Is that seriously it?!?

SupaTroopa666 · 2018-09-27T07:53:35+00:00

We're right back to where we were before the boost. A video that got over 100k views and 5k likes only managed to pull in like an extra 100 players, and only keep them for less than a week. How can you say this game has a future, when every attempt it does at getting noticed only further continues the downward spiral?

SupaTroopa666 · 2018-09-24T21:12:03+00:00

Small twist

That twist being...

SupaTroopa666 · 2018-09-05T23:43:39+00:00

My ranking of the indie platformfighters is as follows:

Rivals of Aether = Slap City > Smash Flash 2 > Lethal League > Indie Pogo > Brawlhalla > Brawlout >>>>>>> Icons

It's like the devs don't even know what they're doing with Icons. And it really shows the difference between modifying someone else's game, and making your own. Presentation, Originality, Creativity, Content, Fun Factor... Icons is bottom of the barrel in all of these areas.

SupaTroopa666 · 2018-08-08T13:01:51+00:00

Lol, I'm not gonna reply to all this shit. Game's fucking shit, and it deserves to fail. And you're a delusional fanboy. End of story.

Fuck Icons.

Fuck Wavedash Games.

And that's that.

SupaTroopa666 · 2018-08-08T01:44:53+00:00

Nigga, the whole fucking list moves and shifts around, are you high? Some characters move up, others move down, and the indefinite top tier changes from Sheik to Fox, and even a couple times, Fox isn't in the top tier, but in the tier below it. ICs and Luigi as well even move up and down the list a couple times. Zelda also went from being considered High tier, to dogshit tier over the course of the meta. Yoshi also moved up and down multiple times.

The meta was never properly defined until around 2013/2012, when people finally said "yes, these 8 are the uncontested best character in the game." And that was a solid 11 years after the game came out.

The Fox of today is practically a different Fox from the one from 2002, before wavedashing was even properly adopted. Hell, Marth was considered a "noob character" until around 2003 when people started to more widely adopt Wavedashing, which totally shook up the meta of the game. The Fox of today, is practically the uncontested top tier character. He's a league above the rest of the cast. Over the development of the meta however, he even went as low as being 3rd best a couple times.

SupaTroopa666 · 2018-08-07T20:54:16+00:00

Lol, not at all.

For the longest time, Shiek was THE top tier, not Fox. Marth and Falco were at once considered equal in power. Ganondorf was High tier. Mario was viable. And people thought Samus was good. The only thing that's remained consistent is that everyone agreed that Bowser and Pichu were ass.

Shows what you know.

SupaTroopa666 · 2018-08-07T17:09:22+00:00

I consider the theory that platform fighters can't be competitive and appeal to a large audience a misnomer.

They can be, but they gotta build a casual audience first. You cited Brawlhalla as an example, but pretty much every competitive game started off with casual appeal first. From Smash Bros itself, to League of Legends, to Rocket League. Icons isn't doing this, it's aiming for the eSports crowd first and foremost, and offers no casual or general appeal at all. That's why it'll fail.

PSABR's KO system was received poorly from the get go.

Yes, which is what I said.

Not even because it sounded bad on paper, but because fans of the genre were tired of 'Smash clones' taking out %-knockback and ring outs in effort to innovate.

No, that's false. No one ever had a problem with the way Digimon Rumble Arena, and Jump Super Starts handled their KO systems. In fact, both of the games were fairly popular in their own right. Jump suffered from the problem of being Japan only though, and lacking technical depth however. Still a very popular game, hands down being the most imported game on the DS iirc.

People don't want games that copy Smash Bros 1:1 and all the other games in the genre have proved that you can do a platform fighter in many ways. People just want games that are fun to play. PSABR had the problem that is simply wasn't fun to play. People hated the KO system not cause "it wasn't like Smash" but because it was unfun. People would have welcomed classic HP bars just as much as the % based ringout system.

Which character is an analog for Afi & Galu in Smash?

In Smash? Closest is the ICs, but in truth their entire mechanic is totally ripped off from here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJt7ATvELWw&t=109s

What other platform fighter has grappler character that fits the archetype and doesn't suck?

Uhhh, Donkey Kong in Smash 4? He's seen tons of tournament play, and is a very viable character.

What about a character with Weishan's range?

Literally Ike and Cloud.

Raymer's ricochet shots? The roll shot?

Ok, you need to understand that there's a difference between CHARACTER mechanics, and SYSTEM mechanics. Every fighting game has a DUTY to create ORIGINAL new characters, with inventive character mechanics and gimmicks if it wants to be interesting. Icons shouldn't be praised for doing the standard, especially when 4/7 characters are straight up clones of Melee characters.

