Melee mechanics and tech, good or bad?

[voorhese]

yeah, I have to say basically that; Stuff like l-canceling can be affected by other peoples actions (angling shields as bert said), they can put your tech on cooldown (if not done soft), or make you air dodge if u ledge cancel, etc. (so so so much more when u factor in all of the other little quirks about the game) All of this stuff makes better players better, and honestly that is what I love of competitive scenes of games that are actually deep. True gaming is no long just out smarting your opponent, you need to be able to outplay them too. Chess is obsolete, welcome to the real ****ing deal sirs.

 

[ph00tbag]

Please read the first post I made in this thread ( its #16). L-Cancelling isn't supposed to have a reason "not to do it"... aerial attacks do.

Aerials would have weight no matter what because they require jumping, and they're an attack. Jumping's weight is not derived from the need to l-cancel, but from the inability to block and the partial commitment to a trajectory (admittedly less so than in tfgs, but it's still there). Attacking's weight comes from the fact that you can't do anything else for the duration of the attack. It's true l-canceling adds further weight to an aerial attack, but it does so through the introduction of a mechanic that, itself has no inherent weight. That is sloppy design, plain and simple.

Cactus put it best imo

I disagree. A boxer has to make the decision to do a jab or a straight before they throw the punch, since they require different motions from the body. They can't pull a straight because it'll not only leave them open, but throw them off balance. They can't turn a jab into a straight, because they won't have any rotation behind it, and the punch won't do the damage it needs to for the commitment it requires. A boxer doesn't have to change their commitment level in the middle of an attack, and they really shouldn't. You have to l-cancel, and if your opponent is mixing up their defense options, you have to change your timing in the middle of the attack based on that. And that gets us right back to the main point, which Cactuar kind of skirts around. You must l-cancel. There's no reason not to. It doesn't matter if player interaction can give it depth; from a game design standpoint, it's not very elegant.

 

[♡ⓛⓞⓥⓔ♡]

L-canceling is not arbitary imo in the sense that everyone ****s it up sometimes, it just adds to the technical difficulty

 

[primes2113]

The technicality of SSBM is one of it's merits, I would argue that the amount of work involved in mastering techskill adds to the gameplay enormously. The difficulty is what leads to the fulfilling feeling in mastering such techniques, the fulfillment leads to pride and emotions becoming pieces of a player at stake during intense matches. I just don't think you should give away some of these techniques for free.

 

[voorhese]

ph00tbag, how have u not seen the posts that explain instances when u shouldn't l-cancel? Using terms like always and never make extremes shatter your arguments, and in this case they have.

 

[1MachGO]

Aerials would have weight no matter what because they require jumping, and they're an attack. Jumping's weight is not derived from the need to l-cancel, but from the inability to block and the partial commitment to a trajectory (admittedly less so than in tfgs, but it's still there). Attacking's weight comes from the fact that you can't do anything else for the duration of the attack. It's true l-canceling adds further weight to an aerial attack, but it does so through the introduction of a mechanic that, itself has no inherent weight. That is sloppy design, plain and simple.

I was never claiming that L-cancelling is the reason aerial attacks have "weight". Nor did I ever say that aerial attacks aren't independent decisions which create risks/rewards. To prove so is pointless because that was basically one of my points to begin with lol.

However, you seemed to miss my main idea which is that there isn't supposed to be a reason not to L-Cancel. This is because L-Cancelling is not an "action", it is a function of an action which is related to execution.

When I say "action", I am referring to mechanics in the game which meet these two major (though simplified) points of criteria:
1. An action changes the state of your character and creates different risks/rewards. This is done through the options the action either grants and/or takes away.
2. As a result of 1, there is decision making involved to either perform or not perform the action.

Things in this game which would easily fill the above requirements would be running, jumping, attacking, shielding, wavedashing, etc. Perfoming any of these things is a decision and has various pros and cons. However, if you choose to initiate an action, the game makes you perform its required inputs.

Examples of required inputs would be pressing the A button with the control stick in the neutral position to perform a jab, pressing one of the jump buttons followed almost immediately by a directional air dodge to perform a wavedash, slamming the control stick forward to initiate a dash, etc.

