Will Smash 4 reach Melee status?

[Onoh]

Smash 4 is probably the smash game that I'm best at and I feel that it will be around for a longer time than Brawl. Recently, Smash 4 has gotten a lot of hype around the community, even sometimes reaching Melee levels (that, if you don't know, has been around for almost 14 years and is still played competitively). So, do you guys think this game will be as highly represented as Melee in the future?

 

[mario123007]

Only time will tell.

 

[Mobes]

Only time will tell! I mean, yeah, obviously.
For now, Smash 4 is (right?) the most popular Smash game you can currently buy at most retail.

I can see this thread going bad pretty quickly, but if anyone has any thesis about how the popularity of both games work, I'd love to read it.. Unless it boils down to "n0 smash 4 is bad! and slow", heh.

 

[MarioMeteor]

It could, or it couldn't. It would definitely take a hell of a long time. Though, Smash 4 seems to be attracting more new faces than Melee, so that's a good thing.

But seeing what Melee does to people, I'm not sure if it getting as popular would be a good thing.

 

[Indefinite Minimum]

I depends if they ever make a Smash 5. If they never release it, Smash 4 will become like Melee since there's no other option. If Smash 5 does get released, a lot of people will jump ship for it like they did for Smash 4 from Brawl.

 

[Onoh]

Only time will tell! I mean, yeah, obviously.
For now, Smash 4 is (right?) the most popular Smash game you can currently buy at most retail.

I can see this thread going bad pretty quickly, but if anyone has any thesis about how the popularity of both games work, I'd love to read it.. Unless it boils down to "n0 smash 4 is bad! and slow", heh.

I don't really expect this thread to be long-lasting, I just want other people's opinions and to have friendly chats.

 

[LancerStaff]

It really just boils down to if the next game is satisfying enough for the community. If it isn't then everybody's going to fall back onto SSB4 like with Melee and Brawl. If everybody moves over to the new game then the SSB4 community will become the SSB5 community and SSB4 will largely be forgotten.

 

[Elixir Soup]

If all the majority of Melee fans get what they want as DLC and Smash 5 never happens or takes a while to be developed (around 5-6 years), I'd say yes.

 

[the_muffin]

It depends. Melee is a bit of fluke in the competitive gaming scene. Games that are as long running and successful as Melee are few and far between. The only things I can think of are Starcraft and maybe Quake 3. There are many factors that contributed to Melee's staying power. From Brawl being a dud, to everything around it being grassroots, to it's uniqueness as a competitive game, it's technicality, and it's relatively easy (and cheap) barrier of entry.

In the end, only time will tell. Smash 4 already has an advantage over Melee because of the balance patches and DLC, but ultimately I think how good the next Smash game is will be the largest factor in how long the Smash 4 scene stays around, and in what quantity of players.

 

[Fatmanonice]

I understand that this thread was made with the best of intentions but, historically speaking, thread like this almost never end well. That said, this thread will be watched for awhile just to make sure people remain civil.

 

[Kurri ★]

Assuming Smash 5 will be an improved Smash 4, then no. If it completely deviates, then possibly.

If all the majority of Melee fans get what they want as DLC and Smash 5 never happens or takes a while to be developed (around 5-6 years), I'd say yes.

They're not going to get what they want as DLC, what they want isn't feasible as DLC.

 

[ghWyPakDzVvPncx76h2J]

Reach Melee Status as in replacing it? Most likely not. Reach its success? Definitely yes.The only way Smash 4 can replace melee is if they make the neutral much faster and how Melee achieved that was l-cancelling and wavedashing as well as having very strong top tier characters that made for a really fast paced game. Smash 4 has already became much more faster as good players become better. I mean look at Dabuz one of the most defensive Rosalina's in the world is now finding ways to make his playstyle faster. Smash 4 currently has really fast paced characters being Sheik, Ryu, and Pikachu that allow for the game to be move fast, now all that is needed is either A. find ways to make the characters themselves play to make the neutral even faster or B. somehow some tech at the same magnitude and importance as wavedashing and l-cancelling is found or added in and doesn't get patched out. When the game isn't in the neutral it already moves at an incredibly fast pace when the game is tipped in someone's favor, it's just the neutral really. As long as people keep improving characters, advancing the meta, and if Sakurai and his team keeps doing justice with awesome fixes like shieldstun updates then you can sure bet this game will reach melee status popularity wise.

