Patch 1.0.4 Released for Smash 3DS, No Public Patch Notes

[Psionic]

Good lord, what's gotten into everyone around here? Arguing, whining, crying, complaining, excuses and some other **** all because of an update?

pretty much.

 

[C-SAF]

No, it means that they are going to fix anything that hampers gameplay. Unbalanced techs that disrupt risk/reward balancing and the decision-making process in a way that limits gameplay potential are objective flaws that should be fixed.

...and Melee would be a better game without its list of assorted gameplay-killing techs.

U don't know its unbalanced if the game is not thoroughly explored. U cant with any confidence say that when it has only been out for a month.

And you can only say you didn't like melee's techskill personally, because its been 13 years and the gameplay hasn't died yet. Brawl on the other hand....its gunna be rough...

 

[C-SAF]

Double post

 

[C-SAF]

Triple post (!)

 

[Enseraku]

Nintendo seems to be very old school about this kind of stuff.

 

[Smileyantor]

To the balance team,

These issues are as follows:

• Calling something a bug is not an undeniable reason for removing mechanics from a game. It is at worst dishonest and at best lazy game design due to not having to give a balance reason for the changes.
  
  
• Balance is not a notion that means every single strategy is equally viable at any given point.Balance should shelter the ideas of Metas and rise and fall of certain strategies.
  
  
• Attempting to buff/nerf a specific character should not involve attempting to jump there in 1 patch. There are far too many variables changing at once and you can cause an imbalance further from what you wanted to begin with. The solution to this problem is to move towards balance across multiple patches with smaller change sets. This is true for modern software design and is applicable to game design. For this case I will point to 2 specific cases:
  

1. Shulk Shulk is strictly better in every aspect of his play style receiving damage buffs to almost every relevant attack
   
   
2. Greninja The combination of the patch to game mechanics coupled with nerfs across the board to almost everything he did well is going to send me spirally down the tier list.
   

• Lastly patch notes. Not much needs to be said here short of; you need to give them to us. Patch notes generate hype and discussion and a reinvigoration of finding new strategies and adjusting old ones based on facts. What we have received is blindfolds and told to play by ear. This is simply not acceptable for a modern competitive game and at least from my personal experience has left me disgruntled.

These issues with patching have probably emerged from your lack of experience in patching competitive games. Many of these issues have already been encountered by other games companies of which I implore you to draw on the wealth of knowledge from companies such as:

1. Valve
   
   
2. Blizzard
   
   
3. Riot
   

I implore you to embrace some of these problems and work towards the solution. Potentially having some correspondence with companies doing balance correct could help you achieve in this area. The alternative is that you patch your audience out of the game which only disappoints me an avid smasher and you passionate game creators.

Sincerely,

Smileyanator

 

[MOP_Benji]

Both sides to this update are kind of sad. Personally as a Link, I'm upset about the loss of his toss cancelling. However I, and a lot of other players, will respect Nintendo's design choices and directions and like true FGC members, adapt and find new ways around the growth of this game. That's what an honorable and mature player would do. This series is shunned by a lot of other Fighting Game Community members; if we want this game to be taken seriously at a competitive level, the worst thing we could do is whine about a patch and say "Melee rulez, everting sucks!"

Saying that, Nintendo is also in the wrong here. Even though fighting game heads such as Yoshinori Ono played a part in shaping this game, they should really begin to take notes from the success of other fighting games. I believe in something called the "broken philosophy", where the unfinished corners and exploitable features of a game's design play a major part in the community's hype and excitement for a game. In simpler terms, These so called 'glitches' were viewed as mechanics and tech for us players. Why? because we took these funny-looking features and integrated them; we adapted. Exploiting these niche and specific features for each character is what makes this game fun. Making it overbalanced and perfect sucks out all of the replay value, mystery and enjoyment. So to all you Melee veterans out there, what do you think would happen if Nintendo made an updated or remade version of that game? You'd hate it, because if Nintendo viewed THESE features as unwanted glitches, then your beloved L-cancelling and wave dashing would be viewed as devastating and game-breaking bugs... you see what I mean?

My point is that these shouldn't have been removed. They could have been balanced or worked on, but not completely removed. Without stuff like this, we will be looking at a dull, black-and-white fighting game for the kids to play at their birthday parties. Don't fix what isn't broken, just balance the unbalanced.

 

[_Screech_]

nintendo is getting lazy

 

[O Rai]

Did PK Thunder get a movement speed buff, seems to move a bit faster... (i can't test so would be nice if someone would)?

 

[Taokaka]

I miss rush cancel.

 

[-Se7en-]

Sweet bait man. Here's a reply.


Because it's incorrect statements being purported as fact. Vectoring is still in the game, DI is not in the game, and almost every character received changes that are some combination of buffs and nerfs. It isn't just winning characters that got hit and it isn't just poor ones that got boons.

http://smashboards.com/threads/dawn-of-a-new-day-vectoring-mostly-removed-in-patch-1-0-4.378709/
Incorrect right?

 

[Adiel]

Can't wait for the WiiU game tonight!

 

[Alondite]

U don't know its unbalanced if the game is not thoroughly explored. U cant with any confidence say that when it has only been out for a month.

And you can only say you didn't like melee's techskill personally, because its been 13 years and the gameplay hasn't died yet. Brawl on the other hand....its gunna be rough...

You misunderstand the term "balance." Balance isn't just about characters or strategies being equally viable. There is far more to it than that. Yes, global balance is indeed an element of balance, but it starts at the mechanical level.

Actions like L-canceling, wavedashing, dash-dancing, etc. are unbalanced not because they make some characters or strategies too good, but because they disrupt the natural push-pull interplay and risk:reward balancing of the gameplay system by trivializing risk and commitment, which in itself trivializes strategy and bypasses "the squeeze" from which deep, emergent gameplay is born.

 

[Deleted member]

You misunderstand the term "balance." Balance isn't just about characters or strategies being equally viable. There is far more to it than that. Yes, global balance is indeed an element of balance, but it starts at the mechanical level.

Actions like L-canceling, wavedashing, dash-dancing, etc. are unbalanced not because they make some characters or strategies too good, but because they disrupt the natural push-pull interplay and risk:reward balancing of the gameplay system by trivializing risk and commitment, which in itself trivializes strategy and bypasses "the squeeze" from which deep, emergent gameplay is born.

Two Words...

Git. Gud.

 

[Udlr Customs]

I kinda wish Warios wectoring wasnt patched so soon! I just learned how to pull it off Lol! Kill joy

 

[Deleted member]

I kinda wish Warios wectoring wasnt patched so soon! I just learned how to pull it off Lol! Kill joy

I wish that they didn't change the ATs/Exploits at all. They are what added flavor to the game, and now the skill gap between Competitive Players (Me) and Casuals (Nintendo's favorites) is almost non-existent.

Like Wectoring for example, before Smash Corner's vid came out i actually knew about from trying to normally Vector as Wario, and each time i went flying i was thinking "what the heck Wario?", but once it got explained in a video i understood. I have only mastered it for about 2 weeks and now its gone... screw Sakurai's "Patches", we need Reggie.

 

[Squii The Fish]

WHOAH GUYS PAT BOONE MADE A HEAVY METAL ALBUM

 

[C-SAF]

You misunderstand the term "balance." Balance isn't just about characters or strategies being equally viable. There is far more to it than that. Yes, global balance is indeed an element of balance, but it starts at the mechanical level.

Actions like L-canceling, wavedashing, dash-dancing, etc. are unbalanced not because they make some characters or strategies too good, but because they disrupt the natural push-pull interplay and risk:reward balancing of the gameplay system by trivializing risk and commitment, which in itself trivializes strategy and bypasses "the squeeze" from which deep, emergent gameplay is born.

Balance is characters being equally viable. Tampering with the strategies with patches rather than having those strategies adapted too is disrupting "the natural push-pull".

And techskill doesn't disrupt the strategy of the game. It only adds more options thereby making the gameplay deeper. U can dislike the techskill barrier, but your criticism of it is really flawed.

 

[Circle_Breaker]

the ppl complaining about no patch notes are the same ppl who want wavecheating in the game aka nerds who want to be the best from practising in they're basement instead of REAL SMASH SKILL...

 

[Alondite]

Two Words...

Git. Gud.

Right, because being able to identify gameplay-limiting elements of a game = lack of skill. Brilliant logic. I'm actually a very competent Melee and Project M player, and I enjoy both games very much. However, my personal preferences are entirely irrelevant and have nothing to do with the quality of the game's design.

Balance is characters being equally viable. Tampering with the strategies with patches rather than having those strategies adapted too is disrupting "the natural push-pull".

And techskill doesn't disrupt the strategy of the game. It only adds more options thereby making the gameplay deeper. U can dislike the techskill barrier, but your criticism of it is really flawed.

What a profound misunderstanding of game design you have. The patch doesn't "tamper" with strategies at all. Toss canceling isn't a strategy, it's a way to bypass strategy. And the other character changes don't change how the game plays on a fundamental level, and therefor do nothing but alter the effectiveness of existing/future strategies to be more in line with the game's overall balance.

"And techskill doesn't disrupt the strategy of the game. It only adds more options thereby making the gameplay deeper. U can dislike the techskill barrier, but your criticism of it is really flawed"

That might be the most objectively wrong thing I've ever read. First off, "tech skill" is a huge misnomer, because "tech/technique/technical" implies varying degrees of executional variability and outcome success, which isn't true regarding any of Smash's "tech skill." A more appropriate labeling would be "dexterity," because that's the main part of the skill spectrum being stressed by "tech skill."

Second, more options does not make a game deeper. In fact, more options often make a game LESS deep. Interplay is the primary function of depth, and interplay requires specific response. Consider two games:

One game has 3 options.

#1 has the most payoff.
#2 has less payoff than #1, but can be used as a soft counter for #1
#3 has little payoff, but Is a hard counter to #2. Is at a slight disadvantage against #1

Now in this case, "balance" would account for things like the relative payoff of the three, and how much each option counters another to be sure that all elements operate as intended. Keep in mind that one option CAN be the most effective and still be in balance if that option is designed to be the "bread and butter" of the gameplay, so long as there are viable opposing strategies, even if they are less effective in neutral play. If one option is out of balance, then it throws the whole system out of whack.

Now say game 2 has 10 options. That would mean more depth, right? Well what would options 4-10 be? How would they add depth?

They wouldn't. The only thing that adding additional options accomplishes is hurting variety, because they would either overlap the functions of other previously unique options, or create multiple, identical (and therefor redundant) interplay systems.

The system outlined above adds depth by adding wrinkles (such as weighing each option differently) rather than being straight RPS.

Every game has a "complexity threshold," and adding more options beyond that point accomplishes nothing other than devaluing the choice of any single option.

 

[Kink-Link5]

http://smashboards.com/threads/dawn-of-a-new-day-vectoring-mostly-removed-in-patch-1-0-4.378709/
Incorrect right?

No where in that post does it make it sound like Vectoring is close to removed. The only statement is that vertical launches no longer are effected by vectoring, and the video with jigglypuff posted later in that thread confirms strangeness with the mechanic still being present.

Basically the only thing concluded here is "DI and/or Vectoring and/or some third component that modifies launch angles and trajectories behaves differently." Saying anything else as "confirmed" is disinformation and should not be spread as fact.

Thanks for the source though, truly. It's much more frustrating talking about credibility when there aren't any citations.

 

[Aeriley]

well this game will be worthless since smash for wii u came out

 

[C-SAF]

Right, because being able to identify gameplay-limiting elements of a game = lack of skill. Brilliant logic. I'm actually a very competent Melee and Project M player, and I enjoy both games very much. However, my personal preferences are entirely irrelevant and have nothing to do with the quality of the game's design.




What a profound misunderstanding of game design you have. The patch doesn't "tamper" with strategies at all. Toss canceling isn't a strategy, it's a way to bypass strategy. And the other character changes don't change how the game plays on a fundamental level, and therefor do nothing but alter the effectiveness of existing/future strategies to be more in line with the game's overall balance.

"And techskill doesn't disrupt the strategy of the game. It only adds more options thereby making the gameplay deeper. U can dislike the techskill barrier, but your criticism of it is really flawed"

That might be the most objectively wrong thing I've ever read. First off, "tech skill" is a huge misnomer, because "tech/technique/technical" implies varying degrees of executional variability and outcome success, which isn't true regarding any of Smash's "tech skill." A more appropriate labeling would be "dexterity," because that's the main part of the skill spectrum being stressed by "tech skill."

Second, more options does not make a game deeper. In fact, more options often make a game LESS deep. Interplay is the primary function of depth, and interplay requires specific response. Consider two games:

One game has 3 options.

#1 has the most payoff.
#2 has less payoff than #1, but can be used as a soft counter for #1
#3 has little payoff, but Is a hard counter to #2. Is at a slight disadvantage against #1

Now in this case, "balance" would account for things like the relative payoff of the three, and how much each option counters another to be sure that all elements operate as intended. Keep in mind that one option CAN be the most effective and still be in balance if that option is designed to be the "bread and butter" of the gameplay, so long as there are viable opposing strategies, even if they are less effective in neutral play. If one option is out of balance, then it throws the whole system out of whack.

Now say game 2 has 10 options. That would mean more depth, right? Well what would options 4-10 be? How would they add depth?

They wouldn't. The only thing that adding additional options accomplishes is hurting variety, because they would either overlap the functions of other previously unique options, or create multiple, identical (and therefor redundant) interplay systems.

The system outlined above adds depth by adding wrinkles (such as weighing each option differently) rather than being straight RPS.

Every game has a "complexity threshold," and adding more options beyond that point accomplishes nothing other than devaluing the choice of any single option.

Wow, I do commend you for putting so much effort into that response.

I have to disagree again though for the reason that I think you have oversimplified your description of options. Mix ups are a huge part of the highest level of smash metagame, and because smash allows for defensive techniques (DI, SmashDI) using moves that you are describing as redundant actually becomes important to challenge the other players DI. Also, Melee's greatest advantage over the newer games is its minute movement options. Wavedashing allows for a very complex spacing and micro game, and extended combos. Missing L cancels can be an opening for this movement to get in, and in this way I think Melee's punish system works very nicely.

Also, Ive only ever heard techskill referred to as they way I used it. Sorry if that's not the word you use, but I think its correct at least where I am from. In traditional fighting games I would agree with your option tree, but with any smash game there are other dimensions to consider. Techskill gives a wider range of skill, which is why I'll always maintain Melee was the most competitive and rewarding title yet. (but yes I did enjoy brawl, and smash4 so far too)

And again, nobody can know if the patch was good or bad because we will never explore what was before the patch. But its the idea that innovating techniques will be removed at anytime that is bothersome to me.

 

[HellTyrant]

This patch reeks conspiracy

 

[EpicTogekiss]

Yay! This makes me want to play Smash 3DS again! Updating now!

although his foward air doesn't spike anymore

 

[Alondite]

Wow, I do commend you for putting so much effort into that response.

I have to disagree again though for the reason that I think you have oversimplified your description of options. Mix ups are a huge part of the highest level of smash metagame, and because smash allows for defensive techniques (DI, SmashDI) using moves that you are describing as redundant actually becomes important to challenge the other players DI. Also, Melee's greatest advantage over the newer games is its minute movement options. Wavedashing allows for a very complex spacing and micro game, and extended combos. Missing L cancels can be an opening for this movement to get in, and in this way I think Melee's punish system works very nicely.

