Why the hate on smash4?

[KoRoBeNiKi]

(4)get that game, go talk about melee wut

 

[ObdurateMARio]

So is PPMD now the best Marth?

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Here's a question I'm going to counterpose to Smash 4 players.

How can you enjoy trying to play this game competitively? What is it about the slow, campy, defensive-biased, projectile heavy style of play that makes it enjoyable? I mean this seriously, I don't get it. I really don't understand at all. Is it because it's more accessible? I can get that. Is it simply because it's newer, prettier, or more likely to be played in a party setting? I just can't see a single thing in the gameplay that makes me think "Wow, that was incredibly sick." Even in Smash 4 Grand Finals, I'm just like yup. yup. yup. ok. yup. Zero wins.

A lot of this I can't relate to, or find to be factually untrue. And I play Melee/PM/Smash 4, more so Melee and Smash 4.

Projectiles as a camping tool aren't that good in Smash 4 unless your name is Link/Toon Link/Megaman/Duck Hunt, two were new and the other two avoided the massive global nerf to all projectiles. And yes it was a global nerf if you look at Brawl to Smash 4, Brawl's projectiles and camping is far far worse than Smash 4's.

With the defense, eh? I've had no problem with shields when I learned how to pressure them and rolls, rolls are really easy for me to punish. If anything I've been able to be more offensive than even in Brawl while having a larger cast and better things I can do out of a dash and pivot without needing to worry about tripping.

The only point I find to be valid is slow, but only in the sense of "slower than Melee"

The cast in Smash 4 is a lot more diverse right now and lets me play online, I know people will point to Netplay or Dolphin but I really don't care to try and set all of that up. So I can actually practice a lot more given how my friends really really do not like playing Melee or PM when I try to introduce it to them. So from the start all of my friends have zero interest in any of the past game, casual or competitive.

With characters, in my area it can get dull in Melee when more than half the time I see these two when I compete, I know in total Melee is still ok on that front but I see these two more than I do half the cast and I find it to be really dull after a while.

People said earlier they find Melee to be more responsive when I actually find it to be more stiff and feel like something is really really off when I go from Brawl/Smash 4 to Melee. No so much PM, that feels better to me on a response level. Might be placebo but eh, overall I just feel like I have more control in the other games compared to 64 and Melee. Customs are very much welcome when I can fix things I ask, man I wish move x did this instead, which thankfully I can work that out and tinker with it.

I like Smash 4 more because I can play it on a more regular basis while liking the controls, changed from brawl and online play. I still like Melee and kind of PM. But I find more appeal to Smash 4 than I do those two.

That's more or less why I do prefer it, if I were to give an honest answer.

Edit: On the other side while I want to be respectful, I can't take anyone seriously who thinks Smash 4 is slower than Brawl or Brawl 2.0. I know for a fact that's a load of bull.

 

[ObdurateMARio]

^Thank you for the well thought out response. I again haven't played Smash 4 at a competitive level, nor will I. I've just seen loads of Duck Hunt spamming all kinds of stupid nonsense. And Diddy's bananas, but I despise those in PM too. Anyways, you're feelings of clunkiness in Melee I think come from it's hyper responsiveness. It is very easy to sprint too far for dash dances, short hop timings are a little stricter, l cancels are stricter (vs PM) etc etc. If you're unfamiliar with Melee, it can feel a bit clunky, but that wears off quickly if you play the game even semi regularly.

Also, I'm going to ask whether Smash 4's roster is balanced as poorly as it seems, from a competitive standpoint. In what I've seen, it appears that diddy, Sheik, Sonic, Rosa, and Luigi are rather out of proportion with most of the rest of the cast. I personally have played Marth/Lucina (who suck), Captain Falcon (decent), and Ganon (total trash). But it seems that those top 4/5 are in a league of their own.

I can totally get that Smash 4 is easier to pick up, and has a MUCH lower learning curve, is more accessible, etc. I guess what I don't get is why people interested in those features would play competitively, but I guess that's naive to believe that everybody playing a competitive game wants something challenging technically. I still stand by Melee being the better competitive game, and I fully concede that Smash 4 is a MUCH better game as far as total appeal of it as a package.

EDIT: I played doc too. I was disappointed as heck. Doc in Melee was my original main before I fell in love with Marth.

 

[Lorenzo The Comic]

Okay, sorry about the whole "Brawl 2.0" thing, then, but that's what I see it as minus a few problems that plagued it and a few other things that were possible in the previous Smash Bros games. Call it what you like, but I still won't side with Smash 4. I've only played it for two days (since Launch day), even less than the near-two months of vanilla Brawl (since Easter of 2008) that I played. There are some character changes I liked and others that I don't like. Shall I reinvest in and adjust to Smash 4? Maybe. Couldn't resist using Bowser, but Yoshi completely destroys my Bowser.

I agree about the spacies because I'm sick of seeing them all the time. Wasn't really much of a fan of those characters to begin with and I love it every time they get Star KO'd. Luigi can't really be that good, can he? I find Brawl and Smash 4 too slow for my tastes, yet I find Mortal Kombat 3 too fast for my tastes. Yeah I know that's a bad example, but I couldn't think of anything better to bring up. So yeah I ought to stop bashin' Smash 4 'cause it's got some appealing stuff going for it.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

^Thank you for the well thought out response. I again haven't played Smash 4 at a competitive level, nor will I. I've just seen loads of Duck Hunt spamming all kinds of stupid nonsense. And Diddy's bananas, but I despise those in PM too. Anyways, you're feelings of clunkiness in Melee I think come from it's hyper responsiveness. It is very easy to sprint too far for dash dances, short hop timings are a little stricter, l cancels are stricter (vs PM) etc etc. If you're unfamiliar with Melee, it can feel a bit clunky, but that wears off quickly if you play the game even semi regularly.

