Why not make a skill level option?

[Raphius]

I don't see what's stopping Sakurai from creating a "skill level" option in Smash 4? I just don't see why not. For instance:

The game has an option in the settings menu, default set to "Casual" that plays much like brawl, or whatever new mechanics they are making into the game.

You can then switch the setting to "advanced", "technical" or whatever you want to call it that would cater to a more competitive crowd. This would allow for specialized techniques such as wavedashing, l-canceling, dashdancing, etc.

This "advanced" mode could also change core key components such as air stalling, character movement and fall speed, etc.

Hell, you could even give it an options list, so for instance once you select "advanced mode", it then has a sub-set of options that you could use to turn certain settings on or off (for instance, you could turn L-canceling on, but turn off air stalls).

This would allow players to customize the game to their liking, would allow for many options in competitive play, but also cater to the casual audience. By making the game default at casual, you also wouldn't have to worry about casual players just picking up the game and potentially getting frustrated by an "increased difficulty level".

Thoughts?

UPDATE: To those, saying that it will "split the community", this is from one of my responses further down as to why I don't think it would do that:

"The community has always had their differences of opinion, but has always been able to come to an agreement of terms. That's how certain moves/combos get banned. That's why the west coast used to use items and the east coast didn't, but it was decided later that no items would be used. The option to use items was still there, it was just decided that they wouldnt. Once something is "universally decided upon", then the community will adhere and follow.

Saying that having options is a bad thing is akin to saying that we should live in a communist society to prevent the possibility of people arguing over what job they have. Options are always a good thing."

 

[Substitution]

I don't see what's stopping Sakurai from creating a "skill level" option in Smash 4? I just don't see why not. For instance:

The game has an option in the settings menu, default set to "Casual" that plays much like brawl, or whatever new mechanics they are making into the game.

You can then switch the setting to "advanced", "technical" or whatever you want to call it that would cater to a more competitive crowd. This would allow for specialized techniques such as wavedashing, l-canceling, dashdancing, etc.

This "advanced" mode could also change core key components such as air stalling, character movement and fall speed, etc.

Hell, you could even give it an options list, so for instance once you select "advanced mode", it then has a sub-set of options that you could use to turn certain settings on or off (for instance, you could turn L-canceling on, but turn off air stalls).

This would allow players to customize the game to their liking, would allow for many options in competitive play, but also cater to the casual audience. By making the game default at casual, you also wouldn't have to worry about casual players just picking up the game and potentially getting frustrated by an "increased difficulty level".

Thoughts?

Simple, preferences.
The problem with this is people are gonna want things one way. And this can problem in places like Apex, where we can only appeal to one way. And trust me when I say that someone will complain. Another problem is the community, as we'll be separated even more than we are. There'll be people who want it one way, and some will want it another.
"You can't have your cake and eat it too." We can't have the best of both worlds. There will be compromises and bridges burned. IMO it just saves a lot of time and sanity just having it one way.
Sure, it may sound nice. But then again, so did the SSE, and look what that did.

 

[Superyoshiom]

I don't see what's stopping Sakurai from creating a "skill level" option in Smash 4? I just don't see why not. For instance:

The game has an option in the settings menu, default set to "Casual" that plays much like brawl, or whatever new mechanics they are making into the game.

You can then switch the setting to "advanced", "technical" or whatever you want to call it that would cater to a more competitive crowd. This would allow for specialized techniques such as wavedashing, l-canceling, dashdancing, etc.

This "advanced" mode could also change core key components such as air stalling, character movement and fall speed, etc.

Hell, you could even give it an options list, so for instance once you select "advanced mode", it then has a sub-set of options that you could use to turn certain settings on or off (for instance, you could turn L-canceling on, but turn off air stalls).

This would allow players to customize the game to their liking, would allow for many options in competitive play, but also cater to the casual audience. By making the game default at casual, you also wouldn't have to worry about casual players just picking up the game and potentially getting frustrated by an "increased difficulty level".

Thoughts?

I wouldn't be opposed to this if it was a feature

 

[pitthekit]

This would split the community, but whatever the casuals will most likely quit smash 4 in like 2 weeks.

 

[Raphius]

[quote="Raphius, post: 16295704, member: 233432"]I don't see what's stopping Sakurai from creating a "skill level" option in Smash 4? I just don't see why not. For instance:

The game has an option in the settings menu, default set to "Casual" that plays much like brawl, or whatever new mechanics they are making into the game.

