Online: The real reason Sakurai made Brawl so different

[SamuraiPanda]

I've thought about this for quite some time now, but I've just now become bored enough to make the actual post. The thing is, I'm nearly certain that the reason Brawl is so different from Melee is because WE, the fans, absolutely demanded online Smash Bros. Yeah, its probably because of us that the game turned out the way it did. Notice that everything revolves around a single main point: Brawl was made from the ground up as an online game due to the enormous demand for the series to go online, and that is what effected it. And here is why I think so, organized into numbers to read easier:

1. Back when the Wii was known as the Revolution, in E3 2005, Iwata (Prez of Nintendo) announced a new Smash Bros game. The only details? That the game is online. And this was announced even before Sakurai heard about it.

2. Iwata told Sakurai that if Sakurai wasn't going to do a new Smash, then Nintendo would have re-released Melee with minimal changes (no changes at all to the roster, either) but with online functionality. As awesome as that sounds to some of you out there; imagine trying to play Melee with the lag we get with Brawl. Melee is 5x faster than Brawl as it is, so it would have been nearly impossible to play smoothly. Which leads me to my next point.

3. Online would have been nearly impossible if Brawl was nearly the same speed as Melee. Sakurai didn't have much of a choice. He was FORCED from day 1 to make Smash into an online game. He said many times in various interviews and blog posts a couple years back that this Smash was being created to be an online game. In Sakurai's situation, with Nintendo's horrible online system and wiii functionality with online, do you honestly believe he could have made Brawl as fast as Melee? Here, I'll answer that for you: Hell no. Brawl is slower because we wanted online, and Nintendo can't handle online.

4. Brawl is so "easy", "n00b-friendly" (neither of which I personally agree with), and less technical than Melee because Sakurai thought millions of people would be playing this online every single day. Sakurai said that he took out wavedashing because it gave an advantage to the advanced player. And this is very true. There were many things that were only possible because of wavedashing, and denying that fact is just silly. Sure, you can beat people who wavedash, and wavedashing doesn't make you a good player nearly as much as your own skills, but there was still an advantage. Sakurai (and more likely, the higher-ups in Nintendo) were forced to take out more technical things like wavedashing, and probably L-canceling, because players like us who are so much better than the people who randomly play online would discourage those other players from every playing again. It would be a disasterous buisness plan for Nintendo to make a game that most of their population would get turned off too. Point-in-case: MKDS became dominated by people who snaked, and now very few people play it online because they simply couldn't win. Now MKWii is the first Mario Kart that doesn't have snaking (I think, but don't quote me on that). Why? To make people enjoy online more. In summary: Sakurai HAD to take out the technical game because we wanted online.

4a. Also, wavedashing/L-canceling would have been extremely difficult to implement smoothly into online due to the extremely small window available to do them in. Too fast for Nintedo's horrible online system to process.


I think I'm going to stop there. I'm sure anybody who has read this far can imagine of the rest of this themselves. Everyone wants to blame Sakurai for everything they don't like in Brawl. Sure, there are some things that you can truly say were stupid on his part for integrating (i.e. tripping) but stop for a second and think in his shoes for a moment. He was approached to make an online Smash game for the Wii. He was told that this is what everyone wanted, and what everyone would do. He probably thought that most people would end up playing the game online rather than IRL. So he had to make this entire game with that in mind. He tried to take a fighting game online (which is VERY difficult to do well due to the speed and precision necessary for most fighters) with a horribly sub-par online system built by a company that probably thinks the internet is like a series of tubes. Sakurai even said he wanted to add in voice chat, but he couldn't do it because the Wii couldn't handle it!

Do you think he didn't care about the competitive player? Ha! Remember those translations I did a long time ago? The very first email Sakurai responded to was a person thanking him for making Melee because he met his wife at a Melee tournament and now has a kid. And the very last email Sakurai responded to was that man's wife. He knew we were out there. He just couldn't do much to help us because the overwhelming majority wanted play Smash online, which could have never lead to the Melee 2.0 that so many people were hoping for. And yes, its ironic in the end that online came out so poorly.



This is just my perspective on why Brawl came out the way it did (well, at least one of the many reasons) but I'm certainly not complaining. I absolutely love this game the way it is. This is NOT a Melee vs Brawl debate, so don't turn this thread into one. By the way, online sucks. There, I've said it, so no need to bring that argument into this thread.

 

[fkacyan]

I'd rather Nintendo waited another few years for online now. Keep in mind, though, at the time, we envisioned online as something like XBL that didn't completely, well, suck.

