My personal guess is that tap-jump exists because it's the same input that is used in traditional fighting games like Street Fighter or KoF. I agree it's awful in Smash, though I have seen arguments that it can be good for specific characters like Meta Knight.
As someone who played Brawl on a Wiimote, I've got to tell you that jump is way less precise on triggers than face buttons. Consistently timing slightly out-of-sync button presses with a thumb and forefinger is a struggle. If there was an attempt at the short-hop problem, I'd like to see the short-hop window extended an extra frame. That would mean full-hops would need the same initial jump momentum as short-hops or jumps would have to come out 1 frame slower, but it would make the input easier. Less input delay might make it easier, too, since the screen would match up with people's fingers more. Pressing a button less time to jump less high is pretty common and makes sense. It just needs to be a little easier to pull off so people don't need shortcuts to do it.
Hey thanks for the reply
(I'm pretty sure we've had similar conversations in the past in this thread because I recognize your avatar I think) and oof with regards to Wiimote Smash. Always plugged in a Gamecube controller when playing Brawl but I didn't have Brawl for very long. Personally with these little rants of mine, I don't even begin to consider the Joycon players out there. I just sort of presume that the overwhelming majority of people don't play that way and the ones that do are at least partially aware of the Joycon's inherent limitations.
I'd also never advocate taking tap-jump away entirely because it's an innocuous enough inclusion for the players that want it or the characters it helps but I do advocate for defaulting it off.
My jumps are a little weird but I have one set to L and the other set to ZR. For me it gives each hand a jump and also makes each one "feel" distinct from the other which helps me I guess. Plus like you I like my grab above my action buttons. Feels more natural for me too considering that's where the Z-button was on the Gamecube controller with it being grab in Melee and Brawl.
You actually only have to do the short-hop shortcut if you're just jumping without attacks as the game defaults the jump to a short-hop if you action an attack simultaneously with the jump. This makes it so you have to slightly delay the attack if you want a full-hop. This is another reason I think having 2 distinct short-hop and full-hop buttons would be very good for the game.
The only dilemma for a player like me at that point is deciding which hand gets what hop but that's nothing to worry about.
I do find the button placement for roll and grab unintuitive, so what I always do for my custom controls is put shield on the left (now roll is all done with the left hand) and grab on the right (all offensive maneuvers are on the right hand). If there was a dash button I'd also put it on the left, and final smash would be on the right if that ever gets its own button (I don't know why it hasn't, tbh). I have to change the grab button in literally every fighting game though, so it might just be me.
Nah man it's a good organizational philosophy. I didn't really think why I preferred my grab on my R button until you articulated your thought process here. Doesn't hurt that I'm right-handed and one would naturally want their dominant hand working the more "actionable" buttons so to speak.
I actually don't care for out-of-shield specials (I think they make both offense and defense less thoughtful), so I'd rather go the other direction. That said, I think it's less that side-B while shielding causes a roll, and more that hitting a direction while shielding causes a roll and the B button does nothing in those instances. Side specials out of shield would mean stacking a roll and a special on some of the same inputs, and cause accidental rolls when timing isn't perfect. I suppose you could change how rolls work, but I don't see how they could be any more intuitive than they currently are.
Yeah I know. The game doesn't recognize the Side-Special and Down-Special as unique inputs from simply holding your left-stick to the sides or down. Though what makes this all the more perplexing is that Smash-Stick still suffers from this line in the game's code. You don't move with your right-stick in this game whatsoever with any setup and yet the game still registers Smash-Stick side/down inputs just the same as it does your left-stick. Ultimately what I'm saying though is that I wish it would recognize them as unique inputs because I think it'd be better for the game.
The thing is I actually kind of agree with you. Even though out-of-shield options are such a staple in this game they're also kind of 1-dimensional... Though I think perfect-shielding had done a lot improving this. Another major part of this problem is that I think it's because you're limited to short-hop aerials, Up-Smash and Up-Special. Opening up the sides and down give everyone 4 more options
(Side-Specials/Down-Specials + Side-Smash/Down-Smash and whether these would be good or even usable options for any 1 particular character in question is another case altogether) which would add a little extra variety to the equation.
So kind of a different tangent here but I thought I'd include it. This conversation had me consider another potential problem with having only 1-shield input on your controller and the process of hypothesizing around it made me discover something already in the game that I didn't know about.
So the issue was if I decided to keep my 1-shield on the Y-button like I'm saying then all of a sudden, because I'm a Tilt-Stick user, my Out-of-Shield Smash attacks
(obviously just Up-Smash currently but this same issue would apply even if the devs opened up Side/Down-Specials/Smash out-of-shield) became extremely unnatural to perform trying to slide my sort of clawed index finger over the A-button. While Melee players have become accustomed to this very unhealthy hand position
(another reason I think the Melee community needs to get over their "git gud" crap and prioritize their players' health and well-being by allowing button mapping) and have demonstrated that it's something players can get used to it's still way too much way to ask of the overwhelming majority of Smash's audience because even putting aside the hand-health concerns it's still very unintuitive and not something even I'd like to practice.
I had a eureka moment when I thought that simultaneous directional+grab inputs that act as Smash inputs
ONLY while in shield would remedy this situation. I was actually a little worried about proposing this because I thought it would just be seen as another one of my overthought fixes but I was surprised to find out that this is already the case in the game with regards to Up-Smash! It also feels super natural too and basically I've discovered that I don't need my 2nd shield input whatsoever now and I'm currently deciding what I'm gonna put there instead. Having a 2nd special button for my other hand is looking pretty good right now. Gonna have to practice to make sure I don't whiff grabs when I mean to Up-Smash though.
Good ****. Crazy how long this game has been out and the hours I've put into it without ever once thinking to try that.
Something that might help some of this stuff is if the game allowed people to customize their controls without leaving character select. Some of those issues like tap-jump and not liking where shield is placed would be a lot less intrusive if the game let you change button layout on the fly, even if the game didn't change them by default.
Yes I too would love the ability to mess with my buttons as I wanted. It's not something I'd prioritize but more seamless player control is always the best as far as I'm concerned. I just name all my **** what it is. Tilt-Stick, Smash-stick and the like.
