Online: The real reason Sakurai made Brawl so different

[The Slayer]

Well, I won't deny that this could be one of the reasons why the gameplay was significantly changed (or in my eyes, simplified) due to the online aspect of Brawl, but without a doubt, this still hurts the competitive scene in a strong way. The sad part about it is that the online component isn't all that great regardless. >_<

 

[House M.D.]

this is probably true at least somewhat. also, the dev. cycle was long because of subspace. also, what a waste of time that was.

 

[Infamous Chimera]

I am happy that online is in the game. I live on a mountain, so I don't go out to places/tournaments that often. Sure Nintendo's online service isn't as great as the others, but at least it's free (I dislike monthly fees).

I do agree that online played some part in "casualizing" Brawl. Same thing happened to Mario Kart Wii.

 

[Yukiwarashi]

i dont get them. if im beat so badly like sakurai is everyday by his mom for being so bad at smash, id train, find out and u know practice to get better. being rnak 10,000 would only encourage me to get better.

all the pple who made brawl are emo! lol they think they can make a rated T game for kids with hyper sensative feelings . notice how the characters clap when they loose. wtf i want hardcore fights and fun duels like in melee. looked so fluid and fun. if they added things to the actualy gameplay the vs mode, instead of taking things away to make random kids online feel better then thats just dumb.

Sigh....

Okay, so why exactly do you need to see how high you are on a number list exactly? If you're getting beaten online right now, and you practice to get better, your practice shows itself in your victories. Do you honestly need hardcore numbers shoved into your face to feel better about yourself? If anything, that's childish. You make fun of how Brawl seems so childish, but if anything, your attitude towards it seems even more childish.

And what's wrong with characters clapping when they lose? They've done it since the first game, and that's nothing but good sportsmanship. Something tells me you're probably a real jerk when playing if you can't even congratulate the winner. And yeah, sure, Melee was fluid and fun...I wonder what you'd be seeing with Melee being online. I can assure you, it wouldn't be the same game, not even close. I'd prefer for them to take away things from the game rather than keep it in if it meant people like you would come out.

 

[Sosuke]

Umm ok I understand all this and it makes sence. But didn't they say there was a "chance" Brawl would be online on Dojo? Or am I just imagining that.
Hmm... maybe he jsut said that for kicks or something.

 

[Fatmanonice]

oh, i didn't know nintendo wifi is really that limited

but like many others have said, i'd prefer a better quality game with no online mode. brawl just makes me cry inside

Brawl is not that bad... >_> Heck, quality wise, it's by far the best game on the Wii. Good God, you talk like it's Super Man 64...

 

[arrowhead]

With Melee turning out the way it had, Sakurai was determined to create the game that was his original intent, a party game. He most likely knew that Brawl fans would play on Wifi quite often, so the quality needed to be there. Using the Wifi system it has, there are no rankings, no records, nothing to seperate the competative players from the rest. As we know, Sakurai tried his hardest to cader the game to a more casual audience, "so everyone feels like their a winnner" (everyone remembers this from the Iwata interview).

a more accurate explanation would be that he wanted to cater against competitive players

god, how much i hate that man

 

[Undrdog]

Brawl is a reactionary game though. Powershielding is even given it's own spot on the Dojo. And as important as this technique is, (and I believe it to be the very foundation of competitive play) it is utterly impossible on Wifi. The ability to seemlessly toss defense in with offense is what makes Brawl an amazing game and it isn't even possible on Wifi.

In the end all I'm saying is I don't think Powershielding would be as pushed as it is by Sakurai if they intentionally tried to cater what would be possible on Wifi. In fact, after the initial announcement of Brawl being online, Nintendo wouldn't officially state that this was the case after that point until a few months before Brawl's release.

 

[SmashChu]

You make some valid points, but I disagree that online is the reason he made Brawl the way he did.

If it is true in what you say that Brawl was meant to be played online, then why is the mode so shallow. There isn't very much in online, while most of the meat of the game is in the Solo and Brawl. Also, were it to be solely online we would have had more modes online (Coins and stock) and things like leader boards. The game didn't have online as the main focus, as even he himself said that he wanted to make a bigger single player.

