Is Brawl more balanced than melee? **Take 2**

[Anther]

Pikachu doesn't **** fox, and kinda loses to fox without the CG. Conservative fox play and at least avoiding grabs until 40% or so keeps him from getting wrecked.

 

[ShadowLink84]

Thats called bias.
Lets help a character because he is normally viable and its unfair for him to be unviable within a matchup.

Don't get grabbed or switch characters.

 

[Hive]

I put both the brawl disc and the melee disc on a surfboard and the brawl disc seemed to stay on better....
so I'd say brawl is more balanced 0.0

 

[ShadowLink84]

I put both the brawl disc and the melee disc on a surfboard and the brawl disc seemed to stay on better....
so I'd say brawl is more balanced 0.0

That was so bad but so good too.

 

[PK-ow!]

It's brawl discussion. If you don't think it matters, then get out.

No no, there is a reason to be here and say it doesn't matter. Because it's possible that it doesn't. And if it doesn't, wouldn't you want me telling you all so you can get back to your lives? The statement that 'this topic doesn't matter' is valuable to every discussion, if it is put forward by someone who cares (not trolling). Don't be so defensive.

So, what is a balanced fighter? And why would you care if a game satisfies that criterion?

Suppose we say a balanced fighter is one which isn't broken. Well then clearly we do care - we only want to play non-broken fighters (generally). Broken fighter games are boring.
But then you need something else to talk of more and less balanced. More and less balanced would mean closer and further from broken, which doesn't make a lot of sense. It's either broken or it's not.
You could try and defend this definition but I think it'll always lack the power to distinguish what we want until you radically change it.

So suppose we say a balanced fighter is one where many or most of the options available are actually viable. That is, the characters are all strong. Does this matter? Does it really matter if 16, rather than seven, characters are viable? It may seem more 'colorful' in high-level tourney matches to see 16 characters all vying for the top, but just as easily, those seven characters could have as rich or richer an interaction, if their metagames are sufficiently deep. This is either subjective, or something in which it could go either way. It depends on other factors. Diversity alone is not, really, something that affects appreciation of a game.
I mean, we could see this in Melee. It's kind of sore, if you're sensitive about it, to know there's all this space on the select screen that's basically a trap, but the game as it *is* played is still healthy. The set of things that do show up and the way it works out and interacts, the combination of tech skill, matchup knowledge, and mindgames is intense and skill-grinding. The fact it plays out among (seven? I don't know) characters doesn't reduce this fact at all.
So if balanced were this criterion, it would really not be capturing what we want. It would say Melee has a low quality of balance just for having fewer options. And who cares what's 'balanced' if it means that?


So suppose we say 'among the viable/upper tiers, the matchup asymmetries are close to neutral as you reach the top; also, there may or may not be 'counters' among other characters, lower than top tier, to keep skill-testing/interesting choices in the game in the counterpick respect.' We don't say anything (or we have minimal conditions) on sum diversity or total or proportion of viable choices.

This does a few things. One, close to neutral matchups among top tiers does make for rich gameplay at high level. Character choice can be more influenced by style (or even favoritism) and the match can still be taken seriously, as opposed to a fighter whose upper tiers had lopsided matchups within it, and/or a dominating character, so that play essentially becomes overcentralized, in limiting cases (e.g., by top 4, it's as though only two characters were viable in the first place... or worse, it's a rock/paper/scissors game.)

Play can be decided by skill, but we're not saying that just everything can be used. It even further places conditions on skill because, of course, newbies won't know which perhaps small subset of the choices are the high tier. And similar results.

This seems like a fine condition of balanced. It means something like a naive meaning of "balance" (thus making it deserve that word), it has a scalable quality so we can talk of more and less, and compare, and it's something the degree of which does affect our appraisal of a game, i.e., it matters.

If I stop here for a moment (I hope to see some criticism... this is a short post so I doubt I could catch everything there might be wrong with this), the conclusion jumps out at me that Brawl is definitely less balanced than Melee. Look, whatever is going on with Metaknight, the facts are right now he's the douche to beat. If we restrict the discussion to 'high-level, possibly abstracted players', but only among 'the sum of metagame knowledge possessed in the public awareness (among actual top-level players)', then we get a shot of what the game is like right now. And MK is really disturbing to that picture if you're looking for 'balance'.

