Melee vs PM: Discussion in terms of competitiveness

[Chesstiger2612]

This thread is thought to discuess which of those games is more competitve and ideally, how one could make PM more competitive.
Please use arguments instead of blank statements, also please no fake arguments. The argument should reach up to a point where it is obvious to see how this makes the game more/less competitive.
Also this has nothing to do with the quality of the game outside of the topic, like added features etc.

 

[Pseudomaniac]

I personally believe P:M to be significantly better competitively than Melee. When I look at game balance and quality, I look at 1) how close to each other the characters are, power-wise 2) how varied the playstyles of the high-tier characters are and 3) how many characters are considered viable in tournaments.

So for my first point, Melee Fox is significantly better than every other character in the game. He isn't broken by any means, as many players have proven time and time again he is possible to beat, but he dominates the metagame to the extent that any character that doesn't do well against him doesn't stand a chance. Additionally, there is a very clear divide between the viable and non-viable characters, and characters that fall below that line quickly plummet in power and are essentially useless in tournaments (unless you're Gimpyfish). In Project M, Fox is still the #1 character in the game, but it's clear that the gap has been closed significantly. Additionally, I would argue that every character in the game falls between the power level of Melee Fox and Melee Ganondorf\Samus, so even characters considered "unviable" aren't totally useless.

For my second point, P:M wins hands-down. The Melee high tiers are very rushdown oriented, with the only exceptions being Peach, Ice Climbers, and Jigglypuff. Project M's high tiers, while still dominated by rushdown characters, now have far greater characters, with Mewtwo, Sonic, Snake, Diddy Kong, Pit, and several others bringing in greatly varied playstyles that, in my opinion, make P:M much more interesting to watch and play.

Lastly, as far as the number of characters considered viable, P:M once again wins hands-down. Melee's viable tier consists of Fox, Falco, Shiek, Marth, Jigglypuff, Peach, Captain Falcon, Ice Climbers, Dr. Mario, Ganondorf, and Samus, so 11 characters. Project M's definitely viable tier consists of Wario, Mario, Peach, Diddy Kong, Wolf, Fox, Falco, Shiek, Link, Mewtwo, Lucario, Ivysaur, Lucas, Pit, Meta Knight, Snake, and Sonic. That's 17 characters, and that's probably not all the competitively viable characters, just the ones that have proven themselves and are generally considered to be the best. Once the metagame settles down and people get better with some of the lesser-played characters, that number will probably go up.

To make Project M even more competitive, I think that the "lower tier" characters need to be carefully tweaked to become more competitive. The PMBR should also be cautious with the clone engine, because as more characters are added to the game it gets harder and harder to keep everything balanced. I'm sure the PMBR will keep doing a great job.

 

[robosteven]

I like P:M more because I enjoy seeing more than seven or so viable characters do well in tournament, plus more viable stages.

That's all it comes down to for me.

 

[DrinkingFood]

Why the **** would you open a thread like this
Name-brand ******** thing to do.

 

[Celestis]

Melee may be the source behind PM, but I believe PM is more competitive because of the roster. All the characters are perfectly usable with no real weak matchups, give or take. That alone separates PM from melee and its Fox is best character mind set. I still love and always keep up with the Melee scene, but with so many characters and variables in PM, it makes for the need to master match ups so much more important and necessary. So many more characters means so much more of the unexpected a player could try on you. Like more logical character counter picks.

But this is just my opinion of course.

 

[Bleck]

can we stop using "competitive" this way please

 

[Chesstiger2612]

@ Pseudomaniac , @ robosteven , @ Celestis
Let me be the advocatus diaboli here:
Why do more viable characters make a game more competitive? Clearly, from a game design and "fun factor" standpoint this is obvious, but how does it influence the competitiveness? Also, imbalance in the end leads to less viable characters and therefore practically less characters and not clearly an unfairness because you needn't use those characters.
More characters increase the matchup amount and decrease the depth you can put in every matchup. This is a disadvantage in some way, as is the differences in preparation leading to a mid player being well-prepared in one MU being able to beat a good player being not versed in that MU.
While it is hard to reason why this should be bad, the fact alone that you can't be able to prepare for everyone as much as they can prepare just for your MU if they want to makes it being closer to a FFA situation where people could get disadvantages by scoring high results, causing everyone to learn their matchup extremely well while not learning others that well.
The good thing in PM is though that your adaptation and matchup transfer skills become more important because you will face situations you haven't experienced yet more often and can transfer knowledge from similar matchups to this one. To be fair, I think this is even more a sign of a good competitive game than straight outright preparation for a few matchups. As in school, where you get double the points for tasks which involve transfering skills than in knowledge reproduction.
I wouldn't really say one of those weighs heavier than the other, at least not by much, so I wouldn't count more characters as a reason for a more competitive game.

@ DrinkingFood
Basically, to sum up discussion spread in diverse different threads. Only because the discussion is sometimes not how a discussion is supposed to be I trust our community to be able to discuss this in a fair and objective sense.
Also, even if it probably is meant funny, watch your tone.

 

[Stevo]

apparently competitive now means "I can play the way I want to and still be able to win"

EDIT:
But to stay on the topic.

At the moment it would be very hard to argue PM is more competitive. Melee has been played for over a decade and is seeing a recent resurgence.
Could PM one day overtake melee? Maybe. PM is still changing, so how can we really know if it is more competitive. The best players in Melee continue to win. Is that not how it should be for a truly competitive game?
PM has new faces take 1st place all the time. I think that is a clear sign it is still too new to really know for sure just how competitive it is.

I'm sure it will continue to grow in a competitive way though.

 

[Chesstiger2612]

apparently competitive now means "I can play the way I want to and still be able to win"

Please elaborate.

 

[Stevo]

Please elaborate.

I just mean, people seem to bring up maximizing balance between characters and strategies as what makes it competitive.

 

[Pseudomaniac]

When I think competitive, I think of how competitive a game is as a whole, hence why I include all characters when I'm considering competitiveness. I like to watch and play against a wide variety of characters and playstyles, so the more viable characters the merrier.

I guess when I say I think P:M is more competitive than Melee, I'm saying I would rather compete in P:M than Melee.

 

[Chesstiger2612]

It seems to depend a bit on the definition obviously

 

[TreK]

Competitiveness is about the players, not the game. The only way to make a game "more competitive" is to have more players competing for the same prize, and eventually to make that prize bigger.

"Competitive" is the opposite of "cooperative", not of "shallow". In many ways, 200 men rock paper scissors tournaments are more competitive than 20 men chess tournaments is what I am trying to say here. If you start comparing metagames, then you're not talking about competitiveness anymore, you're talking about gameplay depth. It's a very different, and usually toxic debate.

Both PM and Melee are competitive games due to the simple fact that they are multiplayer games that are not cooperative. Melee averages more players in most regions, therefore it is a more competitive game. That's all there is to this.

 

[DrinkingFood]

There we have an answer now can we close this thread before it develops into a tumor