A Change I Feel Has Yet To Be Made

[EmptySky00]

Crouch cancelling. It's a very powerful defensive option. We've all known this for years. The out to it is generally grabbing. Rock paper scissors. So then tell me why characters still have crouches that go under grabs? Overlapping this defensive option with something that beats out the thing that's used to combat it is broken design. There's no counter play at that point. Especially if you don't have a move that's sufficiently effective against crouching--I'll bring my buddy Roy over here to testify that they've been handed out unevenly across the cast in the first place since he got the proverbial bread basket of anti-CC options. You shouldn't be able to cover both options with a single action basically. It's inherently degenerate and non-interactive.

Edit: Overall, I'm not stating this as fact, I just wanted to present an observation and a thought to my fellow community members for consideration. Take it as you will. The entire argument can be reasoned against with arguments of combo weight, crouch cancel conversions, overall balance of defensive options or weakness to crouch canceling and the like, so overall it probably matters very little what I say.

 

[EddyBearr]

Crouch cancelling. It's a very powerful defensive option. We've all known this for years. The out to it is generally grabbing. Rock paper scissors. So then tell me why characters still have crouches that go under grabs? Overlapping this defensive option with something that beats out the thing that's used to combat it is broken design. There's no counter play at that point. Especially if you don't have a move that's sufficiently effective against crouching--I'll bring my buddy Roy over here to testify that they've been handed out unevenly across the cast in the first place. You shouldn't be able to cover both options with a single action. It's inherently degenerate.

Kirby, Jigglypuff, and G&W are the three that come to mind first with crouching under grabs. All three of these characters are floaty and light. Their crouch cancels are absolutely horrendous to begin with. If anything, crouching under grabs is a balancing measure for them, so they actually have tangible benefits from crouching beyond 0% against medium strength moves.

I'm unsure for Snake and Sheik.

As for Roy, he can just d-tilt a crouch, and his disjoint is so significant that he should be able to safely pressure most crouching characters, to built up the percent past crouch canceling percent.

To be perfectly honest, you just seem reactionary and salty.

 

[EmptySky00]

Kirby, Jigglypuff, and G&W are the three that come to mind first with crouching under grabs. All three of these characters are floaty and light. Their crouch cancels are absolutely horrendous to begin with. If anything, crouching under grabs is a balancing measure for them, so they actually have tangible benefits from crouching beyond 0% against medium strength moves.

I'm unsure for Snake and Sheik.

As for Roy, he can just d-tilt a crouch, and his disjoint is so significant that he should be able to safely pressure most crouching characters, to built up the percent past crouch canceling percent.

To be perfectly honest, you just seem reactionary and salty.

I was mostly referring to Sheik and Snake. They have decent to good crouches, and having CC'ing overlap with grab evasion and pseudo-hurtbox reduction seems like too much.
And I was saying Roy has anti-crouch measures, sir. <_< I wasn't saying he loses to crouch.
Calling me reactionary and salty to devalidate my statement is not a point in your favor. Ad hominem. This is why I hate this community, because all you people can do in response to anything is talk ****. I said absolutely nothing that should imply salt or incite any hostility. So you can leave that "opinion" of yours out. Thanks.

This was merely a sentiment I wanted to present. There's absolutely no reason anyone has to start a fight over it.

 

[jtm94]

I assure you his judgment is based off of a lot of experience against it.
Sheik and Snake can both duck under grabs.

The problem is worsened when it's against characters that have tether grabs that are bad by default like Link, Yoshi, and Tink. Lucas, ZSS, Ivy, and Samus have no problems grabbing grabbing grounded opponents to my knowledge. Link doesn't have a large array of outs to CCing and is very susceptible to it especially by characters who can also duck his grab. Snake is a heavy weight and Sheik isn't extremely light. Samus' crawl also ducks most grabs while she is very heavy.

The Roy bit was merely in jest. His crouch cancel game is near over powered and he has outs to it being used against him.

 

[Paquito]

Original Post

It's probably important to take a wider-view. Are the characters that can dodge under grabs over-powered? If not, than this bonus for them is probably balancing some downside to playing these characters.

 

[_Ganondorf_]

CC is ok in general. Some characters have a better one some have less.
Ducking under grabs is fine as long as the CC isn't too strong. Roy in this regard I too good. But I don't think it's OP maybe a little toning down but nothing else.

What I do have a problem with (as a Ganon main especially) is grab ranges that just plain miss short opponents even when they are not crouched. Or some dash attacks that have the character become lower to the ground like Mario's or Roy/Marth.

It shouldn't be that only a select few characters have a major issue in grabbing short opponents. That is just bad design.

 

[TreK]

I like the arguments presented in this thread so far (low crouches and bad grabs make its main counterplay null, making the mechanic polarizing in a way)

On the topic of CCing, I'm completely okay with a prediction-based knockback armor that's more effective than shielding at the cost of not being able to always use it late stock when it matters most, and a little health. It's an interesting mechanic : it makes you weigh risk/reward and take meaningful decisions, I honestly enjoy it. But I'm not really as okay with CCing's little brother, ASDI down, which can be done on reaction, after getting hit by a multihit move in example, to achieve similar effects. It dumbs the jab game down and generally makes CQC phases shorter and less interesting. In a perfect world, powerful defensive options should be done on prediction mostly imho.
I don't know what I'd like it to be like, btw, I'm just saying I do not really enjoy ASDID being a thing in its current form.

.02$

It's funny, however, how the Melee top tiers all have powerful tools against it, besides their grab I mean. It's almost as if CC is more of a factor in PM because well, viable characters with limited tools against it... exist.

 

[EmptySky00]

It's probably important to take a wider-view. Are the characters that can dodge under grabs over-powered? If not, than this bonus for them is probably balancing some downside to playing these characters.

