Mindgames : In melee vs brawl : Read the first post before responding please.

[Eggm]

Ok, so first off i'm making this thread to hopefully stop all the misinformed people in the melee vs brawl debates who think that due to the slower engine that there is more mindgames in brawl or that they are more important.

If you don't care about melee at all, and just play brawl please feel free to stop reading here.

Also I play both games and enjoy them both, and if you can add to the brawl's side of the argument I would love that as it will help me enjoy brawl more and make it less boring for me.

So I'm going to start listing a few of the mindgames I know were taken away or made useless from melee to brawl, and my challenge to the brawl side of the argument is to provide me with specific examples of mindgames that are now in brawl due to things the game added, that are not in melee, then I can come back and give you more examples in melee and we'll figure out which game has more. And also how can mindgames be more important if theres hardly any at all? Please don't mention mindgames that are also in melee, these are new ones that brawl added that I'm looking for.

First, empty short hop fast fall grab. No longer useful is seen coming a mile away and useless with being so floaty and slow. Second some ones on the ground your approaching from in the air, you look like your about to attack them from the air, but double jump right before you get to them effectively baiting them into an attack then fast falling after the DJ and punishing the action you tricked them into doing. Third, Tricking opponents into doing the wrong DI. Basically there are two ways to DI while being comboed, for survival or for escaping combos. Lets say you want to DI for survival then they notice this and do a weak attack that sends you close to them so you continue the combo OR you notice they are doing lots of away DI to escape your combo then you do an early finisher, and they get knocked away real hard from diing the finisher away.

Anyways i've explained these before and asked for brawl players to give me examples of mindgames that brawl has added due to the new physics, and as of now no one has came up with anything so far. This is probably because i've asked this question in random melee vs brawl threads, so not many people have seen it. Hopefully people who see this thread can inform me on some. Then it could be a fun debate with everyone listing the mindgames for both games and compare. I'm sure with everyone doing it we can come up with a pretty big list for both. Probably will be enlightening to some of the newer players to either game.

Btw, mindgames are tricking your opponent into doing a desired action based of deceptive actions, then punishing. Just so you know. For example dashing at some one they f smash you dash back then dash towards them again and punish the lag from the f smash. OH yeah, thats not in brawl either cause once you dash your pretty much entirely committed to dashing forward, unless you want to jump or dash attack.

Direvulcan maybe you'd like to answer these questions. You were the one who basically made me go off on this little rant. You claim melee players don't like brawl cause they can't push buttons fast and have to think. But until these questions I asked above are answered, I don't see how this is true. I think a lot more in melee about how to trick my opponent using my options and my movement. Then while comboing I think about tricking DI keeping it going and putting them in the most disadvantageous position possible after I realize I can't keep the combo going anymore. You claim that since theres no death combos you have to think more cause after every hit the game resets. But during combos there are tons of mindgames going on, AND before the hits, there are way more options for mindgames and tricks to get that initial hit and its far more intense in the thought process to me. I dunno please some one tell me if i'm wrong.

So please discuss everyones thoughts on this? Which game do you find more mentally demanding, and why? What mindgames do you use in barwl to trick your opponent, what was added due to brawls physics and stuff?

 

[Frey]

Well, I think its the same basically, since brawl is indeed slower, you will have to find other tricks to get them to screw up, and for you to get them punished for it. For me, Ill usually pretend i afked in brawl(cheap trick i know only works online, usually done for lols) then after they inspect me, and try charging an attack, ill punish them severely. But normally, ill basically get them to charge, and punish them for not doing an aerial approach but bairing them in the face.

 

[Cookiez]

Most people arguing against you have absoultely no knowledge of what mindgames entail.

 

[Veil2222]

I use b-stick sh ->air dodge through opponant->grab a lot. Most of the time they get baited into either trying to attack on the incoming or sitting there and shielding, thinking an attack is coming. I've got some character specific ones too, but you seem like you're asking thing about the general engine so I'll save those till later. Also, sine the DI is so huge in this game, I've been able to empty sh to bait them into an attack, DI out of it when they do mid air, land, and punish. This works mid air to for more DI heavy chars.

 

[Eggm]

I want to talk to the ones who do. There has to be some lol.

 

[Cookiez]

Hahaha if anything i've been reading for the past week shows me anything, it's that you're gonna have a hard time finding 'em Eggm . If nothing at all comes up I guess i'll switch sides for a bit for some healthy discussion lol.

 

[pockyD]

you are the last person i'd expect to make a wall-of-text post eggm

"mindgames" suck, that is all - play smart instead

 

[pockyD]

you are the last person i'd expect to make a wall-of-text post eggm

"mindgames" suck, that is all - play smart instead

 

[Andromeda]

Well, I'm not really the one to speak in threads about Melee vs Brawl, just because I like them both. (And because I hate to come with big arguments) But I think that the critique against Brawl is a bit unfair. Or at least a bit harsh.

We knew that Brawl never would exceed the competitive depth that Melee had. We broke the limits then. We performed things the developers never expected us to do in the first place. And during the development of Brawl, they haven't taken any chances. In Brawl, doing anything that the developers never intended us to do seems pretty much impossible. Whatever you try, it doesn't work. We, the gamers, were like wild animals escaping from zoo in Melee. But in Brawl, the developers tamed us. If we ever are going to make Brawl at least a bit competitive, or at least give it a fair chance, we have to follow the rules. I think that in time, we will develop unique mindgames for Brawl.

The sole big reason for the lack of balance in Melee was because we made it unbalanced. As I said, we didn't follow the rules the developers put up on the noticeboard. The developers didn't expect us to do things we did. At least they didn't expect us to change the whole game based on it. And so, the game became unbalanced, because with all the new stuff, some characters got huge advantages, while other characters got huge disadvantages. Brawl is, of course, way more balanced than Melee ever was. That opens for new, and way more, strategies.

