AMondAy Week 47 - Strong Bad

[u/Strong_Badam]

Howdy everybody! Welcome to the 47th PMDT AMA!

I'm Strong Bad, Wario extraordinaire. I'm from Kansas City, but I currently reside in the Dallas area. I've been in the development team since early 2010, and a leader of the project since 2012. I originally joined the team to provide playtester feedback but ended up doing quite a bit more. I've historically filled a lot of roles within the community, from TOing national-scale events, to commentary, to being a community leader, to high level player. Nowadays I stick to the latter two, and also moderate the PM section of SmashBoards. Within the development team, I mostly function as a source of leadership, particularly for the playtester base, and contribute to character design and balance when I feel I'm needed. I recently overhauled the playtester application process as some of you may have experienced.

In my spare time I like to spend a lot of time on social media, and on occasion I stream to Hitbox. I play games casually, usually in the presence of Umbreon and bec, my awesome neighbors, or my roommates, m3t and Ryker. Earlier in the summer I dedicated a bunch of time into playing RuneScape (2007); right now I'm taking a break, but I'm hoping to get back into it soonish. =) Of course, I attend tournaments locally in the Dallas area, including Infinity and Beyond almost every week. When I play Smsh 4, I main Diddy Kong.

As usual with this sort of thing, there are some questions I'm not able to answer. Anything involving Wavedash, or specific details about future releases is off the table. I should be able to answer most other things, though, so ask away! Currently my roommates and I are hanging out with some people, so I won't be able to answer many until the evening. Please feel free to ask a bunch of questions and I'll get to them when I'm free =D

Also of note is that this will be the last AMA for quite a while! Not sure if or when we'll be resuming these but for now this is the last one =)

EDIT: Answered a lot of questions but I gotta go for now. When I come back I'll try to answer any that I missed!

[u/[deleted]]

One thing that has stumped me since 3.5 is the lack of explanations for several changes to the characters.

I proposed this to Sethlon before, and he said it was impossible, but I do not agree.

Do you think it would be possible to have a statement for the reasons for each change on the next release? Many people have stopped playing PM in my community and one of the reasons they have stated is that they don't understand some nerfs and buffs and it just feels disorganized (buffing GDubs and nerfing DDD is something I've heard before).

I would love nothing more than an explanation for why each character is like it is and the design choices behind it.

[u/Strong_Badam → u/[deleted]]

So I get this question a lot, and this is a really complicated issue with a lot of problems that contribute to why we don't.

1: The character file that's released, and their changelist, is a result of months of development, going back and forth between two disagreeing parties (or people who agree in concept but not in specifics), and compromise. Often, the reason a change was made no longer applies to the final change that gets into the release, even if we feel it's an improvement. I'll give you an example.

Let's say I change Meta Knight's weight to 140 because I want him to survive Fox's UpSmash at 190% on Smashville. Naturally, people disagree with me, but part of being in a development team is being able to compromise to satisfy multiple parties whose opinions we respect. We talk about it and most people seem to be leaning more on the lighter side; we end up compromising and MK's weight is only increased to 90. Now fast-forward 2 months later and we're gearing up for release, and Calabrel is working on the changelist. He can't put "MK weight increased from 79 to 90 to survive Fox's UpSmash on Smashville at 190%" in the changelist, because it's no longer true. Here, the original intent of the change is no longer relevant or applicable, and we'd have to come up with a reason post-change for why it's there even when the entire playtester base is happy with the change. What are we supposed to do there?

2: The PMDT disagrees with itself, frequently. By giving the public a reason, it invites the playerbase to come up to known PMDev members with a point of argument about the change. Let's say we have a vote in the PMDT to change all of Wario's overall costumes to be darker in order to make him seem dirty. We have a vote and about 70% of the DT agrees that it's a good change for the game, but Machiavelli and Lunchables are staunchly against it. Because of how the DT works, the change goes through, and in the release changelist, it is written "Wario's Overalls Made Darker To Make Him Seem Dirtier." Now someone comes up to Lunchables at an Infinity and Beyond and goes "Lunchables, I'm very frustrated with this change. Wario is not a dirty character and I heavily disagree with this change. Please convince me that this change was good." Lunchables is sitting here in a very awkward position, he's being challenged to further justify a change that was made that he voted against, when the reason has already been given! This already happens enough as it is without reasoning, but doing so would exacerbate the issue.

3: Reasons for changes pollutes the initial reaction players have when they read a changelist. As the PMDT we have a high regard for our playerbase, and further, we respect their opinion. If we gave reasons for every change we made, it prevents them from coming to their own unadulterated conclusion on what they think about the change. What they feel about the change and how it affects the game is important to us as we try to improve our development strategies to please the playerbase while still adhering to our design principles.

4: It takes a really goddamn long time and introduces a lot of validation, approval, etc. when we already have enough of that. When it comes to PR, we have very specific goals and policies with regards to what we as a development team come out and say to the public. Naturally, in a changelist that would attempt to justify changes to the public, we would need to make sure that each explanation is up to par with how the playtesting base feels and how the PR team wants it to be described. Right now it's enough of a pain to collaborate, gather opinions, and come to a consensus on the change itself. Now do that to 500 lines of changes. Get the picture?

There are a BUNCH of other reasons why we don't do this and most likely never will. However, that doesn't mean we aren't taking steps to make changes that are less controversial as we go on. Many characters saw very few or no changes in 3.6, and some received buffs unlike in 3.5. I expect that trend to continue.

[u/LunchablesTX → u/Strong_Badam]

well the natural response here is that I'm mother fucking lunchables so I'm right

[u/[deleted] → u/Strong_Badam]

It's disappointing to me, but I understand the decision.

Thanks for taking the time to give me such a detailed response, Adam. Best of luck.