Kinzer
Mammy
Good morning fellow insomniacs, Kinzer here, and in the Sonic subforum, you're probably expecting some kind of metagame advancement or food-for-though thread right?
...Eh, not entirely true, but please keep reading, I promise you it will be worth it, and give it a chance. I just hope somebody reads this, because if I were to post this on AiB, it would be dead the instant I put it up. :/
So if any of you have been wondering or have recently read this:
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=238461
You're probably questioning/ (re)thinking why do you stay as Sonic (or any character not named MK for that matter) and not as some other character that has a better chance in tourney play and/or is in actuality, a better character.
...Why aren't you? Think about it, no matter where you come from, you probably have came across bumps in the road playing this game, be it at a casual level, or if you're more battle-hardened and in the competitive gaming scene.
If you're on the casual level, this probably doesn't mean too much to you, but regardless everybody likes a little bit of competition every now and then, it doesn't have to be with professionals, it can just be with fellow friends/classmates/whoever else you know. Don't lie, it feels great to pull a win, doesn't it? Do you also feel like actually deserving a win, or do you want to win by any means necessary? I can't give you a complete answer FOR YOU, only you can tell yourself that answer, and to what degree.
However if you have answered with something "no matter what it takes, I want to win, even if that requires that I have to do some stuff that doesn't normally fit me.", then you'll know that the best way to do this in efficiency terms is to maximize your odds of winning. This is done by analyzing you and your opponents habits as well as the comparison of the characters' strengths and weaknesses that you both play, unless of course you two are playing the same character but that's a different topic.
I will assume that the select people reading this fully acknowledge that by playing Sonic, they realize that they will have a long road ahead of them... because for the kind of website and sub-forum I put it, I shouldn't be expecting much different otherwise... -_- Uhm... anyway if you, the reader, or not aware of this, take it how you will, everybody is different and everybody will have their own choice on what they do and how they do it. Now let me assume you're like me, the crazy die-hard Sonic fanatic, who while is hopeful is still realistic/knowledgeable (yes I'm blowing my own horn here, deal with it). Should I be convincing you to stray away from Sonic even though I come from my own world? Yes and no.
Yes, because if you're the kind of person who while has one kind of a passion but has a hotter, more brightly-burning candle-fire for another, then you will have to come down to Earth and accept that Sonic as a character in Brawl has weaknesses that keep him from winning any major competitions. This is like taking a trained baseball player for your team that you've just met at a dinner party instead of your (imaginary) friend who is stuck in a wheelchair who you've known for years. This is perfectly understandable and if your friend was really your friend, then he/she would understand perfectly, and you should in no way feel guilty.
No for multiple reasons. Unlike some of the other characters on the select screen, Sonic CAN win a tournament on his own (this is debatable but let's assume it's true) actually, sure it is one steep uphill jog but it is not impossible as some would say or want to believe (or otherwise, again debatable but not the point). However you can't be in denial either, if you want to get far then there are many things you will have to know, learn, and understand. For one, Sonic is no Meta Knight. If you weren't already aware, Meta Knight is the character people (want to) play if they want to win, this means that if you stick with Sonic you can't afford to lose faith in him and/or yourself, do this and your purpose while you're here, whatever it is, is lost. Two, even if it isn't Meta Knight, Sonic still doesn't have a lot of things going for him as some would kill to have.
For your sake though, don't get confused with player and or character weakness(es). It's one thing to lose a match because of a character/player pair-up, but it's another to blame yourself, your character, your opponent, your opponent(')s' character(s), or a mix of all those put together. Assuming Sonic can actually win a tournament on his own, many are hasty to find an excuse as to not see why they made a mistake or a bad judgment. If you're doing this, you can be playing any character and you're just not admitting that you are a bad person/competitive player. I'm gonig to be using a (lot of) Baseball example, so read on if you would please. "Hey, you could have stayed at second base instead of trying to steal third, but you got out because you took that risk," accept the lose and move on, or learn from your mistake and get better for/from it next time, don't be an *** and say "oh well I wasn't fast enough to get there" or "I could've stayed at second base and just have the guy hit the ball far enough to where I could've ran both bases and got the run", well guess what, if you knew you weren't fast enough, why did you take that chance knowing you wouldn't have made it anyway, or why are you complaining about what could've been when nobody knows what would have been actuality?! This annoys me to no end, GAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!
