Scar on the Melee vs Brawl debate: What does competitive really mean?

[LouisLeGros]

Unfortunately, I think this thread hit its peak around page 10 or so, when we started really delving into potential options for the game. Since then, it's gone downhill with people clamoring to get their insignificant opinions heard without even reading at the very least the "important posts" to which scar refers.

I vote that those of us who want to analyze Brawl's future ignore the people who keep reiterating the same **** thing we've heard over and over, ignore the people flaming us for wanting to see Brawl as a competitive game, and absolutely ignore anyone who uses the words "melee 2.0" in their post.

Let's go back to discussing the game's current state, potential solutions, and how we can bring in most of what made smash competitive in the first place--not just melee. Let's try to figure out how to bring balance between attacking and defending, and bring in a new edgegame. Let's work out new combos.

Right now, heavy brawl looks fantastic. Give it a shot.

Well said, I guess I just need a bit more self control.

We should just ignore the trolls/scrubs/posters that have no relation to the topic. It may sound elitist but I think you are right. Some of them may be well intentioned, but their lack of knowledge on the subject really seems to hamper discussion.

I've been watching Dragz's heavy gravity thread grow, but it has been a bit to staggering for me to really go in and read it and contribute to the discussion there.

Hey it is better then going to items for competitive play.





...
**** my post makes me sound like I think my farts don't stink.

 

[ToastMAN]

forum filled with ignorance because we tell you read the thread to be able to be able to know what has been discussed? Reading what you think is important is far from informing you about the real discussion in this thread.


You are just insulting us now.

correction, you told me to read the thread. and even if i read it, repeating an something that has already been discussed is bound to happen.

Reading what is important, is reading things that can aid me in the discussion. There is proly on or 2 decent posts between every 5 or so pages. The rest is proly bull**** like this.

I have better things to do with my time than to read 20 pages of discussion and 80 pages of bull****

BTW, by ignoring other peoples thoughts and opinions, prove that CWF is full of ****...and your "discussion" will become repetitive and boring...

 

[Papapaint]

This game is still brand spanking new. None of us know the true potential of this game yet, let's be serious, not even the pros. New techniques and combos will be revealed and people will eventually lose the woody they still have for Melee. I agree, Melee was awesome, I'll still pick it up on occasion, just as I pick up Smash 64, but we are in the age of Brawl. This is the game we've been waiting for for years!!! People are ready to throw it away to go back to the 4 playable characters in Melee? This game has made some positive changes (along with tripping... I know) such as multiple air dodges, attacking after an Up B, easier sweet spotting, and what seems so far to be more balanced characters.

From now on, I will respond to posts like these with the following:

Congratulations! Your post has been dealt with previously, and is therefore adding nothing to the discussion! Please refer to the important links in the first post, and also read the first ten or so pages to find clear, well-defined responses to your post. Thanks for trying, and please post again once you've caught up with the rest of us.

Love,
The people who want Brawl to succeed in a competitive environment because we love the game!

 

[Papapaint]

correction, you told me to read the thread. and even if i read it, repeating an something that has already been discussed is bound to happen.

Reading what is important, is reading things that can aid me in the discussion. There is proly on or 2 decent posts between every 5 or so pages. The rest is proly bull**** like this.

I have better things to do with my time than to read 20 pages of discussion and 80 pages of bull****

BTW, by ignoring other peoples thoughts and opinions, prove that CWF is full of ****...and your "discussion" will become repetitive and boring...

Congratulations! Your post has been dealt with previously, and is therefore adding nothing to the discussion! Please refer to the important links in the first post, and also read the first ten or so pages to find clear, well-defined responses to your post. Thanks for trying, and please post again once you've caught up with the rest of us.

Love,
The people who want Brawl to succeed in a competitive environment because we love the game!