Also, Ive only ever heard techskill referred to as they way I used it. Sorry if that's not the word you use, but I think its correct at least where I am from. In traditional fighting games I would agree with your option tree, but with any smash game there are other dimensions to consider. Techskill gives a wider range of skill, which is why I'll always maintain Melee was the most competitive and rewarding title yet. (but yes I did enjoy brawl, and smash4 so far too)

And again, nobody can know if the patch was good or bad because we will never explore what was before the patch. But its the idea that innovating techniques will be removed at anytime that is bothersome to me.

As far as mix-ups go, adding more options actually makes them worse. As you add options the functional individuality of each options lessens, and as variability between options lessens the value of a decision lessens. The scenario I outline above provides a perfect mix-up because your decision, and your opponents response matter far more than they would if there were more options. Adding more options encourages the defending player to adopt a generic defense that isn't a hard-counter to anything, but provides some measure of defense against everything, rather than forming specific strategies to counter the other player.

Melee's wealth of movement options is actually one of the game's most limiting elements. Melee's movement options are almost entirely without commitment or risk relative to Smash 4's. Melee's dash can be canceled into an opposite dash or a shield, wavedashing can reverse all horizontal movement almost instantaneously, and can be acted out of almost immediately, and L-canceling does nothing but a blanket risk reduction of aerial attacks. Melee's netural game amounts to little more than dancing around waiting for someone to make an executional mistake, or simply move into the wrong place at the wrong time. It is incredibly shallow. Smash 4's neutral game, by comparison, has deep push-pull interplay where every attack and movement matter because every action requires a degree of risk and commitment proportional to the reward.

"Techskill gives a wider range of skill, which is why I'll always maintain Melee was the most competitive and rewarding title yet"

No, "tech skill" throws up arbitrary skill barriers that have little to do with the actual game, and everything to do with how well you can physically manipulate the controller. And the rewards provided are hugely disproportional to the risk involved. Melee is a game of watch-and-react more than it is anything else.

Some states are designed to cancel into others (running into jumping, for example), but canceling a state into itself (dash-dancing, on-hit cancel combos, etc.), or canceling offensive states into neutral or defensive states is poor design, almost without exception.

Combos also hurt gameplay. Follow-ups and limited strings can be used to promote thoughtful play with consideration to future actions, and can reward offense and interaction, but engagement drops with every attack during a combo. Tell me, in what state is there more gameplay potential between players: neutral, or when one player is in hit-stun? Combos are free damage and require nothing more than a basic level of knowledge and the ability to react to on-screen feedback.

The overwhelming majority of gameplay potential exists in neutral play, because there is no negative space in neutral play for either player. Melee's neutral play is hampered considerably by its unclean cancels, and neutral play regularly transitions into comparatively long periods of one-sided push with little to no pull from the other player. It offers exorbitant rewards for incredibly safe options.

Smash 4 does have it's issues that disturb overall balance: the immediate canceling of the tumble state, the safety of rolls and air-dodges, shield-drop speed...and that's about it as far as the core engine is concerned. By and large, though, Smash 4's neutral play is far deeper and more cerebral than Melee's and it encourages and rewards offensive far more than Brawl. It takes the finer elements of both games with a dash of entirely new elements, and the end result is better than any Smash that has come before. And these patches are only going to make it better.

 

[Circle_Breaker]

As far as mix-ups go, adding more options actually makes them worse. As you add options the functional individuality of each options lessens, and as variability between options lessens the value of a decision lessens. The scenario I outline above provides a perfect mix-up because your decision, and your opponents response matter far more than they would if there were more options. Adding more options encourages the defending player to adopt a generic defense that isn't a hard-counter to anything, but provides some measure of defense against everything, rather than forming specific strategies to counter the other player.

Melee's wealth of movement options is actually one of the game's most limiting elements. Melee's movement options are almost entirely without commitment or risk relative to Smash 4's. Melee's dash can be canceled into an opposite dash or a shield, wavedashing can reverse all horizontal movement almost instantaneously, and can be acted out of almost immediately, and L-canceling does nothing but a blanket risk reduction of aerial attacks. Melee's netural game amounts to little more than dancing around waiting for someone to make an executional mistake, or simply move into the wrong place at the wrong time. It is incredibly shallow. Smash 4's neutral game, by comparison, has deep push-pull interplay where every attack and movement matter because every action requires a degree of risk and commitment proportional to the reward.

"Techskill gives a wider range of skill, which is why I'll always maintain Melee was the most competitive and rewarding title yet"

No, "tech skill" throws up arbitrary skill barriers that have little to do with the actual game, and everything to do with how well you can physically manipulate the controller. And the rewards provided are hugely disproportional to the risk involved. Melee is a game of watch-and-react more than it is anything else.

Some states are designed to cancel into others (running into jumping, for example), but canceling a state into itself (dash-dancing, on-hit cancel combos, etc.), or canceling offensive states into neutral or defensive states is poor design, almost without exception.

Combos also hurt gameplay. Follow-ups and limited strings can be used to promote thoughtful play with consideration to future actions, and can reward offense and interaction, but engagement drops with every attack during a combo. Tell me, in what state is there more gameplay potential between players: neutral, or when one player is in hit-stun? Combos are free damage and require nothing more than a basic level of knowledge and the ability to react to on-screen feedback.

The overwhelming majority of gameplay potential exists in neutral play, because there is no negative space in neutral play for either player. Melee's neutral play is hampered considerably by its unclean cancels, and neutral play regularly transitions into comparatively long periods of one-sided push with little to no pull from the other player. It offers exorbitant rewards for incredibly safe options.

Smash 4 does have it's issues that disturb overall balance: the immediate canceling of the tumble state, the safety of rolls and air-dodges, shield-drop speed...and that's about it as far as the core engine is concerned. By and large, though, Smash 4's neutral play is far deeper and more cerebral than Melee's and it encourages and rewards offensive far more than Brawl. It takes the finer elements of both games with a dash of entirely new elements, and the end result is better than any Smash that has come before. And these patches are only going to make it better.

Have you actually ever played melee OR smash 4? Melee's options are both more diverse and more interestingly weighted. The option weighting in smash 4 is incredibly bland because punishments are limited to one or two hits, regardless of what attack you land, if you get a grab, etc.

I've never seen somebody write so much while saying so little of any substance. So baseless. Your point about multiple options with the same outcomes? It might be redundant but it in no way lessens the quality of the interaction. How could you surmise that?

Lastly ****ing lol at your explanation of Melee's neutral game. Melee actually has footsies and space control. Smash 4 has a similar but vastly more limited neutral game consisting of stationary projectile spam if your character is capable and then waiting for the approach. Your horribly mistaken appraisal of Melee's neutral game is hilariously and ironically applicable to smash 4's. Melee actually rewards offensive play with safe shield pressure when set up and spaced correctly and it is actually in your favor to be the aggressor and force mixups on your opponent because even if they get a punish, it will rarely be as powerful as yours would be for forcing a mistake on their part under conditions you have chosen. That is why melee has a deep neutral game that actually rewards smart positional play. Not to mention the ledge/offstage actually being a disadvantaged position in melee - in smash 4 it's barely a problem to be off stage, and it reduces the importance of spacing and position by a significant degree.

"Cerebral" as used by brawl and smash 4 players seems to mean "tons of hard reads because every option leads to extremely homogenous rewards" rather than anything to do with deep understandings of positional advantage and combo setups.

If melee is the tech skill spamfest that its detractors say it is, then why doesn't Hax clear out every tournament? How does armada beat westballz, a more technical player using a better and more technical character? Because melee actually allows for an incredibly in depth mental game. Just because you can't surmount the technical barrier and play intelligently doesnt mean that intelligent play doesn't matter or is of reduced significance in melee. Ffs.

 

[Omegascizor456]

I have heard that greninja has been pretty nerfed as well as shiek does anybody know if this is true?

 

[Omegascizor456]

Meh, really not a fan of balance changes this early in a fighting game's life. It takes years to fully realize the potential of these characters, so buffing/nerfing things already doesn't make much sense.

Very true i mean we barely got time in the game! I dont think that they could say something is overpowered this early in the games competitive meta game...

 

[C-SAF]

As far as mix-ups go, adding more options actually makes them worse. As you add options the functional individuality of each options lessens, and as variability between options lessens the value of a decision lessens. The scenario I outline above provides a perfect mix-up because your decision, and your opponents response matter far more than they would if there were more options. Adding more options encourages the defending player to adopt a generic defense that isn't a hard-counter to anything, but provides some measure of defense against everything, rather than forming specific strategies to counter the other player.

Melee's wealth of movement options is actually one of the game's most limiting elements. Melee's movement options are almost entirely without commitment or risk relative to Smash 4's. Melee's dash can be canceled into an opposite dash or a shield, wavedashing can reverse all horizontal movement almost instantaneously, and can be acted out of almost immediately, and L-canceling does nothing but a blanket risk reduction of aerial attacks. Melee's netural game amounts to little more than dancing around waiting for someone to make an executional mistake, or simply move into the wrong place at the wrong time. It is incredibly shallow. Smash 4's neutral game, by comparison, has deep push-pull interplay where every attack and movement matter because every action requires a degree of risk and commitment proportional to the reward.

"Techskill gives a wider range of skill, which is why I'll always maintain Melee was the most competitive and rewarding title yet"

No, "tech skill" throws up arbitrary skill barriers that have little to do with the actual game, and everything to do with how well you can physically manipulate the controller. And the rewards provided are hugely disproportional to the risk involved. Melee is a game of watch-and-react more than it is anything else.

Some states are designed to cancel into others (running into jumping, for example), but canceling a state into itself (dash-dancing, on-hit cancel combos, etc.), or canceling offensive states into neutral or defensive states is poor design, almost without exception.

Combos also hurt gameplay. Follow-ups and limited strings can be used to promote thoughtful play with consideration to future actions, and can reward offense and interaction, but engagement drops with every attack during a combo. Tell me, in what state is there more gameplay potential between players: neutral, or when one player is in hit-stun? Combos are free damage and require nothing more than a basic level of knowledge and the ability to react to on-screen feedback.

The overwhelming majority of gameplay potential exists in neutral play, because there is no negative space in neutral play for either player. Melee's neutral play is hampered considerably by its unclean cancels, and neutral play regularly transitions into comparatively long periods of one-sided push with little to no pull from the other player. It offers exorbitant rewards for incredibly safe options.

Smash 4 does have it's issues that disturb overall balance: the immediate canceling of the tumble state, the safety of rolls and air-dodges, shield-drop speed...and that's about it as far as the core engine is concerned. By and large, though, Smash 4's neutral play is far deeper and more cerebral than Melee's and it encourages and rewards offensive far more than Brawl. It takes the finer elements of both games with a dash of entirely new elements, and the end result is better than any Smash that has come before. And these patches are only going to make it better.

You've more or less just repeated your response from before. Again you haven't realized what a huge part of the game DI is, and how continuing a combo is one of the hardest things in the game. It is far from one sided, and a combo that is DI'd correctly can quickly turn into a punish for the combo'd player, because they can navigate fast enough to punish. This is not so in the newer titles.

Your analysis of neutral is outright wrong. Looking for teckskill mistakes is part of it, but what is a far bigger part is looking for the mental mistakes that you seem to think only exist in Smash4 and Brawl. The difference in melee, is that far more can be punished because of the movement options, and the speed of the neutral game offers for more decisions per second to screw up on. The newer titles boil down to the cover all defense you are describing, as nothing can be punished, and it essentially turns into who breaks down and attacks first.

Again, if you don't like the techskill barrier, that's your opinion, but mastering the techskill required to play competitively was one of the most rewarding things I've done in fighting games. Its important to skill variance, and it allows for complete control of your character and its minute movements, making the game more interesting, and less character dependant in what you can do.

On a side note, I went to a tournament over the weekend, and Smash4 was there. I entered and the gameplay strategy that succeeded the most was indeed projectile camping. From what I have experienced, and the fact that the game is THREE days old, you have no basis to say that the gameplay is more offensive than Brawl. I was disheartened by my experience with the game, but will continue to play it because I don't want my first judgement to be final. I am getting the feeling though that you are disagreeing blindly simply to disagree. You cant state anything about smash4 definitively, so don't say it as fact. The metagame is almost nonexistant.

Edit: Typed this before reading @ Circle_Breaker 's response, and I'm sorry for repeating anything he said. He said basically what i'm thinking, amongst even better points, but with some of the colourful language I didnt include.

 

[Alondite]

Have you actually ever played melee OR smash 4? Melee's options are both more diverse and more interestingly weighted. The option weighting in smash 4 is incredibly bland because punishments are limited to one or two hits, regardless of what attack you land, if you get a grab, etc.

I've never seen somebody write so much while saying so little of any substance. So baseless. Your point about multiple options with the same outcomes? It might be redundant but it in no way lessens the quality of the interaction. How could you surmise that?

Lastly ****ing lol at your explanation of Melee's neutral game. Melee actually has footsies and space control. Smash 4 has a similar but vastly more limited neutral game consisting of stationary projectile spam if your character is capable and then waiting for the approach. Your horribly mistaken appraisal of Melee's neutral game is hilariously and ironically applicable to smash 4's. Melee actually rewards offensive play with safe shield pressure when set up and spaced correctly and it is actually in your favor to be the aggressor and force mixups on your opponent because even if they get a punish, it will rarely be as powerful as yours would be for forcing a mistake on their part under conditions you have chosen. That is why melee has a deep neutral game that actually rewards smart positional play. Not to mention the ledge/offstage actually being a disadvantaged position in melee - in smash 4 it's barely a problem to be off stage, and it reduces the importance of spacing and position by a significant degree.

"Cerebral" as used by brawl and smash 4 players seems to mean "tons of hard reads because every option leads to extremely homogenous rewards" rather than anything to do with deep understandings of positional advantage and combo setups.

If melee is the tech skill spamfest that its detractors say it is, then why doesn't Hax clear out every tournament? How does armada beat westballz, a more technical player using a better and more technical character? Because melee actually allows for an incredibly in depth mental game. Just because you can't surmount the technical barrier and play intelligently doesnt mean that intelligent play doesn't matter or is of reduced significance in melee. Ffs.

Melee's options are more interestingly weighted? Virtually every primary option in Melee is both ludicrously safe and leads to massive rewards. The Ice Climbers are the worst offenders, just look at how massive their rewards are for simply landing a grab. Thank God they aren't in Smash 4.

"he option weighting in smash 4 is incredibly bland because punishments are limited to one or two hits, regardless of what attack you land, if you get a grab, etc."

Half of that is objectively false, and the other half is actually good design. Do you not realize that even landing an attack safely is a reward in and of itself? How much more reward do you want for landing a hit in neutral play against a skilled player? Limited follow-ups and combo stings are a GOOD thing because they reduce negative space. The faster the game can get back to neutral play while still rewarding the player for sound play, the better, because neutral is where the overwhelming majority of the game's depth exists.

"It might be redundant but it in no way lessens the quality of the interaction. How could you surmise that?

So then a character who's moves are half functionally unique and half entirely redundant doesn't offer less gameplay potential than one with a moveset where each is functionally unique? And mobility options that are almost entirely made obsolete by other options doesn't hurt gameplay potential relative to giving each option a distinct purpose? OK.

"Melee actually has footsies and space control. Smash 4 has a similar but vastly more limited neutral game consisting of stationary projectile spam if your character is capable and then waiting for the approach. "

And Smash 4 spacing and space control doesn't matter? It matters MORE because you need to be more precise to be safe. Hitting a shield in Melee is safe with all but the worst spacing, which is ridiculous considering that a shield is designed to be a hard counter to attacking. That's why the Attack > Grab > Shield > Attack interplay exists.

