Media Chimes in on Competitive Smash (Prima Games)

[Ulevo]

Please elaborate on the wealth of "ways" to outplay your opponent from an offensive perspective not present in Brawl. It's the same dang stuff. Remember, I'm talking about approaching. I'm not generalizing.

For almost all intents and purposes the only reason Brawl can be campy and "hit-and-run"-ish is because of the lack of hit-stun and as a result, a lack of combo strings that aren't interrupted by a mashed neutral by the noob getting combo'd. This in turn makes people prefer to play campy so they can minimize the situations in which their inflicted damage is punished-reflected right back on to them.

No. This is completely false.

First of all, it isn't the same dang stuff. The shield stun values are different, the movement options are different, the ways to bait people are different, the frame values on specific moves are different, more things can be cancelled.

The main reason Brawl is so hit and run is two-fold.

1. There are very limited ways of getting "in" without being punished.
2. When you finally get "in", there's limited reward for you achieving this.

Let's analyze both.

The reason there are limited ways of getting in, or that it is unsafe to get in, is for a few reasons:

1. A lot of characters have really long grab ranges, particularly characters like Dedede.
2. Shields have very, very minimal shield stun. Characters can grab or act out of them upon being hit almost instantaneously, and this makes even spaced moves unsafe. On top of this, almost no moves in the game are what would be considered to be even remotely close as frame advantage on shield hit.
3. The rewards associated with grabs in Brawl are very high. Dedede has stage wide chain grabs and infinites, Ice Climbers have inifnites, Snake has tech chases and frame traps in to kill moves and bull**** tilts, Pikachu has chain grabs, G&W has tech chases, Falco has chain grabs that lead to high percents or huge stage advantages, lots of characters have grab release exploits, and the list goes on. Even for characters that don't have punishing follow ups, grabs do a lot of damage, and some even kill.
4. A lot of characters have ways to act out of shield outside of just grabs, such as Meta Knights shuttle loop, G&W Up B, Marths Dolphin Slash, et cetera.
5. Characters do not have the ability to L-Cancel, therefore certain characters that have long recovery frames on aerials are basically condemned to very linear, binary movements on the ground because aerials are too dangerous to use. It's no coincidence why characters like Gannondorf are some of the worst in the game.
6. Because Dash Dancing and Wavedashing are out, your methods of being able to try and feint an approach and fake your opponent out and bait an unsafe move so that you can capitalize is much harder.
7. The gameplay is slower, and moves are more telegraphed, which also makes feinting and faking out opponents harder.
8. Momentum doesn't carry from a run, so if you see an opportunity to capitalize on an opponents mistake, this becomes more difficult as your aerial speed is lower.
9. Jump Cancelled grabs and Dash Cancelled grabs are out, so that means that if you want to grab out of a run, you're committed to using the dash grab, which on most characters typically has more associated ending lag, and in many cases a smaller hit box. You can run in to R+A but this takes longer due to the up time of the shield.
10. Projectiles in this game are gay. Falco SHDL, Pits Arrows, Bacon, Dedede's Waddles, Grenades, Toon Link's crap, Diddy's bananas. It doesn't help that some of the characters with really great projectile games are characters with some of the best retreat and get-me-out-of-jail-free cards in the game, like Falco's lagless Phantasm.
11. You can't crouch out of a run, which means that your approach options on how you punish or poke from a run are limited.
12. You can't crouch cancel anymore, so using tactics that involve getting in aggressively and eating damage % so that you can retaliate to wrack up your own damage % doesn't work anymore. This was important for certain characters in Melee like Sheik, because they couldn't combo certain characters very well until they hit a % threshold, and until then they weren't as good of a character, so taking hits to retaliate with things like down smash made sense.
13. Rolls and side steps are stupid in Brawl. Characters like Lucario, Meta Knight, Falco, Rob, and Dedede have incredibly advantageous rolls and spot dodges because of how fast they're able to act out of them with almost virtually no down time, while also having the longest duration of invincibility possible. This is poorly designed systemically to have because these techniques are designed as ways to dodge attacks if timed properly but to be punished if read or mistimed, but in Brawl are too forgiving and give the defender a huge advantage (i.e. spot dodge in to R.O.B./Meta Knight down smash)
14. A lot of character specific techniques are gone. Fox can't cancel his shine with a jump, Yoshi can't double jump cancel, Samus can't do landing missiles to follow behind as a safer approach, et cetera.
15. You can't reflect projectiles with shields anymore, making projectiles even more powerful.
16. Hit boxes on moves are generally much bigger in Brawl, making pokes for damage and shield stabs more favourable.
17. Because a lot of characters have a limited amount of kill moves, and even kill moves that are safe or easy to use, they need to preserve these moves by using other moves to wrack up damage as a means to avoid decay until they can land that crucial KO move. A lot of characters also don't have safe kill moves that KO at reasonable %, meaning they need to get their opponents to much higher % before going for a KO, and this facilitates defensive play since it won't matter if they make risky plays and take damage in the process of getting them to that threshold. Marth is a hallmark example of this, but there's plenty of others.
18. Projectiles refresh your decay que, even when repeatedly used, further promoting their use.
19. Other reasons I'm probably forgetting.