But anyway, I think you get the point, now that you know that it will be a hard road in front of you when you stick with Sonic and now (if you didn't already) realize that hard work can get you where you want to be. Go ahead and Ask Meta Knight player, contrary to popular belief, they have to do some kind of work to get where they are... but if you really care, you can get away with knowing that they probably have it easier than most... but forget about that and concentrate.
Enough with the negativity huh, we should look at some positives for being a black sheep and sticking with any character not named Meta Knight, let me use Sonic as an example since I am most familiar with him.
Don't count on this one, but you should think about how if you don't use Meta Knight, you will be at some kind of an advantage, even if you really aren't. If more people are playing Meta Knight, then that should mean they you will be able to pick up on the matchup eventually, and you'll essentially become a Meta Knight "slayer."Looking from the outside in, people might not have experience with your character or playstyle! Your character might also be infrequent in such a environment, that even if people catch on, you would still have the element of surprise, if THAT wasn't enough, you will always have more experience against the high-caliber characters and usually the lower-class characters are overlooked and underestimated. I might've been redundant here though, but oh well...
Metagame advancement. Many of the high caliber players will know what this is, and even if you don't have you ever done something one way but an outside might've said to do whatever the task was in what might be "the correct" way? Let me see if I can draw you a picture: Have you ever tried of thought of the idea of mowing a lawn with a single pair of tiny scissors? Think about how difficult that is, and imagine that most everybody else is doing the same thing... you're thinking "isn't there a better way to do that?" To answer that question, yes there is, but keep reading; Either by being hands-on and experimenting with new things, or just thinking of another way, you're expanding on one way. This is what keeps some people going, and pros to keep getting better.
The Sonic you see now when not being restricted by a player is much different from the perfectly-played Sonic you can look up when the game came out. There have been many successors, some to which are still here to this day. Without these successors, Sonic as a character wouldn't be as potent as you can see now. Metagame doesn't apply to just a character though.
Have you ever played somebody who has given you trouble before but maybe now you have it easier with them? This is probably because you've been doing a little bit of metagaming yourself. Think: that one person was making you lose quite often for a reason right? If you are winning now, then you've found out a way to make the match work into your favor. If not then the reason most likely being is that you have yet to find the key that unlocks the door to the winner screen.
Speaking of metagame evolution, the progress you see has all been achieved with some research hardwork. While people are wise to move on to what will give them a better edge, it's also a good idea to make sure that by leaving you have found no resolution to the problem(s) that might have made you quit in the first place. If people would always take the easy way out, then the problem of seeing top/high-tier characters would be but too much to deal with because nobody made that effort. It is for this very reason that Sonic still has a fighting chance where it matters... some other people/characters sadly cannot say the same.
Do you recall the link I gave you on the top of this thread? if you haven't already clicked it, then do so now and take a look at the R.O.B. community. If you look around what do you see? The answer would be that you see a blog/discussion/rant about people who are either wise or undedicated... or both, take your pick. I'm not going to point any fingers and/or tell them what they should do, but by giving up like this and just assuming that their answer is absolute, they are drifting away from what to some was their passion, and to others what is securing R.O.B.'s incapability to deal with the problems that are opposed to him. Now don't get this wrong, R.O.B. as a character I am sure has made some advancements... but that has far from helped him much... the reason being not that R.O.B. sucks as a character (debatable but not the point right now), but other characters around his class or even lower have made their own advancements and work with what they have. Those characters/players haven't given up to what is suppose to be a dim light at the end of a narrow tunnel, they pressed forward and with this task accomplished they have surpassed R.O.B. This game wasn't designed perfectly or have an end-all-be-all status, when people like give up and/or don't experiment, they aren't doing themselves/the people they work with/ or the character any favors.
