Official Metaknight Discussion

[san.]

Before Crow! made his charts, how sure were you that MK was dominating this game? And what were your methods? Are you telling me that *gasp* the charts have ALWAYS been there, and that people always had them to know MK was dominating? Or was there one mythical moment where people believed by doing research, and checking out tourneys that happen in the forum's tourney results thread/subforum?

You don't need another Crow! to know what's obvious. Why dontcha google "(insert fighting game) tourney/tournament results" and read what people say, and check out the players and characters they use placing?

Pretty much just looked at Ankoku's data for that. Crow just gathered tourney data and displayed it in ways that can be easier to compare characters. You said that similar dominance is found in other fighting games? Which ones specifically, and roughly by how much? I have no idea what you're saying is true unless you find some tourney results/data about the fighting games you're referring to.

You're the one who made the statement, so I expect you to back it up. I can say that no current competitive fighting games' top characters are as dominant as MK and that puts my statement as legitimate as yours (aka no legitimacy at all)

 

[Flayl]

http://www.tekkenzaibatsu.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?forumid=25

http://shoryuken.com/forumdisplay.php?f=6&

Get to work Kewkky

 

[pure_awesome]

I don't understand what this "develop new metagames" thing is. Snake players already know how to play Falcos. Wario players already know how to play Diddys.

They'd just be able to focus on them more. Six months is a pretty long time for this game.

 

[Kewkky]

Edited this in my previous post, but then noticed theres been like 3-4 new replies, so I'll just make a new post...

Seriously. Tekken 6, MvC2, and SF4 all have more than one char in their top tier. What other games are relevant.

And do you know why other games have more than one character in their top tier? I could give you a couple of ideas for you to work with...

1) Their tier lists don't separate characters the same way that our tier lists are done. Theirs is more along the lines of "which are the most dominant characters in the game" for top tier, then "which are the ones that are good, but don't dominate" as 2nd, etc etc etc... While our tier lists are based on voting. Each voters' opinions are based on MUs, results, and all that whatnot you want to add, but the TIER LISTS are constructed completely off the compiled votes of all the voters, and nothing else. Even their numbers within the tiers are from compiled votes, as you can see the OP of the "Official Tier List Discussion v4.0" try and explain. Votes, votes, votes! MK is by himself due to voting... And not because he's sooo good at first glance, that he deserves his own tier, period... Ever wonder why MK didn't have his own tier all the time? Why sometimes, he goes down and joins everyone else in the next tier (or they all come up and join him)? Because he isn't deserving of his own tier, all that it does is create anger within the players and makes them want to ban him. And THAT is what it has done!

2) Ever wonder why MK, even though he's dominant in this game and right now has a tier of his own, isn't as dominant as other characters who have tiers of their own? His domination is along the lines of other non-banworthy characters in other fighting games, if you try and compare tier-of-his-own MK with tiers-of-their-own other characters from other games... Does MK even equal what those other characters are? Those other characters are completely ******** in how dominant and powerful they are in contrast to the rest of the characters in their game, whereas MK in our game can AND has been defeated by numerous other characters multiple times... What do you make of this? Insulting other MK mainers by saying "they're bad" isn't answering the question at hand, it's just beating around the bush and NOT answering the question at hand!

3) Every other fighting game is relevant. They all follow the same rule as we're trying to follow: ban banworthy characters, and shape their rules so they can play the games for the player's enjoyment. Money comes with enjoyment, and broken characters deter the fun from a game when it comes to being serious in a serious competitive environment, seriously. No one likes competing in a tourney full of Akumas, the game wasn't made for everyone to use Akuma and see who's the best Akuma! Can we say the same thing from MK at this point? I'm partially on your side, I know MK's a problem... But it's not to the point where he is to be considered as horrible as people paint him out to be. MK hasn't been dominating EVERY tourney he's been at, even when the best players unite and participate... There's always that "surprise character placement" or "player upsets" or "completely average results" that comes in a separate package from the "MK infested results". Why are you guys only eyeing those results and not eyeing the ones that say "MK isn't as dominant as other fighting games' top characters, which ALWAYS dominate tourneys and not treat it nicely like MK is doing to his game?


