Melee Might Die: A Rebuttal to "Why Melee Won't Die"

This originally appeared as a post on /r/ssbm, the Melee subreddit. The original post in its entirety can be found here. It has been reworked for formatting on Smashboards with minor edits to be posted here.

---​

I want to preface this opinion piece by stating the obvious: HugS is a far more outstanding and knowledgeable community member than myself. He's seen it all from the beginning to the present and I'm some 09'er, and if I were you I would value his opinion over mine. I'm also limiting my scope to what I think our community is actually capable of controlling. For example, eSports unexpectedly dying in the next 15 years is not something to worry about unless it happens. Maybe we should worry about that.

I enjoyed HugS's piece, published in MeleeItOnMe October 9th, however I believe his optimism is warranted only on a superficial level, and I think his arguments suffer from unclear chronology. Their problem is that they speak more to the question of why Melee is currently alive and how it got here rather than why it won't die at some point in the future, which HugS readily admits is a possibility in his opening. On a long enough timeline Melee's death is certain, but that doesn't tell us anything useful. To be absolutely clear, here's my proposed timeline. Melee deserves at least a century of play, and it deserves to be big. Not just eSport big, but Olympics big, NCAA big.

What follows is predicated on anything short of a Melee century being considered an early death. Can you plan that? Probably not, but then again I have no doubt that right now major community members are collaborating with industry professionals to try to accomplish just that. It's what we all want, and the potential for profit is significant. They are inevitably going to run into obstacles that can't be beaten with a reddit fundraiser, or a Facebook campaign, or even all the familiar faces coming out to rally us for a Spirit Bomb, Gods throwing down in the background... There is a timeline where Melee dies, and to be proactive about avoiding it we need to identify those obstacles and learn as much as we can about them before they ever present a real problem. The only tested and proven method for keeping Melee alive through tough times is having an informed and active community ready to go on a moment's notice.

Melee Welcomed Back To EVO 2013​

In a skype conversation with Scar in 2013 he asked me about the future of Melee, and I basically paraphrased HugS's article. This was during the EVO drive. I was feeling what everyone was feeling. This is it, the return of the Eternal Game. The prospect of Melee back at the biggest fighting game stage in the world was the culmination of a nearly six-year effort to keep the fire burning and all of us, new members and old, got to enjoy an enormous payoff. Ever pull off a huge comeback against your rival? It felt something like that, but for the whole community, and the feeling didn't go away. Melee as an institution felt and still feels invincible.

Before you keep reading, I need you to let go of that feeling and see the game and the scene with fresh eyes for a second, because if Melee is really going to be the game that lives, the people who will keep it alive haven't even picked up a controller yet. If you don’t keep these people in mind when you discuss the future of Melee, you aren’t discussing the future of Melee. No matter how storied a community might be, if it doesn’t attract enough new players to grow then it will die, but we’re a little more ambitious than mere survival, right?

Here are HugS's main points and a summary of their contents below.

1. "Support From Major Esports Players"
- Our multiple sponsors support and genuinely love Melee, thus they are incentivized to prevent its death.

2. "Resistance to Sequel Replacement"
- Having survived two sequels Melee is ostensibly a standalone title until an HD rerelease/true successor.

3. "Ease of Viewership and Story Lines"
- The human drama and on-screen action of Melee is attractive to general audiences irrespective of specific game knowledge.

4 "Community-based Upbringing"
- Melee is a social binding agent that has cemented a foundation of dedicated community organizers who are also best friends, who won't let each other down by allowing Melee to die

Let's go through them briefly.

1. Our sponsors love and support Melee right now, but we're also a hot commodity right now. They may support us through a rough patch if something happens and viewership declines, but only up to a point. Some of the employees of said sponsors may be fanatics like us, just as enthused and ready to lend a hand. Some might even have significant clout in their respective organizations that they use for Melee's benefit. The love of those individuals reflects neither the will of the shareholders, nor is it any assurance of continued support; to them we are an engine for success. These are their jobs and they cannot support decisions that their numbers say are wrong. We cannot ascribe notions of human loyalty to for-profit entities. They will do what they need to do to survive, as should we. We are well-positioned to profitably coexist with a number of them, but this is sustenance, not insurance. This is a symptom of success, not a cause.

2. This trait is demonstrably a major factor in Melee's staying power; the metagame chugs on ceaselessly while technical wizards like Dan Salvato demonstrate that Melee can be adapted to have increased functionality for a new generation of competitors. If Melee is to survive a century, it's going to need to adapt, and we’re going to need oversight over that adaptation. The elephant in the room is Nintendo. They have the final say over the distribution of what is legally their content. They can prevent us from changing the game if we need to. They can split the community any time they want by re-releasing Melee with the slightest of changes. They're a bull in a china shop, and there's a reckoning to be had over whose game this really is. Until we resolve this Melee will always have two directions, ours and theirs.

Can I even mention PM? Is the gag on? Nintendo may play dumb with their official silence but they've had plenty of chances to take legal action that would lead to PM being an officially approved Nintendo mod, thus giving the game its own life and ensuring tournaments for ostensible Nintendo fans, maybe even making new ones in the process. Instead, they choked the distribution of PM videos and forced tournaments to drop the game once they started officially sponsoring them.

20XXTE: Coming Soon​

3. This is absolutely true but isn’t unique to Melee. If people start playing other games the stories will follow. Melee also doesn’t have the benefit of next-gen graphics, which shouldn’t be a factor but still might be when it comes to future spectating.

4. Members of the Smash Community reiterate fairly often how exceptional the community they belong to and the games they play are, and can you blame them? Confirmation is everywhere. We are in a growth state. Here is a prevailing pattern of logic I encounter when talking to other fanatics about Melee's Cinderella story: The game is close to perfect for playing and spectating -> players and audiences are more passionate -> they are more willing to organize for the community in their free time + large Nintendo install fanbase -> Melee hits player activism critical mass and gains superpowers. This is the logic underpinning "Why Melee Won't Die", and it doesn't paint a complete picture.