The reason there are limited reward for getting in include:
1. Combos don't exist except in a few very specific circumstances, or on specific characters that are privileged.
2. If you get in and attack the enemy, especially at low percents, they'll just attack you back if you're in range. This creates a tit-for-tat scenario, and you don't want tit-for-tat exchanges, you just want 'tat' exchanges where you come out the victor.
3. Characters are floaty. Even in a game where combos don't exist, being able to read the DI and movement of your opponent to try and follow up is important, but this is made difficult when everyone plays like they're on the moon and have no limits to how many times they can air dodge.
4. Even if you get in and manage to do damage, certain characters will still get their guaranteed punishment options off on you. Does it really matter if you as Sheik managed to get in and fair Snake when he just hits you with two forward tilts? Absolutely not.
5. Rolls in Brawl are not only incredibly forgiving in terms of end lag and invincibility duration, but how quickly they come out, and more importantly how far they go, make resetting the positional advantage you just gained very easy for the opponent. Characters like Meta Knight and Lucario have rolls that go very far back very quickly, and can't be punished.
6. Other reasons I'm probably forgetting.

Basically you and anyone else arguing this position is either being incredibly lazy in their analysis, or is just ignorant to how Melee operates in comparison to Brawl, as far as I'm concerned.

 

[TheDMonroeShow]

Well I'm just gonna throw in my two cents. While it's cool to see an article on competitive smash and I do think the more coverage the scene gets the better. I don't think that article is exactly correct but I dont think its wrong either

Brawls biggest problem imo is the fact that they removed a whole bunch of movement options but didn't add anything to replace it. Which is part of the reason brawl has such a campy style that isn't very enjoyable to watch or even play for most people

Even if smash 4 doesn't have wavedashing I think as long as Sakurai and his team gives us some sort of techs to reward aggressive play instead of defensive this time smash can be very deep and enjoyable game.

 

[DrDogg]

This wasn't supposed to be Melee vs. Brawl. The point is to figure out what needs to be added that gives Smash 4 a competitive draw similar to Melee. Right now, Melee dwarfs Brawl when it comes to competitive turnouts. Project M dwarfs Brawl as well. No matter what your opinion of Melee or Brawl, we all want Smash 4 to be successful in a competitive sense. It's going to sell to casuals no matter what, so we need to do everything we can to get those changes in to make the game as competitive as Melee was/is.

Are you a writer there or just someone posting the link here?

I think its fairly inaccurate. The game has plenty of movement options, in this specific case the disagreement is on whether or not dashing should or shouldnt require a commitment. In melee dashing requires very little commitment, in Brawl its something you have to think about. Its hard to tell with the new game though what else may be useful in terms of movement or defensive options.

Yeah, I wrote the article based on my experience with the game at E3, as well as the results of the invitational. I'll probably do a follow-up which is why I thought I'd get insight from here to see if there's anything else I should focus on in the second article.

Who even likes Prima games anyway? They were always the guide I skipped on the wall when looking for guide books as a kid, and thus, I do the same to their opinion.

There are multiple authors for Prima guides, just like there are multiple writers at IGN. Just because you dislike one guide doesn't mean you'll dislike them all. The whole point of this thread was to get input from the community in hopes of helping you get the game you desire. I don't see many other media outlets doing anything like that...

TTT2 and SC2 HD Online have pretty good net code, I've heard. Hopefully Smash 4's is close to as good

The netcode in SC2HD actually isn't that good. TTT2 and SC5 netcode is great though, same with Killer Instinct. I've heard Mario Kart 8 netcode isn't too bad, but I'm sure it's much easier to mask latency in a racing game compared to a fighting game. Hopefully Smash 4 has solid netcode, but Nintendo hasn't done much to give me confidence in that hope.

