Hoo boy.
Dear Shadic,
You sir, need to understand that removing specific things from the top does not necessarially constitute a real nerf. Look at what happened with Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix. Balrog's super in ST did 80% health. Now, why was this removed? Because it was dumb. Not because it made him worse (although it did to a degree).
You may want to look at Sheik's DThrow. The move doesn't chain-grab to the same degree as it did in Melee
because it was deemed to be "dumb."
What you have to ask yourself is "Am I willing to give characters a spike over a hard meteor, who didn't have one in Melee/Brawl?" Or are you doing this because "It was in Melee"? Because what I'm seeing is someone not wanting to touch something they like, about characters they like. I mean, look at your demo thus far. Do you really think that Zelda's changes have made her as much a powerhouse as Fox/Falco/Snake? Do you think that Game and Watch can dominate as heavily as the top? What I'm seeing is a vague attempt to make a new Melee, that doesn't really add to the rest of the cast, and instead you are just sticking to what you know. If they have their Melee true spikes, what changes your opinion on Zelda/Game and Watch are equal to Falco's pressure/combo/gimpkill potential? Because I can tell you right now, G&W is bad. He's still got the problems he had in Melee. In Brawl it was mostly acceptable, because his moves were average, but did decent damage. Now, he can't even kill, because his Nair and smashes, along with his tilts are simply too slow.
First of all, I cannot comment on G&W, as he is a character that I had absolutely nothing to do with. JCaesar is the man you'll want to rant at for that, but I think that he'll disagree with you. G&W has received several improvements however, such as
working L-cancels, an improved recovery, and a proper shield. If you are correct and G&W does end up proving to be poor, he will be altered, as
this is a demo.
Zelda has had almost universal praise, and was designed almost entirely by Magus. Magus is one of the most knowledgeable people on the finer details of Smash around. Period. No offense meant, but I hold his opinion in higher regard than yours.
Basically what I'm saying is that if you're balancing to the top, you're doing a piss poor job. If you're trying to say that keeping in True Spikes (something that is incredibly unnecessary in the first place in) because Melee had it, well, you'd seem more legit, but simply stupid, and if you say that the characters that have the true spikes NEED them, you don't understand how to balance a game.
First of all, I find it spectacular that you're about to thoroughly analyze the balance and metagame of all of the altered character in Project M in such a short amount of time. We are keeping top tiers how they were in Melee. That has been one of the design choices from over a year ago and is not going to change. I also find it entertaining that you've only stuck to complaining about two characters in the demo out of the 14, and have actually used Snake as an example of one of our "powerful" characters. Wouldn't that imply that PMBR as a whole
is capable of balancing towards the top?
Not to mention that acting like true spikes are completely devious to character balance is asinine. Sure we can nerf Falco's Dair, but what is that going to do to Fox?
Fox is the best character in Melee. I never said that characters with spikes absolutely need them, but to remove or tweak the moves heavily to satiate a small percentage of our fanbase that is rapidly anti-spike isn't something we particularly feel like doing. Not to mention the characters already work great with them. Why would we mess with characters that have proven themselves to be near-perfect (In terms of design) after almost a decade of tournament play? They work great, and their challenges in Project M should be how to deal with the rest of the caster being on their level, not nerfs.
Also, Falco's D-Air Spike was removed from the PAL version of Melee, and people saying Fox doesn't have a spike might as well have the fluid drained out of their head, because the Melee shine spike is way deadlier than any of the other character's true spikes.
First of all - You're wrong about Falco's Dair. Half of the animation still spikes. Secondly, I never commented on the lack of utility on Fox's Shine, but it is not a spike. In Project M it sends 1 degree off horizontal, which does not make it a literal spike.
I know you've clearly stated you're balancing to the top, but if something's breaking the game, wouldn't it make more sense to just fix that, rather than break everything else to fit in with it?
But not everybody's definition of what is "broken" is the same. I don't think that true spikes are detrimental to gameplay at all. Falco's may irritate me with the fact that it's easy to use, but that just means that
it's a really good move. Plenty of characters have amazing moves! Falco's Dair is one of them. Why would we want to remove what makes a character stand out?