Tournament Melee: How Sakurai will change how we play the game

[BigRick]

Smash isn't a party game... It may be similar to one but it's not. The genre of this game is defined as a fighter by almost every video game site.

LOL Smash is a party game... no1 will deny that

That is the reason why there's so random **** in the first place

Oh, and to answer to Red Exodus... Smash is really great with Nachos!!!

 

[MookieRah]

Slayer, it's obvious to everyone that you are taking this the most serious out of everyone in the thread, because you are getting way way way out of hand. I poked fun on you a bit with my post, yes, but I did it with what you said and how inconsistent it was. It seems now that you resort to flaming me as much as you can for any reason because your logic is falling quite short.

I don't care if you participate in tournaments or not, your mentality is that of a scrub. You aren't just trying to find other people who play it like you do, it's VERY clear your intentions was to try and convince us to play the game like you do. Why else would you talk as if you know anything about Sakurai and go on a big rant. If that's what you are doing, just say it, there is no use in you trying to say you aren't doing that to back out of flaming. You've already made a fool of yourself, maybe you should try to work on damage control right now.

 

[WhiteZER0]

^
^
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Point and match. (And I agree with BigR there XD, though it's Genre is Action/Fighting, it is one of the most awesome 'party' games ever XD)

 

[RomeDogg]

I read like the first page of this thread and thought about how ******** it was, I mean I bet it could win a contest for being the most pointless post ever. Me and my friends used to play with items and had fun but quit because it was pointless and it didnt take much skill to win because hey if you have Bowser and your opponent has Fox; Fox will get the bomb-omb, the poke ball, the baseball bat, or any other powerful weapon first almost 100% of the time depending how close the item is to the character, so we switched over to no items and stock of like 3-5 lives. We also now use fast-falling, The L-Cancel, Shield Grabbing, chain grabs, Link's wiggle cancel to hook shot, Samus's missle cancel, up b or up smash out of shield, the run cancel to any move you prefer, the ledge hop, and etc. The only thing we don't use is wavedashing because we think its stupid as hell(no-offense) but I sure as hell know how to do it, but hey anyone can use it if they want besides ppl who don't wavedash can still own ppl who have perfected the wavedash. So if you don't like the wavedash just get better with perfectly timing everything else and anticipating where your opponent will be or what they will do next cause you can still kickass, heck some of the top pros don't even do the wavedash unless they are just using it for a taunt after a kill.

Besides the characters were given a long movelist for a reason not just so they can **** eachother with items, its so they can also **** eachother with the characters given moveset alone.....................yeah I know that sounded kind of disturbing but you you know what I mean and get my point, just play what ever ****ing way the game allows you to play even if it involves using a couple of the games minor glitches or whatever.

One more thing I know I typed a ****load of run-on sentences but I dont really care its still readable enough.

 

[psicicle]

knowing how to perform the wavedash does not qualify you to understate its usefulness. Neither does it mean that you know how to use it.

Who are these top pros that don't wavedash?

Also I think the troll left the topic anyway.

 

[JJC]

That's not a balancing factor; that's just people playing poorly. So it's still unfair.

Although 'unfair' isn't -quite- the argument. In a certain way you could argue that a more skilled player fighting a less skilled player is 'unfair'. So, randomness is the argument. Randomness only helps the lesser player in the long run. Do you have a counter argument? It has probably already been answered in my first post or MookieRah's, so try there first.

I still don't get this whole "randomness only helps noobs" as if only they have this keen sense that allows them to predict and manipulate random happenings into their favor. You do know that not EVERY barrel/capsule explodes. not every spawn is a bomb and not every item spawns on the person with the lowest lives/percentage. You can call it unfair or luck but it's not biased. the ratio or where things drop does not side in favor of anyone. What determines the winner in a "random" encounter is how both players react to it.

People who don't play with items on in a competitive game can't comment accurately on how the game plays that way the same way you don't expect "scrubs" to come to you complaining about how the game plays WITHOUT items on. That's called double standards. You can complain and nitpick about certain items and thats fair enough, but as with people nitpicking about wavedashing being a glitch or certain plain "tourney" levels giving lower tier characters a disadvantage, there will always be things wrong with the way you play that unbalances it to an extent.

