CFMV
"The Marf"
Because playing one Brawl match takes twice as long and is half as fun as Melee. Thus marginal utility gained per minute of Brawl is 1/4 that of Melee, for the mathematically impaired.
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Kansas City/Lawrence Discussion Topic
- Thread starter Phatgamer1
- Start date
Stealth Raptor
Smash Legend
Dont forget how gay you have to be at times.
linkw00t
Smash Journeyman
Brawl is terrible, want to argue! Get final smashed by Chadouken IRL,
edit: this is chadouken
Twice as long COULD be fact, I'll admit that. But half as fun is just more opinions. And opinions are not and never will be fact. It's your OPINION that Melee is better, it's my OPINION that Brawl is better. It could be some other guy's OPINION that 64 is the best.
We all just need to stop throwing around opinions and saying that Melee/Brawl is better than the other... In the end, they're both still VIDEO GAMES, so what's the point of arguing about which is better? You'll play what you like, I'll play what I like, and we'll both be happy, why turn it into a fight?
Now, let's all rant about how freaking cloudy it's been around here lately.
Commentary on Melee vs. Brawl
This assumes each game at a competitive level (tournament scene).
Gamers tend to enjoy a game that makes them feel like a successful or talented gamer. It’s a proven fact. Game designers even design for this element within their mechanics, animations and level design (I have two case studies I could present involving Tomb Raider and Sonic as simple studies, but I’ll spare you unless you’re really that interested than PM me).
That being said, one of the elements that makes melee a fierce game of competition is that it frequently alienates gamers from feeling like good gamers at a competitive level. The amount of practice necessary to begin to compete at a tournament level is slow and tedious which leads to a slow return on placement at tournament level, it’s hard to see your progress. One reason is that it requires both physical (twitch) reflex, time-in the form of practice, and an understanding of fighting dynamics (yomi layers). All which, unless you are willing to devote the time it takes to understand each aspect, will cause the game to be out of scope for the average gamer. This in turn leads to a majority of the average gamer or at least average in the sense of the fighting game genre, to view the game as ‘broken’ or too difficult, generally out of scope for the average gamer.
While brawl and melee have essentially the same idea in mind, the design for brawl actively worked to eliminate this alienation of the common gamer. After all, Nintendo has a long history of trying to appeal to a mass audience and be family/kid friendly. The average gamer can pick this game up and within a week or so begin to compete at a tournament level, provided they are informed on all the latest techniques. The techniques that have been discovered (emergent game play) are still not too difficult to alienate a vast majority of average gamers. Therefore the return on practice/placement on a tournament level is much higher/greater for brawl than it is melee. This in turn makes a gamer feel successful, something melee because of its harsh standards at a competitive level, does not.
Because of these reasons we often find a majority of people saying brawl is better, it simply has a wider scope right now. Players that still enjoy melee are there because of the appreciation for technical ability, and an understanding of the fighting dynamic (yomi layers) which both create an incredibly in depth game and limits the amount of players ABLE to compete at that level. It requires much more time to be successful than brawl, thus far.
However, I do find it humorous that, as the length of time brawl has been out, people are still searching for emerging techniques to make the game more technical on a competitive level. Emergent gameplay cannot be designed for by definition, but it appears frequently in many games. One must ask the question, as the amount of the emergent techniques appears, will this change the brawl tournament scene into something like the melee scene: locked to the average gamer because of the knowledge base necessary to just be able to simply play the game (IE wave dashing, l-canceling, inescapable combos). We may then see the number of people who hail brawl as a great game, drop, because it becomes locked at a competitive level, and the average gamer will not be able to compete unless devoting time and having inclinations towards twitch game play.
