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[Lunar15]

Competitive, noncompetitive -- such labels miss the point.

I just want to feel like I'm in control.

I could be playing the game with zero fucks given about winning, I could be playing in a party setting and "just for fun," but you know what? Random shit occurring and interrupting the actions you're trying to carry out isn't fun. Losing sight of your character amid a hailstorm of flashing shit onscreen isn't fun. It can be, sometimes, but often it's just irritating.

That's why I usually like to turn items off. It's nothing elitist about being "competitive" or any such thing. It's just that when I play, even casually, and just to party, it's only fun when I feel like I'm doing what I intend to do. You can play, with no concern about winning whatsoever, and still have more fun when the focus is on zoning, anticipation, attacking and evading.

Generally this is how I feel about it. I'm not a competitive smash player by any means, but my friends and I usually turn off items and stage gimmicks after a while.

However, I feel that this is less the issue. There's always been the option to remove randomness from the game. It's more the game speed and defensive/offensive nature that causes the divide.

 

[Beelzebufo]

Sakurai is apparently terrified of someone good at the game being able to beat someone worse at the game due to being more skilled/knowledgeable about it.

Apparently that's supposed to be a bad thing.

And even that hasn't changed haha. I can still beat my little cousin at Brawl, it's just not as fun for me haha

 

[TreIII]

If you play Pokemon, I would compare it to IV breeding. It won't make a difference ever unless you play very competitively.

And that's the thing I'll never quite understand when it comes to Sakurai's way of thinking for Smash.

Now-a-days, PKMN has done a decent enough job being able to cater to both sides of the argument, without really going out of their way to jeopardize one side's enjoyment. For that matter, BW2 and XY have done their best to try and open the doors to the metagame, for those that are interested.

I was honestly hoping Smash would have gone down a similar path by now.

 

[Moonlight]

go into detail at least then

because honestly I don't know what you're talking about

It's the difference between what makes Mario a good platformer and LBP a bad platformer. SSB is a game where movement and movement options are possibly the most important thing, precisely because you're expected to be moving all the time. Platformers should be responsive and you should move like you expect you should. Melee gave you tons of options in this respect. Even putting aside 'accidental features' like wavedashing, the game gave you more than enough movement options to get around the stage, and L-cancelling, as much as I disliked the principle of it, minimized the amount of time you were left doing 'nothing' for a second or two because of the landing lag on an aerial (like Link's Down-A). I can't really speak for most of the specific differences in terms of the technical aspects, but Brawl got rid of a lot of the fluidity in the movement - there was no more momentum conservation in jumps (the biggest casualty IMO), characters moved and felt a little floatier, and there was, of course, tripping.

Landing lag itself is basically the amount of time you're left 'stuck' to the ground and unable to do anything after performing a certain move. To take Link's Down-A again, whiffing it means that Link plants his sword in the ground and has to take a bit of time to yank it out and return to 'neutral' stage again where he can do anything else. From a competitive standpoint, it's bad for a lot of reasons, making aerials punishable (so pushing the risk/reward balance more towards risk) and making aerial follow-ups (like Marth's forward-air carry) impossible, because there would be no way to follow up with the 'lag', if it's too long, and your opponent would be able to get out.

From a more casual standpoint, the risk/reward ratio in using that stuff doesn't really change, since missed air attacks (probably like 50% of what you do in an average Smash game) mean a lot of accumulated time 'sticking' to the ground unable to do what you want. It just doesn't 'feel' very good. It makes things feel, I dunno, syrupy.

It's ultimately one of those 'invisible' aspects of the game that no one without any investment will ever particularly notice, sort of like how there's a bunch of CoD players with absolutely no idea what '60 fps' means, but still insist that the game 'feels' better to play than its' contemporaries.

Concerns about landing lag and movement ultimately aren't just purely for the benefit of the competitive community. They're something you can always feel even if you can't precisely define it.

 

[The Great Gonzales]

I'm gonna disagree partially. Brawl's items, such as the Smash Ball, Dragoon Parts, leagues of Assist Trophies and Pokeballs where the effects aren't immediate, smokeballs, stickers, and CDs that do nothing, and an increased amount of faulty hammers make it harder to play casually than Melee, because it'll require a casual player to learn what those items are. Melee, on the other hand, doesn't really have items that's effects aren't immediate. So if you're going to just play casually with items on, Melee's the better game, in my opinion. L-cancelling and wavedashing won't affect playing in a casual style enough to make the game unenjoyable, whereas getting items that work much better if you know their use will.

