Character Strike

[Sleek Media]

Very simple: in sets we ban stages for the purpose of avoiding disadvantageous situations against the opponent.

Why not consider a character ban (though strike is a better word) as an alternative/addition? Other competitive games do this (LoL), and it would encourage much greater character diversity with a more evenly developed meta since half the community won't be laser focused on one or two top tier characters.

 

[Inger]

It doesnt seem right to me. There should be a global ban of certain characters (I'm looking at you, monkey) or no bans at all. A player who sheik or diddy mains will pretty much be guaranteed to have to play a secondary. It will create a similar problem to LoL; There will always be those characters that you ban because they are considered top tier. Additionally, I feel like this is really unfair for people with strong character loyalty who spend their entire career mastering every nuance of one character whom they are dedicated to perfecting. I'm forever a fan of more character diversity, but I feel like custom moves are a better alternative to promoting character variance.

 

[1FC0]

I would rather not have this because I want to use R.O.B. only.

 

[Raijinken]

A lot of people hate the thought of learning more than one character. Despite the nuance mastery being relatively irrelevant in this game since there's far less technique to spend time learning, the mindset of a single main is so entrenched that it's not even worth the effort of suggesting character drafts in Smash. A similar discussion was had months ago and basically boiled down to a lot of people declaring they could only play one character so this would kill the game.

 

[Ulevo]

In League of Legends you are able to ban champions because in League the primary skill emphasis is not just on player to champion mastery, but mastery of the map, of team coordination, rotations, objective control, and a myriad of other skills. There are also a multitude of champions in the game that adhere to the same player skills and development. i.e. If you're good at landing skill shots on Morgana, you'll likely do well on Blitzcrank.

In fighting games, the entire focus is on a players complete mastery of their character in relation to the rest of the roster. That's it. If you allow character bans, you basically invalidate the emphasis placed on testing a players skill, experience, and hard work.

tl;dr no.

 

[Raijinken]

In League of Legends you are able to ban champions because in League the primary skill emphasis is not just on player to champion mastery, but mastery of the map, of team coordination, rotations, objective control, and a myriad of other skills. There are also a multitude of champions in the game that adhere to the same player skills and development. i.e. If you're good at landing skill shots on Morgana, you'll likely do well on Blitzcrank.

In fighting games, the entire focus is on a players complete mastery of their character in relation to the rest of the roster. That's it. If you allow character bans, you basically invalidate the emphasis placed on testing a players skill, experience, and hard work.

tl;dr no.

That discounts all impact stage has in Smash, which is a rather large part of why it's different from the vast majority of fighting games.

 

[HeroMystic]

This idea is bad.

Stages are different. Stages indirectly gives advantages and variance to a character, and therefore we have the ability to strike stages.

When you pick a character, you are saying as a player that you are willing to put your tournament life on the line with this character, meaning you have trained, grinded, and gained confidence with that character. You strike that character, you've destroyed the entire meaning of going to a tournament.

Characters are not elements of a game. They are the game.

 

[Sleek Media]

This idea is bad.

Disappointing number of thoughtless replies so far, but this one stands out. Let's go through it.

Stages are different. Stages indirectly gives advantages and variance to a character, and therefore we have the ability to strike stages.

By extension of lending advantage/variance to a character, the stage lends advantage/variance to the player, which the choice of character character also does. Striking a stage and striking a character do the exact same thing.

When you pick a character, you are saying as a player that you are willing to put your tournament life on the line with this character...

When you pick a stage, you are saying as a player that you are willing to put your tournament life on the line with this stage.

...meaning you have trained, grinded, and gained confidence with that character. You strike that character, you've destroyed the entire meaning of going to a tournament.

...meaning you are familiar with the layout, know all of the transitions/hazards, and are confident you can take advantage of any special recovery conditions of the stage. You strike that stage, you've destroyed the entire meaning of going to a tournament.

Characters are not elements of a game. They are the game.

Wrong. They are an element of the game, along with stage, items, mode of play, and rules of play. The near limitless combinations of these elements is the game.

If you just want to play as a single character, and therefore have no desire to see a rule like this, then that's your thing. I can't argue with that. Just don't BS about character selection being somehow different or sacred from any other option in the game.

 

[Raijinken]

It's worth noting that, while stages and other rule elements are just as necessary to have a match to begin with, the character is the player's only point of interaction with the rest of those elements. Stage striking and character striking aren't entirely comparable in that regard.

There is, though, some validity when you consider counters in each situation. Playing against Little Mac, a player probably wants to always strike FD. Playing against custom DK, a player probably always wants to strike Battlefield. Similarly, playing as Ganondorf or Mii Swordfighter, someone probably always wants to strike Diddy or Sheik, since nothing you can do stage-wise can validate your choice of character at higher levels - it's simply impossible with known techniques in a match between players of comparable skill.

