Smash Sociology

[Trash Bandicoot]

I've been thinking about the sociology of smash, specifically PM, and I'm looking for professional input (professional smash players, not sociologists). Basically, the difference between the social norms of the game in a professional context and a casual context interest me. Casual PM is the only type I've ever played, though, like most people who take the time to join SB, I've learned a small repertoire of tech to draw from. In a small group of 5 semi-frequent/frequent casual players (including myself), I've noticed some odd social happenings over the last two years of gaming, and I'm looking for a comparison between what I describe below, and how populations of smash players function in tournament settings.

1. In PM, balance has deteriorated regardless of update. Just through playing PM, my smash group seems to accumulate new characters to consider either considered mindless or OP (at the end I'll leave a list of these characters in case anyone might ask). Almost exclusively, these characters are ones which someone has become effective with. I imagine that in a professional environment, balance criticisms are less sporadic and come with more explanation than one move or element. Confirm/Deny?

2. Between PM and melee, I find a common fad to be the shifting of preference from PM to melee and eventually back to PM, often with an elitist perspective that melee is inherently more technical (because PM was inspired by melee and melee is faster-paced). I assume that nearly every PM vet has played melee to some degree, and I'd like to know if there is this degree of social uncertainty regarding which game is 'better' in the professional setting. Are there long-time members of both parties, or is there a more fluid and changing consensus which can't seem to make up its mind?

3. 4-stocks. To my smash group, we almost exclusively play 4-stock 1vs1 games (sometimes 2vs2 and rarely ffa), and a 4-stock as I know it is to defeat your opponent in a 4stock 1vs1 without dying. As they should be, these are very rare occurrences, and to my memory (which at the time is often clouded by smash "accompaniments") only 3 have occurred within my group. Each time, the response to such a game was extremely negative, especially on the end of the loser, but also moderately for the winner. In professional smash settings, how tempered are the combatants? Are the games generally civil, or is rage commonplace? More specifically, how do shut-outs (like the one mentioned above) tend to go?

Anyone is welcome to reply, though I'm specifically looking for those with experience in the tournament setting to offer some insight on the matters listed above. I appreciate your time and comments.

OP/mindless PM characters in random order (not what you might expect):
Snake (OP)
Bowser (OP/Mindless)
Wolf (OP)
Fox (OP)
Falco (OP)
Sonic (OP/Mindless)
Lucario (OP/Mindless)
DDD (OP)
Zero Suit Samus (OP/Mindless)
Lucas (OP)
Ganondorf (Mindless)
Shiek (OP)
Zelda (OP/Mindless)
Ivysaur (OP/Mindless)
Mario (OP)

 

[geno]

Well, idk about you guys, but whenever a 4 stock occurs around my neck of the woods, it's typically accompanied by loud cheering, taunting, and a head hung in shame by the loser. Nothing negative though. Always civil and especially no rage. I think you guys may be playing wrong if such a rare occurrence is upsetting everyone so much.

Also, your list of OP characters is like almost half the cast. Which is a good thing! If everyone's OP, no one is, right? Keep playing PM and you'll realize how beautifully balanced it already is, especially in comparison to Melee and Brawl. And even more balance to come! I'm getting all 3.0 hyped just thinking about it!

 

[GMaster171]

Just as a note on your list, most of the people you have listed as both OP and mindless are more "noob killers" in that they punish newer players who may not be able to avoid things veterans can, or people who don't know the match up well enough to avoid the deadlier things. DIing against Ivy makes her less threatening, avoiding side-b from Zss, not running into Ganon's/Bowser's things face first, stuff like that.

About 4-stocks, Its really just my friends that don't take those well lol, most people don't really rage about them, and they shouldn't really. Either your opponent out played you, or you made many mistakes. The former is no reason to get mad, and getting angry does nothing to help the ladder (makes it worse actually)

 

[Wrestlemania]

That is quite the list of OP characters, DDD, huh? Gmaster was pretty accurate, as you get better you will find that a bunch of those characters are not as overpowered as you thought. As for 4 stocking in my group if it is a possibitly that last stock becomes much more intense you are not trying to win as much as not to get 4 stocked. Most times it happens the person shakes their head and shakes it off and that is that.

