The Death of Competitive Gaming -- The Average Gamer?

[Fletch]

Except it doesn't because its not a fighting game.

Even more, its not something that should be easier at all. L canceling is just landing, nothing more. There is no reason that LANDING ON THE GROUND should be a chore.

Agreed, I shouldn't have to press a button to jump in the air either, I'd rather have my controller read my mind. Jumping shouldn't be a chore.

 

[Masmasher@]

Hey my post explains it pretty well lol

 

[AlcyoNite]

Except it doesn't because its not a fighting game.

Even more, its not something that should be easier at all. L canceling is just landing, nothing more. There is no reason that LANDING ON THE GROUND should be a chore.

in UR humble opinion good sir

 

[Pink Reaper]

Where's the strawman in that argument? There are lots of people in this thread saying that good competitive games shouldn't rely on advanced technical skill like L-Cancelling. The basketball metaphor responds perfectly to that.

Also, I just took a class in presentational speaking; apparently the politically correct term is 'strawperson'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

Eggm's point about shooting in basketball only sounds like it has something to do with the argument at hand. He made the argument into "We want everything to be easier" when at hand what it was was "We want to get rid of needless technical barriers"

But let's go ahead and respond straight to his argument. Shooting in basketball is 100% not the same as L-canceling in Melee because L-canceling is not a Risk/Reward system. Shooting in Basketball has it's own set of risks with the reward obviously being scoring points, the most major risk being missing at which point you would be punished for for missing by losing control of the ball. The big difference comes in when you realize there's no risk for L-Canceling. Because Not L-Canceling and Missing your L-Cancel are the same thing, the risk of doing it is 0, since screwing up leaves you exactly as well off as having not done it in the first place. Yes, you can be punished for that, but that's not the point, the punishment has nothing to do with the technique itself, only if you miss it. The argument "I can angle my shield to try and force you to miss an L-Cancel" is meaningless here because that doesnt add risk to the L-Cancel mechanic.

Now, if L-Canceling had a 4 frame window and doubled your land lag upon failure, suddenly it would be a technique legitimately about skill, it would have risk involved and you'd suddenly have two options available, attempt to do it(and risk failure leaving you extra vulnerable) or dont(and risk not having enough open frames to escape should your attack fail) This would be analogues to Wavedashing/Running. Both have similar rewards/risks but both have uses in standard play. However, because L-Canceling obsoletes standard landing, it becomes the only option, a "Do this or else" kind of thing, so you HAVE to be attempting to do it every single time, and while a single button press isnt much, it's an added technical barrier to people who have never played the game on the level we do here. To that extent, there would be nothing wrong with making THAT ONE SINGLE TECHNIQUE automatic.

Now note that i never once said anything along the lines of "Make wavedashing easier/make short hopping easier" or any of that bull**** that most of you morons seem to attempting to portray this argument as. Im just saying there are certain things in certain games that honestly only exist to create a meaningless technical barrier and there is absolutely nothing wrong with getting rid of them.

 

[Masmasher@]

psst! hey i think that one kids post makes a good point
just saying...

 

[EPsilon933]

complaining.

It's really not that bad.

 

[KAOSTAR]

The only real risk reward things that come from L canceling are if you get hit b4 you hit the ground and you press L all the way down, you will probably miss your tech.

If you try to L cancel and miss, and you then get punished, having pressed L you will probably miss your tech.

Thats really only if you press L/R all the way down tho.

I think L canceling is just there to balance frame advantages from aerials. The lower to the ground you attack, the faster you recover and have more frames to **** **** up, but the least amount of time you have to L cancel. If you choose to aerial early you can auto cancel, or have plenty of time to L cancel but poor frame adv.

Its a balancer, basically your price for attacking in respects to frame advantage. If that doesnt work then auto boosts sucks and I got nothin lol.

L canceling *****.

 

[giuocob]

Now note that i never once said anything along the lines of "Make wavedashing easier/make short hopping easier" or any of that bull**** that most of you morons seem to attempting to portray this argument as.

You haven't said it explicitly, but you're walking a pretty fine line. Actually, I don't really see why you're making a distinction between "make shorthopping easier!" and "make cancelling landing lag easier!" Both of them are major technical barriers that new players have to overcome before they can get really good. If you took away stuff like that, any player could just pick up a controller and start pulling off ridiculous stuff. That would drastically decrease the divide between a real pro and someone who's just been playing for a couple weeks, and then you have a scenario where anyone can walk into a tournament with a tad bit of experience and have a good chance of beating a bunch of people who have far more experience. And that's bull****.

