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

[Pink Reaper]

Wobbling was not discovered by Wobbles, he was just the first IC's player to use it to great success.

 

[Corigames]

Out of all of that... all of that... that's all you have to say >_>

 

[Pink Reaper]

Yes

10chars

 

[NoVaLombardia]

Yes

10chars

pink reaper crits coreygames for 9001 bafflement.

coreygames keels over

coreygames loses


--> Insert coin to continue? (costs 10 IQ)
--> Start at last save point?


(but i did agree with most points there corey, good essay)

 

[Awesomasaur]

Nice essay about a video game.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Nice essay about a video game.

ISAAAAAAAAAAAAAIYUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH....

...extender.

Troll is obvious troll.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Scar]

Yeah good **** coreygames, that's like... everything that we all want to say. I don't think there's much arguing with it either at this point.

 

[Corigames]

Thanks, but I kinda forgot to mention:
-Stages
-SSE
-Online
-Powershielding
-etc.

Maybe I'll do that tomorrow.

 

[Cups]

melee=chess
brawl=checkers

I think we can all agree with this. One is deeper and takes more skill and thought, while the other has a broader spectrum that allows all to pick up and play with little practice and experience. This makes the latter much more of an easy-going game, as compared to the highly competitive former. This is how I view the melee/brawl competitive discussion.

 

[chansen]

melee=checkers
brawl=chess

whoo, good thing i fixed that.

 

[Aesir]

Nice essay about a video game.

 

[Emperor Time]

Reasons why Melee is better: (A discussion that should not be in this thread, but has been building towards this post anyway...)

Character balance: (or the lack there of)

In melee, there was this kind of "rock, paper scissors,"thing going on. Someone who played Marth well could be beaten by someone who plays Fox well, someone who played Falco well could beat someone who played Fox well, someone who played Sheik well could beat someone who played Falco well, and so on. Characters countered one another without countering the entire character list. I played Samus and I found that the matchup against Marth, Sheik, Falcon, and Peach were harder than most others. This isn't true for Falco or Jigglypuff. Almost everyone was the same way.

In Brawl, as it appears now, there is a specific lacking in character balance. A character on the current "tier list," cannot beat someone higher than them. Even if you are better than the other person, you are not likely to beat my Pit with Sonic, Mario, Toon Link, or anyone except those who are better. Then, when you get into that field, I feel like I don't stand a chance! I cannot beat a Meta 1 v 1, I just can't do it. The match-up is so bad for Pit, that I might as well call it quits if they choose him. That's it. I've beaten many foxes, even the ones on my and higher levels. It can be done, but if someone is slightly lower or on my level, let alone better then me, in Brawl with a better character... nice try.

There are serious balance issues in Brawl compared to melee. Yes, Fox was good, but he was still stoppable by several characters. Not true for Snake in Brawl.

(Evidence as sited by tournaments ranging from Brawls release to today and videos on youtube and other places)

Combos:(Where are they?)

In melee, there was a fair amount of what we call, hitstun. Hitstun is the time where you cannot break your tumble animation and can only DI. When you get hit, you could smash DI to set your path and then regular DI the rest of the time. So, when you got hit, you could use DI to work your way out, DI tech in order to quickly escape, or you may mess up and DI yourself into more of the combo. So, the proper use of DI could hurt or hinder you, and it was hard to figure out where you needed to DI on some attacks because of the direction they sent you OR the subsequent move that might follow.

On the giving end, you needed to keep hitting the person. By adding a hit you, of course, add more hitstun. By keeping the person trapped in the stun of your moves, you could keep racking up damage or keep them off the stage. This is key for many people. In order to do that though, it was helpful to use some of the games own engine against itself as well as things programmed in. One of these is L-canceling. Just before you hit the ground, you could tap the shield button to remove half the lag of the move you are doing so that you could get back to move again. Simple, efficient.

One of the most popular exploits of the game was Wavedashing. The game gave physics to each character. All of them had there own fall speed, friction, and weight. Some characters were floaty, sticky, and heavy while others were fast, slippery, and light. Each character was very unique, even the "clones," as they are called. So, by air dodging into the ground, you could slide across the ground from a standing position and could do any attack from there. Very good move. By combining things like L-canceling and wavedashing, it allowed a lot of characters to speed up attacks so that they could effectively combo. Through use of proper DI, you could escape them, but you had to learn how to do it right.

In Brawl, however, there are very little techniques you can use to increase your mobility and, therefore, combo-ability. Most characters don't stand a chance at doing any more than three hits in a row, even with the person breaking out of their hitstun. The only way to continuously hit someone is to have them DI right back to you every time. You can even air dodge out of your hitstun now, making it even harder to land a hit on anyone, usually leading to your own punishment for attempting. The lack of mobility, slowness, and low hitstun in this game makes it near impossible to do any kind of combo, ever. The only semblance to a combo that you can get is a chain grab, which there seems to be way too much of in this game. Impossible to break out of, and incredibly easy to pull off. That's not a good mechanic.

Speed:(evidentially important for exciting games...)

As everyone can tell, Melee is a much faster game. Just the movement speed of the characters alone is enough to show that. Then, on top of that, there are those physics engine exploits that increase the speed and agility of many characters. By allowing people to advance quickly and react fast makes the game not only interesting to watch, but amazing to play. The fast characters had an obvious advantage over the others, but, at least, the exploits allowed slower or mid-speed characters to keep up with the faster ones, even if the faster ones used the exploits too. Going as fast as you could was a great mind-game, a way to keep yourself on your toes, and, in general, was good for dodging.

