Sakurai and the competitive scene

[himemiya]

Does sakurai ever believe in the competitive scene (say ssb)? Because I do think a game have to appeal to everyone right? Well I believe competitive are the most important to attarct (n00bfags/casuals can go **** themselves). Its just that when ssb4 comes out I want see wifi mode have an 1v1 mode where you competitively play someone (with a better network I hope) and items are banned all together and you can only pick neutrals (ex: final destination) and Idk how the (tournament) ruleset would work so I guess it should be 3 stocks and 8 stock time limit. It'll be cool if 1v1 mode also has an score system (like mario kart wii) and have an power ranking list for your area and regional and worldwide (team/basic shouldn't get one cause of the bull**** that happens there). Now if only we can get sakurai take my mario kart D idea.

 

[nessokman]

Well, I personally believe sakurai knows very well about it.Otherwise there wouldn't have been a reason for him to say he aimed brawl at casuals.

Regardless of what you think, there is more money in casuals.actually there are a lot more casuals than competitive players.Why make a game for the small minority and loose potential money?(I don't quite fit in noob or casual category, but am not a competitive.Im the happy median)

Well a 1V1 would be awesome, forcing no items/ neutrals? No. I think you should each choose what you want, then the game decides.(Similar to MK7) you'd have a 50% chance at it.

Forcing game type is shady as well.

 

[Kink-Link5]

nessokman what do you imagine the sales figures for Melee would be if it had the melee cast and modes but with Brawl gameplay, and vice-versa?

Serious question.

 

[BTmoney]

Does sakurai ever believe in the competitive scene (say ssb)? Because I do think a game have to appeal to everyone right? Well I believe competitive are the most important to attarct (n00b***s/casuals can go **** themselves). Its just that when ssb4 comes out I want see wifi mode have an 1v1 mode where you competitively play someone (with a better network I hope) and items are banned all together and you can only pick neutrals (ex: final destination) and Idk how the (tournament) ruleset would work so I guess it should be 3 stocks and 8 stock time limit. It'll be cool if 1v1 mode also has an score system (like mario kart wii) and have an power ranking list for your area and regional and worldwide (team/basic shouldn't get one cause of the bull**** that happens there). Now if only we can get sakurai take my mario kart D idea.

God damn dude change your text. Half of us use the neo blue color forum-theme and your text and basically invisible.

• (n00b***s/casuals can go **** themselves). are the demographic that buys the game in bulk and thats where the sales comes from, the competitive scene is not big enough alone to generate millions in profit
• Nintendo/Sakurai is a company, not our friend or your friend. We are at his mercy and if he gives us a more competitive game it's because it's A. profitable or B. he's being kind and respecting our community, not because it will sell better.
• and 4 stocks lol

 

[himemiya]

My post has color? Blame the redesigns okay? I'm mostly saying ssb4 wifi mode should have an 1v1 mode where tourney rules apply. Because I don't want to deal with taunt parties/itemfags.

Edit: got an idea what if they're 2 diffrent team modes? Casual where they can play with items on temple and team attack is off (they decide the rules) and hardcore mode where tourney rules apply (banned all items and neutrals only thing) and team attack is on.

 

[BTmoney]

I'm fine with that and it should have already been like that imo
and your color gone away lol

 

[ThaJakester]

All Sakurai needs to do with the next smash bros is simply nail a balance between the hardcore and casual communities. Melee and even SSB64 had this balance. Brawl however we all know how that went down. There honestly wasn't a need to take that route. But I guess Nintendo thought they'd lose money for some reason if the game had a higher learning curve, I dunno...it's very strange =/ I mean, back when I played Smash casually, I had a blast with Melee's physics engine...

 

[BTmoney]

All Sakurai needs to do with the next smash bros is simply nail a balance between the hardcore and casual communities. Melee and even SSB64 had this balance.

Elaborate. 64 has a super steep learning curve to the point there are Isai and a handful of other people (like 2?) that beats everyone else and no one else comes close even when Isai johns with bad characters lol. Melee also has a very very steep learning curve and has faster gameplay in terms of strain and button input than 64. There is no way in hell that Melee nor 64 had the casual appeal that brawl did knowing everything that we know now.
Brawl is not as monopolized (from a player not character standpoint) as 64 by a long shot and melee is also more monopolized.
Not counting metaknight, Brawl is more balanced and there is a smaller gap between tiers of skill levels of players.


