I’ve debated writing on this issue for a long time, hoping the debate would settle and ease up as time went on. It’s apparent now that this could very well keep going for months, or god forbid, years. Since this is a response blog I’ll ask everyone to please view Zjiin’s “Why Brawl Will Kill the Smash Community”. Know that I don’t hold anything against anyone for their opinions about Brawl or Melee, I love both games, but at this point I feel Brawl has been underrepresented in the debate against those still vying for Melee. I hope to bring whoever is reading this a possible new perspective on the debate.
In Zjiin’s opening he states that “Brawl is not meant to be competitive. Sakurai told us he wanted it that way, and its obvious to us who have been playing Melee for sometime, that anyone who i trying to find a highly competitive game in Brawl is really stretching their argument.” Yet, this is far from accurate. Like Brawl, Melee was also not meant to be competitive. The problem with this initial assertion and reference to Sakurai gives the designer too much credit for his power of prediction and control over what a game will become. All Sakurai did was give each and everyone of us an empty canvas to fill how we deem fit. As is often the case, Sakurai has absolutely no idea how play will evolve over time, he is as in the dark as the rest of us. Designers intent is meaningless, once the game is completed and shipped it’s not about Sakurai’s interpretation—it’s about OUR interpretation.
Zjiin urges that “The better I get at this game, the more I realize how technically and strategically shallow it is, and although its fun to play, by no means does it make it a great game. The lack of hit-stun for any moves is evidence enough that no matter how much we try, and how good we get, combos will never be possible. I’m not talking about that combo you got on your little cousin, I mean combos that will work on people who know how to DI and air-dodge out of anything, because you can. The game is based off of too many defensive options which discourages advancing, or as some people see it, promotes camping. No good fighting game should promote camping, but then again, this isn’t a fighting game, it’s a party game!” This statement sums up the two most common anti-Brawl positions, displeasure at the lack of technical prowess and disgust that long combo’s are no longer the norm. Yet, this statement is being made just a few months after Brawl’s release. Zjiin’s was not short sighted, he mentions there are a number of people that believe it is to early to judge Brawl but he seems to reach a conclusion, as many have, that Brawl can indeed be judged based on this first few months of playing (and that people who reserve judgment are merely unable to see the truth), with the reasons mentioned above, and that the conclusion is that Brawl is shallow.
There are several problems with these common arguments and their relation to depth that are not commonly addressed.
Addressing Technical Ability
By removing the technical barrier that existed in Melee Sakurai made the deeper concepts of strategy more readily available to everyone. This is a good thing as it provides more players the opportunity to actually think during a match instead of being outplayed simply because they can’t keep up with the higher technical ability of their opponent. Having a larger pool of players who can develop strategies quickens the evolution of the metagame to deeper levels, it’s a numbers game. It’s the strategies and counter strategies that players will learn how to perform and how to get around that will build the depth of Brawl.
Camping is already emerging as one of these first prevalent strong strategies. Yet, for every action there is a reaction, players who are frustrated with campers will gravitate toward characters or new strategies that counter it, and from there further evolution will happen as people learn to counter this new set of strategies. Each step of the process must be learned by every player who wants to make it to the top and each barrier must be overcome. As time goes on more barriers will be made and more will be broken, not knowing even a single one of them could spell disaster. The larger this chain of barriers is the more depth there is. Isn’t it ironic that in the same paragraph Zjiin mentions a lack of depth strategically he also seems unable to find a solution to camping? Lacking a solution, like many, he resorts to frustration and creates a baseless argument that “no good fighting game should promote camping”.
Technical ability was actually a crutch for many players in Melee, who would rely on fast fingers to forgo thinking and simply copy the base strategies of better players. With this ability gone, these players fall back down the latter and are forced to learn how to actually think, something the top players are already more than proficient at, because at the top of the echelon ladder the players were already of equal technical ability and the only difference, usually, was their thinking. Removing the technical barrier kept the old hierarchy intact because the top players didn’t need to use their technical ability as a crutch. It’s been the middle echelon players who have been the most interesting development in Brawl, as some have fallen as their crutch of technical prowess was removed, and others have risen, freed from the constricting chains of losing only because they could not move their fingers fast enough or lacked execution. Technical ability should not be a barrier limiting the success of any player. In Melee, it was. In Brawl, it isn’t. It’s time to deal.
Addressing Combo’s
Combos in Melee, by 2008, were essentially well rehearsed series of inputs drawing on technical ability. Even the slight variations that could arise from DI had become, in Melee, simply an execution of an action in a scenario likely encountered hundreds of times before hand. Much of the depth of Melee was actually in the approaches and spacing, looking for that opening that would lead to that hit that would start that string of attacks. The strings of attacks themselves are nothing more than a further extension of technical ability. During a combo, thinking usually goes out the window and is instead replaced with reaction or rehearsal, depending on whose dishing or taking the damage. When a combo in Melee would finally end you would usually find your character either recovering or respawning.
