Vincent21
Smash Apprentice
- Joined
- May 6, 2012
- Messages
- 166
- 3DS FC
- 2595-3155-0496
Melee was a hard game. Built on technology so complex the gaming rig I'm typing this on is jealous, and execution so precise you'd have an easier time with surgery. And hey, that was pretty awesome. It's the kind of dense landscape that rewards player for braving the deeps of it's tricky dungeons and vicious traps and rewards them with new levels of understanding and applicable skills. It makes learning how to rek fools fun from the ground up, in which the journey is a reward comparable to winning the event(s) themselves!
That's simply not true about Smash 4, but I'm here to tell you why that just might be a good thing.
You see, in melee, you had to REALLY, REALLY, REALLY lab and play the **** out of your character(s). And I mean bleed the hours in. Typically this means getting really good at one dude and being... passable at 1 or 2 other characters, or blowing an insane amount of hours of your life droning away in the lab to the point where you are simply breathing this game. They don't call M2King a machine for nothing.
In all honestly, this level of technical skill and the investment that was tacked onto it could be one of the factors that locked in the top 8 as we know them. The vast, vast majority of melee smashers simply can't AFFORD to be the next aMSa or Bizzarro Flame because the amount of hours you have to put in with a character no one knows how to play (and therefore no one can help you learn) or who's even slightly marginalized when the alternative of stronger, more understood characters exist - with whom you can take shortcuts by downloading other players, watching and reading guides and gaining info set down by both the community at large AND the gods of Smash - its just a kind of death sentence.
But now we have Smash 4. Welcome. Our advance techniques include such marvels as perfect pivoting! Behold my impressive ability to move the stick one direction, and then immediately in the other! FASCINATING! The sarcasm in those words may be so thickly laid on as to be painful, but the idea I'm getting across is that the depth of 4 in strictly mechanical terms is that of a proverbial kiddie pool. Stuff's easy. Literally one or two explanations to the lay person, and 15 minutes of practice, and any basic Smash 4 piece of technology can be pretty easily learned and retained. We just totally lack execution depth and expansive technology.
But we make up for that in character interaction, as well as legitimate and practical character variety. In short, we're all about MATCHUPS, BABY!
In Smash 4, knowledge is power. Since anyone can pick up and learn a characters relatively easily, while there is still time that must be put in to achieve mastery, the required time is drastically short compared to the other titles. Since you're not required to learn a bunch of huge execution hurdles in order to competitively maximize a character, it's feasible to learn more characters. And here's the rub.
While we have a clear dominating select few like Diddy and Shiek, the majority of the cast, as of the current time, are rather nebulous. One of the better tentative tier lists I saw come out of the competitive impression thread had massive B, B-, and C tiers, and had to stop to stress the viability of the latter two! As far as character representation goes, we're not doing terribly! We like to complain about Diddy, but I mean we're seeing Olimar, Pacman, Link, Villy, all kinds of characters get up on these stages and accomplish something! But how?
Matchup knowledge and matchup implementation.
Some characters have the edge on others. Match-ups and how they work are extremely common knowledge in all fighting game communities. I don't need to tell any of you that. But the amount of weight mu knowledge and application has in Smash 4 is enormous. Having characters in your pocket, being able to switch between radically different playstyles, and knowing a large array of characters to force your opponent to adapt mid-set to a consistently changing landscape is how winning is done! It got Dabuz over M2King, Abadango (his failure to switch to his Wario still boggles me), and others, and it makes the game's competitive side a rich experience. Being a strong competitor is about soaking up as much knowledge as you can, and being the strongest adapter when it comes to the knowledge you lack. While clean execution and a handle on our limited tech is a must, the focus is now on expanding our horizons and using our heads to employ characters as best as you can and in the best match-ups you can. Wisely picking mains with as mitigable weaknesses as possible and knowing how to effectively play and use all the best counterpick chars from the odd lands of niche character territory.
I freakin' love it. In past games I felt like once you picked your main up and decided you were ready to roll you were clamping chains onto yourself. If you're like me, and balancing this game around a work/college life but really wanting your practice and limited hours that WERE put in to have a real potential pay-off at a regional event, the best you could hope for in Melee was one well polished main, and 1 semi-polished side. To hell with the rest. But now not only can I start picking up, playing, and mastering characters like they're candy, I can test things on the go or on the wait, WHENEVER I think of combos, strings, or interactions, from a handheld to which the cast holds identical and continue to reinforce and expand that knowledge even on a limited time schedule.
Smash is finally (Although this change doesn't come without it's problems - while I like this game there are a lot of flaws to talk about, I'll not deny) a game about appreciating all of Nintendo's great characters from the big names to the smaller footnotes, as opposed to forcing you to play favorites.
Basically, it's the supposed "genius" of Divekick put into play way more subtly. When you strip out all the messy and over-complex execution hurdles from the true fighting game frame, which at it's core is just a mental war in which to players are engaging, you get an experience that lets you soak in way more of the game, way faster, and allows everyone to graduate to competitive class quickly. Less barriers between players and a lot more of the human v human element shines through.
