Why isn't auto L Canceling an option?

[Phaiyte]

Still waiting on the day someone reads my posts.

Wow man it's like you bolded the exact parts you didn't read or something

 

[KeyOfTruth]

Wow man it's like you bolded the exact parts you didn't read or something

Instead of provoking other users that have actually contributed well thought, meaningful posts that are actually relevant to the topic, you should quit being a hypocrite and do the same. If that's not possible please troll elsewhere.

 

[Phaiyte]

Instead of provoking other users that have actually contributed well thought, meaningful posts that are actually relevant to the topic, you should quit being a hypocrite and do the same. If that's not possible please troll elsewhere.

I asked for something that wasn't a logical fallacy or something that proved L cancelling wasn't literally just an arbitrary input, and then you bolded that, and then claimed that it was and wasn't an arbitrary input in the same sentence, using a giant logical fallacy. Please get over yourself, stop feeling so offended by your own incompetence, and sit down lol

Don't even try to tell me you've actually /thought/ about the things you've posted in this thread so far. Because if you did, those posts wouldn't exist.

 

[KeyOfTruth]

I asked for something that wasn't a logical fallacy or something that proved L cancelling wasn't literally just an arbitrary input, and then you bolded that, and then claimed that it was and wasn't an arbitrary input in the same sentence. Please get over yourself, stop feeling so offended by your own incompetence, and sit down lol

I don't ever recall contradicting myself in this manner, care to prove me wrong?

 

[Phaiyte]

I don't ever recall contradicting myself in this manner, care to prove me wrong?

Easy enough. I don't even have to c/p.

> "despite being an arbitrary input[........]"
> goes on to explain exactly how there is no reason to not L cancel, there is no choice of whether to do so or not, etc for the rest of the paragraph

 

[KeyOfTruth]

Easy enough. I don't even have to c/p.

> "despite being an arbitrary input[........]"
> goes on to explain exactly how there is no reason to not L cancel, there is no choice of whether to do so or not, etc for the rest of the paragraph

Since your obviously too lazy to decipher my explanation I've tried to make as clear as possible, I shall attempt to do it you for you.

L-Cancelling does serve a purpose, just as any other input does. As I've explained before, despite being an arbitrary input, L-Cancelling still holds a purpose.

The meaning of "arbitrary" taken directly from the dictionary:

capricious; unreasonable; unsupported:
an arbitrary demand for payment.

The meaning of "purpose" taken once again from the dictionary:

practical result, effect, or advantage:
to act to good purpose.

Now put these together in context with L-Cancel:

Unreasonable button input + practical advantage

As you can see, according to these definitions I have in no way contradicted myself the way you have described. It's been made aware that many players find L-Cancel does not have a significant enough of a reason to justify it's stay in Project M and mistakenly assert that is has no purpose. However I argue that L-Cancel does have a purpose (read: practical advantage) I never attempted to convince anyone that L-Cancel was not arbitrary. Please try to read posts thoroughly before accusing them of fallacies.

 

[GP&B]

If a responsible adult makes a decision (good or bad) he/she must be ready to accept the consequence(s).

This is a good comparison on a standalone basis but it doesn't work in describing the consequences of committing to an aerial when trying to support L-canceling. @ AuraMaudeGone already went over this, but using an aerial (and going airborne in the first place) is already making a decision in several other more vital ways. You lose most of your options, you move in a predictable arc (only influenced by your character's horizontal air speed and choosing to fast fall), and you'll suffer some amount of landing lag. That last part still remains relevant even with successful L-canceling. The problem with this argument is that L-canceling is assumed to an important part of the risk of using aerials. L-canceling should not be (and is not, at top level play) a risk when initiating an aerial; your consistency with performing it should be good enough for this never to be a concern (and again, observing top level play its effect is nearly unnoticeable). The ability to successfully land an aerial or at the very least avoid punishment on whiff or on shield is almost solely based on fundamentals (good decision making) and mental play (mixups/being unpredictable). L-canceling is a footnote that does nothing for either of these aspects and tacks on an execution barrier that's irritating for new players and a drop in the bucket for experienced players.

I argue that L-Cancel does have a purpose (read: practical advantage)

Since we've more or less reset to cover our general points consisely again, could you explain this?

 

[Phaiyte]

Since your obviously too lazy to decipher my explanation I've tried to make as clear as possible, I shall attempt to do it you for you.



The meaning of "arbitrary" taken directly from the dictionary:

capricious; unreasonable; unsupported:
an arbitrary demand for payment.

The meaning of "purpose" taken once again from the dictionary:

practical result, effect, or advantage:
to act to good purpose.

