My Gripe with Project M

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Can we be blunt and brutally honest here? Shines are stupid and undoubtedly need to be reworked or preferably, removed altogether (though the latter would NEVER happen of course). They ignore an entire element of Smash: aerials being punishable on-shield. (The exceptions are STRONG aerials that have tons of shield stun and good-ranged aerials that can be safely spaced, of course).

FACT: If shines were first introduced with any Brawl character, they would've been removed already.

Falco's lasers straight-up ignore the neutral game and are essentially free pressure and free approach. But Pit's arrow get an increase on endlag as well as Mario's fireballs. (Rightfully so, I'm just saying)

I better stop before I offend and spacie mains. I swear I'm so close to making a thread about all this lol. But it just seems like nobody wants to call the Dev Team out for this blatant Melee bias that's going on. It's sickening.

And people wonder why Shine got nerfed and/or reworked in Brawl and Smash 4 as it was in Melee.

 

[Ningildo]

I kinda wish we had just one deliberately underpowered joke character to fill that role. We need a Pichu or a Dan Hibiki.

Then again, I guess we do have Olimar already.

Them low blows though.

OP's concerns are pretty unfounded since everyone (but the ever-balanced melee tops) got nerfed in one way or another. He did read the change log...right?

This feels like it's gonna devolve into off topic things. This thread should've ended with Mechwarrior's post, tbh. I mean, he DID answer the concerns in the OP...

 

[Boardwalk]

Can we be blunt and brutally honest here? Shines are stupid and undoubtedly need to be reworked or preferably, removed altogether (though the latter would NEVER happen of course). They ignore an entire element of Smash: aerials being punishable on-shield. (The exceptions are STRONG aerials that have tons of shield stun and good-ranged aerials that can be safely spaced, of course).

FACT: If shines were first introduced with any Brawl character, they would've been removed already.

Falco's lasers straight-up ignore the neutral game and are essentially free pressure and free approach. But Pit's arrow get an increase on endlag as well as Mario's fireballs. (Rightfully so, I'm just saying)

I better stop before I offend and spacie mains. I swear I'm so close to making a thread about all this lol. But it just seems like nobody wants to call the Dev Team out for this blatant Melee bias that's going on. It's sickening.

you make some valid points.
shine would definately be nerfed removed if it was a brawl move not a 14 year old melee move
but.....

is pm made for melee players to play a game like melee with brawl charaters
or brawl players to play melee

obviously it isnt 100 percent one way but this game is trying to add brawl characters to a melee engine. project MELEE
so obviously they are going to leave the trusty rusty melee high tiers alone, add some flavor to some low tiers, and then try to make some brawl charaters viable as well with the new engine. i think it is almost as good as we will ever get it.

 

[Frost | Odds]

every character was made into Fox.

If you seriously think this is true in 3.5, you have much bigger problems than PM's balance.

 

[Boardwalk]

Can we be blunt and brutally honest here? Shines are stupid and undoubtedly need to be reworked or preferably, removed altogether (though the latter would NEVER happen of course). They ignore an entire element of Smash: aerials being punishable on-shield. (The exceptions are STRONG aerials that have tons of shield stun and good-ranged aerials that can be safely spaced, of course).

FACT: If shines were first introduced with any Brawl character, they would've been removed already.

Falco's lasers straight-up ignore the neutral game and are essentially free pressure and free approach. But Pit's arrow get an increase on endlag as well as Mario's fireballs. (Rightfully so, I'm just saying)

I better stop before I offend and spacie mains. I swear I'm so close to making a thread about all this lol. But it just seems like nobody wants to call the Dev Team out for this blatant Melee bias that's going on. It's sickening.

you make some valid points.
shine would definately be nerfed removed if it was a brawl move not a 14 year old melee move
but.....

is pm made for melee players to play a game like melee with brawl charaters
or brawl players to play melee

obviously it isnt 100 percent one way but this game is trying to add brawl characters to a melee engine. project MELEE
so obviously they are going to leave the trusty rusty melee high tiers alone, add some flavor to some low tiers, and then try to make some brawl charaters viable as well with the new engine. i think it is almost as good as we will ever get it.

 

[metaXzero]

Can we be blunt and brutally honest here? Shines are stupid and undoubtedly need to be reworked or preferably, removed altogether (though the latter would NEVER happen of course). They ignore an entire element of Smash: aerials being punishable on-shield. (The exceptions are STRONG aerials that have tons of shield stun and good-ranged aerials that can be safely spaced, of course).

FACT: If shines were first introduced with any Brawl character, they would've been removed already.

