Official Character Competitive Impressions - Tourneys, Tiers, Theories, Tactics

[Nu~]

Freaking Pac-Man has the lowest recovery for dash attack... And I don't know much about his dash attack other than basic data. Nu~ ?

Possibly the safest dash attack on sheild too. If you don't have an OoS option faster than 7~8 frames, Pac-Man gets a free trampoline to reset the situation to nuetral. It's even harder to punish if he manages to cross you up with it (made easier by hydrant water pushes...)

It also puts the opponent in a great amount of hitstun and at the perfect angle for combos such as:
http://youtu.be/1cLKjsYMAEc
http://youtu.be/U2xbwiHT6fo

Certainly a contender for one of the best DAs.


Edit: Hell, I use it as a freaking movement option to surprise people sometimes.

 

[Ghostbone]

I remember the early days when people said Yoshi had one of the best dash attacks. Pretty sure those days are over.

Well it did get nerfed lol

 

[LightLV]

Off-topic wall o' text below.

Spoiler: The issues of game development

When Samus was introduced to Smash, it was 64 where the only Metroid games were 2D platformers with shooting combat resembling Contra and of course Mega Man. There was almost nothing to go off of other than Samus shoots and spawns bombs. Oh, and she can jump high. This can be applied to Captain Falcon and Fox while everyone else had some semblance of combat like you know what Ness can do and all that's left is animating him, but Captain Falcon, Fox, and Samus? Nothing. The Capt. goes fast! Whoopdie freaking doo. At least they had leftovers of Dragon Warrior to just slap onto him. Fox? Well, we could pull the classic sci-fi stuff and... oh... that's only one move: Blaster. Fire Fox could be considered a reference to space ships and jets having rockets to launch and Reflector could be considered a reference to Star Fox's barrel roll which technically isn't a barrel roll, but whatever. The rest of Fox is like a cobbled mess of Chun Li and Guile. Then we have Samus... They could have made her into what Mega Man is now, but that would mean Mega Man would be, end up as, a clone and people probably would not like a third-party, especially a beloved video game icon be a clone of another well-known video game icon. Smash 64 might not have had the capability or foresight to have crawls, so Samus ends up using her Morph Ball as a roll. Hell, she even shared moves with the Capt. since there wasn't enough to go off.

Question is: would fans have preferred it if Samus didn't make it to Smash until Brawl? This also goes to Zelda fans where Sheik made it into Melee, but not the titular princess, Zelda. By Brawl, Samus had Metroid Prime where her "roll" was a dash and she had a a 3D, albeit first-person representation of what she can do. By Brawl, Zelda was shown having a sword in Twilight Princess and although she never used it in TP, maybe the developers wanted to toy with the idea of Zelda using a sword... Or if we go even further, would Metroid fans prefer it if Samus wasn't introduced until Smash 4 and Zelda fans prefer it if Zelda never made it in until Smash 5? Why further? Metroid: Other M as much as people want to rag on it have to acknowledge it's the first game we see Samus canonically fighting hand-to-hand and although not canon, Zelda's sword and Wind Waker movesets exist in Hyrule Warriors and they could easily pull moves from both sources.

The answer to them is all subjective, but I bet no will be the common answer. Why? Because major characters aren't in Smash. Zelda not making it into Smash is like Peach not making into Smash and Samus not making into Smash is like Link not making it into Smash. Imagine if it their appearances didn't happen until decades and after several games. People would be happy that Zelda finally made it into Smash in Smash 5, but when the likes of freaking Falco, Wolf, Diddy, Bowser Jr., and even though they're famous, Cloud, Snake, Sonic, and Ryu over the freaking princess Zelda? The princess and main character of Zelda next to Ganondorf and Link?

The other option is overhauling and for whatever reason outside of having to deal with the fact you have to overhaul a character, the developers haven't done it for any character. Not Bowser, not Pit, not Fox, not Mario, not Roy, not Sheik, not anyone. The changes they did to them were at most animation and attribute modifications like making Mario weaker, but faster, changing Bowser to move like in modern Mario games, or adjusting Pit's Special animations to fit his new gear. An overhaul of Zelda would be like turning her from a sad glass wall of a magic user to a glass cannon that would make Jigglypuff look heavy and Ryu and Ganondorf combined look like Sheik. An overhaul of Samus to a Prime and Other M Samus would be like turning her into Metal Gear Solid 3 & 4 Snake in terms of having grappling and CQC capabilities, but a lot projectiles and gadgets in general like the Links or Mega Man. Will it ever happen? Other fighting games don't usually overhaul their characters unless there's a major reason like Iori was a bit too good, so they used plot to "weaken" him - debatable since Claw Iori is a beast, but a different kind of beast - and Nash became much more different in Street Fighter V to stand out against from Guile despite story-wise, he was the original. Or how Jin and Nightmare diverged, but retain some moves to their origins, Heihachi and Kazuya for Jin and Siegfried for Nightmare. It costs money and a ton of time creating movesets. An overhaul can be 50% of the character changing, but that time would be better spent working on a new character, new stage, other content, etc. instead of working in an old character.

we love walls of text though

Spoiler

Well, there is a single exception in Smash as of WiiU, and that's Bowser. He got a complete and total overhaul, his model has completely changed and thus he has had to have all his animation redone. And it's likely because Mario (unlike Zelda or Metroid) still gets a very steady stream of games where Bowser is included and simply does not look like he did in Melee/Brawl.

I've always had this idea (based on nothing) that Ganondorf probably would have been a transform character in Melee like Zelda was, but wasn't because he simply wasn't as easy to clone. Roy/Marth, Pikachu/Pichu, Mario/Doc and Fox/Falco are essentially model swaps of eachother. Marth is too graceful and Link's moveset didn't match, Zelda is too dainty and none of the other characters are proportioned, so they just removed his sword and made him a CFalcon clone, since hes the only one left. I can't really fault anyone for Samus' moveset, before or after Metroid prime, because even after her super good prime series, it's still a First-person game and you're primarily just shooting at stuff. It's really no surprise that her moveset more or less stayed the same from 64 until now, there are many reasons for them to not drastically change her, from development to playerbase perspectives.

My main issue with ganon though is that if not by Brawl, at least by Smash 4 he should have been completely overhauled, orginal playerbase be dammed. It's even more egregious when Brawl/Smash4 is using his Twilight Princess appearance...and the only time you ever fight him is with a sword in his hand. The final battle is a damn sword duel.


Samus though....oh, Samus. my only personal gripe with her moveset is that, with so much development time in the wind, and so many excellent titles she's appeared in since, she could have become an extremely unique, far better realization of what her 64 playstyle entails. With the suit on, Samus is more agile, stronger, durable, and can fit in tighter spaces and just accomplish more than with her suit off. Basically, closer to what ZSS is than what the actual Varia Suit Samus is. By the end of any given 2D metroid title, Samus doesn't even have to touch the ground anymore to kill things.

A perfect version of Samus to me would be a versatile, mobile fighter who balances melee with projectile play, with a gameplan focused on suppression but limited by resource management (think Robin, or Shulk's cooldowns, or how Rosalina is without Luma). Zero Suit would be a version of that that's less powerful, has less versatile specials, but as a result has no limits. So basically, make Samus a clone of Zero Suit and overhaul both of their special sets. (or just Samus'). Essentially a Link vs. Young Link type deal. (or, if you will, Fox and Falco as of Brawl and Smash 4.)

But the thing is, there's nothing (asthetically) wrong with how she plays now. And if they were to completely overhaul her for the sake of accuracy, they would essentially be throwing a character to the wind for no reason. Which is the only logical reason they would have kept Ganondorf like that, and a good argument for why Samus likely isnt changing.

L LightLV There are a lot of fundamentally flawed things with character design, like how Ganondorf isn't fast at all compared to his Twilight Princess incarnation, or how Link can't sprint in this game unlike Skyward Sword, even Mewtwo being light when he should be the heaviest or second heaviest in the game. Sakurai doesn't intend to take from the characters' respective games in terms of attributes, but rather the attacks instead. If he did it for attributes, Meta Knight would be slower (which would be good), Ganondorf would probably be the 9th fastest character in the game and Link would be the 5th fastest in the game.