Do these combos actually increase depth? No. They are fun to do, fun to watch, fun to find (but then you rehearse them), nearly impossible to defend against once started, and devastating. The only difference between a combo in Melee and a Final Smash in Brawl is that a Final Smash requires less inputs (and maybe less work for an opening), and for some reason these inputs are looked upon as skill and depth.
Recently there was an article on Gameriot written by Glenn Cravens mentioning that there appeared to be a more emotional attachment to Brawl because victories were so hard fought for. He is right! In Melee, you would have to manipulate the opponent so that you could find a few openings during each stock, you didn’t need many openings, just a few to start long combos where most of the damage was dealt. Much of the depth was in finding or creating these openings, the thinking stopped when a combo started, and picked up again when a combo finished. But, lets remember back to some of the most memorable sets in Melee, they often came down to last stock, last hit situations, where each player was cautiously trying to exploit the other to land just one hit, just a single hit, that would win the game, it wasn’t the combo, it was that presence of mind that all these players needed was a single opening.
In Brawl we have this multiplied substantially, almost every attack you land on the opponent is the result of something you did right and something they did wrong. The opponent can air dodge at any time, but you also know they can air dodge at anytime, so how is this at all a bad thing? Watching a combo in Brawl, where one player predicts the other players defensive action so that their string of attacks continues to extend, is a lot more interesting than seeing a Ken Combo for the thousandth time. These pseudo combo’s (because a true combo leaves no room for response) are substantially more interesting than combo’s in Melee. Suddenly, both players are thinking after a hit takes place, not rehearsing!
Ask yourself a serious question: which is more interesting, satisfying, and difficult, landing a string of attacks where the opponent has no opportunity to respond or landing a string of attacks where the opponent was responding every step of the way?
Addressing Defensive Play
Zjiin mentions briefly one of the more focal points in the Brawl-Melee debate when he says “the game is based off of too many defensive options which discourage advancing”. While he doesn’t touch on this much, the argument that there are less safe approaches and that it’s easier to defend is wide spread as a prime reason Brawls play is worse than Melee’s. The problem with this argument is that it’s taking Melee principles and assuming they apply to Brawl. In particular L-canceling, a universal technique that almost every character could adopt and almost instantly have at least a few decently safe option for coming in on an opponents shield. With this removed, the principles of attacking someone need to be slightly redefined, no longer can you hope to pick any character and already have enough knowledge to break through someone’s defense, the solution to the problem is to expand your knowledge of every character.
Do players like Zjiin really mean to tell everyone that there is not a single character that can break a defense or approach safely? We already know this to be substantially false, yet for some reason the myth remains and is continually perpetuated. If overly defensive play were such a problem to these players, then why are these same players not gravitating toward characters that do have strong approach games? It’s as if they experienced an action, couldn’t find the appropriate or desired reaction in their favorite character, and instead of looking at other characters and the possibilities they possess, they simply gave up and chalked up everything to the misery that is Brawl. The solution to breaking a strong defense lies in character specific strategies. There is no single general technique or strategy like L-canceling in Melee that will solve every problem.
Yet, this solution is nothing new, not only should this happen, but it already has happened, 5 years ago! Back in the time where players couldn’t L-Cancel, defensive play, in particular shield grabbing, reigned supreme, and characters like Link, who could attack out of the shield, were much higher on the tier list. The solution then was the same as it is now: look at each character’s individual traits and choose a character that possesses traits countering a specific strategy (in this case, shield grabbing). This is partly the reason Sheik was considered a god during early competitive play, and this doesn’t even touch on Peach. Character specific strategies and responses will be the new core of game play, limiting your self to a single character does just that, it will limit your options in dealing with different strategies.
How Do We Know When the Pinnacle is Reached and Play has Stagnated?
You will often see these explanations of shallow play that are apparently both evident and already prevalent, but will there ever be proof of this? When can we determine, objectively, when play has actually stagnated and the metagame has ceased to evolve? The answer to this is quite simple, look toward tournament results. Seeing a group of players or a single player consistently winning tournaments means that the metagame has yet to stagnate as these players obviously posses a understanding of the game beyond that of those placing lower than them. We already know the current state of Brawl is not stagnant—Azen, Chillin, Forte, and G-Reg finished in the exact same placement two tournaments in a row in Virginia (and Azen/Chillin/Forte have essentially taken top 3 every tournament in Virginia so far). DSF has won 4 straight tournaments in California. When the results of tournaments become both inconsistent and unpredictable, then we have one of two problems. Either the rule set is introducing variables that are affecting the results, or the metagame has stagnated and on any given weekend a dozen people at the same tournament all stand the same chance of winning. So far, neither of these situations has occurred in Melee or Brawl.
