Are items overdone? Do you still enjoy the feature to its full verity?

[UserKev]

This is a topic discussing the representation of items in later instalments of Smash. What do you think of items when your editing them to low, mid or high?

Personally, some items feel unnecessary and cluttering like the Black Hole. I'm more a calm match type of guy so I'm always messing with the feature since I do have favorites while other items feel really over exaggerated.

 

[JiggyNinja]

I like most of the items, there's just a few that I find far more annoying than interesting.

By far the worst is Ramblin' Evil Mushroom. That ****ing thing can go die in a fire.

Slightly less bad than that are the Cucco and Beehive. They contribute nothing good to the game.

Smoke Ball is so pointless.

Special Flag is dumb.

I wish explosions were still indiscriminate. It's way too brain-dead to be invincible to your own Smart Bomb or Bob-omb.

 

[Predatoria]

Ohhh this is certainly a good topic.

Being somebody who really hasn't played a lot of Smash prior to Ultimate, I found items immediately to be extremely off-putting, toxic, disruptive, and just plain awful to play with when I was new to the game. I felt the same way about stage hazards, smash meters, smash balls, etc. This was because the only place I really encountered them was online, where it was basically complete and utter chaos with everything turned way up and all items enabled on ridiculous stages with smash meters going, which I found to be very unfun.

Fortunately, as I've played a bit more Smash and friends I play with have gotten more open to being casual about some of these topics, we've had a chance to experiment a bit with playing Smash in ways beyond just 1v1 3 stock no items no smash meter tourney stages only.

I think, at least with Ultimate, it absolutely is an issue with overdoing items. Not just items, but hazards and final smashes as well. There are many items and hazards that are way too powerful, overwhelming, and disruptive such that playing with 'items on' without any further specification is pretty unfun, at least to me.

I had a thread open a while back asking the community about creating a, just for fun, semi-competitive ruleset that involved item use. The items were set to low and restricted to ones that required skillful or elegant use, and which were avoidable by your opponent. Good examples of these are the home run bat, green shell, banana, and several others. They're not super disruptive, your opponent can avoid what you're doing, and you have to make a real play to make use of them rather than press a button, receive a giant boost, buff, or minion, and forget.

We actually find playing this way incredibly fun and to be a nice change of pace from strict, competitive sets, as long as we avoid a certain subset of the items.

The same can be said with stage hazards. Some maps have wonderful hazards. They're mild, intermittent, avoidable, and can add a dose of freshness to an otherwise regular match. Then you have stages like the PACMAN stage, the Game and Watch stage, Kalos, the Ness map with that bird thing, and that one with the Pokemon that reverses your controls, that, in my opinion, make the game a miserable experience. It's hard to play with hazards enabled when it puts you into a roulette of having some stages with very disruptive hazards, which, unfortunately, means I'm never going to queue quickplay with hazards or regular maps on.

The same can also be said, from my opinion, about smash meters and smash balls. Some characters have fun final smashes that require aiming, skill, and timing to use, and also give your opponent a chance to avoid them. Other characters basically instakill you with zero counterplay opportunities on your end. Overall, when some characters possess the ability to just make you die automatically whenever they have a full meter or get the smash ball, it makes the mechanic overall feel unfun and unfair, and I ultimately want it off for this reason.

I suppose, it could be summarized like this, at least from my opinion:

I like items, but .... some are so strong and disruptive, I'd rather play with them all off than them all on.

I like stage hazards, but ... some are so strong and disruptive, I'd rather play with them all off than all on.

I like smash meters and smash balls, but ... some characters have final smashes that are unavoidable and way too powerful.

So I queue quickplay with tourney rulesets and only play with subsets of the above with friends in real-life when we want a change of pace from the regular things.

 

[Oddball]

I love items, although there are a few that i could do without.

Smoke bomb and ramblin evil mushroom could stand to go. I also don't like how the computer is so good at knowing exactly where mines are. basically any item that effects human opponents but does nothing to computer opponents can go.

I'm really not too fond of the Gust Bellows either as it strikes me as way to cheap of a way to get kills.

 

[Perkilator]

It's not the items themselves that are bad. It's the fact the CPU keeps spamming them or knows exactly where mines are. I'd adjust the AI to not know where mines are so nobody has to force them to make a mistake.

 

[YoshiandToad]

Man, **** Gust Bellows. There's very few items me and my friends ever turn off when we play just for fun but when even the most casual 'wacky items set to high' guy in the group turns to me and says "maybe we should turn gust bellows off" I think it says something.