Of course, I beleive online was not the reason he changed it, but it was affected by his ideas. First and foremost, he wanted to make air combat a bigger priority. This is what makes the characters have a longer hangtime then in Melee. As such, the speed has to be slower on the ground so there is a focus to fight in the air. It's also becuase he wished to make the game easier overall. Thus he took out advance techniques and made things like more float and lock-on ledges.

In other words, a lot of the changes were not online.We can't equate everything to it. In fact, Sakurai said in his journal that he wanted to make the game easier and have more control in the air, both elements that would effect the games speed and make Brawl different. I think it's more he wanted an easier game then an online one.

 

[SamuraiPanda]

You make some valid points, but I disagree that online is the reason he made Brawl the way he did.

If it is true in what you say that Brawl was meant to be played online, then why is the mode so shallow. There isn't very much in online, while most of the meat of the game is in the Solo and Brawl. Also, were it to be solely online we would have had more modes online (Coins and stock) and things like leader boards. The game didn't have online as the main focus, as even he himself said that he wanted to make a bigger single player.

The lack of things like leader boards were because of Sakurai's mentality of not wanting people to feel bad that they suck hardcore.

And online not having more options is because Nintendo's online sucks. For a long time Sakurai said things like "if we can do it online," inferring that its very difficult to put it online as it is. So when you throw in more game modes and functions to it, it becomes increasingly harder to code for. Would you honestly want them to delay the game further just to code in online coin mode? Plus, Nintendo as it is doesn't give their online modes much loving anyways. They figure as long as it can connect to the internet and you can play one of the modes, that people will be happy. And how much do you want to bet that the people who worked on the other aspects of the game, like SSE, never even touched the online mode? Sakurai had a very large development team that each worked on different parts of the game at different times. The argument that they spent too much time doing one thing so something else suffered isn't true at all.

Of course, I beleive online was not the reason he changed it, but it was affected by his ideas. First and foremost, he wanted to make air combat a bigger priority. This is what makes the characters have a longer hangtime then in Melee. As such, the speed has to be slower on the ground so there is a focus to fight in the air. It's also because he wished to make the game easier overall. Thus he took out advance techniques and made things like more float and lock-on ledges.

In other words, a lot of the changes were not online.We can't equate everything to it. In fact, Sakurai said in his journal that he wanted to make the game easier and have more control in the air, both elements that would effect the games speed and make Brawl different. I think it's more he wanted an easier game then an online one.

Uh... Do you not remember that I was the one who said everything you just typed there? Sakurai's journal was translated by me. I'm quite aware of what he said. The fact that he never pointed to online as a reason for why he's doing things doesn't mean that it wasn't a major factor. I know other reasoning went into his decisions, I pointed that out in the first post, but I believe that online was a much more important reason than anything else because Brawl was supposed to be Nintendo's flagship wifi title. The title that would define Nintendo's wifi system for years to come (and it defined that their wifi sucked balls). It was a big deal to them.

 

[arrowhead]

Brawl is not that bad... >_> Heck, quality wise, it's by far the best game on the Wii. Good God, you talk like it's Super Man 64...

brawl is independently a great game, but we've been spoiled by melee. you can't force a tennis player to play table tennis and expect him to like it (credits to RDK for analogy)

samurai -

Sakurai had a very large development team that each worked on different parts of the game at different times. The argument that they spent too much time doing one thing so something else suffered isn't true at all.

they couldn't have hired less people for one area and more in another? personally, i thought SSE was too long and repetitive

 

[SamuraiPanda]

they couldn't have hired less people for one area and more in another? personally, i thought SSE was too long and repetitive

Funny enough, Sakurai addressed that exact thing in one of his journal entries. He said that there were more than enough people to help him, and that adding more people wouldn't work, because he was the only person that could supervise what was going on, and he is only one man.

 

[Fatmanonice]

brawl is independently a great game, but we've been spoiled by melee. you can't force a tennis player to play table tennis and expect him to like it (credits to RDK for analogy)

Why do people talk as if they are forced to play Brawl? Heck, you can utterly hate it if you want to. Why do so many people feel threatened simply because some people like/prefer Brawl to Melee? Melee won't die out unless people let it. Brawl can't kill Melee and people need to understand that.

