Is the brawl style of gameplay really that bad?

[TL?]

I've seen a lot of melee fans who are worried about the new smash because it looks pretty similar to brawl. Admittedly, it had me somewhat worried as well but I'm not sure if that is really a problem. Basically I feel like brawl being an overall lacking game has more to do with improper execution and less to do with the actual style of game play itself. Brawl's air dodge system is not a bad one. You are still able to bait and punish with proper reads. It's just a strong defensive option. The problems come up when it's combined with a severe lack of hitstun and it basically breaks all juggle/followup attempts. With a bit more hitstun this mechanic is just fine. Lack of hitstun also prevents certain "jab combos" from being actual combos. Another problem is stale moves, a mechanic intended to promote variety, but instead enables one move chain grabs. Just the grab system in general was problematic, with non universal grab release recoveries leading to infinites and other things. In some instances, grab releases lead to a better followup than an actual throw. I feel like a lot of these flaws are oversights and not really on purpose thought out design decisions. Because of that, I feel like the new smash bros could resemble brawl fairly closely in terms of style/mechanics, and if the fine details are properly balanced then it easily has the potential to be legitimately good.

 

[Vkrm]

Not completely bad. Pretty decent actually, if you're playing casually. The trouble is its built on restrictive and exclusionary design philosophies, meaning sakurai had a very particular audience in mind and he had an absurdly stringent plan as to how the game should be played. Coming from melee was hard because that game let you do anything with your character and was made to facilitate every kind of play style.

 

[kakx]

Yes, it's not because there isn't wave dashing, L-cancelling, etc... It's because there are no TRUE combos. I mean Melee players like me like the competitive aspect of it, so the technicalities within the move-sets in Melee makes the game more competitive leading to more fun. It's a faster pace game that is built on punishing other players for doing something wrong, reactionary game play, mechanics within the game and mind games.

Honestly, I haven't played Brawl and I don't know the mechanics within the game, but I do know there is still a technical aspect of it which only applies to individual characters. Maybe a few "technical" aspects of it applying towards all the characters. Whereas characters in melee can all use the technical aspects of the game, in addition allowing the change in meta along with mechanics of the characters to develop and flourish individually. Since there are no real true combo in SSBB, it creates more of a defensive play where one player would just bait out a move from another to punish them with a "hit" or "two" and back off into defensive play. Melee of course has more of an offensive playstyle that allows true combos, meaning combos that can work over and over given a specific d.i. of the character allowing greater punishment (0 to Death combo or 0 - higher percentage). The combo's consist of reading and just the characters built. Whereas combos within brawl, mostly consist of just reading the opponent and reacting to what they do.

Overall, I do not care if the game does not have wave dashing, dash dancing, L-Cancelling, etc... I understand it's a different game and Melee or Brawl players should not expect it to have the same mechanics, but I just want SSB4 to have the essential ingredients to make it a competitive fighter-- having technical aspects within all characters, character development in meta game, true-combos, and no random bull**** aka tripping.

*Note* L-cancelling and Wave Dashes aren't glitches or exploitation. L-Cancelling was built into SSB (Original Smash) and Wave Dashing was known by the creators of SSBM during the development of the game, and allowed it into the game. Essentially, this are not glitches or exploitation of the game, but more like intended mechanics of the game.

 

[Mithost]

I don't care about the fall speed, there just needs to be less MK level balance issues and hitstun (or another way to make combos slightly feasible) readded. It appears they removed tripping, and I can do without Wavedashing and L Cancelling. Smash doesn't need these two things to be competitive, it needs a proper bait/punish system (like combos maybe?).

 

[TheTuninator]

It's also just not as fun for casual play. Feels like you're moving in slow motion after coming from Melee.

 

[rawrimamonster]

Depends on what he did for hitstun and if cancels come back or not. Slow doesn't neccessarily mean it will be horrible, 64 is slow compared to melee and it's a very combo heavy game because of the hitstun alone, not just the 0 lag cancels. If stun and cancels don't come back, it's gonna end up campy floaty crap again. Course...a lotta ppl will do that regardless because they'll be bringing their brawl mindset with them...god I hate that game, it's like a festering cancer.

 

[Maricalistaro]

Are people really not seeing that the game is faster then brawl. It's somewhere between melee and brawl right now. We also have increased hitstun.

 

[Vkrm]

The trailer looked speedy, but so did brawls trailer.

