How do you think Smash 4 could be improved?

[realmwars]

Honestly if I can add anything regarding Wii fit Trainer since they were brought up earlier, I actually think they can pull their own weight (no pun intended)


A lot of Wii Fit's moves have reverse hit boxes that come out very quick, which can be good for punishing those who approach from behind (f-tilt being a good example)

plus Wii Fit has a pretty nice off stage game with the soccer ball. They can just beat back opponents attempting to edge guard or try to play it safe by staying away from their opponent and using off stage to wrack up damage from a further distance.

Sure their combo game isn't that great at all I'll admit that but I think Wii fit can still accomplish a decent bait & punish game. It's not the best but it's still something.

 

[Swevester]

Honestly if I can add anything regarding Wii fit Trainer since they were brought up earlier, I actually think they can pull their own weight (no pun intended)


A lot of Wii Fit's moves have reverse hit boxes that come out very quick, which can be good for punishing those who approach from behind (f-tilt being a good example)

plus Wii Fit has a pretty nice off stage game with the soccer ball. They can just beat back opponents attempting to edge guard or try to play it safe by staying away from their opponent and using off stage to wrack up damage from a further distance.

Sure their combo game isn't that great at all I'll admit that but I think Wii fit can still accomplish a decent bait & punish game. It's not the best but it's still something.

It sounds really dumb but in a way I've always thought Wii Fit and Link fought a lot in the same way. Very disjointed hitboxes, a lot of projectile/run away game, many safe on shield options especially in the air (but the ones that aren't are BEYOND dangerous on shield), and is somewhat easy to combo.

 

[Cardboardtubeknight]

A more lenient online punishing system, so that your not punished for being good at the game would be nice.

 

[Matt11111]

Maybe have options to turn on and off mechanics like rage, staling, hoop damage, etc.

 

[MacSmitty]

Spoiler: Game Play Wise

Balance some of the items that are used in causal play. For example the Gust Bellows is a really stupid item to get free kills off of characters who aren't fast. Then there's the Smash Ball, it needs to linger more to thr ground so that characters can get it easier without it floating out of a characters reach. Also, the ability to turn off stage hazards.

Spoiler: Character Wise

Increase the speed of characters who are really slow in frame data, and give Cloud and Pac-Man better alts.

Spoiler: Online

Remove the whole "Smash Room of Hell" thing when a person reports you and just stick to traditional bans. Also, make sure the report system actually does it's job, and stops people from repeating SD's, 3V1's and other things that aren't "permitted" during online play.

Spoiler: Game Modes

Fix Classic Modes Problems:

• Make Team CPU's the same level as the enemies, as your team CPU's are useless compared to the tough as nails enemy CPU's.
• Keep the regular launch rate for all characters throughout all Intensities, as enemies are harder to launch while you are easier to launch in 9.0. This becomes unfair when characters can die due to attacks like Bayonetta's Witch Twist at 0%

 

[Swevester]

• Keep the characters the same weight. In the higher levels of Classic Mode, enemies are harder to launch while you are easier to launch. This becomes unfair when characters can die due to attacks like Bayonetta's Witch Twist at 0%

[/SPOILER]

Pretty sure it's the launch rate that you're referring to, not a character's weight.

 

[MacSmitty]

Pretty sure it's the launch rate that you're referring to, not a character's weight.

Yeah it is. Thanks for correcting me.
Also I noticed how sometimes when I play, whenever I get a item like the DayBreak/Dragoon Pieces along with the Smash Ball, it takes 1-2 hits, whether they are weak or strong hits to knock it out of me, but for my opponents, it takes way more effort to do so. I don't know why that is, but they should tweak it so way somehow.

 

[MrGameguycolor]

No, nobody wants another Brawl Mario. (turns and looks at Dr. Mario)

I believe you're mistaken, Brawl Mario didn't have a useful Down Special.

Anyway, my thoughts are basically the same with a lot of the others.
Just make everyone good, if possible high tier but fair and accurate.

 

[William5000000]

Hello again, everyone. Here's a little update on the problem I mentioned earlier. I'm going to post this to be more clearer.

