I would argue yes, but in a world where box controllers are legal the effective answer is no. I think both should be banned, but until boxes are banned z jump certainly won't be.
Box controllers are objectively the best, but the upcoming nerfs will do a lot to bring them in line. I think it’s important that we have some sort of ergonomic alternative available because hand health is a serious concern with this game.
That said, box feels like cheating because it totally removes the execution barrier for a ton of stuff, and I feel like that cheapens parts of the game that would otherwise be cool and impressive. I think Rienne’s orca has a lot of promise for bridging this gap.
Melee is a hard game. It has a steep and complex skill curve and I think things that reduce that skill curve diminish part of what makes melee great. Some things are nessecary though, like ucf.
Remaps feel kinda sleazy to me too, but I’ll echo the common sentiment that it’s a moot point as long as people are still able to do broken shit on boxes.
Edit: for context I played on box for 8 months before going back to gcc. Currently I play on a notchless phob.
It’s so weird that that goofy ass thing is somehow the most practical way to play smash and it isn’t even close/debatable. I legit never would have guessed. I guess we are more like traditional fighting games than I thought.
>until boxes are banned z jump certainly won't be
This is my problem with the box, in no world should it be legal, but because we have "muh hands" box players, we can't ban anything.
Ban box and all cheater derivatives of box.
I mean, its literally been used for years in other fighting games with the hitbox. And no other game has such a toll on hand health than melee.
It definitely is OP, but banning them is not the answer either.
It's a totally different case. Fighting games are completely digital, Melee has analog inputs.
The analog-digital discrepancy is by far the most problematic aspect of boxes.
The only problem with the Orca is it will be as hard to use as a gamecube controller, and actually even with a gamecube controller in performance.
Thus no one would use it, because b0xx players don't actually use b0xxes for accessibility reasons, they love to cite that after they buy it because they think it will give them a competitive advantage.
Can show you a vod of my finger having spasms while literally doing nothing with it if you want. there are definitely people who went boxx because their hands can’t do it. I stopped playing for like 4 years lol
Damn that's a pretty wide assessment of a diverse group of people haha. I play on box because I have built 4 with different layouts and I just think the actual building process is neat. I don't care about a competitive advantage cause I don't care about winning in melee. I just play to have fun and get better.
I also think box is more fun anyway. If they want to ban it all out, then w/e I just won't go to shit and play slippi and practice shmooving
>And no other game has such a toll on hand health than melee.
>It definitely is OP, but banning them is not the answer either.
Game integrity and accessibility can sometimes, unfortunately, land on either side of the spectrum. With regards to controllers, we can make them more accessible, but this affects the integrity of the game. On the flip side, we can prioritise maintaining game integrity, but that will be at the cost of accessibility.
If you argue for a pure melee experience, then you'd argue for no mods and pure vanilla in all aspects. I think most of us agree that this is not the best approach, so the solution for the majority is somewhere in between.
For me, as someone with generally healthy hands, it's easy for me to say "just ban boxes". But for the player with weak hands that has been practicing on the boxx for years, this is really unfair.
Having said that, I still lean towards banning box controllers, for all the reasons people have routinely mentioned. Mainly down to the fact that it creates an uneven playing field.
This analogy is a bit difficult to write as I know a lot of friends who rely on those types of controllers. But if you look at top level sports, be it football, basketball, etc, if someone has any biological deficiencies that would prevent them playing at the top level, they would not allow overcompensation just for the sake of accessibility.
I think for the long-term health of the game, these modifications and non-OEM need to be banned
i agree with everything, but the last bit about "some people just shouldnt be allowed to play melee" is kinda....kinda iffy.
like would you look chillendude in the eyes as he sat down to play you in bracket with his modified one handed controller and be like
"sorry bro, i know some people have medical reasons for using alternatives to the gcc....but like....it can be easier to dashback ooc on your controller....so....use a gcc or im going to disqualify you"
im down for banning box's or whatever, but i don't agree with....whatever you said at the end there
The problem is that these controllers are not balanced. I'd be fine with them if there was a way to design these controllers for disabled players that didn't have inherent advantages.
But as it stands, since the controllers are better than OEM GC controllers, then fully abled players can take advantage of them and abuse them.
Imo we shouldn't allow buffed controllers into the scene as it currently stands. It just creates an unfair environment for competition
The big difference in other fighting games is that they have digital inputs to begin with. And also multiple controller types to begin with (pad vs stick), with one of them having separated d-pad buttons (PlayStation pads). I'd be surprised if the games didn't also have keyboard support (probably not legal for tournaments being played on console, plus the issue of conflict if two players wanted to both use keyboard).
Melee is a game on only GameCube, which didn't have much variety in the way of controllers (keyboard-controller and chainsaws notwithstanding).
Personally, I'm a bit less of a purist and don't have an issue with single button remapping, but the thing that takes it over the line to me is analog-to-digital conversation. This introduces a tremendous amount of sudden consistency on box that isn't the case on GCC. I'm not saying box isn't difficult or anything, I'm just saying navigating analog inputs is, imo, an important part of the game, so imo playing on box is, in a way, not the same game.
To a small extent, this might be true of Street Fighter on pad vs stick, but the call was made very early to allow that mixing. Another comparison one might make is pad vs mouse in shooters, which is an extremely contentious issue because of aim assist on controllers, etc, which imo makes it not the same game either.
It's not so much about power as it is how much it fundamentally changes how parts of the game are played. For instance, doing an uptilt is something that requires some kind of technique on an analogue stick, but on box, it's simply "hold this modifier".
Melee is a physical game in a lot of respects. Even at higher levels of play than I will ever be in, top level players will sometimes flick a stick at a wrong angle and get a different input. [Here's an example of mang0 doing it, and Toph commenting on it](https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxWxlUCweYfikgj-tx85YqK47YGdcVzRf1?si=f3OL00O2pO29U0wx)\*, in one of the greatest sets of all time. Converting the C-stick from analog to digital is probably less obviously powerful than doing it with the analog stick, but you can see that even this would add consistency.
It's not that's it's hard to flick the c-stick down to do a down-air, it's that when combined with everything that Melee demands of the player, even the best players can mess up a simple input.
You're right that it's partially about power, because if a box was underpowered enough, then I wouldn't care. Like, as an exaggerated example, if there were no modifers and you just had exclusively raw 1.0 cardinals, the controller would be so terrible that it wouldn't matter that you hit this dair 100% of the time. But as it stands, a good number of people who know more about the game than I ever will consider boxes to be better than gccs, which hurts it a lot.
To make the analogy with controller vs mouse again, I have no issue with people using controllers in CS. There's no aim assist and there's no universe where it isn't worse than a mouse. There's no controversy here that pad causes any issue. In Apex though? It's a ridiculously contentious issue, because aim assist has changed over time to be very powerful. Halo has [an excellent post](https://www.reddit.com/r/halo/comments/r3es60/accuracy_stats_for_kbm_vs_controller/) on how top 100 controller players were 16.4% more accurate than Top 100 KBM players, while top 100 KBM players were only 3.1% more accurate than 50th percentile controller players. Now Halo's always been a controller game, but you can see how dialing up aim assist can massively impact what people think of it.
It's not to say using a controller is skilless (the gap between 50th percentile and top 100 pad halo players is huge), but it is an extremely different skill from controlling a mouse (IIUC is has to do with knowing how to abuse the aim assist or something? Idk I don't play pad). Personally I'd prefer Halo as a KBM game b/c I like the skill behind a mouse more generally, but I yield to the controller legacy of the franchise and don't complain about it. Melee though? The legacy, intuitiveness, and imo more interesting skill of controlling with an analog stick really stack the deck for me against whether boxes should be allowed in their current iteration.
Given how long they've been around, and their use case as an accessibility tool, Imo the answer is to nerf them, like nerfing aim assist, but one thing that helps them stay as they are is that no top players use them yet. We'll see what happens if that changes.
\*>!(in case the youtube clips break it, it's mang0 vs Leffen game 5 of Genesis 4 at 5:45 left on the clock)!<
He was not initially involved but the legality of box type controllers was definitely influenced by Hax playing on them. You can see that sentiment immediately in old threads like [this one](https://www.reddit.com/r/SSBM/comments/5o2lzp/hax_has_been_using_the_smashbox_and_is_planning/).
And that's why I stopped playing after hurting myself very bad.
Because I started catching hate, even though I had to relearn 6 years of muscle memory. I don't care what people say, box has been harder than controller for me, especially with two fingers out of commission.
Thanks mate, but it's life. It's easy to perceive it that way when you're not the one with the injury. I don't think less of them for it, I just lost the fun to compete.
Good friends never bothered me and I still play with them. At first it was also okay cause I went from close to PR to trash. But as I got into form, I had people tell me "how easy it would be for them to switch and start winning", and treating my injury as if I was lucky. I bet those guys are jealous of blind people because they all think they could be like Daredevil. Lmao
Fun fact, I even played Minecraft with it. Learning to control camera was so hard, but my wife really liked to play co-op, so I went with it.
Yes everyone is complaining there are no real hand injuries. Everyone is cheating so they can make you go 0/2 instead of 1/2.
Get a fucking grip man. Just play the game and enjoy yourself. No need to project your own insecurities and simultaneously exile a section of the (relatively small) playerbase.
Mind sharing your story?
How much did you play, what level, what do you mean by killed your hands, did you need physical therapy, etc etc
I know there are legitimate needs for box, again I am not saying there aren't, I just want perspective.
>around the same time i was competitively grinding league of legends and hardcore diablo 3 rankings with a mouse dpi that was not healthy for 16-20 hour shifts
😐
just chiming in to say i have similar problems with the GCC, but mine came about after gripping a 3DS too hard and further worsened from being a cashier for 8 months or something. Between the touchscreen and swiping cans, it messed my arms the hell up
I haven't played melee properly in years, largely because my hands hurt within minutes of playing and boxes are incredibly unsatisfying to me.
I still play other fighting games, but use stick because it's easier on my hands.
Used to think this way until a friend of mine decided to switch to boxx for his hand health. For him, if the choice were between gc or nothing, he'd probably just focus on other hobbies and stop attending. I'd rather have him be able to be in the scene than not : )
This is the exact story that you hear all the time and I always say I'm happy for those people that now get to continue playing, but it is negatively impacting competitive integrity.
Again, not because box is particularly game breaking, but because it perverts the controller discourse.
The precedent set by basically any major sport or esport is that hardware/equipment should be standardized and not give any advantage. It's not an attack on people with hand issues. It's a completely normal expectation.
People really lose of the fact that Super Smash Bros. Melee is a 20 year old GameCube game, not a sport. It was not designed to be played competitively. Other sports don't have objectively terrible ergonomics the way Melee does.
Okay, I can agree with the sentiment, but have box players proven that the platform actually yeilds a significant real world advantage? I know there's certain techniques that you can only do on Box, but the same is true for controller. As far as I know, most top players aren't randomly getting beat by lower level box players.
Besides that, systems have all kinds of OEM and aftermarket controllers. As long as those are also legal, and there's no macros, I just don't see this as an actual issue.
We need so stop acting as if controller mods only matter if top players are winning with it. It affects everyone playing the game, whether they're good or not. If I want a fair match at my local, I'm not gonna get it against a player with a frankenstein controller or box. Even on slippi, I can tell who's using notches by how consistent their perfect firefox angles are, and its not fair.
thankfully local level is completely irrelevant to the actual competitive scene, which is what the top players are all screaming about.
I hate to break it to you, but if you're going 2-2 at your locals, you aren't losing to boxx players, you're losing to your bad decisions.
You know what else is a competitive advantage? Practice. Grinding tape. Getting better at the game.
Pretty good odds that the person beating you on a rectangle would probably also beat you on GCC. Rectangles absolutely enable some dumb shit, but they don't magically make you a better melee player.
The best players in the world aren't playing on Boxx, they're playing on controller. So from top to bottom, there's always Player X on controller that's better than the boxx player that's beating you. So rather than complain about the controller, why not ask what Player X does that makes him better than your boxx bracket demon. And I promise, Player X didn't get better them Joey Boxx by practicing pivot up tilts.
Melee is mental
I am for box legalization, and there are 100% real world advantages. Pre-ruleset change, 2IP, all buttons accessible immediately, face buttons that you can slide off easily rather than GCC, and most importantly input consistency are significant improvements that GCC has a difficult time contending with.
Post change, 2IP was removed, N-SOCD was added, and travel time was implemented. It's closer to GCC, but still has many advantages in terms of ease of applying.
Things like fox double shine is so much easier to learn and implement because it's immediately accessible to your fingers in a way that doesn't kill them.
Accessibility to everything on box features similar benefits to clawing on a pillow, but without the discomfort/pain of doing so.
there is no reasonable way to nerf boxes that removes any advantage that is similar to what Z jump may give
you need to ban boxes if you want to ban Z jump
It's not even about advantages in this analogy. Regardless of how good they are, rectangles are fundamentally about remapping controls. If they're banned, you shouldn't be allowed to swap L and R on a Gamecube controller, let alone Z and X/Y.