 

[SKM_NeoN]

A lot of the forum members here prefer the Brawl formula of mindlessly simple techniques; Devoid of any advanced maneuvers that curiously make them envious of those outside of their playing circle. If you're looking for good material for your article you could make a thread in the Melee discussion board concerning Melee-specific techs for Smash 4. As long as the mods don't over-moderate (which is admittedly a problem here) you should get some really good feedback.

 

[Cassio]

This wasn't supposed to be Melee vs. Brawl. The point is to figure out what needs to be added that gives Smash 4 a competitive draw similar to Melee. Right now, Melee dwarfs Brawl when it comes to competitive turnouts. Project M dwarfs Brawl as well. No matter what your opinion of Melee or Brawl, we all want Smash 4 to be successful in a competitive sense. It's going to sell to casuals no matter what, so we need to do everything we can to get those changes in to make the game as competitive as Melee was/is.

Yeah, I wrote the article based on my experience with the game at E3, as well as the results of the invitational. I'll probably do a follow-up which is why I thought I'd get insight from here to see if there's anything else I should focus on in the second article.

You have to understand that everyone's going to have an opinion on the game but most people have a very limited understanding of smash in the first place. Take the post above me and the suggestions as an example, when the understanding of smash is limited on top of experience being confined to melee, the interests lie in rehashing a game thats not good for the future of the series.

If you want the honest reason Melee does much better than Brawl in turnouts its because of media such as the article written here are quick to criticize the game simply because of the one sided exposure Melee has through evo and the documentary. Prior to that there weren't any turnout issues. I know its not the fault of a single article, but the way the game is written about from those who are most outspoken and given exposure has affected its success more than the games actually competitiveness or enjoyability. Not that this is something abnormal, perception commonly matters more than objective worth.

There could be minor tweaks but overall Smash 4 seems to be on the right track as it is, what youre asking for is whats necessary to appease the melee crowd. The answer to that is additional options to cancel dashes. However, theyre the only ones who care until theyre handed a megaphone to complain about it. While Im content to have more dash cancels in the game, the game will still be great without them and doesnt need to be torn down.

 

[Ulevo]

You have to understand that everyone's going to have an opinion on the game but most people have a very limited understanding of smash in the first place. Take the post above me and the suggestions as an example, when the understanding of smash is limited on top of experience being confined to melee, the interests lie in rehashing a game thats not good for the future of the series.

If you want the honest reason Melee does much better than Brawl in turnouts its because of media such as the article written here are quick to criticize the game simply because of the one sided exposure Melee has through evo and the documentary. Prior to that there weren't any turnout issues. I know its not the fault of a single article, but the way the game is written about from those who are most outspoken and given exposure has affected its success more than the games actually competitiveness or enjoyability. Not that this is something abnormal, perception commonly matters more than objective worth.

There could be minor tweaks but overall Smash 4 seems to be on the right track as it is, what youre asking for is whats necessary to appease the melee crowd. The answer to that is additional options to cancel dashes. However, theyre the only ones who care until theyre handed a megaphone to complain about it. While Im content to have more dash cancels in the game, the game will still be great without them and doesnt need to be torn down.

Media publicity needs source material. The revival of the Melee scene started at Genesis, and since people started paying attention to it outside of our own scene, it's kept up. Brawl's had plenty of its own publicity, but it has a rap and is on the decline for a reason. These are just coincidences, or merely the consequence of biased articles.

 

[Cassio]

I dont mean melees growth so much as Brawls ridiculous 180 in turnout. Granted I think PM did the most damage in publicly promoting its game by knocking Brawl whenever it got publicity. The PM team has since stated they didn't intend for the articles to be written in such a way, but Im sure they didnt spend much effort in changing the narrative either, lol. The Brawl community was also pretty lazy when it came to speaking up.

 

[Nstinct]

I remember on Smash Xanadu cast yesterday D1 said that he thinks Smash 4 needs low landing lag because the large lag on aerials in the current demo really diminishes the effectiveness of aerials.

 

[LiteralGrill]

and of course we'll have a very silent army from the 3DS version!

Hey I caught that!

It's already started. I know I get some junk for being "That 3DS Guy" but some people asked me if I'd make my own forum for the game because of all the hate it gets on here already. If people keep being giant jerks on Smashboards there's a shot that a ton of people will just go somewhere else to find competition and it'll divide us further, something we don't need.

