Let's talk about L-Canceling.

[Landry]

This might be the most useless thread ever.

First of all, L-cancelling is definitely not going to be in SSB4. No chance. Sakurai is just going to give all moves a **** ton of lag like Brawl.

Secondly - how hard is it to L-cancel? Really? You can't remember to hit a trigger right before you make contact with the ground? It's not that difficult of a mechanic in Melee, but it's also not going to leave Melee.

Advance techniques are a thing of the past. SSB4 is going to be casual as all hell.

 

[Robert of Normandy]

This might be the most useless thread ever.

First of all, L-cancelling is definitely not going to be in SSB4. No chance. Sakurai is just going to give all moves a **** ton of lag like Brawl.

Secondly - how hard is it to L-cancel? Really? You can't remember to hit a trigger right before you make contact with the ground? It's not that difficult of a mechanic in Melee, but it's also not going to leave Melee.

Advance techniques are a thing of the past. SSB4 is going to be casual as all hell.

Nice to see we have a member of the SSB4 dev team here.

 

[Landry]

Nice to see we have a member of the SSB4 dev team here.

Nice to see we have a forum user here who joined 5 months ago and has already made 1000 useless posts of Smash 4 predictions.

Nothing you guys say is going to matter. Sakurai is going to make Smash the way he wants. It's what he's always done.

But by all means, continue your excessive posting about characters, stages and mechanics you want to see in Smash 4. Just realize it doesn't mean anything.

 

[Big-Cat]

Existence is pointless. Let's just wait to die.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Nice to see we have a forum user here who joined 5 months ago and has already made 1000 useless posts of Smash 4 predictions.

Nothing you guys say is going to matter. Sakurai is going to make Smash the way he wants. It's what he's always done.

But by all means, continue your excessive posting about characters, stages and mechanics you want to see in Smash 4. Just realize it doesn't mean anything.

Existence is pointless. Let's just wait to die.

MORTALS ARE SO WEAK...

YOU MEAN NOTHING TO ME!

I know it's your right to be a curmudgeon, Landry, but can't you at least be smart about it?

Smooth Criminal

 

[Robert of Normandy]

Existence is pointless. Let's just wait to die.

Exactly. We're all going to die anyway, so why should we ever bother doing anything?

 

[Landry]

L-Canceling or any real type of lag canceling for aerials hasn't been in a Smash game since 2001. What makes you even remotely think that Sakurai wants to implement this in a new game?

 

[JOE!]

Because it's been in 2/3 smash games

 

[Johnknight1]

@ Landry
As someone who has been on SmashBoards longer and has lurked since before Brawl was announced, I implore you to please just stop shouting nonsense, hate, and ridiculous arguments with no factual basis whatsoever. And stop using the "I've been here longer" argument. Yeah, Grant Hill might have been in the NBA for about 1 1/2 decades, but that doesn't make him a better basketball player than Kevin Durant. In basketball and smash bros, skill decides the best player. On SmashBoards, intelligence decides the best posters.

Last I checked, Brawl had more advanced techniques than Smash 64 and Melee combined (although most were only usable by a few characters).

Also, fun fact for the rest of you (who don't know): L-cancelling, or at least some form of it or something like it, was in some of the pre-release Brawl demos.

Yeah that's pretty much it. Around Brawl's release, one of this board's veteran players wrote an excellent post on how spacing, combos and DI work together in Melee to create an exciting push-pull/punishment dynamic despite the game's simplicity and freedom of movement. Too bad I can't seem to find it.

No need to find it, because I remember reading it. It was one of my basic arguments that even without most of our perceived "advanced techniques" that smash bros will always be, at it's core, a competitive game, as well as a game with depth to be taken to a tournament.

Now, "competitive" doesn't mean tournament-level competition, but means that it favors the better player. Even in a pick up basketball game, the better overall player will win most of the time. Still, that doesn't mean I can beat Kobe Bryant anytime soon. On Flat Zone 2 though...

This basic idea and foundation of smash bros is something that if you look for enough, you'll see in many posters here and elsewhere on the web, sometimes including yourself.

 

[Kink-Link5]

The silly thing I find about automatic L-canceling or L-canceling through fast falling only, is that it takes away the dynamic that goes into the difference in timing an L-cancel on-block vs on-hit vs on-HIGH block, vs on-whiff. Having it happen by itself when you fast fall would be analogous to having techs occur automatically just by holding the shield button at all when you hit the stage. Sure there's no reason you'd ever want to fail an L-cancel, but it still happens if you aren't able to attentively adjust your timing subtly in accordance to your opponent's action.

 

[Eternal phoenix Fire]

Why not just make it so that at any given time during or after an aerial attack you can press L or R mid air, and when you eventually land on the ground the lag will be minimized. Similar to how you can use jump installs in Guilty Gear. There is no downside because it will enable people to use multiple aerials with more ease and people who want to shuffle still have to time their aerials well.

