Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[PK Gaming]

I think you're reading things into my post which simply aren't there.

Fair enough.

I take issue, however, with this rose-colored-glasses view of the new game that suggests that it has more depth or is more difficult than the previous entry in the series; I also want to suggest that the balance in this new game is going to be inevitably worse due to the mechanics (ignoring balance patches for the moment). This is an observation based on years of experience with melee, brawl, and smash 4, not a value judgment aimed at taking down smash ultimate or targeting your enjoyment of the game. If I've framed things in a particularly negative or harsh light, it's because you've repeatedly framed them in a disproportionately positive way that in my opinion they don't deserve, so some counterbalance is necessary.

New game hype is a definitely thing, but I don't think either of those claims are particularly contentious. It's fair to suggest that Smash Ultimate has more depth than Smash 4 when the new mechanics lead to more player freedom without coming at the expense of balance. It's fair to say the game is more difficult when defensive options like air dodge & and rolling were nerfed to such a degree wherein careful application of those options is the only way to succeed. Ultimate undeniably demands so much more from the player (more focus, better spacing and better decision making) in comparison to Smash 4. It's not that I find your perspective harsh or overly negative, it just comes across as perplexing.

As far as my read on the metagame, this is no parody, nor is it meant as a slight to smash ultimate. if my own experience isn't enough to convince you, this is the same take that Dabuz has. But rather than argue on the correctness of the read, I'll rephrase it: RPS in fighting games always exists and always will; Ultimate didn't expand the RPS concept, just shifted it.

It's overly reductive, even for Smash. Breaking the game down into just those options completely misses the point. The goal in any Smash game isn't to just get good at doing those things, it's learning your opponent's behavior and exploiting it. Dash attack > Dash dance doesn't actually mean anything of anything. Is your opponent dash dancing in place every so often like a dark souls boss and that loses out to dash attack? What about characters who have punishing fairs to beat out careless dashes? What about short hops, which are arguably more common than dash dances? RPS will always be a thing in fighting games, but they're deemphasized in Smash due to freedom of moment, variability of play and relative lack of 50-50s.

This isn't an opinion just supported by myself. ZeRo's made this point in many of his streams and even some of his videos, where he goes into what's needed to succeed in Smash Ultimate. Autopiloting in Smash Ultimate, as in, solely focusing on SH aerials and dash dancing or w/e without keeping the opponent in mind will get you wrecked.

Instead of taking issue with my tone, and using wording like parody, myopic and disingenuous, you could offer something substantive. A substantive response to my claim would look something like this:

"But dash dancing doesn't always beat shielding because parrying is a mechanic, so this theoretical triangle that you suggested actually has room for layers of yomi"

(forgive me fighting game theorists for my inaccurate usage of the word yomi; it just conveys the point better)

It just felt like you were arguing in bad faith, using reductive reasoning to make your points without saying anything substantial. The RPS example doesn't tell me anything.

Even your example falls flat because parrying has not significantly explored into Smash Ultimate's metagame yet, and likely won't be a goto counter option to baiting shield (and tbh buffering a jump just seems like a safer, better option)

This, however:

"It's a new game"
"It's too early to tell"
"You have a lot of movement options"

I can't get behind. These are self-defeating blanket statements. You yourself claimed that this game is much deeper than smash 4--how do you know? Isn't it "too early to tell"? The game has only been out for a month, and you already want to assess its depth as being greater than a game that people managed to find deeply satisfying for over 5 years?

I actually agree with this sentiment. I hate it when people shut down arguments with "it's too early!" or "tier lists this early are completely useless!" These claims can be thought-terminating and frustrating to deal with since there shouldn't be a problem discussing things in a discussion thread. However, Smash Ultimate's advantages over Smash 4 are incredibly evident. The changes to air dodging and rolling alone give the game more depth (something that even Smash team felt was a big deal since it was a their initial E3 video). The game having more depth over its predecessor isn't just a sentiment shared by myself or some of the top players in this thread. Virtually every top player has expressed this at some point, through stream or actual video. Even Melee players like Armada and Leffen have a vested interest in Smash Ultimate. I know it's an easy out, but I think it means something when even Melee players seem interested in the game.

I like you and I like Smash Ultimate, and I'm glad that you enjoy it.

I hope that this clarifies my position a bit.

I like you too man. I've always enjoyed your posts in the Smash 4 character impressions thread. In fact I hope you'll stick around for this game's lifespan as well.

What does this mean? What is a linear recovery and why does it exist in smash 4 but not in Ultimate?

Using the combination of a character's recovery + air dodging to make it back on stage. Even Cloud's "bad" recovery in Smash 4 was difficult to contest to the strength of his air speed, air dodge and Up B giving him a consistent path to recover.

What's a linear approach? Does dash dancing a few times before you dash attack constitute a non-linear approach? (think foxtrotting Cloud from smash 4)

I guess "more linear" would be more accurate, but your typical Smash 4 character has less approach options than a Smash Ultimate one. I don't think that's a particularly controversial thing to say (especially since in retrospect, Smash 4 Cloud feels like a base for Smash Ultimate as awhole)

mitigating risk also means that you can take more risks because there are more neutral interactions per stock; 3 stocks in Ultimate (a point you bring up in Ultimate's favor, even though it's a tournament ruleset call and not part of the game engine at all) may end up being fewer neutral interactions per game than 2 stocks in smash 4.

How do we define taking more risks in Smash 4 though? Edgeguarding (if you weren't a specialist) wasn't worth it most of the time. Characters like Diddy Kong who had top class ledgeplay were (usually) better off comfortably reading their opponent and destroying them on getup instead of chasing them off stage. Characters with kill throw setups were better off patiently waiting for their moment to close out a stock. Smash 4 always struck me as a conservative fighting game, where knowing how to maximize your punishes, being good at spacing and reading your opponent were the best way to succeed.

The reason why I brought up 3 stocks for Smash Ultimate in comparison to Smash 4 is because it works well with the game's speed. Smash Ultimate benefits immensely from it, since the votality of 2 stocks was always a sticking point for Smash players. This is a sentiment that's shared by many players, and not just myself.