The notion that Melee fanatics feel more strongly about their game than other gamers feel about their games is tempting, but narcissistic. Perhaps most fans would never say this out loud or consciously admit it to themselves, but they feel that they love their game the most, and most Melee players I know freely admit it, AND the incredible streak of activism the Melee community has become known for seems to confirm it. Melee would never ask of us, "What have you done for me lately?" We unquestionably love our game and everything else seems to flow from this constant activity born of love. The reason sponsors are really interested in us? We get things done. Where other communities flounder, we succeed. And we look damn good when we succeed because the love is real.

The problem with this narrative, and this is going to hurt some people, is that being an activist for Melee has been made easier and easier over the years, and is particularly easy if you are middle class, which many smashers happen to be. Melee activism is highly facilitated, as HugS notes, by one of the tightest and most highly functioning groups of friends in the world as well as countless passionate TO's, artists, musicians, modders, and competitors. When you donate to Melee related causes, the numbers are fairly small and you can make a tangible difference with a small contribution, but there are also many larger donors among us. You can make a world of difference at locals just driving TV’s or people around. TO’ing is something anyone can get into thanks to readily available online guides written by the best TO’s in the business.

Don’t get me wrong, we wouldn't be where we are without the hard work of all of those individuals, regardless of their economic status, but communities have worked harder than us and fallen short. Passion is not the the deciding factor. If our community hadn't been at the forefront of game capture, video on demand, and social media activism/organization due largely to the socioeconomic status of its members, then the work of those TO's might not have carried us through the dark ages. This is my take on the beautiful accident. I'm not totally discounting the prevailing narrative, but I think this is how it needs to be reframed if we're to identify the real threats to Melee's continued growth.

...which I still haven't really explained, so here's what I'm afraid will limit the growth of Melee this century:

A. The Metagame Isn't As Resilient As We Think

It has been said before that Melee has a hard limit and a soft limit, the theoretical skill cap and peak human performance, respectively. At the moment the metagame on the international stage is particularly diverse, even vibrant. The best character, Fox, does not perform that much better than the other top tiers and players like Axe and aMSa are reimagining the midtiers and getting results. The worst you can say about the character spreads at most major top 8's is that they're healthy. For now, the soft limit indicates that the game is highly unbalanced, but not broken. As much of a joke as it has become, there's a real possibility this won't always be the case due to training tools like 20XX pushing the soft limit higher and higher. What will 10 years bring? 50? What then might the soft limit look like? The only thing one can say with any probability is that it will tend towards the hard limit.

When I say Melee will need to adapt, this is one of the things I'm talking about. Nevermind that half the cast has little tourney representation at all because they're terrible or bugged. If the metagame stales and one or two characters maintain dominance over major placings for too long, then we lose out on the excitement of the all-star Nintendo cast, we lose out on rare and beautiful playstyles and interactions, and ultimately we will lose out on new community members who want a more balanced game. I genuinely don't know if Melee can survive something like this because even if the game could be patched, it probably wouldn't be because:

B. Melee Fanatics Are Obstinate

I once asked a prominent New York City TO whether Melee would benefit from a balance patch. He told me he’d rather have only the top four characters with the current settings than change a single thing to balance the rest of the cast. Melee is too sacred, even its less worthwhile aspects. Without getting into a whole thing about whether L-canceling adds depth, let’s just say that it becomes extremely linear when you realize you can spam light shield before you land without consequence. Rather than being a feature, it’s actually a safety valve. Without L-canceling the hard and soft limits are much closer together and Fox is very easily the best, rather than the character with the best results for the most work. Altering the inputs of Melee is blasphemy, but it may become necessary, because we now know that:

C. Melee Destroys Hands

As a classical guitarist I was lucky that I already knew the importance of taking care before performing lots of sharp, repetitive hand motions. Awareness of this issue and associated precautions are far more widespread than they've ever been. Other games also have this issue, however, because of its low payouts and high barrier to competitive entry, Melee is a high risk, low reward game to get into. This is the most pressing threat to continued growth.

We can't assume that new players will ever see Melee the way we do. Remember, fresh eyes. My generation played casual Melee, so competitive Melee looked like super heroics by comparison. This hasn't been the case for a while. Without recency OR nostalgia to aid us, the games that are more lucrative, less costly investments (in terms of time and health) will win out over Melee to be the big games of eSports. As a standalone, eternal game we are in an extremely unique position vis a vis player acquisition, and Melee has performed more than admirably in attracting new players, but we cannot overcome being a terrible investment, and waiting for our prize pools to make up the difference is some seriously passive play.

D. Nintendo

The wild card. Nintendo doesn't even act as logical as most corporations because their enormous cash reserves allow them to operate in the red for long periods of time. The potential for legal action against us is real, the threat of a divisive remake is real, and the communication between the community and the company has been mixed. Nintendo may ultimately help us more than they hurt, but there's no certainty. They have the power until we/they emancipate Melee.

In Conclusion

I stick to the saying that you don't present a problem without also presenting a solution. To take Melee to the next level, to immediately banish any doubt of its immortality, I propose we beat EVO in 2017 by putting on a bigger Melee tournament than they can (not at the same time, obviously). Beat EVO and we show the world that this game is bigger than the fighting game eSports niche it has settled into. The Melee community hasn't gotten together to do something really big in a while, which leads to:

E. Community Complacency

It hasn't happened yet, but I've seen signs. It's great to reflect on our accomplishments, to take pride in our victories, but we do that enough already and in order to keep signifying to the world and our sponsors that we're still the can-do community, we need to keep doing. Smashers are putting the sweat of their prime years into maintaining this dynamo, but they aren't enough to keep growing it by themselves. The only way Melee gets its century is if more TO's step up, build communities, replace the old guard, populate the world with new Melee players so that when Super Smash Con, or whatever becomes of Apex, or a brand new national series start their booking process, they're booking for 2,000 entrants, even 3,000. Once again, the only tested and proven method for keeping Melee alive through tough times is having an informed and active community ready to go on a moment's notice. Times aren't so tough now, so let's show the world what we can really do. We just have to watch out for:

F. Top Player Burnout

I'm pretty sure that's the next level. Let me know why I'm wrong below.

