I think Overswarm has just explained why there's such huge region diversity in project M right now. And why no one has a legit tier list.
Melee was established when I got there, but Brawl had the same regional diversity.
It generally goes like this:
A) A few top players emerge. Top players in low density regions will have higher flexibility in tiers (I played ROB and did well, which is a rarity enabled only by low population density) while those in high density regions will have less flexibility (thus you'd see things like MK and Snake in the East/West Coast first).
B) People watch these top players. "Easy" characters like Dedede are considered "broken" because of their ease of use. Simple "rules" to follow with low technical limitations means a mediocre player can immediately do better with that character. We will see a P:M backlash to characters such as Bowser, Sheik, Ike, and the like regardless of their tournament performance. People don't like to lose to people they consider "worse" and it's much easier to get a random f-smash with Ike or get a lucky fair with Bowser or Sheik than it is to do a full stage combo with Wolf.
C) The backlash will result in both an attempt at artificial limitations (Dedede can't standing chain grab, but he can regular chain grab, cuz we said so) and stage banning. The former often fails (although the Brawl community messed up a lot with that), but stage banning often succeeds. We're
already seeing this based off of a false sense of entitlement that players have. They assume it's okay for their character to have a slight advantage as long as no character has a HUGE advantage and they attempt to whittle the stage list down as much as possible. This is generally a bad idea but it's hard to stop.
Expect backlash against the heavy hitters like Bowser/Ike first and killing at super low % with "random" attacks on Yoshi's Story, Green Hill Zone, etc. YStory will be safe because it was in Melee and people are suckers for tradition/nostalgia, but stages like Green Hill Zone and Wario Ware will have people griping about them. They will demand that the stages be removed and/or they get "multiple bans" so that they can ban all those types of stages themselves.
D) Tournaments start appearing with less unique results. No longer are the placements switching on a tournament by tournament basis with only a few consistent placers. At this point people start getting "their" placement. Characters start to be regarded as "good" or "bad" based off of tournament results rather than hearsay. People will say "Man, Mario is great" but then hear "Well then why hasn't he done, ya know, anything in a tournament?" and be forced to realize that Mario is at least lacking good players.
E) Legitimate tier lists start appearing and character selection starts drying up; fewer characters are "viable" now.
F) The mass transit from "bad" to "good" characters will result in a massive leap in knowledge on the already good characters. Those that were left behind will have an even farther gap to cross (think of Jigglypuff in Melee or Olimar in Brawl; it took forever for them to be respected characters because the metagame for them developed much slower with such a small playerbase).
G) The stage list will have another culling attempt, this time in a very odd way. People playing the "good" characters will realize that they do very poorly on certain stages or very well on others. They will ask for their "good" stages to be starters and their bad stages to be banned. They will have no idea that they are asking for this and simply equate their "odd" losses with poor stage design. People end up compromising towards middle-ground stages like Battlefield / Smashville totally unaware that the rest of the cast might not be good on those stages.
H) The stage list is culled drastically for a variety of reasons at this point and character selection is down to a much smaller pool. "Counterpick" characters start to show up at this point en masse, so you'll see things like Captain Falcon players with a pocket Mario to deal with Falco or something like that.
I) The first actual proper static tier lists are created that are more accurate past the first top tier.
So we have a ways to go.
I'm starting to like this overswarm guy.
It's because of the pit thing isn't it
I always feel like a scrub when I watch replays of myself. I feel like I'm playing all legit and smart during the match, but if I watch it afterwards it's just like... wow, I suck. I thought I had good mind games until I realized that I was doing the same dash dance > wave dash > shffl'd aerial pattern on like, every approach.
If you can do that then you're leaps ahead of many. If you realize your only approach is "tricking" the opponent into making himself vulnerable then either find new ways to trick or try learning cross-ups on their shield or the like.
Chances are if you're winning against a common opponent that you are learning your opponent rather than your character. Forcing yourself to do things that previously failed, such as attacking his shield, gives you more knowledge of what you can and cannot do.