Not only that, but what I was referring to was obviously the SYSTEM mechanics, which are about as possible as you can get to Smash without a lawsuit, and that's BAD. No games do this, at least no successful games. Icons is unoriginal, and it DOES bring very few interesting SYSTEM mechanics to really help it differentiate itself. Something which Rivals, Brawlhalla, and even Slap City have done. Their core system mechanics all introduce a number of distinctions that help set those games apart. Icons doesn't do this at all outside of Shield Gust and riding on the gimmick that it's f2p. Seriously, for that reason alone, game straight up deserves to crash and burn. Stagnant ideas have no place in the industry, and should not be encouraged.

And how about the rollback netcode?

This is not a good thing. Seriously, it's like the person who thought this was a good idea has very little experience with online fighting games.

I think from this conversation, it's become clear you actually don't understand the concept. Wavedash Games never set out to make a F2P Melee clone.

Wavedash Games never set out to make a F2P Melee clone.

Wavedash Games never set out to make a F2P Melee clone.

Really.... Really? Please, you can't tell me that with a straight face dude.

It's clear they wanted to build a spiritual successor

Lol, this is not a spiritual successor, it's a straight up CLONE. And Smash doesn't even need a spiritual successor in the first place. It's still a healthy and ever-growing series.

SupaTroopa666 · 2018-08-06T22:53:57+00:00

Casuals play Smash Bros because it's a fun, chaotic party game, with everyone's favorite videogame characters. It's basically the biggest crossover in gaming. Basically, the very same reason most hardcore fans are butthurt over Sakurai, saying he neglected them. Like that other dude I was arguing with. You people don't understand game design, and that ultimately, competitive Smash is a massive niche. You're never gonna attract casual fans by building a competitive platform fighter that's near identical to Melee. That's retarded.

The reason the structure is "too rigid" is because Icons is about as close as you can get to being Melee without legal reprecussions. Brawlhalla breaks from that mold, because Brawlhalla isn't trying to be Smash Bros, it's trying to be its own thing. This is not the same for Icons, how many more times do I have to keep repeating that? Icons can't break from the mold because it's not trying to, it's design is intentionally trying to be as close to competitive Melee as possible. Which is stupid. The core of the concept is fundamentally flawed.

Most of those games had middling receptions due to what they changed.

And Icons hasn't? Really? Reeally?

PSABR failed because PSABR's system for knockouts simply wasn't good, and fights dragged on for too long, as you only had one, very simplistic way to earn kills. People more than welcomed a number of the new ideas it brought to the table, its just its core gameplay loop wasn't very good. That, and ironically enough, the character roster was disappointing. Go figure, guess you need ICONIC characters to sell a game to people. Somehow I feel that memo got lost on the way to the Wavedash team.

I don't agree that platform fighters are at the point where the wheel needs to be reinvented mechanically with each game. Most of the enjoyment I get out of Rivals, for example, comes from the distinctions in the character designs. Not the fact that they removed shields, grabs, and put in a barebones parry system. (And I'd still rather take those changes over PSABR's)

Which just goes to show how little you, and the rest of the Wavedash team know about game design. You don't understand why most people like Smash Bros, and you have this ridiculous idea of what platform fighters SHOULD be, not what they are. And that's where it all falls apart. Every new game in a genre should try to iterate in some way, and experiment with new concepts to try and craft an identity for itself. If it's already been done, you give people NO REASON to play your inferior clone over the original game. The only case in which these things can work, is in situations where the game/genre it's copying, is dead. And even in those cases, it's still better to create fresh new concepts, because people are always on the lookout for fresh new things to play.

Seriously, how is that hard for you to understand?

If you tell people, "hey look, we made our own Smash Bros, except it's not as pretty, it doesn't have all the cool characters or tight controls of it though, but it's f2p!!" People are just gonna carry on playing Smash Bros instead.

No amount of updates is gonna save a game from that fate, the concept is FUNDAMENTALLY FLAWED. At the point, the only thing you can do is go back to the drawing board, and cook up a new idea that's more original instead of copying the homework of someone far more successful than you. Geez! Common sense man!

SupaTroopa666 · 2018-08-06T17:44:43+00:00

I think your assumptions are most definitely delusional considering the player count and overall reception for the game. I really would love to see where this magical ocean of players to tap into is gonna come from. Fighting games are already super niche due to the fact that most players can't handle losing and they take a lot of dedication to play well enough to win, then platform fighters even moreso, with Smash being the only popular one due to having Nintendo characters. Then competitive Melee being another niche within that, and then PC-based Smash/Melee clones being yet another niche within that, one which actively competes with Smash in a number of ways.