Well, those aren't "fundamental flaws", it's just taking necessary liberties with the character, which is what we're getting at. But it's all about taking the right things from each incarnation of the character to make them feel unique.

Something like Link's SS dash isn't worth making a specific ability because he can already dash in Smash Bros. However, the fact that Toon Link can charge his spin attack but can't hurricane slash (one of the coolest things in Wind Waker) is something that many people would call a pretty big miss. (Shoutout to Project M for being far more faithful to Toon Link in regards to his animations)

Ganondorf actually is so far off the mark that it really doesn't matter what he does. They've been slowly making him more and more unique from Falcon, but none of it really matters because Ganondorf has never fought the player in that manner before.

If Ganondorf's SideB made him summon magical ponies at you...it would be more faithful than his current side B. It's that silly lol

 

[Jaguar360]

I remember the early days when people said Yoshi had one of the best dash attacks. Pretty sure those days are over.

To be fair, its endlag did get nerfed in patch 1.02 or something like that.

EDIT: Ignore, didn't see Ghostbone

 

[Radical Larry]

So I decided to check some tournament results for the Japan Umebura Niconico Qualifiers, and to the surprise of me, I saw a Link player make the top 24 playing only Link. This is out of 320 people for the qualifiers and while the player isn't able to make it to the Niconico Tournament himself, it's impressive to see that Link is actually able to keep himself afloat at least in PAL and Japan.

First with Eclipse making him the 5th in its national and now this with him being 24th. It seems like the stigma of his "low" viability could indeed come to an end if people knew more about these tournaments. Link is a legitimately good character if, unlike peoples' expectations led to believe, he can make it past the top 32 spots.

One should start questioning Link's viability and take some time to really test him. He could be a character to actually fear.

 

[Sinister Slush]

Even then Yoshi's DA was still pretty meh even before the nerf, they just based their first patch on for glory.
Source: Little mac side-b nerf

 

[Ffamran]

Well it did get nerfed lol

It was? I don't remember that...

we love walls of text though

Spoiler

Well, there is a single exception in Smash as of WiiU, and that's Bowser. He got a complete and total overhaul, his model has completely changed and thus he has had to have all his animation redone. And it's likely because Mario (unlike Zelda or Metroid) still gets a very steady stream of games where Bowser is included and simply does not look like he did in Melee/Brawl.

I've always had this idea (based on nothing) that Ganondorf probably would have been a transform character in Melee like Zelda was, but wasn't because he simply wasn't as easy to clone. Roy/Marth, Pikachu/Pichu, Mario/Doc and Fox/Falco are essentially model swaps of eachother. Marth is too graceful and Link's moveset didn't match, Zelda is too dainty and none of the other characters are proportioned, so they just removed his sword and made him a CFalcon clone, since hes the only one left. I can't really fault anyone for Samus' moveset, before or after Metroid prime, because even after her super good prime series, it's still a First-person game and you're primarily just shooting at stuff. It's really no surprise that her moveset more or less stayed the same from 64 until now, there are many reasons for them to not drastically change her, from development to playerbase perspectives.

My main issue with ganon though is that if not by Brawl, at least by Smash 4 he should have been completely overhauled, orginal playerbase be dammed. It's even more egregious when Brawl/Smash4 is using his Twilight Princess appearance...and the only time you ever fight him is with a sword in his hand. The final battle is a damn sword duel.


Samus though....oh, Samus. my only personal gripe with her moveset is that, with so much development time in the wind, and so many excellent titles she's appeared in since, she could have become an extremely unique, far better realization of what her 64 playstyle entails. With the suit on, Samus is more agile, stronger, durable, and can fit in tighter spaces and just accomplish more than with her suit off. Basically, closer to what ZSS is than what the actual Varia Suit Samus is. By the end of any given 2D metroid title, Samus doesn't even have to touch the ground anymore to kill things.

A perfect version of Samus to me would be a versatile, mobile fighter who balances melee with projectile play, with a gameplan focused on suppression but limited by resource management (think Robin, or Shulk's cooldowns, or how Rosalina is without Luma). Zero Suit would be a version of that that's less powerful, has less versatile specials, but as a result has no limits. So basically, make Samus a clone of Zero Suit and overhaul both of their special sets. (or just Samus'). Essentially a Link vs. Young Link type deal. (or, if you will, Fox and Falco as of Brawl and Smash 4.)

But the thing is, there's nothing (asthetically) wrong with how she plays now. And if they were to completely overhaul her for the sake of accuracy, they would essentially be throwing a character to the wind for no reason. Which is the only logical reason they would have kept Ganondorf like that, and a good argument for why Samus likely isnt changing.

My reasoning for Bowser is that while his animations have changed, his moves haven't changed in function much. Roy's in a similar case where he does have different animations for jab, dash attack, Utilt, Ftilt, Side Smash, Fair, and Blazer, but functionally, they haven't really changed. The closest thing would be Dair, but that's a major hitbox change from an arcing hit like Marth's and in Melee to a linear hit. An overhaul would have to change moves drastically, so something like Link's dash attack going from a typical dash attack to a punish dash attack compared to Falco's Bair becoming stronger and having a hitbox and animation change, but otherwise does function like in past games where it's still a kill tool and combo tool, but a much stronger kill tool and a dumb combo move considering what it does.

Samus vs. ZSS to me in terms of mobility and movement would be like Gundam 00's Virtue and Nadleeh where Virtue is Samus and Nadleeh's ZSS. The idea is that Virtue is heavily armed while Nadleeh's a speed machine. By giving up power, Virtue, the pilot can access higher speed and vice versa. The difference and let's take into account game balance and design since Samus isn't like ZSS in terms of gameplay, is that in Smash's case, ZSS only really gives up weight for much more speed and even power. The issue with Samus is that her design is kind of like Link's where she is supposed to control mid-range and long-range, but she also has traits of a combo character like Falco, except she doesn't do them well enough or doesn't take them far enough. By that, I mean her mid-range and long-range game isn't all that special considering they did, like Falco, remove her ability auto-cancel her Missiles without enough compensating - they even increased the speed for Super Missiles making it less of an annoyance to time approaches - and while her combo game is good, she can't take it to levels of having a really strong or reliable finisher like Meta Knight, Ryu, and ZSS or being able to combo with kill moves like Falco, Ike, and Ryu.

A way to make Samus different without major tweaks and outside of certain hitbox/hurtbox fixes - please for the love of all that is good, make it so her Up Smash's loop hits all have auto-link angles instead of this random gap for the 2nd hit - would be to do something like make her Super Missiles slower and Homing Missiles faster. Slower Super Missiles means it becomes more awkward to time approaches when they're closer to Samus's zone and faster-moving Homing Missiles might help with them actually posing a threat instead of being confused, slow Missiles. The other thing would be lowering her recovery for Missles. She shouldn't have something like 20 frames of recovery, but say, 30 which is just 5-6 frames less to what her current recovery is. The idea is to give her the ability to use projectiles safely, but not overwhelmingly unlike Brawl Falco and maybe even her past incarnations. Considering none of her throws kill, lowered startup and/or lower recovery would be great - I'm looking at you, Samus pivot grab... Nah, all grabs which are overall, worse than ZSS's grab recovery. The last thing is a quality of life buff with her Screw Attack gaining armor or invincibility at the very least on startup. There is one stupid thing... She actually has a normal roll for her ledge roll. They could swap those animations.

In the end, Samus is in the lump of characters with minor issues who don't really need that much to be really good. Hell, what really changed with Ike? Did his moves get complete overhauls? Most of it were added hitboxes to fit animations and number tweaks. Number tweaks drastically changed DK's cargo U-throw. Zelda herself could be considered as needing an overhaul, but number tweaks could change her into a very different character. Example being if we gave her Falco Bairs for both her Fair and Bair. Have fun dealing with a character who would arguably have the best set of horizontal input aerials.

 

[LiteralGrill]

First with Eclipse making him the 5th in its national and now this with him being 24th. It seems like the stigma of his "low" viability could indeed come to an end if people knew more about these tournaments. Link is a legitimately good character if, unlike peoples' expectations led to believe, he can make it past the top 32 spots.