 

[SpiritofSpeed]

Depends on how Smash 5 is received. Melee only kept going thanks to Brawl bombing in competitive play, and most of its issues were fixed in Smash 4

 

[Mjolnir/Hunter101]

way i see it, Smash 4 is boxing or wrestling, because its a little more based on reads and methodical punishes-while Melee is like basketball, mostly focusing on moving fast and being strong in quick offense. i have a genuine belief they can easily share a healthy competitive scene.
some ppl do say things like you can only get so good at Smash 4, but when it comes down to it, all fighting games are things u can constantly get better at.

 

[FieryRebirth]

way i see it, Smash 4 is boxing or wrestling, because its a little more based on reads and methodical punishes-while Melee is like basketball, mostly focusing on moving fast and being strong in quick offense. i have a genuine belief they can easily share a healthy competitive scene.
some ppl do say things like you can only get so good at Smash 4, but when it comes down to it, all fighting games are things u can constantly get better at.

Heh. Interesting, yet accurate comparison. Yeah, Smash 4 competitive feels like a intense chess game sometimes. It's all about dem reads and punishes.

 

[Mysteltainn]

Most people have pointed out what is probably the most glaring point that I was going to mention, and that's simply that Sm4sh's competitive scene will lie largely in how the next instalment of the game is received by the crowd. If Smash 5 is received like Brawl was (let's hope not though), then there's no question that Sm4sh's competitive scene will last longer, and hence, evolve further.

When I think about Melee, I think about how much it has evolved technically. Some of this is no doubt due to Melee's unique physics allowing different techs to occur, but it is also due to the sheer amount of time that people had playing it, and the mastery that resulted. Playing a game competitively from near the end of 2001 until the latter part of 2014 is a VERY long time (and there are many who still play Melee), so it's quite natural that Melee ended up the way that it did. Although there may have been gaps in the earlier part of 2008 where people were on the Brawl Hype Train, for most Melee players though, it really didn't last long before they reverted.

Of course, there will always be a chunk of the community who will undoubtedly move onto the next instalment for other reasons (new bells & whistles, new characters, stages, etc) as what happened in Brawl, but if the game is not deemed benign from a competitive standpoint, then the competitive scene will remain within the previous instalment. Sm4sh has the potential for this, both largely because it has a lot of new players involved in it, and it doesn't seem to be generating nearly as much negativity as Brawl did, and some of that negativity that it did receive has been pacified by balancing patches. However, whether it will reach Melee levels is uncertain, and something that only time can tell us. The reality is, we have no way of knowing how Sm4sh's meta-game can evolve great Smash 5 will be (or if there even will be one). So until then, yes, there will be a competitive scene in Sm4sh that will continue to flourish and push the meta-game as much as it possibly can.

 

[XxSmashM4sterxX]

Not in a million years.

 

[XxSmashM4sterxX]

It could, or it couldn't. It would definitely take a hell of a long time. Though, Smash 4 seems to be attracting more new faces than Melee, so that's a good thing.

But seeing what Melee does to people, I'm not sure if it getting as popular would be a good thing.

"What Melee does to people" I dunno what you're saying here, is it that most Melee players acknowledge Melee as the superior [competitive] game while not being too scared to be vocal about it and get to the point, rather than trying to make everything flowery and tip-toeing around the point so as not to offend someone? Or did I miss your point completely...

 

[MarioMeteor]

"What Melee does to people" I dunno what you're saying here, is it that most Melee players acknowledge Melee as the superior [competitive] game while not being too scared to be vocal about it and get to the point, rather than trying to make everything flowery and tip-toeing around the point so as not to offend someone? Or did I miss your point completely...