A character doesn't have to be overpowered for an aspect of said character to be broken design. Ice Climbers in Melee aren't overpowered, but Wobbling is broken regardless and from a design standpoint wasn't something that needed to be brought over to P:M. Crouching under grabs isn't on the same level as wobbling, but just from a general standpoint having a bad character doesn't justify leaving bad mechanics in an effort to make them good. I'm an advocate of balancing characters and making them viable in ways that aren't jank and annoying to play against. You can just make the characters better and not have bad mechanics running around. Sheik and Snake aren't bad by any means, however, and certainly don't need this mechanic. I don't know. It's whatever. Again, I just wanted to bring this up since I've been thinking it for a while.

 

[jtm94]

The other issue that has been brought up a few times is how the average played character weights in Melee are significantly lower than those of Project M. Better weights to CC coupled with less moves to combat it make it much more rampant. This isn't even only saying that CCing is only near broken on characters who can also duck grabs, as a whole the mechanic is very powerful on most characters. I would honestly like for it to be normalized if possible in a way where almost ALL moves can be crouched sub 10%, but less moves can be crouched past 30/40/50%. I've definitely seen Link's fair be crouched at %s near or greater than 90.

ASDI down is another thing entirely that also makes CCing dumb because some things that would hit you out of CCing get DId into the ground and thusly the hitstun is basically nullified.

 

[Taytertot]

To be honest I also agree with the idea of crouching under some grabs to be something interesting as long as the character with that ability has some sort of weakness otherwise (i.e. maybe they have a low crouch but if their CCing isnt great due to very low weight or they dont have many options after CCing a move so it doesn't do much for them other then duck under a grab.) I enjoy the uniqueness of different characters having widely different options like crouching under a grab because that makes different MU's interesting but there needs to be solid balances in order to make it ok and characters like snake and sheik dont deserve it unless they get big nerfs to make up for it.

 

[EddyBearr]

I was mostly referring to Sheik and Snake. They have decent to good crouches, and having CC'ing overlap with grab evasion and pseudo-hurtbox reduction seems like too much.

Sheik and Snake are both very stealthy characters by design. Sheik has a huge problem with approaching to begin, so boosting her anti-approach measures is just how Sheik is designed to be. For Snake, asking him not to crouch is akin to asking Captain Falcon not to be fast. Characters have unique traits and strengths due to them being characters.

And I was saying Roy has anti-crouch measures, sir. <_< I wasn't saying he loses to crouch.

My bad.

Calling me reactionary and salty to devalidate my statement is not a point in your favor. Ad hominem. This is why I hate this community, because all you people can do in response to anything is talk ****. I said absolutely nothing that should imply salt or incite any hostility. So you can leave that "opinion" of yours out. Thanks.

1. I was trying to tell you what kind of vibe you were giving off in a gentle way. I did not say, "lolol scrublord stop being so salty and start being good," I was just being honest, to keep the possibility open for you that perhaps you were indeed being overly reactionary to some negative play experience. Maybe you play a character who has trouble dealing with CC-ing's Snake/Sheik (perhaps the Link that you claim is your P:M main), on par with playing a character that has trouble dealing with how mobile Pikachu is. Strengths/weaknesses are just part of the nature of having characters.
2. That's not how ad hominems work -- that was not an ad hominem. If I had tried to invalidate you by calling you a "weeaboo" or by calling you the "nooby salt king," then it counts as an ad hominem, but pointing out potential negative traits is not an ad hominem. That's akin to saying that accusing some extreme, violent solution to a political problem as a "draconian" measure is an ad hominem. No, it's just being articulate alongside being honest.
3. Saying "to be honest, you seem (somewhat negative trait that has relation to the topic at hand)" Is not hostile, but responding with "talk ****" or "that 'opinion'" is hostile.

This was merely a sentiment I wanted to present. There's absolutely no reason anyone has to start a fight over it.

And I merely responded by pointing out, what appeared to me, a good chance that your highly-specified complaint stemmed from an unrealistic expectation of the game stemming from an NPE. If you don't think a fight should be started over it, then don't start a fight every time someone tries to say something along the lines of, "Hey, man, don't you think you're being kinda (negative trait)?" Polite conversation does not require a lack of criticism or soft accusations of negative traits hampering the potential legitimacy of a person or their argument.

 

[Foo]

Sheik and Snake are both very stealthy characters by design. Sheik has a huge problem with approaching to begin, so boosting her anti-approach measures is just how Sheik is designed to be. For Snake, asking him not to crouch is akin to asking Captain Falcon not to be fast. Characters have unique traits and strengths due to them being characters.


My bad.


1. I was trying to tell you what kind of vibe you were giving off in a gentle way. I did not say, "lolol scrublord stop being so salty and start being good," I was just being honest, to keep the possibility open for you that perhaps you were indeed being overly reactionary to some negative play experience. Maybe you play a character who has trouble dealing with CC-ing's Snake/Sheik (perhaps the Link that you claim is your P:M main), on par with playing a character that has trouble dealing with how mobile Pikachu is. Strengths/weaknesses are just part of the nature of having characters.
2. That's not how ad hominems work -- that was not an ad hominem. If I had tried to invalidate you by calling you a "weeaboo" or by calling you the "nooby salt king," then it counts as an ad hominem, but pointing out potential negative traits is not an ad hominem. That's akin to saying that accusing some extreme, violent solution to a political problem as a "draconian" measure is an ad hominem. No, it's just being articulate alongside being honest.
3. Saying "to be honest, you seem (somewhat negative trait that has relation to the topic at hand)" Is not hostile, but responding with "talk ****" or "that 'opinion'" is hostile.

