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Melee makes no sense sometimes.

red stone

Smash Ace
Joined
Apr 21, 2006
Messages
889
Location
Nashville, Tennessee
Why is it that when I work extra hard with ganondorf or mario to get my meteor spike off, my opponent can just meteor cancel it?! that is insane. Do you know how risky it is to do a mario meteor spike?...And then I see falco over there with his easy peasy drill spike which is a true spike which can't be canceled and it makes me furious. Falco's spike isn't even cool to look at like mario's or ganondorf's. They should just switch the properties of all the spikes and meteor smashes in the game. It makes complete logical sense to me.

Why is it that melee decides to give the characters with the worst recoveries, the worst lag time on said recoveries? Look mario isn't exactly the best at recovering, so just give him a break and let him have zero lag up landing with his up-b. It's the least they could do. frickin fox over there can immediately do stuff after his fire fox, so why not mario. Peach has a pretty fast up-b land as well. I believe that peach has a good enough recovery that it's just overkill to have her be able to do stuff after landing so quickly. In fact, doesn't she have an umbrella combo, to d-smash? Do you know what certain characters would give to be able to do a combo after their up-b. I know that roy would give up an arm and a leg for that. I would vouch for sheik having a zero lag up-b as well, buuuuut I think she can manage. Oh and captain falcon definitely needs less lag upon landing. Oh and his over-b needs to grab the edge. he looks so helpless after doing an over-b and not even being able to grab the ledge.

why would a character have a move that hits but doesn't have enough hitstun. When luigi does a dash attack, he just hits the other guy with a flurry of dainty punches, but then luigi just gets grabbed to and comboed to death afterwards? WHAT IS THE POINT THEN! Why does mario have a down tilt that tickles the opponent's feet and then can get punished afterwards. You might as well have mario's down tilt make him take a dump, because that at least is a second taunt. Melee gives all the good moves to characters like falco. Pick any move of falco's and I bet it's at least half useful.

about that zelda/sheik combo. why does it take so long to switch between the two. I get the snot beat out of me every time i change. The switch should be instant (1 frame). then maybe zelda might get a little more screen time and sneak in a lightning kick every now and then and get some credit finally.

oh and what is up with pichu hurting itself? is it dumb or something? does it get a papercut every time it tries to ready the newspaper? if it's going to hurt itself, then it better be the fastest and most damaging character in the game then. It needs to have ganon's power with captain falcon's speed.

And finally, why are all the levels so big. This is a fighting game. Running away should not be an option unless this was a hide and seek game or a sidescroller. They should have like 20 different stages of yoshi's story size or fountain of dreams size with varying death zone sizes, at least for 1 on 1s.

Am I making sense, or am I the only crazy one around here?
 

Shadow Huan

Smash Champion
Joined
Oct 31, 2008
Messages
2,224
Location
Springfield, MA
because melee was originally designed as a party/platforming/fighting game

pretty much covers all your questions

EDIT: the Pichu thing made me laugh tho

:phone:
 
Joined
Oct 5, 2008
Messages
7,187
When you unlock Pichu, the game says something like "A threat to others as well as itself". I think this implies they wanted Pichu to be a joke character

Melee Smash is dumb, very dumb
 

DerfMidWest

Fresh ******
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SOFA#941
Pichu was designed as a joke character.

Anyway, the game is what it is. We can't change it, so you need to work around the problems.
Its by no means perfect, but its still fun as hell.
 

Jockmaster

Smash Ace
Joined
Jan 20, 2012
Messages
872
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Athens, GA
I don't really understand the stage complaint, considering DL (and maybe PS) are the only ones that are big enough to effectively run away on

But yeah the other stuff is just Melee ;)

:phone:
 
Joined
Oct 10, 2011
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Location
Boise, ID
NNID
dansalvato
No Smash game was ever designed to be played so competitively. As such, you're going to see a gigantic list of stupid technicalities that HAL/Nintendo never even remotely considered. Like, how the hell did they even come up with Bowser and think he could compare to the rest of the cast? The answer is probably that a lot of their playtesting was with four players, and Bowser both survives longer and lands hard hits in a 4-player free-for-all.

When it comes down to it, competitive Melee is a stupid game where players try to out-stupid each other. But it's all in lovable fun so it's okay.
 