You can then switch the setting to "advanced", "technical" or whatever you want to call it that would cater to a more competitive crowd. This would allow for specialized techniques such as wavedashing, l-canceling, dashdancing, etc.

This "advanced" mode could also change core key components such as air stalling, character movement and fall speed, etc.

Hell, you could even give it an options list, so for instance once you select "advanced mode", it then has a sub-set of options that you could use to turn certain settings on or off (for instance, you could turn L-canceling on, but turn off air stalls).

This would allow players to customize the game to their liking, would allow for many options in competitive play, but also cater to the casual audience. By making the game default at casual, you also wouldn't have to worry about casual players just picking up the game and potentially getting frustrated by an "increased difficulty level".

Thoughts?

Simple, preferences.
The problem with this is people are gonna want things one way. And this can problem in places like Apex, where we can only appeal to one way. And trust me when I say that someone will complain. Another problem is the community, as we'll be separated even more than we are. There'll be people who want it one way, and some will want it another.
"You can't have your cake and eat it too." We can't have the best of both worlds. There will be compromises and bridges burned. IMO it just saves a lot of time and sanity just having it one way.
Sure, it may sound nice. But then again, so did the SSE, and look what that did.[/quote]

-----------------------

I see where you're going, but have to disagree. The community has always had their differences of opinion, but has always been able to come to an agreement of terms. That's how certain moves/combos get banned. That's why the west coast used to use items and the east coast didn't, but it was decided later that no items would be used. The option to use items was still there, it was just decided that they wouldnt. Once something is "universally decided upon", then the community will adhere and follow.

Saying that having options is a bad thing is akin to saying that we should live in a communist society to prevent the possibility of people arguing over what job they have. Options are always a good thing.

 

[HK_Spadez]

Its like marvel and blazblue. theres a "casual" mode but noone uses it.

Also what ur saying is a huge difference between casual and hardcore. Thinking for the developer. It's a lot of work/resources to split the game in half. Yeah nintendo is a huge company and could pull it off. but when it comes to developing any piece of software. theres a very few number of people who understand the code well enough to pursue something like this. and i'm sure they have their hands tied with fixing bugs and what not trying to hit release date.

something like this would delay the game a lot. which they cant afford with the wii u dying

 

[D-idara]

Sure, it may sound nice. But then again, so did the SSE, and look what that did.

Give us a great story mode with amazing cutscenes where Nintendo characters actually interacted and worked together instead of just beating the **** out of each other like idiots?

But seriously, make the game deeper than Brawl, only add Melee techs if they're simplified and much easier to do so people can focus on playing and getting better instead of doing hadoukens and shoryukens in practice mode.

 

[HK_Spadez]

I'd say just add the hitstun and speed.

to strike a balance between brawl/melee:

no need for wavedash (much as it pains me to say)
auto L cancel

keep everything else melee. If smash wii u was at least that much. i'd play it.

 

[lordvaati]

If there is one thing I'm fairly sure of, they are not gonna make a casual mode or really expand beyond the already available handicap mode.

Also like pit said it may create a split and I don't want to go through 5 more years of that ******** again.

 

[Raphius]

I updated my original post to include my rebuttal for the "split the community" argument.

 

[D-idara]

Also, calling people who aren't casual gamers but still want to play with items 'casual' is a bit of an insult.

 

[Raphius]

I play with items from time to time myself, but don't feel like they have a place in tournament play as theres too many random factors that aren't controlled by skill

 

[D-idara]

I play with items from time to time myself, but don't feel like they have a place in tournament play as theres too many random factors that aren't controlled by skill

Yeah, but there are people who play a lot of Smash and play it to a pulp, but don't want to play competitively, they're not casuals, they just don't want to play the game at a competitive level. Of course there's no place for items on tournament play, but not only casuals play with items on and crazy stages, everyone loves them a bit of that from time to time.

 

[mimgrim]

Options in a fighting game are different from options in a different game.

In a fighting game you want your options to be in the middle of combat on whether you should do a certain thing or not.

What you are proposing is just ridiculous and would cause way to many problems and not solve any.

 

[josh bones]

Also, calling people who aren't casual gamers but still want to play with items 'casual' is a bit of an insult.

Casual is opposite of competitive, it's the way used in a sentence that makes it insultive.

 

[pitthekit]

I'd say just add the hitstun and speed.

to strike a balance between brawl/melee:

no need for wavedash (much as it pains me to say)
auto L cancel

keep everything else melee. If smash wii u was at least that much. i'd play it.