There should just be a separation though (competitive and non settings) imo and it wouldn't even be that hard to create and separate the code.

 

[himemiya]

64 is the most balenced one and if brawl is balenced then explain metaknight and ganondorf please.

 

[Kink-Link5]

Elaborate. 64 has a super steep learning curve to the point there are Isai and a handful of other people (like 2?) that beats everyone else and no one else comes close even when Isai johns with bad characters lol. Melee also has a very very steep learning curve and has faster gameplay in terms of strain and button input than 64. There is no way in hell that Melee nor 64 had the casual appeal that brawl did knowing everything that we know now.
Brawl is not as monopolized (from a player not character standpoint) as 64 by a long shot and melee is also more monopolized.
Not counting metaknight, Brawl is more balanced and there is a smaller gap between tiers of skill levels of players.


There should just be a separation though (competitive and non settings) imo and it wouldn't even be that hard to create and separate the code.

Ice Climbers make 2/3s of the cast irrelevant.

If we can't use that as an example, DeDeDe himself makes a third of the cast irrelevant while Olimar wins against all but a handful of characters and his only sufficiently bad matchup is against Ice Climbers.

Within specific tier cutoffs Brawl has some degree of balance (top level from MK to IC's to Oli, Marth, Falco, and Pikachu is even barring Ice Climbers that kind of beat Falco and Olimar, for example). Outside of specific tiers though, there are entire characters that lose to a good majority of the cast and certainly lose to the tiers above them.

Ironically (regarding Project M), Sonic is the most stable character in Brawl with the most even/close to even matchups, but there always tends to be that kind of character in games (ZSS is another one that goes even with basically everyone, while Melee has consistent characters like Marth that always serve a good role as a buffer if your character has a hard matchup).

 

[Frostwraith]

Hey look, a Melee vs. Brawl thread!

Hey look, who cares?!

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

Smash was developed as the antithesis of the hardcore fighting game experience. SSB64 and Melee were strictly speaking, failures in that regard. SSB64 perhaps especially.

Brawl was in that respect, the series' first real success. As for competition, I don't believe Sakurai has anything against it explicitly. The issue is more that Melee and 64 strayed a little bit from his vision.

A lot of people cite Brawl as being a "lazier" game with Sakurai even going so far as to say that he worked harder on Melee, and put more effort into it, but a lot of people don't realize that Brawl and Melee use the same engine. Most of the work for Brawl was already done after Melee's development. Brawl didn't require a new engine, just graphical updates, physics and numbers tweaks, new art and music assets, new systems design, and a few new items and features. That's a lot of stuff, but you'd be surprised how much work can be shaved from a development project by re-using an engine rather than writing a new one from scratch.

 

[ThaJakester]

Elaborate. 64 has a super steep learning curve to the point there are Isai and a handful of other people (like 2?) that beats everyone else and no one else comes close even when Isai johns with bad characters lol. Melee also has a very very steep learning curve and has faster gameplay in terms of strain and button input than 64. There is no way in hell that Melee nor 64 had the casual appeal that brawl did knowing everything that we know now..

Now now, you mean to tell me that all those years ago, you didn't play Smash 64 and Melee, and regardless of this apparent steep learning curve that you MOST LIKELY didn't even know existed back when you first started playing, you still didn't have fun playing casually with all of your friends? That's the beauty of Smash right there. That's what makes the series so great. The ability for these games to be so accessible casually all while still being very much playable competitively is the heart of Smash. It was unnecessary for Sakurai to dumb down everything for casuals the way he did with Brawl. Casuals did just fine playing Smash 64 and Melee. I know I sure did...They would have did just fine had Brawl played similarly to those two games as well. Let's just hope that Smash 4 achieves this balance just as Smash 64 and Melee did...

