Latch
Smash Apprentice
Hello smashboards,
I just wrote up a post about my take on evaluating good characters versus good players, historical analysis style, on the PM subreddit. Here's the link to the post, but I've copied it here as well. Hope you guys find it interesting! I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Hi guys,
After watching Junebug win LTC3 with Diddy and the surprisingly close 'hidden boss' 1-game exhibition vs Zer0, I had a thought come to me regarding the history of dominant players, supposedly OP characters, and the legacy these characters and players carry on post-nerf. I am going to present this history, and then present my conclusions about it. I welcome interesting discussion about it.
We all know the balance of 3.02 was... interesting, to say the least. Let's enumerate the heavy hitters, and their respective big-name players.
Neon and Pink Fresh were hardly dominant with Lucas, but they certainly performed well with him, Pink Fresh regularly terrorizing S@X and Neon creating history in his legendary duel with M2K. Then, Lucas was nerfed. Both of these players were hit hard, Pink Fresh probably because he stopped playing as much, but Neon was frustrated enough to begin a character switch to Wolf. Lucas' nerfs had a pronounced effect on his iconic players' performances.
Mewtwo
M2K playing Mewtwo seemed simply appropriate, and much of his success with the character was (I would argue rightfully) attributed to his excellence as a player. Soon, however, Emukiller emerged from the bowels of Anther's ladder and terrorized SKTAR 3, not dropping a set. The cries of "Woop Woop" followed Emukiller where he went, and follow they ought, for he unlocked impressive techniques with Mewtwo that not even M2K had explored. An excellent player in his own right, there was clearly an imbalance in his character's strengths and weaknesses. Mewtwo was nerfed. In response, M2K mostly dropped Mewtwo in PM and turned to other characters, notably Fox. Importantly, Emukiller, while still a strong player, has declined in influence.
Pit
Armada and Zer0 are pretty good at smash bros, being arguably the current best of Melee and Sm4sh, respectively, and they both dominated with Pit. Armada's nickname of the Swedish Sniper became even more fitting, and Zer0 enjoyed a time of dominance which until recently left him atop the smashboards player rank. They both exploited Pit's tools to their maximum potential, but this time there was little doubt as to the competency of the players. Pit was nerfed, arguably harder than any other of these four. After a 3rd place finish at B.E.A.S.T. 5, Armada dropped Pit for Fox, with whom he won his next two PM tournaments. Zer0 also switched to Fox, winning his next two PM tournaments. Although both were drawn away by Sm4sh and Melee becoming more serious, the nerfs to Pit led his two best players to immediately jump ship. However, at LTC3, in what was definitely a friendly, Zer0 did pretty well with Pit against Junebug, the winner of the tournament. Not a very robust data point, but still interesting.
Diddy
I do not know Luck's history very well, so this is just going to be Junebug. Obviously a dominant player during 3.02, he was an animal with Diddy. Diddy was nerfed, though not overly. Junebug is actually the only player out of these who is still performing at the top level of PM currently, and that's after his character nerf. He makes Diddy look scary, but then again, he also makes Ganon look scary. This brings me to the main thrust of this post.
Is it the character, or the player?
Ah, the age-old question. Throughout smash history, it has generally been the latter. However, with such character diversity, PM is unique in having iconic mains of nearly every character, but rarely a horde of competing mains ala melee Fox. This lends itself to unconsciously (or consciously) drawing a much closer connection between a dominant player and an overpowered character. In the case of these four characters, I classify them as follows. Note: this is where my opinions come in hard.
Lucas was appropriately nerfed. This is generally agreed upon, but in the context of this discussion, it implies a slightly more distasteful notion: Neon and Pink Fresh didn't 'deserve' the success they had with their character, they had an unfair advantage. I personally think this is pretty accurate, although I respect their skill as players. They themselves might even agree.
Mewtwo was also appropriately nerfed. M2K moving on is just M2K being M2K. Emukiller's success was initially treated as a gimmick, and while this isn't entirely true, I would argue that his situation is akin to Neon's.
Pit, in my opinion, was overnerfed. I know this is not an unpopular opinion, but I'm looking at it simply though this post's lens: both dominant players decided to move on (interestingly, as with M2K, to Fox), despite them both being unbelievably competent players. In my opinion, the public opinion was too far shifted against Pit and not cognizant enough of Armada and Zero's skills.
Diddy was also appropriately nerfed. He was toned down, but not too badly. Junebug continues to have excellent success with him, proving again and again his excellent skill is responsible for his wins, not character abuse.
Of course, all of that is in my opinion. The point is to think about nerfs in terms of the effect we see on their players results compared with the effect that, for better or for worse, we think we ought to see.
But what about Fox, this post is about nerfs, isn't it?
I'm not going to hop on the bandwagon. The situation is muddied by a hilariously huge group of insanely good players all playing the character, his years of development notwithstanding. However, I would like to bring attention to the fact that out of this list, M2K, Zer0, and Armada all switched away from unique, interesting PM characters to Fox. They stopped advancing the metagame of their own characters due to nerfs, and using their excellent critical thinking skills, all independently decided to switch to Fox.
The Point
I know we are currently in 3.6b, not 3.5, and so this discussion is largely moot. I simply saw an interesting pattern and decided to share my analysis of it. The point of this post is not to complain for nerfs for Fox, or complain about the nerfs to Pit, or anything of the sort. Rather, it is to bring attention to the idea that players can make their character look really, really good if they themselves are, and sometimes this is misconstrued. I hope these ideas can help further future discussions when inevitably the next discussions of balance begin.
