While you bring up some good points, in reality, I think, you're missing some things.
Wavedashing: Wavedashing being removed won't be the end of the world. However, having advanced but simplistic technical skills like this is a good thing, not a bad one. People are entitled to play however they'd like, but with a competitive fighting game technical skills like this are fine as they're only brought out by competitive players – ordinary players won't ever encounter it, so it doesn't affect the baseline gameplay while improving gameplay for the hardcore who are willing to sink the time to practice advanced skills. I think it’s a good thing to have around, but I won't mind if it is gone. Same goes for L-cancelling, whose removal would also make the game easier to balance and make random brokenness far less likely, but would again cut a technical skill which the average player doesn't encounter as much. However, given the greater visibility of these techniques, their corrosive effects on gameplay would be far greater with Super Smash Brothers Brawl than with its predecessor because more people are aware of them – people aren't likely to play a game they have to spend 20 hours to learn how to play at a level where they have even a chance of taking off more than one stock from the average opponent or where a character or two makes all their favorite characters unplayable.
The removal of items is because smashers are apparently an extremely risk-adverse group; in reality, a lot of items don't make the game unfair. I think the point of exploding capsules/boxes is well taken, though, and as long as they're around I can't really see supporting them as they swing the game a lot. While this is actually alright, in a 2-of-3, a swingy item like this is problematic. If items all show up with the same probability and there's no exploding capsules, then I think removing them is removing an important aspect of the game. Randomness isn't really an issue; look at Magic, one of the most popular competitive games out there. In the long run, stuff like this evens out, and over a 2-of-3 it should be fine.
The levels issue is largely a function of a small group of players rising to predominance first and setting the rules. In reality, Final Destination is just not a balanced level, yet it is one of the six standard stages in most tournaments. Why? Because that group rose up first and some of the brokenness of that stage wasn't initially apparent. It makes certain strategies far more effective than they really should be. If it was not one of the standard stages, it probably wouldn't change the tier lists but it'd certainly make a number of top characters worse and a number of the low-tier characters better, such as the characters who auto-lose to Sheik if they get grabbed on that stage. A lot of the stages are reasonably fair, and I think a lot of people are just unwilling to put in the time to master certain stages, such as Big Blue, which is the favorite level of about half the people I play with. The moving stages force different strategies onto players, which is a good thing, not a bad one, and makes for more variety in play and strategy – those people who never play on stages other than FD don't deserve an advantage built-in to tournaments any more than people who never play any stage other than Big Blue do. However, this issue has nothing to do with the game and everything to do with a certain group of tournament players who may or may not lose some of their dominance if tilt-slapping, chain grabbing, waveshining, ect. lose some of their effectiveness because the levels don't support them as well. Would the tier lists be different if Poke Floats was the only level on random? I don't know. But it would change things, as would FD not being a standard random stage, or if the set of random stages was different.
All that being said, certain stages and items are quite unfun for competitive play. Super stars, full life refills (and maxim tomatos, to a lesser degree), cloaking devices, giant mushrooms, bombs, poke balls, and some other items just aren't good for a competitive game as they're too swingy – a normal item should give you an edge, but shouldn't take a full stock off your opponent. Flat zone is just too small for a stage, and is abusable; same goes for Hyrule Castle (which is a very fun stage), Fourside (again, pretty fun), and Yoshi 64 (which is actually a great stage, but the second cloud on the right turns it from fun into unfun in competitive play). Maybe Big Blue is exploitable, but I've never heard a way in which it is abusive.
gnosis said:
The wavedash is ******* not the divider between good players and bad players. It just isn't, and it's absolute ignorance to say otherwise. Getting rid of it will not bring everyone down to the same basic skill level, not even close. Where do you even get that idea? There's a mountain of things that separate a pro from a newb over just jumping and airdodging. And how is it that using wavedashing compromises your 'actual' skill? Wavedashing takes skill to use properly. Not merely the technical aspect, but the application as well. Wavedashing is a conduit for skill, and proper usage of it shows more skill than ignoring it or abusing it. Anybody who claims they -only- lost because their opponent wavedashed probably sucks a lot at this game.
Wavedashing is a technical rather than strategic skill; it measures your practice rather than your instincts and strategic ability. It enables new strategies. It does add a time commitment to competitive play – you need to spend a fairly long period of time perfecting a few technical skills to really be able to play upper-level smash. I do pretty well with minimal short-hopping and wavedashing, but I've hit the point where I absolutely have to get better at them to advance significantly. Is this a bad thing? I don't think so.
However, it being removed is not a problem, and people complaining about it are being silly, methinks. It’s a new game, and fixing glitches is something which happens in new games. Other strategies and tricks will rise up in its place. It is true that wavedashing alone does not a winner make, and I can and do beat people who wavedash a lot better than I do, but I don't have some options others have because I can't wavedash as well as they do.
