Too Much Melee Biasedness

[XeKr]

I'm fairly certain no game is still highly competitive after 12 years if people don't consider it an unusually great game.

Put another way, there are certainly reasons why there exists Melee bias and bitterness toward Brawl (and not the same toward 64).

Edited June 13, 2013 by XeKr

[Robert Stewart]

Yeah, but high level competitive play shouldn't be the "be all and end all" in a free-for-all fighter like Smash Bros. For traditional 1 on 1 fighters like Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat? Yeah, it'll play a much bigger part. But for Smash Bros. where most people will be playing casual free-for-alls? Not so much.

And I'm pretty sure that nostalgia at least plays some part. I mean, if 64 and Melee had a 7 year gap in between and people were playing and enjoying SSB64 for that whole time, and they suddenly experience Melee's fast physics, there'd be quite a lot people who won't like it and will still prefer 64 as a result. 64 and Melee's 2 year gap didn't really allow for people to be able to nostalgia heavily to 64.

I guess Brinstar and Yoshi's Island 64 is a bit of a stretch, but if you look at the pictures:

You can see that there's still the main giant platform and the three smaller platforms in triangle formation. I will admit that it's a stretch (much more for Brinstar than Yoshi's Island), but the stage shape and resemblance is still there.

It is way too much of a stretch. YI64's huge blast zones and clouds, and Brinstar's destructible connectors and acid take away any superficial similarities.

I honestly think Project M has one of the best stagelists in a Smash game, witha great mix of new and classic stages, and a mix of chaotic and plain stages.

[Samias]

Even Dreamland 64 (which was a 64 stage anyway) has wind hazard to differentiate itself from Battlefield. Fountain of Dreams probably bears the closest resemblance to Battlefield but at the same time it's one of my favourite stages for me and my friends because it's simple without being as static as Battlefield. Plus, for beginners, it's easier to play a stage without hazards so you can get used to the controls, so a simple stage is both desireable by the extremely competitive and the very new. I think Melee struck up a really good balance of zany platforming stages and simple stages, moreso than Brawl's official stage list which went way too far with hazards at times and also trended towards being too big for 4 player games. For the more uniquely sized stages, stages as big as Temple worked to a degree in Melee just because the speed was fast, but in Brawl it ended up feeling pretty cumbersome and New Pork City was a waste of time.

I disagree that 1/5 of the maps being a very simple layout is a bad thing.

[Emeraldfox]

I'm of the opinion that the games get better with each entry.

[Vorena]

Does anyone else feel that the hardcore Melee fans can be a bit too hardcore at times? I mean, them constantly bashing on Brawl, them constantly saying Melee was better than Brawl (and not even using SSB64 comparisons to Brawl since they always solely use Melee), constantly saying Melee was better in Brawl even in rather ridiculous aspects (like saying Melee's adventure mode was better).

Plus, Melee was plenty flawed and they always overlook those aspects. Clone characters that share 90%+ or more of their animations, plenty of alternate version characters taking up separate slots (Dr. Mario, Young Link, Pichu), Adventure Mode just being Classic Mode v. 2, all the glitches and exploits (wavedashing, black hole glitch, infinite super scope, Ice Climbers freeze glitch which was beyong broken), characters being so bad that even in harder difficulties in Classic, Adventure, and All Star, they're practically unwinnable without continues (Pichu, Bowser, Kirby), stage designs being really redundant (with a lot of levels being a main platform and 3 smaller platforms in triangle formation),

I'm also not fond of how they just assume making the gameplay have faster physics and gravity will be an overall improvement, when they'll be compromising quite a few Smash players that aren't hardcore. Plenty of Smash Bros. players out there dislike Melee's ridiculous speed and gravity. 64 and Brawl were nowhere near as fast, so I dont' see why people treat Brawl's floatiness as the outlier when Melee was the outlier with it's fast speed and gravity, and 64 and Brawl had the general same speed and gravity. I also don't like how people complain about Brawl's imbalance yet they actually praise Fox's and Jigglypuff's brokenness in Melee, and they don't ever acknowledge how weak and underpowered some characters are in Melee's single player where Brawl didn't have single player imbalances like that. I also really dislike how people think removing wave dashing was such a big crime when it didn't even exist in the original. It was a glitch/game engline exploit, and it's really ridiculous expecting it to return. The gaming world doesn't go revolving around hardcore and elite players, and it never should since there'll always be those that aren't as skilled and they should be accomodated.

