Serious Question: does Smash need unintentional techs to be competitive?

[Quillion]

This is something that's unique about Melee not just with Smash, but with fighting games in general. There are all these physics exploits, glitches, and other stuff that are constantly discovered for over a decade. I've started to think of it like an unintentional Dark Souls: high learning curve, but you have so much freedom and options at your disposal, and the game lets you figure it out on your own.

So, I was thinking, what if Nintendo made a Smash with tons of techniques (NOTE: think of it not in terms of the Melee techs, but other theoretical techniques) but made them all intentional to the point of showing you how to do it. If we're going to extend that definition beyond Smash, Nintendo has already done that.

There's an amazing puzzle game made by Nintendo called Panel De Pon, also known as Tetris Attack or Puzzle League, where they actually had demos showed you how to pull off certain techs:

But if we're going with the definition of advanced techs being unintentional, then the techs in PdP are, by definition, not advanced techs. If Smash had "How to Improve" demo videos that showed you how to do anything from RAR to wavedash, they wouldn't be advanced anymore because they actually want you to be able to do them.

However, we have seen other companies make games more competitive by not having the unintentional techs. Capcom's various fighters have by only embracing and building upon the combos of SF2, but not carrying over any other techs. Each game has its own techs, and Capcom intentionally builds them into the game.

I hope that by posting in the Melee section we'll avoid contamination from the Brawl and Smash 4 sides, but whatever.

 

[AirFair]

I think that if Nintendo made these techs obvious, then it would still be a competitive game, with just more approval. Revealing these techs don't make them easier to perform, just easier to access and learn about. If they for example, told everyone about how to wavedash, l cancel, and all of that when melee came out, I think it would still be just as competitive, but with more access to these techniques since Nintendo would actually be helping the scene out in a way.

 

[The Soap]

It would certainly shut up the "you're not playing the game the way it's meant to be played" crowd.

 

[victra♥]

I don't think Nintendo (more so, Sakurai) wants games to have huge learning curves because they don't want a huge discrepancy between skilled and unskilled players.

 

[Quillion]

I don't think Nintendo (more so, Sakurai) wants games to have huge learning curves because they don't want a huge discrepancy between skilled and unskilled players.

Then explain the "How to Improve" demos in all iterations of PdP.

 

[victra♥]

Other games have definitely gotten more support such as PdP like you mentioned, and little more recently and more significantly, competitive Pokemon. Which is why I mentioned Sakurai more so than Nintendo.

 

[MudkipUniverse]

It would be a heck of a lot better then what Nintendo is doing with Smash 4. They removed DACUS and TOSS CANCELLING.

 

[Quillion]

It would certainly shut up the "you're not playing the game the way it's meant to be played" crowd.

Yeah, but the fun of Melee stemmed from discovering new stuff. It's just like Dark Souls or Skyrim or Zelda 1, but as a fighting game.

This is why I thought the Loading Tips in Smash 4 was a terrible idea, because it just encourages the developers to make the game stagnant.

I guess they could try to put in a lot of hidden techniques, but those kind of stuff are really hard to both program in and balance around.

 

[Quillion]

I'll bump to ask another question:

If Nintendo took out all the stuff like Wavedashing and L-cancelling, but instead put in other intentional techniques like possibly making is so that you can do anything out of the initial dash or putting in some kind of high jump move like in MvC, and made it so that they show you how to do it would it still be competitive? I kinda asked that in the OP, but now I'm outright stating it.

They took out the fun of discovering the tech, so it looks like it wouldn't be.

 

[Vkrm]

Unintended vs intended doesn't seem like a valuable distinction to make. I think we're better off looking at each bug/exploit/glitch/tech individually and deciding to keep them on a case by case basis. Hell, we already ban items.