For example, take a match, say Dedede vs. Luigi. Let's say the match is played on Bridge of Eldin. If you were Dedede, what would be the most effective way of defeating Luigi? I would say that his chaingrab is a good bet, because Luigi will have a very hard time escaping from it. Dedede would easily chaingrab him offscreen, and then finish him of with an easy sidethrow. But how to approach, so you can grab Luigi in the first place? Dedede would have many options. He could simply run up to Luigi and grab him, but it would take a very stupid opponent for that to work. He could run up to Luigi, roll behind him and grab him. He sould throw a Waddle Dee at Luigi, but that wouldn't work very much, unless Dedede pulls out a Gordo, which would probably let Dedede run up to the flinched Luigi, do some attacks, and then trick your opponent to shield, and then grab him.

I hate to come with examples like that, I'm not an expert on strategies, the possibilities overwhelmes me. So with that, I'm off.

EDIT: If you don't agree with this post, then just ignore it please. I hate to argue as I said.

 

[Xengri]

Well, first I’m going to have to say that making a list of Mindgames sounds pretty ridiculous to me..
Not only would it be a extremely long list, but it wouldn’t even be a complete list ether.
Most mind games are situational and, are created on the spot. If there was a sit number of them, they someone could just memorize them all and, never be tricked again.
And, we all now that’s not how it works.

Anyway, that aside, for the, which one is more mentally demanding question, I’m going to have to say that Melee was, by far, more about the Mindgames and mental struggles.

I thought it was pretty obvious too, yet, some people really thing that just because Brawl is slower, it’s more about Mindgames, when really it’s the opposite.

In Melee, you had speed to back you up. You could be fast enough so that, your opponent wouldn’t be able to see your next move and in turn, he could be fast enough to avoid and quickly counter your attack without you having enough time to react.
It was always a fast paced, push and pull, battle between the offensive mind and, the defensive one.

In Brawl, the speed isn’t nearly as potentially overwhelming as it was in Melee. Your opponent has a larger window to react to your attack, meaning it’s harder to trick him. That, and, with the overall defensive buff that Brawl has, your opponent could easily counter you back (Ie, faster shielding and, shield grab, No L-cancel so aerial approaches are more easily punished, less options for land approaches, etc).
So really, now it’s just the offensive mind, having to try much harder to trick an opening in the defensive mind while, the defensive mind has it much easier when trying to counter the offensive.
And, both of them lost the speed which helped them in Melee to overwhelm and, follow up after successfully attacking/countering.

Also, game play speed aside, in Melee you had much more control over your character.
You had much more options to do at any given situation.
Land approaches as a example.
In Melee, you could dash to your opponent, CC and, have your whole character’s moveset available to you, right out of a dash.
In Brawl, if you’re dashing towards you’re opponent, he can pretty much expect for you to ether dash attack, or jump and approach.


Really, I never understood why people think that, slower=more tactful and more Mindgames.

If that was the case, then would playing the game at half speed make you think twice as hard?

Edit: Almost forgot about the Edgegame in Melee vs. Brawl.
All of us who has played Melee know how much things run through your mind when trying to edgeguard or recover.
However, in Brawl, all that's been taken away due to much better recovery on characters, stronger DI, auto tether and, auto sweetspoting.
Sure, you can now easily run of the edge and chase your opponent, but now, he can just air dodge past you and, use upB or tether, to grab on the ledge.
I'm think the Melee edge game had more Mindgames involved but, I don't know, maybe it's just me.

 

[Eggm]

I use b-stick sh ->air dodge through opponant->grab a lot. Most of the time they get baited into either trying to attack on the incoming or sitting there and shielding, thinking an attack is coming. I've got some character specific ones too, but you seem like you're asking thing about the general engine so I'll save those till later. Also, sine the DI is so huge in this game, I've been able to empty sh to bait them into an attack, DI out of it when they do mid air, land, and punish. This works mid air to for more DI heavy chars.

What is b-sticking? I thought that was the slight backwards movement on b moves while using wavebouncing? Anyways short hop air dodging through some one is used in melee too, I believe they call it triangle jumping, its not used much however cause theres better options, but ok cool. Its probably more useful in brawl cause of the less landing lag after air dodge I believe theres none at all. Good stuff. Your other thing what I think your saying is you let some one hit you with an ariel thats laggy and punish them during their landing lag. If you purposely take the hit then hit them back for more damage or to put them in a bad position I guess that then could be considered a mindgame. However with the lack of combos punishing harder than the hit you took to get this off might be tough, please elaborate. On and for melee's side, the whole CCing mindgames (taking hits to do more damage or putting them into a bad position) were far more widely used and useful than what you are describing. Through the use of gimp edge guards and good combos a good CC down smash with say samus for example against a spacy was a really good mindgame.

 

[pockyD]

yeah all the "cool new stuff" in brawl is in reality very poor substitutes for the "cool stuff" in melee -_-

I don't have anything against removing tech, but they crippled the action by doing so (if everyone automatically had l-canceled landing lag, for example, that would be WORLDS better than the current situation of everyone having superlag)

 

[Cookiez]

Andromeda, I agree with what you said but wouldn't you agree that it was slightly... offtopic? You're pretty much arguing that the fact the game is more balanced means that more characters are used, thus more character specific mindgames are developed.

Well, obviously thats true. A greater number of moves and characters means there obviously more ways to manipulate your opponent. If a character with say, mines (ie. Snake) is added, he can use them to minipulate opponents in different ways. However, from what i've read, Eggm is specifically looking for changes made to the games physics which develop mindgames in Brawl to a greater extent than they were developed in Melee.

Also, good post Xengri :D.

 

[Eggm]

Well, I'm not really the one to speak in threads about Melee vs Brawl, just because I like them both. (And because I hate to come with big arguments) But I think that the critique against Brawl is a bit unfair. Or at least a bit harsh.

We knew that Brawl never would exceed the competitive depth that Melee had. We broke the limits then. We performed things the developers never expected us to do in the first place. And during the development of Brawl, they haven't taken any chances. In Brawl, doing anything that the developers never intended us to do seems pretty much impossible. Whatever you try, it doesn't work. We, the gamers, were like wild animals escaping from zoo in Melee. But in Brawl, the developers tamed us. If we ever are going to make Brawl at least a bit competitive, or at least give it a fair chance, we have to follow the rules. I think that in time, we will develop unique mindgames for Brawl.

