Does a lack of "true combos" hurt Brawl?

[Masmasher@]

why are people still talked about l canceling when i thoroughly proved earlier in this thread that it has a purpose beyond a tech skill barrier.

see... alot of people dont read.
thats where problems and circular arguments happen and people end up trying to be so pretentious when the fact is you simply didnt read....

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

why are people still talked about l canceling when i thoroughly proved earlier in this thread that it has a purpose beyond a tech skill barrier.

see... alot of people dont read.
thats where problems and circular arguments happen and people end up trying to be so pretentious when the fact is you simply didnt read....

No it doesn't, you never read the rebuttal which makes me think you yourself skimmed since you never even acknowledged them.

Also balance argument makes no sense because at high levels of play mistakes are a lot less common.

 

[Masmasher@]

No it doesn't, you never read the rebuttal which makes me think you yourself skimmed since you never even acknowledged them.

Also balance argument makes no sense because at high levels of play mistakes are a lot less common.

i didnt realize that was a rebuttal
i merly thought that was complaining
i looked throught this thread and no one replyed the vid of mango vs zhu
and if you did then you wouldve realized that its practical to have l canceling.

 

[OkamiBW]

Also Okami with the major bias.

Sales can mean that a game is more competitive because there are more players, you know a 16 man tournament is less competitive than a 256 player one. But for that you want to look at attendance. Sales imply what people liked about a game so they bought it. As I said with Smashchu, while you can't give a direct definitive reason it sold well you can make an educated guess as to why.

Stop implying that sales has a correlation to competitiveness. Especially sales between a 7 year time span.

You guys were talking about retail sales. You weren't talking about ammount of people entering into a tournament. If you want to talk about that, let's talk about how in the past year and a half at large tournaments (100+ people) (aside from Genesis and Winter Game Fest), Melee has had more entrants (to my knowledge...someone feel free to check/post data) than Brawl at tournaments with both events.

I can tell you with quite a lot of certainty that the majority of people who buy smash games are casual players. They do not know what makes a game competitive or not. How many people do you think go into a store and are like, "Hmm...I want to buy a competitive game...and I want it to be Melee or Brawl. Yeah, let's go with Brawl. That seems more competitive." Wii Sports, Wii Play, Mario Kart Wii, Wii Sports Resort, Wii Fit, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, and Wii Fit Plus all sold at least 8 million copies (while Wii Sports sold like 65 million copies more than Brawl) more than Super Smash Bros. Brawl.* Perhaps you'd like to argue that they're all more competitive and better than Brawl.

It should also be noted that your sales argument is flawed in other ways too. You're not accounting for the overall population growth between 2001 and 2008. You have to remember that the amount of people playing video games and the amount of people buying video games increases over time as a general trend. Face it, Red Ryu. Your argument stinks more than excrement.

And keep in mind that people who buy Brawl usually won't play the game and then say, "Hmm...I like this game. I'll buy more copies." (Though, yes, reviews and playtesting can determine things, though I'd hardly consider those the best ways to determine competitiveness)

*Yes, according to Wikipedia. Find another source that says otherwise instead if you want.

 

[shadyf0o]

I've been playing Smash Bros. since Melee came out, though only casually because I was too young to go to tournaments. Now that I'm in college, I'm able to play with a much wider range of people, including those who are frequent tournament goers.

A couple of the people that I have met extremely dislike Brawl compared to Melee (not that uncommon of an opinion), and what their problem with it boiled down to, even more so than the obvious flaws like tripping and character balance (not that melee was much better in that respect), was combos, or Brawl's lack thereof.

I, on the other hand, don't see why that is a problem, I see it as making that game more about reading , predicting, and overall outsmarting that opponent to land consecutive hits than relying on one's ability to perfectly press the right buttons in the correct sequence after landing the first hit.

This is also quite evident in our choice of mods. I really like Balanced Brawl, because it fixes my problem with the game, character and stage viability. My friends, on the other hand, prefer Brawl+ because it allows them to combo effectively.

