why isnt melee HUGE?

[Dogysamich]

Oh man, I could go on for days about this topic. I'm going to keep it short since I know people dont wanna read rants.

1) This community is built around elitism.
-The community is the ONLY community where everything is collectively decided by a backroom. The rules, major metagame discussion (in the prime of the game), etc was all pretty much kept in a back room of higher ups.
-The community holds the game as an "elitist" game. "Our game is so great, we've got so much tech, only these characters work." Etc etc.
*Alot of people DONT want to be around that. It's annoying and unattactive
*Alot of people, for various reasons, DONT want to practice. (Even in the community, which is why "there are only 8 tourney viable characters")
-Smash holds itself as a "super unique, special entity" when it really isnt. This turns off alot of people

2) For what the game is (a fighting game), too much has to be done to play the game.
-Smash is the only game with an extensive rule list, including "unorthadoxed" character counter pick rules, that are "required" for tourney play.
-Smash flat out takes the longest to play by ages.
*1 game in smash can take up to 8 minutes.
*1 game in any other fighter is usually 1½ minutes, maybe more if there are frequent time stops (supers, ex flashes, etc)


I could go on and on, but meh atm.

Other points I could touch on.

-The "randomness" of smash. (As random as brawl is, when compared to other fighting games, melee is a very close second in randomness. Think of this, out of the all of the legal stages in the game, only 4 (maybe 5) have absolutely NO random elements. Battlefield, FD, POKEFLOATS AND CRUISE. So even if you play "neutrals only", you still have to fight random elements)

-Compared to other competitive fighters, smash is the only one where blocking is not a constant. (Shield stabbing). Big turnoff to alot of people.

________________

You have to look at it like this. There are 2 crowds of people you can pull from, people who play fighting games and people who dont. The way the community works and acts, we actually do alot to turn away BOTH pools.

We talk about how "technical and great" our game is, when it's really not. (Dont try this arguement with me, you wont win.) The community is built on elitism and takes forever to run a tournament WHEN COMPARED TO OTHER GAMES. (I mean seriously, look at ROM. You want to really try and tell me M2k and Mango seriously landed on the opposite sides of the brackets? That is far from the first time brackets were fixed, and it's far from the last time. That's actually how this community works)

Stuff like that turns off people who play other fighters.

Then we go around saying "Oh, there's no way Ness can ever compete. Not even if you pick up a decent character to cover your horrid matchups. You cant win playing Ness." That turns off alot of people who want to play and use their favorite characters. If your favorite character is kirby, "by law of the land, you're ****ed."

All in all, I seriously think the community did it to ourselves.

______

tl;dr - No f**k it, you read this post. The whole thing is the tl;dr version of my arguement.

 

[Masmasher@]

For someone with no experience and average fingers (that is, the fingers of an average person, not an average Melee player)?
And tech skill isn't even the half of it.


Losing every single ****ing match because everyone around you has been playing for years and you don't stand the slightest chance against them while still trying to become good at the game is much more like work than fun.

Melee's age has brought about a "skill wall" that keeps new players from coming in unless they're very determined, and most people aren't. It's very hard to get into a game where everyone around you has been playing for a long time and you have literally no chance of competing with them until you've done the same... assuming that they aren't getting better themselves.

I wish i could have someone to whoop my a$$ in this game as of now hardly anyone i know plays smash and when they do its mostly brawl cause they are lazy.
Fighting games in general (like most things in life) take work. Thats what most companies are forgetting these days when they make games. Fighting game might be a hobby but its very much a big part of how i tend to approach things like school, track and working. The mindsets of "play to win", Have fun" are very important for my personal Feng Shui

 

[Jihnsius]

-Compared to other competitive fighters, smash is the only one where blocking is not a constant. (Shield stabbing). Big turnoff to alot of people.

I agree with most of your post, but this part is not true at all. GG and BB have a guard gauge that'll put you in counterhit state if you don't try to approach, some SFs and MvC1/2 have guard crushes and grab resets, the Tekken series has tons of unblockables and every grab leads to a 50%+ combo, DoA combos can be blocked in the middle of a string, etc.

Melee's shield sliding isn't much different from blocking high/mid/low in other fighters with the inclusion of a built-in guard gauge.

EDIT: Also, as far as rigged brackets are concerned, most large bracketed tournaments are seeded either from past results or from pools/qualifiers. It's very rare to ever see high ranked players meet in the first rounds of a bracket, it's usually seeded top vs bottom and then works it's way to the middle alternating diagonally in the brackets so 1, 2, 3, and 4 don't meet until semifinals. Otherwise you'd have top 4 players knocking eachother out of the tournament.

 

[soma ghost]

I think I am figuring out that the reasons why some people don't enjoy the game are the exact same reasons that make others love it.

 

[rehab]

Fighting game players despise this community. Largely, they think we make idiots of ourselves and make useless drama out of bull**** constantly, and generally cause them a lot of grief just trying to put ourselves in the same realm as them. They think we are a bunch of ******** kids.

