I was going to post a collection of dialogues from various places, and try to explain a certain thing about why I've seen the meta-game from a very different light. That idea compiled this (for now), so here is it.
Basically this
Nausicaa you post some of the more interesting theories here (by interesting, I mean not generally agreed upon, outlandish, etc.) but it would be helpful if you clarify why you think certain things.
My reply
It's odd from my end partially because I don't actually know what is outlandish and what isn't. If that makes sense. Asking me to explain stuff thoroughly enough to make sense would be like you trying to explain essentially the entire general perspective that the greater-community has of the game.
Examples
-You'd have to go into detail on how TL can play the same game-plan against a lot of the cast and how that shuts down a lot of characters almost completely, while barely taking a toll on others, but that his aerial and disjoint game makes the same game-plan work against all those who don't mind the bombs because the rest of that aerial/disjoint kit allows for such a strong counter-approach that he still goes to bomb-tossing as a center rather than fishing for D-Tilts against characters that bomb-tossing doesn't work against.
Then do that with every character about everything.
- Another is how I never understood how people thought Luigi, Wario, GW, ROB, Sonic, Pika, Ike --- I don't even know who else people thought were bad, were BAD, and I couldn't really tell you if they're STILL thought of as bad. To me, they never were, and I never pay enough attention to what everyone else is saying regarding viability, but rather pay attention to things like...
-How can one character deal with these things/this character.
-How can those things/that character deal with that one character's stuff.
-back and forth
Which is the only thing Tier-List discussion is ever really useful for. Trying to learn the game, it makes a good catalyst for it. (and why I like this thread)
The rest goes over my head.
Glad it gets mentioned though.
I'm just gonna rant in any direction and try highlighting a character so people know when I start talking about them.
I whipped together a quick Tier-List for 3.6b 2 days before 3.6 dropped.
It was rough, but gave me a good idea of what I was looking at differently, so I dissected it.
I'll start from the Melee-core characters since they're kind of a bench-mark to everyone in SOME way and seem to be brought up a lot in discussion when I list things. Whether as a basis for match-up understanding, or gate-keepers to being a good character in PM.
This is what my quickly thrown together 3.6b list looked like with everything removed except Melee-ish characters.
At a glance, someone may notice that I don't think very highly of the Melee-top-tier in PM. I never really have, and that includes the favorite Designated S-Tier Fox.
I've ranted about how each of them is 'good' before, but this can be looked at in multiple ways.
From Melee-to-PM, or PM-exclusively.
Using the batch of characters around Fox in that list (the 'high/mid' Tier of Melee) as an easy example to start...
My best guess is that people think characters like Pikachu, Mario, Samus, Luigi, Toon Link, etc, are a LOT worse in Melee than they really are. All of these characters are clearly 2 things.
BOTH things.
1) Weaker than the top-end Melee characters
-AND-
2) Can keep up with them in a lot of ways.
BOTH of these are very observable and easy to see with just a bit of contemplation/exploration. It seems like the latter was lost, and that they're considered ONLY as weak-melee-characters when they're coming into PM, as if they couldn't do much of anything before.
A simple thing that I'm sure everyone has noticed is how characters like Pikachu
are considered basically bottom-tier or lower on tier-lists throughout every PM incarnation. Even today.
-Talking about Melee-to-PM and going into PM-exclusive a bit here...
We've seen Pika have great showings in recent years in Melee, whether it's top-placings at major tournaments, or beating top-players in what are considered nearly not-winnable match-ups.
So, if taking a look at what COULD make Pika a solid contender, what would it be?
He has solid moves that were lacking in his kit (B-Air), more damage across a lot of key moves (Jolt/U-Air), simple things like a Crawl, less lag on recovering along with a new diverse tool (QAC), the ability to RETREAT out of IASA frames (D-Tilt), RAR/wave-bounce/etc stuff that compliments him more than most (U-Air/new B-Air with RAR, Down/Neutral-B wave-bouncing, great ground-air-ground transition game)
What more does this character need to be ON PAR with the Melee top-end?
Let alone BETTER than the Melee top-tier?
Stubby arms?
Improve his key moves there then (Grab, F-Air, D-Air).
Throw him in a game where more universal stock-taking options are beneficial from gimps to vertical kills in a game with diversity?
All of this is done.
What now?
What can this character POSSIBLY need to be an equal with the top-end Melee characters?
I've yet to understand it, and simply don't see it, and I've been curious to know what people think has to be done to Pikachu to MAKE him one of the best characters in the game.
This has never gotten an answer.