The disconnect in logic happens because while no characters are deemed "broken" enough to ban, numerous stages are, so the fact that stage selection influences character dominance is given little thought, as we can just keep striking and banning stages all day, but are hesitant to do so with characters. It would, however, probably be easier to fix part of the issue from the stage side of matches rather than from the character side. A lot of people are very attached to their character experience (I'm not one of them, but hey), but virtually no one is hopeless if their preferred stage gets stricken.

 

[1FC0]

My post was not thoughtless R.O.B. is awesome.

 

[Raunchy25]

By extension of lending advantage/variance to a character, the stage lends advantage/variance to the player, which the choice of character character also does. Striking a stage and striking a character do the exact same thing.

I'm still confused by this. How does character selection give anyone an advantage especially in smash 4? There are certain match ups that are disadvantageous of course, but character selection is not in the least. If this conversation were about brawl then maybe you would have a point, just because the character balance of that game was so skewed. Also, this game is still pretty early in its life so I don't see how a couple characters becoming polarizing for the moment is a bad thing.

Striking a stage has been proven to be the easiest way to balance the game while keeping the players interested in playing, and the viewers interested in watching. At the end of the day this is what matters the most in a competitive game. In what way could "striking" characters ever do that? It was proven in the brawl era that if you ban characters then less people will show up, which means more than likely that less good players show up, which leads to a less exciting tournament that garners less viewership. Banning characters in a fighting game has never been the solution simply because, that's how most competitive fighters die. When you limit a players options, in a fighting game that already has fairly rigid rules/mechanics (like most do) it really does suck the enjoyment out of the whole thing. The only time the conversation even happens is when characters in the game are beyond broken in a professional's hands and there is little to no recourse in dealing with them (which isn't this case).

Also comparing a fighting game to a moba is not going to help your argument. There is no map selection in LoL so the only other possible way to keep the game balanced is by banning champions. There's literally no other way for it to be balanced at the moment aside from character buffs/nerfs, but that's a different conversation entirely.

 

[Raijinken]

I'm still confused by this. How does character selection give anyone an advantage especially in smash 4? There are certain match ups that are disadvantageous of course, but character selection is not in the least. If this conversation were about brawl then maybe you would have a point, just because the character balance of that game was so skewed. Also, this game is still pretty early in its life so I don't see how a couple characters becoming polarizing for the moment is a bad thing.

Striking a stage has been proven to be the easiest way to balance the game while keeping the players interested in playing, and the viewers interested in watching. At the end of the day this is what matters the most in a competitive game. In what way could "striking" characters ever do that? It was proven in the brawl era that if you ban characters then less people will show up, which means more than likely that less good players show up, which leads to a less exciting tournament that garners less viewership. Banning characters in a fighting game has never been the solution simply because, that's how most competitive fighters die. When you limit a players options, in a fighting game that already has fairly rigid rules/mechanics (like most do) it really does suck the enjoyment out of the whole thing. The only time the conversation even happens is when characters in the game are beyond broken in a professional's hands and there is little to no recourse in dealing with them (which isn't this case).

Also comparing a fighting game to a moba is not going to help your argument. There is no map selection in LoL so the only other possible way to keep the game balanced is by banning champions. There's literally no other way for it to be balanced at the moment aside from character buffs/nerfs, but that's a different conversation entirely.

Last I checked, in League (but not in Dota), you can pick the same heroes as the enemy team, allowing symmetrical matches in which player and team skill is the sole deciding factor. Thus, the only point in the draft system is to force variety into the metagame by allowing selective removal of popular champions. And I dunno about in League, but in Dota, where the system you described is more or less in place, out of the 90 odd viable heroes there's still a subset (which changes with patches, which are irrelevant to Smash because our patches are too rare to rely on) that are considered centralizing and get a first pick/ban about 90% or more of the time (depending on regional meta and other factors, of course). That sort of meta trending is what a character strike helps avoid.

Also, it's hard to say striking has proven easiest or best, when other alternatives aren't even experimented with due to fear of mass playerbase ragequitting over a format change.

 

[Raunchy25]

Last I checked, in League (but not in Dota), you can pick the same heroes as the enemy team, allowing symmetrical matches in which player and team skill is the sole deciding factor. Thus, the only point in the draft system is to force variety into the metagame by allowing selective removal of popular champions. And I dunno about in League, but in Dota, where the system you described is more or less in place, out of the 90 odd viable heroes there's still a subset (which changes with patches, which are irrelevant to Smash because our patches are too rare to rely on) that are considered centralizing and get a first pick/ban about 90% or more of the time (depending on regional meta and other factors, of course). That sort of meta trending is what a character strike helps avoid.

Also, it's hard to say striking has proven easiest or best, when other alternatives aren't even experimented with due to fear of mass playerbase ragequitting over a format change.

You're correct that it forces variety, which is why I get were OP is coming from, but at the same time in a MOBA character picks are basically all that make up the variety. Of course there are runes and item choices, but those have gotten to the point that there are only a couple optimal ways to use them so most of the other players pretty much know what you're doing if you pick that character. Smash in general has a relatively large selection of things that can can be changed to make it different, especially if you take custom moves into account.