So far the designers of brawl have done a great job in trying to extract all the techniques that made melee limit its scope to a choice number of high level gamers. The slow rate of exploitative techniques (emergent gameplay) found in brawl (even with the experience of knowing what to look for as melee was picked apart) reflects this. This means that being able to compete at tournament level is still open to many of the average gaming crowd. The hardcore gamers still dominate the upper placements at tournament, below that, average gamers seem to still feel that they have done well as long as they are not decimated by an opponent. When someone turtle spams with game and watch or mortar slide spams with snake or tornado spams with Metaknight, many an average gamer will feel cheated if they did not know of the techniques. The difference between Melee and Brawl, is that, the technique is fairly easily to learn in brawl and allows that player to make a decision to learn or just give up on the competitive scene. Because it’s easier to learn certain techniques in brawl, than in melee, and thus do better next time, you will probably see a lower rate of attrition in brawl competitive scene than in melee.
Interestingly, one might make the connection that as a game tends to increase in depth (yomi layers) it also seems to decrease the number of players able to compete at the ultimate level and therefore decreases the overall scope of the game. When a game is shallower but still allows a gamer to feel successful, the scope is increased regardless of the fact that the depth of the game is shallow, at least in comparison to its predecessor in this case. However, as seen in many instances, depth tends to lead to longevity. If brawl, is indeed as shallow as many consider it to be (from the melee crowd), the game will fade over time regardless of its relatively large uproar of players who enjoy it, for now. Melee has proven its longevity and many gamers will agree that one reason is because of the amount of depth the game contains.
My prediction is that if brawl continues to find emerging techniques that alienate the average gamer from a competitive scene, the crowd for brawl will decrease. However, if the techniques found do not increase the depth of the game but simply make it more difficult to compete because of exploitative techniques like spamming, which lacks and does not add depth to a game, the game will stay at a shallow level, and eventually be considered more as a casual, but fun, game rather than an in depth game within the fighting game genre. This may make it more successful as far as sales go initially because of the scope it reaches, but will drop of much faster than Melee in sales over time. On the other hand, if the techniques found add depth to the game, then it will still alienate the average gamer, however, the longevity of the game will be similar to that of melee, and may actually redeem itself from being considered a shallow game by many hardcore gamers.
Whether you consider a game that appeals to a greater audience of gamers a better game than a game that has a seemingly infinite amount of depth but limits the amount of players that can be successful in it, you will find that both games are successful in their own ways. Many of the arguments seen on smashboards.com seem to be shallow opinions about each game and do not consider both sides of the argument, hopefully, what I have discussed here will provide a small amount of insight or thoughts and questions to consider for both sides about the ideology behind the design and affects of each game on the tournament scene.
JLoredo
Masters Student in Game Design at The Guildhall at Southern Methodist University, Plano, TX
and long term gamer.
This assumes each game at a competitive level (tournament scene).
Gamers tend to enjoy a game that makes them feel like a successful or talented gamer. It’s a proven fact. Game designers even design for this element within their mechanics, animations and level design (I have two case studies I could present involving Tomb Raider and Sonic as simple studies, but I’ll spare you unless you’re really that interested than PM me).
That being said, one of the elements that makes melee a fierce game of competition is that it frequently alienates gamers from feeling like good gamers at a competitive level. The amount of practice necessary to begin to compete at a tournament level is slow and tedious which leads to a slow return on placement at tournament level, it’s hard to see your progress. One reason is that it requires both physical (twitch) reflex, time-in the form of practice, and an understanding of fighting dynamics (yomi layers). All which, unless you are willing to devote the time it takes to understand each aspect, will cause the game to be out of scope for the average gamer. This in turn leads to a majority of the average gamer or at least average in the sense of the fighting game genre, to view the game as ‘broken’ or too difficult, generally out of scope for the average gamer.
While brawl and melee have essentially the same idea in mind, the design for brawl actively worked to eliminate this alienation of the common gamer. After all, Nintendo has a long history of trying to appeal to a mass audience and be family/kid friendly. The average gamer can pick this game up and within a week or so begin to compete at a tournament level, provided they are informed on all the latest techniques. The techniques that have been discovered (emergent game play) are still not too difficult to alienate a vast majority of average gamers. Therefore the return on practice/placement on a tournament level is much higher/greater for brawl than it is melee. This in turn makes a gamer feel successful, something melee because of its harsh standards at a competitive level, does not.