 

[Masmasher@]

You haven't said it explicitly, but you're walking a pretty fine line. Actually, I don't really see why you're making a distinction between "make shorthopping easier!" and "make cancelling landing lag easier!" Both of them are major technical barriers that new players have to overcome before they can get really good. If you took away stuff like that, any player could just pick up a controller and start pulling off ridiculous stuff. That would drastically decrease the divide between a real pro and someone who's just been playing for a couple weeks, and then you have a scenario where anyone can walk into a tournament with a tad bit of experience and have a good chance of beating a bunch of people who have far more experience. And that's bull****.

no its not.
pros arent pros because they can do advanced techs...its because they know WHEN to use them.

that being said yall are both wrong my post is really good lol

 

[adumbrodeus]

You haven't said it explicitly, but you're walking a pretty fine line. Actually, I don't really see why you're making a distinction between "make shorthopping easier!" and "make cancelling landing lag easier!"

Ah, but recognize it or not, there is a major difference, under the current system, to make short-hopping easier, they need to increase the lag before a jump comes out, unless there's a major overhaul.


On the other hand, l-canceling is just a technical barrier.

Both of them are major technical barriers that new players have to overcome before they can get really good. If you took away stuff like that, any player could just pick up a controller and start pulling off ridiculous stuff.

If "ridiculous stuff" is the norm, then it's not really ridiculous, now is it? If ridiculous stuff is ridiculous because you made it hard to perform on purpose, then what's the point?

That would drastically decrease the divide between a real pro and someone who's just been playing for a couple weeks, and then you have a scenario where anyone can walk into a tournament with a tad bit of experience and have a good chance of beating a bunch of people who have far more experience. And that's bull****.

Lolololol

Seriously, if they're losing to people who have been playing for a few weeks, then they're not pros, they're just as much scrubs as the people who have been playing for a few weeks.


Melee has far too much depth for that, even if you can perform the technical stuff inherently, a sophisticated understanding of the options game that's required to compete against skilled players generally takes years to acquire.


So no, I don't see newbies beating pros anytime soon.

 

[giuocob]

no its not.
pros arent pros because they can do advanced techs...its because they know WHEN to use them.

that being said yall are both wrong my post is really good lol

It's some of each. If you look down the line past the people considered pros, you'll find people who repeatedly miss L-cancels, have accidental SDs, full hop when they meant to short hop, etc. You won't find that happening very often at the pro level. Fox is probably the best example of this; a lot of his stuff is pure tech skill, like Dair-> waveshine -> Dair -> etc. I can't pull that off, and I dare say that I'd have a pretty killer Fox if I could pull off stuff like that consistently. You're absolutely right that pros also are better at knowing when to use which technique, but there's a balance between these two. Sort of like leveling two different skills in an MMO.

Ah, but recognize it or not, there is a major difference, under the current system, to make short-hopping easier, they need to increase the lag before a jump comes out, unless there's a major overhaul.

It's nothing more than a technical barrier. I see what you're getting at, that a player has the option to either short hop or full hop when they press the jump button, but some of the SH windows are ridiculously small and take quite a bit of practice to pull off consistently. On the other hand, if they were to increase the SH window by a couple frames for certain characters, the technical barrier would disappear; people could short hop every time without practice, and full hopping would still be a possibility. I can't think of any current combos or techniques that would be rendered impossible if the SH buffer window were marginally increased.

If "ridiculous stuff" is the norm, then it's not really ridiculous, now is it? If ridiculous stuff is ridiculous because you made it hard to perform on purpose, then what's the point?

Because it's hard...shouldn't that be enough? Back to the basketball metaphor: watching someone shoot a basket from half-court consistently is ridiculous. Not because it takes any sort of understanding of the finer points of basketball, just because it's really hard.

 

[CRASHiC]

Agreed, I shouldn't have to press a button to jump in the air either, I'd rather have my controller read my mind. Jumping shouldn't be a chore.

Man you're ****ing dumb. Landing isn't an option dumb ***, its required. So, its basically saying "We require this to happen, so press a button when it does." If Brawl was a space flight simulator you'd have a point, but landing is not a true option.

