Why Influence is Everything

I've gone through so many revisions of this, lets just get this over with once and for all!

As amiibo trainers, I think its easy for us to say that we have a pretty biased metagame right now. It seems like everyone's choice for a champion is either Little Mac, Ness, Bowser, Ganondorf, Little Mac, Marth, Lucario, Little Mac, and even odd balls like Mario and Rosalina tag along every once and awhile. Especially in the equipment world, where everything is taken to the extreme.

Now while this results in pretty predictable outcomes in tournaments, I can't blame the trainers that pick these characters for the intention of winning. All the top tier characters are just really good, but why are they so dominate compared to the other characters?

Weeeelll, that's why I'm here.

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With the exception of Little Mac (whom amiibo are way too dumb to deal with), we all know most of the other top dogs have amazing AI that gives them quite an edge in battle. Even with their supposed enhanced AI, that alone doesn't really cut in in the end. The mighty DOES fall after a period of constant battles, because other amiibo will eventually adapt.

Besides, that's only one reason why the other characters win all the time.

Now, I took the time to dig a little deeper into the subject. Deeper as in, character archetype and design. And after awhile of just studying up on the characters and amiibo behavior, I've found some pretty interesting info about the upper class contenders.

While they all obviously have quirks in their own right (i.e. kill throws, counters, power, Luma, ect), they're all just really good at adapting and winning trades. But how they adapt so well and win all those trades is not quite what you'd expect compared to what we've learned in the past.

Thanks to Patch 1.1.5, amiibo will pick up other amiibo' playstyles and try to turn those playstyles against their original user.

wut

I know this sounds a bit...uh... "over there", but let me explain a bit more before you go arguing with me.

Ok, so I did a couple tests to prove this theory with a couple different sets of amiibo.

I paired Lucas with Ness, Pac-Man with Bowser, and Little Mac with Luigi.

(In case you haven't seen how Little Mac and Luigi went, here's a link to what happened after a couple of matches into everything www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIjascLmWy4)

Now with Lucas and Pac-Man, they have a very bad record against Ness and Bowser respectively. Because of that, I figured I would try to get some pretty convincing results using their worst matchups.

I'll start with Pac-Man and Bowser just because it find it hilarious.

Believe it or not, the same thing happened with Bowser as it did Little Mac. Pac-Man played my Bowser for a round (who I specifically trained to stay on the ground by the way), Bowser wins, and then they go into the second match. First thing you notice right off the bat, Bowser is throwing out back airs and forward airs like nobody's business. Needless to say, Bowser lost that match, and the uh, next 5 after that...

Why though?

Well like I said, Bowser picked up on Pac-Man's playstyle (which is mostly aerial oriented). After that, Bowser narrowed down which of the moves Pac-Man used were most effective against him. Because they were effective against him, Bowser wanted to try and beat Pac-Man with what he thought was the better option. The reason why Pac-Man slaughtered him afterwards is because Pac-Man has such an amazing aerial game compared to Bowser, that it didn't matter how many forward airs Bowser threw out because Pac-Man beat him in the air so much. Which ultimately lead to Pac-Man's winning streak. Even though Bowser eventually ended that streak, he was only able because he decided to stay on the ground again and do what he does best.

The a similar situation happened with Ness and Lucas. Though with Lucas, it as more of an uphill battle. Unlike with Pac-Man and Bowser though, Lucas was able to take the first match thanks to a lucky offstage gimp. The match after that however, was complete destruction to the poor boy from Tazmily. Because Lucas relied on his forward airs, grab combos, PK Thunder 2, and down tilts, Ness picked up on all of that and used them even better against Lucas. In fact, as the matches played out, Ness was playing more like Lucas than Lucas was playing Lucas; and vice versa! Eventually, Lucas was able to take the final set, but at the cost of 5 others.

If you notice here, its all a matter of who can what better than the other character. In these cases:

Little Mac picked up the aerial game from Luigi. That didn't work out.

Bowser also picked up the aerial game from Pac-Man. That didn't work out either...

And finally, Ness picked up on Lucas' techniques after the first round. Which ultimately lead to a very large winning streak.

So from the results, we can obviously tell that the two ground fighters don't work well in the air. That's a no brainer. Given how grounded the equipment metagame is, this isn't a problem though.

