Sakurai's Genius: A Look at How a Non-Competitive Game Can Be So Much Fun

[Dark Sonic]

I mean if u want to win camping is safe and effective

Right here. That's the problem. Guess what people who want to win will do.

but its not unbeatable.... I garuntee any meele pro could beat someone camping in brawl

If the players are even remotely in the same ball park when it comes to skill, the camping player will most likely win due to the large advantage camping gives him. Seriously, I beat people who are clearly better than me just by camping with Pit's arrows.

pros wont camp in brawl because they know its only a situational tactic... there are times when approaching is nesecary

Not quite. The camper never has to approach, but instead force the other person to approach. He could just sit there all day camping.

if u have 2 players trying to out camp eachother eventually someone is going to have to approach

Yes, the one who's losing will have to approach. The one who's winning already had the advantage, but now he can just abuse the rediculous shield system too?

u cant knock the opponent off the ledge by camping...

Yes you can! I've done it. I've litterally edgeguarded people by just curving my arrows while I'm safe on the other side of the stage. It might take a while, but eventually they die and there is absolutely no risk to my safety.

i serioursly doubt advanced brawl playing will consist of two falcos shooting eachother from across the stage

More like Pit, Toon Link, Rob, and Game and Watch (that bucket is a great anti camping strategy. Too bad not all the characters have it). Sure there will be some counter picking against these guys. Maybe Lucas or Ness will give Pit trouble, but for that you can just pull out Toon Link.

 

[Kagutsuchi]

I feel the game has gotten alot more strategic in that not every character has all that wave dashing glitch stuff like melee did. Now you rely on your pure skill of the character you play. I think the game has gotten slower than melees and some characters advantages were watered down from melee. But i think it all game out to be a more dynamic game.

The game hasn't gotten any more strategic, it's just that most people couldn't think at Melee's speed... The game is by far less dynamic because of the lack of offensive options the game has and the multitude of broken defensive options there are to counter every offensive one (camping, shielding/shield grabbing, ROB's Dsmash and spot dodge for specific examples).

The characters are LESS balanced. The only good characters are the ones who can camp really well (Pit, ROB, Snake), the ones who have a way to discourage camping (Game and Watch, Lucas/Ness to an extent) and the ones who completely dominate the actual fighting with their high priority, strong attacks, etc. (Marth, Game and Watch, ROB, Snake kinda). Everyone else pretty much sucks (exaggeration, live with it. But I have a feeling if I don't put this here I'll get someone saying "BUT I BEAT PEOPLE WITH BOOZER ALL THE TIEM!").

If you didn't notice, that makes ROB and GW amazing in both offensive and defensive situations... While most arn't good in either. And Snake kinda, but his recovery sucks and his aerials are slow.

Some of you are saying that camping isn't a problem and will go away. What the hell makes you think that camping is a problem that will be overcome with an increase in skill. The problem is the lack of offensive options, not how physically hard it is to get past the projectiles. The game is SLOW and most of the projectiles carry very little lag afterwards. You go to punish them for it after taking a little percent by going through their projectiles, they shield, you get punished, and they resume camping. The REASON the shield works so well for someone camping is that usually to get through the projectiles you have to jump over them. Once you get to them, you're in the air, which means you can't grab. You can opt to land behind them, but then they'll just roll away, or drop their shield and punish you with something, since the shield drops so fast.

... Ok, that paragraph kinda died, I really didn't want to get into a hypothetical situation of what to do to overcome camping, but that's what happened... Main thing is, no risk, high reward. Why WOULDN'T you do it.

 

[Rhubarbo]

Good thoughts and opinion, I have to agree. Even though this isn't a comparison thread like you mentioned, it must be said that Brawl, of the trilogy of Smash games, required the least skill. In Melee, you still had to look ahead, you'd just have to think quicker.

There is no doubt Brawl will be played competitively, I just hope that people can live with both Brawl and Melee, because I enjoy both and I hope that the community can live with the duo.