Bones0

Smash Legend
Joined
Aug 31, 2005
Messages
11,153
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Jarrettsville, MD
Even if they made all of the changes you stated, there'd still be a million things that would be "obvious" changes to make. Balancing games is hard, and Sakurai did a better job balancing both the characters and mechanics of Melee than most fighting game creators, which is hilarious since it's Nintendo. Just be thankful we have 10 or so characters that are good enough to win tournaments, and general game play depth that lets the rest potentially win vs. anyone who isn't a high level player.
 

LLDL

Smash Hero
Joined
Apr 27, 2007
Messages
7,128
Pretty sure that HAL designed both Melee and 64 to be competitive, it's obvious.....just look at how the games play. HAL didn't work on Brawl, hence why it came out like that, ROFL.
 

odinNJ

Smash Lord
Joined
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NJ
why the **** are you switching between sheik and the foot lady
 

Krynxe

I can't pronounce it either
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Why does mario have a down tilt that tickles the opponent's feet and then can get punished afterwards. You might as well have mario's down tilt make him take a dump, because that at least is a second taunt.
I lol'd pretty hard

One of my friends who is a Luigi main was talking about how he's going to change the Luigi metagame with his dtilt. :embarrass:
 

GhllieShdeKnife

Smash Ace
Joined
Jan 21, 2010
Messages
687
1 frame switch would make the worst chaingrabs in the game imagine shiek dthrow chain, then switch to zelda and kick and switch back to sheik b4 u hit the ground. zelda fair+ shiek ftilt;)
im thinking this thread should be closed as it has no real value
 

DerfMidWest

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SOFA#941
At low percent I believe mario's dtilt combos into fsmash on FFers if they DI wrong... Its pree funny
 
D

Deleted member

Guest
Funny lol, even with all that mentioned, melee is still more balanced than brawl. :smirk:
brawl just hasn't been out as long so it's not understood. brawl is much better balanced than melee.

brawl was designed to be more competitive than melee in every facet, from the training mode having a c stick to the smash dojo used to hype the game.

u guys r stupid
 

twizzlerj

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Jul 30, 2011
Messages
349
Location
Freehold NJ
brawl just hasn't been out as long so it's not understood. brawl is much better balanced than melee.

brawl was designed to be more competitive than melee in every facet, from the training mode having a c stick to the smash dojo used to hype the game.

u guys r stupid
a joke right? then again i laugh at jokes so im not sure....
 

Shiny Mewtwo aka Jigglysir

PhD; Smash Community Studies
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Brawl, imo, is more balanced than Melee, seeing as how Mid/Low tier mains are more capable of winning in Brawl (though that may be because they are more common than in Melee, where 90% of everything is High tier)
 

Warhawk

Smash Lord
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Nov 11, 2011
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Mt. Pleasant/Highland, MI
I mean maybe if you take out Metaknight and Ganon the characters are closer together in ability but if you take out the highest and lowest tier in melee as well the characters also get pretty competitive with each other, its just that with melee there are more characters in those two tiers.
 

DerfMidWest

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SOFA#941
I think melee is fairly balanced.
The top ten-ish are all capable of winning.
After that, there is a little gap, then all the mid low tiers are pretty close.
Then the bottom like... 6-ish are meh in comparison to everything else, but really even on their own.
 

oliman

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Dec 2, 2008
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274
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The 216
yeah, admittedly brawl is more balanced, just by looking at ocean.
oh well this game is still a lot more fun.
 

Sangoku

Smash Master
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64 is obviously the most balanced of the three games. A Japanese player regularly wins big tourneys in Tokyo with Samus, last on the tier list. But there are only 12 characters, so it helps.
 

Shadow Huan

Smash Champion
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64 is obviously the most balanced of the three games. A Japanese player regularly wins big tourneys in Tokyo with Samus, last on the tier list. But there are only 12 characters, so it helps.
this.

every character in 64 is capable of winning, since everyone has 0-death combos on everyone... that might be the balance answer right there lol

:phone:
 

The Star King

Smash Hero
Joined
Nov 6, 2007
Messages
9,681
since everyone has 0-death combos on everyone...
No.

that might be the balance answer right there lol
No.