Have I mentioned yet how much I love 3 stocks ?? Even if it statistically made little to no difference in results. It's just that feeling you get when you lose your first stock but then realize you still have 2 full stocks left makes the game so much less frustrating

— BKROG | Ramin (@Mr_RSmash) December 12, 2018

Punish quality always scales with game time. A more punishing disadvantage shifts the focus from neutral to advantage. What's the problem with that, you ask? Nothing, actually; it makes it a different type of game, but that may be fine. For me, personally, it's one of the reasons that I never got into competitive Melee and it's not something that I like about this game.

A more punishing disadvantage means you have to play better, period. Mistakes that would cost you damage in Smash 4 could cost you a stock in Ultimate. It's not inherently better, but it does undeniably reward skillful play on both ends.

Advantage is fundamentally a state where one player has a lopsided role. The more important advantage is, the more something like practicing combos in training mode is critical to success rather than figuring out your opponent's habits. It's still skill, you're right, but it's of a different sort.

I don't think what you're describing is mutually exclusive. Practicing combos in training mode alone has never been critical to success on its own, and you need to be able to figure out your opponent's habits AND implement the combos you've practiced to succeed.

You're free to have the last word if you want, I've had my say.

To be honest, I used to be obsessed with having the last word in arguments. In the Smash 4 threads character impression threads, I took pride in winning arguments (because I wasn't a good player, lol), but I realize now that it didn't amount to anything. I sucked at Smash and my knowledge of that game was lacking. So believe me when I say that i'm not concerned with being right in this particular debate. I just wanted to challenge your viewpoints head on. I don't like being overly optimistic about anything, but, being fatalist about a game this early just doesn't feel right to me.

 

[bc1910]

I think this match showcases well what new can do, the second and third matches also shows , especially how much better Doctor Tornado is this time around.

I don’t think this was an impressive MK showing, in particular the lack of edgeguarding in the final match. You could at least have picked a set that MK wins, or gets close to winning?

 

[Phosphophyllite]

I don’t think this was an impressive MK showing, in particular the lack of edgeguarding in the final match. You could at least have picked a set that MK wins, or gets close to winning?

I'm fully aware it isn't optimal MK play and we're not going to see that kind of play for a while I think. Plus to me winning is irrelevant, it's what is done in the match itself that matters. A player can show off a lot of tech in a match and still lose, it doesn't make the stuff they've shown off lesser or not worth it.

 

[NairWizard]

To be honest, I used to be obsessed with having the last word in arguments. In the Smash 4 threads character impression threads, I took pride in winning arguments (because I wasn't a good player, lol), but I realize now that it didn't amount to anything. I sucked at Smash and my knowledge of that game was lacking.

Realizing this is a good thing.

Debating people is often valueless. Education, not debate, drives progress and increases understanding. Knowing when to stop responding and let the strength of your convictions stand on their own is critical to this end, because the longer a "debate" runs, the more the point is lost. Not getting the final word doesn't mean that you've lost; it just means that you've said all the valuable things that there were to say.

In that spirit, instead of exhaustively responding to your points, let me put aside the comparison of smash 4 and Ultimate for now and offer these thoughts:

1) Having more options means more breadth, not more depth. Breadth has nothing to do with depth--in fact, more breadth usually implies less depth. For instance, the bigger the cast of characters is in a game (the more breadth), the harder it is to have intimate matchup knowledge on every character.

Within the context of fighting games, it's not hard to see why more options doesn't mean more depth. Sheik has tons of options out of shield--n-air, f-air, grab, whatever--but each additional option beyond the first one or two doesn't increase the depth of her OOS game because they all do essentially the same thing (minus a few subtle nuances which we'll elide here): punish a misspaced attack on shield.

So your game could have twenty billion movement options instead of five, but that wouldn't make the game necessarily any deeper.

2) Similarly, a game being faster and more punishing doesn't mean that the game has greater depth. Having more to memorize and more to think about and more to focus on doesn't make a game deeper, though it could, in the right context.

3) A game being better or more modern doesn't mean that it's deeper, either. For all the terrible mechanics in Brawl, for all its imbalance, for all its utter bull****, it had fairly solid depth at top-level play. Meta Knight dittos, as boring as they were, were so deep at the top end that you could write entire volumes of pages (dozens of CCI threads) about the best way to play them. People were regularly responding to a frame-4 21% damage Snake f-tilt in that game.

Smash 4, as much better as it was, stripped away some of the depth that Brawl had, while adding depth in other areas. It ended up being the deeper game compared to Brawl, but this wasn't a given when the game came out. But yes, we had the same round of people claiming that the balance was better than ever, that the depth was super insanely good, that it was the best smash to ever exist, that everything was roses because of the removal of tripping and chaingrabbing and better ledge mechanics.


Just some precautionary application of fighting game theory for you.

 

[Thinkaman]

Quick aside--I've been doing some testing of OoS options because it seemed very high priority.

Shield drop is 11 frames, as stated in many places.

You cannot shieldgrab during the 4 frames of shielding after shieldstun, essentially extra shieldstun that applies only to grab. This much we also knew.

But this additional time does NOT apply to any other out of shield actions, nor does it affect the normal amount of shieldstun before dropping shield. This was the only inaccuracy in Izaw's video.

Furthermore, much has been said about the ability to jump out of shield drop. However, there is no need to drop shield--you can still do all OoS options besides grab (jump, up smash, up special, dodge) after shieldstun without penalty. (The information quoted on eventhubs was incorrect on this.) Remember that in Smash Ultimate, both up smash and up special are fully recognized as legal inputs out of shield without any need to input a jump command.

Fast aerials are getting a lot of hype as a go-to OoS option, and rightly so. But up smash and up specials are as good as good as ever, so feel free to hop on the Doc train.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Fast aerials are fun and all, but do you all know how satisfying it is to abuse Aether's F5 super armour OoS? Bonus points if done at the ledge and you're able to drag them off stage for their stock. Or like say, if they decide to do a ledge attack.

Ain't like I'm going to be using Ike's Usmash OoS, that's for sure

 

[bc1910]

I'm fully aware it isn't optimal MK play and we're not going to see that kind of play for a while I think. Plus to me winning is irrelevant, it's what is done in the match itself that matters. A player can show off a lot of tech in a match and still lose, it doesn't make the stuff they've shown off lesser or not worth it.

It doesn’t need to be optimal. I’m simply struggling to see how it’s a good showcase of what MK can do, as you originally stated.

Winning isn’t a necessity but performing well at least helps to support the point that the character can be successful, something this set doesn’t even achieve.

