My First Impressions with Ultimate Online

[Gold Pollux]

1. Start online mode, edit custom rules and hit Solo search to 1v1~gets put in laggy 4-player FFA match and I lose terribly.
2. Started the next few matches only to get booted out each time~changed some of my settings and reset the game but to no avail.
3. Finally worked again, got put in 5 1v1 games in a row with each opponent having god awful lag and taunted me by ducking repeatedly (because y’know, you can’t ACTUALLY taunt online) for using the lag to their advantage.
4. Finally had a good 1v1 match, I still lost but it was finally a fair challenge~my opponent left and I got stuck in another laggy match.
5. Tried one more time, got stuck in a laggy 1v3 regardless of my preferences.
6. Story mode here I come.

 

[meleebrawler]

1. Start online mode, edit custom rules and hit Solo search to 1v1~gets put in laggy 4-player FFA match and I lose terribly.
2. Started the next few matches only to get booted out each time~changed some of my settings and reset the game but to no avail.
3. Finally worked again, got put in 5 1v1 games in a row with each opponent having god awful lag and taunted me by ducking repeatedly (because y’know, you can’t ACTUALLY taunt online) for using the lag to their advantage.
4. Finally had a good 1v1 match, I still lost but it was finally a fair challenge~my opponent left and I got stuck in another laggy match.
5. Tried one more time, got stuck in a laggy 1v3 regardless of my preferences.
6. Story mode here I come.

7. Doesn't touch Arenas once before complaining.

 

[Gold Pollux]

Battle Arena? That’s local play only.. yeah sure if you have friends next to you or online. And besides don’t be so judgmental if I don’t like coop anyways

 

[Kadji100]

No, you can Host a Lobby for Online Matching, thats what meleebrawler is meaning.
You can set all the Rules, Spectate others while waiting for your Turn and kick laggy Players if needed.
And you can set the Lobby to either Public or Friends Only.

It's not perfect, but I had the best Matches by Hosting a Lobby, putting my Country in the Name (no Ping because Nintendo....)
The worst thing is that you don't gein GSP, that you can't swap Characters (it will remove you from the waiting queque) and that you have long waiting times between each match (except if you win most of the fights or change the settings from "winner stays" to something different).

 

[meleebrawler]

No, you can Host a Lobby for Online Matching, thats what meleebrawler is meaning.
You can set all the Rules, Spectate others while waiting for your Turn and kick laggy Players if needed.
And you can set the Lobby to either Public or Friends Only.

It's not perfect, but I had the best Matches by Hosting a Lobby, putting my Country in the Name (no Ping because Nintendo....)
The worst thing is that you don't gein GSP, that you can't swap Characters (it will remove you from the waiting queque) and that you have long waiting times between each match (except if you win most of the fights or change the settings from "winner stays" to something different).

You can also circumvent the character changing and wait issues by setting the player max to 2, that way there basically is no queue. If not, the best time to change characters is right after you've been moved back into it.

 

[Kadji100]

Yeah, a strict 2 player room would fix that problem but I like to challange many different people.

Also, if you change the character after the Match (in a lobby with multiple people) you can not spectate the Match that was after yours.
Staring at the lobby for roughly ~5 minutes kinda sucks.
Heck, Mario Kart 8 lets you spectate mid-match, why not Ultimate?

 

[invega]

battle arena is something from 2010. To long waiting time and loading screen. Why no quickplay with friends online? Nintendo srsly

 

[bmfk]

Defending Nintendo here and saying "play arenas" isn't a solution. It doesn't make online any less better it's just a workaround where you gain no GSP and aren't allowed to even swap characters without being reset in the line. Voicing your experiences is valid. This game is good locally but that's it. I'll patiently wait for fixes but we all know their history with the Smash series at this point.

 

[Shieldlesscap]

Defending Nintendo here and saying "play arenas" isn't a solution. It doesn't make online any less better it's just a workaround where you gain no GSP and aren't allowed to even swap characters without being reset in the line. Voicing your experiences is valid. This game is good locally but that's it. I'll patiently wait for fixes but we all know their history with the Smash series at this point.

