Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[KirbySquad101]

I mean, all you have to do is look at the previous year all the way up until now. Over the course of that previous year, we had several players do one or more of the following:

• Swear off online play for the most part (Marss, Dark Wizzy, Light, etc.).
• Only play online for the sake of gaining Twitch traction or revenue (Maister, Dabuz, etc.).
• Constantly ramble on what a terrible experience online play was compared to offline (Maister, Dabuz, Dark Wizzy, etc.).
• Lambast the decision to make SWT Qualifiers be online.
• Participate in the fairly short-lived #FixUltimateOnline campaign.

In that time frame, you'd think Smash Ultimate would drop off with the constantly brewing negativity towards online play and the characters that dominated it (Look at any like-dislike ratio involving a western or Japanese ). And yet, nearly every player has returned back to it as if nothing ever happened: We're already seeing players like Tweek, Light, Maister, and Dabuz back in action, and we'll only be expecting more with palyers like Dark Wizzy returning to cause some havoc. Heck, you could argue it's even gotten bigger with the advent of hidden gems like Hero or Jake who were "born" in the Wi-Fi era.

If Ultimate players are THAT dedicated to their game that they're willing to stick with it even when it was practically "on hold" for over a year, then they'll most certainly continue to stick with it regardless of the emergence of Smash clones like Nickelodeon All-Stars Brawl. Honestly the only thing left I'm expecting that could knock it down is the theoritical Smash sequel that may or may not happen.

Oh yeah, also, y'all should watch Sparg0's set against Chag; some of the best and most explosive back-and-forths I've seen in a LONG time (also 's still redonkulous).

 

[Idon]

If adding good rollback netcode to a fighting game in an era where everyone is locked at home isn't a good investment of time and money to get working, I don't know WHAT is worth a large amount of time and money.

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

If adding good rollback netcode to a fighting game in an era where everyone is locked at home isn't a good investment of time and money to get working, I don't know WHAT is worth a large amount of time and money.

It is a good investment, all fighting games need rollback mostly everyone will agree with that sentiment.

It is however just marketing fluff, saying your game has rollback is wonderful news. Saying you have “wavedashing” and advanced techs is all fine and good but that doesn’t automatically mean your game is any good.

 

[Arthur97]

There's also the idea of entirely reworking it after it was made. Not to mention how many people still play it anyway. They likely don't see it as necessary.

 

[SKX31]

I remember HIKARU had as a winning MU foron his last DK MU chart, so it is entirely possible that the big monkey could very well give Cloud a hard time lol.

Then again, Sparg0 never seems to have much trouble dealing with LeSou (best DK in Mexico), so I'm not really sure how much of it is accurate.

Yeah, it's partly because DK has many of Ridley's and Bowser's traits: long reach, relatively quick attacks that can contest or OoS Cloud's and he can survive most situations where Cloud would normally kill for a long time. Also, way better grab than Cloud, which makes it imperative for Cloud to avoid the grab attempts and play at a range where DK's comfortable playing anyhow. It also helps DK that Cloud doesn't have many attacks with truly dangerous knockback scaling.

Now the saving grace for Cloud is that he can juggle DK like no tomorrow and lay on the damage, but still DK can and often will kill Cloud pretty early. As such Cloud is a much better MU for DK than G&W and Megaman, who... can just throw everything and the kitchen sink at DK.

As for Sparg0, maybe it's because he has a good grasp of LeSou's particular playstyle? Spitballing here though.

I don't think Sheik is top 7, but I do think highly of her. I also agree that she doesn't lack kill power and that her kill setups are fine. You just have to put in more work with her then some other characters, as she's difficult to play. I think her biggest weakness is losing trades.

Edit: So this is his whole list, and I'm even more confused.

I'm really curious about hearing his opinions on . Is it primarily because of Akikakusu that he values the character so highly?

I mean, all you have to do is look at the previous year all the way up until now. Over the course of that previous year, we had several players do one or more of the following:

• Swear off online play for the most part (Marss, Dark Wizzy, Light, etc.).
• Only play online for the sake of gaining Twitch traction or revenue (Maister, Dabuz, etc.).
• Constantly ramble on what a terrible experience online play was compared to offline (Maister, Dabuz, Dark Wizzy, etc.).
• Lambast the decision to make SWT Qualifiers be online.
• Participate in the fairly short-lived #FixUltimateOnline campaign.

In that time frame, you'd think Smash Ultimate would drop off with the constantly brewing negativity towards online play and the characters that dominated it (Look at any like-dislike ratio involving a western or Japanese ). And yet, nearly every player has returned back to it as if nothing ever happened: We're already seeing players like Tweek, Light, Maister, and Dabuz back in action, and we'll only be expecting more with palyers like Dark Wizzy returning to cause some havoc. Heck, you could argue it's even gotten bigger with the advent of hidden gems like Hero or Jake who were "born" in the Wi-Fi era.

If Ultimate players are THAT dedicated to their game that they're willing to stick with it even when it was practically "on hold" for over a year, then they'll most certainly continue to stick with it regardless of the emergence of Smash clones like Nickelodeon All-Stars Brawl. Honestly the only thing left I'm expecting that could knock it down is the theoritical Smash sequel that may or may not happen.

Oh yeah, also, y'all should watch Sparg0's set against Chag; some of the best and most explosive back-and-forths I've seen in a LONG time (also 's still redonkulous).

