Competitive Players Alone Cannot Sustain Smash Bros., Says Sakurai

[Steven Bogos]

Competitive Players Alone Cannot Sustain Smash Bros., Says Sakurai

Smash Bros. game director Masahiro Sakurai says he had to appeal to casual players to ensure the game's future.

Competitive Super Smash Bros. players and Nintendo have historically not seen improved [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/125837-Nintendo-Tried-to-Block-Evo-Streams] in recent years. But now, game director Masahiro Sakurai may be digging up old wounds, by telling us that the competitive playerbase alone cannot sustain the game.

In an interview with a Japanese magazine [http://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/2qvwwp/really_long_japanese_interview_with_sakurai_needs/], Sakurai stated that "if we direct Smash only at the competitive players, it will have no future." He clarified by stating that the game needs the casual player-base to thrive, and tried his best to make a title that would appeal to as many kinds of Smash Bros. fans as possible.

Sakurai states that if he wanted, he could have make a hardcore-only Smash with faster speeds and more inputs, but beginners would be alienated. Everyone needs to be accommodated and while there is some technical skill involved, it should be easy to pick up.

What do you think of Super Smash Bros. For Wii U and Nintendo 3ds? From what I've seen, the competitive opinion of it seems to be "better than Brawl, but not as good as Melee, meaning competitive Smashers will remain chained to their CRTs for at least another generation.

Source: Destructiod [http://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/2qvwwp/really_long_japanese_interview_with_sakurai_needs/]

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[jayzz911]

Well yeah that was kind of obvious. I'm willing to bet that the competitive player make up less than 2%. Catering to 2% that already have games that work great for what they want. (you know fighting games that want to be competitive like SF4
or MvC3 or whatever) you would probably end up losing too many people in your fan base especially on smash bros which i personally always consider more of a party game than anything else.

 

[Apl_J]

Well.

Personally, Smash has always and likely will always have casual appeal simply because of its odd core gameplay and All-Star fan appeal. Its fun to play and feels immediately different from other fighting titles. R-cancelling, wavedashing, SHFFLing, or what have you wouldn't really change that, and I'm pretty sure the amount of inputs was never a complaint; Project M sort of proves that. The only times I can really see 'casual vs hardcore' coming into play is when a casual player actually goes up against a hardcore player. In my experience, that doesn't really happen as people tend to play with those of their skill level. Melee also proves that you don't need to base the game around advanced, technical maneuvers in order to have it present and working, so statements like this are a big of a headscratcher for me.

Or, hell, maybe I'm just a jaded competitive player.

 

[Saulkar]

I kinda agree with it but for different reasons. I frown at the idea of min/max in one's play-styles, playing only to be the very best with little to no other reason or motivation, and number crunching at the engine level to turn gameplay into a calculated math. I have talked to people whose idea of any play-style is to turn it into a perfect game of chess where the whole point is to win in the shortest time possibly while ignoring all elements of enjoyment or playing for the sheer heck of it; Any other game where it cannot be broken down into such fundamentals, where indiscriminate-randomised elements level the playing field, and player skill cannot (ostensibly) account for one-hundred percent of the outcome is actively considered irrelevant or actively scorned.

One of my friends actually gawked at the idea of using something like the procedural-animation-physics-engine Euphoria as the base element of a fantasy fighting game I am designing for fun because it would add X-Factors that are too large to revolve around a calculated rock-paper-scissors style of play. If you derive actual enjoyment from trying to create the perfect play-style and analyzing the engine, a honest passion and not a single minded drive, then cheers but my over-exposure to the ultra-competitive has left me with a sour taste in my mouth for fighting games and min/maxing play-styles in general. I had little interest and have yet to play the new SSB but reading this has piked my interest.


P.S. I have nothing against those who game competitively or for money, I just despise the idea (not the people) of playing a game solely for the singular purpose of breaking it down to the subatomic level and running limited and highly specialised gameplay-styles that are intended to create the best possible outcome, exploiting whatever META to the fullest. This goes triplicate for fighting games. I really tend to love games with heavily randomised elements.

P.P.S. Personal Question - How randomised are the elements in games like Street Fighter, SSB, Mortal Combat, and that DC fighting game? Is it something like: Batman's Punch has a 20% chance of inflicting 5 points of damage and an 80% chance of inflicting 2 points or is it more organically randomised with things like positioning, damage taken, and off-screen endurance counters spicing things up? I know that each plays differently so how important are twitch based actions in each of these games?