Casual =/= bad, uninformed, or mashing buttons randomly. I'm a casual player through and through, but I'd say I have a very good understanding of how all the items and stages work. There is, it seems to me, a common misconception around here that a game that's "casual," or not competitively viable, therefore lacks depth and strategy. But that's not true; the depth just runs along a different axis. Rather than learning advanced techniques, or matchups, or frames, it's about learning how to work with the environment and all the random stuff the game throws at you. It's about learning how to turn that randomness to your favor. Things like "indirect" items or defective hammers force you to think a little more carefully about how you use them: should I pick up that hammer to try to get a quick KO, knowing that the head might fall off and leave me completely vulnerable? I've thrown down a Gulpin here, now how do I get my opponent into him? etc.

I don't mean to denigrate competitive play and glorify casual play; I'm simply saying that a casual game doesn't necessarily lack depth. It's just a different kind of depth.

You can't give out a link to websites or threads with scans because it's a bannable offense.

Out of curiosity, why are scans banned?

 

[Lunar15]

Sakurai is apparently terrified of someone good at the game being able to beat someone worse at the game due to being more skilled/knowledgeable about it.

Apparently that's supposed to be a bad thing.

I think it's less this and more, "I don't want people to not play the game because they feel like they can't pull off all the advanced techniques."

Is this sound logic, I don't think so... to a point. I personally avoid a lot of fighting games mostly because I know I won't be able to get anywhere near adequate enough with the techniques to feel satisfied with playing the game. This stigma probably kills a lot of fighting game sales. This is the stigma he wants to avoid.

All this being said, I much prefer Melee to brawl, for most of the reasons brought up by Moonlight above. It just feels better, even if I don't understand all of the mechanics behind why it feels better. Most people I talk to (warning: ancedotal evidence) feel the same too, and they know less about these games than I do. You just have far more control over your character.

 

[JavelinRobin]

The Melee babies who whine over each game not being tuned to their specs are fantastic. If you only play without items, play only stages with no hazards and complain about land lag et all, you are playing the antithesis of the game's intended purpose. Argue against that all you want, but that's the truth.

 

[JoeInky]

And that's the thing I'll never quite understand when it comes to Sakurai's way of thinking for Smash.

Now-a-days, PKMN has done a decent enough job being able to cater to both sides of the argument, without really going out of their way to jeopardize one side's enjoyment. For that matter, BW2 and XY have done their best to try and open the doors to the metagame, for those that are interested.

I was honestly hoping Smash would have gone down a similar path by now.

Never going to happen when you have Sakurai saying things like:

"Smash Bros. is supposed to be a game for players who can't keep up with those types of mechanics"

And

"I have to make it so that people who aren't used to videogames see/experience the same things as gamers"

 

[Neiteio]

The Melee babies who whine over each game not being tuned to their specs are fantastic. If you only play without items, play only stages with no hazards and complain about land lag et all, you are playing the antithesis of the game's intended purpose. Argue against that all you want, but that's the truth.

To be fair, Sakurai includes the ability to turn off items and fight on featureless stages like Final Destination (now available for every level) for a reason. He may have an idea of how he likes to play it, but he still lets people custom-tailor the experience to their liking. There's no "one" way to play Smash, and that goes both ways.

 

["D"]

Competitive, noncompetitive -- such labels miss the point.

I just want to feel like I'm in control.

I could be playing the game with zero fucks given about winning, I could be playing in a party setting and "just for fun," but you know what? Random shit occurring and interrupting the actions you're trying to carry out isn't fun. Losing sight of your character amid a hailstorm of flashing shit onscreen isn't fun. It can be, sometimes, but often it's just irritating.

That's why I usually like to turn items off. It's nothing elitist about being "competitive" or any such thing. It's just that when I play, even casually, and just to party, it's only fun when I feel like I'm doing what I intend to do. You can play, with no concern about winning whatsoever, and still have more fun when the focus is on zoning, anticipation, attacking and evading.

