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Not that simple (offline, at least). It is optimal for characters such as Lucario, who loooooves keeping the game in neutral, but a lot of character don't function so well using rolls. The easy pivot options allow for a quick bait into F-Tilt/F-Smash that sets up for offensive potential on a successful hit instead of going back to neutral. When you roll backward, you lose a lot of space, as well; eventually you'll have no more space to safely back roll.
I agree with your general sentiment. Our bias is melee heritage beyond a shadow of a doubt. I don't entirely agree with your math but in anycase I know a lot of immature 15 year olds. Do you really feel the scene isn't growing?
"Arguably requires less skill" man what
I guess I meant a more traditional fighting game, health bars, supers, etc.
While "real fighting games" is a poor choice of words, he actually makes a good point, which I consider to be the case for a lot of players here.
You do know what the word arguably means right? To satisfy you though, from my experience in smash and other fighting games (BB and Marvel mostly), defensive playstyles are easier to perform and succeed with. By nature it is entirely reactive; you don't take the initiative. So all you have to do is know the coRrect choice for a given circumstance. Why do you think Ryu is the most recommended beginner character? His playstyle consists of throwing hados, forcing the enemy to approach and then simply choosing the coRrect option to reset them back to the other side (with a shoryu or down strong). It's simple, you only have to consider a few options in comparison to an attacker because you're only ever reacting. This is why balance has to favor offensive play at least slightly more than defensive play; ideally defensive choices are temporary options that let you get out of pressure, not sit at the edge and make it impossible for someone to approach without ridiculous risk while you only ever react.
Gawain
I'd have to disagree... you can't just spam fireballs and win. Hado has punishable start up and cooldown that every character can exploit at certain ranges. At low levels of play sure hado is a powerful tool but past that it transforms from a mindless safe option into a calculated commitment. The same is true for smash. every projectile is a big commitment this time (no more short hop lazer) With counters super armor and reflectors (as well as sheilds spot dodges and rolls) every character has a way to get in to or punish their opponent for making these comitments at poor times, just like in street fighter.
I think you are severely misunderstanding. If I zone someone out and win and they are looking for answers on how to deal with it, I'll be the most helpful and encouraging guy you can find and would have no problem whatsoever trying to talk through their playstyle to figure out why they can't deal with whatever is shutting them down or really help in any way I can. I don't trash talk, and I don't make fun of people. I do take satisfaction in a thorough defeat, but it's not going to be more than a grin they'll see for it. However, a lot of people just aren't in that boat or looking for why they lost and how to improve. They lose to stuff and just immediately blame the game, blame their opponent which actually makes no sense if you stop to think about it for even a moment, and somehow are constantly trying to assert that they're somehow better at the game than the person they just lost to even though, well, they just lost.
I'm no Street Fighter expert by any means, but I've known plenty who have played the series over the years, and from what I've seen this is quite a misunderstanding of Ryu as a character. Ryu is considered a "beginner" character not because he's the easiest to win with but because his style reflects the very fundamentals of Street Fighter, and when you aim to master Ryu what you're basically saying is, "I'm just a better Street Fighter player than you are."
As a Dedede main, you kinda overestimate his landing lag and mobility.
Don't get me wrong, I am not ragging on Ryu or anything. What I was trying to say is that Ryu is effective because his gameplan is really solid. I would also argue that throwing the fireballs out is in response to the enemy's inaction at the opposite side of the arena. It's basically just his standard neutral. I would posit that this is a defensive maneuver more than an offensive one, since the intention isn't really to do damage with hados it's just to force the opponent into a position where they have to approach you in an unsafe manner. We could argue all day about the semantics of offense and defense though, so I'd rather not get into it if you don't mind. Though I think we can both agree that throwing projectiles at a safe distance forces your opponent to approach (unless they have an equally strong one).
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I've got to say that the way you phrased this made me laugh. Regardless of the game, I still always get the image of people playing SF2 and crying about how "cheap" those Ryu fireballs are whenever people complain about this stuff.
