Different take on nerfing Fox?

[foxygrandpa]

Sorry for those who are sick of the nerfing spacies posts, but I really just wanted to know what people would think of about an idea that I had. Instead of altering fox's offensive game too much, how about we make his defensive game worse? Obviously, both need some tweaks.

Offensive Changes:
Keep the reflector the same as it is currently, with the same speed, the same range, and the lack of invincibility. Making the damage less may make a slight difference, but may not depending on how well the player can combo from it.
Nerfing upsmash in my opinion would not make too much of a difference, because in the end it will still be foxes most prominent killing option. It would make some slight difference however, and not take too much away from his current playstyle.
Make foxes upthrow more hits than only 2. This would make SDI easier from the upthrow upair combo. If the grab is changed, he might be dominated by the other fast fallers like falco and cfalcon, because the upsmash from upthrow could be taken away.
Make the lasers shorter. It doesn't make too large of a difference in my opinion, but it will to an extent force the fox player to play more offensively than before.

Defensive Changes:
Capitalizing against Fox's mistakes is already relatively easy with many top tier characters (Peach, Shiek, Falco, Captain Falcon). If we possibly made fox more of a glass cannon type of character, his technical barrier would still be high, but will require a fox player to stay more on offense. If a simple mistake in his offensive abilities was easier to capitalize on, fox players would have to be more familiar with matchups and tools that other characters may use. Nerfing foxes recovery may help other characters be able to gimp him easier.
In my opinion, fox's side b should have a slightly larger startup. It should definitely still be a viable mixup option for fox's recovery but at the same time will be easier to react to and punish into a low damage kill.
Fox's up b I think, is already relatively easy to challenge, but it could be more easy, so that characters with smaller ranges and lacking projectiles could punish him off the edge harder. I wasn't exactly sure how this would happen but I have 2 different proposals. The first proposal is that the hitbox on both the initial flame startup be smaller, and have the entire attack's hitbox be smaller. The second proposal is that towards the end of the up b, the flames shrink, making them slightly weaker than they are currently with less knockback. The length of it should be the same, but as the attack travels further, the attack becomes more challenge-able. This would make it tremendously easier for characters to edgeguard fox while on the stage.

Overall, I think the key in nerfing fox is to keep his offensive game relatively the same. If we make his offensive game more risky, only the most technical of the fox players would be able to master him, rather than the large amount of people that play with him now.

 

[Nemiak temp]

Some good ideas here for sure. Just not sure how I feel about trying to force all Foxes to play super technical and aggressive. Shortening lasers would make them useless. They're only purpose is to force an approach from a distance; if they are shorter they would just about never be used. Lasers should stay as they are now. The nerf they already got actually already hurts foxes defensive options a good amount. (He can still run all over the place and DD camp but whatever). Just make the timing for the SHDL the same as melee, it's way too easy in this game. In fact if they were able to make all of foxes timing the same as melee we would probably see a pretty big drop in Fox performance. Any scrub who can L-cancel can play fox in this game and even the small things like no longer having to jump cancel out of a dash to upsmash makes Fox play pretty easy. (DD all over the place then upsmash is what a stupid amount of players get away with in this game because it's impossible to screw up).

 

[Deleted member]

I respect that you're thinking critically, but altering fox's capacity to interact from an advantageous or disadvantageous position is not the problem with the character, those are actually his balanced aspects. The fundamental problem with fox is a natural superiority from neutral position that allows the character to transition into seamless conversions at will.

making your characters tools easier to SDI or making the character even more high risk high reward than he already is will frustrate your players and drive them away from the game. making fox easier to play than melee fox was definitely correct for this reason.

the key to nerfing fox is to put his neutral game within competition of other characters. he's still going to have above average movement and conversions, but nerfing his lasers and initial dash will remove some of the horrendously non-interactive match-ups that are definitive to fox's degenerate gameplay.

 

[Viceversa96]

I respect that you're thinking critically, but altering fox's capacity to interact from an advantageous or disadvantageous position is not the problem with the character, those are actually his balanced aspects. The fundamental problem with fox is a natural superiority from neutral position that allows the character to transition into seamless conversions at will.

making your characters tools easier to SDI or making the character even more high risk high reward than he already is will frustrate your players and drive them away from the game. making fox easier to play than melee fox was definitely correct for this reason.

the key to nerfing fox is to put his neutral game within competition of other characters. he's still going to have above average movement and conversions, but nerfing his lasers and initial dash will remove some of the horrendously non-interactive match-ups that are definitive to fox's degenerate gameplay.

