being a casual gamer I don't know all these techniques like wavedashing, and top tier, which is weird. But you really don't have a fully understanding of the game until you enjoy it just for the game. Not for whats in it. If it's fun then it's not a failure.
Let me remind you, games are made for fun
Games are not made for fun. A not competitive multiplayer game cannot be real fun. The important is to WIN, noy have fun, or rather have fun by winning.
to the OP: many people on the boards think the same thing as you, but:
- the game is wayy more deep then you think. without the automatic sweetspot, the game would have been ridiculous, every swordman edgeguarding by juyst forward smashing/ down-tiliting the ledge.
Edgeguarding is much more aerial now, we can now even speak of air guarding. Now it is not a matter of who is playing marth anf forward smashing near the ledge, but it is a matter of footstooling/ interception/ trying to recover through that, wich makes for a far more developped ledge game then melee had.
- perfect shielding is now much easier to do, so one can now pull it off consistently instead of having that narrow 3 frames window melee had for powershielding (I never saw anyone have a powershielding rate then about 40% of the time).
-L cancel isn't necessary anymore. Each character has aerial moves that either:
-have lag on landing
-have next to no lag on landing
So, this just means that you can do some moves near the groung, and others you must be sure to hiy when you are near the ground.
Try to imagine; Ike, hopping around, doing his Fair left and right with no lag at all. I am terrified just thinking about it. XD
-wavedashing: not having it is a small price to pay to have a balanced game. If the wavedash/ dash dance was still in, it would give a tremendous advantage to fast characters.
Anyway, wavedashing is overrated. I was using it as my only mean of locomotion in melee for some time, but now, it seems I use it less and less. I just don't really need it, I am fine with walking around most of the time.