Diddy Kong Whining/Defense Thread

[iVoltage]

I think that diddy has always been good, but people will always flock to one certain character for a period of time. The meta will change and diddy will just be top teir and not "broken" as everyone is calling him.

 

[DunnoBro]

he wasn't generally a high tier fighter

...What?

 

[Byxis]

As a person who plays Smash semi-competitively, I understand why higher up and more advanced players would want to go Diddy. They play to win and money is on the line. If you want to win you'll use the best option available to do it. Simple as that. But you can't just pick Diddy and expect an automatic win. You're gonna get bopped.

That's why I'm happy sticking with characters that I like. I don't feel pressured to switch to anyone.

 

[daedgaem]

I am kind of curious how people keep saying "the meta will evolve". Sure, the game haven't been out for all that long, but it doesn't take that long figuring out the different perks of each character, as well as meaningful techs and so on.

Before anyone says "well it took x amount of time to find wavedashing/l-cancel in melee", that is indeed true. This game however, has a playerbase vastly bigger than melee had in the beginning, especially the competitive side. Not only that, but we have people dedicated to only finding techs/quirks with different characters. Smash 4 being released for a month can easily be compared to melee being out for a year.

This is just to put things in a bit of a perspective for you guys. It's not that certain the meta will change much further regarding diddy's incredible strength.

 

[Dre89]

I am kind of curious how people keep saying "the meta will evolve". Sure, the game haven't been out for all that long, but it doesn't take that long figuring out the different perks of each character, as well as meaningful techs and so on.

Before anyone says "well it took x amount of time to find wavedashing/l-cancel in melee", that is indeed true. This game however, has a playerbase vastly bigger than melee had in the beginning, especially the competitive side. Not only that, but we have people dedicated to only finding techs/quirks with different characters. Smash 4 being released for a month can easily be compared to melee being out for a year.

This is just to put things in a bit of a perspective for you guys. It's not that certain the meta will change much further regarding diddy's incredible strength.

It will when people learn to not approach him. Most of the higher tiers can force Diddy to approach and this can be exploited against him. The meta will naturally turn more defensive as people start fleshing out character frame data and options. People will also start learning how to gimp his recovery and learn mixup options to avoid his dthrow combo. Contrary to popular belief, dthrow-aerial is not guaranteed past low percents if the opponent DIs up and away from Diddy. Diddy will still be in a good position with frame advantage but he still has to get a read to land a hit.

 

[Dissent]

I've been reciting a lot of this since the start and few seem to listen. People lose to the character and claim it's the character at fault, then it ruins the fun for many and possibly gets the character nerfed hard either officially or by the community (Bans). Diddy has a lot of very safe options, but so does a lot of the cast when they are played defensively and properly. Diddy is predictable in many situations and it's great because we take advantage of that against other players that don't see it. When they use it against us, it's frustrating.

Here's a tip; You have our banana? Well, you now can't grab or use A-attacks easily without losing the banana, so we're going to go all in and stay in your face. It works gloriously. So if we pull a banana and grab it, use this against us (unless you are at high percent and the risk doesn't outweigh the reward). Understand that we're likely to use SideB at certain ranges with it in hand (Spot dodge/priority/pivot grab is your friend), put us in the air, get some combos in, and then when we finally toss the banana you retreat and play defense because our A-button game is back.

I'd say it's an improving situation, though. While it's frustrating to be told off as being a tier abuser* and such (Yes, let me just abandon my five year main because tires exits), more and more high level players are noticing the chinks in Diddy's armor. He's easy to pick up and hard to fight against without a lot matchup experience/game expertise, but the same can be said about Marth in Melee who can win with nothing but JCGrab, FAir and wavedash FSmash.

*Term exchanged because the one you're likely thinking I'd rather use was censored.

I am kind of curious how people keep saying "the meta will evolve". Sure, the game haven't been out for all that long, but it doesn't take that long figuring out the different perks of each character, as well as meaningful techs and so on.

If you played or followed Brawl, Diddy's timeline went something like this.
Year 1: Meh.
Year 2: There's potential.
Year 3: Ugh, glide toss -> whatever is so stupid.
Year 4: M2K: BETTER THAN METAKNIGHT FOR SURE
Year 5: Just kidding, everyone figured out how to use bananas and fight his defensive play with more defensive play.

Meta doesn't just involve techs, it's also about finding the appropriate way to maximize winning and shifting playstyles.