Now put these together in context with L-Cancel:

Unreasonable button input + practical advantage

As you can see, according to these definitions I have in no way contradicted myself the way you have described. It's been made aware that many players find L-Cancel does not have a significant enough of a reason to justify it's stay in Project M and mistakenly assert that is has no purpose. However I argue that L-Cancel does have a purpose (read: practical advantage) I never attempted to convince anyone that L-Cancel was not arbitrary. Please try to read posts thoroughly before accusing them of fallacies.

I like how your whole post is basically saying "hey man don't assume it's a fallacy" when the entire post in itself is one.

You're only making yourself look worse and worse every time you respond.

There is no real purpose to the existance L cancel, proven by the actual fact that the meta game would literally not even change by 1% if it never existed in the first place. It is a completely useless input that is literally only there so a bunch of man children can brag about having to press 1 extra button every time they jump. That's literally it.

 

[SpiderMad]

(though I still fail to see the point of iasa anyway, why not just make the move animation shorter so it's intuitive?)

Brawl has so many bad things, implying the lack of L-canceling was one of the reasons brawl sucked seems silly. If anything L-cancel related, it was the overall increase of landing lags across the board.

As for the last point, stop spamming just before you hit the ground? I mean, you can mess anything up, that doesn't make it deep.

IASA is needed to make the game fast while looking great. Without it and no compensation, you'd have to wait for the animation to end which all adjust towards Wait/Fall, making the game slow and dull looking with no quick surprises animation wise. Without it and compensation to make everything sped up, it'd look messed up and still have no variety like the past point. http://smashboards.com/threads/project-m-social-thread-v3-5.339825/page-1376#post-18240440

Other animation decisions between Brawl and Melee where what they wanted IASA to be able to cancel. You could probably make something like Isai dropping not have to exist if you straight allowed drop out of landing lag's actionable period: but that would mess with spot dodge/down-b/down-smash with A. And the rest of the restrictions I covered in the long video I made along with its posts. http://smashboards.com/threads/tier-list-speculation.331666/page-699#post-18806807

I obviously imply L-cancelling in regards to the required input vs Landing Lag reduced to the same amount but without any requirement. You can't derive much from Brawl in that regard with how bad Aerial landing lag was normally, but more so from Brawl+. Until PM with an Auto L-cancel Add-on or 20XX Hack's Auto L-cancel becomes thoroughly used, you won't be able to espy at the arcane values L-cancelling brings beyond slowly seeing hints of them like I've come to.

Yeah the fact that you can spam it part (or better performed: the rhythmic tap on each shoulder) is something I haven't developed an opinion on yet

 

[KeyOfTruth]

The problem with this argument is that L-canceling is assumed to an important part of the risk of using aerials. L-canceling should not be (and is not, at top level play) a risk when initiating an aerial; your consistency with performing it should be good enough for this never to be a concern (and again, observing top level play its effect is nearly unnoticeable). The ability to successfully land an aerial or at the very least avoid punishment on whiff or on shield is almost solely based on fundamentals (good decision making) and mental play (mixups/being unpredictable).

Yes your consistency should be good enough to never worry about ever messing up a technical input, or any input for that matter. As you state with certainty, it would be unreasonable to consider L-Cancel as a possible punish opportunity in high level play. In the same way, it would be unreasonable to expect an opportunity to punish during any other universal technique such as wavedashing, wavelanding, dacus, shfl. Point being that you cannot rely on technical mistakes for punishments because they are almost entirely absent from high level play, you've made this quite clear. This is not a special case for L-Cancel whatsoever.

The practical advantage L-Cancelling provides is quite obvious: Reduces landing lag. What seems to be the consensus on this thread is that people want to drop the unreasonable button input, but keep the practical advantage. Following this logic to the extreme would lead to questioning the very need for buttons themselves, controllers would become arbitrary and video games should just read your mind.

 

[Quillion]

Yes your consistency should be good enough to never worry about ever messing up a technical input, or any input for that matter. As you state with certainty, it would be unreasonable to consider L-Cancel as a possible punish opportunity in high level play. In the same way, it would be unreasonable to expect an opportunity to punish during any other universal technique such as wavedashing, wavelanding, dacus, shfl. Point being that you cannot rely on technical mistakes for punishments because they are almost entirely absent from high level play, you've made this quite clear. This is not a special case for L-Cancel whatsoever.

The practical advantage L-Cancelling provides is quite obvious: Reduces landing lag.

High-level play still sees people missing L-cancels and thus opening opportunities to do combos. It makes the game faster paced that way.

Anti-L-Cancelers trust me here: Without L-cancelling, both Melee and PM would favor defensive, safe play. And even then: Melee is seeing a rise in keep-away zoning games. This is from 2013 alone:

 

[AuraMaudeGone]

High-level play still sees people missing L-cancels and thus opening opportunities to do combos. It makes the game faster paced that way.

