It would be propaganda. The mechanic that is the symbol of competitive smash, the mechanic that got directional airdodges removed from the series, being included in a modern smash game would have different implications based on whether or not it's good. If it's good people will demand that more characters be able to microspace and just introduce more movement options into the game, and if its bad it'll be as though they're pushing the idea that romanticization of melee mechanics isn't welcome in the game.
The timing for wavedashing in melee/PM is a kinda tricky to get down, especially since its character dependent, kinda like what you showed with bowser and how jarring his frame 8 jump is. The timing of it is also probably the hardest thing for people, because the input is easy as hell, but without a buffer it'll take practice and people don't want to practice for a technique that is so essential. I think people would be WAY more accepting to it if it was like rivals where you can wavedash during jump squat with a buffer, as then it is literally "just as easy as running and jumping in mario"
Yeah, I was thinking exactly the same thing. Sometimes it feels like people who play Melee or traditional fighting games forget how not easy some of the basics actually are. Sure, I can wavedash or do special moves in Street Fighter whenever I want every single time and I think these inputs are important for making the game what it is, but to say it's as easy as run jumping in a Mario game is just... come on man. No one ever practiced run jumping. lol
@@8Kazuja8 One counterpoint to this is that L-cancelling actually helps the balance of the game lol. Fox and Falco would be even better if L-cancelling was automatic. Edit: I love Melee but the only problem I have with Wavedashing is that the amount of times it is done can be really bad for hand health. Make the input require less force/less precise timing would be better for the long-term health of players. Although that does make some other things harder (not being able to hold L/R half way while landing on a platform to set-up shield drop) so idk
@@adjmonkey Well Wavedash is definitely "intentional" too at first. Would have been cool if it stuck around in the other Smash games (especially Brawl :p).
AsumSaus is actually an incredible channel. I remember when he basically was discount grsmash and now his channel is something totally unique. Also to put what you said in very blunt terms. People don't like wavedashing because the scrub mindset is inescapable in any game, people don't want to learn, and they don't want to lose so game sux wavedash dum.
It's literally always people with this mindset trying to control/give input how the game is played competitively. It's like they forget that tournament rulesets don't automatically delete the rest of the game for the casual crowd.
@@Jarekthegamingdragon you sound like leffen the way you worded your comment. Condescending and now you’re acting like him. “I’m right and if you don’t agree with me I’m gonna be condescending and rude”
The feeling when you’re watching someone’s vid and they say “go sub to this guy, he’s super good” and you’re already subbed to that guy is _absolutely phenomenal_
Adam, please continue making these great videos. You're, like, the most underrated "smash" youtuber, and you're center of Rivals gives you such a good outlook on everything else. You're the best.
when you were talking about why wavedashing is useful even when you have stuff like pivoting or have more options out of dash you missed a few reasons. wavedashes preserve which way you face so you don't need to turn around (useful for things like slide off Bair). When you wavedash you can do a grounded attack while moving (this is most obvious with low traction characters like Luigi). wave dashing doesn't make you go into run, so you can do things like dash -> WD -> dash. Of course you could also do something like fox trotting, but shut up. They can also allow you to move in the opposite direction when in run without getting stuck in turn around. They stop your momentum, that's why you see people do things like wavedash down.
You can't do grounded attacks immediately after wavedash so that only few characters like luigi can make use of attacks while moving becauase of their long wavedash.
@@eggyes3340 Wavedashes grant intangibility frames, not invincibilty frames, and a properly executed wavedash does not have any. For example, none of the wavedashes in the video would have had intangibility. Most airdodges grant intangibility starting on frame 4, and all of them immediately cancel any remaining i-frames upon touching the ground. So even a really, really bad wavedash (airdodge on your 4th airborne frame) would have at most 1-2 frames of intangibility before touching the ground again.
I think that one of the most overlooked reasons for why casuals have difficulty understanding and executing Wavedashes (in terms of Melee, at least) is because it's so very unlike every other action in the game. A dash attack might require movement and a button press and a shield grab might require pressing two buttons together, but generally speaking every action in Smash is a single direction and a single button to perform a single action. The complexity comes in chaining these various actions together, and even the actions that require multiple buttons like a shield grab have an immediately logical flow in what the action represents. Wave dashing; meanwhile, is a *grounded* forward and backward movement option that is not only initiated with a *jump*, but it doesn't bring up the shield nor have invincibility *despite using the shield button*. In terms of mechanics it makes sense because you are canceling an air dodge into a grounded state while retaining momentum, but from a purely input perspective with knowledge of what each button does separate from other context it comes off as a nonsensical series of inputs. If I want to slide back and forth on the ground then why do I need to jump? Dodge rolling moves me back and forth on the ground without jumping, so what gives? Couple this confusion that can arise from low level comprehension of the game and the fact that Wave dashing isn't nearly as universally useful across the cast as other mechanics as well as the difference in input timing and it just gives the technique this simultaneous facade of difficulty, unintuitiveness, and lack of utility that makes it feel like some kind of awkward gatekeeping ceremony to separate the "dedicated professional gamers" from "casual scum that don't know a SHFFL from a MALLC and or that a DABK is practically a Tatsu".
IF Ultimate had an option like a Wavedash I would not even argue to myself about which game I like better: Melee or Ultimate (right now I like them both equally)
I'm only two minutes in, but OOF. First, I love melee and wavedashing. But you immediately compared a mechanic that is essentially a one button input with an unlimited window because one of the buttons is held (running and jumping) to a series of inputs with a few frame window for the optimal result. Also, you can't take wavedashing or another advanced movement mechanic out of one of those games because the design was built AROUND them. If you take wavedashing out of melee, it's just melee without wavedashing... The game still functions as intended.
You call wavedashing a series of inputs, but it's two buttons dude. You press one button then wait and press another button, it's not hard lol. Every video game ever asks the play to time button inputs. When people phrase it the way you did they get scared. Also a non frame perfect wavedash is still useful, in a lot of situations it's not a big deal. But anyway the point is to show how simple a wavedash is, because it is very simple.
Melee was intended to have wavedashing.... taking it out does make it the game not work as intended because it takes up such a huge part of the game, take out any major, all character tech that’s intended and the game is completely different, also frame perfect wavedashes aren’t that hard.
Browniehugs It’s a simple input (though hard to time at first in melee sadly) that has a simple movement but adds a lot of depth. Complexity from simple things is complexity done beautifully and what many games try to accomplish. They try to have a set of simple mechanics that blend together to allow an explosion of depth.
An interesting hilarious side note: The smash 4 community fucking loved perfect pivots. What are perfect pivots? A poor man's wavedash that doesn't have the platform applications. Done with just the left stick. Not even a button input. But why did they love it? They understood it. They saw how top players like MKLeo used it and realized how sick it is. That's how I explain Melee/PM/Rivals to a lot of smash 4 players. Once they understand it, they tend to love the mechanic.
It was my first smash game and I mained little Mac. Perfect pivoting was such a strength for the character I had it down, and even more complex movements like momentum pivots (dash forward perfect pivot while keeping forward facing). Moving like that was such fun. Come smash ultimate I couldn't figure out wavedashing. Is it easier in melee?
@@Zhalfrin Wavedashing in Ult is super niche and frame tight unfortunately. They deliberately tried to remove it from the game. In Melee it's way easier and smooth. You can also control the length of the wavedash to be super small or very long just by where you put the left stick. It's amazing and feels so good. If you have a PC I recommend trying Melee on Dolphin. You may like it a lot more than Ult or at least as much. If you enjoy it but find the technical requirements too much or don't own a switch, give Rivals of Aether a try. It has pretty much all the Melee movement but way easier to do.
@@Saskaruto16 I may try melee on PC just to suss how easy it is to wavedash, but I doubt I'll play it much. Never know though. On the whole I don't like ultimate nearly as much as S4, it just feels stiff and is too fast paced and aggressive for me. Smash 4 was my first competitive game, (64 was actually my first smash game) and thanks to little mac I found myself liking grounded gameplay more than aerial stuff, so I've been trying street fighter on fightcade.
@@Zhalfrin If you love little mac idk he's not really a "smash" character. But if you're looking for someone kind of similar but actually want to use aerials and play real smash there are lots of good options especially in Melee. Definitely try out Falcon in Melee for the speed, Marth if you want the best movement, all the viable characters are worth a try. Maybe you'll be into something wack like Luigi (no he doesn't play like Ult Luigi). He plays very grounded because his air speed sucks, he is very floaty for Melee so similar to average smash 4 fall speed, and his wavedash is the longest in the game which gives him a very unique crazy style.
