Super Smash Brothers Brawl

[Relambrien]

To elaborate...

Marth's neutral-B, Shield Breaker, is now a thrust rather than a slash. It still has its "super effective against shields" property.

Dancing Blade, Marth's side-B, now comes out even quicker than before. It still retains all its variations from Melee.

From what I hear, Marth's range has been slightly reduced and his tipper (for those not familiar with the term, it refers to the sweet spot of Marth's sword being at the very tip) seems to have lost some potency. But then again, considering everyone lives longer now, perhaps it's just that effect giving the illusion that the tipper has been nerfed.

Oh, and his down-aerial still spikes (sends opponents downward quickly, cannot be meteor canceled).

[Hylian]

Marth is amazing in brawl.


His range was nerfed a bit, but his sweetspot size was increased.

You cannot chain grab with him easier then melee to whoever said that...

His Up and Down smash got buffed along with his backair and side B combo hits with all attacks now.


Marth is still amazing.

[x6tence]

I can't believe Olimar is Top-Tier

[magister_negi_magi]

Originally Posted by x6tence

I can't believe Olimar is Top-Tier

You just don't WANT to believe. I can just imagine how many people were itching to play with Sonic, only to find out he sucks balls.

[Squeek]

I'm pretty sure I called that.

Despite not knowing what the hell you're talking about with tiers.

[Afrobean]

Originally Posted by magister_negi_magi

You just don't WANT to believe. I can just imagine how many people were itching to play with Sonic, only to find out he sucks balls.

There is no such thing as a character who sucks balls.

The only imbalances are those which make certain characters unfairly better than others (like being able to walk off enemies with Fox's reflector, or any number of infinite unstoppable combos). There are no imbalances which make certain characters "suck balls". Just because he's not as good as you would have liked (ie unfair), that doesn't mean that he sucks.

Ideally, these "tiers" shouldn't even exist. A person who is very good with one character should be on par with another person is equally good with another character, even if the second person is using a character that the "competitive" community agrees sucks. The developers aren't sitting there circle jerking thinking about how to make certain characters suck and certain characters be MUCH more effective; if that happens, it's a side effect of them not doing as much testing as they should have.

ps certain characters are jerked off to because they're popular, but other characters have big potential for different techniques, yet are avoided because they're not fox or jigglypuff or ganondorf or pichu or your mom or whoever those losers wack off to.

[l2awr]

Originally Posted by Afrobean

There is no such thing as a character who sucks balls.

The only imbalances are those which make certain characters unfairly better than others (like being able to walk off enemies with Fox's reflector, or any number of infinite unstoppable combos). There are no imbalances which make certain characters "suck balls". Just because he's not as good as you would have liked (ie unfair), that doesn't mean that he sucks.

Ideally, these "tiers" shouldn't even exist. A person who is very good with one character should be on par with another person is equally good with another character, even if the second person is using a character that the "competitive" community agrees sucks. The developers aren't sitting there circle jerking thinking about how to make certain characters suck and certain characters be MUCH more effective; if that happens, it's a side effect of them not doing as much testing as they should have.

ps certain characters are jerked off to because they're popular, but other characters have big potential for different techniques, yet are avoided because they're not fox or jigglypuff or ganondorf or pichu or your mom or whoever those losers wack off to.

You don't know what your talking about. Don't give out false information.

As for the jiggly puff glitch...lol! Thats funny

[ducky285]

Yoshi looks like he's actually improved from Melee. That makes me happy.

[l2awr]

Originally Posted by ducky285

Yoshi looks like he's actually improved from Melee. That makes me happy.

I heard hes just as bad lol. I guess I'll really see when it comes out.

[ducky285]

The lack of DJC and directional airdodge sucks for Yoshi, but greater tail range, improved Egg Toss, Pivot Grab, easier Edge Cancelled Eggs, the Yoshi Bomb being an anti-air move now and two good aerials with no landing lag work in his favor.

I don't play competitively, but I like making my friends nuts because they have trouble beating my Yoshi.

[Afrobean]

Originally Posted by l2awr

You don't know what your talking about. Don't give out false information.

Are you seriously suggesting that the designers actively make certain characters ****ty just so that they suck? Do you know how stupid this sounds?

I heard hes just as bad lol. I guess I'll really see when it comes out.

LUL

Yeah, proof right there. Yoshi isn't bad. He's just not easy to be good with.

[Relambrien]

Hey guys, calm down.

