Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Frihetsanka]

Wait a minute, does bayo win against the Minecraft man. I would very much like to know more about that.

Lima seems to do pretty well against yonni at locals, but, in my opinion, many Steve players make too pessimistic matchup charts. It's probably Even rather than losing for Steve.

Smash 4 feels like a Filler Ark that everyone collectively erased from their memories.

I think Smash 4 was fun but it feels a lot less distinct than Melee and Brawl, making it kind of like worse Ultimate in many ways, so there's not too much reason to go back.

 

[NairWizard]

Super hot/unconventional take, but I don't have that much faith in Steve, despite OrionStats and how creative the character can get with his setups. I mean, Steve's hardest matchups are swords, and they also happen to be the strongest overall archetype in the game, so, what's the big deal? If half of high-level players would actually learn traditional sword zoning maybe they wouldn't have so many issues with mid-level Steves. I've really never had a problem with Steve. I'm coming around to the idea that he's top 5ish, but it's not a Bayo thing where I didn't even have a good archetype to turn to if I wanted to autopilot against a Bayo.

 

[Idon]

Super hot/unconventional take, but I don't have that much faith in Steve, despite OrionStats and how creative the character can get with his setups. I mean, Steve's hardest matchups are swords, and they also happen to be the strongest overall archetype in the game, so, what's the big deal? If half of high-level players would actually learn traditional sword zoning maybe they wouldn't have so many issues with mid-level Steves. I've really never had a problem with Steve. I'm coming around to the idea that he's top 5ish, but it's not a Bayo thing where I didn't even have a good archetype to turn to if I wanted to autopilot against a Bayo.

Ah yes, if only these people who professionally play this game and travel the world for their livelihood would simply learn the matchup, why didn't they ever think of that?

 

[Arthur97]

Four is kinda wierd as it and Ultimate are so similar artistically. That said, it isn't awful outside the DLC. It also started the trend of lots of third parties, but that's for another thread. It can be weird to go back to, and it just looks a little...off after playing Ultimate. It does in way seem like proto Ultimate.

However, that said, look on the bright side again. It's not Brawl Meta Knight. It's also better balanced than Melee. Really, Ultimate has it pretty good.

 

[NairWizard]

Ah yes, if only these people who professionally play this game and travel the world for their livelihood would simply learn the matchup, why didn't they ever think of that?

but that’s not what I said? I said learn sword zoning, not the Steve matchup.

it is a fact that a majority of non-top-level players do not understand or employ reactive sword zoning. It’s been the case since Brawl, and today in Ultimate, Leo himself talks about it all the time.

The truth is that Steve counterplay is much more accessible than S4 Bayo counterplay ever was, so it’s hard to sympathize with those who want to ban Steve at least right now.

Steve’s jump height and drift make sword zoning very effective against him regardless of his bag of tricks; sparg0 and Leo show it off pretty well, but you don’t need sparg0 or Leo-level execution to fight a good Steve this way unless it’s acola.

 

[Rocketjay8]

Here's a Steve mu chart from the Smashcords Steve Discord that is averaged from all top players who have given a mu chart in 2022.

50% weighted towards Non-Steves and 50% towards Steves

Credit to benjamin mcgrath who gathered the data and BIG SHOT AcidArmy who sorted and made the chart.

I think it's a decent mu chart, but I don't really agree with Krool's placement. Maybe an even to +1 for Steve.

Cloud and Pythra being losing is not a good thing for this character.

 

[Arthur97]

Wait, Robins as one of the worst? Interesting.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Top level Steve mains and ROB mains seem to generally underestimate their characters. Compare their charts to, say, Sonic charts, which tend to be more realistic. It doesn't help that many of the MU charts are old though, after acola and Onin people reconsidered Steve's placement (people used to think he was like top 10-15 or so).

It might also be worth noting that many Steve mains don't think he's #1. This is very different from Smash 4 Bayonetta, no one really denied that she was #1.

 

[blackghost]

Wait a minute, does bayo win against the Minecraft man. I would very much like to know more about that.

