The attitude towards this game.

[chipz]

If EVO and E3 are any indication, Nintendo this year has very clearly shown that 1) they are completely ignorant to competitive smash potential,

I like how melee had by far the least prize pool, with Nintendo using it to plug their new game with an advertisement featuring Reggie. Much smaller developers like arc sys actually helped with the pot. I think they see the potential $$ more than anything else.

 

[Nyhte]

The hate, prejudice and sensitivity due to perception is palpable

tl;dr this game is different from past smash games in more subtle ways than we know and it will take some time to fully realise the consequences of that. In the meantime, making a judgement call on the game's viability before that point is a case of counting your chickens before they've hatched.

I think it's a good thing that people are saying things sooner rather than later. Patch ability is there for a reason and some things are easy to tell off the bat. Tier lists are more likely to change from start to months later than views on quintessential gameplay function and mechanics. Of course a lot of it is subjective, (as most any opinion is) so it could be disguised complaining without much merit, but there's still no reason to avoid saying something sooner. Yes, it should be acknowledged that the game will change and not everything is known or set at a common standard of skill, but critiques can still be relevant. There's nothing wrong, and there's something helpful with evaluating something sooner. So that changes, if there should be, happen sooner rather than later. Acknowledging problems or the wishes of the community is something that modern game developers are very capable of, and there's nothing wrong with saying 'I want this' or 'I don't want that' as some people insist. Nintendo could make smash 4 drastically changed and revert it the next, they have a lot of power, but if they have no feedback they'll have nothing to act on from the community. Even if it's segments or minorities of the Smash gaming population.

Some people seem to be under the stance of "You mentioned a thought with the game, how dare you" as though their honor was insulted and Nintendo is definitely going to make the change, which isn't true

 

[Big-Cat]

75% of people posting don't know what they are talking about and honestly it takes 100 matches to see a single exciting match of this game. This game is seriously garbage as a fighting game.

I disagree. I think it depends on how you're playing the game. Here are some matches between me and @Moon Monkey . Sure, I lost all but one in this video, but I thought our matches were very engaging and challenging. Just a warning, this contains some NSFW language.

 

[LightLV]

I like how melee had by far the least prize pool, with Nintendo using it to plug their new game with an advertisement featuring Reggie. Much smaller developers like arc sys actually helped with the pot. I think they see the potential $$ more than anything else.

At first they wanted to actually stop the game from being featured before being burned by the internet. This year feels like it's been a fast learning experience for them. I really don't believe the E3 invitational would have even happened without that kind of stuff. Hell, the popular melee players were the ones running the crowd.

 

[Teh Sandwich]

How about, everyone hating on smash 4, gtfo of the competitive discussion. Go rant in the general discussion, or better yet, take your bias opinions back to the melee forums. Or are you out of things to discuss because melee only has 2 real characters?

 

[Clavaat]

Riddle me this:

If Melee, Brawl and 64 never happened, what would the opinion of this game be? That is, you have no frame of reference for what makes a "good" smash game, you are forced to look at it completely objectively as a fighting game. What would you think of it?

From that perspective, to me, this is a solid game. The characters feel smooth, movements natural, combo potential light, but good. From what I've seen in tournaments so far, it hasn't been overly defensive or offensive, depending on the character. Match length is good.

OK, now I'll bring it back into the real world. I still like it a lot. The flattening of the tiers is visible immediately, which is awesome. TBH if you want to talk about hype for a match, seeing different characters represented is something I greatly enjoy with games like SSF4, and would love to see here. The matches from tournaments, at least what I've seen so far, have not been overly defensive or offensive. Just like other fighting games, it's about the hard reads, poking, footsies, punishing combos, mindgames, etc.

I think the main point Kuma is really trying to make is that going in with a negative perception for no particular reason is not helpful. Going in with a neutral perception, but judging the game based on how it feels after a few weeks at least, is fair. I know it is difficult to get out of a mindset of a game when previous entries exist already, but I think if we take SSB4 for what it is, it's really a solid game all around.