 

[Kink-Link5]

That still sounds like automatic l-canceling to me. If you can just press L or R at any point in the air, there is no point to timing the L-cancel to be right before you land, because it will happen whether you pressed it right away or waited until just then.

I do think there are ways to make the mechanic more dynamic, but it's a complex matter that honestly has no hope of being executed at all.

 

[DrinkingFood]

The silly thing I find about automatic L-canceling or L-canceling through fast falling only, is that it takes away the dynamic that goes into the difference in timing an L-cancel on-block vs on-hit vs on-HIGH block, vs on-whiff. Having it happen by itself when you fast fall would be analogous to having techs occur automatically just by holding the shield button at all when you hit the stage. Sure there's no reason you'd ever want to fail an L-cancel, but it still happens if you aren't able to attentively adjust your timing subtly in accordance to your opponent's action.

wait
you aren't allowed to support l-canceling, even partially
that's illegal on these forums you know

but rly. L-canceling DOES give the opponent an option to try and force a harder, laggier landing on block against an opponent using an aerial through use of shield angling or light shielding mixed up with CCing and forcing whiffs with dodging or other movement. Why do people always ignore that when talking about l-canceling. I always here stuff like "it's an arbitary skill barrier" when it actually serves the purpose of giving the opponent options, rather than the person using an l-cancel. Of course, it could probably be implemented to work better, but by no means do I think that everyone should just get free reduced landing lag.

 

[Vkrm]

Does anyone else think lcanceling just feels good? Timing fox's NAir shines with properly timed fast falls and lcancels is really stimulating. It adds skill, it speeds the game up and makes things more enjoyable. Sakurai put lcanceling in smash 4, there isn't a single reason not to.

 

[DrinkingFood]

Well L-canceling feels good because it functions off of the same reward system as basically the entirety of video gaming does. Taking a stock off someone does, leveling up does, earning experience does, pulling off a 720 YY quickscope does (lol), pulling off a sick combo does, etc. You don't need l-canceling to get that, and it only registers as feeling nice to people who don't have the choice but to need to use it, and then benefit when they do. The idea here is that we wouldn't need to use it if they take it out, so we won't have to worry about whether or not it feels good, because whether or not it feels good is irrelevant. But taking it out does also remove a more refined aspect of the defensive game, as I stated earlier. And that I think is a valid point, one that I've never seen responded to, and don't think I will, because it's a good point. Could lag-reduction be pulled off better? Maybe. But it runs the risk of over-complicating something that already has a well-working system in place.

 

[Big-Cat]

Why are we dwelling on L-Canceling when we could be looking at other things for the fighting system?

 

[DrinkingFood]

I agree, its a waste of time trying to reinvent a system that isn't game breaking and doesn't hurt anyone, and works.
Why not discuss directional air dodges instead

 

[Big-Cat]

Why not discuss some other systems that haven't been in Smash yet like something akin to Romantic Cancels in Guilty Gear, hitstun and blockstun specific to a move like every other game, changing the grab game, etc. You know, some of the things discussed before it derailed into an L-Canceling troll debate.

 

[Mic_128]

Why not discuss some other systems that haven't been in Smash yet

Feel free to do so, I imagine people are. Though since this thread's about L-canceling, it does kinda make sense to discuss L-canceling here.

 

[DrinkingFood]

I, for one, would be interested in seeing smash made into a 3d fighter. So much more potential for depth that way. Unfortunately, it's kinda out of the way the series, having been 2 dimensions of movement since the start... and it's probably too late in development for the team to consider this anyways, lul
but imagine having to DI on 3 axes instead of just two
And then the 3rd dimension of hitboxes become just as significant as the other two
And then you can roll on 2 axes (an infinite number of directions given smash's analog controls) instead of just 1 axis (only two directions)
And then you have 3 axes which determine attack type. So you have a left/right tilt (the same thing but mirrored?), forward/tilt (or maybe just one is both when facing opposite directions, as in current smash), up/down tilts, same for all smashes and aerials and specials.
And the projectiles require some serious aiming to become a thread, since smash has freedom of direction facing. Or perhaps it would have an optional lock-on to compensate for the added complexity.
All this, and then you keep the other aspects that make smash deep like the movement freedom and such. But you avoid the things that separate from other fighters like combo breakers, grab breaks, super meters, etc, and you basically just have smash extrapolated to the 3rd dimension
god
that gets me excited
this is so much a better thing to talk about
than ****ing l-canceling

 

[Soft Serve]

3d smash?

gdubs for invisible tier.

 

[DrinkingFood]

3d smash?

gdubs for invisible tier.

Dat smash5, 2020 metagame

 

[Life]

I imagine it would turn out kind of like Kingdom Hearts' combat but as a fighter.

Have fun with the camera though.

 

[V-K]

3D Smash Bros? No thank you, I would never want to play something like that lol

About the L-Canceling: I think it's a pretty cool thing to have that greatly increases the skill ceiling. But I understand why many people find it hard to learn, at least in Melee. Perhaps Sakurai can tweak it a bit and slightly increase the input window or something like that.