Questions? Comments? Insults?


EDIT: What does NTSC mean?

 

[JigglyZelda003]

Pikachu doesn't **** fox, and kinda loses to fox without the CG. Conservative fox play and at least avoiding grabs until 40% or so keeps him from getting wrecked.

but pika generally outprioriterizes and has so many options for things it makes Fox look handicapped. we can't even camp pika. i cry when i have to fight pika as Fox.

 

[Masmasher@]

Thats called bias.
Lets help a character because he is normally viable and its unfair for him to be unviable within a matchup.

Don't get grabbed or switch characters.

In which case the later option is always better

Anther you said after 40% I dont know the matchup/pikachu as good as you does fox get out the sequence if hes already at 40% and what about aerial/priority wise

 

[Fletch]

EDIT: What does NTSC mean?

NTSC is the American version of Smash in this context whereas PAL is the European version. When Yuna was referencing this, there's a lot more DI allowed in the PAL version of Sheik's d-throw, and thus the Sheik/Bowser matchup isn't as bad as it is in NTSC (among other changes like nerfs to Sheik's u-air).

 

[TrikELotus]

I think the games get less balanced every time.

Brawl seems to be the most unbalanced; I've never felt such a gap between characters in Smash, or any other fighter (but I'm not so experienced in those).

Melee, the tiers still made a difference, but a truly good player could still bring those crap characters out to beat top players (Gimpyfish, Bum [okay DK isnt =crap= but...still], Taj, etc)

But in 64, well, everyone is pretty broken. So, 64 is the most balanced.


-Relevant post-

 

[Fletch]

Amen to that. I can't wait to see what SSB4 brings then if that trend continues.

 

[JigglyZelda003]

watch in amazement as SSB4 Geno can grab from all the way across FD and has priority that makes MK shake in his boots. and ganon shoots up to high tier with SA on every move. yep i can't wait for SSB4

 

[illinialex24]

watch in amazement as SSB4 Geno can grab from all the way across FD and has priority that makes MK shake in his boots. and ganon shoots up to high tier with SA on every move. yep i can't wait for SSB4

And an average stock length of like 12 minutes.

 

[Blitzmidfielder]

Brawl is so unbalanced it's not simply a 'no' so much as a 'lolno'.

 

[FB Dj_Iskascribble]

Brawl is more unbalanced simply due to the existance of a large (and increasing) number of infinites. And most characters (if played well) can beat pretty much any other character. All with the excpetion of the notably bad characters.

 

[IrArby]

Actually, the lack of good universal ATs (or just good ATs) makes the game so imbalanced. Every character has little less than their standard completely intended moves to work with. We don't have a lot of unintended uses as the designers purposefully took them out. The characters with the intrinsically better moves beat out the ones with crap and win.

Obviously, ATs in Melee help to push the best characters further from the bottom but ATs ultimately do more to keep lower seeded characters viable than keeping top tiers from being untouchable.

It doesn't help that the few ATs being found usually aid the better characters.

 

[JigglyZelda003]

watch in amazement as SSB4 Geno can grab from all the way across FD and has priority that makes MK shake in his boots. and ganon shoots up to high tier with SA on every move. yep i can't wait for SSB4

And an average stock length of like 12 minutes.

and random pitfalls on all stages as well.

 

[IrArby]

and random pitfalls on all stages as well.

Lol possibly the only thing worse than tripping.

 

[CRASHiC]

Actually, the lack of good universal ATs (or just good ATs) makes the game so imbalanced. Every character has little less than their standard completely intended moves to work with. We don't have a lot of unintended uses as the designers purposefully took them out. The characters with the intrinsically better moves beat out the ones with crap and win.

Obviously, ATs in Melee help to push the best characters further from the bottom but ATs ultimately do more to keep lower seeded characters viable than keeping top tiers from being untouchable.

It doesn't help that the few ATs being found usually aid the better characters.

Like Lucas and Link. THEY ARE SO BAD ***.

But on a serious note, Dededee has such a huge arsenal of ATs that devastate people at tourneys.

 

[IrArby]

Forgive me if I'm wrong but I can't help feeling that your being sarcastic. If thats the case, it really doesn't translate well over the internet or it was just really poorly done.