Is it right to deem them as whatever harsh adjective you can think of? Again, NO! People have a right to believe in what they want, and if they choose to do what is better for themselves, then by all means let them, it's not like it affects you (if you're a Sonic boarder, it doesn't, if you're actually one of them reading this, it doesn't either, and I'll explain why right now). Now you might be faced with a situation like this, should you give up? Only you can come up with that answer, but assuming you have steadfast belief, then you would prove to the people who don't think otherwise wrong, there is a saying that goes by "if there is a will, there is a way," you just have to find that way. To be honest, no matter what choice you make, so long as it isn't quit the game and go away from the community entirely, you will make some metagame advancement somewhere, whether you are aware of that or not, that's why there is no wrong or right answer to something like this. With all this said, I'm just showcasing to you a cause and an effect.
Do you want an example of what happens when people stay true to their heart and stick with what they have no matter what? Take a look at the community that which you're reading this from: the Sonic community!
If you aren't aware, back when this game first came out, many things were being looked into and many claims were made. At the time, Sonic had a big fanbase to what seemed to be a promising community. After some time though, people disappeared, for what reason is their own and I cannot speak for everybody, but this place was like a ghost town where anybody still living here would be kidnapped by bandits never to be seen again. Not a place to be around in short. This lead to many to believe that without any kind of representation where people could see an example, those many would make the claim that Sonic was the 5th worst character on the selectable roster. This would further cause people to be shunned away from Sonic because without doing any research of their own, they would go with what others would say and just not bother with him. This however was not without a biased observation; back then Sonic did not have much to prove or work with. what is set in stone right now though is that Sonic's face attributes are not impressive, this cannot be changed. What has changed however is the development of the character, thanks to the few people who stuck around from the very beginning, showed to others how he works in the capable hands of talented players, and with this has introduced many new and promising faces and have the character proven worthy enough to get around with enough work, even when it seemed otherwise that no matter how hard people tried, they couldn't get him to work. If you look now then you know that Sonic has made the biggest jump in the history of Smash... and he's a third party character that wasn't a veteran of Melee or Smash 64... IMPRESSIVE!
I hope that by reading this I have answered some questions, or sparked something new in you. I leave you with one last saying to at least consider going by in your career, thank you for reading and I hope that no matter where you go, you have a healthy smash career!
"If at first you do not succeed, try, try again."
...Eh, not entirely true, but please keep reading, I promise you it will be worth it, and give it a chance. I just hope somebody reads this, because if I were to post this on AiB, it would be dead the instant I put it up. :/
So if any of you have been wondering or have recently read this:
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=238461
You're probably questioning/ (re)thinking why do you stay as Sonic (or any character not named MK for that matter) and not as some other character that has a better chance in tourney play and/or is in actuality, a better character.
...Why aren't you? Think about it, no matter where you come from, you probably have came across bumps in the road playing this game, be it at a casual level, or if you're more battle-hardened and in the competitive gaming scene.
If you're on the casual level, this probably doesn't mean too much to you, but regardless everybody likes a little bit of competition every now and then, it doesn't have to be with professionals, it can just be with fellow friends/classmates/whoever else you know. Don't lie, it feels great to pull a win, doesn't it? Do you also feel like actually deserving a win, or do you want to win by any means necessary? I can't give you a complete answer FOR YOU, only you can tell yourself that answer, and to what degree.
However if you have answered with something "no matter what it takes, I want to win, even if that requires that I have to do some stuff that doesn't normally fit me.", then you'll know that the best way to do this in efficiency terms is to maximize your odds of winning. This is done by analyzing you and your opponents habits as well as the comparison of the characters' strengths and weaknesses that you both play, unless of course you two are playing the same character but that's a different topic.
I will assume that the select people reading this fully acknowledge that by playing Sonic, they realize that they will have a long road ahead of them... because for the kind of website and sub-forum I put it, I shouldn't be expecting much different otherwise... -_- Uhm... anyway if you, the reader, or not aware of this, take it how you will, everybody is different and everybody will have their own choice on what they do and how they do it. Now let me assume you're like me, the crazy die-hard Sonic fanatic, who while is hopeful is still realistic/knowledgeable (yes I'm blowing my own horn here, deal with it). Should I be convincing you to stray away from Sonic even though I come from my own world? Yes and no.
