesn't surprise me you don't know what actually happened. Many people complained about wavedashing and the outcry was to have to removed. The reason the game didn't fall apart was there was no online, but it was still a hot issue and one most people didn't want to return in the next game. You weren't here, so it's no surprise you don't know.

DACUS isn't that good. It tends to lose it's value outside of a 1v1 and even there, it's OK. It doesn't change the dynamic of the game. Wavedashing changed the dynamic and people didn't like it. People don't know about DACUS because its use is specific.

There isn't much more to really say here. Like I said above, you lack context. You see things for a polar spectrum so you can't even see the middle. To you, competitive Smash is all there is to Smash where, to everyone else, competitive Smash is an outlier and is not indicative of the entire game.

 

[El Duderino]

@El Durado: First, Smash fans damn well know about competitive Smash. Ever heard of "No items, Fox only, Final Destination" "Tier are 4 Queers" is another one. The fact that these have been around shows people know about competitive Smash.

Part of Smash's audience knows about the competitive side. Fewer actual care about it. Even less act like bigots (see your examples). Bigots do not speak for the greater Smash fanbase, they speak for themselves.

Second, the rest of your post shows how ignorant you are. Seeing as you've only JUST joined, it doesn't surprise me you don't know what actually happened.

I've been lurking here since the 64 days. I never signed up because honestly I felt little reason to. The character specific boards had tons of info I was interested in just reading, while the rest of the general discussion felt like one giant tardpin (especially as Brawl info started coming in). I even remember when they created the separate "Competitive Discussion" forum to curb the bigotry from the cesspool that was "Brawl General Discussion". Honestly, I want the time back I wasted reading through the good lot of that trash.

DACUS isn't that good. It tends to lose it's value outside of a 1v1 and even there, it's OK. It doesn't change the dynamic of the game. Wavedashing changed the dynamic and people didn't like it. People don't know about DACUS because its use is specific.

DACUS is certainly useful for characters like Falco, Snake, Link, and Wolf. Getting a potential connecting free sliding up-smash after a running attack can effect a match. Sure, it's not as prevalent as wavedashing and certainly is not as important to the metagame now, but given the properties and insane distance you can cover at a far quicker rate (aside from maybe Luigi and Samus' super wavedash), many of the typical misinformed wave-dashing complaints should have carried over.

 

[nessokman]

Sorry i lost track of this thread! I was watching my favorite movie

1. Wii Sports (81.64 million)[2]**
2. Mario Kart Wii (34.01 million)[2]*
3. Wii Sports Resort (31.54 million)[2]*
4. Wii Play (28.02 million)[3][4]*
5. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (27.61 million)[2]**
6. Wii Fit (22.67 million)[3]*
7. Wii Fit Plus (20.48 million)[5]
8. Super Smash Bros. Brawl (10.79 million)[3] (Super Smash Bros. Melee (7.09 million)
9. Super Mario Galaxy (10.68 million)[5]

s
Brawl sold alot better than melee,

Ratings-(most notable being famitsu)
Brawl ratings-

Edge 9 of 10[86]
Eurogamer 9 of 10[87]
Famitsu 40 of 40[88]
GameTrailers 9.4 of 10[89]
IGN 9.5 of 10[9]
Nintendo Power 10 of 10[90]
Official Nintendo Magazine 95%[91]
NGamer 93%[92]
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Melee ratings-
Edge 6/10[53]
Eurogamer 10/10[2]
Famitsu 37/40[54][55]
GameSpot 8.9/10[56]
IGN 9.6/10[18]
Official Nintendo Magazine
95%[57]

 

[Darkman.exe213]

People saying Melee is too fast/too hard to control, all I can say is, I've never even heard of this argument until Brawl came out. So I don't think it's a flaw of the game, I think it's definitely because Brawl is a slower game, with less gravity, delayed inputs, etc. and people are not used to transitioning between the two.

I don't think a Melee clone is necessary, but I think the creators should look at what has and hasn't worked in the past. I would like to see the crisp inputs and free-flowing pace of Melee, but I also like some of the gameplay varieties of Brawl that make for a more fun experience casually. The casual appeal of Brawl comes from the fact that it's newer, has more characters, stages, items, and gameplay options in general. The fact that it supposedly "fixed" Melee is completely irrelevant to how casual players enjoy it.

