Competitive Players Alone Cannot Sustain Smash Bros., Says Sakurai

[Slegiar Dryke]

Good for him for making sure an awesome game will be able to potentially last FAR longer. speaking as someone with literally no interest in competitive smash, and call me opinionated, but, the competitive style of play is literally the most boring setup, to me at least, for a game with so much insane potential for being at its core a very simple, but goofily fun fighting game.

 

[Colt47]

You know what really helps Smash Bros succeed? Having characters from games that people have actually played recently enough to want to butt heads with another individuals favorite character in an arena match. The original smash bros succeeded because other titles like Metroid Prime, Super Mario 64, The Legend of Zelda, and other great titles were mega hits. Ugh, I want to like the Wii U, but Nintendo is not keeping up at all with the times and doesn't even have the decency to include a second controller with their system to appeal to the older mentality of gathering friends in a room to play a game together.

 

[Apl_J]

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.

This mode of thinking utterly vexes me. Brawl and Smash 4, despite Sakurai's best effort, are still competitively played. As far as competitive fighting titles go, Brawl was nearly as big as Street Fighter 4 at its peak, and Brawl is the most 'casual' iteration of the franchise. 'Casual'izing the game did absolutely nothing to prevent hardcore competition and it never will, so long as the core gameplay stays the same (it will). It doesn't make sense to cater to the layman when the layman can simply chose not to play with the hardcore player. Melee was no less popular once the advanced techniques became commonplace. Brawl was no less popular when Metaknight was everywhere, so I don't see how it hurts to throw hardcore players a bone.

I mean this in the nicest way possible, but I feel like its a personal issue if an individual can't find people he specifically wants to play with.

 

[KazeAizen]

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?

You see I'd have to disagree with you there. The way I see it from where I've been around on the net they do just want a redone Melee. Nothing anyone says can convince me otherwise. That is all they really want especially from the backlash to this statement I've seen elsewhere.

Also Nintendo NEVER gave a crap about the competitive community. They make games for people too, god forbid, have fun! Its such a novel concept in this era of video games I know. Nintendo actually makes finished games. One of the few companies today that does. In terms of "potential" it is already there. Frankly I despise the competitive scene of Smash and wish it would just go away because of the backlash I've seen to this one statement and the fact that they have been literally the most toxic community I've ever had the displeasure of interacting with.

Also I'm going to be the guy to say it. Bringing up comparisons like that without acknowledging on some level that it is bad because one truly benefits society kind of makes you look bad.

 

[ShakerSilver]

Considering Melee and 64 are fun both casually and competitively without dumbing down mechanics to cater to casuals or having overly-complicated inputs to only cater to competitive players, I'm under the impression that Sakurai doesn't exactly KNOW what competitive players want. I mean that was already evident in For Glory where he forced players to only play FD instead of having a stage striking system or something like that. He's honestly believes that competitive Smash Bros fans want Smash Bros to be King of Fighters, and don't just want a refinement and balancing of movement and combat mechanics that allow for smoother, more responsive gameplay.

 

[Benpasko]

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?

None of those games aside from SSB have random elements. Personally, a lot of the appeal of fighting games is the LACK of randomness, everything that happens is caused by the action of a player. They often have offscreen stats (combo scaling that reduces damage of hits as a combo goes on, the stun bar in Street Fighter, etc), but all those things are predictable.

And I would say twitch reactions are far less important than making 'reads'. The speed fighting games happen at, it's hard to twitch react to things, you need to prepare yourself to do the right move to respond to what your opponent is going to do. If I know you're going to jump, I'm going to get ready to do an uppercut. And then after a few of those, your opponent knows you're going to try to antiair them, and they adapt. Randomness gets in the way of those kinds of mind games, imagine if in chess your knight had a 25% chance to only be allowed to move 2 spaces! There are some characters in good fighting games (Teddie from Persona 4 Arena, cough cough) with random elements, but consistency is very important to fighting game players.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

Competitive communities in general can't sustain a game on their own. In fact, were one to cater solely to the "competitive" scene, a game's audience would eventually just implode.