Character imbalances are an unfortunate reality. There is no possible way the designers can predict every way a character will be used, so they can't possibly test and change everything to ensure that characters are more or less equal in potential ability. The way the community plays determines which characters end up being better. For instance, had L-canceling not been so effective in Melee, Ganondorf would probably be one of the worst characters in the game. With L-canceling, he's average to good.

Now naturally, in a match between two players, the better player will -generally- win, regardless of character choice. The "tier list" is merely a representation of which characters are repeatedly placing well in tournaments, and therefore fluctuates as the metagame does.

Now as the metagame matures, it becomes more and more possible to see which characters are consistently toward the top of the tier list, and declare them as "better" than the characters at the bottom, but character counters do exist; a lower-tier character can have an advantage over a specific higher-tier character.

Honestly, the tier list isn't something that should be worshiped or used to determine which character you play. Heck, the first Brawl tier list won't be out probably for over a year. Use it as what it is: a guide as to which characters are doing best in tournaments.

[Squeek]

I don't want to get this started again, but...

You're saying you intentionally disrupt the character balance by exploiting glitches.

You insinuate two things with this statement:

1) If you chose not to exploit glitches, characters would all be balanced.

2) If characters were all balanced, the true winner would be the person with the most skill.

Personally, I'm one of those people who claim that only being able to win with one or two characters isn't really skill at all. I say all tournaments should be random character selections. Hey, if your claim is true, then not exploiting glitches means they're all the same, right? Just practice with them all and your skill should improve, right?

[chemicalrabbit]

Originally Posted by ducky285

Yoshi looks like he's actually improved from Melee. That makes me happy.

My brawl thoughts from playing:

...Yoshi got worse.

The game feels floatier and a little bit slower.

Marth is almost exactly the same.

Jigg's is not that good anymore.

ROB is not that bad. His aerials are rape.

Sonic is hard to use.

Ike is good due to his power.

Metaknight is rape.

Bowser is faster.

Zamus is good.

Wii-Mote is underrated. It's actually pretty good.







That basically all I found out from playing.

1) If you chose not to exploit glitches, characters would all be balanced.

No.

2) If characters were all balanced, the true winner would be the person with the most skill.

What do you mean by the 'true winner?'

[Squeek]

Meaning I don't consider someone a "true winner" if you play with one stage, a handful of characters, and all the items turned off.

I call that the winner of the "no-items final destination fox/marth/falco/etc. Melee" competition.

Current video game competitions hold tournaments across multiple games in multiple genres to test skill.

[Squeek]

Yes, that's the general argument. I beg to differ, though. What's the harm in putting a Mr. Saturn in there? A Beam Sword? Or really, anything but the Blaster, Super Scope, Hammer, Bob-Omb, Starman, Heart Container, Maxim Tomato, Food, Home-Run Bat, etc. You get my point.

Take poker for example. It's a game of skill, too. If you removed the cards and just gave some guys sitting at the table a stack of chips, then you'd have a pretty pathetic version of poker, wouldn't you? The cards add the element of luck. They add to the required skill level of the game. But the cards alone don't make a winner or a loser. Anyone who thinks poker is just who gets the pocket aces is an idiot.

One of the ads a poker website runs when you're watching a poker match makes this case pretty clear:

"We know that when we play, a little luck helps, but luck can't explain why final tables always have so many familiar faces."

[Relambrien]

Originally Posted by Squeek

I don't want to get this started again, but...

You're saying you intentionally disrupt the character balance by exploiting glitches.

L-canceling wasn't a glitch; I can guarantee you that. Look up the old webpage for the original SSB. It talks about a method of being able to move instantly after hitting the ground from the air. This was SSB's Z-canceling, which was made half as effective in Melee with L-canceling.

But anyway, tech usage does shift the metagame in a certain direction. However...

Originally Posted by Squeek

You insinuate two things with this statement:

1) If you chose not to exploit glitches, characters would all be balanced.

2) If characters were all balanced, the true winner would be the person with the most skill.

...this is not what I'm saying. Tell me where I said that characters would be balanced if not for glitches. I said that the game is balanced as far as the devs play, but the community always influences the game. The game would've gone in a DIFFERENT direction with different glitches/exploits/techs discovered and used. Different characters would be on top, but there would still be differences. Because the community will always find ways to play that the devs didn't think about, regardless of whether or not these ways involve code exploitation. Certain character strategies may result in a character being awesome, strategies which only require performing the actions explicitly intended, just with a specific pattern.