Auto l cancel or reduce every aerials ending lag value.

Brawl has the exact same amount of hitstun as melee does. Although in brawl you can cancel hitstun frame 13 with air dodge and on frame 25 I think you can cancel the hitstun with an attack.

This hitstun cancel made combos non existant.

 

[Renji64]

That would be great if that was a option.

 

[HK_Spadez]

Auto l cancel or reduce every aerials ending lag value.

Brawl has the exact same amount of hitstun as melee does. Although in brawl you can cancel hitstun frame 13 with air dodge and on frame 25 I think you can cancel the hitstun with an attack.

This hitstun cancel made combos non existant.

didnt know that about the brawl hitstun. i always just thought the hitstun was lowered. i duno man. i have "some" hope cause nintendo has namco helping them but for now lets just hope melee goes strong for another decade =D lol

 

[Raphius]

didnt know that about the brawl hitstun. i always just thought the hitstun was lowered. i duno man. i have "some" hope cause nintendo has namco helping them but for now lets just hope melee goes strong for another decade =D lol

That's also the only thing keeping me holding out hope.

I just could NOT get into Brawl for the life of me, and I feel like Smash 4 will be going in the same "casual play" direction unless Namco pulls out some surprises.

 

[HK_Spadez]

yeah... and I wonder if namco is just there for the netcode? maybe? their netcode is the best in the fighting game industry so nintendo might have hired them just for that instead of gameplay

 

[Raphius]

Hmmm... while you are correct and that would be great, I'd love to see them contribute to the actual game.

Plus, you can't be a bit negative towards Nintendo if you've watched "The Smash Brothers" youtube documentary and saw how they pretty much do not help the smash community at all, denying them streaming rights upon other things. So stupid. You think you'd support your most loyal fans... they seem to not care.

 

[LancerStaff]

That's also the only thing keeping me holding out hope.

I just could NOT get into Brawl for the life of me, and I feel like Smash 4 will be going in the same "casual play" direction unless Namco pulls out some surprises.

Sakurai is doing all the balancing and mechanics work himself and wants to lower the skill gap. 'Melee is too hard' as he says.

 

[Eternal phoenix Fire]

Give us a great story mode with amazing cutscenes where Nintendo characters actually interacted and worked together instead of just beating the **** out of each other like idiots?

But seriously, make the game deeper than Brawl, only add Melee techs if they're simplified and much easier to do so people can focus on playing and getting better instead of doing hadoukens and shoryukens in practice mode.

Nintendo characters beating the **** out of each other was the original premise of the series; everyone else seems to be fine with that. Long as it's fun who needs a story if it's gonna take up time?

And your second statement doesn't make any sense. That's saying I'm trying to get better without learning the things I need to to try and get better? Like, I'm gonna get better at smash without using tilts, smashes or grabs. You aren't going to get far with that mentality.

 

[D-idara]

Nintendo characters beating the **** out of each other was the original premise of the series; everyone else seems to be fine with that. Long as it's fun who needs a story if it's gonna take up time?

And your second statement doesn't make any sense. That's saying I'm trying to get better without learning the things I need to to try and get better? Like, I'm gonna get better at smash without using tilts, smashes or grabs. You aren't going to get far with that mentality.

Because a real Nintendo fan's wet dream is seeing all these characters saving the world together.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

This doesn't really make sense, and I think a lot of people get confused over what skill is. Let me define skill:

Skill is whatever qualities internal to an individual allow that individual to succeed at a particular activity. In the context of a competitive game, skill is what makes one player win and one player lose on a predictable basis.

Think about what that actually means for how skill plays out in Melee vs Brawl. Both Melee vs Brawl have a similar level of consistent winners and losers. The tournament scenes for both games are such strong proof of this that I don't think the question is up for debate. Therefore, by definition, both require the same amount of skill. It could very well be that Melee skill and Brawl skill are not the same skill, but it is just nothing but a defiance of what the word skill actually means to suggest that either set of game mechanics favors skill itself more or less. This very topic's suggestion is really to offer a set of game modes that offer a variety of mechanics, all of which hypothetically would equally favor skill. Since none of them are necessarily superior to the others for competitive purposes, the only real outcome of including such options would be to splinter the community as we couldn't agree on which settings to use and all pushed for what we as individuals found fun. Even worse, since the skills required on different settings wouldn't be the same, crossover between players who prefer different mechanics would be ugly as one player may be a more skilled player in one set of mechanics but less skilled in another, leading to constant challenges of the legitimacy of wins because a player "would have won" under their preferred mechanics. This is before we even get into the other design problems that including a lot of options includes such as poor balance; if you try to design your characters to work under 10 different sets of mechanics, how balanced can you really expect them to be under any one of them?

