Scar on the Melee vs Brawl debate: What does competitive really mean?

[Jack Kieser]

I took WiseGuy off of the list of stupid people. I really haven't kept up with this thread due to lots of reasons, mostly because I have exhausted my arguments and have already addressed mostly everything that's come up multiple times. I feel really bad about it because it's impossible for people to know what was posted already, these threads get so huge.

Anyways I'll change the title of the thread to something like "Definition of Competititve" so on and so forth.

Yeah, we really did a nice job of repeatedly hijacking your thread, huh?

 

[Scar]

Also, IF ANYONE THINKS THEY HAVE MADE POSTS THAT SHOULD BE LINKED TO THE FIRST PAGE, LET ME KNOW!

There have been so many incredible posts that I really wanted to link but I really just haven't had the time, and you know better than I which you have made that are awesome.

 

[Brookman]

I have to take a crap

*craps on topic*

<3 Scar.

 

[Alou]

After reading this thread, Scar first off congratulations to you. You win the award for the best thought out thread that I've seen here. Congrats.

I think you make a lot of valid arguments. Melee was an extremely competitive game. People could take years doing various techniques and still be able to learn new things. With the different things you could do on characters it made the game exciting to watch and to play. Brawl had a lot to live up to and I think thats why people are sometimes upset with how it stands up to melee.

People keep saying 'melee took forever to learn after two weeks this game is just easy and you know everything a noob can beat a pro.' I find this statement something that we can all cheer about. A game that is easier to learn makes it more competitive in my opinion. It's harder to find new ways to put your moves together and outwit your opponent(s). I think this will drive players, both new and old, to start trying new things and really taking the game to a new level.

In my opinion, I think the game has potential to be used in competitions. Brawl is different from melee in some aspects and I think that is why people aren't liking it in some cases. It still has the potential in my opinion to be a great game that will still make players think, develop strategies, and try new techniques.

~Alou

 

[Scar]

People keep saying 'melee took forever to learn after two weeks this game is just easy and you know everything a noob can beat a pro.' I find this statement something that we can all cheer about. A game that is easier to learn makes it more competitive in my opinion. It's harder to find new ways to put your moves together and outwit your opponent(s). I think this will drive players, both new and old, to start trying new things and really taking the game to a new level.

You clearly understand where I'm coming from so I don't have to explain to you why this doesn't appeal to me, but it's VERY worthwhile to understand that the fact many players are interested in a game that allows new players to compete at any level.

That's when things come down to personal opinion, and of course I respect your opinion and more/less I'm glad you can enjoy the game. The very things that appeal to these types of players however make the game not competitive, and that's all there is to it. That doesn't mean it won't have a good tournament scene (it clearly already does) or a long-lasting fan base, but it is my prediction that people will not get as hardcore about Brawl as they did about Melee.

<3 you too Brookman, you jerk of a man, you.

 

[Jack Kieser]

You clearly understand where I'm coming from so I don't have to explain to you why this doesn't appeal to me, but it's VERY worthwhile to understand that the fact many players are interested in a game that allows new players to compete at any level.

That's when things come down to personal opinion, and of course I respect your opinion and more/less I'm glad you can enjoy the game. The very things that appeal to these types of players however makes the game not competitive, and that's all there is to it. That doesn't mean it won't have a good tournament scene (it clearly already does) or a long-lasting fan base, but it is my prediction that people will not get as hardcore about Brawl as they did about Melee.

<3 you too Brookman, you jerk of a man, you.

And that, Scar, is why we <3 you so much.

 

[Scar]

I wish I could continue to be the arbiter of this thread day and night, I kind of really loved doing it and like talking with all you guys and really understanding both sides of this debate. Once midterms are over, maybe?

I <3 you all, too.

 

[Brookman]

Scar, we all know the only reason you don't like brawl is cause falcon sucks, and you only know how to knee people.

also, has anyone been able to argue that brawl takes greater or equal skill as melee?

 

[Alou]

You clearly understand where I'm coming from so I don't have to explain to you why this doesn't appeal to me, but it's VERY worthwhile to understand that the fact many players are interested in a game that allows new players to compete at any level.