She might. Bayo can do some really funky stuff off Steve blocks. But Steve can mash dair to beat witch twist

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Some data came out of Ultimate Shockwave 132 which had banned all of FP2.
https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/yl83t2 I think this experiment is going to be interesting throughout the next couple of weeks, but I think a lot of the heightened viewership rn might be because of the novelty factor.

 

[Aligo]

Considering that it was also Steve mains that hid broken stuff and bugs stuff till post patches, I find their ranking of him rather disingenuous.

Also Sora being banned at shockwave because of Steve is both hilarious and sad.

 

[Arthur97]

Oh novelty is definitely part of it, and anyone serious about analyzing it should know that.

I mean, I get making DLC and each passes a ban block. It's just a nice little divider to go on. Especially if it's a gimmick. Like I said, I would like more gimmick roster events that aren't meant to deal with problems but rather just to have some fun and mix things up.

 

[Frihetsanka]

I think this experiment is going to be interesting throughout the next couple of weeks, but I think a lot of the heightened viewership rn might be because of the novelty factor.

Oh, absolutely. We'll see what happens once we get more data, I suppose.

Anyways I hope y’all get what you want and Steve and kazuya are banned so y’all can have fun losing to min min and rob instead

I’m rooting for y’all 🥺🙏

— Yonas (@FrYonni) November 3, 2022

I do wonder if people would push to ban more characters next should Steve and Kazuya be banned? If the argument is "they're toxic/make people quit the game" then characters don't need to be #1 or #2 in order to be banned (and many people don't even think Kazuya is top 3 and still want him banned). This is one of the reasons I don't like the argument from viewerships/attendants, since that could easily apply to characters like Sonic, ROB, and Min Min as well. If all Steve and Kazuya mains switch to Sonic/ROB/Min Min/Olimar, would people be happy? Rhetorical question, they wouldn't be.

If a character is really, really broken (like Brawl Meta Knight), then I think you could have a strong case for banning them. I don't think Kazuya and Steve are there yet. Who knows where they'll be in a year, but right now I don't think they're close to being ban-worthy.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Oh, absolutely. We'll see what happens once we get more data, I suppose.

Anyways I hope y’all get what you want and Steve and kazuya are banned so y’all can have fun losing to min min and rob instead

I’m rooting for y’all 🥺🙏

— Yonas (@FrYonni) November 3, 2022

I do wonder if people would push to ban more characters next should Steve and Kazuya be banned? If the argument is "they're toxic/make people quit the game" then characters don't need to be #1 or #2 in order to be banned (and many people don't even think Kazuya is top 3 and still want him banned). This is one of the reasons I don't like the argument from viewerships/attendants, since that could easily apply to characters like Sonic, ROB, and Min Min as well. If all Steve and Kazuya mains switch to Sonic/ROB/Min Min/Olimar, would people be happy? Rhetorical question, they wouldn't be.

If a character is really, really broken (like Brawl Meta Knight), then I think you could have a strong case for banning them. I don't think Kazuya and Steve are there yet. Who knows where they'll be in a year, but right now I don't think they're close to being ban-worthy.

Would like to point out that the bans are happening in DFW, where there's a bunch of Steve's and Kazuya's in locals, far more then normal. To the point where sometimes top 8 or top 16 of those Ultimate Shockwave locals can be filled with FP2 characters. I think for any other region doing it, it wouldn't make sense for the reasons you mention, but I think for DFW it's an understandable experiment. That's clearly a region specific problem that people want to address.

 

[williamsga555]

Another aspect to keep in mind with these results is that nearly anything regarding viewership (especially this first tournament) needs to be taken with a grain of salt until much later on. I would nearly guarantee you that the massive jump in numbers can largely be attributed to curiosity -this is a bold enough experiment to have already garnered a lot of discussion before the first tournament even happened, so it's easy to imagine many of those same people popping into the stream to see how it unfolded. If these larger numbers are retained at the end of the month, there would be more to discuss on that front.

