Masahiro Sakurai: The Act of Balancing Smash

Nah just an observation. It doesn't even have to be about PM, it's just that it's easier to make an example out of them. It is true that rather than containing their stuff in their games (i.e. keep Melee stuff in Melee) they seem to force the aspects of one game to the other, which is my point.
I think your observation would make sense if PMs goal was to replace brawl, but do you not see why people might want to play a game with brawls roster, stages, graphics, etc. with melee mechanics. This isn't unique to melee, many devs mod games to make it more like previous games, skyrim mods etc. Its just that wii was broken to hell and easily modable and PM became popular that it seems special.
 
I have come to grips with reality in regards to smash. When my wife and I sit and intensely play 1v1 we just don't get that balanced competitive focus we desire. Someone always end up immensely frustrated due to a particular character or design oddity.

We probably won't bother with the franchise going forward.
 

Wat

I posted a picture where Sakurai Himself said wavedashing was left in. It was not a mechanic. I'm not sure im getting your point.

It's an exploit, just like exploit you find on website. Or are you gonna tell me now that those holes are also intentional so hackers can have some fun with them?
 
I think your observation would make sense if PMs goal was to replace brawl, but do you not see why people might want to play a game with brawls roster, stages, graphics, etc. with melee mechanics. This isn't unique to melee, many devs mod games to make it more like previous games, skyrim mods etc. Its just that wii was broken to hell and easily modable and PM became popular that it seems special.

and you miss again my point on why I brought it up

yes yes it's their right, etc. but that's not the idea on why I gave it an example - that the community is homogenized to follow one style of gameplay rather than branch out as seen in SF, and hilariously enough it's the only community I've seen so mar to have hyperbolic, dramatic comments about the whole shit

hell, even in Pokemon you still see people who prefer Gen V meta over VI, and you still have people who prefer XY meta (like me) over ORAS
 
Ok first paragraph, if you pay out your ass to go across country to come to event and cheering allowed I think booing is allowed as well. After running super late and being a slog even from most smash 4 players perspective, I don't consider chanting melee or booing some huge crime, except that it happened during the award ceremony which I find disrespectful.

Why does everyone seem to forget that the first day of Apex was a trainwreck due to the hotel situation?

If anything, they would've had more than enough time if they actually had that day to run sets.
 
Is this a test? Do we get graded after it from you? What makes you the expert into rating our competence in this subject matter?
I once owned the biggest SSBM Site in Germany, was wiring guidelines for it and managed a whole Smash community. I know a few things.

Wat

I posted a picture where Sakurai Himself said wavedashing was left in. It was not a mechanic. I'm not sure im getting your point.

Wave dashing occurs because of melee's directional air dodging mechanic and was fixed by removing directional air dodging in brawl.
 
Wave dashing occurs because of melee's directional air dodging mechanic and was fixed by removing directional air dodging in brawl.

An exploit. Not an intentional mechanic. I'm not sure I'm following.

Have you ever worked in IT/Programming? Left-in bug are commons. Just because they're left in, does not mean they intentionally put them there.
 
and you miss again my point on why I brought it up

yes yes it's their right, etc. but that's not the idea on why I gave it an example - that the community is homogenized to follow one style of gameplay rather than branch out as seen in SF, and hilariously enough it's the only community I've seen so mar to have hyperbolic, dramatic comments about the whole shit

hell, even in Pokemon you still see people who prefer Gen V meta over VI, and you still have people who prefer XY meta (like me) over ORAS

Ok sorry I think I understand you now, but you assume melee players only play melee style games competitively, a lot of top players play counter strike, street fighter etc. Just because only a few melee players enjoy smash 4, does not mean they are conditioned into only playing one type of game.

An exploit. Not an intentional mechanic. I'm not sure I'm following.

Have you ever worked in IT/Programming? Left-in bug are commons. Just because they're left in, does not mean they intentionally put them there.

Ya i'm in comp sci, I was just trying to clarify that wave dashing was a result of how the directional airdodging mechanic work.
 
yes yes it's their right, etc. but that's not the idea on why I gave it an example - that the community is homogenized to follow one style of gameplay rather than branch out as seen in SF, and hilariously enough it's the only community I've seen so mar to have hyperbolic, dramatic comments about the whole shit
Ironic
 
Wave dashing occurs because of melee's directional air dodging mechanic and was fixed by removing directional air dodging in brawl.
We both know, what Wave Dashing is, how it works and it advantages. It was just a terrible way, of attacking us by trying to display us in an incompetent light, instead of actually bringing up his own statements.
 