That's when things come down to personal opinion, and of course I respect your opinion and more/less I'm glad you can enjoy the game. The very things that appeal to these types of players however make the game not competitive, and that's all there is to it. That doesn't mean it won't have a good tournament scene (it clearly already does) or a long-lasting fan base, but it is my prediction that people will not get as hardcore about Brawl as they did about Melee.

<3 you too Brookman, you jerk of a man, you.

I understand what your saying and I mildly agree people won't get hardcore about Brawl as they did about melee, but when I say people I mean the same people. I think that Brawl will bring forth many new players that will start to enjoy the competitive scene.

Sure we will obviously see people who were great at melee and we already are, but I think because Brawl is easier to learn than melee I think that the competitive scene will grow to include more newer players. This can be both a good and bad thing.

~Alou

 

[D20]

I'd like to see how many new of the Brawl players would be willing to travel 3 or more hours to attend a national tournament like FC, OC, or *pound*. I think the answer is probably less than five percent.

 

[knightofsouls]

Brawl is More competitive because it allows more people to compete.

In Melee, one issue with the game that prevented people from competing on the same level was the many exploits people used to gain the advantage. Many people like myself, although capable of using such exploits refused to, and was therefor discouraged... Snaking Breaks Mario Kart DS, by Allowing the user to achieve speeds that are otherwise unavailable. Bowser, Ganandorth, were never meant to achieve the speeds they did with Wash Dashing, Characters like Luigi with wave dashing were even more revamped allowing exploits to use certain attacks at speeds that were NOT intended.

Exploits to me, can ruin a game. No one should have to utilize Exploits to play at Professional level.

One could look at exploits as an invented playing style that makes other characters whom were previously unused, capable of being used in a Competitive environment.

However, a gigantic bonus with Brawl is that not only do they have MORE characters, each character is more unique and more Balanced than Melee.

With the Inclusion of Such characters as Sonic, Or Snake. This Brought more potential competitors to Brawl, Previously many Sonic or Snake fans did not play Brawl, and now participate in Brawl offering more competitors.

With The Addition of Online Play, Many people who previously had no one to play with, or could never play with friends and family, can now play Brawl online whenever they like, Increasing their potential to become even better, and increasing their chances at becoming a top competitor.

With the new game mechanics being slowed down, people who were previously incapable of playing at competitive level, are now capable of playing at a much higher level then before.

More people Playing, means More people Competing. Therefor the more people capable of playing at a higher level, the more Competitive it is.

People with more skill, will win the Majority, Still Producing the Top Competitors.

 

[Jack Kieser]

*snip*

I can tell you right now, that post will get flamed.

 

[Scar]

Scar, we all know the only reason you don't like brawl is cause falcon sucks, and you only know how to knee people.

This is entirely true.

I'd like to see how many new of the Brawl players would be willing to travel 3 or more hours to attend a national tournament like FC, OC, or *pound*. I think the answer is probably less than five percent.

I strongly strongly agree, and that's what I meant about "hardcore." Good point D20. See you April 26th, I'm driving 5 hours to play Melee with you. <3

Brawl is More competitive because it allows more people to compete.

False. Read the first post and the majority of the posts linked in the first post and you will see why this, and the rest of what you said, is not true.

 

[Cort]

I'm pretty sure knightofsouls is trolling, but I'm not positive.

 

[NES n00b]

I'm pretty sure knightofsouls is trolling, but I'm not positive.

I am postively positive about his psuedo positive arguement for Brawl is a joke.

Reading the characters he chooses made it easier, but other things such as "wash dancing" (reminds me of someone who made a mistake like that but whatever lol).

 

[Cort]

I think we called it dave-washing at some point a lot.

 

[LouisLeGros]

Okay this was a reply I was making to Jack Kieser, it was about opinions and a sarcastic/satirical statement I had made (in a thread that is locked). It is a bit modified to better fit this thread.



I disagree on your[Jack Kieser] definition of opinion for encompassing the "spirit" of the word. This specifically stems from "something that cannot be factually proven." Were the opinions held about diseases before the discovery of bacteria not really opinions? Sure you could say they their opinions were based on things that could be factually proven, but not with the technology/pool of knowledge at the time.