 

[PK Gaming]

Everyone who's still on the "I can't win, X character's tool is too OP" train should watch the above set.

Void's adaptation to Snake's neutral game was legendary. I'm not saying you should discount oppressive tools, but midgame adaption is so so crucial in this game. I'll admit, I also fell into the trap of "**** Nikita" but I feel like more than ever before, you can play your way through nearly any matchup in this game.

It'll be extremely hard, though.

 

[Ajani]

Everyone who's still on the "I can't win, X character's tool is too OP" train should watch the above set.

I'm not trying to discredit you but who is saying that?

 

[PK Gaming]

I'm not trying to discredit you but who is saying that?

Twitter, twitch chat, discord... it's a pretty common sentiment for fighting games

 

[Luigifan18]

I'm not trying to discredit you but who is saying that?

Every scrub ever.

 

[NairWizard]

the people who are saying that X character is too oppressive, can't win are basically so bad that they're irrelevant

i don't think this is a shining example of adaptation against oppressive odds in a set though. Seemed more like Void simply figuring out the Snake matchup as he wasn't a Brawl vet. I think that Trifroze 's prediction about Snake is gonna be real, but it could go either way.


Fun backstory that may lend some context to the set: Pikachu was historically good against Snake by design, even disregarding Brawl chaingrab, and Ally in particular was historically bad against Pikachu. For those who don't remember the Brawl days, MVD sometimes came out on top over ESAM but ESAM was Ally's "bracket demon" and couldn't beat the Pika. Ally's style with Snake leaves him much more vulnerable to Pika ledge pressure and we saw Void pick that apart throughout the set.

upsets against oppressive odds have always and will always be a thing; I mean, there was an SKTAR event late in Brawl's lifespan where the top three placements were 1 Snake 2 Diddy 3 Olimar (no MK in top 3), and I'm pretty sure we were all super hype when Ranai's Villager started doing things in the US (or later Kamemushi's Megaman) in smash 4.


that said, Pichu looks quite strong, much to my surprise. Better than Pikachu? I don't even think that comparisons to Pikachu are relevant; despite having some moveset similarities they play like completely different characters. Just the n-air alone makes all the difference in the world, I actually think that Pikachu would be better with his old n-air.

 

[YelloWiifitTrainer]

Alright ya'll I've been doing some thinking about this since launch day I think Bowser has been promoted to best character. In no particular order, here's why:

1. He can walk through weak moves like they're nothing. That's one of the biggest buffs of any character from 4 and it's hard to ignore. The "tough guy" nickname he's been given is not unearned.
2. His side B is unblockable and it's a guaranteed win when you have stock advantage. Again, hard to ignore offensive capabilities like that.
3. He is undoubtedly the best juggler in Ultimate. His aerials are simply unbelievable. I've had several online matches where the supposed best aerial character, Chrom has been unable to do anything against my Bowser. And it's not like I'm playing chumps, I got on For Glory and three wins later, I was an Elite Bowser. This is very clearly because of the sizeable buff to his landing lags he received since 4.
4. The one point against him that I've encountered more than a handful of times is his speed. This is frankly an outrageous ignorance to Bowser as he has received a sizeable speed buff since 4.
5. I've practiced for a lot a lot against elite and do not stand a chance against my Bowser.
6. I've attended a few tournaments hosted at my college (with over 30,000 students, most of them avid smashers), and have finished at least top 3 in all of them with my Bowser, and even won a couple.

Thoughts?

 

[Ffamran]

I really want to know what the knockback values for Pichu's Ftilt are because it seems a bit ridiculous. It's frame 5 on startup, has 8 active frames from 5 to 12, and has 24 total frames giving it 13 recovery frames. The base damage for it is 8% which would be 9.6% on 1v1, no items. At low percents, it trips and at high percents and near the ledge, it kills and seemingly at around percents Smashes and other kill moves do. The only things holding it back other than Pichu hurting itself since it is an electric move, are commitment considering it is a frame 5 move with 24 total frames, so if you were aiming to hit it as early as possible, then the recovery would be more like 20 frames, and range which I'm not sure how far it reaches considering Pichu's foot, leg, whatever grows in size for Ftilt.

 

[Trifroze]

A fairly obvious thing now that we're talking about where the characters are heading, one which I don't think has been explicitly pointed out, is that quick aggro characters are very novel early in the game as well. They get to make a ton of commitments and reap the occasional rewards for free when people don't yet exactly know what to watch out for and when, how and when to use your second jump or airdodge, which moves you can punish with your character etc.

Smash 4 Yoshi I think was a prime example of a character falling in effectiveness and popularity as time went on because early in the game no one was abusing his unsafe approach options, poor range and lack of easy and reliable kill setups. Players took unnecessary risks against him in neutral instead of just outhitboxing him, didn't punish his attacks properly, and got destroyed by him in the air because they didn't know when they should use their resources to get out. He was a clear contender for top 10 with one or two Yoshi mains doubting those claims because they already knew, and after a while, no one talked about him anymore because the rest learned as well. I think he ended up being lower mid tier at the end.

The question then becomes: which aggro characters might be more like Smash 4 Yoshi and which ones more like Smash 4 Fox who, despite his clear weaknesses, stayed up top.

 

[NairWizard]

A fairly obvious thing now that we're talking about where the characters are heading, one which I don't think has been explicitly pointed out, is that quick aggro characters are very novel early in the game as well. They get to make a ton of commitments and reap the occasional rewards for free when people don't yet exactly know what to watch out for and when, how and when to use your second jump or airdodge, which moves you can punish with your character etc.

Smash 4 Yoshi I think was a prime example of a character falling in effectiveness and popularity as time went on because early in the game no one was abusing his unsafe approach options, poor range and lack of easy and reliable kill setups. Players took unnecessary risks against him in neutral instead of just outhitboxing him, didn't punish his attacks properly, and got destroyed by him in the air because they didn't know when they should use their resources to get out. He was a clear contender for top 10 with one or two Yoshi mains doubting those claims because they already knew, and after a while, no one talked about him anymore because the rest learned as well. I think he ended up being lower mid tier at the end.

