Why are Smash players so concerned with "advanced techniques?"

[Cazdon]

Wasn't there a man called Borp, infamous for his great play but almost complete lack of tech skill?

Here he is (P.S. music is cancer.)

 

[Holla@ChaBoi390]

ATs have their place but people who focus solely on them limit how good they can be. I had a friend who I would wreck in P:M but then he started practicing ATs which I never bothered with. After awhile he beat me all the time. However, he focused so much on them that in Smash 4 I destroy him again since they are all gone.

 

[Lil Puddin]

When you know an answer that the rest of the class doesn't or can handle a situation better than someone because of your skill/knowledge, you get an aw yeah feeling.

Well, in competitive gaming, knowing something your opponent clearly doesn't gives you that aw yeah feeling. Constantly. You also get the feeling in mirror matches when you outdo your opponent because your skill level is higher. With ATs, that means there's a higher skill ceiling and furthers the gap between you and someone else skill wise. Thus heightening the aw yeah feeling, sometimes to the point where you accidentally become insufferable to be around. So while high skill ceilings give more depth, they also gives more reasons for you to be a smug jerk without realizing it. That's the downside of a higher skill ceiling. Pro: new depths, Con: ruder jerks.

So yeah. That's one of the reasons why people are gonna keep tryin to find some ATs 'n' stuff. ATs may as well just be virtual drugs at this point. lol

GONNA TRY THIS ALL NIGHT
GONNA IGNORE ERRY BODY AND KEEP TRYIN
GONNA DO ERRY BUTTON COMBINATION
GONNA CHECK ERRY FRAME
GONNA TURN OVER ERRY PIXEL
GONNA FIND ME ERRY AT TONIGHT
GONNA PROBABLY TAKE ERRY POSSIBLE CLOSE UP PICS OF PALUTENA TOUCHING CAPTAIN FALCON'S BUTT
GONNA GET ME THAT AW YEAH I FOUND AN AT HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGH

 

[FormlessD]

I can understand going from a game with more options to one with fewer would seem wonky and uncomfortable.

 

[M15t3R E]

Having the fundamentals down and an good reaction time is far more important than any AT's. Honestly, we as a community are looking for depth in the hopes that we can find the next wavedash. We have such a kneejerk reaction to any new AT's and then people realize it doesn't do much for anyone and all the uproars of hype that accompanied it dies down as swiftly as it began. It is high time that we start trying to understand how characters fundamentals and match-ups (Oh god, we NEED to delve more into match-up knowledge now for Smash 4) so that we can have a fully mapped out game and truly understand its depth.

 

[DMTroop]

I believe most people want them so that they have increased options in addition to feeling rewarded for their practice. Also, others may want them in hopes of increasing the game's pace to something akin to melee/PM. Some like wavedacing, dashdacing and b-reversals can add enjoyable depth (increased mobility and mind games), while those like l-cancelling/"smoothe landing" (it was an actual mechanic in the game since 64) only really add an execution barrier.

4) They're trying way too hard to validate themselves to the FGC.

Do you want the cold, hard, truth?

Because the idea of something you can use to prove you are better at a video game just by knowing it, while retaining all the surface trappings of abstract concepts like "skill" and "depth", appeals to a lot of people.

Sweeping and hasty generalizations of an entire group of players neither of you know all of isn't very justified nor nice . It's also kind of a fallacy and almost makes you look as bad as those whom you're criticizing, but I digress. If someone likes chocolate, but you think vanilla is where its really at it doesn't mean that all people who like chocolate are all arrogant and popous tryhards. The same applies for the inverse.

 

[Terotrous]

Wasn't there a man called Borp, infamous for his great play but almost complete lack of tech skill?

Here he is (P.S. music is cancer.)

PinkFresh was also an example for a while, he didn't even know how to DI properly (he just held towards the stage) until after he had won several PM weeklies.

 

[Big-Cat]

Sweeping and hasty generalizations of an entire group of players neither of you know all of isn't very justified nor nice . It's also kind of a fallacy and almost makes you look as bad as those whom you're criticizing, but I digress. If someone likes chocolate, but you think vanilla is where its really at it doesn't mean that all people who like chocolate are all arrogant and popous tryhards. The same applies for the inverse.