I should also disclose that I am personally heavily against any notion of these characters being banned, especially at any sort of national level. These are just locals, so ultimately they can do what they want I suppose, but I would find it very disappointing if this ended up impacting much outside of their scope, frankly.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Sisqui's tier list

My 2022 Tier List pic.twitter.com/sdH6iPrOzf

— VGY | Sisqui (@TheSisqui) November 3, 2022

The top 3 of OrionStats are the top 3 in this list, just in a different order. Also 4 different DLC characters are in the "The Best" category. In addition Pikachu seems to have fallen off in a large majority of tier lists that I've seen recently. Smash 4 all over again lol.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Sisqui's tier list

My 2022 Tier List pic.twitter.com/sdH6iPrOzf

— VGY | Sisqui (@TheSisqui) November 3, 2022

The top 3 of OrionStats are the top 3 in this list, just in a different order. Also 4 different DLC characters are in the "The Best" category. In addition Pikachu seems to have fallen off in a large majority of tier lists that I've seen recently. Smash 4 all over again lol.

Well according to the list, 1/3 of the cast is top tier and 1/4 of it is mid tier and lower. I personally reeeeaaally doubt that, but it is a curious list overall.

But yeah, similar to back at SSB4, Pikachu held top of tier list placings thanks to the power of theorycrafting, but now that the game is reaching its 4th year of being released, such power is starting to wear thin. I feel this has also affecting Ultimate Shulk's placement in tier lists, except this trend of placing him lower has happened already months ago.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Seems OrionStats got updated a few days ago: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gRlzy4z_dpqb2ZRhGoqtbDcuvUKz_ROsMZHGegon53M/

Steve #1 by quite some margin now, ROB #2 with a good margin to the #3 (Aegis), who is fairly close to the #4 (Palutena) and #5 (Snake). Sephiroth just 1 point over Mario/Min Min (259 points vs 258, #12 vs #13). Sonic up to #17, Cloud up to #18. Shulk tied with Luigi for #29 now. And Pikachu is climbing! #40 now, 6 points higher than Pichu, who is #43. Byleth #47, Sora #49, Corrin #53, that's interesting, Byleth clearly benefits from having MkLeo playing her again. Donkey Kong at #53 is noteworthy, given that Sisqui just put him as second worst in the game. Little Mac #71, quite a bit better than Ganondorf (#81) and Mii Swordfighter (#82). Marth at #80 and Pit/Dark Pit at #78 is kind of sad.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Well according to the list, 1/3 of the cast is top tier and 1/4 of it is mid tier and lower. I personally reeeeaaally doubt that, but it is a curious list overall.

But yeah, similar to back at SSB4, Pikachu held top of tier list placings thanks to the power of theorycrafting, but now that the game is reaching its 4th year of being released, such power is starting to wear thin. I feel this has also affecting Ultimate Shulk's placement in tier lists, except this trend of placing him lower has happened already months ago.

On the Opposite end R.O.B was always placed surprisingly low on Pro-Tier lists even a year ago and was never considered top tier '"Because R.O.B is big" . R.O.B was always placed lower than Pikachu despite having the better results since the very start of Ultimiate.

Funny now that the consensus on Pika and R.O.B have nearly switched.

 

[Aligo]

On the Opposite end R.O.B was always placed surprisingly low on Pro-Tier lists even a year ago and was never considered top tier '"Because R.O.B is big" . R.O.B was always placed lower than Pikachu despite having the better results since the very start of Ultimiate.

Funny now that the consensus on Pika and R.O.B have nearly switched.

Also how despite being so big, R.O.B avoided nerfs in every patch.

 

[st0pnsw0p]

Out of curiositty I went through Bayo's top 64 placements at every Genesis, EVO, and SSC between her release and Ultimate's release and compared them to Steve's placements at this year's supermajors (as listed by Liquipedia) and select majors.
Placements according to ssbwiki.
*Asterisk denotes the character is listed as a secondary

Bayo results:

EVO 2016​	SSC 2016​	Genesis 4​	EVO 2017​	SSC 2017​	Genesis 6​	EVO 2018​	SSC 2018​
49​	13​	4​	1​	5​	2​	1​	1*​
49​	17​	13​	9​	7​	3​	2​	3​
​	49​	17​	9​	33​	13​	4​	5​
​	​	17​	9​	33​	17​	17​	7​
​	​	25​	17​	33​	33*​	17​	13​
​	​	25​	17​	33​	49​	25*​	17​
​	​	33​	25​	​	49*​	25​	17​
​	​	​	33​	​	49​	25​	25​
​	​	​	​	​	49​	​	33​
​	​	​	​	​	​	​	49​
​	​	​	​	​	​	​	49​
​	​	​	​	​	​	​	49*​