If adding good rollback netcode to a fighting game in an era where everyone is locked at home isn't a good investment of time and money to get working, I don't know WHAT is worth a large amount of time and money.

TBF I wouldn't be surprised if several people within Nintendo / Bamco or even Sakurai feel some pressure to catch up. Otherwise we wouldn't get the admittedly miniscule tick rate increase in 1v1s specifically or the promise that they'd do more in 8.1.0. Apparently they expanded the average packet size in 11.0 - but at this point it's like polishing a wrecked car. It's still a car crash.

What rollback has done is to drastically increase the standard expected out of online. And from this context Nick Brawl does add some more pressure - however slight: if very small teams can do it, then Nintendo's / Bamco's position loses some of its luster. Sure, it'll take some more time for those corps to get the needed expertise and incentive to actually take that step - they only need to look at Capcom to see rollback done improperly - player expectations are only going to go upwards. Sure, the Japanese playerbase may be more used to standard Wi-Fi, but I wouldn't be surprised if rollback has likewise started to increase peoples' expectations as well.

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if an Ultimate re-release happens on the Switch's successor partly because of this. Where one of the main reasons for the re-release is to improve or even overhaul the online. Or if they decide to go for a sequel / reboot I likewise wouldn't be surprised if they look at implementing a different, better netcode.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Top players talking about the patches

 

[meleebrawler]

Yeah, it's partly because DK has many of Ridley's and Bowser's traits: long reach, relatively quick attacks that can contest or OoS Cloud's and he can survive most situations where Cloud would normally kill for a long time. Also, way better grab than Cloud, which makes it imperative for Cloud to avoid the grab attempts and play at a range where DK's comfortable playing anyhow. It also helps DK that Cloud doesn't have many attacks with truly dangerous knockback scaling.

Now the saving grace for Cloud is that he can juggle DK like no tomorrow and lay on the damage, but still DK can and often will kill Cloud pretty early. As such Cloud is a much better MU for DK than G&W and Megaman, who... can just throw everything and the kitchen sink at DK.

As for Sparg0, maybe it's because he has a good grasp of LeSou's particular playstyle? Spitballing here though.



I'm really curious about hearing his opinions on . Is it primarily because of Akikakusu that he values the character so highly?





TBF I wouldn't be surprised if several people within Nintendo / Bamco or even Sakurai feel some pressure to catch up. Otherwise we wouldn't get the admittedly miniscule tick rate increase in 1v1s specifically or the promise that they'd do more in 8.1.0. Apparently they expanded the average packet size in 11.0 - but at this point it's like polishing a wrecked car. It's still a car crash.

What rollback has done is to drastically increase the standard expected out of online. And from this context Nick Brawl does add some more pressure - however slight: if very small teams can do it, then Nintendo's / Bamco's position loses some of its luster. Sure, it'll take some more time for those corps to get the needed expertise and incentive to actually take that step - they only need to look at Capcom to see rollback done improperly - player expectations are only going to go upwards. Sure, the Japanese playerbase may be more used to standard Wi-Fi, but I wouldn't be surprised if rollback has likewise started to increase peoples' expectations as well.

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if an Ultimate re-release happens on the Switch's successor partly because of this. Where one of the main reasons for the re-release is to improve or even overhaul the online. Or if they decide to go for a sequel / reboot I likewise wouldn't be surprised if they look at implementing a different, better netcode.

What nobody ever mentions about these small teams supposedly showing up the big ones with their rollback is that they happen to conveniently be in positions that make it way easier for them to implement. Just creating a new game (series) from scratch with no fan expectations of any kind burdening you makes it easier to plan for, plus lower budgets can lead to graphical choices that wind up making it easier still to include. Again, these kinds of things are easy to do when your buyers have no previous standard to go off from.

Everything I've seen in regards to what major developers have tried shows me we're just not at the point where they can just shunt rollback in games that didn't have it to begin with without problems, or without making concessions in new entries that I'm not sure fans would be ready for.

 

[Cutie Gwen]

What nobody ever mentions about these small teams supposedly showing up the big ones with their rollback is that they happen to conveniently be in positions that make it way easier for them to implement. Just creating a new game (series) from scratch with no fan expectations of any kind burdening you makes it easier to plan for, plus lower budgets can lead to graphical choices that wind up making it easier still to include. Again, these kinds of things are easy to do when your buyers have no previous standard to go off from.

Everything I've seen in regards to what major developers have tried shows me we're just not at the point where they can just shunt rollback in games that didn't have it to begin with without problems, or without making concessions in new entries that I'm not sure fans would be ready for.

I mean, KOF XV is confirmed to have rollback and is reusing assets so it's possible and it might have happened in Ultimate had Sakurai not decided against it, I get that patching it in isn't the easiest thing in the world even if modders added it in SFV but I think it's ridiculous to suggest it'd come at a cost of say, a handful of extra characters

 

[meleebrawler]

I mean, KOF XV is confirmed to have rollback and is reusing assets so it's possible and it might have happened in Ultimate had Sakurai not decided against it, I get that patching it in isn't the easiest thing in the world even if modders added it in SFV but I think it's ridiculous to suggest it'd come at a cost of say, a handful of extra characters

I'm thinking more "the game is now fully rendered in 2D spritework" than cutting characters. Also, regular 2D fighters have less to keep track of than most platform fighters.

