My original fears of Nintendo balancing Smash are coming true.

[Prawn]

If you're resorting to the "we can't trust nintendo because they make kids games" argument I don't know what to tell you. They've obviously learned and are doing different things now. I'm not saying to blindly trust them but don't completely discredit them, they are still full of very good game designers who are only getting better.

Nintendo has historically sucked at several modern elements of game design. Internet play being the most notable.

They do not have any track record of being able to creative a competitive fighting game or even competitive game environment. Zero. Zilch. Nada.

I'm not 100% on Pokemons competitive scene but considering PvE effects PvP then that's already a failure.

You really think they are going to turn around and start making smart decisions for balance based on competition? I'm going off historical evidence, you are being irrationally optimistic. The beauty of previous smash games was that they were broken, not designed for the way we played them and the interesting gameplay that evolved because of that. Now everything seen as "broken" by casual players will be nerfed and cool ATs like DACUS will be patched. Forcing everyone to play a game 100% the way that the developers of such competitive games as mario kart and warioware want you to.

Great. A+

 

[LancerStaff]

I said "they are going to patch based on casual players" so we are agreeing on this point. Meaning any patches will most likely be bad/be neutral in a competitive environment. Because people who think little Mac is OP and that d3s gordos are god tier are the people who influence decisions.

Mac was slightly nerfed being a polarizing character, especially in Nintendo's FD only rules they're balancing for, and Gordos are the same.

 

[Prawn]

Mac was slightly nerfed being a polarizing character, especially in Nintendo's FD only rules they're balancing for, and Gordos are the same.

1. Polarizing? where are the national tournament results that back that claim up? Oh wait you're talking about casual play. Where smash attacks and button mashing and rolling reign supreme. There was nothing polarizing about little Mac. If there was Ike would have been polarizing in the first month of brawl.

2. They were changed and that was just a top of my head example. They removed dacus, they removed a lot of cool things greninja had. Can you really make an argument that nintendo is going to balance things to make a better competitive game? That they have any idea of what's going on high-top level? No. Like it was stated before, they are going to patch charizards side b because it's "too goot"


Is there even an example of another fighting game being balanced so quickly after the release? Like actual balance and not just little bug fixes?

 

[Prawn]

The worst part? The good players will still win. It's just the characters playstyles and development will be stagnated and this game will be boring after 2 months.

It had a lot of potential too

 

[LancerStaff]

1. Polarizing? where are the national tournament results that back that claim up? Oh wait you're talking about casual play. Where smash attacks and button mashing and rolling reign supreme. There was nothing polarizing about little Mac. If there was Ike would have been polarizing in the first month of brawl.

2. They were changed and that was just a top of my head example. They removed dacus, they removed a lot of cool things greninja had. Can you really make an argument that nintendo is going to balance things to make a better competitive game? That they have any idea of what's going on high-top level? No. Like it was stated before, they are going to patch charizards side b because it's "too goot"


Is there even an example of another fighting game being balanced so quickly after the release? Like actual balance and not just little bug fixes?

He has some good matchups that are just about unwinable for the opponent, from my understanding.

Charizard's custom Sspecial was nerfed because it was so much better then the other two. Now they're roughly equal.

 

[Crescent_Sun]

Weren't the updates pretty much considered to be well justified for the most part though? Weird balance things happen in every scene, and for a first balance update from Nintendo I think this was incredibly solid. I think you're dismissing this way too soon. It's not like the game's going to become boring, it's just going to change. If you're most angry about the glitch/exploit based ATs, then I don't know what to tell you. You have the evidence of their balancing right in front of you. I think removing glitch based ATs is fine. I think their updates in general work well. Now we'll see how it goes in tournaments and we can keep talking from there.

 

[Thinkaman]

I have to ask. Did you create the Chocolate Pi forums?

I am Chocolate Pi, yeah.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Nintendo patching stuff is stupid. They are going to buff/nerf based on the casual fan base instead of the competitive community. So anybody who plays this game competitively and is happy about them patching things is stupid, or a scrub. Changes are pouring in and most of them are stupid. That being said I'm still going to play but the OP makes good points.


Edit: and this argument that "if you need ATs and glitches to win then that's your problem!". Yes, because no competitive game ever when played at a high level consists of several exploits/glitches/techniques that weren't envisioned by creators. Why is anyone happy about catering to bad players? Because you're a bad player? Wouldn't you be inspired to get better instead of waiting for nintendo to patch your game so you can be less bad?

And people saying that complaining about the glitches being removed is johning. No. You complaining about losing to some tech you can easily look up on smashboards is johning.