 

[bovineblitzkrieg]

This game is still brand spanking new. None of us know the true potential of this game yet, let's be serious, not even the pros. New techniques and combos will be revealed and people will eventually lose the woody they still have for Melee. I agree, Melee was awesome, I'll still pick it up on occasion, just as I pick up Smash 64, but we are in the age of Brawl. This is the game we've been waiting for for years!!! People are ready to throw it away to go back to the 4 playable characters in Melee? This game has made some positive changes (along with tripping... I know) such as multiple air dodges, attacking after an Up B, easier sweet spotting, and what seems so far to be more balanced characters.

Please, read the thread before you post. I won't flame you too hard because you're obviously just ignorant.

We've debated our side of that argument... oh... at least 100 times so far. We don't know the true potential, sure, but we know the MAXIMUM potential is nowhere near that of the game's predecessor. There are not combos in Brawl, there's lucky circumstances.

And there's only 4 playable characters in Melee if you're obscenely good. My M2 and even my pichu can wreck most people's "only 4 playable characters", barring the top notch guys.

It's funny that two of your "positive changes" are generally cited as terrible decisions by Sakurai in the competitive community.

 

[LouisLeGros]

correction, you told me to read the thread. and even if i read it, repeating an something that has already been discussed is bound to happen.

Reading what is important, is reading things that can aid me in the discussion. There is proly on or 2 decent posts between every 5 or so pages. The rest is proly bull**** like this.

I have better things to do with my time than to read 20 pages of discussion and 80 pages of bull****

Then why don't you take the advice that I gave you earlier and read the important posts that are linked on the first page. They should cover the basics of most of the important subjects that have brought up in this thread.


However, I shall now take Pancake's advice, this isn't contributing to the discussion, you don't seem to have a grasp on the melee competitive scene. Sorry to sound rude, but if you don't have some sort of understanding of the competitive community it is really hard to contribute.

BTW, by ignoring other peoples thoughts and opinions, prove that CWF is full of ****...and your "discussion" will become repetitive and boring...

speak for yourself, how do you expect to hold us to a standard that you will not uphold yourself?

I'm done with you.

 

[Koskinator]

The way I see it, Brawl is the "Kill or be Killed" smash game. It is more tactical and slow paced than Melee, but it seems in Brawl a KO will just pop in from out of nowhere, in melee you can see that someone is getting on a roll and hes going to get a kill. Brawl is like, you have momentum, it shifts to your opponent, shifts back to you, back to him, back to you, so on and so forth until the other guy finally dies and your standing there on final destination at 147% waiting for him to respawn so you can get some hits in before he kills you so you can have the upperhand on your respawn.

 

[Pink Reaper]

The way I see it, Brawl is the "Kill or be Killed" smash game. It is more tactical and slow paced than Melee, but it seems in Brawl a KO will just pop in from out of nowhere, in melee you can see that someone is getting on a roll and hes going to get a kill. Brawl is like, you have momentum, it shifts to your opponent, shifts back to you, back to him, back to you, so on and so forth until the other guy finally dies and your standing there on final destination at 147% waiting for him to respawn so you can get some hits in before he kills you so you can have the upperhand on your respawn.

Congratulations! Your post has been dealt with previously, and is therefore adding nothing to the discussion! Please refer to the important links in the first post, and also read the first ten or so pages to find clear, well-defined responses to your post. Thanks for trying, and please post again once you've caught up with the rest of us.

Love,
The people who want Brawl to succeed in a competitive environment because we love the game!

 

[Goldkirby]

From now on, I will respond to posts like these with the following:

Congratulations! Your post has been dealt with previously, and is therefore adding nothing to the discussion! Please refer to the important links in the first post, and also read the first ten or so pages to find clear, well-defined responses to your post. Thanks for trying, and please post again once you've caught up with the rest of us.

Love,
The people who want Brawl to succeed in a competitive environment because we love the game!

Hahahaha! I see what you did there. Quite clever if I do say so myself.

Anyways, after reading through all 113 pages so far, I think pretty much everything important warranting discussion has been discussed. Scar's whole first post still pretty much stands true.