The question then becomes: which aggro characters might be more like Smash 4 Yoshi and which ones more like Smash 4 Fox who, despite his clear weaknesses, stayed up top.

smash 4 Fox kept optimizing his advantage state. It was pushed and pushed and pushed so hard that "Fox is honest" eventually became a meme. It's hard to tell right now which aggro characters will get 4Fox treatment. I guess that we'll figure it out much faster thanks to the lenient buffering system in this game though, but there may be some nasty stuff hiding behind the attack canceling gate and other as-of-yet-unfound gates.

Alright ya'll I've been doing some thinking about this since launch day I think Bowser has been promoted to best character. In no particular order, here's why:

1. He can walk through weak moves like they're nothing. That's one of the biggest buffs of any character from 4 and it's hard to ignore. The "tough guy" nickname he's been given is not unearned.
2. His side B is unblockable and it's a guaranteed win when you have stock advantage. Again, hard to ignore offensive capabilities like that.
3. He is undoubtedly the best juggler in Ultimate. His aerials are simply unbelievable. I've had several online matches where the supposed best aerial character, Chrom has been unable to do anything against my Bowser. And it's not like I'm playing chumps, I got on For Glory and three wins later, I was an Elite Bowser. This is very clearly because of the sizeable buff to his landing lags he received since 4.
4. The one point against him that I've encountered more than a handful of times is his speed. This is frankly an outrageous ignorance to Bowser as he has received a sizeable speed buff since 4.
5. I've practiced for a lot a lot against elite and do not stand a chance against my Bowser.
6. I've attended a few tournaments hosted at my college (with over 30,000 students, most of them avid smashers), and have finished at least top 3 in all of them with my Bowser, and even won a couple.

Thoughts?

My dude, you are in for a huge (hopefully pleasant) surprise. Try to attend a regional or national event. You'll find that there are at least ten (and more like fifteen) levels of skill higher than the elite smash players that you meet on For Glory. It may not seem like they're chumps, but trust me, it's deceiving until you understand the nuances of smash games. My extremely terrible Pacman (like, I am the worst Pacman player ever, no lies; he's not even a secondary, he may actually be my worst character) has 1.8 million GSP and I literally don't even know what all the fruits do. All I do is space aerials while barely paying attention to the game, with my fundamentals carrying me. For Glory will always be a joke.

 

[Browny]

Fun backstory that may lend some context to the set: Pikachu was historically good against Snake by design, even disregarding Brawl chaingrab,

And DK did extremely well vs DeDeDe when you disregard the chaingrab. A 0-100% chaingrab + edgeguarding with thunder scenario can not be disregarded.

 

[Ajani]

smash 4 Fox kept optimizing his advantage state. It was pushed and pushed and pushed so hard that "Fox is honest" eventually became a meme. It's hard to tell right now which aggro characters will get 4Fox treatment. I guess that we'll figure it out much faster thanks to the lenient buffering system in this game though, but there may be some nasty stuff hiding behind the attack canceling gate and other as-of-yet-unfound gates.





My dude, you are in for a huge (hopefully pleasant) surprise. Try to attend a regional or national event. You'll find that there are at least ten (and more like fifteen) levels of skill higher than the elite smash players that you meet on For Glory. It may not seem like they're chumps, but trust me, it's deceiving until you understand the nuances of smash games. My extremely terrible Pacman (like, I am the worst Pacman player ever, no lies; he's not even a secondary, he may actually be my worst character) has 1.8 million GSP and I literally don't even know what all the fruits do. All I do is space aerials while barely paying attention to the game, with my fundamentals carrying me. For Glory will always be a joke.

On the topic of this, is going to Tourneys the best way to improve? I always thought finding a group of similar mindset was the best way to improve

 

[BunbUn129]

On the topic of rush-down characters dropping over time, I know Wolf can't be counted as rush-down, but he will probably drop off to lower high-tier as things settle. He's just too reliant on blaster that it hurts him against characters like Pikachu, Pichu, and Snake who can duck and crawl under them. Those 3 can safely edge-guard him with projectiles, and Wolf will either have to air dodge to his death or take one of the hits and be gimped, or die outright in Nikita's case. Despite her heavy nerfs I expect Sheik to also be a tough MU for him, for the same reasons. The FE characters won't be as big as an obstacle since they don't have an easy answer to blaster, but countering Wolf's side b is a deadly option.

Wolf has a surprisingly difficult time landing kills, which is already apparent this early in the meta. He largely has to resort to throwing f smash and bair in neutral, and b throw doesn't kill very well without rage. He can nair tech-chase if the stars align, but his slow run speed limits his ability to follow-up. The problem is exacerbated against shorter characters who are harder to hit with bair. Watching top Wolf-play, players like Dex usually have to go for whiff-punishes with f smash on aerial approaches or d smash reads on the ledge, and spamming bair of course. It's not nearly as ideal as Fox nairing into smashes and Inkling having a confirm off grab, or Luigi having a kill-combo off d throw.

What this means is Wolf will have very good MU's against most of the cast except for the very few who can both ignore his camping and harass his recovery without having to risk getting hit by Wolf Flash.

 

[Nobie]

Here's a crazy prediction:

There's a strong chance that Squad Strike will become the most popular tournament format, but it's going to take some time. The key is going to be that the majority of players are going to, without even thinking of Squad Strike, develop some deep benches in their own roster.

The cast is so, so large in this game that I predict even the top of top tier will have some character counterpick weaknesses. It's to the extent that people might naturally gravitate towards not wanting to deal with a bad matchup for an entire game, and would prefer to give themselves more of a chance to switch up their game plans mid-game. There's also the chance of avoiding the bad matchup through smart character selection order.

It's definitely not a guarantee by any means, but the amount of multi-character experimentation and usage in these early tourneys and beyond might push the scene in that direction.

 

[Browny]

Here's a crazy prediction:

There's a strong chance that Squad Strike will become the most popular tournament format, but it's going to take some time. The key is going to be that the majority of players are going to, without even thinking of Squad Strike, develop some deep benches in their own roster.

The cast is so, so large in this game that I predict even the top of top tier will have some character counterpick weaknesses. It's to the extent that people might naturally gravitate towards not wanting to deal with a bad matchup for an entire game, and would prefer to give themselves more of a chance to switch up their game plans mid-game. There's also the chance of avoiding the bad matchup through smart character selection order.

It's definitely not a guarantee by any means, but the amount of multi-character experimentation and usage in these early tourneys and beyond might push the scene in that direction.

I literally said the same thing yesterday lol.