Obviously, Brawl is much slower. They reduced the speed of character movement and it shows. Games take longer now, just because of that. On top of the general movement speed lowered, there are practically no tactics that you can employ to make your character go faster. There may be a few impractical ones (Like wingdashing, or using the crawl animation quickly), but nothing notable. This means that slow characters are slow, and that's the final word. There is now way to reduce your lag, so your slow moves are slow. You cannot change that in Brawl.

Items: (still suck)

Just like in melee, items are either overpowered, or worthless. The only difference in Brawl is the inclusion of Final Smashes. This was a cool and captivating idea at first, but, after seeing the application, it is horribly unbalanced. Certain characters have utterly worthless finals while others are instant win buttons. While it may not matter in competitive play, it still irks me.

Infinites: (dividing by zero is NOT fun, trust me)

In melee, the only real infinite combo was Wobbling, discovered and implemented by Wobbles, by timing the ice climbers grab attack and tilts in proper rhythm to achieve an infinite stun lock with damage. That's it. There was the freeze glitch, black hole, and other things, but Wobbling was the only tournament legal one.

In Brawl, they somehow managed to include a variety of infinite moves all over the place. Dedede chain grabbing is probably the most popular. All you need to do is down throw and grab again. There's the grab/release move on Ness and Lucas with a few characters. You can stun lock someone with Diddy's Bananas. And the list goes on. If you play on the wrong levels, you will find yourself overpowered by some moves faster than you can wish you had wavedashing to move away. It's a problem that is going to cripple a lot of characters and will alienate those slow characters even further.

Marth: (six years of development and he's still broken)

I hate him, still.

Samus: (Intergalactic bounty hunter and hero)

Severely nerfed and has problems killing anything now. Great >_>

New: (It's shiny and new and everyone loves it)

Brawl is currently the more popular game. It's nearly impossible to find a melee tournament anywhere, especially one that's not running Brawl mainly or in the background. While there are a lot of people who still want to play melee, (even before the wave of new people yelled at us, "Shut up and go back to melee then.") no tournament holder seems interested in running one because there aren't enough people locally who support it. I'm organizing one myself, but am catching a bit of anger from people in my area for not running Brawl. It's not fair to people who don't recognize Brawl as their game.

Its also new that there aren't a lot of things that we can call "advanced." There really isn't a way to separate pros from scrubs anymore. The only people you are assured to beat are absolutely new to the game, after they learn who a good character is, you can beat anyone who isn't playing a better character than you. It's very limiting and it may be due in part to the lack of experience by anyone. It may get better, but I highly doubt it based off of what I've seen so far.

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Hopefully that's everything I can think of, but I doubt it. I'm hungry, so I'm going to go get something to eat and come back. if I think more things, someone responds to this, or w/e, then I'll post more.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

tl;dr
In melee, the better person wins; this is not true in Brawl.

Aren't you overexaggerating this a bit? I mean saying there is nearly no skill needed in Brawl is kinda...well....you know....

 

[ShadowLink84]

Just t point out a few things.

Reasons why Melee is better: (A discussion that should not be in this thread, but has been building towards this post anyway...)

Character balance: (or the lack there of)

In melee, there was this kind of "rock, paper scissors,"thing going on. Someone who played Marth well could be beaten by someone who plays Fox well, someone who played Falco well could beat someone who played Fox well, someone who played Sheik well could beat someone who played Falco well, and so on. Characters countered one another without countering the entire character list. I played Samus and I found that the matchup against Marth, Sheik, Falcon, and Peach were harder than most others. This isn't true for Falco or Jigglypuff. Almost everyone was the same way.[/.quote]

The characters you just mentioned were all considered top tier so I recommend you mention a few mid tier characters to support the argument.
Mainly since the lack of mentioning of mid tier characters really makes this point seem a little lesser.
If you're arguing concerning counters mentioning only top tier characters doesn't help since it is expected that top tier characters are capable of dealing with each other.
Not to mention that you mentioned the usage of a character that has been severely nerfed. Mention Ike or someone who is probably mid tier material.
Mainly so that its gives the appearance of being more accurate.

In Brawl, as it appears now, there is a specific lacking in character balance. A character on the current "tier list," cannot beat someone higher than them. Even if you are better than the other person, you are not likely to beat my Pit with Sonic, Mario, Toon Link, or anyone except those who are better. Then, when you get into that field, I feel like I don't stand a chance! I cannot beat a Meta 1 v 1, I just can't do it. The match-up is so bad for Pit, that I might as well call it quits if they choose him. That's it. I've beaten many foxes, even the ones on my and higher levels. It can be done, but if someone is slightly lower or on my level, let alone better then me, in Brawl with a better character... nice try.

Actually Sonic has a decent matchup with Pit and Toon Link actually does relatively well but thats entirely something else.


The problem is that it can be argued that in melee this also occurred.
a good Link player would never be able to beat a Sheik, Falco or Marth user of equal or comparable skill. It just would not happen.
Unless you used a character that was in the same tier as a certain character or better you wouldn't win unless you were better skilled than the opponent.

It can be argued that Olimar (whom many consider high) does very wlel against snake (top)

Mention how Dr. Mario had good matchups with the higher tiered characters.
It works well with the example of pit vs MK you provided and helps provide a more detailed picture between Brawl and Melee.

There are serious balance issues in Brawl compared to melee. Yes, Fox was good, but he was still stoppable by several characters. Not true for Snake in Brawl.

(Evidence as sited by tournaments ranging from Brawls release to today and videos on youtube and other places)

It can be argued that it is unfair to use something that is hinged the final versions of the metagame to something that is still within its infancy.
The tournaments in the beginning of melee cannot be compared to that of melee in its end.