 

[FredTheUndead]

Sakurai has always hated the FGC, this isn't news.

Competitive communities in general can't sustain a game on their own. In fact, were one to cater solely to the "competitive" scene, a game's audience would eventually just implode.

Provably false.

 

[xaszatm]

Considering Melee and 64 are fun both casually and competitively without dumbing down mechanics to cater to casuals or having overly-complicated inputs to only cater to competitive players, I'm under the impression that Sakurai doesn't exactly KNOW what competitive players want. I mean that was already evident in For Glory where he forced players to only play FD instead of having a stage striking system or something like that. He's honestly believes that competitive Smash Bros fans want Smash Bros to be King of Fighters, and don't just want a refinement and balancing of movement and combat mechanics that allow for smoother, more responsive gameplay.

To be fair, from what little we have seen of Tournament Mode, it seems there are plenty of option for stage selection so maybe that mode will be more in tune for "hardcore" players.

Also, as someone who plays SSB4, the character balance is WAY better than other Smash games. There are very few characters that are simply so low tiered that they cannot compete with other characters. The changes also allows both an offensive game and a defensive game depending on who your character is. The only really bad thing about this new Smash is the larger blast zones, but even then many people are getting around this by using less stock. SSB4 definitely isn't Melee in turns of tricks, but there are many unique traits SSB4 has that people shouldn't be turned off simply because it isn't Melee.

 

[medv4380]

He's right because -
Imagine basketball that didn't appeal to the casual pickup players.
If you don't have casual players to start then you won't have many new pro players come in to replace the older players who've left.
If you don't have people interested in the game casually then there is no audience to watch the players play professionally.

He's wrong because -
The game seems to be missing some professional qualities that are essential in most sports. Take Golf and Bowling as an example. Even casual players who play more than one game a year figure out their handy cap, and that's one of the only things that can allow people of any skill to be randomly matched. The basis of a handy cap feature were even missing in Wii Bowling so I'm not surprised that Nintendo didn't implement it.

However, if they wish to take competitive sports seriously the should at least look at how other professional sports, not eSports, encourage skilled and unskilled players to play together.

Some kind of private tournament play wouldn't hurt ether. Heck I want an Amiibo Tournament mode, and that's talk about turning a fighting game into an idle game.

 

[xaszatm]

Sakurai has always hated the FGC, this isn't news.

Competitive communities in general can't sustain a game on their own. In fact, were one to cater solely to the "competitive" scene, a game's audience would eventually just implode.

Provably false.

You know, I'm starting to HATE the two word quip as I have no idea how to counter this argument. Not because I have nothing to say, though you probably think that, but because I'm unsure what you mean.

If you are saying that competitive communities alone can support A game, then I would agree. There do exist a few games made solely for competitive play with no casual or single player mode available. League of Legends and Defense of the Ancients 2 being the prime examples. The thing is both work differently than most other games. Many competitive-only games with huge leagues sponsoring them usually have alternate ways to guarantee income. Very few simply have a "pay one time: get full game", most are designed, by nature, for players to be constantly spending money on the game to unlock characters, crates, and even speed boosts to level up faster. Would you really like to see the same system in Super Smash Bros?

However, if you are saying that the competitive system is all you need, then I definitely would disagree. Melee didn't become popular because of the competitive scene. It became popular because children could play as their favorite Nintendo characters and see who was better. The franchise, as a Mascot fighter, relies on casuals to pick up the game just as much if not more than "hardcore" players who play it for the tournaments, hence why Sakurai says that he cannot support only one. Note that he never said he wouldn't support, just that he couldn't focus 100% only on those fans. Because let's face it, the tournament crowd plays a lot different when compared to how other people play.