Steve results:

Collision​

Genesis 8​

Pound​

Kagaribi #7​

MomoCon​

GOML​

Colossel​

Double Down​

SF 9​

SSC​

Rise 'n Grind​

VCA​

TBH 10​

Maesuma TOP 10​

LMMM​

17​

13​

17​

1​

5​

1​

2​

7​

9*​

1​

7​

9​

3​

1​

1​

25​

33​

25​

​

13*​

7*​

25​

33​

17​

9​

25​

25​

33​

49​

2​

33​

​

33​

​

25*​

13*​

​

33​

25​

17*​

33*​

​

33*​

​

9​

​

​

49*​

​

49​

25​

​

​

33​

33​

33​

​

​

​

17​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

33​

​

​

​

​

25​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

33​

​

​

​

​

33​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

49​

​

​

​

​

33​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

49​

​

​

​

​

49​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

49​

​

​

​

​

​

Steve's best results, at SSC and LMMM, are directly comparable to Bayo's average results in 2017 and 2018 in the tournaments I analyzed, and even to EVO 2018, the tournament some people say "killed" Smash 4, though they're still a far cry from SSC 2018's 12 Bayos in top 64 and 4 in top 8. Outside of those two outliers, Steve's results and representation in majors have been fairly stable this year, and have been closer to Bayo's 2016 performance than to her 2017 and 2018 performances.

It's also notable that Steve is really only a "problem" in the US, or arguably in NA. In Japan and Europe alike, the average number of Steves in top 64 appears to be a very modest 2.

 

[Aligo]

Is it possible to look at local brackets and low level tournaments? I bet the data there would be pretty interesting.

 

[Nathan Richardson]

Ok, I haven't been on the boards for a few years but.....they're experimenting with banning DLC? Steve's considered one of the best characters? I'm....lost due to being absent for so long.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Some people argue that viewership and locals should be attended, but this assumes the Steve/Kazuya players will quit or pick some "hype" character. What if the Steve/Kazuya players instead pick up ROB, Sonic, Min Min, or Aegis? Those are also characters that many people dislike watching/playing against (it's fairly subjective though, I personally enjoy watching many of the characters that people complain about, hah). I think the main argument for a ban should be "This character is too powerful", not "This character is boring to watch/play against" since then we might have to ban a bunch of characters. I'm sure quite a few people in Europe would be happy to see Samus banned as well, and people in scenes with Olimar might be happy to see him banned, but those characters aren't gamebreakigly OP and shouldn't be banned. Are Steve and Kazuya gamebreakingly OP? Right now I don't think they are, but they do have a lot of depth so we'll see what happens in the future. For now, I don't think any character should be banned for being gamebreakingly OP.

 

[Aligo]

That assumes that the Steve players would do just as well with the character they switched to, which seems unlikely given the current state of the character. Kazuya players would likely switch to another fg character and so would probably not be complained at.

I will give you that Rob or sonic switching is a potential risk, but min min got nerfed hard and Aegis is similar to other top swordies like cloud and Roy so the hate has cooled off for both.

I don't really understand why kazuya is lumped in with Steve, because unlike his counterpart he is harder to learn, more stressful to play and has some horrendous matchups. The only real problem with kaz it that the electrics are 6 frames faster than they were supposed to be. At his worst he could be considered a new Luigi. Actually, could someone explain this kaz hate? Having played both Steve and Kazuya at weeklies, I have only really found the former horrid.

 

[Linkmain-maybe]

People hate that Kazuya can “steal” Games off of 1 combo starter and if he is a secondary of a player, you must ban FD.

Problem is that he wins neutral like, twice a stock max, so he can potentially lose a stock while only getting like 1 aerial in.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

That assumes that the Steve players would do just as well with the character they switched to, which seems unlikely given the current state of the character. Kazuya players would likely switch to another fg character and so would probably not be complained at.