Also, I'm going to ask whether Smash 4's roster is balanced as poorly as it seems, from a competitive standpoint. In what I've seen, it appears that diddy, Sheik, Sonic, Rosa, and Luigi are rather out of proportion with most of the rest of the cast. I personally have played Marth/Lucina (who suck), Captain Falcon (decent), and Ganon (total trash). But it seems that those top 4/5 are in a league of their own.

I can totally get that Smash 4 is easier to pick up, and has a MUCH lower learning curve, is more accessible, etc. I guess what I don't get is why people interested in those features would play competitively, but I guess that's naive to believe that everybody playing a competitive game wants something challenging technically. I still stand by Melee being the better competitive game, and I fully concede that Smash 4 is a MUCH better game as far as total appeal of it as a package.

EDIT: I played doc too. I was disappointed as heck. Doc in Melee was my original main before I fell in love with Marth.

In terms of overall results, Diddy is the only one who sticks out. Maybe Sheik as well but honestly she barely beats out #3, Captain Falcon, to any significant level. Otherwise the results are pretty good all things considered and smooth out.

I'd probably subscribe to Dabuz's Tier list on how it levels out with a few changes here and there. Even then I don't think Diddy is that godlike, I honestly think he is the most fair of all the top tiers in every smash iteration. Overall I think the cast is in a good spot in terms of results, it is easy to make that call even though people are learning faster than ever, but I think this game is overall pretty good in terms of balance. I'd put it close to a PM level, not 3.02; 3.5 lol.

In terms of controls, I think you got it half right. I did start seriously with Brawl first, and even to this day while I have been doing better, I almost broke pretty far last tournament I went to in terms of my Melee results. The problem is I still have issues with how it just does flow well with me or fluidly. It's weird for me to say this to people but I feel like it's easier to control in Brawl and Smash 4, and even PM, compared to Melee.

I can't pin it on exactly why, though you give a good reason, I just feel like I have less control to the first two I listed. Might be me playing Brawl for six years and going gun ho in Smash 4 but yeah that is how I have been feeling on this.

If people think one game is better than another...eh, I never can feel like with games like this it's that clear and cut like a science or math equation. A lot of it is appeal and what people value in each game and how it can attract people and be played as. I don't think any Smash game is bad, even if I don't like 64 that much.

In the end I get from playing Melee and PM more and even dropping Brawl til Smash 4 came out why people enjoy it and tend to not like future. I never was one to get that love for Melee like others got I guess. Even if it is my most played game recently next to Smash 4.

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

@ #HBC | Red Ryu (Red Chinese Dragon guy who lives 90 minutes from me)
Come back to the dark side that is your limited viable cast of about less than a dozen characters. COME, COME TO US!!!!

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

@ #HBC | Red Ryu (Red Chinese Dragon guy who lives 90 minutes from me)
Come back to the dark side that is your limited viable cast of about less than a dozen characters. COME, COME TO US!!!!

Host something in Madison I can come to.

 

[Racuncai]

Been honest, i think most part of players will stick to the aparent top tiers (Rosaluma, Sheik, and Diddy), is not like the players have tools to make a matchup even, in melee and brawl characters have tech to help then to get a decent fight to the top chars( a lesson from a red yoshi)

Maybe i'm wrong, i hope so.

 

[Zone]

Can this thread please be closed? I don't like checking out melee discussion to see people talking about why they hate smash 4 this is melee discussion.

You could... I don't know. Not click a title that's clearly going to talk about a subject you want to avoid.

Also most people confuse, not liking a game as hating.

I don't like yaoi, but I don't hate it's existence.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Been honest, i think most part of players will stick to the aparent top tiers (Rosaluma, Sheik, and Diddy), is not like the players have tools to make a matchup even, in melee and brawl characters have tech to help then to get a decent fight to the top chars( a lesson from a red yoshi)

Maybe i'm wrong, i hope so.

Red Yoshi wasn't about techs. It was about dedication despite the odds. The players have the tools to work for it and the characters can handle it.

unrelated but God I love watching aMSa no matter what game he is playing.

 

[Racuncai]

Red Yoshi wasn't about techs. It was about dedication despite the odds. The players have the tools to work for it and the characters can handle it.

unrelated but God I love watching aMSa no matter what game he is playing.

He's smart, a tactical and a fundamentals beast and overall amazing players, but yoshi have the tools, a ton of tecnology to give a good fight to the top chars, i think Mrs. Game is another underrated char too, but i don't see those things in smash 4, the game it's too basic.

if you have read my previous post you will now why i think that.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

He's smart, a tactical and a fundamentals beast and overall amazing players, but yoshi have the tools, a ton of tecnology to give a good fight to the top chars, i think Mrs. Game is another underrated char too, but i don't see those things in smash 4, the game it's too basic.

if you have read my previous post you will now why i think that.

I disagree on that outside of a few characters, but those ones are bottom of a tier list if I were to make one.

There are tools to use in Smash 4 in a general sense, some of which aren't being utilized yet outside of aMSa who seemed to be the only Smash 4 player I saw use the new dash and pivot mechanics properly compared to everyone else.

For the whole cast as individuals, it depends on the match-up. Sheik probably shuts down people worse than Diddy does.