-Smash holds itself as a "super unique, special entity" when it really isnt. This turns off alot of people

This

This

This

This

This

This

This


This



This






Thisssthisthisthisthis

People who say Melee has so much depth compared to other fighters: Do you know what you're talking about? Do you know the implications of highs, lows, overheads vs smash's shield system? Do you know other games' oki options? Do you know how quickly you have to input movements to get an acceptable BnB in other fighters? Do you know negative edge? Do you know what you're doing when you complain about defensive playstyles in a game where it's actually pretty freak easy to gain lost ground anyway, and do you know what it takes to be good at defense?

 

[Jihnsius]

People who say Melee has so much depth compared to other fighters: Do you know what you're talking about? Do you know the implications of highs, lows, overheads vs smash's shield system? Do you know other games' oki options? Do you know how quickly you have to input movements to get an acceptable BnB in other fighters? Do you know negative edge? Do you know what you're doing when you complain about defensive playstyles in a game where it's actually pretty freak easy to gain lost ground anyway, and do you know what it takes to be good at defense?

We're not saying other fighting games aren't deep at all, we're saying Melee just happens to be more deep than them. For every strategy or technique in Melee there is a viable defense to it, that can't be said for any other fighting game to date. There is only one true infinite in Melee (Fox's wallshine, which isn't possible in tournament play) and everything else that seems broken or cheap has a reliable way to get around it. Of course it wasn't planned like this, it just happened. DI, SDI, and ASDI are probably the main factors in what makes this game so complex, it's never been done before and adds an entirely different aspect to the game, and that's barely scratching the surface as far as innovation goes.

 

[Phoenix~Lament]

For the record, the average Smash game takes 3~5 minutes, not 8.

 

[Perpz]

The OP makes shooters seem so simple.

Halo 3 and Gears go into just as much depth as SSBM does. There are many things to learn and many stratigies to be made. It's not all about shoot this ***** and run.

thats because they are simple...

 

[Perpz]

Where do you live? If it's near me, I'll practice with you.

i live in california but i visit charleston sometimes.

 

[Masmasher@]

Rehab and dogysamich are right though
anyone that says smash takes more depth than something like Virtua fighter or Blazblue is clearly smoking something extremely potent.
Also Di and all that stuff have been done before. Soul calibur and guilty gear did it before smash thought about it. AKA teching and aerial control.

 

[Perpz]

halo is team coordination combined with reaction speed and accuracy. i enjoy playing it and i enjoy watching pro matches, but the depth and strategy is nothing to melee.

melee still hasnt hit its maximum depth, 8 years later. you have a limited area to share with someone trying to punish you for every small mistake you do. it is a super high paced game of keep away. you have to understand your opponent's strategy and movements 100% while simultaneously moving and staying unpredictable. every combo has many opportunities for escape if you make the right decision, but both players are in each other's head so much its hard to make an unexpected decision.

i'm not exaggerating when i say melee is the best game ever made. i have never found another game as deep and gratifying.

i completely agree, and so do many other people.

 

[Skrlx]

why isn't SMASH 64 HUGE?

that is the question
seriously no joke
smash 64 > melee > brawl

 

[Perpz]

why isn't SMASH 64 HUGE?

that is the question
seriously no joke
smash 64 > melee > brawl

cuz n64 controller sucks

 

[Dogysamich]

Before I go on, I should have (forgot to, lol) mention that every reason that I list why people dont get into smash are actual reasons why people dont get into it. Im not saying it's my fact, but I've literally asked alot of people (since I've been going to various tourneys)

-block systems-

-smash shielding-

-brackets-.

First, my arguement was the sheer notion of blocking itself. When you block in ANY OTHER FIGHTING GAME, the block goes through. If the game has guard crush, you guard will be crushed for blocking too much too often, but every time you hold back (or the guard button in that game), the block WILL happen.

In smash, just because you press the shield button doesnt always mean your block is going to happen. Yes you can light shield, yes you can shield angle, but you have to realize that with some attacks, your shield is going to get so small that you literally CANNOT block it.

As for the point of blocking high, mid, low; melee's shielding IS different from the concept of overhead(or mid)/low blocking. It's different because levels dont exist in smash. Just because marth d.tilts doesnt mean I MUST block it low. I just have to block the hitbox. Just because falco jumps in with a d.air doesnt mean I have to pull my shield up. I can just block it.

You can get some bonuses for angling against those attacks, but you dont HAVE to.

There really is only 1 mixup in smash. Hit or throw.

__

And brackets.

Look, there's a difference between seeding and fixing the brackets.

Sticking with my ROM example (since everybody knows it), It's pretty safe to assume Mango and M2k landed first seed. With that alone, it makes perfect sense they're not going to play first or even second round (that'd be rigged the OTHER way if they did). But what you're telilng me is that it's purely by chance that THE 2 MOST TALKED ABOUT PEOPLE AT THE TOURNEY landed on complete opposite sides of the bracket? There's no way that, oh say, shizwiz couldnt have landed in ether one of those spots. Or any other high calibur player.

It happens all the time in smash, that's how the community has been brought it. And although it makes for a "better event" in the end, it is a turnoff for some people.

I think I am figuring out that the reasons why some people don't enjoy the game are the exact same reasons that make others love it.

When it comes to gameplay mechanics, that's exactly what happens.