It IS to Early to Tell, No Matter What Anyone Tells You
It is naïve to make a conclusion about Brawls depth based on 2 or 3 months of play time. Thinking you can foresee the landscape of a game as complicated as Smash years down the road shows both a lack of respect for how humans operate and a lack of understanding on how things can evolve, not to mention you’re calling yourself a genius, Smash is complicated, there are many variables that need to be tested. As mentioned earlier, there is a natural evolution of strategies and counter strategies that will emerge. That said, there is also a human aspect, the want, need, and desire for competition, improvement, and finding solutions. Calling a problem, like camping, unsolvable this early doesn’t even allow time for players to formulate and test counter strategies.
The argument is often brought that we can’t compare Brawl now with Melee 7 years ago, that nothing new will be found, or at least nothing substantial, because the community now is more organized and way larger than it was in 2001. Yet…who are these people that are supposed to be finding things? Millions of people purchased Melee in the first year, it took 5 more to find moon walking. The claim is that the hardcore base then was much smaller and not as equipped to thoroughly test the game. The number of members on Smashboards in 2006, roughly when moon walking was discovered, stood at about half where it is today. So, double the members…we should take half the time it took in Melee to find the last interesting technique, which leaves us with about 2-3 years until just about everything is found.
This gives to many people to much credit though. The number of people who actually find things is quite small because sometimes acquiring the information is quite tedious, requiring countless hours of work that few really have the care for. Mew2King created the first statistics list for Melee and he is STILL pretty much the only person creating many of the character statistics and comparisons in Brawl. 80,000 new members later and Mew2King is still the forerunner in discovering interesting and useful Smash information.
I’ve started going through every character in the game in an excel sheet, recording the degenerative knock back for every attack 10 moves deep, it takes an hour to do a single character (4-5 hours to do Lucario). Here is something most of you don’t know, the type of thing that can arise from this type of tedious work: Donkey Kong’s F-Throw doesn’t suffer from stale moves. Sure, it’s not a big deal, but what I’m delving into wouldn’t really net anything game changing, and all this said, Brawl is fine the way it is, there is no need for anything game changing to arise as we already have all we need, people are merely hoping for this because that can’t accept the reality that Brawl is a different game than Melee, deep and interesting in its own right.
To get started, let’s look at some important milestones Smash has had over the years:
2003 (Smashboards members ~ 10,000)
* Few players had consistent technical skill and thestrategic play was, looking back, very basic.
* Most attending tournaments in this time period would seem like novices in the eyes of players today.
* Large debate between Smashers and traditional fighters,want for inclusion into EVO.
Early 2004 (Smashboards members ~ 12,000)
* Chillin beat Ken without being able to consistently shorthop.
* The number of consistent traveling (more than 100 miles) Smashers stood around a few dozen, if that.
Late 2004 (Smashboards members ~ 15,000)
* MLG picks up Smash for a testing period.
* $500 was considered a substantial payout at the time.
* Pivoting discovered.
Early 2005 (Smashboards members ~ 15,000)
* MLG announces Smash will be a permanent title on the circuit.
* V-Games also announces Smash as a title.
Late 2005 (Smashboards members ~ 20,000)
* MLG moves into regional major play - top prize $1,000.
* Most players at tournaments technically proficient.
* A Nintendo power article covers Smashboards and MLG.
* MTV’s True Life I’m a Professional Gamer features KillaOR.
* V-Games goes bankrupt, ripping off hundreds of people.
* Top prizes at underground tournaments - $500.
Early 2006 (Smashboards members ~ 35,000)
* Moon Walking discovered.
* MLG announces 2006 Pro Circuit, top prizes $2,000.
Late 2006 (Smashboards members ~ 50,000)
* MLG Playoffs and Championship held - top prizes $5,000 and $10,000.
* Brawl announced.
* Top prizes at underground tournaments - $1,000
Early 2007 (Smashboards members ~ 70,000)
* MLG announces Underground Smash Series.
* Midnight Gaming Championship announces Smash.
* EVO announces Smash.
Late 2007 (Smashboards members ~ 90,000)
* Brawl delayed.
* The second half of 2007 featured a 200 person tournament
* practically every single month.
* Top prizes at underground tournaments- $2,000
* Top prize at EVO - $5,000
* Top prize at Midnight Gaming Championship - $3,000
Early 2008 (Smashboards members ~ 110,000)
* Brawl released.
* EVO announces Brawl.
Tournaments
Now let’s look at Zjiin’s argument that “Its hard to believe that this new community will set up regional circuits, or large 300+ tournaments, or even keep the game going for 4 years past its prime. They are starting fresh and have no idea what they are doing, but nor do they care. They are running off of the steam Melee
players created to keep the tournament scene active and once that steam is all gone, I really don’t see these competitive/causal players making the effort to rent out venues and spread the world nationwide for a game they just see as fun.” Here, he paints a picture that the underground community was the driving force behind Melee’s success as a competitive title. The largest tournament ever held was EVO 2007 with 270 participants. Of all the 200 + person tournaments held, only 2 (OC3 and FC6) have been held without sponsorship from MLG or EVO. Of all the 100 + person tournaments held about half have been under sponsorship from either MLG or EVO.
