Is it just me, or was 3.02 more fun?

[HK_Spadez]

Hey guys,

Not trying to start a flame war. but some how, I feel like the broken ass chars in 3.02 were more fun than the nerfed ppl in 3.6....

felt like.. a marvel vs capcom esque smash brothers with all the craziness. I think my ideal project m would be.. 3.02 + any buffs to chars between 3.02 -> 3.6. like the ganon or falco buffs. and the new ledge mechanics that nerfed the edge stalling and tether recoveries.

idk, I mostly played project M before melee but lately I've been shifting to melee and I just find myself frustrated with PM despite really wanting to still be in love with PM. The extra characters and stages really add to the game except with all the changes, so many chars I learned got unlearned. For example, I use to be a lucario main and so much tech and set ups I use to use in 3.02 are completely butchered in 3.6, so I just find myself playing fox/falco/marth in 3.6 now.. which makes me feel like playing PM is sorta pointless for me since all the PM only chars I use to play got kind of wrecked.

thoughts? anyone else feel this way or do yall think 3.6 is truth? Feel like i'd be having more fun with PM if they stuck with the idea of buffing everyone instead of making a complete 180 and start nerfing everybody like they did.

 

[Narpas_sword]

mucking around with friends 3.02 was really fun.

playing competitively where nearly everyone had a free projectile / move / recovery was teeth grating at its finest.

3.6 casually is still super fun.

3.5 (not 3.6 yet because im yet to play a 3.6 tourney) was awesome. it really showed that you had to put work in to perform.

 

[Kurri ★]

felt like.. a marvel vs capcom esque smash brothers with all the craziness.

You have a Zero avatar. I bet you think lightning loops are cool (it's okay I do too).

Had this thread started the month after 3.5 released, I'd be inclined to agree. But in hindsight, 3.02 was bad. Buffing everyone to fox levels is fun and all, especially for casual matches and viewers, but in comp play it's pretty bull****. Lucas and Mewtwo especially (didn't pay much attention to Pit, but I hear he was disgusting too).

Personally I feel 3.6b is the current best version because characters are actually balanced properly, rather than making everyone godlike. Sure we need some buffs here and there (I don't know how, just buff ZSS please), some nerfs too, but it's really fun. Even if I've only ever played by myself... Gotta find a group at some point.

 

[MegaMissingno]

Project Recovery was just infuriating. 3.02 was a mess, good riddance to it.

 

[GP&B]

From a casual standpoint, maybe.

But I quit watching PM tournaments a few months in. It became a really dumb game to watch and play.

 

[CyberZixx]

3.02 was pretty bad. Everyone had way too much broken stuff. I got real old of watching Mewtwo/Lucas/Pit/Diddy after a while. 3.6 seems to be the best overall version to date. Most everyone seems honest now.

Shame that people dropped PM from streams and events shortly after 3.5 came out because I wanna see PM play more than ever.

 

[Searing_Sorrow]

Fun yes, but playing against Sonic mewtwo and Mario was definitely cringing. A hedgehog with a fear of commitment. A plumber that had falco mains complaining about brain dead projectiles.

And an Ivan ooze esque character that somehow made it out of beta testing as a sick joke, or an snk boss. Could go on for days about how du.. not as well thought out as it should have been mewtwo was. Wolf fair at cost of hitting faster and harder with more range. Ivy Bair at cost of being single hit. Zelda up b at cost of being faster and near lagless. Samus fireball at cost of being good noncharged as well. Peach float at cost of going in every direction. Sheik tilts at cost of more range. A command grab that doubles as a reflector along with the most generous powershield window. A metaknight nado from brawl at cost of being able to act out of it instantly. A pit up air with more range. And a lucas up throw at the cost of less ending lag on wiff.
But at least he was light... Oh wait they raised his weight to 90... Whelp -.-

yes the game was very fun, but as a competitive game, it was an eyesoar. Won a match by intentionally letting link boomerang hit me from far away so up b rocket barrels would combo or set up for a free grab. Even at high lvl play it was jank as all get out lol.

