The Ultimate Question: Does Smash 4 find balance between offensive and defensive gameplay?

[Gatoray]

Honestly, I don't care about anything else. I just don't want Smash 4 to turn into THIS: http://youtu.be/sZuW9jsaczg?t=5m13s

I know the game is early in it's metagame development, but based on what you can see from the game mechanics right now, will Smash 4 actually reward offensive play styles this time? Feel free to explain your judgement.

 

[Raijinken]

From what I've seen, so far, yes. But at the same time, assuming a healthy metagame, strategies always change. Even Melee has started favoring slightly campy styles for Spacefurries over its old meta. As long as characters are balanced in such a way as to make character counterpicks viable (and pick order is revised so that you can't counter the counterpick), that sort of evolving meta can keep games fresh and changing, normally favorably.

 

[ChillySundance]

From what I've seen, I expect this game to favor defensive play in the long term, but still support agression more than Brawl did. The fact that nobody ever seems to die and the crazy ledge game means that people ARE going to have to go a little ham if they want to take stocks. Even characters like Duck Hunt Dog who rely on camping for their primary assault can't just sit back and throw projectiles forever. He needs to land a smash attack at some point or edgeguard to get a kill.

It also means that you can afford to take more risks early on the match, so we should expect to see people being a bit bold until around 100% or so this time.

 

[Conda]

It feels more balanced than melee and brawl. 2 stocks will favour aggressive reckless play more than 3 stocks imo, but 3 stocks will retain a lot of unique smash qualities - dynamics that take place over the course of a 4 minute (avg) match.

All-in-all, I think it'll be character dependant. We have the slow campy spacing-based characters from Brawl carried over into this game - Dedede, Olimar, Toon Link, etc. It was a playstyle that was ubiquitous in brawl (and even moreso now in SSB4), and those characters carry their strengths over into SSB4. But there are also many buffed veterans and new speedy characters, which will provide ample aggressive play in tournaments.

There's a more varied and dynamic array of playstyles on display in Smash 4, and I believe a wide variety of them will be competitively viable due to this game being VERY reworked when it comes to character effectiveness (things have been shaken up a bunch).

 

[ChillySundance]

Yeah it does not currently feel a character specifically suffers because they have no camping game. Most of the fast, quick close combat fighters have options for getting in and punishing and the effectiveness of rolls increased as a mobility tool overall, so I feel this will greatly contribute towards weakening spam and encouraging thoughtful placement of projectiles to condition opponents.

I guess that's why Duck Hunt doesn't feel as lame as Snake even though his playstyle is quite similar.

 

[Shaya]

Using a very anecdotal instance, for a very standardised play pattern in a match up to base opinions of the game in general is a bit silly (especially as both players were just JOKING AROUND). I'm going to kill this thread because not only do I not promote a thread which promotes flame-baitey/sensationalist responses, it comes with very little in terms of thesis or argument. If you want a thread like this to be promoted you'll need a lot more substance to come with it.



Every character has to play like this against ICs: the risk reward of IC's dash grab significantly outweighs every thing else in the game by massive, MASSIVE amount. A 9 frame, 2x sword length, multiple hitbox stock taker on success forces people to play this way.
Why is there little risk? Because characters aren't designed to hit both characters, and if you don't hit both characters, you're likely to get grabbed, if you hit one and not the other and get grabbed you can be solo chain grabbed long enough for nana to catch up and take your stock.
Standard defensive options such as shielding, spot dodging or rolling are negated by the nature of grabs, the length of the dash grab and the multiple "grab boxes".
Approaching from the air is not as potent as it should be due to Ice Climbers having disjointed grab hitboxes above their heads.

Nothing else exists like this in Brawl, nor any other smash game in the series.