L-Cancelling is simply one of the above required inputs. You have to do it if you want to perform your aerial attack correctly much like you would have to press A or cstick to initate the attack in the first place. This summation is, of course, slightly simplified because L-Cancelling is also a mechanic given its situational nature. However, its key connection to other inputs is that it is purely tied to an action/decision. The decision the player made is to aerial attack near the ground, thus they pressed A and L-Cancelled. Not the other way around.

I do agree that the inclusion of the L-Cancelling mechanic is somewhat arbitrary. Though at the end of the day I believe the nuances it creates adds for more to the game than its removal would. With that said, I think judging L-Cancelling on the grounds that "there is no reason not to perform it" is incorrect because it is not an independent action like jumping, crouching, wavedashing, etc.

 

[Doomolish]

I think it's really important to l-cancel manually and not atomaticaly because you'll have to adapta to it, you can mess up EVERY TIME, you'll be forced to think more and practice more when you attemp to add a new technique to your game.

Basically, the l-cancel makes the game harder, and I think Melee is the hardest game in the world and that's why I play it and not another fighting game. Melee it's just too deep and that's why it's so fun. Also, If I wanted to play slower and esier I would play Brawl, but I don't.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

I disagree. A boxer has to make the decision to do a jab or a straight before they throw the punch, since they require different motions from the body. They can't pull a straight because it'll not only leave them open, but throw them off balance. They can't turn a jab into a straight, because they won't have any rotation behind it, and the punch won't do the damage it needs to for the commitment it requires. A boxer doesn't have to change their commitment level in the middle of an attack, and they really shouldn't. You have to l-cancel, and if your opponent is mixing up their defense options, you have to change your timing in the middle of the attack based on that. And that gets us right back to the main point, which Cactuar kind of skirts around. You must l-cancel. There's no reason not to. It doesn't matter if player interaction can give it depth; from a game design standpoint, it's not very elegant.

Thats not what the quote said at all. Read again sir

 

[BTmoney]

I thought this was taboo to make threads about.

I have nothing else to add since my argument has been made by others several times, behavior like mine also gets threads like these closed but hey, the picture is fitting.

 

[Bones0]

I thought this was taboo to make threads about.

I have nothing else to add since my argument has been made by others several times, behavior like mine also gets threads like these closed but hey, the picture is fitting.

Not sure how that pic is fitting at all. The Home Run Bat is a ground attack and can't even be L-cancelled.

I think 1MachGO articulates the issue the best. You can view each L-cancel as an extraneous input that requires no decision making, or you can view it as an extension of the aerial input itself. Instead of L-cancelling, imagine if you had to hold the A button or C-stick until the last 7 frames upon landing. It would seem less like a separate input, and it would just be viewed instead as a part of attacking properly. That's basically how I view L-cancelling. I've said in the past that I wished it wasn't in Melee/P:M, but I'm not sure anymore because it's such a unique technical requirement. There isn't a single player that will ever be able to L-cancel consistently without focusing on it, so if anything I think it can just be viewed as a way of preventing approaches from becoming too complacent of an activity. You have to focus on your spacing, aerial timing, FF timing, and adding in an L-cancelling timing just introduces one more thing you need to be thinking about when you aerial.

I know it's also been said that L-cancelling isn't a decision because you always want to do it, but I think it should be noted that you are technically making a decision from several different L-cancel timings. There's a different timing based on whether your FHed or SHed, FFed or didn't, WLed off of a high or low plat, etc. Players are constantly choosing which timing to use based on their split second decision just a few frames earlier. It's a decision that can be made with really high consistency, but that doesn't necessarily mean the decision was pointless to make.

I think anyone truly curious about how the game would play without L-cancelling should just use the AR code that automatically L-cancels. If you're like me you'll probably input the L-cancels anyway because of years of habitual practice, but if you can force yourself to not worry about it, it really does seem to take away the effect of mentally committing to aerials and having to focus on your landing just as much as you had to focus on your attack.