 

[Quillion]

Yeah, PMDev, what's your deal?

Why couldn't you just balance around the high-skillcap characters' techniques? Hell, Zelda has a high skill cap now with teleport AD cancel, why give other characters that stuff?

We love the Star Fox duo for a reason, but you're afraid to make characters like them.

 

[CORY]

because then you end up with "i don't need to commit ever, like you just chose to counter my option, i'm going to change that right now" sonic, "i'll side b your shield for free off everything" lucario, and "watch me hit your shield and you can't do anything about it because i have halved hitstun when i hit it with my sword" ike, amongst other things.

other things include "teleport from any situation into an aerial that can probably be hover cancelled, thus avoiding a large portion of the neutral positioning game. oh, i also get to break every non-true combo ever, usually safely" mewtwo and "literally capable of breaking shields guaranteed, not just because you didn't buffer a roll out, along with one of the best recovery kits in the game, attached to combo everything to death and a super great hitconfirm projectile" lucas.

 

[HK_Spadez]

hmmm i guess thats true. maybe its just my nostalgia goggles cause 3.02 was when i started smash brothers in general.

and @ Kurri ★ for the record and lightning loops are cool. im a zero may cry scumbag XD

i dont know. dont some of the nerfs seem unecessary though? i feel like if a char isnt getting top 8 anywhere it shouldnt be getting nerfed randomly. like the yoshi nerf from 3.02 -> 3.5, kirby from 3.5 ->3.6 or lucario from 3.02 -> 3.6.

im sure theres a lot more examples but thats just some of them. the nerfs i felt were pretty questionable.

 

[Quillion]

because then you end up with "i don't need to commit ever, like you just chose to counter my option, i'm going to change that right now" sonic, "i'll side b your shield for free off everything" lucario, and "watch me hit your shield and you can't do anything about it because i have halved hitstun when i hit it with my sword" ike, amongst other things.

other things include "teleport from any situation into an aerial that can probably be hover cancelled, thus avoiding a large portion of the neutral positioning game. oh, i also get to break every non-true combo ever, usually safely" mewtwo and "literally capable of breaking shields guaranteed, not just because you didn't buffer a roll out, along with one of the best recovery kits in the game, attached to combo everything to death and a super great hitconfirm projectile" lucas.

Fine, then just add a little lag here and there so that things are objectively nerfed without affecting the skill cap.

 

[Searing_Sorrow]

Yoshi was buffed 3.02 - 3.5 with not being grab able on first frames of shield. And everyone else being nerfed. Lucario had hi punish and mad safe / free shield pressure combined with 10 frames of invincibility on down b, and a side b air throw that was a free spike combo ender even with no aura charge. Kirby.... cause chudat was very boring to audiences.

 

[CORY]

so, then what do you like about spacies, then? adding a little bit of lag here and there would affect things just as much as the current spacies adjustments have. it would probably affect things a lot more than that, in fact. it does change lucario up, and that's been a lot of what they've done with him, due to ohc and asc. lucas to a smaller extent, but he had (iirc?) some weird hitstun multipliers that allowed him to do silly things.

his recovery was still incredibly stupid, especially on a character of his archetype. is he within tether range? well, he's probably making it back on stage. doesn't mean he lived for free, but tethering in 3.02 opened up a large range of other choices, and then he could still default to his mediocre upb, if all else failed.