We both know, what Wave Dashing is, how it works and it advantages. It was just a terrible way, of attacking us by trying to view us in an incompetent light instead of actually bringing up his own statements.

Sorry, I thought you referred to wave dashing as a glitch so assumed you weren't well versed in how it worked, didn't mean any offense.
 
So how about those counter moves huh Sakurai? Plan on doing anything about them?

Counters aren't that bad really. I used to hate them, but once I figured out when players generally use them I realised they were fine as is. They're powerful, but if missed then super easy to punish.
 

truth be told I haven't seen much stuff in SF lately, though wasn't SFV warmly welcomed?

Ok sorry I think I understand you now, but you assume melee players only play melee style games competitively, a lot of top players play counter strike, street fighter etc. Just because only a few melee players enjoy smash 4, does not mean they are conditioned into only playing one type of game.

Oh of course there are those that can play multiple games. I'm just talking about the community mindset in general.
 
yes yes it's their right, etc. but that's not the idea on why I gave it an example - that the community is homogenized to follow one style of gameplay rather than branch out as seen in SF, and hilariously enough it's the only community I've seen so mar to have hyperbolic, dramatic comments about the whole shit
It shows, how untapped the potential of the Smash mechanic are in comparison of Street Fighter. There you got a lot of variation and clones, which satisfy the different types of players. But Smash has to stand on his own as only the qualitative game (besides Jump Super Stars and some good indie games, but they just don't have the scale of Smash Brothers).
 
Oh of course there are those that can play multiple games. I'm just talking about the community mindset in general.

Not sure I follow, If the players in the community play multiple games, especially most of the community leaders, how is the community mindset to play one game.
 
Recently, there was a tournament featuring the top Japanese and American players. In 1v1s, the natural tendency is to use low risk moves to gradually deal damage to the opponent. Smash attacks rarely came out, and the matches were prone to becoming long, drawn out affairs. When considering the variety of ways Smash can be played I think this is a waste, but the winner was certainly decided by skill.

In the end, how they play depends completely on how the game allows them to play. If you didn't particulary like how the game was being played, desing the game differently :p
 
It shows, how untapped the potential of the Smash mechanic are in comparison of Street Fighter. There you got a lot of variation and clones, which satisfy the different types of players. But Smash has to stand on his own as only the qualitative game (besides Jump Super Stars and some good indie games, but they just don't have the scale of Smash Brothers).

And that's the problem with its community because I've noticed that they always approach it with a specific mindset towards a certain game.

Not sure I follow, If the players in the community play multiple games, especially most of the community leaders, how is the community mindset to play one game.

You still got preference to handle. And like I said before 4 is doing well to stand up on its own, but time will tell if it can outlast Melee.
 
And that's the problem with its community because I've noticed that they always approach it with a specific mindset towards a certain game.



You still got preference to handle. And like I said before 4 is doing well to stand up on its own, but time will tell if it can outlast Melee.

Of course preference is a factor, but would preference not be a factor for all humans, unless you mean something else.
 
Counters aren't that bad really. I used to hate them, but once I figured out when players generally use them I realised they were fine as is. They're powerful, but if missed then super easy to punish.
The same attributes can you find in the often criticized unlimited air-doges. There are two big counters to them. Meteor-Smashes got a huge buff by removing Meteor-Cancelling and overall more power. One punished air-doge can easily cost you an stock. The other is Air-Dogging to the ground, gives you a lot of lag, which can be punished hard. Their are a lot of mind-games around, tricking opponent into an air-doge and punish them accordantly.
 
We work together by making adjustments while trying to preserve the characters’ individuality, then testing out the characters again.
I actually miss this in smash 4 (compared to melee)
 
Of course preference is a factor, but would preference not be a factor for all humans, unless you mean something else.

What I mean is that the community should cultivate the people who prefer Melee or Smash 4 or whatever, rather than simply push one out which does happen, especially the rowdy competitive scene. It's really stupid because what you have now is a Highlander-esque viewpoint of the community with THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!
 
What I mean is that the community should cultivate the people who prefer Melee or Smash 4 or whatever, rather than simply push one out which does happen, especially the rowdy competitive scene. It's really stupid because what you have now is a Highlander-esque viewpoint of the community with THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!
I haven't seen many people say there can only be one community, though I have seen people call for more separation, which I think comes with its own benefits and drawbacks.
 