Personally, I think Melee will die out if things don't change soon. What do I mean? People who play Melee and Brawl are now basically being divided in seperate camps. We're all gamers who love the Smash Bros franchise so why can't we be unified in that and let people enjoy the games they like? I was told the other day by someone on another forum that I wasn't a real gamer because I prefer Brawl over Melee. Is that fair? I clock in an average of 5-6 hours a day practicing and I have been playing games since I was three. Honestly, is that fair? People shouldn't be forced to prefer one game over another in order to avoid scorn; those are not the characteristics of a true community.

Also, table tennis can take a lot of skill.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxZ-5wELSJM

It's an exhibition game, granted, but it goes to show the possibilities of the game.

Yes, Brawl is less technical than Melee. We all understand that. Is it still fun to play for some people? Yes. Is there still a "competitive ladder" where people strive to improve themselves? Yes. This isn't like Mario Kart where the more skilled player can still lose because items aren't mandatory.

 

[arrowhead]

Why do people talk as if they are forced to play Brawl? Heck, you can utterly hate it if you want to. Why do so many people feel threatened simply because some people like/prefer Brawl to Melee? Melee won't die out unless people let it. Brawl can't kill Melee and people need to understand that.

you're right, that was unfair of me. but there has been a history of franchises dying because the sequels were worse than the previous games. you even said it yourself that you think melee will die out. and this is a result of brawl, a competitively inferior game, coming out

Also, table tennis can take a lot of skill.

yes, i know that. but the analogy still holds. it's a completely different game from tennis although the basic principals are the same. and table tennis is arguably the "easier" sport.

Yes, Brawl is less technical than Melee. We all understand that. Is it still fun to play for some people? Yes. Is there still a "competitive ladder" where people strive to improve themselves? Yes. This isn't like Mario Kart where the more skilled player can still lose because items aren't mandatory.

this almost sounds like you agree that melee is the better game for competitive play.

 

[DMurr]

I've never thought of that. I'm not a competitive player and never have been. I've found that in most online matches the winner usually switches around between the players. No one person always comes out winning every time. I like that.

I love brawl the way it is, even though I wish the roster was different. Whatever.

 

[Fatmanonice]

you're right, that was unfair of me. but there has been a history of franchises dying because the sequels were worse than the previous games. you even said it yourself that you think melee will die out. and this is a result of brawl, a competitively inferior game, coming out

Don't twist my words. I said that Melee would die out if Smash fans continued to isolate each other and have people "choose sides" instead of just letting people play which game they prefer.

yes, i know that. but the analogy still holds. it's a completely different game from tennis although the basic principals are the same. and table tennis is arguably the "easier" sport.

And? What's wrong with easier? Keep in mind that the original Smash Bros was even more simplistic than even Brawl and yet there were still professionals who were able to effectively play it competitively even after Melee came out.


this almost sounds like you agree that melee is the better game for competitive play.

If technical skill is the only thing you believe defines competitive play, then yes. Melee obviously has more techs but the basic principles have carried on to Brawl. Brawl still requires you to outsmart and outplay your opponent. A C stick happy Ike who spams roll dodging is not going to win against a Jigglypuff who actually knows what their doing despite what is shown in tiers. It's just that simple.

 

[GreenMarth]

i agree with all of your points stated they all make very good sense seeing as sakurai was forced to make the game the way he did

BUT!

why cant nintendo just have better internet capabilities? im serious here !!!

 

[Mista Sinista]

Melee - More technical than Brawl but at the end of the day, the player with the best mindgames will win.

Brawl - Almost no technical aspect but it comes down to the same thing, the player with the best mindgames will win.

If you don't like Brawl, play Melee. It can't get any simpler than that. I personally think Brawl is much better than Melee but still miss stuff like l-cancelling and wavedashing. But I must admit that winning VERY consistently is more rewarding because I know I outsmarted my opponent.

 

[Wyvernkni]

Heh, I never thought of it that way. So true in so many ways, but one thing... I'd think if they truly wanted it to be made as an online game, they'd have included more features... like Stocks, One vs One, etc etc. It does make sense though, and I agree, too many people waste too much time slaughtering Sakurai.

 

[Mista Sinista]

The thing is, in a way I think Sakurai's a genius, in a way I think he's a ******.

