Is it just me, or was 3.02 more fun?

[FreeGamer]

I do miss the insanity of 3.0 Zelda/Kirby, 2.6 Link/G&W/Wario, and 2.5 Bowser. However, 3.6 is a blast to play and it addressed most of the things I hated in 3.5. ^_^

 

[himemiya]

3.6 character changes should've been importing 3.02 zelda and pit while bringing in 3.6 oilmar

 

[Searing_Sorrow]

3.02 zelda with a slightly weaker lightning kick and no neutral b to rise out of combos sure. 3.6 pit is finely balanced and feels more fair without being 3.02 silly.

 

[un.dead]

After playing 3.5 Pit for so long he feels like 3.0 Pit to me

 

[Quillion]

For all your salt towards Sakurai for removing "tech" in Smash U, you all seem to sing praise to PMDev for doing the same.

Hypocrites, the lot of you.

 

[PCHU]

I dunno; I like working for my KO, so the changes don't bother me.

 

[GP&B]

For all your salt towards Sakurai for removing "tech" in Smash U, you all seem to sing praise to PMDev for doing the same.

Hypocrites, the lot of you.

No universal tech was removed and the character-specific options that were removed helped cut down their otherwise overwhelmingly strong kit.

Can you please get off your high horse?

 

[qwertz143]

I do miss the insanity of 3.0 Zelda/Kirby, 2.6 Link/G&W/Wario, and 2.5 Bowser. However, 3.6 is a blast to play and it addressed most of the things I hated in 3.5. ^_^

What were the things you hated in 3.5 if I may ask? :3

 

[W.A.C.]

Project M 3.02 was easily my favorite version of the game. Project M 3.5 changed the game so much that the balance of the game completely changed. The considerably worse recoveries and nerfs to camping options alienated a lot of Brawl players and the nerfs to Melee's S tier characters turned off a lot of Melee players. There are people I know of who refuse to play Project M competitively because Fox isn't as good as he is in Melee and former Brawl players who felt Project M 3.5 made the game way too much like Melee. Project M 3.5's release caused a lot of people to quit this game. As far as I'm concerned, Project M 3.02 came the closest to creating a game that united Melee's and Brawl's competitive scenes. Ideally, I would've liked to see Project M 3.02's top ten characters get small nerfs, the high tiers mostly left alone, the mid tiers buffed, and the low tiers massively buffed. But Project M 3.5 went in a radically different direction. It's worth mentioning Smash 4's best player, ZeRo, views Brawl and Project M 3.02 as his favorite Smash games. He currently has zero interest in playing Project M 3.6 competitively and Tyrant at one point said he would only consider playing Project M again if Meta Knight got buffed...which he did in Project M 3.6, so who knows if Tyrant will start playing Project M again anytime soon.

 

[Searing_Sorrow]

Cons of 3.5:
1.The nerfs to address characters deemed too strong was not done in a gradual way, but instantaneously to the point to where many characters played completely different entirely.
2. The discrepancy between what was deemed too strong for brawl characters and melee characters were vastly different. (Meaning melee top tiers remained virtually untouched, while everyone else with the exception of a select few, took a hit to their offensive stage presence.)
3. Ice climber glitch, and olimar refusing to recover.
4. Combos became less free flowing and more 1 dimensional.
5. Diversity of matches dropped considerably.
6. Recovery went from Jesus grabbing my character and tossing him on stage (why was it ever that good?) To little mac trying to teach him how to recover. (Intentional hyperbole for comparable emphasis.)
7.All the sdi multiplier tweaks and angle adjustments. That is the fastest way to trash a move. The sak-a-fry angle is not fun on your best kill move.
8. Too many drastic changes for 1 patch. Seriously the declaration of independence was shorter than oil's patch notes.

