Does Sakurai know what he's doing with character balance?

[Senario]

He has an idea of balance but because it is so inconsistent you wont have a balanced game in a competitive setting. Again, the invitational players in general are good players and know whats up in terms of problems with the game. Just because you have played more than them doesnt make you more credible than them because you cannot claim to be knowledgable about how top level play works in a competitive game. It is like asking any silver player who plays the game of league on their spare time a lot what is balanced or not. They dont know what goes on at top level and to ignore the opinion of the best players out there is foolhardy.

Sakurai has said he balances in a way where some characters are better in free for all and some for 1v1. This is really inconsistent for balancing and it shows because of how the gap between characters was so large in brawl in comparison to melee. It might be just me but it also feels like he thinks running away and playing defensive is a healthy mechanic for the game competitively. Somebody is going to say street fighter but let me just say, have you seen tourney footage of ultra? There is a lot of footsies and spacing like in melee but when somebody gets hit it often leads to a good amount of offense rewards (for street fighter) unless they are playing against a grapple character who can usually make you guess grabs to tech that take huge chunks of your hp

 

[LeeYawshee]

Zero Suit Samus, a high tier character in Brawl, was buffed.

Diddy Kong, a top tier character in Brawl appears to be buffed (he has more reach in his melee attacks, at least).

Zelda, a low tier character in Melee and a bottom tier character in Brawl has been mostly nerfed.

What does that say to you?

Bowser, a low tier character in Brawl was buffed to the point of championship

Mario, a low/mid tier in Brawl, was buffed to match up the competition.

Link, a bottom tier character in Brawl, was buffed and is now awesome.

DK, a character who has always fluctated due to his lack of projectile now has more powerful moves and decent ways to approach without the need of one (or so we believe).

There's so many more, but I'm sure you can look those up.

Also, despite constant complaints about Zelda, she has been buffed in so many areas. People probably say she sucks because she might not be good at free for alls.

And Diddy Kong getting buffed? Well, in a new environment, people need buffs. Diddy Kong is a good character, but tricky to use as he relies on his bananas and almost perfect placing.

Zero Suit is powerful yes, but beatable. If Zero hadn't stalled that last match, things might have gone very very differently and people would have said that Kirby is broken instead. I'm sure she has a ton of weaknesses that we have yet to find.

What does it say to me? Well. It tells me that you should have stated more examples than just a character that we all know is broken, and a character that most people believe is crap because those two are not good examples of balance. There were 20 characters in the demos. 18/20 is pretty damn good if you ask me.

 

[Renji64]

LOL@ these people saying Sakurai has no clue on how to balance when most of the characters on the demo were almost at the same level, the demo had more viable characters than Melee and Brawl combined, so please shut your mouths, people, and look at the evidence rather than your baseless hate for Sakurai.

A later installment having a few more viable characters congrats.

 

[topspin1617]

A later installment having a few more viable characters congrats.

This may be a good comment if we were talking about the full release.

But since we're talking about a 20 character demo, I'd think already having more viable characters than past iterations would be a very positive thing.

 

[HeavyLobster]

A later installment having a few more viable characters congrats.

Keep in mind that the demo still had fewer characters than Melee, so more viable characters would indeed mean more balance. Also note that Namco-Bandai is working on this game, a company with plenty of experience in balancing fighters for tournament play, so we shouldn't see Brawl levels of brokenness.

 

[JV5Chris]

Samus is definitely one of the more displeasing characters for me to watch in the footage so far. Not saying she'll end up bad, just that the nerfed projectile game and lousy roll are really not doing her any favors in the Smash 4 environment. I'd like to see buffs with the goal of tackling Samus' fundamental issues rather than just shifting her strengths around.

 

[JamietheAuraUser]

On the subject of Samus, she can floor-bounce a DAir into a BAir or NAir and land lagless. She can floor-bounce a DAir into a USmash for a vertical KO, or into UAir for a short juggle. DTilt pops the foe up and can be used for a few combos, possibly including a full-jump FAir. She can ZAir lagless into a Super Missile, Charge Shot, DSmash, FTilt, jab, grab, whatever probably excluding FSmash or USmash since they're slow, all depending on distance. That ZAir gives her combo potential from a distance. You wanna missile cancel? Sorry, but at least ZAir > SSpecial is the next best thing, while ZAir > charged NSpecial is a quick KO combo. Her Screw Attack has greater distance, is safer, and can KO at high percents. Morph Bomb comes out faster. Charge Shot travels faster and has more KO power. Dash is faster and angled forward to evade overhead projectiles. Dash Attack, though still a horribly unsafe approach, can start combos with its quick startup and good hitstun and launch angle. Rolls, though slower than most current characters, are sped up to the pace of most rolls in Brawl.