And projectiles in Smash 4 are generally less safe and effective than in Melee. Not to mention that only a few characters have enough projectiles and projectile diversity for such a strategy to even be viable, and even then, those characters are designed to be that way. I suppose every character should have the same core style of play, though, right?

"Melee actually rewards offensive play with safe shield pressure when set up and spaced correctly and it is actually in your favor to be the aggressor and force mixups on your opponent because even if they get a punish, it will rarely be as powerful as yours would be for forcing a mistake on their part under conditions you have chosen."

There's nothing wrong with shield pressure in theory, but being able to safely pressure a shield, that is, a hard counter to attacking, is far, far too easy to do because it takes so long to drop a shield when being attacked, and because so many of Melee's offensive options have such little lag. And that bit about a punish being less powerful than your offense is just flat out wrong. You can be punished very, very heavily for even minor mistakes in Melee because the game offers such exorbitant rewards for landing an attack.

Not only that, but shielding an attack should rarely be a mistake, given the function of shielding. In Melee, though, doing what should be the right thing could very well end up landing you in an even worse position than you were to begin with.

As for Melee's neutral play...I think you misunderstand what the term "depth" actually means. Depth is not simply the number of viable options available to a player. Please, though, cite the English definition of "depth" and explain how it could possibly fall under that definition.

Depth is a function of interplay, it is the back-and-forth chain of unique actions and responses between game elements. Jumping on a koopa and having it retreat into its shell is depth because it changes the state of the koopa, changes the actions available to the koopa, and changes how Mario is then able to interact with it. Repeatedly attacking a shield is just a looping of the same interplay. The same goes for a combo. There's very little depth involved in either of those interactions.

". Not to mention the ledge/offstage actually being a disadvantaged position in melee - in smash 4 it's barely a problem to be off stage, and it reduces the importance of spacing and position by a significant degree."

This is where you make your lack of design knowledge painfully obvious. Melee is DESIGNED to put off-stage players at a severe disadvantage. Yes, it does emphasize stage control, but to such a degree that simply standing at the edge and throwing someone off at 0% can lead to a KO. Should such a shallow tactic offer such a significant reward? You know how easy it i to KO Mac from the edge of the stage? That is Melee's offstage game in a nutshell.

Smash 4 is obviously designed for players to continue fighting off stage, and the off-stage game is fantastic. You can chase an opponent literally off the screen and still recover, and given how difficult it is to KO from the stage, such a strategy is encouraged and offers considerable reward for aggression and taking that risk. Not to mention how massively improved Smash 4's ledge mechanics are, rather than Melee's "abuse ledge invincibility and just hang on the ledge so your opponent falls to their doom." I've had off-stage and ledge combat in Smash 4 where neither character has stepped foot on the stage in over a minute.

Basically, you're comparing apples and oranges and trying to say that apples are better because you prefer the taste.

You also misunderstand the relationships between the different aspects of the skill spectrum. The faster something becomes, the less thought you're able to put into it. They are inverses. A more deliberate pacing gives a player time to think and plan, rather than simply reacting.

And how are Smash 4's rewards homogenous? Melee's rewards are no less so, with the reward being either a KO, combo, or positional advantage. Lengthy combos are poor design unless landing each blow has risk equal to the rewards, which it doesn't because the other player is locked in hitstun, effectively making them free damage for doing something as simple as landing a grab.

You're also downplaying Smash 4's positional game simply because it doesn't operate like Melee's. Melee's positional game is largely about pushing your opponent off-stage because it's such a risky place to be. That, of course, encourages abusing Melee's safe and effective mobility options to dance around the stage and avoid being placed into that position.

Positional play in Smash 4 is more about being in a position to more easily KO from the stage, rather than having to run the risk of chasing them off-stage. Again, apples and oranges.

"Because melee actually allows for an incredibly in depth mental game. Just because you can't surmount the technical barrier and play intelligently doesnt mean that intelligent play doesn't matter or is of reduced significance in melee."

You might as well have admitted defeat here, resorting to ad hominem to try to make a point. You understand that it IS possible to both be a competent Melee player AND take issue with the game's design, right? Not to mention that you've never seen me play, or have ever even spoken to anyone who has played me. But because I take issue with the game's design, I must be a poor player, right? Your post was ALMOST mature and intelligent until you resorted to that nonsense.

Intelligent play ALWAYS matters, but Melee's pacing and design place far more emphasis on dexterity and reflex and on read-and-react than it does strategic development and timing.

 

[Circle_Breaker]

Melee's options are more interestingly weighted? Virtually every primary option in Melee is both ludicrously safe and leads to massive rewards. The Ice Climbers are the worst offenders, just look at how massive their rewards are for simply landing a grab. Thank God they aren't in Smash 4.

"he option weighting in smash 4 is incredibly bland because punishments are limited to one or two hits, regardless of what attack you land, if you get a grab, etc."

Half of that is objectively false, and the other half is actually good design. Do you not realize that even landing an attack safely is a reward in and of itself? How much more reward do you want for landing a hit in neutral play against a skilled player? Limited follow-ups and combo stings are a GOOD thing because they reduce negative space. The faster the game can get back to neutral play while still rewarding the player for sound play, the better, because neutral is where the overwhelming majority of the game's depth exists.

"It might be redundant but it in no way lessens the quality of the interaction. How could you surmise that?

So then a character who's moves are half functionally unique and half entirely redundant doesn't offer less gameplay potential than one with a moveset where each is functionally unique? And mobility options that are almost entirely made obsolete by other options doesn't hurt gameplay potential relative to giving each option a distinct purpose? OK.

"Melee actually has footsies and space control. Smash 4 has a similar but vastly more limited neutral game consisting of stationary projectile spam if your character is capable and then waiting for the approach. "

And Smash 4 spacing and space control doesn't matter? It matters MORE because you need to be more precise to be safe. Hitting a shield in Melee is safe with all but the worst spacing, which is ridiculous considering that a shield is designed to be a hard counter to attacking. That's why the Attack > Grab > Shield > Attack interplay exists.

And projectiles in Smash 4 are generally less safe and effective than in Melee. Not to mention that only a few characters have enough projectiles and projectile diversity for such a strategy to even be viable, and even then, those characters are designed to be that way. I suppose every character should have the same core style of play, though, right?

"Melee actually rewards offensive play with safe shield pressure when set up and spaced correctly and it is actually in your favor to be the aggressor and force mixups on your opponent because even if they get a punish, it will rarely be as powerful as yours would be for forcing a mistake on their part under conditions you have chosen."

There's nothing wrong with shield pressure in theory, but being able to safely pressure a shield, that is, a hard counter to attacking, is far, far too easy to do because it takes so long to drop a shield when being attacked, and because so many of Melee's offensive options have such little lag. And that bit about a punish being less powerful than your offense is just flat out wrong. You can be punished very, very heavily for even minor mistakes in Melee because the game offers such exorbitant rewards for landing an attack.

Not only that, but shielding an attack should rarely be a mistake, given the function of shielding. In Melee, though, doing what should be the right thing could very well end up landing you in an even worse position than you were to begin with.

As for Melee's neutral play...I think you misunderstand what the term "depth" actually means. Depth is not simply the number of viable options available to a player. Please, though, cite the English definition of "depth" and explain how it could possibly fall under that definition.

Depth is a function of interplay, it is the back-and-forth chain of unique actions and responses between game elements. Jumping on a koopa and having it retreat into its shell is depth because it changes the state of the koopa, changes the actions available to the koopa, and changes how Mario is then able to interact with it. Repeatedly attacking a shield is just a looping of the same interplay. The same goes for a combo. There's very little depth involved in either of those interactions.

". Not to mention the ledge/offstage actually being a disadvantaged position in melee - in smash 4 it's barely a problem to be off stage, and it reduces the importance of spacing and position by a significant degree."

This is where you make your lack of design knowledge painfully obvious. Melee is DESIGNED to put off-stage players at a severe disadvantage. Yes, it does emphasize stage control, but to such a degree that simply standing at the edge and throwing someone off at 0% can lead to a KO. Should such a shallow tactic offer such a significant reward? You know how easy it i to KO Mac from the edge of the stage? That is Melee's offstage game in a nutshell.

Smash 4 is obviously designed for players to continue fighting off stage, and the off-stage game is fantastic. You can chase an opponent literally off the screen and still recover, and given how difficult it is to KO from the stage, such a strategy is encouraged and offers considerable reward for aggression and taking that risk. Not to mention how massively improved Smash 4's ledge mechanics are, rather than Melee's "abuse ledge invincibility and just hang on the ledge so your opponent falls to their doom." I've had off-stage and ledge combat in Smash 4 where neither character has stepped foot on the stage in over a minute.

Basically, you're comparing apples and oranges and trying to say that apples are better because you prefer the taste.

You also misunderstand the relationships between the different aspects of the skill spectrum. The faster something becomes, the less thought you're able to put into it. They are inverses. A more deliberate pacing gives a player time to think and plan, rather than simply reacting.

And how are Smash 4's rewards homogenous? Melee's rewards are no less so, with the reward being either a KO, combo, or positional advantage. Lengthy combos are poor design unless landing each blow has risk equal to the rewards, which it doesn't because the other player is locked in hitstun, effectively making them free damage for doing something as simple as landing a grab.

You're also downplaying Smash 4's positional game simply because it doesn't operate like Melee's. Melee's positional game is largely about pushing your opponent off-stage because it's such a risky place to be. That, of course, encourages abusing Melee's safe and effective mobility options to dance around the stage and avoid being placed into that position.

Positional play in Smash 4 is more about being in a position to more easily KO from the stage, rather than having to run the risk of chasing them off-stage. Again, apples and oranges.

"Because melee actually allows for an incredibly in depth mental game. Just because you can't surmount the technical barrier and play intelligently doesnt mean that intelligent play doesn't matter or is of reduced significance in melee."

You might as well have admitted defeat here, resorting to ad hominem to try to make a point. You understand that it IS possible to both be a competent Melee player AND take issue with the game's design, right? Not to mention that you've never seen me play, or have ever even spoken to anyone who has played me. But because I take issue with the game's design, I must be a poor player, right? Your post was ALMOST mature and intelligent until you resorted to that nonsense.

Intelligent play ALWAYS matters, but Melee's pacing and design place far more emphasis on dexterity and reflex and on read-and-react than it does strategic development and timing.

1. If Ice Climbers are so ludicrous, they should clear every tournament. But they've never won a major. The fact is, as maligned as it is, their infinite is the definition of interesting and diverse weighting of options. It makes a properly set up grab the absolute best option and this has a massive effect on every other interaction between the players. This is basically the best example for the value of diversely weighted options, so thank you. Ice Climbers sets are basically always interesting. If you don't agree then we're at an impasse and have drastically different ideas of what makes fighting games interesting and engaging to play.

2. Melee is four stocks per game. This means that a 0-death is more or less equivalent to a 25% combo in other fighting games. This is not an insane amount of reward. This is basically par for the course. Longer games with more critical moments of interaction per match generally lead to safer, more defensive play as mental "fatigue" is a very real phenomenon. It's why Smash4 matches have already been reduced to two-stock, and Brawl got as low as 1 stock at the end of its lifespan. People don't want a fighting game emphasizing reaction time and fast, complex interactions to stretch on for more than five minutes or so on average.

3. Very few if any movement options in melee are obsolete due to wavedashing or anything else. You call my accusation that you lack melee experience an ad-hominem attack, but you continue to prove that you lack an understanding of melee's finer points throughout your reply. As far as redundant options in a limited moveset, your point is somewhat agreeable because they are replacing other potentially more diverse options. Unfortunately for your argument, wavedashing/directional airdodges don't remove any options, they only add them.

4. "It matters MORE because you need to be more precise to be safe. Hitting a shield in Melee is safe with all but the worst spacing, which is ridiculous considering that a shield is designed to be a hard counter to attacking. That's why the Attack > Grab > Shield > Attack interplay exists. "
This simply isn't true. Even with a successful L-cancel many aerials are punishable by a grab. Even perfect space animal shield pressure has windows where a well timed grab from the majority characters will land. You're drastically overrating the safety and strength of shield pressure in melee, which seems to be a common mistake for people who don't actually play the game on that level. I apologize if you are in fact gdlk but you have very strange views on the melee meta.

5. Punishes are most definitely almost always less rewarding than a successful offensive setup. If this wasn't so, there would be very little reason to approach, but a cursory look at the melee meta will show that this is indeed not the case. There's always cases of 0-death punishes from characters like Falco, whose fastest punishing tool is also his most reliable combo starter, but generally being forced to punish means you will have a less than ideal selection of moves and a less than ideal stage position to do it with, unless you get very lucky. If you'd like to see a game where punishes are actually just as rewarding as offensive setups, look at Brawl and Smash4.

6. Depth in Melee: here, I'm just going to quote very extensively from a poster on reddit who has said all of this before me and better than me.

In short games are fun because of options. This is because competitive depth is directly related to what options you have in a given situation. I realize I haven't rigorously defined depth so I will do so here. It has 2 parts. One is the set of every possible interaction that can occur across all situations in the game. In other words how many different choices can a player take in any situation. For a simple example consider the game of normal Rock Paper Scissors and then compare it to Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock. Which game has more depth? The second one because there are more choices you can do.

The other part of depth is decision making process behind those interactions. Praxis used the term Appraisal Skills, or more simply, the incentives behind what options you can pick. Again I will point to a RPS analogy. It is the same example of the uneven game of RPS that Praxis used. In normal RPS you get 1 point if you win with any option. Lets say in the uneven game of RPS you get 10 points for winning with Rock, 5 points for winning with Scissors, and 1 point for winning with Paper. Now because of the large reward you would want to default to Rock. And this means you would never want to use Scissors. Paper is then very safe because it beats the most rewarding option and loses to the riskiest option. But Paper's safety is balanced by it's poor reward so you wouldn't want to be overly conservative all the time. Games that have options with uneven risk reward ratios have more depth than games with equal risk reward ratios. The more uneven the ratios are, the more complex the decision making becomes. This is where pressure comes from.

So overall, Melee is successful not because of it's speed or combos; those are by-products of the amount of options it offers. Those options add more depth. You have more movement so you can control space in many more ways than Brawl. There more situations you can force and thus more possible interactions. Also because of movement, hitstun and low lag on attacks, the reward for landing an attack is extremely high. But because of good movement, attacks lose when whiffed. Shields work against any unspaced attack but can be pressured. Grabs put you in the best positional advantage but you never want to whiff one because a hit is very rewarding. Melee is full of nested uneven games of RPS Lizard Spock. Now I'm not saying Brawl doesn't have depth. It certainly does and Smash 4 probably will too, but Brawl doesn't offer nearly as many options as Melee does and and risk reward ratios on the options Brawl does have are either more evened out or so skewed towards favoring defense that the gameplay becomes degenerate. Brawl plays more like a regular game of RPS. It doesn't appear that Smash 4 is adding any new options. It seems to be taking them away, like no edgehogging for example. And I don't think defensive options are weakened. Where are you getting your facts? They look stronger according to analysis of Tafokints and Larry. According to them, shields have less shield stun. Rolls and spot dodges are faster. Additionally the lag on aerials still hasn't been fixed based on the released footage. Yes I understand there's hitstun but because of lag on aerials and inferior movement options compared to Melee, punishes still won't be that much bigger. All of this points to a game that may be a little faster than Brawl but won't offer the depth that Melee had.

