For smash 4 to succeed, we need to change

[Mr.C]

^I kind of agree with this, but it has MUCH more to do with the way they do it rather than how many mechanics there are. L-cancelling would make sense if there was an advantage to not doing it in certain situations.

I actually think that if everyone had near perfect tech-skill, people would then be forced to become the most creative of competitors, so we would see wonders in the metagame.

That being said, once again, mechanics like L-cancelling don't really do it for me because there's no trade-off.

I like to think that the people who dislike L-canceling do so because it's a skill barrier. If you want to efficiently aerial attack you learn how to cancel. If you don't learn how to aerial cancel then you're not good. Personally, I like black and white skill barriers. It clearly shows who dedicates their time to becoming better and those who want to be better by having game play watered down. I'm not saying that's you, just addressing the issue that Strong Bad brought up.

That's the thing. People are forced to become creative competitors, it just happens after they learn how to use the technical aspects of the game efficiently. Anyone can do card tricks, but only the people dedicated towards perfecting their slight-of-hand craft can do them professionally.

Player 1 & 2 are both equal regarding mental prowess. However, one player is better at technical skill. Player 1 can Lcancel properly, Player 2 cannot. By simple design Player 1 is automatically the better player because he's efficient in more ways. More options = more opportunities to improve. That's what we call a skill-gap. Games that have higher amounts of skill disparities are usually the most successful and competitive games (SC2, Dota, LoL, Melee, etc).

 

[BoundlessNess]

I like to think that the people who dislike L-canceling do so because it's a skill barrier. If you want to efficiently aerial attack you learn how to cancel. If you don't learn how to aerial cancel then you're not good. Personally, I like black and white skill barriers. It clearly shows who dedicates their time to becoming better and those who want to be better by having game play watered down. I'm not saying that's you, just addressing the issue that Strong Bad brought up.

That's the thing. People are forced to become creative competitors, it just happens after they learn how to use the technical aspects of the game efficiently. Anyone can do card tricks, but only the people dedicated towards perfecting their slight-of-hand craft can do them professionally.

Player 1 & 2 are both equal regarding mental prowess. However, one player is better at technical skill. Player 1 can Lcancel properly, Player 2 cannot. By simple design Player 1 is automatically the better player because he's efficient in more ways. More options = more opportunities to improve. That's what we call a skill-gap. Games that have higher amounts of skill disparities are usually the most successful and competitive games (SC2, Dota, LoL, Melee, etc).

I agree with Strong Bad, l-canceling is a bad mechanic. All it does is create a barrier into competitive play, it doesn't add anything to gameplay because there's no "choice". There is never a reason to not l-cancel. Why create unnecessary barriers when there is already plenty to learn and master. As you said, all l-canceling does is cause people to devote time to perfecting the skill as it is necessary to be competitive. Why do you want to make it harder for people to get into competitive SSB? I think a game would be more successful if it was easy to get into but difficult to master. Imagine how many people would be turned off if every smash attack required 23 inputs to execute? It just adds a technical layer, not depth.

 

[Ghostbone]

Since we're arguing about L-cancelling, it's an input that you always want to use, and thus provides no added depth for the game, only false difficulty.

The metagame would be exactly the same with half landing lag, and no l-cancelling, and the game would be more accessible.
Technical difficulty for the sake of technical difficulty is bad.
Stuff like wavedashing and jump cancelling adds movement options that also tend to increase the competitive depth, l-cancelling isn't an "option", it's something you always do unless you're G&W and can't, or Peach who float cancels instead.

It's pretty terrible design, it's something melee players have grown used to and thus why Project: M has it (as the mod's more focused on appealing to the melee player base than anything else, which is fine), but it's still bad design.


The only real reason you'd have L-cancelling is if low lag created significant imbalances at low levels compared to high levels.
But smash has pretty terrible balancing in general, and a lot of randomness from items at casual levels, and FFAs are inconsistent in general, so that's a pretty bad reason to have l-cancelling.

 

[Browny]

oh who am i kidding this isnt worth it

 

[Griffard]

Personally, I'm kind of glad the new game is more like Brawl than Melee. I enjoyed both games, but the satisfaction of knowing that the people that spent all of their time hating on Brawl solely because it wasn't a Melee clone will never get their sequel. Brawl players get exactly what Melee players would have wanted AND we get megaman.

It's delicious.

So you're literally only posting to be sadistic to the majority of the community?
...
Cool.
Also Project: M, so you lose anyways :-/

 

[Mr.C]

I agree with Strong Bad, l-canceling is a bad mechanic. All it does is create a barrier into competitive play, it doesn't add anything to gameplay because there's no "choice". There is never a reason to not l-cancel. Why create unnecessary barriers when there is already plenty to learn and master. As you said, all l-canceling does is cause people to devote time to perfecting the skill as it is necessary to be competitive. Why do you want to make it harder for people to get into competitive SSB? I think a game would be more successful if it was easy to get into but difficult to master. Imagine how many people would be turned off if every smash attack required 23 inputs to execute? It just adds a technical layer, not depth.

Just because something doesn't offer a choice does not mean it adds nothing. Lcanceling allows the ability to aerial attack safely, completely making that argument irrelevant. You can obviously argue about Lcanceling being unneeded in the first place but to deny the fact that Lcanceling adds depth and deeper skill-set mechanics would be false.

Why create skill barriers? Because that's the entire point of skill intensive competitive games. There's a huge difference from impractical game design like 23 inputs compared to basic procedural memory mechanics like pressing R/L.