 

[mygamecube]

Smash 4 is going to be entirely different on the physics from what we've experienced on the demo. Both versions.

...That's what I hope for. It does play similar to Brawl, with hints of Melee in there. Feels weird.

 

[Chibi-Chan]

Not pertinent to the topic exactly, but all my experience and info points otherwise. You can become OK at smash with little work but to be a true competitor you need to put work in no matter which game you play. I genuinely is a lot of time and effort, I think minimum ~2 years to compete at high level if youre just jumping into the scene from a casual level.

That's 2 years of playing vs high level opponents. I think what he meant is that you only need a tiny amount of time in the lab to learn the tech... But then you're still a newbie that can execute it. The only thing that makes you good at Smash is paying a lot vs strong opponents, learning the mentality, matchups and how to actually use the tools you have. It's the same for any fighting game, but specially true here!

 

[EPsilon933]

That's 2 years of playing vs high level opponents. I think what he meant is that you only need a tiny amount of time in the lab to learn the tech... But then you're still a newbie that can execute it. The only thing that makes you good at Smash is paying a lot vs strong opponents, learning the mentality, matchups and how to actually use the tools you have. It's the same for any fighting game, but specially true here!

You got it spot on

 

[Deleted member 245254]

No. This is completely false.

First of all, it isn't the same dang stuff. The shield stun values are different, the movement options are different, the ways to bait people are different, the frame values on specific moves are different, more things can be cancelled.

The main reason Brawl is so hit and run is two-fold.

1. There are very limited ways of getting "in" without being punished.
2. When you finally get "in", there's limited reward for you achieving this.

Let's analyze both.

Woah, woah, there turbo.

Are you truly and realistically incapable of comprehending the fact that both of your items listed are inherently the same event, except #2 happens a split second after #1.

And then there's the fact that it's EXACTLY WHAT I SAID.

Seriously, did you really just write all of that nonsense? I can't believe you just tried to correct me with logic that I presented in the first place.

You need to work on your superiority complex, you look like a fool.

I literally said that Brawl was campy because it was too risky to attack without taking damage in-return, and then you respond going...

"NO, FALSE! The reason it's too risky is because there are limited ways to attack without taking damage in return!

AND ALSO, there are limited rewards for attacking! (Yeah no shizbots, the reward is hampered by the high possibility of being hit)"

Of course you will backpedal until the next light of day on this and say that I'm missing the point and yada, but it's pretty clear that you skip out on reading comprehension just so you can engage in an argument about how Brawl sucks, no matter the point of contention. You are the *definition* of what makes this community divided. A pure representation of a melee elitist.

 

[Nstinct]

Hey I caught that!

It's already started. I know I get some junk for being "That 3DS Guy" but some people asked me if I'd make my own forum for the game because of all the hate it gets on here already. If people keep being giant jerks on Smashboards there's a shot that a ton of people will just go somewhere else to find competition and it'll divide us further, something we don't need.

You already know I'm with you. But I don't feel quite that hated, I know the 3DS has been taking shots but I don't feel "Melee vs Brawl" attacked on here, not yet at least.

Everyone please remember all the competitive people who "drive" to whatever tournaments are going to get Smash on the 3DS. There's no doubt that a vast majority of competitive smashers will have Smash 3DS.

Although I'm gonna be straight up honest and say having 3DS vs WiiU crew battles sounds pretty epic.

 

[Ulevo]

Woah, woah, there turbo.

Are you truly and realistically incapable of comprehending the fact that both of your items listed are inherently the same event, except #2 happens a split second after #1.

And then there's the fact that it's EXACTLY WHAT I SAID.

Seriously, did you really just write all of that nonsense? I can't believe you just tried to correct me with logic that I presented in the first place.

You need to work on your superiority complex, you look like a fool.

I literally said that Brawl was campy because it was too risky to attack without taking damage in-return, and then you respond going...

"NO, FALSE! The reason it's too risky is because there are limited ways to attack without taking damage in return!

AND ALSO, there are limited rewards for attacking! (Yeah no shizbots, the reward is hampered by the high possibility of being hit)"

Of course you will backpedal until the next light of day on this and say that I'm missing the point and yada, but it's pretty clear that you skip out on reading comprehension just so you can engage in an argument about how Brawl sucks, no matter the point of contention. You are the *definition* of what makes this community divided. A pure representation of a melee elitist.

Thanks for addressing my post. Your intelligence is always a pleasure.