Especially when near the end of 3.02, he was one of the few actually considered to likely go even with the Designated S-Tier Fox AND the Beast of 3.02 Mewtwo. Both of them in the same game, and still be bad in that game.
I don't understand how someone can think a character could be on the weak end of a game and STILL think THAT is possible, yet that's what has happened in every PM patch to-date. Ganon can't even do anything against Mewtwo, yet Pika did better than MOST in that match-up, and isn't better than almost anyone?
It's always been directed at me, in the sense I've been told to explain why characters like Pikachu are good, when it really seems like everyone else needs to explain why they're NOT that good. Getting an explanation as to why Pikachu is NOT one of the better characters, as an example of the MANY characters I've been asked to point out strengths in, is something that has never even come close to happening.
"He can be punished hard" I guess is the closest that has ever come next to something like "stubby arms"
As if Fox/Mewtwo/Ganonlol have an easy time catching him in the first place, and as if CF/Lucas/Marth getting punished hard makes them bottom-tier on every list alongside Pikachu too *they-never-are-though.
How about Samus?
She's solid, isn't she? What's her problem? Too slow to be good?
Melee-to-PM, how about giving her a Roll, a Crawl, faster and bigger and better hit-boxes on key moves and making more of her moves useful in all areas of her game.
If she was in Melee with these buffs, would she be on-par with Melee-tops at last, or still weak?
Her Z-Air was new, and it was the best move in 3.02 that was never talked about nearly enough. It's still there in a lesser form.
What do these characters need to be contenders for top spots?
Samus got some attention in 3.02 it appears, and that stayed a bit into 3.5/3.6, so that's good.
TL
is in the same boat. Got some attention and it stuck. Yet this seemed so obvious from day-1. As mentioned in the quote above-
TL can play the same game-plan against a lot of the cast and that shuts down a lot of characters almost completely, while barely taking a toll on others, but his aerial and disjoint game makes the same game-plan work against all those who don't mind the bombs because the rest of that aerial/disjoint kit allows for such a strong counter-approach that he still goes to bomb-tossing as a center rather than fishing for D-Tilts against characters that bomb-tossing doesn't work against.
-he's basically a really solid character that plays like a bag of counter-play options inside a cage of stock-taking conversions, and somehow you need to get whatever is in the bag while it's taped to the back of a wild boar.
YL was functioning mildly with NO GRAB, that alone would help him huge. In 2.1 he had a Galaxy-Grab (grabs you from space) and it lead to some of the most busted easy-mode stock-ending strings possible. That behind the 1 game-plan that YL somehow made work, buffed to core-game (Jiggs-B-Air centralized) levels, and he's pretty obviously strong. The discussion I guess leads to "is he better than the Melee-top-tier" and as far as I'm concerned, more characters in the game fear TL than any of THEM.
Some characters can't even get Samus off the ground.
Some characters can't even get to TL passed the mess.
THEY are the gate-keepers if PM ever had any.
Mario
is on the TL/Samus end too. Got some attention, that faded a bit, but most of this was seemingly due to an ease-of-play with a certain style that involved almost everything that an end-game Mario wouldn't be doing. In Melee, my Mario/Fox could beat Mango's Mario/Fox, and his Mario/Fox could beat my Mario/Fox. This was in 2010, so a while ago, but In our matches, we both noted very directly at how we barely ever jumped. Ever. Mario simply can't get away with that kind of commitment when it comes to end-game level play.
Yet all I've really see in PM Mario-matches from 2.1 to today is things like full-jump Fireballs and attempts at D-Air, or some aerial into D-Smash or raw approach into clipping someone with something.
He can get away with this in the sense that he has a lot of hard-hitbox coverage, but as soon as Mario is seen as a character that uses that to cover his holes in neutral and choke people out with spacing and short-burst maneuvers, rather than force openings or holes in the opponents game, the sooner his meta-game will be seen like that of a modern-day Falco, rather than a 2007 Melee Falco trying to laser into direct combos because counter-offensive play isn't coming his way yet.
Once the basis of what I mention in the DAT Smash is starting to look like a puzzle coming together in the meta-game among top-players in the public eye, then the general public will start to get an idea of what Mario can ACTUALLY do in PM, and how good he really is.
http://smashboards.com/threads/stubby-arms-and-fireballs-the-comprehensive-mario-guide.346088/
That DAT thing should explain it, but basically Mario is a fortress of defensive-to-offensive transition options and can maneuver through anything. IF he stays grounded and keeps the fortress up.
There is no thing that Mario can't deal with, and it has NOTHING to do with being a diverse and flexible character. Mario can deal with anything simply because he can play a defensive ground game that is essentially impenetrable.