Why do you want to make it harder for people to get into competitive SSB?

People who aren't willing to practice and dedicate time to getting better aren't competitive players to begin with. I call them "pseudo-pros", people who want to be good at games due to watered down, easy mechanics, instead of people who want to be good at games due to practice and dedication.

Since we're arguing about L-cancelling, it's an input that you always want to use, and thus provides no added depth for the game, only false difficulty.

That makes zero sense. Just because something is required does not make it "false difficulty". By design Lcanceling adds depth to the game because without Lcanceling you're incapable of using aerial attacks safely.

It's no different than last hitting, denying, lane control, or map awareness in Dota/HoN/LoL. These things are irrevocably needed to play the game efficiently. They are major parts of the games depth, skill intensiveness, and technical prowess. Something that must ALWAYS be done, but also something that must be learned and executed properly. Thus, adding depth.

 

[Mr.Jackpot]

Personally, I'm kind of glad the new game is more like Brawl than Melee. I enjoyed both games, but the satisfaction of knowing that the people that spent all of their time hating on Brawl solely because it wasn't a Melee clone will never get their sequel. Brawl players get exactly what Melee players would have wanted AND we get megaman.

It's delicious.

I can taste the salt from here.

Not that I want a Melee clone but Project M. And Air Dash Online. And Super Smash Flash 2 and Super Smash Flash Crusade (to an extent).

These dudes are all from, by, and for the community too. When someone makes a "Smash-inspired" game and cites Brawl as the inspiration I'll eat my Gamecube Controller

 

[Ghostbone]

That makes zero sense. Just because something is required does not make it "false difficulty". By design Lcanceling adds depth to the game because without Lcanceling you're incapable of using aerial attacks safely.

It's no different than last hitting, denying, lane control, or map awareness in Dota/HoN/LoL. These things are irrevocably needed to play the game efficiently. They are major parts of the games depth, skill intensiveness, and technical prowess. Something that must ALWAYS be done, but also something that must be learned and executed properly. Thus, adding depth.

This comparison shows me you don't understand why L-cancelling adds no depth, and have probably had it explained to you multiple times but can't comprehend it.

You always want to last hit, but it's dependant on cooldowns and your auto attack range/damage. Your opponent can zone you out to prevent you from last hitting, depth.
I don't play Dota so I can't say much about denying except it sucks if you're a mage.
Lane control is a PvP interaction, not an extra input that you must always use otherwise you're at a disadvantage.
Map awareness isn't a technical skill, and your vision can also be denied by oracle's and pink wards, you can't deny l-cancelling, you don't even have influence on whether your opponent l-cancels (well ok you can try to place your shield differently to throw them off, that doesn't change the timing unless you mess up their fast fall, and there's no fail window for l-cancelling, you can spam z every 7 or whatever frames with no ill effect).

If LoL had a mechanic that you had to press a just as your auto landed on your target, otherwise your attack failed, that would be more akin to l-cancelling. It's unnecessary difficulty that adds no depth. An option isn't an option when it's always what you want to do. L-cancelling is no different than if aerial landing lag was halved.
Always give people gold for dying minions, or have the entire map always lit up, that's a huge change to the game, and the difference between those mechanics and l-cancelling is hugely obvious.

 

[Mr.C]

This comparison shows me you don't understand why L-cancelling adds no depth, and have probably had it explained to you multiple times but can't comprehend it.

You make zero sense and your argument is a complete and utter fallacy, simple as that. You say "L-cancelling adds no depth", yet, it gives you the option to aerial safely, which is depth. Common sense, please?

And I quote "Stuff like wavedashing and jump cancelling adds movement options that also tend to increase the competitive depth, l-cancelling isn't an "option", it's something you always do". You say this without realizing Lcanceling adds movement options through safe aerials. The fact that it must be done is completely irrelevant.

There are things in games that are irrevocably needed to play at an efficient level. If something must be done than by default that thing adds depth towards the game simply because without it you wouldn't be capable of functioning at the highest level.

 

[Ghostbone]

You make zero sense and your argument is a complete and utter fallacy, simple as that. You say "L-cancelling adds no depth", yet, it gives you the option to aerial safely, which is depth. Common sense, please?

And I quote "Stuff like wavedashing and jump cancelling adds movement options that also tend to increase the competitive depth, l-cancelling isn't an "option", it's something you always do". You say this without realizing Lcanceling adds movement options through safe aerials. The fact that it must be done is completely irrelevant.

There are things in games that are irrevocably needed to play at an efficient level. If something must be done than by default that thing adds depth towards the game simply because without it you wouldn't be capable of functioning at the highest level.

You're conveniently ignoring that those same options are all available when aerial landing lag is halved.

Stop thinking of it as "l-cancelling halves your landing lag", instead it's, "if you don't l-cancel, your landing lag is doubled."
Same thing, just looking at it from the perspective of you're being punished rather than rewarded. Clearly l-cancelling doesn't add any depth, just extra difficulty.

 

[Mr.C]

You're conveniently ignoring that those same options are all available when aerial landing lag is halved.

Stop thinking of it as "l-cancelling halves your landing lag", instead it's, "if you don't l-cancel, your landing lag is doubled."
Same thing, just looking at it from the perspective of you're being punished rather than rewarded. Clearly l-cancelling doesn't add any depth, just extra difficulty.

