Except making the ledge-snap more difficult to do does change the technique itself. It makes it so you have to approach the ledge at a lower speed, requiring more dedication to get the auto-snap.
It's an extremely potent ability that now requires more finesse.
"More finesse" doesn't really do the change justice; it has to actually be slower and now has a
huge risk involved. Mess up and you lose a stock. Because you have less time to do it, its less useful. The technique itself is "up+b to the ledge", it hasn't changed. Just the results of the technique. It'd be like adding 5 frames of lag to Fox's shine. The technique is still the same, you just changed the variables.
Situations this up+b to the ledge can occur:
1. Near ledge, up+b on shielded opponent and retreat towards the ledge
This one is now basically gone, as Bowser can no longer actively pressure the opponent with threat of a getup attack or a drop-jump to flame. It's too slow an action and was already an obvious one; now the opponent has ample time to retreat. It's totally removed this aspect from his game as a potent pressure environment for Bowser, one of the four situations that Bowser can exert serious pressure (the four being with an opponent above him with no jump, the opponent recovering to the stage, the opponent teching with Bowser near him, and Bowser locking them in shield stun then grabbing the ledge). Since Bowser has no reliable way to force a tech chase (d-throw sometimes depending on character and % and position, sometimes with the new nair, both pretty specific but are the most common;
maybe u-smash 2nd hit against spacies) and no way for force an opponent above him with no jump, Bowser has typically stayed near the edge to exert pressure. He retreats to the ledge repeatedly in an attempt to force the opponent to fight near the ledge. This gives him an advantage as now his opponent can be forced off stage easily in which he can exert more pressure via his strong edgeguarding game.
This is because players have to accept their character's weaknesses. Bowser's weaknesses are pretty obvious, but once you stop focusing on his weaknesses and instead focus on his strengths you realize "oh, I can stay near the ledge and retreat to it a lot to abuse his strengths".
The recent change essentially neutered his strength near the ledge by slowing it down.
2. Near ledge, up+b to ledgehog up+bing opponent
This is completely gone unless the opponent is far enough away to give you enough time to time it. The last-second edgehog of Bowser that can make an opponent panic and up+b early is gone. Watch some Bowser videos, you'll see Bowsers occasionally just stand near the ledge doing nothing, then suddenly up+b to the ledge and cause their opponent to up-b early, in which case the Bowser will jump and bair/koopa klaw.
3. Near ledge, up+b to ledgehog with opponent far away (on stage / off stage, same situation)
No real change as noted above.
As for the rest, it seems like you're just commenting on several attributes of the move and calling it bad design.
- It doesn't change anything about the technique itself, just the input
Describes just about every character-specific tech. The input is all done by the performing player. I'd argue that an AT that
doesn't punish the player for screwing up is bad design, because you have no reason not to try.
It is bad design. If someone told you "Hey man, Falco's dair to shine is way too strong" you wouldn't say "falco now needs to press the jump button twice to get out of shine" because that isn't changing the technique itself, it's simply changing the input.
Bowser's up+b to the ledge
is still there. It's been neutered effectively for on-shield opponents when on stage, but that hasn't been brought up once as a reason by anyone and I'd bet bottom dollar it wasn't the reason for the change. If Bowser's up+b to the ledge is too strong
then you left something too strong in the game.
It's like the age-old Quake II design flaw. People found that camping the room with the armor was the best possible strategy. Get full armor, then stand on top of the strongest armor and wait for your opponent so you automatically heal. The response from people running the deathmatch servers? "anti camping measures". If you stand in the same spot for more than 3 minutes, your character suicides. New best strategy was stand on the armor for 2 minutes and 59 seconds or as close as you could get, dance around, then come back to the original position for 2 minutes and 59 seconds again.
If you wanted to really "change the design" you could make it to where Bowser's up+b didn't have him go into freefall. This would be a huge change to Bowser's design and would eliminate the ledgehog, but would open other doors. He could up+b off stage as an aggressive edgeguard, then jump back to the ledge with a fair, or up+b off the stage like a DK dash attack and then jump and bair or suicide dair a recovering opponent. All sorts of new options because the technique itself has changed.
You could have his up+b alternate between "long" and "short" up+bs, so that Bowser can't just spam it and still have his ledgehog ability enabled.
I wouldn't recommend either of those ideas (they're bad ones), but they'd change the technique. Currently you've just changed Bowser's "up+b and hold toward ledge" to "up+b and hold towards ledge, then away from ledge at the last second".
As for "AT should punish the player for screwing up", I just have a big old bowl of "wat" sitting in front of me on that. I have no idea what you're smoking if you think that's good design. I'd suggest reading some of the recent literature. No one thinks Fox should die for missing a waveshine or that Marth should die from wavedashing off the stage to the ledge, I don't know why Bowser's version of wavedashing to the ledge should be any different.
- The effect of the outcome in both the positive and negative is HUGE (literally a stock for Bowser and often the opponent)
Welcome to ledge play?
What?
What other character has a chance of dying by simply trying to
grab the ledge? Maybe sheik if she tried some crazy up+b off the stage gimmick, but that is actually way slower than a needle reverse, waveland, or wavedash off stage. Or just jumping off stage.
- It's integral to Bowser's design, making it mandatory
It's no more "mandatory" than many other character abilities.
Okay, go make a build where Fox's shine has 3 frames of startup lag and play a few games with him.
I really don't think you understand what I mean by "Bowser's design", so let me try to clear it up:
When you play as a character that is
always punished when he hits someones shield, this character then attempts to
not hit someone's shield. Now imagine this character is incredibly fast and mobile and has a projectile, designed around the idea of forcing the opponent's hand and punishing his lag.
That character is designed around the idea of making the opponent whiff and not directly approaching a grounded character.
The ICs are a very one-dimensional character. They can lose easily by getting separated because their strongest aspect (at least in Melee/Brawl) was their ability to do extreme grab combos.
That character is designed around getting grabs.
If you see that ICs are getting grabs consistently by desyncing and using blizzard to stun the opponent, you can make a note that is is
integral to the character's design. If you then decided to change their u-air to be a hammer toss that hits high up, you have made an
indirect change to their design. It opens new options, but doesn't close any doors.
Bowser's design, as stated earlier, is all about ledge play and, more specifically, edgeguarding. When you make large changes that affect that aspect of his game, you are changing the core of his character. The flamebreath change was a minor change that simply weakened an aspect of his game that didn't necessarily need to be that strong. The nair change enhanced some of his on-stage presence while forcing him to space correctly with his fair (those two together really were an awesome change, otherwise people might have just used nair instead of fair for guaranteed knockback), but it wasn't directly related to his edgeguarding or ledge game.
That's what I mean when it is integral to Bowser's design.
Fox's fair is not integral to his design. His waveshine
is.
Falco's u-air is not integral to his design. His laser
is.
Peach's over-b is not integral to her design. Her turnips and float
are.
That is what I mean by integral to Bowser's design. Bowser's up+b snap to ledge is just as mandatory as Fox's waveshine, Falco's laser, or Peach's float. Imagine shortening Fox's waveshine, or removing the stun from Falco's laser, or halving the length of Peach's float or removing float canceling, and you're starting to be on the same wavelength.
Out of curiosity, does anyone there play Bowser competitively?
.