I understand what you were trying to say, but words are so horrible at conveying meaning.

However, I still think opinions can be wrong. Most of the cases where they would be wrong, would be when they are retroactively proven wrong as new "positive knowledge" (Merriam-Webster) emerges. When I first played Dedede it was my opinion that he was a horrible character and everyone talking about him being good were on crack. As I learned more about Brawl & Dedede my opinion changed. I know the opinion has some subjectivity in it, but I think that we can come to the conclusion that Dedede isn't a horibble character and that my original opinion was wrong, or at the very least ill informed.


But ya semantics suck and I just wanted to kick a little dirt at the "its my opinion, it can't be wrong and you can't say anything about my opinion" attitude. Even if their opinion can't be wrong, statements within certainly can be.

Also I would rather say someone's opinion is wrong (or ill-informed) then saying someone's personal belief is not an opinion. That is just my personal opinion though, and opinions can't be wrong, right? *wink*

 

[GTR!]

First off i dont know if what i am saying has been said before, due to the fact that there are 151 pages, but i will say my peace and then scram.

Melee is a GREAT game. To say that Brawl is eaiser to pick up, thus making it more competative to a larger demographic of people, is plain stupid.

To everyone that plays melee competativley (including myself) to them, playing that way is fun. To say "oh well all they care about is to win and beat poeple and not have fun" is again dumb. Competative play is FUN, and compared to melee brawl is lacking.

Because Brawl has a few very, situational techiques for certain characters that does not mean it is suddenly like melee and all "zomg its teh ATs back wit snakz mortr slide" because its not.

Brawl is a great game. It is fun, upbeat, new, and everything. For those i know that do not have a knack for competative melee play love brawl because the simple fact that "i didnt WD and all that stuff in melee so i guess its just easier for me to be good at Brawl." As cliche as it souds ive heard this a lot. For those others that love the Brawl so far such as Azen, Chillen, and Mike G (sorry if im speakin on behalf of u mike but you have won the 2 biggest brawl tourneys in GA so far) show me that hope is still there. Brawl is a new game still, as of today it has been out 1 month in thet U.S.

Both are great in different ways one (Melee) being more competative while the other (Brawl) is more new and fresh with new possibilities. As much as i have deduced it has come to the fact that Vetrans like melee because it was a gem, a great game with highly competative game play and vast posibilities sprouting out of the metagame and AT's of the game and the Newer players along with MANY VETERTAN MELEE COMPETATIVE PLAYERS like brawl alot becuase its a new game and they came in not expecting a melee 2.0 to speak so idk thats just my opinion

sorry if all this has been spoken before and such and also i am sorry to Scar you find this a mindless wall of text/rant. Thanks

 

[Scar]

haha GTR, I don't judge people, I'm not going to be mad at you for posting your opinion. Yours is very valid and we agree on a lot of things. Yes it has been spoken before but differently, so thank you for contributing.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

First off i dont know if what i am saying has been said before, due to the fact that there are 151 pages, but i will say my peace and then scram.

Melee is a GREAT game. To say that Brawl is eaiser to pick up, thus making it more competative to a larger demographic of people, is plain stupid.

To everyone that plays melee competativley (including myself) to them, playing that way is fun. To say "oh well all they care about is to win and beat poeple and not have fun" is again dumb. Competative play is FUN, and compared to melee brawl is lacking.

Because Brawl has a few very, situational techiques for certain characters that does not mean it is suddenly like melee and all "zomg its teh ATs back wit snakz mortr slide" because its not.

Brawl is a great game. It is fun, upbeat, new, and everything. For those i know that do not have a knack for competative melee play love brawl because the simple fact that "i didnt WD and all that stuff in melee so i guess its just easier for me to be good at Brawl." As cliche as it souds ive heard this a lot. For those others that love the Brawl so far such as Azen, Chillen, and Mike G (sorry if im speakin on behalf of u mike but you have won the 2 biggest brawl tourneys in GA so far) show me that hope is still there. Brawl is a new game still, as of today it has been out 1 month in thet U.S.

