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

[AlphaZealot]

Could I also ask if you explained why marth was so dominant in spite of the fact that 3 of the top players were the ones who were winning those large tournaments?

Are they three top players who use Marth, or are they three top players BECAUSE they use Marth? Top players, or course, being in that they were the best in the world and were looked at this way because they consistently won national tournaments.

If Marth is the only character capable of doing this, we should be seeing more Marths winning major tournaments.

If he weren't the only character that between 2003 and now SOME OTHER CHARACTER should have at least won 2 or 3 national tournaments in a row. There are three representatives who used Marth. None that used any other character. Whats even funnier is these three representatives also took each other out a lot.

So I ask again, at what point will you simply lets the results stand? Do we have to wait 20 years? What if there aren't any more 100+ man Melee tournaments, much less enough to actually establish consistent national winners anymore?

Correct me if I am wrong, but the thing with the theory of gravity is that it is a proven theory.
Rather, it is something that has not yet been disproven due to the validity of its argument.

Same with Marth being the only character capable of winning national tournaments consistently.

 

[illboyzeus]

i guess marth=m2k/ken/azen now...

these are the 3 players who dominate with marth, no one else. How you can't come to teh conclusion that they are just so far ahead of mostly everyone is ridiculous.

 

[Pakman]

Are they three top players who use Marth, or are they three top players BECAUSE they use Marth? Top players, or course, being in that they were the best in the world and were looked at this way because they consistently won national tournaments.



If he weren't the only character that between 2003 and now SOME OTHER CHARACTER should have at least won 2 or 3 national tournaments in a row. There are three representatives who used Marth. None that used any other character. Whats even funnier is these three representatives also took each other out a lot.

So I ask again, at what point will you simply lets the results stand? Do we have to wait 20 years? What if there aren't any more 100+ man Melee tournaments, much less enough to actually establish consistent national winners anymore?



Same with Marth being the only character capable of winning national tournaments consistently.

What about PC Chris and Mango? They both have major tournament wins and both don't use Marth.

 

[AlphaZealot]

Consistency. Key word.

 

[Pakman]

Consistency. Key word.

PC Chris won the MLG Circuit if I am not mistaken. He was the one with the check for 10 grand at the end. That spells consistency to me.

 

[AlphaZealot]

Not really, the first place results from the MLG events were:
Falco (PC)
Marth (Ken)
Marth (Ken)
Marth (Ken)
Marth (Azen)
Marth (Azen)
Falco (PC)

And if you read my earlier stuff, I said part of the reason I believed Marth to be more consistent is because it is easier to keep up a high level of play match in and match out in long drawn out tournaments. The MLG finals was the exact opposite of such an event, with small numbers of people watching, only 8 entrants (which means just 2 set wins to get to winners finals), an early start, an early finish, and plenty of rest for every competitor. The wear and tear of tech heavy characters like Fox/Falco that is felt in a regular national tournament environment was not present at the MLG finals. That said, it was still just one tournament-a month beforehand Azen won $5,000 with Marth. It also doesn't technically go under the "national" tournament clause of 100+ people (I have always said "100+" person tournaments in regards to Marth dominating).

Also, not that it matters toward this discussion, but Ken/Isai did win teams, and there was a Marth on every winning team at every MLG event (either Azen or Ken).

 

[Phantom7]

I played Melee last night and noticed a huge difference in how fast the gameplay was. Now i miss melee's fast gameplay... I actually think melee is more balanced, i beat a fox with ganondorf but i can't do that in Brawl.

 

[ShadoFiend]

Melee is more balanced to me than brawl. I mean think about it. Unless there was an update I missed, in Melee did we really see one sole character get their own tier position on the top of the list? Also before I comment more I'm going to look back and see what has been said so far

 

[IrArby]

To Review: Ken should really not be brought up as to his dominance with Marth in the past. The fact remains that even before Ken stopped playing (and thus Isai, a huge counter to M2K and Azen) he was already losing his dominance. He would certainly not maintain it now. No disrespect to a truly inventive and revolutionary player. Regardless whether Azen still plays Melee or not he probably won't win as he'll probably have to beat M2K. M2K pretty much always beats Azen in Melee (or in Brawl I think) because, to paraphrase M2K, Azen always does the perfect thing. Meaning, M2K finds it easier to read Azen.

In Melee PC, Isai, Chillin, Chudat(?), KDJ, and others, even in the last days of Pre-Brawldom, were very much absent. You can keep flouting Tournament results but it all comes down to the same thing. Ken won for a while. When he started losing he left, Isai left. M2K and Azen continued to win but had few and far between Pros who used counter characters to challenge them. It has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that those players KDJ namely could beat those players. Its thus very possible to beat them.