Finally, Smash Bros. was never meant to be heavily competitive and skill based. Otherwise, specials would be more complex like down forward punch and we'd have separate punch and kick buttons. Smash Bros. has always been rather light and simple on the button pressing (except for Melee's glitches/exploits, which were never intentional except for maybe L-Cancelling). Preferring Melee over Brawl is fine and all, but you don't have to go treating Brawl that badly just because it isn't Melee.

1) Can they be a bit overwhelming, yes. It might just be an age thing too lol Melee is about a decade older. I find newer players are in brawl while the older ones seem to have landed with melee. The age gap might influence some opinions a bit.

2) Despite these clone characters sharing same animations the qualities of the moves are completely different for each character. Really when you get down to the very specific features of every "clone" you find they are vastly different compared to the "original".

Roy vs Marth. This is a pretty big change. Roy and Marth have a stronger attack on a certain part of the sword. This makes a pretty huge change to the overall playing of each character. But it gets worse. Marth's sword even on the weaker hitbox is till stronger than Roy's strong hit. You see that on all of their aerial attacks. Additionally, Roy falls a lot faster than Marth and many of his moves have less duration in the hitbox than Marth. For example, Marth's counter period lasts TWICE as long as Roys for example.

Ganon vs Falcon. Here is another case of very different characters. Ganon is relatively slow compared to Falcon and hits harder, but cannot link his moves into his other ones like Falcon can. Same animation, but very different properties that make them very different.

Mario vs Dr Mario. Mario and Dr. Mario are actually very different as well. All of their moves have different properties. Mario's Fair meteor smashes while Docs only hits them into the air really high. There is a higher disjoint on Mario's Fsmash than Dr. Mario. The pill and fire ball angles are very different too. Docs Utilt hits more to the side than Mario's hits upward. There are just so many differences in the strength and stuff of the moves they are still fairly different.

Pikachu vs Pichu. Okay, here is where there really is just a clone, but said clone is really, really bad. There is honestly no advantage at all about Pichu over PIkachu that I can think of.

Link vs Y. Link. Another Ganon/Falcon thing. Y.Link and Link just have many different properties that make them very different characters.

3) I think the speed is something that grows on you with time. I played smash over the years for fun. Finally, saw brawl was available with online play and I was near old enough to travel on my own and stuff. The competitve bug got started. Eventually, I got melee people around me and got use to the speed and stuff. Then I realized, playing melee is such a more rewarding experience than brawl or smash64 ever was to me. There wasn't enough personal challenge in it with those games.

Said brokenness is rather funny actually. In a way, its very balanced in melee. Jigg's rest in brawl is terrible. In melee it makes sense. If you hit someone with Rest (which is hard to do), then you tyipically get a stock. The downside is that the lag is so long someone can return,kill jiggs and continue. Or, if you miss you Jiggs just Dies typically. In brawl, if you land the move it typically won't KO anyone. Waste of a move and you get punished for it. All the top characters like Falcon, Sheik, Marth, Peach, Jiggs, Falco, and Fox are fairly balanced with each other. Its just the rest it is not so much. But, its like that for any fighting game.

Learn wavedashing. Then, get it implemented in your gameplay. Its such a fun and slick mechanic to have.it really makes the game quite smooth to play and watch. It is depressing to see its only one game exclusive.

4) I do not care much about what a game was intended for. Its far more appealing to me that consumers can take a product and turn it into something far more than was intended. That's why I like the idea of free-sourcing things. Get many people together to contribute and make a difference. Another example is the zelda series. Its so heavily played that people have discovered all sorts of glitches that enable it to be played in like an hour to 4 hours depending upon the game. That opens up way more experiences with the game because of that and avenues of gameplay to different people. So, I enjoy the fact that starting with melee the game turned competitive. It enriched the experience of the game and stuff. Traveling to tourneys to meet other people is quite fun. That wouldn't have happened if people just saw this as another game to play by themselves or with only a small group of people.

[Rehab]

Wavedashing is basically just the equivalent of a forward/backward dash in Street Fighter, except it has slightly different implications for gameplay given the surrounding mechanics, there's much more room to influence it*, and it's harder to execute for some characters than for others. I wouldn't say its execution in Melee was the way I'd prefer to have it done exactly for all time, but I think it definitely added to the game.