 

[daedgaem]

I am not saying it is not possible for the game to evolve, merely pointing out how easily you guys seem to laugh it off. I've already explained the reasoning in my beliefs, considering how many hours people spend simply playing now, in comparison to melee. Metas, techs, playstyles, counters and what not, develops and gets discovered much faster. By the looks of it, a lot of people are struggling in finding the flaws of diddy.

 

[Dissent]

I am not saying it is not possible for the game to evolve, merely pointing out how easily you guys seem to laugh it off. I've already explained the reasoning in my beliefs, considering how many hours people spend simply playing now, in comparison to melee. Metas, techs, playstyles, counters and what not, develops and gets discovered much faster. By the looks of it, a lot of people are struggling in finding the flaws of diddy.

Having played Brawl competitively at tournaments for many years, I can definitely confirm that playstyles change sporadically and shift the tier list, regardless of pure tech. All it would take would be for TO's to introduce some of the stages that damage you to completely change things around. Brawl tournaments for the first three+ years regularly saw Norfair, Brinstar, Rainbow Cruise, Frigate, Halberd, Pictochat, Pirate Ship, PS2. Sometimes even Green Greens, Luigi's Mansion, Port Town Aero Dive, and Distant Planet. These are all stages that could either kill you or be used to camp. If we get out of the mentality of Brawl and push for more open stage legality, the meta and tier list will shift dramatically over time.

 

[daedgaem]

Notice how one part of the tier list never change? What makes you so certain that same part is going to change about smash 4's tier list? This doesn't exactly strengthen your argument to be fair. What makes you think people aren't better at figuring this stuff out by now? Just saying m8.

 

[Dissent]

You're not getting it. The more we shifted towards neutral stages, the more characters like ICs, Diddy, Zamus, etc rose and characters that relied on stage gimmicks fell. The end of the tier list was comprised of characters with terrible matchups, poor recovery and approach options. These were very important things in the defensive world of Brawl. The top shifted less because they were characters that would were good in all situations on any map type.

 

[Kiyosuki]

You have to remember that twitch chats are a very tricky place to gauge general sentiments because of all the trolls, and the fact that after a certain amount of viewers and for certain events (especially competitive ones) it becomes a glorified shout box more than a chat, and most have absolutely no filter on themselves when in that environment. That's not even mentioning the fact most viewers don't even have the chat open, it's usually a very vocal minority of the viewership.

So in other words, when it comes to more in depth topics like whether Diddy truly is OP or broken or "ruining watchability" or not, it's probably not the best place as opinions can shift on the drop of a dime and most of the time people in twitch chats just lemming eachother.

When it comes to gauging very general trends though, you could maybe get a bit of a window into what's going on....and in that respect yeah, Diddy's not very good for the watchability of the stream at a glance. Nobody likes the top tier character thats picked all the time, people boo Zero/Vergil, crazy boo'd Yun when he was ridiculous. It's especially noticable in fighting games because of the 1 v 1 matchup nature of them. However, I don't think Diddy alone is necessarily to blame...I love this game so don't get me wrong, but I think Sm4sh isn't necessarily the strongest spectator game at the moment. I'd argue in general even Melee isn't, except for very specific matches that do bring in a lot of hype...but for most matches it's pretty ResidentSleeper in the chat to anyone other than the very core Melee playerbase. Smash games to me have always been extremely hit or miss when it comes to how exciting they are to watch imo.

All of that said though, I'd just continue playing this game as you will and see where things go. You have to see where the natural progression of the games' meta takes you and if its down a way that isn't very stream friendly, then that's just how it is. But you never do know, that can turnaround in an instant all it takes is one upstart using some character the twitch lemmings didn't see coming having a series of really hyped up matches and that changes in an instant.

So just play the game, that's all you can do. Maybe, even if its against general tournament instinct, TRY to give other characters other than the immediately trendy top tiers some love and a chance because you do never know, matchups are rarely black and white, which will lead to variety that does look good on stream but that shouldn't be a priority for you if you don't want it to be.

 

[daedgaem]

I am getting it, I think you are on the other hand arent. I was clearly implying that the top spot never changed, in other words, Meta Knight kept his spot forever. Something there's a very high chance diddy will do, if they are done with the balance patches that is. Not saying it is guaranteed, but there seems to be a very high probability. Also, I would assume bull**** stages gets banned in this game, which in turn leaves relatively "vanilla" stages open in this game. Considering how easily you can recover in this game, the overall decent balance and difficulties of gimping, i highly doubt you'll see how shifts in which characters are considered strong and not.

 

[Ultimastrike]

Double post.

