PurpleEqualsDoom
Smash Cadet
- Joined
- Nov 11, 2005
- Messages
- 30
This is something I've always wondered if it was just over my head. Why not see what the tourament-level players think?
I've played this game for quite some time now, but I'm not to the insane point where I can glide on the surface via wavedashing or do short-hop attacks on command, etc. I am just quite good enough, however, to wonder if the game is generally not balanced.
It seems to me that some characters are just flat out worse or better than other characters, even maxed out. Some characters even seem broken. I think it has to do with the lacking balance between speed and strength. Normally, if both players are equally skilled, a duel between a small fast guy and a slow but strong dude, it would be a pretty even match. All characters should be equally deadly, but just have a different power to speed ratio. I feel this is not the case in SSBM. Bowser, which apparently sacrifices all speed for pure power, is universally seen as a broken character because for some reason it's a lie that he is strong. Marth, Fox, and Sheik are blindingly fast, and yet their blows are not any less powerful than most of Bowser's. Not only that, but it seems they forgot to implement the simple concept of resistence. The stronger a character is, the tougher he should be, meaning the impacts he receives are slightly weaker, in force and/or percentage. It doesn't feel like this is even the case either, meaning the bigger your character is, just means he's that much bigger of a target. Why is it that some characters are strong AND fast (Marth, Fox, Sheik), while others are just lacking in qualities alltogeather without something making it up?
For example, doesn't it seem only fair that the world's best Mewtwo user in the world have a good chance at beating the world's best Fox in the world? Unfortunately, I think that'd be a slaughter. Fox has blistering speed as well as superquick attacks that pack amazing power. Mewtwo on the other hand, is generally slow, his attacks are fairly sluggish and only adequately powerful, and his DownB and OverB specials are pretty much broken in serious combat. It's like you can decide a match before it starts unless it's between two of five or six of the "good" characters. So I feel like this game revolves too much around what character you have rather than how good you are.
The best evidence of what I'm trying to express here lies within the very existence of the character TIERS. Because of the fact that the characters differed so greatly in their levels of natural advantage and uncontrolled skill, fans actually determined exactly how good they were and seperated them into five levels of playability. Wonderful, now we can clearly tell who sucks and who doesn't. The tier of the character usually has priority over the skil of the player. I've seen hundreds of gorgious yet sad matches of Game&Watches vs Marths, Nesses vs. Falcos, and Mewtwos vs. Shieks, where the lesser character would be controlled by a player leagues better than the other, yet ultimately be defeated simply because it did not balance out the crappiness of their character and the overability of the other. The tiers are very blatent. Here is how I see what the tiers do to my view of the game now. There are always exceptions, however.
A- Overpowered: Used by super-serious players who usually care nothing for the character's identity, look, style, or flare. Their primary concern is to just win, win, win.
B- Good: Used by serious players whom usually have a taste for who the character IS,, while the character's higher advantage level is just kind of an added bonus.
C- Okay: Used either by casual players, or elites that've maxed out their skills for the sake of regularly using a character they personally find awesome, despite the comparison.
D- Bad: Used either by extreme noobs, or the best of pros as a means to humiliate much lesser opponents. Makes a joke out of the character and ultimately gives SSBM a bad name...
F- Broken: So underdeveloped that the character cannot function properly in most serious settings. Can even be glitchy in design to their own disadvantage. Generally neglected.
Looking over this again, I have to admit that their is some great potential excitement that can come from a high-skilled player using a low-tier character and actually being good, but it's a concept rarely seen anyway. Figuratively, these "tiers" are a shrine to SSBM being a digital version of Paper-Rock-Scissors. Okay vs broken, overpowered vs. okay, bad vs. good, this is not the way competitive video gaming should be. I think that EVERY character should be kind of the "C tier"; every character is okay, but their best potential can be unlocked or surpassed depending on the skill of the player. That's my ideal game. Maybe my priotrities in judging video games is warped, though.