Game is more basic than Melee, but how characters can interact and play off strengths and weaknesses has not.

 

[SAUS]

Anyways, I didnt say smash 4 was better (or worse). The reason I grouped your examples together is because all of your examples fall under "Melee has more options, therefore it is a deeper game". More options certainly make a game more complex, but one thing you have to understand is that theres a difference between complexity and depth. You can toss endless mechanics into a game but that doesnt mean itll have depth (it can also remove depth). Pacing also has to do with complexity. By contrast even simple games can have a lot of depth depending on yomi layers. The degree of complexity people enjoy is personal preference, and at some point games can be outright bad for being too complex.

Skill ceilings are a tricky thing. If you add a cake baking contest every time you take a stock you've increased the skill ceiling to be good (example courtesy of Sirlin). I think most people would say thats not a good thing. In reality we have to determine whether the skills are worth measuring, and ultimately this comes down to preference. This is why I say smash games measure a similar skillset but drastically differ in their focus. The other thing you have to consider is that if you put more focus on one skill without increasing the others youre effectively reducing the importance of the other skills youre testing.

Youre correct that melee does have points where combo extension are read based. That's actually my favorite part of melee, and in fact they made an entire game that centers around it named Super Smash Brothers Brawl. Its also the biggest reason Brawl probably has the deepest gameplay between the smash titles.

A little late to be quoting this, but whatever. I've been running this notion through my head for a couple days now and I think I have something that I'd want to say about it.

From the sounds of it, you are saying that reads/yomi equate to more depth. More layers of yomi means more depth. Something like figuring out weird strategies for niche situations is just more complexity. I think, with that idea, a game like Chess has literally 0 depth. Every move can be analyzed for its strategic value. There is no yomi happening unless you are playing with beginners or something (like let's see if he falls for my bait and gives me his queen for a bishop or something - a trap that relies on a bad opponent - I don't this even counts though).

I think there is great value in having the ability to analyze specific game states for "what I should have done" or "what he did was absolutely genious" and stuff like that. Not "read better", but find something you can do that is optimal, what its weaknesses are, and what you can do to cover those weaknesses. As I play more and more melee, I find I map more and more of these situations out. In a lot of cases, it comes down to "I have to read or guess at this point". Knowing where these situations are could be seen as complexity getting in the way, but I think it is just a different kind of strategic depth.

I also want to point out that a lot of this depth is not really noticed (this is imo, I guess). A lot of the strategic depth is hidden behind the technical barrier to melee. I see this shallow understanding from even people I'd consider mid-level at the game. I don't think that you got this part wrong, I just want to point it out. Technical ability is not complexity, I don't think.

Probably the biggest thing that I'd like to point out that I miss when I watch/play Smash 4 is the lack of something I'm just gonna call "circumstance". I define circumstance as some game state where there are factors that will affect your decision making - often leaving one player at an advantage. In melee, there seem to just be more circumstances than in smash 4. A lot of people say they like combos and they like edge guards and stuff like that, but what I think they really like is the unfavourable circumstances that are created that allow for these things. The reward for good decisions is favourable circumstances that allow you to snowball into a kill, and the opponent has to try to find a way out of the bad circumstance. In smash 4, it feels like the reward for good decisions is a hit or two. You're back to neutral too often. Recovery seems to be too effective allowing for more resets to neutral (reward for hitting them off the edge turns mostly into just more damage). The main thing you end up watching is two people in complete neutral game. It's not necessarily a bad thing, it's just not fun to watch (for me, at least). It's the same reason I don't like watching auto-combos from traditional fighting games. They don't create circumstance, they just add a little damage.

I hope this doesn't come across negatively. It is just something I wanted to say. I think I fall in the category of "don't care, I don't play the game, that's fine that you do, I was just a little upset I either had to stay up super late to watch melee finals or watch them on youtube".

 

[RBreadsticks]

Here's a question I'm going to counterpose to Smash 4 players.

How can you enjoy trying to play this game competitively? What is it about the slow, campy, defensive-biased, projectile heavy style of play that makes it enjoyable? I mean this seriously, I don't get it. I really don't understand at all. Is it because it's more accessible? I can get that. Is it simply because it's newer, prettier, or more likely to be played in a party setting? I just can't see a single thing in the gameplay that makes me think "Wow, that was incredibly sick." Even in Smash 4 Grand Finals, I'm just like yup. yup. yup. ok. yup. Zero wins.

As someone who as played all smash games but only attempted to play smash 4 competitively to me it is accessibility. Melee has so many barriers to people like me, I'd need an old ass tv to play properly, I'd need to find an old GameCube and the only time I'd get any practice would be playing people in frendlies in tournaments which I don't have the time to do working two jobs. Online emulation is also out of the question since my computer is booty. I do like watching melee more than smash 4 but melee is an established community so as a whole the player base is better as a game and there are actual rivalries, you want to see if chillin can somehow beat leffen(respect your elders lol) there's nothing like that in sm4sh yet.

Although I do disagree with saying sm4sh is inheritly slow and campy yes there's more defensive play but it isn't as awful as people make it out to be, it's just not melee, it's a different game with different mechanics. There will never be a melee 2.0, melee was a happy accident so I don't understand why the melee community is dissapointed upon new releases.

The melee community doesn't threaten the existence of the sm4sh community and vice versa. If we supported each other it would be better for both games and both community's. I know another huge barrier to me is the actions/behavior of SOME of the melee community. I'd love to be able to play melee friendlies with people at tournaments whenever I go but I don't want to be judged/looked down upon for simply playing a different game. I understand the melee community has a (deserved) air of superiority because they've existed for 14 or some odd years, but to me and people like me that's a barrier to getting back into melee or playing melee competively.