Anyway, I definetly said "good" and "universal" (meaning every character) in refernce to the ATs lacking in Brawl. Neither Link's nor Lucas's ATs meet either criteria. D3 does meet my criteria for a good Brawl character as he is naturally good and doesn't need crummy Brawl ATs to help him. Except for the one, the chaingrab/infinite ofcourse which isn't very Advanced but nonetheless still qualifies as a one of the good AT.

Once again, if you weren't being sarcastic and I'm misinterpreting your thoughts, my bad. I apologize. I have a sneaking suspision you are though. My argument is that good universal ATs are what balance Melee and Brawl's lack of them (good and universal) makes for a game where we can do little to improve bad characters. If you disagree, I'd love to hear why.

 

[PK-ow!]

Actually, the lack of good universal ATs (or just good ATs) makes the game so imbalanced. Every character has little less than their standard completely intended moves to work with. We don't have a lot of unintended uses as the designers purposefully took them out. The characters with the intrinsically better moves beat out the ones with crap and win.

Obviously, ATs in Melee help to push the best characters further from the bottom but ATs ultimately do more to keep lower seeded characters viable than keeping top tiers from being untouchable.

It doesn't help that the few ATs being found usually aid the better characters.

I can see this. It's true in virtue of its form.

It's just a general rule: When everyone gains some raw new power, the strong become less dominant over the weak (conversely: when everyone loses a little something, those in power profit the most). It's something you get a sense of in TCGs; I first noticed it when thinking about Black mass removal in Magic.

Also, I didn't see CRASHiC's post as sarcastic as much as... unintelligible. I don't know what he meant. Since its connection to what you said is far from clear.

And it appears my last post was lost to the fated mod 15 = 0 position of threadgoers' woe.
EDIT: OMG it happened again!! AAAAAGH!! *insanity*

Thanks for explaining NTSC, fletch.

 

[IrArby]

Exactly, if it was sarcastic he clearly missed key parts of my post. So I'll wait to see his response. I'm glad someone else had trouble deciphering it and its not just me having trouble reading at 3-4am or whatever time it is.

 

[Fletch]

Thanks for explaining NTSC, fletch.

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=57155

Sorry for not finding the thread for that earlier, but Search for whatever reason barely works for me, and I had to sift through tons of locked threads about the differences between the versions before I found that one.

EDIT: Just realized it's listed in the "Official Everything Thread", no need for search next time.

 

[CRASHiC]

Forgive me if I'm wrong but I can't help feeling that your being sarcastic. If thats the case, it really doesn't translate well over the internet or it was just really poorly done.

Anyway, I definetly said "good" and "universal" (meaning every character) in refernce to the ATs lacking in Brawl. Neither Link's nor Lucas's ATs meet either criteria. D3 does meet my criteria for a good Brawl character as he is naturally good and doesn't need crummy Brawl ATs to help him. Except for the one, the chaingrab/infinite ofcourse which isn't very Advanced but nonetheless still qualifies as a one of the good AT.

Once again, if you weren't being sarcastic and I'm misinterpreting your thoughts, my bad. I apologize. I have a sneaking suspision you are though. My argument is that good universal ATs are what balance Melee and Brawl's lack of them (good and universal) makes for a game where we can do little to improve bad characters. If you disagree, I'd love to hear why.

I was being sarcastic.


But what I'm not understanding about your argument here, (not saying you are wrong, Brawl is balanced for some style's of play, Melee others, I just want to get your side of this) is that Melee had universal ATs, but Brawl has character specifics, and yet Melee's ATs make the weaker characters better? Could you please clarify for me?

 

[Tianxiazhai]

Melee is more balanced.
Even low tier characters could some times win against top tier.

But.... Brawl. Its way harder, and theres a way bigger gap.

 

[Masmasher@]

Actually, the lack of good universal ATs (or just good ATs) makes the game so imbalanced. Every character has little less than their standard completely intended moves to work with. We don't have a lot of unintended uses as the designers purposefully took them out. The characters with the intrinsically better moves beat out the ones with crap and win.

Obviously, ATs in Melee help to push the best characters further from the bottom but ATs ultimately do more to keep lower seeded characters viable than keeping top tiers from being untouchable.

It doesn't help that the few ATs being found usually aid the better characters.