22:45] Jason: tourney results dont show how good a character is
[22:45] Jason: its based wayyyyyyyyyy too much off individual player skill and popularity and who still plays and who doesnt

This isn't theory. If you think it is I really don't care because I'm inclined to go with the guy winning the tournaments and his stance, and knowledge, and background, and research, as opposed to saying no one else can win but Marth. No other Marth's have adequately stepped up and no other players have consistently showed up although, when a few of them did, they were able to beat the Unstoppable Marth Trio.

The Trio was never trouncing Pro Shieks, Falcons, Falcos, or Foxs. Their really haven't been many of those. If they're were nowadays (which there aren't and haven't been), M2K will probably beat out the Shieks and Falcon's (Darkrain, yea already did it) with his Shiek. Some Fox will go on the finals (in a pretty much even matchup) and M2K's Marth wins on skill not on character. Watch OC3 and tell me Fox can't win tournaments. I'm only sorry PC doesn't play more often. You can call that an isolated incident but Ken, M2K, or Azen's tournament wins thus far can just as easily (and more truthfully) be explained with even better evidence.

 

[AfroQT]

Just because M2k says it doesnt make it true.
All you really did was help prove Alpha's point.
Theres a reason the players who won the most major tournaments more consistently then others used Marth.

 

[EdreesesPieces]

I really don't think gauranteed stuff is gonig to develop in Brawl. There's just not enough hitstun for much of it to be developed. Infact, once people get better at smash DI, people will get better at avoiding hits and combos.

This all doesn't matter, smash64 is way more balanced than either.

 

[OverLade]

I guess i'll provide this challenge to those that think Brawl is less balanced. We play brawl, I challenge your top tier with my mid tier character Peach when you go top tier. Then we play Melee and you try to beat my high tier peach with a mid tier. That's my new challenge ;D

Brawl is more balanced.

I blame the east coast and there Metawhores. (just kidding)

On the west coast Falco and Wario can show up MK, D3, and Snake.

In the midwest Anther can beat all the Metaknights, and GaWs.

In Florida Afro ***** with Wario.

It has more to do with good players choosing metaknight than Metaknight being an unbeatable character. Most of the few people who could beat these people would win because they're almost as good or better than them.

Metaknight is good, but other high tier characters "could" be just as viable.

 

[Pakman]

Brawl is more balanced.

I blame the east coast and there Metawhores. (just kidding)

On the west coast Falco and Wario can show up MK, D3, and Snake.

In the midwest Anther can beat all the Metaknights, and GaWs.

In Florida Afro ***** with Wario.

It has more to do with good players choosing metaknight than Metaknight being an unbeatable character. Most of the few people who could beat these people would win because they're almost as good or better than them.

Metaknight is good, but other high tier characters "could" be just as viable.

You can say something similar about melee. It has more to do with M2K picking Marth than Marth being unbeatable. And M2K plays a lot of sheik and fox too.

 

[AfroQT]

Brawl is more balanced.

I blame the east coast and there Metawhores. (just kidding)

On the west coast Falco and Wario can show up MK, D3, and Snake.

In the midwest Anther can beat all the Metaknights, and GaWs.

In Florida Afro ***** with Wario.

It has more to do with good players choosing metaknight than Metaknight being an unbeatable character. Most of the few people who could beat these people would win because they're almost as good or better than them.

Metaknight is good, but other high tier characters "could" be just as viable.

This post doesnt do much to prove why Brawl is more balanced.
I play brawl alot more then melee, and am significantly better at brawl.
But i honestly think Melee is more balanced.

Specificaly in the higher tiers, Falco/Fox/Marth go much more even then MK/Snake/D3 or MK/snake/Falco.

It doesnt matter, because in the end both games are pretty unbalanced.

 

[Pakman]

With the possible exception of Starcraft, I would say there is no decent competitive game that is free from balance issues.

 

[Airwalkerr]

In Brawl, characters such as Ike have an incredibly hard time beating MK. Characters like Donkey kong have an impossible time beating DDD. In Melee, sure, 5 characters dominated the tournament scene, and Brawl has a far wider range of characters being used at tournaments. But trying to say that only those 5 characters COULD win a tournament is preposterous, as many characters (basically all of them, even Pichu, mewtwo and Kirby on the rare occasion) could win at tournaments, as they had chain throws against fast fallers, so as long as no incredibly skilled Marth players showed up, they had a shot. Low tier characters in Brawl really don't have a chance in tournaments. there are way too many MK's and Snake at tournaments that characters like Falcon just get shut down. Period. Falcon has 1 tournament win in the history of Brawl, last time I checked. Characters like Samus and Ganondorf had... zero, I believe (been awhile since I checked Yuna's tournament results thread, don't flame). So I believe Melee is more balanced. Hell, even if it isn't, Melee is still way more fun. Peace out.