 

[Deleted member 245254]

Thanks for addressing my post. Your intelligence is always a pleasure.

And your condescending, snide disposition to anyone who dare insult Melee over Brawl is ever so pleasantly joyous to put in its place, as always.

 

[Ulevo]

And your condescending, snide disposition to anyone who dare insult Melee over Brawl is ever so pleasantly joyous to put in its place, as always.

 

[Shell]

I dont mean melees growth so much as Brawls ridiculous 180 in turnout. Granted I think PM did the most damage in publicly promoting its game by knocking Brawl whenever it got publicity. The PM team has since stated they didn't intend for the articles to be written in such a way, but Im sure they didnt spend much effort in changing the narrative either, lol. The Brawl community was also pretty lazy when it came to speaking up.

Sorry to interject but I don't appreciate the spread of this blatant falsehood -- in any interview that has misquoted us or decided to put a spin on our "narrative" we have (politely) hounded the authors for corrections. These email/skype exchanges are not publicized / published and if corrections are made you may not even be aware that they happened or what went into them. We've also walked out before several interviews as soon as it became apparent that they were interested in twisting things into a "Brawl is bad and we fixed it" angle.

It's no secret that we have back room members with varying personal tastes in competitive Smash flavor, but we put a considerable effort into keeping our message positive and unified. The extent to which we did or did not cannibalize the Brawl scene is a debate for another thread, another time, I just wanted to briefly correct this somewhat poisonous bit of misinformation about our PR approach, thank you.

---

Getting back on subject: PRIMA is a company that makes strategy guides. As such, even though I share the sentiment that Smash 4 might likely be even more fun with additional movement options the cynic in me wonders if PRIMA wouldn't love as many obscure technical gameplay mechanics as possible to clarify in their guides

 

[Wazygoose]

I think to make Smash 4 more competitive it should draw some inspiration from Smash 64 and not Melee.

People who love Melee will always love Melee the best, so I don't think it's worthwhile to turn Smash 4 into a spiritual successor. SSBM is, intended or not, perfect in its peculiar competitive formula. Making SSB4 similar to that would be like trying to write new greatest hits for the classic rock genre--the best classic rock songs have already been written, if you want to play great classic rock then you have to play covers (PM). Otherwise, if you want to write original material which is the pinnacle of its formula, you just have to play a different genre which has not already perfected it yet.

Smash 64 has a number of things going for it. Characters don't fall super fast, but the hitstun is high enough to where they don't necessarily need to fall fast for players to execute combos. And because the rate of increased knockback with increased damage is higher, you don't get sucked into lame Shiek-type combos comprised of throws and tilts that put you up at huge percents, or throw chains a la Brawl. Combos are more diverse in terms of different moves you have to use, and each is very unique to each character.

There is so much customization that is going to be available in SSB4 that it would be a huge shame for it to not be like 64 in this way, because people have the opportunity to get very creative in terms of combos in certain matchups, without making any one move clearly superior that is used universally in all situations. Without more hitstun and with characters flying away at low percents, or flying the same distance at both low and mid percents, the advantages of having a myriad of combo choices will be lost.

Additionally, this customization will hopefully make character match-ups more balanced and allow a greater variety of characters to be viable in high competition. I personally think it is so boring to watch a bazillion matchups in a row that all have fox, falco, marth, and metaknight doing the same moves over and over. Customization in tournaments is, I think, 100% necessary for this game to be a unique competitive experience, and has huge potential. Like seriously, an unignorably gigantic amount of potential.

Another thing. In 64, shield hitstun is extremely high, making it a clear last resort mechanism, which is honestly what it should be in a fighting game like smash where the arenas are so large, especially when so many movement choices are available, dashdancing or wavedashing or not. Newer smash games incorporate spot dodging and air dodging, so having powerful shields is totally unnecessary and only serves to reduce the gap between beginners and advanced players without adding any positive compromises. Increased hitstun and shield hitstun reward more aggresive play, which I think is better to lean towards in a fighting game.

So to summarize, to be competitive:
(1) SSB4 doesn't need to be like Melee to be competitive.
(2) But it does need to have higher hitstun and be a little less floaty.
(3) Customizable movesets for different matchups will make this game way more diverse and have more depth, so they need to be included in competitive play.
(4) Shields need to have waaay more hitstun, enough that you actually don't want to use them if you can help it.