Wouldn't this thread do nothing but help it advance faster? So more new players are aware of more mindgames and advance faster?

The sole big reason for the lack of balance in Melee was because we made it unbalanced. As I said, we didn't follow the rules the developers put up on the noticeboard. The developers didn't expect us to do things we did. At least they didn't expect us to change the whole game based on it. And so, the game became unbalanced, because with all the new stuff, some characters got huge advantages, while other characters got huge disadvantages. Brawl is, of course, way more balanced than Melee ever was. That opens for new, and way more, strategies.

Who was discussing balance? Theres imbalance in every game and there will be in brawl in time too, in fact its already widley accepted in my area by most the good players that metaknght is far and beyond the best character.

Well, first I’m going to have to say that making a list of Mindgames sounds pretty ridiculous to me..
Not only would it be a extremely long list, but it wouldn’t even be a complete list ether.
Most mind games are situational and, are created on the spot. If there was a sit number of them, they someone could just memorize them all and, never be tricked again.
And, we all now that’s not how it works.

If its ridiculous to you, you don't have to contribute to or read the thread. The list will maybe never be complete who knows, but I know I would personally benefit from a beefy list as I have bad memory and would like to see them all in one place. Btw, it would benefit me in both games. The best mindgames are known about beforehand and then strategically incorporated into your play. Very few people are creative enough to think of them on the spot in the game as its going on. However that is how most of them are probably discovered if thats what you mean.

Anyway, that aside, for the, which one is more mentally demanding question, I’m going to have to say that Melee was, by far, more about the Mindgames and mental struggles.

I thought it was pretty obvious too, yet, some people really thing that just because Brawl is slower, it’s more about Mindgames, when really it’s the opposite.

In Melee, you had speed to back you up. You could be fast enough so that, your opponent wouldn’t be able to see your next move and in turn, he could be fast enough to avoid and quickly counter your attack without you having enough time to react.
It was always a fast paced, push and pull, battle between the offensive mind and, the defensive one.

In Brawl, the speed isn’t nearly as potentially overwhelming as it was in Melee. Your opponent has a larger window to react to your attack, meaning it’s harder to trick him. That, and, with the overall defensive buff that Brawl has, your opponent could easily counter you back (Ie, faster shielding and, shield grab, No L-cancel so aerial approaches are more easily punished, less options for land approaches, etc).
So really, now it’s just the offensive mind, having to try much harder to trick an opening in the defensive mind while, the defensive mind has it much easier when trying to counter the offensive.
And, both of them lost the speed which helped them in Melee to overwhelm and, follow up after successfully attacking/countering.

Also, game play speed aside, in Melee you had much more control over your character.
You had much more options to do at any given situation.
Land approaches as a example.
In Melee, you could dash to your opponent, CC and, have your whole character’s moveset available to you, right out of a dash.
In Brawl, if you’re dashing towards you’re opponent, he can pretty much expect for you to ether dash attack, or jump and approach.


Really, I never understood why people think that, slower=more tactful and more Mindgames.

If that was the case, then would playing the game at half speed make you think twice as hard?

I love the rest of your post, especially the last point that was cool.

yeah all the "cool new stuff" in brawl is in reality very poor substitutes for the "cool stuff" in melee -_-

I don't have anything against removing tech, but they crippled the action by doing so (if everyone automatically had l-canceled landing lag, for example, that would be WORLDS better than the current situation of everyone having superlag)

Yeah, auto L-cancel would have been way cooler than no l-cancel. Auto l-cancel would just remove an unnecessary button press no biggie. But no l-cancel took away tons of depth.

Oh also character specific mindagmes are fine, I have plenty of them for melee with my 3 mains, and i'm sure other melee players with different mains can help me with those.

 

[Cia]

ok, so the only new mindgames I can think of are the mindgames that come w/ the new weirdo stages like.. Orpheon flipping upside down <_< they don't have that in melee.

but comparing the two, brawl is just such an inferior fighter BY FAR, I really don't understand why so many are trying to make it competitive. the head of the developement team publicly stated that BRAWL WAS NOT MEANT TO BE COMPETITIVE. wait till the entire smash community buys the game just randomly "ummm.. yeeeeeeeeeah, not a real fighter, kthxbaii"

what a slap in the face.. LOL

I'm actually looking forward to seeing what "brawl defenders" come up w/ for this topic, if they can come up with anything at all..

 

[Corigames]

If melee had lots of good things, which equated to good gameplay, then how can we expect large portions of the "good" stuff being taken out and adding "bad" stuff in and still have a "good" game?

We had mind games, tech skill, and physical endurance. When you take away the tech skill and add in tripping and other non-sense... how does the game become BETTER for mindgames? That's the only thing left and you have nothing to preform them with. Good going.

I think that breaks the law of Conservation of Mass. Except, in this case, quality.

 

[FrostByte]

Mindgames don't matter in Brawl cause you won't get much from predicting your opponent in the first place.

Scenario 1
Let's say you go for a combo. Your opponent airdodges your second hit.

Scenario 2
You approach knowing your opponent will airdodge so you wait for him to land and go for an attack. too bad, the shield comes out on frame 1 and you get grabbed son.

Scenario 3
You've now analyzed that your opponent will airdodge and shield once he hits the ground. You go for a grab. woohoo! 10%
Your opponent hits you and deals 15.

I could probably come up with 10 more links to that defensive chain such as buffering a roll/dodge as soon as you land, but I won't start giving people Ideas to the defensive progression of the metagame. Unlless anyone else wants to continue with a 4th scenario.

In the end, after all your heroic prediction, you will get of one hit and you'll probably get hit back because of the almost non-existant hitstun.

 

[R3N0]

I'm sorry the only mindgames I use in brawl now are the mindgames I've used in melee..

Like.. its really dumb...

haha simple mind games are like amazing in brawl which gets me pissed b/c the harder mindgames to execute are now useless and they were the best/ prettiest ones...