 

[Pink Reaper]

I've already told Scar that he should just collect the important discussions from this thread, link them in the first post(theres ALOT more that needs to be linked than whats already there) then ask for a lock + Sticky so the community can move on.

 

[Teczer0]

I'm not going to lie to everyone I have read a little bit of the thread but there is absolutely no way I was about to read 100+ pages lol.

Anyway the point of this thread was to argue the competitive value of brawl vs the competitive value of melee.

Now I like brawl too I play the game with my friends and think its a lot of fun.

Brawl is far less competitive than melee I think it should be very obvious because even without putting melee's ATs into the picture its obvious for all the reasons that Scar, Cactus, m2k and others have undoubtedly stated.

Maybe and hopefully Brawl can become a very potent fighting game worth playing for and making huge tournaments over.

I got this link from Cort from another thread, sorry if its been posted.

Its a thread made by Gimpyfish about the "Intentions" of brawl

http://allisbrawl.com/forum/topic.aspx?id=3966

 

[Endless Nightmares]

I just got back from a Brawl tournament.

WOW I ****ING HATE BRAWL. I hate Melee more, it's the lesser of two evils here. I'm about to say what everyone else has already said, just to clarify.

No point in approaching, they just shield and **** you. There's less strategy and camping dominates everything. It's actually spammier than Melee. Gameplay is so boring. get hit really far, come back and try to attack because you're losing, get hit really far again, repeat.

Singles felt like a complete waste of ten dollars, teams was ****ing sweet though I can't lie.

I played Melee again and believe it or not it felt limited compared to Brawl o_O

 

[Shai Hulud]

Welcome to the dark side, 56k.

Feed your hatred. It will give you power.

 

[RDK]

WOW I ****ING HATE BRAWL. I hate Melee more, it's the lesser of two evils here. I'm about to say what everyone else has already said, just to clarify.

How can you say that? Explain, plox.

 

[Red Exodus]

I heard this is the way Soul Calibur's community died. SC3 came out as a broken mess and the community couldn't move back so it just died.

It's a shame because Smash deserves better. I can't see myself doing this with any other series so I guess this is the beginning of the end of competitive gaming for me.

Maybe I'm wrong and everything will work out but I can't really pour my energy into hoping for that.

 

[Teczer0]

I heard this is the way Soul Calibur's community died. SC3 came out as a broken mess and the community couldn't move back so it just died.

It's a shame because Smash deserves better. I can't see myself doing this with any other series so I guess this is the beginning of the end of competitive gaming for me.

Maybe I'm wrong and everything will work out but I can't really pour my energy into hoping for that.

Well there are a lot of tournies for brawl and there is a lot of optimism for it.

Its probably just this thread because this thread is talking about both of the game's competitive value.

I think brawl is gonna be fine.

Its still basically a new game. It hasn't been out for even a year yet its too early to decide if its so detested that everyone will get stuck in the past.

I hated the game for a while now and I keep playing it because its a lot of fun. Although it sounds kinda cheezy or cliche I think I'm going to need some type of inspiration to play it competitively so until then I'll just continue to play it for fun.

With nothing to shoot for to me its just an ordinary game, so hopefully the game can show us some interesting things that keeps the game really fun and interesting for years to come.

Because the more people that play the game the more of an incentive there is to get better at the game.. right? I think.....

 

[Fletch]

I played Melee again and believe it or not it felt limited compared to Brawl o_O

Explain please?

 

[Endless Nightmares]

Idk how to explain how melee felt more limited. It just felt like less thinking was required, and we were just blindly ****** each other with no real strategy at all. Also everything has a "weaker" feel to it after playing Brawl. like I said it's hard to explain. I didn't really feel like I was doing anything. Just hitting each other around. As gay and campy as brawl is, at least it feels like I'm actually...thinking about what I'm going to do.

Anyway Brawl has permanently hampered my Melee game in more ways than one and I will never be able to play Melee the same again. My self a month ago would 4-stock my current self in Melee.

