A little note on me pressing Blur to answer the community questions, I warned him ahead of recording that I would be cross examining him on the community stuff, I wrote up an outline with all my questions and everying (him being an insider community representative), but I suppose I should have let the audience know that he was aware I was going to do this, that way you all don't think I'm randomly grilling Blur for answers out of nowhere ha.
As someone who's best friends with a lead director at Ubisoft and who's worked for companies like Grasshopper, directors are responsible for signing off on everything in a game, so Sakurai would have to sign off on and approve of all of the gameplay changes post Brawl. Secondly, Japanese game development is extremely hierarchical, even moreso 20 years ago. If Sakurai says something goes one way, it has to go said way. Also, Sakurai is an independent contractor, so if Nintendo gives him a directive to make the gameplay slower and more random in a misguided attempt to be more accessible in a Wii-era Nintendo, then that also goes through to him and filters down to the rest of the team. His decisions are still the largest factor than any potential missing programmers.
I had been thinking that have you ever played f-zero. F-zero gx (and modding wii and checking the virtual console library) got me into arcade games like 5 years ago, first fighting games and then shmups. F-zero gives you an amazing adrenaline rush and feeling of speed!
I got infected with the shmup bug. I'll be frequenting the channel more but hi i'm new here. You guys passion together with shmup junkie's channel and passion got me into trying this genre out more.
I was trying to not cut him off too much ha, I just wanted to stop him at certain sections for clarifying details and rebuttals, because I wanted blur to address certain criticisms I have of the smash scene that basically no one brings up. Normally I don't cross examine my guests as much but I warned him ahead of time that I wanted to bring up certain critiques ha
@@TheElectricUndergroundokay that’s fair. I kinda wish you brought up the smash tournaments that were licensed by Nintendo and had pretty good prize pools. But overall a great video
Talking about huge CRTs, I have a 35” Trinitron that required three men and a system of pulleys to get into the house. It’s amazing to use with my MiSTer but when it dies, I’m looking at OLED alternatives.
Oh man that is awesome!!! we probably have the same tv ha. I don't know, oled is cool and all but there is something so special about a giant crt, when my dies I'll have to hunt down a replacement, which will probably be super hard at that point.
28:54 From my research of HAL Labs, I can offer a few reasons as to why the Smash Bros. games after Melee are so different. Both Smash 64 and Melee were primarily developed in HAL’s Yamanashi office as opposed to their main offices in Tokyo. FWIW, HAL’s two dev studios/offices don’t really intermingle, and since most of the original dev team were based in Yamanashi, that would mean devs like Yoshiki Suzuki wouldn’t be as hands on for future Smash games as a result of Sakurai moving to Tokyo in 2003. Only the employees who moved to Tokyo after HAL’s restructuring got to work on Brawl. This is further supported by the original dev team only being relegated to minor supervisory roles on every game in the series after Melee. It’s a shame too because Smash wouldn’t be nearly as legendary as it is today if it weren’t for the efforts of that original team.
I checked this out because you begged us to in the Patreon Podcast 😂 Definitely worth it, great guest and many interesting thoughts. As a bit of criticism I feel like you interrupted Crimson Blur a bit too much for how patiently he was listening.
Ha well I appreciate you tuning in my friend!! Yeah I did warn blur ahead of time that I would be sort of cross examining him on a lot of these points lol, I suppose what I should have done is given the audience a heads up that I would be doing that as well, that way it doesn't seem like I'm just grilling blur out of nowhere ha
@@TheElectricUnderground Definitely gives me better vibes to know that he was warned. I wouldn't usually complain either, for example when you interrupt Aktane I don't feel bad because he'll return the favor. Just Crimson Blur was so patient he had me feeling sympathetic.
Dude you need to let your guests finish their points before you interrupt, its very exasperating to hear Blur start making a point and getting cut off before he can fully articulate it
Absolutely, this is an ongoing issue for him. It makes the games critique is dead video borderline unlistenable which is a shame because boghog makes so many cogent points and he just gets steamrolled by Mark who get’s excited tunnel vision and makes a less interesting point more loudly and so bog retreats. You can not have a successful podcast that interviews interesting people and treats it like an opportunity to have your on opinion’s validated. I like Mark, and he is insightful, but he needs to take more of a backseat in these discussions or just make his own video essay expressing these things first to get it out of his system first.
Im not kidding this was insufferable I can not believe the lack of knowledge the host had relating to anything besides headlines on topics relating to melee. Which is fine of course but it becomes a bit weirder when he spends the entire video spamming his ''counter point" move which comes out at frame 1 but also only triggers if blur tries to say literally anything at all.
People don't get that if there are no limitations on controllers, things can very easily spiral out of control and become an arms race for who has the best controller instead of about the actual game. And actually, the most extreme outcome of that, that you could possibly imagine, would be to make controllers that play the game on the own and turn it into basically TAS. But even if there are restrictions, I think it's still silly to get to the point that you can't be competitive with the controller that the game was made for, and hitboxes can make that a reality, because they can do things that are beyond human ability on any other controller. Also, execution is part of the depth of the game, so, by lowering the bar on that may actually reduce the longevity of it.