You can make any character look bad by talking about their weaknesses. It's creative tactics to minimize those weaknesses and the skill and technique to take advantage of their strengths that make or break a character.

As for Zelda, she's got the Triforce of Wisdom, not Power. So I suspect she'll need a different, more mindgame-y and tactical approach than other characters. I don't think you'll be able to rely on raw power and combo potential for a character like her. Whether this works out for or against her in a tournament environment remains to be seen.

 

[Aunt Jemima]

As for Zelda, she's got the Triforce of Wisdom, not Power. So I suspect she'll need a different, more mindgame-y and tactical approach than other characters.

YES

YESSSS

I will forever love you if this happens.

 

[SoaringDive]

Do we even know what build of the game "Massive Hero Smack an Eye" was referring to? We all know that the E3 demo is rather dated, Samus may have just gotten better by the time the next few builds came around. (pleasemisslecancelingplease)

Or I could be wrong, and he specified the build, in that case pleasedon'thurtme

This was exactly what I was going to post. I doubt Sakurai and co. spent any amount of time caring about how the balance was in the demo. The priority was making it not crash after every match or hang when an item spawns.

Given the glitches like Bowser multishine and many characters breaking into T-pose, as well as the fact that you had to exit to the main menu to disable a player, balance was probably the very last priority of the team around whenever the demo's build was from.

 

[JamietheAuraUser]

This was exactly what I was going to post. I doubt Sakurai and co. spent any amount of time caring about how the balance was in the demo. The priority was making it not crash after every match or hang when an item spawns.

Given the glitches like Bowser multishine and many characters breaking into T-pose, as well as the fact that you had to exit to the main menu to disable a player, balance was probably the very last priority of the team around whenever the demo's build was from.

Actually, it looks like maybe it wasn't that you had to exit to the main menu to disable a player, it's that you had to exit to the main menu to reset the controllers. The Player/CPU/None toggle seemed to still work, unless setting it back to None causes a hang when the game goes to load the match or something. The game appears to behave like Mario Kart Wii in that whatever controller is in first controller port isn't necessarily P1 in the game. When backing out, they were doing so to make it so that they didn't have to trade controllers around when the previous Player 1 left, for example.

But yes, it's clear that this was a very early build and a large number of bugs remained unfixed, such as loading transformation characters occasionally failing, possibly on an individual console basis on the 3DS version. (I wouldn't be surprised if Bowser actually did load properly on one or more of the consoles in use, just not on the one they were getting feeds from. That would even explain the KO count desync that same match.) I don't recall seeing T-poses at any time, though?

 

[Fyrefox]

Hello. I'm the developer of Super Smash Brothers, Masahiro Sakurai of Sora.

 

[KingBroly]

I've always maintained that ZSS's new Up+B is a nerf instead of a buff since leaves her very open to punishment if you miss. It's also a worse recovery.

 

[JamietheAuraUser]

I've always maintained that ZSS's new Up+B is a nerf instead of a buff since leaves her very open to punishment if you miss. It's also a worse recovery.

She can still tether with both Side Special and her new ZAir. Additionally, ZAir tethers have longer reach and greater auto-targeting than in any previous Smash game, so you can probably still recover vertically with a tether. Plus, it means she no longer needs a grabbable ledge in order to recover.

 

[SoaringDive]

Actually, it looks like maybe it wasn't that you had to exit to the main menu to disable a player, it's that you had to exit to the main menu to reset the controllers. The Player/CPU/None toggle seemed to still work, unless setting it back to None causes a hang when the game goes to load the match or something. The game appears to behave like Mario Kart Wii in that whatever controller is in first controller port isn't necessarily P1 in the game. When backing out, they were doing so to make it so that they didn't have to trade controllers around when the previous Player 1 left, for example.

But yes, it's clear that this was a very early build and a large number of bugs remained unfixed, such as loading transformation characters occasionally failing, possibly on an individual console basis on the 3DS version. (I wouldn't be surprised if Bowser actually did load properly on one or more of the consoles in use, just not on the one they were getting feeds from. That would even explain the KO count desync that same match.) I don't recall seeing T-poses at any time, though?