I would happily bet large sums of money that squad strike would be the most popular form, but I'll also bet that the community will stubbornly refuse to try anything new, because they always do.

Squad strike will win in the end because its popularity will eventually be too much for TO's to ignore, all that matters is how long it is prevented from doing so.

 

[ChikoLad]

I'm not trying to discredit you but who is saying that?

Can confirm that people still think Rosalina is OP in Ultimate for no reason other than "Luma exists". Some people are just inherently against the concept of puppet fighters.

Ran into a Fox who I had an uphill battle against once as Rosalina but managed to win. Matchmaking gave me him again despite not picking rematch and he SD'd after the first stock.

Even when Rosalina sucks now, some habits other players have against her never go away.

In general, people tend to target the characters with strange mechanics with the "OP" complaints rather than how good they are in practice. Snake falls into that category.

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

Squad strike is cool and I hope it becomes a staple at events but I don't want it to replace traditional 1v1. I want to be able to play a full three stocks with my main character and adapt throughout the set against my opponents main character not change matchups every stock.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

I literally said the same thing yesterday lol.

I would happily bet large sums of money that squad strike would be the most popular form, but I'll also bet that the community will stubbornly refuse to try anything new, because they always do.

Squad strike will win in the end because its popularity will eventually be too much for TO's to ignore, all that matters is how long it is prevented from doing so.

They would have to fix the studdering/lag in Squad Strike for it to become a thing.

The tournament I went to last weekend had Squad Strike and I threw some money in to try it out. Twice in my set the game completely locked up for a second, wasn't even during a character switch or anything. Were only playing on legal stages, just fighting like normal.

Until that's fixed, Squad Strike is dead as more people run into that issue.

 

[Routa]

One of the reasons why 2v2 is such a good side event has to do with the ruleset. You only have to add couple extra lines of text to 1v1 ruleset and now you have 2v2 ruleset. It is very simple to run also. With SS you have to make extra ruleset. While that might not be a massive problem it can bring some issues if it differs too much from 1v1. "But there is no chance that people mess up the rules" same was said about having both hazards on and off stages on the same stagelist.

I might later talk about doubles format and the impact of lower power on moves.

 

[DavemanCozy]

I can sympathize with Armada's desire to allow counterplay to develop, because somehow, despite knowing that we're not used to this game, we're making snap judgments on characters based on the options that seem immediately strong & are effectively destroying a bunch of newbies (yes, even the top players are newbies here) with ease.

I agree too. I still remember Little Mac getting unnecessarily patched at the beginning of smash4 and I mean there really was no good reason. He was just a popular online pick in FD only FG.

Pending any hoo hah nonsense or jab lock shennanigans (instances where patches were good imo), I think those are really the only situations patches should be a thing. I'd prefer to develop my own counterplay strats first, otherwise a patch would feel like a knee jerk reaction. Not quite so pleasant.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Pending any hoo hah nonsense or jab lock shennanigans (instances where patches were good imo), I think those are really the only situations patches should be a thing. I'd prefer to develop my own counterplay strats first, otherwise a patch would feel like a knee jerk reaction. Not quite so pleasant.

Would you consider Inkling's throw > uair kill confirm to be a hoo hah? What about Luigi's 0-death off of grabs?

 

[DavemanCozy]

Would you consider Inkling's throw > uair kill confirm to be a hoo hah? What about Luigi's 0-death off of grabs?

To be honest I would have to catch up with the stream backlog I've got before I have an informed opinion on that (tis the season).

If it overwhelms the meta and centralizes it to the point of making the game trivial (a la Smash4 Diddy), then it would be a problem.

 

[KakuCP9]

I think the funniest thing about Snake is how he can hold a grenade and then hold shield either causing any 'successful' approaches to be stopped cold or the opponent respecting his bomb shield and allowing Snake some breathing room (extra point for when the grenade blows up after a opponent's throw to kill momentum). On another note, I think Snake's disadvantage state should be looked through the lens of how Link's disadvantage works where without bomb, Link will get ripped to shreds. Yet with a bomb in hand, Link has fair amount of options to get out trouble. Snake is similar, but with one key difference, his bomb comes out at frame 3 so he doesn't need any preparation to get a tool for escaping juggles/combos. As such, calling his disadvantage state terrible is a bit misleading.
Also Trifroze is right about how Snake doesn't care about the opponent's parries.

 

[The_Bookworm]

I think the funniest thing about Snake is how he can hold a grenade and then hold shield either causing any 'successful' approaches to be stopped cold or the opponent respecting his bomb shield and allowing Snake some breathing room (extra point for when the grenade blows up after a opponent's throw to kill momentum). On another note, I think Snake's disadvantage state should be looked through the lens of how Link's disadvantage works where without bomb, Link will get ripped to shreds. Yet with a bomb in hand, Link has fair amount of options to get out trouble. Snake is similar, but with one key difference, his bomb comes out at frame 3 so he doesn't need any preparation to get a tool for escaping juggles/combos. As such, calling his disadvantage state terrible is a bit misleading.
Also Trifroze is right about how Snake doesn't care about the opponent's parries.

Actually, Grenades come out on frame 1, which is why Duck Hunt's frame 1 Trick Shot is often compared to Snake's Grenades.

 

[bc1910]

Would you consider Inkling's throw > uair kill confirm to be a hoo hah? What about Luigi's 0-death off of grabs?

Hoo hah being overcentralising was largely due the shield and grab mechanics in S4. Inkling’s hoo hah is much more acceptable in a game where everyone is killing earlier, shields are weaker and grabs are a lot more punishable. It kills later and works at a more narrow percent range anyhow.

0-deaths from grabs would still be a bit much. I’m not familiar with Luigi’s though, if you’re talking about that combo on Isabelle from a couple weeks ago I don’t know enough about it to comment (who it works on, how true it is etc).

 

[The_Bookworm]

0-deaths from grabs would still be a bit much. I’m not familiar with Luigi’s though, if you’re talking about that combo on Isabelle from a couple weeks ago I don’t know enough about it to comment (who it works on, how true it is etc).

Here is BSD's video for Luigi's 0-death grab combos. The developers thought it was okay to attach pre-patch SSB4 Luigi's down throw back to a version of Luigi that dash dashes faster, has higher traction, and with a ridiculously fast tether grab.