 

[Cutie Gwen]

I'm thinking more "the game is now fully rendered in 2D spritework" than cutting characters. Also, regular 2D fighters have less to keep track of than most platform fighters.

That doesn't really make sense as spritework is even more of a hassle than modeling and multiple modern 2.5D fighters already are able to handle rollback, with ARMS, another game with items and stage hazards, already having rollback to my understanding. I get that your mindset is likely "This can't be changed for this game and I'm sick of the demand for it" but pandemic really emphasized this with most FG devs now fully understanding the issue and working with it

 

[Slime Master]

That doesn't really make sense as spritework is even more of a hassle than modeling and multiple modern 2.5D fighters already are able to handle rollback, with ARMS, another game with items and stage hazards, already having rollback to my understanding. I get that your mindset is likely "This can't be changed for this game and I'm sick of the demand for it" but pandemic really emphasized this with most FG devs now fully understanding the issue and working with it

By my (admittedly limited) understanding 2D is easier in the context of rollback b/c you have a definite sprite that should be displayed for every frame of every animation, whereas with 3D you would need to play the animation sped up by $rollback_frames times and in reverse. IDK that much about rollback, but it's very similar in concept to branch prediction which requires some extra hardware components and wiring to work; it's something you have to keep in mind when building the components themselves, so I imagine that's also the case with rollback. Ult not being built for it in the first place and having basically every possible extra complication probably makes adding it in a pretty big challenge.

 

[Sucumbio]

I'm thinking more "the game is now fully rendered in 2D spritework" than cutting characters. Also, regular 2D fighters have less to keep track of than most platform fighters.

How does that turn into a concession? Or did I misread...

In general I think "rollback" netcode is the hotness so use it Nintendo! But not until you're ready to do it right so maybe just buy the studio haha

 

[B_Burg]

With all this talk about the Nick Smash game, people in here should give Slap City a try! It's made by the people who are going to be making the Nick Smash game and could give you an idea of how it might feel.

It definitely feels different enough to be its own thing, but all Smash games kind of feel like that.

For what it's worth, I think it's fun!

 

[Sucumbio]

With all this talk about the Nick Smash game, people in here should give Slap City a try! It's made by the people who are going to be making the Nick Smash game and could give you an idea of how it might feel.

It definitely feels different enough to be its own thing, but all Smash games kind of feel like that.

For what it's worth, I think it's fun!

I'm interested in Slap City but my gaming time due to life is fairly limited, so Kazuya. But once ultimate is done roster and balance patch wise then I'll be more apt to play other games.

 

[MrGameguycolor]

Top players talking about the patches

TLDR' ver plz?

 

[Gleam]

You look at Protobanham's list and it does leave you questioning but I think in the long run, what you should be asking is this.

"What is the "consistency" of a character getting either said results or said placement?"

Let's put that question to the test.

"What is the consistency of getting Top Tier results?" ..... Of which the answer is, pretty low. There's just no evidence giving much, if really any support that Ridley's playerbase is consistent with making that kind of results.

"What is the consistency of getting High Tier results?"....A bit better, not much I'd argue, but a bit better. Compared to the above, there is definitely a high consistency placement. But we'll continue.

"What is the consistency of getting Mid Tier results?"...Much, better, and in the past, much, much better. At least back in the day, this would surely have been the most consistent spot Ridley's results would've made. It may not have been his "BEST" result, but it would've been the one in the meta that he'd most likely fall under.

I for one would love Ridley to be a borderline Top Tier 'A' ranked character. But when I think of this character's consistency and I see that making top results for Ridley is very "inconsistent" I can't rightfully agree to something like Protobanham's list. Trust me, I'd love Zelda to be as great as he says she is. I'd love Donkey Kong to be as great as he says he is. I'd love Plant to be as great as he claims he is.

But, while I surely treat characters like DK and Zelda far, far better than others have. I still need to be consistent. Another problem that would come is that, people will often cite only the best of the character without need to look at the rest of the data.

It's like making a tier list called "Ability to survive a gunshot to the head" and you put humans at top tier because of a few select cases where they did survive. Even though consistently, getting shot in the head is pretty ***ing bad.

 

[Idon]

Top players talking about the patches

At this point, buffing Marth by making his tippers bigger and more rewarding is a lost cause.

Not quite sure why they decided to buff Marth dash attack more rewarding when what it needed was speed and safety. It's better but still a straight downgrade from pivot ftilt.

utilt killing more often is nice though.

 

[Thinkaman]

Someone said rollback 3 times in a mirror, so you summoned this:

Rollback netcode can be thought of as the ability to accept inputs from the past as well as the present, rewinding and resimulating time to both handle inconsistencies and mask delay.

It has three requirements:

1. Deterministic game state
2. Hardware that can execute the game state at 10x speed for 10 frames of rollback, or so forth
3. Manual handling of all gameplay effects not suited to "rewinding"

#1 is not simple, but all fighting games (including Smash) already do this. This is how replays work. So really, this discussion is only about the other 2.


#2 is a big one, huge. If you want to accept an input that was supposed to happen 6 frames ago, you have to be able to recalculate every part of those 6 frame--in 1 actual frame. So the hardware has to be capable of running the game X times faster than normal, where X is the total number of frames you want to be able to roll back. This is why putting rollback on an old game (running on CPUs 20 years more advanced) is far more feasible and requires less engineering work.