Melee mindgames!:::
Jump toward the opponent as you were about to do an aerial attack but you instead waveland back and give them an fsmash.. that siht is hot

DASH DANCING (no longer possible with Brawl)

Pulse Dashing!!! when you wavedash in place after a slew of wavedashes to cause them to dodge (No longer possible in brawl)

.... Viable Downairs? Not a mindgame but not worth it in brawl.

.........

Brawl mindgames:

Mario + Squirttle's water.. cannon..? hahaha

Uhm. . .

This is both brawl and melee since i really can't think of any brawl mindgames
After you send an opponent upwards, do an empty short hop to make them dodge and then punish them immediately after their dodge is finished in the air.

Uhm.. do a "wavedash input" aka dodge up and towards the person.. and then when you land dodge again to bait for grab..

Uhm.. theres the pivot grab... and the last one is like walk behind the opponent and sorta fsmash but its so much harder to do cause the game is slower and u can't run..
:'(
OH and zairs are pretty misleading in brawl.


MELEE IS SO MUCH BETTER GOD****>>>>>>>>

BTW Thanks to the guy who posted b4 me I have to agree

NON-EXISTENT SHIELD STUN!?! WTF IS THAT TRASH!!!?!?!??! NO HIT STUN?!?! NO COMBOS?!?!? GG BRAWL..

You know in brawl theres a challange for getting 400 combined consecutive hits in training mode... and I was like wtf There IS NO WAY TO GET THAT TROPHY the max anyone can hit is with like 3-4 hits... tops.. or unless you have like yoshi's d-air... Then I realized.. the game wants you to use items.

So I did..

Spicy curry on shadowmoses, put training dummy in a corner and duck and let the curry do its job..

definitely 150 hits per character and I got the trophy mad ez..

This is why this game sucks, consecutive hits sound only possible from a move that either offers it or ...
Spicy curry.

gg game. GG

 

[D20]

What are you guys talking about? My main, Pikachu, has tons of mindgames.

He can quick attack cancel... also know as QAC. It's hot.
He can thunder stall. It's amazing.
He can down taunt. GG.

P.S. - This post was a joke.

 

[Eggm]

I main pikachu in brawl too hehe. Anyways people brawlers help out the brawl side!

 

[DRaGZ]

Eggm: This is why I switched to Heavy Brawl.

I completely agree with you on every single freakin' point. These problems aren't fully solved in Heavy Brawl, but they are at least made less significant.

 

[choknater]

Hi Eggm, interesting topic.

I agree with anyone who says the thought process is slightly more intense... though the matches themselves are more forgiving. Basically, with the lack of comboing, it basically gives me a sense to play the entire match perfectly. In melee, a truly dominant player would have a major skill advantage and mastery of his/her character against an opponent... it's the same in brawl, but for different reasons.

Some points to look at for each game

Melee
- a single mistake could lead to a zero-death. e.g. Mew2king shield grabs you into a 0-death combo, MaNg0 cc rests your dash attack. this was the nature of combos and mistake-punishment in melee

- in retrospect, this style of play turned the metagame into a spacing game rather than a combo game. if you look at the west coast in particular, there is a split between the best players: floaties and fast fallers. mango, hugs, ka-master, and edrees used major spacing games to win matches while dj combo, eggz, zhu, silentspectre and silentwolf used major pressure/combo games to win

- the spacing/edgeguarding/combo metagame was basically the epitome of melee. punishing a mistake while not making mistakes became the nature of the best players.

- remember that in melee's early stages, marth's c-stick was the way to go. and in the end, a player like azen could still dominate with it.

now some differences with brawl..

- even though there are no 0-death combos, spacing games are still the way to go. at least, that's the main thing that melee players have an advantage in having for the transition... spacing is also much more forgiving in brawl since character's don't move across the stage as fast

- of course, there are exceptions. sonic's dash may open possibilities for punishing a long range mistake. ice climbers still have 0-death combos.

- it seems to me people are overrating "defensive options"... they CAN be punished, no player can create a perfect defense, only a very good one. being defensive also means beign able to predict an opponent's next movement. if somebody air dodges into the ground and then rolls, that ROLL can still be punished. sheik's dash attack, anyone?

- camping is slightly more effective than it was in melee. however i believe that in melee, camping was more refined. rather than toon link's spamming, camping in melee consisted of marth's ledge hopping... don't give me crap about excellent toon link or snake players being unapproachable. patient play is key... for toon you can basically run up to him and power shield arrows, or with snake, it is easy to fearlessly run across that C4 because he PROBABLY won't detonate it.

IMO, it is fear of camping that is causing people to overrate its effectiveness. it's best to let go of it and just approach, not for the sake of winning, but for the sake of learning how to approach

- the lack of combos and hitstun... doesn't that STILL force a player to play perfect the entire match? and yes, it IS possible, silly people. tripping is a minimal issue, the solution is not to run. even then, if you do trip, all you have to do is react quickly and find the best option to get up. losing a match because of tripping is rare. usually, the best player is STILL going to win a tournament. if you don't believe me, look at the top four of recent MD/VA tourneys where azen/chillin/aero are always top placers.

that said... FrostByte, don't be a dummy. if you throw someone, that doesn't guarantee that they will hit you back. if you throw someone, you can't combo them, so you have to find another opportunity to attack. are you assuming that the person attempting to be offensive is horrible at finding attack opportunities and knowing when to defend?

edit: wow Dragz please shut up about heavy brawl LOL

 

[CT Chia]

i feel that i have amount to contribute as eggm even requested that i do lol. however, i really dont like posting in threads like this on the general brawl discussion thread. they rake up like 8 mil posts a second and most go unnoticed. il consider it later, for now though, those who are interested know how t contact me lol.

 

[Eggm]

Hi Eggm, interesting topic.

I agree with anyone who says the thought process is slightly more intense... though the matches themselves are more forgiving. Basically, with the lack of comboing, it basically gives me a sense to play the entire match perfectly. In melee, a truly dominant player would have a major skill advantage and mastery of his/her character against an opponent... it's the same in brawl, but for different reasons.