5th is something, but 24th even in a stacked event... When we're looking for characters to 'fear' we gotta remember even at super majors only the top 8 get payed out and it usually doesn't even reach that far. When people say the game is so balanced (while it's pretty solid) we gotta remember even some of these characters that get okayish results cannot consistently top 8 at majors and that's gonna be a real big deal as people get even better at this game going into the future.

The beginning of a fighting game always is the best part. Things will solidify quite bit more in time after the patches and DLC are done coming in. Just wait.

 

[Sonicninja115]

5th is something, but 24th even in a stacked event... When we're looking for characters to 'fear' we gotta remember even at super majors only the top 8 get payed out and it usually doesn't even reach that far. When people say the game is so balanced (while it's pretty solid) we gotta remember even some of these characters that get okayish results cannot consistently top 8 at majors and that's gonna be a real big deal as people get even better at this game going into the future.

The beginning of a fighting game always is the best part. Things will solidify quite bit more in time after the patches and DLC are done coming in. Just wait.

I expect/hope that there will at least be 15-20 tourney viable characters. I am thinking that 5-10 will end up being tournament winners, with the rest being occasional.

 

[Antonykun]

Possibly the safest dash attack on sheild too. If you don't have an OoS option faster than 7~8 frames, Pac-Man gets a free trampoline to reset the situation to nuetral. It's even harder to punish if he manages to cross you up with it (made easier by hydrant water pushes...)

It also puts the opponent in a great amount of hitstun and at the perfect angle for combos such as:
http://youtu.be/1cLKjsYMAEc
http://youtu.be/U2xbwiHT6fo

Certainly a contender for one of the best DAs.


Edit: Hell, I use it as a freaking movement option to surprise people sometimes.

oh man Pac-Man's dash attack is bae

I also think Swordfighter's Dash attack is delish like wow that move covers like 2 character lengths while also being a movement out of a dash/foxtrot

 

[ghWyPakDzVvPncx76h2J]

I've never seen Sakurai or anyone from Nintendo to be a good judge of how to balance a game or talk about competitive gaming in general

- Nerfing Little Mac
- Nerfing Samus
- Items on, Customs On, Equipment On FFA Tournaments

I could continue, I won't.

From what I've heard though, Samus was definitely a lot stronger than she is even now. A lot of the changes she got were unnerfs but they haven't changed them all. They kinda gave her the Ike treatment in that they nerfed things from Brawl, but didn't give any compensation until patches came out.

Honestly this does make sense from a competitive aspect, but really, what other fighting game has this much individuality, recognition, personality, unique traits in so many characters? No other fighting game in existence can even compare to the individuality and stay so close to their incarnation as possible and yet still be pretty balanced, i.e., no Metaknight unbalanced, Gill SF3, or Dark/Devil Gundam in gundam Battle Assault 2, etc (I'll just tell you straight up why he is unbalanced and easily banned since not everyone has the time to research: possibly the most bat**** broken character in the history of fighting games--he has for starters an unblockable laser projectile that is so easy to spam, super armor on everything, not really any hitstun, overwhelmingly damaging fast frame attacks, and is just overall cheap and a character that is just flat out bannable). It's mostly just about keeping characters to their traits and uniqueness, little mac shouldn't have good aerials, but should be rewarded for his strong ground game, and while it may seem unfit in the eyes of tournament people, it fits the eyes in those who want to maintain the individuality and strong traits of a character that define them. Tourney mode was never really a serious mode to begin with and was overhyped, but Online isn't something I can take that seriously to begin with since its meta mostly consists of characters like Ryu being trash tier because online lag and inconsistency, characters that can punish landing lag like falcon being top tier, and little mac + sonic being top tier cause omega stages I do agree with your stance on Samus, her characteristics are lacking and she has gotten the reputation of charge shot roll spam mcgee and is a character that isn't really picked up by anyone because the character is severely lacking. Character balancing is not something easy to do while maintaining the character itself, there is no way smash would go the brawl minus route of buffing/nerfing characters or project m route. Smash is pretty lenient about major nerfs unless there is fan outcry (see Diddy), however you still have to take note that there really isn't any other games like smash bros. No game I could think of maintains character and individuality compared to any other fighting game. When you pick up Sonic, Megaman, or Mario you want them to feel like how they would be and Smash nearly gets all that stuff right (except Mewtwo's weight ). I'd say voice all the concerns you want, I am glad you mentioned this, but I can't honestly imagine anyone else in charge and still managing to make such a great series as Sakurai has done, the same man who brought us Melee, is the same that brought us Brawl. The community maintains a love hate relationship, but overall he very well knows what he is doing and he does it pretty well and carefully. You're right that they are not the best of judge when it comes to competitive games, however they don't outright ignore the competitive community and still does a phenomenal job of enveloping the game that has made Smash one of the best selling fighting game franchises in history.

Quite a few pages ago I asked about how footsies relate to neutral in Smash Bros, with the idea that perhaps because of the platform-based mobility aspect of Smash, that having good footsies doesn't automatically mean that a character has a neutral like they would in other fighting games. I'm not sure where I'm actually standing in terms of my own views on the subject, but I can't help but feel that somehow the Smash community as a whole views the neutral game in a very different light compared to traditional fighters.

ZeRo made his Falco video with Keitaro's help, and some comments argue that Falco's neutral is bad because his laser is lacking. However, he has great walk speed, excellent tilts, and killer aerials that are fast and can be thrown out in neutral while being hard to punish. How is it that having a worse laser alone causes people to view Falco as being bad in the neutral game? Again, is it that projectiles and the ability to move around are THAT much more important to the neutral in Smash, or perhaps that people's opinions are skewed by the loss of short hop canceled lasers as this immensely powerful zoning tool, or maybe that people assume the neutral is more about running around and shooting projectiles than it actually is?

we love walls of text though

Spoiler

Well, there is a single exception in Smash as of WiiU, and that's Bowser. He got a complete and total overhaul, his model has completely changed and thus he has had to have all his animation redone. And it's likely because Mario (unlike Zelda or Metroid) still gets a very steady stream of games where Bowser is included and simply does not look like he did in Melee/Brawl.

I've always had this idea (based on nothing) that Ganondorf probably would have been a transform character in Melee like Zelda was, but wasn't because he simply wasn't as easy to clone. Roy/Marth, Pikachu/Pichu, Mario/Doc and Fox/Falco are essentially model swaps of eachother. Marth is too graceful and Link's moveset didn't match, Zelda is too dainty and none of the other characters are proportioned, so they just removed his sword and made him a CFalcon clone, since hes the only one left. I can't really fault anyone for Samus' moveset, before or after Metroid prime, because even after her super good prime series, it's still a First-person game and you're primarily just shooting at stuff. It's really no surprise that her moveset more or less stayed the same from 64 until now, there are many reasons for them to not drastically change her, from development to playerbase perspectives.

My main issue with ganon though is that if not by Brawl, at least by Smash 4 he should have been completely overhauled, orginal playerbase be dammed. It's even more egregious when Brawl/Smash4 is using his Twilight Princess appearance...and the only time you ever fight him is with a sword in his hand. The final battle is a damn sword duel.


Samus though....oh, Samus. my only personal gripe with her moveset is that, with so much development time in the wind, and so many excellent titles she's appeared in since, she could have become an extremely unique, far better realization of what her 64 playstyle entails. With the suit on, Samus is more agile, stronger, durable, and can fit in tighter spaces and just accomplish more than with her suit off. Basically, closer to what ZSS is than what the actual Varia Suit Samus is. By the end of any given 2D metroid title, Samus doesn't even have to touch the ground anymore to kill things.

A perfect version of Samus to me would be a versatile, mobile fighter who balances melee with projectile play, with a gameplan focused on suppression but limited by resource management (think Robin, or Shulk's cooldowns, or how Rosalina is without Luma). Zero Suit would be a version of that that's less powerful, has less versatile specials, but as a result has no limits. So basically, make Samus a clone of Zero Suit and overhaul both of their special sets. (or just Samus'). Essentially a Link vs. Young Link type deal. (or, if you will, Fox and Falco as of Brawl and Smash 4.)

But the thing is, there's nothing (asthetically) wrong with how she plays now. And if they were to completely overhaul her for the sake of accuracy, they would essentially be throwing a character to the wind for no reason. Which is the only logical reason they would have kept Ganondorf like that, and a good argument for why Samus likely isnt changing.