I agree with this in the spirit of having options. Sure, I could learn how to master L-Canceling and Wavedashing cause I do know how to perform them, but not effectively having access to them or performing them in battle doesn't make or break anything for me cause I can still fight and have fun and win matches without them in a non-tourney setting.

I really think it boils down to what you want from the game and how you personally intend to play it. If you play it mainly or even strictly for the competitive-tournament aspects then it may leave a bit to be desired if it isn't like Melee where you have an arsenal of high-level abilities at your disposal. If you're someone like me that strictly plays with friends and the CPU then that shit doesn't matter at all lol. My friends and I know all about the upper level techniques but we don't use them cause its not that serious when we play.

We have fun just playing the characters as they are "originally intended". I WILL say we turn items off especially Smash Balls cause we have like a "men of the earth" kinda code of honor thing going....fight with the tools you have in your character moveset instead of camping for a high powered item spawn. And Smash Balls get absolutely annoying when that one character that gets it has a ridiculously long Final Smash animation or an annoying one. It just slows the pace of the game down for us lol

 

[BGBW]

39% of Melee players do not pronounce melee correctly.

 

[Moonlight]

The Melee babies who whine over each game not being tuned to their specs are fantastic. If you only play without items, play only stages with no hazards and complain about land lag et all, you are playing the antithesis of the game's intended purpose. Argue against that all you want, but that's the truth.

with items and with stage hazards is of course, the only way to play smash

which is, of course, why every smash game has the option to toggle items and has stages with no hazards

 

[Toxi]

The Melee babies who whine over each game not being tuned to their specs are fantastic. If you only play without items, play only stages with no hazards and complain about land lag et all, you are playing the antithesis of the game's intended purpose. Argue against that all you want, but that's the truth.

I'm so sorry I play Pokeballs on high with no other items turned on and 200% gravity. I'm truly playing the antithesis of the game's intended purpose.

Spoiler

Seriously, fuck you. You're given options to customize the game for a reason. Unless you play with no stocks in a time battle for 2 minutes, you're not playing "the way the game is intended to play".

 

[udivision]

The Melee babies who whine over each game not being tuned to their specs are fantastic. If you only play without items, play only stages with no hazards and complain about land lag et all, you are playing the antithesis of the game's intended purpose. Argue against that all you want, but that's the truth.

Why is there even an item switch?
How come you can choose stages?
Stock or Time or Coin or Points?
Team or FFA?
Up to 4 Players?

Is it me, or does it seem like Smash encourages playing how you want to play.

 

[Hatchtag]

Casual =/= bad, uninformed, or mashing buttons randomly. I'm a casual player through and through, but I'd say I have a very good understanding of how all the items and stages work. There is, it seems to me, a common misconception around here that a game that's "casual," or not competitively viable, therefore lacks depth and strategy. But that's not true; the depth just runs along a different axis. Rather than learning advanced techniques, or matchups, or frames, it's about learning how to work with the environment and all the random stuff the game throws at you. It's about learning how to turn that randomness to your favor. Things like "indirect" items or defective hammers force you to think a little more carefully about how you use them: should I pick up that hammer to try to get a quick KO, knowing that the head might fall off and leave me completely vulnerable? I've thrown down a Gulpin here, now how do I get my opponent into him? etc.

I don't mean to denigrate competitive play and glorify casual play; I'm simply saying that a casual game doesn't necessarily lack depth. It's just a different kind of depth.



Out of curiosity, why are scans banned?

I'm not claiming to be competitive, or claiming being casual means you're misinformed. However, I am saying that it's harder to immediately understand how an item is beneficial in Brawl than it is in Melee, and for that reason, I think Melee's the better game for casual, items-on play.

The Melee babies who whine over each game not being tuned to their specs are fantastic. If you only play without items, play only stages with no hazards and complain about land lag et all, you are playing the antithesis of the game's intended purpose. Argue against that all you want, but that's the truth.

The game's a sandbox and you're supposed to be able to play the way you desire to play. Sakurai designs his games that way, that you can play them in many different ways. Smash is no different. A lot of people have fun with competitive play and choose to play it that way.

 

[Neiteio]

Out of curiosity, why are scans banned?

It's a form of piracy. Magazines are paid products meant to be purchased. If you post scans, less people will buy the magazine.

 

[Lunar15]

I think some people are missing the point. It isn't really about options, the series has always had those.

