Is Project M too easy relatively?

[Thane of Blue Flames]

Is your avatar the Silver Knight Set, crushing a Humanity?

 

[Hinichii.ez.™]

If ya can't L cancel, learn the timings of yo auto cancel frames
But geez
I never light press for my L cancel :/

Oh and the different times for L cancels would be cool, if this was melee. In melee it's ok to have one main and do perfectly fine. In this game, it's almost a requirement to have a strong second and in some cases even a third under your belt. It seems cool on paper, but for PM, I just couldn't see it.

 

[mimgrim]

Is your avatar the Silver Knight Set, crushing a Humanity?

Black Knight, actually. And yes he is crushing a Humanity, or maybe just a crushable Soul (I'm not really sure which lol).

 

[Endeby]

My only complaint about having more frames to work with in Project M is that playing it helps my Melee techs less than it would if it was more similar.

Easier is better in terms of game design, however.

 

[Caz1]

One of the fundamental concepts that goes into the creation of a game is that of creating obstacles to then be overcome. The entire point is to make things harder than they need to be, to allow players to gain proficiency in techniques and apply their skill. In this light, the argument that L-canceling should always be done and therefore is bad doesn't really hold up. You don't need every single aspect of a game to involve mindgaming your opponent and outplaying them in that sense. It's OKAY to have personal obstacles to overcome, like tech skill.

Now, I can understand if some players merely do not like L-canceling (or other seemingly arbitrary obstacles) and that's fine. But I don't think that leads to an argument of L-canceling being fundamentally bad game design.

 

[Droß]

Another point to remember: Project: M is both a casual and competitive game, and as such, it needs to be designed to cater to both demographics. This isn't as hard as it sounds, but still needs to be considered carefully.

For example, how many casuals are going to care that things like L-Cancelling or DACUS exist if none of their opponents ever use it? If anything, it's a nice surprise, since you end up doing things you didn't think you could do once in a while, which actually makes the gameplay more interesting. It might even spark a more competitive side of that player, although that seems like a bit of a rare occurrence. Getting crushed by those techniques isn't terribly fun, but players tend to group with those who think like them, meaning casual players will play casual players more often, and competitive players with other competitive players. If Smash Bros increases in popularity (which Project: M might do to an extent), then this problem is alleviated even further.

Competitively, mechanical depth is critical. Any game with too low of a skill ceiling ends up being solved (Tic-Tac-Toe, Chess to some extent), and rendered virtually useless as a rich competitive environment; after all, if optimal decision trees can be generated, then it is merely the work of a computer to iterate through those trees and win nearly 100% of the time. The good news is that video games have a huge ability to generate meaningful mechanical depth through a plethora of methods, and have the power to introduce the vast degrees of success (another critical concept) required to differentiate more skilled players from less skilled. The more degrees of success a game introduces, the more depth it generates, and the more fulfilling it becomes to master it.

This is why games like Starcraft and League of Legends are so immensely successful in the competitive sense; you make thousands of decisions per minute, maintain a constant stream of mechanical input to put those ideas into action, and on top of that, you are forced to react to your opponents, who are doing the same exact thing. Both of these games have much higher learning curves than Smash Bros, yet they are an order of magnitude more popular. It's partially the immensely high skill ceiling, and partially the medium that they operate on (PC, which virtually anybody can get and run the games on, and has uses other than games, meaning it permeates through a much larger pool of people).

In this sense, L-Cancelling is good game design in concept, but it is incomplete as I previously argued. If anything, I'd like to see more mechanical depth be added to this game by allowing individual moves to be adjusted slightly based on input parameters. As an example, imagine if you could increase or decrease the range of your up-tilt by holding the Up and/or A buttons for longer or shorter time, thereby changing when it occurs, adjusting the knockback and damage it does, and how far the move reaches independently (so you can modify one parameter, two, three, or all). Now instead of just having one version of the utilt, you have hundreds, if not thousands. Smashes already implement this to a flatter degree, but they're too slow even at their fastest speed for such mechanics to be meaningful; the move is super telegraphed even to relatively new players, and all of the parameters I just mentioned are changed together, instead of separately.

