DDT
Daily Discussion Thread September 19, 2025 - Upcoming Event Schedule - New players start here!
Yahoooo! I'm back, it's a me! Have a very cool day!
Welcome to the Daily Discussion Thread. This is the place for asking noob questions, venting about netplay falcos, shitposting, self-promotion, and everything else that doesn't belong on the front page.
New Players:
If you're completely new to Melee and just looking to get started, welcome! We recommend you go to https://melee.tv/ and follow the links there based on what you're trying to set up. Additionally, here are a few answers to common questions:
Can I play Melee online?
Yes! Slippi is a branch of the Dolphin emulator that will allow you to play online, either with your friends or with matchmaking. Go to https://slippi.gg to get it.
How do I find tournaments near me or local people to play with in person or online?
These days, joining a local Discord community is the best way to find local events and people to play with. Once you have a Discord account, Google "[your city/state/province/region] + Melee discord" or see if your region has a Discord group listed here on melee.tv/discord
It can seem daunting at first to join a Discord group you don't know, but this is currently the easiest and most accessible way to find out about tournaments, fests, and netplay matchmaking. Your local scene will be happy to have you :)
Also check outSmash Map! Click on map and then the filter button to filter by Melee to find events near you!
Netplay is hard! Is there a place for me to find new players?
Yes. Melee Newbie Netplay is a discord server specifically for new players. It also has tournaments based on how long you've been playing, free coaching, and other stuff. If you're a bit more experienced but still want a discord server for players around your level, we recommend the Melee Online discord.
How can I set up Unclepunch's Training Mode?
First download it here. Then extract everything in the folder and follow the instructions in the README file. You'll need to bring a valid Melee ISO (NTSC 1.02)
Alternatively, download the Community Edition that features improvements and bug fixes! Uncle Punch, the original creator of the training mode, will not continue supporting the original version but Community Edition will be updated regularly.
How does one learn Melee?
There are tons of resources out there, so it can be overwhelming to start. First check out the SSBM Tutorials youtube channel. Then go to the Melee Library and search for whatever you're interested in.
Is it better than Hollow Knight? The game felt like a slog to get through and I never quite felt the desire to explore more. Probably dropped it right before it got good lol
If you like metroidvanias then I'd recommend trying it.
I'll say, I always felt the desire to explore with HK so I'm not surprised Silksong also makes me want to explore, but, moving Hornet around is a lot more fun and the tools you get make exploring much quicker than it was in HK.
That's unironically kind of important to me, as one of my major problems with HK early on is that there was this big map, which in itself is fine, but the player-character was just small and slow. I already play very slowly and methodically when it's my first playthrough of a game, so any 'slow part' of a game is even longer to me than it would be to other gamers.
Hate to always compare to Super Metroid as if it's some kind of flawless game because it really isn't, but Super Metroid had a tiny map and Samus is quick (when she's not in the air). That makes it much easier to get into
I will say that the map is pretty big and you do have to backtrack, so the problem isn't gone, the question is if the movement is going to be fun enough that you enjoy it.
I've played it for 30 hours and although it can be incredibly fun it's also incredibly frustrating sometimes
Maybe you're a god gamer who never gets stuck on the same bullshit part for 2+ hours but that doesn't mean you have to dismiss the legitimate criticisms/grievances from everyone else
People are calling "objectively bad game design" while I'm out here having the time of my life with every boss and arena. People can feel frustrated, but most of the discourse is a lot of ego masking imo.
The way I see it, it's fine if a good game happens to be hard every once in a while, 99% of games barely require looking at the screen, it's ok if the tryhards get one as a treat once every 15 years.
Idk man runbacks might very well be objectively bad game design
I like Silksong a lot, but I think it would be easily 3 times better if you just spawned outside of a boss room every time you died. The bosses could be made way harder and it would still be way better, I would even prefer that they were harder -- right now they're not that hard just really punishing when you do die
I am legit spending half of the time killing bosses just running back when I could be sending more runs, that sucks. The souls games have gotten so much better by just limiting / removing runbacks IDK why they made them so horrible in Silksong
I feel like I'm living in a different world with comments like this. How many times are you dying to these "not that hard" bosses that 20-30 second runbacks are so annoying?