'Chaos factor' is all well and good for friendly play, but leaving it up to luck is not acceptable when money is on the line. Though, in general, the better player will win in an items match, no one is going to accept a loss because an explosive container landed on them as they unleashed a smash to edgeguard for what should've been -their- win. Competitive play is about deciding who's better, and items muddy that and 'add the chaos factor', which needs to be limited as much as possible in a test of skill.
This isn't actually true at all. Look at Magic: The Gathering competitive play. You shuffle your deck before playing, and yet it is an extremely skill-intensive game. Why? Because the ability to react to random events which are individually small yet by manipulating them give you great advantage is a skill. A good Magic player has the ability to strategize, plan ahead, and execute complex plans even though his deck is shuffled. Even something as random as a shuffled deck actually gives consistent results, which is why the same players continually do well on the Magic Pro Tour. A lot of people don't understand this principle, which is why they think items are bad.
That being said, Magic would not be a fun game if some cards read "You win." The same is true for items. As long as individual items only give you an edge, not a stock, they aren't problematic and actually increase the skill content of the game. If they remove explosive containers or let you turn them off, then the overall skill level in tournaments will actually increase if items are enabled. Randomness in moderation is a good thing, not a bad one, and people who cannot deal with moderate levels of randomness are not as skilled overall as those who can.
This argument is flawed. Pichu would not be a better character with items; if anything, he'd be worse. You forget that the Top tier characters are also more proficient with items than the rest of the cast (Falcon, Sheik, Marth, Peach, etc.). Not only that, but Mewtwo's too slow to get at the items, Pichu's too small and light to survive getting to the items, etc. Items would just highlight the weaknesses of characters, as any advanced movements with items (Marth's double hit for example) don't change that much in the advantages, but the inherit traits of characters determine whether or not they will get items, be able to counter them, and be able to survive them.
While it is true that some of the top tier characters are very good with items (particularly Marth, who suddenly gains some projectiles), so are some lower-tier characters. Mewtwo uses items very well, and claiming he is too slow to get items is kind of silly; while it is true he isn't the fastest of characters, if his opponent is going for an item, he can get to it first if it is close enough, and if not, he can charge a darkball or otherwise exploit the opponent not paying enough attention to him. Pichu is fairly fast and pretty good at getting where he wants to go, and he gains a lot more advantage from items than most characters do as it gives him stronger or better attacks. However, it wouldn't really help characters like, say, Yoshi, Jigglypuff, or Kirby, who are rather slow and don't gain as much from grabbing items due to the nature of their attack patterns and strategies. It would change things somewhat though, and maybe Mewtwo and Pichu wouldn't be quite as terrible, and might move up a couple places.
Also, I'm not very impressed with Peach's use of items; Falcon, Sheik, and Marth can all use them alright, but I just don’t find that Peach gets an unusual advantage from them, and she loses her ability to pull turnips while she's toting them around. It is all a moot point, though, as long as explosive containers cannot be turned off. If they can be turned off in the next game though, there's no reason not to leave some items on.
If anything was to be voted most gamebreaking, it would be chainthrowing first and JCing a shine second. Sheik's CG was nerfed in PAL, showing that the devs did have concerns about the balance of that and other things that they took out, but they left in WDind and JCing, two things which, if you guys are correct (keep in mind that you aren't), should have been taken out when the devs learned of the glitch (although it's not a glitch and was known about) and thought it ruined many parts of the game they worked so hard to create. As for ground speed, Luigi's WD is still slower than Falcon, only Luigi's misfire is faster when going across FD.
I would agree with this, but also argue that, in reality, their knowledge of the game back then was not nearly what our knowledge is now. WDing probably would take effort to remove, as it is probably a consequence of the physics engine. As such, you might have to reprogram a significant amount to fix it, which simply isn't worth the time or the effort, especially as WDing wasn't that game breaking at that time (nor was JCing, for that matter). Only as time went on was stuff like waveshining perfected to the point where it could be done on demand. It simply wasn't worth the time/money at the time to fix it, as it wasn't having a large negative effect on gameplay. As today far more people know about WDing, far more people are likely to be introduced to it and other similarly advanced strategies, meaning it has far more potential to be corrosive to general game play.
I'm a boxer that has been training since childhood to become champ of the heavyweight division. So I work my *** off for about 15 years and finally I get my championship fight. Then right when I'm about to deliver my final blow to win the round, someone throws a hammer at my face, I fall to the ground, and the ref counts to 10.
This is a straw man argument, and entirely unreasonable. Indeed, couldn't your position be seen like this?
Imagine you've been playing dodgeball your whole life. You go to a dodgeball competition and find out that you can't use balls, and instead have to punch your opponent.
This is obviously a farcical argument, as there's no "native state" and no reason to believe your position is the default; indeed, the standard for the game is for items to be –on-, so one can argue that your version of the game is the perversion. Moreover, I don't think anyone is arguing that you should have instant-win items on – this is obviously a straw man, and is quite silly.