I won't try to derail this topic, but I'll add it as part of a multiple quote post, I so agree with your statements. I really want a character in Smash Bros that has strong qualities of being projectile heavy, absolutely fantastic aerial game, but the closest in Smash would have to be Duck Hunt or Megaman, but this character has a SUIT! literally a flat out mobile suit, and this character is not that maneuverable in the air and ranks within the 1/3rd percentile at the bottom when it comes to aerial maneuverability. Such a fantastic character, but the closest I can honestly think of a character that Samus should be a bit more based off of is one game I particularly enjoy and is a cult classic and that is Gundam Battle Assault 2, a game where it is nothing, but mobile suits with projectiles and close range attacks, seriously that is the potential of a mobile suit character in a fighting game. If Samus at least had a faster or different down tilt or just a really good spacing move and good auto-cancel frames then I'm sure the character would rise tier wise. Melee is a good example of how Samus can be good and the only game where Samus wasn't actually trash, but I still think they could do better with Samus when it comes to making her actually be this upgraded suit that can do much more than Zero Suit could not. Zero Suit Samus plays the mid range game more effectively and plays way more dominating, if anything Samus is having to change tactics and cannot turtle what so ever at all because catching rolls can be difficult due to terrible end lag and spacing moves to begin with and a grab that as soon as you hear you can immediately spotdodge or jab upon reaction. She is a character that is a great concept, from an under-represented series, but we all know that much more can be done to make her a great character. We can only wait and see if they truly enhance this character in patches to come.

 

[Nobie]

Quite a few pages ago I asked about how footsies relate to neutral in Smash Bros, with the idea that perhaps because of the platform-based mobility aspect of Smash, that having good footsies doesn't automatically mean that a character has a neutral like they would in other fighting games. I'm not sure where I'm actually standing in terms of my own views on the subject, but I can't help but feel that somehow the Smash community as a whole views the neutral game in a very different light compared to traditional fighters.

ZeRo made his Falco video with Keitaro's help, and some comments argue that Falco's neutral is bad because his laser is lacking. However, he has great walk speed, excellent tilts, and killer aerials that are fast and can be thrown out in neutral while being hard to punish. How is it that having a worse laser alone causes people to view Falco as being bad in the neutral game? Again, is it that projectiles and the ability to move around are THAT much more important to the neutral in Smash, or perhaps that people's opinions are skewed by the loss of short hop canceled lasers as this immensely powerful zoning tool, or maybe that people assume the neutral is more about running around and shooting projectiles than it actually is?

 

[Sonicninja115]

Quite a few pages ago I asked about how footsies relate to neutral in Smash Bros, with the idea that perhaps because of the platform-based mobility aspect of Smash, that having good footsies doesn't automatically mean that a character has a neutral like they would in other fighting games. I'm not sure where I'm actually standing in terms of my own views on the subject, but I can't help but feel that somehow the Smash community as a whole views the neutral game in a very different light compared to traditional fighters.

ZeRo made his Falco video with Keitaro's help, and some comments argue that Falco's neutral is bad because his laser is lacking. However, he has great walk speed, excellent tilts, and killer aerials that are fast and can be thrown out in neutral while being hard to punish. How is it that having a worse laser alone causes people to view Falco as being bad in the neutral game? Again, is it that projectiles and the ability to move around are THAT much more important to the neutral in Smash, or perhaps that people's opinions are skewed by the loss of short hop canceled lasers as this immensely powerful zoning tool, or maybe that people assume the neutral is more about running around and shooting projectiles than it actually is?

I think people remember lasers glory in Melee, but ZeRo is right. Imagine Falco's laser having the same lag as Luigi's fireball, his neutral would be amazing. His neutral would benefit greatly from low lag lasers, but that doesn't mean his neutral is bad.

 

[Djent]

RE: T was eliminated by Sigma, which brings me to the character who's really getting overlooked: ! Even restricting his results to 1.1.1 and beyond, I can still think of several high-profile wins for this character:

Hayato. > 9B
Hyuga > Vinnie
Ross > MVD

And then there are more players like Zan, *****, CrazieCuban, etc. attaining impressive placements without (recently) beating anyone quite that good. I don't think he's on the Villager/Wario/etc. level, but rather comfortably hanging in the ever-expanding group right below that. I doubt he's specifically held back by any terrible matchups either. So the remaining question is "does he actually beat any characters above him?" If the answer is "yes," then he's my sleeper pick for cracking the top 20.

 

[Teshie U]

Dont forget MJG beating Trela.

 

[Luco]

I dunno how I feel about characters in top 32. On one hand I get really pessimistic and go "like viability should be about how likely a character can reach paying spots in a tournament - hell, perhaps even 1st." At least, with higher tiers it seems to be somewhat like this - "Sonic would be such an amazing contender if ZSS didn't exist." or "Ness players would have been taking top spots at nationals if Rosa wasn't such a crippling MU."

Then the tiers go down - because, of course, there have to be characters winning more than others - and I start to think "maybe the lower tiers are more fluid, maybe we should be optimistic. If we know 3 G&W mains can get top 32 at EVO or other low tiers can be getting top 8/16/32 in these stacked tournaments, given the amount of people you have to face and the ability of your character to cope with all those (possibly) different MUs, that could be a pretty big achievement."

I dunno, I think we realise the game is significantly more balanced than most of its predecessors at this point, perhaps we should start looking at the frequency of characters appearing in these top x positions and compare. Perhaps Link getting top 24 doesn't mean "omg secret top tier" but we can say "that's a little better than those other characters we see as low tier, perhaps this is that low mid tier we were looking for."

Or something. Come to think of it, that was what was happening as Brawl matured, I think. Big results for characters starting moving them around less in the grand scheme of things but more within their already-conceived position of viability - and I don't mean to say that's impossible to break out of (new Meta Knights are always going to come along and surprise everyone) but perhaps this is the point where we can start off that process.

 

[Skeeter Mania]

I dunno how I feel about characters in top 32. On one hand I get really pessimistic and go "like viability should be about how likely a character can reach paying spots in a tournament - hell, perhaps even 1st." At least, with higher tiers it seems to be somewhat like this - "Sonic would be such an amazing contender if ZSS didn't exist." or "Ness players would have been taking top spots at nationals if Rosa wasn't such a crippling MU."

Then the tiers go down - because, of course, there have to be characters winning more than others - and I start to think "maybe the lower tiers are more fluid, maybe we should be optimistic. If we know 3 G&W mains can get top 32 at EVO or other low tiers can be getting top 8/16/32 in these stacked tournaments, given the amount of people you have to face and the ability of your character to cope with all those (possibly) different MUs, that could be a pretty big achievement."

I dunno, I think we realise the game is significantly more balanced than most of its predecessors at this point, perhaps we should start looking at the frequency of characters appearing in these top x positions and compare. Perhaps Link getting top 24 doesn't mean "omg secret top tier" but we can say "that's a little better than those other characters we see as low tier, perhaps this is that low mid tier we were looking for."

Or something. Come to think of it, that was what was happening as Brawl matured, I think. Big results for characters starting moving them around less in the grand scheme of things but more within their already-conceived position of viability - and I don't mean to say that's impossible to break out of (new Meta Knights are always going to come along and surprise everyone) but perhaps this is the point where we can start off that process.

To add to that, most of the cast has placed at least Top 32 at at least one major (yes, Jigglypuff being one of them and Zelda not), and nearly half the cast has placed at least Top 8. It might be a true testament of this game's balance after a year, but I can only expect it to drop. Though with Melee having at least 12 characters that are seen as viable in large majors (barely half the cast), maybe we could be wrong.

As for Sonic, isn't Rosa considered considered his worst MU and not ZSS? What, in your opinion, makes ZSS worse?

 

[Luco]

To add to that, most of the cast has placed at least Top 32 at at least one major (yes, Jigglypuff being one of them and Zelda not), and nearly half the cast has placed at least Top 8. It might be a true testament of this game's balance after a year, but I can only expect it to drop. Though with Melee having at least 12 characters that are seen as viable in large majors (barely half the cast), maybe we could be wrong.

