[Feba]

Originally Posted by DakAttack

I doubt hardcore is a word somebody would list while brainstorming words they would associate with the Wii. I sure as hell wouldn't.

The simple and correct answer to this is that you're an idiot.

All three consoles cater to the hardcore and casual markets.

[DakAttack]

Originally Posted by Feba

The simple and correct answer to this is that you're an idiot.

All three consoles cater to the hardcore and casual markets.

There's no point in arguing, it's obvious we're going to have different views on what exactly constitutes hardcore.

[Icemage]

^
Let's keep the discussion civil, shall we?


Icemage
FFXIOnline Forum Super Moderator

[Kailea]

ok wait, I am a bit confused, I liked Braw... so could someone inlighten me on how it "failed"?

really I want to know ;p

[Armando]

Problems with Brawl's gameplay:
1) Very little shielding stun (much less than Melee.)
2) Too much landing lag on moves (much more than Melee.)
The above two combine to make shielding 100% safe and make just about every aerial unsafe. This leads to turtling.
3) Characters are allowed to air dodge when they're only halfway through their stun time from getting hit. Pretty much removed all combo possibilities besides those that abuse knockback decay (see 7.)
4) Can't crouch out of dash like in Melee - limits your options to the dash attack.
5) Characters don't keep momentum when doing a running jump - really screws over Fox, Yoshi, Mario, Captain Falcon, and probably a few others, since they'll run up to you real fast, then lose all their speed as soon as they leave the ground.
6) Characters automatically latching on to the edges with their Up-Bs even if they'd normally overshoot made recoveries too risk-free and killed on-stage edgeguarding.
7) In Melee, connecting repeatedly with the same move would lower the % it gives. In Brawl, the knockback is also reduced, which allows some characters to spam a weak attack and continue to hit, since the knockback will get weaker each time.
8) Random tripping.

Control problems:
1) A buffering system was put in place, with no option to turn it off or adjust its window. Basically, you can input a move up to 10 frames before you're actually able to take action, and the game will remember it and do it as soon as possible. This 10 frame window is very big and sometimes leads to input mistakes and sometimes self-destructs - for example, if you're shielding, block an attack, and try to grab, but slide off the edge of the stage, you'll perform a neutral air instead and probably die. For unknown reasons, this also causes random jumps if you hit the C-stick too much.
2) Doing down-aerials with the C-stick causes you to fastfall unless you set the stick to do tilts instead of Smash Attacks. The whole point of the C-stick is air control - being able to do up-airs without accidentally jumping, or down-airs without accidentally falling fast.

Character specifics:
1) Meta Knight and Snake are overpowered.
2) King Dedede, Pikachu, and a few other characters can chain throw many characters without much chance of escape until higher %'s. Actually, King Dedede can chain throw half the cast and they can't escape until Dedede reaches the end of the stage (has to move to do it.) This is pretty easy to do since shielding always gives a huge frame advantage, almost guaranteeing a grab will land afterwards.
3) Zero Suit Samus can similarly trap many characters with with her Down Smash (shoots her Paralyzer stun gun at the ground, stunning characters temporarily.)
4) Ness and a small handful of characters had such a long animation when they break free from a grab, that it was possible to re-grab them indefinitely.

The character-specifics and control issues just add insult to injury. The gameplay itself is watered down to the core and lacks any real substance. Melee's gameplay was 100% fine save for possibly the Wavedash (an exploit/glitch/maneuver which allowed characters to slide a small distance forward or backwards by jumping, and immediately air dodging diagonally into the ground) and chaingrabs, which should've been caught in testing. There was no real need to deviate much from it, or worse, totally dumb it down.

Fortunately installing Homebrew Channel on a Wii is easy as pie and takes less than 5 minutes these days. Thanks to the magic of memory hacking, the community has managed to create codes that address all of the above issues and much more, such as swapping character textures and music (see the Brawl+ link a few posts back) but it's still pretty lame that the gameplay was that awful out of the box, and obviously nothing but the unmodified version of the game would ever be used in a large-scale tournament.