 

[dRevan64]

I agree that brawl is more a problem of being poorly executed than anything but even if it had been handled better the final product wouldn't have had melee's depth. That wouldn't necessarily have been a problem though, smash 64 is a great game and it's not as deep as melee either.
Still, simplifying mechanics over a franchise's lifecycle seems like the exact opposite of what should be happening.

 

[Revven]

Yes, it's bad, it's bad bad bad bad bad bad BAD that literally nothing was changed about the engine in the span of a year of development.

Howeverrrrrrrrr, it's still early, and some of it looks off. So not to be hopeful, but they could just be choosing to focus on characters/stages first and then the engine stuff will come later.

The truth is, there's lots of coding fallacies, bugs, and other crap that is leftover in the Brawl engine where if they don't change *anything* about it you're going to get that same muddy feeling. You're going to feel limited again in what you can do. The game won't let you have the freedom over your character like Smash 64 and Melee do. THAT'S why it's bad.

 

[NukeA6]

It's been years since I last posted here.

Anyway, Brawl got stale for me in less than a month. I'm no pro player or do anything competitive but I like some depth in Smash Bros like there used to be. Brawl was way too simplified and felt way too slow. Not to mention, it had one of the most stupid game mechanics ever: random tripping.

 

[jerflip]

Brawl = defensive options are superior, no hitstun
Melee = offense wins, combos due to hitstun

In my humble opinion, Brawl sucked

 

[Tien2500]

I'm not sure exactly why a game with combos is inherently better than a game without combos (although jab combos should definitely be true combos), but that's just me. I understand the risk and reward aspects and blah blah, but having less combos just makes things different, not worse. More of an emphasis on defense and spacing, less variance, etc. I liked Brawl alot, and that's basically what I want out of the new games.

 

[TheTuninator]

Combos = offensive focus. Get hit and you are gonna get taken for a ride. If you can recover after any hit campy defensive play becomes much stronger, as was the case in Brawl, and when somebody is punished for actually engaging that is not good.

 

[Mithost]

The mindset is that individual hits do not do enough damage to warrant the effort it takes to get that one hit in. If you can cause multiple hits and a possible kill out of an approach, it inherently becomes a smart option to peruse those hits. Right now, the game is bad because there is little reason to approach unless you are the only one character that can benefit greatly from attacking (metaknight).

 

[Tien2500]

Combos = offensive focus. Get hit and you are gonna get taken for a ride. If you can recover after any hit campy defensive play becomes much stronger, as was the case in Brawl, and when somebody is punished for actually engaging that is not good.

I get that, but I prefer a defensive focus. Obviously some tweaks have to be made to balance things a bit from Brawl, but I much prefer a defensive game.

Of course even in a game with combos, things can get quite campy...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVMl9FMX1kQ

 

[jerflip]

I get that, but I prefer a defensive focus. Obviously some tweaks have to be made to balance things a bit from Brawl, but I much prefer a defensive game.

That's great, but speaking from a competitive standpoint, defensive play is boring to watch

Hence, tourneygoers are worried that SSB4 will be another defensive game like Brawl

 

[Phaiyte]

Movement speed doesn't make a game entirely, but it helps out so much. I can tell people like slower games because Street Fighter is still popular. Personally though, I need that fast movement. It adds depth to the game better than any aspect ever will. L/Z-Canceling made tournaments the way they are because it added more speed and depth to the game more than wavedashing did. Melee's air dodge mechanics were also insanely superior either way. You couldn't just use it whenever to save yourself after getting hit by Ganon's Warlock Punch. You can't input commands until you touch the ground, so you have to make smarter choices, therefore increasing depth further. Wavedashing was simply air dodging into the ground. But because you have to jump in order to wavedash, it made jump cancellable moves and mechanics more effective and gives you more options. DI's presence is also seemingly more apparent.

Brawl doesn't have any gameplay options at all compared to Melee beyond extreme simplicity, and that's basically why no one likes Brawl.

 

[TheTuninator]

I get that, but I prefer a defensive focus. Obviously some tweaks have to be made to balance things a bit from Brawl, but I much prefer a defensive game.

Of course even in a game with combos, things can get quite campy...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVMl9FMX1kQ

Fair enough, but imo a defense-oriented engine results in inferior gameplay. Defensive characters are fine, but across an entire engine? Not so good.

 

[Phaiyte]

And you can not compare anything to Marvel. Marvel sticks 6 characters with ******** projectiles in one small place. It would be vastly different as a 1v1 game.

 

[RockinRudy]

Long Wall of Text. That I didn't read.