 

[sHy)(gUy]

what about characters like marth,ike,metaknight and ganondorf who counter camping, there answer to camping is not letting ur opponent do it by applying constant presure. seriously the only good campers are rob,pit,toon and snake by design but they can all be countered, u cant camp ness and lucas really.... camping shouldnt be ur whole game, it should be an accesory to ur overall game... if a player only knows how to camp he will loose to a better player... i agree camping is one of the best tactics and the whole high riskreward thing.... buts its not like an auto win

oh ya i forgot about all the space animals being able to counter camping with refector, and marios cape, and wario bike(u just drive through the camping and roll him over) and links shield stops projectiles, and projectiles dont really affsect sonic because of his speed, so ya theres alot of answers to camping

 

[Kagutsuchi]

Ike and Ganondorf can't apply constant pressure... The game is WAY too slow for anyone to be able to apply constant pressure, and the defensive options are way too broken for pressure to matter. It's not like you can force people into shields and punish them for it anymore. If you attack someone's shield, you get punished most of the time, even with good spacing. Even if you don't get punished, what good will come of it.

Marth and Metaknight MIGHT be able to apply enough pressure to make camping not so broken, but it's still hard for them to get around it, and it doesn't help that most of the epic camping characters have fast attacks with lots of priority.

Anyway, you missed the more important parts of our posts... The defensive options in Brawl make it usually a bad idea to be on the attacking side.

 

[LouisLeGros]

Ganondorf, constant pressure?

lul

also camping doesn't mean you are spamming projectiles.

 

[everlasting yayuhzz]

Most of the people who say camping isn't the best strat by far are the people who've never played a hardcore camper. Once you play one, you'll realize how good it is.

 

[crazygoose]

News flash, people.

Smash Bros in general is a PARTY GAME. There isn't one among them that is more competitive than the others. You might THINK that Melee is more competitive, but you would be a butthurt, elitist, fanboy.

Let it GO, for christ sake.

 

[sHy)(gUy]

Ganondorf, constant pressure?

lul

side b......

 

[LouisLeGros]

News flash, people.

Smash Bros in general is a PARTY GAME. There isn't one among them that is more competitive than the others. You might THINK that Melee is more competitive, but you would be a butthurt, elitist, fanboy.

Let it GO, for christ sake.

says the person on a competitive smash forum

 

[LouisLeGros]

side b......

You know what, I never considered that.


I mean really, combined with ganondorf's fast movements and attacks that is really going to put pressure on a camper. Oh and his side b goes through like every attack, there is no way that it could be interupted. Then the lag of the move? oh no don't worry about it, you will be apply to much pressure on them for them to easily dodge it and punish you.

 

[sHy)(gUy]

You know what, I never considered that.


I mean really, combined with ganondorf's fast movements and attacks that is really going to put pressure on a camper. Oh and his side b goes through like every attack, there is no way that it could be interupted. Then the lag of the move? oh no don't worry about it, you will be apply to much pressure on them for them to easily dodge it and punish you.

i know right....

 

[Uncle Fitzy]

Smash Bros. 64 had the most depth...

 

[Wrath`]

well i read this first post, good thinking, i real dont care if it becomes competitive, i would like it to, but yeah i have much fun, but i still play it like melee it fell like it to me, but yeah,w00t

 

[Cookiez]

I feel the game has gotten alot more strategic in that not every character has all that wave dashing glitch stuff like melee did. Now you rely on your pure skill of the character you play. I think the game has gotten slower than melees and some characters advantages were watered down from melee. But i think it all game out to be a more dynamic game.

I don't have much to say, just posting to LOL at Sheik-Master's post .

But I guess i'll say something anyway, to the post above me, why do you feel that?

 

[crazygoose]

says the person on a competitive smash forum

I didn't say the games can't be competitive, I said that none of them were made simply to be that way.

Beyond that, not one was made more competitve than the rest. You people are simply used to Melee so you think it has a more competitve edge to it.

 

[Skoox]

Brawl will never be better than Melee because it lacks depth.

 

[Cookiez]

I didn't say the games can't be competitive, I said that none of them were made simply to be that way.

Beyond that, not one was made more competitve than the rest. You people are simply used to Melee so you think it has a more competitve edge to it.

That was a silly post crazygoose. OF COURSE Melee has a more competetive edge to it than Brawl. To refute that is just stupid.