No fighter is perfect. Period. It's pretty easy to pick out something to hate about every one of them. (Except arguably GGAC, but even that has some faults to it).

But the stuff people love about one game is the same stuff people hate about others.

I.e. Sf4's revenge, Tekken's juggling mechanic, CvS2's defensive heavy system, etc etc.

Im not going to lie, it's real easy to pick on the faults of smash, but NOBODY can say **** on it like another game is perfect.

Fighting game players despise this community. Largely, they think we make idiots of ourselves and make useless drama out of bull**** constantly, and generally cause them a lot of grief just trying to put ourselves in the same realm as them. They think we are a bunch of ******** kids.

You'd be surprised what kinda bogus *** reasons I've heard for other communities hating the smash community.

The kid arguement is somewhat viable, seeing how the average smasher is younger than the average ____ game player. But alot of people can look past that.

It really comes down to backgrounds, upbringings, etc etc etc. I mean, I've heard the stories of people getting shot at over Tekken (literally), but I cant imagine something like that happening in Smash. At the same time, I dont see the MvC2 community really giving 2 ****s about "being on a boat".

We're not saying other fighting games aren't deep at all, we're saying Melee just happens to be more deep than them. For every strategy or technique in Melee there is a viable defense to it, that can't be said for any other fighting game to date. There is only one true infinite in Melee (Fox's wallshine, which isn't possible in tournament play) and everything else that seems broken or cheap has a reliable way to get around it. Of course it wasn't planned like this, it just happened. DI, SDI, and ASDI are probably the main factors in what makes this game so complex, it's never been done before and adds an entirely different aspect to the game, and that's barely scratching the surface as far as innovation goes.

Melee isnt deeper than other fighters. That's something alot of people dont see around here. There's only 1 real mixup (hit or throw), and then comboing becomes a different dynamic of the okizeme/wakeup phase. I mean you point out DI yourself, and it's understood that most "combos" in this game dont happen if you actually DI well, meaning by definition they're not combos.

Beyond that saying the game is complex is really opinion. DI doenst really make it complex, you hold a direction to influence hits. Because of this, you can abuse the mechanic to allow yourself to counter attack immediately or prevent further followups.

What kills the melee complexity arguement is alot of various game mechanics. You can fix mistakes by pressing a button (l canceling), characters with attacks that basically NOBODY can beat (fox nair), chaingrabbing (read: I can fish for a relatively safe move, and if I connect I get a stock), only 1 real "option" ever (the hit/grab mixup)
___

There IS depth to melee, that's a fact.

But to say melee is DEEPER than, well realistically anything else played competitively.

For the record, the average Smash game takes 3~5 minutes, not 8.

Well, if you want to talk about averages, lets go like this.

I'll let you take the low number and say smash takes about 3 minutes. The average fighting game round takes about 30 seconds.

Lets assume somebody gets 2-0'd. You have a 6 minute match vs a 2 minute match. All game time.

___

That adds up. Especially considering how smash is the only game that, by default, does pools at major events.

Which is another thing people hate about smash. Pools. That's double edged, though. (Im keeping this short)

If you only run brackets, the tourney gets done in a timely manner.

If you run pools, EVERYBODY is entitled to their money's worth of matches.

 

[Rat]

@Dsamwich
Only 1 mix-up? Hit or throw?

I can understand that point only if you define mix-up in the sense of a traditional 2D fighter (melee does not have high, low, or more).
I would rather define Mix-ups in Melee in regards to dodging and movement. It's not a question of "will they grab or block", "which pressure string should I use", or "should I DP/throw/block on get-up." But more of where they will be, what space will they occupy, and what angle will they attack at. Basically I'm trying to say that spacing in melee has many more factors than a traditional 2D fighter, and creates most of the okizeme moments.


I do agree with you about elitism in smash. I hate the d***-riding in this community.

 

[Jihnsius]

Much respect to your post, Dogy. All very valid points, but I just can't see any other fighter in the same depth that I see Melee in.

Most fighting games are played on a small rectangular field with no stage obstacles other than walls (which are often times the side of the TV.) The object of every other fighter is to drain the health of the opponent, preferably getting them against the wall for easy combos and infinites. Game specific ATs and gimmicks aside, that's about all it comes down to. Smash is the only competitive game that doesn't follow this cookie-cutter gameplay. In fact, it's the farthest away from that as possible.

You don't try to physically kill your opponent with attacks, you try to push him and keep him off the stage. In changing the goal to something so vastly different, they had to go with a different form of damage, and incremental knockback was created. The exact opposite of other fighters. Instead of each supplemental attack doing less knockback due to gravity (GG, Tekken,) or less damage due to damage scaling (everything else,) each attack actually does more knockback than the one before it. This creates for a vastly different strategy. Not only can you not physically kill your opponent, but your combos become much harder to perform as each life progresses. In fact, it often times gets to a point where many characters can no longer combo for a kill and they have to rely solely on baiting and prediction to lie the final blow to either knock them out of the boundaries for the win or to get them off the stage to begin an entire different set of metagame and strategies. And interaction with the stage isn't limited to just stand or fall on or off it, you can even grab ledges, tether walls, and jump off walls.

