Sakurai: "If we Direct Smash ONLY at The Competitive Players, It Will Have No Future."

[tbtechwiz]

i say we stop supporting sakurais works, (kirby and smash) altogether and move on to a game that is competitive, and where the developer wont harass the competitive gruops boycott smash's ass til it becomes irrelevent, street fighter is much better anyway

 

[ItsChon]

Heh heh. He hasn't, he's said he'd leave if he didn't like doing this. You and everybody else need to understand that this is the same man that made that mistake you call a competitive game. Nothing has changed besides the fact that he's trying to cement the idea that it's hard work.

You're a fool. If you think Melee was a mistake I'm not even going to bother speaking to you.

Smash Wii U and 3DS, dur. It doesn't matter if one insignificant fraction of the fanbase doesn't like it, it's still a masterpiece. Hell, Sakurai just told you why you don't like it: You're looking for something it isn't supposed to be. Find a different series dude

I said not including Smash you freaking dolt. And it's not a masterpiece. It's good at best. Not better than Smash.

How long do you think Super Smash bros for Nintendo 3DS/Wii U took to develop? Also, you imply that the new Super Smash Bros. game isn't important.

NOT INCLUDING THE SMASH SERIES! All his other games have been trash.

 

[ItsChon]

Heh heh. He hasn't, he's said he'd leave if he didn't like doing this. You and everybody else need to understand that this is the same man that made that mistake you call a competitive game. Nothing has changed besides the fact that he's trying to cement the idea that it's hard work.

You're a fool. If you think Melee was a mistake I'm not even going to bother speaking to you.

Smash Wii U and 3DS, dur. It doesn't matter if one insignificant fraction of the fanbase doesn't like it, it's still a masterpiece. Hell, Sakurai just told you why you don't like it: You're looking for something it isn't supposed to be. Find a different series dude

I said not including Smash you freaking dolt. And it's not a masterpiece. It's good at best. Not better than Smash.

How long do you think Super Smash bros for Nintendo 3DS/Wii U took to develop? Also, you imply that the new Super Smash Bros. game isn't important.

NOT INCLUDING THE SMASH SERIES! All his other games have been trash.

 

[ItsChon]

Derp. I reposted 3 times.......

 

[SmashBro99]

Sakurai 1:
Butthurt tournyfags: 0

Go play some real fighting games nerds.

 

[ZeruSlayer]

Ok fine, I misinterpreted your comment. As far as little Mac goes, he is a different issue entirely as I think he is more of a test subject for Nintendo to see how a character that can kill easily can cope with being unable to come back from many knockbacks.

Are you still saying that you feel the game is balanced with no room for change? Or are you acknowledging that some characters are flawed (not just Little Mac)?

I don't really like the term "test subject" because Little Mac is a fleshed out character like everyone else in the cast but I see where your coming from since he was a new addition to the Smash universe. Mac is a bad air fighter therefore he shouldn't have a good recovery, I was fine with that pre-patch since it was already difficult for players to recover but post-patch it's literally impossible to recover now. What's stopping players from camping at the edge of the map and projectile spamming you, waiting to back throw you off the stage? Nothing.

Another example would be Ike and before you say that he should have bad recovery because he's a big heavy hitter there is Bowser who has a good recovery and was even made faster although he was a heavy hitter. It's like their balance is exclusive to certain characters while others are shafted. Ike was a bad character in Brawl and he was put into Smash 4 essentially the same way....why?

Sorry for the rant just giving some examples as to why I don't think Smash 4 is mostly balanced but no fighter is 100% balanced anyways, the closest games I know are Street Fighter 4 and Project M but with those games there is continued support for patching it. Sakurai stated that he will stop character balancing as of next patch so this worries me because some characters aren't nearly viable as people make them out to be.

 

[HeroMystic]

Because people do when there's hard "techs" to perform. In Smash, it's not supposed to be what you can or can't do, it's supposed to be wether or not you made the right choice: Meaning you're encouraged to try again to make the right choice next match. There's nothing on the line besides a useless winrate and stars under your name.