 

[AfroQT]

With the possible exception of Starcraft, I would say there is no decent competitive game that is free from balance issues.

Guilty Gear.....

 

[Mew2King]

Bum 2 stocked Atomsk's DDD in tourney last time, and Atomsk is a top level DDD in the world

 

[Turbo Ether]

We have DDD's infinite grab banned though, and I hear Bum is extremely good at the matchup.

 

[adumbrodeus]

Bum 2 stocked Atomsk's DDD in tourney last time, and Atomsk is a top level DDD in the world

It's Bum, therefore the infinite is banned.


The fact that you have to ban something (which btw, is not banworthy) in order to make the match-up anywhere approaching in all but the rarest of cases is PART of the balance issues people are bringing up.

 

[Master Raven]

The fact that you have to ban something (which btw, is not banworthy)

hahahahahaha

 

[IrArby]

Just because M2k says it doesnt make it true.
All you really did was help prove Alpha's point.
Theres a reason the players who won the most major tournaments more consistently then others used Marth.

So there were other great players that would have won if they hadn't obstanitely stuck with their characters other than Marth? Those people were just as good but never won because they didn't play Marth? Do great Marths like Cactuar or Cort always win since they're really good and play Marth? Please get out of this thread. You've obviously not read or understood anything we've been saying. The fact that M2K said it may not make it true but if the alternative is your conclusion I think I'll go with the right one, I mean M2K's.

hahahahahaha

Clearly someone else who missed out on some very relevant discussion or couldn't comprehend what was said or hasn't been around long enough to understand that some matchups are unwinnable. Its one of the few competitive elements that seperates noobs from competitive players. Get over it. This isn't the thread for that discussion but we've been over it and no GOOD evidence has supported you nor does your uninsightful sarcasm. Maybe work on going a little farther beyond the 10character limit next time. Thats how discussion actually work.

 

[AfroQT]

So there were other great players that would have won if they hadn't obstanitely stuck with their characters other than Marth? Those people were just as good but never won because they didn't play Marth? Do great Marths like Cactuar or Cort always win since they're really good and play Marth? Please get out of this thread. You've obviously not read or understood anything we've been saying. The fact that M2K said it may not make it true but if the alternative is your conclusion I think I'll go with the right one, I mean M2K's.



Clearly someone else who missed out on some very relevant discussion or couldn't comprehend what was said or hasn't been around long enough to understand that some matchups are unwinnable. Its one of the few competitive elements that seperates noobs from competitive players. Get over it. This isn't the thread for that discussion but we've been over it and no GOOD evidence has supported you nor does your uninsightful sarcasm. Maybe work on going a little farther beyond the 10character limit next time. Thats how discussion actually work.

Good **** on completely missing my point.
I'll let you keep THINKING you know what your talking about. You can argue in this thread, im not gonna waste my time. Its just hilarious to see people completely missing alpha's point, and responding with bull**** posts like your own.

Like Master_Raven said.
hahahahahahaha

 

[Fletch]

Marth dominance stuff

Hey AZ, not trying to refute anything you said or anything, but I was wondering what you would think of this situation as relevant to Brawl. Do you really think any character outside of MK is capable of consistently winning national level tournaments?

 

[Azen Zagenite]

=^_^=

Marth too goodz in Melee! Was so funny when Marth players got desperate for recognition and started saying **** like bowser counters marth to make it seem like their character wasn't as good. Hey, I used Marth too, but I never made excuses for using the best char. Its like they were all ashamed of using him, its a lot more obvious in brawl too with the metaknight players LOL the things people say these days lollz

 

[adumbrodeus]

hahahahahaha

It only effects 1 character (yes, Luigi, Mario, and Samus can break out before ungodly percentages, and bowser is just a small-step chaingrab), and if we're banning moves because they make one match-up nearly unwinnable, well Ganondorf is one of my secondaries, and I've got a TON of moves to submit.

Not to mention that there are a ton of moves that make multiple match-ups effectively unwinnable, MK's tornado, G&W's Bair, etc, wouldn't we want to deal with them first?

We had a massive thread dealing with it, if you wanna read through it and debate on the official chaingrabbing thread, feel free.

 

[JigglyZelda003]

there were like 5 other CG/infinite threds before that official one came to life lol

 

[ShadoFiend]

For a game to have to ban so many things and also consider banning a character, I think that pretty much sums up how balanced brawl is.