 

[Dooms]

This would create a really huge problem for local scenes, and for popular players it would force them out of their mains altogether (including mid/high tier mains such as MVD, Abadango, and Amsa).

If I were to fight Abadango, I wouldn't ban Diddy or Sheik. Pac-man is gone in a heart beat. He has Wario, sure, but that's a lot of Pacman representation that is suddenly gone down the drain.

Think of this as tournament League of Legends play (not really LCS or anything, but like mid-level tournament play). You don't ban top meta picks. You look at that player's match history and you remove whoever they do best with. You're forcing every single player to pick up a secondary and out of the character they love assuming the opponent does research.

I guarantee you this would create a scenario where people pick up pocket Diddy & Sheik in order to get over this ban. Not everyone, of course, but there will definitely be a lot of dedicated high/mid/low tier mains now using Diddy/Sheik once they're banned out of their character. This would not be an answer to the problem. It would make it worse. There is a reason why very few people are supporting this idea.

 

[Terotrous]

A character ban system would just basically be a Diddy clause:

Diddy clause:

At loser's discretion, all future matches can be Diddy vs Diddy


If you ban my main, I would obviously just play Diddy because he's super easy to use and super strong. Clearly if I play Diddy, you'll also play Diddy, because it's Diddy's only even matchup. If you ban any other character I'll just play my main as usual and nothing changes.

 

[HeroMystic]

By extension of lending advantage/variance to a character, the stage lends advantage/variance to the player, which the choice of character character also does. Striking a stage and striking a character do the exact same thing.

This is incorrect. A character acts as an extension of a player's skills. A stage gives a direct advantage/variance to a character.

If your opponent is Rosalina, you ban Halberd and Town and City. If your same opponent is Sheik, you ban Smashville and whatever else. Picking a stage directly corrolates to the character choices made.

When you pick a stage, you are saying as a player that you are willing to put your tournament life on the line with this stage.

...meaning you are familiar with the layout, know all of the transitions/hazards, and are confident you can take advantage of any special recovery conditions of the stage. You strike that stage, you've destroyed the entire meaning of going to a tournament.

And you say my post is thoughtless. This effort to begin a slippery-slope argument is hindered by the fact that stages are not characters. They exist to facilitate the qualities of your characters. Everything begins on the character select screen.

Wrong. They are an element of the game, along with stage, items, mode of play, and rules of play. The near limitless combinations of these elements is the game.

I'll ask this question and I want you to answer truthfully.

Why do you believe character diversity is important?

If you just want to play as a single character, and therefore have no desire to see a rule like this, then that's your thing. I can't argue with that. Just don't BS about character selection being somehow different or sacred from any other option in the game.

If I couldn't play Mario, I would play Rosalina. If I couldn't play Rosalina, I would play Falco. If I couldn't play Falco, I would play Sonic. The list goes on. There's no BS in my statements.

Your idea is bad because it is in effort to facilitate character diversity, when it would in fact do the very opposite. You say it would stop the community to using top tiers when instead it would just make characters become nothing more than just a regulated system.

The concept of a "main" would no longer be valid, and everyone would just train with every character, and if you strike a character that would be considered a "main", they would just pick a top tier character. If you strike Diddy, then they would go to another top tier.

In your own words, The Character Selection screen is sacred because that's where a player makes a choice to invest in a character for their own reasons.

 

[Terotrous]

The only way I could see something like this working at all is it'd just be a random tournament. Every match is random vs random, on a random stage. Of course, the results would be similarly random, so it'd basically just be for funsies.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Why do you believe character diversity is important?

This question is ultimately something I have to say as well. Coming from games where patching was never a thing (not Melee but older games), the metagame was grown through rulesets and methods that let the game grow organically. Sure there's a silly character, might as well embrace it, advance the general meta (and likely the best char's meta more than the cast but that's how it works) and build the community. This isn't possible when you try and strike down natural growth with rules like character bans for the sake of promoting diversity in an artificial way. You can't FORCE someone to play another character without this being so.

IMO the best way this meta is going to develop is outside of stuff like this, customs are going to make this game grow and give lots of people a lot of options, and keep it interesting.

More character diversity with rules like this would just seem so incredibly lopsided and spectator oriented that the players would likely feel out of focus or uncatered to, and you really don't want that.

 

[WillLi]

Character striking is a horrible idea. Even if you play multiple characters, it doesn't necessarily mean you're good with all them. This rule would actually disadvantage the popular and well known players the most. Yeah in theory you can just say "Learn multiple characters and you'll be fine" But that's not true in practice, only on paper. If you know that the only character you opponent can handle your play style with at a level that can beat you is one character, and you strike it, they're SOL. Simply because you know how good they are not against just the match up against your style.

Stages can be striked because while yes some stages are advantageous and disadvantageous and it's all strategy, the majority of a character's maneuvers are still available. Rather the stages add to your option, they don't usually take away. However if you remove a character someone uses then you are essentially saying "All that training and time you put in is worthless, cause I don't like this guy."