 

[PK Gaming]

i don't think this is a shining example of adaptation against oppressive odds in a set though. Seemed more like Void simply figuring out the Snake matchup as he wasn't a Brawl vet. I think that Trifroze 's prediction about Snake is gonna be real, but it could go either way.

It's not mutually exclusive. Figuring out the Snake matchup meant adapting to Ally, something Void was straight up unable to do at first (and it culminated into an ill-timed switch to Roy). "Figuring out the matchup" was something he had to figure out through good play, critical thinking, and judgement on his part.

Also, I don't think being a Brawl vet makes you more likely to figure out the Snake matchup in Smash Ultimate. Not trying to sound like a smartass, but Brawl Snake and Ultimate are pretty disparate, moveset similarities aside.

 

[TTTTTsd]

I think if we're going to make case arguments on "balance is worse bcuz of universal mechanics" I believe we should gauge all of them at net value for what they are and what they provide for the game.

Meaningfully, defense outright has been nerfed, but I think every character's neutral has been SUBSTANTIALLY buffed in a way that equalizes the field in meaningful, good ways, and it's important to look at that.

Let's take a look at something that I think has arbitrarily gated characters since Melee: jumpsquat. Universal 3f jumpsquat is a buff that varies in effectiveness for every character, but it largely benefits those who had 5-6 or more frames of jumpsquat more than anyone else, and that was a LARGE number of characters. Defense has also been buffed in different ways. Parrying is really not incredibly strong (the frame adv it introduces is not large, might be worse than original PS) but things like spotdodge have been improved a LOT in this game and its something I expect to be a prevailing strong defensive option as even when staled it is still quite good.

Let's also look at another factor that heavily controlled how good you were in Smash 4: dash > shield. Universally everyone's is the same now and it's net worse across the board yes, but there's no longer huge gaps of chars who can move forward and block better now, a universal change that I herald as a LARGE improvement.

This also takes me to the huge buffs to initial dash that everyone received, alongside actions out of skid, this provides many characters with a LARGE bucket list of new options and spaces in which they can be effective, and it really should be reshaping the way we perceive neutral. Yes, sword characters will be good, but this is a prevailing aspect in every fighting game. Yes, I think they should add hurtboxes to a chunk of weapon disjoint in this game, but do I think they NEED to, right now? Not really.

What I think is that while defense is worse for some chars than it is for others, I think the ability for so many characters to play PROPER neutral (jumping, spacing, dashing) is such a big buff to the cast that it will either match or outweigh the prior game. This is such an important factor. Neutral is the STEM in which the game's other states begin from, and I think improving that has been this game's biggest boon. There may be more changes to be made (I do think shieldgrabbing should be a bit better, maybe a 2f penalty instead of 4f) but I think right now we are conceptually seeing good changes.

Also please for the love of god, realize how gosh darn GOOD Fulljump OoS is. Its SO GOOD. 3f jumpsquats + reaching Fullhop height faster + the general movement and fallspeed changes make Fulljump OoS without an aerial a MUCH STRONGER option for repositioning than it has EVER been. Of course the standard aerial OoS and Smashes OoS are still quite good, but this goes overlooked a lot and is going to be what replaces shieldgrab as "the wave" for the defacto OoS option.

The strong shield options Smash 4 provided did not greatly benefit low tiers overall IMO and I'd much rather them be able to jump and move around in neutral like everyone else so at the very least they can play the same game. It helps them SO MUCH MORE in the long run and gives them less of a chance to be left in the dust.

I'm also not turning this into an argument about depth, but I will simply state that universally most characters have a larger option tree and also FEEL better to play which greatly increases game balance because people are more inclined to stick it out with their character if the game feel is actually good. But you're not getting "good game feel" with bad dash > shield in a game where that's a big deal, and like 6-7f jumpsquat. That just makes said character feel arbitrarily gimped and helpless in neutral, on top of the limited options out of grounded movement forcing them to have to commit to that jump to actually contest things or mix up their neutral.

oh and cause I haven't edited this enough I guess, I dont know if the game will ACTUALLY end up more or less balanced than Smash 4. I'm aware tier stratification occurs, welcome to EVERY fighty game ever, but like, the goal isn't to make it not exist, its to make it so that you don't feel that stratification until you hit the absolute highest levels of play, and even then it should be a little malleable. It's not impossible to make a game like this and a lot of the steps they are taking with how this game works is offsetting towards this. In most games your tier list isnt really important at your locals or your minors/slightly larger events. That is how it should be.

tl;dr play who you want, this game's neutral state is IMO a lot better and this huge cast needs exploring!

 

[The_Bookworm]

I think if we're going to make case arguments on "balance is worse bcuz of universal mechanics" I believe we should gauge all of them at net value for what they are and what they provide for the game.

Meaningfully, defense outright has been nerfed, but I think every character's neutral has been SUBSTANTIALLY buffed in a way that equalizes the field in meaningful, good ways, and it's important to look at that.

Let's take a look at something that I think has arbitrarily gated characters since Melee: jumpsquat. Universal 3f jumpsquat is a buff that varies in effectiveness for every character, but it largely benefits those who had 5-6 or more frames of jumpsquat more than anyone else, and that was a LARGE number of characters. Defense has also been buffed in different ways. Parrying is really not incredibly strong (the frame adv it introduces is not large, might be worse than original PS) but things like spotdodge have been improved a LOT in this game and its something I expect to be a prevailing strong defensive option as even when staled it is still quite good.

Let's also look at another factor that heavily controlled how good you were in Smash 4: dash > shield. Universally everyone's is the same now and it's net worse across the board yes, but there's no longer huge gaps of chars who can move forward and block better now, a universal change that I herald as a LARGE improvement.

This also takes me to the huge buffs to initial dash that everyone received, alongside actions out of skid, this provides many characters with a LARGE bucket list of new options and spaces in which they can be effective, and it really should be reshaping the way we perceive neutral. Yes, sword characters will be good, but this is a prevailing aspect in every fighting game. Yes, I think they should add hurtboxes to a chunk of weapon disjoint in this game, but do I think they NEED to, right now? Not really.

What I think is that while defense is worse for some chars than it is for others, I think the ability for so many characters to play PROPER neutral (jumping, spacing, dashing) is such a big buff to the cast that it will either match or outweigh the prior game. This is such an important factor. Neutral is the STEM in which the game's other states begin from, and I think improving that has been this game's biggest boon. There may be more changes to be made (I do think shieldgrabbing should be a bit better, maybe a 2f penalty instead of 4f) but I think right now we are conceptually seeing good changes.