I'm not sure how making the right choice is detached from hard techs. In fact I'm not sure how ATs apply to the article at all. A lot of it feels like Sakurai just doesn't want players to lose, regardless of there being hard to perform techs or not.

As a mid-level competitive player, I can win solidly against people at my level but I've been absolutely trampled by top level players like Dabuz, Nairo, and Mr. ConCon. And that's just through solid play with no ATs whatsoever.

 

[DaRkJaWs]

But as we both know, character balance is a lot closer than in previous smash games. And as I had said in a different thread, the one thing that bothers me about sakurai is that he unfairly targets characters whom he personally felt were OP in the previous smash and nerfs them to hell. It's a really bad habit of his, something he first started with ssbm coming out and his huge nerfs of both pikachu and donkey kong.

 

[LimitCrown]

NOT INCLUDING THE SMASH SERIES! All his other games have been trash.

What other games were trash? After Super Smash Bros. Brawl was released, he worked on Kid Icarus: Uprising. It seems like you're just insulting Sakurai for not making enough good games.

 

[ItsChon]

What other games were trash? After Super Smash Bros. Brawl was released, he worked on Kid Icarus: Uprising. It seems like you're just insulting Sakurai for not making enough good games.

Well, actually I'll retract that statement. I'll rephrase it like this. He's washed up because OUTSIDE of Super Smash, he hasn't done many good games. His last amazing game was SSBM. Brawl was trash, and S4msh isn't as good as everyone seems to think it is. At best it's a 7.5/10.

 

[JayTheUnseen]

Well, actually I'll retract that statement. I'll rephrase it like this. He's washed up because OUTSIDE of Super Smash, he hasn't done many good games. His last amazing game was SSBM. Brawl was trash, and S4msh isn't as good as everyone seems to think it is. At best it's a 7.5/10.

To be fair,how many games has he worked on since then?He packs a lot of stuff into each game,so it takes awhile.

 

[RespawningJesus]

To be fair,how many games has he worked on since then?He packs a lot of stuff into each game,so it takes awhile.

3 games outside of Smash in which he was game director: Nightmare in Dreamland, Kirby Air Ride, and finally Kid Icarus Uprising.

Well, actually I'll retract that statement. I'll rephrase it like this. He's washed up because OUTSIDE of Super Smash, he hasn't done many good games. His last amazing game was SSBM. Brawl was trash, and S4msh isn't as good as everyone seems to think it is. At best it's a 7.5/10.

No offense or anything, but I find your opinion to be rather biased. Melee was a good game, but it is still one of the more overrated games of the Smash series. You place it on such a high pedestal, that of course your opinions on other Smash games are going to be much lower when comparing it to Melee.

 

[ItsChon]

No offense or anything, but I find your opinion to be rather biased. Melee was a good game, but it is still one of the more overrated games of the Smash series. You place it on such a high pedestal, that of course your opinions on other Smash games are going to be much lower when comparing it to Melee.

Nah it's cool. Why would I take offense? An opinion is an opinion.

I'm not biased, I'm just looking at logically. Melee sold the best out of all the Smash games. It is the most widely played in the series to this day, DESPITE the fact it was released over 10 years ago. It's arguably the most balanced in the series, and it has the most options available to the players with a near perfect mechanic system. Melee was better than SSB64, that much is obvious. It sure as hell is better than the god awful game that is called SSB Brawl. Until Sm4sh is proved to be better than Melee, I don't think it's illogical to call Melee the best game out of the series. Who knows, maybe as Sm4sh grows it will soon surpass Melee. I'm just not banking on it.

 

[Vaidya]

Obvious troll is obvious.

Edit:



There's Kid Icarus: Uprising, but the controls on that game are atrocious. Especially for lefties.