 

[qwertz143]

Project M 3.02 was easily my favorite version of the game. Project M 3.5 changed the game so much that the balance of the game completely changed. The considerably worse recoveries and nerfs to camping options alienated a lot of Brawl players and the nerfs to Melee's S tier characters turned off a lot of Melee players. There are people I know of who refuse to play Project M competitively because Fox isn't as good as he is in Melee and former Brawl players who felt Project M 3.5 made the game way too much like Melee. Project M 3.5's release caused a lot of people to quit this game. As far as I'm concerned, Project M 3.02 came the closest to creating a game that united Melee's and Brawl's competitive scenes. Ideally, I would've liked to see Project M 3.02's top ten characters get small nerfs, the high tiers mostly left alone, the mid tiers buffed, and the low tiers massively buffed. But Project M 3.5 went in a radically different direction. It's worth mentioning Smash 4's best player, ZeRo, views Brawl and Project M 3.02 as his favorite Smash games. He currently has zero interest in playing Project M 3.6 competitively and Tyrant at one point said he would only consider playing Project M again if Meta Knight got buffed...which he did in Project M 3.6, so who knows if Tyrant will start playing Project M again anytime soon.

Well in 3.02 everybody was too OP. Well fun I guess, but balanced no way. And it's hard to buff every single member of the cast to make them equal. That's why imo Project M 3.5 was a perfectly balanced game, and they are trying to fix the small mistakes and stuff (the cons mentioned in the above post) in their further release. Let's just wait and see what happens when Project M 4 releases

 

[qwertz143]

Cons of 3.5:
Seriously the declaration of independence was shorter than oil's patch notes.

Hahahahaha

 

[W.A.C.]

Well in 3.02 everybody was too OP. Well fun I guess, but balanced no way. And it's hard to buff every single member of the cast to make them equal. That's why imo Project M 3.5 was a perfectly balanced game, and they are trying to fix the small mistakes and stuff (the cons mentioned in the above post) in their further release. Let's just wait and see what happens when Project M 4 releases

Most of the roster felt like amazing S tier characters, which was great. If only about eight characters felt that way (like in Melee), then we have a huge balance problem.

 

[GP&B]

The problem was that it created incredibly polarizing matchups. So while the game was "balanced" in a broad sense, plenty of characters had several unwinnable MU's. In addition, whatever expansive depth there was in 3.02's broken characters was ignored in favor of abusive or broken tactics. Because why bother exploring your character when what's working now is enough? The end result would be a lack of desire to grow and a stagnation in the meta.

 

[kchamp523]

Most of the roster felt like amazing S tier characters, which was great. If only about eight characters felt that way (like in Melee), then we have a huge balance problem.

Yeah but it also created characters with way overcentralizing options that they could rely on most of the time instead of making the players learn proper fundamentals.

 

[Quillion]

I fully believed that everything in 3.02 could have been balanced to Melee!Fox, Falco, Marth, Sheik standards. No one criticized them even in PM, yet they hate it when everyone else is both powerful enough to match them and have a proper-skill/reward ratio to match?

 

[qwertz143]

I fully believed that everything in 3.02 could have been balanced to Melee!Fox, Falco, Marth, Sheik standards. No one criticized them even in PM, yet they hate it when everyone else is both powerful enough to match them and have a proper-skill/reward ratio to match?

I don't think that's possible, because to reach melee spacies standards, you would either have to super buff a characters attacks or create gimmicky moves to match it with multi-shine and all that stuff, and I don't think that's going in the right direction. It's better to balance a roster by nerfing, and from there equal out the gameplay and make everyone balanced.

 

[CORY]

melee fox is on a different level than falco, marth, and shiek. falco's the closest to fox, but that's because he can control the entire stage with little commitment. he depends a lot of being able to force game control with laser, and other characters being able to deal with laser lowers his standing in the meta a good amount, making him still a very good character, but not hands down top tier.

marth and shiek are probably right below spacies, and melee marth's standings are primarily dependent on spacie play, since he works well as to antimeta them with his range and throws. shiek has a worse game against spacies, since she has fewer guaranteed setups and is edgeguarded a bit harder, but she does a good game against marth and has good matchups vs the rest of the high tiers (and kinda gatekeeps the low tiers, as well).

balancing around to melee marth/shiek/peach/falcon level is much more ideal, since they have much better defined strengths and weaknesses, as opposed to "gets to rush down better than anyone, while also forcing approaches on most of the cast, with a solid recovery kit and some of the best kill options in the game; but he's a bit on the light side and doesn't have a sword".