 

[Luco]

Frost has this one right. Cut the melee vs. brawl please, some people in this room play these games competitively. -_-

Now, I don't think a whole mode forcing players to abide by our rules is that great. One of the cooler options about smash is about being able to customize most everything and having no templates, save the clean slate. We don't need our own mode, because something in the next smash might change that will mean we don't need one of those rules, and guess how annoying that would be? That mode would be effectively useless. Nup, I say we can customise stuff for ourselves. What it would be nice to see from Sakurai is a lack of random variables within the game that you can't control (tripping is the obvious one but you also see things like random star KO animations with different lengths and other such minor things), as well as a more balanced tier list (much harder if he hasn't actually seen the tier list/doesn't know how competitive play works. However, some balance can be seen even at a casual level. It doesn't take a casual player long to figure out that Ganon isn't that good, for instance... so bump those characters a bit, buff them.

To be perfectly honest, my dream is that Sakurai sees Smashboards one day and actually has the curiosity to go in, take a look, make an account and post. Oh what a daydream!

 

[lordvaati]

My post has color? Blame the redesigns okay? I'm mostly saying ssb4 wifi mode should have an 1v1 mode where tourney rules apply. Because I don't want to deal with taunt parties/item***s.

Edit: got an idea what if they're 2 diffrent team modes? Casual where they can play with items on temple and team attack is off (they decide the rules) and hardcore mode where tourney rules apply (banned all items and neutrals only thing) and team attack is on.

only problem hime is that how can they determine what would classify as a neutral stage, even moreso since the definition of a neutral seems to change every year in the Smash scene(Lylat and CS are CPs now?) I mean it's not as easy as say, asking for clauses for Pokemon, since at least there some things are still the same(specific Pokemon Bans, Item Clause, etc.) also you gotta factor in there is no concrete ruleset with peeps here-in my games,I still have the above 2 and PS1 as neutrals, and PS2,Nor,Brin,the Berd and Cruise as CPs(though that could change in the future, due to the donuts being different then Melee's and me question the airfield,but I digress.) I even am considering Jack's competitive item ruleset in the future as well, which makes the rules even more out of the box compared to a single, standard rule.

my point is that Smash is too scrambled in design and community to make anything like a "hardcore" mode like you suggested. also the name of the modes seems to diversify players,and no one really wants that. so the closest thing to the hardcore mode we will ever see is the Cruel Melee/Brawl/Whatever(since it's no items on Battlefield),Though a stage striker like in P:M would be pretty neat. everything else? do it yourself, because that's point of Smash,you play it your own way.

 

[Kink-Link5]

Does sakurai ever believe in the competitive scene (say ssb)?

To answer this more directly and without trying to put words in Sakurai's mouth, yes. Sakurai acknowledges that the game can be played competitively. Sakurai's idea of competition, however, and especially competitive balance, is very strange though. In the developer's perspective, fair competition doesn't mean balancing around top level play, but rather in ensuring that amateurs and professionals have access to the same tools and that, regardless of the players' skills, the match will remain close. His concept of balancing the cast, on the other hand, is that if a character is good but difficult to use, they are balanced.

 

[Hypercat-Z]

I think all they need to do is to make the game enough funny to be amusing to leave you an amusing experience even when you lose.
I think it could be archivied by making the appearance frequence of the items directly proportional to the gap among the players.
In other words: if one player has 5% and another other 150%, a lot of items will appear, till the match will get more balanced.

 

[himemiya]

^ no please just no.

 

[FalKoopa]

I think it could be archivied by making the appearance frequence of the items directly proportional to the gap among the players.
In other words: if one player has 5% and another other 150%, a lot of items will appear, till the match will get more balanced.

I sincerely hope you're joking.

 

[Hypercat-Z]

Nope. Not only the appearance frequence will increase but even the appearance frequence of the most powerful items, pokemons and assist trophies.
In Mario Kart it worked.

 

[Big-Cat]

Nope. Not only the appearance frequence will increase but even the appearance frequence of the most powerful items, pokemons and assist trophies.
In Mario Kart it worked.

Mario Kart != Smash Bros.

 

[Hypercat-Z]

Infact in Mario Kart the most powerful items goes only to the most disvantaged players.
In Super Smash Bros. they could be used by the headers to set the match or by the tailers to twist it. That's the point!