 

[BTmoney]

1. In PM, balance has deteriorated regardless of update. Huh? Just through playing PM, my smash group seems to accumulate new characters to consider either considered mindless or OP (at the end I'll leave a list of these characters in case anyone might ask). Almost exclusively, these characters are ones which someone has become effective with. I imagine that in a professional environment, balance criticisms are less sporadic and come with more explanation than one move or element. Confirm/Deny?

I'm a melee player. I play PM in the same capacity but not as often, a lot of it transfers over basically exactly.

• I do not understand that first sentence but other than that, confirm. There are less sporadic mostly because I don't think that any competent player complains that much. We are all generally about improvement. If something is unbeatable then it becomes a problem (i.e. you can SDI out of Fox's infinite combos, so if you don't want to get infitied, learn how to and know that you can SDI it) While people might occasionally complain about certain elements of the game or specific characters (i.e. Fox's shine, Falco's Lasers, Puff's Bair, Sheik's dthrow) it is generally understood that we play this game in a competitive arena. Essentially, it is not worth complaining about anything that you might perceive to be over powered. Few things are actually over powered and even if they are it doesn't matter. In my opinion it is scrub-mentality to complain about something like a shine or Puff's bair. In a competitive setting your opponent is supposed to abuse their advantage over you. If you don't want to get walled out by bairs then space better, get under neath them, and or punish them in between repetitions. If you don't want Peach to 0-death you then ban FD as a space animal or don't get grabbed. Peach can't magically manifest a grab, you had to have make a mistake (you being the spacie player) in the first place to have gotten grabbed. If you're sick of getting utilt'd by Marth on a platform then DI down and tech it or learn how to shield drop. You can't complain about something that you have the ability to combat but you do not. If you're a Falcon main you accepted (or you should have by now) that space animals completely steam roll your character and you need to play better than them (or be the better player) to win in most cases.

2. Between PM and melee, I find a common fad to be the shifting of preference from PM to melee and eventually back to PM, often with an elitist perspective that melee is inherently more technical (because PM was inspired by melee and melee is faster-paced). I assume that nearly every PM vet has played melee to some degree, and I'd like to know if there is this degree of social uncertainty regarding which game is 'better' in the professional setting. Are there long-time members of both parties, or is there a more fluid and changing consensus which can't seem to make up its mind?

• I can't speak on that, a lot of players play both games. I think that there are more melee (or Brawl) players that play both than sole PM players. I don't think people are conflicted at all about it though since there is no reason why you can't play both.

3. 4-stocks. To my smash group, we almost exclusively play 4-stock 1vs1 games (sometimes 2vs2 and rarely ffa), and a 4-stock as I know it is to defeat your opponent in a 4stock 1vs1 without dying. As they should be, these are very rare occurrences, and to my memory (which at the time is often clouded by smash "accompaniments") only 3 have occurred within my group. Each time, the response to such a game was extremely negative, especially on the end of the loser, but also moderately for the winner. In professional smash settings, how tempered are the combatants? Are the games generally civil, or is rage commonplace? More specifically, how do shut-outs (like the one mentioned above) tend to go?

• Rivalries, the crowd, stakes, and expectation all play into that. Generally it's pretty mild mannered but in hype matches or big events 4 stocks can get the place going insane. Let me stress that, melee is the most exciting video game ever in my opinion when a big match is going on. I don't think people can blame the game ever when they get 4 stocked. I don't think competitive players do that either. You should just get better or play better next time.

Anyone is welcome to reply, though I'm specifically looking for those with experience in the tournament setting to offer some insight on the matters listed above. I appreciate your time and comments.

OP/mindless PM characters in random order (not what you might expect):
Snake (OP)
Bowser (OP/Mindless)
Wolf (OP)
Fox (OP)
Falco (OP)
Sonic (OP/Mindless)
Lucario (OP/Mindless)
DDD (OP)
Zero Suit Samus (OP/Mindless)
Lucas (OP)
Ganondorf (Mindless)
Shiek (OP)
Zelda (OP/Mindless)
Ivysaur (OP/Mindless)
Mario (OP)

And here is some food for thought; any character that is in actually mindless or overpowered is a good character. The characters that are not are bad characters.