Both mean the same exact thing: Lcanceling adds depth because you must do it to efficiently aerial. You act like depth and difficulty are exclusive. Your reasoning is flawed, sorry.

What you're trying to argue is the relevance of Lcanceling, not the depth it provides. The game doesn't NEED Lcanceling. The game could operate perfectly fine with an automated-cancel, but that is completely irrelevant. The simple fact remains, however. Lcanceling is a technique in SB64/Melee that is acquired through practice and dedication, thus, by default, adding depth and skill intensive mechanics.

Your entire fallacy would imply that Directional Influence for survivability, something that must be done because without it you die a lot easier, adds zero depth. Even though common sense dictates that having to obtain a burden of knowledge required to help you efficiently survive, also adds depth AND difficulty.

 

[Vkrm]

The depth added by l canceling comes into play when deciding at what point you should time your cancel. The defending player can adjust shield tilt and alter the hit lag. I'd support canceling based on how it affects game feel. Street fighter has a bunch of arbitrary difficulty masquerading as complexity AND their scene is freaking huge. Its about time we retire the notion that a game has to be easy to be enjoyable. Like, any of you guy press L when landing in brawl? It just feels good. It feels like you ought to. I'd be in favor of a fail window instead of l canceling removal.

 

[El Duderino]

Honestly the fact that mentioning the conflict has generated a lot of responses that are teetering between aggressive toward me (since I'm a "Brawl guy") and defensive of Melee says a lot. Melee is not under attack.

It's a lot simpler than that. You're getting flack here because plenty of competitive players would rather evaluate the new game critically first, express their thoughts freely, and determine for themselves if Smash 4 is something they would like to adopt.

You see, no one is required to fall in line with your outlook. Think you should stop trying to force it on people, it would be for the best.

 

[Gades]

L-cancelling is stupid and always has been. There is NEVER a reason not to do it. No advantage of not doing it so whatsoever. Therefore it should be automatic. In fact I've heard top Melee players say this.

What does this mean? It means it's nothing but false, artificial difficulty. There's nothing impressive at all about learning artificial barriers.

For instance. Say Smash 4 requires you to do a shoryuken motion before you can jump, for every jump ever. You still have to press the jump button but now you need the shoryuken motion every single time as well.

Does this suddenly make Smash 4 suddenly more hardcore and competitive than Melee? Of course not. The idea is absurd.

I'm all for advanced tech and lots of it...when there's actual depth to it and gives you MORE options, not "learn this completely asinine tech skill to do somethng so basic and there's absolutely no reason to ever not to do it".

 

[Vkrm]

But isnt it fun? It was intended to be a feat of timing, making you feel like you're in control. Not a bad mechanic at all. They ****ed up by allowing you to spam l and still get it right 50% of time, and by telling literally nobody about it.

 

[Fear]

L-cancelling is stupid and always has been. There is NEVER a reason not to do it. No advantage of not doing it so whatsoever. Therefore it should be automatic. In fact I've heard top Melee players say this.

Why would you want something that takes away from the games skill ceiling to be handed to you for free? Sure there is no reason to not L-cancel the majority of the time, but even so, you shouldn't want something like "automatic-lcanceling" just because you think it's a stupid mechanic.

In my opinion the game doesn't need to be melee 2.0 or whatever, it just needs to be a lot different then brawl to become a game in which people need to actually LEARN and have a high skill ceiling that evolves over the course of its life cycle.

I have no problems with Brawl as a game, but it shouldn't be called a highly competitive game at all. Sure you can win and lose but in the end it has nothing to offer players who like to learn more in depth game sense/mechanics and overall skill.

I agree when people say Smash 4 looks a lot like Brawl and I also agree with the people who say they don't like that it is going in that path of restrictive game play.

To summarize, I am not saying Smash 4 or Brawl are bad games, but if Smash 4 is going down the same physics/game play as Brawl it will not be as competitive as I would like.

 

[SmashDivine]

I like to think that the people who dislike L-canceling do so because it's a skill barrier. If you want to efficiently aerial attack you learn how to cancel. If you don't learn how to aerial cancel then you're not good. Personally, I like black and white skill barriers. It clearly shows who dedicates their time to becoming better and those who want to be better by having game play watered down. I'm not saying that's you, just addressing the issue that Strong Bad brought up.

That's the thing. People are forced to become creative competitors, it just happens after they learn how to use the technical aspects of the game efficiently. Anyone can do card tricks, but only the people dedicated towards perfecting their slight-of-hand craft can do them professionally.

Player 1 & 2 are both equal regarding mental prowess. However, one player is better at technical skill. Player 1 can Lcancel properly, Player 2 cannot. By simple design Player 1 is automatically the better player because he's efficient in more ways. More options = more opportunities to improve. That's what we call a skill-gap. Games that have higher amounts of skill disparities are usually the most successful and competitive games (SC2, Dota, LoL, Melee, etc).

This is the exact opposite of what I think made smash a better game for me than, say, SF. Let me explain with an analogy: I'm a competitive chess player, have been for 17 years. Chess is a fight between my mind and your mind, or more precisely between my ideas and your ideas. When playing against you, I don't have to worry that if I pick up a piece and place it somewhere, I might falter and place it in the wrong spot. The "technical barrier" to chess is zero. This makes it pure in a way that boxing isn't, for instance: you might want a punch to land in a specific way but mess it up because your muscles were tired or you hiccuped or whatever.