 

[Cassio]

Sorry to interject but I don't appreciate the spread of this blatant falsehood -- in any interview that has misquoted us or decided to put a spin on our "narrative" we have (politely) hounded the authors for corrections. These email/skype exchanges are not publicized / published and if corrections are made you may not even be aware that they happened or what went into them. We've also walked out before several interviews as soon as it became apparent that they were interested in twisting things into a "Brawl is bad and we fixed it" angle.

It's no secret that we have back room members with varying personal tastes in competitive Smash flavor, but we put a considerable effort into keeping our message positive and unified. The extent to which we did or did not cannibalize the Brawl scene is a debate for another thread, another time, I just wanted to briefly correct this somewhat poisonous bit of misinformation about our PR approach, thank you.

If it wasnt clear from the wording itself, the PM team's effort on controlling the narrative specifically was speculation on my part.
However, consider me unconvinced that the stated effort has always been the case given the attitudes expressed by many in the PMBR at that point in time and the articles themselves. I understand its been better since back then and I give a lot of credit to both melee and PM leadership for understanding the importance of not putting down other games. Maybe I shouldve said that too. But honestly the damage is done.

 

[LancerStaff]

A lot of the forum members here prefer the Brawl formula of mindlessly simple techniques; Devoid of any advanced maneuvers that curiously make them envious of those outside of their playing circle. If you're looking for good material for your article you could make a thread in the Melee discussion board concerning Melee-specific techs for Smash 4. As long as the mods don't over-moderate (which is admittedly a problem here) you should get some really good feedback.

Or he could, yaknow, listen to both sides to avoid bias.

 

[Ogre_Deity_Link]

I've asked this once and got no answer, so I'll ask it again:

What defines depth? I hear that word thrown around so often in every competitive person's posts!

 

[TheDMonroeShow]

I've asked this once and got no answer, so I'll ask it again:

What defines depth? I hear that word thrown around so often in every competitive person's posts!

Well for instance a shallow game would be something like Tik Tac Toe. It's boring and simple not much strategy and you can't really plan far ahead.

A game with a lot of depth though would be something like chess it's simple but there's a lot to consider and anticipate when playing. Much like smash, and I think what make smash truly stand out from other fighters is how theres to some degree no preset combos like street fighter you make it your own when you play. It's deep because there's so many options and choices and I think that's why a lot of people favor Melee and want to some advanced techs in smash 4.

 

[LancerStaff]

Well for instance a shallow game would be something like Tik Tac Toe. It's boring and simple not much strategy and you can't really plan far ahead.

A game with a lot of depth though would be something like chess it's simple but there's a lot to consider and anticipate when playing. Much like smash, and I think what make smash truly stand out from other fighters is how theres to some degree no preset combos like street fighter you make it your own when you play. It's deep because there's so many options and choices and I think that's why a lot of people favor Melee and want to some advanced techs in smash 4.

As I've said elsewhere, Tic Tac Toe's staleness comes from it being solved. Should Melee be solved, the best plan will be as expected as sunrise.

 

[RODO]

I've asked this once and got no answer, so I'll ask it again:

What defines depth? I hear that word thrown around so often in every competitive person's posts!

What they are referring to I think is how depth of gameplay. Basically how far you can take your character and expand upon your skill with them. If the game makes it to where people hit a skill ceiling too early then it could cause the game to become stale after awhile. People just want to be able to play the game for a long time competitively.

 

[TheDMonroeShow]

As I've said elsewhere, Tic Tac Toe's staleness comes from it being solved. Should Melee be solved, the best plan will be as expected as sunrise.

But can you really solve melee, project m or any smash really? Tic Tac toe is limited you're always going to have a certain outcome with smash it's not like that. Sure you can learn certain match ups but just because one person uses a character a certain way doesn't mean someone else will do the same. Thats where part of the depth comes in, the situation is constantly changing and there's a variety of options at your disposal. Unlike TTT

 

[RODO]

They know that people are going to hack the game so why not just make a mode like Project M? Unless they are planning on making it and releasing it as paid DLC after the game releases. I could actually see that happening since they'd probably see it as easy money.

 

[Deleted member 245254]

They know that people are going to hack the game so why not just make a mode like Project M? Unless they are planning on making it and releasing it as paid DLC after the game releases. I could actually see that happening since they'd probably see it as easy money.

Or you could juuuuuuuust...play Project M?

