Little Mac's Design Flaws, and What To Do About Them in Smash 5

[Disappointed Donger]

Hey everyone, a short introduction here since I just recently joined the forum, and am new here. I'm not some great player who goes to tournaments (not that there are any near me anyways) and I don't consistently win Tourney mode online, but I consider myself pretty decent. I main Shulk in Sm4sh, and secondarily play Luigi, DK, Samus and Bowser Jr.

Anyways, on to the issue at hand: Little Mac's design. I was personally very hyped for him and was equally surprised to see him in Smash. I was really excited to use him, but it didn't take long for me to realize he's a pretty cheap character. Little Mac can be great when used well, but for the majority of players he's just a fast, hard-hitting annoyance that doesn't take much effort to use.

This is because Mac suffers from design flaws that give him almost a right angle of a skill curve, most people will only be able to run around with his dash attack and side-b, and throw out smash attacks. Little Mac's absurd ground speed and very fast and powerful attacks on the ground encourage players to just throw out all those same attacks and not try mixing things up. Meanwhile all ariels, bar his n-air are nearly useless because of their terrible frame data, range, and damage/smash power. Not to mention him having super armor on 4 attacks and brief intangibility on his side special. As if his clearly superior offensive options on the ground weren't enough, these attacks allow him to hit hard and safe. Finally we get to his power meter, this mechanic isn't that bad in theory, but it's flawed in execution. The main issue with it is that the meter fills far faster when taking damage than dealing it, this rewards bad play, and the KO punch itself is virtually guaranteed to kill anyone above 20%. Even if he misses the wind box on it makes it harder to punish than it should be for an attack that can kill at such extremely low percents.

We COULD keep him as he is for the next game, but I really don't think we should. His current design makes it hard for newer players to improve with him, and rewards them far too much for sloppy play. I have some ideas about what we could do to change him, so if you're interested keep reading.


The first thing to change is his air game, which at the moment is easily the worst in the game. It doesn't require big changes, just making it better overall. Better range, frame data, damage & smash power, all that. The improvements won't be major, but they're there to make it usable. His ground game will be getting nerfs, however, with slower movement, and slower and less powerful attacks. Again, they will only be slightly worse, the main thing to change here is making them slow enough players can't throw out smash attack so safely. For this purpose super armour will also be removed from his smash attacks, since they are much too fast and strong to deserve super armor. This isn't simply about frame data and numbers, though, this brings us to the important part of this rework: Stars.

For those of you unfamiliar with the mechanics of the Punch-Out games, the power meter comes from the arcade and SNES Punch-Out game, Super Punch-Out. In the original on NES and the Wii Punch-Out there is a different mechanic. If you were able to hit opposing boxers at just the right moments, you would gain a star.

In both versions you could hold up to three, in the NES version you could consume one at a time for a powerful uppercut attack. In the Wii game you would consume them all at once instead, with the punch getting more powerful for every star you had.

We could implement this into Smash in a similar manner, hitting an opponent just before or after they shield, roll, spot dodge, air dodge or while they are charging a smash attack or special would grant a star, which would be displayed above your percent in place of the power meter. Like how you lose them for taking hits in the games though, taking a hit that deals 14% or more, or taking at least 18% damage in under 2 seconds would make you lose a star. However if you have super armour from your neutral special it won't cost you a star.

With stars stored, Little Mac's up special would become the Star Uppercut, increasing both his recovery and KO potential. It would send him up and slightly forward in the direction he is facing, dealing a single strong hit. With one star it goes the same distance as his regular recovery, but faster and with a tiny amount of horizontal movement. With two the move will go a bit higher, and do more damage. With all three stars it will go much higher than normal, around double his normal recovery, get a decent amount of horizontal movement (which can be controlled by inputting left or right) and gain a large increase in smash power along with some more damage. With all three stars it becomes a powerful KO option and can also give Mac some decent recovery at the expense of his stars, but still not a great one. Keep in mind that missing this will leave Mac even more vulnerable than if he misses the KO Punch, since he's put higher in the air the more stars he has, and is put into helpless mode, not to mention there is no windox. A missed Star Uppercut could very well cost Little Mac a stock, but landing it will be devastating to your opponent.

This change is intended to make Mac a more skill-based character, penalising getting hit rather than rewarding it, and rewarding you for reads and smart moves. At the same time it will penalise getting hit, costing you stars and punishing when you just throw out moves more. His core design of being better on the ground then in the air will remain intact, but he will now reward smart play and not taking hits.

Keep in mind this is just my opinion, and how I would change Little Mac. If you think this is unnecessary be sure to tell me, maybe Mac is fine as he is, it's just my opinion that he could use changes. Be sure to let me know what you think, both of the rework and Mac's current condition.

