Patches, DLC, and the Metagame

[Dpete]

I know smash players are accustomed to their meticulous data collection and analysis spanning months and years before pronouncing judgement on the metagame. But, with the announcement of DLC Mewtwo and the looming possibility of patches that alter gameplay, should we try to speed up the process? It's pretty plausible that the entire game could feel radically different 6 months from now, right when everyone has a firm grasp on how this version plays out.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

If a patch does happen that changes the game balance, then we'll just have to deal. Although to be frank I don't expect that to happen since the only patch we've seen was to fix a bug that prevented Peach from being used in For Glory. Addressing balance issues I'm sure falls quite a bit further down on the list of priorities.

In TF2 (to use a completely unrelated game as an example), when balance changes happen in the middle of a competitive season they have no choice but to saddle up and move on. A few times the update has come through mere hours before a scheduled match, which is always funny to hear about when it happens. When new items are added, the convention is to ban them until the next season to ensure a level playing field since the mechanics of item acquisition in TF2 is somewhat RNG-based unless you want to pay real money.

How do DOTA/LOL manage it? IIRC they also get regular patches that muck around with balance, but I don't follow their scenes at all.

 

[Thinkaman]

How do DOTA/LOL manage it? IIRC they also get regular patches that muck around with balance, but I don't follow their scenes at all.

I'm not sure what you mean by "manage", other than "they release patches and people continue to play the game."

I'm not seeing the broader issue of concern here. Patches are really basic and non-actionable to consider at this time, since our behavior has exactly zero impact on their existence, content, or distribution.

If there are patches, then everyone uses them. The end?

 

[SamuraiPanda]

I know smash players are accustomed to their meticulous data collection and analysis spanning months and years before pronouncing judgement on the metagame. But, with the announcement of DLC Mewtwo and the looming possibility of patches that alter gameplay, should we try to speed up the process? It's pretty plausible that the entire game could feel radically different 6 months from now, right when everyone has a firm grasp on how this version plays out.

So... you're saying we should release an early tier list because there might be patches?

Let the dust settle first. Patches won't change the overarching metagame of Smash 4 unless there are some crazy paradigm-shifting patches (which I doubt will happen). Once we understand the metagame of Smash 4 better when the console version is released for some time, THEN its possible to have tier lists per patch or per few patches depending on frequency.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I'm not sure what you mean by "manage", other than "they release patches and people continue to play the game."

I'm not seeing the broader issue of concern here. Patches are really basic and non-actionable to consider at this time, since our behavior has exactly zero impact on their existence, content, or distribution.

If there are patches, then everyone uses them. The end?

I know LOL/DOTA have thriving competitive scenes, and I'm pretty sure that they get frequent patches to adjust balance. I just have no idea if they have any special setup in place to make it easier for them or if they just buck up when it happens. Based on your reaction I'm assuming the latter.

 

[Shaya]

Dota/LoL don't really have tier lists either.

LoL used to be heavily impacted by a champion ranking list someone used to do in the early days, to the point that any change of it meant instantaneous response by the entire server "oh galio's number 1 in the list? Banned in draft 100% of the time".
But when the pool of champions got so much larger and changes to characters were often either large, or small number changes that didn't result in a single person's opinion budging on their viability resulted in them staying in the path of nerf-fire until it was "obvious" they were bad.

If we're going to have balance patches on any frequent basis, then the only thing we'll be able to rely on is tournament data to discern viability. A lot of people may prefer it like this though.

 

[GrandHc]

I would honestly enjoy balance patches so long as their frequency very high. What I like about them is that they can, when applied to the complaints of the meta, make the game feel completely new. Looking at MvC3 to UMvC3, I feel as if these additional changes kind of bettered the game in terms of combo possibility and character balancing. (Its a shame they can no longer receive anymore balancing patches when it is really in need of one now.)