The return of joke characters

[Victory.IsMyDestinySSB4]

There has been a sense of outrage floating around about certain character's performance. I think certain characters are becoming what I call "joke characters." The first one was Jigglypuff in 64, but it was made clear that the Puff was not really supposed to be at the top. In 64, anything less than high or mid is kind of trash. However, sakurai seemed to change his mind in Melee, making Jigs have a good zoning option with back air, as well as a combo into rest. Many Jigglypuff mains emerged. Then, the dark ages started. In brawl, Jigs was 3rd to last. Some players were outraged, but others thought it was only a nerf from melee, and in the next game Jigs would be viable again. Sadly, this was not the case. Jigglypuff was at the very bottom. This is not the only case of a character falling into obscurity. Ganondorf fell from mid-tier, and competitive play in Brawl, but then was dead last in Brawl, and then second to last in smash 4. It is my opinion that these characters are falling into obscurity for a reason, as they are becoming obscure, and few mains exist. This is why I ask: Are they intentionally bad?

 

[mountain_tiger]

I'm pretty confident in saying that no one in this game was made intentionally bad.

Let's not forget, for the first three Smash games, 1 v 1 competitive play wasn't really considered at all during development - it was intended far more as a free-for-all party game than anything else. It's only with Smash 4 that the developers started making any sort of conscious effort towards catering to the 1 v 1 competitive crowd. The fact that Jigglypuff was high tier in Melee? Nothing more than a happy accident. Being bottom tier in Brawl? A less happy accident.

It's a little bit odd that Jigglypuff received no real buffs in game patches while literally every other bottom/low tier did, but I suspect that's more due to her extreme lack of popularity leading to her being ignored, more so than a deliberate effort to 'keep her bad'.

 

[Zerp]

This is why I ask: Are they intentionally bad?

I'm not certain, you'd think they are by their abysmal treatment in the patches, but you also have to remember that Mr. Sakurai mained Brawl Ganondorf, and that they released , pre-patch and pre-patch unto the world, they might just be terrible at understanding what options are good and bad in competitive play. Although, I'm willing to bet that at least is unfortunately a joke character, I doubt it's a coincidence that the one game she's great in has taking the mantle of joke character.

It's a little bit odd that Jigglypuff received no real buffs in game patches while literally every other bottom/low tier did, but I suspect that's more due to her extreme lack of popularity leading to her being ignored, more so than a deliberate effort to 'keep her bad'.

I don't think the 'extreme lack of popularity' is the reason why, there's no way she's less popular in game than characters such as , ,,, all of which got buffs, and she's more popular outside of the game than alot of people seem to think, there's no hard statistic on this, but evidence suggests that there are LITERALLY more people out there who know who Jigglypuff is than Kirby. There may or may not be a reason as to why she wasn't buffed, but it's probably not popularity.

 

[Egghead]

In MySmashCorner's "Is it Banworthy" video, he mentions how at different levels of the game, whether it may be pro or casual, different characters may seem to be top tier. Sakurai may not have though that Jiggs was bad in Brawl and Sm4sh because 6 jumps and floatiness was overpowered during his testing and such. Jiggs might have been intentionally made bad but I'm not sure that the developers knew who was good or not, maybe knew that sheik was good because of her godlike frame data but characters like pre-patch diddy, Sakurai didn't know of diddy's over powered down throw, maybe he didn't know that Jiggs was bad. I like how they made all the gimmicky and funny characters low tier though, *cough* Wii fit trainer *cough*.

 

[Arthur97]

I think Ganondorf is more intended for free-for-alls and that kind of thing. Doesn't mean he is a bad character, but he's just not geared for competitive play which is fine. Pichu was probably the last of the joke characters (and the only one to not return) as I can't really think of one in Brawl though the trainers probably come the closest for 4.

 

[Victory.IsMyDestinySSB4]

I'm not certain, you'd think they are by their abysmal treatment in the patches, but you also have to remember that Mr. Sakurai mained Brawl Ganondorf, and that they released , pre-patch and pre-patch unto the world, they might just be terrible at understanding what options are good and bad in competitive play. Although, I'm willing to bet that at least is unfortunately a joke character, I doubt it's a coincidence that the one game she's great in has taking the mantle of joke character.

And you gotta remember that on February 1, 2016, (350 FULL DAYS ago) the Puff was second to last only to Zelda. It took Nintendo a WEEK to rid the world of Diddy's grab immunity. So yeah, I say joke character.
Also, the only change was as follows:

1.0.4 The instant reversal glitch of Rollout is removed.

 

[Arthur97]

I suppose Jigglypuff could be considered a joke character given the update history, but I'm not sure if it is a joke character or just ignored and low priority (a shame considering it is one of the original 12).