Most people seemed to fail to mention this, but the randomness on those Star KOs/Screen KOs and upward Blasts KOs really screw players out of many victories. An example of this is when Ness uses PK Thunder 2 off-stage to hit that opponent, then a Star KO/Screen KO occurs and that character falls to his doom, thus KO'ing himself first and losing the match unfairly. Same with Jigglypuff's Rest off-stage. Another example is when Jigglypuff uses Rest on-stage to score a KO, but the Star KO/Screen KO doesn't occur and that character is severely punished or revenge KO'd. That's very annoying for many players.

So my idea for Patch 1.1.7 is this:

To solve this problem, Star KOs/Screen KOs should only occur for on-stage moves and upward Blast KOs should only occur for off-stage moves. This way, there would be no possible chance for Jigglypuff to get severely punished or revenge KO'd on-stage, and Jigglypuff would not lose in last stock situations, whether Rest scores a KO on-stage or off-stage. Same with Ness, with PK Thunder 2 scoring a KO off-stage. This would make the matches much more smoother, with no unfair wins or losses, as well as unfair punishes.

Here's a link to my thread about this problem:
http://smashboards.com/threads/star-kos-screen-kos-problem-smash-4-wii-u-3ds.438251/

----------

Another thing I'd like to see improved for Patch 1.1.7 is the quality on those crowd chants, as well as the crowd chanting for that character 8 times like they did in the previous games. Some of the chants are almost impossible to understand what they're saying when that character is cheered at 100% damage or more, and hearing them chant for that character only 3 times is disappointing.

Maybe those can be improved, maybe not.

----------

Hopefully, I've made myself more clearer about this problem (and others). And hopefully, Nintendo will get the message too. As for the buffs and nerfs for certain characters as well as fixing others and adding certain options and features, I'm fine with whatever happens for Patch 1.1.7 as long as the biggest problem with the matches gets fixed.

 

[Mario & Sonic Guy]

I believe you're mistaken, Brawl Mario didn't have a useful Down Special.

Yeah, F.L.U.D.D. was only useful at gimping recoveries, and even then, it's bad at doing that as well whenever fighters are recovering high. Scalding F.L.U.D.D. actually has offensive purposes, which makes it feel like a superior option, though it can't gimp recoveries like with the default F.L.U.D.D. and High-Pressure F.L.U.D.D..

 

[DJBor]

I believe you're mistaken, Brawl Mario didn't have a useful Down Special.

uh, yeah, that was kind of the point. Dr's down special needs a huge rework. It deals only 7 damage, often does not connect, can't help recovery like Luigi's, and is nowhere near as good a multihit as dair. But that's just one opinion...
I say to fix Dr. Mario, make down special way better for recovery, combos, and pretty much anything by giving it very little endlag, and a boost to vertical movement. That change alone could put him on par with the rest of the cast.

 

[MrGameguycolor]

uh, yeah, that was kind of the point. Dr's down special needs a huge rework. It deals only 7 damage, often does not connect, can't help recovery like Luigi's, and is nowhere near as good a multihit as dair. But that's just one opinion...
I say to fix Dr. Mario, make down special way better for recovery, combos, and pretty much anything by giving it very little endlag, and a boost to vertical movement. That change alone could put him on par with the rest of the cast.

-1: I was stating that Doc's Tornado had more use than Brawl Mario's F.L.U.D.D, not re insuring your point.

-2: Tornado does 8.5 damage, not 7.

-3: Tornado does help with recovery since it covers horizon distance, yes it doesn't cover the vertical height Luigi does but it's still a necessity.

-4: Not as good as D-air? What character's D-air are you talking about?

 

[Ulk]

This game, to me personally, can get very monotonous. I can't hear any of the menu songs anymore, I can't see the skin anymore and honestly, with the lack of any kind of decent single player mode, it just gets boring to the point where I literally stick to a single mode in this game.
I would like a few alternate menu skins and the ability to choose any song for the menu. We have so many, so why limit that to a count of so few? As for the single player mode, I personally would just like anything added that isn't about... regular fighting, just under different conditions. As far as that is concerned, we merely have Trophy Rush and Target Blast, which are in my opinion unbelievably boring. I would never excpect the next SSE, but something small like Smash Run or Break The Target as DLC would be more than just sufficient to give us more variety.