See, in Street Fighter (or any 2D fighter really) spacing is an big thing, because your back to a corner is a disadvantage, and your options for gaining space are balanced out by your enemy's methods for approaching you. Your general options are:
I'll admit it was a rounded up estimate. Looking at it now, we're just four days away from Melee's 13th anniversary. And when I rejected the second poster's notion that the smash scene is growing I meant that it isn't still in its infancy. Communities are infinitely evolving. Sure, it doesn't have the seniority that the rest of the community has when you take into account Tekken, Street Fighter, the vs. Capcom games, Guilty Gear, Mortal Kombat, etc, but to say that Super Smash Bros. has not yet cemented itself as a major contender in the competitive fighting game scene and is still experiencing "growing pains" is, I think, wrong.
I really hope you're not serious when you say that spacing-intensive playstyles require less skill than more aggressive ones...
Every time Marth begins an attack, every time Rosalina sends out Luma (or chooses not to), every time Samus decides how to space a missile, every time Peach inputs either an approach or a retreat during a float, in every one of those circumstances, the player is making a calculated risk, and there is, mechanically, a huge chance for error. The return or degree of penalty for executing the chosen maneuver isn't any less than that given or incurred by rushing down. But given just how vital it is NOT to **** up yor spacing or zoning due to the character, the player puts in the effort to minimise the possibility of these risks becoming realities. The playstyle has an artificial appearance of low risk-high return.
Whether or not a match is entertaining to watch is ultimately of little significance and judging the validity of a strategy on that basis would be judging it purely subjectively. It is viewed as degenerative considering Melee's style. I will concede though that in games with "cage match" sort of stages, zoning isn't as favoured as it is in Smash's "open" stages.
Metaknight was generally disliked in Brawl because nearly all of his options were mechanically safe. Even taking (relative lack of) skill into account, Metaknight is harder to put at a disadvantage because of the low starting and ending lag on attacks and the sheer amount of overall transcendent priority his moveset has. Two out of his four specials have it (Shuttle Loop and Dimensional Cape), and all of his standard attacks have it too, except for dash attack. This is just plain difficult to deal with.
You seem to be grossly missing the point of my posts. I do not consider a character like Marth to be defensive in the context I was speaking in. I was talking primarily about the application of rolls in playstyles that favor a sort of "keepaway" or ledge camping. I don't believe that characters like Marth and Jigglypuff will have much success sitting on the ledge. Spacing attacks while you are approaching and sitting at the ledge shielding and throwing projectiles are two entirely different things. Yes, I do believe that sitting at the ledge waiting to respond takes less skill. Much less, to be blunt. You are reducing the number of options and reducing the margin of error by playing like this.
In Brawl, that would be the general case. In Smash 4, that would be hyperbole.
The problem with Smash is that in most competitive cases, campy play is just exploiting a lack of counterplay to it. If Smash gave some balancing leeway to offensive players in the form of negative penalty for camping, i think it would really help the quality of the game overall. For instance, the same way stale move reduction will drastically weaken the kill potential of a frequently-used attack (terrible mechanic, but that's another discussion), they could add a defensive version that increases damage taken (or raises knockback, or both) of a player who extensively abuses dodge rolls, air dodges, sidesteps and ledge grabs in succession without doing anything else.
The air is certainly more dangerous in Smash 4 than in other smash titles. In fact in my experience, being airborne is more dangerous than being off the edge since the side blast zones are so laughable. But it's still a farcry from being cornered in SF4, or being off-edge in Melee.
Well it's not so much being in the air as being above your opponent. Very few characters have good options in this situation. It's still not as bad as being above your opponent in Smash 64 though.
Other characters can be punished harder than they can and don't have nearly the amount of upsides and ability ti punish as hard as spacies can.
Even in games that allow double/triple jumps, air dashes, push blocks, air blocking and characters with teleports, by comparison Smash zoners are still extremely safe. I guess the real issue is that in Smash Bros, characters with projectiles aren't really built around them in the same way. Like, Megaman is almost entirely projectiles, but he isn't really built around them. His strongest most reliable kill move is, ironically, a high-active frame AoE move. There aren't really any characters that depend on you being a certain distance from them to stand a fair chance...they just sort of are able to keep you from getting in.