Yes we do know what we want and know what too look for, but because of the differences it can be a bit difficult

I recommend you show a comparison of the amount of characters that can face off against Snake and those capable of facing off with Fox.
Something that is more concrete and clear than the tournaments (sort of how Sheik has remained top tier since the beginning) since usually people do not take early tournament results as hard evidence.

Combos:(Where are they?)

Snipped. I agree with it wholeheartedly and find nothing wrong with the argument.

Speed:(evidentially important for exciting games...)

As everyone can tell, Melee is a much faster game. Just the movement speed of the characters alone is enough to show that. Then, on top of that, there are those physics engine exploits that increase the speed and agility of many characters. By allowing people to advance quickly and react fast makes the game not only interesting to watch, but amazing to play. The fast characters had an obvious advantage over the others, but, at least, the exploits allowed slower or mid-speed characters to keep up with the faster ones, even if the faster ones used the exploits too. Going as fast as you could was a great mind-game, a way to keep yourself on your toes, and, in general, was good for dodging.

Obviously, Brawl is much slower. They reduced the speed of character movement and it shows. Games take longer now, just because of that. On top of the general movement speed lowered, there are practically no tactics that you can employ to make your character go faster. There may be a few impractical ones (Like wingdashing, or using the crawl animation quickly), but nothing notable. This means that slow characters are slow, and that's the final word. There is now way to reduce your lag, so your slow moves are slow. You cannot change that in Brawl.

I recommend you also mention L canceling and wavedashing since it fits well into the movement argument.
Mention how characters such as Ganondorf and Bowser were capable of approaching and moving more quickly and became more viable due to wavedashing and L canceling.
As well as how it fits into offensive play.

Items: (still suck)

Just like in melee, items are either overpowered, or worthless. The only difference in Brawl is the inclusion of Final Smashes. This was a cool and captivating idea at first, but, after seeing the application, it is horribly unbalanced. Certain characters have utterly worthless finals while others are instant win buttons. While it may not matter in competitive play, it still irks me.

Who cares if they are poor or overpowered as you said it doesn't affect the competitive scene.
Granted some of them are worthless but the FS is basically an item so it doesn't matter either way.
Remove it since it doesn't constitute towards the brawl vs melee argument enough.

Infinites: (dividing by zero is NOT fun, trust me)

In melee, the only real infinite combo was Wobbling, discovered and implemented by Wobbles, by timing the ice climbers grab attack and tilts in proper rhythm to achieve an infinite stun lock with damage. That's it. There was the freeze glitch, black hole, and other things, but Wobbling was the only tournament legal one.

You are slightly incorrect.
Fox's infinite drillshine was also legal.

In Brawl, they somehow managed to include a variety of infinite moves all over the place. Dedede chain grabbing is probably the most popular. All you need to do is down throw and grab again.

incorrect. It is ONLY infinite on Donkey Kong the other four are sem infinite. Other characters can actually escape at early percents.

There's the grab/release move on Ness and Lucas with a few characters.

Wrong.
Its only capable of being done by Charizard and Marth. Edit it when you get the chance.

You can stun lock someone with Diddy's Bananas.
And the list goes on. If you play on the wrong levels, you will find yourself overpowered by some moves faster than you can wish you had wavedashing to move away. It's a problem that is going to cripple a lot of characters and will alienate those slow characters even further.

Wavedashing was used the IC's, Sheik and other characters to increase their grab range.
I recommend removing it since wavedashing bolstered both offense and defense.

There aren't many true infinites. There are many CG yes but this also held true in melee.
Link had a CG.

I recommend not using the word infinite since infinite conjures the idea of something that goes on and on and on.
Many of what you listed aren't actual infinites and can be escaped after a certain percentage.
If it were infinite it would continue until the stage ended. In many cases this does not ocucr and after a certain percent all the characters can escape.

(exempting of course the 5 DDD semi infinite/infinite grab and Marth/Charizards infinite grab on Ness and Lucas)
If anything it can be argued that chaingrabs are not as devastating since your opponent cannot always immediately follow up with an attack due to the decreased hitstun.

Marth: (six years of development and he's still broken)

Love you man. You speak the truth.
But now we have MK and Snake too.
At least they reduced his sword's and grab's range.

Samus: (Intergalactic bounty hunter and hero)

Severely nerfed and has problems killing anything now. Great >_>

AIM FOR THE HORN! *shot*
sorry I couldn't help it.
yes I know i used it in the wrong context.

New: (It's shiny and new and everyone loves it)

Brawl is currently the more popular game. It's nearly impossible to find a melee tournament anywhere, especially one that's not running Brawl mainly or in the background. While there are a lot of people who still want to play melee, (even before the wave of new people yelled at us, "Shut up and go back to melee then.") no tournament holder seems interested in running one because there aren't enough people locally who support it. I'm organizing one myself, but am catching a bit of anger from people in my area for not running Brawl. It's not fair to people who don't recognize Brawl as their game.

Well as the saying goes life's not fair. =(
What you are doing is best. Running the melee tournament. The only reason that Brawl is suffocating the melee scene is because as you said, its shiny and new. Give it a year or so and that'll stop.
The most likely scenario is that melee and brawl end up co-existing which would benefit all parties.
Give it time, the n00bs will leave soon.
I am quite sure melee will be around.

Its also new that there aren't a lot of things that we can call "advanced." There really isn't a way to separate pros from scrubs anymore. The only people you are assured to beat are absolutely new to the game, after they learn who a good character is, you can beat anyone who isn't playing a better character than you. It's very limiting and it may be due in part to the lack of experience by anyone. It may get better, but I highly doubt it based off of what I've seen so far.

um no?
That's a very exaggerated statement.
While the gap between skilled and unskilled is smaller, the better skilled player will usually win.
While it is easier for someone less skilled to win, the only time that someone relatively new will be an expert is if they are using a character that counters their opponents.
WHich has occurred in melee but occurs more often in brawl.