Yes, because if you're the kind of person who while has one kind of a passion but has a hotter, more brightly-burning candle-fire for another, then you will have to come down to Earth and accept that Sonic as a character in Brawl has weaknesses that keep him from winning any major competitions. This is like taking a trained baseball player for your team that you've just met at a dinner party instead of your (imaginary) friend who is stuck in a wheelchair who you've known for years. This is perfectly understandable and if your friend was really your friend, then he/she would understand perfectly, and you should in no way feel guilty.
No for multiple reasons. Unlike some of the other characters on the select screen, Sonic CAN win a tournament on his own (this is debatable but let's assume it's true) actually, sure it is one steep uphill jog but it is not impossible as some would say or want to believe (or otherwise, again debatable but not the point). However you can't be in denial either, if you want to get far then there are many things you will have to know, learn, and understand. For one, Sonic is no Meta Knight. If you weren't already aware, Meta Knight is the character people (want to) play if they want to win, this means that if you stick with Sonic you can't afford to lose faith in him and/or yourself, do this and your purpose while you're here, whatever it is, is lost. Two, even if it isn't Meta Knight, Sonic still doesn't have a lot of things going for him as some would kill to have.
For your sake though, don't get confused with player and or character weakness(es). It's one thing to lose a match because of a character/player pair-up, but it's another to blame yourself, your character, your opponent, your opponent(')s' character(s), or a mix of all those put together. Assuming Sonic can actually win a tournament on his own, many are hasty to find an excuse as to not see why they made a mistake or a bad judgment. If you're doing this, you can be playing any character and you're just not admitting that you are a bad person/competitive player. I'm gonig to be using a (lot of) Baseball example, so read on if you would please. "Hey, you could have stayed at second base instead of trying to steal third, but you got out because you took that risk," accept the lose and move on, or learn from your mistake and get better for/from it next time, don't be an *** and say "oh well I wasn't fast enough to get there" or "I could've stayed at second base and just have the guy hit the ball far enough to where I could've ran both bases and got the run", well guess what, if you knew you weren't fast enough, why did you take that chance knowing you wouldn't have made it anyway, or why are you complaining about what could've been when nobody knows what would have been actuality?! This annoys me to no end, GAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!
But anyway, I think you get the point, now that you know that it will be a hard road in front of you when you stick with Sonic and now (if you didn't already) realize that hard work can get you where you want to be. Go ahead and Ask Meta Knight player, contrary to popular belief, they have to do some kind of work to get where they are... but if you really care, you can get away with knowing that they probably have it easier than most... but forget about that and concentrate.
Enough with the negativity huh, we should look at some positives for being a black sheep and sticking with any character not named Meta Knight, let me use Sonic as an example since I am most familiar with him.
Don't count on this one, but you should think about how if you don't use Meta Knight, you will be at some kind of an advantage, even if you really aren't. If more people are playing Meta Knight, then that should mean they you will be able to pick up on the matchup eventually, and you'll essentially become a Meta Knight "slayer."Looking from the outside in, people might not have experience with your character or playstyle! Your character might also be infrequent in such a environment, that even if people catch on, you would still have the element of surprise, if THAT wasn't enough, you will always have more experience against the high-caliber characters and usually the lower-class characters are overlooked and underestimated. I might've been redundant here though, but oh well...
Metagame advancement. Many of the high caliber players will know what this is, and even if you don't have you ever done something one way but an outside might've said to do whatever the task was in what might be "the correct" way? Let me see if I can draw you a picture: Have you ever tried of thought of the idea of mowing a lawn with a single pair of tiny scissors? Think about how difficult that is, and imagine that most everybody else is doing the same thing... you're thinking "isn't there a better way to do that?" To answer that question, yes there is, but keep reading; Either by being hands-on and experimenting with new things, or just thinking of another way, you're expanding on one way. This is what keeps some people going, and pros to keep getting better.
The Sonic you see now when not being restricted by a player is much different from the perfectly-played Sonic you can look up when the game came out. There have been many successors, some to which are still here to this day. Without these successors, Sonic as a character wouldn't be as potent as you can see now. Metagame doesn't apply to just a character though.