No king, you’ll make it. It’s incredibly satisfying to achieve consistently and opens the doors to tons of more tech. Took me a week of practice to get perfectly.
just make sure you’re practicing them correctly, like practicing in short increments with frequent breaks and knowing that if your character is jumping it means you’re doing the inputs too early and airdodging means too late, and remember that different character’s jump squat time (time before leaving the ground) affects the timing of the shield input
Try different characters, different buttons. I use Y to jump and L to air dodge, but to learn wave dashing, I had to use Marth, X to jump, and R to air dodge. It took me so long to figure that out, but that's what works for me. I thought I would never learn it. Keep trying and you'll get it.
If you haven’t already, download the uncle punch mod! It shows you if you’re off by a couple frames and if you’re angle is too steep or shallow. Very helpful if you wanna experience how far you can go with small adjustments
In many platform fighters, wavedashing is hardly necessary. Like Adam said, a lot of what wavedashing accomplishes you can accomplish with other movement options. This is especially the case in Rivals, because you can do everything out of your run just as effectively as you could if you were standing still or even if you were wavedashing. Even without wavedashing, you have all the options at your disposal that players who use wavedashing do (you'll still want to learn how to waveland, though). The reason so many players use it is not because it makes you a better or smarter player (how effectively you use the movement options at your disposal determines much of your skill/intelligence as a player), but because, to many, including me, it just feels better than other options I could be using. I really don't know what it is, but regardless it's a matter of preference. If you feel it's less that it's a matter of preference as it is that you aren't accomplishing wavedashing's benefits with other tools and thus you feel you're not as good as you could be, then feel free to use wavedashing. There's no reason you have to use it (again, minus wavelanding on platforms), but there's no reason to avoid it either. TL,DR; you're not dumb for preferring not to use it, but if you feel like you'd be a better player if you did use it, then go for it.
I think you need to give yourself more credit Adam. This vid was absolutely phenomenal. The ideas were well informed and clearly stated and the presentation was just beautiful. Keep up the amazing work
I do like wavedashing as a gameplay mecanique, I just wish it would have a better more natural looking animation. seeing your fighter crouch but sliding at the speed of sound looks a liitle funky to me.
It does look a bit weird, but what kind of animation would you give it though? I can't really think of a pose that says "I just got a burst of momentum midair that ran me into the ground and is now the remaining momentum is sliding me across the floor." I do think some type of visual effect, like if the character left a blur behind them as they slid or something, could go a long way.
@@poopheadtwenty-seven540 yea, not sure what the perfect animation for wavedash could look like. things in the nature of a wing flap or a jet pack's thrust etc.
Maybe a little slide forward, akin to megaman’s dtilt or similar-looking moves in smash? I personally like the current animation, but if you wanna make it look more natural then that’s the way to go.
After watching the intro it reminded me about Destiny and how Bungie removed sword skating which was a fun mechanic in the game that allowed for fast movements and it was also popular in speedrunning. I miss it so much and hope it comes back in the future. Gliding through the air with a sword was just so fun.
I have never understood people's arguments on not using a tool that is allowed even if it's relatively obscure, or saying "you're nor allowed to play the game in that way omg." I think a far more healthy mentality would be to make an attempt to understand the other side rather than shut down what different from their opinion. But as you said, people are dicks in the world so oh well
@@davis1228 I mean the tech wavedash is an objective good. It adds a shit ton to a game. Most of the complaints given to wavedashing are based on how melee is designed and not wavedashing in itself.
@@davis1228 For example I remember reading it adds an unnecessary skill barrier for something that is essentially basic ass movement. Rivals of Aether makes it able to be buffered so you don't have to spent all day in training mode doing something that can be considered basic ass movement.
Davis1228 bro i simply do not understand the points you try to make. I truly think the melee community is just as ignorant to others viewpoints as any other community in existence. The argument “wavedashing is bad because they removed it in the later games” is about as ignorant as saying “F.L.U.D.D. is bad because they removed it from mario galaxy”. The comparison isnt 1-to-1, but just because sakurai and his team decided to remove it from the games they wanted to make doesnt make it this estranged blemish on the smash series. Melee is about momentum. I dont care if sakurai didnt intend for it to be about momentum, its about momentum. You keep your momentum when you leave the ground, you keep your momentum when you slide off a platform, and you are given COMPLETE control of the amount of momentum and speed you can pounce off of the ground at any time because of the wavedash. That is the backbone of the video game. They didnt JUST remove wavedashing in the later games, they also got rid of most of this momentum conservation. Wavedashing IS GOOD for melee, the momentum mechanics are right there screaming it at everybody but they fall on deaf ears because the littler things are a lot harder to notice when you are, get this, UNEDUCATED ON THE SUBJECT. The entire anti-melee community has collectively decided that learning an obscure technique in a fighting game is just too much to handle. Maybe the melee community would understand others viewpoints better if their FIGHTING GAME wasnt vehemently stigmatized by the entire fgc as the video game equivalent of trying to solve a rubix cube while flying a fighter jet through the trenches of the fucking death star at the same time just so you can make mario punch pikachu, all because some people found out that if you hit the L button after the Y button it does a cool slide lmao. Should they stop storing rocket boosts in sunshine speedruns? Should they stop bunny hopping in cs? Obviously not. Unnecessary skill gap? Bro its a SKILL gap. Get some fucking skill.
@@ihavegcc472 Well it's not really a get good scenario, it's that the movement can feel clunky because of the lack of heavily implemented systems nowadays, like buffering. Buffering is so integral to newer games that getting good has nothing to do with it. I feel like the word, "adapt," more aptly describes the mindset people should have when starting out playing Melee.
@@SamDudeification Actually Project+ doesn't have input buffering on as the default. But it does have smoother movement due to Brawl's dashback, RAR, 1 frame easier short hops.
To add to the reason why people dislike wavedashing, it isn't just difficult to pull the move off or that the games don't teach the mechanic better, it is very *non intuitive.* In other words, this movement doesn't make sense from a gameplay perspective and it's precisely because of this quality that some Gamedevs wanted to avoid because this concept requires you to have a somewhat deeper level of understanding of the game's engine instead of pre-established concepts to be able to utilize it properly. . From melee or even RoA's perspective, if we take away all of the complexities of what a normal air dodge can do when utilized to its fullest, an air dodge is an aerial invincibility movement tool that's very laggy at the end of the animation. Because of that, if you played the game for first time without tutorials and nobody tells you you can wavedash with an air dash, you're going to instictively thought that this maneuver is only used as a last resort option where you want to recover to land without getting hit. It's also what I suspect to be the reason the wavedash was considered to not be particularly useful in the early days of melee even if people are aware that this option exists due to this notion people had which is "air dodge = slow".
Yeah. Its not like movement options like TF2 Rocket Jump where while even more complex it obvious what's going on and why you'd want to learn in even befor you understand what it is. (This comparison may seem weird but I feel TF2 advanced movement makes for good anilagoy for advanced movement options in general)
I kinda disagree? Sure, airdodges are typically slow and a last resort option, but I wouldn't go as far as to say it doesn't make sense from a gameplay perspective. Directional airdodges and airdashes *are* a movement tool, regardless of whether or not they feel slow or committal, and wavedashing by its design is simply a byproduct of what happens when you airdodge into the ground. I guess the lack of intuition comes from the mindset going into using airdodges, since most people wouldn't think to airdodge downwards in moment-to-moment gameplay. If you're being hit from below, why would you ever dodge down and closer to the opponent when dodging left, right, or up seems more logical? Also your point about requiring a deeper understanding of the game's engine makes no sense lol. A lot of good games teach their players about new concepts and ways to utilize mechanics that they hadn't thought of before over time. These can be as complex as wavedashes, or as simple as holding the run button in a Mario game (you'd be surprised how many people don't know about that lol). It's simply up to the game devs to tutorialize these mechanics and introduce their functions to new players, which a majority of games with wavedashing in them struggle to do currently.
In some early 2000s sakurai interview found, you can see that he actually did intend for wavedashing to be in the game and he described it's uses, he probably thought of it as a little side gimmick and just didn't think it would be so centralizing to the game. The execution barrier is probably why it doesn't appear in later games.
You lost me when you compared an emergent mechanic to a game built around a mechanic. Not the same. Doesn't mean I'm against wavedash, it's just not a valid comparison.
Great video as always dude. The only smash tech I don't like is L-cancel for the only reason that my hands easily get worn down and it gets a bit painful trying to manage the amount of inputs. Which is why I'm a wuss who uses Auto L Cancel in Project M/Project Plus
I'm of two minds on L canceling. While on one hand, there's really no reason not to do it, on shield/on hit timings make pressure less consistent and can increase the necessity for reads in advantage.
Joseph Tochtrop Yeah, I have a strong disliking for the ALC mindset. It’s the mindset of people who want to become competitive but don’t want to put in work. “Since it’s good in every scenario to L cancel, its just mindless button pressing” they say, but they don’t know what the game would lose from L canceling being gone. For some reason their mindset is that having to practice tech skill is bad, but practicing tech skill is part of what separates good from bad players. You have the obvious example of Moment 37 for this. It was impressive because it was ridiculously hard to do. With people being able to L cancel without practice, combos and shield pressure will be easier to pull off. No need to go for easier safer combos because now the harder combos are easier. This will decrease combo diversity. Honestly, if you don’t want to practice why are you playing a competitive game?