I'm not sure we all wanted Melee 2.0, though. I wouldn't have minded, but it wasn't something I was going to get my panties in a twist about.

 

[smallmalf]

i agree with pretty much everything
also, is there a enhancement u can get for the wii to make the internet faster????

 

[OmegaXXII]

you've definetly got a point about Brawl's online "sucking" because it isn't exactly as lag-free as we were hoping for, but indeed if this is true then I would have gladly gave up online for better technical play such as no tripping, wavedashing, L-cancelling etc..

 

[smallmalf]

you've definetly got a point about Brawl's online "sucking" because it isn't exactly as lag-free as we were hoping for, but indeed if this is true then I would have gladly gave up online for better technical play such as no tripping, wavedashing, L-cancelling etc..

i would have gave up online capabilities for atleast 5 new chars.

 

[Emperor Time]

Samurai Panda is now my favorite user. Long live the panda.

 

[2.72]

I've thought about this quite a bit, but I don't think that online functionality explains at least one critical difference that is, in essence, the crux of the "competitive brawl" debate: the low hitstun. This is exactly what makes combos extremely short, and what makes turtling powerful, and what makes projectile camping so much more worthwhile than it was in Melee. Compared to Melee, the punishment phase is much less critical. This isn't a speed issue, at least not in the way that online restricts speed. It's a design decision, and easily one that he could have reversed. In fact, the E4A demo had more Melee-esque hitstun, except on throws.

Please don't interpret this from a Melee-vs-Brawl standpoint. This does indeed have huge ramifications on said flame war debate, but we don't need to think about it like that. It's a design decision. Reserve judgment about its effects on the competitive environment, or debate it in a different thread. I just wanted to point out that, while Brawl was designed from the ground up with online play in mind, there are critical differences that cannot be explained by online play.

 

[Rampage]

Like giga said, I would have glady given online away just for L cancelling and wavedashing. I do not mind goingto peoples houses/tournaments at all.

 

[mentosman8]

Ya know, I've got nothing against Brawl, so I never really got into thought about why it turned out the way it did, but this is actually a very solid point. There is definitely no way with Nintendo's online that a game as fast as Melee would be able to work, and since they refuse to do a Halo-esque matchmaking so the better players play other similarly skilled people, they do have to business-wise even it out a bit. Now, whether this is actually the reason it turned out like it did or not, we may never know, but it is definitely a solid thought on why it may have come out as the Brawl we know

 

[SamuraiPanda]

I've thought about this quite a bit, but I don't think that online functionality explains at least one critical difference that is, in essence, the crux of the "competitive brawl" debate: the low hitstun. This is exactly what makes combos extremely short, and what makes turtling powerful, and what makes projectile camping so much more worthwhile than it was in Melee. Compared to Melee, the punishment phase is much less critical. This isn't a speed issue, at least not in the way that online restricts speed. It's a design decision, and easily one that he could have reversed. In fact, the E4A demo had more Melee-esque hitstun, except on throws.

Please don't interpret this from a Melee-vs-Brawl standpoint. This does indeed have huge ramifications on said flame war debate, but we don't need to think about it like that. It's a design decision. Reserve judgment about its effects on the competitive environment, or debate it in a different thread. I just wanted to point out that, while Brawl was designed from the ground up with online play in mind, there are critical differences that cannot be explained by online play.

Actually, I think that decision was also affected by online as well. It works perfectly into point #4. In Melee, there were some nearly 0-death combos you could do. There were strings you could pull off that no n00b in the world would get out of unless they were lucky. Hell, the first time I played Anther in Melee, I couldn't touch the freaking ground because he was juggling me constantly! I don't even remember if I took more than 1-2 stocks in the two times I played him in Melee. Simply put, stuff like that is just not conducive to the "best online experience."

 

[fkacyan]

Actually, I think that decision was also affected by online as well. It works perfectly into point #4. In Melee, there were some nearly 0-death combos you could do. There were strings you could pull off that no n00b in the world would get out of unless they were lucky. Hell, the first time I played Anther in Melee, I couldn't touch the freaking ground because he was juggling me constantly! I don't even remember if I took more than 1-2 stocks in the two times I played him in Melee. Simply put, stuff like that is just not conducive to the "best online experience."

A large part of this is catering to the casual audience. As a friend and family member to several casual gamers, I can testify that they get easily aggrivated when things don't go their way. 0-Death combos aren't something that casuals tend to like.

