Sonic_Wave,
I personally like that Brawl is that forgiving: in most fighting game, while it's good that you are punished, I don't like how punishment can basically be three mistakes, you're out:
Once you get "punished" you are no longer playing, really...
While punishment to the point of not playing is overkill, the punishment must be there so that you have at least some fear of being hit. In brawl, there are almost no attacks that will definately sting into another, no bread and butter combos. There is no real fear of being hit, because as long as it doesn't kill you then it doesn't really matter. You can just airdodge and escape, or even use it as a chance to get a free hit back on your opponent. That is more like rewarding the player that got hit, because they get a free hit in exchange, but they don't have to trick you into getting hit. They can just hit you in your lag with a fast attack. That makes the defensive player have the advantage over the offensive one, which is a fundemental flaw when it comes to fighting games.
It becomes a one player mini-game, Mario party style: press the buttons in this order and combo them as long as you can. It loses the back and forth aspect that I find to be real-time multi-player.
Melee was actually very lenient when it came to combos. You had the opportunity to DI, Smash DI, and tech off of things, you had multiple lives to make up for a bad mistake, and you got knocked further at higher damages which made combos very much a spur of the moment thing rather than being as straight foward as other fighters and while in other fighters you're pretty much stuck if you let yourself get hit that first time.
The combos in melee were thought up as they went on, as a reaction to your DI and attempts to escape, which is the most forgiving kind of combo mechanic that I've seen actually work in competative play. "You can still combo, we're just going to make you work for it and give them a chance to possibly escape." That's basically how comboing in melee worked, other than the bread and butter combos.
At it's core, Brawl is meant to be a fighting-party-esque game, if you look at it...
It has an appeal as a chess style game, but...it's not supposed to be purely strategic
Name one aspect of melee that wasn't strategic. Have you ever thought that skill and reaction time could be a part of the strategy.
which we try to make it: it's a lot about skill and reaction, which is further emphasized by the quick recovery that Brawl now has, unlike Melee's brutal stun and weaker DI...
We are talking about the highest level of play here. At that level, reaction time is no longer a factor. We will know exactly how much stun each move has, so we'll have a plan for whenever we get hit. We'll hit them back because there's nothing they can do about it. Melee's DI was anything but weak, and was a massive improvment compared to 64. Now you could not only SDI, but you could change the actual trajectory of the attack. That's one of the most unique things about smash! While it's possible to chain hits together, it's also possible for the opponent to screw you up by changing his DI! They took it too far in brawl though. Now you can't actually combo anybody, so there's really no point in following up after an attack (unless you out range them), because they can just hit you back.
Actually, I think it's kinda funny that Fighting games are now like chess in a sense...it just seems to contrast so much, though O_o
Are you implying that there was some point where they weren't like chess? Smash, Guilty Gear, Naruto GNT4, Street Fighter, Melty Blood, ect. are anything but button meshers!
It's true though: unable to string 3-4 combos doesn't always mean there's something wrong with you, so much as it means that your opponent is more skilled.
Or that they have the common sense to realize that airdodging is now harder to punish and now is an extremely good option for avoiding followups! Combos do not exist in brawl because by definition, a combo is inescapable if the attacking player does not mess up! However, now even if the attack player plays perfectly, he can't really punish a mistake with anything more than one guranteed hit. Don't you think he should be given the advantage if he's capatalizing on a mistake? Even in chess, if your opponent makes a mistake and you capitalize on it, then the opponent is put a few turns behind in their strategy. They now have to play catch up. That is the nature of competative games. But brawl is simply being too forgiving, and forgiveness is really not that great in a competative environment.
In Melee, that meant something, because it's just one person reacting (since the second player has very limited options so that it's not much of a factor)
Or maybe their options are a little more subtle? DI is actually an ingenious implementation in melee.
so that one person can be effectively judged by comboing abilities...
And that's a bad thing? Since when did having combos in a fighting game become a bad thing?
It's no longer one person playing in a sterile environment: Chess is two player, but each turn is a sterile, unmoving, unchanging situation that the player can alter to their will without fear of unexpected change happening before or during that move.
Wait a minute, where'd that idea come from? Chess is not sterile at all. Each turn you have to think of a new strategy based on how your opponent's move fit into your strategy, and if you ever make a mistake then you are easily set back quite a few turns. One mistake can even cost you the game if your opponent capitalizes on it and doesn't make any mistakes of his own. That's exactly how it's supposed to be. Chess isn't that forgiving of a game either, so I don't see what you're talking about. If you make a mistake, and your opponent doesn't make a mistake, then you lose.
Melee is similar to that, in that players could combo with assurance that their opponent will not escape...But Brawl isn't.
They should have that assurance, because that assurance is their incentive to go on the offense. If there's more risk than gain in a tactic then you don't do it. If attacking your opponent is more likely to get you killed then it is to kill them, then there's no point. Why should I ever approach you if you're the one who gets the advantage from it?
Where is my incentive for ever approaching? Will I only approach if I'm losing and will lose the match if the timer runs out? Why should I do anything besides turtle and let you come to me? I get no reward for attacking, because if I do then we just trade hits, but if I play defensively I have the chance to shield it and hit you back out, reseting the playing field but with you having more damage. When attacking, I can only tie. But when defending, I have a chance to win. Which option do you think I will chose?