in terms of the other characters, adding a little bit of lag here and there doesn't change the fact that sonic could literally not commit to any special, and his specials were great approach options. so, he could dd camp, pick a spin option to use and go for it. if you chose the right option to beat it, he could just wd back out and try again.
ike was a character with burst mobility and big hitboxes (like he is now) but he was entirely safe on shield. they removed the hit lag multiplier and still had to adjust sword hitboxes.
mewtwo was entirely busted at concept, with hover out of teleport and hover allowing you to get heavy landing (normal landing) out of aerials, meaning if you were anywhere within his tp range you had to deal with an unreactable tp into hover aerial that could be made safe on shield. along with good hitboxes for spacing with bair and good grounded pokes in d/ftilt and a wd to use in conjunction with those as well. that's more than just sprinkling some lag around can fix.

much like having a frame 1 hitbox that can combo half the cast into the best kill move in the game or into itself a few times or into itself as a kill move, attached to a character that can also force you to approach on his own terms, but that can also just rush down with the best aggro options in the game, and that doesn't even have a terrible recovery kit.

wolf's a pretty well designed spacie variant. he can rush down decently well and has good kill options, but he can't force you to approach super easily and doesn't get the same type of insta combos fox can out of his shine. his recovery kit is probably about the same overall strength, but the fact that upb can be punished if he lands on stage makes it much more manageable as an option.

falco's lost strength due to the metagame and more characters being able to deal with his lasers on stage and having more options to not eat dair offstage as easily, but he's still a good character, especially because his recovery is actually pretty subpar. he has decent options with a double jump, but once that's gone, he's almost entirely dead.

 

[OSCA MIKE]

its just you

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Yeah, PMDev, what's your deal?

Why couldn't you just balance around the high-skillcap characters' techniques? Hell, Zelda has a high skill cap now with teleport AD cancel, why give other characters that stuff?

We love the Star Fox duo for a reason, but you're afraid to make characters like them.

They like the raw power, not the characters.

When you add that to everyone, balance turns really bad.

Balancing to the top never a works, it just adds massive power creep.

 

[Xermo]

Fun is subjective

 

[Strong Badam]

i dont know. dont some of the nerfs seem unecessary though? i feel like if a char isnt getting top 8 anywhere it shouldnt be getting nerfed randomly. like the yoshi nerf from 3.02 -> 3.5, kirby from 3.5 ->3.6 or lucario from 3.02 -> 3.6.

im sure theres a lot more examples but thats just some of them. the nerfs i felt were pretty questionable.

This isn't how balance should work. It basically means that a character can be utterly and completely broken as long as a good player doesn't use them. Smash doesn't have the type of talent density and playerbase necessary to where such a system would work properly. Instead, the PMDT uses its criteria, outlined publicly nearly a month before 3.5's release, when reviewing the cast to determine what needs to be addressed. Sometimes this means that characters that are perceived as weak (which may or may not be an accurate perception) get changes that make them weaker; this is all for the betterment of the game and its metagame. This is the best way to ensure that the game is healthy in the long-term, even if short-term reactions suffer.

 

[GP&B]

PMDev wasn't afraid to make characters as strong as spacies. That's why 3.02 exists.

And tweaking lag values doesn't magically remove neutral-defying moves. The core designs were busted, which is why Fox will almost certainly get nerfed again.

 

[Kurri ★]

The core designs were busted, which is why Fox will almost certainly get nerfed again.

Can't wait for all those tears...

 

[Sour Supreme]

I agree with a common consensus is here.

3.02 was fun casually, but was competitively inferior to 3.5 and 3.6. I play competitively in a relatively small group. 3.02 Tourneys were very fun for me at first, but being able to Combo with Lucas shouldn't require such minimal effort. The game became stale so quickly. I had to mix things up with Zairs and PK OU Bursts in a pathetic attempt to do anything other than Up Smash or Up Throw.

The PMDT know what they're doing, and I think the game will continue to become more and more fun both casually and competitively.

Have faith.

 

[MillerDaLite]

If you want fun like in 3.02 then you should Brawl minus. The game is much more volatile in terms of gameplay since every character was designed to have mad combos and be comboed hard, the hit stun is actually even higher than in 64. But it's still based more on brawl so Fox is the only character that has a wave dash

 

[GFooChombey]

Hey guys,

Not trying to start a flame war. but some how, I feel like the broken *** chars in 3.02 were more fun than the nerfed ppl in 3.6....

felt like.. a marvel vs capcom esque smash brothers with all the craziness. I think my ideal project m would be.. 3.02 + any buffs to chars between 3.02 -> 3.6. like the ganon or falco buffs. and the new ledge mechanics that nerfed the edge stalling and tether recoveries.

idk, I mostly played project M before melee but lately I've been shifting to melee and I just find myself frustrated with PM despite really wanting to still be in love with PM. The extra characters and stages really add to the game except with all the changes, so many chars I learned got unlearned. For example, I use to be a lucario main and so much tech and set ups I use to use in 3.02 are completely butchered in 3.6, so I just find myself playing fox/falco/marth in 3.6 now.. which makes me feel like playing PM is sorta pointless for me since all the PM only chars I use to play got kind of wrecked.

thoughts? anyone else feel this way or do yall think 3.6 is truth? Feel like i'd be having more fun with PM if they stuck with the idea of buffing everyone instead of making a complete 180 and start nerfing everybody like they did.

I think you're looking for Brawl Minus.

 

[I Dair You]

3.02 was the golden era of PM, both in popularity and gameplay. It was just so damn fun. 3.5 came out and I cringed at some of the gameplay tweaks they made (Zelda got redesigned, wtf?) I began to play PM less and less. "Trimming the fat" is bull****, trimming the fun is more like it. 3.6 was released and I didnt even bother downloading it. 3.5 was a downgrade of 3.02, Im not even gonna touch 3.6. Ive heard terrible things about 3.6 (abysmal announcer, even more nerfs across the board, etc.) Many of the Melee greats such as Mango, Armada, PP etc used to play PM and have dropped it. Why do you think that is?

 

[Tomaster]

I've only ever played by myself... Gotta find a group at some point.

Have you tried online play? It's not the same but it's pretty fun until u find a group.

 

[Manaconda]

3.02 was the golden era of PM, both in popularity and gameplay.

Maybe in popularity, but definitely not in gameplay. The majority of the cast was just stupidly overpowered. Mewtwo could just decide when he wanted to win neutral. Lucas' everything comboed into everything. For a lot of characters, neutral interaction just wasn't there.

Many of the Melee greats such as Mango, Armada, PP etc used to play PM and have dropped it. Why do you think that is?

They never took PM seriously, and only sometimes play(ed) PM if it was a side event at a bigger Melee event. And even then, a lot of them bashed PM 3.02. Hungrybox would just talk **** about it, even when he commentated a PM match. Armada talked about how so many of the characters couldn't be edgeguarded. PP complained about characters having easily spammable special moves, and disregarding the irony of that statement coming from a Falco main, he wasn't wrong.

And why do you care what people who don't play PM think about PM?

 

[HK_Spadez]

Maybe in popularity, but definitely not in gameplay. The majority of the cast was just stupidly overpowered. Mewtwo could just decide when he wanted to win neutral. Lucas' everything comboed into everything. For a lot of characters, neutral interaction just wasn't there.



They never took PM seriously, and only sometimes play(ed) PM if it was a side event at a bigger Melee event. And even then, a lot of them bashed PM 3.02. Hungrybox would just talk **** about it, even when he commentated a PM match. Armada talked about how so many of the characters couldn't be edgeguarded. PP complained about characters having easily spammable special moves, and disregarding the irony of that statement coming from a Falco main, he wasn't wrong.

And why do you care what people who don't play PM think about PM?

What about m2k? He plays pm and definitely had a lot to say about 3.6 and how the greats not playing could hurt it. Idk, I guess I just feel sad that I feel like pm's prime is past when I really loved playing the game and watching it. Best of luck to it.

 

[Manaconda]

What about m2k? He plays pm and definitely had a lot to say about 3.6 and how the greats not playing could hurt it. Idk, I guess I just feel sad that I feel like pm's prime is past when I really loved playing the game and watching it. Best of luck to it.

M2K was just wicked salty about the Fox nerfs. Even he criticized 3.02 for being too gimmicky, saying good PM players have undeserved egos compared to Melee players.

Pm being less popular now largely has to do with VGBC dropping it and its exclusion from large tournaments after Smash Wii U came out, not with the nerfs.

 

[MLGF]

...
...
Are we really doing this again?
It's been more then a year.
sigh...
...
...

 

[BuddyBooNW]

3.02 was the golden era of PM, both in popularity and gameplay. It was just so damn fun. 3.5 came out and I cringed at some of the gameplay tweaks they made (Zelda got redesigned, wtf?) I began to play PM less and less. "Trimming the fat" is bull****, trimming the fun is more like it. 3.6 was released and I didnt even bother downloading it. 3.5 was a downgrade of 3.02, Im not even gonna touch 3.6. Ive heard terrible things about 3.6 (abysmal announcer, even more nerfs across the board, etc.) Many of the Melee greats such as Mango, Armada, PP etc used to play PM and have dropped it. Why do you think that is?

100% this! A ton of people have lost hype about PM and it's mostly due to the fact that the nerf hammer is swinging. There hasn't been anything that captivating since 3.0-3.02. I get balance changes or even re-designs. But the way things are headed there has been a lack of interest. I'm no longer on the edge of my seat with new releases. One last thing, I didn't really care for the new stages or announcer( what was wrong with the ones we had??). Those things are so minimal when it comes to enjoying the game.

 

[Narpas_sword]

100% this! A ton of people have lost hype about PM and it's mostly due to the fact that the nerf hammer is swinging.

Yea, but that's because people overreact when they see 'adjusted value x to something less than x' in their characters changelog.

even the term 'nerf' has become so overused now that any slight adjustment is called a nerf.

I remember when 'nerf' referred to a change that completely obliterated the thing that was adjusted.
You know, in order to say that you may as well be using a nerf gun, instead of firing an m16 in a shooter for instance.

 

[GP&B]

People keep forgetting that the reason 3.0 was so hype was due to it bringing the full vanilla game cast back on top of introducing Roy and Mewtwo. It was an enormous update to the game that's never going to be topped in sheer content. Honestly, it's one of the major reasons that cloud people from overlooking all the crap that plagued its design direction. I don't really see any other valid options beyond "but muh broken options that heavily polarized matchups"

 

[Kidd Ryze]

I don't know about vanilla 3.02, but the mods that came out for it? That's a different story. I loved Theytah's build, and I especially loved Patt's build. It was really popular amongst my friends because it gave us a huge number of stages to play, and a bunch of awesome alternate costumes. (Like seriously, do you know how live it was to play as Miyamoto?)

As soon as 3.5 came out, these mods just didn't transfer over. It sucks too, because 3.5 and 3.6 has a lot of stuff I really like about them, so I wish all the awesome mod stuff can come over with it too.

As for the balancing, I never really noticed stuff like that so I can't really relate.

 

[Narpas_sword]

You can just make those mod builds yourself.

 

[DrinkingFood]

3.02 was the golden era of PM, both in popularity and gameplay. It was just so damn fun. 3.5 came out and I cringed at some of the gameplay tweaks they made (Zelda got redesigned, wtf?) I began to play PM less and less. "Trimming the fat" is bull****, trimming the fun is more like it. 3.6 was released and I didnt even bother downloading it. 3.5 was a downgrade of 3.02, Im not even gonna touch 3.6. Ive heard terrible things about 3.6 (abysmal announcer, even more nerfs across the board, etc.) Many of the Melee greats such as Mango, Armada, PP etc used to play PM and have dropped it. Why do you think that is?

The Melee greats that played it all complained at the time about how stupid 3.02 was and called it gimmicky/auto-comboy/project recovery/etc; they played it for no other reason but to make money. And they could do that, because they were good melee players playing another game very similar to melee. Yes the 3.6 announcer is bad. Even more nerfs were good, because they were needed. If you're gonna care about the opinion of people who don't play the game, you should see what much of the FGC thinks of all the other smash games, and what MOBA players think of competitive fighting games, and what athletes think of esports.

 

[Quillion]

They like the raw power, not the characters.

When you add that to everyone, balance turns really bad.

Balancing to the top never a works, it just adds massive power creep.

Tell that to @sdremix_troubleshooter, @Ripple, @ Achilles1515 , and @_glook.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Tell that to @sdremix_troubleshooter, @Ripple, @ Achilles1515 , and @_glook.

The top should not be your baseline unless you have a clear, well set-up plan to make it work.

I've seen it fail 95% if not more of the time people tried. Magic the Gathering had Urza's saga, original mirrodin, new mirrodin + zendikar support to screw the competitive scene over with dominant strats. Which called people to leave.

3.02 had aspects of this.

Only game I have seen kind of pull this off is DOTA2, but I still find this questionable since what makes it sort of work is opening more weaknesses but not really sometimes hitting core problems which makes it as polar in MUS to the point in laning some characters literally cannot lose unless the other player has no idea what they are doing.

But it works better for a team game. So it is more acceptable, even items have this trait sometimes. This doesn't work for Smash or any fighter.

 

[Achilles1515]

Tell that to @sdremix_troubleshooter, @Ripple, @ Achilles1515 , and @_glook.

I'm not on the SD Remix "team" btw, Quillion.

I also am not interested in discussing this topic. The only comment I will make is that a game fully of spacie characters on the Melee engine would be killer and I have full confidence it could be made balanced.

 

[un.dead]

For example, I use to be a lucario main and so much tech and set ups I use to use in 3.02 are completely butchered in 3.6, so I just find myself playing fox/falco/marth in 3.6 now.. which makes me feel like playing PM is sorta pointless for me since all the PM only chars I use to play got kind of wrecked.

He was just toned down to a reasonable level. Which is why I picked him back up in 3.6.

Unless you were handicapping yourself and using a lot of charges or abusing the invincible approach, you'll find he's the same. The only offensive change you'll really notice is that you can't go for ESC>hit>ESC>finisher (leaving you chargeless anyway) in your combos anymore. That's it. You need to pick him back up and try him again. As someone who stuck by 3.5 Pit, I don't think you really know what butchered means, lol. Lucario is still Lucario.

 

[McSlur]

100% this! A ton of people have lost hype about PM and it's mostly due to the fact that the nerf hammer is swinging. There hasn't been anything that captivating since 3.0-3.02. I get balance changes or even re-designs. But the way things are headed there has been a lack of interest. I'm no longer on the edge of my seat with new releases. One last thing, I didn't really care for the new stages or announcer( what was wrong with the ones we had??). Those things are so minimal when it comes to enjoying the game.

I enjoy the nerf hammer. I always loved Link/Ivy(2.6)/Mewtwo/Pit as characters, but I hated playing them, or playing against them. They felt busted, even if I was only playing with friends. Now I can play them without too much fear of "Nice ****ing burst movement/Boomerang spam/Back air."
The new stages are nice, and with ASL they put in more stages that were in Brawl. This is the best version for stages yet.
PM needed a new announcer so that they wouldn't have to do more splices of Pat's voice. You just didn't prepare yourself for teh "LEWEGI!"

 

[Kaye Cruiser]

Eh, I did feel like 3.5 kinda took away a lot of the fun I felt while playing 3.02 and made things needlessly difficult to do.

But I also feel that 3.6 brought it back and improved the fun factor exponentially, so I'm happy.

I'm just waiting for the day when I can not chuckle since I'd rather flex my muscles.