How about no lasers. Give him a different b move. And a terrible dash dance and leave it at that.

 

[Nemiak temp]

**** it just take away everything but shine. People will still scream "nerf fox! nerf fox!"
Also why was it a good thing to make Fox easier? So people have less trouble picking him up? It just feels so not rewarding at all to play him in P:M

 

[foxygrandpa]

I respect that you're thinking critically, but altering fox's capacity to interact from an advantageous or disadvantageous position is not the problem with the character, those are actually his balanced aspects. The fundamental problem with fox is a natural superiority from neutral position that allows the character to transition into seamless conversions at will.

making your characters tools easier to SDI or making the character even more high risk high reward than he already is will frustrate your players and drive them away from the game. making fox easier to play than melee fox was definitely correct for this reason.

the key to nerfing fox is to put his neutral game within competition of other characters. he's still going to have above average movement and conversions, but nerfing his lasers and initial dash will remove some of the horrendously non-interactive match-ups that are definitive to fox's degenerate gameplay.

I can see what you mean, and thanks for giving me some feedback. But, there are some things that I disagree with. Changing things like fox's lasers or his intitial dash would definitly make him worse, but I don't think its to the benefit of the technical that was promised even though they are good ideas. When I was writing this, I was thinking about falco because of the similarites that they share in gameplay. Falco's neutral game is pretty much perfect, but he is still a fair character because of how easily he's gimped. I play shiek, ike, as well as spacies and I think that falco's poor recovery (especially since he lacks startup flames on up b) and I can say that its pretty easy to kill falco at low percent off the edge. He probably has the best stage control and one of the best neutral games but nevertheless, he is still easier to knockout than everyone else in the cast.
The main thing that fox has that makes him a better character than falco is that his recovery is better. If we gave falco fox's recovery, he would be the best without a doubt. Falco is fair because of poor offstage game, if we give the same to fox, it would make him fair.

 

[Deleted member]

How about no lasers. Give him a different b move. And a terrible dash dance and leave it at that.

no, that would ruin the character. my revisions leave the character functionally and strategically in-tact. all my changes do is help remove degenerate gameplay. we still want the character to play the same.

**** it just take away everything but shine. People will still scream "nerf fox! nerf fox!"
Also why was it a good thing to make Fox easier? So people have less trouble picking him up? It just feels so not rewarding at all to play him in P:M

if you want a character to be hard for the sake of being hard, you should probably understand now that you're in the minority. we want the game to have mechanics that augment depth and allow better players to demonstrate their relative ability over other players, which fox is still going to do. making the character inherently prohibitive will again drive players away. being able to do cool things is a major draw over something like brawl, but there's definitely a back-bending difficulty curve for most players.

being morton's salty buttmad doesn't solve the problem either.

I can see what you mean, and thanks for giving me some feedback. But, there are some things that I disagree with. Changing things like fox's lasers or his intitial dash would definitly make him worse, but I don't think its to the benefit of the technical that was promised even though they are good ideas. When I was writing this, I was thinking about falco because of the similarites that they share in gameplay. Falco's neutral game is pretty much perfect, but he is still a fair character because of how easily he's gimped. I play shiek, ike, as well as spacies and I think that falco's poor recovery (especially since he lacks startup flames on up b) and I can say that its pretty easy to kill falco at low percent off the edge. He probably has the best stage control and one of the best neutral games but nevertheless, he is still easier to knockout than everyone else in the cast.
The main thing that fox has that makes him a better character than falco is that his recovery is better. If we gave falco fox's recovery, he would be the best without a doubt. Falco is fair because of poor offstage game, if we give the same to fox, it would make him fair.

you have the right idea in terms of balance but you're not evaluating the character's focal aspects correctly. which is fine, since you haven't been playing smash for a decade (something i'm not particularly proud of). falco's neutral game is probably the single most unfair thing in any smash game. falco's picture is right next to Ivan Ooze on the "broken character" list solely because of his neutral game. as the PM team has learned for the last 2 years, to leave his neutral game in tact and to specifically balance EVERY character to be able to handle falco STILL left him in the top tier. as in, all of the cast was specifically given <insert fox/falco death combo here> and it wasn't actually enough to keep them out of top tier. fox and falco both have extraordinarily unfair neutral games. falco is easily gimped, but his recovery is still above average because of the options available to the player at any given time, as well as the characters physics taking full advantage of the character's survival DI range (as opposed to say melee samus).