 

[BTmoney]

I liked that for two reasons lmao

 

[ph00tbag]

I do agree that the inclusion of the L-Cancelling mechanic is somewhat arbitrary. Though at the end of the day I believe the nuances it creates adds for more to the game than its removal would. With that said, I think judging L-Cancelling on the grounds that "there is no reason not to perform it" is incorrect because it is not an independent action like jumping, crouching, wavedashing, etc.

I'm not saying l-canceling would be better if removed, though. I'm just saying it's lack of a cost makes it an imbalanced mechanic. I made a point to say that in my first post. No matter whether you interpret it as an independent action or not, you agree that it's arbitrary. I'm trying to say it would be a more well-designed mechanic if it was designed to be less arbitrary.

As a guide to my thought process, I would say FRCs in Guilty Gear are closer to an ideal of this concept. The similarities to l-canceling are many. They reduce the cooldown of a move. They can be performed on hit or on whiff. Whether they hit, whiff, or are blocked changes the input timing. They are tied to the move they are performed with, and are considered an aspect of those moves' executions, more than an independent mechanic in and of themselves. But there is a way that they differ: they have a cost. Not only does this give them a defined purpose and make them less arbitrary, but it actually makes the moves with FRCs deeper. A player can choose to commit to a move when it wouldn't be safe if they have the meter to perform one, but even then their opponent can manipulate the execution of the FRC by backdashing, or otherwise forcing a different timing. Even so, you still have the option to use the move in a situation where it would be safe, by utilizing spacing and footsies intelligently.

Now, obviously, FRCs are a bit expensive as far as providing examples of what would be an ideal way of making l-canceling non-arbitrary, but they're certainly far more elegant.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

EVERYTHING IS ARBITRARY IN A GAME
caps

 

[Vkrm]

Fox and ness both dip down lower during their landing bair animation just enough for a reversal shield grab from taller characters to whiff. It's probably better to l cancel most of the time but there you go. What's really needed is a fail window for cancelling to prevent L spammage.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

I think Lcanceling is fine the way it is. The window is short enough to require precision to execute and the penalty is double the normal lag when landing.

I like it without a fail window, that way you can react to things like accidental fullhops (it happens to all of us sometimes) and moving platforms. I haven't seen anyone abuse this feature in a bad way.

 

[Strong Badam]

at this point in the game the vast majority of the community has become jaded about other games to the point where they believe that literally every part of the game is a good thing. the players that understand the game's mechanics enough to be able to think about which mechanics affect the game positively and which negatively have either moved on, or realized my first point and have no intention of arguing with that group. like it or not, melee is not the be all end all, 100% perfect game. it hasn't stood the test of time for no reason, but it DOES have issues. l-canceling is one of them.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

I agree with everything you said, except the last sentence.

 

[Mew2King]

l-cancelling is really bad dude
more people would pick up the game if it's easier to pick up
there is no reason to NOT l-cancel. you MUST do it.
It's easy for us pros, but more people would play smash 4 if it was easier to do.
it's the decision making that really is what sets, and what should set pros and newbs apart.

 

[Mew2King]

being hard just for the sake of being hard is stupid

decision making is where it should really be at

l-cancelling is bad game design, because of that. It just sets the gap between pros and newbs so far that newbs won't want to even play the game because of it.

 

[1MachGO]

being hard just for the sake of being hard is stupid

decision making is where it should really be at

l-cancelling is bad game design, because of that. It just sets the gap between pros and newbs so far that newbs won't want to even play the game because of it.

Decision making will always be there, but I wouldn't write off difficulty either. Particularly for a game with competitive depth.

An interaction between technical precision and reading/decision making has many advantages. In the grand scheme it allows more varied playstyles and unpredictable metagame trends. On the small scale it gives the game a unique aspect of replay value by providing you something substantial to practice without the need of another player.

Primarily though, I honestly doubt L-cancelling can be considered the culprit of daunting new players. For most, I believe you are either willing to play the game competitively or you aren't. L-cancelling, while certainly a contributer to the games technical difficulty, is much less awkward than some of the inputs you are required to perform in traditional fighters; games which are substantially more popular than smash due to the support and advertisement they receive as competitive games. If decision making was truly more popular than arbitrary difficulty, brawl would be at evo and we'd all be playing divekick.