Disclaimer: Until I see actual consistent tournament footage that tells me otherwise, this is how I feel. By consistent, I don't mean here, "M2K 0%'d a guy once as Zelda, Zelda is broken, game is broken" or whatever. I mean Meta Knight levels where the results are/were the same almost every time.

 

[pimpimjim]

you need to realize that Melee is a good game. A very good game in fact

based on what

 

[BobVance_]

Fact: All the people who hate on Melee just sucked at it.

 

[Snowfin]

On approaching being unsafe:
It is a problem. It's a HUGE problem. When the person who acts first is at a tremendous disadvantage, you end up with a stale, boring, defensive game. When shields, rolls, spot dodges, and just hitting an approaching target is as safe as it is in this game, players are going to be very, very reluctant to ever throw out an attack that isn't a punish.

And it's only going to get worse. We are in the infant stages of this game. I was watching a tournament yesterday and could already see glimpses of the future watching things like diddy's side B get more consistently punished by smashes. People are going to get more and more used to seeing offensive options, and the game is going to get even more defensive than it already is.

Sure, it's still technically a competitive game at that point, you can host tournaments and everything. But it won't be a FUN competitive game.

On aerials being laggy and lack of movement options:
The game is dull as paint when your approach options are limited by laggy aerials and no movement abilities.

In melee, you can move towards your opponent and retain your full toolbox, along with your aerials not being useless against a grounded opponent. This leads to fun, agressive gameplay.

In smash, if you try and aggressively get near your opponent, all of your options are heavily punishable and you will lose almost every time. The game promotes a very slow, boring, defensive style, hit confirming everything off of projectiles if possible, avoiding committing to a punishable action as much as possible.


The complaints stem from the gameplay not being what people want. I want a fast aggressive game with lots of ways for the better player to come out ahead.

This game does not deliver.

This guy is right, such a shame so MANYof you dont get it

 

[ChampKing]

Pretty much every tournament I've seen is boring. None of the players do anything remotely impressive. It's like watching For Glory with more stages and Diddy Kong everywhere.

 

[GameWatching]

This game is good. But if too much people get to complain about some gameplay mechanics, then something must be wrong with them. They can't all be just 'haters'.

 

[cpulord]

Pretty much every tournament I've seen is boring. None of the players do anything remotely impressive. It's like watching For Glory with more stages and Diddy Kong everywhere.

have you even watched a squad tour yet those are hype

 

[Weeman]

Honestly the game it's very fun to play competitively but i kind of agree that at the highest levels of play, it won't be that fun to watch, i mean in more friendly matches people usually play more aggresively since they got nothing to lose, so it's overall more fun to watch. But in tournament matches where people are playing for money they will play the safest they can play.
I know i cannot speak for everyone but there's a large difference between watching matches and playing them, i nevet get bored even when the matches get really stale because i'm always thinking of my next move.
But for an actual audience, anything that is not constantly filled with hype flashy moments will be boring.

 

[FormlessD]

The problem is taking away features. I personally like the way Smash 4 plays, but in general when you take out features some people are gonna be unhappy. Smash is in a weird position since we had a game in between now and Melee -- there is no reason to expect Sakurai to have added wavedashing back in.

 

[Utena]

nobody can argue that the stalling was cut down and that the pacing has been fundamentally been improved on a level of active player participation and decision making

how to make decisions in smash 4:

Step 1: wait for the other player to attack and shield grab them

 

[TTTTTsd]

how to make decisions in smash 4:

Step 1: wait for the other player to attack and shield grab them

I mean sure if you're playing on For Glory and nobody knows how to space in a game where all the grab ranges have been nerfed, lol. I mean, that's them overcommitting to moves that are blatantly unsafe on shield. Not mine or the game's fault that people go in too deep, just maximize the distance you poke at and you're perfectly fine.

