Looking into it, it seems like Smash Brothers pretty much has the same rules as every other fighter (don’t do broken things) and then some extra rules for its unique aspects: eliminating RNG from items and a map list limited to what’s balanced. You see all those restrictions in the TF2 scene and no one seems to care or discredit the game 'cause of it. Not that that scene is doing so well these days.
For those of us who’ve only played the game casually or haven’t played it all, what makes Metaknight broken?
It means instead of thinking “Which deck/character is most effective?” you think “Which deck/character is most effective against Cawblade/Marth?” If everyone’s playing one archetype, you pick the archetype that has the best chance of beating it. Of course, if your best chance of beating a Cawblade deck is to bring another Cawblade deck then everything just goes straight to hell.
As I am not a professional player, I can only say that he outperforms every other character. In any hypothetical match-up, the best character to pick to beat metaknight is metaknight, regardless of stage. No other character has this strength. That is, even the next best characters in Brawl have certain hypothetical matchups where they are at a disadvantage depending on character and stage.
Specifically, it has to do with his weight, recovery, attack speeds, special maneuvering that allows some wicked exploits, etc. Overall, he’s just in a class all his own.
Unfortunately, understanding why he is broken requires a lot of jargon with which even I am unfamiliar, so I am definitely not the best authority. But I’ve seen him in action to know that he’s not just overpowered, but in the hands of the best players, he is truly unbeatable.
read more here.
Smash is not a fighting game. The only people that call it one are Smash players.
I play fighting games at a tournament level and I got 3rd in a regional, top 5s in a few other regionals and I would not call this “semi professional” and the fighting game scene here is much larger than it is anywhere in Germany. I think you’re exaggerating a bit, or your definition of “semi professional” is much different than most people use it. Have you ever paid your rent even once with Smash money?
Not necessarily a scrub. You have to realize that EVERY competitive videogame (I only play actual, real fighting games competitively) has rules made up arbitrarily by the community to encourage competitive play.
For example, I play Super Turbo competitively. The game bans Akuma because his air fireballs lock the opponent down into a block string that is inescapeable, among other things. Super Turbo is the LONGEST RUNNING tournament fighting game of all time, and still has huge nationals in Japan and appearances at Evo in America. If Akuma was NOT tournament banned, the game would be never have lasted this long. The people who campaigned to get Akuma banned weren’t “SCRUBS”, they were people who saw that Akuma was an overpowered secret character who was never intended to be a serious character, and that Super Turbo was an amazing game…as long as no one picked Akuma. Akuma is so powerful in Super Turbo you don’t even NEED tournament results to see that him being legal would ruin the game.
I understand the Smash community is different and that a few elite people on a message board pretty much decides who plays what characters by what rules, for the entire smash community…well, that just means the Smash community sucks, it is not that they are scrubs because you don’t like their decision. They are certainly stupid if the game has been out this long and Metaknight is not winning tournaments left and right but a select few of the smash elite choose to ban him.
That being said, I personally was on the team beta-testing Brawl (awful, awful game), and as a competitive fighting game player I could not even BELIEVE that the devs thought he was a reasonable character, he is completely overpowered and it’s obvious even at my admittedly mediocre level of Brawl play.
So in conclusion, the ban might be stupid but that doesn’t make the people scrubs who think Metaknight should not be allowed in tournaments…scrubs are people who complain about things that their opponents do that are WITHIN the rules. Either compete under the proper rules and not your “At least I don’t do that CHEAP thing to win!” or go home to play with your other scrub friends. IMO.
Sure, this has happened plenty of times.
Super Turbo (Super Streetfighter II Turbo) is the easiest example. Pick Akuma with the secret code. Jump in the air and throw a fireball. If the opponent blocks, do it again and again until they die, they will be in perpetual blockstun taking block damage, and there is literally nothing they can do, no joystick combination that can save them at all.
Other banned characters in fighting games include Alfred in Fatal Fury Real Bout, a few Guilty Gear Characters (I’m not that familiar with the series, I think Robo Ky or something is banned), Akuma in SSFIIT: HD Remix, Gill from Streetfighter III: Third Strike, etc.