 

[Quillion]

melee fox is on a different level than falco, marth, and shiek. falco's the closest to fox, but that's because he can control the entire stage with little commitment. he depends a lot of being able to force game control with laser, and other characters being able to deal with laser lowers his standing in the meta a good amount, making him still a very good character, but not hands down top tier.

marth and shiek are probably right below spacies, and melee marth's standings are primarily dependent on spacie play, since he works well as to antimeta them with his range and throws. shiek has a worse game against spacies, since she has fewer guaranteed setups and is edgeguarded a bit harder, but she does a good game against marth and has good matchups vs the rest of the high tiers (and kinda gatekeeps the low tiers, as well).

balancing around to melee marth/shiek/peach/falcon level is much more ideal, since they have much better defined strengths and weaknesses, as opposed to "gets to rush down better than anyone, while also forcing approaches on most of the cast, with a solid recovery kit and some of the best kill options in the game; but he's a bit on the light side and doesn't have a sword".

Oh, so NOW people are salting over Melee Fox just because of what PMDev did. Like I said in the other thread, no one here even on the Smash U side, is thinking for themselves. You're just blindly following whatever your chosen developer does.

 

[CORY]

no, actually, fox has been stupid forever. balancing to the top sounds good, but when you look at what happens when this game is balanced to the top, it doesn't work. things get, literally, stupid. the old ike build is probably the tamest of the crazy builds that happened from balancing to fox. the totally noncommital sonic builds, 3.0 mewtwo, 3.0 pit, and 3.0 lucas are all really bad design. they might've been fun to play, but they weren't good designs. much like melee fox, which they could all compete with very well.

if things were to be balanced upwards to that degree, slower characters would either need hitboxes that can cover 1/4 the stage safely or would need to kill in two hits, outright /hyperbole

but he's one of the fastest characters in the game, with the ability to safely play aggro and rush down, can also force the cast to approach him, and then use the same tool to both make the pressure safe and convert mistakes into combos for big damage or just straight into an outright kill with one of the best kill moves in the game (which it still is, in terms of speed of its hitboxes vs its power), while still having a quite good recovery kit (if fox has a double jump, he can use several mixups involving straight illusion, straight firefox, dj-illusion, dj-firefox, and shine stalling with a combination of the above, along with the different angles you can take on firefox to force different coverage options that don't necessarily overlap with one another, nor with illusion coverage options), and good defensive options in his rolls/spotdodge/techs (which aren't top tier, but iirc his techs are par for course). fast falling speed is a mixed bag, since it means that people are forced into tech chase situations to carry on damage just as often as they can abuse a silly uthrow chain (which isn't universal, anyway), all before the fact that the fallspeed allows for even better shffl's and pressure. the lightweight is a similar mixed bag, since he can die earlier off the side, but he also doesn't get caught in combos as long or as easily as a large framed fattie would, and he has tools to be safe and not be forced into risky situations. and the lack of range is made up for by the good ground speed and his good momentum carry into his jump, meaning his effective range in neutral is actually quite large, especially since he doesn't need to directly challenge anything unless there was a mistake made on his part and he gave up too much stage space.

so, why play a slower character that's supposed to be good at large damage output and killing earlier, but loses neutral more often and is probably forced to approach when you could just play a really fast character that's safer, can force approaches anyway, and kills nearly as early?

i guess you could make the slower characters deal even more damage, but then when they're not dealing with fox, they're going to touch of death the rest of the cast. if they touch them. or give them better stage control movesets, which will likey entirely shut down every other character not built around mobility.

or, you could just deal with the problem at its root source, bring it down in line with stated design goals (which don't include "keep fox just like melee!"), and then work on fine tuning. this isn't melee. problematic design elements can be dealt with, and are dealt with. if fox ends up overnerfed at some point (not likely, imo) then he'll get fixed up in the next build, much like pit had a rough time going into 3.5 but is a viable character again.

but, you know, this is just salt and sheeple-ing and not thinking about anything critically because melee was the apex of perfect design that shouldn't be questioned.

 

[Strong Badam]

Oh, so NOW people are salting over Melee Fox just because of what PMDev did. Like I said in the other thread, no one here even on the Smash U side, is thinking for themselves. You're just blindly following whatever your chosen developer does.