What you should have said, was that "Melee was not intended to have a more competetive edge to it".

And as Sakurai specifically stated Brawl was designed to reduce levels of competetiveness, i'm not sure whether that statement was true when specifically referring to Brawl.

 

[House M.D.]

it's simple for me. everything you said seems to be correct, but i don't have fun getting good at brawl. i enjoy playing aggressively, so super campy brothers isn't that fun for me. melee accommodated a variety of play styles, brawl doesn't, and personally, melee is more fun, which is what matters.

 

[hoopspr226]

I'm a complete idiot.

I totally agree with you.

QFT

 

[Super Drybones]

Brawl tends to remind me of a Dragon ball z movie
A lot of thinking parts with patches of extreme violence.
(also on a funny side have two sonics keep hitting b, it looks exactly like a dragon ball z movie)

 

[nviv]

It seems like because of the lack of AT's and competitive depth that there is actually a smaller room for error, despite getting rid of comboing and gimping almost entirely. The playing field is nearly level no matter how experienced with the game you are and who ever out thinks their opponent will usually win and tech skill is taken almost entirely out of the equation. I do have to disagree that Brawl is already peaking for tech skill and AT's though, I don't expect anything such as wavedashing to show up but the game isn't even a month old, and there have been no major tournaments it will develop some, unfortunatly I think most of the things discovered will be defense oriented and lead to even more camping by people.

 

[LavisFiend]

I think putting a cap on any aspect of the game using "what if" scenarios as absolutes is a very flawed way of thinking.

The best thing to do at this moment is sharpen your skills, and to not dwell so hard on Brawl's future. Brawl's future will shape itself, we don't need to sit and contemplate what MIGHT happen, when instead we can do our best to preserve skill with training and whatnot.

Basically? Quit worrying over the future and let it shape itself. This board will grow gray hair before you know it!

 

[Milos]

This right here is a problem no matter how you look at it. Sure we can overcome it, but it is a fault of the game and there is no denying that.
Mindgames being more preset, means that they require less thought, which is a bad thing.
If it needs to be overcome... then that means it's a problem. If it wasn't a problem then we wouldn't need to do anything about it. We're only trying to fix it because...it's bad.
So you mean playing more reactionary and relying less on forsight. Honestly, which sitaution do you think takes more thought? It's true that you have to think quickly in order to react properly to a situation, but melee had both reactionary play as well as forsight, while in brawl reacionary play is far superior.
This is a contradiction with your previous statement. You said we should rely less on forsight, and then immediately say that the one who wins would be the one with the best forsight.
But you see, that is all part of foresight which is part of mindgames. For any given situation, there is a limited number of ways your opponent could react. This does not take as much thought as you apparently believe. Where foresight comes into play is your ability to accurately predict which one of these limited options your opponent will take. How your opponent WILL react is completely dependent on how many options they had in the first place, because they can only pick from that pile. From there, you must determine which of those options they will take based on
The opponent's tendancy to use one option more than the others
What you personally believe the best option would be if you were in your opponent's shoes
What you believe would be the best option given that the opponent has full knowledge of the option mentioned above
ect.
But you just said that we were supposed to plan for it! And you just said that we have a plan for this particular situation. You're contradicting yourself quite a bit.



And mingames rely completely on foresight. You want us to predict what our opponent will do based on what options they have, but the entire point of mindgames is to put the opponent into a situation where they're options are easily accounted for so that predicting which one they'll take will have more accurate results. You can't have mindgames without foresight, which is what he's trying to explain to you. Mindgames isn't nessecarilly tricking your opponent into messing up, but tricking them into a situation where you can effectively punish them for being predictable. If you know what they're going to do, but you're not in a position to punish them for it, then you have to actively move both yourself and them into such a position so that you can capitalize on them. Sometimes they didn't actually make a mistake in their gameplay at that moment, and they went with the best option at the time, but if you've succesfully moved them into a situation where all of their options are punishable, then you've done a good job. You are not making your opponent make a mistake, because he has already done so himself. You are capitalizing on a mistake he's already made, the mistake of being predictable.

there's only one thing wrong with your comprehension of my post. I was saying the whole time that we would rely on foresight. just because one relies on foresight for mindgames doesn't mean that one relying on foresight is trying to mindgame their opponent. it's a tactinc with dual purpose.