 

[TitanAura]

My problem with Sakurai's statement is that he's basically trying to say there exists no middle ground as though trying to appeal to both ends of the spectrum would call the fanbase to cannibalize itself. So I ask.... where has this EVER happened in gaming's history? There will always be fan debates and arguments and console wars etc etc but never has a franchise been sidelined because the fans who bought the game disagreed on how it should be played. "WHAT?! PEOPLE ARE PLAYING THIS COMPETITIVELY? *smashes disk and vows to abstain from future installments*"

Will I ever learn to play smash at a competitive level? No, but I respect the people who do and I think it's how they have fun. Remember, some people find this type of play to be fun not simply because of the game itself, but because of the community surrounding it.

If anything, having hardcore competitively players is what keeps the legacy of your game alive. Melee is still talked about today precisely BECAUSE of its competitive scene.

Or the reason is much simpler. Maybe it's because Sakura sees all of his mistakes when looking at his previous titles and for his own benefit would like people to stop talking about them.

 

[DaViller]

You see I'd have to disagree with you there. The way I see it from where I've been around on the net they do just want a redone Melee. Nothing anyone says can convince me otherwise. That is all they really want especially from the backlash to this statement I've seen elsewhere.

Also Nintendo NEVER gave a crap about the competitive community. They make games for people too, god forbid, have fun! Its such a novel concept in this era of video games I know. Nintendo actually makes finished games. One of the few companies today that does. In terms of "potential" it is already there. Frankly I despise the competitive scene of Smash and wish it would just go away because of the backlash I've seen to this one statement and the fact that they have been literally the most toxic community I've ever had the displeasure of interacting with.

Also I'm going to be the guy to say it. Bringing up comparisons like that without acknowledging on some level that it is bad because one truly benefits society kind of makes you look bad.

You see I am very much a casual smash player myself. I do play for glory a lot and I do like to play to improve myself, but I still consider myself to be largely part of the casual audience. However even as a casual player I still appreciate the depth and the possibilitys for high level play in smash. For example, I was kinda disappointed when they removed links bomb cancelling last patch because that was something I wanted to learn about the character.

I´m still gonna get into playing link once I think I have mastered Ike to the point I am sadisfied with my ability, but taking out a feature (even if it´s just a glitch technically) that could have made playing and mastering link more enjoyable makes me less enthusiastic about it. Hell even if I didn´t know or never indented to learn said mechanic it doesn´t hurt me either. None of the dudes I play with on the sofa care much about the amazing ability to cancel links arial landing lag by throwing a bomb ... and then maybe go for a followup dash attack or into a throw mixup if they shield, see now im thinking about all the stuff I could be doing with this wich I no longer can (also I would have probably sucked at it but thats another story).

You and I probably agree on a lot of things. I also want smash to stay a casually fun game because then I can get my friends to play it against me and kick theyr asses (noone who knows me wants to play street fighter against any more me once I gave em an epic ass-whooping once, and I suck at street fighter). I also praise Big N´s commitment to quality instead of just rushing shit out the door in order to make a quick buck.

Where our opinions differ is that I don´t think a competetively fun smash and a casually fun smash have to be mutually exclusive. You´re right nintendo spend a lot of time giving very little fucks about the comp. scene, I however think that this is not really a good thing (please excuse if I sound accousatory, I don´t wanna put words in your mouth or accuse you of anything).


I also don´t think the melee community is as terrible as you make it out to be, because many people I have spoken to online very pretty reasonable. Also even some melee players (well, at least one haven´t read all of it) in this thread seem to argue that they would be fine without wavedashes and stuff if the game was designed in a way to make competetive playing more fun in general.

Lastly, I know the penecillin analogy was a bit over the top but I hope it got the point across. Let me put in evolutionary terms instead. Mutations are generally really really bad, however if a mutations makes me better at something without negatively affecting me in any way it´s a good thing.

 

[Nazulu]

Who is asking for a hardcore only smash game? The reason Melee is still mentioned so much is because it's game play is believed by many to still be the best in the series, and of course fans want more of that.