This kind of post is not a retort; it is lacking in content and is borderline trolling. You should be able to respond to people calmly with counterpoints if you feel so strongly. Simmer down bro.

 

[Celestis]

I don't think it's any less fun, I actually am Having more fun with friends on 3.6, but I do know 3.6 has stirred up more controversy then any other release.

 

[CORY]

I don't think it's any less fun, I actually am Having more fun with friends on 3.6, but I do know 3.6 has stirred up more controversy then any other release.

i dunno, 3.5... the announcer's pretty controversial, but the overall redesign overhaul in 3.5 seemed to make more people salty than the announcer and a few fox nerfs.

 

[Celestis]

Really? I don't recall seeing this much fuss over 3.5. The only thing I remember being this annoying was when fox got his up smash nerf. 3.5 is the best as far as I think. Recovery nerfs were a big thing for me and the removing of PK fire on shield. I personally hated that.

 

[LupinX]

3.6 imo is a step-up in making characters good but not busted (most of them anyways) and a few buffs and tweaks each patch should do the characters justice.

 

[Tomaster]

Most people who switch from pm to melee do it for one of these 3 main reasons:
1) more people play melee, easier to find tourneys.

2) melee is easier to master (I know I'll get hate for this but just listen) while tech may be slightly harder in melee, in pm there are plenty more matchups that need to be learned. In melee you only need to know how to play against like 10 characters, which isn't easy but it's not nearly as hard as the 40+ matchups in pm. Every character in pm is a world of its own and you could spend months just studying one of them. Overall pm has much more to learn and the boundaries are huge, so going to melee where mastering the game is a more realistic goal seems like the right choice for melee players.

3) Project m has little tier differences. Many competitive smash players like going for the top tier characters and dominating with them in tourneys. However, pm is a pretty balanced game and what can seem like the worst character in the game can destroy what seems like the best one. Every character in pm is viable and when these top players see their "top tier" character get wrecked by a "low tier" they get pissed and say the game sucks.

I truly believe that project m is the best smash game to ever exist, there's so much to learn and so many characters to play. I love how there will always be room to improve and I love how the dev team is doing such a great job giving us updates to improve the game where needed. I guess it's not for everyone but im sure there would be so many pm players if they just gave it a chance.

No hate on melee players btw, I'm not saying it's a bad game at all, it's just different from pm. I completely respect your choice.

This is what I've seen from my experience. Im a noob tho so don't take my word for it :^)

 

[LupinX]

People who switch from pm to melee do it for one of these 3 main reasons:
1) more people play melee, easier to find tourneys.

2) melee is easier to master (I know I'll get hate for this but just listen) while tech may be slightly harder in melee, but in pm there are plenty more matchups that need to be learned. In melee you only need to know how to play against like 10 characters, which isn't easy but it's not nearly as hard as the 40+ matchups in pm. Overall pm has much more to learn and the boundaries are huge, so going to melee where mastering the game is a more realistic goal seems like the right choice for melee players.

3) Project m has little tier differences. Many competitive smash players like going for the top tier characters and dominating with them in tourneys. However, pm is a pretty balanced game and what can seem like the worst character in the game can destroy what seems like the best one. Every character in pm is viable and when these top players see their "top tier" character get wrecked by a "low tier" they get pissed and say the game sucks.

I truly believe that project m is the best smash game to ever exist, there so much to learn and so many characters to play. I love how there will always be room to improve and I love how the dev team is doing such a great job giving us updates to improve the game where needed. I guess it's not for everyone but im sure there would be so many pm players if they just gave it a chance.

No hate on melee players btw, I'm not saying it's a bad game at all, it's just different from pm. I completely respect your choice.

This is what I've seen in my experience. Im a noob tho so don't take my word for it :^)

PM also have character-specific techs, for example, Lucario's magic series, Snake's trap game with projectiles, Ike's Quickdraw mixes, D3's waddledash etc etc. The variety is what gets me hooked on PM. I used to play Melee more than PM, but it's the characters and their techs alongside close balances (that update each patch to make the character less ridiculous or more viable in itself) is what makes me stick to PM more. I spectate melee matches cause they're also fun to watch

 

[qwertz143]

i dunno, 3.5... the announcer's pretty controversial, but the overall redesign overhaul in 3.5 seemed to make more people salty than the announcer and a few fox nerfs.