There are no predefined attacks in Melee that cancel into eachother, which is what every other fighter's premise is. Instead we have IASA frames and cutting the lag of aerials in half. It's a very open ended design with very little boundaries. In the GG series, the only thing close to this system would be RC and FRC, canceling the lag of attacks at any given point with the use of 1/2 or 1/4 of your meter respectively. GGAC took it a slight step further and added FBs, but what attacks can be canceled is still predetermined and soley based on your meter.

DI is something we've never seen before in this fashion. Sure it might have been done before in small scale, but now that the playing field is so much larger and you have so much more room to travel amongst you and your opponent, influencing the direction of knockback is as high as +/- 45 degrees of your original trajectory. This creates for an entirely different form of survival strategy. Now instead of simply looking for frame traps to jump out of or grab resets to punish, you can actually somewhat control where the enemy sends you. In most cases you can either move towards or away from the enemy, creating a massively variable pantheon of mixup options for surviving. When have you ever seen the ability to have a large amount of options always available to you during the enemy's combo to help you survive? Any other fighter will give you only two options: stay in the combo and take the damage or use your meter to escape.

As far as shielding/blocking goes, most fighters have high/mid/low. Some have airblocking, others don't. But that's about the gist of it. It's either you block the hit or you get hit, there's rarely any other addition to that equation except for characters with counters, block-counters, and alpha assists in team games. In Melee you have the ability to shield in place, roll out of the shield either forwards or backwards, dodge in place, jump, grab, or even -attack- out of your shield. No other fighting game gives you these options without first dropping your block.

The fact that there are actual stages in this game with environments (and some of them variable in themselves, at that,) is amazing in itself. Explaining the intricacies of adding unique stages to the already unique aspect that is Smash would be impossible, it increases the metagame's depth exponentially.

Then there are the characters. While the theoretical design of the characters isn't too different from other fighting games, it's the application and intelligent control of their simple "one button one action" movements and attacks. Every character has at least four unique jumps: short hop, full jump, double jump, and up-B (and that one can be used as an attack for most characters.) Some characters even have multiple air jumps and some characters even have side-B attacks that can be used as an extra jump/recovery move.

 

[Hax]

it's the best game ever made, but it's old and there's a new version of it out. i think the fact that it isn't the latest game in the series is enough to steer some people clear

 

[Masmasher@]

All those things that can be done out of shield can be done in KOF XI.
Of course Di is more influenced in this game. The point is to knock your opponent out of the area.
Also having so many options while getting comboed kind of degenerates the meaning of the word.
There are still true combos in the game though.
If you want to play a game with interaction of the levels while fighting you could play battle stadium don or power stone.
Smash doesnt have more depth than other fighting games. it just does something a little unorthodox from other fighting games. Also it wasnt exactly made for the "high level fighting" we see it as. Its just that we as a community agreed on a base set of rules and morphed it into our own image.
Still wish that melee was in MLG though.

 

[rehab]

We're not saying other fighting games aren't deep at all, we're saying Melee just happens to be more deep than them. For every strategy or technique in Melee there is a viable defense to it, that can't be said for any other fighting game to date. Not really bro, Fox/Falco ****ing on your shield a lot more straightforward and rewarding that almost any kind of traditional jump in ever, there's more risk+less linearity involved almost everything in traditional fighters than them getting a chance to go aggro on your shield. Is there a way around it? Yeah. Does that make it not bull**** in a FG player's eyes? Nah. Risk vs. Reward is generally very lopsided and wonky in Smash compared to other fighters.

There is only one true infinite in Melee (Fox's wallshine, which isn't possible in tournament play) If you think every fighter is busting with infinites with universal apps, you simply do not know your ****. The infinites I have seen in comp play of any game: Marvel (enough said) and a very rare j.MP Ryu Alpha 3 infinite requiring your opponent to be juggled in the corner at a certain height etc, which was pulled out by Daigo. "Almost no infinites" is not a bragging point.


and everything else that seems broken or cheap has a reliable way to get around it. Of course it wasn't planned like this, it just happened. DI, SDI, and ASDI are probably the main factors in what makes this game so complex, it's never been done before and adds an entirely different aspect to the game, and that's barely scratching the surface as far as innovation goes. Barring that setups for combos are incredibly simple in smash, if you think Smash has a complicated combo system Guilty Gear will absolutely blow your god ****ed mind. While not the same, Guilty Gear even has fully similar ways to "jump out" of combos, plus complex positioning that must be processed in fractions of a second while nonlinear inputs are whizzing by at lightspeed. Is DI an interesting mechanic? Yeah. Does it make a combo system light years above every other fighting game out there? Hell in a ****basket no

Misc: Cheap. Is. Nothing. If you bring up the word to most players of different games, you get an arctic shoulder. The two extremes of "Put up or shut up, we aren't making you play this game which has tactics you don't like in it" or "Somebody can be called out for playing a certain way" do not mix much, and this is one of the things Smash gets a poor rap for.

Smash also gets a bad rap because many think more technical=more better. For one thing, that's ********, and for another, that's ********, and for another, if you were really hardcore about playing dat technical **** onry, you would either be Frankensteining together a Darkstalkers scene from the abyss, playing Guilty Gear in even more scattered patches than Smash or practicing Virtua Fighter with all of you and yourself.

