Official MBR 2010 NTSC Tier List

[FourStar]

Offensive is so much easier than Defense at lower levels. For offense, all you really need to know is how to lcancel and execute some combos. Defense has to know how the opponent is attacking and the correct responses, not to mention they still have to be able to execute their punishes just as well. There is quite of bit of game knowledge you need before you can defend properly. As you reach the top levels this is pretty much even or maybe easier for the defender.

im pretty sure defense is harder than offense in everything competitive

 

[Pengie]

FourStar, when you said "think star fox", where you implying that spacies take more thinking than other chracters? Although it is obvious that at top level, every character requires thinking. I also think it is well known that in Melee, sometimes players opt to play technically, and allow smart play to take a back seat.

So at the lower-mid level of play, some players are running in with tech skill without much thought to it. Who do you think they are playing? Nobody is going in with a Puff Nairplane. Who do you think can get away with 'tech-skill' approaches? (my guess is characters from Star Fox).

Hint: It isn't Wolf, Slippy or Peppy. You can't play them in this game.

How I interpreted this post:

 

[Ziodyne]

i get what you mean but the best fox and falcos are hella smart. i was not talking about the average player

The best with any character are hella smart, that's why they're the best lol

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

FourStar, when you said "think star fox", where you implying that spacies take more thinking than other characters? Although it is obvious that at top level, every character requires thinking. I also think it is well known that in Melee, sometimes players opt to play technically, and allow smart play to take a back seat.

So at the lower-mid level of play, some players are running in with tech skill without much thought to it. Who do you think they are playing? Nobody is going in with a Puff Nairplane. Who do you think can get away with 'tech-skill' approaches? (my guess is characters from Star Fox).

Contrary to all of this "all tech, no brain" thinking. Those people have the best thinking strats of anyone.

"Once I get my hands on you, I'll **** you up. I'll **** you up real good."

 

[Purpletuce]

I don't think there is anything that suggests that spacies need to think harder at top level play than everyone else, so I still don't get why you would point them out in particular.

Also, it isn't always the case where defense is harder than offense. Maybe it is just because I work on defense more than offense, but I actually struggle with being aggressive.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

im pretty sure defense is harder than offense in everything competitive

Depends on your definition of "easy"; easier to win or easier to execute? At lower levels of melee, I would say defense is harder in both ways. At top levels I think its easier to win with defense and more or less the same difficulty to execute (possibly easier, since offense must put a lot of work into tricking the defender in order to succeed).

 

[The 2t]

I wouldn't say spacies require more thought than other characters, it's more that they have a lot of incredibly fiddly and intricate (technical) crap they need to do which is easy to mess up, and when they do mess up they can get punished hard for it. That mainly only applies to Fox though. Falco is considerably more forgiving and less fiddly than Fox IMO - that's not to say Falco players don't need tech skill because they obviously do, just not quite on the level of Fox.

But yeah, once you get to a high enough level all characters are going to require a lot of thought to play properly.

 

[FourStar]

Depends on your definition of "easy"; easier to win or easier to execute? At lower levels of melee, I would say defense is harder in both ways. At top levels I think its easier to win with defense and more or less the same difficulty to execute (possibly easier, since offense must put a lot of work into tricking the defender in order to succeed).

i said nothing about anything being easier.....

 

[john!]

the most difficult characters to play are the characters that are the hardest to win with

the characters that are hardest to win with are the ones on the bottom of the tier list

if the best character in the game was super duper difficult, to the point where nobody could use them effectively due to their difficulty, then they would be very low on the tier list, or should be.

 

[The 2t]

the most difficult characters to play are the characters that are the hardest to win with

I wouldn't say that. The fact that a character is difficult to win with doesn't necessarily make the character itself difficult to play, it often just means their options are limited and the character in general is kind of crap.

the characters that are hardest to win with are the ones on the bottom of the tier list

if the best character in the game was super duper difficult, to the point where nobody could use them effectively due to their difficulty, then they would be very low on the tier list, or should be.

Yet that's kind of the difficulty Fox faces (though obviously nowhere near that extreme), which is why some people, Bones included, are putting him lower than is generally accepted as normal.

That being said, Fox is still a great character even without half of the crazy technical stuff he can pull off, so this disparity is really only between the top few.

 

[john!]

every character can be played to some extent by every person. no characters have been brought to their max potential by any player yet. the only way you can say a character low on the tier list is easy is if you believe that people who play that character are inherently less skilled than other players.

if people aren't succeeding with that character, and that character hasn't reached their max potential yet, then how can that character possibly be easy?

people are placing fox lower because skillful fox players generally are doing worse than skillful falco players. unless you believe that falco players are inherently more skillful than fox players, then this means fox is more difficult to win with.

 

[Purpletuce]

Uh... Yeah. Lower tier characters are harder to win with or are "worse". I thought everyone simply accepts this.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

i said nothing about anything being easier.....

Easier and Harder are opposites, so if you make a statement about hardness you are simultaneously saying something about easiness.

 

[-LzR-]

im pretty sure defense is harder than offense in everything competitive

Come on man, Brawl is competitive nuff.

