Project M Back Room Releases Blog Post on v3.5, Recoveries

[The Derrit]

This afternoon, the Project M Back Room published a post on their official website talking about the upcoming Project M 3.5. This blog post was focused on the team's balance goals, and specifically on recoveries. Project M is criticized by some for having many characters that can 'recover from anywhere,' making edgeguarding for some characters too risky to justify. It appears that this is a facet of the game that the PMBR team is looking to change - while no specific changes to characters were mentioned, the post makes quite clear that adding risk to recovery is part of their overall design goal:​

The goal is that the recovering victim should have just enough options that they feel a certain pressure to combine their limited recovery moves in ways that can surprise the edgeguarder, and earn their way back on to the stage. It takes skill and creativity, and in many ways the high-risk offstage game full of low percentage kills, mixups, and sudden attacker-victim reversals best defines what is so unique about Smash Bros as a fighting series. Curiously, the game was originally programmed to play an audience “Woah!” noise when someone makes it back to the stage from far away – we want the real audience to feel that excitement more often, too.​

Read the full post from the PMBR here.

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Do you think that the PMBR is doing the right thing? What would you like to hear them talk about next? Make your voice heard in the comments below!

The Derrit likes what he hears, though he hopes to see a gentle approach - the butterfly effect is everywhere. Talk with him about Project M on Twitter at @TheDerrit.

 

[QQQQQQQ7777777]

Scrubs just don't know how to F-Smash right.

 

[Captain Zack]

Yay more thinking is involved now.

 

[Ragna22]

Yay more thinking is involved now.

Welcome to fighting games.

 

[Sen. Sawft]

This news. I'm expecting good things in the future.

 

[iHook]

.....but the M is for recovery?

 

[jdmcwombat]

So what? Nerf everyone? What about the characters with lackluster recoveries like Falco and Squirtle? What about Fox? Will his recovery get nerfed?

 

[Saito]

Dis gon b gud.

 

[Shadow Huan]

Yay more thinking is involved now.

compared to some fighting games there is very little thought involved in smash lol.

though in some ways there is more. what a weird series huh?

 

[The Derrit]

Posting a gif without any context is spam. Please don't do it. See @ Sen. Sawft for the proper way to use gifs effectively.

 

[Sir Skaro]

"in the process of giving lower mobility characters essential approach options we’ve admittedly been shortsighted on how some of those options can give recovering characters too much freedom"

R.I.P. Squirtle side-b
R.I.P. Diddy side-b and up-b
R.I.P. Mewtwo everything-b
R.I.P. Lucas down-b
R.I.P. ZZS down-b
R.I.P. Mario something
R.I.P. Ivysaur down air
R.I.P. Sonic side-b or down-b
R.I.P. Falco up-b... oh wait

 

[PreciseMotion]

Posting a gif without any context is spam. Please don't do it. See @ Sen. Sawft for the proper way to use gifs effectively.

Okay sorry but I just noticed this and this is rediculous lol. Both posts have just as much context as the other, it doesn't make sense to give him a warning, like seriously.

 

[Saito]

Okay sorry but I just noticed this and this is bull**** lol. Both posts have just as much context as the other, it doesn't make sense to give him a warning, like seriously.

My post was edited after the initial warning.

Please understand. ;_;

 

[Moose of the Law]

RIP Mewtwo's recovery

 

[0RLY]

inb4 everyone is now roy

 

[Scarlet Bean]

So when is PM going to die for good

 

[Phan7om]

Kreygasm!!

 

[KinGly]

so falcon isn't going to get to drive the blue falcon back on stage in the next update

 

[Drexel]

I honestly think this is a mistake in some cases. A lack in ways a character can recover makes them more predictable when trying to recover, thus making edgeguarding/hogging easier for the player on-stage. This will really kill some characters who already have poor recovery to begin with.

 

[Da Black Rabbit]

Could of just told us they nerfed Deep Kong.... >.>

On a serious note the only characters I ever hear/read complaints about having "OP" recoveries is Diddy and maybe Mewtwo. Second to that maybe Lucas. I'd agree it's weird to see Lucas' rope snake double in length sometimes but if a monkey has a jet pack and a psychic cat can teleport it makes sense they have great recoveries.

Maybe it is justified because I'm basing this off of stream monsters and commentators input. I don't know how top players feel about Diddy's supposedly god like recovery or Falco's/Toon Link's supposedly absolutely horrible recoveries.

Half of me is a little worried but just gonna trust they know a lot more in the recovery subject then I do. Just thought they had it pretty good in 3.0...

 

[NINO29]

well ivysaur's screwed...

 

[NWRL]

So when is PM going to die for good

Never.

 

[OnFullTilt]

I honestly think this is a mistake in some cases. A lack in ways a character can recover makes them more predictable when trying to recover, thus making edgeguarding/hogging easier for the player on-stage. This will really kill some characters who already have poor recovery to begin with.

To be honest I was worried about the same exact thing, but if you read the post they're trying to get to a "critical point" where each character will have a slightly hard time recovering. This seems to imply that characters that already have limited recoveries will not be limited further, only that characters with too many unpredictable options will now have less.

 

[_yuna]

About time they realized recoveries are too good.

I honestly think this is a mistake in some cases. A lack in ways a character can recover makes them more predictable when trying to recover, thus making edgeguarding/hogging easier for the player on-stage. This will really kill some characters who already have poor recovery to begin with.

It's not like they think the entire cast's recovery is too good. Mario, Roy, Marth, etc will probably remain unchanged.