All in all, both ways to play offer a slightly different gameplay style to each other and open up new ways to play the game. Surely that can't be a bad thing right?

 

[Leoneri]

Lol. You say current tournaments do not show skill and yet you are so wrong. Yes being able to deal with randomnity is a part of being skilled. But if the arena suddenly did something with no chance of you defending as you were about to win the match but you instead lose, that would kind of suck. Then it wouldn't be a tournament of skill, but more of luck. We're better off as we are, perhaps with a few changes.

 

[JJC]

Lol. You say current tournaments do not show skill and yet you are so wrong. Yes being able to deal with randomnity is a part of being skilled. But if the arena suddenly did something with no chance of you defending as you were about to win the match but you instead lose, that would kind of suck. Then it wouldn't be a tournament of skill, but more of luck. We're better off as we are, perhaps with a few changes.

Not sure if you were addressing me but I never did say that current tournaments didn't require skill. They do, and I respect a lot of the top smashers.

In response to this line:

if the arena suddenly did something with no chance of you defending as you were about to win the match but you instead lose, that would kind of suck.

It also sucks when you're about to win and your opponent gets you in a chain grab that you can't DI out of and then smacks you out of the arena, bringing what was going to be a one life, low percentage victory to an almost inescapable combo and then to death.

Things that are out of your control happen all the time in SSB, be it combo's that hit you to the right places at the right percentages or a game mechanic that isn't as balanced as it should be. Levels changing and items spawning happen on a timer, you can predict WHEN they will change/appear, just not what they are.

Smash Bros players pride themselves on having to play mindgames and predict their opponents to win. So why is chucking in one more little thing to predict and use in your mindgames such a bad thing?

 

[Eaode]

Because although they may be on "a timer" that capsule still explodes. That bob-omb still goes to the noob.


If you lose that match because someone Chaingrabbed you to death, you lost by skill, not luck. You need to DI better. And if you're like Bowser vs. Sheik, well then you have to avoid grabs like the plague or not play that matchup.


Case and point: Combos/Chaingrabs aren't random. While you may think they're "cheap" or whatever, it's a lot more fair than losing a match because a random exploding capsule appeared.

 

[psicicle]

think about it like this: There is somebody who was a little worse than somebody else at no item 1v1s, and lost each time to the better player. Now they decide to play with items on, and the better player still wins a lot, but the difference here is that items such as the bob-omb add a 50-50 equalizing randomness. Now sometimes the good player gets hit by the random exploding capsule. So does the worse player. This means that the worse player will win in the matches where the other player gets hit by the exploding capsule. The better player will win when the worse player gets hit by the exploding capsule. However, he would have won anyway. The better player does not get any advantage from items and the worse player does. This means that overall, the worse player wins more.

Even though this still averages out to being fair for both sides, that is, they are fighting in the same environment on average, the individual matches themselves will lean towards one player or the other by luck. Some of the matches will be decided purely on items. Those matches are not good for turney play

[end]

 

[JJC]

Because although they may be on "a timer" that capsule still explodes. That bob-omb still goes to the noob.


If you lose that match because someone Chaingrabbed you to death, you lost by skill, not luck. You need to DI better. And if you're like Bowser vs. Sheik, well then you have to avoid grabs like the plague or not play that matchup.


Case and point: Combos/Chaingrabs aren't random. While you may think they're "cheap" or whatever, it's a lot more fair than losing a match because a random exploding capsule appeared.

This isn't a case of "this or that is just because of skill, play better noob" so don't try to degenerate it into that. By you're logic I could just as easily say that if you don't want bombs to explode on you, same with capsules and barrels, don't attack them. Either pick them up or avoid them if you're that concerned. Same way a player as Luigi considers the chances of a misfire and takes that into consideration.

You can't act like it's not common sense and it's all out of your hands. Sure you can DI attacks but there are moves that nullify DI or that set you up into certain spots and moves like those are beyond your control when your in them. I never said those were cheap and I'm not complaining about them. I'm saying its the same scenario with items.