Clearly there is a spectrum for technicality, and a game like SCII might lie near one end, with moves that require a large combination of inputs to pull off, and a game like Divekick at the other end with only two buttons. And there is also clearly a trade-off: if sequences of 10 inputs can correspond to distinct moves in game you will clearly get a larger move set and hence deeper strategy, but you will also introduce impurities in the sense I explained above. Conversely I don't expect any deep strategy from Divekick (although I can't say without playing it).

I believe that the beauty of Smash is that it broke the paradigm that games like SF put forth. Moves like Dhalsim's teleport or Zangief's piledriver were harder to do then Ryu's hadouken, and in general some moves could be attempted and failed even by competitive players, which meant firstly that there wasn't an equal experience for people playing different characters, and that one had to deal with more mistakes than was necessary. I understand that the reasons for this paradigm have to do with the history of the franchise and the controls it started out with, but in all honesty I think that it would have made for a better game if, like Smash, the set of inputs required to perform moves was the same for every character, and as simple as possible. My opinion of course.

For me things would be ideal if I didn't need to use a controller at all to control Smash and simply thought about the move I wanted and it occurred. Then the best player would be the one with the best ideas, not the fastest fingers or the most perfect "slight-of-hand" type skills.

Now, I'm not saying that it is better for a game to be pure in that sense. I have a friend who actually enjoys the fact that SC has moves that are more difficult to execute and that this might lead to errors when playing. If those are the aspects of a fighting game that you like that is all well and good, and based on your comment it does seem that way, but then I would have to ask if Smash isn't really the game for you. Among all sufficiently robust fighting games I can think of (which aren't Smash clones), Smash is the one that seems to strive most for the purity I've expounded. The notion of a technical barrier such as the one that exists in Melee and you seem to delight in seems almost anithetical to the spirit of Smash.

Like many, my feeling is the deeper the strategy the better. I just think it is silly that you think it is a good thing that player 1 beats player 2 in your example. If Steven Hawking has awesome ideas about how to kick ass in Smash, he should be able to do so.

 

[Vkrm]

Still, reducing the level of mechanical difficulty doesn't always increase the amount of strategic thinking on its own. It's like if we started to make chess pieces lighter, we would not see an impact on the metagame what so ever.

 

[dRevan64]

But isnt it fun? It was intended to be a feat of timing, making you feel like you're in control. Not a bad mechanic at all. They ****ed up by allowing you to spam l and still get it right 50% of time, and by telling literally nobody about it.

They told people about smooth landings in 64 iirc.
Foreal though sakurai just needs to re-add l cancelling but give all aerials a small grounded hitbox that disappears on l cancel, maintains the technical demand as well as adding depth. I don't know if someone's suggested this before.

 

[KishPrime]

The reason l-cancelling adds depth is because it is increasing the complexity of selecting an aerial attack vs. selecting a ground attack.

If you say that it is false depth because you should always do it, that's half-right, but you're ignoring the fact that you actually SHOULDN'T always jump to begin with. There are a lot of highly technical things that you should always do when you narrow down the situation. L-cancelling adds a degree of difficulty to playing in the air that is not present on the ground, and thus players who master it open up new options for play.

Is it the BEST mechanic? Probably not. Variable lag on landing based on the move you use is hardly a bad system itself, if the lag itself was actually balanced right. However, there is no question that l-cancelling does enhance the depth tree, both from a skill- and decision-making perspective.

Now let's please stay on topic.

 

[[Corn]]

I like melee, and I like brawl. They are games of the same franchise with similar mechanics yet unique qualities.

If you want to play melee, play melee.
If you want to play brawl, play brawl.

I dont see the problem with the new game if it doesnt have whatever competitive aspects that people loved in melee. This isnt melee. If you want to play melee you still can and it still has a very large following. I doubt I would still be exited for this franchise if all they did was repackage melee and add characters and stages. Regardless if it isnt super competitive or whatever, Ill still play it and millions of others will as well because the series is the best fighting party game ever created whilst also being the most unique PvP fighter as well.


About L Canceling
L canceling is redundant and is only there to add an execution barrier. There is not a single time that you will not want to L cancel an air attack. It adds nothing but increasing the skill floor slightly.

 

[Vkrm]

You're neglecting to mention how shield tilting affects the timing for a cancel. As it currently exists in melee it gives the defender a chances to screw the aggressor by altering the resulting hitlag.

 

[BoundlessNess]

Just because something doesn't offer a choice does not mean it adds nothing. Lcanceling allows the ability to aerial attack safely, completely making that argument irrelevant. You can obviously argue about Lcanceling being unneeded in the first place but to deny the fact that Lcanceling adds depth and deeper skill-set mechanics would be false.

Yes, but halving all aerial landing lag would accomplish the same thing without having to require unnecessary inputs. I'm not denying that l-canceling allows for safer aerials and thus increases depth, I am saying that forcing players to make a certain input is completely unnecessary and just adds a needless barrier into competitive play.

Why create skill barriers? Because that's the entire point of skill intensive competitive games. There's a huge difference from impractical game design like 23 inputs compared to basic procedural memory mechanics like pressing R/L.

This is a slippery slope. Where do you draw the line? One input? Two inputs? Three? Given enough practice, almost anything becomes procedural memory, it's just easier to learn fewer inputs.

People who aren't willing to practice and dedicate time to getting better aren't competitive players to begin with. I call them "pseudo-pros", people who want to be good at games due to watered down, easy mechanics, instead of people who want to be good at games due to practice and dedication.