---​

This piece is purely the opinion of its author, and does not reflect the position of Smashboards or its affiliates. Additional shoutouts to NPR|Willie for his eyeballs, SmashCapps for taking an interest, and the whole NOLA crew.

 

I sincerely hope people such as this who wish the death of a game to stop posting as they offer no contributions to our scene outside of giving us nothing but detrimental toxic behavior.

Honestly, your word has no meaning here if you wish a scene to die.

Agreed. There are games out there that I dislike, but I know others enjoy them. To hope for that enjoyment to disappear is pretty cold-hearted.

 

I sincerely hope people such as this who wish the death of a game to stop posting as they offer no contributions to our scene outside of giving us nothing but detrimental toxic behavior.

Honestly, your word has no meaning here if you wish a scene to die.

Yes i'm being so toxic by stating my opinion, i could be toxic if you wanted me to. Also i forgot when posts that talked about something like this were only meant for people who want the game to live my bad. I want the scene to die because its run its course and offers nothing to smash anymore, as i said previously its a walking corpse. The game isn't deep, there is no "evolving meta" the game hasn't changed in years but you guys refuse to see that.

 

Yes i'm being so toxic by stating my opinion, i could be toxic if you wanted me to. Also i forgot when posts that talked about something like this were only meant for people who want the game to live my bad. I want the scene to die because its run its course and offers nothing to smash anymore, as i said previously its a walking corpse. The game isn't deep, there is no "evolving meta" the game hasn't changed in years but you guys refuse to see that.

Do you actually pay attention to Melee or do you just assume things? I'm pretty sure you don't, as I've asked you about Melee before.

 

I've paid quite a bit of attention to melee, i've paid attention to all smash games aside from 64 and brawl. Yet i see no change, its still Fox is best, then Falco. People constantly claim changing metas, new characters getting popular yet its still fox, falco, and a few others. I wont deny people who play Melee are good but they dont win often ,if ever, unless they, choose fox falco, sheik, etc. the meta hasnt changed in years, it stagnated probably a year after the game was released.

 

Melee, at least how i see it, is a walking corpse. The game isn't as deep as everyone claims it is. I sincerely hope it dies out sooner rather than later.

Why wish for the death of the community? If it wasn't for Melee, Competitive Smash wouldn't be taken seriously.
Ever heard of Ken, Wife. Azen, Wes, Chillindude, etc? These guys are what started Smash in tournaments. Seriously, go watch the Smash Brothers documentary by Samox.

Melee might not have much depth in terms of content, like Brawl Smash 4, but the community certainly does. If you're into competitive Smash, you can thank Melee.

 

Why wish for the death of the community? If it wasn't for Melee, Competitive Smash wouldn't be taken seriously.
Ever heard of Ken, Wife. Azen, Wes, Chillindude, etc? These guys are what started Smash in tournaments. Seriously, go watch the Smash Brothers documentary by Samox.

Melee might not have much depth in terms of content, like Brawl Smash 4, but the community certainly does. If you're into competitive Smash, you can thank Melee.

I'm not saying melee didnt start the community, because it did i wont deny it; just that the game is rather outdated and not as deep as people claim it to be.

 

Look no further than to the Counter-Strike community. No one thought CS 1.6 would go anywhere and look at it now. It's dead. They've all moved onto CSGO where it's bigger now than it's ever been before.

 

I've paid quite a bit of attention to melee, i've paid attention to all smash games aside form 64 and brawl. Yet i see no change, its still Fox is best, then Falco. People constantly claim changing metas, new characters getting popular yet its still fox, falco, and a few others. I wont deny people who play Melee are good but they dont win often ,if ever, unless they, choose fox falco, sheik, etc. the meta hasnt changed in years, it stagnated probably a year after the game was released.

To be fair, Sheik has been considered, by many, the best in Smash 4 ever since it's Wii U release. The meta isn't really making huge game-changing strides in either Smash 4 or Melee. Just little bits of character optimization here and there.
Should we stop caring about both of these titles once everything is fully optimized?
Of course not. In my opinion that's when a game becomes the most fun to watch/participate in. It becomes more about the players and their ability to perform. Mind-games, Mix-ups & reads become much more important, even though there is optimal strategies there is no "best" for every situation.
Even if the meta gets stagnant, the game can still be a lot of fun to watch. But I personally don't mind watching Fox dittos/Fox v Falco.
But that's just my 2 cents.

 

To be fair, Sheik has been considered, by many, the best in Smash 4 ever since it's Wii U release. The meta isn't really making huge game-changing strides in either Smash 4 or Melee. Just little bits of character optimization here and there.
Should we stop caring about both of these titles once everything is fully optimized?
Of course not. In my opinion that's when a game becomes the most fun to watch/participate in. It becomes more about the players and their ability to perform. Mind-games, Mix-ups & reads become much more important, even though there is optimal strategies there is no "best" for every situation.
Even if the meta gets stagnant, the game can still be a lot of fun to watch. But I personally don't mind watching Fox dittos/Fox v Falco.
But that's just my 2 cents.

Sheik is the best character but with introductions of new characters like Bayonetta, Cloud, and Corrin its changing a lot of things. Plus as balancing updates comes out its flips a lot of things over. Sheik can stay number one but she isnt a dominant force, there are a lot of pros playing low/middle tiers than Sheik. I honestly think melee is boring as hell to watch because its always the same characters; but that's just me and has no weight here.

 

I'm not saying melee didnt start the community, because it did i wont deny it; just that the game is rather outdated and not as deep as people claim it to be.

But still, Melee might not be your preferred game of the series, but people still enjoy. Just because you think it's outdated, doesn't the entire scene has to die.
That's like saying I shouldn't play Kirby Super Star or Sonic 3 and Knuckles, because the games are old.
The reason why Melee continues to live is because we simply still enjoy it, and that's what really matters. It's a game that we still love.