Falco's lasers straight-up ignore the neutral game and are essentially free pressure and free approach. But Pit's arrow get an increase on endlag as well as Mario's fireballs. (Rightfully so, I'm just saying)

I better stop before I offend and spacie mains. I swear I'm so close to making a thread about all this lol. But it just seems like nobody wants to call the Dev Team out for this blatant Melee bias that's going on. It's sickening.

Project M original purpose was to be Melee 2.0 after all. To bring everybody to the level of Melee spacies and such while also having a game where top tier Melee mains could easily transfer their skills. They've gotten a little bit away from it and more towards being it's own thing, but Melee style gameplay is still in their mind. Hence 3.5
Though if the only issue with spacie Shines is making aerials safe, couldn't you just either increase the endlag on spacie aerials or increase the start-up lag on shine? I'd say the latter would be the lesser of 2 evils that MAYBE won't piss off spacie fans too much. Feel like there is a sweet spot where they still get shine combos without needing a frame 1 move that covers their entire body while also being jump cancelable in all situations (except ironically reflecting).

 

[Shoki]

He was talking about OP.

No really ? I'm joking

 

[Paquito]

The only thing worse than a tier ***** is a tier hipster.

Tier-hipster++

Even if we were to pretend Project M's tier list was well-defined, and that it was actually flat, flatter tier-lists = a better designed game. This thread goes to show that it really is impossible to satisfy everybody.

 

[Shokio]

Project M original purpose was to be Melee 2.0 after all. To bring everybody to the level of Melee spacies and such while also having a game where top tier Melee mains could easily transfer their skills. They've gotten a little bit away from it and more towards being it's own thing, but Melee style gameplay is still in their mind. Hence 3.5
Though if the only issue with spacie Shines is making aerials safe, couldn't you just either increase the endlag on spacie aerials or increase the start-up lag on shine? I'd say the latter would be the lesser of 2 evils that MAYBE won't piss off spacie fans too much. Feel like there is a sweet spot where they still get shine combos without needing a frame 1 move that covers their entire body while also being jump cancelable in all situations (except ironically reflecting).

Project M should be a sequel to Melee. The problem is is that it's a REMAKE of Melee instead, minus wobbling. PM presented a rare opportunity to not only fix the low-tiers, but the top-tiers as well. As I said before, Melee was NOT a well-designed game from a character standpoint. The Dev Team should be trying to replicate the Melee engine, NOT the silly character-specific mechanics. The game balancing was OBVIOUSLY no where near being complete, so why the hell are we trying to replicate the characters of a game that blatantly never had finished testing and developing?

We should use this opportunity to give the Melee top-tiers less polarizing movesets, re-design them. After all, some of the Brawl characters got re-designed. But it would piss some Melee players off? Newsflash: THIS ISN'T MELEE, this is PM. It SHOULD be it's own game. If people want to play silly spacies then they can go play Melee, don't come to a different game if you want to play the EXACT same way as before.

ZSS gets her dash cancel removed, Olimar gets his whistle invincibility removed, Diddy gets a whole banana removed, throws into kills get universally nerfed and don't work at high percents anymore.......but we still have Falco lasers, Peach's silly float cancel meaning ZERO lag on aerials (essentially), Falcon's ridiculous throws into knee, and Fox's Up-Throw Up-Air. And why? Cause Melee. Literally 'cause Melee. (Shiek's not so bad but I feel her tilts can use some knockback adjustments.)

The only significant thing that was actually removed was wobbling.

But no, making aerials safe isn't the only issue with shine. Shine is a 1-frame auto-combo starter, semi-spike, stall option, shield pressure-er, reflector, wake-up option, punish tool, mistake eraser, move. It's a ONE frame jump-cancellation move with little-to-no commitment or risk that does 50 million things at once.

When the only proper option against a move is to ROLL, which doesn't actually do anything for you except reset the situation, then something is wrong with it.

 

[Smolder]

Project M should be a sequel to Melee. The problem is is that it's a REMAKE of Melee instead, minus wobbling. PM presented a rare opportunity to not only fix the low-tiers, but the top-tiers as well. As I said before, Melee was NOT a well-designed game from a character standpoint. The Dev Team should be trying to replicate the Melee engine, NOT the silly character-specific mechanics. The game balancing was OBVIOUSLY no where near being complete, so why the hell are we trying to replicate the characters of a game that blatantly never had finished testing and developing?

We should use this opportunity to give the Melee top-tiers less polarizing movesets, re-design them. After all, some of the Brawl characters got re-designed. But it would piss some Melee players off? Newsflash: THIS ISN'T MELEE, this is PM. It SHOULD be it's own game. If people want to play silly spacies then they can go play Melee, don't come to a different game if you want to play the EXACT same way as before.

