This is what they mean by a "defensive game", right?

[Quillion]

It's NOT that things like rolling, shielding, airdodging, or just plain jumping around are impossible to punish, since that would be impossible even in an idiotically designed game (and honestly, you just suck, even if it's Brawl).

It's that defensive options heavily limit the opponent's actions. Sure, it doesn't sound so bad on paper, but the problem is that in Brawl and 4, it makes it so that the defender controls the pace of the fight. The attacker is limited to a meager selection of options, and so the defender can act accordingly with each option because the attacker is so limited.

When you're rolling or airdodging, the opponent has to either use a lingering attack or try a hard read. Both of these counter-defenses are HIGHLY punishable because lingering attacks are laggy (and generally weak on several characterse), and trying a hard read is completely luck based (assuming the defender is of competent skill).

It boils down to the point that the best the opponent can actually do is ALSO play defensively and throw out quick, weak, and safe attacks until they land a hit and gain control just like the first player. It boils down to a game of waiting, attacking, waiting, attacking...

Pretty much how Egoraptor describes Ocarina of Time (and most 3D Zeldas by proxy)

The reason why many people love Skyward Sword's combat (even if they hate its puzzles, linearity, and tight plot) is because that it works in such a way that you can attack through the enemy's defense if you're skilled. It's a highly ideal combat system for Zelda (which they can hopefully translate into control stick and button actions someday).

Ugh... anyway just correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[SilverhandX]

Sm4sh and Brawl are definitely more defensive and more about reads than Melee and PM, but that doesn't make them better or worse, just a different style of game. Well, Brawl is bad, but not for that reason. Also that Sequelitis was really bad and full of highly opinionated/false statements, selectively showing off stuff that supports what you're saying doesn't make what you're saying true.

 

[LimitCrown]

Ocarina of Time is an action-adventure game while Super Smash Bros. 4 is a fighting game, so I don't think the comparison should be used. I thought that fighting games were inherently defensive in the first place. Also, some of the enemies that Egoraptor used as examples can be defeated by using other means. The Skulltulas can be defeated by using the bow, and the Wolfos can be instantly defeated by attacking its tail which is easy to do because it turns around after it attacks. It isn't like there is anything wrong with having enemies that require you to attack them at specific times or needing to attack weak points. There are also other things in the Sequelitis that I disagreed with.

 

[Raijinken]

Brawl was defensive because Offense had extremely minimal reward (due to dodging out of hitstun, amongst other things). Melee is aggressive because defending puts you in shieldstun and various other disadvantageous states. Smash4 has the most balanced approach (or seems to thus far), rewarding offense without making defense useless.

People often mistake a game with a neutral game for a defensive and campy game, due to the periodic lack of blatant aggression. But when it comes down to it, Melee's neutral game functions identically to Smash4's. You wait and throw out hitboxes until you catch your opponent in a mistake. Melee's moves faster, yes, due to movement options and general game speed and so on, but when it comes down to it, watching two Foxes wavedash and throw lasers at each other until one of them gets caught out isn't actually any different from watching two Diddys slide and hop around trying to land a hit.

Once someone breaks the neutral game open, that's where the games diverge. Melee's is a bit closer to a traditional fighter at that point, with a lot of very strong combo options that result in anything from massive damage to a stock, and at the higher level, nothing short of user execution will really stop it. In Smash4, some of the choices of that post-neutral game are placed in the hands of the victim, as they can escape strings via dodging, or counterattack, etc since hitstun isn't high enough to make true combos commonplace. Yet, at the same time, every option the victim has is directly opposable and beatable by the aggressor - unless the aggressor takes an extremely foolish risk, he still has the advantage (dodging on air or ground is predictable, edge grabs force certain getup patterns and has vulnerability windows, shields are grabbable or breakable, etc).

As for Sequelitis, none better than Megaman X's. But pertaining to OoT vs LttP, it's important to note that waiting and attacking a pre-programmed and impossible-to-normally-change AI script is entirely different from attacking a human player. Or, if it isn't, then the human is acting predictable (which happens), and that's generally a sign of poor play. We don't base skill (or playstyle analysis) simply on how one beats a CPU player, else Luigi would be top tier for being able to beat every L9 without doing anything.

 

[Quillion]

Melee's moves faster, yes, due to movement options and general game speed and so on, but when it comes down to it, watching two Foxes wavedash and throw lasers at each other until one of them gets caught out isn't actually any different from watching two Diddys slide and hop around trying to land a hit.

You know what, I actually have been seeing this.