now let's go back to fox. i don't know about you, but in my experience as a sheik/marth player, that fox is NEVER coming back. ever. most characters aren't coming back against a good player, it's just too hard to consistently get out of the disadvantageous position known as "being edgeguarded". it's usually not even a matter of player skill if the guy on the stage just has you. in a lot of cases, the difference in recovery becomes negligible even though fox's recovery has a strict tactical advantage over falco's simply because neither character can get past the same opponent. to value fox's recovery against his neutral game is similar to the argument to nerf fox's upsmash because neither effectively addresses their imbalanced neutral games.

to fix fox and falco, you have to address how they engage the opponent. that pretty much means either their positioning game (movement, lasers) and how they convert into positional advantage on hit confirmation (shine and grabs are the big two since their aerials are fine). and that's pretty much where we're at.

 

[1MachGO]

Umbreon's suggestions are good because they are succinct and make an effort to approach some of the major problems Fox and Falco give other characters. Anyone who believes that nerfing Fox's upsmash will improve MUs where Fox has the advantage doesn't understand why Fox is good. Fox and Falco's ability to control the opponent (the former manipulative, the other, more direct) is a major cause of certain MU imbalances.

 

[CyberZixx]

I really hope the PMBR take the Umbreon approach to changing the spacies. I trust them to do the right thing and not listen to those who as 1Machgo put it think nerfing upsmash is the fixer.

 

[Nemiak temp]

Hmm. Re-design fox and infuriate every fox main in history? Oooooor just leave him as he is. #nolongerhavefaithinthePMcommunity #niggashadonetoomanybadexperienceswithagoodfox

 

[foxygrandpa]

no, that would ruin the character. my revisions leave the character functionally and strategically in-tact. all my changes do is help remove degenerate gameplay. we still want the character to play the same.




if you want a character to be hard for the sake of being hard, you should probably understand now that you're in the minority. we want the game to have mechanics that augment depth and allow better players to demonstrate their relative ability over other players, which fox is still going to do. making the character inherently prohibitive will again drive players away. being able to do cool things is a major draw over something like brawl, but there's definitely a back-bending difficulty curve for most players.

being morton's salty buttmad doesn't solve the problem either.





you have the right idea in terms of balance but you're not evaluating the character's focal aspects correctly. which is fine, since you haven't been playing smash for a decade (something i'm not particularly proud of). falco's neutral game is probably the single most unfair thing in any smash game. falco's picture is right next to Ivan Ooze on the "broken character" list solely because of his neutral game. as the PM team has learned for the last 2 years, to leave his neutral game in tact and to specifically balance EVERY character to be able to handle falco STILL left him in the top tier. as in, all of the cast was specifically given <insert fox/falco death combo here> and it wasn't actually enough to keep them out of top tier. fox and falco both have extraordinarily unfair neutral games. falco is easily gimped, but his recovery is still above average because of the options available to the player at any given time, as well as the characters physics taking full advantage of the character's survival DI range (as opposed to say melee samus).

now let's go back to fox. i don't know about you, but in my experience as a sheik/marth player, that fox is NEVER coming back. ever. most characters aren't coming back against a good player, it's just too hard to consistently get out of the disadvantageous position known as "being edgeguarded". it's usually not even a matter of player skill if the guy on the stage just has you. in a lot of cases, the difference in recovery becomes negligible even though fox's recovery has a strict tactical advantage over falco's simply because neither character can get past the same opponent. to value fox's recovery against his neutral game is similar to the argument to nerf fox's upsmash because neither effectively addresses their imbalanced neutral games.

to fix fox and falco, you have to address how they engage the opponent. that pretty much means either their positioning game (movement, lasers) and how they convert into positional advantage on hit confirmation (shine and grabs are the big two since their aerials are fine). and that's pretty much where we're at.