ZSS gets her dash cancel removed, Olimar gets his whistle invincibility removed, Diddy gets a whole banana removed, throws into kills get universally nerfed and don't work at high percents anymore.......but we still have Falco lasers, Peach's silly float cancel meaning ZERO lag on aerials (essentially), Falcon's ridiculous throws into knee, and Fox's Up-Throw Up-Air. And why? Cause Melee. Literally 'cause Melee. (Shiek's not so bad but I feel her tilts can use some knockback adjustments.)

The only significant thing that was actually removed was wobbling.

But no, making aerials safe isn't the only issue with shine. Shine is a 1-frame auto-combo starter, semi-spike, stall option, shield pressure-er, reflector, wake-up option, punish tool, mistake eraser, move. It's a ONE frame jump-cancellation move with little-to-no commitment or risk that does 50 million things at once.

When the only proper option against a move is to ROLL, which doesn't actually do anything for you except reset the situation, then something is wrong with it.

So let me just state that I understand where you're coming from. . .
However, allow us to look at this from a public relations standpoint. Let's say we do follow your idea and we nerf shines to make them less safe on shields. What would this mean for the Melee Fox and Falco players choosing to throw their money into the prize pool for a PM side or main event? It would mean that the character they love to play no longer feels like the same character. Half the reason why people play those characters is for the crazy shield pressure they can crank out and if you take that away, what do we have? A character that has low-lag aerials, with a shine that can no longer be used for shield pressure, (Its main purpose) who can be death-touched by most of the cast, and now has to worry about shield grabs. Last time I checked, grabs are the leading cause of spacy deaths everywhere. These players who would've otherwise entered a tournament and given their money to support our PM community now won't because they don't want these changes to interfere with their already fine-tuned Melee tech. This is one of the reasons why you don't see Sethlon play Melee Roy. Not only is he a low tier with weak shield pressure, no kill options, and an amazing combo weight, he could also mess with Sethlon's PM Roy tech.

The big thing about having more players giving PM a chance is that they could tell their friends about the awesomeness of PM and their friends could tell some more people about it, so on and so forth. We need more people to take interest in this game. It may prove to be pretty detrimental to our community if we decide to nerf spacy shield pressure.

Now, let's take a look at the IC's. What made them good and viable characters? Their grab game, and more specifically, the completely balanced and totally fair wobbling. (Sarcasm) Where, now, would you put the IC's as compared to the rest of the cast after they had wobbling removed? I don't know about you, but I would rate them pretty low seeing as their whole game revolved around getting said grab and converting it into a lost stock for their opponent. That is not to say that they still can't do some grab shenanigans, but after the removal of wobbling (along with some desyncing issues), we no longer see very many IC's. Why? Because Melee IC's don't feel like putting money into tournaments to play a watered-down version of their character.

Would you actually be willing to nerf such a pivotal aspect of a certain character's gameplay, even knowing it could hurt the community as a whole? That's a pretty tough decision to make, and I know I definitely wouldn't want to be the one who makes it.

I personally think, from a public relations standpoint, that it would be a terrible idea to nerf them, especially after so many characters already saw the nerf bat recently. I already know of several people who are either in the the middle of a character crisis, or have quit PM all together because their character doesn't cater to the same playstyle that they enjoyed so much.

I haven't been a part of the competitive community for too long, so take my opinion with a gran of salt. But, personally, I would say keep Fox and Falco as they are. It isn't that hard to escape laser pressure, and there are ways to punish them for attempting shield pressure.

 

[Frost | Odds]

But it just seems like nobody wants to call the Dev Team out for this blatant Melee bias that's going on. It's sickening.

Don't get hasty with throwing out attacks like this. I'm more inclined to think they're taking the long view. Here's what I mean by that:

0. Can't completely fix spacies yet, there'd be too much outcry. How to do it while irreparably pissing off as few people as possible?
1. Release 3.5. Nerf most or all of the silly/unnecessary/overcentralized crap introduced in previous PM patches. Very carefully begin to buff the Terrible Tier characters. Give Fox a slap on the wrist to test the waters, and see how he's received.
2. Allow community to discover the wonderful new game - which, indeed, feels almost entirely like a new experience. Now when you lose playing against a PM-unique character, it's typically because you simply played worse. This is an exciting feeling.
3. Eventually, people are going to realize that Fox is still a major problem; and, indeed, several of the melee tops could stand some toning down. This becomes a centerpiece of PM's discourse. Fortunately, most fans are still happy enough with most of the game to stick with it even though Fox is stupid.
4. Allow the entire community (even previous skeptics/melee elitists) to convince itself that melee characters should not be immune to nerfs.
5. Introduce stronger balance changes to stupid Melee characters in 4.0 to a minimum of whining, because everybody saw it coming, and knew it had to happen.