Then you might as well criticize Red Ryu's points as well.

 

[Emblem Lord]

This has always been one of the smash communities biggest problems. Dudes know how to do all this technical stuff, but don't know what a safe poke is, spacing, air-dodge traps or the basics of the neutral game. Smashers always try to fly rocket ships before they can even crawl.

It's the number one reason players in this community hit plateaus.

 

[Judo777]

As many of the more experienced players have mentioned (and I will try to further articulate), AT's are very obvious display that you have studied the game to at least some (be it very small) extent. They aren't actually extremely important, as Orion said, core mechanics are actually what is going to win you games and make you a great player, but ATs are a sure fire way to show that a player at least takes the game a little seriously. Which is appealing to audiences and makes the game "seem" more competitive. In Brawl if you walked up to 2 players you had never met before (maybe not even in a tournament environment) and one of them is playing diddy and you want to see if hes even remotely good, what is the first thing everyone looks for? Glide tossing of course, if hes not glide tossing, your first impression will probably be that he isn't very good (even if he IS and his spacing and zoning are on point). So the game seems more competitive.

Also as someone else mentioned AT's are an extremely simple method of instantaneously "improving" your play. Whats easier? Learning to adjust your walking and movement to remain outside of your opponents effective range (general spacing concepts), or spending a few minutes learning how to glide toss? Obviously glide tossing is much easier to learn so people do it. Is it more beneficial to learn glide tossing than spacing? Of course not. But its easier to do and nets "results" immediately. Can you see that your spacing has improved easily? No. Can you see if you glide tossed? Yes.

This was a slightly frustrating aspect of IC's in Brawl. Low level players that had no general fundamental knowledge of the game, could beat other low-mid level players that were better than they were, simply by RPG grinding cgs til they could reliably do them. Because even though it was time consuming to learn those chain grabs, it was thoughtless (relatively speaking) and just had to be grinded. AT higher levels did those players win? No usually, because they players that learned the real mechanics of the game, the fundamentals, could avoid them neutralize their "skill" (this is not a shot at IC's players btw, no disrespect, IC's had very important difficult things to learn, I just don't believe that the chain grabs were one of the impressive skills to be an IC player).

But essentially I would argue that ATs give the potential for more depth (via having more options) but is not even remotely required for a game to have depth.

 

[Gawain]

Depends on the person you ask. But the first answer you got is right in most cases. There are a lot of people though who desperately want to find something that will make being aggressive in this game safer. Because in a lot of matchups you just can't, and if I'm being perfectly honest, it's not as fun when you're just trading blows safely and nearly running the timer out every game simply because it's the best strategy a lot of the time.

 

[Nobie]

This has always been one of the smash communities biggest problems. Dudes know how to do all this technical stuff, but don't know what a safe poke is, spacing, air-dodge traps or the basics of the neutral game. Smashers always try to fly rocket ships before they can even crawl.

It's the number one reason players in this community hit plateaus.

Do you think Smash 4 is an effective game for teaching fundamentals?

 

[FlareHabanero]

Do you think Smash 4 is an effective game for teaching fundamentals?

Not him, but I would say Super Smash Bros. for Wii U/3DS is arguably the game where knowing the fundamentals is most important. You can't win every match by jumping around like a flea on crack, nor win a match by merely camping out opponents on the edge.

 

[Big-Cat]

Do you think Smash 4 is an effective game for teaching fundamentals?

From personal experience, 3D fighters are better at this but Smash 4 does reward fundamentals very much.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

I remember...

I was at a Melee tournament with my Mewtwo.

And there was this Mario.

He was a nice guy and fun to play so I don't want to rat on him too hard, but...

I won almost every match against him. And I played him a lot.

He was wavedashing, L-Canceling, all that stuff.

I just kind of sat there and walked slowly and either caught him by surprise or shielded or punished.

He knew all these neat things (things which I can barely do and often don't when I'm playing) but he didn't do anything with them.

He wavedashed, but he did so without rhyme or reason. I think maybe, he was trying to psyche me out because he was going everywhere but it didn't work because I played the neutral better and I was better at predicting and punishing.

Smash players have some of the worst tunnel vision I've ever seen. They think using ATs alone makes them good and this idea has spread so much it's become toxic to the community.