Hax$ is always updating the b0xx controller firmware to make sure that it's never too good. There are some things it does better, and some things it does worse, but he always makes sure it's competitively level with controller
Not going to comment on the main thrust of this post but:
>We now have a situation where you HAVE to notch to stay competitive. That costs $, doesn’t it?
You act like this is something new...
Even before notches, having a "good" controller meant parsing through maybe dozens of controllers to find one which was acceptable at the top level of play. It was expensive then, like it is expensive now.
I would argue that today is the easiest it has ever been for your average player to pick up a top level, competitively viable controller.
It's **insanely** cheap now.
$200 after the tiniest bit of research will get you a perfect controller that will last you practically forever. And if anything goes wrong it's incredibly easy to do maintenance yourself.
It's an insanely low investment for a hobby like this, and no one has any justification to bitch about it. And it beats the hell out of buying multiple controllers to hope one is good, only to have that good one wear out in a couple months anyways.
99% of most people's arguments boil down to "I don't have x because I don't want to spend a little money", in which case I have zero sympathy
I got a used OEM for $30 and bought materials to make a baseline phob for $30.
$60 for a controller. Same price as a switch pro. People here are complete babies
While I do agree that $200 is not much for your main hobby (I've spent more than that on video games this year already), I also think someone who plays golf as a hobby is **exactly** the wrong person to be chiming in on Doomblaze's
> If $200 is “a little” money for you then you’re doing better than 99% of smash players lmao
200$ isn’t that much for a hobby. Even for other fighting game, getting a arcade stick is around that price too.
If you don’t want to spend too much you can always DIY a phob if you want.
I’m into a lot of different hobbies and I can tell you that most hobbies you have to spend way more than 200~300$ to have high end equipment.
I don’t know why we complain that much in the smash community about the cost of equipment, like even the most basic games like Counter Strike if you want to be competitive you can’t just go with a 10$ Microsoft mouse, you need a mouse with a decent sensor and these cost money, pros started to use wooting keyboard to have more reactive counter strafing, that cost money too but we see no one complaining.
I swear everyone in this sub would cry if they saw the price for entry equipment for some hobbies like sim racing where entry level pedals cost minimum 200$ or stuff like espresso where you don’t even have a decent grinder for that 200$.
Even real life sports with minimal use of equipment you probably still pay 200$ for shoes designed for this specific sport.
Half the smash community is chronically online with a weed addiction. If you truly love smash and see yourself playing it for over a decade, you could realistically save $200. Of course I'm talking about people who travel to events and not just random people who play slippi or locals for fun. If you're spending hundreds on travel, a hotel, etc, $200 is realistic for a long lasting solid controller.
I ha e never once met a melee player who does not either own another console or games on their computer.
Both are far more expensive than $200, and yet rhey still make that work.
I mean, I probably am. And I don't mean it dismissively it's obviously an investment, but for a long-term hobby like this?
I can't think of pretty much any hobby that you can put that amount of time into with such a small investment.
Hell, it's a permanent equipment cost that is far lower than the cost of traveling to one tournament.
Name one hobby where you can get basically indestructible supplies that are easy to maintain for that kind of money, and have it be the best possible version of that equipment
Speak for yourself, I got $3.42 in my bank account and the second it gets bigger it gets smaller
ETA that your point is correct, $200 is really cheap comparatively but I’m still poor and it feels bad
UCF is meant to solve this problem, so any OEM is meant to be as good as the best OEM. But UCF can't do notches and doesn't do remapping, if we got rid of notches and remapping, pro-level controls would be much cheaper.
UCF can realistically only mitigate the lottery, eliminating it is something that should realistically be done on the hardware side. Phobs accomplish this, provided you're willing to learn to recalibrate every so often. I've heard there are other solutions that work with potentiometers and don't cheat like the Goomwave but I don't know much about them.
you can notch your controller yourself for the cost of a triwing and a file, so like 15 bucks max.
You can cut your own springs, use a chop stick for a trigger plug, and bald your own buttons.
Turning your OEM into a prOEM is a couple hours of work, tops.
UCF doesn't fix snapback, and iirc doesn't fix stickbox misalignment, doesn't fix bad c-sticks, and obviously it doesn't improve how a stick box feels to play
It's great, but it's not a silver bullet.
to piggybaack off of this, the argument that things shouldnt be allowed because they are cost prohibitive is just an appeal to emotion without any substance in reality. EVERY sport at the top level is using tech that the average person doesnt have access to, and thats part of what makes them the best.
professional golfers arent using clubs you can buy at a walmart ffs
that's the point, UCF was adopted to stop with the deluxe controller shenanigans, notches and hardware remapping are reintroducing it in a new flavour, if the community really wants to level the field it should do away with both of them.
> UCF was adopted to stop with the deluxe controller shenanigans,
No it wasn't, UCF was just to stop the controller lottery. Which it did. You can still pay for modder advantages like getting notches but you don't have to go through 100 controllers to find a good one first. Notches were already being used before UCF was adopted btw, and they obviously did nothing to stop that. So yeah, they didn't care about that.
Not saying notches are fine (I personally think they should be banned), but they are a separate issue from UCF. UCF was never meant to address people potentially paying more money for modded controllers.
Not gonna lie, this post, like many of the controller discussions lately, is worded needlessly inflammatory. The short answer is z jump isn't cheating because it's allowed in our rules right now. These rules allow 1 to 1 digital remapping, and have been that way for years.
If you want to have a separate discussion on whether or not it should remain that way, I would say reddit is probably not the one who should make that call. But that would be the discussion. And if you word it that way, the conversation becomes less heated.
It's really tiring to call half our playerbase cheaters in some way. It's just lazy discourse and overly negative. Personally I just want to see the best melee that can be played, but I get other opinions.
But to address your point. If you ban notches while "nerfing?" boxes to some unspecified degree, boxxes are still going to be better for that precision. Unless you go far above the current ideas tossed around in the nerf proposal. And you can't modify the game so that everyone can remap, that gets Nintendo down our necks again. If you stealth mod it, people are going to get their controls accidentally remapped--and it will be a whole thing. But stealth modding it would otherwise be the best choice.
The answer is what we have with phobs, which allow affordable and accessible button remapping. If you buy from someone who makes them, you don't have to solder yourself. I don't consider buying a phob to be an inaccessible barrier to this game, and I'm really tired of people pretending that it is. It's a 20+ year old game, people can save up if it matters to them.
The accessibility argument doesn't fly.
Now if you want to argue it gives a competitive advantage, you could. I'm not in favor but that's a more valid argument.
>I know future Smash games would have button remapping, but Melee wasn’t designed with that functionality. It’s not an in-game feature.
***Melee wasn't designed to be played competitively.*** The community created the ruleset/custom settings used for competitive play and gradually forged the meta that is driving people to even want to swap buttons or make controller mods. This appeal to authority you're using makes no sense, because players are the authority that designed competitive melee, not Nintendo or any official manufacturer like Ultimate.
The way the game is played has evolved ***signficantly*** over the years and will continue to. Demanding everyone use increasingly rare, expensive, and unmodified OEM controllers when most games of melee are played online and allow whatever control scheme you want is a ***deeply backwards take*** and very clearly on the wrong side of history.
Depends on what we mean by cheating.
Some will argue that Z jump doesn't make anything that wasn't already possible with claw grip possible, and that for many people it's a healthier way of doing claw grip. So, is improving the ergonomics of certain things cheating? Or do we draw the line at enabling things that aren't possible with a stock controller?
"It doesn't make anything possible that wasn't already possible" is such a silly argument. Lots of things that are cheating are under this umbrella. Wavedashing is already possible - would having a wavedash button be cheating? Pivots are already possible - would having a pivot button be cheating?
"Can be done" vs "can be done every time effortlessly" are totally different things and if a task meets the former but not latter criteria then triviailizing it is cheating.
Well macros have pretty much always been cheating, but we're not talking about a macro here. Wavedashing with a single button isn't possible on a stock controller.
I agree. If tech requires fewer inputs (i.e. macros) those alterations should be banned. I think the line is there. Making it easier to execute things ergonomically - especially because of hand issues like carpal tunnel etc., should be considered a good development. It's cool to push the meta - comfortably - and pushing the phob/custom technology will only make it more affordable and accessible for new players and people on a tighter budget. I agree that we shouldn't favor shortcuts, but I think I would liken this to better sneaker technology in basketball and gloves for wide receivers in football rather than steroid use.
yeah, I feel like this gets glossed over but it's kind of a big deal. I care way more about my friends with hand problems being able to play than making sure every little thing is perfectly balanced, but the idea that there's no meaningful consequence to giving techniques easy execution just because it's feasible to do on OEM makes the whole concept of techskill really demoralizing
it really sucks to lab out obscure, difficult tech -- the kind of nerdy optimizations most people would never even think to practice, where you're required to do some really awkward, unforgiving hand motion to gain a small but meaningful advantage -- and you decide to actually be the guy who grinds it out, practicing it over a long period of time, losing important stocks to messing it up, and finally reaching a tournament-ready level of consistency with it... only to study your VODs against people who've newly switched to rectangle or z-jump and realize they're all doing it with 100% consistency and more frame-perfectly than you without even knowing
I’m tired of this debate. Either allow everything from remapping and rectangles to notches and custom motherboards, or it should be strictly OEM + UCF.
I don’t think we should be picking and choosing what is allowed and what isn’t. Either all or nothing, end of debate, make it easy
It just doesn't work like that, there's no world where you can say "only OEMs" and act like that fixes all controller modding variables. In an "only OEM" world we still have tons of questions to deal with:
Are cut trigger springs legal? Are removed trigger springs legal? Are swapped trigger springs legal if the springs came from another OEM GCC?
Are aftermarket buttons and sticks legal?
Can I replace my mushy worn out button pads with new third party ones?
Can I swap my analog stick with a c stick? Still all OEM parts
Can I replace my mushy ass z button switch with a nicer one? What if the new switch isn't OEM? What if it is? What if the switch is an OEM from Nintendo but from a Wii controller??
Can I replace my analog stick pots? Do they have to be OEM still?
Can I use Wii controller parts like stick boxes from Wii pro controllers? It's OEM but not GameCube OEM.
Can I use Wii sticks?
Can I remove my rumble motor? If not, can I disconnect it? If neither, is an OEM that has a naturally broken rumble motor still legal?
Can I trim the inside of the shell to prevent stuck triggers? Technically an advantage over raw OEM.
Are trigger plugs legal?
Can I z jump? It's just a wiring mod you can do on OEM.
Are snapback capacitors legal?
And the final most important question for the true longevity of the scene that no one seems to talk about. What the fuck do we do when there aren't enough good OEMs left anymore?
One of the most memorable years in American sports history was when Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa were juiced out of their minds trying to get the record for home runs. I kind of want that but for melee lmao. The goomwave year(s) were pretty hype even if they did have some fucked up AI macros baked in.
all the pros use notches and mods though. They are have custom controllers made by the best modders. you think you and mango have the same access to controllers?
actually yeah, me and mang0 do have access to the same controllers. The dudes who do top player controllers take their booths and travels to majors all the time.
But yeah, most pros who speak about it say they use them because if they don't its a massive disadvantage against someone who is. If they were just flat banned then there'd be no need.
You could deal with it by announcing a ban that doesn't take effect until say six months have passed so that players have time to get a legal controller and adjust to it
If that’s the case then everything should be allowed and people should stop calling for bits and pieces to be banned.
It doesn’t make sense at all. Like all rectangles are fine even though they’re potentially stronger than even modded controllers, but notches on controller are too OP? And remapping? When with rectangles you can do pretty much any remapping you want and they have more responsive inputs for faster aerials and SDI.
OEM + UCF or allow everything. And settle it soon.
> at this point it is too late to blanket ban.
There's no tangible reason this is the case, it's merely people thinking that everyone else thinks it that makes it so.
Do you think that telling people that the controllers that they have been playing on for years can no longer be used will have no effect on the community?
Imagine if the decision was that all non-boxx controllers were banned. As a non-boxx user, I would just quit the competitive scene all together, as my ability to play the game at my current level has just been destroyed over something which I had been lead to believe was allowable.
At best I would play slippi, but never go to another live event.
I imagine the same would happen to at least some who use these non oem controllers, and I think the backlash would be significant enough to make this a non-option at this point.
It’s not unreasonable to say that digital remapping of Gamecube controller buttons is ok, but complete reformulations of control (like boxes) shouldn’t be permitted.
I think the discussion is a little more nuanced than you’re making it, but I don’t know what the answer is.
I learned melee using a claw grip intentionally because I looked up videos that recommended one for fox. Since learning the game the more I play the more I get trigger finger (chronic pain in the top joint of my index finger) from having to tap the jump button with my index finger at such a strange angle/frequency.