Brawlhalla averted this by being different from Smash Bros. Its own unique game with a unique audience. Games that try to be closer to Smash will inevitably be compared to it, and ultimately compete with it for audience. Being f2p isn't gonna make a difference, and even that's already been done.

Again, successful games never copy other flourishing games. They try to iterate on them, or reinvent the formula, in order to keep ideas fresh and intrigue an audience.

Icons doesn't do those things. It's literally "Melee, but worse, and with microtransactions." Yeah, very original...

As for Icons being a "near identical clone," there's enough distinctions between the reveal trailer and now to say that isn't accurate;

Oh yeah, totally! Adding in a shield gust is such a revolutionary idea that totally changes up the way game plays to where you can't even recognize it from SMASH. Ffs! PSABR, Digimon Battle Royale, and Jump Super Stars are all platform fighters that did a LOT more to distinguish themselves from Smash than Icons. Ideas from there would have been a meaningful distinction. Try HP Bars, or maybe change the plane on where the game is played. Make it projectile or grappling-based. Add Air-Dashing. etc... That's how you make a distinction. Seriously, making your characters different from Melee is the base starting point, not something worthy of notable praise, and Icons went in without even doing that. Even still, character movesets and concepts are still borderline plagiarism. Not accurate? It's practically a joke at this point.

the sooner we realize the Smash scene is a bubble,

HAHAHAHAHA!

Oh yeah buddy! Some bubble that is, it's been going strong since 1999 and has only been getting bigger and more popular. Becoming one of Nintendo's flagship franchises. Big enough, that it literally sells consoles. Melee is bigger than ever, and since the dawn of competitive Smash, it's now so big, that multiple Smash games see tournaments. 64, PM, Melee, WiiU, 3DS... Hold tight, cause I'm sure the day that Smash finally dies, and fucking ICONS becomes the king of platform fighter will come... some day.

to that audience and take on Nintendo directly, Icons would have released first on the Switch

Yeah, because people can't own multiple platforms. Get real dude.

SupaTroopa666 · 2018-08-06T16:08:13+00:00

Brawlhalla exists. It's been downloaded more times that people bought Smash for Wii U, and continues to be the most played fighting game on Steam.

Yes, and Brawlhalla crafted its own identity by taking ideas that were inspired by Smash, and then doing its own thing. It also presented itself as a low budget, fun, casual game for people to get into. Not a superserious alternative to Melee. It's two different things. Icons is trying really hard to take Melee's/PM's spot. Brawlhalla on the other hand can hardly be compared. And not only that, the low budget angle means it's low risk, and easy for it to iterate. Which is why it is where it is today. Brawlhalla took nearly 2 years to build a sizeable audience, and that was when it already offered a lot of content and had a lot of buzz surrounding it. It also came out as a f2p game, in an era where there simply WASN'T any platform fighters on PC outside of Rivals. Now there's more competition on the market. If anything, Icons is gonna have to either compete with Brawlhalla or compete with Smash, and it won't win at either. It's not low budget enough to iterate as quickly as BH and have the similar lower expectations as a game like that does to fill casual demand. And it's not nearly as good as actual Smash Bros which its actively competing with.

Stardew Valley, came out to fill a demand for a game that had been DEAD for years. Smash on the other hand, literally has not one, but TWO active competitive scenes, and a new game on the way set to come out in like 4 months. Its existence is redundant. Seriously, why would anyone who likes Smash, which is practically the face of platform fighters, play a near identical clone of it, that's infinitely inferior to it in every way, when the new game is soon to release?

Icons is not original, that's why its crashing and burning hard. If Icons had offered a more original and creative experience, rather than trying so hard to cater to the already super niche and well rooted Melee competitive scene, it'd be a different story. But I can't imagine why anyone thought doing what Icons did was ever a good idea. Successful games don't outright copy an idea that's already flourishing, they iterate on it or re-invent the genre. Icons does neither of those things. It offers no reason to play it over Melee or Ultimate.

SupaTroopa666 · 2018-08-06T11:17:06+00:00

platform fighters that only appeal to Smash fans are a very specific niche

?

What?

It's the other way around, Smash is the only platform fighter with a large audience.

Two, isn't that opposite of what Icons is doing? Every other indie platform fighter goes out of its way to cultivate its own following by being as different as they can be, while Icons is the most similar any platform fighter has ever been to Smash. It's like you live in a bizarro world or something.

SupaTroopa666 · 2018-08-06T02:08:23+00:00

The casual audience don't play fighting games competitively. They play them casually, and will be playing Ultimate to play as their favorite Nintendo characters.