To end this thread.​

Yes. ​

It was the worst game play in the entire series and a disgrace to a competitive scene.​

/thread.​

 

[GaretHax]

If smash 4 turns out to be somewhere between PM and Brawl+ I think I would be pretty satisfied. Granted there are alot of individual things that need to be tweaked, such as how strong defensive options are in both melee and brawl, but generally speaking I think it would be a nice compromise. Also hitstun was actually pretty potent in Brawl the real problem was that the engine let you cancel or act out of it after an arbitrary number of frames (I think it amounted to like half a second lol...)

 

[Aenglaan]

It's nowhere as bad as some people make it out to be, but I prefer the faster pace of Melee/Project M compared to Brawl. Brawl is really floaty and it really lacks any sort of way to really connect combos.

Hopefully, the developers can find some compromise between the two styles of gameplay, so that competitive players and those who prefer Brawl's speed can be satisfied.

 

[Kef]

Combos do not equal an offensive games. It might look this way, especially when you come from a Melee-based background, but it is not true.

Mechanics/Properties like L-Canceling, Wavedashing, and higher hitstun are not only given to the offensive characters, but the more keepaway/runaway style characters can also abuse this. This is true for all the other defensive mechanics (air dodging, side step, shielding, crouch canceling) being available to the offensive characters. Overall character design of a game combined with the game's mechanics is what truly makes the overall game feel more offensive or defensive.

For anyone with a basic traditional fighting game background, some game's most feared combos were actually those coming from an extremely defensive player. Games like Marvel vs Capcom 2 are prime examples of this. In a game where keepaway and runaway strategies prevail, characters like Cable could kill an entire character from across the screen while never playing offensively. Why is this? Because his most powerful super happens to combo from all of his camping/defensive tools and from the super itself. See 1:10 here:

Just to put it simple for non traditional fighting game players. Let's say your character has the ability to runaway, the best keepaway in the game, a "button" that you can press and get out of pressure almost for free (and covers the entire screen), average health, all while being extremely safe in all of these options. Now, with all of these options mentioned, you can combo the opponent from across the screen and potentially kill their character. Sentinel and Storm (the other 2 top tier characters in a game where 4 top tiers rule the metagame, the other/only rushdown top tier being Magneto) also have this abilities. This is also happens in other fighting games (Chun-Li in Street Fighter 3: Third Strike, Morrigan/Doom in Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3, Sagat in Street Fighter II Turbo, Arakune/Nu/Rachel in Blazblue Calamity Trigger).

If the tip of Puff's Bair and Fair raised the opponent perfectly up and towards her and the move themselves had more hitstun, you would have a character that has great keepaway tools and can combo you extremely well playing her "campy" gamestyle. What if a character like Pit could juggle for big amounts of time with his arrows in the new Smash 4 because the game has more hitstun and the arrows (game-design choice here) happen to pop the opponent up just the right distance to combo into itself? Are these examples of offensive characters/play styles? This is why character design is the most important to shift the balance in a game's style.

In short, if character-game design permits you, in a fighting game you can be rewarded with a combo for incorporating both defensive and offensive styles of gameplay. It's not about if there ARE combos, but WHICH combos/tools are available that shapes up a game.

 

[lordvaati]

It's also just not as fun for casual play. Feels like you're moving in slow motion after coming from Melee.

to be fair though, i felt the same way from playing 64 after playing Melee.

just as long as the new game is engaging and good balance between offensive and defensive play,I don't really care about the speed.

 

[Renji64]

I can't take another brawl. I know we will never get another melee give me a game that is better than both i want the series to progress. People deemed melee to hard and this series is on a downward spiral just good content and hollow gameplay.

 

[GaretHax]

Erm Iirc Critics deemed 4 way free for all's too chaotic at first and most later retracted the notion. Just sayin, also downward spiral seems like a pretty harsh generalization since we are all just working on personal taste. Its all subjective after all.

 

[MrZero]

Now, I do think Melee is a more intense and traditional fighting game, but Brawl is still a legitimate game. Defensive or offensive oriented, it makes a game no better or worse. Some people are just naturally better suited for one style over another. I, for one, am much better suited to Brawl's style, but I see nothing wrong with that.

If you want a game that's truly better, let's hope that SSB4 has an equal mix of offense and defense in the metagame. And no random tripping.

 

[TewnLeenk]

I don't think it looks slower than Brawl. I'm thinking it's in between Melee and Brawl. After watching the fight between Sakurai as Mega Man and that other guy as Mario, it looks pretty quick. The falling isn't as floaty for sure.