 

[Fatmanonice]

I only slightly agree because, while I do think a lot of people have quickly adopted a pocket Diddy, I feel like a lot more characters are actually being given a chance with this game compared to Brawl. From what I've seen, Olimar and Zelda are the only characters that people seem to be treating like lost causes and even royally nerfed characters like Falco and Game and Watch have some drive behind them to make them better characters. As said, it's still early in the metagame but I don't think the situation is all that dire as of yet.

 

[LancerStaff]

I'll be honest, the fun in watching Smash period died long ago for me. Diddy ain't exactly helping, but overall Smash 4 is probably the most interesting game right now because of how little we understand it. Diddy will inevitably get the nerf hammer in the next patch, although the patch won't be any time soon. And even then we'll probably find something that kills his viability by the time it comes.

Just buck up and wait a little while, maybe watch some smaller tournaments instead of what you're watching now.

 

[Dissent]

I dunno, this had me semi-hyped and proves Diddy isn't entirely boring to watch;

 

[Tobi_Whatever]

Eh, just watched the shi_gaming tournament and the newmetastream tournament.
Both ended with a Diddy winning and especially the Japanese tournament left me very salty.
The American tournament was a disaster. The whole chat constantly hated on ZeRos Diddy, especially because he switched to Diddy in one match as soon as he was losing.
Even the commentators behaved very unprofessional by having an incredible bias against Diddy.
I don't even think he is that much of a problem tier wise. I have seen enough streams where he barely got into top 3 after all.
Fact is though he is everywhere and he is boring and predictable to watch. He ruins any fun for the viewers if he wins.

I for one close streams as soon as only Diddy's are left and there is nothing worse in Smash 4 than diddy mirrors in GFs.

I'll be honest, the fun in watching Smash period died long ago for me. Diddy ain't exactly helping, but overall Smash 4 is probably the most interesting game right now because of how little we understand it. Diddy will inevitably get the nerf hammer in the next patch, although the patch won't be any time soon. And even then we'll probably find something that kills his viability by the time it comes.

Just buck up and wait a little while, maybe watch some smaller tournaments instead of what you're watching now.

Sakurai said no more balance patches. If the Mewtwo patch won't bring a new balance patch then there won't be a new one at all.

 

[lijero13ss]

Sakurai better be working on rebalancing Diddy or else Smash 4 will become exactly like Brawl: Too much Meta Knight and it will lead to Smash 4's competitive scene's death. In all seriousness, nobody wants another Brawl where only one character is used and it starts getting boring, etc etc.

You know there is a problem where the top 16 of smash 4 tournaments are all diddy kong dittos....and anyone who dares to choose someone that's not diddy gets wrecked.

Please sakurai, you need to save Smash Wii U! Its not even Apex yet and everyone already sees this turning into Smash Wii U's Meta Knight, which im sure everyone can agree that NOBODY wants

 

[Tobi_Whatever]

Sakurai better be working on rebalancing Diddy or else Smash 4 will become exactly like Brawl: Too much Meta Knight and it will lead to Smash 4's competitive scene's death. In all seriousness, nobody wants another Brawl where only one character is used and it starts getting boring, etc etc.

You know there is a problem where the top 16 of smash 4 tournaments are all diddy kong dittos....and anyone who dares to choose someone that's not diddy gets wrecked.

Please sakurai, you need to save Smash Wii U! Its not even Apex yet and everyone already sees this turning into Smash Wii U's Meta Knight, which im sure everyone can agree that NOBODY wants

Dude you're overblowing this a bit. Diddy is maybe winning half the Tournaments right now. Sometimes Diddy doesn't even reach top 3, even when good Diddys are participating.

 

[Dissent]

Dude you're overblowing this a bit. Diddy is maybe winning half the Tournaments right now. Sometimes Diddy doesn't even reach top 3, even when good Diddys are participating.

"But I lost to a bunch of noob Diddy Kongs and I've been playing since 64 so clearly he's stupid and broken" seems to be the argument that's spreading. This kind of thing happens with every fighter, there is an "easy" and "cheap" character/combination and after a bit everyone realizes how to combat it.

 

[Tobi_Whatever]

"But I lost to a bunch of noob Diddy Kongs and I've been playing since 64 so clearly he's stupid and broken" seems to be the argument that's spreading. This kind of thing happens with every fighter, there is an "easy" and "cheap" character/combination and after a bit everyone realizes how to combat it.