So now every cool AT that's found is probably gonna be patched. So if anyone finds anything just keep it a secret I guess. That's great for competitive growth, now you all won't even be able to look up and understand the techs that are beating you.

Oh well.

Every character they buffed or nerfed even pro players agreed were too good or bad.

Rosalina and sheik were being put as the top two characters very decisively.

Ike was considered bottom 5.

Game and watch with Pikachu was making doubles last as short as 17 seconds.

The balance changes were entirely spot on.

The removal of ATs was the thing that was questionable. Though it makes me ask of people played a fighting game like street fighter where you can lose this kind of stuff between versions and stuff that could be considered "interesting" gets patched out as well.

 

[MadKraken]

What should an author do when they find a portion of their audience enjoys the significant effects a small typo has on their story's plot? Should they honor their original vision and revise the text with the hopes that their audience will grow to love the "true" version even more? Or should they embrace the current success of this accidental version and avoid the risk of disappointment, though never fully achieving the satisfaction of publishing it in its intended form?

 

[popsofctown]

The only AT that wasn't a dominant and forcing you to use it was Side B after downair on Greninja. And I feel like the beauty of the game isn't crushed because we lost Side B after downair on Greninja

 

[Crescent_Sun]

Because this is a game and not a book, you patch out glitches because either pretending they were intended is unprofessional or if they're very clearly coding errors it is also unprofessional. If there are bugs, they will get made fun of, and in the long run whether or not the competitive community likes that bug and uses it, is a smear on their reputation. You patch things out especially if you need to so that all your documentation on balancing still holds up. It is harmful to future balancing to not fix bugs that give characters techniques like that.

Now is a particularly important time to keep up the bug fixing when big companies are trying to get away with releasing incredibly unfinished games. Nintendo does not want to be lumped in with the likes of the parts of Ubisoft that released Unity. And frankly if people can only enjoy your product because it has some ridiculous glitches that's really insulting and doesn't help them figure out how successful their game is on its own for future design information.

 

[GeZ]

@RK Joker except that chess is a bad example because its highest level of play isn't deep enough. That's something that's been complained about by members of the competitive chess community, so it's not really helping your argument for games without AT not adding depth if the game you cited has a lack of depth at its highest level.

The assumption is usually that Melee and P:M are more beloved because there is more tech, but I don't necessarily agree. I'd say they're more played/ considered competitive because of what the extra tech does to the character interactions. Dash Dancing, Wave Dashing, Wave Landing, and all other movement based tech really changes character interactions across the stage, and makes the neutral more fluid and cerebral.

I know that I prefer them because the freedom of movement is fantastic and is more of a defining trait of the Smash series than anything else, to me.

 

[Thinkaman]

@RK Joker except that chess is a bad example because its highest level of play isn't deep enough. That's something that's been complained about by members of the competitive chess community, so it's not really helping your argument for games without AT not adding depth if the game you cited has a lack of depth at its highest level.

Lack of depth isn't Chess's problem. It's that the early game has been over-analyzed such that the first few moves in Chess in high-level play are about memorization--making decisions based on centuries of statistical data and probabilities of various openings and their responses.

In the mid-game, this breaks down and Chess becomes a good game again. Mostly because of its exceptional depth.

Chess and Go are almost undoubtedly the de facto deepest games we have.

 

[GeZ]

Lack of depth isn't Chess's problem. It's that the early game has been over-analyzed such that the first few moves in Chess in high-level play are about memorization--making decisions based on centuries of statistical data and probabilities of various openings and their responses.

In the mid-game, this breaks down and Chess becomes a good game again. Mostly because of its exceptional depth.

Chess and Go are almost undoubtedly the de facto deepest games we have.

I guess I had misunderstood your post about when last we talked.

So I guess that counter argument is crap. I'll approach from a different angle then.

 

[popsofctown]

If the early game was the only problem with chess, it wouldn't be a problem. It'd take 3 minutes to make opening moves which would be a brief inconvenience before the thinking actually started.

I think high level players get a little more bored and less satisfied because "low tier openings" become less viable so they frequently and repeatedly play midgames that are similar in flavor. It's kind of like how Melee players might have a little less fun as their viable cast gets smaller with increased skill.

Chess960 randomizes the starting position of the pieces and addresses these issues almost totally. It's gaining popularity, as I understand it. But like a new player wants to have an easier time starting out with defaults specials, new chess players want to start out with default starting positions for the pieces, so chess is always going to be the more popular variant.

 

[popsofctown]

Also, en passant is a way scrubbier patch than removing bowsercide, JUST SAYING

 

[Thinkaman]

I guess I had misunderstood your post about when last we talked.