 

But still, Melee might not be your preferred game of the series, but people still enjoy. Just because you think it's outdated, doesn't the entire scene has to die.
That's like saying I shouldn't play Kirby Super Star or Sonic 3 and Knuckles, because the games are old.
The reason why Melee continues to live is because we simply still enjoy it, and that's what really matters. It's a game that we still love.

You can love a game without going over to every new smash and complaining about how wavedashing isn't a thing or how you cant l-cancel, i'm not saying you do this.

 

not as deep as people claim it to be.

In my opinion Melee is the deepest fighting game there is right now. There are many other good fighting games, but they all kind of fit within the same mold as traditional fighters. Where as Melee is more of a physics-based fighter or something along the lines of that. Meaning that every combo is going to be slightly different than the last even if you've done it a thousand times there is always the Opponent's DI and in my opinion that one of the main things that makes Melee extremely deep.
There are a lot of other reasons, but I won't get into that right now. ( I only have a limited amount of time.)

 

Meaning that every combo is going to be slightly different than the last even if you've done it a thousand times

Yes but those combos do the same thing everytime. Even if someone DI's differently the combo still does what was intended, unless its a kill combo but that happens in every fighting game.

 

You can love a game without going over to every new smash and complaining about how wavedashing isn't a thing or how you cant l-cancel, i'm not saying you do this.

Don't get me wrong, I love all Smash games, Melee is just the game that we prefer to play.
If people complain about no wavedashing or L-canceling, that's their problem.

 

Just a correction, Nintendo couldn't authorize PM on its own because it doesn't own all of the IP in the game. Konami, Sega, The Pokemon Company (Yes it is separate from Nintendo and has at least joint ownership of Pokemon and have denied Nintendo use of Pokemon in ways they didn't like, woolly world costumes.) and maybe more would need to all be contacted.

If any one of them says no a lawsuit would be required because if Nintendo can be shown to be aware of PM's existence then they have to defend thier copyright or thier IP would lose a lot of legal protection because that would be precedent of them not defending thier IP.

Ignoring PM was the only thing Nintendo could do and I guess it got to the point where they couldn't deny PM's existence anymore so they gave the Dev team a warning that thier hand would forced if a new release came out. (I don't know the details but that is what it looks like to me from the pmdt posts.)

I've seen this going around and I'm stopping it now. The idea that Nintendo can't even approach the 3rd parties to negotiate without incriminating themselves is a legal fairy tale concocted by armchair lawyers from the Nintendo Defense Force. Retainers can and do enter into negotiations with riders of confidentiality all the time. Do you realize how limiting it would be if they couldn't? The 3rd parties obviously know that Nintendo knows about PM. If it were worth it to them (and it's hard to imagine a world where suing Nintendo is a good idea no matter how big you are or how strong your case) they would have an easier time manufacturing proof of wrongdoing than subpoenaing a confidential negotiation.

 

Yes but those combos do the same thing everytime. Even if someone DI's differently the combo still does what was intended, unless its a kill combo but that happens in every fighting game.

Depends on the combo, the DI and SDI. Using survival and combo DI makes a huge difference in what you will/can get hit by. That's why there are DI mixups.

What do you mean by, "that happens in every fighting game"? What exactly is the "that" that you are referring to?

 

I feel like the fact that i play piano helps work other muscles in my fingers so my hands dont hurt at all

 

But still, Melee might not be your preferred game of the series, but people still enjoy. Just because you think it's outdated, doesn't the entire scene has to die.
That's like saying I shouldn't play Kirby Super Star or Sonic 3 and Knuckles, because the games are old.
The reason why Melee continues to live is because we simply still enjoy it, and that's what really matters. It's a game that we still love.

See, this is where I see people arguing past each other.

I read and replied to this article and thread, and the idea I was talking about is, "Melee will always be a staple competitive game with tournaments all over the world." That isn't likely.

You are talking about the idea that, "as long as Melee physically exists, there will be people who want to play it, so it won't be dead." Which is 100% true.

I and many others aren't even touching your point, here. I think most reasonable people, if they stopped to think twice, would agree that as long as humankind is able to play Melee, it would likely play it in some capacity. What we are actually talking about is Melee as an esport, or as "a big deal"; as a pastime for acquiring national glory, as it has become over the past 15-odd years or whatever. That won't last. Getting hundreds and thousands of people together in a convention center will not last. It's likely to last for a good while longer, yes, but not for any 100-year span like the article's author claims. That's cartoonish. Same with the guy who compared Melee to boxing -- boxing, which has existed since before the ancient Egyptians.

@SmashCapps
Hey man. It's been a long time. I remember meeting you briefly back when the 3DS version came out.

I admire what this article is trying to do, but it reads more like a religious gospel than a pragmatic article in spots. I agreed with most of it, sure, but man there were some fuzzy paragraphs.

I'd like a crack at your front page. People wouldn't want to read it, because it's the same, tired, Melee vs. The World subject we all wish would go away, but damnit, I know I can write a concise and common-sense article on this topic. I don't need to be everything to everyone, I just want to dispel some of the mysticism, get down to brass tacks, and offer a pragmatic, realistic outlook on this whole Melee thing.

Let me write up some kind of draft -- I'll keep it short. If I can write something worth posting, would you post it? Take a peek at my two posts in this thread and see if there's anything of value there. I've been awake for 20 hours, so I'm dead tired, but I think I did a pretty decent job so far.

 

I'm not saying melee didnt start the community, because it did i wont deny it; just that the game is rather outdated and not as deep as people claim it to be.

It is the deepest fighting game ever created. The list of techniques available to the player dwarfs any other game, by a huge margin. There will never be another game like it.

Brawl died where melee still lives, for a reason. It has a lot of depth and it's exciting.

