Hardest Characters to Play Debate

[IronSquid]

The character: FOX
The reason: EVERYTHING

'Nuff said. Now please move along to the next debate so I can give you all some more of my eternal, infinite wisdom.

 

[Wobbles]

Excuse me, I meant "your out of your element" in that you made a coherent intelligent post in such a thread!

I was being intentionally obtuse but I didn't mean to single you out for your content (which is why my post didn't respond to any of your points) but rather your form. My bad.

Okie dokie. I won't throw a controller at you.

 

[john!]

I am glad we can easily ignore the things I posted and, rather than respond to them individually, just say "NOPE CAN'T BE DONE."

if i took your approach, i'd probably do a worse job because i don't have your level of expertise or tournament experience. your analysis seems very good, but your approach to the question itself is suboptimal because it is too easily influenced by subjective differences (even in a mostly impartial and generally logical post like yours).

in a scientific problem (and this IS a scientific problem; we're drawing conclusions about a complex system using information from that system) the hypothesizing is supposed to take place before the results are obtained. in this case, though, we have extensive results from hundreds of tournaments of nearly every level of play, which can be analyzed for character usage patterns, which in turn indicate a given character's difficulty. theorizing about the metagame at this point is like trying to predict the results of an election when all the ballots are already in front of you waiting to be counted.

 

[Wobbles]

I can only partly see which parts are subject to bias.

Stricter timing windows are more difficult. As skill and practice increase, this becomes less of a factor.

Any kind of reaction test will show you that the more options you must choose from to match a stimulus, the slower the reaction time becomes.

These are the metrics I want to use. Still not subjective, really.

Tournament results don't tell us who is more difficult to play, necessarily, because there are too many variables: people. All the people playing Pikachu before Axe (and I guess Azen and Chu when they messed around with him) were not skilled enough players to take him to the level he can currently be played at.

There are a lot of ****ty space animal players. There are more ****ty space animal players than there are ****ty Peaches.... but that has a lot to do with spacey saturation, and not necessarily how hard Fox and Falco are to play. More people want to play Fox and Falco so you will see more good AND bad players of those characters. If you only have a 1% chance of seeing a top-tier player devoting themselves to a given character, and there are like 5 Roy mains in the country, the odds of them shaking tournament results and bringing that character's potential to light are kind of low.

And yes, our top players that actually advance character metagames are that rare. Probably MORE rare than 1%.

You are right, there's a small amount of subjectivity involved. By the standards I've established, ICs are harder to play well than Fox or Falco. The weird thing is though, because of my skillsets as a human being, they are much easier for me to play than Fox or Falco.

That, however, is why my analysis tries to list things that can be objectively measured. Timing windows, number of options, range and duration of moves, risk factors given what we currently know about punishment options, punishment power of a given character (and then the windows, forgiveness, and risk factors of those punishment options).

Some people think it's really easy to hit buttons fast but they have ****ty spatial judgment, so instead of pressuring with tipped b-air or d-air they opt for frame perfect shield pressure. But that doesn't reduce the difficulty and the window of doing shield pressure, it just says "they are really good at this particular skill, so they excel when playing in situations that emphasize it." It doesn't say anything about the character at all, and subjectiveness can be ignored--especially if you go out of your way to ignore statements like "I think this is really easy lolololol" as anecdotal evidence.

If you want to take stuff like that into account, however, so you can make the subjectivity part of the analysis in a more useful way, you can categorize those elements of difficulty by the type of skill it takes to do them. Motor skills, spatial perception, reflexes, response inhibition, knowledge base... things like these can tell a player which character he/she is more likely to find difficult/easy to play, based on things they tend to be more skilled at.

Why do I play ICs over other characters? Because my greatest skill is maintaining a wide knowledge base in my head, and their massive variety of tricks and gimmicks capitalizes off that. I still surprise even the people I train with most frequently with some of the nonsense I know how to do. ICs don't have many technically demanding elements, and the things that ARE hard tend to be timing-based rather than speed-based (and I'm much better and finding and maintaining timing patterns than executing rapid-fire motor commands). But they are very difficult in terms of risk factor, because losing Nana drastically decreases your power and you can lose her off a single mistake, and then the matchup becomes drastically skewed against you. They are also tough because their hitboxes, despite having decent range and disjointedness, usually have small windows of activity, and I'm not the best at spacng those in the heat of a match. Which moves do I rely on most then? Blizzard and u-air are my staples in most matchups because of how long they last and how much space they control, and how they cover for my lack of skills in other areas. You could do this for other characters and players.