I will give you that Rob or sonic switching is a potential risk, but min min got nerfed hard and Aegis is similar to other top swordies like cloud and Roy so the hate has cooled off for both.

I don't really understand why kazuya is lumped in with Steve, because unlike his counterpart he is harder to learn, more stressful to play and has some horrendous matchups. The only real problem with kaz it that the electrics are 6 frames faster than they were supposed to be. At his worst he could be considered a new Luigi. Actually, could someone explain this kaz hate? Having played both Steve and Kazuya at weeklies, I have only really found the former horrid.

I think generally it's because people think Kazuya's poorly designed due to having invincibility on a lot of attacks and also just being able to touch of death you at any percent. Luigi can only do it at low percents and it becomes impossible to do upon higher percents and say Falco does a lot of damage but struggles to kill past the up air to bair range and his up-tilt is not invincible/intangiable. Also it's decently easy for Kazuya players to read DI and SDI due to EWGF giving off so much hitstun and Ferps Tech being a thing (an absolute game changer in Kazuya's meta development).

My personal opinion? I think a character being badly designed is a problem for sure, but it's not banworthy. Sonic is incredibly poorly designed but I don't think he's banworthy, and recently opinions are extremely high on Sonic on the tier list.

 

[Aligo]

People hate that Kazuya can “steal” Games off of 1 combo starter and if he is a secondary of a player, you must ban FD.

Problem is that he wins neutral like, twice a stock max, so he can potentially lose a stock while only getting like 1 aerial in.

Thanks, I see. That would certainly ruffle some feathers. I never really thought about his use as a secondary either.

 

[Frihetsanka]

People hate that Kazuya can “steal” Games off of 1 combo starter and if he is a secondary of a player, you must ban FD.

This is only true if you run stage before character, like in NA. In Europe most countries run character before stage, which means we won't have to ban FD just because someone might have a Kazuya secondary.

If people actually wanted to nerf Steve legalizing Lylat Cruise and banning Kalos would go a long way, but I don't think people are willing to do that yet (especially not reintroducing Lylat to the stagelist).

 

[Aligo]

Starting to wonder if folks should bite the bullet and actually try and get in contact with Nintendo about this balance stuff. Might even be possible through any partners they have in the comp scene. As we are now, the game is one balance patch away from being much healthier. There will still have to be some updates for support of amiibos once they are released, so the opportunity is there.

 

[Frihetsanka]

I think people should spend more time trying to understand how characters work. Spend time playing friendlies with Steve/Kazuya/ROB, maybe spend some time labbing the character yourself in order to really understand how the characters work. I feel like a lot of people have the mentality that they would rather complain about the characters rather than spending the time to learn the matchup.

It's been 11 months since the last patch, and they said they're not going to do more balance patches, so I don't think it's very likely at all that they're going to do another one, especially since Steve/Kazuya are not as dominant as Smash 4 Bayonetta.

 

[Aligo]

I think people should spend more time trying to understand how characters work. Spend time playing friendlies with Steve/Kazuya/ROB, maybe spend some time labbing the character yourself in order to really understand how the characters work. I feel like a lot of people have the mentality that they would rather complain about the characters rather than spending the time to learn the matchup.

It's been 11 months since the last patch, and they said they're not going to do more balance patches, so I don't think it's very likely at all that they're going to do another one, especially since Steve/Kazuya are not as dominant as Smash 4 Bayonetta.

Yes I understand how Steve works, which is why I don't like him as he is now. It doesn't help that he is incredibly buggy in his current state, with tech for both hitstun and meteor cancelling being found, and those bugs will probably end up being exploited in competitive sooner or later. 'Learn the matchup' doesn't even work for the slower members of the cast against Steve. As for the bayo point, it also took her a good amount of time to get to that point, and people made the learn the mu point as well.

Getting action to balance the game will both keep the metagame healthy, and make it so that mains of the character aren't harassed so much by others. If they kept balancing smash 4, it would have probably retained some of its playerbase in a spite of the release of ultimate, at least for a little while.