I personally adore items. Assist Trophy murdering is quite fun and the mad dash to fight over the pokeball and trophy is always a lot of fun to me.

Big agree on assists that don't effect the CPU such as Nintendog and Skull Kid though but do punish human players for having eyes. Absolutely hate that nonsense.

 

[Deleted member]

Absolutely not.

Items are one of the main reasons Smash is a fun and highly successful franchise in the first place.

 

[Lenidem]

Lots of them are just too powerful. In Smash 4, I think it was still ok. But now, it's common to have three AT and two Pokéballs on the stage at the same time... that's just a mess. I usually don't do that, but for the first time I created some set of rules: one with no item at all, and one with 'weak' items only, and no Final Smash meters in both cases. Too bad you cannot lower the frequency of a given item, like put the AT, the Master Ball and the golden hammer on very low, the hammer and the regular ball on low, and so on.

But hey, sometimes it's fun to blow up Samus' ship or the DK Island four times in a row. And some FS are just classy... 'Gnahaha! The hunt is on, boys!'

 

[Coolboy]

items are just luck based, it is fun if you get the OP items/AT all the time but if you get only the bad ones..then it is no longer fun x.x the RNG is a bit to real when it comes to items...

but FS and stages....

i like Cloud's FS..especially when you jump/avoid it and he accidently SD's himself instead lol

but Zelda's FS is my personal all time fave..there is no escape! it's so good that it deserves it's own tier haha

but the worst stage in Smash history goes to....MARIO BROS!!! no but for real..you get hit by 1 creature your opponent(s) throw and BAM you died,
only seeing this stage the first second ruins my mood like alot..why did this hell stage return?! i don't wanna suffer anymore.....

 

[UserKev]

Master Balls are rather.. unneeded. I think the Poke ball's original intend should have been left as it was. The Rocket Belt leaves you completely vulnerable and the Killer Eye basically should be exclusive to boss fights. The Ore Club is overkill.

 

[Sebas22]

- Sure, the Ramblin' Evil Mushroom is quite annoying, but if you can defeat someone (a human, CPU don't count) while being under the effects of the item, at that very moment you earn the title of "PRO GAMER".

- Master Pokeballs are so boring. Nothing defeats the anticipation, the excitement, the emotion of grabbing a regular Pokeball and releasing freaking Giratina or Arceus into the battlefield. Knowing what you're gonna get is lame.

- If I could remove/replace an item from the game, I'd definitely pick Smoke Ball. It's the definition of USELESS. I mean, can you even kill someone with it? I don't think so.

 

[Ze Diglett]

Items are great. If anything, they're underdone IMO since it seems most players don't really wanna play with them anymore. I'm a big fan of the old-fashioned casual FFA, and items are a great way of keeping things interesting and opening the floodgates for some really wacky and hilarious **** that would never happen in the typical stock Battlefield 1v1, which seems to be the default way of playing these days. That said, there are some items in this game that are just dumb and I never play with because they aren't any fun. Others in this thread have already brought up some of the unpopular ones like the Smoke Ball, the Ramblin' Evil Mushroom, and the Special Flag, but there are a few others that I'd like to give special mention to:

• The Back Shield sucks. It may look harmless, but when it makes half your attacks just randomly clang off of your opponent and takes an obscene amount of hits to break, it's just a nuisance to play around.
• The Fire Flower would be cool if there was more strategy to using it than "hold A at your opponent to stunlock them for several seconds".
• The Fairy Bottle is just lame. It's basically just a Heart Container (which is already bad enough) that you can hold onto. So if your opponent picks one of these up and just holds it, you're actively disincentivized from hitting your opponent lest they recover all their %, thus it slows the pace of the game to a crawl merely by existing. It's in a league with the Special Flag and a few others where I usually just throw it offstage if it ever spawns in a match.
• The Beehive and Cucco probably get the honor of being the most annoying items in the game. Getting interrupted by some random hitbox every second isn't fun, period.
• Boss Galaga and the Beetle are similarly extremely annoying. Instant kills aren't fun in any game, period.
• See above for Death's Scythe. The Home Run Bat gets a pass from me for being iconic and fun to use.