 

[Corigames]

Idk how to explain how melee felt more limited. It just felt like less thinking was required...

That's just the Brawl getting to ya man!!! Hang in there! You can fight it, I believe in you!

 

[Zankoku]

No point in approaching, they just shield and **** you. There's less strategy and camping dominates everything. It's actually spammier than Melee. Gameplay is so boring. get hit really far, come back and try to attack because you're losing, get hit really far again, repeat.

Your first Brawl tournament?

 

[Endless Nightmares]

Of course. lol

I felt the same way during the 2 weeks of various friendlies before the tourney too though.

Toward the end I just picked G&W and spammed bair :/

 

[whisperingtears]

It's competitive in a diffrent way. The chars. are more or less evend out so that anyone can win wiht practice. It also caters to younger and less experinced gamers, which is good becuase in a couple of years they will be us.

 

[Corigames]

It's competitive in a diffrent way. The chars. are more or less evend out so that anyone can win wiht practice.

Practice at the character select screen?

 

[KernelColonel]

If you think there are no comboes in this game pick a different character like Marth or Sonic or Lucario or Zamus or anyone that doesn't suck

 

[Witchking_of_Angmar]

If you think there are no comboes in this game pick a different character like Marth or Sonic or Lucario or Zamus or anyone that doesn't suck

If you think you can combo, try airdodging coupled with DI.

 

[Radical Dreamer]

If you think there are no comboes in this game pick a different character like Marth or Sonic or Lucario or Zamus or anyone that doesn't suck

If you think Sonic doesn't suck, try comparing him to the other 38 characters in this game.

 

[Brawler1432]

EAMPLE

That's just the Brawl getting to ya man!!! Hang in there! You can fight it, I believe in you!

OUr downfall has begun.

 

[Scar]

Idk how to explain how melee felt more limited. It just felt like less thinking was required, and we were just blindly ****** each other with no real strategy at all. Also everything has a "weaker" feel to it after playing Brawl. like I said it's hard to explain. I didn't really feel like I was doing anything. Just hitting each other around. As gay and campy as brawl is, at least it feels like I'm actually...thinking about what I'm going to do.

You guys are bad at Melee. That's fine too, you may even be "good" at Melee on a large, broad spectrum. But when compared to the top level of play, if you aren't thinking, you aren't that good.

The game isn't limited, your skill level isn't high enough to take advantage of all the game has to offer. I think that's probably one of my favorite parts of Melee.

 

[Brawler1432]

You guys are bad at Melee. That's fine too, you may even be "good" at Melee on a large, broad spectrum. But when compared to the top level of play, if you aren't thinking, you aren't that good.

The game isn't limited, your skill level isn't high enough to take advantage of all the game has to offer. I think that's probably one of my favorite parts of Melee.

Bad is a ppretty harsh term for someone who said he would respond in kind.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Yes.

This is exactly how the Soul Caliber community died.

They should have just went back top laying the perfection that is the original Soul Caliber for Dreamcast.

Instead they stuck with SC3 and it just died because the game sucked.

The Smash community won't die. Brawl is pure fan service. Our community will survive due to the legions of fans that don't know what makes a good competitive game. It will survive because the majority of our community are mindless nintendrones that truely believe that Brawl is an amazing game.

The rest of us will break away from the main community and continue to play Melee or not play Smash at all.

I choose the latter.

*waits for Street Fighter 4.

 

[Brawler1432]

You do that, I like that you were on these boards , most likely anticipating Brawl (is evident by your post count). And then by the time it comes out, you suddenly turn your back on it. You probably already have the game too, which makes it a waste of a perfectly great game(if yo don't own you shouldn't have made tat argument)I don't know what to call you, a temporary Ninen fanatic, or and unintelligent person.

 

[Newskool]

Yes.

This is exactly how the Soul Caliber community died.

They should have just went back top laying the perfection that is the original Soul Caliber for Dreamcast.

Instead they stuck with SC3 and it just died because the game sucked.