 

[Teh Sandwich]

I think someone made a thread with this same idea, around the time the game launched.

Still a really lame idea.

 

[popsofctown]

In low level League play, you can't see the names of your opponents, so that you can't shut someone down from using their knowledge of a specific character. In high level League play (like, only in big tournaments), you can, but at that level people have so much knowledge of such a broad variety of characters that using bans in this way is less useful.
You need some ski masks and fat suits for this to work.

 

[ぱみゅ]

Few yers ago I tried with my local scene a rule:
"Loser may choose either two stages, or one stage and one character (that the opponent wasn't already using), and for the rest of the set they can not be used".

It kind of worked out but it was messy.
By the end of the day the last 5ish sets were MK vs MK.

 

[stancosmos]

Very simple: in sets we ban stages for the purpose of avoiding disadvantageous situations against the opponent.

Why not consider a character ban (though strike is a better word) as an alternative/addition? Other competitive games do this (LoL), and it would encourage much greater character diversity with a more evenly developed meta since half the community won't be laser focused on one or two top tier characters.

LoL can do it because they have a massive collection of characters to choose from, and you're on a team so it's not as devastating. If someone strikes my main and secondary character because they've watched me play before, i'd be totally boned. It's a terrible idea unless a certain character is OP, which doesn't look like the case yet. This now just becomes a game where nobody can play their main characters and has to become equally viable with 3+ characters, which slows progress competitively if you can never see the best players play their best characters.

 

[digiholic]

1. You don't always pick stages. Your opponent sometimes picks stages. That's why we strike them. Your opponent has no say in what character you get to pick, so comparing the two is completely pointless. Stage Striking exists because it is a decision made by one player that affects both players. Character selection is a decision made by both players that affects both players. If you had no strikes or stage bans, your opponent could invalidate your character without response from you, so you're allowed to strike stages that might be bad for you. If your opponent attempts to invalidate your character with his character, you can also change characters. It's not a one-sided decision, each player has input. Comparing the two processes is fundamentally flawed.

2. Striking characters would mean that no one gets to play their favorite character. Why bother putting any time into an oddball pick like Pac-Man if you're gonna get banned out? Every pro player would learn Sheik and Diddy and only them. It's the only valid response. You're always guaranteed a good character no matter which of the two they ban, the matchup between the two is not particularly swingy, and you save yourself the trouble of having to learn a technical character and never get to play them. Your diversity system would actually utterly kill any and all diversity in high level play.

 

[ninrok]

...basically, what HeroMystic said. :-p

On paper it sounds sexy and as though it'll promote diversity.

In practice...

Also, IMO there's quite a bit of character diversity as-is. Diddy/Sheik/Rosa are common pick but that's just the nature of even the most diverse roster. There's going to be an obnoxious, good character, and said character will see a lot of play.

This question is ultimately something I have to say as well. Coming from games where patching was never a thing (not Melee but older games), the metagame was grown through rulesets and methods that let the game grow organically. Sure there's a silly character, might as well embrace it, advance the general meta (and likely the best char's meta more than the cast but that's how it works) and build the community. This isn't possible when you try and strike down natural growth with rules like character bans for the sake of promoting diversity in an artificial way. You can't FORCE someone to play another character without this being so.

IMO the best way this meta is going to develop is outside of stuff like this, customs are going to make this game grow and give lots of people a lot of options, and keep it interesting.

More character diversity with rules like this would just seem so incredibly lopsided and spectator oriented that the players would likely feel out of focus or uncatered to, and you really don't want that.

Coming from a lot of old games, the bold stands out to me - so very true.

 

[Sleek Media]

...

Most of this is BS and straw man arguments that I've already either explained or debunked, and won't bother doing so a second time. I will, however answer your honest question:

Why do you believe character diversity is important?

What is the number one complaint about Smash4 right now? What was the number one complaint about Brawl?

It was/is that everyone was sick of seeing the same two or three characters constantly.

I never said character diversity is important. Melee did well enough with four characters for most of its life. It is, however, interesting. Interesting to play against. Interesting to watch. Every day there is a new thread or article filled with people wailing about "needing to rally support" or "how to deal with x character". A one character strike solves both.

It's simple. Suppose I'm sick of hoo hah, as many people are. For a while, people will probably default to banning Diddy when in doubt. What does this accomplish?

1) There is less incentive to have a pocket Diddy, making it easier to focus on characters you actually want to play.
2) Characters which are completely stopped by one or two hard counters suddenly become much more viable, again allowing you more freedom in choosing a character competitively.
3) Instantly, the game becomes more interesting to watch for a number of reasons, the least of which being that you don't have long sets of 5+ games involving the same two characters on Smashville.
4) The game becomes more enjoyable to play, unless you live and die by the hoo hah, or love fighting against it every other round.

I like Mega Man. Let's say my Mega Man is so good that people who play against me start banning him instead of Diddy. Then what? I never get to play Mega Man again?

