It made it more normative, which maybe feels like dumbing it down because it's more familiar.
That's your takeaway from my post? No, that's not it at all. You're not giving me nearly enough credit if you really think I'm arguing by feels here, and I don't see why you're assuming I'm any more or less familiar with one type of grab or the other. I do have a preference for her old style, but there are objective arguments to be made and I intend to focus on them.
ZSS's decision tree on shield utilized a variety of moves. Grab, bair, paralyzer, dsmash, jab, and fair represent the core of that option set, but not its entirety.
-Grab is the option that means they can't just sit in shield. It's not meant for frequent use, just frequent
enough use to make them wary of staying in shield. This is all it really needed to do - forcing them to respond in a desirable manner still yields an advantage.
-Bair is relatively safe with scaling reward based on enemy damage. Bair vs pivot grab is a solid mixup.
-Paralyzer at a slight distance forced options, but not in a way that left the opponent without ways to deal with it or with any potential followups. This generally leads to a retreat or another 50/50.
-Dsmash's reward is obvious and it's pretty safe at range even after the nerf.
-Jab/jab combo is perhaps more unsafe than it really needs to be, but its ability to shut down many OoS threats is worth noting. Another option where the threat of its use is its primary significance.
-SHFFL fair is moderately safe (some startup time if you want safety on landing, but you can space hits on shield beyond the reach of most grabs) and can cross up on shields.
This is also leaving out any timing mixups and of course, the option of simply waiting out your opponent. They're not well served by sitting in shield after all.
The changes to her grab completely changes its risks and option coverage, along with manipulating the functionality of certain mixups. The changes to her throws alter its rewards. The reduction in risk and other changes largely obviate the need for some of these options and other, more niche options are essentially eliminated from use altogether. Her decision tree is less complex, ie
dumbed down. The opponent's decision tree is fundamentally unchanged and only slightly reweighted at most, because they still want to escape and the grab doesn't really change how they'll try to go about it.
And again, I will point out that 1) this was never any more of a weakness for ZSS than for a character such as Falcon and 2) your changes completely fail to address this "issue" in a meaningful way.
However, necessitating a lot of really hard work for not a lot of payoff doesn't make for rich gameplay IMO.
I... What? ZSS's shield game is
complex, but certainly not hard work. The execution is really simple, especially given that your opponent
doesn't want to stay in shield against ZSS. You choose the level of risk you're willing to accept and execute an appropriate option. Your opponent can choose to either attempt to counter your option (usually shifts advantage to one character, sometimes sets up a second 50/50) or simply attempt to escape the trap (usually null reward or slight advantage ZSS). Your reward or punishment is dependent on the risks you take. That's good design and arguably one of the fairest examples of shield pressure in the game.
Regardless, if you genuinely believe that then what you should have done is increased her rewards and
maybe plugged the gap in her timings instead of reducing complexity.
I won't disagree with you that we might have gone overboard on the throw tweaks, but leaving them exactly how they were in 3.02 simply wasn't an option.
So revert both the grab and her throws, then adjust her throws again if absolutely necessary.