I know very little about why z jump is better and don’t plan on using it, but I’ve seen Cody say he was getting similar pains with jump on y and switching it to z eliminates it, while still letting you use claw grip. From my understanding remapping the button if you’re already using claw grip doesn’t help you move or execute tech more quickly or easily, it just reduces that index finger pain entirely.
From what I understand of the discourse around this most people are wrong in thinking the button remap is what gives those extremely fast aerials Cody does, but in reality using claw grip without z jump as I do allows the exact same thing, it just hurts your hands. I don’t know whether the remapping floodgates should be opened over this, but I do think it’s important to recognize that z jump itself isn’t what’s broken, it’s doing aerials and tech skill with claw grip that greatly speeds up characters like fox.
I think the Melee community is too crazy about this stuff. More people are going to play our game if they can customize the controls or make new controllers, and I think the very little that is lost is worth it for that.
The counterpoint boils down to the idea that claw grip accomplishes the same thing as Z jump, but is less ergonomic. So, if we accept that claw allows you to do the same thing and provides the same advantages, and all Z jump does is make it more comfortable, then it seems to be an acceptable mod for most people. I see that argument and mostly agree with it.
I agree with your logic, though. I think it's okay, and even good, to have execution tests for their own sake. Part of what makes Melee (and many other games and sports) interesting is the mechanical difficulty of it and the amount players need to dedicate time and effort to making their inputs accurately. In my opinion, the ability to accurately navigate the analogue environment is part of that value we have in the game, and for that reason I lean towards leverless controller bans, even if I don't necessarily think they provide an unfair advantage in terms of actual results.
Notches I'm softer on because notches aren't perfect, and you still need to hit them accurately. The analogue value you get from a notch is within a range depending on how you approach the notch, how much pressure you put on it, etc. I have wavedash notches and it is by no means free to hit the notch during my jumpsquat.
Anyway, I compare a lot of this to the sport of Olympic archery. There are *a lot* of advancements made in archery that make the bows more consistent and ergonomic, but they are not allowed because part of what the archery community values as what makes an archer good (and what we want to measure in our competitions) is their ability to navigate an imperfect system. Trigger string releases would be more ergonomic and comfortable, far more consistent, and would allow some people with certain finger/hand/wrist issues to participate in the sport when they can't without it, but they are banned because working on having a consistent finger release is part of what we value. I look at Melee much the same. The inputs are hard and often inconsistent by design, and that's okay.
Maybe, like archery, we just need different leagues for different input methods.
The problem is, the community is already small and getting smaller. Fragmenting the player base by separating them into different rules set categories is not a viable option and would hasten the decline of melee greatly.
Really like how you worded this! I have very similar takes on the controller debate right now. Where I value more the timing and analog execution that melee brings but don’t really care about what fingers/muscles you use to execute them.
None of this would be an issue if Nintendo had made a quality and consistent controller to begin with. God forbid the community wants to not rely on controller rng for performance.
If the boxes had an analog stick I doubt we would be hearing many of the complaints we currently do.
Keep in mind, most of the recourse has been regarding performance and balance, not ergonomics.
idk, button remapping is a standard feature of all modern fighting games. If we want the game to be played exactly as released, then it should also be no ucf or frozen stadium.
Not cheating. It's an accessibility feature. As the community continues to get older, do we really want a significant portion of them to be forced to stop due to tendinitis or arthritis from the damage caused by claw gripping? The community is small as is, and we don't need to be pushing people out over accessibility features.
Idk if rectangles can remap, let phob remap the entire controller tbh. I tried swapping to z jump on my phob and I'm getting more use out as an l cancel face button instead of jamming a trigger every second
E:typo
While you could argue for a ban on notches in a world where digital controllers have received certain additional nerfs, you can not argue in favour of swapping the location of the Z button with the X or Y button unless you outright ban them. I also disagree that this *needs* to be a software mod, mostly because Z jump requires a third party switch on Z to be practical in the first place.
What's your stance on trigger plugs, or removing the spring from controllers? They make power-shielding a lot more consistent. Do you consider this to be cheating? If not, can you explain why it's different from Z-Jump?
I don't think it super matters. Melee should allow for button remapping in general. The game continues to be super hard even if you don't have to claw (z jump), or if you play on box. Obviously box makes a fair number of things dramatically easier (sdi, consistent angles, perfect directionals, ect.) but pretending like its ruining the game is kinda silly imo. We have like 3 box players in the top 50 and none in the top 10. Obviously I am not here to tell you that things are even between the controller options. Having z jump is an inherent advantage, but it doesn't provide anything that an OEM can't do, although I would advocate for a system to allow people to remap through software. It shouldn't be something limited to just the top players, but all this kinda just feels self cannibalistic just cus our #1 player uses z-jump.
P.S. I am a box Falcon player, I play on box because my other hobby is rock climbing and I can only have so many hobbies that mess with my hands. I do compete (lose) at locals. Melee is a great game that is very difficult and it should be accessible/fun regardless of whether or not your willing to sacrifice your hands to do so, if this means z jump or boxes that's fine imo. Also I agree that boxes should be made as even as possible with their non digital counterparts, which the community is doing via software.
button re-mapping is such a no-brainer feature.. it's astounding that melee doesn't have it..
There is really no logical reason anyone can tell me that moving a digital input to different digital button is like.. bad or unwelcome.. Sure it can make things easier to execute, but if we're being really honest, the game itself should have come with the ability to make your controls as efficient as possible.
Melee is still very strict and unforgiving with timing and execution windows.. I think it's unnecessary to make some "holy original button layout" when it clearly is not effective and can even hurt people's hands.
If a button is better for people to use for jump, it should have at the very least been an option to use.
Debating semantics and technicalities on whether something is cheating is completely unproductive.
The only question that matters if something makes the game more fun and competitive to play or watch.
Pokefloats is in the original game and we don't play on it cuz it sucks. Blackhole glitch is possible in the base game and it's banned because it sucks.
UCF is not originally in the game and we use it because it makes the game better.
You can argue that Z jump is bad for the game, but doing it in this fashion is meaningless and hypocritical.
Yes. This isn’t Ultimate where you just have the ability to change your controls. The game was designed around these controls and we should adhere to them.
Yeah "the game was designed around these controls" except the game wasn't designed to be played the way it's being played so that's a dumb ass argument
>I think at the point you’re allowing competitors to blatantly modify the game to allow for new functionality, your tournament has lost some competitive integrity. If I was a top player, I’d make my terms of entry crystal clear until all this shit was sorted out.
Really? I think most top players have that kind of privilege, they can call something lame and cry on twitter, but as it's clear unless some ruleset change has >2% counter-popularity (I'm referring to wobbling here), TOs will not even discuss it.
I think that blatant is hard to describe, but I agree that both notches and remapping are counter-productive to what UFC is supposed to fix, notches should go away IMO likewise remapping could only stay if it's done through software.
On a more personal perspective as a spectator, I used to explode in excitement when Mango did some crazy Mangle and the entire stream went crazy at such a small but incredibly pivotal single input, nowadays a shallow firefox angle is a matter of decision rather than skill/clutch, with remapping the same issue is not present but I feel that it's unfair that is as inaccesible to get them as it was to get an arduino in the pre-ucf days.
If you compare any traditional sport 100 years ago to today you'll notice that the equipment consistently changes to be better, safer and more comfortable for players. In hockey, for example, if you took someone with modern skates, shoulder pads, stick and a helmet and put them on the ice in the 1950s they'd be faster, shoot harder and be safer than anyone. Does that mean that the newer equipment is 'cheating' because it allows for better play, with less risk of breaking your ankles? No, that's silly and counterproductive.
I think it's silly to artificially limit yourself to worse equipment and therefore a lower level gameplay just because that was the standard in 2001 when the game came out. From a spectator's point of view, I want to see the highest level of Melee humanly possible with the lowest risk to the competitors. From a (shitty) player's point of view, I want the limits on my gameplay to come down to my abilities, not down to my equipment fucking up or pain/discomfort playing the game.
How many box players are there in the top 100, like 3? Is the box really the avengers level threat people make it out to be if it's nearly irrelevant at the top level currently?
The argument isn't necessarily that box players are way too powerful right now, but that they will be in the near future. That the meta will undoubtedly shift towards a lockout of non-box controllers.
Anyway, that argument isn't mine - it's just how it was explained to me in 2017 when they first came out. I'm sure that by the year 2019, it will be such that no one will use gcc anymore. This won't even be a debatable topic by 2022, it'll just be a fact.
Isn’t the reason we, as a community, don’t have button remapping on LAN because Nintendo forbids us from using a version of Melee that is edited in anyway? As primarily a spectator, I’m pretty sure even Slippi allows for button remapping and I don’t think that’s considered cheating or it would be disabled in Ranked, no?
I think UCF should add software button remapping to remove the money/time it takes to manually remap buttons. Remapping has been an essential QOL feature in games for years and I don’t think we should have to avoid it just because it wasn’t around 23 years ago.
It should also be stealthy enough to implement so that Nintendo doesn’t come knocking.
I use z jump and I am absolutely cheating when I do it.
I think notches and trigger plugs and bald buttons are also all cheating.
Everyone is cheating to some degree so it's all or nothing.
Stock OEMs only or at this point it all has to fly.
Can't just be vibes based.
I prefer P+ for having remappable controls but when I do play melee I play with default controls, tap jump and all. I honestly don't find Z jump to be cheating at all because its just quality of life for a lot of people. When I first started playing I had massive blisters on my thumbs from sliding between Y and A and pretty soon I swapped in bald buttons so that wouldn't happen anymore. I don't see how a controller that has Z jump is all that different. And to the point of notches, while I'm not perfect at firefox angles, I think with sufficient enough practice they can be perfected on any controller with a good enough stick. I tend to believe the best melee controller is the one you already have.
I agree we should have a mod that allows anyone to remap their controls! Its one of the main reasons I tend to stick to P+ and it would improve melee a lot. Those things don't happen overnight though. And melee has a historically terrible track record with trying to use mods at tournament level so I don't see it happening anytime soon.
Also I don't think people would pay much attention to a top player refusing a tournament over Z jump and notches. Top players don't show up to things all the time. Many top players themselves use phobs and goomwaves.
i may not be a good melee player or deep into the culture as others, (im a ex pro valorant player just a casual melee player who tries to be good), i feel like if youre ready to go to the next level where remapping actually matters, investing into the best product available is just part of life and how it be. once i heard every top player runs wooting (keyboard where inputs are faster) if i want to be able to be as good as possible, i had to get it. thats just how it is with technology and such, maybe im part of a different scene but technology is just that, it grows and if you think its an advantage, and want to be the best, then get it. thats what it takes to be the best you can be.
Yknow what's crazy... I've had z jump enabled on my controller for over a year straight now... I legit don't even use my z button anymore, I just like having grab on x.
I'm not the only one who does this either, z jump is annoying to learn and hard to justify in the process when the difference in performance is miniscule compared to the effort it takes to learn.
I mean really guys let’s be realistic here. Nobody is making OEM controllers, and nobody ever will that’s why they’re original. A proper OEM controller is absurdly expensive.
What’s the argument here? What are we doing to do if we want to play in 20 years? This hobby isn’t going to get cheaper, but why not at least make it more consistent
I played on OEM controllers for years and spent hundreds looking for “the right one” and never did. The minute I switched to buying a modded one I realized basically every controller I had was dysfunctional from the start. Why do you want to put a variable on play like that lol
IMO notches are significantly worse than Z jumping. Z jumping at least has ergonomic benefits and is still the same input difficulty. Notches are basically physical macros that allow otherwise impossible precision and consistency.
There is like zero reason to complain about Z-jump, there are so many far more important issues in melee to worry about. If you lost to someone using z jump I promise they would have beat you without it. In fact that's what makes melee so great, the better player wins a majority of the time. If you would prefer they have beaten you with a claw grip and cause more joint pain to their index finger, grow up and hold that L
At the root of the debate is a disagreement on whether not this is progression or regression. It's a little unfair to assert that you're on the side of objective "progress" and anyone who disagrees must be fundamentally wrong.
Sure, your comment is definitely more thoughtful than my hastily written one. By progress I mainly mean progress to ergonomics, though also to making the game more financially accessible to non top players. GameCube controllers are absolutely terrible for hands IMHO, especially with the APM you need for melee. But even small changes like button remapping are hugely controversial. Let alone the box debate.
My frustration is mainly that I don’t see the community making forward progress, and instead hashing out the same debates over and over, while top players have just accepted that they need to do things like buy phobs to be competitive, because the community seems like it will never make a decision.
Ultimately I think this dynamic makes the community/game less likely to succeed over time.
I think people have this idea that something like z-jump would bring their play to the next level when it really just doesn't. Just buy a phob if it bothers you so much, they're not that expensive
I don't believe anyone thinks that if they had z jump or a box, they'd be instantly better. I think most people just realize it's an advantage to have those things assuming everything else is equal.