This is a great oversimplification, but Smash Ultimate runs at 60 frames per second. To be able to rollback an additional 7 frames, the CPU would need to be able to run the same game at 480 frames per second. This is a great feat for a modern game on modern hardware, and requires a lot of special engineering. For the humble Switch CPU, running a far more busy 8-player fighting game, it's a challenge that has simply not been done.


Even if you acheived that, it still leaves #3. The example I like to give is camera effects. You know all those zoom effects Ultimate does? Rolling back any sort of camera effect would be awful and nausiating. So all the zoom effects have to be re-tuned around your rollback delay, and even normal camera behavior would have to be rewritten to not jump around with the game state changes. Sound effects also have to get a massive amount of attention to be polished--cutting off and jumping into sound effects mid-frame is jarring and bad. Particles are often a problem, since particle systems often have non-deterministic components in their libraries.

This isn't even getting into the weird gameplay design decisions. The Mortal Kombat guys actually refuse to rollback game-ending hits as policy, due to how aggrivating that would be. This sleight of hand wouldn't work (well) with Smash.

#3 is a ton of work; for the amount of content in Ultimate it would easily amount to several engineers working for at least 2 years. But even that is nothing compared to #2: making an existing 60fps Switch game run at 8x speed on a Switch.


tl;dr - Asking the devs to put rollback in Smash Ultimate is like asking your mechanic to put an electric engine in your tricked-out 2006 Chevy Silverado. It's just, not how any of that works--but if it's any consolation their future trucks will be electric.

 

[NotLiquid]

Incidentally while we're on that topic of discussion, while rollback has been achieved on several Switch games like Battle for the Grid, the devs of Nick Bros. Brawl have suggested Switch will be the only platform to not support their rollback solution because the engine's script performance on the console is way slower. Not all games are made equal, but the platform very much stymies games that weren't meticulously built around it from the onset.

 

[B_Burg]

I'm interested in Slap City but my gaming time due to life is fairly limited, so Kazuya. But once ultimate is done roster and balance patch wise then I'll be more apt to play other games.

Totally understandable. I'll say I think it does add a bit if you experience other Ludosity games in some way before going in, in the same way Smash is probably more fun if you know Nintendo characters going in, but seeing as how your time is limited already I don't know how feasible that would be.

Still, if you get the chance to play around with it I'd like to hear what you think.

 

[Sucumbio]

Thinkaman that's probably the best explanation of rollback I've read.

I've been mulling this tier list thing and you have another such post as succinct regarding tier lists but part of me feels like proto's list isn't like other lists obvious difference aside like having so few characters etc

 

[Nobie]

I've also been thinking a lot about Protobanham's tier list, not least of which because I inadvertently introduced it to this thread.

Keep in mind that his reason for maining Lucina (according to his interview with Larry Lurr) is that he likes Fire Emblem Awakening, and that his reason for using Min Min is to counter Lucina's bad matchups. So for the most part, it's just character loyalty dictating his mains.

When I look at it, I think there are two possiblities: 1) P O T E N T I A L, and/or 2) Proto values characters who are complex and versatile. By that, I mean less characters with reliable cure-alls and more tools capable of doing a wide array of things. I don't think it's a coincidence that all the "transformation" characters (Shulk, Mythra/Pyra, and Pokemon Trainer) are all in top tier. Sheik is diversity-in-neutral incarnate, Pac-Man has Bonus Fruit, Hero has spells galore, and Sephiroth's kit consists of very precise tools that must be utilized as a whole.

In the A-tier, the one that naturally sticks out to me is Mewtwo, because most Mewtwo mains don't rank it that high. However, there's no denying that Mewtwo is very versatile. Not only does it have the high mobility specs, but many of its attacks have diverse yet specific uses or some other complexity. Shadow Ball combos at virtually any percent, but it requires you to know exactly how much to charge it depending on both your and your opponent's damage.

Characters with cure-all tools are the ones I think are usually ranked highly. Mario, Joker, Pikachu, etc. They're powerful yet fairly straightforward characters who can rely on a handful of really good moves to carry the day. Which is to say, perhaps Protobanham thinks having a full kit of good tools is better than having a small kit of great tools.

 

[Sucumbio]

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Goblin took the set but still... Haha ohhhhh

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Relevant to Captain Falcon, Fatality released his Falcon MU chart.

There was a problem fetching the tweet

 

[Das Koopa]

Peak character results from BarnardLoop

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Very late reply, but I've been incredibly busy with IRL stuff and background projects. I was actually impressed at how well the game balance sustained itself after cutting out months 1-6. 2015ish projects are being worked on, and I've commented on it before, but after doing a lot of work tiering events in the patch era, I think early Sm4sh was an absolute disaster in terms of character balancing, so it's nice to see a genuine sprawling viability of the cast in Ultimate even after a lot of DLC.

Hoping it lasts but this game I think has totally avoided a pre-patch Sheik-type character. It's actually fascinating seeing how the underreporting of the JPN meta circa 2015 probably masked just how bad things were in terms of Sheik's dominance prior to the 2016 patch

Lot of low placers make sense from my perspective -

-Corrin suffered from significant gameplan nerfs. That's absolutely awful as a burden when you get 30+ characters added and more rebalanced, but it's much worse when you fit into an archetype that is heavily represented and you offer little. Bayonetta was awful on release I think (probably bottom 5) but she retained a dedicated playerbase because she's wholly unique. Corrin has interesting things in her kit, but Pin was severely downgraded and a lot of the hard-hitting aerial play was given to Ike. Combine a lot of Corrin mains being former Ike mains, and bam - Ike has a playerbase early on, Corrin doesn't.

