The Difference Between Catering To and Consideration: Explaning Sakurai's Design Philosophy

[Jack Kieser]

Ok, so there have been way too many threads on this board complaining about interviews with Sakurai or snippets of things he's said, mainly focused around some sort of latent fetish concerning Melee and irrational fear concerning SSB4. All of these threads focus on things that Sakurai has said which could be interpreted either as him paying us attention or as him giving us the finger, depending on whether or not you worship at the alter of advanced techs or not. I'm here to explain something that should be self-explanatory, but for some reason (people being emotional children) isn't.

Sakurai has said repeatedly that he views the design philosophies that guided each Smash game to be different, in some ways wildly. SSB64, being the first and an experiment, was simply about making the mechanics meaningful and enjoyable. Melee was about taking those mechanics as far as possible, and he has admitted to designing the game more with people already passionate about Smash in mind than worrying about drawing in new players. With Brawl, those new players became the focus, and he started worrying mainly about how they would react to the game.

With SSB64, Sakurai simply did what he wanted to do. With Melee, he catered, whether he knew it / intended to or not, to the hardcore competitive community. With Brawl, he catered to the new casual playerbase that was swarming to the Wii.

In SSB4, he won't be catering to anyone.

You see, with SSB4, Sakurai's design philosophy has once again shifted dramatically. In the previous two installments, Sakurai though about a particular community of players and based his design decisions around primarily those players. This time, Sakurai is trying something different. With SSB4, he's thinking about the different playerbases that he used to cater to and, instead, is simply taking them into consideration, tempering their individual desires with his own judgement.

I know that this is a subtle difference, but it's important to understand. Sakurai has made it clear that he's listened to us, in some respect; the mere fact that tripping is gone, something casuals rarely, if ever, seriously complained about, can be attributed, I think, mainly to our complaining about it. But, he's decided something important, that neither the hardcore nor the casual community is more important than the other, or at least not so important to justify him catering to their desires, crafting the game only around them and what they want.

In Melee, he (however indirectly) catered to the hardcore SSB64 players. The increase of speed, more balanced hitstun, stronger punishes... all of it, including meaningless techs like L-cancelling, which only served to increase the number of buttons you needed to push at any given time (since you never don't want decreased lag; it's not like you're deciding to use L-cancelling), served to make the game more like traditional fighters. In Brawl, he catered to casual players. Decreasing the speed and hitstun (thus making the game easier to play), removing many techs, and making punishes harder all made the game more centered around making new players feel comfortable playing.

Now, the problem here is that many people on these very boards expect Sakurai to cater to them again. They see Sakurai making claims that he's trying to take a middle of the road approach and crucifying him (and their fellow SWF members who agree with that approach) because they have some sort of warped expectation that a well-made Smash game somehow requires Sakurai to cater to us. Aside from being simply not true (SSB64 was plenty fun, and Brawl was, too, for many people; BOTH games did have competitive communities), it is incredibly arrogant and childish.

The fact of the matter is that Smash is not a traditional fighter, as Sakurai has stated repeatedly in interviews; he has learned over the years that he doesn't want to cater only to us. This is not a bad thing. In another thread, someone posed the question "how does ATs existing affect casuals", to which I responded, "in an online environment, casuals are forced to play with us; they can't just choose not to go to the tournament. So, giving us those tools breaks the game for them, which is unacceptable." The response I got was, "well, if they want to compete, they should learn, get better, and play on our level."

THIS IS ENTIRELY INCORRECT.

This is everything that is wrong with us right now. That statement assumes that, when ANYONE plays this game, their goal should be getting to a high level of execution and play, to learn solid strategy, and to win. This is NOT the case. This kind of thinking assumes that WE are playing the game correctly, and that casual players should cater their playstyles to us.

Sorry, but Sakurai has decided that this game will not follow that philosophy. That means that there will be compromises. The game will be faster and require both better thinking and faster, more accurate responses from casual. AND the game will be slower, less technically oriented, and will test strategy over execution. If you think that a competitive fighting game MUST test execution, then play SSF4, GG, or Marvel. Because, from now on, we will not be catered to.

Whether you like it or not, the best we'll get is the consideration of Sakurai. He'll promise to think about us, but he will not promise to cater to us, because from now on (at least for a generation) we will be sharing this game with casual players. They will play us online, and our goal will be to steamroll them, and their goal will be to do silly things and make their roommates laugh, and we will all need to have fun together. So, like it or not, this series is moving on from Melee and a past where we were once catered to. You can either choose to grow up and join us in 2013-14, where we will be given a game that promises to keep us in mind during production without promising to alienate 90% of the playerbase to make us happy (while making sure we don't get completely screwed over, either), or you can be selfish, whining children living in 2003, complaining that you didn't get enough of what you wanted when you weren't entitled to a damn thing in the first place.

 

[XavierSylfaen]

without promising to alienate 90% of the playerbase to make us happy

But he wouldn't alienate 90% of the player base, because casuals don't care if ATs are there or not. But you counter that argument with:

"in an online environment, casuals are forced to play with us; they can't just choose not to go to the tournament. So, giving us those tools breaks the game for them, which is unacceptable."

But it would be easy for the dev team to implement a system so that people got paired up with people their skill level. Mario Kart 7 did this.

You're arguing that the lowering of the skill ceiling is necessary because casuals would get annihilated in online play. This would be easily solvable by implementing said system. You're making the case for these shortcomings being necessary only because he's not implementing another mechanic. In essence, you're saying:

"Sakurai making the game worse for competitive players is necessary because he isn't putting in a decent matchmaking system."

And you're completely ignoring the fact that this would all be solved if instead of lowering the skill ceiling and having no matchmaking system other than randomness, he raised the skill ceiling AND made a decent matchmaking system.

So yes, the removal of ATs is a good decision for sales if Sakurai and the devs at Bamco are incompetent and can't implement a skill-based matchmaking system. But I get the feeling that they can. So essentially you're defending a bad thing that's necessary because of another bad thing.