Wrong.

I'll just use Rosalina, Mario, Luigi, Pac-Man, Lucario, or Bowser, all of whom I enjoy and play either well or competitively. How many times do you think people will lose to Rosalina before they decide to start taking their chances with Mega Man? You can make the argument that you only want to play as a certain character, and for beginners that is especially true, but I cannot think of any top-level competitors who do not have at least a secondary, if not thirds and beyond. Chances are that your character has at least one bad matchup, and most people will pick up a second to deal with it, even if they only want to play as that one character.

Right now, we counterpick characters and let matchups shape the meta game. It makes many characters completely unviable, places a ridiculously disproportionate amount of attention on the high tier characters with the fewest bad matchups. This solves the problems of the "snowball effect" of tiers, and of limited character viability without actually banning characters from play. It also encourages variety for the players, which is helpful to them (see Dabuz vs M2K) and more entertaining to watch since a greater breadth of skill is displayed. It also adds a strategic element to the match. Will you strike your opponent's main or your character's counter? Do you think your opponent will strike your main, or have they prepared a traditional counter and will strike your second?

Flexibility with this rule allows for many possibilities. For example, you could only strike one character only after losing a match (one character total for each player in a 3-game set). Alternatively, both players could strike after every game, or you could even make strikes last one round before the character becomes available again. It wouldn't take very long to find the sweet spot, and once we found it, the competitive scene would become vastly more interesting.

 

[popsofctown]

Beginners are really important, not a parenthetical element.

 

[digiholic]

Most of this is BS and straw man arguments that I've already either explained or debunked, and won't bother doing so a second time. I will, however answer your honest question:

I don't think you know what "straw man" means.

What is the number one complaint about Smash4 right now? What was the number one complaint about Brawl?

It was/is that everyone was sick of seeing the same two or three characters constantly.

No, it was the heavily skewed defensive playstyle, lack of combos, and overall lack of competitive discipline. I don't think anyone who's actually competitive at Smash ever said Brawl's problem was lack of character diversity.

1) There is less incentive to have a pocket Diddy, making it easier to focus on characters you actually want to play.

Actually, it requires a pocket Diddy, because you need some reason to have people ban him. (Sidenote, I'm pretty sure this thread was actually about Banning Diddy, not actually about Character Strikes)

2) Characters which are completely stopped by one or two hard counters suddenly become much more viable, again allowing you more freedom in choosing a character competitively.

...Unless the opponents ban them.

3) Instantly, the game becomes more interesting to watch for a number of reasons, the least of which being that you don't have long sets of 5+ games involving the same two characters on Smashville.

Now we have sets of 5+ games involving a different set of two characters on Smashville.

4) The game becomes more enjoyable to play, unless you live and die by the hoo hah, or love fighting against it every other round.

Or, you know, you don't like Diddy so no one bans him against you, and you wind up having to pick him because your main is banned.

I like Mega Man. Let's say my Mega Man is so good that people who play against me start banning him instead of Diddy. Then what? I never get to play Mega Man again?

Wrong.

I'll just use Rosalina, Mario, Luigi, Pac-Man, Lucario, or Bowser, all of whom I enjoy and play either well or competitively. How many times do you think people will lose to Rosalina before they decide to start taking their chances with Mega Man? You can make the argument that you only want to play as a certain character, and for beginners that is especially true, but I cannot think of any top-level competitors who do not have at least a secondary, if not thirds and beyond. Chances are that your character has at least one bad matchup, and most people will pick up a second to deal with it, even if they only want to play as that one character.

That's all well and good for you, but no offense, you're not M2K. You're not ZeRo. People at the top, people actually playing the game competitively, will not have this option. There is literally not enough time to master more than two or three characters on a competitive level, and knowing that your best character will never be an option means that you have to constantly train a character that you will never actually get to put into practice just so you can keep using your second best. Pro players only need to know two characters in-depth to be able to avoid losing the game to the banhammer, so they're going to master two characters. Instead of having one mastered character and two pockets, people are going to have two masters and juggle them.


I think a lot of the issues with your idea is that you don't seem to understand how much work goes into mastering a character for competitive play, or how people will react to the option of banning. You seem to have forgotten your own proposal and just assume that Diddy will be banned 100% of the time. If you want Diddy banned, advocate a Diddy ban. Allowing people to ban anyone they like each game funnels every player into playing the number 2 character every game. Instead of 40% Diddy Kong at a tournament, we'd be seeing 80% Sheik.

 

[Raijinken]

Strawman accusations get thrown around on Smashboards a lot, and never accurately.

At this point, probably the only way to enforce diversity is to have a Dave's Stupid Rule for characters, i.e. you can't play a character you won on. Kids still get to play their Diddy, and everyone else gets their diversity. You need, at most, three characters to play a grand finals Bo5 set, more than feasible for anyone who plays enough to think themselves ready for a tournament (especially in Smash4 where, again, there's relatively little character-specific tech).