-Ike, sadly, wasn't that great and benefitted from early meta inefficiencies in gameplay. After that, you dig yourself into tons of character crises, but nobody is saying "Oh, let's go back to Corrin" because she hadn't been buffed. I don't think she was never very bad but the perception existed and by the time you get buffs, all it does is make her likely to retain a few players globally. Ike has a playerbase, but it's shrunk, and his flaws that were never really worked out aren't going away.

-Miis are starting off hard. They had a very limited playerbase in 4. Swordfighter in particular, despite being fairly unique, was the least used character in Smash 4 history and essentially didn't exist. Brawler has it the best because people are willing to gravitate towards his good normals and decent specials that make him something of a weird fox/mario hybrid.

-Ganondorf is a perennial character at this point. I think him being bad competitively is an inevitable thing since he's a good fundies character that stomps casual play and the devs are too scared to make him good, they want to keep him simple. Always will be a bottom 1 candidate IMO but his results aren't actually the worst overall. Definitely doomed however lol

-I don't know what to make of Jigglypuff. I think she's good on paper and like Ganondorf she has a significant fanbase & playerbase. BassMage could be a big player in the future, but Arizona has some of the worst major attendance figures in the United States since Ascension is already a kind-of in-state "major" in terms of scale. Puff probably also isn't benefitting from swords being popular. Cloud has resurged, Roy has climbed rapidly, Chrom is around, Sephiroth is a thing, Shulk is popular, etc. I think the right bracket/player will do her well though.

-Mewtwo is weird and I don't know what to make of why he's got nothing. Minimal playerbase might be a consequence of nerfs combined with a lot of Mewtwo pilots having backup plans early in Ult. WaDi always had a ROB in the background in Smash 4, SDX just quit or is on a lengthy hiatus, and Abadango is notoriously NOT a character specialist and frequently switches.

-Pit's meta died with Earth. Rare character with almost no selling points. Entirely defined as "Underwhelming toolkit and neutral." Not explicitly bad but probably outclassed in important ways by most of the cast in at least one area. You could have a character that's definitely worse than Pit but maybe they'll have a handful of attributes you gravitate towards that make Pit not your first option.

I also think Byleth's future is very dire. Her best numbers are circumstantial. Cloudy, while amazing and having proved character viability in past games (his Roy vs. Kameme in Sm4sh is a classic) dropped her quiickly in favor of his various disjoint-themed top/high tiers.

I also don't know what to make of Doc. Tsumusuto does well, Mabel's on the come up, Tday has existed a while, there's a decent Doc in southern alabama apparently, BacoN is notable in MDVA, etc. Character frequently is considered bottom 3 but almost universally outpaces this in most metrics based on representation, results, etc.

Also I think other characters warrant discussion but I'm not sure where I'd start. There is a noticable number of characters like Samus, Yoshi, and Toon Link that while having existing USA metas, have far better intl metas in JPN/MEX/EUR.

*also i am legitimately convinced "Ice Climbers bad online" is a propaganda tactic birthed by Icies mains. Smashmate numbers don't like, this character is everywhere there LOL

 

[The_Bookworm]

-Ganondorf is a perennial character at this point. I think him being bad competitively is an inevitable thing since he's a good fundies character that stomps casual play and the devs are too scared to make him good, they want to keep him simple. Always will be a bottom 1 candidate IMO but his results aren't actually the worst overall. Definitely doomed however lol

I think the frustrating aspect about , is the devs have been shown to buff him in the past despite his nature as a character.

is also considered a weak character. However, unlike his Ultimate iteration, he has received significant buffs from updates.
While he is still considered a weak overall character, his buffs have helped him generate a surprisingly very sizable playerbase, especially of a character typically ranked bottom 10/5 (although he is typically ranked higher in Japan), that has gotten some splashes of results even in the highest level play.


That doesn't really exist in Ultimate. The character has received mostly nothing from patch updates. The only significant change is to the up B endlag on-hit, but that is a buff shared with Falcon, and Ganondorf doesn't benefit from it nearly as much as Falcon, who is already a much better character at this point.

DLC additions did not help whatsoever. Byleth and Pyra are both slow, but have immense reach, a very solid projectile, and faster buttons, with the latter having the option to turn into swordie Sheik on command; Min Min straight up destroys him; Kazuya, for the most part, is Ganondorf on steroids.

After the first few months of the game, Ganondorf's reps became a shell of its SSB4 iteration, with Adom and Opana now maining Hero, and the rest of his best SSB4 players either inactive or mostly relegated to online play. He has made almost zero impact in high level play as a result.

 

[Cap'n Jack]

Yeah Ganondorf’s itch is better scratched by other characters now in Ultimate especially after the DLC which is disappointing considering he started the Ultimate life span as such a fun super powered character. He needs an another overhaul going into the next Smash. Doesn’t have to be too major, but he needs something besides just raw power.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Yonni’s MU chart for Steve

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[SKX31]

I think the frustrating aspect about , is the devs have been shown to buff him in the past despite his nature as a character.

is also considered a weak character. However, unlike his Ultimate iteration, he has received significant buffs from updates.
While he is still considered a weak overall character, his buffs have helped him generate a surprisingly very sizable playerbase, especially of a character typically ranked bottom 10/5 (although he is typically ranked higher in Japan), that has gotten some splashes of results even in the highest level play.