Also, you're right in that the combo itself isn't necessarily an example of depth regarding player interaction. But it is a cause of depth, because it makes some options more threatening than others. In Melee there are pokes, which are safe, low risk and low reward, and there are combo starters, which are typically higher risk and higher reward. When the combo starters are low risk, they become a very attractive option and thus easier to predict and counter. Smash 4 takes all this away by basically reducing every option to have the same reward (one hit), so all that matters is the safety of the option. Thus we see very safe play.

8. Ledge play as a shallow tactic. Your appraisal of both games is so severely mistaken that I don't know where to begin. Again you seem to misunderstand that an imbalance in risk and reward is the source of competitive depth rather than a reduction of depth. Smash 4's mechanics DO NOT encourage offstage play. The player chasing the opponent offstage will usually be putting his or her self at disproportionate risk of a stage spike or gimp, and often gives up favorable stage position. The better strategy is to remain safely at the edge of the stage and try to intercept the recovery with projectiles or a hitbox that can cover an airdodge until you can KO them outright.
I understand that off stage play CAN be exciting in Smash4 if both players co-operate with Sakurai's vision and avoid abusing the safest and best options, but that typically won't be the case in tournament.
"Positional play in Smash 4 is more about being in a position to more easily KO from the stage, rather than having to run the risk of chasing them off-stage." - oh, look, it turns out you agree with me. you've contradicted your own earlier claim about the "fantastic" offstage game.

9. "And how are Smash 4's rewards homogenous? Melee's rewards are no less so, with the reward being either a KO, combo, or positional advantage. Lengthy combos are poor design unless landing each blow has risk equal to the rewards"
So, I've addressed this already. Equality of risk and reward is the definition of homogeneity. It means you don't really have to think about what you're doing and why, because it's all basically the same gamble in the end. Where's the depth behind two choices with equivalent risk and reward ratios? Second, it's ridiculous to think that every hit is equal to a KO in melee. 0-deaths are actually rare and impressive in tournament, especially if they're true combos. Melee is full of pokes and jockeying for the position in which a massive combo is possible.

You also misunderstand the relationships between the different aspects of the skill spectrum. The faster something becomes, the less thought you're able to put into it. They are inverses. A more deliberate pacing gives a player time to think and plan, rather than simply reacting.

The two elements don't have a mutually exclusive relationship. The speed of thought isn't a set limit, it is a skill that can be developed with practice. It is possible for a game to be faster and deeper (see: Melee).

I'm sorry if I rustled your jimmies by calling out your lack of Melee experience, but that's clearly the case from what you've said about it. You've spoken like every player ever who has failed to master Melee's mechanics and instead chooses to see them as broken or stupid. This image of Melee as a hyper fast paced 0-death ridden techskill spamfest is ridiculous. You don't simply "take issue with the game's design", you show a complete lack of understanding of the current meta and the advantages and disadvantages associated with melee's various options. Generally it seems as though you support design elements that reduce the skill ceiling, which is okay, but it's very hard to argue that it leads to a game with more competitive integrity.

 

[C-SAF]

Melee's options are more interestingly weighted? Virtually every primary option in Melee is both ludicrously safe and leads to massive rewards. The Ice Climbers are the worst offenders, just look at how massive their rewards are for simply landing a grab. Thank God they aren't in Smash 4.

"he option weighting in smash 4 is incredibly bland because punishments are limited to one or two hits, regardless of what attack you land, if you get a grab, etc."

Half of that is objectively false, and the other half is actually good design. Do you not realize that even landing an attack safely is a reward in and of itself? How much more reward do you want for landing a hit in neutral play against a skilled player? Limited follow-ups and combo stings are a GOOD thing because they reduce negative space. The faster the game can get back to neutral play while still rewarding the player for sound play, the better, because neutral is where the overwhelming majority of the game's depth exists.

"It might be redundant but it in no way lessens the quality of the interaction. How could you surmise that?

So then a character who's moves are half functionally unique and half entirely redundant doesn't offer less gameplay potential than one with a moveset where each is functionally unique? And mobility options that are almost entirely made obsolete by other options doesn't hurt gameplay potential relative to giving each option a distinct purpose? OK.

"Melee actually has footsies and space control. Smash 4 has a similar but vastly more limited neutral game consisting of stationary projectile spam if your character is capable and then waiting for the approach. "

And Smash 4 spacing and space control doesn't matter? It matters MORE because you need to be more precise to be safe. Hitting a shield in Melee is safe with all but the worst spacing, which is ridiculous considering that a shield is designed to be a hard counter to attacking. That's why the Attack > Grab > Shield > Attack interplay exists.

And projectiles in Smash 4 are generally less safe and effective than in Melee. Not to mention that only a few characters have enough projectiles and projectile diversity for such a strategy to even be viable, and even then, those characters are designed to be that way. I suppose every character should have the same core style of play, though, right?

"Melee actually rewards offensive play with safe shield pressure when set up and spaced correctly and it is actually in your favor to be the aggressor and force mixups on your opponent because even if they get a punish, it will rarely be as powerful as yours would be for forcing a mistake on their part under conditions you have chosen."

There's nothing wrong with shield pressure in theory, but being able to safely pressure a shield, that is, a hard counter to attacking, is far, far too easy to do because it takes so long to drop a shield when being attacked, and because so many of Melee's offensive options have such little lag. And that bit about a punish being less powerful than your offense is just flat out wrong. You can be punished very, very heavily for even minor mistakes in Melee because the game offers such exorbitant rewards for landing an attack.

Not only that, but shielding an attack should rarely be a mistake, given the function of shielding. In Melee, though, doing what should be the right thing could very well end up landing you in an even worse position than you were to begin with.

As for Melee's neutral play...I think you misunderstand what the term "depth" actually means. Depth is not simply the number of viable options available to a player. Please, though, cite the English definition of "depth" and explain how it could possibly fall under that definition.

Depth is a function of interplay, it is the back-and-forth chain of unique actions and responses between game elements. Jumping on a koopa and having it retreat into its shell is depth because it changes the state of the koopa, changes the actions available to the koopa, and changes how Mario is then able to interact with it. Repeatedly attacking a shield is just a looping of the same interplay. The same goes for a combo. There's very little depth involved in either of those interactions.

". Not to mention the ledge/offstage actually being a disadvantaged position in melee - in smash 4 it's barely a problem to be off stage, and it reduces the importance of spacing and position by a significant degree."

This is where you make your lack of design knowledge painfully obvious. Melee is DESIGNED to put off-stage players at a severe disadvantage. Yes, it does emphasize stage control, but to such a degree that simply standing at the edge and throwing someone off at 0% can lead to a KO. Should such a shallow tactic offer such a significant reward? You know how easy it i to KO Mac from the edge of the stage? That is Melee's offstage game in a nutshell.

Smash 4 is obviously designed for players to continue fighting off stage, and the off-stage game is fantastic. You can chase an opponent literally off the screen and still recover, and given how difficult it is to KO from the stage, such a strategy is encouraged and offers considerable reward for aggression and taking that risk. Not to mention how massively improved Smash 4's ledge mechanics are, rather than Melee's "abuse ledge invincibility and just hang on the ledge so your opponent falls to their doom." I've had off-stage and ledge combat in Smash 4 where neither character has stepped foot on the stage in over a minute.

Basically, you're comparing apples and oranges and trying to say that apples are better because you prefer the taste.

You also misunderstand the relationships between the different aspects of the skill spectrum. The faster something becomes, the less thought you're able to put into it. They are inverses. A more deliberate pacing gives a player time to think and plan, rather than simply reacting.

And how are Smash 4's rewards homogenous? Melee's rewards are no less so, with the reward being either a KO, combo, or positional advantage. Lengthy combos are poor design unless landing each blow has risk equal to the rewards, which it doesn't because the other player is locked in hitstun, effectively making them free damage for doing something as simple as landing a grab.

You're also downplaying Smash 4's positional game simply because it doesn't operate like Melee's. Melee's positional game is largely about pushing your opponent off-stage because it's such a risky place to be. That, of course, encourages abusing Melee's safe and effective mobility options to dance around the stage and avoid being placed into that position.

Positional play in Smash 4 is more about being in a position to more easily KO from the stage, rather than having to run the risk of chasing them off-stage. Again, apples and oranges.

"Because melee actually allows for an incredibly in depth mental game. Just because you can't surmount the technical barrier and play intelligently doesnt mean that intelligent play doesn't matter or is of reduced significance in melee."

You might as well have admitted defeat here, resorting to ad hominem to try to make a point. You understand that it IS possible to both be a competent Melee player AND take issue with the game's design, right? Not to mention that you've never seen me play, or have ever even spoken to anyone who has played me. But because I take issue with the game's design, I must be a poor player, right? Your post was ALMOST mature and intelligent until you resorted to that nonsense.

Intelligent play ALWAYS matters, but Melee's pacing and design place far more emphasis on dexterity and reflex and on read-and-react than it does strategic development and timing.

Your explanations for everything actually conclude the opposite of what you say they do too. This being the most laughable example.

And how are Smash 4's rewards homogenous? Melee's rewards are no less so, with the reward being either a KO, combo, or positional advantage..

You listed three options for the outcome of melee's rewards after claiming they were homogeneous. Homogeneous means one. Which so far I would say is true of Smash4 because there are no 0 to deaths or extended combos, most of the match is only positional advantage.

But that's not my point in showing the quote, I don't want to bash a game that is so young. The point is that most of your arguments actually agree with what me and @ Circle_Breaker are saying , but you claim they mean the opposite. Your stating random things about melee, then saying they support your argument.

You're also downplaying Smash 4's positional game simply because it doesn't operate like Melee's. Melee's positional game is largely about pushing your opponent off-stage because it's such a risky place to be. That, of course, encourages abusing Melee's safe and effective mobility options to dance around the stage and avoid being placed into that position...

You described the point of every smash game, get your opponent off stage, then said it supported your argument. In every game you try not to be in an unfavourable position. Brawl and smash4 do the same, but just hella-slow, with few options to approach or evade. That's where the depth comes from, many options to evade means many to approach and react with. Its a double edge sword, thus the depth is created. Brawl and smash4 offer few options to evade and few to approach, so there is less for each player to consider.

Your techskill is ultimately what is coming into question not because you cant both be good and critique a game, but because your critique is nonsensical and counter intuitive. I honestly think you only play brawl.

 

[Praxis]

@ Alondite , reading your posts- it seems like you're so close- you're able to analyze something, and carry through and right before the conclusion mix in a faulty premise you get something horribly wrong and get the opposite results.

I'm not saying this to insult you, but I'm going to write up a big response to the premise I found most mistaken:

Half of that is objectively false, and the other half is actually good design. Do you not realize that even landing an attack safely is a reward in and of itself? How much more reward do you want for landing a hit in neutral play against a skilled player? Limited follow-ups and combo stings are a GOOD thing because they reduce negative space. The faster the game can get back to neutral play while still rewarding the player for sound play, the better, because neutral is where the overwhelming majority of the game's depth exists.

This is a completely faulty premise. Limited followups and combo strings are the opposite of good design, and here's why.


There are generally (to massively simplify) three ways in which hits land:

A: An option in which care has been given to guarantee minimum cooldown. This is almost always an approaching attack. (Examples: autocancelled aerial in Brawl, late L-cancelled aerial in Melee, late aerial in Marvel vs Capcom or Street Fighter, meaty attack in Street Fighter, etc).

B: An option trying only to get a hit at all costs, ignoring the ending. This is almost always a defensive measure, among good players. A "get off me" option. (Example: Aerial OOS in Smash, wake up Shoryuken in Street Fighter, etc)

C: A projectile.

Note that trying to get setups for A gives you the risk of getting punished by B.

In a game with strong punishments, A is inherently superior to B and C. B and C just do damage. You want to do A at all times. Because A gives you a followup. Once you do A you can get multiple other hits.


In a game with weak punishments, on the other hand, this isn't the case. A doesn't have very strong followups. A isn't that much better than B. Being B isn't that bad of a situation. In fact, C might be the best option, because it does almost as much damage as A without any of the risk.


Brawl's an extreme example of low punishments. And what's the result? Projectile is almost always the best option. You approach if their projectile game is better than yours. If they do get through your projectiles, landing a defensive hit is just about as good as an aggressive hit anyway so you're not in a bad position.


Now compare to Melee- running away and spamming C generally isn't that great, because when they get through the projectiles their shot at A has much better reward than your shot at B.


Strong punishments inherently encourages approach and less camping.

Smash 4's in between- approaches are a little better, and most projectiles are nerfed if you're not Duck Hunt Dog, but not enormously so. But the design advantage here is clearly to Melee. And I'm not saying "stronger punishment = better design to infinity", or Smash 64 and Marvel vs Capcom 2 would be undoubtedly the best game of all time, but I'm saying that weak punishments is generally bad.

Melee's in a pretty perfect sweet spot- even the strongest punishments in the game never do more than 25% of your game (one stock), and these are extremely rare.


The second thing is that Low Punishments = No comebacks. This is actually really simple to explain. We'll measure hits in reads. Let's assume you're in neutral a lot, and you get a hit every time you outread your opponent.

If punishments are weak, it might take 15 reads to get a powerful lead- it'll take the losing player 10-20 more reads (depending on strength) to catch back up. So it is now in the best interests of the winning player to play as safely as possible (to guarantee you can only get weak hits) to drag this lead out as long as possible.

Thus, if punishments are weak, comebacks almost never happen. And this is very true of Brawl. Comebacks are much more rare in Brawl compared to Melee, because generally the first person to take a stock goes in to camp mode to keep from getting hit with a kill move (since there's few setups) and continues to maintain the status quo. In Melee, the winning player has to be careful- his entire lead can fall apart with one bad mistake.

In Melee, the winning player might have a 15-read-lead, but he can lose it all if the losing player makes two or three really good reads. That means the winning player still has to interact and try to end the game, because the losing player poses a threat.

Still don't believe me?

Look at any other competitive game. I'm going to take two that I have played seriously with competitive players.

Texas Hold 'Em Poker.

Texas Hold 'Em has hard punishments. A single game should go for dozens of hands, but you can literally lose your entire game in your very first decision. ("All in. Call.")

Poker allows major comebacks.

Why? Because there is no betting limits. The losing player can make a hard read, go All In, and double up (or triple up or more, if he is losing to a whole table). That means the losing player is always a threat, because he can suddenly be back in the game with one or two good decisions- so winning players will take risks to take out losing players. If comebacks like this weren't possible, the winning player would never take a risk, because hey, he's winning, what's the losing player gonna do?

Now let's compare to a couple theoretical alternatives to Poker that are what you think are better game design- weaker punishes.

Let's say we cap raises to 3x the previous raise. You can't use the threat of "All In" as a big whallop to force folds, you have to work up to it.

Suddenly, you have a game in which comebacks rarely happen. Why? Because you can't land a big whallop. You're just going to trade sets. So one you are behind, you can't really catch up easily. Even if you make a hard read, no matter how hard that read is, you can't double up or accomplish anything huge off of it. You can only get so much out of it.

This is Poker with lighter punishes. Comebacks are harder and games run longer because you can't quickly finish off your opponent or make huge swings in gameplay off of clever play.

This game is not as good as the original. Nowhere near. It wouldn't have competitive play. There are variants of Poker that are somewhat like this, and they don't have competitive followings. They're great to play with your kids though.


You might be tempted to say "Well, we can fix that with a comeback mechanic, like a stronger version of Rage, or Lucario's Aura, or a blue shell."

Let's make another example: Poker with Rubber Banding. Let's say half the ante goes to the player with the smallest chip stack.