 

[Razhem]

As I see it, the competitive scene will never leave Melee because god forbid they ever leave their comfort zone and we all know how awesome Marth vs Fox is. That Melee's "complex play" is all focused on unintended glitches speaks volumes to me that something was created out of nothing, which I guess is great for all of those melee players, but expecting something like wavedash to come back (basically turns the match into a spaz fest) when it was never a planned feature is expecting quite a bit too much.

 

[Blights]

As I see it, the competitive scene will never leave Melee because god forbid they ever leave their comfort zone and we all know how awesome Marth vs Fox is. That Melee's "complex play" is all focused on unintended glitches speaks volumes to me that something was created out of nothing, which I guess is great for all of those melee players, but expecting something like wavedash to come back (basically turns the match into a spaz fest) when it was never a planned feature is expecting quite a bit too much.

Wavedashing and L-Cancelling are not glitches, L-cancelling had to have been programmed into the game and was even in the previous installment, known as "Smooth Landing" at the time. Wavedashing was stated by Sakurai to have been noticed during development and kept in.

 

[Razhem]

As I see it, the competitive scene will never leave Melee because god forbid they ever leave their comfort zone and we all know how awesome Marth vs Fox is. That Melee's "complex play" is all focused on unintended glitches speaks volumes to me that something was created out of nothing, which I guess is great for all of those melee players, but expecting something like wavedash to come back (basically turns the match into a spaz fest) when it was never a planned feature is expecting quite a bit too much.

Wavedashing and L-Cancelling are not glitches, L-cancelling had to have been programmed into the game and was even in the previous installment, known as "Smooth Landing" at the time. Wavedashing was stated by Sakurai to have been noticed during development and kept in.

Kept in because it meant redoing the game physics, not because he was thinking "yeeeeah, I see it, Marth and Fox wavedashing eeeeeeverywheeeeeeeere...". He probably thought "well, what could happen with that?" and then it suddenly became the only way to play smash for some communities, inluding castrating stage selection and item selection. L-cancelling is probably a similar story, you leave things in but don't think they'll be much of a problem, then when the product reaches the wild, consumers surprise you. It was a mistake no matter how you look at it, Sakurai and his team NEVER expected it to define how high level play would be, since if it had been intended, it would have been kept in future iterations of the game instead of being squashed.

 

[AdamG3691]

Understandable sentiment from him. Competitive players alone are rarely many enough to sustain a big game franchise in the long run. Though I would suggest he doesn't remove game modes like he did in the new super smash of he wants to appeal to more than one type of player. Granted it might just be me who genuinely enjoyed the story and adventure modes. Without them the game just feels... hollow and a bit lacking in content.

yeah, I really miss subspace emissary, for a franchise which is solely built around "here are nintendo characters, make them fight", SSE game the setting a surprising amount of lore, stuff like tabuu (and especially how it fits into master hand and crazy hand being a child's creativity and destructiveness). we now have master core, but it has no real lore to it, just a hidden boss.

 

[Oly J]

maybe I'm missing the point or something but I know I'm not the only one thinking that this entire debate could be avoided altogether with the inclusion of two difficulty settings for casual and hardcore, changing the physics accordingly, why should that not be there? can't just cater to competitive players? fine, don't, but if enough players prefer melee's feel for you to notice the backlash then at least put that option in there

 

[AdamG3691]

Understandable sentiment from him. Competitive players alone are rarely many enough to sustain a big game franchise in the long run. Though I would suggest he doesn't remove game modes like he did in the new super smash of he wants to appeal to more than one type of player. Granted it might just be me who genuinely enjoyed the story and adventure modes. Without them the game just feels... hollow and a bit lacking in content.

yeah, I really miss subspace emissary, for a franchise which is solely built around "here are nintendo characters, make them fight", SSE game the setting a surprising amount of lore, stuff like tabuu (and especially how it fits into master hand and crazy hand being a child's creativity and destructiveness). we now have master core, but it has no real lore to it, just a hidden boss.

I haven't seen or heard about this Master Core thing. Unless it's what shows up at certain difficulties in the bog standard arcade mode.

Anyway I like the new super smash, but I don't see myself playing it much(and I've barely played it as it is) when there's better offerings to be found.

it's the smoke dude that appears when you beat master hand on the higher (5 onwards) intensity settings in classic.

 

[Blights]

As I see it, the competitive scene will never leave Melee because god forbid they ever leave their comfort zone and we all know how awesome Marth vs Fox is. That Melee's "complex play" is all focused on unintended glitches speaks volumes to me that something was created out of nothing, which I guess is great for all of those melee players, but expecting something like wavedash to come back (basically turns the match into a spaz fest) when it was never a planned feature is expecting quite a bit too much.