That doesn't really exist in Ultimate. The character has received mostly nothing from patch updates. The only significant change is to the up B endlag on-hit, but that is a buff shared with Falcon, and Ganondorf doesn't benefit from it nearly as much as Falcon, who is already a much better character at this point.

DLC additions did not help whatsoever. Byleth and Pyra are both slow, but have immense reach, a very solid projectile, and faster buttons, with the latter having the option to turn into swordie Sheik on command; Min Min straight up destroys him; Kazuya, for the most part, is Ganondorf on steroids.

After the first few months of the game, Ganondorf's reps became a shell of its SSB4 iteration, with Adom and Opana now maining Hero, and the rest of his best SSB4 players either inactive or mostly relegated to online play. He has made almost zero impact in high level play as a result.

Sakurai showed the same kind of hesitancy re: when Ultimate launched. This is online ver. 1.0., granted, but still:

Something that ended up being a little troubling to me were fighters like King K. Rool. According to a survey on Dwango’s Niconico, the consensus seemed to be that King K. Rool was a strong character – that ended up not being the case. Overall his victory rate was 51.9%, and in Elite Smash it was 48.9%.

The general consensus seems to be that King K. Rool is strong, but I imagine that there are also people that think “no fair!” when they lose to him. Looking at our records, though, I don’t really see any need to adjust him. Though, I think there’ll still be people that’ll continue to be stressed out about fighting him if I don’t mess with him any – so I think I’ll wait to hear what the adjustment team has to say.

Which is comparable to his Ultimategamedata winrate of 49 %, Ganondorf's at 48 % in Ultimategamedata (which contrary to what I initially believed pulls its data from smash.gg-registered tournaments). Now PGstats' winrate article noted that Rool has a 38 % winrate deep into bracket and Ganondorf 54 %. It's possible that Ganon's a more common dualmain / secondary compared to Rool, or a "surprise!" pick a la Nairo v. Light.

Still though, there's an interesting contrast to be made here since Rool has been rather significantly buffed since Sakurai wrote that quickplay article. Most notably the Crownerang armor, but also his aerials and other moves. Yeah, Rool's not fully out of low / mid tierdom, but it's a much better situation than at launch.

For Ganondorf I kinda get the impression that they think the sword Smashes and other changes they made in base game seem to be more or less... enough? I'm not sure that's the right word to use here, but he is better than his Smash 4 counterpart, he still stomps casual play... and is more polarizing than his Smash 4 counterpart.

The fact that he's more polarizing now might be key. For Sakurai and the adjustment team, buffing say the recovery further while leaving the power as is might not be feasible because his strengths are already potent and he is much more effective in casual play. Where his weaknesses are not exploited as often nor as effectively. While toning down his power a tad could alliviate this, chances are that's a non-starter since that's the whole point with his design.

Then again, not only has most if not all DLC characters been bad MUs for him (with few exceptions - apparently Terry and Steve are the least bad for Ganondorf according to the MU chart compilation and I can see why in both cases) but most other low-tier veterans and newcomers have been more significantly upgraded. Which leaves Ganondorf in a really precarious position.

So yeah, at this point Ganondorf could really use some more move changes or even rework next game.

 

[KirbySquad101]

It could entirely be possible that it's less about them thinking 's "alright", but rather that they're... "satisfied" with his design? That isn't to say that they never factor in a character's viability/results when applying buffs or nerfs: If that were true wouldn't be buffed in 4-5 patches and wouldn't be nerfed twice now. But I do think what they chose to buff/nerf and how they buff/nerf it is more dependent on whether they think it works as intended.
For example, their reasoning for buffing - a move that seemingly baffled everyone - pehaps wasn't that they thought he needed it, but rather they buffed him because they think USmash should be frame 14, regardless of how good Sonic as a character is. On the flip side, people will continue to suggest that 's Flip Jump invincible-escaping properties should be the one thing that's toned down about the character, but in both the two times they nerfed her, they didn't touch that aspect of Flip Jump at all. Maybe to them, that is part of ZSS's identity and their overall "vision" for the character, and instead they saw other things about the character that wasn't intended to be designed that way, like Boost Kick being only frame 4 or Flip Jump's bury lasting as long as it does.

If their vision for Ganondorf is to be a slow hard-hitting bruiser, then his current design is accurate to that vision, regardless of his actual viability. If his moves all work accordingly to their vision for the character, that could be enough cause for them to feel the need to not adjust anything about the character, even if he is popularly perpuated as a bottom 1 contender.

Of course this is all just speculation. At the end of the day, even with all the data we can parse and trends we can analyze, I don't think we can fully understand or figure out what their thought process is for designing these characters. We ain't mind readers after all lol. It is times like this I wish they were more transparent on the reasoning behind their changes (kinda like how Street Figher 5 does it), but oh well.

-----------------
Also on a side note, I never really got how are constantly perpuated as underrated high tier threats, and their peak performances only being about as good as only confuses me further in understanding said mindset lol.