I've played Melee for the longest time and I'm as casual as they come. I couldn't wave dash to save my life, or even do that extended Samus grab I spent a whole day trying to pull off. Yet, I say Melee still feels the most satisfying; the hits and how they sound, the flexible movement, the side air dash, and the speed too. Nothing is over flashy and it feels more balanced in everything. And no, I'm not talking about the characters, though all the Smash games have a couple of characters that are a bit extreme and have been complained about.

I've compared them all for myself now, and Melee is still the one I prefer, though I have to say the original Smash Bros felt more satisfying bouncing others into walls for bigger combos.

Captcha: worship nothing. I wanted to right that because it's my favourite captcha yet, and it's true.

 

[Vigormortis]

He is absolutely correct in saying it's wise to make the game as appealing as possible to the console's core audience. In the interest of business success, it's the smart move. And, personally, one I fully support.

However...

Appealing to the casual player base DOES NOT, and SHOULD NOT, come at the expense of purposeful nerfing or removal of core features (intended or not) utilized by the competitive player base.

It's one thing to add features that appeal to a wider audience. It's quite another to remove them just to spite a smaller audience.

 

[StriderShinryu]

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.

This mode of thinking utterly vexes me. Brawl and Smash 4, despite Sakurai's best effort, are still competitively played. As far as competitive fighting titles go, Brawl was nearly as big as Street Fighter 4 at its peak, and Brawl is the most 'casual' iteration of the franchise. 'Casual'izing the game did absolutely nothing to prevent hardcore competition and it never will, so long as the core gameplay stays the same (it will). It doesn't make sense to cater to the layman when the layman can simply chose not to play with the hardcore player. Melee was no less popular once the advanced techniques became commonplace. Brawl was no less popular when Metaknight was everywhere, so I don't see how it hurts to throw hardcore players a bone.

I mean this in the nicest way possible, but I feel like its a personal issue if an individual can't find people he specifically wants to play with.

Pretty much this. The reality is any game with a goal of winning is going to be taken more seriously by some than by others, be it Smash or Street Fighter or Tac-Tac-Toe. That it can actually be taken seriously and played competitively at all while still being fun for a more casual audience is actually a credit to the game.

What serious fighting game players really want is a fun game that has a balanced roster, has technical depth and rewards skillful play. None of that requires anything that will alienate more casual players, and it especially doesn't hurt anyone at all if you just wall off separate casual and hardcore modes. Sakurai saying that hardcore fighters are all about complex inputs and fast game speed just proves that he doesn't understand more serious fighting game players at all despite the overtures he was likely forced to make recently.

 

[SilverUchiha]

I feel like some people might be missing the bigger point that isn't being directly made. Sure, yes, Sakurai could easily just do Melee again or a game that feels like Melee again and please the fanbase. But, as a creator, how do you think it feels to constantly be requested to do the same game (or song, or story, or joke) over and over again that everyone holds up as the best one, but you're constantly trying to improve upon yourself and introduce new material? Yes, some of it isn't as good as your previous work (like tripping) but there's more variety being offered and some cool ideas being explored. I sympathize with Sakurai because I feel this is how his life is and I can fully understand why he's said he won't be back for the next Smash. He's tired of people shitting on his new ideas (to a degree, not completely) and not accepting his newer ideas he wants to push forward.

(again, this is in reference to competitive gamers, not so much critics or people like myself).

 

[Callate]

The "competitive", "hardcore" Super Smash Bros. base...?

At the risk of alienating those people, I kind of think the first and second halves of that sentence should be an oxymoron. There's no lack of fighting games that can be analyzed to death with regard to things like the number of frames of unblockability and aerial/juggling versus distance/missile capabilities. Having one game that's steered more towards pick-up-and-play accessibility than savant-like specialist dominance is no bad thing.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

It's always been a series for casual and harcore players, whatever that means.

 

[RaikuFA]

Good. Those neckbeards should realize this is a party game, not a life or death button masher like they make all the other fighters out there.