"There's a rift at the heart of the Smash Bros scene"

[curl-6]

IIIIITHE1IIIII said:

curl-6 said:

I'd contend that Melee's exploits give a bit more of an edge than fire-hopping, particularly given the more random nature of Mario Kart.

The fact that they tried to put them back in with Project M speaks to me of a dependence.

When that which is new and different is spurned and the comfortable old ways are rigidly adhered to for their familiarity, that's when stagnation tends to occur.

They didn't try, they succeeded. And it's not a matter of dependence, it's a matter of preference. If given the chance to add a well-received movement option, why decline that opportunity? It still doesn't change the fact that Project M would be an excellent competitive game without it. I would even wager that if Project M was initially released by Nintendo and didn't feature wave-dashing, it would have been more successful than Project M ever was.

As long as there are various different gameplay styles working in a rock-paper-scissors fashion, stagnation is prevented. Some people claim that Fox will be the death of Melee in the long run as other characters lose their viability, which is a legitimate concern. We are not there yet though, the winner of Apex 2015 was a Marth/Falco player and Marth is widely considered a good counter vs Fox. Especially on Final Destination.

Smash 4 still has the potential to become a competitive game of great variety. But considering how successful Zero has become with the highest ranked character, Diddy Kong, there is currently nothing to suggest that Diddy Kong won't become the new Meta Knight. And even if he doesn't, variety in gameplay doesn't necessarily correlate with becoming successful as a spectator sport.

It becomes preference coloured by familiarity though, and people become closed off to any and all change because the old is held up as the gold standard from which any deviation is considered a flaw. Playing only a 14 year old Gamecube game for the rest of eternity sounds stagnant to me.

By all means, enjoy the old, but intolerance of the new is an unhealthy attitude.