We're currently transitioning from step 3 to 4, I think. I'm convinced that the PMDT saw all this coming, and IMO it's a brilliant way to appeal to players who were previously frustrated with the 'jank' of 3.0 and wanted a more melee-like experience. The rest of us will just have to bear with the silliness for a little bit longer; after all, 3.5 is easily the best-balanced patch ever so far, and it wasn't even a balance patch.

tl;dr: can't get away from politics, and the best is yet to come.

 

[Ramz289]

wow, what a fascinating and fruitful discussion this turned out to be. But it feels like it's missing something. Hmmm...

Shines are dumb
Spacies are dumb
L-canceling is dumb
De-clone Falco
Sword Ganon when

I think that about covers it, enjoy the thread! <3

 

[Phaiyte]

tbh we'd might as well just give almost everyone a jump cancellable move or something with invincibility on startup with a very small handful of exception characters. Just one move though, which means Samus, Snake, and Pit can keep their invincible upB, Fox, Falco, and Wolf keep shine, while Marth, Roy, and Sheik can be left entirely alone and they likely wouldn't even care.

Boom, shine "problems"(lol) entirely gone, without changing much of anything else and the game suddenly becomes 10x faster and more decision based, and then the game becomes way more "technical" on top of that for just about every single character in the game. You don't even have to change anything else all that much and all 3 spacies can be left alone forever.

Everyone wins.

 

[ChiePet]

wow, what a fascinating and fruitful discussion this turned out to be. But it feels like it's missing something. Hmmm...

Shines are dumb
Spacies are dumb
L-canceling is dumb
De-clone Falco
Sword Ganon when

I think that about covers it, enjoy the thread! <3

Hmm, nothing about FC/IFC..

Peach Confirmed to be Top again, whoopwhoop~

 

[GabPR]

Don't get hasty with throwing out attacks like this. I'm more inclined to think they're taking the long view. Here's what I mean by that:

0. Can't completely fix spacies yet, there'd be too much outcry. How to do it while irreparably pissing off as few people as possible?
1. Release 3.5. Nerf most or all of the silly/unnecessary/overcentralized crap introduced in previous PM patches. Very carefully begin to buff the Terrible Tier characters. Give Fox a slap on the wrist to test the waters, and see how he's received.
2. Allow community to discover the wonderful new game - which, indeed, feels almost entirely like a new experience. Now when you lose playing against a PM-unique character, it's typically because you simply played worse. This is an exciting feeling.
3. Eventually, people are going to realize that Fox is still a major problem; and, indeed, several of the melee tops could stand some toning down. This becomes a centerpiece of PM's discourse. Fortunately, most fans are still happy enough with most of the game to stick with it even though Fox is stupid.
4. Allow the entire community (even previous skeptics/melee elitists) to convince itself that melee characters should not be immune to nerfs.
5. Introduce stronger balance changes to stupid Melee characters in 4.0 to a minimum of whining, because everybody saw it coming, and knew it had to happen.

We're currently transitioning from step 3 to 4, I think. I'm convinced that the PMDT saw all this coming, and IMO it's a brilliant way to appeal to players who were previously frustrated with the 'jank' of 3.0 and wanted a more melee-like experience. The rest of us will just have to bear with the silliness for a little bit longer; after all, 3.5 is easily the best-balanced patch ever so far, and it wasn't even a balance patch.

tl;dr: can't get away from politics, and the best is yet to come.

Another plus side to this is that people wont be able to keep johning that a "brawl" character is stupid.

 

[Ramz289]

People don't complain about Float cancel as much as the other stuff, sooo yeah.

 

[MegaMissingno]

I never hear anyone complain about any Melee characters besides Fox and Falco.

 

[Phaiyte]

I like how the whole smash community praises combos and stuff in public but once they're on the forums they basically want them dead and non existant. We'd might as well just play a slightly faster Brawl lmao

 

[Shokio]

Peach isn't nearly as prevalent. But whether or not you see people complaining about it is irrelevant - the point stands that Float Cancel would've been removed if it was a mechanic introduced in Brawl.

 

[metaXzero]

Peach isn't nearly as prevalent. But whether or not you see people complaining about it is irrelevant - the point stands that Float Cancel would've been removed if it was a mechanic introduced in Brawl.

We still have b-reversing, wavebouncing, DACUS, glide-tossing, and probably other mechanics don't we? What are all the Brawl mechanics that PM removed now?

 

[Shokio]

We still have b-reversing, wavebouncing, DACUS, glide-tossing, and probably other mechanics don't we? What are all the Brawl mechanics that PM removed now?

Grasp the context here: We're talking about character-specific mechanics. I haven't said anything about something engine-wise being removed.