Stop getting hit. It's easy with any of these characters, and Mario does it through a foundation of dashes and shields and pokes that never get him in trouble. The cool stuff happens naturally, everybody knows that, so it has to come eventually where people stop going for it and just let Mario do his cool things when they come.
Falco-style, really. Falco going for D-Air > Jab > D-Smash on shields would be weird, and it's weird to me when Mario does it today. This is old and would have looked really odd if a D-Smash followed even at that point of the meta, it looks weird from PM Mario right now.
http://gfycat.com/VapidRaggedAruanas
Imagine a Mario that simply never gets hit, and is always around the opponent to threaten them. THAT is the Mario that will come, and THAT is the Mario that shuts down the rest of the PM roster.
this is another big story but short-form...
We've seen random players spamming Hail-Mary Up-B's and Down-B-Repeat strings both do very well, and everything between. Similar to Mario, in terms of the way an ACTUAL end-game style and game-plan has yet to surface on any world-class level but is slowly being gravitated TOWARD at every level of play, and is inevitable, the same is the case with Luigi.
Soon we may see the campy spacing Luigi do well, with F-Tilts and aerials and playing very safe, hardly doing any real approaches but being precise and picking moments (think 'Ka' style), or maybe the fly-by Luigi will surface, similar to the Up-B straight-approach but with U-Tilts and Smashes and Grabs all raw out of simple and direct play. Maybe the complexity will show up in some ball by someone. Either way, nobody seems to have any idea how good this character is at all.
All I'll bother with this one is, he's gotten some attention recently as a "Maybe he's not so bad" character. What is it that people missed if they think he's low-tier instead of bottom-tier? Why didn't they think he was mid-tier instead of low-tier before? Why do they think he's high-tier now instead of mid-tier?
What is everyone REALLY missing/looking for/seeing? Pay close attention and maybe we'll see.
For now, I don't see what everyone is missing, and I have NO IDEA AT ALL why people think he's better now than they thought he was in 2.1.
Not much has changed with HIM, did the game around him change that much to benefit him?
Or do people still think he's bad? If so, I still don't get it. What makes him bad? What WOULD make him on-par with the Melee-Top-Tier?
Again, it makes no sense, and if someone can explain why Luigi is suddenly a lot better in 3.5/etc, that would be great. Never has someone been able to explain why he's bad, or show why he's bad, and the only explanations that come up support him being quite good, and the only demonstrated stuff about Luigi in any matches or tournaments or anything basically screams that he's VERY strong. This has been the way it is since day-1 of 2.1, just like with the others, and I don't get it.
Is it possible that everyone who thinks he's a "little better" now, missed something else, and will think he's better at a later date? Very likely.
Screw his stock-taking or neutral-breaking and speed and range... The character can be very non-committal while remaining to be a threat. There is plenty of counter-play in the sense of nullifying a lot of Luigi's more 'direct' options, but this is no different than stopping Puff from hitting you with Raw B-Air's. She can still use B-Air as a center-piece, and adjust in a way that it's threatening without getting herself killed. Every counter-play to Luigi to-date has been minimal, and every counter-play TO that counter-play has been minimal on Luigi's end. The meta-game is a baby in this one STILL.
I'm not sure if this is helpful, or worth discussing, but that's something that I see when I look at the game, and always has been.
Everyone around here seems to be approaching the 'goodness-of-characters' topic from the opposite direction. I completely understand why, but I also understand very well that none of the people who are doing so completely understand why they do.
Hence the confusion.
I'll be confused in my little bubble. You'll all be confused with mine.
Smash is good like that.
Edit:
On-topic
The only thing that changed about Ganon from early Project M patches to recent Project M patches, is that he has a better chance of landing the connections he works for WHEN he has worked for them.
He could always corner people, he could always take up space, he could always play a mouse-trap game where he makes things seem safe when they're not, and could get hits that way.
Yet when he put all the work into doing so, he was STILL left with very little change of hitting the opponent without a simple resetting of the situation being at arms-reach for them.
What a momentum-based command grab, hover, and other tools provided him, is some of the essentials necessary to have that final play in the corner-and-connect game FUNCTIONAL.
Functional is something Ganon has never been before, because of THIS specifically.
PM is the first time that he's be functional is Smash.
That's a huge leap forward.
Bowser gained a bit of this from a different angle in 3.6, if this is seen clearly, it'll make a lot more sense for everyone regarding balancing big and slow characters.
There's a reason the extremes from Link to DK work the way they do and somehow STILL work. This is why.