Anti-L-Cancelers trust me here: Without L-cancelling, both Melee and PM would favor defensive, safe play. And even then: Melee is seeing a rise in keep-away zoning games. This is from 2013 alone:

There's more that contributes to this type of play than L-Canceling. Knowing how unsafe some of your grounded options are at low %, why not play the zoning game? This is a totally different ball game.

 

[Bleck]

Without L-cancelling, both Melee and PM would favor defensive, safe play. And even then: Melee is seeing a rise in keep-away zoning games.

l-canceling makes certain aerial moves have so few low recovery frames that approaching that character is generally unsafe

it's not surprising that games that are designed around flashy zero-to-death-or-close-enough-to-it combos would eventually favor a defensive metagame; it's like you people have never watched mahvel or something

 

[AcousticAdrian]

L-Canceling isn't completely arbitrary. Again, there are ways to meaningfully interfere with an opponent's ability to L-Cancel.

High-level play still sees people missing L-cancels and thus opening opportunities to do combos. It makes the game faster paced that way.

Anti-L-Cancelers trust me here: Without L-cancelling, both Melee and PM would favor defensive, safe play. And even then: Melee is seeing a rise in keep-away zoning games. This is from 2013 alone:

Do you mean that as in no L-Canceling at all, or auto L-Canceling?

 

[Foo]

@masterpad

1. You could lock ANYTHING behind a button press. You could make everyone have to hit a button on the D-pad before hitting the ground or you suffer heavy landing lag (10 frames) and it would be essentially the same thing. Why not make every move have double lag unless you hit L 12 frames before the lag is over otherwise you get double lag. But why not do that? Well, it'd be really stupid game design and everyone would be furious. The only reason L-canceling is accepted is because melee.

2. Sheilding and L-canceling are absolutely nothing alike because human reaction time is not instant. The only things you ever want to shield on reaction (usually) are projectiles and moves you can punish really easily by shielding, otherwise dodging is better (well, at least with fast characters) When you shield, it's usually because you think your opponent is about to hit you, so you preemptively block. It is entirely strategy and in no way artificial difficulty.

3. Just because YOU enjoy it doesn't mean it's good. You could have a mandatory probe you have to shove up your ass to play and some people would enjoy it.

4. Difficulty is fine for new players to have to do it, but you shouldn't make a game harder soley for the sake of making it harder, you should make it harder because you are adding more depth and speed to the game. New players not being able to even compete against L-canceling players just because they didn't learn it yet is a great way to make players not want to get into it, and all without adding an depth to the game.

High-level play still sees people missing L-cancels and thus opening opportunities to do combos. It makes the game faster paced that way.

Anti-L-Cancelers trust me here: Without L-cancelling, both Melee and PM would favor defensive, safe play. And even then: Melee is seeing a rise in keep-away zoning games. This is from 2013 alone:

Ok, so, by your logic, people being able to preform aerials aggressively with a 0% chance of missing l-cancel would slow the game down? What the **** are you talking about. How is a "buff" to shield pressure and combo moves gonna slow the game down? The player on defense is the one that would punish a missed L-cancel.

(not that good players miss L-cancels often anyway, which all you guys assert yet none has supplied ANY proof for.)

Also, you are saying that because melee game (that has L-canceling) with a jigglypuff in it (a mid ranged zoner) was slow 2 years ago, removing L-canceling would slow the game down...

Like... how do you even come to that conclusion?

L-Canceling isn't completely arbitrary. Again, there are ways to interfere with an opponent's ability to L-Cancel in meaningful ways.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! NONONONONONO. I am tired of having to say this is wrong over and over. L-canceling is not teching. If you hit it to early, you can just hit it again, so you are supposed to hit it at least twice to cover shield or no shield. Stop making this argument everyone pls it's so wrong.

 

[AcousticAdrian]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! NONONONONONO. I am tired of having to say this is wrong over and over. L-canceling is not teching. If you hit it to early, you can just hit it again, so you are supposed to hit it at least twice to cover shield or no shield. Stop making this argument everyone pls it's so wrong.

Are you sure that is the usual response? That would require the opponent to be able to see and react to the opponent angling his shield. If you just hit the button twice every time you hit a shield, the opponent can just vary the distance he angles his shield to throw off your muscle memory.

 

[Foo]

Are you sure that is the usual response? That would require the opponent to be able to see and react to the opponent angling his shield. If you just hit the button twice every time you hit a shield, the opponent can just vary the distance he angles his shield to throw off your muscle memory.