That's exactly what I'm saying, albeit not sugar-coated and as black and white as how you phrased it.

 

[Wintropy]

Considering Melee's consistent popularity is in part due to Brawl's tepid reception in the competitive community, I'd say it will definitely depend on how the next game is received.

Even so, Melee has a cult following that has existed for well over a decade - it will be years before Smash 4 ever reaches that stage, if it is ever to do so.

 

[Rinku リンク]

Never because we can't do the "wavedashes" and the "L cancels".

 

[Dark Dr. Pink-Gold Pit Jr]

Gimme a second to grab Shulk so that I can tell you what the future holds.

 

[EarthBoundEnigma]

It depends. Melee is a bit of fluke in the competitive gaming scene. Games that are as long running and successful as Melee are few and far between. The only things I can think of are Starcraft and maybe Quake 3. There are many factors that contributed to Melee's staying power. From Brawl being a dud, to everything around it being grassroots, to it's uniqueness as a competitive game, it's technicality, and it's relatively easy (and cheap) barrier of entry.

In the end, only time will tell. Smash 4 already has an advantage over Melee because of the balance patches and DLC, but ultimately I think how good the next Smash game is will be the largest factor in how long the Smash 4 scene stays around, and in what quantity of players.

StarCraft is a prime example, mirroring Melee best. Neither game, played as it was on release, was played the same at the highest levels at the height of its heyday. It was through exploitive discoveries and millions of hours of collective game-time that people even realized the games' true potentials. StarCraft, however, was balanced and patched to nurture the competitive gameplay. Melee, on the other hand, was not. StarCraft's metagame has achieved historically good balance and is lauded to this day as the best example of asymmetric balance (factions/characters being different-but-equal) ever devised. This last part is important, because as we see with Melee, as beloved as it is for its mechanics, it was not well balanced and only a small fraction of its cast is viable at the highest levels of play. With SSB4, significantly larger portions of the cast are viable, with improvements coming after each patch. We can be pretty certain Melee won't change, despite any possible metagame shifts. (inb420xx) We can't say for sure what the end of SSB4 has in store, but we can be sure it will include a breadth of viable characters and a resultant metagame that will likely be more dynamic.

Reach Melee Status as in replacing it? Most likely not. Reach its success? Definitely yes.The only way Smash 4 can replace melee is if they make the neutral much faster and how Melee achieved that was l-cancelling and wavedashing as well as having very strong top tier characters that made for a really fast paced game. Smash 4 has already became much more faster as good players become better. I mean look at Dabuz one of the most defensive Rosalina's in the world is now finding ways to make his playstyle faster. Smash 4 currently has really fast paced characters being Sheik, Ryu, and Pikachu that allow for the game to be move fast, now all that is needed is either A. find ways to make the characters themselves play to make the neutral even faster or B. somehow some tech at the same magnitude and importance as wavedashing and l-cancelling is found or added in and doesn't get patched out. When the game isn't in the neutral it already moves at an incredibly fast pace when the game is tipped in someone's favor, it's just the neutral really. As long as people keep improving characters, advancing the meta, and if Sakurai and his team keeps doing justice with awesome fixes like shieldstun updates then you can sure bet this game will reach melee status popularity wise.

For some, Melee will never be replaced, but for others, it already has been. For better or for worse, new players are more likely to enter the series via the newest installments, not old ones. Personally, I haven't even left Smash 64, but I DO play the latest smash most, now. Having started the series playing competitively against other local players, I've watched as my cohort generation of smashers have never truly abandoned the games they've dedicated themselves to mastering, but we do keep moving forward. The future of this iteration is encouraging, thanks to the promise of balance adjustments, making it the safest bet for dedicating yourself to mastery. If you're going to put in the work, there will be no shortage of satisfaction knowing more characters will be viable and more matchups will exist, competitively. This does wonders to keep the game from ever getting stale. It is hard to imagine StarCraft ever earning the honorary title of "World's First eSport" if only 2 of the 3 races were viable. (Or worse, if they were rock paper scissors.)