Actually, I've been playing smash for more than a decade. And as I shiek player myself, I can also say that it's very easy to capitalize against fox and falcos recovery. But with some of the PM characters, and for other people who havent been playing as long as we have, its not. But on the other hand, sheik and marth are also very high caliber characters. If fox and falcos were ridculously broken as it is, they would have been more dominant in melee than they were already are. There are many other characters that could put up to them, and any melee player should know that. I agree that they may need a slight nerf, but my main hopes are that I dont have to relearn the characters that I've been learning for 12 years. Another fear of mine is that when the fox and falco nerfs are place, the other melee characters will be nerfed, and after about 12 years of perfecting my sheik and spacies, I will be forced to switch characters due to gameplay differences.
In my opinion, with falco, the lasers shouldn't cause flinching unless at high damage or at close range. That way, falco couldn't force into his deadly neutral game. And I can see what you mean, as with the fox change. But, I think fox's current laser system should remain the same. Lower damage from further away, with maybe a slight range nerf. I I were to go into detail about fox's neutral game that should be nerfed, My hope is that they won't change any of his aerials but instead nerf something minor about his mobility, like you've suggested. My ideas weren't meant to contradict yours. I think that you're on the right track for the most part. I didn't mean to disagree with anyone on this thread, I just wanted to see what would happen if my idea would be put across, so Im sorry if you felt like I was verbally attacking your mindset.

 

[Deleted member]

lol you're clearly not verbally attacking anyone

there are many ways to solve this problem, but the fact remains that this is to be considered a new game, and to expect to be able to preserve your skillset with prior characters is unlikely. even my sheik and marth play have altered enough playing PM that i actually play them incorrectly in melee now, and those characters are really close to direct ports.

if anyone else has ideas on how to fix fox and falco, i'm all for suggestions. i actually do read every post and seriously consider the merit behind each idea put forth. so far, i think mine is the best, but i acknowledge that someone else might have something better. however, i will agree with the other max that suggestions of nerfing things like upsmash is a clear indicator that the player does not understand the game well enough. not that ignorance is wrong or anything, but those suggestions are just not the right way to go at this point.

 

[1MachGO]

^While I have stated that I feel that your suggestions have succeeded in targeting Fox's imbalance against certain characters, how much shorter do you think Fox's DD has to be to affect his game? Are we talking Sheik-bad or just an adjustment?

And @Fox and Falco nerfs in general, this is a slightly radical idea, but I always thought a good adjustment to Falco would be to make his lasers limited in their frequency of use. For instance, Falco could fire off 2 lasers but would have to wait a brief period of time before he was able to fire more (think ROB's lasers or Wario's Down-B). The recharge period could be very short, but it would help alleviate Falco's long range control during the neutral game.

 

[foxygrandpa]

^While I have stated that I feel that your suggestions have succeeded in targeting Fox's imbalance against certain characters, how much shorter do you think Fox's DD has to be to affect his game? Are we talking Sheik-bad or just an adjustment?

And @Fox and Falco nerfs in general, this is a slightly radical idea, but I always thought a good adjustment to Falco would be to make his lasers limited in their frequency of use. For instance, Falco could fire off 2 lasers but would have to wait a brief period of time before he was able to fire more (think ROB's lasers or Wario's Down-B). The recharge period could be very short, but it would help alleviate Falco's long range control during the neutral game.

If the dash were to be nerfed, I don't think that it should be too much shorter, because at the end of the day he is still the king of pressure, and the difference may not make much of a difference other than it being slightly easier to escape his neutral game pressure. And as for the falco idea, I don't really think that would make much sense. It would ruin falco's fast gameplay. Reducing the stun at long range though, would make it difficult for him to force an approach, but at the same time allow them to be used as an approach game.

 

[foxygrandpa]

lol you're clearly not verbally attacking anyone

there are many ways to solve this problem, but the fact remains that this is to be considered a new game, and to expect to be able to preserve your skillset with prior characters is unlikely. even my sheik and marth play have altered enough playing PM that i actually play them incorrectly in melee now, and those characters are really close to direct ports.

if anyone else has ideas on how to fix fox and falco, i'm all for suggestions. i actually do read every post and seriously consider the merit behind each idea put forth. so far, i think mine is the best, but i acknowledge that someone else might have something better. however, i will agree with the other max that suggestions of nerfing things like upsmash is a clear indicator that the player does not understand the game well enough. not that ignorance is wrong or anything, but those suggestions are just not the right way to go at this point.

Yeah, I can kind of agree with you on some points, like expecting to have to play characters differently. Sheiks new grab system did take some getting used to, but in then end, her combos are for the most part the same.
And I can see what you mean about the upsmash nerfs too. Many people don't realize fox's ability to maneuver in and out of an oppenents defenses allow him to give extra damage quickly.
Although fox's neutral game is powerful, anything that would decrease his aerial mobility would make his fundamental gameplay too different.
Could you be more specific on how making his dash startup different would balance him? I dont really see any other differences other than his dash dance being changed.