I do think he is a problem though.
That he is ruining streams right now is an obvious fact to me.
I'm not a professional so I can't really judge if people just haven't found a decent anti Diddy strategy yet or if he is downright badly balanced but I sure hope an adequate solution, either from good players or Sakurai himself, comes soon.

 

[Dissent]

I do think he is a problem though.
That he is ruining streams right now is an obvious fact to me.
I'm not a professional so I can't really judge if people just haven't found a decent anti Diddy strategy yet or if he is downright badly balanced but I sure hope an adequate solution, either from good players or Sakurai himself, comes soon.

I see it as this; He's easy to pick up and beats new and intermediate players with ease. He beats expert players but has a tendency to lose if the opponent has MU experience and knows his tricks.

 

[Tobi_Whatever]

I see it as this; He's easy to pick up and beats new and intermediate players with ease. He beats expert players but has a tendency to lose if the opponent has MU experience and knows his tricks.

It that would be the case, Diddy wouldn't win the majority of tournaments and ZeRo would have lost his last tournament because he was losing before he switched to Diddy. Everyone was expecting him to use Diddy anyway.

 

[Earthbound22]

About the nerf hammer…pretty sure Sakurai said no more balancing patches.

 

[Tobi_Whatever]

About the nerf hammer…pretty sure Sakurai said no more balancing patches.

He said he will balance stuff he considers an issue. I don't think Diddy qualifies as an issue though.

 

[M-Z]

It that would be the case, Diddy wouldn't win the majority of tournaments and ZeRo would have lost his last tournament because he was losing before he switched to Diddy. Everyone was expecting him to use Diddy anyway.

I noticed people doing this in for glory as well, whenever I repeatedly beat them tor 2 stock them they resort to using diddy like a final trump card lol

 

[Dissent]

It that would be the case, Diddy wouldn't win the majority of tournaments and ZeRo would have lost his last tournament because he was losing before he switched to Diddy. Everyone was expecting him to use Diddy anyway.

You're talking about the big tournaments with several pro players. If one of the best players gets Diddy put in his hands, then yes, I would expect him to win versus someone who doesn't. I said he has a tendency, which means that he does but not always.

Also, this completely disagrees with you.

 

[Tobi_Whatever]

You're talking about the big tournaments with several pro players. If one of the best players gets Diddy put in his hands, then yes, I would expect him to win versus someone who doesn't. I said he has a tendency, which means that he does but not always.

Also, this completely disagrees with you.

I'd rather say that agrees with me. He has more tournament wins than the next two characters together.
And even if someone figures out a character that works well against Diddy, all this would lead to would be stupid rock paper scissors matchups that completely defy the meaning of a main.

 

[Dissent]

I'd rather say that agrees with me. He has more tournament wins than the next two characters together.
And even if someone figures out a character that works well against Diddy, all this would lead to would be stupid rock paper scissors matchups that completely defy the meaning of a main.

Compared to...?

And that's what high level competitive games are, rock paper scissors. This is the only game where people seem to feel this entitlement to not have to have extra characters for bad matchups.

 

[Tobi_Whatever]

Compared to...?

And that's what high level competitive games are, rock paper scissors. This is the only game where people seem to feel this entitlement to not have to have extra characters for bad matchups.

Why do you show me the brawl statistic? To show me that Diddy is nearly as broken as MK? That can't be your intention because this is simply not the case.
Showing me that something worse is possible is a very bad argument.

 

[Dissent]

Why do you show me the brawl statistic? To show me that Diddy is nearly as broken as MK? That can't be your intention because this is simply not the case.
Showing me that something worse is possible is a very bad argument.

You said "He has more tournament wins than the next two characters together." I'm showing you that this being a thing isn't exactly news. Fox in Melee's rankings is damn close to double as well.

 

[Tobi_Whatever]

You said "He has more tournament wins than the next two characters together." I'm showing you that this being a thing isn't exactly news. Fox in Melee's rankings is damn close to double as well.

And guess what, MK is one of the biggest reasons why Brawl failed and was an unwatchable mess.
Melee would be more problematic too if it wasn't so highly technical compared to it's successors.
There is a reason why "No items, only Fox, Final Destination" exists.

Again, just because it was worse once it's still not ok. Especially now when we actually have the possibility of a balance patch.

 

[Dissent]

Brawl failed

unwatchable mess.