In fact it's more exciting now than ever with players like Plup and Wessballz that constantly threaten the top players / gods. Back in the day we had people like Ken dominate everything so it was a little bit more predictable, now there are crazy upsets all over the place.

 

Then there's the TVs that aren't even made anymore. Then there's the need for the TVs themselves. You have to play Melee indoors for fear of ruining the expensive and ever-rarer equipment. Any kind of re-imagining, or repackaging of Melee would be met with nothing but arguments, because Melee is a mess. Melee has problems that should be fixed, that can be fixed without changing how the game's fundamentals work... but it's just going to make another splinter.

"Controllers and consoles will be more of a problem in the far future than TVs. Stop talking about god damn CRTs. It's over. The problem has been solved for like 3 years. We have proper adapters now for both GameCube's and Wii's that allow for Component -> HDMI to work without lag. That was the whole damn problem. It's been solved.

You can buy a Wii and a HDMI adapter and play on a BenQ or whatever gaming monitor you like just like Street Fighter or any other modern fighting game. It's no longer an issue to play without CRTs. The Smash Community is just being stubborn and ignorant as ****. They talk about 1-2ms as if it's any different than modern games. All modern games that run at 60Hz face the same exact 2ms of lag.

No one in those communities are complaining saying they need CRTs to play at <1ms. When I brought my BenQ + Wii + Sewell Adapter setup to a local, everyone was hype when I showed it off but there were SOME players that just recite the same bull**** of "CRTs have no lag. Why would I play with something that lags?". It's just not true. CRTs DO lag. They just lag 2ms less at 60Hz.

Again, when we talk about lag being virtually 0ms for a CRT, we are referencing the START of the frame render. The full completed frame from top to bottom takes 16.67ms to render. The BenQ would take ~18.67ms to fully render top to bottom."

www.reddit.com/user/TruckJitsu

 

You're looking at this article the wrong way. This is not "why Melee will die", the article covers some important facts that are relevant and must be adressed if we want to keep Melee as strong as it is (and even stronger) in the future.

For example, the mere fact that we need CRT's to have a Melee tournament is a huge issue. We're talking about a technology that is beyond outdated at this point, no one makes CRT's right now, so every CRT we have needs to count, because when they finally break, they're gone for good.
Does anyone here remember what the twitter post was when Melee got confirmed to Evo? (can't remember the year right now)

It was roughly something like this: "Melee confirmed! Does anyone know where I can get some of those CRT's?"

And I'm not even getting at the Gamecube setup part.

We have ways to circumvent this. Bigger tournaments (especially those who have other games, especially computer-based ones) can get a few PC's that can use Dolphin to run Melee at 60 fps with no lag on an HD screen. That's stupid easy, but a little expensive for smaller tournaments.

On the other hand, the post above does mention some adapters. Can't see why not use them if they don't really lag.

Hand injuries are a issue in most esports, especially fighting games. Sure, Fox is a bit more demanding than the average, but everyone at this point has a clue that if you're playing to the point that your hands actually hurt, you should take a break and measures to stop yourself from wrecking your hands.

New players will come as the game lives on. Look at some players that appear in the Documentary. Are Ken, PC Chris or KDJ getting gold trophies on most majors like they used to?

With all of this said, Smash 4 just finished development for good. As much as I can't comprehend it or even like it, PM didn't get the fan support from Melee that everyone expected.

Sure, it was a mod. Sure, no one really expected a great future from it due to it being a mod. However, PM is the closest thing that can be called as a true Melee sequel. Same core physics and mechanics, with even more mechanics added and by far the best balancing of a Smash game to date. It still wasn't enough for most Melee fans.

Sakurai may deny it, but he doesn't want to leave Smash. Therefore, we can assume a new Smash will be developed. Nintendo also has a new console in development. It needs games, and Nintendo needs some games that have an impact in the game community, something that the Wii U, for the most time lacked.

With that said, a Smash title is often one of the first things to launch on a new Nintendo console, obviously because it's one of their big weapons.

An HD remake of Melee would solve many of those problems, for both the playerbase and the company, and even for Sakurai, who can keep a Melee HD as the serious business and focus on his trend of making the new Smash games more acessible to the new crowd.

Do note that when I mean Melee HD, I mean it like the Zelda remakes, an HD remake that doesn't change core mechanics, but still manages to add new content (Like an improved Adventure mode or some non-versus content, which I felt that Melee lacked compared to Brawl, and Smash 4 most definitely lacks.)

As much as I disagree with that practice, (removing depth to give new players less work.) I have to admit that many people did start with the new Smash games and moved to Melee because they liked the Smash gameplay, but wanted more depth.

This is the reason I never played Brawl after picking up PM and the main reason I still play PM, even though I'm not a competitive player.

With all of this said, do not interpret this article as a mere pessimist article from someone that thinks Melee will die. Obviously Melee will not die, the question is: "How long Melee will keep at peak form and how can we help to keep it at its peak?"

Despite that, I still don't think Melee is at its peak. Every major somehow has even more entrants than the last, so this is an obvious sign that Melee is not at peak.

 

To be fair, Sheik has been considered, by many, the best in Smash 4 ever since it's Wii U release.

Not true. Early on Diddy Kong was dominant to the point that people started murmurs about him being another Brawl Metaknight.

 

Not true. Early on Diddy Kong was dominant to the point that people started murmurs about him being another Brawl Metaknight.

During the early meta, I've heard arguments for both Diddy and Sheik being the best. For diddy it was having a better punish, Sheik having better matchup spread and approach options.

Also, I said, "by many". It's kind of an ambiguous quantity... So how did you decide if what I said was true or not?

 

I sincerely hope people such as this who wish the death of a game to stop posting as they offer no contributions to our scene outside of giving us nothing but detrimental toxic behavior.

Honestly, your word has no meaning here if you wish a scene to die.

The fact people want a games' scene to die when people still love it is disgusting. Smash Boards should have bots to auto-infract jerk offs who do that.