 

[Kink-Link5]

You don't get items of varying strength by moving to certain areas of the stage in Smash Bros.

If you're being jovial then I apologize.

 

[Isprayaxe]

The difference with your rule and mario kart is that in mario kart the better items are given only to the losing player. With yours the good items are simply spawned for any player to grab, it doesn't really help the losing player. Unless you're suggesting we give items directly to the losing player, like a home run bat or super scope spawning in their hands, because that would be insane

I'm sure the handicap setting is just fine for bad players when they need some help and both players agree on it.

 

[FlareHabanero]

Technically speaking we already have a feature similar to this called the Pity Final Smash, where you respawn with a Final Smash if you're 5 stocks or points behind the leader. But it's disabled in competitive play, so it's a moot point regardless.

 

[himemiya]

Can we please stop taking about items and go back to talking about my online competitive ideas. I mean I have some final smash ideas (ex empress peach from strikers its works like marth's critical hit special) but mind taking the item talk somewhere else.

 

[Oasis_S]

At first I thought the first post was...



Satire.

But then I realized it was actually just...



St00pid.

 

[Hypercat-Z]

The difference with your rule and mario kart is that in mario kart the better items are given only to the losing player. With yours the good items are simply spawned for any player to grab, it doesn't really help the losing player.

Exactly what I said! It does just give the losers a chance to flip upside down the course of a match. This would keep up the heat till the very end. Providing a good balance of fun and competition.

 

[Luco]

Fun, yes... but competition, no. Smash at a competitive level can't function with items. Why? Because an Assist Trophy spawning next to someone does not come in to the equation of player skill. Items at their base value... are unfair. They're meant to be used in totally casual situations where the players don't mind just having a laugh about what's going on rather than the actual fact of winning. No-one wants to win and hear the other player accuse them of something like the following: "Ohh, you only won because of that pokeball!" Or "You only won because you're sonic with a smash ball!"

The easiest solution to prevent this? Ban items from competitive play.

HOWEVER: In my post before I made the point about the off chance that some of the items actually having some use in competitive play (I don't know exactly how this would work... maybe they spawn at a set place at set times? That is the biggest difference between competitive and non-competitive play: One loves as many random variables it can get thrown in to the equation, the other doesn't). Thus, it is possible that the rule-set would have to be changed to accommodate such an item. I'm not sure.

But, assuming your point, which bases upon one player winning to a large extent and the other losing then I don't see any way this would work competitively. Sorry hyper.

 

[Kink-Link5]

The sad thing is Loco luco whatever, that plenty of people will john about a LACK of items.

Set spawn items would be interesting if the stage had a non-obnoxious design to go along with it. The closest there's been in the series is Green Greens which got banned in, what 2002 or 3?, and DP which had a similar lifespan.

 

[Frostwraith]

Having an equation with no variables is not fun at all. It's boring and doesn't exercise the brain. Not cool.

What's the point of solving this equation? 1 + 1 = 2

Would rather try my hand and brains at something like this: 3x^2 + 4y = 3 AND x = 2y (...but I digress.)

It is really proof that you're stupid if you can't properly solve an equation. Sad indeed.

Perhaps visiting Mr. Icognito's house would be productive. Maybe he'd tell you how to TRULY play Smash? Who knows.

Once, a Scotsman said that I was no true European for being registered in sites hosted in the United States. I puked, shoved the vomit down his throat and laughed (like Sakurai, see?). You know what he did? He said: "stop shoving your **** down my throat!"

My response? You pay in euros, I give the change in euros. You pay in ****, I give the change in ****. Sounds natural, right?

(No offense to Scottish people was intended with this post, but I didn't choose a Scotsman for no reason...)

 

[Big-Cat]

Having an equation with no variables is not fun at all. It's boring and doesn't exercise the brain. Not cool.

High level play as lots of thinking and reacting for any fighting game, including Smash. The fact that you're playing against another human being ensures that there will be more than enough variables to go around.

 

[Frostwraith]

High level play as lots of thinking and reacting for any game, including Smash. The fact that you're playing against another human being ensures that there will be more than enough variables to go around.

You're misinterpreting my post. Mind that I'm not bashing competitive play.