In every single other fighting game its automatic AND WITH GOOD REASON. you guys are just trying to validate Smash as a competitive fighter when its not truly.

Shaq Fu is more technical than Melee, so it must be more competitive, right? **** off.

 

[Kanelol]

1/30th of a second to short hop with Fox is a technical barrier, make it bigger plzkthxbai

 

[Masmasher@]

all this and my post still speaks the most truth about l canceling lol

 

[Kanelol]

plug your own posts
become a good poster
????
profit

 

[giuocob]

all this and my post still speaks the most truth about l canceling lol

Why are you still going on and on about this miracle post? You're like Bill O'Reilly and his book.

 

[Derkis]

...
The big difference comes in when you realize there's no risk for L-Canceling. Because Not L-Canceling and Missing your L-Cancel are the same thing, the risk of doing it is 0, since screwing up leaves you exactly as well off as having not done it in the first place. Yes, you can be punished for that, but that's not the point, the punishment has nothing to do with the technique itself, only if you miss it. The argument "I can angle my shield to try and force you to miss an L-Cancel" is meaningless here because that doesnt add risk to the L-Cancel mechanic.

Now, if L-Canceling had a 4 frame window and doubled your land lag upon failure, suddenly it would be a technique legitimately about skill, it would have risk involved and you'd suddenly have two options available, attempt to do it(and risk failure leaving you extra vulnerable) or dont(and risk not having enough open frames to escape should your attack fail)
...

I think the assumption you're making here (bolded) is precisely the kind of strawman which you perceived in Eggm's argument. While it's true that there's no reason not to L-cancel, directional shielding (or any other method of disrupting L-cancel timings) adds a risk/reward mechanic to the technique in the sense that you need to L-cancel correctly. The defender needs to properly mix-up their methods of disruption so as not to be predictable, and the attacker needs to attempt to observe and discern patterns in their opponent's defense so that they can predict the proper way to L-cancel the attack. If you choose to ignore this dimension of the game, then L-canceling would certainly appear to be a no-risk technique. Given that it exists, I think you need to clarify how there is no risk involved in selecting the right L-cancel timing.

You could use DI as an analogue. There's no reason not to DI an attack in some manner (given that no DI is still a DI choice), so couldn't your argument also be applied to eliminating DI? The result of never DI'ing and DI'ing improperly are the same (you get punished). An understanding of DI renders never DI'ing obsolete. So in the interests of making the game more accessible, should we implement some sort of auto-DI?

Granted, in terms of tech skill required L-cancelling properly is probably a much harder technique to predict and execute well, probably because it occurs in a much smaller time frame and is more difficult to observe than something like DI. However, I'm have trouble with your (current) argument discounting any depth (or risk) added by the technique.

 

[GMhyprid]

L-canceling is a relatively minor technical barrier considering how smash is already really accessible. It's been an effective system since it has almost no impact on non-competitive gamers, and plus it doesn't change whether or not people will buy the game or not. If we go around and tell casual gamers "by the way, L-canceling exists," most will just say "that's nice" and not change what they think of the game or how they play it.

But what we care about is getting more attention to competitive gaming. What makes a competitive community? People that truly care about getting better. If we assume that the average gamer does not fit this requirement, then we're not trying to get average people to become tournament players. The greater problem is that not very many people want to be serious gamers in the first place. Let's face it, for those people that will choose not be competitive gamers because of something as easy as L-canceling will not suddenly become competitive if it becomes automatic.

Since L-canceling adds depth anyway, there is no reason it should be taken out should there be a "Melee 2." Granted, there should not be any more (barely not arbitrary) techniques like L-canceling in smash games in the future. Smash should always maintain its ease to play but impossible to master nature.

What's more important is we reveal Melee and gaming to be legitimate mediums of competition.