As a concrete example, take Lucas's ftilt, which as is can only be executed in one way. Under the mechanical system I just described, I could increase its range and make it release faster by holding the left button longer, but releasing the A button faster, thereby pushing it out farther and faster at the cost of damage and knockback. This version would be useful for punishing a Sonic dash attack, or exchanging blows with a Marth. If I needed to punish a Link who just whiffed a grab, I could get greedy and maximize my power, range, and knockback by holding A and left for as long as the move would permit. This would reward my observation that I can use more time than the minimum amount needed to release the ltilt since my opponent just left themselves highly vulnerable, and the cost, which would be a several frame delay in the move's release, is essentially unimportant since my opponent isn't able to punish it.

This would apply to every character and every move, of course. Hand to hand characters, like Kirby, could have minimally powered versions of their dair be only meteors, but when maximally powered, it turns into a true spike, thereby introducting a high-risk, high-reward scenario: do I play it safe and pile on a little less damage with less chance to kill, but have a more likely chance to hit, or do I take the risk and try to apply a sure KO at the cost of potentially dodging or getting hit pre-emptively?

The possibilities for this type of change are literally endless; the mechanical depth and degrees of success in the game would increase exponentially, and more casual players would be no worse off for not utilizing these mechanics against other casual players; the game would still be as fun, if not more so, then it was in its simpler iteration.

 

[Hinichii.ez.™]

Chess to an extent??? League????
Please...no more, I surrender

 

[Giygacoal]

In this sense, L-Cancelling is good game design in concept, but it is incomplete as I previously argued.

I don't think L-Canceling is good game design. In mechanically-advanced games, every action should have significant meaning, not just clutter the execution flow simply for the sake of having more button presses. The only time (manual) l-canceling isn't preferred is when auto-canceling is used. Overall, it's not a situational mechanic, and just comes across as inefficient to me. It's not even a matter of competitive vs. casual.

 

[1MachGO]

*sigh* some people still don't understand L-Cancelling.

The only reasonable argument against it is that it adds an additional execution barrier. Unless your value of depth is heavily skewed against any form of execution, then L-Cancelling (objectively speaking) contributes to the depth of this game more than auto-L-cancelling ever would.

 

[The_NZA]

this thread sucks...

 

[PillsBuryDopeBoy]

this thread sucks...

Lets abandon this thread then shall we?

 

[SuruStorm]

The effect of l canceling should be automatic. That would be nice

I speak as someone who is pretty terrible at wavedashing and I have to politely disagree, it's one of the many things in the game that require ridiculous amounts of practice and hard work.

 

[HK_Spadez]

I agree there is no need to make the game harder but there is also no reason to make it easier.

Did you just reply to your own post and said "i agree"? lol

 

[Y-L]

Did you just reply to your own post and said "i agree"? lol

I agree with SB that we shouldn't revert to Brawl mechanics to make the game harder for the sake of being harder.

 

[Strong Badam]

But if a mechanic from Melee makes the game harder for the sake of being harder it's okay.

Aight bro

 

[Y-L]

But if a mechanic from Melee makes the game harder for the sake of being harder it's okay.

Aight bro

It is project melee after all. We aren't adding something we just aren't taking away. PM is already noticeably easier than melee with an extra frame for SHing and better recoveries it doesn't make sense to make it even easier. That just discredits the game.

 

[mimgrim]

That depends.

Are we talking about the skill floor or skill ceiling?

If we are talking about the floor, then yes making L-cancel automatic does indeed make it easier. However what is wrong with a low floor? It makes the game easier for new players too get into. How is that a bad thing? Low skill floor is better then high skill floor, imo.

Now if we are talking about ceiling. It doesn't affect anything. As top level, the highest point the ceiling can be at in a metagame, is not changed in any, noticeable, way. And it definitely wouldn't lower the ceiling, and a high skill ceiling is better the a low skill ceiling, imo.

Despite that. I would like to see L-cancel put into a risk VS reward thing so it becomes a part of the ceiling rather as a part of the floor.

 

[roman5hero]

but it isn't project melee it is project m that seems to be a common mistake

l cancel is in fact bad design, even average players are not missing any during a match. it is an added difficulty that adds zero depth to the game.

do I want it removed? no, it has history of being in melee and to an even further degree 64. if project m was its own original game hell yes it shouldn't be included but because of the history of being in the older games exists that takes a front seat to good game design.