Ah, I wasn't there when they were swapping to AI players (only caught the matches), didn't know swapping from a registered player to CPU was possible. As for T-poses, it happened in both versions but was really rare.

Yoshi in the 3DS version:
http://gfycat.com/IgnorantDishonestAltiplanochinchillamouse

Giga Mac in the Wii U version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvvewmpEI-8#t=58

 

[Venks]

I've always maintained that ZSS's new Up+B is a nerf instead of a buff since leaves her very open to punishment if you miss. It's also a worse recovery.

Actually I found it much improved. Not to mention it can also be used as a KO move at decent percents.

 

[RascalTheCharizard]

Interpretation is not exactly valid because the results can easily change.

https://miiverse.nintendo.net/posts/AYMHAAACAADMUKllbS-s3Q - This is what I was referring to in my first post, for the record.

Also, please don't pull the "the final version could be different!" card, because I can just as easily throw that at you. As it is, Smash4 is looking better Brawl and Melee balance-wise. But who knows? It could be different upon release and everyone except Sonic gets nerfed with Sonic becoming MK levels of broken. We don't know!

My point was that Sakurai has some... questionable ideas of which characters need tweaking for competitive play. For casual play however, things are very different. I'm interested to hear more on what the big Samurai has done with Ike this time around, as he was an oft complained about character in items-on FFAs.

 

[Venks]

https://miiverse.nintendo.net/posts/AYMHAAACAADMUKllbS-s3Q - This is what I was referring to in my first post, for the record.

Also, please don't pull the "the final version could be different!" card, because I can just as easily throw that at you. As it is, Smash4 is looking better Brawl and Melee balance-wise. But who knows? It could be different upon release and everyone except Sonic gets nerfed with Sonic becoming MK levels of broken. We don't know!

My point was that Sakurai has some... questionable ideas of which characters need tweaking for competitive play. For casual play however, things are very different. I'm interested to hear more on what the big Samurai has done with Ike this time around, as he was an oft complained about character in items-on FFAs.

We really don't know though. You mention Zero Suit Samus buffs, but the only reason she won was because of Nintendo's ruleset. In our own ruleset she would of lost because of having higher percent. Disregarding that, doesn't the time out go to show how close Kirby and Zero Suit Samus are to each other balance wise? At least with the build we have seen.

You mention Diddy Kong being buffed, but he wasn't shown in the demo. From the PotD we see his side tilt and up special both buffed. We even see a bit of the improved up special during the April Direct. However, we don't know how everything about the character has been changed. His banana peel game may have been nerfed this time around. That was what made Diddy as good as he was in Brawl. Perhaps the buffs he has received are to offset other nerfs we don't currently know about?

No one in the demo towered above the rest. At least not with the time we've currently put into it. If the final product continues the level of balance we've seen in the demo then I expect nothing but good things. With every heavy weight in the game getting buffs I'm expecting Ike to be buffed as well. I'm wondering if it'll be increased knock out power, less lag on his attacks, or more super armor.

 

[RascalTheCharizard]

We really don't know though. You mention Zero Suit Samus buffs, but the only reason she won was because of Nintendo's ruleset. In our own ruleset she would of lost because of having higher percent. Disregarding that, doesn't the time out go to show how close Kirby and Zero Suit Samus are to each other balance wise? At least with the build we have seen.

With all due respect, I'm talking about how Zero Suit has more powerful attacks and as you mentioned earlier, a better recovery. Aside from the removal of her (perhaps notorious) Power Suit Pieces, ZSS has recieved various tweaks to make her a better character, something which Sakurai stated in the Direct. I don't believe she's overpowered (her buffs are rather minor from what I've seen) and I'm not basing my argument solely on ZeRo winning the Invitational, or at all.

 

[JabbatheHutt]

Of course he does, but he's human. a few kinda slip through the cracks.

IE:

 

[LancerStaff]

Zero Suit Samus, a high tier character in Brawl, was buffed.

Diddy Kong, a top tier character in Brawl appears to be buffed (he has more reach in his melee attacks, at least).

Zelda, a low tier character in Melee and a bottom tier character in Brawl has been mostly nerfed.

What does that say to you?

ZSS's only real changes was her new Uspecial and the addition of a Zair. She's effectively a Brawl character in SSB4 at the moment, and very powerful because of it.