As for Sonic, isn't Rosa considered considered his worst MU and not ZSS? What, in your opinion, makes ZSS worse?

I know it's old, but it was NR eating through like 3 top Sonic mains at MLG (or CEO?), no significant patch changes which affected that MU and nothing really coming to light that said otherwise since then, whilst I've heard relatively little of Rosa being quite so dominating.

On the other hand, I've been known to take relatively long hiatuses from the boards at times so stuff probably changed when I wasn't here.

 

[Ffamran]

ZeRo made his Falco video with Keitaro's help, and some comments argue that Falco's neutral is bad because his laser is lacking. However, he has great walk speed, excellent tilts, and killer aerials that are fast and can be thrown out in neutral while being hard to punish. How is it that having a worse laser alone causes people to view Falco as being bad in the neutral game? Again, is it that projectiles and the ability to move around are THAT much more important to the neutral in Smash, or perhaps that people's opinions are skewed by the loss of short hop canceled lasers as this immensely powerful zoning tool, or maybe that people assume the neutral is more about running around and shooting projectiles than it actually is?

Spoiler: Problem 1: Getting in; or general mobility

One issue is getting in there. No one questions that Falco or anyone including Ganondorf, a large, slow-moving character, Robin, just a slow moving character, Bowser, large in general, Kirby, slow-moving, but small, or anyone else cannot hop, jump, or do whatever to make their way over there. The issue is that the faster someone moves, the more difficult it becomes to time how to punish their approach and their way of getting over your projectiles if you have any and into your zone. So, it's easier to deal with Falco slowly making his say towards you than it is with Roy. Roy can, if he wants, straightup bum-rush you and shield if necessary while covering a lot of distance while Falco doing the same thing would net less distance and be more easily reacted to. This is also why Falco having an average-speed dash attack becomes an issue compared to Captain Falcon, Meta Knight, or ZSS because he's going to heavily telegraph it by simply running while Meta Knight running in can cause panic because he's moving in much faster.

Part of the problem is how Smash works and one of them is how stages and movement interact. In say, Street Fighter, you're only really focused on moving horizontally with some vertical for judging anti-airs and maybe jumping over a projectile. Smash ramps this up by adding a vertical focus and enlarging stages where because of how Smash functions, walls don't really exist since the goal is to knock you past blast-zones rather than reducing a health bar to 0. Characters with higher horizontal speed will always be at an advantage because of how large stages are compared to in more "traditional" fighting games. While characters with high horizontal speed are at an advantage in Street Fighter too, none of them have as wide gaps as say, Yoshi to Zelda. It's - complete guess - at most Mario to Luigi's run speed. There's also the fact there isn't running, but repeated dashes in SF's case.

So, Roy making his way into someone's zone can easily and quickly be done by running and walking. Oversimplified, but Roy getting in is much faster than Falco and there's less time to process what's happening. Falco would have to start pulling tricks like actually having to make use of perfect pivots, pivot walks, baiting by hopping his way, and I would even say he might end up being forced to walk as opposed to ever running unless to chase someone for a followup. Why? The moment Falco runs is the moment you know he wants in and he's definitely not getting in at that speed. The moment Falco runs unless for chasing is pretty much the moment Falco gave up.

Spoiler: Problem 2: Zone control

Another issue is his ability to control his zone past close-range. Long-range is dependent on MU, but mid-range is a disaster against most of the cast. One reason is that Falco's Blaster recovery is simply too high and for the reward it gets, too low. Obviously, it shouldn't have insane reward for just a hit stun-only projectile - ahem, Melee and Brawl Falco -, but it shouldn't have risk bordering using a failed Falcon Knee. Another reason is that it's really linear and doesn't exactly offer a lot of coverage. It's also why Zelda despite having fairly good recovery on Din's Fire doesn't really matter when it has high startup on a projectile that doesn't really cover well even though you can control where it explodes or why Samus might have more trouble than Luigi and Greninja at keeping people away because her projectiles have that much more recovery. In her case, Super Missiles are high startup, average recovery projectiles that travel in a predictable path and Homing Missiles are too slow to be threatening.

Defensively, though, Falco can control and punish zoning with Reflector either by reflecting key projectiles or punishing poor approaches with a transcendent poke. Entering his close-range is also a no-brainer, but that's like everyone else where entering their zone means it time for you to die. Offensively, Falco can't really control his mid-range zone outside of pot shots with Blaster and it has to be pot shots because of the high recovery compared to Ryu who can just throw a Hadouken whenever he's far away enough and you'll have to deal with varying speed, fat projectiles from him.

Spoiler: Problem 3: Other options

The last thing would be other options to help in getting in. Examples being natural disjoints letting Marth hit from a safe distance to moves like Jolt Haymaker letting Little Mac go over projectiles and acting as a burst movement. Falco doesn't really have disjoints outside of Dtilt, Blaster, and Reflector and minor ones on the last hit of Nair and on Fair. He's a melee fighter after all. So, that's out of the question. At the same time, his range, especially aerials, are short for his height. For moves to go around projectiles or get in faster, he has Falco Phantasm which as good of a move to dash in, it's better for chases and escapes than getting in. The lack of a hitbox on the last half makes it unsafe meaning you can just throw out any hitbox and punish him while Fox has much more leeway. There's also the other issue where I think Falco Phantasm has more total frames in the air compared to Fox Illusion which has the same on the ground and in the air - probably explains why I don't notice the difference between an IAP (instant aerial Phantasm) to a regular Phantasm compared to an IAI to a regular Illusion.

What you end up is a character who if tweaked would be really good (at footsies) in a traditional fighting game. In Smash, currently, you end up with a character who is pretty much barebones and has to make use of all basic (movement) options all characters have and don't necessarily need e.g. Ike probably doesn't care for perfect pivots, but Falco is beginning to look like he needs them for another option for movement, Mario might not have a heavy desire to walk, but Falco has to walk if he doesn't want to look desperate and predictable, pivots are necessary for using Bair while moving forward and now, Nair to control where he launches people and Uair to setup Bair, and fast fall hops are already integral to Falco not only as form of movement, but to bait and actually land Bair in some situations.

I think people remember lasers glory in Melee, but ZeRo is right. Imagine Falco's laser having the same lag as Luigi's fireball, his neutral would be amazing. His neutral would benefit greatly from low lag lasers, but that doesn't mean his neutral is bad.

Falco with 26 frames of recovery on the ground for Blaster would turn it from a bad projectile to maybe the best and probably broken projectile in Smash 4. Same recovery as Wii Fit Trainer's Sun Salutation at 35 on the other hand would be better and less insane - I wouldn't go any further than 29 frames of recovery which would put it in the realm of the Pits (air-only), Fox, Luigi, and nearing Greninja levels. Hell, even going from grounded Blaster's 48 to Sheik's Needles Storm's 42 (1 Needle or all miss) is just better for Falco in general while not drastically harming everyone.

 

[Trifroze]

Quite a few pages ago I asked about how footsies relate to neutral in Smash Bros, with the idea that perhaps because of the platform-based mobility aspect of Smash, that having good footsies doesn't automatically mean that a character has a neutral like they would in other fighting games. I'm not sure where I'm actually standing in terms of my own views on the subject, but I can't help but feel that somehow the Smash community as a whole views the neutral game in a very different light compared to traditional fighters.

ZeRo made his Falco video with Keitaro's help, and some comments argue that Falco's neutral is bad because his laser is lacking. However, he has great walk speed, excellent tilts, and killer aerials that are fast and can be thrown out in neutral while being hard to punish. How is it that having a worse laser alone causes people to view Falco as being bad in the neutral game? Again, is it that projectiles and the ability to move around are THAT much more important to the neutral in Smash, or perhaps that people's opinions are skewed by the loss of short hop canceled lasers as this immensely powerful zoning tool, or maybe that people assume the neutral is more about running around and shooting projectiles than it actually is?

It's sensible to argue that traditional footsies don't even exist in Smash because the effective range of every character is too great due to the high mobility aspect of the game, especially with Smash 4's improved dash grabs and running speeds. You can choose not to play footsies against most characters and just grab them instead. The only characters with "footsies" are ones with long reaching attacks and projectiles, but in most matchups that just results in outspacing the opponent, not actual footsies.