 

[StrangeKitten]

I just wish Ganondorf had gotten the same love that and have gotten. The latter two have seen fairly significant buffs, and while it hasn't been enough to bring them out of low tier (or at best, puts them at lower mid if you're optimistic) it has made them feel much better to play as. It's kinda weird to me that they don't make Ganondorf's nair connect better or give him a kill throw, as I doubt little buffs like that would make him too good of a noob slaughterer anyway. I've played all three of the characters I've brought up here against noobs, and honestly I think K Rool's projectiles and cheese and Incin's Revenge would KO them far better than Ganondorf would even with some buffs. That aside, I think it's fairly obvious as to why doesn't see much play in tournaments: he has nothing to help counteract projectiles, nothing to help his poor disadvantage, and the worst recovery in the game.

I understand why Miis are unpopular. You'd have to set them up with TOs ahead of time, right? Sounds like a lot of effort just to play a character who is just okay, when you could pick anyone else and not have to deal with that.

fell off hard early on. He's a very inconsistent character, having many excellent things about him but falling victim to key flaws: large size, his floatyness making him take a long time to get back down to the ground, and the tail hurtbox. With his combo game significantly worsened from Smash 4 and him not really getting much to compensate, it's easy to see why his former mains gave up on him. That's why he was one of the least popular characters for a long time. The Mewtwo meta has really gained steam as of late, fortunately, and with Wadi favoring him over ROB (though he still plays ROB as a backup), I expect to see this character rise.

I'm likewise optimistic on , , and , as the former is a very complex character who hasn't had much chance to get to full steam yet, and the latter two have gotten notable buffs in addition to their metas taking off as of late. I expect to see them perform better going forward.

I find it odd that sees so little success. Maybe they truly are too awkward for most people. Their kit is super strong on paper, at least, and they've been buffed to absurdity. Worth keeping an eye on this character; I don't expect them to go to the top because the troubles with hitting small characters remains, but it wouldn't surprise me to see Wii Fit do well.

I'm pessimistic on the rest of the characters below Bayo. It has remained pretty consistent that they don't get far. Barring huge buffs, I doubt they'll make many leaps. I would love to be surprised, though!

It seems aligns with my feelings that the character is truly bad, which makes me feel vindicated when she was touted as supposedly being really good post-buffs. This may be the character I am the most pessimistic on in the game. Her disadvantage is as bad, if not worse than Mewtwo and big-body heavyweights, while being the second lightest character in the game. She lacks combos, and lacks anything to make up for her lack of combos. Her kill power is very poor outside of Rest and edgeguards, which are highly situational to pull off. But her biggest Achilles Heel is her complete lack of a projectile or any way to help deal with them, in combination with low range making her get beat hard by disjoints. That's a very rough deal when projectiles and disjoints are dummy strong and a majority of the cast has them.

Also feeling pretty pessimistic on as of late. I take it the character's high placing is because of Brood? I sadly haven't seen the character do much since then, and Plant is heavily lacking when it comes to tilts and aerials, which are key to having a good neutral.

 

[Arthur97]

I mean, really, Ganondorf could use a pretty significant moveset overhaul anyway to bring him into his own. Perhaps in the process helping his viability, but that's next game talk.

 

[StrangeKitten]

I mean, really, Ganondorf could use a pretty significant moveset overhaul anyway to bring him into his own. Perhaps in the process helping his viability, but that's next game talk.

Agreed. For now, though, I really wish they'd stop overlooking him for QoL fixes and buffs. It's not like he couldn't at least be improved in that way in the meantime.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

ESAM and ShinyMark collaborated on a Pikachu MU chart together

There was a problem fetching the tweet

One major pet peeve I have with ESAM's Matchup Charts is the -4 matchups. I just don't think a -4 matchup exists in Ultimate, that's something like Meta Knight vs Ganondorf in Brawl where it was almost unwinnable for Ganondorf because the gap between the top and the bottom was so huge in that game, Ultimate's a way more balanced game and the gap isn't as large between Joker/Pika and Little Mac/Ganondorf. Like Pika vs Ganondorf sucks, but is it really Brawl Meta Knight vs Brawl Ganondorf levels of bad?

 

[Nah]

Also on a side note, I never really got how are constantly perpuated as underrated high tier threats, and their peak performances only being about as good as only confuses me further in understanding said mindset lol.

idk about the other two, but in Robin's case I think it's that there's something about the character that makes people wanna believe that they're better than they are and ignore the lack of supporting evidence for it. Kind of a moment of choosing to ignore results after constantly using results as a metric of viability, for whatever reason.

It was like this in Smash 4 too. After the Checkmate patch, a lot of people were very optimistic about Robin and insisted for a long time that she was definitely high tier. Especially after Dath got 3rd at Road to Shine and beat Larry Lurr (who I'm pretty sure had no ****ing idea what he was doing in that set) on the way there. But over the long term the results never painted the picture of a bona fide high tier. Then at the very end of the game's life (when it was convenient to do so), people finally started to admit that the character wasn't really that good after all.

And we're seeing that song and dance play out again in Ultimate now even if Robin's hardly ever talked about lol

 

[meleebrawler]

Agreed. For now, though, I really wish they'd stop overlooking him for QoL fixes and buffs. It's not like he couldn't at least be improved in that way in the meantime.

Do we disregard buffs Ryu got just because Ken got them too?