Lol not my fault you're bad at this game

 

[PolMex23]

Sometime the competive players take their game more time than casual gamer or any other hardcore gamers...

The Reason I din't stop playing is because I was competive about in Brawl, then project M and now Smash 4. I play mostly because I go competive and sometime, play for Fun.<--Even playing for Fun or messing around the game can learn more than competing for real.


And Smash 4 is NOT gonna be Brawl. To me is better than melee and plays better than melee. Every characters is well too balanced in this game, we need to find its true potential because the metagame is still Young.

Lol Sm4sh is a joke of a game.

 

[TaichiYaegashi]

I think I'm about to have a heart attack from all of this salt being thrown around.

 

[MPD95]

Alright, after reading through this a few times, I get what Sakurai is trying to say, it's just that he's too worried about alienating new players. Smash is a fairly simple game. Making the game faster, allowing for more combo potential, that won't get rid of anyone. Also, new players being severely outclassed by experienced players is nothing new. It happens in just about every big game out there.

Sakurai worries too much. I do believe that putting most of the focus on competitive play is a bad move, but totally ignoring the competitive players is even worse. His intentions are good, but the results... not so much. Sure, this might be a casual game turned hardcore, but why not embrace that?

I agree with you in what Sakurai tried to say. He really worries too much about new players and I mean, that's fine but as you say: it's a bad move to forget the competitive players.

Although, I don't believe that they should embrace hardcore part of the game. I think they should find a balance between them. Support for new players and support for competitive players because at the end:
We are all smashers.

 

[Djent]

I'm way late, but **** it:

I'm pretty sure Sakurai hinted that Brawl (and perhaps even Melee) were at one time going to be the "last" Smash games. Assuming I'm not misremembering, it would seem silly to get worked up or place much faith in Sakurai's claims about the future of Smash.

 

[LancerStaff]

i say we stop supporting sakurais works, (kirby and smash) altogether and move on to a game that is competitive, and where the developer wont harass the competitive gruops boycott smash's *** til it becomes irrelevent, street fighter is much better anyway

Funny, Sakurai says to go somewhere else if it isn't competitive enough for you. Obviously boycotting Smash won't do much though.

You're a fool. If you think Melee was a mistake I'm not even going to bother speaking to you.

I said not including Smash you freaking dolt. And it's not a masterpiece. It's good at best. Not better than Smash.

NOT INCLUDING THE SMASH SERIES! All his other games have been trash.

Sakurai considers Melee to be a mistake in two ways: That the mechanics support competitive over casual play, and that it's much too hard. I just repeated what he said.

All but the one percent agree. You're an outlier looking for something in a game that was never supposed to be there.

And Kirby and Kid Icarus trash? Not in a million years. Hah, it's Melee-aligned people like yourself that make people hostile and disrespective of Melee fans in general. Maybe if you idiots wouldn't of ruined it for everybody, Sakurai would of listened even a little bit.

I'm not sure how making the right choice is detached from hard techs. In fact I'm not sure how ATs apply to the article at all. A lot of it feels like Sakurai just doesn't want players to lose, regardless of there being hard to perform techs or not.

As a mid-level competitive player, I can win solidly against people at my level but I've been absolutely trampled by top level players like Dabuz, Nairo, and Mr. ConCon. And that's just through solid play with no ATs whatsoever.

He's discussed the issue as he puts it at length in other articles. I don't expect him to re-explain himself completely every time it's asked. It largely comes down to frustrations with the controls.

Nah it's cool. Why would I take offense? An opinion is an opinion.

I'm not biased, I'm just looking at logically. Melee sold the best out of all the Smash games. It is the most widely played in the series to this day, DESPITE the fact it was released over 10 years ago. It's arguably the most balanced in the series, and it has the most options available to the players with a near perfect mechanic system. Melee was better than SSB64, that much is obvious. It sure as hell is better than the god awful game that is called SSB Brawl. Until Sm4sh is proved to be better than Melee, I don't think it's illogical to call Melee the best game out of the series. Who knows, maybe as Sm4sh grows it will soon surpass Melee. I'm just not banking on it.