Everyone who is arguing "But bombombs are unfair!" needs to learn about something called "logic". A straw man argument is NOT a good argument. Yes, no one wants to die randomly from a bomb-omb falling on their head while they're doing a smash attack, which is why I wouldn't advocate them being turned on in tournament play.
I hate all you noobs. Get off my internet. You just want things changed because you aren't as good as us 1337 people. You cant keep up with WDing so you want it out. Just die. Die die die. Who cares about the casual Smasher? If they aren't as willing to play as long as the rest of us, why make it easier for them to beat us by removing advanced tactics?
If you aren't good enough to beat a causal player, then you deserve to lose. People aren't advocating the removal of all skill from the game. If you read the thread, you'd know this.
As for who cares about the casual Smasher – I dunno, Nintendo? Given that they want to sell 10 million copies, rather than 10,000, they need to appeal to the casual player FAR more than the tournament player. You simply aren't that important of a demographic. They should not sacrifice casual play for tournament play, as casual play is far more profitable for them. Ideally, though, the game can support both.
Regarding this being a pointless discussion: I disagree. It is amusing, if nothing else, to see people bluster on. Realistically, I expect the game to be better than Melee – hopefully, more balanced, less glitchy, and less exploitable. Chain grabbing simply shouldn't work – more than two grabs in a row is not good for a game, simply because it isn't much fun to be grabbed over and over again without any ability to do much of anything.
I'm going to make this very clear for everyone:
Super Smash Brothers brawl will primarily be geared towards casual players who pop it in for fun and love randomly whacking each other. What your goal should be as a competitive player is that this game is still good as a competitive game while still being enjoyable, as to encourage more people to pick it up, play it, and possibly get into competitive gaming. You want SSBB to do well in the market, so try and think of things which improve tournament AND casual play, as just improving tournament play isn't that worthwhile to them.
Both were just to speed up gameplay, neither broke the game, I see no reason why WD would be any different in this carry over than L-Cancling was from SSB to SSB:M.
This isn't really true. L-canceling thoroughly broke the original Super Smash Brothers – it was a totally unrecognizable game with L-canceling, and leads to all sorts of insanity which is just not much fun even for the average competitive player.
I play SSBM because it is fun, but I hope that SSBB will be even more fun and remove certain unfun elements, such as certain chain grabs and similarly inescapable, 0 – near death (or death) combos.
I have been running tournaments monthly for the past 2 years and just recently I noticed something about the gaming "pros"; many of them fear change and will fight tooth and nail to get their way. I have put up with way too much BS over the past 2 years. Recently I hosted an amateur event in Rhode Island for one of our sponsors, Gamer Graffix. The event pulled in over 1200 people, 170 of which played in the SSBM tournament. Granted it was our first event of this magnitude, so we did have some setbacks. However, most of the complaints I got were from pro smashers. They didn't like the rules, that there was no free play, this that and the other thing. It's like they were expecting the tournament to be exactly like MLG or something.
Honestly I am sick of it. My company has many gaming event projects in the works, one of which will be a national tour with Gamer Graffix. I understand that pros expect a certain thing from a tournament, but if I were to cater to pros all the time honestly I would be going no where right now. It's likely within the next year or so I will be able to do events like these for a living, and I'd rather hold events that draw in 1200 n00bs just because they would appreciate everything more. Many of the players there for smash were n00bs, only about 10 MAYBE were pros. So why should I tailor my events to those 10 people when I have 160 people who are fine with whatever I tell them? If I did that, it would be the end for my business. I could have made it 10 stock, 1 game, giant melee, with items on high and those 160 people would have had a BLAST regardless.
This is more or less my opinion of things as well – I'd rather have fun and have some random good people show up than have only the random good people show up and exclude everyone else.
First, lets go to petty threats. Secondly the Teir list is BS. I kniow a friend who plays as Luigi and is relativly good, and Im preety good as Mewtwo. In reality you can be good with any character. You just have to learn.
People just don't understand what the tier list is. The tier list isn't really a character ranking so much as a metagame ranking; it lists what characters are generally regarded as the best by the pro community. If you learn how to play character X very well and start winning events, character X will move up the tier list. This is how Fox has ended up on top, why Sheik has moved down, and how ICs have gone to being regarded as one of the best characters in the game. If you start with the tier list to choose your character, you're just asking to be disappointed. Play who you enjoy, and try and get good with them. If you can't, move on to another character you have fun playing. If you don't, you're more likely than not to quit because you aren't having fun. You may end up with a scrubby lineup of mains, but if you enjoy playing, why do you care?
In the end, SSBB will be a fun game. If it is competitive, so much the better; if not, then we can stick with Melee. I hope that it is a fun casual game, fun in single player, and that multiplayer is a ton of fun both as a party game and as a competitive, high-level game which is more balanced than SSBM and is more fun to play at a competitive level. Whatever accomplishes these goals best will satisfy me.