Actually after a week of playing the announcer grows on you, I don't mind him at all now, except while playing break the targets of course. He says new record in such a bored way.

 

[Dhillz521]

Mewtwo was better in 3.02. He could teleport and attack. In 3.5 and up he could only teleport.

 

[Tomaster]

Mewtwo was better in 3.02. He could teleport and attack. In 3.5 and up he could only teleport.

Mewtwo was super broken in 3.02

 

[Dhillz521]

Mewtwo was super broken in 3.02

Thats the point.

 

[CORY]

the point of the nerfs and design changes?

 

[mimgrim]

Mewtwo was better in 3.02. He could teleport and attack. In 3.5 and up he could only teleport.

M2 can still attack out of Teleport as long as he hasn't used his DJ (and I believe Hover as well) before he teleported.

Just as an FYI.

 

[PlateProp]

@cmart y u no make magus consider hydrograb regrab stuff when making changes to throw release points

 

[Journal]

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?

Armada still plays it, Mango does occasionally but his mindset is that he already has one game to focus on, and iirc PP stopped playing it because the recoveries were too free, which made it so it often wasn't worth it to edgeguard (which is being addressed with new versions).

 

[HK_Spadez]

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.

that might be true. just a lot of stuff that got changed annoyed me i guess.

so many set ups/lab time in 3.02 wasted. it just feels like if I play anyone but a melee char. it's not safe. like.. i should just play marth for lyfe if i play PM cause he'll be forever safe. or something.

 

[Rawkobo]

3.5 was a patch where I felt like I had to dedicate myself to improve, and that's what I want out of becoming competitive in a game in the first place. 3.02 didn't feel that way at all to me, even if I'd agree with someone (I forget who) that said we never actually managed to solve 3.02's metagame.

I think what people have to realize is that PM is still in development, so nothing is actually that safe. You have to lab smart rather than just lab, if you're going to lab. Tweaking and sometimes full-on swings of the nerf bat are necessary to fix glaring issues that keep the meta concentrated in certain areas. It's not to say there shouldn't be one (I do think that there should be a consensus on what characters should be slightly above the rest but not by miles and miles), but no small group of characters should overpolarize a game.

Melee barely does that as is, so it's definitely entertaining to watch and play, but it's still noticeable.

 

[OSCA MIKE]

People are going to have to realize that, as PM continues to develop, everything is and most likely WILL be subject to change, and design goals are modified over time based upon what works and what doesn't.

3.5 had a different design philosophy than what 3.0 and its derivatives did. I like to think of 3.5 as not a giant change list of nerfs, but as a new base to start from, so that collecting information for the new design philosophy is easier for successive versions of PM.

Remember, every version of PM that is released is not intended to be "the" version, but rather an attempt to collect data on all aspects of the game, and to refine what works and fix what doesn't based upon the current design philosophy. Even design goals change over time, as was the case between 3.02 and 3.5.

I can understand why people might be upset about playstyle changes to characters, since videos and explanations of one character advertise the character as is, and do not take into account possible future changes. For example, when the reveal video for Mewtwo came out, it showcased him as having certain abilities that are no longer possible to do in this version of PM. As a result, he was advertised as having a certain toolkit that no longer exists, and so an individual may feel cheated when the reveal video and game do not match up.

This is just an assumed reason, and there exists other reasons why people are upset over balance changes (lab time perceived as wasted, playstlye shifters, etc.), but the one thing that PM has always touted, even at the beginning of its life when Charizard and Bowser were given sneak peaks, is that "Everything is subject to change." This means that nothing is sacred and untouchable, not even Fox and L-canceling. Being that PM is still a beta despite dropping the word "beta" from it's title, people will have to understand and accept the changes that PM will have in its lifetime as the number evolves higher and higher.

