S_B
Too Drunk to Smash
Been watching a lot of footage of ultimate (like I'm sure most of us have been doing) and an unfortunate realization hit me:
Due to the unbalanced nature of final smashes across different characters, final smash meters are going to harm casual play, possibly even more so than competitive play.
In all my casual play experience, it wasn't uncommon for players to gravitate toward the character(s) that were generally the easiest to win with. My Melee casual matches from back in the day absolutely saw this as we had one player who figured out how easy it was to use Marth's tipper range to "cherrypick" kills when two other players were locked in combat. He'd wait until someone was high enough % and distracted, then sneak in and steal the KO, forcing us to hunt him the entire match to stop him from doing it or just using stock (which we didn't always want to do).
A similar issue is going to arise in Ultimate with FSMs: certain characters have final smashes that require perfect timing of a button press when right in front of an opponent who isn't dodging. Meanwhile, OTHER characters can simply press B anywhere on the screen and basically guarantee a KO from an unavoidable (or incredibly difficult to avoid) final smash.
Had FSMs been a mechanic back in my casual SSB days (and with Ultimate's final smashes), we may very well have started banning characters like Diddy, Peach/Daisy, and many of the "beam" characters (final smashes that are basically a huge beam that sweeps the majority of the stage). Either that, or we'd always have to be playing as them.
Remember, "casual" doesn't mean a player who's so dumb as to be awestruck by the bright flashing images on the screen and therefore content. Casual players also try to win, will gravitate toward effective characters or strategies, and over time definitely shy away from using characters who need to land their final smashes with a well-timed button press as opposed to those who can typically guarantee one or more KOs just by pressing B.
I feel like my casual group of friends would turn FSMs off after enough playtime for the same reason competitive players will: such a massive advantage shouldn't be guaranteed, especially with so little counterplay, and it limits the pool of characters we'll want to use as a result.
Due to the unbalanced nature of final smashes across different characters, final smash meters are going to harm casual play, possibly even more so than competitive play.
In all my casual play experience, it wasn't uncommon for players to gravitate toward the character(s) that were generally the easiest to win with. My Melee casual matches from back in the day absolutely saw this as we had one player who figured out how easy it was to use Marth's tipper range to "cherrypick" kills when two other players were locked in combat. He'd wait until someone was high enough % and distracted, then sneak in and steal the KO, forcing us to hunt him the entire match to stop him from doing it or just using stock (which we didn't always want to do).
A similar issue is going to arise in Ultimate with FSMs: certain characters have final smashes that require perfect timing of a button press when right in front of an opponent who isn't dodging. Meanwhile, OTHER characters can simply press B anywhere on the screen and basically guarantee a KO from an unavoidable (or incredibly difficult to avoid) final smash.
Had FSMs been a mechanic back in my casual SSB days (and with Ultimate's final smashes), we may very well have started banning characters like Diddy, Peach/Daisy, and many of the "beam" characters (final smashes that are basically a huge beam that sweeps the majority of the stage). Either that, or we'd always have to be playing as them.
Remember, "casual" doesn't mean a player who's so dumb as to be awestruck by the bright flashing images on the screen and therefore content. Casual players also try to win, will gravitate toward effective characters or strategies, and over time definitely shy away from using characters who need to land their final smashes with a well-timed button press as opposed to those who can typically guarantee one or more KOs just by pressing B.
I feel like my casual group of friends would turn FSMs off after enough playtime for the same reason competitive players will: such a massive advantage shouldn't be guaranteed, especially with so little counterplay, and it limits the pool of characters we'll want to use as a result.
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