First off, shield tilting will throw off timings by like two frames, so it will only matter against bad timing even if they only hit it once. Secondly, you can hit z twice, once at an early timing and once at a late timing and you will hit the L-cancel no matter what happens (well, unless you get hit out of it). Or you could just spam z for the same effect, as long as you know when to stop.

It's not a "response" it's the just the ideal way to L-cancel

 

[AcousticAdrian]

First off, shield tilting will throw off timings by like two frames, so it will only matter against bad timing even if they only hit it once. Secondly, you can hit z twice, once at an early timing and once at a late timing and you will hit the L-cancel no matter what happens (well, unless you get hit out of it). Or you could just spam z for the same effect, as long as you know when to stop.

It's not a "response" it's the just the ideal way to L-cancel

I suppose I need to study some more high level matches to see if it is being used effectively. I am still skeptical about the idea of simply mashing z, when combined with the possibility of Light Shield + Shield DI.

 

[Foo]

I suppose I need to study some more high level matches to see if it is being used effectively. I am still skeptical about the idea of simply mashing z, when combined with the possibility of Light Shield + Shield DI.

There is no light shield in PM.

 

[AcousticAdrian]

There is no light shield in PM.

Okay, you have me there. People were making references to melee to support their arguments, but this thread is arguing in favor of auto L-Canceling in PM. I'll continue to study higher level matches, then.

 

[Ningildo]

Umm....there's still no PROOF of missed L-cancels creating an opening for a punish. Remember, L-cancelling isn't hard, it's easy af to do. I doubt that at a level of play where waveshines, rar bair out of QD etc. are common L-cancels are going to be missed often if at all.

 

[mastermu]

It adds an extra layer of depth and complexity to the game. It's an extra step that separates those who play casually, and those who play competitively. If you continued to simplify motions and certain attributes, you'd end up with a game everyone could play proficiently, eliminating any sort of gradient in skill to allow for healthy competition and different levels of play.

 

[Foo]

It adds an extra layer of depth and complexity to the game. It's an extra step that separates those who play casually, and those who play competitively. If you continued to simplify motions and certain attributes, you'd end up with a game everyone could play proficiently, eliminating any sort of gradient in skill to allow for healthy competition and different levels of play.

No, no, no, no, no. It does not add any depth to the game whatsoever. There is no decision, it's just hitting an extra button for no reason, this has been established. As for separating those who play competitively and those who play casually, I agree completely and that's WHY I think it should be removed. Being forced to learn something like Lcanceling (which is really hard ONLY until you get used to it) is very discouraging to new players, and inhibits the scene's growth. I almost rage-quit playing smash because of L-canceling a while ago.

The difference between l-canceling and other techs is that they other techs add depth, and are all just about as simple as you can make them. Removing wavedashing would take away SO much from the game, but removing L-canceling would leave it unchanged in terms of depth and strategy. Good players aren't going to start losing to bad players just because of auto-lcancel because this game has plently of natural input difficulty that works very well, and there is no need to make it artificially harder.

 

[Starfall11]

@ Foo > Every game has execution barriers and taking them out is not practical. It's true that L-cancelling doesn't add any depth to the game. Mainly because there is no reason "not to" L-cancel. It is always better than the alternative. But Project M is a competitive game made for a competitive community.

Let's look at other fighting games. Street Fighter, Guilty Gear, etc etc... all have 1 frame links. They also have shoryuken motions, quarter turns, tiger knee motions, etc. Why not take all of these motions out for an easier alternative? Why not turn 1-frame links into gatlings?

L-cancelling serves a purpose. Execution is one barrier of any fighting game. Or any competitive game for that matter. When under pressure, it is more difficult to perform execution perfectly. So when in a Grand Finals under a lot of pressure, someone could miss the L-cancel on a laggy aerial and get punished for it. And guess what, they deserve that punish. Because one test of fighting games is how well you can perform under pressure.

Execution always has been and always will be an entry barrier to any good fighting game. Otherwise, all we have is mixups, neutral, and mind games. Even Smash 4 has some small execution barriers like perfect pivot, and timing of pivot grabs, etc.

Execution is important, I wish people would stop mitigating it's importance. If you want to take this conversation further, we could discuss how important proper execution is in martial arts competitions, sports, and any remotely physical competitive endeavor.

 

[Ningildo]

Error, proof 404 not found.

Back up your statements, please. When has a GF been decided by a missed l-cancel? A missed tech, a flubbed Ledgedash etc are things that changed major matches.

Implying that L-cancelling is hard and/or a 1 frame window. And once mastered what can you do with it?

I'd like you to read my post on the previous page and address my points (on my phone so no linking ;_; ) before I say the exact same things here.

 

[Starfall11]

If you link it, I'd be happy to address it. A flubbed ledgedash has changed major matches, I've seen it happen time and time again. Agreed.