 

[TheTuninator]

An interesting read, and you make some very good points. Casuals are always going to be destroyed in online play by better players, though, and I'm not sure why you are drawing a distinction between losing to somebody who put in the time to learn an AT and losing to somebody who has "more skill".

Any player who can utilize Smash online play has internet access, which means that they have Youtube and wiki access, which means they have the ability to learn about absolutely any game secret with ease within probably about two weeks of launch, max. Putting in the time to do that research shouldn't really be viewed as any different from practicing combos with your character in Training Mode.

Definitely wouldn't want something like L-cancelling which is always a no-brainer to return, though.

 

[Jack Kieser]

But he wouldn't alienate 90% of the player base, because casuals don't care if ATs are there or not. But you counter that argument with:

But it would be easy for the dev team to implement a system so that people got paired up with people their skill level. Mario Kart 7 did this.

Yes, they could, if they wanted to cater to our desires to be separated from each other, sure. Again, though, that's not the kind of holistic community that Sakurai wants to foster with his inclusive design philosophy. He could let us segment ourselves online, sure, but that goes against the design philosophy of the rest of the game, which is "everyone plays together". In Mario Kart 7, the developers were ok fragmenting the playerbase. This is not how things are heading with SSB4.

You're arguing that the lowering of the skill ceiling is necessary because casuals would get annihilated in online play. This would be easily solvable by implementing said system. You're making the case for these shortcomings being necessary only because he's not implementing another mechanic. In essence, you're saying:

"Sakurai making the game worse for competitive players is necessary because he isn't putting in a decent matchmaking system."

And you're completely ignoring the fact that this would all be solved if instead of lowering the skill ceiling and having no matchmaking system other than randomness, he raised the skill ceiling AND made a decent matchmaking system.

First of all, it would be a surface fix. The game design, in a holistic sense, wouldn't actually be better, but the flaws would be hidden by the fact that we never see casuals in online play and they never see us. That's not actually better for the overall game design, as a whole.

Second, you are again working off the assumption that you are owed a traditional fighter. You're not. In a sense, you're being given something, because he's actually RAISING the skill ceiling compared to Brawl, not lowering it. So right off the bat, we see you ignoring what you're getting because it's not enough, claiming that it is wrong that he's not catering to you. Again, I have to reiterate, he's taken us into account here and decided that we won't get everything we want so that casuals can ALSO get some of what they want. And what casuals want is ease and simplicity. They don't want to have to worry about trolls who know how to L-cancel and wavedash entering the "Casuals Only" lobby and ruining their day (because even with a matchmaking system that fragments the playerbase, there's no way for the game to ensure that a skilled player doesn't enter the wrong lobby without a level system a la UMvC3, which Sak probably doesn't want to deal with). But, no, what they want is irrelevant because it doesn't make the game better for us.

Sure. Right.

So yes, the removal of ATs is a good decision for sales if Sakurai and the devs at Bamco are incompetent and can't implement a skill-based matchmaking system. But I get the feeling that they can. So essentially you're defending a bad thing that's necessary because of another bad thing.

I'm not defending a bad thing because I don't think it's bad at all. First of all, our community needs casuals to survive. We need casual infusions in order to keep the playerbase going with other players leave or stop playing. If we're always segmenting ourselves, putting lobby walls between us and casuals, how do we expect them to join our community? By reading threads telling them explicitly that we don't want their kind here? Because that's what we've been doing: ******** that the very existence of casuals is ruining our game, as though the game is ours in the first place.

Sure, they can implement a skill based system, but that's not what they want Smash to turn into. If you want those kinds of games, go to Capcom.

An interesting read, and you make some very good points. Casuals are always going to be destroyed in online play by better players, though, and I'm not sure why you are drawing a distinction between losing to somebody who put in the time to learn an AT and losing to somebody who has "more skill".

Any player who can utilize Smash online play has internet access, which means that they have Youtube and wiki access, which means they have the ability to learn about absolutely any game secret with ease within probably about two weeks of launch, max. Putting in the time to do that research shouldn't really be viewed as any different from practicing combos with your character in Training Mode.

Definitely wouldn't want something like L-cancelling which is always a no-brainer to return, though.

But, do you not see the problem here? Again, it assumes that the person playing online even cares about getting better, as though the correct way to play SSB4 is with the aim of being the best Smasher there ever was. What about the players who don't give a **** about that, and just want to press one button, be online, and be matched up with someone (or 3 people!) in 5 seconds? Those people have internet access, yes, and yet it's ridiculous for us to expect them to even care enough to watch gameplay tutorials on YouTube.

What I(and Sakurai) am drawing a distinction between is the feeling of losing to a player who is simply better and the feeling of losing to a player who had access to moves you didn't have. This wouldn't be a problem, for instance, if wavedashing was an official move that was in the manual. But, ATs are not in the manual. How would it feel if you played a game where, out of nowhere, you lost a boss fight because the game all the sudden changed the rules on you without telling or warning you? You'd feel ****ty, like you were screwed out of something. That's how it would feel whenever we got matched up unwittingly with casuals. And, again, we could segment ourselves, sure, but that's not the kind of series Sakurai wants this to be.

We get a faster game with a little bit higher execution, and casuals get a simple game that is not intimidating and doesn't act like they're playing wrong when they just want to **** around. We both get something, but we don't either get everything.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

The skill ceiling is kinda a phantom. No one, to my knowledge, ever reached the skill ceiling in Brawl. If you believe it's reasonable to hit that ceiling, go challenge Mew2King to a $1000 money match and go at least even with him. If you are truly at the ceiling, no one in the world could possibly be better than you so you have no reason not to try.