They spawn on a timer and they only spawn in certain areas so if you keep your mind on the timer during play and time yourself to be in a good position to grab the items sooner than your opponent you'll have no worries.

Pro's at Quake 3 for example, are good at it because they memorise the spawn locations of items and players and make laps around the level picking up these items so the enemy can't. Thats on top of having to kill them with quick reflexes.

Now sometimes the good player gets hit by the random exploding capsule. So does the worse player. This means that the worse player will win in the matches where the other player gets hit by the exploding capsule. The better player will win when the worse player gets hit by the exploding capsule. However, he would have won anyway. The better player does not get any advantage from items and the worse player does. This means that overall, the worse player wins more.

I still don't understand why you guys think that exploding capsules are unavoidable. You don't have to attack them. If a pro player is dying because they always attack a capsule to open it then I'd be questioning if they're that good at all. You'd think by the very definition, the noob would be dying on the exploding items not the good player. Trust me, I play with items on low and the only times I've died from a bomb, capsule or barrel exploding on me is because my opponent has actually thrown them at me, in which case it's my own fault for not dodging it.

It's not the fact that there is chance involved, it's the fact that chance doesn't decide who wins and loses out of it. Know the map, know the spawns and fight accordingly. That's a skill few players here would have.

 

[Eaode]

Even if you know the spawns, the items are still random. the exploding containers are still random. It doesn't matter if you know the spawn points, the fact is that all the item appearances are still random. (Are they really on a timer BTW? seems like a randomly set timer would be more accurate but I'm not sure)


Yes there are some combos that you can't easily get out of, but that's what combos are for, trapping your opponent. An inescapable combo might tack an easy 50% on you or prevent FFers from living past 95% Vs CF, but the combos are a inseperable part of the attack structure in this game.


The argument still stands. You can't compare items to combos or chaingrabs or whatever. Items are random, combos are not.


BTW: the only reason I assumed you thought CGs were cheap was because you're comparing them to items in a match, and items make the match unfair.

 

[JJC]

*sigh* You're only choosing what to listen to. I'm not comparing them to items because I think items are cheap. Quite the opposite.

Yes what items are spawned are random. So it could be a box, could be a shell. If a box appears. Just always assume it's going to explode. What's so hard or unfair about that? Depending on the rate you set the items to drop on (Melee is more comfortable with low and SSB64 is better with Medium in my experience) you can always tell the approximate time that it'll take for items to drop so if you keep that in mind while playing you won't be surprised by anything that comes. Not like you have absolutely no warning and can't react to it.

 

[Eaode]

But it's still random!

Imagine if both players are constantly fighting to get to the item spawn spots through the match and inbetween they are doing regular fighting. Let's say player A is more skilled than player B. Player A gets to the item spawns about 70% of the time, whereas player B gets to them 30%. So maybe player A has a Better chance of getting a good item, so you might think it all works out.

But the fact that it's more likely for player A to get the good items can still be overturned by the fact that the items are random, and although player A gets more items, it could very well turn out that most of the items he gets are flippers and Mr. Saturns and pokeballs with Goldeen or waboffet in them. And by chance, player B gets a Bob-omb or exploding capsule or what have you.


This randomnes will still considerably sway the match to more luck based than skill based. You're right that there would be skill involved in item using. But there is still a very real element of randomness.

 

[Eternal phoenix Fire]

No one can live knowing another posses personal satisfaction.By taking it away,you believe that your opinion becomes more important,but you only show that you do not have the strength or knowledge to spread your opinions to others.By limiting your options,you only show weakness and confine to your limitations.By taking away another persons ability to choose,you take away the essential thing that makes an opinion come to reality,the consumer.

Those who cannot appreciate anothers satisfaction can only posses envy.

That is all.

 

[JJC]

Let's say player A is more skilled than player B

You just answered yourself there. A is more skilled than B so they take advantage of the items more often. That's skill. If player A gets the unfortunate chance of getting flippers and MR Saturns (an item that most people don't know about its hidden potential might I add) then I'm pretty sure they won't be concerned since they should be prepared for whatever drops. And if player B gets a bomb, whats to say they're actually hit player A? Again, skill comes into it and the more skillful player will come out on top.