Also please for the love of god, realize how gosh darn GOOD Fulljump OoS is. Its SO GOOD. 3f jumpsquats + reaching Fullhop height faster + the general movement and fallspeed changes make Fulljump OoS without an aerial a MUCH STRONGER option for repositioning than it has EVER been. Of course the standard aerial OoS and Smashes OoS are still quite good, but this goes overlooked a lot and is going to be what replaces shieldgrab as "the wave" for the defacto OoS option.

The strong shield options Smash 4 provided did not greatly benefit low tiers overall IMO and I'd much rather them be able to jump and move around in neutral like everyone else so at the very least they can play the same game. It helps them SO MUCH MORE in the long run and gives them less of a chance to be left in the dust.

I'm also not turning this into an argument about depth, but I will simply state that universally most characters have a larger option tree and also FEEL better to play which greatly increases game balance because people are more inclined to stick it out with their character if the game feel is actually good. But you're not getting "good game feel" with bad dash > shield in a game where that's a big deal, and like 6-7f jumpsquat. That just makes said character feel arbitrarily gimped and helpless in neutral, on top of the limited options out of grounded movement forcing them to have to commit to that jump to actually contest things or mix up their neutral.

oh and cause I haven't edited this enough I guess, I dont know if the game will ACTUALLY end up more or less balanced than Smash 4. I'm aware tier stratification occurs, welcome to EVERY fighty game ever, but like, the goal isn't to make it not exist, its to make it so that you don't feel that stratification until you hit the absolute highest levels of play, and even then it should be a little malleable. It's not impossible to make a game like this and a lot of the steps they are taking with how this game works is offsetting towards this. In most games your tier list isnt really important at your locals or your minors/slightly larger events. That is how it should be.

tl;dr play who you want, this game's neutral state is IMO a lot better and this huge cast needs exploring!

I agree with this. Even the supposed "bad" or "low tiered" characters feels like they "can take on the world", if you are know what I am saying. Sleeping on them will mark your grave. The previous Smash game's low tiered characters doesn't really do that at all unless you don't know the matchup.

The funny thing is that players are already marking characters as "bad" characters, or thinking that the tier lists of the game have already come down to a science, despite the metagame development being almost nonexistent and new techniques/optimizations being discovered left and right each day.

 

[TTTTTsd]

I agree with this. Even the supposed "bad" or "low tiered" characters feels like they "can take on the world", if you are know what I am saying. Sleeping on them will mark your grave. The previous Smash game's low tiered characters doesn't really do that at all unless you don't know the matchup.

The funny thing is that players are already marking characters as "bad" characters, or thinking that the tier lists of the game have already come down to a science, despite the metagame development being almost nonexistent and new techniques/optimizations being discovered left and right each day.

Well, I personally think even in Smash 4 you could start by playing just about anyone (exceptions are always a thing) and then switch/learn as you go. Tier lists are meant to be statistical means for the best players, but nobody starts as the best so I encourage people to play a char who makes them happy and helps them learn. You move on when you've accomplished what you want or feel you've reached a level in which your character is truly an issue. It's different for everyone but I feel like its the best way to learn.

 

[NairWizard]

I think if we're going to make case arguments on "balance is worse bcuz of universal mechanics" I believe we should gauge all of them at net value for what they are and what they provide for the game.

Meaningfully, defense outright has been nerfed, but I think every character's neutral has been SUBSTANTIALLY buffed in a way that equalizes the field in meaningful, good ways, and it's important to look at that.

Let's take a look at something that I think has arbitrarily gated characters since Melee: jumpsquat. Universal 3f jumpsquat is a buff that varies in effectiveness for every character, but it largely benefits those who had 5-6 or more frames of jumpsquat more than anyone else, and that was a LARGE number of characters. Defense has also been buffed in different ways. Parrying is really not incredibly strong (the frame adv it introduces is not large, might be worse than original PS) but things like spotdodge have been improved a LOT in this game and its something I expect to be a prevailing strong defensive option as even when staled it is still quite good.

tl;dr play who you want, this game's neutral state is IMO a lot better and this huge cast needs exploring!

These are solid arguments; jumpsquat being made a universal tool is an excellent buff to balance for some characters, though it adds to imbalance in other ways (for instance sword characters usually had a bigger jumpsquat to balance out their hitboxes being bigger/having more disjoint). But it's true, the overwhelming majority of good characters in the previous game had f3 or f4 jumpsquats and high mobility parameters. Having even more characters with good mobility tools is a boon for balance, for sure. This means that we won't have any smash 4 Ganons in this game, at least.

There are other mechanics that we could discuss to have a full measure of mechanics' effects on balance. For instance, directional airdodging benefits high-air-speed characters more than low-air-speed ones since it's harder to intercept them before they make it to a position where they can snap to the ledge for free (you can think of Snake's cypher as an artificial boost to airspeed), though depending on how good it ends up being you could make the argument that it's actually a boon to lower-air-speed characters instead. The buffering system and parrying benefit characters with low start-up on their attacks, a characteristic that's already naturally good (freakishly good, in fact). And so on.

You could be right though that an exhaustive analysis of mechanics would suggest that there's better balance overall. I also like the idea of adding a hurtbox to swords. Many other games do it this way; that'd be a good solution.

It's not mutually exclusive. Figuring out the Snake matchup meant adapting to Ally, something Void was straight up unable to do at first (and it culminated into an ill-timed switch to Roy). "Figuring out the matchup" was something he had to figure out through good play, critical thinking, and judgement on his part.

I don't understand how this set could be viewed as a battle against oppressive odds. What is oppressive about the Snake vs. Pichu matchup for Pichu? It looks even to me, maybe slight favor one way or the other, but there's not even enough evidence to reach a reasonable conclusion.

My problem is with your statement, "More than ever before, you can compete in every matchup."

This could be true, but making this claim based on the given set seems like confirmation bias to me; it's like you want to view Ultimate as fair, challenging, and balanced so much that you're reading too far into the available evidence.