I see where you are coming from those techniques availible to all characters open more strafes and enhance the metagame. Usually it doesnt matter if the programmer thinks a game should be competitive. the community has the final say. its just that sakurai was in the mindset that this game should lack high competitiveness so his opinion in a long roundabout way kinda mattered. the engine is designed for party type play. Not saying brawl isnt competitive but the engine was willed toward being a party game more throughly than melee.

 

[SmashBrother2008]

Both Melee AND Brawl are much more balanced that some games out there. Blegh! You should see some of the low budget crap they're making.

 

[CRASHiC]

Actually, I would like to see a topic comparing Smash's balance compared to other competitive fighting games. Or perhaps we could discuss it now.

 

[IrArby]

I was being sarcastic.


But what I'm not understanding about your argument here, (not saying you are wrong, Brawl is balanced for some style's of play, Melee others, I just want to get your side of this) is that Melee had universal ATs, but Brawl has character specifics, and yet Melee's ATs make the weaker characters better? Could you please clarify for me?

Very long post. I got a little carried away but I think it explains the impact of Melee AT pretty well.

Firstly, the universal techs in Melee (not the character specific) are the most important. L canceling probably made the game competitive more than any other AT. Don't let other people fool you, it wasn't Wavedashing though that is up there with the big ones. The huge plethora of ATs at ANY characters disposal means you had SOME type of counter to whatever they were throwing at you (admittedly they could throw alot of different things at you too). Got a Falco approaching you with SHL spam? Learn to Waveshield, learn to time shieldgrabs after the dair>shine, practice a good aerial spacing game (if your character has the capability), or CC dtilt. Its a beatable approach used all by itself and, almost every character can do almost all of those things to beat it.

Because theres so many ATs that everyone can use some characters will obviously be able to use more or use them better. Without DDing, Falcon loses alot of his approaching ability as he doesn't have huge range, disjointed hitboxes, a laser, or even decent priority. Still, his speed, punishement game, and the ability to move on a dime makes him a soft Marth counter. The best characters exploit the AT the best, but everyone can use them. The fact that the ATs lend depth to each character means the better characters can't stupidly use the same AT over and over. They've got to vary their approach.

The availibitly of AT allows for better movement, better mindgames, better exploitation of your characters strengths. If you watch any pro Melee vid in the last 2 years, pretty much everything they're doing is an AT. Whether its DD, WD, Wavelanding, Foxtrotting, SHFFLing, Nairshining, the list goes on. My point is that AT allow every character options. More options lead to, you guessed it, more options. Options make for depth and a better competitive game. Every character has options. People point to Falcon as the biggest casualty in Brawl for a reason. He hardly changed at all but the game changed entirely. Brawl is dependent on certain criteria for its best characters: high priority moves with huge hitboxes, good range, and good recoveries. Falcon doesn't have these and theres nothing any of us can do to improve him. He has less options because the engine kills ATs.

Lastly, I point to Sheik. Initially when the game was young and most of the AT were either underused or undiscovered, Shiek was top tier. Now as we all know Fox and Falco eventually took her place. ATs ulimately made that possible. However, notice that shes still a really good character with no really bad matchups. ATs did not put her over the edge making her total **** or anything.
Bowser on the other hand is totally without a question unplayable in competitive arenas without ATs. Lets say Fox without L canceling lagged 10 frames from an aerial and Bowser lagged 50. With Lcanceling Fox will lag 5 and Bowser will lag 25. These are completely arbitrary numbers but the point is, porpotionally its an equall improvement for both characters. However, were not measuring porptionally. Were measuring his aerials against everyone elses. So his aerial lag decreased by 25 frames and Fox only got a measly 1/5 of that. Characters that had glaring weaknesses had new ways of overcoming them whether it was bad range, or laggy aerial landing. What makes a Melee character isn't so black and white like it is in Brawl.

Ultimately, the Brawl character specific techs aren't very potent. Link has plenty but they suck and don't open up alot of options for him. If nothing else the game engine stops him from really punishing. The lacking punishment game boils down to a good character being the one who will win most exchanges/encounters/engagements whatever, between characters. Punishing a mistake and using the momentum to pressure more mistakes is severly lacking. If the lesser character only wins 1 out of 5 exchanges he only gets his 12 percent and their back to square one. The better character wins the other 4 exchanges for 48%. Because characters can't punish mistakes through feints, movement, combos, edgeguarding, techchasing, etc bad characters can't really improve their game. They have only what the designers gave them and little else.


