Why do we keep ignoring SD Remix?

[Quillion]

Nintendo's whole team put as much time as they could and a lot of effort into trying to balance Melee. The PM Dev team is still struggling to balance the game after multiple years of production. What makes you think your mod is so much more balanced?

Sorry for old reply but...

I hate to break it to you, but Melee was made in 13 months. True story, bro.

 

[Spak]

Sorry for old reply but...

I hate to break it to you, but Melee was made in 13 months. True story, bro.

I know, but they worked day an night for 13 months straight. The team and Sakurai were so dedicated that Sakurai even worked 40 hours straight and then went back home for four hours. If you quit your job (or schooling), get a team of more than a hundred people, devote more than 12 hour days of your life, push your employees the hardest you can, and balance a game in a year and a twelfth, I'll consider the game as balanced as Melee.

I know the PM dev team has numerous skilled workers (although not the number that Melee had), has been attempting to balance Brawl for a few years already, and is still struggling with balancing problems because eventually we have to face the facts: a perfectly balanced game is 99.9% impossible. There have been attempts that were close to completely balanced, but there is no such thing (and doubtfully ever will be a thing) as a perfectly-balanced game. Also, if I remember correctly, there was a post @standardtoaster made about how he wouldn't dedicate more years of his life to making a PM2 without getting paid.

In addition, even if it is slightly more balanced than Melee, you have to face that it would be hard to have a tournament for it because you need to do it through USB loading or homebrew (meaning you can't actually play it on the console it was made for until we figure out a memory card exploit) and it would make changes to the community that not everyone needs or would even want.

Lastly, you're missing a Pichu on the left of your signiture.

EDIT: Found it.

There isn't much hacking going on for the WiiU afaik. If we were going to do another project like this, I know we'd all want to be paid for it that time around, haha. I'm not really willing to put 5 years of my life into something like this again without being paid.

 

[TheKmanOfSmash]

Honestly, I think Strong Bad hit the nail on the head. Though P:M and Smash 4 are my main games atm, I love playing Melee along with all the other Smash games and I try to play each one as much as I can. As much fun and exiting I think Melee is to watch and play, it's undeniable that there are objective flaws in the game that exist (as in all fighting games), mainly the fact that half the roster is unviable/semi-unviable in today's meta. SD Remix seeks to fix these objective flaws in order to create a more balanced game while retaining the nature of the top tiers. I agree with SD:R's intentions in principle as much as you do, Quillion, as I believe that all fighting games should strive to achieve balance around their roster while maintaining uniqueness between each character, which is why I enjoy the concept of SD:R. But the answer as to why it is not popular in the Melee community is exactly as Strong Bad put it: The values of the SD:R team and their philosophy do not line up with the Melee community's values and due to this, there is conflict. As disappointing as this may seem to you and me, I think SB makes it clear by emphasizing that such differences in values are OK. Melee is a game that can be played however people want it to be played. If the majority of the Melee community is content with the way the game is now, then they should enjoy playing Melee and not be forced to play something they don't want to play.

However, with that said, I don't really agree with how you attacked Strong Bad about P:M there. Though there are some parallels to be made with SD:R and P:M and their design philosophy, such blatant attacks do not help convince anyone to start playing SD:R. I suspect that your ultimate desire is for more people to inevitably start playing more SD:R. I think you should try a different approach than appealing to the Melee community on Smashboards or attacking P:M Devs. Try starting a local community of SD:R players, grow the scene, stream events, advertise on social media, etc. Appeal to more general audiences or even try appealing to P:M players, who I would predict be at least slightly more receptive to SD:R than Melee players. People who will want to play the game will play the game, it just needs more exposure. There are many great Smash mods/fan games in the community that don't have as much popularity as P:M due to limited exposure. Even P:M was at that point for a long time.

I just think it's pretty clear that at this point in time, especially with the huge amount of exposure Melee is receiving now, there's absolutely no incentive for Melee players to care about SD:R. And that's OK.