 

[Bones0]

Camping in FPSes is definitely a million times easier than attacking in FPSes. Like every FPS ever, too. The only exceptions I can think of are instances where the offensive team is given an inherent advantage because of their side of the map. Defense is also generally easier in real life games. If offense were super easy in soccer, football, hockey, etc., then it would just be a non-stop score-fest. You could argue that basketball is like this because teams probably score more than 50% of their time down court, but idk what the actual statistics are since I don't watch basketball. My point is that offense is almost always more difficult because, as humans, we structure things so that goals are things of glory to be obtained. If scoring was the default and preventing a score was the goal, it would seem really unintuitive (though there are certainly sports that play like that).

 

[Xyzz]

Not that it really mattered or anything, but for the sake of giving a counter-example: Chess. It's generally a big disadvantage if you're forced into a defensive position there (harder to find moves keeping everything together, no simple "counter-attack" thing out of the defensive position, no threats). Hell, it's usually better to give up material just to get some counter-play in those type of situations.

 

[FourStar]

Come on man, Brawl is competitive nuff.

nuff?

 

[Xyzz]

nuff?

Google would've answered that even quicker than me: "enough"

 

[FourStar]

Google would've answered that even quicker than me: "enough"

kay thanks.

Come on man, Brawl is competitive nuff.

i never said anything about brawl not being competitive

 

[Vashimus]

Not that it really mattered or anything, but for the sake of giving a counter-example: Chess. It's generally a big disadvantage if you're forced into a defensive position there (harder to find moves keeping everything together, no simple "counter-attack" thing out of the defensive position, no threats). Hell, it's usually better to give up material just to get some counter-play in those type of situations.

Chess comparisons to non-turned based games are hilarious.

 

[FourStar]

Chess comparisons to non-turned based games are hilarious.

everything competitive using thought is compared to chess lol

 

[Xyzz]

Chess comparisons to non-turned based games are hilarious.

Not like I claimed it to be a good comparison or anything.

 

[Divinokage]

Not that it really mattered or anything, but for the sake of giving a counter-example: Chess. It's generally a big disadvantage if you're forced into a defensive position there (harder to find moves keeping everything together, no simple "counter-attack" thing out of the defensive position, no threats). Hell, it's usually better to give up material just to get some counter-play in those type of situations.

Ya just like Ganon vs Fox. If Fox is on your body then Ganon can't really punish Fox directly so it's his job to keep him away as much as possible. You have to know where you are weak and where your strengths are.

 

[MountainGoat]

On the subject of easy vs hard I think there's a difference between being hard to win with and hard to use. There's a high technical skill cap to Fox, perhaps higher than any other character which makes him a hard character to use. Meanwhile, Game and Watch has less of a technical skill cap and makes him easier to use. However, Fox is a much better character and is easier to win with. You could say Game and Watch is hard but its not like he's hard to use all of his options, its just hard to win when you have a ****ty shield, die quickly etc I think that's what people mean when they talk about hard and easy.

 

[The 2t]

^ Yeah, that's pretty much what I was saying. Lower tier characters generally aren't any harder to play than the high tiers, they're just harder to win with. But they're not harder to win with because the character is too difficult for people to master, they're harder to win with because the character is gimped and lacks options compared to the better characters.

 

[Griffard]

Not that it really mattered or anything, but for the sake of giving a counter-example: Chess. It's generally a big disadvantage if you're forced into a defensive position there (harder to find moves keeping everything together, no simple "counter-attack" thing out of the defensive position, no threats). Hell, it's usually better to give up material just to get some counter-play in those type of situations.

But wait! That's explicitly not true! If you have a defensive position that's strong and you're up even a pawn, you're going to win in chess. (I'm assuming best play) You've also apparently never heard of the philosophy of hyper-modernism in chess, which is the chess equivalent of waiting for a character to over-commit to a move so you can swoop in and punish. Also if you had a good understanding of chess, you probably wouldn't describe a chess position as "defensive", really ever.

 

[Blistering Speed]

There will be no more chess to smash analogies.

You are going to ruin two of my favourite things in one fell swoop.

 

[Xyzz]

Not that there was any reason to discuss chess in here, but I'm still wondering how one person can be so wrong...

Just one recent game that's such a fun example for what a pawn is worth against activity... http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1715451
Or not so recent, but still one of the most beautiful games up to date: http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1011478 **** rooks, who needs two of them anyways?

Just ... seriously... I can't even imagine any player at club level who'd not see that the more active side is practically ALWAYS the one playing for win :x

 

[Blistering Speed]

Please stop.

 

[CaptainFabulous]

Camping in FPSes is definitely a million times easier than attacking in FPSes. Like every FPS ever, too. The only exceptions I can think of are instances where the offensive team is given an inherent advantage because of their side of the map. Defense is also generally easier in real life games. If offense were super easy in soccer, football, hockey, etc., then it would just be a non-stop score-fest. You could argue that basketball is like this because teams probably score more than 50% of their time down court, but idk what the actual statistics are since I don't watch basketball. My point is that offense is almost always more difficult because, as humans, we structure things so that goals are things of glory to be obtained. If scoring was the default and preventing a score was the goal, it would seem really unintuitive (though there are certainly sports that play like that).