However, first we have to see if Sakurai decides to put in all the competitive stuff again, which he didn't do in Brawl because Iwata asked him to design a game that can be enjoyed by the entire family and in which skill doesn't really matter.

Namco already stated that they were hired because they have knowledge about fighting games but who knows what the end result will be.
One thing is for sure, if the game turns out to be like Brawl, I'm definitely not gonna buy it.

 

[Landry]

@ Landry
As someone who has been on SmashBoards longer and has lurked since before Brawl was announced, I implore you to please just stop shouting nonsense, hate, and ridiculous arguments with no factual basis whatsoever. And stop using the "I've been here longer" argument. Yeah, Grant Hill might have been in the NBA for about 1 1/2 decades, but that doesn't make him a better basketball player than Kevin Durant. In basketball and smash bros, skill decides the best player. On SmashBoards, intelligence decides the best posters.

I don't really think I did use the "I've been here longer" argument... Even though I've been lurking since around '06 there's no reason for me to do such a thing because plenty of people have been on Smashboards way longer than me.

Buy hey, if you're really confident that L-Canceling will be SSB4 I'd be happy to make a $20 bet with you. The argument for it just doesn't make any sense... There's no way L-Canceling is coming back whether we want it or not.

Last I checked, Brawl had more advanced techniques than Smash 64 and Melee combined (although most were only usable by a few character

LOL

 

[DrinkingFood]

Last I checked, Brawl had more advanced techniques than Smash 64 and Melee combined (although most were only usable by a few characters).

WOOOW
I have a hard time believing he's serious
Normally i have a very low tolerance for stupidity
and I didn't notice someone posted something quite this dumb
so I'm thinking I subconsciously repressed the memory of reading this
because of, ya'know, my stupidity allergies

 

[Life]

Brawl Pika alone has over 100 advanced techs according to some old thread.

It's just that most of them are useless.

 

[JMan8891]

Get Esam or some other pika main to confrim or deny that....

And chracter specific techs do not equate to the depth/complexity of the entire game engine.

 

[Soft Serve]

But when brawl first came out, most of the competitive scene where people who were fairly new to smash and fighting games in general. Their definition for an AT was really, really loose. Like, thinks as simple as flicking the c stick up while running, or starting a dash and fsmashing the other way, or just dropping down and regrabbing the ledge, were all dubbed AT's and given ridiculous names.

When every movement or attacking option that wasn't specifically outlined in the manual has a huge chance of being named an AT, I wouldn't be surprised if brawl has more "AT's."

 

[Bones0]

I hate to be "that guy", but this thread seems pointless because Smash 4 is not going to have any sort of L-cancelling mechanic, and the landing lag of moves will probably still be long enough to prevent any cool combos.

 

[Big-Cat]

Not to mention how a lot of Brawl terms are given very unintuitive names or are described in very complex sounding terms when they might not be.

Case in point, I remember seeing a bunch of terms for different types of kara canceling. This makes it very difficult for not just a newbie to fighting games to understand, but it makes someone like me who generally plays other fighting games find the terminology pointlessly complex and wonder why can't they just use terms that have been used for years.

 

[Life]

What's a kara cancel?

 

[Vkrm]

You cancel a move with a different move during start up. Adds range in some cases.

 

[DrinkingFood]

Brawl Pika alone has over 100 advanced techs according to some old thread.

[citation needed]

 

[teluoborg]

Hum let's take a look at the history of L-cancel :
Smash 64 - cancels 100% of your landing lag
Melee - cancels 50% of your landing lag
Brawl - no effect = cancels 0% of your landing lag

So if we think logically, L-cancel in smash 4 will give you 50% extra landing lag.

And if we take the same thought process with hitstun, no move should be safe on hit.

 

[-LzR-]

I really hate L-canceling as a mechanic and I hope it will not return. It's one of the most ******** mechanics I have seen in like any fighting game ever, except for Xfactor. Giving moves more autocanceling potential would be much better than an artificial press L every single time you land with an aerial because it's totally not annoying or pointless to do so. It would like pressing L when getting hit would reduce the knockback by 3%.

 

[Vkrm]

What exactually do you not like about lcanceling? Even if it is annoying it's better than having alot of useless, laggy air moves dont you think?

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

I don't support the idea that Smash should test primarily who can consistently hit buttons the fastest, especially in cases where there is no real strategic application and only exists to give you a chance to mess up every time you land on the ground.

L-cancelling is bad.

 

[DrinkingFood]

People still ignoring that l-canceling gives the opponent additional options on block.

 

[-LzR-]

No it doesn't because everyone gets their Lcancel consistently either way. All it does it make it annoying to land every time because you have to press a damn button. Timing your aerial to land at a certain time to cause an autocancel is much better. And technical skill shouldn't have a huge impact for Smash either way. Smash doesn't need that.