 

[Y-L]

but it isn't project melee it is project m that seems to be a common mistake

l cancel is in fact bad design, even average players are not missing any during a match. it is an added difficulty that adds zero depth to the game.

do I want it removed? no, it has history of being in melee and to an even further degree 64. if project m was its own original game hell yes it shouldn't be included but because of the history of being in the older games exists that takes a front seat to good game design.

The m stands for melee bro.

 

[roman5hero]

The m stands for melee bro.

I've seen a few project m backroomers correct others on this stating it is just project m.

 

[9bit]

The m stands for melee bro.

If that was ever true, it absolutely isn't true anymore. If you insist on thinking that it did stand for Melee at one point, then think of it like this now: the project has moved on and the M does not stand for Melee anymore, it's just an M.

 

[EPsilon933]

I speak as someone who is pretty terrible at wavedashing and I have to politely disagree, it's one of the many things in the game that require ridiculous amounts of practice and hard work.

Wow, you have such rare dedication. Congratulations!

 

[Crezyte]

I always thought L-cancel should fit into a risk VS reward scenario myself.

L-cancel, as it is, makes whiffing aerials too safe. I think L-cancel should be made too where you can only use it if your move makes contact but becomes disabled if your move doesn't make contact. This really makes it fall under the Risk VS Reward category. If you make contact you get rewarded for being to preform a L-cacel. If you don't, you get punished for not making contact. And given how much of an air fighter Smash is, it really helps to even it out some.

Why take out zoning for a notion of risk vs reward? Plenty of characters need to L-cancel their moves if they are zoning.

 

[Phaiyte]

Dude, not having to l cancel is totally good game design. All other fighting games seem to work wonders without it. Why can't Smash games be the same?

If you're jumping in Street Fighter chances are you already ****ed up enough.

 

[Phaiyte]

The large majority of people who play video games are people who are entirely against recognizing when change is preferable to the status quo. I believe that competitive video games have significant untapped potential as a medium of sports and entertainment, and I think it's pretty unlikely that they'll ever be as widely accepted as other games of skill until people stop designing competitive video games with the irrational mindset that the only people who should be allowed to be good at video games are obsessive nerds who are obviously more concerned with defending the only thing from which they can possibly deride any sense of self-worth than they are with maybe letting other people have fun too whoops did I just say that out loud.

It's really more like people with strong enough dedication, reflexes, education of the game, whatever else is needed to compete in whatever.. In physical sports people will do the same exact thing with the unskilled people and just leave them behind. You don't perform, you don't play.

Hold on while I put this in to the general auto L Cancel supporters mind:
Man in basketball, maybe we should just give the teams points just for throwing the ball at the net. I mean, actually making those baskets is such an easy and arbitrary skill that adds no depth to the game because most players pretty much make every shot anyways no matter what kind of spacing it takes for shooting at different areas of the court.

 

[GP&B]

The disassociation of the M from Melee generally tends to come from the realization a long time ago that arbitrarily adhering to specifics traits from Melee was toxic for Project M. This is why we have things like a less lenient ledge occupancy range, a less stupid meteor cancel window, more logical recovery mechanics (backwards ledgegrab out of initial special fall is universal, specials like Falcon's >B can grab the ledge) as well as a proper assessment of Melee vets instead of leaving them untouched. The point is, while the foundation of Project M mostly follows the guidelines of Melee, not every single aspect is carried over to absolute precision (besides some of the most important and beneficial ones like DI mechanics, knockback stacking, SDI to ledge tech, and such).

 

[EPsilon933]

If you're jumping in Street Fighter chances are you already ****ed up enough.

Street Fighter doesn't have blocking in air. 3rd Strike allows you to parry in the air, which makes it a bit safer. Other fighting games allow you to block in the air, so even more safety. Street Fighter isn't the only other fighting game

Hold on while I put this in to the general auto L Cancel supporters mind:
Man in basketball, maybe we should just give the teams points just for throwing the ball at the net. I mean, actually making those baskets is such an easy and arbitrary skill that adds no depth to the game because most players pretty much make every shot anyways no matter what kind of spacing it takes for shooting at different areas of the court.