 

[Kink-Link5]

Half the cast is overpowered?

Seems like a bit of nonsense to me. What does that make the other half of characters?

 

[Mithost]

I can see what happens here. Everyone gets together to play some smash, and someone haphazardly picks a random character and does well with the character. After a few matches against that character, the matches get stale because it seems like the character cannot be beaten. You guys then ban such character because you are unable to beat them.

Let me introduce you to a thing called Auto-Pilot. It's how your brain plays the game when you are not trying anything new or consiously reacting to situations. When you are in auto-pilot, you will always react to things the same way. Rolling to dodge _____, recovering high, constantly running into attacks, and never changing what you do. When both players are in auto-pilot, one player will constantly be doing the same attacks, and someone else will always run into those attacks.

Does the following statement sound familiar? This character is mindless because all you have to do to win is _____. The characters are only as mindless as the people playing them (except sonic, but that is a debate for another thread).

 

[Strong Badam]

mithost, that assessment is only accurate for poor players. i and many others subconsciously do the things you claim only occur when players are consciously reacting to situations. i can be having a conversation with someone or thinking about something else and i still will not react to a defensive situation the same each time. this is because becoming a good player is as much being analytical as it is doing things so much that they become subconscious. i don't need to think about not being ******** with my tech habits/rolls/recovery, and i can expend that brain power (when i want to) on things such as why am i losing or how i can be winning by a larger margin. whatever you're describing as "auto-pilot" doesn't really apply to very many good players.

On the topic at hand, I'll go ahead and answer question number two. I have been a Melee players since 2007, and recently have decided to completely stop playing the game competitively after July 14th, replacing it entirely with Project M. This is because that, while it has its own host of problems that Melee might not have, it has something that Melee never will. An opportunity. Rather, a promise. A promise that it will get better. Continually. Until it's complete. It may be debatable which game is better at this point in time, but it's pretty obvious that one game is changing and one isn't. It's really only a matter of time.
Many sneer, snicker, etc.. "He plays that game because DK is OP in PM; he can't do well in Melee, the superior game" as they hide behind characters that fight with blue hexagons and infinite red lines on the screen instead of their fists. Yet, in Melee I have accomplished with a poor character what hundreds, thousands of people will never accomplish with the best ones, including most that would argue against me. So I ignore them. I travel the country attending tournaments. In a newer, more fun, more balanced, more fair game. And destroy everyone that stands between me and 1st place. Or at least, that's the plan.

 

[Vashimus]

1. People ALWAYS get overly-focused on results when it comes to character "goodness". In the casual case, it's the Ganon player who's thrashing everyone in your group, so people get salty and say he's too good/OP. In the tournament case, it's HBox vs. Armada, where people are fully confident that Young Link wins against Jiggs based on their matches alone, rather than Hbox just not knowing the matchup. Nothing you can do about that really.

2. I really don't care. I like both Melee and P:M, but I greatly prefer P:M thanks to new characters and better balance, plus it's constantly changing. I've been playing the same Melee for over a decade, I'd like something new please that isn't Brawl. The only downside to P:M right now is not all the characters are in, but once they are, players really won't have any reason to go back to Melee.

3. When a 4-stock happens, people usually get excited as hell, taunting or yelling at the loser about what happened, who shakes his head in disgust, sighs it out and gets back into it. I've never seen anyone get mad at someone for 4-stocking their opponent. It doesn't make any sense. They won the match, played flawlessly. It's like you if 4 stock someone, and people say, "He 4-stocked him? Jeez. What a douche." "Yeah, WTF man? You didn't have to mess him up THAT bad. The hell's your problem?"

Any character that is actually mindless or overpowered is a good character. The characters that are not are bad characters.

If everyone's OP, no one is, right?

Guilty Gear Logic.

 

[Trash Bandicoot]

@Ado
Regarding that statement about balance "deteriorating" despite nothing physically changing. The statement is intended to make little sense when taken literally. What I'm trying to communicate is that, as my smash group plays the game more, their (and perhaps my own as well) perception of balance changes to see the game as less balanced. Also, could you explain this "And here is some food for thought; any character that is in actually mindless or overpowered is a good character. The characters that are not are bad characters." You've peaked my curiosity.

