The issues of mob mentality and the consequences

[Grass]

So I happened to be browsing Facebook and I saw this on Zucco's page.

And I find it truly disheartening to see this, however, I am far from surprised to see that mob mentality has yet again ruined it for the rest of us. Though, what Zucco is saying here, is far from the mentality of a lot of players, this isn't something that should be overlooked. The issue of this is when Jtails won a tournament with Diddy and everyone started playing diddy that was the issue of cancer. It's not the issue of the fact everyone plays Diddy, it's the fact that idea spreads, that is the true cancer. Idealisms that involve this spreading of brain-dead character strategies is how people create this cancer. And like Omni has said in the past about Diddy not being the problem, so too is the true case of the fact people are mislead to believe certain things to be true about Diddy Kong and only realizing it down the road that it has never been the case to begin with. Misinformation and misleading ideas about how the meta game works in Smash in general has greatly reduced this game to putting only the best characters first. MVG_Inui actually mentioned on his stream that a lot of characters back in Brawl weren't fully explored just because everyone wanted to play MetaKnight. And I think a similar thing is now occurring with Smash 4. While Zucco's statement perfectly describes F.G. I think it tells more about the community than a bunch of noobies on F.G.

Anyway, these are just my thoughts/opinions, you're more than welcome to formulate your own in the posts below.

 

[Roukiske]

I think that's just how it is in a lot of video games, especially competitive ones. You see it everywhere in many forms like decision making, overall strategy, and character selection to name a few. You can't really tell people what character they should play and a lot of times there are other reasons to play a character than the fact they are currently top tiers. I think there is still enough character diversity at least as far as I've personally seen.

I'm not gonna lie, IMO plenty of top tier characters are really fun to play. 64 Pikachu is fun. Melee Fox/Falco are a blast to play at high level. I didn't play much Brawl, but when I did play Meta Knight I will say I didn't have that much fun, but Marth was fun.

I hardly play Diddy, but when I do, his playstyle is very fun. He's quick, strong, has more guaranteed combos, banana followups, a command grab mixup, he's simply entertaining to play if you want to pummel your opponent. If more characters had as many tools as he did then this game would be pretty crazy, in a good way I believe. Many of us have played Smash for years. Unless some game-breaking bugs/exploits/glitches get discovered we have seen what Smash4 has to offer. Diddy simply has the most useful tools of the cast. At the very least I think you have to be somewhat skilled and smart to use Diddy against good players.

Many people like to play with what works. If they see something works, they're probably want to try it out for themselves.

Regarding customs: I'm for them (even though I've been too lazy to unlock them myself), but Nintendo has really executed customization in such a horrible way. Unlocking them is a small problem to me, its the lack of different features for setting them up which feels like they had no idea what they were doing. It's as if there was no quality assurance testing in that area. To me, that's a bit of a turn off and perhaps some may feel this way too, enough to dislike customs as a whole.

 

[κomıc]

You call it mob mentality, I call it a circle jerk. I agree with @ R Roukiske (granted, I hardly used Pika in 64, Falco/Fox in Melee and I tried MK as I wanted to main all Kirby characters but he just wasn't for me unfortunately).

Some people just play to win. Strictly. I don't agree with that mentality and personally, I don't have this ambition to be the best or come out on top as I just was to play the game. In a sense, I consider myself a passive-competitive player. I don't take the game seriously and I don't think I ever will since it just creates a layer of stress that goes against my idea of enjoying a video game. I like to compete only for fun. Money, fame and all that extra fluff doesn't do anything for me. So, I won't be turning to Diddy Kong any time soon for tournament play unless I'm playing random characters and I happen to choose him (he is fun, though).

As for customs, the team did a poor job in how unlocking them works out. In my opinion, they should have had a shop where you can buy these customs with coins. Also, a lot of these customs aren't really unique compared to some others, particularly Palutena and the Mii Fighters. I imagine it would have taken a much longer time to craft unique movesets for all of the 50 characters rather than altering their effects while retaining the animations of these attacks.

In the end, I'm for them. Despite me not caring much about custom movesets, I can see how they can give several characters an edge in competition. A lot of it is sacrificing one thing for another. It brings a sense of personalization to your character and it's just really fun to experiment and learn what seems to be a whole new side of the game.

Smash Bros is formulaic and it is about time they introduce something new besides stages, modes and characters.

 

[Grass]

You can't really tell people what character they should play and a lot of times there are other reasons to play a character than the fact they are currently top tiers. I think there is still enough character diversity at least as far as I've personally seen.

This is the one thing I think is great about Smash 4 as a whole in that you have a huge cast to choose from and it isn't just Top tier all day. And I feel like characters like Luigi haven't been fully explored due to the fact that everyone just wants an "easy button" so to speak.

 

[HeavyMetalSonic]

This is the one thing I think is great about Smash 4 as a whole in that you have a huge cast to choose from and it isn't just Top tier all day. And I feel like characters like Luigi haven't been fully explored due to the fact that everyone just wants an "easy button" so to speak.

