behemoth post ahead lads
There's a lot of commentary on the character ban process, but I think it's worth looking at a very under-observed area of how these things have started to develop. There really seem to be only be a handful of reasons character bans are even proposed;
Type #1: A character has standard tools that excel to the point where they severely outmatch the rest of the cast in terms of neutral play, and possibility other areas.
Type #2: A character has a punish game that is excessively good.
Type #3: A character is too based in RNG with certain RNG effects being too good.
Meta Knight is an interesting case because you can
very easily rely on comparative data to argue he's too good, the same way it was very easy to reference numbers alone in favor of a Cloud ban in Doubles format in Smash 4. The problem is that, with Hero, it's now the case where the majority of characters that have come under hard-ban discussion
do not fit this standard mold. This is a problem for a lot of reasons.
Note:
This is even more lopsided in favor of #2 being the standard issue Smash characters face when you look at Jigglypuff in Melee and Ice Climbers in Melee - two characters that have excessively good punish games and effectively "play a different game" than any other character. Rules have straight-up been implemented to avoid a ban on them.
However, Melee exists in its own aether, which is why the term "post-melee" exists, since it's essentially two larger communities with two smaller ones (PM, 64.) Older titles & mod titles are separate, Melee is separate, but all post-melee titles carry the same general playerbase & patterns.
Scary reasons for #2 being the standard issue:
1: There is a lacking perception, in comparison to #1, that the playerbase of this character is skilled. The consistency of this statement greatly increases when you look at how Ice Climber and Jigglypuff players are often treated in Melee. This is an injection of poison, and it's the starting issue that comes to ultimate define these kinds of characters.
2: The reaction to these characters is innately more negative because they enact their punish games in bursts comparative to an opponent "playing the game", in a traditional sense. This is why the former perception exists.
3: These characters are very often difficult to immediately optimize and thus very slowly infiltrate the metagame over a period of months to even years. By the time they become an issue, a playerbase already exists. This is true for #1, as well, but #1 does not have a lot of the issues #2 has.
4: The culmination of all of these traits result in a character that will steadily begin to infuriate people long-term.
Social media has advanced and developed significantly in terms of scale since the end of the Brawl era. In my mind, the Bayonetta crisis is exactly the cycle we can expect for
any Type #2 character in the modern metagame. The cycle is something like;
-Players of a type #2 character "appear" in a metagame sense. This may be initially tolerate or celebrated, but long-term, the repeat of excessive punish games will lead people to turn on these players, and new players that turn up later will likely be treated with hostility.
-These characters become progressively more prominent as time goes on because their tools have been optimized. Counterplay likely exists, but the core issue is that "counterplay" is a term that's largely applied but about 1%> of the active scene. Spectators who play online will likely not want to even fight these characters, let alone slog through the process of learning aforementioned counterplay.
-The optimized look of these characters is quintessentially "toxic" for viewers because it represents reason 2 - it happens in very sudden bursts. The longer these characters exist and the personalities using them exist,
the more likely it is that people will begin to associated the problem as the people using those characters. In Bayonetta's case, I think this was partially exaggerated by the showboating nature - in game, or out - of several of her prominent mains. Players that were less vocal or showy appeared to receive less hate (but it was still there.)
-A community war, naturally, begins. Accusations, anger, flaming, whatever - it all starts to fall apart because now people who will continue to be successful with Type #2 characters won't suddenly stop being successful. It will only get worse as they continually exist in the game. Failures they have will be celebrated, slights they make will be eaten at disproportionately, and after a certain point it's likely that on-scene crowds will get involved.
The end stages of this are where nobody wins; Player mains of these characters will inevitably become frustrated with a constant barrage of hate and likely lash out, which will then be attacked because the public perception ultimate becomes a mindset of "they threw the first punch by using the character or not dropping them."
We have seen this with
and
- I have no doubt this would've happened with
if the scene was as active as it was today, and the only thing stopping things getting extreme enough towards
is the fact that they are, all-in-all, kind of bad even with wobbling, and not really viable in upper brackets. I think Type #1 characters can experience similar hate, but in my opinion, it's more likely that it's either partially accepted, or the scene dies, since Type #1 characters will attract a higher number of top players since they appeal to traditional game fundamentals rather than extremes of one aspect of the game.