 

[El Duderino]

When Melee first came out, the most typical complaint I remember was the game lacked the same "punch" of 64 (which btw Brawl does too). Following that, there were a few reviews that dinged it for feeling overly responsive, largely because the dash was too sensitive and easy to over-correct with. Put that complaint in context however, the n64 control stick was complete garbage. You had to jam on it for the intended results, not unlike a car without power steering. The real difficulty moving to Melee was infact adjusting to the new less rigid Gamecube stick. Aside from that, the reception was generally positive about the game's accessibility. A few space cadets might have taken issue with it, but they also generally reached a number of other bizarre conclusions, losing their credibility.

Of course competitive difficulty is a whole different story, but that's not really what we are talking about here.

 

[Tesh]

wtf, how did someone give melee a 6/10? from a casual or competitive standpoint its easily 8/10 at worst.

personally, i already payed for a copy of melee (or rather my old brother did in 2001) and a copy of brawl. I don't want to spend 60 dollars on another copy of either game. especially with the wondrous things that can still be done with brawl hacking. just gimmie something good. even if its kinda garbage competitively, i cant imagine nintendo could take so many steps back that it wont be a blast to play for fun.

and tbh I think tripping IS funny. should have been possible to toggle it off, but 99% of the time it makes me chuckle when it happens and thats what they were going for when they put it in.

 

[κomıc]

I rather it not go the route of Melee. I love Melee but after playing Brawl, Melee is just a rushed, incomplete and broken game. It'll always have place in my heart especially that fantastic and gorgeous intro. I rather have the Brawl mechanics with less "floatiness", campiness and ditch the random tripping. I mostly want that responsiveness of Brawl with that bit of speed from Melee. A nice balance between both mechanics in the respective games.

 

[Robert of Normandy]

I rather it not go the route of Melee. I love Melee but after playing Brawl, Melee is just a rushed, incomplete and broken game. It'll always have place in my heart especially that fantastic and gorgeous intro. I rather have the Brawl mechanics with less "floatiness", campiness and ditch the random tripping. I mostly want that responsiveness of Brawl with that bit of speed from Melee. A nice balance between both mechanics in the respective games.

I'll give you rushed(and incomplete, to an extent), but I'm curious how exactly you think Melee is broken. Also, funny you mention Brawls 'responsiveness' since Brawl is usually considered less responsive than Melee.

 

[Vkrm]

Melee was rushed. Its still more polished then brawl though. Melee doesn't have inconsistent lag which makes it more responsive. You might make more tech errors in melee but that's because of how much more responsive it is.

 

[Shimesaba]

Super Smash Bros. Brawl (10.79 million)[3] (Super Smash Bros. Melee (7.09 million)
s

Brawl sold alot better than melee,

Worldwide Gamecube Sales: 21.74 million
Worldwide Wii Sales: approx. 99.38 million
(SSB64, for comparison, is about 5 million games v.s. 32 million consoles)


On the face of it, almost a full third of Gamecubes had a Melee sale paired with them (this is a ridiculous attatch rate, by the way, comparable to Halo 2 for the original Xbox), compared to a bit over a tenth for Wii-Brawl sales. Obviously the Wii Fit part of the demographic was never going to pick up a Smash game, but the point is that given how massively the Wii outsold the Gamecube as a console, I would say that Brawl actually underperformed pretty hard compared to Melee's sales.

Another interesting (I think) point is that Mario Kart outsold Brawl by more than 3 to 1 on Wii, with New Super Mario Bros. clocking in at about 2.5 to 1, but Melee was the Gamecube's top-selling game, over both Mario Kart DD and Mario Sunshine.

Just to put sales in perspective.

 

[Kink-Link5]

Our inu friend here pretty much summed up the most important fact when comparing sales. Spouting numbers alone is the same as calling Avatar the most successful movie of all time. While yes it was more grossing than any movie, that gross does not account for an increase in population or inflation. (Gone with the Wind is the most successful movie accounting for at the very least inflation).

 

[nessokman]

The ratios matter at all? Because a high ratio of gamecube owners to melee owners existed, brawl underperformed???? How does that make sense?

You logic is decent, but do you honestly think that with 100 million units sold worldwide, 66 2/3 million (exactly 1/3) would have brawl?
Not many games could pull off such a feat, no matter how amazing. (unless it is call of duty, in which case it has all the people who buy it religiously)

Also need i remind you with melee and 64, we got kind of back-to-back releases with 64 in the late 90's and melee in 2001.Smash was a cool new thing then. When brawl was out, we hadn't had a smash in 7 years, people had probably forgotten it by that point.(not excluding competitive players)
So that effects the numbers.

It should be no surprise that MK Wii outsold brawl by alot. There has been a mario kart on near every nintendo system, it is known to be extremely fun and addicting. So naturally, it would outsell a game that nobody had seen in years.
Brawl still outsold and was ranked higher.