This does not contribute to player skill; all this does is keep the weakest player in the game longer. It can certainly result in comebacks, as the extra ante gives the weakest player enough money to take a hand they otherwise wouldn't have been able to, but in general, it's just going to slow the game down as the losing player will take longer to lose because he keeps getting an influx of chips.

In the context of competitive games (and not party games), it's better to allow comebacks via player skill via hard punish options than to make artificial comebacks by rewarding the losing player (a la Mario Kart item distribution and blue shells, or Pity Final Smashes, etc).


Chess is another decent example. I won't go as far in depth on this one, but basically, when you take a piece, you permanently reduce your opponent's ability to control space. Chess thus snowballs by nature. Taking a piece increases your ability to take your next space by increasing your control of your opponent and your ability to get the next piece because you can now pin their pieces.

Often, the first person to cleanly take a point lead will convert it in to a win. In fact, it's considered a key skill for chess players to convert a small material lead in to a win.

Competitive Chess punishes a single lost piece very hard.

Intelligent play ALWAYS matters, but Melee's pacing and design place far more emphasis on dexterity and reflex and on read-and-react than it does strategic development and timing.

This is, honestly, very incorrect. There's so much subtlety and mental gaming in Melee and it's mostly mental among top players. I'd say, for example, Hax and Silent Wolf have better dexterity and reflex than Hungrybox, and maybe even Armada. Both always lose to them.

Melee is mostly mental, but there's a big physical component as well.

If Basketball had a hoop that was only five feet high making dunks easy, would it be an automatically better game? The physical component is a different discussion. But saying "The hoop is really high, therefore the game is only about physical ability compared to the version with the low hoop which is all mental" would be to completely disregard the fact that the high hoop version has just as much mental play.

As someone who's played both Brawl and Melee competitively, the guessing games are just in completely different places, and it's very easy for someone who was really good in one game and not the other to straight up miss them because they're looking in the wrong places for the guessing games.

 

[Alondite]

The Ice Climbers aren't "so ludicrous" because they are too good, but because they have by far the worst balancing, being equal parts useless and massively rewarding. Their main option is predictable, but that makes it no less safe or rewarding. It's not difficult to grab someone in Smash, especially when you have a projectile that can force your opponent to come to you.

The reasons that Ice Climbers are poorly designed are actually not the same issues that I have with Melee. I mean, they were even more horribly designed in Brawl. With the exception of having a good wavedash, they really aren't succeptible to Melee's gameplay-limiting design elements because they simply don't play in a way where it's advantageous to abuse those elements. They are bad design for their own reasons.

"Melee is four stocks per game. This means that a 0-death is more or less equivalent to a 25% combo in other fighting games. This is not an insane amount of reward. This is basically par for the course. Longer games with more critical moments of interaction per match generally lead to safer, more defensive play as mental "fatigue" is a very real phenomenon. It's why Smash4 matches have already been reduced to two-stock, and Brawl got as low as 1 stock at the end of its lifespan. People don't want a fighting game emphasizing reaction time and fast, complex interactions to stretch on for more than five minutes or so on average."

But Smash utilizes far more dynamics, and that's important to realize because it dramatically influences the game and makes it very different from traditional fighters.

Traditional fighters employ the dynamics of time and space. Every single action/interaction in the game plays off of these two dynamics. Attacks move through space and take time to initiate and resolve. All of the decision-making requires evaluating how your actions work in the context of these dynamics.

Smash Bros also employs these dynamics, but it also employs several more that add additional layers of complexity to Smash's gameplay. Those additional dynamics are gravity, damage percent, and to a lesser extent, knockback trajectory. I'm sure I don't need to explain how these additional dynamics make Smash Bros different.

Now considering those differences, think about how KOs and damage are handled. Games like Street Fighter handle health on a linear scale, it decreases until it reaches 0 and a character is KOed. It is not a gameplay dynamic because it doesn't have a functional effect on any of the other mechanics. You can't simply gimp an opponent with a well-placed off-stage aerial and end the match, you need to bring their health down to 0.

So yes, 1/4 stocks is 25%, but whereas dealing 25% damage is going to be roughly the same each time, taking one stock in Smash can be dramatically different from taking any other stock. You may land a 0%-death combo, or your opponent may live to 200%. You can't simply land a set amount of hits to KO your opponent, you need to knock them out of one of the blast zones, so achieving a KO counts for more than doing 25% damage, even if it is 1/4 of your opponents stock. Rewards are dynamic depending on a number of factors, so 1/4 doesn't necessarily translate into 25% of the match's total "work."

And the bit explaining longer matches and mental fatigue isn't a negative thing. Mental fatigue is a part of mental competition. There isn't one type of competition that is superior to others, so with that you're simply pointing out differences.

"Very few if any movement options in melee are obsolete due to wavedashing or anything else. You call my accusation that you lack melee experience an ad-hominem attack, but you continue to prove that you lack an understanding of melee's finer points throughout your reply. As far as redundant options in a limited moveset, your point is somewhat agreeable because they are replacing other potentially more diverse options. Unfortunately for your argument, wavedashing/directional airdodges don't remove any options, they only add them."

Walking is more or less obsolete. That's not really the issue, though. I understand Melee's finer points, and I also understand what elements make the game worse than it would otherwise be without them. The game would be better without dash dancing because what is often the most powerful mobility option would require commitment, and a degree of risk and planning that it does not currently possess. It would also be better without L-canceling because it would reduce combos, effectively cutting out negative space, and would shift the focus away from aerial attacks which are already superior to ground attacks because their hitboxes move through more space, and because they can by used in far more situations. Aerials are generally much safer than most grounded moves because of L-canceling, making many of them obsolete or with very limited use. It also reduces risk and commitment to the action, which limits the mental component involved.

Because the game is not designed to accommodate these elements, the system breaks down and focuses on only those elements which are supported by them. That is, many previously viable strategies become less safe, and less effective, and others are strengthened. It sort of "pigeonholes" the gameplay to a particular style of play that you have to adhere to to be effective. And that's the main issue. Brawl did the same thing to the opposite extreme. I'm always amused by Melee fans bashing Brawl and vice-versa, because each game essentially has the same flaws, only on opposite ends of the spectrum.

"This simply isn't true. Even with a successful L-cancel many aerials are punishable by a grab. Even perfect space animal shield pressure has windows where a well timed grab from the majority characters will land. You're drastically overrating the safety and strength of shield pressure in melee, which seems to be a common mistake for people who don't actually play the game on that level. I apologize if you are in fact gdlk but you have very strange views on the melee meta."

I'm not making statements about Melee in a vacuum, I'm making them relative to other Smash Bros games.With the exception of Smash 64, offensive play in Melee is much, much safer than in the other games. The safety of shield pressure isn't the issue so much as the fact that it exists at all. Why should an opponent ever be punished for countering an action with what is designed to be a counter for that action?

I understand that other fighters have pressure games as well, but they have chip damage and don't have dynamically deteriorating blocks. Smash's shield is designed to be a powerful defensive option, which is why characters suffer no chip damage, and why it deteriorates when held. You can even grab out of it. And then there are things like shield damage and shield pokes designed to circumvent players abusing the strength of shielding. Shield pressure lessens the effectiveness of shielding even more, and it's something that the game is not designed to respond to (because L-canceling is really what makes it possible), so the very use of the shield has to change to accomodate these new rules. Barring situations where your opponent is obviously using something laggy, or is being obvious in general, shielding becomes largely about trying to get a perfect shield, because it's really the only way to guarantee that you won't get trapped in your shield. Once again, Melee becomes about read-and-react. Things like wavedashing and dash-dancing are generally more effective defensive options because you don't have to suffer a hit, they require little commitment, and you can do just about any action out of them.

The combined offensive power of these elements turns the game into a game of running around the stage either looking to bait-and-punish, or waiting for your opponent to try to make a mistake that you can capitalize on.

"5. Punishes are most definitely almost always less rewarding than a successful offensive setup. If this wasn't so, there would be very little reason to approach, but a cursory look at the melee meta will show that this is indeed not the case. There's always cases of 0-death punishes from characters like Falco, whose fastest punishing tool is also his most reliable combo starter, but generally being forced to punish means you will have a less than ideal selection of moves and a less than ideal stage position to do it with, unless you get very lucky. If you'd like to see a game where punishes are actually just as rewarding as offensive setups, look at Brawl and Smash4."

But because defensive options in Melee are so much weaker than offensive options, merely attacking, even purposely out of range, can force a defensive action from an opponent and immediately put you at an advantage. I main Marth, and I regularly throw out covering fairs to push opponents around the stage, and often forcing them into a shield or a dodge or some defensive option. In the event of a shield, I'm now at an advantage because they are committed and their options are limited. My most common punish for this is a crossed-up short-hop dair, because it's pretty safe on tip (which I rarely miss), and punishes attempted grabs quite heavily because it deals pretty decent damage and sets up for a tipped smash or other combos. All of that from just pretending to attack. Brawl is the extreme opposite, but worse in this regard because it discourages interaction in a medium defined by interaction.

"6. Depth in Melee: here, I'm just going to quote very extensively from a poster on reddit who has said all of this before me and better than me."

I'm very glad that you did, because it's an argument that I'm already very familliar with. Unfortunately, it's not an original post, it's basically a copy-paste of David Sirlin's definition of depth (assuming that the poster wasn't David himself), which has already been proven to be incorrect and poor use of language by Richard Terrell.

You can read several of his essays/series' on the subject at the following links:

http://critical-gaming.com/blog/2012/7/7/depth-from-complexity-pt1.html

http://critical-gaming.com/blog/2010/9/8/puji-full-analysis-depth-clarification.html

http://critical-gaming.squarespace.com/blog/2009/4/1/counterpoint-the-depth-of-interplay-pt1.html

The number of options available to a player is not analogous to "existing below the surface," as the definition of depth states. That is more in line with the definition of "complexity," which is neither a good nor bad thing on its own. Not only that, but I outlined above in another post what is essentially that exact same game of RPS and explained why more options doesn't necessarily equate to more gameplay potential.

And I love that he cited RPSLS, because that game has become the go-to example for gameplay redundancy.

RPSLS doesn't add any more to the game because every option still weighted exactly the same as in standard RPS, the only difference is that there are more options to select from. Instead one one option beating one and losing to one, it beats two and loses to two. Functionally the added moves are 100% redundant. It's complexity without depth, which just obscures the core game with a shroud of redundancy and needless complexity that you have to sift through first.

"Also, you're right in that the combo itself isn't necessarily an example of depth regarding player interaction. But it is a cause of depth, because it makes some options more threatening than others. In Melee there are pokes, which are safe, low risk and low reward, and there are combo starters, which are typically higher risk and higher reward. When the combo starters are low risk, they become a very attractive option and thus easier to predict and counter. Smash 4 takes all this away by basically reducing every option to have the same reward (one hit), so all that matters is the safety of the option. Thus we see very safe play."

You're talking about a lot more here than you realize. You're also comparing apples and oranges again. First, combos top out at 3 levels of interplay, or 3 layers of depth. Attack> DI/hitstun> Follow-up> DI/hitstun. Do you see how DI/hitstun loops? That's the end of the depth because the interplay repeats from that point. And because there's no risk to attacking a player in hitstun, and because the player in hitstun can do nothing but DI, it's functionally negative space that is infinitely less engaging than neutral play. Combos are the opposite of depth, they are simply extending one level of interplay for additional rewards. Rewards disproportional to the risk involved, I might add. There's really no reason NOT to combo, it's an empty decision.

You forgot to point out that there are pokes in Melee which can also start combos. That sort of functional overlap is all over the place in Melee, and it reduces potential variability of options and increases the likelyhood of there being obsolete options.

Now when you bring Smash 4 into the mix is when you start to lose sight of your argument here. You're comparing the two as if they are mechanically identical, except Melee has more variable rewards. But the nuances of the mechanics in Melee and Smash 4 are very different, which fundamentally changes how each game is played because it changes the risk and reward for every action. Video games are mental contests that revolve around decision-making based upon weighing the risks and rewards of all of your available options. Even subtle changes to the mechanics can have a dramatic influence on the emergent gameplay.

Have you never considered that perhaps even being able to land an attack in Smash 4 is the reward for everything that you've done leading up to it? Given that attacks are generally laggier and defensive options are more powerful, even landing an attack in Smash 4 is a reward because it's far more difficult and there is more commitment required for virtually every action.

Landing an attack or creating an advantage in Melee does not require as much "work," because the wealth of available options are, thanks to the "advanced techs" you all love to dote on, compressed into a few obviously-best options that are heavily weighted toward offense. Melee has far less gameplay in neutral because it has far less interplay variety, which is why Melee's core gameplay has to extend out of neutral into combo games.

But Melee is not better or more deep because it extends out of neutral, because there is less unique interplay in Melee's neutral than there is in Smash 4's. You don't have zero-commitment mobility options in Smash 4, you have to be more deliberate in your movements, you can't cut half the lag out of aerials, so you have to be more conscious of which aerials you're throwing out, you need to be more precise with your spacing because shield drop speed is higher, etc. etc. Everything you do matters because everything has inherent risk. Risk is what creates interesting decisions, and Melee trivializes risk by removing lag and commitment from so many actions, resulting in actions that are not meaningful. And what risk there is is blown out of proportion because rewards are so massive, so you avoid taking any action which might possess even a small amount of risk. The resulting game results in a handful of viable options that you see used in some form in virtually every Melee match.

And there are combos in Smash 4, they just aren't as long. Nor should they be, because shorter combos keeps the gameplay in neutral for a larger percentage of the match's life, and the deepest gameplay exists in neutral. Not only that, but combo-starters in Smash 4 are really designated as combo-starters and don't really have much other purpose because they have little reward on their own. In Melee, half of a character's moveset can legitimately start a combo. And because combos are such a significant portion of Melee's game, moves which don't combo as well typically don't see much use unless they have some other very distinct purpose.

Smash 4 has obvious combo-starters with little other purpose, obvious KO moves, obvious GTFO moves, etc. etc. There's greater diversity in actions because each action has a more well-defined purpose, which in turn makes its counter more well-defined. Clarity allows players to more easily make informed decisions and to exercise their knowledge of the system. Melee is more obscure by comparison, it doesn't communicate these things as well. I feel like I'm on autopilot when playing Melee half the time, like muscle-memory is just acting as a reflex to whatever situation is represented on-screen. When I play Smash 4, my brain feels completely saturated, constantly mulling over the situation, my options, and weighing those options. Feedback in particular is one area where Smash 4 outright Godstomps Melee, and there really is no way to argue against that one because it is very plainly observable.

". Again you seem to misunderstand that an imbalance in risk and reward is the source of competitive depth rather than a reduction of depth. Smash 4's mechanics DO NOT encourage offstage play. The player chasing the opponent offstage will usually be putting his or her self at disproportionate risk of a stage spike or gimp, and often gives up favorable stage position. The better strategy is to remain safely at the edge of the stage and try to intercept the recovery with projectiles or a hitbox that can cover an airdodge until you can KO them outright."

You don't understand what I mean by risk:reward balancing. I don't mean that every option has equal risk and reward. If that's the case, then what purpose to other options serve? Risk:reward balancing means that the reward gained from an action is proportionate to the risk involved in taking it. That's what creates meaningful decision-making. Choosing between a high-risk, high-reward option, and a low-risk, low-reward option is interesting because it's in balance, choosing between a high-risk, high-reward, and a low-risk, high-reward is not because one option is obviously better than the other. Ambiguity of options forces a player to dig into their knowledge and skill to create a solution, rather than simply choosing the best one.