But no matter how much sense it may make, or the benefits of promoting diversity (speaking of Customs) for players and spectators alike (matchup knowledge grows very quickly from this), it won't happen because it requires a stubborn playerbase to learn more than one character.

Also, I don't know a single beginner player who only uses a single character. Their problem is more frequently the opposite - too many they want to learn, and bar computers, often too little variety to learn matchups effectively.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Introducing a rule like this 5 months into the metagame which forces people to leave their optimal pick for a suboptimal pick/character is, quite frankly, a bad idea, in particular for people who consider themselves character specialists.

This is a competitive fighting game yes? At least, a competitive game.

It's not about being stubborn, it's about putting insurmountable work into one character because you may enjoy that character more than ANYONE else, even on a roster of 40+. Discarding the fact that there are players like that makes them feel alien, and it hurts.

Customs promote diversity in a way that doesn't force someone to pick other characters because "mirrors are bad." I don't think I have seen any community be upset over mirror matches more than this one....

 

[popsofctown]

I know lots of beginner players who only use a single character. Smash has gotten so old that a true beginner in the wild can be pretty rare to spot through the binoculars. I've seen really new beginners have trouble adjusting to new characters, spamming moves that are only good on their main Rob's roll or certain downairs. In the early stages of learning the game it can be very difficult to separate what new information is character specific and what new information is good for playing the game in general.

 

[digiholic]

Strawman accusations get thrown around on Smashboards a lot, and never accurately.

At this point, probably the only way to enforce diversity is to have a Dave's Stupid Rule for characters, i.e. you can't play a character you won on. Kids still get to play their Diddy, and everyone else gets their diversity. You need, at most, three characters to play a grand finals Bo5 set, more than feasible for anyone who plays enough to think themselves ready for a tournament (especially in Smash4 where, again, there's relatively little character-specific tech).

But no matter how much sense it may make, or the benefits of promoting diversity (speaking of Customs) for players and spectators alike (matchup knowledge grows very quickly from this), it won't happen because it requires a stubborn playerbase to learn more than one character.

Also, I don't know a single beginner player who only uses a single character. Their problem is more frequently the opposite - too many they want to learn, and bar computers, often too little variety to learn matchups effectively.

You see, this is a suggestion that holds water. By removing the opponent's ability to dictate the match with a strike, you can solve the problem in a way that doesn't degenerate into making a forced two-character system. I still think limiting a players choices of characters would lead to overall weaker gameplay due to training time constraints, but if a tournament were to be held with a Character DSR rule in place, I'd still watch it.

 

[Raijinken]

You see, this is a suggestion that holds water. By removing the opponent's ability to dictate the match with a strike, you can solve the problem in a way that doesn't degenerate into making a forced two-character system. I still think limiting a players choices of characters would lead to overall weaker gameplay due to training time constraints, but if a tournament were to be held with a Character DSR rule in place, I'd still watch it.

It still has its drawbacks. Especially between players who know each other well. If I know you've got two major threat characters and I have two characters that counter those but I'm not really as good at, it becomes extremely important to you that you get your characters when I'm not on my counter and can't swap to him, while I'm trying to ensure my odds against your threats. It turns partially into a gamble, which isn't really appropriate for Smash selections.

Every system has its downsides. I'd rather balance patches be the means of shaking the meta from time to time, but that's not really in the plans right now as far as any of us know. But it's probably the best way (well, if we get solid patch notes either from Nintendo -hah- or from experimentation) to allow players to pick their favorites and only have to adjust minimally to changes in move properties (though I'd feel sorry for those who main based on what's the best. Must be a rough way to live in a dynamic environment).

 

[HeroMystic]

Character DSR is plausible, but unnecessary. If we're going to put any character rule in place, it should be that the winner of a character is locked onto that character until the player loses.

But no matter how much sense it may make, or the benefits of promoting diversity (speaking of Customs) for players and spectators alike (matchup knowledge grows very quickly from this), it won't happen because it requires a stubborn playerbase to learn more than one character.

I'm going to give you a newsflash: There is plenty of character diversity in tournaments. They just don't reach Top 32 or shown on stream.

That said, you are severly overrating the importance of character diversity. Character Diversity is not a substitute for Character Balance.

 

[Raijinken]

Character DSR is plausible, but unnecessary. If we're going to put any character rule in place, it should be that the winner of a character is locked onto that character until the player loses.



I'm going to give you a newsflash: There is plenty of character diversity in tournaments. They just don't reach Top 32 or shown on stream.

That said, you are severly overrating the importance of character diversity. Character Diversity is not a substitute for Character Balance.

If we had balance, I've little doubt we'd see more diversity in the winning portions of tournaments.

And from the spectator stance, the only part that matters is what they can see. If there's no diversity on stream, then how would they know there was any diversity at all?