What is really a bigger issue is the skill curve. No one is ever going to hit ceilings, but the way a game is built can introduce steep inclines and low slope plateaus in your skill growth, both of which tend to be bad. Advanced techniques tend to introduce those really steep slopes; as soon as you learn them, you see much better results for little real skill growth. Slow game speed tends to introduce plateaus; once you reach basic competence, it tends to require a whole lot of work in an "easy" game to start really winning more since the only road up is having truly better fundamentals. The compromise, higher game speed while still not including much in the way of "advanced techniques", makes a lot of sense to me, and I really hope the skill curve ends up as steady as possible. We'll see though.

 

[XavierSylfaen]

that goes against the design philosophy of the rest of the game, which is "everyone plays together".

Why is it a bad thing to have people of similar skill levels paired off?

The game design, in a holistic sense, wouldn't actually be better, but the flaws would be hidden by the fact that we never see casuals in online play and they never see us. That's not actually better for the overall game design, as a whole.

The only flaw with having ATs in the first place is entirely because we meet casuals in online play. Implement decent matchmaking, fix the problem.

Second, you are again working off the assumption that you are owed a traditional fighter. You're not. In a sense, you're being given something, because he's actually RAISING the skill ceiling compared to Brawl, not lowering it. So right off the bat, we see you ignoring what you're getting because it's not enough, claiming that it is wrong that he's not catering to you. Again, I have to reiterate, he's taken us into account here and decided that we won't get everything we want so that casuals can ALSO get some of what they want.

I'm very glad it's already looking to be an improvement over Brawl gameplay-wise. I don't curse Sakurai every night before bed. It's just frustrating that I know how Smash can be gameplay-wise and knowing that it will most likely not be as good as it once was.

there's no way for the game to ensure that a skilled player doesn't enter the wrong lobby without a level system a la UMvC3, which Sak probably doesn't want to deal with).

Therein being my point. You're defending this whole affair because of something Sakurai doesn't want to deal with, but if he DID would solve the entire issue.

I'm not defending a bad thing because I don't think it's bad at all. First of all, our community needs casuals to survive. We need casual infusions in order to keep the playerbase going with other players leave or stop playing. If we're always segmenting ourselves, putting lobby walls between us and casuals, how do we expect them to join our community? By reading threads telling them explicitly that we don't want their kind here? Because that's what we've been doing: *****ing that the very existence of casuals is ruining our game, as though the game is ours in the first place.

But if we don't have that competitive side of the game in the first place then casuals will never stop being casuals. I know I got into competitive Melee because I saw Mew2king combo videos and was wowed, and wanted to know how to do stuff like that so I watched the Advanced How To Play videos. I doubt I would have even cared if I looked up competitive play and saw stuff like planking in Brawl. But that's irrelevant. Anyway:

and yet it's ridiculous for us to expect them to even care enough to watch gameplay tutorials on YouTube.

I agree, that's something you can't be expected of people. But there's a soluton: Just put those tutorials in game.

You argue points that are valid based on the assumption that it's impossible to implement certain game mechanics, and I agree that what he appears to be doing is the best decision if it was indeed not feasible implement those mechanics like a better matchmaking system. But it is feasible to do so. My point is that he's making a stupid decision by not putting in those mechanics in the first place.

 

[Artsy Omni]

As far as matchmaking goes, players could just select whether or not they want to have opponents selected based on their own play statistics... No reason to force it.

 

[kid craft 24/sonic master]

if sakurai were to implement AT videos into smash 4 he would be pretty much be catering towards us competitive players by attempting to entice newcomers to learn them, which imo isnt what sakurais goal. Sakurai wants to make a smash game where you can play however you want. Sure someone decides for themselves whether or not to watch those videos but thats what YT and online communities are for. why should sakurai have to cater to us and give us AT vids when we'll do that ourselves without forcing unnecessary things upon players who don't care about it. and imo online rankings has nothing to do with catering to competitive or casual players because no matter what smash is a game where theres gonna be a winner(s) and a loser(s) its how that person won or lost that sakurai's essentially focused on which is why it's not gonna be super technical (which i like). smash bros is known for its simplicity, something melee but kind of twisted with unintentional ATs.

I have faith in Sakurai and high hopes for smash4 as this is the direction i had hoped smash 4 would go and im interested to see how well sakurai can balance making the game simple an accessible like brawl but still rich and deep close to melee but not too close.

 

[Jack Kieser]

And this is where the talking past each other starts.

Why is it a bad thing to have people of similar skill levels paired off?

No one, even Sakurai, ever said it was. But, even you have to admit that games in which the player base is told to segment itself based off of skill have different cultures than games that don't. This may not be something that you care about, as a competitive player, but as a game designer, it IS something that Sakurai has to be concerned about.

The only flaw with having ATs in the first place is entirely because we meet casuals in online play. Implement decent matchmaking, fix the problem.

And, yet, you're assuming that this is even something that Sakurai should care about. Contrary to how it may seem, WE'RE the only reason that Sakurai would need to implement segmented matchmaking, not ATs. Sure, he COULD keep them in an allow the playerbase to self-segregate. But, again, that fosters a playerbase where we view each other as being opposed, like many people are on this very board. If we're FORCED to deal with each other, it creates a more healthy, vibrant, accepting community. If we're forced to deal with casuals, we stop viewing them as lowly peasants, unwilling or unable to play the glorious game that we do, being enlightened amazing competitive players. And, if they're forced to play with us, they see that we aren't really the "No Items, Fox Only, Final Destination" douchebags their memes make us out to be. Which, beleive it or not, will help us increase our numbers. So, again, it's a compromise, a trade off. We give up some of that FGC technicality to gain a healthier community.

I'm very glad it's already looking to be an improvement over Brawl gameplay-wise. I don't curse Sakurai every night before bed. It's just frustrating that I know how Smash can be gameplay-wise and knowing that it will most likely not be as good as it once was.