I played Brawl at tournaments from 2010 to 2013 at what point does it become a failure? And there were a lot of people that actually enjoyed watching Brawl, it took understanding the technical skill involved. People watch Golf, it's boring to most people until you understand the skill involved :\

 

[Tobi_Whatever]

I played Brawl at tournaments from 2010 to 2013 at what point does it become a failure? And there were a lot of people that actually enjoyed watching Brawl, it took understanding the technical skill involved. People watch Golf, it's boring to most people until you understand the skill involved :\

Well Apex 13 was the hypest stuff ever but 14 was boring to many, regarding GFs. Guess why.

 

[JingleJangleJamil]

Don't watch it then? Go play the game instead.

It just is not that simple, Diddy is being used by so many players now that almost any match can find has someone using Diddy in it. Telling someone to not watch Diddy matches is basically like telling them to not watch matches at all.

 

[GameWatching]

Both Sonic and Diddy ruined the game's watchability.
At this point, i wish they weren't in the game AT ALL (but that's just me)

 

[Tobi_Whatever]

Both Sonic and Diddy ruined the game's watchability.
At this point, i wish they weren't in the game AT ALL (but that's just me)

Diddy would be ok if he wasn't everywhere and Villager is worse than both.

 

[GameWatching]

Diddy would be ok if he wasn't everywhere and Villager is worse than both.

At least Villager players aren't constantly spamming the same tactics.

 

[Jakester897]

Please note that I am not requesting Diddy Kong to be banned. In fact, I am against nearly all bans. This is just an exploration of a more minor possibility if Diddy Kong actually does turn out to be as good as whiners seem to think.

Diddy Kong has been quite polarizing lately. It's obvious that the fans don't like watching him; videos of competitive matches in which he is used often get complaints in the comments and have a relatively low like/dislike ratio. GimR has even requested that people refrain from disliking just for Diddy [1].

However, when talks of a ban arise, most competent people agree that a ban, especially at this stage in the metagame, is unwarranted. After all, tournaments haven't gotten even close to Meta Knight levels of Diddy dominance. Still, though, players have complained about playing against Diddy Kong, and the metagame could potentially become more diverse without him, although this is not likely. This kind of situation would call for a soft ban.

For those not familiar with the concept of a soft ban, it's basically an agreement among top players not to use a certain character or tactic, but this "ban" is not actually enforced. Basically, instead of being prevented, Diddy usage would just be strongly discouraged.

For two examples of soft bans at work, we can look at the Street Fighter 2 Turbo scene.
In America, the character Akuma is hard banned. His air fireballs are very good, his moves are very powerful, and he's basically unbeatable. He was not designed to be balanced with the rest of the cast. He was intentionally made overpowered; this was obvious, and thus, the ban was done without question.
However, in Japan, Akuma is only soft banned. The best players all know that Akuma is too good, and they agree not to use him to ensure a diverse metagame. Players who do choose Akuma are always wrecked in tournaments because they're not good enough to use him effectively. This achieves the same goal of purging Akuma from the metagame, but without tournament rules being the dictator.

In SF2T, there is another very good character: Old Sagat. He is good enough to win against certain characters without much effort, making those characters inviable. Other characters have to put in a lot of work to win, but it's doable. However, he is not above and beyond like Akuma; in fact, he's not even unquestionably the best in the game. He's like the Brawl Dedede of SF2T; he determines a lot of tier placements, but he's not Meta Knight good.
None of that applies in Japan, though, where he has a soft ban. This soft ban allows the characters with bad match-ups against Old Sagat but decent matchups otherwise to flourish. Some argue that this creates a better, more diverse game, but others say it's scrub-like. However, note that a good player could still enter and place well in a Japanese tournament using Old Sagat; it would just be heavily disliked by fans and fellow players [2].

The question still remains on the table, though: could Diddy ever receive a soft ban?
On one hand, playing as Diddy is already hated by many fans, and it can be viewed as an easy-mode, no-dignity move. This is already potentially the makings of a soft ban.
On the other hand, we still don't really know if he's as good as we think since the game is so young. Additionally, ZeRo, Mew2King, and other professionals remain steadfast in their Diddy use, which makes a soft ban almost impossible. Smash is also very different from Street Fighter, and a soft ban could have negative effects in this scene, especially considering that characters can't be changed mid-set in Street Fighter.

What do you guys think? What conditions would have to be present for a soft ban to be warranted?

[1]: http://youtu.be/Hm-R7Tlsr5g
[2]: http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/what-should-be-banned

 

[Hameed Ziabari]

How is this any different from someone on stream saying 'dont play diddy'? No one gives a **** about peoples opinions, or people having fun. The only reason a meta knight ban was even considered was because he would take up 6 of the top 8 slots in most majors. Unless we see diddy do that, it doesnt matter that hes good.