 

[Vkrm]

What makes you think brawl is anymore focused on decision making if you don't mind me asking? Most inputs is smash are as simple as they could be. Aside from l cancelling. You always want to l cancel, but it becomes strategic when the defending player does something that would alter the expected hit lag. Also keep in mind l cancelling on its own is can be fun to do.

 

[1MachGO]

Brawl is more focused on decision making because it is slower and less technically demanding than Melee allowing the mental aspects to develop much more easily. The ability to cancel hitstun also increases the amount of interaction between players substantially. While Melee doesn't have any less of a mental aspect than Brawl, there is less of an importance on it.

And overall, I like L-cancelling. Its arbitrary but I think it adds to the game.

 

[The 2t]

What makes you think brawl is anymore focused on decision making if you don't mind me asking? Most inputs is smash are as simple as they could be. Aside from l cancelling. You always want to l cancel, but it becomes strategic when the defending player does something that would alter the expected hit lag. Also keep in mind l cancelling on its own is can be fun to do.

Yeah I've never understood this thing a lot of Brawl players seem to have where they believe the game has more involved decision making or that it's more about good spacing or something... Melee has pretty much everything Brawl has but with three times more depth and speed behind every move.

(Not really aimed at 1Mach, I just mean in general)

 

[BTmoney]

Brawl is more focused on decision making because it is slower and less technically demanding than Melee

• That makes absolutely no sense unless you believe operating in a harsher environment (in a game full of vicious edge guarding, 0deaths, hard combos and great player punishing offensive options) with more inputs involves less decision making than a game where mistakes do not punish you as vigorously. (i.e. you don't mess up your spacing or tech skill in Brawl and eat a death combo the same way you do in melee. Unless you are snake or something and MK won't let you land, but that is an exception.)

allowing the mental aspects to develop much more easily.
The ability to cancel hitstun also increases the amount of interaction between players substantially.
While Melee doesn't have any less of a mental aspect than Brawl, there is less of an importance on it.

• That depends on your definition of interaction, and the last sentence is very wrong.

I started as a Brawl player too. Saying that melee has less of a focus on decision making or active thought is entirely wrong. It's the other way around: Brawl has less of a focus on inputs which may imply other things objectively that people have an issue hearing.

 

[Vkrm]

Being able to cancel hitstun adds more frustration than anything else. The Player interaction added was already present through combo di. Honestly Being caught up in the air is a much tougher spot to be in when playing brawl because you don't have directional air dodges.

 

[ph00tbag]

EVERYTHING IS ARBITRARY IN A GAME

I don't know if you're saying this because you're just angry and overreacting, or if you genuinely feel like you could back it up, but I strongly disagree.

Certainly, the premise of the gameplay could be arbitrary by some estimates, but it's usually based on appealing to a niche set of preferences, and mechanics evolve to accommodate those preferences.

Take Smash for example. The premise is a platform-based fighter with ring-outs as the sole win condition. Now that's certainly a narrow definition, but it's turned out to be a pretty successful niche, and the lack of viable imitators means Smash pretty much has the market cornered (although granted the initial draw is the source the characters are drawn from). Regardless, from this premise several things arise as necessary. Movement options need to be broad, since the multi-level gameplay and large stages are otherwise invitations to turtle to an unbeatable degree. This is why action game elements like short hopping and drifting are included. Double jumps are ported from airdash fighters for this purpose as well. Melee expanded on this with platform wavelands, wall-jumps, dash-dancing, fox-trotting, ledgecanceling, etc. Compounding knockback returns also arise to reward the winning player with a greater likelihood of achieving the win condition. Core fighting game mechanics are included to make the combat deep, like grabs, rolling, crouching, specials, blocking, hitstun, blockstun, etc. SDI in the first game was included to counteract long combos, and Melee expanded on the concept, making it more interactive and intuitive, and giving it a more direct interaction with the win condition. Recovering is an emergent mechanic from the non-arbitrary mechanics of drifting and double jumps. It would be there (and in fact is there) whether the characters had recovery-oriented specials or not. To make recovering more viable, and balance survival based, defensive gameplay with aggressive, gimp-oriented gameplay, the ledge mechanics are introduced. And everything from the ledge is either emergent or serves a purpose.