And yes, Smash 4's mechanics do encourage off-stage play for a number of reasons.

1. KOing from the stage usually doesn't happen until high percents, or with high-risk moves. Since chasing an opponent off-stage allows you KO them much sooner, there is a high reward involved.

2. Neutral play dominates Smash 4. Advantages are rare, so it's important to press one when you have it. Knocking an opponent off-stage gives you an advantage. The risk involved in pressing it is high, but so is the reward.

3. In order to avoid being gimped or stage-spiked, it's important to consider positioning and attack choice. I can't tell you how many times I've safely spiked with Marth's dair just by positioning myself properly.

4. Not all characters have projectiles, and even those that do still generally get higher rewards for chasing off-stage...even if you're chasing with projectiles. Being closer makes it easier to aim because of the dynamics of time and space.

5. Fall speeds are lower and recoveries are better. Air dodges are also far safer and can be used off-stage.

7. An opponent attacking or air-dodging can, and often does place them in a worse situation because committing to that action may make it impossible to recover, and they might not even kill you. As such, it might not be very risky to chase off-stage. It really depends on the match-up. I don't ever hesitate to chase Mac off-stage, or to chase just about anyone right off the screen with Jiggly.

8. Ledge mechanics even promote being off-stage sometimes.

You can never look at one element in a vacuum, because they are all a part of a system that works together.

"I understand that off stage play CAN be exciting in Smash4 if both players co-operate with Sakurai's vision and avoid abusing the safest and best options"

But what is best isn't always obvious. Fast, multiple air-dodges and great recoveries make it difficult to keep someone off-stage with projectiles. And projectiles themselves are generally weaker and laggier. The best option is more ambiguous, which creates meaningful decision-making.

"The two elements don't have a mutually exclusive relationship. The speed of thought isn't a set limit, it is a skill that can be developed with practice. It is possible for a game to be fasterand deeper (see: Melee)."

No it's not. The action frequency and the amount of thought put into each action are functional inverses. It's physically impossible to increase both in unison. Trust me, I know. I'm a research Biomechanist by profession, it's my job to study the relationship between input and outcome, and how small variables in technique and execution change the outcome.

Skill is entirely different. But no matter how good you get at thinking quickly, you will ALWAYS be able to think about more if given more time. Always and without exception.

"You've spoken like every player ever who has failed to master Melee's mechanics and instead chooses to see them as broken or stupid. "

I've never said that they are broken or stupid. I play and enjoy Melee very much, but I'm objective, and I'm able to set aside my own opinion and preferences and look at Melee as a mechanical interactive system and how its design creates or limits gameplay potential. I'm a competent Melee player, and I'm intimately familliar with game design, moreso even than I am with Biomechanics, in which I have a Master's degree.

"This image of Melee as a hyper fast paced 0-death ridden techskill spamfest is ridiculous."

I never said that that's what it was. I simply stated that many of the design elements that people love to praise actually limit gameplay potential.

People don't like Melee because it's deeper than any other Smash Bros game or has more gameplay potential. That's because the overwhelming majority of gamers don't actually care about gameplay. In fact, most gamers even dislike gameplay, and instead prefer games with more shallow gameplay systems.

If you don't believe me, then go ahead and look at sales trends and review scores.

People like Melee for reasons that are far more attributable to human nature and psychology than to the quality of the game's interactive systems.

1. Melee is fast and exciting.
2. Melee LOOKS impressive
3. Melee makes players feel skilled

Those are the three main reasons why some people prefer Melee over the other games. #1 is pretty self-explanatory. Looking impressive helps to validate it to the competitive fighting game community, and people constantly require validation. It also makes it fun to watch. Pushing a lot of buttons quickly and doing combos make people feel skilled, which of course people like.

"You don't simply "take issue with the game's design", you show a complete lack of understanding of the current meta and the advantages and disadvantages associated with melee's various options."

If I knew as much about game design when Melee came out as I do now, I very likely could have even predicted that it would have ended up exactly where it is now. Emergence comes from design, so understanding a game's design helps you understand what possibilities are likely to emerge.

You're looking at Melee in a vacuum, or are forcing apples-to-oranges comparisons of other games in ways that make it easy to favor Melee.

You like Melee and want it to be a good game with considerable competitive depth, because it supports your choice-supportive bias to being a Melee fan. So you over-generalize and gloss-over comparisons to other games while simultaneously overstating Melee's elements and make them out to be much more than they actually are. You're "dressing them up," so to speak, rather than stripping them down and looking at what is actually happening.

" Generally it seems as though you support design elements that reduce the skill ceiling, which is okay, but it's very hard to argue that it leads to a game with more competitive integrity."

And you define the skill ceiling defining skill as dexterity. In your eyes, the more quick and complex the required button inputs, the more skill a game requires. That characters who require high levels of dexterity (or "tech skill," if you prefer), or respond more to accurately pushing a more complex and/or rapid sequence of buttons, have higher skill ceilings.

But dexterity is only one element of skill, and in a medium where physical ability is downplayed in favor of mental ability, dexterity should be the LEAST emphasized element of the skill spectrum. You should never be better than someone else at a video game simply because the anatomical and biomechanical structure of your hands grants you better finger speed and fine motor skills. Developing muscle memory and the ability to make controller inputs does matter, but it should be downplayed as much as possible. The Wii remote is different altogether, so we won't open that can of worms.

And for the record, I don't lack for dexterity. In fact, the research lead at the university where I work has gone so far as to call me a "freak of nature" because I perform, on average, more than two standard deviations higher than average on every biomechanical test he's devised.

But you've illustrated pretty clearly what you value in video games and why you work so hard to defend Melee, so I don't feel the need to continue this any further. It's been an interesting experiment, thank you.

 

[Circle_Breaker]

The Ice Climbers aren't "so ludicrous" because they are too good, but because they have by far the worst balancing, being equal parts useless and massively rewarding. Their main option is predictable, but that makes it no less safe or rewarding. It's not difficult to grab someone in Smash, especially when you have a projectile that can force your opponent to come to you.

The reasons that Ice Climbers are poorly designed are actually not the same issues that I have with Melee. I mean, they were even more horribly designed in Brawl. With the exception of having a good wavedash, they really aren't succeptible to Melee's gameplay-limiting design elements because they simply don't play in a way where it's advantageous to abuse those elements. They are bad design for their own reasons.

"Melee is four stocks per game. This means that a 0-death is more or less equivalent to a 25% combo in other fighting games. This is not an insane amount of reward. This is basically par for the course. Longer games with more critical moments of interaction per match generally lead to safer, more defensive play as mental "fatigue" is a very real phenomenon. It's why Smash4 matches have already been reduced to two-stock, and Brawl got as low as 1 stock at the end of its lifespan. People don't want a fighting game emphasizing reaction time and fast, complex interactions to stretch on for more than five minutes or so on average."

But Smash utilizes far more dynamics, and that's important to realize because it dramatically influences the game and makes it very different from traditional fighters.

Traditional fighters employ the dynamics of time and space. Every single action/interaction in the game plays off of these two dynamics. Attacks move through space and take time to initiate and resolve. All of the decision-making requires evaluating how your actions work in the context of these dynamics.

Smash Bros also employs these dynamics, but it also employs several more that add additional layers of complexity to Smash's gameplay. Those additional dynamics are gravity, damage percent, and to a lesser extent, knockback trajectory. I'm sure I don't need to explain how these additional dynamics make Smash Bros different.

Now considering those differences, think about how KOs and damage are handled. Games like Street Fighter handle health on a linear scale, it decreases until it reaches 0 and a character is KOed. It is not a gameplay dynamic because it doesn't have a functional effect on any of the other mechanics. You can't simply gimp an opponent with a well-placed off-stage aerial and end the match, you need to bring their health down to 0.

So yes, 1/4 stocks is 25%, but whereas dealing 25% damage is going to be roughly the same each time, taking one stock in Smash can be dramatically different from taking any other stock. You may land a 0%-death combo, or your opponent may live to 200%. You can't simply land a set amount of hits to KO your opponent, you need to knock them out of one of the blast zones, so achieving a KO counts for more than doing 25% damage, even if it is 1/4 of your opponents stock. Rewards are dynamic depending on a number of factors, so 1/4 doesn't necessarily translate into 25% of the match's total "work."

And the bit explaining longer matches and mental fatigue isn't a negative thing. Mental fatigue is a part of mental competition. There isn't one type of competition that is superior to others, so with that you're simply pointing out differences.

"Very few if any movement options in melee are obsolete due to wavedashing or anything else. You call my accusation that you lack melee experience an ad-hominem attack, but you continue to prove that you lack an understanding of melee's finer points throughout your reply. As far as redundant options in a limited moveset, your point is somewhat agreeable because they are replacing other potentially more diverse options. Unfortunately for your argument, wavedashing/directional airdodges don't remove any options, they only add them."

Walking is more or less obsolete. That's not really the issue, though. I understand Melee's finer points, and I also understand what elements make the game worse than it would otherwise be without them. The game would be better without dash dancing because what is often the most powerful mobility option would require commitment, and a degree of risk and planning that it does not currently possess. It would also be better without L-canceling because it would reduce combos, effectively cutting out negative space, and would shift the focus away from aerial attacks which are already superior to ground attacks because their hitboxes move through more space, and because they can by used in far more situations. Aerials are generally much safer than most grounded moves because of L-canceling, making many of them obsolete or with very limited use. It also reduces risk and commitment to the action, which limits the mental component involved.

Because the game is not designed to accommodate these elements, the system breaks down and focuses on only those elements which are supported by them. That is, many previously viable strategies become less safe, and less effective, and others are strengthened. It sort of "pigeonholes" the gameplay to a particular style of play that you have to adhere to to be effective. And that's the main issue. Brawl did the same thing to the opposite extreme. I'm always amused by Melee fans bashing Brawl and vice-versa, because each game essentially has the same flaws, only on opposite ends of the spectrum.

"This simply isn't true. Even with a successful L-cancel many aerials are punishable by a grab. Even perfect space animal shield pressure has windows where a well timed grab from the majority characters will land. You're drastically overrating the safety and strength of shield pressure in melee, which seems to be a common mistake for people who don't actually play the game on that level. I apologize if you are in fact gdlk but you have very strange views on the melee meta."

I'm not making statements about Melee in a vacuum, I'm making them relative to other Smash Bros games.With the exception of Smash 64, offensive play in Melee is much, much safer than in the other games. The safety of shield pressure isn't the issue so much as the fact that it exists at all. Why should an opponent ever be punished for countering an action with what is designed to be a counter for that action?

I understand that other fighters have pressure games as well, but they have chip damage and don't have dynamically deteriorating blocks. Smash's shield is designed to be a powerful defensive option, which is why characters suffer no chip damage, and why it deteriorates when held. You can even grab out of it. And then there are things like shield damage and shield pokes designed to circumvent players abusing the strength of shielding. Shield pressure lessens the effectiveness of shielding even more, and it's something that the game is not designed to respond to (because L-canceling is really what makes it possible), so the very use of the shield has to change to accomodate these new rules. Barring situations where your opponent is obviously using something laggy, or is being obvious in general, shielding becomes largely about trying to get a perfect shield, because it's really the only way to guarantee that you won't get trapped in your shield. Once again, Melee becomes about read-and-react. Things like wavedashing and dash-dancing are generally more effective defensive options because you don't have to suffer a hit, they require little commitment, and you can do just about any action out of them.

The combined offensive power of these elements turns the game into a game of running around the stage either looking to bait-and-punish, or waiting for your opponent to try to make a mistake that you can capitalize on.

"5. Punishes are most definitely almost always less rewarding than a successful offensive setup. If this wasn't so, there would be very little reason to approach, but a cursory look at the melee meta will show that this is indeed not the case. There's always cases of 0-death punishes from characters like Falco, whose fastest punishing tool is also his most reliable combo starter, but generally being forced to punish means you will have a less than ideal selection of moves and a less than ideal stage position to do it with, unless you get very lucky. If you'd like to see a game where punishes are actually just as rewarding as offensive setups, look at Brawl and Smash4."

But because defensive options in Melee are so much weaker than offensive options, merely attacking, even purposely out of range, can force a defensive action from an opponent and immediately put you at an advantage. I main Marth, and I regularly throw out covering fairs to push opponents around the stage, and often forcing them into a shield or a dodge or some defensive option. In the event of a shield, I'm now at an advantage because they are committed and their options are limited. My most common punish for this is a crossed-up short-hop dair, because it's pretty safe on tip (which I rarely miss), and punishes attempted grabs quite heavily because it deals pretty decent damage and sets up for a tipped smash or other combos. All of that from just pretending to attack. Brawl is the extreme opposite, but worse in this regard because it discourages interaction in a medium defined by interaction.

"6. Depth in Melee: here, I'm just going to quote very extensively from a poster on reddit who has said all of this before me and better than me."

I'm very glad that you did, because it's an argument that I'm already very familliar with. Unfortunately, it's not an original post, it's basically a copy-paste of David Sirlin's definition of depth (assuming that the poster wasn't David himself), which has already been proven to be incorrect and poor use of language by Richard Terrell.

You can read several of his essays/series' on the subject at the following links:

http://critical-gaming.com/blog/2012/7/7/depth-from-complexity-pt1.html

http://critical-gaming.com/blog/2010/9/8/puji-full-analysis-depth-clarification.html

http://critical-gaming.squarespace.com/blog/2009/4/1/counterpoint-the-depth-of-interplay-pt1.html

The number of options available to a player is not analogous to "existing below the surface," as the definition of depth states. That is more in line with the definition of "complexity," which is neither a good nor bad thing on its own. Not only that, but I outlined above in another post what is essentially that exact same game of RPS and explained why more options doesn't necessarily equate to more gameplay potential.

And I love that he cited RPSLS, because that game has become the go-to example for gameplay redundancy.

RPSLS doesn't add any more to the game because every option still weighted exactly the same as in standard RPS, the only difference is that there are more options to select from. Instead one one option beating one and losing to one, it beats two and loses to two. Functionally the added moves are 100% redundant. It's complexity without depth, which just obscures the core game with a shroud of redundancy and needless complexity that you have to sift through first.

"Also, you're right in that the combo itself isn't necessarily an example of depth regarding player interaction. But it is a cause of depth, because it makes some options more threatening than others. In Melee there are pokes, which are safe, low risk and low reward, and there are combo starters, which are typically higher risk and higher reward. When the combo starters are low risk, they become a very attractive option and thus easier to predict and counter. Smash 4 takes all this away by basically reducing every option to have the same reward (one hit), so all that matters is the safety of the option. Thus we see very safe play."

You're talking about a lot more here than you realize. You're also comparing apples and oranges again. First, combos top out at 3 levels of interplay, or 3 layers of depth. Attack> DI/hitstun> Follow-up> DI/hitstun. Do you see how DI/hitstun loops? That's the end of the depth because the interplay repeats from that point. And because there's no risk to attacking a player in hitstun, and because the player in hitstun can do nothing but DI, it's functionally negative space that is infinitely less engaging than neutral play. Combos are the opposite of depth, they are simply extending one level of interplay for additional rewards. Rewards disproportional to the risk involved, I might add. There's really no reason NOT to combo, it's an empty decision.

You forgot to point out that there are pokes in Melee which can also start combos. That sort of functional overlap is all over the place in Melee, and it reduces potential variability of options and increases the likelyhood of there being obsolete options.