Have you ever played somebody who has given you trouble before but maybe now you have it easier with them? This is probably because you've been doing a little bit of metagaming yourself. Think: that one person was making you lose quite often for a reason right? If you are winning now, then you've found out a way to make the match work into your favor. If not then the reason most likely being is that you have yet to find the key that unlocks the door to the winner screen.
Speaking of metagame evolution, the progress you see has all been achieved with some research hardwork. While people are wise to move on to what will give them a better edge, it's also a good idea to make sure that by leaving you have found no resolution to the problem(s) that might have made you quit in the first place. If people would always take the easy way out, then the problem of seeing top/high-tier characters would be but too much to deal with because nobody made that effort. It is for this very reason that Sonic still has a fighting chance where it matters... some other people/characters sadly cannot say the same.
Do you recall the link I gave you on the top of this thread? if you haven't already clicked it, then do so now and take a look at the R.O.B. community. If you look around what do you see? The answer would be that you see a blog/discussion/rant about people who are either wise or undedicated... or both, take your pick. I'm not going to point any fingers and/or tell them what they should do, but by giving up like this and just assuming that their answer is absolute, they are drifting away from what to some was their passion, and to others what is securing R.O.B.'s incapability to deal with the problems that are opposed to him. Now don't get this wrong, R.O.B. as a character I am sure has made some advancements... but that has far from helped him much... the reason being not that R.O.B. sucks as a character (debatable but not the point right now), but other characters around his class or even lower have made their own advancements and work with what they have. Those characters/players haven't given up to what is suppose to be a dim light at the end of a narrow tunnel, they pressed forward and with this task accomplished they have surpassed R.O.B. This game wasn't designed perfectly or have an end-all-be-all status, when people like give up and/or don't experiment, they aren't doing themselves/the people they work with/ or the character any favors.
Is it right to deem them as whatever harsh adjective you can think of? Again, NO! People have a right to believe in what they want, and if they choose to do what is better for themselves, then by all means let them, it's not like it affects you (if you're a Sonic boarder, it doesn't, if you're actually one of them reading this, it doesn't either, and I'll explain why right now). Now you might be faced with a situation like this, should you give up? Only you can come up with that answer, but assuming you have steadfast belief, then you would prove to the people who don't think otherwise wrong, there is a saying that goes by "if there is a will, there is a way," you just have to find that way. To be honest, no matter what choice you make, so long as it isn't quit the game and go away from the community entirely, you will make some metagame advancement somewhere, whether you are aware of that or not, that's why there is no wrong or right answer to something like this. With all this said, I'm just showcasing to you a cause and an effect.
Do you want an example of what happens when people stay true to their heart and stick with what they have no matter what? Take a look at the community that which you're reading this from: the Sonic community!
If you aren't aware, back when this game first came out, many things were being looked into and many claims were made. At the time, Sonic had a big fanbase to what seemed to be a promising community. After some time though, people disappeared, for what reason is their own and I cannot speak for everybody, but this place was like a ghost town where anybody still living here would be kidnapped by bandits never to be seen again. Not a place to be around in short. This lead to many to believe that without any kind of representation where people could see an example, those many would make the claim that Sonic was the 5th worst character on the selectable roster. This would further cause people to be shunned away from Sonic because without doing any research of their own, they would go with what others would say and just not bother with him. This however was not without a biased observation; back then Sonic did not have much to prove or work with. what is set in stone right now though is that Sonic's face attributes are not impressive, this cannot be changed. What has changed however is the development of the character, thanks to the few people who stuck around from the very beginning, showed to others how he works in the capable hands of talented players, and with this has introduced many new and promising faces and have the character proven worthy enough to get around with enough work, even when it seemed otherwise that no matter how hard people tried, they couldn't get him to work. If you look now then you know that Sonic has made the biggest jump in the history of Smash... and he's a third party character that wasn't a veteran of Melee or Smash 64... IMPRESSIVE!
I hope that by reading this I have answered some questions, or sparked something new in you. I leave you with one last saying to at least consider going by in your career, thank you for reading and I hope that no matter where you go, you have a healthy smash career!
"If at first you do not succeed, try, try again."