Super Smash Bros. for 3DS & Wii U Thread 8: Put mii in, coach

Just listened to this...a little shocked by something Sakurai said.

"If we develop the game with the veteran player in mind, our job is easier. The flip side is we reduce the number of people who are enjoying and playing the game."

I just don't understand this mindset.

Dude step out of your bubble. What he said is pretty much Game Design 101. Most developers of games belong to the "hardcore" segment and are usually somewhat familiar, if not deeply familiar, with what that segment of the population wants. However, literally every fighting game developer on the planet struggles with trying to make its games more and more accessible to newer/casual players since they ALWAYS WAY outnumber the other groups. Hell you see this in any game, not just video games, with potential competitive elements. You can't just design a game for yourself. A balance has to be struck and that's hard to do. A good argument can be made that they didn't find the right balance with Brawl. However, there are several reasons why Smash is one of, if not THE, most successful fighting game IP and that's because Sakurai thinks of as much of the audience as possible.

It is a bad opinion honestly, one of the reasons I feel that Sakurai shouldn't be in charge of developing any more Smash games. No one picked up Melee when the game first came out and hated it. EVERYONE loved that fucking game top to bottom, and the competitive community just kept it going for years after.

Balance the game for fun competitive play, drop crazy content, items, and levels. Everyone is happy.

Drop tons of the elements that make Smash the game it is and that tons of people love? Ok here is where the entitlement bullshit comes needs to stop. You sound like the the type of dude who got the put down in the Roundtable.

To be clear to all I know games can be designed to be good at both a competitive and casual level and plenty of the critiques that have been aimed at Brawl are valid and I'm sure a good number of those aimed at Smash 4 are valid but a lot of you guys sound like you really DON'T know how to design games (or at least games intended for a mass-market and a large, diverse audience base)
 
I think a lot of the melee people here, even the wait and see ones, are going to be disappointed when this comes out regardless of what is done because they're going in with a negative mindset and looking for things to be wrong
 
Being able to say "it's still early, the game can still change" isn't the most encouraging thing. I skimmed through most of it quickly, but from what I gathered, that was the gist. I didn't see M3D highlighting any positives, just saying that the game is still in development and we can still offer feedback. Isn't that just reinforcing the notion that the game, as it is now, is flawed? I'm personally not very hopeful for significant changes. At best, slight reduction to aerial lag. But amazing things could always happen.

I agree though that we, as a whole (myself of course included) should be more appreciative of Nintendo reaching out to the community at all.
Yeah, that was my impression. The guy seemed to be in denial
 
Drop tons of the elements that make Smash the game it is and that tons of people love? Ok here is where the entitlement bullshit comes needs to stop. You sound like the the type of dude who got the put down in the Roundtable.

To be clear to all I know games can be designed to be good at both a competitive and casual level and plenty of the critiques that have been aimed at Brawl are valid and I'm sure a good number of those aimed at Smash 4 are valid but a lot of you guys sound like you really DON'T know how to design games (or at least games intended for a mass-market and a large, diverse audience base)

this is the second person to misread this, how could both you and Ryce miss that he was referring to putting crazy content in the game not removing it
 
Just in case anyone is still being a Negative Nancy or worrying about the game:

http://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/27xlt8/im_both_a_melee_veteran_and_a_game_designer_im/

Likewise, Game Tuning is an ongoing process and one that is difficult to get right in early builds. Many of your favorite games (Melee included, I'm sure) has tuning changes right up until the last moment. Yes, Mr. Sakurai stated that he wanted Smash 4 to be somewhere between Melee and Brawl in terms of pacing, but he's still months away from turning in that work. He may have started close to Brawl's tuning numbers and then is dialing up the speed over time to make sure the game feels right. Iteration on game tuning takes time and hopefully watching some of the best players in the world this week will help Mr. Sakurai make some good decisions as he tunes the game going forward.

I pray that this is the case, but the odds of that happening are slightly better than my chances at winning the lottery.

And I have never witnessed any game where you had a playable demo that turned out vastly different from the final product.
 
I've seen the community be pretty venomous to Sakurai. Maybe it's outliers and not representative of the community as a whole, but it definitely exists.

We've seen Sakurai is aware of how people are talking about his games online - too much would be coincidence otherwise. The degree to which he's been cordial after reading what he must have been reading is probably more than I'd be capable of.