It's about the physics of the game. The speed of the characters, the tightness of the control. Melee isn't more popular with the competitive crowd just because of the "advanced techniques". It's more popular with them because it simply allows for more control and finesse. Everyone, from the best player in the world to the worst player in the world, can probably feel this in one way or another, even if they don't feel that it affects them that much.

 

[PadWarrior]

Thread is turning into smashboards again lol

 

[IntelliHeath]

Out of curiosity, why are scans banned?

I'm not sure but from what I heard from other members is that the companies send the owner of NeoGAF the complaints about scans being passed around here. I could be wrong tho.

 

[Mr. Smiley]

It's a form of piracy. Magazines are paid products meant to be purchased. If you post scans, less people will buy the magazine.

I always thought it was because they were easily faked.

 

[Pop-O-Matic]

Thread is turning into smashboards again lol

When isn't it Smashboards?

 

[JavelinRobin]

I'm so sorry I play Pokeballs on high with no other items turned on and 200% gravity. I'm truly playing the antithesis of the game's intended purpose.

Spoiler

Seriously, fuck you. You're given options to customize the game for a reason. Unless you play with no stocks in a time battle for 2 minutes, you're not playing "the way the game is intended to play".

Hiding the "fuck you" part of your post doesn't make it less douchey. Regardless how you feel about my comment, that's probably not necessary, yeah?

I get what you're all saying and hey, absolutely play how you want. Whatever floats your boat/beat of your own drum/all of that. I'm only saying that the Smash Bros series is, as we've been told time and time again from the man himself, a party game for people to play for fun. The obsessiveness with the deeper points Melee had go against that. Is that so wrong to say?

 

[Neiteio]

I always thought it was because they were easily faked.

Think of it this way: If every issue of, say, Game Informer was scanned and posted each month on GAF, why would you subscribe to Game Informer?

 

[GenG3000]

Smash Bros. shouldn't have L-cancel for the same reason it doesn't have complex inputs like quarter circles. They are unnecesary entry barriers that may add a certain degree of exhilaration to the battles but not actual depth, since they offer no alternative to not doing them consistently.

Lag cancel should be adjusted individually for each air attack and it would be really nice if they could implement something like cancelling all lag during a number of frames after hitting with it (ie Captain Falcon's stomp having normal lag when missing or hitting the shield, but canceled lag when scoring a hit).

 

[Exotoro]

When isn't it Smashboards?

when we're laughing at smashboards

 

[JoeInky]

Hiding the "fuck you" part of your post doesn't make it less douchey. Regardless how you feel about my comment, that's probably not necessary, yeah?

I get what you're all saying and hey, absolutely play how you want. Whatever floats your boat/beat of your own drum/all of that. I'm only saying that the Smash Bros series is, as we've been told time and time again from the man himself, a party game for people to play for fun. The obsessiveness with the deeper points Melee had go against that. Is that so wrong to say?

Oh okay, I forgot that I wasn't playing to have fun whenever I played melee competitively with friends.

My bad, I was just playing the game wrong!

Smash Bros. shouldn't have L-cancel for the same reason it doesn't have complex inputs like quarter circles. They are unnecesary entry barriers that may add a certain degree of exhilaration to the battles but not actual depth, since they offer no alternative to not doing them consistently.

Lag cancel should be adjusted individually to each air attack and it would be really nice if they could implement something like cancelling all lag during a number of frames after hitting with it (ie Captain Falcon's stomp having normal lag when missing or hitting the shield, but canceled lag when scoring a hit).

This is what I'm always suggesting.


It's such a fucking brilliant idea that I'm not surprised it's not going to be included.

 

[Kyzon]

The Melee babies who whine over each game not being tuned to their specs are fantastic. If you only play without items, play only stages with no hazards and complain about land lag et all, you are playing the antithesis of the game's intended purpose. Argue against that all you want, but that's the truth.

Quite possibly the worst post I've seen in all of 2014. Why would there be options included in game to get rid of that if it's against the game's intended purpose. Brawl and Sm4sh are intended to be played how you want (within Sakurai's intended mobility restrictions).

There's no wrong way to play a smash game, just different ways to play.

 

[Hatchtag]

Hiding the "fuck you" part of your post doesn't make it less douchey. Regardless how you feel about my comment, that's probably not necessary, yeah?