Because of these reasons we often find a majority of people saying brawl is better, it simply has a wider scope right now. Players that still enjoy melee are there because of the appreciation for technical ability, and an understanding of the fighting dynamic (yomi layers) which both create an incredibly in depth game and limits the amount of players ABLE to compete at that level. It requires much more time to be successful than brawl, thus far.
However, I do find it humorous that, as the length of time brawl has been out, people are still searching for emerging techniques to make the game more technical on a competitive level. Emergent gameplay cannot be designed for by definition, but it appears frequently in many games. One must ask the question, as the amount of the emergent techniques appears, will this change the brawl tournament scene into something like the melee scene: locked to the average gamer because of the knowledge base necessary to just be able to simply play the game (IE wave dashing, l-canceling, inescapable combos). We may then see the number of people who hail brawl as a great game, drop, because it becomes locked at a competitive level, and the average gamer will not be able to compete unless devoting time and having inclinations towards twitch game play.
So far the designers of brawl have done a great job in trying to extract all the techniques that made melee limit its scope to a choice number of high level gamers. The slow rate of exploitative techniques (emergent gameplay) found in brawl (even with the experience of knowing what to look for as melee was picked apart) reflects this. This means that being able to compete at tournament level is still open to many of the average gaming crowd. The hardcore gamers still dominate the upper placements at tournament, below that, average gamers seem to still feel that they have done well as long as they are not decimated by an opponent. When someone turtle spams with game and watch or mortar slide spams with snake or tornado spams with Metaknight, many an average gamer will feel cheated if they did not know of the techniques. The difference between Melee and Brawl, is that, the technique is fairly easily to learn in brawl and allows that player to make a decision to learn or just give up on the competitive scene. Because it’s easier to learn certain techniques in brawl, than in melee, and thus do better next time, you will probably see a lower rate of attrition in brawl competitive scene than in melee.
Interestingly, one might make the connection that as a game tends to increase in depth (yomi layers) it also seems to decrease the number of players able to compete at the ultimate level and therefore decreases the overall scope of the game. When a game is shallower but still allows a gamer to feel successful, the scope is increased regardless of the fact that the depth of the game is shallow, at least in comparison to its predecessor in this case. However, as seen in many instances, depth tends to lead to longevity. If brawl, is indeed as shallow as many consider it to be (from the melee crowd), the game will fade over time regardless of its relatively large uproar of players who enjoy it, for now. Melee has proven its longevity and many gamers will agree that one reason is because of the amount of depth the game contains.
My prediction is that if brawl continues to find emerging techniques that alienate the average gamer from a competitive scene, the crowd for brawl will decrease. However, if the techniques found do not increase the depth of the game but simply make it more difficult to compete because of exploitative techniques like spamming, which lacks and does not add depth to a game, the game will stay at a shallow level, and eventually be considered more as a casual, but fun, game rather than an in depth game within the fighting game genre. This may make it more successful as far as sales go initially because of the scope it reaches, but will drop of much faster than Melee in sales over time. On the other hand, if the techniques found add depth to the game, then it will still alienate the average gamer, however, the longevity of the game will be similar to that of melee, and may actually redeem itself from being considered a shallow game by many hardcore gamers.
Whether you consider a game that appeals to a greater audience of gamers a better game than a game that has a seemingly infinite amount of depth but limits the amount of players that can be successful in it, you will find that both games are successful in their own ways. Many of the arguments seen on smashboards.com seem to be shallow opinions about each game and do not consider both sides of the argument, hopefully, what I have discussed here will provide a small amount of insight or thoughts and questions to consider for both sides about the ideology behind the design and affects of each game on the tournament scene.
JLoredo
Masters Student in Game Design at The Guildhall at Southern Methodist University, Plano, TX
and long term gamer.
N64
Smash Champion
meh, stop arguing.
The barrio crew on average dislike and pretty much refuse to play brawl. That extends to not playing it during weekly barrios, not organizing/publicizing/attending any tournaments for it, and basically have anything to do with it. If you wanna go to barrio, play melee (or street fighter whatevers). If you wanna play brawl, there's another group around here somewheres that plays brawl weekly i think.