Now when you bring Smash 4 into the mix is when you start to lose sight of your argument here. You're comparing the two as if they are mechanically identical, except Melee has more variable rewards. But the nuances of the mechanics in Melee and Smash 4 are very different, which fundamentally changes how each game is played because it changes the risk and reward for every action. Video games are mental contests that revolve around decision-making based upon weighing the risks and rewards of all of your available options. Even subtle changes to the mechanics can have a dramatic influence on the emergent gameplay.

Have you never considered that perhaps even being able to land an attack in Smash 4 is the reward for everything that you've done leading up to it? Given that attacks are generally laggier and defensive options are more powerful, even landing an attack in Smash 4 is a reward because it's far more difficult and there is more commitment required for virtually every action.

Landing an attack or creating an advantage in Melee does not require as much "work," because the wealth of available options are, thanks to the "advanced techs" you all love to dote on, compressed into a few obviously-best options that are heavily weighted toward offense. Melee has far less gameplay in neutral because it has far less interplay variety, which is why Melee's core gameplay has to extend out of neutral into combo games.

But Melee is not better or more deep because it extends out of neutral, because there is less unique interplay in Melee's neutral than there is in Smash 4's. You don't have zero-commitment mobility options in Smash 4, you have to be more deliberate in your movements, you can't cut half the lag out of aerials, so you have to be more conscious of which aerials you're throwing out, you need to be more precise with your spacing because shield drop speed is higher, etc. etc. Everything you do matters because everything has inherent risk. Risk is what creates interesting decisions, and Melee trivializes risk by removing lag and commitment from so many actions, resulting in actions that are not meaningful. And what risk there is is blown out of proportion because rewards are so massive, so you avoid taking any action which might possess even a small amount of risk. The resulting game results in a handful of viable options that you see used in some form in virtually every Melee match.

And there are combos in Smash 4, they just aren't as long. Nor should they be, because shorter combos keeps the gameplay in neutral for a larger percentage of the match's life, and the deepest gameplay exists in neutral. Not only that, but combo-starters in Smash 4 are really designated as combo-starters and don't really have much other purpose because they have little reward on their own. In Melee, half of a character's moveset can legitimately start a combo. And because combos are such a significant portion of Melee's game, moves which don't combo as well typically don't see much use unless they have some other very distinct purpose.

Smash 4 has obvious combo-starters with little other purpose, obvious KO moves, obvious GTFO moves, etc. etc. There's greater diversity in actions because each action has a more well-defined purpose, which in turn makes its counter more well-defined. Clarity allows players to more easily make informed decisions and to exercise their knowledge of the system. Melee is more obscure by comparison, it doesn't communicate these things as well. I feel like I'm on autopilot when playing Melee half the time, like muscle-memory is just acting as a reflex to whatever situation is represented on-screen. When I play Smash 4, my brain feels completely saturated, constantly mulling over the situation, my options, and weighing those options. Feedback in particular is one area where Smash 4 outright Godstomps Melee, and there really is no way to argue against that one because it is very plainly observable.

". Again you seem to misunderstand that an imbalance in risk and reward is the source of competitive depth rather than a reduction of depth. Smash 4's mechanics DO NOT encourage offstage play. The player chasing the opponent offstage will usually be putting his or her self at disproportionate risk of a stage spike or gimp, and often gives up favorable stage position. The better strategy is to remain safely at the edge of the stage and try to intercept the recovery with projectiles or a hitbox that can cover an airdodge until you can KO them outright."

You don't understand what I mean by risk:reward balancing. I don't mean that every option has equal risk and reward. If that's the case, then what purpose to other options serve? Risk:reward balancing means that the reward gained from an action is proportionate to the risk involved in taking it. That's what creates meaningful decision-making. Choosing between a high-risk, high-reward option, and a low-risk, low-reward option is interesting because it's in balance, choosing between a high-risk, high-reward, and a low-risk, high-reward is not because one option is obviously better than the other. Ambiguity of options forces a player to dig into their knowledge and skill to create a solution, rather than simply choosing the best one.

And yes, Smash 4's mechanics do encourage off-stage play for a number of reasons.

1. KOing from the stage usually doesn't happen until high percents, or with high-risk moves. Since chasing an opponent off-stage allows you KO them much sooner, there is a high reward involved.

2. Neutral play dominates Smash 4. Advantages are rare, so it's important to press one when you have it. Knocking an opponent off-stage gives you an advantage. The risk involved in pressing it is high, but so is the reward.

3. In order to avoid being gimped or stage-spiked, it's important to consider positioning and attack choice. I can't tell you how many times I've safely spiked with Marth's dair just by positioning myself properly.

4. Not all characters have projectiles, and even those that do still generally get higher rewards for chasing off-stage...even if you're chasing with projectiles. Being closer makes it easier to aim because of the dynamics of time and space.

5. Fall speeds are lower and recoveries are better. Air dodges are also far safer and can be used off-stage.

7. An opponent attacking or air-dodging can, and often does place them in a worse situation because committing to that action may make it impossible to recover, and they might not even kill you. As such, it might not be very risky to chase off-stage. It really depends on the match-up. I don't ever hesitate to chase Mac off-stage, or to chase just about anyone right off the screen with Jiggly.

8. Ledge mechanics even promote being off-stage sometimes.

You can never look at one element in a vacuum, because they are all a part of a system that works together.

"I understand that off stage play CAN be exciting in Smash4 if both players co-operate with Sakurai's vision and avoid abusing the safest and best options"

But what is best isn't always obvious. Fast, multiple air-dodges and great recoveries make it difficult to keep someone off-stage with projectiles. And projectiles themselves are generally weaker and laggier. The best option is more ambiguous, which creates meaningful decision-making.

"The two elements don't have a mutually exclusive relationship. The speed of thought isn't a set limit, it is a skill that can be developed with practice. It is possible for a game to be fasterand deeper (see: Melee)."

No it's not. The action frequency and the amount of thought put into each action are functional inverses. It's physically impossible to increase both in unison. Trust me, I know. I'm a research Biomechanist by profession, it's my job to study the relationship between input and outcome, and how small variables in technique and execution change the outcome.

Skill is entirely different. But no matter how good you get at thinking quickly, you will ALWAYS be able to think about more if given more time. Always and without exception.

"You've spoken like every player ever who has failed to master Melee's mechanics and instead chooses to see them as broken or stupid. "

I've never said that they are broken or stupid. I play and enjoy Melee very much, but I'm objective, and I'm able to set aside my own opinion and preferences and look at Melee as a mechanical interactive system and how its design creates or limits gameplay potential. I'm a competent Melee player, and I'm intimately familliar with game design, moreso even than I am with Biomechanics, in which I have a Master's degree.

"This image of Melee as a hyper fast paced 0-death ridden techskill spamfest is ridiculous."

I never said that that's what it was. I simply stated that many of the design elements that people love to praise actually limit gameplay potential.

People don't like Melee because it's deeper than any other Smash Bros game or has more gameplay potential. That's because the overwhelming majority of gamers don't actually care about gameplay. In fact, most gamers even dislike gameplay, and instead prefer games with more shallow gameplay systems.

If you don't believe me, then go ahead and look at sales trends and review scores.

People like Melee for reasons that are far more attributable to human nature and psychology than to the quality of the game's interactive systems.

1. Melee is fast and exciting.
2. Melee LOOKS impressive
3. Melee makes players feel skilled

Those are the three main reasons why some people prefer Melee over the other games. #1 is pretty self-explanatory. Looking impressive helps to validate it to the competitive fighting game community, and people constantly require validation. It also makes it fun to watch. Pushing a lot of buttons quickly and doing combos make people feel skilled, which of course people like.

"You don't simply "take issue with the game's design", you show a complete lack of understanding of the current meta and the advantages and disadvantages associated with melee's various options."

If I knew as much about game design when Melee came out as I do now, I very likely could have even predicted that it would have ended up exactly where it is now. Emergence comes from design, so understanding a game's design helps you understand what possibilities are likely to emerge.

You're looking at Melee in a vacuum, or are forcing apples-to-oranges comparisons of other games in ways that make it easy to favor Melee.

You like Melee and want it to be a good game with considerable competitive depth, because it supports your choice-supportive bias to being a Melee fan. So you over-generalize and gloss-over comparisons to other games while simultaneously overstating Melee's elements and make them out to be much more than they actually are. You're "dressing them up," so to speak, rather than stripping them down and looking at what is actually happening.

" Generally it seems as though you support design elements that reduce the skill ceiling, which is okay, but it's very hard to argue that it leads to a game with more competitive integrity."

And you define the skill ceiling defining skill as dexterity. In your eyes, the more quick and complex the required button inputs, the more skill a game requires. That characters who require high levels of dexterity (or "tech skill," if you prefer), or respond more to accurately pushing a more complex and/or rapid sequence of buttons, have higher skill ceilings.

But dexterity is only one element of skill, and in a medium where physical ability is downplayed in favor of mental ability, dexterity should be the LEAST emphasized element of the skill spectrum. You should never be better than someone else at a video game simply because the anatomical and biomechanical structure of your hands grants you better finger speed and fine motor skills. Developing muscle memory and the ability to make controller inputs does matter, but it should be downplayed as much as possible. The Wii remote is different altogether, so we won't open that can of worms.

And for the record, I don't lack for dexterity. In fact, the research lead at the university where I work has gone so far as to call me a "freak of nature" because I perform, on average, more than two standard deviations higher than average on every biomechanical test he's devised.

But you've illustrated pretty clearly what you value in video games and why you work so hard to defend Melee, so I don't feel the need to continue this any further. It's been an interesting experiment, thank you.

lol OK, you've absolutely misunderstood every point. Your entire argument is premised on assumptions of how smash should play out, ie shields should beat attacks cleanly every time, ledge stealing is a cheap/gimmicky mechanic or whatever, how input dexterity shouldn't matter (even though its the defining feature of videogames vs. tabletop games).

"You like Melee and want it to be a good game with considerable competitive depth, because it supports your choice-supportive bias to being a Melee fan"
No, I was a brawl player primarily for a long time before moving to PM and finally to melee. I like melee because it is a good game with considerable depth as evident by its 13 years of metagame development. You're the one who is arguing that a week-old game is a more well designed competitive experience. Your claim is backwards.
Basically every one of your arguments covertly undercuts your own conclusions.

Anyways I don't really know what else to say. If you prefer go fish to poker and premise all your arguments on the fact that go fish is better because that's how competitive games should be designed, you honestly have a valid argument, it just doesn't explain why poker is televised on ESPN and has sustained a massive competitive community for so long. Because basically you are defending Brawl's design philosophy and you're on the hook to explain its competitive collapse after just a few years, and will be on the hook to offer an explanation for the same thing happening to smash4.

 

[Alondite]

@ Alondite , reading your posts- it seems like you're so close- you're able to analyze something, and carry through and right before the conclusion mix in a faulty premise you get something horribly wrong and get the opposite results.

I'm not saying this to insult you, but I'm going to write up a big response to the premise I found most mistaken:



This is a completely faulty premise. Limited followups and combo strings are the opposite of good design, and here's why.


There are generally (to massively simplify) three ways in which hits land:

A: An option in which care has been given to guarantee minimum cooldown. This is almost always an approaching attack. (Examples: autocancelled aerial in Brawl, late L-cancelled aerial in Melee, late aerial in Marvel vs Capcom or Street Fighter, meaty attack in Street Fighter, etc).

B: An option trying only to get a hit at all costs, ignoring the ending. This is almost always a defensive measure, among good players. A "get off me" option. (Example: Aerial OOS in Smash, wake up Shoryuken in Street Fighter, etc)

C: A projectile.

Note that trying to get setups for A gives you the risk of getting punished by B.

In a game with strong punishments, A is inherently superior to B and C. B and C just do damage. You want to do A at all times. Because A gives you a followup. Once you do A you can get multiple other hits.


In a game with weak punishments, on the other hand, this isn't the case. A doesn't have very strong followups. A isn't that much better than B. Being B isn't that bad of a situation. In fact, C might be the best option, because it does almost as much damage as A without any of the risk.


Brawl's an extreme example of low punishments. And what's the result? Projectile is almost always the best option. You approach if their projectile game is better than yours. If they do get through your projectiles, landing a defensive hit is just about as good as an aggressive hit anyway so you're not in a bad position.


Now compare to Melee- running away and spamming C generally isn't that great, because when they get through the projectiles their shot at A has much better reward than your shot at B.


Strong punishments inherently encourages approach and less camping.

Smash 4's in between- approaches are a little better, and most projectiles are nerfed if you're not Duck Hunt Dog, but not enormously so. But the design advantage here is clearly to Melee. And I'm not saying "stronger punishment = better design to infinity", or Smash 64 and Marvel vs Capcom 2 would be undoubtedly the best game of all time, but I'm saying that weak punishments is generally bad.

Melee's in a pretty perfect sweet spot- even the strongest punishments in the game never do more than 25% of your game (one stock), and these are extremely rare.


The second thing is that Low Punishments = No comebacks. This is actually really simple to explain. We'll measure hits in reads. Let's assume you're in neutral a lot, and you get a hit every time you outread your opponent.

If punishments are weak, it might take 15 reads to get a powerful lead- it'll take the losing player 10-20 more reads (depending on strength) to catch back up. So it is now in the best interests of the winning player to play as safely as possible (to guarantee you can only get weak hits) to drag this lead out as long as possible.

Thus, if punishments are weak, comebacks almost never happen. And this is very true of Brawl. Comebacks are much more rare in Brawl compared to Melee, because generally the first person to take a stock goes in to camp mode to keep from getting hit with a kill move (since there's few setups) and continues to maintain the status quo. In Melee, the winning player has to be careful- his entire lead can fall apart with one bad mistake.

In Melee, the winning player might have a 15-read-lead, but he can lose it all if the losing player makes two or three really good reads. That means the winning player still has to interact and try to end the game, because the losing player poses a threat.

Still don't believe me?

Look at any other competitive game. I'm going to take two that I have played seriously with competitive players.

Texas Hold 'Em Poker.

Texas Hold 'Em has hard punishments. A single game should go for dozens of hands, but you can literally lose your entire game in your very first decision. ("All in. Call.")

Poker allows major comebacks.

Why? Because there is no betting limits. The losing player can make a hard read, go All In, and double up (or triple up or more, if he is losing to a whole table). That means the losing player is always a threat, because he can suddenly be back in the game with one or two good decisions- so winning players will take risks to take out losing players. If comebacks like this weren't possible, the winning player would never take a risk, because hey, he's winning, what's the losing player gonna do?

Now let's compare to a couple theoretical alternatives to Poker that are what you think are better game design- weaker punishes.

Let's say we cap raises to 3x the previous raise. You can't use the threat of "All In" as a big whallop to force folds, you have to work up to it.

Suddenly, you have a game in which comebacks rarely happen. Why? Because you can't land a big whallop. You're just going to trade sets. So one you are behind, you can't really catch up easily. Even if you make a hard read, no matter how hard that read is, you can't double up or accomplish anything huge off of it. You can only get so much out of it.

This is Poker with lighter punishes. Comebacks are harder and games run longer because you can't quickly finish off your opponent or make huge swings in gameplay off of clever play.

This game is not as good as the original. Nowhere near. It wouldn't have competitive play. There are variants of Poker that are somewhat like this, and they don't have competitive followings. They're great to play with your kids though.


You might be tempted to say "Well, we can fix that with a comeback mechanic, like a stronger version of Rage, or Lucario's Aura, or a blue shell."

Let's make another example: Poker with Rubber Banding. Let's say half the ante goes to the player with the smallest chip stack.

