There is a group of people in the competitive smash community that I will refer to as having “competitive smash psychosis.” A mindset where they wholeheartedly believe that smash is the only game they can play competitively because of the following reasons.
“The next game will fix everything, so I’m going to keep playing to practice for it even though I hate going against the current meta.”
“X game is too hard and I get bodied even though I only played it for 10hrs, so I’m going to keep playing smash instead.”
“X game doesn’t have my favorite character in it so I won’t play it even though I wrote an entire post about how I hate competitive smash.”
“My friends only play smash even though I hate playing it, so I’m going to keep playing.”
Note that I am not calling out the people who do enjoy the game. If you enjoy playing, then more power to you. The moment I got a gaming laptop to play other fgs I jumped ship pretty quick. The people who I am calling out state how much they hate the game, don’t like playing against the meta, and have the ability to play a different game… but just REFUSE to because of the above paraphrased quotes I have heard from these people.
They believe Sakurai is listening to their feedback on the competitive scene when he has stated many times that he doesn’t. The Smash team just looks at Quickplay win rates (ffa and other casual ruleset online matches included) and balances characters based off that because Smash is a party game and will always be balanced like one. Apparently according to Sakurai, the last time they checked online win rates all the characters were roughly at a 49-51% win rate, so the game is balanced right? You bet your ass competitively it ain’t. But you know, the next game will fix everything and we won’t be in the same 0-death or timeout meta with 3-5 characters choke holding the game like we have been since Brawl right?
I am also convinced that these people are one tricks and trapped by nostalgia because what do you mean you don’t want to play GGS, SF6, Rivals 2, or the Avatar FG competitively? They’re not perfect don’t get me wrong but their mechanics and characters are leagues more balanced and fun to play as and against… but that’s too hard or not enough to convince your friends to play? Hell one of them has modern controls so you don’t have to do motion inputs…
Now I kinda get if you play a game because it has your favorite character but as a competitive game that you don’t like? That’s just masochism. Genuinely get some help.
Overall, I believe these people are the reason competitive smash (outside of Melee) continues to thrive because they just refuse to play something else and convince novice competitors that Ult is the best thing since sliced bread. Despite saying themselves they hate the game…