"Good" being entirely relative. I don't think Melee was all that good, or not as good as we make it out to be. It was fun, sure, and it was hype, but it was also full of stupid stuff, like wavedashing and L-cancelling, that was unintuitive and cumbersome, and it still didn't have the technicality that harkened to actual traditional fighters. I don't worship at the altar of Melee, and until I get SSB4 in my own hands, I'm not going to make any claims that it will or will not be anything other than what Sakurai has said, which is only that it will take us into consideration without catering to us and that it will be at a midpoint between Melee and Brawl, which by my metric sounds better than Melee ever was.

Therein being my point. You're defending this whole affair because of something Sakurai doesn't want to deal with, but if he DID would solve the entire issue.

And, what I'm trying to explain to you is that it wouldn't fix the issue. It would look like it was fixed from OUR perspective, but it wouldn't be. We wouldn't care if the issue was fixed because as far as we're concerned, who cares if the casuals even buy or play the game; if we, as in the competitive people on SWF, were literally the only people who bought or played SSB4 (and Nintendo didn't care about profit, so it wouldn't affect the possibility of SSB5), we would be happy with that as long as we got what we wanted. It's selfish and it actually hurts the game long term.

But if we don't have that competitive side of the game in the first place then casuals will never stop being casuals. I know I got into competitive Melee because I saw Mew2king combo videos and was wowed, and wanted to know how to do stuff like that so I watched the Advanced How To Play videos. I doubt I would have even cared if I looked up competitive play and saw stuff like planking in Brawl. But that's irrelevant. Anyway:

And, again, who cares? They don't have to stop being casuals... except to keep us surviving. There is absolutely 0 things wrong with casuals never stopping their casual ways. Why are you assuming that we're better than them? We aren't.

I agree, that's something you can't be expected of people. But there's a soluton: Just put those tutorials in game.

You argue points that are valid based on the assumption that it's impossible to implement certain game mechanics, and I agree that what he appears to be doing is the best decision if it was indeed not feasible implement those mechanics like a better matchmaking system. But it is feasible to do so. My point is that he's making a stupid decision by not putting in those mechanics in the first place.

First of all, I never once said that it was impossible, I said it was opposed to his design philosophy.

And my point is that it's not a stupid decision just because he's not catering to us. The whole reason you think it's stupid is because it's not catering to you, period. By all rights, Brawl was a great game. Not for us, but simply on its own merits, taken as a game, it was awesome. Melee was great, sure, but it wasn't as great for as many people (obviously, look at the sales numbers), partially because it was so damn hard sometimes. Sakurai could make a great (non-competitive) Smash game by making it MORE casual. Instead, he's making a great game that takes everyone's needs and wants into consideration without giving any one group everything they want at the expense of the other group. That sounds pretty smart to me.

Any individual decision may be stupid in relation to making the game as competitive as possible, sure. What you fail to realize is that this was never the point of SSB4. If you want a designer to make a Smash game that cares about maximizes the competitive value of the game, petition Nintendo to have Capcom make SSB5.

 

[XavierSylfaen]

if sakurai were to implement AT videos into smash 4 he would be pretty much be catering towards us competitive players

Right. Cater to the competitive crowd because the casual crowd doesn't give a ****. They want to play Mario vs. Luigi. They don't give a **** if ATs are there or not so there is nothing to lose by putting ATs in the game.

Sakurai wants to make a smash game where you can play however you want.

If he actually wanted that then he would make a game with a lot more different techniques and strategies you could implement. But he doesn't want that.

without forcing unnecessary things upon players who don't care about it.

How is having a video explaining how to do techniques available for play forcing something on someone?

unintentional ATs.

Objectively false.

 

[smashbrolink]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'm happy with the way this game is going because it reminds me of a blend of Brawl and Melee; it's better than Brawl in overall feel, but the techs that made some characters unbalanced[in both good and bad ways] are now, from all appearances, gone.
This is likely going to result in a lot more instances of close matches, not counting the very best of the best.
It will, by all appearances, be the game that brings both sides of the community closer to one another by not excluding either one entirely; the bar will still be high enough to be entertaining, but not so high that it prevents newer players from getting online and having a few matches where they do well instead of being absolutely decimated.



Also, on the comment about matchmaking for the sake of competitive players......
Friends list battles.
You've already got the solution ready-made since it's a near-certainty that it will be in the game just like it was in Brawl; just befriend and exclusively battle people that you know are as competitive as you are.


There's no need to segregate people by default using a system that separates us based on some sort of rudimentary skill-determination system.
If you're that concerned about it, then play outside of the public lobbies and focus on your friends. Add tons of them and you're sure to have a few to play with, especially over the weekends.
There's no need to join public matches where you know your advances skills with any AT's that are available would frustrate casuals and give you no interesting matches unless you were trolling for exactly those kinds of reactions out of less skilled players.

You want segregation? Segregate yourselves.
Issue solved.

 

[Vkrm]

Most of the casuals i know love the fact that melee has hidden depth. I don't think they would enjoy the new smash if it was made to enforce their preferences on competitive players.

 

[XavierSylfaen]

And this is where the talking past each other starts.

Welp.

No one, even Sakurai, ever said it was. But, even you have to admit that games in which the player base is told to segment itself based off of skill have different cultures than games that don't. This may not be something that you care about, as a competitive player, but as a game designer, it IS something that Sakurai has to be concerned about.

I'd argue that having a matchmaking system like that would work better for both crowds. As it is, if the lag is not nearly as bad as it was in SSBB, better players will beat worse players nearly every time. This is boring for good players and discouraging for bad players. I would really argue that there would be no downsides approaching this like MK7 did.