 

[Victory.IsMyDestinySSB4]

Just take a look at this. I think it will prove my point.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bikf7ScmZSo

 

[Crystanium]

I heard somewhere that Jigglypuff was in SSB because she was popular in Japan, whereas Pikachu was popular here. It turns out that a recent vote of popularity puts Greninja in first place. Gross. And this is coming from one who uses water-type starters. Anyway, I don't think there are joke characters, but it's apparent that the developers knew Samus' jab was bad enough to have a strategy posted before starting a match.

 

[Axel311]

I don't think usually characters are made intentionally bad. It's usually just the devs being out of touch with what actually makes a good character a good character. Fact is the people who make the game and make balance decisions very likely don't play the game competitively and frankly don't really understand how to play the game optimally nearly as well as a lot of the competitive smash community. Thus their balance decisions are off.

I don't think FFA vrs. 1v1 is a huge factor. Generally if a character is bad in 1v1 they are also bad in FFA. There may be a couple specific exceptions.

One theme I've noticed is the devs continually overvalue how important a moves knockback is, and undervalue the importance of frame data.

Take Wario's smash 4 Fsmash for example. Sakurai came out and explained why the move was changed from Brawl, and that he said it was done to make Wario stronger. Unless Sakurai is straight lying, they actually think Wario's Fsmash in Smash 4 is better than his Fsmash in Brawl. But we all know that in fact it was a nerf, because despite the knockback increase the frame data being made slower made it a bad tradeoff. So the devs clearly don't understand the importance of frame data in smash.

I think this is their balance logic behind Dedede. Dedede' Fsmash has super strong knockback, so he must be a balanced character! Jet Hammer has high knockback so it must be a good move!

Puff's rest kills early so puff must be good!

But I do think they clearly favor certain characters over others. The $5.99 Ryu, Cloud and Bayo DLC seemed to clearly be made more powerful than most of the cast, and the $3.99 DLC on purpose so that people would buy it. Higher price = better character. The only exception is 1.1.6 Mewtwo but he was only buffed well after release.

 

[Arthur97]

I don't think usually characters are made intentionally bad. It's usually just the devs being out of touch with what actually makes a good character a good character. Fact is the people who make the game and make balance decisions very likely don't play the game competitively and frankly don't really understand how to play the game optimally nearly as well as a lot of the competitive smash community. Thus their balance decisions are off.

I don't think FFA vrs. 1v1 is a huge factor. Generally if a character is bad in 1v1 they are also bad in FFA. There may be a couple specific exceptions.

One theme I've noticed is the devs continually overvalue how important a moves knockback is, and undervalue the importance of frame data.

Take Wario's smash 4 Fsmash for example. Sakurai came out and explained why the move was changed from Brawl, and that he said it was done to make Wario stronger. Unless Sakurai is straight lying, they actually think Wario's Fsmash in Smash 4 is better than his Fsmash in Brawl. But we all know that in fact it was a nerf, because despite the knockback increase the frame data being made slower made it a bad tradeoff. So the devs clearly don't understand the importance of frame data in smash.

I think this is their balance logic behind Dedede. Dedede' Fsmash has super strong knockback, so he must be a balanced character! Jet Hammer has high knockback so it must be a good move!

Puff's rest kills early so puff must be good!

But I do think they clearly favor certain characters over others. The $5.99 Ryu, Cloud and Bayo DLC seemed to clearly be made more powerful than most of the cast, and the $3.99 DLC on purpose so that people would buy it. Higher price = better character. The only exception is 1.1.6 Mewtwo but he was only buffed well after release.

I think Ganondorf to be the exception to the FFA rule since he is fairly good in that setting since, yes, he is slow, but still able to use the chaos to his advantage.
DLC did also seem fairly lacking in terms of balance in that last wave, but you must remember that Cloud and Bayonetta cost more because of their stages.

 

[Axel311]

I think Ganondorf to be the exception to the FFA rule since he is fairly good in that setting since, yes, he is slow, but still able to use the chaos to his advantage.
DLC did also seem fairly lacking in terms of balance in that last wave, but you must remember that Cloud and Bayonetta cost more because of their stages.

Meh, most all of the manhours go into the character. Stages are very easy to create.

 

[Arthur97]

Relatively, maybe, but they still have to charge and the price difference is right up there with the price of most (sans Mario Maker) stages so there is really no basis to say that they charged more because they were better. The Corrins cost an extra dollar, but they did come with two songs (not saying its worth that price, but that's how it is).

 

[NekoTony]

In my opinion, I don't think any characters were purposely made as a joke at all. Some characters are stronger then others but it all goes down to how you use the character or not. For all you know, the weakest character might be the strongest/skilled character for you. But like I said, that is just my opinion.

 

[Wonderfly~]

The closest things to joke characters are probably Jigglypuff and Dedede.