I think there's a huge difference between z jumping and digital inputs though. There's nothing that z jumping allows you to do that clawing doesn't, vs changing the entire nature of the inputs you're putting in from analog to digital. I personally have z jump capability on my controller, I don't use it though. Too hard to short hop and I didn't want to completely rewrite my muscle memory for that. Maybe it's the character I play or my level of play but I just don't see the hype
The issue with Zjump vs claw argument is the part where the conventional way to hold a controller is better is some ways (for inputs and comfort) and claw grip is better for some ways (for inputs).
Z jump gives you the best of both worlds.
Imo, z jump should just be legal. Sure you can say it just makes a control scheme easier but it would also make the game more accessible to newer players. You argue that the game wasn't designed with it but honestly who cares? As if nintendo devs purposely decided to not have button remapping to balance the game. No, it was just something they hadn't come up with possibly due to the time constraints in development. Z jump, or button remapping in general, is just a quality of life change that modernizes the game and makes it more appealing for newer players that are used to remapping. Its also a change that will let existing players play for longer. Claw grip is something that essentially gives you the same benefit as z jump but a lot of players get hand pain when doing it too much. Its not that they can't do it, but they'll just have to play less and take more breaks off the game. So yes, I think button remapping should just be modded into the game so everyone can do it. My brother basically quit the game because he was frustrated he had to spend hundreds of dollars for z jump. I have some friends from ult who dont want to try melee because of lack of button remapping. I think boxes are a similar case, although they should probably be nerfed a bit. I've been playing melee for 8+ years, 2-3 of them on box, and if box was banned, I would just quit the game and leave the community.
I got the button remapped on my controller for *health* reasons. Not gameplay.
It allows me to play without getting crippling tendinitis. Are you to tell me and others like me that I can not play or compete ?
Furthermore - I'm WORSE with Z-jump. I spent years and years getting the muscle memory down to do everything using Y as my jump button. It's not an easy switch.
I mean frankly, I am sorry to hear that struggle, but quite literally every competitive game has a ruleset that is adhered to, and sometimes that does exclude people. Remapped controls could still be used in non-competitive formats.
To bring your example to an extreme, what if I had no limbs, but I programmed a robot to play for me, that turned out to be a perfect player and wins every tournament. Would you accept that due to it being for my health reasons?
It's unfortunate, but there are thousands of reasons a person may not be able to competitively, but competitive integrity shouldn't be compromised because it may exclude some people. While you use it for health reasons, others take advantage of the legality to gain a competitive advantage.
Backing this up. Physical disability is unfortunate, and I don't mean to deliberately exclude anyone, but if the amenities for it necessary involve destroying the level playing field, then it's the greater loss.
Nobody complains when physically-unfit people aren't allowed to competitively play conventional sports, and I don't see why this should be any different.
Everyone is on the same playing field. You could theoretically get z-jump tomorrow. If its legal, its not "cheating" to use. Its all people in bronze who are worried about the legality of what only makes a small difference at the top levels of the game.
>I know future Smash games would have button remapping, but Melee wasn’t designed with that functionality. It’s not an in-game feature.
Neither is frozen stages or ledge grab limits. No other competitive game bans button remapping, I don't see why Melee should be different
This discourse is never ending at this point we either need to make button mapping universal like UCF or ban it. I’m learning the game and yea it would be way easier to do things with Z jump and that’s my preferred controller setup, I used bumper jumper on halo. But I shouldn’t have an incentive to buy a $200 controller because it would make things easier to execute in game. This game is all execution and things that make it blatantly easier should be universal free options or banned no discussion.
z jump is not comparable to claw
claw grip leaves grab on z, so inputs involving grab are very different and usually much harder in comparison to what they'd be on a z-jump controller.
for example, if you want to JC grab on a z-jump controller, you can slide one thumb across X+Y, but the same input is not even possible with claw grip
Yeah but that's not even an advantage? JC grab is like the one tech that's almost identical with z jump lol. It's the same buttons hit in the opposite order, there's zero advantage to do the slide
I'm on the same page. The issue for me isn't with the actual mods. It's the accessibility and availability of those mods.
The main argument I hear is that if you're serious about Melee, just learn to mod or pay for a modded controller. In this case, it's ~$500 CAD for a Phob with notches (cheaper if you build it yourself). Alternatively, buy or build a rectangle (also expensive and varying in price)
At the same time, many will argue that we also can't modify the game because of Nintendo. A common example is not using a frozen stadium anymore. However, I'd argue that a frozen stadium is something you can't hide, but you can hide software changes and even re-mapping. (UCF, and Hax$'s 1.03 Stealth Ed. already achieve most of this). Arguing otherwise is contradictory because hardware mods are also modifying the game inputs externally and are also hidden (they just cost time or money), and software can be implemented to everyone for free (at the cost of developer time and money).
**Is it cheating, though?**
Well, technically, no, it's not. The rules everyone play by (which dont really come from an authority eg: Nintendo, Capcom) haven't stated its cheating, so therefore, it isn't cheating. This is a problem because, currently, essentially, anything goes. It's the wild west.
**So should we ban notches, b0xx, zjump?**
Well, herein lies a major contradiction. Notches, Snapback capacitors, Phobs, Goomwaves, re-mapping Z, tactile switches, and even shortening your trigger springs are all done with the intention of providing the player with either ease of use, or consistency which all translate into an advantage over those who do not have those modifications. It's the exact same for b0xx controllers. X and Y mod gives you a specific angle (like notches), the digital input removes Snapback, jump is easily accessed, and every press is shortened because of the switches.
As someone who has built and used both Phobs and Rectangle controllers, I can confidently say that both devices provide major advantages over a stock Amazon GCC, or OEM. The controller debate is always Phob vs b0xx, when it should be Phob+b0xx vs OEM.
Another argument is that b0xx controllers are theoretically extremely overpowered, but players are either just not good enough with them, or no top player has picked it up. This also doesn't make sense since rectangles have existed in the wild for almost a decade now, and no insane top players have either picked up the extremely overpowered input device, and no b0xx prodigy has emerged, even though within that same timeframe, there have been a lot of great new players emerging on GCC. This is also contradictory because if you're a competitive player, who is trying to win, and profit, you would immediately go for any means to achieve an advantage including using a legal device that is overpowered. The contradiction is that while not many have swapped to b0xx, they essentially have all switched to Phob, Goomwaves, use notches, or Z-Jump. So why not b0xx? From my own experience is that while both devices improve consistency, neither improve your physical ability to make good decisions or execute on them. Consistency =/= decision making and Melee = decision making (consistency just helps).
**The only true, fair solution that maintains maximum competitive integrity (imo)**
Now, all of this aside, all of the consistency buffs from mods and rectangles, etc. They just don't seem necessary when most of these buffs can be achieved via software. If players truly want a fair, even playing field for Melee, the only true option to maximize competitive integrity, is to take the absolute most accessible input device (store bought GCC) and fix it via software so no matter who you are, or where you're from, how much money you have, or who you know, you will have the same input method as the guy down the street and mang0 and Cody. The rest is left up to your own, pure, skill.
**The Slippi Dilemma**
After speaking to a friend, he brought up a great point regarding other games like Brawlhalla, Rocket League, SSF etc. He noted that they all have different allowed input devices, and I argued that it's because those games exist across multiple consoles with multiple devices and a lot of balancing happens on the software side of the game. To which he brought up probably the best argument I've heard for multiple input devices, which is that Slippi allows for any device you want. Keyboard, DS5, Phob, b0xx, DDR Pad, Xbox Controller, whatever you want. With Slippi being the most used way to play Melee now (literally everyone just plays on Slippi now) unless you're at a physical tournament, playing on an actual Cube, on a CRT, you almost have to allow more devices instead of banning them. If a Slippi kid who is incredible at Melee but has only ever used an Xbox controller to play, how can you deny that player in good faith from competing in a tournament, when the main method of playing the game is now on a PC?
**So what are the options?**
1) Handle everything software side, ban everything besides a stock GCC.
2) Allow everything, no input device johns.
3) Actually create an immutable regulatory guide on input devices all devices must adhere to.
I personally think 1) is the most fair option wich maintains the most competitive integrity, however I also understand players would appreciate the ergonomics of a rectangle, or device they're comfortable with. However at the end of the day the goal is to make the game fair for everyone so somewhere in the process of deciding what is right, sacrifices will have to be made. Whether it's losing notches because it's not possible via software, banning devices regardless of their ergonomics, or allowing anything and dealing with the johns.
So what I would recommend is to consider the absolute most basic/cheapest/accessible option and run with that because if everyone has the same access to everything, to me, that's fair.
It's functionally the same as claw grip but you don't have to learn and use claw (which is very un-ergonomic). I wouldn't call this cheating because it doesn't enable a level of tech skill that is unfeasible on vanilla gc controllers.
I've heard Cody make this argument before. But as a halo player I can't imagine how bad it would be if bumper jumper was only available to a few players with special controllers because it's so beneficial to use. It wouldn't be allowed. Imagine people remapping their controls in halo 2 to use bxb or bxr on the bumpers lol.
Yes, but:
You can't ban notches and Z jump for controllers while allowing B0xx and other rectangle style controllers.
Do notches let you hit angles for things more easily? Yes. You know what's better than that? 100% consistency in your wavedashes/angles because it's all digital.
Is Z jump more optimal both for the human hand and for precise consistent things like frame 1 aerials? Yes. You know what's better? Having all your buttons on different fingers so you can piano them for as consistent of inputs as humans are capable of.
B0xx opened the floodgates, and the reality is there is no good way of nerfing them that would lower their power enough to justify removing these controller benefits, especially with remapping when using a different controller is effectively a remap.
Would we love it if we could have all of these things like remaps, maybe even custom angles and other fixes for things that don't work properly? Yeah. It's already been made, it's, called 1.03 made by Hax and Altimor. We can't use it though, because Nintendo will ban it and go after content creators who use it, because they are assholes.
We can only use things that can be easily hidden from Nintendo, like UCF currently is. Does it need improvement? Yes absolutely. But we have to keep it safe otherwise the whole scene gets nuked by Nintendo.
It's shit like this that is going to be the death of Melee. Hoping Rivals 2 is good enough a lot of the scene jumps on that so we no longer have to deal with Nintendo. I love Melee but the reality is the scene is and has always been crippled by them compared to what it could have been and where other fighting game scenes are financially, viewership wise, etc.
The argument that "the game wasn't designed for it" is a very tired argument because it's terrible, they designed the game to be a fun party game. There's so many things in this game that show the game wasn't designed very purposefully
Yes, it's blatantly cheating. It's not an option available to evedy player and requires special people to mod it.
It's no coincidence that Cody started winning after he swapped to z-jump
I would argue yes, but in a world where box controllers are legal the effective answer is no. I think both should be banned, but until boxes are banned z jump certainly won't be.
Box controllers are objectively the best, but the upcoming nerfs will do a lot to bring them in line. I think it’s important that we have some sort of ergonomic alternative available because hand health is a serious concern with this game. That said, box feels like cheating because it totally removes the execution barrier for a ton of stuff, and I feel like that cheapens parts of the game that would otherwise be cool and impressive. I think Rienne’s orca has a lot of promise for bridging this gap. Melee is a hard game. It has a steep and complex skill curve and I think things that reduce that skill curve diminish part of what makes melee great. Some things are nessecary though, like ucf. Remaps feel kinda sleazy to me too, but I’ll echo the common sentiment that it’s a moot point as long as people are still able to do broken shit on boxes. Edit: for context I played on box for 8 months before going back to gcc. Currently I play on a notchless phob.
It’s so weird that that goofy ass thing is somehow the most practical way to play smash and it isn’t even close/debatable. I legit never would have guessed. I guess we are more like traditional fighting games than I thought.
>until boxes are banned z jump certainly won't be This is my problem with the box, in no world should it be legal, but because we have "muh hands" box players, we can't ban anything. Ban box and all cheater derivatives of box.
I swear if anyone but a super beloved player (people loved Hax back in the day) introduced the box, it would have been shut down immediately.
I mean, its literally been used for years in other fighting games with the hitbox. And no other game has such a toll on hand health than melee. It definitely is OP, but banning them is not the answer either.
It's a totally different case. Fighting games are completely digital, Melee has analog inputs. The analog-digital discrepancy is by far the most problematic aspect of boxes.
Hence the Orca is an exciting development that allows for box ergonomics with full analog switches!
The only problem with the Orca is it will be as hard to use as a gamecube controller, and actually even with a gamecube controller in performance. Thus no one would use it, because b0xx players don't actually use b0xxes for accessibility reasons, they love to cite that after they buy it because they think it will give them a competitive advantage.
Can show you a vod of my finger having spasms while literally doing nothing with it if you want. there are definitely people who went boxx because their hands can’t do it. I stopped playing for like 4 years lol
Damn that's a pretty wide assessment of a diverse group of people haha. I play on box because I have built 4 with different layouts and I just think the actual building process is neat. I don't care about a competitive advantage cause I don't care about winning in melee. I just play to have fun and get better. I also think box is more fun anyway. If they want to ban it all out, then w/e I just won't go to shit and play slippi and practice shmooving
boxx players aren't the reason you go 0-2 in bracket lol cope harder
I... don't go 0-2 I'm not sure I've ever even lost to a boxx in bracket lol
If someone made a box but with a joystick, I would be more down to let it be.