 

[Masmasher@]

Why are you still going on and on about this miracle post? You're like Bill O'Reilly and his book.

i can see a argument for l cancelling being needed if you think about it in the terms of the person thats being ATTACKED not the attacker. Think about it...if you are trying to cancel a attack then sometimes the person might want to counter up your attack/ l cancel by putting a angle to their shield to mess up your timing and put you at a disadvantage. so in order to counter that you have to switch up the timing for you l cancel.
it adds to competitive depth

bam overlooked but speaks truth

 

[Signia]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

Eggm's point about shooting in basketball only sounds like it has something to do with the argument at hand. He made the argument into "We want everything to be easier" when at hand what it was was "We want to get rid of needless technical barriers"

But let's go ahead and respond straight to his argument. Shooting in basketball is 100% not the same as L-canceling in Melee because L-canceling is not a Risk/Reward system. Shooting in Basketball has it's own set of risks with the reward obviously being scoring points, the most major risk being missing at which point you would be punished for for missing by losing control of the ball. The big difference comes in when you realize there's no risk for L-Canceling. Because Not L-Canceling and Missing your L-Cancel are the same thing, the risk of doing it is 0, since screwing up leaves you exactly as well off as having not done it in the first place. Yes, you can be punished for that, but that's not the point, the punishment has nothing to do with the technique itself, only if you miss it. The argument "I can angle my shield to try and force you to miss an L-Cancel" is meaningless here because that doesnt add risk to the L-Cancel mechanic.

Now, if L-Canceling had a 4 frame window and doubled your land lag upon failure, suddenly it would be a technique legitimately about skill, it would have risk involved and you'd suddenly have two options available, attempt to do it(and risk failure leaving you extra vulnerable) or dont(and risk not having enough open frames to escape should your attack fail) This would be analogues to Wavedashing/Running. Both have similar rewards/risks but both have uses in standard play. However, because L-Canceling obsoletes standard landing, it becomes the only option, a "Do this or else" kind of thing, so you HAVE to be attempting to do it every single time, and while a single button press isnt much, it's an added technical barrier to people who have never played the game on the level we do here. To that extent, there would be nothing wrong with making THAT ONE SINGLE TECHNIQUE automatic.

Now note that i never once said anything along the lines of "Make wavedashing easier/make short hopping easier" or any of that bull**** that most of you morons seem to attempting to portray this argument as. Im just saying there are certain things in certain games that honestly only exist to create a meaningless technical barrier and there is absolutely nothing wrong with getting rid of them.

YES, thank you for refuting the ridiculous basketball analogy. Most analogies in arguments are terrible anyway.

I still have to disagree, however, because of what Zhu's post has brought to light. I used to think it was an unnecessary execution tax blah blah sirlin regurgitation, but the fact that the opponent can do something to screw you up and having to judge very specifically when you land changes everything.

The L-cancelling mechanic already forces you to pay attention to when you land so that you know exactly when to input it. If you cannot evaluate a situation properly, you will miss the L-cancel. Testing evaluation is not a new thing, in fact, the 'valuation' skill is one of the core skills games test.

Valuation in isolation is still just a barrier, but when your opponents actions affect the situations you're evaluating, you end up with the valuation+mindreading test formula that makes the core of all competitive game mechanics. How difficult it is to execute depends entirely on the other two skills. Outside of those, L-cancelling is just an easy button press, how could anyone complain? This extra button press only looks unnecessary when you fail to see the big picture, as I once did.

A lot of you smashboarders really don't know wtf you're talking about when it comes to game design. A couple of you know what's up, but if you don't know what depth is, what skills are tested in competitive games (i.e. what's really going on when you play a competitive game), what game mechanics/aesthetics are and what has worked in the past, and why the word 'gameplay' should never be used, you should read articles/forums on sirlin.net and insomnia.ac so you aren't shooting in the dark when trying to discuss game design. n1000 already linked insomnia and sirlin has been mentioned, just thought I'd emphasize their worth.

 

[Masmasher@]

just great...
as soon as i decide to post my intial post people start seeing the truth and posting it lol

 

[KAOSTAR]

I think the assumption you're making here (bolded) is precisely the kind of strawman which you perceived in Eggm's argument. While it's true that there's no reason not to L-cancel, directional shielding (or any other method of disrupting L-cancel timings) adds a risk/reward mechanic to the technique in the sense that you need to L-cancel correctly. The defender needs to properly mix-up their methods of disruption so as not to be predictable, and the attacker needs to attempt to observe and discern patterns in their opponent's defense so that they can predict the proper way to L-cancel the attack. If you choose to ignore this dimension of the game, then L-canceling would certainly appear to be a no-risk technique. Given that it exists, I think you need to clarify how there is no risk involved in selecting the right L-cancel timing.

You could use DI as an analogue. There's no reason not to DI an attack in some manner (given that no DI is still a DI choice), so couldn't your argument also be applied to eliminating DI? The result of never DI'ing and DI'ing improperly are the same (you get punished). An understanding of DI renders never DI'ing obsolete. So in the interests of making the game more accessible, should we implement some sort of auto-DI?