 

[metaXzero]

Grasp the context here: We're talking about character-specific mechanics. I haven't said anything about something engine-wise being removed.

But again, what are all those mechanics from Brawl that got removed in PM? All I can think of is Aura.

 

[Bleck]

I never hear anyone complain about any Melee characters besides Fox and Falco.

you ain't never heard me talk about Marth

 

[Frost | Odds]

you ain't never heard me talk about Marth

Hey, we agree on another thing!

Peach is cool, though. Greatest skin in Smash:

 

[Shokio]

But again, what are all those mechanics from Brawl that got removed in PM? All I can think of is Aura.

I did mention Olimar's invincibility on his whistle and Diddy losing an entire banana. I'm sure a lot more has been removed but I'm not too well-versed in the character specific Brawl intricacies.

But regardless, I never made things were removed FROM Brawl as my main point, I've been talking about things being removed from Brawl CHARACTERS. Which may sound like the same thing, but it's not. There were PM-specific things some of the Brawl characters got only to be removed later on. Pretty significant, playstyle-defining things.

That in-combination with the mechanics/attributes that have been removed from vBrawl shows the Melee slant PM has.

 

[metaXzero]

I did mention Olimar's invincibility on his whistle and Diddy losing an entire banana. I'm sure a lot more has been removed but I'm not too well-versed in the character specific Brawl intricacies.

But regardless, I never made things were removed FROM Brawl as my main point, I've been talking about things being removed from Brawl CHARACTERS. Which may sound like the same thing, but it's not. There were PM-specific things some of the Brawl characters got only to be removed later on. Pretty significant, playstyle-defining things.

That in-combination with the mechanics/attributes that have been removed from vBrawl shows the Melee slant PM has.

Losing one out of 2 bananas isn't removing a mechanic. That's just a nerf. And like I really don't think there was much else character specific or character defining from Brawl? Hand offs for the Ice Climbers? But then, they didn't get wobbling back either.

As for the PM stuff removed, I think that's just the PMDT figuring they can give and take away experimental changes with little protest. Brawl characters and non-top tier Melee characters are there guinea pigs basically and thus get more of those changes. Whereas Melee high tiers are just left alone out of fear alienating fans and/or making them broken.

I don't think anyone has ever questioned PM having a Melee slant. It used to be Project Melee after all and it started from an attempt to port Melee Falco into Brawl. But I'd say arguing something like Float Cancel if it were introduced in Brawl would get removed is a bit much. Ganondorf still has auto-canceled SH D-air and that most certainly was a Brawl tech.

 

[W.A.C.]

So as of right now, are Melee's S tiers predominantly dominating this game now while all the Brawl introduced characters got massive buffs? What the hell is going on with this game? I loved Project M 3.0 because it felt like a balance between Melee and Brawl that has much of the good aspects from both games. One of my biggest criticisms was some characters felt like their recoveries were too lousy while some were really good. So instead of improving the recoveries for certain characters, they made the recoveries way worse and nerfed the hell out of most of the cast, including low tier characters who were never ranked good. I initially thought they primarily nerfed high ranking characters like Mew Two, Diddy Kong, and Lucus, but later found out they butchered characters like Olimar. He was never considered good in Project M, yet now he's essentially considered garbage tier while the Melee S tiers were left with hardly any changes? What the hell happened? It seems like this game continues to become more and more like Melee, but in a bad way. Melee is an overrated, broken game. Project M should take influence of what it did right, not recreate much of its faults.

 

[metaXzero]

So as of right now, are Melee's S tiers predominantly dominating this game now while all the Brawl introduced characters got massive buffs? What the hell is going on with this game? I loved Project M 3.0 because it felt like a balance between Melee and Brawl that has much of the good aspects from both games. One of my biggest criticisms was some characters felt like their recoveries were too lousy while some were really good. So instead of improving the recoveries for certain characters, they made the recoveries way worse and nerfed the hell out of most of the cast, including low tier characters who were never ranked good. I initially thought they primarily nerfed high ranking characters like Mew Two, Diddy Kong, and Lucus, but later found out they butchered characters like Olimar. He was never considered good in Project M, yet now he's essentially considered garbage tier while the Melee S tiers were left with hardly any changes? What the hell happened? It seems like this game continues to become more and more like Melee, but in a bad way. Melee is an overrated, broken game. Project M should take influence of what it did right, not recreate much of its faults.

One of 3.0's critcisms was characters with strong on-stage games while having recoveries so good that edgeguarding was near pointless. Buffing recoveries even more was not what was wanted. At that point, you might as well remove edgehogging in favor of edegetrumping and give us Smash 4's auto-sweetspot (or Brawl's auto-sweetspot if you REALLY want to ensure recovery for characters).