But yeah, I generally like the items in this game, and I think the vast majority of them are at least somewhat fun to play with. (Excluding the ones listed above, of course.) Honorable mentions go to the Pitfall, the Bumper, the Rolling Crate, the Green Shell, the Beast Ball, and especially the Soccer Ball for generally being well-designed and being incredibly fun both to use and to play around. That said, I do wish some of the cut items from games past made a comeback in this game. What ever happened to the Red Shell, or the Parasol, or the Cracker Launcher? I'd easily cut the Special Flag, the Ramblin' Evil Mushroom, and the Smoke Ball just to see those three come back.

 

[THE SLOTH]

I mostly agree with a lot of the sentiments brought up here, although disagree about a couple items:

• Master Balls, although I'll pretense that it's more fun to use them in a ruleset without normal Pokeballs. Pokeballs are a gamble on what you'll get, and getting a Master Ball among that significantly shrinks the pool of assists you'll get. But playing with just Master Balls, having fun playing off the stronger/rarer Pokemon can be fun in its own right, and sometimes you'll just get a useless Goldeen to balance it out.
• Death's Scythe, as unlike Boss Galaga/Beetle, you have to properly aim the thing for the instakill. Personally think the smash attack kill percent should be bumped up to 90/100% instead of 70%, but isn't anywhere near obnoxious as the other two items.

That said, for brevity's sake, I'll mention I agree with the points brought up on Black Hole, Ramblin' Evil Mushroom, Smoke Ball, Special Flag, good/bad stage hazards, CPUs being immune to effects that obscure a human player's ability to play properly, Ore Club, Fire Flower, and Final Smashes that require little positioning/timing to get easy kills. Indifferent on everything else mentioned so far that I haven't mentioned myself.

My main point of contention is Assist Trophies. Pokeballs sorta have this problem too, but a majority of them are usually a lot easier to deal with and not nearly as oppressive as most of the Assist Trophies. They last a while, attack fast and hard, have bulky amounts of HP if they even can be defeated, and it's not uncommon to get walled out by two/three active ATs at once in a casual 1v1, sometimes even in an FFA if one person gets lucky. I'd less so nerf Assist Trophies, and instead have some kind of cooldown on other Assist Trophies spawning while one's active/after one has despawned.

 

[lucasla]

I like to play with a selection of items while playing casually with friends, since they are not usual players of Smash, and there's no way to ask for them to play in a more competitive way. So, casual matches with items are great and fun with items that are not unfair (like insta-kill items), or too many items that makes the game too much chaotic for people that are starting, or just play eventually in my house, and have to deal with the learning of the game all the time.

If you insert the two types of pokeballs plus the trophies, the chaos escalate too much with too many things on screen, and with too many items on, many times my friends dont even know what they are doing, and this feeling of "I dont even know what I'm doing, I'm just pressing buttons" can ruin the experience, cause the game dont feel controllable.

With some good selecion of items, the matches still feel fair and the items generate crazy cool situations that makes everyone laugh while not ruining the game.

For online matches, no items at all.

 

[Xelrog]

I haven't used items since Melee. Too many crazy snowbally new ones. Items should complement the fighting gameplay, not replace it completely, and I feel that's what too many of them now do.

The items I like are similar to the items in Brawlhalla. I like simple throwing items like shells and bombs and Mr. Saturn that force an opponent to react to you differently than they otherwise might, and I like weapon items like the parasol, fan, beam sword, and bat. They mix up your moveset and can be used in many different ways to add variety to the game, including throwing them. The best items to me are the ones that can be used in multiple ways to accomplish different things. Items that can be mixed up. To be frank, the loss of the parasol and fan ruined item play for me.

 

[UserKev]

I think Sakurai is getting a little greedy with Assist trophies. You can literally summon a monster hunter, A BOSS in Classic Mode. It edge guards the literal stage if its small enough. There was a day when Assist trophies actually made sense.

A Primid assist trophy would have been better.

 

[Spiny Top]

Kev, my biggest problem with items are the shooting items - Ray Gun, Super Scope, Rage Blaster, steel driver, etc.

The problem is there is no way to control where you aim. You can only shoot straight ahead, which is predictable and obvious to your opponent. They can jump over your firing line while closing the distance, forcing you to try and jump to correct, but by then it is to late they are already on you. If you are in the air they can dash under you before you ever get a clean shot in many situations. The problem is further exacerbated by a stage with a lot of elevation changes, as you struggle to jump around for a clean shot.

Shooting items need the ability to ANGLE SHOTS. This would make them far more useful and give the shooter many more options. If they jump, angle your shot upwards. If they are below you, angle downwards. We already know this mechanic exists, ROB's laser can be angled for instance. Pit's arrows is another example. A variety of forward tilts across the cast can be angled. Shooting items need it too, and badly.