You know what's great about competitive video games? You don't have to spend all your life to get good at them starting at like age 5. You only need to spend a few years to get noticed and put up a half decent fight against a pro player. You can even get chances to play against pro players even if you're a noob. Got a broken/amputated/paralyzed leg? GG. You can't play sports anymore

But if it's a video game, you can have physical deformities like having 6 inch arms and still be a top player. Ever heard of Broly? He's 1 of the best Chun-Li players in the world. That guy uses his tongue to play the game. It's also possible for someone really young to place really high at a tournament. Noah placed top 32 in MVC3 at EVO 2011. Lil Poison was wrecking people in Halo 1 at the age of 5

Why have such disabling limits on a video game mimicking reality?

 

[The_NZA]

artificial barriers of difficulty aren't always a bad thing. You never want to get supply blocked in Starcraft, or miss a mule, or miss a "spawn larvae". Imagine if you could split all your units with a click? I know what people are going to say--"but sometmies you don't want to drop a mule or spawn larvae because you want to save energy". That may be true, but do you really think Starcraft would be made better if you could activate it like a passive ability with a right click and all these mechanics and macro opportunities automate themselves?

I once fell into the design camp of supporting the undoing of all artificial barriers in favor of opening up intelligent branching decision making (i.e. reward not L cancelling in certain situations). But the truth is, artificial barriers make doing certain techniques harder and they open up windows to punish an opponent who is feeling the stress/the heat.

As a Ness main, I have a tremendous amount of heights from which I can fast fall an aerial, with a lot of variation. This is all due to Ness's strange jumps, DJC, and magnet. It is hard to always l cancel every single one in grand finals, accounting for platforms, shields, and my variable fast fall--especially when i'm stressed. Same goes for frame perfect falco/fox shield pressure. Hitting X, down on the cstick, l, down b and repeating isn't hard. But doing all of them together in a tight 18 frame window (a third of a second) over and over 4 or 5 times in a row while accounting for the difference of a shield stun v. body hit IS hard. We know this because even good players fail to do it in high level matches. Every pro I've seen has missed an L cancel in 2013. Because of the very existence of L-cancels, you get a spectator sense of how much heat the players are feeling, and you also make it more enjoyable to do and experience perfect shield pressure with spacies, or wonky pressure with DJC characters.

In short, yes its artificial. Yes, the game would be mostly fine without l cancelling. But I think to pretend it adds nothing to the game because its JUST a "tedious thing that no one good screws up" isn't a fair characterization of the argument. The existence of l-cancelling hedges against extremely powerful play in fast precise hands, and without it, it places very powerful play in the hands of many more people.

 

[Bleck]

It's really more like people with strong enough dedication, reflexes, education of the game, whatever else is needed to compete in whatever.. In physical sports people will do the same exact thing with the unskilled people and just leave them behind. You don't perform, you don't play.

Someone having the dedication to learn L-canceling isn't a good argument for the existence of L-canceling. Try again.

Hold on while I put this in to the general auto L Cancel supporters mind

I'm not sure what thread you're reading but arguing against L-canceling being a thing isn't the same thing as arguing in favor of auto L-canceling. At the very least, in my case, I'm arguing that there shouldn't be any L-canceling at all, and that characters who rely on it heavily are either a) fast characters who could frankly use the nerf or b) slow characters who, rather than needing a mechanic that gives them good SHFFLs, should be reconfigured to have a stronger ground game.

Man in basketball, maybe we should just give the teams points just for throwing the ball at the net. I mean, actually making those baskets is such an easy and arbitrary skill that adds no depth to the game because most players pretty much make every shot anyways no matter what kind of spacing it takes for shooting at different areas of the court.

Here's a better analogy - "man, I think three steps before travelling is way too many. It should really just be no steps, 'cause I mean, any good player is gonna have the dedication to learn how to time their dribbles with each step exactly. Any needlessly complex physical barrier is good for the game, 'cause it means that players have to be arbitrarily 'better' than they would otherwise."

 

[mimgrim]

Why take out zoning for a notion of risk vs reward? Plenty of characters need to L-cancel their moves if they are zoning.

Not really.

Many zoners zone through projectiles, L-cacnel isn't needed there.

Now for characters that don't have a projectile that zone? They still have extremely good range, and they can use that range to their benefit still. It would also get them doing zoning option from the ground more.

L-cancel isn't needed for zoners, it's just a boon because of how free it makes it to do aerials.