 

[Hitzel]

I just want to throw out there, if we are talking about Marvel 3's and Morrigan / Doom, I think it's best to point out that Chris G's Morrigan has evolved into more of a rushdown-oriented style, and his Vergil also rushes down and has become just as powerful.

I only played Brawl competitively, but I understand its faults to a certain extent. If the game isn't going to support combos in most situations, I feel that characters should die at lower percents and that the game's moves shouldn't be so unsafe on block. Of course the game should be sped up, deep mechanics should be introduced, etc., but if individual hits are important I feel the game should cater to those individual hits being important like Street Fighter 2 or something.

Also... lordvaati, I like your sig lol.

 

[Amida64]

Why can you not have a game with defensive and offensive playstyles? Why must the game be exactly like melee? You have melee, you have project M, it is time for a game that fits what both sides want. You should be able to play defensive and offensive playstyles, NO wavedashing, lets not be selfish, just think about all the casual players, or even the competitive brawl players who do not play melee. The melee players will have a competitive advantage, and casual players (which make up the majority of sales) will not learn/know about it. Also, casual players never knew about techs like wavedashing and L cancelling, because it wasn't in the manual. Back then, manuals actually told you stuff, and people read them, so it is VERY hard for me to believe neither of these are glitches or exploits in melee. I do not want a brawl 2, I want a SMASH game, that is balanced to the best it can, however it can accomplish that. If its balanced, and there is no luck factors like tripping, and good online, how could it get more competitive? Adding in new techs to give more options is not MORE competitive, if the game is balanced, then the better player will win by taking the better options they are given. I am all for more hitstun for combos, and a LITTLE more speed, but slow enough for time to think. But we do not need all these crazy techs for the game to be more competitive!

 

[Renji64]

Why can you not have a game with defensive and offensive playstyles? Why must the game be exactly like melee? You have melee, you have project M, it is time for a game that fits what both sides want. You should be able to play defensive and offensive playstyles, NO wavedashing, lets not be selfish, just think about all the casual players, or even the competitive brawl players who do not play melee. The melee players will have a competitive advantage, and casual players (which make up the majority of sales) will not learn/know about it. Also, casual players never knew about techs like wavedashing and L cancelling, because it wasn't in the manual. Back then, manuals actually told you stuff, and people read them, so it is VERY hard for me to believe neither of these are glitches or exploits in melee. I do not want a brawl 2, I want a SMASH game, that is balanced to the best it can, however it can accomplish that. If its balanced, and there is no luck factors like tripping, and good online, how could it get more competitive? Adding in new techs to give more options is not MORE competitive, if the game is balanced, then the better player will win by taking the better options they are given. I am all for more hitstun for combos, and a LITTLE more speed, but slow enough for time to think. But we do not need all these crazy techs for the game to be more competitive!

You got a great points But I still want a skill gap if someone is better than me I want to work to beat them I like the techw.

 

[Amida64]

You got a great points But I still want a skill gap if someone is better than me I want to work to beat them I like the techw.

I can understand that, but this would compromise everyone...... I wish we could all agree on something and show it to Nintendo.......

 

[Vkrm]

It is within their power to deliver a game that is both melee-esque and new. Nobody is asking for a game analogous to ssbm, but what do want is a game that has the same guidelines. Freedom of movement, a combo system that emphasizes innovation, stuff like that. I'd settle for a game that's as baller as melee, though.

 

[El Duderino]

Think it's time to stop fixating on how good or bad Brawl was and start asking if the series and scene really benefit from what is so far looking like a marginally different installment.

That was the whole point of the Melee 2.0 criticism, right? How does a sector of this community go from raising hell about this in the past to caring so little about a potential Brawl 2.0 now? It's incredibly hypocritical.

 

[dRevan64]

Just to put it simple for non traditional fighting game players. Let's say your character has the ability to runaway, the best keepaway in the game, a "button" that you can press and get out of pressure almost for free (and covers the entire screen), average health, all while being extremely safe in all of these options. Now, with all of these options mentioned, you can combo the opponent from across the screen and potentially kill their character.

Other than agreeing with the body of this post, I wanted to point out that this is almost a flawless description of pikachu in smash 64
At a very high level that game is played very defensively BECAUSE of combos, not in spite of them, just look at gerson vs. isai
The defensive nature of the game wasn't really the problem with brawl, it had a lot more to do with just being unrewarding, unresponsive, unbalanced, unpunishing and very slow.
The problem wasn't that brawl was defensive, it was that playing defensively was incredibly, cripplingly simple and was the best option in almost every case, especially when the game engine itself punishes you for being aggressive.

