@lord karn: You've basically laid out the most valid core argument against the beta's core mechanics adjustments. Its true, we will be turning back the clock in regards to the metagame somewhat. The thing is, the change is far less drastic than people make it out to be. This beta has not been public nearly long enough for people to make assumptions like: my practice was all in vain Q.Q
I made the EXACT SAME lrn2DI based arguement. At BtL2 I got really tired of all the Johning from people who just hadn't mastered the DI. Eventually you reach a point though where you can see that several combos genuinely are inescapable, have excessively large advantage windows (notably with d-throws), and just give the game a sloppiness that turns a lot of people off. I refuse to accept that shaving a few frames of advantage windows has suddenly killed a ton of combos when people have barely practiced the beta.
I know I've done more testing. That p***es you off that I would say this? I understand. Its still true. The amount of time I put into testing 5.0 is pretty absurd (think well over 100 hours of data collection and analysis), and so when I see people talking about how there's less hitstun than melee its fair to assume they aren't speaking from a vast hidden store of knowledge.
@ everyone else: I call you out on genuine mistakes and I'm trolling/insulting you. That's pathetic. I came here because I actually do care about public opinion of the beta, which I was dead against initially because of the lowered hitstun (it was .44 initially but was raised to .46).
So true.
Some other points:
*This is a BETA FOR F***ING BETA TESTING!
*We have not confirmed that any of these changes will be made official.
About the time put into analyzing the game and whatnot. I don't doubt that you have put more time into researching the game than me. However, it's really hard for someone to quantify/qualify testing. You probably know a lot more about frame data, etc than I do for B+ specifically, but I've put in quite a lot of hours with THO learning specific matchups. It could very well be the case that we have looked into different things than each other, which means that it is quite possible that there are things that I know more about than you. There just isn't really any way to know unless we talk about it.
When it comes to matchups, especially ones that are hard, every subtle change to the game can make a big difference. For instance, Ganon can CG Fox to about 50% (further if he doesn't DI right) and it's important for me to know exactly at which points I need to do what motion to keep the CG going. Furthermore, I need to know what the optimal move to end the CG with based off of where he DIs to keep him at a disadvantageous position. Changing the hitstun and adding NADT makes it so that most of this information I have gathered is useless. In fact, it could put me at a disadvantage unless I do all the work over again, because I would be relying on knowledge of a previous build. Changing the game so much encourages people to not learn their characters, which makes it impossible to judge what actually should and should not be changed.
Now, perhaps Ganon's chaingrab, or any other specific thing, should be changed (although in the Fox/Ganon matchup I would probably argue that Fox still has a slight advantage). However, why make a sweeping change to mechanics when you could just change specific things about specific moves? This makes it much easier for the players who are learning their characters to easily incorporate the changes into their game. When sweeping changes are made, though, people have to retest everything.
I also don't see why it's a problem for there to be some inescapable combos. Melee had many, and most people still agree that it was a great game. I haven't seen a ridiculous combo in B+ yet that felt inescapable.
Honestly, I think that right now B+ is good enough of a game that we should be worrying a lot more about the community than continuing to make the game 'perfect.' I put perfect in quotes, because who is really to say that Cape's beta is actually a better game than the current one? I do know, however, that the constant changes in the game are turning a lot of the amazing players, like m2k and other pros, away from playing B+. In order for any particular build to reach it's potential, which is the only way to truly inform us if a build is, in fact, sub-par, we need to have lots of good players learning the game and entering tournaments.
This wouldn't bother me nearly as much if they hadn't left such a big gap between 5.0 and the current Beta, or had never made it seem like we were close to a gold.
Also, I don't think I was the one to post that it has less hitstun or whatever the original post was, but I did know that it was untrue. The thing that bothered me about your post was that you were asking us to assume that your opinion of the game mattered more than ours, when the very basic assumption of your post was assuming that we knew very little. It just seemed kind of hypocritical.
I'm not trying to kick you out of the thread or anything. I also care about the future of B+ and I'm glad people from the WBR are reading this thread.
Edit: I think by 'serious testing,' THO meant that since the metagame hasn't had time to develop, that the testing done is difficult to interpret. Or something like that. Perhaps he just worded it badly.
I would also argue that in a lot of cases four frames can mean a big difference, and it's still important for the player to retest things to make sure they still know what is guaranteed and what is not guaranteed.