Sakurai discusses upcoming Smash Bros. balance patch: Little Mac has LOWEST win rate

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http://kotaku.com/little-mac-is-smash-bros-biggest-loser-1658263617

Series creator Masahiro Sakurai offered a new perspective this week in his column in Weekly Famitsu. Being on the developer's side, Sakurai is able to view online player statistics for the game, and one particular statistic was brought up. "For Super Smash Bros. Brawl, the individual character win ratios lined up nicely in a staircase format, but [for Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS] one fighter has a significantly low ratio." Sakurai wrote. "It's Little Mac."

"Little Mac is a fighter with very pronounced strengths and weaknesses. While he has an enhanced dodge and megaton-level punch for aggressive play, he has very weak jump power and a simple back throw along with a follow-up attack prove to be crippling."

Sakurai notes that players may perceive Little Mac to be stronger than he actually is, which has led to the influx of online usage of the character. "It appears that the biggest reason for his low win ratio is because people fall under the assumption that 'Little Mac is strong!' and all rush to use him only to get pummeled in return." Sakurai remarked. "He gives the impression of being able to win easier than other fighters which leads to more people using him, but in reality, he's a difficult character to actually continuously win with."

For Sakurai, the player-perceived imbalance is actually an ideal situation for greater game balance. Having players flock to use one character will teach other players to counter that character and encourage higher levels of gameplay – hence Little Mac's low win ratio.
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"Nice tier list, NERD" - Masahiro Sakurai

Pretty funny that Little Mac has the worst win ratio after all the "PLS NERF" stuff. Wonder if Sakurai's right and it's mostly just tryhards messing it up not actual balance.
 
Wait, though. If four Little Macs were in battle, wouldn't that count as one Mac win and three losses at the end?
 
I usually beat every Mac I'm up against. Until recently I was dominating as Mac as well. I can totally see newly adopted strategies surfacing though, with very aggressive players making it hard to win as Mac.
 
And yet Kotaku suggests nerfing him in that very article. I can only imagine their train of thought.

"Hey guys, Little Mac is losing A LOT"
"Nerf him, he has to lose even more!"
 
Nothing in that quote is related to a balance patch.

Also little mac is not bad, but you need to be very smart and patient to be good with him.
 
Pappasman said:
Nothing in that quote is related to a balance patch.

Also little mac is not bad, but you need to be very smart and patient to be good with him.
Click to expand...
Here's another quote :
Smash Bros. will be getting a patch sometime this month to fix the game balance. While the exact details of what will be tweaked have not yet been revealed, a lot of players are probably hoping that one of the game's more controversial characters, Little Mac, will be getting some of his Mike Tyson slamming muscle toned down a bit.
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everytime I fight a little mac, i take it personal. like you have the gall to play little mac, cmon son.

then they die because all little mac players are secretly bad as we all know in our heart of hearts
 
I really hope Sakurai doesn't take it as an incentive to buff him. He's total cheese tier right now but one small, miscalculated step can turn him into a beast.
 
There are going to be balance pathes? that's awesome.

Little Mac is one of the characters I use the most, but when I get serious I use Mario or Dedede, most Little Mac players suck anyways.
 
Crayolan said:
And yet Kotaku suggests nerfing him in that very article. I can only imagine their train of thought.

"Hey guys, Little Mac is losing A LOT"
"Nerf him, he has to lose even more!"
Click to expand...

Their train of thought must be that he's losing a lot because lots of people are playing him because they think he's really good, in which case nerfing him would lower the amount of people playing him without knowing what to do and losing, and raise his winrate.

I don't agree with it, but I understand the thought. I do think they should wait before buffing and nerfing until the game has been played more than it has.
 
I don't main Little Mac, but I do play as him to troll and get crazy streaks. Way better than my main.

People still haven't figured him out.
 
I think those of us who have played a lot of smash4 have been saying for weeks now that Little Mac is not OPed. Maybe people will finally see the light.
 
Gentle Rodriguez said:
Their train of thought must be that he's losing a lot because lots of people are playing him because they think he's really good, in which case nerfing him would lower the amount of people playing him without knowing what to do and losing, and raise his winrate.

I don't agree with it, but I understand the thought. I do think they should wait before buffing and nerfing until the game has been played more than it has.
Click to expand...

The idea that the online WL rate is more important than how viable the character actually is is completely ridiculous. But then again, that does sound like something which Sakurai would do, unfortunately. I'll just hope he doesn't do anything stupid.
 
Crayolan said:
The idea that the online WL rate is more important than how viable the character actually is is completely ridiculous. But then again, that does sound like something which Sakurai would do, unfortunately. I'll just hope he doesn't do anything stupid.
Click to expand...
Balancing for both top-tier competitive play and to iron out obnoxious "noobkiller" strategies is part of good game design.
 
Mac haters BTFO

that said please add some more start-up to KO Punch and make dash attack unsafe on shield or something
 
See I feel like all of these tier lists and balance patches won't mean shit when Wii U drops since this is going off of people using a 3DS to play. Once we're able to use Gamecube controllers and get the first real look at all of these characters, things will switch again.
 
Yes, there was an obvious - I don't know if there's an actual term that exists already, but - "scrub rush" of people losing to Mac in the first few days, then everyone rushing in to play as him because they all heard that he was OP, then losing en masse because he's actually really easy to deal with if the Little Mac player doesn't know what they're doing.
 
Little Mac is about waiting until the right moment and not just trying to Smash attack your way to victory.

He is based on Little Mac from the Punch-Out games THIS IS THE ENTIRE POINT
 
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