This is not to say that what you say isn't true, it is more difficult to separate skilled from unskilled, however it isn't as great as you make it out to be.
That or do as we did in melee, choose a high tier/top tier character.

I have yet to see a single newbie win a tournament against a pro in brawl.

That or do as we did in melee, choose a high tier/top tier character.
The less skilled person will do the same in which case unless they are countering your character you most likely will win.

tl;dr
In melee, the better person wins; this is not true in Brawl.

Responded to with the above.

Stages

No

-SSE

Unnecessary

-Online

unnecessary.
The result of lagging game is because of the person's connection not because of Nintendo's servers. I play several near lagless FFA's with friends.
Soon as Mahg joins in it lags.

If its the system of arranging matches, the lack of customizing/choosing what matches you want then yeah agreed. nintenod was lazy.
again though its not much towards the competitive scene.

-Powershielding
.

I eagerly await this.

 

[Samochan]

The problem is that it can be argued that in melee this also occurred.
a good Link player would never be able to beat a Sheik, Falco or Marth user of equal or comparable skill. It just would not happen.
Unless you used a character that was in the same tier as a certain character or better you wouldn't win unless you were better skilled than the opponent.

Link fares pretty well against marth due to good projectiles and hookshot which in most cases enables grab from shielded fsmash. Against NTSC sheik the matchup is simply atrocious because of the chaingrab and sheik's quickness and all things considered, but Aniki fared really well against the likes of captain jack even when he still used link. Amsah in pal regions also destroys with link, or with any character for that matter. Falco is not and easy matchup for link if the falco is comboheavy, but is easier than fox. Definitely beatable though, link does have some nasty stuff against fast fallers and falco's sucky recovery does not help.

We're also speaking of a low/lower mid tier here in melee, who does have an even matchup against peach, fairly good one against marth and then bad matchups against fox, falco and sheik. Then link can do pretty well vs multiple other characters higher on the tier list than him and said to be too good for low tiers, lol.

You are slightly incorrect.
Fox's infinite drillshine was also legal.

Fox's true infinite drillshine can be only done on pokestadium rock formation from the legal stages as it requires walls around you, otherwise it can be smash di'ed out and so it's not a true infinite without walls around you. And if you ever go there and then get infinited by a fox that you well know can do such thing... it's just asking for it, really. <_< Also requires tons of technical skill to get right, it's not simply pressing one button within a set interwall. Not forgetting it's not something you can do 24/7 nor that you couldn't do anything about it either. Heck, tech on the walls when fox finishes the drillshine and upsmashes or do some nasty crouch canceling di (whatever it is) and you might live. <_< Simply put, you still have control over your character.

 

[Aesir]

The problem is that it can be argued that in melee this also occurred.
a good Link player would never be able to beat a Sheik, Falco or Marth user of equal or comparable skill. It just would not happen.
Unless you used a character that was in the same tier as a certain character or better you wouldn't win unless you were better skilled than the opponent.

Thats where you're wrong.

Skler got an east coast death pool, and managed to get 1st seed, He didn't just make it out of pools he beat virtually everyone in his pool, except cactuar who used marth but other then that he beat everyone.

 

[Tapia]

Aren't you overexaggerating this a bit? I mean saying there is nearly no skill needed in Brawl is kinda...well....you know....

haha i agree. The man is taking that a bit far, almost wrote a novel!

Melee = Fast
Brawl = Slower

Melee there's a bigger gap when it comes to whose bad, good, and decent.

in Brawl, there's not as giant gap, it's more user friendly for people that aren't as good, if you go to a tourney for brawl you can tell there's much bigger of a difference in the people skill level, compared to most people that don't play as much.

Saying that playing brawl takes no skill is dumb! It's just people don't like change, so when the game they like changes the style a bit. It's not as chaotic molestation on the controller, it's more paced and timed attacks.

 

[ShadowLink84]

Thats where you're wrong.

Skler got an east coast death pool, and managed to get 1st seed, He didn't just make it out of pools he beat virtually everyone in his pool, except cactuar who used marth but other then that he beat everyone.

Can you tell me what characters they used?
It somewhat supports me when you say he was beaten by cactuar's Marth.
My statement is that a good link will be unable to beat a Marth/sheik/Fox whose skill is equal or somewhat comparable.

Not that a good Link can't win but typically they are unable to beat characters that are better than them when the skill level is equivalent.

 

[Epsilon-Zero]

when people say that melee is better than brawl, it is mostly irrelevant because brawl is the current smash bros. game. It doesn't matter what competitive means, it doesn't matter whether melee was better, regardless of the reasons.

Brawl has better graphics.
Brawl has more characters.
Brawl is what people are playing now.
Melee is old, and it is done.

To the people that keep saying that Melee is better, so what? Are you gonna go play Melee with your friends instead? If you only play competitively, are you going to Melee tourneys?

his is exactly what i was going to say!

 

[Aesir]

Can you tell me what characters they used?
It somewhat supports me when you say he was beaten by cactuar's Marth.
My statement is that a good link will be unable to beat a Marth/sheik/Fox whose skill is equal or somewhat comparable.

Not that a good Link can't win but typically they are unable to beat characters that are better than them when the skill level is equivalent.