So I guess that counter argument is crap. I'll approach from a different angle then.

The key is that depth is "How many moves ahead can you think? How important is this to the game, what percentage of the total game focuses on this?" This is probably intuitive to computer science folk.

Many laymen generalize "depth" to mean "any part of a game you have to think about" which is a sort of useless definition.

If the early game was the only problem with chess, it wouldn't be a problem. It'd take 3 minutes to make opening moves which would be a brief inconvenience before the thinking actually started.

It's not the only problem, but if someone complains about chess lacking "depth", that is definitely what they are talking about.

Chess also has an obnoxious white advantage that becomes worse the higher level you play at, and a stalemate problem.

Endgames are also rote, and require a lot of memorization of algorithms.

I can buy the argument of "repeating midgames that are similar in flavor" as well.

Full disclosure: I don't personally play Chess at any regularity or high level. I just am exposed to it a lot, through friends, game dev stuff, and by living in St. Louis. (We have a lot of Chess)

Edit:
Sorry for double post. I got used to the patch thread, where it was allowed. >_>

 

[link2702]

Of course I did.

hate to sound like a **** but if you honestly did and payed any close attention to it, you'd realize pretty quick that brawl has a crapload more glitches and exploits than melee, and honestly it'd be far more accurate to call it the king of glitches and exploits.

Hell, people who are misinformed and just jumping on the hate bandwagon against melee, still try to label L-cancelling as a glitch/exploit despite it being an intended mechanic in both smash64 and melee.

It and wavedashing are the two techs people always seem to bring up when claiming melee is full of glitches, and ironically one of them isn't a glitch at all but 100% completely intended.

What I will never understand is why some people are *so* against any glitches/exploits at all being legal.

Toon link/link's bomb cancelling didn't break the game whatsoever, it strictly added more options and depth to these characters. It wasn't op'd, it wasn't game breaking, it made the characters slightly better/more viable, but it's not like it shot them up to god tier or anything. Its removal only hurts the characters and removes options from them, thus making em more shallow.

Do people not understand that from the beginning of fighting game existence, glitches/exploits existed? and in some cases(such as the combo's from SF2) they go on later to become fully intended mechanics of the games? If it adds depth, isn't game breaking, and gives players more options, it should be welcomed, not shunned.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

What I will never understand is why some people are *so* against any glitches/exploits at all being legal.

It's harder to fix and balance something that wasn't intended from the start.

Some tech are legitimately degenerate if Brawl didn't have enough examples of this.

 

[Prawn]

Peopel

It's harder to fix and balance something that wasn't intended from the start.

Some tech are legitimately degenerate if Brawl didn't have enough examples of this.

Also why are people so obsessed with this concept of balance. Yes I want more viable characters but the idea that you need to remove cool things in the hopes that you have a completely balanced game is ludicrous. In fact I'd argue that hoping for "balance" in a smash game is not only far fetched but can hurt the game.


This word is going to mean something different to every incremental level of play. Do you want it balanced to top level? Or mid level? Or for casual fans? Street fighter has the upper hand in that lots of people go into it expecting a competitive game so everything can be looked at through the scope of a mid-high level player. Smash however does not get that luxury, and even putting aside that nintendo is only going to patch for the casual player(because that's where the money is), how sure are you that they'd even be capable of dissecting the game and making balancing decisions for high level play?

So in my mind if everything is patched in an attempt to balance you're going to end up with a lot of generic characters without very much depth.

 

[Thinkaman]

So in my mind if everything is patched in an attempt to balance you're going to end up with a lot of generic characters without very much depth.

Depth. Everyone keeps using that word.

 

[Crescent_Sun]

Except that's not the case at all, we have a lot of very varied characters that have a massive amount of depth in strategy and playstyle and matchups. You're talking about theoreticals that are already showing to be untrue. Ideally greater balance means more types of playstyles will be viable, which leads to more varied matchups of styles and characters, which also adds to depth. Striving for balance is going to ruin the characters individuality, especially given how freakin weird the characters we have are.

 

[Prawn]

Depth. Everyone keeps using that word.

Okay. Noted.


Whatever. If you guys are all excited to play a game that is 100% vanilla smash brothers without any unintended techs and everything being balanced by a company that just recently figured out how the internet works then more power to you. Clearly were on different wavelengths


Edit: I specifically think the removal of dacus is a terrible omen. That was a really cool thing. If anything similar to that is discovered nintendo now has set a precedent that they will remove it. That's no bueno

 

[LancerStaff]

Okay. Noted.