I still think L-cancelling is important. It's something you need to do, and if you don't. You can certainly be punished. So it has a practice use.

As I said, I'm all for a civil conversation. Did not mean to offend. Please link your post, and I'd love to read it over and refute/agree.

 

[Ningildo]

I just said...I'm on my phone and can't. I made one post on the previous page, just one, so you could look for my avatar on the previous page 9.9

 

[Bleck]

Let's look at other fighting games. Street Fighter, Guilty Gear, etc etc... all have 1 frame links. They also have shoryuken motions, quarter turns, tiger knee motions, etc. Why not take all of these motions out for an easier alternative? Why not turn 1-frame links into gatlings?

l-canceling isn't really comparable to these things

special commands and 1-frame links are things that when done correctly let your character do an action; l-canceling is a thing that when done correctly lets your character avoid the consequence of an action

the problem is that l-canceling doesn't come at a cost or require any meaningful degree of skill; since we continue to have no tangible evidence that a missed l-cancel has ever completely turned the tide of a match, literally the only thing that would happen if automatic l-canceling were implemented would be that people wouldn't have to l-cancel, which would barely change the metagame at all (the only thing that people seem to be able to mention as being meaningfully different would be some Ice Climbers stuff, and I don't think the game should continue to have archaic mechanics just for the very slight benefit of a character that's broken anyways)

if you think that the majority of the depth in Melee or PM comes from l-canceling, congratulations, you're wrong

(also note that special commands in fighting games are balanced around the timing required to input them, i.e the shakunetsu hadoken is more powerful than the standard hadoken at the cost of requiring more frames to actually input, a grappler's throws do very high damage because they require the most amount of frames to input, etc., and one frame links exist because otherwise the combos would do too much damage for very little cost)

Execution always has been and always will be an entry barrier to any good fighting game. Otherwise, all we have is mixups, neutral, and mind games.

mixups, neutral, and mind games are the parts of fighting games that actually matter

Even Smash 4 has some small execution barriers like perfect pivot, and timing of pivot grabs, etc.

and all of those barriers actually come at significant cost for failing them (a failed perfect pivot leads into a wonky wrong-way dash, for instance), and still involve decision-making (being able to perfect pivot doesn't matter if you do it at the wrong time or in the wrong way or lead it into the wrong attack), which is where the depth comes from

l-canceling comes at no cost, is rarely failed (and even when it is it barely ever matters unless you're also spacing poorly and using the wrong attacks to SHFFL with) and doesn't involve any meaningful decision-making - you just do it, every single time, and as such it doesn't add any actual depth to the game, and as such it doesn't actually matter if it's in the game

Execution is important, I wish people would stop mitigating it's importance.

nobody is trying to argue that execution isn't important - rather, that l-canceling doesn't really meaningfully add to the execution barrier at all

 

[Starfall11]

I read the post. You mentioned that these threads should be closed immediately, right?

I stand by my point that not L-cancelling gives frame advantage to your opponent. And if you don't do it, you will be punished. I am sure there are professional matches where someone missed the timing, was punished, and lost because of it. It makes perfect sense to have it as a mechanic. It does not serve a situational purpose like wavedashing, or dash dancing, but it still has a purpose.

If execution is not a barrier to L-cancelling. Why do people complain? If it's easy, why not do it and stop complaining. Just because L-cancelling is the absence of an action does not make it incomparable to 1 frame links.

The absence of an action is equally important as an action in certain situations.

 

[AuraMaudeGone]

I read the post. You mentioned that these threads should be closed immediately, right?

I stand by my point that not L-cancelling gives frame advantage to your opponent. And if you don't do it, you will be punished.

You might wanna fix that statement, you contradicted yourself. Also, can we stop speaking for pro players?

 

[Ningildo]

...I don't particularly like cherry picking. Or a lack of proof to back your statement. Show that it happens a significant amount of times instead of "there's probably a case", because until then, saying that missed L-cancels create openings is pretty baseless.

Edit: besides taking that part of my post (and ignoring everything else said with it), could you address the points I made in that post? @ Starfall11

 

[GP&B]

I stand by my point that not L-cancelling gives frame advantage to your opponent.

Which isn't that great of a point when failing to L-cancel is a negligible part of top level play. To cite Aftershock as a recent example (and hardly a rare one at that), punishes due to missed L-cancels were next to nonexistent. I saw far more punishes due to poorly spaced moves or optimal defensive responses. At top level play, L-canceling does not contribute to reasons why punishes happen very much at all; fundamentals and mental play do.