 

[Spinosaurus]

Sorry for bringing back the Tekken comparison, but I feel like I should mention this

Tekken Tag 2 is VERY balanced in spite of its large roster (which, honestly, has so many clones) because the game has so few stuff that could be considered broken or unfair (there's like, the Mishima's EWGF and some other launchers?) and the game actually isn't that complex at all, not even high execution outside backdash cancelling and other moves, it just has a lot of depth. The tag team mechanics and the way the game is designed in general gives pretty much every character necessary options to compete. I'm no dedicated Tekken player though, so I'd appreciate if someone else can expand on this, or even correct me if I'm wrong.

Smash is actually really complex and there's a lot of nuances here and there. Stages play a laaarger role than they do in Tekken, you have more movement options, DI, fall speeds, overall aerial mobility, etc etc etc. Every traditional fighting game player I know that tried Smash actually think the mechanics are way too convoluted. Taking this into account, there's bound to be characters that could abuse the system.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

It's sensible to argue that traditional footsies don't even exist in Smash because the effective range of every character is too great due to the high mobility aspect of the game, especially with Smash 4's improved dash grabs and running speeds. You can choose not to play footsies against most characters and just grab them instead. The only characters with "footsies" are ones with long reaching attacks and projectiles, but in most matchups that just results in outspacing the opponent, not actual footsies.

I don't think this is true at all. Footsies mostly deal woth the walk speed of a character and the ability to move in and out of your opponents range while staying in your range. It's impossible to not play footsies in any fighting game. Even a game like smash which is a bit different you have to take into account more things in footsie. And it's not limited to the ground either. If you've ever watched marvel before you can see them playing footsies although it's in the air.

Range and projectiles have very little to do with footsies. It becomes important when you want to whiff punish or stay in your effective range. Projectiles have more to do with zoning than footsie. Now projectiles can also be used as pokes depending on the projectile.

Footsies and pokes range zoning and projectiles are all different concepts. Which can overlap but there not really interchangeable terms it just depends on how you use the term. Zoning is probably the most ambiguous of the terms but that's a different discussion.

 

[Smog Frog]

curious: when people think of zoning, what image pops into your mind?

 

[meleebrawler]

Zoning usually involves controlling the opponent with projectiles well outside of melee. From there you sometimes reach the point where one character has more melee range than the other, which is spacing. Then is the range where both can potentially hit one another which is footsies, and finally the shortest-ranged fighting which is usually determined by speed is called boxing.

 

[Mr. ShinyUmbreon]

curious: when people think of zoning, what image pops into your mind?

Normally, when I think of zoning. I picture anyone using a projectile to keep opponents away. Or just using projectiles in general I suppose. Does using a projectile to approach, like Mario's fireballs or Link's bombs count as zoning?

 

[wpwood]

Normally, when I think of zoning. I picture anyone using a projectile to keep opponents away. Or just using projectiles in general I suppose. Does using a projectile to approach, like Mario's fireballs or Link's bombs count as zoning?

I don't think using projectiles to approach is zoning. Like you said, it's more keeping people away and out of your zone. The zone is the reach your projectiles have and the area they cover to keep an opponent out. How effective that is determines how effective a character is at zoning. So Mairo has a weaker zoning game than someone like Link or T Link.

I don't think this is true at all. Footsies mostly deal woth the walk speed of a character and the ability to move in and out of your opponents range while staying in your range. It's impossible to not play footsies in any fighting game.

It's sensible to argue that traditional footsies don't even exist in Smash because the effective range of every character is too great due to the high mobility aspect of the game, especially with Smash 4's improved dash grabs and running speeds. You can choose not to play footsies against most characters and just grab them instead. The only characters with "footsies" are ones with long reaching attacks and projectiles, but in most matchups that just results in outspacing the opponent, not actual footsies.

Don't count out short hoping and empty hoping in the footsies game. Palutena's footsies consist more of short hops than walking and being on the ground. But you're right that you can not just ignore footsies in this game. Sure a faster character could dash in on a character doing a slower move, but why is someone doing a slow move while playing footsies. I would never use Palutena's f-tilt while playing footsies with an opponent, I would stick to her faster aerials. Long reaching attacks are more spacing than footsies, footsies are done to get your character into the space they need to be to get good hits in or to get your opponent to think they are in the right space and you can still punish them. Footsies creates spacing; it is very easy to confuse the two in that sense, but there is a difference between the two.

 

[bc1910]

curious: when people think of zoning, what image pops into your mind?

Projectile spamming lol. Let's be honest, that's what zoning is. Controlling zones... by spamming projectiles.

The definition can extend to midrange spacing though IMO.

 

[Gamegenie222]

Sorry for bringing back the Tekken comparison, but I feel like I should mention this

Tekken Tag 2 is VERY balanced in spite of its large roster (which, honestly, has so many clones) because the game has so few stuff that could be considered broken or unfair (there's like, the Mishima's EWGF and some other launchers?) and the game actually isn't that complex at all, not even high execution outside backdash cancelling and other moves, it just has a lot of depth. The tag team mechanics and the way the game is designed in general gives pretty much every character necessary options to compete. I'm no dedicated Tekken player though, so I'd appreciate if someone else can expand on this, or even correct me if I'm wrong.

Smash is actually really complex and there's a lot of nuances here and there. Stages play a laaarger role than they do in Tekken, you have more movement options, DI, fall speeds, overall aerial mobility, etc etc etc. Every traditional fighting game player I know that tried Smash actually think the mechanics are way too convoluted. Taking this into account, there's bound to be characters that could abuse the system.

I used to play Tekken and other 3d games for a small bit but yeah I can try to chime in on it. Alot of you said is right and outside of korean backdash canceling which is super important and needed to weave in and out and not make your characters feel stiff and force whiffs alot of execution stuff is character specific like EWGF( Mishima characters) Wavedashing( Bob's, Armor King, Mishima family not Jinpachi) Instant while rising moves like instant Shining Wizard for the kings, EWHF( Regular Jin), OTGF( Heihachi), Taunt Canceling( Bryan) JF Skyrocket kick( Hworang), JF Demolition man( Paul) and other stuff like that. From Tekken 6 onward there is rage and in tag 2 rage is super important for tag crashes so you can safely get your 2nd character in but characters can blow this up with using parries or other means to beat them so people learned to mix up raw tags and tag crashes.

 

[thehard]

So it seems Abadango wrote something about counterpick theory on his blog

Is there someone who would do the kind task of translating it? @Jucchan maybe?

 

[Lyserdon]

curious: when people think of zoning, what image pops into your mind?

I've always been under the impression that zoning is primarily focused on influencing the opponent's movement into your desired range while spacing is more moving yourself into your desired range. So as Charizard when I run up with a short hop Flamethrower and time it to hit at max range, I'm spacing. When Captain Falcon approaches me on the ground and I use a wall of tilts, jabs, and Flamethrower to keep him out, that's zoning. The association of zoning with long range/projectiles comes from the fact that most projectiles are zoning tools (either to keep you out or force you in), and require less precise spacing than an attack you'd think of as "spacing", like a sword.

Side note: there's also a lot of confusion between the terms "footsies" and "neutral" in this thread and I'd like to take a stab at clearing it up.

Neutral is any situation where neither opponent has an advantage.

Footsies is a mid range encounter played in the neutral where fighters use a combination of mobility, pokes, and counter pokes to try to force an error and capitalize into an advantaged state.

In a traditional fighter, footsies pretty much IS the neutral. But in Smash Bros, the mobility, stage size, and options for some characters allow them to avoid playing footsies (as I understand it, ignoring footsies is rare in other games), but not to avoid playing the neutral game in some form or another.

I think a lot of the confusion and disagreement regarding neutral and footsies would be alleviated by either agreeing to a universal and precise set of definitions, or by merely describing the state of play we're talking about, rather than relying on readers to interpret a label in the same way we do.

Shout out to @Emblem Lord for pretty much entirely shaping my concept of this stuff.