Some points to look at for each game

Melee
- a single mistake could lead to a zero-death. e.g. Mew2king shield grabs you into a 0-death combo, MaNg0 cc rests your dash attack. this was the nature of combos and mistake-punishment in melee

- in retrospect, this style of play turned the metagame into a spacing game rather than a combo game. if you look at the west coast in particular, there is a split between the best players: floaties and fast fallers. mango, hugs, ka-master, and edrees used major spacing games to win matches while dj combo, eggz, zhu, silentspectre and silentwolf used major pressure/combo games to win

- the spacing/edgeguarding/combo metagame was basically the epitome of melee. punishing a mistake while not making mistakes became the nature of the best players.

- remember that in melee's early stages, marth's c-stick was the way to go. and in the end, a player like azen could still dominate with it.

now some differences with brawl..

- even though there are no 0-death combos, spacing games are still the way to go. at least, that's the main thing that melee players have an advantage in having for the transition... spacing is also much more forgiving in brawl since character's don't move across the stage as fast

- of course, there are exceptions. sonic's dash may open possibilities for punishing a long range mistake. ice climbers still have 0-death combos.

- it seems to me people are overrating "defensive options"... they CAN be punished, no player can create a perfect defense, only a very good one. being defensive also means beign able to predict an opponent's next movement. if somebody air dodges into the ground and then rolls, that ROLL can still be punished. sheik's dash attack, anyone?

- camping is slightly more effective than it was in melee. however i believe that in melee, camping was more refined. rather than toon link's spamming, camping in melee consisted of marth's ledge hopping... don't give me crap about excellent toon link or snake players being unapproachable. patient play is key... for toon you can basically run up to him and power shield arrows, or with snake, it is easy to fearlessly run across that C4 because he PROBABLY won't detonate it.

IMO, it is fear of camping that is causing people to overrate its effectiveness. it's best to let go of it and just approach, not for the sake of winning, but for the sake of learning how to approach

- the lack of combos and hitstun... doesn't that STILL force a player to play perfect the entire match? and yes, it IS possible, silly people. tripping is a minimal issue, the solution is not to run. even then, if you do trip, all you have to do is react quickly and find the best option to get up. losing a match because of tripping is rare. usually, the best player is STILL going to win a tournament. if you don't believe me, look at the top four of recent MD/VA tourneys where azen/chillin/aero are always top placers.

that said... FrostByte, don't be a dummy. if you throw someone, that doesn't guarantee that they will hit you back. if you throw someone, you can't combo them, so you have to find another opportunity to attack. are you assuming that the person attempting to be offensive is horrible at finding attack opportunities and knowing when to defend?

edit: wow Dragz please shut up about heavy brawl LOL

Ok, now that april fools is finally over i can bump this thread and people will be able to understand it.

Chokanter your post seemed pretty off topic as far as mindgames, but I guess you were focusing on the second part. I read your whole post... but I don't see how it proved your point as to why you find brawl more intense. You just kinda said random things about the differences in the game like " combos were more important and deadly in melee. " Anyways, I don't see how being able to die at any moment makes the spacing and push and pull game less intense? Also I don't see how you still don't need to be even more perfect in melee than brawl because theres death combos to do them consistently you have to be obscenely perfect which is why only m2k is known for doing that consistently. Also if you dash attack mangos CCing puff while its on the ground you kinda deserve to be killed, also if you have good DI you won't die under like 20 and higher %'s on like say DL. Anyways overall this post seemed kinda off topic in general as your points just seemed like rambling about the differences in the game and not explaining why to you they made brawl seem more intense during the duration of the match. I don't know why you brought up camping at all, your not going to change anyones mind on that camping is effective or not in brawl, cause it is, aho made an entire thread dedicated to that anyways.

 

[I.T.P]

Whoa, WTF is up with the brawl hatred on these boards? it's really really annoying, you people are practically ignoring every new\buffed aspect of brawl and are trying to play it like Melee, that just doesn't work.

First of all, I'd like to redefine "Mind Games" for you, as your definition in the first post is very very bad.

Mind game: a situation in which player A causes player B to misread his actions, or act in a way that lures him into a trap.

example? doing an Fsmash with DDD on ICs because you know Nana's shield is smaller than popo's or Nana's AI won't shield, is a mind game, becasue you lured the ICs player into shielding, when your purpose was for the attack to hit Nana and not Popo.

now, you all are acting as if new options are not in the game, and that's just wrong:

MLA - my abbriviation for "Minimum Lag Aerials": many aerial attacks now have minimal landing lag, making them almost bufferable into fast walking,Tilt spamming,Grabbing etc'.

these options can be mixed up, and the aerials can be mixed up, the best exapmle of this is squirtle's Fair and Bair, both MLAs, you can either dodge, roll, tilt spam, or grab right after using it, and mixing them up is a great mindgame.


RAR - Reverse Aerial Rush - having the ability to run forward and jump with your back turned forward is new to brawl, it really helps characters like Ike, which can mix up between a slow aerial and a fast aerial, tricking your opponent to thinking you're going to dash shield grab, and then do a short hop RAR with Bair is a great mindgame, especially when the alternative Fair is extremely long range and disjointed, making for a Retreating Fair vs Dashing RAR Bair mindgame.

Shield Cancels or Dashing Shield - you can now cancel dashing with shield, and the resulting shield animation will slide before stopping, you can use this to mix up a normal dash grab, a dashing shield grab, a dashing shield roll, dashing shield sidestep, or just dash attack. since dashing shield wasn't in Melee, these are all new.

new airdodge meachanics - you can know use air dodges in a variety of ways, since you are still active and in control at the end of an air dodge, you can dash,SH,air dodge, Fair with some charaters, or land too soon and do a grab\Pivot grab, you can also do a reverse short hop air dodge -> grab when landing, as someone allready said.




I have more where those came from, but I want to see that my post is actually being read before writing more.

also, Melee's abuses(Wavedash,L-Canceling,highly comboable moves) caused other aspects of the game to be useless\not usefull, as such, things that could be done in Melee but were obsolete are now usefull, so you can call these brawl only mindgames, because in melee they plain sucked.

