ThisIsACoolGuy posted:

Which is really sad as she's one of the best She's not

ThisIsACoolGuy posted:

Pretty much this. People aren't mad about the fact she didn't like the game, people are mad because her post came across similar to that of a spoiled brat.

If she had went into why she didn't like it, give actual feedback etc then sure yeah that's unfortunate but it's fair. Instead as mentioned before she just came off as a huge sore loser.

Wild Knight posted:

Something I don't think I've seen anyone post yet: Magnus from Kid Icarus Uprising is an assist trophy. He just kinda...hopped around and smacked people with his big club-sword. Still, that's another KIU character people were wondering about.

(he had no chance over Palutena, I have no idea why people thought he did)

LanceKing2200 posted:

Just saw luigis final smash, it's the vacuum now, works simiral to kirbys from brawl

Pyroxene Stigma posted:

Has anyone seen Peach's? Maybe a Super Princess Peach-esque attack would be better... well, anything would be better.

Wild Knight posted:

(he had no chance over Palutena, I have no idea why people thought he did)

net cafe scandal posted:

I wish the stages would chill out a little. Those platforms on the Animal Crossing stage zip away stupid fast

Chaltab posted:

Just to be clear, the post read:


"I don't see much hope for this new game" is meaningless without elaboration, and then extrapolating that 'I know' Nintendo will 'end our fun soon' regarding Project M just comes across as both rude considering Nintendo invited her to a tournament and flew her out there for it, and paranoid considering that Project M has been around long enough that if Nintendo wanted to C&D it they've had plenty of time for it. It just further reinforces the stereotype of the competitive scene as unpleasable and paranoid.

Which, incidentally, is not what was reflected at all by the rest of the tournament. For the most part last night was good PR for all involved.

Pyroxene Stigma posted:

Has anyone seen Peach's? Maybe a Super Princess Peach-esque attack would be better... well, anything would be better.

Chaltab posted:

Which, incidentally, is not what was reflected at all by the rest of the tournament. For the most part last night was good PR for all involved.

Countblanc posted:

Was Super Princess Peach the game where she used Crying and Emotions to defeat her foes?

Chaltab posted:

Even in a Project M circle jerk FB this was lovely but hey it's the competitive smash community!

Xad posted:

Yeah, it was. So maybe her final smash could be Anger and she lights herself on fire and stomps around for a bit.

F. Lobot posted:

If it helps, she deleted the post and apologized.

Countblanc posted:

I definitely want more time with the game, but I can also see the more general things people have said as pretty accurate (I obviously can't comment on the specifics that people described after having a day+ with the game); The game is only "between melee and brawl" in that characters seem to run faster and jab combos come out fast, but the things people actually liked about the speed of melee and P:M was the hitstun and ability to do 3-4 hit combos. The throw delay is huge so if you like characters who use their throws to do anything other than straight up throw someone off the stage then you'll be kinda sad about that. Excited to play more, hoping for more of the good (~*~lil' mac~*~) and a bit less of the bad (why can't I stop jabbing and throw you as villager?!).

F. Lobot posted:

If it helps, she deleted the post and apologized.

Guy A. Person posted:

Considering the customization they allow you to do for the rest of the modes, it would seem odd if they didn't let you adjust at least the time for the smash run matches. We will see as always.

Countblanc posted:

The Smash Run demo was a lot of fun*, but I agree that the ensuring fight is a huge buzzkill. Sure, you can fight people in the castle (I think???) but it's loving HUGE and not really in either player's best interest since it'll just make players 3 and 4 have more time for getting buff as hell. I'd be shocked if they didn't let you customize it a bit, but then again they seem to be heavily against customization in the online modes (doesn't For Fun just pick a completely random stage and a default item setting?) so maybe not? Who knows. Fingers crossed!

*Getting 300+ speed as Mac is a hoot

Strange Quark posted:

Conan O'Brien's going to playing Smash on his show tonight.

Wild Knight posted:

That does help. It was just a really jarring thing to say after the previous night seemed so fun and happy and energetic.

So, I have some misgivings about Smash Run. I hope there's some ability to choose the rules for the final battle, because it feels weird to run a maze for five minutes and collect all those buffs only to use them in a one-minute fight. I hope that was just to facilitate the line moving along, but I can't shake the feeling that it isn't, because none of the publicity about Smash Run (and they've had a lot of publicity for some reason) has given any indication that you'll be able to set the rules for the actual fight, and the game is just going to choose flower heads or quick-launching or super sudden death for you because it doesn't trust you?

That's probably baseless and I hope I'm wrong. Still can't help but worry.

quote:

What makes a game competitive?

If you get the chance, I highly recommend reading David Sirlin's book "Playing to Win" on competitive gaming and game design. It's an easy read and really enlightening.

The real test of a competitive game is encouraging Yomi (reading opponents as defined by David Sirlin) fostered by appraisal skills. I'd go so far to say that this is the true test of whether a game is properly competitive.

Rock Paper Scissors is not competitive because, while it involves reading opponents, the lack of tying this in to appraisal skills means there is no depth. You are merely guessing based on their habits.

An uneven game of rock paper scissors has more depth. For example, let's say you win more points when you win with rock. Now, I know you want to use rock. This makes it very dangerous to play Scissors. Which makes paper a very safe move (paper beats the most powerful move in the game, Rock, and loses to the riskiest move in the game). There is more information for you to judge the opponent now, but the game is still too shallow; you will hit a skill ceiling very quickly and the game will devolve in to good guesses and there will be a generally winning algorithm quickly.