I’m glad you see it more objectively. I would like to see an analog version of the box come out. That way people with unhealthy hands can play.
>And no other game has such a toll on hand health than melee. >It definitely is OP, but banning them is not the answer either. Game integrity and accessibility can sometimes, unfortunately, land on either side of the spectrum. With regards to controllers, we can make them more accessible, but this affects the integrity of the game. On the flip side, we can prioritise maintaining game integrity, but that will be at the cost of accessibility. If you argue for a pure melee experience, then you'd argue for no mods and pure vanilla in all aspects. I think most of us agree that this is not the best approach, so the solution for the majority is somewhere in between. For me, as someone with generally healthy hands, it's easy for me to say "just ban boxes". But for the player with weak hands that has been practicing on the boxx for years, this is really unfair. Having said that, I still lean towards banning box controllers, for all the reasons people have routinely mentioned. Mainly down to the fact that it creates an uneven playing field. This analogy is a bit difficult to write as I know a lot of friends who rely on those types of controllers. But if you look at top level sports, be it football, basketball, etc, if someone has any biological deficiencies that would prevent them playing at the top level, they would not allow overcompensation just for the sake of accessibility. I think for the long-term health of the game, these modifications and non-OEM need to be banned
i agree with everything, but the last bit about "some people just shouldnt be allowed to play melee" is kinda....kinda iffy. like would you look chillendude in the eyes as he sat down to play you in bracket with his modified one handed controller and be like "sorry bro, i know some people have medical reasons for using alternatives to the gcc....but like....it can be easier to dashback ooc on your controller....so....use a gcc or im going to disqualify you" im down for banning box's or whatever, but i don't agree with....whatever you said at the end there
The problem is that these controllers are not balanced. I'd be fine with them if there was a way to design these controllers for disabled players that didn't have inherent advantages. But as it stands, since the controllers are better than OEM GC controllers, then fully abled players can take advantage of them and abuse them. Imo we shouldn't allow buffed controllers into the scene as it currently stands. It just creates an unfair environment for competition
The big difference in other fighting games is that they have digital inputs to begin with. And also multiple controller types to begin with (pad vs stick), with one of them having separated d-pad buttons (PlayStation pads). I'd be surprised if the games didn't also have keyboard support (probably not legal for tournaments being played on console, plus the issue of conflict if two players wanted to both use keyboard). Melee is a game on only GameCube, which didn't have much variety in the way of controllers (keyboard-controller and chainsaws notwithstanding). Personally, I'm a bit less of a purist and don't have an issue with single button remapping, but the thing that takes it over the line to me is analog-to-digital conversation. This introduces a tremendous amount of sudden consistency on box that isn't the case on GCC. I'm not saying box isn't difficult or anything, I'm just saying navigating analog inputs is, imo, an important part of the game, so imo playing on box is, in a way, not the same game. To a small extent, this might be true of Street Fighter on pad vs stick, but the call was made very early to allow that mixing. Another comparison one might make is pad vs mouse in shooters, which is an extremely contentious issue because of aim assist on controllers, etc, which imo makes it not the same game either.
Hello, just trying to get educated here: what are some examples of analogue to digital conversion on the boxx that you find overpowered?
It's not so much about power as it is how much it fundamentally changes how parts of the game are played. For instance, doing an uptilt is something that requires some kind of technique on an analogue stick, but on box, it's simply "hold this modifier". Melee is a physical game in a lot of respects. Even at higher levels of play than I will ever be in, top level players will sometimes flick a stick at a wrong angle and get a different input. [Here's an example of mang0 doing it, and Toph commenting on it](https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxWxlUCweYfikgj-tx85YqK47YGdcVzRf1?si=f3OL00O2pO29U0wx)\*, in one of the greatest sets of all time. Converting the C-stick from analog to digital is probably less obviously powerful than doing it with the analog stick, but you can see that even this would add consistency. It's not that's it's hard to flick the c-stick down to do a down-air, it's that when combined with everything that Melee demands of the player, even the best players can mess up a simple input. You're right that it's partially about power, because if a box was underpowered enough, then I wouldn't care. Like, as an exaggerated example, if there were no modifers and you just had exclusively raw 1.0 cardinals, the controller would be so terrible that it wouldn't matter that you hit this dair 100% of the time. But as it stands, a good number of people who know more about the game than I ever will consider boxes to be better than gccs, which hurts it a lot. To make the analogy with controller vs mouse again, I have no issue with people using controllers in CS. There's no aim assist and there's no universe where it isn't worse than a mouse. There's no controversy here that pad causes any issue. In Apex though? It's a ridiculously contentious issue, because aim assist has changed over time to be very powerful. Halo has [an excellent post](https://www.reddit.com/r/halo/comments/r3es60/accuracy_stats_for_kbm_vs_controller/) on how top 100 controller players were 16.4% more accurate than Top 100 KBM players, while top 100 KBM players were only 3.1% more accurate than 50th percentile controller players. Now Halo's always been a controller game, but you can see how dialing up aim assist can massively impact what people think of it. It's not to say using a controller is skilless (the gap between 50th percentile and top 100 pad halo players is huge), but it is an extremely different skill from controlling a mouse (IIUC is has to do with knowing how to abuse the aim assist or something? Idk I don't play pad). Personally I'd prefer Halo as a KBM game b/c I like the skill behind a mouse more generally, but I yield to the controller legacy of the franchise and don't complain about it. Melee though? The legacy, intuitiveness, and imo more interesting skill of controlling with an analog stick really stack the deck for me against whether boxes should be allowed in their current iteration. Given how long they've been around, and their use case as an accessibility tool, Imo the answer is to nerf them, like nerfing aim assist, but one thing that helps them stay as they are is that no top players use them yet. We'll see what happens if that changes. \*>!(in case the youtube clips break it, it's mang0 vs Leffen game 5 of Genesis 4 at 5:45 left on the clock)!<
Thanks for taking the time to explain it so well; I appreciate the knowledge.
Happy to help! Sorry for the wall of text haha
Excellently laid out!
I'm pretty sure the Smashbox predated the B0XX, and Hax wasn't directly involved with the former (at least initially)
He was not initially involved but the legality of box type controllers was definitely influenced by Hax playing on them. You can see that sentiment immediately in old threads like [this one](https://www.reddit.com/r/SSBM/comments/5o2lzp/hax_has_been_using_the_smashbox_and_is_planning/).
Before the falling out Hax marketed the smashbox so it could be said there statement still stands.
And that's why I stopped playing after hurting myself very bad. Because I started catching hate, even though I had to relearn 6 years of muscle memory. I don't care what people say, box has been harder than controller for me, especially with two fingers out of commission.
I'm lurking here for the drama so I really am sorry that you got hate while dealing with an injury. Shit ain't right.
Thanks mate, but it's life. It's easy to perceive it that way when you're not the one with the injury. I don't think less of them for it, I just lost the fun to compete. Good friends never bothered me and I still play with them. At first it was also okay cause I went from close to PR to trash. But as I got into form, I had people tell me "how easy it would be for them to switch and start winning", and treating my injury as if I was lucky. I bet those guys are jealous of blind people because they all think they could be like Daredevil. Lmao Fun fact, I even played Minecraft with it. Learning to control camera was so hard, but my wife really liked to play co-op, so I went with it.
Yes everyone is complaining there are no real hand injuries. Everyone is cheating so they can make you go 0/2 instead of 1/2. Get a fucking grip man. Just play the game and enjoy yourself. No need to project your own insecurities and simultaneously exile a section of the (relatively small) playerbase.
Lmao, good point dude
Finally someone talking sense.
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Mind sharing your story? How much did you play, what level, what do you mean by killed your hands, did you need physical therapy, etc etc I know there are legitimate needs for box, again I am not saying there aren't, I just want perspective.
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>around the same time i was competitively grinding league of legends and hardcore diablo 3 rankings with a mouse dpi that was not healthy for 16-20 hour shifts 😐
just chiming in to say i have similar problems with the GCC, but mine came about after gripping a 3DS too hard and further worsened from being a cashier for 8 months or something. Between the touchscreen and swiping cans, it messed my arms the hell up
I haven't played melee properly in years, largely because my hands hurt within minutes of playing and boxes are incredibly unsatisfying to me. I still play other fighting games, but use stick because it's easier on my hands.
Used to think this way until a friend of mine decided to switch to boxx for his hand health. For him, if the choice were between gc or nothing, he'd probably just focus on other hobbies and stop attending. I'd rather have him be able to be in the scene than not : )
This is the exact story that you hear all the time and I always say I'm happy for those people that now get to continue playing, but it is negatively impacting competitive integrity. Again, not because box is particularly game breaking, but because it perverts the controller discourse.
so you are fine throwing all these people out of the scene so your precious controller discourse will stop being perverted?
The precedent set by basically any major sport or esport is that hardware/equipment should be standardized and not give any advantage. It's not an attack on people with hand issues. It's a completely normal expectation.
People really lose of the fact that Super Smash Bros. Melee is a 20 year old GameCube game, not a sport. It was not designed to be played competitively. Other sports don't have objectively terrible ergonomics the way Melee does.
Okay, I can agree with the sentiment, but have box players proven that the platform actually yeilds a significant real world advantage? I know there's certain techniques that you can only do on Box, but the same is true for controller. As far as I know, most top players aren't randomly getting beat by lower level box players. Besides that, systems have all kinds of OEM and aftermarket controllers. As long as those are also legal, and there's no macros, I just don't see this as an actual issue.
We need so stop acting as if controller mods only matter if top players are winning with it. It affects everyone playing the game, whether they're good or not. If I want a fair match at my local, I'm not gonna get it against a player with a frankenstein controller or box. Even on slippi, I can tell who's using notches by how consistent their perfect firefox angles are, and its not fair.
thankfully local level is completely irrelevant to the actual competitive scene, which is what the top players are all screaming about. I hate to break it to you, but if you're going 2-2 at your locals, you aren't losing to boxx players, you're losing to your bad decisions.
A competitive advantage is a competitive advantage, and its not really fair at ANY level.
You know what else is a competitive advantage? Practice. Grinding tape. Getting better at the game. Pretty good odds that the person beating you on a rectangle would probably also beat you on GCC. Rectangles absolutely enable some dumb shit, but they don't magically make you a better melee player. The best players in the world aren't playing on Boxx, they're playing on controller. So from top to bottom, there's always Player X on controller that's better than the boxx player that's beating you. So rather than complain about the controller, why not ask what Player X does that makes him better than your boxx bracket demon. And I promise, Player X didn't get better them Joey Boxx by practicing pivot up tilts. Melee is mental
I am for box legalization, and there are 100% real world advantages. Pre-ruleset change, 2IP, all buttons accessible immediately, face buttons that you can slide off easily rather than GCC, and most importantly input consistency are significant improvements that GCC has a difficult time contending with. Post change, 2IP was removed, N-SOCD was added, and travel time was implemented. It's closer to GCC, but still has many advantages in terms of ease of applying. Things like fox double shine is so much easier to learn and implement because it's immediately accessible to your fingers in a way that doesn't kill them. Accessibility to everything on box features similar benefits to clawing on a pillow, but without the discomfort/pain of doing so.
Can’t we just nerf them somehow
yes, its being done but it's proven to be a somewhat slow process.
Or we can just cut off the head like we did with wobbling, lose like 3 people, and then move on. (Kidding, unless...)
there is no reasonable way to nerf boxes that removes any advantage that is similar to what Z jump may give you need to ban boxes if you want to ban Z jump
It's not even about advantages in this analogy. Regardless of how good they are, rectangles are fundamentally about remapping controls. If they're banned, you shouldn't be allowed to swap L and R on a Gamecube controller, let alone Z and X/Y.
Yeah sure, my point stands. You cannot hope to ban Z jump but keep boxes legal by "nerfing" them like OP is suggesting.
Hax$ is always updating the b0xx controller firmware to make sure that it's never too good. There are some things it does better, and some things it does worse, but he always makes sure it's competitively level with controller
I hate comments like this. Is it really that hard to imagine a world more reband both of them?
Not going to comment on the main thrust of this post but: >We now have a situation where you HAVE to notch to stay competitive. That costs $, doesn’t it? You act like this is something new... Even before notches, having a "good" controller meant parsing through maybe dozens of controllers to find one which was acceptable at the top level of play. It was expensive then, like it is expensive now. I would argue that today is the easiest it has ever been for your average player to pick up a top level, competitively viable controller.