 

[Frihetsanka]

'Learn the matchup' doesn't even work for the slower members of the cast against Steve.

I feel like people who are not not playing top tiers shouldn't expect their characters to do decently in every matchup (and even top tiers have better and worse matchups). If someone goes Donkey Kong and complains about the Steve matchup that's kind of on them for going Donkey Kong in the first place. One could argue that it would be better for the game if it were more balanced, and I agree with that: Fighter pass 2 in particular seems to suffer from some balance issues. At the end of the day, we can either deal with it, quit the game, or not deal with it and keep losing to busted DLC characters.

Personally I'm doing what I can do deal with it. I'm trying to pick someone who is good vs the busted DLC chars and practicing the MUs. Other people may not think it's worth it and opt to quit the game, and that's fine too. And some people choose to not practice the MU and then lose when they face the character, and if that's what they want to do then that's their choice. Perhaps they'll be lucky and won't run into a Steve/Kazuya/ROB/Aegis/Sonic etc.

As for getting another balance patch, I agree that it would be ideal but I think it's highly unlikely. Like, probably less than a 3% chance. I think focusing on what we can do to improve and deal with the matchup is better.

For Smash 4 Bayo the counter-play as "SDI really hard and potentially break your controller". At least Steve and Kazyua have counter-play that isn't quite as controller breaking as Smash 4 Bayo. And I do think Smash 4 Bayo is quite a bit stronger than any Smash Ultimate character.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

I just wondered what happened in between creating characters for FP1 than FP2.

In FP1 Nintendo seemed to really not want to repeat the Smash 4 Bayo and to a lesser extent Cloud by balancing many of the characters with very clear weakness or flaws to go with thier strengths to keep the from being too powerful. More example most of the FP1 bass either had below average mobility/frame data to keep them in relative check. Even Joker who quickly was considered very strong and potentially #1 his release was still not overwhelmingly strong and mostly manageable even before his nerfs.

Then came FP2 where it seemed the design philosophy from FP1 was thrown out the window and created many characters with "toxic" playstyles and strengths that very very overcentralizing and overturned compared to any weaknesses they had.

First was Min-Min who quickly become extremely disliked due to her keep away and edgeguarding which have many characters with low mobility and/or explotable recoveries a very hard time. Min-Min was especially reviled and actively complained about in Japan which likey combined with being the First character in FP2 where she did get a fair amount of nerfs to make her more manageable.

Skipping ahead a bit to taking about the Aegis since they next character to really raise concerns that they seems very strong and overturned. People were fearing they would be the Next Smash 4 Bayo even before Steve to to how clearly strong and straightforward thier playstyle was. Indeed they did get very strong results at first thanks top level players like MKLeo, Sparg0 and Shuton picking them up. Plus the nefs they got were Basically slaps on the wrist.

But fast forward now and said players only seem to Co-Main them or switch to them for Matchups there preferred character struggles with. While they are still very strong and likey Top 3-5 but they really have not really been as dominant as people feared. Maybe it's due to the fact the Aegis are so straightforward and simple that it seems they have already peaked potential wise. This is it kid of raiser to deal with the MU and develop counterplay. It can also seem that MKLeo and Spargo say they have more fun with using their other swordies of choice.

Then finally we come to Steve and Kazuya. When both of them first relased the options of them were Prerty mixed overall. Yes they had high strengths but they seemed to have very big weakness to balance them out somewhat. Indeed at first thier results were decent but nothing too much to worry about.

But Steve and Kazuya by their designs had lots of potential tech and combos that would take time and practice to fully being out thier potential and once dedicated players started figuring out all their options and optimal playstyles it became apparent how good they would be. Suddenly they spiked in results and then they became the new enemies of the smash community. With people wishing for Balance patches that would never come.


Honesty the Pandemic is likey a major cause of what happened with FP2. The characters let could not be as effectively balanced and tested under lockdown and Of course it lead to a lack of actual competive results and data to check for balance patches during that time. Also yeah during this time I am guessing many of the devs and People working on this game were not available or already moved on to other projects


I mean other fighting games held online tournaments during the time to get data. But with Ultimates online being as low quality and not really representative of top level offline play it would never really work out.

