Kneato
Totoro Joe
- Joined
- Jan 24, 2013
- Messages
- 395
I've had a theory I've been mulling over about how I think the metagame will develop over time, likely after PMDT releases the "Gold Version". This theory has a number of implications that I think should affect the ruleset and character design. This may sound a bit ranty but everything ties back to one idea:
Project M has a massive diverse cast of characters, and the development philosophy aims to have them all be viable.
First off, lets discuss this development philosophy. I believe that in order for the game to have a true semblance of balance, no one character should have positive matchups on a vast majority of the cast, and no one character should have a negative matchup on a vast majority of the cast. If these characters exist, we would have both "best" and "worst" characters in the game, which should not be the case for a balanced cast. I can't say for sure if this aligns with the PMDT's design plan as I am not a member, but I believe it is the right direction for the game.
Lets base the rest of this discussion on the assumption that this is what the PMDT's goal is, and they will achieve it, or get very close to achieving it, by the final version of PM. If this is true, it leads me to theorize that character match ups will play a massive role in shaping the meta. I believe that in the absence of characters with good matchups across the board, and all characters having at least one very poor matchups, top players will begin to dual main. We already see that in Melee and to a bigger extent in PM, but I think this will become standard for most players. Players that have strictly one main will struggle in tournaments when they undoubtedly face other players who can and will play characters who have a large advantage over their own.
Now I also believe this has implications for the Ruleset. The current system has stages being banned and selected before the characters are chosen. I think this system is already flawed and it will pose bigger issues as more people start playing multiple characters.
Lets give an example to illustrate the issue with the current system. Player A, Captain Falcon, and player B, Wario, just played their first match. Player A won, so he bans two stages he thinks would be good for Wario and Wario picks Final Destination. Player A then confirms he is staying Captain Falcon. Wario then switches to Falco. The system has allowed Player B to trick player A into playing against Falco on Final Destination.
This system gives the loser of the previous match, what I see, as too large of an advantage as it makes the winning player decide on his bans almost blindly. I believe this is partly responsible for why the player of the first match wins the set so often.
Stage picks and bans should be done in response to character choice. So why choose characters after stages? As I said before, this problem will become MUCH larger if maining multiple characters becomes commonplace.
The easiest way to fix this issue is to simply do character picks first followed by stage bans and picks. I don't see any issues this would cause, and it would also simplify the system in a way that is more intuitive to newer players.
TLDR; Lots of characters means lots of different matchups. Balance should mean there are no characters with all good or all bad matchups. I think most people will main multiple characters to cover their inevitable poor matchups. This makes the current problematic system of stage picking before character picking even more of an issue. Therefor, I think the order of the two should be swapped.
Project M has a massive diverse cast of characters, and the development philosophy aims to have them all be viable.
First off, lets discuss this development philosophy. I believe that in order for the game to have a true semblance of balance, no one character should have positive matchups on a vast majority of the cast, and no one character should have a negative matchup on a vast majority of the cast. If these characters exist, we would have both "best" and "worst" characters in the game, which should not be the case for a balanced cast. I can't say for sure if this aligns with the PMDT's design plan as I am not a member, but I believe it is the right direction for the game.
Lets base the rest of this discussion on the assumption that this is what the PMDT's goal is, and they will achieve it, or get very close to achieving it, by the final version of PM. If this is true, it leads me to theorize that character match ups will play a massive role in shaping the meta. I believe that in the absence of characters with good matchups across the board, and all characters having at least one very poor matchups, top players will begin to dual main. We already see that in Melee and to a bigger extent in PM, but I think this will become standard for most players. Players that have strictly one main will struggle in tournaments when they undoubtedly face other players who can and will play characters who have a large advantage over their own.
Now I also believe this has implications for the Ruleset. The current system has stages being banned and selected before the characters are chosen. I think this system is already flawed and it will pose bigger issues as more people start playing multiple characters.
Lets give an example to illustrate the issue with the current system. Player A, Captain Falcon, and player B, Wario, just played their first match. Player A won, so he bans two stages he thinks would be good for Wario and Wario picks Final Destination. Player A then confirms he is staying Captain Falcon. Wario then switches to Falco. The system has allowed Player B to trick player A into playing against Falco on Final Destination.
This system gives the loser of the previous match, what I see, as too large of an advantage as it makes the winning player decide on his bans almost blindly. I believe this is partly responsible for why the player of the first match wins the set so often.
Stage picks and bans should be done in response to character choice. So why choose characters after stages? As I said before, this problem will become MUCH larger if maining multiple characters becomes commonplace.
The easiest way to fix this issue is to simply do character picks first followed by stage bans and picks. I don't see any issues this would cause, and it would also simplify the system in a way that is more intuitive to newer players.
TLDR; Lots of characters means lots of different matchups. Balance should mean there are no characters with all good or all bad matchups. I think most people will main multiple characters to cover their inevitable poor matchups. This makes the current problematic system of stage picking before character picking even more of an issue. Therefor, I think the order of the two should be swapped.