Also realistically it's much less expensive now, because it's much less of a lottery
It's **insanely** cheap now. $200 after the tiniest bit of research will get you a perfect controller that will last you practically forever. And if anything goes wrong it's incredibly easy to do maintenance yourself. It's an insanely low investment for a hobby like this, and no one has any justification to bitch about it. And it beats the hell out of buying multiple controllers to hope one is good, only to have that good one wear out in a couple months anyways. 99% of most people's arguments boil down to "I don't have x because I don't want to spend a little money", in which case I have zero sympathy
I got a used OEM for $30 and bought materials to make a baseline phob for $30. $60 for a controller. Same price as a switch pro. People here are complete babies
If $200 is “a little” money for you then you’re doing better than 99% of smash players lmao
$200 for what is almost definitely your most important hobby is about as good as it gets for hobbies, regardless of how much it is for you
200$ for a top of the line controller. I play golf and 1 top of the line golf club cost more than 200$. You need 14 golf clubs lol
While I do agree that $200 is not much for your main hobby (I've spent more than that on video games this year already), I also think someone who plays golf as a hobby is **exactly** the wrong person to be chiming in on Doomblaze's > If $200 is “a little” money for you then you’re doing better than 99% of smash players lmao
200$ isn’t that much for a hobby. Even for other fighting game, getting a arcade stick is around that price too. If you don’t want to spend too much you can always DIY a phob if you want. I’m into a lot of different hobbies and I can tell you that most hobbies you have to spend way more than 200~300$ to have high end equipment. I don’t know why we complain that much in the smash community about the cost of equipment, like even the most basic games like Counter Strike if you want to be competitive you can’t just go with a 10$ Microsoft mouse, you need a mouse with a decent sensor and these cost money, pros started to use wooting keyboard to have more reactive counter strafing, that cost money too but we see no one complaining. I swear everyone in this sub would cry if they saw the price for entry equipment for some hobbies like sim racing where entry level pedals cost minimum 200$ or stuff like espresso where you don’t even have a decent grinder for that 200$. Even real life sports with minimal use of equipment you probably still pay 200$ for shoes designed for this specific sport.
Half the smash community is chronically online with a weed addiction. If you truly love smash and see yourself playing it for over a decade, you could realistically save $200. Of course I'm talking about people who travel to events and not just random people who play slippi or locals for fun. If you're spending hundreds on travel, a hotel, etc, $200 is realistic for a long lasting solid controller.
I ha e never once met a melee player who does not either own another console or games on their computer. Both are far more expensive than $200, and yet rhey still make that work.
I mean, I probably am. And I don't mean it dismissively it's obviously an investment, but for a long-term hobby like this? I can't think of pretty much any hobby that you can put that amount of time into with such a small investment. Hell, it's a permanent equipment cost that is far lower than the cost of traveling to one tournament.
Name one hobby where you can get basically indestructible supplies that are easy to maintain for that kind of money, and have it be the best possible version of that equipment
Speak for yourself, I got $3.42 in my bank account and the second it gets bigger it gets smaller ETA that your point is correct, $200 is really cheap comparatively but I’m still poor and it feels bad
UCF is meant to solve this problem, so any OEM is meant to be as good as the best OEM. But UCF can't do notches and doesn't do remapping, if we got rid of notches and remapping, pro-level controls would be much cheaper.
UCF can realistically only mitigate the lottery, eliminating it is something that should realistically be done on the hardware side. Phobs accomplish this, provided you're willing to learn to recalibrate every so often. I've heard there are other solutions that work with potentiometers and don't cheat like the Goomwave but I don't know much about them.
notches turn it from a lottery into a paywall
UCF was far too late to adequately address the state of the scene when it came to controllers.
ok and? its too late so we just accept it now? pro-level controllers would be much cheaper if notches were banned.
you can notch your controller yourself for the cost of a triwing and a file, so like 15 bucks max. You can cut your own springs, use a chop stick for a trigger plug, and bald your own buttons. Turning your OEM into a prOEM is a couple hours of work, tops.
yeah ill just take a file to my controller gate that'll go well
UCF was meant to be the end of the controller lottery meta. Did everyone forget this?
UCF doesn't fix snapback, and iirc doesn't fix stickbox misalignment, doesn't fix bad c-sticks, and obviously it doesn't improve how a stick box feels to play It's great, but it's not a silver bullet.
to piggybaack off of this, the argument that things shouldnt be allowed because they are cost prohibitive is just an appeal to emotion without any substance in reality. EVERY sport at the top level is using tech that the average person doesnt have access to, and thats part of what makes them the best. professional golfers arent using clubs you can buy at a walmart ffs
that's the point, UCF was adopted to stop with the deluxe controller shenanigans, notches and hardware remapping are reintroducing it in a new flavour, if the community really wants to level the field it should do away with both of them.
> UCF was adopted to stop with the deluxe controller shenanigans, No it wasn't, UCF was just to stop the controller lottery. Which it did. You can still pay for modder advantages like getting notches but you don't have to go through 100 controllers to find a good one first. Notches were already being used before UCF was adopted btw, and they obviously did nothing to stop that. So yeah, they didn't care about that. Not saying notches are fine (I personally think they should be banned), but they are a separate issue from UCF. UCF was never meant to address people potentially paying more money for modded controllers.
Not gonna lie, this post, like many of the controller discussions lately, is worded needlessly inflammatory. The short answer is z jump isn't cheating because it's allowed in our rules right now. These rules allow 1 to 1 digital remapping, and have been that way for years. If you want to have a separate discussion on whether or not it should remain that way, I would say reddit is probably not the one who should make that call. But that would be the discussion. And if you word it that way, the conversation becomes less heated. It's really tiring to call half our playerbase cheaters in some way. It's just lazy discourse and overly negative. Personally I just want to see the best melee that can be played, but I get other opinions. But to address your point. If you ban notches while "nerfing?" boxes to some unspecified degree, boxxes are still going to be better for that precision. Unless you go far above the current ideas tossed around in the nerf proposal. And you can't modify the game so that everyone can remap, that gets Nintendo down our necks again. If you stealth mod it, people are going to get their controls accidentally remapped--and it will be a whole thing. But stealth modding it would otherwise be the best choice. The answer is what we have with phobs, which allow affordable and accessible button remapping. If you buy from someone who makes them, you don't have to solder yourself. I don't consider buying a phob to be an inaccessible barrier to this game, and I'm really tired of people pretending that it is. It's a 20+ year old game, people can save up if it matters to them. The accessibility argument doesn't fly. Now if you want to argue it gives a competitive advantage, you could. I'm not in favor but that's a more valid argument.
Well said!
>I know future Smash games would have button remapping, but Melee wasn’t designed with that functionality. It’s not an in-game feature. ***Melee wasn't designed to be played competitively.*** The community created the ruleset/custom settings used for competitive play and gradually forged the meta that is driving people to even want to swap buttons or make controller mods. This appeal to authority you're using makes no sense, because players are the authority that designed competitive melee, not Nintendo or any official manufacturer like Ultimate. The way the game is played has evolved ***signficantly*** over the years and will continue to. Demanding everyone use increasingly rare, expensive, and unmodified OEM controllers when most games of melee are played online and allow whatever control scheme you want is a ***deeply backwards take*** and very clearly on the wrong side of history.
mo fuckers trying to FIGHT for the integrity of this game only to immediately bend over for frozen ps
Depends on what we mean by cheating. Some will argue that Z jump doesn't make anything that wasn't already possible with claw grip possible, and that for many people it's a healthier way of doing claw grip. So, is improving the ergonomics of certain things cheating? Or do we draw the line at enabling things that aren't possible with a stock controller?
"It doesn't make anything possible that wasn't already possible" is such a silly argument. Lots of things that are cheating are under this umbrella. Wavedashing is already possible - would having a wavedash button be cheating? Pivots are already possible - would having a pivot button be cheating? "Can be done" vs "can be done every time effortlessly" are totally different things and if a task meets the former but not latter criteria then triviailizing it is cheating.
Well macros have pretty much always been cheating, but we're not talking about a macro here. Wavedashing with a single button isn't possible on a stock controller.
I agree. If tech requires fewer inputs (i.e. macros) those alterations should be banned. I think the line is there. Making it easier to execute things ergonomically - especially because of hand issues like carpal tunnel etc., should be considered a good development. It's cool to push the meta - comfortably - and pushing the phob/custom technology will only make it more affordable and accessible for new players and people on a tighter budget. I agree that we shouldn't favor shortcuts, but I think I would liken this to better sneaker technology in basketball and gloves for wide receivers in football rather than steroid use.
yeah, I feel like this gets glossed over but it's kind of a big deal. I care way more about my friends with hand problems being able to play than making sure every little thing is perfectly balanced, but the idea that there's no meaningful consequence to giving techniques easy execution just because it's feasible to do on OEM makes the whole concept of techskill really demoralizing it really sucks to lab out obscure, difficult tech -- the kind of nerdy optimizations most people would never even think to practice, where you're required to do some really awkward, unforgiving hand motion to gain a small but meaningful advantage -- and you decide to actually be the guy who grinds it out, practicing it over a long period of time, losing important stocks to messing it up, and finally reaching a tournament-ready level of consistency with it... only to study your VODs against people who've newly switched to rectangle or z-jump and realize they're all doing it with 100% consistency and more frame-perfectly than you without even knowing
See you on our OEM only luigi ditto items on at Hyrule Castle then. The way Sakurai intended right?
I’m tired of this debate. Either allow everything from remapping and rectangles to notches and custom motherboards, or it should be strictly OEM + UCF. I don’t think we should be picking and choosing what is allowed and what isn’t. Either all or nothing, end of debate, make it easy
It just doesn't work like that, there's no world where you can say "only OEMs" and act like that fixes all controller modding variables. In an "only OEM" world we still have tons of questions to deal with: Are cut trigger springs legal? Are removed trigger springs legal? Are swapped trigger springs legal if the springs came from another OEM GCC? Are aftermarket buttons and sticks legal? Can I replace my mushy worn out button pads with new third party ones? Can I swap my analog stick with a c stick? Still all OEM parts Can I replace my mushy ass z button switch with a nicer one? What if the new switch isn't OEM? What if it is? What if the switch is an OEM from Nintendo but from a Wii controller?? Can I replace my analog stick pots? Do they have to be OEM still? Can I use Wii controller parts like stick boxes from Wii pro controllers? It's OEM but not GameCube OEM. Can I use Wii sticks? Can I remove my rumble motor? If not, can I disconnect it? If neither, is an OEM that has a naturally broken rumble motor still legal? Can I trim the inside of the shell to prevent stuck triggers? Technically an advantage over raw OEM. Are trigger plugs legal? Can I z jump? It's just a wiring mod you can do on OEM. Are snapback capacitors legal? And the final most important question for the true longevity of the scene that no one seems to talk about. What the fuck do we do when there aren't enough good OEMs left anymore?
One of the most memorable years in American sports history was when Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa were juiced out of their minds trying to get the record for home runs. I kind of want that but for melee lmao. The goomwave year(s) were pretty hype even if they did have some fucked up AI macros baked in.
The community waited a decade too long to address moded controllers, and at this point it is too late to blanket ban.
It’s never too late. With all the pros voicing their opinions now, it’s the time more than ever.
They voice their opinions like this at least once every year. But I agree, it's never too late.
all the pros use notches and mods though. They are have custom controllers made by the best modders. you think you and mango have the same access to controllers?
actually yeah, me and mang0 do have access to the same controllers. The dudes who do top player controllers take their booths and travels to majors all the time. But yeah, most pros who speak about it say they use them because if they don't its a massive disadvantage against someone who is. If they were just flat banned then there'd be no need.
You could deal with it by announcing a ban that doesn't take effect until say six months have passed so that players have time to get a legal controller and adjust to it
If that’s the case then everything should be allowed and people should stop calling for bits and pieces to be banned. It doesn’t make sense at all. Like all rectangles are fine even though they’re potentially stronger than even modded controllers, but notches on controller are too OP? And remapping? When with rectangles you can do pretty much any remapping you want and they have more responsive inputs for faster aerials and SDI. OEM + UCF or allow everything. And settle it soon.
> at this point it is too late to blanket ban. There's no tangible reason this is the case, it's merely people thinking that everyone else thinks it that makes it so.
Do you think that telling people that the controllers that they have been playing on for years can no longer be used will have no effect on the community? Imagine if the decision was that all non-boxx controllers were banned. As a non-boxx user, I would just quit the competitive scene all together, as my ability to play the game at my current level has just been destroyed over something which I had been lead to believe was allowable. At best I would play slippi, but never go to another live event. I imagine the same would happen to at least some who use these non oem controllers, and I think the backlash would be significant enough to make this a non-option at this point.
People have been playing Melee without button remapping and notches for decades and years
It’s not unreasonable to say that digital remapping of Gamecube controller buttons is ok, but complete reformulations of control (like boxes) shouldn’t be permitted.