 

[JiggyNinja]

Kev, my biggest problem with items are the shooting items - Ray Gun, Super Scope, Rage Blaster, steel driver, etc.

The problem is there is no way to control where you aim. You can only shoot straight ahead, which is predictable and obvious to your opponent. They can jump over your firing line while closing the distance, forcing you to try and jump to correct, but by then it is to late they are already on you. If you are in the air they can dash under you before you ever get a clean shot in many situations. The problem is further exacerbated by a stage with a lot of elevation changes, as you struggle to jump around for a clean shot.

Shooting items need the ability to ANGLE SHOTS. This would make them far more useful and give the shooter many more options. If they jump, angle your shot upwards. If they are below you, angle downwards. We already know this mechanic exists, ROB's laser can be angled for instance. Pit's arrows is another example. A variety of forward tilts across the cast can be angled. Shooting items need it too, and badly.

For the love of god NOOOOOO!!!!!!

It's good that most projectiles are so 1-dimensional. Most of the characters can only shoot straight forward too. Angling or tracking projectiles are extremely rare. It forces you to play smarter with them and not just spray everywhere at all angles.

I ****ing hate Steel Diver enough as it is. You want to make it worse?

ROB's laser can be angled for instance.

ROB's laser isn't spammable, and has a massive amount of cooldown time between consecutive shots.

Pit's arrows is another example.

Pit's arrows are controllable, not angle-able. Slight difference (unless you're referring to the straight up shot). They also have much more cooldown between them than something like Falco's laser, so they trade off firing speed for that control.

A variety of forward tilts across the cast can be angled.

Tilts are not projectiles (Mega Man excepted of course).

Shooting items need it too, and badly.

It is literally the last thing most of them need.

 

[Spiny Top]

For the love of god NOOOOOO!!!!!!

It's good that most projectiles are so 1-dimensional. Most of the characters can only shoot straight forward too. Angling or tracking projectiles are extremely rare. It forces you to play smarter with them and not just spray everywhere at all angles.

I ****ing hate Steel Diver enough as it is. You want to make it worse?

ROB's laser isn't spammable, and has a massive amount of cooldown time between consecutive shots.

Pit's arrows are controllable, not angle-able. Slight difference (unless you're referring to the straight up shot). They also have much more cooldown between them than something like Falco's laser, so they trade off firing speed for that control.

Tilts are not projectiles (Mega Man excepted of course).

It is literally the last thing most of them need.

I dunno, maybe you are right but it feels like shooting items are very underpowered. Like I mentioned the issue is the shooter has zero options and can only shoot straight ahead, which is predictable and can be worked around by a smart opponent. In general, picking up a shooting item is unrewarding and uninteresting. In my experience, you pick it up then spam the whole clip in their general direction as fast as possible, hoping a couple shots connected, before chucking the empty gun at them and continuing on.

And just to be clear I'm not advocating this be applied to all projectiles. Just thinking of Wolf's laser angle-able makes me shudder...

 

[Mogisthelioma]

I miss the days in Brawl when items were fun to play with since the only ones that truly broke the game (IIRC) were the fan and the golden hammer. My brothers and I even had a stage that was a complete box with four openings in each corner, and the only items were pokeballs and occasionally assist trophies. It was the original Battle Royale.

Now items are janky, broken, and ruin the fun. The current Pokemon and Assist trophies can end stocks in seconds, not to mention about half of the existing items. They decided to go all out with their item design and we got this.

 

[Marmotbro]

Items come in 3 forms:

Items that spawn and everyone groans (gust bellows,evil shroom, golden hammer)

Items that spawn and whoever is closest wins (ATs, beetle, dragoon)

Items that aren't super impactful and have counterplay. (most bombs, capsules, Mr. Saturn)


Im fine with the items in the third category and play with them sometimes, but mostly i play with them off.

 

[UserKev]

After viewing a couple images, Smash items just aren't "special" anymore. There are way too many. And sloppy. I like the calmness and subtle rarity of items in 64 and Melee mostly. Newer Smash 4 item additions are essentially Mario Party and defeat the purpose of independence.

The most recent items I would consider reasonable and great are Fire Bar, Daybreak Parts, Grass and Bullet Bill. The Grass is essentially the replacement for the Egg and Capsule so it has a solid niche. Fire Bar and Bullet Bill are creatively unique. And the Daybreak Parts are very rewarding.