Yes your consistency should be good enough to never worry about ever messing up a technical input, or any input for that matter. As you state with certainty, it would be unreasonable to consider L-Cancel as a possible punish opportunity in high level play. In the same way, it would be unreasonable to expect an opportunity to punish during any other universal technique such as wavedashing, wavelanding, dacus, shfl. Point being that you cannot rely on technical mistakes for punishments because they are almost entirely absent from high level play, you've made this quite clear. This is not a special case for L-Cancel whatsoever.

We are in agreement here then.

The practical advantage L-Cancelling provides is quite obvious: Reduces landing lag. What seems to be the consensus on this thread is that people want to drop the unreasonable button input, but keep the practical advantage. Following this logic to the extreme would lead to questioning the very need for buttons themselves, controllers would become arbitrary and video games should just read your mind.

And now we're circling back to the main point I've been making: L-Canceling offers no variability or depth in its usage. This mechanic is singled out because it demands to be used but doesn't provide any value in doing so, only a practical advantage that arguably shouldn't even be locked behind a button press (and in a huge majority of other fighting games, it never is). It's a footnote asking you to press a button on top of all the connotations that involve using an aerial, of which L-Canceling doesn't add anything to. Removing the button press doesn't save you from learning the fundamentals of using your aerials well.

Another thing is that none of those other techniques can be simplified to a one-button macro without damaging their variability. SHFF on its own provides variation on when you choose to attack and when you choose to fast fall or if you try to autocancel. L-Canceling doesn't do anything for this compound action besides adding a button press. When removed, you're still left with all of the decision making that goes into a SHFF. Wavedashing is something that you can get comfortable with in a week and nail down in a month, but the practical advantages of it are not apparently obvious. There's no feasible way to simplify the action without likely hurting or removing wavelanding in some fashion and the angle of the stick can affect how far the slide goes as well. Shield dropping can't be simplified because shield + down is already mapped to an action (and it used to work this way in 64 before Melee introduced spot dodges). DACUS could in a sense be removed to leave you with JC USmash but being granted the option to choose between either is what gives it a place in your toolkit.

 

[Quillion]

l-canceling makes certain aerial moves have so few low recovery frames that approaching that character is generally unsafe

it's not surprising that games that are designed around flashy zero-to-death-or-close-enough-to-it combos would eventually favor a defensive metagame; it's like you people have never watched mahvel or something

That's what I'm saying, yo. As more people can L-cancel on shield, hit, and whiff, (practically auto-L-cancel), Melee is turning into a defensive game.

@masterpad
Ok, so, by your logic, people being able to preform aerials aggressively with a 0% chance of missing l-cancel would slow the game down? What the **** are you talking about. How is a "buff" to shield pressure and combo moves gonna slow the game down? The player on defense is the one that would punish a missed L-cancel.

(not that good players miss L-cancels often anyway, which all you guys assert yet none has supplied ANY proof for.)

Also, you are saying that because melee game (that has L-canceling) with a jigglypuff in it (a mid ranged zoner) was slow 2 years ago, removing L-canceling would slow the game down...

Safe+Defensive =/= slow, especially in a Melee environment, but it's still lame either way.

Even if 20XX comes around and everyone will simply SHDL each other, Up-Smash, and Star KO each other at the same time (with the winner determined by port priority), at least Melee will leave a lasting legacy of the memories of aggressive play.

 

[Starfall11]

My apologies for not being thorough enough in my explanation and my general wordiness. I will try to be more clear. @ Ningildo :

Things like wavedashing, dacus etc. are techs that not only require swift fingers, but experience and knowledge to maximize it's usefulness. L-cancelling on the other hand is a button you have to press to not give free frame advantage to your opponent and requires very little experience to maximize it's usefulness (knowing the timing both on hit and on whiff is all there really is lol).

I agree with you completely. L-cancelling does not take "application knowledge", you should always L-cancel no matter what. My only response would be: if it requires very little experience to maximize it's usefulness, why does it need to be removed? After a little practice, everyone should be able to do it consistently. According to what you said at least.

Then the options they give you. Wavedashing allows for better stage positioning, chasing for regrabs (marth fthrow) and so on. Dacus is mostly for extending your punish range but can be a situational movement option. L-cancelling just avoids giving free frame advantage and ensuring combos land properly. Also you HAVE to do it (characters like falcon don't wavedash often if at all, Dacus for some characters is trash, so those don't see universal use) because there's no reason not to unless you play icies.

Yes, I agree with you again. There is no situational usage for L-cancelling. You should always do it no matter what. I 100% agree.

It's not hard to do, doesn't add much and just is here becuz melee. I don't care much if it stays or goes, but god, have proper arguments for L-cancelling if you want to defend a arbitrary button press and provide proof instead of presenting a wall of text that's 99% based on theory, has no basis in practice, doesn't address opposition arguments because of that and doesn't amount to more then "more tech means harder to play and harder=better". Inb4 strawman accusation and not addressing my arguments.