I get what you're all saying and hey, absolutely play how you want. Whatever floats your boat/beat of your own drum/all of that. I'm only saying that the Smash Bros series is, as we've been told time and time again from the man himself, a party game for people to play for fun. The obsessiveness with the deeper points Melee had go against that. Is that so wrong to say?

Well, to be fair, you're grouping people who play competitive Smash together, calling them babies, and then saying that a game is meant to be played in a specific way, while making fun of them for wanting the game to be played in a specific way (which is kind of ironic).

 

[Mr. Smiley]

Think of it this way: If every issue of, say, Game Informer was scanned and posted each month on GAF, why would you subscribe to Game Informer?

Gaf doesn't do this already and I still don't need GI.

But I get your point. Same thing that happens with anime and manga.

 

[peanutbutterlatte]

He's not disconfirmed yet!

I really thought there would be a eShop rep, really weird if there wasn't but it doesn't look likely. Mallo and Tempo are the only two left. (And they, along with Dillon were the most likely...hhhmm...)

Tempo would be great if his game had been a little bit more popular, but I guess we're already getting a rhythm rep in the Chorus guys.

 

[Not75Drops]

39% of Melee players do not pronounce melee correctly.

It's that announcer's fault. Seriously. He also says a number of the characters' names in a really weird way or just incorrectly

 

[Toxi]

Hiding the "fuck you" part of your post doesn't make it less douchey. Regardless how you feel about my comment, that's probably not necessary, yeah?

I get what you're all saying and hey, absolutely play how you want. Whatever floats your boat/beat of your own drum/all of that. I'm only saying that the Smash Bros series is, as we've been told time and time again from the man himself, a party game for people to play for fun. The obsessiveness with the deeper points Melee had go against that. Is that so wrong to say?

Calling people "Melee babies" is douchey. Don't want douchiness, don't act like a douche.

If you've been paying attention to the conversation, people are basically just asking for a game that's more comfortable and smooth to play. I don't think L-canceling should be in that game, but I understand why it's come up.

It's that announcer's fault. Seriously. He also says a number of the characters' names in a really weird way or just incorrectly

I can't fault him for being amazing.

 

[Kyzon]

He's not disconfirmed yet!

I really thought there would be a eShop rep, really weird if there wasn't but it doesn't look likely. Mallo and Tempo are the only two left. (And they, along with Dillon were the most likely...hhhmm...)

Don't forget Sakura Samurai

 

[The Bankslammer]

i like videogames that are fun and in which i can see consistent improvement through practice

i get that whole argument about "the better player only winning most of the time and not all the time" because we've all been in situations where you play with someone who just gets so pissed off because they keep losing and it's no fun for anyone but
isn't that what customization options like items are for

Spoiler

also whiny babbies losing in videogames should stop

 

[Mr. Smiley]

It's that announcer's fault. Seriously. He also says a number of the characters' names in a really weird way or just incorrectly

"Madiooooooo"

"Bettle Royal"

 

[Moonlight]

There's this bizarre paradox where there's a big group of people who insist that they don't care about landing lag or whatever yet at the same time viciously push back against any suggestion that it's not perfect because they're wrong and it's fine

 

[Hatchtag]

There's this bizarre paradox where there's a big group of people who insist that they don't care about landing lag or whatever yet at the same time viciously push back against any suggestion that it's not perfect because it's wrong

Who is this big group of people, and what suggestions are they pushing back? Is it Ridley?

 

[emb]

Competitive, noncompetitive -- such labels miss the point.

I just want to feel like I'm in control.

I could be playing the game with zero fucks given about winning, I could be playing in a party setting and "just for fun," but you know what? Random shit occurring and interrupting the actions you're trying to carry out isn't fun. Losing sight of your character amid a hailstorm of flashing shit onscreen isn't fun. It can be, sometimes, but often it's just irritating.

That's why I usually like to turn items off. It's nothing elitist about being "competitive" or any such thing. It's just that when I play, even casually, and just to party, it's only fun when I feel like I'm doing what I intend to do. You can play, with no concern about winning whatsoever, and still have more fun when the focus is on zoning, anticipation, attacking and evading.

Good post. I think no matter who is playing or how, they do in fact want to feel in control. Everyone is playing to have fun, whether winning is part of it or not.