Wavedashing and L-Cancelling are not glitches, L-cancelling had to have been programmed into the game and was even in the previous installment, known as "Smooth Landing" at the time. Wavedashing was stated by Sakurai to have been noticed during development and kept in.

Kept in because it meant redoing the game physics, not because he was thinking "yeeeeah, I see it, Marth and Fox wavedashing eeeeeeverywheeeeeeeere...". He probably thought "well, what could happen with that?" and then it suddenly became the only way to play smash for some communities, inluding castrating stage selection and item selection. L-cancelling is probably a similar story, you leave things in but don't think they'll be much of a problem, then when the product reaches the wild, consumers surprise you. It was a mistake no matter how you look at it, Sakurai and his team NEVER expected it to define how high level play would be, since if it had been intended, it would have been kept in future iterations of the game instead of being squashed.

Redoing game physics? Airdodging wasn't in Smash 64, while Sakurai never intended for wavedashing to be used that way and took it out later doesn't mean that it wasn't intended to be there in the first place, even with L-Cancelling the physics change from Smash 64, that's not something that finds its way into the code, it was put there. Sure they never saw the fact that fox would be so technical, or how the game would be super competetive but that doesn't excuse fucking over part of your community and making the game less cool, I enjoyed Brawl when it came out but with the inclusion of tripping and the removal of a lot of movement options along with the overall game being slower, made the experience less fun than it could have been for not only the competetive crowd, but also the casual.

 

[The Lunatic]

I guess it just makes sense that if you have a console like the WiiU and 3DS where the vast majority of the owners are what most would consider part of the "Casual market", that appealing towards that large share of your customers is rather desirable.

 

[blackdwarf]

Well yeah that was kind of obvious. I'm willing to bet that the competitive player make up less than 2%. Catering to 2% that already have games that work great for what they want. (you know fighting games that want to be competitive like SF4
or MvC3 or whatever) you would probably end up losing too many people in your fan base especially on smash bros which i personally always consider more of a party game than anything else.

There is not much overlap between 'hardcore' smasher and fighting gamers. Hell, the communities don't like each other mostly. Smash and fighting games are way to different to for it to be liked by the most people.

I find this just a extremely lazy excuse of Sakurai. Melee is already a prove that you can support casual and hardcore players with the same game, but the sequels so far have both been active in shortening the skill gap.

Some people just want to play mario and wreck Pikachu. Some want play Mario and use advance techniques to spike Pikachu. I Melee both play styles where supported.

As I see it, the competitive scene will never leave Melee because god forbid they ever leave their comfort zone and we all know how awesome Marth vs Fox is. That Melee's "complex play" is all focused on unintended glitches speaks volumes to me that something was created out of nothing, which I guess is great for all of those melee players, but expecting something like wavedash to come back (basically turns the match into a spaz fest) when it was never a planned feature is expecting quite a bit too much.

Most of those "glitches" where not unintended in Melee, but where removed because it created a huge skill gap, which was only relevant if you played against someone who knew and used those techniques. Most people are okay with the exclusion of wave dash so long the psychics are still fun, which they aren't. smash 4 is a fucking dull-fest because of the floaty psychics. The addition of stuff like insta-grabs on edges and unlimited air dodges are just their to shorten the skill gap. I was extremely disappointed in smash 4, but not because I can't wave dash, but because It is just a bore to play.

 

[OldNewNewOld]

I have nothing but respect for Sakurai. He's one of my favorite games developer and I love pretty much every game he made.
However I have to disagree with him because the game doesn't need to go for competitive player only. Melee is the second best selling Smash game today and it was pretty much THE sweet spot between competitive and casual. Combined with the huge difference between the Gamecube and Wii sales, Melee has 3 times better attachment rate. 1 out of 3 GC owner had Melee. 1 out of 9 Wii owner had Brawl. Causal player had no problems playing casually because the core controls are simple to grasp and use. The items and stages offer tons of "casual" fun.
On the other hand, the combat had depth and allowed for hardcore competitive plays. The game was fast, it had no random elements in the controls (damn you Sakurai, why the fuck did you add random tripping in Brawl? How the fuck did you think that was a good idea?) and the balance was better than in Brawl.

Now I believe that the Wii U version is a great game but I didn't play it long enough to judge how well it would be as a competitive game. Right now I'm playing it purely the "casual" way with items on high, random stage, random character, random customization so yeah, random random random doesn't let me judge it yet. But as far as balance goes, I would say this one is the most balanced out of the 4 generation of Smash.