As much as i think brawl is boring, i'm tiring of seeing melee vs. brawl **** over and over. Lets all be friends, pals.
edit: Jesi had to go and wall of text right before me. Way to show me up heh.
The barrio crew on average dislike and pretty much refuse to play brawl. That extends to not playing it during weekly barrios, not organizing/publicizing/attending any tournaments for it, and basically have anything to do with it. If you wanna go to barrio, play melee (or street fighter whatevers). If you wanna play brawl, there's another group around here somewheres that plays brawl weekly i think.
As much as i think brawl is boring, i'm tiring of seeing melee vs. brawl **** over and over. Lets all be friends, pals.
edit: Jesi had to go and wall of text right before me. Way to show me up heh.
How would playing someone with broken items like Final Smashes prove a game is terrible? It's pointless to try to convince you guys anyway; you aren't going to play a game you don't like (which was common sense really).
Anyway, as disappointing as the barrio crew ditching brawl entirely is, it wasn't exactly unexpected, and I was mostly scouting for the JCCC crew and the other miscellaneous brawl players anyway. I hear you guys are still active; how has it been going? Have you guys gotten a lot better in the time I've been gone? Is there anyone new and exciting who is playing that wasn't during the summer? I'm still curious about that rumored tournament of course. I'm definitely going to do everything I can to make sure we play over Thanksgiving break in a month and then during Christmas; I just wanted to touch base and remind people that I'm alive beforehand. You don't know how exciting the prospect of having stepped up competition again is...
Anyway, as disappointing as the barrio crew ditching brawl entirely is, it wasn't exactly unexpected, and I was mostly scouting for the JCCC crew and the other miscellaneous brawl players anyway. I hear you guys are still active; how has it been going? Have you guys gotten a lot better in the time I've been gone? Is there anyone new and exciting who is playing that wasn't during the summer? I'm still curious about that rumored tournament of course. I'm definitely going to do everything I can to make sure we play over Thanksgiving break in a month and then during Christmas; I just wanted to touch base and remind people that I'm alive beforehand. You don't know how exciting the prospect of having stepped up competition again is...
papermarkis
Smash Lord
*gets crushed by wall of paragraphs*
Fino
Smash Master
Yeah, there's still a small brawl scene at JCCC, including me, duck^, artik, (occasionally stealth), arkive zero, and 8bit. You should definitely come! Pm me for details
~Fino
Affinity
Smash Hero
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=59789&page=390
^ Go here for Brawl ^
Brawl is what we primarily play. You're not going to get anywhere with the Melee vs Brawl debate here in the KC thread.
JBM falcon08
Smash Master
hey.
melee is a good game, so is 64. but brawl is god awful lol.
melee is a good game, so is 64. but brawl is god awful lol.
Stealth Raptor
Smash Legend
obviously melee > brawl but w/e. we have been keeping pace and pushing ourselves ampharos. i cant wait to play that G&W again. i have a few new tricks to show off
Cake.
Smash Cadet
I don't know why you all are discussing melee and brawl when you could be playing Mother 3...
Anyway, back to intense forum silence for me. Carry on.
Anyway, back to intense forum silence for me. Carry on.
only1Z
Smash Champion
I feel......like dmac agrees with that one ben.
Jace08
Smash Lord
Wow crew battles are even more fun than I thought they'd be. I think I still like team tournaments best, but still, that barrio was too good.
papermarkis
Smash Lord
Yeah, definitely one of the best Barrio's in a long time. My triple rest comeback on JT, darkrain's complete shock at Z playing Peach in crews, 3rd Strike in the background. Too good.
Cups
Smash Ace
linkw00t
Smash Journeyman
Gah...Chadou didn't want to go, just like he didn't want to pick up Z on Friday*. It's his fault.
Bleh...Brawl sucks, **** brawl players etc.
Bleh...Brawl sucks, **** brawl players etc.