Yes i'm being so toxic by stating my opinion, i could be toxic if you wanted me to. Also i forgot when posts that talked about something like this were only meant for people who want the game to live my bad. I want the scene to die because its run its course and offers nothing to smash anymore, as i said previously its a walking corpse. The game isn't deep, there is no "evolving meta" the game hasn't changed in years but you guys refuse to see that.

I love it when kids with no competitive experience like this come in and think they know better than everyone else. It is hilarious.

I might as well add this... a change in tier list or anything for that matter doesn't mean the game is getting better or worse. It could be either. In boxing an effective jab is still the best punch, and the best strategy has and always will be "don't get hit." That has been the case for an incredibly long time.

Change in the meta game or in tier lists don't mean crap to a competitive game's viability as a form of competition. Change isn't good or bad, it is just change, and it has nothing to do with a game's health.

A patch can improve, hamper, kill, or revive a game. The late 2014 re-release of BBCP essentially killed that scene, or at least made it die at an accelerated rate. Meanwhile balance changes to Street Fighter IV extended that titles' life. Regardless, Melee has been the same for 14 years. If baseball can be the same game with minimal rule changes for over a century, Melee can easily survive a lot longer.

Look no further than to the Counter-Strike community. No one thought CS 1.6 would go anywhere and look at it now. It's dead. They've all moved onto CSGO where it's bigger now than it's ever been before.

Counter-Strike competitive players moved on to CS:GO because 1.6 and CS:GO are insanely similar, and GO has better balancing and is the better competitive game. Meanwhile there is no other game like Melee. Smash 4 and Brawl are practically a different series. From Melee to those games it is like going from King of Fighters to Street Fighter; it isn't even remotely similar.

Additionally, 1.6 isn't dead. There are 1.6 major events at quite a few CS:GO events, and it still a very active community. There's thousands of people who play 1.6 each and every day! If that's dead, then Smash 4 has been dead since day 1.

 

The Melee community as a whole should use its considerably powerful voice to petition Sakurai on working on a Melee HD. There is no reason for the community to not at least attempt to do this if they legitimately care about this game and its future. If this were to happen, it would take a professional effort and not just some half-assed attempt. I'm not really familiar with who could direct it, but it'd probably be someone like Dan Salvato who's also knowledgeable enough about what the community wants to come forward with an appealing case for it. The project would also need to be provably profitable, well-detailed, and supported with plenty of compelling reasons and evidences. If it is presented properly, Sakurai and his team would be insane to not go through with it.

There is no reason for him to ignore taking on a provably profitable project that would require very minimal effort on behalf of his staff. He would be creating a direct port based on the game they already have in their databases; throw in a couple of neat things for the casuals and then call it Melee HD. Hell, it could even be programmed on PC and released on Steam and that would actually be ideal. Picture that. About a million times more accessible than if it came out on the Wii U e-shop or the NX.

If the Melee community acts as one, great things could be achieved. People need to realize what enormous power is right under their noses. A large community effort could certainly make Melee HD a reality; there is no doubt in my mind, it just depends on whether or not this falls on deaf ears.

 

This article... *facepalm*

 

B. Melee Fanatics Are Obstinate

That. I think the Melee community is blind in its narcissism. I think a new Smash game with Melee physics and mechanics but improved balance would be way better. Or just Melee HD with balance changes, bug fixes and what not.

But the Melee crowd would reject it even though it is "better". That is why i don't see Melee HD happening. Not changing anything would be a dumb idea, but changing things makes the people calling for it mad.

Considering how Melee fans like variety of characters and less homogenized roster (play any Smash 4 character, and the weight feels incredibly similar; there's really no differences in air movement, whereas in Melee there's a huge difference amongst the cast), this is unlikely to happen.

Homogenization of the roster makes it to where you can have a huge MUGEN roster like Smash 4, sure, but it also means you can't have character variety like Melee ever again without an added year of development or a 50% larger staff size than the last 2 Smash development teams had.

Additionally, can I want to add you don't have an argument when you say the word "I think" in regards to what would be better in the way you constructed your central argument. We want truths in these debates, not opinions. People can have opinions the moon is made of cheese, but that doesn't make it a point of contention that anyone else cares about.

I would personally love if balancing and updating the game was acceptable by the community, but people are afraid of change. Having a select few top tiers that alienate the rest of the cast on such a level is a flaw in itself.

That's because one bad change can kill a competitive game's balance. Look at the latest BlazBlue game. It went from being the biggest story of EVO 2014 to getting a terrible patch, and now that game is basically D.E.A.D. Sure, the new GuiltyGear game (Xrd) and likely a new release of Persona 4 played a part in that and didn't help the timing, but without that terrible patch that killed balance, it would still have a devout following.

Then there's Mortal Kombat as a series (and Injustice) which gets some pretty terrible patches routinely. We all saw how Mortal Kombat 9 and Injustice were kept artificially alive in a competitive sense thanks to Warner Bros. money.

If we were to see balance changes, it would have to best tested, have to be right, and have to be something that makes the lower end characters better without making the current upper level characters obsolete. That would be an incredibly hard task to do. That is why good game balancing is so incredibly hard, especially when other games are ALWAYS competing for players' interests.

 

Stuff about balancing...

TLDR: Fighting games don't need perfect balance. Just adequate balance.

I don't think a game needs to be perfectly balanced to be an exceptional game. If a game were perfectly balanced there would never be any underdog matches [where a player uses an obscure character vs high tier]. Those can generate a lot of hype.
However, when a character (or set of characters) is obviously broken, that's been balance patches are really needed.
I think for the most part if there were minor tweaks to Melee, like multi-hit moves working correctly, such as Mewtwo's nAir. I don't think many in the community would be upset by changes such as those. Would it make Mewtwo better? Definitely, but I don't think it would upset the core fundamentals of the game, which is what I enjoy about Smash.

 

Scary article, a lot of valid points raised...

but I think as long as we can find a way to make melee accessible to the new generation, and Nintendo continues to pump out smash games to keep the hype alive, we can keep melee alive.