Seriously, MK isn't THAT horrible. There are many different metaphors and similes that I can form around my argument, but will it help me? I can think of more than three similes and metaphors to make my argument more convincing, but should I do it to catch your eyes, or should I do it with reasoning? If I put a picture of a pie with a big cross on it and it saying "there's no more pie" and sit you in a pie-less room, but then everyone else is in different rooms in which you can't see without opening the doors, then come into your room and pull up empty packages of pies in your face, will you believe me? What if the other guys in the other rooms are eating pies? You know, all YOU have to do is open the doors and find out... Why do you HAVE to wait for me to do so for you? D'OH! Did a simile again!


Let's see if I can find other fighting games and pull up some tourney examples... Give me a break here, it might take a few minutes, what with the whole copypasta going on and all.

 

[san.]

@Kewkky

1. I don't think people are mad and want MK banned merely because people vote and he ends up in his own tier. There are many other reasons that 800 pages also try to explain, His tournament dominance were just counterarguments to previous posts in the topic, and also helped back up other people's thoughts about MK in general. MUs, counterpicks, tournaments, and comparisons to other characters. Even if done by votes, still reflect some sort of consensus of position of most of the characters. Heck, Ankoku's data has put MK in his own tier (in terms of points) for a long time and that's not based on votes.

2. I don't notice this type of dominance. I was checking the links Flayl posted, and I see a wide assortment of names in all spots. Even MLG Tekken had only 2 pairs of the same character in top 8. (Bob/Lars) and the same 2 people used them anyways!

3. What are these matchups anyways? I don't notice anything. Perhaps if you gave some specific names/MU ratios and how that particular fighting game interprets those ratios, as well as relate them to the current predicament, then I'll start to understand your argument with bringing other fighting games into the mix.

Don't worry about the bringing in data thing. I don't care if it takes a week, as long as I understand your argument. Right now, it hasn't put me in favor or against anything right now, cause I want to see you back up some of your claims. At the current moment, I have no idea whether to just trust you when you talk about character dominance in other fighting games, therefore I have no idea how ordinary (or not so much) MK's placements have been.

 

[PottyJokes]

can't wait to see an MK banned metagame. snake lobbing nades, falcos spamming lasers, warios timing people out and there'll be no one to stop 'em!!

the wait is killing me.

 

[Ripple]

can't wait to see an MK banned metagame. snake lobbing nades, falcos spamming lasers, warios timing people out and there'll be no one to stop 'em!!

the wait is killing me.

at least its 3 characters rather than 1. and these 3 characters have counters other than each other

honestly if brawl will have 3 characters at the top dominating, I'll be happier than I am now.

 

[pure_awesome]

If Falco is spamming lasers, Wario won't be able to time him out. Just sayin'


Kewkky I'm going to wait for your results before responding. As far as I'm concerned, the three relevant metagames (Tekken 6, SF4, MvC2) don't have any characters as bad as MK.

And no, not all other fighters are relevant because there aren't any others that are played this seriously.


EDIT: That's kind of a final statement. There probably are other fighting games, I just mean that not all of them count. Like War Gods or something.

 

[Chuee]

at least its 3 characters rather than 1. and these 3 characters have counters other than each other

If you consider 55-45 a counter.

 

[Gnes]

If you consider 55-45 a counter.

Diddy has a worse than 55-45 matchup against more than 1 chr.

 

[fkacyan]

Ive honestly given up on the mk ban thing. After the sbr/anti-ban side literally looked at Crows and OS's charts/graphs/data and admitted that the numbers are TRUE and that everything the pro-ban side has said DID happen they STILL decided to keep metaknight. Once i saw that, i realized that there is no hope for banning mk. I realize that TOO many people want money and by eliminating MK it eliminates thier best chance(because hes the best character) at earning that money. As a TO, i will just sit back and let mk continue to steal matches from innocent children untill the children decide to drop brawl. I hate to say it but this community(brawl) is more money hungry and more "i dont give a ****" than the melee days. It makes me sad to say it but its TRULY the way it is.