If it a team is shooting at 50% or above 50% they're smokin

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Xyzz, I'm not a good chess player like Griff or the players in these games, but I don't think those are that great of examples.

In the first one, Black was the more "active" player, and IMO it was his activeness that caused him to overextend and get trapped. He had more resources to work with, he just got out maneuvered.

The second game was really interesting. I haven't seen a game play out like that, but black has a considerable lead for a little while but instead of taking advantage of his resource lead he went for a hasty kill and got out maneuvered.

But what do I know, I only got to like 1500 Elo in that game (im a scrub)

 

[Anand]

If it a team is shooting at 50% or above 50% they're smokin

Bones isn't referring to a 50% field goal percentage, but rather saying that 50% of the time a team has possession, they end up scoring before possession changes. (I don't know whether this is correct either, just clarifying how I read it.)

 

[Bones0]

Not that it really mattered or anything, but for the sake of giving a counter-example: Chess. It's generally a big disadvantage if you're forced into a defensive position there (harder to find moves keeping everything together, no simple "counter-attack" thing out of the defensive position, no threats). Hell, it's usually better to give up material just to get some counter-play in those type of situations.

Not sure why everyone's giving you **** for this example. I think it touches quite well on the point I had brought up before. I mentioned that most of the time defense is worse, it is because of the confines of the arena. Chess's limitations on the board make it so defensive play leaves you pinned with limited options very quickly. If the board were 10x larger and pieces could move backwards, I'm sure most people would see that the balance would shift heavily in the favor of the player that plays the "campiest". Attacking would leave your piece at risk, and the defense would usually be able to limit their losses while simply chipping away at the attacker. Obviously this is just Theory Bros. Chess, but I think it's interesting nonetheless to examine the offensive vs. defensive dynamic of games and artificially alter them by changing the arena.

I remember how I always enjoyed indoor soccer much more than outdoor soccer simply because scoring is so much more common. I found it very interesting how the same exact game, when simply condensed into a smaller space, became entirely different. I think that's one reason I really dislike P:M. All the stages are so big that even with all the buffed, fast characters, I still feel like my opponent's just chilling the whole time and there's no real threat of stage control. DL is the biggest neutral stage, but even on that stage I feel like I can exert effective offensive pressure on my opponent. I guess the P:M cast having ridiculous recoveries and movement-based moves (side-B of Wario, Ike, Sonic, etc.) doesn't help either.

Bones isn't referring to a 50% field goal percentage, but rather saying that 50% of the time a team has possession, they end up scoring before possession changes. (I don't know whether this is correct either, just clarifying how I read it.)

Yeah, that's what I was referring to. Idk how common offensive rebounds are, but if hitting 50% of your shots is rare, then I doubt a team is more likely to score each possession than they are not to score.

 

[Anand]

Edit: The next paragraph is incorrect because I didn't realize your opponent's defensive rebounds didn't count as "turnovers" -- so the 18.7 I cited below is not the right number. What I thought was "turnovers" should have been actual turnovers plus opponent's defensive rebounds, which is a significantly higher number.

Not sure if I'm interpreting these statistics correctly (I don't follow basketball, so please correct me if I'm making any mistakes), but looking at the 2012-13 postseason, ESPN seems to say that even the team that forces the most turnovers from their opponent only gets 18.7 turnovers per game on average [source], and the team that keeps the opponent's score the lowest lets their opponents get 84.1 points per game on average [source]. This makes it seem like there are over 4 points per turnover even when playing against the best teams in the league (and I mixed and matched here to get an overly strong bound), which would mean that even the best teams in the league let their opponents score at least half the time they have possession (and closer to 2/3 if we assume you get approximately 2 points every time you get any points, which seems reasonable if 3-pointers aren't that common [which you can see for yourself]).

 

[Bones0]

So I was right the first time. lol If you want to get really cool with this, look up the same statistics from a long time ago, and I'm guessing basketball teams of old were less effective on offense than they are today, which would also support the theory that defense is typically easier.

 

[Purpletuce]

Yes, basketball and chess make it seem obvious that this argument is relevant.

 

[Bones0]

Yes, basketball and chess make it seem obvious that this argument is relevant.

If you can't find any value in discussing offensive vs. defensive parallels to Melee, then you don't have to post. The rest of us would like to engage in a conversation that is at least intriguing, if not enlightening.

 

[Anand]

I thought this was the social thread.

 

[FourStar]

I thought this was the social thread.

i guess we can't voice our opinions

 

[Purpletuce]

I don't really think what's happening right now is enlightening. The whole point of how easy offense vs. defense is was made last page, now it is just dragged out into the details. When somebody makes an analogy between smash and some other sport it allows me to see what they're saying. At this point people are just saying, more or less, that sometimes defense is easier and sometimes offense is easier. I feel like running through games we consider easier in one of those playstyles won't really bring anything to the smash conversation that initially making the comparisons didn't.

FourStar, I don't even understand what you're saying half the time you post. . .