 

[ecstatic]

Milos, why is it so hard for you to understand that foresight is basically the same thing as mindgames. They are both where you predict your opponent's actions. The only difference is that with mindgames you punish the predictability (thus foresight alone is just a component of mindgames, and does absolutely nothing on its own.) Actually, it's almost unheard of to predict without punishing, because punishing doesn't have to be attacking your opponent, dodging is also punishment. (The way I'm using the word punishment, that is.) Thus, the only way to not punish predictability would be to act as if you didn't think you knew your opponents actions.

Also, you didn't address all the contradictions that Sonic Wave pointed out. Instead, you contradicted yourself again by saying that you were talking about foresight the whole time, where in fact you also talked about non-foresight punishment, too.

Just to re-clarify, in case you still don't get it:

foresight = predicting your opponent (does nothing by itself)

punishment = using openings (including predictability) that your opponent has, for offense and defense (this is really hard to do without foresight, because it relies only on reaction time, which usually is longer than the opening lasts)

mindgames = foresight + punishment

 

[Fletch]

News flash, people.

Smash Bros in general is a PARTY GAME. There isn't one among them that is more competitive than the others. You might THINK that Melee is more competitive, but you would be a butthurt, elitist, fanboy.

Let it GO, for christ sake.

You've never played Melee seriously or you would have never posted that.

 

[Fletch]

EDIT: Don't know why this double posted a couple hours later, sorry.

 

[Newuser12345215]

The playing field is nearly level no matter how experienced with the game you are and who ever out thinks their opponent will usually win and tech skill is taken almost entirely out of the equation. .

Yeah, basically. Even Sakurai said that the game is very newb friendly and that anyone who plays for just "10 minutes" can beat a veteran Smasher.

 

[Cookiez]

LOL of course he hasn't fletch, his last 6 posts were pretty much one of the most stupid things i've ever seen on SWF.

 

[Milos]

Milos, why is it so hard for you to understand that foresight is basically the same thing as mindgames. They are both where you predict your opponent's actions. The only difference is that with mindgames you punish the predictability (thus foresight alone is just a component of mindgames, and does absolutely nothing on its own.) Actually, it's almost unheard of to predict without punishing, because punishing doesn't have to be attacking your opponent, dodging is also punishment. (The way I'm using the word punishment, that is.) Thus, the only way to not punish predictability would be to act as if you didn't think you knew your opponents actions.

Also, you didn't address all the contradictions that Sonic Wave pointed out. Instead, you contradicted yourself again by saying that you were talking about foresight the whole time, where in fact you also talked about non-foresight punishment, too.

Just to re-clarify, in case you still don't get it:

foresight = predicting your opponent (does nothing by itself)

punishment = using openings (including predictability) that your opponent has, for offense and defense (this is really hard to do without foresight, because it relies only on reaction time, which usually is longer than the opening lasts)

mindgames = foresight + punishment

This is true, I misunderstood my own post. However my point is still valid. Due to Brawl's limited engine, ways to apply mindgames are limited as well. just for future reference of the thread, I'll post the definition of mindgames there.

 

[Tinkerer]

Mind Games: One of the most misunderstood terms within the community. Mind games are first were used to describe a single trick used against an opponent, but have since come to describe how a player thinks during an entire match. The only real difference between the top level players in the country are their mind games, in other words, the level at which they think and predict their opponents. Mind games are essentially a synonym for the less used term metagaming.

Note that this isn't necessarily a higher level that competitive players have - it's just a different kind of level. Competitive players will be better able to predict other competitive players' strategies - however, every multiplayer game ever has mindgames, and you use them automatically. You can be more trained in them, but you don't need to be competitive to be good at it. You can also suck at a game but still be able to fairly well predict what someone will do.

 

[Milos]

That's just the definition from the terms thread. I definitely agree with you, I have a friend who doesn't have that good technical skill in melee, but his prediction and foresight is on another level. very fun person to play in melee.