So when Pound4 ended, I talked to this ex-Tekken pro (Kasht) about Pound4. He told me that Brawl is suffering from practically the same thing Tekken 4 died from: an overpowered, beatable character that has a move that made him "broken", but "not broken enough to get him banned". The game only had one year of competitive play then everyone went back to Tekken Tag until Tekken 5 was released.
This character, Jin Kazama, had an unblockable combo that the only way to avoid the whole damage output was to block the starting hits. Son, it would play out like this... Jin would attempt to catch you with a quick jab, then if he did (blocking it still counts), he'd follow up with another quick attack (which you would block), which combo'd into a 3rd unblockable hit (this is where he became "broken" but "not broken enough") that would send you into the air, where he would then juggle you until you fell, then follow you wherever you'd get up and frametrap another quick jab for you to block, re-setting the whole unblockable combo yet again.
The thing with Jin Kazama was that he was beatable: watch out for his jab, attack him from out of his maximum range, and he wouldn't be able to do his unblockable combo. He COULD still win since he was overpowered, but then it was just a matter of outplaying the Jin Kazama mainer in a close-to-even MU. A large amount of the community wanted Jin banned because of how cheap he was and how easy it was to get a win with him if he got the jab in (there's life bars in the game, not stocks, so matches would practically end after a successful jab), hell a LOT of the Tekken 4 pros had Kazama as a secondary for their hard MUs even though there were better choices for characters. You could argue that the thing here was "overcentralization and that it wasn't enough to warrant a ban"... But did the competitive scene die because of overcentralization, because of Jin Kazama's broken-ness, or by a mix of both former and latter?
The ex-Tekken pro (Kasht) says that Brawl is in a very similar situation of that to Tekken 4, and that OUR Jin Kazama is MetaKnight. He is overpowered and we all know this... He has an unfair playstyle that deter the enjoyable aspects of the game to a large amount of people who play the game competitively (otherwise the pro-ban side would've been smaller than just a 5% difference in the polls, wouldn't you agree?), known as planking, scrooging, dair camping and tornado-spamming WHICH CAN ALL BE BEAT... He also excels in the air, ground AND offstage fights... He is the overpowered best character in this game that can be beat with the right characters, like Jin Kazama was for Tekken 4. And you know what happened to Tekken 4? The pros enjoyed winning with Jin Kazama so much that the competitive scene for that game died completely because they didn't want to ban Jin Kazama.
In Brawl what we are doing is just making up more and more rules to find a compromise between people who want him gone, and people who don't... But what's happening is that people are finding ways to 'bend' rules and avoid them being disqualified We're also relying on people to "play honorably" to avoid seeing any planking or scrooging, just like Tekken 4's anti-Jin community was doing.
tl;dr: A Tekken pro told me about Tekken 4 and compared it to Brawl. I was surprised a previous game suffered the same fate Brawl is going through. Thoughts? I'm open for any replies as long as they're not one-liners, nor posts full of nothing worth reading (off-topic or criticizing negatively)... I'd like to know what people think about both games' similarities.
This character, Jin Kazama, had an unblockable combo that the only way to avoid the whole damage output was to block the starting hits. Son, it would play out like this... Jin would attempt to catch you with a quick jab, then if he did (blocking it still counts), he'd follow up with another quick attack (which you would block), which combo'd into a 3rd unblockable hit (this is where he became "broken" but "not broken enough") that would send you into the air, where he would then juggle you until you fell, then follow you wherever you'd get up and frametrap another quick jab for you to block, re-setting the whole unblockable combo yet again.
The thing with Jin Kazama was that he was beatable: watch out for his jab, attack him from out of his maximum range, and he wouldn't be able to do his unblockable combo. He COULD still win since he was overpowered, but then it was just a matter of outplaying the Jin Kazama mainer in a close-to-even MU. A large amount of the community wanted Jin banned because of how cheap he was and how easy it was to get a win with him if he got the jab in (there's life bars in the game, not stocks, so matches would practically end after a successful jab), hell a LOT of the Tekken 4 pros had Kazama as a secondary for their hard MUs even though there were better choices for characters. You could argue that the thing here was "overcentralization and that it wasn't enough to warrant a ban"... But did the competitive scene die because of overcentralization, because of Jin Kazama's broken-ness, or by a mix of both former and latter?
The ex-Tekken pro (Kasht) says that Brawl is in a very similar situation of that to Tekken 4, and that OUR Jin Kazama is MetaKnight. He is overpowered and we all know this... He has an unfair playstyle that deter the enjoyable aspects of the game to a large amount of people who play the game competitively (otherwise the pro-ban side would've been smaller than just a 5% difference in the polls, wouldn't you agree?), known as planking, scrooging, dair camping and tornado-spamming WHICH CAN ALL BE BEAT... He also excels in the air, ground AND offstage fights... He is the overpowered best character in this game that can be beat with the right characters, like Jin Kazama was for Tekken 4. And you know what happened to Tekken 4? The pros enjoyed winning with Jin Kazama so much that the competitive scene for that game died completely because they didn't want to ban Jin Kazama.
In Brawl what we are doing is just making up more and more rules to find a compromise between people who want him gone, and people who don't... But what's happening is that people are finding ways to 'bend' rules and avoid them being disqualified We're also relying on people to "play honorably" to avoid seeing any planking or scrooging, just like Tekken 4's anti-Jin community was doing.
I'm not attempting to prove anything nor start any debates, I just want to bring info to the table so players can learn from a past example and think about what can be done to avoid such an event from happening. I personally like Brawl, and I have learned the MK matchup with both Kirby and ZSS. Sure, ADHD won Pound4, I was there and saw it happen, so MK isn't broken blahblahblah. Even if he isn't broken, he is still overpowered and the center of virtually unpunishable 'gay' tactics. Who enjoys watching an MK time out players in a tourney, expecting the top matches to be "M2K vs Ally a la Summer 2009" but against other different top players?Tekken Zaibatsu forums said:
tl;dr: A Tekken pro told me about Tekken 4 and compared it to Brawl. I was surprised a previous game suffered the same fate Brawl is going through. Thoughts? I'm open for any replies as long as they're not one-liners, nor posts full of nothing worth reading (off-topic or criticizing negatively)... I'd like to know what people think about both games' similarities.