1. "To be honest, you just seem salty and reactionary" is NOT gentle in any way. Especially the word "just" implies that there is absolutely no validity in his claims, soley due to the unproven claim that he is "salty and reactionary." You could have said it in more insulting ways, but that's still pretty rude.
2. That was absolutely an ad hominem, no real question about that. Ad Hominem can be a good argument, in some cases. For instance, if there was a political debate where one was in favor or a bailout for a bank, and the other was against. If one said the other had a stake in the bank, and bailout money would be fiscally beneficial to him, that would be ad hominem, but not fallacious. Your argument, while not fallacious, is baseless and unwarranted. There is no evidence to support that his only motive for making this post is "salt."
3. Hostile may not be the right word, but it's certainly rude and toxic. If your statement was valid, that would defeat literally any balance point on this board.

(in 3.02)
"Guys, I think mewtwo may be overpowered, it's just rid-"
To be honest, you are just salty and reactionary
"Lucas has an absurd ability to combo and kill out of tho-"
You're just salty

etc.

The only time it would be fair to call someone "salty" in a thread like this, is if he did something like call everyone who uses crouch canceling a !@#$%^ or something. He presented his point in a calm a collected manner.

And I merely responded by pointing out, what appeared to me, a good chance that your highly-specified complaint stemmed from an unrealistic expectation of the game stemming from an NPE. If you don't think a fight should be started over it, then don't start a fight every time someone tries to say something along the lines of, "Hey, man, don't you think you're being kinda (negative trait)?" Polite conversation does not require a lack of criticism or soft accusations of negative traits hampering the potential legitimacy of a person or their argument.

You keep using the word polite, but you don't seem to understand. You don't get to judge whether or not something you said was rude, the person you said it to does. Calling someone's point invalid because they are salty is about as rude as calling a women's complain invalid because "she's probably just on her period"




ANYWAY, On topic. I agree with OP. I don't think any characters should be able to crouch under any grabs, because that is supposed to be the counterplay. Imagine if some characters shields made some characters unable to grab them. Sure, you can safely pressure shield from outside punish range (usually behind them), but it'd still be an unfair advantage.

I also think there is too much knockback reduction on crouch canceling. I feel that it works a little too well at slightly too high %s. Also, it really bugs me that when people misplay and try to crouch cancel at a high%, expecting a weak move, they survive because they crouched.

 

[EddyBearr]

1. "To be honest, you just seem salty and reactionary" is NOT gentle in any way. Especially the word "just" implies that there is absolutely no validity in his claims, soley due to the unproven claim that he is "salty and reactionary." You could have said it in more insulting ways, but that's still pretty rude.

Whether it was gentle or not is up for debate -- the intention behind it stands.
You've got a pretty selective and extreme interpretation of the word "just", but I will admit that I was implying that I do not think his argument had much behind it, and could have been caused by an NPE.

2. That was absolutely an ad hominem, no real question about that. Ad Hominem can be a good argument, in some cases. For instance, if there was a political debate where one was in favor or a bailout for a bank, and the other was against. If one said the other had a stake in the bank, and bailout money would be fiscally beneficial to him, that would be ad hominem, but not fallacious. Your argument, while not fallacious, is baseless and unwarranted. There is no evidence to support that his only motive for making this post is "salt."

An ad hominem necessitates the personal trait being used to undermine an argument. I've stated a few times that I think it may have caused their position, but I never said, and never intended to imply, that I think their arguments are wrong because they're salty. If that were my intention, I don't see why someone would think I'd also posted about G&W, Kirby, and Puff while acknowledging no arguments for the other crouching characters (though I did think about it and acknowledge it later.)
Also, it's not standardized whether or not people should call non-fallacious critiques of positions via personal aspects an "Ad Hominem", but it doesn't appear the OP was using it in that sense.

3. Hostile may not be the right word, but it's certainly rude and toxic. If your statement was valid, that would defeat literally any balance point on this board.

Again, I don't think mature discussion requires not pointing out plausible negative traits [as explanations for why positions arose.] Even if my statement was valid, it shouldn't change whether or not crouch-cancelling should be altered -- it would only say anything about the cause of his having a complaint to begin with.

(in 3.02)
"Guys, I think mewtwo may be overpowered, it's just rid-"
To be honest, you are just salty and reactionary
"Lucas has an absurd ability to combo and kill out of tho-"
You're just salty

etc.

A more proper example would be, "No, because you're just being salty and reactionary."

The only time it would be fair to call someone "salty" in a thread like this, is if he did something like call everyone who uses crouch canceling a !@#$%^ or something. He presented his point in a calm a collected manner.

"Seem salty" =/= definitively being "salty". I acknowledged that it wasn't for sure, just that I was getting that vibe from them, for reasons stated in my 2nd post. I do find there to be a tangible difference between, "You are jealous" and "You seem jealous". The former doesn't leave it up for debate and doesn't offer the accused as much room to defend their self (especially to convince the accuser) while the latter is much softer and leaves things up in the air.

You keep using the word polite, but you don't seem to understand. You don't get to judge whether or not something you said was rude, the person you said it to does.

This is just plain absurd. If a Gas Station clerk says, "Thank you for your business," is the customer in a position to decide whether they were rude or not? Etiquette is, by definition, codified, and is usually associated with entire societies. It is not a subjective realm, at least not from individual-to-individual.

Calling someone's point invalid because they are salty is about as rude as calling a women's complain invalid because "she's probably just on her period"

Thankfully I didn't attempt to invalidate an argument as a result of a personal trait/circumstance, I offered it as an explanation for the position coming to be.

If you (or anyone else) wishes to continue this, feel free to PM me, but it's better we don't spam this thread with this kind of stuff.

 

[Foo]

Oh my, the semantics...