The Smash community won't die. Brawl is pure fan service. Our community will survive due to the legions of fans that don't know what makes a good competitive game. It will survive because the majority of our community are mindless nintendrones that truely believe that Brawl is an amazing game.

The rest of us will break away from the main community and continue to play Melee or not play Smash at all.

I choose the latter.

*waits for Street Fighter 4.

Excuse us for enjoying a game you do not enjoy.

 

[GameAngel64]

The definition of competitive that has received the most support is the innate property of a game allowing better players to win consistently. This yields my mantra, that which I repeat over and over to prove my point.

Those who should win will win.

It is necessary to point out that this has nothing to do with the competition you will face. There is a big difference between competition and competitiveness.

Also, competitiveness is a scale. By definition, someone better than someone else at anything will on average win more. Competitiveness can only be talked about relatively, since everything that isn't completely random has a certain amount of competitiveness.

Let me preface this by saying I have read no other post in the thread aside from the first post. I only wish to address this one point that caught my attention, and for all I know, what I am about to say has already been brought up/disputed, but nonetheless here I proceed.

"Those who should win will win."

What does this even mean? Who should win? I assume you don't just mean the person who was better in Melee, so alternatives include the person with more practice, the more "skilled" opponent... Given the latter two options, as long as items are off and neutral stages are on, in what way does Brawl prevent the more well-practiced, skill savvy opponent from winning? Won't the opponent who is 'best,' most well-practiced, and most Brawl-skilled win most often, keeping in mind that being Brawl-skilled might bear very different specifications from being Melee-skilled? Does this all just boil down to tripping?

I see you make the comparison that, in Melee, the more skilled opponent wins a greater majority of the time, but isn't it possible that degrees of skill are just generally not so divided yet? Maybe the "good" players of Brawl just aren't THAT good in Brawl yet, as they were after years of perfecting their game in Melee? Also, is that huge of a divide absolutely necessary? Perhaps that is the true meaning of 'competitive' as you use it; there ought to be a significant divide between the people who win and those who lose, it's not enough for the "better" player to just win often.

I understand your point that more people are busy trying to bring Brawl to a competitive level earlier than they did in Melee, but isn't there nonetheless still a point to be made that it is quite early in Brawl's life cycle? Even if it doesn't/shouldn't take the years it took to bring Melee to its competitive peak, shouldn't at least a year and a few tournaments pass us by before the final judgments are passed? I'm sure it's harder for veteran eyes to see Brawl in the novel way it might require in order to realize its full potential. It's like, sometimes, you can be looking in the fridge FOREVER for the milk, and all it takes is for someone new to walk by and take a peek, and they find the milk in two seconds, it having been right in front of your face the whole time. If you get what I mean.

 

[bovineblitzkrieg]

Let me preface this by saying I have read no other post in the thread aside from the first post. I only wish to address this one point that caught my attention, and for all I know, what I am about to say has already been brought up/disputed, but nonetheless here I proceed.

"Those who should win will win."

What does this even mean? Who should win? I assume you don't just mean the person who was better in Melee, so alternatives include the person with more practice, the more "skilled" opponent... Given the latter two options, as long as items are off and neutral stages are on, in what way does Brawl prevent the more well-practiced, skill savvy opponent from winning? Won't the opponent who is 'best,' most well-practiced, and most Brawl-skilled win most often, keeping in mind that being Brawl-skilled might bear very different specifications from being Melee-skilled? Does this all just boil down to tripping?

I see you make the comparison that, in Melee, the more skilled opponent wins a greater majority of the time, but isn't it possible that degrees of skill are just generally not so divided yet? Maybe the "good" players of Brawl just aren't THAT good in Brawl yet, as they were after years of perfecting their game in Melee? Also, is that huge of a divide absolutely necessary? Perhaps that is the true meaning of 'competitive' as you use it; there ought to be a significant divide between the people who win and those who lose, it's not enough for the "better" player to just win often.