 

[Nah]

I would like Classic mode to be more how it was in the past games, I don't find Classic mode all that fun in Smash 4.

Add some more pallets/costumes for all the characters.

Make custom moves not a huge pain in the ass to unlock.

Have a matchmaking system for For Glory.

There's also still a few character tweak I'd like but eh, whatever.

 

[DJBor]

I was talking about Dr's dair- it's a better multihit approach, and it triggers some short combos.
OK yeah tornado is better than Brawl FLUDD. That is true. Did not realize that was the real argument, you win.

 

[FunAtParties]

I'd like to be able create a default setting for versus mode. I'd love to be able to hop in and have a 2-3 stock match with my main tag already ready to go. I think it would also be cool to be able to make your custom controller settings the default as well.

I hate how the menus are set up. I miss the simpler Melee/64 menus.

Online should have stage options. I don't know a perfect way, maybe a limited stage list (competitive stages for FG) where it's a 50/50 coin toss between new opponents, and loser picks every time after. Sounds pretty decent to me, and we wouldn't get stuck playing on FD all the frickin' time.

I hate to say this, but uh... more characters. I know we have a lot, but I feel that a lot of the newcomers were underwhelming. I want Wolf and the Ice Climbers for sure, after that maybe one or two of the fan favorite choices would've done the trick (K.Rool, Isaac, Ridley, Waluigi...)

I don't know anything about online servers, but I hear Smash 4's are pretty ****. I'd like better ones, if possible, hell I'll even pay for a subscription.

Some move sets in this game really fell flat in this game, in my opinion. Ganondorf and Falco are stuck with the same ole same ole, even though they had the prefect chance to experiment with new kits in this game while retaining their old ones through customs. King Dedede's aerials got changed for no good reason, and for some reason still doesn't have Hammer Twirl for his down special, Bowser's nair is idiotic and her just seemed to lose a lot of his ferocious factor with many of the changes, Yoshi was made more generic in order to be more unique somehow, there's just too many counters now, I can seriously go on for days with this. It just seems that, for every handful of good changes, there's two handfuls of bad/unnecessary ones.

Balance could be better, I think a lot of it has to do with balancing the game with FFA/items in my mind. Like, Kirby's Exhale is pretty ****in' good in FFA/Doubles, but pretty useless in Singles. I'd like to see the game balanced with 1v1 only in mind at first next time around, seeing how it plays out, and using balance patches to address issues in other modes later on.

I'd like more alts. Maybe unlockable alts, like how the Miis have. Maybe have one alt unlocked by playing X character in Classic, Allstar, Minigame, etc... It would be a good way to experience the game in full while still getting rewards we actually care about. I'd also like the alts to be more... interesting. Like, Ganondorf's are just plan bad. I know Nintendo may or may not be the biggest fans of the modding community, but good ideas are good ideas. Those warlock Project Ganondorf alts are a thing of beauty.

The gameplay is what it is, I don't think my complaints would "improve the game" just more or less make it better to me, but I would really like to be able to ledge cancel aerials again, or make all aerials have autocancel windows like Fox's bair, getting hit in your shield by the ledge should knock you off the ledge, and maybe chill out with the magnet hands stuff, that **** has too much range. Outside of that, I like Sm4sh for what it is, I'm not going to get on it for not having wavedashing or l-cancels,though they'd be nice, because that's just not the way the game is.

Wow that went on longer then I expected.

 

[CrusherMania1592]

Let's see

- Wolf to return
- Adventure mode
- Some different alt skins for all the characters like they've done with Cloud, Bayo, Wario, etc


Other than that, I have no complaints

 

[Mario & Sonic Guy]

I probably should've mentioned this sooner, but some characters need to have better palette swap options. Mario and Luigi got screwed in that their Flying and Ice power-ups never got represented as palette swaps. As for Jigglypuff, whatever happened to the crown that it had back in Melee?