Both are great in different ways one (Melee) being more competative while the other (Brawl) is more new and fresh with new possibilities. As much as i have deduced it has come to the fact that Vetrans like melee because it was a gem, a great game with highly competative game play and vast posibilities sprouting out of the metagame and AT's of the game and the Newer players along with MANY VETERTAN MELEE COMPETATIVE PLAYERS like brawl alot becuase its a new game and they came in not expecting a melee 2.0 to speak so idk thats just my opinion

sorry if all this has been spoken before and such and also i am sorry to Scar you find this a mindless wall of text/rant. Thanks

You and I share the same exact opinion. I'm glad somebody else feels this way as well.

Good ****.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Brookman]

Wave dancing is a legit technique in Melee.

 

[kainzero]

One thing that confuses me about this goes back to the definition:

"Those who should win will win."

Well, who should win? And how many times should they win before it matters? And does it matter how badly you beat them?

Is it the guy that spends the most time playing the game?
Is it the guy that knows the most about the game and can do fancy combos?
Is it the guy who knows how to punish?
The guy with the best camping ability?
The guy with the best ability to do undocumented features?
The best "all-around" ability?

I think we have to understand that different games have different reward systems, and it becomes an issue of whether or not a person finds it worth his time to go through all of the trouble to master it, hence the whole "If you don't like it, don't play it" sort of deal.

I'll take this quote from Jesiah linked on the first post:

Something else I thought I might add: I used to watch Melee videos and try to copy my opponent's strategies. When I was semi-noobish, I remember the main thing I tried to copy was chaingrabbing fox with Marth. I practiced all the time. First, it was the timing that threw me off. After I got the timing down, I had to worry about what percent Fox was at. After that, I practiced knowing when to pivot grab, utilt, regrab...Which moves to use depending on the percent. Lastly, I practiced uair comboing, to finish off the combo. With Uair comboing, I had to worry about spacing my uairs, knowing when to tip and when not to tip; Following my opponent's DI, so I could end with an Fsmash or Reverse Up B, then spacing my killing move. There is just so much to worry about while just doing one of the many combos Melee has to offer.

Now, I decided to try the same thing with Brawl. I wanted to look into Metaknight, even though I main Snake. (<3 Snake) I looked at Forte's MK, and decided to copy some of his strategies. The main strategy I saw that impressed me the most was his "combos."I decided to try his main way of killing people...This is how it went.

1. Choose Metaknight at character select screen
2. Uair my opponent
3. Press Up B

The main point of contention would be, assuming that is an accurate representation of both games, is this:
Should I win because I know how and when to Uair my opponent and press Up B, or should I win because I know all the depth and options and the how and when of Marth's throw against Fox?
If, fundamentally, I am better at my opponent at creating attacking opportunity but have slower reflexes, I would rather prefer the first option than the second. You can see how it becomes a matter of preference.
Just because one game has more options and depth doesn't necessarily mean that a better player will win more than in the other, it only changes what someone has to be better at doing.
Here's another example:
Let's say there's a game where there's a button in between two players. The winner is the one that presses it first when it lights up. Now suppose there's some guy who has super fast speed and dominates the competition.
Now we can create more depth by adding another button, and you win when you press the button that lights up first. This creates two thought processes: distinguishing which button lights up, and hitting the button. That first guy who dominated isn't as good anymore because it's not based on pure speed. Is it less competitive? No, it is just competitive in a different sense.

Furthermore, how much should one win by to determine whether a game is competitive or not? It also comes down to the tournament format; double elim, single elim, best of 1, 3, 5, 7, round-robin or playoff. I could be a guy full of cheap tricks that knows how to win best of 1, or I could be a thoughtful kind of person who favors best of 7. I know in soccer they have tournaments where the team who wins is the one with the winning goal differential; they play 2 games and if it's split 1-1 they give it to the team with the most goals, much different than say, NBA playoff format purely determined by the amount of games you win. Which one is better? Depends on what a person is better at.

And this is why, in the end, it always ends with "Don't play it if you don't like it." The game that you may be better at, with the most potential for you, may be a different game than the guy next to you.

We should also have a discussion about fairness and randomness, or factors beyond our control like tripping. The addition of these factors de-emphasizes who "should" win. We deactivate these factors to some extent by selecting the stages and items, but tripping cannot. It does add to the skill element somewhat (Can you take advantage of it / recover from it?) but the factor of control and the degree to which you can be punished don't match.