Of course, Smash players also have tunnel vision with tiers.

I was playing this Sheik main at the same tournament.

Again, I used Mewtwo.

He was better than me by a longshot, but I won for only one reason.

He didn't know Mewtwo at all.

The dude didn't even know he had a meteor smash and when I landed that on him, he freaked out and became anxious throughout the rest of the matches costing him the set.

Spoiler

He also had funny reactions to properly used Disables.

A lot of smash players seem to only see the high tournament stuff. It makes you wonder if a lot of the tunnelers actually just sit down and play the game. Not practice. But play.

Sometimes, to get better, ya just gotta have fun and dink around.

 

[Sleek Media]

The short truth is that there are two groups of people interested in ATs:

1) the people who want some kind of recognition for discovering ATs and are bummed that they can't name them after themselves

2) the people who want a wavedash-like option to make the game overwhelmingly unbalanced in favor of offense, like a certain other Smash game

 

[MikiSagittarius]

I remember...

I was at a Melee tournament with my Mewtwo.

And there was this Mario.

He was a nice guy and fun to play so I don't want to rat on him too hard, but...

I won almost every match against him. And I played him a lot.

He was wavedashing, L-Canceling, all that stuff.

I just kind of sat there and walked slowly and either caught him by surprise or shielded or punished.

He knew all these neat things (things which I can barely do and often don't when I'm playing) but he didn't do anything with them.

He wavedashed, but he did so without rhyme or reason. I think maybe, he was trying to psyche me out because he was going everywhere but it didn't work because I played the neutral better and I was better at predicting and punishing.

Smash players have some of the worst tunnel vision I've ever seen. They think using AT alone makes them good and this idea has spread so much it's become toxic to the community.


Of course, Smash players also have tunnel vision with tiers.

I was playing this Sheik main at the same tournament.

Again, I used Mewtwo.

He was better than me by a longshot, but I won for only one reason.

He didn't know Mewtwo at all.

The dude didn't even know he had a meteor smash and when I landed that on him, he freaked out and became anxious throughout the rest of the matches costing him the set.

Spoiler

He also had funny reactions to properly used Disables.

A lot of smash players seems to only see the high tournament stuff. It makes you wonder if a lot of the tunnelers actually just sit down and play the game. Not practice. But play.

Sometimes, to get better, ya just gotta have fun and dink around.

I love dinking around :3

 

[Gawain]

The short truth is that there are two groups of people interested in ATs:

1) the people who want some kind of recognition for discovering ATs and are bummed that they can't name them after themselves

2) the people who want a wavedash-like option to make the game overwhelmingly unbalanced in favor of offense, like a certain other Smash game

You are a fool if you think that melee is unbalanced offensively. Melee has a deeper defensive game than any of the other Smash games. Melee has a greater range of defensive moves and none of them are overly strong, which makes for an intelligent defensive game, whereas in Smash 4 for example, shields are overwhelmingly powerful and there is almost no downside to shielding a move or waiting for your opponent to make the first move (barely any shield push, little shield stun). In melee you have to consider your (many) options when you're stuck in your shield. You can't just get out for free whenever. The same thing is true in any other fighting game. BlazBlue is a pretty offensive fighting game, and because of that if your defense sucks you're going to get destroyed. Every character is meant to constantly be attacking your opponent, trying to get them into the corner. When you're in the corner you have to use things like guard breaks etc wisely. You can't just get out whenever.

There is this incredibly ignorant belief among the "defense" minded players that the concept of being able to push an advantage when you have it is somehow a bad thing and means the game is unbalanced. Sorry, but being able to sit still and wait till your opponent makes the first move because that's the advantageous thing to do is not balanced. It's not good fighting game design either. You wanna talk about "toxicity" in the Smash community? Take a look at the people who constantly argue that Melee is somehow defensively unbalanced.