 

[Deleted member]

my idea is to cut the length of his initial dash by maybe 10% or 20% to make it less dominating for characters with low ground mobility. no other changes. of course, that's an experimental idea, not an automatic "you should just do this" because fox has a lot of finesse characteristics that i don't want to butcher.

 

[1MachGO]

If the dash were to be nerfed, I don't think that it should be too much shorter, because at the end of the day he is still the king of pressure, and the difference may not make much of a difference other than it being slightly easier to escape his neutral game pressure. And as for the falco idea, I don't really think that would make much sense. It would ruin falco's fast gameplay. Reducing the stun at long range though, would make it difficult for him to force an approach, but at the same time allow them to be used as an approach game.

It wouldn't ruin Falco's fast gameplay unless the recharge time was inredibly long. I don't know the exact data, but I think Falco's SHL is ~20 frames (with the laser coming out at frame 13) +4 frames of landing lag. So my idea is that Falco can hold two charges (2 lasers) which allows him to fire two lasers in about a second. However, each charge could be restored in something like 45 frames.

So if Falco fired 2 lasers in rapid succession, ~11 frames after the first laser and ~24 frames from the second laser would have contributed to the recharge time of 45 frames. This means a nearly negligible amount of time would have to pass before Falco could fire again. In most cases, 3 lasers are more than enough for most Falco approaches, so it wouldn't harm his approach game in most scenarios.

TBH, the broken aspect of Falco's lasers isn't how many frames of stun they do, its the fact Falco can put out a projectile that stuns in such a large volume and consistency. His ability to force an approach isn't nearly as threatening as his ability to control an approach. Having some kind of limit on laser frequency would help certain opponents cover ground and DD without the constant threat of lasers.

 

[I Dair You]

Nemiak is 100% right in that Fox is too easy in this game. He WOULDNT be complained about nearly as much if certain inputs were as demanding as they are in melee (much easier to short hop and shdl, control mapping option gives him even tighter control, much easier to do running upsmash, call me crazy but even upthrow to upair feels much easier to connect with.) My personal changes Id be okay with are: forcing Fox to crouch cancel his running upsmash and make it impossible to do running upsmash out of his initial dash(or maybe even a universal change to running upsmash mechanics, because I feel like any character with a good upsmash can get away with spamming it due to brawl's running upsmash mechanics), make his short hop timing the same as melee, possibly give upthrow slightly more lag or make it easier to SDI.
Edit: Also, backwards waveshining feels MUCH more lenient in P:M as opposed to Melee. It feels like it has the the exact same timing as the forward waveshine. As an example, I find it much easier for Fox in P:M to hit someone with a nair shine (see which direction opponent goes) and continuing my combo with a backwards waveshine if they go behind me. This is exceptionally hard to do in melee, because I believe the timing for wavedashing backwards out of a shine is different. If possible, maybe they could fix this? I truly hope the PMBR administers SOFT nerfs, in a way that makes Fox more technically demanding as opposed to neutering his moveset.

 

[Rarik]

Making fox harder to play in order to balance him is the equivalent of saying this character is too good, let's make it so less people can play him. It doesn't solve the actual problem, instead it just reduces the amount of good fox players rather than making it so fox isn't as good.

 

[foxygrandpa]

Making fox harder to play in order to balance him is the equivalent of saying this character is too good, let's make it so less people can play him. It doesn't solve the actual problem, instead it just reduces the amount of good fox players rather than making it so fox isn't as good.

If we reduced the amount of general fox players, the only ones left would be the ones that know the character the best, which I think would be a good thing. The only problem with this is that I dont see how it could possibly be implemented other than by giving fox inputs that would be specific only to him.

 

[Deleted member]

all that does is give a character that's frustrating to play to many and frustrating to beat to few. we don't want to annoy our players. you can still make fox as hard as you like unnecessarily like every melee fox does, nothing in fox's good stuff is actually hard to do to begin with.

 

[Nemiak temp]

Wow someone agreed with me. (I don't even agree with me). While I do think Fox should be as technically challenging as he is in melee, it really would do nothing at all in terms of game balance. Just less fox dominance. The good fox players will still do their thing. Is this a bad thing? I don't think so but whatever. I see no issues with the space animal's dominance in this game but I've already said that before. This thread is not going to go anywhere at all. We have the "Nerf fox!"-es in one corner and the "Leave him alone!" guys in one corner. Neither side wants to budge but the guy in the middle trying to make compromises is getting bashed by both corners. So with that I say: "Leave him alone!"