---

This is only my second post here.

My first post was trying to find people to play Brawl with but it seems like people are so mired in this Melee vs. Brawl debate that no one just wants to play.

 

[pockyD]

i only skimmed that post, but at no point do we really need to define what qualifies someone as "good" at the game - we only need to acknowledge that being "good" exists

whoever is the best by the true definition of "good" will obviously outperform everyone else. We may or may not know what makes them "good", but we can clearly see that their skill surpasses most others

now, if your argument is that being "good" does NOT exist, then you are taking what the OP said and taking it to a whole other level - that this is a completely skill-less game, which i think very few people agree with

 

[Pink Reaper]

Wave dancing is a legit technique in Melee.

Its WASH DANCING. And no, it is not a legit technique, it totally broke Ganon and Bowser. Bowser was never supposed to move that fast, thats why he's so high up on the tier list, because Wash Dancing broke him.

 

[Jack Kieser]

Its WASH DANCING. And no, it is not a legit technique, it totally broke Ganon and Bowser. Bowser was never supposed to move that fast, thats why he's so high up on the tier list, because Wash Dancing broke him.

You have no idea how ironic that statement really is.

 

[Pink Reaper]

You have no idea how ironic that statement really is.

Yes I do >.>

 

[Skler]

"Those who win should win" means that the BETTER PLAYER should win all the games. In Brawl, players of nearly equal skill level will have sets that are maybe 6-4 in favor of the (slightly) better player. The worse player might even win a set in Brawl due to there being so few options. In Melee the better player wins almost every game, so that same set would be more like 8-2 or 9-1 and the worse player almost never takes a set off of the better one.

 

[greenblob]

Imagine a majestic mountain nirvana of gaming. At its peak are fulfillment, “fun,” and even transcendence. Most people could care less about this mountain peak because they have other life issues that are more important to them, and other peaks to pursue. There are a few, though, who are not at this peak, but who would be very happy there. These are the people I’m talking to with this book. Some of them don’t need any help; they’re on the journey. Most, though, only believe they are on that journey but actually are not. They got stuck in a chasm at the mountain’s base, a land of scrubdom. Here they are imprisoned in their own mental constructs of made-up game rules. If they could only cross this chasm, they would discover either a very boring plateau (for a degenerate game) or the heavenly enchanted mountain peak (for a “deep” game). In the former case, crossing the chasm would teach them to find a different mountain with more fulfilling rewards. In the latter case, well, they’d just be happier. “Playing to win” is largely the process of shedding the mental constructs that trap players in the chasm who would be happier at the mountain peak.

From Sirlin's "Playing to Win"

 

[TS28]

Hey, everyone. I don't usually post here, but I feel this is a really important thread.

I want to give my input, as someone who has had a lot of experience in various online gaming communities, esports, and competitive gaming in general.

First of all, when it comes to big tournaments, such as CGS, WCG, etc, the newer game will always be picked. It simply comes off as the coolest, and they need as much attention as they can get so the sponsors give lots of cash to even HAVE the event. Melee is gone. For good. At least for events such as WCG and CGS.

Second, competitive? Does Brawl having a lower potential for improvement really make it a worse idea? I think a lot of people shove it away too quickly, simply because it may have a lower potential. Even with a lower potential, who is to say ANYONE will reach that skill-ceiling any time within the next 5 years? No one has come close to perfect mastery of Melee, and I don't think anyone is going to have such absolute mastery of Brawl soon enough to where it is an issue. The game is very different, but it is still competitive, enough.

I think a really big reason people label Brawl as less competitive is due to the fact that "lesser" players of melee are suddenly beating established good melee players. This is for a variety of reasons. Very good melee players, from what I have seen, have simply not taken Brawl as seriously as the lesser players. The lesser players have been incredibly motivated to get as good as their superiors, and in a lot of cases, have done it. This comes as an absolute shock to most of the better players, because they simply think of it as impossible for their practice to simply overcome theirs. I feel the difference here is motivation. The pros have less, the lesser players have more. Sure a lot of melee carries over, but motivation overcomes experience here. Especially for such a different game. You, the veterans, the ones who have become such great melee players need to rise to this new challenge. You need to relive that experience of playing a new game, finding how it works, and doing your best. Yes, it was easier before, having so many basics so fluent it felt easier than walking. But this is a new game. It's time to rise again. It's some to build a new skill.

