Havok
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Post by Havok on Feb 18, 2016 19:17:33 GMT
Watching Amiibo Dan's Doubles Tournament be dominated by 200/120/-200 amiibos, makes me wonder, is that the end-game for amiibos in tournaments? If not, how do you defeat them?
Basically it becomes a coin flip. Who will connect with their big smash attack first? Cloud preaches defense, but this trumps defense. Big smash, shield break, big smash, win. Add in Crits, Lifesteal, and Imp Escape, it's unbeatable.
I've seen this with an amiibo I've trained. My Bowser is not the overloaded 200/120/-200, but close with 100/120/-100. His win percentage is easily the highest of my young crew of amiibo. He is also the only one I have ventured into the negatives for stats. Is this it?
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Cloud
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Amiibo Dojo Founder
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Post by Cloud on Feb 18, 2016 20:05:34 GMT
Defense isn't as important in doubles, I've learned, but it's still the end-all be-all for singles. I'm never going to become a truly seasoned doubles trainer - I'm going to continue focusing on singles, which is the most popular format. The "who gets the first hit" concept is indeed very important, but if an opponent is able to simply perfect shield all those attacks, it doesn't matter anymore.
The amiibo metagame itself is sort of lacking IMO. We've got Bowsers, Little Macs, and Nesses running around dominating everyone. All the other amiibo are still viable but are at an automatic disadvantage against the top amiibo. I think the metagame would be greatly improved if Bowser and Little Mac were removed as characters from Smash 4 entirely. That'd solve a lot of my problems.
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Havok
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Post by Havok on Feb 18, 2016 20:20:34 GMT
I think a true metagame will develop when we decide to control the abilities better. Cloud, even though you put up a compelling argument for Explosive Perfect Shield, it is still the most commonly banned ability after item equip abilities. I would argue that Critical Hit should also be banned. It is used by practically everyone and, unless you are using it, you are at a severe disadvantage. To me, that is the definition of overpowered.
You could say that defense beats Crits, and that would be true. However, would your Champion Ness have been as effective without Critical Hit? I would argue no. Without the ability to strike back and possibly land a crit, your Ness could have been a solid contender, but lacking the punch to finish. Crits is the other half of the Defensive strategy, IMO, but it turns an average amiibo into a powerhouse and a strong amiibo, like Bowser or Little Mac, into a God.
If Critical Hit was removed from the metagame, it would open it up more, I think, with people not being so reliant on an ability and their actual training of the amiibo would account for more. Critical Hit is a crutch for the average trainer.
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Cloud
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Amiibo Dojo Founder
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Post by Cloud on Feb 18, 2016 20:23:52 GMT
Critical-hit capability being removed would hurt the metagame even more, as it would handicap characters like Meta Knight, Sheik, and Duck Hunt, who are weak and have trouble KOing, while fighters like Bowser and Ganondorf would continue to dominate thanks to their high attack power. The bonuses in the game, at this very moment, are balanced, believe it or not. It's the characters themselves who have advantages and disadvantages.
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Havok
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Post by Havok on Feb 18, 2016 20:27:02 GMT
Maybe it's just seeing these monsters running around in the doubles tourney that got me a bit disenfranchised. I guess I'll just have to wait for the next singles tourney and see if I can get an entrant ready.
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KawaiiLuma
Junior Member
Training Lucario for AWT #6. Gotta rekt the Pikachu Final Smash trolls.
Posts: 75
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Post by KawaiiLuma on Feb 18, 2016 21:08:14 GMT
The metagame is a bit lacking. I mean, all the top amiibo's are just not defeating, but basically WRECKING other amiibos. If you dont enter a amiibo with good bonuses and at least top 15+, You can potentionally say goodbye to your win if your opponents at least are decent at training your amiibos.
And we don't have enough support for Doubles to see if there even IS a metagame there. We're still debating on things like "Team Attack ON or OFF?" or "Should ____ be bannned?" If it even has a metagame, its basically one huge LUCK. ESPECIALLY if team attack is on.
TL;DR More people need to join and help fix the metagame for amiibos, and we need MANY more people to support training for Doubles. There is a lacking metagame on singles, and almost no metagame at all on Doubles- just LUCK.