[Kailea]

Originally Posted by Armando

Problems with Brawl's gameplay:
1) Very little shielding stun (much less than Melee.)
2) Too much landing lag on moves (much more than Melee.)
The above two combine to make shielding 100% safe and make just about every aerial unsafe. This leads to turtling.
3) Characters are allowed to air dodge when they're only halfway through their stun time from getting hit. Pretty much removed all combo possibilities besides those that abuse knockback decay (see 7.)
4) Can't crouch out of dash like in Melee - limits your options to the dash attack.
5) Characters don't keep momentum when doing a running jump - really screws over Fox, Yoshi, Mario, Captain Falcon, and probably a few others, since they'll run up to you real fast, then lose all their speed as soon as they leave the ground.
6) Characters automatically latching on to the edges with their Up-Bs even if they'd normally overshoot made recoveries too risk-free and killed on-stage edgeguarding.
7) In Melee, connecting repeatedly with the same move would lower the % it gives. In Brawl, the knockback is also reduced, which allows some characters to spam a weak attack and continue to hit, since the knockback will get weaker each time.
8) Random tripping.

Control problems:
1) A buffering system was put in place, with no option to turn it off or adjust its window. Basically, you can input a move up to 10 frames before you're actually able to take action, and the game will remember it and do it as soon as possible. This 10 frame window is very big and sometimes leads to input mistakes and sometimes self-destructs - for example, if you're shielding, block an attack, and try to grab, but slide off the edge of the stage, you'll perform a neutral air instead and probably die. For unknown reasons, this also causes random jumps if you hit the C-stick too much.
2) Doing down-aerials with the C-stick causes you to fastfall unless you set the stick to do tilts instead of Smash Attacks. The whole point of the C-stick is air control - being able to do up-airs without accidentally jumping, or down-airs without accidentally falling fast.

Character specifics:
1) Meta Knight and Snake are overpowered.
2) King Dedede, Pikachu, and a few other characters can chain throw many characters without much chance of escape until higher %'s. Actually, King Dedede can chain throw half the cast and they can't escape until Dedede reaches the end of the stage (has to move to do it.) This is pretty easy to do since shielding always gives a huge frame advantage, almost guaranteeing a grab will land afterwards.
3) Zero Suit Samus can similarly trap many characters with with her Down Smash (shoots her Paralyzer stun gun at the ground, stunning characters temporarily.)
4) Ness and a small handful of characters had such a long animation when they break free from a grab, that it was possible to re-grab them indefinitely.

The character-specifics and control issues just add insult to injury. The gameplay itself is watered down to the core and lacks any real substance. Melee's gameplay was 100% fine save for possibly the Wavedash (an exploit/glitch/maneuver which allowed characters to slide a small distance forward or backwards by jumping, and immediately air dodging diagonally into the ground) and chaingrabs, which should've been caught in testing. There was no real need to deviate much from it, or worse, totally dumb it down.

Fortunately installing Homebrew Channel on a Wii is easy as pie and takes less than 5 minutes these days. Thanks to the magic of memory hacking, the community has managed to create codes that address all of the above issues and much more, such as swapping character textures and music (see the Brawl+ link a few posts back) but it's still pretty lame that the gameplay was that awful out of the box, and obviously nothing but the unmodified version of the game would ever be used in a large-scale tournament.

oh wow did not realized all this to be honest... and a "patch" through homebrew? sweet, I will be looking this stuff up for sure.

[Armando]

Oh yeah. Another consequence of being able to air dodge when you're only halfway through your stun is that no one barely ever hits the ground on their backs, which kills techchasing (trying to predict which way the character will tech the ground.

Also, Brawl changed the teching system so it's distance-based instead of time-based, which made it a hell of a lot harder than it used to be. But Brawl+ fixes that too.

Seriously Brawl+ is awesome. I highly recommend it to anyone who doesn't mind installing Homebrew Channel (voids your Wii's warranty as I understand it.) Besides the gameplay being all-around superior and totally funner, being able to customize your characters and songs is epic, and so is having unrestricted camera during pause and replays, and having no time limits for saving replays.

[Kailea]

I might check it out, sounds awesome, and yeah I have no problem with HB channel... my Wii, well its hacked more then a tree for firewood ;p Mainly for my emulation though, and my GC backup loader (I consider GC free rain now that they dont make the system anymore)

[Armando]

3 more things Brawl screwed up (the list just keeps getting longer and longer...) :
1) They put a pretty significant delay before you can let go of the stage's edge, which hurts your ability to retaliate against an opponent that's on the stage and trying to keep you out.
2) It removed dashdancing. Dashdancing was the ability to start a dash in one direction, and turn around immediately as long as you've traveled less than a certain distance. This was very useful for spacing purposes - retreating momentarily, then turning around for an approach.
3) They removed the ability to put up your shield during the beginning of a dash. This was very useful for advancing against projectile characters.
Brawl+ fixes all 3 as well.