What are your opinions on this? Are combos really so important that a game without very many of them is simply worse than one with them?

The real difference for me between Melee and Brawl is the level of excitement and surprise. In Melee you never quite know what is going to happen next, and almost a decade after it's release, things are still being discovered. Brawl, with it's lack of combos, starts to feel very scripted after awhile. I've played it since it's release and I don't think I will ever see a game with something I haven't seen already. Every game feels like the last game. I almost feel like I'm playing competitive Starcraft II, which ultimately boils down to who was a fraction of a second quicker executing their build order, which the player pre-determined they were going to do before the match even started.

Don't get me wrong. Combos do not take away Brawl's competitive potential. It's mind vs. mind, like chess; but chess is no spectator sport, and neither is brawl, at least not compared to Melee.

 

[Dark Sonic]

I almost feel like I'm playing competitive Starcraft II, which ultimately boils down to who was a fraction of a second quicker executing their build order, which the player pre-determined they were going to do before the match even started.

You're argument is bad and you should feel bad.

Though I hate brawl, I also hate uninformed arguments.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

i didnt realize that was a rebuttal
i merly thought that was complaining
i looked throught this thread and no one replyed the vid of mango vs zhu
and if you did then you wouldve realized that its practical to have l canceling.

Do you have a response to it, or are you gonna continue dodging them?

Stop implying that sales has a correlation to competitiveness. Especially sales between a 7 year time span.

You guys were talking about retail sales. You weren't talking about ammount of people entering into a tournament. If you want to talk about that, let's talk about how in the past year and a half at large tournaments (100+ people) (aside from Genesis and Winter Game Fest), Melee has had more entrants (to my knowledge...someone feel free to check/post data) than Brawl at tournaments with both events.

I can tell you with quite a lot of certainty that the majority of people who buy smash games are casual players. They do not know what makes a game competitive or not. How many people do you think go into a store and are like, "Hmm...I want to buy a competitive game...and I want it to be Melee or Brawl. Yeah, let's go with Brawl. That seems more competitive." Wii Sports, Wii Play, Mario Kart Wii, Wii Sports Resort, Wii Fit, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, and Wii Fit Plus all sold at least 8 million copies (while Wii Sports sold like 65 million copies more than Brawl) more than Super Smash Bros. Brawl.* Perhaps you'd like to argue that they're all more competitive and better than Brawl.

It should also be noted that your sales argument is flawed in other ways too. You're not accounting for the overall population growth between 2001 and 2008. You have to remember that the amount of people playing video games and the amount of people buying video games increases over time as a general trend. Face it, Red Ryu. Your argument stinks more than excrement.

And keep in mind that people who buy Brawl usually won't play the game and then say, "Hmm...I like this game. I'll buy more copies." (Though, yes, reviews and playtesting can determine things, though I'd hardly consider those the best ways to determine competitiveness)

*Yes, according to Wikipedia. Find another source that says otherwise instead if you want.

It refers to player numbers and it is a way to look at it, though I even said it wasn't always accurate which you ignored.

Guilty is fine and dandy, doesn't mean anything if no one plays the game.

Reading is fun.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

My answer: Yes, it does hurt Brawl.

Very few true combos means that there's hardly any point to rushing down, considering there are many ways to get out of strings. This also means that offensive play is weak, thus meaning that the game does not have a balance in fighting styles. This leads to the game mostly depending on what character you use. Brawl's character selection is poor in terms of performance.

Wow, you know brawl.

See, there's a little factor here that you're ignoring called "momentum" and another called "positional advantage". Snake may do 20+ damage per hit/read, but if MK scores that grab, he's going to dthrow->followup, and then juggle and edgeguard snake for 50+ damage. Combo? No. Point to rushdown? You'd have to be blind not to see it. In fact, a lot of brawl relies upon bringing your opponent into a bad position and keeping them there with rushdown attacks. That's basically "fighting snake 101".

 

[Masmasher@]

Do you have a response to it, or are you gonna continue dodging them?
.

show me a response to the vid i patched onto this thread and ill respond.