The set isn't some mountain that Void had to climb that he couldn't have climbed in a previous game; Void just demonstrated standard top player adaptation that you saw all throughout smash 4/Brawl/Melee history. ZeRo vs. Tsu from smash 4 showcased as much adaptation as this and more; it didn't mean much then, though: that's how top players are. Nairo was competing fairly solidly with Pit against hoo-hahing Diddys and Sheiks for a solid year into smash 4's timeline. We also had plenty of top 8/16 upsets with unexpected characters (Duck Hunt Dog anyone?), even late into the game's lifespan. We will definitely have that all happen again; there are even more characters now, which makes it harder to know every matchup, so in fact we're going to have even *more* of that than ever before. And top player adaptation will continue to be a thing.


Also, TTTTsd hit the nail on the head when he said this:

the goal isn't to make it not exist, its to make it so that you don't feel that stratification until you hit the absolute highest levels of play

In four years you're still going to have a smash 4 Diddy-Cloud-Bayonetta situation as with every game; ideally, though, the majority of players won't feel that tier gap. That would be great; I'm open to that possibility.

Also, I don't think being a Brawl vet makes you more likely to figure out the Snake matchup in Smash Ultimate. Not trying to sound like a smartass, but Brawl Snake and Ultimate are pretty disparate, moveset similarities aside.

Of course it does. Brawl vets are just straight up better at dealing with Snake's setups. Fighting a character in a previous game always gives you some insight, regardless of engine differences. Playing as a character in a previous game is similar; it's the same reason that Ally and MVD just naturally gravitated toward Snake in this game and that Light's Fox did so well (because they played the characters previously).



--


Anyway, I think that while Chrom and Pichu and Fox are decent choices for good characters, we're overlooking an extremely important part of the metagame in . With both Dabuz and Nairo investing time into her and ZeRo considering doing the same, it's probably a good time to talk about her.

Palutena is a zoner, falling into the swordsman archetype of zoner just like the characters with actual swords. This makes her good at base already, but she has access to tools that other sword characters don't, and that's what's truly frightening about her. One is her good recovery; most swordsman recoveries are plagued by their interceptibility, but her teleport both has lots of invincibility frames and great distance; she has one of the best recoveries of any zoning character in the game. This also lets her go deeper than most sword characters can when trying to edgeguard. Two, she has some projectile zoning; even if it's not the most effective in the game this lets her pressure other characters from a greater distance. Three, she has a reflector, which means that she has a much easier time dealing with opposing zoners than most swordsmen who are forced to go in and pressure up close.

But I think the biggest boon for her is that unlike other sword characters, she also has a good zonebreaking game. Dash attack's priority over other moves combined with the insane damage output she can get from stringing aerials together means that she can just randomly throw out dash attacks in neutral and come out on top in many situations. This makes her a low-risk, high-reward character, and those characters have always been successful in smash.

We've already talked about how good vertical kill options are in this game and she has both a great up-air and a great up-smash. up-smash in particular was buffed so hard. It has twice the active frames that it did in smash 4 and can eliminate neutral getup from the ledge (an option that feels worse anyway) and can even be used out of shield in some situations.

She's bad in CQC just like most other zoners, but on the plus side, she still has her invisible rolls, and rollspam isn't much worse than it was in the previous game; the limitations on rolling and spotdodging only come up if you're a scrub and are just rolling repeatedly, but if you're actually sequencing your rolls as part of your neutral patterns like most good players do, then rolling is extremely effective.


The one downside to Palutena compared to other swordsmen is her lack of arcing hitboxes; f-tilt is a good defensive option but she can't exactly space Marth n-air or Lucina f-air or something in neutral. Thus she has some blind and semi-blind spots, but her priority-b-air probably more than makes up for that. It's hard not to see her remaining a top tier for a long time to come.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

Well, I personally think even in Smash 4 you could start by playing just about anyone (exceptions are always a thing) and then switch/learn as you go. Tier lists are meant to be statistical means for the best players, but nobody starts as the best so I encourage people to play a char who makes them happy and helps them learn. You move on when you've accomplished what you want or feel you've reached a level in which your character is truly an issue. It's different for everyone but I feel like its the best way to learn.

I feel like character choice only really matters at the highest levels and even then you'll still see low tiers sipping through. I think the sm4sh meta was developed pretty early on and people just didn't want to except things. It was pretty clear that Diddy was far past the rest of the cast and sheik was 2nd after him. Rosalina was also really good at stomping the majority of the cast. Yet people used to be really really really high on Ness for whatever reason. It was really silly tbh. Once diddy got nerfed all it really did was bring diddy down to or below sheiks level.

 

[TTTTTsd]

In four years you're still going to have a smash 4 Diddy-Cloud-Bayonetta situation as with every game; ideally, though, the majority of players won't feel that tier gap. That would be great; I'm open to that possibility.

I think you can find really good examples of what I speak of in like, most fighting games, but it really feels like dominant design ethos in games like Guilty Gear and ESPECIALLY Tekken 7/Virtua Fighter 5 FS. Tekken and VF5 FS both have really defined, stratified tier lists, and naturally it dictates top level results, but because the characters generally feel good and competent across the board in a lot of ways, you can see that the lower and middle level balance is strong and can sometimes coast into the top levels.

Rangchu did it in Tekken 7 with Bears, winning one of the largest, if not the largest major with Panda/Kuma, very weak characters that have strong elements that can be abused with good knowledge and really good play, and in VF5 FS you'll always see the occasional El Blaze player doing well because while he's still by tier measures fairly weak, he has a lot of strong options once he gets going and is not discouraging to play at BASE LEVEL, which really does matter!

Making the stratification feel good as players learn is a really ambitious but strong design goal that I think leads to long-term diversity and success in games. It's also very difficult to implement and it probably won't be perfected until a patch cycle or two in this game's lifespan, so we shall see~.

 

[S_B]

So your game could have twenty billion movement options instead of five, but that wouldn't make the game necessarily any deeper.

Just to expand this point a little further, "less is more" is very much a thing from a game design perspective as well.

Redundancy in videogames is generally an awful thing, and that continues to be true throughout movesets and options seen in SSB and all fighting games. When a character has two moves that effectively do the same thing, you'll always see one become favored over the other. Sometimes the effects of the moves vary slightly, but every move should ideally present a different option to the player trying to use them, leaving it up to them to decide which tool is the one for each job.

It's all about options, and a move being wasted as it overlaps too greatly with another move means a potential option was outright lost.