 

[SDC]

another obvious reason: nobody cares/cared about the gamecube 0_0 lol

 

[rehab]

GG's canceling is far more open ended than Smash's anything. IASA is cosmetic. Smash is not the only game with rolls, and has fairly crappy rolls actually. Smash's movement options are the farthest thing from unique.

 

[JJfox]

@Dsamwich

I do agree with you about elitism in smash. I hate the d***-riding in this community.

You're soooo cool Rat I love you! I'm your biggest fan and that you should have won that tourney, we're mates in real life and I hope we can chat some time man. Remember all off our personal jokes! LOL!

 

[Jihnsius]

There's nothing better than trying to have a debate citing reasonable sources and getting flamed for it. You attempt to bash me and tell me to give so and so game a try before I "jump to my conclusions." Did you even read my post? I used all the games you mentioned as examples in my post, wouldn't one assume that means I've at least played the game?

Guilty Gear has a couple combo breaker options, first and foremost being burst, but that requires half of your meter. The second one would be teching, and that's technically not combo breaking considering you have to be in a non-stunned state to tech.

I didn't use Melee's lack of infinites as a 'plus' for the game, I meant to suggest that there was one point in time where we thought there were dozens of them until we found out that Melee's engine had neat, whether intentional or not, tricks to get you out of those traps.

As for rolls, I never said anything about just the ability to roll, I was talking about OOS options. No other game has as many options for escaping shieldpressure.

Look, the game is extremely situational in that every aspect of it is variable; attacks, stages, knockback, etc, etc... There is no other fighting game that comes anywhere near to being as close as Melee is to a truly dynamic fighting game. The game is nothing more than case construction after case construction. No two actions will happen the same in a high level match. End of story. No other fighter can say that.

Seriously, guys, if you want to argue, please at least read the entire post and think about it for a minute.

 

[MoblinMan]

Plus, you can turn your back to the opponent and moon him. **** yeah!

 

[rehab]

Tell me where I insulted you personally. The closest thing to it I implied is that you do not know your fighters well enough to be championing Melee above others. That is pretty far from flaming, and many would give you far more detailed hell for the same statement. You may have played the games, but I find it legit to question your knowledge of what is going on.

Smash doesn't have meter to manage. Does it need it? Nah. Do other games make something of it that smash doesn't? Yeah.

If you weren't going to make such a point about infinites and imply that many other widely played games have them, bringing it up was pointless.

Many games have detailed universal options on block that could be called similar to melee, such as various forms of counters, parries, and roll escapes, most of which are more difficult to perform than Melee's OOS options. It's not a big deal.

No two actions will happen the same in a high level match. End of story. No other fighter can say that.

Uh, nah? That's straight up nonsense dude, spacing in KOF, Marvel, GG, many games are dynamic as all ****. You seriously are shoveling **** if you think the level of situaional awareness required to play and space in smash is above and beyond all the other fighters out there.

Trying to pull the "I'm too exasperated to deal with this unrestrained, misunderstanding hate" card to what I am saying after what NES NOOB went through with dignity at SRK is pointless. Don't be that guy.

 

[Dogysamich]

@Dsamwich
Only 1 mix-up? Hit or throw?

I can understand that point only if you define mix-up in the sense of a traditional 2D fighter (melee does not have high, low, or more).
I would rather define Mix-ups in Melee in regards to dodging and movement. It's not a question of "will they grab or block", "which pressure string should I use", or "should I DP/throw/block on get-up." But more of where they will be, what space will they occupy, and what angle will they attack at. Basically I'm trying to say that spacing in melee has many more factors than a traditional 2D fighter, and creates most of the okizeme moments.

Well you have to think of it like this. If mixup in smash dodging and movement, then smash actually has NO mixups. Because dodging and movement exists in every fighting game. (It's called positioning XD)

If you want to use the "number of movements" melee has to offer, you're actually downplaying the mixup aspect seeing how all of melee's movement options are really just ways around limitations

So if you want to base it around movement/dodging, what's really being said is "Melee's entire mixup comes from ONE of the 3 forms of defense. Evasion".

Spacing in melee has more factors that creates more okizeme moments? Na. The lack of real combos in melee create more okizeme moments.

Most fighting games are played on a small rectangular field with no stage obstacles other than walls (which are often times the side of the TV.) The object of every other fighter is to drain the health of the opponent, preferably getting them against the wall for easy combos and infinites. Game specific ATs and gimmicks aside, that's about all it comes down to. Smash is the only competitive game that doesn't follow this cookie-cutter gameplay. In fact, it's the farthest away from that as possible.

That's true, yes. But think of it like this; how many of those obstacles are consistant?

I mean, take pokemon stadium for example. You have 5 stage forms, and they're all the same everytime they come up. However, you cant predict what's going to come up or even when it'll come up. If the stage changes 3 times, rock coming up 3 times for fox is alot different than fire/water/fire.

You can argue that it adds depth in that "you need to have a strategy for every form", but you could also argue that it takes away depth because you cant predict, strategize, and position according to a set stage change. (Yes, i know the **** thing tells you in the back ground well ahead of the actual stage change, but some characters straight up CANNOT be intimidated to the other side because of it).