Eternal Phoenix Fire I agree wholeheartedly. I'm not trying to change anything other than maybe open some minds to other ways of playing. So many people have the mentality that random = uncontrollable and unfair. That's not the case. The only rebuttal's I get concerning this playstyle is unfounded speculation and "what if's". No one ever actually takes the time to try it out for themselves because they're too comfortable in their ways. How many people here play these ways because they were told that this is how you play SSB "proffessionally"?

All I'm trying to do is free your minds

 

[Eaode]

Well its true that player A can avoid the bob-omb from player B. But even with that said it's still unfair that now player B has the opurtunity to hit player A with it.

And let's just say that player B isn't stupid enough to sit there shielding a Mr. Saturn.

 

[Linari Sabre]

JJC thank you! Thats what I was trying to do is to free people minds

 

[psicicle]

Again, skill comes into it and the more skillful player will come out on top.

The problem is that with items, the skilled person usually comes out on top. When they are off the more skilled player will win more

Also, how does the timer work?

 

[wazgood]

slayer is one of those people that just makes you lol

 

[JJC]

Well its true that player A can avoid the bob-omb from player B. But even with that said it's still unfair that now player B has the opurtunity to hit player A with it.

And let's just say that player B isn't stupid enough to sit there shielding a Mr. Saturn.

Player B has the opportunity to hit player A with a Falcon Punch if he feels like it. Player B also has the option to screw up the throw and take himself out if he's not careful. Opens the door to so many mind games.

EDIT: The timer is basically the time it takes for items to spawn depending on the setting of the rate of drop. You can generally get a feel for how often items spawn and where they spawn.

 

[Raithe The Dreamer]

The Timer

Also, how does the timer work?

I've always wondered how it worked, too. So I put Melee in my Wii and did a little test. I only recorded times for 5 minutes worth of items on Low, but I found that the items appeared every 15-20 seconds. It's random within that 5 second span, though.

I also recorded the positions where the items spawned. There seemed to be about 7 spots for them to drop on Peach's Castle, which is where I did the test.

For those curious, I set the timer to 10 minutes and recorded the time when I saw an item spawn. I know I missed the spawn of one--I saw it too late, though. Bear in mind that these time points are subject to human error, but they still give a rough idea of the item timer.

9:42 -- Capsule, to the right of the central tower, near the starting platform.
9:26 -- Fan, directly to the right of the tower.
9:07 -- Super Scope, to the left of the tower, near the starting platform.
8:51 -- Capsule, to the right of the tower, near the starting platform.
8:32 -- Capsule, directly to the right of the tower.
8:14 -- Crate, to the left of the tower, near the starting platform.
----- -- I missed this one. It fell on the slope itself, thus falling off the stage. I'd be willing to bet it fell at about 7:57 or so.
7:41 -- Fire Flower, on top of the central tower.
7:25 -- Capsule, directly to the right of the tower.
7:05 -- Capsule, far left on the slope (thus falling off the stage).
6:49 -- Capsule, to the left of the tower, near the starting platform.
6:34 -- Crate, far right on the slope.
6:14 -- Capsule, to the right of the tower, near the starting platform.
5:58 -- Capsule, directly to the left of the tower.
5:41 -- Barrel, on top of the tower.
5:25 -- Item (I missed what it was), far right on the slope.
5:07 -- Mr. Freezie, to the right of the tower, near the starting platform.

If anyone wants me to, I can list what items I had on/off. I was personally a bit surprised at the number of capsules I saw.

This is only one test, so it's probably not definitive, but hey, it gives the idea of how the timer works.

 

[JJC]

I've also noticed that items have a higher spawn rate in Melee than in SSB64. For instance on Medium on SSB64 it's about the same as High in Melee and so on.

 

[The Hypnotist]

You can't "know" the spawns, the don't repeat in order. Period.