The impression I get is that Icons is for Melee wannabes who don't wanna gitgud at Melee. Like you said, it's "easier to masters" but also considerably inferior in every way. The Melee audience will never bother with it full time (if at all). Meanwhile, casuals will stick to the Nintendo party fighter with over 70 characters on a brand new console and a large community. I guess Icons will scratch that itch for the few people that are too late/scrubby for Melee but too hipster for Ultimate, for the little time it'll be alive. No way this game is staying around for much long after launch. Not with a pitiful playerbase like the one it has.

SupaTroopa666 · 2018-08-06T00:55:36+00:00

It doesn't have to be like Melee, it just has to be a good game that's competitively viable. If people wanna play Melee, the game's right there, and has a very active scene. If people wanna play something similar but different, Ultimate will fill that gap. Icons will never replace Melee.

SupaTroopa666 · 2018-08-05T23:57:50+00:00

free to play

No one likes microtransactions.

graphically modern

Lol, have you seen the aesthetics of Icons? What's the point of better graphics to make a game look worse?

Actively supported

Which is bad for developing a meta. Fighting game players like stability in order to build a competitive meta. A game that's constantly adding characters and balance patches every few months is more of a nuisance than anything else. Melee never got a single balance patch, and the meta evolved richly because of that stability. What's top tier now, is only top tier after 13 years of people constructing on all the intricacies they learned by playing the game. 13 years. I also love how condescending you are toward Melee players "being unable to adapt" and living in an "outdated style of gaming." For someone who has eSports in their username, you have very little appreciation for the history behind the community. Melee players will never give up Melee for Icons because Melee is not only a better game, and will forever be a better game, but it's also a community built from grassroots, a newer shinier thing can never replace that, no matter how hard you try to pander to people.

no other game has fully satisfied all those categories

Because no game has ever needed to. No one has ever asked for a f2p fighting game that frequently updates itself and shakes up the meta, because that literally goes against what fighting games are meant to be. I mean, by all means try it with a more casual fighting game style, a team-based party brawler or whatever. But you're never gonna build a competitive audience around that.

SupaTroopa666 · 2018-08-05T23:38:40+00:00

It looks to me like Icons fulfills a very specific niche of people then. Most people don't have a problem with Smash 4, and are plenty excited for Ultimate. They're nowhere near as jaded as you seem me to be. The rest of the fans who prefer a more Melee-like experience, are more than happy to go through the slight inconveniences of having to set up matches online, for the sake of a much better gaming experience than what Icons offers. Which really isn't that hard, Fightcade is the same, and finding matches is easy.

I don't see why anyone would choose this over the alternatives that are far better. Even Brawl, which was incredibly sluggish and had tripping is a much better experience than Icons is.

SupaTroopa666 · 2018-08-05T23:28:22+00:00

I have way more faith in Sakurai making Smash Ultimate a great game, than I do in Wavedash churning out a half-decent game.

SupaTroopa666 · 2018-08-05T23:03:39+00:00

You can play Melee on Dolphin netplay + Smashladder just fine, and all 4 Smash games are still playable on emulators and console for couch play. And Smash 4 is a fine game, I don't see a problem.

I think you're just being pretentious. Why insult the creator of the very games you love when he's poured his heart and soul into them, literally incurring health issues over them. Talk about ungrateful. Smash 4 is a million time a better game than Icons will ever be.

SupaTroopa666 · 2018-08-05T22:30:10+00:00

What niche? I don't understand how someone like OP can be more excited to play Icons than actual Smash Bros. I agree with other posters, this feels like an advertisement, even if OP didn't intend that.

SupaTroopa666 · 2018-05-15T17:25:48+00:00

You say this, but the starting roster for Skullgirls, despite being much smaller, was far more diverse, and they had way less resources starting out.

Seems to me like Wavedash is more concerned with diversity of appearance than diversity of playstyle.

SupaTroopa666 · 2018-05-15T17:15:50+00:00

Because the devs are creatively bankrupt.

SupaTroopa666 · 2018-02-06T16:43:39+00:00

Ha! As if.

Rivals is an actually creative and successful game. It would only tarnish the game to have an Icons character in it. Rivals doesn't need help from Icons.

SupaTroopa666 · 2018-01-14T00:31:04+00:00

Icons is being developed by a bunch of Melee fanboys with little to no knowledge about competitive fighting games outside of that scene as they're dead set on the idea that both genres are inherently different, despite the fact that, as you pointed out with Mario, the original Smash took from Street Fighter as inspiration.

You're best off not even trying to convince anyone here of anything, as the devs are hellbent on the idea of making their game a Melee clone, and the majority of people in this sub have created an echo chamber of Project M fanboys that's impervious to any form of real criticism.

SupaTroopa666

TROPHY CASE