Glide tossing is dead, and so is nannerlocking. He might only get one Banana this time around.

Zelda, as others have said, has mostly been buffed in more subtle ways then nerfed.

 

[Hentai_Kittie]

ZSS's only real changes was her new Uspecial and the addition of a Zair. She's effectively a Brawl character in SSB4 at the moment, and very powerful because of it.

Glide tossing is dead, and so is nannerlocking. He might only get one Banana this time around.

Zelda, as others have said, has mostly been buffed in more subtle ways then nerfed.

This

There is a video of Zelda KO'ing fox from 35% with Farore's Wind for example.

 

[Gidy]

I imagine Sakurai going crazy with idea's for movesets, and he finds a middle ground with the Namco Bandai game testing team.

 

[pickle962]

Regardless of how you feel about ol Sakurai, you can't deny that an emphasis has been placed on roster balance after the broken mess of a roster that Brawl unforetunately was (MetaKnight; NUFF SAID, Characters viable in Melee were nerfed due to Brawl's atrocious anti competitive physics engine, etc)

First and foremost, NO STUPID GAY AS **** TRIPPING. Something that absolutely NO ONE misses!!!!!

We all know by now that Bowser is hot stuff in 4 thanks to some much needed improvements in speed/agility.

Pit and Zero Suit Samus can actually kill things now! (A problem that Pit particularly had in Brawl).

Elements of randomness are gone such as waddle dee's for Triple D (King Dedede) as he now merely uses Gordos as his throwing minion of choice, Three pikmin instead of five and a set order in which they are dug up for Olimar, etc.

Little Mac feels OP on the ground in the hands of the right player, yet thankfully has an awful air game. Likewise returning veteran characters have gained a weakness or two in addition to getting new/improved moves such as Pit no longer able to glide or the amount of pikmin determining the effectiveness of Olimar's new recovery.

Hitstun actually MEANS something in this game compared to Brawl now that acting out of hitstun has been removed. Air dodge spamming and overall defensive playstyles are now being thank the ****ing lord discouraged from whats been shown in gameplay vids of 4.

Better tether recoveries for those who rely on them such as Zamus or both versions of Link

A minor thing sure, but Star KO's now rarely if ever happen near the end of a match which is nice for timed matches in competitive play

Edge hogging is less encouraged for those who absolutely HATED the mechanic period in past smash games due to the way edge games now work in smash 4.

Let me know if I missed anything

 

[Deathcarter]

I don't know about Sakurai but Namco sure as hell knows about good fighting game design. I'm more optimistic with the game in their hands.

 

[NintendoKnight]

Apparently, no one tried to look up what was said during the E3 2014 roundtable. I have watched the whole video of it, which I believe has been taken down since then. I shall explain to you what I remember here:

During the Q&A portion, someone asked Sakurai about how they were balancing this game as opposed to Brawl or past Smash games.

Sakurai responded that both Smash 64 and Melee were single-handedly balanced by himself, alone, and with no additional feedback.

He then went on to explain how Brawl was balanced. Four people were put onto the job of giving feedback for the balancing. Sakurai himself still balanced the characters, but he did so based upon the responses from the four people who were doing the testing.

He admitted that, unfortunately, the four testers began to show favoritism to certain characters, and how they played with those characters. And their bias began to show in their feedback. He made changes accordingly each time, and the balance team finally gave him the OK on his now-notorious adjustments. This is how Meta Knight grew to power, and how Ganon was weakened severely.

Now, on this game, Sakurai has 12 people helping him with the balance. This time, however, these people are from Namco Bandai, and are well experienced in balancing fighting games.

TL:DR, we have nothing to worry about.

 

[JamietheAuraUser]

This

There is a video of Zelda KO'ing fox from 35% with Farore's Wind for example.

That low? Holy Arceus, that's insanity! I know the first hit can combo into the second hit if she aims her teleport upwards, but that's just nuts.

 

[SpeedBoost]

Sakurai is fine, he balanced both Melee AND Smash64 by himself basically. And all opinions aside on the "Bugs" in Melee mainly *cough cough WaveDashing cough cough*, but for doing things by himself basically until Brawl, he did a good job and made Melee the game most people love. So I know Sakurai knows what he is doing... BUT the thing we should worry about is the rest of team working on balancing... Like in Brawl where there was hardly any communication about balancing (Proof: just look at Snake's UpTilt) So maybe Samus being the best character maybe was just an opinion of Sakurai, or some dumb guy in the balancing team, or maybe they just did it from SSB4 Battle Records who knows.