Whatever. If you guys are all excited to play a game that is 100% vanilla smash brothers without any unintended techs and everything being balanced by a company that just recently figured out how the internet works then more power to you. Clearly were on different wavelengths

*Game as it was ment to be played alia PM *Balanced by Namco

 

[Thinkaman]

If I were to make a pie graph showing the different factors that distinguish characters, you'd need a microscope to see the slice labeled "janky tech".

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Okay. Noted.


Whatever. If you guys are all excited to play a game that is 100% vanilla smash brothers without any unintended techs and everything being balanced by a company that just recently figured out how the internet works then more power to you. Clearly were on different wavelengths


Edit: I specifically think the removal of dacus is a terrible omen. That was a really cool thing. If anything similar to that is discovered nintendo now has set a precedent that they will remove it. That's no bueno

So pretty much most main stream fighting game as of today with balance changes?

 

[Prawn]

If I were to make a pie graph showing the different factors that distinguish characters, you'd need a microscope to see the slice labeled "janky tech".

I respect your opinions more then anybody I see post here, at least in terms of the ridiculous theorycrafting that happens. But we didn't even get to see how these "janky techs" played out on the wii u. DACUS could have been incredibly cool. And some characters are certainly going to be more defined by techs then others.

 

[Prawn]

So pretty much most main stream fighting game as of today with balance changes?

Mainstream fighting games designed by companies with a history of balancing fighting games that are directed towards a core audience of players that at least consider competitive play?


Nope. I'm talking about smash brothers and nintendo here. Yknow that game the developers put random tripping into and whose online system consists of a 12 digit long randomly assigned friend code. Whose core audience is 8 year olds. Whose developer has publicly stated not liking competitive play. Have fun playing that balanced game.

But seriously. We're talking about two different things here. Zero optimism about them tweaking anything ever

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Mainstream fighting games designed by companies with a history of balancing fighting games that are directed towards a core audience of players that at least consider competitive play?


Nope. I'm talking about smash brothers and nintendo here. Yknow that game the developers put random tripping into and whose online system consists of a 12 digit long randomly assigned friend code. Whose core audience is 8 year olds. Have fun playing that balanced game.

Are you implying the people who made tekken aren't?

 

[guedes the brawler]

I actually think firehopping is an amazing "exploit" and respect Nintendo a lot for not having touched it at all via MK8 patches. It's subtle and makes a small difference in gameplay (sans Time Trials where it's necessary), unlike snaking which was absolutely tedious and required to do remotely well online.

That's how I feel with the subtle ATs such as Link/TL's bomb cancels and Peach's edge-cancel turnip plucks. They're not absolutely necessary, but they at least give your character more options and make them slightly more interesting.

Bikes can't Firehop, so i dunno if it's a glitch or bug, but an exploit it aint. something is NOT working as it should and begin abused, here.

And they didn't mess up because they'd have to completely destroy all Time Trial records in existence. they can't check one by one to see which ones don't have firehops, and people would NEVER be able to beat a decent firehopper in TT

 

[Prawn]

Are you implying the people who made tekken aren't?

No.......I'm saying nintendo developing a competitive fighting game =\= any other popular fighting game today. So I guess I'd be implying that the people who made tekken are far more suited to developing games that way.


And for the record. I hate tekken. But that's neither here nor there

 

[TLMSheikant]

hate to sound like a **** but if you honestly did and payed any close attention to it, you'd realize pretty quick that brawl has a crapload more glitches and exploits than melee, and honestly it'd be far more accurate to call it the king of glitches and exploits.

Hell, people who are misinformed and just jumping on the hate bandwagon against melee, still try to label L-cancelling as a glitch/exploit despite it being an intended mechanic in both smash64 and melee.

It and wavedashing are the two techs people always seem to bring up when claiming melee is full of glitches, and ironically one of them isn't a glitch at all but 100% completely intended.

What I will never understand is why some people are *so* against any glitches/exploits at all being legal.

Toon link/link's bomb cancelling didn't break the game whatsoever, it strictly added more options and depth to these characters. It wasn't op'd, it wasn't game breaking, it made the characters slightly better/more viable, but it's not like it shot them up to god tier or anything. Its removal only hurts the characters and removes options from them, thus making em more shallow.

Do people not understand that from the beginning of fighting game existence, glitches/exploits existed? and in some cases(such as the combo's from SF2) they go on later to become fully intended mechanics of the games? If it adds depth, isn't game breaking, and gives players more options, it should be welcomed, not shunned.