As for the actual strategy on most of those formations, it usually winds up being "go camp on the other side of X, because them coming over is a bad choice."

-win criteria with a bit on stage interaction-

Ok, think of it like this.

The 1st criteria to win any fighting game is to take all of your opponents health. That's the end of the round. For some reason, most people look at health in smash as the % number. It's the stock. No matter what happens, if all 4 stocks are gone, that's the end of the round. The only difference setting somebody up to take one.

Is it different? Yes. Deeper than other games? Not specifically. Some characters dont need a big intricite strategy to set people up, just go run at them, do stuff, get them off the stage. You CAN come up with some strategy (chip at them, punish mistakes, get them to the magic number, toss their *** off the top), but it's not required for alot of characters. That's why they're good.

All in all, the goal actually is still the same; take all of their health.

More specifically, because of how this works, and because of smash's mechanic, instead of having all 3 possible criteria to win a game (take all health, have the most health at the end of time, or ring out), criteria 1 and 3 get lumped into one objective, since taking "health" in this game IS "knocking them out of the ring."


.... kinda a farfetched idea, but I imagine you see my point. >.>

___

As for stage interaction, some games have it, some dont. You talk about jumping off of walls as one thing. Chun-li's been able to jump off of walls since she's been created. Same with Vega. Strider can wall hug in MvC2. In aside from the obvious "throw somebody into a wall and combo the mess out of them" of 3D fighters, Tekken does (or did at one point) have wall jumps for some characters, DoA actually has specific wall throws, and VF.... well I dunno about VF, I never got too much into that game. XD

There are no predefined attacks in Melee that cancel into eachother

Jab combos, Marth/Roy Side-B combos.

-Di in the presence of other games-

I'm going to sum this up real quick. Soul calibur.

-blocking-.

Ok, you just listed a load of options, said they're from shield, but argued that other games dont let you do anything from block.

First off, alot of those options appear in other games (rolling/spotdodging from the KoF series and other games it was placed in (CvS series). "Jumping" = counter movement or guard movement, whatever the game calls it. Parrying is a good point somebody brought up, just defend being a spin off of it. There are loads of defensive options in other games, and most of them actually DONT require you to block. (Infact, that's why they're there, to branch off of the 3 defense system).

Second, since you want to talk about hit or not get hit, atleast in other games when you block you generally have to make the notion to block on the correct level. Again, smash doesnt have that. If marth f.smashes, you just block. You dont have to put the shield higher since it's an overhead swing, you just block.

The fact that there are actual stages in this game with environments (and some of them variable in themselves, at that,) is amazing in itself. Explaining the intricacies of adding unique stages to the already unique aspect that is Smash would be impossible, it increases the metagame's depth exponentially.

3d fighters have unique stages.

Now, smash's stages are more dynamic, yes. That's how the game is. That's why smash has a lengthy counter pick rule. (which, staying on topic, is yet another reason why some people dont like smash).

The aspects of the stages being variable is actually a turn-OFF more than it is a turn-ON. It's like poker; you can make all of the right moves and right reads you want, but sometimes on FoD, you're d.air isnt coming out because the platform lifted up a bit. Every other time you try, you can throw Peach off the stage, but some flyguys just came on screen, so now she's just going up.

Variables dont specifically add depth. Especially when they're randomly generated.

Then there are the characters. While the theoretical design of the characters isn't too different from other fighting games, it's the application and intelligent control of their simple "one button one action" movements and attacks. Every character has at least four unique jumps: short hop, full jump, double jump, and up-B (and that one can be used as an attack for most characters.) Some characters even have multiple air jumps and some characters even have side-B attacks that can be used as an extra jump/recovery move.

First, you list the jumps as if characters in other fighters DONT have any differences to movements. That's to say Dhalsim's jump is the same as Blankas, or Storm's ability to fly, in the grand scheme of things means nothing.

-continues to actually read the segment- Oh, this is basically saying "In smash, every character has their own specific movement mechanics."

Well, if you look at something like jumps alone, you could easily group alot of characters together in other games. But that'd be like somebody saying "everybody's movement is the same in melee because everybody can walk and run." There's alot more to it.

Lets see.

3D fighters, you have to consider stuff like character size, step size, step speed, run speed, etc etc.

2d fighters you have stuff like can they flat out run or do they just dash, dash speed, dash distance, jump length, jump height, wall jumps, double jumps (triple jumps in some games), etc etc.

Looking at jump arcs is really just tip of the ice berg.

Random tidbit: platform dashing in melee is basically air dashing on tracks. Think about it, start in a set spot, commit to a specific movement. It's just in melee, you MUST have a platform to waveland across, so you cant do stuff like Instand Air Dashes.

Misc: Cheap. Is. Nothing. If you bring up the word to most players of different games, you get an arctic shoulder. The two extremes of "Put up or shut up, we aren't making you play this game which has tactics you don't like in it" or "Somebody can be called out for playing a certain way" do not mix much, and this is one of the things Smash gets a poor rap for.

I'd like to just agree with you, but really I see both ends of that in all games. Eddie is "gay as f***" in GGAC, Storm runs all day, Sagat .... (need I say more? XD), Hilde in SC4.