 

[Judo777]

You are a fool if you think that melee is unbalanced offensively. Melee has a deeper defensive game than any of the other Smash games. Melee has a greater range of defensive moves and none of them are overly strong, which makes for an intelligent defensive game, whereas in Smash 4 for example, shields are overwhelmingly powerful and there is almost no downside to shielding a move or waiting for your opponent to make the first move (barely any shield push, little shield stun). In melee you have to consider your (many) options when you're stuck in your shield. You can't just get out for free whenever. The same thing is true in any other fighting game. BlazBlue is a pretty offensive fighting game, and because of that if your defense sucks you're going to get destroyed. Every character is meant to constantly be attacking your opponent, trying to get them into the corner. When you're in the corner you have to use things like guard breaks etc wisely. You can't just get out whenever.

There is this incredibly ignorant belief among the "defense" minded players that the concept of being able to push an advantage when you have it is somehow a bad thing and means the game is unbalanced. Sorry, but being able to sit still and wait till your opponent makes the first move because that's the advantageous thing to do is not balanced. It's not good fighting game design either. You wanna talk about "toxicity" in the Smash community? Take a look at the people who constantly argue that Melee is somehow defensively unbalanced.

I disagree. Shields are not overwhelmingly powerful.....they get beaten by grabs which are REALLY powerful because they lead to combos and advantageous position. When a player shields they commit to standing in place and doing nothing until the other player does an attack, and if they choose to not wait then they put themselves in a rock paper scissors situation that the OTHER player gets to setup because he is allowed to move.

My problem with melee (and other games like it, for instance MVC3) is that you are allowed to push for an advantage that you did almost nothing to earn. Like you punish an advantage because i blocked your EASIEST to connect with move, and now I have to get out of a bad spot? I blocked foxes nair....... now i get to deal with tons of pressure, which i guess he earned because he hit my shield with his easiest to land move on my shield..... marvel is sort of the same way, well i blocked your jam session....... now i get to deal with you pressure because i blocked a move that is extremely easy to land.

 

[Gawain]

I disagree. Shields are not overwhelmingly powerful.....they get beaten by grabs which are REALLY powerful because they lead to combos and advantageous position. When a player shields they commit to standing in place and doing nothing until the other player does an attack, and if they choose to not wait then they put themselves in a rock paper scissors situation that the OTHER player gets to setup because he is allowed to move.

My problem with melee (and other games like it, for instance MVC3) is that you are allowed to push for an advantage that you did almost nothing to earn. Like you punish an advantage because i blocked your EASIEST to connect with move, and now I have to get out of a bad spot? I blocked foxes nair....... now i get to deal with tons of pressure, which i guess he earned because he hit my shield with his easiest to land move on my shield..... marvel is sort of the same way, well i blocked your jam session....... now i get to deal with you pressure because i blocked a move that is extremely easy to land.

That's the whole concept of safe on shield though. They can't pressure you forever (except frame perfect fox i guess but it's unintended design). So yeah, they earned it. Its part of their character design. DaNte has certain sacrifices to have access to moves like that (low durability for example). And the ability to create pressure is what creates an offensive game. If someone hits your shield in this game it's not really a big deal for the shielder.

Also you can spot out of shield,which is insanely fast this time around and easily beats grabs. And I'd argue that grabs still aren't as good as they used to be in general. They dont set up oki situations anymore.

 

[Sleek Media]

You are a fool if you think that melee is unbalanced offensively. Melee has a deeper defensive game than any of the other Smash games.

Stopped reading there. Couldn't go on with so much laughter.

 

[Octagon]

Not him, but I would say Super Smash Bros. for Wii U/3DS is arguably the game where knowing the fundamentals is most important. You can't win every match by jumping around like a flea on crack, nor win a match by merely camping out opponents on the edge.

Yeah Smash 4 is arguably the game where having a gameplan before going into a match is key if you want to win. With so many characters that vary from their strengths and weaknesses that you can never just go into match without a plan. Fundamentals are apart of that plan

 

[Cazdon]

These last few posts are making me upset, this is the kind of passive-aggressiveness that needs to be stopped in the Smash community as a whole. Each side made very valid points in discussion but neither showed respect to the other side, save for Judo777. We can have a reasonable discussion about Melee vs. 4 without resorting to these behaviors.

I love this community and hate to see it split.