Fallenpiratevyse (7:09:36 PM): That was who exactly?
Fallenpiratevyse (7:09:37 PM): Lol
Sklerownsyou (7:09:40 PM): azen
Sklerownsyou (7:09:41 PM): cort
Sklerownsyou (7:09:42 PM): mathos
Sklerownsyou (7:09:44 PM): kevinM
Sklerownsyou (7:09:45 PM): hitman
Sklerownsyou (7:09:46 PM): N64

lol.

Azen: went for link dittos, beating azen in a link ditto is very impressive.

Cort: Peach/Fox I believe

Mathos: Falco (LOL)

KevinM: well they just ****ed around that match LOL

Hitman: Puff

Cactuar: Marth

n64: Pikachu.

beating a laser campy falco, and a corts fox isn't exactly something that one should disregard lol.


edit: Link vs marth is close to even, it's barely in marths favor.

The only hard counter to Link is shiek, fox and falco are soft counters.

 

[KO-M]

Melee >Brawl enough said.....

 

[Pink Reaper]

Whoa, that pool is ridiculous o.O Azen, Cort andCactar are all amazing and N64's Pikachu is beastly. Link for top tier.

 

[ShadowLink84]

Fallenpiratevyse (7:09:36 PM): That was who exactly?
Fallenpiratevyse (7:09:37 PM): Lol
Sklerownsyou (7:09:40 PM): azen
Sklerownsyou (7:09:41 PM): cort
Sklerownsyou (7:09:42 PM): mathos
Sklerownsyou (7:09:44 PM): kevinM
Sklerownsyou (7:09:45 PM): hitman
Sklerownsyou (7:09:46 PM): N64

lol.

Azen: went for link dittos, beating azen in a link ditto is very impressive.

Cort: Peach/Fox I believe

Mathos: Falco (LOL)

KevinM: well they just ****ed around that match LOL

Hitman: Puff

Cactuar: Marth

n64: Pikachu.

beating a laser campy falco, and a corts fox isn't exactly something that one should disregard lol.


edit: Link vs marth is close to even, it's barely in marths favor.

The only hard counter to Link is shiek, fox and falco are soft counters.

Really? I always thought that Link was at a disadvantage.
Glad I was wrong. Thanks.

 

[Samochan]

Really? I always thought that Link was at a disadvantage.
Glad I was wrong. Thanks.

Falco can do mean comboes on link and fox can do shinejunkies, but link has effective ways to edgeguard them, combo them, up b from shield to stop shieldpressure, really good aerial for that job as well, hookshot techchase and good projectiles for stuff. Link is at disadvantage yes, but it's not so major it cannot be overcome if you play smart. Prolly depends of the player styles though, tech reliant and spammy but smart spacey can be loads of trouble.

Not to mention you can possibly be gay with spin spike lulz.

 

[ShadowLink84]

Blargh I tend to use a more agro Link i guess thats my issue. I've not been too adept at spacing.

 

[Clai]

Thank God coreygames posted his essay on Melee and Brawl. The amount of scrubs attacking established forum members and posting completely nonsensical statements about Melee and Brawl was nauseating. Now to give my opinions (and I promise to try to not be a hypocrite here):

Character balance: (or the lack there of)

In melee, there was this kind of "rock, paper scissors,"thing going on. Someone who played Marth well could be beaten by someone who plays Fox well, someone who played Falco well could beat someone who played Fox well, someone who played Sheik well could beat someone who played Falco well, and so on. Characters countered one another without countering the entire character list. I played Samus and I found that the matchup against Marth, Sheik, Falcon, and Peach were harder than most others. This isn't true for Falco or Jigglypuff. Almost everyone was the same way.

In Brawl, as it appears now, there is a specific lacking in character balance. A character on the current "tier list," cannot beat someone higher than them. Even if you are better than the other person, you are not likely to beat my Pit with Sonic, Mario, Toon Link, or anyone except those who are better. Then, when you get into that field, I feel like I don't stand a chance! I cannot beat a Meta 1 v 1, I just can't do it. The match-up is so bad for Pit, that I might as well call it quits if they choose him. That's it. I've beaten many foxes, even the ones on my and higher levels. It can be done, but if someone is slightly lower or on my level, let alone better then me, in Brawl with a better character... nice try.

There are serious balance issues in Brawl compared to melee. Yes, Fox was good, but he was still stoppable by several characters. Not true for Snake in Brawl.

(Evidence as sited by tournaments ranging from Brawls release to today and videos on youtube and other places)

This is honestly the one thing people say about Brawl that irks me the most, that Snake and Metaknight are somehow "insta-win" characters and nobody else stands a chance. Yes, Snake and MK players have been winning the early tournaments, but are you willing to say that this is how it's going to be for the future of competitive Brawl? There is more to shaping the metagame than working on overall physics and techniques- character playstyle is going to be drastically different in the future. People are going to find ways to perfect their characters and people will realize how high potential could be. Snake and Metaknight will be countered eventually, and since apparently everyone wins tournaments with them, people will find these counters quicker.

Yes, the competitive Melee cast is greater than Brawl's (just basing this from tournament results and nothing else), but you have to remember how Melee became that deep. Jigglypuff had The King to lead them, and since him it evolved all the way to Mango's Pound 3 victory. DK has had its prominence almost entirely from Captain Jack. Ice Climbers were considered low-tier for years, then came Wobbles and Chu Dat and the rest is history. Yes, you can say that Melee's physics and techniques allowed for this, but without the ingenuity of the players to take advantage of these techniques, these characters would have never reached the level they are now.

Brawl is already demonstrating this- Futile's Wario is winning all over the place. There will be players like him that do exactly the same with other characters. Whoever says that some characters cannot place highly in tournaments doesn't know the true potential of these characters. Nobody knows true potential until it's reached. The only character I can truthfully say that won't be capable of performing well is Captain Falcon. It's a sad thing, but its true. I don't see Brawl as Snake and Metaknight dominating, I see 35 characters, all capable of winning in tournaments; all we need is a person to show us how much potential they really have.