I don't understand bashing sm4sh if you're not gonna play it anyway. I understand being frustrated that your game is not on stream but that has more to do with Snow, the venue and TOs than the game itself. If both communities treated one another with respect both communities would find themselves with more new members. I'm not talking about some kind of one unit everybody hold hands type of thing, but just a basic level of respect, don't boo a player because an official decided to stream their game instead of yours, it makes both of our communities look bad to the outside world.

 

[Racuncai]

More options (ofensive and defensive) equals to more information to think about, the attacker has an advantage, and mistakes are much more serious, you have less room for error, is much faster and that give less time to think about thing on the fly, that's the deep or strategic part of the game, for things like this melee is more deeper.

For a figthing game "Complexity" is a necesity, because distinguishes players not only for the mental game, also for their execution, something unique in the fighing genre, if ther's not a barrier in tech skill is the is only a strategic game.

poor neutral, 1 hit punish, 2 o 3 hit combos, and lack of edge guard maybe it does't make it a bad fighers, but a lot less interesing figher to play or watch at least from my perspective.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

If more options was all that mattered we would all be playing Tekken.

What matters is it's scene and how it grows with people liking the game, which seems to be the case so far with Smash 4.

For edge guarding, I don't think a lot of people are used to the new mechanics yet and learning them as fast as people thought.

Edge-guarding is still a think, but the troubling part is getting used to trumping. When you trump someone, what do you do after that? It turns into a read situation one of which people aren't accustomed to yet.

 

[Racuncai]

not all is about options that´s only a part of the equation, the consecuenses of using the wrong option, how much do you lose if you do a mistake, in melee it can be an stock, 0 to death happens or a good edge guard can do the job, if you make a bad choise you can be death depending of the matchup.

in smash 4?
one hit for doing a mistake in lower percentages or maybe a 2 or 3 hits combo, period, and any mechanic or tecnology can´t change that, maybe if they put a patch.

i can be wrong about the edge guard, time will talk.

 

[ceecee]

Sorry for the odd welcome. uhhhh, welcome to Smashboards. In all honesty, just ignore this specific thread and unfollow it.

Nice sig quote btw

Thanks, C.C. is the waifu

 

[Kadano]

The reward for good decisions is favourable circumstances that allow you to snowball into a kill, and the opponent has to try to find a way out of the bad circumstance.

I really like this snowball analogy. To me, Smash always feels like two men fighting each other to death. Watching Smash 4 (and Brawl, when it was still a thing) invokes the picture of two heavy-weight guys standing on a plain, slowly punching each other to death. There is little positioning advantage, but still, the one who lands the better hit wins.

Melee, on the other hand, has two Bruce Lees standing on top of Mount Everest. The neutral game is incredibly threatening—both players know that one good hit will throw them down the mountain and it will be very hard to come back to the top from this detrimental positioning. It is, however, entirely possible to turn the situation around completely, but it requires a combination of great skill, fast reflexes and correct anticipation of your opponent.

The very moment you land a grab with Marth, Fox, Sheik, Peach, Ice Climbers or Captain Falcon, you know that conversion to death is not only possible, but guaranteed if you make the right choices. In other words, you are the limiting factor, not the game.

Still, these conversions are hardly ever easy, and in the few cases that they are (Wobbling), the opponent can evade them completely. Imagine we substitute one of the Bruce Lees for a heavyweight fighter—if he grabs his opponent, he can simply throw him down the mountain to his death. But his opponent is too fast and too smart for that to ever happen. To the spectators, however, simply knowing that getting one grab equals a stock loss makes watching incredibly thrilling.

Edit, more in line with the original question:

At Apex, Melee Finals were supposed to happen at something like 3 AM in Europe. Many smashers here were very hyped about this tournament and wanted to watch the finals live, even altering their sleep rhythms in advance to stay awake. With the delays, the only ways to make them happen before 8 AM here would have been to either do parallel streams (which apparently was not possible logistically / politically) or cut off the Smash 4 stream. It would have been disrespectful to Nintendo and the Smash 4 community to do so, but I have to admit, it was what I was wishing for.

Hating on the game Melee enthusiasts did not care about, but were forced to watch, was a logical response. It was nothing more than expressing dislike for this situation in a way that would attract attention.
If future tournaments do not put the spectators in this position, there will be no reason for hating. I don’t think this is likely to happen, though—as far as I know, it was Nintendo who pressed on Smash 4 being on the VGBC prime time slot instead of, for example, Team Spooky prime time slot. Thus, whenever Nintendo is present as a sponsor for future tournaments, a similar situation should be expected.

It’s somewhat understandable that Nintendo acts this way, but it’s just as understandable that the hate will continue.

 

[RBreadsticks]

I really like this snowball analogy. To me, Smash always feels like two men fighting each other to death. Watching Smash 4 (and Brawl, when it was still a thing) invokes the picture of two heavy-weight guys standing on a plain, slowly punching each other to death. There is little positioning advantage, but still, the one who lands the better hit wins.

Melee, on the other hand, has two Bruce Lees standing on top of Mount Everest. The neutral game is incredibly threatening—both players know that one good hit will throw them down the mountain and it will be very hard to come back to the top from this detrimental positioning. It is, however, entirely possible to turn the situation around completely, but it requires a combination of great skill, fast reflexes and correct anticipation of your opponent.

