I want to know why people think some characters, even when nerfed, can "never be bad"?

[Necro'lic]

This is a venting thread mostly, so feel free to either ignore it, share in my disgust, or enlighten me on how the hell people still think that even when nerfed to hell and back, they think Bayonetta or Sheik in Ultimate are high tier characters?

I keep hearing this sentiment that "oh it doesn't matter how much they are nerfed, because their movesets kinda make it so they can never be bad".

Do these people know how balancing works. You literally just need to make it so all of their hits have so little hitstun that they are even on hit, or just 2 frames unsafe on hit and that would be enough. It's not a big change. That would make literally any character immediate trash tier.

Oh, but not the scary top tiers of the last game, because their movesets are apparently all perfect and nerf proof and the absolute best design there has ever been to the point where changing it means you actually change nothing.

I'm venting now again because Bayo and Sheik, two super nerfed characters who were top tiers in the last game, are still seen as some super high tier characters when that has been demonstrably not the case as shown in the past few tournaments this month. In an extreme case, this also means they never get buffs they actually deserve. Why do people like Zero perpetuate this stupid myth that somehow characters can't be bad no matter how much they are nerfed?

 

[ｐｓ＿]

Bayonetta was designed for combos (and for the most part she still is.) A lot of characters can chain hits, and a lot of characters were reworked to facilitate better combo game (Falco and Ganondorf come to mind), but Bayonetta is (or was) the only character designed to catch you with one move and keep you there until you were dead. Or I assume this is the case at least, otherwise I'd have to assume the Smash team was just incompetent.

 

[Lavani]

I'd hazard a guess that the sort of people who have those views aren't the types to have a grasp on the full concept of competitive viability.

For example, if one were the sort to just see Twitter combos, for example:

退屈だわ pic.twitter.com/jM8kOgG3jH

— CaptainZack (@CaptainZack_) December 9, 2018

One could come to the hasty conclusion that "Bayo's been nerfed but she can still carry to the blast zone, so does it really matter?" It doesn't matter that the circumstances are more specific, or that their frame data is worse, or that they've lost kill power overall, they just see something they didn't like can still exist and therefore the character is still good, practicality be damned. Heck, you can even see that in the replies to that tweet.

Similarly with Sheik, she was primarily known for smothering the opponent with top class frame data, so the viewpoint that if she still has that over other characters she's still good isn't inherently illogical. Perhaps shortsighted when ignoring the loss of kill setups and damage disparity versus other characters, but I can see a basis for the conclusion to be made.

Basically if they still seem to be doing the things they were doing as a top tier before, those who aren't seeing the forest for the trees will still perceive them as strong regardless of other changes to the character or their environment.

 

[Sean²]

I didn’t pay attention to every characters post-patch findings so I could be slightly wrong. But in Smash 4, I think they only modified knockback and damage that attacks can do. They didn’t ever add or reduce attack speed or endlag. Meaning they neutered characters like Sheik and Diddy’s kill power and ability to get early kills, but never messed with the actual frame data of the attacks. That meant all the rest of what made them good was still present and potent. Now I think if they added a couple extra frames of landing lag, or extra startup frames to something central to the character’s playstyle, like Sheiks Fair, then that would make the character significantly worse. But they never did anything like that. Just damage and knockback. Good frame data is still good frame data in the end.

 

[Lavani]

I didn’t pay attention to every characters post-patch findings so I could be slightly wrong. But in Smash 4, I think they only modified knockback and damage that attacks can do. They didn’t ever add or reduce attack speed or endlag. Meaning they neutered characters like Sheik and Diddy’s kill power and ability to get early kills, but never messed with the actual frame data of the attacks. That meant all the rest of what made them good was still present and potent. Now I think if they added a couple extra frames of landing lag, or extra startup frames to something central to the character’s playstyle, like Sheiks Fair, then that would make the character significantly worse. But they never did anything like that. Just damage and knockback. Good frame data is still good frame data in the end.

They actually did a lot of frame data tweaks over smash 4's life. There were definitely more characters with attacks sped up or slowed down than not; most were minor (it took years for us to notice Zelda's dthrow was sped up in 1.0.4), while others were not (Marth/Lucina were continually sped up across multiple patches).

 

[Wyoming]

I feel like you really have to try to make Marth bad based on concept alone. The tipper is excellent in a game like Smash Bros.