 

[LightLV]

Sorry for bringing back the Tekken comparison, but I feel like I should mention this

Tekken Tag 2 is VERY balanced in spite of its large roster (which, honestly, has so many clones) because the game has so few stuff that could be considered broken or unfair (there's like, the Mishima's EWGF and some other launchers?) and the game actually isn't that complex at all, not even high execution outside backdash cancelling and other moves, it just has a lot of depth. The tag team mechanics and the way the game is designed in general gives pretty much every character necessary options to compete. I'm no dedicated Tekken player though, so I'd appreciate if someone else can expand on this, or even correct me if I'm wrong.

Smash is actually really complex and there's a lot of nuances here and there. Stages play a laaarger role than they do in Tekken, you have more movement options, DI, fall speeds, overall aerial mobility, etc etc etc. Every traditional fighting game player I know that tried Smash actually think the mechanics are way too convoluted. Taking this into account, there's bound to be characters that could abuse the system.

You're right, Tekken is NOT a complicated game, it's just a very deep one. There are alot of nuances to everything and while no system is particularly complicated, the amount of depth they create is pretty massive. It's why Tekken has nothing like 1-frame links, and its buffer is extremely lenient, but 2D fighting players will say the game is too hard to learn.

As for balance, here's why I say Tekken Tag 2 is a good example to follow, even for Smash.

Tekken is a game built around options. Instead of most 2D fighters, where specific characters fill a specific niche, Tekken is a game where EVERYONE is given a basic set of options and they work forward from there. Everyone can low parry, MOST everyone has a mid parry option of some sorts, everyone has the same general options on the floor, everyone has some version of a hopkick / standard launch punish, everyone has multiple grabs types, ect ect ect. And then from there, the moveset lists are pretty big, and the game's mechanics are vast, so they can add a unique identity from multiple angles than just shoehorning a character into one. You've got the Mishimas and their punish game, tricky characters like ling/Lei, versatile characters like Law, grapplers, ect ect.


And this is why Smash 64 is most balanced smash game. It's not its roster size, it's how they designed characters. Smash gives every character a standard set of options (roll, sidestep, airdodge, ect) but it doesn't expand that past defense and evasion, and so when it comes to offense, some characters are inherently given options that others don't have. But in SSB64? EVERYONE has a kill throw. (nearly) EVERYONE has a sex kick Nair (that kills/gimps). Z-cancelling wasn't based on the previous animation -- it removed ALL landing lag, for everybody, it didn't matter. I believe every character in SSB64 had a 0-death combo except for Samus. I think.

Melee was close...but it's where the big differences started to arise. But again, everyone could wavedash (and thus edgehog), everyone had a reflector (due to powershield), everyone could L-cancel. Melee gave every character alot of options.

Brawl chose a different path, where combos became more limited and the game was a bit more methodical instead of technical. And this actually would have worked pretty well, but there was one or two characters who just had vastly better options and it skewed the meta. (not to mention tripping)

And here in Smash 4 we've come to yet another issue with non-standard tools for dealing with offense. Shields have been buffed, which inherently buffs punish options, which inherently nerfs offense. And thus, the current meta is skewed in a direction that favors characters who can poke fast or get high reward off a grab. Your Sheiks, Diddys, ZSSs, Falcons, and Marios.


This is why i think the nerfs to shieldlag/shieldpush and buffs to evasion are so painful to this game's meta. Characters like Zelda desperately need those values in order to justify their unsafe and risky movesets, but it's just another pressure option completely removed. Something as simple as removing the ability to push a defender off the ledge is a massive nerf to hard hitters and slower characters.

IMO if Smash would just revert its shield properties to brawl levels, a bunch of mid/low tiers would instantly shoot up the list.

 

[Rashyboy05]

I love fox but I must say that he needs a big buff he's lacking in everything I think everyone is just a big hatter

Remember people, IGNORE THESE KINDS OF POSTS.

Also, don't double post please. That's against the forum rules.
Edit: Wow, triple post.

 

[Deleted member]

Spoiler: RE: Zoning

Whenever I think "zoning" I tend to think of the term "space control."

That is, as I define it (and as some others have already pointed out) it's all about controlling the space around you and controlling your opponent's space and the general ("neutral") space with which both you and your opponent have to work.

By "neutral" space I sort of mean space on the stage that neither opponent has really claimed (as a specific example I suppose we can literally use the "neutral state" where neither character has yet attained their advantaged state and perhaps where stage control has yet to be taken (although I personally universally connote stage control as being a part of any character's advantaged state)).

Link's bombs (and in combination with his boomerang, I suppose) are the ideal example (IMO) of a zoning/space control tool because they can be used to cover such an amount of space on the stage. Link can throw them upwards at varying heights, smash throw or soft throw them forwards/backwards z-drop them, pick them back up with aerials or z-catching, not to mention the extra options that IMO he gets when combines these directional throwing options with bombsliding, in which case he can change his space (move forwards or backwards) while using the bombs to (temporarily) occupy another space on the stage (in front of him for forward bombslides, above him for U-throw bombslides, and behind him for retreating bombslides).

(And when I mention his boomerang, I contend it as a zoning tool because while the bombs can cover all four cardinal directions (of course being limited to covering two simultaneously), the boomerang can cover 1 of the four diagonal directions at relatively the same time).

I honestly tend to think of zoning as having both defensive and offensive interpretations in a territorial aspect. That is, there can be "offensive zoning" wherein zoning tools are used to influence/invade a desired space on the stage (such as center stage) in an attempt to take over that space, either with strictly zoning tools or perhaps using the zoning tools to apply pressure before attempting to take control of the space by physically advancing the character into the space and adding additional pressure with *some* CQC.

I differentiate this "offensive zoning" from the idea of "approaching with projectiles" because in my mind this approach is more about taking over a space on the stage with a character's offensive zoning tools ("offensive zoning") and then working to keep the opponent out of this desired space instead of continuing to approach this opponent once you have forced them out (At which point the "offensive zoning" transforms to "defensive zoning", which is more or less the conventional idea of zoning to keep an opponent out of your space).

Of course such a dichotomy may serve to really convolute the general idea of zoning, but it is nonetheless how I interpret/define it.

(And I honestly believe that playing Link with such a "dichotomous zoning" or "space control" mindset is the optimal way he should be played, but I digress).

 

[Y2Kay]

Remember people, IGNORE THESE KINDS OF POSTS.

Also, don't double post please. That's against the forum rules.
Edit: Wow, triple post.

I would respond but the boy can't even spell.

 

[LightLV]

Link is the closest thing to a zoner in this game. His projectiles are good enough that he's completely comfortable fighting you across the map and can get most of his damage primarily off that. He only ever needs to get close to kill you, and by that point it should only take one of his normals or a grab, which has ridiculous range.

It looks like Zelda was also meant to be a type of Zoner, but isn't because her long-range attacks are all garbage and don't really have to be respected at all.

 

[Ffamran]

I don't think this is true at all. Footsies mostly deal woth the walk speed of a character and the ability to move in and out of your opponents range while staying in your range. It's impossible to not play footsies in any fighting game. Even a game like smash which is a bit different you have to take into account more things in footsie. And it's not limited to the ground either. If you've ever watched marvel before you can see them playing footsies although it's in the air.

Range and projectiles have very little to do with footsies. It becomes important when you want to whiff punish or stay in your effective range. Projectiles have more to do with zoning than footsie. Now projectiles can also be used as pokes depending on the projectile.

Footsies and pokes range zoning and projectiles are all different concepts. Which can overlap but there not really interchangeable terms it just depends on how you use the term. Zoning is probably the most ambiguous of the terms but that's a different discussion.

Trifroze did say "traditional footsies" and not general footsies. True since Smash works differently than traditional fighting games, but still has general fighting game mechanics since it is a fighting game (and party game too).

You're right, Tekken is NOT a complicated game, it's just a very deep one. There are alot of nuances to everything and while no system is particularly complicated, the amount of depth they create is pretty massive. It's why Tekken has nothing like 1-frame links, and its buffer is extremely lenient, but 2D fighting players will say the game is too hard to learn.

As for balance, here's why I say Tekken Tag 2 is a good example to follow, even for Smash.