The very moment you land a grab with Marth, Fox, Sheik, Peach, Ice Climbers or Captain Falcon, you know that conversion to death is not only possible, but guaranteed if you make the right choices. In other words, you are the limiting factor, not the game.

Still, these conversions are hardly ever easy, and in the few cases that they are (Wobbling), the opponent can evade them completely. Imagine we substitute one of the Bruce Lees for a heavyweight fighter—if he grabs his opponent, he can simply throw him down the mountain to his death. But his opponent is too fast and too smart for that to ever happen. To the spectators, however, simply knowing that getting one grab equals a stock loss makes watching incredibly thrilling.

Edit, more in line with the original question:

At Apex, Melee Finals were supposed to happen at something like 3 AM in Europe. Many smashers here were very hyped about this tournament and wanted to watch the finals live, even altering their sleep rhythms in advance to stay awake. With the delays, the only ways to make them happen before 8 AM here would have been to either do parallel streams (which apparently was not possible logistically / politically) or cut off the Smash 4 stream. It would have been disrespectful to Nintendo and the Smash 4 community to do so, but I have to admit, it was what I was wishing for.

Hating on the game Melee enthusiasts did not care about, but were forced to watch, was a logical response. It was nothing more than expressing dislike for this situation in a way that would attract attention.
If future tournaments do not put the spectators in this position, there will be no reason for hating. I don’t think this is likely to happen, though—as far as I know, it was Nintendo who pressed on Smash 4 being on the VGBC prime time slot instead of, for example, Team Spooky prime time slot. Thus, whenever Nintendo is present as a sponsor for future tournaments, a similar situation should be expected.

It’s somewhat understandable that Nintendo acts this way, but it’s just as understandable that the hate will continue.

It attracted attention and made both games look bad.

Imagine you're an outsider watching Apex for the first time trying to get into smash in general. You watch grand finals of sm4sh you hear how the crowd reacts and you can draw two conclusions: Smash 4 is an awful game since the crowd doesn't like it or the melee community is rude and insular.

Neither of those are acceptable or favorable outcomes. I understand the frustration of having to wait but being an insular community is what is going to keep new meat out. Making sm4sh look bad isn't a good idea either, maybe new players to sm4sh could have discovered melee through it, but if you're being rude about the game they play now it's going to leave a bad taste in their mouth.

Frustration at TOs and weather conditions shouldnt lead to someone who worked hard getting to grand finals have it ruined. You can voice your opinion but when it makes both communities look bad is there really a need.

 

[Tagxy]

A little late to be quoting this, but whatever. I've been running this notion through my head for a couple days now and I think I have something that I'd want to say about it.

From the sounds of it, you are saying that reads/yomi equate to more depth. More layers of yomi means more depth. Something like figuring out weird strategies for niche situations is just more complexity. I think, with that idea, a game like Chess has literally 0 depth. Every move can be analyzed for its strategic value. There is no yomi happening unless you are playing with beginners or something (like let's see if he falls for my bait and gives me his queen for a bishop or something - a trap that relies on a bad opponent - I don't this even counts though).

I think there is great value in having the ability to analyze specific game states for "what I should have done" or "what he did was absolutely genious" and stuff like that. Not "read better", but find something you can do that is optimal, what its weaknesses are, and what you can do to cover those weaknesses. As I play more and more melee, I find I map more and more of these situations out. In a lot of cases, it comes down to "I have to read or guess at this point". Knowing where these situations are could be seen as complexity getting in the way, but I think it is just a different kind of strategic depth.

I also want to point out that a lot of this depth is not really noticed (this is imo, I guess). A lot of the strategic depth is hidden behind the technical barrier to melee. I see this shallow understanding from even people I'd consider mid-level at the game. I don't think that you got this part wrong, I just want to point it out. Technical ability is not complexity, I don't think.

Probably the biggest thing that I'd like to point out that I miss when I watch/play Smash 4 is the lack of something I'm just gonna call "circumstance". I define circumstance as some game state where there are factors that will affect your decision making - often leaving one player at an advantage. In melee, there seem to just be more circumstances than in smash 4. A lot of people say they like combos and they like edge guards and stuff like that, but what I think they really like is the unfavourable circumstances that are created that allow for these things. The reward for good decisions is favourable circumstances that allow you to snowball into a kill, and the opponent has to try to find a way out of the bad circumstance. In smash 4, it feels like the reward for good decisions is a hit or two. You're back to neutral too often. Recovery seems to be too effective allowing for more resets to neutral (reward for hitting them off the edge turns mostly into just more damage). The main thing you end up watching is two people in complete neutral game. It's not necessarily a bad thing, it's just not fun to watch (for me, at least). It's the same reason I don't like watching auto-combos from traditional fighting games. They don't create circumstance, they just add a little damage.

I hope this doesn't come across negatively. It is just something I wanted to say. I think I fall in the category of "don't care, I don't play the game, that's fine that you do, I was just a little upset I either had to stay up super late to watch melee finals or watch them on youtube".

Very nice conclusions! Your statements on chess are actually correct and pretty cool you extrapolated that from what I said. Right now people are actually having issues with chess as a game because the more it develops the more the beginning and the end have set predetermined outcomes. If you start out the wrong way it can lead to a predetermined loss, and there even comes a point in a chess match near the end where based on the pieces and their position you can already know who's going to win and as the game develops this comes earlier. I believe its common to even yield the game at those points. There's a minor worry that at some point the game will be "figured out" and thats part of the whole chess 2.0 movement. The other end of this issue is that if youre an amateur chess can be interesting, and if youre a top player chess is interesting, but the gap in knowledge between the two becomes cumbersome since getting better at chess means spending a lot of time memorizing all the variations of predetermined play at the beginning and end, which comes as a "criticism" as it can take you years before you can play the "real" game of chess where everyone has more or less the same understanding of >knowledge< of the game.