Yeah, part of the problem is also the community not criticizing the game correctly. Saying it is trash won't do nothing to make it better in the long term. Communication is an issue of both sides.
 
The game is only months away. They're most likely going to spend most of their time fixing bugs and making sure every stage, every item, every character, what have you is working properly more than prioritizing competitive aspects.

That, and somebody that decided to speak out for the community at a golden opportunity decided to do so pissing off the leader of the project. Don't expect much.
 
I think a lot of the melee people here, even the wait and see ones, are going to be disappointed when this comes out regardless of what is done because they're going in with a negative mindset and looking for things to be wrong

Saying that SSB4 would be between SSBM and SSBB, while in reality being SSBB, and getting upset about it is hardly being nitpicky imo.
 
Yeah, part of the problem is also the community not criticizing the game correctly. Saying it is trash won't do nothing to make it better in the long term. Communication is an issue of both sides.

I think the problem is the community has spent so much time in their own little bubble with very few voices of dissent, escalating and escalating until suddenly Brawl is the worst game of all time and shit like that started to be spewed
 
Skimming this thread, but are people really suggesting that Sakurai would make his own game worse out of spite?

Whatever Sakurai does, he does because he legitimately believes it makes the game better.
 
Saying that SSB4 would be between SSBM and SSBB, while in reality being SSBB, and getting upset about it is hardly being nitpicky imo.
That has nothing to do with what I'm saying at all though. I'm saying people will go into it with the mindset if that that's not true the game is absolute shit. They won't go in with an open mind even if they try to, because you can't really force an open mind.
 
this is the second person to misread this, how could both you and Ryce miss that he was referring to putting crazy content in the game not removing it

I really don't see any other way to interpret what he said and if multiple people are interpreting it that way, perhaps the original author did a shitty job explaining himself? What "crazy content" is Sakurai adding that isn't a concerted effort to add value and fun to the game? What does he even mean then? Interpreting it your way makes what he said more vague and less sensical.
 
Yeah, part of the problem is also the community not criticizing the game correctly. Saying it is trash won't do nothing to make it better in the long term. Communication is an issue of both sides.

I guess it depends on how the reception shakes out from the best buy demo/invitational stuff.

If people come out of here going "I'm really looking forward to this game," Nintendo will probably have considered this outreach a success. If it's "Fuck this game," then Nintendo will probably think the pro-players poisoned the well and they'll retreat to controlled marketing and development again.

To be clear, I am not saying they're right or wrong to do either of those things. But if I were a betting man, I'd say the latter is where I'd put my money.
 

Yeah that confused me

Cool of him not to make a fuss though
this seems important

Bugs. Bugs, Bugs, Bugs. You know what is a really challenging and frustrating experience for any game developer? When you're game is not done, but you have to create a build that is stable enough to demo for outsiders. If you show the build in its current state, your audience will likely only notice the bugs and not the good elements in the game. Lucario has been confirmed, but he wasn't in the demo this weekend. Right? He probably isn't in a stable enough state to share externally at the moment. So what does a developer do to resolve this? They create a special build that has all the troublesome elements turned off so that only the best parts are put on display. For all we know, the DI system is pretty buggy right now and it was just disabled to make sure the experience was solid at E3.
 
Really loving the edge mechanics of this iteration from the Treehouse antics.

Yeah they look really great. Edgehogging is a stupid way to play and the tumbling off the edge just looks really nice and fun. It's a little thing I wouldn't have thought of, but then that's why I don't design games like that heheh.
 
It becomes pretty dickish when some fans start calling Sakurai's talent and passion for making games into question. Not to mention assuming the idea that he hates you because the game doesn't play a certain way.

At that point they should just piss off and go play which ever Smash they prefer.
 
Sakurai is probably fed up with all the "advice". This will be his last Smash Bros game.
I wish he had actually been a little more open to advice. From what I've heard from the invited players, barely any contact was made with Sakurai directly, much less any sort of open dialogue about the game. Seems like a wasted opportunity to pick the brains of some very insightful players. If nothing else, there's data from the tournament I guess. *inb4 ZSS's whip is awful in the final game*
The game is only months away. They're most likely going to spend most of their time fixing bugs and making sure every stage, every item, every character, what have you is working properly more than prioritizing competitive aspects.