If you wanted, I guess.

 

[choknater]

i play most of the characters, and i find yoshi the most technically demanding.

for me it goes

yoshi
fox
ice climbers
mew2

i mean, as far as execution goes, i find those characters the most difficult.

 

[Yo$himan]

Yoshi Parries

/thread

 

[V3ctorMan]

i play most of the characters, and i find yoshi the most technically demanding.

for me it goes

yoshi
fox
ice climbers
mew2

i mean, as far as execution goes, i find those characters the most difficult.

Yoshi Parries

/thread

@Wobbles - I agree 100% with Wobbles statement(s)
I'm workin on the Roy though mmk ^^ <3

 

[V]

Looking at what Wobbles has covered in previous posts (which were eloquent and essentially non-debatable) the most difficult characters to play well at a high level, out of what are generally considered tournament viable characters (Fox > Samus), are the following in no particular order:

ICs, Marth, and Peach.

Factoring technical proficiency needed, intellectual demand, on the spot decision making, reaction time, and finesse/precision required to be successful with, these three are in my opinion (which I'm not declaring is fact) the hardest characters to play.

 

[Leviathan741]

Looking at what Wobbles has covered in previous posts (which were eloquent and essentially non-debatable) the most difficult characters to play well at a high level, out of what are generally considered tournament viable characters (Fox > Samus), are the following in no particular order:

ICs, Marth, and Peach.

Factoring technical proficiency needed, intellectual demand, on the spot decision making, reaction time, and finesse/precision required to be successful with, these three are in my opinion (which I'm not declaring is fact) the hardest characters to play.

I am assuming that you are saying they are harder than fox. I thoroughly disasgree. Fox is the hardest imo but as far as saying those could be top 5, I agree.

 

[V]

Fox is technically hard, not mentally hard, and he also has a much larger margin for error than those three which is why I didn't list him.

 

[Yo$himan]

Well, I can pretty much do everything with yoshi except for parries, I probably wouldn't put him down as hard to play technically. It's more like you just have to out think your opponent. I love spacing with yoshi and then mixing it up by going super aggressive. There's nothing more satisfying than getting a grab with yoshi and tech chasing.

Since I moved away from all the smashers in the state, I think I'll try out ice climbers for a little while, since they don't require an opponent except for when you want to space.

 

[Leviathan741]

Fox is technically hard, not mentally hard, and he also has a much larger margin for error than those three which is why I didn't list him.

Sure, valid point.

 

[Warhawk]

Fox is technically hard, not mentally hard, and he also has a much larger margin for error than those three which is why I didn't list him.

Fox is still mentally hard I think. He has to be slippery and recognize when someone's going to attempt to corner him. At lower levels he can use tech skill and his general good moveset as a crutch so as not to worry as much about it, but at higher levels he has to avoid set ups that can result in his stock or a very long combo due to his own vulnerabilities to gimps and combos.

 

[Blu]

I can only partly see which parts are subject to bias. ...
... If you wanted, I guess.

I'm in love with this guy. He takes these concepts with extensively detailed elements, that we're struggling to align, and puts them in perfect order.

Amazing.

 

[TheCrimsonBlur]

fox is still mentally hard i think.

NAIR SO HARD MO****ERS WANNA GRAB ME

that **** gay

 

[Wizzrobe]

I agree that IC's is probably the hardest. they make no sense to me lol.

 

[choknater]

yoshi is just freakin hard in every aspect lol

Spoiler

scar

 

[Van.]

The Marth lobbyists are crackin' me up. Marth shouldn't be on anyones list.

 

[JonnyW]

1.Yoshi
2.Kirby
3.Pichu
4.Bowser
5.Zelda

Yoshi so good though haha.

 

[choknater]

kirby, pichu, bowser, and zelda are all quite easy to master technically

and the only reason it seems difficult to play them at a high level is because you have to be so careful and choose your moves wisely in order to not get whooped by better characters.

yoshi, on the other hand, is hard to play in every aspect.

 

[Bing]

Yoshi is too good, once you get them combos down they're so ****.