Personally, I think that the effect of a change is more relevant than the one who implements it or even when. If there was a crash bug that happened at random in an old game that is no longer receiving support, it might take a software mod to fix it. I'd rather it get fixed after release than never. As a game design example, a competitive mod could remove tripping from Brawl (and many did). While this was not the original vision, I think it's fair to say that the original vision was flawed. And as you mentioned, competitive patches frequently make games worse. So I think if a change to the game would be an improvement when done by the developer, the same change by someone else would have the same effect. (And vice versa.) To me, it seems reasonable to make changes if and only if: * The skill ceiling is maintained (or raised). * No existing player skill is devalued or destroyed. * All players have a better experience as a result of the change, or at least not a worse one. * The amount of tactical depth and counter-play possible for both players is the same or higher. * The influence of RNG on victory is not raised. That's for developers, modders, AND tournament organizers. (Many custom tournament rules are a lot like software modding, with rules that could be programmed into the game as if statements. It just happens to be done outside the console.) I'm sure there are other factors missing from that list, and maybe some are misguided or there are times they might conflict where it gets more fuzzy. But I'm surprised how many balance changes don't seem to even consider those things at all. (Also: on the topic of Nintendo and modding games, I'm curious what you think of Kaizo romhacks. Although the romhacks are the opposite of arcade games in a lot of ways, it's another scene that seems to care primarily about pushing players instead of patting them on the back. ...as if the wall of text above wasn't too much to respond to already... xD) Anyway, don't feel like you have to respond. Thanks for another thought provoking video!
Wow what an awesome and thoughtful comment!!! Yes you bring up some great points here! So I don't know if my position on software modification of a competitive game is totally fleshed out, as I can see some interesting cases and examples where a software mod might really be needed - like if there was a game crash bug or something ha. But yeah, I suppose in this case I would be more open minded to some kind of mod. I think the underlying principal I'm getting at is trying to maintain the original game's design as much as possible. So in the case of the game crashing or something outright busted going on, that would make more sense. Versus in the case of UCF, it is actually a rather niche issue of how the gamecube's analog stick works that they are using code to change. And in the process they decided just to make shield drops easy and free while they were at it. Perhaps if there more of a trial period of the mods introduction into the rule set I would be a bit more comfortable, but instead smash just rammed the mod through practically overnight without any sort of way for players outside the smash inner circle to give their feedback.
I think you interrupted Crimson Blur a little bit too often Mark, but otherwise a great podcast episode! Some interesting takes and trivia about Smash in there.
Yeah I was more directed in this ep than usual but the reason why is just because I wanted to push on some of the more commonly talked about aspects of the smash scene, so I am cross examining blur a bit at times ha, but part of the reason why is just because no one really asks some of these questions to the smash community directly and I genuinely wanted to know what he thought about them ha
@@TheElectricUnderground You brought up fantastic points/ideas even if you were interrupting, really impressed by how engaged you were for such a long time
What a great chat. I'm trying to get into fighting games a bit now after being intimidated by them all my life (with the exception of Smash), so it's a joy to see an FGC-related video on your channel and hear you mentioning the ATP podcast (which I also started listening to).
As an outsider, it's been interesting to listen to this to see the ways the Smash scene has become more insular and destructive over time to the way the game is played. Seems like it's more about those at the top of the community than the game at this point.
I absolutely feel that way, I followed along with how the scene evolved and a lot of it was specifically driven by what the top players wanted, many of whom aren't even active anymore
This "design by community" problem is part of what drove me away from speedrunning. When everything is decided by popular opinion, the game ends up feeling more like the typical modern game - designed to please everyone. All the sharp edges get shaved off until you're left with a boring nondescript blob. People brought out some slimy arguments in the rules debates, too. Apparently it makes the game "more accessible" to allow an "adapter" that processes control stick inputs to make a certain trick much easier. No, dumbasses, that makes the game LESS accessible because now EVERYONE has to buy that shit if they want to be competitive. Getting pissed off just thinking about it. Anyway, great video.
OH ABSOLUTELY JACK, 100% agreed. I hate this about speedrunning too, where popular opinion totally dictates a game's ruleset. In a lot of ways melee is more of a speedrunning community than a fighting game community if you think about it, pretty interesting comparison actually. It's also funny how many retired melee players like PPMD and Armada seem more interested in speedrunning than playing tekken or other Fighting games.
I feel like there's quite a few Nintendo games that ended up becoming more technical than their intended audience and had to reel it back for future instalments. Mario 64 and Super Metroid especially were extremely technical and became very popular speedgames. But because Nintendo wants to make games for everybody they have to design each game around people who don't have much experience with games, mainly because the number of non-gamers outweighs the number of pro gamers. Other companies are guilty of this too, the only difference is that once in a while they'll release a soulslike or fighting game which are marketing towards gitting gud.
Oh yeah super Metroid is the best game Nintendo ever made, but let's not forget how long ago that was ha, I m pretty sure the dev team for that game is long gone. As for Mario 64, don't forget that after the original release, nintendo actually patched out some of the more technical aspects in later re releases like backwards long jump
@@TheElectricUnderground I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and say that the reason the backwards long jump was patched was more as a hotfix to prevent big sequence breaks. Though if that's the reason that still sucks because imo sequence breaks are way cooler than just giving you free roam from the beginning.
Kinda surprised the sex pest scandals weren't brought up as a possible factor for NoA's heavy hand against the Smash community. Even though it doesn't make up the whole (or even the majority) of the community, but the fact that there were people preying on children creates a huge brand risk for the company. Especially so for one that markets itself as a family friendly company. Parents aren't likely to differentiate between a grass roots scene and the company that makes the game the scene plays.