Dark_EDGE
Smash Ace
potential brawl tourney nov. 7 at GAME ON in the hutchinson mall. ill keep everyone posted with updates.
only1Z
Smash Champion
Are you sure it's still not enough to be called Darkrain combo 3? I lol'ed when it kicked in.
CFMV
"The Marf"
I actually read all of Jesi's epic post. Good stuff.
Oh- and I guess there was an article of the JCCC newspaper about Event 52... apparently organized by Patrick "Darkrain" John. Who the **** is Patrick?
Oh- and I guess there was an article of the JCCC newspaper about Event 52... apparently organized by Patrick "Darkrain" John. Who the **** is Patrick?
only1Z
Smash Champion
Yeah baby!JLoredo
Masters Student in Game Design at The Guildhall at Southern Methodist University, Plano, TX
and long term gamer.
I feel like we've been over this argument before.....
Stealth Raptor
Smash Legend
they screwed the **** up. we are currently pissed at our inept paper >_>
JBM falcon08
Smash Master
hey phat you coming to omaha this sunday?
Cups
Smash Ace
most writers are horrendously stupid and can't get the simplest of tasks done.
edit: i love linkwoot's posts, and dark edge came in at the wrooooong time lol.
edit: i love linkwoot's posts, and dark edge came in at the wrooooong time lol.
Phatgamer1
Smash Lord
No. Gotta work Sunday morning and I can't get anyone to cover my shift.
linkw00t
Smash Journeyman
papermarkis
Smash Lord
We understand people who play Brawl casually, however we're completely confused as to why anyone in their right mind thinks the game is something to be played in tournaments.
Jturley46
Smash Journeyman
Patrick is Darkrains middle name.
EDIT: if you ever get bored with melee, play brawl for approximately 60 seconds haha. Brawl is garbage.
linkw00t
Smash Journeyman
Everyone make sure you go out and vote! Don't forget to vote Democrat too, at least on the Presidential.
Good things will happen under Obama. BELIEVE!
Good things will happen under Obama. BELIEVE!
Cups
Smash Ace
I'm going Nader just for lols sake. That dude lost his mind like 3 elections ago, and the whole puppet show debate was a testament to that.
Fino
Smash Master
For incredibly close minded people who won't accept any of the changes from melee to brawl, you seem to overwhelmingly support a candidate who stands for change. 
~Fino
~Fino
papermarkis
Smash Lord
You are not comparing choosing videogames to choosing the most powerful man in the world. Brawl changed a good game into a bad game, Obama wants to change a falling country into a rising country.
dmac
Smash Champion
we played brawl for 5 months straight. we know we don't like it. we're not close minded towards brawl, we played it non stop for a really long time at an attempt to make it a competitive game. it failed very hard in that respect. we gave it a chance, it sucked. have you ever given melee a chance at all?
Close MINDED? Did you even READ my small essay a couple pages back? NO. then you would understand why certain people PREFER...note... PREFERENCE...go ahead and look that one up... Melee to Brawl. As dmac said we tried the game, we were downright excited about it, but realizing it offers something different than Melee, we PREFER melee, you freaking 12 year old idiot, jeezus christ if I ever meet you at a tournament event I'm going to come right up and kick you in the balls for being such a ******.For incredibly close minded people who won't accept any of the changes from melee to brawl, you seem to overwhelmingly support a candidate who stands for change.
~Fino
/rant
And for the note....I tried being civil...no one cared to really understand the argument and you just continue to perpetuate it. Stop posting here with your negativity. If you don't like the way this thread operates, try allisbrawl.com or start your own thread, since you consider us close-minded you wont' get anywhere here...so...
GTFO.
Stealth Raptor
Smash Legend
Seriously fino stop trolling here.
DYC
Smash Champion
His bridge was stolen by a bigger, meaner troll. He can't help it.
papermarkis
Smash Lord
He seems to also be forgetting the 3 Brawl tournaments we hosted.
Karmacide
Smash Lord
Fino: Stop poking the bears!
Hello, KC.
Hello, KC.