@@moosemeep3694 that's totally fair. Though frankly im a more of a casual who loves PM. But I also want a way to work around my hand problems so auto l cancel helps my hands go at ease a bit and also lets me do cool enough combos like the other cool kids. But I'm not one to argue to say "L Cancel bad!" It's a neat skill thing as you said and shows you're a much higher ranking player. But as a person who loves casual play, i love the option for auto l cancel and to an extent, the extra buffer
People who say Wavedashing is hard haven't played melee for more than 10 minutes. It takes _some_ time to get used to, but in the same way it takes time to get used to a mid air cappy bounce in SMO. I absolutely suck in melee, considering I mostly play the newer smash games. I don't have much play time in the game at all, but I can still somewhat consistently wavedash. I have more trouble perfect pivoting in smash 4 (I really wish this was in ultimate), which only requires only a stick movement.
@@davis1228 you dont have to know it to enjoy the game, or even to be good at the game. Fundamentals carry you harder than you think. Tech skill is a big component in melee but pressing buttons fast alone doesnt let you win for free. Whats so bad about having more options? Casual players can play the game as usual, and hardcore players who want to take the time to get better can do so if they want, without being limited by the game. More options is almost always better.
Honestly the "new" type of content you make now is so amazing, it's like asum saus but more general (or more directed towards rivals) which makes it stand out and unique. Your editing style, your jokes and quite literally the content of the video works so great together. I hope I can see more
Super cool to see this style of video. Although we miss seeing your lovely face, we get a pretty solid explanation of what wavedashing offers coupled with great editing. It’d be nice to see more content like this so good shit, Adam!
I was rerecording and rewriting stuff constantly which is easier to do without filming. Also my hair's too long right now anyway lol. So expect this style of stuff for a hot minute. But I stream on twitch with a cam still, so my stupid face is still out there.
Ya know what else wasn't intended? The glitch/exploit that basically created the 2D fighter combo system. Newer players probably try learning wavedashing waaaaaay too soon. It's difficult to apply advanced tech successfully when you don't even have fundamentals.
The one argument I can think of is that the game limits your options out of running intentionally, and for better or worse wave dashing kind of ruins that dynamic of putting your self at an option disadvantage in order to gain speed. So it is a sacrifice of a strategic element to the game play for technical and faster paced game play with more options when you allow wave dashing.
Now that I think about it Ultimate has a roster of about 80 characters each one of them being completely diferent from each other (with exceptions) and has tone of single player content but lacks in movement options for the player. And rivals has about 14 characters all of them completely diferent from each other and has a ton of movement options for the player but lacks the single player content (DAN FIX THE STORY MODE). My point is: Is it possible to make a fighting with a large roster a good amount of single player content and without restricting the player movement options?
The answer is no, because games with tons of content need a huge budget and any company that has that money and is looking to turn that money into as much more money as possible will always cater to the casual player. So no advanced tech allowed. Leave it to the modders.
Hey man I saw asum saus’ videos too and love his content! Just wanted to let you know you’re getting there with your content keep up the good work man!
"Why is something so easy misunderstood by so many people?" Me who hasn't been able to wavedash once despite hours of practice and years of playing smash games "Haha yeah it's so easy.... o_o" P.S. I know I'm just bad
This has nothing to do with smash but Rocket league uses a directional air-dodge mechanic, and wavedashing is not only a thing it's gotten me out of some tight scrapes. I love watching players work wavedashing into their dribbles & outplays because their are situations that come up in the game where it'll give you a real-time momentum and frame advantage. I see that same situational frame advantage in melee, and sometimes the outcome of an interaction in neutral can change due to the way either player is drifting or even reactionally because of a quick platform wavedash.
Honestly watched both and Adam I think your video is better. Asum talked about melee from only the perspective of other smash games, but having a good understanding of a lot of games is much more helpful in communicating the point. Your video is also a lot more positive
you don't like the lack of buffer... yet! but actually, i honestly believe no game feels as good to play in the 'flow state' than melee precisely because there is no buffer. That being said, i think a small buffer (like rivals) is in general a good thing.
As someone who's an absolute Melee, Project +, and Rivals casual that plays Ultimate competitively, I agree that wavedashing is only good for the game in terms of adding more movement options. Wavedashing itself isn't hard, it's just hard to get max length and figuring out where and when to do it. That's why I like how Rivals made the action itself super easy, so you can focus more on applying it rather than trying to get it in the first place.
4:47 that’s the whole reason I think Final Destination shouldn’t be a level Allowed in competitive Melee.. all it does is make it very hard for slow characters with limited movement to win that match.
I definitely think the biggest problem people have with wavedashing in Melee and PM is that it is just really hard to do consistently. This is mostly because wavedashing isn't a "real" mechanic in the first place in those games. All you're doing is air dodging towards the ground. In other games like Rivals and Slap City, however, holding right/left and then pressing jump and air dodge is a real wavedash that was intentionally put in the game. The Devs had this in mind so they made wavedashing incredibly easy to do across the board. I've played PM for a fair amount of time and I still absolutely suck ass at wavedashing outside of a single character and it is really frustrating. The direction you have to hold and the timing between the jump and air dodge is a lot less forgiving in Melee and PM so, more often than not, I end up just air dodging left or right and then get my ass comboed. The inputs just feel a lot more awkward to do in Melee and PM compared to newer titles. It feels great when you wavedash, but it feels really bad trying to do it consistently because it wasn't built into the game as a real mechanic. Wavedashing is an awesome mechanic and I hope every future platform fighter title puts it in, but it will always be hated by a lot of people because of Melee and PM.
@@AdamCarra I think it's still in a sense "restricted" by trying to make it feel really technical like melee. It has all the same behaviors with angles affecting it, right?
@@AdamCarra Yeah I shoulda been more clear. In PM it is intended to be in the game, but it still behaves like it does in Melee where you are really just air dodging towards the ground rather than doing an actual wavedash like you would in Rivals.
@@nerfirelia8235 How is Rivals a "real" wavedash when Melee was the original lol? Many things are hard in melee because of the lack of buffer not whether it was intended or not. Like powershielding and L-canceling were 100% intended as there are even in-game bonuses awarded for doing them. But they are still hard to do consistently.
It's the same mechanically in Rivals though you are just air dodging into the ground, just in Rivals it'll buffer from jump squat so it's really easy to do it perfectly. In PM they did buff it a bit though, they did a 1 frame fix to the end of the jump squat or jump (not exactly sure how it works lol) that still counts as grounded so it is actually easier to do in PM vs Melee. In PM the amount of jumpsquat frames is not unified like it is in Rivals so the timing will also differ between characters which could also make it seem difficult I guess. Rivals is easier, but also it did come out years later so there's that.
The reason it’s considered “advanced tech” is how frame perfect it can be in melee. Too early and you don’t do it at all. Too late and you’re left helpless in the air. Games that let you buffer it show how easy and useful it can be.
Another reason that I think the casual crowd might not like wavedashing is because of how it affects characters differently. Mostly I mean this in the sense that in melee characters with harder or worse wavedashes tend to be on the lower end of the tier list, and casuals tend to not like acknowledging that a character is bad. Regardless of how true the statement "a skilled Roy can beat any Fox" can be, this mindset comes from the idea that people don't want to think about characters as being bad. It's kind of like how they tend to think it's funny that Meta Knight in brawl is broken, but they don't really like or care about that bowser is a different kind of broken in melee. Characters in melee having better or worse wavedashes can cause them to have to acknowledge that a character is bad, and by proxy make them dislike what makes them bad on principle alone. or maybe I'm dumb and wrong, but I think it's still worth noting as a possible cause
Zelda and Bowser are the only characters in bottom tier that have bad wavedashes, and Link is arguably the only low tier with a bad wavedash. If we were to judge how good a character was based off of how good their wavedash is, Mewtwo would be top 3 in the game, Roy would be top 6 and Peach would be the worst character in the game next to Jigglypuff.
Till 0:11 - Nah, it is more physically demanding than you might think. At least in SSBM/PM/P+, you need to time the jump and the air dodge precisely besides the stick angle to control the length of the wavedash. Till 3:10 - Yeah, but I think that in first place its rather there because you can reset your dash animation. Look, even if I would play with Peach who has such a bad wavedash that you could even compare it with the walking speed, youll always see people like Armada wavedashing with her. Why? Cuz if you reset the dash animation by wavedashin at least one time, you can backdash immediately. So you could basically do super long pseudo dash dancing only cuz of wavedashing. (Btw if you have mentioned it after Im sorry but im telling it rn without having seen the whole vid.) But besides that, a very good video! Keep continuing your work!