Yeah that is a huge factor too. I didn't bring it up in the ep because I didn't want to grill poor blur too much, but absolutely I bet that really motivated Nintendo to get more aggressive, and it s hard to blame them in that example
this is going to come across as just a defence of smash, but I really don't think it's fair to bring it up as an 'issue with smash' its not like yugioh, minecraft, etc... are any better. its an issue with communities centred on corporate interests that attract specifically people with poor social skills - young and old. it's hardly fair to associate playing smash with preying on children when society at large still promotes children like Jenna Ortega or whoever as sex symbols
@@lounowell4171 So whether or not it's fair isn't necessarily relevant. There was a scandal and a huge media storm around it for a fairly substantial period of time. And to be clear I'm not laying this at the feet of the community but to ignore as a potential aspect of Nintendo trying to pressure the community into giving them (Nintendo) more control as to how the scene is run is just ignoring a huge elephant in the room. As to other communities/scenes also having sex-pest problems I won't deny and they shouldn't be ignored either. But it's kinda saying there's problems elsewhere so nevermind the ones here. But you're right I should have been more clear in my initial post that it is no an issue unique to Smash. And Ms. Ortega is apparently 20. I had to look her up because I'm old. Though I agree the sexualization of young people in showbiz has been a problem for a long long time.
@@thegobbojones should've clarified myself that the scandals would definitely still be a factor in nintendo's wariness, and still constitutes an elephant in the room - even if an unwelcome one im glad you understood the spirit of my message anyway and gave the benefit of the doubt :) its a difficult thing to balance how much attention we give to bad actors, and in what way we do it its refreshing to have a big talk on melee politics that didn't devolve into he said/she said twitter drama - but there's obvious risks and drawbacks to ignoring the drama completely and trying to sweep everything under the rug i guess it is surprising it wasn't mentioned, even if its better not to dwell on
This got very based very quickly on its own, but then you also added F-Zero GX music (music from the game that proves that all of Nintendo's games would be better if they were made by Sega, because Nintendo is bad and at this point only for people with really bad baby duck syndrome), and that amplifies the based levels considerably. Anyway, it's really sounding like the programmer was an actual game otaku and not just a guy doing his job based on what some Nintendo committee decided. I'd look this up, but my Japanese is very very limited, so it's not really possible. Really have to work on that. Also, I don't think Sakurai is necessarily to blame for the series going downhill. It was almost definitely Nintendo forcing his hand to some degree or another, because the whole thing really fits with the general direction that Nintendo has moved in. Nintendo has become extremely hostile to actual video game enthusiasts, and I think it's no coincidence that SSB went in a bad direction on the Wii specifically, which is the console got them down this path in the first place.
Oh that s a great point about Nintendo! I absolutely could see them pressuring sakurai and the HAL team to dumb the game down and remove anything too hardcore. Also yes f zero gx is awesome, absolutely will do a vid on it at some point :-)
I really enjoyed listening to this, I think a lot of these sorts of topics tend to be intensely "whatevere'd" by the FGC (or any competitive community in general). I think it often feels like you're talking to a wall or shouting into a headwind because the community as a collective has like 15 minutes of foresight. In the end I think stuff probably won't change for the better, but it is what it is.
I understand why you didn't get into it in this conversation, but I am very interested in your throwaway observation here that the rise of Melee has more to do with the rise of speedrunning than it does the rise of the FGC. Any chance that could be a video topic sometime?
While SmashBox and B0XX can technically be programmed to have macros, they don't have them necessarily. A button configured to do a singular input is not a macro. Each analog position on the stick is a separate individual input. The SmashBox-type controllers are configurable to attribute one input to one button press. A gray area found in some configurations is the ability for certain buttons to be pressed simultaneously to get separate inputs than a simple combination of pressing them individually. I would agree with an argument that calls this a macro, but wouldn't necessarily agree with an argument that says it shouldn't be legal.
I agree!! I remember when Smash was no longer being included at Evo, a lot of Smash players said "oh well, we don't need Evo or the FGC," but I pointed out to the small group of people who would listen to me that Melee's connection to the FGC was how it initially made it's return to popularity in 2013
Regarding the UCF discussion, you're underestimating how controller dependent dashback and shielddrops were. If you got lucky you could get a controller that UCF level shieldrops (to the left) and 95% consistency dashback vs an average off say 65-70% (that estimation is based on how I use controllers, my personal muscle memory etc). Modding would be even more off a necessity for every player if it wasn't for UCF. It would be goomwave or GTFO.
Or you could have a ruleset that has clear restrictions on input manipulation via software and the players will have to actually adapt to how the game is designed, rather than just modding away an inconvenient aspect of the game's design. Melee was played competitively before ucf and the whole ucf push skates over how arbitrary this decision is just to make life more convenient for top players. Because armada is tired of buying his extra special controllers the rest of the world needs to install this mod? What if I don't want to? What makes Armada's desires more valid than mine other than top player preference (which melee constantly engages in). Remember when melee was going to literally float top players for genesis lol
It wasn't just Armada's desire, it was everyone at a high enough level where controller RNG is a major deciding factor (which wasn't THAT high, i would say 60-75% off tournament players)
You have 3 options: 1. Force players who care enough to keep buying new controllers 2. Ignore that but have your controller RNG be a major deciding factor at almost all levels off tournament play, realistically every single set in bracket 3. Software mod
The 'fix' to dashback is a buff though, even though it was advertised as unobtrusive. The specific form of PODE that gave certain controllers consistent dashbacks also - afaik in every case - caused your dashback to be polled 1 frame later than it would be normally. We now have a situation where everyone can dashback instantly, consistently. "Even more of a necessity" - would think something is either necessary or it isn't, can there be degrees? How can any competitive player justify not having a hybrid gate (most basic form of notches) for wavedash/firefox angles? How can you justify not having a digital shield button? What about snapback capacitors? I agree Mark didn't really touch on the somewhat legitimate reasoning behind UCF, but his takeaway is still overall correct. It failed to level the controller playing field and is implemented by people who have explicitly said they think Melee is a broken game that they can improve upon/fix, which is pretty shaky reasoning especially considering how many times UCF has been revised when it was originally presented as a braindead, simple fix. Modding melee might be fine, but they are unwilling to make other important changes that would be consistent with their mission statement - like removing Shy Guys from Yoshi's Story. We all know we're walking on thin ice, trying to avoid a slippery slope, so we pretend that we have to keep our modding discrete to avoid pissing off Nintendo (as if a Nintendo rep is going to notice a lack of Shy Guys on Yoshi's, but somehow remain blind to UCF - even tho, as Blur said in this very video, Nintendo Versus already have people at our events watching us). The entire situation is absurd. EDIT: Forgot to mention that all character specific 1-frame techniques are still inherently inconsistent (i.e. RNG). This means Peach hyperfloats, ICs pivot nana jump, DKs zero-swing-turn, most characters invincible ledge stalls, the list goes on...