 

[Viceversa96]

all that does is give a character that's frustrating to play to many and frustrating to beat to few. we don't want to annoy our players. you can still make fox as hard as you like unnecessarily like every melee fox does, nothing in fox's good stuff is actually hard to do to begin with.

Are you PMBR now?

 

[Deleted member]

Are you PMBR now?

if i had good indication that the PMBR was interested in me, i would try it at the very least. right now though, nope.

 

[Viceversa96]

if i had good indication that the PMBR was interested in me, i would try it at the very least. right now though, nope.

Awww

 

[Mr.Random]

lol you're clearly not verbally attacking anyone

there are many ways to solve this problem, but the fact remains that this is to be considered a new game, and to expect to be able to preserve your skillset with prior characters is unlikely. even my sheik and marth play have altered enough playing PM that i actually play them incorrectly in melee now, and those characters are really close to direct ports.

if anyone else has ideas on how to fix fox and falco, i'm all for suggestions. i actually do read every post and seriously consider the merit behind each idea put forth. so far, i think mine is the best, but i acknowledge that someone else might have something better. however, i will agree with the other max that suggestions of nerfing things like upsmash is a clear indicator that the player does not understand the game well enough. not that ignorance is wrong or anything, but those suggestions are just not the right way to go at this point.

Umbreon. Can you show your list of changes again? I'd like to here them.

 

[Deleted member]

give fox brawl lasers and nerf his initial dash speed/length or both.

 

[Deco-Nii]

stfu and stop trying to nerf Fox.

 

[Juker]

I've seen a few people say Fox is easier to play in Project M than in Melee. Does anyone have any frame data specifically on what the differences are? Just curious.

 

[Player -0]

I've seen a few people say Fox is easier to play in Project M than in Melee. Does anyone have any frame data specifically on what the differences are? Just curious.

The SH window is larger in P:M because it takes the last frame to check if you're holding the button I believe. This helps with Fox SHFFLs a lot. Also Fox gets B-Reversing from brawl.
There could be more stuff.

 

[dRevan64]

The SH window is larger in P:M because it takes the last frame to check if you're holding the button I believe. This helps with Fox SHFFLs a lot. Also Fox gets B-Reversing from brawl.
There could be more stuff.

Probably the biggest deal is that you only have to input about half a melee dash to get a dash in PM. And you can usmash out of a dash without JCing it but that's less of a big deal.

Edit: everything umbreon said is right from a high level balance perspective but the thing is I don't feel like most of the people who complain about fox's viability understand what's making him good, and a shortened initial dash is unlikely to make them happy. Altering the spacies' neutral game is the most important change to make for the highest level of play but when we're talking about a reasonable body of lower level players (no offense to anyone intended, of course) I don't believe that's the change that will make the most noticeable impact on their experience. Part of the problem here is identifying why people are complaining about fox in the first place and I feel as though in some ways because he's so much easier to play now that while in melee a fox missing any technical finesse would get screwed up by anyone who could hit a button, in PM that same fox can get away with running over everyone.
All that said I don't think reducing fox's initial dash is a bad change at all for the PM metagame, but I do think it's something that should be waited on. I feel like the PMBR would generally do well to be somewhat conservative with their changes to any characters since obviously the metagame needs time to develop around every new variable it receives. That's a question of laissez-faire design philosophy though and I can absolutely understand if the back room doesn't feel like it's the direction to go, on some level I'm biased after having played a game that hasn't had an internal competitive balance change since it was released (PAL notwithstanding).

 

[Juker]

The reason I asked, is because I didn't even notice any of those changes in transition. I'm so used to cc my dash into an upsmash, that i didn't even realize you didn't have to. And with the SH, basically the same thing. It felt no easier to me, because I was so used to doing it in Melee. Personally, those aren't the things that make Fox difficult to play for me. His short hop is harder than a lot of other characters, but nothing compared to shine combos; and once you get a feel for his short hop, you don't mess it up much any more. I was just curious if there was something big I was missing. To be honest, I think if anything, Fox has a harder time in Project M because his competition is so much stiffer. You don't only have to worry about knowing 6 other MUs any more, you have to know how to play the whole cast. The one thing that I did notice immediately, is that I have a harder time Dash Dancing; is it the physics lag?