Combos: (Where are they?) Followed by stuff

This section wins.

Speed: (evidentially important for exciting games...)

I would like to add another reason why Melee is superior here.

With people (including myself) talking about the Fox ****-fest and how advanced techniques make characters faster, I think people are forgetting that the joy of Melee lies in the fact we can play at different speeds. Yeah, there are the Fox-Falco/Captain Falcon battles that go at the speed of light, but the battles featuring Marth and Sheik are just as exciting, even if they aren't as fast. And to those who point to camping matches in Melee, you have to realize that it takes a considerable amount of skill to bring a Fox or Falcon down to the speed that you want to play at (most notably with Peach and Link).

This is the main gripe with Brawl: there is only one speed, and that's slow. People compain about camping not solely because it takes "less skill" than pressure playing, but because it's conforming to the only speed Brawl has, and trying to play at any other speed will likely lead to defeat. There is nothing in Brawl (that includes you, mortar sliding) that can get Brawl out of this speed. I may be reaching here, but if there was absolutely no way to play Melee other than "Lightning Mode, Fox only, Final Desination," then Melee would have a much smaller fanbase than it does now.

Items: (still suck, especially Final Smashes)

I agree.

Infinites:

People who solely rely on infitinites to win are scrubs. Simple.

Marth: (six years of development and he's still broken)

I hate him, still.

Lol, so true. Thankfully they made Marth just slightly less broken.

Samus: (Intergalactic bounty hunter and hero)

Severely nerfed and has problems killing anything now. Great >_>

I don't even play as Samus and I still feel your pain.

New: (It's shiny and new and everyone loves it)

I'll leave this section. This is nothing people should really be arguing against.

 

[FeArTeHsMaSh]

I would say this thread needs to be closed, but its better to have all the scrubs post their countered arguments here than have them create new topics.

Either way, no one has really put up a decent argument supporting Brawl yet. I hold off my judgment for a year.

 

[Koga]

We post very decent arguments, but then "Established Forum Members" Come here and do the following:

"BS BS BS, I like melee better and my expireince makes my preferences superior to yours"

and that's how it goes.

Someone (SonicWave i believe) compared an "established Member's" opinion to that of a physicist's opinion saying that because they're more educated that their opinions were more valid than unexpirienced players.

now, while this is very true, that's not what we're discussing here. When you read these threads, it goes around and around; back and forth, and eventually, the argument ends up coming down to "well, i prefer this type of game" and that's just it, a PREFERENCE.

angled opinions, or guesses based on your educated opinion of how things work is fine, but we're talking about preferences. Preferences are never more valid than others no matter how much expirience one has.

essentially, the "Established one's" argument is this: "I'm an astro Physicist, so when i say the color green is the best color, I'm right!"

Being an astro Physicist never qualifies you to decied what people's favorite color is. Being an expirienced Melee player doesn't qualify you to say that peoples preferences are wrong while saying yours are the ONLY correct one.

Aside: Not all pro melee people do this, but more than a fair share of them do. While the brawl side has its scrubs, they don't have the position of power established members have, so it doesn't damage the neutral members as much, but we have our own problems

 

[Aesir]

We post very decent arguments, but then "Established Forum Members" Come here and do the following:

"BS BS BS, I like melee better and my expireince makes my preferences superior to yours"

and that's how it goes.

Someone (SonicWave i believe) compared an "established Member's" opinion to that of a physicist's opinion saying that because they're more educated that their opinions were more valid than unexpirienced players.

now, while this is very true, that's not what we're discussing here. When you read these threads, it goes around and around; back and forth, and eventually, the argument ends up coming down to "well, i prefer this type of game" and that's just it, a PREFERENCE.

angled opinions, or guesses based on your educated opinion of how things work is fine, but we're talking about preferences. Preferences are never more valid than others no matter how much expirience one has.

essentially, the "Established one's" argument is this: "I'm an astro Physicist, so when i say the color green is the best color, I'm right!"

Being an astro Physicist never qualifies you to decied what people's favorite color is. Being an expirienced Melee player doesn't qualify you to say that peoples preferences are wrong while saying yours are the ONLY correct one.

Aside: Not all pro melee people do this, but more than a fair share of them do. While the brawl side has its scrubs, they don't have the position of power established members have, so it doesn't damage the neutral members as much, but we have our own problems

Acutally it's more like

"I'm an astro physicist, so when I say the color green is the best color to attract people who like the color green I'm correct."

They're not saying which game is better over all, they're saying which game is the better competitive game.

I don't think we've said their preferences are wrong we've said if you feel the better game then you probably aren't cut out for competitive gaming.

Arguments like "I don't wanna be technically perfect" (you don't have to be.) "glitches are stupid!" (lol) "I like being rewarded for being smart not pressing buttons fast."

Arguments like that really make the persons competitive attitude shine lol.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Acutally it's more like

"I'm an astro physicist, so when I say the color green is the best color to attract people who like the color green I'm correct."

See also:

I'm not a real doctor, but I play one on TV...

Smooth Criminal

 

[Koga]

Acutally it's more like

"I'm an astro physicist, so when I say the color green is the best color to attract people who like the color green I'm correct."

They're not saying which game is better over all, they're saying which game is the better competitive game.

I don't think we've said their preferences are wrong we've said if you feel the better game then you probably aren't cut out for competitive gaming.