 

[JoeInky]

I think there's 3 things a lot of people think are "high priority" so to speak in terms of what could be added to the game to give it a bit more competitive depth, but people do still have to keep in mind the casual audience, we need more movement options that don't scare away casuals and we definitely don't need pointless input barriers like L-Cancelling because you want the casual to have as little a barrier as possible in terms of technical skill if you want the scene to continue to grow imo.

When people watch a tournament and they see someone do a crazy combo with a character, it gets people excited about the game and they want to try their hand at it, but when they end up needing to do a laundry list of inputs to do it, they can be a bit disheartened.

That's not to say we shouldn't have these things though, just that for some of them, the implementation should be handled differently.

- Crouch cancelling, game needs this imo, and looking at the fact that bowser has it in the 3DS version in my mind gives hope that it's being added to the game, it doesn't make sense that they'd code that specific ability for bowser instead of just making it something all characters can do mid-dash, it might even be a bug that only bowser is able to do it.

- L-Cancelling, I'm going to flat out say it: I hate L-Cancelling. I always get the timing wrong for the button press, but why should it need to be a button press in the first place when it's something that has no benefit to not doing it? I don't think they should flat out reduce landing lag on all aerial attacks either (they should definitely keep it on air-dodging though, that change is brilliant), I think they should make it so that if your attacks either connect with a player or a shield (with a good enough amount of shieldstun so that it's actually safe), the move will be lag cancelled when you land, but if you whiff because the other person reads it and dodges, then you have the increased landing lag to allow for a punish.

This means you can still have your more fluid combo game when you connect or it gives you more opportunity to apply shield pressure, but if you **** up then the other person has an opportunity to capitalise on it, and since aerials would be more safe as an approach tool then, you could do stuff like just a running short hop to bait the spot dodge and punish that, or if the other players reads correctly they could grab you and go for a counter punish. I think it could work really well like that.

- Dash dancing also needs to be back just because it's a very basic thing that just makes the game feel more fluid and is a good bait tool, and it's not as if it's hard to do either, it's just tapping left and right.


Those are the main things I'd ask for that I believe would be the simplest in terms of implementation, I'd love momentum conservation as well but I think that might require a large update to the engine which could possibly be too much at this stage in development (although I'm pretty sure when they jump they could just remove the code that sets any forward or backwards momentum to 0, though I don't know how they've coded it of course). I don't particularly want wavedashing back either, it's good in melee and P:M but I think with all those other things to make offensive approaches more viable we should just leave it at that and see where the game goes from there.

I just think we should keep the inputs relatively simple whilst still giving the player as many options as possible.

 

[HeroMystic]

I've asked this once and got no answer, so I'll ask it again:

What defines depth? I hear that word thrown around so often in every competitive person's posts!

In my own words, depth in FGC terms is the amount of exploration and critical analysis that a metagame has. Think of it in real world terms: An Ocean has far more depth than a Lake or a Pond. A lake/pond is rather easy to explore for the most part, and doesn't require much, if any high tech gear. The Ocean however requires so much gear to explore that it isn't freely accessible, and despite all that gear we know very, very little of our ocean floor.

It's simple in concept but difficult to represent in execution. It'd be completely wrong to say Brawl has no depth. On the other hand, it'd be arguable to say Brawl has less depth than Melee. In this argument, you can think of Melee as the Ocean and Brawl as the Lake. However, the Catch 22 to this is the person who says Brawl has less depth is implying he/she has explored every inch of it.

 

[Deleted member 245254]

In my own words, depth in FGC terms is the amount of exploration and critical analysis that a metagame has. Think of it in real world terms: An Ocean has far more depth than a Lake or a Pond. A lake/pond is rather easy to explore for the most part, and doesn't require much, if any high tech gear. The Ocean however requires so much gear to explore that it isn't freely accessible, and despite all that gear we know very, very little of our ocean floor.

It's simple in concept but difficult to represent in execution. It'd be completely wrong to say Brawl has no depth. On the other hand, it'd be arguable to say Brawl has less depth than Melee. In this argument, you can think of Melee as the Ocean and Brawl as the Lake. However, the Catch 22 to this is the person who says Brawl has less depth is implying he/she has explored every inch of it.

Which is ironically quite often not the case as most of these types of players never play Brawl. Ever.

 

[Ulevo]

I've asked this once and got no answer, so I'll ask it again:

What defines depth? I hear that word thrown around so often in every competitive person's posts!

Depth in gaming is defined as the amount of meaningful choices, strategies, options, and interactions within that help the player to progress, play, or compete.