This was such a well made video, I loved it. You compare yourself to AsumSaus's video and even channel at the end, but I'd like to say your latest content absolutely Rivals (get it) his, this is beautiful
it's hard if you're used to ultimate or 4 where you don't have to time anything because of buffers, but when you get the hang of melee movement you don't even have to think - it flows like water. honestly one of the best feelings in the world, up there with how it feels to play an instrument you've practiced for years. it makes playing the new smash games feel really clunky.
I honestly only understood wavedashing when I learned that there's a 3-frame jumpsquat in Melee, and that that's where you do the dodge input for the max distance wavedash. Prior to that I kinda understood the idea, but didn't know how it would work since I didn't realize how fast I had to hit the dodge button to get it, which meant I'd be dodging when off the ground, kinda like the Ultimate example in the video. Also, Rivals is really nice for wavedashing simply because you can remap buttons, so I can more easily set up jump and dodge to piano the inputs for wavedashing.
only certain characters have a 3 frame jumpsquat, fox is one of them. in smash games before ultimate, a character's jumpsquat varies from character to character. in ultimate, it's universally 3 frames
I agree that wavedashing is good because of the reasons you mention, but I think there are some missing points in this video. Wavedashing is much harder than running and jumping in a Mario game because in a Mario game, running and jumping has much more lenient inputs. You can hold the B button and the direction you're going in as long as you want and press A to jump whenever you need to, and that produces a running jump as much as you need to. With wavedashing, there's a timing element because pressing the shield/dodge button too early gets you a shield/roll/parry instead and doing it too late reduces the effectiveness of the wavedash or, even worse, makes you awkwardly air dodge towards the ground. In addition, reaching the bottom corner is not as easy as reaching left or right, which makes it considerably harder to do than running and jumping in a Mario game. Something else you missed is an offering you missed: mastery and skill expression. Because of its technical nature, getting good at wavedashing is hard to do but very rewarding when you get better at it, and when you are good enough you can use it in interesting ways and refine your playstyle into something else other players aren't doing. You also missed the potential return on investment for not adding it in. Super Smash Bros Ultimate is the most popular smash game and Brawlhalla is the most popular indie platform fighter with no close second. While there are good reasons these games have larger playerbases that aren't directly related to their gameplay (Smash Ultimate's "everyone is here" marketing campaign and Brawlhalla's free-to-play nature and unparalleled online offerings are good examples of this) they are able to have thriving competitive scenes because they offer the depth of movement of wavedashing in ways that are easier for players to understand and are more immediately fun. Synergies are valuable but are slightly overblown here. Most games only have 1-2 characters with actual synergy with wavedashing because most characters don't have jump cancelable moves. Still, synergies are very good for any game, and wavedash synergies are absolutely a good reason wavedashing should exist. This is part of the reason why, if I designed a platform fighter, I would make wavedashing a character-specific mechanic instead of something the whole cast can do. Giving that one character interesting movement options gives that character a unique feel, dumping massive quantities of wavedash synergies onto that one character gives them an interesting gameplay identity, and the other characters can have unique movement options of their own and/or have weaker movement options as a balancing mechanic. Finally, I think that wavedashing is more interesting when it's an option rather than a requirement. Melee limits many of your options while dashing, which makes wavedashing mandatory for competitive play, even at a low to mid level. Slap City, on the other hand, does not limit your options because there are no dash attacks, which means Slap City doesn't restrict your options if you don't wavedash. This makes Slap City much more fun to learn because you can focus on learning how to play your character without having to learn the harder-to-use mechanics right off.
Another thing working against the general perception of wavedashing is that when you look at what you're actually doing in the game, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Why should an aerial evasive option be more useful as a grounded movement option? Isn't aerial evasion supposed to be its primary function? I think it would do a lot of good to implement wavedashing through an air _dash_ instead of an air _dodge,_ like what Celeste and WaveLand do, but in a platform fighter. Not only is it more intuitive for an aerial movement option to transition into a grounded movement option, but an air dash would be sick as fuck in its own right.
What if you gave that dash I frames and called it a dodge and just bound it to the same button? That would be more efficient, two birds with one stone.
Phenomenal video. One minor note though, is that the difficulty of wavedashing isn't character-dependent. It's actually player-dependent. Characters have different timings based on how long their jump squat is. Which character's wavedash is "harder" depends on what timing you're used to. That's why Bowser's wavedash feels difficult to many: he has 8 frames of jump squat, which is twice as long as many other characters' jump squats.
A wise man once said "doing nothing comes out on frame 0"
I'm stealing this, frame 0 could basically describe my life right now.
You can cancel it into anything.
It's too broken.
I feel way to much
It's also the riskiest option they could just hit you.
@@lmao2302 just move away from it. not getting hit does 0% to you
Wouldn’t it be funny if Smash added a Rival’s of Aether character as DLC and made their gimmick that they can wavedash.
I would be sad
@@ThePoodle and broken
It would be propaganda. The mechanic that is the symbol of competitive smash, the mechanic that got directional airdodges removed from the series, being included in a modern smash game would have different implications based on whether or not it's good. If it's good people will demand that more characters be able to microspace and just introduce more movement options into the game, and if its bad it'll be as though they're pushing the idea that romanticization of melee mechanics isn't welcome in the game.
It would be a smash 4 bayonetta situation
That or a Tekken character xD
I sometimes forget just how good of an editor Adam is
Do you forget in the time between videos? Because that’s... understandable.
Yo I was thinking the same thing, like where this sleek editing come from? Amazing!
i feel like there are far too many moments where the music cuts out for... emphasis? it feels disruptive to the rest of the video
He edits just own videos ?!
sakurai did know about wavedashes at the point of melees release
You forgot that if you wavedash into your ding dong then you're able to fling flong your bing bong
surprised this took so long to happen
the smoothed out slow-motion rivals footage is very cursed
Wow another person who likes cave story
Why? I love it!
wavedashing to me feels kinda like swinging around as spider-man. it just feels so good
it really makes you feeeeel like Super Smash Brothers Melee
Wavedashing is bad because Wrastor can do it.
Dang, you're right
@@AdamCarra Wavedash is a top tier
But Bowser cant
The timing for wavedashing in melee/PM is a kinda tricky to get down, especially since its character dependent, kinda like what you showed with bowser and how jarring his frame 8 jump is. The timing of it is also probably the hardest thing for people, because the input is easy as hell, but without a buffer it'll take practice and people don't want to practice for a technique that is so essential. I think people would be WAY more accepting to it if it was like rivals where you can wavedash during jump squat with a buffer, as then it is literally "just as easy as running and jumping in mario"
Yeah, I was thinking exactly the same thing. Sometimes it feels like people who play Melee or traditional fighting games forget how not easy some of the basics actually are. Sure, I can wavedash or do special moves in Street Fighter whenever I want every single time and I think these inputs are important for making the game what it is, but to say it's as easy as run jumping in a Mario game is just... come on man. No one ever practiced run jumping. lol
@@8Kazuja8 One counterpoint to this is that L-cancelling actually helps the balance of the game lol. Fox and Falco would be even better if L-cancelling was automatic.
Edit: I love Melee but the only problem I have with Wavedashing is that the amount of times it is done can be really bad for hand health. Make the input require less force/less precise timing would be better for the long-term health of players. Although that does make some other things harder (not being able to hold L/R half way while landing on a platform to set-up shield drop) so idk
@@8Kazuja8
Like an intentional mechanic?
Melee: intentional... What's that? Can i L-cancel that?
@@raymanfan9265 L-Cancelling is definitely an intentional mechanic. Not good design but hilariously does help the game's meta lol.
@@adjmonkey Well Wavedash is definitely "intentional" too at first. Would have been cool if it stuck around in the other Smash games (especially Brawl :p).
AsumSaus is actually an incredible channel. I remember when he basically was discount grsmash and now his channel is something totally unique.
Also to put what you said in very blunt terms. People don't like wavedashing because the scrub mindset is inescapable in any game, people don't want to learn, and they don't want to lose so game sux wavedash dum.
It's literally always people with this mindset trying to control/give input how the game is played competitively. It's like they forget that tournament rulesets don't automatically delete the rest of the game for the casual crowd.
What an incredibly narrow minded view
@@imnotnarcian *Realistic view
@@Jarekthegamingdragon no you just sound really out of touch
@@Jarekthegamingdragon you sound like leffen the way you worded your comment. Condescending and now you’re acting like him. “I’m right and if you don’t agree with me I’m gonna be condescending and rude”
This video is fire. Reminds me of AsumSaus with the high quality editing and humor. Would love to see more.
Is this the papa john of ludvix legend?
I fully agree big papa
Seconded
The editing quality is way better than AsumSaus lmao
Better ingredients. Better videos. Adam Carra.