I've worked in thrift stores and the reason they get thrown away is because they don't sell. A realistic way to remedy this is to contact them and ask them to contact you when CRTs get donated, chances are they'll give it to you for free as long as you transport it away.😊
Yeah no kidding! I remember going to thrift stores a few years back and there being isles full of them, I m pretty sure my local stores won't even take them anymore and instead refer people to the electrical recycling, straight to the jaws of doom
@@TheElectricUnderground Yhea that's what we told people as well, I also think the market is too small and niche for it to be worth it, maybe if Ebay resellers buy them.
I think that controllers that do the work for you is cheating. Back in the day when Fighting Games first came out, I thought they were so cool and I wanted to be good at them, but I sure as hell wasn't! I began to despise Fighting Games! Not really I was just tired of getting my ass handed to me. Then one day some of my older Cousins started teaching me how to play. I come from a really big competitive family. I worked HARD to not just become good, but great. It didn't come easy and l had to keep improving or get left behind. It was frustrating sometimes, but that's why I love Fighting Games and Shmups so much! It's a skill that you had to earn. No body gets it for free. That's my point, these Modded controllers, with Macro buttons and idiot proof software built-in, has taken some of the heart and skills that made these games so special. At least that's how I feel. Or maybe I'm just an old head who thinks things were better back in the day. This is a great video, that more people need to see. Awesome work, Bro....
yes the mechanical execution of the genre is so important for sure wargameboy. It's a hurdle for newer players, but it is also what give the genre and the inputs meaning in the first place. Otherwise we'd just be playing a turn based rpg essentially.
2:04:00 a lot of Smash Players will say Smash doesn't need the FGC out of spite but I think this part is very important for growth. 2013 is a really good example.
I haven’t owned a console since the nes but man I think you disrespect Nintendo too hard. They are talented clearly and I’m the farthest thing on the planet from a Nintendo fanboy
Hmmm I can't help how I feel about their games ha. I do think they are massively over rated and that the majority of their output post GameCube is really basic. It s like saying Disney is the bastion of film making.
About the brain drain problem: People want spectacle, they want the stage shows, the glitz and glam of high production esports. This makes for a lot of work to be done, but nobody wants to pay for it. Esports fans are the worst fans possible. They want it all, and want to watch the streams for free from home. Not paying for facilities, accomodation, food and drink. Attendance fees through tickets and competition entrance isn't enough. Real sports figured this out. Basically every sport is pay per view or subscription. At the same time, as long as copyright is a concept that holds power, hell will freeze over before smash TOs are able to navigate the nightmare of doing pay per view with nintendo being around.
Are you asking if frame data exists in ultimate? I mean almost no fighting outside of the last year or two offers frame data to the player. Every game on earth obviously “has frame data” of course though…
I was pointing out there is no frame data in training mode, something that all current competitive fighting games offer and Tekken was criticized for not offering for free. Nintendo however, is not held to this same standard at all. People passively accept the terrible netcode and training options where other fighting games would be sharply critiqued for lacking
oh no I quit twitter years ago (before it was cool to quit twitter ha). I made a old school (kind of poorly edited) vid about it years ago ruclips.net/video/DPSqw_bEre4/видео.html
Hitbox is WAY better for VF. Think about doing things like evade crouch dash cancels with stick vs hitbox, its not even close. And these arent rare moves, high level players do them many times in a match
A little note on me pressing Blur to answer the community questions, I warned him ahead of recording that I would be cross examining him on the community stuff, I wrote up an outline with all my questions and everying (him being an insider community representative), but I suppose I should have let the audience know that he was aware I was going to do this, that way you all don't think I'm randomly grilling Blur for answers out of nowhere ha.
As someone who's best friends with a lead director at Ubisoft and who's worked for companies like Grasshopper, directors are responsible for signing off on everything in a game, so Sakurai would have to sign off on and approve of all of the gameplay changes post Brawl. Secondly, Japanese game development is extremely hierarchical, even moreso 20 years ago. If Sakurai says something goes one way, it has to go said way. Also, Sakurai is an independent contractor, so if Nintendo gives him a directive to make the gameplay slower and more random in a misguided attempt to be more accessible in a Wii-era Nintendo, then that also goes through to him and filters down to the rest of the team. His decisions are still the largest factor than any potential missing programmers.
This was a fun watch, but watching the video reminds me... would you ever consider doing a vid on F-Zero X and/or GX in the future?
Absolutely! Love that game
I had been thinking that have you ever played f-zero. F-zero gx (and modding wii and checking the virtual console library) got me into arcade games like 5 years ago, first fighting games and then shmups. F-zero gives you an amazing adrenaline rush and feeling of speed!
I got infected with the shmup bug. I'll be frequenting the channel more but hi i'm new here. You guys passion together with shmup junkie's channel and passion got me into trying this genre out more.