 

[Quillion]

Honestly, I think Strong Bad hit the nail on the head. Though P:M and Smash 4 are my main games atm, I love playing Melee along with all the other Smash games and I try to play each one as much as I can. As much fun and exiting I think Melee is to watch and play, it's undeniable that there are objective flaws in the game that exist (as in all fighting games), mainly the fact that half the roster is unviable/semi-unviable in today's meta. SD Remix seeks to fix these objective flaws in order to create a more balanced game while retaining the nature of the top tiers. I agree with SD:R's intentions in principle as much as you do, Quillion, as I believe that all fighting games should strive to achieve balance around their roster while maintaining uniqueness between each character, which is why I enjoy the concept of SD:R. But the answer as to why it is not popular in the Melee community is exactly as Strong Bad put it: The values of the SD:R team and their philosophy do not line up with the Melee community's values and due to this, there is conflict. As disappointing as this may seem to you and me, I think SB makes it clear by emphasizing that such differences in values are OK. Melee is a game that can be played however people want it to be played. If the majority of the Melee community is content with the way the game is now, then they should enjoy playing Melee and not be forced to play something they don't want to play.

However, with that said, I don't really agree with how you attacked Strong Bad about P:M there. Though there are some parallels to be made with SD:R and P:M and their design philosophy, such blatant attacks do not help convince anyone to start playing SD:R. I suspect that your ultimate desire is for more people to inevitably start playing more SD:R. I think you should try a different approach than appealing to the Melee community on Smashboards or attacking P:M Devs. Try starting a local community of SD:R players, grow the scene, stream events, advertise on social media, etc. Appeal to more general audiences or even try appealing to P:M players, who I would predict be at least slightly more receptive to SD:R than Melee players. People who will want to play the game will play the game, it just needs more exposure. There are many great Smash mods/fan games in the community that don't have as much popularity as P:M due to limited exposure. Even P:M was at that point for a long time.

I just think it's pretty clear that at this point in time, especially with the huge amount of exposure Melee is receiving now, there's absolutely no incentive for Melee players to care about SD:R. And that's OK.

Yeah, I know. Looking back at my earlier posts, I really think I was being incredibly obnoxious about pushing SDR.

Side events are a good start. Gotta start small, right?

 

[Snowbird]

Hmmm I don't know if the reasons listed are very legitimate. There were many long posts in this thread about why there is no interest in the SD remix and they may be true, but I think it's mainly because inaccessibility and lack of advertisement. I've been following the melee scene forever and this is the first time I've ever even heard of it. Also, it sounds like it is annoying to install.

I think as melee HD (contoured 1080p thing) + WiiU adapter to dolphin becomes more popular, something like this has a MUCH better chance at gaining popularity. If it's only 17 bucks to hook up your gamecube controller to your PC and with a few quick installations start playing a beautiful version of melee, I wouldn't be surprised if more people (and old fans, or even new ones) try out things like this. I mean to me it sounds cool being able to play ylink v falco on melee physics.

 

[SAUS]

As much fun and exiting I think Melee is to watch and play, it's undeniable that there are objective flaws in the game that exist (as in all fighting games), mainly the fact that half the roster is unviable/semi-unviable in today's meta.

I don't think that counts as objective. There are other game modes in the game, but we don't use them. There are items in the game, but we don't use them. There are other stages in the game, but we don't use them. There are other characters in the game, but we don't use them. Just because something is not useful to the game for competition doesn't mean it shouldn't be in the game.

26 perfectly balanced characters would have its own other flaws (ie too much necessary matchup knowledge). If they made the characters play similarly enough that that is not the case, I would question why there are 26 characters that someone is trying to balance.

 

[Nessafile]

Shouldn't this thread be over? your question has been answered already....multiple times.

 

[TheKmanOfSmash]

I don't think that counts as objective. There are other game modes in the game, but we don't use them. There are items in the game, but we don't use them. There are other stages in the game, but we don't use them. There are other characters in the game, but we don't use them. Just because something is not useful to the game for competition doesn't mean it shouldn't be in the game.

26 perfectly balanced characters would have its own other flaws (ie too much necessary matchup knowledge). If they made the characters play similarly enough that that is not the case, I would question why there are 26 characters that someone is trying to balance.