The social nature that this becomes makes it where banning is pretty much infeasible because it means capitulating to a side of the community who became increasingly ugly and/or aggressive. The frustrations of non-bayo players towards these pro-bayo-ban groups in 2018 was very clear - VoiD and MVD rebuking crowd chants, Keitaro and False aggressively ranting about the morally questionable behavior of people who attacked Tweek & Zack over maining her, the constant jabs at reddit (by far the most pro-ban location in the community by mid-2018), etc.
There was an impression that I got that the push to ban the character was infeasible by mid-2018 because the pro-ban movement learned nothing in the months since the debate started and continued to get more hostile, and nobody who ran the scene wanted to give in to them. It's hard to say if, Ultimate wasn't coming out in December of that year, if TOs would've eventually caved. I think they might have if reasonable pro-ban arguments were put forward (which I believe existed by July/August, data-wise.)
What does any of this have to do with Hero?
Well, I haven't discussed our newly crowned Type #3 character, because he just... exists, now, for some reason. I don't think anybody speaking in a competitive mindset will disagree that Hero is a terribly designed character. Menu is bad enough on its own, but he has several moves that scream "overpowered", but only exist tied to RNG ala Menu. Magic Burst will likely be the most commonly cited example of why he's an issue. Thwack/Wack on ledgetrapping will probably garner some talk.
*Hocus Pocus was discussed, but post-datamining, I think it's fair call it one of the worst moves in the game. It has a horrendous risk-reward ratio and is almost always going to be suboptimal in the situations you're selecting Menu for. There's around a 20% chance you just put yourself in a death scenario, a 20% chance you're greatly inconvenienced out of advantage state, a 45% or so chance what you do is useless, a 9% chance you get a decent common menu effect, and a 6% chance you actually become broken. It's atrocious
I think this is probably going to fall largely into the Type #2 camp if he's actually good, a proposal I don't really agree with. His frame data is bad, he lacks a lot of good combos in most situations, his Smashes (while silly if they crit) are slow and don't have great hitboxes, and he's a very slow, combo-able character. His best attributes are likely his neutral & side b.
I'm concerned about where we go as a community, however, if the character is viable enough to be picked up and used in late bracket - say, top 16 or so, because I do not believe his long-term reception will be very good. Bayonetta had the advantage of subterfuge via early nerfs (the initial reaction to her, like Hero, was aggressively bad) while Hero has a lot of issues that make nerfing his most absurd mechanics difficult. Crit Upsmash confirms are insane, Magic Burst is insane, and Thwack/Wack are good RNG die rolls if you're at a distance. (Thwack is about 45~ frame of startup counting the menu, if memory serves.)
Consider that we're living in a drama-infused scene at the moment where every week is meshed with something escalating somewhere, somehow, and mesh it with a newcomer or top player (especially a divisive one) picking up Hero and doing well. I don't think it will turn out well for anybody and will follow the same track as Type #2 does. It seems like a powder keg destined by Hero's horrendous game design, and
it's only the third of six, at minimum, DLC characters. God help us if there's a wave 2 and we're in 3 out of 11.
I don't know if this means we should look at bans more so than we should look at how controversies are handled, or something, but I'm a little concerned about the next 2-3 months. Smash Con will probably be quiet, but I can't say the same about Big House or Mainstage, or any potential late-year 2GG Saga.
I will be posting a ban-related poll on like Tuesday or Wednesday via a google form so I can word things well. The debate as it stands is about the innate anti-competitive nature of RNG, and the poll will reflect that, but I personally think the "soul of Smash" part will be dropped or sidelined the moment a Hero main does well, because any success could be seen as an excuse to ban in combination with his RNG mechanics.
As it stands, I think what we need - beyond a willingness to not act like lunatics or a willingness to maybe be more ban-happy - is some crisis management plan. We do not need another Smash 4 incident. I am not convinced that there has been much of any healing from that, outside of more people being willing to let the EVO Grands thing go and not dwell on it.