Brawl outsold Melee. 12 mill > 9 mill.

Lol Sm4sh is a joke of a game.

Totally not making people disrespect Melee fans.

 

[HeroMystic]

He's discussed the issue as he puts it at length in other articles. I don't expect him to re-explain himself completely every time it's asked. It largely comes down to frustrations with the controls.

I've seen the articles before, I know how important it is for him to keep the controls simple, which I agree with wholeheartedly. But it doesn't explain the meaning of the quote (i.e., you're only making an assumption that it relates to tech skill).

 

[ItsChon]

Sakurai considers Melee to be a mistake in two ways: That the mechanics support competitive over casual play, and that it's much too hard. I just repeated what he said.

I don't care what Sakurai says. He's a fool.

All but the one percent agree. You're an outlier looking for something in a game that was never supposed to be there.

All but one percent huh? Not like 35% of GameCube owners bought Melee. Not like every big name reviewer has given it over a 9. Just cause you suck at it, and hate it because of that, doesn't mean everyone else does.

And Kirby and Kid Icarus trash? Not in a million years. Hah, it's Melee-aligned people like yourself that make people hostile and disrespective of Melee fans in general. Maybe if you idiots wouldn't of ruined it for everybody, Sakurai would of listened even a little bit.

K sure.

Brawl outsold Melee. 12 mill > 9 mill.

Different time periods. Look at it percentages wise. About 10% of Wii owners bought Brawl. 35% bought Melee.

 

[LimitCrown]

Melee was released very close to when the Nintendo GameCube was released unlike Brawl. The percentages of people who owned the consoles don't show or explain factors that could influence sales.

 

[NEFlame]

I am partisan on this because although I love the competitive community, Sakurai said that he aimed Smash Bros to be a party game, not a competitive :/

 

[brodouble]

When I say "casual," I mean "not competitive." AKA those here for character discussion and junk. They're there.



Because people do when there's hard "techs" to perform. In Smash, it's not supposed to be what you can or can't do, it's supposed to be wether or not you made the right choice: Meaning you're encouraged to try again to make the right choice next match. There's nothing on the line besides a useless winrate and stars under your name.

not competitive doesn't mean casual. not to mention that technically, anyone who's gone on for glory is competitive; or at least they want to be in the moment. a true casual would be like that person in the friend group who never plays video games unless he's with people or something; he's got some crap games on his smartphone and thats about it.

 

[BobVance_]

Slow and boring? It's literally not even slow at the slightest. Don't blame the game on your low level of skill. Brawl is just too much for you, I guess. You can't keep up with it's technical demands. You're just not good at the game, that's all I'm gonna say :D

Uhh, yupp, game is boring, and I like exciting fighting games. Go online and everyone rolls around or runs away or tries to spam projectiles. Easy to beat, but not fun to play. It is what it is. I'm sorry you have the attitude of a sad little 12 year old, though. Go to bed, it's past your curfew. Or, let me know if you want to play a round of Smash 4 and I'll probably trounce you. :]

 

[Smash_Veteran_Amtoj]

Seems like the article got fix

I agree with you in what Sakurai tried to say. He really worries too much about new players and I mean, that's fine but as you say: it's a bad move to forget the competitive players.

Although, I don't believe that they should embrace hardcore part of the game. I think they should find a balance between them. Support for new players and support for competitive players because at the end:
We are all smashers.

When I say embrace, I mean just let the competetive players join the family. There's room for all kinds of play.

 

[MudkipUniverse]

@ LancerStaff please quit posting on this. Your replies are Biased, and to a point are cliché false claims (melee is too hard)

 

[Vaidya]

Uhh, yupp, game is boring, and I like exciting fighting games. Go online and everyone rolls around or runs away or tries to spam projectiles. Easy to beat, but not fun to play. It is what it is. I'm sorry you have the attitude of a sad little 12 year old, though. Go to bed, it's past your curfew. Or, let me know if you want to play a round of Smash 4 and I'll probably trounce you. :]

Lol the rolling is only a few players, moron. Are you even trying to hide the fact that you're terrible?