 

[FunAtParties]

I probably should've mentioned this sooner, but some characters need to have better palette swap options. Mario and Luigi got screwed in that their Flying and Ice power-ups never got represented as palette swaps. As for Jigglypuff, whatever happened to the crown that it had back in Melee?

Isn't that what the light blue/pink costume is supposed to be for Mario? The Ice one? I know it's not completely on point, but I think that was the intention anyway. I'd hope that they keep making different costumes for Mario and Luigi. I hate that they both got the Waluigi costume now, and I think there are enough power up costumes to go around for both of them.

Jigglypuff headband and crown really need to return.

 

[Mario & Sonic Guy]

Isn't that what the light blue/pink costume is supposed to be for Mario? The Ice one? I know it's not completely on point, but I think that was the intention anyway. I'd hope that they keep making different costumes for Mario and Luigi. I hate that they both got the Waluigi costume now, and I think there are enough power up costumes to go around for both of them.

Jigglypuff headband and crown really need to return.

Actually, Mario's blue palette is a reference to his appearance on the Japanese box art for Mario Bros.. It does not reference Ice Mario at all, as the colors for Ice Mario are much different.

Spoiler

 

[FunAtParties]

Actually, Mario's blue palette is a reference to his appearance on the Japanese box art for Mario Bros.. It does not reference Ice Mario at all, as the colors for Ice Mario are much different.

Spoiler

The costume is about as similar to it as it is to the Japanese box art lol. Mario didn't have a pink undershirt in the Japanese box art. I mean, I get that's what the wiki says, but I'm not buying it.

 

[snizz14]

Buff the characters that suck like falco

 

[DNND]

Ice Climbers щ(ºДºщ)

 

[Lord Dio]

Yeah, I'd like to see cooler skins, and I really dislike the fact that certain stages are wii u or ds only. I want to play on the Halberd SO BADLY. The same goes for stages like DL or wuhu island.
Do what SFV does and have a punishment for getting reported/quitting a match, but also a review board to see if the report is justified, so that good players don't get banned because salty trolls reported them.

 

[Axel311]

More balance patches is the main thing I want. The game has made great strides towards balance but there's plenty of characters that need buffs in order to be more in line with the top tiers. And probably a few top tiers who are running the current meta that could use a little toning down.

More stages/characters/game modes would be awesome but Nintendo has made it clear they've stopped development of new smash 4 content.

Adventure mode would be AMAZING. I'd love to play my favorite character through a slew of super mario world esque levels.

 

[Mythzotick]

Solo/Group Mode:

• Change "Classic Mode" to what it originally was.
• Nerf the majority of the items or make them spawn a lot less frequently; really annoying have to dodge/run away 90% of the time. All it does is waste my time.
• A 1v1 fight against a metal version of yourself right before you fight Master Hand.
• An adventure mode similar to Melee's version.
• Bring back original Break The Targets, Board The Platforms, and Race To The Finish.
• Online with friends/randoms. Seriously, how did they not include that. It would of been awesome if I could play classic mode with my friends online.

Online:

• Have stages like Battlefield, Smashville, Town & City, Lylat Cruise, Dream Land 64, etc. that are tournament legal available on for glory. Not everyone only likes Final Destination.
• Increase the time limit of 1v1 from 5 minutes to 6 minutes and every other mode from 2 minutes to 3 minutes.
• Fix the reporting system. It is so easy to get banned/get sent to Troll Land as I like to call it all because people can get salty very easily and take it a little too far.
• Just. Fix. Tourney. Mode. Please. It is beyond broken.