The feeling when you’re watching someone’s vid and they say “go sub to this guy, he’s super good” and you’re already subbed to that guy is _absolutely phenomenal_
Adam, please continue making these great videos. You're, like, the most underrated "smash" youtuber, and you're center of Rivals gives you such a good outlook on everything else. You're the best.
If Adam's content appealed to a wider audience, he'd be waaaaay more popular.
when you were talking about why wavedashing is useful even when you have stuff like pivoting or have more options out of dash you missed a few reasons. wavedashes preserve which way you face so you don't need to turn around (useful for things like slide off Bair). When you wavedash you can do a grounded attack while moving (this is most obvious with low traction characters like Luigi). wave dashing doesn't make you go into run, so you can do things like dash -> WD -> dash. Of course you could also do something like fox trotting, but shut up. They can also allow you to move in the opposite direction when in run without getting stuck in turn around. They stop your momentum, that's why you see people do things like wavedash down.
You can't do grounded attacks immediately after wavedash so that only few characters like luigi can make use of attacks while moving becauase of their long wavedash.
And partial invincibility
Idain also when u wave dash around u can just hold down and crouch cancel all the time which is why it’s better than pivots for captain falcon
@@eggyes3340 Wavedashes grant intangibility frames, not invincibilty frames, and a properly executed wavedash does not have any. For example, none of the wavedashes in the video would have had intangibility. Most airdodges grant intangibility starting on frame 4, and all of them immediately cancel any remaining i-frames upon touching the ground. So even a really, really bad wavedash (airdodge on your 4th airborne frame) would have at most 1-2 frames of intangibility before touching the ground again.
Catwithagat ok sorry I wasn’t completely sure when I said that so I should have fact checked but, thank you!!
I think that one of the most overlooked reasons for why casuals have difficulty understanding and executing Wavedashes (in terms of Melee, at least) is because it's so very unlike every other action in the game.
A dash attack might require movement and a button press and a shield grab might require pressing two buttons together, but generally speaking every action in Smash is a single direction and a single button to perform a single action. The complexity comes in chaining these various actions together, and even the actions that require multiple buttons like a shield grab have an immediately logical flow in what the action represents.
Wave dashing; meanwhile, is a *grounded* forward and backward movement option that is not only initiated with a *jump*, but it doesn't bring up the shield nor have invincibility *despite using the shield button*.
In terms of mechanics it makes sense because you are canceling an air dodge into a grounded state while retaining momentum, but from a purely input perspective with knowledge of what each button does separate from other context it comes off as a nonsensical series of inputs.
If I want to slide back and forth on the ground then why do I need to jump? Dodge rolling moves me back and forth on the ground without jumping, so what gives?
Couple this confusion that can arise from low level comprehension of the game and the fact that Wave dashing isn't nearly as universally useful across the cast as other mechanics as well as the difference in input timing and it just gives the technique this simultaneous facade of difficulty, unintuitiveness, and lack of utility that makes it feel like some kind of awkward gatekeeping ceremony to separate the "dedicated professional gamers" from "casual scum that don't know a SHFFL from a MALLC and or that a DABK is practically a Tatsu".
I meant Shoryuken at the end, lol
Wavedashing is such an amazing movement and micro spacing tool and it would be nice if was in smash ultimate
IF Ultimate had an option like a Wavedash I would not even argue to myself about which game I like better: Melee or Ultimate (right now I like them both equally)
It actually IS in Ultimate. It's just so laggy, that it's useless lol.
So I think the main point of this video is
The Milestone System is free!
Ok but is it free?
Ok I hear you, BUT IS IT FREE
I was in a dark place before I found the milestone system
freedom is the ultimate goal
But how are we gonna know it's free if you don't tell us??
I'm only two minutes in, but OOF.
First, I love melee and wavedashing.
But you immediately compared a mechanic that is essentially a one button input with an unlimited window because one of the buttons is held (running and jumping) to a series of inputs with a few frame window for the optimal result.
Also, you can't take wavedashing or another advanced movement mechanic out of one of those games because the design was built AROUND them.
If you take wavedashing out of melee, it's just melee without wavedashing... The game still functions as intended.
You call wavedashing a series of inputs, but it's two buttons dude. You press one button then wait and press another button, it's not hard lol. Every video game ever asks the play to time button inputs. When people phrase it the way you did they get scared.
Also a non frame perfect wavedash is still useful, in a lot of situations it's not a big deal.
But anyway the point is to show how simple a wavedash is, because it is very simple.
@@AdamCarra "It's one wavedash Michael, how many inputs could it take, two buttons?"
Melee was intended to have wavedashing.... taking it out does make it the game not work as intended because it takes up such a huge part of the game, take out any major, all character tech that’s intended and the game is completely different, also frame perfect wavedashes aren’t that hard.
bad take, 0/10
Just commenting to make sure that this great video with high quality editing gets boosted in the algorithm.
i didn't know that there were people against wavedashing, any type of person really does exist
It's largely people from the fgc or casual community who don't know what they're talking about. This video would be a good intro to the topic
@@hundred2949 low skill?
@@hundred2949 how is it complex, its two buttons and a direction
@@hundred2949 it isn't complex though. Much less complex than "perfect pivots" or whatever the kids are doing these days.
Browniehugs It’s a simple input (though hard to time at first in melee sadly) that has a simple movement but adds a lot of depth. Complexity from simple things is complexity done beautifully and what many games try to accomplish. They try to have a set of simple mechanics that blend together to allow an explosion of depth.
An interesting hilarious side note: The smash 4 community fucking loved perfect pivots.
What are perfect pivots?
A poor man's wavedash that doesn't have the platform applications.
Done with just the left stick. Not even a button input.
But why did they love it? They understood it.
They saw how top players like MKLeo used it and realized how sick it is.
That's how I explain Melee/PM/Rivals to a lot of smash 4 players.
Once they understand it, they tend to love the mechanic.
I can't speak for everyone, but the reason I learned to Perfect Pivot was because it was so similar to wavedashing.
It was my first smash game and I mained little Mac. Perfect pivoting was such a strength for the character I had it down, and even more complex movements like momentum pivots (dash forward perfect pivot while keeping forward facing). Moving like that was such fun.
Come smash ultimate I couldn't figure out wavedashing. Is it easier in melee?
@@Zhalfrin Wavedashing in Ult is super niche and frame tight unfortunately. They deliberately tried to remove it from the game.
In Melee it's way easier and smooth. You can also control the length of the wavedash to be super small or very long just by where you put the left stick. It's amazing and feels so good.
If you have a PC I recommend trying Melee on Dolphin. You may like it a lot more than Ult or at least as much.
If you enjoy it but find the technical requirements too much or don't own a switch, give Rivals of Aether a try. It has pretty much all the Melee movement but way easier to do.
@@Saskaruto16 I may try melee on PC just to suss how easy it is to wavedash, but I doubt I'll play it much. Never know though. On the whole I don't like ultimate nearly as much as S4, it just feels stiff and is too fast paced and aggressive for me.
Smash 4 was my first competitive game, (64 was actually my first smash game) and thanks to little mac I found myself liking grounded gameplay more than aerial stuff, so I've been trying street fighter on fightcade.
@@Zhalfrin If you love little mac idk he's not really a "smash" character.
But if you're looking for someone kind of similar but actually want to use aerials and play real smash there are lots of good options especially in Melee.
Definitely try out Falcon in Melee for the speed, Marth if you want the best movement, all the viable characters are worth a try.
Maybe you'll be into something wack like Luigi (no he doesn't play like Ult Luigi). He plays very grounded because his air speed sucks, he is very floaty for Melee so similar to average smash 4 fall speed, and his wavedash is the longest in the game which gives him a very unique crazy style.
i still can't wavedash
i think its time to quit melee
You'll get it just keep on grinding king 👑
No king, you’ll make it. It’s incredibly satisfying to achieve consistently and opens the doors to tons of more tech. Took me a week of practice to get perfectly.
just make sure you’re practicing them correctly, like practicing in short increments with frequent breaks and knowing that if your character is jumping it means you’re doing the inputs too early and airdodging means too late, and remember that different character’s jump squat time (time before leaving the ground) affects the timing of the shield input
Try different characters, different buttons. I use Y to jump and L to air dodge, but to learn wave dashing, I had to use Marth, X to jump, and R to air dodge. It took me so long to figure that out, but that's what works for me. I thought I would never learn it. Keep trying and you'll get it.
If you haven’t already, download the uncle punch mod! It shows you if you’re off by a couple frames and if you’re angle is too steep or shallow. Very helpful if you wanna experience how far you can go with small adjustments
i like to think that some dude at HAL Lab knew that wavedashing would enable so many options and combo trees
There had to be at least one dev on that team who realized some of the potential in melee. I wonder what they would think of a mango-leffen set
As someone who plays Rivals without ever wavedashing, I now feel stupid.