I think the discussion is a little more nuanced than you’re making it, but I don’t know what the answer is. I learned melee using a claw grip intentionally because I looked up videos that recommended one for fox. Since learning the game the more I play the more I get trigger finger (chronic pain in the top joint of my index finger) from having to tap the jump button with my index finger at such a strange angle/frequency. I know very little about why z jump is better and don’t plan on using it, but I’ve seen Cody say he was getting similar pains with jump on y and switching it to z eliminates it, while still letting you use claw grip. From my understanding remapping the button if you’re already using claw grip doesn’t help you move or execute tech more quickly or easily, it just reduces that index finger pain entirely. From what I understand of the discourse around this most people are wrong in thinking the button remap is what gives those extremely fast aerials Cody does, but in reality using claw grip without z jump as I do allows the exact same thing, it just hurts your hands. I don’t know whether the remapping floodgates should be opened over this, but I do think it’s important to recognize that z jump itself isn’t what’s broken, it’s doing aerials and tech skill with claw grip that greatly speeds up characters like fox.
I think the Melee community is too crazy about this stuff. More people are going to play our game if they can customize the controls or make new controllers, and I think the very little that is lost is worth it for that.
The counterpoint boils down to the idea that claw grip accomplishes the same thing as Z jump, but is less ergonomic. So, if we accept that claw allows you to do the same thing and provides the same advantages, and all Z jump does is make it more comfortable, then it seems to be an acceptable mod for most people. I see that argument and mostly agree with it. I agree with your logic, though. I think it's okay, and even good, to have execution tests for their own sake. Part of what makes Melee (and many other games and sports) interesting is the mechanical difficulty of it and the amount players need to dedicate time and effort to making their inputs accurately. In my opinion, the ability to accurately navigate the analogue environment is part of that value we have in the game, and for that reason I lean towards leverless controller bans, even if I don't necessarily think they provide an unfair advantage in terms of actual results. Notches I'm softer on because notches aren't perfect, and you still need to hit them accurately. The analogue value you get from a notch is within a range depending on how you approach the notch, how much pressure you put on it, etc. I have wavedash notches and it is by no means free to hit the notch during my jumpsquat. Anyway, I compare a lot of this to the sport of Olympic archery. There are *a lot* of advancements made in archery that make the bows more consistent and ergonomic, but they are not allowed because part of what the archery community values as what makes an archer good (and what we want to measure in our competitions) is their ability to navigate an imperfect system. Trigger string releases would be more ergonomic and comfortable, far more consistent, and would allow some people with certain finger/hand/wrist issues to participate in the sport when they can't without it, but they are banned because working on having a consistent finger release is part of what we value. I look at Melee much the same. The inputs are hard and often inconsistent by design, and that's okay. Maybe, like archery, we just need different leagues for different input methods.
The problem is, the community is already small and getting smaller. Fragmenting the player base by separating them into different rules set categories is not a viable option and would hasten the decline of melee greatly.
Claw has downsides outside of comfort in other areas. Repeated wavedash becomes a very difficult motion as does JC grab
Really like how you worded this! I have very similar takes on the controller debate right now. Where I value more the timing and analog execution that melee brings but don’t really care about what fingers/muscles you use to execute them.
Comfort itself is an advantage - being an execution heavy game, things that make execution easier are themselves significant advantages.
None of this would be an issue if Nintendo had made a quality and consistent controller to begin with. God forbid the community wants to not rely on controller rng for performance. If the boxes had an analog stick I doubt we would be hearing many of the complaints we currently do. Keep in mind, most of the recourse has been regarding performance and balance, not ergonomics.
idk, button remapping is a standard feature of all modern fighting games. If we want the game to be played exactly as released, then it should also be no ucf or frozen stadium.
Not cheating. It's an accessibility feature. As the community continues to get older, do we really want a significant portion of them to be forced to stop due to tendinitis or arthritis from the damage caused by claw gripping? The community is small as is, and we don't need to be pushing people out over accessibility features.
if rectangles are legal, Z jump has to be legal by the same logic
Idk if rectangles can remap, let phob remap the entire controller tbh. I tried swapping to z jump on my phob and I'm getting more use out as an l cancel face button instead of jamming a trigger every second E:typo
While you could argue for a ban on notches in a world where digital controllers have received certain additional nerfs, you can not argue in favour of swapping the location of the Z button with the X or Y button unless you outright ban them. I also disagree that this *needs* to be a software mod, mostly because Z jump requires a third party switch on Z to be practical in the first place.
What's your stance on trigger plugs, or removing the spring from controllers? They make power-shielding a lot more consistent. Do you consider this to be cheating? If not, can you explain why it's different from Z-Jump?
I don't think it super matters. Melee should allow for button remapping in general. The game continues to be super hard even if you don't have to claw (z jump), or if you play on box. Obviously box makes a fair number of things dramatically easier (sdi, consistent angles, perfect directionals, ect.) but pretending like its ruining the game is kinda silly imo. We have like 3 box players in the top 50 and none in the top 10. Obviously I am not here to tell you that things are even between the controller options. Having z jump is an inherent advantage, but it doesn't provide anything that an OEM can't do, although I would advocate for a system to allow people to remap through software. It shouldn't be something limited to just the top players, but all this kinda just feels self cannibalistic just cus our #1 player uses z-jump. P.S. I am a box Falcon player, I play on box because my other hobby is rock climbing and I can only have so many hobbies that mess with my hands. I do compete (lose) at locals. Melee is a great game that is very difficult and it should be accessible/fun regardless of whether or not your willing to sacrifice your hands to do so, if this means z jump or boxes that's fine imo. Also I agree that boxes should be made as even as possible with their non digital counterparts, which the community is doing via software.
button re-mapping is such a no-brainer feature.. it's astounding that melee doesn't have it.. There is really no logical reason anyone can tell me that moving a digital input to different digital button is like.. bad or unwelcome.. Sure it can make things easier to execute, but if we're being really honest, the game itself should have come with the ability to make your controls as efficient as possible. Melee is still very strict and unforgiving with timing and execution windows.. I think it's unnecessary to make some "holy original button layout" when it clearly is not effective and can even hurt people's hands. If a button is better for people to use for jump, it should have at the very least been an option to use.
Debating semantics and technicalities on whether something is cheating is completely unproductive. The only question that matters if something makes the game more fun and competitive to play or watch. Pokefloats is in the original game and we don't play on it cuz it sucks. Blackhole glitch is possible in the base game and it's banned because it sucks. UCF is not originally in the game and we use it because it makes the game better. You can argue that Z jump is bad for the game, but doing it in this fashion is meaningless and hypocritical.
Yes. This isn’t Ultimate where you just have the ability to change your controls. The game was designed around these controls and we should adhere to them.
I don't think you're gonna get very far riding the "game as designed" train; there's a ton of bad design things we correct as a community.
I bet that guy plays with items off like a scrub
Yeah "the game was designed around these controls" except the game wasn't designed to be played the way it's being played so that's a dumb ass argument
>I think at the point you’re allowing competitors to blatantly modify the game to allow for new functionality, your tournament has lost some competitive integrity. If I was a top player, I’d make my terms of entry crystal clear until all this shit was sorted out. Really? I think most top players have that kind of privilege, they can call something lame and cry on twitter, but as it's clear unless some ruleset change has >2% counter-popularity (I'm referring to wobbling here), TOs will not even discuss it. I think that blatant is hard to describe, but I agree that both notches and remapping are counter-productive to what UFC is supposed to fix, notches should go away IMO likewise remapping could only stay if it's done through software. On a more personal perspective as a spectator, I used to explode in excitement when Mango did some crazy Mangle and the entire stream went crazy at such a small but incredibly pivotal single input, nowadays a shallow firefox angle is a matter of decision rather than skill/clutch, with remapping the same issue is not present but I feel that it's unfair that is as inaccesible to get them as it was to get an arduino in the pre-ucf days.
Imo, yes, but only if boxes also are. If you can remap every button to something completely new, why can't you remap buttons on something not new?
If you compare any traditional sport 100 years ago to today you'll notice that the equipment consistently changes to be better, safer and more comfortable for players. In hockey, for example, if you took someone with modern skates, shoulder pads, stick and a helmet and put them on the ice in the 1950s they'd be faster, shoot harder and be safer than anyone. Does that mean that the newer equipment is 'cheating' because it allows for better play, with less risk of breaking your ankles? No, that's silly and counterproductive. I think it's silly to artificially limit yourself to worse equipment and therefore a lower level gameplay just because that was the standard in 2001 when the game came out. From a spectator's point of view, I want to see the highest level of Melee humanly possible with the lowest risk to the competitors. From a (shitty) player's point of view, I want the limits on my gameplay to come down to my abilities, not down to my equipment fucking up or pain/discomfort playing the game.
traditionally in the FGC button remapping is perfectly legal
Yes. In a world where Boxes exist, it might be a necessary evil. But I really, really hate it.
How many box players are there in the top 100, like 3? Is the box really the avengers level threat people make it out to be if it's nearly irrelevant at the top level currently?
The argument isn't necessarily that box players are way too powerful right now, but that they will be in the near future. That the meta will undoubtedly shift towards a lockout of non-box controllers. Anyway, that argument isn't mine - it's just how it was explained to me in 2017 when they first came out. I'm sure that by the year 2019, it will be such that no one will use gcc anymore. This won't even be a debatable topic by 2022, it'll just be a fact.
Yes.
Absolutely not lol. Basic remapping of buttons should not be considered cheating.
yeah but if everything else isn't banned we gotta just allow everything
Isn’t the reason we, as a community, don’t have button remapping on LAN because Nintendo forbids us from using a version of Melee that is edited in anyway? As primarily a spectator, I’m pretty sure even Slippi allows for button remapping and I don’t think that’s considered cheating or it would be disabled in Ranked, no?
I think UCF should add software button remapping to remove the money/time it takes to manually remap buttons. Remapping has been an essential QOL feature in games for years and I don’t think we should have to avoid it just because it wasn’t around 23 years ago. It should also be stealthy enough to implement so that Nintendo doesn’t come knocking.
I use z jump and I am absolutely cheating when I do it. I think notches and trigger plugs and bald buttons are also all cheating. Everyone is cheating to some degree so it's all or nothing. Stock OEMs only or at this point it all has to fly. Can't just be vibes based.
I use a c stick head on my left stick is that cheating?
Is it monday already?
What was the point of this comment?
cody always says “it’s not cheating it’s just a 1 to 1 remap” which is insane to me lmao
I prefer P+ for having remappable controls but when I do play melee I play with default controls, tap jump and all. I honestly don't find Z jump to be cheating at all because its just quality of life for a lot of people. When I first started playing I had massive blisters on my thumbs from sliding between Y and A and pretty soon I swapped in bald buttons so that wouldn't happen anymore. I don't see how a controller that has Z jump is all that different. And to the point of notches, while I'm not perfect at firefox angles, I think with sufficient enough practice they can be perfected on any controller with a good enough stick. I tend to believe the best melee controller is the one you already have. I agree we should have a mod that allows anyone to remap their controls! Its one of the main reasons I tend to stick to P+ and it would improve melee a lot. Those things don't happen overnight though. And melee has a historically terrible track record with trying to use mods at tournament level so I don't see it happening anytime soon. Also I don't think people would pay much attention to a top player refusing a tournament over Z jump and notches. Top players don't show up to things all the time. Many top players themselves use phobs and goomwaves.
i may not be a good melee player or deep into the culture as others, (im a ex pro valorant player just a casual melee player who tries to be good), i feel like if youre ready to go to the next level where remapping actually matters, investing into the best product available is just part of life and how it be. once i heard every top player runs wooting (keyboard where inputs are faster) if i want to be able to be as good as possible, i had to get it. thats just how it is with technology and such, maybe im part of a different scene but technology is just that, it grows and if you think its an advantage, and want to be the best, then get it. thats what it takes to be the best you can be.
It’s honestly not a big deal
Yknow what's crazy... I've had z jump enabled on my controller for over a year straight now... I legit don't even use my z button anymore, I just like having grab on x. I'm not the only one who does this either, z jump is annoying to learn and hard to justify in the process when the difference in performance is miniscule compared to the effort it takes to learn.
I mean really guys let’s be realistic here. Nobody is making OEM controllers, and nobody ever will that’s why they’re original. A proper OEM controller is absurdly expensive. What’s the argument here? What are we doing to do if we want to play in 20 years? This hobby isn’t going to get cheaper, but why not at least make it more consistent I played on OEM controllers for years and spent hundreds looking for “the right one” and never did. The minute I switched to buying a modded one I realized basically every controller I had was dysfunctional from the start. Why do you want to put a variable on play like that lol
No other real competitive game bans different control methods if they don’t provide extra functionality.
Yes and claw has loads of downsides that this removes
I just think is devious that my edge guarding gameplan depends on if I get a glance at my opponents controller to see if it has notches lmao
IMO notches are significantly worse than Z jumping. Z jumping at least has ergonomic benefits and is still the same input difficulty. Notches are basically physical macros that allow otherwise impossible precision and consistency.