 

[AfroQT]

For a game to have to ban so many things and also consider banning a character, I think that pretty much sums up how balanced brawl is.

Quoted
For
Truth

 

[IrArby]

Good **** on completely missing my point.
I'll let you keep THINKING you know what your talking about. You can argue in this thread, im not gonna waste my time. Its just hilarious to see people completely missing alpha's point, and responding with bull**** posts like your own.

Like Master_Raven said.
hahahahahahaha

OK, Alpha's point is that Marth was the only character capable of consistently winning big Melee tournaments and he made no comments pertaining to the balance of either game as he feels its too early to decide. That was Alpha's point, what the hell are you talking about.

How did I prove Alpha's point? How did I miss your point? I proved my point that Marths were able to consistently win tournaments because:

A. They were played by the best players and only the best Marths won while many other truly good Marths did not.

B. The other best players were few and far between like KDJ, Isai, PC, (Hugs doesn't count as Samus gets ***** in that matchup), and alot of those Pros didn't show up to many major events. When they did they placed well on won like KDJ who beat Ken and M2K (both his Marth and Fox). PC did the same thing at OC3. We can argue that Fox took to much precision to be maintained over a whole tournament but Shiek certainly does not.

C. No other Pros (and I mean really good not Semi Pros) used Marth counter characters like Shiek, or Fox, or Falcon. If they did use Falcon, M2K would just counter with his Shiek, Fox goes even with Marth (skill alone), and theres not to many high level Shieks as apparently she's not popular amongst the top ranking players.

So unless you can prove that tournaments will definetly really reflect tiers I don't know what you're arguing about. Seriously, what are you arguing? Its all good and well to say your too cool to debate it with me but that just looks like your don't really have an argumentive foot to stand on. So try to either actually say something or don't bother.

Also, Master Raven said

hahahahahaha

he did not say

hahahahahahaha

Quoted for misquotedness.

 

[WastingPenguins]

It only effects 1 character (yes, Luigi, Mario, and Samus can break out before ungodly percentages, and bowser is just a small-step chaingrab), and if we're banning moves because they make one match-up nearly unwinnable, well Ganondorf is one of my secondaries, and I've got a TON of moves to submit.

Not to mention that there are a ton of moves that make multiple match-ups effectively unwinnable, MK's tornado, G&W's Bair, etc, wouldn't we want to deal with them first?

We had a massive thread dealing with it, if you wanna read through it and debate on the official chaingrabbing thread, feel free.

I don't know why this is even argued about anymore. What we decided in those threads is that banning D3's standing infinite won't become the standard endorsed by the SBR. Tourney directors can do whatever they want with their individual tourneys. If all the directors in a region want something banned, it's banned.

 

[ShadoFiend]

For a game to have to ban so many things and also consider banning a character, I think that pretty much sums up how balanced brawl is.

Just bringing this up again Arby. I would love to read a big wall of text on how this is inaccurate.

 

[Turbo Ether]

A ton of stuff is banned or soft-banned in both games.

 

[Deathcarter]

For a game to have to ban so many things and also consider banning a character, I think that pretty much sums up how balanced brawl is.

Competetively speaking, you are right where Melee is MUCH more balanced (and I finally admit it.). But from the prospective of overall balance (as in looking into every character compared to every other character in order to grade the developers on how good of a job they did with balance), Brawl beats Melee.

The VAST MAJORITY of all of the broken moves, 70:30 matchups, and rediculously easily spammable brick walls belong to 6 characters in Brawl: MK, Snake, Marth, Falco, G&W, and DDD. The number of **** matchups go down ALOT with them being named as outliers. There are still quite a bit of **** matchups, but now they are pretty much exclusive to the low tiers and the bad matchup of one low tier almost never overlaps the bad matchup of another. Label either the top 4 or the bottom 4 characters in Melee as outliers; the remaining character balance is not as balanced as Brawl (albeit by only a little.)

Overall balance needs to be factored in just as much as competetive balance if not more for one important reason: Casuals and Competetive players of a fighting game see all of the characters equal, and as such need to be weighted equally. The problem with measuring balance by competetive standerds is that only the best characters are factored in to the game's balance and the ones that can't compete with them are factored only in the game's imbalance, particularly notable when a few characters dominate while MANY more characters could be relatively balanced amongst each other (there is a reason why Akuma is NEVER factored in SSF:T2's balance).

Competetive balance = Melee
Overall balance equals = Brawl

 

[Yuna]

The VAST MAJORITY of all of the broken moves, 70:30 matchups, and rediculously easily spammable brick walls belong to 6 characters in Brawl: MK, Snake, Marth, Falco, G&W, and DDD.