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Cloud
Administrator
Amiibo Dojo Founder
Posts: 380
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Post by Cloud on Feb 18, 2016 21:17:04 GMT
The metagame is a bit lacking. I mean, all the top amiibo's are just not defeating, but basically WRECKING other amiibos. If you dont enter a amiibo with good bonuses and at least top 15+, You can potentionally say goodbye to your win if your opponents at least are decent at training your amiibos. And we don't have enough support for Doubles to see if there even IS a metagame there. We're still debating on things like "Team Attack ON or OFF?" or "Should ____ be bannned?" If it even has a metagame, its basically one huge LUCK. ESPECIALLY if team attack is on. TL;DR More people need to join and help fix the metagame for amiibos, and we need MANY more people to support training for Doubles. There is a lacking metagame on singles, and almost no metagame at all on Doubles- just LUCK. For that, all of the top trainers need to sort of "merge" in a way. This is just vague ideas, but if we all just do our own thing, we aren't really going to get anywhere, are we? Sure, I'll enter tournaments and compete and hopefully win, but that won't get the community anything. Hm.
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KawaiiLuma
Junior Member
Training Lucario for AWT #6. Gotta rekt the Pikachu Final Smash trolls.
Posts: 75
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Post by KawaiiLuma on Feb 18, 2016 21:29:10 GMT
The metagame is a bit lacking. I mean, all the top amiibo's are just not defeating, but basically WRECKING other amiibos. If you dont enter a amiibo with good bonuses and at least top 15+, You can potentionally say goodbye to your win if your opponents at least are decent at training your amiibos. And we don't have enough support for Doubles to see if there even IS a metagame there. We're still debating on things like "Team Attack ON or OFF?" or "Should ____ be bannned?" If it even has a metagame, its basically one huge LUCK. ESPECIALLY if team attack is on. TL;DR More people need to join and help fix the metagame for amiibos, and we need MANY more people to support training for Doubles. There is a lacking metagame on singles, and almost no metagame at all on Doubles- just LUCK. For that, all of the top trainers need to sort of "merge" in a way. This is just vague ideas, but if we all just do our own thing, we aren't really going to get anywhere, are we? Sure, I'll enter tournaments and compete and hopefully win, but that won't get the community anything. Hm. Well, its obvious if you dont all work together, nothing will get done. We could try to host as much local tournaments, with them advertising the Dojo and AmiiboTrainer Podcast to get more trainers from the local area. To be honest, I dont know what we can do. But I do believe the metagame, one day, will launch. We can just hope.
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Post by Minerva Seyfarth on Feb 18, 2016 22:57:45 GMT
I believe the metagame will truly launch when all of the amiibo are released for Smash 4. That's just my input, though.
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Post by tombstonehd on Feb 29, 2016 1:39:59 GMT
I feel like banning equipment will create a slippery slope. For example, in my local amiibo scene, the TO has banned all healing gear, Explosive shield, and Mirror shield, which means practically everything that improves an amiibos shield game. I was able to dominate the last tournament because I had Critical Hit. With no good shield customs, breaking a shield was as easy as tearing a wet tissue. In fact, 3 of my amiibo entered the last tournament because I let 2 friends borrow mine. The top 4 included 2 of my amiibo, Lucario and Ness, as well as a Mac and Zelda. The only one of my 3 that didn't make top 4? A Dr. Mario with, frankly, poor gear (increased double jump and lateral movement? Seriously?) So what about finals? It ended up being my Lucario and my Ness that my friend borrowed. They both had Critical hit and just tore through each side of the bracket. So, then, what happens if/when Critical Hit is banned? I'll just find the next best thing, expose it, and then let it consume the metagame until it's banned. What will we even have left? To further support the theory that gear shouldn't be banned: That mediocre Dr. Mario? He won the last tournament that was hosted. In fact, he ran through and completely dominated the winners bracket. And he beat a Mac in Grand Finals. It was close, but he did it. Gear is not completely dominating, as long as there is a balanced ecosystem, in my opinion anyway.
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Elishima
Undertale Pass Holder
Let's-a-go!
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Post by Elishima on Mar 1, 2016 4:49:12 GMT
If you think about it, it's probably a combination of things. I'd say the biggest ones are the amiibo's version of the neutral, the amiibo AI in general, and the lack of darn rule set. Just those conditions bring a lot of problems in their own right. Not to mention the overpowered stat boosts that you can give your amiibo.
I mean, there's also character design flaws and equipment balancing, but I won't get into that unless I need to.