Dear lord you are an idiot. It's not like random MK players make money at anything that matters.

I won't say the character has no influence, but you give waaaaaay too much credit to MK simply to serve your own ends.

 

[Chuee]

Diddy has a worse than 55-45 matchup against more than 1 chr.

I was talking about snake.

 

[Turbo Ether]

Actually, the SF4 metagame was still developing a lot before Super and didn't finish. As of right now in vanilla SF4, Sagat (lone S-rank) vs Akuma is either even or in Akuma's favor. C.Viper and Ryu also do extremely well against Sagat. And it's not like the Sagat player can counterpick a stage to put the matchup back in Sagat's favor. Also, the SF4 devs fully acknowledged that Sagat was a bit too powerful, so they toned him down in Super. The SF4 situation is pretty different from Brawl.

 

[pure_awesome]

Snake loses to Olimar
Falco loses to Kirby
Wario loses to... I don't know actually, but probably Marth or DDD or someone.


I see no problem.

 

[DMG]

Marth, Dedede, Peach. That's about it. G&W too if he can plank.

 

[fkacyan]

OH, and @San: Chun-li is as dominant in 3rd strike as MK is here last I checked. Daigo is one of the few who doesn't use her iirc.

Not that 3S is on the circuit anymore, but I remember like all of top 8 minus 1 or 2 people being Thunder Thighs.

ALSO LOL AT PEOPLE CITING MATCHUPS LIKE THEY ARE RELIABLE

 

[PottyJokes]

haha cool. snake loses to someone who camps even harder than him. sounds exhilirating.

thought falco vs kirby was even?

 

[Turbo Ether]

OH, and @San: Chun-li is as dominant in 3rd strike as MK is here last I checked. Daigo is one of the few who doesn't use her iirc.

Not that 3S is on the circuit anymore, but I remember like all of top 8 minus 1 or 2 people being Thunder Thighs.

ALSO LOL AT PEOPLE CITING MATCHUPS LIKE THEY ARE RELIABLE

Comparing Brawl's balance to a fighting game that came out over 10 years ago.

Uh, well, um...

 

[pure_awesome]

Who cited match-ups? I don't think anyone cited match-ups. Not the threads, anyway.


I personally think Kirby beats Falco. If not, substitute ICs, who DESTROY Falco.



Going back to my question from a while ago, can someone please link me to Crows post?

 

[Chuee]

Snake loses to Olimar
Falco loses to Kirby
Wario loses to... I don't know actually, but probably Marth or DDD or someone.


I see no problem.

Snake vs Olimar is even.
EDIT: IC dont "destroy" Falco anymore. That spot went to Pika.

 

[Kewkky]

You guys have no idea how hard it is to find out other games' tiers, other games' tourney entrants and who they use, other games' competitive history... All I can find are tourney results and commentary, AND older fighting games' tourney results and characters... Why can't their forums be more organized? >_>


SmashBoards is in extremely good shape. Thumbs up from me! Now back to *ugh* surfing the web...

*shudders and considers just retracting his argument due to so much mess around in other forums*

 

[Ripple]

Snake vs Olimar is even.
EDIT: IC dont "destroy" Falco anymore. That spot went to Pika.

snake does lose to olimar. olimar is the only character that can make snake approach and win with range

 

[pure_awesome]

Snake loses to Olimar.

Ally beats Olimar though.


Kewk, other forums suck lol. But I've got friends who play. You can keep looking if you want but I'm telling you they're fine.

 

[Kaffei]

Spoiler

Edited this in my previous post, but then noticed theres been like 3-4 new replies, so I'll just make a new post...



And do you know why other games have more than one character in their top tier? I could give you a couple of ideas for you to work with...