Take this video of Melee SD Remix for example:

This is a mod that speeds up most of the cast so that they can match up to the top tiers. These two were pretty bad characters in vMelee, but even here, they're playing a very keep-away kind of game much like in Brawl.

It's only the Fragile Speedsters that make Melee what it is in most people's eyes. Even by buffing the rest of the cast, it's pretty much a faster Brawl/Smash 4.

 

[Raijinken]

You know what, I actually have been seeing this.

Take this video of Melee SD Remix for example:

This is a mod that speeds up most of the cast so that they can match up to the top tiers. These two were pretty bad characters in vMelee, but even here, they're playing a very keep-away kind of game much like in Brawl.

It's only the Fragile Speedsters that make Melee what it is in most people's eyes. Even by buffing the rest of the cast, it's pretty much a faster Brawl/Smash 4.

That's pretty much the point, yeah. It's in no way a bad thing (from a design point of view), but when it comes down to it, all of the games in the series are based around which options in neutral are most reasonable. No matter which game you're playing, neutral is dictated by footsies and the first player to make a mistake.

 

[Quillion]

That's pretty much the point, yeah. It's in no way a bad thing (from a design point of view), but when it comes down to it, all of the games in the series are based around which options in neutral are most reasonable. No matter which game you're playing, neutral is dictated by footsies and the first player to make a mistake.

I still kinda wish they didn't try to massively slow down the Fragile Speedsters post-Melee, though. I mean, the Mighty Glaciers have been getting a bit faster since Melee, but the speedsters just keep getting slower and slower.

 

[warriorman222]

I still kinda wish they didn't try to massively slow down the Fragile Speedsters post-Melee, though. I mean, the Mighty Glaciers have been getting a bit faster since Melee, but the speedsters just keep getting slower and slower.

And as you see, the Speedsters are still much better. If they didn't even try to close this gap, all the low tiers and bottom tiers would be nothing but all the heavies and fatties, rather than simply characters that had horrible design choices put into them (Dr Mario, WFT, Swordfighter).

 

[Quillion]

And as you see, the Speedsters are still much better. If they didn't even try to close this gap, all the low tiers and bottom tiers would be nothing but all the heavies and fatties, rather than simply characters that had horrible design choices put into them (Dr Mario, WFT, Swordfighter).

What about SD Remix, Balanced Brawl, and Project M? All three of those mods do a good job of balancing them while keeping the speed gap between them wide. It's the official developers' fault if they can't do that.

But even so, they could've did it in the other direction; make the speedsters a bit slower while making the glaciers a lot faster.

 

[warriorman222]

What about SD Remix, Balanced Brawl, and Project M? All three of those mods do a good job of balancing them while keeping the speed gap between them wide. It's the official developers' fault if they can't do that.

But even so, they could've did it in the other direction; make the speedsters a bit slower while making the glaciers a lot faster.

I meant the main games. And the fact is, they tried. However, it seems Sakurai's team has one flaw: they can't balance out weaknesses. Dr. Mario is the biggest victim of this. Many of his attacks are weaker, slower, and shorter rangedthan Mario's, yet he has an arthritic dash speed, no recovery, being the only character with over 1 tool of recovery to die at the blastlines, less comboing, and kills via hard reads only, as well as a million sourspots. WFT attacks are extremely weak for all the disadvantages s/he has: Almost auto-loss vs small characters, lack of good close range game, and extreme reliance on camping.

How the devs didn't see these characters as not balanced properly is a mystery. form the 1st time I used them both I knew they were one of the few characters to actually suck. In a game, the bottom tiers can still be usable or really good. But the bottom tiers in this game are again, the ones with real design flaws that make them much worse than they deserve to be.

 

[shapular]

What about SD Remix, Balanced Brawl, and Project M? All three of those mods do a good job of balancing them while keeping the speed gap between them wide. It's the official developers' fault if they can't do that.

But even so, they could've did it in the other direction; make the speedsters a bit slower while making the glaciers a lot faster.

I know nothing about SD Remix, but if I had to guess it's probably not that balanced, and I don't think Balanced Brawl is either. PM balances heavies with gimmicks: ridiculous amounts of super armor on Bowser's everything (particularly crouch and dash attack) and giving Charizard a lot of vertical speed with Fly (plus that ridic 3.02 nair). Those are the only relevant fatties since they're the only ones that are actually better than their Brawl incarnations. Even so, there are still a lot of polarizing matchups in PM. Lowering the speed gap between speedsters and fatties not only makes them closer in tier, it makes the matchups less polarizing.