As games grow in depth, you get uneven rock paper scissors games within uneven rock paper scissors games. The complexity grows and grows. Even poker, for all its randomness, is competitive, because you can figure out the basis for your opponent's decision based on pot odds and betting positions and have to make appraisal-based reads from that. A normal fighting game gives you an uneven rock paper scissors game often once every second in certain scenarios. Smash does this all the time- your DI between each hit of a combo is a decision game, as is your opponent's chases. Your decisions on knockdown are a complicated uneven rock paper scissors. You know what they want to do, you know what way to roll to escape that, but they know that you know that.

The most basic test of whether a game is competitive at base levels is this: Do the* same players consistently win tournaments*? Poker, Melee, Brawl, and Starcraft all say yes. If the game has a skill ceiling (like rock paper scissors), results will be all over the place.
Now, I've defined a basic competitive game here, and technically, Brawl is that too. However, we want to see Smash 4 as a game at Evo, as a game with a future, as a game with viewership and sponsors and a huge following. And to do that, the game needs two things:

Watchability and aggression.

The reason you never see 200k live viewers on a chess stream is that while chess is a very good competitive game, it is not watchable. The game mechanics do not force aggression, and the decisionmaking is so abstract that if you are not a chess player you cannot enjoy it.

Brawl is like chess in this respect. Brawl players enjoy watching Brawl because there is some depth to the game, but spectators do not enjoy Brawl because much of the depth involves trying to gain an edge and then wall your opponent out until they die trying to get to you or the time runs out, or the logic is too abstract for them to see anything but players trading hits.

Further, a game in which players trade hits is not a very well designed competitive game to begin with. In every other competitive game that is taken seriously (Street Fighter, Marvel, Melee) landing hits grants a significant edge to the player. They now get to chase followup. The rock paper scissors games are more uneven, because you know they really want to land their combo moves.
Brawl is a game of knicks and little hits, watching percentages and making decisions on small leads. Mango famously said about Melee, "one stock is not a lead".

I come from a Brawl background and a long Brawl tournament history and I played the game a lot and like it, but it is not a well designed competitive game for viewership for this reason. Brawl is not watchable or aggressive. Brawl rewards converting tiny material wins and trades in to an endgame win.

Smash 4 needs to offer a high skill ceiling with lots of depth, encourage appraisal based yomi, and it needs to be watchable. These three items are all that Nintendo fans want out of it. If there's no wavedashing, oh well. Smash 64 didn't have it, and Smash 64 is an aggressive, fun to watch game, because there are huge rewards for hitting someone.

But every indication is that every design decision for Smash 4 is designed to push the game in the direction Brawl went.

The added endlag to throws can't be for any reason except to prevent throw combos (which existed in Brawl- Kirby's fthrow and dthrow both had combos). The inability to ledgehog essentially allows players back on to the stage and is designed to prevent tournament style ledgeplay. Even Brawl's movement techniques were removed (glide tossing, DACUS, etc). Most moves seem to have higher base knockback to prevent combos even with the increased hitstun, Smash DI has either been removed or nerfed, the shield is still like Brawl (low blockstun = high powered shield), and evasion techniques have been buffed (rolls are very very powerful as an escape tool, but still not a good approach, spotdodges are buffed, shield is still super powerful). All of the design changes unfortunately point to very anticompetitive decisions. It is, again, a game of little knicks and hits and abstract spacing.

tl;dr: We want a game that is deep enough and aggressive enough to be fun to play, while simultaneously being watchable enough that it doesn't draw ire from other fighting game communities and can be played at Evo and MLG to a crowd. Brawl was deep (though less than Melee), but it was not aggressive, fast, or watchable.

In closing:
It's not about wavedashing. It's not about L cancelling. People harp on these items too much, and then get caught in debate about semantics and what is or is not a glitch. It's about a game design that has reliable approach options, and rewards the attacker more than the defender. Movement options (which both wavedashing and L cancelling are) are a great way to accomplish this, but even Smash 64 handles this well by simply having limited escape options. Combos are another way to accomplish this, as it grants the attacker significant leads once they get in, compared to running away and throwing projectiles. A game that favors approach becomes a fun game to watch.

Smash 4's game design seems to attack both of these, buffing escape options (rolls) and not providing good movement options.
The competitive community dreams of seeing Smash 4 go to new heights, becoming a game to rival League of Legends and Starcraft. But when you see a campy finals match that goes to time, it is not the player's fault, but a symptom of the game's design. The fear is not a fear of change, or not a fear that we can't play a game without wavedashing. The fear is that if the game's design is too similar to Brawl, it will be a fun casual game, and it will be deeply enjoyed by a few...but if it is not watchable, if it is designed in a manner that evolves in to trading hits and running, it will not be able to become the Next Big Thing that was dreamed of.

Ometeotl posted:

I bet he picks ZSS or WFT.

quote:

The fear is that if the game's design is too similar to Brawl, it will be a fun casual game

F. Lobot posted:

Basically everything you want to know about mechanics changes, their implications on game design, and what exactly the competitive community wants, is contained here:
http://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/27wshi/praxis_reply_to_what_makes_a_game_competitive_and/

Bongo Bill posted:

Cleretic posted:

So I haven't been watchign the Treehouse, has anything super cool been announced for Smash? I heard tell of new stages, what were they?