The problem comes in when developers try to design the game such that players that don't know how to play can feel in control. In and of itself that isn't bad I guess, but it seems like Smash Bros. has been trying to achieve this by taking away control from the opposing players.

Oh, it does matter a lot at the competitive level, don't get me wrong. But in a casual environment, if some people walk into a dorm room, or someone's mom wants to play with them, they're not going to feel like they're seriously gimping themselves by not knowing what an L-cancel is. Whereas, if someone else gets a Smashball and knows what to do with it, and then they get one and they waste theirs because they have no idea what it does, they're gonna feel kinda bummed.

I'm also in the party for not having L-cancels back, though. Just make aerials less laggy. Playing Project M online, it feels cheap when someone L-cancels a lot of the time, because the lag from playing online makes l-cancelling feel almost dependent on luck.

I guess we're more of less on the same page then.

Casual =/= bad, uninformed, or mashing buttons randomly. I'm a casual player through and through, but I'd say I have a very good understanding of how all the items and stages work. There is, it seems to me, a common misconception around here that a game that's "casual," or not competitively viable, therefore lacks depth and strategy. But that's not true; the depth just runs along a different axis. Rather than learning advanced techniques, or matchups, or frames, it's about learning how to work with the environment and all the random stuff the game throws at you. It's about learning how to turn that randomness to your favor. Things like "indirect" items or defective hammers force you to think a little more carefully about how you use them: should I pick up that hammer to try to get a quick KO, knowing that the head might fall off and leave me completely vulnerable? I've thrown down a Gulpin here, now how do I get my opponent into him? etc.

I don't mean to denigrate competitive play and glorify casual play; I'm simply saying that a casual game doesn't necessarily lack depth. It's just a different kind of depth.

I think when talking about casual play, there are a couple of meanings that are being interwoven. One being the style of play that embraces randomness, favors unpredictable and funny situations. Another meaning would be casual as in playing rarely, without much effort, and without any concern for results/winning. Both get thrown around as antonyms for 'competitive', but only the second actually is at all.

It's sort of strange for me to think about Smash in a non-competitive way. By nature it's usually set up as players fighting one another. We can play co op against computers (and these days do it in single players modes too), but the heart of the game is still putting one mind against another. You can kill with Pokeballs and hammers, or chain grabs and edgehogs, but it all seems like different styles of the same thing to me.

 

[JazzmanZ]

There's this other bizarre Paradox where both sides of the Competiv/Casual coin need to speak their mind as if they're the proper ones.

 

[FUNKNOWN iXi]

Have you ever played Smash 64? Did you L-cancel while playing? Did you feel like you were at a disadvantage?

Smash 64 is the perfect example to use when people say being able to cancel 100% of landing lag would be broken.

never played smash 64

You should try it sometime :]

 

[JavelinRobin]

Oh okay, I forgot that I wasn't playing to have fun whenever I played melee competitively with friends.

My bad, I was just playing the game wrong!

Ha, what? Did you miss the "play how you want" part of that post? All the defensiveness isn't necessary.

Who the hell am I to tell anyone how to play or do literally anything? I'm not saying that at all and if that's how it came across, my bad. Not my intention.

IF Smash was being designed for a hardcore fighting crowd, don't you think they would've actually gone to the hardcore players and gotten input? And that would've been fine! Because that would've been the goal of the game. But I think that ultimately, if you boil the game down to its purest mission statement, it aims to be an accessible, party-esque game where anyone can pull off some ridiculous comeback in a number of different ways and have a good time.

I'm not trying to poo poo the competitive scene. It's super impressive. But I've seen people who cry out "There's no hope for this game! It's not like Melee!" and that, in my eyes, is dumb.

 

[Tripon]

You know, somebody with access to this scan that people are arguing about, can you just crop the translation and post it somewhere. That'll should be fine for GAF.

 

[PadWarrior]

Anyone watching the Hyrule direct tonight?