All in all Sakurai knows what he is doing for sure, just hoping the mistakes the team made during Brawl don't repeat.

 

[RascalTheCharizard]

ZSS's only real changes was her new Uspecial and the addition of a Zair. She's effectively a Brawl character in SSB4 at the moment, and very powerful because of it.

Glide tossing is dead, and so is nannerlocking.

Well, there's her new, sexy, down special. Pretty sure she couldn't Pitfall people in Brawl (this Pitfall effect is the start of the 0-60% combo ZeRo found btw).

TC Item tossing may replace glidetossing. It may work with every character as well, unlike glide tossing.

-snip-

This reminds me. Melee and 64 had some tweaks in the localisation process. I know in 64 some characters had a weight change. In Melee there was more of that and then some other things in the PAL version like Link's Spin Attack not being a semispike and Sheik's Dthrow being adjusted to not be as potent at chainthrowing.

Do you think Sakurai issued a request for these changes, or did the localisation team do these things entirely by themselves?

That low? Holy Arceus, that's insanity! I know the first hit can combo into the second hit if she aims her teleport upwards, but that's just nuts.

It could be due to Fox's weight and/or his relative distance from the blastline, but I won't deny that it's stronger. Much stronger.

 

[JamietheAuraUser]

View attachment 20298
It could be due to Fox's weight and/or his relative distance from the blastline, but I won't deny that it's stronger. Much stronger.

Oh god, I completely failed to notice that! I think I even watched that video, but that KO was so sudden that I didn't get a good view of his damage percentage. I thought he was at 120%! Also, dat hitlag though.

nerfed in Smash 4? good one, mate!

 

[Takehiko]

-

The best thing to do is take anything that anyone says about balance on smash4 with a grain of salt.

Sakurai can fix character balance issues this time around with patches, so best believe that he wouldn't allow characters to fully dominate the whole roster like MK did.

Further, remember that the pro players at the invitational are still a small percentage vs. the whole Smash community, so it'll take a the whole community when the game comes out to say that it's unbalanced and have that statement stick. Also, it would do best to remember that those players were technically in a rush. Imagine if you have an hour to player with characters that you're going to use in a tourney. I'm sure if you chose your main from an older game and they didn't feel like what you were used to then I'm sure you would choose another character who you think could win because of time constraints. In the future, after HugS gets the game home, and starts testing things and sharing information with the Samus mains portion of the community then things will become discovered and I'm sure that he would have a different view toward her.

With the bowser situation at SDCC, you have to remember also that it was technically still a low class event (not taking anything from the bowser player who won). What I'm glad about is that Bowser is looking really good in this game which would mean that he's viable. But I'm sure once people immerse themselves into the game then he will become another peer in the sea of characters.

But also, if he does become top tier then remember 2 things:
1. Sakurai can fix it.
2. There will be tons of people looking to take him down which will make him look balanced.

 

[κomıc]

As I understand it, the dude balanced Melee by himself. I'll let that speak for itself.

Yep. And with Brawl, there were 4 (or 6?)people involved in balancing (Sakurai had the final say, however) and now with Smash 4, 12 people are balancing the game as he announced last month at the Pac-Man reveal.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

I don't know why people are implying Melee was more balanced than Brawl. It was almost if not just as bad in terms of balance for the dumb characters.

Brawl's high tier/mid tier were pretty close to each other. The outliers are were the game's balance went a little more messed up.

I trust him more than PM for balancing so there is that. Balance wise? Eh Smash 4 is a wait and see right now even more so with a lot of people confirming the demo build was from January.

 

[Hentai_Kittie]

For the record. Has anyone payed attention to sonic as well? He looks amazing and i'm not even a sonic fan.

But him (sonic), Donkey kong, olimar, and shiek were people who i hadn't got too good of a look at yet, mainly because i have yet to see anyone half-decent use them yet. Everyone else looked like they got buffed to around the same level. Like Zelda, she got buffed alot, it just doesn't look like it because her game-style shifted quite abit. So i don't think many people noticed it.

 

[Venks]

With all due respect, I'm talking about how Zero Suit has more powerful attacks and as you mentioned earlier, a better recovery. Aside from the removal of her (perhaps notorious) Power Suit Pieces, ZSS has recieved various tweaks to make her a better character, something which Sakurai stated in the Direct. I don't believe she's overpowered (her buffs are rather minor from what I've seen) and I'm not basing my argument solely on ZeRo winning the Invitational, or at all.