Yeah so there is my long spiel about This. But all that Aside no characters are likey as strong as Smash 4 Bayonetta, or even Smash 4 Cloud for that matter

 

[Frihetsanka]

I just wondered what happened in between creating characters for FP1 than FP2.

Like you yourself said: Covid happened (ie less offline testing). The game likely would've gotten better balance patches too if not for covid. Oh well.

 

[Aligo]

Like you yourself said: Covid happened (ie less offline testing). The game likely would've gotten better balance patches too if not for covid. Oh well.

That seems rather defeatist, especially with the next smash game years away. COVID can only be so much of an excuse; it had a bearing on the initial balance but not patches afterwards. Otherwise we are either going to end up with a dead metagame or banned character(s). There has to be a better way than that. Perhaps a showcase of planking and other bugs would help bring a case for a patch, as it is stated they would fix those.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

That seems rather defeatist, especially with the next smash game years away. COVID can only be so much of an excuse; it had a bearing on the initial balance but not patches afterwards. Otherwise we are either going to end up with a dead metagame or banned character(s). There has to be a better way than that. Perhaps a showcase of planking and other bugs would help bring a case for a patch, as it is stated they would fix those.

As I mentioned before at this point the Ultimate dev team likey now have all disbanded or now working on other projects so expecting another full balance patch on wishful thinking st this point. Even fighting games are not like Big MMORPG's or online multilayers live service games like LOL and Overwatch where there a deviated team set to keep putting in bigfix and balance updates for like several years.

Once the say updates and work on a game is down, then it's down and everyone on the projects leaves and moves on. That at least seems to be how Nintendo handles thier Big Online multilayer games

This is likey what happens with Smash 4 and Bayonetta. All work and support on the game was done be the time it was realized she way to overpowered even after she got patched the first time

 

[Frihetsanka]

Otherwise we are either going to end up with a dead metagame or banned character(s).

I don't think the metagame would die because of it. Melee is very much alive even though Fox is the #1 character. Melee players never banned Fox, and yet Melee is still alive. Some people said Jigglypuff would kill Melee, yet Melee is still alive.

I think Steve and Kazuya are both overtuned, and both (especially Kazuya) have some design flaws. I don't think neither of them are as bad as Smash 4 Bayonetta or Brawl Meta Knight, though. They're probably closer to Melee Fox/Smash 4 Cloud. Overtuned characters that are unlikely to dominate the meta in the same was Smash 4 Bayonetta and Brawl Meta Knight did (and Smash 4 Bayonetta wasn't that bad in comparison to some other non-Smash fighting game characters).

Moving forward, I think there are some options for people who are still interested in the game:

Tournament players could practice the matchups, work on counter-play, and try to learn how to deal with the characters. Perhaps spend some time playing the characters themselves in order to get a better understanding for how they work. If your character loses hard to these characters then you might want to change main or get a secondary to better handle them. Playing the characters yourself is also an option.

Viewers could try to make an attempt to find games with the common characters more enjoyable to watch. Personally I tend to find it more fun if I play the characters myself, so maybe pick them up for fun? Even if you don't main the character it might increase your enjoyment of watching the character. Also spend some time better understanding how the character works, I find that makes a character more enjoyable to watch (Sonic is a good example, if you know the differences between spin dash and spin charge and some basic knowledge about Sonic techniques and Sonic kill confirms that might make Sonic games more enjoyable to watch).

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Well if Bayo dominated and destroyed the Smash 4 1 vs 1 meta, than Cloud did the same to the doubles competive meta to an arguably bigger degree .

To the point where in big majors the doubles completions Victors were Double Clouds. Even pro players who did not regularly use Cloud in singles used him for Doubles.

I think many tournament organizers even put a restriction for only one Cloud per team. Cloud on doubles managed to earn a sort of restriction in play which was more than Bayo got anywhere

 

[Aligo]

Image if folks had to switch off of Steve/kaz after the first game, like a once per set thing. Maybe something like that? That would reduce the negative effects the characters while still having them be playable.

This is either a really good or terrible idea, but I think it is good.