 

[MookieRah]

The hypnotist is right, and because of that there is no skillful way around the potential threat of exploding capsules. There were many tournament matches that were affected by them, but the last nail in the coffin was when a capsule was the deciding factor in a finals match. I dont remember all the details, but I know it was a finals match with Eddy a long while back (2003-2004'ish). While occurances of this happening are rare, it still caused a lot of upsets. In the end the consensus became "no items" because of it.

Although, even without the exploding capsules, one can make an argument against items. Regardless of the situation, the spawn times as well as the items that are spawned are random. The spawn placements are located across the stage in set spots, but it could spawn at any point. I don't want my matches affected by such a random element that could give my opponent a weapon at his disposal that did not come from his own skill. Again, the purpose of a tournament is for the best player to win, but with the more random elements that exist the more randomized the tournament placements will be. A great player doesn't want items to be the cause of a potential upset against him, and most of the higher level smash players agree (unless you are midwest <3 @ Kishes).

 

[RomeDogg]

knowing how to perform the wavedash does not qualify you to understate its usefulness. Neither does it mean that you know how to use it.

Who are these top pros that don't wavedash?

Also I think the troll left the topic anyway.

I know the usefulness of the wavedash, it helps you evade and unexpectedly attack and so on. It also allows you to pull off even longer combos than what you could normally do and yeah it has a crapload of other uses. Its just I don't really like it besides its just a random glitch in the game meaning of course it wasn't intentionally put in the game so I figure why use it and besides brawl won't have it.

Oh yeah and I am pretty sure Aniki doesnt use the wavedash excluding when he uses it as a taunt and I have seen matches where he beats wavedashers. I am also pretty sure he is the Top pro with a couple characters like Link and Samus.......

 

[ToXn]

lol go away. Sounds like someone sucks at smash.

 

[psicicle]

I know the usefulness of the wavedash, it helps you evade and unexpectedly attack and so on. It also allows you to pull off even longer combos than what you could normally do and yeah it has a crapload of other uses. Its just I don't really like it besides its just a random glitch in the game meaning of course it wasn't intentionally put in the game so I figure why use it and besides brawl won't have it.

Oh yeah and I am pretty sure Aniki doesnt use the wavedash excluding when he uses it as a taunt and I have seen matches where he beats wavedashers. I am also pretty sure he is the Top pro with a couple characters like Link and Samus.......

1) WD is not a glitch

2)Intentions do not matter

I would go into more detail but... well check some other posts I made.

 

[A-Laon]

To answer to the thread title, I actually do fear that Sakurai is approaching Brawl's developement with the same sort of mentality as the topic creator. Nintendo didn't make Melee (or any game, really) with the intention, desire, approval, or even the open acknowledgement of it becoming the largely competitive game it is, and such neglect shows a disdain towards the competitive community. Unless Sakurai outwardly says otherwise, I really have no reason to believe that Brawl will be at all catering to its hardcore fanbase, and instead I'm forced to dread that the final product will be an abomination of idiotic gameplay changes to satisfy the ignorant masses who still call this a "party game."

 

[Paranoid_Android]

So you're saying that you want a game which has entirely NO capacity for competitive play, even though competitive play doesn't take away from the "Party game" that smash is intended as, since it's an option?

... You, sir, are an idiot.

 

[psicicle]

^ that's unneccesary

Sakurai has a lot of hardcore type smashers on his development team though. He chose them because they spent hundreds of hours playing melee. I'm sure brawl will be competitive.

However, this is from what somebody else said, I don't know what the source of this info is.

 

[A-Laon]

Sakurai has a lot of hardcore type smashers on his development team though. He chose them because they spent hundreds of hours playing melee.

You have a source? I'm not doubting you - I just haven't heard this anywhere. I sure as hell hope it's true.

 

[greenblob]

It was originally on the official Brawl site before it was revamped. Of course, no one really knows what kind of players those people are. Non-competitive players play often too.

 

[A-Laon]

That's sort of the distortion of that fact I'd expect. Again, going by Nintendo's apparent disconcern for competition (across the board, not just in Smash), their consideration of "hardcore" would likely be a group of people who play all stages and items, just for exceptionally long lengths of time.