In the fighting game community though, there is a big schism in philosophy between the older gamers who grew up in the arcade (like myself) and new kids who are just breaking into the genre competitively. In the old days a character had to be REALLY damn bad before anyone even considered banning them, because you never knew how the game would evolve. Things that seem overpowered from the get-go often became mediocre as the games were mastered. On usenet there was a serious discussion about banning X-Dhalsim from competitive play in Streetfighter Alpha 3 where someone likened using him to bringing a loaded pistol to the arcade and pulling the trigger on your opponent…which is laughable now because years later he is probably the 4th best character in the game.
New players generally have ADD and are upset when they pay $60 for a game and lose to a tactic even remotely strong, have NO tolerance for learning difficult matchups, and generally are quicker to demand character bans than older players.
That’s a great example of a no true Scotsman fallacy.
Yeah, and I’d agree with the ban, if it wasn’t for the fact that no MK around here has won a major tournament since like 2009, and that’s including the one who was 4th in the most MK-heavy region of the USA before he moved to where he is. It’s a different metagame, and people seem to be forgetting that. That he’s not broken is self-evident
All right, care to reclassify it?
Maybe I just have my labels wrong… I was looking for a title that implied that I play the game at a high competitive level, that I spend a lot of money doing so, but that doesn’t imply that I’m one of the best.
Seeing as you are a fighting game buff, I really hope I don’t have to explain the difference between a character with no bad matchups (SF4 Sagat, SF3S Chun-Li) and a character who goes 9-1 with the entire rest of the cast (Ivan Ooze, SF2T Akuma)… I mean, it’s kinda funny because the situation here, if MK was that good would be like Akuma being legal, players, a few of which are genuinely really good, picking him, and still losing; then some of those same players winning against their opponents with a secondary.
The thing making this complicated is that the USA is dominated by MK. They do have a problem with MK, due largely to the fact that most of their best players play MK (as in, name a player with the skill and drive to win an international tournament and about half of the time they play MK). Not as bad as Third Strike Chun-Li, but still pretty bad.
But to ban a character based on a metagame with which we have close to no interaction and which essentially doesn’t apply to us? That’s just ridiculous.
No, especially at your level. Olimar, Marth, Fox, Falco, and a few others debatably go even with him; in this case, the results around here have Marths beating basically every MK they come across, including former USA top players. Just for reference, what I’m referring to is the same phenomenon that leads to my friend thinking that Zangief is broken in Street Fighter: he’s not good enough to not get EX720’d out of anything and everything he does.
But that’s the thing: they are trying to get the rules to change to accommodate said scrubbiness.
It’s a game where the onscreen characters “fight” but that’s about all it has in common with “fighting games” which came first. I think it’s such a unique style of game it can’t really be compared to any other games except clones of Smash. I would call it a party-fighting game if I had to put a label on it.
Okay, fair enough. I would just say tournament player and people will get the picture… I would consider someone who is “semi professional” like say in Golf someone who hustles rich people out of a few hundred bucks and pays or supplements their bills with Golf money, but they can’t break into the PGA. There really is no such thing as “semi pro” in fighting games (just in my opinion). The closest would be the so-called “pro” fighting game players who don’t have sponsorships, but can reasonably enter any non-national tournament and know they are at least getting their money back so it’s not much gamble…for most of the players the chances of them getting their entry fee back is so slim that they aren’t really even considering the money. Even the sponsored fighting game players, I doubt they get enough to make that their main job…I personally don’t think there are any pro fighting game players, and people who call people good “pro” annoys me.
I didn’t mean to imply I though Metaknight was in the same ballpark as ST Akuma. 3S Chun is probably a comparable stupidly overpowered character I think, but since the reason I thought Metaknight was broken in beta testing was the fact that he is 10x more mobile than 99% of the cast, I would say he is the same kind of broken MvC2 Magneto is, except 100x easier to use (give a scrub Magneto, they can’t do anything with him).
I will take your word for it what MK results are like in the US vs Germany (I am American), since I don’t follow Brawl. But I have a hard time having any sympathy for you then, I don’t support different countries having different rules. If MK is that broken in the US then he is just as broken in Germany, it is likely then that the German MK players are not abusing his brokenness enough for you guys to feel why he is broken then.