 

[Corigames]

I don't understand what you mean. How does the removal of key tactics make tactics that were useless now useful good?

I read the post. Nice formatting.

Secondly, I would like to see a Brawl supporter who didn't believe that God spent the 7th day perfecting Brawl and giving it to Sakura to deliver unto the world as a blessing from the Lord.

 

[I.T.P]

I don't understand what you mean. How does the removal of key tactics make tactics that were useless now useful good?

I read the post. Nice formatting.

Secondly, I would like to see a Brawl supporter who didn't believe that God spent the 7th day perfecting Brawl and giving it to Sakura to deliver unto the world as a blessing from the Lord.

Brawl isn't perfect, but it is as fun and as good as melee, and whether or not it'll be as competetive as melee was is yet to be seen.

since you can no longer abuse things like wavedash and L cancel, moves that turned into too good by those(Read, Fox's Shine, Falco's Dair, etc' etc') and now only moves that were meant to be canceled have auto-L-Canceling, and the rest can either be auto canceled(useless in melee because of L cancel, now plays a big part) or not be canceled at all, which forces you to find solutions to using them and not landing.

also, since you can't wavedash, dashing is now back to being a big option and part of the game, the game basically went back to the simple and good techniques, rather than heavily revolving around specific game breakers.

 

[Rapid_Assassin]

Basically he means to say that removal of wavedash/lcancel made some mindgames that were used in early Melee (right until around 2003 or so) useful again, because wavedash and lcancel were the counters to those mindgames.

To the original topic: the reason many people say that Brawl is more mindgame oriented is because people could (somewhat) make up for a lack of intelligence by spamming the same 3 moves over and over, and doing so at such a speed that they were hard to keep up with for most people. Example: Fox player who'd do not much else besides waveshine, drill shine, and up smash. Sure, this didn't work against opponents who were both smart and as fast as they were, but by being this fast, they were somewhat making up for their lack of ability to think against people who just weren't this fast. In Brawl, wavedashing and lcancelling were removed, and moves were slowed down in general, so there is very little tech skill gap between players, and the only thing we have to abuse is mindgames.

 

[Corigames]

But don't you see where I'm going with this? Because you can't L-Cancel or wavedash, it limits the possibilities open (at this time. I'm not excluding that people may find ways to move better). Someone who likes a character with low aerials really has no option but not to use them. That's it. If they do, they will get punished. At least in Melee, you were able to L-Cancel if you knew about it. Or, if you were going to be hit by an attack, you could wavedash back and then wavedash in for the hit. Quick, effective. Now your option is to take it with the shield or roll away. Alot of attacks are out long enough that if you spot dodge you'll still get hit. Your shield will get pushed away by attacks while in a shield a lot more. Heck, you can't light shield because the Wii mote and Classic don't support analog shoulder buttons!

There was a lot removed, aside from exploits. These fundamental things makes it more difficult for me, in my opinion and relevancy to the people I play, to have fun OR be competitive. It's just frustrating. I'm sticking with it though. I kinda want to be that one person who finds the game breaking thing :3

 

[I.T.P]

But don't you see where I'm going with this? Because you can't L-Cancel or wavedash, it limits the possibilities open (at this time. I'm not excluding that people may find ways to move better). Someone who likes a character with low aerials really has no option but not to use them. That's it. If they do, they will get punished. At least in Melee, you were able to L-Cancel if you knew about it. Or, if you were going to be hit by an attack, you could wavedash back and then wavedash in for the hit. Quick, effective. Now your option is to take it with the shield or roll away. Alot of attacks are out long enough that if you spot dodge you'll still get hit. Your shield will get pushed away by attacks while in a shield a lot more. Heck, you can't light shield because the Wii mote and Classic don't support analog shoulder buttons!

There was a lot removed, aside from exploits. These fundamental things makes it more difficult for me, in my opinion and relevancy to the people I play, to have fun OR be competitive. It's just frustrating. I'm sticking with it though. I kinda want to be that one person who finds the game breaking thing :3

that's because you're failing to move on, and realise smash was not meant to be played as melee was in it's later stages, and to make sure advanced techs are more strategy oriented this time around, these things were removed and changed and speed was toned down a notch.

if you do a dashing shield and get hit, a lot of characters(DDD,squirtle) can still grab after getting hit on the shield, this is a great mind game, I don't see how wavedashing back and forth(which took 5 button presses) is better than dashing, pressing shield and down instead of just shielding, or simply grabbing early, these make for a much more strategy oriented gameplay, instead of spamming things that "look cool".

aerials were meant to be laggy, the skill is in using a laggy aerial in the correct timing and still hit, not in doing it over and over and canceling the lag with a timed button press.

L-Canceling and Wavedashing did not increase possibilities as much as you think, rather, they completely obliterated the other possibilities and broke the game, I.E - there is no advantage in not L canceling an aerial, result? all aerials are either L Canceled, or considered a player mistake.

there is also no advantage in running with luigi and not wavedashing, result? a luigi player that doesn't wavedash is in a huge disadvantage.

these things simply replaced the basic and intended options with abuses, that's not a good thing.

 

[Eggm]

Whoa, WTF is up with the brawl hatred on these boards? it's really really annoying, you people are practically ignoring every new\buffed aspect of brawl and are trying to play it like Melee, that just doesn't work.

Did you even read my first post? I said I like the game and it should be a friendly argument. I play brawl completely differently than I play melee. I don't ignore any of brawls techniques I use them all fairly often, especially shield dropping into down smash with pikachu its really good. I'm also aware of all of brawl's other AT's. If other people in this thread bashed brawl, that was their own choice. Don't get mad at me.

First of all, I'd like to redefine "Mind Games" for you, as your definition in the first post is very very bad.

Mind game: a situation in which player A causes player B to misread his actions, or act in a way that lures him into a trap.