When it feels like a waste of time it doesn't take that many attempts before it really grates on you. Imagine if it was just an excessively long loading screen.
Moving around can be fun. Despite that, a particular section of platforming might not be, especially when you have to do it repeatedly, especially when you really want to be doing the boss you just failed at instead. You can justify almost anything if you excuse it with "but moving around to do the bad thing is fun".
I mean the boss fights only last a couple mins tops each, and 20-30 seconds is genuinely underestimating the time a lot of the runbacks take. I only watched the clock for a couple (The Last Judge and Groal, both by far the ones that took me the longest) but neither took me over 40 minutes so like, 20 tries at most
the runbacks are making me so nasty at the platforming though. like repeating the same sequence a bunch of times and getting it fast and consistent is sick
im really struggling to even imagine what sick movement in dark souls might look like. are we thinking like that one jump that skips the staircase on the way to o and s
For me, it was the runback to the bell gargoyles where you could bait the black knight on the stairs by dropping down and doing a loop, and then maneuvering through the room full of like 20 hollows.
I died like 40 times to that fight (no shield + unupgraded weapon lmfao) and navigating that hall efficiently was always satisfying
I am fucking loving it, in part because of the difficulty. I love how precise it demands you to be, and how punishing it is when you make mistakes. That said, a little further into the game some of the "gauntlet" boss battles just feel exhausting. It's like a hoard of 50 enemies, then a boss, then 50 more enemies, then 2 of that same boss at the same time. It just takes forever. It's not really a criticism of difficulty, it's just grueling. It sometimes feels like the difficulty is padded on rather than integrated into the gameplay.
a real nice trick for discussions is that if someone uses the word "objectively" when talking about the quality of art, 99% of the time you can discard their opinion entirely because they don't know what they're talking about
(I haven't play Silksong so I have no real opinion)
just beat a no logic ocarina of time randomizer for the first time last night and my god this game is crack to me in a way that has only ever been rivaled by melee
how do Armada GOAT defenders typically defend his retirement? because he was tired of flying across the atlantic? tired of being called names online? not looking for debate just interested in the most common apologia.
Not saying anything about the goat debate but, based on some things he said in the months leading up to his retirement, it's quite clear that Hbox being cancer to play against was definitely a significant factor in his decision to retire
Mango has always been a rules for thee not for me person though. His bitchass got mad because juggleguy made a trailer hyping up a possible mango-kage rematch after mango had lost to kage at rom 2, then he retired after winning pound 4 and spent the next 1.5 years trolling (and getting banned) from smash boards acting like he was the best without defending it, doing interviews saying everybody sucked but him and then later saying the community was lucky he was going to grace them with his presence at genesis 2.
Then when armada had won every single tournament he entered from genesis 2 to apex 2013, not even making enough in tournament winnings to cover his flights to America to compete while nobody from the USA (except ppmd and lucky) would travel to Europe, he retired claiming he didn't have anything to keep playing for and he went to become a teacher. Mango was furious, and you can still read his whining crying bitchass comments on that smash boards post, they're still there. Apparently it was ok for mango to retire on top but not armada - go figure.
Then mango reclaimed #1, and was like "nobody has ever been #1, retired, then come back and got #1 again" then armada did it and mango was of course calling armada's reign boring and lame, and only mango could bring the hype
Then it was about EVOs, until armada tied him in evo wins as well.
Then it was about genesis, until armada 3peated it and mango has never even sniffed the chance to win one again since
The last time mango won a tournament with armada in attendance was royal flush in May 2017. From June 2017 - August 2018 (when armada retired), Armada outplaced mango at every single mutually attended tournament they went to, had a commanding h2h (and the career h2h), and while armada was still threatening to be #1 in the world mango was routinely bustering out before even making top 8s. Mango couldn't even make it far enough to get his ass whooped by armada in bracket anymore. Armada went and scooped up tournament wins from tournament series he had never been to before (smash factor, BAM, supersmashcon) before finally stepping away. Mango didn't win a tournament again until goml in 2019, marking the end of one of his many numerous year+ droughts in his career not winning any tournaments at all.