I dont mean to pan the acquisition of game knowledge or skills though. Obviously people like and enjoy chess and other games that require many hours of studying and/or practicing the games mechanics, and its more or less the same as acquiring knowledge or skills for anything else we find cool and enjoy. Whether it be physics, instruments, anime, history, or cooking sometimes things take a lot of knowledge and practice, and in some sense it can create camaraderie with other people who also enjoy and have spent significant time aquiring such knowledge and skills. I think there's also an appreciation for these skills too, it can come down to preference (and some more commonly appreciated then others) but ultimately anyone that puts in lots of effort to show mastery of their craft is beautiful to witness. However this doesnt equate to depth. Depth is a mental process that forces us to make choices.

As for your conclusions on smash 4/melee comparisons and how all this relates to the smash series in general I cover below. Ill also state here depth is also not the be all end all goal for pursuits of enjoyment. Does it matter if becoming a master performance pianist isnt the deepest skill to have? Of course not, its a skill that person enjoys as well as many others.

I really like this snowball analogy. To me, Smash always feels like two men fighting each other to death. Watching Smash 4 (and Brawl, when it was still a thing) invokes the picture of two heavy-weight guys standing on a plain, slowly punching each other to death. There is little positioning advantage, but still, the one who lands the better hit wins.

Melee, on the other hand, has two Bruce Lees standing on top of Mount Everest. The neutral game is incredibly threatening—both players know that one good hit will throw them down the mountain and it will be very hard to come back to the top from this detrimental positioning. It is, however, entirely possible to turn the situation around completely, but it requires a combination of great skill, fast reflexes and correct anticipation of your opponent.

The very moment you land a grab with Marth, Fox, Sheik, Peach, Ice Climbers or Captain Falcon, you know that conversion to death is not only possible, but guaranteed if you make the right choices. In other words, you are the limiting factor, not the game.

Still, these conversions are hardly ever easy, and in the few cases that they are (Wobbling), the opponent can evade them completely. Imagine we substitute one of the Bruce Lees for a heavyweight fighter—if he grabs his opponent, he can simply throw him down the mountain to his death. But his opponent is too fast and too smart for that to ever happen. To the spectators, however, simply knowing that getting one grab equals a stock loss makes watching incredibly thrilling.

Read the above portion for more context. This is a misunderstanding of Brawl, the misunderstanding that believes the game is played almost entirely in neutral. I don't fault you for this misunderstanding since its repeated so often that to some its become truth. In Brawl positional advantage (more importantly, momentum) is as important if not moreso, but most people dont have the eye to understand why (Brawl's own inaccessibility issues). If I successfully win the neutral in Brawl, my opponent is typically sent into a disadvantage situation where I typically have all of my options and he has X% of his. At this point there may not be a true combo follow up, and many with the misunderstanding would consider this a "neutral reset" since the opponent has the opportunity to pick the right choice to escape, but it would be foolish for the aggressor to give up his advantage and reset to true neutral even if the opponent has the opportunity to escape. This is the nature of Brawl's punish game, as the aggressor I may miss my punish follow up once, twice, three times. But if I consistently press my advantage after winning the neutral the momentum will largely work in my favor to win me the set. Its maximizing the success of favorable probabilities. The ability to make the reads to maintain this momentum as long as possible is a deep skill that separates the games good from its outstanding players. I know most people compare Brawl to chess, but I find this inaccurate. I think it most strongly resembles poker. Yes I know this skill and situations also exists in melee as well, but its an extremely large proportion of Brawl.

Going a little bit deeper into this, I think punishment can be either read or reaction based, and the distinction (or proportion) between the two has to do with the amount of options the opponent has after losing neutral. In 64 its very few so punishment tends to be almost entirely reaction based. Melee has more, though I listened to a stream Armada did once who stated it was more reaction based but it does have a mix of both and the reactions are hard. Brawl has some reaction based punishment, but of the series is the most heavily read based on its punishment. Im not really judging whats better here because they both take skill.

Its hard to judge smash 4 right now. I can see why those unfamiliar with the game find them to be the same, but as of now the thought process is very different from Brawl.

Hating on the game Melee enthusiasts did not care about, but were forced to watch, was a logical response. It was nothing more than expressing dislike for this situation in a way that would attract attention.
If future tournaments do not put the spectators in this position, there will be no reason for hating. I don’t think this is likely to happen, though—as far as I know, it was Nintendo who pressed on Smash 4 being on the VGBC prime time slot instead of, for example, Team Spooky prime time slot. Thus, whenever Nintendo is present as a sponsor for future tournaments, a similar situation should be expected.

It was understandable, but it was not logical and certainly not acceptable. Also Melee being run later I would guess had more to do with it being the bigger game if past precedence is anything to judge by. Apex 2013 Brawl ended at 3 AM. The situation was the same but reversed, melee and brawl both had their top 8's to play out but melee went first and brawl after. At the time Brawl had more entrants. Apex 2014 was the first time melee was run after Brawl and also the first time it had more attendance.

 

[Victor Marczyk]

It all depends what you grew up with as well, a majority have grown up with melee making it their preferable game. We might as well create a thread saying "Why the hate on Nunchuks?"