I'm criticizing, albeit with a wacky post, those elitist players that bash on the other's point of view and way to play and whip up these unnecessary posts that beg for senseless flame wars.

The whole Scotsman story should be obvious that I am referencing those elitist people who often use the "no true Scotsman" fallacy in their argumentation.

There's another word for this kind of behavior: intolerance.

 

[Hypercat-Z]

I think I'm starting to understand what di Sakurai mean when he said he changed most of the mechanics of Melee be cause he wasn't happy of what people had done of his game. He wanted both experts and newbies to have fun, not only the first class of players. FIRST CLASS OF PLAYERS! How does it sound?
I'm antielite too. And about banning items, that sadly reminds me when in Street Fighter 2 someones (who??) invented the rule that you wont hit an opponent when he is dazed or you would be a dirty player. Jesus Krystal! That's part of the game! If you don't like it play another game, for puck-man sake!

 

[link2702]

i can't honestly even understand what Hypercat-z is saying.

plz dear god dude proofread your posts before you actually post em


EDIT: I did catch something though.


No one ever created a rule in SF that says you can't hit your opponents when they're dazed, that sounds like a scrubby ruleset that one of your buddies came up with, never would that be suggested in a actual competitive sf tournament.

I'm sure your probably really young hyper, but do some research before you post, as I'm sure you don't even know what you're talking about atm.

 

[FalKoopa]

i can't honestly even understand what Hypercat-z is saying.

plz dear god dude proofread your posts before you actually post em

He's trolling perhaps.

 

[Hypercat-Z]

I'm actually thirtysix, and when playing SF2 in multiplayer I often heard that unwritten rule, a sort of meme, maybe popular just in my country. But we are disgreging from the topic. The point is: If """champions""" can win without using any item, that's not a valid reason to force the other players to not use items just because in this way they would be advantaged.

 

[CorteX]

Smash was developed as the antithesis of the hardcore fighting game experience. SSB64 and Melee were strictly speaking, failures in that regard. SSB64 perhaps especially.

Brawl was in that respect, the series' first real success. As for competition, I don't believe Sakurai has anything against it explicitly. The issue is more that Melee and 64 strayed a little bit from his vision.

A lot of people cite Brawl as being a "lazier" game with Sakurai even going so far as to say that he worked harder on Melee, and put more effort into it, but a lot of people don't realize that Brawl and Melee use the same engine. Most of the work for Brawl was already done after Melee's development. Brawl didn't require a new engine, just graphical updates, physics and numbers tweaks, new art and music assets, new systems design, and a few new items and features. That's a lot of stuff, but you'd be surprised how much work can be shaved from a development project by re-using an engine rather than writing a new one from scratch.

Excuse me kind sir, but this is bullshet. Brawl runs on Havok while Melee has it's own engine built from scratch. It's all about target audience, the GameCube was not a casual console, so Melee wasn't really a casual game either, altho it could be played however you wanted because the mechanics make it possible. The Wii is for everyone and their grandmother so Brawl became a game that even people with the down syndrome can play by spamming B with Meta Knight.
Also:

As of June 30, 2008, Nintendo has shipped 21.74 million GameCube systems.
As of April 31, 2010, Nintendo has shipped 70.93 million Wii systems.
Super Smash Bros. Melee 8.1 million (December 2008)
Super Smash Bros. Brawl 7.47 million (September 2008)

I think Sakurai should rethink the series direction as clearly Brawl wasn't received that well if you look at the install base of both systems.

 

[FalKoopa]

Super Smash Bros. Melee 8.1 million (December 2008)
Super Smash Bros. Brawl 7.47 million (September 2008)

Comparing Melee's sales for 8 years and Brawl's sales for 1 year isn't exactly accurate way of comparing sales.
Rather, Consider Brawl's sales as of March 2012: 10.79 million

Still quite disappointing compared to the number of Wii sales.

 

[Frostwraith]

Comparing Melee's sales for 8 years and Brawl's sales for 1 year isn't exactly accurate way of comparing sales.
Rather, Consider Brawl's sales as of March 2012: 10.79 million

Still quite disappointing compared to the number of Wii sales.

Do mind that the Wii had a broader target audience than the GCN.