 

[Revven]

It's the difference between what makes Mario a good platformer and LBP a bad platformer. SSB is a game where movement and movement options are possibly the most important thing, precisely because you're expected to be moving all the time. Platformers should be responsive and you should move like you expect you should. Melee gave you tons of options in this respect. Even putting aside 'accidental features' like wavedashing, the game gave you more than enough movement options to get around the stage, and L-cancelling, as much as I disliked the principle of it, minimized the amount of time you were left doing 'nothing' for a second or two because of the landing lag on an aerial (like Link's Down-A). I can't really speak for most of the specific differences in terms of the technical aspects, but Brawl got rid of a lot of the fluidity in the movement - there was no more momentum conservation in jumps (the biggest casualty IMO), characters moved and felt a little floatier, and there was, of course, tripping.

Landing lag itself is basically the amount of time you're left 'stuck' to the ground and unable to do anything after performing a certain move. To take Link's Down-A again, whiffing it means that Link plants his sword in the ground and has to take a bit of time to yank it out and return to 'neutral' stage again where he can do anything else. From a competitive standpoint, it's bad for a lot of reasons, making aerials punishable (so pushing the risk/reward balance more towards risk) and making aerial follow-ups (like Marth's forward-air carry) impossible, because there would be no way to follow up with the 'lag', if it's too long, and your opponent would be able to get out.

From a more casual standpoint, the risk/reward ratio in using that stuff doesn't really change, since missed air attacks (probably like 50% of what you do in an average Smash game) mean a lot of accumulated time 'sticking' to the ground unable to do what you want. It just doesn't 'feel' very good. It makes things feel, I dunno, syrupy.

It's ultimately one of those 'invisible' aspects of the game that no one without any investment will ever particularly notice, sort of like how there's a bunch of CoD players with absolutely no idea what '60 fps' means, but still insist that the game 'feels' better to play than its' contemporaries.

Concerns about landing lag and movement ultimately aren't just purely for the benefit of the competitive community. They're something you can always feel even if you can't precisely define it.

And here is a helpful gif to show the big difference between what no l-canceling does and what l-canceling does for Link's Dair.

Just to help illustrate it better. It's fine for this particular move to have a lot of landing lag and it still does even when you L-Cancel it -- but in certain instances L-Canceling can make it safer than if you didn't L-Cancel it.

The problem comes about when something like Link's neutral air has more landing lag than the previous games (this isn't something that's actually true in Smash 4, just an example). Something like Link's neutral air having low landing lag in all three Smash games, allowing Link to use it safely low to the ground (usually, although it can be punishable in certain circumstances). If I were to point out an aerial that we know is laggier (or looks laggier, at least) than the previous game, it would be Sonic's back air. From what I've noticed, it looks like it has way more landing lag than it did in Brawl (which to be fair, in Brawl, it already had a decent amount to begin with). Making one of Sonic's decent KO options even harder to fish for safely low to the ground isn't good for the character who already has trouble netting KOs even in Brawl.

Common approach options being weakened in safety make for a less offensive based game. That's what people don't like about the idea of there being more landing lag for aerials than usual. Again, something like Link's Dair is fine to have over 50 frames of landing lag (or whatever it usually has) but something like Sonic's Bair shouldn't even go anywhere beyond like 25 frames of landing lag (not saying it does, just a decent line to draw based on other character's aerials).

 

[JoeInky]

You know, somebody with access to this scan that people are arguing about, can you just crop the translation and post it somewhere. That'll should be fine for GAF.

I can do that now, providing this isn't a bait to try and screw someone over.

Is it allowed?

 

[Mr. Smiley]

Anyone watching the Hyrule direct tonight?

Of course. But not for Smash reasons.

 

[Makai]

Come on, guys.

 

[Lunar15]

I think the worst conceit one could make is thinking that people who prefer melee think that melee is the end all be all of competitive smash. This couldn't be further from the truth. People want a new game, but also want it retain more of the speed and offensive nature of melee.

I still loved brawl; I played it for hundreds, if not hours. Brawl's roster is fantastic, I love both Ike and ZSS, which makes it so hard to go back to Melee. However, it's just a much more defensively oriented game. It never feels quite right, on a personal level that is. Your mileage may vary. But that's cool, play the game you want to play.

 

[VandalD]

Anyone watching the Hyrule direct tonight?

I would if I had a WiiU. Hyrule Warriors looks like my kind of game. Not expecting anything Smash related.

 

[Tripon]

I can do that now, providing this isn't a bait to try and screw someone over.

Is it allowed?

Just type it up if you're that paranoid.