Originally, L-canceling was intended to allow players the choice of hitting with the landing hitbox of a move, or initiating their defense off a whiffed attack. Note that defense was the intended purpose of l-canceling. This is where you really have to remember that Smash is an ongoing experiment in previously totally unexplored gameplay territory. L-canceling was an experiment, and the conclusion was wildly different from the hypothesis. L-canceling became quite the monstrosity, evolving from a mix-up between offense and defense into a required skill-based barrier to offensive play. Melee even went so far as to remove the mix-up aspect and allow the arbitrary utility of the mechanic to take front and center. Now it's nice to look at the history of l-canceling and observe that it wasn't intended to be arbitrary, but a synchronic appraisal of the mechanic shows that it's simply an extraneous required input to perform a successful aerial. That's bad game design. It doesn't really matter if emergent qualities of the game make it deep, because it totally fails to balance accessibility with a plurality of options (and yes, accessibility is a goal).

It's the balance of accessibility and option plurality that I'm really in favor of, too, and it's why I don't necessarily support the outright removal of l-canceling (since that would sacrifice option plurality for accessibility). Instead, making l-canceling cost some other valuable resource balances the extra option of l-canceling with allowing the player who can't l-cancel consistently to save that valuable resource toward some other purpose. Incidentally, this is why meters are so pervasive in other fighting games, since they're a quick fix to the conundrum of balancing accessibility with option plurality. It is the disregard for this balance that makes l-canceling arbitrary. And it is the consideration of overall balance, including this particular field of balance that makes the other decisions in game design non-aribitrary.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Find me something in a game that isn't arbitrary, please. A game is a collection of arbitrary rules that players agree to play by.

 

[1MachGO]

@Ado, The 2t, and Vkrm

You misunderstand, I never said or meant to imply that Melee has less decision making depth than Brawl. I simply meant that, due to certain gameplay mechanics in Brawl, there is a larger emphasis on decision making. Melee is one part technical precision and one part decision making which is why I find it to be the superior game, with that said, take away either one of those... and remaining skill is going to be emphasized and developed more.

I also think that player interaction can be just as key to enhancing important decision making as the strengths of punishing. Think of the smash games being on a continuum, with one end being 64 (extremely powerful punishes) and the other end being Brawl (hitstun cancelling, weak punishes). In the middle is where we find Melee, and not so coincidentally, the most aggressive of three games. I am not necessarily saying that defensive play = more mental emphasized play, but when a game lends itself to be less played with less risks (64) or when both players are constantly behind the wheel (Brawl) there is going to be more footsies and more mind vs. mind type of play.

 

[Vkrm]

I'd find it easier to agree if brawl's neutral game had the same flexibility, and its not like brawls follow up game is super diverse. There are moves you can't di which leads to situations where you just sit there getting CG'ed. Getting back on the ground is difficult in both games, but to be fair I haven't done much with brawl aside from watching it since 2011. Maybe it's baller now.

 

[Nicco]

Things like l-cancel add more depth to the game. It requires the player to practice more, and if people don't wanna play because it's "too hard", they can play brawl

 

[Mew2King]

it's bad dude. Decision making elements are what should matter more, not adding difficulty for NO REASON except to be hard. That's just lame and makes newbs discouraged from picking up the game which is unhealthy for game design community growth.

 

[Vkrm]

The depth added by l cancelling comes in when deciding when you should time it. I would see it being pointless if you could just hold L and get the cancel. Honestly I am in agreement on its removal just because it is at odds with smash's design philosophy, but its not always bad to put emphasis on mechanical skill every now and again.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

It does make it hard for newbs to start, but why do you want someone to pick up the game and instantly be good at it? A newb doesn't turn on StarCraft for the first time and go "oh macroing is super easy and i can even do it during battle, no prob". They don't turn on Streetfighter and break out Shoryoken FADC Ultra or something.

Lcanceling is a knowledge test on the player, do you know that your attack is going to auto cancel or must you lcancel it? Are you going to land on that platform or are you going to edge cancel? If you hit something your lcancel timing must change, too. All these subtle tests stem directly from the lcancel system and aren't really tested anywhere else. This is a platforming game, I think testing knowledge of your character's movement is core.