 

[Utena]

spacing would be a lot more effective if moves (aerials) were less laggy in general

throwing out any move first in smash 4 (barring long range projectiles) is likely to either get you shield grabbed or punished by a grounded opponent

 

[TTTTTsd]

Or you could always space on the ground too. Most bairs also happen to be less laggy if you don't fastfall them (which is really easy to not do) andddddd landing lag in this game is pretty tame if you ask me. I mean, could be me utilizing the autocancel window that my character has on his Bair after a shorthop Fastfall (one of very few who can do this) to hit shields, but it's really not hard.

And then there's always the fact that dashgrabs come out pretty fast in this game compared to previous entries barring JC grabs in Melee.... list goes on.

Don't get me wrong shield is a great option but you'd better hope your opponent doesn't know how to properly space bairs or any long reaching aerial, or even tilts on the ground.

And I do have a citation for low landing lag overall, there's a chart in the competitive forums that has the frame data for it. Most characters either have an
- Aerial that autocancels
- Low lag aerial

 

[Big-Cat]

Honestly the game it's very fun to play competitively but i kind of agree that at the highest levels of play, it won't be that fun to watch, i mean in more friendly matches people usually play more aggresively since they got nothing to lose, so it's overall more fun to watch. But in tournament matches where people are playing for money they will play the safest they can play.
I know i cannot speak for everyone but there's a large difference between watching matches and playing them, i nevet get bored even when the matches get really stale because i'm always thinking of my next move.
But for an actual audience, anything that is not constantly filled with hype flashy moments will be boring.

This is a key issue with the player base/game. It's more fun to play than to watch. Of course, if you know what's going on when watching, then it gets far more interesting. It's like how SF4 is not fun to watch at low level.

 

[Utena]

*tries to space on ground as palutena*

oh wait i cant, all of my tilts, smashes, and specials are too slow to effectively wall out or punish any character!
Now my options are: jab, grab, and dash attack.
if i dash attack i get grabbed, so my options are now jab or grab.

how exciting.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

For those of you consistently crying about people's criticisms with "This is not melee, it will never be melee, so stop trying to make it be melee and go play melee", you need to realize that Melee is a good game. A very good game in fact. It set a precedent of what and what not to do in a Smash game to make it competitive and of high quality. You can't just ignore it in favor of making a game "different". Melee got a lot of **** right, and thanks to that, people will continue to make suggestions in line with what Melee has done for future Smash iterations because those specifics have proven to be work. Just because someone makes a suggestion or criticism about Wii U or any other game for that matter doesn't mean they want to bust out their GC. Tired of reading this Melee 2.0 nonsense. Use your brain before you post.

In some ways it did.

In others is caused PM to recreate things really didn't like about Melee.

 

[TTTTTsd]

I mean, you could always use aerials instead! But hey, you can't ignore actual frame data, right? Now I can't recall the range of Palutena's aerials but....
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1uwEvYc82aUOUJ22_NE_oK3LlmUglglrwN0_A_aiTKlM/edit#gid=0
For reference. (Ganon's frames are off, this is from patch 1.0.3. Palutena's are unchanged)

But feel free to pidgeonhole my argument into just grounded tilts and neglect that I mentioned aerials having relatively miniscule lag along with grabs having less range. I simply mentioned that in some cases you CAN use grounded tilts, my apologies if this doesn't apply to all 51 characters in this game.

I wonder why tournament play of this game doesn't just feature hiding in shields and shieldgrabbing? Probably because people are
A) Spacing all of their things when required and
B) Not relying on nerfed grab ranges OoS

 

[Deleted member]

IMO Brawl Minus and Project M both surpass anything Sakurai has created. I won't play Smash 4 again until it's modded, and if it's never modded, oh well.

Brawl Minus is more fun to play casually than any main series game, and Project M is more fun to play competitively than any main series game.

Every design decision made in Smash 4 forced the game to be slower, more defensive, less interesting, and extremely boring.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

oh geez this thread is a big argument. back to competitive impressions for me.

i dont waste my time trying to fill a glass thats already full.