 

[Scufo]

If rushdown worked in Brawl, Falcon wouldn't suck.

Also,

Sales argument

good stuff

 

[KMFBrawler]

IMO because Brawl and Melee are different games, Brawl isn't hurt by it's lack true combos

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

show me a response to the vid i patched onto this thread and ill respond.

Your saying Melee's L canceling is better and is more I gave my response multiple times in this thread, back up your claim by responding my mine and others rebuttals against it.

If rushdown worked in Brawl, Falcon wouldn't suck.

Also,



good stuff

Falcon's hitbox's, weight, and slow moveset will hold him back even if he could rushdown better.

If you want a character that can rushdown and Combo's I'll point you to Lucario and Sonic.

 

[Phoxhound]

If you want a character that can rushdown and Combo's I'll point you to Lucario and Sonic.

agree, lucario can hit a ton of consecutive aerials in a row with some good timing and prediction...maybe not a "true combo" but that certainly doesn't make it bad.

 

[Ghostbone]

The argument is that the gap is bigger in melee initially.

Bit of a late reply from me but anyway...

Coming from a relatively new player to both games, Melee and Brawl are basically around the same level of difficulty to start playing competitively from a casual level.

And if the gap in Melee is any higher it's just because people have been playing the game for that much longer.

 

[shadyf0o]

You're argument is bad and you should feel bad.

Though I hate brawl, I also hate uninformed arguments.

And I hate conformist internet forum elitism. I'm not going to feel bad because some random internet tool thinks I should lmao.

My drunken post is far from a "uniformed argument" lmao.

 

[Dark Sonic]

And I hate conformist internet forum elitism. I'm not going to feel bad because some random internet tool thinks I should lmao.

My drunken post is far from a "uniformed argument" lmao.

Stating that who wins in high level starcraft is determined by how fast you can do your build order and whether or not you "happened" to pick the right build order to counter your opponent from the get go is utter nonsense, leading me to believe that you are uninformed about high level starcraft (and also very, very salty)

And you're more of a tool to try to make an argument WHILE DRUNK in the first place.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Bit of a late reply from me but anyway...

Coming from a relatively new player to both games, Melee and Brawl are basically around the same level of difficulty to start playing competitively from a casual level.

And if the gap in Melee is any higher it's just because people have been playing the game for that much longer.

I disagree for more so based on people I have talked to and looking at what needs to be done to compete in Melee.

agree, lucario can hit a ton of consecutive aerials in a row with some good timing and prediction...maybe not a "true combo" but that certainly doesn't make it bad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERYPW4wdbzQ&feature=player_detailpage#t=187s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERYPW4wdbzQ&feature=player_detailpage#t=282s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERYPW4wdbzQ&feature=player_detailpage#t=433s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERYPW4wdbzQ&feature=player_detailpage#t=486s

Some of the things done are legit combos, but yeah you get the point.

 

[Scufo]

Lucario has some combos at low percents because of the way aura works, but I wouldn't exactly call him a rushdown style character. Sonic is more of a rushdown character, but he's also pretty bad. Yeah he placed well that one time, call me when he starts placing on a consistent basis.

It's already well understood that defense is king in Brawl so whatev

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

He isn't he's a more passive aggressive based character, I would never pass up the opportunity to get the LOL damage he can get at low % because of it.

Sonic doesn't place what? I guess X doesn't win in his region or take M2K to game 5 in a set with Sonic. Or Espy beating Razer a couple of times and placing well, or heck there are a few others like Da K.I.D. who is a ranked sonic in NY.

 

[Scufo]

I don't doubt that there are people who play Sonic well. But with the exception of that one MLG where a Sonic took eighth (I think), I don't see Sonic place well in major tournaments.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Two sonics took 5th and 6th at MLG Dallas.

And he does well for his placement, actually he outplaces all of mid tier I think.

 

[Scufo]

Right, I remember now. Impressive, but one hell of an outlier.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Outlier or maybe people need to rethink the character, who knows it's like how Yoshi made it close to getting into the MLG bracket at Dallas and then took 17th at pound 5.