 

[JonnyW]

Yoshi should go higher on the tier list.

 

[adechrist]

No character is hard to play. You just pick your the character from the character selection screen, press start, pick a stage, and BAM! You're playing the character.

Or by hardest to play, are we talking about which character is hardest to win with? Cause then that would be the tier list... The characters at the bottom of the tier list have the hardest time getting the first hit, comboing, punishing, covering options, getting out of combos, edgeguarding, etc... That's why they suck. They require much more precision and good decision making than higher tier characters.

So yeah; Pichu, Kirby, Bowser, and Ness are the hardest to play.

 

[Wobbles]

adechrist:

Great work.

You contributed nothing.

 

[t3h Icy]

<3 Wobbles! :D

 

[adechrist]

If your character has nothing but high risk options with small window sizes that only work in specific scenarios and require years of practice to execute, then I think we would say your character is pretty difficult; you need good timing, execution, and decision making, and screwing up will kill you.

To me it sounds like you're describing low tier characters. Low tier characters have the fewest options, their only good options have high risk and low reward. High risk because they're not likely to turn into damage; their moves are slow, or have small range, or little priority. If they're not precise, they won't get damage and they'll probably get hit. This is made even worse by the fact that low tiers are usually light, or easily comboed, or easily edguarded. So if you screw up, your opponent will kill you. It's low reward because you have small combos, or weak attacks, or don't have the options needed to keep control of the match, or edgeguard well. Can you not see where I'm coming from? That your definition of "hard character to play" is the same as what a low tier character is? If you think a high tier character is harder to play than a low tier character, then you're arguing that the tier list is wrong.

 

[john!]

To me it sounds like you're describing low tier characters. Low tier characters have the fewest options, their only good options have high risk and low reward. High risk because they're not likely to turn into damage; their moves are slow, or have small range, or little priority. If they're not precise, they won't get damage and they'll probably get hit. This is made even worse by the fact that low tiers are usually light, or easily comboed, or easily edguarded. So if you screw up, your opponent will kill you. It's low reward because you have small combos, or weak attacks, or don't have the options needed to keep control of the match, or edgeguard well. Can you not see where I'm coming from? That your definition of "hard character to play" is the same as what a low tier character is? If you think a high tier character is harder to play than a low tier character, then you're arguing that the tier list is wrong.

i think most people are trying not to take character viability into account (i.e. treat all characters as if they were balanced)

also you have to consider the fact that top tier characters have more developed metagames, and therefore often have a higher difficulty ceiling than lower tier characters.

otherwise i think you have a point. what we have to consider in this debate is: what are we measuring difficulty relative to?

the difficulty of playing a character perfectly? nobody can play their character perfectly.

the difficulty of playing a character to their current human limits? the problem is that human limits are defined by humans, and therefore a "difficult character to play perfectly" would have a "low current human limit", meaning it would be just as hard to reach that character's current human limit as it would for any other character to reach theirs.

i think that is the ultimate problem with this question. if "difficulty" means utilizing a character to its maximum known potential, and an equal amount of human effort has been spent finding each character's potential, then that means reaching the known potential of each character is equally difficult.

of course, the efforts are not equal, and some characters are used more than others, so it is "more difficult" to reach the known limits of a space animal than it is to reach the known limits of bowser (although metagame development is a difficult thing to measure). this does not mean that a space animal is more difficult to win with; it just means that we have discovered a higher skill ceiling for the spacies.

 

[Beat!]

I swore to myself that I wouldn't partake in this dumb discussion, but ugh.

A character being bad is NOT THE SAME as a character being hard to play.

Consider a hypothetical character with only one single move (no jumps, no shield, etc). This one move is absolutely terrible, but not using it is even worse, in all situations.

Now, given the above criteria, the only two things you CAN do with this character is
1. Not doing anything
2. Using the move

And the only thing you SHOULD do is using the move, because as stated above, there is no situation where not using it is a better option.

This character would be BRAINDEAD EASY to play. All you would ever have to do would be to press one single button constantly. A five-year old could play the character just as well as a high level player.

However, the character, despite being so easy to play, would be complete terriblegarbagetrash****.




Claiming that a character is hard to play simply because it's bad is completely untrue. It's not that simple.