As opposed to Melee where everyone has all that?

The number of **** matchups go down ALOT with them being named as outliers.

As opposed to Melee?

Melee beats Brawl in overall game balance as well because the game engine allowed for even the suckiest of characters to not suck quite as much as in Brawl.

 

[ShadoFiend]

In Melee I can say that the characters classified as low tiers even held their own better then the ones in brawl today. You cannot deny that. The difference between characters and balance was not as dramatic as in brawl. This is my own opinion of course. This is not fact. There weren't as many infinities in Melee and tactics characters could abuse over and over that would get them the win (like camping in brawl).

There was always that chance that Mewtwo could put up a fight with Falco (go watch Taj vs Forward). In Melee we didn't see characters camping on the side of the level and abusing projectiles until the other player (who doesn't have anything to punish the camping) approaches. And then the camper flees and repeats the process. That could never happen in Melee. And if it has, someone show me because I've never seen that.

We are talking about two different games here ,with two different game mechanics. Brawls Mechanics make it so that 2 characters (Metaknight and Snake) are in their own listing on the tier list. Infinites are numerous which cause some characters to be completely useless unless it is banned. Frame and Priority Advantage high above any other characters that is nearly impossible to lag punish. etc.. Which is ironic since Sakurai said he made the game more balanced than Melee...

(Feel free to correct some bunch ups or nonsense. I typed this pretty early. I may be going loco)

 

[Amy the Hedgehog]

A ton of stuff is banned or soft-banned in both games.

I argee but, low tier and mid tier melee characters can win in melee, but melee has a very unbalanced system with combos, 0 to deaths, ect. And brawl is very unbalanced, its hard to say but imo melee is more unbalanced

 

[SCOTU]

Here's a list of major Melee tourneys from 2007 until brawl's release that Ankoku and I drew up the other day:

NAME			DATE		PPL	WINNER		CHARACTER
---------------------------------------------------------------------
EGL DC			January 2007	64	Azen Zagenite	Marth
AZOne			January 2007	40	Taj		Marth
C3 Smash Tournament	February 2007	94	Drephen		Sheik
IMNsomnia V		March 2007	116	Forward		Falco
MLG Long Island		May 2007	71	KoreanDJ	Sheik
EVO East		May 2007	63	Mew2King	Marth
FC-Diamond		July 2007	256	Mew2King	Marth
0C3			August 2007	337	PC Chris	Fox
EVO World		August 2007	??	SephirothKen	Marth
Super Champ Combo	September 2007	201	Mew2King	Marth
C3 September		September 2007	101	Mew2King	Marth
Viva La Smashtaclysm	November 2007	150	Azen Zagenite	Marth
*pound* 3		February 2008	224	Mango		Jigglypuff
FAST 1			July 2008	78	Mew2King	Marth
West Coast Smash League	December 2008	74	Mango		Jigglypuff

yes, marth does consistently win more than any other character. However, Sheik and jiggs were each able to grab a couple wins. Also note that the largest tourney, OC3, was won by a fox player (PC).

A few things on comparing balance that I would like to point out:

There are different ways one can measure balance. You can look at the whole cast of the game, and see which game has more tourney viable characters. However, this method fails to do a good job because it clearly favors the game with more characters.

Ok, so you might be able to take a percentage of the cast that is tourney viable and claim the larger ratio'd game is more balanced. I believe this method is also flawed. It doesn't take into account the balance between those characters at all.

I believe the best way to compare balance of a game is to look at the balance between the tourney viable characters. Look at the matchups between the top characters and see if any one character comes out ahead, or is it often a rock paper scissors system between characters (i.e. marth > falco > sheik > marth, or fox > marth > falco > fox, etc...)

 

[SCOTU]

I argee but, low tier and mid tier melee characters can win in melee, but melee has a very unbalanced system with combos, 0 to deaths, ect. And brawl is very unbalanced, its hard to say but imo melee is more unbalanced

Melee has 1 universal 0-death (IC's wobbles), and 1 situational 0-deaths (marth's cg on fox/falco; these are on 0-deaths in certain parts of the stage, and only on one stage).

Brawl has at least 2 universal 0-deaths (IC's CGs and DDD's standing infinite), and at least 2 situational 0-deaths (Marth's sad-grab walking cg on ness and Peach's grab release infinite on wario).

Check your facts.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Melee beats Brawl in overall game balance as well because the game engine allowed for even the suckiest of characters to not suck quite as much as in Brawl.

And you have proof for that?