Gameplay:

• Remove rage. You get punished for doing well. Let me repeat that. You. Get punished. For doing well. Next.
• Change the ledge mechanics. Yeah, let's just have hit boxes that start 2 feet below you and can go through the stage; resulting in a stage spike. That makes a lot of sense.
• Buff the low and bottom tier characters, especially the ones that have not once been buffed and have even at one point been nerfed for no reason like King Dedede. It makes no sense when characters that were orginally barely better than them received 20+ buffs.
• The game is mostly fine when it comes to not having broken characters/moves now, but there are still a few moves that "could" use a "small nerf" like Mario's u-smash and Ryu's TSRK just to name a few.
• Remove Shiek from the game. Just kidding. lolz

Others:

• Better color/costume options. As someone who plays Mega Man, Yoshi, and Sleepypuff or "Jigglypuff", it would of been awesome if I could select as quick boomerang/pink+light pink Mega Man, black hole bomb/purple+light purple Mega Man, helmetless Mega Man (missed opportunity), white Yoshi, royal Sleepypuff, and hungrybox/green bandana Sleepypuff. There are other colors/costumes that should have also been in Smash 4 like SMB2 Mario, red skin+blond hair Bowser, and Melee Fox and Falco colors just to name a few. We even have characters like Pac-Man and Cloud that kind of got screwed over in the variety department.
• Bring back the lottery machine from Melee. That was fun.
• Bring back offline tournament mode from Melee. That was awesome.
• Alternate menu backgrounds and layouts maybe? I really like Melee's data like/dark universe layout and background.

 

[Mario & Sonic Guy]

In regards to Classic mode, I can probably bring up my two cents for it in that it should take a page from Melee's Classic mode or Smash 3DS's Classic mode. For an example...

• Stage 1: 1 vs. 1
• Stage 2: 2 vs. 2
• Stage 3: 1 vs. 1
• Stage 4
  • Easy route: 3 vs. 1 (giant)
  • Normal route: 2 vs. 1 (giant)
  • Hard route: 1 vs. 1 (giant)
• Stage 5: 1 vs. 1 (metal)
• Stage 6
  • Easy route: Multi-Man Smash (x10)
  • Normal route: Multi-Man Smash (x15)
  • Hard route: Multi-Man Smash (x20)
• Stage 7: 1 vs. 1 vs. 1 vs. 1
• Stage 8
  • Normal route (0.0 - 7.9): Master Hand
  • Dark route (3.0 - 4.9): Master Hand & Crazy Hand
  • Dark route (5.0 - 5.9): Master Hand & Crazy Hand + Master Sabres + Master Shadow + Master Core
  • Dark route (6.0 - 6.9): Master Hand & Crazy Hand + Master Beast + Master Sabres + Master Shadow + Master Core
  • Dark route (7.0 - 7.9): Master Hand & Crazy Hand + Master Giant + Master Beast + Master Sabres + Master Shadow + Master Core
  • Dark route (8.0 - 9.0): Master Hand & Crazy Hand + Master Giant + Master Beast + Master Sabres + Master Shadow + Master Fortress (solo only) + Master Core

 

[>Metα<]

• Better and/or more Single-Player modes (Adventure mode, break the targets, etc.)
• Balance the cast so that any character can be viable (Jigglypuff )
• All 400+ songs can be used as the Menu theme
• Bring back the cut characters as DLC (Wolf, Ice Climbers, etc. even Pichu! )
• Bring back some features from Brawl's custom stage builder (spikes, wheel of platforms, etc.)
• A matchmaking system on FG

Sakurai pls

 

[Goont]

The easiest way to vastly improve Smash 4 is to redo the menus for the 3DS version. There's so many sub-menus that can be cut or reduced to other menus. For example, Smash Run having it's own character customization menu. It should be one customization menu, that has the option to choose Smash run powers on. Even the amiibos could be scanned there and not need another menu button. Smash Run and normal Smash having different 'Group Play' menus could also be condensed. It should be one "Group Play" that can be then chosen as a Smash Run lobby or normal Smash lobby.

 

[FightingPorygonTeam]

- Add a single player mode similar to Melee's adventure mode and Brawl's SSE.
- Add more versatile moves like Pacman's Fruit.
- Add more windbox / water pushing moves, or other weird sandbox stuff.
and most of all:
- Give players a better chance to mod stuff.

 

[Mythzotick]

Just recently, I thought of a much better way to make Smash 4 not just a perfect game, but a perfect game within a perfect game with this.