It's hard to make recovery unpredictable without it being stupid good.

Besides it's not like you should get an equal chance to get back onto the stage as your opponent has to edge-guard you. Edge-guarding situations are rewards for getting your opponent off-stage after all.

 

[Moose of the Law]

well ivysaur's screwed...

Byevesaur

 

[Saito]

It's not like they think the entire cast's recovery is too good. Mario, Roy, Marth, etc will probably remain unchanged.

I was just talking about this.

I do think that Mario's recovery will be looked at.

Mario has a cape to stall his recovery, along with reflect projectiles that attempt to gimp him, and the potential to fake his recovery via wall jump out of up B or even make it go insanely higher because of the same wall jump. The tornado makes him gain even more additional height.

I think that they will either lower the height gained from tornado, or lessen how much the cape makes Mario float.

 

[Reiign]

I just want to see what they do with it. I main Mario and we all know his recovery is amazing, so I'm hoping it isn't drastic.

 

[Saikyoshi]

The people thinking that the characters who have poor recovery or whose strength is supposed to be their superior recovery are going to get nerfed... They're smarter than that.

 

[DMG]

Recoveries too good?

Better nerf Irelia

 

[Pickledpotatoes]

Nah man, they're gonna nerf Yoshi's recovery so hard, it's just 2gud.

 

[RascalTheCharizard]

It's not like they think the entire cast's recovery is too good. Mario, Roy, Marth, etc will probably remain unchanged.

If nothing else, I can see Mario's ledge sweetspot reduced, he can grab that stage from waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too far away... even whilst facing backwards.

Also speaking of Roy, if they so much as touch Roy's recovery, I'm gonna be mad

 

[Deleted member]

While I'm glad recoveries are being nerfed so the general speed of the game will be drastically sped up, I'm also a bit sad. It's almost guaranteed that my main Link is going to be hit with a recovery nerf since he has crazy recovery options.

I honestly think this is a mistake in some cases. A lack in ways a character can recover makes them more predictable when trying to recover, thus making edgeguarding/hogging easier for the player on-stage. This will really kill some characters who already have poor recovery to begin with.

They're nerfing recoveries because a the big amount of complaints from the Melee players that the game is too slow compared to Melee, also coining the term "Project Recovery". If you look at the top tier Melee cast, they all have very simple and easily edge-guarded recoveries so they get killed off much faster then a PM character, therefore extending the length of the average game.

I seriously doubt they're going to hit any characters with already bad recoveries as it makes no sense and are instead are going to hit the best recovery characters with a load of options like Mario, Link and maybe Ivysaur. Those are just a few I know with really good recoveries on the top of my head.

edit: okay apparently Link and Ivysaur don't have good recoveries that should be considered nerfable, they were just examples anyways. I don't actually think they're OP.

 

[EpicFlyingTaco]

RIP Mewtwo's recovery

Mewtwo had pretty much the same ridiculous recovery in melee that he does in PM, so maybe nerf it a bit so its harder to recover with Mewtwo, but not to much.

 

[_yuna]

I was just talking about this.

I do think that Mario's recovery will be looked at.

Mario has a cape to stall his recovery, along with reflect projectiles that attempt to gimp him, and the potential to fake his recovery via wall jump out of up B or even make it go insanely higher because of the same wall jump. The tornado makes him gain even more additional height.

I think that they will either lower the height gained from tornado, or lessen how much the cape makes Mario float.

Guess I'm just not all too familiar with Mario in P:M. I always thought they kept the attributes of cape + tornado as close to Melee as possible. But gave him an actually feasible wall-jump out of Up B.

Mewtwo had pretty much the same ridiculous recovery in melee that he does in PM, so maybe nerf it a bit so its harder to recover with Mewtwo, but not to much.

Putting him in helpless after Up B would be a fantastic start.

 

[Saito]

Guess I'm just not all too familiar with Mario in P:M. I always thought they kept the attributes of cape + tornado as close to Melee as possible. But gave him an actually feasible wall-jump out of Up B.

It is the same or at least extremely similar. The wall jump being significantly easier to perform is what makes his recovery so good.

Significantly easier is an understatement on how much easier it is to perform as well.

 

[JCOnyx]

I doubt they're going to do much to Squirtles recovery. The worst decision they could make and one I hope never happens is have him go into special fall after canceling withdraw (SideB). If they do that, Squirtle is as good as dead once he's offstage.

They'll probably just tone down the hitboxes on Waterfall (UpB) and how Aqua Jet works.

 

[Gladiator]

I swear to God, if they decide to make Falco's recovery somehow worse, Falco will be worse than a potato offstage. I believe in PMBR though.

 

[dRevan64]

"Please keep in mind that this is an overall design refocusing, rather than a balance one. As such we are going to be changing some characters regardless of how viable or strong they are perceived to be."

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

 

[_yuna]

It is the same or at least extremely similar. The wall jump being significantly easier to perform is what makes his recovery so good.

Significantly easier is an understatement on how much easier it is to perform as well.

I have no idea how you'd find a good medium concerning that. In Melee it was more-or-less never used because of the extreme requirements for you to actually be able to wall-jump out of it. That being you had to be close to a wall, and Melee never felt like giving you the satisfaction of being next to a wall in its eyes.

Make it like a frame-perfect thing as soon as you hit the wall, maybe?

 

[Anuran]

I'm seeing diddy, lucas, mario, and mewtwo getting the nerf. (hopefully not Ivy)