 

[jet56]

Nice response. But no. His air attacks are already actually usable, as fair is a decent gimping tool, combos from dtilt, and not to mention Nair is the fastest aerial in the game (comes out frame 2) and uair actually combos into various things if you fast fall it. His air attacks are far from unusable. the worst? yeah, but they are fine as they are because they do hold usage in his gameplan.

There is no way to justify removing the super armor from his smash attacks, as well as decrease his ground game in general, without a decent form of compensation. improving his aerials is far from the answer.

The meter change you proposed? Nice idea, but difficult to implement. It would be much easier to swap the mechanics of the original gauge (right now, you get meter if you take 100%, or deal 250%. swapping these numbers would make it so you would be much more highly rewarded for hitting your opponent, rather than taking damage, and it wouldn't require an entire overhaul.)

Also, let's break down something important. there are different levels of play. Little mac dominates at a Low level of play because of his amazing ground game. Why? because low level players don't know how to properly deal with him on the ground, or when they do get him off the ground, cannot edge guard him properly. Mid and Top level players will have a much better grasp on how to deal with mac's ground game, and will know how to easily exploit him offstage and in the air. Which means that low level and even mid level Mac players will do very very poorly if they just "run around with his dash attack and side-b, and throw out smash attacks". It's like saying Samus is too strong because she can just put up projectiles and walls and run away for the time out, so she needs to have better up close moves, but a weaker charge shot and slower missiles.

Does little mac have things that need to be fixed? yes. Does he have a flawed design? no, but it was executed improperly, which is really where the issue lies. Having a strong ground based character with a weak air game makes sense, he's a boxer, and it brings a refreshing dynamic. But they missed some important things and overlooked things. for Example:

Little mac's jab is a terrible hit confirm at low percents. his gentleman, when manually inputted perfectly (why you can't just hold A i have no idea) will not true combo until 20% on most characters. Then his multijab can just be SDI'ed down to be shielded and then punished, and can even be up B or jumped out of as well. Why a boxer with the supposed best jab in the game has a problem like this is uncalled for.

His smashes have deadzones. He's a boxer, and should excel at close range, So he should not be whiffing attacks. A sourspot in the deadzones would be a fair fix, but he should not be straight up missing with them.

his ftilt will miss the second hit if the first hit connects on some characters (dedede, lucas, etc.) meaning he will not only miss an important kill or chance to take stage, but will instead get punished for landing the move on the opponent.

His up B also has a similar problem, some characters will pop out of the up B, which will then lead to a free punish for them.

All the problems i mentioned above would improve the character, and can be considered buffs. TBH though, they would really just be fixes, as no character should have problems like this in the first place. It's like Diddy's bananna not tripping characters sometimes.

Let's also not forget the fact this character was nerfed, unfairly so i might add. His nair, side B recovery length, and jab where all nerfed, back when the game was just starting out and new players on for glory were getting beat by this character because they were low level players who didn't know how to properly handle the character.

I get it, he shouldn't have a great grab range. His pummel is fairly decent as well. But for a character who should eccel on the ground, he struggles too much against shields. The best way to help would be giving this character a 50-50 off of a throw. This wouldn't be unfair, as it is difficult to get the grab, and the only way you would get the kill would be if you grabbed an opponent (which is an impressive feat to accomplish for mac) and then got the read.

There are already easy ways to deal with mac. Defensive play, shield grabbing, and camping does well against him, and certain characters have great tools of exploiting mac offstage (mario, Pit) or have a solid neutral game to compete against him (diddy, shiek).

Also, i don't want to talk about fixing him in smash 5, when smash 4 is still a new game, and could potentially see another patch (although not likely). I personally believe this will be the last iteration of smash, so my hopes aren't even high another game will come out, or if mac will even be included in the next iteration.

 

[Disappointed Donger]

Of course he's still beatable, I have little trouble against Little Mac online with the rare exception when I go up against good ones in Tourney mode. The thing I'm trying to address here is his design encouraging spam and poor play. The comparison to Samus isn't a fair one, we could also say Mario and Bowser are too strong because they have a good grab game, so they need less grab combos and better tilts and smashes, or Peach is too strong because her turnips are so versatile, so she needs them to be weaker and have better ground attacks.

I could go on for a while, the point is that simply having strengths does not mean a character needs changes, Little Mac's problem is that his strengths are implemented in a way that they are just as useful in low-level play as high level. Little Mac is fine in high level play, that's not the issue I'm addressing here, it's that they're too much in low-level play and encourage players to keep doing it, rather than finding ways to improve. That, and his KO Punch is too safe of an option considering it works better when you take hits and is the most powerful move in the game.