They didn't go as far as recreate Melee's absurd edge holding time while rolling on stage, but the fact is Melee's recovery game has more of a perception of "earn your recovery" (unlike Brawl's "free recovery unless you're Falcon, Ganon, or a tether character or Smash 4's "free recovery unless you're Lil' Mac") and that's what the PMDT wants for PM.That's why 3.5 had alot of recovery nerfs. 3.5 wasn't a balance patch. It was a design patch to set the ground work for more sensible balance patches so we're not getting the horrors of 2.5 Sonic, 2.6 Ivy, and 3.0 Mewtwo/Lucas every update.

 

[MegaMissingno]

3.02 recovery was awful to play against, and it's something I and many other people have been complaining about for a long time. It needed to go.

 

[W.A.C.]

One of 3.0's critcisms was characters with strong on-stage games while having recoveries so good that edgeguarding was near pointless. Buffing recoveries even more was not what was wanted. At that point, you might as well remove edgehogging in favor of edegetrumping and give us Smash 4's auto-sweetspot (or Brawl's auto-sweetspot if you REALLY want to ensure recovery for characters).

Understandable, but they nerfed the hell out of characters both on-stage and off stage that weren't even good and are now much worse (poor Olimar). Granted, I'll admit I'm probably not Project M's target audience since I vastly prefer edge trumping over edge hogging and hate Melee's air dodging mechanics because it puts you in a free fall state, but I feel the new recoveries are unnecessarily too lousy which is an aspect I also didn't like about Melee. I feel a balance somewhere between Brawl's and Melee's recoveries would've been more ideal.

I'd also love to see less emphasis on free fall states. They're necessary at times for balance sake, but I'd love to see that significantly reduced in the future. That would more than make up for the significantly worsened recoveries. Like if the air dodging mechanics were a hybrid of Brawl's and Melee's where the first time you use it in the air, it gives you a boost similar to Melee's mechanics, but you don't go into a free fall state afterwards and all future air dodges before landing functions more like Brawl's. It would be a cool evolution of the air dodging mechanics that get rid of the annoying aspects to it while still providing the advantages of Melee's air dodging.

They didn't go as far as recreate Melee's absurd edge holding time while rolling on stage, but the fact is Melee's recovery game has more of a perception of "earn your recovery" (unlike Brawl's "free recovery unless you're Falcon, Ganon, or a tether character or Smash 4's "free recovery unless you're Lil' Mac") and that's what the PMDT wants for PM.That's why 3.5 had alot of recovery nerfs. 3.5 wasn't a balance patch. It was a design patch to set the ground work for more sensible balance patches so we're not getting the horrors of 2.5 Sonic, 2.6 Ivy, and 3.0 Mewtwo/Lucas every update.

And I feel the massive nerfs in general made a lot of the characters less fun. Some nerfs and buffs were absolutely necessary, but I think the Project M team went a bit overboard with the nerfs. Here's hoping Project M 4.0 will be a big improvement over 3.5. I honestly find 3.0.2 more fun and I'm not the only one who feels that way. I loved Project M 3.0.2.

 

[MegaMissingno]

Olimar got screwed, yeah, but I really don't see anything else that wasn't warranted.

 

[mimgrim]

Losing one out of 2 bananas isn't removing a mechanic. That's just a nerf. And like I really don't think there was much else character specific or character defining from Brawl? Hand offs for the Ice Climbers? But then, they didn't get wobbling back either.

The entirety of Lucas, Wolf, and Lucario are extraordinarily different from their Brawl incarnation. Wario's Bike being swapped out for Shoulder Bash . Zero Suit Samus' Armor Pieces. Pikachu's QAC (as of 3.5) being nerfed. Snake's missile launcher thing being changed to a tranq gun. R.O.B.s recovery.

Those are some of the immediate things that came to mind. You could argue that the changes were need for Project M (just as I can argue that certain Melee tops need change as well) but that doesn't beat the point that an important tool(s) for them in Brawl was changed for Project M and changes how they play by quite a bit as well.

 

[W.A.C.]

Olimar got screwed, yeah, but I really don't see anything else that wasn't warranted.

Well, with that in mind, are any other characters from Project M 3.5 bad besides Olimar? I seriously hope they release a patch before 4.0 that makes him not suck.

 

[metaXzero]

Understandable, but they nerfed the hell out of characters both on-stage and off stage that weren't even good and are now much worse (poor Olimar). Granted, I'll admit I'm probably not Project M's target audience since I vastly prefer edge trumping over edge hogging and hate Melee's air dodging mechanics because it puts you in a free fall state, but I feel the new recoveries are unnecessarily too lousy which is an aspect I also didn't like about Melee. I feel a balance somewhere between Brawl's and Melee's recoveries would've been more ideal.