For the curious here's a pretty good example of what Brawl+ gameplay looks like (doesn't mention Brawl+ anywhere in the description, but I pulled it from BrawlPlus.net.)

YouTube - Cape Mario v Yeroc ZSS 5 15 (2)

They may be pretty short and simple (then again, so were Melee's) but none of the combos in that video would've worked in vanilla Brawl, nor would the opponent land on its back/tech the ground; in both cases, the person on the receiving end would be able to air dodge before getting hit again, or before reaching the ground. Incidentally, those combos are pretty similar to the ones Mario could do in Melee.

Edit: Here's another good one
YouTube - D1 (Shiek) vs GuruKid (Pokemon Trainer) 6/26/09 (and yes, Squirtle is a TMNT...too bad his other textures are awful though.)

Despite the Melee-like gameplay, Brawl+ is still more beginner-friendly than Melee, because there's no need to learn how to wavedash (which required plenty of practice to master) or L-Cancel. L-canceling was a mechanic that halved your landing lag from aerial attacks by hitting L, R, or Z shortly before landing. This mechanic was removed in Brawl, but the landing lag of moves was left too high. In Brawl+, the landing lag of attacks is automatically reduced to values comparable to Melee's with L-cancel included. All the infinites and chaingrabs that were present in vanilla Brawl were also removed, and the characters were rebalanced by changing the damage/knockback/angle/stun/speed of certain moves. For instance, Meta Knight can no longer kill at ludicrously low %'s just by using his Up-B, Samus's Super Missiles and Charge Shot are once again lethal, and she got her bomb jump back too.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Originally Posted by DakAttack

I doubt hardcore is a word somebody would list while brainstorming words they would associate with the Wii. I sure as hell wouldn't. Dead Space: Extraction would be one of the few hardcore games offered on the less-than-hardcore console.

If the Wii had a cellphone, he'd tell you to call him when you're free. On the other hand, the Xbox 360 and PS3 are at your fscking door asking your mom if you can hang out.

I Know Xbox360 has a few RPGs of interest, but I can't say I've seen anything that blows my mind enough to run out and get a PS3 just yet.

Wii seems to have enough of interest. Punch Out, Zelda, Metroid Prime Trilogy, Mario Galaxy, Sin and Punishment (amoung other VC and Wii Ware titles), Rune Factory and others. Between my DS and that, more than enough to keep me interested for the time being, you know, whenever PS3 actually gets some RPGs worth playing.

[Icemage]

Originally Posted by Omgwtfbbqkitten

I Know Xbox360 has a few RPGs of interest, but I can't say I've seen anything that blows my mind enough to run out and get a PS3 just yet.

Wii seems to have enough of interest. Punch Out, Zelda, Metroid Prime Trilogy, Mario Galaxy, Sin and Punishment (amoung other VC and Wii Ware titles), Rune Factory and others. Between my DS and that, more than enough to keep me interested for the time being, you know, whenever PS3 actually gets some RPGs worth playing.

PS3 has BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger without a horrible default D-Pad. That alone makes it win. /onlyhalfjoking


Icemage

[Feba]

Armi, I know I asked you something similar before, but would you say that Brawl+ is better than melee?

If not, what more would it need?

[Yellow Mage]

Originally Posted by Armando

Despite the Melee-like gameplay, Brawl+ is still more beginner-friendly than Melee

From what I have read about just a few of your complaints about Brawl, that seems to me like saying, "White Mage has more melee capabilities than Black Mage." While technically true, it's not like the latter set a very high bar, anyway.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Originally Posted by Icemage

PS3 has BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger without a horrible default D-Pad. That alone makes it win. /onlyhalfjoking


Icemage

Would you have said that if it had the mighty SIXAXIS controls? I look forward to this being the only franchise Sammy actually does for the next decade while they continue to ruin Sega into the ground with crappy Sonic games.

[Armando]

Originally Posted by Feba

Armi, I know I asked you something similar before, but would you say that Brawl+ is better than melee?