I just wrote up a post about my take on evaluating good characters versus good players, historical analysis style, on the PM subreddit. Here's the link to the post, but I've copied it here as well. Hope you guys find it interesting! I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Hi guys,
After watching Junebug win LTC3 with Diddy and the surprisingly close 'hidden boss' 1-game exhibition vs Zer0, I had a thought come to me regarding the history of dominant players, supposedly OP characters, and the legacy these characters and players carry on post-nerf. I am going to present this history, and then present my conclusions about it. I welcome interesting discussion about it.
We all know the balance of 3.02 was... interesting, to say the least. Let's enumerate the heavy hitters, and their respective big-name players.
- Lucas--represented by Neon and Pink Fresh
- Mewtwo--represented by M2K and Emukiller
- Pit--represented by Armada and Zer0
- Diddy--represented by Junebug, Luck, and I feel like I'm forgetting one more, but can't put my finger on it.
Neon and Pink Fresh were hardly dominant with Lucas, but they certainly performed well with him, Pink Fresh regularly terrorizing S@X and Neon creating history in his legendary duel with M2K. Then, Lucas was nerfed. Both of these players were hit hard, Pink Fresh probably because he stopped playing as much, but Neon was frustrated enough to begin a character switch to Wolf. Lucas' nerfs had a pronounced effect on his iconic players' performances.
Mewtwo
M2K playing Mewtwo seemed simply appropriate, and much of his success with the character was (I would argue rightfully) attributed to his excellence as a player. Soon, however, Emukiller emerged from the bowels of Anther's ladder and terrorized SKTAR 3, not dropping a set. The cries of "Woop Woop" followed Emukiller where he went, and follow they ought, for he unlocked impressive techniques with Mewtwo that not even M2K had explored. An excellent player in his own right, there was clearly an imbalance in his character's strengths and weaknesses. Mewtwo was nerfed. In response, M2K mostly dropped Mewtwo in PM and turned to other characters, notably Fox. Importantly, Emukiller, while still a strong player, has declined in influence.
Pit
Armada and Zer0 are pretty good at smash bros, being arguably the current best of Melee and Sm4sh, respectively, and they both dominated with Pit. Armada's nickname of the Swedish Sniper became even more fitting, and Zer0 enjoyed a time of dominance which until recently left him atop the smashboards player rank. They both exploited Pit's tools to their maximum potential, but this time there was little doubt as to the competency of the players. Pit was nerfed, arguably harder than any other of these four. After a 3rd place finish at B.E.A.S.T. 5, Armada dropped Pit for Fox, with whom he won his next two PM tournaments. Zer0 also switched to Fox, winning his next two PM tournaments. Although both were drawn away by Sm4sh and Melee becoming more serious, the nerfs to Pit led his two best players to immediately jump ship. However, at LTC3, in what was definitely a friendly, Zer0 did pretty well with Pit against Junebug, the winner of the tournament. Not a very robust data point, but still interesting.
Diddy
I do not know Luck's history very well, so this is just going to be Junebug. Obviously a dominant player during 3.02, he was an animal with Diddy. Diddy was nerfed, though not overly. Junebug is actually the only player out of these who is still performing at the top level of PM currently, and that's after his character nerf. He makes Diddy look scary, but then again, he also makes Ganon look scary. This brings me to the main thrust of this post.
Is it the character, or the player?
Ah, the age-old question. Throughout smash history, it has generally been the latter. However, with such character diversity, PM is unique in having iconic mains of nearly every character, but rarely a horde of competing mains ala melee Fox. This lends itself to unconsciously (or consciously) drawing a much closer connection between a dominant player and an overpowered character. In the case of these four characters, I classify them as follows. Note: this is where my opinions come in hard.
Lucas was appropriately nerfed. This is generally agreed upon, but in the context of this discussion, it implies a slightly more distasteful notion: Neon and Pink Fresh didn't 'deserve' the success they had with their character, they had an unfair advantage. I personally think this is pretty accurate, although I respect their skill as players. They themselves might even agree.
Mewtwo was also appropriately nerfed. M2K moving on is just M2K being M2K. Emukiller's success was initially treated as a gimmick, and while this isn't entirely true, I would argue that his situation is akin to Neon's.
Pit, in my opinion, was overnerfed. I know this is not an unpopular opinion, but I'm looking at it simply though this post's lens: both dominant players decided to move on (interestingly, as with M2K, to Fox), despite them both being unbelievably competent players. In my opinion, the public opinion was too far shifted against Pit and not cognizant enough of Armada and Zero's skills.
Diddy was also appropriately nerfed. He was toned down, but not too badly. Junebug continues to have excellent success with him, proving again and again his excellent skill is responsible for his wins, not character abuse.
Of course, all of that is in my opinion. The point is to think about nerfs in terms of the effect we see on their players results compared with the effect that, for better or for worse, we think we ought to see.
But what about Fox, this post is about nerfs, isn't it?
I'm not going to hop on the bandwagon. The situation is muddied by a hilariously huge group of insanely good players all playing the character, his years of development notwithstanding. However, I would like to bring attention to the fact that out of this list, M2K, Zer0, and Armada all switched away from unique, interesting PM characters to Fox. They stopped advancing the metagame of their own characters due to nerfs, and using their excellent critical thinking skills, all independently decided to switch to Fox.
The Point
I know we are currently in 3.6b, not 3.5, and so this discussion is largely moot. I simply saw an interesting pattern and decided to share my analysis of it. The point of this post is not to complain for nerfs for Fox, or complain about the nerfs to Pit, or anything of the sort. Rather, it is to bring attention to the idea that players can make their character look really, really good if they themselves are, and sometimes this is misconstrued. I hope these ideas can help further future discussions when inevitably the next discussions of balance begin.