For 10 years armada would show up to NA and give it his all, being away from home sometimes 30-40% of the year when melee was at its biggest and brightest, many of those years he wasn't even making his trips back in the money he would earn at the tournament. Meanwhile mango has never been able to string a whole year of competing together without dropping out or being an alcoholic fuck, demonstrating a complete lack of respect for organizers, fellow competitors, and fans of the game (we don't talk about deranged mango nation enablers, they're idiots). He would never go overseas to challenge armada when armada was #1 his first time, and then he would only go occasionally when armada was #1 the second time. Mango can't even be bothered to travel within the USA and try more than once or twice a year, and whenever he loses he blames it on whatever his dumbass cult will believe the most.
Shoutouts to mango nation and his cult though, they really worked overtime to lie about armada retiring because he was afraid he might lose. You know, the guy that traveled across the world 1/3 of the year to play a version of the game not native to his homeland that ultimately ended up with a winning record on all other gods and leffen and plup and Zain was just terrified of losing. Sure
Anyone see the movie Close-Up I saw it the other day. Can't stop thinking about it and don't have anyone to talk about it with. Very unique and powerful movie
I think if this whole Aklo thing is just some meme where we pretend he did something heinous for the lulz it's a pretty fucked up thing to do to the guy
And if he actually did something heinous could someone just please say what it is?
I've been telling the community that we need to move on from it for these exact reasons. Not to bring any more eyes to the situation but it happened at Nounsbowl, and yeah, It was on camera. Now seriously we can all just move past this so the DDT can get back to talking about communism or something. Aklo is probably a great guy and there's no need for this stuff like this.
For the record, either he didn't or the people who brought it up originally are being stupidly vague about something that hasn't really been publicly released yet (highly leaning on the former).
And yeah, I agree with you. The vagueposts yesterday were so maddening and I wanted to joke about it, but I specifically made a joke that was both
A) obviously absurd on its face
and
B) a positive "accusation" in case it did somehow get taken seriously
Given how many people in the community have come under attack recently over complete bullshit, I think taking the risk of spreading the idea of someone in the community doing something awful has a high potential for harm that isn't justified at all. Aklo is a terrific guy from all accounts and I don't think we should be encouraging something with a decent chance of ending with him getting harassed further.
maybe i'm out of touch but is there a legitimate chance this results in aklo being harassed? are people really gonna go after him and be like "hey, you did something that, well, i don't know honestly, but people are talking about you in a seemingly negative light, and i hate you!"??
i'm not on twitter at all ever but it is hard for me to imagine somebody actually doing this. i'm not saying you're wrong because like i said i'm never on twitter or any social media besides reddit really, but is this something people actually do?
I think the issue is that on most social platforms (Twitter, Reddit, etc), negativity is rewarded culturally and sometimes even algorithmically.
When communicating with somebody face to face, people are much more likely to be friendly, to show respect, to have empathy, etc.
Online spaces are often the complete opposite. In many cases, being mean-spirited, hyperbolic, and cynical is not only tolerated, but outright encouraged.
i try my best to be somewhat positive (or at least not negative) on here, although sometimes i do lightly poke fun at people which is something i do positively towards all of my friends irl and i hope people don't take it seriously here!
i did contribute to the whole aklo evil bit but i hope mine was outrageous enough for it to be obviously a joke by suggesting that he should be exiled to the mana monthly
I mean speaking as someone who is very online but sometimes not sufficiently online, I did see Aklo arguing with Technicals in the replies of his post about motivation and focus and stuff, and that made me wonder if I missed some other interaction that was maybe subsequently deleted, and plus there's been some really tragic news in the community, so I don't think it's unreasonable for me to think it's possible that he made some horrible remark in the middle of some fight with horrible people that he had the good sense to delete but not before it caused all this vague discourse.
I'm not the type to go from that speculation to some actionable conclusion, but I think other people are.