I like my defintion better, and even by your definition your example is incorrect. The IC's player is not misreading your action he clearly can see your f smashing its not exactly


tricky. The fact that you know it hits nana is just game knolwedge, and a good IC's player would probably know this as well. If the IC player did know this he might shield and sacrifice nana to shield grab you or shield drop f smash you. Either way f smashing with bowser is in no way a mindgame. Its just f smashing with bowser, whatever the IC player choses to do after you f smash is up to him, if he shields it and nana gets hit he was just not aware it hits nana no matter what if what you say is true.

Also on your definition, could you explain it better I'm confused?

example? doing an Fsmash with DDD on ICs because you know Nana's shield is smaller than popo's or Nana's AI won't shield, is a mind game, becasue you lured the ICs player into shielding, when your purpose was for the attack to hit Nana and not Popo.

now, you all are acting as if new options are not in the game, and that's just wrong:

MLA - my abbriviation for "Minimum Lag Aerials": many aerial attacks now have minimal landing lag, making them almost bufferable into fast walking,Tilt spamming,Grabbing etc'.

these options can be mixed up, and the aerials can be mixed up, the best exapmle of this is squirtle's Fair and Bair, both MLAs, you can either dodge, roll, tilt spam, or grab right after using it, and mixing them up is a great mindgame.

First of all. Nearly every L-canceled ariel in melee was an MLA, with the exact mindgames you mentioned, and I specifically asked for mindgames in brawl that aren't in melee,

RAR - Reverse Aerial Rush - having the ability to run forward and jump with your back turned forward is new to brawl, it really helps characters like Ike, which can mix up between a slow aerial and a fast aerial, tricking your opponent to thinking you're going to dash shield grab, and then do a short hop RAR with Bair is a great mindgame, especially when the alternative Fair is extremely long range and disjointed, making for a Retreating Fair vs Dashing RAR Bair mindgame.

This is your only legitimate mindgame that is in brawl and not in melee, good stuff I need to incorporate this more into my DK game, cause its not really useful for my main pikachu, since the bair has horrible landing lag unless you full hop it and start it immediately and it auto cancels. It also don't hit you hard/fall at all. So I would most likely get punished for SH RAR ing this at peple with pikachu, but spaced correctly with DK it sounds fun, i'll try it out thanks.

Shield Cancels or Dashing Shield - you can now cancel dashing with shield, and the resulting shield animation will slide before stopping, you can use this to mix up a normal dash grab, a dashing shield grab, a dashing shield roll, dashing shield sidestep, or just dash attack. since dashing shield wasn't in Melee, these are all new.

Uhh.. I used "Dashing shield" all the time in melee. With fox. He slides a considerable distance with his shield up, so does sheik and this is used constantly especially in the sheik vs marth match up. For example, Running up shielding and sliding into marth, baiting him into dodging, then grabbing as the dodge ends. Also, You could put up your shield in melee and slide then roll or sidestep, you just couldn't cancel the shield super fast into other attacks like you can in brawl, since shield dropping took more time. However, you made me think of a brawl mindgame thats not availble in melee due to less hit stun and faster shield dropping. I purposley run under some one and shield outside of shield grab range so they think they spaced their ariel right then shield drop and f smash them, since pikachu's f smash has way more range than his grab. This wasn't available in melee and is pretty effective I use it a lot. Shield dropping to attacks was one of the coolest things brawl added as far as depth goes IMO.

new airdodge meachanics - you can know use air dodges in a variety of ways, since you are still active and in control at the end of an air dodge, you can dash,SH,air dodge, Fair with some charaters, or land too soon and do a grab\Pivot grab, you can also do a reverse short hop air dodge -> grab when landing, as someone allready said.

Aside from being able to do an ariel RIGHT before you land after the air dodge which will most likely get you punished anyway if he shielded the whole time since he can shield drop do anything to you before the fair landing lag ends this could be done in melee as well. Air dodging through some one's shield then landing and grabbing is just as possible in melee as it was in brawl. Nothing new, you juts saw it less cause there were better options. But, I guess the air dodge through some one to ariel is a mildly useful mindgame to some one shielding.. i guess..

I have more where those came from, but I want to see that my post is actually being read before writing more.

Please do, proving the ones wrong you listed was fun, so was learning about the RAR one which lead me to me to think of another one which I mentioned. This is what the thread is for. Maybe in the OP I'll list all the mindgames for both games in columns or something that we come up with eventually.

also, Melee's abuses(Wavedash,L-Canceling,highly comboable moves) caused other aspects of the game to be useless\not usefull, as such, things that could be done in Melee but were obsolete are now usefull, so you can call these brawl only mindgames, because in melee they plain sucked.

This seemed more hate filled than any other post i've seen in this thread thus far lol, it was completely unnecessary.

My overall thoughts on your post were that it was mainly a hate fueled rant, with very little to add to the actual point of the thread except for RARing, please a little less hate in the next post, I didn't hate on brawl at all, if other people did I had no control over that or quote them directly and address it. I felt personally attacked with your post, and it was unfair cause I didn't badmouth brawl at all just simply stated facts, as I did with tihs post. Btw you came of as a HUGE fanboy who loves brawl and doesn't even give melee a chance (even if it might not be true this is how you came off just so you know).

Edit : I just saw your other 2 posts I.T.P you seem like a hardcore brawl fanboy who is adding nothing to this thread and bashing melee please, get back on topic or stop posting in my thread please thanks. Coreygames stop responding to him hes obviously too pro brawl to have an intelligent discussion on the topic.

He also spams things that a ton of brawl fanboys say over and over like You have to move on (no they dont its up to them) And other things. Your really frustrating ITP.

 

[Corigames]

if you do a dashing shield and get hit, a lot of characters(DDD,squirtle) can still grab after getting hit on the shield, this is a great mind game, I don't see how wavedashing back and forth(which took 5 button presses) is better than dashing, pressing shield and down instead of just shielding, or simply grabbing early, these make for a much more strategy oriented gameplay, instead of spamming things that "look cool".

You see, it's when you say something like that is when I think you are a complete n00b. The sheer amount of possibilities in Melee allowed you to CHOOSE between the option you said and the one I did. In this game, there are less. How is that better?

Wavedashing was 2 buttons. I guess jump canceling with peach took 8 buttons?

