I found out about this thread a little late. Anyway, I had a lengthy conversation with one of my friends over this hitstun issue. To get things started, I think increasing hitstun would do a massive favor for the game. That, or other changes need to be made. My opinion is difficult to formulate, and I apologize if the post jumps about from different points. I'll refer to hitstun increase as HI.
Now people would disagree and argue that increasing hitstun universally would only separate the top-tiers from the low-tiers further. A universal hitstun increase would, no doubt, benefit the combo potential of all characters, no exceptions. Let's look at Sheik vs Ganondorf. With the current hitstun, it's, at best for Ganon, 70-30. Poor neutral, horrid mobility, combo food, terrible recovery, and lack of combos. If you do HI, at least in theory, the match-up stays as is, or actually slightly shifts in Ganon's favor. Ganon gains more combos, but becomes even more helpless against them. But let's look more closely. Imagine if his d-tilt could combo into Flame Choke. Off those two hits, he gets about 25%. If he tech-chases and gets another Choke, that's 37%. Off only three hits. But why would the HI be a fair change?
First off, regardless of such changes, Ganon's terrible neutral game is not benefited at all. He still has difficulty landing that one hit. And, when he does land a hit, at best, he gets 25% damage. On the other hand, Sheik has arguably the best neutral game. Off one combo, she can deal up to 50%, probably more considering Ganon's physics. Not only does she deal more damage off of one confirm, but getting the confirm is far easier as well. With HI, yes, Sheik gets even more combos, but Ganon can put his power to better use, and he can more readily take advantage of her poor endurance. Does Ganon win with HI? Absolutely not. But he gets far more reward off of winning with his terrible neutral game. Also, the reason why top-tiers are top-tiers is because they are the only ones with strong combo games. Sheik, Pika, MK, ZSS, Ryu...the list goes on. Go to the low-tiers. Ganon, Bowser, Mewtwo, Zelda... at best, their combos pale in comparison to the top-tiers. Look at Melee's tier list. The game's physics favor combo-oriented gameplay. Even low-tiers, such as Mewtwo, had strong combos. They were low-tier because they had poor neutral games. Fox and Falco weren't top tier because of their Shine combos, but because they could shut down everyone else in neutral. I'm not trying to argue which is a better game, but Melee's character balance, though worse, is actually more dynamic. You could find success with any character, but some carried more risk than others. In Sm4sh, low-tiers carry high-risk and low reward.
Now there are many people who would say HI would result in auto-combos; basically, HI equals easier and more effective combos. They reason that you should have to read your foe's reactions. I agree. Yes, I shouldn't be able to land free hits. But the thing is, the game's engine still heavily favors the defender (even with the shield-stun changes). "If they air dodge, punish it," some would say. They have apparently completely forgotten that air dodges have a minimal 5 frames of ending lag. No matter what it is, 5 frames of ending lag is ALWAYS safe. In fact, not even most tilts can beat that ending lag. "But air dodges have 22 frames of landing lag!" Bob shouts out. Correct, but most combos take place too high in the air for that to matter, and they can simply avoid it by interrupting it with a low-lag aerial. I'd be perfectly content with the current hitstun if the game didn't have a combo-cancel button. In fact, if you asked me, I'd say keep the hitstun as is, but give air dodges much higher ending lag. That way, the opponent has a chance to escape, but the offender still has the chance to score a follow-up. Melee handled the air dodge system very nicely: it gave you intangibility, but it left you in a much worse position after it wore off, thus making it a last-resort option. Melee has the same hitstun as Sm4sh, but the way air dodging worked in Melee balanced the fight: it gave the defender an option, but it did not completely shut down an offender's follow-ups. I'm not here to say Melee is a better game. That's subjective. In fact, Melee's air dodge system, while well-done, still overly favored the offender.
Back to Sm4sh. Another thing that hurts combos is the DI system. Vectoring, oh, my dear vectoring... You'll notice that vertical combos are far more consistent than horizontal ones, yes? Why are up aerials always the best combo moves? Not because they're weaker, but because they aren't affected by vectoring as much as more horizontal-knockback moves. Both Fox's and Sheik's down throws have the exact same base knockback, but Fox's has a more horizontal angle. It's far more difficult to combo off of his down throw than off Sheik's, whose d-throw can combo even past 100%.
Not to sound patronizing, but have you gotten my point yet? Many would argue against HI because it favors the offender, because it helps only the top-tiers. "A player should be given options to break opposing combos." This is the thing: there are already enough ways to end combos. Safe, spammable air-dodging, and noob-friendly (pardon me) horizontal vectoring. Horizontal vectoring makes it much easier to escape combos than regular DI from past games. Flying farther is always more effective than simply changing your launch angle. Low-tier heavyweights will be more vulnerable, sure. But they still have safe air dodges and vectoring.
Melee and Smash 64 have very long-winded combos. Saying it's because of higher histun is such an over-simplification of the full picture. Let's look at Melee. Same hitstun. But you have much higher falling speeds, unsafe air dodging, L-cancelling, and DI that rewards players for knowing how to use it. All those play into why the game is so combo-oriented. In Sm4sh, you have spammable air dodges, vectoring, moderate falling speeds, no L-cancelling, and moves that generally deal higher knockback. With that said, increasing hitstun won't harm gameplay. It would make it more skill-based, more entertaining, deeper, and all that without impairing the game's balance.
"But who said we need long combos? We don't need Melee 2.0. Sm4sh is about the neutral game!" And, here we go. Even if Sm4sh is about the neutral game, it's nowhere near as interesting as the neutral game in Smash 64 or Melee. I'm going to drop this one: Brawl's neutral game has more depth. In Brawl, you have glide tossing, DACUSing, character-specific techniques like Falco's auto-cancel lasers and QAC, and aerials that have better auto-cancel frames. In Melee, you have L-cancelling, wavedashing, dash dancing, SHFFL, and character-specific techniques like the Shine techniques. Sm4sh? Pivoting. It doesn't go much farther than pivoting. And Diddy's bananas, let's not forget those.
If Sm4sh's neutral game lacks depth, then, in my opinion, HI is very much needed. Neutral, short combo, neutral, short combo, neutral... And throw in a read and a 50-50 here and there. That's Sm4sh gameplay. The combos, while much more frequent than in Brawl, are still very limited overall. Better combos than Brawl, but its neutral game is the least interesting of them all.
So what should we do as a community? People complained about the lack of shield-stun, and we got that in an update. Should we ask for air dodges to be nerfed? Should we ask for more hitstun? Or should we ask for horizontal vectoring to be removed? Heck, we could band together and cry for L-cancelling, and that might just work. I, personally, have started a petition to remove horizontal vectoring.
https://www.change.org/p/nintendo-r...g-in-smash-4-bring-back-directional-influence
Of course, to each his own. Pardon me for any mistakes or overly strong opinions. And, no, I didn't write this to start a flame war of Melee vs Sm4sh.