Like I said, 3.5 was less about balance and moreso setting a groundwork so more sensible balance changes in the future. Granted, some changes I feel were made as a pre-emptive measure due to fears of some characters becoming OP in the wake of everyone else's nerfs and the general recovery nerfs. For example, Jiggs who didn't really get any significant changes in 3.5 is much better in relation to the cast compared to 3.02 Jiggs.

Recoveries though are still much better on average than Melee.

I'd also love to see less emphasis on free fall states. They're necessary at times for balance sake, but I'd love to see that significantly reduced in the future. That would more than make up for the significantly worsened recoveries. Like if the air dodging mechanics were a hybrid of Brawl's and Melee's where the first time you use it in the air, it gives you a boost similar to Melee's mechanics, but you don't go into a free fall state afterwards and all future air dodges before landing functions more like Brawl's. It would be a cool evolution of the air dodging mechanics that get rid of the annoying aspects to it while still providing the advantages of Melee's air dodging.

I'm pretty sure I've heard of a code like that that was considered, but rejected for Brawl+ (Project M's spiritual predecessor). I don't think such a code would ever be considered for PM though. Even without their original hitstun canceling nature, Brawl airdodges are generally hated by those who didn't like Brawl. Even the nerfed versions in Smash 4 aren't much more liked by that crowd. I know I didn't like them

And I feel the massive nerfs in general made a lot of the characters less fun. Some nerfs and buffs were absolutely necessary, but I think the Project M team went a bit overboard with the nerfs. Here's hoping Project M 4.0 will be a big improvement over 3.5. I honestly find 3.0.2 more fun and I'm not the only one who feels that way. I loved Project M 3.0.2.

Nerfs generally do make characters less fun regardless of how warranted they were. They tone down or take away stuff. But Olimar aside, I don't think anyone was utterly destroyed by 3.5. Which is surprising since it wasn't really a balance patch. And while there are people who preferred 3.02, there are plenty who prefer 3.5 as well. Regardless, 4.0 will probably be much better since the PMDT now has a more focused view on things.

The entirety of Lucas, Wolf, and Lucario are extraordinarily different from their Brawl incarnation. Wario's Bike being swapped out for Shoulder Bash . Zero Suit Samus' Armor Pieces. Pikachu's QAC (as of 3.5) being nerfed. Snake's missile launcher thing being changed to a tranq gun. R.O.B.s recovery.

Those are some of the immediate things that came to mind. You could argue that the changes were need for Project M (just as I can argue that certain Melee tops need change as well) but that doesn't beat the point that an important tool(s) for them in Brawl was changed for Project M and changes how they play by quite a bit as well.

Lucas lost Brawl PK Freeze which if I remember correctly wasn't that useful for him. Wasn't that just a worse version of Ness' PK Flash? Situational edgeguard, but otherwise non-essential to him (especially when Lucas has PK Thunder which could be used in the same situation, but better). I wouldn't call that an important tool. What did Wolf lose? He kept all his Brawl moves and they either work the same or work better. I mean he plays much differently, but not because they removed stuff from him. And I mentioned Lucario in a different comment as a character who did lose an essential part of his Brawl self (not that I miss it. I hate Brawl Aura and love PM Aura points).

You got me on ZSS and Wario though. Those characters did flat out lose things and either got something brand new with different uses (Wario's PM D-air and Shoulder barge), or nothing at all (ZSS's suit parts). Still though, that discussion (well my entry into it anyway) had started because of a claim that PM's Melee slant would mean something like Peach's float cancel would've been removed had it been introduced in Brawl. Even though there are still Melee techs universal and character specific missing and Brawl techs universal and character specific that still remain.

 

[W.A.C.]

Like I said, 3.5 was less about balance and moreso setting a groundwork so more sensible balance changes in the future. Granted, some changes I feel were made as a pre-emptive measure due to fears of some characters becoming OP in the wake of everyone else's nerfs and the general recovery nerfs. For example, Jiggs who didn't really get any significant changes in 3.5 is much better in relation to the cast compared to 3.02 Jiggs.

Recoveries though are still much better on average than Melee.

Yeah, but I'm not quite sure a lot of decisions that'll decide the future framework of the game is for the best.

I'm pretty sure I've heard of a code like that that was considered, but rejected for Brawl+ (Project M's spiritual predecessor). I don't think such a code would ever be considered for PM though. Even without their original hitstun canceling nature, Brawl airdodges are generally hated by those who didn't like Brawl. Even the nerfed versions in Smash 4 aren't much more liked by that crowd. I know I didn't like them.