SUPER POST!!!

 

[CRASHiC]

I see Arby. You really got me thinking there. I know understand your point completely and understand just how the ATs of Melee made it what it was. The issue now I wonder is whether or not new and universal ATs will be discovered in Brawl. For instance, the technique that I can't remember its name of at the moment, but it involves using the c-stick for specials to give characters momentum in the air, this had a big effect of Lucario and a generally good effect on D3's waddle throws as it put them both back in their original positions.

Also, during the Show Me Your Moves podcast, perhaps during the Metaknight discussion, someone mentioned that at the moment, people still play Brawl and approach the finding of ATs as if it were still Melee. It is largely possible that this approach is keeping us from finding more useful universal techniques than pivot grabbing.

At the moment, it is clear that Melee is much more balanced than Brawl, (though I would like to add that I am not a Melee fan here, and I do prefer playing Brawl, however, when all the evideance is stacked up, it stands clear that currently, Melee out stacks brawl in balanced play) but looking back, it seems no more unbalanced than Melee use to be. Like Shiek, we have are own little demon of a Metaknight, and have little universal ATs. It is possible that new ATs will appear in the future, new exploits of the physic engine, and other new aspects that we are currently unaware. But if no such ATs surface, or unless charecters stack up enough of their own useful ATs than Melee will remain the more balanced game.


NOW what I really want to know, what is Smash's comparison of balance to other competative fighting games?

 

[JigglyZelda003]

there hasn't been a ton of new AT that don't involve havving some wacky control scheme though right?

also brawl is i think way more balanced then say the Naruto CoN/GNT games. their teir list is locked in stone practically from the start barely any characters move around and little to no chance of going up and bad character is just that, bad character. im looking at you Kurenai......

 

[IrArby]

I see Arby. You really got me thinking there. I know understand your point completely and understand just how the ATs of Melee made it what it was. The issue now I wonder is whether or not new and universal ATs will be discovered in Brawl. For instance, the technique that I can't remember its name of at the moment, but it involves using the c-stick for specials to give characters momentum in the air, this had a big effect of Lucario and a generally good effect on D3's waddle throws as it put them both back in their original positions.

Also, during the Show Me Your Moves podcast, perhaps during the Metaknight discussion, someone mentioned that at the moment, people still play Brawl and approach the finding of ATs as if it were still Melee. It is largely possible that this approach is keeping us from finding more useful universal techniques than pivot grabbing.

At the moment, it is clear that Melee is much more balanced than Brawl, (though I would like to add that I am not a Melee fan here, and I do prefer playing Brawl, however, when all the evideance is stacked up, it stands clear that currently, Melee out stacks brawl in balanced play) but looking back, it seems no more unbalanced than Melee use to be. Like Shiek, we have are own little demon of a Metaknight, and have little universal ATs. It is possible that new ATs will appear in the future, new exploits of the physic engine, and other new aspects that we are currently unaware. But if no such ATs surface, or unless charecters stack up enough of their own useful ATs than Melee will remain the more balanced game.


NOW what I really want to know, what is Smash's comparison of balance to other competative fighting games?

I've had some thoughts on that as well. It is my opinion that we won't find any universal (or near universal) game altering ATs.

Firstly, all the evidence has been that most AT stem from using something to cancel into something else. This principle applies to other fighting games as well as several ATs in Brawl (snakedashing). It can be an attack into another attack, a grab, a shield, a jump, a dodge, or some combination of those. We've really hit alot of buttons and tried alot of differnt combinations but they are only so many buttons to push and so many times to push them. Canceling type ATs or ATs that don't cleanly fall under that heading like wavebouncing (unexpected movement from combined attacks) can also involve the edge or the stage (platforms also). We've really been looking for things like this. Inspite of the fact were approaching it like Melee theres only so many buttons.

Lets not forget that even if we force SOMETHING other than what we'd expect it has to be useful. More than that it has to be accessible. ATs won't do much if they not readily available in normal match play. We've looked for ATs in places that occur normally in battle. The likelihood of us putting in some really random commands we haven't thought of yet outside of normal battle conditions and them yielding positive results is pretty much a nonexistent probability.