But really it is the problem with the smash community, there should be a community dialogue that has impact on whether he is banned (this convo should’ve taken place the first year or two that Brawl came out btw, to the fighting game community banning a character YEARS later is an embarrassment and a joke.) A few insiders on a message board shouldn’t be on a secret forum deciding how you play the game, that is stupid.
If it doesn’t apply to you, run your own tournament where he is legal. Just don’t expect the international community to care about your results then.
You have a very good point.
I’m really not having a strong opinion on MK being banned. I don’t play Brawl and it’s a joke game to me, but more power to you if you like it. All I am saying is that your game is not unique, every community has to decide how they are going to set up the rules for competition.
What IS unique about your community, and why it sucks, is that this ban is taking place 4 years after your game came out which is UNHEARD OF, and also because it is decided by a cabal of insiders on a hidden forum you can’t even view.
Save “scrub” for the people that deserve it, the people that whine about something you are doing that is perfectly within the rules, they just suck too much to think how to get around it and would rather cry about how overpowered your tactics are than learn to play. 
Hmmm, young person who passionately enjoys his hobby, or fogey old troll who calls someone’s hobby nerdy on a MESSAGE BOARD, which would I rather be…decisions, decisions. :rolleyes:
If you actually met competitive gamers they come from all walks of life. The first UFC lightweight champion is a WoW addict, I know Microsoft employees, drug dealers, amateur MMA fighters, students and other professionals who play videogames at tournaments.
Wow. You sure know a lot of nerds.
Before you answer, you may wish to consider the “likelihood of getting laid” factor, which heavily favors the latter choice in your little dilemma…
(In your case, you win extra dork-points for not only taking “fighting games” way too seriously, but also going out of your way to belittle the OP’s preferred game, for… not being badass enough, I guess?)
Way to bash that nerd, bro! Wanna come to my house after practice? My parents are out of town this weekend and my dad’s letting me borrow the car. I’m gonna throw a bitchin’ kegger.
I don’t know hammerfuck about video games, but I do know that the correct line is “Martha, Martha, Martha…”
mmm
I have a fiance and some of the gamers I know either womanize or have very attractive girlfriends.
I wasn’t belittling it, I said it wasn’t a fighting game (which it isn’t) and that I don’t like it, which is my honest educated opinion since many years ago I beta tested it and know a fair bit about the game. I never belittled the OP for his bobby unlike Jack Batty who only revealed how out of touch he is regarding gamers. It’s as stupid as saying everyone who plays Madden competitively is a gang member.
It’s funny how people on this board are quick to trash racists (rightfully) but think it is okay to snipe at someone for how they choose to enjoy their freetime in the vein of an 80’s movie bully.
Not a huge fan myself*, but considering the pretty much universally good reviews it enjoys ( http://www.metacritic.com/game/wii/super-smash-bros-brawl ) and the rather cultish following (see this thread for an example) I think you have to admit it’s far from awful.
*it’s a bit like a kebab. Whilst sober, I’ve never felt the urge to play. On the way back from pubs with some drunk mates, it suddenly became the best idea in the world. And the control system is very beer friendly,.
It’s a fair cop.
For the record I’m also out of touch with Dungeons & Dragons, comic books, toy trains, Legos, coloring books and Lincoln Logs.
Hell, M2K got his girlfriend primarily by being good at Brawl, lol.
Sure looks like a fighting game to me. When you said it was a “joke game” and “awful, awful” that wasn’t belittling?
“That’s the ugliest hat I’ve ever seen. Looks great on you, though!”
And you may be absolutely right in your appraisal— I’d never even heard of the damn game until this thread. But your fanboy trash-talking sounds a lot like some LotR geek mocking Harry Potter fans, or someone getting wayyyy too invested in a “who’d win a fight between Superhero X and Superhero Y?*” debate.
- Obviously, it’s Superhero X. There’s nothing to debate, and if you can’t see it you’re just retarded. Go back and read your Superhero X issues and maybe you’ll learn something!
Cool story, bro!