There are things to consider with something like that, like are they outliers, were we wrong about the character, is the character better than we thought, do people know how to face it?

Who knows it's basically trying to interpret what results mean and how to look at on paper vs in practice.

I mean, I don't think people were expecting Armada to pull out a Young Link on Hungrybox, so maybe even in melee there are things to still be learned.

 

[Scufo]

Maybe. There's definitely been cases of characters climbing the tier list before. Jigglypuff is the obvious example.

I think the real test of whether a character ends up being better than expected is the test of time. Do they still hold up after people learn the match-up?

 

[Masmasher@]

Your saying Melee's L canceling is better and is more I gave my response multiple times in this thread, back up your claim by responding my mine and others rebuttals against it.
.

what?

literally i cant understand the first part of your sentence... not even trying to be funny.

people said that l canceling was a useless tech skill barrier that had to reason to be in the game
i posted a perfect example of why its applicable to the game in the exchange of offense and defense. the example included two top players on the scene, lucky and mango

this was in the beginning of the thread

i looked thorugh the thread since then and noone has said anything to the contrary about that vid which in essence proves that lcanceling has a point, albeit situational but it has a point.


no one has replyed to it that i have seen in this thread. show me a response to it.

Cause it perfectly demostrates why lcancelling has a purpose

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

what?

literally i cant understand the first part of your sentence... not even trying to be funny.

people said that l canceling was a useless tech skill barrier that had to reason to be in the game
i posted a perfect example of why its applicable to the game in the exchange of offense and defense. the example included two top players on the scene, lucky and mango

this was in the beginning of the thread

i looked thorugh the thread since then and noone has said anything to the contrary about that vid which in essence proves that lcanceling has a point, albeit situational but it has a point.


no one has replyed to it that i have seen in this thread. show me a response to it.

Cause it perfectly demostrates why lcancelling has a purpose

I looked up said post.

^this

also the correct question is not why would you ever not want to l cancel but how does l cancel help you

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtnRo3szs4A

skip to 2:04 and watch the very end

l cancel can help offense and is to counter the angling of the shield
and like earlier if you dont do it you'll get *****. as seen in the vid.

as for subject yes i think lack of combos hurt brawl. matchups would be better if there was ways you could gurauntee a more damaging punish. matches are hit and run.
lack of hitstun hurts brawl period. alot of stuff is neglible (well not auto grab ledges and tripping) but other then that i would play brawl if it had hitstun.
and i would play as sonic... all day

also lack of a followup doesnt make anything deeper, it makes things more frustrating


but...thats why i cant wait for project m lmao

Also that makoto avatar doesnt get old

Nothing is a rebuttal to why L calceling is better to just cutting landing lag in half. It shows why L canceling is good, but not why it's nothing more than a tech barrier.

 

[Masmasher@]

I looked up said post.



Nothing is a rebuttal to why L calceling is better to just cutting landing lag in half. It shows why L canceling is good, but not why it's nothing more than a tech barrier.

see your looking at it in regards to the person thats doing the cancelling. you have to account for the opponent.

if the opponent couldnt powershield or angle their shield to block your attacks to mess up the timing. then open up options like jump cancelling or wave dashing or rolling out of it then yes i would agree that l cancelling would be a useless barrier.


mango perfectly angled his shield to mess up luckys timing on his l cancel (and the fast fall) and then punished him.

the exchange between offence and defense is what makes l cancelling a matter of importance. it shows that the opponent cant just rain on you with aerials all day unless they counter whatever answer you have defensively.

 

[OkamiBW]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERYPW4wdbzQ&feature=player_detailpage#t=187s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERYPW4wdbzQ&feature=player_detailpage#t=282s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERYPW4wdbzQ&feature=player_detailpage#t=433s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERYPW4wdbzQ&feature=player_detailpage#t=486s

Why did both matches go on for more than 5 minutes when there's only 3 stocks?
So boring!

