[Yellow Mage]

Originally Posted by Armando

You have no idea.

Actually, I know all too well. I've witnessed the Melee competitive scene personally a couple of times before. Those were dark times.

Originally Posted by Armando

I can say from having played Melee competitively that Melee set the bar pretty high

We're not talking about the same bar.

Originally Posted by Yellow Mage

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.

In the example I used, the "melee-capable" bar is analogous to the "new player-friendly bar," White Mage being your Brawl+ and Black Mage being Melee, obviously. My point was, yeah, maybe your Brawl+ is, in fact, much more newbie-friendly than Melee; that wouldn't be exactly what I would call a difficult feat. That's like, of course White Mage can melee better than a Black Mage, every job barring Scholar can melee better than a Black Mage!

You keep mentioning something called "depth" when it comes to fighting games. To me, though, what you see as "depth" I plainly perceive as "height," as if on a mountain. Each new combo, technique, or maneuver to have to become familiar with is just another tall obstacle that I would have the scale in order to reach a level wherein the players who went before me are even visible. And the plateaus, Oh Good Lord the plateaus . . .

Just prove me wrong and show me how "+" doesn't just mean going from one extreme right back to the other again. Removal of the wavedash and auto-L-canceling are both a "good start," but I'm seeing you mention quite a few other things (hit lag and chain-whatever issues aside) being added to the game.

[Armando]

You keep mentioning something called "depth" when it comes to fighting games. To me, though, what you see as "depth" I plainly perceive as "height," as if on a mountain. Each new combo, technique, or maneuver to have to become familiar with is just another tall obstacle that I would have the scale in order to reach a level wherein the players who went before me are even visible. And the plateaus, Oh Good Lord the plateaus . . .

Spare me. Depth is a necessary "evil" (I don't view it as such) for a game to retain its allure. Nobody plays Rock/Paper/Scissors competitively because there's no way for you to gain an edge over the opponent. And someone who won't put effort into getting better (which is not something I would fault someone for; no one is under obligation to master every game they have an interest in, play with others, or own) shouldn't complain about being disadvantaged in a competitive game. The same could be said of any game that pits one player against another, like, say, Mario Kart. You have options. 1) Improve. If not, 2) find people of your current skill level. If not, 3) find people who aren't total asshats and won't rip you to shreds mercilessly when you have no hope of defending against them at your current skill. Hell, if there's only one asshat in the group you and your buddies could gang up on him. But don't whine about not being able to compete with better players. If you don't want to improve then accept the fact that you'll lose against someone that's better. Melee was too harsh for newbies, but when you generalize the argument to all fighters, it just looks like you want to win without having to practice.

Brawl+ is newbie friendly because it doesn't require you to ingrain precise and difficult button sequences into your muscle memory just to be able to employ all of the game's mechanics. There is no wavedash, and that was certainly a tremendous barrier for new players. There is no L-cancel; that also gave new players headaches, as they already had their hands full just trying to combine short hops and fastfalls when attacking. There are no jump-canceled grabs, or chaingrabs that make use of them, so that's one less technical thing to learn, and you don't have to feel dirty for resorting to that sort of thing to be able to compete with your character. And most importantly, opponents at a higher skill level than you won't be playing with greatly enhanced comboability or maneuverability just because they've been around the block longer and memorized all the hard button sequences. Unlike Melee, there are no special button sequences behind the Brawl+ videos I linked. Everything is as straightforward as can be.

Just because the game doesn't require complex button presses and is newbie-friendly, that doesn't mean it's just going to hand victory over to you in a silver platter. Just like in Mario Kart, knowledge and experience separates the new from the veterans.

[Yellow Mage]

Originally Posted by Armando

And someone who won't put effort into getting better (which is not something I would fault someone for; no one is under obligation to master every game they have an interest in, play with others, or own) shouldn't complain about being disadvantaged in a competitive game.

The thing about that is, when it comes to me and a fighting game, I generally strive to put effort and practice in to just being able to function. That's one thing that has appealed to me about Smash Bros. over every other fighting game: there is no Left Right Right Jab Forward-Down Backward-Down Tap-Kick Press-Kick (there's a difference!) Jump Left just to activate some sort of stance thing that is supposed to allow you to then do Back Down Jump Backwards-Down Hold-Punch Tap-Punch-while-walking-forward (and not running, or else nothing happens!) and make the screen go all flashy somehow or something, I'd never know. There's just the basic set of fighting moves everyone has, B, Up-B, Down-B, and Melee-onward Side-B.

But now you're showering me with all these new mechanics and techniques that the game manual had no way of warning me about? (Granted, a sort of an obsolete argument for Brawl+ considering all the changes made are plainly listed.) You're mistaken: I don't want victory on a silver platter, I want not being completely and utterly destroyed . . . on a bronze platter! If I lose but still have fun doing so (tends to happen when my opponent is A: capable and B: not controlling both of our characters at the same time), then the game has served its purpose regardless.

And ignore my above two paragraphs, this conversation ended the moment you brought Mario Kart in to it. D=

[Armando]

But now you're showering me with all these new mechanics and techniques that the game manual had no way of warning me about? (Granted, a sort of an obsolete argument for Brawl+ considering all the changes made are plainly listed.)

In all fairness, Melee's instruction booklet doesn't warn you that you can (and should) L-Cancel, or that you can crouch out of a dash, or even that you can influence the angle at which you're launched by attacks. Yet these are all core gameplay mechanics (well, crouch out of dash not so much, but it didn't break anything. Most games give you more options out of a dash than a single attack.)

The only way I can really convince you is for you to try it out yourself. Despite the size of the changelist, it doesn't play radically different from standard Smash Bros gameplay. It just brings back things Brawl removed, or changes variables Brawl set to too high or too low.

[Tickmeoff]

Originally Posted by Armando

[Ken video]

God damn, I haven't seen Ken play in a long time. Seems like he kind of fell out of the scene after he went on Survivor.

Also, Brawl did manage one good thing: Rolling onto the stage from a ledge no longer leaves that ledge unavailable for a lot longer than it should be.

[Icemage]

Originally Posted by Omgwtfbbqkitten

Would you have said that if it had the mighty SIXAXIS controls?

Certainly not. ;-)

The only thing SixAxis tilt seems good for is gliding-type mechanics on PS3 (Ratchet and Clank), or particularly violent reactions (shaking off enemy grabs in Resistance). Everywhere else it feels rather tacky.

But I'll take the PS3 D-Pad 100 times out of 100 times over what the Xbox 360 offers (or what any of the official Nintendo controllers offer, as well), and that's the most important control element in a 2D fighter.

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.

Probably.


Icemage

[Armando]

Also, Brawl did manage one good thing: Rolling onto the stage from a ledge no longer leaves that ledge unavailable for a lot longer than it should be.

Yeah. That, and being able to jump facing backwards after running forward.

Edit: Hot damn Ganon is evil now.

YouTube - [Brawl+] GANON HAND Music Video

YouTube - [Brawl+] GANON HAND Music Video

[Yellow Mage]

Impressive.

[Kailea]

Well I just installed Brawl + and messed with it for a little......OMG awesome ;p and its funny when I was looking for what I needed and the instruction, just to make sure I was doing it right, I found alot of QQing on gamefaqs about how "brawl+ is stupid" lol

but really, you can read the change notes all you want, but wont really be amazed until you try it.