 

[Terotrous]

In Brawl if you walked up to 2 players you had never met before (maybe not even in a tournament environment) and one of them is playing diddy and you want to see if hes even remotely good, what is the first thing everyone looks for? Glide tossing of course, if hes not glide tossing, your first impression will probably be that he isn't very good

Maybe this is just me, but what I'd look for is "is he winning / am I having trouble against him?" That seems like the most obvious indicator of player skill to me, particularly if I don't play that specific character.

Also as someone else mentioned AT's are an extremely simple method of instantaneously "improving" your play. Whats easier? Learning to adjust your walking and movement to remain outside of your opponents effective range (general spacing concepts), or spending a few minutes learning how to glide toss? Obviously glide tossing is much easier to learn so people do it. Is it more beneficial to learn glide tossing than spacing? Of course not. But its easier to do and nets "results" immediately. Can you see that your spacing has improved easily? No. Can you see if you glide tossed? Yes.

Actually I feel that most ATs are useless without knowing how and when to use them in a match. Wavedashing is a great example. Yes, it's a powerful tool, but you have to know when to use it. If you just wavedash around randomly you're just going to get a Nair in the face.

My problem with melee (and other games like it, for instance MVC3) is that you are allowed to push for an advantage that you did almost nothing to earn.

I totally agree with this. I find that most games like this have relatively autopilot offense, where you just constantly input your pressure strings / mixups without really caring what the opponent does, which I don't find nearly as interesting as a game like Smash4 where you must constantly try to read your opponent's defensive tendencies. If you look at MvsC3 for example, it is so autopilot that it has very limited matchup dynamics, you pretty much play the same way regardless of your opponent until you're both down to a single character, then it starts to play like a proper fighting game because you don't just get free pressure on every hit.

 

[Judo777]

Maybe this is just me, but what I'd look for is "is he winning / am I having trouble against him?" That seems like the most obvious indicator of player skill to me, particularly if I don't play that specific character.



Actually I feel that most ATs are useless without knowing how and when to use them in a match. Wavedashing is a great example. Yes, it's a powerful tool, but you have to know when to use it. If you just wavedash around randomly you're just going to get a Nair in the face.



I totally agree with this. I find that most games like this have relatively autopilot offense, where you just constantly input your pressure strings / mixups without really caring what the opponent does, which I don't find nearly as interesting as a game like Smash4 where you must constantly try to read your opponent's defensive tendencies. If you look at MvsC3 for example, it is so autopilot that it has very limited matchup dynamics, you pretty much play the same way regardless of your opponent until you're both down to a single character, then it starts to play like a proper fighting game because you don't just get free pressure on every hit.

I feel like we actually agree on all the stuff you quoted. In the first example I was saying that you aren't playing those 2 players, they are playing each other and you are watching. So you can't base it on relative performance to each other cause youhave no clue if either are good.

And no, I'm agreeing that ATs aren't super useful, they are slightly useful most of the time. My post you quoted was made in a way where anything i put in quotes was slightly sarcastic. Like instant "results" from learning an AT I am saying they aren't really results, they just feel like it cause its something new, another option. Now i feel weird trying to explain, but I'm pretty sure we agree, perhaps you misread mine (or I'm dumb and just misread yous).

 

[Judo777]

That's the whole concept of safe on shield though. They can't pressure you forever (except frame perfect fox i guess but it's unintended design). So yeah, they earned it. Its part of their character design. DaNte has certain sacrifices to have access to moves like that (low durability for example). And the ability to create pressure is what creates an offensive game. If someone hits your shield in this game it's not really a big deal for the shielder.

Also you can spot out of shield,which is insanely fast this time around and easily beats grabs. And I'd argue that grabs still aren't as good as they used to be in general. They dont set up oki situations anymore.

But most "safe" moves on shield in traditional fighters aren't the most absurdly easy to land moves, and when they are, they don't net free pressure. In streetfighter, most pressure strings are generated from getting in very close to the opponent (usually via an extremely unsafe option, such as a jump in or a feint like a command dash or something). Or they get a "safe" jump in or pressure option, because they already EARNED advantage via a knockdown. Very rarely do you get hit by some ultra safe poke, and immediately the opponent is granted the ability to pressure you extremely well.

But in MVC and Melee, that sort of thing happens all the time. Nair on shield? free pressure..... dair on shield? free pressure..... (MVC) blocked an assist? guess left right 3 times..... then you get 3 frames to escape and do something or i will do it again.

poop double post, sorry

 

[Big-Cat]

Jabs and such are almost always safe on block, but the pressure is generally limited by the pushback of the move. Then you may have to do something risky to continue it.