As a competitive community, we are about pursuing excellence in the games we play, not about designing games. No, more options are NOT better; in fact, we should support there being as few options as possible. This is probably counter-intuitive to you, but our goals as competitive players necessarily mean that we're always only going to use one set of options, and our "loss" in terms of what we can test in the game is the set of game mechanics contained within the options we don't use. By including fewer options, we lose less. For casual play, options are great since they allow for all sorts of self-selected variety based on preference, but this is what a real difference between what's good for casual and competitive play looks like. In the past, Sakurai has taken a road of wise compromise by including alternate modes very clearly shown not to be serious ("special Brawl") and including precisely as many variables in gameplay rules as are needed to make the game decent for everyone but to maintain a good level of standardization (item switches, time/stock/coin, etc.). I look forward to it being like this again in the new game.

 

[HK_Spadez]

by definition, both require the same amount of skill.

That was a bit long to read, but I feel like this comment is going to start a war lol.

 

[Eternal phoenix Fire]

Because a real Nintendo fan's wet dream is seeing all these characters saving the world together.

That's your wet dream.

 

[LancerStaff]

Because a real Nintendo fan's wet dream is seeing all these characters saving the world together.

That's your wet dream.

Kinda getting off topic aren't you two? Keep the SSE discussion somewhere else.

 

[smashbro29]

Oh good further the living room debates on what the settings should be as well as add to the debate of how tournaments should be run.

 

[JediLink]

Yeah, I don't think this is a good idea. Implementing options like making everyone giant is easy to do and obviously just for fun, but fundamentally changing the mechanics like this is essentially making several different games in one.

If there are any settings like this, it should only be at the interface level. For example, MvC3's simple mode makes the game easier to play for casuals by completely reworking the controls, but everything you do in simple mode is still exactly the same as in normal mode. The mechanics stay the same; the only thing different is the input.

 

[DakotaBonez]

I was gonna come here to bi#@$ at ya for requesting something unrealistic that would take forever to develop, but if the game has been designed to incorporate some of these features already it would work fine. Unfortunately we don't know what kind of mechanics have been implemented.

I for one wouldn't mind if they included a Casual option that makes it easier to perform a breakfall.
In Melee and Project M, there is a larger window of time and space that allows you to press the shield button just before hitting the ground so you can breakfall.
In Brawl, your timing and spacing from the ground needs to be so damn precise, I usually fail the breakfall or air dodge just above the ground.
Then again, maybe I should just practice more.
Another thing they could add is an option to turn on or off Brawl style Input buffering. Input buffering allows you to put in a command 10 or so frames before you can actually execute it. So for example you can quickly input Jump, Attack, Special and your character would perform the actions automatically as soon as the action could be performed. In Melee, there was no input buffering so you could only input attacks when they could be executed. I actually preferred Brawl's input buffering so that I could quickly put out aerial attacks. In Melee you gotta master the timing for when the initial jumping animation ends.
Whatever these are just my opinions.

Heres more info on input buffering.
http://www.ssbwiki.com/Buffer

It would be pretty simple to change the variable for input buffer from 0 to 10 or whatever.

 

[Jaedrik]

I do not understand how anyone could logically be against this. The more choice the better, and we get to please both parties. Except, you know, the people who cannot tolerate the others.

 

[D-idara]

I do not understand how anyone could logically be against this. The more choice the better, and we get to please both parties. Except, you know, the people who cannot tolerate the others.

No, this would separate the fanbase even further, we want a game that everyone loves the way it is so they don't have to make lousy mods to feel good about themselves.

 

[mimgrim]

I do not understand how anyone could logically be against this. The more choice the better, and we get to please both parties. Except, you know, the people who cannot tolerate the others.

No.

More choice is not always better, especially in a fighting game. There will, undeniably, be people in the competitive community who will want the other option instead, like those who played Brawl competitively and nothing else. And a rift will ensue once again. It wouldn't solve anything.

 

[Jaedrik]

No, this would separate the fanbase even further, we want a game that everyone loves the way it is so they don't have to make lousy mods to feel good about themselves.

No.