BTW it depends on how you look at balance - multiple characters competing for the top spot, or how the entire cast is overall. Melee has multiple characters that can compete for top tier while Brawl/64 have a clear best character (although Fox/Kirby/Falcon honestly aren't far behind Pika in 64). But in terms of overall cast the balance in Melee is quite ****ty, while 64's is obviously the best (IDK what Brawl is like here). Depends on your definition.
 

Morin0

Smash Lord
Joined
Oct 9, 2007
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San Diego, CA
Samus has no true 0 to death combos. The way to balance a game is by buffing the low tiers to make them viable. No "buff the low tiers, and nerf the high tiers." You buff the low tiers so they are of equal power to the high tiers. Someone said this I think, and I agree!

For example, it wouldn't make sense to nerf Meta Knight and buff Kirby so that Kirby has a chance. All you do is buff Kirby so that he is almost or equally as good as Meta Knight.

Game balance is really tedious. x_X
 

The Star King

Smash Hero
Joined
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Messages
9,681
I don't necessarily agree Morino. Sometimes the top tiers of x game are just... dumb, and tbh from what I've seen many games are better balanced around characters that are sort of high tier but not really the at the top. IDK.

I think you got the quote from the Project M team. But I honestly wish the cast for that game was balanced around Melee Falcon level or so, because to me that level is perfect. Oh well, I know they've set on this so no use wishing. Also if I was balancing Smash 64 I would probably make everyone around Yoshi/Mario level lol
 

Sangoku

Smash Master
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I don't necessarily agree Morino. Sometimes the top tiers of x game are just... dumb, and tbh from what I've seen many games are better balanced around characters that are sort of high tier but not really the at the top. IDK.

I think you got the quote from the Project M team. But I honestly wish the cast for that game was balanced around Melee Falcon level or so, because to me that level is perfect. Oh well, I know they've set on this so no use wishing. Also if I was balancing Smash 64 I would probably make everyone around Yoshi/Mario level lol
Yoshi's level or Mario's? The difference would be huge.

I've always thought of balance being the variance/standard deviation (ie centered on a "mean" character level). But even if we look at the sum of the differences between a char and the top char (obv divided by the total number of chars), 64 would still win I think. Don't know if I'm making any sense.
 

Shadow Huan

Smash Champion
Joined
Oct 31, 2008
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i concede to the people here who know more about 64 than i do lol, watching the high level 64 players has kept me from learning enough to know what the **** i'm talking about i guess lol -_-

however, i'd define a " well balanced" fighting game as one where even the "worst" character has a chance to win, depending on player skill and MU experience. to some degree melee is like this, but there is a limit based off of high level play, where you get (generously) 10 characters who are "viable" with the spacies sittng at the top

I'd actually say that Soul Calibur 2 fits the bill pretty well; the problem with that game is not the character balance it's the slightly overpowered defensive options. not that the game is perfectly balanced but it's better than any of the smash games imo

:phone:
 

Kimimaru

Smash Ace
Joined
Apr 19, 2012
Messages
915
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CA
The way to balance a game is by buffing the low tiers to make them viable. No "buff the low tiers, and nerf the high tiers." You buff the low tiers so they are of equal power to the high tiers. Someone said this I think, and I agree!

For example, it wouldn't make sense to nerf Meta Knight and buff Kirby so that Kirby has a chance. All you do is buff Kirby so that he is almost or equally as good as Meta Knight.

Game balance is really tedious. x_X
This doesn't always work. Top tiers are at the top because they're clearly overpowered compared to the rest of the cast. If you take away some attributes from them that make them so strong (Ex. making Falco's D-air a meteor) and take away attributes from low tiers that make them so weak (Ex. making Bowser faster) you get an overall more balanced game. From your perspective, if everyone in the game was in the same exact ranking and one character was clearly better than the rest, you'd have to buff everyone else to compete with him when you really should just be nerfing him to make him more reasonable. When balancing a game you have to look at everyone, not just a select few.
 

Strong Badam

Super Elite
Administrator
Premium
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comparative balance is important, but your baseline is almost as important. if you make everyone suck then the game is boring. making everyone good makes the game fun and balanced.

that said, Falco is a stupid character
 
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