If you want easy pressure go play pre patch Street Fighter x Tekken.

 

[Emblem Lord]

sfxt is awesome

 

[MikiSagittarius]

Do you want the cold, hard, truth?

Because the idea of something you can use to prove you are better at a video game just by knowing it, while retaining all the surface trappings of abstract concepts like "skill" and "depth", appeals to a lot of people.

Well aren't you just a happy meal, sir

 

[Terotrous]

If you want easy pressure go play pre patch Street Fighter x Tekken.

Uhh, pressure isn't that free in SFxT. Boost combos have extra recovery, so most of the time you can't go past medium to remain safe, and if you want to do switch in mixups (ie, Jin rapid punches -> Switch -> Cross-up), you have to spend meter (and even then some reversals will still get you out).

The thing some people complained about was the ability to chain into launcher somewhat homogenized the reward from footsies, but you still had to play footsies well to land those opening hits.

 

[Judo777]

Jabs and such are almost always safe on block, but the pressure is generally limited by the pushback of the move. Then you may have to do something risky to continue it.

If you want easy pressure go play pre patch Street Fighter x Tekken.

Yea thats what im saying jabs that aren't right in your opponents face, aren't really much pressure, if you want to pressure with jabs you need to be so close you can mix up a grab, but in order to be that close you usually needed to jump in, or dash in or something along those lines.

 

[Big-Cat]

Uhh, pressure isn't that free in SFxT. Boost combos have extra recovery, so most of the time you can't go past medium to remain safe, and if you want to do switch in mixups (ie, Jin rapid punches -> Switch -> Cross-up), you have to spend meter (and even then some reversals will still get you out).

The thing some people complained about was the ability to chain into launcher somewhat homogenized the reward from footsies, but you still had to play footsies well to land those opening hits.

I'm talking pre patch as in when it first came out. Characters like Rolento could mash out LP on you and you could do nothing for at least a few of the jabs.

 

[Terotrous]

I'm talking pre patch as in when it first came out. Characters like Rolento could mash out LP on you and you could do nothing for at least a few of the jabs.

Sure, but it's not like he was getting huge reward off a blocked jab. Without spending meter all he can do is cancel into LP Patriot Circle (first rep only) for a tiny amount of block damage. If you want to spend bar you can switch cancel the third rep of LP Patriot Circle for a mixup (and slightly more guard damage), which is a decent option but it's appropriately limited by your meter so it's not a big problem.

The real problem occurs when safe, meterless pressure leads into mixups, as this frequently allows you to just chain mixup after mixup without the opponent having any real defense except to keep guessing right. You should have to earn your mixups by either spending some resource (like meter) or by putting yourself at some kind of risk.

SF4 and SFxT generally do this fairly well (SF4 has had some issues in the past but Ultra is pretty good). The games that tend to have problems are "anime fighters" like P4A and Blazblue and the Marvel games.

 

[Boigahs]

Increasing the ammount of options the player has doesn't make the game deeper. If that was the case, SF4 would be considered the deepest street fighter game, and no one would care about Super Turbo. Saying that having more advanced tech/options makes a game deeper is like saying adding new pieces to chess would make chess deeper.
"Advanced Techniques" don't matter if you don't understand the basics of the game, how to play match-ups, and have a lot of experience with the game. Learning how to wavedash doesn't make you a good Melee player; playing melee a lot and going to tournaments does. New players like obsessing over "AT" because they think being able to do it makes them a better player.

 

[CodeBlue_]

2) the people who want a wavedash-like option to make the game overwhelmingly unbalanced in favor of offense, like a certain other Smash game

Wavedashing is a primarily defensive option, what are you talking about? You use it to retreat back out of shield or out of a dash. The only usage of it "offensively" would be Fox's waveshine or Luigi's wavedash for approaching. Melee is not "overwhelmingly unbalanced" towards offense. There are several ways to handle someone's approach including: Dash dancing in general, crouch cancelled moves such as fox CC shine, wavedashing back OoS, lightshielding an opponents aerial to mess us their L-cancel timing and the concept of l canceling in general (the timing for the l-cancel is altered by the opponent, i could get punished).