In many platform fighters, wavedashing is hardly necessary. Like Adam said, a lot of what wavedashing accomplishes you can accomplish with other movement options. This is especially the case in Rivals, because you can do everything out of your run just as effectively as you could if you were standing still or even if you were wavedashing. Even without wavedashing, you have all the options at your disposal that players who use wavedashing do (you'll still want to learn how to waveland, though).
The reason so many players use it is not because it makes you a better or smarter player (how effectively you use the movement options at your disposal determines much of your skill/intelligence as a player), but because, to many, including me, it just feels better than other options I could be using. I really don't know what it is, but regardless it's a matter of preference.
If you feel it's less that it's a matter of preference as it is that you aren't accomplishing wavedashing's benefits with other tools and thus you feel you're not as good as you could be, then feel free to use wavedashing. There's no reason you have to use it (again, minus wavelanding on platforms), but there's no reason to avoid it either.
TL,DR; you're not dumb for preferring not to use it, but if you feel like you'd be a better player if you did use it, then go for it.
Can anyone here help me get a consistent fling flong > bing bong? I see players do it a lot but i dont know how to do it.
I think you need to give yourself more credit Adam. This vid was absolutely phenomenal. The ideas were well informed and clearly stated and the presentation was just beautiful. Keep up the amazing work
For comedic purposes, the duration of the “who fucking cares” slide at 1:49 was frame perfect
I do like wavedashing as a gameplay mecanique, I just wish it would have a better more natural looking animation. seeing your fighter crouch but sliding at the speed of sound looks a liitle funky to me.
Mecanique lol
I think it looks cool. It's a very satisfying *zoop*
It does look a bit weird, but what kind of animation would you give it though? I can't really think of a pose that says "I just got a burst of momentum midair that ran me into the ground and is now the remaining momentum is sliding me across the floor."
I do think some type of visual effect, like if the character left a blur behind them as they slid or something, could go a long way.
@@poopheadtwenty-seven540 yea, not sure what the perfect animation for wavedash could look like. things in the nature of a wing flap or a jet pack's thrust etc.
Maybe a little slide forward, akin to megaman’s dtilt or similar-looking moves in smash?
I personally like the current animation, but if you wanna make it look more natural then that’s the way to go.
After watching the intro it reminded me about Destiny and how Bungie removed sword skating which was a fun mechanic in the game that allowed for fast movements and it was also popular in speedrunning. I miss it so much and hope it comes back in the future. Gliding through the air with a sword was just so fun.
I have never understood people's arguments on not using a tool that is allowed even if it's relatively obscure, or saying "you're nor allowed to play the game in that way omg." I think a far more healthy mentality would be to make an attempt to understand the other side rather than shut down what different from their opinion. But as you said, people are dicks in the world so oh well
Oh, the irony...
@@davis1228 I mean the tech wavedash is an objective good. It adds a shit ton to a game. Most of the complaints given to wavedashing are based on how melee is designed and not wavedashing in itself.
@@davis1228 For example I remember reading it adds an unnecessary skill barrier for something that is essentially basic ass movement. Rivals of Aether makes it able to be buffered so you don't have to spent all day in training mode doing something that can be considered basic ass movement.
Davis1228 bro i simply do not understand the points you try to make. I truly think the melee community is just as ignorant to others viewpoints as any other community in existence. The argument “wavedashing is bad because they removed it in the later games” is about as ignorant as saying “F.L.U.D.D. is bad because they removed it from mario galaxy”. The comparison isnt 1-to-1, but just because sakurai and his team decided to remove it from the games they wanted to make doesnt make it this estranged blemish on the smash series. Melee is about momentum. I dont care if sakurai didnt intend for it to be about momentum, its about momentum. You keep your momentum when you leave the ground, you keep your momentum when you slide off a platform, and you are given COMPLETE control of the amount of momentum and speed you can pounce off of the ground at any time because of the wavedash. That is the backbone of the video game. They didnt JUST remove wavedashing in the later games, they also got rid of most of this momentum conservation. Wavedashing IS GOOD for melee, the momentum mechanics are right there screaming it at everybody but they fall on deaf ears because the littler things are a lot harder to notice when you are, get this, UNEDUCATED ON THE SUBJECT. The entire anti-melee community has collectively decided that learning an obscure technique in a fighting game is just too much to handle. Maybe the melee community would understand others viewpoints better if their FIGHTING GAME wasnt vehemently stigmatized by the entire fgc as the video game equivalent of trying to solve a rubix cube while flying a fighter jet through the trenches of the fucking death star at the same time just so you can make mario punch pikachu, all because some people found out that if you hit the L button after the Y button it does a cool slide lmao. Should they stop storing rocket boosts in sunshine speedruns? Should they stop bunny hopping in cs? Obviously not. Unnecessary skill gap? Bro its a SKILL gap. Get some fucking skill.
One of the reasons i like Melee over regular fighting games and next versions of smash is the movement freedom and speed, and it looks so Fucking COOL
Great job Adam. You'll always be my favorite Adam Carra
This was a good video, I’d be down for more videos like this!
It’s not “hard to wavedash” it’s just in melee it harder is there is no buffer system so it’s harder
Well said. I hate the feel of Melee because there's no buffering so it always feels like I can't move.
@@ValkenEX get good?
@@ihavegcc472 I think the better answer is play Project+ or Rivals!
@@ihavegcc472 Well it's not really a get good scenario, it's that the movement can feel clunky because of the lack of heavily implemented systems nowadays, like buffering. Buffering is so integral to newer games that getting good has nothing to do with it. I feel like the word, "adapt," more aptly describes the mindset people should have when starting out playing Melee.
@@SamDudeification Actually Project+ doesn't have input buffering on as the default. But it does have smoother movement due to Brawl's dashback, RAR, 1 frame easier short hops.
To add to the reason why people dislike wavedashing, it isn't just difficult to pull the move off or that the games don't teach the mechanic better, it is very *non intuitive.* In other words, this movement doesn't make sense from a gameplay perspective and it's precisely because of this quality that some Gamedevs wanted to avoid because this concept requires you to have a somewhat deeper level of understanding of the game's engine instead of pre-established concepts to be able to utilize it properly.
.
From melee or even RoA's perspective, if we take away all of the complexities of what a normal air dodge can do when utilized to its fullest, an air dodge is an aerial invincibility movement tool that's very laggy at the end of the animation. Because of that, if you played the game for first time without tutorials and nobody tells you you can wavedash with an air dash, you're going to instictively thought that this maneuver is only used as a last resort option where you want to recover to land without getting hit. It's also what I suspect to be the reason the wavedash was considered to not be particularly useful in the early days of melee even if people are aware that this option exists due to this notion people had which is "air dodge = slow".
Yeah. Its not like movement options like TF2 Rocket Jump where while even more complex it obvious what's going on and why you'd want to learn in even befor you understand what it is. (This comparison may seem weird but I feel TF2 advanced movement makes for good anilagoy for advanced movement options in general)
Wavedash good
This
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I kinda disagree? Sure, airdodges are typically slow and a last resort option, but I wouldn't go as far as to say it doesn't make sense from a gameplay perspective. Directional airdodges and airdashes *are* a movement tool, regardless of whether or not they feel slow or committal, and wavedashing by its design is simply a byproduct of what happens when you airdodge into the ground. I guess the lack of intuition comes from the mindset going into using airdodges, since most people wouldn't think to airdodge downwards in moment-to-moment gameplay. If you're being hit from below, why would you ever dodge down and closer to the opponent when dodging left, right, or up seems more logical?
Also your point about requiring a deeper understanding of the game's engine makes no sense lol. A lot of good games teach their players about new concepts and ways to utilize mechanics that they hadn't thought of before over time. These can be as complex as wavedashes, or as simple as holding the run button in a Mario game (you'd be surprised how many people don't know about that lol). It's simply up to the game devs to tutorialize these mechanics and introduce their functions to new players, which a majority of games with wavedashing in them struggle to do currently.
I never played Melee and am a casual player, but boy wavedashing is so fun to watch in a fight.
In some early 2000s sakurai interview found, you can see that he actually did intend for wavedashing to be in the game and he described it's uses, he probably thought of it as a little side gimmick and just didn't think it would be so centralizing to the game. The execution barrier is probably why it doesn't appear in later games.
Which is kinda cringe because their was already a solution to it's execution barrier.
Tbh Wavedash has become the identity of competitive platform fighters.
You lost me when you compared an emergent mechanic to a game built around a mechanic. Not the same. Doesn't mean I'm against wavedash, it's just not a valid comparison.
What about Waveland?
@@AdamCarra What about waveland?
Great video as always dude.
The only smash tech I don't like is L-cancel for the only reason that my hands easily get worn down and it gets a bit painful trying to manage the amount of inputs. Which is why I'm a wuss who uses Auto L Cancel in Project M/Project Plus
I'm of two minds on L canceling. While on one hand, there's really no reason not to do it, on shield/on hit timings make pressure less consistent and can increase the necessity for reads in advantage.