I'm going to argue that ONLY people who place the time and practice become competitive. Just because we remove a skill barrier does not mean that casuals will suddenly become good. They will never be able to compete against top players simply because they haven't put as much time and practice and are therefore much less knowledgeable in general. L-canceling is adding artificial difficulty where it is unneeded. There is already enough depth in the game that separates the pros from the casuals. You call them "watered-down" mechanics, but I say removing needless skill barriers. I want less barriers into competitive play because more competitive players is good for the community. We're not going to see casuals winning tournaments because we remove l-canceling.

That makes zero sense. Just because something is required does not make it "false difficulty". By design Lcanceling adds depth to the game because without Lcanceling you're incapable of using aerial attacks safely.

It's no different than last hitting, denying, lane control, or map awareness in Dota/HoN/LoL. These things are irrevocably needed to play the game efficiently. They are major parts of the games depth, skill intensiveness, and technical prowess. Something that must ALWAYS be done, but also something that must be learned and executed properly. Thus, adding depth.

It's only depth if it adds a choice, which l-canceling does not.

 

[Dooms]

Why are we even discussing Melee? We get it that Brawl wasn't as competitive of a game to Melee players. We get that Melee players think that L-canceling and wave dashing adds competitive depth that Brawl didn't have. This is completely pointless and you're just proving his point.

His point still stands that the arguments were completely pointless and it held our community back because Brawl players could have spent that time discussing more things about brawl instead of bashing Melee. I'm sure it didn't help the Melee community, either. This is exactly what he means. It's been 5 years. We know that Melee players think that Melee is more competitive, and we know that Brawl players feel that their game is competitive as well. Move on. We're done. It's been 5 years, and it's really old and pointless. We as Brawl players are not going to say that your game is better than ours due to the games being differently entirely. It's like arguing about gay marriage with a religious person who believes that homosexuals are going to hell (or vise versa, the religious person arguing about gay marriage with a supporter). It's pointless and you will never win, but it still happens because you know that deep down in your heart that you're right and that they're wrong and they should understand that, right? Wrong. Just stop. You're doing nothing for the community.

If you end up playing Smash 4 competitively, just ignore the people that come across as idiots for randomly bashing your game because "no wavedashing or l-canceling lul", "it's just a campfest", or any new stereotypical statements that Brawl players may form about the game(although I doubt many statements will be formed, since SSB4 seems more like Brawl than anything else). Don't respond to them. Let the comments just sit there. Just keep on playing your game. We don't need to make the same mistake that we made with Brawl. It was a huge waste of time, and it took us 5 years to fully develop our game (if we're even there at this point) due to this and many other pointless arguments. Don't make the same mistake twice. Just ignore them.

 

[RockinRudy]

Sticky this thread please.​

 

[rawrimamonster]

Amph the way you wrote that was like implying it was ONLY opinion and not objective bad design choices on sakurai and teams part when making brawl that makes us hate it. There's a LOT more wrong with brawl than simply tripping and other little things like that. We were separated because to a lot of us, brawl was overall a poorly designed game.

 

[Dooms]

Really? I'm not even Amph, and I can tell you that the point flew over your head.

No one cares about the flaws Brawl has. It's been 5 years. We know that Melee players think their game is superior due to Brawl's flaws, and we know that Brawl players do not care. The only thing that matters regarding this subject is the fact that people still think this argument is relevant and that people still bother with these arguments in the first place.

Just play your game and stop talking about the other one being worse. That is the point he's trying to make. It doesn't matter what flaws Brawl has. It doesn't matter what the Melee community thinks about Brawl. Just don't repeat this 5 year BS argument with Smash 4 if it turns out to be another game similar to Brawl.

 

[Crispy4001]

Sticky this thread please.​

Please no. The OP is a cry to rally around SSB4 simply because it's new, not because of how it plays, how it's balanced, where competitive interests lie, and asks us to forgo our personal preferences and insights for the sake of groupthink. It's an outlook damning not only to the compeditive scenes that Brawl and Melee both currently enjoy (and whose fans may find good reason to sustain them post-SSB4), but shuts the door completely to community driven initiatives like Project M and ADO.

If the game is appealing enough in its own right to be the 'one' we all rally behind, so be it. But the chances of that happening are exactly zilch. We might as well come to terms with that fact now, and embrace this community as something intelligent, diverse and mature, instead of wishing we could go back to the days of dull-minded fanboyism.

 

[killazys]

Really? I'm not even Amph, and I can tell you that the point flew over your head.
Just play your game and stop talking about the other one being worse. That is the point he's trying to make. It doesn't matter what flaws Brawl has. It doesn't matter what the Melee community thinks about Brawl. Just don't repeat this 5 year BS argument with Smash 4 if it turns out to be another game similar to Brawl.

Why is it BS? Everyone who says "you shouldn't complain" should consider that nothing in the world ever changes because people keep quiet. Revolutions are started by those few dissenting voices; that's how history has played out. People who say we should keep silent because (a) Nintendo won't change anyway are misguided: should the slaves have kept silent in the 1800s because their masters would never let them free? MLK shouldn't have said anything because no one would ever change? Racism is just a "fact of life," so Gandhi should have quietly just sat in the back of that train? And then to people who say (b) this kind of conversation divides the community: yes, it does. That is the purpose: in the Brawl vs. Melee argument, the entire goal was in fact to prove to those playing Brawl that the game is not as competitive, and to get people to rally behind Melee instead. This could potentially lead to Nintendo noticing something. Instead, when others claim that by being silent and unifying behind a "new trend" set by the company we are actually doing the community good, they are in fact harming the community by attempting to silence dissent. Disagreements are necessary, dissent is even more necessary.