@Mithost
Oh how familiar it is. I find that to be the problem. When I play, lets say, Bowser, all I need to do is throw my opponent off the ledge and fair them to death. So, the complaint is that fair must be OP, but to me it seems that my opponents just refuse to fight Bowser any differently than they did in melee, constantly trying to brute force him to death. For more moves like this, see the bottom of this post.

@everyone
Its comforting to see that having half the cast labeled OP makes as little sense to me as it does to the rest of you. I haven't let this bit of info out yet, but I think it would be useful at this point. Besides spacies, ZSS, and mario, all of the listed OP or mindless characters are ones I play (or have given up over rage). I've suspected that this is why they're all considered OP, but I'd rather go on the specific reasons behind each character than assume that its because I'm the biggest fish in the puddle. Gmaster noted that most of the characters listed as OP/Mindless are "noob killers," a point that I think is central to my problem.

I started this thread because within my smash group, the rage has gotten so out of hand that I don't enjoy playing anymore. I'd like to change this to the way things were before we did 1vs1's all the time (but I want to keep doing 1vs1's). My group of players aren't terrible at PM. We can wavedash, short hop, wave land (sometimes), techroll, shffl, l-cancel, etc. but by comparison to the vids I see on SB, we're nubs. So, I'm thinking that the reason so many characters are hated is because their noob-killing potential impacts our games so much. Below are the specific moves for each character which are either hated, or nearly outlawed by claims of OPness. I'd like to hear if anyone finds any truth to the claims.

Specific moves which are criticized locally (for the note, many of these things I personally disagree with, but these are the claims I'm met with):

Snake (OP)
fair (as a meteor [or is it a spike?])

Bowser (OP/Mindless)
fair (when your opponent is off the ledge)

Wolf (OP)
over smash (too long distance)

Fox (OP)
blip

Falco (OP)
blip

Sonic (OP/Mindless)
just about everything, especially his fair (for spiking)

Lucario (OP/Mindless)
magic series (too much damage output when combo'd)
spirit bomb (too big slow and strong)
up B (to good for recovering/does damage)

DDD (OP)
fair (for gimping)
that trick where you suck someone up as you're falling past the edge (all suicide moves are considered inherently bad or wrong)

Zero Suit Samus (OP/Mindless)
down smash forward smash combo (mindless because down smash paralyzes)
general range
all paralysis moves

Lucas (OP)
up smash (too strong, NOT punishable [I know I know. wth?])
over smash (too strong)

Ganondorf (Mindless)
down B (too much KO potential. Its been claimed that this move is all a ganon player needs)
down air (too easy to spike with)

Shiek (OP)
standard complaints

Zelda (OP/Mindless)
nair (too good in general)
up smash (way too good in general)
din's fire (too powerful)
fair (crits automatically. yes you read that correctly)

Ivysaur (OP/Mindless)
B (heals)
down B
dair (too powerful as a spike)

Mario (OP)
Unspecified

Lastly, what is the difference between a meteor and a spike? I'm told that spikes cannot be recovered from while meteors can, and that this is the only difference.

 

[Kink-Link5]

Spikes can not be jumped out of, meteors can. A weak spike is still better than a weak meteor, but isn't necessarily impossible to recover from.

 

[BTmoney]

@Ado
Regarding that statement about balance "deteriorating" despite nothing physically changing. The statement is intended to make little sense when taken literally. What I'm trying to communicate is that, as my smash group plays the game more, their (and perhaps my own as well) perception of balance changes to see the game as less balanced. Also, could you explain this "And here is some food for thought; any character that is in actually mindless or overpowered is a good character. The characters that are not are bad characters." You've peaked my curiosity.

Lastly, what is the difference between a meteor and a spike? I'm told that spikes cannot be recovered from while meteors can, and that this is the only difference.

The last bit is true. Spikes tend to have a lot of hitstun (or at least perceived) and send you either straight down or at a downwards angle. You cannot act while in hitstun so you simply fall and if your percent is too high you're either going to be too low to recover or you'll just hit the bottom blastzone.