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EPM
Quiet Member
I seek battle, not badges. Pride, not prizes. Mastery, not victory.
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Post by EPM on Mar 1, 2016 15:42:51 GMT
There's two ways to approach balance: Weakening what is overly strong, or strengthening what is overly weak. The former is highly problematic, for reasons already discussed, so I'll advocate the latter.
One idea that came to me a while back for enabling greater diversity was hilariously simple: Enable food.
Obviously, this makes the various Caloric bonuses viable, while also buffing up the more mobile characters. The Overloaded stat distribution's -200 speed, and the general trend of slow, tanky, top-tiers like Ganondorf or Bowser, also get a slight nerf because mobile characters will be better able to capitalize on the food spawns. On non-FD/Omega stages, the same applies to Little Mac. What's more, the healing offered by a food supply seems to balance out an amiibo's sense of priorities. From pitting my own amiibo against each other with food enabled, amiibo at higher %s would favor detours to pick up food, whereas ones in a more comfortable range would press their advantage. It added a simple extra element to their risk-vs.-reward calculations.
I would recommend a medium spawn rate, as higher spawn rates would make the Caloric Immortal bonus overpowered and possibly give the likes of Wario, DeDeDe, and Kirby (who can all get additional benefits from food healing) a bit too much extra advantage.
Another general point is to possibly consider a more diverse stage variety. Obviously, the most skewed-in-favor-of-X stages aren't reasonable, but the basic idea of "repeat starting conditions will yield a repeat outcome" is sensible, no? Limiting the stages to FD/Omegas or Battlefield will only contribute to stagnation.
I will note that I only have the 3DS version, but based on what I've seen from amiibo behavior there, these stages seem relatively fair for amiibo play:
Smashville: If it's kosher for human tourny play, it's fine for amiibo. Dream Land (64): See above. Town and City: See above. Duck Hunt: See above. (Note that Lylat Cruise is also legal in American tournaments, however I'm excluding it due to the amiibo tendency to get stuck on the edges and self-destruct, which is also why the stage is banned in Japan.)
Umbra Clock Tower: This stage is a personal favorite for training in addition to battling, as it perpetually shifts its platform conditions while keeping the central, main field a constant. I highly recommend this stage.
Midgar: As AWT 3 showed, this stage works out. Watching it, I didn't think it imbalanced conditions, and the Materia summons provide a cool backdrop, while not completely defining the match. As we saw, amiibo can be trained to handle the stage just fine, and Cloud's winning amiibo hadn't ever even played on Midgar before. Multiple times, one amiibo would get the summon materia, possibly multiple times, and then lose the battle anyway.
Anyone else have stage suggestions? In general, damaging hazards, off-screen places to stand (at the very least as a concession to viewership), and excessively favoring a category of fighters over others are good examples of stage features that probably aren't suited.
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Elishima
Undertale Pass Holder
Let's-a-go!
Posts: 918
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Post by Elishima on Mar 1, 2016 16:19:48 GMT
If we implemented food... It'd finally give me a reason to give Kirby, D3, and Wario food buffs :3
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I'd say Delfino Plaza and Town and City would work pretty well. Delfino because it's a moving stage, and Town and City because of its interesting layout.
There might be others like Duck Hunt (its hilarious to watch the amiibo go all their way to hit the ducks) and Castle Siege, but I'll have to experiment.
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Havok
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Post by Havok on Mar 1, 2016 19:14:34 GMT
I think the overloaded tanky amiibos will always exist because there is no rock beats scissors beats paper beats rock type of game play in Smash Bros. The game itself is not overly balanced, but player skill means a great deal. You can't just pick a specific character to counter another. In competitive play, there has been discussion of hard and soft counters to characters, but it doesn't really apply to amiibo. AI is different than humans and a highly skilled SSB4 player should beat amiibo all the time due to adaptability and more of a willingness to go for spikes and better edge guarding. Amiibo may skillfully edge guard at times, but I've never seen it consistently.
If Amiibo Dan continues to have different and unique tournaments, like the upcoming AWT #5, I think it will be fun coming up with new and different builds for them.
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Post by tombstonehd on Mar 2, 2016 5:32:48 GMT
One thing I think that's pretty progressive for our scene is the fact that we use the entire legal stage list available to use amiibo on. That's right, even Delfina and Halberd. Some characters have issues, but I was surprised how well the ai could handle most of the stages.
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