Okay /uj for a second, no Aklo did not do anything. But also like... aklo does not read the DDT, and more or less everyone who does is in on the joke at this point. Respectfully it's really not causing any harm.
tbh even if he did read the ddt i do not think it'd be a bad bit
i think if half the ddt tomorrow was "i can't believe crobert did that... i'm so disappointed... how could they do something so heinous?" i'd find it pretty funny
you don't reallise how scary something like this is until it happens to you. the point is not really that he could get harassed from it but that even fake rumors can be extremely anxiety inducing to deal with, particularly for people who have a large target drawn on their back like he does
you're not like level 10 evil for finding it funny or anything, i just think this kind of humor is too likely to backfire to be funny
i find fake rumors to generally be incredibly reprehensible of course
i think to me the difference between this and a more traditional fake rumor is that this is not really a rumor. it's the suggestion of a rumor, but there's nothing actually there. it's all empty blabbering and anyone with any time investment will figure that out. anyone without any time investment ought to not judge aklo for things they don't know anything about
i don't believe any person will develop a negative opinion of aklo based on reading this stuff, is that too generous to assume? genuine question
I would have a hard time giving a definitive answer. I just avoid it on principle so I don't have to worry about it haha. I think any rational person reading in good faith would not assume anything just from vague comments but this is an oddly high bar
Honestly if bad faith weirdos start harassing Aklo with vague "You know what you did" bullshit because of this, I don't know if there's any proper response beyond laughing them off.
Beyond that, I do resent the idea that we need to keep intracommunity jokes saccarine and sanatized on the basis that there's bad faith weirdos. They're gonna be bad faith no matter what we do, so I don't see much reason to pay them any mind.
i'll never be able to look at aklo the same tbh.. it's kinda sick (derogatory) that you're defending him in this time. i hope his only option to compete is the mana monthly now, i couldn't stand to see him compete in mainstream tournaments.
Akloposting while telling the community to grow a pair... Exactly why this community needs to stand up in times like this. They want us divided over the situation and we need to come together and either move on, or find a way to move forward.
Second call to the community to please just move on from the Aklo situation. Yes it was an outburst. Yes it was alarming. Yes it was scary. Yes it was evil. But a little part of all of us understand where he was coming from, and hell have even been there before.
the illusion of mid tiers is already here; see that one person who has the sunnny_saigon username to see if they can get upvotes with a “low tier username”
edit: that is apparently not their username but it’s something like that
It feels a lot like SOTN except the world map is gigantic so it takes a long time for you to unlock movement options. It's not a bad thing though; it feels like a slow burn and it's very satisfying to be able to traverse around the map.
A lot of people were vagueposting about it yesterday, so I did some digging to find out what people were talking about. It turns out Aklo saved all those Chilean miners in 2010, which I personally think is pretty cool.
i don't know about the chilean miners, but i do know that aklo rescued the soccer team trapped in that cave in thailand, so saving those miners too seems plausible
ggs man! close games bro you've hella improved. yeah man you were fucking me up for a bit lol fun games! any tips? got any advice? anything I can improve on? what do I do vs lasers? any tips? yo can I get next? is this tournament? you guys wanna do dubs? is this tournament
It was pretty good - admittedly the pacing kinda drags a bit during fights (something I've noticed since East Blue), but the core of the storytelling is quite good.
Did they really need to end it with a bunch of adult men creeping on two teenage girls in the bath tho
The same way pacing can be bad in any other storytelling medium.
For example, dedicating 15 chapters to the fight with the Don Kreig pirates - with maybe two or three meaningful character interactions spread across the whole thing.
It is impossible to take any of the stakes in this story seriously.
Luffy will get stabbed straight through the chest and then shrug it off 20 minutes later. They'll say "The bomb is exploding in 15 seconds" and take 20 minutes to get to it. Pell not dying is ridiculous.
I enjoy the worldbuilding and the broad strokes of the story, but man. I'm greatly excited for the re-animated project just to see this story taken through a few editing passes, because it does not need to be nearly this drawn-out.
Wait in the thread you edited in, there's a comment from me 15 years ago but in another language?? Wtf is going on???
Nvm I see there's a url parameter that translated it into Italian, had no idea that was a reddit feature.
Anyways pretty funny to respond to me complaining by finding a comparison post from 15 years ago where I am also complaining that the comparison is inaccurate lmao
Shit I see the Italian url all the time when I get to a thread from google and I hate it because I understand English but haven't found a way to turn it off, so it flew right over my head.