 

[XavierSylfaen]

Why can you not have a game with defensive and offensive playstyles? Why must the game be exactly like melee? You have melee, you have project M, it is time for a game that fits what both sides want. You should be able to play defensive and offensive playstyles, NO wavedashing, lets not be selfish, just think about all the casual players, or even the competitive brawl players who do not play melee. The melee players will have a competitive advantage, and casual players (which make up the majority of sales) will not learn/know about it. Also, casual players never knew about techs like wavedashing and L cancelling, because it wasn't in the manual. Back then, manuals actually told you stuff, and people read them, so it is VERY hard for me to believe neither of these are glitches or exploits in melee. I do not want a brawl 2, I want a SMASH game, that is balanced to the best it can, however it can accomplish that. If its balanced, and there is no luck factors like tripping, and good online, how could it get more competitive? Adding in new techs to give more options is not MORE competitive, if the game is balanced, then the better player will win by taking the better options they are given. I am all for more hitstun for combos, and a LITTLE more speed, but slow enough for time to think. But we do not need all these crazy techs for the game to be more competitive!

I agree with what you're saying here but I have to butt in because of this:

Also, casual players never knew about techs like wavedashing and L cancelling, because it wasn't in the manual. Back then, manuals actually told you stuff, and people read them, so it is VERY hard for me to believe neither of these are glitches or exploits in melee.

Here is proof that Z-cancelling was intentional in SSB64.

This is from a web archive of the SSB64 dojo before the Melee dojo was put up. Are you really suggesting that Z-cancelling was put in the game intentionally, then nearly the exact same mechanic was programmed in to the sequel by accident?

Wavedashing was intentional as well. "Landingfallspecial" protocol conserves momentum from fallspecial, so if you go into helpless after a recovery move you will slide depending on the momentum you had in the air. If you airdodge close to the ground you will conserve more momentum and slide more. It's not a glitch. This would all be speculation, but an interview with Sakurai confirms this. The proof:

Ignorance is no excuse for objectively false "opinions".

EDIT: Sorry if I sounded harsh but I did want to point that out.

 

[Amida64]

I agree with what you're saying here but I have to butt in because of this:



Here is proof that Z-cancelling was intentional in SSB64.

This is from a web archive of the SSB64 dojo before the Melee dojo was put up. Are you really suggesting that Z-cancelling was put in the game intentionally, then nearly the exact same mechanic was programmed in to the sequel by accident?

Wavedashing was intentional as well. "Landingfallspecial" protocol conserves momentum from fallspecial, so if you go into helpless after a recovery move you will slide depending on the momentum you had in the air. If you airdodge close to the ground you will conserve more momentum and slide more. It's not a glitch. This would all be speculation, but an interview with Sakurai confirms this. The proof:

Ignorance is no excuse for objectively false "opinions".

Thats all I wanted, proof....... someone else just showed a japanese website as proof..... but they definitely should have put it in the manual back then.

 

[Amida64]

It is within their power to deliver a game that is both melee-esque and new. Nobody is asking for a game analogous to ssbm, but what do want is a game that has the same guidelines. Freedom of movement, a combo system that emphasizes innovation, stuff like that. I'd settle for a game that's as baller as melee, though.

Freedom of control/movement would be great, as long as it does not take a bunch of ridiculous inputs....... I love techs, I enjoy dacusing in brawl, but looking at a compromise for the WHOLE community, including casual, it would be better off removed and they should find an easier alternative, or make wavedashing easier, and the manual and/or game should tell people about it. look at the old n64 Zelda games...... how will those EVER be beaten/topped? The glitches literally give an infinite amount of replay value, and they require tech skill, and it makes an easy game harder. It also allows the game to be more competitive, for speedruns and such, but my point is, this does not compromise all the players in smash.

 

[number90901]

I'm a casual player who usually plays brawl as a party game. I love it and it's my favorite game in my collection. As a casual gamer, its one of the only two games I've ever spent more than 100 hours on. Only after visiting websites like these have I discovered things like wave-dashing, tripping, etc. I ran them by my friends who play with me, and they hadn't noticed either. I don't even know what you mean by "it's better to be on the defensive." The only difference we can even tell from Melee to Brawl is the speed, and SSBWU/3DS seems to find a happy medium. I personally prefer Brawl, but my friend prefers Melee, so hopefully SSBWU/3DS will find a good place in-between. So, at least to me and everyone I know (mostly casual or casually hardcore), Brawl works just fine.