 

[Kink-Link5]

Brawl was not an under the radar release and was hyped for a full year with a multi million visitor daily updated blog. You're a little delusional.

 

[El Duderino]

The big takeaway here is sales are not a proper way to measure the quality reception of any form of entertainment. It is only an indication of how many people have experienced it, and even then that is not entirely accurate.

 

[Vkrm]

Can you really say that MK wii is better game than brawl with a straight face? Ness, tell me if I'm misinterpreting what you're saying. Brawl is a superior game to melee, thats why it sold better. CoD has a legion of dedicated players who buy every version of the game out of loyalty to the company. It sold better than brawl by a lot, but that doesn't count. Seems like your biased towards brawl. You quote sales when it supports the brawl > melee argument but for some reason when the numbers game clearly shows CoD > smash the numbers all of a sudden become unreliable. The truth is sales is a piss poor way to measure quality.

While we're talking about Sales I'd like to point out that the CoD series is aimed almost exclusively toward the hardcore competitive players and is the 2nd most successful gaming franchise after WOW. I don't want to hear any more of smashchus casual market = better sales nonsense. Even if smashchu was right, his argument essentially says Sakurai turning his back on competitive smashers was the right thing to do because it made him a lot of money.

 

[Kink-Link5]

Vkrm, understand that smashchu has plans to apply his support for Sakurai as a business model in the future and uses it solely to support his warped view of the world that money talks and the endgoal of any endeavor is to make money else it is a poor endeavor.

 

[BTmoney]

Short answer, yes. Melee-like is the way to go. I enjoy it so much more than Brawl (which is fun, but it's not what I want or what the smash community wants, think about it) and the Melee community is so strong the games been going for 12 years. If the people wanted Brawl, Brawl would have made EVO and not Melee.

How is that not an answer in itself? Is it not like Brawl players can't raise money or gather attention?
Brawl and all of its incorrectly used sales stats should have raised more than enough money to make EVO or just be big enough to be included in the first place. Think about that.

 

[Kink-Link5]

That's a bit ignorant of you to say. Brawl did not get funded for Evo because the Brawl players donated for Melee instead. If you had half the community divided between the two games, neither would have a shot against SG or likely even SFII. It was a decision for the betterment of the community to have support behind one game and have one Smash representation at Evo instead of none.

I mean I hate Brawl as much as the next guy, but ignorant hate and informed distaste should not be seen in the same light.

 

[John12346]

Brawl had a few innovations that were noteworthy, but unfortunately the entire game was completely mangled by a lot of crap, like random factors(tripping, input delay, others?), no hitstun to speak of, horrible ledge mechanics(EVERYTHING), a general slow paced feel, and Metaknight, depending on how you look at the game.

Melee definitely did outshine Brawl in a lot of regards as far as gameplay is concerned, but there were a few quirks about Melee's controls that made it feel a lot... shall we say "stickier" than Brawl did later on. Characters seemed stiff to the touch, shield mechanics were bit wonky and unintuitive, etc. I understand that the competitive Melee scene was able to power through all of this and master the controls like they were nothing, but we don't necessarily need Smash 4 to be as... "difficult" to control as Melee was. Not to say that difficulty is a bad thing, of course, and I always welcome a good challenge, but I see a distinct difference between challenge and having to break your hand on your controller pressing 15,000 different buttons over the course of 2 frames.

To that end, I feel like that the best way to model the mechanics for a Smash game would be to find a medium between Melee and Brawl, taking mainly(but not completely) from Melee in terms of gameplay, but taking mainly(again, not completely) from Brawl in terms of control and handling. Increasing the gamespeed to something between Melee and Brawl, but closer to Melee, implementing Melee's shieldstun with Brawl's shield mechanics, reverting the hitstun back to Melee's levels, keeping(but perhaps reducing slightly) Brawl's buffer system, returning Melee's 'disabling of edgesnapping while ascending' mechanic, implementing a hybrid of Melee and Brawl's airdodges(Smash + Shield = Melee airdodge??) are just a few things I'd recommend in bringing the two game's engines together. Of course, all of these choices are subjectively chosen by me, but you get the idea.

A few other changes I would recommend but are not related to Melee and Brawl would include:
- diminishing returns to ledge invincibility for each successive edgegrab performed w/o getting hit or touching solid ground
- overall reduction to ending invincibility frames in ALL dodge moves

Melee and Brawl both had their strong points(although it's pretty clear cut Melee had more), so why not design a Smash game that brings the best of both worlds together!?

 

[Big-Cat]

Why not do that and more?