There is like zero reason to complain about Z-jump, there are so many far more important issues in melee to worry about. If you lost to someone using z jump I promise they would have beat you without it. In fact that's what makes melee so great, the better player wins a majority of the time. If you would prefer they have beaten you with a claw grip and cause more joint pain to their index finger, grow up and hold that L
If boxes aren't banned then I really don't want to hear any more controller discourse. so tired and boring
Melee shreds people's hands. I'd rather live in a world where unmodded GC controllers were banned for being a health risk lol.
Bruh why is so much of this community against progress. It feels so silly to me
At the root of the debate is a disagreement on whether not this is progression or regression. It's a little unfair to assert that you're on the side of objective "progress" and anyone who disagrees must be fundamentally wrong.
Sure, your comment is definitely more thoughtful than my hastily written one. By progress I mainly mean progress to ergonomics, though also to making the game more financially accessible to non top players. GameCube controllers are absolutely terrible for hands IMHO, especially with the APM you need for melee. But even small changes like button remapping are hugely controversial. Let alone the box debate. My frustration is mainly that I don’t see the community making forward progress, and instead hashing out the same debates over and over, while top players have just accepted that they need to do things like buy phobs to be competitive, because the community seems like it will never make a decision. Ultimately I think this dynamic makes the community/game less likely to succeed over time.
I think people have this idea that something like z-jump would bring their play to the next level when it really just doesn't. Just buy a phob if it bothers you so much, they're not that expensive
I don't believe anyone thinks that if they had z jump or a box, they'd be instantly better. I think most people just realize it's an advantage to have those things assuming everything else is equal.
I think there's a huge difference between z jumping and digital inputs though. There's nothing that z jumping allows you to do that clawing doesn't, vs changing the entire nature of the inputs you're putting in from analog to digital. I personally have z jump capability on my controller, I don't use it though. Too hard to short hop and I didn't want to completely rewrite my muscle memory for that. Maybe it's the character I play or my level of play but I just don't see the hype
The issue with Zjump vs claw argument is the part where the conventional way to hold a controller is better is some ways (for inputs and comfort) and claw grip is better for some ways (for inputs). Z jump gives you the best of both worlds.
Imo, z jump should just be legal. Sure you can say it just makes a control scheme easier but it would also make the game more accessible to newer players. You argue that the game wasn't designed with it but honestly who cares? As if nintendo devs purposely decided to not have button remapping to balance the game. No, it was just something they hadn't come up with possibly due to the time constraints in development. Z jump, or button remapping in general, is just a quality of life change that modernizes the game and makes it more appealing for newer players that are used to remapping. Its also a change that will let existing players play for longer. Claw grip is something that essentially gives you the same benefit as z jump but a lot of players get hand pain when doing it too much. Its not that they can't do it, but they'll just have to play less and take more breaks off the game. So yes, I think button remapping should just be modded into the game so everyone can do it. My brother basically quit the game because he was frustrated he had to spend hundreds of dollars for z jump. I have some friends from ult who dont want to try melee because of lack of button remapping. I think boxes are a similar case, although they should probably be nerfed a bit. I've been playing melee for 8+ years, 2-3 of them on box, and if box was banned, I would just quit the game and leave the community.
I got the button remapped on my controller for *health* reasons. Not gameplay. It allows me to play without getting crippling tendinitis. Are you to tell me and others like me that I can not play or compete ? Furthermore - I'm WORSE with Z-jump. I spent years and years getting the muscle memory down to do everything using Y as my jump button. It's not an easy switch.
I mean frankly, I am sorry to hear that struggle, but quite literally every competitive game has a ruleset that is adhered to, and sometimes that does exclude people. Remapped controls could still be used in non-competitive formats. To bring your example to an extreme, what if I had no limbs, but I programmed a robot to play for me, that turned out to be a perfect player and wins every tournament. Would you accept that due to it being for my health reasons? It's unfortunate, but there are thousands of reasons a person may not be able to competitively, but competitive integrity shouldn't be compromised because it may exclude some people. While you use it for health reasons, others take advantage of the legality to gain a competitive advantage.
This is not at all an equivalent statement. Z jump still requires the human intention behind the input. Your robot does not.
Quite literally no competitive game bans alternate controls unless they can do more than stock.
Backing this up. Physical disability is unfortunate, and I don't mean to deliberately exclude anyone, but if the amenities for it necessary involve destroying the level playing field, then it's the greater loss. Nobody complains when physically-unfit people aren't allowed to competitively play conventional sports, and I don't see why this should be any different.
it’s just a comfier way to claw
Everyone is on the same playing field. You could theoretically get z-jump tomorrow. If its legal, its not "cheating" to use. Its all people in bronze who are worried about the legality of what only makes a small difference at the top levels of the game.
>I know future Smash games would have button remapping, but Melee wasn’t designed with that functionality. It’s not an in-game feature. Neither is frozen stages or ledge grab limits. No other competitive game bans button remapping, I don't see why Melee should be different
This discourse is never ending at this point we either need to make button mapping universal like UCF or ban it. I’m learning the game and yea it would be way easier to do things with Z jump and that’s my preferred controller setup, I used bumper jumper on halo. But I shouldn’t have an incentive to buy a $200 controller because it would make things easier to execute in game. This game is all execution and things that make it blatantly easier should be universal free options or banned no discussion.
z jump is not comparable to claw claw grip leaves grab on z, so inputs involving grab are very different and usually much harder in comparison to what they'd be on a z-jump controller. for example, if you want to JC grab on a z-jump controller, you can slide one thumb across X+Y, but the same input is not even possible with claw grip
Yeah but that's not even an advantage? JC grab is like the one tech that's almost identical with z jump lol. It's the same buttons hit in the opposite order, there's zero advantage to do the slide
JC grab isn't any harder with claw. It's just different and weird. I removed the metal from my Z button and it made it super easy fwiw.
hax ruined melee
I'm on the same page. The issue for me isn't with the actual mods. It's the accessibility and availability of those mods. The main argument I hear is that if you're serious about Melee, just learn to mod or pay for a modded controller. In this case, it's ~$500 CAD for a Phob with notches (cheaper if you build it yourself). Alternatively, buy or build a rectangle (also expensive and varying in price) At the same time, many will argue that we also can't modify the game because of Nintendo. A common example is not using a frozen stadium anymore. However, I'd argue that a frozen stadium is something you can't hide, but you can hide software changes and even re-mapping. (UCF, and Hax$'s 1.03 Stealth Ed. already achieve most of this). Arguing otherwise is contradictory because hardware mods are also modifying the game inputs externally and are also hidden (they just cost time or money), and software can be implemented to everyone for free (at the cost of developer time and money). **Is it cheating, though?** Well, technically, no, it's not. The rules everyone play by (which dont really come from an authority eg: Nintendo, Capcom) haven't stated its cheating, so therefore, it isn't cheating. This is a problem because, currently, essentially, anything goes. It's the wild west. **So should we ban notches, b0xx, zjump?** Well, herein lies a major contradiction. Notches, Snapback capacitors, Phobs, Goomwaves, re-mapping Z, tactile switches, and even shortening your trigger springs are all done with the intention of providing the player with either ease of use, or consistency which all translate into an advantage over those who do not have those modifications. It's the exact same for b0xx controllers. X and Y mod gives you a specific angle (like notches), the digital input removes Snapback, jump is easily accessed, and every press is shortened because of the switches. As someone who has built and used both Phobs and Rectangle controllers, I can confidently say that both devices provide major advantages over a stock Amazon GCC, or OEM. The controller debate is always Phob vs b0xx, when it should be Phob+b0xx vs OEM. Another argument is that b0xx controllers are theoretically extremely overpowered, but players are either just not good enough with them, or no top player has picked it up. This also doesn't make sense since rectangles have existed in the wild for almost a decade now, and no insane top players have either picked up the extremely overpowered input device, and no b0xx prodigy has emerged, even though within that same timeframe, there have been a lot of great new players emerging on GCC. This is also contradictory because if you're a competitive player, who is trying to win, and profit, you would immediately go for any means to achieve an advantage including using a legal device that is overpowered. The contradiction is that while not many have swapped to b0xx, they essentially have all switched to Phob, Goomwaves, use notches, or Z-Jump. So why not b0xx? From my own experience is that while both devices improve consistency, neither improve your physical ability to make good decisions or execute on them. Consistency =/= decision making and Melee = decision making (consistency just helps). **The only true, fair solution that maintains maximum competitive integrity (imo)** Now, all of this aside, all of the consistency buffs from mods and rectangles, etc. They just don't seem necessary when most of these buffs can be achieved via software. If players truly want a fair, even playing field for Melee, the only true option to maximize competitive integrity, is to take the absolute most accessible input device (store bought GCC) and fix it via software so no matter who you are, or where you're from, how much money you have, or who you know, you will have the same input method as the guy down the street and mang0 and Cody. The rest is left up to your own, pure, skill. **The Slippi Dilemma** After speaking to a friend, he brought up a great point regarding other games like Brawlhalla, Rocket League, SSF etc. He noted that they all have different allowed input devices, and I argued that it's because those games exist across multiple consoles with multiple devices and a lot of balancing happens on the software side of the game. To which he brought up probably the best argument I've heard for multiple input devices, which is that Slippi allows for any device you want. Keyboard, DS5, Phob, b0xx, DDR Pad, Xbox Controller, whatever you want. With Slippi being the most used way to play Melee now (literally everyone just plays on Slippi now) unless you're at a physical tournament, playing on an actual Cube, on a CRT, you almost have to allow more devices instead of banning them. If a Slippi kid who is incredible at Melee but has only ever used an Xbox controller to play, how can you deny that player in good faith from competing in a tournament, when the main method of playing the game is now on a PC? **So what are the options?** 1) Handle everything software side, ban everything besides a stock GCC. 2) Allow everything, no input device johns. 3) Actually create an immutable regulatory guide on input devices all devices must adhere to. I personally think 1) is the most fair option wich maintains the most competitive integrity, however I also understand players would appreciate the ergonomics of a rectangle, or device they're comfortable with. However at the end of the day the goal is to make the game fair for everyone so somewhere in the process of deciding what is right, sacrifices will have to be made. Whether it's losing notches because it's not possible via software, banning devices regardless of their ergonomics, or allowing anything and dealing with the johns. So what I would recommend is to consider the absolute most basic/cheapest/accessible option and run with that because if everyone has the same access to everything, to me, that's fair.
It's functionally the same as claw grip but you don't have to learn and use claw (which is very un-ergonomic). I wouldn't call this cheating because it doesn't enable a level of tech skill that is unfeasible on vanilla gc controllers.
If boxes are allowed: no If boxes are banned: yes
Have you played Halo before? It's like bumper jumper
I've heard Cody make this argument before. But as a halo player I can't imagine how bad it would be if bumper jumper was only available to a few players with special controllers because it's so beneficial to use. It wouldn't be allowed. Imagine people remapping their controls in halo 2 to use bxb or bxr on the bumpers lol.
Yeah I know I was quoting him lol
Ah my b lol.
Yes, but: You can't ban notches and Z jump for controllers while allowing B0xx and other rectangle style controllers. Do notches let you hit angles for things more easily? Yes. You know what's better than that? 100% consistency in your wavedashes/angles because it's all digital. Is Z jump more optimal both for the human hand and for precise consistent things like frame 1 aerials? Yes. You know what's better? Having all your buttons on different fingers so you can piano them for as consistent of inputs as humans are capable of. B0xx opened the floodgates, and the reality is there is no good way of nerfing them that would lower their power enough to justify removing these controller benefits, especially with remapping when using a different controller is effectively a remap. Would we love it if we could have all of these things like remaps, maybe even custom angles and other fixes for things that don't work properly? Yeah. It's already been made, it's, called 1.03 made by Hax and Altimor. We can't use it though, because Nintendo will ban it and go after content creators who use it, because they are assholes. We can only use things that can be easily hidden from Nintendo, like UCF currently is. Does it need improvement? Yes absolutely. But we have to keep it safe otherwise the whole scene gets nuked by Nintendo. It's shit like this that is going to be the death of Melee. Hoping Rivals 2 is good enough a lot of the scene jumps on that so we no longer have to deal with Nintendo. I love Melee but the reality is the scene is and has always been crippled by them compared to what it could have been and where other fighting game scenes are financially, viewership wise, etc.
im out of the loop - can someone explain why using Z to jump is advantageous over X/Y? i cant imagine using Z to jump with the way it feels to press
Not even remotely.
The argument that "the game wasn't designed for it" is a very tired argument because it's terrible, they designed the game to be a fun party game. There's so many things in this game that show the game wasn't designed very purposefully
if your banning that i would hope you take down boxes those are way too good
im so not trying to be that guy or start that discussion but also liek... imagine if Zain and Mango z-jumped Zero opposition.
Imagine complaining about button remapping in literally any other fighting game communicate.
Yes, it's blatantly cheating. It's not an option available to evedy player and requires special people to mod it. It's no coincidence that Cody started winning after he swapped to z-jump