There is no way for a community to be "unified" unless all opinions are heard and considered. So while OP may think that posting about Melee vs. Brawl isn't conducive to unity and we should just leave each other alone, at least posting does something. Having Melee enthusiasts just play Melee, and having Brawl enthusiasts just play Brawl, creates a de facto division that weakens the voice of the entire community. If change needs to occur, the LAST thing to do is to just silently agree to disagree. That is not how change has ever been effected by the people of any community.

For the sake of "cohesiveness," you would strive to rule by strict majority and eliminate any minority, dissenting voices. Is this the kind of community you actually desire?

 

[volbound1700]

I wish I met some of you guys because most people I know want to play Brawl. Melee is a more competitive game because Brawl punishes the attackers too much once a player gets good at it.

However, ironically Brawl gets more competitive when you add items and Smash Balls. People play without them and yes you can random deaths and losses but in a 5 stock match, 80% of the time the best player wins, even with items and crazy levels.

 

[Overswarm]

I can taste the salt from here.

Not that I want a Melee clone but Project M. And Air Dash Online. And Super Smash Flash 2 and Super Smash Flash Crusade (to an extent).

These dudes are all from, by, and for the community too. When someone makes a "Smash-inspired" game and cites Brawl as the inspiration I'll eat my Gamecube Controller

So you're literally only posting to be sadistic to the majority of the community?
...
Cool.
Also Project: M, so you lose anyways :-/

I played Melee for years and enjoyed it. Play Project M now from time to time, although it's remarkably unpopular in my area for how complete it is. Played Brawl for a long time too. Enjoyed all of 'em.

But I never let my enjoyment of one overshadow the enjoyment of the other. When Brawl came out I didn't say "this is bull****, no L canceling". I spammed spot dodge downsmash with ROB until it didn't work. I had fun with it, if other people didn't that's their problem.


The kids that play Melee and come on the forums and bash Brawl are a cancer. People have been playing Brawl for nearly half a decade and they still don't understand that other people enjoy the game. I stopped playing primarily because of Meta Knight's dominance (which WASN'T fun) and real life taking priority, but from time to time I still miss playing Brawl.

You have to accept that other people can have fun.

"But it's not competitive!" says some guy who doesn't know what he's talking about.

Well, actually, it is. It's really easy to see if a game is competitive or not. Just have a competition, and then another, and then another. Watch the placements. Are they random or would you be able to predict, at least in a vague sense, where people are going to place? If you can, surprise, it's a competitive game.

Maybe you don't like it. That's cool. I don't like a lot of games. I find most 2D fighters predictable, boring, and easy to play. Doesn't mean there isn't a horde of people who enjoy playing 'em. I also don't spend my days on their forums telling them their game is bad and they should feel bad.

You guys gotta face the facts.

There's going to be a new smash brothers game coming out.

It will be the most played Smash Brothers game in existence.

It will likely be the most played Smash Brothers game until the next one is released.

That's generally how hyped sequels work.More importantly, Sakurai and co are getting better at creating them and they're getting better received each iteration. Smash Bros sold nearly 3 million copies in the US. Melee sold 7 million.

Brawl sold 1.4 million units in its first week. That's nearly half of what the original made. Since last March it has sold nearly 11 million copies and it is still selling copies.

Smash Brothers 4 is going to be on the Wii U and the 3DS and you can play each other on it cross platform. That means some kid sitting in his mom's van can pick up a 3DS, play Smash Brothers, and hear about the tournament scene, and go to a tournament and borrow someone's controller and enter. He never has to own a Wii U to get into the scene.

There will be more players for Smash 4 than any other game in the series. This means bigger tournaments, more common tournaments, more highlights and focus, more hype, more everything.

Competitive communities don't survive by holding onto old games or splintering. They survive by embracing the next step in the series and moving on. Sabotaging yourself by predicting Smash 4's success as a competitive game based on how good it is compared to Melee is a recipe for failure.

Don't want a part in Smash 4? That's cool, you don't have to be. But you're in the Smash 4 forum in a thread about Smash 4 ******** about how you think Smash 4 is going to suck because you want Project M or Melee to be the next big thing.

It's not going to happen. It'll be a small curiosity, a pocket universe with a grandiose field of new blood and old. Melee players will splinter off to Smash 4. Brawl players will splinter off to Smash 4. Project M players will splinter off to Smash 4. New blood will appear out of nowhere, knowing ONLY Brawl and Smash 4... some only Smash 4.

If you want Melee or Project M, go to their forums. I'm here to see what Smash 4 is going to be, regardless of what it is, and I'm going to continue to be hype. You guys can go play gamecube if you want, cuz imma be Megaman. Pew pew.

Game​

GameRankings​

Metacritic​

Super Smash Bros.