I understand your point that more people are busy trying to bring Brawl to a competitive level earlier than they did in Melee, but isn't there nonetheless still a point to be made that it is quite early in Brawl's life cycle? Even if it doesn't/shouldn't take the years it took to bring Melee to its competitive peak, shouldn't at least a year and a few tournaments pass us by before the final judgments are passed? I'm sure it's harder for veteran eyes to see Brawl in the novel way it might require in order to realize its full potential. It's like, sometimes, you can be looking in the fridge FOREVER for the milk, and all it takes is for someone new to walk by and take a peak, and they find the milk in two seconds, it having been right in front of your face the whole time. If you get what I mean.

The point is that the physics system limits the game's potential so much, there doesn't appear to be much more we can learn other than metagame. Believe me, there's been thousands and thousands of hours poured into this game already, and it doesn't get any better. Defense is really the only viable strategy, which makes for awful gamplay. I see what you're saying but the issue is that the game has no positive directions to grow in, there isn't much potential. Time isn't going to change the physics engine.

Good fighting games require balance. Between characters, between strategies, and between offense/defense. Brawl simply fails too often.

Heavy brawl seems to correct the balance a little bit. At the very least it makes it more fun for the competitive in spirit.

 

[GameAngel64]

Yeah I've kept up on the stuff about Heavy Brawl, though I'm still skeptical that that play mode will be our savior.

Even though I think it's unfair to say that Brawl is non-competitive and never will be and somehow people who don't "deserve" to win are winning, I'm not saying that Brawl is without its problems. Case in point, I hope the mark of a "skilled" Brawl player doesn't translate into how good a person is at camping. That's just not fun.

 

[xyouxarexuglyx2]

If you think there are no comboes in this game pick a different character like Marth or Sonic or Lucario or Zamus or anyone that doesn't suck

If you want to argue that the comboes in this game are any good, play this for an hour, and then tell M2K that you will give him 100 dollars if he 4-stocks you in Melee. He will do so with extreme ease.

 

[LOL_Master]

that's true

 

[Red Exodus]

You do that, I like that you were on these boards , most likely anticipating Brawl (is evident by your post count). And then by the time it comes out, you suddenly turn your back on it. You probably already have the game too, which makes it a waste of a perfectly great game(if yo don't own you shouldn't have made tat argument)I don't know what to call you, a temporary Ninen fanatic, or and unintelligent person.

Look at his join date Sherlock, back then Brawl was still under wraps so there's no way he joined this site just to discuss Brawl that long before it was even announced. These boards used to be excellent for Melee discussion unlike the dribble you see in the Brawl boards.

Your argument makes practically no sense at all. You make it sound like once you buy a game you can't speak ill about it. Well sorry but people get their hopes up and when they expectations fall short they get disappointed, don't tell me you've never been disappointed in your life because everyone goes through it at some point in time and everyone handles it differently.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Brawler1432: What? I wasn't on here for Brawl.

I was on here for melee and if you don't know what I'm about go to the Marth forums for melee and take a look around.

Also who said I hated the game or didn't enjoy it.?

You know what?

**** it.

I'm sick and tired of new people questioning me or my reasoning. From now on I will blatantly attack anyone who is new to the forums and insults me without reason.

So sick of people assuming things just because of something I said that bothered them that probably doesn't even apply to to them, but because they got offended they have to open their mouths even though it has nothing to do with them.

And not only am I attacked, but I'm attacked with crappy reasoning to back it up.

Holy ****, if you are going to insult me get your facts straight and make sure your argument makes sense.

F*CK!

 

[Skler]

No Emblem Lord, you were on here for Brawl. Stop these lies immediately!

Brawl is not nearly as competitive as Melee. Anybody can learn how to camp and punish people who approach in Brawl. It just isn't hard to learn to play against the best. In Melee you had to learn so much and get a lot of experience to even stand a chance of competing with average tourny players. With Brawl you just need to figure out what you can do to make your opponent approach you and then **** them while they're at a disadvantage.