 

[Runic_SSB]

I hate threads like these. Melee has only survived so long because their community doesn't like the newer entries in the series. By wanting to "aspire" to them, you're basically hoping that the next game will be bad. Like every other competitive video game except for Melee (and a few others), Smash 4 will die when the next game comes out and the community moves on, and that's nothing to be ashamed of.

 

[Sonicninja115]

There wI'll always be a dedicated Sm4sh scene, just like Melee and PM. A lot of people will move on, but a large number will either dual play or stick with Sm4sh

 

[SherrdreamZ]

Melee has a larger skill ceiling due to Tech's and the way it has evolved over the years. As a competitively viable game it may stand out the most for many years to come. It's more combo savvy and allows for a greater disparity of skill Ex Good vs Great players. That's really the cornerstone of what makes a game competitive at the highest and most exciting level. It's not balanced as well as Smash 4, however i think it will likely have more staying power than Smash 4, as 5 will be expanding on the current formula whereas Melee remains it's own unique experience that jives most with competitive mindsets.

Short answer, no i don't think Smash 4 will ever reach Melee Status competitively, or have remotely the same staying power because most likely Smash 5 will be a better version of it and most Smash 4 players will go on to the next game. Melee Player's and to a lesser extent the games incredibly vast fanbase will not.

 

[Sleeplost]

Never. What you're asking is for that of Smash 4 to reach a point in quality in which it can become as enjoyable of a spectator sport as Melee. Smash 4 is a fantastic game that I still play on an often basis, but even I cannot take it as seriously as Melee when it comes to competitive play. Melee is far more technical and rewarding towards long-time practicing players. Melee is built upon fans of the game disliking the technical skill level present in future installments, and unless you made the next Smash installment worse than Smash 4, it wouldn't be remembered as fondly as Melee is today.

 

[Mobes]

Melee is built upon fans of the game disliking the technical skill level present in future installments

I don't agree with most of your post about how qualitative Smash 4 is, but this here point is important.

Melee's popularity is well-protected by the meta narrative of Sakurai's design goal for the series vs the thoughts / wills of the competitive Smash audience.
Not competitive players, mind you.

By this notion, the fact that Smash 4 and whatever comes next has way more content then Melee, and is (my opinion on SSB4 anyway) more mechanically sound isn't that important in the grander scheme of things.

 

[eltoroguaco]

Well even how much I love Melee, I hope SSB4 will become the main tournament game a day. Mainly cause it's easier to get so younger generations get a chance too.

 

[mario123007]

Gimme a second to grab Shulk so that I can tell you what the future holds.

Or just simply grab the Monado and see if there's any vision.

 

[ZafKiel]

I think Smash 4 will become a great e-sports game and get a lot of attention but don't think it will ever reach Melee status. Melee is over a decade old and we're still playing it. It's because of Melee's depth that makes it such a popular game. Melee rose from ashes because of its fanbase so if people want SSB4 to stand on the same level, they have to be willing to put in the time and work for their game and to spread it. I honestly also think that Melee is more fun to watch in general too.

 

[Diddy Kong]

With the last patch removing the heavy shield-involvement in the game, I can see Samsh 4 with a nice future. Certainly, it'll be a better future than Brawl's. Is there even still a Brawl metagame? I highly doubt it.

Now with less emphasis on the shields, I can see Smash 4 becoming far more offensive than before. Yes, compared to Melee it's far more about makign punishes, but that does allow for a more varied metagame. It's quite funny how much of a mixture Smash 4 is between Brawl and Melee. Both rush down and camping / punishing are styles that work very well in Smash 4. This alone can add a whole new layer of debt into the game.

