I used to play World of Warcraft and the community there had the same kind of entitled response to patches, bosses, and items. The funny thing is that the longer a certain meta lived the better options within it were explored and countered; earlier obvious optimization strats fell to the wayside as unsustainable but undeniably glass cannon.
My take? Smash is too dynamic to just add characters and NOT make waves. Of course there's going to be chaos for a bit because at the end of the day the game is no longer the same game you've played for years.The problem with gaming today is that updates and online interactions make it all to easy to just say "get rid of this mechanic which I am not familiar or comfortable with". This ain't even supposed to be a competitive game and even if Nintendo got behind that idea, it makes sense that this new thing is a counter to what appeared to be the old dominating force
I imagine you've all accepted the Shiek dominance? Or maybe accepted that Zero is a really good player? Or whatever the argument, I can apply what you're saying to pre and mid DLC Shiek, but that would too telling wouldn't it.
Everyone just got better. Everyone got smarter about not only their options, but the numerous safe options of their opponent.
Yeah, so expecting developers to support their game is not "entitlement." I've been a professional software engineer for many years and the number of versions I've developed of the same products tweaked to user preference is uncountable.
Also what are you talking about? WoW is constantly patched Like they nerf/hotfix classes for PvP every patch and they've been attempting for ages to figure how to simultaneously balance classes for PvE and PvP. When the game was young so many specs were completely unviable in both contexts -- you'd get yelled at or rejected for playing them. Blizzard that that was a problem (which it was), so they redesigned the specs with balance in mind over and over and over...
Anyway, I'm not arguing against the introduction of new mechanics. There are a number of new powerful options in the cast which are fine as long as the risk/reward of those options make sense. My issue is specifically with 0 to death combos, no matter who has them. They're not good for the health of a fighting game for all the reasons I've outlined (which no one has actually addressed)
Let's not pretend like people are just upset because they lose to Bayo or haven't figured her out yet. There are specific things about her which are problematic - 0 to death combos that won't be DI-able once Bayo players learn their combo theory. Such an option being in the game is unhealthy for the game, over-centralizing for the meta for the specific reasons I outlined in this thread.
It's just like classes being unbalanced in WoW to the point that only one spec per class was even allowed to be used in groups. If you wanted to play a prot pally in Vanilla -- LOL. Why do you think Blizzard changed that through buffs/nerfs? The same thing can happen in fighting games. It's better for more of the cast to be viable than less, it's better for more of the game to take place in neutral and for punishment to related to the risk of the opening you gained. There are real fundamental design problems with things like 0 to death combos.
Every major eSports game gets balance patches because the eSports community knows they are necessary for the health and longevity of the game. For other fighters what do these balance patches usually consist of? Scaling down of high damage combos off of safe moves, removal of infinites, 0 to deaths, etc.
I'm all for her stair case mechanic or even witch time, but you can't just throw principles of sound competitive game design out the window for the sake of novelty/diversity. Keep the mechanics, tune the reward.