I love l cancel
@@juliusfrank3349 yeah removing it from PM would mean removing the skill of punishing missed L cancels
Joseph Tochtrop Yeah, I have a strong disliking for the ALC mindset. It’s the mindset of people who want to become competitive but don’t want to put in work. “Since it’s good in every scenario to L cancel, its just mindless button pressing” they say, but they don’t know what the game would lose from L canceling being gone. For some reason their mindset is that having to practice tech skill is bad, but practicing tech skill is part of what separates good from bad players. You have the obvious example of Moment 37 for this. It was impressive because it was ridiculously hard to do. With people being able to L cancel without practice, combos and shield pressure will be easier to pull off. No need to go for easier safer combos because now the harder combos are easier. This will decrease combo diversity. Honestly, if you don’t want to practice why are you playing a competitive game?
@@moosemeep3694 that's totally fair.
Though frankly im a more of a casual who loves PM. But I also want a way to work around my hand problems so auto l cancel helps my hands go at ease a bit and also lets me do cool enough combos like the other cool kids. But I'm not one to argue to say "L Cancel bad!"
It's a neat skill thing as you said and shows you're a much higher ranking player. But as a person who loves casual play, i love the option for auto l cancel and to an extent, the extra buffer
Not going to lie, clicking on this video, I didn't know if it was serious or not but I'm glad it was mostly serious.
People who say Wavedashing is hard haven't played melee for more than 10 minutes. It takes _some_ time to get used to, but in the same way it takes time to get used to a mid air cappy bounce in SMO.
I absolutely suck in melee, considering I mostly play the newer smash games. I don't have much play time in the game at all, but I can still somewhat consistently wavedash. I have more trouble perfect pivoting in smash 4 (I really wish this was in ultimate), which only requires only a stick movement.
For some reason, I can't wavedash consistently despite having around 20 hours in melee, most of which was spent trying wavedash consistently
Another great video Adam! Hope your hands are healing up well =)
track ball mouse op
Wavedashing is nowhere near the same as running and jumping in a mario game, it has an a lot tighter window to pull it off, kinda disingenuous
@@davis1228 you dont have to know it to enjoy the game, or even to be good at the game. Fundamentals carry you harder than you think. Tech skill is a big component in melee but pressing buttons fast alone doesnt let you win for free. Whats so bad about having more options? Casual players can play the game as usual, and hardcore players who want to take the time to get better can do so if they want, without being limited by the game. More options is almost always better.
@【DAGOTH UR】 Never said it wasn't.
Honestly the "new" type of content you make now is so amazing, it's like asum saus but more general (or more directed towards rivals) which makes it stand out and unique. Your editing style, your jokes and quite literally the content of the video works so great together. I hope I can see more
Super cool to see this style of video. Although we miss seeing your lovely face, we get a pretty solid explanation of what wavedashing offers coupled with great editing. It’d be nice to see more content like this so good shit, Adam!
I was rerecording and rewriting stuff constantly which is easier to do without filming. Also my hair's too long right now anyway lol. So expect this style of stuff for a hot minute. But I stream on twitch with a cam still, so my stupid face is still out there.
10:20 You WON'T see me on any dang flip-flop. I've NEVER worn one in my LIFE and will continue not to.
After denouncing the flip-flop, my hands have never felt better.
Flip flops are fire bro you're missing out
I like wavedashing because it allows me to basically do an analog movement without needing me to actually do an analog movement
7:30
-why are there so many people that don't like it?
Me: because they are fucking scrubs
-A lack of tutorialization
Me: Oh
Nice video, as always
This is so good. Thank you so much for making this video. This style is so entertaining and enjoyable.
Always nice stuff "the best Adam" !
Cant wait to see more of you : )
Is there another Adam? I'm not exactly an Adam veteran, as you might suspect.
Ya know what else wasn't intended? The glitch/exploit that basically created the 2D fighter combo system.
Newer players probably try learning wavedashing waaaaaay too soon. It's difficult to apply advanced tech successfully when you don't even have fundamentals.
This video essentially watches as “why a few of us won’t stop playing Melee”
The one argument I can think of is that the game limits your options out of running intentionally, and for better or worse wave dashing kind of ruins that dynamic of putting your self at an option disadvantage in order to gain speed. So it is a sacrifice of a strategic element to the game play for technical and faster paced game play with more options when you allow wave dashing.
The only mechanic I hate in melee is L cancelling. It’s an unnecessary input to allow characters to use necessary moves.
You have good taste in physics engines, my good sir.
Now that I think about it
Ultimate has a roster of about 80 characters each one of them being completely diferent from each other (with exceptions) and has tone of single player content but lacks in movement options for the player.
And rivals has about 14 characters all of them completely diferent from each other and has a ton of movement options for the player but lacks the single player content (DAN FIX THE STORY MODE).
My point is:
Is it possible to make a fighting with a large roster a good amount of single player content and without restricting the player movement options?
Just mod Melee to give more characters and a longer adventure
The answer is no, because games with tons of content need a huge budget and any company that has that money and is looking to turn that money into as much more money as possible will always cater to the casual player. So no advanced tech allowed. Leave it to the modders.
what do you use to edit your videos, because you are a good ass editor
adobe premiere, with some photoshop and after effects
@@AdamCarra ok thanks keep up the great content
how did i not find this you EARLIER your doing great work
Hey man I saw asum saus’ videos too and love his content! Just wanted to let you know you’re getting there with your content keep up the good work man!
"Why is something so easy misunderstood by so many people?"
Me who hasn't been able to wavedash once despite hours of practice and years of playing smash games
"Haha yeah it's so easy.... o_o"
P.S. I know I'm just bad
This has nothing to do with smash but Rocket league uses a directional air-dodge mechanic, and wavedashing is not only a thing it's gotten me out of some tight scrapes. I love watching players work wavedashing into their dribbles & outplays because their are situations that come up in the game where it'll give you a real-time momentum and frame advantage. I see that same situational frame advantage in melee, and sometimes the outcome of an interaction in neutral can change due to the way either player is drifting or even reactionally because of a quick platform wavedash.
Hey this video was awesome and the production quality was great. Keep it up stefan
This was a great video!
My boy Asum is making his way to the fame, i'm so proud, also, good video.
I love these melee analyses, subscribed!
*_pushes up glasses_*
You forgot that if you wavedash into your ding dong then you're able to fling flong your bing bong
Just here to say Rivals of Aether is sick
geez, this is a super high quality video, you deserve alot more views! 1+ sub
"lets take a loot at rivals of aether" fucking lmaoo
Great video, love your takes on platform fighters. Very clear and concise.
I love how these documentary melee vids are being more common now
*Video starts with how easy the inputs for WD are*
Every ult player watching probably clicked off at that moment.
Honestly watched both and Adam I think your video is better. Asum talked about melee from only the perspective of other smash games, but having a good understanding of a lot of games is much more helpful in communicating the point. Your video is also a lot more positive
I like wavedashing
I just don't like Melee's lack of a buffer XD
Yeah this is probably the reason why it's perceived as 'hard' or 'advanced.' I think that's more important than just not being tutorialized.
you don't like the lack of buffer... yet!
but actually, i honestly believe no game feels as good to play in the 'flow state' than melee precisely because there is no buffer. That being said, i think a small buffer (like rivals) is in general a good thing.
Using the words of the ancestors, “gIt GUd”
You must suck to need buffer .
If there was buffer everyone would just infinite shine people shields and do other dumb stuff
As someone who's an absolute Melee, Project +, and Rivals casual that plays Ultimate competitively, I agree that wavedashing is only good for the game in terms of adding more movement options. Wavedashing itself isn't hard, it's just hard to get max length and figuring out where and when to do it. That's why I like how Rivals made the action itself super easy, so you can focus more on applying it rather than trying to get it in the first place.
4:47 that’s the whole reason I think Final Destination shouldn’t be a level
Allowed in competitive Melee.. all it does is make it very hard for slow characters with limited movement to win that match.
Was waiting for this one, great stuff!
Loved that you used mango vs leffen Genesis 4 as melee footage
Keep it up
These are good videos
probably my favorite Melee set of all time
I definitely think the biggest problem people have with wavedashing in Melee and PM is that it is just really hard to do consistently. This is mostly because wavedashing isn't a "real" mechanic in the first place in those games. All you're doing is air dodging towards the ground. In other games like Rivals and Slap City, however, holding right/left and then pressing jump and air dodge is a real wavedash that was intentionally put in the game. The Devs had this in mind so they made wavedashing incredibly easy to do across the board.
I've played PM for a fair amount of time and I still absolutely suck ass at wavedashing outside of a single character and it is really frustrating. The direction you have to hold and the timing between the jump and air dodge is a lot less forgiving in Melee and PM so, more often than not, I end up just air dodging left or right and then get my ass comboed. The inputs just feel a lot more awkward to do in Melee and PM compared to newer titles. It feels great when you wavedash, but it feels really bad trying to do it consistently because it wasn't built into the game as a real mechanic. Wavedashing is an awesome mechanic and I hope every future platform fighter title puts it in, but it will always be hated by a lot of people because of Melee and PM.