As far as making money, of course making this game less competitive seems like an obvious decision. Casual players will love to be able to put all items on, Medium and pick whoever and feel as if they're good because they beat their friend.

Realistically though, his goal was to make this game less competitive and what have we? We have so many f'in tournaments that tier lists are flying all over the place. Any person with half a brain should've known that no matter how much he simplified this game, players would still compete.

I'm saying this because according to this thread, he dumbed down/simplified the game to make it run easier online. Well supposedly Wi-Fi is absolute garbage, and players are still VERY competitive. So Sakurai you made a great game but you failed miserably simultaneously.

 

[infernovia]

=/ Table tennis moves quite fast and requires a lot of technical skills with spins and smashes that are not easy to acquire at all. In fact, its tough enough that you need to develop muscle memory to just hit the ball back and forth.

Tennis is a harder sport because it requires actual muscular strength, but I don't think you can call it "deeper" than table tennis. It also doesn't move quite as fast just because of scale.

I think you should rethink your analogy. Edit: I suggest pickle ball.

 

[distr0ia]

agreed; online was never necessary, in my opinion


two thumbs up

 

[Vulcan55]

in regards to the OP, I have never thought of it that way, but it actually makes a ton of sense.

 

[tyrone]

Its sad that brawl had 2 get toned down it was one if not the only fighting genre that the input's u put into the controller was based on how fast u could think but as sequel's come out for games most developers arent thinking about the hardcore fans there thinking about how to make more MONEY which means reaching out 2 the casual crowd if u dont believe me
go to utube and take a look at the guy who's making STREET FIGHTER 4 he said that most of the advanced tech's were being taken out or reworked 2 make them easier 2 perform hence for casual players,parry's have also been taken out because he said quote its not fun for a player (casual) 2 pull of a super move and the other player(advanced) parries every step of the move, and that players felt that there was a huge difference between skilled and casual.This example carries right over into brawl with them taking out wavedashing and Lcanceling etc...
Developers nowdays want to make game's that everyone can win in regardless of skill which is fine 2 me but when there's nothing that appeals to the advanced players or they feel the gap has been closed 2 much they stop playing so its always going to be either the advanced players take the game to the next level as intended or all tournaments are just Noob infested were instead of having skill just being lucky can win u the tourney.

 

[Newuser12345215]

In my opinion it seems that Sakurai stuck too stubbornly to the smash tradition of a bunch of trophies and fun minigames such as all the special brawl options. It seems that the actual fighting mechanics were put on the back-burner

I have to agree with this. What are there now, 544 trophies? Not to mention all the stickers, which are only good for Subspace. And wasn't the translation stuff the reason that Brawl took an extra three months to come out in the US? Sakurai may have wanted the game to become more casual-friendly, but to have so many frills is pushing it to the extreme. Imagine if the memory from those trophies was put into a faster Wi-Fi or more techniques....

I agree.

I would have gladly choose 5 new characters over 300 trophies and stickers.

I mean really, do we really need all those trophies?

If they could spend the time instead of creating trophies, making gameplay models for each of the trophies, writing descriptions for the trophies.... by making characters instead, we'd get at least 5 fairly well balanced out unique characters.

Trophies take a lot of time to make, but if they could spend less time on making 500+ trophies and more time on the actual games like maybe creating more characters, I'd prefer that.

I disagree. Sakurai had an immensely large development team. How many people do you think it takes to code for the multiplayer options? I'm sure that the people who worked on the trophies and what not were not required for the other aspects of the game.

Yes but they could make the people who work on trophies, help them make new characters and help them on the game.


(All made up numbers and statistics, this is just an example)(Again, this is example, might not be fairly accurate but it's just giving you an idea what they could have done instead)
So lets say...

Sakurai had like 350 people to work the characters.

Sakurai had an additional 150 people to make the trophies/stickers, the gameplay models, and adding the descriptions. There are a ton of trophies and stickers, A TON. It requires a lot of man and woman power to make over 500 trophies and over 300 stickiers.

It takes 35 people for one Brawl character to be made for Brawl. 350 people = 35 characters.

What Sakurai could have done was take those 150 people making the trophies, and then let them work on characters, this would have added about 5 new characters into the game.

Again this is just an example, remember trophies do take a lot of time to make. Each trophy is a detailed game model, making a game model does take a lot of time and over 500 trophies = a really lot of time.