 

[KoRoBeNiKi]

It all depends what you grew up with as well, a majority have grown up with melee making it their preferable game. We might as well create a thread saying "Why the hate on Nunchuks?"

Hey, i grew up with 64, and play it more often/prefer it to an extent but I still prefer melee as a spectator sport.

melee is just fun to watch, so many options

 

[TunaAndBacon]

It all depends what you grew up with as well, a majority have grown up with melee making it their preferable game. We might as well create a thread saying "Why the hate on Nunchuks?"

Nostalgia alone doesn't make Melee the most competitively successful game, I spent most of my time growing up with Brawl before I started just having more fun with Melee.

 

[RBreadsticks]

It all depends what you grew up with as well, a majority have grown up with melee making it their preferable game. We might as well create a thread saying "Why the hate on Nunchuks?"

That wouldn't be necessary people never chanted for gamecube controllers when nunchucks were winning their grand finals lol

 

[TunaAndBacon]

That wouldn't be necessary people never chanted for gamecube controllers when nunchucks were winning their grand finals lol

Zero finally wins Apex 2016 with the wiimote and numhcuk and the crowd erupts into " GAMECUBE CONTROLLER GAMECUBE CONTROLLER GAMECUBE CONTROLLER GAME CUBE CONTROLLER" Zero is devastated.

 

[SAUS]

Very nice conclusions! Your statements on chess are actually correct and pretty cool you extrapolated that from what I said. Right now people are actually having issues with chess as a game because the more it develops the more the beginning and the end have set predetermined outcomes. If you start out the wrong way it can lead to a predetermined loss, and there even comes a point in a chess match near the end where based on the pieces and their position you can already know who's going to win and as the game develops this comes earlier. I believe its common to even yield the game at those points. There's a minor worry that at some point the game will be "figured out" and thats part of the whole chess 2.0 movement. The other end of this issue is that if youre an amateur chess can be interesting, and if youre a top player chess is interesting, but the gap in knowledge between the two becomes cumbersome since getting better at chess means spending a lot of time memorizing all the variations of predetermined play at the beginning and end, which comes as a "criticism" as it can take you years before you can play the "real" game of chess where everyone has more or less the same understanding of >knowledge< of the game.

I dont mean to pan the acquisition of game knowledge or skills though. Obviously people like and enjoy chess and other games that require many hours of studying and/or practicing the games mechanics, and its more or less the same as acquiring knowledge or skills for anything else we find cool and enjoy. Whether it be physics, instruments, anime, history, or cooking sometimes things take a lot of knowledge and practice, and in some sense it can create camaraderie with other people who also enjoy and have spent significant time aquiring such knowledge and skills. I think there's also an appreciation for these skills too, it can come down to preference (and some more commonly appreciated then others) but ultimately anyone that puts in lots of effort to show mastery of their craft is beautiful to witness. However this doesnt equate to depth. Depth is a mental process that forces us to make choices.

As for your conclusions on smash 4/melee comparisons and how all this relates to the smash series in general I cover below. Ill also state here depth is also not the be all end all goal for pursuits of enjoyment. Does it matter if becoming a master performance pianist isnt the deepest skill to have? Of course not, its a skill that person enjoys as well as many others.

Read the above portion for more context. This is a misunderstanding of Brawl, the misunderstanding that believes the game is played almost entirely in neutral. I don't fault you for this misunderstanding since its repeated so often that to some its become truth. In Brawl positional advantage (more importantly, momentum) is as important if not moreso, but most people dont have the eye to understand why (Brawl's own inaccessibility issues). If I successfully win the neutral in Brawl, my opponent is typically sent into a disadvantage situation where I typically have all of my options and he has X% of his. At this point there may not be a true combo follow up, and many with the misunderstanding would consider this a "neutral reset" since the opponent has the opportunity to pick the right choice to escape, but it would be foolish for the aggressor to give up his advantage and reset to true neutral even if the opponent has the opportunity to escape. This is the nature of Brawl's punish game, as the aggressor I may miss my punish follow up once, twice, three times. But if I consistently press my advantage after winning the neutral the momentum will largely work in my favor to win me the set. Its maximizing the success of favorable probabilities. The ability to make the reads to maintain this momentum as long as possible is a deep skill that separates the games good from its outstanding players. I know most people compare Brawl to chess, but I find this inaccurate. I think it most strongly resembles poker. Yes I know this skill and situations also exists in melee as well, but its an extremely large proportion of Brawl.

Going a little bit deeper into this, I think punishment can be either read or reaction based, and the distinction (or proportion) between the two has to do with the amount of options the opponent has after losing neutral. In 64 its very few so punishment tends to be almost entirely reaction based. Melee has more, though I listened to a stream Armada did once who stated it was more reaction based but it does have a mix of both and the reactions are hard. Brawl has some reaction based punishment, but of the series is the most heavily read based on its punishment. Im not really judging whats better here because they both take skill.

Its hard to judge smash 4 right now. I can see why those unfamiliar with the game find them to be the same, but as of now the thought process is very different from Brawl.

It was understandable, but it was not logical and certainly not acceptable. Also Melee being run later I would guess had more to do with it being the bigger game if past precedence is anything to judge by. Apex 2013 Brawl ended at 3 AM. The situation was the same but reversed, melee and brawl both had their top 8's to play out but melee went first and brawl after. At the time Brawl had more entrants. Apex 2014 was the first time melee was run after Brawl and also the first time it had more attendance.