Vanilla Smash 4 certainly did try by making him sluggish, but eventually he became good again.

 

[Necro'lic]

I feel like you really have to try to make Marth bad based on concept alone. The tipper is excellent in a game like Smash Bros.

Vanilla Smash 4 certainly did try by making him sluggish, but eventually he became good again.

Obviously some characters are harder to make bad. Tis the nature of more complex movesets like, say, Mr. Game and Watch vs more simplified ones like Marth. But that's not what we are talking about. We are talking about how people can think characters can NEVER be bad no matter how much they are nerfed. Obviously Marth can be bad while keeping his motif by making his attacks have much worse frame data. We clearly saw that. Unless people forgot about that, which I can assume some did.

 

[Quillion]

I think this is because the characters "who can never be bad" in Smash have more developmental potential than their counterparts "who can be bad."

What I'm trying to say is that Smash has historically favored the Fragile Speedsters like Sheik and ZSS and likely will do so until the end of time, and this is because they always have more creative freedom in how dedicated players can develop their skills since they can do a lot more with quick inputs than their slower counterparts can. I honestly don't think it's something that can easily be fixed.

 

[Ginsai]

This is a venting thread mostly, so feel free to either ignore it, share in my disgust, or enlighten me on how the hell people still think that even when nerfed to hell and back, they think Bayonetta or Sheik in Ultimate are high tier characters?

I keep hearing this sentiment that "oh it doesn't matter how much they are nerfed, because their movesets kinda make it so they can never be bad".

Do these people know how balancing works. You literally just need to make it so all of their hits have so little hitstun that they are even on hit, or just 2 frames unsafe on hit and that would be enough. It's not a big change. That would make literally any character immediate trash tier.

Oh, but not the scary top tiers of the last game, because their movesets are apparently all perfect and nerf proof and the absolute best design there has ever been to the point where changing it means you actually change nothing.

I'm venting now again because Bayo and Sheik, two super nerfed characters who were top tiers in the last game, are still seen as some super high tier characters when that has been demonstrably not the case as shown in the past few tournaments this month. In an extreme case, this also means they never get buffs they actually deserve. Why do people like Zero perpetuate this stupid myth that somehow characters can't be bad no matter how much they are nerfed?

Zero has a way to adapt. Any player can be used and perform professional and with great results. The player matters more than the character. Sonicfox gave us the best example of this with Beerus. This is pre patch Beerus to. He went in and nearly won a major with him. But yeah to not admit that a character is worse is just blind. But I’m sure he knows he is bad in this one, but just because he got nerfed doesn’t mean he should drop a character he likes.

 

[Luigifan18]

First impressions matter a lot, and the first impressions of Meta Knight and Bayonetta were broken beyond belief.

 

[Kairyu24]

Ironically the highest level of skill doesn't seem to favor Sheik at the moment. She got nerfed a little with damage, but the entire cast got a huge boost to get closer to her speed. So it does seem to be possible. Balance is relative. A character like Sheik needs to excel if her power is lacking.

Gives some perspective how slow Bowser was in melee though.. And of course the developers have more experience how to make a smash game tick.

 

[Mogisthelioma]

Some fighters, like Fox or Meta Knight "can never be bad" since they were handed such an amazing toolkit of moves that in order for them to be unplayable they would have to be nerfed to the point that would take away from their original character design, something no one ever wants and something the developers have (almost) never done.

 

[Necro'lic]

Some fighters, like Fox or Meta Knight "can never be bad" since they were handed such an amazing toolkit of moves that in order for them to be unplayable they would have to be nerfed to the point that would take away from their original character design, something no one ever wants and something the developers have (almost) never done.

I honestly don't see it. It's all a numbers game at a certain point. No amount of flawless design can protect against shoddy balance.

And in case you are wondering, I put "design" and "balance" in two separate categories and they build off of one another. "Design" involves the tools given, while "Balance" is how effectively said tools are. If the only things nerfed about Fox were a, say, 60% decrease in kill power for all moves as well as 60% less hitstun on his combo moves, he would immediately be trash tier just from number changes. And yet, his design is still intact, because he would still be a fast, rushdown style character with exploitable recovery. Plus, none of his moves changed in property or animation or size or something more physically seen.