While we can all say we want a competitive game, casual gamers make up a much larger portion of the marketbase than we do, and thus the 'best online experience' isn't necessarily intended to be an environment for competition.

 

[brawlmaniac]

That would make sense for the game to have to be slow to be played easily online. I can't believe I had such high hopes for the online though. This is the Wii, not the X Box360... I should have known better.

 

[Arturito_Burrito]

we must all blame nintendo now!! jking i actually dont mind this because i never really learned wavedashing and L canceling i joined smash world because i could play more competitively online there rnt really many tournaments around where i live. i just wish the online had had a few more things like all the special melees when i feel like playing them and instead of having 2 min as the standard rule setting have 3 stock with a time limit maybe. also stage and item selection should have been set to turns not to 2 people vote FD the rest of you must suffer till you ditch the group

 

[goodoldganon]

You know what? That actually makes a whole lot of sense. Kinda sad really, but a lot of 'casuals' enjoy Brawls online because the lag doesn't get to them as much as it would someone like me who is trying to auto-cancel Ganon aerials or something that has a small window to execute.

 

[smallmalf]

when u play online "with anyone" they should have more options for rules, ie: stock matches

 

[Pubik Vengeance]

Never thought about it, but really it makes a heck of a lot of sense.

SamuraiPanda - You rock.

 

[Yukiwarashi]

when u play online "with anyone" they should have more options for rules, ie: stock matches

Um...why? The current model makes sense. When you play with a random person, you want a quick match. If you lose all of your stocks in a free for all, you're left watching everyone play and not being able to do anything else. Right now it makes it so that everyone can play until the time limit is up. If you really want stock battles, that's what friend battles are for.

 

[BlueBlood]

Honestly the online was so bad it seems like hardly anyone is willing to play it anymore. Maybe this will be the eye opener that Nintendo needed who knows.

 

[Jo3y]

seriously, lag shouldn't be a problem with games online these days...
and you shouldn't have to change a game that dramatically to make a fps difference online...

 

[Shock the Hedgehog]

Well put Samurai Panda, but this still doesn't make up for having crappy online.

 

[Mario & Sonic Guy]

I think I know the reason why tripping was added. Sakurai wanted people to do more aerial games. It may be a nuisance at times, but it's a rare scenario most of the time. Besides, it doesn't annoy me all that much.

 

[Not-Beef]

I wish you weren't right, Panda...

 

[Rapid_Assassin]

I would have given up online to bring back all the old Melee and 64 stages, in addition to the new ones they made. Screw wavedashing or lcancelling, I don't need those to beat people. But I miss many of the old stages.

 

[Unseen_Killa]

Giving up online is not fair for a lot of people, although it sounds nice for a lot of competitive people, a lot of people can't drive, or have nobody good at Smash around them. The only way I get a challenge is if I play online.

How about complaining about more important things, like SSE. Who wouldn't have gave that up for WD, l-cancelling, more stages, etc. . I'm pretty sure SSE, the thing that most people don't like, took up about half of Brawl's space.

 

[goodoldganon]

^^^^
Ya, SSE was pretty **** awful. The first 6 hours of my Brawl experience were awful thanks to that chore of a single player.

 

[R i p]

To think SSE is the reason Brawl isn't more like Melee is childish. So naturally I'm not surprised to see it mentioned. Let me just explain this a little further:

SSE uses the battle system, it's dependent on it. The battle system is not dependent on SSE and probably was nigh complete by the time they started to work on SSE. The battle system was intentionally toned down(either because it had to be or it was meant to be more inviting). There is no logical reason why SSE would interfere with the battle system.

Another thing: Getting rid of online won't get you back your old stages or whatever. People have a hard time understanding this game isn't made by one guy who works on everything. So before this thread gets turn into rubbish hold off on the ignorance.


Has there yet to be a successful online fighter? I know it's incredibly hard compared to a FPS(especially one like Halo that uses auto-targeting at times). I haven't played the most recent ones aside from Brawl so I honestly can't tell how far it evolved. Online lag is still a big problem though. You won't get that feeling that your playing on the same console no matter what genre you are playing... it's only common sense to understand that a game that relies on mini-second button reactions would suffer.

 

[Cooper736]

Giving up online is not fair for a lot of people, although it sounds nice for a lot of competitive people, a lot of people can't drive, or have nobody good at Smash around them. The only way I get a challenge is if I play online.