78.25%​

79​

Super Smash Bros. Melee

90.30%​

92​

Super Smash Bros. Brawl

92.75%​

93​

 

[SmashDivine]

Why is it BS? Everyone who says "you shouldn't complain" should consider that nothing in the world ever changes because people keep quiet. Revolutions are started by those few dissenting voices; that's how history has played out. People who say we should keep silent because (a) Nintendo won't change anyway are misguided: should the slaves have kept silent in the 1800s because their masters would never let them free? MLK shouldn't have said anything because no one would ever change? Racism is just a "fact of life," so Gandhi should have quietly just sat in the back of that train? And then to people who say (b) this kind of conversation divides the community: yes, it does. That is the purpose: in the Brawl vs. Melee argument, the entire goal was in fact to prove to those playing Brawl that the game is not as competitive, and to get people to rally behind Melee instead. This could potentially lead to Nintendo noticing something. Instead, when others claim that by being silent and unifying behind a "new trend" set by the company we are actually doing the community good, they are in fact harming the community by attempting to silence dissent. Disagreements are necessary, dissent is even more necessary.

There is no way for a community to be "unified" unless all opinions are heard and considered. So while OP may think that posting about Melee vs. Brawl isn't conducive to unity and we should just leave each other alone, at least posting does something. Having Melee enthusiasts just play Melee, and having Brawl enthusiasts just play Brawl, creates a de facto division that weakens the voice of the entire community. If change needs to occur, the LAST thing to do is to just silently agree to disagree. That is not how change has ever been effected by the people of any community.

For the sake of "cohesiveness," you would strive to rule by strict majority and eliminate any minority, dissenting voices. Is this the kind of community you actually desire?

Viva La Revolution!

No seriously, you might as well go on a tirade against softball because, as an evolution from baseball, one can argue it is less competitive. Let's convince everyone so they stop playing softball, right? Or miniput golf for that matter. Or you could do like everyone else keeps suggesting and just continue to play the game you like and let others play the game they like without trying to force what you feel is a superior opinion down their throat. Let them have a place/forum to discuss the game they like without having to constantly defend their choices. It would be like going to a Justin Beiber concert in droves to yell at his fans that he sucks. They've already decided that they like him, so let them have their fun whilst you imbibe your preferred art.

I'd be fine with having a single thread devoted to this argument where you can do all you like to try to convince people of the inferiority of brawl, but that rhetoric is really misplaced elsewhere. As for convincing Nintendo vicariously through this heavy handed recruitment, I'm sorry, but think again. Nintendo cares about money and there is much money in, as Smash has been variously categorized, party games. Not to imply that one can't make a party game with competitive elements or switches which render it so, but I find it dubious that you'd ever move the needle enough to make them change directions. You'd have to convince Sakurai (or whoever is in charge) with an argument, because you'll never convince him that the game won't produce mountains of gold.

 

[XavierSylfaen]

Overswarm, you're missing the point. I'm going to buy Smash 4 on both Wii U and 3DS at midnight launch and I'm going to play them for hundreds of hours because I love Smash. I love it as both a competitive and casual series and I'll have tons of fun playing it with friends online and off. I'd love it if it were actually fun to me competitively like Melee was as well, but it's still going to be fun even if it's not.

Melee is both competitive and casual, as is Brawl. But a large portion of the competitive Smash community disliked the fashion in which Brawl was competitive, i.e. moon gravity + next to no hitstun + overly defensive play. It's fine if you enjoy Brawl for competitive play. No one is telling you not to.

But **** like this?

Personally, I'm kind of glad the new game is more like Brawl than Melee. I enjoyed both games, but the satisfaction of knowing that the people that spent all of their time hating on Brawl solely because it wasn't a Melee clone will never get their sequel. Brawl players get exactly what Melee players would have wanted AND we get megaman.

It's delicious.

You're getting some kind of sadistic pleasure out of deriving Melee players from a game they would love and enjoy on a competitive level. It's not about enjoying a new game for you, or that's at least what it looks like. It looks like you care less about Brawl fans enjoying themselves and more about Melee fans NOT doing so.

 

[_Rated D.R.K_]

Just want a game that everyone can enjoy.

 

[Dooms]

Please no. The OP is a cry to rally around SSB4 simply because it's new, not because of how it plays, how it's balanced, where competitive interests lie, and asks us to forgo our personal preferences and insights for the sake of groupthink. It's an outlook damning not only to the compeditive scenes that Brawl and Melee both currently enjoy (and whose fans may find good reason to sustain them post-SSB4), but shuts the door completely to community driven initiatives like Project M and ADO.

If the game is appealing enough in its own right to be the 'one' we all rally behind, so be it. But the chances of that happening are exactly zilch. We might as well come to terms with that fact now, and embrace this community as something intelligent, diverse and mature, instead of wishing we could go back to the days of dull-minded fanboyism.

"or at the very least refrain from attacking it"

You're also a person missing the point.

You don't have to like it. You don't have to rally behind it. Just don't attack it and start arguments because of how bad it is. It's pretty easy to not be a total jerk about things, and if you think that this is a thread saying that you need to support Smash 4 simply because it's new, then you need to just stop posting in here and leave.

It's simple, really. Just don't be a jerk about things. Say that you don't like the game if you really want to. Don't say "This game sucks, and you suck for playing it" and don't start pointless arguments just so you can stroke your ego and look like a drooling idiot. Shouldn't be too difficult for anyone that made it through elementary school.