1) Their tier lists don't separate characters the same way that our tier lists are done. Theirs is more along the lines of "which are the most dominant characters in the game" for top tier, then "which are the ones that are good, but don't dominate" as 2nd, etc etc etc... While our tier lists are based on voting. Each voters' opinions are based on MUs, results, and all that whatnot you want to add, but the TIER LISTS are constructed completely off the compiled votes of all the voters, and nothing else. Even their numbers within the tiers are from compiled votes, as you can see the OP of the "Official Tier List Discussion v4.0" try and explain. Votes, votes, votes! MK is by himself due to voting... And not because he's sooo good at first glance, that he deserves his own tier, period... Ever wonder why MK didn't have his own tier all the time? Why sometimes, he goes down and joins everyone else in the next tier (or they all come up and join him)? Because he isn't deserving of his own tier, all that it does is create anger within the players and makes them want to ban him. And THAT is what it has done!

2) Ever wonder why MK, even though he's dominant in this game and right now has a tier of his own, isn't as dominant as other characters who have tiers of their own? His domination is along the lines of other non-banworthy characters in other fighting games, if you try and compare tier-of-his-own MK with tiers-of-their-own other characters from other games... Does MK even equal what those other characters are? Those other characters are completely ******** in how dominant and powerful they are in contrast to the rest of the characters in their game, whereas MK in our game can AND has been defeated by numerous other characters multiple times... What do you make of this? Insulting other MK mainers by saying "they're bad" isn't answering the question at hand, it's just beating around the bush and NOT answering the question at hand!

3) Every other fighting game is relevant. They all follow the same rule as we're trying to follow: ban banworthy characters, and shape their rules so they can play the games for the player's enjoyment. Money comes with enjoyment, and broken characters deter the fun from a game when it comes to being serious in a serious competitive environment, seriously. No one likes competing in a tourney full of Akumas, the game wasn't made for everyone to use Akuma and see who's the best Akuma! Can we say the same thing from MK at this point? I'm partially on your side, I know MK's a problem... But it's not to the point where he is to be considered as horrible as people paint him out to be. MK hasn't been dominating EVERY tourney he's been at, even when the best players unite and participate... There's always that "surprise character placement" or "player upsets" or "completely average results" that comes in a separate package from the "MK infested results". Why are you guys only eyeing those results and not eyeing the ones that say "MK isn't as dominant as other fighting games' top characters, which ALWAYS dominate tourneys and not treat it nicely like MK is doing to his game?


Seriously, MK isn't THAT horrible. There are many different metaphors and similes that I can form around my argument, but will it help me? I can think of more than three similes and metaphors to make my argument more convincing, but should I do it to catch your eyes, or should I do it with reasoning? If I put a picture of a pie with a big cross on it and it saying "there's no more pie" and sit you in a pie-less room, but then everyone else is in different rooms in which you can't see without opening the doors, then come into your room and pull up empty packages of pies in your face, will you believe me? What if the other guys in the other rooms are eating pies? You know, all YOU have to do is open the doors and find out... Why do you HAVE to wait for me to do so for you? D'OH! Did a simile again!


Let's see if I can find other fighting games and pull up some tourney examples... Give me a break here, it might take a few minutes, what with the whole copypasta going on and all.

That was a great read.

 

[pure_awesome]

And for now, that's all it is. Other current metagames don't have this problem.

 

[fkacyan]

Comparing Brawl's balance to a fighting game that came out over 10 years ago.

Uh, well, um...

Uh...

SF2 is considered balanced and that came out, what, 15 years ago? We compare Brawl to Melee?

When a game came out isn't really relevant to how balanced it is.

 

[etecoon]

Snake loses to Olimar.

Ally beats Olimar though.

that's because there are simply no olimar players that are anywhere near his level. I haven't formed a full opinion on this matchup, I'm working on it right now myself, all I can say is that AT THE MOMENT, I hate olimar more than DDD >_> I could buy into it being potentially even or close to it when learned though

 

[OverLade]

Dedede and Olimar beat snake and he has a couple 50-50s, but not only there, there are tons of other characters that can beat snake at every level, even if the matchup is regarded as 60-40 (because of the ability to gimp/get momentum on him). Snake won't dominate in any way if MK is banned but at this point, who cares. Xyros post pretty much reflects the reality. If MK is that bad, people will quit, tourney attendence will go down to the point where MK mains arent making enough money going to tournies, and the game dies.