Another thing: " a lot of characters(DDD,squirtle) can still grab after getting hit on the shield"

At least EVERY character had the ability to wavedash. You weren't like, "Fox takes no skill because he has that broken wavedash and Falcon doesn't. That's why you won." Yes, it was less effective for certain characters, but it was ALWAYS an option.

What's wrong with more options?

 

[Eggm]

Wow that part coreygames quoted was absurdly dumb, I wish you would either get on topic ITP or just not post here anymore, that'd probably be for the best. Anyways I need more brawl mindgames, I made it to r4 of the gamestop tournament in cali, and I need to know everything I don't know about brawl. hellllllllllllllp

 

[Ciel~Image]

Brawl doesn't have "mind" anything.

 

[I.T.P]

okay, I see your point, I'm sorry if I came off as a fanboy or a hate fueled\filled person, that was not my intent at all, and also I wasn't attacking you personally, I was putting out some steam from seeing all the "Brawl sucks, melee is god" threads and posts everywhere, my intention was not to attack or offend you in any way, I apologize.

my point was that your definition seemed more suited to "punishment" then "mind game", a "mind game" is any misleading\multioption tactic that causes you to be less\un predictable.

the point of the ICs example, was that shielding DDD's Fsmash is a good idea, but if Nana has less shield than Popo due to any sort of circumstance, then it turns into a bad idea, and using that while the ICs player hasn't realised it, is a mind game IMO. and doesn't require any sort of punishment as your definition stated.

I've been playing melee for 6 years, and I love it. it's been my favourite game for a really long time, and one that I took the time and effort to raise tournaments, Fests and more for, and enjoyed playing very much, and still do. I even went and played Melee all over Japan when I was there for a 3 month vacation\trip after my military service, I am by no means an anti melee person.

Dashing shields were definately not in Melee, I tried it myself numerous times, and all it does is stop your dash in place, and kill your ability to try anything, in brawl you slide a considerable distance because of it, and gain the ability to use a standing grab animation with a moving hitbox, with differing degrees of usability depending on the character.

I'm all up for friendly arguments, and I liked your first post very much, which is why I've posted here.

be posting more in a few minutes, hold your horses

 

[I.T.P]

You see, it's when you say something like that is when I think you are a complete n00b. The sheer amount of possibilities in Melee allowed you to CHOOSE between the option you said and the one I did. In this game, there are less. How is that better?

Wavedashing was 2 buttons. I guess jump canceling with peach took 8 buttons?

Another thing: " a lot of characters(DDD,squirtle) can still grab after getting hit on the shield"

At least EVERY character had the ability to wavedash. You weren't like, "Fox takes no skill because he has that broken wavedash and Falcon doesn't. That's why you won." Yes, it was less effective for certain characters, but it was ALWAYS an option.

What's wrong with more options?

wave dashing backwards and forwards means jump, angle down backward, shield, and then jump, angle down forward, shield.

while doing a shield canceled grab\dodge\roll takes dash, shield, direction\A.

that's why it's 6 button presses vs 3, much easier to learn isn't it? whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is up to you.

every character could wavedash, yes, but with some characters it was much much better than others, all characters can use dashing shields\shield cancels, but it's usefull for some more than others, not everyone can use the application I listed, not everyone in Melee could use back-forth and Fsmash.

and what I meant is, when it's 10 times more usefull to wavedash forward and grab, who would actually use dash grabs? that's not more possibilities, it just makes the effective possiblities harder to learn, so the game is harder on new guys.

and no, I'm not anti-Melee, I'm just acknowledging the fact brawl is easier to learn in a good way, and not in a bad way.

 

[Eggm]

I guess you don't have to punish, but if you don't it was kinda useless to trick your opponent into doing something. Also being unpredictable isn't the same as mindgames. And even if nana gets hit, it could still be a a good option if after he shields the f smash he can punish you really hard with like an f smash kill if you were at high % for example. That whole scenario is situational and not mindgames IMO. Dashing shields are definitely in melee. Lol. I'm like 99% sure on this, i'm putting melee in my wii right now.. lol. I"m like 100% sure I do this with fox/sheik. I've seen m2k use it with marth too..yeah it does happen lol. Also.. You could mimic the shield dash grab thing, with jump canceled grab in melee. Nothing new once again.. lol. Glad you liked my first post. I liked this post i'm responding to now a lot more than your last one it was far more friendly. Can't wait for more I need more actual mindgames for the gamestop r4, i want 5000$ lol. Yeah, fox definitely does it just did it.

 

[Corigames]

*NEEEEIGGGGHHHHHHH*

Shut your God ****ed mouth you dirty inpatient horses.

Ok.

 

[Eggm]

wave dashing backwards and forwards means jump, angle down backward, shield, and then jump, angle down forward, shield.

while doing a shield canceled grab\dodge\roll takes dash, shield, direction\A.

that's why it's 6 button presses vs 3, much easier to learn isn't it? whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is up to you.

every character could wavedash, yes, but with some characters it was much much better than others, all characters can use dashing shields\shield cancels, but it's usefull for some more than others, not everyone can use the application I listed, not everyone in Melee could use back-forth and Fsmash.

and what I meant is, when it's 10 times more usefull to wavedash forward and grab, who would actually use dash grabs? that's not more possibilities, it just makes the effective possiblities harder to learn, so the game is harder on new guys.

and no, I'm not anti-Melee, I'm just acknowledging the fact brawl is easier to learn in a good way, and not in a bad way.

Wave dashing backwards then forwards is indeed 6 actions on the controller, however how is that the equivalent to shield cancel grabbing? The equiv to that is jump canceled grab, which is dash jump grab. Which is just as effective as shield canceled grab.

Btw, you keep bringing up other debates that this thread isn't' about such as if brawl is more fun/boring more techinques or less or if it matter if theres more or less or how easy it is to learn it should be simply about mindgames.

 

[Keitaro]

The best advice I'd give you is to know what your opponents can or can't do. When I say opponents I mean the characters themselves. Many people seem to have problems beating other because they are attacked by something they've never seen before.