One in which a strategy that works well in one environment, fails in another environment. If you add the environment, say underwater paper becomes mushy and can't be cut by scissors, or in volcanic environments paper catches on fire and can't wrap rocks, Etc, you create a more interesting game. So to re contextualize that in terms of the argument you put forward, rock-paper-scissors is balanced at the actor level and the environment is irrelvant, so it plays the same way in all environments and is boring. What the original article discusses, and I certainly resonate with, is that there is a third balancing factor which is the environment and sometimes more subtle properties of an actor which are not specifically 'offense' or 'defense' related. If an actor A has offensive capabilities that can overpower every other actors's defensive capability, then that actor is referred to as being 'over powered'. Thus if you are playing actor 'A', and I am playing actor 'B', we state the game 'balanced' if every offensive action that 'A' has, has an equivalent defensive action on 'B's part, and vice versa. In both of these cases the abilities can be "enhanced" by in game power ups. In the case of Smash Brothers, and World of Warcraft, the 'actors' each have different capabilities, some are offensive, some are defensive. Sure, we're using a slightly different meaning of balance I suspect. It avoids the problem of "X is best, so either you ignore other parts of the game or you are deliberately playing suboptimally". Then even if the base game doesn't change at all and nobody learns a new trick, B is a good choice if and only if lots of other people are playing A - meaning you have a dynamical system.Ī lively metagame keeps things interesting because players keep doing new (or dusting off old) things to defeat the current things, rather than sticking to what works - because "what works" changes. Learning new information about the base game (or it being updated by the developers) changes what moves are best in the metagame - but as this knowledge propagates through the player base, the probability distribution of what-you-will-be-facing changes, which also changes the best choices of meta-moves.įor an example of why metagames are more than just knowledge about the base game, suppose that we have a fighting game with character A (or a CCG with a player-designed deck A) who is well-rounded and B who doesn't do so well in most cases but is good at beating A. Typically a wobble is not allowed to be performed past a certain percent at tournaments (usually around 250%), as it is considered stalling and is unnecessary.The metagame (or "the meta") is the long-term game in which the moves are "I am going to play this character/deck and practice/use these strategies" - decisions you make at the beginning, or before, play starts in the base game and the rounds are complete games of the base game. The only reason wobbling isn't (typically) banned from tournaments, and why the Ice Climbers aren't considered the best characters because of it, is that the Ice Climbers have a relatively poor grab range and can usually be easily avoided.Ī wobble is performed by grabbing the opponent, holding down on the control stick, and pressing the A button at a consistent 200 bpm (beats per minute) The wobble is one of the Ice Climbers' major strengths, as it effectively turns any grab in which both Climbers are present into a stock taken away from the opponent. Wobbling works by having one climber grab an opponent and pummel them while the other attacks them using a down tilt, thus keeping the opponent in hit stun until the wobbler either messes up the timing of the wobble, or releases (and usually kills) them. Wobbling is one of the few ways to take an undamaged opponent to KO percent without any chance of escaping if performed properly. This effectively doubles the Ice Climbers' ability to damage an opponent and can severely limit enemy options. The most powerful form of desynching is "Continuous Desynch", in which the two climbers are constantly performing completely separate actions. Its most common use is in chain grabbing the opponent, but it can be used with any attack as well as their jumps and wavedashes, provided the players can input the commands quickly enough. Many important techniques rely on keeping both climbers alive, so this should be a major priority to all players.Īdvanced Techniques Desyncing ĭesyncing is a technique in which the slight delay between the climbers actions is abused to allow the two characters to be controlled separately at the same time. The Ice Climbers have the unique and interesting property of letting the player control two separate entities, one of which immediately follows the player's inputs, and one which does the same but with a very minor delay.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |