Is across-the-board low landing lag on aerials really necessary?

[Deleted member 245254]

Why do people who know little speak so much? Especially when the aspect that this game is focusing on (ground game) has already been usurped by it's predecessor.

I could say the same thing about pretty much everyone who pisses on Brawl in these discussions, why don't we just skip the part where we question whether the other has ever played a Smash Bros game.

 

[Eternal phoenix Fire]

I could say the same thing about pretty much everyone who pisses on Brawl in these discussions, why don't we just skip the part where we question whether the other has ever played a Smash Bros game.

It's hard not to when someone makes a false claim, even though it was a misunderstanding in this case.

Also, I never question whether he/she played the game, but observed it at a higher level.

 

[Black Mantis]

Cutting an attacks lag by half is in no way equivalent to being able to interrupt and cancel out the entire attack animation.

I'm going to assume you've played smash 64 (it had 100% l cancels)?

 

[TimeSmash]

In general, low aerial endlag is desirable because it allows for combos that eventually end up in the air at some point (which is quite a few combos haha) can be more easily continued due to the small amounts of endlag present in certain attacks. In general, it appears (to me, so this is subjective) the competitive community favors a more aggro style of playing, which in turn usually results in faster game speed. Low endlag on aerials helps complement this speed, and also helped slower characters in Melee make it to higher tier rankings. Peach's float cancelling was an excellent example of this; she is somehwat of a sluggish character, but being able to autocancel her aerials from fastfalling during a float gave her a plethora of options and solidified a high spot for her on the tier list.

Looking at a game like Brawl, which was more defensive and slower, highlighted why longer endlag on aerials wasn't ideal for an aggressive playstyle. Due to the fact Brawl didn't have a lot of guaranteed combos, there was more focus on punishing actions your opponent did, and a glaring candidate of this was aerial endlag. Because of Brawl's unique position in the Smash series as being the more chess-like game (slower, strategic, and in many people's opinions not as fun to watch as a game that was faster and usually more aggressive), a lot of people came to find it unsavory, especially since it was such a brusque transition from Melee. This isn't to say Brawl is a bad game exactly (and if you are going to just crap all over Brawl, please, give something more than general statements, and/or provide reasoning, and/or consider if your posting about Brawl being "bad" in your opinion is worth it and actually contributes to this thread), but it was definitely a slower game.

In N64, the advent of Z-cancelling was this amazing thing where you cancelled lots of lag off your aerials, and zero to death combos were somewhat common. Melee revived this mechanic in a subdued form, L-cancelling, which was crucial for some characters' ability to combo, or for the opponent to escape said combo. Generally, the ability to reduce the endlag of your aerials allowed for more follow-up options, not just limited to combos though. If you Z or L cancelled an aerial, you were able to perform whatever action quicker, including spacing yourself into a better position or simply escaping from the opponent. With the absence of these cancelling techniques, combined with the presence of laggy aerials, you can't perform actions following that aerial as fast, meaning both your offensive options and defensive options become more limited. So you can definitely say less lag = more options usually.

While ground combos do happen, in the main vein of things usually things that start on the ground lead into the air. Think of something like Sheik's FTilt in Melee or PM. It's a great move that combos into itself, and knocks the opponent into the air enough for you to perform a short hopped aerial. You could use it to lead into a lot of things, and you would see most people follow up with an aerial vs. a ground move. Interestingly, imagine if it were possible to cancel some of the lag on ground moves. You might see more ground combos in that way, and aerials being used as more of a finisher.

 

[Eternal phoenix Fire]

I'm going to assume you've played smash 64 (it had 100% l cancels)?

Yes I have, and 64 cancels are absurd, but no one here is asking for that (I think?) but a reduction of landing lag on aerials.

Personally, I feel like doing something about the landing lag is just as important as the ground game. This is smash, a game where your opponent will get sent flying through the air 99.9% of the time.

 

[JamietheAuraUser]

Yes I have, and 64 cancels are absurd, but no one here is asking for that (I think?) but a reduction of landing lag on aerials.

Personally, I feel like doing something about the landing lag is just as important as the ground game. This is smash, a game where your opponent will get sent flying through the air 99.9% of the time.

Have you seen Smash 4 Fox? NAir has very little landing lag and basically looks like Melee, FAir appears to either be lagless or auto-cancel any time he's not throwing a kick at that exact instant, DAir looks to be Smash 64 levels of lagless, BAir auto-cancels the instant the kick is no longer out, and UAir has that auto-cancel when performed out of short hop.

 

[Deleted member 245254]

It's really important when being critical of Brawl to identify the specific qualities of it that led to its..."downfall" so to speak.

You can't just say, Brawl had landing lag, and in-turn caused Brawl to fail to live up to Melee therefore landing lag will cause Smash 4 to follow the same path.

That's called a logical (causative) fallacy.

Brawl had many factors that were more likely to be a serious symptom of it's lacking appeal competitively that are not landing lag. Such as the implication of tripping being added, or the removal of AT's like the long-loved but slightly infamous wave dash and l-cancel.

 

[Eternal phoenix Fire]

Have you seen Smash 4 Fox? NAir has very little landing lag and basically looks like Melee, FAir appears to either be lagless or auto-cancel any time he's not throwing a kick at that exact instant, DAir looks to be Smash 64 levels of lagless, BAir auto-cancels the instant the kick is no longer out, and UAir has that auto-cancel when performed out of short hop.

Yeah, I'm very aware and excited for Fox, especially since I really like Fox. He has so many tools, and of all the characters we have seen thus far, has the most potential for use of legitimate combos. It's great because that's the kind of character Fox is, but I want this for everyone, if not that , some characters with properties that could allow for combos with the characters who aren't as aerial based or have a unique move set.

If by any chance lag on aerials aren't reduced among the entire cast, there should be something to replace that.

 

[Raijinken]

Spamming the same move over and over is irresponsible as a combat strategy regardless of landing lag, all the while promoting diversity in tactics in order to ensure there is a variety of play. Your problems are generally addressed by other mechanics.

At least from what I've read, there was no visible stale negation in any of the demos we've seen. It could just be irrelevant to the Sandbag room, or possibly only applied to knockback instead of damage, but as of the moment, unless I've missed something, that mechanic doesn't currently address the spam issue in Smash4.

That said, making stale moves significantly more penalizing would discourage spam like that. Though that's not really relevant to the air lag discussion.

On the subject of "lower aerial lag gives everyone more options", that's not necessarily true. Using Mac as the poster boy for "no aerial game", as I've mentioned before, if you make aerials too favored in terms of ending lag, then anyone lacking strong aerials for whatever reason will fall hard out of the meta.

The two attack styles need to be balanced around equal viability, and without wavedashing or similar mechanics (pivots may function as a similar approach option mechanic), the "fastest" way to approach on the ground is a dash, which locks you into exactly four options: Shield, Dash Attack, Grab, or Jump. People said the shield drop on the demo was too quick, which made dashing, shielding, and then attacking from shield the preferred strategy. Without wavedashing or in Brawl-esque mechanics, the dashing player either has to jump attack, grab, or go into a sometimes very telegraphed and sometimes slow dash attack. There are, of course, exceptions, but as a general rule, no dash attack is even remotely safe when shielded, while many aerials can be canceled with an extra jump, or can avoid commitment with low landing lag or L-canceling or what have you.

There are ways to make the grounded approaches more viable, rather than simply making the aerial approach consistently better. Of note are to either to change many characters dash attacks to have quicker startup or lower endlag (or some combination of the two), or to make shielding a laggier and more variably punishable technique like it was in Smash 64. One thing that is often overlooked (on the landing lag debate, not the endlag debate) is that landing lag has little to do with purely aerial combos or chases, and is entirely related to the end of an initiation or combo, where you are returning to the ground and use an attack there. Reducing LANDING lag makes a failed initiation less punishable, which not only devalues the decision to defend, but allows the attacker to almost immediately resume their attack. Reduced ENDlag makes combos connect easier and faster, which seems to me to be what more people are clambering for in general.

So, while I would easily support a selective reduction of aerial endlag as a balancing mechanic to give characters potential for aerial combos as a followup to a grounded launch. However, the reduction of aerial landing lag simply makes a wiffed attack less serious for the player who missed, and while that sort of attack is safer than a grounded equivalent, I can't see that sort of metagame working for much more of the roster than it did for Melee's. And I'd really love to see character validity spread across the board instead of limited to less than a quarter of the roster.

 

[JamietheAuraUser]

Yeah, I'm very aware and excited for Fox, especially since I really like Fox. He has so many tools, and of all the characters we have seen thus far, has the most potential for use of legitimate combos. It's great because that's the kind of character Fox is, but I want this for everyone, if not that , some characters with properties that could allow for combos with the characters who aren't as aerial based or have a unique move set.

If by any chance lag on aerials aren't reduced among the entire cast, there should be something to replace that.

Well, Samus has crazy low lag on her DAir, NAir and BAir both auto-cancel. FAir has a ton of lag though. And of course every ZAir in the game so far appears to be completely lagless, which is great.

Sandbag room is unaffected by Stale Moves unfortunately. I've heard Stale Moves is less a punishment mechanic and more a tool in this game, though. Like, a move is either fully fresh or fully staled, and there are different applications for a fresh move versus its staled form. Example: Toon Link's UTilt, which from what I've read either does 10% with decent knockback when fresh, or 5% and juggles when staled.

 

[Egg-Off the Conquerer]

Low landing lag makes the game more exciting, aggressive and both fun to watch and satisfying to play (yay combos) but more than that it gives characters options. Guys, the average smash character only has like 15 moves, do you really think we should make a third of them nearly useless? (Think brawl ike, whose aerials seemed good but thanks to their high landing lag it greatly reduced his approach options)

On top of all this, a strong and varied air game across the board is one of the things that really makes smash feel fun and unique

 

[topspin1617]

I haven't read a lot of this thread, but I'll add my own two cents.

From what I have seen in the demo, some characters have attacks that have little to no landing lag at all. And then there are other attacks that seem to have far too much landing lag. I think the problem here is that there is too much of a discrepancy between different attacks when it comes to aerial lag.

Many people on these forums support the idea that different moves should be balanced based on their landing lag. More powerful attacks should have a bit of risk tied to them. I can agree with that. However, I think that when there is such a huge gap between different moves, the ones with practically no landing lag will be heavily spammed. Attacks that have unreasonable amounts of landing lag will probably never be used.

I play as Captain Falcon in Melee. I love the knee. Everybody loves the knee. But it's not his only attack. He has others that are really good as well. With such a huge variance in the lag of different attacks, spamming fast attacks will be encouraged.

So here's what I would do, if I could experiment with the formula: Reduce landing lag overall, and let there be a small, but noticeable difference in landing lag between fast and strong attacks. I should be encouraged to use the strong attacks when the situation permits. Most importantly, I shouldn't be afraid to use those attacks in the first place. However, if used in the wrong scenario, these strong attacks can be punished if the opponent reacts quickly enough. That way we have a fast, combo oriented game, yet people still have to think about their methods of attack.

Hopefully this sounds reasonable.

I don't think it would lead to "spammed" or "neglected" attacks; rather, different attacks for different situations. But this is again not different from any other fighting game; in any given situation, most characters generally only have a couple of viable moves. Going for an air approach? There's probably one move that's superior to your other ones. Trying to juggle? Again, there's probably an optimal move.

I don't really think it matters, from a player's or spectator's PoV, if the "same" aerial always starts a combo. I mean to an extent... isn't that what we see in Melee anyway? Even where you can L-cancel everything, there's generally a "best" aerial for your approaches. For example, doesn't Falco pretty much always approach with lasers, and nair or dair into shine, then next move based on the situation? In my opinion, all having move-dependent lag would do is force you to know more about your characters. I think it could also cause more mindgames: say we all know, for example, that Fox's dair (just a random example, not sure if correct) is his "safest" air approach. Fox approaches you. You know dair is likely, but could Fox catch you off-guard with a move that's "less-safe" but effective because you were prepared for his go-to option?

I really, honestly think this (plus other things like increased speed overall) would go nicely towards creating a balanced metagame that is more thoughtful, and neither hyper-offensive nor overly defensive.

 

[topspin1617]

Low landing lag makes the game more exciting, aggressive and both fun to watch and satisfying to play (yay combos) but more than that it gives characters options. Guys, the average smash character only has like 15 moves, do you really think we should make a third of them nearly useless? (Think brawl ike, whose aerials seemed good but thanks to their high landing lag it greatly reduced his approach options)

On top of all this, a strong and varied air game across the board is one of the things that really makes smash feel fun and unique

But the point is... Ike's other moves are NOT useless. Maybe as approaches, but they have other uses. Either as mix-up approaches, combo enders, KO moves, they definitely have their uses; I don't feel that EVERY aerial MUST be a good approach tool.

 

[JamietheAuraUser]

Low landing lag makes the game more exciting, aggressive and both fun to watch and satisfying to play (yay combos) but more than that it gives characters options. Guys, the average smash character only has like 15 moves, do you really think we should make a third of them nearly useless? (Think brawl ike, whose aerials seemed good but thanks to their high landing lag it greatly reduced his approach options)

On top of all this, a strong and varied air game across the board is one of the things that really makes smash feel fun and unique

An air-only combo move like Samus's FAir is not "useless" just because it only works in the air. Just don't land during the move's multiple hits and you're good. Why not chain a ZAir off of it and then blast them with NSpecial or SSpecial during your nice, lagless landing?

 

[Raijinken]

Low landing lag makes the game more exciting, aggressive and both fun to watch and satisfying to play (yay combos) but more than that it gives characters options. Guys, the average smash character only has like 15 moves, do you really think we should make a third of them nearly useless? (Think brawl ike, whose aerials seemed good but thanks to their high landing lag it greatly reduced his approach options)

On top of all this, a strong and varied air game across the board is one of the things that really makes smash feel fun and unique

One thing about the landing lag, though, is that if you do a full jump, you will rarely actually encounter landing lag, only endlag. Part of why PM gave Ike his adjusted Quick Draw is to improve his approach options and give him viable grounded options, since his aerials suffer otherwise. The game need not be balanced around the standard shorthop approach - it is better to make that just one of at least three viable approaches (shorthop, full jump/aerial, and grounded).

 

[Egg-Off the Conquerer]

But the point is... Ike's other moves are NOT useless. Maybe as approaches, but they have other uses. Either as mix-up approaches, combo enders, KO moves, they definitely have their uses; I don't feel that EVERY aerial MUST be a good approach tool.

In project m, as soon as they allow him to halve his fair (through l-canceling) he suddenly gains another approach option and becomes a better character instead of predictable mid-tier jank

Of course not every aerial should be an approach tool

EDIT: I can't figure out how to multi-quote. I never said that an aerial with high landing lag like samus's fair is bad. You guys ignored my other points.

 

[Deleted member 245254]

At least from what I've read, there was no visible stale negation in any of the demos we've seen. It could just be irrelevant to the Sandbag room, or possibly only applied to knockback instead of damage, but as of the moment, unless I've missed something, that mechanic doesn't currently address the spam issue in Smash4.

That said, making stale moves significantly more penalizing would discourage spam like that. Though that's not really relevant to the air lag discussion.

On the subject of "lower aerial lag gives everyone more options", that's not necessarily true. Using Mac as the poster boy for "no aerial game", as I've mentioned before, if you make aerials too favored in terms of ending lag, then anyone lacking strong aerials for whatever reason will fall hard out of the meta.

The two attack styles need to be balanced around equal viability, and without wavedashing or similar mechanics (pivots may function as a similar approach option mechanic), the "fastest" way to approach on the ground is a dash, which locks you into exactly four options: Shield, Dash Attack, Grab, or Jump. People said the shield drop on the demo was too quick, which made dashing, shielding, and then attacking from shield the preferred strategy. Without wavedashing or in Brawl-esque mechanics, the dashing player either has to jump attack, grab, or go into a sometimes very telegraphed and sometimes slow dash attack. There are, of course, exceptions, but as a general rule, no dash attack is even remotely safe when shielded, while many aerials can be canceled with an extra jump, or can avoid commitment with low landing lag or L-canceling or what have you.

There are ways to make the grounded approaches more viable, rather than simply making the aerial approach consistently better. Of note are to either to change many characters dash attacks to have quicker startup or lower endlag (or some combination of the two), or to make shielding a laggier and more variably punishable technique like it was in Smash 64. One thing that is often overlooked (on the landing lag debate, not the endlag debate) is that landing lag has little to do with purely aerial combos or chases, and is entirely related to the end of an initiation or combo, where you are returning to the ground and use an attack there. Reducing LANDING lag makes a failed initiation less punishable, which not only devalues the decision to defend, but allows the attacker to almost immediately resume their attack. Reduced ENDlag makes combos connect easier and faster, which seems to me to be what more people are clambering for in general.

So, while I would easily support a selective reduction of aerial endlag as a balancing mechanic to give characters potential for aerial combos as a followup to a grounded launch. However, the reduction of aerial landing lag simply makes a wiffed attack less serious for the player who missed, and while that sort of attack is safer than a grounded equivalent, I can't see that sort of metagame working for much more of the roster than it did for Melee's. And I'd really love to see character validity spread across the board instead of limited to less than a quarter of the roster.

It's essentially the reason Hbox lost the invitational (up-throw lost it's KO potential due to repeated use).

Anything to add, @Venks?

 

[Raijinken]

It's essentially the reason Hbox lost the invitational (up-throw lost it's KO potential due to repeated use).

Anything to add, [user]Venks[/user]?

I see, thanks. I remember reading that the very first demo (Mario vs Megaman) had no apparent negation. And I still haven't heard whether or not the damage is reduced or if it's just the knockback.

 

[Aninymouse]

It's essentially the reason Hbox lost the invitational (up-throw lost it's KO potential due to repeated use).

Anything to add, [user]Venks[/user]?

Edit : apparently I can't figure out how to tag a user in my post, what is the HTML command?

Just type @user's name and Smashboards will do the rest.

 

[Big-Cat]

No, it's not necessary. You guys need to learn your ground normals for different things and to see that aerials, like ground moves, have their limited uses too. You can easily do combos without leaving the ground. See Little Mac.

 

[topspin1617]

In project m, as soon as they allow him to halve his fair (through l-canceling) he suddenly gains another approach option and becomes a better character instead of predictable mid-tier jank

Of course not every aerial should be an approach tool

EDIT: I can't figure out how to multi-quote. I never said that an aerial with high landing lag like samus's fair is bad. You guys ignored my other points.

Sure; L-cancelling allows many more aerials to be better approach options.

My argument, I guess, is that... Melee's physics and ATs made SHFFL'd aerials generally the best approach, and yes, Melee was a great competitive game. So of course building on top of Melee would be one option to make a new Smash appealing to the competitive crowd.

But it does not have to be the ONLY way to make Smash a competitive success. To me, it's looking like ground approaches will be much more viable in Smash 4. So it may not be necessary to have every aerial as a viable approach tool, because you will be able to mix up aerial and ground approaches. And I think that type of mix-up is far more interesting than "fair or dair?"

I just really, really hope people give Smash 4 a chance and not dismiss it because it "looks like Brawl". To me it's looking like there is going to be enough here to have a varied metagame with a multitude of techniques. More characters are looking to be viable (judging from the demo admittedly), and while there may not be Melee-level ATs (though there already is pivot-cancelling, and there will probably be more, either in generally or character dependant; hell, even Brawl had a good number of ATs), I think strategy, reads, mix-ups, positioning, etc., while not necessarily "ATs", will be more important than maybe any other previous Smash game. So while it may not be "Melee-style", I think it looks like the potential is there for a diverse, fun, interesting metagame, if the players give that metagame a chance to develop.

 

[Terotrous]

No, it's not totally necessary. The thing is, in Smash Bros grounded offense has never been good, it's always been slower and much less safe than aerial offense, and people have gotten very used to that. Even though by all measures grounded offense has been massively buffed in this game by the ability to run and perform any normal you want with almost no delay, people still think that having fast air to ground attacking options is the only way the game can have any kind of decent offensive game.

 

[Jaedrik]

I'm going to start calling out posts that refer to landing lag as a universal entity in Smash 4, like this one.

We've seen footage of plenty of aerials within the game on the entire set of characters available in the demo with abilities that have little to very inconsequential landing lag. Even characters not playable yet, like Lucina's nair, have been observed to have nigh zero landing lag.

If anyone is going to complain about landing lag, from here on out they must clarify which character and which ability they are referring to.

No more blatant cop-out in just saying "reduce landing lag", a statement that has barely if any resonance with what we've actually seen in the footage we have, a statement that is hardly qualifying as criticism due to the inconsistent nature of its presence, observably.

I don't understand. I know many moves do auto cancel, why do you assume I do not? How is this a cop-out? I suppose I should clarify. By reduce landing lag I mean make it so that all aerial moves auto cancel.

I think most of us wish for aggression to be significant. But I for one think there are ways to do it without making aerial approach the most viable option. For instance, what if endlag on dash attacks was reduced? Or what if shields went back to their N64 levels of deployment and dropping lag? There are other ways to encourage aggression without making a specific type of attack almost universally safer.

Well, I suppose we can point to past examples. I agree that aerial approach should not be the only viable option. It was not so in Melee. Ground approaches were viable. This may be due to other reasons (spacing ability of dash dance or wavedash). Further, from what we've seen... It appears that shields are very similar to the N64 shields. Shield dropping, as we've seen from the invitational (Hungrybox's expert employment) and the SDCC (both finalists used shield dropping extensively instead of jump OOS), seems a very viable tool.
I also do not wish that ground play is to be utterly dominant in approaching as well, and surely at this point it is not, but it wouldn't be irrelevant if aerial pressure was made more significant via reduced landing lag. Also, that pivot AT though.

 

[MrPanic]

Is across-the-board low landing lag on aerials really necessary?

No.

Lower landing lag will make attacks less risky, therefore making offensive options better, generally making the game faster.
Higher landing lag will make attacks more risky, therefore making defensive options better, generally making the game slower.
However, the speed of the game doesn't have anything to do with it's viability as competitive game, though in some cases makes it more attractive to watch.

What smash 4 needs is a good balance between good and risky option on every character to find that good midway between a too fast and a too slow game. There are quite a lot of other problems with Brawl that made it unattractive for competitive play, if the landing lag was Brawl's only problem I'm sure the game would've been fine as a competitive game, just a bit slow paced compared to Melee.

I think Smash 4 will be fine if the landing lag is anywhere between Melee's and Brawl's lag. As long as the balance isn't out of whack and no pure anti-competitive mechanics show up, this game should be fine as an competitive game.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

I think a lot of this depends on the character and their needs for the aerial. Like with Greninja, his landing lag didn't feel too bad, but I wasn't even stressing that and didn't look for how safe my jump-ins were since he wasn't really lacking in grounded approach at all and his aerials stood out to be because they were just ridiculously fantastic chases in the juggle situations his grounded moves (especially that amazing usmash) so often created. With Bowser I already see his strong bair's generous auto-cancel is going to make that a strong poke, but the long landing lag if you do the move too low is going to be the balance to keep it in line and prevent it from being a dominating approach option. With Mega Man I more envision his aerials as defensive spatial control tools (fair and bair are really good at it!) while his projectiles will really be his main starter for approach.

So yeah, there's a lot more going on in the game, and I think we need some substantail time to figure out each character's gameplan and how it even needs aerials. For a lot of them if not all of them, the status quo seems fine to me, but we'll have to let the metagame develop to be sure.

 

[Renji64]

People are for lag what kinda world is this right now lol people want the most slow pace boring experience possible.

 

[josh bones]

People are for lag what kinda world is this right now lol people want the most slow pace boring experience possible.

Something slow isn't boring. (street fighter)

 

[Renji64]

Something slow isn't boring. (street fighter)

Smash and Street fighter aren't really compareable one is a fighting game the other one is now a party game.

 

[Deleted member 245254]

I don't understand. I know many moves do auto cancel, why do you assume I do not? How is this a cop-out? I suppose I should clarify. By reduce landing lag I mean make it so that all aerial moves auto cancel.

What? So by saying one thing you mean a completely different & separate thing?

People have spent valuable time explaining why abilities need risk:reward. It can't just be an aerial-fest.

Even Melee had landing lag using L-Cancel and you're asking Smash 4 to completely remove it?

This is why Sakurai gave the answer he did to that "competitive" at E3.

 

[Jaedrik]

What? So by saying one thing you mean a completely different & separate thing?

People have spent valuable time explaining why abilities need risk:reward. It can't just be an aerial-fest.

Even Melee had landing lag using L-Cancel and you're asking Smash 4 to completely remove it?

This is why Sakurai gave the answer he did to that "competitive" at E3.

Perhaps, it was my mistake, but my intention did not change at all. I have made clear what I meant, and you seem intent on ignoring that. Why?

Also, sir, you mistake what I mean yet again. I am at fault for not explaining sufficiently, but it seems at this point you may be at fault for deliberately misinterpreting me. Whatever the case may be, that's not particularly relevant.
Auto-canceling in Brawl was not a complete removal, rather, it was more like an automatic l-cancel on certain moves.
I never intended to convey that I want landing lag removed at all, in fact I would like all aerials to automatically 'l-cancel' if you will.

What competitive are you talking about? Are you referring to Juice.Doom during the round table? I have a hard time seeing how that and this are related.

 

[Deleted member 245254]

Perhaps, it was my mistake, but my intention did not change at all. I have made clear what I meant, and you seem intent on ignoring that. Why?

Also, sir, you mistake what I mean yet again. I am at fault for not explaining sufficiently, but it seems at this point you may be at fault for deliberately misinterpreting me. Whatever the case may be, that's not particularly relevant.
Auto-canceling in Brawl was not a complete removal, rather, it was more like an automatic l-cancel on certain moves.
I never intended to convey that I want landing lag removed at all, in fact I would like all aerials to automatically 'l-cancel' if you will.

What competitive are you talking about? Are you referring to Juice.Doom during the round table? I have a hard time seeing how that and this are related.

It really just comes down to a conceptual disagreement. I don't think everything should be auto-cancelled, and you do. We can never see eye to eye on this.

We have to accept that different people have different ideas for what will make Smash 4 balanced.

 

[HeavyLobster]

People are for lag what kinda world is this right now lol people want the most slow pace boring experience possible.

Some lag is necessary in order to balance the game, whether it's balancing between stronger and weaker attacks, or balancing between offensive and defensive characters. It also prevents Smash 64 0-to-death comboes(which actually make the game campier). You can reasonably debate how much lag the game should have or whether a game should have an offensive or defensive bias, but seriously asking for a truly lagless game doesn't make sense, as it reduces competitive Smash to a contest to see who can drillshine the fastest.

 

[Jaedrik]

It really just comes down to a conceptual disagreement. I don't think everything should be auto-cancelled, and you do. We can never see eye to eye on this.

We have to accept that different people have different ideas for what will make Smash 4 balanced.

You are correct.

This is much like the debate in the new Unreal Tournament. Should we have double jumps and airdodges? The dev team right now is going with 'no', while a significant portion of the fan base is saying 'OMG PLS'.
This is merely a difference in taste. It will significantly change the way the game is played, and neither style (that of UT2k4 vs UT99, for example) is strictly superior in every way. They are, however, superior in certain ways, and it becomes a matter of which taste we like more, what situations we wish to emphasize and how much skill ought to be involved in the outcome of an engagement.

Auto-canceling has nothing to do with balance per se, yet it is the effect it would have upon other factors that would change the balance, and as such I do not mean to take this discussion on what scenarios would be worse or better for a given character if all could auto cancel all aerials.
The thing that auto-canceling more concretely affects is, again, style, which has little to do with balance intrinsically, but everything to do with gameplay.
The reason I want reduced aerial landing lag across the board, why I think it is a good thing, is that it shifts the style to a more aggressive one, and nurtures a competitive environment which is more pleasing to spectators, and most importantly I believe it to be more fun. I believe that aerials as approaching options would be enhanced the depth of the neutral game due to more divergent options of attack and counterattack (defensive offense, if you will ), and no doubt it would enhance the depth of the combo game.

 

[Renji64]

Some lag is necessary in order to balance the game, whether it's balancing between stronger and weaker attacks, or balancing between offensive and defensive characters. It also prevents Smash 64 0-to-death comboes(which actually make the game campier). You can reasonably debate how much lag the game should have or whether a game should have an offensive or defensive bias, but seriously asking for a truly lagless game doesn't make sense, as it reduces competitive Smash to a contest to see who can drillshine the fastest.

I'm not expecting a lag less game i just want less lag.

 

[Deleted member 245254]

I'm not expecting a lag less game i just want less lag.

How much and on which abilities?

 

[MrPanic]

Something slow isn't boring. (street fighter)

If you watched last evo's top 8 you wouldn't say that, I actually fell asleep during those matches and so did my fellow sf friends. That probably has more to do with the characters that are good in ultra atm than with the game itself, but over half of the matches in those finals were just atrocious to watch.

 

[Bladeviper]

You are correct.

This is much like the debate in the new Unreal Tournament. Should we have double jumps and airdodges? The dev team right now is going with 'no', while a significant portion of the fan base is saying 'OMG PLS'.
This is merely a difference in taste. It will significantly change the way the game is played, and neither style (that of UT2k4 vs UT99, for example) is strictly superior in every way. They are, however, superior in certain ways, and it becomes a matter of which taste we like more, what situations we wish to emphasize and how much skill ought to be involved in the outcome of an engagement.

Auto-canceling has nothing to do with balance per se, yet it is the effect it would have upon other factors that would change the balance, and as such I do not mean to take this discussion on what scenarios would be worse or better for a given character if all could auto cancel all aerials.
The thing that auto-canceling more concretely affects is, again, style, which has little to do with balance intrinsically, but everything to do with gameplay.
The reason I want reduced aerial landing lag across the board, why I think it is a good thing, is that it shifts the style to a more aggressive one, and nurtures a competitive environment which is more pleasing to spectators, and most importantly I believe it to be more fun. I believe that aerials as approaching options would be enhanced the depth of the neutral game due to more divergent options of attack and counterattack (defensive offense, if you will ), and no doubt it would enhance the depth of the combo game.

I just don't think it needs to be across the board. The problem in my view with doing that is that the higher kill potential moves suddenly have no downside to them and that is a problem imo

If you watched last evo's top 8 you wouldn't say that, I actually fell asleep during those matches and so did my fellow sf friends. That probably has more to do with the characters that are good in ultra atm than with the game itself, but over half of the matches in those finals were just atrocious to watch.

to be fair i went and did something else during the y.link jiggs match at evo as it was pretty boring too, like you said it comes down to the characters being used

 

[josh bones]

Smash and Street fighter aren't really compareable one is a fighting game the other one is now a party game.

Do I have to mention vs ? That's slower than 90% of brawl matches, just saying.

 

[JV5Chris]

Lower landing lag will make attacks less risky, therefore making offensive options better, generally making the game faster.
Higher landing lag will make attacks more risky, therefore making defensive options better, generally making the game slower.

I wouldn't say excessive landing lag makes defensive options better so much as it stagnates the approach possibilities.

Players will adapt to it over time, but not necessarily in positive ways; gravitating to certain cast members less restricted by it, more selective use of characters' move-sets, increase in similar play-styles. It's not a guaranteed outcome, but the odds of this playing out do increase with higher landing lag.

 

[TimeSmash]

It would be truly interesting if more ground moves didn't give much vertical knockback, but rather more horizontal angles. I kind of stated that in my previous post, but this is more of a facet to that. You could have more pure ground-based combos that weren't chaingrabs, and since SDI seems less apparent in this game, it's interesting to think about. But we'll see if that actually happens haha.

You guys are also making me think of custom moves now. If some moves have less landing lag, that might make them more viable, potentially even abusable (think in the fashion of short hopped lasers). Again, this is a really speculative post, but just some stuff I thought would pique peoples' interest