 

[Fuqua]

im just commenting to say that that oot vs alttp video is stupid as ****. What it set out to do was give objective reasoning why 1. Oot is overrated and 2. alttp is the better game of the two. What it did is 30mins of 100% subjective blabber.

He just begs for people to be pissed off by basically starting out the video with saying "everyone who disagrees with me is a fat raging Oot worshipping super nerd" and then has the nerves to end the video with "i didnt mean to make you angry"... this guy is a ****ing ****. I wonder if he wasnt so popular people would realize how weak that video is.

Bats are hard and not fun to hit? mate, you just suck. Also opinion.

Oot camera system less immersive than alttp? Because it changes angels? yeah sure always looking at something from a birds perspective is so much more immersive! Complete nonsense/opinion.

The world in Oot is less about exploring? yes it is... so what? how is a change in game design 100% a bad thing again?

The dialogue is boring? i thought its just fine.

The items arent as fun in oot? ,,,,

If you werent convinced that this guy is an idiot watch how he blames the game for being hit around 12:45. "sliding thing you cant see" mate you see that thing when you enter the room, you can hear it coming closer to you, you have all the information to judge where its gonna be but you just cry and try to make a non existent point.

Is there even a point to making a video like this? i might as well make a video why i think metal music is the best music there is and trash hip hop music for 30mins because its less technically demanding on the guitar. Or hey lets argue about our favorite colors! Yeah its absolutely pointless to make a rant like this.

You can point out some objectively bad things in oot, its funny how he made a 30mins video and completely failed to do just that.

 

[Zage]

You posted this same exact thing over a month ago and got a whole slew of responses

http://smashboards.com/threads/the-attitude-towards-this-game.380725/page-4#post-18105375

Nothing has changed in the past 30 days, and thus my response remains the same. What was even the point of making another thread?

This is untrue for a fighting game, especially one like Smash. Both players have to work to get the other player to commit to an option before they can punish them, so it ends up being a power struggle of who can manipulate the other person into doing that, this is where things like mind-games and conditioning your opponent come in.

Tl;dr Single Player Adventure games aren't Smash.

 

[Quillion]

I know nothing about SD Remix, but if I had to guess it's probably not that balanced, and I don't think Balanced Brawl is either. PM balances heavies with gimmicks: ridiculous amounts of super armor on Bowser's everything (particularly crouch and dash attack) and giving Charizard a lot of vertical speed with Fly (plus that ridic 3.02 nair). Those are the only relevant fatties since they're the only ones that are actually better than their Brawl incarnations. Even so, there are still a lot of polarizing matchups in PM. Lowering the speed gap between speedsters and fatties not only makes them closer in tier, it makes the matchups less polarizing.

No, that just homogenizes the game.

Balance between speedsters and glaciers can be done in many ways, such as attack speed, super armor, more damage, lower base knockback. Anything.

Project M only makes radical changes so that it can stand on its own game, despite reverting the Speedsters to near-exact copies of their respective Melee incarnations.

Both SDR and Balanced Brawl take a more minimalistic approach, making sure that any player who has gotten used to their specific character in their specific game can still play the mod. (That and BBrawl is actually really gimmicky if you look at the "BBrawl bonuses" for each character).

 

[shapular]

No, that just homogenizes the game.

Balance between speedsters and glaciers can be done in many ways, such as attack speed, super armor, more damage, lower base knockback. Anything.

Project M only makes radical changes so that it can stand on its own game, despite reverting the Speedsters to near-exact copies of their respective Melee incarnations.

Both SDR and Balanced Brawl take a more minimalistic approach, making sure that any player who has gotten used to their specific character in their specific game can still play the mod. (That and BBrawl is actually really gimmicky if you look at the "BBrawl bonuses" for each character).

If you let the speedsters keep their Melee-level speed and mobility, it's almost impossible to balance them properly. Same thing with Brawl MK. That's why Fox is still the best character in PM and still has no bad matchups, and why all the Brawl mods had trouble balancing MK (though obviously both characters have a lot more to abuse besides speed). I don't think the ground speed of these characters has even changed as much as you think it has, and Sonic is way faster than any character in Melee. It just doesn't always matter how much the heavy character can do per hit or how much super armor they have or whatever. If they're still super slow and the fast characters are still super fast, the speedsters are still going to be able to run circles around the fatties. Even in Smash 4, the top tier still consists of fast characters like Sheik, Fox, Pikachu, Sonic, etc. That's with those characters getting a lot of damage/KO potential nerfs, heavies getting super armor and other things, and the speed gap being lowered. If the speed gap was as big as it was in Melee, this game would probably be a good bit less balanced.