Granted, in terms of tech skill required L-cancelling properly is probably a much harder technique to predict and execute well, probably because it occurs in a much smaller time frame and is more difficult to observe than something like DI. However, I'm have trouble with your (current) argument discounting any depth (or risk) added by the technique.

While I am on the same side of the argument as you, I just have to say DI is a bad example.

Di is a skill in melee. There are times when you want to DI away, towards, up down or a combo. There are times when you want to smash DI multiple hits in various directions.

AND there are times when you want to no DI. Docs fair=sends you 45 up and right. thats perfect survival DI. Altho I dont know this for certain about the best DI for that move is none but that seems to be dogy and other doc players take on it.

Also when getting chain grabbed. Its easier to get regrabbed in some situations if you DI left or right

 

[BBQ°]

I agree that L-canceling is a technical barrier, but because it is hard to execute and people sometimes miss one-two L-cancels, it becomes a mindgame.

Let me explain:

If I'm playing against Mango, I would never try to shield grab him. I don't think I've ever seen him miss an L-cancel. I know that because Mango is SOO good, he will never miss an L-cancel, so I don't even need to think about shield grabbing him. If I'm playing against NoobFalco, I can expect him to miss a lot of his L-cancels so I should be ready to shield grab.

That is probably the most basic mindgame with L-canceling - but it gets deeper.

The next level of depth probably comes from ways of using your shield to throw off your opponent and hope they screw up. I use Marth, so I'm always looking for grabs and new ways to get grabs. I read a post from Mango that he said he likes to tilt his shield upwards to throw off the timing of the L-cancel. I started to use it, and it worked extremely well for me so I started implementing it into my game. I play with SleepyK (falco) quite often, and he's picked up when I like to tilt my shield to throw off his L-cancels, so he will attempt to shield poke me (since my lower half is open) with a shine or a delayed aerial, and he knows that since I am tilting my shield, he'll have to L-cancel with proper timing. There are also other things you can do with shield such as power shielding, and probably a few others that I am unaware of.

The next level of depth comes from the mindgames of the guy who is executing the L-cancel.

This is something that I just recently realized, so I'm not too entirely sure if I understand it properly, but I noticed something that Mango likes to do when he shield pressures with Falco. He likes to mix up the timing of his aerials on your shield. He will do normally time aerials, delay his aerials, or other weird aerial mixups that I don't understand. You know that trick that Mango uses that almost everyone always seems to fall for? When Mango uses a nair or dair against your shield, and then spaces away from your grab range, and then fsmashes you? I've seen him do this when he knows that the other player will try to grab him. But why on earth would the other player try to grab MANGO?? Mango doesn't ever miss his L-cancels, so why would the other player think to grab Mango at the same time that Mango spaces away from the shield and fsmashes them? Mango must know that he has conditioned them to the point where all of his weird aerial delays and then throwing in a normally timed aerial creates the illusion of a missed L-cancel. Like I said, I don't know if that's exactly how those aerial mixups work, but that seems to make sense to me.

There are probably more tricks with L-canceling that I am unaware of (zhu and lovage seem to understand what they are though...), and I believe I have only covered a few basic mindgames with L-canceling.

I do believe that with a lot of the other characters, L-canceling becomes an unnecessary execution barrier. When it comes to Fox and Falco shield pressure, it is so hard that you can create openings for yourself by tricking them (shield tricks), and Fox/falco can abuse that to help them in their favor (mango fsmash trick).

 

[KAOSTAR]

its always better to Hit your L cancel, and then wait for their reaction or force them to do something.

Im pretty sure Mango will do an early aerial and fade back. The early aerial is what ppl are looking for in the shield grab, if it wasnt for the fade back out of range, they would get the grab. If he tried to continue his shield pressure he would have gotten grabbed

 

[BBQ°]

its always better to Hit your L cancel, and then wait for their reaction or force them to do something.