Plus, there's balance. What kept Melee fresh till today is that despite the gaps between character's strenghts, there aren't a whole lot of character who are totally unviable. I mean, 10 years ago nobody would've guessed characters as Jigglypuff, Ice Climbers, Yoshi, Pikachu, Young Link and Luigi would ever amount to anything. Yet, here we are. The only characters I personally see as totally unviable in Melee are ; Kirby, Bowser, Ness, Zelda and Roy. Characters with questionable viability are: Mewtwo, Mr.Game & Watch and Pichu. All other characters are well-established with their good and bad matchups all around the metagame.

And I think that's what is gonna keep Smash 4 alive; balance in a huge cast of characters. The gap between indivivual character's strenghts is far less of a problem in this game than any other Smash games so far. Yes, Sheik still is leagues above Zelda, but it's not Melee Fox vs Bowser / Kirby or Brawl MetaKnight vs Ganondorf. I think this, along with DLC patches, will make Smash 4 most likely the second most enjoyed competitive Smash game for a long time.

 

[Ryusuta]

With the last patch removing the heavy shield-involvement in the game, I can see Samsh 4 with a nice future. Certainly, it'll be a better future than Brawl's. Is there even still a Brawl metagame? I highly doubt it.

The "Meta" game was Brawl's problem in the first place.

Badum tish.

 

[Diddy Kong]

The "Meta" game was Brawl's problem in the first place.

Badum tish.

I see what you did there

 

[Pazzo.]

As long as people come back for more, SSB4 can last.

As a community, defining our meta and showing the world what makes SSB4 sit apart from other games is our next step.

 

[Dessa]

I disagree with the assertion that it can't be as successful as Melee because of speed or tech reasons. I have been playing Smash since Melee, and while I loved each iteration of the series as it has come, I never cared about the competitive scene until 4. Brawl had balance problems everywhere, and Melee? To me it's too fast, too technical. I don't like the fact that the game the pros play isn't the game I play because I can't relate to it. I like that Smash 4 tips the scale more towards reads and mindgames and less toward sheer technical ability.

I also like its diversity. It's not at all uncommon to see dead middle-tier characters fight and beat Shiek, Rosalina, or Zero Suit Samus. It's not beyond reason to see a Kirby make it deep, or a Peach take a title. I get tired of seeing the same matchups over and over. Melee can't compete on this front.

And maybe this makes me odd, but I don't mind defensive play. The fact that offense and defense are both viable makes for more of that variety I'm after.

I LOVE Smash 4's meta. Love it. And it's not because I don't get Melee's. Melee has plenty of depth, plenty of action, plenty of skill. It's just not a game I like to watch pros play. Maybe my preferences aren't popular, or maybe they are. People who profess to know what every spectator wants are speculating at best, and are talking out of the wrong end at worst. Different people like different things. And it shpuld be obvipus enough by now that the Smash 4mula isn't a complete loser.

Like the person in post 1 said: time will tell.

 

[eltoroguaco]

Well said. I personally like watching the high speed at Melee. Makes everything look badass even when you often has no idea what's going on. However, SM4SH give us the possibility to read deeper into what's happening and force players to be vary of their opponents which frankly makes the game more sport'like.

 

[Onoh]

I hope in the future that they do keep Melee, but also have Smash 4 competitive as well. The likelihood of that happening is slim, but it would be great for the whole Smash community. The speeds and meta of the two games (heck, one is still in development) are drastically different Melee being more about technicality, speed, and hard-work and Smash 4 is more about learning offensive and defensive options for most of the cast and doing the best counter-pick for a situation. (whether a character, stage, etc.)

Also, Smash 4 is still a changing game. Nintendo won't even touch Melee, so getting a solid metagame for Smash 4 isn't very likely at least until the next Smash game comes out. (if one does)

 

[TheBuzzSaw]

I'll just say this. The game is one year old, and I'm quite happy with how the meta is developing. Contrast that with Brawl, where I was upset after 3 months and generally done caring at the year mark.

Is Cloud Strife available yet? ... How about now? T_T

 

[xDizxy]

It's the other way around actually.