Definitely. This game feels (to me, at least) like the most balanced of the lot. Every character feels pretty viable in most instances, even the "worst ones" (A lot of people think Meta is bad, but my friend is pretty damn good with him). It's just a shame that people don't want to experiment, and will just follow the leader like sheep with a small number of characters, such as Diddy, RosaLuma, Sheik. I mean don't get me wrong, there ARE people that genuinely like the character and will play them for that reason, I main Sonic because I like him, he just so happens to be good and suits my playstyle. I also like RosaLuma, I just haven't practiced much with her yet.

But it's a shame that you'll mostly see at most a select group of characters being used primarily by everyone. But I guess if they're having fun, who can stop them. It'd just be nice to have a bit of variety and not have to fight the same character 10 times in a row.

 

[Duck SMASH!]

A lot of the people that do this really aren't that good at the game. I mean, the best players who convinced everybody to switch to Diddy and Sheik and Fox are almost always going to beat the people they inspire.
I see a lot of tier whoring in FG, but all this does is give me the advantage because my matchup experience against the top tiers becomes MUCH better, putting them at a significant disadvantage if they don't know how to handle my Bowser Jr.
So go ahead. Act like sheep. The better player will almost always win anyway.

As for how the Smash meta develops, yes it is disappointing but you can't have it all... This is just how people are. Let the scrubby tryhards do what they want, and use their predictability as people to your advantage.

 

[chipndip]

Here's the thing:

1) I can dislike custom moves without being a follower. Some custom moves give people advantages in places they shouldn't have them, like Sheik with a guard-breaking projectile. Sure, they take one thing and give another, but in a game with around 50 characters and multiple stages to fight in, custom moves are unnecessary headaches when they're already a hassle to unlock and have all hints and indications pointing towards "not meant to be competitively used".

2) People use what works. Even if something is greatly followed, variety comes with success. If no one's succeeding with other stuff, they turn to what IS succeeding at all. It costs money to enter tournaments and win, so romanticizing the idea of using seemingly worse characters for the sake of "fun" or "charity" is a lousy move on your part. If someone wants to try to win with Zelda, fine by me. Just note that I'm not holding my breath.

That doesn't mean I'm saying it's right to just circle jerk around the top char of the week. Just saying it's also wrong to condone people for the effect a dominant top tier is OBVIOUSLY going to have on them. I mean, it's like blaming me for using Mega Kangaskhan in Pokemon. Sure, I'll listen to what you have to say...as I click Double-Edge.

 

[Grass]

Here's the thing:

1) I can dislike custom moves without being a follower. Some custom moves give people advantages in places they shouldn't have them, like Sheik with a guard-breaking projectile. Sure, they take one thing and give another, but in a game with around 50 characters and multiple stages to fight in, custom moves are unnecessary headaches when they're already a hassle to unlock and have all hints and indications pointing towards "not meant to be competitively used".

2) People use what works. Even if something is greatly followed, variety comes with success. If no one's succeeding with other stuff, they turn to what IS succeeding at all. It costs money to enter tournaments and win, so romanticizing the idea of using seemingly worse characters for the sake of "fun" or "charity" is a lousy move on your part. If someone wants to try to win with Zelda, fine by me. Just note that I'm not holding my breath.

That doesn't mean I'm saying it's right to just circle jerk around the top char of the week. Just saying it's also wrong to condone people for the effect a dominant top tier is OBVIOUSLY going to have on them. I mean, it's like blaming me for using Mega Kangaskhan in Pokemon. Sure, I'll listen to what you have to say...as I click Double-Edge.

So you don't approve of people crowding around the top tier of the week. Yet you believe that it is okay to simply condemn something like customs to improve what may or may not be the future of the meta-game. I have a hard time believing what you have to say. I'm gonna play devil's advocate here and call you out on your BS right here and now. First of all, I'm going to say, people can play whoever they want, with whatever character they want. This isn't Melee and thus not 20XX, so despite your claim of that people use what works, I find it fascinating that you claim that people can't "romanticize" about using a lower tier character for fun. This doesn't necessarily have to be the flavor of the week like Melee, and I would hope that people IN the smash 4 community have a little more empathy when it comes to playing with your favorites.

On the topic of tournaments and cost. While I fully sympathize with those who can't actually attend places like Apex or Evo due to financial reasons, I don't think it's a bad thing to at least attend a tournament and play a few friendlies with the people there. I attended a melee tournament not long ago, and while I got my butt handed to me, I had fun. It was frustrating, but it was fun nonetheless. I feel that attending a tournament would improve your own ability and get tips for how to improve by real life players.

 

[PigglyJuff]

I played villager because I loved animal crossing, and liked characters that are weird, or have something to build around.

I found him to be extremely comfortable and it stuck.

 

[FirestormNeos]

I have yet to unlock all the customs so I have no valid opinion on this, other then how Bull****tingly difficult it is to unlock them all.

 

[allison]

and have all hints and indications pointing towards "not meant to be competitively used".

What the developers supposedly "intend" doesn't really have any kind of impact on the tournament scene. Literally the entire Super Smash Bros. series was originally "not meant to be competitively used". The degree to which Melee was competitively interesting was effectively an accident. I see absolutely no reason not to give custom moves the light of day. If anything, they'll actually help balance the game by giving characters ways to get even with characters they normally have bad matchups against.