Sure, if you want to absolve of your responsibility for the words you said, go ahead. What you say HEAVILY implying something technically doesn't mean that's what you meant. However, I know what you meant, you know what you meant, and he knows what you meant. If you seriously don't see the obvious implications of what you said, and genuinely didn't mean it that way, you should really be more careful about what you say.






(I didn't want to get into this, but your points annoyed me
"No, because you're just being salty and reactionary." is the same as "No, you're just being salty and reactionary"

No logical human would find "thank you" rude. It'd be like going to a foreign country and being served a meal. They ask you how it is, you give them a thumbs up, but to them "thumbs up" is similar to sticking up your middle finger. Try convincing them that it wasn't rude.

If you don't see how pointing out negative traits of someone is rude... Especially when it's totally unwarranted and baseless.)

 

[JayTheUnseen]

I know 0 about this,but it sounds like an interesting point...
CCing is reducing knockback/negating knockback while being hit by crouching right?
Again,it sounds interesting...perhaps against those characters you just have to use good flinging moves usually(that reach crouching enemies)?

DISCLAIMER:
I encourage discussion,and I'm not trying to dismiss this thread as stupid.What's wrong with discussing mechanics/changing mechanics?Especially since this game is fan-made,and said changes could actually be implemented.

 

[Pwnz0rz Man]

1) Certain crouch cancels are pretty obnoxious, especially those with a long ranged dtilt they can follow up their crouch with. I don't really see anything wrong with super lightweights being able to evade damage by crouching under attacks though. Especially not when asides from evasion, their defensive options aren't exactly stellar.

Someone mentioned normalizing CC rates. Might be a decent way to look at things. Though painting everyone with the same brush takes away from some character's uniqueness. I'd measure it case by case to see if each characters's CC is really that obnoxious first.

2) When you blast an entire community as all being "That way", it really doesn't help your argument or make you seem anything but hostile to a large group of people who don't know you and have never conversed with you. Do I need to replace "this community" with something like "blacks, muslims, or gays" for one to see how inflammatory and ignorant the statement is? If one person says something that seems insulting, take it up with them, don't start saying that everyone does it.

 

[Shaoberg]

What, CC is great.

 

[EmptySky00]

1) Certain crouch cancels are pretty obnoxious, especially those with a long ranged dtilt they can follow up their crouch with. I don't really see anything wrong with super lightweights being able to evade damage by crouching under attacks though. Especially not when asides from evasion, their defensive options aren't exactly stellar.

Someone mentioned normalizing CC rates. Might be a decent way to look at things. Though painting everyone with the same brush takes away from some character's uniqueness. I'd measure it case by case to see if each characters's CC is really that obnoxious first.

2) When you blast an entire community as all being "That way", it really doesn't help your argument or make you seem anything but hostile to a large group of people who don't know you and have never conversed with you. Do I need to replace "this community" with something like "blacks, muslims, or gays" for one to see how inflammatory and ignorant the statement is? If one person says something that seems insulting, take it up with them, don't start saying that everyone does it.

I speak regarding trends, as does anyone who makes blanket statements unless they're purely intent on being ignorant. I was referring to the majority of people I've interacted with, and if any given person isn't a part of that statistic, just know I don't mean you. I was just mad that I was trying to legitimately make an observation and a point about a large mechanic in the game and I was just written off by some random, insignificant person as being "salty" when that had nothing to do with it.

And I am hostile in general when it comes to responses I make on these boards. Something to be worked on I guess. It's just that when I can predict what sort of response I'll get regardless of how derogatory or controversial my post is, I start to grow extremely weary and annoyed. And this was one such occasion. It's not really any given community. I just don't get along with people. I'm sure you can see why. Probably a character flaw. Whatever.

I think crouching under grabs in general, regardless of character, is just completely non-interactive. I'm going to edit out the exception clause of the original argument, because I actually disagree with that now that I've thought it over more. Characters with weaker crouches don't need to be invincible to grabs as well when they're using the mechanic. Should characters with weaker wavedashes gain any special bonus from it? No. If you have a weaker CC, you need to deal with it. That's part of your character. Characters shouldn't be compensated with jank for something that's just a minor drawback of their character's physics, with which they generally have advantages for in other parts of their game anyway (recovery, combo weight [disregarding G&W], size, etc.) Hell, you're even harder to hit when you crouch lower which is good in and of itself. So no one needs to be able to nullify grabs.


Crouching as a whole seems too powerful. If it should be normalized, I don't think there should be a blanket stat across the board determining CC aptitude, I just don't think you should still be crouching stuff at 120 and beyond. CC's function becomes a little extreme sometimes which I'm sure we can all attest to. I personally don't like the mechanic and wish it were weakened to some degree, but that statement is more debatable so I kept it out of the original argument and just focused on the interactivity of crouching under grabs which to me is far more cut and dry.

 

[Taytertot]

I speak regarding trends, as does anyone who makes blanket statements unless they're purely intent on being ignorant. I was referring to the majority of people I've interacted with, and if any given person isn't a part of that statistic, just know I don't mean you. I was just mad that I was trying to legitimately make an observation and a point about a large mechanic in the game and I was just written off by some random, insignificant person as being "salty" when that had nothing to do with it.

And I am hostile in general when it comes to responses I make on these boards. Something to be worked on I guess. It's just that when I can predict what sort of response I'll get regardless of how derogatory or controversial my post is, I start to grow extremely weary and annoyed. And this was one such occasion. It's not really any given community. I just don't get along with people. I'm sure you can see why. Probably a character flaw. Whatever.