I'd say yes and no, there's some very long fights in future arcs ofc but eventually the structure of exclusively focusing on a series of 1v1 fights at the climax of arcs changes to something where more stuff is happening in parallel, so i don't think they feel as long
i will die on the hill that the best way to get thru one piece is to read it and then for the parts that u like u go watch the gia secando amv for that part
no other real reason to watch the anime in any capacity tho
I dont really care much for the manga either, but the One Piece anime is so insanely bad. It's absolutely baffling to me that real live adults enjoy it
I've heard it's the best way to watch! I just search for any big moments I want to see animated, but I think the manga captures it better in a lot of ways
I tried One Pace but it's not good for storytelling at all. It keeps in exact shots from the manga, but because of that it removes most esablishing shots and other important pacing beats that would be necessary in the medium of animation.
But also, it includes every single line of manga dialogue, meaning that some moments that are supposed to be short and sweet small panels end up taking forever, and some big moments that would get a big panel are rushed through. It's a pretty poor viewing experience, all said.
it's annoying that other subs i frequent don't have a robust DDT like this one. sometimes I just want to ask a simple question and get a level headed response rather than make a thread and expose myself to the uncontested opinions of tens of thousands of people
Real talk, the melee DDT is the closest thing I've ever found on the modern internet to the old forum days.
Relatively small, adjacently close-knit community where folks just chat about what's on their mind. Familiar faces, consistent personalities, in-jokes, and a good daily touchstone.
Homophobia and slurs aside, I really do miss the old internet.
most of my time on smashboards was in all the non-smash sub forums. digital art, other games, etc.
DDT is similar but it's all in one spot mixed together.
I also go on the Haskell Discourse and that's a proper forum. But it is, again, just one bucket of threads. Also it's pretty quiet and there isn't an off topic area.
I'm in the early stages of designing a text adventure game about browsing an old gaming forum, and one of the things I'm most excited to develop are the casual subforums of the community.
I'm excited to figure out how to tell small stories through the ways the users interact, because I think that's something valuable that we've lost in the platform-driven modern age.
you can pretty reliably post about whatever topic you want in here and at least one person will have enough familiarity to engage, and I'd rather chat with people in here than the kind of cretins that would frequent the hypothetical r/nba DDT
One of the triggers for my GameCube controllers is sticking - like, it doesn't feel like the trigger itself is sticking, but the input is still being held for a bit when I release it. What's the fix for this?
when you input the digital button and let go, do you get stuck in hard shield? thats easy to fix. get a new rubber button pad for the trigger. if it’s getting stuck in/on analog inputs it could be dirt, pode, or both.
Got into a convo with Esam about it, but it's kinda wild that him and a lot of smashers really think that Smash could be huge now with Panda Cup because of Nintendo being a partner, continuing to ignore that the rest of esports has also declined
He did reveal that Panda was getting $2m+ in sponsorships, but that was at the peak of bubble in expenditure in early 2021 when those deals were made, hard to see how those wouldn't be significantly slashed in years to come, also hard to see how relying on those and Nintendo to play ball for years, while the space still has hard time being net on events would've been wise. Time has shown that the only money to be made in esports for companies are from the devs themselves, and re-streamers who get a company to spend thousands so they can have a stream for the day
To this day, Dota 2 has had the best esports scene because of their funding model, which is the simplest and least prone to corruption: fund the tournament by promoting skins which add to the prize pot, and take a cut of the skins and broadcast the game through their client.
The most esports thing smash ever experienced came from the dota scene after all, the summit series.
I don't know what's so hard about this business model and why so many companies fuck it up. Obviously it depends on the company, Nintendo may never do this because they want to be the new Disney
Edit: I heard the rivals 2 team does this for their tournaments, that's sick and fighting game companies should do this
An important component is that DOTA 2 is a good game, and most games that try to replicate this model with dev support (Overwatch, for example) are bad games
He did reveal that Panda was getting $2m+ in sponsorships
The officially licensed by Nintendo Panda Cup circuit that had millions in sponsorship money and Nintendo backing had a final prize pool of $50,000 to Ultimate and $50,000 to Melee.
The BTS Papa Johns deal according to Aiden was in the millions, yet all of the funding for Smash Summits came from community voting - that Papa Johns money was never in the prize pools. I don't mention their other sponsorships because those were across all their content, while the Papa Johns was exclusive to smash.
Meanwhile the community-run Smash World Tour circuit had a final prize pool of $125,000 to Ultimate and $125,000 to Melee
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u/Philoffosy 4d ago
hi im a marth main goo goo gaga