I don't understand how choosing not to use features in the game is related to there being objective flaws. Do you think Kirby's glitched throws are not an objective flaw in game design? Did Sakurai intend for Kirby to have such throws? Can I choose to activate his glitches throw or not? Do you think Roy's wet noodle sword is just misunderstood and is open to interpretation on how useful it is relative to the cast's options? Is being able to phase through Pokemon Stadium or the invisible ceiling glitch just a different way of experiencing the game?

I don't ask these questions in jest or to come off as rude; I ask because I'm trying to understand your comment. I can point numerous things that to me are clear examples of objectively bad game design/flaws in any Smash game. Unless it was Sakurai's intention to include all the things I listed, then I don't understand how you can argue that they are not objective flaws.

And where does the concept of choice and how useful something is play into this analysis? I assume that you think I believe that if there is something that is useless in the game then it shouldn't be there. Whether or not I believe that is irrelevant. I was just making a claim that there were flaws in the game that existed, I never advocated for their removal or significantly devalued the game because of said flaws. As I said, Melee players like the way the game is already and there's nothing wrong with that. Doesn't mean that there aren't flaws that one can point to. It just means that they are content with the flaws that undeniably exist and are content with that.

 

[SAUS]

I don't understand how choosing not to use features in the game is related to there being objective flaws. Do you think Kirby's glitched throws are not an objective flaw in game design? Did Sakurai intend for Kirby to have such throws? Can I choose to activate his glitches throw or not? Do you think Roy's wet noodle sword is just misunderstood and is open to interpretation on how useful it is relative to the cast's options? Is being able to phase through Pokemon Stadium or the invisible ceiling glitch just a different way of experiencing the game?

I don't ask these questions in jest or to come off as rude; I ask because I'm trying to understand your comment. I can point numerous things that to me are clear examples of objectively bad game design/flaws in any Smash game. Unless it was Sakurai's intention to include all the things I listed, then I don't understand how you can argue that they are not objective flaws.

And where does the concept of choice and how useful something is play into this analysis? I assume that you think I believe that if there is something that is useless in the game then it shouldn't be there. Whether or not I believe that is irrelevant. I was just making a claim that there were flaws in the game that existed, I never advocated for their removal or significantly devalued the game because of said flaws. As I said, Melee players like the way the game is already and there's nothing wrong with that. Doesn't mean that there aren't flaws that one can point to. It just means that they are content with the flaws that undeniably exist and are content with that.

"mainly the fact that half the roster is unviable/semi-unviable in today's meta" (from your other post in this thread that I quoted)
I was only referring to this. I don't think the whole roster needs to be tournament-viable to not be objectively flawed. I think there are other things you can point to, I just don't think that this particular example is true. That is why I was referring to things that aren't used. Bad characters aren't used in tournaments, but I don't think taking out all the characters that aren't good enough (to have a more balanced roster with all viable characters) would be a good solution, and having a game with 26 viable characters forces a lot of matchup knowledge down everyone's throat. If there is enough common ground between each character, it would be hard to have 26 unique characters (doing this would be to remove the massive amounts of matchup knowledge necessary to play in 26 matchups). I just don't think "all characters in the cast should be viable" is some sort of necessary or always-wanted goal.

 

[TheKmanOfSmash]

"mainly the fact that half the roster is unviable/semi-unviable in today's meta" (from your other post in this thread that I quoted)
I was only referring to this. I don't think the whole roster needs to be tournament-viable to not be objectively flawed. I think there are other things you can point to, I just don't think that this particular example is true. That is why I was referring to things that aren't used. Bad characters aren't used in tournaments, but I don't think taking out all the characters that aren't good enough (to have a more balanced roster with all viable characters) would be a good solution, and having a game with 26 viable characters forces a lot of matchup knowledge down everyone's throat. If there is enough common ground between each character, it would be hard to have 26 unique characters (doing this would be to remove the massive amounts of matchup knowledge necessary to play in 26 matchups). I just don't think "all characters in the cast should be viable" is some sort of necessary or always-wanted goal.

Ah, I see. Well I think your disagreement most likely stems from us having different standards on what we think is required in a great fighting game. For me, I think all fighting games should strive to have all characters that are relatively balanced but retain a distinct uniqueness to each one, which can be really hard to do, but is possible. But perhaps you think that this should not be the case and that a fighting game can still be a great game even with unviable characters and that the presence of such characters don't devalue the game or make it flawed in some ways. I may have taken a shot in the dark there, but I'm going to assume you believe something along those lines.