I think crouching under grabs in general, regardless of character, is just completely non-interactive. I'm going to edit out the exception clause of the original argument, because I actually disagree with that now that I've thought it over more. Characters with weaker crouches don't need to be invincible to grabs as well when they're using the mechanic. Should characters with weaker wavedashes gain any special bonus from it? No. If you have a weaker CC, you need to deal with it. That's part of your character. Characters shouldn't be compensated with jank for something that's just a minor drawback of their character's physics, with which they generally have advantages for in other parts of their game anyway (recovery, combo weight [disregarding G&W], size, etc.) Hell, you're even harder to hit when you crouch lower which is good in and of itself. So no one needs to be able to nullify grabs.


Crouching as a whole seems too powerful. If it should be normalized, I don't think there should be a blanket stat across the board determining CC aptitude, I just don't think you should still be crouching stuff at 120 and beyond. CC's function becomes a little extreme sometimes which I'm sure we can all attest to. I personally don't like the mechanic and wish it were weakened to some degree, but that statement is more debatable so I kept it out of the original argument and just focused on the interactivity of crouching under grabs which to me is far more cut and dry.

You didnt come off as salty to me and I can appreciate your opinion on crouching grabs. I'm curious what you think about the idea of characters who dont have the most incredible movesets, options or movement but have something like crouching under a grab to somewhat make up for it though? Obviously within that question we are disregarding characters like sheik and snake who consistently do well in MUs and have great game strats overall. I'm not saying that any of the characters right now deserve to crouch under a grab but would it be as bad if a character was nerfed a lot but given that ability with grabs?

 

[EmptySky00]

You didnt come off as salty to me and I can appreciate your opinion on crouching grabs. I'm curious what you think about the idea of characters who dont have the most incredible movesets, options or movement but have something like crouching under a grab to somewhat make up for it though? Obviously within that question we are disregarding characters like sheik and snake who consistently do well in MUs and have great game strats overall. I'm not saying that any of the characters right now deserve to crouch under a grab but would it be as bad if a character was nerfed a lot but given that ability with grabs?

Well, I personally wouldn't want to play a character that's bad but can just sort of compensate for it with a non-interactive mechanic. Ducking under grabs is non-interactive and broken by that definition, but it's not broken enough to carry a character. I would just write that off as poor design and if I were in charge of developing that character in this imaginary scenario, I would remove that feature and make their general tools more effective so that they would have a better standing in the meta game. If they were nerfed to a point where they needed to be able to nullify grabs to be viable, then perhaps they were just carelessly overnerfed in the first place. Good design encourages player interaction. Admittedly good play tends to try and cut out the opponent's ability to effectively interact with you, but there doesn't need to be a mechanic that blatantly does that for you.

 

[G13_Flux]

if anyone thinks that roy has an amazing tool kit to deal with CCing then you clearly dont know the character. characters like DDD, DK, charizard, and samus make it extremely difficult for roy because of their amazing CC game and the range that they have to compliment it. disjoint doesnt make for a good counter to CC against certain characters.. also, roy has plenty of weaknesses to get over. the fact that he also posseses a great CC game and gets good follow ups is part of his neutral game dynamic, and throws a bit of diversity into MUs across the board.

in regards to CCing in general, i feel that its quite powerful, but the fact that it exists means that you have play all the smarter in order to be able to succeed against higher level opponents. it raises the requirement for you use your brain when crafting an approach, in other words. if youre having trouble with it, try being more patient and varied from neutral.

 

[EmptySky00]

My neutral game is pretty damn good actually. I'm not having trouble against it specifically. I just think the mechanic itself is overpowered right now because it works well past the point where it should. Getting CC'd at 120 with a move with relatively high knockback is a little ridiculous.

I've seen Roy absolutely **** CC'ing. The character lost to it in Melee, so he was probably designed to circumvent that. It only becomes a major issue against those fatass characters, which isn't representative of the entire cast. Samus's CC game is stupid to begin with so you can't really say "My character can get CC'd by the best CC in the game, therefore I lose to CC"

But again I'm probably not prepared to win the CC potency argument. Though I'm fairly confident the mechanic is too powerful right now.

 

[DMG]

The only time I lament crouching under grabs is when it involves characters who have pretty small grab ranges (Ganon and Falcon for example). If people can crouch under tether grabs, I mean yes that's lame but at the same time it at least makes some sense. A bigger/longer grab should have more downsides to it vs smaller grabs. Whether it's fair that grabs can be ducked under in any sense is debatable, but at the very least it makes sense for tethers and huge grabs like Marth to miss the ducking chars, especially since dash grabs for a lot of characters have lower grab boxes.

CC is OK, ASDI down is the actual culprit of many complaints though. I dunno how to properly weaken that, if that possibly entails weaker SDI down or weaker ASDI in general (which could make multi-hit moves a bit obnoxious). I also dunno how that will hurt someone like Peach who might deserve the CC/ASDI down option to be this strong in a game this lethal and fast. Chars like her will be limited a bit further due to not as strong mobility.

 

[EmptySky00]

Tether grabs are also far more limited in their utility and far riskier in their application in exchange for the range. That inherent limitation and added risk makes being able to crouch under them completely and utterly nullify their use in that given MU unless it's used for a conversion, and since you can't grab airborne opponents (where they can't crouch you) that becomes a slightly less feasible. Admittedly though you shouldn't be throwing out tether grabs in neutral very often to begin with. I think it's far worse for it to happen to tethers because of the inherent risk in using them in the first place. And in the case of Marth, sure his grab game is great and his range is huge, but it's still a non-interactive way of "partially" balancing something that isn't particularly broken, just really good.
Tethers don't really need further limitations imo. The drawbacks have already been piled up with terrible shield grabs due to 12+ frame startup and the end lag to punish you for missing.

Ya, I'm not qualified to speak on how one would go about making CC not do the ASDI thing. I figure the PMDT will come to a solution or decide it's fine how it is in time. Either way it's whatever.

