Did Banning Meta Knight solve anything?

[clydeaker]

I usually play Smash Wii U and I've noticed a lot of people who wanted to ban Diddy Kong before he was patched, and now some players are wanting to limit or ban Custom Moves, Mii Fighters, or even characters all together. DISCLAIMER: this is not the place to discuss the controversial Smash 4 topics on the subject of Custom Moves, Mii Fighters, or Smash 4 in general.

Although I strongly appose to banning certain characters, moves, or play styles, It got me thinking... Did banning Meta Knight actually help Brawl and its Meta Game?

Brawl often gets a lot of hate because many people believe it's "unbalanced." Most of this is due to the idea that Meta Knight is "broken" and "over powered." I assume players thought removing the biggest out lier in the Tier List would help balance everything out. whether or not this helped I do not know.

From what I know many competitive Brawl players moved on to Project M or Smash 4 competitively not to long after Brawl became considered "unbalanced."

I understand no Smash game will ever be perfectly balanced, but did banning Meta Knight actually help at least balance 'vanilla' Brawl to a reasonable extent? Did another character take Meta Knights place as the quote "broken character?" How well did the non Meta Knight scene last compared to the scene where Meta Knight was allowed?

Smash 4's competitive scene started up a lot like how Brawls did. The last thing I want to happen to Smash 4 is to be considered "unbalanced," "broken," and "non-competitive." It would kill me to see in a few years the majority of Smash 4 player moving on to the next Smash game or mod while Smash 4's left behind in the dust. I want Smash 4 to be more like Melee where there are still large tournaments like EVO hosting it 13 years after its release date.

Will banning what people consider "jank" actually make the game better? or will it cause the community to move on to the the next new competitive game? Did banning Meta Knight actually help Brawl? Did it solve anything?

 

[カワシさん]

In my opinion it did, and it also made people put more effort into mastering the top-tier characters. Meta Knight, in addition to being broken was also easy to pick up and easy to use.

Being an Ice Climber main, I'd say that picking them up wasn't easy, and I had to put a lot of work into them. Same goes for Marth (which is also my main). Ice Climbers, Marth, and a few other top-high tier characters such as Snake (which I've been picking up) and Olimar require actual work and effort to master. Meta Knight, on the other hand, is very easy to pick up and easy to use. Banning Meta Knight both balances the game and makes players put more effort into alternative mains, in my opinion.

The only alternatives I could see would be Ice Climbers, Snake, and maybe Olimar. Then again, like I said, it takes a lot more work and effort to master then as opposed to Meta Knight.

 

[clydeaker]

In my opinion it did, and it also made people put more effort into mastering the top-tier characters. Meta Knight, in addition to being broken was also easy to pick up and easy to use.

Being an Ice Climber main, I'd say that picking them up wasn't easy, and I had to put a lot of work into them. Same goes for Marth (which is also my main). Ice Climbers, Marth, and a few other top-high tier characters such as Snake (which I've been picking up) and Olimar require actual work and effort to master. Meta Knight, on the other hand, is very easy to pick up and easy to use. Banning Meta Knight both balances the game and makes players put more effort into alternative mains, in my opinion.

The only alternatives I could see would be Ice Climbers, Snake, and maybe Olimar. Then again, like I said, it takes a lot more work and effort to master then as opposed to Meta Knight.

Thank you for sharing your opinion, I really appreciate it.

One thing I still don't understand is why so many players left Brawl for PM and Sm4sh even after Meta Knight was widely banned. Did the players still think of Brawl as somewhat broken even after banning Meta Knight? or was there another reason why they left Brawl?

 

[Dastardly Ridleylash]

I never wanted to get into competitive Brawl, mainly because of how defensive and rigid it felt. I found a lot of fun in Melee's fast-paced, fluid combat and felt Brawl went way too far in making the combat more...rigid and strict. You couldn't pull off any of the cool combos you could in Melee and it overall felt like the game, and by extension Sakurai, was FORCING you to play the way it wanted you to if you wanted to excel; which is, in my opinion, why Brawl was so lackluster in comparison to Melee. Fighting games live and die by the freedom they give the player, and Brawl gave you little.

I mean, which is more fun for a spectator; watching Mang0 and Leffen in the Grand Finals of a Melee tourney or having to sit through yet another Icie match in the Grand Finals of a Brawl tourney? Melee's far more suited for a competitive game because it's just as engaging for the viewers as it is for the players. Some of the **** people have done in Melee is ludicrous. It's hard not to love Melee's players because of how charismatic they can be. Not saying there aren't charismatic Brawl players, but Melee's been around so long and started as such a grassroots community that...honestly, I doubt Melee's ever going to die.