It could entirely be possible that it's less about them thinking 's "alright", but rather that they're... "satisfied" with his design? That isn't to say that they never factor in a character's viability/results when applying buffs or nerfs: If that were true wouldn't be buffed in 4-5 patches and wouldn't be nerfed twice now. But I do think what they chose to buff/nerf and how they buff/nerf it is more dependent on whether they think it works as intended.
For example, their reasoning for buffing - a move that seemingly baffled everyone - pehaps wasn't that they thought he needed it, but rather they buffed him because they think USmash should be frame 14, regardless of how good Sonic as a character is. On the flip side, people will continue to suggest that 's Flip Jump invincible-escaping properties should be the one thing that's toned down about the character, but in both the two times they nerfed her, they didn't touch that aspect of Flip Jump at all. Maybe to them, that is part of ZSS's identity and their overall "vision" for the character, and instead they saw other things about the character that wasn't intended to be designed that way, like Boost Kick being only frame 4 or Flip Jump's bury lasting as long as it does.

If their vision for Ganondorf is to be a slow hard-hitting bruiser, then his current design is accurate to that vision, regardless of his actual viability. If his moves all work accordingly to their vision for the character, that could be enough cause for them to feel the need to not adjust anything about the character, even if he is popularly perpuated as a bottom 1 contender.

Of course this is all just speculation. At the end of the day, even with all the data we can parse and trends we can analyze, I don't think we can fully understand or figure out what their thought process is for designing these characters. We ain't mind readers after all lol. It is times like this I wish they were more transparent on the reasoning behind their changes (kinda like how Street Figher 5 does it), but oh well.

-----------------
Also on a side note, I never really got how are constantly perpuated as underrated high tier threats, and their peak performances only being about as good as only confuses me further in understanding said mindset lol.

For King K. Rool, compared to Ganondorf especially, he wasn't just bad, but also arguably dysfunctional, or at least very undertuned. Most if not all of his unique traits were too weak or exploitable, and he really wasn't even as powerful in knockback dealt on average as you'd expect a heavy like him to be. Even if you could argue he was still technically better than Ganondorf in the early days (not a popular one then considering the latter's honeymoon period), stuff like his belly armor breaking from two good hits felt way worse than Ganon's usual struggles with approaches.

And for those who say heavy hitter DLC characters like Byleth and Kazuya are obsoleting him, you have to consider ease of use for casual players. New Byleth players can get tripped up by narrow hitboxes and sourspots, and there's no getting around that Kazuya will feel awful to control if you are not familiar with his nuances. Ganondorf doesn't have anything like that to trip up newbies.

 

[StrangeKitten]

Do we disregard buffs Ryu got just because Ken got them too?

Are you referring to the up special change? I didn't forget about it, but that's the only thing Ganondorf has gotten. Which, like, yay I guess? Making a single thing better that doesn't matter much in the grand scheme of things, presumably because it was a fix they wanted to give to Falcon, doesn't make me stop feeling like Ganondorf has been overlooked. Dude has gone 12 patches now with only getting that single change.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Results from Sumabato SP 18

1. Shirayuki
2. Mottsuan
3. Taikei
4. Sigma
5. Rizeasu
5. Toura
7. Lunamado
7. Tsumusuto
9. Komugiko
9. Atsumu
9. shori
9. Senra
13. komorikiri
13. egapon
13. alice
13. Sylph

 

[The_Bookworm]

Also on a side note, I never really got how are constantly perpuated as underrated high tier threats, and their peak performances only being about as good as only confuses me further in understanding said mindset lol.

I don't know who actually thinks this character is high tier lol. However, we have seen a few Robin players, such as Jul and Angel, do some nasty stuff with the character, so I think he is solid (but not amazing).
Wii Fit is solid, getting some consistently good success in regional events from players like varun and Keroguchi, even though her results in bigger tournaments are more sparse.
Her perception is probably inflated because of people prioritizing her high damage numbers and camping capabilities, making her seem stronger on-paper than in practice.
I don't know really. I have barely seen this character do... anything at all in tournaments. Even in the online era where he is supposed to be at his strongest, I haven't seen anyone do much of anything with the character in larger tournaments.
His perception is probably inflated because people assume that this character is very solid on-paper, when no one knows how this character really functions.

ESAM and ShinyMark collaborated on a Pikachu MU chart together

There was a problem fetching the tweet

One major pet peeve I have with ESAM's Matchup Charts is the -4 matchups. I just don't think a -4 matchup exists in Ultimate, that's something like Meta Knight vs Ganondorf in Brawl where it was almost unwinnable for Ganondorf because the gap between the top and the bottom was so huge in that game, Ultimate's a way more balanced game and the gap isn't as large between Joker/Pika and Little Mac/Ganondorf. Like Pika vs Ganondorf sucks, but is it really Brawl Meta Knight vs Brawl Ganondorf levels of bad?

That is a matchup chart that makes even Brawl MK jealous.
With a matchup chart like this, why does ESAM even need secondaries?

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

That is a matchup chart that makes even Brawl MK jealous.
With a matchup chart like this, why does ESAM even need secondaries?

What's even weirder is that ESAM is also a person who thinks the meta game is extremely well balanced, which in that case, a in this game can't even exist. I at least respect ShinyMark (The other best Pika player) because while he thinks Pikachu is potentially the best or second best, he's also not as confident in putting some matchups as +3 or +4 which I personally agree with him on. I don't think a +4 matchup exists in this game, though I think +3 matchups can exist.