 

[nessokman]

Can you really say that MK wii is better game than brawl with a straight face? Ness, tell me if I'm misinterpreting what you're saying. Brawl is a superior game to melee, thats why it sold better. CoD has a legion of dedicated players who buy every version of the game out of loyalty to the company. It sold better than brawl by a lot, but that doesn't count. Seems like your biased towards brawl. You quote sales when it supports the brawl > melee argument but for some reason when the numbers game clearly shows CoD > smash the numbers all of a sudden become unreliable. The truth is sales is a piss poor way to measure quality.

While we're talking about Sales I'd like to point out that the CoD series is aimed almost exclusively toward the hardcore competitive players and is the 2nd most successful gaming franchise after WOW. I don't want to hear any more of smashchus casual market = better sales nonsense. Even if smashchu was right, his argument essentially says Sakurai turning his back on competitive smashers was the right thing to do because it made him a lot of money.

I can say that Mario Kart is Well known and is extremely fun, and therefore will almost always outsell smash.(Almost because of melee)
Mario Kart is more known that SSB. I stated a fact that there is a Mario Kart game on every system, and it is therefore better known and sells better.I never once said it was better than a smash game.

I wasn't comparing CoD sales to smash bros, i was stating that if you think the ratio of GC owners to Melee matters, then a third of wii owners would have to have brawl for it to be successful. That is 66 2/3 million people.I brought up CoD because it is one of the games that can sell that well.

Brawl had superior sales, but that doesn't make it a superior game. I support moar of a brawl > melee movement (more of an equal to)

sakurai does whatever he pleases.Not turning his back, laughing at you from his director's chair and trolling everyone

 

[bearsfan092]

There were some questionable fighting game decisions made in Brawl in the transition from Melee. Things like reduced hitstun draw matches out forever as you jockey for the best possible trade of hits in Brawl. Granted, this exists in Melee too, but the situation doesn't boil down to that nearly as often. However, I'm willing to say it's just a matter of taste and move on to my main point.

Controls are everything. Ever wonder why people are still obsessed with Super Mario 64? It's because it was an extremely tight controlling game with the notable exception of the camera. For any of my Mega Man X or Zero brothers (in particular the Zero series), what made those games great was extremely tight controls. If you were able to react to something immediately, Zero could do something about it. When you perfected your control over the game, you were able to execute anything you could think of.

I'm a Melee player since Melee has tight controls. I like being able to take Fox, dash forward, WD back, short hop, land a hit, and follow up based on what an opponent is trying to do (which takes some reaction time). The main flaw with Melee is that to hit this sort of control, you gotta dedicate a bit of time to the game just for movement. Then you actually gotta worry about using that movement in an actual fight, which is another beast. I didn't have to spend hours just practicing movement in SM64 or MMZ. It just comes to you after a while.

On the opposite spectrum is Brawl. The controls aren't bad per se (buffer aside), but they're pretty mediocre. However, while the controls aren't terrible, the effect on the game is. This is because of the nature of Smash. We don't deplete health meters. We knock people off stage. In short, we have a position based KO system. Therefore, we want as much control over that position as possible. When that's taken away, there is a lot taken from the game. There are a couple characters that actually move decently, but it just contributes to the imbalance of Brawl since a great deal of the other characters move like molasses on a winter day.

I think it's possible to have a slower Smash game that's great, but the controls have to be there.

 

[Ferio_Kun]

I would like slightly more speed and responsiveness from melee. No delayed input, no tripping. Let's face it though, most of Brawl is much more polished and all around a better game.

I also think their should be a "dash" with some limitations that functions somewhat like a wavedash. I don't like the campiness of Brawl and think their should be more options to approach the enemy in a somewhat safe/speedy way. Just don't make it spam-able like the Melee one is.

 

[Big-Cat]

Here's something crazy stupid things for countering projectiles:

1. Have moves that have a projectile invulnerability property.
2. Allow wavedashes to go under most projectiles BUT you can't keep repeating the motion - that'd be stupid.
3. Redo Air dodges and spot dodges to wear they only dodge projectiles - might be too much, but it's a crazy stupid suggestion anyway.

 

[El Duderino]

Characters seemed stiff to the touch, shield mechanics were bit wonky and unintuitive, etc... Increasing the gamespeed to something between Melee and Brawl, but closer to Melee, implementing Melee's shieldstun with Brawl's shield mechanics, reverting the hitstun back to Melee's levels

I'm not exactly following here. What about Melee's shields are wonky and unintuitive? Also how do you have Melee's shieldstun with Brawl's shielding mechanics? The two are in direct conflict. I want to agree with you here, but I think you'll have to further explain.