This is the best point anyone can make, and that few people think about. The competitive players that all shout that Sakurai should cut Wi-Fi to keep competitive aspects of Melee are the ones that had free access to tournaments, friends that play Smash, etc. Competitive players make up a small percentage of gamers, and it would be a silly business decision to market a game that discourages casual players from buying it. The fact of the matter is that not a lot of people can play with their friends or attend big tournies, so to advertise a way to play around the world is the best thing Nintendo could've done, and the reason that at least half of the people who bought Brawl threw down $50.

That's an excuse for taking out wavedashing and L-cancelling, but it's no excuse for the crappy Wi-Fi. Honestly, is there anyone among us who wouldn't have waited another year to play as fluidly as if you were playing with someone next to you?

 

[Pluvia's other account]

Yeah it has lag, but that was to be expected, there's no surprises there.

I can't get to tournaments, online is my only way of connecting to the rest of the world, yeah it's not perfect, but atleast it's online.

EDIT:

Not directed at SamuraiPanda btw, I actually agree with most of his post.

 

[Sans Glutin]

Not that I was whining about Brawl before, but wow, I have never thought of it that way before. It was a very good and enlightening read. Thanks Panda.

 

[Rhubarbo]

In a Nintendo Power interview, Sakuria stated the speed of the game was reduced to accomodate the Wii Remote controllers. Brawl is indeed more noob friendly, just look at some of the changes:

1) Auto ledge sweet spotting
2) Increased DI
3) Lower hit stun
4) Auto sweet spotting on many moves
5) Living to high percentages

If these were done to improve online, I think it was a poor trade-off. Online sucks balls, and it even has lag with these changes incorporated. I think we would have gotten the same product even if there was no online due to Nintendo's constant strive to appease the casual audience.

 

[Rhubarbo]

Giving up online is not fair for a lot of people, although it sounds nice for a lot of competitive people, a lot of people can't drive, or have nobody good at Smash around them. The only way I get a challenge is if I play online.

How about complaining about more important things, like SSE. Who wouldn't have gave that up for WD, l-cancelling, more stages, etc. . I'm pretty sure SSE, the thing that most people don't like, took up about half of Brawl's space.

What's the point of online if you're getting a butchered up game to play online.

 

[Kratos_Aurion]

*sigh* I never really was able to make the tournament scene, so I envy all of you who got to experience that. But am I the only person who actually enjoys the online component of Brawl? I finally get to play against semi-competent human competition (My human friends aren't hardcore gamers like me) and it's just so fast paced and zany that I love it. I loved getting technical on my friends in Melee because they had no idea how to counter it and watching them glare and mutter curses under their breath was fun, but I find the element of randomness in Brawl to be even more entertaining. Some of my best replays come from watching others rack up insane kills, not me. Sorry if this isn't what this topic is about, I just felt like sharing.:\

 

[TheMoonman]

If this really was the mentality they had while making the game, then holy jesus **** did they fail.

I can't even find any With Anyone matches.

 

[hippochinfat!!]

What a load of BS.

 

[Rhubarbo]

If this really was the mentality they had while making the game, then holy jesus **** did they fail.

I can't even find any With Anyone matches.

Lol, QFT man!

 

[Dojo]

Very well put. It is kinda sad although because I miss the speed of the previous game. And although it turned out like this, I'm glad it did because it gave us who joined the competitive melee communitive 3-4 years after it was released a new chance.

With melee the ppl that joined late had ALOT of catching up to do and although some would be decent it still wasn't enough to play at a great level. With brawl everybody started on a fresh platter. That's a big reason why I believe some of the pros from melee have trouble letting go of being the best around.

 

[NDUDE]

Stop making good posts. You make the rest of us look stupid.

No but seriously, Nintendo has to get their act together. Did Sakurai want to include stuff like voice chat but couldn't because of Nintendo's policies? Also, no DLC because of the whole hard drive thing. Hopefully by next console, they'll have enough casuals in their grasp to go back to the core gamers...

 

[mzink*]

Makes sense, thanks for the new perspective Panda.

 

[Tofu Beast]

Panda fo prez

 

[Tenki]

masterchief for brawl

But really, I liked using wifi. Alot of the problems can be alleviated via internet - Chatting, matchmaking, etc can be done with Friend Finder or sites like allisbrawl. With good connection on both sides, lag isn't much of an issue. Pretty nice being able to fight people who know characters that you won't find anyone near you being able to play offline. I fought my first good Brawl Sheik, Peach, Ganondorf, Bowser and Yoshi players online <3