Based on my standards of how a fighting game should be, I disagree with this because bad characters CAN be used in tournament even though they often aren't. But when they are used, the people who play them most often lose not because of the player's skill level but because he chose a character who has really bad options that give him the lowest reward for the maximum risk. If one's goal is to have a fighting game, being able to compete on a relatively fair playing field should be a priority and when there are characters who do not fit that model at all in almost every single situation in the game, then I see it as a flaw.



However, I will say three things here:

1. To go into more detail, my idea of "balance" is not extreme to the point where every character is basically a copy of each other. My minimum requirement is for the character to be at least viable, which not only gives them a fighting chance in a tournament situation but also from a game design perspective, it gives a lot of elbow room to design a very unique character. Adhering to extreme measures of balance defeats the purpose of having different characters and I see that as a flaw. It might not be an objective flaw, but I personally see it as a flaw.

But yeah, variability in character design is part of what makes fighting games very interesting. However, in order to maintain the uniqueness of each character, there will inevitably be characters who have bad match ups vs some other characters. I think this is not only to be expected but is ok. One could definitely see this as a flaw as well but whether it is or not, I think it's worth the sacrifice in order to create a very interesting fighting game.

2. Though I think there are some basic universal elements that all fighting games should have, along with my own personal ideas, Sakurai did not design Smash Brothers to be a fighting game by my definition or any universal definition. Though he takes balancing of characters into account, he does not balance characters solely around 1v1 but rather around all the game modes and features. So imbalance of many characters is expected in a 1v1 situation whereas maybe in another situation, that same character would do amazingly in Single Player, Classic mode, All-Star mode or Break the Targets. So for me to say that the game has "objective flaws" relative to an ideal competitive fighter when the game wasn't even designed around that concept entirely may have been a bit presumptuous of me and I can concede to that.

3. On the idea of having to learn multiple MUs as a flaw: That's interesting, I've never thought of that as a flaw in and of itself. In P:M (at least in version 3.02), having vast MU knowledge is extremely important in order to do well in competition (unless you're just really good and can adapt to everything). I've heard people complain about having to learn many MUs before, but I just usually chalked it up to people not wanting to learn the metagame because it would require a lot of effort they aren't used to, just as practicing tech skill in Melee or trying to place at a tournament both as a beginner requires a lot of effort and that people who complained about the vast MUs were just johning. But I never thought of the idea of having to learn multiple MUs as an actual flaw in competitive fighters. I would guess that even if every character was viable, there should be a point where having too many characters and potential MUs in the game puts an unrealistic expectation on the player to be able to learn them all. I'm not sure who determines what that limit is or if there shouldn't be a limit at all. In P:M personally, I would just work at spending the time to learn all the MUs I could because that is what what required to succeed in tournament (and because I thought it was and still is really fun to learn different kinds of MUs; makes me think of Smash as a whole very differently). But maybe such burdens are indeed flaws according to your standards or maybe even a game design standard. People love to praise the concept of viable characters and character variety and how they're overall a good thing. But I don't think I've see much discussion on how the amount of characters in the game affects these concepts. Maybe there should be more of that.



Anyway, I'm pretty much rambling at this point. To wrap up, though I think that Melee still has flaws that can be pointed to with character viability being one of them, I can concede that it was probably presumptuous of me to call them "objective" and that calling something a flaw may very well depend on the type on standards one uses to view the game.

 

[SAUS]

Ah, I see. Well I think your disagreement most likely stems from us having different standards on what we think is required in a great fighting game. For me, I think all fighting games should strive to have all characters that are relatively balanced but retain a distinct uniqueness to each one, which can be really hard to do, but is possible. But perhaps you think that this should not be the case and that a fighting game can still be a great game even with unviable characters and that the presence of such characters don't devalue the game or make it flawed in some ways. I may have taken a shot in the dark there, but I'm going to assume you believe something along those lines.

Based on my standards of how a fighting game should be, I disagree with this because bad characters CAN be used in tournament even though they often aren't. But when they are used, the people who play them most often lose not because of the player's skill level but because he chose a character who has really bad options that give him the lowest reward for the maximum risk. If one's goal is to have a fighting game, being able to compete on a relatively fair playing field should be a priority and when there are characters who do not fit that model at all in almost every single situation in the game, then I see it as a flaw.