 

[Taytertot]

Well, I personally wouldn't want to play a character that's bad but can just sort of compensate for it with a non-interactive mechanic. Ducking under grabs is non-interactive and broken by that definition, but it's not broken enough to carry a character. I would just write that off as poor design and if I were in charge of developing that character in this imaginary scenario, I would remove that feature and make their general tools more effective so that they would have a better standing in the meta game. If they were nerfed to a point where they needed to be able to nullify grabs to be viable, then perhaps they were just carelessly overnerfed in the first place. Good design encourages player interaction. Admittedly good play tends to try and cut out the opponent's ability to effectively interact with you, but there doesn't need to be a mechanic that blatantly does that for you.

I suppose thats fair. Im not sure how they would fix that other then change how low those crouches can go, though at the same time I feel that some characters who have low crouches would be weird for other reasons if those crouch heights were changed. For instance giving snake a crouch that was higher up would make his crawl a little nonsensical because they would either have to make it so he crouched at a normal height and then went lower for crawling (which would cause the same issue that you are stating needs to be fixed because they could just crawl to avoid the grab) or they could throw away the crawl which would also take away from his options i.e. crawl attack. A third option would be to give him a crawl that that isnt as low which would require a change in the crawl attack, which I am a little iffy about since I like the way crawl attack works now or the fourth option to fix this issue would be to give all characters a larger grab range towards their feet which would be fine in terms of the issue you speak of, but would be extremely janky in terms of the combo options it would allow in certain circumstances and stages (i.e. chain grabbing at the ledge because you can reach them from hella low etc.).

Can you think of any other ways that would fix the issue without raising other issues in the mechanics?

The only time I lament crouching under grabs is when it involves characters who have pretty small grab ranges (Ganon and Falcon for example).

Well I know specifically for ganon they gave him a small grab range for good reason. One being that he has upB OOS to catch people who are out of range of his normal grab (an aspect that I imagine falcon also can use though I dont know the range of falcon upB grab) the other reason that ganons grab range is short is because his down throw combos into a majority of his moveset (different moves for different DIs) many of which setup prefectly for a kill (i.e. upsmash, bair, fair, and fsmash depending on DI). Because of those setups I feel its fair that ganons grab range is quite small (Ganons my secondary so Id definitely be salty if his grab range was unfairly small).

 

[JayTheUnseen]

Well I know specifically for ganon they gave him a small grab range for good reason. One being that he has upB OOS to catch people who are out of range of his normal grab (an aspect that I imagine falcon also can use though I dont know the range of falcon upB grab) the other reason that ganons grab range is short is because his down throw combos into a majority of his moveset (different moves for different DIs) many of which setup prefectly for a kill (i.e. upsmash, bair, fair, and fsmash depending on DI). Because of those setups I feel its fair that ganons grab range is quite small (Ganons my secondary so Id definitely be salty if his grab range was unfairly small).

I didn't know his d-throw was so good,I always assumed it was because grab was his fastest close range option.

 

[DMG]

You could buff Ganon's grab range to a decent level and probably be fine. Most of his bad MU's are unrelated to his grab range: if you blow him out of the water with mobility or shield pressure or nasty "across the stage" juggles, having a better grab range probably wouldn't change how things go for him.

It's not completely intentional for his grab to be that size. He has that grab from Melee, they didn't reduce it or resize it (far as I'm aware) to fit some balance purpose.

 

[Taytertot]

yeah it probably wouldnt be too OP with a little more range but his options from a grab are quite good.

 

[EmptySky00]

I suppose thats fair. Im not sure how they would fix that other then change how low those crouches can go, though at the same time I feel that some characters who have low crouches would be weird for other reasons if those crouch heights were changed. For instance giving snake a crouch that was higher up would make his crawl a little nonsensical because they would either have to make it so he crouched at a normal height and then went lower for crawling (which would cause the same issue that you are stating needs to be fixed because they could just crawl to avoid the grab) or they could throw away the crawl which would also take away from his options i.e. crawl attack. A third option would be to give him a crawl that that isnt as low which would require a change in the crawl attack, which I am a little iffy about since I like the way crawl attack works now or the fourth option to fix this issue would be to give all characters a larger grab range towards their feet which would be fine in terms of the issue you speak of, but would be extremely janky in terms of the combo options it would allow in certain circumstances and stages (i.e. chain grabbing at the ledge because you can reach them from hella low etc.).

Can you think of any other ways that would fix the issue without raising other issues in the mechanics?



Well I know specifically for ganon they gave him a small grab range for good reason. One being that he has upB OOS to catch people who are out of range of his normal grab (an aspect that I imagine falcon also can use though I dont know the range of falcon upB grab) the other reason that ganons grab range is short is because his down throw combos into a majority of his moveset (different moves for different DIs) many of which setup prefectly for a kill (i.e. upsmash, bair, fair, and fsmash depending on DI). Because of those setups I feel its fair that ganons grab range is quite small (Ganons my secondary so Id definitely be salty if his grab range was unfairly small).

I would simply make grabs that can be ducked under detect lower. Have the hitbox dip down a little bit more so that it doesn't happen, but do so in a manner that doesn't inadvertently buff their overall grab hitbox's coverage elsewhere. I'm not sure the technical aspects that go into this unfortunately so that's probably a gross oversimplification of how this works. But they figured out everything else, so why not? I think it's the grabs that need to not miss, not the crouches that need to not go as low as they do, so I would try to fix the former before nerfing the latter.