Why do a lot of people dislike the air dodging in Brawl and Smash 4 so much? My only guess is that it's because it made wave dashing impossible and Melee's crowd tends to prefer offensive play over defensive, so Brawl's and Smash 4's additional defense options probably pissed off a lot of Melee purists. Interesting to hear Brawl+'s team considered that in the past. That would've been a very interesting mechanic that could've been really cool if implemented well.

Nerfs generally do make characters less fun regardless of how warranted they were. They tone down or take away stuff. But Olimar aside, I don't think anyone was utterly destroyed by 3.5. Which is surprising since it wasn't really a balance patch. And while there are people who preferred 3.02, there are plenty who prefer 3.5 as well. Regardless, 4.0 will probably be much better since the PMDT now has a more focused view on things.

I'm hopeful about Project M 4.0 and feel it has the potential to be the best version of Project M yet.

 

[metaXzero]

Why do a lot of people dislike the air dodging in Brawl and Smash 4 so much? My only guess is that it's because it made wave dashing impossible and Melee's crowd tends to prefer offensive play over defensive, so Brawl's and Smash 4's additional defense options probably pissed off a lot of Melee purists. Interesting to hear Brawl+'s team considered that in the past. That would've been a very interesting mechanic that could've been really cool if implemented well.

Brawl's airdodge is associated with hitstun canceling and airdodging out of tumble. For those into Melee style gameplay, that runs against it generally. As offensive as Melee is known for, the game still has a strong defensive game. People would rather not see that get buffed to where it overshoots offense.

That's my take anyway.

 

[GaretHax]

Unfair properties do not always make a character unfair, I'm not saying that is the case for space animals, but it isn't always correct to approach balance as a move-by-move vacuum. There are MANY moves in the smash series and in other fighters which can be deemed unfair in a vacuum or when presented with set criteria, anyway that's all I really had to throw into the mix.

 

[Pwnz0rz Man]

Why do a lot of people dislike the air dodging in Brawl and Smash 4 so much? My only guess is that it's because it made wave dashing impossible and Melee's crowd tends to prefer offensive play over defensive, so Brawl's and Smash 4's additional defense options probably pissed off a lot of Melee purists. Interesting to hear Brawl+'s team considered that in the past. That would've been a very interesting mechanic that could've been really cool if implemented well.

Can't speak for everyone, but I personally hate the air dodges in Brawl. They have this very limiting and slow feel to them to the majority of characters that I play. I greatly prefer having the greater options with the Melee dodge. If I want to wavedash, I can. If I want to jump, stop the jump with an in-place air dodge and cancel that into a zair (With the characters that do it), I can. If I want to jump as far as I can and move just a tad further with a directional air dodge, I can.

I also like the idea of not being completely unrestricted with your options in the air. You can typically only do an up-B once before needing to land, so why should another option that potentially leads to recovery be that much different?

 

[MegaMissingno]

Unfair properties do not always make a character unfair, I'm not saying that is the case for space animals, but it isn't always correct to approach balance as a move-by-move vacuum. There are MANY moves in the smash series and in other fighters which can be deemed unfair in a vacuum or when presented with set criteria, anyway that's all I really had to throw into the mix.

Seth gets both a Dragon Punch and Spinning Piledriver on the same moveset, creating perfect 50/50 mixups. But he's the most fragile character in the game, and if he can't get that knockdown to establish momentum he's in trouble. He has to play perfect, one mistake can end it for him.
Phoenix gets to revive herself when she dies and becomes stronger. But her base health is the lowest, it costs 5 bars to revive, and after she does her health will decay over time.
Johnny can make his Mist Finer unblockable and level it up. But the unblockable MF is a difficult setup and leveling it up requires him to hit with his coin special first, which he can only even attempt a limited number of times. Additionally, all his pokes are very unsafe and his mixups are not great.
Valentine is fast and can put on incredible pressure with her combos and blockstrings, and she can even lag the opponent's controls. But without a reversal she can't deal with pressure well herself, and she lacks good assists to be a team player.

 

[Phaiyte]

The entirety of Lucas, Wolf, and Lucario are extraordinarily different from their Brawl incarnation. Wario's Bike being swapped out for Shoulder Bash . Zero Suit Samus' Armor Pieces. Pikachu's QAC (as of 3.5) being nerfed. Snake's missile launcher thing being changed to a tranq gun. R.O.B.s recovery.

Those are some of the immediate things that came to mind. You could argue that the changes were need for Project M (just as I can argue that certain Melee tops need change as well) but that doesn't beat the point that an important tool(s) for them in Brawl was changed for Project M and changes how they play by quite a bit as well.

Everything you listed was pretty much bad game design, so I can only feel the removal of them was very warranted.