Im pretty sure Mango will do an early aerial and fade back. The early aerial is what ppl are looking for in the shield grab, if it wasnt for the fade back out of range, they would get the grab. If he tried to continue his shield pressure he would have gotten grabbed

oh ok, that makes sense. I suppose that there is still a level of conditioning and mindgames there, or else he wouldn't be able to do it so consistently.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

When you slow stuff down and remove technical barriers, you move the game further from a real time strategy/fight and closer to a game of chess where you get plenty of time to think about your actions.

removing lcanceling doesn't exactly fall into that catagory, but it does in a way. Maybe i'm just biased because the massive amounts accurate button pressing required to play a fast fox makes my brain generate fun


edit:

Now, if L-Canceling had a 4 frame window and doubled your land lag upon failure, suddenly it would be a technique legitimately about skill, it would have risk involved and you'd suddenly have two options available, attempt to do it(and risk failure leaving you extra vulnerable) or dont(and risk not having enough open frames to escape should your attack fail)

how is that any different than lcanceling now? the only "difference" is double land lag for failure, which is the same as half land lag for success...

 

[ArcNatural]

When you slow stuff down and remove technical barriers, you move the game further from a real time strategy/fight and closer to a game of chess where you get plenty of time to think about your actions.

removing lcanceling doesn't exactly fall into that catagory, but it does in a way. Maybe i'm just biased because the massive amounts accurate button pressing required to play a fast fox makes my brain generate fun


edit:



how is that any different than lcanceling now? the only "difference" is double land lag for failure, which is the same as half land lag for success...

It's one of the reasons I don't understand PinkReaper's argument. There is a punishment for missing an l-cancel and that's not getting half the lag removed from the move. He seems to be implying that not l-canceling is the "natural" state in the game, therefore l-canceling is the reward with no risk of using it. Why don't you consider that not l-canceling is the punishment so you need to continually use l-canceling or suffer the consequences?

That's how I see it from a competitive standpoint, where it seems pinkreaper is arguing it from the average player standpoint. You don't need an analogy to see that there is punishment for trying to l-cancel, it's NOT l-canceling.

I believe the way shields are being used now makes it very apparent that it's not simply just learning the l-cancel timing anymore, there are a lot of other factors involved.

Also I don't know what you guys are talking about with sh being delayed. You could simply just make sh another button not change the lag on it. That would remove the technical aspect of jumping while keeping the speed of the game up. You could do the same for wavedashing as well.

That being said, it's the nature of gaming right now that almost everything is becoming dumbed down. Competitive games always usually are surprises to me, since even games meant to be competitive can easily flop due to how hard it is to truly balance a game while keeping it interesting enough to have people want to play it.

 

[Eggm]

I would just like to point out that L-canceling is pretty risky on FoD, there are a few times I SH naired towards my opponent standing near the edge and the platform popped out made me ledge cancel then when I inputted L I accidental air dodged off the side of the stage and died. But yeah theres no risk at all.

 

[rathy Aro]

Agreed, I shouldn't have to press a button to jump in the air either, I'd rather have my controller read my mind. Jumping shouldn't be a chore.

I think you're trying to be sarcastic, but I'm sure some people in this thread would like to have a game that could read their minds to control the character. That would be their ideal controls.

*likes how no one addressed his post* Oh well.

Also the basketball analogy is good. Don't hate. There is no reason for you to miss when you shoot the ball (unless you are trying to play some absurd mindgames). Saying that shooting the ball is not an arbitrary test of skill is absurd. Games test skills. Why is this so absurd to all of you. There ARE games that are made to test only strategic skills and NONE of them are fighting games.

 

[ranmaru]

Nah it would be too easy. To control the character I mean. I would rather use my hands, since I am used to it.

 

[Fletch]

Man you're ****ing dumb. Landing isn't an option dumb ***, its required. So, its basically saying "We require this to happen, so press a button when it does." If Brawl was a space flight simulator you'd have a point, but landing is not a true option.

In every single other fighting game its automatic AND WITH GOOD REASON. you guys are just trying to validate Smash as a competitive fighter when its not truly.

Shaq Fu is more technical than Melee, so it must be more competitive, right? **** off.

Calling me dumb really adds to your argument. If jumping isn't required as you implied, then landing certainly isn't either, so which is it? Running is practically required by your logic too, why should I have to move my control stick to do that? I don't even really disagree with your argument all that much, you're just presenting it in a horrible way. All I'm saying is that once you arbitrarily decide something is unnecessary, you can start making arguments for everything else as well. Do you think JCing shines should be able to be done with the press of a button too? It's really just an unnecessary technical barrier, as there is never a time when I pressure someone's shield with shine that I wouldn't want to JC shine someone until their shield breaks.