In regards to Ganon, I dislike that his grab range is so disproportionately small compared to his size. The same bothers me with Falcon (though obviously this man can't run around with Marth range). I wish they weren't so blatantly terrible at the very least. They don't have to be great, but damn. Buffing Falcon's is more risky than buffing Ganon's because of the obvious mobility difference however. And that along with being able to duck under them (mostly in the case of Ganon) is just saddening. But Ganon hits pretty hard anyway so he wouldn't lose hard to CC, so I guess it won't skew MU's having his grab game nullified the way it is by crouching.

 

[eskimoparade]

link should probably not be able to have his grabb ducked by anyone but overall i thnik the grabs and CCing is fine, Falcon and ganon both get huge rewards for a landed grab and have different ways of getting them, not to mention ganon's side b which can let him get punishes he couldnt before.

lets not homogenize everything

 

[Pwnz0rz Man]

link should probably not be able to have his grabb ducked by anyone but overall i thnik the grabs and CCing is fine, Falcon and ganon both get huge rewards for a landed grab and have different ways of getting them, not to mention ganon's side b which can let him get punishes he couldnt before.

lets not homogenize everything

To be fair, Link's grab is pretty hard to duck under and only works from a very specific position in the middle of the chain for those who can do it. Too close to the claw, and you're grabbed. Too close to his hand, you're grabbed.

 

[Taytertot]

I would simply make grabs that can be ducked under detect lower. Have the hitbox dip down a little bit more so that it doesn't happen, but do so in a manner that doesn't inadvertently buff their overall grab hitbox's coverage elsewhere. I'm not sure the technical aspects that go into this unfortunately so that's probably a gross oversimplification of how this works. But they figured out everything else, so why not? I think it's the grabs that need to not miss, not the crouches that need to not go as low as they do, so I would try to fix the former before nerfing the latter.


In regards to Ganon, I dislike that his grab range is so disproportionately small compared to his size. The same bothers me with Falcon (though obviously this man can't run around with Marth range). I wish they weren't so blatantly terrible at the very least. They don't have to be great, but damn. Buffing Falcon's is more risky than buffing Ganon's because of the obvious mobility difference however. And that along with being able to duck under them (mostly in the case of Ganon) is just saddening. But Ganon hits pretty hard anyway so he wouldn't lose hard to CC, so I guess it won't skew MU's having his grab game nullified the way it is by crouching.

Yeah I'm not entirely sure. Theres the possibility that dipping a grab hitbox can mean getting some kind of combo at the ledge where you can keep grabbing them as they are slightly below the ledge and get a very dumb combo which would make some MUs quite unbalanced. But it does depend on the character we're referring to.

I feel that what ganon gets out of a grab followup wise (if you dont believe how good ganons grab is then the most recent S@X monthly on VGBootCamp's youtube shows junebug using ganon incredibly well throughout the tourney using lots of grabs.) as well as his ability to just use an high knockback option that covers CCing on top of having 3 different grabs makes up for it. You cant crouch under his sideB or upB as far as I know. As you said with falcon, he's got a lot of speed going for him which allows him to grab someone faster then they can react sometimes.

But otherwise I agree there should be some way to make grabs reach low enough that they cant be crouched while still not making them have too powerful a vertical range. Since Im not a high level player though I wouldnt know whether any vertical improvement would make grabs too OP.

 

[EmptySky00]

Ya increasing their grab range is a debate I'm not prepared to win because my only argument is that their T-rex arms look silly and are excessively short lol.

Again, I don't know how one would fix it. It shouldn't have to dip down that far. Not to their feet. But there would probably be a better solution to it, that was just an uneducated suggestion or example.

 

[Pwnz0rz Man]

Ya increasing their grab range is a debate I'm not prepared to win because my only argument is that their T-rex arms look silly and are excessively short lol.

Again, I don't know how one would fix it. It shouldn't have to dip down that far. Not to their feet. But there would probably be a better solution to it, that was just an uneducated suggestion or example.

There is a way to already make grabs go down more. Not certain if it will be completely unavoidable, but dash grabs are typically lower than standing grabs are and tend to grab characters that can easily crouch under standing grabs.

 

[Foo]

I don't think falcon and ganon need longer grabs, but I definitely think crouching for a select few characters is absurd. I know this isn't the best example, but I play against someone who mains kirby from time to time. For a while, I solidly four stocked him just about every game. Then he discovered "hold down to win." Kirby can crouch under just about everything ZSS has. Everymove that beats CC can be ducked under, including standing, dash AND pivot grab, with the exception of downsmash. However, downsmash is frame 20, so it's easy to shield on reaction. He would just hold down in neutral, and all I could was space backair and hope he didn't time an fsmash well enough to hit me out of bair.

I still beat him every time, but it's only two stock or sometimes down to one. All because holding down limits my options to exactly three, space bair, yolo downsmash, or stand there doing nothing. Crouch canceling is supposed to be used to punish someone for approaching with a weak hit if it is predicted, at the risk of eating a free hit if you guess wrong. However, some characters, game and watch, samus and snake in particular can limit your options HEAVILY by just holding down. Grab is supposed to be a counter to CC and shielding, so it's silly for it not to work in certain matchups.

It's not necessarily OP, except maybe on Samus, but it is bad design.

 

[_Ganondorf_]

I don't think falcon and ganon need longer grabs, but I definitely think crouching for a select few characters is absurd. I know this isn't the best example, but I play against someone who mains kirby from time to time. For a while, I solidly four stocked him just about every game. Then he discovered "hold down to win." Kirby can crouch under just about everything ZSS has. Everymove that beats CC can be ducked under, including standing, dash AND pivot grab, with the exception of downsmash. However, downsmash is frame 20, so it's easy to shield on reaction. He would just hold down in neutral, and all I could was space backair and hope he didn't time an fsmash well enough to hit me out of bair.