 

[Nasanieru]

Interesting take on the online factor SamuraiPanda, good read.

 

[GofG]

Melee - More technical than Brawl but at the end of the day, the player with the best mindgames will win.

Brawl - Almost no technical aspect but it comes down to the same thing, the player with the best mindgames will win.

Chu Dat won very few tournaments.

 

[arrowhead]

If technical skill is the only thing you believe defines competitive play, then yes. Melee obviously has more techs but the basic principles have carried on to Brawl. Brawl still requires you to outsmart and outplay your opponent. A C stick happy Ike who spams roll dodging is not going to win against a Jigglypuff who actually knows what their doing despite what is shown in tiers. It's just that simple.

now who's twisting words? technical skill does not define competitive play, but in this case it shows the lack of options brawl has when compared to melee. fewer options = less deep = easier. this is not what competitive players want

 

[SamuraiPanda]

now who's twisting words? technical skill does not define competitive play, but in this case it shows the lack of options brawl has when compared to melee. fewer options = less deep = easier. this is not what competitive players want

Apparently no thread is safe from this debate. Can't say that I'm surprised though :/

 

[JiangWei23]

Yay logic! Wow, this actually makes a lot of sense as to just why Brawl's changes were so drastic. And as others have mentioned...it is VERY ironic that they built it to be an Wi-fi capable game from the start, only to have the Wi-Fi be the worst part. Why was Brawl's online so much fail while MKWii's was so good!? Grar!

Do you think he didn't care about the competitive player? Ha! Remember those translations I did a long time ago? The very first email Sakurai responded to was a person thanking him for making Melee because he met his wife at a Melee tournament and now has a kid. And the very last email Sakurai responded to was that man's wife. He knew we were out there. He just couldn't do much to help us because the overwhelming majority wanted play Smash online, which could have never lead to the Melee 2.0 that so many people were hoping for. And yes, its ironic in the end that online came out so poorly.

Quite. Sakurai definitely didn't forget about the competitive player, or did we forget these links?

http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/gamemode/various/various38.html
http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/howto/basic/basic08.html
http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/howto/basic/basic10.html

My malice towards Sakurai has dwindled a lot more now. Thanks SamuraiPanda! And btw...which e-mails are you talking about? Could you give me a link?

 

[arrowhead]

Quite. Sakurai definitely didn't forget about the competitive player, or did we forget these links?

http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/gamemode/various/various38.html
http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/howto/basic/basic08.html
http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/howto/basic/basic10.html

My malice towards Sakurai has dwindled a lot more now. Thanks SamuraiPanda! And btw...which e-mails are you talking about? Could you give me a link?

are you kidding? the reason sakurai included tripping, slow down the game, make all the characters floaty, reduce hitstun, create a crappy online system, etc. was because he doesn't care about the competitive players. what he wants is everyone to "have a good laugh" after every match.

my malice toward sakurai increases by the day, but i'm starting to like brawl a little more now also thanks to panda

 

[SamuraiPanda]

My malice towards Sakurai has dwindled a lot more now. Thanks SamuraiPanda! And btw...which e-mails are you talking about? Could you give me a link?

Before the Dojo was an updating site, Smash had a pretty bad website. But they actually asked on the Japanese version of the site for Japanese people to email in character suggestions. Then they started doing a weekly update thing where they would post 10 emails and then Sakurai himself would respond to one of them. I translated those responses.

Funny enough, my translations (found here) were actually the very first post I ever made on these forums.

 

[SAMaine]

Melee will die because the Melee fans are complaining about anyone liking Brawl, which means anyone who likes both, will jump firmly into the Brawl cap, because the Melee fans will hate them. As the Melee fanbase drindles down to the hardcore Melee fans who hate Brawl, the Brawl fanbase will continue to increase. Some might love Brawl and decide to play Melee and like it. They might get good and want to compete in both Brawl and Melee tournaments, but because they like Brawl as well as Melee, the hardcore Melee players will shun them. If the Melee players don't at least accept the Brawl players, all the Melee tournaments will eventually end because no one wants to deal with the fighting from the Melee fans, and Brawl is the new hotness. If that happens, the Brawl fans win. Instead, we should accept tournaments for both games, and SSB64 as well. Heck, if Super Smash Bros. gets released for the Virtual Console, we would only need Wiis to have tournaments for all three Smash Bros. games!