 

[_Phloat_]

That's sort of the distortion of that fact I'd expect. Again, going by Nintendo's apparent disconcern for competition (across the board, not just in Smash), their consideration of "hardcore" would likely be a group of people who play all stages and items, just for exceptionally long lengths of time.

That is what I was thinking, although they at least have learned to L cancel, I have heard (some nintendo old old old press conferance) that they have one million games played on their shared office gamecube!

I just hope they are not scrubs, that would suck, "Yeah, uhh, we removed L cancelling, joe here beat me with it"

 

[A-Laon]

I have heard (some nintendo old old old press conferance) that they have one million games played on their shared office gamecube!

You could probably get there pretty quickly when everybody dies to a random exploding capsule every 20 seconds.

 

[Angrylobster]

Topic Creator got owned by MookieRah pretty hard

 

[The Hypnotist]

The hypnotist is right, and because of that there is no skillful way around the potential threat of exploding capsules. There were many tournament matches that were affected by them, but the last nail in the coffin was when a capsule was the deciding factor in a finals match. I dont remember all the details, but I know it was a finals match with Eddy a long while back (2003-2004'ish). While occurances of this happening are rare, it still caused a lot of upsets. In the end the consensus became "no items" because of it.

Although, even without the exploding capsules, one can make an argument against items. Regardless of the situation, the spawn times as well as the items that are spawned are random. The spawn placements are located across the stage in set spots, but it could spawn at any point. I don't want my matches affected by such a random element that could give my opponent a weapon at his disposal that did not come from his own skill. Again, the purpose of a tournament is for the best player to win, but with the more random elements that exist the more randomized the tournament placements will be. A great player doesn't want items to be the cause of a potential upset against him, and most of the higher level smash players agree (unless you are midwest <3 @ Kishes).

QFT!

Everyone needs to read this and respond to it, ESPICALLY the TC.

 

[TheBuzzSaw]

I read the posts in this thread and found the discussion very intriguing. One point not covered here is that there are good types of random and bad types of random (listen to the SmashCasts).

The good kind of random refers to random elements in the game that are still in a controlled environment. For instance, Peach pulling out a bob-omb is not disrupting to the competitive smash scene because the opponent does not require an absurd level of vigilance to guard against that bob-omb. Peach's down-B move takes time, and the plucked item does not magically appear somewhere else in the stage. Peach still requires a skill to properly place that bob-omb, and the opponent has plenty of opportunity to avoid such an explosive disaster.

The bad kind of random refers to uncontrollable random elements. Let us imagine that Peach's turnips were way more powerful but on that off-chance she pulls up a bob-omb, it blows her up instantly with no chance of avoiding it. One might argue, "A good Peach player should never use her down-B, or Peach should just never be played." Fair enough, but do we really want to restrict the game that far down? Now, carry this analogy over into the real world. Yes, items technically do have spawn points that can be avoided, but as pointed out by The Hypnotist and MookieRah, it is so inconsistent where items spawn that the game would just be silly at that point.

If items hope to make their way into the tournament scene, they need to enter peacefully and add a positive layer to the game, not force everyone to avoid spawn points like the plague.

 

[AlcyoNite]

i think that everything random should have an off button, and the game should be more balanced. Smash bros. is both a party game and a high skill demanding fighting game and should stay that way in brawl.

random occurrences and items are cool, but only as long as they're balanced in a minimal sort of way. or else they're pure fun and zero competitiveness. which is good at times but it'll ruin the tourney scene.

Bow to this man (woman?); he takes you to market.
TC, I think you are seriously misled. SSBM is BOTH a party game and a competitive tournament worthy game. I'm pretty sure that Sakurai is aware that most of his fanbase is comprised of competitive gamers. No one is saying that you should be without your items and crazy stages, but when 2 people want to match their skill in a balanced fight in a game that is truly worthy of mastery, dont bash their competition level with "this game is supposed to be an unbalanced party game." Seriously, if you want that, play Mario Kart Double Dash.