However, I will say three things here:

1. To go into more detail, my idea of "balance" is not extreme to the point where every character is basically a copy of each other. My minimum requirement is for the character to be at least viable, which not only gives them a fighting chance in a tournament situation but also from a game design perspective, it gives a lot of elbow room to design a very unique character. Adhering to extreme measures of balance defeats the purpose of having different characters and I see that as a flaw. It might not be an objective flaw, but I personally see it as a flaw.

But yeah, variability in character design is part of what makes fighting games very interesting. However, in order to maintain the uniqueness of each character, there will inevitably be characters who have bad match ups vs some other characters. I think this is not only to be expected but is ok. One could definitely see this as a flaw as well but whether it is or not, I think it's worth the sacrifice in order to create a very interesting fighting game.

2. Though I think there are some basic universal elements that all fighting games should have, along with my own personal ideas, Sakurai did not design Smash Brothers to be a fighting game by my definition or any universal definition. Though he takes balancing of characters into account, he does not balance characters solely around 1v1 but rather around all the game modes and features. So imbalance of many characters is expected in a 1v1 situation whereas maybe in another situation, that same character would do amazingly in Single Player, Classic mode, All-Star mode or Break the Targets. So for me to say that the game has "objective flaws" relative to an ideal competitive fighter when the game wasn't even designed around that concept entirely may have been a bit presumptuous of me and I can concede to that.

3. On the idea of having to learn multiple MUs as a flaw: That's interesting, I've never thought of that as a flaw in and of itself. In P:M (at least in version 3.02), having vast MU knowledge is extremely important in order to do well in competition (unless you're just really good and can adapt to everything). I've heard people complain about having to learn many MUs before, but I just usually chalked it up to people not wanting to learn the metagame because it would require a lot of effort they aren't used to, just as practicing tech skill in Melee or trying to place at a tournament both as a beginner requires a lot of effort and that people who complained about the vast MUs were just johning. But I never thought of the idea of having to learn multiple MUs as an actual flaw in competitive fighters. I would guess that even if every character was viable, there should be a point where having too many characters and potential MUs in the game puts an unrealistic expectation on the player to be able to learn them all. I'm not sure who determines what that limit is or if there shouldn't be a limit at all. In P:M personally, I would just work at spending the time to learn all the MUs I could because that is what what required to succeed in tournament (and because I thought it was and still is really fun to learn different kinds of MUs; makes me think of Smash as a whole very differently). But maybe such burdens are indeed flaws according to your standards or maybe even a game design standard. People love to praise the concept of viable characters and character variety and how they're overall a good thing. But I don't think I've see much discussion on how the amount of characters in the game affects these concepts. Maybe there should be more of that.



Anyway, I'm pretty much rambling at this point. To wrap up, though I think that Melee still has flaws that can be pointed to with character viability being one of them, I can concede that it was probably presumptuous of me to call them "objective" and that calling something a flaw may very well depend on the type on standards one uses to view the game.

Ya it is tough thing to answer - "what is truly objectively good in game design?". There are so many factors that it pretty much just comes down to preference. I guess maybe "objectively good" would have to come after you have chosen what kind of game you are trying to make (like "this is an RTS, is feature Y really actually a good feature for an RTS?" - or even more specific, since you will have chosen some features since you know some people prefer them - like the fact the game is an RTS in the first place).

I like that melee doesn't have a ton of matchups that you have to learn (pretty much exactly how you have described). There are around 10ish matchups that you probably will almost never have to learn at all. Then there are around 8 matchups that are good to know but don't have to be heavily practiced most of the time, and then there are the top 8 characters where you should know very well what is going on. Ultimately, it is like there are 8 matchups that you need to know, and a bunch of extra stuff that people can play with if they want. If you look at the game as though it was designed like this on purpose (I don't really know, but I doubt it was all on purpose), then it is basically a well-balanced 8-character roster with a bunch of for-fun characters (some of which are actually still strong competitively - bumping the final category to a higher number - I don't want to argue about tier lists / viability though lol).