This is looking like a really bad version of what happened to CS 1.6 vs Source. Sorry guys, but Melee won't survive. Competition comes from big tournaments. Big tournaments are the newest game. Brawl will win in the end. That is a given. Melee will not make a come back. Yes, it has a lot of dedicated players right now, but the tournaments won't be for them. The tournaments will be for the Brawl players, and this will eventually lead Melee players to losing motivation, not playing any more, and leaving the community all together. This is not a desired outcome.

I used to view the Smash community as a really great one. Very united. Very strong. Very zealous. Now, it's turned into some sort of civil war. Very sad day. I hope you all can work this out.

Best of luck.

 

[Jack Kieser]

@Skler: If I'm reading you correctly, you're saying that between players of ~= skill, in Melee the better player would win almost every match while in Brawl the number of matches won would be more even. Between players of nearly equal skill. If I'm indeed reading that correctly, that means that Brawl would be a more accurate gauge of skill because the barely better player would win barely more games. I'm pretty sure thats not what you mean, but that's what you're saying.

@greenblob: I really, really, really wish people would stop quoting that god-****ed article. I've read it, I understand it, hell, I even agree with (the majority of) it... but I swear it's been quoted so much that it's almost irrelevant (kind of like that Azen quotation). People, we've all heard it before (because it's been shoved down our freakin' throats). I'm proud of you for working the 'quote' feature, but people, let's try to think up our own ideas for a change.

@TS28: Yeah, pretty much. What you're saying about tournaments and switching to Brawl is most likely exactly what's going to happen. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Melee will always be great, but times are changing, and if you don't change with them you get left behind in a very painful way. And kudos on the motivation insight.

 

[kainzero]

i only skimmed that post, but at no point do we really need to define what qualifies someone as "good" at the game - we only need to acknowledge that being "good" exists

whoever is the best by the true definition of "good" will obviously outperform everyone else. We may or may not know what makes them "good", but we can clearly see that their skill surpasses most others

I disagree.
If we can't differentiate between who is good and who is better, then who is supposed to win as defined by "competitiveness?"

And if we can only "feel" that someone is better than someone else, how are we supposed to quantify what game is more competitive than another?

Someone made an argument like:
"If player 1 is at skill level 6 and player 2 is at skill level 5, then and in brawl player 1 wins x% and in melee player 1 wins y%, competitiveness is x/y"
Which would be fine if we could quantify skill level like that, but it just doesn't work that way. We know this through all the tier arguments. =)

now, if your argument is that being "good" does NOT exist, then you are taking what the OP said and taking it to a whole other level - that this is a completely skill-less game, which i think very few people agree with

Not my point. That would be silly. =)

 

[Zankoku]

@Skler: If I'm reading you correctly, you're saying that between players of ~= skill, in Melee the better player would win almost every match while in Brawl the number of matches won would be more even. Between players of nearly equal skill. If I'm indeed reading that correctly, that means that Brawl would be a more accurate gauge of skill because the barely better player would win barely more games. I'm pretty sure thats not what you mean, but that's what you're saying.

It's actually more like this - there's either three or four stocks per game, right? The slightly better player will be able to barely puff off a win, but do so relatively consistently in Melee. In Brawl, KOs and as a result games will go significantly more back-and-forth. Barely winning more games and sometimes even losing more games isn't very much a good thing, bucause if one of the players is better, he should still be able to win most of the games, close as each one may be.

 

[Skler]

@Skler: If I'm reading you correctly, you're saying that between players of ~= skill, in Melee the better player would win almost every match while in Brawl the number of matches won would be more even. Between players of nearly equal skill. If I'm indeed reading that correctly, that means that Brawl would be a more accurate gauge of skill because the barely better player would win barely more games. I'm pretty sure thats not what you mean, but that's what you're saying.