This is just me letting a thought roll loose to see if, before the community gets to the point of telling me how they feel about this, if anyone even agrees with me! Do YOU think this game's lower execution bar has the impact I describe. That you can "master" a larger number of characters in a more reasonable timeframe and experience more of the game's content and instill a requirement for adaptability and more strategy-play into the meta? Let me know, and if we're on the same page, then tell me how you feel about the shift! Later!
That's simply not true about Smash 4, but I'm here to tell you why that just might be a good thing.
You see, in melee, you had to REALLY, REALLY, REALLY lab and play the **** out of your character(s). And I mean bleed the hours in. Typically this means getting really good at one dude and being... passable at 1 or 2 other characters, or blowing an insane amount of hours of your life droning away in the lab to the point where you are simply breathing this game. They don't call M2King a machine for nothing.
In all honestly, this level of technical skill and the investment that was tacked onto it could be one of the factors that locked in the top 8 as we know them. The vast, vast majority of melee smashers simply can't AFFORD to be the next aMSa or Bizzarro Flame because the amount of hours you have to put in with a character no one knows how to play (and therefore no one can help you learn) or who's even slightly marginalized when the alternative of stronger, more understood characters exist - with whom you can take shortcuts by downloading other players, watching and reading guides and gaining info set down by both the community at large AND the gods of Smash - its just a kind of death sentence.
But now we have Smash 4. Welcome. Our advance techniques include such marvels as perfect pivoting! Behold my impressive ability to move the stick one direction, and then immediately in the other! FASCINATING! The sarcasm in those words may be so thickly laid on as to be painful, but the idea I'm getting across is that the depth of 4 in strictly mechanical terms is that of a proverbial kiddie pool. Stuff's easy. Literally one or two explanations to the lay person, and 15 minutes of practice, and any basic Smash 4 piece of technology can be pretty easily learned and retained. We just totally lack execution depth and expansive technology.
But we make up for that in character interaction, as well as legitimate and practical character variety. In short, we're all about MATCHUPS, BABY!
In Smash 4, knowledge is power. Since anyone can pick up and learn a characters relatively easily, while there is still time that must be put in to achieve mastery, the required time is drastically short compared to the other titles. Since you're not required to learn a bunch of huge execution hurdles in order to competitively maximize a character, it's feasible to learn more characters. And here's the rub.
While we have a clear dominating select few like Diddy and Shiek, the majority of the cast, as of the current time, are rather nebulous. One of the better tentative tier lists I saw come out of the competitive impression thread had massive B, B-, and C tiers, and had to stop to stress the viability of the latter two! As far as character representation goes, we're not doing terribly! We like to complain about Diddy, but I mean we're seeing Olimar, Pacman, Link, Villy, all kinds of characters get up on these stages and accomplish something! But how?
Matchup knowledge and matchup implementation.
Some characters have the edge on others. Match-ups and how they work are extremely common knowledge in all fighting game communities. I don't need to tell any of you that. But the amount of weight mu knowledge and application has in Smash 4 is enormous. Having characters in your pocket, being able to switch between radically different playstyles, and knowing a large array of characters to force your opponent to adapt mid-set to a consistently changing landscape is how winning is done! It got Dabuz over M2King, Abadango (his failure to switch to his Wario still boggles me), and others, and it makes the game's competitive side a rich experience. Being a strong competitor is about soaking up as much knowledge as you can, and being the strongest adapter when it comes to the knowledge you lack. While clean execution and a handle on our limited tech is a must, the focus is now on expanding our horizons and using our heads to employ characters as best as you can and in the best match-ups you can. Wisely picking mains with as mitigable weaknesses as possible and knowing how to effectively play and use all the best counterpick chars from the odd lands of niche character territory.
I freakin' love it. In past games I felt like once you picked your main up and decided you were ready to roll you were clamping chains onto yourself. If you're like me, and balancing this game around a work/college life but really wanting your practice and limited hours that WERE put in to have a real potential pay-off at a regional event, the best you could hope for in Melee was one well polished main, and 1 semi-polished side. To hell with the rest. But now not only can I start picking up, playing, and mastering characters like they're candy, I can test things on the go or on the wait, WHENEVER I think of combos, strings, or interactions, from a handheld to which the cast holds identical and continue to reinforce and expand that knowledge even on a limited time schedule.
Smash is finally (Although this change doesn't come without it's problems - while I like this game there are a lot of flaws to talk about, I'll not deny) a game about appreciating all of Nintendo's great characters from the big names to the smaller footnotes, as opposed to forcing you to play favorites.
Basically, it's the supposed "genius" of Divekick put into play way more subtly. When you strip out all the messy and over-complex execution hurdles from the true fighting game frame, which at it's core is just a mental war in which to players are engaging, you get an experience that lets you soak in way more of the game, way faster, and allows everyone to graduate to competitive class quickly. Less barriers between players and a lot more of the human v human element shines through.
This is just me letting a thought roll loose to see if, before the community gets to the point of telling me how they feel about this, if anyone even agrees with me! Do YOU think this game's lower execution bar has the impact I describe. That you can "master" a larger number of characters in a more reasonable timeframe and experience more of the game's content and instill a requirement for adaptability and more strategy-play into the meta? Let me know, and if we're on the same page, then tell me how you feel about the shift! Later!