Once again, if it's not hard to do. Why are we having this debate? Is this just a semantic debate about game mechanics, or are you actually advocating that it should be removed from the game? You said it was easy multiple times. It sounds like you're looking for a proper argument since you mentioned not caring whether it stays or goes.

Also, at this point the PMDT has heard enough and read enough threads like these to weigh pros and cons of L-cancelling and make their decision. L-cancelling threads are flame bait at this point and basically consists of one guy that thought he found the truth and wants to share this fresh, never before seen truth with the world. Yes, generalizing, but it's true. We've all heard the EXACT same arguments, pro and anti, at this point, but some uninformed (read:not able to use forum search) soul thought otherwise.

Lastly, I agree. The PMDT has the authority and knowledge to make the best decision regarding L-cancelling, so I trust them moving forwards.

Overall, I am an advocate for keeping L-cancelling in the game. It makes the learning curve slightly higher, and separates newcomers from more seasoned players. If we start arguing about the nature of arbitrary button presses, I believe we can start arguing about any advanced tech in fighting games. It is an execution barrier because it is an action which needs to be executed in order to minimize landing lag. Arbitrary or not, because it presents an execution barrier, I believe it should be kept.

Otherwise, the line gets blurry and we can start talking about turning other actions into easier inputs. Because essentially, auto L-cancelling would make the input simpler. It's not that L-cancelling was taken out of the game. It is that it's automatically performed upon landing. This man explained it better than I could have, but was more extreme:

The practical advantage L-Cancelling provides is quite obvious: Reduces landing lag. What seems to be the consensus on this thread is that people want to drop the unreasonable button input, but keep the practical advantage. Following this logic to the extreme would lead to questioning the very need for buttons themselves, controllers would become arbitrary and video games should just read your mind.

I agree with this 100%. Although extreme, he is right. Then wavedashing should be able to be performed with a different input, or a much more forgiving window. Execution is part of competition. So I don't know why people are arguing about this so much.

 

[GP&B]

That's what I'm saying, yo. As more people can L-cancel on shield, hit, and whiff, (practically auto-L-cancel), Melee is turning into a defensive game.

Sorry to break it to you but people have been consistently L-canceling in Melee for years. The game is defensive because punishes are so heavily optimized, which is much more dependent on practicing frame-tight setups and knowing how to react to every type of DI. This makes getting hit a serious consequence which places greater focus on not getting hit.

Once again, if it's not hard to do. Why are we having this debate? Is this just a semantic debate about game mechanics, or are you actually advocating that it should be removed from the game? You said it was easy multiple times. It sounds like you're looking for a proper argument since you mentioned not caring whether it stays or goes.

It's an upfront learning curve that does nothing for the player later down the line.

Overall, I am an advocate for keeping L-cancelling in the game. It makes the learning curve slightly higher, and separates newcomers from more seasoned players. If we start arguing about the nature of arbitrary button presses, I believe we can start arguing about any advanced tech in fighting games. It is an execution barrier because it is an action which needs to be executed in order to minimize landing lag. Arbitrary or not, because it presents an execution barrier, I believe it should be kept.

You're effectively saying "keep it just because it makes the game difficult for no legitimately good reason". The bolded is by definition elitist. Do you really want to insert and/or keep pointless execution barriers for the sake of creating an artificial skill gap? Why do you think intentional barriers should be put in place to separate experienced and newcomers when learning the fundamentals of the game plus the bevy of other actually useful techniques already does this in a much more natural fashion?

 

[Starfall11]

@ GP&B:

Which isn't that great of a point when failing to L-cancel is a negligible part of top level play. To cite Aftershock as a recent example (and hardly a rare one at that), punishes due to missed L-cancels were next to nonexistent. I saw far more punishes due to poorly spaced moves or optimal defensive responses. At top level play, L-canceling does not contribute to reasons why punishes happen very much at all; fundamentals and mental play do.

Then why are we arguing? Quit L-cancelling, make top 8 or win a tournament. If it's so unimportant, stop doing it, keep playing and see how well you perform. If you truly believe it is negligible, then why does it need to be removed?

And now we're circling back to the main point I've been making: L-Canceling offers no variability or depth in its usage. This mechanic is singled out because it demands to be used but doesn't provide any value in doing so, only a practical advantage that arguably shouldn't even be locked behind a button press (and in a huge majority of other fighting games, it never is). It's a footnote asking you to press a button on top of all the connotations that involve using an aerial, of which L-Canceling doesn't add anything to. Removing the button press doesn't save you from learning the fundamentals of using your aerials well.