And, yet, you're assuming that this is even something that Sakurai should care about. Contrary to how it may seem, WE'RE the only reason that Sakurai would need to implement segmented matchmaking, not ATs. Sure, he COULD keep them in an allow the playerbase to self-segregate. But, again, that fosters a playerbase where we view each other as being opposed, like many people are on this very board. If we're FORCED to deal with each other, it creates a more healthy, vibrant, accepting community. If we're forced to deal with casuals, we stop viewing them as lowly peasants, unwilling or unable to play the glorious game that we do, being enlightened amazing competitive players. And, if they're forced to play with us, they see that we aren't really the "No Items, Fox Only, Final Destination" douchebags their memes make us out to be. Which, beleive it or not, will help us increase our numbers. So, again, it's a compromise, a trade off. We give up some of that FGC technicality to gain a healthier community.

If by "we" you mean people good at the game, then you're right. But if Sakurai cared about casuals being beaten by pros then he WOULD implement some sort of ELO equivalent.

"Good" being entirely relative. I don't think Melee was all that good, or not as good as we make it out to be. It was fun, sure, and it was hype, but it was also full of stupid stuff, like wavedashing and L-cancelling, that was unintuitive and cumbersome, and it still didn't have the technicality that harkened to actual traditional fighters. I don't worship at the altar of Melee, and until I get SSB4 in my own hands, I'm not going to make any claims that it will or will not be anything other than what Sakurai has said, which is only that it will take us into consideration without catering to us and that it will be at a midpoint between Melee and Brawl, which by my metric sounds better than Melee ever was.

I'll agree with you on L-cancelling since it's artificial difficulty and could just be replaced by halving all landing lag from aerials. But I don't see how wavedashing is unintuitive or cumbersome. It's a great mechanic that allows for new ways to approach and retreat. Anything that adds depth is good. The only thing that could be improved with it is making it easier to input.

And, what I'm trying to explain to you is that it wouldn't fix the issue. It would look like it was fixed from OUR perspective, but it wouldn't be. We wouldn't care if the issue was fixed because as far as we're concerned, who cares if the casuals even buy or play the game; if we, as in the competitive people on SWF, were literally the only people who bought or played SSB4 (and Nintendo didn't care about profit, so it wouldn't affect the possibility of SSB5), we would be happy with that as long as we got what we wanted. It's selfish and it actually hurts the game long term.

I fail to see how wanting a skill-based matchmaking system is selfish and how it hurts the game long-term, sales-wise or otherwise.

And, again, who cares? They don't have to stop being casuals... except to keep us surviving. There is absolutely 0 things wrong with casuals never stopping their casual ways. Why are you assuming that we're better than them? We aren't.

Well, we're better at the game than them. But my point is, and I think you agree at least with this, that I want the competitive Smash community to grow, and that's not going to happen as much as it could.

First of all, I never once said that it was impossible, I said it was opposed to his design philosophy.

What is his design philosophy and how does it oppose the introduction of ATs or a matchmaking system?

And my point is that it's not a stupid decision just because he's not catering to us. The whole reason you think it's stupid is because it's not catering to you, period. By all rights, Brawl was a great game. Not for us, but simply on its own merits, taken as a game, it was awesome.

And if it had had faster gameplay I think it would have been better-received by nearly everyone.

Melee was great, sure, but it wasn't as great for as many people (obviously, look at the sales numbers), partially because it was so damn hard sometimes.

I think this is just false. If you look at the sales numbers:

Melee: 7.09 million units sold, #1 best-selling Gamecube game, and with 21.74 million Gamecubes sold, 32% of all Gamecube owners owned SSBM as well.
Brawl: 10.79 million units sold, #9 best-selling Wii game, and with 100 million Wiis sold, 11% of all Wii owners owned SSBB as well.

Brawl sold better, but not loads better. Its higher sales are not at all necessarily indicative of a better reception, but just a larger install base. For Brawl to reach Melee's proportional popularity it would have to sell 32 million units, which it didn't. I think this shows that Melee had a better reception among the end-user, if anything.

Sakurai could make a great (non-competitive) Smash game by making it MORE casual.

I fail to see how.

Instead, he's making a great game that takes everyone's needs and wants into consideration without giving any one group everything they want at the expense of the other group. That sounds pretty smart to me.

Again, this is not the point. Adding these things I'm suggesting is NOT AT THE EXPENSE OF THE OTHER GROUP. Casuals do not care if you can wavedash or whatever. Like I said above, they do not give a crap about gameplay or anything. They want to play Mario vs. Luigi.

Any individual decision may be stupid in relation to making the game as competitive as possible, sure. What you fail to realize is that this was never the point of SSB4.

What is this point? To let people have fun, no? So why not cater to the competitive base, since the casual base doesn't care?

If you want a designer to make a Smash game that cares about maximizes the competitive value of the game, petition Nintendo to have Capcom make SSB5.

I don't want quarter-circle inputs, DLC, and a new release of the same exact game with more characters once every two years. I deal with Sakurai's BS because even though he doesn't do it as well as I'd hope, he does a better job than anyone else.[/quote]

 

[smashbrolink]

Most of the casuals i know love the fact that melee has hidden depth. I don't think they would enjoy the new smash if it was made to enforce their preferences on competitive players.

Most of the casuals I know were very leery of ever going into the competitive tournament scene of Smash, precisely because of players that would rather obliterate them and toss them out because casuals didn't suit their preferences for what a Smash player is supposed to be.

Like it or not, a little bit to both sides is better than catering solely to competitive or casual, and designing it so that the competitive players can't go in and 100% wreck everyone in public matches is the smartest choice.

 

[IsmaR]

I have absolutely nothing else I can add to this discussion. Beautifully written.

 

[Vkrm]

Most of the casuals I know were very leery of ever going into the competitive tournament scene of Smash, precisely because of players that would rather obliterate them and toss them out because casuals didn't suit their preferences for what a Smash player is supposed to be.

Like it or not, a little bit to both sides is better than catering solely to competitive or casual, and designing it so that the competitive players can't go in and 100% wreck everyone in public matches is the smartest choice.

I hope you don't think brawl was more balanced between casual and hardcore then melee was. And its not like serious players are more (or less) likely to berate someone who isn't playing well. The people who behave that way do so not because they are competitive. they do that cause they're assholes.