 

[John12346]

Melee's shields being wonky as in shield drop > Dsmash = spotdodge or shield drop > Fsmash = roll unless you wait like 5000 years after dropping your shield.

And by Melee's shieldstun, of course I'm referring to the large amount of time you'll have to wait in order to perform an action after having your shield hit, but when I refer to Brawl's shield mechanics, I'm referring to the ease of accessibility to your out of shield options when the time finally comes around to it. I wasn't exactly sure what I was supposed to call this, sorry.

 

[Frostwraith]

Is this the Melee vs. Brawl thread of the moment? Seems to be the case, does it not?

I might as well take seat and enjoy the show. I do hope any of you, good sirs and ladies, don't mind my presence.

 

[El Duderino]

Melee's shields being wonky as in shield drop > Dsmash = spotdodge or shield drop > Fsmash = roll unless you wait like 5000 years after dropping your shield.

I imagine those changes in Brawl happened to accommodate the buffering. Personally I like out of shield options being a little more limited and move specific. For example, not realistically being able to follow with say a forward-smash after blocking a hit is IMO a good thing.

I would agree though, if you really want to do it, the input should be easier than in Melee.

 

[FalKoopa]

Is this the Melee vs. Brawl thread of the moment? Seems to be the case, does it not?

Well, unfortunately, it doesn't seem to Melee vs Brawl at the moment. Seems more like a list of physics changes that want to see...

 

[BTmoney]

That's a bit ignorant of you to say. Brawl did not get funded for Evo because the Brawl players donated for Melee instead. If you had half the community divided between the two games, neither would have a shot against SG or likely even SFII. It was a decision for the betterment of the community to have support behind one game and have one Smash representation at Evo instead of none.

I mean I hate Brawl as much as the next guy, but ignorant hate and informed distaste should not be seen in the same light.

That last sentence is quite extreme. I don't hate Brawl at all. I said nothing for you to draw that conclusion; I said Brawl is fun but I like Melee more. I don't see why you don't understand my comment. If Brawl had the same backing that melee had, Brawl would have been in that position and not melee.
Is that not sound thinking? It's like you're saying it was impossible for Brawl (from the launch date to now) to have such a strong community that melee players would have donated for Brawl and Brawl would have been in a position to be competitive for Evo.

If more people are willing to support melee which is older and smaller than a bigger and newer game, doesn't that mean that the community would like a more melee like game? I'm not even talking about which game is better because that's entirely irrelevant. Just compare support for the game.

 

[Isprayaxe]

The big takeaway here is sales are not a proper way to measure the quality reception of any form of entertainment. It is only an indication of how many people have experienced it, and even then that is not entirely accurate.

What El duderino said is true, you should not be basing how good or broken the game is on sales, neither ratings. Most of these ratings were done shortly after the games release. Perhaps you should ask the dedicated players to the games that have been playing since release.

 

[El Duderino]

If Brawl had the same backing that melee had, Brawl would have been in that position and not melee. Is that not sound thinking? It's like you're saying it was impossible for Brawl (from the launch date to now) to have such a strong community that melee players would have donated for Brawl and Brawl would have been in a position to be competitive for Evo.

I'm going to agree with Kink-Link here. The Melee community took the initiative going back to the initial EVO poll and people rallied behind it. You are not the first person to read too much into it though, GoNintendo for instance said this:

"I'm just sad to see that people dislike Brawl so much."

It had little to do with disliking Brawl and more to do with getting Smash on the EVO stage. Melee just so happens to be the game in the franchise that embodies what competitive Smash is all about, so yeah it makes total sense it would have larger support for a tournament drive.

 

[BTmoney]

Melee just so happens to be the game in the franchise that embodies what competitive Smash is all about

So we agree lol

 

[El Duderino]

Yeah, I'm just not sure Melee raising 90k can be used to conclude what expectations are for Smash 4. Don't get me wrong, it does illustrate the importance of the competitive audience to the series growth, longevity, and relevancy, but there is more to consider.

 

[nessokman]

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.""

That is kinda proof that it won't be like melee.


Also I figured out the "competitive cycle" as I call it.its similar to COD.


1.be obsessively playing melee.
2.hear mention of new game
3.start speculation on new game
( pray to Flying Spaghetti Monster it is a melee clone)
4. Speculate and over analyze anything sakurai says
5. Watch trailer
6.hype
7.hype
8.hype
9.buys game
10.instantly is heartbroken by the lack of melee like characteristics
11.cry, whine, and complain about how much it sucks, even though they played only 2 hours of it.
12.goes back to playing melee.

 

[Kink-Link5]

I'm not convinced you have anything figured out nessokman. You're expressing a story that both doesn't exist and is an extreme strawman.