Negative, the better player should win every game. If I'm better than somebody at something they should NOT beat me (ever) if I'm trying. Winning a game is winning a game, the worse player shouldn't be able to take a game off a better player unless they get lucky. In Melee you rarely see close sets (except between players of the same skill level) unless the worse player has a strong counterpick (and even then the better player crushes the loser in his own counterpick). The games of a set might be close (which is usually a good gauge of how close the skill gap is) but the better player will win **** near every game, with the exception of good counterpicks. In Melee a set with no counterpicks would result in the better player winning pretty much every game.

Edit: I was beaten to the punch. Oh well, I'm leaving this post up.

 

[Brookman]

I think the best player will win in brawl.

Now, who wants to play melee?

 

[Jack Kieser]

Negative, the better player should win every game. If I'm better than somebody at something they should NOT beat me (ever) if I'm trying. Winning a game is winning a game, the worse player shouldn't be able to take a game off a better player unless they get lucky. In Melee you rarely see close sets (except between players of the same skill level) unless the worse player has a strong counterpick (and even then the better player crushes the loser in his own counterpick). The games of a set might be close (which is usually a good gauge of how close the skill gap is) but the better player will win **** near every game, with the exception of good counterpicks. In Melee a set with no counterpicks would result in the better player winning pretty much every game.

Well then, I guess there are two main differences in the logic that we're using. First, if (just throwing out numbers for argument's sake so that this is easier to understand) we have two players of skill levels 50 and 55, you would be correct in that in a perfectly mathematical set of matches and with all other considerations notwithstanding the player with a higher skill level should win every match as well as every set. We don't live in such a world, though, and as such human error (off sets/matches/stocks) and seemingly 'random' variables (such as stage elements, and I would include things like the new FD edge in with this) skew the results in numerous ways. The second main difference is where we both decide to measure skill from. According to how you measure, the better player will win both matches as well as sets. I look at results in a more global sense, though (which, if you think about it, is already determined to be a better place to measure from; otherwise, we'd never need to do best of 3/5/7 matches), so if the better player loses a few matches but still wins the set, I see the result as accurate.

It's a (seemingly) small difference, but according to the way tournaments are currently being held, the more global way of determining match variance is the better way.

 

[Deleted member]

I'm not reading any of these posts.

Competitive- two or more people can compete fairly @ said objection, better player is statistically more likely to win the majority of matches.

Brawl seems fine for this.

 

[pockyD]

I disagree.
If we can't differentiate between who is good and who is better, then who is supposed to win as defined by "competitiveness?"

why can't we?

what makes mew2king better than silent wolf? can you quantify that?

 

[Ken2]

Hey man...

Hah Umbreon you still around? Nice to see an old melee name still on here. How are you liking Brawl? I'm not lol.

Just to make this a valid post:

I believe the old top level tourney players of melee have 99% of the time chosen melee to be the better game (For tourney play at least). As far as for fun, oldschool melee players dabbling in Brawl just to hang with friends and enjoy Smash Brothers like it used to be played is around I'm sure . Like not caring about DI'ing someones combo, getting angry that you lost in the semi-finals, paying for overpriced Maverick tourneys lol.

New players will welcome this new game with open arms, only because most of them have not been around for everything that was involved in Melee. Like all the technicalities in melee, or when Captain Jack came to the U.S. and showed us all about D.I'ing. It's just easy for new players to love it because they were not expecting the game to be something it isn't.

In other words, I will miss you melee .

 

[Corigames]

why can't we?

what makes mew2king better than silent wolf? can you quantify that?

Level. Mew2King is a level 78, Rank 5 while Silent Wolf is only 73, Rank 4. At that level, it wouldn't matter if you, a level 33, no Rank, even attempted to fight either, but the experience level between the two of them is enough to put Mew2King on a higher level.

 

[Rapid_Assassin]

I want to know how people are determining what skill level someone is at in Brawl before they argue that the worse player will win more often in Brawl than they will in Melee. You can't say that Brawl doesn't test skill if you are comparing skill across games (such as saying "i'm a better melee player than you, therefore I should always beat you in Brawl"). I think people are more closely matched in this game than before because of the fact that it's a new game, and people had at most 2 months to practice in it.