I agree she's been buffed and that she isn't overpowered. I don't really think she needed buffs as she was pretty good in Brawl even without her armor pieces. But I don't think this reflects poor balancing which I think is what you're arguing. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

The reason I don't believe ZSS being buffed is a poor decision is because everyone is receiving changes. Who would you consider the worst character in Smash 4 thus far? You mention Zelda earlier, but that could be a simple case of us not knowing how to play the new Zelda. Her up special and side special have both been buffed and she has a new down special. Her up aerial has been buffed as well and it was easily one of her best KO moves in Brawl. I think I was a little quick to call out Zelda for the nerfs she's received. When I played Zelda I played her like I did in Brawl. I didn't make much use out of her new special changes.

And even then, aside from Zelda, who else would you consider on the weak side? Mega Man? Rosalina? Little Mac?

 

[RascalTheCharizard]

I agree she's been buffed and that she isn't overpowered. I don't really think she needed buffs as she was pretty good in Brawl even without her armor pieces. But I don't think this reflects poor balancing which I think is what you're arguing. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

The reason I don't believe ZSS being buffed is a poor decision is because everyone is receiving changes. Who would you consider the worst character in Smash 4 thus far? You mention Zelda earlier, but that could be a simple case of us not knowing how to play the new Zelda. Her up special and side special have both been buffed and she has a new down special. Her up aerial has been buffed as well and it was easily one of her best KO moves in Brawl. I think I was a little quick to call out Zelda for the nerfs she's received. When I played Zelda I played her like I did in Brawl. I didn't make much use out of her new special changes.

And even then, aside from Zelda, who else would you consider on the weak side? Mega Man? Rosalina? Little Mac?

I think I should have made my argument clear, yes. What I'm arguing isn't that the balance is poor (it doesn't look that way at least), but rather that Sakurai doesn't entirely know what he's doing. A lot of the balancing we've seen so far looks well deserved, but there are certain characters like the aforementioned ZSS and Zelda that make me just think "why?".

I got my Zelda being nerfed info from browsing the Zelda boards btw. Didn't see that list of buffs there, but I'm glad you posted them earlier in this thread. SO many people were complaining that the only buffs she got were a faster and stronger UpB and a better Uair, but that's clearly wrong.

I dunno who I think to be weak, other than Zelda. Rosalina is just being played incorrectly (except by Bill, who looks like he has an idea of what he's doing. Possibly the only player I've seen to actually utilise Luma lol) and Megaman I think isn't all there either. I could hardly find any footage of Megaman players using Utilt which seems like his strongest KO move and it even combos into other things at mid percents. Not to mention they were all awful at the camping game, which I predict will be a huge part of Megaman's metagame post-release. I think Little Mac is being slept on. As for others, the only candidates I see for "possibly poor" are the ones that I hardly anyone I saw at the E3 demo picked. DK and Link in particular. Please don't hurt me.

 

[Ryuutakeshi]

I don't know why people are implying Melee was more balanced than Brawl. It was almost if not just as bad in terms of balance for the dumb characters.

Brawl's high tier/mid tier were pretty close to each other. The outliers are were the game's balance went a little more messed up.

I trust him more than PM for balancing so there is that. Balance wise? Eh Smash 4 is a wait and see right now even more so with a lot of people confirming the demo build was from January.

Balance in this case means nothing. Thousands are playing Melee over ten years later. That's my point.

 

[Hentai_Kittie]

I think I should have made my argument clear, yes. What I'm arguing isn't that the balance is poor (it doesn't look that way at least), but rather that Sakurai doesn't entirely know what he's doing. A lot of the balancing we've seen so far looks well deserved, but there are certain characters like the aforementioned ZSS and Zelda that make me just think "why?".

Personally. I'm not sure if i could call ZSS buffed... she's changed so much shes almost hardly the same type of character that she was before. Her whole play-style has a different rhythm to it now. I don't even understand it because she was a great character with an already unique style. That said, i agree, shes still very very good, but it doesn't make sense to me...

I got my Zelda being nerfed info from browsing the Zelda boards btw. Didn't see that list of buffs there, but I'm glad you posted them earlier in this thread. SO many people were complaining that the only buffs she got were a faster and stronger UpB and a better Uair, but that's clearly wrong.