It is an intended mechanic in PM though
@@AdamCarra I think it's still in a sense "restricted" by trying to make it feel really technical like melee. It has all the same behaviors with angles affecting it, right?
@@AdamCarra Yeah I shoulda been more clear. In PM it is intended to be in the game, but it still behaves like it does in Melee where you are really just air dodging towards the ground rather than doing an actual wavedash like you would in Rivals.
@@nerfirelia8235 How is Rivals a "real" wavedash when Melee was the original lol? Many things are hard in melee because of the lack of buffer not whether it was intended or not. Like powershielding and L-canceling were 100% intended as there are even in-game bonuses awarded for doing them. But they are still hard to do consistently.
It's the same mechanically in Rivals though you are just air dodging into the ground, just in Rivals it'll buffer from jump squat so it's really easy to do it perfectly. In PM they did buff it a bit though, they did a 1 frame fix to the end of the jump squat or jump (not exactly sure how it works lol) that still counts as grounded so it is actually easier to do in PM vs Melee. In PM the amount of jumpsquat frames is not unified like it is in Rivals so the timing will also differ between characters which could also make it seem difficult I guess. Rivals is easier, but also it did come out years later so there's that.
Great video. I'm not really interested in fighting games much, but as a game developer I found this super informative.
The reason it’s considered “advanced tech” is how frame perfect it can be in melee. Too early and you don’t do it at all. Too late and you’re left helpless in the air. Games that let you buffer it show how easy and useful it can be.
even then you can still get consistent at it in like a relatively short time and even shorter as tools get better
Another reason that I think the casual crowd might not like wavedashing is because of how it affects characters differently. Mostly I mean this in the sense that in melee characters with harder or worse wavedashes tend to be on the lower end of the tier list, and casuals tend to not like acknowledging that a character is bad. Regardless of how true the statement "a skilled Roy can beat any Fox" can be, this mindset comes from the idea that people don't want to think about characters as being bad. It's kind of like how they tend to think it's funny that Meta Knight in brawl is broken, but they don't really like or care about that bowser is a different kind of broken in melee. Characters in melee having better or worse wavedashes can cause them to have to acknowledge that a character is bad, and by proxy make them dislike what makes them bad on principle alone.
or maybe I'm dumb and wrong, but I think it's still worth noting as a possible cause
Zelda and Bowser are the only characters in bottom tier that have bad wavedashes, and Link is arguably the only low tier with a bad wavedash. If we were to judge how good a character was based off of how good their wavedash is, Mewtwo would be top 3 in the game, Roy would be top 6 and Peach would be the worst character in the game next to Jigglypuff.
Till 0:11 - Nah, it is more physically demanding than you might think. At least in SSBM/PM/P+, you need to time the jump and the air dodge precisely besides the stick angle to control the length of the wavedash.
Till 3:10 - Yeah, but I think that in first place its rather there because you can reset your dash animation. Look, even if I would play with Peach who has such a bad wavedash that you could even compare it with the walking speed, youll always see people like Armada wavedashing with her. Why? Cuz if you reset the dash animation by wavedashin at least one time, you can backdash immediately. So you could basically do super long pseudo dash dancing only cuz of wavedashing. (Btw if you have mentioned it after Im sorry but im telling it rn without having seen the whole vid.)
But besides that, a very good video! Keep continuing your work!
You've leveled up your editing. Good work.
I now have 2 videos to use when people say that wavedashing is dumb or "melee bad lul"
thank you sir
amazing video, please keep on making more
Wow the editing of this video is super slick.
This was such a well made video, I loved it.
You compare yourself to AsumSaus's video and even channel at the end, but I'd like to say your latest content absolutely Rivals (get it) his, this is beautiful
Pretty different video coming from you. I like it.
I love your videos so much, you're honestly one of the best youtubers out there in my opinion, stay cool Adam.
a lot of melee tech is really hard due to no frame buffered inputs
it's hard if you're used to ultimate or 4 where you don't have to time anything because of buffers, but when you get the hang of melee movement you don't even have to think - it flows like water. honestly one of the best feelings in the world, up there with how it feels to play an instrument you've practiced for years. it makes playing the new smash games feel really clunky.
"awesomesauce"
holy shit I thought it was just "Ay-sum-sa-oos"
Asum saus and Adam Carra both releasing in depth videos on melee?? Christmas came early!
Good video! The main reason I don't love wavedashing is because it hurts my fingers to press the R button that hard that often lmao
Thats a rip, although you don’t have to press R really hard to wavedash, a soft press works.
This is an absolutely freezing cold take.
I agree, but I get so many comments that don't get it
Adam Carra fair enough lol
I honestly only understood wavedashing when I learned that there's a 3-frame jumpsquat in Melee, and that that's where you do the dodge input for the max distance wavedash. Prior to that I kinda understood the idea, but didn't know how it would work since I didn't realize how fast I had to hit the dodge button to get it, which meant I'd be dodging when off the ground, kinda like the Ultimate example in the video.
Also, Rivals is really nice for wavedashing simply because you can remap buttons, so I can more easily set up jump and dodge to piano the inputs for wavedashing.
only certain characters have a 3 frame jumpsquat, fox is one of them. in smash games before ultimate, a character's jumpsquat varies from character to character. in ultimate, it's universally 3 frames
I agree that wavedashing is good because of the reasons you mention, but I think there are some missing points in this video.
Wavedashing is much harder than running and jumping in a Mario game because in a Mario game, running and jumping has much more lenient inputs. You can hold the B button and the direction you're going in as long as you want and press A to jump whenever you need to, and that produces a running jump as much as you need to. With wavedashing, there's a timing element because pressing the shield/dodge button too early gets you a shield/roll/parry instead and doing it too late reduces the effectiveness of the wavedash or, even worse, makes you awkwardly air dodge towards the ground. In addition, reaching the bottom corner is not as easy as reaching left or right, which makes it considerably harder to do than running and jumping in a Mario game.
Something else you missed is an offering you missed: mastery and skill expression. Because of its technical nature, getting good at wavedashing is hard to do but very rewarding when you get better at it, and when you are good enough you can use it in interesting ways and refine your playstyle into something else other players aren't doing.
You also missed the potential return on investment for not adding it in. Super Smash Bros Ultimate is the most popular smash game and Brawlhalla is the most popular indie platform fighter with no close second. While there are good reasons these games have larger playerbases that aren't directly related to their gameplay (Smash Ultimate's "everyone is here" marketing campaign and Brawlhalla's free-to-play nature and unparalleled online offerings are good examples of this) they are able to have thriving competitive scenes because they offer the depth of movement of wavedashing in ways that are easier for players to understand and are more immediately fun.
Synergies are valuable but are slightly overblown here. Most games only have 1-2 characters with actual synergy with wavedashing because most characters don't have jump cancelable moves. Still, synergies are very good for any game, and wavedash synergies are absolutely a good reason wavedashing should exist. This is part of the reason why, if I designed a platform fighter, I would make wavedashing a character-specific mechanic instead of something the whole cast can do. Giving that one character interesting movement options gives that character a unique feel, dumping massive quantities of wavedash synergies onto that one character gives them an interesting gameplay identity, and the other characters can have unique movement options of their own and/or have weaker movement options as a balancing mechanic.
Finally, I think that wavedashing is more interesting when it's an option rather than a requirement. Melee limits many of your options while dashing, which makes wavedashing mandatory for competitive play, even at a low to mid level. Slap City, on the other hand, does not limit your options because there are no dash attacks, which means Slap City doesn't restrict your options if you don't wavedash. This makes Slap City much more fun to learn because you can focus on learning how to play your character without having to learn the harder-to-use mechanics right off.
Another thing working against the general perception of wavedashing is that when you look at what you're actually doing in the game, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Why should an aerial evasive option be more useful as a grounded movement option? Isn't aerial evasion supposed to be its primary function?
I think it would do a lot of good to implement wavedashing through an air _dash_ instead of an air _dodge,_ like what Celeste and WaveLand do, but in a platform fighter. Not only is it more intuitive for an aerial movement option to transition into a grounded movement option, but an air dash would be sick as fuck in its own right.
What if you gave that dash I frames and called it a dodge and just bound it to the same button? That would be more efficient, two birds with one stone.
Phenomenal video. One minor note though, is that the difficulty of wavedashing isn't character-dependent. It's actually player-dependent. Characters have different timings based on how long their jump squat is. Which character's wavedash is "harder" depends on what timing you're used to.
That's why Bowser's wavedash feels difficult to many: he has 8 frames of jump squat, which is twice as long as many other characters' jump squats.
yeah it's different based on the character so the difficulty changes based on the character, I agree