*which has the obvious downside that depending on how fast your character's jump starts up, the harder it is to do right, but with the upside that if you have good enough control of it, you'll have even more spacing options depending on your character (see Samus' super dash)

The downside of Smash's "freedom of movement" compared to other fighters is that spacing is harder on the ground- if you want to move back a little bit and do a move while still facing the same direction, most of your other options are ponderously slow or complicated:

-you could roll backwards, but some characters do that faster than others, you'll be unable to control your character for longer than you would if you did a wavedash, and it's kinda something that people will watch out for like hawks to punish.

-you could just walk away a little bit, then turn back around and do your move, but that's, what, at least half a second at least? wasted on situating yourself and going through the animations

- you could run away a little bit, then turn back around, but that might? put you farther away than you'd want, and the animation for turning around mid-run is even fucking longer, like "please use this time to hit me in the face" longer

-you could jump and move backward a little, which is a relatively legit option, but some characters are a lot worse in the air (air speed, air moves, etc) than others, it limits your options besides to "things you can do in the air," and putting your character's hurtbox in the air might not be putting it where you'd like to have it, so it might actually be bad for your spacing game, depending, moreso than wavedashing (and it's still generally slower than wavedashing)

-you could dash-dance (run backwards, then really quickly input a run back in the other direction before your character's run animation is in full swing, so when they turn around it's like they were breaking into a run from a step back or so), which is sometimes another potentially legit option, but the differences between characters' running speeds and dash start-up speeds means the space moved backwards could be off depending on your character, your character is now in a running state so their options have been momentarily limited again, and of course as soon as you dash back you haven't spaced yourself backwards, but forwards! all I wanted was to be everything I was before except a step back or so, man, that's all I wanted.

so this is still more more situational/character dependent than wavedashing's "move back a character-length or two" (or a lot, if you're Luigi but whatever) (and on top of that, dash-dancing mostly got nerfed to a state where it was a lot of effort to do little more than spazz in place in Brawl)

Basically I'd love to have some kind of ground dash mapped to, I dunno, one of the jump buttons potentially (assuming gamecube controller), without having to jump to do it.

This conversation has probably already been had what am I doing

Edited June 14, 2013 by Rehab

[Randoman]

@ Vorena:

I'm aware of all the difference in attack properties between "clone characters," but I really would've preferred it if they changed more of the animations. I mean, don't you prefer characters having more varied attack animations between each other over characters sharing many attack animations?

I'd rather not learn wavedashing, since it's a one game deal and making my gameplay style revolve around glitches is something I'd rather not do. Even if I wanted to, I don't own Melee or a Gamecube, and SSB4 is coming out soon anyways. I hope people don't go ripping on SSB4 as well just because it isn't Melee.

I suppose there's nothing too wrong with playing a game in a way it wasn't intended (barring making things in the game really sexually explicit among other things), but it's hardly fair to put down and hate sequels of the game if it isn't as good for the unintended playing style. Preferring the previous game, nothing wrong with that, but saying even E.T. for the Atari 2600 or Big Rigs is better, that's being way too biased and closed-minded.

[PKL]

Calling wavedashing a glitch is laughable. The team behind Melee knew of it and left it in.

[Randoman]

Do you have any links or quotes showing that the Melee team intentionally put wavedashing in?

[PKL]

http://www.smashboards.com/threads/dispute-ended-new-sakurai-intervew-wavedashing-was-intentional.162416/

He had taken it out of brawl to appeal to the growing casual fans of the Wii. It's been confirmed Smash 4 will be an in-between of melee and brawl so Im happy with that.

[Randoman]

Hmph, very well.

They did say that SSB4 will allow multiple air dodges in recent interviews at E3, so take that as you will regarding SSB4 having wavedashing.

I will say I'm happy that they're going in between for Melee and Brawl as well.

[Steampunk]

I'm aware of all the difference in attack properties between "clone characters," but I really would've preferred it if they changed more of the animations. I mean, don't you prefer characters having more varied attack animations between each other over characters sharing many attack animations?

Sure, it would have bee nice. Not realistic though. Melee was developed in about a year. It introduced a ton of new content that had to be made from scratch and doubled the SSB roster. That's a lot of new characters to create custom animations for and would have taken time they didn't have. The devs sacrificed unique move sets for other features they felt were more important.