More choice is not always better, especially in a fighting game. There will, undeniably, be people in the competitive community who will want the other option instead, like those who played Brawl competitively and nothing else. And a rift will ensue once again. It wouldn't solve anything.

Your predictions mean nothing. In fact, all data and experiences are useless without some presupposition to measure them against.
I want to hear the logical reasons why you two deny my claims, not just denying it then stating unbacked claims. I want you to make generalizations and judgements from the particular.
I will attempt to go over what I mean by portraying my own claims in this manner.

First, humans act, second, indifference to alternatives is not action, thirdly, since a competitive ruleset or casual ruleset are both of trivial concern and both are morally neutral choices, it is right and just to allow others to choose what they may, and fourth and finally, since it is not of grave concern, and since others exercise use of such choice, it is not reasonable to reproach their choices on the grounds that they choose them or will choose said option at any future juncture. Further, I insist that since people act at every choice when options are weighed, it is noble to make them more aware of the alternatives, so that if they at any point wish to assess and value the other further, they may, and perhaps they will, alter their future judgements based upon the new information.
I posit the best way to make one aware of the alternatives is to have the options sit beside another, as close and comparable as possible.

An example. How silly, unreasonable, and hot-headed is it to insult or ridicule a person eating an apple for not using his time and money to buy and eat an orange instead? The offender is implying either that the person chose to do so and that their desires and values are morally reprehensible, or that they are completely ignorant to the alternatives. More often, then, we can rule out the second if they bought the apple from a fruit stand that also sells oranges, the other readily aware of the choice.

The fact that these unreasonable people exist does nothing to the immutable truth that they are petty and self-important people. If we are to assist them out of their deep hole of arrogance, why should we cater to them and their whims?
More immediate and apparent options lead, greater than any other thing, to more informed decisions.

 

[SKM_NeoN]

This wouldn't create as big a rift as some of you are implying. The vast majority of competitive players will use settings akin to that of Melee, and almost every major tournament will be run as such. The casual and non-competitive players will mostly use the default settings, and since the two camps rarely play against each other, there's no reason to be upset. It's a win-win because both parties get to play how they want. You guys are kidding yourselves if you think the rift will disappear once Smash 4 is released, so that argument against this idea is shaky at best.

 

[LancerStaff]

I still don't even understand what'd be different

This wouldn't create as big a rift as some of you are implying. The vast majority of competitive players will use settings akin to that of Melee, and almost every major tournament will be run as such. The casual and non-competitive players will mostly use the default settings, and since the two camps rarely play against each other, there's no reason to be upset. It's a win-win because both parties get to play how they want. You guys are kidding yourselves if you think the rift will disappear once Smash 4 is released, so that argument against this idea is shaky at best.

The biggest problem with a setting is that Sakurai wants SSB to bridge the gap.

 

[stan423321]

This wouldn't create as big a rift as some of you are implying. The vast majority of competitive players will use settings akin to that of Melee, and almost every major tournament will be run as such. The casual and non-competitive players will mostly use the default settings, and since the two camps rarely play against each other, there's no reason to be upset. It's a win-win because both parties get to play how they want. You guys are kidding yourselves if you think the rift will disappear once Smash 4 is released, so that argument against this idea is shaky at best.

This ain't necessarily how it's gonna work. The competitive community will play on serious mode from day one, no doubt. However, what will non-competitive community do is heavily dependent on implementation of both modes. If it is something along the lines of "Let's turn off the techs and use the simpler air-dodge for leisure mode", players who can't use those may treat serious mode as some kind of hard CPU setting.

In my opinion, any implementation of match wide multiple modes will not bring anything good to any of communities. While the rift is sure to be there, reinforcing it is still a bad idea. In addition, the game is definitely not going to get balanced twice, for budget reasons. So what if it is going to get balanced for leisure mode, huh? This will move the devs' expectations of environment even further from competitive setting than it already is (1v1 without items vs. FFA with items). I cannot really see the profit there.

 

[SKM_NeoN]

I'm not saying that this has any chance of happening, nor that it will be the most profitable move on their part; Only that it would make the game better. Ultimately the ideal decision on behalf of the players would be to make the game as complex, yet simple as Melee (without making it just like Melee, mind you), but this would be the next best thing.

 

[Dark Phazon]

Sakurai is doing all the balancing and mechanics work himself and wants to lower the skill gap. 'Melee is too hard' as he says.

PS:

I heard Sakurai is doing all the balancing again himself.....

No joke...is this true?