 

[bearsfan092]

On top of that there's a certain payoff-difficulty ratio to L cancelling. Say you got a Fox that's doing shine nair shine nair shield pressure. The L canceling adds difficulty to a tactic that would otherwise be totally destructive for no cost. That's the role I see L cancelling in.

EDIT: the other alternative is to not have cancelling. This would remove the ability to shield pressure though, which essentially gives you something more Brawl-esque.

 

[-ACE-]

I kinda wish that L-cancel'ing had a cooldown of like 20 frames just like techs. You can just spam R and never miss an L-cancel right now.

edit: or maybe only 10 frames? adds depth.

 

[ph00tbag]

Find me something in a game that isn't arbitrary, please. A game is a collection of arbitrary rules that players agree to play by.

Okay.

 

[Massive]

it's bad dude. Decision making elements are what should matter more, not adding difficulty for NO REASON except to be hard. That's just lame and makes newbs discouraged from picking up the game which is unhealthy for game design community growth.

Alternatively, completely removing L-cancelling can lead to scenarios where characters with disjointed hitboxes and low weight become nearly impossible to punish and dominate the tier list (META KNIGHT).

You can still have some highly technical input requirements and have a highly popular game, look at the Street Fighter or Guilty Gear series. They both have far more complicated/stringent inputs than those in melee, and they both have very large communities.
Removing game depth to appeal to casuals/newbies is not going to win them over (they probably won't even notice, honestly), but it will alienate the competitive players very expertly. It's also a great way to ruin a Mario Kart game.

 

[NightShadow6]

If someone doesn't want to learn L-canceling they can get the hell out of here.

 

[ph00tbag]

Alternatively, completely removing L-cancelling can lead to scenarios where characters with disjointed hitboxes and low weight become nearly impossible to punish and dominate the tier list (META KNIGHT).

Actually, the removal of l-canceling had more to do with Ganon being bad than it did with MK being good. All told, the mechanics changes vis a vis move safety are a lot more complicated in Brawl than you're casting it.

You can still have some highly technical input requirements and have a highly popular game, look at the Street Fighter or Guilty Gear series. They both have far more complicated/stringent inputs than those in melee, and they both have very large communities.

On the point of GG, you have to keep in mind that Arc System Works was very meticulous about balancing risk with reward, cost with benefit, and accessibility with option plurality. The fundamentals of GG execution are painfully simple, and there are inherent benefits to not being able to perform the more difficult things. The sole motivation for improving in Guilty Gear is to gain more options. If you have good instincts when it comes to the neutral game and defense, you can get pretty far on offense with, for instance, Sol Badguy without having to rely on FRCs, Jump Installs, Impossible Dusts, or one frame jumps. But knowing how to do these things can really improve your gameplay. Guilty Gear is also more widely regarded as a mythical paragon of fighting game balance than as a game people actually play.

The Street Fighter series has also seen its share of criticism for some arbitrary mechanics. Parries in 3S are frequently panned as anathema to the Street Fighter gameplay ethos, being costless circumventions of the footsies and zoning that made SFII so deep and interesting. SFIV is incidentally seen as one of the less technical Street Fighter games.

 

[Massive]

Actually, the removal of l-canceling had more to do with Ganon being bad than it did with MK being good. All told, the mechanics changes vis a vis move safety are a lot more complicated in Brawl than you're casting it.

Making other characters worse doesnt leave other characters on better footing? Please think about what you're typing here. The lack of L-cancelling removed viability from a large portion of the brawl cast, Ganon most visibly, especially against meta knight. This could've been easily without L-cancelling by reducing the landing delay of attacks, however they remained unchanged from the way they were handled in melee, leaving some characters with huge handicaps. Obviously there was more going on that made brawl less technical/fun/interesting from a competitive standpoint, but L-cancelling had quite a bit to do with it.

L-cancelling is still a viable mechanic for a platform-fighter style games, I just think it needs to be expanded upon so there are situational reasons to L-cancel and not L-cancel rather than it being almost completely beneficial.