Masmasher@-Lucky could've simply mashed Z while doing his backair and it would've L-canceled regardless of whether his timing was "messed up" or not.

 

[King Funk]

Lucky could've simply mashed Z while doing his backair and it would've L-canceled regardless of whether his timing was "messed up" or not.

Not sure whether you can spam the button.

 

[Jonas]

L-canceling is mashable. It's not like teching were the frame window closing if you press too early.

 

[Cactuar]

I was always under the impression l-cancelling wasn't mashable, as I used to try to do that years and years ago and it wouldn't work. I clearly wasn't mashing properly then. lolol

And the post regarding ways the opponent can mess with your l-cancel timing is the important aspect to look at when determining it's depth. Obviously, everyone L-cancels when possible. It's just the best possible thing to do with no reason not to do it. However, you can disrupt the opponent's l-cancel timings if you are clever, which creates another facet of play to be aware of. Even the difference between not hitting the opponent, hitting the opponent, and hitting the opponent's shield can be significant enough to disrupt that timing. It forces a higher anticipation and recognition ability for when you are or are not going to hit, as well as how that hit will land (weak, strong, etc).

For someone to just mash to L-cancel, it is entirely likely that they will mess up and have their shield pop up, which is a death sentence in most cases. It is so much more likely if that player doesn't have the awareness described in the previous paragraph.

Also, omfg I'm in the brawl area. I'm clearly lost. I need an adult.

 

[Scufo]

L-cancel isn't mashable. There's a fail window.

There's no fail window in SSB64, so Z-cancelling is mashable.

 

[Abel1994]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXAllVP7UKc

 

[OkamiBW]

Perhaps there is a window. Brawl still has too little hit stun. Case closed.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

see your looking at it in regards to the person thats doing the cancelling. you have to account for the opponent.

if the opponent couldnt powershield or angle their shield to block your attacks to mess up the timing. then open up options like jump cancelling or wave dashing or rolling out of it then yes i would agree that l cancelling would be a useless barrier.


mango perfectly angled his shield to mess up luckys timing on his l cancel (and the fast fall) and then punished him.

the exchange between offence and defense is what makes l cancelling a matter of importance. it shows that the opponent cant just rain on you with aerials all day unless they counter whatever answer you have defensively.

Or he could have seen it was angled up and compensated for it, still not worth adding L canceling for over setting the base lag lower.

Perhaps there is a window. Brawl still has too little hit stun. Case closed.

People like trolling instead of saying what happened in the vids I posted I see.

 

[Abel1994]

WOMBO?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf9vLCMeB2g

 

[Jebus67]

Honestly, I agree that brawl is it's own game, it should not be compared to melee in the aspects of game play and achieving combos etc. Melee is more of an intense speed chess game while brawl is more like checkers. In melee it's not about just hitting the button at the perfect precise time, but reading your opponent in nano seconds and seeing what moves best suit the situation. While in brawl you litterally have like 3 to 4 seconds to read your opponent and if your not succesful then you go back into a defensive approach. So in the aspect of comparing two very different games in terms of combo_ing, of course brawl will lose it's flare compared to melee, but you can't say one is better, it's a matter of opinion, do you prefer chess or checkers?

 

[choknater]

as an ic's main i take pride in messing up ppl's l cancels with light shield ALL DAI

 

[Ghostbone]

L-cancel isn't mashable. There's a fail window.

There's no fail window in SSB64, so Z-cancelling is mashable.

There is no fail window in melee or 64.


Still a worse idea to mash z than just light press L or R, since pressing z or full pressing L/R can let your opponent force a missed tech.

 

[Stev]

There is no fail window in melee or 64.


Still a worse idea to mash z than just light press L or R, since pressing z or full pressing L/R can let your opponent force a missed tech.

It can also create a tech for you when you think you're gonna land a hit but get hit instead. It's saved my *** a few times.

But anyways, there are times where you'll recognize certain moves are harder to l cancel (ie fox's bair relative to his nair and dair) and so you react accordingly. It's really a balance thing. I don't get why you think balance is a bad thing.