It would seem to me that the engine doesn't allow for us to do Melee type ATs which weren't really huge exploits. They were really just LUCKY exploits that we elaborated on. They used simple button combinations at somewhat predictable times and happened to be helpful. Like "Hey what happens if you hit R in the air? Oh thats cool. Hmmm what if you do that into the ground?" or "Man Links Dair is so laggy . . . lets go LINK!!! * yells and slams buttons* Hey I hit L and he got up faster" "Man if you hit the control stick side to side you'll run back and forth".

The applications of ATs must be great while the complexity of performing them, the accessibility and execution must be much simpiler for them to be highly usable.

 

[victra♥]

I put both the brawl disc and the melee disc on a surfboard and the brawl disc seemed to stay on better....
so I'd say brawl is more balanced 0.0

LOL. The thread should have ended with this. xD

 

[IrArby]

LOL. The thread should have ended with this. xD

Nuh Uhhh! Thats not a porpotional balance cuz Brawl has more characters and is a bigger disc. I demand that you retest this with a surfboard proportionally larger for both discs so as to get a truly fair idea of which is more balanced. Measuring them on the same surfboard is not fair.

EDIT: Woot woot! Over 700 posts. Before you know it I'll have 1000 and become a Smash Lord at which time, everyone with 20posts or fewer must refer to me as Lord Arbymort. (being stupid, please don't take this seriously, . . . unless you think the name is rather dashing just as I do)

 

[CRASHiC]

Arby, size doesn't matter. Its how you use it.

 

[IrArby]

Its not the size of the surfboard but the motion of the ocean right? I've never seen a shortboarder Hang 10' though. lulz I win the internet.

 

[UzakiuzuG]

Brawl would be sort of balanced if they would help out Captain Falcon. I mean Mk vs Falcon is nearly an impossible match up. Due to lag of his moves. Barely any priority. I mean they just destroyed good ole' falcon. Fox vs Pikachu is another horrible match up. Wth is with the chain grabs in this game. Kind of stupid you can't fight some characters because they can easily get you up to 60% before the match even starts. Melee was a fast fun game, the little things stuck out, have you noticed. Ex:: If you knee an opponent around the 50% you here the opponent as if he was getting hit and it knocked his breath away. When he was in the 100% he was screaming and crap xD. I mean just the little things help a game. Brawl equals ashame in the series but, I mean what can we do. Good game just needs some fixing. We need some fing downloadable content and patches. =,( Nintendo doesn't care about us

 

[IrArby]

True this^^^. Nintendo has been neglecting its hardcore fanbase for some time. In fact they've kinda been insulting us, tempting us with games featuring older characters while not at all delivering in gaming quality which cheapens the old favorites we know and love. I don't know if they're making a Wii Mario Tennis yet but if it sucks I'm buying a XBox and playing FPSs. To hell with Wii Fit and Mario at the Olympics.

 

[Rinehart]

Idk about melee since i haven't play it when i was an older , but i do know alot of people say brawl is not balance and i have to agree with them.

 

[metaXzero]

True this^^^. Nintendo has been neglecting its hardcore fanbase for some time. In fact they've kinda been insulting us, tempting us with games featuring older characters while not at all delivering in gaming quality which cheapens the old favorites we know and love. I don't know if they're making a Wii Mario Tennis yet but if it sucks I'm buying a XBox and playing FPSs. To hell with Wii Fit and Mario at the Olympics.

Well their is some hope left (or more dread). Shigeru Miyamoto has patented this thing for an odd type of OPTIONAL hint system called Kind for future core games (like possibly whatever the new Zelda game is). Basically turns the game into a playthrough video if you use it.

The purpose of this seems to be to allow casuals to get through TRUE games without cheapening the experience (*cough*Twilight*coughPrincess*ahem*)

Take this how you will. I think if implemented correctly, we'll have a return to form for Nintendo first party games...

 

[MarKO X]

Yikes... what hardcore Nintendo fanbase? I think the Nintendo fanboys are feeling great about the games they're getting, especially since they're saying that galaxy is better than Mario 64. (lolwut)

Seriously, Nintendo hasn't been hardcore since they made games for Atari.