This is an important concept to fully realize because it allows you to distinguish between games that have depth, and games with perceived depth. As an example, if a FPS has over 100 different weapons you can choose from, but only 3 of them are worth using due to the amount of power they give or simply them fulfilling the same roles but more effectively, then this is an example of perceived depth. This is the type of thing an IGN reviewer might rant on about, saying "the game is incredible, with a host of an ton of different weapons to choose from" but it doesn't really amount to anything of value.

Another example would be Pokemon. Right now the series has roughly 700+ Pokemon, but that isn't completely reflective of the depth it has because a lot of the Pokemon amounting to that number are pre-evolutions and Pokemon too weak to consider, or Pokemon that are simply outclassed. If only 10 Pokemon are competitively viable out of a pool of 700+, it really begs the question as to whether or not the game is really deep at all. Pokemon is of course a deep game, this is merely an example.

Which is ironically quite often not the case as most of these types of players never play Brawl. Ever.

How many Melee and Brawl tournaments have you been to, exactly.

 

[Deleted member 245254]

How many Melee and Brawl tournaments have you been to, exactly.

The relevancy of your inquisitive demand is charmingly absent as always.

 

[Ulevo]

The relevancy of your inquisitive demand is charmingly absent as always.

It wasn't a demand, it was a question. And it is quite relevant, because you're blabbing on about credentials essentially, presuming people don't have the proper experience. So that begs the question, exactly how much do you have?

 

[Hong]

Behave, everyone.

I've been on SmashBoards long enough to know competitive discussions end up with spam, needless assailing of character, and wounded pride, but it doesn't always have to be this way.

 

[ryuu seika]

@ JoeInky : So you're saying that aerialmoves should auto-cancel but only do so if they connect? That is an interesting sounding mechanic and, while I cannot honestly judge whether it would work in practice, I do like the potential implications for it.

 

[LiteralGrill]

You already know I'm with you. But I don't feel quite that hated, I know the 3DS has been taking shots but I don't feel "Melee vs Brawl" attacked on here, not yet at least.

I think the "not yet" is key here. I just watch all of these threads were people can't even manage a spark of politeness with each other and it's troubling when I look to the future. AllIsBrawl may not seem so big now, but remember when we absolutely made fun of people who wanted to play on WiFi that site was a booming enterprise. If we want to stay unified on Smashboards we gotta avoid that kind of thing in the future.

 

[Deleted member 245254]

It wasn't a demand, it was a question. And it is quite relevant, because you're blabbing on about credentials essentially, presuming people don't have the proper experience. So that begs the question, exactly how much do you have?

More than thousands of hours (the great majority of those in 1v1s against other human players) on all 3 existing iterations of Smash and approaching that much with Project M. You can either be ignorant to the fact that you learn a thing or two in that kind of experience or not.

How about you, champ?

 

[Ulevo]

More than thousands of hours (the great majority of those in 1v1s against other human players) on all 3 existing iterations of Smash and approaching that much with Project M. You can either be ignorant to the fact that you learn a thing or two in that kind of experience or not.

How about you, champ?

So no tournament experience then.

 

[Ogre_Deity_Link]

Depth in gaming is defined as the amount of meaningful choices, strategies, options, and interactions within that help the player to progress, play, or compete.

This is an important concept to fully realize because it allows you to distinguish between games that have depth, and games with perceived depth. As an example, if a FPS has over 100 different weapons you can choose from, but only 3 of them are worth using due to the amount of power they give or simply them fulfilling the same roles but more effectively, then this is an example of perceived depth. This is the type of thing an IGN reviewer might rant on about, saying "the game is incredible, with a host of an ton of different weapons to choose from" but it doesn't really amount to anything of value.

Another example would be Pokemon. Right now the series has roughly 700+ Pokemon, but that isn't completely reflective of the depth it has because a lot of the Pokemon amounting to that number are pre-evolutions and Pokemon too weak to consider, or Pokemon that are simply outclassed. If only 10 Pokemon are competitively viable out of a pool of 700+, it really begs the question as to whether or not the game is really deep at all. Pokemon is of course a deep game, this is merely an example.

Thanks, Ulevo.

This however, leads me to ask, does depth always have to come at an increased difficulty? Hypothetically, if there were a one button wavedash, would that still be as bad as no wavedashing? I mean, take a look at chess. From your defenition, wouldn't chess have quite a bit of depth to it? But the amount of dexterity needed is close to nil. Pick up the piece, move it. Done.

So what's wrong with keeping Smash simple?