Bam. Success.

 

[demonictoonlink]

I still don't understand...
What top Olimars are beating these top Snakes?

 

[Kaffei]

Dedede and Olimar beat snake and he has a couple 50-50s, but not only there, there are tons of other characters that can beat snake at every level, even if the matchup is regarded as 60-40 (because of the ability to gimp/get momentum on him). Snake won't dominate in any way if MK is banned but at this point, who cares. Xyros post pretty much reflects the reality. If MK is that bad, people will quit, tourney attendence will go down to the point where MK mains arent making enough money going to tournies, and the game dies.

Bam. Success.

Do you think that's probable?

 

[Blacknight99923]

I don't think the game will die because of MK or MK being banned smash isn't great competetivly to begin with, ultimatly its not why people play, people play for fun and because of the community not because of metaknight or money (well most people anyway)

 

[Turbo Ether]

Uh...

SF2 is considered balanced and that came out, what, 15 years ago? We compare Brawl to Melee?

When a game came out isn't really relevant to how balanced it is.

SF2 is considered balanced (barring HDR)? Also, Melee and Brawl are entries in the same series and have a lot more in common with eachother than they do with traditional fighters, of course they're going to be compared.

I don't see how Chun-li being a dominant character in a game as old as Smash 64 can be used to justify MK being dominant in Brawl.

Edit: I'm not saying that SF2 is an imbalanced PoS, but it certainly wouldn't be the game balance i'd emulate if I had to develop a fighting game.

 

[Chuee]

Most Olimar's that I saw post in the discussion topic had it as even. The snake's had it as 55-45 or 50-50.
The MU is nowhere near counter material.

 

[Kewkky]

When a game came out isn't really relevant to how balanced it is.

Huzzah! You are absolutely right.

pure_awesome, what makes this generation of fighters any less deep than the previous generations? Do the players suck more at the game, or are the games just less deep/more shallow? SF4/Tekken6/what have you are all just as good as previous fighting games in terms of player skill development, and depth. Sort of like how people say previous installments of a series of games are better than the present installments, like Melee and Brawl comparisons and how they're still being compared to each other by people saying X is better than Y.

If I would like to find tourney results in which to compare our situation, then I should look for games whose tier lists resemble our tier list. Maybe ones whose situation resemble ours... Not the ones who are alive at the same time as our game. Sad thing is that every game with a tier list resembling ours, with one character in his own tier for extended periods of time, has had that character banned as soon as it was found out to be severely unbalanced. In Brawl, MK has gotten lots of attention, but no unanimous decision has it come to ban him as fast as the other lone-tier characters... Maybe this is because MK doesn't deserve his own tier? Or maybe it's because MK as a character isn't as bad as people make him out to be?

And I reinstate, in my opinion, what truly makes MK as bad as we see him is his player's desire to win money... And how a player can manipulate situations which MK can create for his own benefit. Kinda like how guns are there for people to use, but given a situation where you could benefit from shooting someone, you would hold off until you felt you needed to do it to survive (same as MK and his pseudo-stalling tactics... You don't see it happen often, but if a player's choices are limited to that, then he will pull off the bat wings and glide under the stage, hog that there ledge).


I DID do some research way back when, and asked a top Tekken player about what he thought the MK situation should be handled... He then directed me to the Tekken website and some Tekken 4 topics, and talked to me about Jin Kazama and his "broken" JFLS. He mentioned Brawl looking a lot like how Tekken 4's lifespan started out, and ended. He couldn't stop comparing both for what they looked like, and they sharing a similar problem that was ravaging the community. I'll link the topic here again...

 

[DMG]

MK has the capability to scrooge, plank, stall, whatever you want to call it WITHOUT the player's desire to win money. That's like saying Nuclear Bombs aren't bad until you give someone reason to use one. It's still a nuke.