It's hardly fair to put down and hate sequels of the game if it isn't as good for the unintended playing style. Preferring the previous game, nothing wrong with that, but saying even E.T. for the Atari 2600 or Big Rigs is better, that's being way too biased and closed-minded.

I don't think they are though. The simple fact is, Melee's focal point was multiplayer/Vs. Mode. Whether you like competitive play or just dicking around, it's pretty obvious that was their top priority: the action, the multiplayer, the beating the shit out of people for lulz. That also happens to be why people play Smash Bros. With Brawl, it feels like all that took a backseat to SSE. They spent way too much time and effort on a story mode no one really cares about and the game didn't need. I think that's why so many Melee fans dislike Brawl: it feels like the devs forgot why people love these games. It's not a bad game; fans were just disappointed with the direction it took. Hopefully SSB4 will bring the focus back to fighting and not worry so much about the "SSB Universe."

[dondon151]

even assuming that the developers did not know of the existence of wavedashing as we know it today, you can't call it a glitch. characters were programmed to conserve their momentum on the ground if they landed during their air dodge animations. wavedashing refers not so much to the technique itself so much as it refers to the application of said technique.

"i'd rather not use glitches" is such a scrubby mindset. i have no sympathy for these players. get to the top of your game or get out (or have fun dicking around with your friends and stop imposing your opinions on competitive players).

Edited June 14, 2013 by dondon151

[Randoman]

Sure, it would have bee nice. Not realistic though. Melee was developed in about a year. It introduced a ton of new content that had to be made from scratch and doubled the SSB roster. That's a lot of new characters to create custom animations for and would have taken time they didn't have. The devs sacrificed unique move sets for other features they felt were more important.

I don't think they are though. The simple fact is, Melee's focal point was multiplayer/Vs. Mode. Whether you like competitive play or just dicking around, it's pretty obvious that was their top priority: the action, the multiplayer, the beating the shit out of people for lulz. That also happens to be why people play Smash Bros. With Brawl, it feels like all that took a backseat to SSE. They spent way too much time and effort on a story mode no one really cares about and the game didn't need. I think that's why so many Melee fans dislike Brawl: it feels like the devs forgot why people love these games. It's not a bad game; fans were just disappointed with the direction it took. Hopefully SSB4 will bring the focus back to fighting and not worry so much about the "SSB Universe."

I suppose a year time isn't really enough to come up with and program unique moves for 25 characters. I still would've preferred a delayed release (even an extra year) for more diverse movesets.

People actually do make posts putting down Brawl and saying it's E.T. level bad. Then again, that's to be expected of sites like GameFAQs as well as other forums.

"i'd rather not use glitches" is such a scrubby mindset. i have no sympathy for these players. get to the top of your game or get out (or have fun dicking around with your friends and stop imposing your opinions on competitive players).

I said nothing about saying other people shouldn't use glitches, it's just my personal preference and I'm not forcing it on anyone.

[Rehab]

I just want to move backwards, potentially out of a running state, without turning around, jumping, rolling, or putting myself though the stopping animation

That's all I want damn it, we have enough buttons to dedicate one to that, we can (re)build it we have the technology

[Vorena]

I said nothing about saying other people shouldn't use glitches, it's just my personal preference and I'm not forcing it on anyone.

Well, I just hope that if you ever play against another person that does enjoy their use of wavedash (and similar things you may not want to use yourself) in a match it doesn't deter you from still playing with said person. Some of the more depressing things that have happened to me and others are situations like that. It seems common that one person is well-versed in a game. But, the people around them want to impose restrictions on this good player. Things like wanting you to never use a certain move or character. The worst is when this decent player is completely ostracized from playing with those other people.

Edited June 15, 2013 by Vorena

[Randoman]

No, it hasn't. Trust me. I've already faced a heavy wavedasher back in university, and I never stopped him from using tricks like that (I even asked him how to do some of the tricks, like Samus' super wave dash). He was practically idolized at the lounge when it came to Smash Bros. and beating him even once in a regular free for all was considered a big accomplishment, so it's not like he was ostracized or restricted in matches. Well, there was this one match where this guy wanted to see if he could still win with a 1 to 9 handicap (he still won), but otherwise there wasn't any restricted matches that he had to go through (barring having "all Captain Falcon" free-for-alls and the like).

[BlueFire]

The physics are a relatively large part of why I prefer Brawl much more than Melee.

Edited June 19, 2013 by BlueFire