Is this a test? Do we get graded after it from you? What makes you the expert into rating our competence in this subject matter?
I once owned the biggest SSBM Site in Germany, was wiring guidelines for it and managed a whole Smash community. I know a few things.
Yes, it is a test, and clearly you failed.

Here's the thing. It's true, wavedashing is not an intentional mechanic. Of course not - because it's two intentional mechanics.

Whenever you land, whatever horizontal momentum you have is transferred and will cause you to slide along the ground. You might have notice this effect whenever you get hit by a powerful attack that sends you at a slightly downward trajectory - you'll hit the stage, but you don't stop there, you keep sliding, and how far and fast you slide also depends on variables like your character's traction. This doesn't just happen when you get hit, this happens all the time, because it's how the physics engine works. Now it just so happens that in Melee, the very beginning of an air dodge has a lot of speed, and if you land during this, you'll slide a fairly decent amount. This is really all wavedashing is. Speed + landing = slide.

Wavedashing is not a glitch. It doesn't matter whether or not it was "noticed" during development because there was nothing to fix. It was just the physics engine working how it was supposed to.

Here's some other trivia:
1. Wavedashing might be strange to learn to use at first, but it's really not hard to do at all.
2. The only reason why you can't wavedash in Brawl/Sm4sh the same way as Melee is because air dodges don't change your momentum anymore. However, if you can alter your momentum in other ways, you can still achieve similar effects.
3. Wavedashing is maybe 1% of all the reason why Melee is a deep competitive game, and similarly is far from the only thing that Brawl and Sm4sh changed. Although it's certainly important to Melee, wavedashing by itself means fairly little in the scheme of things.
 
Dude, intentional means it was implemented by the developer to be used.
Wavedash is an exploit. Get over it.

Sakurai and his team did not implemented Wavedash to be used in the game. It's not a mechanic.

We don't need you to teach us what it is, we already know what it is.

You're just trying to look smarter.


Have you ever watched Half life speed runs and their bunny hopping to finish the game faster ? Now tell me how that was intentional by the developers. It's clearly an exploit of the engine physics.
 
Dude, intentional means it was implemented by the developer to be used.
Wavedash is an exploit. Get over it.

I feel like it semantics at this point, what does it change by being intentional or not. Plenty of games have unintentional results from intentional mechanics. All it does is add a higher skill ceiling while keeping a low skill floor.
 
Yet despite Sakurai's attitude on the subject we still have an exciting game that was designed to be both competitive and a party game

Why else would for glory exist?

Clearly the people the work under him dont entirely agree with his assessment and it seems like he caved in a lot of ways.

With how balanced and supported smash 4 is its clear there are plenty of people on his team that DO care about the competitive side of smash

The game clear supports a wide variety of players and thats a strength
 
I feel like it semantics at this point, what does it change by being intentional or not. Plenty of games have unintentional results from intentional mechanics. All it does is add a higher skill ceiling while keeping a low skill floor.

Im not saying if it adds or subtracts. All I'm saying it's not an intentional mechanic added by the developer. See my half life example above.
 
Dude, intentional means it was implemented by the developer to be used.
Wavedash is an exploit. Get over it.
It is intentional. Air dodging is intentional, momentum conservation is intentional. Like I said, it's not one intentional mechanic, it's two. If there's anything that needs to be "gotten over" it's whatever mental block you have in understanding this.
Im not saying if it adds or subtracts. All I'm saying it's not an intentional mechanic added by the developer. See my half life example above.
Obviously not, I don't think anyone's saying that it is.
 
As intentional as leaving a sql exploit in a bank database.
This is programming. The conjuction of two function doesn't make a third intentional, which is why we have bug and exploits. Wavedash was not in their documents design.
 
As intentional as leaving a sql exploit in a bank database
Actually, if we're going to resort to analogies here, I'd say it's about as intentional as however it was first discovered that flour and water can be combined and baked to create things, eventually leading to delicious cake. But maybe that's just me.
 
This is why Sakurai needs to stay away from Smash. Let someone who is more in touch make the game. This goes for a lot of Nintendo games.

Aren't you contradicting yourself there? What makes you think that a replacement for Sakurai wouldn't continue the same focus that he has- you even acknowledge that most of Nintendo is like that.