That, and somebody that decided to speak out for the community at a golden opportunity decided to do so pissing off the leader of the project. Don't expect much.
Yes. It's so close, no big changes are going to happen. That throws away a lot of the work already done on balancing and debugging. And if the game is still crashing 6 months from release, I'd guess they're in a slight rush? Though that's pure conjecture.

I'm sad that the 'competitive player' who spoke up was such a jerk, but I don't really think the response would have been much different, however the suggestion was framed.
Skimming this thread, but are people really suggesting that Sakurai would make his own game worse out of spite?

Whatever Sakurai does, he does because he legitimately believes it makes the game better.
True, but it's hard to believe sometimes. *tripping rant here*
 
Recap of the fights and smash coverage shown today on the treehouse stream!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6LF-vsV0Qo / Super Smash Bros for Wii U Gameplay #7 - Link v Villager v Wii Fit Trainer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubzheNHLhxY / Super Smash Bros for Wii U Gameplay #8 - Greninja v Little Mac v Sonic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzAyE5P-60w / Super Smash Bros for Wii U Gameplay #9 - Mario v Villager v Pit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bK5A5qmI_qk / Super Smash Bros for Wii U Gameplay #10 - Samus v Villager v Bowser

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=incf0y2IF6s / Super Smash Bros for Wii U Gameplay #11 - Pit v Donkey Kong

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxgnOa-OEY0 / Super Smash Bros for Wii U Gameplay #12 -Fox v Kirby v Mario v Zero Suit Samus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDAtGsDTpro / Super Smash Bros for Wii U Gameplay #13 -Fox v Kirby v Samus v Zero Suit Samus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqeYHZ1P4Rg / Super Smash Bros for Wii U Gameplay #14 -Sonic v Zero Suit Samus v Kirby v Rosalina and Luma

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6or2KjdmwE4 / Super Smash Bros for Wii U Gameplay #15 -Kirby v Zero Suit Samus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoXTMnUNypI / Super Smash Bros for Wii U Gameplay #16 - Wii Fit Trainer v Donkey Kong

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owPcxwCCgvA / Super Smash Bros for Wii U Gameplay #17 - Rosalina and Luma v Little Mac

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCO3kK80-Ik / Super Smash Bros for Wii U Gameplay #18 - Zelda v Mega Man

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhbHMzfribo / Super Smash Bros for Wii U Gameplay #19 - Marth v Pikachu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujhpkfTZXgY / Super Smash Bros for Wii U Gameplay #20 - Marth v Pikachu v Samus v Wii Fit Trainer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzMaC7uO7l8 / Super Smash Bros for Wii U Gameplay #21 - Link v Greninja v Villager v Villager

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr-_qzEjmeE / Super Smash Bros for Wii U Gameplay #22 - Marth v Wii Fit Trainer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qW3-7bdn5as / Super Smash Bros for Wii U Gameplay #23 - Marth v Pikachu
 
I guess it depends on how the reception shakes out from the best buy demo/invitational stuff.

If people come out of here going "I'm really looking forward to this game," Nintendo will probably have considered this outreach a success. If it's "Fuck this game," then Nintendo will probably think the pro-players poisoned the well and they'll retreat to controlled marketing and development again.

To be clear, I am not saying they're right or wrong to do either of those things. But if I were a betting man, I'd say the latter is where I'd put my money.

Yeah, it makes sense. It's hard to find and consider valid criticism in the middle of so much hate.
 
Really loving the edge mechanics of this iteration from the Treehouse antics.

From what I'm hearing, I personally like it. Don't are about auto sweetspot/sort of like.

LAck of ledge grabbing while in helpless state means edgehogging will still somewhat be there.

Ledge stalling leading to auto 0 invincibility is really cool
Switching characters on ledge could be interesting, as I suspect some characters will have an amazing time maneuvering and KOing opponents after moving from ledge
 
man I am so glad I no longer care about anything regarding the current discussion.

I just listened to the audio and I didn't get any "douche" vibes at all. Sounded like a light hearted joke question, Sakurai gave a light hearted joke answer.

Same. It's still funny, but it doesn't come across as blunt as the initial reports made it out to be.
 
I just listened to the audio and I didn't get any "douche" vibes at all. Sounded like a light hearted joke question, Sakurai gave a light hearted joke answer.

Perhaps it was meant as a joke, but at the very least it had obvious undertones. "Haha but not really" kind of thing. I have been around the smash community enough to know that's exactly the kind of thing some of them would say with a straight face.
 
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