I still beat him every time, but it's only two stock or sometimes down to one. All because holding down limits my options to exactly three, space bair, yolo downsmash, or stand there doing nothing. Crouch canceling is supposed to be used to punish someone for approaching with a weak hit if it is predicted, at the risk of eating a free hit if you guess wrong. However, some characters, game and watch, samus and snake in particular can limit your options HEAVILY by just holding down. Grab is supposed to be a counter to CC and shielding, so it's silly for it not to work in certain matchups.

It's not necessarily OP, except maybe on Samus, but it is bad design.

I agree with what you say.

But as a side note: Ganon does not equal Falcon in terms of grab. Ganon can miss lower opponents even worse than C.Falcon and Flacon has his speed to help him grab foes. Ganon needs *at least* a small buff to horizontal range (and a major buff to vertical range) as his OoS options are limited and he gets a ton of shield pressure.

Falcons short grab doesn't seem to be an issue to him since he just runs and grabs extremely quickly. But Ganon can't do that. I believe that if Ganon was a unique character from the start he would never have gotten a grab range like Falcon's, they use completely different grab games

 

[Taytertot]

I agree with what you say.

But as a side note: Ganon does not equal Falcon in terms of grab. Ganon can miss lower opponents even worse than C.Falcon and Flacon has his speed to help him grab foes. Ganon needs *at least* a small buff to horizontal range (and a major buff to vertical range) as his OoS options are limited and he gets a ton of shield pressure.

Falcons short grab doesn't seem to be an issue to him since he just runs and grabs extremely quickly. But Ganon can't do that. I believe that if Ganon was a unique character from the start he would never have gotten a grab range like Falcon's, they use completely different grab games

Im not sure how frequently youve checked the ganon threads about this issue but the PM dev said that their reason for making it so short was because he has arguably the best throw in the game (down throw) as it sets up for many of his moveset as well as guarantees a kill around 130% to 140%. Not too many characters can boast that kind of grab followup game and he has an answer from down throw regardless of opponent DI. His forward throw can kill now at higher percents too.

 

[_Ganondorf_]

Im not sure how frequently youve checked the ganon threads about this issue but the PM dev said that their reason for making it so short was because he has arguably the best throw in the game (down throw) as it sets up for many of his moveset as well as guarantees a kill around 130% to 140%. Not too many characters can boast that kind of grab followup game and he has an answer from down throw regardless of opponent DI. His forward throw can kill now at higher percents too.

I check them quite often and I'm aware of that post (I believe it was Shell) and although I completely understand the logic the problem is the logic of "good options out of grab or can KO around 100%+ out of grab" is not consistent through out the cast.

As you said Ganon can fairly easily KO at 100 - 140% depending on character weight and DI. And so he gets a bad grab range horizontally.
This makes perfect sense (but he should be able to grab low/crouched enemies better, there is no reason for that).

So if good KO options out of grab = bad grab range. Then why does Lucas' Up throw KOs 100%+ but he has a very good grab range?
Why does Ness' back throw KO 100%+ but has a good grab range (compared to Ganon at least)?
How come Marth has great follow ups to his grabs that with proper spacing can KO early and has an amazing grab range?
Same with Donkey Kong, Peach etc.

Seems pretty inconsistent to me, if Ganon has a bad grab range because he can KO early out of grab than so should every other character with a throw that can KO early or has great KO options out of grab.

I think it would be a lot easier to just buff Ganon's grab instead of nerfing all the other characters grab that have good options. Also Ganon still has to put work to get that KO after grab it isn free like a KO throw.

Also I highly suggest trying Ashingda's latest Triforce Mod for 3.5. He gave Ganon a good grab range (something simliar to Ike/Roy range) and neither I nor my training buddies find anything OP with it.
Seriously anyone that wants to see how Ganon would funtion in PM with a good grab range should just try the mod out (v4.0 changes a few other thing like his smashes, but it will give you a very good idea on how his current moveset would function with a good grab range)

 

[eskimoparade]

its not just the ko percentage but the general nastiness of what he can get out of any grab, but to address lucas and ness, i imagine as the meta grows their throws will be need to be nerfed as kill options, but thats just my guess but there isnt much a point in kneejerk buffs and nerfs until the meta evolves.

 

[Taytertot]

I check them quite often and I'm aware of that post (I believe it was Shell) and although I completely understand the logic the problem is the logic of "good options out of grab or can KO around 100%+ out of grab" is not consistent through out the cast.

As you said Ganon can fairly easily KO at 100 - 140% depending on character weight and DI. And so he gets a bad grab range horizontally.
This makes perfect sense (but he should be able to grab low/crouched enemies better, there is no reason for that).

So if good KO options out of grab = bad grab range. Then why does Lucas' Up throw KOs 100%+ but he has a very good grab range?
Why does Ness' back throw KO 100%+ but has a good grab range (compared to Ganon at least)?
How come Marth has great follow ups to his grabs that with proper spacing can KO early and has an amazing grab range?
Same with Donkey Kong, Peach etc.

Seems pretty inconsistent to me, if Ganon has a bad grab range because he can KO early out of grab than so should every other character with a throw that can KO early or has great KO options out of grab.

I think it would be a lot easier to just buff Ganon's grab instead of nerfing all the other characters grab that have good options. Also Ganon still has to put work to get that KO after grab it isn free like a KO throw.

Also I highly suggest trying Ashingda's latest Triforce Mod for 3.5. He gave Ganon a good grab range (something simliar to Ike/Roy range) and neither I nor my training buddies find anything OP with it.
Seriously anyone that wants to see how Ganon would funtion in PM with a good grab range should just try the mod out (v4.0 changes a few other thing like his smashes, but it will give you a very good idea on how his current moveset would function with a good grab range)

Fair enough I can agree with that.