As an example, and I'm going back to Melee here, take Jigglypuff. Her main strategy is the "Wall of Pain," basically repeating her back-aerial and other high-priority moves over and over again. Without this strategy, she's pretty bad. With it, she's middle-tier. Had this not been developed by the community, she wouldn't be where she is on the tier list. And notice that this strategy doesn't use any glitches/advanced techs/whatever you want to call them, with the exception of short-hopping (intended) and L-canceling (intended).

And anyway, even currently, the winner is generally the one with more skill (skill defined as by the Smash community). Certainly not always, but unless there's a really uneven character matchup, the better player will win the vast majority of the time.

Originally Posted by Squeek

Personally, I'm one of those people who claim that only being able to win with one or two characters isn't really skill at all. I say all tournaments should be random character selections. Hey, if your claim is true, then not exploiting glitches means they're all the same, right? Just practice with them all and your skill should improve, right?

Yes yes, we know, this is like the 12th time you've said this. And anyway, see above. Not all metagame-influencing strategies involve glitch usage. Granted, L-canceling (though it was intended) and wavedashing probably had the biggest effects on Melee's metagame, but even Peach, whose wavedash is horrible, ended up high tier.

And don't forget that Marth was basically ignored until a certain smasher named Ken came in and invented more or less all of his strategies.

I'm differentiating between "techniques" and "strategies" here. A "technique" is a specific action one can perform, and a "strategy" is an application of a technique or several techniques based on a situation.

EDIT: Oh look, ninja'd. I'll go ahead and take the role of the anti-item guy for this.

Originally Posted by Squeek

Yes, that's the general argument. I beg to differ, though. What's the harm in putting a Mr. Saturn in there? A Beam Sword? Or really, anything but the Blaster, Super Scope, Hammer, Bob-Omb, Starman, Heart Container, Maxim Tomato, Food, Home-Run Bat, etc. You get my point.

Items give the player who gets them an advantage. Items spawn randomly. So basically, a random person gets an advantage every once in a while. Certain items don't give as much of an advantage as others, but when the next point is taken into account, it's just better in terms of competition to turn items off.

That next point refers to explosions. Container items have the tendency to explode, and you have no idea when they will. A capsule can blow you up and kill you when you have the advantage (say by a capsule the opponent threw up landing near you, or one spawning as you attack, though the latter is pretty rare). Crates can do the same. Considering that the only "fair" items which could remain on don't confer much of a player skill increase (seriously, Mr. Saturn doesn't really add too much), and the fact that containers explode, it's just a better idea to keep items off.

There's also the deal with items and character imbalances. Faster characters like Fox and CF have even more advantages in an item game due to their speed. The top-tier characters get better and the low-tier characters get worse. Having items off actually improves character balance. While this wasn't exactly a primary reason for turning items off, it certainly is a reason to keep them off now.

In a nutshell: Many items would have to be off. The ones that remain on don't improve competition enough to compensate for the random explosions and random spawns, which are a detriment.

Also, about your poker analogy. The problem with that is poker was designed to be a game of luck from the start, with people modifying their bets and demeanor so as to compensate for luck. Luck is central to the game, which makes it necessary.

With Smash, luck is not at all the point around which the game focuses. The point is to accumulate damage on your opponent and knock him off the stage, by utilizing your character's attacks and abilities. The luck factor was added in to help make the game more fun. But then, many people don't find a game decided by luck to be fun. Thus, these people turn items off. It's that simple.

[Squeek]

Skill is knowing when to stop a combo and back off knowing that some item containers are bombs.

It's not like they spawn two inches off the ground. They spawn on the ceiling and drop onto the stage.

It took me two times of seeing canisters explode as I threw them down at my feet to open them to say "hmm, it seems some canisters explode. I shouldn't throw them at myself. Maybe I should jump a little, then throw it down so I can still get the item if there's something in there but avoid the explosion just in case"

And I don't think I've seen a canister explode in Brawl yet but the people playing are primarily Melee people who play without items anyway so who knows.

[Matthew4444]

Wait, I thought items did spawn in a little puff of smoke a couple feet above the stage. Then again, it's been forever and a day since I've played Melee.

[TS_SonicMaster]

I think I remember that the capsules usually appeared from higher places more often than a little bit above the stage. The crates and barrels usually appeared right above the stage.