 

[brodouble]

Lol the rolling is only a few players, moron. Are you even trying to hide the fact that you're terrible?

are you even trying to hide the fact that you're a little girl who's only means of social attention is acting like a dweeb here? make some friends homie, you wont need to act up on a smash brothers forum.

 

[BobVance_]

Lol the rolling is only a few players, moron. Are you even trying to hide the fact that you're terrible?

Nope, it's everyone. Game is boring, and I'd def school you, cuz u stanky at this game fo sho

 

[Wyverian]

Looking back at the edited comment. I understand him. He does somewhat understand us aswell. That targeting both sides of the spectrum is indeed possible. This man deserves more credit then given, and better translated interviews lol. Oh and cool, me and Sakurai share the same Birth Day xD

 

[ShadyWolfe]

Name one good project Sakurai has done in the past 3 years, including Smash.

Kid Icarus Uprising

 

[smashboy12]

This guy sacrifices his health and this is the thanks he gets?
I'm sure I wouldn't still develop a game if my right arm is a gigantic pain!

 

[ItsChon]

Kid Icarus Uprising

Terrible.

 

[EthereaL]

Again, the hatred and bickering between those who wish this game were Melee (a game which supports both casual and competitive play, for the record) and those who do not is a little unnecessary. This will be my last posting on the issue, but realize this:

Competitive tactics can be implemented into a game without impinging upon the casual nature of it. Sakurai has gone further in this game than in any before to make it competitive.

Melee's beloved mechanics are, for the most part, accidents.

Do I think Sakurai could have gone further? Yes. I think his fear of (somehow) alienating the majority by allowing for faster movement got the better of his judgement. But, he (and Nintendo) have and are now, more than ever before, supporting the SMASH community. The competitive side as well as the casual.

You have a right to complain, to bemoan how yet another game fell short of the competitive ideal that people hold Melee up to. However, do not attack the developer for making an attempt, for the first time, to cater to you and your wants and your needs.

For those who say "this is why people think the Melee community is trash", you are just as much at fault as those people who bash Sakurai. Lighten up, and be happy for the fact that Nintendo is finally paying the non-casual community attention.

As for myself...as with each iteration of the SSB games, I will buy this one, and play this one. I will very likely give it up in favor of Melee after a few months (after messing around with it for a bit). An overhauled Smash Bros. Melee would have been my dream...but reality often falls short of dreams. However, this reality (one in which Nintendo considers the competitive community), in spite of falling short of one's dreams, certainly far exceeds expectations. And for that I am grateful.

 

[SmashManMalone]

Different time periods. Look at it percentages wise. About 10% of Wii owners bought Brawl. 35% bought Melee.

Sorry to inform you that you have a bad case of the ******. The GameCube itself had horrible sales globally and frankly, had about 10-15 good-amazing games in all of it's run. Stack that smash was pretty much a release title in a console that took a long time to release something else people were really interested on and it's no surprise that Melee was the battle horse of that console. Wii on the other hand was a massive commercial success and was owned by a ****ton of people who only owned Wii Sports, so simply by how diluted the Wii buyer base between those who were happy for a few family rounds and those that actually used it accounted for another big chunk of the console margin difference you so proudly talk about.

Melee is an awesine game that happened to have a series of glitches that let a group of people make a mountain out of an anthill, they had fun with it so no problems except when somebody that hadn't practiced how to use the glitches was absolutely screwed of any form of fun, specially with the no item clause cause "MAN GAME" and the only skills worth valuing are precise input and not adaptive play and taking advantage of the environment. Fast forward 10 years and this sad **** is still going where a minuscule fraction of the player base will never recognize anything that isn't a carbon copy of Melee and god knows even if was tried to be done that way, you'd still find a way to complain about it not being Melee since people have literally been OBSESSING for 10 years about it and the idea of letting it go is alien to them.