 

[I R MarF]

stuff

Your example makes zero sense because even though your hypothetical character is easy to play, its nearly impossible to win with because their capability is so low.

If a character is harder to win with, they must also be harder to play.

 

[Beat!]

Wrong. Hard to play != hard to win with.

Surely nobody here thought OP was asking for which character is the hardest to win with, right? That's just another way of asking what the tier list should look like.

 

[I R MarF]

Wrong. Hard to play != hard to win with.

Actually, I said hard to win with = hard to play. Not the other way around. Its one of those square is a rectangle but rectangle isn't a square situations. So what you are saying is correct, but its not a response to what I was saying.

 

[Beat!]

...

You know what? Fine.

I'll leave this thread now.

 

[Warhawk]

Your example makes zero sense because even though your hypothetical character is easy to play, its nearly impossible to win with because their capability is so low.

If a character is harder to win with, they must also be harder to play.

We're talking about the difficulty in playing a character at a high/top level, so no that logic is incorrect. Winning has nothing to do with how difficult a character is to play at a high level, just in general when you play at a high level you win more.

 

[I R MarF]

We're talking about the difficulty in playing a character at a high/top level, so no that logic is incorrect. Winning has nothing to do with how difficult a character is to play at a high level, just in general when you play at a high level you win more.

When a character is harder to win with, its suggesting that they have less options and tools available to them or they have certain weaknesses that creates a disadvantage. Disadvantages would then make a character harder to play and thats a factor to consider when trying to determine which character(s) is(are) the most difficult to play.

For example, take the MU between Fox and Bowser. Two characters at complete opposite ends of the tier list. Fox is harder to play in terms of tech-skill while Bowser is harder to play in terms of options.

So who has an easier time playing in this MU? Fox does. So if Fox has an easier time, wouldn't that suggest Bowser is not only a worser character, but a harder character to play since it would require someone of greater player skill to beat the Fox?

 

[TheCrimsonBlur]

You are confusing the meaning of this topic.

The question isn't which character is the most difficult to win with.

The question is which character is the hardest to play at their max potential. Just because a character's max potential is less, doesn't mean it is harder to get to that potential (and execute the optimal gameplan) than a character with a higher ceiling.

 

[Warhawk]

When a character is harder to win with, its suggesting that they have less options and tools available to them or they have certain weaknesses that creates a disadvantage. Disadvantages would then make a character harder to play and thats a factor to consider when trying to determine which character(s) is(are) the most difficult to play.

For example, take the MU between Fox and Bowser. Two characters at complete opposite ends of the tier list. Fox is harder to play in terms of tech-skill while Bowser is harder to play in terms of options.

So who has an easier time playing in this MU? Fox does. So if Fox has an easier time, wouldn't that suggest Bowser is not only a worser character, but a harder character to play since it would require someone of greater player skill to beat the Fox?

If we're talking about playing to the best of the characters abilities in the matchup then no, Bowser has an easier time playing the matchup because the player has less options necessary to learn and apply to the matchup. To play the matchup perfectly for Fox (which isn't necessary to beat a Bowser, but we're talking about what character is hardest to play at high/top level, not who's hardest to win with) he has a lot more in his arsenal to learn and then apply properly when playing the matchup. Your "greater skill necessary to play Bowser to win" argument shouldn't come into effect, because we're talking about playing these characters at a high-level, therefore there isn't going to be that significant skill gap. Also if you're learning how to beat those worse than you, you are most likely actually learning the matchup wrong and so that's not symbolic of playing Bowser at high level, and the difficulty in achieving high-level play should be the bar in determining what character is most difficult to play.

I used to main Bowser and back then I could play Bowser better than I could play my Fox secondary(though I'm no high level player so its almost irrelevant). I could do a higher percentage of Bowser techniques and strategies and do them more consistently. Did I still lose more with Bowser? Hell yes, he's awful. Was I a worse player with Bowser than Fox? No. Winning should not be solely tied, although it maybe should be given a small role, with the difficulty to play a character. If we based it on that this thread might as well merge with the tier list thread, as the inverse of the tier list would pretty much say who's the most difficult to play. Difficult to win with does not mean the same as difficult to play properly.

 

[I R MarF]

You are confusing the meaning of this topic.

The question isn't which character is the most difficult to win with.