 

[-_Face_-]

Shouldn't it always be done? Why should there be a requirement to always do something you should always do? Like breathing. Imagine if that was manual

I think you nailed with this, it's something you should do, not something you have to do. If there was no way to win without l-cancelling then I would be all for auto l-cancelling. But one could conceivably win a match without it, so it becomes a skill you can use, that you've earned the right to use through practice and can help you win.

 

[roman5hero]

I challenge you to win a tournament without l canceling. no way you could do it

 

[Crezyte]

I challenge you to win a tournament without l canceling. no way you could do it

You could probably win a local by just playing Link and not use any aerials except for d-throw -> kill move. I know a Link that dominates his community and has minimal tech skill.

 

[1MachGO]

Here's a better analogy - "man, I think three steps before travelling is way too many. It should really just be no steps, 'cause I mean, any good player is gonna have the dedication to learn how to time their dribbles with each step exactly. Any needlessly complex physical barrier is good for the game, 'cause it means that players have to be arbitrarily 'better' than they would otherwise."

You are trying too hard. A good analogy to L-Cancelling would actually just be dribbling itself. They are both "arbitrary" requirements of the player which supposedly serve as little hindrance to those who have master them. If you removed either of them, the core game would remain largely the same.

However, even if you find them arbitrary, they are still additions to the game. L-Cancelling and dribbling are not isolated. They are elements which interact with other elements and its in these relationships that we find depth. Sure, L-Cancelling may be all but mastered at high level play, but its still something the player has to account for. Its still something you have to plan to do in relation to timing and affects your ability to process new information. It adds a lot of small, but interesting and understated nuances to every facet of the game its associated with.

The problem is that most people who dislike L-Cancelling either:

A) don't understand higher level play
or
B) Only value risk/reward depth

 

[The_NZA]

You could probably win a local by just playing Link and not use any aerials except for d-throw -> kill move. I know a Link that dominates his community and has minimal tech skill.

I'm sorry but you should feel bad for this post.

What kill move do you think works out of dthrow? dair/uair with their ridiculous landing lag without an l cancel, or fair which only works on very particular DI/weight/percent?

Post quality here is dropping...fast.

 

[Crezyte]

I'm sorry but you should feel bad for this post.

What kill move do you think works out of dthrow? dair/uair with their ridiculous landing lag without an l cancel, or fair which only works on very particular DI/weight/percent?

Post quality here is dropping...fast.

Have you not watched Nick Riddles link @ CEO? After every D-throw at certain percents, he got a kill. I'm pretty sure he didn't miss any kills with that setup. And why would you need to l-cancel when you've killed the other person?

-edit

Just noticed that there's only him vs Hbox and Wizzy on Clash Tournament's youtube... well I was there to watch him play and from what I watched he didn't miss any of his setups.

 

[Fortress]

I'm sorry but you should feel bad for this post.

What kill move do you think works out of dthrow? dair/uair with their ridiculous landing lag without an l cancel, or fair which only works on very particular DI/weight/percent?

Post quality here is dropping...fast.

Hi, you must be new to Link seeing as d-throw/d-air is a pretty BnB kill combo with Link. Ending lag doesn't mean **** when you've exploded the opponent after using a d-air while inside of them.

 

[Chexr]

For three whole years I played brawl I always tried to L-Cancel. It never worked. Please don't take this away from me.

 

[Bleck]

You are trying too hard. A good analogy to L-Cancelling would actually just be dribbling itself. They are both "arbitrary" requirements of the player

Dribbling isn't arbitrary - in basketball, the only way to legally move the ball is to pass to a player. Dribbling arose as an interpretation of that rule whereupon it was not specified that the player you're passing to can't be yourself.

I guess it would be too much to assume that the average poster here actually knows anything about sports.

 

[GP&B]

Not really.

Many zoners zone through projectiles, L-cacnel isn't needed there.

Now for characters that don't have a projectile that zone? They still have extremely good range, and they can use that range to their benefit still. It would also get them doing zoning option from the ground more.

L-cancel isn't needed for zoners, it's just a boon because of how free it makes it to do aerials.

It would cripple characters like Ike who would effectively lose the ability to threaten space with their range. Characters with strong DD games would become even better through the means of baiting aerials or abusing their opponents' slower ground options to get in.