Smash isn't every other fighter; no other fighters have percentage-based stock systems where you are forced to get your opponent completely off the stage, so I guess that's wrong too. We should get rid of that and all go play MvC/SF/GG/etc.

I also missed the part where I said more technical = more competitive.

I think you're trying to be sarcastic, but I'm sure some people in this thread would like to have a game that could read their minds to control the character. That would be their ideal controls.

You're a little quicker than somebody else... and maybe one day soon we will have that game, and we can all practice brain tech skill.

 

[ranmaru]

Landing is required only if you jumped first. You know... One comes up, must come down.

Then you would have to think... Why do we jump?

 

[Derkis]

While I am on the same side of the argument as you, I just have to say DI is a bad example.

Di is a skill in melee. There are times when you want to DI away, towards, up down or a combo. There are times when you want to smash DI multiple hits in various directions.

AND there are times when you want to no DI. Docs fair=sends you 45 up and right. thats perfect survival DI. Altho I dont know this for certain about the best DI for that move is none but that seems to be dogy and other doc players take on it.

Also when getting chain grabbed. Its easier to get regrabbed in some situations if you DI left or right

Nah, I understand that DI is a skill -- that's exactly the point I was trying to make. I was attempting to draw a parallel between the way attacker and defender interact during DI and L-canceling, for the purposes of showing how you could (but shouldn't) apply Pink Reaper's arguments to advocate for auto-DI.

 

[AlcyoNite]

Listen to the experienced player;

they are better than you lol

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Listen to the experienced player;

they are better than you lol

Don't think for yourself;

someone smarter will always be there to hold your hand lol

 

[Kanelol]

now it's personal shiiiiiiiit

 

[AlcyoNite]

LOL

well until u can reinvent the metagame or even master it as is

dont deny the better players' more experienced knowledge of the game

especially considering that they have all agreed on something in this thread .. -_-"

 

[X1-12]

Listen to the experienced player;

they are better than you lol

unless you're mango;

don't say this

 

[Signia]

as long as there are choices tied with each button press, those button presses will not be unnecessary. I cannot believe there is still discussion going on about L-cancelling after my last post. You guys must have missed it.

YES, thank you for refuting the ridiculous basketball analogy. Most analogies in arguments are terrible anyway.

I still have to disagree, however, because of what Zhu's post has brought to light. I used to think it was an unnecessary execution tax blah blah sirlin regurgitation, but the fact that the opponent can do something to screw you up and having to judge very specifically when you land changes everything.

The L-cancelling mechanic already forces you to pay attention to when you land so that you know exactly when to input it. If you cannot evaluate a situation properly, you will miss the L-cancel. Testing evaluation is not a new thing, in fact, the 'valuation' skill is one of the core skills games test.

Valuation in isolation is still just a barrier, but when your opponents actions affect the situations you're evaluating, you end up with the valuation+mindreading test formula that makes the core of all competitive game mechanics. How difficult it is to execute depends entirely on the other two skills. Outside of those, L-cancelling is just an easy button press, how could anyone complain? This extra button press only looks unnecessary when you fail to see the big picture, as I once did.

A lot of you smashboarders really don't know wtf you're talking about when it comes to game design. A couple of you know what's up, but if you don't know what depth is, what skills are tested in competitive games (i.e. what's really going on when you play a competitive game), what game mechanics/aesthetics are and what has worked in the past, and why the word 'gameplay' should never be used, you should read articles/forums on sirlin.net and insomnia.ac so you aren't shooting in the dark when trying to discuss game design. n1000 already linked insomnia and sirlin has been mentioned, just thought I'd emphasize their worth.

 

[KAOSTAR]

LOL

well until u can reinvent the metagame or even master it as is

dont deny the better players' more experienced knowledge of the game

especially considering that they have all agreed on something in this thread .. -_-"

Thats merely an assumption. If knowledge was all you needed to be good at the game then I would just lurk SWF and go win tourneys.

Better players are better because they can correctly implement that knowledge.

Often ppl who study sports stats(professional statisticians) will know more than the players. But they probably couldnt beat a single one(even if you ignore the physical ability difference) They just lack exp.

This argument isnt really about implementing anything, only whether technical barriers add depth vs being mindless and only add difficulty that raises the initial skill requirement. You dont need to be a pro smasher, you not an idiot.