That s really great to hear Scott, pretty soon I ll be releasing the shmup doc too
@@TheElectricUnderground Awesome, looking forward to it :)
Good must infect more people with the shmup bug then.
@@franciscor390 Will try :p
@@scottpilgrim2 👍
Kinda wish you let crimson finish his thoughts. You kept cutting him off
I was trying to not cut him off too much ha, I just wanted to stop him at certain sections for clarifying details and rebuttals, because I wanted blur to address certain criticisms I have of the smash scene that basically no one brings up. Normally I don't cross examine my guests as much but I warned him ahead of time that I wanted to bring up certain critiques ha
@@TheElectricUndergroundokay that’s fair. I kinda wish you brought up the smash tournaments that were licensed by Nintendo and had pretty good prize pools. But overall a great video
Talking about huge CRTs, I have a 35” Trinitron that required three men and a system of pulleys to get into the house. It’s amazing to use with my MiSTer but when it dies, I’m looking at OLED alternatives.
Oh man that is awesome!!! we probably have the same tv ha. I don't know, oled is cool and all but there is something so special about a giant crt, when my dies I'll have to hunt down a replacement, which will probably be super hard at that point.
28:54 From my research of HAL Labs, I can offer a few reasons as to why the Smash Bros. games after Melee are so different. Both Smash 64 and Melee were primarily developed in HAL’s Yamanashi office as opposed to their main offices in Tokyo. FWIW, HAL’s two dev studios/offices don’t really intermingle, and since most of the original dev team were based in Yamanashi, that would mean devs like Yoshiki Suzuki wouldn’t be as hands on for future Smash games as a result of Sakurai moving to Tokyo in 2003. Only the employees who moved to Tokyo after HAL’s restructuring got to work on Brawl. This is further supported by the original dev team only being relegated to minor supervisory roles on every game in the series after Melee. It’s a shame too because Smash wouldn’t be nearly as legendary as it is today if it weren’t for the efforts of that original team.
I checked this out because you begged us to in the Patreon Podcast 😂
Definitely worth it, great guest and many interesting thoughts.
As a bit of criticism I feel like you interrupted Crimson Blur a bit too much for how patiently he was listening.
Ha well I appreciate you tuning in my friend!! Yeah I did warn blur ahead of time that I would be sort of cross examining him on a lot of these points lol, I suppose what I should have done is given the audience a heads up that I would be doing that as well, that way it doesn't seem like I'm just grilling blur out of nowhere ha
@@TheElectricUnderground
Definitely gives me better vibes to know that he was warned.
I wouldn't usually complain either, for example when you interrupt Aktane I don't feel bad because he'll return the favor. Just Crimson Blur was so patient he had me feeling sympathetic.
I love this channel T.T, it's so good. Every time you post a new one I get really excited to watch. Keep up the good work!
Thank you void !!! I m really glad you tuned in :-)
Dude you need to let your guests finish their points before you interrupt, its very exasperating to hear Blur start making a point and getting cut off before he can fully articulate it
Absolutely, this is an ongoing issue for him.
It makes the games critique is dead video borderline unlistenable which is a shame because boghog makes so many cogent points and he just gets steamrolled by Mark who get’s excited tunnel vision and makes a less interesting point more loudly and so bog retreats.
You can not have a successful podcast that interviews interesting people and treats it like an opportunity to have your on opinion’s validated.
I like Mark, and he is insightful, but he needs to take more of a backseat in these discussions or just make his own video essay expressing these things first to get it out of his system first.
Im not kidding this was insufferable I can not believe the lack of knowledge the host had relating to anything besides headlines on topics relating to melee. Which is fine of course but it becomes a bit weirder when he spends the entire video spamming his ''counter point" move which comes out at frame 1 but also only triggers if blur tries to say literally anything at all.
People don't get that if there are no limitations on controllers, things can very easily spiral out of control and become an arms race for who has the best controller instead of about the actual game. And actually, the most extreme outcome of that, that you could possibly imagine, would be to make controllers that play the game on the own and turn it into basically TAS. But even if there are restrictions, I think it's still silly to get to the point that you can't be competitive with the controller that the game was made for, and hitboxes can make that a reality, because they can do things that are beyond human ability on any other controller. Also, execution is part of the depth of the game, so, by lowering the bar on that may actually reduce the longevity of it.
Personally, I think that the effect of a change is more relevant than the one who implements it or even when.
If there was a crash bug that happened at random in an old game that is no longer receiving support, it might take a software mod to fix it. I'd rather it get fixed after release than never.
As a game design example, a competitive mod could remove tripping from Brawl (and many did). While this was not the original vision, I think it's fair to say that the original vision was flawed.
And as you mentioned, competitive patches frequently make games worse.
So I think if a change to the game would be an improvement when done by the developer, the same change by someone else would have the same effect. (And vice versa.)
To me, it seems reasonable to make changes if and only if:
* The skill ceiling is maintained (or raised).
* No existing player skill is devalued or destroyed.
* All players have a better experience as a result of the change, or at least not a worse one.
* The amount of tactical depth and counter-play possible for both players is the same or higher.
* The influence of RNG on victory is not raised.
That's for developers, modders, AND tournament organizers. (Many custom tournament rules are a lot like software modding, with rules that could be programmed into the game as if statements. It just happens to be done outside the console.)