The importance of diversity depends on what a player wants, personally. I want more diversity in the higher ranks of tournaments because I interpret that as a sign of over-all balance. When I look at Brawl and see primarily defense and Metaknight, or at Melee and see primarily speedsters and spacefurries, and at 64 and see electric mice, and at Smash4 and see Diddy Kong, that's a sign there are balance issues. Of course, in all of those cases, it's not nearly as bad as I just implied. But especially while we're on the first actually patchable instance in the game, it's very disappointing that more isn't being done by either the players or Sakurai et co (bar the custom movement) to increase the variety in the higher levels of play.

 

[WillLi]

I agree with @ HeroMystic on the character diversity thing. There are several reasons why characters will be picked and why they won't. Most of these reasons will fall to different things about the innate mechanics of the characters and game. If there isn't diversity showing up in the top ranks there are reasons for it. And if you make a rule to force diversity that's all you're really doing is forcing it. You're not fixing the issues. And it's bound to crumble.

Just imagine how you would feel if you were in a big tourney, and in a position to maybe win the whole thing. But you get screwed because some character rule prevents you from using your best character when you need it to clench that victory for you? Especially if you knew you could've won if you could've used them.

And you say it's good for the spectators? Are you kidding? Imagine the same scenario, but all the fans of the guy that lost know he's good with that character he couldn't use then the forum gets flamed with "Thanks to you dumba** rules my man lost a tourney!" Yeah that's really gonna help the player and spectator community to see that on forums and streams.

 

[ninrok]

Strawman accusations get thrown around on Smashboards a lot, and never accurately.

At this point, probably the only way to enforce diversity is to have a Dave's Stupid Rule for characters, i.e. you can't play a character you won on. Kids still get to play their Diddy, and everyone else gets their diversity. You need, at most, three characters to play a grand finals Bo5 set, more than feasible for anyone who plays enough to think themselves ready for a tournament (especially in Smash4 where, again, there's relatively little character-specific tech).

But no matter how much sense it may make, or the benefits of promoting diversity (speaking of Customs) for players and spectators alike (matchup knowledge grows very quickly from this), it won't happen because it requires a stubborn playerbase to learn more than one character.

Also, I don't know a single beginner player who only uses a single character. Their problem is more frequently the opposite - too many they want to learn, and bar computers, often too little variety to learn matchups effectively.

Eww no. I can't agree with DSR for characters. :-p

Customs I agree with because its introducing new options. Its pretty akin to the "-isms" of the SF Alpha series or CvS's Groove system (though the first example is closer to customs since it granted some characters different moves).

Introducing DSR to character selection is straight-up arbitrarily nixing options because people don't want to be assed to deal with a matchup.

That said, I'd be willing to bet that neither of these two somehow make Diddy not top tier.

Character DSR is plausible, but unnecessary. If we're going to put any character rule in place, it should be that the winner of a character is locked onto that character until the player loses.

This I agree with, though that's just coming from being used to it in other games. :-p

 

[HeroMystic]

If we had balance, I've little doubt we'd see more diversity in the winning portions of tournaments.

And from the spectator stance, the only part that matters is what they can see. If there's no diversity on stream, then how would they know there was any diversity at all?

The importance of diversity depends on what a player wants, personally. I want more diversity in the higher ranks of tournaments because I interpret that as a sign of over-all balance. When I look at Brawl and see primarily defense and Metaknight, or at Melee and see primarily speedsters and spacefurries, and at 64 and see electric mice, and at Smash4 and see Diddy Kong, that's a sign there are balance issues. Of course, in all of those cases, it's not nearly as bad as I just implied. But especially while we're on the first actually patchable instance in the game, it's very disappointing that more isn't being done by either the players or Sakurai et co (bar the custom movement) to increase the variety in the higher levels of play.

People often seem to forget that Smash 4 is the most balanced game in the series thus far. While Diddy Kong is the best character in this game, he's no Melee Fox and he certainly isn't Brawl Metaknight. He simply has very strong neutrals that other characters have to work around and that'll put most characters on the backfoot. From what I know, Sheik, ZSS, Sonic, Ness, Fox, Luigi, and Mario have all won major tournaments. Even more have won locals or state-wide tournaments. I'm pretty sure nearly every character has made a Top 8 appearance before.

Every fighting game has balance issues and every fighting game has a best character. If we were a completely logical species we would all just play the best character, but we're not. Some has emotional attachment to characters while others simply don't like how a top tier plays. The moment you start placing rules on character selection (especially when it's as harsh as giving an opponent the ability to ban a character) is the moment you force every player, especially top level players, to think logically about their investments.

Overall, this just seems like a community that is still coming to terms with the fact that characters are not made equally and it's impossible to do so, and we're particularly spoiled by the fact that we have to make our own ruleset in order to have a healthy metagame.

 

[WillLi]

People often seem to forget that Smash 4 is the most balanced game in the series thus far. While Diddy Kong is the best character in this game, he's no Melee Fox and he certainly isn't Brawl Metaknight. He simply has very strong neutrals that other characters have to work around and that'll put most characters on the backfoot. From what I know, Sheik, ZSS, Sonic, Ness, Fox, Luigi, and Mario have all won major tournaments. Even more have won locals or state-wide tournaments. I'm pretty sure nearly every character has made a Top 8 appearance before.