MK deserves his own tier. Without a question. EVEN if you go the route of trying to limit him to fit in with the others. Until you make specific rules that limit the character, like making him the only one subjected to a LGL, make him unable to use certain CP stages, AND forcing him to go to FD first match against the entire cast, among other possible measures. He will not be on the same page as everyone else until that point. He is clearly the best, this isn't going to change for the rest of Brawl's lifetime (Yes I am a mystical wizard. I can predict the future of Brawl's metagame concerning who will remain the best).

 

[Turbo Ether]

He probably should have been banned when IDC was discovered. The technique isn't even properly enforceable.

"No use Meta Knight's Infinite Cape Glitch".

Define infinite, in this context.

8 minutes? 80 seconds? 8 seconds? 8 frames?

 

[Kaffei]

He probably should have been banned when IDC was discovered. The technique isn't even properly enforceable.

"No use Meta Knight's Infinite Cape Glitch".

Define infinite, in this context.

Shouldn't it be called extended dimensional cape

 

[Ripple]

the only reason why I could see someone not wanting MK banned is because people don't know about or see a FULL exploit of MK's strengths to their maximum, which isn't difficult.

no MK has gotten a lead at the very beginning of a game and then planked the rest of the game. they continue to be aggressive (by that I mean they actually stay on the stage and do anything) . this doesn't demonstrate how MK should be played. people playing MK incorrectly give people the illusion that he isn't broken.

 

[Judo777]

Huzzah! You are absolutely right.

pure_awesome, what makes this generation of fighters any less deep than the previous generations? Do the players suck more at the game, or are the games just less deep/more shallow? SF4/Tekken6/what have you are all just as good as previous fighting games in terms of player skill development, and depth. Sort of like how people say previous installments of a series of games are better than the present installments, like Melee and Brawl comparisons and how they're still being compared to each other by people saying X is better than Y.

If I would like to find tourney results in which to compare our situation, then I should look for games whose tier lists resemble our tier list. Maybe ones whose situation resemble ours... Not the ones who are alive at the same time as our game. Sad thing is that every game with a tier list resembling ours, with one character in his own tier for extended periods of time, has had that character banned as soon as it was found out to be severely unbalanced. In Brawl, MK has gotten lots of attention, but no unanimous decision has it come to ban him as fast as the other lone-tier characters... Maybe this is because MK doesn't deserve his own tier? Or maybe it's because MK as a character isn't as bad as people make him out to be?

And I reinstate, in my opinion, what truly makes MK as bad as we see him is his player's desire to win money... And how a player can manipulate situations which MK can create for his own benefit. Kinda like how guns are there for people to use, but given a situation where you could benefit from shooting someone, you would hold off until you felt you needed to do it to survive (same as MK and his pseudo-stalling tactics... You don't see it happen often, but if a player's choices are limited to that, then he will pull off the bat wings and glide under the stage, hog that there ledge).

No kewky i think the reason MK wasn't banned immediately after discovering how good he was was because of the type of crowd the smash community is. The smash community is much more about fun and being able to pick ur favorite character than actually being competative. Because all of the characters in smash are from different games people naturally have more loyalties to certain characters. Ironically enough this is the very issue. Anti-ban asks why character diversity is so important when in reality thats one of the reasons why i think MK wasn't banned at the beginning because those die hard kirby fans who wanted to play MK in every kirby game ever wont get their chance with him banned. However because of MK in a competative scene there is becoming less and less character diversity.

 

[Kaffei]

No kewky i think the reason MK wasn't banned immediately after discovering how good he was was because of the type of crowd the smash community is. The smash community is much more about fun and being able to pick ur favorite character than actually being competative. Because all of the characters in smash are from different games people naturally have more loyalties to certain characters. Ironically enough this is the very issue. Anti-ban asks why character diversity is so important when in reality thats one of the reasons why i think MK wasn't banned at the beginning because those die hard kirby fans who wanted to play MK in every kirby game ever wont get their chance with him banned. However because of MK in a competative scene there is becoming less and less character diversity.

Then I don't see what the problem is in banning MK. Most of those kinds of people don't go to tourneys, do they?