I'm sure there are other factors missing from that list, and maybe some are misguided or there are times they might conflict where it gets more fuzzy. But I'm surprised how many balance changes don't seem to even consider those things at all. (Also: on the topic of Nintendo and modding games, I'm curious what you think of Kaizo romhacks. Although the romhacks are the opposite of arcade games in a lot of ways, it's another scene that seems to care primarily about pushing players instead of patting them on the back. ...as if the wall of text above wasn't too much to respond to already... xD)
Anyway, don't feel like you have to respond. Thanks for another thought provoking video!
Wow what an awesome and thoughtful comment!!! Yes you bring up some great points here! So I don't know if my position on software modification of a competitive game is totally fleshed out, as I can see some interesting cases and examples where a software mod might really be needed - like if there was a game crash bug or something ha. But yeah, I suppose in this case I would be more open minded to some kind of mod. I think the underlying principal I'm getting at is trying to maintain the original game's design as much as possible. So in the case of the game crashing or something outright busted going on, that would make more sense. Versus in the case of UCF, it is actually a rather niche issue of how the gamecube's analog stick works that they are using code to change. And in the process they decided just to make shield drops easy and free while they were at it. Perhaps if there more of a trial period of the mods introduction into the rule set I would be a bit more comfortable, but instead smash just rammed the mod through practically overnight without any sort of way for players outside the smash inner circle to give their feedback.
I think you interrupted Crimson Blur a little bit too often Mark, but otherwise a great podcast episode! Some interesting takes and trivia about Smash in there.
Yeah I was more directed in this ep than usual but the reason why is just because I wanted to push on some of the more commonly talked about aspects of the smash scene, so I am cross examining blur a bit at times ha, but part of the reason why is just because no one really asks some of these questions to the smash community directly and I genuinely wanted to know what he thought about them ha
@@TheElectricUnderground You brought up fantastic points/ideas even if you were interrupting, really impressed by how engaged you were for such a long time
What a great chat. I'm trying to get into fighting games a bit now after being intimidated by them all my life (with the exception of Smash), so it's a joy to see an FGC-related video on your channel and hear you mentioning the ATP podcast (which I also started listening to).
Very interesting conversation about smash as well as the video game industry at large.
Thank you very much vince, I am really happy with how this ep turned out :-)
Not sure who is slumming it with who in this episode lmao. Excited to watch
ha yes a pretty fun combo, like waffles and hot sauce
Macro electric so soft…
That old Tekken Tag match with that Japanese player running for his life was godlike!
Yes I love that replay!!!! I wish we had more old school TTT1 replays to watch
As an outsider, it's been interesting to listen to this to see the ways the Smash scene has become more insular and destructive over time to the way the game is played. Seems like it's more about those at the top of the community than the game at this point.
I absolutely feel that way, I followed along with how the scene evolved and a lot of it was specifically driven by what the top players wanted, many of whom aren't even active anymore
Hell yeah, this is an awesome episode.
Thank you very much chase!!
This "design by community" problem is part of what drove me away from speedrunning. When everything is decided by popular opinion, the game ends up feeling more like the typical modern game - designed to please everyone. All the sharp edges get shaved off until you're left with a boring nondescript blob.
People brought out some slimy arguments in the rules debates, too. Apparently it makes the game "more accessible" to allow an "adapter" that processes control stick inputs to make a certain trick much easier. No, dumbasses, that makes the game LESS accessible because now EVERYONE has to buy that shit if they want to be competitive. Getting pissed off just thinking about it. Anyway, great video.
OH ABSOLUTELY JACK, 100% agreed. I hate this about speedrunning too, where popular opinion totally dictates a game's ruleset. In a lot of ways melee is more of a speedrunning community than a fighting game community if you think about it, pretty interesting comparison actually. It's also funny how many retired melee players like PPMD and Armada seem more interested in speedrunning than playing tekken or other Fighting games.
I feel like there's quite a few Nintendo games that ended up becoming more technical than their intended audience and had to reel it back for future instalments. Mario 64 and Super Metroid especially were extremely technical and became very popular speedgames. But because Nintendo wants to make games for everybody they have to design each game around people who don't have much experience with games, mainly because the number of non-gamers outweighs the number of pro gamers. Other companies are guilty of this too, the only difference is that once in a while they'll release a soulslike or fighting game which are marketing towards gitting gud.
Oh yeah super Metroid is the best game Nintendo ever made, but let's not forget how long ago that was ha, I m pretty sure the dev team for that game is long gone. As for Mario 64, don't forget that after the original release, nintendo actually patched out some of the more technical aspects in later re releases like backwards long jump
@@TheElectricUnderground I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and say that the reason the backwards long jump was patched was more as a hotfix to prevent big sequence breaks. Though if that's the reason that still sucks because imo sequence breaks are way cooler than just giving you free roam from the beginning.
CRT Enthusiasts! I just got a dell crt pc monitor nowadays but it still gets the job done for SHMUP sand fighting games. Fun episode
Oh I love crt PC monitors!! Yes they are really under rated
Kinda surprised the sex pest scandals weren't brought up as a possible factor for NoA's heavy hand against the Smash community. Even though it doesn't make up the whole (or even the majority) of the community, but the fact that there were people preying on children creates a huge brand risk for the company. Especially so for one that markets itself as a family friendly company.
Parents aren't likely to differentiate between a grass roots scene and the company that makes the game the scene plays.