 

[Bluenote]

Or maybe he's trying to get you all to realize the Super Smash Brothers series isn't aimed for the pure competitive players, as stated in the article, if it was like that, there would be no new players because it'd be too much for them. You that are outraged at Sakurai, haven't realized that to you it'd sound amazing for Smash to be full on competitive, but a terrible idea, since there would be no new people and given the society we have today, we want everything to be easy that they'd give up after they hear the announcer say "Game." So for it's future, it's best if Smash stays as it is. Nintendo has done this for many years and it's worked, they never change. Not like Call of Duty where it just gets bland and boring, just look at Pokémon, every game it's set up your character, pick a starter, collect badges, beat the league. Is that it? No, it offers a unique journey each playthrough, diffrent experiences depending on how you play, seriously, averagely, or casualy for fun,

 

[Bluenote]

Oh look. Sakurai is saying the exact same ignorant things he's always said about competitive Smash and he still thinks casual players couldn't play Melee. And people wonder why some of us wish he would stop coming back to direct every Smash game or why some of us don't worship the ground he walks on just cause he made the games in the first place.

Again, Sakurai's intentions for how the game will be played won't mesh-up with how the audience will actually play, but don't be surprised if when something "gamebreaking" convinces him to patch the game again, perfect pivoting goes to join DACUS.

Be thankful you even had Melee. The only ignorant person I see is you.

 

[Bluenote]

Casuals still played melee. The game being more "hardcore" doesn't stop them from enjoying it. It's bull**** logic.

You've seen society lately right? We want everything to be easy.

 

[Sleek Media]

I don't really care for this article, but I will comment on one thing.

"Sakurai: I fought, I lost...these results and suffering from painful feelings is how the user base shrinks, and we want to avoid that with Smash. In that sense, Smash has many elements that are rather ambiguous and nebulous in regards to competition."

This comment is just strange, especially within context. Is he saying he doesn't want people to feel failure? Or is he saying he wants people to not care about losing? Or is he talking about the results screen? I dunno.

I don't really get this comment, but my initial reaction is he just has to realize that any game, including Mario Party, is competitive. Players will win, and players will lose. Whether or not one takes it seriously or not is an entirely different story.

As a player who played 64 and Melee casually, then jumped into Brawl competitively, I would say Sakurai has literally nothing to be scared about. The basics of the game are already suitable for casual play, and it's an amazing game to bring at social gatherings because everyone loves to mess around with it. Even my old group of tournament-viable friends like to play Smash with items on to unwind after a hard day of work.

I personally like to play the event modes and playing VH/9.0 intensity single-player modes because I enjoy stuff like that.

Sakurai and his team has done a wonderful job with the smash series, but it is competitive by nature regardless. Why is he so worried about people getting their feelings hurt?

It's not hard to understand. He is talking about "salty" feelings, which have somehow become somewhat celebrated in competitive circles recently. They are an ugly display of poor sportsmanship. And nothing more. He also sees the users of websites like smashboards and reddit working themselves into a frenzy about how OP Rosalina is, or Diddy is, at the drop of a hat. When the vocal competitive crowd (and certain pros) spends so much energy whining about every possible personal challenge instead of, you know, acting competitive and finding a way to overcome it (we used to call it building a metagame), it sends the message that they aren't actually enjoying the game very much unless they can win the same ease they did in certain previous Smash games. I am sure he is very disappointed to see knee jerk reactions (Mega Man is terrible?!) spread like wildfire until they are the status quo, with only a few outliers actually trying to figure out the depths of these characters which have received more competitive balancing than any other Smash.

There is another angle about how frustrating it can be for newer players to actually get anywhere on the competitive plane, but he's talking about the above.