I'd make Ganondorf's warlock punch frame 1, with invincibility frames, is able to break shields even if they're perfect, and give him a 5th taunt (for those of you who don't know or are confused, Ganondorf's 4th taunt is him doing a volcano kick; which is his u-tilt) that is pretty much the same thing as what Shao Kahn does in Mortal Kombat 2. He laughs, points his finger at you, and tells you "THAT! WAS PATHETIC!" Only difference is that when Ganondorf finishes his Shao Kahn taunt, he recovers all of the damage that he had taken prior to the event.

And so because of that, Ganondorf rose to Tier X while every other character in the game moved down to Tier Zero because they would all have a -50+ match up against the King of Disrespect and now everyone only uses Ganondorf because he is the only viable character in the whole game. At first, almost everyone was outright furious with this new balance patch, but once the mind game meta exploded with all of the fake out, reverse 360 degree turnaround frame 1 warlock punches being thrown around left and right, everyone's jaws dropped and immediately dropped their pitchforks and hatorade so they could join the Ganon Wagon. Now this game is breaking records daily in pretty much anything that you could possibly think of and even players that hated this game in the past are now playing it because they couldn't believe how much fun and broken Ganondorf had become.

Ganondorf now rules this game a with an iron fist...

Spoiler

 

[Crosstails20]

I don't really play smash 4 but maybe they should do thies
1. Add tails DLC
2. Add Snake DLC
3. What ever else you guys want.

 

[Axel311]

Another balance patch. please nintendo.

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

Another balance patch. please nintendo.

Nintendo isn't in charge of that. Sakurai and his small team from Bandai-Namco is. They're already done with the game, or at least apparently are, and Nintendo never worked on the game, so...

Or to put it another way, you're asking the wrong people.

 

[Mario & Sonic Guy]

Based on the update drought, I'm probably guessing that there won't be any more software updates.

 

[Axel311]

Nintendo isn't in charge of that. Sakurai and his small team from Bandai-Namco is. They're already done with the game, or at least apparently are, and Nintendo never worked on the game, so...

Or to put it another way, you're asking the wrong people.

And they're all hired by Nintendo. If Nintendo wanted to do another balance patch for the game, they would just have to tell the devs to do it and it would happen. They have control of their own games even if they outsource the developers. But that's besides my point, I don't care who does it, I want another balance patch. Hopefully it happens with the Switch port. That's my last bit of hope.

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

And they're all hired by Nintendo. If Nintendo wanted to do another balance patch for the game, they would just have to tell the devs to do it and it would happen. They have control of their own games even if they outsource the developers. But that's besides my point, I don't care who does it, I want another balance patch. Hopefully it happens with the Switch port. That's my last bit of hope.

But they're not going to since the game is said and done.

Nintendo didn't put together the actual DLC team. Sakurai did. They didn't actually hire that team like you're suggesting. It's all Sakura's call. Albeit, yes, they can say something, but they have no reason to. Game sells fine and all. The balance is already pretty top notch enough that people can have a set in stone competitive scene to allow it to grow. Nintendo has no reason to mess with that.

Just saying to appeal to the people who are in charge of the DLC, not they who hired them. Remember, when it comes to games, the person who hires them rarely interferes unless they see something completely unacceptable. The Directors are in charge as that's their purpose and all.

 

[Nathan Richardson]

Sorry if someone already said this *especially with the game said and done* but when I complete a collection (hats, special moves etc.) I shouldn't obtain copies, equipment yes, special moves and outfits no. On top of that if I already completed one set of outfits, hats or special moves that's it I can no longer obtain outfits, hats or special moves from there on it. I'm only putting this up because a ton of people were griping over it online.

 

[Axel311]

But they're not going to since the game is said and done.

Nintendo didn't put together the actual DLC team. Sakurai did. They didn't actually hire that team like you're suggesting. It's all Sakura's call. Albeit, yes, they can say something, but they have no reason to. Game sells fine and all. The balance is already pretty top notch enough that people can have a set in stone competitive scene to allow it to grow. Nintendo has no reason to mess with that.