The only Nintendo franchise that shows heavy focus for a competitive scene is Pokemon, and that's developed by a 3rd party and handled by a separate entity. A Nintendo replacement for Sakurai likely would keep the same focus he has, considering how there's no tradition of competitive scene focus there.
 
Actually, if we're going to resort to analogies here, I'd say it's about as intentional as however it was first discovered that flour and water can be combined and baked to create things, eventually leading to delicious cake. But maybe that's just me.

In that case, the unintentional combination of water and flour created a new taste which was not conceive by their creators. However, they thought it taste so good that they kept doing it.

Just that Sakurai didn't like the taste of wavedash and removed it.
 
Aren't you contradicting yourself there? What makes you think that a replacement for Sakurai wouldn't continue the same focus that he has- you even acknowledge that most of Nintendo is like that.

The only Nintendo franchise that shows heavy focus for a competitive scene is Pokemon, and that's developed by a 3rd party and handled by a separate entity. A Nintendo replacement for Sakurai likely would keep the same focus he has, considering how there's no tradition of competitive scene focus there.
It's not just about the competitive scene. There are other things a fresh mind could bring to the table.
Like Ridley.
In that case, the unintentional combination of water and flour created a new taste which was not conceive by their creators. However, they thought it taste so good that they kept doing it.

Just that Sakurai didn't like the taste of wavedash and removed it.
Well of course. That's exactly what happened.
 
In that case, the unintentional combination of water and flour created a new taste which was not conceive by their creators. However, they thought it taste so good that they kept doing it.

Just that Sakurai didn't like the taste of wavedash and removed it.

Then his team mutinied and bent his damn knee to make the best Smash game ever made

Seriously. I love melee and always will but I am not blind to how amazing Smash 4 is
 
Yes, it is a test, and clearly you failed.

Here's the thing. It's true, wavedashing is not an intentional mechanic. Of course not - because it's two intentional mechanics.

[...]
MAN, YOU HAVE TO BE THE AVATAR!!
You're mind and word bending powers are incredible!

Others already explained it, so i don't need to add anything else.
 
Weird because Melee has nothing of this, out of all Smash games.

really? I thought that the melee "engine" allowed for characters to feel more unique?

Dashing was way more usefull in melee, so the differences in running speed came more into play. Momentum conservation was a thing, and it helped to differentiate characters more. Who doesn't remember how cracy falcon's short hop was?

In melee, character's falling speeds varied a lot, as the designers had not yet ruled out the idea of having "fast fallers". Due to the diferences in falling speeds, characters reacted very different to getting hit (and how you comboed them) and it also greatly affected how dangerous it was for each character to be off stage. That, combined with the fact that recovery options where not overpowered yet, made different characters trying to recover interesting. In smash 4, even though recoveries vary a lot, it feels like almost everyone can come back without problem.

Also, overall, movesets where less "restricted" in melee. How characters comboed the opponent varied greatly, some characters had their own "advanced techniques", etc...

or am i misunderstanding something? he was talking about characters feeling different to each other, right?
 
really? I thought that the melee "engine" allowed for characters to feel more unique?

Dashing was way more usefull in melee, so the differences in running speed came more into play. Momentum conservation was a thing, and it helped to differentiate characters more. Who doesn't remember how cracy falcon's short hop was?

In melee, character's falling speeds varied a lot, as the designers had not yet ruled out the idea of having "fast fallers". Due to the diferences in falling speeds, characters reacted very different to getting hit (and how you comboed them) and it also greatly affected how dangerous it was for each character to be off stage. That, combined with the fact that recovery options where not overpowered yet, made different characters trying to recover interesting. In smash 4, even though recoveries vary a lot, it feels like almost everyone can come back without problem.

Also, overall, movesets where less "restricted" in melee. How characters comboed the opponent varied greatly, some characters had their own "advanced techniques", etc...

or am i misunderstanding something? he was talking about characters feeling different to each other, right?

What you need to learn about Smash 4 is that it encourages more off stage play, precision, and offset timing.

And Dashing is SUPER important but for a different reason than Melee.

And this is just stuff Ive been picking up on recently with my character. Its an exciting time.
 
really? I thought that the melee "engine" allowed for characters to feel more unique?

Dashing was way more usefull in melee, so the differences in running speed came more into play. Momentum conservation was a thing, and it helped to differentiate characters more. Who doesn't remember how cracy falcon's short hop was?