I know of many rnodern-day smashers who don't own a gamecube, or even a copy of melee, but play on NetPlay through dolphin.

I think as long as we can find ways to easily play melee without the need of outdated tech (like CRTs) then we can keep the dream alive

best case scenario: Nintendo releases Melee on virtual console on wii u or nx, I think the community would see a big spike in players that way

New players are essential, and relationship building is a must. The love for the game is what got it this far.

The availability of the game to new players is a problem, but looking for Nintendo to release Melee on VS without frame delay differences may be problematic.

 

It is the deepest fighting game ever created. The list of techniques available to the player dwarfs any other game, by a huge margin. There will never be another game like it.

Brawl died where melee still lives, for a reason. It has a lot of depth and it's exciting.

In fact it's more exciting now than ever with players like Plup and Wessballz that constantly threaten the top players / gods. Back in the day we had people like Ken dominate everything so it was a little bit more predictable, now there are crazy upsets all over the place.

Brawl received a happy and content death because it had a legitimate successor in Smash 4. Melee is alive because people can't move on and are still waiting for a legitimate successor which I don't see happening since the appeal of Brawl and Smash 4 to is that it's easy to pick up and play and people don't need to learn complex techs just to be able to move smoothly and from a business stand point, the more people there are that is capable of enjoying the game, the more money there is to be printed.

I can't argue against it being the best game when it comes to being a spectator sport.

 

Brawl received a happy and content death because it had a legitimate successor in Smash 4. Melee is alive because people can't move on and are still waiting for a legitimate successor which I don't see happening since the appeal of Brawl and Smash 4 to is that it's easy to pick up and play and people don't need to learn complex techs just to be able to move smoothly and from a business stand point, the more people there are that is capable of enjoying the game, the more money there is to be printed.

I can't argue against it being the best game when it comes to being a spectator sport.

I want another game like Melee, but Brawl and Smash 4 are too different.
I have enjoyed playing them, but I don't feel the hype like I do in Melee. It's just a personal preference, but I prefer Melee over all the other Smash games. I will say that I love the series as a whole and I've been happy with each iteration.

 

PM has no future, anyway, because it's an unofficial mod that Nintendo or any one of a dozen other companies could feasibly destroy with litigation - and be within their legal rights to do so, if it suited their own self-interests. PM is illegitimate. It always will be, because Nintendo can't just "buy it out," even if they wanted to.

Umm... Project M has been around over 4 years, and that didn't happen. PM got shut out of Twitch, sure, but it's still huge. It has a future, and PM had and in the very long-term future will have a very healthy success at a underground level. It is extremely clear by this statement you don't know what in the bloody hell you're talking about, and are talking about subjects you don't understand.

Clearly you also don't understand the definition of the phrase "future" either.

Why do I bring up PM? Because inevitably, the topic of mods of Melee come up. It's the same damn thing. An unofficial mod that is playing chicken with destiny, that will never be fully embraced as a successor, because it isn't an official game.

I thought it was because you didn't know where to go any more and started rambling.

People made Rivals of Aether as a way of creating an original IP with Melee-like gameplay, but in the end, RoA is still RoA. It's a different game with different characters, appeal, fans... another splinter faction.

That's not a splinter lmao. If that's a Splinter, then Marvel vs. Capcom and Capcom vs. SNK were splinters to Street Fighter? Guess what? Those games made Street Fighter as a series bigger and more popular.

Whoops, I spoiled the end result of what Project M did for Melee and Smash 4, and what Smash scenes growing does for other Smash scenes. Apologies for those who didn't want spoilers for how different related games getting popular effects one another. I forgot you don't want spoilers like it's Star Wars.

Melee won't necessarily die. Eventually it will become marginalized. It will fade away. A remnant may remain, but it won't stay like 2015 forever. There is no way for the fans to take Melee into their own hands in a way that can stand up. Melee is not ours. Melee belongs to the people who made it. Even if they re-released it, it will never totally replace the original.

Melee is ours; we paid $50 for it. You are literally rambling like a fish out of water.

Personally, I don't care about Melee anymore.

You clearly, by your words, not a competitive players offering an opinion with no argument or reason behind them other than "I dislike Melee." Big deal. I don't like cricket, but I don't rant on and on about it.

Thus your baseless opinions provided here offer nothing of value to anyone aside from letting us know you have this passionate emotionally charged opinion.

People who see Smash 4 as the enemy to Melee are a big part of why I don't give a **** about Melee anymore.

You say stupid crap like this, after ranting about why Project M players should give up, why Melee is bad, and why Smash 4 as a scene and a game is better than Melee's for no reason other than "more modern flares," which does not make a good game, nor prove your point.

You literally go on a rant about Smash 4 that it is better and yet Melee players who hate on Smash 4 are "the enemy" incredibly hypocritical and ruins your entire point.

Your narcissistic statements are so incredibly egotistical, opinionated, and not based in logic that it is giving me a migraine. You talk about the Melee players have an ego, but you sir have the biggest ego of everyone I've seen post here.

You literally are telling Melee fans that talking about how great their game is are flat stupid and narcissistic before doing the same thing for Smash 4.

You sir are a living walking hypocrite with statements like these. You say you are for inclusiveness, but like your entire post, it is one flat contradiction and a lie.

Comments like these are the sort of comments Smash Boards should never be accepting towards. Continuously arguing with inept people with opinions based on hate and holier than thou opinions like this is a fool's errand, so I won't continue.

Just know that if you want to stay on this site, you should learn to not treat Melee and Project M players and fans like trash if you want them and others to not return the favor.

 

^^ Slow clap.....

It's like I'm not even needed anymore

Scrubs are bad.

 

^^ Slow clap.....

*Claps*

 

TLDR: Fighting games don't need perfect balance. Just adequate balance.

To a degree I agree with you. It is a lot like ethics and political science: there's a lot of "depends" to overarching general statements like this.