Yeah that is a huge factor too. I didn't bring it up in the ep because I didn't want to grill poor blur too much, but absolutely I bet that really motivated Nintendo to get more aggressive, and it s hard to blame them in that example
@@TheElectricUnderground And fair enough, you don't want to have the guy answer for things he wasn't involved with.
this is going to come across as just a defence of smash, but I really don't think it's fair to bring it up as an 'issue with smash'
its not like yugioh, minecraft, etc... are any better. its an issue with communities centred on corporate interests that attract specifically people with poor social skills - young and old. it's hardly fair to associate playing smash with preying on children when society at large still promotes children like Jenna Ortega or whoever as sex symbols
@@lounowell4171 So whether or not it's fair isn't necessarily relevant. There was a scandal and a huge media storm around it for a fairly substantial period of time. And to be clear I'm not laying this at the feet of the community but to ignore as a potential aspect of Nintendo trying to pressure the community into giving them (Nintendo) more control as to how the scene is run is just ignoring a huge elephant in the room.
As to other communities/scenes also having sex-pest problems I won't deny and they shouldn't be ignored either. But it's kinda saying there's problems elsewhere so nevermind the ones here. But you're right I should have been more clear in my initial post that it is no an issue unique to Smash.
And Ms. Ortega is apparently 20. I had to look her up because I'm old. Though I agree the sexualization of young people in showbiz has been a problem for a long long time.
@@thegobbojones should've clarified myself that the scandals would definitely still be a factor in nintendo's wariness, and still constitutes an elephant in the room - even if an unwelcome one
im glad you understood the spirit of my message anyway and gave the benefit of the doubt :) its a difficult thing to balance how much attention we give to bad actors, and in what way we do it
its refreshing to have a big talk on melee politics that didn't devolve into he said/she said twitter drama - but there's obvious risks and drawbacks to ignoring the drama completely and trying to sweep everything under the rug
i guess it is surprising it wasn't mentioned, even if its better not to dwell on
This got very based very quickly on its own, but then you also added F-Zero GX music (music from the game that proves that all of Nintendo's games would be better if they were made by Sega, because Nintendo is bad and at this point only for people with really bad baby duck syndrome), and that amplifies the based levels considerably. Anyway, it's really sounding like the programmer was an actual game otaku and not just a guy doing his job based on what some Nintendo committee decided. I'd look this up, but my Japanese is very very limited, so it's not really possible. Really have to work on that.
Also, I don't think Sakurai is necessarily to blame for the series going downhill. It was almost definitely Nintendo forcing his hand to some degree or another, because the whole thing really fits with the general direction that Nintendo has moved in. Nintendo has become extremely hostile to actual video game enthusiasts, and I think it's no coincidence that SSB went in a bad direction on the Wii specifically, which is the console got them down this path in the first place.
Oh that s a great point about Nintendo! I absolutely could see them pressuring sakurai and the HAL team to dumb the game down and remove anything too hardcore. Also yes f zero gx is awesome, absolutely will do a vid on it at some point :-)
I really enjoyed listening to this, I think a lot of these sorts of topics tend to be intensely "whatevere'd" by the FGC (or any competitive community in general). I think it often feels like you're talking to a wall or shouting into a headwind because the community as a collective has like 15 minutes of foresight. In the end I think stuff probably won't change for the better, but it is what it is.
I understand why you didn't get into it in this conversation, but I am very interested in your throwaway observation here that the rise of Melee has more to do with the rise of speedrunning than it does the rise of the FGC. Any chance that could be a video topic sometime?
While SmashBox and B0XX can technically be programmed to have macros, they don't have them necessarily. A button configured to do a singular input is not a macro. Each analog position on the stick is a separate individual input. The SmashBox-type controllers are configurable to attribute one input to one button press. A gray area found in some configurations is the ability for certain buttons to be pressed simultaneously to get separate inputs than a simple combination of pressing them individually. I would agree with an argument that calls this a macro, but wouldn't necessarily agree with an argument that says it shouldn't be legal.
It makes me scared to use my crt for Tate since I don’t want to damage it, but crts look SO GOOD in Tate.
I think they should be ok in tate, mine has been in tate mode for like 5 years now ha, no issues
Epic thumbnail boghog 🤙🤙🤙
The FGC divide really is the thing that kills Smash. Problem is it's carrying the platform fighter on its own.
I agree!! I remember when Smash was no longer being included at Evo, a lot of Smash players said "oh well, we don't need Evo or the FGC," but I pointed out to the small group of people who would listen to me that Melee's connection to the FGC was how it initially made it's return to popularity in 2013
Regarding the UCF discussion, you're underestimating how controller dependent dashback and shielddrops were. If you got lucky you could get a controller that UCF level shieldrops (to the left) and 95% consistency dashback vs an average off say 65-70% (that estimation is based on how I use controllers, my personal muscle memory etc).
Modding would be even more off a necessity for every player if it wasn't for UCF. It would be goomwave or GTFO.
Or you could have a ruleset that has clear restrictions on input manipulation via software and the players will have to actually adapt to how the game is designed, rather than just modding away an inconvenient aspect of the game's design. Melee was played competitively before ucf and the whole ucf push skates over how arbitrary this decision is just to make life more convenient for top players. Because armada is tired of buying his extra special controllers the rest of the world needs to install this mod? What if I don't want to? What makes Armada's desires more valid than mine other than top player preference (which melee constantly engages in). Remember when melee was going to literally float top players for genesis lol
It wasn't just Armada's desire, it was everyone at a high enough level where controller RNG is a major deciding factor (which wasn't THAT high, i would say 60-75% off tournament players)
You have 3 options:
1. Force players who care enough to keep buying new controllers
2. Ignore that but have your controller RNG be a major deciding factor at almost all levels off tournament play, realistically every single set in bracket
3. Software mod
"Adapting to how the game is designed" literally means hoping that you get a good controller.
The 'fix' to dashback is a buff though, even though it was advertised as unobtrusive. The specific form of PODE that gave certain controllers consistent dashbacks also - afaik in every case - caused your dashback to be polled 1 frame later than it would be normally. We now have a situation where everyone can dashback instantly, consistently.