Why is it BS? Everyone who says "you shouldn't complain" should consider that nothing in the world ever changes because people keep quiet. Revolutions are started by those few dissenting voices; that's how history has played out. People who say we should keep silent because (a) Nintendo won't change anyway are misguided: should the slaves have kept silent in the 1800s because their masters would never let them free? MLK shouldn't have said anything because no one would ever change? Racism is just a "fact of life," so Gandhi should have quietly just sat in the back of that train? And then to people who say (b) this kind of conversation divides the community: yes, it does. That is the purpose: in the Brawl vs. Melee argument, the entire goal was in fact to prove to those playing Brawl that the game is not as competitive, and to get people to rally behind Melee instead. This could potentially lead to Nintendo noticing something. Instead, when others claim that by being silent and unifying behind a "new trend" set by the company we are actually doing the community good, they are in fact harming the community by attempting to silence dissent. Disagreements are necessary, dissent is even more necessary.

There is no way for a community to be "unified" unless all opinions are heard and considered. So while OP may think that posting about Melee vs. Brawl isn't conducive to unity and we should just leave each other alone, at least posting does something. Having Melee enthusiasts just play Melee, and having Brawl enthusiasts just play Brawl, creates a de facto division that weakens the voice of the entire community. If change needs to occur, the LAST thing to do is to just silently agree to disagree. That is not how change has ever been effected by the people of any community.

For the sake of "cohesiveness," you would strive to rule by strict majority and eliminate any minority, dissenting voices. Is this the kind of community you actually desire?

...Are you seriously comparing this to slavery?

...You're serious, aren't you?

Oh my goodness. Paragraph by paragraph...

LOL. First paragraph is just... What? This simply can not relate to MLK, slavery, Ghandi, or anything like it. This is a video game where the developers care about MONEY. Here's a fact for you: The developers will make the same amount of money regardless based off of what they've shown thus far unless the programming behind the game gets WAY worse. It doesn't matter if they make it similar to Melee with hit stun and fast motion and such. It doesn't matter if they make it worse than Brawl. They will be making more money than they made off of Brawl, which is more money than they made off of Melee. Good luck trying to change this with your arguing. You probably won't .

Arguing in real life? It's the only way to promote change. Disagreements are required in order for us to progress as a society. Arguing about which video game is better? Hah. Change. You're not getting any change from it. It's a freaking joke to argue about it. Best case scenario, Nintendo realizes that people liked Melee. Whoa. They totally didn't know that before. I can understand arguing character bans, stage lists, match ups, etc. However, if you're arguing about one game being better than another, it's simply another gay rights versus religion argument. It's simply pointless and it doesn't change anything. It's a huge waste of time, and you're better off trying to figure out how to get gay rights legalized/banned nation wide through different means.

We SHOULD leave each other alone. Bashing the game doesn't promote playing the game. It doesn't promote competitiveness. The only thing it promotes is people not posting on the forums in the first place. I can't tell you about how many people I've talked to that simply avoided the main boards for Smash Bros and only posted in their character boards or on sub boards such as decisive games because the main boards were full of morons who all thought that arguing about the two games would actually do something helpful for the community. Sure, you have people that want to argue for the heck of it, but saying that it promotes any type of positive aspect in the community is a load of crap.

We don't care to hear about Melee being good at this point (It came out more than 10 years ago. No one cares to hear you talk about how great it is.), and hopefully once the game actually comes out, people instigating these arguments will be ignored like the morons they truly are.

 

[XavierSylfaen]

Masquerain, one thing:

They will be making more money than they made off of Brawl, which is more money than they made off of Melee.

Melee sold more units proportional to the Gamecube than Brawl did to the Wii. Brawl sold more raw copies than Melee did solely because of the millions of people who bought a Wii because "hurr gonna get fit with Wii Sports bowling" casuals. In other words, the huge install base. Wii U has a fraction of the install base, making it unlikely for it to sell more than Brawl did, or even Melee did, any time soon. Maybe that'll change by whenever in 2014 but we'll see.

And I disagree with your Melee sentiment but I do agree that ****flinging like monkeys won't accomplish anything.

 

[Dooms]

I think with all of these new games coming out, Wii U and 3DS sales will both go up, especially after any possible price drops.

Considering the fact that it's selling to two systems and the fact that many more people will start to buy a Wii U/3DS, I'm pretty sure that it will beat out Melee. Brawl? I think so, but we'll see.

 

[El Duderino]

You don't have to like it. You don't have to rally behind it. Just don't attack it and start arguments because of how bad it is.

Because if it turns out to be bad game, everyone should just keep quiet and pretend they are satisfied for the sake of those who are. Oh those poor, overly-sensitive content players, they have it so rough.

 

[Dooms]

Because if it turns out to be a bad game, everyone should argue and create a brawl v melee 2.0 argument for the sake of being idiots and for the sake of their ego stroking. Oh those poor, overly-obnoxious content players, they have it so rough.

No. If it's THAT bad, then the amount of people that play it won't be worth arguing with because the number is so small.

If you personally think it's bad, then good for you, don't play it. Smash 4 will have fans, and it will create another obnoxious Brawl v Melee if you try to be part of the group of morons that will begin to say "MELEE WAS WAY MORE COMPETITIVE THAN SMASH 4 LOL YALL DUMB FOR PLAYIN THIS GARBAGE LOL."

It's really not that difficult to avoid having an argument about your game being better than others. If you're a decent enough person, it should be pretty simple to just enjoy your game without putting down other games. I guess if you're set on being obnoxious in order to satisfy your ego, then that's okay, too. We'll just have to ignore you. That's a darn shame.

 

[El Duderino]

Encouraging all smash players to baby the new community and blindly accept the new game is not a means to end any of these conflicts. Quite the opposite actually.

It's just a highly unrealistic fantasy. Time to face reality.