Whenever somebody makes a comment like this about smash, it's usually somebody just nitpicking for a reason to hate the game.

Now, there is alot more whining about cheap in smash than in other games (which I think is what you're getting at), but it's not like it DOESNT exist in other games. What happens is that smash just brings a wider spectrum of skill level. (Because of the game's accessibility in terms of skill)

Smash also gets a bad rap because many think more technical=more better. For one thing, that's ********, and for another, that's ********, and for another, if you were really hardcore about playing dat technical **** onry, you would either be Frankensteining together a Darkstalkers scene from the abyss, playing Guilty Gear in even more scattered patches than Smash or practicing Virtua Fighter with all of you and yourself.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ THIS, RIGHT HERE ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

That's one thing that makes me laugh so hard about this community. Technical = good, and apparently technical can ONLY come with speed.

As a whole, we dont see precision as technical, just speed. I really dont understand that. But that's another arguement for another day.

another obvious reason: nobody cares/cared about the gamecube 0_0 lol

*nods* true. It's the **** controller's fault.

P.o.s., garbage to play anything on, analog wears out.

Guilty Gear has a couple combo breaker options, first and foremost being burst, but that requires half of your meter. The second one would be teching, and that's technically not combo breaking considering you have to be in a non-stunned state to tech.
Half? Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaare you talkin about an older version of GG, or you talking about GGAC, which would take your whole burst meter for a guarenteed get out of combo burst.

... of course, assuming you do it at the right time so your opponent cant actuallY BAIT the burst and punish that.

... or if you do it too high so there's actually no merit for your burst and you get punished for it anyway

... and that's also assuming you dont want to save your burst for an offensive burst and get max tension.


-Depth to burst system-

As for rolls, I never said anything about just the ability to roll, I was talking about OOS options. No other game has as many options for escaping shieldpressure.

*points back up a bit*

Look, the game is extremely situational in that every aspect of it is variable; attacks, stages, knockback, etc, etc... There is no other fighting game that comes anywhere near to being as close as Melee is to a truly dynamic fighting game. The game is nothing more than case construction after case construction. No two actions will happen the same in a high level match. End of story. No other fighter can say that.

That's not entirely true, but it's true enough to be yet another reason why people dont like smash.

Sometimes 2 attacks will clank because they're of similar strength, and everybody gets off fine. Other times, 1 of those same 2 attacks will out prioritize the other because it's damage has scaled down some. There's no way to tell because there's no on screen indicator for attacks, not to mention that the rate of scaling is (to some degree) random.

Some people do not like random. That's a fact.

___

m2k was around a while ago talking about how he gets "random results" from beating the same person, 3 stocks them one game, 1 stocks them another, 2 stocks them the third, and it keeps going. It's because there are enough (not "so many", enough) unmanimpulatable variables to actually matter.

Whispy woods blowing isnt a big deal, until you're trying to space a cape vs marth so you dont catch the up+b. Stage patterns on stadium dont matter too much, until you're forced to give up your advantage cause peach jumped in the rock hole.

Some people just flat out DO NOT go for that.

Seriously, guys, if you want to argue, please at least read the entire post and think about it for a minute.

Just quoting this cause stuff like this is always important.

 

[Cosmo!]

soul calibur's AC has much, much less depth than melee's DI system. its a joke to compare the two

 

[Masmasher@]

Well yeah It obviously doesnt need it as much as smash does but it still stands that the idea isnt original.

Besides from hildes doom combo (which is broken and needs to be patched cause charge 2 should not relaunch) nothing in soul calibur really needs to be DIed that much. The system is good for the simple escape of escaping from a juggles (which shouldnt be a standing point in gathering damage in SC anyway)
If you think it is you dont know how to play the game.

 

[KirbyMcKirby]

A ton of nonselsical green shiz.

Kindly go ****yourself, as Melee Falcon ***** your Gears. Good day.

little noob knows nothing about smash

 

[Masmasher@]

Kindly go ****yourself, as Melee Falcon ***** your Gears. Good day.

little noob knows nothing about smash

Or maybe it made sense and you are being a fanboy.

 

[rehab]

No doubt, Dogy's reaction

 

[Dogysamich]

soul calibur's AC has much, much less depth than melee's DI system. its a joke to compare the two

Yeah. I was just point out that it's there, and has been there for a while. (I forget if AC was in Soul Edge or not, but I'm pretty sure it's been around since SC1. I could be horribly wrong about that though)

Well yeah It obviously doesnt need it as much as smash does but it still stands that the idea isnt original.

Besides from hildes doom combo (which is broken and needs to be patched cause charge 2 should not relaunch) nothing in soul calibur really needs to be DIed that much. The system is good for the simple escape of escaping from a juggles (which shouldnt be a standing point in gathering damage in SC anyway)
If you think it is you dont know how to play the game.

Actually, there's alot in the game you have to AC so that bs combos that shouldnt work dont work.

Really isnt anything beyond that.

 

[Jihnsius]

Just quoting this cause stuff like this is always important

And I love your input, you actually take the time to think your thoughts through and raise very valid points.