I think there is lack of strongly defined vocabulary for talking about this kind of thing. You say Brawl is like Poker and not like Chess. On that notion, let's say there are two types of strategy which we'll label Chess strategy and Poker strategy. This actually comes as a different way of explaining part of my model for understanding skill used in Melee (and probably all games), but that is for another discussion. Chess strategy is more single-player in that you can figure things out on your own. Then it is just a matter of applying what you have figured out. Poker strategy is where you are playing more 2-player in that all of your decisions rely too heavily on your specific opponent for them to matter against another opponent.

I think that both of these types of strategy can be deep on their own. I think Melee has deeper Chess strategy and probably not that different level of Poker strategy (I did play Brawl for 1.5 years, but I don't think I understand the game well enough at this point to make a call on this). I know you mentioned that more testing of one skill makes other skills less important, but when skills are being pushed to their limits, all skills that are tested matter.

Chess (the game on its own - not Chess strategy) being solvable is definitely a problem for that kind of game. I think Melee avoids this, though, since there is definitely some level of Poker strategy in the game (which I think a lot of people do not see behind the speed and technical barrier of the game). I don't think you implied this at all, though, so don't get me wrong on that part. I just wanted to point this out.

All in all, I think the wording of saying "Melee is less deep than Brawl, but more complex" bugged me. I hope this all makes sense lol.

Ultimately, what you say still holds. Depth isn't everything, and preferences will be different from person to person.

 

[FatalStryke]

I like both games. Melee is extremely entertaining.

 

[Nessafile]

WOW this thread is dirty

basically melee takes more skill in our head (kinda does, even smash 4 players use the excuse "its easier to get in to!") plus more technical stuff and blah blah blah, you probably already know.

that being said, Melee is generally more entertaining to watch then watch Rosalina time you out.

 

[Racuncai]

Smash 4 is not campy, that was only a matchup like young link and puff in melee, i think the game is not projectile based or spam move based.

 

[KoRoBeNiKi]

Smash 4 is not campy, that was only a matchup like young link and puff in melee, i think the game is not projectile based or spam move based.

Your post really makes me go hoo hah.

In all seriousness, everything was previously discussed at this point. We know the game is not super campy/projectile based/spam based, at least in comparison to brawl. The game itself just doesn't appeal to a lot of melee players (ro for myself/others as 64 players) due to the physics engine in general. Too many unsafe slow moves, at least for me personally.

 

[Nessafile]

Your post really makes me go hoo hah.

In all seriousness, everything was previously discussed at this point. We know the game is not super campy/projectile based/spam based, at least in comparison to brawl. The game itself just doesn't appeal to a lot of melee players (ro for myself/others as 64 players) due to the physics engine in general. Too many unsafe slow moves, at least for me personally.

this, i wanted to throw an example out there basically, if you were replying to me, Ran

 

[Lorenzo The Comic]

The good things I've been hearing about my favorite Character Luigi might convince me to consider going back to Smash 4.

 

[Rahu700]

I don't necessarily think that Melee players hate Smash 4... I think they hate when Melee is shoved aside due to Smash 4 being played instead. They think Smash 4 is stealing the limelight.

 

[ObdurateMARio]

I don't necessarily think that Melee players hate Smash 4... I think they hate when Melee is shoved aside due to Smash 4 being played instead. They think Smash 4 is stealing the limelight.

I disagree. Smash 4 isn't stealing Melee's limelight at all, really. What Melee players don't like is Nintendo's prodding to get everybody on the Smash 4 bandwagon. They sponsor Melee because they know that they need Melee's scene if Smash 4 is going to exist cometitively, but they would far prefer if we all jumped ship over to their new, "superior" game. That pisses me, and a lot of other people off. If you want us to move along, make a game worth playing. If not, screw off. By the measures of many in the Melee community Smash 4 is, to put it lightly, a disappointment. This is by the standards of competitive play, as guaged against Melee, I am making no statement on Smash 4's inherent value as a game, although I personally think it's suited for casual play mostly. ANYWAYS, a lot of people have already had enough of the whole Nintendo/Smash 4 sponsorship deal. Having it does nothing but give us more things to fight about, because there's this potential of shady back dealing BS, not to mention the oncoming death of PM due to this deal. Whereas PM was/is likely the closest thing to a Melee successor we will EVER see.

In short, Smash 4 doesn't steal any attention from Melee, except when Nintendo is nudging people in order to try and sell more copies. Which is actually much much more annoying than if Smash 4 were becoming an overnight sensation and Melee were being pushed off its pedestal as king.

 

[JustYuck]

Trying to be the best at Sm4sh seems to be a lot like trying to be the world champion of checkers. Yeah there is strategy, and yeah there are different ways to play, but in the end you can only get so good. I feel like once people start to get closer to that skill ceiling more and more competitive Sm4sh matches will end in stalemates and nobody will feel like watching/playing it. I know its a heated topic, and if you enjoy Sm4sh by all means play it! I am just hypothesizing the direction of that game.

 

[Victor Marczyk]

Nostalgia alone doesn't make Melee the most competitively successful game, I spent most of my time growing up with Brawl before I started just having more fun with Melee.

Actually yeah I stand corrected. I grew up with Brawl and find myself playing melee the most

 

[Victor Marczyk]

That wouldn't be necessary people never chanted for gamecube controllers when nunchucks were winning their grand finals lol

True, but you know there's definitely gonna be controversy if someone won with a controller other than a GCC

 

[Nessafile]

shoutouts to melee though