Every fighting game has balance issues and every fighting game has a best character. If we were a completely logical species we would all just play the best character, but we're not. Some has emotional attachment to characters while others simply don't like how a top tier plays. The moment you start placing rules on character selection (especially when it's as harsh as giving an opponent the ability to ban a character) is the moment you force every player, especially top level players, to think logically about their investments.

Overall, this just seems like a community that is still coming to terms with the fact that characters are not made equally and it's impossible to do so, and we're particularly spoiled by the fact that we have to make our own ruleset in order to have a healthy metagame.

This reminded me of something Capcom said in reply so someone's statement about balance. I don't remember the exact words but it essentially summed up to "It's easy to make a fighting game with perfect balance. You just make it with only one character. But I don't think you want that, and it wouldn't be Street Fighter."

So yeah we got lots of characters, and they're not perfectly balanced, that's just how it is as Heromystic is saying. It comes with the territory.

 

[Ffamran]

This is incorrect. A character acts as an extension of a player's skills.

I would like to add onto the idea of weapons being an extension of a warrior's arm. So, if a warrior uses a rapier, it's a extension of him and not just some weapon; all of his skill is through the rapier. Now, let's take away his rapier and give him a dao. It's not going to work out well. A rapier is a stabbing weapon while a dao is a slashing weapon. Can he translate his rapier skills to a dao? Sure, but not enough to make full use of the dao. All he has are fundamentals of swordplay and even then, it's probably fundamentals to how a rapier works rather than general swordplay.

MMA is mixed martial arts. Most fighters can fight on the ground, stand-up, and by grappling, but most of them lean towards one which makes sense since say, a boxer will probably be better at stand-up while a judoka would be better at grappling. Imagine two opponents, one who's good at ground work and the other at stand-up, and after the ground-work fighter loses a round, he calls for a strike on stand-up. The stand-up is horribly screwed since his approach is to beat people without getting to the ground or rarely getting taken to the ground.

In theory, everyone can do anything, but almost everyone specializes in a few things. Nobody's a jack of all trades, master of all. In many cases, it's more of specialists or masters of none. So, Dabuz favors more defensive, zoning characters and in particular, Rosalina and Olimar. Imagine them getting struck. He only has like, Robin, Villager, Mega Man, Pac-Man, and Duck Hunt to choose from. None of which we know if he's good at. ZeRo's skill and understanding of the game is so high that he could pick anyone and play well. Not everyone's like that.

Stages themselves are more environmental. Fighting on angled footings might benefit one person while fighting on even footing benefits another. Characters, weapons, etc. aren't beneficial as they're more extensions rather than a place to deal with. Playing as Mario is all about my skill with the game and with Mario; nothing else and nothing more. He could be the most broken character in the game and it wouldn't matter since if I had no skill with Mario or didn't know much about the, I would be at a disadvantage.

Last thing, seriously, you're all mature enough to discuss without calling people out, insulting, brushing them off as idiots, and whatnot. I was considering asking someone to lock this thread if it got a bit too "heated". So, no more of this:

Just don't BS about character selection being somehow different or sacred from any other option in the game.

Maybe this.

Still a really lame idea.

Or perhaps this.

And you say it's good for the spectators? Are you kidding? Imagine the same scenario, but all the fans of the guy that lost know he's good with that character he couldn't use then the forum gets flamed with "Thanks to you dumba** rules my man lost a tourney!" Yeah that's really gonna help the player and spectator community to see that on forums and streams.

Also, for future reference, this is a straw man. From here: http://grammarist.com/rhetoric/straw-man-fallacy/.

In many instances, the person committing the straw man fallacy highlights the most extreme position of the opposing side—for example:

• Opposing argument: Teens should be taught about contraception methods so they can practice safe sex should they choose to have intercourse.
• Straw man argument: Proponents of sex education want to give kids license to have sex with no consequences.

This straw man argument ignores the things that make the issue of sex education complicated, and it boils down the opposing position to a narrow, extreme view.

In other cases, speakers commit the straw man fallacy by highlighting the actions of a minority of the opposing side—for example:

• Opposing argument: Bicycle infrastructure should be expanded because cycling is a sustainable mode of transportation.
• Straw man argument: We should not build bike lanes because cyclists run red lights and endanger pedestrians.

Here, the straw man argument ignores the positive aspects of bicycle infrastructure and focuses on the minority of cyclists who don’t follow traffic rules.

And some straw man arguments oversimplify the opposing viewpoint so it is easy to refute—for example:

• Opposing argument: Publicly funded healthcare should be enacted in the U.S. so all Americans can have equal access to the care they need to live full, happy, and productive lives.
• Straw man argument: In this age of government spending run amok, the last thing we need is another entitlement.

This argument ignores the complex issues surrounding publicly funded healthcare and resorts to generic rhetoric that pushes buttons but provides little substance.