I think they were like that at her boards was because those tournament pros from E3 all said Zelda was even worse then before, and put her on the bottom of each of their "tier list". Not to mention that the person who played as her was absolutely awful. Amazing Ampharos came by later with an only slightly better analysis (Not to put him down, he's a very good poster). At that point, it was clear to me that none of them actually knew how to use Zelda (or at least, THIS Zelda). So it was and still is filled with grim outlooks, so i don't go there...

I dunno who I think to be weak, other than Zelda. Rosalina is just being played incorrectly (except by Bill, who looks like he has an idea of what he's doing. Possibly the only player I've seen to actually utilise Luma lol) and Megaman I think isn't all there either. I could hardly find any footage of Megaman players using Utilt which seems like his strongest KO move and it even combos into other things at mid percents. Not to mention they were all awful at the camping game, which I predict will be a huge part of Megaman's metagame post-release. I think Little Mac is being slept on. As for others, the only candidates I see for "possibly poor" are the ones that I hardly anyone I saw at the E3 demo picked. DK and Link in particular. Please don't hurt me.

Watching people play zelda and rosalina (even bill) physically hurt my soul. I get that they aren't characters you can easily pick up and play, but wow.... I didn't expect everyone to do poorly. Also, i would like to see someone else decent use Megaman. I think the best i seen was last year E3, but that build i'm sure is ancient.

 

[Venks]

I think I should have made my argument clear, yes. What I'm arguing isn't that the balance is poor (it doesn't look that way at least), but rather that Sakurai doesn't entirely know what he's doing. A lot of the balancing we've seen so far looks well deserved, but there are certain characters like the aforementioned ZSS and Zelda that make me just think "why?".

I got my Zelda being nerfed info from browsing the Zelda boards btw. Didn't see that list of buffs there, but I'm glad you posted them earlier in this thread. SO many people were complaining that the only buffs she got were a faster and stronger UpB and a better Uair, but that's clearly wrong.

I dunno who I think to be weak, other than Zelda. Rosalina is just being played incorrectly (except by Bill, who looks like he has an idea of what he's doing. Possibly the only player I've seen to actually utilise Luma lol) and Megaman I think isn't all there either. I could hardly find any footage of Megaman players using Utilt which seems like his strongest KO move and it even combos into other things at mid percents. Not to mention they were all awful at the camping game, which I predict will be a huge part of Megaman's metagame post-release. I think Little Mac is being slept on. As for others, the only candidates I see for "possibly poor" are the ones that I hardly anyone I saw at the E3 demo picked. DK and Link in particular. Please don't hurt me.

Ah. Completely agreed. I think Sakurai is trying harder than before with the whole 12-person balance team thing, but yeah I don't think he's perfectly balancing everything how we would want for 1v1s.

Watching people play zelda and rosalina (even bill) physically hurt my soul. I get that they aren't characters you can easily pick up and play, but wow.... I didn't expect everyone to do poorly. Also, i would like to see someone else decent use Megaman. I think the best i seen was last year E3, but that build i'm sure is ancient.

Unfortunately a lot of people playing Smash 4 are casuals who can't recover. The few "pros" who've tried out Zelda and Mega Man just haven't been able to figure out the characters fast enough. Most "pros" that get a chance with the game do their best to learn as much as they can about every character in the game and don't focus too long on any single character.

 

[Calibrate]

The guy wants to balance the characters for FFA.

Mother******* facepalm.

 

[ferioku]

https://miiverse.nintendo.net/posts/AYMHAAACAADMUKllbS-s3Q - This is what I was referring to in my first post, for the record.

Also, please don't pull the "the final version could be different!" card, because I can just as easily throw that at you. As it is, Smash4 is looking better Brawl and Melee balance-wise. But who knows? It could be different upon release and everyone except Sonic gets nerfed with Sonic becoming MK levels of broken. We don't know!

My point was that Sakurai has some... questionable ideas of which characters need tweaking for competitive play. For casual play however, things are very different. I'm interested to hear more on what the big Samurai has done with Ike this time around, as he was an oft complained about character in items-on FFAs.

Like I said, anything could change, have you not noticed how broken some characters are compared to others, and did you notice those glitches that we saw at E3 and San Diego? No one knows how Sm4sh will play at the moment, we just have to wait and see when the official game comes out because no one really too much time to play it in the first place.