Meteor Smashes are basically the exact same thing but there is a window to perform a meteor cancel which nullifies the spike like effect (i.e. you can jump/recover). I don't know the specifics on that but meteor canceling isn't hard and you probably did it a few times when you first picked up the game.

And I'll expand on my point. Character goodness is all relative (i.e. a character can be good in a vacuum or standalone viewpoint but not as good when compared against other character). For example, lets say there is a cast of 2 characters. There is Fox 1 and Fox 2. Fox 2 is the exact same character as Fox 1 but he has no shine. He has every other good trait that Fox 1 has but is objectively worse because his move set is comparatively worse. This makes Fox 2 the worst character in the game (although he is still pretty much good). He is "bad."

Now apply that to this, if some of the cast truly is mindless or overpowered (which I don't think so other than Sonic) then the characters that don't have that those traits are simply bad or worse characters. If one character is mindless, then there is an issue but if 12 or so characters in the PM cast are "mindless" that's fine, those are just the viable characters. If basically every character is perceived as mindless then it's all relative again so it doesn't actually matter unless it makes the game unplayable or takes away all depth. Ideally though no character would be mindless or overpowered. That didn't really come out how I wanted it to but I tried. Lol.

 

[Oro?!]

ZSS has guaranteed hits after dsmash? It has to be her entire game plan.

#MindlessOP

 

[Trash Bandicoot]

I get what you're saying now Ado. Thanks for your input (to everyone really). Oro, I assume that you play ZSS frequently (by your sig). Can you explain the flaws in the idea that ZSS has a dsmash and a gun that cause inescapable paralysis. I'm critical of the idea, but I really don't know what the deal is with ZSS, as I never play her, and neither does anyone that I know.

Now that this thread is shifting from a sociological lens into a more informative one, I'd like to know what your opinions on PM online are. I've heard that the lag breaks online PM, but I've never tried it and I won't own my first wii for a few more weeks. I ask because online PM, assuming it functions well, would be a great way to broaden my smash experience and meet better players.

 

[Oro?!]

DSmash has a long startup and is basically unusable aside from hard reads against approaches in neutral. In addition you can minimize damage from ZSS stun because you can mash out of stun, and be sent to neutral faster. Dsmash shouldn't combo until mid %s or in an edgeguard situation. Having problems with DSmash being a guaranteed combo means that you should have problems with other moves that have guaranteed or practically guaranteed follow ups. That includes a lot of meteor/spikes while your oppoenent is on the ground as well as a plethora of throw combos.

I've never heard a crowd boo after Falcon does a dthrow/uthrow knee 100X in a set.

 

[CyberZixx]

That is because everyone has Falcon bias. I'm surprised Marth is not considered OP/Mindless. Does no one in your group play the character at all? Seems a lot of players like to john about his range.

 

[traffic.]

THE CHARACTERS HAVE ATTACKS THAT KILL THE OTHER CHARACTERS AND I DONT UNDERSTAND IT.

 

[Deleted member]

Most of those specific move complaints are downright silly. Your group really needs to stop, take a breather, and use their brains. It seems as if they get angry and frustrated because they keep doing the exact same things in the exact same situations with the exact same results. If what you're doing isn't working, try something different!

 

[MikeHaggarTHAKJB]

im extremely surprised that wario isn't considered OP at low level. how do you guys counter forward B spam?

1. no, people ***** and moan all the time without any basis for their stupid claims

 

[Kink-Link5]

Low level Wario is free to low level Marth F-smash spam.

 

[Trash Bandicoot]

@Maxwell
The one person I know who plays Marth is still very untrained with him and so he generally doesn't dominate.

@Mike
There has been some acknowledgement of Wario's forward B being powerful, however because nobody plays him well (in my group), there isn't enough hate for him to be considered OP (hate is an important part of our expert opinions on what is OP sadly).

@Smas
I agree with your reasoning, but the problem with my group is that we're all the best PM players that exist () , and so we have very valuable and accurate opinions despite forming them entirely out of rage. Convincing people that think like this can be a real chore. Being a Zelda player, I'm sure you were either enraged or amused by the claim that Zelda's fair always crits. That's my favorite one tbh (because its more of a complement than a complaint).