 

[RODO]

I think the thing about this game, and it is a great game, is that it's so close to greatness it's frustrating. The smallest of tweaks could make this an exciting fighter to watch and play competitively without changing much of the base game for casual players. Hell they could even make a DLC special mode that makes the game have a melee type physics engine and just beat out the inevitable PM2 mod.

 

[Teh Sandwich]

how to make decisions in smash 4:

Step 1: wait for the other player to attack and shield grab them

Lol so you're just one of those easy kids that just holds your shield and gets grabbed all day.
Bad kid is bad

 

[BobVance_]

Lol so you're just one of those easy kids that just holds your shield and gets grabbed all day.
Bad kid is bad

Have you watched any tournaments? That's exactly how they play out half of the time.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Sure, sure it is...

 

[Weeman]

Have you watched any tournaments? That's exactly how they play out half of the time.

That's bull****.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Well @ Big-Cat you ended up being right, look at this thread lol. The true victor emerges.

 

[BobVance_]

I was referring to the original guys post, not his, calm yo ballz

 

[warionumbah2]

Pretty much every tournament I've seen is boring. None of the players do anything remotely impressive. It's like watching For Glory with more stages and Diddy Kong everywhere.

And the commentators are just too desperate to make things hype.

One game had Sheik fair fair fair ---> Bouncing fish ----> Down throw ---> fair fair fair ---> Bouncing fish ----> Down throw repeat. And they were like "OH WOW IF THAT BOUNCING FISH HIT IT WOULD BE SO HYPE" i kid you not they were scrapping the plate just to get hype over something. There are no mix ups in this game almost all combos start from the same throw.

Singles are a bore fest and its the source of where all the complaining and distaste is coming from(especially due to common characters such as Diddy,Rosalina,Sheik ect) but Doubles is amazing to watch.

I hope they scrap 4 v 4 and make it 3 v 3 instead.

Basically singles ain't good but Doubles is this game strong point imo lets hope Nintendo doesn't patch any AT we find and work on.

 

[Teh Sandwich]

Have you watched any tournaments? That's exactly how they play out half of the time.

You are pretty far off on that one. Your bias vision probably only sees what you want to see though.

If you don't like the game, and don't want to give it a chance, then leave. Go have fun with melee. Nobody is stopping you.

 

[brodouble]

LOL at the nintendo apologists in this thread. this game is so boring at tournaments. end of story. no one wants to watch it. if melee setups still garner more attention at tourneys than the new games does, that's how you know its bad. lol

 

[BobVance_]

You are pretty far off on that one. Your bias vision probably only sees what you want to see though.

If you don't like the game, and don't want to give it a chance, then leave. Go have fun with melee. Nobody is stopping you.

I like the game, just not competitively. It's a joke in that arena.

 

[Deleted member]

I'm a pretty big casual and I still find it way too defensive to be enjoyable. I feel like I'm trying to fight the game to have fun. But that's just me.

 

[Karaoke Man]

I'm a pretty big casual and I still find it way too defensive to be enjoyable. I feel like I'm trying to fight the game to have fun. But that's just me.

That just means the play styles are boring, not the game itself.

 

[Deleted member]

 

[Swoops]

Sigh, last time I try. Everybody, please stop scratching at an itch that has no end.

If the Melee boards had a topic dedicated to how Smash 4 players have an attitude towards Melee and this is why Melee is the best game of all time and is the true competitive basis of smash yadda, yadda...you can be damn sure that a lot of you would find yourselves wandering in there making your points.

At a certain point these threads and debates only serve to make the other factions of this community more irritated and thus get more discouraged and aggravated about the game being debated, which honestly hurts both sides. If other players take the initiative and are showing curiosity about the game - ie if they are asking questions they actually want to know the answer to - then Smash 4 players can greet them with encouraging advice and answers.

Otherwise, leave it the hell alone.

 

[Quillion]

Let Egoraptor sum up why this game isn't fun competitively again: Video is linked to the right time.

Seriously, someone should edit that part of the video into "Egoraptor describes Smash 4"