This does not contribute to player skill; all this does is keep the weakest player in the game longer. It can certainly result in comebacks, as the extra ante gives the weakest player enough money to take a hand they otherwise wouldn't have been able to, but in general, it's just going to slow the game down as the losing player will take longer to lose because he keeps getting an influx of chips.

In the context of competitive games (and not party games), it's better to allow comebacks via player skill via hard punish options than to make artificial comebacks by rewarding the losing player (a la Mario Kart item distribution and blue shells, or Pity Final Smashes, etc).


Chess is another decent example. I won't go as far in depth on this one, but basically, when you take a piece, you permanently reduce your opponent's ability to control space. Chess thus snowballs by nature. Taking a piece increases your ability to take your next space by increasing your control of your opponent and your ability to get the next piece because you can now pin their pieces.

Often, the first person to cleanly take a point lead will convert it in to a win. In fact, it's considered a key skill for chess players to convert a small material lead in to a win.

Competitive Chess punishes a single lost piece very hard.






This is, honestly, very incorrect. There's so much subtlety and mental gaming in Melee and it's mostly mental among top players. I'd say, for example, Hax and Silent Wolf have better dexterity and reflex than Hungrybox, and maybe even Armada. Both always lose to them.

Melee is mostly mental, but there's a big physical component as well.

If Basketball had a hoop that was only five feet high making dunks easy, would it be an automatically better game? The physical component is a different discussion. But saying "The hoop is really high, therefore the game is only about physical ability compared to the version with the low hoop which is all mental" would be to completely disregard the fact that the high hoop version has just as much mental play.

As someone who's played both Brawl and Melee competitively, the guessing games are just in completely different places, and it's very easy for someone who was really good in one game and not the other to straight up miss them because they're looking in the wrong places for the guessing games.

I suppose it's only fair to give you a response.

"
In a game with strong punishments, A is inherently superior to B and C. B and C just do damage. You want to do A at all times. Because A gives you a followup. Once you do A you can get multiple other hits.


In a game with weak punishments, on the other hand, this isn't the case. A doesn't have very strong followups. A isn't that much better than B. Being B isn't that bad of a situation. In fact, C might be the best option, because it does almost as much damage as A without any of the risk."

You're making the critical flaw of imposing the same conditions on two situations which inherently have different conditions. Not only that, but the options you've chosen don't effectively cover the design space for your theoretical game. Option B, for example, combines a defensive option with another option, such as attacking out-of-shield. It also includes GTFO attacks. Option B is vague and not well-defined. It's one option made up of many other options.

Second, and this is the larger one, you're assuming that the risk and reward of each option would be balanced the same in two games that are mechanically different. If one game has more powerful punishments than the other, then the options are going to be designed with that in mind. You're comparing apples to oranges. Saying that Melee has more powerful punishments means nothing because Smash 4 is a different game. Likewise, the other elements of the system are going to play a part in whether or not powerful punishments are even a good thing.

And then of course there's the fact that combos are functionally negative space (which is always bad), and give rewards that are disproportionate to the risk involved in a combo-setup action and with each subsequent follow-up (which is also bad).

Do you understand that how you're defining "punishment" is in fact risk:reward balancing?

"Strong punishments inherently encourages approach and less camping."

Proper risk:reward balancing encourages interaction. I know that, I've stated it several times already. Second, you're making the faulty assumption that "camping" is an inherently inferior style of gameplay simply because you don't enjoy it. Camping is a perfectly legitimate style of play whether you enjoy it or not.

"Melee's in a pretty perfect sweet spot- even the strongest punishments in the game never do more than 25% of your game (one stock), and these are extremely rare."

I already explained why 1/4 stocks is not a parallel to doing 25% damage because players in Smash don't die from doing damage. Taking a stock in Smash is more analogous to taking a game in a set of a traditional fighter.

"The second thing is that Low Punishments = No comebacks."

You don't need to explain it at all because it's false. If two players have 10 damage, and one player is doing damage at a 5:2 rate for one unit of time, then the losing player has to finish the match by doing at least 2:1 damage per unit of time for the rest of the match.

A player can come back by playing better. That's it. Even if there are low punishments, if a player minimizes mistakes and executes effectively, they can come back. You are NEVER mathematically eliminated in Smash Bros.

More punishment does nothing but make it easier to erase large deficits with fewer actions. That is literally the only thing that it accomplishes.

The rest of your self-defeating rant on the subject hinges on your own misinterpretation of my argument.

I'm going to put it in all caps so you don't miss it:

I AM NOT ADVOCATING LOW PUNISHMENTS, I'M SAYING THAT THE REWARD FOR AN ACTION SHOULD BE PROPORTIONAL TO THE RISK INVOLVED IN TAKING THE ACTION.

You actually proved my point with your poker example. Thanks. You're not even arguing punishments. This is entirely an argument of semantics at this point. The reason that Brawl's gameplay degenerates isn't because it has low punishments, it's because the risk involved with most actions are greater than the rewards. That's why projectile camping dominates, because they are low risk and offer similar rewards.

Going all-in has massive risk because you could lose then and there, but the reward is equally massive. It has nothing to do with high or low punishment, it's all about risk:reward balancing. The rest of your rant and talking about negative-feedback loops ("rubber-banding") is all part of the same discussion and isn't worth tackling directly because it's all saying the same thing.

"This is, honestly, very incorrect. There's so much subtlety and mental gaming in Melee and it's mostly mental among top players. I'd say, for example, Hax and Silent Wolf have better dexterity and reflex than Hungrybox, and maybe even Armada. Both always lose to them."

Playing intelligently IS the mental component of Melee. However mental it may be, the action frequency limits how mental it CAN be. It has lots of subtlety and mental elements...but compared to what? You're looking at it in a vacuum. That accomplishes nothing.

"Melee is mostly mental, but there's a big physical component as well."

And there shouldn't be. Video games are not physical contest. A person needs to be able to manipulate the controller, but even that should be made as simple as possible to keep the physical component to a minimum because there's very little potential for the physical component in video games because you're limited to using your hands, and by the functions of the controller. The majority of their value comes from the mental component.

"f Basketball had a hoop that was only five feet high making dunks easy, would it be an automatically better game? The physical component is a different discussion. But saying "The hoop is really high, therefore the game is only about physical ability compared to the version with the low hoop which is all mental" would be to completely disregard the fact that the high hoop version has just as much mental play."

This is wrong in several ways. For one, if the hoop were lower, then other rules would change to accommodate this and make it as interesting as possible. Once again, you're imposing specific conditions on two situations that are inherently different. Of course basketball with a lower hoop and the exact same rules is going to be worse. The system is designed around the hoop being at that particular height, so if you lower the hoop, you're going to have to change the rules as well, otherwise the game will be less interesting.

Oh...and the action of lowering a hoop in basketball is pretty much analogous to "advanced techs" in Melee, or in Smash Bros in general. Smash wasn't designed with these elements in mind (just like basketball wasn't designed with a 5-foot hoop in mind), so the system is going to be compromised in some way.

"As someone who's played both Brawl and Melee competitively, the guessing games are just in completely different places, and it's very easy for someone who was really good in one game and not the other to straight up miss them because they're looking in the wrong places for the guessing games.[/quote]"

There are so many flaws in your reasoning that it's becoming ridiculous. You're constantly comparing apples and oranges, applying subjective value scales to objective differences, and you constantly are ignoring how things function as a system and look at things in a vacuum. The irony is, you just accused me of doing just that!

First you think that my argument is that lower punishments are better, and that must be because I like Brawl. Brawl is by far my LEAST favorite Smash Bros game. Second, you think that I'm looking at Melee like it's supposed to be Brawl and pointing out the ways in which it's different as being flaws, but that's not what I'm doing at all. In fact, that's what YOU are doing, except you're imposing Melee on everything and taking differences as flaws without considering how everything works together. Basically, you think that Melee has it right and that everything different is automatically worse.

You're not examining game design at all, you're trying to defend and legitimize Melee just like your buddy who undoubtedly brought you here for help. It's not that you observe Melee to be a better game, it's that you need it to be a better game because it's your favorite and your ego demands that you be correct, so you form your entire argument around the bias of your opinion rather than looking at it objectively and open-minded. It's incredibly basic and common psychology.

 

[Circle_Breaker]

"I AM NOT ADVOCATING LOW PUNISHMENTS, I'M SAYING THAT THE REWARD FOR AN ACTION SHOULD BE PROPORTIONAL TO THE RISK INVOLVED IN TAKING THE ACTION."

This is absolutely ********. This is exactly what leads to lack of interactive gameplay because there is no thought behind an action. What is my opponent going to do? Who knows, there's no benefit to choosing one option over another because there's the same expected utility for every choice. When one option has unbalanced reward, things become interesting, because you can predict that the opponent will opt for that action and counter it intelligently instead of being reduced to a pure guess due to homogeneity of rewards.

According to your design philosophy rock paper scissors is a ****ing dope game with tons of depth because nothing is "OP". Fine, believe that then. Have fun.

edit: "interactive gameplay", not just "interactive"

 

[Praxis]

You're making the critical flaw of imposing the same conditions on two situations which inherently have different conditions. Not only that, but the options you've chosen don't effectively cover the design space for your theoretical game. Option B, for example, combines a defensive option with another option, such as attacking out-of-shield. It also includes GTFO attacks. Option B is vague and not well-defined. It's one option made up of many other options.

Option B isn't vague.

Option A is a move you use with respect to safety and ending lag and followup.

Option B is a move you use with respect to speed.

Moves CAN be used as either- Fox's nair is option A if you use it right before hitting the ground, and option B if you use it right after leaving the ground, for example. But it's very clear when someone is using their Nair for option A (to approach with a late nair) or option B (to get someone off of them with a nair as fast as possible).

Brawl makes landing option B give you the same reward as landing option A. That means defensive hits are just as rewarding as aggressive. If you have a projectile, why would you be the aggressor?

Second, and this is the larger one, you're assuming that the risk and reward of each option would be balanced the same in two games that are mechanically different. If one game has more powerful punishments than the other, then the options are going to be designed with that in mind. You're comparing apples to oranges. Saying that Melee has more powerful punishments means nothing because Smash 4 is a different game. Likewise, the other elements of the system are going to play a part in whether or not powerful punishments are even a good thing.

"I'm wrong so I'm going to say they're different and can't be compared"

And then of course there's the fact that combos are functionally negative space (which is always bad), and give rewards that are disproportionate to the risk involved in a combo-setup action and with each subsequent follow-up (which is also bad).

Particularly considering Melee's combo system uses DI and is extremely interactive, I think it's very ridiculousto say combos are always bad.

Do you understand that how you're defining "punishment" is in fact risk:reward balancing?

Of course! This is just another way of saying the same thing.

I'm saying that having a wide scaling risk-reward system produces a better game than a very limited one where there is little high risk and little high reward.

Brawl is a great example of a game that has very few high risk high reward situations.

"Strong punishments inherently encourages approach and less camping."

Proper risk:reward balancing encourages interaction. I know that, I've stated it several times already.

So, you agree.

Second, you're making the faulty assumption that "camping" is an inherently inferior style of gameplay simply because you don't enjoy it. Camping is a perfectly legitimate style of play whether you enjoy it or not.

There's nothing wrong with camping, but if the game's design inherently makes camping the best strategy, then the game's design is bad.

A good fighting game can be judged based on how well it creates player interaction. If the game's design makes not interacting the best strategy almost always, the game has major design flaws.

"The second thing is that Low Punishments = No comebacks."

You don't need to explain it at all because it's false. If two players have 10 damage, and one player is doing damage at a 5:2 rate for one unit of time, then the losing player has to finish the match by doing at least 2:1 damage per unit of time for the rest of the match.

"I'm going to rephrase your argument in to something else, then say it's false."

Classic strawman.

A player can come back by playing better. That's it. Even if there are low punishments, if a player minimizes mistakes and executes effectively, they can come back. You are NEVER mathematically eliminated in Smash Bros.

You completely missed the point. It made a buzzing sound as it flew over your head. I mean, wow. It's like you skimmed my post.

More punishment does nothing but make it easier to erase large deficits with fewer actions. That is literally the only thing that it accomplishes.

Yes, that's exactly the point! It means that when you have a huge lead, you can write the game off, but still have to play it out.

Being able to erase large deficits with fewer actions- like ALL IN IN POKER- is the reason why a losing player is still a threat. If this isn't the case, then the winning player can just milk his win slowly to the end and the losing player is no longer a threat.

Good design means that you have the ability to take a high risk for a high reward, and your opponent has to be afraid of that.

The rest of your self-defeating rant on the subject hinges on your own misinterpretation of my argument.

I'm going to put it in all caps so you don't miss it:

I AM NOT ADVOCATING LOW PUNISHMENTS, I'M SAYING THAT THE REWARD FOR AN ACTION SHOULD BE PROPORTIONAL TO THE RISK INVOLVED IN TAKING THE ACTION.

And yet, you're arguing against high risk high reward at all points.

You actually proved my point with your poker example. Thanks. You're not even arguing punishments. This is entirely an argument of semantics at this point. The reason that Brawl's gameplay degenerates isn't because it has low punishments, it's because the risk involved with most actions are greater than the rewards. That's why projectile camping dominates, because they are low risk and offer similar rewards.

Going all-in has massive risk because you could lose then and there, but the reward is equally massive. It has nothing to do with high or low punishment, it's all about risk:reward balancing. The rest of your rant and talking about negative-feedback loops ("rubber-banding") is all part of the same discussion and isn't worth tackling directly because it's all saying the same thing.

You are not getting it.

You are trying to claim the problem isn't weak punishments, it's "lack of risk reward balancing". But you just said above, punishments and risk reward balancing is the same topic.

The reason Brawl has poor risk/reward balancing is because they took out the combo system. Attacking is a high risk. Combos were the reward. They took out the combos, this attacking no longer has high reward. Thus, it is bad to combo.

You're not examining game design at all, you're trying to defend and legitimize Melee just like your buddy who undoubtedly brought you here for help.

I don't even know the other guy you are debating with, and you're going all conspiracy on me?

LOL

It's not that you observe Melee to be a better game, it's that you need it to be a better game because it's your favorite and your ego demands that you be correct, so you form your entire argument around the bias of your opinion rather than looking at it objectively and open-minded. It's incredibly basic and common psychology.

Pot, meet kettle.

You're purely on defense mode here.[/quote]

 

[Praxis]

"I AM NOT ADVOCATING LOW PUNISHMENTS, I'M SAYING THAT THE REWARD FOR AN ACTION SHOULD BE PROPORTIONAL TO THE RISK INVOLVED IN TAKING THE ACTION."

This is absolutely ********. This is exactly what leads to lack of interactive because there is no thought behind an action. What is my opponent going to do? Who knows, there's no benefit to choosing one option over another because there's the same expected utility for every choice. When one option has unbalanced reward, things become interesting, because you can predict that the opponent will opt for that action and counter it intelligently instead of being reduced to a pure guess due to homogeneity of rewards.

According to your design philosophy rock paper scissors is a ****ing dope game with tons of depth because nothing is "OP". Fine, believe that then. Have fun.

He's trying to use tricky language to weasel out of his position.

Punishments is the reward. He's says "Brawl is bad because the risk of attacking doesn't match the reward". The reward was a combo (high punish). Thus, he is literally saying Brawl is bad because of the lack of combos. But, combos are bad game design, so he doesn't want to admit that combos helped fix the risk/reward problem.

He's trying so hard to be right that he's talking in circles around himself. And accusing us of a conspiracy, which is hilarious.
"just like your buddy who undoubtedly brought you here for help"
killed me.