To be honest, it's worse than that. Toon Link was already not that good in Brawl and he took some pretty bad nerfs to his core gameplay. One of his best brawl moves, back air, was made extremely laggy. He can no longer pogo with dair, which, to be fair, was not a good move in the first place but now it is completely useless and even unsafer to throw out. The bomb cancel gave him back some tools that he needed like airdodge zair bomb cancel and made his extremely laggy aerials have a use again. Take that away and you just have a nerfed Brawl Toon Link, which is probably not gonna be viable at all. After this change, I would say Link is way better than Toon Link and that Toon Link is bordering on unviability.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

No.......I'm saying nintendo developing a competitive fighting game =\= any other popular fighting game today. So I guess I'd be implying that the people who made tekken are far more suited to developing games that way.


And for the record. I hate tekken. But that's neither here nor there

A lot of the people who helped with Tekken have apparently been working on Smash 4, notice how pivoting has been more of a think thing time around? Hint hint.

 

[Prawn]

A lot of the people who helped with Tekken have apparently been working on Smash 4, notice how pivoting has been more of a think thing time around? Hint hint.

Fair enough. I did not know this

Although I view smash development as Sakurai being a mad-man czar who does whatever the **** he wants, and while that's probably exaggerated there may be a level of truth to it.

If they actually are trying to balance for some type of competitive play then that's something. But Nintendo's entire agenda has always been "everyone can play! Everyone can win!" Look at mario kart. Look at everything. They have no interest in competitive growth. And tbh they have a pretty long history of making a lot of silly decisions. So the more they tweak the less hopeful I am. Even if for some reason it is to try and make choices that benefit competition.

Edit: I should say, I'm not all that upset about this patch. No DACUS bums me out and I don't think I even play a character who has one. It just makes me think of future changes and where it could lead. And it seems as if a lot of people are really excited by the idea of patching.

I guess new characters will be cool(ice climbers pleeeease). But yeah. This is all just something to think about. I love nintendo. I also hate nintendo. I thought more people felt that way

 

[LancerStaff]

Bikes can't Firehop, so i dunno if it's a glitch or bug, but an exploit it aint. something is NOT working as it should and begin abused, here.

And they didn't mess up because they'd have to completely destroy all Time Trial records in existence. they can't check one by one to see which ones don't have firehops, and people would NEVER be able to beat a decent firehopper in TT

Just a note, firehopping is the act of hopping during a boost during most situations. Basically, anybody who trys to drift during a boost will firehop. So then virtually everybody who drifts has firehopped at some point, and patching firehopping would even destroy Nintendo's official TTs involving karts.

 

[Prawn]

Also I realize that this game is not melee nor do I want it to be but can you argue that there is not something endearing about that community being so strong after the game being out for so many years? Had nintendo patched it who knows how the game would look today.

In SF4 and other games like it, yes bugs and glitches should be removed. But in smash, it's always been a game that was played the wrong way, that accepted and even welcomed the broken parts. We set the ruleset and we made the gameplay what it is competitively. I don't trust nintendo as much as I trust the back rooms of this board/the grassroots movements. I feel that the changes will largely be based on the perceptionof the majority of players, which, if anyone has played extended periods on for glory, is like I said, eight year olds. Scrubs. Whatever you wanna call it. Most people who play this game are awful.

Now if nintendo invited KDJ, ally, ADHD, dr pp, etc to help balance the game then I'd be more into it. I would say m2k but for being such an incredible player I've seen him say some questionable things in regards to tiers and such hahaha

 

[Terotrous]

To be honest, Tink's bomb cancel was kinda broken. He could put up a wall that some characters had almost no way to get around. I'm sure that probably gave him some 8-2 matchups and those just aren't healthy for the game.

In general, the creators balanced the game around the way it was supposed to work. Glitches shift that balance in ways that they didn't originally intend. Sometimes they make the balance better, but there's always the possibility for some unintended consequence (like a matchup suddenly becoming nearly unwinnable), which is why the gut reaction is just to put the game back to how it was originally planned.

This can definitely go too far, see PSAS for example. However, I honestly don't expect many patches for Smash. I think we got this one for the Wii U release and that may well be it.

 

[dguy6789]

It goes both ways. Brawl was garbage at launch and patching could have potentially saved the game. It is a little early to make vague predictions about doom and gloom merely because of a few changes some people don't like.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Given Mewtwo and other potential DLC I doubt this is the last patch.

 

[Prawn]

It goes both ways. Brawl was garbage at launch and patching could have potentially saved the game. It is a little early to make vague predictions about doom and gloom merely because of a few changes some people don't like.

Very true. And it's not these changes specifically that gets me concerned but more the thought process behind them and what that could mean for future changes