If you cannot understand the fact that PM is in beta and drastic changes will happen in every patch, then I am sorry, but perhaps this game isn't for you. I mean no disrespect by this. All it takes is looking at this game in a different light. The PMDT (formerly PMBR) do not make changes out of spite or out of a vendetta, they want to make the game the best damn game it can possibly be, and in order to achieve this goal, they will have to make many controversial and confusing changes to characters, stages, and game mechanics alike.

Remember, behind the PMDT label are people just like you and me who are striving to make this game succeed, out of love and passion for the project they created. PM is their child, and I think they are taking very good care of it.

 

[Mage.]

I fully believed that everything in 3.02 could have been balanced to Melee!Fox, Falco, Marth, Sheik standards. No one criticized them even in PM, yet they hate it when everyone else is both powerful enough to match them and have a proper-skill/reward ratio to match?

Except they would never be able to. Something that I see that gets tossed around in people who complain about PM's nerfs is that they don't understand why the PMDT doesn't just buff everyone to S tier level. The simple reality is that it's impossible without breaking the game.

It's called power creep. Say that in 3.5, instead of nerfs they buffed every character to S tier and made everyone really powerful in comparison to whoever was top tier at 3.02. Awesome! Everyone's balanced, right? Wrong. You now have characters that are completely ridiculous. As a result of getting buffed characters that were already strong but had weaknesses no longer have those handicaps and their strengths stand out entirely. Let's say in this hypothetical 3.5 Bowser is top tier. He's got super armor, his hitboxes are stupid big, KO's early, recovery options are good, and never dies early.

Well, by common logic he gets nerfed a bit, but still remains S tier. However we still need to buff the characters that weren't as strong as Bowser, so the next patch PMDT buffs once again the weaker characters. Now Olimar can hit you from one end of the stage with a purple pikmin and kill at 50%, recovers amazing, etc. Now everyone isn't nearly as good as Olimar and the other two or three characters that are stupid strong so once again they nerf the top tiers a bit but buff everyone else. Rinse and repeat.

The reality is that it's just impossible to balance a game and have every character at S tier level. What makes characters stand out from each other is the difference in their kits or abilities/moveset depending on what you call it. Marth is completely different from Squirtle because one is fast and mobile with short disruption abilities and the other has more control over the space around him with his sword. How would you make a kit that has extreme skill/reward ratio while still being strong and not broken in practice (because everything sounds good on paper) and being completely unique? If you manage to do that for one character, good for you. Now do it for the other 40.

If you truly want a game where all characters are fox/falco/sheik tier in melee you would have to homogenize everyone's kit to be basically the same because how can you make something comparatively equal if they are radically different?

At that point, you don't have Marth or Squirtle anymore, you just have another fox/falco/sheik. The only reason why fox is so good is because he has an overloaded kit. He's "supposed" to be glass cannon yet he's stupid fast, kills early, has long range pessure, amazing recovery, and doesn't die early either. He's like Irelia from LoL who just has way too many good things packed into one kit and the only real way to make them fair is to nerf them until their stupid strong kit isn't that stupid.

In any game that has 8-10 or more characters there has never been a case of perfect balance. Most of those game's fanbases make the same statements you do, "why not just buff everyone to top tier?" and they don't realize just how naive and impossible it is. The fewer characters you have the easier it is to balance, but i've yet to see a game achieve S tier balance with every character. It's just feasibly not possible. It takes too much resources/time/money to spend hours and hours over the stupid rinse and repeat balancing cycle than it does to just nerf top characters and give small buffs to lower ones. Name me one game that has 10+ characters and has been in a relatively "balanced" state. Melee doesn't count because half the cast are leagues below the S tier.

It just isn't feasibly possible unless you spend every waking moment of your life working on it and even then it might not work out. It's like world peace, it just won't realistically happen because of human nature.

Anyway, rant over. In regards to the actual thread of whether or not PM has become less fun it's honestly the opossite for me. 3.02 was fun in that every character was so stupid to play. You didn't have to practice a lot to pull of something that looked cool which in retrospect just lowers the skill depth of the game. I actually think 3.6 is my favorite version so far just because of all the love put into it. That and the fact that every characters feels strong and no one is too overbearing. Muh squirt man.

TL;DR- 3.6 gewd. 3.02 bad

 

[MLGF]

^this topic