 

[smashbrolink]

I hope you don't think brawl was more balanced between casual and hardcore then melee was.

No, I do not, but way to ignore my point by insinuating that SB4 is just another case of Brawl.
I stand by my former statement: The middle ground is the better ground. If Smash 4 does that by establishing a new competitive scene that is capable, by virtue of how the game intrinsically works, of seamlessly blending into the crowd, of being able to play against newer players without losing what makes them better and without blowing everyone else who's not at their own top-tier level away so hard that they don't want to play anymore, then I'm more than willing to give up techs for the sake of a more robust selection of other players in public.

 

[Chauzu]

To summarize... Cater the game for both extreme sides and let them both be able to enjoy it in their own way.

Sounds good to me.

 

[Vkrm]

Did I accidentally imply that smash 4 would benefit from alienating the casual side of the fan base? What I'm trying to point out is there's a clear divide between competitive players and casuals. The AT's in melee didn't help them, but it didn't hurt them either. Unless they can figure out a way for there to be a winner without having a loser as well, there are always going to be players who feel discouraged.

 

[smashbrolink]

The AT's in melee didn't help them, but it didn't hurt them either.

That's where you're wrong.
It wasn't the not winning that hurt the casuals, it was the fact that it made it so that they felt POWERLESS to do anything other than be a punching bag.
This happened EVERY SINGLE TIME a casual would try to get into a competitive match, or whenever a pro would hop into a game full of less-experienced players.
I've hosted small events at public places for melee; I'm speaking from personal experience, by virtue of having to create two different sides of the same tournament, just to cater to both sides, after it became obvious that the casuals were about ready to leave the moment more skilled players showed up and started obliterating[and taunting] those less skilled than them.

I hated having to do that. I hated segregating them and I wished Melee hadn't forced me into that.

The same thing happened with the Brawl tourneys I hosted out in public, only on a different scale; a lot of the people who had played at a high level in the Melee tournament showed up, but they didn't participate because they felt it was too casual.
They just stood back and WATCHED, and that felt just as bad as seeing two factions clearly divided but still playing.

This is not how we should be asking Smash 4 to play out.
Neither case is better than finding a balance where both sides can have fun and play together without things getting out of hand from catering too much to one side or the other.
Smash 4 seems like it's going to do that to a good degree so far.

We should not be asking for AT's that would upset that balance by allowing people to obliterate others again, and I don't know a casual in their right mind that would want the slowness or tripping of Brawl back, either.

 

[Jack Kieser]

I know this is a Kotaku article and all, but everyone here should read this. http://kotaku.com/video-games-obsession-with-winning-is-killing-them-511624286

Not to say that there shouldn't be winners and losers, but fighting games are traditionally pretty bad at making the loser feel good about losing; unless you're already competitive by nature and ok with losing, it almost always feels bad, which doesn't have to be the case. Sakurai is attempting something like this: not to make losers into winners, but to make losing not suck.

 

[Zubyyyy]

Man, I have been lurking the boards for such a long time. Years. Without posting.

I have become a fairly known Halo player in the YouTube world, but I will never forget my Smash roots.

Being someone from a mixture of many many MANY competitive game communities, I have to agree with the OP here. Excellent read.

As for the guy who keeps arguing, you have a few major faults in logic that is making you hardheaded and not willing to listen.

1) As a person who competitively plays the Smash games, I have to say I loved Melee the most by far. However, I agree we do not deserve to be catered to. You keep saying we should be catered to because casuals do not care. That is wrong. Casual players, technically, should have MORE of a say in the game. Why? Sales figures and profit. 85% of the people who buy Smash want to play as Kirby and Down B the entire game. And that's cool. They can do that.

2) You response to the above number is going to be "Well implement a decent matchmaking system and we shouldn't have to worry about that." There's a big problem here though; that's not what Nintendo or Sakurai want to do with this game. They don't want to make it a game about "Achieving The Highest Rank". They want to create a game anyone can pick up and play, without the stress of competition or not getting past a certain rank. Nintendo is a family company, like it or not.

3) Melee wasn't ceated to serve the competitive community. Get that straight. We morphed it into the competitive game it came out to be. Why the hell would they cater to us competitive players if the game wasn't made with the intention of being a competitive game? The mere fact he's taking what we say into consideration is fantastic.

4) Because this game was MEANT to be fun and a mash-up of Nintendo characters, there's no need for a segmented matchmaking system. This game is supposed to be fun. That was its original purpose. When you segment matchmaking into skill based ranks, it becomes a competition. Now, I am all for competition. I thrive on it. Having placed in numerous MLG events for Halo, I am no stranger to competition. That's not Smash though. I'm willing to bet less than 1% of the Smash community are on this Forum. WE ARE THE 1% (lol). Why cater the game to the competitive players by making the game require tons and tons more technical input AND throw in a segmented matchmaking system so the 8 year olds who regularly buy this game can get pissed and return it? Why not create a game that is good for the casual players so the game CAN MAKE MONEY (which, by the way, is the entire reason this game is being made), while throwing in some things the competitive community likes?

OP, good job. When people become so enthralled in the competition, sometimes they can lose their heads. Reading this post brought me back to the first time I played SSB64 when I was 8 with my best friend and I thought "Wow, look, Link is beating up Mario!" Good times. He stayed forever the casual player as well. Not everyone who loves a game becomes super competitive at it. Keep that in mind people.

 

[HarryTheChin]

I have become a fairly known Halo player in the YouTube world, but I will never forget my Smash roots.

I too have Halo and Smash Bros. as my top two favorite video game series.

:3

 

[XavierSylfaen]

Man, I have been lurking the boards for such a long time. Years. Without posting.

I have become a fairly known Halo player in the YouTube world, but I will never forget my Smash roots.

Being someone from a mixture of many many MANY competitive game communities, I have to agree with the OP here. Excellent read.