Express your thoughts on this, especially if you're one of the wavedashing superelites tourny sharks I've seen videos of. If you have an amazing story of like a Pichu beating a Dr. Mario, do tell.
I've played this game for quite some time now, but I'm not to the insane point where I can glide on the surface via wavedashing or do short-hop attacks on command, etc. I am just quite good enough, however, to wonder if the game is generally not balanced.
It seems to me that some characters are just flat out worse or better than other characters, even maxed out. Some characters even seem broken. I think it has to do with the lacking balance between speed and strength. Normally, if both players are equally skilled, a duel between a small fast guy and a slow but strong dude, it would be a pretty even match. All characters should be equally deadly, but just have a different power to speed ratio. I feel this is not the case in SSBM. Bowser, which apparently sacrifices all speed for pure power, is universally seen as a broken character because for some reason it's a lie that he is strong. Marth, Fox, and Sheik are blindingly fast, and yet their blows are not any less powerful than most of Bowser's. Not only that, but it seems they forgot to implement the simple concept of resistence. The stronger a character is, the tougher he should be, meaning the impacts he receives are slightly weaker, in force and/or percentage. It doesn't feel like this is even the case either, meaning the bigger your character is, just means he's that much bigger of a target. Why is it that some characters are strong AND fast (Marth, Fox, Sheik), while others are just lacking in qualities alltogeather without something making it up?
For example, doesn't it seem only fair that the world's best Mewtwo user in the world have a good chance at beating the world's best Fox in the world? Unfortunately, I think that'd be a slaughter. Fox has blistering speed as well as superquick attacks that pack amazing power. Mewtwo on the other hand, is generally slow, his attacks are fairly sluggish and only adequately powerful, and his DownB and OverB specials are pretty much broken in serious combat. It's like you can decide a match before it starts unless it's between two of five or six of the "good" characters. So I feel like this game revolves too much around what character you have rather than how good you are.
The best evidence of what I'm trying to express here lies within the very existence of the character TIERS. Because of the fact that the characters differed so greatly in their levels of natural advantage and uncontrolled skill, fans actually determined exactly how good they were and seperated them into five levels of playability. Wonderful, now we can clearly tell who sucks and who doesn't. The tier of the character usually has priority over the skil of the player. I've seen hundreds of gorgious yet sad matches of Game&Watches vs Marths, Nesses vs. Falcos, and Mewtwos vs. Shieks, where the lesser character would be controlled by a player leagues better than the other, yet ultimately be defeated simply because it did not balance out the crappiness of their character and the overability of the other. The tiers are very blatent. Here is how I see what the tiers do to my view of the game now. There are always exceptions, however.
A- Overpowered: Used by super-serious players who usually care nothing for the character's identity, look, style, or flare. Their primary concern is to just win, win, win.
B- Good: Used by serious players whom usually have a taste for who the character IS,, while the character's higher advantage level is just kind of an added bonus.
C- Okay: Used either by casual players, or elites that've maxed out their skills for the sake of regularly using a character they personally find awesome, despite the comparison.
D- Bad: Used either by extreme noobs, or the best of pros as a means to humiliate much lesser opponents. Makes a joke out of the character and ultimately gives SSBM a bad name...
F- Broken: So underdeveloped that the character cannot function properly in most serious settings. Can even be glitchy in design to their own disadvantage. Generally neglected.
Looking over this again, I have to admit that their is some great potential excitement that can come from a high-skilled player using a low-tier character and actually being good, but it's a concept rarely seen anyway. Figuratively, these "tiers" are a shrine to SSBM being a digital version of Paper-Rock-Scissors. Okay vs broken, overpowered vs. okay, bad vs. good, this is not the way competitive video gaming should be. I think that EVERY character should be kind of the "C tier"; every character is okay, but their best potential can be unlocked or surpassed depending on the skill of the player. That's my ideal game. Maybe my priotrities in judging video games is warped, though.
Express your thoughts on this, especially if you're one of the wavedashing superelites tourny sharks I've seen videos of. If you have an amazing story of like a Pichu beating a Dr. Mario, do tell.