@Oro
That's exactly the kind of explanation I need to counter the baseless arguments I'm regularly faced with.

 

[Strong Badam]

im extremely surprised that wario isn't considered OP at low level. how do you guys counter forward B spam?

...shield?

 

[Red(SP)]

I lol'd at up smash being broken for Lucas.

Yeah sure if you tip someone with it, it might hurt your groin a ****load.
But it's not that hard to mess up with it either and it's quite punishable. :b

 

[MikeHaggarTHAKJB]

...shield?

yhea but then you need to punish it oos, which isn't easy for low level players

its not broken or even that good in competitive play, the question was for low level players like the op

 

[Mithost]

Most of those specific move complaints are downright silly. Your group really needs to stop, take a breather, and use their brains. It seems as if they get angry and frustrated because they keep doing the exact same things in the exact same situations with the exact same results. If what you're doing isn't working, try something different!

This is what I was trying to get at earlier. I don't want to hate on the OP and his group for being poor at the game, but if these moves are that much of a problem for you guys and your only way to fix it is to ban it, you should try a bit harder.

 

[Trash Bandicoot]

No offense taken Mithost. Tbh, most of the "OP" characters and moves are ones I use, so I would love to just tell everyone else to try harder and stop crying when I pick any of the given "OP" characters (half the cast). There is a reason I'm buying my own wii, and though part of that reason is to get better at the game in general, another part of it is just so I can understand enough about the game to explain why moves like Lucas' usmash aren't OP.

 

[Vashimus]

mithost, that assessment is only accurate for poor players. i and many others subconsciously do the things you claim only occur when players are consciously reacting to situations. i can be having a conversation with someone or thinking about something else and i still will not react to a defensive situation the same each time. this is because becoming a good player is as much being analytical as it is doing things so much that they become subconscious. i don't need to think about not being ******** with my tech habits/rolls/recovery, and i can expend that brain power (when i want to) on things such as why am i losing or how i can be winning by a larger margin. whatever you're describing as "auto-pilot" doesn't really apply to very many good players.

It applies to everyone, because getting out of auto-pilot is something every aspiring good player goes through or has gone through. What me means is, you didn't just pick up DK and automatically become godlike with him with no evaluation of your game whatsoever. Chances are you had a lot of bad habits when you started playing. You found those habits, stopping making them, and replaced them with better options. Of course, if you play the game for so long, those good options eventually become automatic in your playstyle without having to think, but you still got there my rewriting how you approach situations, muscle memory, instinct, etc. AKA breaking auto-pilot.

 

[Oro?!]

If half of the cast is op, then the game is pretty balanced.

 

[Trash Bandicoot]

If only that were really the case. What's your point?

 

[Strong Badam]

It applies to everyone, because getting out of auto-pilot is something every aspiring good player goes through or has gone through. What me means is, you didn't just pick up DK and automatically become godlike with him with no evaluation of your game whatsoever. Chances are you had a lot of bad habits when you started playing. You found those habits, stopping making them, and replaced them with better options. Of course, if you play the game for so long, those good options eventually become automatic in your playstyle without having to think, but you still got there my rewriting how you approach situations, muscle memory, instinct, etc. AKA breaking auto-pilot.

I don't really agree with that, because as I said this is simply making my auto-pilot effective rather than breaking it. I broke poor auto-pilot if that's what you and he mean.

 

[Deleted member]

Being a Zelda player, I'm sure you were either enraged or amused by the claim that Zelda's fair always crits. That's my favorite one tbh (because its more of a complement than a complaint).

It's pretty funny. The only explanation I can think of is that they see the electric effect, which 3 out of 4 of the move's hitboxes have, and assume that it automatically means "crit." If they take more than a passing glance, they'll notice the different power levels and how it's not that easy to land the strongest hit. If they don't believe you, take them to Training Mode.

Zelda is extremely effective against less experienced players, probably even more so than other characters, because they're easy to trick into playing into her defensive game and running into her powerful attacks.

 

[Kink-Link5]

The funny part is that the Melee hitboxes on her kicks are nerfed in power and are still only the same size as their Melee counterparts.

Electric hits on the pseudo-flubs is bad conveyance though for sure.