Fox and Falco do have fairly ridiculous shield pressure, but nair is not one of the following which would allow a advantage in a majority of matchups in neutral:
1. transcendent
2. disjointed
3. 1 frame start up
4. unpunishable move on block regardless of how it is spaced
5. unpunishable on whiff

This fifth point would allow things like wavedash back and dash dancing to be able to punish the nair entirely.

Fox is probably the best character with regards to shield pressure in Melee but is by no means unreasonable to handle. If you do not wish to get shield pressured, do not shield. Nair is not unpunishable.

It is also ironic that defensive Fox is probably one of the most threatening things to face for most of the cast and is shown to be extremely threatening, as shown by Mew2King's Fox and to an extent Mango.

I'm honestly not 100% certain on the extent of the spacies shield pressure in the neutral and I will have to watch more sets featuring the chars, but I assure you Melee is not ridiculously skewed towards the aggressor.

p.s. I find it funny that Brawl MK's aerials apply to points 1 and 2 on that list. I guess the certain other smash game you were referring to was Brawl

 

[DMTroop]

Then you might as well criticize Red Ryu's points as well.

First, I'd like to apologize for taking so long to reply; work was pretty busy this week. I meant to include it, I'm not too used to the way this forums deals with multi-quote posts (the last one I was in included all quotes to the posts you replied to). Anyhow, you ignored the entire point of my post.

Like Cazdon said, the growing tensions between this community is getting sickening; mutual respect from either side seems non-existant. Even worse, the entire basis for this unneccesary tension is just as silly the ice cream analogy that I had used (which was the point). Fact is, if this community wants to grow (a lot of people out there still don't even consider smash a fighting game) the people in it will have to learn how to hash out their problems and differences without being rude and insulting.

 

[RedNova]

Smash players have some of the worst tunnel vision I've ever seen. They think using AT alone makes them good and this idea has spread so much it's become toxic to the community.


Of course, Smash players also have tunnel vision with tiers.

I was playing this Sheik main at the same tournament.

Again, I used Mewtwo.

He was better than me by a longshot, but I won for only one reason.

He didn't know Mewtwo at all.

I agree with you. When I attended my first kind-of-official Brawl torunament, I managed to get to the finals using Kirby. I played a lot of really good people, using high-tier characters like Diddy and Olimar (Meta Knight was banned, btw) and using pretty advanced plays. I knew nothing about Brawl's competitive metagame, let alone Melee's.

I am convinced that I only got that far because they have never even seen a Kirby. One guy legit freaked out when I ducked under projectiles. The guy in the finals used Snake, and he was really good at landing those sliding Up smashes. I lost, but I managed to win a match just by outsmarting him.

I think that just focusing on high level play and ignoring everything else will miss out a lot.

 

[We Are GX]

Do you want the cold, hard, truth?

Because the idea of something you can use to prove you are better at a video game just by knowing it, while retaining all the surface trappings of abstract concepts like "skill" and "depth", appeals to a lot of people.

Basically all of this. I think this is what causes the divide between melee-heads and the other side. I've struggled with this very concept since coming into the smash community competitively back when brawl came out.

 

[Thinkaman]

Of course, the irony that any actually good Melee player will be the be the first to tell you that blindly focusing on ATs will not actually make you a better player, and that there is no shortcut for true success. High-level Melee gameplay makes this incredibly obvious.

 

[JediLink]

ATs are cool. When you start multishining someone's shield, that's sending a message. "You're not on my level".

Like you punish an advantage because i blocked your EASIEST to connect with move, and now I have to get out of a bad spot? I blocked foxes nair....... now i get to deal with tons of pressure, which i guess he earned because he hit my shield with his easiest to land move on my shield

You'd be surprised. Yes, nair is safe on shield, but there are more defensive options in Melee than just shielding, you know. If you avoid a nair approach by wavedashing or dash dancing out of the way, you can easily grab the landing lag, and against Fox, a good grab can often lead to a stock. You should only ever nair if your opponent is cornered, you have a read on where they're going to be, or you've conditioned them to shield. This is what happens if you just throw out moves hail mary.