You aren't allowed to swap characters without being reset in line, but in matchmaking you aren't allowed to swap characters without leaving the game :^)

Also Battle Arenas would be better no matter how good Ultimate's matchmaking was, because:
A. Matchmaking will never let you pick specific stages
B. Or invite specific people
C. Or use more complex rulesets
D. Or have a specific type of match (I.E. testing out a banned stage or practicing specific matchups)

 

[zipzo]

GSP is a relatively worthless number anyway, your primary concern should be with increasing your skill, not a completely context-less number that has no meaning at all no matter how high it is.

 

[Sucumbio]

GSP is a relatively worthless number anyway, your primary concern should be with increasing your skill, not a completely context-less number that has no meaning at all no matter how high it is.

Whole heartedly agree that getting better is more important.

For some reason Nintendo is using GSP as a means of identifying "top" players for Elite matches they can observe to make decisions on balance patches. While I believe they should use hard data from matches using GSP is misleading and as you say it's somewhat arbitrary. You can fake your "skill" level by concentrating more on how to survive a FFA with items on janky stages? than actually demonstrating specific character strengths and weaknesses in a properly competitive way. If anything they should concentrate more on the battles taking place in Arenas by selecting competitive ruleset matches. I dunno. I think GSP actually works against the "Nintendo Spirit" of having fun. And it definitely does not identify equivocal bestness between the multitudes of players. It really just shows the basic learning curve as a function of total players ever vs repeat players and their KOs vs Falls.

 

[meleebrawler]

Whole heartedly agree that getting better is more important.

For some reason Nintendo is using GSP as a means of identifying "top" players for Elite matches they can observe to make decisions on balance patches. While I believe they should use hard data from matches using GSP is misleading and as you say it's somewhat arbitrary. You can fake your "skill" level by concentrating more on how to survive a FFA with items on janky stages? than actually demonstrating specific character strengths and weaknesses in a properly competitive way. If anything they should concentrate more on the battles taking place in Arenas by selecting competitive ruleset matches. I dunno. I think GSP actually works against the "Nintendo Spirit" of having fun. And it definitely does not identify equivocal bestness between the multitudes of players. It really just shows the basic learning curve as a function of total players ever vs repeat players and their KOs vs Falls.

We do have to consider that they try to balance things at all levels of play, not just 1v1s. This explains why you can still have free-for-alls in Elite Smash.

What is not good about the current system is lumping all of them under the same power, since as you say the strategies needed to succeed in each mode are vastly different. It essentially punishes you for not being equally proficient at each and having preferences. If instead there was a separate GSP for free-for-alls, 1v1s and doubles, it would soften the blow of not always getting the exact match you wanted as it wouldn't impact the GSP you actually care about. And it's not like it's a foreign concept since we already have separate ones for single-player modes.

 

[Sucumbio]

We do have to consider that they try to balance things at all levels of play, not just 1v1s. This explains why you can still have free-for-alls in Elite Smash.

What is not good about the current system is lumping all of them under the same power, since as you say the strategies needed to succeed in each mode are vastly different. It essentially punishes you for not being equally proficient at each and having preferences. If instead there was a separate GSP for free-for-alls, 1v1s and doubles, it would soften the blow of not always getting the exact match you wanted as it wouldn't impact the GSP you actually care about. And it's not like it's a foreign concept since we already have separate ones for single-player modes.

Agree that it would make much more sense to have separate GSPs. I personally prefer team battle over 1v1. And yeah I guess they do need to balance the game in a way that works for 1v1 and teams but FFA? I don't see how you CAN balance the roster like that.

 

[meleebrawler]

Agree that it would make much more sense to have separate GSPs. I personally prefer team battle over 1v1. And yeah I guess they do need to balance the game in a way that works for 1v1 and teams but FFA? I don't see how you CAN balance the roster like that.

Free-for-alls are why we have moves like Falcon/Warlock Punch and Ridley's Skewer apparently. All very hard to use effectively in 1v1s, but easier to creep up with on occupied fighters.

Something does have to be truly egregious for it to be considered detrimental to free-for-all fun, true. Maybe high-ranking free-for-alls are just for the sake of confirming whether or not complaints (which are usually from low-level players who play this mode the most) are just the result of not knowing counterplay rather than actual issues. It's how we got Little Mac nerfs in 4 despite his low winrate; the message of looking primarily at Elite Smash for balance tells me that low-level complaints are gonna be taken with far more grains of salt than before.