 

[Zankoku]

Where do you live? Over here, I don't see people hating Brawl players for playing Brawl. >_>

 

[Yuna]

Horrible excuse.

"Online lags and will be slower, so we'll make the entire game slower!".

Funny how many other fighting games have managed just fine with a laggy online yet still be among the fastest games in fighting game history, like the Guilty Gear XX-series.

Are you saying they made the game slower for those who cannot handle the transition between Online Lag and Offline without Online lag? Because said transistion still has to be made, the game still lags online, even with the best of connections. There will always be lag when you play online no matter how much slower you make the game because information still has to go both ways before something can happen.

No, I very much doubt the game is as slow as it is because of Online. Because that would be stupid. Unless, of course, Sakurai & Co thought this was a good solution and gimped the game in terms of speed due to this kind of illogical thinking.

Games do not have to be slow because online will lag and make them slower, anyway. They do not. It's not like they care about Competitive online. No ranking lists, gimped down technical game and learning curve, they just want to make a game that as many gamers as possible will enjoy (i.e., a game for the casual market).

I doubt the casual market at large would go "Noes! The game is slower when I play online! My life as I know it is over because I can no longer do these technical combos I can do offline!".

To reiterate:
I've said it before and I'll say it again: This is one stupid reason to slow the game down. "Online will lag and be 'slower', so let's make the entire game slower!". Why? Because even if the game is slower, online will still lag and be friggin' slower!.

Let's take a look:
Let's say Game X has all shorthops come out after 8 frames. Game Y has them come out after 4 frames. Both games lag the same amount (10 frames).

Game Y will still have shorthops come out 10 frames after they are inputted! Even if the game is only half the speed of Game X, since the lag is the same, there's a 10 frame lag between an input and the inputted command occuring onscreen (first, your controller and Wii has to acknowledge the input, then it has to send said input to the server, telling it you just did something. The server then simoultaneously sends out the command for both you and your opponent's/opponents' Wiis to have the command come out at the exact same frame.

This is why online gaming lags. A lot of information has to be exchanged before even the simplest of commands can take effect. No matter how much slower you make a game, unless you change the way the game handles online, you will still lag!

FPS:es manage to largely negate lag because they handle online in an entirely different way than fighting games... a way which I assume cannot be used for fighting games.

So, let's reiterate again:
This is a stupid, illogical and downright just-so-wrong-I-wanna-hurl reason to slow the entire game down. It still lags the same. If they wanted to not have lag screw people over, they would've invested time and money into trying to minimize it.

My personal belief is that they made the game slower and more intuitive just to make it easier for new players to play. And if they slowed it down because of online, then refer to the above paragraph.

 

[okiyama]

you said that on SMYN a long time ago.

 

[RDK]

Yeah, they made Brawl slower so that it could cope with the massive amounts of online lag. Just like how they made Mario Kart Wii slower by making all of the characters obese and ride snails instead of karts.

Oh, wait...

Gimme a break. This is such a dumb argument it's not even funny. It has nothing to do with coping with lag, and everything to do with Sakurai making the game more n00by.

 

[Negi-Kun]

You mentioned something like this on Show Me Your News a while back. How do I know this? I listen to old episodes.

 

[Yuna]

Yeah, they made Brawl slower so that it could cope with the massive amounts of online lag. Just like how they made Mario Kart Wii slower by making all of the characters obese and ride snails instead of karts.

Oh, wait...

Gimme a break. This is such a dumb argument it's not even funny. It has nothing to do with coping with lag, and everything to do with Sakurai making the game more n00by.

QFT.

I'm no Mario Kart buff but I saw hours of Mario Kart Wii yesterday due to attendance of a Mario Kart Wii tournaments (I did not enter) just for fun. And it wasn't really noticably tons slower than Double Dash, yet it's also, gasp, online!

You mentioned something like this on Show Me Your News a while back. How do I know this? I listen to old episodes.

Shino Aburame's speech pattern is made of pure fail.

 

[smashbro29]

well mk is a racing game therefore it doesn't need everything to happen immediatley smash bros does so it lags