Honestly, I believe Brawl was a mistake and not Melee as Sakurai said it once. While the casuals buy the game, the core audience keeps it alive. Melee proves it more than anything. You still have tons of people playing it, tournaments are still a live and going. I believe that a game somewhere between Melee and 4 would be the game Sakurai wants. Not that I can say that for sure yet.

I guess it just makes sense that if you have a console like the WiiU and 3DS where the vast majority of the owners are what most would consider part of the "Casual market", that appealing towards that large share of your customers is rather desirable.

I have to disagree. The wast majority of the Wii U owner are the Nintendo core audience, the one that was with Nintendo since the 64. The casual audience left Nintendo even before the Wii life cycle ended. That's why Nintendo said they would focus back onto the core audience while trying to keep the casuals. As they said, the casual market is unstable and unpredictable. So yeah, the Smash U owner are the core audience.

 

[DaViller]

The problem with this line of thinking is that casuals actually don't give a fuck about the advanced mechanics and never will. Wave-dashing, l-cancelling and te recently removed item cancelling could all still be in the game and it wouldn't make any difference to someone just playing on the couch with friends.

That said even melee players didn't just want a redone melee, what people wanted is a game that feels fresh while still delivering on the mechanical depth of mellee. Street fighter 4 feels very different from third strike and many fans say it lacks third srike technical depth (among other things), but it is still a great competetive game with a large following and many advanced mechanics wich make it worthwile to play for a long time. This is the balance smash 4 should have strifed for in order to become both a great casual game and great competetive game.

Do I still believe smash 4 is great, absolutly yes and I have no intention to stop playing it. However the decision to cater almost exclusively to the casual market, in terms of mechanics, hinders the game in realizing it's full potential. Other fighting game devs realize how important a strong competetive following is, it is the best advertisement your game can get and it's 100% free. Saying something like "our game is so damn good that 2 million watch it played competetively" is the type of publicity every other dev out there dreams of.

Also to those who argue "melee is only deep for it's glitches", so what? I doubt fighting games would be way better nowadays if capcom decided to remove combos after sf2. An accident that ends making your game better is something good, or are we gonna argue the invention of penecilin was a bad thing?

 

[Littaly]

I hate competitive Smash Bros.

I've been turned off to the franchise as of late, because the majority of people I know who like it these days are hardcore players.

I don't want a game that I have to practice in order to be able to enjoy. Smash Bros has always been the only fighting game I can really enjoy, since it's always been more about just playing rather than being good at it. But that doesn't help much when the only people you can play with take it hundred times more seriously than you do :-/

Granted, it's still by far the most enjoyable fighting game out there, since even though I have to practice to play it with my friends (and there is no way in hell I'm doing that), at least I don't have to practice in order to play or understand it.

 

[Diablo1099_v1legacy]

There is not much overlap between 'hardcore' smasher and fighting gamers. Hell, the communities don't like each other mostly. Smash and fighting games are way to different to for it to be liked by the most people.

I find this just a extremely lazy excuse of Sakurai. Melee is already a prove that you can support casual and hardcore players with the same game, but the sequels so far have both been active in shortening the skill gap.

Some people just want to play mario and wreck Pikachu. Some want play Mario and use advance techniques to spike Pikachu. I Melee both play styles where supported.

Most of those "glitches" where not unintended in Melee, but where removed because it created a huge skill gap, which was only relevant if you played against someone who knew and used those techniques. Most people are okay with the exclusion of wave dash so long the psychics are still fun, which they aren't. smash 4 is a fucking dull-fest because of the floaty psychics. The addition of stuff like insta-grabs on edges and unlimited air dodges are just their to shorten the skill gap. I was extremely disappointed in smash 4, but not because I can't wave dash, but because It is just a bore to play.

Well, while that has been the case in the past, with the release of 4, I think the gap between Smash and the mainstream FGC has been getting smaller.

As for Sakurai's comments, it just makes sense, not everyone who buys a fighting game does so because they want to be competitive and he doesn't want to end up in a Starcraft 2 style situation where they end up losing people that can't get past the skill gap, especially as this was geared as a Wii-U System Seller.
On top of that, while the community does provide a stream of income for Nintendo (I'd imagine they'd get a few quid for every major event), that can only really supplement retail sales.
Example: The Game with the largest Professional scene is Ultra Street Fighter 4 and they've released nearly 10 updates for the basic game so, while they were throwing a bone to the FGC, they were doing so while constantly trying to sell the game to people who didn't already have it.

All that aside, it also makes sense from a FGC standpoint, The main way a community like that grows is from new people getting into the game, then into the scene.