As for the guy who keeps arguing, you have a few major faults in logic that is making you hardheaded and not willing to listen.

1) As a person who competitively plays the Smash games, I have to say I loved Melee the most by far. However, I agree we do not deserve to be catered to. You keep saying we should be catered to because casuals do not care. That is wrong. Casual players, technically, should have MORE of a say in the game. Why? Sales figures and profit. 85% of the people who buy Smash want to play as Kirby and Down B the entire game. And that's cool. They can do that.

2) You response to the above number is going to be "Well implement a decent matchmaking system and we shouldn't have to worry about that." There's a big problem here though; that's not what Nintendo or Sakurai want to do with this game. They don't want to make it a game about "Achieving The Highest Rank". They want to create a game anyone can pick up and play, without the stress of competition or not getting past a certain rank. Nintendo is a family company, like it or not.

3) Melee wasn't ceated to serve the competitive community. Get that straight. We morphed it into the competitive game it came out to be. Why the hell would they cater to us competitive players if the game wasn't made with the intention of being a competitive game? The mere fact he's taking what we say into consideration is fantastic.

4) Because this game was MEANT to be fun and a mash-up of Nintendo characters, there's no need for a segmented matchmaking system. This game is supposed to be fun. That was its original purpose. When you segment matchmaking into skill based ranks, it becomes a competition. Now, I am all for competition. I thrive on it. Having placed in numerous MLG events for Halo, I am no stranger to competition. That's not Smash though. I'm willing to bet less than 1% of the Smash community are on this Forum. WE ARE THE 1% (lol). Why cater the game to the competitive players by making the game require tons and tons more technical input AND throw in a segmented matchmaking system so the 8 year olds who regularly buy this game can get pissed and return it? Why not create a game that is good for the casual players so the game CAN MAKE MONEY (which, by the way, is the entire reason this game is being made), while throwing in some things the competitive community likes?

OP, good job. When people become so enthralled in the competition, sometimes they can lose their heads. Reading this post brought me back to the first time I played SSB64 when I was 8 with my best friend and I thought "Wow, look, Link is beating up Mario!" Good times. He stayed forever the casual player as well. Not everyone who loves a game becomes super competitive at it. Keep that in mind people.

1. You can down+B as Kirby in Melee too. Therein lies my point. They don't care if the other stuff is there, so why not implement it so more people are happy?

2. Just make the ranking invisible to players and only for matchmaking purposes.

3. Because we exist, so if you can satisfy both casuals and us why only satisfy one? It makes no sense.

4. Because 8 year olds won't care if there are ATs or not, so why not include them to satisfy more people? Also, skill-based matchmaking would make the 8-year-old happier, because he would be able to play with other bad people all the time instead of getting his ass kicked by random players that are probably way better than he is. The matchmaking system has zero downsides that I can think of because it caters to both audiences.

"Why not create a game that is good for the casual players so the game CAN MAKE MONEY (which, by the way, is the entire reason this game is being made), while throwing in some things the competitive community likes?"

Why are you even arguing against me here? This is literally my entire argument. But the fact that you agree with this sentiment seems to contradict your previous statements somehow.

 

[Zubyyyy]

1) Melee wasn't online. That's the big factor here. Online playability changes everything. They don't care about DOING the other stuff. But they definitely care about it being in there. When they get their asses handed to them online, they care about it. They aren't gonna go on a forum and say "I met this guy online and he was using all these moves I didn't know how to do." They're probably gonna get pissed, turn it off, and when it happens again, sell the game and play Super Mario Galaxy.

Melee worked well in the casual-competitive handoff because the online didn't exist. Do you know how many people who were considered neighborhood legends probably would've given up the game because they went online and got beat?

2) Not a halfway bad idea for most games, but I don't think it will work well in Smash. Most people play to play. If you want to play super competitive, get people's tags online and play friends battles. Better yet, pay Gamebattles. That's the way to go right there. If you haven't heard of it, go for it. That's how you play competitive ANYTHING. Honestly, playing a random mix of players everytime is the best way to go. Smash is a social game, and they are probably going to treat it like one.

3) Yes we exist, but we are minimal and in no way better than the casual players. In one of your other posts, you stated "we are better at the game than them". By competitive standards that's true. But in no way is that true to casuals. You could play a match with 3 casuals, win without dying once, and the casuals could still claim they won because they got a certain Pokemon out of a Pokeball or they did that "one sweet move" in the middle of the game. He's not going to cater to us because we are not what Smash is about. Smash is about having fun whether you win or lose, and they're going to cater to THAT, not casual or competitive players. They're catering to good-natured fun. It's up to us to turn what he gives us INTO a competitive game because that is how we perceive fun in this game.

4) The matchmaking system makes the game strictly a competition. I am all for ranks. I 50'd so many accounts in Halo it's not even funny. But that's Microsoft and Xbox and M-Rated games. That may not mean much to me or you, but it means a lot to Sakurai. This game is gonna have a T rating. This game is going to be a game that families will play with each other. Nintendo is not about ranks, or being the best. Nintendo is about laughter and characters and having a blast. While you think they are ignoring you, they aren't. They simply choose to think a different way. Not saying I agree with them, just stating how THEY think.

That's not what you're arguing. You're essentially arguing to make a competitive game with a ranked matchmaking system so noobs will play against noobs so they won't get their ass beat. That's not what Sakurai or Nintendo are going to cater to. They unintentionally catered to us in Melee. They didn't do it on purpose. If this game turns competitive, it's because we turned it competitive like every game that is turned competitive.

For the record, my perfect Smash game would have a ranked playlist, a social playlist, and several other playlists. However, that's not what Nintendo is going to do. Instead of getting mad or upset about how I am not getting catered to, I decided to look at it a different way. Despite their lack of interest in anything competitive gaming, Sakruai is still considering us, even though we are less than 1% of the game's population. That's pretty baller.