Speaking of his Power Meter what you mentioned could work, but I would really like it to happen. On top of the stars being from more games it's also a more interesting mechanic and would reward good play like I said. With Cloud's Limit Break showing up (which is just a better implemented version of the Power Meter if you ask me) Little Mac's power meter looks boring in comparison, so I think a more interesting and authentic mechanic is a better fit.

As for his air game, his f-air is the only one I find usable when I play Little Mac myself, usually to show For Glory Macs how easy he is. aside from that his n-air is a panic button and everything else I can't remember ever landing. As for your suggestions on how he could be changed, all those little fixes make sense, and while swapping the damage-to-PM charge ratios could work for now, I don't like the idea of Little Mac and Cloud having such similar trademark mechanics, but with Cloud's being more versatile and interesting.

 

[jet56]

In all honesty, This game encourages players to spam moves at low levels of play, be it Ness's PK Fire, Link and his projectiles, Yoshi's mashing the A button, so on and so on. Looking at Mac from the very small perspective of his design and what he does at low levels of play is very close minded. It isn't worth it to change his design to satisfy lower level players, if will inherently hurt the character at higher levels of play. TBH, and this is just me of course, but it shouldn't matter what the character encourages at Low levels of play, as that is not the important group when it comes to competitive smash and design issues.

It would be cool if it would happen. It won't though, its beyond unlikely. It's cool to theorycraft it, but that's it.

I do main this character. Not trying to be rude, but i would like to think i know what im talking about when it comes to discussing his aerial toolkit. Believe me, his aerial moves are much more useful than it would seem on the surface. The comparison to Little Mac and Cloud im not sure what you are going for. So what if the way meter is gained is similar? And Is cloud's Limit more versatile? yes. Interesting? yes. So if you want to make Mac's more versatile, make his chargeable as well, and able to keep it till he loses the stock. Or, make his limit like macs in terms of mechanics. Otherwise, i see no reason for this comparison, or how it helps this discussion.

 

[Disappointed Donger]

In all honesty, This game encourages players to spam moves at low levels of play, be it Ness's PK Fire, Link and his projectiles, Yoshi's mashing the A button, so on and so on. Looking at Mac from the very small perspective of his design and what he does at low levels of play is very close minded. It isn't worth it to change his design to satisfy lower level players, if will inherently hurt the character at higher levels of play. TBH, and this is just me of course, but it shouldn't matter what the character encourages at Low levels of play, as that is not the important group when it comes to competitive smash and design issues.

It would be cool if it would happen. It won't though, its beyond unlikely. It's cool to theorycraft it, but that's it.

I do main this character. Not trying to be rude, but i would like to think i know what im talking about when it comes to discussing his aerial toolkit. Believe me, his aerial moves are much more useful than it would seem on the surface. The comparison to Little Mac and Cloud im not sure what you are going for. So what if the way meter is gained is similar? And Is cloud's Limit more versatile? yes. Interesting? yes. So if you want to make Mac's more versatile, make his chargeable as well, and able to keep it till he loses the stock. Or, make his limit like macs in terms of mechanics. Otherwise, i see no reason for this comparison, or how it helps this discussion.

And those players are also very annoying, it's not the game, but a few characters you're talking about. I'm not trying to satisfy low level players, if anything this change might piss them off. What I'm trying to do with this idea is make him a character that encourages good play and punishes mistakes heavily, just like how he is in the games he comes from.

As for the comparison, the point I'm making is that changing it would add a bit more variety. They're 2 very different characters, with cloud being good at keeping enemies at a distance so he can charge limit for the finishing blow. Meanwhile Mac gets in and doesn't give his opponents a break, and if they don't dispatch of him quickly and play safe he can punish them hard. It's not a necessary change, I would just personally like the mechanics to be more different from each other. His charge-up damage move being like a simpler version of Cloud's limit isn't a design flaw, and changing it like I mentioned isn't necessary. I wanted to throw out my idea since it would make his recovery slightly less terrible, but simply changing some values on the Power Meter and KO Punch would be fine too. (but also pretty boring)

Changing it like you mentioned doesn't seem like a good idea to me, since the KO Punch is so much stronger than any of Cloud's Limit Breaks. Making it chargeable would be too potent since it can kill at far lower %'s than anything else in the game, and keeping it until he loses a stock removes one of the few counter-play options it has of landing a few safe hits.

 

[CaikLazer]

little mac is fat

 

[NonJohns]

Little Mac's aerials all have uses even if they are a bit situational
Up tilt to up air serves as a great frame trap at the right percents
Dair jab locks and sets them up too
And bair umm...