MLG first gained interested in the Smash because of our strong underground community that was already established in 2004, yet it wasn’t until MLG, and later EVO, came into the picture that the community really started to balloon. The underground community and the professional organizations that sponsor Smash exist somewhat in a mutualism, each building off the other, and its been this way since 2005. Would the professional events exist without
the underground community? Would the underground community have grown as much as it did (prior to Brawls announcement) had it not been for professional events? This is the type of relationship that should be looked at to really understand growth. Brawl has already brought new blood to tournaments, new tournament
hosts, new winners, and new experimenters.
Zjiin’s mistake is that he assumes the groundwork for Brawl tournaments was laid in 2007 by Melee veterans and that without these veterans there would no longer be a foundation for tournaments. What he is missing here is that these same veterans all built from the groundwork laid by tournament in 2004 like Matt Deezie’s TG, the Muffin King’s BOMB, DA’s Gauntlet, Team Ben’s Getting Schooled, H2YL’s H2YL Presents—all tournament series that essentially stopped running by 2005 and created the foundatio for our modern day tournaments. New tournament organizers simply filled the old tournament organizers shoes, as some move out others move in.
What has occurred is that we now have an ever perpetuating cycle of new and old players and tournament hosts filtering in and out, and at the moment, the number of new players filtering in likely outweighs the number of retiring players by a ratio around 2 or 3 to 1 (likely much higher, I can’t even think of anyone who has ACTUALLY retired), and that’s only for live tournaments, take into account online play and the shear size of those just looking to participate in competitive discussion or find matches and that number likely balloons to around 100 to 1 or worse. Gamebattles second most popular online arena, currently, is Brawl, with thousands of matches literally being played every day, and this doesn’t even look at counts from Wifiwars or SmashBrawlRankings.
All of this leads into why Brawl will likely enjoy more success than Melee, at least from a statistical sense.
1) The groundwork for underground tournaments is laid. New hosts will take the reigns from older hosts as they move on, just as has happened in the past. This groundwork cannot easily be undone.
2) The community is expanding at an astounding rate, while the numbers will likely flatten at some point, as it is now the new players are simply driving more interest for other new players. The number of players and interest now far and away exceeds anything ever established for Melee.
3) The money is in Brawl. Professional organizations will not be hosting Melee tournaments anymore. This is reality, and looking at the mutualism described earlier, where professional and underground tournaments grow with each other, then underground Brawl tournaments will likely grow as the professional scene expands.
4) Brawl now holds all the cards, Melee tournaments will likely see a few last large or decently sized tournaments this year (don’t pin any estimates higher than 150), but most people have moved on to Brawl and there are already weekly 50-100 person sized tournaments in California, New England, and Washington DC. A brief check on AllisBrawl reveals that, on any given weekend, there are usually between 10-15 Brawl tournaments around the country. This number, last year for Melee, was around 5-7, and often these tournaments were just around California, DC, or New York, Brawl tournaments are cropping up all over the country.
Conclusion
If play does eventually stagnate years down the road as some predict, then levels will flatten and begin to fall, until then, Brawl is here to stay, you are living in denial by keeping this debate going any longer and creating an unnecessary schism in the community. You can keep playing Melee, but bashing Brawl is simply unproductive no matter which side of the fence you sit on. Melee has no online play and the community cannot support two games the way CounterStrike Source and 1.6 have split. Brawl is the future, it’s a great game, just it for what it is, not based on Melee comparisons. Checkers has less depth than Chess, but the best checkers player in the world would wipe the floor against anyone on this site, and the gap between Checkers in Chess in terms of complexity is substantially more than the gap between Melee in Brawl.
Not everyone is born with equal abilities (rather, no one is), some people have to work harder than others to accomplish the same tasks. Yet, these limitations that we are all born with, no matter how strong, it is unlikely any of us will really reach the pinnacle of our abilities within a lifetime, no matter how hard we work. Brawl and Melee are each limited in a similar way, how much and how long it will take to get to these limits cannot be easily determined, we cannot possibly judge Brawls depth at this point, and even if we could, the level of play at the limit of each game is likely so high that making a comparison would be pointless as most players would be unlikely to even reach that far. Is a Chess board without two files so different from a standard Chess board that highly complicated and skillful positions stop existing, and would not the level of play on each board be absurdly high, even if one was slightly more restricted? If Brawl is less deep than Melee, the difference would likely be of this type of subtleness and not the difference between Chess and Checkers.