The question is which character is the hardest to play at their max potential. Just because a character's max potential is less, doesn't mean it is harder to get to that potential (and execute the optimal gameplan) than a character with a higher ceiling.

How am I confusing the meaning of the topic? Whenever I mention "difficulty of winning" I immediately connect it back to "difficulty of playing". The latter is clearly the focus of my argument

Furthermore, the OP clearly states to "consider everything" (which I'm doing), and suggests possible factors that would be related to some of my ideas like "how hard it is to do well with [a character]" and "how much intelligence is required to play that character".

The question is: "which character is the hardest to play?" and it seems no one wants to look past tech-skill and consider the idea of a character's options also affecting how hard it is to play them.

If we're talking about playing to the best of the characters abilities in the matchup then no, Bowser has an easier time playing the matchup because the player has less options necessary to learn and apply to the matchup. To play the matchup perfectly for Fox (which isn't necessary to beat a Bowser, but we're talking about what character is hardest to play at high/top level, not who's hardest to win with) he has a lot more in his arsenal to learn and then apply properly when playing the matchup.

1. I am not talking about who is the hardest to win with either
2. You're right, Fox doesn't have to utilize all the tools in his arsenal to beat Bowser. Which is why Fox is a superior and easier character to use in the long run because he doesn't have to overcome issues like "limited options"
3. Character difficulty should be measured by necessary skill and not potential skill

Your "greater skill necessary to play Bowser to win" argument shouldn't come into effect, because we're talking about playing these characters at a high-level, therefore there isn't going to be that significant skill gap. Also if you're learning how to beat those worse than you, you are most likely actually learning the matchup wrong and so that's not symbolic of playing Bowser at high level, and the difficulty in achieving high-level play should be the bar in determining what character is most difficult to play.

Did you know: If two players of exact equal skill played chess, the player who went first will always win?

This trvial statement pretty much collapses your argument. It shows that if two players of equal skill played each other, the one with the disadvantage will lose. In order to win with Bowser, you have to be of superior skill since he is at an initial disadvantage.

If we based it on that this thread might as well merge with the tier list thread, as the inverse of the tier list would pretty much say who's the most difficult to play. Difficult to win with does not mean the same as difficult to play properly.

But TBH, that is exactly it. You see, there are different ideas that factor into "which character is the hardest to play?". The thread is vague and suggests that you include them all, so if you did, the result would be a backwards tier list.

A Tech-Skill tier list is more along the lines of what you are looking for, but that isn't what this thread is about.

 

[TheCrimsonBlur]

How am I confusing the meaning of the topic? Whenever I mention "difficulty of winning" I immediately connect it back to "difficulty of playing".

Why?

They aren't the same things.

it seems no one wants to look past tech-skill and consider the idea of a character's options also affecting how hard it is to play them.

No one wants to look past tech skill?

Did you read Wobbles' posts?

 

[I R MarF]

Why?

They aren't the same things.

How are they not connected?

Also, why didn't you comment on this part of my post:

Furthermore, the OP clearly states to "consider everything" (which I'm doing), and suggests possible factors that would be related to some of my ideas like "how hard it is to do well with [a character]" and "how much intelligence is required to play that character".

I think it justifiies my ability to post my opinions on factoring in a character's options/lack of options when determining characetr difficulty.

No one wants to look past tech skill?

Did you read Wobbles' posts?

Yes, I did. I suppose Wobbles is an exception... but I guess you aren't.

 

[adechrist]

So what are the hardest characters to play with overall tech skill considered, how hard it is to do well with them, how much intelligence is required to play that character? Consider everything

Fox can arguably use more tech skill than any other character, but he doesn't need to. He can just punish, combo, edgeguard, space, etc, all without much tech skill. Watch Jman, he's a technical player but he can easily win without relying on tech skills. The fact that fox players can rely on tech skill to win makes fox an even easier character to play.

Bowser has very few options, so he's predictable. So he has to play very smart or else he's going to get punished. His moves don't have much range, and are slow. So if he's playing fox, during 90% of all situations, fox has the advantage, Fox can just attack without worrying, while Bowser has to be patient, space perfectly, and know exactly when he can and can't attack. Unlike fox he can't rely on tech skill or good moves to get hits. He has to get hits by outplaying the opponent. This is true for all the low tier characters. That's why they're low tier! The lower a character is in the tier, the harder they are to play.