"Even more of a necessity" - would think something is either necessary or it isn't, can there be degrees? How can any competitive player justify not having a hybrid gate (most basic form of notches) for wavedash/firefox angles? How can you justify not having a digital shield button? What about snapback capacitors?
I agree Mark didn't really touch on the somewhat legitimate reasoning behind UCF, but his takeaway is still overall correct. It failed to level the controller playing field and is implemented by people who have explicitly said they think Melee is a broken game that they can improve upon/fix, which is pretty shaky reasoning especially considering how many times UCF has been revised when it was originally presented as a braindead, simple fix.
Modding melee might be fine, but they are unwilling to make other important changes that would be consistent with their mission statement - like removing Shy Guys from Yoshi's Story. We all know we're walking on thin ice, trying to avoid a slippery slope, so we pretend that we have to keep our modding discrete to avoid pissing off Nintendo (as if a Nintendo rep is going to notice a lack of Shy Guys on Yoshi's, but somehow remain blind to UCF - even tho, as Blur said in this very video, Nintendo Versus already have people at our events watching us).
The entire situation is absurd.
EDIT: Forgot to mention that all character specific 1-frame techniques are still inherently inconsistent (i.e. RNG). This means Peach hyperfloats, ICs pivot nana jump, DKs zero-swing-turn, most characters invincible ledge stalls, the list goes on...
I've worked in thrift stores and the reason they get thrown away is because they don't sell.
A realistic way to remedy this is to contact them and ask them to contact you when CRTs get donated, chances are they'll give it to you for free as long as you transport it away.😊
Yeah no kidding! I remember going to thrift stores a few years back and there being isles full of them, I m pretty sure my local stores won't even take them anymore and instead refer people to the electrical recycling, straight to the jaws of doom
@@TheElectricUnderground Yhea that's what we told people as well, I also think the market is too small and niche for it to be worth it, maybe if Ebay resellers buy them.
I use a 21" Panasonic prema-rotated for TATE shmups and a 27" Samsung for hori gaming. All about the 4:3 ratio too of course.
Hell yeah!! I tend to like really big monitors but 36 tate might be overkill ha
This would be gross, if it wasn't so relatable. Thumbs up my dudes.
Ha fantastic!!! I m glad you can relate :-)
I think that controllers that do the work for you is cheating. Back in the day when Fighting Games first came out, I thought they were so cool and I wanted to be good at them, but I sure as hell wasn't! I began to despise Fighting Games! Not really I was just tired of getting my ass handed to me. Then one day some of my older Cousins started teaching me how to play. I come from a really big competitive family. I worked HARD to not just become good, but great. It didn't come easy and l had to keep improving or get left behind. It was frustrating sometimes, but that's why I love Fighting Games and Shmups so much! It's a skill that you had to earn. No body gets it for free. That's my point, these Modded controllers, with Macro buttons and idiot proof software built-in, has taken some of the heart and skills that made these games so special. At least that's how I feel. Or maybe I'm just an old head who thinks things were better back in the day. This is a great video, that more people need to see. Awesome work, Bro....
yes the mechanical execution of the genre is so important for sure wargameboy. It's a hurdle for newer players, but it is also what give the genre and the inputs meaning in the first place. Otherwise we'd just be playing a turn based rpg essentially.
@@TheElectricUnderground I agree with you.👍
2:04:00 a lot of Smash Players will say Smash doesn't need the FGC out of spite but I think this part is very important for growth. 2013 is a really good example.
I haven’t owned a console since the nes but man I think you disrespect Nintendo too hard. They are talented clearly and I’m the farthest thing on the planet from a Nintendo fanboy
Hmmm I can't help how I feel about their games ha. I do think they are massively over rated and that the majority of their output post GameCube is really basic. It s like saying Disney is the bastion of film making.
No corporate entities are worthy of respect. Save that for people who are in your actual life.
About the brain drain problem:
People want spectacle, they want the stage shows, the glitz and glam of high production esports. This makes for a lot of work to be done, but nobody wants to pay for it. Esports fans are the worst fans possible. They want it all, and want to watch the streams for free from home. Not paying for facilities, accomodation, food and drink. Attendance fees through tickets and competition entrance isn't enough. Real sports figured this out. Basically every sport is pay per view or subscription.
At the same time, as long as copyright is a concept that holds power, hell will freeze over before smash TOs are able to navigate the nightmare of doing pay per view with nintendo being around.
Melee is awesome. Been playing for 6+ years
Melee is one of my fav fighting games! I played it intensely from 2012 to about 2019 ha
Are you asking if frame data exists in ultimate? I mean almost no fighting outside of the last year or two offers frame data to the player. Every game on earth obviously “has frame data” of course though…
I was pointing out there is no frame data in training mode, something that all current competitive fighting games offer and Tekken was criticized for not offering for free. Nintendo however, is not held to this same standard at all. People passively accept the terrible netcode and training options where other fighting games would be sharply critiqued for lacking
Will you ever make a twitter or is it too insane there for you?
oh no I quit twitter years ago (before it was cool to quit twitter ha). I made a old school (kind of poorly edited) vid about it years ago ruclips.net/video/DPSqw_bEre4/видео.html
@@TheElectricUndergroundbased ill check it out, thanks. I been slowly getting through all your videos 🌟
Hitbox is WAY better for VF. Think about doing things like evade crouch dash cancels with stick vs hitbox, its not even close. And these arent rare moves, high level players do them many times in a match
This guy is so full of himself.
He's cool imo
Best sales iyo shmups and otherwise on steam summer sale VIDEO please!
lego
Smash players are nasty