Tekken is a game built around options. Instead of most 2D fighters, where specific characters fill a specific niche, Tekken is a game where EVERYONE is given a basic set of options and they work forward from there. Everyone can low parry, MOST everyone has a mid parry option of some sorts, everyone has the same general options on the floor, everyone has some version of a hopkick / standard launch punish, everyone has multiple grabs types, ect ect ect. And then from there, the moveset lists are pretty big, and the game's mechanics are vast, so they can add a unique identity from multiple angles than just shoehorning a character into one. You've got the Mishimas and their punish game, tricky characters like ling/Lei, versatile characters like Law, grapplers, ect ect.


And this is why Smash 64 is most balanced smash game. It's not its roster size, it's how they designed characters. Smash gives every character a standard set of options (roll, sidestep, airdodge, ect) but it doesn't expand that past defense and evasion, and so when it comes to offense, some characters are inherently given options that others don't have. But in SSB64? EVERYONE has a kill throw. (nearly) EVERYONE has a sex kick Nair (that kills/gimps). Z-cancelling wasn't based on the previous animation -- it removed ALL landing lag, for everybody, it didn't matter. I believe every character in SSB64 had a 0-death combo except for Samus. I think.

Melee was close...but it's where the big differences started to arise. But again, everyone could wavedash (and thus edgehog), everyone had a reflector (due to powershield), everyone could L-cancel. Melee gave every character alot of options.

Brawl chose a different path, where combos became more limited and the game was a bit more methodical instead of technical. And this actually would have worked pretty well, but there was one or two characters who just had vastly better options and it skewed the meta. (not to mention tripping)

And here in Smash 4 we've come to yet another issue with non-standard tools for dealing with offense. Shields have been buffed, which inherently buffs punish options, which inherently nerfs offense. And thus, the current meta is skewed in a direction that favors characters who can poke fast or get high reward off a grab. Your Sheiks, Diddys, ZSSs, Falcons, and Marios.


This is why i think the nerfs to shieldlag/shieldpush and buffs to evasion are so painful to this game's meta. Characters like Zelda desperately need those values in order to justify their unsafe and risky movesets, but it's just another pressure option completely removed. Something as simple as removing the ability to push a defender off the ledge is a massive nerf to hard hitters and slower characters.

IMO if Smash would just revert its shield properties to brawl levels, a bunch of mid/low tiers would instantly shoot up the list.

Or we could go the route of The King of Fighters XIII, presumably its sequel if they don't really change much, and Street Fighter V if we listen to, if I remember correctly, the developers desire to focus on fundamentals. In both series' listed entries, characters have specific niches or roles, but no character really gets invalidated or is just way better like in Smash or, ironically, Marvel vs. Capcom 3 - don't know about the previous ones.

Link is the closest thing to a zoner in this game. His projectiles are good enough that he's completely comfortable fighting you across the map and can get most of his damage primarily off that. He only ever needs to get close to kill you, and by that point it should only take one of his normals or a grab, which has ridiculous range.

It looks like Zelda was also meant to be a type of Zoner, but isn't because her long-range attacks are all garbage and don't really have to be respected at all.

What about Toon Link? Duck Hunt, Mega Man, Mii Gunner, and Villager? And Samus to a degree? Maybe Wii Fit Trainer?

Remember people, IGNORE THESE KINDS OF POSTS.

Also, don't double post please. That's against the forum rules.
Edit: Wow, triple post.

Yes, but that also includes not quoting them or bringing attention to them at all.

 

[TTTTTsd]

I hate to be that guy but what buffs to shield and evasive options are we talking about? You mean upon Smash 4's release, right? Because consequently both of the above have been toned down patch by patch. Rolls are NOTICEABLY less effective and shields very much got worse than they were at Smash 4's launch. Even the powershield window got bumped down from its old 4 frame one to a 3 frame one, not a big difference on paper but 4 to 3 frames in game is noticeable, kind of like how when you cut 2-3 frames off of a move's startup it can become WAYYY better (see Falco Uair). In the past two patches alone (1.1.1 and 1.1.0) both rolls have taken a hit, with back rolls losing 2 frames overall (Front roll was only changed in 1.1.0 I believe, probably for the better as front roll is inherently riskier), air dodges losing a frame or two, shields being rehauled like twice now with how hitlag works, the latest of which adds a lot of interesting ways to hit a shield with spaced aerials and not have to worry about a shield drop punish (obviously if you mis-space you're eating an OoS punish), I mean, it's been pretty evident they're toning it down.

All of the stuff about defensive and evasive options being too strong (potentially, not a grounded fact, we never got to see how far people would take pre-patch rolls as they got changed going forward) applied to the first versions of this game moreso than the one we're playing now, personally.

And while 64 is very balanced I won't say it's balanced in a proper way. Shielding in 64 is very, very risky because everyone can legitimately break your shield in VERY SIMPLE combos rather than complex setups (in most cases). All Mario has to do is SH Dair, Smooth land, rinse and repeat. It's incredibly silly. 64 isn't really balanced because they gave everyone identical toolkits, it's because everyone kills each other in like one combo anyways so your unfavorable matchups are very usually 6:4 (not very often 7:3) because you get hit once and you die. I argue the tier list in 64 is a matter of who does it easiest rather than who can actually do it. It's balanced in the sense that Fist of the North Star is with its competitively viable characters, which is why 64 has a very dedicated, kinda small scene. Also having a small roster is inherently a factor as to why it's also balanced because you can design better and more intuitive matchups in a reasonable span of time when you have a character roster of like, 12 compared to say, 50+, and have it ready upon initial release, even. This is the entire reason why SF5 is launching with like, 16 characters and 5 DLC ones, DLC of which is coming out slowly and in a trickled sort of fashion over the course of one year, both to extend lifespan and properly integrate them into the roster. You can very easily balance and control roster interactions in a more controlled environment like this.

 

[Radical Larry]

5th is something, but 24th even in a stacked event... When we're looking for characters to 'fear' we gotta remember even at super majors only the top 8 get payed out and it usually doesn't even reach that far. When people say the game is so balanced (while it's pretty solid) we gotta remember even some of these characters that get okayish results cannot consistently top 8 at majors and that's gonna be a real big deal as people get even better at this game going into the future.

The beginning of a fighting game always is the best part. Things will solidify quite bit more in time after the patches and DLC are done coming in. Just wait.

Well, Link and Toon Link getting higher placements recently shows me one thing, these characters are very viable. With Link I could see him being in the upper middle to center middle tier range in the 23 to 26 spots at the best, and Toon Link may not be far behind from Link at all either, probably around the same spots or 22 to 25. But we have to wait and see the excitement that may unfold with the tournaments; though the spots I believe they can be in aren't a stretch at all for them.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

Zoning = keeping opponents in desired range. This goes beyond just projectiles, as long range normals can come into play ( see: dhalsim)
Footsies = strategies on how to hit your opponents without getting hit. Ranging from dancing inside the enemy's bubble and out, whiff punishing, calculated randomness (mixing it up basically), using pokes to control space and even smash specific strategies (tomahawks and standing at the right distance from the ledge to make a ledge attack whiff, but close enough to reliably punish other ledge options).
Spacing = maximizing the effective range of your normals to be safe. Plays a huge part in footsies and zoning.

 

[Trifroze]

Don't count out short hoping and empty hoping in the footsies game. Palutena's footsies consist more of short hops than walking and being on the ground. But you're right that you can not just ignore footsies in this game. Sure a faster character could dash in on a character doing a slower move, but why is someone doing a slow move while playing footsies. I would never use Palutena's f-tilt while playing footsies with an opponent, I would stick to her faster aerials.

I don't think this is true at all. Footsies mostly deal woth the walk speed of a character and the ability to move in and out of your opponents range while staying in your range. It's impossible to not play footsies in any fighting game. Even a game like smash which is a bit different you have to take into account more things in footsie. And it's not limited to the ground either. If you've ever watched marvel before you can see them playing footsies although it's in the air.

And that is why traditional footsies don't actually exist in Smash 4. They don't exist in Marvel either, what is done in that game is almost just as different.

Footsies originate from Street Fighter, it's a Street Fighter term used for back and forth walking on the ground to avoid the opponent's pokes while using your own. Stop trying to apply the term into something it doesn't describe, it's pretentious and spacing is a much more descriptive term for Smash despite being broader. Like both of you said Smash encompasses more because of its different gameplay, thus it needs a broader term and not one specifically created for SF.