 

[Jack Kieser]

@ XavierSylfaen: Um... they ARE throwing in a few things that we like. Like speed and some hitstun. A few combos. Just not EVERYTHING we like, like ATs. Which was MY point.

 

[Zubyyyy]

^Thank you for understand the point of my response post, and amazing original post.

 

[HeroMystic]

As I was reading the argument about ranked matchmaking, I thought about my recent practice with Persona 4 Arena. I've rarely went online because I'm essentially in a dead area, which means connections are usually out of my region. The day I did decide to get online and played online ranked, I was a person with 0 points, and they also ranked me with a person with 0 points.

Obviously, I wrecked him. Actually, it was beyond getting wrecked, it was like I was still in training mode. He couldn't land any hits on me, and I combo'd him to oblivion and got two perfects in a row. The match didn't even last 5 minutes. I was talking to my BFF on Skype and I openly said "Man, I hope I didn't break this guy's spirit." This was said jokingly, but honestly I was serious, because I know how it's like to get completely demolished in games you don't fully understand the mechanics behind because you're not interested in becoming competitive.

So really, no, adding ranked matches doesn't magically solve the issue, because the game still has to place you first, which means you have to start from the bottom. But don't get me wrong, I don't exactly agree with the OP because it feels like I'm being punished for purely wanting to get better at the game (this is my goal for nearly every game I play, it's hardcoded in me), but I can see his point and it's a pretty good one.

 

[DakotaBonez]

Sh#$ I forgot what AT means on these boards...Assist Trophies?

 

[smashbrolink]

Sh#$ I forgot what AT means on these boards...Assist Trophies?

That, and Advanced Techniques, such as Wave Dashing.

 

[Ogre_Deity_Link]

Sh#$ I forgot what AT means on these boards...Assist Trophies?

OMG BAN ASSIST TROPHIES! Totally broken. XD

Okay, in all seriousness though, OP said it all. There is literally nothing I can add to this to aid an already masterfully written argument.

 

[SKM_NeoN]

I've been demolished by people better than me several times, and it never discouraged me to the point where I quit a game I enjoy. You know why? Because I'm an adult. I'm not a snot nosed kid that expects to play with the big boys and have the rules dumbed down enough for me to stand a chance. If you consider these people during defelpment you get a stupid game like Brawl and PSASBR.

More on topic: If Sakurai cares about the quality of his game he will cater to the elite. Otherwise it will never be as good as Melee. Casuals will get completely destroyed either way, so arguing the contrary makes no sense.

 

[Terrazi Terrajin]

When people say "as good as melee" is that code for "I want smash 4 to have wavedashing and L cancelling"?
If so, you're a god damn tool.

 

[VA3TO]

I feel quite proud that I got such a response to my post!

That said, I have to politely disagree. The beauty of Smash is that it can cater to both of the demographics. Making it competitive DOES NOT TAKE AWAY ANYTHING from casual play, absolutely nothing. If all you care about is people beating you online then get better, I hate this mentality that if you lose the game should be made easier. That thinking is a detriment to the gaming society and industry as a whole.

 

[VA3TO]

Oh and if you could say that directly to me and be a man about it, that'd be great.

 

[Deleted member 212841]

gcyftftdtfyxycyvj

 

[Zubyyyy]

I feel quite proud that I got such a response to my post!

That said, I have to politely disagree. The beauty of Smash is that it can cater to both of the demographics. Making it competitive DOES NOT TAKE AWAY ANYTHING from casual play, absolutely nothing. If all you care about is people beating you online then get better, I hate this mentality that if you lose the game should be made easier. That thinking is a detriment to the gaming society and industry as a whole.

You may hate that mentality, but this game is made by a company who has been catering to this motto for years. That's OUR point. We aren't saying that the games shouldn't be competitive. All we're saying is that it's probably not going to happen. While I hate that mentality too, the problem is when people get overly frustrated, the majority of people will pick another game to play. From a competitive gaming standpoint, making the game easier is a terrible thing to. From a business standpoint, it makes sense

 

[Orngeblu]

because I know how it's like to get completely demolished in games you don't fully understand the mechanics behind because you're not interested in becoming competitive.

I know exactly how it feels too. I'm not one to get discouraged or frustrated anymore (Except for Brawl Wi-Fi... >_>), but there are a lot of other people who do want to get good at said game, but don't know how to. I'm pretty sure, for these people it's frustrating to play against someone who is blatantly better than them, say 3-stocking you over and over when they don't know the fundamentals of the game. It's frustrating.

 

[smashbrolink]

I know exactly how it feels too. I'm not one to get discouraged or frustrated anymore (Except for Brawl Wi-Fi... >_>), but there are a lot of other people who do want to get good at said game, but don't know how to. I'm pretty sure, for these people it's frustrating to play against someone who is blatantly better than them, say 3-stocking you over and over when they don't know the fundamentals of the game. It's frustrating.

Precisely.
It also doesn't help to have someone shouting "Get better or GTFO" at people who are playing for love of the game rather than for bragging rights and winning. Especially when said people have friends lists and entire huge multitudes of forums they could use to find matches with people at, or even above, their skill level, and could make use of those to avoid ruining the days and matches of people that aren't yet as skilled as they are.

 

[Orngeblu]

Precisely.
It also doesn't help to have someone shouting "Get better or GTFO" at people who are playing for love of the game rather than for bragging rights and winning. Especially when said people have friends lists and entire huge multitudes of forums they could use to find matches with people at, or even above, their skill level, and could make use of those to avoid ruining the days and matches of people that aren't yet as skilled as they are.

That's practically what people do in Basic Brawl. If they're winning, they'll troll you guys taunting to mock you. But, I've never seen anyone do that when I've played people on the friend roster.

But yeah, it is frustrating for those people who aren't good enough and get beat constantly. I've learned a lot, so it's much easier to take the lose.