Just saying to appeal to the people who are in charge of the DLC, not they who hired them. Remember, when it comes to games, the person who hires them rarely interferes unless they see something completely unacceptable. The Directors are in charge as that's their purpose and all.

Doesn't matter at all. Nintendo still makes the final call, that's my point. I agree that Nintendo doesn't operate the game's development directly, but like I said in the prior post, Nintendo still has the final say and can order Sakurai and his team to do whatever they want them to do. It's Nintendo's IP and they're all Nintendo employees or contracted by Nintendo. I agree it's unlikely though they would interfere.

Also, I highly disagree that the balance is top notch. It's better than other smash games, but that's not saying much when you have games like melee and brawl that are so unbalanced. There's a lot of improvements that could be done. I mean look at puff compared to bayo, diddy kong and cloud. It's pretty lol-worthy. The difference between the top tiers and the bottom tiers is pretty darn huge still in smash 4. You are right that they may not feel there's a reason to. They may not care about improving balance further, but I hope they do.

Also it's just not true that they're done with the game. It's pretty much guaranteed from all the leaks that there's going to be a smash 4 port for the switch. So they very well could and may do another balance patch with that release.

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

Doesn't matter at all. Nintendo still makes the final call, that's my point. I agree that Nintendo doesn't operate the game's development directly, but like I said in the prior post, Nintendo still has the final say and can order Sakurai and his team to do whatever they want them to do. It's Nintendo's IP and they're all Nintendo employees or contracted by Nintendo. I agree it's unlikely though they would interfere.

Also, I highly disagree that the balance is top notch. It's better than other smash games, but that's not saying much when you have games like melee and brawl that are so unbalanced. There's a lot of improvements that could be done. I mean look at puff compared to bayo, diddy kong and cloud. It's pretty lol-worthy. The difference between the top tiers and the bottom tiers is pretty darn huge still in smash 4. You are right that they may not feel there's a reason to. They may not care about improving balance further, but I hope they do.

Also it's just not true that they're done with the game. It's pretty much guaranteed from all the leaks that there's going to be a smash 4 port for the switch. So they very well could and may do another balance patch with that release.

They're done with the 3DS/Wii U version, is what I was referring to. There's absolutely nothing more at this point.

The Switch version is unrelated, and may not be a port but an all new game. We don't know.

The balance is fine in the long run. It's not perfect, but they already made sure that Bayonetta is not a dominating force and balanced the top tiers enough. I entirely agree that they should've done a lot more to some(hi, Jigglypuff), but it's not worth doing any more at this point. It's been over a year since the game released, almost 2 years now. It's fine to move on now. Every patch completely changes competitive play and who is on the tier list position-wise. A lot of people just want to move on now and make a final list based upon consistent tourney results. There are no serious exploits to worry about anymore, so there's no need for another patch. Albeit, if you know of a major exploit, don't be afraid to bring it up. If it becomes well known, then Sakurai and his team(although they are disbanded, so legally it's over and Nintendo could only make Sakurai do something at best, since they cannot force a team back together. Especially if their contract is up. Also, being Sakurai founded the DLC team, not Nintendo, Nintendo doesn't actually have a contract you're talking about. They have zero control over the DLC team because they need a contract to do so. They can own the IP's all they want, but without a contract, they can't tell a team they didn't even hire to do something. It's far more complicated than you realize. Likewise, Sakurai hired Bandai-Namco in the first place, not Nintendo, so... Nintendo only has a contract(which likely was expired after Smash Wii U came out, as Sakurai did DLC by his own choice, not Nintendo's) with Sakurai).

That said, Nintendo has hired Bandai-Namco to do Smash Switch according to the rumor. Meaning that unless Sakurai also got hired by Nintendo as a consultant(who knows. It depends when Smash Switch started being developed, if it was while he was working on DLC, he probably wasn't given the position. And the separate team(from the DLC team) of Bandai-Namco is the full Directors. That leaves it up to Bandai-Namco to add Sakurai back on their team for the Switch version.