Arguments like "I don't wanna be technically perfect" (you don't have to be.) "glitches are stupid!" (lol) "I like being rewarded for being smart not pressing buttons fast."

Arguments like that really make the persons competitive attitude shine lol.

While what you say is true, i have to disaggree with a point. Many Pro melee'ers do flat out say "melee's better STFU scrub" or some more wordy version of that.

and as far as saying that one game is a better competative game than the other, again that's an opinion. Its a very unfair debate when the pro melee side defines what competative means, conviently making the definition very Melee friendly.


Melee is very competative game, the kind that alows someone who grinds out tons of practice hours practicing combo's, ATs, and how to read DI for your combo's to advance in the game. However; some players take a dislike to this kind of game, not because they are a scrub, but because some people don't like to "learn the Textbook" in order to advance their skill in the game.

now yes, melee does involve mindgames, but you cannot deny that for every game situation, even as specific as the %, there is a textbook action. That's a hard fact. In Fact, much of M2K's success was due to his amazing ability to follow everything by the textbook all the time.


While this type of gameplay definately has its merits, chief among them the fact that the competative gaming community is very used to this style, there are other styles of competative games.

There are games that are less punishment oriented, games that reward the game played as a whole. Forgive my redundant comparison to RTSes. In those games, loosing one skirmish with your opponents forces hardly puts you in a very disadvantaged situation. Now while there are definately situations that put you on a slipery slope, your opponent microing better than you in one skirmish is not one of them. However, in games like melee, if you make a mistake, leave even one opening, you could be comboed for a very long time, most combo's even leave you in a position where your opponent could start a new combo. However games like brawl are more about macro management, they're about managing the hits you get in, Staying ahead in the % and keeping your self in a position to send your opponent flying and go for the edgeguard opportunity.


Any game without an auto win button is a very competative game. Take Mario Strikers Charged for instance. MSC has a very competative community, a very very small "textbook" and no ATs comparable to melee's.

In fact, the "Established Community" saying that "games with X qualities are competative and only games with X qualities are competative and any games without X qualities aren't competative enough for tournies" Is operating according to a premade set of rules in their head which prevent them from reaching the full potential of a game. Which is what Sirlin himself said.

so to be fair, according to an independent neutral source, the melee community are the ones being the scrubs here. Alot of the Brawl community is ignorant yes, but that doesn't mean they are operating by self made rules and refusing to see anyother way.

 

[Aesir]

yeah I mean who likes a game that gives a multitude of options, ya know? thats totally a thing of the past.

so to be fair, according to an independent neutral source, the melee community are the ones being the scrubs here. Alot of the Brawl community is ignorant yes, but that doesn't mean they are operating by self made rules and refusing to see anyother way.

You ever hear the saying about the unreasonable man? Probably not, the melee community isn't going to conform to the world around it. Many of us feel if we do the smash community will end up like the SC (soul calibur) community, you know what happened to them?


DEATH!

They all ditched 2, which by the way was the superior game. They all switched to 3 which was an inferior game, 3 eventually flopped the community died.

We're being critical not cause we biased towards melee, we wanted brawl to better we really did, I was in here defending brawl for the longest time.

being critical is not being a scrub, being a scrub is the refusal to see the other side. Which we have seen the other side, we're not impressed. We'd rather play a game that we enjoy, rather then play some water downed variant.

Brawl lacks many of the options melee had, this is apparent in it's game play. Brawl was meant to never EVER be competitive. The same can be said for melee, however not to the extent of brawl. If you look carefully throughout his interviews it becomes painfully obvious he intended to make sure this game wasn't competitive.


No one's saying you can't play brawl and enjoy it. Calling us scrubs though? Lol gtfo.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

And yet Sirlin is advocating the use of Final Smashes and Golden Hammers in tourney play. You know, two things that 98% (<--- Generalization) of the competitive Smash Community think are completely and utterly broken and throw any semblance of balance right out the window.

Hm. So much for a "neutral third party." You're starting to sound like one of those SRKers.

And Koga, you play other fighting games right? Since when have you had to hit and run because you couldn't efficiently combo somebody? That's right, no DECENT fighting game forces you to do something like this. Brawl does because there is a sore, sore lack of hitstun. For every attack you land, there's a consequence attached to it simply because the opponent can retaliate almost immediately. You may argue that this is more strategic and it involves more in the way of mindgames, but it all seems pretty elementary to me, with ****ing attacking right out of my ridiculous shield or right in the middle of a "combo."

Smooth Criminal

 

[arrowhead]

While what you say is true, i have to disaggree with a point. Many Pro melee'ers do flat out say "melee's better STFU scrub" or some more wordy version of that.

that's because they're tired of brawl noobs' stupidity
edit: actually, no pros say that. unless your definition of a pro is someone who can beat a lvl 9

and as far as saying that one game is a better competative game than the other, again that's an opinion. Its a very unfair debate when the pro melee side defines what competative means, conviently making the definition very Melee friendly.

that was the definition before brawl came out too

Melee is very competative game, the kind that alows someone who grinds out tons of practice hours practicing combo's, ATs, and how to read DI for your combo's to advance in the game. However; some players take a dislike to this kind of game, not because they are a scrub, but because some people don't like to "learn the Textbook" in order to advance their skill in the game.

learning easy ATs and improvising combos isn't like "reading a textbook" at all.

now yes, melee does involve mindgames, but you cannot deny that for every game situation, even as specific as the %, there is a textbook action. That's a hard fact. In Fact, much of M2K's success was due to his amazing ability to follow everything by the textbook all the time.

if only M2K were here to tell you how much of an idiot you are. not only because you're wrong about the "guaranteed textbook action" but also because you think you know how M2K plays

However, in games like melee, if you make a mistake, leave even one opening, you could be comboed for a very long time, most combo's even leave you in a position where your opponent could start a new combo. However games like brawl are more about macro management, they're about managing the hits you get in, Staying ahead in the % and keeping your self in a position to send your opponent flying and go for the edgeguard opportunity.

what's wrong with melee combos? they show they you're able to read DI, you know the effects of each move, and you know the physics of different characters. basically, it shows you know the game.