Mmm. That depends on how you look at it. Melee is still more technically demanding. However, the character were very obviously not balanced. Some were downright hopeless (e.g. Roy.) Some people will gladly pay that price in exchange for technically demanding gameplay though - look at Marvel VS Capcom 2. Horribly unbalanced, but terribly deep on a technical and game mechanic level. I would rank them pretty close. There are a few minor technical things that are missing in Brawl+ that people would like back. The biggest one right now would be teching the edge of the stage. I'd have to explain Smash DI first though.

Basically, when you get hit, both characters freeze for a certain amount of time. Nothing special there, most games make use of this for visual effects. It gives attacks that nice "oomph." During this time, if the player that got hit smashes the analog stick in a direction, his character will move a small (but noticeable and life-saving) distance in that direction. This can be done once for each frame the character remains frozen, though even on the hardest-hitting hits, most people will only do it once or twice at most. Anyways, in Melee, if you got hit when going up along the underside of a stage (e.g. Final Destination), you could Smash DI into underside and the game would treat it like a collision - which meant you could save your life by teching the side of the stage. This added a lot of depth and skill to recovering. If you got hit while touching the stage, you could tech it. However, if the opponent waited for you to go over, or simply delayed the timing of his hit to mess with your teching timing, you'd be SOL. But if you tried to space your recovery perfectly so you won't overshoot, he could simply grab on and deny you access. Anyway, the ability to Smash DI into the stage and have it count as a collision was removed, and people want it back.

But those are pretty small things. As it is the core gameplay of Brawl+ approaches what Melee's was before the wavedash was discovered and abused, and before people knew about chaingrabs. Which one is better really just depends on whether you want a more technically demanding game at the expense of balance, or a less technical game with similar gameplay, arguably better balance, and more characters/stages. There's already codes to return the air dodge to how it was in Melee and thus reintroduce wavedashing, but the community won't make it part of Brawl+. Personally I found Melee to be very fun and I'd probably turn on the wavedash code every now and then to get my fix, but I'd rather see the game become deep without that sort of twitch skill involved.

Sadly Melee won't ever be run in a major tournament either, despite being far deeper than vanilla Brawl and being a hell of a lot more fun to watch for that matter, simply because it's a previous iteration of the series. So we're stuck with vanilla Brawl for large-scale events like EVO or MLG.

Originally Posted by Yellow Mage

From what I have read about just a few of your complaints about Brawl, that seems to me like saying, "White Mage has more melee capabilities than Black Mage." While technically true, it's not like the latter set a very high bar, anyway.

You have no idea. I can say from having played Melee competitively that Melee set the bar pretty high on the technical side of things and that actually caused a very large performance chasm between new/casual players and players who had all the techniques under their belt. This might've even been what provoked the heavy-handed nerfing of vanilla Brawl. Look at it this way. Beginners already have a hard time just mastering the short hop in either game. This means letting go of the jump button before your character leaves the ground. You have a 3-4 frame window with most characters to do this.

Now add to that the need to hit L or R up to 8 frames before landing with any aerial attack. Careful! Hit lag (freeze time from hitting) affects this timing. So if you're going to attack with a short hop, you'd have to tap X/Y very quickly; do your aerial; fastfall it; and hit L or R before landing; each and every time. In Brawl+, the last step is automatically "done for you."

Now add to that the wavedash. This involves jumping, and air dodging diagonally within 1-2 frames of leaving the ground (so, you'd have to do this precisely on frames 5 or 6 with most characters.) This can be done forward or backwards, and the distance can be varied by changing the angle of the air dodge (skilled players can make the angle be between the -45 degree mark of the analog stick but below the 0 degree mark consistently.) This one will take you at least a month to learn how to do it consistently, and that doesn't mean you can actually employ it skillfully in combat. This doesn't even exist in Brawl+.

Now add to that learning how to Smash DI into the side of the stage and teching it when recovering.

All of the above things take practice to do but bestow great performance boosts when mastered. A skilled player has all-around superior speed and mobility on top of knowing how to DI most things to his advantage, and how to recover successfully. New players get eaten alive by the big performance difference.

This video is a pretty good example of top level Melee gameplay. Note: Fox and Falco players need to learn how to wavedash immediately after doing a grounded Reflector. The Reflector can be canceled by jumping, which means you can wavedash out of it to remove the lag and follow successful hits up with another attack. Fox and Falco players also had to learn how to spam lasers by short hopping and fastfalling them, since they have no landing lag. This also required a large amount of twitch skill to do repeatedly and consistently.

YouTube - Ken vs Mew2King 1

YouTube - Ken vs Mew2King 1