"What about Ness though, what makes him so special?"

Simple, it all lies in the fact that he can do what Lucas does, much better.

Take a look at Ness and his moveset. We know for a fact that he has some very high damaging moves, great aerials, a great grab game (with the strongest kill throw), and insane trapping potential with PK Fire. Not to mention his PK Thunder 2, which no one sees coming because of the AI derping out. All this gives Ness the upper hand in a battle, with his only prominent weaknesses being his short range and weight. Other than that, he's pretty much the better Mario in the amiibo world in a sense that he's just a great amiibo all around. Thus, he can adapt easier thanks to his variety of tools at his disposal and how effective they can be.

(Other top tier amiibo are similar to Ness in this regard, as almost all of them have some sort of edge that the general AI can't comprehend properly.)

If you wanna know how Lucas won the last set between him and Ness, it was because he played a much more careful playstyle after his continuous defeats. He finally picked up that Ness' playstyle just didn't fit the bill for him, so he went back to what his character type excels in- spacing. The playstyle Lucas used in these two matches consisted of retreating Rope Snakes, spaced PK Fire's, down tilt combos (not spamming like Ness, mind you), and well timed up smashes and grabs.

What this basically means is, our better amiibo here have an easier time adapting because of their flexibility and the fact that if they influence another character, they can almost always get the upper hand.

Here's another prominent example, lets look at the Marth vs Roy debate. Roy is best used in the air while keeping the battle in close quarters combat, but because Marth can adapt and keep Roy away because of his range and better aerial game; Roy doesn't pick up that he doesn't have the same tools as Marth. Which leads into a vicious cycle:

1. If Roy loses a battle to an aerial oriented Marth, he'll be influenced to use aerials as well.

2. Roy gets punished for said aerials, because Marth outranges Roy's air game.

3. Roy decides to stay grounded and use smashes as the main 'go-to' option, Marth stays in the air.

4. Roy switches it up again and uses aerials, Marth starts countering.

5. Roy starts countering, and Marth starts using aerials.

6. Wait a couple battles, and we're at step one again.

We could argue whether or not Marth is the better character and not Roy, but that's for another day. The main point of it is, Marth beats Roy in the majority of the strategies that Roy can learn. Not only that, but Marth's character design doesn't really cause him to fall in a specific playstyle, other than to stay at a certain distance. To the point, he has more flexibility; thus, he can adapt on the fly much easier.

Now you may be asking, "If moveset and flexibility are so important for adapating, why aren't those the reasons for success?"

Well, there's a couple reasons for that. The biggest factor however, is surprisingly, just general AI across the roster. A character can have an amazing all around moveset, or one that excels in a specific area, but if they don't/can't use it properly, they won't get very far. Some prime examples of this are Duck Hunt and Kirby, who rely on far ranged and up close pressure respectively. The funny thing is though, its not that they don't have terrible AI. In fact, almost the entire roster is on the same level with the other end in terms of smartness. The only reason these characters lose in the first place, is because of the influence they get from other characters. Which means they won't use what makes them fantastic, and then it just goes down hill from there.

I've noticed that Cloud has been riding a rollercoaster with his Pac-Man recently, trying to figure out if he's viable or not. While I can't say for certain that he's either "weak" or "strong", I can say that the way the roster in general rubs him the wrong way. By a longshot. If you look at his special move, Bonus Fruits, you can teach your Pac-Man to use these correctly; contrary to popular belief. The problem lies in his incredibly unique character design, which requires a completely different playstyle in order to be effective. If he's influenced by other amiibo, he forgets everything that isn't hard coded into his AI for much simpler strategies. See where I'm going with this?

All in all, just remember that before you train your amiibo up with another amiibo, they will influence each other much more than before. Because they influence each other, anything that isn't hard coded into their AI is simply tossed out in favor of more basic strategies; so you can't teach an amiibo to rely on (a)certain move(s) anymore.

Furthermore, given that the AI is much more generalized now, alot of the more "exotic" characters are left in the dust; because they can't use the more basic strategies to be successful. This is why we have the top tier amiibo we have today, and its all because they excel in those basic strategies, thanks to the edges they have in influence.