Any game without an auto win button is a very competative game.

ROCK PAPER SCISSORS IS HELLA COMPETITIVE

In fact, the "Established Community" saying that "games with X qualities are competative and only games with X qualities are competative and any games without X qualities aren't competative enough for tournies" Is operating according to a premade set of rules in their head which prevent them from reaching the full potential of a game. Which is what Sirlin himself said.

there's nothing wrong with thinking this. what's wrong is that it indirectly discourages development of a possibly good game because we think we already know the limitations of the game. but brawl has already had enough testing for most people to safely believe it's much worse than melee for competitive play.

so to be fair, according to an independent neutral source, the melee community are the ones being the scrubs here. Alot of the Brawl community is ignorant yes, but that doesn't mean they are operating by self made rules and refusing to see anyother way.

lol another demonstration of your high level stupidity and ignorance

 

[Corigames]

While what you say is true, i have to disaggree with a point. Many Pro melee'ers do flat out say "melee's better STFU scrub" or some more wordy version of that.

I do. I just stretch it out over a page or so with opinions, evidence, and way harder insults than, "STFU."

 

[NoVaLombardia]

dude, i just used snake for like the first time?

i ***** so hard with him vs so many people...

im too good... LOL

 

[Corigames]

A Funny, yet meaningful, Parody

Let's make Tiger Woods play Football!

(For those who do not understand what I am doing here, let me explain:

Tiger Woods is renowned for being an amazing professional Golf player. He was won tournaments many times and plays very well in general. You can say that he is very comfortable in the game of golf.

On the other hand, he does not play Football professionally, nor does he seem to have the capability to do so, no offense to him. To play Football requires a, severely, different skill-set than Golf. Obviously, he would not fair to well in a game of Football, especially so on a professional level.

Now, all humor aside in the situation of Tiger Woods playing Football, it should be obvious at what I'm trying to say. Melee and Brawl, while two different games, are from the same genre and franchise. The games should play similarly. A pro from Melee should do just as fine in Brawl, with a few, minor exceptions. The problem is, Brawl turned out to be a completely different game than everyone expected. It's like having played Golf for seven years, and being told that next year they are going to change up the tournament rules. You become excited and wait patiently for that day. Then, when you show up, you are handed knee pads, a jersey, and are sent onto the field. It's whole other game, but they are still saying it is Golf. On top of that, all your fans are there, other Golfers, and some new faces. They all expect you to keep playing this "Golf."

You can't say that moving on is my only option, because that is like telling me to enjoy picking up an entirely new sport, and is just as funny situation, to me, as telling someone who plays Golf to start playing American Football.

Thanks for reading this foot-note, feel free to stop at my signature on your way to the next post!)

 

[randomdragoon]

Actually a more apt comparison would be "Let's make a Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire pro play Pokemon Diamond/pearl!" Brawl isn't THAT dramatically different than melee as football is to golf, though I'll admit it is different. Like two consecutive pokemon games.

Besides you'd have just as many complainers if it turned out to be the same thing anyhow

 

[RDK]

Actually a more apt comparison would be "Let's make a Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire pro play Pokemon Diamond/pearl!" Brawl isn't THAT dramatically different than melee as football is to golf, though I'll admit it is different. Like two consecutive pokemon games.

Besides you'd have just as many complainers if it turned out to be the same thing anyhow

No you wouldn't. I'd wager that the majority of people would be a lot happier if Brawl was just new characters, stages, and better graphics slapped onto the old Melee engine.

And as for the golf to football analogy--it's not a very good one, but your main point comes across. It's more like professional tennis players being forced to play table tennis.

I like that analogy a lot better.

 

[leafgreen386]

In fact, the "Established Community" saying that "games with X qualities are competative and only games with X qualities are competative and any games without X qualities aren't competative enough for tournies" Is operating according to a premade set of rules in their head which prevent them from reaching the full potential of a game. Which is what Sirlin himself said.

so to be fair, according to an independent neutral source, the melee community are the ones being the scrubs here. Alot of the Brawl community is ignorant yes, but that doesn't mean they are operating by self made rules and refusing to see anyother way.

I love it when people take quotes out of context solely to prove a non-existent point. Melee players are not playing with any preconceived notions in our heads. We know what the brawl engine can do and we know what its limitations are. We are playing brawl like brawl, not like how we want brawl to be. Just because we can play the game well does not automatically mean we like it or that it's good for competition. All it means is that we know how to play the game well.

Many players that play at a high level in both melee and brawl prefer melee. You're telling me that someone who wins brawl tournaments is a scrub? Yeah, right. So many players prefer melee because those qualities that have been outlined are what make a good competitive fighter. Brawl does not fit this description. It is a comparatively shallow game.

Btw, I'd like to note that brawl is way more "textbook" than anything in melee. Spam spam spam, hit them away, spam spam spam. If you get hit, get out using air dodge/attacks. If someone attacks, shield, then **** them because of retardedly low shield drop times. There is always an optimum way to play in brawl, and it isn't usually that hard to figure out. That isn't so true in melee, where you truly have a variety of viable options, each of which would require a different response from your opponent.

 

[chansen]

Where have you been for the last jillion pages???

and great analogy rdk. i had a good chuckle over that one.