I don't think a game needs to be perfectly balanced to be an exceptional game. If a game were perfectly balanced there would never be any underdog matches [where a player uses an obscure character vs high tier]. Those can generate a lot of hype.

A perfect balanced game could be hyped or boring. Regardless, the only perfectly balanced fighting game is one with two identical characters.

Still, there are many levels of balance.

However, when a character (or set of characters) is obviously broken, that's been balance patches are really needed.

I agree with this point. Melee has no truly broken characters at the top (the top tiers have some incredibly overpowered aspects, though that isn't broken), but at the bottom... there's a lot of broken characters and moves and whatnot, as well as many extreme underpowered characters, moves, and aspects of the characters.

I think for the most part if there were minor tweaks to Melee, like multi-hit moves working correctly, such as Mewtwo's nAir. I don't think many in the community would be upset by changes such as those. Would it make Mewtwo better? Definitely, but I don't think it would upset the core fundamentals of the game, which is what I enjoy about Smash.

It's not so much I wouldn't want changes to Mewtwo as much as I would be afraid of the changes they bring. Melee fortunately unlike Brawl doesn't have top tiers that make entire characters obsolete. Sheik sort of does with the bottom of the bottom tiers, but that is almost all on the characters that are that bad are that bad rather than Sheik being "too good" in the match up.

What I would worry about is something like that happening; something where say a balanced Kirby wrecks all fast fallers. Like 80:20 match ups. That would be terrible for the game. If balancing a Melee remake or a Melee successor avoided that, fixed obvious glitches, and made more characters viable without ruining the dynamics of what made playing Melee competitively, with competitive knowledge, or at a top level amazing, I would be all for it.

But again, one mistake could ruin it. The Ice Climbers in Brawl only needed one infinite grab to make half the Brawl cast irrelevant. That is the kind of change I fear, and it extends well beyond my love of Melee, but even to patches for Smash 4 or other games I love playing, competing in, and/or viewing.

 

There will always be people playing Melee, even if the tournament scene gets smaller over time. Just keep working at it to keep it alive.

Melee is fun to watch, even if I prefer to watch Sm4sh (and to a lesser extent Brawl when people aren't using Meta Knight and such characters usually). I just have one thing to ask of Melee fans, just stop saying how horrible new smash games are when you watch video of newer games. It just discourages people form playing smash games in general, which also means less people that would be likely to try to get into Melee. Let's just say when it comes to comments on random sites and games, melee is #4 for the most toxic comments I see. It doesn't really make the community look great when you make toxic comments either.


Continue having fun playing whatever smash game you play. Don't be afraid to start a scene in your town, some people might just be hiding, and don't feel they have the time or whatever to start a scene.

 

Very impressive article. While I do enjoy Melee, there's no sugarcoating the fact that its complex combo inputs and high skill ceiling has been a deterrent towards newer gamers. Plus, seeing the same top players using the same certain characters over and over is bound to get boring.

 

"Controllers and consoles will be more of a problem in the far future than TVs. Stop talking about god damn CRTs. It's over. The problem has been solved for like 3 years. We have proper adapters now for both GameCube's and Wii's that allow for Component -> HDMI to work without lag. That was the whole damn problem. It's been solved.

You can buy a Wii and a HDMI adapter and play on a BenQ or whatever gaming monitor you like just like Street Fighter or any other modern fighting game. It's no longer an issue to play without CRTs. The Smash Community is just being stubborn and ignorant as ****. They talk about 1-2ms as if it's any different than modern games. All modern games that run at 60Hz face the same exact 2ms of lag.

Can confirm; I borrowed a friends HDMI/component adapter and played on my ASUS 1080p 1ms 144hz monitor and Melee ran just as fast as my CRT. And before anyone says my CRT sucked, my CRT was used for this moment and this moment (thank you based GimR!).

Not true. Early on Diddy Kong was dominant to the point that people started murmurs about him being another Brawl Metaknight.

No, it is true. I said since the demo at Best Buy during E3 2014 last year that Sheik was the best, and Zero Suit Samus was up there with her. I was far from the only person who stated this. Those two characters were clearly the best characters of the non-DLC characters.

Diddy Kong was IMHO always overrated (in regards to how good he is) at the top level of play. Diddy's punish moves are too reliant on the opponent relying on OoS heavy tactics, and much of it can be SDI'd pretty well by true top players. Once people found more effective and less lazy ways than using OoS tactics all the time, or when people started realizing most Rosalina players are just flat awful (around that time we stopped seeing them in top 8's largely; Dabuz was an exception because he is an exceptional player), that's when OoS tactics stopped working at high level play.

The only problem with pre-patch Diddy is past the true top level players (there aren't many since most people still stink at Smash 4) the rest of the Smash playerbase don't know how to deal with him. They aren't good enough to do what is necessary to beat Diddy Kong and/or refuse to adapt. Of course, that is why there are so few Smash 4 players that even matter in the grand scale of Smash 4 competitions, although that has improved drastically with time.

 

The people that actually are taking this guy's words seriously are stupid beyond repair. None of this journalist tool's "points" actually supply evidence, there are nothing but statements with no substance to back it up. You say "Melee Destroys Hands", and then give no evidence as to why it destroys hands, and why it's an issue that can't be fixed. You say "The Metagame isn't As Resilient as We Think", and not tell us why that is the case. This makes it come off as a worthless clickbait post which, frankly, is truly all that this article is.

The only valid thing I got from this was that the future of Melee relies on what the newer players do in order to keep the game moving forward, but that's a "well no **** Sherlock" kind of answer that doesn't require any deep thinking to realize. So there goes your only credibility.

I can't imagine what this idiot says about other topics if this is the trash that is being put on the front page of Smashboards.

wow people are salty AF here

 

wow people are salty AF here

ayy lmao. You're right. Did you just walk up slowly and cleverly use the word "salt" in a way never seen before?? Mango in Jail. Z I P B O Y S. Kreygasm, the disrespect. Shadowrealm. Wombo Combo. GRsmash.

...

Please go away. Or contribute something to the discussion. Either or.