In melee, character's falling speeds varied a lot, as the designers had not yet ruled out the idea of having "fast fallers". Due to the diferences in falling speeds, characters reacted very different to getting hit (and how you comboed them) and it also greatly affected how dangerous it was for each character to be off stage. That, combined with the fact that recovery options where not overpowered yet, made different characters trying to recover interesting. In smash 4, even though recoveries vary a lot, it feels like almost everyone can come back without problem.

Also, overall, movesets where less "restricted" in melee. How characters comboed the opponent varied greatly, some characters had their own "advanced techniques", etc...

I would say it is the other way around. The Melee game-engine and its momentum conservation made all characters into rush-down characters (some in better or worst ones). Almost everybody felt good in the air, which is why so many like the gamefeel of Melee. But it creates a lot of hard to balance variables.
In Smash 4 every character has a different and precise air-speed, which gives the developer more control over their air-game. A character, who isn't supposed to be great in the air, actually isn't in Smash 4. A character is much more defined by its flaws then his strengths.

Ganondorf in Melee is a good example of the problem. The master of evil wasn't supposed to be as fast as he is in Melee. But thanks to momentum conservation, Wave-Dashing and other glichtes he became such a big force in the game. Smash 4's version of Ganondorf is the intended slow but super powered vision.
 
I understand the intended vision and all that jazz. I understand why Sakurai does what he does.

It's just not important to me, because I'm not a Smash fan. I'm a Melee fan. So the fact that this isn't built off of Melee turned me off.
 
really? I thought that the melee "engine" allowed for characters to feel more unique?

Dashing was way more usefull in melee, so the differences in running speed came more into play. Momentum conservation was a thing, and it helped to differentiate characters more. Who doesn't remember how cracy falcon's short hop was?

In melee, character's falling speeds varied a lot, as the designers had not yet ruled out the idea of having "fast fallers". Due to the diferences in falling speeds, characters reacted very different to getting hit (and how you comboed them) and it also greatly affected how dangerous it was for each character to be off stage. That, combined with the fact that recovery options where not overpowered yet, made different characters trying to recover interesting. In smash 4, even though recoveries vary a lot, it feels like almost everyone can come back without problem.

Also, overall, movesets where less "restricted" in melee. How characters comboed the opponent varied greatly, some characters had their own "advanced techniques", etc...

or am i misunderstanding something? he was talking about characters feeling different to each other, right?

wut

pretty sure last I played in 4, Mewtwo was floaty whereas Bowser felt heavy
 
I understand the intended vision and all that jazz. I understand why Sakurai does what he does.

It's just not important to me, because I'm not a Smash fan. I'm a Melee fan. So the fact that this isn't built off of Melee turned me off.

Wow

Smash 4 is sooo good and people are writing it off cuz its not built on melee? Thats a mistake but you DID say you arent a smash fan so I get it.
 
MAN, YOU HAVE TO BE THE AVATAR!!
You're mind and word bending powers are incredible!

Others already explained it, so i don't need to add anything else.
That's weak dude. You're just getting bitter and defensive while dancing around the fact you don't have a solid ground of understanding to form an opinion from.
I would say it is the other way around. The Melee game-engine and its momentum conservation made all characters into rush-down characters (some in better or worst ones). Almost everybody felt good in the air, which is why so many like the gamefeel of Melee. But it creates a lot of hard to balance variables.
In Smash 4 every character has a different and precise air-speed, which gives the developer more control over their air-game. A character, who isn't supposed to be great in the air, actually isn't in Smash 4. A character is much more defined by its flaws then his strengths.

Ganondorf in Melee is a good example of the problem. The master of evil wasn't supposed to be as fast as he is in Melee. But thanks to momentum conservation, Wave-Dashing and other glichtes he became such a big force in the game. Smash 4's version of Ganondorf is the intended slow but super powered vision.
There are several things wrong here. Momentum conservation helps you reach your max airspeed faster, but there's still a limit you can't exceed. Sheik and Falco, for example, have pitiful airspeeds, and no amount of running beforehand can ever help that. The airspeeds of characters are still very much controlled.

Ganondorf is not "such a big force". He's a bad character, mid tier at best and borderline viable. And he is slow. Wavelanding does not make him fast but it does give him options to mix up his approach, which he desperately needs to contend with the faster characters. Also wavedashing is not a glitch, I already explained this and you clearly ignored it or still don't understand.
 
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