I think I may not be getting my main thoughts across: when the system is broken down and analyzed piece by piece it's very easy to make correlations to other fighters. In fact, it could even be said that no aspect of Melee has not been done before in a fighter, but that's not what we're looking at. What I'm trying to say is that this game is unique in every single subsystem, there is essentially no generic cookie-cutter fighter subsystem found in this game, and the way it brings those subsystems together is also brilliantly done. Sure Guilty Gear has extremely unique aspects about it that have never been seen before, but the fact of the matter is that it still relies heavily on the basic format, hit mechanic, and cancelation principles brought about in SF2. Almost every fighting game relies heavily on a lot of the same fundamental principles. As far as I know, Smash is one of few, if not the only, game that doesn't abide by any of these rules.

When you put all of these dynamic subsystems together you get what Smash was designed to be. But overall I think the cream of the crop would be wavedashing: the ability to near instantly change your momentum and positioning to something you deem more suitable.

 

[Masmasher@]

Yeah. I was just point out that it's there, and has been there for a while. (I forget if AC was in Soul Edge or not, but I'm pretty sure it's been around since SC1. I could be horribly wrong about that though)


Actually, there's alot in the game you have to AC so that bs combos that shouldnt work dont work.

Really isnt anything beyond that.

I meant how long you have to put the input and the amount of prediction. For most juggles you really just have to push backwards diagonally. I.e when fightring a mitsu. If your fighting someone that is trying to combo you with juggles they probably arent that good or they are ignorant of the system.

 

[rehab]

At the risk of stealing others' points, Dogy already made a post about wavedashing being nothing special compared to Virtua Fighter's free movement function a while back. You can't cancel wavedashing into anything, which is possible ion other games' movement functions. Again, nothing special.

Yeah smash made its own mechanics in a sea of very similar 2D fighters and could deserve some level of props for it, but that doesn't inherently make it better. It's just not a deeper system than the high/low/overhead system, and it's relatively random and can be kind of wonky at times in comparison with what registers as bypassing guard versus what doesn't. It's a poor argument for the game being deeper than other fighters, which you made a point to say. Unique is good but none of the things you've brought up make the options inherently deeper.

 

[Jihnsius]

At the risk of stealing others' points, Dogy already made a post about wavedashing being nothing special compared to Virtua Fighter's free movement function a while back. You can't cancel wavedashing into anything, which is possible ion other games' movement functions. Again, nothing special.

I wouldn't go as far to say that wavedashing in Melee is what gives the game it's depth, I just feel it plays a major role in giving the game it's qualities.

 

[Drecker]

This thread reminds me of why I hate Smashboards.

 

[rehab]

Were you not originally trying to say that the game is deeper than other fighting games? Because that's what I take issue with. While Melee is definitely something different and I'd say worthwhile, putting it in a league of its own as far as depth, brilliance, whatever just isn't acceptable. It shares too many functions for that to be true, point blank.

 

[Drecker]

Good Smash (Melee) is deeper than any competitive fighter I have ever played, including:

All competitive Guilty Gear (Focus on #R and AC).
SF2T / HDR, SF3 Alpha, Third Strike, SF4.
MvC2.
CvS2.
BlazBlue (BUY THIS GAME).

Amongst others, and I consider myself above average at all of them (Based on tournament performance).

Smash is without a doubt the most techincal / deep of all of them, if not just for the insane hand speed you need to be a consistent player.

The only other game that comes close to Melee in terms of speed-technicality is MvC2 (Things like S/D Trapping, ROM Infinites, etc), but even then it's all just memorization. One could argue stuff like Keeper-Jin'ing or Urien Unblockables are just as hard, but they would be wrong.

Most fighters have two big points:

1. Learn your characters combo's, links, chains, whatever and how to consistently pull them off.
2. Learn what characters you can use what combos on, what links work on who, etc.

Melee does both of those twenty-nine times per character. The fact that you can't play any two levels the same adds so much head-crushing depth to the game it's ******** sometimes. Sure, you can just learn the neutrals and ban a few stages, but what if you get counterpicked to a level you haven't practiced on? For example, I'll counter pick Pokéfloats all the time just to watch the other person go "Oh ****" because they don't know the stage. What're you going to go in Guilty Gear, counterpick Hell from Grove?

Good luck trying to play your character the same on any two levels as well. Take Falco for example, you could become a pillaring god on FD, throw in a single platform and your whole game is screwed because you never took the time to learn. Just because most casuals only play 3-4 stages doesn't mean there aren't more to learn.

I could get into many, many more details, but I really think that having to learn how to play almost every stage in addition to your character, their matchups, techniques, etc puts Melee bounds ahead of any other fighter.

 

[Jihnsius]

Yes, that is what I believe, but not necessarily because of how the game was designed. All of the techniques and subtleties that are prominent were more than likely not designed to be used like they are, it just happened to work in the game's favor. There are so many nuances in this game that must be taken into account before you act, the game's extreme variability on every aspect makes it's nearly impossible to predict the outcome of any set of actions you take. After each subsequent action taken by either player or the environment you have to reanalyze the entire situation. This is true for every single action that happens (except for maybe a shieldbreak,) every second that passes, whether you are in control of the match or not. This cannot be said with the same amount of accuracy for any other fighter.