L-cancelling does not offer any variability or depth. This has been said many times, and I agree with you. But let's look at Street Fighter:

Does inputting a quarter turn motion offer any variability or depth? No, so let's change the input to something easier to perform. Maybe forward and two buttons, or something not mapped to another input.

This is the argument which many of us defending L-cancelling are getting at. Removing L-cancelling is making everyone auto L-cancel, so essentially, that's less inputs. As a result, we could argue any game with a difficult input should be changed to something easier. Not every technique offers variability. But they are kept for execution purposes.

 

[Quillion]

The game is defensive because punishes are so heavily optimized, which is much more dependent on practicing frame-tight setups and knowing how to react to every type of DI. This makes getting hit a serious consequence which places greater focus on not getting hit.

I know. It's pretty much the other extreme from Brawl and Smash U, but both extremes eventually lead to the same conclusion.

If both less-landing-lag and lots-of-landing-lag will both lead to a defensive game, I'd rather go with the extra button press.

 

[Starfall11]

@ GP&B

You're effectively saying "keep it just because it makes the game difficult for no legitimately good reason". The bolded is an elitist mindset. Do you really want to insert and/or keep pointless execution barriers for the sake of creating an artificial skill gap? Why do you think intentional barriers should be put in place to separate experienced and newcomers when learning the fundamentals of the game plus the bevy of other actually useful techniques already does this in a much more natural fashion?

YES! Now you're getting at something. This is the real debate at issue here. At least in my opinion. Number one, removing it risks making all inputs easier. Or at least lends itself to that mentality. I do have an elitist mentality. If I didn't I would play something easier more focused on punishes/reads (Ex: Smash 4). I believe players should be rewarded for being good at executions. So it's not all a mind game. Otherwise, as someone mentioned. Controllers would be obsolete, and we would play with our minds.

 

[GP&B]

@ GP&B:Then why are we arguing? Quit L-cancelling, make top 8 or win a tournament. If it's so unimportant, stop doing it, keep playing and see how well you perform. If you truly believe it is negligible, then why does it need to be removed?

From the last post:

It's an upfront learning curve that does nothing for the player later down the line.

L-cancelling does not offer any variability or depth. This has been said many times, and I agree with you. But let's look at Street Fighter:

Does inputting a quarter turn motion offer any variability or depth? No, so let's change the input to something easier to perform. Maybe forward and two buttons, or something not mapped to another input.

This is the argument which many of us defending L-cancelling are getting at. Removing L-cancelling is making everyone auto L-cancel, so essentially, that's less inputs. As a result, we could argue any game with a difficult input should be changed to something easier. Not every technique offers variability. But they are kept for execution purposes.

Except bleck already covered part of why motion inputs add something to the game. The other part is that the control scheme doesn't offer a practical way to simplify these inputs while still giving you all the options you have. L/M/H are used to give you three different variants of the same special moves and there's already button combinations in place that give you either EX, Super, or Ultra versions as well. In addition to this, later Street Fighter games would offer multiple ways to shortcut commands to make them much easier to use (like how HCF can be performed by doing diagonal back to diagonal forward instead of the full range) which made new ways to use specials in different positions possible.

@ GP&B

YES! Now you're getting at something. This is the real debate at issue here. At least in my opinion. Number one, removing it risks making all inputs easier. Or at least lends itself to that mentality. I do have an elitist mentality. If I didn't I would play something easier more focused on punishes/reads (Ex: Smash 4). I believe players should be rewarded for being good at executions. So it's not all a mind game. Otherwise, as someone mentioned. Controllers would be obsolete, and we would play with our minds.

This post leads me to believe you have a very poor understanding of fighting games in general. Most of top level play is made up of nothing but punishes and reads in nearly any fighting game. It's just that Melee and PM have room for a ton of optimization compared to other Smash games. It would be a massive overstatement to say that L-Canceling plays a large part in this though. L-Canceling is something you're not going to be struggling with before high level play is even a concern. Optimized punishes come down to positioning well after landing hits, landing frame-tight follow ups, and making the best move choice for following up with, all which require extensive knowledge of the game.

 

[Quillion]

From the last post:



Except bleck already covered part of why motion inputs add something to the game. The other part is that the control scheme doesn't offer a practical way to simplify these inputs while still giving you all the options you have. L/M/H are used to give you three different variants of the same special moves and there's already button combinations in place that give you either EX, Super, or Ultra versions as well. In addition to this, later Street Fighter games would offer multiple ways to shortcut commands to make them much easier to use (like how HCF can be performed by doing diagonal back to diagonal forward instead of the full range) which made new ways to use specials in different positions possible.

Well, Street Fighter 4 is a crap competitive game. See:

So please don't compare the greatness of Project M to a terrible, overrated, horrible, campy game like that. No self-respecting PM fan should like Street Fighter.